A Lack of Focus

"Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration"
--"Four Quartets" by T.S. Elliot

I'm starting to think that I have allowed myself too easy access to distractions. Email, chat, Facebook, blogs, and YouTube, all contribute to mental over stimulation and lack of focus. If my muse rebels against working on a particular page on my manuscript, then it is so very easy to jump over to check gchat and see who is talking to me or to facebook to see who has posted a pithy status message. I waste not only time, but mental energy bouncing around the Internet.

So, I'm now trying my hand at rationing my media usage and giving my mind long swaths of computer-free time to remember how to focus again. I have my AlphaSmart word processor which is great for Internet-less writing, and I might even drag out a good old fashioned pen and paper. I've also purchased a bunch of books that I want to read.

How do you avoid getting distracted?

Multitasking

First off, where did January go? Did someone borrow several days (weeks?) of January from my calendar? I could really use them back--I'm not ready for February. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I have a choice. We are already five days into February. Hard to believe, but true.

Why do I feel the need to beg for a longer January? Mostly because I have deadline looming in the not too far future, and I'm not ready for it. Most of this is due to the fact that I've been doing a lot of multitasking lately. A whole lot.

All of the Tri Mu have our own preferred ways to work on projects (perhaps we should discuss that in a mailbag monday one of these days), and a couple of the Tri Mu actually like to have several projects running at once. (Weird, I know.) Me? I'm most definitely not one of them. I prefer to focus on one project and knock it out fast in huge chunks.

That is apparently no longer an option for me.

Revisions for one book, first draft of another, and promo for a third? Can I run and hide now? Apparently not.

So, *lifts wine glass* (wait, it's only noon) ahem *lifts water bottle* here's to multitasking. May I conquer this many-headed beast.

Happy Friday everyone!

Working and Listening

I'm reading through Madeleine L'Engle's Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art, a collection of her ponderings on art, writing, and spirituality. L'Engle is most famous for her middle-grade novel A Wrinkle in Time. I came across a passage in the early chapters of Walking that felt like a good way to start off my writerly year.

"When the artist is truly the servant of the work, the work is better than the artist; Shakespeare knew how to listen to his work, and so he often wrote better than he could write; Bach composed more deeply, more truly than he knew; Rembrandt's brush put more of the human spirit on canvas than Rembrandt could comprehend.

When the work takes over, then the artist is enabled to get out of the way, not to interfere. When the work takes over, then the artist listens.

But before he can listen, paradoxically, he must work. Getting out of the way and listening is not something that comes easily, either in art or in prayer. . . . Someone wrote, 'The principle part of faith is patience,' and this applies, too, to art of all disciplines. We must work every day, whether we feel like it or not, otherwise when it comes time to get out of the way and listen to the work, we will not be able to heed it."

A writing soundtrack

I know I've posted on the topic of music before, but well, I'm a massive consumer of music so I'm going to talk about it again. I'm not a fan silence (unless I'm trying to sleep) so if you run into me, you'll probably find I have wires running from my ipod to my brain ears.

Now, as a musicwhore consumer of music, it is a bit of an understatement to say I have a large music library. My tastes are diverse and I can get a little itunes happy once in a while, so I'm pretty sure if you hit shuffle on my library the auditory experience will be the equivalent of living inside a schizophrenic's brain. (Side rant: Shake to shuffle is NOT a feature on the ipod nano--it's a menace. Anyone know how to turn it off? /rant)

Recently I've been on a Darkwave/Industrial kick. I have a manuscript due, uh, tomorrow, and I have a good power mix playing that has been great for this last push of revisions. Here are a list of the bands in the mix:

The Cruxshadows (of course)
The Birthday Massacre
Ayria
Emilie Autumn
I:Scintilla
One-eyed Doll

So what are you listening to? Do you have a 'soundtrack' for certain activities?

Break a Rule

The ubiquitous they like to comment on the way things should be done. These armchair humans try to tell the world how to run itself according to the they philosophy. For example, they say, "never run with scissors." I say what if you have to cut someone's hair that got stuck in the ceiling fan and that person is getting really dizzy and might hurl at any moment? I say run with the dang scissors. They say, "don't chew with your mouth open." I say, how's anybody going to see your purple tongue after you eat a grape jolly rancher if you don't? They say, "never pet a burning dog." Okay, well, maybe I can go with that one. Don't start petting, grab the garden hose first. The point is, there are exceptions to every rule. Come to think of it, I think they say that one, too.

They also have a lot to say about writing. "Don't let your characters think too much." "Make sure every word advances the plot in some way." "Never begin your story with characters waking up in the morning." "Never make the romantic male lead a pimply red head." The thing about all the they philosophy is that as a general rule, they are right. A lot of the they statements about writing are good things to know. But some rules were meant to be broken. There they go again.

I say let your characters think for a change. It's not often that people do that particular activity, so it might be refreshing. Let some of your words be there just because they are beautiful, whether they do anything or not. Wake your characters up with a tsunami wave in the middle of the night on page three and see what happens. Let that red head get the girl. She'll buy him Clearasil anyway, and everyone will live happily ever after.

I say, go ahead, break a rule.

A New Procrastinateling

A few months ago, I blogged on the procrastinatelings that inhibit our ability to write or work on novels. One in particular, blogging, has not plagued me this summer. In fact, I have been so remiss in my blogging that I wonder the TriMu keeps my ugly mug up on the sidebar.

Although I have not been hounded by the blogging procrastinateling, I have met with a new one, so powerful, it ripped me away from my assigned blog days. The dread procrastinateling has a foreign and exotic sounding name--noveling.

Yes, friends, my novel (and those of other members of this group, but I'll let someone else blog about that) has invaded my brain to the point that the first thing I think about when I wake in the morning is that I actually want to open up Chapter 7 and rip into yet another scene revision. The last thing I want to do when I sit down to my computer is blog.

So, this is all you get for now--a brief recognition that, yes, I am still alive. And now it's time to feed my happy new procrastinateling while he is with me. If the past is any indication, he won't be here long.

Letting Art Imitate Life

I spoke back in June about paying attention to the reality around me and injecting that into the lives of my characters. I really think there is no better research opportunity in the world than a cruise. So many people from so many places in such an odd circumstance, where the mundane parts of reality are gone and all you have left is the real stuff about them, the people they are when they don't have ten million other things going on. Plus, cruises are fun.

Unfortunately, there are some less than fun experiences in life that can be good sources of research material too. For example, last Thursday night, on my way to meet Tori and Darlene for our weekly dinner/write in/social hour, I was in a car accident.

First, I'm fine. Thank you in advance for your concern, but there's nothing to worry about. No one was hurt. My car is totaled, and that is sad, but both I and the other driver are uninjured and that's all you can reasonably hope for in a car accident.

I did notice something in the aftermath of the accident though, something that made me very happy. (Well, it made me happy later, once all the shock and adrenaline and general freaking out was past and I was capable of achieving "happy".) I had a little video recorder running in my brain the whole time, taking notes about everything that happened and everything I thought about, with the express purpose of using that information in a future novel somehow.

It made me happy because it means that I've now turned looking at life through a novelist's eye from a habit into an instinct. I didn't consciously decide to take detailed notes in my head of how the scream that came out of me when the airbags deployed sounded or what my thought process was when I finally worked up the courage to look at the damage to my car. I just did it. It was automatic and effortless, like breathing.

Now I don't have a project in the works just now that involves a car accident, but you can bet there will be one in my future. And when that project comes along, I'm reasonably confident you'll see the following little scene in there somewhere:

"I'm fine" I told the paramedic who'd come to check me over. "I broke a nail and I scraped my arm on the airbag, but I'm okay."

I confirmed that I didn't need to go to the hospital and signed the release. I listened politely while he told me where the nearest urgent care was in case I changed my mind, knowing that I wasn't taking any of it in and that I probably wouldn't need to go anyway. My injuries weren't bothering me and I was pretty sure they weren't going to.

What was bothering me was that I'd actually listed a broken nail as an injury. And I'd given it top billing, no less. Oy!

Yes, that actually happened, just like that. Yes, that is exactly what was running through my head at the time. I advise everyone who writes to start running that little video camera in their head; you can't pay a Muse for that kind of stuff.

The Inconvenient Muse

I had my eyes closed. I’d recently gotten back from a strenuous two hours of hooping, and now I was lying on three inches of memory foam. My brain had already begun drifting on the waves of sleep, and then there were words.

Initially I ignored these words, but they had changed the current of the waves, dragging me closer to consciousness. I was tired. I was comfortable. It had been a long day.

But there were words.

So, after the words charged through my mind a second time, I peeled back my eyelids, rolled over, and fumbled for a pen. Once captured on paper, the insistent words were trapped, unable to bug me, and I slept.

That is how my muse chooses to show herself sometimes. At inconvenient moments—close to sleep, in the shower, operating a vehicle—my muse will appear, dangling a clever snatch of dialogue, the perfect description, or the missing piece of plot. Not all the time, mind you, but every once in a while. It’s why I keep something to write with near my bed. Because, while the muse might have been kicking me in the head last night, when I woke this morning, I’d not only forgotten what the words were, I’d forgotten I wrote them at all until I stumbled over the handful of paragraphs this afternoon.

It happens like that sometimes.

Typically, the muse comes to those who are at the keyboard, already working. But, once in a blue moon, she shows up with no warning at all. Often she picks what seems like random and inconvenient moments, but take heed of the words she leaves in her wake. Write them down. They are not all gold, but they tend to be slippery suckers. If you ignore the words, they may drift back where they came from, leading to a frustrating, and many times fruitless, search.

Ever know you thought of something, figured something out, stumbled on the perfect idea/phrase, but not be able to remember what it was? Terribly frustrating. So, bad timing or not, record the words.

Anyone else have an ill-timed visit from the muse recently? Did she leave you with good words?

FullTime DayTime Jobber, HalfTime NightTime Writer

Working full time and stuffing in enough writing/editing time in to feel like an actual writer is quite difficult for me. I don't know how people manage it successfully. Except that they've had a lot more practice at it than I have. At times, I feel as though there's so much to be done with the bills, paperwork, and housewifely cleaning that I don't have enough time for me, let alone the myriad of characters plunging around in my gray squishy matter. And if it's this bad now, how in the universe am I to cope when I have kids? Fretting like this does me no good, serves no purpose. So the hubby and I had a chat over budgeting and longterm future goals. An agreement and compromise was born. The Plan.

The Plan involves a more rigid schedule during my weekdays to help me find both destressing time and writing time. During the weekend it's more fluid, to allow me to write during my best part of the day and be home administrator as needed. The Plan involves only one social outing a month (for the time being). I keep my critique meetings Sunday afternoon but I lose my TriMu meetings on Wednesdays and instead take on choir rehearsal. The daily schedule builds in time for my Morning Pages (The Artist's Way), plotting and planning time, and THREE hours of writing time after dinner.

A Typical Plan Day:

Morning Routine
AM Commute - Morning Pages
AM Break - Daily Writing Goal Spreadsheet
Lunch - Blog Reading/Composition
PM Break - Calendar, Email Reply-To List
PM Commute - Vent, Rev Up Blocking
After Work Routine
The 3 Plan Writing Hours
Before Bed Routine

The hubby has declared that I may continue to read all the publishing blogs and articles I would like - but not during my Plan hours. I may no longer research for my "agent wish list" nor submission guidelines until I have completed this latest editing run-through of StarStones. (Yes, by "run-through" I mean complete rewrite of several chapters, and pokey fixins of others.) No more work on short stories or smaller subs during Plan hours until this is done. Now, I can still scribble on the outskirts of those hours, but unless I meet my goals on the bigger work - the shinies and short stories get taken away. So I guess I better bust tail and get on it, huh?

Our priority goal?

To allow me to finish this run-through of StarStones by September 1st.

The Plan's 2009 Schedule:
September 1: Latest StarStones revision complete
September 2-7: Revision of query letter, research of submission takers, and the mailing of the first official query
September 8-30: Preparation of material for the October writer's conference
October 1-4: Writing Conference
October 5-23: More revisions
October 24-31: Pre-NaNo Plotting Week
November 1-30: National Novel Writing Month
December 1-31: Short Story Bonanza

A 2 hour session of new writing consisted of a 15 minute prep/outline, then writing for 15 fast minutes, exercising for 5, etc. until time was up. A 2 hour editing session would be a straight word binge. Until I do a week of the new 3 hour sessions, however, I won't know the flow. So expect the next update about this fulltime day job halftime night writer Plan to cover how I've managed to make it work for me.

Goals and Rewards

I don’t think anyone would disagree that goals are important, but I think a lot of people discount the value of rewards. Writing a book is accomplished one word at a time with a final goal of telling a complete story. One could argue that the reward is having a finished book at the end, but honestly (at least for me) writing the first draft is far from having a ‘complete’ project.

I’m a fan of smaller rewards along the path of the writing progress. Also of smaller goals. I’m a procrastinator with time management issues, so having set goals (and dangling rewards) gets me writing. Some days, if I’m really struggling, the goals are small and the rewards disproportionally large. I would never suggest complete overkill, like a piece of chocolate cake every 100 words--not only would you be the size of a house by the time you finish a 90k manuscript, but you’d be sick to your stomach before the first turning point. But, if I’m having a really bad day, I might promise myself I can check my email after I write 200 words (or write without distraction for X amount of time.) other days, after 1k words or 2k words, I promise myself a night off to read.

I also typically have big rewards for big goals. Currently my big goal is to finish the first draft of HB2. My big reward for finishing will be a week of guilt free time to play SIMS 3. I’m moving along at a nice pace, but it’s going to be close. The game releases next week (and the hubby preordered it for me back at my birthday,) so I know I have to finish soon. Very soon.

I’m nearing the goal, the dangling reward is within reach, and my productivity has tripled (maybe I should set shorted deadlines in the future.) Just days left now . . .

Do you reward yourself for reaching goals? What kinds of rewards?

I'd Like to Thank the Little People

The original intended post has been preempted by the resolution of a major plot problem in StarStones. Said problem resolution was celebrated with a toast and according to my hubby, I must dedicate several pages of acknowledgments in the following manner:

...

I would like to thank my personal gourmet chef, gardener, electrician, dish-washer, garbageman, plumber, computer repair guy, network technician, database administrator, and home inspector, without whom this book would never have been possible.....

.....I would be remiss if I left out my live-in plothole-catcher, logic-finder, devious-thinker, procrastinateling-slayer, and corkboard-alternative....

....and in closing, I would like to again thank my wonderful, darling husband for everything he puts up with, from the endless chattering to my own imaginary friends to the random spontaneous critique meetings to the "leave me alone, I'm blocking a fight scene" (or the "hey honey, hold this sword for a second. Okay good, now swing it at me from this direction...") wee hours of the morning.

...

I will have sparse real estate indeed. But how to convey one's gratitude in a single sentence for someone who married you AFTER already putting up with you through not one, but TWO novel-in-a-month adventures? Through the day-to-day grind of the writing time management crises? Does "to hubby, with love" seem too abrupt for gratitude?

Attack of the Procrastinatelings

Writers are the best procrastinators on the planet. We are creative people, so we can come up with some great excuses for it, but it usually comes down to fear and laziness. We fear failure, (what if I'm really just a hack?) and we fear success (what if I never have another good idea again?). Add to the fear a general state of malaise and you get a sweet breeding ground to grow procrastinatelings--all those fun, creative excuses we use to avoid writing.

Procrastinatelings come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. They even talk. There are the procrastinateling peoples--friends, family, knitting clubs, critique groups, etc. Then there are the necessities--sleep is the biggest drain, cleaning house always seems so important when you sit down to write, and eating comes in a close third in this category. Moneys are procrastinatelings that always seem to disappear right when you need them so you have to go out of your fictional worlds and get a job to breed more. My favorite procrastinatelings are the entertainments, including, but not limited too, gchat, facebook, movies, television, walks in the park, reading books, knitting and, of course, blogging. The most painful, but also most effective, procrastinatelings are the obligations--usually caused by peoples or moneys, they demand your time and they want it all right now. Actually, all procrastinatelings eat time. It's their favorite food.

There are many procrastinatelingocides in the world (duct tape is a key tool in some of them), but I procrastinated too long to mention any in this blog post. I'm tired (necessities), Mom wants to chat (peoples), I need to look for another job (moneys), I am at the climax of a book I'm reading and I really want to get back to it (entertainments), and I should be writing my short story instead of blogging (obligations)*.

What procrastinatelings are eating your writing time these days? Have you developed an immunity to any of them? If so, please share your recipe.

*Note: Two procrastinatelings can act against each other. Usually this has the effect of canceling each other out and nothing get's accomplished.

Baby Steps Through the Pages...

I have to keep reminding myself where I am on my writing journey.

I've always wanted to be a writer.

Kindergarten: I wrote a small, bound (and illustrated...LOL) book about the day a dinosaur (from the pictures, it appeared to be a brontosaurus) appeared on my front step for a playdate.
...
2nd Grade: I handed in my natural science report on robins as written from the bird's perspective.
...
5th Grade: I decorated spelling tests with flash fiction scribbled on the back using one vocab word in every sentence.
...
10th Grade: I slammed through my history report, presenting it as written by a member of an archeological dig's team. Complete with photos and "ancient scrolls". Oh yeah.

I've always been a writer.

My brain frequently dabbles between short fiction, flash fiction, poetry, song lyrics, and random exercises in creative prancing. In 2006, I attempted my first novel, a complicated piece that was more self-challenge than thoughtful prose - something different. Sick, stressed, and distracted due to school, doctor visits, and work, I set it aside.

But I didn't stop scribbling.

The merry band of heroes and requisite universe of StarStones have been clanging in my head since 2002. I'd done dozens of short stories from their points of view, mini-adventures, before finally chronicling a more epic adventure - this time starring their younger selves - in 2007. Having finished the book, my very first wholly-complete deeply-flawed novel, I moved into edits and dragged it to a writing conference for some critique. By September of 2008, I had deleted and rewritten the ending.

In November of 2008, I completed my second full novel, set in a new place, in an unfamiliar genre. Yay!

By December of 2008, I had deleted the ending of StarStones again. Boo!

And somewhere in there, in the midst of life and living, I decided I could never NOT be a writer. Editing REbegan in earnest. Fellow Tri Mus accepted me into the ranks. Goals were hashed out, mashed out, and then made realistic. Research began on submission deadlines and formats, publishers, agents, editors, query letters -- all things publishing. Another writing conference was scheduled. StarStones now has yet another ending. And there are many, many more edits to follow. Many, many mistakes to make. Support from the hubby: immeasurable. I determined I could indeed write, write, write forever. Good or bad - it didn't matter.

Where I am on my journey is just past the starting blocks: Committed to my writing path. No longer close enough to home to run back and grab those few things I forgot on the desk before starting off again, but still tentative in uncharted territory. I shouldn't feel like I'm behind, rushed. I don't have an external deadline (save the tantalizing open submission dates for some spiffy short story anthologies).

These are the days for making amateur mistakes, taking small steps, shaking off doubts. These are the days for soaking up all the education I can on the writing process and publishing world. And these are the days to vow (in application!) never to stop learning, never to stop listening, never to stop watching, never to stop writing. This - THIS! - is the beginning.

Magical Montage Moments

Writing is an art that must be accomplished over time with much effort, toil, and revision. We write, write more, scrap, write more, rewrite, scrap, write more, with the hope that someday, somewhere, we'll get it on a bookshelf for an unsuspecting reader to shuffle home with, open up, and be whisked away to another kingdom with our mystical guidance. Chief among the things we must do to reach that goal is to WRITE. Sit down, pull out the tools, and get to work.

There is no 80's montage.

Don't get me wrong, there are magical moments that occur between the pen and paper - when everything is perfect, never to be revised again - but these are few and far between. That is why they are called 'moments'. Truth: If we had it that easy all the time, they would be hardly magical. They would be normal. And we wouldn't appreciate them quite so much.

There is no sudden soundtrack of 80's pop music that will explode in your head while you are writing, somehow defeating time and space to bound through the task of writing 300 pages (in 2 seconds), selling your book for the quadruple-million figure book deal (in 5 seconds), watching your book fly off the shelves (in true omnipotent fashion), and finally, as the final notes of the montage taper off, panning in to see yourself from above, happy and relaxing, a job well done.

Cherish the moments, and cherish the toil.

The toil is what gets us to the endgame. The moments are the carrots along the way, reminding us that some good things happen within these pages. I wouldn't trade the effort and experience for the world. There's all of this cool stuff about my worlds and characters that only I know - and I learn a bit more about them every day. Discovery is part of the journey. Enjoy the moments you spend with your characters. Get to know them, get rid of the ones that annoy you (untimely deaths via ink are all the rage), and come to love them. There will come a time when you revise a scene and think "Woah. He would never say that." followed by "Instead, he would...". You have to spend the time getting to know them before you can make that call. It's like having dozens of friends - all inside a neat little package of gray matter.

Last week, I finished the second chapter of my science fiction novel for the seventh time. The first time, it was exciting. Verbose and clunky, but exciting. The second, third, and fourth drafts stripped out the bad stuff. And suddenly, the character was dull. Utterly lifeless on the page. He spent a good seven pages talking to himself and feeling sorry for the misfortune of others. Going back to my scraps, I found the good bits and put them back in for versions five and six. He still wasn't right, still thought too much. I added a new character, and that ember began to glow once more. My husband looked over my shoulder and made a tiny suggestion. I stared at him as if he had grown another pair of eyes. How in the world does he know my characters better than I do?

It was a solution that had been staring at me since I started revisions; I was merely fighting it. That's right: The magical moment was sitting there tapping its foot, yelling at me from time to time (this explains the recent headaches) and I only had to let it through to the page. Lesson: Stand aside and let those come through. Just because they are rare doesn't mean that you should ignore them when they come to the window.

I rewrote the whole chapter in a few evenings (not seconds!) without bothering with my previous material. The adventure was back! They were alive! And I was still able to go back and pull some of the old material forward when I was done. Now, it will be changed again over time. For now, however, I have a good draft of a chapter that stays true to my characters as they should be - exciting, insane, and raring for adventure. Wouldn't trade that time for the world.

Besides - don't you think being in the montage would make you really, really dizzy?

With Support

Last week I leaned on the group hard.

As a whole, I believe in writing a first draft in a void. I like getting the story all on paper fast, and then going back and seeing what I have later (and fixing the massive issues that are likely to be there.) But, recently I’ve been stuck in a never ending scene. When I started writing the scene, I loved it. Then somewhere I lost hold of the scene and it spiraled out of control. I knew where it had to go, but the characters weren’t doing what I wanted—or anything productive, for that matter—and I was getting bogged down. My instinct in such a situation is to briefly summarize what needs to happen in the scene and move on. Doing so surely would have been better for my wordcount, but this particular scene was the first major turning point, and while the core of my story is planned out, many points hinged on how I handled this scene. So, I did something I’ve never done before—I sent 1k of the raw first draft to my fellow Tri Mus to get their take on it. My hope was that they could look through the mess of writing to help me figure out where the scene was falling apart. After a flurry of discussion, they helped me pinpoint where (and to whom) changes needed to be made, and (though not suddenly—I only wish that were true) the scene began to work once again. Oh I still struggled with it, but the scene did not fight back quite so hard.

There are lots of opinions out there about writer/critique groups. Critique partnership is a very special kind of relationship. Many people prefer to work with near strangers as there is a certain amount of detachment needed to evaluate a work honestly. Some people have trouble working with strangers as they have no idea how their critique will be received or they receive critiques they do not know how to take/interpret. There is sometimes a fear of critique partners eradicating a writer’s voice. I have heard of groups being torn a part by cruel critiques which make the writer feel stupid and give up hope. Or, in the reverse, groups turning stagnant because of too much ego stroking and not enough honest criticism.

The Modern Myth Makers started as strangers with a common goal, and grew to be friends through our writing. I think that we are, first and foremost, a group of writers gathered to support each other. When one member is procrastinating, we encourage her to write (or maybe we just badger her.) Blocked or stuck? We sit around as a think tank, talking it out. Having one of those “I suck and nothing I write should ever be seen by anyone with half a brain” days? We offer reassurances and an ego stroke. Sometimes the support needed is for the group to point out the big glaring logic jumps in a WIP that we might have been ignoring, or to give each other the hard truth during critique, and we do that too. This weekend what I needed was to sit down and talk out what was in my head (verse what was on my page) with people who had ‘fresh eyes’ as I had been staring at the words far too long.

It’s not easy to find a writing group, and it isn’t what everyone needs (either at this point in their writing journey, or possibly ever,) but if you feel like you need fresh eyes to take your writing on to the next level, I highly suggest looking for a critique partner/group. Not every fit will be perfect. I tried a couple groups, some in person, some online, and partnered with a couple other writers before the Tri Mu was formed. For various reasons, none of the first groups/partnerships worked out for me (though I made some wonderful writer friends during that time.) If you’ve read our history, you know the Tri Mu formed after several of us met during NaNoWriMo. So, if you are interested in finding a critique group, or just forming a support group of writers, go out and look for writers in your area. Or look online. Don’t be afraid to set up ‘tester’ type relationships, and don’t feel bad about backing out if it doesn’t work for you (but also don’t feel bad if your test CP backs out.) Take a chance. A little extra support is nice.

And That’s Why I have a Scrap File

I’ve been chugging away and making steady progress on the first draft of HB2 (Haven book 2) but I have to say, some times I feel a slight bit of déjà vu while I’m writing. You see, I technically wrote a first draft of HB2 several years ago, but near the end, I changed the plot in a major way without backtracking to fix the first 2/3rds of the book. Add the fact that I’ve had a couple years of writing experience (and improvement) since the last time I touched that draft, and you can guess why, when I recently re-read the draft, I decided starting from scratch would be easier than trying to repair the old draft. So, I am, in fact, writing the first draft—again.

That said, some of the scenes from the original were quite cute/useful/etc and will make it back into the book (though written completely fresh.) Many are still in the outline, but are, of course, changed in drastic ways by the new course of the plot. I was writing one of these scenes the other day, and getting rather discouraged as it just wasn’t working. I looked at my notes in my outline, and the scene appeared to fit. But it didn’t. It just died on the page. So, I pulled up that lost forgotten file, and discovered that when I originally wrote the scene, one of the characters had an extra nudge of motivation that tipped the scale. I worked that motivation in and, like magic, the scene suddenly took on new life.

I’m glad I didn’t delete that old file (and let me tell you, it was tempting) but my habit is to save everything. Each book I write has a file called “Scrap.” As I rip things out of a novel (dialogue, description, scenes, or in this case, an entire draft) I dump them into that scrap file. Once in a while, I dig through my scraps looking for hidden treasures. I might not end up using them in the same story, or even for the same character the text was originally written, but sometimes that discarded bit of writing can be shined up and worked into a scene in a new way. This time, finding that character's extra motivation saved me a lot of headache, and might have even saved the scene. So keep your junk—you never know what it might be good for.

Anyone have a good story about reusing cut material? How about some tiny thing that saved an entire scene?

Distractions

I’m going to blog about distractions today. Specifically, a 5’11, brown-haired, brown-eyed, extremely cute, makes-me-feel-petite, boy-shaped distraction. This particular distraction is draining all my creative juices into the pool of rampant speculation about what he thinks about me.

This is EXTREMELY different to a girl that has successfully avoided “distractions” for four years.

I’m a romance writer….you would think that a romance writer would believe in romance and happily ever after. You would be wrong. See, I believe in love and lust and affection and compassion and all those other things that come with relationships. I just don’t believe that it happens the way that it happens in a romance novel and well, that is healthy. Romance novels sell fantasy. They sell a world that doesn’t exist. They sell hope that Prince Charming is going to sweep you off your feet and save you. Listen to me right now, you have to save yourself. Years of living and observation have proved this to be true. Hard times happen. Marriages and relationships break up. People die. That is reality and that reality makes the fantasy just that much more valuable to us as writers and as readers.

Happily ever after is relative. I’ve always figured that my happily ever after involved me and my gay best friend and an RV travelling across the country in our old age.

Travelling in an RV still might be my future, but the waters begin to be muddied when you date and dating was something that I’d all but stopped doing. After a series of bad first dates, I stepped off the dating train four years ago with no regrets.

Then, it happened as it always happens. A friend says “I have someone that you should meet.” You reluctantly agree. At least, I did and I was pleasantly surprised to see that he had more going for him than his personality if you know what I mean. It took a little while, but eventually he asked me out and I agreed.

That was my first mistake.

You see, for me, dating is like a roller coaster. You get on the ride and it starts moving, climbing the hill, slowly. You start looking over the side, anywhere but in front of you, where you can see the summit of the hill looming. You start having regrets and thinking if you could get off of this roller coaster, you would. You get to the top of the hill and then WHOOSH and a thrill runs through you, but each time you crest a hill or get ready to turn upside down, you have moments of doubt and insecurity.

That is what dating is to me and it is very, very distracting. The time that I would normally spend on my characters and plot have been spent in moments of doubt and insecurity. Does he like me back? He said I was interesting. What does that mean? He’s not talking to me as much as he was last week. Then, I hang out with him, we talk, cuddle, and kiss and the thrill starts again.

I know, I know. I am crazy, but I like roller coasters in the same way that I like romance novels. The roller coaster is the romance novel. It is the fantasy. It is the chance that something good could happen. It is the chance that you could fall off the coaster and die. The major difference between the roller coaster and the romance novel is that in a romance novel, you know that the main characters are going to get a happily ever after. But even with a roller coaster, you know that the ride will end happily, with the riders getting off safely and going to buy their commemorative photos.

With this particular roller coaster, I don’t know when or if this ride is going to end, but for now, I’m having a good time. I don’t know if this will change my vision of happily ever after or if this is just a bump in the road. I do know that this time with my “distraction” has reminded how much I like riding the roller coaster and made me think that even if I don’t stay on this particular ride, I might try another one later.

Now, if only I could figure out how to balance my “distraction” and my writing.

Inspirations and Secondary Characters

This will be a short entry because it's late. I have been at a loss creatively for about six months now. And after that long hiatus, I have begun writing and creating again in the last few weeks. I understand it may just be time for my creative dry spell to end (for now), so I'm not going to give sole credit to one writing technque or force of will or anything that pretends to be useful to others in the same situation. I do, however, want to share a craft tool I have been playing with during this spurt of inspiration.

As I mentioned last month, I am going through the Snowflake method for plotting my new Nano. Over the past few days, I have been writing one-paragraph story summaries from the POV of each character. This task has helped me immensely with uncovering the overall plot of the novel. I have always struggled with thinking up plot events (Vikki, by the way, is very good at that). But this process of learning from the characters, what happens and how they all respond, has breathed life back into my novel. With every character, even minor ones (in some ways, especially minor ones), I learn something new about the story, the characters, and the large-scale structure of the novel. I can see the parallel stories occuring simultaneously and interweaving with each other. Minor characters have forced their way into important roles. I have subplots emerging, which is a first for me as well. The story has begun pulling itself together in ways I did not expect. For the first time, I feel like this novel might just work after three years of fiddling with it. I'll keep you posted.

When was the last time you had a creative dry spell end?

The Call

Unpublished writers are always waiting with baited breath for THE CALL. Which call would that be? The call from an editor, of course. The call telling them someone wants to buy that doorstop they wrote.

My call finally came.

More details soon...^_^

Finding the Time

Time is arguably one of the most valuable and scarce resources each of us have. We can only count the time that has past, never the time still to come, and while it could be argued that time is a renewable resource, as one minute continues to follow the last, we never truly know when the final minute will come, or what will pop up in the next moment and demand our attention. Everything in life vies for time: family, jobs, sleep, shopping, hobbies, ect. We each must value and balance the activities that consume our time.

If you are a writer, you have probably heard someone say something to the extent of “Yeah, I plan to write a book one day, when I get time.” If you haven’t heard a line like that before, walk around and tell people you are writing a book, I almost guarantee you will eventually hear it. This line is one of my personal pet-peeves. After all, when is there really ample time just sitting around to write a book? Retirement? Who wants to wait their entire life before trying something they think they want to do?

When I first got serious about my writing, I knew one of the keys to improvement was to write a lot, and write constantly. I found advice (I forget where) which recommended establishing a ‘writing ritual’—a dedicated time I set aside every day to write.

Okay. I could do that. Right?

I made it maybe a week. Then life got in the way. Work swallowed me whole, a family event was scheduled during my time, or maybe I was just too tired when I got home. Writers always say “You wouldn’t let life get in the way of showing up to work. If you were serious, you wouldn’t let it get in the way of writing either.” Which, is true enough—but so not helpful.

I tried to be flexible about my dedicated time; it didn’t have to be the same time everyday, just an unbroken hour or two, alone, without distractions. Still I wasn’t consistently making it to the computer. I was frustrated. Some days I might get four miraculous hours, but then days would go by where I barely had a break all day. What was I supposed to do? Were people right about that waiting for retirement thing?

Of course not.

Here is what I finally figured out: sometimes time has to be stolen. There are lots of lost minutes during the day. Waiting after work to meet up with the husband or the kids? Hey, it might only be a couple minutes, but add those up with the twenty minutes dinner is in the oven, and the half hour before bed, and suddenly you have a full hour of writing. It’s not all together, and it’s not necessarily quiet, but carry a notebook, and you might be surprised how many words you have at the end of the day. Realizing my time didn’t have to be all together helped me immensely, and my word count grew on that first book.

Over the last two years, I think I’ve forgotten what I learned way back when with that first book. Oh I still steal time, in my own way. I now pack my lunch and devote my lunch hour to writing every workday. Most of the time, I can write at least 500 words during lunch, on good days I hit around 1k in that hour. After work, if I have the time and energy, I try to devote a little more time to my writing, but if life gets in the way, at least I know I had that hour. For deadlines (even if they are self-imposed), that isn’t always enough. I’ve been frustrated recently with my lack of time, so I think I need to start looking for those wasted minutes once again.

When do you write? (or practice any other hobby/prospective career?) Do you steal time? Where do you find it? Or do you have a dedicated time? How do you protect it? I’d love to hear from you, so chime in.