Geek Wednesday - Number 1

I was talking to a new friend the other day and we stumbled upon my inability to do general math in my head because in the first grade, I assigned personalities to numbers. Now, I assigned the personalities based on their numeric relationships, but as I was telling him about my number personalities, he pointed out that I could use this for character development and people watching.

So, we're going to start with the number 1.

I defined the number 1 as the party animal. As I got older, Number 1 because the Party Slut because she was cheap and easy. LOL! As I became more mature (yes, it was a long, hard process) I lost the Party Slut slogan for Number 1, and redifined it a bit.

People who are a Number 1 are easy to get along with on the outside. They're the party minglers. They have a great smile, are generally pretty people  - not always physically pretty,but they're pretty on the inside enough that it shines through  - and people tend to be drawn to them.

However, Number 1's don't have a lot of long-term friends. Because they have friends in such quantities, they sometimes lack friends in great quality. The friendships are generally shallow and barely scratch the surface.

I've noticed that the people who are started as 1's mature into other numbers, like a 12, which is a 1 and a 2. We'll get into the 2 definition later, but it's when they reach this maturity that they have friends who last longer and put with more stuff...like, oh, I don't know, LIFE.

So, I hope you enjoyed. This isn't new. There's all kinds of studies on this, but this is Frankie's Numerology.

This blog is moving!

I'm moving! Please update your links!

http://www.smblooding.com/

Re-Defining A Character - Rune

Sometimes when you're working on a book, you're revisions will make a character look different. It's all about perception, so if you're changing the outlook of a scene, you could inadvertently change the how a character is perceived.

I had that issue with Rune in my YA series, Tempest. I introduced Kes earlier into the story, which really helped push the plotline and I'm really hoping that by the time we get to the last book, that at least some of the characters will survive this time. However, when he was introduced, the perception of Rune changed and he looked weaker and, well, just less.

This is concerning to me because I know Rune. I may give him a hard time for having his eyes set on Ri and I have a tendency to be a little too overprotective of her, but at the same time, he's a good kid.

The other issue I have is that I'm telling the story from Ri's first person POV. So it's not like I can do him justice and just give him his own scene. I could. Several authors have done this. Stephanie Meyers did it in the Twilight Saga, but when she did it, it drove me nuts. I've also seen Eisley Jacobs do it in Born to Be A Dragon, and I really liked it when she did it. So, if I did it well, it could work.

The only thing is, he's a secondary character and doesn't really need that much attention on him. However, I need to change Ri's perception of him.

So how do I do that?

1. Currently, he's easy to push off into the background for Ri. She's just ignoring him, which means that the reader is ignoring him.
2. He also appears to be too moody because Ri doesn't care enough to ask him what's going on?
3. And compared to Kes, he appears weak. Well, Kes is the "most powerful creature" in his dimension and he's 1,1013 years old, but still. Rune is a phoenix. He's pretty bad ass.

Well, those are the problems I have. How am I getting those perceptions?

1. I have to bring Rune into the front a little more. He's a bull-headed boy, but he tends to keep to himself.
1. He's very comfortable with non-verbals, not so much with the actual talking. Which means I might have been ignoring him. Non-verbal dialogue or dialogue participation is just as important as the verbal. But it's easy to ignore or just miss.
2. Kes has gotten most of the focus because he tends to have the plot information. But Rune's not stupid and he has information, just not as direct as Kes'. I may need to tweak my plot line focus just a smidge so that Rune is a little more proactive.
2. People appear moody because we don't get the get the opportunity to comprehend their mood flow. Moody people often appear emotionally immature, and usually they are. As a teenage boy, Rune is going to appear more emotionally immature than a 1,013 year old pegacorn. It's just going to happen. However, it might help if Ri got to obtain a deeper level of emotional understanding into Rune's character because he's a lot more mature than he currently appears.
1. The first time through, I had Rune take Ri to his mom and she got to see him with all of his family. This time through, his family kinda takes over Ri's house for the Holiday. It's not the same scene and there's so much other stuff going on that we completely miss this.
2. Rune's character arc is actually a turning plot point, but unfortunately, this has been pushed back. So I might need to bring in a scene that brings back the elements that were lost.
3. In the previous version, Rune and I didn't really play up the power of the phoenix just because he's kinda shy about it. Think Clark Kent. He uses his abilities only when he needs to, but always hides it.
1. It might be time to really play out the strengths of his abilities. He's a powerful phoenix.
2. Seriously, in comparison, Kes is just a really old horse. LOL!

*nodding and smiling* Yes. I think this could work out very well.

All right, well thanks for sitting through this with me. I hope that maybe my ramblings helped you out. I'm pretty sure it helped me!

What do you do when you get stuck with your characters?

Interview: Denise Grover Swank

Earlier this week, I posted a review of Ms. Swank's book, Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes.

Denise is a single mom who lives in Lee’s Summit, Missouri raising five of her six kids. (The oldest has gone off to live on his own.) She loves to embarrass her children whether it be spontaneous dance parties in the kitchen or making her teens’ friends think she’s funny/cool. *gasp* (Even if its in her own mind.) On rare occasions, she is known to post stories about her crazy life on her family blog There’s Always Room for One More.
 She keeps her sanity by creating worlds to escape to and characters to hang out with.

Okay, I just finished Twenty-Eight and A Half Wishes and the only bad thing I can find is the title of the book. LOL! When I went onto Amazon to find you, I typed in 28 1/2 Wishes and it couldn't find you. I became a bit panicked!


I'm seeing that a lot of people asked you how you came up with the idea for this book. You can find those interviews here and here. Seriously?! LMAO! Wow! Like, literally, I think you and I might speak the same language. It's awesome. So that's what sparked the plot. I want to know how you found these characters.
They really just came off the page as being so REAL! Momma, especially, hit really close to home for me. Rose with her new-found love of life hit pretty close too. I kinda wish I'd done what she did. I think a lot of people could learn to grow like Rose did--just pull yourself up from your bootstraps and write a list of wants. *nods* Heck! I might even do that now! Why not?

How did you come up with your characters? Were there some real-life experience in there? I know you were pulling on mine. LOL!

Strangely enough, Rose started as a "laundry list" so to speak. I'd just finished writing an edgy paranormal thriller and the female protagonist was hard and cynical. I loved writing her but I decided that Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes would be a lighter book and more humorous. That meant that Rose had to be less intense that Emma (my previous character.) So I knew right away she worked at the DMV, which was actually the very first piece of the story to fall into place. And I wanted her to have visions because Emma's son in my paranormal thriller, CHOSEN, had visions that turned their lives upside down. I thought it would be fun to take the vision s and make them mundane and annoying. Until Rose sees herself dead anyway. I wanted Rose to be innocent and inexperienced in life, a sharp contrast to Emma, and one way I saw to explain how a twenty-four year old could be innocent and virginal was to have her live her life trying to please her overbearing mother. Once those final pieces clicked into place, Rose sprang to life in my head.


I wrote Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes in thirty days and I could barely keep up with her. The story is written in first person and Rose was eager to share her story.


Violet was easy. I knew Rose had a sister who was older and I thought about my younger brothers and how I would have reacted if my mother had been abusive to them. But Rose depended on Violet so much when they were little that Violet let her mothering carry over into adulthood. Violet loves Rose to death but has trouble letting go.


I wanted Rose and Violet's relationship to be real and not cookie cutter perfect. They both have flaws and people make mistakes under the best of intentions. I'm a firm believer in there's two sides to every story.


Joe, Rose's next door neighbor was harder. He was just as much a mystery to me as he was to Rose until a little over halfway through the first draft. I knew his position when the book ended, but honestly , I discovered his personality as Rose did. It was exciting for both of us. And a little bit frightening for me. LOL


Momma would have been so easy to make two dimensional but I'm also a firm believer that there's usually an underlying reason why people act the way they do. It doesn't make their behavior acceptable, but its easier when you understand why. I don't think Momma's behavior is justifiable but I hope she becomes more sympathetic as the reader learns more about her.

Wooooow! *chuckle* Seriously?! Sweetie, you hit SO close to home and you pulled it all out of your head because you wanted characters who weren't like some of your previous ones? Wow! That's amazing!

I have to ask. Are you very social? You seem to have a very good feel of people, like you look them in the eye, and you're able to glean their life history. I, personally, people watch - though I haven't had time to do that lately! And I like to strike up conversations with complete strangers. But I tend not to allow too many people to get too close.

Yes, I'm pretty social. Stick me in a party and I can usually work the room. ;) I've spent time studying people. How they behave gleaning out WHY they do what they do. Everyone has a reason for everything thing they do. Especially the bad things. It doesn't make what they do right, but it helps to understand why. At least for me.

I also tend to not let people very close. I have no long term, life-long friends. I worry about myself because of this. I'm trying harder at it.

I’m finally letting people in, but it’s a slow process. Luckily, I have a few fantastically great people to do that with. I feel very lucky. But I think that's the reason I choose most of my characters from people I know fairly well. I'm not entirely for sure how I'd draw someone from a hat. Did you have to "story board" your characters? Were there any character maps? Or did you just, literally, sit down and write them?

I can't create characters from people I know but I suspect my characters have lots of pieces of people I know in them. I don't story board or character map or anything. I just sit down and write them. I usually let them brew around in my head for a bit though. Rose was weird in that regard, she just sprang to life. But my YA, TORN about an alternate universe, she lived in my head for a month and every time I tried to get into her head she blocked me out. I felt incredible pain and self-loathing. It wasn't until I just started writing that I found out who she really was. I spend LOTS of time on my first chapters getting to know the characters and the story itself.

I have Group Therapies. *smiles and nods*

You have an animal house. LOL! What kind of structure/stamina/discipline do you need to bring to the table in order to write a book in 30 days? I would say after listening to your tweets and Eisley, that you're pretty good about rules for the kidlings, but you also HAVE to have a pretty tight discipline in order to write anywhere in any kind of noise in order to write when you CAN rather then when you have the INCLING. I'd imagine you could write in a hurricane. LOL!

Summer time is tough and I wrote Twenty-Eight last July. Lots of late nights. I try to write during the day but with the kids around and now with my book out, I usually spend the days on Twitter and Facebook, dealing with emails, trying to keep up with interviews, guest blog posts., etc Although I suck at that, obviously! LOL But I do try to get a couple of hours in the afternoon where I try to make my kids leave me alone. OR if I'm close to the end of a first draft, I usually feel so driven that I live with my laptop and my headphones.


I can't write without my headphones. Even at night after the kids have gone to bed, I usually have my headphones in. LOL If i have my headphones in, I can pretty much write through anything and have. ;)


Thanks so much for these questions and caring so much about my book.

Well, thank you for stopping by and allowing me to pester you with questions. This was a real treat and the interview was fabulous!

If you’d like to learn more about Ms. Swank, you find her at:

@DeniseMSwank
http://www.deniseswank.com/
Facebook:DeniseGroverSwank

Review: Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes by Denise Grover Swank

Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes
by Denise Grover Swank

Genre: Adult Thriller/Chic Lit
*****
For Rose Gardner, working at the DMV on a Friday afternoon is bad even before she sees a vision of herself dead. She’s had plenty of visions, usually boring ones like someone’s toilet’s overflowed, but she’s never seen one of herself before. When her overbearing momma winds up murdered on her sofa instead, two things are certain: There isn't enough hydrogen peroxide in the state of Arkansas to get that stain out, and Rose is the prime suspect.


Rose realizes she’s wasted twenty-four years of living and makes a list on the back of a Wal-Mart receipt: twenty-eight things she wants to accomplish before her vision comes true. She’s well on her way with the help of her next door neighbor Joe, who has no trouble teaching Rose the rules of drinking, but won’t help with number fifteen-- do more with a man. Joe’s new to town, but it doesn’t take a vision for Rose to realize he’s got plenty secrets of his own.
Somebody thinks Rose has something they want and they’ll do anything to get it. Her house is broken into, someone else she knows is murdered, and suddenly, dying a virgin in the Fenton County jail isn’t her biggest worry after all.

This book is fantastic! She had me at the first sentence. I thought it was going to be a little slow. I mean, how interesting can working at the DMV be? Right? *nods* Right. I love the fact that Ms. Swank took the exciting (Rose's visions) and made them mundane ("You're dog's going to get out of the fence."). It gave Rose a more grounded, and well-rounded character that easily leaped off the page. She's naive and her reactions are real, not great and sometimes a little embarrassing, but real. Rose is not the type of character I generally sync with, but Ms. Swank did a superb job of creating a truly 3-dimensional character.

The other characters surrounding Rose were equally well-built without wasting a lot of white-space. It didn't feel as though we paused to meet or chat with anyone, the pace moved so quickly. However, at the same time, I felt as though I had the opportunity to meet and get to know almost all of the characters in this book.

The town is truly a character in and of itself. Fabulous!

Joe was a bit of a mystery. I was a little suspicious of hi at first, and rightly so! He comes off the page as being a little too keen and a little too interested. I was beginning to doubt Ms. Swank, but then he did something and I just knew  she wouldn't let me down. I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but just have faith. Ms. Swank knows what she's doing and did it very well.

The biggest thing for me, though, was that the story struck a little close to home. I came from a background similar to that and I wish I'd done what Rose did; create a list of 28 1/2 wishes and see if I could make them come true. Granted, I did...and one by one, they are coming true. But, boy, wouldn't it be neat if we all did that? Wrote a list of 28 1/2 things we've never done...and then just did them. I think the world would be filled with more than just a few happier people.

Enjoy the read! It's one that once you pick it up, you won't want to put it down.

Review: Born To Be Dragon by Eisley Jacobs

Middle Grade

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup...

This is what Lord Edric wants you to believe. He will do anything in his power to see that humans never come in contact with dragons again.

However, he doesn't plan for Meia, the foster child who dreams of dragons, believing they are real.

Or Deglan, the ten-year-old dragon who bears the ancient mark that threatens everything Lord Edric has worked for. Join these two unlikely friends as they discover the truth behind a legend so extraordinary it will alter each of their lives... forever.

I have so sooooo much praise for this book! First of all, I want you all to know that I wanted to call the book You Taste Good With Ketchup . Oh, yes. It was. Of course, that's because the very first line of the book is by far my favorite!

Ms. Jacobs was able to surprise me with her plot and wow me with her characters. I fell in love with them. By the time our two characters met, I was 100% vested in both of them. They're charming and courageous and exactly the kind of people I'd want as friends.

However, that's where the book goes from feel-good-with-the-pals to just-plain-wild - in a good way! After the two main characters meet, it was all I could do to hold onto my seat, flip the pages and hope to Hades I didn't have to take a potty break because I wasn't putting that book down for anything!

The visuals! OMG! The visuals were simply stunning. I literally stopped, paused, re-read and just breathed the scene in. She captured it all. Sight, smell, taste, feel, hearing. It was all there in effortlessly written scenes waiting for the casual reader to inhale. I felt like I had stepped out of my world and into a whole other realm. One where dragons are real. @_@ And if you're careful, you just might meet one.

Just remember two things:

1. You taste good with ketchup. Be ware.

2. The dragon marks are contagious! Seriously! I'm getting one! On my arm! And I wasn't the first one, either!

Just warning you. Pick it up, and give yourself a few hours because you are NOT going to want to put this book down!

The Royal Gorge

Last weekend, me and my ghost hunting buddies decided to take the weekend and head down to Canon City to search for ghosts at the Prison Museum. There will be a ghost update later when I have pictures. Matt took pics of all of us. I didn't. I'll tell you why later.

But while we were down there, we decided to do some sight seeing.

The sight seeing actually started on the drive down. Ben and I carpooled, thankfully because I doubt seriously my car would get us there, and we were gibber-jabbering, we...kinda missed our exit. Of course, since I was the co-pilot, that made me the navigator, so since were lost, I was to blame. *snorting laugh* So I told him to turn around and we'd catch the exit. We were only a few miles past it, like, I don't know, 12? That sounds reasonable, right?

He decided no.

Nooooooooooo. Seriously?

We were headed down to Pueblo and he said we'd just hook up with Highway 50 down there.

Now, I've lived there before. I know what's down there. It's barren as all get out, so I was not excited about this new development. I looked at the map and began frantically searching for a short cut that would take us somewhere OTHER than Pueblo. And I found it! It was fantastic. We got to see a lot of landscape rocks, tractor dealers, dirt, cacti, and...*licking lips and glancing at ceiling* patches of green grass. Folks, if you've never been to Pueblo, Colorado, this is what it looks like.

Oh, yeah. Not what you picture when you hear the word "Colorado", is it? No. This state is very diverse and there are other places that are far more beautiful. Flat, barren, and the patches of green were around, like, one house in an entire housing development. It was fabulous.

Our real sight seeing was the Royal Gorge, though and the dinosaur museum. Oh, yes, Canon City (the prison city) has a dinosaur museum. LOL! Here's what the beautiful Royal Gorge is like.

Now, you might think that I would take pictures of myself and the wonderful people with me. No. THIS is what I took pictures of...

Can you see a theme here? Yeah. Ben and Matt were making fun of me. Other people were taking pictures of the majesty of the canyon. I was taking pictures of ridiculously old telephone poles. *nods*

But we had a fanTAStically great time!