Melanie Nilles

Read a final chapter for Dragon Prophecy, exclusively online!  The lost chapter is available now as a PDF file for download here.  (Note: this chapter has not gone through any editing.)

For those who felt Dragon Prophecy cut off too suddenly, I will make available a chapter in PDF format that I debated putting either at the end of DP or the beginning of Dragon Legends.  I decided to leave it off of DP, but I will make it available here for download (but it will be unedited).  Look for it on Sunday!

And next month check back for the free fantasy ebook A Turn of Curses, the updated version of the novella that earned Honorable Mention in the Writers of the Future Contest!

My novella, A Turn of Curses, was named a honorable mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest earlier this year.  Because of its length–17,000 words–I’ve had trouble finding a short-fiction market who will accept it.  The options are limited and those where it would fit best are closed until further notice.

A story does no good sitting on a hard drive not being read and enjoyed.  And in these tough economic times, many people may pass up reading to save money.  For those out there who want some escapism but don’t want to pay a lot, I will make this story available as a free ebook in the near future.  I hope to have it ready by the end of this month, but there is still some editing and preparation work to finish before it’s ready to go public.  And I have to wait for replies from a couple markets where it’s been submitted or queried.

Check back for updates!

Something is wrong.  We don’t always know what it is right away, but there’s always a reason for why the creativity trickles to a halt.  It’s a sign that every writer should be aware of.  It means our unconscious is saying something is wrong.  The story isn’t mean to be written that way or the story is veering in a direction it’s not meant to go.

In writing, I inevitably encounter this.  It’s not writer’s block.  It’s just something my unconscious is trying to work out, but it hasn’t come to clarity in my conscious mind yet.  That’s when I have to put a story aside and wait while my unconscious stews on it, figures things out and pokes into my consciousness with an “Aha!” moment.

Aha!  I was slowing down and felt something was wrong with my writing on the second Starfire Angels book.  I let it go, with very little writing for a couple weeks, other than a short story that took three days to complete.  Sure, I tried working on SA book 2. I even went back and tried some editing.  Nothing was right.  It still wasn’t helping.

Then it came to me.  My hero had been hammering to be heard, even for the possibility of telling the first story, which didn’t work (and I didn’t really want to go back and rewrite it again).  But for this second story–Bingo!  We struck gold.  I restarted the story from the hero’s POV, eliminating most of the heroine’s POV, and the writing took off again.  I am now completely rewriting the second story from the hero’s POV.  It won’t be all him, though.  Starfire Angels has some multiple POVs where needed, but is mostly told from the heroine’s POV.  This one will be mostly the hero’s POV but will also have some other POVs, including the heroine, where they’re needed.  I don’t do well sticking to one POV throughout an entire story.  It just comes out bland.  I need the spice of a couple POVs with the MC telling most of the story.

The lesson here is that writing requires patience and careful listening to our inner thoughts.  I have a lot to tell from the hero’s POV in this part of the story and his voice has always been strong and mature.  I’m listening to him now and giving him the chance to tell his side in this segment.  The magic is back for me and the story will be stronger.

I can be quite self-deprecating when it comes to my writing.  A lot of that comes from having a bit of a perfectionist within me.  I say a bit, because, while I always strive for perfection, I know it is an unattainable goal.  It’s something that would be awesome to achieve, but that is also impossible.  I know that.  Nevertheless, I always see room for improvement, in anything I do.

Maybe that comes from working with horses, where one is always striving to improve their riding, to always improve the horse’s training.  Nothing is perfect all the time.  Sometimes you’re off as a rider, or the horse is having a bad day.  The goal is always to reach perfection, but because we’re both living creatures, neither the horse nor the rider is going to be at their best all the time.  But those days where it happens are magical!

The same comes with writing.  The days that I feel like everything is falling together are magical beyond explanation.  Later the magic disappears, but for that time that the connection to a story or character is there, that magic is real.  There can’t possibly be any room for improvement.  Right?

Wrong.  Perfection is an illusion.  Nothing in writing is perfect, the same way nothing in life is perfect.  But there is a balance between story and style with room to give.  There’s a range that’s acceptable.  Finding it can be difficult.  What am I talking about?  I’m babbling, but there is a point to it.

I’m talking about how we start out writing something and feel like it can’t possibly have problems, how it should be on a pedestal worshipped by readers everywhere.  HAH!  I’ve found that the more I think a project is perfect, the more flaws it actually has.  It’s a matter of taking off the rose-colored glasses.  The problem with me now, after so many years of being unpublished is that I have a very low view of all my writing.  I’m filled with self-doubts, because I seem to have never found that acceptable range where someone could overlook any flaws in my story and give me a chance.  After all, a story can always be edited.

It’s frustrating.  It’s maddening!  What will spark the right publisher’s interest to take a chance on me and my writing?  How perfect does it have to be?  I hate chasing perfection, because it doesn’t exist.  It’s a farce.  I just want to write interesting stories that people want to read, and my beta readers have all enjoyed what I write.  All stories get edited by publishers.  I’m willing to tear mine apart, but I need that chance.

I guess I’m just feeling a bit down, and this is why.  It’s making writing difficult, but not impossible.  I want you, readers, to enjoy my stories, but I also want them to be the best they can be.  This is why I’ve become more selective about where I submit/query.

The level of rejections are disheartening.  Some days I wonder why I continue trying.  I also feel like my stories must be crap if no one wants them and start doubting myself.  It’s a vicious cycle that I hope to stop before it takes me to nothing.

What keeps me going?  What keeps my querying and submitting?  I don’t know.  I guess it’s the desire to achieve that goal.  I’m a very goal-driven person.  But it’s something more.  I think it’s a need for affirmation that all the work I’ve done is worthwhile, for something more than me personally.

I don’t know what’s going on, but for some reason, I’m receiving errors for comments on this blog.  I don’t know who to contact, since I’m with Yahoo Small Business, but the blog is through Wordpress.  If anyone has an answer, please email me at melanie_nilles at yahoo dot com.  otherwise, I’ll keep searching.

btw, the error message at the top of my dashboard pages is this:

It’s hard to describe what I’m doing without giving anything away.  I’ve gone back and forth on a couple of novel ideas, jumped to a 9K short story that I churned out in 72 hours (not straight working, but in two sessions a day–the kids’ nap time and before I go to bed–I’d get 1K+ words written), and now have gone back to writing a follow up to Starfire Angels.  Ironically, the title of the original story, Dark Angel, fits this one.  Weird, I know.  I wrote DA, rewrote it and retitled it SA, and now the second for the series will be DA.  But it fits.

Anyway, I’ll keep at this until I burn out and need a change, but since I have the general synopsis for this completed, writing is easy.  I don’t have every scene outlined, but I have the general flow of the story, including the ending, planned out.  Now it’s just a matter of detailing those scenes and reaching the end.

In the meantime, I continue to query and submit.  I could plan out five our six books for this angels series and put out two a year if someone would publish them.  There’s something about it that hooks me.  And I think I know what, or who, that is.  He’s not sexy or perfect, but there’s something about the quiet guys with the big hearts that I’m attracted to.  Maybe it’s because my husband is like that, or at least I like to think he is

I can’t leave this world yet.  I want to work with these characters and further flesh out the world.  Each story I see has its own individual plot, but they’ll build into an overarching plotline that will culminate in a battle for two worlds in the last book, our modern Earth being one of them.  I’m terrible that way.  I always–even with my shorts and novellas–see the potential for much larger, grander epic stories.  It’s difficult for me to keep it simple.  I’m even surprised that I’ve written two stories in the last year that aren’t novel length.  *gasp*  But one of them was an honorable mention in the Writers of the Future Contest, so I must have done something right.  (Fingers crossed that the current one meets at least that criteria, once I polish it up and send it in, but it’s my first foray into first person POV, so I’m not expecting much.)

So far, that’s where I’m at.  Once I find a sense of satisfaction with completing my angels series, I’ll find something new to work on.  And, who knows, I’ve had tendencies in the past to need a change and jump to another project for a while.  It could happen sooner, but my angels will always be close to my heart, especially my dark angel.

We’ve been making excellent progress these last 6 or 7 weeks since I started riding about four days a week with the saddle.  All this time we’ve been walking.  Here’s the basic rundown of his achievements so far:

• Most stops are soft on the bit, not bracing, responding to my seat and legs first (Yay!)
• Backs are light and soft with Beau tucking his nose with a moderate feel of the reins (perfection will be hardly any touch at all, but he’s doing great so far with this)
• We have separate controls for shoulders and hindquarters.  Quarter turns are good if I want the forequarters to step around (almost crossing over in front) or the hindquarters (I can feel him cross over when he steps).  This also applies to keeping him straight along the arena wall (we’ve only worked inside so far to avoid major distractions).
• A little leg yield with his nose to the wall.  He’s better one direction than the other, but this is advanced stuff, so I don’t expect a lot right now.
• Softening on the bit with a light touch, giving his poll and jaw, the bracing all but eliminated except when something going on outside makes him nervous.

Tonight with all those goals met to my satisfaction, we attempted a trot.  It wasn’t easy.  In fact, I was a bit tense with expectations that he would take off or buck.  Nope.  He was high-headed and nervous at first, when I was tense.  After that, I gained confidence, but had a hard time getting him to trot again.  Eventually I did and I had to force myself to not pick up the reins immediately.  He was so sensitive to it.  We had a few strides each time and he started relaxing.  But, boy, is he springy!  I’m used to my old mare who had the smoothest trot at any speed.  Beau is springy.  Not jarring, but uphill springy.  I have to relearn how to trot with him, just as I had to learn to accept his huge walk.  His gaits aren’t what I’m used to.

I’m not pushing hard, but I do want to get done what I can before December.  Dec-Feb are usually so darn cold here that not even the heated barn and arena tempt me to go out much.  Beau is outside in the cold, so I still have to bundle up and face the biting, cold north winds that blow through.  I figure I’ll cut back then anyway, because we often have weather that I don’t like to drive in.  It’ll be a natural break.  When we get going regularly again around the end of Feb/beginning of March, he’ll be ahead as a three year old and we can start focusing on getting ready for a summer show season.  I’m hoping to show in the two Bismarck area DDE shows (a Sat-Sun back-to-back double show) and whatever schooling shows our local BER hosts (usually one or two a year).  Since we’d just be starting Intro level dressage and in-hand, plus he’ll only be three, I won’t be doing a lot of showing, but I will try to make the shows here in town.  In a couple more years, I’ll start going to the SD shows and maybe the Fargo/western MN shows.  (Depends on what I can afford, but at least I can dream.)

Beau’s doing very well over all.  He’s smart but not as quick as the Half-Arabian I trained a few years ago.  But I like that he’s quiet and easy-going, and not flighty.  He’s also developing a whoa button now.  The go was always there.  The best part is that he’s learned to stand while I tighten the girth (that’s been a bit of a challenge), but he really stands nice when I get off and untack.  By the time we’re done, usually the arena is empty and I can turn him loose to roll if he wants.  He knows what to expect and anticipates it with more patience than before we start…silly boy

Dmoonfire at LiveJournal posted his review of Dragon Prophecy.  Read it here.

He’s in-depth and fairly well-matched to what I was aware of with this first book.  Overall, a positive review and fair on the flaws.  I’m glad he liked it, but even after the opportunity to speak with D at GenCon, I was afraid to read what he would post.  I admit that I friended him on LJ, but didn’t know him that well before he agreed to read DP.  (I also warned him that I felt uncomfortable with the beginning of it and wished I had rewritten it before publication.)  D is too nice, but very detailed in his analysis.

So, go ahead and check it out!

Anyone old enough to remember this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynjIoymWHvU 

On our road trip to GenCon, we drove past Menomanee, WI, and DH and I were singing this.  It’s not quite the same, but close enough.  That’s the best part of road trips.  Sure, they’re long, but you find things to entertain you.

Enjoy!