Abby's Writing Blog

Why I’m not doing Nanowrimo this year

2010-11-14T16:46:00.000-08:00

Back in October I reviewed all my yet-unmet goals for the year, the relevant one here being to finish my novel, and decided not to participate in Nanowrimo. I miss it, but the last thing I need is another rough draft on my hard-drive and no progress on the revision of my WIP.

The plan was to do a nano-level push on revision, but so far it hasn’t happened. I could make lots of excuses, I’ve certainly been busy enough, but I think the real problem is avoidance. It’s getting too close to finished and finishing is scary.

Or maybe it’s because my next step is to sort through a 2-inch stack of notes and organize the ones I want to apply to the novel. I just know that’s going to be a lot of work, so I look for something easier or quicker to do instead. And there’s always something.

Upper limit problem

2010-09-26T20:31:00.001-07:00

I read this blogpost the other day about upper limit problems. I think this might be why I haven’t touched my novel since March – I’ve reached the edge of my comfort zone – I’m too close to done. Finishing my novel is more success than I can handle, which suggests my upper limit is pretty damn low.

I decided I’d tell myself I’m really not that close to done, I just want to finish the current revision. Now I want to get back to work on it, but we’re putting new siding on the house. It’s a bit hard to focus with constant pounding on the walls. I may have to try the local coffee shop.

Fang veneers

2010-08-09T14:57:00.000-07:00

Fang veneers are all the rage among the younger set.

I want some! But they only last a couple months, so I’ll wait until the perfect moment, like a book tour or writer’s conference.

Either one may be awhile, since my novel is still on the back burner.

New writing plan

2010-07-17T15:53:00.001-07:00

My novel has been on the back burner for nearly four months now. Yesterday I sat down and created a new schedule for myself.

Finish the revision that was supposed to be completed last March by the end of July. (Coming up faster than I like.)

Do a scene by scene revision over August and September. Start sending out to beta readers in October. Write something new and unrelated to this series during Nanowrimo in November.
Edit in December.

I WILL FINISH IT THIS YEAR! AND I MEAN IT!

Gardening instead of writing

2010-05-27T10:57:00.001-07:00

I can't believe I've still got followers after not posting since March - though if you're like me you ignore the blogs that never post and leave them sitting in your reader, while dropping the ones that post too often.

I haven't posted because I haven't been writing (shame on me!). Here's what I've been up to instead - playing in the dirt.

Novel dilemma solved

2010-03-26T14:30:00.000-07:00

My novel progress has ground to a halt. I’ve run into a plot wall and instead of struggling over it have decided to clean my desk, tackle my TO DO list, write some blogposts, and a few other such chores instead.

Meanwhile, I solved my dilemma (whether to pursue traditional publishing or go the DIY route) by looking at the bigger picture. My epiphany came in the shower when I started to think about everything I want to write. This isn’t about one book, it’s about my career.

I intend to write more books, at least two series worth and some stand-alones. There’s room to publish at least one series through traditional publishers and do the others myself. Each approach will gain name-recognition that will help sales in the other.

Which way to go with my first novel is still undetermined. The tentative plan is to hit one or two conferences this summer with manuscript in hand and see if I can get an idea whether the thing is sellable in today’s market. (And whether it is ready to sell at all, of course.)

If my work is good enough but nobody wants vampire novels, then I’ll do it myself. If there is interest, I’ll pursue the traditional route, despite the potentially two years from query to shelf time lag. Maybe during that time I can write and release something else myself.

First I’d better get back to work and finish the darn thing.

Writer’s dilemma

2010-03-11T07:54:00.000-08:00

I saw on an agent’s blog, in a post on why she’d rejected fifty queries, that a writer should figure two years from query to shelf. TWO YEARS!

That’s two years from when your novel is finished, revised, edited, and ready to sell, until you actually have buyers and readers. No wonder the traditional route takes so long to build a career. At 53, I’m not sure I have enough years left to take that route.

Not that other routes go to instant fame, but I can at least, thanks to the internet, get to nearly-instant publishing. At worst, I can blog my novel. And I might. I’m still researching all the options and cooking up a plan, but at this point I’m 99% convinced that indie-author is the way to go.

But then I read on another blog: “Right now, in March of 2010, agents are essential if you want to be a full time fiction writer.” The jist of it being if you want a chance at the big bucks – enough to live on – you’ve got to sell to the big boys. That being the dinosaurs, the ones who won’t change their business practices to adapt to changing times. The ones who want to kill ebooks.

What’s a writer to do? We’re obviously in the midst of upheaval in the publishing world. Do I cling to the old ways because that’s still where most of the money is, or try to find the crest of the wave of the future and hope I can surf my way to future success?

Lost Already

2010-02-25T15:55:00.000-08:00

I didn’t make the first cut in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Either they aren’t looking for vampire novels, or I need to work on my pitch. Maybe both.

Meanwhile, I’m still revising the thing, so it’s just as well I lost early. I had cut it in half, but now I’m adding about half of the removed material back in. The first half almost makes a story on its own, but I liked the original ending better.

While in the shower, the solution came to me. A little rearranging of some scenes, one new one, leave a few for book two, and Bob’s yer uncle. Get that done and I get to revise it all over again.

It still needs more depth to each scene, and more depth to the characters, but I have to do that revision scene by scene. And I have to be sure I have the right scenes before I tackle the job.

Book two now consists of a random collection of leftover scenes and a really rough draft written during Nanowrimo. I think I’ll try the index card method of plotting when the time comes to work on that one.

Outlines and contracts

2010-02-19T20:15:00.000-08:00

They haven’t said but it looks like the Amazon award did get 5000 entries – on the last day, a few hours before midnight. Probably everyone else waited until the last minute to enter, I’m glad I didn’t. Though if I make it as far as semi-finalist I plan to pull my entry, now that I’m reworking it. That and I don’t want to sign the contract the winner is required to sign.

Speaking of contracts, I’ve just been reading about how multi-book contracts require the author to submit outlines for editorial approval. I’d heard of authors submitting outlines, but hadn’t really thought about it in terms of my future contracts, being a ways yet from worrying about book deals. But the bit I read says this is standard.

Excuse me? If I wanted to submit outlines for approval I’d go back to school. No way Jose. I can understand the publisher’s perspective here, but as a writer, I won’t do it. I already have drafts (done or started) for the next three books in the series. This is my story to tell, and I’m not going to have some editor say “No, you can’t write that.”

Though I suppose I could outline the drafts and submit them before signing a contract, and not sign if the outlines aren’t approved. Moot point right now as I have no offers on the horizon.

More revisions

2010-02-17T17:15:00.000-08:00

Between other projects, I am slowly working on revisions, having split my manuscript into two books. (One of those projects is clearing my desk, not an easy task, but I’m making progress.) First up is to rethink the entire story now that the first half has to hang together on its own.

That part is done. I added a new section near the end. It’s an improvement over the part I had struggled with that it replaces, and I think it builds to a stronger ending. And I decided to add another scene in the middle, to spark some life into it (now that the “middle” has been relocated).

Today I spent the morning revising the beginning of my novel. Not the radical start-completely-over-from-scratch revision I did before, but a little bit of change. Sometime after 11am, at about page 12, I realized my change wasn’t going to work. One little change and my villain for book two lost his reason for what he did. Oops.

So, after eating an early lunch and doing a little sewing, I decided I had to scrap the morning’s work and start over. I’m keeping the changes I made to the backstory, which means I still need a little tweaking, but the rest stays the same.

Writer’s Fears

2010-01-29T14:08:00.000-08:00

I read a blogpost the other day about writer's fears. One of them was “Fear of revealing too much about ourselves.”

This is mine. I’m terrified that people will read my writing and think I’m a warped and twisted soul. I’ve dealt with it by developing a bit of schizophrenia. All that disturbing stuff in my writing? That’s from my inner evil twin. I only let her loose while writing.

I’m really a very nice, quiet, mild-mannered person. You know, the kind the neighbors can’t believe did it when the police find body parts in the freezer. I assure you, I don’t have body parts in my freezer. Not human ones anyway. (There’s a chicken, and hunks of cow, elk, deer, pig.)

The human body parts are all in my novels.

Made my goal!

2010-01-27T20:37:00.000-08:00

I did it. Entered my novel in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award today. My goal was to do so by the end of the month, made it by four days.

I don’t expect to win, but I would like to see how many cuts I can survive. My novel still needs work, maybe a lot of work, even though I think it’s now as good as quite a few I’ve read. It needs more character development, more description, and I suspect my pacing is way off.

Worse, I think I’ve got two novels together. It has a natural break in the middle, and the first half fits my story concept while the second half seems to be a story on its own. Yet there are plot-threads that continue through, so if I split it they will have to be books one and two of a trilogy. Fortunately, the concept (and draft) for the next book in the series will work nicely as book three.

I’m setting it aside for a month to age, and will decide what to do with it in March.

Fighting eye-strain

2010-01-25T21:10:00.000-08:00

I’m making a little too much progress on editing my masterpiece. Yesterday I had to quit about 3pm because my eyes hurt. As soon as I got away from the computer they were fine. I think it’s time for glasses, I have to hunch over to bring the screen into focus, so I have a choice of eye-strain or back strain.

Today I’m trying to take frequent breaks. Typing is easier, because I’m not a touch typist. I have to keep an eye on the keyboard as I type or I hit all the wrong keys. Even surfing is less strain as I tend to look out the window anytime I wait for a page to load. But editing keeps my eyes on the screen, usually on slightly out-of-focus text. Definitely time for glasses.

Meanwhile, I’m still finding a few places where using find/change to replace names changed a non-name. My own fault. I neglected to tell the function to be case-sensitive. I replaced “Dan” with “Ian” – ending up with Ianger and Ianced. And I replaced “Mark” with “Ryan” – spellcheck caught the Ryaned and Ryaneted but not Ryan where it should say mark.

At least I had the sense to change the names before running spell-check and doing the final edit.

It feels like done

2010-01-21T20:25:00.000-08:00

I’ve finished the latest revision, and I feel like I’m done. I’m not. I still need to come up with some names, and places, and a few other little details.

Next up: run spellcheck, adjust the format, number the chapters.
Then draft a summary, and check the rules for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest.

Once I’ve managed to submit the thing, I’ll take a month off, then print it out to read on paper. And start in with the next round of revisions. I know it will need some because there are portions I’m not real happy with but left because I didn’t have time to rewrite them before the contest deadline.

Meanwhile, I’m taking tomorrow off to do housework.

New deadline

2010-01-09T16:37:00.000-08:00

I had established a self-set deadline of the end of March for finishing my novel. Then yesterday (or was it the day before?) I received email notice of Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Award. Here I’d thought they weren’t having it this year. They are, and the deadline is February 7.

Can I finish this thing in less than 30 days? Maybe not to perfect, but possibly to something I can enter without mortal embarrassment. I calculate I need to revise 10 pages a day, which should leave a few days to do an edit pass and draft a 300 word summary. I should note my pages run about 600 words in my working format.

I’m going to try. There’s nothing quite like deadlines to sharpen my focus and cut the slacking. But it may need more work than I can manage at 10 pages a day, or life may get in the way, or the contest may hit its 5000 manuscript limit before I’m ready to submit my entry.

At worst, I’ll make a good dent in the revision. Although doing it this fast means not spending as much time on each scene as I would like, it should be enough to smooth out the last plot wrinkles. Then I will put it aside for a month before going back and polishing each scene, whether I entered the contest or not.

Writing goals for 2010

2010-01-02T11:52:00.000-08:00

One big goal: sell my novel. I’ve set a deadline of the end of March for having it agent ready, but I’m not sure that’s realistic. If I could devote 10-12 hours a day to revising and editing, maybe, but I can’t.

I’ve been reviewing the thick stack of scribbled notes I’ve made of ideas for this or that scene or character, and I’ve got a lot of revision to do yet. But I’m sticking with the deadline for now. If it’s not close enough to scare me I won’t work hard enough to ever finish this.

After it’s done, next step is to find an agent. I also need to get a website set up, plus get out there in social-networking land and try to build a following. I want to finish and polish some short stories I’ve started, hopefully without all of them growing into novels. And I also want to start revising book two.

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the amount of work involved in this goal. But then I remember all the stories still waiting to be written. I have to get this novel finished so I can go on to the next one.

Back Cover Copy

2009-12-27T13:27:00.000-08:00

I finished my re-read and scene listing for my work in progress. Next step is to go through all my notes and decide which ones to use, then add them to the scene list.

Meanwhile, before I tackle the notes, I’ve been working on back cover copy. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

Ginger has every reason to hate vampires. They’ve held her captive, raped her, and sold her for her blood. Meanwhile, they've killed her husband and burned down her home and business. Now one of them has bound her to him as his servant and expects her to help him.

The only thing she wants more than escape is to find her husband’s killers and exact justice. To do so, she has to help her master survive his challenge year. As long as she’s stuck with him, there’s also the little matter of a missing girl, and a vampire who has been selling children as bloodstock.

Can she resist staking her master long enough to find the killers, the child-dealer, and the missing girl?

Working on it helped fix the story in my own head, but it is subject to change without notice. By the time I’m done revising the story may have morphed again.

Novel epiphany

2009-12-12T14:05:00.000-08:00

I’ve had an epiphany on my novel. At first, I thought it a flash of brilliance, but as I work through it, epiphany is a better word.

I’ve been re-reading it (to refresh my memory) and listing the scenes. I’m at a point where I needed to step back and think about the story from a broad perspective, and see if I have all the scenes I need and no unneeded extras.

Meanwhile, I’d just read about how to write query letters and the back of my brain had been chewing over how to describe my story. I’d written down the first few ideas, but this morning it came to me. And as soon as I wrote it down I knew I had it right.

Since then I’ve been thinking about what it means for my character, and jotting down notes (even while sitting in the parking lot at Walmart). I’m on the right path now, I can feel it in my bones (unless that’s the damp weather moving in).

My new grasp on my story does not change the basic plot, but rather the character’s feelings and reactions throughout. Which happens to be one area I needed to work on in the next revision. It will impact the interactions between characters as well. End result will be lots of revisions, but hopefully no totally new scenes.

Time to get the last of the Christmas gifts made so I can get back to work on this puppy.

Nanowrimo is over for me

2009-11-27T09:05:00.000-08:00

I had planned to write a bit more evenings this week until I discovered I needed the next three evenings for ebay. Listing, not buying. I’m trying to clear out some clutter (all but my favorites from a collection I’ve had for years).

Between ebay listings and cooking up a storm for Turkey Day, I have done no writing. I did go verify my wordcount today and collect my winner goodies, but that’s it for me. I don’t think I’ll even attend the TGIO party in town.

With the last three days of this month I plan to shorten my lengthy ToDo list – by actually doing things. Then I will return to revising book one. Time to get that sucker finished so I can move on, and start revising book two.

Done with nanowrimo

2009-11-21T19:45:00.000-08:00

I’ve pretty much quit nanowrimo for this year. I made my word-count, then turned my attention to other things that need doing around here. And five days later I’m nowhere near close to making a dent in my TODO list.

A full day CLE (continuing legal education) on Friday didn’t help, that burned a day. But I needed the hours and the topic was interesting, so I had to do it.

I can’t see returning to racking up words in drafts for books two and three when I most need to return to revising book one. I don’t regret the time spent so far, I’ve had some great ideas, but it’s time to get back to work.

I might write a few more words if inspiration hits, and hit the forums one more time, but that’s it for this year.

Jackpot!

2009-11-15T16:48:00.000-08:00

I hit the green bar today, mid-afternoon. After finishing the scene I clocked out with 50507 words. Technically, not an official win because they are in two different books, but I met my goal – 50k by mid-month.

I probably should put the new stories aside and return to revising book one, but we’ll see. I’m taking tomorrow off to get some housecleaning and organizing done. If ideas pop into my head I’ll keep going. If I’m pulling a blank on Tuesday morning I’ll return to revision.

I’ve joined the Nano-rebels

2009-11-14T10:37:00.000-08:00

I ran out of story at 39000 words. Sure, there are things I could have done to add words, but they would have been cut later and my goal was to finish the rough draft of the story.

Probably the lack of words is because I dropped a subplot somewhere along the way. I’ll need to add it back in but it’s the sort of thing that will go better after I’ve finished book one. Meanwhile, my muse swung by with inspiration about book three, so that’s where I’m going.

Instead of adding junk words to the book I started Nano with, I’m going on to the next book in the series, which makes me a rebel. In the broad sense, it’s the same story, but different chunk of it.

Whether I will aim for 50000 words on this one, or ease up when I’ve hit 50000 total, I’m not sure yet.

Second week doldrums

2009-11-12T09:05:00.000-08:00

I managed to hit 30000 words on Monday, then stalled again. I could not figure out what else would happen in the section I was on. Sometime on Tuesday I finally skipped ahead to the next section.

Which was also blank, so I took a tip from the Nano forums and started describing the character who comes into this part. Not so much physical but who she is, what she does, which led into what goes on in this part of the story, and I was off and running.

I am now at 35769, as of 9am Thursday morning, but running out of story. I want to reach the green bar by the end of the weekend, but I either need inspiration, or there’s going to be a whole lot of gratuitous sex thrown in.

Nanowrimo update – falling behind

2009-11-09T13:02:00.000-08:00

Actually, falling behind is normal for week two of the month of writing dangerously. I ran out of steam over the weekend, ended up with 28726 words Sunday night instead of my goal of 30000. Not that far off, really, less than 1300 words needed, but my muse ran away and I gave up the struggle after dinner.

I’d forgotten that I had ebay listings closing Sunday evening, which distracted my attention, as did a phone call from home with some bad news. But I’ll get it done. Maybe I won’t manage 50k on a second novel within the month, we’ll see how it goes.

Meanwhile, today I’ve written nothing so far. Almost nothing – I’m at 29196 now. I think I wrote a few of those words last night after recording my total for the day though. Had to pack up my ebay sales and take the packages to the PO, then go play in the dirt. I mean landscape.

On dreaming and ideas

2009-11-06T13:06:00.000-08:00

One of the writing blogs I follow had a post about dreams, in which the author talked about her vivid dreaming and overactive imagination and how it helps her writing. She also mentioned having an alien abduction dream when she was 11 that scared her silly.

I had one of those, except, being weird, I found it fascinating instead of scary. Then again, I was 16 at the time, and not afraid of anything (except public speaking). I still remember it, sort of. The bright light outside my window, the big-eyed aliens, being flat on my back on a table unable to move, and various testing instruments inserted into my body. Yep, classic alien-abduction dream.

Now you know where I get my ideas – aliens send them to me via the chip they planted in my brain.

Reaching the End

2009-11-06T13:05:00.000-08:00

I reached “the End” last night. Now I have to go back and fill in the middle – the entire middle. I have a story with a beginning and an end an a rough outline for what happens in between.

I’m also on track to meet my short-term goal of 30,000 words by Monday. Although I’m slacking today, no words written yet and it’s after noon.

Current word-count: 19095

Day four progress report

2009-11-04T19:48:00.000-08:00

After my first day’s progress of 5039 words, I set a goal of 5000 a day. Of course, life got in the way and the second day I managed 3894, then only 2797 the third day.

So I adjusted my short-term goal. I decided 15000 words by Thursday night would do, then hope to make another 15000 by Monday. The weather looks bad for yardwork after Thursday so that seemed workable.

But I got inspired today (Weds) and made 15374 already. 2000 words or so in an hour this afternoon when the muse was riding me did the trick.

I hope she’ll stick around so I can finish this up without resorting to the drivel that fills the first 10,000 words, most of which will be cut in revision. Three sex scenes is probably too many in that space too. I’ll need to find some different action to spice it up.

Day three progress report

2009-11-03T08:25:00.000-08:00

Day three of nanowrimo begins, it’s now 8:20am and I am writing this post instead of generating more words in my nanovel, so I am already behind.

Day one I managed, despite the screw-ups of my muse, to spit out 5039 words. Yesterday, partly because of a necessary trip to town and household chores, I managed 3894.

My goal is 5000 a day, so I can finish two novel drafts this month. I know I can do that much, yet I also know I won’t pull it off every day, which makes it a high but reachable bar. A goal I can reach without effort isn’t much of a goal.

I track my progress on a scrap of lined paper, and I will post here when I have time, or remember. So far most of what I’ve written will end up cut on revision. It takes me a fair amount of word-flow before the creative juices kick in. I haven’t reached that point yet.

Time to get back to work.

And we're off

2009-11-03T08:24:00.000-08:00

[post written 11/1 but I forgot to post it]

Okay, who switched my muses around? Today is the beginning of nanowrimo, and I woke up with a great new idea for a …….. quilt. Quilt? Where the [blankety-blank] is my WRITING MUSE?

She swung by a little later with an idea – for book one. No, you little bitch, I’m writing book two. I need ideas for book TWO, not ONE. Now get back here and get to work or I’ll find me another muse.

Countdown begins

2009-10-27T16:33:00.001-07:00

Four days until Nanowrimo. I went to a kick-off party Sunday, expecting maybe half a dozen people like prior years. We had a crowd, about twenty people crammed in a small room.

I almost didn’t go at all but had told the ML that I would, so I felt I had to. If I’d known how many other people would show up I’d have stayed home. But it was okay. Best part was it put me in the mood for Nanowrimo.

I lasted an hour, which is all I’d planned on. By then lots of people were talking and I couldn’t hear a thing. I never can in a noisy environment. So I went home and planted more bulbs.

Stoked for Nanowrimo

2009-10-23T20:10:00.000-07:00

I’m stoked! Look what I found at my local grocery store. They had a special display next to the Halloween candy. Now I’m ready to write my vampire novel.

We’ll drink it on Halloween, then I’m going to stick a candle stub in the bottle and set it on my desk for inspiration.

I’d seen Vampire Wines online, but have been too stingy to order any given I can buy a five liter box of wine for $12. But I had to try one bottle when I saw them sitting there. I can spare $8 once.

Frankly, I’m jealous. Wish I’d thought of the idea first – and had a winery in need of a name.

Two months gone

2009-10-21T20:37:00.000-07:00

My journal tells me I finished the previous revision of my novel two months ago. Two months? Where has the time gone? That’s two whole months I did nothing on my novel. I’ll never publish at this rate.

Not that I’ve ignored it completely. I’ve made notes of ideas until I have a daunting pile of scraps of paper piled up. Some ideas are changes to scenes written, a few are new scenes, and some are things I’ll need to research. Others are ideas about characters or vampire society and biology.

I’d wanted to have the next revision done before Nanowrimo, but it looks like that won’t happen. I at least need to re-read it, assuming my current plan holds, which is to do vampire book two for Nanowrimo. Then, if I finish that one before the end of November, I’ll tackle the werewolf one.

Light Bulb Moment

2009-10-17T11:15:00.000-07:00

Inspiration struck yesterday.

When I rewrote the entire beginning of my novel, I cut a long complex segment whose sole purpose was to create a shortage of bloodstock (humans my vampires keep for food). Along with a pile of unnecessary scenes, I also lost a feeding scene I really wanted to keep.

Yesterday, as I thought about wanting to work that scene back in, as my main character’s reaction would make a later scene more meaningful, I had one of those flashes of inspiration that make a writer jump up and down with excitement.

Swine flu will do the job! Not only can sick (and dying, because of anemia on top of flu) stock create a shortage of blood for the vampires, but I can add my MC caring for a sick “critter” to create the friendship I want between them, and give her a chance to stand up to the critter’s owner, and overall show the vampire’s treatment of their bloodstock.

And adding swine flu settles my indecision about when to place the story. It takes place now. (Although I suppose I could still set it in the future, and make up a new flu strain.)

Now I am stoked to get back to work on revision.

Dilemma

2009-10-14T08:29:00.000-07:00

I find myself with a dilemma. Nanowrimo is fast approaching, and I have been planning to draft book two of my vampire series. Today I pulled out a werewolf short story to work on, and after an hour or so began to think it might be the beginnings of a novel.

I had written a couple pages for the beginning of the story, only to look it over and think, ugh, that either needs to be cut severely and then worked in as backstory, or developed further. It reads like a summary the character might write in her journal.

If I expand it to show what happened, I think it works better as the beginning of a novel instead of the lead-in to a short story. And what I’ve written is fine as a summary. So I could use this project for Nano instead of vampire book two.

In all honesty, the vampire book already has several scenes written, because they were cut from book one. So the werewolf story-turned-novel would fit the Nanowrimo rules better, not that I pay a lot of attention to rules. Yet I want to get the book two draft done also.

I think what I’ll do is put the werewolf story aside, and make my mind up between now and Nov. first. Or flip a coin. Meanwhile I’ll return to working on the revisions to vampire book one. Probably I should skip Nano completely and focus on finishing book one, but where’s the fun in that?

Nano is coming

2009-10-04T09:21:00.000-07:00

Where did September go? Less than a month before Nanowrimo and I still need to revise my novel before then so I can start the sequel. But first, I must clear my desk and do some month-end bean-counting.

I worked a bit on some short-stories last month but never did the next revision I meant to take care of before the end of September. Now I have to put them aside. I really want to get one more revision done on my novel before November. And that’s 27 days away (not counting today).

Too busy to write

2009-09-20T14:36:00.001-07:00

Check out my garden blog to see why I haven't been writing much lately.

Taking a break

2009-09-14T10:15:00.000-07:00

I’ve been working on a short story while taking a break from my novel (in between quilting and gardening and too much reading). Today I reread the story after letting it set a few days and decided it’s not bad, but a little restructuring will make it brilliant. Well, at least brilliant in my mind, but still better.

I’ve had my eye on a submission deadline of the fifteenth (three days away when I wrote this post), but now that I want to restructure it I think I’ll pass on that one and look for somewhere else to submit it, once it’s ready. That one didn’t pay much anyway, so no great loss.

As I tinkered with it here and there, a little snippet sprang out of my head onto the screen, and I thought ‘whoa, that leads into a possible novel idea.’ So now I really need to spend more time writing, because I’ve got way too many ideas that I want to turn into books, and not enough hours in my life to finish them all.

Soon as garden season is over. And I finish the quilt for my mom.

Rewrite is done

2009-08-22T19:53:00.000-07:00

Finally! Only three weeks past my self-imposed deadline. I’ve made it through the rewrite of my novel.

There are a few little details still to do, like add in the scene I wrote in a separate document. And if I decide to add an epilog I will need to write that. But I reached “the end.”

Time to celebrate!

Past the wall

2009-08-09T17:11:00.000-07:00

I’m past the wall. It had two doors and I couldn’t go on until I decided which door to take. I’ve decided to set the novel in the current year (2009 as of now), and worry about the later portions of the series later. Maybe I’ll never get that far anyway.

I’ve made good progress the last few days after clearing that hurdle. Now I’ve reached a part that needs to be completely rewritten, followed by a big hole waiting to be filled in. 30,000 words worth, roughly. That may take awhile. I’d really like to reach the end this week so I can set it aside to age for the rest of the month.

My reward, if I finish before the end of this month (I know, it was supposed to be last month – plans change), is a stack of unread books. More than I can read in a month, actually. Though I suppose I ought to tackle a short-story revision while I take time off from the novel.

Hitting the Wall

2009-08-05T20:45:00.000-07:00

I not only missed my self-imposed deadline, but now I’ve hit a wall. And I’m only half-way through the rewrite.

My original concept was to place my story a few years in the future. But when I started noting ideas for later books in the series (planning ahead here), I realized I would need to jump forward a couple decades, twice.

If I start 10 years in the future, by the time I jump forward twice we’re 50 years in the future. The idea of having to world-build a future world three times was a bit daunting, given I was having trouble with the first one.

Then I had a brilliant idea – start twenty years in the past (I chose 1989). Then I can jump forward to the present, then ahead twenty years. And by the time I’m actually writing the future volumes, I will only have to project the future ten years ahead, because I don’t expect to get to those until ten years from now.

Great plan, until I hit the wall. 1989 worked for the new beginning of the book, but I’ve hit a section where it doesn’t work. I either have to set the thing no earlier than now, or rewrite this whole section. I wanted to have my Lead use her computer skills, and if I set it in 1989 I can’t figure out how to make that work. The scenes work if I switch to good old paper, but then why make my lead a hacker?

So I am in a quandary. I cannot decide which way to go. And I cannot continue working on this until I make up my mind.

If the answer doesn’t come to me tonight while I sleep, I’m going to put the novel aside and polish up some short stories, see if they are saleable. The pay is peanuts, but I want to see if I can do it.

Missing my revision goal

2009-07-29T20:56:00.000-07:00

Looks like I need to find a good incentive. I set a goal for this month: to finish the current revision of my novel. I’m not going to make it.

When I set the goal I calculated I needed to do five pages a day. That turned out to use up more hours than I thought, and I’ve been busy with other things this month. I still should be further along than I am.

I’ve hit some dry spells, and been distracted by reading (oops), and had to write new scenes. Yesterday I thought I’d made progress only to discover I was still on page 76 – I’d gone back and rewritten a section I’d already gone through.

But it’s coming together. I think the end result is better. I hope I’m right on that.

My goal for this month

2009-07-05T20:35:00.001-07:00

I realized I needed to set a daily goal if I’m going to meet my self-imposed deadline of finishing the current revision by the end of the month.

After brief thought, I decided a daily page quota would work better than a word quota. So I looked at where I was in the draft: 22953 words or 37 pages. That works out to 620 words per page (for the format I’m working in).

I’m aiming for a 100,000 word manuscript at this point, which means I need 161 pages. Of course, knowing me, I’ll have either a lot more or a lot less, but I need a number to work with.

Once I subtract the pages I’ve done so far, I need to do five pages a day to complete this revision by the end of the month. Seems doable. IF I knuckle down a bit every single day.

Decisions, decisions

2009-06-30T16:44:00.000-07:00

I’ve been revising the new beginning of my novel, slowly. I’ve decided to set this one about 1990. I had originally aimed for a decade or two in the future but was having trouble really visualizing that future. And many of the reasons for a future setting have vanished from the story concept.

When my sister read the earlier draft, she suggested setting it in modern times instead. I couldn’t quite see it then, but it finally dawned on me that if I want to jump ahead two decades later in the series, then do so again, I’m getting way into the future. But if I start twenty years ago, then jump to the current day, then jump to twenty years from today, the world-building isn’t so hard.

1989 isn’t that long ago in my memory. Not that I can remember the details I need to know, like which computers were state of the art, but I lived through those years so I can do this. Then, by the time I’m writing the books for the third time-chunk, a few more years will have passed so I’ll only have to extrapolate ahead 10 years or so.

But setting the book twenty years ago has it’s downside. There’s always a ripple effect when you make a change. Like I have to rewrite the scene where my MC borrows a cellphone – she’ll have to find a landline instead. I think car phones existed then, but if cellphones existed they were rare.

Though now that I think about it, I could set it about 1994-5. I’m sure five years will pass before I’m working on the current-year books so I can set them in whatever current year it is at the time.

Maybe I should step back and think about whether cellphones and laptops are necessary to my story and then place the year. Although if it’s an alternate history the time-line can fudge a bit. Decisions, decisions.

A typical day of a wannabe novelist

2009-06-27T20:36:00.000-07:00

My daily plan calls for mornings spent on yard work (or household chores) and afternoons in the office. It would work better if we hadn’t had so many cool days when I felt compelled to work on the landscaping all afternoon as well as mornings, but the weather is finally warming up enough to drive me indoors.

Even so, writing time keeps eluding me. Today I worked in the yard until 9am, then grabbed tea while removing books from my Paperbackswap bookshelf so we could take them to town and trade them in at the used bookstore. (I also edited my books-to-look-for list and printed it out.) Good plan, except the store was closed.

Town also meant a trip to the grocery store. I don’t usually go on weekends but hubby’s truck is out of commission until we locate the dead mouse in the heating system, so he’s been borrowing my car to get to work.

We arrived home about quarter to eleven, put the groceries away, then I said I was going outside to work on moving the dirt pile (leftover from filling new raised beds). Hubby decided to help. That was great, we moved the entire pile, but didn’t come in for lunch until 12:30.

After lunch I realized I had to wash the dishes because I needed the big bowl for tonight’s dinner, pasta salad. Then I did a little work in my quilt room, the usual ongoing projects. A cup of tea with the computer, clearing my blog feed, and next thing I new it was 3pm already. At which point hubby asked if I had time to give him a haircut. So I did, because I knew I’d forget if I didn’t do it right then, and he hates to nag me even when I tell him to.

Somewhere during the afternoon I managed a few minutes on my novel before fixing dinner. And so it goes. I have neither a real job nor kids and still I have trouble finding writing time.

A book I didn't like

2009-06-14T20:06:00.001-07:00

I’ve just finished reading Karin Slaughter’s Beyond Reach. Better written than her first one, but I didn’t like it. Too grim. Especially the ending. I would have ended the book one scene earlier and saved the heartbreak for the beginning of the next book.

Although I’ll admit it fits one of the theme’s running through the story, the theme wasn’t strong enough for me to accept the ending. Though that could be my failing as a reader, hard to say. I did read it fast so I may not have paid enough attention to the right parts.

And that’s another part I didn’t like – the story. I’m not saying there was anything wrong with it, but I read the entire book without enjoying it. Which suggests I’m an idiot for not putting it down, but I’ve read the previous books and wanted to see how it turned out. I don’t like how it turned out. But I’ll refrain from saying more on the off chance someone reads this post who hasn’t yet read the book, and intends to.

I also don’t care for books that switch back and forth in time. I prefer a chronological order, and I’ll tolerate a bit of flashback for backstory. But Beyond Reach follows Sara and Jeffrey in one timeline, and Lena in a little bit earlier one, until they overlap. Not impossible to follow but disconcerting. I find the switching gears keeps me from getting as deeply into a story as I would like.

Swamped by a Plot Ripple

2009-05-31T20:52:00.000-07:00

I’m slowly getting back into my novel, revising the rewritten beginning. Last night I realized my new approach has totally screwed up the next section. When I first wrote the next part I was trying to show the dark side of my vampires, and give my MC a chance to rescue someone the vampires would have let die.

Now I don’t really need to show the dark side, the new beginning has done enough of that for my MC to hate vampires already. But I do want her to rescue the secondary character, she’s important to the story. So I’ve got to rethink this whole part of the story-line.

Plot ripples are the curse of revision. Every time you change something, it has a ripple effect through the rest of the story. And those ripples can get pretty damn big.

On pen names

2009-04-19T08:23:00.000-07:00

When I started writing novels I tried to think up a pen name because I didn't want to publish fiction under the same name I planned to use to practice law. I didn't want a judge reading my brief to think "isn't that the author of [title of best-seller]*? She writes great fiction, I wonder how much of this brief is fiction?"

The only pen name I came up with sounded too much like a romance writer, which I am not. I can't remember now what it was. Then, to my surprise, I was able to get the domain for the name everyone calls me, Abby Fuller, so that's what I'm sticking with when I get published.

For law, if I ever actually practice any, I use my full name, Abigail Roberts Fuller. I needed the middle name because without it, I’m not unique.

(*I'm being hopeful here.)

Progress crawls to a halt

2009-04-04T20:18:00.000-07:00

I’ve reached a screeching halt on my novel. One of those times when life gets in the way. I spent several days working on financial stuff, and today spent most of it on garden stuff.

I’m 22600 words into the revision and have decided to return to the beginning and revise before continuing onward. I’m not sure this is wise, but I have some ideas in mind and want to work them in while they are fresh in my mind. Although, at this rate they may not be fresh by the time I sit down to write again.

Over the last two days my only progress was to write down an idea, and that was yesterday. I’m going to have to do better, but Spring is finally here and the garden is calling.

Redoing the beginning again

2009-03-22T08:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I changed the beginning again. I’ve made my MC a hacker – excuse me, computer security consultant – instead of a lawyer. While I liked my first concept, it wasn’t coming together as I tried to write it. Now it is. I take that to mean I’ve finally got it right.

Wrote 1800 words yesterday, plus cleared up the stack of notes on my desk. I still need to rework my outline, but I’ll keep writing as long as my inspiration holds out. Or as long as my wrist holds out.

I did too much ditch-digging the last few days and now I’ve got tendonitis or something in my wrist, have lost my grip. (No comments from the peanut gallery!) So far I can type okay but I’m not sure my hand will last if I do a lot of it.

The perils of getting old. Where’s that vampire who’s going to keep me young forever?

Back to the grind

2009-03-19T08:09:00.000-07:00

I’ve been struggling to get back into my novel and finally made progress yesterday. No actual writing got done, but I went through some of the notes that have stacked up. Then took some time to sit on the couch with tea and a pad of paper and think through story options.

Result, I’m totally redoing the beginning. I’m sorry to lose a concept I’d liked, but this morning I realized I can write it up as a short story. That way, it’s not really lost. The new beginning will be stronger with more potential for conflict.

All that and I made bread, dug out part of the drainage ditch beside the driveway, scrubbed most of the mold off the bathroom ceiling, and did a little quilting. Today I won’t need to make bread but there’s plenty more housekeeping and landscape work to do.

Getting this book done by August will be a challenge. But that's my deadline because I've signed up for a writing conference in Sun Valley.

On pricing ebooks

2009-03-03T09:23:00.000-08:00

I just read this piece on ebooks. Nominally the story is about the dispute over how much publishers should pay authors for ebook sales. But it also discussed the price of ebooks.

The story compared the price of ebooks to HARDCOVER books. Who buys hardcovers? As a consumer, I buy paperbacks. Same story, easier to tote around, easier to hold onto while reading, and a third the cost. No way will I pay more for an ebook than I pay for a paperback.

Actually, I won’t even pay that much. With a paperback, I can trade my used one in for more used reading material. An ebook I can’t. So it’s value to me is somewhat less than that of a new paperback. Somewhere under $5, I think.

Frankly, given the low per-unit cost of digital distribution, there’s no reason ebooks can’t be profitable at low prices. Cheaper ebook readers would help too, as not everyone is willing to read books on their laptop like I do.

As an author, I see the future of ebooks as a way for authors to distribute their books directly to the public without the publisher. Publishers are printers, they exist to print books. When they were the only way to produce books, we authors had to go through a publisher. With ebooks (and POD), we don’t. Publishers who want to stay in business had better think about providing more service to authors, and a better share of the net, not less.

I had to laugh at the commenter who thought books were too cheap and wanted to prohibit sharing books, even to having fingerprint verification on ebook readers! Apparently this person has never heard that the consumer is King. Books have ALWAYS been shared, and always will be. Ever heard of a library? We readers will not buy books we cannot share. We readers will not buy ebook readers with fingerprint verification. Get over it.

Plot transformations

2009-02-17T09:12:00.001-08:00

When I started my vampire novel, I had one scene in mind, one that was in my head when I woke up one morning. I wrote it down and kept going until I ran dry, then looked at what I had. From there I thought my story was about my lead character’s growing powers. Her powers had been awakened by the touch of a vampire, and I used the working title “Touch of Power.”

I wrote more, following a rough outline, until I tried to come up with a one-sentence summary. I struggled for days, and finally came up with one I liked. But it wasn’t about power. The sentence was about a vampire’s servant (my lead) trying to decide whether to help him or stake him. That lead to the idea that she would struggle with trying to decide whether vampires are evil or not.

And that lead to writing scenes showing the dark side of vampires, and the even darker side of humans, with the idea she’d eventually decide that vampires were no more evil than humans. Then I decided the story was too long, and chopped the end off. Then I decided it needed more blood.

The end result was a mess, although I couldn’t see it because I’d tied everything together into a logical progression of events. It seemed like a story, but I sensed it wasn’t quite right. That’s when I sent it to my sister who tore it apart for me.

After careful thought, I decided the story was about my lead’s desire (and attempts) to find a way to break the bond that tied her to the vampire. New title, “Liquid Chains.” And I started rewriting. Then I had a brainstorm that led to another, and those created plot-wrinkles that I had to iron out.

Now the desire to break the bond has been pushed into book 2 of the series (assuming I get that far), and the main plot is one that used to be a subplot. Now it’s about my lead’s becoming a vampire’s servant in an attempt to find out what happened to a missing girl, who may have become bloodstock (food).

I think it will make a much better book – hey, look, a real story-line! But I feel like I’m starting over with a blank page, after 14 months of work. Not really, because I have an outline and a bunch of rough scenes, but I can see a year’s worth of work ahead of me still.

New Idea For My Novel

2009-02-13T19:51:00.000-08:00

My Novel has been composting for a few days. I started rewriting and got stuck about 25 pages in, so I stepped back to think about the overall story. I decided to let both my main characters write a letter telling me about the story. I’ve only done one of them, but it got me thinking more about her backstory.

And I’ve had a brilliant idea. See, she was on the run and broke when she got busted and sold to the vampires. And today I realized the reason she was on the run has a vampire connection – she just doesn’t know it yet. I love it, even though it probably means an even more major rewrite than I’d already planned.

As a result, my self-imposed deadline is most likely unattainable.

Started a major rewrite

2009-02-06T16:15:00.000-08:00

I’ve started on a major rewrite of my vampire tale. The core action will remain, most of it, and I hope some scenes will be usable without being totally rewritten. But the incident that I plan to have occur no later than a quarter of the way through the book is currently at the half-way point, so I have a lot to cut out. And, after that point, a lot to add in.

So far, I’m on page 11. Slow going. I need to speed things up if I’m to make my self-imposed deadline. Spending more time on it every day would help, I seem to spend too much time in my sewing room lately.

I can see the need for more organization too. I need a crib-sheet for names used, for each character, a time-line, a map to show the travel route, and crib-sheets for the world and vampire society. Now I feel overwhelmed, writing that list. And I’ve probably forgotten something.

In search of a story

2009-01-24T07:46:00.000-08:00

One of my sister’s comments on my novel was that the first two thirds read like an author wandering around in search of a story. I had a hard time with that one because it implied I’d sat down to write and let one thing lead to another until a plot emerged, then failed to cut the wandering part.

That’s not how I write. And I’d spent more time developing the first part than the last part, so the first part should have been better, I thought. But at the same time, I’m honest enough with myself to recognize that I had been in search of a story, sort of. Now I realize, as I consider the big picture, why the first half to two thirds searches for a plot. Too many orphans.

Many of the scenes were written for a concept that didn’t work out and a plot-line that has vanished. Both were excised when I cut a chunk off the end, but I didn’t see that some earlier scenes were orphaned and had to go. I’d spent time and effort making sure the story had a logical progression from one scene to the next, so everything seemed to still fit the story.

Scenes written to go with events later in the book that no longer take place, to support a concept that has been abandoned, or as part of a plot-line that vanished, don’t belong. They may fit superficially, but they don’t support the plot. To me they belonged because every one had been written for a reason, but the reasons changed.

Add in some scenes I tossed in to up the blood content, and the result reads like an author in search of a story. No wonder I’d felt lost and in need of critique. Next novel I’ll know it’s time to step back and draw up a roadmap when I feel lost.

Nose to the grindstone

2009-01-19T19:49:00.001-08:00

I’m back at work on my novel. My sister read it and sent a critique, which I’m working my way through. I read enough to start the gears in my head churning then stop until I’ve digested what she’s said.

I tried ditching the first couple chapters, but couldn’t stop there. I changed what comes next a little bit, which meant I needed some things I’d cut, and I kept going in circles. Eventually I began to question if that was a smart change.

On the way home from the grocery store it dawned on me that I’d lost sight of my original concept. So, after putting the food away, I sat down with a cup of tea and rethought the basic concept. I’ve decided to stay with the original.

That’s one decision down. Now I need to rethink the plot and the character arcs and map out the basic stages so I can review each scene to see what fits, what doesn’t, and what needs tweaking. I can already see some of the more recently added scenes don’t fit well.

I threw them in wanting more action but forgot to make sure they fit the concept. Time to apply a scalpel to this baby – or maybe a chainsaw. Then see where I can add action that works.

Good to be writing

2009-01-01T15:26:00.000-08:00

I haven’t been doing much writing lately (not even blog posts). Year end plus holidays has me scrambling, as usual. This morning I woke up with a story idea starting in my head, this one with werewolves instead of vampires. Just what I need.

After expanding the idea and thinking it through I decided it might make a short-story rather than start a novel (phew!). I typed it up, as much as I’ve thought through, this morning.

It felt good to be writing again. I need to clear a few more items off my desk before I can knuckle down and focus on my novel. I’m ready to really focus, to the exclusion of all else, for 2-3 weeks minimum. But there are a few “else’s” that need to be taken care of first.

Reaching goals – or not

2008-12-20T07:32:00.000-08:00

Every year the nanowrimo folks lead a Year of Doing Big, Fun, Scary Things, with a forum for anyone to post goals for the coming year. Then participants can post updates and at year end any “winners” (those who reached their goals) get a certificate. I’ve done this the past two years, without much success in actually reaching my goals.

My only success this year was to find my list for 08:

1. Finish at least one nanovel.
--- Nope. Got sidetracked by my vampire novel, which was not a nanovel. And it’s not done yet.
2. Write a non-fiction book.
--- Nope. Not even a glimmer. Sort of forgot about this one.
3. Attend a writer’s conference with manuscript[s] in hand. (I’m eyeing one in August.)
--- Nope. I did make one workshop though. Without manuscript.
4. Become an expert on Outer Space Law. (Actually read the books and articles I’ve acquired.)
--- Back-burnered in favor of Vampires. Maybe when my novel is done I’ll find time to research vampire law.
5. Finish a dozen quilts (that’s one a month).
--- Good plan until I remembered several commitments for new ones. I’ve started many but have finished zero for the year. I’m setting a modest goal of four projects for 09, three totally finished and one finish the blocks.
6. Keep up with my blogs. (Post at least once a week on each one.)
--- Didn't manage once a week, but I have sort of kept up with three of them. I don’t seem to be able to keep to a schedule.
7. Read every vampire novel ever written. (Or as many as I can get my hands on.)
--- Darn, I had no idea there were so many! And they're publishing more faster than I can read them. But I did manage 115. Maybe that's why I didn't complete anything else? I have not finished all I could get my hands on either, there’s four on my desk now and at least a dozen ebooks on my computer unread.
8. Convince my husband I’m too busy to do housework. (It’s either that or improve my time management skills.)
--- This one was a lost cause from day one! I can dream though.

Next year I'm going for a shorter list.

1. Sell my novel.

Nanowrimo is over for another year

2008-12-15T20:20:00.000-08:00

(I wrote this two weeks ago, that's how behind I am this month.)

This year I went down to the wire. I had other projects going, plus company for Thanksgiving, that ate up my time. Instead of whipping out 50,000 words in ten days, I worked in spurts and finished the 29th.

Actually, I didn’t start until the 5th, and took the 20 – 25th off, so I still managed my 50k in twenty days. And on top of revising my main novel project. I also was a bit of a Rebel this year, as I didn’t work on one new novel. Instead, I wrote whatever scenes came into my head, and they will end up being used in three different novels.

The three are the one I’m working on now, and the next two in the series. I was supposed to do the sequel this nanowrimo anyway, but ended up pushing that one forward and will have a new sequel using about half of the scenes I wrote.

Time to take care of a few tidbits I made note of in my revision but haven’t tackled yet, so I can get it printed out and into the hands of my first three beta readers – my sisters and husband.
(Update - haven't printed it. Emailed a pdf to my sisters and will print after the next revision. My dear hubby won't give me critical feedback anyway, he'll say it's wonderful.)

Nano Rebel or Not

2008-11-08T13:06:00.000-08:00

I’m currently trying to write 50,000 new words for my novel, and tracking them via the Nanowrimo site. Technically, I’m not following the official rules since I’m working on my old novel. But, I’ve written three totally new scenes and a new version of an existing one, and now I’m thinking they might go better in a horror novel. I fear they are too over-the-top for anything else.

Do I set them aside for a horror novel? Revise the one I’m working on to make it a horror novel? I was aiming more for urban fantasy, I’m really not sure I want to shift into horror mode. Yet these really graphic and horrible scenes come to me (yep, a warped and twisted mind here), so maybe that’s the way to go.

I don’t know. I’ll let my brain stew on it for awhile. If I use everything, I’ve got two books worth anyway, but how to divide it up is the problem. Two in a series? Where to end one book and start the next without the plot being too chopped up? Two unrelated books? Then I need a new setting and new characters.

Of course, I could claim I’m writing a new novel and keep writing – then I won’t be a Nano Rebel anymore.

Changing the plot again

2008-11-05T20:36:00.000-08:00

I wrote a new chapter for my novel today. Half way through I wasn’t sure if it really fit, but by the time I was done I decided it did. Problem is, I also realized I’d lost my main theme when I cut the novel short. I’m going to have to revert to the long version, darn it. Which means more holes to fill, and I’ve got less than a month to get this thing readable. I promised my sister she could read it when she comes to visit for Thanksgiving. And on top of a panic-inducing quantity of writing, I have to get the house clean for her visit.

Reactions are key:

2008-11-04T11:29:00.000-08:00

Dwight Swain was the first to describe Motivation/Reaction Units (or MRUs), in his book “Techniques of the Selling Writer”. Every Motivation is supposed to be followed by a Reaction. Randy Ingermanson helped explain MRUs by defining Motivations as outside the POV character, and Reactions as inside the POV character.

But who cares about MRUs? Who wants to spend time examining every line of their novel asking “is this or isn’t it?” It’s really not that difficult. Instead of worrying about MRUs, worry about including reactions. That’s 90% of the job, better than good enough for government work.

“Motivations” are simply the actions that take place in your novel, the bits and pieces of the plot. “Reactions” are how the characters react to the actions. The reactions are the key to hooking the reader, they make the characters real. Show reactions. For the POV character, reaction includes thoughts and feelings. For other characters you are limited to words and actions, but they can still react.

I’m still figuring out the action steps (motivations) in my draft, but the next revision, once I’m sure I’ve got the right scenes in place, will focus on reactions.

It’s nanowrimo time but I’m not

2008-11-02T08:33:00.000-08:00

November is National Novel Writing Month, but I’m still revising my vampire novel, so I’m not yet cranking out my 50,000 words. I still hope to – my goal is to finish this revision by the 15th then do the rough draft for the sequel in ten days. That should be enough pressure to type up whatever comes to mind. And maybe, just maybe, something will pop out that will help fill the gaps in the sequel’s plot as it currently exists.

I did decide to end the first book much sooner than I’d been thinking, at the point I’d thought of as half-way. When I converted from Outliner to Word I discovered that half-way point was closer to 4/5 of the way through what I had actually written – which means I am cutting out the “half” with all the holes in it. I am moving a couple scenes forward that I didn’t want to leave out, but the end result is much tighter, it’s really coming together.

Now I have a pile of notes of what still needs to be added, some of it full scenes, so I’ve got a lot to do in 14 days if I’m going to get the sequel nanoed.

Letting it age

2008-10-01T15:39:00.000-07:00

Time to put the old novel in an old oak cask to age for awhile. Or tossed into the compost bin along with the weeds, that’s more my style. I haven’t finished my last revision but ran out of time, I have other things on my plate this month.

I did move the whole thing from Outliner to Word and reformat it to be readable. Going through it all at once, it’s not so bad. It kinda peters out at the end because I had to delete a bunch of scenes that no longer fit the plot and haven’t written new ones yet. But I have ideas. Right now I’m optimistic that it will all come together somehow.

Behind again

2008-09-15T12:12:00.000-07:00

Saturday, I spent the morning going to town with my husband. I hadn’t planned a trip to town, but we stopped at the used book store. I discovered I need to update my books-wanted list. Did bring home "Water for Elephants" which I keep hearing good things about. I try to make time to read well-written books to set myself a good example.

Of course Tim had more errands to run, and drop in on friends, and so on. Morning gone. The afternoon was productive, I revised four scenes. Almost made my daily goal, which is four and half scenes a day in order to finish revising by the end of the month.

I’m beginning to fear my novel will end up too long, but don't want to cut too early. Possibly I can end it sooner if I really have to. I know some trimming will come in future revisions, balanced by adding a bit of description, so I'm not ready to cut whole scenes (unless they don't fit) until I see the end result.

Today is Monday and I’m behind, only revised one scene yesterday. What am I doing now? Working on blog posts instead of my novel. Amazing what I can get done on other projects when I’m procrastinating.

Orphan scene file

2008-09-09T17:09:00.000-07:00

I keep an orphan scene file, for those parts I excise from my novel-in-progress. Great idea, because sometimes I decide to add a scene back in, or a part of it.

Today I went to find a scene I was sure I’d kept, but it wasn’t there. I’ve got to make better use of the orphan scene file. Now I have to rewrite that part from memory, arrgghhh.

I suppose it might be in one of the draft copies I’ve kept, but hunting through them seems like more work than just writing the darn scene over again. I think I need to take a break.

My BIG Goal

2008-09-04T09:54:00.001-07:00

I have set myself a very big goal. I've read advice somewhere (maybe Tim Ferris's Four Hour Work Week) to set your goals high enough to be exciting. Don't aim for reasonable, that's boring and you won't be enthusiastic. Aim big - just shy of impossible is good.

And I've always said aim high - if you aim for the stars you might at least reach the moon. If you aim for the moon you might not get off the ground. So aim high and you'll accomplish something.

My really big goal: to sell ten million books by the year 2020.

I chose nice round numbers, big ones. A million books would be success, as far as I'm concerned, but ten million, wow! But it's doable. I don't even need to be the absolute most successful writer ever, just in the top 1-2%.

I'm sure it will take more than one title. It may take some non-fiction efforts not just novels. It will most definitely take some marketing efforts on my part.

Step one is to finish the next revision on my first novel by the end of this month. I may let the blogging slide for the rest of the month (not that that's anything new) to keep the distractions down.

Too many vampire books

2008-08-20T10:18:00.000-07:00

When I realized I was going to write a vampire novel I decided I’d better read some vampire novels. I wanted both inspiration, and to make sure the concept of human servants was not unique to one writer. The details may differ, but many vampires do keep servants of one sort or another.

A few might have been enough, but I set a goal for this year to read as many vampire books as I could get my hands on. A few have been non-fiction, to learn about vampire folklore, and I’ve found short-stories cover a broad range of different varieties of vampires. But most of my reading has been novels.

So far, I’ve read about 4 non-fiction and 72 fiction vampire books! No wonder my own novel isn’t finished.

Time slipping past

2008-08-17T11:26:00.000-07:00

My sister complained of time slipping past her too fast and blames it on the Mayans:

I'm not up on the details, but there's something going on with the Mayan calendar about time speeding up, getting faster and faster the closer we get to a major shift in consciousness or reality or something like that in 2012.

First I’d heard of this but it would explain why time is slipping past me so darn fast. I was worried the time thing was a sign of aging, which meant it would just get worse. And I need all the time I can get if I’m going to write all the novels I have ideas for, not to mention finish all my quilt projects.

I’m not sure I like the idea of a major shift in reality just four years away. What’s this mean, aliens will arrive? I’m not ready! I was planning to be a space law expert before aliens arrived so they’d hire me – oh wait, that’s the plot to my SF novel-in-progress [NIP].

Maybe it means the vampires (you know, the ones in my current NIP) are going to announce their presence. They are the ones responsible for putting vampire ideas in my head so I’ll write about them.

But this means a deadline: I need to get my book out there in the marketplace before the vampires announce themselves if it’s going to do the PR work they want it to. At least I think that’s what they want from me. Better that than blood.

Making slow progress

2008-07-27T17:03:00.000-07:00

I seem to be making more progress on my reading goal than my writing one. My reading goal is to read as many vampire novels as I can get my hands on this year. It counts as research for my own vampire novel, because I want to see what traits other authors have used for their vampires. But it sure cuts into writing time.

I did finish the hole-filling rewrite I was doing, at least I figured out and sketched in what happens in the empty spaces. Feeling I’d lost sight of the big picture I spent today doing a summary of the whole thing.

Next step is to sit down with the summary and analyze whether the overall story hangs together. And if it doesn’t, figure out what it needs. Then I’ll start the next revision. I promised my sister I’d have this thing ready for beta readers by October, when I plan to visit her. I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me in the next two months.

A book with no plot

2008-06-04T10:06:00.000-07:00

I’ve just finished reading the latest Sookie Stackhouse novel (#8). I enjoyed it, mostly because I just recently read the other 7 back to back. Finding out what happens to Sookie next in her life made a good read.

But, the book has a major flaw – no plot. It has three or four sub-plots, but instead of weaving them through a main plot, each one is dealt with on its own, as if the book consists of a selection of short stories. It could have been published that way and I wouldn’t have minded, but it wasn’t.

The book has no plot that runs the length of the book. I can’t call it a novel; there’s no beginning, middle, end, and no building to a climax. But, it fits in with the rest of the series. My sense is the author was clearing the slate and changing the cast of characters in order to send Sookie in a different direction. But she still could have woven the plots together somehow.

Number 8 ties up loose ends and sets Sookie up to focus on her love life, with five guys (two vampires, a shapeshifter, a weretiger, and a Were) interested in her. It also gets rid of the steady relationship she had that got in the way of the series’ brand: southern vampire. Too many other species as main characters and it won’t be a vampire series anymore.

So this book makes a nice transition to number nine, I hope. If you love Sookie, by all means read it. If you’re not familiar with the series, go start at number 1 instead. I just hope this one doesn’t end up being the last of the series, as it leaves one major thread yet untied – who will Sookie choose as her man?

ps – I did note that two of the books prominently displayed at Hastings last week on their “best-sellers” table were this one and the latest Anita Blake. It seems vampires are popular. Time to get back to work on my vampire novel.

Writing Workshop

2008-04-27T15:23:00.000-07:00

I drove two hours yesterday to attend a writing workshop taught by Randy Ingermanson. Now I’m exhausted, after four hours of driving and eight of sitting in a chair that did not provide the back support I need.

But it was worth it. Partly from the workshop itself, half of which was about how to write a novel and the other half about how to market yourself on the internet. Some of the material I’d heard before through Randy’s ezine, blog, and CDs, but enough was new to keep my interest. He provides real meat, not fluff.

Most of the attendees were members of the CdA chapter of the Idaho Writer’s League, and very friendly. I really felt at home with them all, which I don’t when surrounded by lawyers. I think I’m going to join the IWL and the CdA chapter just so I’ll know when future workshops are planned. I may not get to many meetings, although some of those start at 9:00 not 8:30 as the workshop did so I wouldn’t have to get up quite so early.

I should search out local writers, maybe we could start our own chapter. Or at least a sub-group of the CdA chapter, I wouldn’t mind carpooling from time to time.

Slow progress lately

2008-04-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

I’ve been sidetracked by getting our taxes done. Even with the help of Turbotax it always takes me several days of effort and hair-pulling to get them done. When I start selling novels I’m going to find an accountant.

Meanwhile, a friend of my husband’s sent his latest masterpiece to him for critique, so I read it. This guy usually writes short-stories and apparently has not tried to learn what goes into a successful novel. It was pretty bad. The story itself was imaginative and full of twists and turns. But, it read like a very long short-story.

It was lacking some basic aspects of a novel, like a hero. Halfway through I was still trying to figure out who the main character was – and never did figure out how his stated goal related to the story that unfolded. The characters were interesting – or would have been if better developed – it just didn’t have a clear hero and villain.

The writing wasn’t that great either, for a published (short story) writer and professional copy editor. The action portions were okay, if a bit choppy, but the narrative portions between them were horrid. I thought they read like an outline, just a list of facts to inform the reader before the next section. Not only an info-dump but full of the dreaded “it was” phrase. I noticed one sentence that had three of them!

So, I sent a carefully worded critique (trying not to be too negative), and the author has basically said, “thanks, I’m happy with it the way it is.” Well, fine, if he doesn’t want to work on it anymore that’s his business. But I’m going to be really surprised if he can sell it. Did I mention the writing AND revision only took him two months? It reads like it.

After all that – I am determined to do better. At least I read everything I can find on how to write a good novel and try to use what I read. And I plan to pay attention to critiques. If someone finds fault with my novel there’s probably something that needs fixing, and I should at least consider fixing it.

More words needed

2008-03-23T20:06:00.000-07:00

I finally checked my wordcount yesterday. I’m working in Omni Outliner and it doesn’t have a wordcount feature, so I have to export to Word to get a wordcount. I’m only at 73,000 out of a targeted 120,000. I do have some scenes yet to write in the middle, but I think I’m going to have to make it longer as well.

That does help determine where the ending is. I’d had two different ideas but I’ll have to go with the longer one. Now it will end with the main character getting what she wants – but realizing it maybe isn’t what she wants after all.

The next question is: can I write the next 50,000 words in what remains of March? I’ve got eight days. I’ve done it in ten days, twice. Eight must be doable – IF I can let everything else slide. That’s a big IF. And stop reading so much.

Back to writing

2008-03-08T14:13:00.000-08:00

My vampire novel reading month is over. I let it run an extra week because I just couldn’t stop, but it’s now over. Not that I am totally done reading vampire novels, but this month is earmarked for revision of my novel, so I can’t read all the time.

I had a flash of insight yesterday about what my novel needs. I’d tell you but it might spoil the suspense. It will not only increase the conflict but make room for more violence, more bloodshed. Just what a vampire novel needs, right?

Now I’ll have to rewrite some of it, but this should help me fill in the really weak part in the middle. That’s where some of the clues have to turn up, for my protagonists to figure out what is happening. So now I just have to figure out what those clues will be, and design around them.

But first, I absolutely must clear my desk. I know there are some things on here somewhere that need to be dealt with this month. Not including our taxes, which I would like to get out of the way before the last minute.

Falling off the log

2008-02-07T15:29:00.000-08:00

I’m not sure what happened to my writing log. I just found it while clearing my desk, and it stops on Jan. 13th. I did keep writing after that, just forgot to log it. So much for that effort. Looking it over, I see I never managed to track my time either.

This month’s goal is to read a whole bunch of vampire books, mostly fiction but a handful of non-fiction as well. My purpose is to get a better handle on the traits of my vampires, and come up with some weird happenings to throw in my story. Then next month is revision month. I’ll join nanoedmo for that, just for fun.

But first, to finish clearing off my desk …

Moving ahead

2008-01-12T14:00:00.000-08:00

I’ve actually been working some on my novel every day. The progress seems slow right now because I’m doing more thinking than writing, but that’s how it goes.

I had started last December by writing down all my ideas. It started with one scene, and as I kept the idea in my head I thought up a number of additional scenes. I also developed some sense of what needed to go in between the scenes I have, and jotted down notes.

Then I pulled out the snowflake method and started the hard part, making some sense out of it all. I’ve figured out the gist of what the story is about, roughed out the main characters, and now I need to do some world-building before I can sit down to write out the rest of the story.

Once the rest is roughed out I will return to snowflake to make sure it all fits in a logical manner. Then flesh out my characters before sitting down to revise the mess.

On world-building, I need to brainstorm a vampire society. It needs some weird customs to make it interesting. The best approach would be to read some more vampire books first but I don’t want to spend the time. Maybe I will pose the question to myself as I fall asleep tonight and see what I can dream up.

Keeping a Writing Log

2008-01-10T09:09:00.000-08:00

Ran across a suggestion on someone’s blog about keeping a record of time spent writing, or at least on learning to write. So I started doing that, and plan to periodically post the results here. That will give me a record to look back on at the end of the year and see how I did, without having to keep track of paper or a notebook around my office.

I am making progress, but it seems slow. I have decided to designate mornings as my writing time, although I know some days I will have to run errands in the morning. Afternoons are for other projects or household chores, and evenings I will write if I have ideas, or read.

But if I am to make my goal of selling a book this year I may need to make more hours available. Yesterday I wrote a new initial scene, then today I woke up with a new idea and spent the morning rewriting it. It’s better now, but two days per scene isn’t going to put a finished manuscript in my hands by August. Not unless each one is perfect and I know the odds on that one – fat chance!

My big goal for 2008

2008-01-05T09:20:00.000-08:00

I’ve decided to aim high – my top goal for 2008 is to sell a book. Hopefully a novel, but if I get bogged down I may switch gears and work on proposals for a non-fiction book. That’s a lofty aspiration for a novice writer without a finished manuscript in hand, but if I don’t aim high I won’t get anything at all done.

First step was to decide which of three half-done rough drafts to focus on. I’ve decided on my most recent, a vampire story, even though I still need to do more research on the topic. It’s what’s consuming me right now. I find myself unable to shift my focus to the other stories. So, vampires it is.

I plan to review the books I read and post them here. That will be vampire books and writing books. Then somewhere along the way I should start a vampire blog too. And set up a webpage, perhaps move my blogs there. Plus write. I have to write a lot if I’m going to have a manuscript in hand by August for the writer’s conference I’m eyeing. I think I’ll be busy.

Vampires in my blood

2007-12-28T10:04:00.000-08:00

Because I set my two nano efforts aside for December, my imagination took off on a new story. This one is about vampires. They seem to have gotten into my blood. I don’t know why. It all started with Anita Blake, the vampire hunter series by Laurell Hamilton. I read one of them and was hooked, I had to hunt up and read them all (currently 15).

They aren’t great literature but something about them grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go. When reading one, I could not put it down. Then I had to find the next one. I plan to reread them this spring (number 16 is due out early June) and try to figure out what it is that hooks me so. Then maybe I can duplicate it in my writing.

In the meantime, it seems to be vampires that have a hold on me. This latest story of mine is about vampires, and the idea came out of the blue. (Either that or it was from reading all 15 Anita Blakes nearly back-to-back.) Now I’m reading everything I can get my hands on, from vampire lore to the classic vampire tales. Partly that’s simply research, I need to know which aspects of vampires are in the public domain when I write my version. And partly it’s fascination.

One thing that really struck me was energy or psychic vampires, those that feed on people’s life-energy without drinking blood. I had just created the concept in my main character in my story when I read a blog-post about energy vampires. The post was discussing the electrical appliance version (gadgets that draw power while supposedly off), but had a link to wikipedia’s entry on energy vampires. When I read it I was stunned to realize there were legendary creatures just like what I had come up with for my novel! Where did I get that idea when I’d never heard of it before?

Spooky. Especially considering the level of fascination I’m experiencing for something that never before held any interest for me. I think I’d read one vampire book years ago (a pretty good one) and never felt any desire to read more of them. The Anita Blake book was one my husband picked up at the used book store, I read it only because it sounded entertainingly wacky on the back jacket. So why do I suddenly have this vampire fixation?

Revision pending

2007-12-11T18:57:00.000-08:00

Made my goal for nanowrimo this year – two novels of 50,000 words each. Of course, that’s just the beginning for each one. Both plots have significant holes in them and about half what I wrote was more synopsis then scene, but the basic ideas are down on digital paper. I have something to work with.

One, the first one, was from a new idea that I had shortly before November. The second is the first in the series that developed from last year’s nanobeast. In fact, I intended it to be just part of the first book, having already written a beginning and end, but it works so well the way it is, at least as a general plot, that I may change the plan slightly. What was to be the beginning can be worked in as background, and what follows can start the next book in the series, or be developed further as its own plot.

I’m going to let that one rest for awhile though, and work on the new idea. I already have some thoughts about sequels, so it currently looks like a trilogy shaping up. Next step is to reread what I wrote last month and see what I’ve got. But before that, I have some other things to do around here, from getting financial data into Quicken to cleaning the bathroom. Yeah, real fun stuff.

First goal met

2007-11-10T17:16:00.000-08:00

I did it! Met my first goal for nanowrimo: 50,000 words in 10 days. That took care of novel idea number one. I’m now resting for a day before starting novel idea number two.

I have not yet decided whether to follow my original plan and set up a new user account for the next one. My sister who is doing nanowrimo also (she introduced me to it) wants me to start fresh so she can pretend she’s ahead of me for awhile.

For my second one I think I will use the first volume of the series that is derived from last year’s nanobeast. I haven’t actually written that much of it, just the beginning and the end (depending on where I end it) so there’s enough empty space in the middle to use 50,000 words, and the plot is a bit hazy there as well. All I know is my MC will go to an alien law school, there needs to be some action, and there needs to be a romantic interest somewhere. Good nano-fodder.

Having fun writing with nanowrimo

2007-11-07T11:22:00.000-08:00

One of the fun parts of nanowrimo is the discussions in the forums. My favorite is the Geezer Clubhouse, for us old farts. One thread developed about killing people with fish, so I added this scene to my novel:

Richard opened the door with, “come in Janey, watch your step the cable guy is here, I’m on the phone.” And he disappeared into the bedroom. I stepped carefully, tools scattered across the floor and the furniture out of place. I glanced at the back of the guy kneeling in the corner, pulling on a wire. He glanced at me as I closed the door and I stared. I’d seen him before, but where? He turned back, then suddenly he was on his feet and lunging for me, long screwdriver in hand.

I dropped the groceries, going for my gun as I stepped back, bumping into coffee table which was across the room from its usual spot. Stumbling as I fired, the shot went wild, somewhere in the bookshelf. Rolling as I hit the floor, I scrambled back to my feet as the cable guy stepped on the groceries and went down. His feet went out from under him fast and he came down hard, his head making a resounding crack as it hit the edge of the marble-topped coffee table. He lay still.

Richard was there, saying, “what the fuck?” Brilliant observation.
“He attacked me,” I explained.
Richard asked, “you shot him?”
“No. I missed him because I tripped over that table, then he fell when he stepped on the groceries I’d dropped. Is he dead?” I kept my gun trained on the man while still puzzling over where I’d seen him. It was recently, where had I been recently? The store? No, nothing clicked. Before that. In custody maybe. That was it! He was the tech guy from the debriefing! I opened my mouth then shut it again. We had to sweep the place for bugs, no telling what he’d already installed.

Richard checked for a pulse, careful to stay clear of my line of fire.
“No pulse. I could try CPR,” he offered.
“No. Look at his skull, you’d be wasting your time.” And I didn’t want him revived. I put the gun up and reached for Richard. He thought I needed a hug, close enough. I whispered in his ear. “He’s not from the cable company, sweep the place, now.”
He drew back and looked at me in surprise, then nodded.

“Where’s the phone? We need to call 911,” I asked.
“In the bedroom.”
I fetched it but waited to call until he’d finished sweeping so I could tell him who this guy was. 911 might want me to stay on the line, which would make it hard to tell Richard what I knew.

I wanted to pick up the groceries, worried that the fish would spoil. But when I looked it over I discovered the package ripped open, the fish smushed by a large footprint. It was ruined. The technician had stepped on it, and I was glad it had killed him -- for ruining my Alaskan salmon dinner. The nerve! I left the rest of the groceries where they lay. None of it would spoil that fast and the police wouldn’t like any tampering with the scene anyway. Time to call them.

It's nanowrimo time

2007-11-05T07:35:00.000-08:00

Off to a good start on nanowrimo this year, so far averaging 5000 words a day. At this rate I can follow the bright idea I had as I awoke on the first – double-dip. I have two plot ideas and couldn’t decide between them, so I thought, sign up a second username and do them both, 50,000 words each. Then I had second thoughts, so I grabbed one to run with, but if I can keep up the pace I can still do two, and take a few days off for Thanksgiving.

We’ll see, so far I’ve reached one of those points where I don’t know what’s next in my story. Time to do mundane chores until inspiration strikes, whether it’s the next scene or not. So far I like my story this year, it may even be a draft I can share, unlike last year’s effort. If I’m really lucky it may even make a novel without totally tearing it apart and reusing the stones for a new foundation and rewriting from there, like last year’s effort.

I also hope it doesn’t turn into another series, that I don’t need. But I’m worried – the second scene that came to me seemed like the ending, but I kept thinking of what comes next. It is leading to a sequel.

Unreadable literature

2007-10-25T19:49:00.000-07:00

I just put down Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” halfway through the first paragraph. I can’t stand to read it.

I had read a review that basically panned the book as lousy science fiction, then my husband came home with a copy about a week later. I wasn’t particularly interested, but he read it and loved it, said it was the best post-apocalypse novel he’d ever read. I used to like those, so I thought I’d try it.

I have this habit of editing while I read. I don’t claim to be an expert on grammar, but I did have proper use of commas drilled into me in Advanced Legal Writing. And I know that sentences require both a subject and a verb. Skip one or the other and the result is a sentence fragment. An occasional short fragment for emphasis is OK, but long fragments as every third sentence is not.

Maybe that’s his literary style, and that’s fine. I’m not trying to pass judgment here. But as I read the book I kept trying to mentally edit the sentences so they read the way I thought they should. When I realized I’d done that six times in the first ten lines I said, “I can’t read this,” and put the book down. It’s just too darned annoying to keep rereading the sentences trying to make them fit together right.

If I did plow on and read it I would probably get used to his style and stop editing it. But if I did, I’m afraid I might start writing that way. My novels might survive but I’m also a lawyer. Judges don’t want to read fractured sentences in legal briefs, no matter how literary the style may be.

Story for this year's nanowrimo

2007-10-18T11:19:00.000-07:00

Here’s the draft of backcover copy for the story I’m planning to do for this year’s nanowrimo:

First Jen wrote the book on secession, now she is helping lead a secession movement. She is arrested along with the rest, labeled an Enemy of the State, and locked away in a detention camp without trial. Now she fights for her freedom.

The legal fight fails when her petition for habeas relief is denied. The political fight fails when the federal government succeeds in moving the detainees just as the region where the camp is located secedes from the USA. Direct action is all she has left – escaping the camp and making it across the border.

next step: figure out who my other characters are

(There, three posts up in one day, that's enough. I really need to learn to post them the day I write them.)

New rule for reading

2007-10-18T11:18:00.000-07:00

I have a new rule when it comes to books. If I reach 100 pages and am not into the story, and have made no connection with a character, I put it down. I never used to do that. No matter how bad a book was, I’d plow through just to find out what happened. But I’ve gotten fussier as I’ve been learning more about what makes good writing. As I pay more attention to what I read, I am also more aware of what I like in a novel.

Two of the books I’ve put down in the last year were literary novels recommended as well written. Maybe they were, but they didn’t grab me. The other two were science fiction that focused a little too much on the science and had little to no story and little to no character development. I may still read a book that has only one or the other, but if its missing both, forget it.

Slow forums

2007-10-18T11:17:00.001-07:00

[written about 10/8]

I’ve made it back onto the nanowrimo site once in the past week. Sunday morning was slow, but doable if I had something else to do at the same time. Like a week’s backlog of blogposts to read on my RSS feed. When I’d run through that I used a bathroom break, and a fix-a-cup-of-tea break, and I forget what else.

But I did wander through the tech-help forums enough to find I wasn’t the only person who lost a changed username in the site’s reset. Tech-support is aware of the problem – but I couldn’t find any promises to fix it. I’m giving them one week then create a new account.

Meanwhile, I thought evenings might be better than mornings to try and access the forums because I’m on Pacific Time. I just tried – and the forums are down for maintenance. No wonder the site loaded within a minute or two. I hope they are working on both the username problem and the very slow server problem.

[Update a few days later - forums are back up and working fine except that the newest posts don’t display until I post a reply. Later update – they fixed the forums, but as of 10/18 they have not fixed the usernames. Time for a new account, before nanowrimo actually starts.]

Nano is coming

2007-10-05T08:15:00.000-07:00

Nanowrimo is fast approaching. In preparation, the site resets at the end of September, archiving the forums and making changes to the site. Much to my annoyance, the reset also reset my username back to the one I signed up with last year, and back to my old email address. Yet it kept the URL I’d added for this blog (although I had it wrong, oops).

It also is agonizingly slow right now. I am trying to find the tech support link to ask them to fix my username, and have to do something else while I wait for the pages to load. I swear it’s even slower than last year, back in the dark ages when we were on dial-up. I’m not going to spend much time on the site until things improve. [update] In fact, it was so slow I got the “server connection reset” message and gave up. I’ll try again later.

Meanwhile, I have finally put last years effort on the back burner to plan out this years masterpiece. I brainstormed a couple pages of notes yesterday, time to start an outline and create some characters.

Rearranging the plot again

2007-09-21T15:27:00.000-07:00

I’ve read on several writing blogs about the value of writer’s conferences. A few days ago curiosity got the better of me and I googled “writers conference” to see where such things get held. The big ones are in big cities, naturally, and there lots, so I refined my search to Idaho, Oregon, or Washington. And there was one in CdA – next week! Talk about short notice, and me with no manuscript, no book proposal, no nothing.

So I sat down to work on an author bio (I may post it here), then on to a summary of my novel series. Of course, once I started thinking in terms of “what is this about?” it all changed – again. The basic story is the same, but I’ve reorganized where the breaks between books are located so that now each of the first five books will tell the story of one of the other characters while the series tells the story of the main character. That’s assuming I can figure out what each one’s story is. No rest for the weary writer.

Meanwhile, I’m not sure I’ll go up to CdA after all. I can no longer access the webpage and have no contact info to find out if they still have space available or how much it costs. But I did find a conference scheduled for next August in Sun Valley – that we can make a vacation trip out of and it will give me a deadline for finishing a manuscript. A deadline far enough away to seem doable.

Starting at the beginning

2007-09-10T11:41:00.000-07:00

Having changed my mind about which story to use for nanowrimo this year, I’ve started writing the first book of the my epic. I found I couldn’t work on the following books, although I still have ideas for scenes from time to time, without at least a decent draft of book one. I need to know my main character’s background, and develop the secondary characters that will carry through to the next book, and so on. I’ve been told I don’t have to produce the books in chronological order, but I find I have to write them that way or I will get confused.

I may have to set a word goal to get things moving, I don’t seem to make much progress each day. Problem is, I’m writing it in Omni Outliner (which I love) and can’t find a word-count function! If I get desperate I guess I could paste each day’s effort into word, but maybe I’ll check the help menu first.

Still slogging

2007-08-26T11:48:00.000-07:00

I’m still working out the plot for the beginning of my novel’s saga, and not at all sure where the whole thing will begin, and where each book will end. As of right now I’m thinking - start at the beginning and write the whole thing through, then go back and see where it makes sense as portions. The bits in between can become background.

That also seems like the slow approach. If I could plan it better I could get book one done, then work on book two. Another reason I’m slowing down right now is because I want to save the writing of book one for November – nanowrimo time. My plan is to use that to write what will become (in December) an entry for a freedom novel contest – but now I have doubts about which novel idea to use for that!

I was planning to use what I’m calling the prequel to the novel[s] I’ve been working on, but it’s not shaping up with the right theme. I haven’t given up completely yet, but do have another idea I could use instead, the one I tried to use for the 2YN class. I could get started by getting caught up with the class, then write like mad in November. But that means putting this other one aside for a bit so I can focus on it, and I’m not sure I want to do that.

How to write better

2007-08-19T13:05:00.000-07:00

Brian Clark posted 10 Steps to Becoming a Better Writer on his blog. 'Nuff said, I'm going back to writing.

Progressing slowly

2007-08-07T16:13:00.001-07:00

I have actually done a little writing the last few days. Before that I was focused on working out the plot structure, and as you can see by the posts below, did a lot of reorganizing. Complete with new ideas that required even more organizing. But it’s coming together now, and I have done a little writing on the second book.

I’m saving the actual writing of the first book for this year’s nanowrimo, but did sit down today to think about the plot. I have some concepts figured out, and some ideas for scenes for the first portion. I think this one will need several good subplots to make a lively book, and have no ideas for those yet. Nanowrimo works so well for brainstorming that I’m not going to worry about it yet. In fact, I should probably spend my time on character development and world-building and leave the plotting for later.

oh no, I've done it again

2007-08-02T11:45:00.000-07:00

My novel has undergone significant structural changes. It’s still the same basic story, but the focus has shifted a bit. It was an epic style with six sections, but I was having trouble developing some of them. I considered going straight to book two and putting all this backstory into flashbacks, but didn’t think I could develop two of the characters as much as I wanted to if I just used flashbacks. Then I realized I could focus on those two sections and put the other four in flashbacks within them (two each). But that gave me a two-part novel, which seemed awkward. So I added what was to be book two, which also had two parts as originally conceived, and had four. That worked, because it came to a good ending, and each of the four had its own three act structure.

Today I figured out how to fit the one section I’d left out, that comes at the very beginning, into a three act structure. So I can include that and have a five-part epic novel – or maybe I should find subplots for all of them and have five novels.

For now I’m going to work on it as an epic, and see how long it gets. And somewhere along the way I’ll study up on marketing and see if I should aim for five books instead of one long one. It seems like a lot more work, but it might make more money. I need to find out what publishers would prefer.

[less than an hour after writing the above …]
OH NO! I can’t believe it. I’ve had another idea, thought it was completely separate, and it just clicked how it fits with the ongoing saga I’ve been working on – and it comes first. That means it has to be written first. (I don’t like later releases of books that come earlier in the sequence.) At this rate I’ll never get a novel finished because half way through I keep thinking up the one that comes BEFORE! I should be thinking of the ones that come AFTER!! This was too much – when the idea hit I just grabbed my head and said “no no no no no!” while laughing.

Story Summary

2007-07-29T10:39:00.000-07:00

My friends have been asking me what my novel is about, and I don’t have a short quick answer I’m happy with. Somehow, “an earth woman who is sold to aliens as a slave” just doesn’t do it. It’s true, but does it grab your interest? Seems too corny, or something, to me. And it just doesn’t provide enough hint of what the story is about.

So I’ve been working on a bit longer description, not intended to be a back-blurb, though it may provide the foundation for one. I should do that too but where I’m still struggling to pull the plot together I don’t like what I’ve come up with so far. Just today my theme shifted, the whole thing will have a different focus and feel than what kept showing up in the back blurb I tried to write.

So, as of right now, here’s what I’m working on for a story:

After aliens come to Earth and covertly take over, a few people realize what’s happening and start an insurgency, trying to kill the aliens or at least drive them off the planet. Our hero is one of them, but is caught, handed over to the aliens for trial, and convicted. Her life is forfeit, but instead of being put to death she is sold off-planet.

Giving up hope of ever returning to Earth, she struggles to adapt to her new world. Each time she starts to gain some control over her life she is sold and has to start over. Each new owner is a different species of alien that she has to learn to live with, each one a struggle to find some way to improve her lot. Along the way her owners make their own improvements, from training her to fight to surgical and genetic modifications.

Each owner will be a segment with it’s own mini-plot, and the whole thing is the backstory to the next several novels I have planned. It explains how she came to be who she is and where she is: a unique individual in an alien society.

Getting organized

2007-06-24T12:32:00.000-07:00

Last night I sat down and drew up a quick outline for my current novel, a prequel to the one I was working on when that aggressive character showed up and demanded space. It needs some more creative thought applied but an outline is a start. Next step is to apply the Snowflake method, which I have not tried before but looks useful for organizing my thoughts, which is what this novel needs right now. That and a whole bunch more scenes.

About a Book I Read

2007-06-10T20:08:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading this book that shall remain unnamed, which was well enough written but very slow to take off. I have three complaints about it, and two of them might well relate to the fact that this is the first of a “long epic” or series. Most of the book was setting the stage for the action that occurred near the very end, it would have been better with some good action throughout. I suspect the author tried to do that with a subplot that was tucked through it, one character’s deep dark secret. Problem was, I guessed the secret right off, so there wasn’t any surprise for me.

My third complaint was the backcover blurb – it was about the epic, not this particular book! The back blurb should be about the book it’s printed on, not some overall tale the book is a portion of. I kept waiting and waiting for the actions mentioned on the back, and they didn’t happen. Maybe I could have enjoyed the book more if I hadn’t been led astray from the get-go. In hindsight, I think the plot was more about the two character’s striving for the positions they wanted, which was not even mentioned on the back. But all that is background for the main story, which starts near the end of this volume.

Moral of this tale is twofold: 1) if you are writing a long epic, make sure each volume has a strong plot of its own, and 2) make sure the back blurb matches the book.

A New Start

2007-06-05T16:20:00.000-07:00

I’m thinking of putting this thing on the back-burner for awhile to focus on a non-fiction book that I really need to write. It won’t be totally forgotten, but the first book of what is currently a trilogy has distinct episodes to it so I can work on one episode at a time and ignore the rest. I hope that will enable me to get some work done on it evenings while not being totally distracted by the story as a whole.

The episodic nature is why I resisted even letting this become a separate novel instead of background to the next one. Then Charrsy came out of the shadows and threatened to hijack novels 2 and 3 if I didn’t do novel 1. To spare my other characters I gave in to his threats, and put the portion I was working on aside to turn the background into a novel. I’ve figured out the gist of how to do that – each episode will need its own mini-plot. And to make sure I don’t get too carried away with something that will have to be changed later, I am going (I am, I swear!) to work on them in order, so one will lead to the next.

That means starting at the beginning, which has a rough outline but I’m still mulling over details like who are the characters, which one is the opponent, little things like that. It will come. Maybe I will ignore the whole thing until inspiration strikes, or maybe I will set aside a weekend and just write like the wind and see what blows by.

[later, since I didn’t get around to posting the above after I wrote it]
The beginning is starting to come together, but it’s not quite leading to what I had. The changes that will be necessary are ones that I am willing to make, but at the same time, it seems Charrsy hijacked more than I thought. I’ve had to drop a whole group of minor characters. They were causing me some heartache anyway, so this may be for the better, but it has the usual ripple effect.

Novel 2 is going to end up completely rewritten at this rate, quite possibly with none of the original draft remaining except the three basic characters and a few scenes that are reminiscent of the originals. Sometimes I wonder if I should have just given Charrsy a novel of his own and kept him away from mine.

Rewriting again

2007-05-29T19:16:00.000-07:00

My mind drifted away this morning – it does that way too often – this time about how many times I’d changed a scene in my novel. I’m about to write, for the fourth time, how my lead character gets from a normal life on Earth to an alien-owned slave out in the galaxy. I’d started, while writing this as a lark, with a simple alien abduction. (And wrote two versions at that.) Then I decided that was way too cornball, once I started trying to beat this monster into a real novel.

Next came an Earth that was contacted by aliens, and sold some of the contents of its over-crowded prisons to them. Wasn’t too happy with that one and changed it to aliens come to Earth, covertly take over, and our hero joins an insurgency trying to drive them away. The entire ragtag army gets captured with the help of field-scale stunners and hauled off, to be sold. I still wasn’t happy with it.

This afternoon I finally started to get ideas, and now the insurgency is modernized, hidden within the civilian population and communicating with encrypted email and coded text messages. When a target is identified, word goes out and armed insurgents show up by car (especially Jeeps and pickups) at the stated time, hit and run. Then the disappearances start … and our hero soon finds out first hand where they are going – shipped out across the galaxy to be sold. So I have to write it all over again.