Meet my Love Interests (and by that I mean my characters' love interests)

I wrote a little post the other day about the main characters in my WIPs, and I thought today that I’d introduce their other halves. Let’s just start, shall we? Oh, and I say ‘love interest’ because who knows if these people get together? (I honestly don’t know yet for anyone but Cora/Nate).

Usually just referred to as ‘Nate’. This guy is my favourite. He is just gorgeous and I love him more than anything in the world. Well, the only thing I love more is him and Coralie together. Did I mention he was Coralie’s boyfriend? He’s Coralie’s boyfriend. He’s sweet, and caring, and complex and he would go to the end of the Earth for Coralie. He’s just the cutest. The few friends that have read this novel have all joined the Nate fanclub…it’s on that level.

I’m just going in the same order as that other post now. So, Evan is Nellie’s love interest. He’s an interesting one. He’s a lot of things, all very contradictory. He’s both lovely and mysterious, too trusting and untrustworthy, controlled and independent, light and dark, right and wrong. He and Nellie are a complicated at the best of times.

Speaking of complicated, meet Arden’s love interest, Mima. So Arden is a detective, Mima is the victim of a crime. There’s something there, it’s all very confusing and illegal. I think I know what’s going to happen here, but spoilers.

And the worst love interest on this list goes to…LOGAN. Yep, Logan is a dickhead. Granted, Megan kind of totally deserves him. He’s manipulative like her, and incredibly messed up. He’s kind of fun to write/plan, but also terrifying.

This guy. Oh, how does one describe Mattie? He’s Vivian’s love interest and he’s very interesting. (See what I did there? I didn’t until I read back over this) His high school girlfriend disappeared one day and he’s still deeply affected by that. He’s also kind of sweet and silly which is great fun to write.

There you go. My babies’ babies, who I also refer to as my babies. I just really like being patronising to my characters… If they were real people, they’d honestly hate me for all the shit I put them through. Anyway, yep, there they are. Let me know which you’d date.

Writing Update #2

It's time for another writing update! I think this is pretty self-explanatory, but if you want to see the first update then just click here.

Some exciting things have happened since that update. I'm sure most of you know that Camp NaNoWriMo has officially started, and we'll be talking about how I'm going with that in a little bit but first, let's talk about the pre-Camp writing that went on.

I planned out my entire storyline for my Rebecca retelling, which is what I'm writing for Camp. I actually did this the day after that original post went up in which I said I was in the beginning stages of planning. I also did a chapter-by-chapter, scene-by-scene outline. As you can tell, I'm definitely a 'planner' rather than a 'pantser'. I'm really excited by where it's going at the moment. I even wrote the first 200 words, mainly because I really struggle with starting things and I wanted something to spring off for Camp.

I've also been writing a few poems, which isn't something I've ever tried out before but am really enjoying. I don't know whether I'll ever share these. At the moment, they're really just something for me to try out.

Most excitingly though, I wrote another five chapters—7,000 words of my main WIP, Tied Together. I haven't really been writing this one in the last few weeks because I've been stuck, so I was incredibly happy to finally push past that and get more written. This brings up my total word count to 53,000 which is just great!

The truth is...I haven't written anything for Camp NaNoWriMo so far. I've been in Barcelona this whole week visiting my cousin so I've been exploring the city rather than sticking myself in a very hot room and writing. I know I'll write once I'm back in the UK so I'm not really worried.

Meet my Main Characters

I've been meaning to write this post for ages. A post just focusing on my protagonists, on all of my main characters. I've written it three or four times by now, but just never posted it so I thought with Camp NaNoWriMo just around the corner, this would be the perfect time. So without further ado...my babies.

If you’ve read any of my previous posts about my writing then you probably know of Coralie. She’s my number one love, my little baby, my fave etc etc. For those of you who don’t know, Coralie is 19 when the story begins but she’s about 21-22 by the end of her story. She one of the nicer protagonist I’ve got at the moment. We’re quite similar in some ones—she’s a reader, she’s close with her family, those sorts of things but she’s much more confident than I am and much more social. She’s sort of the person I wish I could be.

Nellie is another part of me—she’s the quiet aspect of my personality. She’s 18 when her story starts but by the end she’s about 22 as well. She’s not quite as nice as Coralie, she’s a little more paranoid, untrusting but that has a lot to do with the world she lives in. She’s a lot of fun to write because she’s a lot darker than Coralie ever gets to be, and she suffers a lot more.

Arden is extra special, because as you can see he’s my only male protagonist. He’s also a bit older than the others at 23-24, he’s also half-Korean. He works in the 6^th precinct in New York City, and he’s relatively new at his job. He worked his ass off to get to where he is, and so he’s very determined to prove himself. He hasn’t really worked out that gap between work and home—he’s a complete workaholic. I haven’t really worked out the kinks in the novel yet, so Arden is sort of half-formed at the moment.

Megan is sort of an idea rather than a person at the moment. I’ve only written about 2,000 words of her story but she’s so incredibly unlike me. She’s manipulative, and bitter, and cold and very ambitious (which is a little more like me). She’s kind of difficult to write in that aspect. Also, I haven’t entirely worked out her motivation yet but I’m not in a big rush to write her story at the moment.

Vivian is my newest protagonist, so new in fact that she hasn’t actually appeared on here yet. Like Arden, she’s still sort of half-formed. She’s about 21 and she was in her third and final year in her undergraduate nursing course but she had to take the year off to return home to look after her sick grandmother. Like I said, she’s still coming together.

So those are the protagonists I currently have. In this post, I did talk about a few other WIP ideas I have but those are just that at the moment, ideas. There isn’t really any plot or character to them yet, but I’ll update you on them as they grow.

I was thinking about doing a post on the love interests I’ve created—would anyone be interested in that?

Writing Update #1

All of my posts lately have been about authors so I thought it was time to mix it up a little bit. Today I’m going to be updating you all on my writing. I’m going to make this into a fortnightly thing where I tell you how much I’ve written lately, what I’ve been writing and maybe even share a few snippets.

I wrote a post last month about all the WIPs I have, and so these posts will basically update you all on those and some other things too.

Firstly, my main novel—Tied Together. I’m kind of stuck in this weird place with this one. I love it, but as I write more and more it gets harder and harder to push through. This is set in Denmark, and I am moving there very soon so I’m hoping it’ll get easier once I’m there. I’ve written only 200 or 300 words this week.

Secondly, we have the one that was previously titled ‘Nellie’. I think I’ve decided on a proper title—The Bright One, which is what the name Nellie means. I’ve written about 7,000 words of this now and I’m really happy with where it’s going. I really want to make it to 10,000 by the end of the month.

I haven’t read anything for This Bitter Dark, Arden, my 1940’s novel or my Celtic retelling. I haven’t really thought about any of them except for Arden, which I’m hoping to plan out with the hope of writing it in November for NaNoWriMo. That’s the plan for now but it might change.

Finally, I’ve actually started planning yet another WIP. Obviously I needed one, because I just don’t have enough. This one is a modern day Young Adult/New Adult retelling of Rebecca, which is one of my absolute favourite books. I’m currently staying in Cornwall which is where the original and my version is set so it’s been good. I’m only in the very early stages of planning, but I’m hoping to write it next month for Camp NaNoWriMo.

So that’s what’s been happening with my writing lately. Since next month is Camp NaNoWriMo, I’ll be doing lots more writing updates but usually these will be fortnightly things.

A Writing Snippet

So in this post the other day I talked about my current WIPs, and then I was talking to the very lovely Val about my writing and she suggested I share some snippets of my writing here. I sent her this snippet and she liked it, so I thought I'd share it with all of you too.

I'm a little nervous because I've never really shared my writing on here before, and Val was the first person to read any of this novel and just... tell me what you think. I'm going to go hide under some blankets for a while.

It was cold the next time her eyes fluttered open. Colder than it had ever been in the sewers. 

Was she still in the sewers? Her eyes wouldn’t focus long enough for her to work out the answer. 

She couldn’t feel anything either, and there was no noise to signify where she might be. The only sense she had control of was her nose, and it smelt too earthy to the be the sewers. It smelt like dirt, and mud, and grass — not really a confidence inspiring scent.

Wherever she was at least felt better than a sewer, there was something soft underneath her that she appreciated a lot more after weeks of sleeping on concrete. 

Then it hit her. 

No. 

She wasn’t supposed to be here. She tried to move her arms but they were too heavy to lift, the jagged lines of her hand ached painfully. She tried her legs but something held them down. She couldn’t even lift her head to see. She needed to get out. Now, before they came back. 

She tried to turn onto her side, but that only hurt her more. Her ragged breathing wasn’t helping either. Deep down, she knew she needed to calm down — panicking like this wasn’t doing her any favours, but she couldn’t convince herself to stop. 

“What is she doing?” A faraway voice called. It sounded manly — Evan? No. Evan wouldn’t be there after he helped her escape, either he was hidden away himself or he was dead. Somehow the latter was more likely. 

“She’s going into shock,” Another voice replied, an unfamiliar voice. Whoever it was, they were muttering to themselves right by her ear, “Nellie, I need you to stay calm.” There was a flash of blonde hair above her.

“Madalina?” She whispered, though she knew her friend was well and truly dead. The stab of pain that caused her made her want to believe her friend was still alive, just for that element of hope. 

My Three Hundred and One WIPs (or close enough!)

Last week, I was lucky enough to be part of a Google Hangout with the incredibly lovely Millicent, Mandi and Kathleen. The four of us plus a few others are part of creative group that works to support and motivate one another, and the Hangout was helping us set that up. There will be some exciting stuff happening with this later on that I can’t wait to share with you all.

Anyway, the Hangout wasn’t all business. We had some laughs about things, and eventually we started talking about the books we were writing. So yes, I know some sneaky facts about Millicent’s upcoming book. Millie bought up this great point about sharing creative work and how there’s always that fear of plagiarism nowadays. Millie’s comment started me thinking…

I don’t share a lot about my novels, not because I’m overly worried about someone plagiarising them but more because I’m not entirely sure as to where most of them are going. I thought I would talk about that in this post today, just in case any of you are in the same position or if you have any tips.

Firstly, my main novel, the one I have talked about on here is Tied Together. My protagonist, Coralie, has been with me since I was eleven or twelve (I’m almost twenty) so this story has been floating around for a while. I’m currently 51,050 words into this — it’s kind of all over the place. I have the first fifteen chapters written in full and then after that I have some random scenes written here and there. I’ve been holding back on this a bit because the story is set in Denmark and I know I’ll be able to write it even better when I’m living there. I am incredibly good at pinning things about this though!

Secondly, I have the novel affectionately titled, Nellie, for the main character. This will eventually be a dystopian/alternate reality trilogy. It’s kind of a hard plot to describe, but it’s set in Budapest (yes, I have a thing for Europe). Nellie is a seriously kickass character and it’s a lot darker than Tied Together is. I’ve written about 3,000 of this so far and again, my Pinterest is boss.

I also have 2,000 words of a dark psychological thriller called This Bitter Dark. This one is set in England and tells the story of a girl an incredibly selective boarding school and a dark, manipulative relationship between a girl named Megan and a boy named Logan. I don’t know a lot about this yet, but I’ve been working on the Pinterest thing.

Another one I’ve got is currently called Arden, because I like to name things after my main character until I come up with a title. This is a crime/mystery novel set in New York that I started for NaNo a few years ago. At the time, Chami really liked it despite the fact I only wrote about 2,000 words of this too. This one isn’t really YA, but I don’t know that I could label it Adult or New Adult (the characters are in that age group) either… I don’t really know enough about it yet. Now that I've thought about it, I'm seriously considering making this New Adult.

I’ve got another two that don’t even have plots yet, but they Pinterest boards! Firstly, I have one that’s just been labelled as ‘1940s novel’. I know the very basics of this — Melbourne, 1940s, Polish immigrant, orphanage, love story. I couldn’t tell you how those elements fit together yet. The other one is actually based on a song, and it’s just called ‘Celtic Retelling’ at the moment but it’s based on Rhiannon by Fleetwood Mac (my dad’s favourite band and a new favourite of mine). I love Wales so I feel like this is necessary… eventually.

So that’s what I’ve got at the moment. I’ve been terrible with writing recently but I’ve been slowly getting back into it. Anyway, I’d like to know any thoughts or opinions you might have or if you’d like to be critique or accountability partners (I seriously need these).

Tell me about your writing below!