Howard Tayler is a webcomic artist and a panelist on my favorite writer’s podcast called “Writing Excuses”. His webcomic Schlock Mercenary has been continuously updating once a day, every day from June 12th, 2000 to July 24th, 2020.
My record is…less than stellar.
However, I have been working on the sequel to Valentina’s Feast and I’ve been doing something a little different. At random moments, I’ve been asking myself ‘what is the worst thing to happen right now?’ It’s really led me to a couple of moments where I’ve had to write myself out of a particularly deep hole. It’s also illuminated some things about my characters that I never really considered. Valentina’s disturbed by violence to the point of vomiting at the memory of stabbing someone, but when she flips out, she’s utterly sadistic. I recommend it sometimes when you think you’re stuck in something. It makes it fun.
I’m about halfway through the novel, and I have to start working on the weakest part – the romance. I’m not a particularly skilled romance writer, so I’m trying to take my time with this and get some of it right the first go-round.
Another piece of advice to writers: take your time. I know it’s hard to say in the face of the era of ‘nanosecond gratification’, but your fans (in my case, all three) will thank you for it.
The horror should be the main focus of this book, but the romance is there and it’s something I’m going to have to write. Thankfully, most of this book is from Valentina’s plot of view, so I can squeeze in a cartoon reference when things slow down.
This is going to be a little short because I’ve run out of things to say (sorry) and I want to get this back up to updating on Thursdays again. With that being said – I hope everyone has a good day and I look forward to hearing from you all at some point.
Seething Apathy 