How I Write: Jessica Brody

Please welcome back the lovely Jessica Brody, author of the Unremembered series! She’s stopping by today for a How I Write feature as part of her blog tour for UNCHANGED (Unremembered #3). Check my awesome Q & A with Jessica below, along with an exclusive deleted scene, and a giveaway!

“How I Write” Q & A with Jessica Brody

Are you a planner (outline, etc.) or do you “pants” it?      

I always outline before I start writing. I use a plotting method called Save the Cat, created by Blake Snyder. It’s amazing! It basically breaks down all stories into 15 beats and then teaches you how to create those 15 beats so that you have a well-crafted, engaging story that will resonate with readers. I never start writing until all 15 beats are in place.

Do you write daily or sporadically when you’re inspired?

I try to write every day and I try to be a drill sergeant for myself. When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do (before checking any email or social media or anything!) is write. I’m not allowed to do anything else until I get at least 1000 words down on the page. I find that if I start doing other things first, I get sucked into those things and I lose my motivation to write. When I write first and kind of “get it out of the way,” I then have the time and head space to focus on everything else.

What inspired you to want to become a writer?

In the second grade, my teacher assigned us to write a one-paragraph book report. I turned in four pages. She thought it was such a big deal and went around the whole school telling all the other teachers about. I couldn’t really understand why. It didn’t feel like a big deal to me. I just kind of did it. It was that moment when I realized that writing was something that I loved and something that came easy. And not many things come easy to me, so I thought I might as well stick with it! 

Do you have any writing quirks?

Yes, I have a few. And I’m quite adamant about following them.

First off, I have a really cool “white noise” track that I listen to when I write. It’s a track called “Waterfall Entrainment” and it’s nothing but a constant waterfall sound that goes “SHHHHHHHH!!!!” in my ear. I loop it and play it full blast.

And second, I ONLY drink coffee when I’m writing. I’ve actually managed to trick my brain into thinking that coffee equals productivity. Plus, limiting my caffeine intake makes the caffeine more effective. So as soon as that coffee hits my blood stream, I am ready to rock! 

What tool(s) do you use to write? Microsoft Word, Pages, Scrivener, typewriter, pen and paper, and/or napkins/toilet paper?

I have several tools that I can’t live without. And yes, I could probably combine everything into one tool, but I actually love each one for different reasons and I find each tool does something better than the others.

• Writing – Microsoft Word
• Outlining – Scrivener (I love their corkboard view!)
• Note taking – Evernote (I love how it syncs on my phone, tablet, and computer so no matter where I am, I have all my notes and can add new ones. It also does voice notes which is extremely helpful when driving!)
• Revising – Trello.com (It’s an app that allows you to create various lists in the form of cards. I use this to create and organize all my revision to-do lists.)

How do you overcome writer’s block?

I never use the term “writer’s block”…well, except right there. I’m a firm believer in the law of attraction. What you resist persists. What you focus on only gets bigger. If I went around saying, “Crap, I have writer’s block,” then yes, I would have writer’s block. If I refuse to even acknowledge the concept, then it doesn’t exist. And guess what? I’ve never had it. Of course, I get stuck from time to time as any writer does. To deal with it, I usually just mediate and tell myself, “the solution already exists; I just have to remember what it is.” By the time I wake up the next morning, the problem is almost always solved. Also, taking long hot showers helps. When I’m in the middle of a super hard section of a manuscript, I’m always very clean.

I actually wrote an entire blog post about this very topic. If you’re interested, you can read it here: http://www.jessicabrody.com/2014/03/the-condition-which-shall-not-be-named-5-tips-for-outsmarting-whisper-writers-block/

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received for writing?

“You can’t fix a blank page.” It’s a quote from Nora Roberts that I have hanging on my wall above my computer so I can always see it. It’s absolutely the best writing advice ever! Sometimes you’ll get stuck, sometimes you’ll write crap, but no matter what, you just have to keep going. Keep writing. Even if you end up throwing it all away at the end. Because more often than not, you have to write through the bad stuff to get to the good stuff. And you can always go back and revise later. But you can’t revise something that’s not there!

Thanks for the great questions! I also have tons of writing advice on my website. Check out: http://www.jessicabrody.com/for-writers/advice/

Deleted Scene from Unchanged

Sometimes the hardest part about writing a book is cutting scenes or sections that you really like in order to tell the story more efficiently. I’ll be honest with you. UNCHANGED was the hardest book I’ve ever written in my career. I was about 250 pages into the first draft when I realized that it was the wrong book and I scrapped the whole thing. Then, after I completed a draft I really liked, my editor didn’t like the first 150 pages and she had me rewrite it again.

It was exhausting and mentally straining and stressful. This book has been so many different things. In the end, however, all that work led me to the right book. I think it’s so much stronger now and I actually think it’s the best book of the trilogy. It certainly contains the most blood, sweat and tears!

In rewriting the book for the third time, after my editor’s notes, I had to cut a few scenes that I really loved in order to move the story along faster. Today, I’m going to share with you one of those scenes.

If you end up reading UNCHANGED, you’ll recognize some of the text and dialogue and actions from another scene in the book. I basically repurposed the main elements of the scene into another part of the story but had to cut the scene itself, which saddened me a bit.

In this scene, Sera and Kaelen visit something called a Rec Hub on the Diotech Compound where they compete in a virtual reality type game that ends very badly. It’s the first time that Sera notices some strange behavior from Kaelen and it starts to scare her. What I loved about this scene was the incorporation of the futuristic technology within the Rec Hub. The Rec Hub has pretty much been cut from the entire book, but some of descriptions of the game ended up in the eBook novella, Unleashed.

So here it is! I hope you like it!

6: Champion

The crowd parts and Kaelen and I walk hand in hand toward the two giant floating globes in the center of the Rec Hub. All eyes are on us. All whispers are about us. They think they’re being quiet and cryptic but I hear everything. They comment on our faces, our bodies, our hair, our enhancements.

“Have you seen this before?” a boy asks his friend somewhere in the back.

“No.”

“It’s glitching warped.” He pauses for effect. “In a good way.”

I do what I always do when Kaelen and I enter the Rec Hub. I keep my head high and my eyes forward. Just like Dr. A taught me.

“You are better than them,” he once said to me. “Never stoop to their level. Never engage with the Normates. They’re beneath you. They will try to put you down. They will say things to hurt you. But it’s their jealousy that fuels their insults. They want to be what you are. Everyone on the planet wants to be what you are. Or they will, once they see you.”

I tense up again at the memory of our dinner conversation. At the thought of being revealed to the entire world. Interviewed by the most respected journalist in the country. Judged by billions of eyes.

I push the thought away and focus on what’s in front of me.

Namely, the two glowing spheres that await our command.

Kaelen and I slow as we approach. “May the best ExGen win,” he says with a grin.

“Are you sure you don’t want to just admit defeat right now and save me the energy?”

“Why would I ever pass up a chance to see you sweat?”

“I don’t sweat.”

Except during my nightmares, I think, but I omit that part, and instead add, “And neither do you.”

He shrugs, still grinning. “Never hurts to try.”

We veer off. I take the blue sphere on the left and Kaelen heads to the green one on the right. The mass of people close in behind us, filling up the empty space like one of the high-density vacuums in the Aerospace Sector. They watch restlessly as we climb inside. I can still hear their whispers even as the ball seals around me. I count the seconds until the volume of the simulation drowns them out.

I stand at the base and spread my legs to stabilize myself.

“Initiate link,” I command my Lenses. They obey and slowly, the Rec Hub vanishes outside the transparent walls of the sphere. I’m surrounded by the electric blue and white virtual space of the game menu.

“Where are we going today?” Kaelen’s smooth voice comes through the speakers.

I scan the options. Chinese Battlefield. Ghost Hunters. Ninja Assassins. My lips bend into a cunning smile when I see the one I want. The one I know Kaelen isn’t as strong at. I reach out and select Battle for Rome with my fingertip before he has a chance to argue.

I hear him groan. “Are you trying to embarrass me in front of all these people?”

“I don’t think you need my help embarrassing yourself.”

His laugh echoes off the bowed walls that enclose me. “Okay, cruncher. Let’s see what you can do.”

I give the order for the game to commence and we are thrust into the dungeons of the Roman Colosseum circa 45 A.D. I can hear the crowd of eager spectators above our heads as we wait for the man-powered lifts to raise us up and deliver us to the center stage.

The clock ticks down and my legs tremble in anticipation. The horn sounds and my reflexes take over. Kaelen and I race around the Colosseum, the spheres beneath our feet whining in an attempt to keep up with our superhuman speeds. After jockeying back and forth for a few minutes, I manage to land two deadly blows with my dagger. He tries to fight back but he’s wounded now. Bleeding all over the sand floor of the arena. The sphere is slowing to compensate for his injuries.

“C’mon!” he yells. “Get up!”

He manages to get up and scramble to the edge of the ring. I chase after him. I’m just about to deliver the final blow when I hear a faint sizzle and the Colosseum vanishes. The bland blue-tinted transparent walls of the globe return, as do the disappointed faces in our sea of real-life spectators.

My shoulders droop. It’s not the first time we’ve overloaded the simulator. It’s not necessarily designed for us.

The door unseals and I step out. Kaelen greets me with a smug look. “Saved by a technical glitch.”

I blink in surprise. “Are you joking? I was about to fry you.”

He guffaws. “That’s adorable. I was laying a trap. Luring you in. I was ready to chomp you as soon as you got close.”

I shake my head. “You’re a liar. And a sore loser.”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never lost.”

I’m about to make another comeback when a third voice enters the conversation. “I can fix that.”

Kaelen and I both turn around to see a teenage boy, around Kaelen’s height, with spiked hair and dizzying nanotats covering his arms, neck, and face. From what I can tell, they’re all scenes from violent horror movies. Monsters devouring helpless girls. Frightening men laughing open-mouthed with razor-sharp teeth. But they’re moving so fast and furiously I can’t even stand to look at him.

But Kaelen doesn’t seem to have that problem.

He steps close to the boy, invading his space. “I don’t think that would be a wise decision on your part. But we’re finished now. Feel free to challenge someone else.”

I fully expect the boy to walk away. But he doesn’t. He moves closer and I notice Kaelen’s muscles stiffen.

I have to do something.

I can’t let this go where it’s bound to go.

“What’s wrong, cruncher?” the boy challenges. “Do you think you’re too good to battle against one of us?”

Kaelen is calm. Disturbingly so. It sends a chill down my spine. “No. I don’t think that,” he replies through closed teeth. “I know that.”

The room falls silent. The boy’s eyes flash with rage, making him look eerily similar to one of his nanotats. He gets right up in Kaelen’s face. “You know what, pretty boy? I’m sick and tired of you and your thermal girlfriend flaunting your faces around here acting like your flux don’t stink, while the rest of us are supposed to bow down like you’re glitching royalty. Well, it’s not gonna happen. And if you’re too afraid to battle me—”

“It has nothing to do with fear,” Kaelen interjects.

“Then, what? You afraid of messing up your pretty face?”

“No, I’m afraid of messing up yours.” Kaelen gives the boy a once over. “Although, maybe it would be an improvement.”

The boy’s cheeks turn a frightening shade of red. “You’re not even glitching real. The two of you, you’re as fake as that simulation. You don’t exist.”

Kaelen starts to laugh. But it’s not the breezy, lighthearted laugh I heard a few minutes ago as we emerged from the simulators. It’s a tight, coiled laugh.

“Kaelen,” I try to grab his hand but he jerks it away.

“If I don’t exist,” he says to the boy with a predatory smile, “then I guess you won’t feel this.”

Before anyone can even blink, Kaelen cocks his fist back and thrusts it into the boy’s face with so much force, he goes flying across the room before crashing into the green simulator. The sound of his limbs cracking against the surface makes everyone in the hub wince.

My heart is pounding as I wait for the boy to move.

Get up, I silently beg him.

Dust yourself off.

Apologize.

But he doesn’t. He twisted body lays unnervingly still.

“Are you completely warped out of your mind?” someone screams and suddenly three more boys are charging toward Kaelen.

I stand paralyzed, unsure of what to do. Am I supposed to step in? Help fight them off? Kaelen appears perfectly capable of dealing with this on his own. He lets out a deep roar as he dispatches them one at a time.

They don’t get back up.

I do the only thing I can think of. Through my Lenses, I send a silent ping to security, alerting them of a disturbance in the Rec Hub.

When I look at Kaelen again, I don’t even recognize him. His hair is tousled. His clothes are slightly askew on his large, muscular frame. But it’s his face that’s the least recognizable of all. Stretched and warped in unbridled rage. His eyes are wild, revealing too much white as he scans the room for more challengers. But there are none to be found. The rest of the crowd has backed away, pressing themselves against the perimeters of the room.

I can tell from the hunger in Kaelen’s eyes that he wants more. A monster looking for prey.

There you have it! An official, never-before-released deleted scene from UNCHANGED!

I hope you enjoy the book! And remember, if you order it by March 1, you get a free autographed poster with a Diotech Compound blueprint map on the back! Details here: www.jessicabrody.com/preorder.

Thank you for sharing, Jessica, I love this post! 

Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Even if you do not win our giveaway, you still have the opportunity to win a *free* autographed trilogy poster. Visit Jessica’s website here for more information!

Tour Schedule

Tuesday February 24 | MacTeenBooks Blog

Wednesday February 25 | Carina’s Books

Thursday February 26 | A Book and a Latte

Friday February 27 | Tales of a Ravenous Reader

Saturday, February 28 | Step into Fiction

Sunday, March 1 | Bumbles and Fairy Tales

Monday, March 2 Bewitched Bookworms

Tuesday, March 3  | The Book Addict’s Guide

Wednesday, March 4 | Alice Marvels

More “How I Write” Q&As!