Random Things I've Learned About Writing

That's right, a post not about being a nurse! My needles and nitrile gloves are safely put away for this one.

Right now I'm doing revisions/edits on my sixth novel. I've also been pretty sick recently, and also trying to keep myself on a less slingshot schedule, which equals me awake at night, thinking deep thoughts and exploring the bowels of the internet.

I'm not an expert at writing. I don't think anyone is, truly. We all hack it out the best we can, learn from our mistakes, glean information from others, and try to cram it all into our little addled writer-brains so the next glut of word vomit might be slightly more palatable than the last time. Like throwing up mashed potatoes instead of Taco Bell*.

Here are some things I've figured out:

1) You can finish a novel. It's not easy. It takes mountains of faith in yourself, in the process. Dedication, determination, and most of all, time. From the day I started penning (literally penning--I didn't start writing on a computer until much later) "stories," it was 15 years until I finished my first novel. Guess what? That was three years ago. Since then, I've written 5 more. That's almost 2 novels per year, including while I was in nursing school and also my first year as a nurse. Which leads to...

2) It gets easier with practice. Savor the feeling of finishing your first novel. You won't ever capture that same feeling. I didn't, anyway. When I finished the second, I was more like, "well, duh." The reactions have dulled for each subsequent book. But the "writing of a novel" is no longer a mythical beast. It's a given. You know that, like a math problem, if you add x and y (words and time), you will = novel.
    Since I finished my first novel, I have only given up on one since then. And it was a NaNoWriMo project, so I don't really count it.
    The more you write, the more you learn about yourself. You learn your process. You learn how much time you have to spend lying on your office floor with your feet propped on the wall, rubbing your dog's ears, to untangle a plot problem. You also may learn that the fastest way to end writer's block is to shave your legs (or maybe that's just me). You get a feel for the cadence of your own voice. For instance, once I'm about 10-15k into an idea, I already have a rough forecast for the completed wordcount. So far, I've been within 2-5k of that projection.
   What's good about this is that you can therefore accurately plan your writing schedule. Say you can, 99% of the time, write 2-3k in one sitting of a novelling day. Well, because you know your usual style of plotting and pacing, you know that 2-3k is going to be, roughly, one chapter. If you can devote 3 days per week to that writing, and you estimate your novel is going to come in around 90k, that's roughly 3 months, give or take some extra writing flurry days as you near the end.

3) At various points in your current project, you are going to feel like a genius and a hack. And honestly, as long as you can be objective and you have extra eyes reading your MS who are also objective--and you listen to their feedback--it's okay to spend more time feeling like a genius than a hack. There's plenty of time to feel like a hack. You'll probably feel like a hack for the entirety of your writing career, at some point or another. I feel like a pretend nurse at my job all the time, and I have the degree, the license, and the letters after my name to prove otherwise. Feeling like a hack is human nature. When do you ever "feel" like an adult? You don't. Simple enough.

4) The time to throw yourself off your own pedestal is during revisions. You may be fortunate enough to ejaculate decent rough drafts. Good for you. Pat yourself on your back, then go ahead and use a little extra force to throw yourself into the dirt. Dirt is where you belong. Because now is the time for gritty. Repeat after me: everything can be changed and probably should. Okay, so that's some hyperbole. Maybe you're a talented plotter, and truth be told, your first draft is only as holey as baby swiss instead of a fishnet stocking. Congratulations. Everyone has a special talent as a writer. Believe it. The point of revision is to look past your special talent at all the stuff you're not so special at. That's where the work comes in. That's where you need to really sweat. If you're lucky enough to have someone in your life who has a real brain for plots, use them. It's going to hurt. Believe me, it's going to hurt. Especially if that someone happens to be your spouse. But guess what? They're objective. They're smart. And they didn't write the thing, so they couldn't care less if you meticulously crafted that one sentence that throws the entire plot on its ear. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Listen. And if you are married to that person, it's okay to occasionally remind them that hey, you are married and hey, it's okay if you wanna sometimes maybe say some nice stuff too, okay? Go ahead and work on your dedication, and make sure that person, whomever they may be, is the star. You may be capable of solving many of your own problems, but chances are you wouldn't have had some of those problems in the first place if you could solve them on your own. Know what I'm saying?

5) Research agents with care. I mean this in two ways. 1) the obvious. Don't throw your query to the wind. More important, 2) Don't put the cart ahead of the horse. In this case, don't put the agent ahead of the novel. It's easy, and very tempting, to get carried away when you're somewhere around the 75% complete stage. You may think that's a good time to start grooming your agent list, making your fancy Excel spreadsheets, and stalking their Twitter feeds. And sure, doing this in moderation is fine. You're excited about your book. It's only natural to let yourself daydream, because at this point that is what you are doing. Your book is not ready. 75 percent? NOT ONE HUNDRED PERCENT. In nursing school, 75% is a failure. Would you want your surgeon to repair only 75% of your abdominal aortic aneurysm? Of course not. So why would you want to believe that your 75% book is ready to be seen by the world?
   This is the hardest part. Writing the book was not the hardest part. Revising is not the hardest part.
   The hardest part is being honest with yourself about your book's readiness. A lot is objective. The most important part is subjective. And we, as greedy writers with shiny book covers in our eyes, are more biased on our books than pretty much anything else in the world. And that's a good thing. If you don't think your book is the most shiny, beautiful dadgum manuscript to ever wend its way into the querysphere, then chances are things may not end so well for you.
   Don't be premature.

   Read all the archives of Query Shark. Seriously. It won't take very long, if you're a dedicated stalker of information. Absorb the advice. Go elsewhere on the internet and do the same. Do all of this after your book is "finished." Maybe while it's in the hands of beta readers/critique partners. That's a pretty good time. Even better, do it after you've revised it from their feedback, after you've given it the spitshine and are rabid to begain to query. Chances are, you'll get lots of good advice in your internet searching that not only applies to your query letter, but applies to your MS too. Nothing is worse than hitting send, then going "oh wait!"

    This is a long blog post. None of this advice is new. And most of it is aimed directly in the mirror. Especially the last bits.

   Go forth, fellow writers. And get a cat.


* This disgusting metaphor brought to you by my Thursday night. Except it was Taco Bell.

one foot in, one foot back

It's been a while since I posted anything, though I've been around Twitter and Facebook pretty regularly. Let's see: last time we met, I was in my second week of work and feeling happy with my choices, fulfillment, and hope for my future.

Good news: still feeling that way.

Since then, I've been yelled at, cursed at, hit, pinched, grabbed, pooped on, treated a junkie, treated someone who is bona fide cray-cray, and seen more naked people than you'll ever hope to see in your lifetime. I cut stitches out of someone's throat--that was cool. My hands didn't even shake--aren't you glad?

I've also been told that I'm beautiful multiple times (mostly by little old ladies), told that I look like Marie Osmond (wha??), and told that I have the most beautiful smile that person had ever seen. Even if the speaker is half-blind and half-crazy, it's still a nice compliment, right?

Yesterday in class we spent 2 hours discussing the genetic code of E. coli and how mutations occur in bacteria.

Hubby and I have been watching Rescue Me for the last few weeks. It's free to Amazon Prime members right now, so we've been taking our liberties. Right now we're halfway through season 5. Great show.

As for my novel, things on that front are very good. I'm hoping beyond hope that I'll be finished with revision by Monday, July 2. I've learned so much during this third revision, especially about killing your darlings--although, I have to admit it's not that hard for me to cut entire chapters. I wish I'd kept exact track of how many words I cut and how many new words I wrote. I think it has to be somewhere around 15k cut, at least, and even with that I've still netted 6k over the second draft's final word count, and I have 4 more chapters to go. But the final product is something I'm going to be proud of. I pushed the story, pushed the characters, and ultimately (think) I've put the story right where it needs to be.

My garden is lush and productive. We have a watermelon the size of a big softball, but it seems to double in size every day. I can't wait to eat it.

I'm still training for the half-marathon, though it's not going so well right now. Since I have to get up at 5am four days a week, it's hard to find time to run--especially after working 13 hours on two of those days. And now that it's 106 degrees, even 6am is pretty sweaty. But, soon enough my externship will be over (July 25!), my summer class will be over (July 31!), and I can run as much as I want for a few weeks.

So.


Stay cool, stay hydrated, and eat your vegetables.

like a bird on the wire

It's funny how you can learn important lessons from the most trifling things.

Evan and I have been watching the show Sons of Anarchy for the past two weeks. We're halfway through the third of four seasons right now, and last night I started putting together some pieces in my life.

One of the show's main themes is recognizing what is most important to you and then doing anything you have to do to maintain it, achieve it, protect it--whatever. And these characters willingly put themselves through hell, throw themselves into gun fire, sacrifice their lives to keep that one thing sacred and to keep it going for the others who care.


I started writing books when I was 9 years old. It was the thing I did above all else, the thing that lurked in the back of my head at all times, the thing I would do after dinner: lock myself in my bedroom scribbling in notebooks. I wrote through puberty, through high school, through the turmoil of college, and through my early twenties up to where you know me now, on the precipice of 26. Almost two-thirds of my life, devoted to writing. The older I get, the dimmer my memory, I'll only remember that I was always writing, always thinking about writing.

And yes, during all that time I always had the far-off thought that one day I'd like to see my name in print. But first, I needed to do this with my writing, and I needed to improve my dialogue, or strengthen my word choices. Always something. As long as I was still writing, still coming up with stories, I was happy. I am happy.

Then I started blogging. And I saw how many people wanted to be published. And I asked myself if there was something wrong with me, that I didn't really think about being published--just writing. Did that make me less passionate? Did it make me a coward, because I hadn't thought about being published yet because I felt like I still needed to improve before I tried to put myself out there, still needed to write a better story, with better characters and better plot and better everything. Was I a coward?

Things started to change. I started finishing novels instead of just starting them. I saw massive improvements in my craft, felt them in my planning process. Saw maturity emerging in my words. So then I thought, yes. I can do this. I am close. I am ready. No more fear: just desire to make myself presentable, to make my words sing, to make them the best I am able.

When I finished my most recent book, I thought: this is the one. I'm going to shine it up and send it out. I'm going to be querying by April, at latest. I'm finally going to do it.

And I thought about that constantly. I thought about the drive to publish, I imagined writing query letters, getting the call, telling my husband that I had a book deal. Fantasy overrode reality.

In nursing school, nearly any student you talk to will tell you that s/he (but mostly she) is going into nursing because of her passion. She feels called to be a healer, to be this profession that is more than just a profession. They all walk around with this enormous depth of drive and well of desire that keeps them going when the cards are stacked against us. When the knowledge seems crushing and the skills are overwhelming and there are three tests around every corner, and everything is pass or fail--they have their passion.

And me? Nursing isn't my passion--I already have my passion, have had my passion since I was nine years old. The thought constantly presses against me: what am I doing in this field where passion is queen, with my passion at home in old notebooks and on hard drives?

This thought was truly giving me a crisis last semester. I finally overcame it by remembering that I will always need a day job, and I chose nursing through the sum of its parts--not the title first. I managed my time a little better so I could write a few days a week, and all the crisis went away.

But then I got the new bug, the publish bug. The query bug. And suddenly nursing school was in the way again. Last semester is a joke compared to this one. I'm learning skills that are honest-to-god life and death, medication administration, starting IV lines, inserting Foley catheters, learning everything I need to know about all the medications I will use in my practice.

In only two weeks, the crisis was starting again.

And then we started watching Sons of Anarchy, and I saw these characters who said: yes, I will go to prison for this thing I did. I won't be in there forever, but I will serve my time as long as I must, and when I get out, things will be back to normal. My passion has been saved because of this sacrifice, and I will live to fight for that passion for many more days.


The understanding started pawing at me pretty quickly, but it wasn't until yesterday that I let myself look at it and feel it and acknowledge it.

Writing isn't the only passion in my life--it's just my doing passion, if that makes sense. It's the thing I'd rather do instead of play video games or play the guitar or paint or photography. I also have passion for learning and knowledge. I crave knowledge. I savor every scrap of new information that I learn and I horde it. It's like those old ESPN commercials: "my knowledge...is greater than your knowledge!"

And most of all, I have a passion for my husband and for our life. Getting into nursing school was a year-long process. School itself is a two-year process. I make a pittance with my day job: he's our real bread-winner. He's the one who's said, "yes--I will put my own soul-searching on hold because I want you to do this, to find yourself through this new adventure." For that, I owe him everything. I owe him my full attention on school, I owe him paying attention to the other elements of my life that can give me happiness besides spending 8 hours a day in front of my manuscript. I can "go to prison" for just one more year, because when I get out, everything will still be here. I will still love to write. I will be a year older, and I will have read hundreds more books that will inspire me and teach me and improve my craft. I will have done my best at what I'm doing, and I won't live with the lingering guilt of I could have done better, if I'd tried harder.

I'm not saying I'm not going to write. I'm saying that the publish bug has been put into stasis. It was a foolish thing for me to obsess about the end, and not the means. I still want to revise and edit my manuscript, but I'm no longer holding up arbitrary words for it like "April" or "by the summer."

I guess passion is meant to burn bright and consume us. I'm not blowing out the flame, I'm just trimming the wick so my other candles can also contribute to the light of my path.

This time 6 months ago I was in the final stretches of finishing up my fourth novel, writing an average of 2k per day and generally not knowing how good I had it. 

These days I write 2k, but it's all in the form of nursing notes, care plans, interventions, or papers. 

I've actually been continuing to work on my latest WIP, but since school started I think I've eeked out what? 2 chapters? 3? And each one is taking me at least 2 weeks to write, just a few bursts at a time. Since I finished the last chapter almost 2 weeks ago, I've managed to write about 300 words, and it was the night before my second nursing exam. I was so wired from studying all day that I couldn't quiet my brain for sleep, so I pulled out my netbook and wrote an introduction for the next chapter. Of course, as soon as I started that, I got sleepy. 

I got so used to having time to write that now that I'm lucky to squeeze in 30 minutes every few weeks, I'm cranky. It makes me resent nursing school, housework, laundry, dishes (let's be honest--I resented those anyway.) 

I have irrational fears that the more I stuff into my brain about muscle anatomy and the stages of infection (for example), the more writing stuff is dribbling out. I'm afraid that at the end of these two years, my fiction writing will read like a textbook. 

I had my hospital orientation this morning. Have I mentioned how ridiculous our scrub uniforms are? I attend a military university, and our scrubs are very retro-military-esque. PURE white, and I mean WHITE. Zip-up collared smocks with patches and bars on the sleeves. The nursing students are called the "marshmallow crew" by the hospital employees. You can certainly spot us from a distance, that's for sure. 

Anyway, I'm assigned one of the big hospitals in the region. And whoa, is it nice! I'm going to be on the ortho/neuro floor for the year (sweet!), and you wouldn't believe the technology that's in these places. Even the toilets are smart. 

I'm afraid I won't be able to talk much about my clinical experiences (HIPPA and all that), other than in vague terms. But I'll certainly share anything extra exciting! 

So. I have two nursing exams down (A's on both!), two plus the final to go. One final big paper, my dietary analysis for nutrition and a teaching plan on lactose intolerance. My next A&P exam is in a week, and my cadaver lab is next Tuesday! (I also can't talk much about that, because the cadavers are still considered patients with HIPPA rights.) 

The semester has absolutely FLOWN by. Seriously, I feel like every time I wake up, three more weeks have passed. 

I'm living for December 6th. 

Evil Cats, Evil Books

Most days I'm pretty sure my cat Mack is human-level intelligent and capable of reason. And that he uses his intelligence for EVIL. EEEEVILLLLL...

The apartment in which I will not be living much longer has ledges built into the walls around chair-rail height. These ledges are about 5 inches wide--perfect width for cat butts.

Mack the boy cat lives to walk across my desk. Over and over, blocking my view. Occasionally stopping to try and eat my plants. Knocking my candles onto the floor. Stepping on whatever is on my desk--paper, sandwich, whatever. All in the pursuit of looking out the windows...

This is pretty much our daily routine. Especially if I'm eating--the effort goes up a few notches. 

I've decided that I'm tired of waiting for my hubby to finish my rough draft of FOUR before I read it. He has 13% left, and that's close enough, right? So I'm going to start reading today. Let's see, it's been...28 days since I finished? Yes. So, a February has gone by, and I think that's enough time.

Last night I started to chicken out about revisions. I'm a big coward when it comes to revisions--I get so many ideas that they start snarling in my head until I feel like beating it against the wall. That's usually when I scrap the revision idea and start on a new draft. 

But not this time. Thankfully, my stalwart CPs (Lola, Portia, and Tara) are there to talk me away from the ledge. Last night I kept my breakdown limited to just my hubby, and he snapped me out of it well enough, but I know I'm going to need hand-holding. Turns out I'm a little bitch baby when it comes to revisions. (I got the phrase "bitch baby" from Grey's Anatomy and I love it.) 

Oh, and what's all this about the world ending and such on Saturday? I have plans on Saturday, thanks. 

Your Knowledge is Greater Than My Knowledge

In personal news: the house buying is coming along nicely! We had our inspection done earlier this week, and while we're going to have to replace the furnace/AC unit, we're still moving forward with the purchase. Our latest closing date has been set as June 1, but we're really hoping to close earlier so we'll have at least a week to make the move.

So if all goes well, this will be my first house! It's not much to look at from the outside right now, but I have big plans for landscaping and some repainting. The inside is very cute with some unique characteristics, though. And the backyard is huge! When I was there for the inspection, I watched two bunnies running around in the forested part of the yard--so cute!

I've been haphazardly packing the apartment, trying to keep some things out and unsure what to do with others...so basically, the apartment is a wreck with boxes everywhere. I like to have neat surroundings whenever I'm working on something big writing-wise, so the chaos isn't helping me think.

I'm still waiting on Evan to finish reading my rough draft, and he's getting closer. I've slowly started my story bible. So far I've got some of the world-building and a lot of the mythology, but nothing much else.

This is where I need help: I've never revised before. I have three messy novels sitting on my hard drive, all worthy ideas, all still untouched because I'd rather write a new messy one than try to clean up an old. But I really want to polish FOUR up and try my hand at sending it out, thus revision looms.

I have Donald Maass' The Fire in Fiction and The Breakout Novelist and am reading through them again with revision in mind, but I'd welcome any and all information you guys think might help me. Personal methods, links, websites, worksheets--anything!

And because it's been so long, a picture of my fur babes:

I was dyeing my hair. They were supervising. 

It's a Numbers Thing.

I never used to listen to songs on repeat while writing certain scenes in my WIPs, but things changed during FOUR. A lot of things, actually.

In many ways, FOUR is a first novel for me. It's the first novel I've written that did not start during NaNoWriMo. It's the first novel that I approached with almost-professional dedication. It's the first novel that I outlined, and due to that, the first novel that I never hit a roadblock.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this recently, but I actually started writing FOUR in January of '10, around the same time I started this blog. When I brainstormed ideas with husband about it, it was originally intended to be a rewrite of the '09 NaNo novel, but soon took on such a life of its own that that didn't work anymore (thankfully--I've come up with a much better redirection for that novel).

For three weeks in that January, I wrote 2k per day, without fail. At the end of the stretch, I had 33,200 words. I can't remember now why I set it aside--I think I wanted to finish writing the NaNo novels I'd left hanging, which I did. Over the year, I kept reading through it from time to time, and each time I read I'd be pleasantly surprised by the content.

So, in early February of this year, I sent the 33k to two of my CPs and asked for their brutal opinions--was it worth continuing, or should I scrap it? Thankfully, the answer was yes--keep going.

Out of empirical interest, I kept a note beside my desk of how many words I added each day that I wrote. It's fun now looking over the list and seeing the numbers jump. I officially started writing again on February 10. By March 10, I'd added 30,000 new words. And by April 10, I'd added another 20k. And of course, I finished on April 21.

Now, I didn't actually write every day during those roughly 2 months. In fact, I had several long stretches where I didn't write at all, which is another reason I'm glad I kept the list, since I only wrote the days that I added wordcount. According to El List, I actually only wrote for 32 days. In 32 days, I wrote 63,263 words, an average of 1,977 words each day.

I'm proud of that. I feel like with this novel that I've finally proved to myself that I can do it--I can write a full-length draft without the hype and competition of NaNoWrimo, with just the BICHOK method and Taurean determination.

I got lots of practice telling my husband that I was going to be writing instead of playing video games or doing something with friends. Not always an easy choice, but one that you see dedicated writers making again and again.


Anyway, since this post is all dry and about numbers and stuff, I wanted to share the official repeat stats on my FOUR playlist. Unlike some of my other works, I actually listened more to iTunes than to Pandora for the writing of this novel. I just couldn't find quite the right Pandora station (though my Delerium station got a good workout).

The official playlist has 63 songs for 4.9 hours of playtime. I rarely listened to the whole thing, as there were songs on there that ended up not being quite right.

So, here are the top ten songs and their repeat numbers:

1. "The Day the World Went Away"-- Nine Inch Nails (38)
2. "Degausser"--Brand New (34)
3. "Undisclosed Desires"--Muse (28)
4. "Imma Be"--Black Eyed Peas (24--this was mostly for the awesome bass beat)
5. "Sabotage"--Beastie Boys (22)
6. "Dragula"--Rob Zombie (19)
7. "Knights of Cydonia"--Muse (18)
8. "Uprising"--Muse (17)
9. "2-1"--Imogen Heap (15)
10. "United States of Eurasia"--Muse (15)

Seeing a Muse trend? Me too. 

Thanks for suffering through this numbers post!

What's your number one repeated song on iTunes? 

The Name's the Thing.

Okay, well, I didn't make my big fat goal of finishing the first draft of FOUR by last night. However, I did get a ton of writing done that I probably otherwise would not have, let's be honest.

As of last night, my word count is 82,300. I added almost 10,000 words over the weekend! I'm estimating possibly 7-10k more to tie it up, but we'll see. Somehow this novel turned into a beast.

So I have one of those writer questions for you, concerning the names of my main characters. Like all of you, no doubt, I struggle when it comes to naming my characters. In FOUR, which is an urban fantasy, both my main characters are Fae born-n-bred. To my thinking, that indicates they shouldn't have your run-of-the-mill human name.

I didn't want to get all Zychdi Bnett with my naming (unless you like that one?? just kidding), so I turned to my favorite baby names website and searched all baby names from the British Isles until I found some I liked.

Most of the urban fantasy books I've read feature a human (or mostly human) main character with a very human name, and for good reason.

I think I've found a good balance between "different" yet still "accessible," but you tell me. These are the names of my two main characters:

Mairwen Keill (F)
Torrin Shanley (M)


Whaddya think? If it helps, I imagine Mairwen sort of like prettiest Claire Danes, with long hair. Torrin, I'm still searching for, but I did find the cover of a romance novel that I liked muchly:

uhhh...sorry, was I asking something? 

The Only Thing to Fear...

I'm afraid of my novel.

Let me back up:

On February 10, I decided to blow the dust off my urban fantasy project, tentatively titled FOUR. Between then and March 10, I added a little over 30,000 words to the document. I let one of my critique partners read the roughness, and she liked it. She pumped me up with encouragement.

Then I joined the ninjas and was automatically part of a support group. High-fives and gentle butt-kicks all the way around--complete with weekly chats! Awesome, no?

I was holding pretty steady with an average 2k/day word count goal. I had the entire thing planned out, and I was excited to write it. I got myself to the climax of the second act, a part I'd been excited about writing since I came up with the plot points.

And then I went on vacation.

All good intentions of writing while away fell to the wayside. Vacation was stressful, but I bought Donald Maass's book The Fire in Fiction and have read most of it. Reading it made me feel part-validated, part-daunted. I'm on the right track in some places, and have a lot of work cut out in others. But it gave me some good ideas for immediate ways to improve the final third of my novel. So I was all excited to get back home and start writing.

But getting back from vacation is no vacation, right? First, it was a Monday, which meant I had class. And I also had to catch up on all the stuff that'd been left waiting while we were gone--grocery shopping, laundry, cat-related things, bills, errands. Not to mention hubby was still on vacation, so he was around the house to distract. Then on Tuesday, we were gone all day looking for houses. Ensuing house-related business totally sapped the rest of my energy.

To make a long story short, I haven't touched my WIP in two weeks now, and I'm a little scared to go back. I remember precisely where I left off, and it was a scene I was already a bit nervous to write--let alone come back to TWO WEEKS later. What if I was in a speed writing-induced haze? What if everything I wrote to this point totally blows and sucks all the joy I had for this novel out of me?

*headdesk*

Right.

Today I finally, finally have enough time to open up Word and check the damage. I've had my grapefruit, had my coffee, and the cats are napping.

Now or never...

Why I Took Off My Pants.

Ever since I scribbled my first novel's pages (protag name: Raine) in the first (of many) green spiral-bound notebooks, I've been a pantser--you know, the kind of writer who plots as she goes, throwing caution to the wind and following the white rabbit through its warren and inevitably the warrens of all its millions of relatives.

Though I started this writing thing in 1995, when I was a tender age 9, it wasn't until 2010, at the slightly-tougher age of 24, that I wrote THE END, BITCHES on a novel. I have hundreds--very possibly even thousands--of discarded stories, from a paragraph on a napkin to a hundred hand-written pages, and from the mid-aughts on, dozens of echoey Word files.

Every time I started one of these ideas, I was filled with absolute certainty that this would finally be THE ONE THAT I WOULD FINISH. And then 5, 10, 30 pages later, I moved on to greener pages.

Not until I finished my second novel last year and started making noises about revisions did I come to realize something very important about myself. Despite all previous espousing and belief, I am not a pantser. And I have the dusty skeletons of a lifetime of discarded stories to prove it.

It took NaNoWriMo for me to realize that I needed at least a semblance of an outline in order to flourish. In 2008, I gave up on NaNo at 32k, which was the longest thing I'd written to date. In 2009, unemployed and determined to make it work, I spent the month of October world-building, drawing maps, and figuring out who exactly these people were whose story I wanted to tell. I knew their over-arching plot and a few points in-between. As I wrote, I got more ideas about how I wanted things to progress, and I made notes in my ever-growing sketchbook.

Three months after NaNo, I finished that book, my first. A few months later, after throwing out all but about 18k of the first NaNo idea, I wrote another rough synopsis and finished Saving Me.

This is what I've come to learn:

If I don't have even a basic skeleton idea of the plot (especially the ending), I will never finish. 


As I've picked up a discarded draft from last year (Four) and read through the notes I made myself during the initial planning process, I've realized that not only have I saved myself a ton of stress and effort in trying to figure out what a-year-ago-me wanted this story to be about, but I could simply jump back into the writing without doing all the research and soul-searching that killed my spirit before.

So now, with a bullet-listed synopsis of the story, including the major climax and several important plot-points, as well as separate lists for desired character arcs, I'm flying through this novel (for me). Before I write each chapter, I open a new Word document and write a very rough synopsis of what will happen in that chapter. Then, during the chapter drafting, I refer to the synopsis when I need to, but ultimately speed through with no speed bumps AND continuity.

Continuity. Amazing, that.

I'm not stressing about writer's block, because my path has been paved. I'm not trying to think out the best possible twists and turns, because I've already done and recorded it. Even better, I'm writing a draft that will be infinitely easier to revise and edit than the hot messes that my pantsing ways left me with before.

All of these reasons are why I took off my pants.


Do you still write in pants, or have you joined the skivvy crew? Have you found that as your dedication and seriousness about writing grows, you've changed your perceptions of your writing habits? 

Why I Believe In Reading Multiple Genres

Imagine that you love pastries. Flaky crusts, decadent chocolate, tart fruit fillings--these are what you see when you go to your happy place.

All you want is to be a pastry chef.

When you see your name in print, it's going to be on the front of a place like this:

But what if, in your earnest desire to be the best pastry chef ever, all you ate was pastry?


Maybe sweets aren't your thing?

How about this?

What smells better than fresh-baked bread? Soft, warm--the crust with just the perfect amount of give. How butter melts across the perfectly aerated surface...

But what if bread was all that you ate?

Don't like bread? Who can resist this?

Cheese. Smoked, baked, hard, sharp, soft, white, gold, rolled, crusted--you name it, I want it.
But my god, could you imagine living only on cheese? You'd probably be lactose intolerant within the week.

So besides the opportunity to share mouth-watering pictures with you, what's my point?

I'm sure you get it by now.

Genre is literary food.

In order to live a healthy life, we need a well-balanced diet.
Wait--but what about the pastry chef--the one who wants nothing more than to be the best pastry chef in the world? Shouldn't s/he see what the competition is cooking? Taste every kind of chocolate that comes across the plate? 

Sure. Absolutely, in fact. 

But what's one of the most important things a truly brilliant chef posses? 

A mature, broad palette. 

After all, if bacon was always put with eggs, how would this have been born?

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.  

~W. Somerset Maugham

And in the End...

Well.
I did it.

It wasn't fun, pretty, easy, or enjoyable.
But that's sometimes the thing about writing, isn't it?

I know this year's NaNo has helped me. I wrote with more emotion and passion than I've ever written before, tormented my characters, tortured them at new levels. My voice is getting stronger with each sentence, and I'm taking on bigger challenges with each chapter. I never beat my daily wordcount record from last year (8k), but I did have many days in which I wrote 3-4k.

So.

Thank you for all the kind words and wonderful encouragement! It was certainly a different experience than last year, when my friend bar consisted of three people. I enjoyed following all the progress of those who were trucking along with me, and I hope you all, if you didn't exactly enjoy it, at least got something out of it.

As for me, I pulled out last year's NaNo project a few hours after I got my purple bar and started plotting my revisions. Guess I'm a glutton for punishment. :)

*insert clever title here*

The name's the thing.

But what do you do when the clock is ticking and your mind is drawing a blank?

I'm talking about titles, of course. We all know that the chances of your working title being kept by the publisher is pretty slim, and for a lot of us, that's probably a big relief, right? I know it would be for me.

But it's still nice to have something to call it, isn't it? And I doubt many agents are going to want to see "WIP #45 is an 85,000-word thriller."

Or if you're shallow like me, and really want to have a pretty banner/cover for your NaNoWriMo project...

All good reasons to need a title.

So.

I usually can pull a decent working title out of my ass, but for the current Nano project, I was stumped, and I mean stumped.

The main characters are chronokinetic, and that is an important element to the story, so for shits and giggles and in need of a folder title to keep My Documents nice and tidy (god, I really am a plotter, aren't I?), I titled the project CHRONO KILLERZ. Yes, with the Z. But obviously I couldn't keep that! Even if it has a nice pulp-fiction (the actual kind, not the "English, M*thaf*cka!"-kind)(and that's only according to my brother, who was worthless in helping me think of a title) ring, it's a total misnomer.

I've been trying to think of a title for almost a month, so today, out of pure desperation, I googled this:

"I need a name for my novel."

Never underestimate the power of Google, people!! For the Google gods directed me to superstar agent Rachelle Gardner's blog post entitled How to Title Your Book.

Here are her tips, in a nutshell:

• Go to Amazon and search your genre, then write down 20 titles that appeal to you. Note what elements they share and what elements are lacking. 
• Free-associate as many words as you can that pertain to your novel, theme, characters, and any phrases or images that come to mind when you think of your story. 
• See if any of the words you free-associated could work as a single-name title, then start experimenting with adjective-noun, verb-noun arrangements. 

From that point, you basically pick out your favorites and narrow it down until you have a winner. 

I did the first two. Just out of scientific interest, here's an sampling of random books from the sci-fi and fantasy selections at Amazon that struck my fancy:

Out of the Dark

Echo

Spook Country

Bitten

House of Suns

No Mercy

Containment

Bullet

Entangled

Devil May Cry

The Devil You Know

The Sparrow

Seeing a trend? I guess I'm mostly drawn to short, sparse titles, either one word or an article and a noun (think of Nicholas Sparks' novels: The Rescue, The Guardian, The Notebook). I'm entranced by the idea that one word can really encompass an entire novel's theme. Kelley Armstrong, urban fantasy author extraordinaire, really cashes in on the one-word titles. 

Anyway, I wrote down all my words and phrases and images, but nothing really jumped out at me, until I started thinking about idiomatic expressions. I've always liked those as titles, because they're already in the collective consciousness (of Americans, anyway)--kind of like a high concept title, I guess. And that makes it easy to remember, and we all want people to remember our titles. 

The phrase the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few is an idiom that could be applied thematically to my plot, except the MC is definitely more interested in what she wants than what's best for all. But Needs of the Few is a little clunky, isn't it? Interesting to think about, I guess, and it certainly could induce you to wonder who the few are and what their needs are and how their selfishness could affect the "many," but it still wasn't ringing with me. 

In a very un-Summer way, this project idea came to me in 2 books'-worth of fully-formed ideas. I don't like to think in sequels, but this just so happens to work that way, and I'm pretty in love with it, so I'm going with it. So while I was desperately trying to come up with a title for the "first book," the perfect idiomatic title for the "second book" hit me: Dead Ringer. Several layers of meaning, short and punchy. I liked it! 

But what about the first book? I know this is getting long and drawn out (welcome to my last month), so I'll just cut to the chase and show you the banner and "book cover" I made for the NaNo site:

So. My working title is now Dry Run. It's an idiom, and it has the added benefit of being both metaphorical and literal, plus it's a nice alliteration for Dead Ringer. 

All this rambling was in hopes of proving that the untitleable are never lost for sure! Definitely check out Rachelle's hints. 

And then when you're done, go here for a bit of fun (arbitrarily rates your bestseller chances based on title alone): LuLu Title Scorer. If you're wondering, Dry Run scored a 10.2% chance at becoming a bestselling title. Ha! Thanks a lot, Lulu! 

Oh Snap!

So last night I was finally working on some writing-related stuff again (waffled back to a previous idea for NaNoWriMo--I know, so indecisive! Gah!), when I realized something:

All those pages of character notes--
All those maps of the world and solar system--
All those details about the "magic"--
The page-long description of a made-up drug--
The hours of Googling manslaughter and imperfect self-defense--
The subsequent scrawling of many post-its with notes from above Googling--
The albeit-short, but still a synopsis of the novel--

--Do Not a Pantser Make.


I feel like my world has been turned on its ear.

This is it, guys. You may officially revoke my pantser card.




Oh, oh, and don't forget to sign up in the Linky for my Show Your Space Blogfest!

A Long December

For the past two years, my ringtone has been Counting Crows' song "A Long December."

I still have the phone, still have the ringtone, but the time is rapidly approaching in which I'll be upgrading. I'm not one of those who's obsessed with cellphone gadgetry--I drop mine far too often to think about having something that cost more than...um, $0.00. Yes. I'm one of those. The free-upgrade-phone person. I've had this Motorola Razr forever, it seems like.

I hate it. The buttons are dying, so my texts often look like a crazy lady wrote them.

But that song...I just don't know if I'll recognize that my phone is ringing without hearing that opening strain:

A long December
And there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last... 




When I first started Saving Me, back during NaNoWriMo '08, this song sort of became the theme for the book.

Still is, I guess. Since I was (and still am) completely obsessed with my book and its characters (really, how vain, right?), I downloaded the song as my ringtone, so it would remind me of Lily & Co. every time someone called.

And you know, it works.

So what will I do when I get my new phone in October? Hell, I guess I'll have to be done with SM by then so I can attribute a new ringtone to a new novel, right? That's motivation to finish revisions, isn't it?

I think so.


Ever had a song ingrain itself so completely to your novel that you can't associate it beyond that context?

That New-Book Smell...

So here's a question for you:

What kindles your flame?

Here's what I mean: you know when you get something new, and it makes you excited to use it? Like this, for instance:

I got new running shoes yesterday. My previous shoes were old and very worn; I was experiencing pain in both feet and my knees.

"What can fix this?" I asked myself.
"Shopping," myself instantly answered. "Erm, shoe-shopping, that is."

So I found some pretty new running shoes, and even though I'd already been to the gym yesterday, I kept thinking, "ooh, I should go try them out." Fortunately, I was able to wait until this morning for my usual gym time, and you know what?

The shoes were totally worth it. I'm pretty sure I could have run all day (and by all day, I mean for like 10 extra minutes).


I think this carries over into other parts of our life--new appliances, new tools, new clothes, new furniture, new toys--all just dying to be used, and us dying to use them.

So here's my question: when you've worn your MS out, and it's giving you pains everywhere and just not supporting you the way it used to, how do you infuse it with new life? How do you give yourself the urge to write/revise/edit like it's brand new?

New music?
New candles? (maybe I'm the only fire-obsessed writer)
New drinks?
Rearrange your desk?

Curious mind want to know.

Revision, Day 1

I can't believe that I'd not found this blog before, but yesterday, in a roundabout manner, I stumbled on Alexandra Sokoloff's blog.

Holy mine of information, Batman!

Just a few posts in, I grabbed my notepad and started scribbling like I was in class again.

If you haven't checked out this blog, I highly recommend it can't recommend it enough! She's both a screen writer and a novelist, and her writing and organizing advice will appeal to anyone at any stage of the game.

After several hours soaking up her brilliance, I spent the rest of my day writing scene index cards and brainstorming. It was rather against my pantser nature, but since the novel is complete in my mind already, it's a little easier to get organized, y'know?

In a very rough form, I've indexed the first Act:

It all seems to happen so fast, but that right there is 20 scenes, folks. Twenty! And if each of those scenes is only 1,000 words, that's already 20,000 words--just in my skeleton outline.

 I'm not worried, though. Because after reading Alexandra Sokoloff's blog, I thumbed through an older issue of The Writer and found an interview with Audrey Niffenegger, who of course is the author of The Time Traveler's Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry.

Her advice for writing:

"Turn off the TV, get off the computer, and read a lot of whatever it is you hope to write. The more you read, the better your innate sense of character, story, rhythm, and style. Don't worry about publishing until your manuscript is excellent. Take pleasure in the writing itself and be willing to listen to criticism."


I'm going to embrace this advice as hard as I can!

Charleston

On Wednesday night, I finished my latest WIP, Saving Me. She rang the bell at 75,404 words, 153 pages (single-spaced), and 20 months.

Actually, that's not quite true.

The idea was born on November 1, 2008 (NaNoWriMo). I wrote about 32k, then stopped. Over the next year, I dabbled here and there at it, added about 10k, then stopped.

November 1, 2009, I started Eternal Spring, which you now know, and I finished that draft in March of this year. Pretty much a few days later, I decided I'd finishing Saving Me once and for all.

I cut down to about 23k and started from there.

So I guess it really took me around 4 1/2 months to write, if you added together the times I actually wrote on it. Once I had my breakthrough with Evan this past Monday, I really hauled ass and wrote 12k in two days. That's a big deal for me. :-)

Anyway!

I'm happy and content, but no great feelings of excitement this time, not like when I finished Eternal Spring. That was the first book I ever finished--the moment where I could look someone in the eye and tell them that I'd written a novel.

With Saving Me, I wasn't going to take no for an answer. I knew I'd finish, I just didn't quite know when.

Don't get me wrong--I'm excited. But more like this:

than this:

I finished writing around 10:30 Wednesday night, and what did I do? I immediately picked up the book I'd been reading (Where the Heart Is) and finished it. That's what I call celebration. :-)

Maybe because this idea's been with me for so long, niggling at the back of my head, compelling me to write it, the feelings are more subtle.


But anyway.

In continuation with tradition, I will be hosting a giveaway to celebrate finishing Saving Me. I'm afraid it can't be as fabulous as I'd like, since hubby and I are still basically poor college students, but I'll do my best. :-)

I'll have more details on the giveaway next week, but I can tell you that the prizes are all going to be writing/revision-related.



PS: Wondering about the name of this post? "Charleston" is the last word of the novel.  :-)

Have a fab weekend!

Say What Again!

Today's post is a random mix-up of life and writing and one of my all-time favorite movie clips...which has to do with writing. In a way.

1. I'm 98% sure that I'm going to be returning to work after what will be 11 long months on worker's comp. This should be happening in July, so keep your fingers crossed for me. If it all works out, you'll soon be regaled by stories of puppies, kittens, and incompetent buffoons (aka my coworkers).

2. Sigo Amigo seemed to be feeling better yesterday, so I took her down to the shelter where I work (see above) to get her Feline Leukemia/ Feline Immunodeficiency Virus combo test. I held my breath for 10 long minutes, but she was negative! Yay! So then we gave her her first round of booster shots and the whole flea/tick/hookworm/roundworm/tapeworm song-and-dance. She also had her first interaction with another kitten, and it was pretty amusing. But the best news of all is that my parents are going to take her :-)
    PSA: Did you know that cats can also get heartworms? As of now, heartworms in cats is untreatable, so if you have an outdoor kitty, do him/her a favor and give them heartworm protection. 


3. I had some great breakthroughs in my WIP yesterday. I know where I was heading, but the clouds opened up and a voice that sounded suspiciously like Samuel L. Jackson started talking to me about the story. So I diligently transcribed his words on my whiteboard, and today I'll be trying to write, even though lately all my writing attempts have felt pretty much like this:

      Note: This is from Pulp Fiction, so it's full of hilarious swears. Watch at your own discretion. 
    Jules is my novel, Marsellus Wallace is my plot, and I am the poor dude in the chair: 


  I can't embed, but please follow the link and watch with my heading in mind. :-)


Ever felt like this? :-)

Sequence

As you can see, I changed my layout again. I know I have a problem, but what can I say? I do really like this one, though, so I might keep it for a while... :-)

Over the weekend, E and I made significant progress on our LOST binging. As of today, we're on episode 8 of season 5. As those who've watched know, a lot has happened.

But this post isn't about that!

One of the techniques that the LOST creators employ to add suspense is presenting events out of sequence. It's effective in visual form, and it's something that we writers use often to present information when we want the reader to experience it, usually via flashbacks or maybe dream sequences that turn out to be the future, etc.

But my real question about sequence is this:

Do you write your novel out sequence? For instance, does the idea come to you in a vision of one scene, and with that scene you start writing and branch forward and backward as the plot unveils? Or do you figure out your entire plot, then start at the beginning and work your way towards that epiphanous scene?

Personally, it boggles my brain to try and write out of sequence. I can do it if I absolutely have to (like a most severe case of writer's block), but if I have my druthers, I like to write sequentially. From what I've seen/read/heard, a lot of writers skip around and weave their scenes together later. Again, mind-boggling for me.


So, just curious: do you write in sequence, or do you bounce all over the continuum? 

PS: Sigo is doing really well! She's putting on weight and responding well to the antibiotic treatment I'm giving her. Hoping to have all her feline leukemia and FIV tests done this week. :-)