Mixie continued

Two years to the day that I last wrote. I still haven't written Mixie. I honestly haven't felt like it for more than a year, but just in the last week, she's been creeping into my subconscious again. Once again, I feel like I need to rework the story and I recently thought up a new angle, so we'll see how that plays out.

I'm also still working on Ellie the high schooler. That story is much more plotted out, although I don't know Ellie like I know Mixie. Perhaps because Mixie feels autobiographical, or at least based on me, the way I am in my head. Hmm.

With the new job finally working itself out (a year and a half later), I feel like I will actually have time this year--2010--to write. Go me!!

Meg Vs. Jenny

I've been reading lots of blogs written by authors, mainly focusing on two: Meg Cabot and Jenny Crusie. I think Jenny Crusie has a much more stylized writing process and there are lots of really good tips, but I sometimes feel really overhwelmed by her process and her tips. It's a relief to turn to Meg Cabot who says she has ADHD (or just ADD? I can't remember). I figure if she has ADD, her writing process can not be nearly as complicated as Ms. Crusie's, and that makes me feel better.

The new process I'm gonna try this time around: just writing it from beginning to end and not getting TOO hung up on acts and character arcs. I know how I want my character to arc and I'm just gonna write it and see how it goes. Revision can come later.


I wrote the first two scenes last week and I'm quite pleased with them. I'm settling in for the interview, where Mixie points the finger at several of the people in the victim's life. After that it's the family dinner where the romantic interest comes in.

I think once I hit my stride and get into the story, that will be fine, but right now I'm struggling to introduce him. Maybe it would be better to jump ahead and write one of the Whitney/Cole/Mixie scenes? Maybe that would help him seem more real? Or a scene like that? Not sure, but trying not to get bogged down. Just going to go into it and see how it goes.

Off to start the interview scene.

And So It (Finally) Begins

Mixie's story is one that I came up with while still in high school and working at the local grocery store. One afternoon, I was cleaning out the deep freezer at the back of the store and I imagined what would happen if I were locked in and no one noticed. Thus, Mixie was born.

Or at least the idea of Mixie. I didn't have a name for her, but I knew I wanted it to be some sort of unusual, perhaps made-up nickname, but not made up in the way that "Nichelle" is made up. I found the name "Mixie" on a box of produce that had come into the store. "Mixie", it appeared, was their brand name, and it stuck with me.

I knew that Mixie had two sisters: an overbearing oldest sister and a twin sister. I knew that Mixie felt isolated from her family and this was due to the distance between her and her twin, whom I quickly named Whitney. Mickey developed next and was the quickest and easiest character to take shape, based partly on my father and mostly of a caricature of him and ever other stereotypical Irish father.

I never got around to writing Mixie, but the idea for her story stuck with me. Well, actually, I abandoned what her story was supposed to be with the ensuing years, but she stuck with me. In late 2007, I came up with a new story for Mixie, one that, after figuring out who the victim was, came together rather easily, amazingly enough.

I'd had the first line of Mixie's story pulsating through my brain for years:

I breezed through the door of Willow Falls's smallest grocery store. My neon yellow sunglasses were resting on the bridge of my nose, perfectly matching my neon jersey and the rubber strap on my flip-flops. My red hair was being its usual self, looking like red flames pouring out of a burning building. I had tried to clip it down, but halfway here it had somehow escaped its confines, much like my dog L.A. flees from her kennel when it's time to time to go to the vet. I had a big leather bag slung over my sunburned shoulder, and I felt pretty important.


When I finally decided on Mixie's new story, it kept appearing in my head as though it was winter. It was very hard for me to let go of the summer setting, but other than the humidity, the summer season played no role in the story, whereas winter could add a lot of tension to the story. The opening line now reads as follows:

I was carefully rounding the corner to the Keeyes' Family Market, staying clear of icy patches, when my cell phone went off. I didn't bother to check the caller ID; I knew who it was. I flipped the phone open, still concentrating on the icy road. "Mixie!" Mickey's voice roared. "Get in here!"



I worked out the story in my head one night during a two hour car drive and finished that night in bed. The story began to make sense. A few nights later, two weeks before Christmas, I typed up a rough outline in Word. I divided my page into two columns, writing different events in the right column as they occurred to me, and putting them in their proper order in the left column.

I remember reading that J.K. Rowling made lists of hundreds and hundreds of characters for her Harry Potter series. It helped her to make her world real and saved time when she needed another character to enter a scene. Here they were with their backstory all intact. The following night, I made a list of all the characters that would or might appear. I divided them into text boxes with the following headings: families, friends, colleagues, suspects, others, and police officers. Coming up with character names is one of the things I struggle with (last names are a bitch!), so doing it all in one sitting really helped.

I've got the opening scene done (who knows how much it will change?), but after three different drafts, I'm fairly happy with it. Now I'm moving into the Information Stage which I'm going to do my best not to turn into InfoDump.

Meet Mariah

Meet Mariah.

I've started this blog as a spot for me to think through my latest work-in-progress. It's a novel called [title coming later] about a woman named Mariah. She's twenty-eight and a high school English teacher with a famous singer-sister and a younger brother she's raising.

There's lots of family history--mom died of cancer, dad and stepmom jailed for skimming money off their nonprofit organization designed to help the families of those who lost their loved ones to cancer. Mariah is embarrassed by the experience (thanks, Dad!) and has lived the last five years a recluse, basically.

I chose this blog template because a) I like the color and much of what Mariah is stems from me; b) Mariah would like the color because she's soft, not prickly like I originally thought she was going to be; c) It's simple and not distracting because Mariah doesn't like attention. Her sister gets plenty of it and she's from a small town where, for better or worse (mainly worse), everybody knows her, where she's been and what she's come from. She shies away from attention.

I need a place to think through many things: the plot of the story; the characters--especially Mariah; the recurring themes; symbols (Sno-Cones, what else?); PLOT; other characters like Nick (what does he want?), Dacia (does she have her own story? With Tommy? With her career?); PLOT; PLOT; PLOT; PLOT!!!

I called this blog And They Call the Wind Mariah because for now, Mariah is the wind. She's elusive. Sometimes I feel her and other times she disappears without a trace. I'm not entire sure who she is. Sometimes I think I know her, but I don't know her journey. Who is she when the book starts and how is that different from when it ends? Where will this trip take her? How will the other people change her? See? She's elusive!

So for today I want to focus on Mariah. Questions to consider: What is her North Star? What motivates her? Who is her antagonist (is it Nick?)? What does she want? How does she get it? What are her likes and dislikes? What defines her?