Songs to Enjoy

Today I would like to highlight some instrumental songs I enjoy!

Most are from soundtracks, so you're going to notice a lot of Hans Zimmer in this list, as I have a fangirl crush on just about every soundtrack this guy's done (Hans Zimmer has done the soundtrack for lots of movies, some of which you may recognize: The Da Vinci Code, The Dark Knight, Inception, Kung Fu Panda, and the entire Pirates of the Caribbean series).

Feel free to pop into the comments section and suggest other awesome songs!

I Prefer to Think of Myself as Pre-Published

I had a wonderful holiday, and I hope everyone else did as well. The only thing that makes me slightly sad is Christmas just feels...different now that I am an adult.

Does anyone else know what I am talking about?

When I was younger, Christmas seemed like a magical time. I know "magical time" sounds like a cliche, but it really truly did. There was something special about waking up on Christmas morning to find presents underneath the tree. In my family, Mom and Dad started a "tradition" of barricading the living room off with a ribbon so we would stay out of the presents before they woke up. For some reason this worked, even though we could easily crawl under the ribbon. Each year we took turns cutting the ribbon.
 
We also open presents one at a time. We watch what the rest of the family got for Christmas. It's maddening, but fun, and dragged out the "opening the presents" time. 

One year we convinced our parents to let us just tear into the presents, like most of our friends do. Christmas was a bust that year, I am sorry to report. It was over in like, three seconds. There was a small cloud of wrapping paper and tinsel, and we didn't see the dog for a long time. And when it was over, we felt somewhat disappointed. The presents were great, but now Christmas was over. 

We never opened presents like that again, not even now as adults.

I think the difference is now as an adult, I can mostly buy what I want. I have this thing called a job that lets me buy stuff after I am done doing boring things with my money like pay bills. As a child, twenty dollars is a lot of money. Christmas is like...well, Christmas. You get all kinds of stuff. Granted, I do received gifts that I wouldn't have bought myself but still. 


Now, as an old fogey, I like watching people open presents from me. I like to see how excited they are, and if I guessed correctly. I suspect there will be even more excitement when I have children and I can watch them open their presents. 


But I don't mean to complain. Christmas was great, and I got all sorts of stuff. My Mom even bought me these two awesome shirts from Cafe Press. I really like this writing shirt, and think I might have to buy myself a birthday present.


Oh what's that you say? Yes, in a week it will be my birthday. My poor, poor family doesn't get a holiday/special occasion break until February. November is Thanksgiving, a week before Christmas is my little brother's birthday, a week after Christmas is my twin brother's and I's birthday, and at the end of January is my sister in law and my dad's birthday. Also, my best friend's birthday. So yeah. That's a lot of birthdays.

Christmas fell on a Saturday this year, so I had it off, and Sunday is my normal day off, so it was pretty nice to have two days off in a row. I did some cooking, and watched Batman Begins and the Dark Knight yesterday with my husband. I tried a new recipe, and it turned out very tasty.  It's called Bigos, or Hunter's Stew in English, and is meat stewed with sauerkraut and cabbage, mushrooms, and onions. There's tons of different recipes for it, and I look forward to tweaking it to our tastes. The best part? It tastes even better the next day.


I used this recipe, but I didn't add the peppercorns or allspice berries, because I loathe peppercorn and couldn't find any allspice berries. I also added onions, because well, you can never have too many onions. My coworkers enjoyed it, and since one of them is from Poland, where this dish originates, I considered it a success. 


I also worked on my book yesterday. I am really enjoying working at this pace. I had a lot of time at work to think about what's going to happen next, and as soon as I finish this blog post, I will be off to Bookland. I still feel like I am groping around in the dark, but after two false starts I finally feel like I am on the right path. Writing is fun again, which has been absent lately, and I am glad to find my groove again. 


In short, life is spectacular. 


How did everyone's holidays go? Any amazing gifts? Discoveries?


P.S. It snowed on Christmas! At six o'clock at night, but still! I made a tiny snowman! You can still see the grass through the snow, but still. There was real snow!

Bad Boys (Whatcha Gonna Do When They Come For You)

In case no one caught my pop culture reference in the title, I give you the Cops Theme Song (and now that song is stuck in your head. You're welcome.)

Today I would like to talk about a subject near and dear to my heart: bad boys.

As you wish.

Yes, I know. Guys seems to think all girls want are bad boys, and nice guys finish last and all that. But let's table the real life discussion in favor of fiction. Jessica Page Morrell has an awesome book that talks about the different flavors of antiheroes called Bullies, Bastards, and Bitches that you might consider picking up if you're really into antiheroes like I am. 

So here we go. The word(s) of the day is the moral spectrum. As writers, we might not think about our character in terms of their moral spectrum and where they might fall on it, but it's usually something we at least have a feel for. If you ask a writer if his character would kick puppies or steal money if he thought he would get away with it, they can usually come up with an answer of what each character would do. But usually in a book you have the main character and all the secondary characters existing within the same spot on the moral spectrum.


I think it's sad that more writers don't play around with their character's morals. It's a great way to provide contrast and conflict between your characters. Usually the main character's morals only vary slightly from what the writer themselves would and wouldn't do. So the characters all seem to fall in that gray area between willing to kill to protect themselves, but not willing to kick puppies and push little old ladies into the street.

Whether or not you spell it out on paper or not, you might consider writing a character that acts wildly outside of your personal code of ethics.

Bad boys don't exist just so rabid fangirls can write uncomfortable fan fiction about them (lampshaded in this funny comic). They can really add some spice to your book without taking the entire plot over. They come in two main varieties: Bad boys and Dark Knights.

Bad Boys: These are the sexy lone wolf-types. They are normally rebellious pleasure seekers who enjoys breaking the law more than a regular hero. They are almost always charismatic, and the sort of guy your mother doesn't want you to bring home. They are normally slightly mysterious, with a vague and shady past. They break too many rules and flout tradition too much to be considered regular heroes. Within each category you also have a range. So Han Solo comes to mind, at the very top of the Bad Boy moral spectrum, while most of Vin Diesel's characters are at the very low end of this spectrum.

Dark Heroes: These guys are dark and brooding. They have a core of rage and pain, and almost always have a tragic past.They often have their own moral code, that is usually not in line with society's current moral standards. They are often rude and prickly to the main characters, and are the lowest on the moral continuum. Which means if they take one more step down, they become villains. Batman is the titular example. Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice fits this nicely, and in my opinion, if John McClane from the Die Hard movies was just a little less scrupulous with his bullets and explosives, he would descend into Dark Knight status. And if Prince Nuada from Hellboy II didn't want to kill all humans, he would be considered a Dark Knight. At the moment he's earned Tragic Villain status, so someone should tell his PR department to step up. 


Of course, these are generalizations, and there are no hard and fast rules. There's a lot of overlap, and like any category there are ways to break it. You don't want to make cardboard character regardless of where they fall on the moral spectrum. Bad Boys are a great way to shake up your plot and characters a bit, and a nice way to experiment with your writing. 

Oh, and for those of you wondering why I only talked about the guys, bad girls fall into different categories, because certain behavior is deemed more acceptable by society from a guy (i.e. sleeping around) than it is from a girl. So woman act in a different manner in order to gain "bad girl" status.

I have a secondary character in my WiP and he's definitely sitting in the Dark Knight camp. I am not sure I would want to know him in real life, but he's certainly shaking up the status quo between my more moral main characters. No matter how you cut it, conflict is fascinating, and nothing quite stirs the pot like a bad boy who refuses to toe the line.