Understand

Sorry for that delay. I think part of my problem for this post is that it's so difficult to put in words what I'm feeling right now. A lot of you writers know this: that words are so inadequate to get a feeling across. But I'll try, so here goes...

I'm sure I'll never quite grasp the pain Bekah had to go through while battling Lyme. But I think I may be beginning to. I've intensively read most of her posts from the time of her diagnosis to the time of her healing and I've been putting my character into her situation. Now those insane writers out there know this, that characters are a part of your heart. Like your baby. Your word baby. So, putting her through this lets me grasp the pain and the heartache it took for Bekah to get through this. I'm drained from simply outlining this story and I haven't even started writing yet. I mean, I don't even know if I'd survive if I were put in her situation.

This is an amazing story and I just hope I end up telling it right. :)

I would suggest going to her blog, here, and reading her story.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) starts at midnight tonight and I'm going to bed early (hopefully) and getting up at midnight to write like the wind. I'm ready to get all these stinkin' words out on the page. Wish me luck! :)

I'm going to try and figure out how to post a widget on the sidebar to track my progress as I enter it into NaNoWriMo.

Here's to NaNo!

Can't Kill Me

Pain

I’m gonna fight.

Pills for pain; pills to kill what’s killing me

Pain

I’m gonna fight

Inhaling hurts; exhaling hurts

Pain

I’m gonna fight

Can’t walk; can’t run; can’t barely eat

Pain

I’m gonna fight

I’m taking me back.

I’m gonna fight through the pain

Through the tears

Through the lonely

I’m gonna fight

Because it can’t kill me

Pain

Can’t kill me

Tears

Can’t kill me

Lonely

Can’t kill me

Pills

Can’t kill me

No matter how hard they try

Courage through pain

Finding me

Copyrighted to Hannah De

Guest Post from Annabelle Grayson

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Annabelle. She was born out of wedlock and although her parents stayed together for the first few years of her life, she always had a sense of not belonging. Like she wasn't supposed to be on this earth. It didn't help that her parents fought constantly. Over her father's drinking problem. Over the fact that her mother was attending college, even though both of them knew they didn't have the money. Over Annabelle - what school she'd go to when she was old enough, what she should be when she grew up, who would get her when her mother finally made good on her threat and left. And it wasn't as if both of them wanted her. Neither of them wanted the burden of a five-year-old girl as they continued on with their respective lives.

Her mother finally left, leaving Annabelle with an angry, alcoholic father. Although he had never expressed violence, the anger of his girlfriend leaving him pushed him into worse and he began to beat her. Sometimes it would be days between beatings, and other times he would hit her twice in a day. There would be days he hit her so hard she threw up. There would be days she had to call someone to take her to the hospital because he broke something inside her. There would be days when she didn't think she was going to make it.

She began to panic. Every time she thought of him, her heart rate would speed, the room would close and she would begin to cry. Every time he opened the door and slurred her name. Every time someone asked her about her family. She didn't dare tell anyone what was happening. She didn't want to discover what he would do to her if she turned him in.

It was a teacher who gave her the idea. She made an offhand comment of how stories helped some people process life. And Annabelle wondered if that would change the panic attacks she kept having. Her only real example of stories was a collection of old fairy tales her mother had left, so she began to make up her own, making herself the princess, her problems the dragons and her life an enchanted fairy-world where she could invent princes and fairy-godmothers to save her from whatever means she invented.

She made her princess-self the opposite of the names her father called her, names she knew were true. The princess wasn't worthless or ugly or a coward. She was a beautiful, brave girl who could do whatever she put her mind to.

And it worked. She stopped panicking. Her problems were manageable.

She was nine before anything happened. Her rescue came in the form of her new neighbor, a middle-aged man, who was the first one to care about the screaming and shouting he heard from the run-down apartment. He pulled Annabelle aside on her way to school and asked her if everything was okay at home. Annabelle hesitated, remembering the way her father threatened her on the subject of getting help. He would never need to know it was her though. There wasn't any way he could hurt her if he was arrested. So she told the man and whispered for him to please call the police, but to not breathe a word about getting the information from her.

She was pulled out of school early by two police officers and her father was arrested that afternoon. But right before he was shoved into the police car he gave her a look that said that he wasn't done with her and that he would get her back no matter what. The authorities found her mother and Annabelle moved in with her.

So, this part of my story really isn't worth telling, but the author of my story wanted me to write a post concerning my backstory. And don't worry. There's more. And there's hope in the end. It wasn't easy writing this. That's why it's in fairy tale format. It's still the only way I can handle things. Even now, seven years after his arrest. Sorry about that. Feel free to comment.

~Annabelle Greyson

Author's note: All the ideas here are copyrighted to Hannah De

Finished!

Here's to the memories. These are my souvenirs....I close my eyes and go back in time. I can see you smiling. You're so alive....Nothing lasts forever.     ~Souvenirs by: Switchfoot

 I guess I probably should let you know that I've finished Dawn. This book marked a couple of milestones in my author journey.

1. I officially went insane on this book and talked to the characters. They haunted me and ignored me and got mad at me and talked to me. 
2. At 254 pages and 68,264 words, it's the longest book I've ever written by more than two times. 

My characters came alive and I love them to death. I almost cried killing Chris in the beginning and as much as I enjoyed writing this story, I was tortured along with Ray and Aura. I'm sorry, both of you. I love you, if that helps anything. And I'll miss you. 

View my synopsis here. 

If you're interested in reading it, comment and I'll send it to you. I need help editing. Major help. :) 

Farther along we'll know all about it. Farther along we'll understand why....We'll understand this all by and by.... I wondered why the good man cried, the bad man thrived.      ~ Farther Along by: Josh Garrels

Fear

Every character should have something they fear. Something that, no matter how brave they are, will send them running. I saw an excellent example of this in a TV show that my sisters were watching. It was a Little House on the Prairie episode called Blind Journey, and normally I don't like Little House on the Prairie, but this one expertly showed fear with a legitimate root.

Adam Something-or-Other is married to Mary Ingalls and both are blind. They teach at a school for blind children and teach them how to live life without sight. They're moving the school to a different location and they know they must cross a river in order to get there. They're camping close to the river (I think) and Mary is curled up next to Adam, and even though she's blind, she knows something's wrong. "You're shaking," she observes. He assures her that it's nothing and they go to sleep. They get to the river and the ferry doesn't arrive, so they have to ride a zipline-type thing across the river, one-by-one. Adam is the last to go over and he's curled in a ball and he won't let go of the rope that connects him to the wagon. He shouts at the man who tries to get him across, "I won't go and you can't make me!"

Later, when they've finally got him across, he's laying next to Mary again. He hasn't said anything since the incident. He's breathing heavily and shaking and Mary tells him, "We're okay. Everyone is safe and sound." He doesn't answer for a second, and finally he whispers, "I'm a coward." He tells her a story of when he was a little boy and his father took him fishing. He hopped around on the rocks, without a care in the world. Then he tripped and hit his head. When he woke up again, he was in a hospital and he couldn't see. Since then he'd always been afraid of water. "I acted like a coward, Mary," he says again, sobbing now. 

She comforts him saying, "After what you've been through, you have every right to cry."

Every character must have a fear, and, if possible, a legitimate root to that fear. We relate better to a person who doesn't have everything together and is sometimes afraid, and even more so, when we can understand their fear. Hope this got your creative juices flowing. Do you know of other stories that pull this off well?  

Pain and Suffering

I've found that I can discover key things about my characters through the way they handle pain. Now this may seem completely obvious, but I'm going to give you an example anyway, between my main character, Aura, and her younger brother Ray.
When the story starts, Aura's boyfriend, Chris, dies in a car crash. Ray was driving the car at the time it crashed, so he feels responsibility. So each of them have sufficient suffering that I put them through. *evil writer cackle* They each handled their pain in different ways.

Aura yelled at God, got another job, refused to think about Chris and basically shunned anything that reminded her of her pain.
Ray started doing drugs and did anything in his power to make his pain go away and got angry and defensive when anyone told him he shouldn't be doing what he is.

So, here's what I learned through observing these things:
Aura: 

1. She's a person who believes on just pushing through.
2. She's a person who wants to blame someone for her pain.
3. She believes that forgetting and ignoring what hurts her is the solution to her problem 

Ray: 

1. He's a problem solver.
2. He doesn't like being told what to do.
3. He believes that he doesn't need help and that he can do everything on his own. 

I just thought this was interesting. I figured this out after I'd written half the story and it helps shape their character. Try it!

And, one more thing: I'm ecstatic! I found a song that perfectly sums up the lie Ray believes. It does have a lot of screaming in it, so if you don't like that, don't listen to it. It's called Damage by Red.

Now the damage is done. I can't escape, can't run, can't undo what I've done. All I do is damage...It's destroying me...I'm sick of the misery...I am human debris....I'm a catastrophe. Take this away. It was just a mistake. Save me.