Do You Want Some Imagery with That?

    I love good stories. I love good plot lines. When I sit and write for myself, I get caught up in the story. I love the dialogue and the interaction between characters, this probably from my theater background. However, I have a hard time describing the setting. Using imagery to convey the right image. In my mind, I know exactly where my characters are. I feel getting bogged down in the setting and imagery takes away from the story, slows down the reader.  In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness the reader is lost in the scenery. I literally felt like I was trekking through the jungle trying to get through that novel. I wanted more story, more action.

    Yet when I write, I get comments like "describe this more." I know I have way more growing up to do when it comes to writing, but I guess I'm not in it for the imagery. Yes, I want the reader to know where we are and know what the characters look like, but after being in English class after English class, I'm tired of the literary jargon.  I want my readers to get caught up in the story, to love the characters and debate about what happens next. I want them to think about the big picture instead of  "need more abstract metaphors here."
    This post is in part a rant. I know I need to be open, more accepting of constructive criticism. I guess I'm still frustrated at myself for not being able to convey my feelings through a text. One day I will, and I will look back and say "Jessie you did suck at writing that particular scene, stop being so butt hurt."

The Beginning

    I've often had one problem when it comes to writing, and that's finishing a story. I come up with countless ideas for stories and I only write down a few. Some are horrendous and others are fantastic, that's when the motivation comes it...more like lack of it.

    I've always had purpose for the things I work on. The main purpose in my life so far was to make good grades. Writing assignments would be tied to classwork or extracurricular activities and I never wrote anything for myself until I started writing Alert. Though the name might be changed later on. (I used to call it The Front Yard.) Here's the story for how I came up with the Forates.

    I was 15 years old. I had just got back from a summer camp. I was going to confess to a boy there that I was in love with him, but he had changed since the last time I saw him and he turned me down.

    I sat in my front yard one night and I just cried. I lived in a suburb area. Not much activity at night, so I was talking to an empty colder sack. I cried and complained like the teenager I was. I was scared. Scared of going to college. I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. (I still don't really know) I cried about how I would become a cat lady (that still might happen) and that I was alone, despite my loving friends and family all around me.

    Then I looked up for a moment and I swear to this day that there was someone watching me from the other side of the street.

    Granted it could have been a robber, neighbor or a tree but it caused me to run back inside and seek shelter under the covers. Ever since I was little I've been in the arts, singing, dancing and acting...so the creative in me started to calm myself down by telling myself it was this person's job to watch me.

Then the spark began...

Why did they have to watch me? 

He must be an alien gathering intel on the human race and he was assigned to me

If he's an alien, how stupid did I look to him as I sat there crying and confessing all my feelings?

Probably pretty stupid

What's his name?

Sky

    As my heart rate began to slow, more and more ideas came. It was like I was unlocking a gate and the gate is still flowing with ideas and excitement 5 years later. Whenever I came into a problem I thought about how my characters would have approached it and it's helped me overcome numerous problems.

I always say that I just don't have the time to finish this series and get it published, but I know deep down if I ever did finish it, a large part of my life would be gone and I don't know how to deal with it yet. So for now I'm still formally writing the first novel, spending just a little more time with my characters before I give them to the rest of the world.

National Novel Writing Month

    I've decided to sign up for National Novel Writing month in November 2013.

 And this scares me to death. I'm not going to enter Alert because I'm expanding it into a series, but I am going to enter another novel I've been working on called The Harmony of E. Not far from the science fiction. It's a dystopian story similar to Ally Condie's Matched.

  However it goes deeper into the flaws of society and deeper into the characters. This is only meant to be one novel, so I've decided to take the challenge this November to finish a novel! I already have about 7,000 words written so I'm excited to jump in and finish Evelyn's story. More details to come!