Short Story challenge

With the launch of my newest short story, Guardian of Dawn approaching just around the corner, I thought it appropriate to decorate my blog with the "Guards Light" and their one source of life, the ocean. I know whoever reads this now won't quite understand what that means, and that is okay. The story will be available October 25, 2010 on YoungRebelpublications.com.

For a girl who is used to writing pure YA fantasy novels, it was quite a fun challenge writing a 3,000 word horror based short story. The challenge was to write a scary YA story that would "raise hairs". My first thought was . . . I am screwed. Despite being an avid fan of Stephen King, (who doesn't love Mr. King?), Alfred Hitchcock and those classic, creepy vamps, (they are my weakness) every idea I came up with paled in comparison. Where to start . . .? I started a story about ghosts. Sure, that should be easy! I am sucker for a good, old fashioned ghost story. So I started writing and . . . (drum roll please) it fell flat. Ugh! I forced myself to keep writing, even though it just felt wrong, but after a while reminded myself of my own golden rule: If it feels forced, it will sound forced. I wasn't about to submit anything that I wasn't absolutely in love with. I never settle for second best. My computer desktop is littered with chapters here and chapters there of novels that just never made the final cut.

With no ideas, and no inspiration I sat down, put my pen to paper (well, put my fingers to keys) and just started writing. I didn't bother trying to come up with a game plan this time, since having a game plan with the ghost story worked out so well *sarcasm*, and I was pleasantly surprised with what developed.

Caden introduced himself to me immediately and I found myself immersed into his twisted world. But rescuing Eli and fighting "slimers" wasn't enough to send that story home for me. Then another character introduced herself to me.

Caden was a solider, a well-oiled, born and bred military machine who's been hardened by his loss and his life. His one weakness is not the monsters, it's not the injustice or the entire world falling to pieces around him. It's Danika. (As if the action/horror wasn't enough.) But she is with someone, his brother. Now this story's getting juicy . . .

My fingers moved so fast across the keys they became a blur. Okay, I'm exaggerating but that's what it felt like, I swear! I'd only stop for brief seconds here and there to check my word count. Capping this world at 3,000 words was torture. When I was finished, I went back and read my story several times, surprisingly pleased with the way it turned out.

Then it was over . . . I submitted it, kept my fingers crossed, and waited. Despite writing a story that I thought was decent, a story I thought people might possibly like . . . I was sad. I found myself in the car listening to songs from Paramore and thinking about Caden and Danika. Wondering . . . what happens next?

So the night after I sent my story in to Young Rebel, I sat down and again, just started typing. Caden showed up on my pages, in third person this time, and started unraveling his complicated situation to me.

I am happy and proud to say that I am not nearly done with these characters! I am turning this story into a novel and am loving getting lost in the pages of Caden and Danika's world. In just a few weeks I am already 17,000 words in (of course this is my very raw first draft and will need lots of editing on my part) and I just can't stop thinking about these star-crossed lovers. I will market this book not as horror, but as YA sci-fi. Don't cringe, I don't like sci-fi either, but this is a different kind of sci-fi, I promise.

I will update my progress on here and keep everyone who's interested up-to-date with the progress of my newest, untitled project. Who knows, maybe I'll even post snippets of the book for curious eyes.

Thanks for following my blog, and welcome to my fantasy world!