I'm at it.

Read, read, read. Write, write, write.

Everyday.

Even if it's just a teensy weensy two pages of reading. I tell myself that it's two more pages than the day before. It seems to be working. Because there was one day after I started my disciplined schedule that I skipped. I know, horror of all horrors. But actually it kinda was. There was sooooo much guilt involved. Then I worked extra hard the next couple of days just to make up for it. That's when it hit me that even just a little was better than nothing at all.

I think all the outside reading I have done since really picked up Ransom the last editing go-round has helped. It's not so much pulling teeth and hashing it out over every sentence. I think it might actually be starting to come a little easier. (Knock on as much wood as you can find.) But I think I read somewhere that it takes a person a million or so words before he's any good at writing-like 4 or 5 books worth.

Well I think I have probably put in that me in Ransom alone. It is definitely not the story it started out to be, but it is more saleable. And really isn't that why I am doing this in the first place. Not the money part, so much as the selling it part. I am writing to get something published. For the world to stand up and shout, 'You Rock!'

Could happen.

But not if I spend all night posting this.

So I finished 2 of 3 proofreading jobs, for about 13-1/2 hours of work. I started on #3 today and am almost halfway through. I'll still have to go back and address some stuff I marked for looking up, but it is going much more quickly.

Then I have a proofreading/editing job for a different professor. I don't know how long that will take, but it is kind of long (at first glance), so we'll see.

I wrote about 2 paragraphs on my Godred story. *insert world's tiniest "woo!" here* I don't know what to think about writing at the moment, so I will pretend it doesn't exist unless whacked over the head with it, at least until my proofing jobs are done.

Have you checked out Miss Snark today? You won't believe it. I saw the post late last night about 20 minutes after it was posted and I actually teared up. Then I knocked out 4 more pages when I was really too tired to do much more than sleep.

I just can't believe it.

Well, I think I am motivated.

Remember, how I told you I got ahead of myself and sent the query before I was done polishing. It's gonna be a close call as to if I can finish before my self-imposed 10 day deadline. (I have queried this agent before. She was the very first one actually. And her rejection came 10 days from the date I sent it.) Maybe this time I won't get a reject. And if I don't, I don't want her to have to wait on a partial because I wasn't ready.

So....I have been working everyday on my stuff. The first few days were kinda slow with lots of revisions. But now I seem to be moving along a little faster. The kids have the day off tomorrow so I plan on getting a lot done then.

I was really, really motivated after finishing a book this afternoon that I picked up on my lunch break. It was from a BIG name, contemp romance writer. I have been reading a little by each publisher to see what each one is putting out there. Well, this one was AWFUL. I actually cried after I finished it because it was so bad and still got published.

Then I got up and knocked out 14 pages in editing/rewrite.

The power of motivation. And so on I go.

I've finished the first proofreading job except for a couple of fact-checking bits, so I have spent today hanging out with Hannah (it's Christ Ascension, so she is out of school). My Cinderella story is knocking on my brain, so maybe I will work on it after dinner.

I love a feeling of accomplishment!

Now that my paper is dead and gone(1), I have other writerly things to take up my time. I am halfway through my first proofreading gig for the English department and should have 2 more articles coming through on Friday. I have a volunteer proofreading gig on the back burner but will probably get to it this week. And some of my stories have been poking me in the brain, so it's time to get back to them.

(1)This makes me think of the news reporter in the South Park Movie: "It's been six weeks since Saddam Hussein was killed by a pack of wild boars and the world is still glad to be rid of him."

Ding dong! The paper’s dead! Woot!

Yes, I finished my paper, and my professor agreed to take it, so I’m golden. I’m actually moderately proud of my paper, if I don’t look too closely at the conclusion, which was a bit rushed and not as elegant as I’d hoped it’d be, but since when have conclusions been my forte? At this point, I’ll be glad just to pass.

I keep going back and forth on how I should feel about my accomplishment. On the one hand, my paper was *6 weeks late.* On the other hand, only 11 people even tried to get a grade in the course, out of at least 40 warm bodies that attended class. But I don’t just want to be one of the few students who toughed it out. I want to be the shiny-gold-star student. So with that in mind, I’m starting my paper for the course I’m currently taking next week. (No shit—I already have a possible topic and will be at my prof’s office hour next week to discuss it.)

So what was the total damage on my paper?

• 23 + pages


• cover page


• an anti-plagiarism statement


• an index


• 2 pages of bibliography

= 29 pages handed in

What did I clear off my desk in the sunroom afterwards?

• 6 reference works


• 21 copied articles (7 of which I didn’t end up using in my paper), for a total of 226 sheets of paper, most of which were 2 book pages per sheet, so 294 book pages


• 27 pages copied from reference works I didn’t want to lug home from the library


• 35 pages of my paper’s contents, printed out and marked up


• 126 pages of notes and handwritten content, plus a small pile of pages off the phone pad, a couple of envelopes, strips off a sheet of paper, and even 1 page from a Sudoku game

= 414 sheets of paper juggled by yours truly over the life of the paper

This is what *just the notes/handwritten content* looks like in shredded form.



And now I am going to watch Muppets with Hannah with a clear conscience!

I woke up to waffles and flowers for Mother's Day, but then dutifully sat down to type up the 6-1/3 pages I had written out yesterday. I'm now at the top of the 19th page, and still have plenty to add.

I went to bed late (for me), read a little, then couldn't fall asleep. Just as I was dozing off, Hannah came upstairs with a tummy ache, so I scooted over to let her in the bed, and the rest of my night's sleep was not the best I've ever had. So I may be moving *very slowly* today. I hope extra coffee will help, because I really need to have this paper done by noon tomorrow (my prof's next office hour), or I will go MAD.

I had to take a break to eat--is that ok with you, KEE?--and say hello to Hannah, who has been gone with her friend all afternoon, so now I am posting an update before I go back up to my "office" in the sunroom.

I have most of 5 handwritten pages.

Have I mentioned that I am writing this paper in German? Could you write 5 pages of German in one day? I thought so. :-p

I am *so* running out of steam on this paper. And I feel like I am coming down with something (in my throat).

To report for today:
Corrections and a few new words. I'm now on the top of page 17.

I must whip my notes into 1 sub-section, 1 full section, and a discussion/conclusion section, then I am done.

*sigh*

She wants an update...so's I'll give her an update.

I have been tossing around a query letter for Ransom. It kinda came to me and I am going with it. I am actually (eek!) going to send it out before I think Ransom is perfect. Otherwise I might be old and gray and living with my seester before I get anymore done on it.

Oh, and I don't think I'd survive it if my friend (who has read my goods and announced today that she is writing a book..I don't think romance) gets published before me. She is just the kind of go-getter to get it done, too. Woe to me to be a slacker.

So you write said paper and I will come home tonight and write said query.

Right now I have to return to the land of the employed.

It's 1 o'clock, and I have 4 handwritten pages to type up, plus a couple more bibliography items to add and the index to work on. Onward and upward!

Ok... so maybe I was a little premature with all that gung-ho stuff yesterday. I'm still plodding along, but it seems like the more I work, the more I find that I still need to stuff in there. The goal is 20 pages, and I'll be lucky if I can keep it within that.

I toted the whole thing along with me to Hannah's ballet class this evening, but the sight of the inch-thick stack of articles and notes (that's not even including the inch-plus stack of finished stuff at home) made the gorge rise in my throat. Trying to sit on a narrow bench and shuffle through 50 pages of notes to find my place is not really conducive to work, but I'll be getting back to it, tea in hand, in just a minute.

*sigh*

A quick paper update:

I just typed up 4 handwritten pages and am now at the top of page 15. I have been scared to set myself a deadline, because of how slowly I have been working, but I am now aiming at being done by Thursday pm. My professor has office hours starting at 5:30, and I plan to be there with paper in hand to take my scourging for tardiness like a man. So to speak.

Wish me luck!

So I worked most of the morning on my paper and got 3+ handwritten pages. I typed them up and added new text from the middle of page 12 through 2/3 of page 13. Now I will swap the wash and try to write a little more before I call my seester.

I was hoping to be farther along on my paper, but I have finished my revisions on what I have so far. I am now half-way through page 12 and still have 2 sections plus a conclusion to write. Onward and upward!

Just a quick update on the paper.

I worked on it off and on over the course of the whole day (it's after 8 pm as I write this), revising what I have so far. I got through 7 typed pages out of 10 and managed to add a whole page just from fleshing out the content of those 7 pages. Yay me!

I am pooped now, so maybe I will read while Hannah plays on the computer.

Ps. Thanks, Kee, for your encouraging note. It has helped me to stay on track today.

Here it is May, and I haven't finished my paper that was due the last day of March. I am pretty sure my professor will still take it (I hope), but I feel like a total jackass for letting it drag on this long. At one point, I had like 8 pages, typed, but I was still feeling out the organization of the thing, and I ended up chopping out large chunks and trashing them. I am sure John will be horrifed by such a confession, but I did it. Now I am up to 10 complete pages that I am currently proofreading, but I need to add two sections and a conclusion. I am *bad* at the conclusion part, usually because I feel like I have laid out all my evidence in the paper, and the conclusion should be self-evident, but this is not always the case. Also, professors like you to spell it out for them, in detail.

They say confession is good for the soul; I am hoping it is also good for making me force myself to finish the goddamned thing, because I am getting sick of thinking about it. Maybe if I continue to post my shame here... I'll think on that.

Well, did you think I forgot how to write?

I almost did. Part-time work doesn't always turn out to be part-time. But guess what...I almost didn't go in today.

Why, pray tell?

Because I woke up with a story on my brain. Not just on it, but swimming around the shallow waters of consciousness until I felt like I would burst if I didn't get some of it on paper. And so I gredgingly went in to work, cause like they expect to see me everday, but I sat at my desk for almost an hour and spewed out what I could before my hand cramped up because I was writing out longhand.

It was great. That feeling that the only thing that existed at that time was the story unfolding in my head. Man I missed that feeling.

And I actually liked that I didn't have time when I immediately woke up to write it all down, because then I would have missed out on "the stew". That's where I replay in my head the scene over and over because I'm afraid I'll forget parts before I can write it down. But in that process I end up working out things like setting, background, character traits, etc. By the time that I finally get to paper, then I have the "feel" of it.

I didn't stew enough with Ransom and I can feel the difference when I read it compared to the sequel and the Relation story. With Ransom, I seem to get lost and lose focus, like I'm trying too hard.

So, it's aside while I stew and write (going to try and do it at the same time) on Relation and the new one. Which I will call Regency, for now.

Guess why? Cause it's a Regency Romance. Whoo hoo!

I know. You're not as impressed as I am. And even though I don't know if I can do it, and it kinda scares me a little, I'm going to try.

Can't wait to send you progress updates. Hopefully the next three weeks will fly by.

P.S. I have set a goal to get published by 35. Who knows?

Note to self:

"Some people drift along like a cork on a river, feeling that they cannot do anything except drift, moment to moment. This is an attitude of mind. Everyone can be constructive even in tiny ways."
- Edward de Bono

No writing to report, just lots of reading, and not much of it for my paper. But at least it is beautiful and sunny out. Spring kicked Winter's ass!

Although I am *supposed* to be concentrating on my linguistics paper—which I now have a topic for, WOOT!—my brain has inexplicably been full of my Cinderella story (which doesn’t have a name yet, drat the luck).

I started on an outline a couple of days ago, but I hit a block, as usual, after 2 (roughly 8x10) handwritten pages. The next day, I had to wash our quilt (thanks to the cat yakking on it—gross!); I challenged myself to finish the damn outline during the last 30 minutes of the cycle—and I did! I ended up with a little over 8 pages. I have everything that needs to *happen*, but I still need to jot down what needs to be *told* and start figuring out where I can put that info into the story.

Then when I was washing the dishes, bits of dialogue bubbled up to the surface of my brain, so I ended up taking lots of writing breaks. That brought my total up to 10 handwritten pages. Not bad, for me. It might actually end up as a story one of these years.

Someone on one of my email lists mentioned the stereotype of women as multi-taskers. In my case, it is definitely true (1). I don’t know if it’s because I am so great at multi-tasking, or if I just can’t sit still for longer than 20 minutes, but I constantly bounce from one thing to the next and back (or not) again.

(1) And John fits the opposite male stereotype: he can sit and work on one task to the exclusion of everything else until it is done.

I have especially noticed this in my writing. When I talk about my progress here, it is very rarely in terms of one large chunk of one story completed. More often I write a bit on 2 or 3 (or more) different stories. Like yesterday, for instance, I wrote a bit on Godred (more on that later), made notes for my Cinderella story, and reminded myself to look something up for my Dragon story. If I try to force it and write something straight through on one story, I get nothing.

On the writing list, people often point out that to be productive (en route to being professional), you have to push yourself to write more: more words, more often. I guess I am just not to that point yet. I don’t really see myself as a professional writer, so I don’t have any deadlines (self-imposed or otherwise) greasing the wheels in my brain; maybe instead of a stewpot writing process, I need a pressure cooker. It’s something to think about, anyway.

On to my Godred story! I’m slowly getting a line on Godred the character. I tried the “interview your character” tactic, but didn’t work so well. It felt fake, forced. You might say, “He’s your character! Just make something up!” But it doesn’t really work that way. If he is a certain way, there’s a reason for it, and his behavior has to be consistent with his personality *and* his history. A personality is a complex thing; you can’t just cobble together any old characteristics and expect the result to be a believable character.

So I tried working backwards. I had a “snapshot” in my head of Godred, but how did he get that way? I also had to find a way to reconcile 2 disparate traits that I found in him (but not the 2 I originally had). It finally occurred to me that I had to change the scene, not him. And then things started falling into place. I haven’t finished the scene, but I have a better picture of it now.

There has been yet another topic discussed on the writing list that I have been following with interest. One side espouses making every detail in a story do double duty (especially in short stories): provide information and advance the plot. The other side feels this is too clinical and that some details can basically be just window dressing.

I have to say that I rather favor the first approach. I lean toward a more sparse style, without a lot of extra detail, and sometimes without enough detail to pull the reader in. Oops. The beauty of this approach is that you have to think about which details you definitely have to include, and what the reader can infer from those details, and which details are interesting/creative/funny, but have no further purpose than your own entertainment. So as I have been thinking about Godred and the reformulation of certain scenes, I have been trying to keep track of what I have explicitly told the reader, what the purpose of that information is, and what I still need/want to say. It’s a bit of a juggling act, trying to find the right place for each detail, but it will be worth it in the end.

I have tried repeatedly to revise LNR, but I would get a few paragraphs in and hit a block. I just had no idea what to do there. As you can imagine, this has been horribly frustrating. Right now, time isn’t a problem, but having a brain of mush definitely is.

So a couple of nights ago, I finally said, “The hell with corrections,” and just read the story straight through. I don’t know why I didn’t do that in the first place, but I guess I thought I knew where the problem areas where, and I was tackling the first one first.

The good news is that I finally realized: I finished a story! I always planned on adding one more segment, but even without it, it’s a complete story.

The bad news is that the problem areas are less specific areas and more the whole story. *sigh* But I’ve been feeling more optimistic since the read-through.

Then last night, the solution to the problem of the last segment came to me. I started writing on it, and I feel good about the change. For me, less is always going to be more. If I try to flesh out a scene, I feel like I’m bludgeoning the reader with details. So I’ll stick with my normal m.o. and see how that works out.

"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass."
-Anton Chekhov, short-story writer and dramatist (1860-1904)

"Waiting until everything is perfect before making a move is like waiting to start a trip until all the traffic lights are green."
- Karen Ireland

I don't feel like writing. Does that mean I'm not a writer?
from Cary Tennis’s advice column on Slate

I printed this out, because this line in particular really made an impression on me:
“But I have observed that mastery of a craft is personally satisfying, and that failure and frustration are not.”

I have been in a bit of a funk lately, which I mentioned in my last post. Getting advice at third-hand from the Internet seems to have been my only connection to writing recently, and it didn’t feel good. It made me feel like crap.

But I have realized something about myself. Look at my description of myself on my user profile:
“I am a wife, mother, master's student, freelance copyeditor, and aspiring writer.”
I have been doing a shitty job of actually *being* the last three. It is so much easier to just *think* of oneself as something than to actually do it. And I hadn’t exactly realized that was what I was doing. It’s not as simple as it sounds.

Take, for instance, the statement, “I am a master’s student.” Yes, I am enrolled in courses, which I attend. Yes, I think of myself as intelligent. But I must admit that I have not been engaged in my courses. I complained about not knowing what was going on in one of my classes, but that is because I was not putting the necessary work into it. I was doing the bare minimum and expecting to be able to coast on my brains and my ability to read English. I wasn’t actively engaged with the material, and that is why I scraped by. For someone who considers herself to be intelligent, that was a really dumb thing to do.

Same thing with writing. *Thinking* about writing and actually *writing* are two different things. So it will take time. It will take effort. But doing it will be “personally satisfying”, as Mr. Tennis says above.

Now I must work on the paper for my class that I scraped through.

I haven’t managed to sit down and crank out a complete story, but I have been putting words on the page, so that is a start. So far I’ve managed to write more than 5 words *each* on:

my Godred story
my dragon fetishist story
my children’s book (not fantasy)
my Cinderella story

For whatever reason, I have been in a bit of a funk recently. If I manage to write anything, I immediately develop a block/aversion/something that keeps me from progressing. I guess I’m just mental.

And more advice from someone more experienced than I:

Slushmaster (at Realms of Fantasy): „A Reason to Keep Submitting“
The point is, for all you fledgling writers out there, you have to keep submitting. There is a good chance that if you refine your writing skills to a publishable level there will always be that one editor who doesn't get/connect with your stuff, and your stories will be rejected no matter how brilliant they are, and no matter where else you've been published. But, and this is the most important part, one rejection from a market tells you absolutely nothing. You have to keep submitting, over and again. Some of these markets will keep sending you standard rejection letters. It doesn't mean you should stop submitting to these places, but if you've received a dozen standard rejections in a row, now you can safely assume this will be a tough market to crack. Meanwhile, if by your second rejection from a good market the editor is telling you "try us again," well, your chances of cracking this market are obviously better. But you'd never learn this by giving up after one rejection.


And in the comments to the above, someone helpfully linked to the following:
James Van Pelt, from "Perseverance, Publishing and the Urge to Write"
I have never sold a story to the first market that saw it. However, last year I sold a story that had been bounced thirty-one times previously.

Not much to report on writing, just dribs and drabs, but I thought I would pad, ahem, enhance the content here with bits and pieces from other people's blogs. To get you (and myself) thinking, not just to hijack content.

Jay Lake, from his blog post “Goals, Behaviors and the Writer's Mind”
There are so many writers I know who have high minded goals, but don't align their behaviors with those goals. "I'd like to be published by the time I'm [age]." "I'd like to sell this novel." But they don't write consistently, or submit consistently, or seek out paths to improve their work. Almost all of us writers have an astonishing capacity for self-deception, and it gets deployed to great advantage in this arena.

My suggestion is if you feel you aren't achieving your goals as a writer, examine your behaviors. If you want to be published, are you writing consistently? Sending those stories out? If you want to be a novelist, are you working on novels? It doesn't matter what you're goals are, only that you understand them.

Hey, don't knock spending large amounts of time in bed or in the shower (or extra large bathtub). I prefer the bath for creative thinking but you have a point about losing the thread while spending pesky minutes drying off. Fortunately for me, the bath (and the handy shelf next to it) lend themselves to quick jotting of important notes.

I have no time, and lots of urges, to write. Isn't that my luck!

I picked up something I had started writing as a whim between editing my most complete work and threatening to throw it out, and I was surprised at how much I liked it. Oops, I forgot what I had written at the end, but it was definitely some good stuff.

Maybe I need some more bathtime so I can finish it.

I do all my best thinking in the shower. (1) Unfortunately, by the time I dry off and dress, those brilliant thoughts are long gone, washed down the drain. But today, I managed to hold on to a glimmer or 2; I hope that’s enough to find my way back to the original ideas.

First, I’m not sure I can pull off my Godred story in first person. I’m afraid I just don’t have the chops for it. BUT, I don’t intend to throw in the towel without at least trying. One piece of writing advice I have never been that enthusiastic about is doing a character interview. Now, however, I think that is exactly what I need. I don’t think I have a firm grasp on Godred’s voice, and that is what is tripping me up on the beginning. I still may go back to third person, but first I’m going to let Godred tell me about himself.

I love analogies. I explain everything via analogy, and a new one came to me today. I was thinking of the differences between short stories and novels, and it seems to me that the main difference is not so much one of length or scale, but of the level of immersion. In a short story, you get just a snippet, a snap-shot of a small part of a much bigger world. It’s like jumping into the ocean without any gear, taking a quick look underwater, and climbing back in the boat. Afterward, you could only describe a small part of that undersea world; your description might be beautiful and detailed, but it can only encompass a limited amount.

For a novel, you get a scuba suit and two full air tanks, or a submarine. You have the time and space you need to immerse yourself. (I seem to have a water-theme running today.)

So in summary, all thinking and no writing, as usual.

(1) My former boss, a PhD in education, once told me that people are most creative when in a womb-like environment, frex in bed or in the shower. Haven’t you ever had a brilliant idea right as you’re dropping off to sleep? She’s definitely on to something, but it doesn’t really seem feasible to spend large amounts of time in bed or in the shower trying to boost your creativity.

I managed to stick with my resolution of keeping work and home separate for the first week, and then I fizzled out. I still intend to keep it, but it is proving very tiring.

I read Septimus Heap, Book One: Magyk this week. It is a kid’s book, labeled for age 12 and up, that I found while looking for books for Hannah at the library. I thought it was well-written and inventive. I did figure out the twist ending early on, but that is my forte. (I knew the “big secret” in The Crying Game the first time the love interest, Dil, appeared on the screen.) Anyhoo, I liked it well enough that I stayed up until 11 one night to finish it, something I try not to do since I know I sleep like crap if I stay up past 9:30. I am 2 weeks away from the end of the semester (and finals), so I can’t go back and dissect it the way I would like to, but I plan to recheck it over the break and see if I can’t put my finger on what I really like about it.

I have become, not obsessed, but close, about my Godred story. I have rewritten the first bit about 5 times in the last few days, because I know that once I hit that, I will have the formula for finishing the damn thing, but I just can’t find the right...style? voice? I don’t know, and not knowing is driving me to distraction.

I figure since the writing content on this blog has been (and may continue to be) somewhat sparse, I could include my book list here instead of on my personal blog. Reading and writing go together like peanut butter and jelly (mmm... pb&j), and writers are readers first, so I feel that it is a natural extension of the original purpose of this blog.

The public library here has very few books in English (Duh! It's Germany!), and even fewer I recognize the authors of, so it has been a bit hit or miss, finding a book I enjoy. Beyond the books I already own, I mean.

I recognized Things Fall Apart, but I don't think I had ever read it before. (I think John read or saw a movie version of it when he took an African literature class back in the day.) It was very interesting, written from the perspective of an African (in what was to become Nigeria) during the period of European colonization. I liked it, but I didn't get really excited about it, if that makes sense.

For my next book, I gave Paul Doherty a try. He has a whole series of medieval novels, according to the book jacket, and I like historical novels, both fictionalized history (I, Elizabeth, Girl with a Pearl Earring) and fiction in a historical setting, so it seemed like a promising choice. But I was just not impressed. All the characters sounded roughly the same, and the description didn't manage to pull me in. Sad to say, I skimmed the bulk of it. The story is actually a murder mystery in a medieval setting, and I wanted to see how it ended, which is the only reason I stuck with the skimming instead of putting the book back in the library book basket.

Welcome to the newly remodeled site! I had faffed about with the old version so much that it was looking a bit ragged. Blogger has made some upgrades recently, so I was able to make this new version look how I wanted it to without having to write my own HTML. Woot!

Despite the rush online to declare one's writing resolutions, I have decided not to make any. My big problem is time management (i.e., getting my work done instead of farting around in the guise of housework), so that is what I am actively working on at the moment. I'll eventually figure out how writing fits into my schedule, but for now I am militantly sticking to work hours M-F, 8-5, for schoolwork and teaching, and weekends for household stuff and personal stuff like reading.

I bought a small spiral notebook and am trying to contain all my writing in it. One bad habit I have is procrastinating via organizing my various bits of writing. Since I am not actually trying to do anything in particular with all the bits and pieces anytime soon, I might as well just keep it all together in one place until I have enough to constitute a story or a blog post, and then type it up. Besides, I like to view my writing output by volume of paper instead of by the number of words.

Otherwise, I am still lurking on the writing site and trying to decide whether to filter one asshat to the trash. I don't know when he actually has the time to write fiction, because each one of his posts is a tome. He also attracts flames like 3-year-old lumber, so I don't know why he sticks around, unless it is to poke the hornets' nest some more. For every 1 thoughtful, useful post, he puts up 9 or 10 inflammatory posts. My finger is wavering over the keyboard on this one, but even if I filter him out, I can go back and read the archives online if I see a response to one of his posts that would make it worth my time to go back and read the original. And if I don't filter him out, I'll know which threads he started so I can delete them en masse. hmmm...

BTW, Kee: The new version of Blogger requires a Google Mail password. I don't know if Blogger will set you up with that when you try to log in, but let me know if you need me to send you an invitation for a gmail account.

Needless to say, there's no writing news for Nee or Kee. I am 2 days away from flying to the States for a xmas visit, and Kee is recuperating. Maybe one of us will get her shit together in the new year (I'd put my money on Kee *g*).

I’m making some progress on Godred. I think I have finally reached a turning point. Earlier, I thought what I was writing was good, but now I think what I am writing is *right*. There is a big difference.

***

You’d be surprised at how often real life tosses you a nugget that applies directly to writing. I don’t mean, “Ooh! Shiny! Something I can plop as a detail into my story.” I think anyone who disconnects themselves from the flow of habit/daily life can have one of those moments where you see your surroundings with fresh eyes. (Or if you live in Austin, can notice that it is slowly morphing into Dallas. *ugh*)

I am taking a teaching class this semester, and we were talking about reading strategies for foreign language learners. One way to help them understand more of what they read is to help them use their knowledge of the world to decode what is one the page. We don’t just have disconnected bits of info about the world floating around in our heads. We make connections between them, or organize them in other ways. One way of doing this is by means of “schemas” and “scripts”.

Schemas are like a diagram; they include all the most pertinent information about a thing. Take a move theater, for example. Most American (and German and French, from what I’ve seen) movie theaters have posters and a ticket booth out front, a snack bar inside, someone to tear your ticket, one or more screens/theaters, rows of plush seats, sticky floors, etc. If someone says “movie theater” to you, all of these things are activated, so to speak.

Scripts are a sequence of actions, like a movie script. For the script “going to a movie”, you can expect certain things to take place, with little variation. If you go to a movie, you will need to buy or pick up a ticket, walk past the snack bar (with or without snack purchase), find the right theater, pick out a seat, the lights will go out, you will watch previews, then the film, then the credits, and so on.

This real-world knowledge on the part of the reader is something a writer has to keep in mind. If you describe every part of the movie theater, or every step in going to a movie, the reader will be bored out of his skull, because he already knows how it will go. I guess if you were writing about a person who had never experienced these things, you might be justified in such extensive description, but then again, you may just be writing a rip-off of _Splash_. *g*

You can ground the reader in the setting with just one or two small details that let him know, “Hey! Movie theater here!” For example, two characters converse while waiting in a stupidly long snack-bar line, or complaining about the lack of a favorite movie-going snack, or laughing at the trailers. *Your* mental movie theater may not be the same as the reader’s, but the reader will get that much more out of your story if you let him use his own as the background to *your* story.

But if your character is at a 3D movie or the IMAX, I think that would be an important detail to mention, because that is additional info about the character, not just the setting. When I think about 3D movies, I think “camp.” When I think about IMAX, I think “educational” and “expensive”. Those associations (which are personal and not the same as schemas or scripts) add a little more nuance to a character.

On the other hand, it is easy (and the 7 Dwarfs know I do it) to not put in enough info, or put in the wrong info and lead readers astray. WesTexGirl pointed out in an earlier version of Godred that she got that he was on a college campus, but she couldn’t tell for certain if it was supposed to be a modern or pseudo-medieval setting. I wanted the reader to be able to “plug into” the story, but I didn’t give her enough info to do that sufficiently, and that made it less enjoyable. No one wants to be in limbo, even when reading a made-up story.

For the record, the next time I ask someone to read my pitiful 2 pages of output, just pat me on the head and send me on my way. I haven't even heard back from WesTexGirl, and I am already revising what I sent her, so the whole issue of feedback is a moot point. GAHHH!

I met, not long ago, a young man who aspired to become a novelist. Knowing that I was in the profession, he asked me to tell him how he should set to work to realize his ambition. I did my best to explain. 'The first thing,' I said, 'is to buy quite a lot of paper, a bottle of ink, and a pen. After that you merely have to write.' -Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)

Sorry to miss a post for last week. I haven't gotten back to my story. Which I think is okay because I am looking for that perspective that only being away from it awhile will give me.

And I have been busy getting ready for, going on, and recuperating from my shopping trip with Anna and Lisa. That said....Christmas is done!!! Nanny Nanny Boo Boo, Stick your head in ... well you get the idea that I'm rubbing my greatness in your face. Sorry about that. But shopping early for Christmas is my 'thing' that I get to brag on.

But I plan to get back to some writing. And reading. I'd love to read what you have done.

Oh, I've also got to decide on taking a job. I went on an interview for a part-time/seasonal tax accountant. And they recently found they need some part-time bookkeeping work too. They sound really family friendly. But when they checked my references, the firm I used to work for here in town called me and said, "If you're wanting to go back to work, come work for us." So as of right now, I have two offers on the table because the interview one called and wanted to make sure I was still interested in coming to work for them and offered me a position-without specifics yet.

But whatever I do...I have to keep time for writing.

Wish me luck.

I typed up what I had written on Godred and ended up with 509 words. It was a lot more than I expected. It is pretty different from earlier attempts, but I am having a hard time telling if the changes are an improvement. Maybe someone would like to volunteer to read my 509 words (hint, hint)?

Your Vocabulary Score: A

Congratulations on your multifarious vocabulary! You must be quite an erudite person.

How's Your Vocabulary?

Despite having an ass of fire, I have managed to do some writing on Godred and my Cinderella story. It feels good to put words on paper, but who knows how long it will last. So says the Realist Nee.

Words of wisdom from Miss Snark:

The Daily Tao of Snark

1. You are not your work

2. An agent is not a dream

3. The SASE is the path to bewilderment; as is no SASE

4. There is no why in no, there is only no

5. There is more than one path to yes, all obscure; all dangerous.

6. Nitwittery abounds.

7. The end is only the beginning.

I want to say that I am very proud of Kee for getting back in the swing. It can be hard after an extended absence, but I am glad that her writing was calling to her again.

Which is a bit of hand-waving to draw attention away from the fact that I am not managing any writing myself. It is kind of frustrating, because I actually have some time for it, but I can't seem to get past certain scenes, or more than a line here and there of a story. Oh well. It's not my career, at least.

Here's my sporadic post as promised.

Since last week I have completed my review of chapter one. Reworking has put a new spin on it somewhat, but not as much as an earlier attempt to make it more chick-lit like. I think it makes it a bit more modern and takes out some of the woe-is-me feelings for Breck. And it gives it more of a hook.

I have let it set for a few days and want to re-read what I've done over the weekend to see how I feel about it.

I have been skimming my outline and trying to find a good place to add some Dusti scenes. Hopefully that will gain me some ground on feeling like it's up to par.

I've sent in an email to Miss Snark asking her opinion on the Harlequin submission process stating that they take unagented submissions. Maybe she'll have something positive to say and I can take that route.

We'll see.

I opened the Ransom file last night and just started writing new stuff after the "Chapter One" heading. Then I reworked the first meeting to the this new beginning so that it is more of my "hook". A lot of the other background stuff is getting killed so that I can get right to more action stuff.

When I re-read what I had done last night, I didn't cringe too much so I guess I'll keep it for now.

The plan is just to get it out there and not worry about sending it through an agent. I can do that by going the fluff route. Which, I'm convincing myself, is fine by me. As long as it no longer lives in the bowels of my computer.

Not sure how much more I'll be able to fit in soon. My schedule has stuff everyday until Wednesday. That will be Veg for Me Day. I'll try to squeeze a bit of work in at night before then but may only post lump work.

I have been writing and rewriting the beginning of Godred so often that I think I am losing my perspective on it. I still feel I don't quite have down the voice, or the pacing, or *something* I can't quite put my finger on.

I want to work on LNR, but it is just not coming to me. Hannah is at a bday party this evening, so I think I will sit in our comfy chair and try to hammer out the missing section.

Wish me luck!

Hello to the lost land of the living.

There is no excuse as to my absence. None at all. Except for the fact that I have been having a mid-life crisis. Or a breakdown. Whatever terminology you favor is fine with me.

I know, you scoff. I'm too young you say. Well, there is that. But I'd rather classify the last several months into the mid-life thing so that I can pretend that I won't be going through all of this again in the future. You're only supposed to have one mid-life crisis per lifetime, right?

Don't tell me if I'm wrong.

Anyways.

While I've floated in a sea of lost goals, misplaced dreams, and wandering purpose, I have discovered I few unflattering truths about myself. The worst of which is that I'm selfish. Probably always have been. I can see it too. Can see how I've constantly sucked the attention for myself out of other people without returning my attention to them. To their lives, to their problems-good or bad.

I'm probably most at fault with my family. With my friends next in line. How I have managed to maintain any relationships throughout my life, I really don't know. What I also don't know is why no one has ever told me this before. It can't possibly be a secret to anyone who has spent anytime in my company.

For the life of me, though, I don't know if it's something I'm capable of changing. But I hope I can try.

Another truth. I'm lazy. Which goes soooo nicely with the selfish thing, don't you think? So with the lazy realization comes the fact that I like to veg out-mentally-for like a day or so at a time. I don't mind hard work. But I want a reward for it. Like only reading smutty romance books for a whole day while only taking breaks to pee and eat chocolate.

So we can extrapolate from my ramblings that I may have been indulging in the vegging out thing a little too much recently-which I could have rationalized as okay at some point if I had actually EARNED it, but since I hadn't...oh, well. We can also extrapolate that I fully intend, barring any wayward selfish and lazy tendencies, to begin a moderate foray back into my writing. Of course, I will have to schedule in some veg time.

But I will be happy to post whatever progress is made, or at least attempted. Well, maybe just thought about. Veg time may prove hard to surrender to this change.

There was some weirdness with school (see my other blog for details) that had me totally freaked out all day Wednesday. I got it sorted out, though, and Thursday I felt almost manically up. You will pee your pants when you hear, especially after all my recent moaning and carrying on, but I sat down and hand-wrote 6-1/2 pages on Godred. Six and a half pages! (Of course I had to mark out about half. *sigh*) Something has always felt off on this story, and I recently realized what it was. It should be in first person! I have a great fear of first person, but I think it is really making a big difference. I might change my mind when I read over it later, but for now, good thoughts.

My dear friend, WesTexGirl, was talking recently about how she sets priorities in her life, and that made me start thinking. I haven't made writing a priority in my life, and I'm not sure that I will be able to so for quite a while.

Let me back up. On my other blog, I just posted about my need for and love of lists. It has occurred to me since reading WesTexGirl's post that writing never makes it on my to-do list. It is not scheduled on my calendar. I do not go behind closed doors and tell my family not to knock for X number of minutes because I am writing. These things are all cluing me in that I am not making writing a priority.

Going back to the list-making tangent, I realized that there are many other things I want and need to do, and most of them have some kind of deadline. I have 2 projects started that I fully intend to have done by xmas. I WILL finish my master's degree in two semesters. This semester I am taking 4 classes, 3 of which are definitely going to be ass-kickers. I will also be teaching 2 sessions of the same course topic (for a total of 3 hours in the classroom per week) and tutoring for another hour a week. Plus running a household and taking care of my child, blah blah family-cakes.

BUT, this does not mean that I am going to give up on writing or on this blog. It just means that I am no longer going to pull a hare-brained stunt like challenging myself to 100 words a day, because it's just not going to happen. Recently I have had a lot of mental activity on at least 4 of my stories, and I am trying to 1. sort out what I have, and 2. write down what comes out of it. That means I am getting a sentence here, or a phone conversation there, but I have to be satisfied with that. And I'm not dissatisfied at this point. I guess I will have to reset my priorities if it ever gets to the point where thinking and jotting just isn't enough.

Here is an article from 2002 in Salon about the bookselling and publishing businesses, and how the prices of books are determined, plus a little history about pricing. Even though it is 4 years old, it is still a useful read.

No new words. Don't ask.

I'm looking for more new links for the sidebar. Feel free to browse.

Date: 5 October 2006

New words: 109

Story: Godred

Words edited out: 3

Words in limbo: 37

Words left: 69

Comments: Ok, the end count wasn’t 100, but for my current intents and purposes, I am going to be satisfied with 109 on the page, pre-chopping.

Godred is also not a story that is going to be complete and marketable for a while, but that’s what I had, so that’s what I wrote. Maybe I can mentally direct myself toward working on LNR tonight.

Today I am feeling like a fraud.

I haven't been on any kind of schedule during the semester break, and today was even more schedule-free. John had to catch a commuter train to a near-by town to catch an Inter-City train (the fast bullet trains) to Berlin, except we were running a little behind, so I drove him to the nearby town with just a few minutes to spare. Unfortunately, I couldn't stick around to see if he made it, because I had to rush back home to pick Hannah up from school. So I am hoping my husband is now comfortably in Berlin, checked into his room and enjoying some dinner.

But this threw me off the hint of a schedule I had been working on to write my paper. Instead, I found myself going through all my Favorites and surfing blogs by agents, editors, and writers. And that is when I realized I am a fraud.

I think about writing, and yet I never do. And the only way to be a writer is to write. Duh!

When I first had the urge to write, I worried about getting ideas. Now I realize that it's not the ideas (as Miss Snark said: "Ideas are a dime a dozen, great ideas only slightly more expensive. Getting something down on paper is a lot harder than people think."), it's the sitting down and doing it (Neil Gaiman on writing:"This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it's done. It's that easy, and that hard.").

So with that in mind, I have made a resolution. 100 words a day. Of fiction. Blogging, school, email--they do not add to the tally. 100 words is pitiful, really, but it is a goal, and that is something I have lacked for a while. Check back here for updates.

I don't know if Kee will decide to come back to us to report on her writing status. She is working part time now, but I know that she is actually working on a new novel, but I am not sure if it is *writing*-working, or *planning/plotting*-working, if you get the difference. Anyhow, I hope she decides to come back when she's ready.

I have a binder and a bookbag full of stories and story ideas, but up until now, only one of them has been a novel idea. I say up until now, because now there are *zero* novel ideas. That idea has been transformed into a short story, and I actually sat down and hand-wrote 3-1/2 pages on it this morning. I couldn't sleep last night, and I got to thinking about it, and I managed to flesh out quite a bit before I finally fell asleep. So Vale is now Valerie, and a medical thingie I was pestering people about a while back is going to go into the file for use some other time.

Yay me!

(And I am making some progress on my paper. It's not close to done, but at least it has a direction now.)

Ok, I've had lots and lots floating around in my head about my Cinderella story, but no words.

Also, I am *late* on my literature paper. Not only did I start late, but I got stuck, so I am on a self-imposed blog exile until it is done (hopefully on Monday).

Sayonara!

Yesterday I revised on LNR some more. I am down to revising one more caller and the ending, and writing one more caller's segment, so there is an end in sight.

Except now I'm not sure if anyone but me wants to read it. I think the writing is ok, but the premise of the story? I don't know. That's one reason why I am leaning toward joining the critique group, to get that kind of feedback from other people who read in the genre I write in. But I want to have something in hand before joining.

I also dug out the Dragon story I started back in March and started typing it up. It is not too bad, and I had managed to hand-write about 7 pages. But once again, a crisis of confidence struck before I could finish typing up zhe whole thing, so I saved what I had and went to bed.

"There is no good writing; there is only good rewriting."
-Gustave Flaubert

"I try to leave out the parts that readers skip."
-Elmore Leonard

"Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it--wholeheartedly--and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings."
-Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch

"We are in the deep cack. It couldn't be worse if was raining arseholes."
-Sergeant Jackrum to troops, Monstrous Regiment, Terry Pratchett

Sometimes I try to think about and pin down how I come up with story ideas—like now when I’m trying to avoid actual writing. (Actually, I did do some revising yesterday, and I felt quite satisfied with the results.) One thing I’ve noticed is that I typically start with a character. Once I know what his or her “deal” is—a little history, a little personality—I start thinking of scenarios, and what would happen if I plonk this person down in this situation. This method seems to have worked ok for my short stories so far.

[I had this whole equation-thing going on to explain, but it seemed to introduce more problems than it explained.]

The problem I am encountering in working on a novel that has been stewing in my brain for ages is that when I adjust one thing, that throws everything else in the story out of whack, and I have to figure out how to tweak everything back into line, or even worse, have to decide what is unsalvageable. I realize that is vague enough to be unenlightening to anyone else, but it is helping me just to formulate what areas are causing me problems.

When I began the sorting project over the weekend, LNR didn’t look too bad: there weren’t a million scraps of paper with notes that I had to sort, so I was pleased to be past that stage. (I didn’t open the envelope with the previous drafts and notes and scraps.) Since I had just written something that goes with the novel story (which I will call VALE for shorthand), I had to make a place for that in the binder. Oh. My. Dwarf. I can still vaguely remember the original premise for the story, but it has gone through at least one distinct version for every 3 pages of notes, and there was a good ½-inch pile of pages. This project may end up being an exercise in futility, but it is keeping me from going mad in my spare time, so it’s all good.

More linkage:

Articles on writing by Marion Zimmer Bradley, of Mists of Avalon fame

Particularly
“Why did my [short] story get rejected?”

I have been in full-on domestic mode recently, so there hasn't been a lot of writing. I cleaned Hannah's room (a 3-day undertaking), baked banana bread and plum cake, cleaned the kitchen, washed curtains, scrubbed the new sunroom, repotted some plants, cleaned my plant stand so I could move it and the newly repotted plants into the sunroom, crocheted a new border for our bathroom curtain, reorganized my recipe binder, and basically avoided writing on my short story and my term paper, both of which will come back to bite me in the butt, I know.

The funny thing is that I have actually had a lot of mental activity on several stories, but I just can't seem to bring myself to sit down for the 5 minutes it would take to jot down the ideas and bits of dialogue that are bubbling up. Why the reluctance? No one else is reading any of it (yet), so why be shy? I'm thinking that maybe it's a control thing. I don't like doing something if I can't do it perfectly or excellently, and writing just doesn't work that way. And I worry that in my reluctance, I'm going to let the interesting little bits slip through my fingers; I mean, they are not going to stick verbatim in my mind indefinitely, right?

I find that when I am changing gears to work on a project, I often need to get organized first. My school supplies are usually toted around in a jumble in my backpack, always on the verge of composting, until it is time to start studying for a test or doing research for a paper or an assignment. Then I drag everything out and sort it into piles, which I then hole-punch and put into binders, or file, or recycle, or shred, depending on what it is. This morning I hauled out my compost pile for LNR and a fresh new binder and the hole-puncher, so I hope this is a step in the right direction, that is, toward writing again.

Another new link: an article at Strange Horizons by Debbie Notkin.

I've been working (in dribs and drabs) on LNR, but just on revising, no new words really. I still have one section to add. I worry that I'm making it worse, but when I've looked at it, I can't believe I had let certain things slide before. So maybe it will be an improvement. I can't say just yet.

Kee? Are you out there? Please check in, even if it's just to say, "I thought about writing today."

I added a couple of new links under Writing and Publishing. Kit Whitfield has a couple of pages on her web site that are funny but useful.

Enjoy.

I have managed to sit down at the computer and work on LNR the last couple of days. The amount of progress hasn't been huge, but it has been progress. I feel really good about the changes I've made and have some ideas about additional changes (some of which I wasn't previously aware that I needed). I have a term paper to write this next week, so I don't know how that will impinge on my creativity concerning LNR, but I am going to try to not let it get in my way.

Ok, so I lied--this will be my last post before vacation.

While waiting for the washing machine to finish its spin cycle, I clicked on a few of my bookmarks that I hadn't visited in a while, and I found some excellent advice on publishing at Jane Yolen's site:

http://www.janeyolen.com/forwrtrs.html
Getting Published:

Know this about being published: it is out of your hands.

Even if you do everything you can think of to affect that outcome, you can not make an editor take your work.

You can go to conferences. You can take creative writing classes (though I have always wanted to see if it were possible to teach a course in non-creative writing!) You can read books about writing. You can set a work schedule on your computer and make a special place and space for your writing like my Aerie. You can travel to Yaddo and make friends there with peformance artists. You can subscribe to PW and The Writer and Poets&Writers. You can get a BA, or an MFA or a PHD in Medieval Lit. You can work as a day laborer, having heard that it will ready you for writing the great American novel. Or you can work as a librarian, because someone tells you that is the way to learn to write children's books. You can walk around Lower Slobovia for a year, sail across the Atlantic in a water closet, become Arnold Swartzenegger's personal amanuensis, have intercourse with bug-eyed aliens, manage to marry a mass murderer or to murder a mass marrier. Or get thrown off the jury at the next OJ retrial. You can even--God help us--sleep with an editor. It does not--alas-- guarantee a thing. Though all of those are probably more effective than merely having talent or writing well!

Julian Gloag has written rather sarcastically that "If I were to shoot my publisher in some nice public place with plenty of blood, I guarantee my novels would be back in print in plenty of time for the trial. . . and the world would be a lot better off."

So, once you have committed any words to the page and have sent your manuscript off to the publisher, it is truly beyond your capacity to make anything happen in re the publishing of your work. Besides, as Emily Dickinson pointed out, "Publication is the Auction of the Mind of Man." (Are you cynical enough to remember that she wrote that after unsuccessfully trying to market her poems?)

Therefore, once the book is in the mail--relax. Read a good book. Or read a bad book. Just don't worry about it. Better yet--get busy writing something new.

I have been ruminating on LNR and have even written a few words on it, but I wouldn't really call it progress as such just yet. But in good news, I will be dragging it (as well as a few other items that have been lying around under my bed) along on vacation starting tomorrow. So check back here after Sept. 4 for an action-packed account of long walks and lying around at the lake.

In case you are looking for something to do while I am gone, Kee, here are a couple of 15-minute challenge ideas (off the top of my head):

Rewrite the earlier scene (from Aug. 9) from the other character's point of view.

Describe a setting, but no people in it.

See you in a week-and-a-half!

"From my close observation of writers... they fall into two groups: those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review."
--Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (1920-1992)

Two votes for "It sucks."

On a whim, and while waiting for more rejects, I decided to play out some ideas about the first chapter that I had.

It seemed an even better idea when I was reading the first few pages sent off with queries and realized even I didn't want to request to see more.

So with that...I redid Chapter one. Not to worry. The original is still whole and safe in another file. But I did want to see if I could carry the few thoughts through more than just a line or two.

And I could. Without screwing up my word count. That is to say without losing word count. It looks like I could continue and increase my much agonized about might-be-word-shortage.

If I get decent feedback on this end, I'll send it to you for commentary.

Still sick. I can hardly string two thoughts together, so here's another quote:

"A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit."
Richard Bach, author (1936-)

I have a cold and feel too crappy to post a challenge. So here's a quote instead:

"I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork."
-Peter DeVries, editor, novelist (1910-1993)

I wanted to meet the "challenge" but my brain couldn't settle enough to focus.

I'm in the middle of reworking the first of RANSOM. And I can't get out exactly what's floating around so that it makes sense so I must conserve all brain function towards that end.

FYI: 2 more rejections.

Hence the rework. Wish me luck.

Challenge 2

My last batch of cookies is in the oven, and I’ve read all my bookmarked blogs, so it’s time for me to get on with it.

17:38
“Brrr. You don’t want to go out there. It’s colder than a wizard’s heart.”

“I wasn’t planning on it. You want a slug of this?”

“Hit me....More....More...There.”

“Would you prefer a bucket?”

“Ha ha. First I’ve got to warm up, then I’ve got to face *him*.”

“Right. I see your point. What’s he got you doing now?”

“Don’t ask. You really don’t want to know. *I* don’t even want to think about it.”

“How much longer you got?”

“Five months, 17 days. And then I’m getting the hell out of here.”

“Where you going?”

“No idea. Just as far away from here as I can. What’s on the other side of the world from here?”

“I don’t know...ocean?”

“Well, even if I have to live on a boat, I’m putting as much distance as I can between me and him. What about you?”

“A lifetime of servitude, man. Fucking *rules*. I don’t know who came up with this one, but I hope he chokes.”

“Bummer.”
17:46
Oops. Originally forgot to say who was speaking: Godred and Rafnar's watch-dragon

Challenge!

Every day I do not get my shit together and actually work on a story, I will post a short challenge here, just as a way of keeping my hand in. Kee (and anyone else who wants to play) is free to ignore this and just post an update on her work, but if there is no update, I hope she'll join in.

On to the challenge:
Write a dialogue between two characters from one of your current WIPs, but *do not* use dialogue tags ("he said") or any narrative between the bits--just dialogue. Then let us know at the end who your two characters were. Again, this is just a quick 15-minute exercise.

I'm off to cook dinner, then I'll come up with something to post.

Gah! Kee beat me at my own game!

Ok. Here goes mine:

9:46

Gloria chopped up pieces of raw meat and placed them in a large bowl. She tilted her head and listened to the shower running down the hall, then glanced up at the kitchen clock. She was going to be late for lock-down if Pamela didn’t hurry. Well, late to be early, because she never took chances.

“Pamela! Your dinner is almost ready!” Gloria opened the oven door slightly and let the smell of baking chicken waft out. There would be plenty for leftovers for her tomorrow.

She heard the water turn off.

She set the table in the kitchen for one, adding a small vase of carnations, Pamela’s favorite. Gloria always tried to do a little something extra for Pamela right before lock-down. She felt guilty about leaving her alone overnight, but it was for her own safety, and the safety of their little family.

Fucking Michael. He hadn’t bothered to stick around when he found out. Even the news that she was pregnant didn’t bring a response from him.

But now it was the two of them, Pamela and Gloria, and Gloria was going to do her damnedest to make sure Pamela had as normal an upbringing as possible.

“Mom!” Gloria could hear something wasn’t right in Pamela’s voice and headed down the hall. She tapped on the bathroom door.

“Is everything all right?”

“No!” Gloria pushed open the door to find Pamela standing in front of the mirror, wrapped in a towel. Pamela turned to her. “There’s some ... hair!”

Gloria relaxed. “That’s normal at your age, honey. Remember? We talked about it.”

“No! I mean hair!” Pamela tilted her chin up to show a patch of fur on her neck under her ear.

10:00

You asked for it. I didn't even think. I just wrote the first thing that came to me.

Fifteen Minutes: Go 4:42

The couch was not near as comfortable as the bed in their bedroom, but Breck didn’t think she had the energy to make it that far. The baby had kept her up the last two nights with a cough, and Breck really just wanted to lie still long enough to enjoy the quietness of the baby’s medicine induced sleep.

So flopping belly side down on the couch and snuggling down into the warmth of her body heat, Breck listened to the soft breathing coming through the baby monitor and swiftly fell asleep.

The smell of c-o-w-b-o-y soon drifted in with arrival of Dylan. The love in her heart for all the things he had given to her felt like the pleasant weight of the beloved and much requested full body hug he promptly gave her as he sprawled his hunky self lengthwise to join her on the couch for a nap.

Done. 4:59

Challenge!

I was talking to Kee recently, and I think we have both reached the "bored" stage in our current works in progress. I was thinking about this afterward, and it occurred to me that maybe there is a way to work around or out of this funk.

So I challenge you, Kee, to sit down for 15 minutes and write a short scene with any 2 characters from a work in progress (WIP), *but* it cannot take place during the action of your WIP. And no editing.

I'll post what I write up this evening or tomorrow morning, and you do the same.

Miss Snark had much the same thing to say last year as I just did in my last post:

"...Books are not products. Books are not sweaters or chocolates. They are not created with patterns or by following a recipe. I don't mean this literally either. I understand your point and I'm saying books are not fungible. One book is not another, whereas one Hershey kiss is another.

Books are not products. They are art. Even Bridges of Madison County. A person cannot reproduce that book (even if they wanted to), like they can a chocolate or a sweater. One sweater or another will keep you warm, and one chocolate or another will woo your true love, but one thriller is not the same as another."

When I was pregnant with Hannah, I went to a birthday party where I loaded up at the buffet and washed it all down with a big ol’ glass of OJ. Which I promptly barfed up; I’ve had an aversion to OJ ever since. That’s pretty much how I have felt about LNR the last couple of days. I tried to go through the first part to just mark the places that need work, but even that was like inspecting all of your dog’s poop, looking for the wedding ring he swallowed: it is necessary, but you *really* don’t want to.

The writing seemed too dry or dull or something; I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I was very dissatisfied. I still think the premise of the story is good, but my execution of it leaves something to be desired. I’m afraid I’ve carried over my special brand of perfectionism from sewing. I’ve been known to undo half a cross-stitch, or unravel an entire baby sweater *twice*, to fix a mistake. The problem with writing is that there is no pattern to show you where you made your mistakes.

I used to think of writing as putting together a giant puzzle with no box, but also without all the pieces you need, and some pieces you don’t need. The writer’s job would be to sort out the useless pieces, find the missing pieces, and put it all together properly.

But that’s not quite it, either. It’s more like knitting a sweater that you make up as you go along. You have taken your measurements, chosen a color, bought some yarn, and you’re off. You knit and knit and knit, and one day you have a finished cardigan that you are very proud of. But then you look it over carefully and discover that you messed up the stitch pattern halfway through, and now the top and bottom halves don’t match. One sleeve is slightly, but noticeably, longer than the other, and you forgot to put in button-holes. And the color looks truly awful in cardigan-form. You are no longer quite so pleased with the mess on your hands. You could try to pawn it off on someone, but that would be just too embarrassing for you. So you hide it in a drawer until thinking about it no longer makes you want to weep and pull out your hair. When that day comes, you pull it back out and start methodically noting where it went wrong and what you need to do to fix it, even if that means ripping the whole thing apart and starting over. This will of course require a lot of work since you didn’t use a pattern, but when you are done you will have created a truly one-of-a-kind sweater.

That’s what keeps me coming back to writing, even when I want to run screaming in the other direction from my stories.

We've made it over 100 posts! Hooray!

I haven't looked over "Late Night Radio" in a while, so I decided that I would read it at bedtime last night to give myself a jump start on working on it today. I have never been so horrified. Maybe I was more tired than I thought, but it seemed just awful. I only made it through the first scene with Steve in the hallway before I threw it on the floor and turned off the light. Now I am scared to pick it up again. But pick it up I must. *groan*

Okay, I hadn't realized how long it had been since I last posted. Thanks for the reminder, Nee.
And congrats on all the good grades!

I have been working diligently but have been reluctant to admit to not taking big sis' advice. I know we talked about mutiple submissions, and them not being favored by some, but I couldn't stand waiting for the two weeks to go by and not do anything. SO. I did some more research and landed in a blog for a Miss Snark-an anonymous agent. And the conversations there lead me to believe that people are throwing out tons of queries at one time. Some are talking 100+. I want to know where they got all of those for their particular genre, but oh well. I have been pretty choosy on who I send to.

So far I have sent out two more batches of three each. And have gotten only one response-a rejection, of course. But at least it beats waiting on nothing.

So my rationalization -which seems to be working to soothe my nerves and make me more cohabitable (?word) with my family- is to thinking that I am trying to rack up as many rejects as I can.

For the record:
8 queries, 2 rejects, 6 unanswered to date

Found out another grade. I got an A in my upper-division English linguistics class. Still waiting on the other 2 parts of the qualifying exam, but I have to go into town tomorrow to pick up a library book, so I'll look again.

I spent part of the morning doing errands and research for my paper on Underworld and paranoia in postmodern literature. I'm worried that I may have bitten off more than I can cram into 20 pages, because my professor asked me if I wouldn't like to do it as a Master's thesis. As if! I'm not even studying literature this time around. Sheesh!

When I got home I took the most-important first step in writing: organizing. I dug out all the pieces of paper and notebooks and notecards and post-its and sorted them. So now I have a stack of 8-by-11 envelopes and folders and notebooks, each containing one and only one story. There is a surprisingly big stack, so I guess I have been kicking around more stories than I remembered. Oh my. But I fully intend to finish 2 of them, and to tweak on my project-story, over the summer vacation. The others will still be in the compost pile when I feel like getting around to them. Or glancing at them today will force them to start bubbling in my subconscious, and they will start jumping out at me when I am doing mindless things like washing the dishes and showering. Which is par for the course.

I guess I have been tweaking "Late Night Radio" more than I had realized, because I had several printed drafts sitting in the pile. So I stapled them together and crammed them in an envelope. I am not a nostalgic person and will probably shred the whole thing when I am done. There is something so wonderfully final about shredding. Except Hannah broke the shredder. But I will score a new one soon enough.

Once everything was sorted to my satisfaction, I found myself unwilling to sit down and work. I guess I know in a kind of academic way what I would like to do with "LNR" next, but actually doing it takes a level of bravery that I don't seem to have today. I haven't quite managed to put into words why, but maybe writing about it here today, even in abbreviated form, will help me open up and write on "LNR" tomorrow. At least I hope so.

"The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create -- so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating."
--Pearl S. Buck, novelist, Nobel laureate (1892-1973)

WesTexGirl commented:
"I swear this blog inspires me to write. I remember the poetry class where it first became apparent to me that maybe I could write at least as well as those english majors, and then I think... only memoires, or fiction based loosely on reality. I can tell stories, but not make them up. "

Since her comment set off a whole deluge of writing-related navel-gazing, I thought I would work it into an actual post. So thanks for the spark!

That's how I felt in the first stage of wanting to write. I tried working on something when we were in Sweden, and John liked the writing, but the story was pretty cliched. When we got back to the States, I started lurking on an unofficial email list that accompanies an online writing critique circle. That group has a monthly writing challenge, where someone suggests a topic, so one month I gave it a go. That was the birth of my Godred story, which may not ever make it to published-story status, but that has been a good experience for me none-the-less. I think the pressure was off to [yadda yadda yadda Kilroy was here]<---(had to get up to go to the bathroom and John paid my open window a visit *g*) come up with something "original", so I was finally able to start teasing out some of my own creativity.

The writing list has been discussing recently whether one can be taught creativity. This came up in the context of university writing programs. It has been an interesting discussion. Pretty much everyone agrees that mechanics can be taught, but then there is a split over whether creativity is an inherent talent or a teachable skill. Someone brought up an interesting point, that creativity is basically a different way of looking at the world. I think I would agree with that, and that your way of looking at the world can change depending on your experiences. I don’t really like the phrase “expanding your horizons”, but that is exactly what teachers can help students do, especially if they didn’t actually notice or care that their horizons were narrow to start with.

You would be surprised at the things that pop into my head as fodder for stories. For instance, the idea behind the children’s book I mentioned was Hannah crawling into bed with us one night. Something that simple, and a whole story came out of it. Whether it is an *interesting* story or not...

But in the end, if you can’t sit down and put in the effort, it doesn’t really matter how creative you are, because you will not end up with a finished work. This is the part I am having the most difficulty with currently. Kee has the drive to put butt to chair and fingers to keys, and I am hoping to get a little of that in during the summer break (or pen to paper, in my case). I don't delude myself that I will make a living from writing, but I am itching to see my name in print (and not just something I printed out, ha ha), so maybe that will give me the impetus to put in the work necessary to get there.

Right in the middle of studying for my last 2 exams, an idea for a children's book popped into my head. So I have 2 note cards (my preference for middle-of-the-night jotting) and a line or two in my school notebook with notes/text. I told John about it, and he says it sounds didactic, but 1. he can bite me, and 2. children's books often are.

I got a B+ on my oral exam (in German, on linguistics). Yay me!

There was a lot of straightening up today and no writing, but I feel very satisfied anyway. This weekend I must tackle Hannah's bedroom, or it may devour the rest of our house, but on Monday I hope to work in the library for a bit on school stuff and writing stuff.

"A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket."
--Charles Peguy, poet and essayist (1873-1914)

Still waiting on rejection. One week and one day left.

At least I'm not studying for a test. *cringe*

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.

-Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., jurist (1841-1935)

"A man who uses a great many words to express his meaning is like a bad marksman who, instead of aiming a single stone at an object, takes up a handful and throws at it in hopes he may hit."

-Samuel Johnson,lexicographer (1709-1784)

"Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs. The adjective hasn't been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place. "

-William Strunk and E.B. White, authors of The Elements of Style

and a rebuttal from Geoff Pullum, a linguist at the University of California, Santa Cruz:

"Look, you don't get good at writing by deleting adjectives. Writing is difficult and demanding; you can learn to get moderately good at it through decades of practice writing millions of words and critiquing what you've written or having others critique it. About 6 percent of those words will be adjectives, whether you write novels or news stories."

I sent off another query-not to the one who I needed the paper for. This one took email submissions. He gave a two-week deadline. If I don't hear back, he's not interested. Kinda crappy, but I already have two more lined up and ready to go behind him.

No kidding. All I have to do is change the dates.

So I have got two weeks to work on new writing. I can't wait. My fingers are itching to get back to the creative part.

Keep studying. I'd much rather face the trials of the agent/author world than be studying for a test. Eeewwww. That gave me chills just thinking about it.

Can't write now. Studying.

"Good prose is like a windowpane. "
-George Orwell, writer (1903-1950)

I have to go to the store and buy more paper because I already have another one lined up. Actually, I hadn't looked at this one before, but it was on the opposite page in the Writer's Market of one I had marked but decided against sending to. When I looked it up on the web, it's very 'unknown writer' friendly.

But it wants all snail mail submissions. Hence the need for more paper. I've altered the synopsis a bit, printed out the first chapter, and only need a stroke of genius to finish off the letter itself before I can print it and send it on its way.

For a three week wait.

FYI:

It only takes 24 hours and 32 minutes to get a rejection.

I submitted an email query to an agent for RANSOM this afternoon. The only contact information she wanted was my email address, which after hitting the submit button I immediately freaked out thinking I might have mistyped it. Since the website didn't list a response time for email submissions, and since I have the insane fear about the mistyping, I'll probably be glad whenever I receive the rejection notice because at least then I'll know they got it.

I'll keep you posted.

I AM DONE

Smell my stinky feet!

RANSOM is done, all 64, 219 words. Now I have to condense it into a 250 word synopsis to see if an agent wants to pick it up.

It'll probably take me as long to do 250 as it did the whole thing. Yikes.

But on I go.

Here's two of the three I sent in.

Suzanne groaned as Julio pressed her against the wall, intimately gyrating in expectation, realizing too late into her foray of the wild world of janitor dalliance that it was not a notable Latin endowment that was pleasuring her but his sizeable collection of janitor’s keys stuffed into his pant pocket.

Maybelle gasped, like the deep gasp that involuntarily escapes after sitting on a leather car seat that has baked in the Texas heat on a long July afternoon, at the unexpected surprise at seeing her lover in her husband’s arms, her surprise a lot like the pleasure/pain of remaining seated once the outer layer of skin has been seared.

The last one is still on the fried laptop. Maybe I can retrieve it later.

I've got hubby reading the *final* version of RANSOM.

Since I stayed home sick today (glad to have a toilet nearby), I might be able to send you something soon.

That's only if I can keep my dry toast and flat 7-UP down.

Well, the Bulwer-Lytton results are in, and neither Kee nor I placed. *sob*

So I'm going to post my entries here for your enjoyment and horrification.

Drachensson grew up listening to his grandfather’s stories about the good old days, when princes were chivalrous and brave, treasure flowed, and princesses practically grew on trees, but as he got older, he was disappointed to find that as often as not, a prince’s life ambition was to be a tampon, the DOW was taking a beating, and a princess turned out to be no more than a spoiled rich girl with a poodle in her purse and a sex video on the Internet.

Sir William viewed the wasteland before him, the barren expanse, the charred landscape, the blighted countryside, the desolation, the sea of ash—well, you get the drift—and knew he had found the dragon’s cave, but as he prepared to enter its den, he realized he had left his housewarming present back at the castle.

I wanted to be done by now, but at least I'm still highly motivated. I've hit a snag in the next couple of chapters (That's why I can't put Ch x,y,z and done next to them) since I posted last. My scenes and chapter breaks aren't grouped right. Technically, I am at 9 3/4. But I need to go a bit further before I backtrack and break it up right.

But I'm proud to say that the plot twists I've come up with seem to flow much better than what I had before. It's such a big change, though, that I'm having to go real slow to make sure I carry it through correctly.

So on I go. So glad that I don't have a term paper to write. Hee Hee Nee!

Sorry to say, Kee has left me in the dust. I still only have about 2 pages of actual text on my Term Paper, but my professor has not complained; as a matter of fact, he praised my improvements and basically told me to carry on, so that was a load off my shoulders. I actually have pages and pages of notes as I sort out what will go where (my bibliography has about 20 items, so it takes a little effort to find something I remember reading previously), but I should be able to translate all those notes into text pretty soon. At least I hope so.