The Learning Curl

Did you know that Canada won the first ever World Curling Championship?  According to wikipedia this competition was held in Falkirk and Edinburgh in 1959.  In curling there's a team member called the 'Skip'.  Essentially the skip is the leader of the team.  They're the ones that plan out the strategies and tell the team how they need to play that round.  They wear two different shoes while they play.  One that has a grip, that they generally use to push off from the 'hack' when delivering a stone.  The other has no grip, which they use to slide on the ice during the delivery, or to slide down the ice while sweeping.

Why am I telling you all of this?  Well, I thought I would share all the knowledge I'm acquiring for my current novel.

You see, I happened to see a curling game last Saturday.  Not in person, or anything, it was just on tv.  The thing is, though, I've never been remotely interesting in curling.  I've heard it mentioned before, and I had the vaguest idea what they did during the game, but it wasn't something I cared about.  Or ever even had an interest in watching.  So why was I so very captivated by this game?

I let it slide, though, thinking that it was just a one time thing.  I cared only because it was on, and once it was out of sight it was out of mind.  Which was generally true.

Except that I kept seeing games everywhere I went.  This probably had a lot to do with the tournament of hearts being in full swing, but every time I saw it, I wanted to stop and watch.  It hit me when I was sitting in Denny's trying to pay to the conversation, and was instead being distracted by the curling game that was being shown on the tv: it was my character that was making me care about it.

My character (a female werewolf assassin, in case you were wondering) is, apparently, a curler.  She's one of those people I was watching going out on the ice and throwing stones.  Not professionally, of course.  But she definitely does this on her off time.

For me, that meant one thing: research.  I'll admit, I'm not a huge fan or research.  In fact, if I could avoid it altogether, I will, and I have in the past.  I write fantasy novels for the simple reason that the entire world comes from my head.  In other words, no research needed!

Now I'm stuck finding out more about a sport that I never cared about before (though after this is done, I might care just a little bit more) all so I can accurately depict a hobby that my character enjoys.

In the meantime, though, I thought that you all might enjoy it if I shared what I had learned so far about the not so well known sport.  Like the fact that the team with the last throw has what's called the 'hammer'.  It's an advantage in the game, making it easier for that team to score points.  If the other team manages to get points instead, that's called a steal.

Oh, the things we do for our characters.  I suppose I should consider myself lucky for not having researched anything that will have some unknown section of the government thinking I'm a terrorist or the like...yet...

What have you learned about for the sake of your characters?

Ick

I had a blog post all planned out for today.  I was actually looking forward to writing it, but something happened that completely changed what I wanted to talk about.

Most of you probably don't know this, but I don't get sick very often, and even when I do I actually find it hard to make myself call in sick to work.  It's dumb, but I feel bad when I don't go into work, because all I can think about are the people at work being busy and I'm just laying in bed.  It's horrible.  Anyway, the point of the matter is, I'm sick.

Let me tell you about me trying to plan a novel while I'm sick.

I talk to my characters in order to figure out what's going on in the books I"m writing.  Yes, I know, this makes me sound crazy.  Nevertheless, this is the way I do things.  Normally 'talking' to them consists of them showing me scenes or pictures that I interpret.  Very rarely they actually speak.  When I'm sick, though, that connection is a little like trying to watch television back in the rabbit ears days.  If that's not bad enough, it's also when it was snowing outside, so the reception is terrible.  The sound is gone, and even the pictures are fuzzy.

It's frustrating to say the least, and I'm pretty sure that even my characters are starting to feel it at this point.  My poor Jayne Pheare is in complete distress, because I've been promising her that I would be seriously planning her story starting this week, but nothing that she's trying to tell me is actually getting through.  (Though I did finally figure out her assassin name last night, thanks to Eric.)

Needless to say, it makes planning a novel rather impossible.  I can sit with that notebook open in front of me for hours, and have Jayne yelling at the top of her lungs in the back of my head, and I still can't figure anything out.

This, of course, leaves me with a bit of a problem.  As I said in my last post, my goal for having the first draft of Pandora written is the end of March.  That means it needs to be ready to deliver into the hands of my critique group (at least the first chapter) by the second day of April.

How am I supposed to do that when I can't even plan right now?  Planning takes much longer for me than the actual writing does, so right about now I'm actually beginning to freak out.  Being sick was not in the plan!  In fact, now is pretty much the worst time for me to be sick.  I need this stupid cold to go away so that I can get back to the important things.  Like writing down everything my character's trying to tell me about her story.

I suppose the best I can do it try and get better as fast as I possibly can so that I can have as much time as possible to get the planning done.  I just hope that this one ill timed sickness doesn't completely set me back, because I plan to have The Commons in the hands of beta readers by the end of April, and querying it no later than the beginning of June.

Good luck to me.

Time To Prioritize

I have never been someone that can have just one project going at a time.  I get bored with it and start wondering off to do other things, such as reading or catching up on tv shows. (The fact that I do these things even when I have multiple projects on the go is completely besides the point...)

Anyway, I currently have about 6 projects on the go, each at a different stage of the writing/editing process.  I have my Dangerous Waters, a fantasy novel that I wrote last year and didn't look at for a few months until we started critique group.  I've also written the second novel, Changing Tides but as I haven't finished the edits on the first one, you can bet that I haven't even so much as glanced at the second one.  Considering how many chapters I'm having to rewrite, or just add altogether, I'm actually a little afraid to find out how bad the second one is.

I have The Commons, a YA dystopian that is set in a world where more than three quarters of the population was wiped out in the fourth world war.  The remaining people have separated into two societies.  The Commons and The Techs.  This novel is the one that I finished and thought 'I'm going to get this published.'  I have absolute confidence in it and can't wait to test the waters and see what agents and publishers think of it.  I currently have it going through critique group.

Wolf's Blood is an urban fantasy that I started writing with a friend some time last year.  Unfortunately, we're both quite busy, so we've only managed to write a whole 5 chapters, but as we're still talking to each other I'm counting it as a success.

Since November I've had this idea for a book bouncing around in my head.  It's about a werewolf assassin, and her name is Jayne Pheare (That's her real name, don't know her assassin name yet.)  The book itself is, unfortunately, untitled.  I have lots of work to do on it, as I'm still in the planning stages for this novel (including working out a brand new city for it with the help of my dear friend Eric) I'm very excited for this novel, but I just haven't had time to sit down and really connect with Jayne.  (I have to say, she's being very patient.  She only got annoyed that one time when I pulled out a brand new character and started paying attention to her...)

I also have two more collaborations in the works, but both are untitled and in the planning stages with only the bare bones placed, and not even nailed down yet.

This past week, though, I've had some time to think about these projects, and the priority I've been giving each.  (This 'time' has been while at work, or travelling back and forth between different social engagements...not actual time that I had to sit down and plan or edit.  Trust me, that's what I would have been doing if it was.)

Much as I love Dangerous Waters, lately I've been finding it harder and harder to concentrate on it.  In fact, on more than one occasion, I've actually considered shelving it indefinitely.  That there was just too much work that needed to be done on it to conceivably finish the series, and it's time to move onto greener pastures.  I don't actually want to do that, though.  I love the series, and I do think that it has some serious potential.  But I've been so frustrated with it, I can no longer see the potential, all I see is a pile of crap that needs be thrown out.

In order to keep myself from doing that very thing, I decided that it's time to re-prioritize my writing projects.  Instead of throwing two full manuscripts in the trash and walking away, I've decided that they should be shelved only for a little while.  This will (hopefully) give me enough of a break from the project to clear my head and allow me to see what needs to be done without wanting to bang my head on a desk.  Repeatedly.

Unfortunately, this leaves me with nothing to be working on so I can send out some queries, come May.  In order to fill that, I've decided to pull The Commons from the critique group.  This book is one that I'm actually quite excited about.  I can see it on the shelves for sale, and I want it to get it out there.  I'm hopeful that this is the right move, and I can't wait to finish editing the rest of the novel so I can start working on those queries.

That, of course, leaves me with an opening on what I'm sending into critique group.  So I've decided that for the next month or so I'm going to have a strong focus on my Jayne Pheare book.  (I can get a first draft written in about 10 days, but I have to have it completely plotted out, which takes quite a bit of work.)

As for my collaborations, those will stay the same.  I can't just sit down and work on them all day, so I will do what I can when I can, as I have been doing thus far.  I just hope that my next chapter for Wolf's Blood doesn't take me 4 months again...

Now I just need to get my critiques done so I can get on top of this planning.  The goal is to have Jayne Pheare written in full by the end of march so I can get started on some serious edits for The Commons.  Let's hope this works, because this is the Epic Year of Querying, and I need to start getting some work out to agents and publishers!

So Behind!

On Wednesday I told you all about my critique group, which (in case I didn't tell you then) I actually love.  A lot.  And I'm seriously excited about this Monday when we get to see what everyone came up with for some writing prompts that were sent out.

Now, I actually finished my stories for Monday on Friday.  And I was happy that I managed it, because I was having some difficulties with the second short story I was writing.  You see, I started writing it on Thursday, and by Friday I was a fair bit into it.  It was sitting at 1500 words, and I had it open and was staring at it during #FNTWP, when I realized why I wasn't willing to write as much as I normally am.

Nothing was happening in it.  I mean, at all.  The story was starting to read like the first chapter of a novel, with world building to boot.

Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed the world.  In fact, I may find myself writing about that world in the near future.  Unfortunately, the way it was reading wasn't good for a short story.  I had to somehow put a whole lot of tension and conflict into the last 1500 words, and I didn't even know where the story was going.  I didn't have a good enough grasp on the character, or the setting, to be effective doing it.

Of course, this realization came only after a comment was made by a twitter friend (L.S. Taylor) asked me if maybe there wasn't any tension in it.  That was when I went back and reread what I had written so far (something I don't usually do for fear that I'll not want to finish writing it because it's just that bad).  And it was that bad.  I had a moment of sitting there staring dumbly at the screen, thinking 'what the hell am I going to do now', and then another story idea hit me.

There wasn't even a moment's hesitation after I had that random idea.  I instantly closed that document, opened another and was off.  I finished the story some three hours later (though it is sitting at 3650 words, and needs to be cut down closer to 3000).

Now, of course, I have 2 full short stories (totaling about 6850 words) and 2 chapters (totaling about 5000 words) to edit before tomorrow.  I'm sitting at work, wondering if I will possibly have time to do it all, and kicking myself for not getting it done sooner.  I probably shouldn't be so hard on myself, after all, if I had finished that second story any sooner, it wouldn't be what it is right now.  I would still be holding onto that first story that was going nowhere, and I would have heard about it from my critique group come Monday.

Unfortunately I'm stuck trying to get it all done today so that I'm ready for tomorrow. (Technically I have until the end of the day to get in my submission for next week, but as tomorrow is going to be a full day, I just don't have time to work on it.  Which means I must have it done tonight!!)

Well, I suppose I should really get on it so I can get caught up.  Wish me luck!!

Why Do I Do This To Myself?

Ever since I started doing nano, I have discovered that I suddenly have a life.  Where I was once a hermit who stayed in my room pretty much 95% of of the time, I now find myself going out more days than staying in.  Seeing my friends, going to movies, I even am part of a poker night.  (Don't get worried, it's a $2 buy in.  Any more than that and I would probably be backing away from the table, shaking my head.).  I'm also part of a critique group, which has been awesome in helping me to see my work in a new light.

Normally the way our critique group works is that we each send in a chapter (or two) of our current novel, and two people critique it.  (There are six people in our group, but we've broken up into two groups of three, because critiquing five selections would just take far too much time.)  We get together every two weeks to deliver the critiques to each other, and (at least I find) they help us to fix that chapter, or edit the next chapter.  Hell, it even helps us to fix our work as we're writing it.  Since I've started critique group, even my first drafts are getting better.  I'm more aware of my word choice, and description (though I still have a long way to go with that last one)

This month, though, we decided to try something a little different.  I'm not entirely sure if we'll ever do it again, as this is just an experiment (and I don't know about everyone else, but there's just so much to do this week!)

Anyway, on Monday we're going to have our first ever 'writing night'.  Unlike our nano meets, where we just get together and work on our own individual manuscripts, for this writing night an assignment (or two) were sent out.  Each assignment had their own set of rules that we had to follow, including no beta readers, and they had to be done for Monday, when we're going to read them aloud to the group.  Of course critiques will come in when the rest of the group weighs in on on what we've been working on all week.

My first confession: I'm the one who created the assignments, and set the rules.

On Sunday night I was frantically looking through pictures trying to find pictures, and reading through books to find writing prompts.  Despite what you may think, I definitely didn't have an advantage on everyone else.  I didn't look for the pictures or prompts ahead of time, as it was all done the night before I had to send it out.  But I did get it out.

My second confession:  I apparently don't want to follow the rules.

Which is terrible, because I wrote the bloody rules.  Literally.  I keep wanting to get one of my coworkers to read it for me.  Then I have to remind myself that I can't.  I even managed to write my first story about 200 words over the limit, meaning I now have to go back and somehow edit 200 words out of the bloody thing.  Something that I am dreading doing, because I always hate cutting words out of my stories.  I wrote it that way for a reason, and now I have to figure out which parts aren't actually necessary.  While I'm doing it, I have to actually think about what my critique group would say.

Needless to say, I'm nervous.  At one point in my life, I actually thought that I would never be able to write a novel.  I proved myself wrong on that one.  I've now written nine novels, with another one in the brainstorming stage, and two more collaborations I'm trying to work through.  Now, though, I find it hard to put my entire thought process into a three thousand words.  I can't even write a stand alone novel, for crying out loud.  I think in series!  Not short stories.

As this was my idea, however, I can't let myself not put my all into it.  I got through the first draft of this story, and I actually think that this story was pretty good.  I may change my mind when I go back and edit, but for now, I actually like this story.  And I firmly believe that my critique group is the reason this story is so good.

Now I just need to get one more story done before Monday.  Hopefully this one wont go over the word limit!

Aah, To Be Wanted

The other day something happened that has actually never happened to me before.  It surprised me.  I found myself in the middle of a fight between two of my characters.

Considering the fact that I create my novels by talking to my characters, you may not find this surprising.  To be exact, my characters show me scenes that I may or may not use in my novels.  Often I find one scene that's shown to me that I really hold onto for each novel.  It's the scene I look forward to writing, and generally enjoy writing the most.  As I've discovered, not all authors actually communicate with their characters the way I do.  It's all a matter of whether you write more about your characters, or your plot.

My characters, however, tend to stick to themselves.  I'm not sure if any of you noticed, but I tend to work on more than one project at a time.  Which means that I usually have more than one character bouncing around in my head.  Actually, if you count the sub characters (who don't generally speak up, but on occasion feel they have something important they need to tell me.) I have far too many characters in my head, all yammering for attention.

The one thing that they don't do, and I have always been very grateful for this, is they don't interact with characters from other novels.  This helps me feel like I have some kind of control over the organization of all different novels, as well as makes it much easier to not get a headache.

Unfortunately on Thursday night, all of that apparently changed.  I am currently in the process of plotting out two different novels, but I haven't actually had a whole lot of time to spend with each character.  I'm doing my best, of course, but between critique group, editing my novel, and working a full time job, let's just say that they might not all be feeling as if I am spending enough time with them.

On Thursday night, the two main characters from the two novels that I'm plotting got into a fight over who should be getting more of my attention.  They were actually bickering in my head.  I've never had anything like that happen before.

Before you all go throwing me into a mental institution, I suppose I should explain a little bit better.  Yes, I heard them bickering, but that's only because I put voices to images.  What was really happening was a large amount of scenes tumbling together, as if they were both trying to get my attention, and trying to talk over the other one.

I managed to get them to stop (I always do) but in the end, I realized that they were right.  I haven't been spending enough time with them.  I started these projects knowing full well that once a character appears in my head, they don't generally disappear.  In fact, they become more and more insistent until I actually pay some attention to them.  I should have known something like this would happen when I started two different projects at essentially the same time.

So this week, despite the fact that I am way too far behind in my editing to actually do this, I am going to try and spend at least an hour or two with each of these characters.  I am going to make sure I know their back stories and my goal is to be ready to actually start plotting out the collaboration novel by the end of the week.  Do I think I'll actually manage it?  Who knows.  Lately I seem to be becoming quite good at procrastination.  The point is, though, that I'm going to try.

Look out Audra and Jayne, we're going to have nice long chats this week.

A Sad Oversight

It was brought to my attention the other day that I have allowed a terrible lapse to occur.  I am going to attempt to rectify this horrible mistake.

A few months ago (well...it might have been more than a few months ago...probably since about August?) I had the house to myself for a few days, and I was telling my friends about it.  One such friend (You all know her as B.A. Matthews) suggested that they come over for a party.  I couldn't because I had to work the next day, and told them about how I would be kicking them out after only a couple of hours.


Though we discussed still getting together to do some writing, in the end we decided to instead have our party on twitter.  It was going to be a friday night, so originally we were just going to hash tag it Friday Night Party.

When it came down to it though, the hash tag ended up being #FNTWP.  Friday Night Twitter Writing Party.  And it was awesome.  It also attracted far more people than I had thought it would.

After a night full of great conversation with other writers, insight into what others were doing, and even my own work, and actually getting some writing done, one of the final comments was 'see you next Friday.'

Of course, we had never planned for this hashtag to end up being something we did every single week.  We were just going for one good night to get together while still being able to do all of the stuff we needed to do at home.  We did, though.  We started putting it on every single week.  Even during nano, those five hours every Friday night served as a time when we could talk to fellow writers.  Relieve the stress of whatever was going on with our lives.  Work on whatever we were working on at that moment.

It was fantastic.

To this day we still run #FNTWP on  Friday nights.  We aren't always both there.  Sometimes I work late, so I don't get on until about nine, but someone is usually there.  If not, if you hang out long enough, eventually someone will get on.

I would encourage any writer to join in the conversation.  We have a great time, and I never go away without feeling like I got something out of it, even on the nights when I don't actually get anything done.  I love it, and I feel like everyone should get a chance to experience it.

Anyway, if you can't tell, I love #FNTWP.  If you want to see what it's all about, drop by any Friday night between seven pm and midnight (mountain time).  We'd love to see you!

The Definition of Insanity

So, last week I set a goal for myself.  I wanted to finish three chapters of rewrites/new chapters.  I didn't have as much free time as I though I would, and I found myself procrastinating (as I always do).  Still, I was able to tell myself that I would be able to get it done on Sunday.  It was only three chapters, after all.  It would have been better to get some of it done before hand, but I have written that much in a single day before, so I didn't foresee myself having a problem doing it.

I don't know if any of you know this, but one definition of insanity is: Doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results.  I've always joked that, if this is true, then working in retail must be insane.

Yesterday I sat down all ready to do my edits.  I opened the document and even started writing.  I was going to get this chapter done in record time and move onto the next, because I was determined to finish the goal I set for myself.  It was definitely going to happen.

I managed to make it to about five paragraphs in before I started having trouble.  The words weren't flowing, and it was quickly becoming apparent that this chapter wasn't any better than the one I had just decided to rewrite.  In fact, I was leaning toward it actually being worse, which definitely isn't a good thing when the whole point of rewriting is to make it better.

So I scrapped those five chapters, thinking that I could do better.

Again  I managed to make it to about five paragraphs in, and again it just wasn't working, no matter what I did.  The description sucked.  The dialogue was utter crap, and don't even get me started on the voice.  Nothing was working!

But I was determined.  Those three chapters were in my sight, and I really wanted to get it all done.  No, not wanted, I was going to get them done.

Once more I got started on the chapter, throwing what I had already written away and struggling through those paragraphs, trying to make them what I wanted them to be.  Trying to force out the words that just weren't coming as easily as they should be.

It was around this time that I ended up getting some not so great news and was starting to feel annoyed and frustrated.  I can barely get anything done when I'm in a good mood, but the way I was feeling, there was no way that editing was going to be finished.

It took a while, but I managed to get myself out of the bad mood and willing to look at the chapter without fear of ruining it completely, and that was when it hit me.  There was a reason the chapter wasn't working.  One that I might not have noticed if I hadn't taken that mental step back and let myself look at it with fresh eyes.

I was trying to write it from the wrong character's POV.  I had originally chosen one of the characters, and when it came to rewriting, I thought I might as well stick with her.  After all, I must have had a reason for why I originally chose her, right?  I couldn't quite remember what that was, but I assumed that I hadn't simply picked a name out of a hat.

At this point, I still don't remember what made me chose her to begin with, but I do know what fixed the problem that I was having with the chapter.  I changed the POV.

It was that simple.  All of a sudden everything was working better.  The words were flowing (not as well as when I write a first draft, but well enough).  I didn't feel like everything that I was writing was worse than the first time around.  In fact, I was pretty sure that it was better.  Much better.

I only managed to get about 1000 words written, but as those words were all written some time after ten, I'm actually alright with that number.  Happy with them, even.  And excited that I no longer feel so bloody stuck on a chapter that I'm never going to finish.

Now, of course, I just have to finish the chapter, and move onto the next.  Maybe even remind myself that I need to take a step back when I'm doing rewrites.  I can't be as close to the action as I can be when I'm writing a first draft.  I have to look at the writing with a much more impartial eye.  I can't allow my feelings for the characters, or what I have originally written, to blind me to the flaws in my writing.

I probably won't finish this chapter tonight, and I don't know how much time I'll have to edit this week, but I'm going to set the same goal I set for myself last week.  To finish the next three chapters.  A week late, but better than it never getting done, right?

One Step Forward, But Standing Still

Today I finished the editing for my next critique group submission.  I wanted to get it done yesterday, but it seems I have become better at procrastination than I originally thought.  So, I decided to be happy with finishing today, as well as getting this blog post done.

Anyway, the point of the matter is that I finished the next two chapters, and I was happy that I finished it so early in the week, even if it was a day later than I was actually hoping for.  I was ahead of the game.

Unfortunately then I made the mistake of looking at my Dangerous Waters manuscript.  That's the one I'm trying to get through right now.  That's the one I want to have polished and ready by the end of April.  That's the one I want to query and get published.  It's the one I've put the most work into.

Sadly, it's also the one that still needs the most work.

A couple of weeks ago I went through the chapters I had left to edit and picked through the ones that (obviously) needed rewrites, and the ones I could try and edit.  I also figured out how many chapters I would have to add in order to fix the many mistakes I made while writing the novel.  (While it wasn't one of my nano novels, I still wrote it fairly quickly, and as it was one of my early novels, I didn't have the plot nailed down nearly as much as I thought when I started writing it).

Thirteen.  That's the number of chapters that need to be rewritten or added altogether.  I only had about twenty left to edit, so that's a fair amount.

This leaves me with a bit of a problem.  All of that work certainly doesn't make me want to actually do the editing.  It probably would have been better if I hadn't gone through and figured out what needed to be done.  Yet I can't regret it because I've always been a planner.  I actually spend more time planning them than I do writing them.  So not knowing how much I was going to have to change was bothering me enough that I felt I had to do it, and I did.

Being at a stand still with Dangerous Waters, however, means more than that one novel never being finished.  In fact, not finishing that novel means that all the other projects I have on the go (refer to the Progress Report section) are also not getting worked on or completed.

Sometimes I tend to get myself in over my head.  For example, during nano I decided to write 200,000 words.  But about five days in I changed that to 300,000 words.  Most of the month I was overwhelmed and thought I wouldn't finish.  I did.  Just barely, but I did.  Now I have all of this work, and I'm feeling overwhelmed, but for some reason I'm not really moving forward.  I can get done what I need to get done for my critique group, but other than that, I'm not making any progress.

It doesn't matter that I really want to finish this novel.  That I want to have it, done and complete, in my hands, and ready to send out to agents and publishers.  I want to feel like I've accomplished something.

I guess I'll just have to suck it up and get down to it.  Starting tomorrow (and everyday for at least a little while until Monday) I'm going to continue editing Dangerous Waters.  I have a goal to finish the next three chapters by the end of Sunday.  (In case you were wondering, the next three chapters are ALL rewrites, so it's going to be harder than it sounds.)

Don't worry, I'll let you know how it goes in my next post, also scheduled Sunday.  Till then, happy editing!