By Cambria Dillon
Today’s my first Thursday Thirteen! So, to keep with the theme of trying something new, I thought I’d list some items from my bucket list:
- Base jump off a bridge
- Attend a red-carpet event with Ryan Reynolds, James McAvoy, Ryan Gosling, or Leonardo DiCaprio in attendance
- Dye my hair blonde (I hear blondes have more fun, no?)
- Look over the edge of an active volcano without falling in
- Carve an ice sculpture
- Paint something awe-inspiring that doesn’t resemble my usual ’paint-by-numbers’ crap
- Attend an underwater wedding
- Climb a (very, very small) building with suction-cup shoes
- Go on a guided river tour of the Amazon
- Compete in a camel race in Egypt or Dubai
- Ride in a water plane (preferably greeted by someone shouting “Da plane! Da plane!”)
- Visit all 7 continents
- Publish a book
What are some things on your bucket list?
And don’t forget to check out these Thursday Thirteen bloggers:
Word Trix
Lucy Woodhull
Stephanie Adkins
Adelle Laudan
Chicks-n-Scratching
Alice Audrey
Janice Seagraves
Shelley Munro
Megan Rose
Lauren Murphy
Jennifer Leeland
Ella Drake
Tales from the Crit
Paige Tyler
Christina DeLorenzo
By Cambria Dillon
Happy Hump Day everyone! To help you hurdle over the mid-week slump, here’s a new word to add to your internal dictionary (as if you don’t have enough useless words stored up in that noggin of yours)…
By Cambria Dillon
The new web site is up and looking fantastico, if I do say so myself. I love the classic Tiffany-inspired colors, clean lines, and the whimsical design elements. Muchas gracias to Studio Tate for whipping this baby into shape! Muuuaaahhh!
Here are two awesome authors to check out for Release Tuesday:
Dark Host by Kim Knox
Feline Mosaic, Charis Sur, thought her mission aboard the INS Pagidion would be quick and easy. All she has to do is watch her target and keep him alive until Betelgeuse goes nova.
Simple. Until one of the passengers drops dead in front of her.
Suddenly everything is not simple. Her life depends on a successful mission and she has to protect her target from whatever killed this man. That throws her into the path of Jason Narak, the one man she never wanted to see again. The man who burned her six months before. Yet, even as her past with Jason hurls her mission, her life into disarray, Charis finds that…something…is waiting for them aboard the INS Pagidion.
It calls itself darkness. And it needs a host.
The buy link is here and you can read the first chapter here
Bite Me! by Melissa Francis
AJ Ashe isn’t your typical seventeen-year-old vampire—as if there is such a thing! She’s stuck in the middle of a huge fight between her two BFFs. Her ex-boyfriend—whom she’s still totally in love with, by the way—is now her stepbrother. A former classmate—who, um, she may or may not have turned into a vampire—is stalking her. And now, apparently, the fate of humankind lies in her little undead hands. What ever happened to the good old days, when all a vampire girl had to worry about was the occasional zit and hiding her taste for blood?
Buy it here.
By Cambria Dillon
It’s been a week since the RWA conference commenced. The laundry is done (well, mostly), another work week has flown by (after reading through hundreds of work emails accumulated during my absence), and a glorious weekend is fast approaching. But I find myself at a crossroad. The workshops I attended (ten in all) were so educational, inspiring, and motivating, that all I want to do is type away on my laptop.
So what’s the problem you ask? The bane of my existence—plotting. Dun, dun, dun.
I’m what you call a pantser organic writer. I start with a basic idea with characters and just write. This is all fine and dandy if you have an end-game in mind, or at least a few plot points you want to weave into your basic premise. But right now I find myself staring at a major fork in the road trying to figure out which path will lead me to writing brilliance.
I’m excited to use the tools I learned at RWA with a kick-ass premise I’ve been fooling around with (yes, I’m a little biased). But I’m stumbling on how to get there. See, deep down inside I yearn to be a plotter. Just take a look at my bookshelf and you’ll see all sorts of plotting-related how-to books…all barely read past the, um, first chapter. The geeky side of me really wants to create spreadsheets with deep scene analysis, but I find that I usually hit one of three snags in the road.
The first is when I have a plethora of plot ideas and none of them make sense to the central goal of my protagonist. Any writer or reader, can tell you that when you have too many subplots, it can be one giant mess. I think for me, the reason why I hit this snag is because I’m secretly afraid that I won’t have enough to write about. I mean, 80,000 words for a standard sized book can be quite daunting. Some authors manage to pull off a gazillion subplots and twists with grace and ease. Others leave the reader wondering what the main plot was to begin with. It’s this second category that I desperately want to avoid.
Now, that’s not to say you shouldn’t have plot points at all…in fact, you should. That’s what keeps your reader flipping the page. So, this leads me to the second snag I run across. Not having enough plot points. Because really, who wants to sit through a book where the characters are just sitting around doing nothing? Not me, which is why I’m always afraid I won’t have enough there to keep the reader reading.
The third snag I hit is what I’m currently experiencing. This is where I have several different options of plot points for any given scene and I just can’t make a freaking decision. I go back and forth on the choices a dozen times and think up every scenario that could happen if I choose this path over that path. Sort of like those ‘choose your own ending’ books I used to read when I was in grade school. This would probably be a good problem for some to have, but for me it’s a mess. I’m naturally very indecisive. I agonize and lament over the simplest of decisions on a daily basis. What should I eat for lunch? Hmm…Chik-fil-a sounds good, or ooh—there’s Chipotle, or better yet, how about Panera? And then actually deciding on a menu option once at the chosen eatery is another dilemma. I have an entire process worked out with my hubby when we go out for dinner. We each come up with three choices and then one-by-one we cross a choice off the other’s list until finally we’re left with two choices. The game-time decision comes when we pull out of our neighborhood and see if the stoplight’s green or red. This determines everything. If it’s green then we can turn left and go to Restaurant A. If it’s red, well easy—Restaurant B it is.
So what’s my point? I guess my rambling boils down to the desire of wanting a stoplight for my plotting decisions. Something a little fancier than the current pros and cons list I’ve got going on. Heck, I’d settle for a magic eight ball. But I have a feeling I’d end up with the same result each shake…try again.
***An awesome method that I’m trying out right now to curb my latest plot dilemma is the Snowflake method. It has just enough plotting process to make me get organized, but it’s very forgiving and allows room to be creative. I’ll update later on my progress.
Until next time, happy plotting!
~Cam
By Cambria Dillon
I just got back from my very first RWA conference. This year it was in D.C. and was a quick one-hour drive for me. I’ll have more posts coming soon to recap all the fantastic workshops and events. There were tons of fabulous authors and I think I was a little startstruck to see some of my faves — Gena Showalter, Kresley Cole, Nora Roberts (yes, THE Nora Roberts) — just to name a few. And of course, I met some wonderful Divas that made my first-timer’s experience crazy wonderful.
Pics coming soon…but here’s a teaser for you!
The fabulous Gena Showalter and myself (on the right)
By Cambria Dillon
Please bear with me while Studio Tate designs my website. It’ll be up shortly (I can’t wait!) so please stop by again and leave a comment when it’s up.
Thanks!
~Cam
Cambria Dillon - YA Writer represented by Vickie Motter, Andrea Hurst Literary Management
