Critique At the End of the Tunnel

In my critique group we, of course, exchange critiques.  Every fortnight (we've decided that we're resurrecting this generally considered archaic word, as it applies to so much in our lives) we get together and tell each other what we thought of the latest chapter that was sent in.  It's been extremely helpful, especially in areas like description, where we all lacked when we first started out.

We also started meeting up every couple of months with short stories and getting feedback on those.  We dubbed these meets 'Pen Duels'.  Basically what we do is I send out two writing prompts, and everyone has to come up with a story based on one or the other of the prompts.  Then we get together, read them out loud, then discuss.

This time we decided to do things a little bit differently.  Rather than getting together and reading them out, we sent them out to each other and are doing critiques on them before we get together to discuss on Saturday.

When we originally decided to do this, we talked about how these critiques shouldn't be too long.  Not like what we do for regular critique group.  Just small summaries of what we thought while we were reading through the stories.

Turns out, my brain isn't so good at holding back.  My first critique is behind me and it's just as long (if not longer) than anything that I've done for critique group.

This wouldn't be a problem, of course, except that I now have two more short stories to critique before Saturday, and a chapter to critique by Monday.

Yep.  I know.  We planned that well.

So now I'm sitting at home working on my pile of critiques rather than working on Pandora, which I'm supposed to be sending out at the end of the month.  I'm starting to feel like I might have taken on too much this year.

For the record, I've decided to cut back the epiphanies to only 100 for the year, rather than trying to get through the entire 201.  More manageable, and I won't feel like I'm going crazy.

Anyway, to get back on topic: Critiques.  Lots of critiques.

I'm working on critique # 2 right now, and I'm planning to, at the very least, get done the short stories tonight before I head to bed.  Though, if I really make myself do work, I might even get the chapter done.  Somehow, I doubt it, though.

So much to do, so little time to do it!

Are you in a critique group?  Do you ever find yourself spending more time on critiques than on writing?

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

As a writer there are certain things that affect your ability to write.  For example, I find it nearly impossible to write when I have a headache.  Each word I drag out sends another round of pain shooting through my skull, and when I look back on any progress I may have made I realize just how bad it actually is.  Especially if the mood of the scene isn't angry or annoyed.

So, I've learned to adapt.  Or, rather, I've learned to accept the fact that writing is not going to get done if I can't get rid of the headache.  It's not an excuse, it's the matter of whether it's worth it in the end, and I've determined that it just isn't.

Of course, there are other things that can affect this as well.  Things like what happened to me on Monday.

On Monday I had a bad day.  It started right when I got to work (I'll admit that I'm not a huge fan of my day job, but I can usually get through the day without thinking about quitting).  I'm not going to get into details of why it was such a bad day, but suffice it to say that by the time the day was over, my mood was foul.  And I left work early!

Unfortunately my bad mood didn't just affect my writing.  I didn't get to just go home and do nothing while moping around and indulging in my bad mood.  (I know what you're all thinking, but I let myself wallow in my bad moods.  They last one day, and they don't happen all that often, so I indulge.)  Instead I got to go to critique group.

Now, normally I love critique group.  I love getting feedback on my work and learning how other people interpret what I've put down on the page.  I enjoy the dynamic we have in our group and how much I learn as a writer from the process.

When I got there on Monday, however, and one of my critique partners said something negative, I found myself fighting with him.  Arguing his point and not letting him explain where he was coming from.  I was getting frustrated and angry, and I really couldn't control those emotions, even though I knew I was being irrational.

I even had the thought that I should just toss that novel and pretend I had never written it.

These aren't normal things for me.  While I love a good discussion about my work, or anyone's work, for that matter, what I was doing on Monday was fighting.  And defending my work.  And thinking that I should scrap an entire novel because of one moment of feedback?  I just spent the entire day yesterday restructuring a novel that I've already rewritten twice.  I don't just cast things off because of one piece of criticism.

It was hard for me to accept what was being said because my emotions were already shot from the hard day I'd had at my day job.

I hate that a job that I don't enjoy can make the thing that I do like so much harder.  This is the reason that I don't want to be working a day job.  Unfortunately I don't have a choice at this point.  I'm not published.  I don't have someone that just wants to let me work on my writing full time.  I have to continue to pay my bills in order to keep writing.

So I just have to work on trying to not let a bad day at work colour everything else I do.  This would be so much easier if I could compartmentalize.

Now to make it up to my critique partner.  Maybe I should buy his dinner at the next critique group.

How Soon We Forget

With Nano ending only a couple of months ago, I've been hard at work editing.  In December I finished Pandora, and this month I've been working on Stolen Magick, and it's been going quite well.  I've gotten through the chapters at record speed for me.  The manuscript is reading more like a second draft than a first, and it's been making me feel pretty good about myself.  Especially since I've been finding myself with some actual free time because everything is getting done, and it's getting done early.

So what can possibly happen that would knock me back a few steps?

A short story.  Simple as that.  I had to write a short story for critique group, and I had it scheduled for Monday.  So I sat down to work on it at 11:30 in the morning.  I didn't expect for it to take too long.  I guessed about an hour.  Two tops.

Then I stared at the blank screen in front of me, not quite sure where to start.  I had an idea, but I just didn't know how to start it.

And then, when I finally got the words put down on the page, they weren't right.  Nothing was right.  I stopped after about three sentences, and immediately erased everything.

Next I started to do some research.

I just want to stop and point out here that I don't like research.  Actually I hate it.  With a passion.  I don't even like to do it for my novels.  And yet I found about six tabs open, all of them with different bits of information that I needed to write the short story.

When I had finally managed to get everything that I needed to know, I pulled up that blank page again.

It still didn't go well.  I needed names.  And then there was a million other things I needed to look up in the process of writing.

By the time the story was done it had been five hours.  FIVE!

It hasn't taken me that long to finish anything since...well...since Nano!

That's when I remembered.  Drafting doesn't always go as smoothly as I want it to.  In fact, it never does.  If I'm not struggling to force the words out, then new things that I didn't plan are appearing, and I find myself getting annoyed, and more often than not, frustrated.

I'm not saying that I hate drafting.  Far from it, it's one of my favourite part of the writing process.  I'm just glad that I remembered that before I started working on the first draft of Malice next month.  I can't wait to do it, and I'm glad that I didn't remember just how long it can take when I was getting started on a novel I have to work on for a month.

Now I just need to finish Stolen Magick so that I can move onto Malice without getting distracted.

Do you ever forget about parts of the writing process?  How do you get yourself into the story so you can write it??

Just a little Critique

This week is the last time our critique group is meeting before nano.  As a rule we don't keep up with the critiques during nano because there's really not enough time for all of us to complete our nano goals and try to keep up with critique group.

I have mixed feelings about this.  While I have a bit of a break -- not having to worry about getting the critiques done, or even what I'm going to submit -- at the same time, those critique groups helped my writing more than anything I've ever done.  I've learned about my own writing more from hearing what other people have to say about it than while writing any of the multiple novels that I've managed to complete the first draft of.

That being said, sometimes I feel like I'm a little stuck.  I'm going through a routine of writing in November (or during camp nano) submitting to critique group, and possibly getting to a second draft, but I never seem to get any further than that.

I want, more than anything, to be a published author.  I want my name to be printed on the cover of a book.  I want to be able to walk in to Chapters and find my books alongside my favourite authors.  I want a complete stranger to read my books because someone recommended it to them.

So how can I do that when I can't even get to a third draft?

In order to get published, I have to submit my manuscript to someone.  As I want an agent, it would be to the agents I would love to have as my own.  Before I can submit, I have to actually like my manuscript. Which is probably only going to happen after I get feedback from my betas.  In order to get feedback, I have to send out my manuscript to my betas.  And to send it out, I really have to get it to the third draft.

Of course, I had a goal.  I wanted to finish my third draft of Pandora by the end of this month.  I managed to finish the second draft at the very beginning of the month, and I thought that I might actually get done this third draft in order to send it out.

I haven't.  I'm not even done going through it to see what changes I still need to make.  I'm about halfway through reading it and I don't foresee myself actually making it through the entire manuscript before November gets underway.  I'm not even entirely sure I'm going to be able to finish the list of changes before then.

It's a disappointment.  I want to have it ready for submissions by January, but it is what it is.  I can accept that I didn't get as much done as I wanted.  I think I took on too much this month anyway, so I'll get by.

What I won't be able to forgive myself for is if I don't get this manuscript done and sent in to an agent.  This is probably the best book I've written to date, and I just can't wait to see what other people think of it.

My critique group is filled with amazing writers that have given me great insight in to my work.  And if I never go any further with it, what am I saying about them?  About the time they've invested in to my novel?  I can't do that to them any more than I could do that to myself.

So while I may not finish my editing quite as quickly as I had hoped, I'm going to finish the third draft, I'm going to get it out to betas, and I'm going to find an agent for it.  No matter how long it takes.

Are you a part of a critique group?  Have they helped you as much as mine has?

A Brief Overture

So...I may have missed my post on Wednesday.  Honestly, I don't even have a good excuse for why.  I was home (having had some plans cancelled) and all I did all night was watch shows.  I didn't even write.  So why couldn't I get words down to post on my blog?

I think it may have been lack of inspiration.  It's been months since I've missed a post, and as much as I love posting twice a week, lets face it, sometimes it's hard to come up with things to write about that I haven't already said a million and a half times.

But here I am posting today (though I actually don't have a firm topic for this post...you may have noticed already).  I'm getting back on track.

In that spirit, I thought I would tell you all just what my goals (and plans) are for the next month.

October is probably going to be just as busy as August was, except that critique group is still meeting, which means that I have to have two submissions for the course of the month.  The first is going to be a short story that I wrote and submitted to an online magazine.  The magazine in question has yet to get back to me, and has told all submitters that if they wish to send their stories out to other publishers, they understand.  I have decided that it's just been too long for them to have not gotten back to me and will be withdrawing my submission and shopping it in other markets.  As I view this story as one of the best things I've ever written, I'm hoping that it will get published.

For the second submission, I have no idea what I'm going to send in.  Originally I was planning on writing another short story to submit, but now that I'm looking over my month, I'm thinking that idea is going to be just about as smart as thinking I could do Camp Nano in August.  In other words: that's a dumb idea...so I'm still working on that.  If my month goes the way I expect it to go, I doubt it's going to happen.

We will be moving at the end of the month (lame...I hate moving).  This wasn't exactly our choice, and we will be moving further away from my work, which means my drive is about to double (and take me on roads I don't particularly enjoy driving on.) But I'm grateful that we have a home and we're not scrambling to find somewhere to live.  Unfortunately not only does that take a day for the actual move, but then there's the packing and the unpacking involved.  Coupled with the weekend getaway to my grandmother's house and all the other random little plans I make on a week to week basis, I'm worried about getting any of my work done, never mind anything else.

Pandora, my novel that I'm trying to edit, isn't going as well as I had hoped.  I have four chapters left to edit, and it's the last day that I was supposed to be working on the second draft.  I have already done two chapters today, though, and I have a friend working with me online.  I'm hopeful that I'll get it done tonight (and by hopeful I mean that I'm going to be frantically editing for most of the night before falling in to bed exhausted.) but I don't know if I actually will.  Wish me luck!

I have been plucking away at the planning for my fourth and final novel for nano.  So far my lineup is: Stolen Magick, Aliens Stole My Socks, Betraying Eden and Birth.  Birth is the one I'm currently working on.  I have some brainstorming done, but I'm actually ahead of schedule on that one.  I wasn't even supposed to start the planning until tomorrow, so I'm not too worried.  But I need to make sure I don't get behind in those goals.

This month is going to be hectic, but I'm hoping that I still manage to get everything done.  Now I just need to go finish the second draft of Pandora.

What are your goals for the month of October?  Are you going to join us in our blog post a day challenge in November?

Writing Takes Over

Two years ago, I wasn't even considering the possibility of ever becoming a writer.  I was perfectly happy (if by happy, I mean pretty much miserable) working at Blockbuster and trying to figure out where the hell my life was going to go.  How I was going to get out of Blockbuster without going to a job that I hated more than that one.

Then, as I'm sure all of you know by now, I discovered nano, and suddenly my life changed.

I knew what I wanted to do.  I want to be an author.  I want make a living by publishing my books.  I want, more than anything in the world, to see my name in print.  (Okay, so it's my initials rather than my full name, but close enough.)

Other the last two years, I've been developing my craft.  I've written nine full books, and two half books that will probably never be finished (though don't tell them that.)  I realize that sounds like a lot, and you're probably wondering what I've been doing with those books.  I have the answer: nothing.  None of them have been the book that has made me want to sit down and edit.  Only two of them have I been able to picture on the shelf, and one of them actually has me wanting to edit (which is a HUGE step for me.)

Now, though, as I'm sitting down getting ready to work on that novel, and thinking about one of the four (yes, four.  Yes, I'm insane) books that I'll be writing in November I'm starting to realize just how much writing has taken over my life.

I am now part of a critique group.  Every other week we meet up to tear apart each other's work (and give them encouragement, of course).  When I'm at my day job, all I think about is the work I want to do (and have to do) when I get home.  I was out for supper tonight, and before everyone got there, when we were just sitting waiting for a table to be ready, I had the distinct thought of 'I could be editing right now'.

Aside from the actually writing parts, I participate in a poker night (which basically consists of my critique group with the addition of one person's husband.)  I do a gaming night every once in a while (again, critique group minus a few).  I attend the monthly nano meet ups that my local nano group hosts.  This year I even went to a writing conference here in Calgary.

Then there's the beta reading.  I did my first one this past week, and I've been asked by another friend to do one this week (which I will *hopefully* be starting tonight or tomorrow so I can get her feedback as soon as possible)

I feel like writing has slowly taken over my life.  I'm pretty sure I only have about one friend outside of the writing realm left, and I'm honestly not all that upset about it.

Today one of the girls at work told me that I didn't seem all that excitable or hyper, and while I did seem relatively happy, it wasn't overly so.  When I relayed that to my friends today they actually went silent in surprise, then my boyfriend asked if she was talking about me or another Danni.

Truth be told, I can be myself around my writing friends because they understand me.  And that's something that no one can truly understand until they've experienced it themselves.  People who don't give you a confused look when you randomly put your characters in the middle of conversations (most of my friends just add their characters and make it all the stranger).

My day job doesn't make me happy.  It makes me want to stab myself in the eye with my pen.  Unfortunately all that would do is land me in the hospital with no vision in one eye and a perfectly good pen would be ruined.  So, I'm trying to avoid it.

Currently I have a goal of submitting my novel to agents starting in January.  I'm not expecting miracles.  I realize I'm going to have to stay at my current job until money starts to come in, and I trust my income enough to quit.  But it's a step in the right direction.

Because, one day, writing is going to completely take over.  Let me tell you, that day can't come soon enough.

Short Stories Are Too Short

Since the end of Camp Nano, I've been concentrating on short stories, as opposed to the novels I've been focusing on for a while.  So, in the last four days, I've written two full short stories, with an idea for one more story running around in my head.

The first short story I submitted for consideration to an online magazine.  I'm hoping that it will be an addition to their third issue released in late September.

The other two stories are for Pen Duels, the part of my critique group where we use writing prompts to create stories, then critique them.  I've had the writing prompts for over a month, but I've just recently had time to actually sit down and start thinking about them.

I'm actually really excited for them.  The first one, entitled Mask is already written and submitted.  I had two amazing beta readers who gave me some really good feedback, and I'm actually really hopeful that it will be accepted.  Not certain, but hopeful.

The second The Locket I've just finished.  I'm not so excited for this one, I feel like something isn't quite right in it.  I'm going to have to fix it in editing.  It's not for submission, but I feel like I need to rework it until it's right and makes the impact I want it to make.  Of course, at the same time, I really have to make sure I'm not working it too much.  I have to take into account that the stories that make it down on paper never seem quite as shiny one they're there as they do when they're bouncing around in my head.  Of course, those same stories seem so much shinier to the people reading the stories.

The third is nothing more than an idea that's lingering in my mind.  I thought of it on Monday at critique group.  I knew that I wanted to have some kind of supernatural element to it, mostly because I've really been leaning more toward the urban fantasy / dark fantasy genres.  So a friend of mine looked up mythological creatures to me, and started reading them out.  One made me sit up and take notice.  It wasn't exactly something that I would have expected to get my attention, and yet it did.  I'm eager to start it, and at the same time worried that I won't get it right.  I'll do my best, though, it's all I can do as a writer.

So why am I telling you all of this?  Because those three stories (one of which isn't even written yet) have morphed themselves into full on novels in my head.  More than just novels, in fact.  They're quickly becoming series.

I'm not exactly short on shiny new ideas.  In fact, I already know what stories I'll be writing in November, and I picked them out of a book where I record all of the ideas that I get for stories.  I have more than enough in that book to keep me busy for years.  All I have to do is flip through the pages and wait for one of them to stand out to me, and I have my next project.

Three new ideas may not sound like a lot, but these aren't exactly half thought of vague suggestions.  These are ideas that have already been fairly formed into short stories.  I can see where each of them goes, and I think that they would be fun to write.

Of course, I already have more than enough to keep me busy in November (I've even got a back up novel just in case I need more words to write...which is definitely a possibility with me.)  These ideas that are being so insistent can't be written any time soon.

So they've been jotted down in the book and told to wait.  That I'll get to them eventually. (Honestly, it will probably be sooner rather than later).

In all of this, I think I've come to a conclusion.  I'm not a short story writer.  I can write the stories, but I always have that urge to continue them.  I can never contain them to nothing more than the 5-7 pages that I originally intended them to be.

That's alright.  I love novels, and I love thinking in terms of series.  It just means that every time I write a short story, I risk getting more shiny new ideas that will have to be written down.

Pen Duels

In August of last year a group of friends and I established a critique group.  (We named it A Bitch of Writers) It's one of the greatest things that I've ever done.  We meet on a bi-weekly basis (our submissions are due one monday, we meet the next) and we each critique two other people's work.

In under a year critique group has managed to help me start putting description into my first drafts (my first book ever had absolutely no description.  I didn't even remember what my characters looked like.  I was getting better before joining the group, but now I'm leagues ahead of where I was this time last year.)  It's helped me to recognize when my plot starts to go awry, and I've found myself paying more attention to my wording choice as I'm writing.

Just recently, though, our critique group decided to add a new element to what we do.  For a while we worried about become a writing group, which wasn't our intention at all.  We're already part of a writing group, and while we love writing together, we didn't need to spend time writing in each other's company.  We got together for the purpose of improving our writing.

So, we came up with an alternative.  It's called Pen Duels.  (Yes, we do have to name everything we do.  We're writers, what do you expect?)  Basically, every month and a half to two months we get together and share a story that we've written using a writing prompt.

These prompts, which I send out the Monday after each Pen Duel meet up, whether we have a date for the next one or not, are just little things that each of us has to find a way to work around.  For example, the last Pen Duels featured stories about two existing characters from different books meet up.  We had all kinds of things!  One actually took place inside a video game!

Of course, it was a bit of a coincidence that we all ended up using the same writing prompt.  I send out two (I don't want anyone to feel forced to write something they absolutely hate, so I try to make it a choice.  Whichever one speaks to them is the one they work on.  It seems to have gone over well so far.)

So far I've found it kind of awesome to see how each person interprets the prompt in their own way.  Which is honestly my favourite thing about writing.  How two people can have identical ideas, but have the story end up completely different.

Anyway, we've set it up so, rather than sending in a submission and having everyone go over it and prepare critiques, we instead read it out loud and have a bit of a discussion afterward.  This, of course, took some developing.  Our first one we kind of sat around after the story was over, nodded and said it was good.  Since then we've decided to stick to our critiquing format (we critique seven areas: Plot, Characters, Voice & POV, Dialogue, Description, Scene Structure and Overall), while still holding it as a discussion.

Doing it this way means that we're not only putting our writing skills to work, but we're also keeping it all about critiquing, so there's no fear that we turn into a writing group.

A Bitch of Writers and Pen Duels have improved my writing ten fold.  While they also take up quite a bit of time, I would never regret joining them (or helping to set them up.)  I can't wait to see how my Camp Nano book turns out after months of critique group.

If there's one thing I would recommend to any writer to improve your writing, while studying the craft can help, I would say join a critique group.  There is nothing as valuable as getting direct feedback from other writers.  If you can't find one, take that leap and set it up!  If you make one, others will join.  I can only hope that yours is as successful as ours is.

Stop and Smell the Roses

Today I heard a phrase I'm sure I've heard a thousand time in my life.  Stop and Smell the roses.  I don't think that anyone has specifically said it to me, but I've always known what people have meant by it.  That you can't rush through life.  Sometimes you have to take a break and make sure to enjoy the little things in life.

So when I heard the phrase today, I couldn't help but really stop and think about it.  Mostly because, at the time, I was actually watching a show and procrastinating on my writing.  (Well, rewriting.  I do have an editing goal I need to try and keep as I have beta readers waiting for it.)

I've never really been the one to be busy all the time.  However, in the last year I've found myself doing more and more things, and therefor finding my schedule getting more and more full.  There are weeks when I almost never go home after work.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining.  I love going out with my friends.  I love my critique group and all the different things I've been doing since starting writing.

So now, for the first time in my life, I find myself actually able to appreciate the saying.  I understand what it's like to get so caught up in everything that's been going on with my life that I forget to stop and see or appreciate all those little things.  I've done it, where all I can think about is the stress of getting a book written, or edited and forget that I love this.  I love creating a story, and there's nothing I want more than to share those stories with everyone else.

Of course, getting stressed means I start to feel overwhelmed.  When that happens I tend to stop working on whatever it is I need to get done.  Unfortunately that means I start smelling the roses a little too much.  I just stop.  I'll do pretty much anything to not work on the writing or editing that I have to do.  Today that happened in the form of watching the first season of Dead Like Me.

I know how to stop and smell the roses.  I do it all the time, even when I really shouldn't be.  That doesn't mean that I disagree with the message of it.  It doesn't matter what's going on in your life.  How stressful everything is, or how much you  have to do, every once in a while, you need to stop and take a deep breath.  Look around and realize that life isn't always about that to do list.  Sometimes it's about taking those thirty minutes you don't think you can spare to have a meal in the park while listening to the birds sing.  Sometimes it's finding the time in a week to watch that show you absolutely adore, because it inspires you, or even just entertains you.

Sometimes it's not about doing something.  Sometimes it's about not doing something.

Unfortunately for me, right now it has to be about doing something.  The roses will be there when I'm done, though, and I'm looking forward to smelling them again.

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.

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!