Doubt

Hey readers/writers

Sorry it's been a minute since my last post. I've been going through a serious case of doubt. I did something that no writer should do during the process of writing his/her novel... I evaluated it. Wrong!!!! I knew there were mistakes. I knew there were holes in my story, holes I planned to fix in my revision phases. Well seeing my lack luster work made me doubt myself. Was I the right person to tell this story. Would anyone ever get to experience the story in my head. I was consumed with my doubt that I failed to realize the most important thing. When I began this story I was writing it for my eyes only. I was the only one that mattered when thinking of my story. I had begun to put my audience before myself. As a lesson I vow to never put my story or my self under the constraint of pleasing the audience. This is my story... my bond with my characters and tend to stick to it!!! :)

Desmond

I'm my own worst critic

Dear readers/writers,

Have you ever plotted a scene that you just thought to be absolute brilliance and then when you placed it to paper you felt it sucked? For me I deal with a scene in my head for about... let's say a day or two, trying to mentally depict the dynamics and inner workings of the scene. After that time when I know my objective for the scene and it's characters I begin to jot it down. Now the problem is when I complete it I always feel like I'm forcing myself to like this. The emotion is there, the product is there, I just can't see it. Well if you're like me you were probably ready to trash it. Well don't!!! I was told by a fellow writer that sometimes it's the fatigue of just pouring yourself into a particular work that has you drained and uninterested in your potential masterpiece. Now I've found that when I come back to that scene the next revision day I actually like it. It may need a little spice here and there but it's genuinely a nice scene. So writers don't trash it, just set it down and come back to it later. If it really is crap, then trash it!!

Character Development

Character!

Obviously one of the main things that drives a novel. As I continue to examine my novel and fully flesh the beginning portion of it out, I find it gets progressively harder to maintain your characters voice throughout the material. With so many things beginning to happen to my two main characters, I sometimes find it hard to stay true to their initial intent. Also what about your supporting characters? I'm an avid believer that each character has a journey that they must achieve during the process of the novel, if they didn't there would be no validity in their existence within your world. As a writer you find it fairly easy to deter from the original setup. How do you handle your character development?? I write down a half page description of their behavior and mannerisms to certain people. Then I document where they were at the beginning of the book and where they need to be by the story's end.
I'd love to hear from you guys

Ch. 4 Excerpt

Gabriel had always loved the night. It was the only time during a twenty four hour period that he felt most comfortable, he felt as if he was in his own skin. He ran through the forest, not loosing a single breath as he began to leap from tree to tree. He grabbed hold of a large Red oak and looked down at the ground, dozens of feet below him. He had become so accustomed to his abilities and saw them as a gift. Eternity meant freedom to him, it meant never being chained down. His sire was always reminding him of the responsibilities of his…gift. Gabriel jumped from the tree and landed to the ground in a predatory crouched position. Like a bullet he took off again into the forest. The wind once again surrounded him and swept him in its invisible arms. He felt so free that he hardly noticed that change had returned him to a form with no shirt and shorts that were once jeans. However; he didn’t care about the expenses this life had cost him, he felt invincible under the moon, impervious to all feelings of pain.
Gabriel had stopped at the edge of the trees when he noticed her. Those feelings from earlier had come back to him. She was beautiful, just as she was in class and later in the hallway. Butterflies began to flutter around his stomach, as if he was nauseous. He sat there mesmerized at her beauty as she combed her hair in the mirror. There was a fascination there, something he felt he couldn’t control, but there was another feeling there as well. One more dark and sinister that he had encountered once before in his earlier days after the transformation.
Gabriel sat at the edge of the trees watching her, wanting to be near her, to touch her, to…taste her? He tried to shake her from his mind and walk away, but his attraction to her was like a magnet, he could not break free of her spell. In all of his years he has never been attracted to a human in such ways. Even from yards away he could practically taste her blood between his lips, but he imagined her kiss as well. The young girl turned to her window to close it. In that moment Gabriel was sure their eyes met. He quickly hid behind a large pine tree. His heart began to race faster and faster. The first rule after your transformation is to remain in the shadows. Stealth had been the key to his kind’s survival all the centuries. Gabriel peaked over his bare shoulder to find her lights off. As he stood fully facing her window, the breeze blew across his neck.

My Introduction

Hello All,

I'm extremely excited right now about what this blog signifies. It signifies my next step into truly understanding the world of writing! But where are my southern manners?!?! Allow me to introduce myself.
My name is Desmond James and I'm on the dawn of my junior year at Eastern Michigan. My major is International Relations with a minor in Sociology. I love playing Baseball and Family Feud in my past time. I am one of let's just say many children and I love each sibling very much. Most importantly I LOVE to write!!! Now that you know a little bit about me let me tell you about how this all got started.
My sophomore year in High School I took an advance Lit. class with one of my favorite teachers, Ms. Downey. While in her class one of our assignments was to write a short story that incorporated a fantasy element. Well I took to this assignment like a pen to paper and began writing 10 pages of what a 15 year old would consider an action pack tour de force!! Well needless to say that looking back on that short story there were many imperfections with it. It all was still so exciting to me... a story about a girl who finds an odd relationship with a werewolf as she deals with the loss of her mother. What a soap opera!!! Well shortly thereafter I let a friend read my "masterpiece"... and she loved it, but she said it reminded her of something...Twilight!!! Well I soon picked up Stephenie Meyer's novel and was floored... having never read the series I realized that our stories were strikingly similar. Well I couldn't have that so I threw the story in my portfolio and closed it, never to gaze upon it again.
Well let's fast forward to December 2009. While home from college on Christmas break, I opened that portfolio and found that story (it was tragic, but sometimes it takes a break for a writer to evolve and see his/her mistakes). After reading it I remembered how in 10 pages I fell in love with the characters of my book. Those characters were real to me, each had a particular voice and a story to tell, and they deserved more than to sit in my portfolio and fade into my archive of adolescent writing. So I began to reanalyze and restructure my short story, which soon became far to big to just be a short story- and so Lycanthrope Awakening was created and I couldn't be happier.
So fellow bloggers I have created this blog to document my success, my failures, and hopefully here your feedback as I pursue finishing a story that has been/is a true labor of love!!

P.S. Look for weekly previews of certain parts to my book!