Editing Bound

Well, Nano is over for another year, and I once more find myself sitting in December wondering how I'm going to edit all of the words I wrote during November.  The answer, of course, is one book at a time.  I just wish I was faster at the editing process than I currently am.

Anyway, as I'm sure all of you noticed, my blog got a little bit of an update this week.  I (sadly) took down the donation link to nano (though if you would like to donate, just visit www.nanowrimo.org and you can definitely make the donationt here).  It will be back next year, though I won't be travelling to San Francisco in 2013.

You might also notice that I've added a 'goals' section.  This is very important, because I have a lot of goals for next year, and I'm hoping that tracking them here will make me focus on them a bit more.  Now, I didn't want to discriminate, so any and all goals I have will be making it into that section.  You'll see that getting Pandora submission worthy is first on the list.  What isn't there is getting it to Beta's by the 24th.  I decided not to add that, because technically the list is for 2013 goals, and that's still 2012.

I've actually started to continue reading through Pandora to get it edited (almost done.  On chapter 35 of 40) and I'm finding that there are actually some chapters that I enjoy reading!  This is shocking because I'm definitely my biggest critic.  I will sit there and rip my stuff to shreds, and then I hate putting it back together again.  I think this is why I don't enjoy editing as much as some of my friends do.  Anyway, the point is, I didn't find myself cringing during every chapter, and I think that means that maybe I'm ready to start raking in the rejection letters! (Let's face it, we're talking about a werewolf book.  While I think it's great, most places are going to tell me that it's a hard sell...)

Of course, I'm still waiting to hear back for the short story I submitted.  I'm not frantically checking every email, because I almost want it to take longer.  Every day I don't hear back is another day that I haven't been rejected, so I'm looking at it as a good thing that it's been over a month since the submission!

I'm slowly reorganizing myself to truly become serious about writing.  I always thought that last year I was ready for it, but I didn't even begin to be serious enough to truly make it as a writer.  I'm not quitting my day job just yet, but I'm going to crack down.  I'm going to follow through on my goals, and I'm going to be published.  Maybe not this year, but soon.  I have so many stories that I want to share with the world!

P.S. I have decided that, for now at least, the Sunday and Wednesday schedule is good for the blog, so I'm going to stick to that!

The Interference (Day 3)

Today is the third day of nano and the first official write in of the season! (I never count the kick off...not sure why. Could have something to do with the utter lack of sleep)

I should be excited. Hell, I should be ecstatic! There should be some jumping off of the walls going on, huge grins, and barely contained energy that has the rest of the world looking at me like I've just been let out of the loony bin.

Somehow, though, the day has fallen flat.

Why? Well, the answer to that is simple. You see, I'm working. My day job (For those of you counting, yes I am planning doing 320,000 words while working a full time job, but rest assured, I have taken the last two weeks of November off. Both for the trip to San Francisco and to take some of the pressure off...last year, though, there was no vacation...just saying.)

I work at a registry. That means that I spend my day doing things like handing out licenses, renewing registrations and listening to people bitch to me about the speeding ticket they got for doing ONLY 115 on deerfoot. It's not exactly the most inspiring of atmospheres. In fact, it's the opposite of inspiring.

To make matters worse, I got to stare at the clock and see that everyone was already at the write in while I was ordering people birth certificates and trying to explain why you can't just switch over your Indian License to an Alberta one, because there are rules and laws and policies in place that prevent me from doing it.

All in all, I'm losing a little of the nano spirit as I sit at my desk listening to the issues everyone is having today. All I want to do is be at home (or better yet, the library) writing away. Working to hit my 11k that is my goal for the day.

Unfortunately, the day job is something that I need to do in order to survive. As I'm not yet published, my writing doesn't support me, and I need to pay the bills somehow.

So, in order to help ourselves feel just a little better, my friend and I have decided to throw our own little write in (it's just going to be the two of us). Neither of us could attend today's event due to work, so we'll head down to our usual Denny's and write up a storm all by ourselves.

Here's hoping I can hit my goal!!

Have you attended any of your regions events this year?

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Daily Word Count: 7,151

Total Word Count: 34,834

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.

Gotta Love Our Day Jobs

Like most beginning writers, I work a day job so that I can continue to write without worrying about pesky things like paying the bills.  It's not something I particularly enjoy doing.  First of all, it involves customer service, and those of you who have been in customer service know how annoying that can be.  People tend to be even more stupid than you originally think.

Next, I work in a registry.  That means that I do things like issue drivers licenses, car registrations, marriage licenses, birth certificates and lots of other things that people associate with government buildings and long lines.  Except that in Alberta Registries are privatized, so I don't actually work for the government.  I don't get any of the benefits of a government job, but still have to deal with things like fines on accounts that people don't want to take responsibility for and getting yelled at for policies and laws that I obviously had nothing to do with getting them put in place.

It's not horrible either.  I've worked some pretty bad jobs, especially in the years where I didn't know what I wanted to do.  Those years were a string of bad jobs while I settled on five different career choices I could have before moving on to another one.

Still, if there's one thing I've learned over the last year and a half, it's that I want to be a writer.  I'm never happier than when I'm writing my current project.  Even editing, tedious as I may find it, leaves me at least with a feeling of accomplishment.  I'm sure that my family probably thought it was going to be a temporary idea of a career path when I first started on this journey, just like all of the other ones.  The thing is, this is the first thing I've found that I can actually see myself still doing in three years, ten years, even when I'm old and ready to retire.  This is what I want to do.

Unfortunately, writing isn't one of those careers that you can throw a resume at, hope for a good interview than work your way up.  Instead it takes spending a lot of time on a manuscript, query letter, tag line and synopses.  It requires you to send out this project that is basically you baring your soul to complete strangers and praying that they like it as much as you do.  It means getting rejection letter after rejection letter until you find the right fit with an agent, publisher or even just deciding that you would rather self publish.

It's a grueling process that not everyone can get through, and I sometimes wish that I could find something easier to do with my life, but I know that this is what I want to do.

For example, last Wednesday there was an incident that brought down nearly all of the systems that we use at the registry.  We thought it would be up the next day, but in fact we didn't get up and going until yesterday morning.  That means that I basically had 5 days where I was either off or worked shorter hours.

I was worried about the money at first (we worked it out in the end, so I'm not worried about it anymore.) but that was until I realized how I was actually feeling about this break.  I used the extra time to write, to plan and to edit.  I basically buried myself in the writing process, and by the end of the day on Monday, I was in a great mood.  I mean, I don't remember the last time I was in this good of a mood.

Going back to work on Tuesday and working 10 hours took away from that feeling, but now that I've had the tiniest taste of life where I'm not working two full time jobs making sure that my bills are paid while still doing all the writing I can, I know that this is all I want to do.  I want to be published.  I want to make enough money to survive off of writing.  I don't want to have to dread going into work every single day for 8 hours, just to feel too drained to do anything when I get home.

While I can't rush the process of writing, I can commit to it.  I will be published one day.  Eventually you're going to see D.C. Menard on the shelf at your local bookstore, and I'm going to be able to go down to part time or even quit, and then I think I will be pretty damn happy.