Back In The Swing Of Things

After a two week break of all things writing (and the summer cold that inspired it), I'm back in and more inspired than ever! I haven't gotten back to OH or HN yet but I'm pounding out some words on a private book of mine. I say private because I'm writing it for my own sake and it will probably never see the light of day. Sometimes I have stories going around in my head that feel too stupid to put out there with my name on them. There's a freeing feeling about writing a book where I don't have to worry about what other people think. It's interesting because I never thought I considered my readers that much but apparently I do!

I haven't been reading too much lately but I have been watching a fair amount of Korean TV shows/variety shows which probably is what inspired my latest book. Mostly, I've been itching for a while to take on the subject of boy bands and I'm taking my chance. It will be filled with my usual sarcasm and wit :)

I've probably mentioned it before but I used to be terrified to write guys. I mean terrified! The few that managed to squeak their way into my stories were only given the shortest lines of dialogue imaginable and they were very uninteresting. I've not only gotten over my fears of writing guys (ish), but I've begun to enjoy it. It's a challenge for me to do my best at making a guy believable. The main male character of my Human series is a smart guy with a lot of responsibility who also happens to have a quirky sense of humor. In some ways, he's a bit like me in his humor and lightness of life's matters in general but in other ways, he's a lot different. He takes charge where I'd be afraid and is made up of bits and pieces of guys I know and have seen in movies. He's just as much a part of me as Abby, just hopefully in a more masculine way :)

In HN, there's a new character introduced whose name is Logan. He's not really the antagonist but he's not really a good guy. Out for what he wants and not caring who gets hurt in the process. It's hard for me to write him as a selfish character who isn't necessarily evil but isn't really good either. I have to learn something new every day.

I worked an election two weeks back and it never ceases to amaze me what kind of material I can collect from spending a day working with strangers. Granted, most of them were a lot older than me (The youngest would have been old to be my mom and the rest would've been my grandparents), but I saw a lot of different personalities, different ways people had lived their lives, and different ways people respond to pressure. Most of them mainly brought the problem to the most responsible person which, that day, happened to me. Sometimes I wish my parents hadn't raised me to be responsible but that feeling only last for half a second before reality kicks in.

I'll write again soon, hopefully before the weather breaks and we're back to cold weather :(

-Anna Leigh

Ever Evolving Ideas

So, I have a commitment problem.

Not the commitment problem most people would think from reading that sentence. I have a problem committing to one book for longer than three months. And when I say three months, I'm being generous.

My mind is in the constant motion of coming up with new book ideas. Even when I'm not even thinking about my books, I'll be watching a basketball game and the conversation from fans behind me will make four different ideas pop up in my head. Just the other day, I was at an ice cream stand, enjoying my frozen custard with family when I noticed a girl standing near the front. She wasn't stunning but pretty, wearing a short leperd print dress with a bright belt. She was dressed to impress and obviously waiting for someone. Halfway through my chocolate/vanilla twist, I noticed she was still there and kept checking her phone. Crunching down my cone, her face had definitely fallen and she kept looking around self-consciously. She stayed there up until I drove out of the parking lot and then I saw her in line by herself, eating a large cone with a dejected look. Not one hundred percent sure but I'm just gonna say; her date stood her up.

I notice things like that all the time and point them out to select people. If I told everyone, they'd realize what a nut I really am and wouldn't be friends with me anymore. Thankfully, my oldest sister at home likes hearing my crazy ideas, even though she gives me funny looks sometimes when I suggest our lack of water pressure might be because alien sabotaged the lines as a first step to invasion. I never said all my ideas were best sellers :)

I have ideas for multiple different books that over time have to be combined to make one full length book. An example of this is a book I started two years ago about the two sons of a CEO and the daughter of a CEO of a company merging with theirs. At seventeen, my ideas for the book were undeveloped and very vague as to what the company was or what work they did. I had ideas about the plot but was a bit lost as to world building. 

A few months ago, I got inspired to pick the brother angle back up. As long as things don't descend into soap operas, I like brother plot lines where you get to explore the similarities and differences in families. I've also always wanted to write a book where the female MC started out liking someone different than she ended up with. I thought it'd be a good idea to combine these plots and last month, the two brothers got names and a company. And instead of a merging company, the female MC is the daughter of a rival company. Both companies deal in cosmetics and FMC spends a lot of time feeling inferior to the better looking, polished rivals. 

Adding details to characters includes the fact Aria (FMC) loves ice cream, hates makeup, and has panic attacks. Being that she's the eighteen year old daughter of a famous company about to start coming to work, panic attacks have to stay off radar and hating makeup is awkward when it's your business. I've only written a little - because I know I should be editing OH and writing HN - but she is fun! Pretty, witty, full of money, and about to get dumped into a world she isn't prepared for, I can't wait to get into her character. The brothers are fun to since one is friendly and quiet while the other is bombastic and outgoing. 

I've wanted to write out my version of Peter Pan for as long as I've written books and just three weeks ago, I woke up with the most brilliant idea. Unfortunately, for the sake of my unwritten book, I can't really share too many of my brilliant ideas but I can say I'm going for a sciency Dr. Who angle as opposed to a magical land. Can't wait!

I started a book several months back about a struggling book writer (wonder where I got my inspiration? :) who loses a bet to her over confident, published rival and has to write a sappy book following the lines of Korean drama. In order to ensure historical accuracy, she employs the help of a genuine first generation Korean and ends up in a mess of trouble, trying to write her book, not let her rival get on her nerves, and deal with a guy who doesn't even want to help her.

Human Nature is on its third draft, off to a more promising start than the last two. I've found it's very hard to erase previous writings from my head and focus on what I'm doing. Doing editing on OH at the same time does give me different inspiration for writing the sequel though and I am getting excited to getting into Abby's braver side and back to Connor who is always fun to write!

I'll write again soon!

-Anna Leigh 

Future Projects

It's been an even crazier month than I thought it would be last time I wrote over a month ago. Reading back over my previous posts, I remembered I'd posted some of my character blurbs to a story that's, well, been kind of thrown away.

It was a difficult decision to get rid of six chapters worth of work but seemed to be the best choice in the end. I've since started over but am having a hard time being motivated which means Human Nature is getting shelved for three weeks until I can get my head back in the game. The good news is, shelving my sequel gives me the time I've really wanted to work on all the other books I've started in the last year, namely four that have been calling my name. Since I'm writing today about my other books, I thought it'd be interesting to do a bullet point of all the books I've started writing and a brief description. Names in descriptions are subject to change, as well as POVs.

• Walking Among Us (WT) 2014: Rose's family is forced by the government to have an alien from DA1 live with them for three months. Rose's father would never have allowed such a thing but it's been several years that he's been imprisoned, leaving her as head of the household. The clash of cultures is evident and Rose is curious as to how an alien can look, talk, and occasionally act like a human. Is the government she's working for really telling her the whole story? (First person)
• Younger Brother (WT) 2014: Ali was only a little girl when her father brought boy, small and with a mysterious tattoo, into their house and declared him one of the family. Ali felt protective of the younger boy and did her best to take care of him until he was sent away to learn the inner workings of their business. Now eighteen, he's returned to the house to participate in a competition her father set up, a fight between her two biological brothers and him over who will get the business. In the middle of the only three people she really cares about, Ali has to make a decision that will change her future. (First person)
• Penalty (WT) 2014: Lana is beautiful and talented in many areas - except the one place she really wants. Lana's dream is to become a writer. After losing a bet to her published boss, she is forced to write the sort of story she hates: a romance set in another country. Not only does she have to write it but she also has to obtain a critique from a renowned magazine, one with a critic who is famous for his bad reviews, and get him to love it. Following a friends advice, she hires a native from the country, only to find he's more of a handful than her boss. Will she succeed with her mission or will her dream to become a published writer remain unreachable? (First person)
• The Outcast (WT) 2012: Jenny wants nothing more than to blend in but her father's fame makes it difficult. She's been in love with Calvin St. Clair since she was twelve years old, only to recently discover he's avoiding her like the plague and his normally cheerful demeanor seems forced. With public events coming to introduce her into the business and the probability of Calvin's engagement to another girl coming up, Jenny's outlook on life is bleak. To make matters worse, Calvin's younger brother, obnoxious and brutally honest Johnny, is constantly calling her out on what she wants in her life. Her eighteenth year is sure to be unforgettable, if she makes it out. (First person, possibly switched to third)
• Assisted Dying (WT) 2014: Violet is a teen girl living a hectic life. With both grandfathers dead, both of her grandmothers are living in the same assisted living and filling her days with their very different problems. Grandma Jane is anxious worrier, only interested in her life and the things that affect her. Grandma Anne is a sickly women who hates the burden she is to her granddaughter and wants her to get out more. Violet's life is rapidly spiraling out of control and the resident do-gooder, a endlessly cheerful guy who visits residents without families, seems to think she's cynical. With everything that's happened in her young life, shouldn't she have the right to feel sorry for herself once in a while? There's no way a cheerful smile and endless optimism of a guy without a care in the world would change that. (Third person)
• Makeover (WT) 2014: Carrie is fine living off the profits of her father's construction business - until he sends her out to a remote location to have her help remodel an old cabin. The workers couldn't care less who she is or if she has to break a nail to help out. It's either buck up or get laughed at for the girl who loves order and cleanliness. (First person, possibly third)
• Vanity (2014): In a society where no one is less than perfect and beautiful lives Aria Mason, an all natural plain girl. If it weren't for her parents connections, they would have been banished from Cumulus as soon as her plainness became evident. Her coming out year has arrived too soon for her liking and everyone is treating her like she has a disease, including her match who only makes evident he isn't interested. When Aria runs into a talented performer, she's unwillingly dragged into the gossip that surrounds him. Things get even more out of hand when they are trapped on a salvage shuttle headed toward Earth, the place that doesn't know of their existence. Will Aria be able to find her way back without the humans finding out who she is or is their life doomed to be discovered? (First person)
• Fame (2012): Lexi is probably the only girl on Earth who remembers Jackson Park, a one hit wonder who was famous the same year her parents were killed. Moving to a new city with her older sister and determined to have a fresh start, she gets a shock when she runs into a delivery boy with a striking resemblance to the singer who helped her through the hard times and who goes by the name Jack... (First person, possibly third)
• First Impressions (2014): Carla Marcus lived a normal life until her sister and brother-in-law were killed in a car accident. Left with Taylor, their six month old baby, she is forced to endure the judgmental stares and harsh words from strangers who think she's a teen mother. An innocent day out shopping lands them in a bank being held up. Her and the baby are kidnapped by men with mixed intentions and with police hot on their tails, Carla worries for the safety of herself and the baby she promised to protect. (First person, present tense)
• Heart (2013): Bare bones outline. A girl who's lived her whole life with a defective heart gets a transplant. Things have only been good since then, leaving her to live the full life she always dreamed of. Every time something bad threatens to happen, it's taken care of and she is continuously protected. After a mugger tries to stab her and is stopped by a guy who seems to know her name, she begins to wonder about all the other things in her life that've been mysteriously taken care of. Maybe she has a guardian angel after all... (Idea only, have never written the story)
• Older Sister (WT) 2014: Mia and her family have been having a hard time financially, forcing her to rely on the kindness of the local makeup artist to employ a girl who hasn't even attended beauty school. In a strange twist of events, Mia has to work as a temporary makeup artist for EBOS, a boy band traveling through their city. When a murder occurs and the place is locked down to prevent the killer from leaving, Mia is forced to make unlikely allies as she does her best to protect the people she loves - before the killer chose her as the next target. (First person)
• Books I Didn't Mention: Loyalty (Historical Fiction), A trilogy of retold classics: Robin Hood, Peter Pan, Camelot, Drifting (Contemporary Mystery), Bodyguard (Action/Adventure), 9 (Story about an a girl assistant coach on a men's team), Beaten (Contemporary, a story about a boy whose father beats him and a girl who wants to protect him).

So, I have started a lot of books! I've finished two, a novel and a novella, and am hoping to get back to a lot of these at some points. Several are just a Microsoft Word document with a few facts scribbled in them. Loyalty was one I started a month ago but didn't take the time to write the plot down for. I really have no idea what I was thinking of and have only one page to reference :( A few might be broken down and turned into one book since they are similar to others I have and wouldn't make a strong enough story on their own. I had a genius idea for my Peter Pan remake and my fingers are itching to get back to it. I have way too many in the works to do so right now but I'm still young...

On the interesting discoveries for this month, I have to mention Natural Reader. It's a great program that turns text to speech and has made a world of difference in my editing process. It's so much easier to edit when it's being read to you and computers don't read over miss-spellings or bad punctuation which makes it more accurate than a human.The free version only includes computer sounding voices but the paid version has some very natural voices. I put up with the computer sound since it works find for editing though sometimes the lack of emotions gets to me.

I'll write again when I get a chance about some of the things I've been learning in my editing journey recently. I've read so many different accounts of ways to edit and decided to throw them all at my novella and see how it turned out. With everything new I learn, I look at Only Human and can't wait to get my hands back on it. It gets more embarrassing by the day with some of the things I let go in the editing process!

Anna Leigh

Writing A Story - Inspiration

There's a part of me that wakes me up at three in the morning, my heart pounding hard at the idea of a new book that's suddenly popped into my head, inspired by the days events, a movie we watched, or a random comment someone made. I sleep with my phone on next to me, my morning alarm to wake me up, and I use the notepad feature to write these ideas down so they don't disappear when I wake up in the morning.

I've started over twenty books and my first official finished one was in December of 2013. It probably would have been another two years before that one was finished if it wouldn't have been my inspiration to get it done.

My Nana (Dad's Mom) loves to read. As long as I can remember, she's had stacks of books that she plows through in a week and trips to the library are frequent. She's not big on thrillers, science fiction, or fantasy but prefers books set in historical times about places she's visited or murder mysteries that are so complex, they make my head spin. My Dad's love of history comes from her and they read huge books full of history and promptly memorize facts I've never even heard of before.

Ever since I started writing, I liked talking to her about the process and about how nervous I was to show my books to anyone. We never really got into plots very much but she mentioned more than once that someday she wanted to read my books, knowing full well I didn't write the sort of things she normally liked to read. Two and a half years ago, while doing a somewhat innocuous surgery, they discovered by accident that she had stage 2 pancreatic cancer. The stats on pancreatic cancer aren't good at all but she was a bit off the charts considering they found it at stage 2 when it's normally found at stage 3 or 4 where there is nothing you can do but go home and live out your 6-24 months quietly. Even knowing that, she got very depressed and every topic of discussion led back to the things that would happen after she was gone including who she was going to give her stuff too. I wrote her a note around that time, telling her I hoped she would better soon and also saying that she couldn't go anywhere until I'd finished one of my books for her to read. With a new goal in mind, I started serious work on the book I had closest to being finished. I was of two minds about the work, wanting to get it done for her to read but not wanting to give it to her and be like "It's okay for you to leave now."

I was sixteen when all of this happened and my writing self at sixteen was a bit different than my writing self now. My book wasn't even written in a straight line but with bits and pieces going off in every direction, a proper mess. It was discouraging to even try and I put it off for a long time. January of 2013 came with a new resolve to work on it properly and I dedicated time to it a little bit every day (when I didn't get distracted by Pinterest or my blind depression about actually getting it done in time). I set a goal in mind, deciding I was going to get it done by Christmas '13. To force myself to stick to my self-imposed goal, I started telling my family members and friends who in turn began to ask me whenever they talked to me about how my progress was going.

A lot happened during 2013, mentally and physically for me. Recovering from physical problems, a weighted down schedule, and the unexpected move-in of my other Grandma, it was a little harder than expected. Even so, I worked hard and stayed up a lot of late nights. A lot of plot got changed, characters got added and subtracted, pages got written only to be totally deleted the next day, and somehow, I managed to let someone read it for the first time in November.

I've never been a person to let other people read what I write. As I'm sure is the case for most people, writing a book is a bit like writing my diary. Everything is personal to me and the characters are a part of me. The idea of giving that to someone else to critique and possibly not even like was very difficult but something I knew I was going to have to face. I had help with editing from family members and everyone who read it offered critiques and corrections. It was nice but it was really hard. I can only imagine what it must be like from someone who doesn't know you and is interested in selling a book, not necessarily sparing your feelings.

As it was, I got the book done in time for Christmas and Nana was very excited when she got it. My letter to her managed to get tears from most of the family and I felt something new as a writer. The feeling of other people knowing what I'd written and thinking it was good. Did they totally love it? No. Did they think it was going to be a best seller? My family is way to honest for that. In spite of those things, everyone who read it said it was pretty good and my younger sister even told me it was the best book she'd ever read (she's a little biased but hey, I'll take it :)

I self published the book on Kindle to be able to allow Nana to read it and probably would have left it at that if it weren't for my older brother. He told me he was going to find a way to market it and figure out how the process worked. This was a few months ago and even now, we're on the dizzying road that is trying to market someone like me who has no name and whose book is in with a few thousand no name writers trying to get their work out there. My brother found me a cover artist who gave me a great cover and started reading everything he could about sale tactics. To date, my book has sold (ready for it?) 18 copies and had 2 returns making 16 buys that aren't from friends or family. I'm shocked it's that many, especially when I pull open the book and groan to myself, wishing my first book had been a little better. I'm tempted many days to take it down and totally redo it until I remind myself it's a first book and very few people do well on a first book especially when its been self-published.

I learned a lot through the whole experience, mostly the fact that my grammar and punctuation are a lot worse than I initially realized. Sorry Aunt T for all the purple marker you had to use up. Embarrassing...

So, now you've gotten to hear about the birth of Only Human, my first novel. It's available on Amazon and has exactly one review from my oldest sister and editor. She says it has a lot of potential and that I'll get to be a better writer as I get older. I only hope she's right.

I finished a novella in February which I'll probably be uploading soon and am working on my sequel to Only Human, Human Nature. I have a short story in the works and a thousand ideas bursting out of my head, wanting me to work on them instead of what I've set my mind to work on. My goal for Human Nature is a thousand words a day and a hopeful finish with editing by the end of the year. Hopefully I won't get so many hating reviews on my first one at that point, I'll actually have an audience for my second one :)

Write again soon,

Anna Leigh

P.S. A link to my book just in case you're interested in checking it out :)
http://www.amazon.com/Only-Human-The-Series-Volume-ebook/dp/B00HI2HLR8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395459590&sr=8-1&keywords=only+human+anna+tuckfield

It Begins...

Books are super personal to me, something I've been working on and thinking about since I was eleven years old. At the grand old age of nineteen, it feels like I've been writing books my whole life. I've read a lot of people talking about how it was their passion, how they've told stories all their lives, how their parents are writers, and all these inspiring stories about how they feel they've always been 'destined' or 'made' to be a writer. I never had any sort of grand calling for me to be a writer. I began purely out of indignation.

As a preteen, Barnes and Noble gift cards were the normal thing I received for Christmas, being at the odd age between getting toys and getting adult gifts. There was always a day sometime in mid January when we'd bundle up and head out to the book store and I'd spend an hour trying to figure out what to spend my 15-20 dollars on. I was very picky about what I wanted since I only had a limited amount to spend and I hated the idea of spending it on anything but something I really liked! Many of these visits ended with me leaving with a fine array of things from a full house sticker book one year to the book 'Little Women' which I got because of it's pretty front cover and the fact it came with a free necklace. Peter Pan, one of my other 'childhood' books was another purchase that happened because of the free necklace involved. Marketing plans like that always worked on my naive self :)

Robin Hood was a book I genuinely wanted to read after watching the 1938 version of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn. While I didn't admire his strange hair and aptitude to wear tights (hey, I was eleven. It was a problem), I liked the idea of the story a lot. The man wronged who has to flee from everything he's ever known or loved but still manages to protect those he cares about, including the beautiful woman who loves him (what would the story be without Maid Marian?), and defeat evil in the end. A very typical plot to a story and the type that excited me. The book held much more fascination to me than the movie and I read it through in one day. It ended rather abruptly and I decided I needed to find a longer version of the story. As I remember, Marian actually wasn't mentioned at all in that book which was a bit of a disappoint for me.

Not long after, I bought a much thicker book and discovered there was a lot more to the Robin Hood stories than I'd ever known. I stayed up late several nights in a row to finish it and...was left with the worst thing I could have imagined! While it looks for a while like Robin Hood will end triumphant with Nottingham back under control and Marian by his side, Robin Hood is imprisoned by the now King John and hurts himself badly after trying to escape prison. He makes it to an abbey where the Mother Abbess nicely offers to help him, only to end up being evil and leaving his wounds to bleed out. During this time she has convinced Marian, who thinks Robin is dead, to become a nun. In the end Marian rushes to Robin's side right as he dies and that's the end.

I was incensed.

The next week, sitting at my brothers computer with the book open in front of me, I started to type out the book I'd just spent days reading, planning to keep it the same until the end where I would come up with my own ending (most likely a 'and they got rid of all the bad guys and lived happily ever after' moment). In the midst of this, I finished Peter Pan and found out that he didn't grow up. I was incensed again! I would do the same with that story except in the end, he was going to grow up and marry Wendy like he should've in the first place.

It wasn't until a few months later that my oldest sister recommended to me offhandedly that maybe I should try coming up with my own story instead of copying others. I was shocked at first, the thought of making up my own story to bizarre to even contemplate but then, it started to sink it. I wanted to write, I wanted to make stories with no deaths, no sad endings, and heroes who were undefeatable. Needless to say, I never finished my Robin Hood or Peter Pan projects but I've gone on to find things I like much more.They will most likely never see the success that either of those stories have seen, but I'm happy.

I'll write again about my actual writing projects in another post. This one seems to have gone long enough as it has. Oh, and for those who are actually curious, I do have Robin Hood and Peter Pan slated for being written at some point, most likely at the same time as I write my own version of the story of King Arthur :)

Anna Leigh