Parker Peevyhouse

I 'm working on the last few chapters of my wip, Fabricated Afterlife, and starting to notice something about how things are ending. I think I am unintentionally pointing toward a sequel. Like, with big red arrows and flashing lights.

I really thought when I started this book that there would be no way for a sequel to happen. But I hate to be a tease, so I will either have to:
1) Write a sequel sometime
2) Change the ending

But wouldn't you know, I had to change the ending for Last Midnight, so there's a good chace I am  just not so great at writing endings the first time around and FA's ending will get the boot too. 

In any case, I have to go finish writing the ending before I can worry about any of this.

 Our baby has huge feet.

I went to the doctor today and when she did the ultrasound she said, "Wow! That's a really big foot!" Then she measured it and even printed out a picture for me because she couldn't believe how big the foot was.

He's otherwise normal and doing great. One month left!

Below the cut is another excerpt from the rough draft of my work in progress, Fabricated Afterlife. In this bit, the main characters find something very strange on a wall of the space ship they live on.
  

I've always liked science fiction, but I'm less into the math and metal side and more into the sociological aspect. So I decided that if my story were going to be set on a spaceship, it would have to be less spaceshipy and more like what I'm into.

Here are five elements that I used to design my spaceship for my WIP, Fabricated Afterlife:

1. The Biosphere 2 project that took place in Arizona in the '90's.



2. The Peter Pan ride at Disneyland



3. The Space Mountain ride at Disneyland



4. Victorian architecture



5. Catal Hyuk, consider the first city in history
 

I was just commenting on someone's LJ about how I love books that are based on fairy tales. Ditto with Shakespeare (I read an awesome manga Romeo and Juliet set in Tokyo, and I just read about a forthcoming YA horror series based on Shakespeare's plays!). Ditto again with Greek myths.

My WIP, Fabricated Afterlife, is actually inspired by the myth of the minotaur, but in a totally obscure way. As in, a spaceship takes the place of a labyrinth. And in place of Ariadne's thread is the stringy and coveted "waste" of an otherwordly creature. Stuff like that.

I think my favorite YA take on a fairy tale is Michael Gruber's The Witch's Boy (which has a wicked good suprise ending), although I also really dig Shannon Hale's Goose Girl.

Any recommendations for others?

Since I'm making good progress on Fabricated Afterlife, my brain has decided to start thinking ahead to other stories.

I've gone back and looked at an unfinished draft of a sequel to Last Midnight and it still seems like a fun project to work on. I'm also starting to collect ideas for a whole new book--something fun and MG, maybe a little closer to fantasy this time instead of science fiction, but who knows how it will work out..

Meanwhile, I'm supposed to hear back from my editor soon on the revised draft of Last Midnight that I turned in a month ago. I hope we're close to finishing revisions!

Although I'm in the difficult middle section of my WIP, Fabricated Afterlife, I'm really enjoying writing it! It's a little slower going than the beginning chapters, but I'm looking forward to reaching the last section when the momentum really starts gaining again. I'm getting close!

Meanwhile, the other day I spent a very strange aftenoon studying photos of dinosaur fossils in the name of research. Those things can be quite creepy, actually.  Creepier than illustrations of actual dinosaurs, in my opinion.

Also, my last tutoring session took place this week. So from now on it's just writing and expanding for me--only two months left until the baby is due.

Today in church, the music leader had us send him song requests via text message.

So there I was, about to finish the last few scenes for my final draft of Last Midnight when, for no reason that I can tell, my laptop keyboard STOPPED WORKING.

I thought, Hey, I've dropped this thing quite a lot. I've been using it every day for about a million years. I've tried to play a very outdated CD-ROM Clue game on it a million times. Maybe it's just acting up. I'll restart it and my troubles will be gone.

And then some very intelligent voice in my head told me I should save a few files to disk first, just in case.

Um, thanks, voice!!

Because when I restarted my computer, up came the password log-in page. And with no keyboard with which to type my password, I was locked out of my computer.

So last night I was morning the loss of my trusty laptop while also celebrating the fact that I had indeed saved my almost-finished draft of Last Midnight, along with my WIP. I think the baby was feeling my pain because he kindly added to it by kicking my liver around for about an hour. And then at night I dreamed that my uber-social friend had just thrown her beloved cell phone in the garbage and I panicked and panicked thinking, She's going to need that! She shouldn't just throw it away! Her whole life is on there!

But... this morning I tried my laptop one more time. And now the keyboard works. Hmmm. Is the end near? Or was it just some quirk? My USB drive is going to be bursting at the seams with files either way!

*Post title is from Bright Eyes' "Poison Oak"

 I'm posting my first excerpt from my WIP, Fabricated Afterlife, which is about first love on a spaceship gone haywire.

I've been tagged by jo_no_anne to reveal 10 weird or random things about me. A few things on my list are from a post I did last year because I'm that lazy.

1. I got engaged in a bookstore.
Perfect for a writer, eh? It was a tiny little bookstore in this cute downtown area where I had gone on a very fun date with my now husband. He did a great job proposing--he actually wrote and recorded a song and had the store owner play it over the speaker system; the song ended with "Will you marry me?"

2. I love the Ewoks movies from the 80's.
Has anyone else seen those? There were two of them, spin-offs from Star Wars but just about Ewoks and this girl who befriends them.

3. I'm both 2/3 of the way through my WIP and 2/3 of the way through my pregnancy.
Yippee for both! 

4. I used to love Goosebumps books when I was young.
In fact, I got a load of strange Goosebumps paraphenalia when I won a writing contest: an evil hampster figurine, an Escape From the Graveyard boardgame, a fake head on which to stick plastic bugs and slime (this was lost on me), a notepad of BRIGHT green paper, and a million other things.

5. I once lived at summer camp.
I stayed in a sad little cabin for the summer while I worked as a secretary. My room was actually a walled-in porch and it was freezing cold at night and infested with spiders. I felt like Harry Potter. The job was pretty fun though. I compiled info from surveys on camp food. I passed out tickets for paintballing. I threw waterballoons off the roof every Monday night.

6. I hate loud noises.
Coughing. Clapping. Loud chewing. In fact, I seldom clap, unless it would be really rude not to. How am I going to fare when my baby cries and screams? I do not know.

7. I once rode a rollercoaster in a prom dress.
My friend had his prom at Knott's Berry Farm in So. California, so naturally we had to go on the Xtreme Scream (or as I kept calling it because I couldn't remember the name, the Screamy Scream). I'll add that I still looked fantastic when we got off the ride. 

8. I've been bungee jumping.
Twice. But this was when I was thirteen and fearless. You couldn't make me do this today.

9. I love monkeys.
Only less so since I babysat a baby monkey a few years ago. A little tiny monster, really. The real things aren't as cuddly as you'd imagine. They scream and bare their teeth when they're hungry. But I bottle fed and carried around a baby monkey for a friend of a friend one day... true story.

10. I have appeard in a very campy zit commercial.
Not a TV commercial, but some sort of video presentation for zit medicine. I mostly held this picket sign and enthusiastically shouted, "Down with zits!" To my knowledge, I did not have any zits at the time.

I tag anyone who feels like playing :) 

When it comes to outlining, I think I've tried practically every method. Some books I've outlined like crazy before I wrote a single word. Some books I've outlined a little more moderately. Some books I've written without outlining at all.

There are always ups and downs.

I've realized that when I outline a scene, I can't write it. I just stare at my computer, completely bored. All the creative energy evaporates. It's awful.

But when I don't outline at all, I end up with crazy results. It allows for some really interesting, unexpected elements to come out. But it also means I get sort of lost about halfway through a ms. My scenes don't really all fit together, so I don't know what to do next.

So I'm trying yet another method: I'm writing sans outline, but I'm stopping periodically to go back and outline what I've already written.

This totally helped me get out of my middle of the ms stalling point. Now that the beginning is outlined, I can see where I was going with those early chapters. I can figure out what is tying my story together. I can see where to go next.

I know people are pretty set in their outlining ways, and it doesn't surprise me that different methods work for different writers. Anyone have an outlining method I haven't tried yet that you would swear by?

*Post title from Bright Eyes 

The newest high school student that I tutor told me he has never read science fiction.

I didn't quite believe him at first, so I listed some things I figured he would have encountered in elementary or junior high school. But it was true--he'd never read any science fiction.

So we're reading The Giver. His reading level is low because he's an English language learner, and reading a book together gives him a chance to work on his language skills.

At first, I think he had a hard time getting into it. He wasn't really picking up on the clues about how The Giver's society works so I had to explain a lot. But gradually, he started asking his own questions--What does this phrase mean? Why does the character say that?

Last time we met, I asked him to finish reading a chapter we had started in our session. He ended up finishing the chapter... and then reading six extra chapters! And now when I stop to discuss literary elements, he seems really impatient to get on with the story.

I take no credit for this--The Giver is just that good of a book. But I'm so thrilled that he is finally getting to experience science fiction and is liking it.

Wait until he finds out David Yates might direct the movie version.

*Post title from The Strokes's "Last Nite"

A big part of science fiction (and fantasy) is about entering a new "world." Here's my theory on how science fiction stories generally unfold:

1/4 through the story: reader has learned the basics of the story world

1/2 through the story: reader feels  very comfortable with the story world

3/4 through the story: reader starts to realize she has taken things about the story world for granted that she shouldn't have

end of story: reader truly understands story world after her initial impressions of it have been reversed


*Post title from Bright Eyes' "Down a Rabbit Hole"

Whether you're looking for someone to blurb your book, or you've been approached to blurb another's book, this article has some interesting advice for you.

The author of the article gives 5 tips for getting someone to blurb your book, and 5 things to remember when someone approaches you for a blurb.

His main point: if you're a successful author, remember that you once started out as a new and unknown writer--be kind about giving out blurbs.

Anyone seen the episode of Friends where Joey  mentions being a "mento"?

Well, I've been reflecting recently on the help I've received on my journey to becoming a published writer. Here are some "mentos" I'm grateful for:

Mento 1: Subtle Flavor
When I attened my first writers' conference, I had a consultation with an incredibly kind and patient man who asked me a lot of questions along the lines of:

"Why did you include this scene in your book?"
and
"What makes your main character likeable?"

with the aim of showing me where I had gone wrong in my manuscript. I picked up on his subtle advice without feeling like I was a terrible failure of a writer.
He then introduced me to a couple of people, saying, "This young woman is a great writer and is really going to be big someday soon." He gave me his contact info and we exchanged several emails after the conference was over in which he answered many questions and gave me lots of advice. Years later, it baffles me that he went through so much trouble to encourage what must have seemed to him to be a dreadfully inexperienced new writer.

Mento 2: Tasty Spaceship
At this same conference, someone introduced me to an author who wrote science fiction. She told me a little about her career and how she had gotten to be a published writer. Then she took me to the on-site bookstore to point out some books that would be address a lot of the questions I had. I still have those books; they have definitely helped me out a lot.

Mento 3: Minty Academic
In college, my creative writing professor got to know me well--I constantly dropped by his office with pages of writing for him to critique, and he was always happy to read my work and offer me advice. In fact, my friend and I convinced him to hold an independent study class with the two of us in which he guided us through writing our novels. I still email him with questions, and he even read a draft of Last Midnight while I was looking for an agent.

Mento 4: Chalky but Delightful
I was lucky enough to get another helpful manuscript consultation at a SCBWI writers' conference in LA. My reviewer was nice enough to point out what I had done well in my opening chapters. And then he asked me a very important question: "You seem like a bright, cheerful person--why is this manuscript so dark and dismal?" Not only did his question make me realize that I like stories that are balanced out by humor, quirkiness, and hope; I realized the importance of sincerity--of writing from your true self rather than what you think you should write.

I would love to hear about your mento(r)s!

I saw some people do this a while back, and I know I'm behind, but it looked like fun. So here are 5 Signs a Book Was Written by Me:

1. It's science-fiction or fantasy

I have tried to write stories that had no "strange" element to them whatsoever. I think I managed to do this... once.

2. It's complicated.

Plot, setting, narrative style--I tend to make at least a few elements of my stories complicated. Why do I do this to myself? It makes for some seriously difficult revisions.

3. It has a whole lot of characters

My stories are seriously populated. Lots of townspeople or schoolmates or siblings or all of these combined. I have to have a lot of characters to swim around in. Maybe it's because I'm from a large family?

4. It's for young readers

Or more accurately, it's about young characters. I just write what I like, and the fact that my stuff ends up fitting into the young reader's market seems secondary.

5. It includes games, puzzles, or riddles:

I LOVE games. I mean I LOVE all kinds of games. I love Clue. I love Capture the Flag. I love soccer. I love Mario Kart. I love solitaire. I love rock-paper-scissors. Seriously, if it's a game, I will play it. And if you have some clever, tricky riddle for me, I will spend all day trying to crack it. So my characters usually play some type of game (in Last Midnight, it's the fictional game of Bungle), and my stories usually include a riddle that must be solved or a bit a clever thinking that must be called upon.

I'm back on LJ with some big news: I'm expecting a baby boy in June!

Actually, the little guy is due on our wedding anniversary. Strange coincidence. I'm about five months pregnant so I just started to feel the baby moving. He likes to get crazy while I'm writing, either because I'm just so full of good ideas or because he is starting to develop a taste for the Beach Boys, whose happy tunes help get me through revisions.

I've been keeping busy with Last Midnight revisions, my WIP, and endless daydreaming about what our baby will look like (all I know so far is that he is destined to have blue eyes, but his hair could be blondish/brown like mine, red like his cousins', or gray like my husband's). I'm trying to get as much writing done in the next four months as possible because I have a feeling I will be pretty busy (read: napping a whole lot) this summer.

So excited!

*Post title is from Bright Eyes

...has returned! I now have internet access at my new place. Sorry I dropped off the face of the earth for a while.