a ya writers blog

Damn, sometimes writing feels like I am moving in circles. I had a really strange UN-deja vu today. Well, it began yesterday when I opened a book I wrote and haven't touched for a very long time. Before I go further, for those not in the know I had a cardiac arrest in 2009. Flat out. Three hits of the paddle. But when I got back from wherever I had been. it seemed to me as if nothing had happened. But. From time to time I have to wonder if something happened that day we did not investigate further. I went to the neurologist and every thing is fine. I know the days of the week and who was then and is now the President. I know who my kids are and what plots I had been working. But, I had lost about three days. Hmmm. Not so much in the realm of life or how it could have turned out, but still...

Since then, however, I come across times and things that make me go "huh?". Like, why can I never remember numbers? Like the floor I parked on. Or things from the past that people swear I should know, like pictures that hung on walls for a long time, or recipes that have or have not been in the family for years. Still, no big deal, right? But today I opened a doc that is a book I wrote a bunch of years back. You know how you read so many books you end up rereading one and thinking, wow, this is familiar but I still don't remember the plot? Well that's what happened today. BUT it is mine! I recognize the style. I remember slaving over it. I remember delegating it to the shelf of "never fret over it again". But I do NOT remember the plot. I do not remember the characters, except to think that in some weird and hazy way that they are familiar. IS THIS AGING OR IS PART OF MY MIND BEING BROKEN? I know with the all caps you might assume that I am worried over this. I'm not really. What do I need to remember that particular book for? I remember the important things, like the birth of the boys or the current books or what's due today, but I can't shake the odd feeling that there are things that are gone that I used to know.

Now, knowing me as some of you do, I am turning this oddity into a boon. I've been looking for something to write for TV. (Yep. I can't seem to do just one thing.) And this seems like an awesome premise don't you think? A major catastrophe happens and part of the operative's brain is short circuited. Everyday life flips this way and that as it turns out or is suggested that what the operative thinks of as reality is just a shell of what it truly has been. Multiple scenarios every week and the watcher never knows what the real life of the person truly is or has been. This needs a lot more thinking and a bunch of free writing, but I think I'm onto something.

Unless of course I wake up tomorrow and forget that any of this plotting or chatter has happened. Real or fiction? I will have to wait to find out.

So the topic on this "oh my God why is Easter on a Sunday and I have to go to work on Monday?" is: What makes the best stories, the best? And why do some bound for greatness still have things about them that keep me (or you) from finding them total perfection? The obvious answer
to the first is you make interesting and unique characters and put them in situations that challenge, alarm, bring out the best or worst in their personalities and see how they make out. And the second is it's really hard to write a book and no story is perfect. Writers are not perfect beings, all knowing and seeing, and they do their best to put out a story the world will embrace. But get deeper into it. How do some writers manage to do it the way you adore?

I've currently moved from my historical fantasy mode into the killer/thriller genre and the shift is as mentally fascinating as it is challenging. How do I presume to know how to write a thriller? Well, obviously, I don't. I love reading them. I've studied the underlying structure of the ones I relate to best. And I guess I'm willing to do my best and hope it doesn't fall short. But in my quest I've come across a need that I haven't as yet fulfilled.

I think I'm looking for a reader's group for like-minded writers. Our conversations would possibly sound like: why was that thriller great? What was wrong with it? What in the writing style sucked you in? What in the style turned you away? What happened to the pacing? Was it quick and awesome at the start and stalled and awkward in the middle? What would you have liked to see happen that didn't? What did you love that you didn't expect. In the genre (thriller/horror) does each chapter feature a different character until the cast is flushed out? Does the killer have to be clear to the reader from nearly the get go? Do you have to be inside this person's head, discussing the murder and motivation? What techniques were used to build the anticipation?

Does anyone know if this currently exists? Or is it something any of you would be interested in starting?