I've Just Gotta Ask...

If you haven't signed up for the Gearin' Up to Get an Agent Blogfest, now's your time!

First things first...HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND!  I hope while we are all stuffing our face with burgers and potato salad (so not on my Weight Watchers plan) that we will take the time to remember our troops who have fallen and who still stand as well.  I'm sure we all know at least one and they deserve some extra special love today.

Now onto my question.  Maybe I should make this a regular occurrence because  my readers gave me some killer advice last time:)

So...does your current emotion alter the way your characters feel during writing?  I just finished reading Divergence by Veronica Roth and when I went to writing after that, all I wanted to do was make my protag fall in love with some super sultry dude.  Not that that is what Divergence is about in any way, but the chemistry in the book had my stomach doing flips more than once...sigh

If your emotions take over you when writing, is it a good thing or a bad thing?  And if it is a bad thing, what do you do to get out of your emotion and tap back into your characters?

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In blogfest news, the sign up numbers keep on climbing and I am thrilled because the more we get, the more fun it will be.  Wednesday I will be posting about the specific deets so come on back and check it out!

Until then...

Keep writing.  Keep learning.

I've Just Gotta Ask

When is the right time to put down a WIP for a new idea?

I finished my first ms last year.  It took me over two years to write because I got in my own way, comparing myself to other writers, not thinking I was good enough.  Then there was the guilt of doing something so time consuming without pay, the editing pains, pure laziness...and the list goes on.

Once I FINALLY finished, edited it three times, got it critiqued, and read by a beta, I realized it was crap.  It wasn't that is couldn't be decent...it just wasn't.

I ended up changing so much I decided to just start from scratch.  I am half-way through and am now at a stand still.  My characters don't want to talk to me, and maybe it is because their mad I've been cheating on them.

Here's the thing...for the last two years, I have had an idea simmering in my brain and this past weekend it wouldn't shut its pie hole so I plotted the story out all the way to the crisis point.  I am loving it and thinking about putting the other ms on the back-burner. 

So let me ask you, is it right to put an ms away that you have poured three years of your life into, for another?