Category Archives: Giada

Let the countdown begin

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There’s less than two weeks until NaNoWriMo 2014 kicks off. Am I ready? Um, sure. I guess. Sorry, I know I should be more pumped up, but there appears to be a slight wrinkle in my plan this year. Last week, my manager called me at home to ask if I would be willing to go overnight, beginning November 3rd, as part of the Inventory Prep Team. I agreed, not thinking how it would interfere with my writing. D’oh!

My writing is best in the evening, after I get off work and before I go to bed. The problem here is that my schedule is so erratic, I can never set aside a dedicated time to just sit down and pound on the keyboard. Makes writing so much more difficult. The silver-lining is that I will have a set schedule for six weeks, so if I can settle in, I will be able to dedicate an hour or two just to write everyday.

I haven’t given my story much thought, other than to decide what I’m going to write about. A story about a prostitute should be fun. It’s a family story, really, when you think about it. It’s the heartwarming story of a hooker with a heart of gold, just trying to make it in the city, with nothing but her hopes, her dreams, and her lady parts. It’ll make a wonderful Holiday film. I think Disney can bring it to life. Coming in December 2017, Giada and Her Wonderful, Magical Lady Parts. Kaching!

 All joking aside, I do have some ideas for her. She’s a minor character in my first NaNo novel, a bit of revenge on an ex-girlfriend of mine that I absolutely loathe. There’s a reason I wrote her into my book as a prostitute, and I reason for everything that happens to her. The irony is that I fell in love with Giada. She has a youthful joy for life that I find irresistible. She’s the one character I love the most, so naturally she has to have her own story told, from her point of view.

I’ll try to plot the major story points before November 1st, just to have an idea of the big picture, but for the rest I will discover as I write. It’s going to be a long and trying month, but I’m ready for it.

I can’t sleep

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Insomnia’s a bitch, ain’t it? I’m here at four in the morning, desiring nothing more than to fall asleep, but instead I’m making use of this time to update my blog. It’s infuriating! Oh well, I need to type up a post because I haven’t done so in almost a week.

My book is going nowhere fast. It’s not for lack of ideas, it’s due to lack of taking the time to sit down and write it out. I’m to blame, well partly. I’ve been working late the past few weeks, getting off most days at midnight, then after the hour drive home, I’m not really in the mood to write.

Then there’s the fact that I’ve been talking to somebody. A human somebody. A female somebody. Yeah, I know I said I would never talk to a female somebody again, but I made myself a liar and proved everyone else right. Damn it! The new feeling won’t last, so I’ll get back to writings soon.

The female somebody, who made me promise never to write about her on my blog (sorry, but at least I’m not using your name) has given me a few ideas on my book. Gotta love creative people who can point out flaws in your logic. I think I’m on the right track as it relates to my plot, but I have to sit my butt down and actually write the freaking thing.

I’m working on creating my two main characters, who have not met yet. They have separate lives, one a priest, the other an escort, but whose lives will intersect at some point, and of course they will hit it off. I just need to make it seem real.

What holds me back is motivation. Why do they meet? Why does Giada seek Israel out? And why do they create and maintain a lasting relationship, one that threatens their lives, and his career in the church?

I have an idea to be sure, but it’s always difficult to translate the picture in my head into words that make sense. I’ll need to try, and then I’ll need to go back and edit it. What I need to do is set aside time to do it. Haven’t I made that observation before?

It’s probably due to exhaustion. It’s too early (late?) for me to be writing. I think I’ll shut my computer down and try to sleep. Fortunately for me, I go to work at three in the afternoon, so there’s no pressure to fall asleep right now, but I’ll try anyway. Maybe when I wake up, I’ll be able to write something that makes actual sense.

Writing Project: Giada

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It’s Saturday night, and once again I’m at home, twiddling my thumbs, wishing I had something to do. That’s not quite true. I have something to do, I’m just not doing it. What I mean to say is that I wish I had somewhere to go. No matter. I need to sit myself down to do some serious writing.

I’ve started another project, which in all honesty is an extension of another, my first and still unpublished book, Son of the Father. The new book is called Giada, after a character I’m pulling from my first book, and expanding upon.

As originally conceived, Giada worked as an escort, which really was a cheap shot at my ex. I wanted to get back at her, so I made her character a prostitute, and to make it even better, I killed her. Unfortunately for me, by the time I did so, I fell in love with my own creation. I have bad taste in women, even fictional one that I create.

The Giada character worked well, she was funny, mischievous, and a great foil for my main character, a priest by the name of Israel Mendoza. The problem was that she didn’t fit the story I was telling. I introduced her in a serious of flashbacks, using her to tell some of Israel’s back story. It took away from the story I wanted to tell, of a bishop finding out he has a grown up son, and having to deal with the fall out from the news, both emotionally and privately, and publicly, as the face of a U.S. Roman Catholic Diocese.

I had to cut her out, but I didn’t want to lose her, and I didn’t want to completely cut out her role in Israel’s life. Instead, I chose to write the back story as a separate piece, to set up the next novel, which will be a rewritten version of Son of the Father, with more emphasis on the son and not a dead prostitute.

Now that I decided to do that, I found that it’s not easy to tell an offshoot story, in this case a prequel, although if published, it will come as the first book of a series. It’s difficult to expand a role that only fit into three chapters of the original incarnation of the story. I’m having to create new characters, as well as creating a new expanded story line.

I’m only at 5000 words at the moment. I need to set a daily word goal, say 2K, and work to meet or exceed that goal. That’s an easy 14k a week goal. I have ample time to write, I just haven’t maximized my time. So that puts my at 45K words by the end of the month, which should put me about halfway through the book.

I need to be done by the end of February, when I will hopefully turn my attention back to the book I wanted to publish last September, Unseen Obsession. I need to come up with a better title than that. I hate that title. I hope to publish that by the summer. All I need is to edit, rewrite, edit some more, find someone to make me a book cover because I’m useless when it comes to visuals, and then edit some more. I’m not panicking. Okay, I am.

I know what needs to be done, I just need to do it. So good night. I have more writing to do tonight.