Category: Planning for the Future Page 2 of 3

And Then A Funny Thing Happened

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On November 26, 2012

In Distractions, Just Keep Writing, Planning for the Future, The Waiting Game, Things to Ponder

I’ve been almost entirely preoccupied with Callie, Matthieu and Dane for nearly a full year. The three of them fill my thoughts constantly. So I was surprised recently when, at the back of my mind, another voice appeared. She was quiet at first, stealing into my thoughts every once in awhile when the others were silent, but over the past month or so she’s been gradually getting louder and more insistent. I’m here she says. Listen to me for a bit. And I do. I find I’m listening to her a lot.

She’s a funny one, this girl. A bit of an enigma. She tells me lots about her childhood, but little about her present or the trials she’s facing. She says we’ll talk about all that later, but in the meantime, there are things I ought to know…

Callie was kind enough to give the kid a few pages of my time today (she’s not enjoying having her early days re-written, it seems) and just like that, this girl-without-a-name became real, a person on paper, instead of a hint of an idea in my mind. There are a few things I need to get down before she’ll settle back into her quiet corner, waiting until Callie et al. have said their piece. The funny thing is, I don’t even know where she came from. It sure wasn’t the lightning bolt of inspiration I experienced with The Unravelling. Maybe she was born of discarded bits of other ideas. Maybe she’s always been there. It’s pretty clear at this point that she’s not leaving.

Now I find myself with a whole new tree of folders in my writing directory, a fresh set of topics to research and a document to store stray ideas as she feeds them to me. There’s monsters, and magic and a giant identity crisis – all the things I love in a story. I’m intrigued by all this – it’s a completely different process from what I’m used to. Callie’s story is so driven by music and I see and hear her in things all around me. This is like little whispers from the ether I have to strain to hear.

Is it possible to be working on two completely different books at the same time? Is that even wise? I might be about to find out.

NaNotQuiteANovel Weeks 1 and 2

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On November 13, 2012

In Organizing, Planning for the Future

I’m a little behind in my goals these first two weeks, although my outline for The Unseeing is coming together like a house on fire. It just keeps growing and growing and there are hardly any entries that go “and then a bunch of stuff happens.”

Now that I’m home from Mexico and have the healthy glow of a person who collected a year’s worth of vitamin D in a week’s time, I hope to get caught up. In the meantime, here’s my progress so far:

Nov 1 – nothing
Nov 2 – five points on my outline
Nov 3 – research agents a tiny bit
Nov 4 – nothing
Nov 5 – six points on my outline
Nov 6 – Seven points on my outline
Nov 7 – discussed plot points and character motivation at length with one of my first readers
Nov 8 – added new music to my ‘inspiration for writing’ playlist and gained a few ideas from it
Nov 9 – saved my outline from document corruption, narrowly avoiding losing all my work thus far (okay this doesn’t count as a task but HOLY CRAP I was scared for half an hour)
Nov 10 – Nada
Nov 11 – So much more nada
Nov 12 – Sweet tweet. Started to feel like this was a stupid idea, I’m so far behind.

Total tasks: 6 (and counting)

Today I hope to accomplish TWO things, so I can make up for one of those missed days. I’m totally allowed to do that, as long as I have 30 tasks completed by the end of the month. This week I might even start writing…

NaNotQuiteANovel

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On October 31, 2012

In Organizing, Planning for the Future, The Next Step

I already have a novel. I don’t want to write my next one in a month because I don’t think it will turn out as well as I want it to. So I’m giving myself a different sort of goal for November, albeit related to novels and writing.

By the end of the month, I want to have 30 writing-related actions completed. They may not all be writing. It could be working on an outline, writing a query letter, researching agents, editing my current work, and I’m even going to include imaginative story-building in there although it’s a bit of a cheat because most of my waking hours are consumed by my imagination anyway. But on days where I’m on a plane for 7 hours, that might be all I can accomplish. And I’m hoping that some days I can do two or three different tasks so I can take a break here and there.

Once a week or so I’ll post what I’ve done, for accountability’s sake, and hopefully by the end of the month I’ll have a nice list of accomplishments, ’cause I’m sure doing squat right now. Time to get back on the horse, and there’s nothing better for that than a NaNo challenge. And good luck to everyone that’s participating this month!

Settling Down

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On October 18, 2012

In Beyond Writing, Planning for the Future, Things That Are Hard

After my last post, in which I sent my book out into the wide world, I basically had a complete meltdown. I like the bubble that surrounds my comfort zone, and I don’t like to stray out of it. Putting something I’ve worked really hard at for close to a year into the hands of others? Not comfortable. Then, because – hey! if you’re gonna do it, do it all the way – I shared it with eight or ten friends.

Cue sleepless nights, disjointed thoughts, jitteriness and physical malaise.

The symptoms aren’t new to me – I’ve suffered from generalized anxiety pretty much my entire life – but I was surprised at how strongly I was affected. I wrote the book because I felt like I had to and I was ready to do it, but my intention was always to try and have it published. I’m not second-guessing that decision at all, but I do need to spend some time on reflection to try and find out what about that step bothers me so much right now.

I hope in a few days things will be back to normal and I can start moving forward again. Until the feedback starts rolling in, I want to start some more detailed planning of the next book in the series and try and flesh out some of the “a bunch of stuff happens” (actual notation) in the middle of my rough outline. I have a few scenes written that need to be organized into that as well. Yeah, that’s right, I’m diving fully into outlining this time around. I pantsed my way through almost all of The Unravelling and when I started I actually only had four or five scenes out of the whole book envisioned. Pretty much the entire thing was “a bunch of stuff happens” in my head until I started writing. Now that I know these characters a bit better, I think I owe it to them to plan stuff out.

And as November 1 approaches I’m SO tempted to do NaNoWriMo again. I managed to win it last year, writing a silly contemporary romance, but this year I’m going to Mexico for a week in the middle of it and I don’t want to spend my time there hunched over my laptop instead of sitting on the beach, nor can I make up the missed days over the rest of the month. All the same, I’d like to start writing the second book (it’s called The Unseeing, by the way, have I mentioned that before?) in earnest sometime in November. I have to do something with my time.

In the meantime this blog is probably going to get quieter and posts less frequent as I’ll have little to say while I’m not actively working on anything. With any luck that will change sometime next month as I get back into the swing of things. My last Six Sentence Sunday from The Unravelling is scheduled for this weekend. Hope you enjoy it!

One last thing: if anyone’s looking to swap novels for critiquing purposes, drop me an email through the Contact page above. I’d love to read what others have been working on, and have my stuff reviewed as well.

Happy writing, everyone. 🙂

So Close I Can Smell It

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On September 24, 2012

In Planning for the Future, Things to Ponder

I was going over my outline yesterday and realized that while I do have my point-form notes on all the remaining scenes, I hadn’t blocked them out into chapters. After a bunch of hemming and hawwing I think I have it all laid out, and I was very surprised to see that it looks like I only have about two and a half chapters left! I’m partway through 19 now, and I have it marked down that 21 is the last one. For so long the ending has felt like a forever time away, but I usually get through about a chapter a week, a chapter being 5-7,000 words, and that means I could be done in three weeks’ time. I can even have a bit of a break from the story before I start revising in early November!

I’m a little bit excited and a little bit sad about the prospect of being done. Making your old words better isn’t the same as making new words, and I think my heart is mainly in the ‘making new words’ camp. Who knows? Maybe the shift will be good for me. I’m also very relieved to see that it doesn’t look like I’m going to be over the 30,000 words I estimated from my 100,000-word goal. It looks more like fifteenish. I can find 15,000 words to cut, no problem.

Now, with all that said, it’s not going to be easy writing to the finish line. Things are about to get very, very difficult for Callie over the next 50 pages. Poor girl. I like her so much, it’s hard to break her down like this. She’ll thank me in the end though.

Today I’m Back

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On September 12, 2012

In Distractions, Planning for the Future, Things That Are Awesome

My tomatoes are done – 190lbs put in jars for the year in five whirlwind days.

This photo is so artfully composed. You have the empty jars. The full jars. The produce. The giant pot. The tomato splatter on the floor. It’s everything about canning all together. Courtesy my lovely husband.

A lot of canning is repetitive and doesn’t require much brain activity. Chop, peel, scoop, stir, ad infinitum. That leaves a lot of time for thinking and plotting and shaping scenes. Last night I finished my last batch and today I’m ready to write. To hell with cleaning the kitchen.

Adding to my Shelf

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On September 6, 2012

In Learning, Organizing, Planning for the Future, Revision

I guess I’m going back on my no-advice-books rule again. I’ve seen Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print mentioned on three blogs in as many days, so I thought I’d take a look at it. While I’ve got many great tips on editing after the first draft is complete, this looks like it might be useful as well. For $13, it’s worth a try, I figure (I also bought yet another canning book – sshh, I’m just going to hide it on the shelf with the others and hope no one notices).

I’m not going to read it until I’m done my story though. I don’t like the spectre of revision hanging over my head while I write. Even now I sometimes look at my freshly-typed-out work and wonder if I’m just going to cut it in the end, and that’s depressing.

I’m also thinking about trying out Scrivener. It’s another thing I see praised often by writers for its ability to organize everything. Thoughts, anyone? It sure looks pretty. Makes me wonder why I spent so much on coloured index cards and post-its when I could have had them all on my screen. Right now I use Open Office, which works fine, but because I have everything in one massive doc, I do find myself scrolling through my 180-ish pages of single-spaced text looking for a specific reference in a chapter I can’t remember. This happens at least two or three times a day. So getting organized might be nice. I hear it also helps with outlining, my new favourite thing. Did you know, I’m through 1.5 bullet points since the other day? So great.

I guess what I want to know is, is there any point in getting it this late in the game, three-quarters of the way through this book? Will transfering everything over be a giant pain in the ass? Or should I keep it in mind for when I start Book Two and stay the course for now?

I’m buying roughly 200lbs of tomatoes to can tomorrow. I imagine one of two things will happen with respect to writing in the next week: either I don’t do any at all, or my keyboard will be stained red and speckled with seeds while I cram in a few paragraphs in between canner loads.

OMG Outlines

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On September 4, 2012

In Big Ideas, Just Keep Writing, Organizing, Planning for the Future, Things That Are Awesome

My brain apathy wasn’t lending itself to making words that fit nicely together tonight, so I decided to bang out some point-form notes on everything I wanted to have happen before writing THE END (or TO BE CONTINUED I guess, technically).

What a fantastic fucking idea that was. It’s, like, all right there. In order. And even while I was writing it out, some parts that were just vague notions – “they’ll find this thing, somewhere, somehow” turned into well-thought-out, logical scenes. There are layers. There is conflict that I hadn’t even considered. And while it’s too late tonight to get started on any new words, tomorrow when I sit down I can look at my little outline and say “BAM here’s what you’re going to write about tonight,” instead of twiddling my thumbs for twenty minutes wondering how things should progress.

And I am so excited about this. I do love the spontaneity of leaving some things to figure out as I go, but having a basic beginning-to-end map (in this case, a halfway-through-chapter-17-to-end map) to refer to is solid gold for my overfilled mind. So thank you, everyone ever who said outlining is important. Also, thank you everyone ever who said outlining isn’t important because you gave me the confidence to write 17 1/2 chapters without one and that went just fine too.

Tomorrow my fingers are going to be nimble and my brain is going to be sharp and I’m going to tackle the first of my 11 bullet points. November isn’t that far off but now I feel like I know how to get there.

Goal-Slash-Throwdown

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On August 26, 2012

In Excitement, Planning for the Future, Revision

I’m setting a challenge for myself. An achievable goal. A milestone to work toward. And I’m going to write it out so I am held accountable, because there’s nothing more motivating than public failure.

At the beginning of November I’m going to Mexico for a week with my sister. The goal is to have a completed first draft of The Unravelling by then so I can sit on the beach with my red pen and a printed manuscript and start identifying areas for revision.

The last time I went on a tropical vacation, to Hawaii in April, I brought my laptop with me but didn’t write a single word (I also had two kids to entertain, whereas this is going to be a girls-only trip, so there’s that). I aim for this to be different.

So there you go. Ten weeks to get ‘er done. I think it’s doable.

August and September

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On August 18, 2012

In Distractions, Planning for the Future, Things That Are Hard

Canning season. The bulk of our preserved food for the year gets put up in these two months. It all comes into season at once, and it’s a hell of a lot of work keeping up with getting it all processed and put away. Subsequently, my writing time has suffered. I sure don’t want to sit down at my computer after spending three hours pitting cherries. Same goes for making 10L of spaghetti sauce. And then there’s the garden, which is a whole other workload. It’s my favourite time of year, to be sure, and nothing feels better than looking at my fully stocked cold room at the end of it, but it’s not my favourite time to be a writer, because I’m scrambling to get in any time at all. Guess I’ll just keep telling myself that I can’t write anything at all if I have to take another job to by store-bought food (or I’m starving).

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