B.R. Black

Thriller and Horror writer

Tag: Writing

  • Flippity, floppity, back on the com

    I can’t count the times I’ve gone back and forth between a self-hosted WordPress site and being on WordPress.com, but it’s been a fair few. I’d like to blame my brain and its unwillingness to deal with minor obstacles while I’m on a deep dive into site building, but I won’t, even though I just spelled out the problem in detail.

    This back and forth has also cost me a sum of money. Let’s not talk about that.

    This last flip has been on the back burner for a while. I used to be a web developer, particularly of WP sites, and that instinct to DIY the whole thing is powerful. But it’s also deceptive, since web development (I’m obviously not much of a designer) is a skill that needs constant updating and refreshing and, well, I got all these books to write.

    And since commitment to myself and my goals is a project I’m working on this year, I’m going to commit to staying here for a full six months. I give myself permission to reassess on January 1st, but not a day before.

    Because I have declared it in my blog, I am now legally bound to do this.*

    I’m working on Season 3 of Wound, right now. I’ll be ending the serial after Season 4, which should be around Halloween. My plan is to write the prequel novella in the winter and the release the seasons as individual novellas, revised and with added scenes. Excited for that!

    What commitments are you making to yourself this second half of the year? Let’s root each other on!

    *swish* (⊃｡•́‿•̀｡)⊃━⭑･ﾟﾟ･*:༅｡.｡༅:*ﾟ:*:✼✿

    *not actually binding

  • What was my point…of view?

    I recently read through the draft of Art History in order to check for continuity errors (I have a habit of switching names of things) and refresh myself with the story in order to outline the last few chapters before sending it to my editor.

    What I thought would be about six chapters at most, turned into twelve, and I still feel like I may be rushing the ending a bit. This is a new genre for me as a writer, so I’m giving myself some space to mess around.

    I’ll be doing a post later about my strategy for keeping track of plots and subplots, as well as the details from scene to scene. I feel like I’ve smoothed out a bunch of rough spots, but more on that later.

    My biggest surprise was how my point of view slipped from time to time. I’d start a chapter with Sebastian’s POV and then slip quietly into Willoughby’s head. Derek’s chapters occasionally hopped over to Casey or Sebastian and back. Let’s just say I left myself some pointed comments.

    Since I started writing the story as a serial, I didn’t see it as a whole, enclosed story. I knew the happily-ever-after was inevitable (that’s hardly a spoiler for romance, even m/m romance) but how we were going to get there felt distant, cloaked in the mists of the time.

    That was a problem for future Betty.

    Or Lisbeth, since that’s the name I publish this under.

    I can’t even stay in the same one of my own heads!

    While I know there are authors that have mastered the third omniscient point of view, I feel like this story, with its two idiot leads (I say with love), lends itself to a more intimate view. It helps to be inside their heads. That’s how I’m seeing the world as I write.

    Breaking point of view is now on my list of writing quirks I need to be watchful for. It happens in the drafting phase when I’m trying to keep up with my characters as they deviate from my carefully planned outline. I admit, it’s fun to follow them down those paths, but sometimes I need them to just sit still. Just for a minute.

    I think one day I’ll publish a version of the story where I annotate all the places where I smacked myself in the forehead and thought, “Young man! Where do you think you’re going?”

  • Why do I write?

    Charles French asked this question and challenged his readers to answer it for themselves. What follows is my attempt.

    I don’t have a biography that dates back to early childhood when I would speed my way through story books and have to write my own sequels to keep the story going. I did do my local library’s summer reading contest, but sometimes I read shorter books just to boost my numbers.

    I don’t have a compulsion to write where I get physically ill when I’m not producing words or building worlds. I worry about people who say that and I think they should talk to their doctor about twice-daily “settle the hell down.”

    I don’t have a sense of fulfillment when I finish a piece or satisfaction when I’ve put something out there to be read. I have a strange disconnect when I put a piece of writing in the “done” box of my brain. It’s still mine, but not only mine, and I’m okay with that.

    I do enjoy the process of writing, the feel of stamping out my thoughts into these little stick images of letters. I like how I can take these feelings and broadcast them to a wider audience and understand that some will resonate, others will not.

    I really love writing down what I see in my head, because writing has always felt more like transcription rather than invention. I am leaning into one myth while disrupting another, but while I know that I am creating each line out of my own will and the influence of writers I’ve consumed (not literally – what have you heard?), but there is a liminal zone between the thought and my emittance of the thought that feels physical and wide, giving me the illusion of channeling a separate sphere.

    It’s not. I’m just making stuff up, but it feels cool.

    That’s it!

    I write because it feels cool.

    Why do you write?

  • A small sum of words about always online

    I read a lot, but I often forget to “log” it on sites like Goodreads or other social media. I wonder if that means I’m not actually reading a lot since I don’t have some sort of public-facing proof of my accomplishments.

    I think back to my earlier days on the internet and the sheer joy at “winning” or “earning” a small gif that would live near my avatar, under my username, somehow highlighting me as an elite, chosen one, or able to afford $5/month. We have giffed1 life, I think. Making all accomplishments meaningless unless accompanied by a publically acceptable emoji.

    If feel like we’ve surpassed the dystopian vision of Black Mirror‘s “Nosedive” episode and the trends of “cottage-core,” “slow-living,” and “quiet-whatever” are an aesthetic response to hustle culture and digital achievement. Influencing a slow life is still hustling, but at least we can tell ourselves that it’s a lifestyle we can achieve, if only we didn’t have to pay rent.

    I prattle on in an attempt to not work more on my revisions to Art History because I am enjoying it and have an appointment in an hour. If I work up until I have to stop, then I’ll be annoyed and I want Seb and Derek, and Woodlawn College as a whole, to be my happy place.

    In the meantime I’ll see if I can finish reading something to get that achievement online. Ding!

    *swish* (⊃｡•́‿•̀｡)⊃━⭑･ﾟﾟ･*:༅｡.｡༅:*ﾟ:*:✼✿

    1. You can pronounce that any way you please. I do not care. ↩︎

  • Rising from the depths…

    …and dripping on your carpet. Sorry.

    June 1st…okay 2nd…seems like a good time to return to the world after an extended slump and depressive period, to be completely honest. It’s not that I didn’t want to be writing, but that I had too much writing I wanted to do and the traffic jam between my brain and fingers caused a major blockage.

    I’m still working on the traffic metaphor.

    I’ve hired and editor for Art History and I’m already excited about how that story will finish up. The second in the Woodlawn Romance series is bubbling on the back brain burner and I’m hoping to get that written in late summer.

    I’m not launching that one on Vella, I don’t think, but as a stand-alone novella. And I’ll be repackaging Art History as a novella, too.

    Would is getting a full polish, so it may be unavailable for any new readers for a bit. While I revise early chapters, Vella “unpublishes them”, but I won’t be uploading anything new until they’re all done. Season 2: Slake should be ending at the end of June (barring any techno trouble).

    Season 3: Quench will start in early fall. Season 4: Flood will follow soon after, wrapping up the serial version by the end of the year.

    Thanks for reading this far and your interest and your everything.

    Photo by Kat Smith