Spring Update

It's finally spring in Kansas (which means there are some nice days and some days that feel like summer). Amazingly, this seems to have cured most of my ailments.

I've been suffering from one illness or ailment after another for the last five months, everything from colds to flu to bronchitis to sinus infections to dental and mouth surgeries. I've been to the doctor and the dentist and I've been on inhalers and steroids and antibiotics and my own array of herbal supplements. It figures what finally cured me was just time and a change in the weather.

The other ailment the weather seems to be slowly curing is writer's block. I'm starting to feel creative energies flowing again, and I actually have an idea or two percolating. I think it helps that my head isn't as full of snot or pain and that my seasonal depression is fading.

At any rate, I haven't started actually writing yet, but I have written a few wine blogs (you can check them out at Red Wine Reminiscence), and now I'm writing a blog here. I've poked around some short story markets on Duotrope. I finally read my NaNo novel from last year, and decided it wasn't the pile of trash I originally thought it was. It's a start. A small start, but it's something.

This weekend is ConQuest, and the boyfriend and I are going all three days. I will write a story for Story in a Bag - the contest I won last year (well, three way tied for first). I will listen to writers and publishers and editors and artists talk. I will write down a thousand book recommendations. And I will relax with my man on his birthday weekend. I've taken several days off work, so I am going to rest, relax, read, and hopefully write.

The third course in my editing certificate starts tomorrow. I earned a B+ in both the first and the second courses, have learned a ton, and am looking forward to the next class. Just two left until I am done with the sequence. I just finished copyediting a friend's manuscript (my first paid gig).

I am making slow and steady progress towards my goals again. The post-NaNo blues took me down hard this year, and I wandered aimlessly for a long time. But I'm taking it back now. I'm ready to reclaim my writer title. I know I never really lose it, but sometimes I put it away for awhile. During those times, I always worry I'll never get it back out, but as all of my writing friends remind me, it will always find me again, even if I can't find it.

Feeling Famous, Impatient, and Excited

Well, for only having one flash fiction story in one anthology out, I am feeling pretty famous.

I've been mentioned on two blogs (R.L. Naquin's and K.R. Smith's), I've had over a dozen people tell me they've bought the book, several of my friends (writing and otherwise) have posted links to the book on their own Facebook walls, and I have a whopping 58 likes on my Facebook page! I'm not very good at self-promotion, but this has been a blast and everyone has been so incredibly supportive. All of this and it's only a 1000 word story in a publication's first anthology.

I can't wait for the day I sell an actual book. The internet might explode. All thanks to the amazing support of my friends, family, and writing peers. I'm starting to understand how it's possible for people to be successful at self-publication.

I'm nowhere near ready to publish a book though. Much to my chagrin, when my friend told me about Harper Voyager accepting unagented manuscripts for two weeks in October. Oh how I wish one month was enough time for me to whip one of my novels into shape. Harper Voyager is the sci-fi/fantasy imprint of Harper Collins, which as you probably know is one of the big names in publishing. This is a cool little project they are doing where they're looking to showcase new talent via ebook.

If only I had known about it a month or so ago. However, I think this trend will start becoming more and more popular with the big publishing houses. The market is making a huge shift, and these big houses have to adapt to keep up. So hopefully this won't be a one-time thing. I have a novel or two I think would fit with their other authors (which include George R. R. Martin, Raymond E. Feist, Robin Hobb, Sara Douglass, and Peter V. Brett).

In other news, my submission rate has stagnated as I sit waiting to hear back on 7 stories and a collection of 13-word flash fiction. Of course, one of those is Tor.com, which I don't expect to hear back from until around this time next year. But some of the others are a little past due, and I'm too shy to query them. I'm getting impatient.

I also haven't written anything new in awhile. I'm working on this month's flash fiction for the Confabulator Cafe, but I'm having trouble putting it together. I have a fabulous idea, but I can't make it work. Something is missing from it and I can't figure out what.

I've got a couple of ideas for National Novel Writing Month percolating, though. I'm getting excited. I am a bit out of practice, writing anything longer than 1000 words, but I'm looking forward to it. I wrote around 162,000 words for two novels last year and burned myself out pretty badly, but I think I'm ready to try again.

The True Meaning of Nano (for me, at least)

My job is to keep my Wrimos
stocked in sugar and motivation

Day One started with a bang, but since that intense opening scene, I've been whimpering. The words are coming, I really like my idea, and the characters are starting to take shape...but something has been missing.

I finally figured out what it is.

November is no longer the only month of the year that I write. I am missing the excitement I usually feel when embarking on 30 Days of trying to write every day, because I've been writing every day for the last three months already.

So while all the newbies and the weekend warriors who only write in November are blasting through Week One excited and motivated and clocking huge word counts, I am plodding along at the 1,667 words to stay on track, feeling more like it's Week Two.

I know this slow and steady pace will get me to the end. But I want this to be fun! I want to be excited. I want to love my story so much that I keep going back to read over it.

My opening scene is that way. I still read it and love it (you can read it, too - I have it posted on the Current Writing Projects page). I need to find that magic again.

On the upside, I am still having the time of my life this November. I have a whole crew of writers that I get to boss around and administer sugar to. It brings me back to the Christmas analogy: I love getting and giving gifts, of course, but to me, the holidays are more about spending time with family.

I've realized it's the same for Nanowrimo. I love writing. Really. I'm a writer. It's what I do. But for Nanowrimo, it's about the community that forms during November that I look forward to the most now. Anyone can sit and try to write 50,000 words in a month by themselves. Some will succeed. Many will fail. The magic of Nano is in the writers themselves.

Photo compliments of Dave DeHetre

It's like I told Jason in the comments of my last post: my writers are my adoptive family. They are the people who understand exactly what I'm going through because they've been there themselves, who will celebrate my successes with me and comfort me through my failures, who will push me to be a better writer and put myself out there.

I hate to be sappy about it, but it's true. And it's important.

And if any of you make fun of me for this, I will probably cry.

So this year, between painful sprints of writing, I troll the forums, exchange tweets, and haunt our Facebook page to stay in touch with the family.

And I am really looking forward to this Sunday's write-in.

T'was the Night Before NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo.org

As my fellow writing buddies have been saying: it is NaNoEve. October 31st means Halloween for most people, but while they are celebrating ghosts and ghouls and tricks or treats, we are all anxiously awaiting the kickoff for a month filled with literary abandon.

I've always called National Novel Writing Month the Christmas for writers, so NaNoEve is wholly appropriate.

It's coming, my friends. My seventh year attempting to write a 50,000 word novel in a month.

Let the madness commence.

Three Days to Spare

Photo compliments of Steven Lundberg

I am slowly releasing my death grip on Monsters of Lawrence. I have been obsessively thinking about all of the editing that it needs: all of the places it makes no sense, where the characters act out of character, what I could change to make the story more powerful. Have I reached the beating a dead horse to death stage? Maybe. Probably.

It's been difficult to get excited about NaNoWriMo when all I can think about is Monsters.

Although thinking about monsters in a more general sense has sparked a brilliant story idea. One I am super excited about. One I am going to use as my novel for November. Three days to spare! Phew. Cutting it close this year.

This will make the third idea I've tossed around and thought I wanted to use. It's safe to say that this is the one I'm sticking with, though. I am notorious for waffling up until the last minute when it comes to ideas for NaNo, but lightning always seems to strike a few days before the event, and all doubt is erased.

All doubt has been erased.

And you will totally see why when I explain my idea.

The premise: an online dating service for demons.

Ok, so maybe I am a bit bitter about my online dating experiences. And I was thinking about dating this morning. And about demons. And the two sort of coalesced in my mind and I started to laugh. Online dating for demons? Surely this idea has been done! Still, I kept giggling and kept picturing what these demon profiles would look like. The thought of demons dating is a pretty ridiculous thought to begin with, but throw in the Match.com designed specifically for them?

Tell me that's not brilliant.

And after a quick search on both Amazon and Google, there doesn't appear to be any prominent books based around this idea.

Which actually makes me worry. Maybe this isn't such a brilliant idea after all? I mean, come on, everything has already been done. I know I'm not that original. Maybe someone tried it and it totally bombed. Although I'm sure buried in some paranormal romance or urban fantasy novel, there is an online dating service for demons. And I really want to read it.

One way or another, it doesn't matter. Lightning struck, and I am writing this story. Already I have characters waving at me, telling me how they fit into this story. I have a villain (who thinks he's a good guy), and a love story (which, of course, I have to have if it's about online dating), and a whole realm of character possibilities from the demon/monster world.

I just have to decide how serious or ludicrous the tone of this story is going to be. The love story is already turning slightly tragic in my mind, and there are some other really tragic things going on, but, I mean, really: it's online dating. That whole concept is just tragically funny. Everybody seems to have a good online dating story.

So this is a call to my readers. I need your help! Tell me your best funny/horrific/amazing online dating stories. I need material for my book.

Ok, November. I am ready for you now. Bring it on, NaNoWriMo.

More like Slacker September

I've been neglecting my writing blog the past couple of weeks. In my defense, it's partially because when I sit down to write, I've been putting my novel before my blog. I figure that's probably the more important of the two. I wouldn't have much to talk about here if I wasn't writing.

I'll touch on a few miscellaneous things in this entry, just to catch you up.

Bog of Doom

First - L33T September is going well. I am still on track word-wise, and most days when I sit down to write I am still excited about it. This is the longest I've written almost daily on the same project ever, and I have found myself struggling with a whole new batch of problems. First and foremost - it's getting harder to resist the urge to edit. When I write entire scenes of crap, it becomes a pitched battle with myself to leave it how it is and move on to the next scene instead of re-writing it twelve times. My other problem has me bogged down in the middle of the narrative - which sometimes happens during Nanowrimo, but I'm seriously stuck in the Bog of Doom this time. I've heard other writers talk about the middle of the book slump before, so I'm trying not to be discouraged. I'll push through and hopefully get to the good action scenes I've already written soon. Just gotta connect the dots. La la la laa.

Second - my writing group's official blog is getting closer to official kickoff. It's really starting to come together. We'll start writing content over the next couple of months, and we hope to go live December 1st. Once there's something to look at, I'll link you all there. It should be a lot of fun!

Third - I'm starting to get ridiculously excited about Nanowrimo. Even doing Camp Nanowrimo this summer hasn't diminished the feeling that Christmas is almost here. The Christmas for writers. This blog will look a little different during November: it'll have word counts, me complaining and me being elated, yammering flows of consciousness, sometimes all in one day. So, um, maybe not that much different.

Fourth - Um, four went missing. I'll let you know if I find it.

Fifth - Due to the encouragement of my writing group, I am going to be using my Twitter account with much more frequency (although "more frequently" is relative - it was six months between posts before)). I've added my Twitter feed, with a "Follow me on Twitter" link, or you can click here if you want to follow me. I will try to be insightful, witty, and original in all of my tweets.

Haha.

So, as a writer, what social media do you use? Twitter? Facebook? Myspace? Linkedin? Blogs? Scribd?

L33T September

If you've had a chance to look at my Current Writing Projects page, or if you've talked to me since the end of August, you know that I am attempting to continue the novel I started in August for Camp Nanowrimo through September. When I reached 50k (with ten minutes to spare on the 31st, phew!!), I realized that I have a lot more story that needs to be told, and I am excited to tell it. I'm aiming to finish it off in another 40,000 words. The Writing Buddy helped me figure out that if I write 1337 words each day to meet my goal, I will have 40,110 more words by the 30th, and I will be "leet" every day in September!

For those of you who don't speak geek, if you type in 1337 on a calculator and turn it upside down, it looks like "leet" which is geek speak for "elite." Hilarious, I know. I feel like a huge tool explaining it. One of those whole funnier-if-you-don't-have-to-explain-it things. Moving on.

Before this year I've never had much luck at writing without a Nanowrimo to back me up, but with my word counter on the Current Writing Projects page, as well as the progress chart I made in Excel, I'm hopeful that I will be able to keep it up. I've been having a blast writing it, and it keeps getting better. I hope these fun days help me through un-fun days I know are ahead.

Amazingly, this story has continued to grow and evolve in ways I never even expected. Not bad for a random story I decided to write the day before Camp Nanowrimo began, with only a vague idea for a few characters and one dramatic action scene.

So the plan from here, like I mentioned, is to finish out around 90k words by the end of L33T September. I then plan to spend October going through it and figuring out what to keep and watch to ditch, what needs expanding and what needs changing, and get it ready for a rewrite. The rewrite probably won't start until next year, since that will bring me up to November and then I'll be embarking on another writing journey. That will give it some time to sit and simmer on the back burner of my mind. It should be done cooking by next year. I hope it turns out to be a delicious dessert: light and fluffy with absolutely no nutritional value, but irresistible and decadent, leaving you wanting more after taking the last bite.

Damn. Now I want dessert.

Perhaps next year will be the Year of Editing. I have the Sally Prescott story I wrote this summer, the Monsters of Lawrence that I hope to have finished, and whatever story I write Nanowrimo 2011. I have my work cut out for me.

I think I'll just focus on September for now.

And dessert.

Motivating the Muse

I thought I would try to do a fun post where I conduct an interview with one of the characters from my story, kind of like on a talk show or something, but it turned into an epic failure. One flat our refused, one didn't bother showing up, and then I got in an argument with my last resort (I honestly had no idea how upset he was about the whole love triangle thing). Unfortunately, that doesn't leave me with many other characters, so I might have to try that another day, or use a character from another story sometime. I suppose this is what I get for being so mean to them all the time. Give them a chance to talk to me out of the story and they let me have it.

So instead, I am going to talk about motivation. More specifically, my motivation. Every year I resolve to write more than just during National Novel Writing Month, but my muse is fickle. What it is about this past year that has kept me writing when in previous years my resolutions ended in epic failure?

The answer is this: meetings, deadlines, and tracking.

krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Meetings - The Writing Buddy and I have been steadfast in our meeting schedule. We've been meeting at least once a week almost without fail since December, and while not all of those meetings were wildly productive, it kept us both in touch with our current project and constantly thinking about the next project. Some of this I think is accountability, but it is also actually scheduling time to write - setting aside that time in my week so I have no excuse not to do it.

Rawich / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Deadlines/To Do lists - I've found the more specific the better with this, however they also have to be realistic and give me a bit of leeway. I set the goal to have my fanfic and my Sally Prescott adventure done by the end of the summer - they both got done. I set the goal to have my Rift story transcribed before I started the next story - it got done in record time. I've set the goal to write at least two blog entries a week, and so far I have. None of my past "write for at least an hour every day this entire year" or "type up every story you've ever written by hand as soon as possible" or even "you have to write a blog on Tuesday and Thursday by 5pm every day." I've discovered ways to set deadlines so that they work for me instead of against me.

krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Wordcount bars/charts - I've had a chance during Camp Nanowrimo this month to analyze what makes Nanowrimo so effective for me. A lot of it has to do with the community: fellow writers who are fighting the same battles at roughly the same pace. That's why I am Municipal Liaison for my region - to help unify that community and offer support and encouragement. But I've discovered another part that keeps me motivated: I am obsessed with tracking. I track the books I read, the exercise I do, the food I eat, the money I spend, so when Nanowrimo rolls around and I can input the number of words I've written and see it come out in a neat little chart or graph, I am immediately hooked. I want to spend the month of September finishing the novel I started this month, so on my "Current Writing Projects" page I've implemented a word count bar, and I spent (probably too much of) yesterday morning creating a bar graph in Excel that has a trend line for each day's wordcount. It's not pretty, but it's functional and I'm excited to use it.

I am confident that in the years to come I will be able to use these strategies to get the words written. If I can keep up, or even increase, the amount of writing I did this year, I should be able to complete several novels over the next few years.

Now if I could just find some motivators for the editing aspect, I might actually end up with a novel I can query with someday. Advice?

Roadtrip Without a Roadmap

50,000 words in 31 days? Pshaw.

Camp Nanowrimo is underway. I may not have any idea where this story is going, but my word count is on track, the story is unfolding, and the pages are filling up.

I've become neurotic, like I always do during Nanowrimo: babbling to myself as I wander through my apartment, acting out scenes to get dialog right, insomnia, leaping out of bed with a flashlight to write down ideas that coalesce as I fall asleep, and drinking copious amounts of coffee even though I had completely kicked the habit. All of these things mean writing to me. It gives me a warm, euphoric feeling. Normally all of this is associated with November, but now the Christmas for Writers comes multiple times a year. I am ecstatic.

I'm don't know what it is about Nanowrimo that gets my writing juices flowing. While I will say that this year has been better in leaps and bounds as far as my writing progress, I just don't feel the things I feel during Nanowrimo as strongly. Something about the community, the deadline, the pressure (get 50,000 words written in a month), and also the lack of pressure (write for the love of writing without judging what comes out). Writing with true literary abandon. It really is magical.

Granted, it's only what, Day 4? Everything is still fresh and new and exciting. I'm sure posts full of complaints will follow in the days to come.

For now, though, I'm settling into the groove and ideas are coming and characters I didn't expect keep introducing themselves and I have gotten distracted doing internet searches to chase down ideas. My brain has spark flying from all the information and ideas. I'm stealing every drop I can from my life and infusing it into my story: the funny guy at the coffee shop, the weird kid at my apartment complex, the street performers on Massachusetts Street, a conversation I had with a friend. Nothing is safe. You'd better not do anything memorable or noteworthy around me for the next month, or you might find it in my story.

I'm even building a Pandora station for mood music for this particular piece. I am finally writing the urban fantasy I've been obsessing about. I have no idea how it ends, and only a couple of vague scenes in the middle, but I have characters and a world and some very strange things going on and a very horrible thing about to happen. I may not be driving a shiny new Porsche easily across the finish line (more like a beat up Ford Taurus clunker), but I have got the wheels to get me there.

Oh, and I'm happy to pick up hitchhikers along the way. Care to go on a road trip without a known final destination? I've already got R.L. Naquin and Could the World Be About to Turn in the car. I'm sure we can fit a few more!

Hell and Screenplays and Camp Monsters

When the subject of weather is introduced into a conversation, people assume that it's because there's nothing else to talk about, that you are just exchanging pleasantries with someone you don't know very well to pass the time. Not so for us Kansans. Weather is an event. An ongoing drama. I honestly never get bored talking about Kansas weather even with my best friends and family.

And right now Kansas is HOT. Hot even for me, and I love summer. I hate to use a cliche, but it really feels like what I'd imagine hell to be like if there was such a place.

Due to the "excessive heat warning," and the "dangerous heat index" I have been spending a lot of time indoors - because weather.com tells me that outdoor exposure should be limited - so I have had lots of time for input/output. Mostly input.

I devoured a great deal of Doctor Who over the weekend. Yes, I'm still on that. But. I spent as much time watching special features as I did actual episodes, and I've learned something about myself. I've entertained the idea before, but I'm beginning to think that I might be better suited for screenwriting than for novel writing. Not only do I seem to write at the pace of a 45 minute television show, but I also focus a great deal on dialog and tend to neglect setting and description. And I suck at writing action scenes. My action scenes beg to be choreographed by a professional on a production team.

But the aspect that intrigues me the most about screenwriting is the collaborative nature of it. Sure, the writers do have to spend their private time actually writing the script, but based on all of the behind the scenes stuff I watched, the production team and the other writers all get together to go over a script to work out scenes and tweak it. And then they all get together with the actors for a read-through. All of the writers have to work out with the head writer where the overall story is going. Can you imagine some of those meetings? All of those ideas flying around? My idea of the perfect job. I thrive in collaborative settings like that.

All of that being said, I'm quite sure that I actually have no idea what I'm talking about. I have researched all of the ins and outs of novel writing and book publishing, and even self publishing online, but I have no idea how one begins a career as a screenwriter and what the job itself is actually like. I am going to have to look into this.

In other, completely unrelated news (although still slightly related since it still has to do with writing): I've actually committed to doing Camp Nanowrimo this month. I started my story and everything! I'm exploring the urban fantasy genre I've been wanting to write. I have no earthly idea where I'm going with it, but I'm taking the "write what you know" advice. It takes place in Lawrence, and I'm taking a lot of real life and twisting it a bit. Easy, laid back, familiar, and something I'd enjoy reading as much as I hope to enjoy writing it. Here's the synopsis I offhandedly came up with for the Nanowrimo website:

A lonely woman, trapped between adulthood and childhood, moves to a new city to be closer to her sister - her only remaining family - after they lose their mother. As she explores the new city, she finds that monsters are real, and one of them is after her sister.

I'm tentatively (with tongue in cheek) calling it The Monsters of Lawrence. The irony there being that I just finished a true crime book for book club called The Monster of Florence. Too clever?

So yeah. There it is. I'll keep you updated on how it goes.

Sally Prescott made it home safely

I took advantage of the fact that there was nobody in my office at work today and did some writing on the Sally Prescott adventure.

It's officially finished!

Ok, when I say finished, what I really mean is written. I'm not done with it by a long shot. It's one of those "shitty first drafts" that all the writers talk about, so it needs a lot of tweaking before I let anyone else read it. But. It's written. I have a complete story to work with.

You may or may not realize what a milestone this is for me. Or even the Doctor Who fanfic. I have long suffered an acute case of Unfinished Story. I know it's a common syndrome among writers, but mine is particularly severe. National Novel Writing Month did wonders as far as treatment; I finished my November novels for the last two years in a row now. But it didn't cure me of it completely. Outside of November, I hardly write at all, let alone finish a story.

With Sally Prescott and the Haunted Treasure, and also the Doctor Who fanfic, I have finished two whole stories outside of November. I am making progress.

These two newest accomplishments were for the pure fun of writing. No deadlines, no accountability, just me finally getting serious about my craft. It was also an exercise in confidence building: I proved to myself that I can finish what I start.

Of course I've realized that neither of them are publishable. As much as I love Sally and her wacky adventures, I will probably always write those for fun, and only share them on Scribd. Maybe someday when I have enough of them I'll make a collection and self publish them on Create Space. The Offbeat Adventures of Sally Prescott Volume One or something. At around 30 pages apiece, they're too short to be novels and too long to be short stories, and honestly I wouldn't want them any longer than that.

It's interesting. Most of my shorts end up being about that long. Maybe I should be writing for television?

I made a deal with myself that I could move on to the next big project once I finished writing those two stories. Well I've finished just in time for the start of the very first session of Camp Nanowrimo! I wasn't going to do it, but it's July 1st and I have a three day weekend ahead of me. Plus, I was a good girl and finished my dinner, so now I get dessert, right? I think I'll give it a shot. Nothing ventured nothing gained, as they say.

I'm guess I'm off to camp!