Back from the Brink

Oh, boy, folks, have I had a crazy few weeks. Grab a cuppa coffee/tea/wine/beverage of your choice and let me tell you all about it.

So I needed a mini break of blogging because I hadn't quite figured out how to manage my writing, my "new" job, family, life, and blogging all at the same time. I think I've figured it out now, so we're gonna try a trial of me blogging on Tuesdays and Saturdays for a while, and see how it works. Please bear with me as I reintegrate myself into the blogosphere.

This is your brain on editing.
Any questions?

Then there was the writing. In late October not only was I trying to manage some pretty intense revision on my novel (currently listed on my WIPs page as FIGHTING FATE, though I plan to change the title to IN FLAMES). I wanted to get a full round of revision finished before NaNoWriMo started, while also juggling my NaNo prep. That took a LOT out of me, and I edited until my brains turned into liquid goo. Seriously. It was messy.

My own personal NaNo shield

On November first, having finished that round of editing, I was happy to accept my NaNo fate. I greeted it with a warm, strong handshake. And on the fateful afternoon of November 1st, I had an extra meeting with my boss, wherein he asked me to work overtime in preparation for our display at an upcoming conference (I work for a small, specialty academic publisher). And in my inner ear, I heard my NaNo plans go *squish*. My boss and I negotiated trading the days in early November for days around Thanksgiving, so not all was lost, but it put some stress on my NaNo plans nonetheless.

As of November 12th, one-third of the way through the month, I had only written about 14K over the course of 4 authentic writing days. Ouch.

On the morning on November 13th, as I'm leaving my house to pick up a friend, I grab my phone to let her know I'm coming, and see that I have a missed text message from my boss--who, I might add, never sends me text messages. It said, more or less, that he was in the hospital, post-surgery after having had a heart attack. Everything okay. Call to talk about conference prep. SERIOUSLY. My boss is in the intensive care unit on a Sunday morning and wants to talk about conference prep. Now, granted, the conference started on the 17th. My boss isn't really all that Type-A, but we did still have a lot of work to do, and that essentially took the editorial side of our house from 3 to 2 employees doing the bulk of the work (we have a few work-study students, but regular employees, we are three). So now add more overtime work to my schedule over the next three days, making the first day of the conference (Nov 17th) day 5 for writing. Not a good sign.

See how the Jell-O powder gets all goopy with a little water?

Not to mention that on the 17th and the 18th I was about as worthless a writer as an uncooked box of Jell-O, from working 10hour days three days in a row, and the emotional turmoil of talking to my boss on the phone while he was doped on morphine and falling asleep. Yup, powdery Jell-O.

Somehow, though, I managed to pull a few days writing between 5-6K. Don't ask me how. Perhaps some superhuman feats of strength that even kryptonite couldn't squelch. Who knows? But I have to attribute at least a little of my success to Hart Johnson and her stupendous idea for hour-long sprint-writing sessions. I think those were ultimately my saving grace. Coordinated over Facebook, I would periodically join Hart, among others, on these sprints, and both the time and the community support helped a ton.

And, imagine, through all of that, I actually won!

Granted, according to my word verification, I only have 50,002 words, but I don't care! I'm 2 words over what they need (although, according to my Scrivener file, I have 50,019), and that's what matters.

Anyway, now it's December. A little over two weeks until the holiday break comes, which will entail lots of time with family, friends, and fruitcake. I'm already celebrating by eating too many sweets and listening to Christmas music while I cook and bake. And, dangit all, I am MAKING these cookies if it kills me. I just have to find some sweet rice flour first...

Be seeing you around the blogosphere!

What I Learned from NaNoWriMo

Okay, I've had a couple of days away from it, so I think I can write about it. Hurrah for Dec 3! :)

National Novel Writing Month was intense for me for many reasons, and many of those reasons were writing-related without being NaNo-related.

First, I learned that I'm not superwoman (even if I want to be). I can't do everything. I'm grateful I'm not taking more classes this semester, because nothing would have gotten accomplished if I were.

Second, I leaned a lot about writing. I have a much deeper appreciation for an outline now (which I might not have realized without seeing Lynda's post). I was so anxious to start writing for NaNo in October that I had to do something, so I outlined and character sketched. Amazing things about my story and about my characters came to light through that process. And without that outline, in my situation only superwoman (see #1 above) could have finished with 50K by Nov 30.

Third, I learned that it's okay to give up. I know. I did make it to 50K, but if you look at my NaNo stats, there was over a week of inactivity once I reached about 12K. I had other projects for school that took a lot of time (see my end-of-November posts on "Never Truly Gone"), and I had to tell myself it was okay not to finish the NaNo novel. In fact, it wasn't until I reached 40K that I honestly thought I would make it. If I hadn't given myself permission to not win I probably would have been so wrapped up in my own personal anxiety-hell that I wouldn't have reached 25K.

Fourth, I learned I'm not a writing multi-tasker. Oh, man. When I have to juggle three different traditional stories and one graphic-novel-like project, I can't think about more than one at a time. And that's okay. I don't see myself in this position again (too often) when I have to think about all of them on one day. Granted, I could work on story A on Monday and story B on Tuesday and that would probably be okay, but when I have drafts of three different stories open on my computer at once, it's probably too much. Hopefully I won't have to do that again.

Finally, I realized that I can do this. Maybe I won't be the next writing superstar, but I have something in my head that needs to reach wider audiences. And I WANT to write. And I love it, despite all the hard work. And while editing isn't exactly my idea of fun evening in, I like that, too. I'm ready to take on the challenge of the industry and move from being a writer to an author.

Drabble Challenge

As mentioned yesterday, the folks over at the Burrow are starting a weekly Drabble contest (write a story of exactly 100 words based on a given picture and win the glory of being the Burrow's coolest groupie... oh, and they'll post it next week to encourage all the other groupies toward jealousy and better writing**).

**Disclaimer: my sarcastic words, not theirs.  And all sarcasm is due to the excitement of having a challenging writing prompt.

PS--This one was hard for me.  Not sure why.

Without further ado:

Conversation - Camille Pissarro

“Are you sure you need to leave?”
“I am.”
“But think of how it will affect mother.”
“She’ll be upset, I know.  But I won’t be gone forever.”
“What about father?”
“He’ll be fine.”
“He only did it because he loves you.”
“I know.”
“You’re really going to abandon Donald?”
“I don’t love him.”
“But everything’s arranged.”
“I know.”
“What should I tell him?”
“Anything you want.”
“Should I say you’re sorry?”
“I’m not.”
“But I could tell him…”
“No.”
“And what about me?  Will you miss me?”
“Of course.”
“I love you, sissy.”
“I love you, too.  Goodbye, Ginger.”

Experiment

Hook your reader.  That's the key, right?  How do you do that?  That is the question.

The answer:  QUICKLY.  Nathan Bransford—agent extraordinaire—critiques the first 250 words of the ms (here's a sample of the last one).  He does this every Monday (although, this week he'll be critiquing a query letter).  But what are the odds of your 250 words being selected?  Oh, so slim.  So, as an experiment, I'm posting the first 254 words of a story that's been knocking around in my head for months (at least).

I encourage your comments.  Either comment below or shoot me an email.

And, as always, thanks for reading.

----------------------------------------------------
Title:  The Demon Inside
Genre:  Adult Fantasy (vampires and werewolves and demons, oh my!)


Her eyes snapped open.  A muffled alarm was beeping somewhere, drawing her attention into consciousness.  She blinked several times in the dark, suddenly unsure that her eyes were open.  Am I blind?  She raised her right hand carefully in front of her face.

A thin, metallic reverberation echoed loudly around her as her hand hit the… ceiling?  Instead of worrying about her eyes, she turned her hand and laid it flat against the cold metal only inches above her face.  What the hell…?  Feeling the panic pooling inside of her, she reached her other hand to the left.  It had hardly drifted away from her body before resting against the cold metal wall.

She quickly calculated: six inches above, three or four inches on the sides.  A metal coffin?

Panic and adrenaline took over.  She considered trying to kick the bottom out, trying to punch the metal above her, slamming both her hands behind her head.  Anything to get her out…. if that were at all possible.  Since she couldn’t see anything, including her hand directly in front of her face, her cell must be tightly sealed. 

How much oxygen did she have?

She reached her hands over her head, feeling the metal, judging the distance, mentally preparing herself to slam her fists into it when she heard the noise.  She froze.

“But how do you know?”  It was a woman’s voice, oddly familiar.

“She can’t be dead,” a man responded.  “And we have to get her out of here before the autopsy tomorrow.”

Weekly Writing Challenge

Hi all (however few of you there are :)

Last week my personal writing challenge was to write something without dialogue.  I haven't seen any comments about it yet (please, leave comments! even if it's just to tell me you like my hair!), but I'm hoping you enjoyed it.

So, for this week, I'd like suggestions for what my challenge should be.  It could be as simple as something like having a male narrator (I don't think I'm very good at this) to something incredibly specific.  I'm open to anything.  I need to push myself out of my safety zone.  I'll pick the one (or two) that look the most challenging to me, and I'll use them for my challenge(s).  If I get too many challenging ideas, I'll just schedule them for the weeks to come.

Thanks!  Looking forward to your ideas.

PS--Prose suggestions only, please.

Personal Writing Challenges

Yesterday the finalists came out on Nathan Bransford's blog for the chase/action sequence.  Unsurprisingly, out of the 450+ entries, mine did not make the top ten.  While not unsurprising (the odds being 1/90+ for making the top 5 finalists), the fact that I didn't make it plus my own extreme perfectionism hit home that, yes sir! I'm still an amateur.  It was a good thing to remember, and humbling all the same.

So, what to do?  Be proactive.

Challenge 1:
I joined a group on She Writes for peer-critiquing.  Last night, I introduced myself to the group, offered my own humble reading eyes, and explained what I've been working on (specifically referencing Anabelle).  Less than 12 hours later, someone offered to read for me!  Whoot!  Thank you, Greta!

Challenge 2:
I've also decided to be a little more proactive about changing the titles of the trilogy, especially thanks to the advice of Rachelle Gardner.  I've emailed my beautiful, wonderful, amazing children's-librarian friend Rory to help me in finding 20 titles of YA books with similar themes, and she's happily accepted the challenge.  The next step is for me to sit down with a pencil and paper (real paper, not the post-its on my computer) and brainstorm more words that directly connect to my work.  I still think the biggest problem will be creating titles that are thematically connected in some way between the three novels (without going the route of Anabelle Lindsky and the Tale of...), but one step at a time, please....

Challenge 3:
I was feeling extremely reflective yesterday about my writing, and it wasn't necessarily positive reflection.  I had checked out The Secret Year from the library to see what kind of books Nathan Bransford represents, and read it yesterday.  It's a wonderfully well-written, emotionally gripping book (though the ending left me hanging just a little).  But it made me question my own style.  To date, whether it's the writing that I've done in the past year and half, or the writing I did in JHS, HS, and college, it's all been heavily dialogue-driven.  My husband has said in the past that my writing reads like a screenplay.  So I was lamenting my dialogue-based work to him yesterday afternoon, saying how difficult it's always been for me to write colorful, emotional, descriptive prose over telling dialogue.  And so, he says to me, "Write a story without any dialogue."  And the heavens opened and the angels cheered, and I mentally smacked myself for not giving myself such an assignment long ago.  It's such a simple idea.

Of course, it's been an excruciating journey since then, almost 24 hours ago.  I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since he made the suggestion.  I now have 850 words, and almost every one of them has been an agonizing choice.  I'm going to work on it over the weekend, and then when I can squeeze in a minute or two next week (we'll be out of town with family and probably without internet access—eek!—for five days).  Hopefully I can have a draft of something up here by the 15th.  I'll be interested to see what reactions I get from it.

Challenge 4:
Find a site that offers weekly writing assignments, and do them.  Keep up the harder work that comes with an assignment like Challenge 3.  I definitely need the practice.

Challenge 5:
Don't beat myself up over the fact that my style is different from others'.  Dialogue-based, minimal prose is not my personal bastardization of fiction.  Hemingway comes to mind (though I'm hardly comparing myself to him).  While my descriptive prose needs the heavy hand of a nun with a ruler, that doesn't mean that my work is awful.  It just needs more work.