The Plans of a Planner

As I'm certain you are all aware by now, I have a million things I want to do this year.  And every day seems to bring with it something else that I'm desperately wanting to try.  I have writing conferences, and editing.  Rewriting and drafting.  Critiquing and writing exercises.  All of which take time.  Time, that I've come to realize, that I just don't have.

I've always had the issue where I realize that I can do something, and I decide that I'm going to do even more.  (This is called being competitive with oneself.  It's not the healthiest thing in the world to do.  And yet, I find it hard to stop...) Then I end up setting ridiculous goals for myself that there's not way I'm ever going to finish, and get frustrated when instead of succeeding, I get overwhelmed and end up getting less done than I would have if I hadn't over planned everything and tried to make myself do more than is humanly possible.  (Don't be fooled by the nickname, folks.  Much as my writing group likes to call me a robot, I really am still human.  I swear it.)

So, this year, when I set up all of my goals, certain that I needed to do all of it while still working forty hours a week at my day job, I was blissfully unaware that I was falling into the same cycle that I always find myself in.  I'll tell you one thing: Ignorance is not bliss.  And whoever said it was should be shot.

I made it through January alright.  February, I stumbled.  A lot.   This had something to do with some feedback I got on a project that I had labelled nearly finished, and had to look at under the microscope again.  So, instead of writing the first draft of the second book, I rewrote half of the first book and scraped pretty much the entire plot that I already had worked out for the second one.

In March I seemed to find my feet again, though I also began to realize that I hadn't made any allowances for unexpected things coming along, and started to sort through what I had planned for the year.  First to go were the writing exercises.  I wanted to do all 201 this year, but I hit a road block at about 17, was never really able to recover, and soon found myself so far behind that the thought of them just stressed me out.  For the good of my health (and the projects that trying to catch up on those exercised would have taken time away from) I decided that it wasn't worth it to continue.  I will get back to them eventually.  They were a lot of fun, and I was learning from them, but right now it's just not feasible.

I did manage to get the planning done on a novel I wanted to completely rewrite.  I decided I was going to do Dangerous Waters in April, but because I finished the planning early in March, I started writing then too.  I even made it to 25k before Camp Nano officially started!

Which, of course, is when my motivation decided that it wanted to rest for a while and I found myself completely engrossed in a tv series, and unable to pull myself away from the story line to work on, well, anything.

Now I've managed to catch up on my camp nano goal (though I'm still only planning on 50k, and I'll need another 75k afterward to finish this project) as well as fairly up to date on the script project myself and a couple of friends have going on.

While I know what months I'm going to be writing during (Junowrimo, Camp Nano - July editing, and Nano, of course) the rest of the months are up in the air.  And I think I prefer it that way.  Even if I am a planner.

Of course, I might be less worried about getting everything done if my current obsession wasn't a book that I don't need to have even planned out until next April, but that's another blog post.

Here's the real question: Will I, one of the biggest planners around, be able to pants my way through the year?

The Big Distraction

During Nano I always have this incredible focus.  I'm not sure what, exactly, about that month that allows me to just lose myself in my writing.  I've theorized in the past that it's the competition.  Anyone who knows me is aware of just how much that drives me through the month.  Watching my word count rise, and comparing it to that of the counts around me.  I find that incredibly motivating.

I've also wondered if it's just because there are so many people around doing the same thing as me.  Having the ability to go on the chat and know that every person there is struggling to get out the words they need to meet those goals is highly motivating.  It tells me that I'm not alone.  That we're in it together.

Whatever it is, though, it's certainly not present right now.

I've challenged myself to do NaNoEdMo.  Basically I have to edit for 50 hours this month. I haven't done too bad so far.  I've actually finished the book I was editing, and I've moved on to another project.  This one is getting completely rewritten, and it requires a lot of planning on my part so that I don't end up with the same issues that I had with it in the first place.

I'm counting it all as editing, because this isn't a first draft.  Well, technically it is.  There was so much wrong with that original draft, I can't even really call it an outline at this point.  But, to me, all of those hours that I put into that original draft weren't wasted.  It helped me to get to the point with my writing where I feel like I have the ability to write the story that it originally deserved to be, so I'm counting it as a rewrite and therefore editing.

I'm also going to count it as writing next month, but that's completely besides the point.

The point is that I've edited for seventeen and a half hours so far this month.  I'm supposed to be at twenty-two hours.

Why am I behind?  That's simple: distraction.  I'm not blaming the distractions themselves.  Is it Deception's fault that when I watched the first episode I couldn't stop watching it until I finished?  No!  Is it my friends fault that I would rather hang out in my email and wait to see what they say next rather than opening my scrivener project and getting to work?  No!  Is it my cat's fault that I walked away from my computer to go cuddle with her for twenty minutes so she would stop meowing outside my door?  Okay...that one might be on the cat.  But she didn't know that she was distracting me!

I can't concentrate.  I don't know why.  I tell myself that I'll do something, and then I just don't.  I need to figure out how to capture the feeling of NaNo in a bottle so that I can take a swig anytime I need a kick in the butt.

Until then, though, I suppose I'll just have to rely on twitter and my friends there to keep me going.  I need to have, at the very least, the planning for this book done before next month.  No more procrastinating.  No more telling myself that I can catch up on my next day off.  I need to focus.

Now to just tell my motivation that.

How do you keep your motivation in check?  Do you ever find your attention wandering, even when you really want to be working?

The Future in Recap

Lately I've been watching a sci fi show based in Vancouver called Continuum.  It's about a group of people from the future that get out of prison (and their sentence of death) by travelling back into the past.  Except, instead of the six years they intended to go, they find themselves sixty-five years in the past.  Namely, they find themselves in 2012 (though I assume that it moves into 2013, as this actually started last year.)

I've actually been meaning to watch this show since it started, but the reason I finally opened the file on my computer is because I'm currently in the midst of planning out a sci fi, and I want to get a feel for the genre.  Granted, my novel is nothing like this show.  While they're both, at their most basic route, procedurals, my novel is set in a generation ship travelling to a new world.  There will be no time travel in it.  Still, I was able to pick out a few things that I need to watch for when I'm planning and writing my novel.

1) The language.  At one point one of the young members of the terrorist group that went back said something that was purely 2012 slang.  Now, I suppose this could be explained away because they were trying to blend in, but the truth is, in 2077 their slang and English is going to be a lot different than ours.  Language evolves.  While the core language stays the same, slang develops, and eventually our language accepts it.  So I find it just a little bit odd that in 65 years they somehow haven't developed new slang and are still using ours.  After all, we certainly don't speak the same as the people who were alive in the forties or the fifties.

For my novel, however, while I still need to figure out some new slang that would have developed before they took off from earth in this ship.  Once their on the ship, however, preserving their culture and language would most likely be a priority for them.  While they would have acquired new phrases simply to refer to their new circumstances in their surroundings, their language shouldn't be all that different.

2) Familiarity of the characters with their surroundings.  One of the things that this show does great is make sure that we understand just how comfortable the characters are with everything.  The main character --  a cop in the future who was accidentally transported to the past when she tried to stop the terrorist group from escaping -- is extremely comfortable with her own tech, which isn't available in the time she now finds herself in.  But at the same time, she's completely unfamiliar with the things around her in present day.  For example, when putting on mascara she has a hard time of it.  And driving a car?  Not something she learned at sixteen, that's for sure.

My first step is, of course, figuring out what their technology is going to look like.  Once I figure that out, though, I have to make sure that my character's aren't acting like this is something they've never seen before. They need to not just be familiar with it, but adept as well.  Their technology would actually probably be old for them, as it's highly unlikely that their technology is advancing while they're in space.  So it might not all work as well as it once did.

3) The differences in the world that have happened between now and then.  One of the things that really gets me is that in 2077 apparently corporal punishment is something that has been accepted in Canada.  To me, I think of this as a step back for our culture, but that's not really the problem I have with it.  The biggest problem I have with it is that it has yet to be explained how we managed to get from a world where we didn't have corporal punishment to one where it's an actual option.  I've been told by my friend who has seen more episodes than me that they do eventually tell us what I want to know, but every time they talk about it (because it is a major plot point) I get just a little bit more annoyed.  While I understand that you can't throw in all of that kind of information without it being obvious that's what you're doing, I do think they had ample time to get that information across.

In my own story, the changes will be fairly obvious from the get go, and getting that information out to the readers is going to be difficult.  I highly doubt that most of my characters will be thinking about the reason they're out in space, since it really is an every day occurrence for them.  I haven't figured out how I'm going to do this yet, but I am aware of the problem, and am going to figure it out.

There are many more problems that writing a sci fi deals with.  Like, for instance, how they're travelling from world to world.  What kind of technology they would have that allows them to get between the planets without having to wait years.  But I think it's kind of part of the fun.  Kind of.  After all, I was never that good in science class.

But I will get there.  Eventually this book will be planned, and I will be writing it either in June or July.  I'm excited, as it's a genre I've never tried to write before, while at the same time being utterly nervous for the exact same reason.

What do you guys think?  What annoys you when you're reading (or watching) a sci fi?  And how much science do you like to see in your sci fi?

A Tangled Mess of Cords

If there is one thing everyone knows about me, it's that I hate editing.  With a passion.  If I could, I would just write out perfect first drafts and never have to look at it again.  Sadly, because flawless first drafts are something dreams are made of, I have come to the realization that I will never be able to pump out first drafts that people should actually read.

I've accepted this as fact, and have moved on with my life.  So now I spend my time trying to look at editing in different ways.  Sometimes it's to try and show myself just how necessary editing really is (I once compared it to surgery.  The novel is broken, and when it goes into the operating room the bad parts are taken out and new stuff is put in to help fix it.  Not a perfect analogy, but close enough).  This latest one, though, was more to just explain how I feel when I'm editing.  So, I thought I would share it with you, so you could understand just why I hate editing so much.

I know from experience what the most annoying thing in the world is reaching into your pocket and pulling out the tangled mess of headphones that the perfectly knotted bundle you put in your pocket that morning has become.  I swear sometimes the headphones actually knot themselves, because that's the only explanation that I can come up with for how they end up so tangled.

Now, take those knotted headphones and add a whole bunch of other cords, all of them the deepest black so that you're not quite sure where one starts and the next end.  Or if the knots are even knots or just massive lumps of cord that have somehow formed out of what was once perfectly fine headphones.

That is what editing feels like to me.

I don't just mean that moment when I first pull the headphones out of my pocket, though I certainly do get that feeling when I first print off my manuscript and read thought it.  No, it's the process of untangling those headphones that is rather like editing.

The first thing you do is choose one cord.  Of course, you never know what this cord is attached to, but you're really hoping it's the headphones.  And you start to follow it until you get to the first knot, which is never all that hard to undo.  You laugh a little because this is going to be so much easier than you first thought.  Surely everything was going to be just as simple as that, and therefore you had nothing to worry about.

Right around then is when you hit the second knot.  Except this isn't just a knot.  It's a super knot.  It started out as a single knot that somehow got caught up with other knots.  Cord tangled around it, leaving you with a zillion strings coming out of it, and no idea how to even start untangling it.  That's when that tiny bit of hope you had been feeling disappears.

Eventually you get through it, painstakingly unravelling every knot, separating the cords so that you know which one is when, and when you're done...you have a cord in your hand that isn't tied to anything.

You have to start over.  For just a second you consider going to the store and buying new headphones.  Surely that must be easier than untangling this mess, right?  But, no.  You can't go to the store every time they get tangled.  You're never going to end up with those magical headphones that won't tangle (Okay, actually there are untangleable headphones, but shhh!)  No, you really should just suck it up and keep untangling.

So you grab a new cord and start all over again, painstakingly picking at each knot.  Slowly unravelling it, and discarding unusable cords along the way.  The further into it that you get, the more clearly you start to see the end.  You can see the loops and knots that created this mess, and you start to see how you can fix it.  You know before you unravel which cords aren't attached to the headphones, and you start to feel like maybe -- just maybe -- you can get them untangled!

And, eventually, you do.  Eventually those headphones come loose with one final tug, leaving you finally able to listen to your music in peace.  And in that brief shining moment you forget that the next time you put those headphones in your pocket they'll tangle again.  You ignore that those headphones are imperfect, with tiny knots that you didn't quite get still hanging around in it's length, and you relish the music that pours through them.

That is how I feel about editing.  And the next draft I do tends to get better and better.  Until I send it out to beta readers, and then it feels like I have those same cords in my hands begging to be untangled.  But, I know that eventually I will get through it.  I just have to take it one knot at a time!

How do you feel about editing?  Do you even find yourself wondering if that book is even worth it in the end?

Master Manipulators

My favourite characters in books are the ones that seem to be behind everything.  And yet, they never seem to be behind anything.

I realize that sounds contradictory, but anyone that reads a decent amount of books knows what I'm talking about.  They're the characters that you're fairly certain are idiots who have no idea about anything going on, but then turn out to be the ones behind it the entire time.  Where at the end of the book you think 'no freaking you.  Seriously?  You're the one that did that?'

Sometimes, of course, I have to wonder if the author intended that to happen.  Because, as a writer, I've got to tell you: I very rarely am intentionally creating those characters.

On more than one occasion I have started writing a character that I assumed was background, only to have the entire story turn around at the end and I suddenly realize that the character I thought was no one was more important than any other character in the story.

Why am I talking about this?  Normally these sorts of speculation are brought on by one of my own characters.  But, no.  This time it's because of a critique that I gave today.

In the book we've been critiquing, the author has lined up this character who often appears to simply be stumbling through the world, unsure of what he's doing or if he's even heading in the right direction, and yet things tend to work out for him.  Up until this point in the book, I was wavering between him being competent, and everything just being a happy coincidence.

Unfortunately I have a bit of an insider's point of view, as I know exactly who is pulling the strings, but at the same time, I still don't know all of the details.

This past chapter, though, that character finally pulled up his socks and admitted that he was, in fact, competent.  That he wasn't just a puppet whose strings are being pulled, and that he could manipulate at least those closest to him without too much trouble.

It was nice to see.  Because I enjoy those characters (so long as they're not completely evil with no redeeming qualities) he instantly shot up in my regard.  Suddenly he's far less of a character whose chapters I have to suffer through, and much more one that I look forward to reading about.

As for my own writing, manipulators seem to be few and far between.  At least in my current project (Birth) where all I have is a main character whose voice I can't seem to figure out.

But that's another blog post (check back Wednesday...) For now I'm going to impatiently wait until next week when I should get the next chapter in the book I'm critiquing and see where he takes it.

What's your favourite kind of character?  Do you ever wonder if authors do everything in their novels on purpose?

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.

My Protagonistic Views

Yesterday I read a question that someone had asked a published author.  It was: Why are so many books written from the point of view of a female?  They were implying that most books tend to have a female protagonist.

The author replied by telling them some statistics that showed that, in fact, most books were actually written from a male perspective.  For years, in fact, female protagonists were quite rare when it came to published works.

To be honest, my favourite books tend to have female protagonists.  That's not to say that I won't read anything else.  I enjoyed many books that had male perspectives.  Not the least of which was Lord of the Flies. I read it during school, and I loved it.

Since high school, though, I've found myself gravitating more towards the female perspective.  Why?  I have a theory.  Because I am female.  Therefore, I find it easier to relate to the female characters and understand their motivations.  This doesn't keep me from reading the male perspective.  I've read the Harry Potter series, and I thoroughly enjoy Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series, along with the rest of his books.  Most are from the male perspective.

Each person has their own preferences when it comes to reading, just as anything else in the world.

As a writer, I think that each of us tends to gravitate more toward what we like to read.  I, for instance, prefer female protagonists, so that's what I use when I'm writing.  When the characters introduce themselves to me, it's always the females that are more prominent and demanding.  They want to be heard, and they usually drag some male characters along with them.

That doesn't mean that I'm never going to write from the male perspective, though.  I have a couple characters that are wanting their point of view to come out.  Neither of them are my protagonist, but they're there and insistent

I do want to write a book from a male perspective.  There's just one little problem.  You see, it's hard to write something that you don't know.  I know that I don't know the male perspective.  I tried to write a middle grade during nano that was from the perspective of a ten year old boy.  It didn't go very well.

But I'm not going to give up!  Maybe not this year (just because I have so much going on this year already, and adding another book would only earn me a sigh from my boyfriend as he shook his head and reminded me that he would like to see me at some point) but eventually I will find a story idea that I want to write from the male perspective.

While I'm writing it, I'll probably pick the minds of all the men I know, trying to make sure that it's as accurate as possible.

But until then, I will be sticking with the female perspective.

What do you like to read?  What do you like to write?  Have you ever tried to write from the other perspective before?

In With the New!

This week me and a couple of my friends are starting a brand new project.  Something that none of us have ever done before, and that we all thought would be so much fun, we just had to do it: We're writing a script!

This all started last year when we realized that during Script Frenzy (a program that was offered by the Office of Letters and Light where the goal was to write 100 pages of script in a month) you could work as a team.  None of us thought that we would be very good at writing scripts by ourselves, but if we were working together we might actually have a chance of coming up with something noteworthy.

Of course, by the time we figured this all out, the month was nearly over, and we didn't have time to be starting anything new.  So we decided that we would put it off until this year.  That this year we were going to do script frenzy together!

You know how sometime life has a way of looking at the plans that you make and laughing in your face?  Usually it's rolling on the ground laughing hysterically until you walk away.  And even then it continues to laugh, though now it's doing so while trying to gasp out a 'wait, come back' and following after you with it's arms crossed over it's stomach because it was laughing too hard.

No?  Just me then?

Anyway, we made these plans and we thought 'this is going to be great!' and then OLL announced that it would have to regrettably drop Script Frenzy.  That since they started it, sign up rates had held steady or gone down, and the program wasn't making enough money to keep itself going.

The decision makes sense, of course.  If they're losing too much money on a project that isn't growing, why would they keep it open?  The timing was just bad.  One year earlier, and we would have managed it.

Of course, the one thing that you should know about me and my friends is that we're all damn stubborn.  We decided that we really didn't care if Script Frenzy was technically still up and running!  We were going to do a script in April no matter what!

So, in April we will be writing seven episodes (one an hour long, the others half an hour) of an original script that we've come up with.  I won't be sharing the plot of it at this point, mostly because I'm not sure we have an actual plot at this point, but I'm very excited about this.

It's the first time I'll be working on a script, and each one will be collaborative (every episode will have two writers.).  It should be an interesting experience.  With any luck, we'll have a usable script at the end of the month.  If not, well, at least we'll have tried something new.  Because nothing makes you a better writer than trying.

What are some new things that you have planned for the year?

This Feels Familiar

Today I get to do the very thing I've been so happy to not do so far this year: I get to tell you that I'm falling behind on my goals.

Yep.  You read that correctly, I'm finally falling behind.

January set me up to think that this year was going to be different.  That I was going to get through all of my goals, and I was going to be amazed at how productive I was.  Turns out, though, that I'm still quite capable of not finishing.  Of procrastinating for hours until I realize that I no longer have time to finish everything I need to get finished.

I'm not being down on myself, despite the slightly depressed tone of this post.  No, I happen to know that falling behind on goals is something that everyone does, and I know that I can turn it around if I just put my mind to it.

I also know that today isn't the day that's going to happen.

Today I have plans.  Ones that will eat up most of the hours of the day, and I only have another two hours to get as much as I possibly can done before I have to take off.  Two hours in which I have to shower, get ready to go, finish my laundry, and make my lunch for tomorrow.

Needless to say, I'm not anticipating getting much done today.  It's a depressing thought, seeing as how I'm so far behind.

Thankfully, I know that I have Tuesday off.  And I don't have any plans at night (and will not be making any) so I'm planning on getting completely caught up that day.

So, what do I have to do in order to get caught up on those goals?  Let me show you:

1) Complete 5 Epiphanies (writing exercises)
2) Edit the short story I wrote for Pen Duels
3) Write 13,000 words of Malice
4) Do two critiques

Those are my goals for the end of day Tuesday.  I have plans tomorrow too, so I'm going to have to work all day Tuesday in order to get caught up.

I think I can do it, I just need to stay focused.  Which has not traditionally been my strong suit.  But I did it last month, and I'm going to do it this month too.  I just have to keep moving forward.  Don't look back.  Don't question.  Just do it.

And don't think about all the things I have to do the rest of the year, or I start to feel overwhelmed.

What do you do when you find yourself falling behind?  How do you keep yourself on track?

It's A Celebration

This year, as I'm sure you've all noticed by now, I have a lot of goals.  I want to prove to myself that I can be a prolific writer.  That I have the capability of producing four complete (and well written) novels in one year. Of course, I am hoping that one day I'll be able to support myself with my writing (despite being advised to keep the steady job.  If I'm making enough money on my books, unsteady as that money may be, I don't think I could stomach working the day job) right now I've got a full time job that takes a significant chunk of my writing time.

So January first I started editing the first of four books that I'm hoping to get to the second draft (at least) before the end of the year.

Stolen Magick.  One of the four novels I wrote during Nano.  The first one, in fact, and the one I liked the most, despite all the headaches it gave me.  I had two characters show up that I wasn't planning on.  One character that didn't step up, even though I had made a character bible for her, a love interest that wasn't supposed to be there and more subplots than I could have ever planned out.

The way I judge how well a book goes is by how much happens that wasn't planned.  So I did pretty well.

Anyway, the goal was to have it done by the end of January.  But I've never been very good at keeping my goals.  I find them too arbitrary.  They aren't deadlines, they're just dates I pulled off the calender and decided was the day I was going to have it by done.  There's nothing holding me to that except myself, and I'm not very good at holding myself accountable.

So, when in a day of uninterrupted wordmongering I realized that I had actually finished the book and BEFORE SCHEDULE, my first thought was 'what?'

Yep.  I didn't believe it.  Even though I print off my books and there was literally no more pages to turn.   Even though I had just read the ending that I had written.  Even though I had been on track with my goal all month.  Despite all of that, I still didn't believe that I was done the book.

But I was.  Only to a second draft, don't get too excited.  And I'm already thinking that I need to play with the structure before anyone sees it.  None of that matters though, because the biggest thing here is that I accomplished my goal!

I have huge goals this month, and it's going to be key to finish the small ones in time.  So it's awesome that I'm not falling behind already.  2013 is turning out to be great so far.

Now to celebrate.  What should I do?  Here are the options:

1) Start rewriting Dangerous Waters (and epic fantasy that's far too short)
2) Start rewriting The Commons (A YA that I love, but it was just all wrong)
3) Start rewriting The Descendants (My first ever book, and a YA), or
4) Watch TV shows until February.

What do you guys think?  Post below!!

Shackled to the Shelves

Lately I've been reading a book entitled 'How To Write Science Fiction & Fantasy' by Orson Scott Card.  If you haven't guess, it's a craft book that helps you to write science fiction and fantasy.  While I do normally write within the fantasy genre (technically Urban Fantasy) sci-fi is a realm well outside of what I would normally even so much as read.

So I bought the book, and started reading it yesterday.  So far it's been really interesting.  We haven't gotten much into the hows of writing.  He started the book by trying to define the borders of science fiction.

It's really not as easy as it sounds, as science fiction is an extremely fluid genre.  It covers so much that's it's practically impossible to define the edges of it.  Regardless of that, he did a good job.  I believe I have a much better idea of what sci-fi is, and where my stories could fit into it.

During this process, however, he talked about being published sci-fi and getting stuck within the confines of that genre.

Now, with a genre such as sci-fi, this could be not so bad, simply because of how fluid it is.  A lot can fit under the header of 'sci-fi and fantasy'.  However, it got me thinking about my own writing, and how diverse it can be.

I will write anything from High Fantasy, to Sci-Fi to YA, to literary fiction (though those are few and far between for me.  I tend to prefer a little mystic in my novels).  The last thing I want is to be confined to a single genre for my entire career (assuming, of course, that my career ever does take off and I don't spend my life going from one day job to another...but that's another story altogether.)

My first novel that I'm hoping to publish is an Urban Fantasy.  Set around a werewolf (who happens to be an assassin) and what she goes through in order to satisfy her morals.  (Yep...you read that right...morals.  Go figure, right?)

My second novel is a YA centered around a young girl who discovers that she has the ability to manipulate (and communicate with) water.  It's about as different from Pandora as you can get.

Then there's the Sci-Fi I'm in the middle of planning.

With those three novels alone, I already know that I'm not going to be able to always publish under the same genre.

This gave me a moment of worry.  I mean, am I going to be pushing away publishers and agents because I don't write only in one genre?  Is that going to effect my fan base, or publishability?  Was I making it harder on myself than I need to, just because of what I'm writing?  Should I define myself as one type of writer?

It took me a second, but I managed to calm down. (I'd like to point out, this isn't the book's fault, but rather my own overactive imagination that cast shadows across books that aren't even written yet)

Yes, there will be agents or publishers out there that might be put off by a multi-genre author.  But, obviously, those are not the agents or publishers that I want to be dealing with.  I refuse to be caged into one genre.  In fact, I demand to be allowed to move as I will, and write what I chose!

A friend of mine Eric A. Satchwill said it the best:  'Let us fly and frolic freely among the wild worlds of words!  Shake off the shackles of the shelves!'

We're writers.  We live in the worlds created by our imaginations!  Why should we be limited to one world because someone says that's who we are?  We are free to be whomever we want, no matter how many books have made it to the shelves.

I am undefinable.  I am not a Sci-Fi writer.  I am not a YA writer.  I'm not even an Urban Fantasy writer.  I'm a writer, plain and simple, and I will not limit the worlds that I live in each and every day of my life!

Do you think that writers should be confined to one genre simply because they've been published there before?

Oh, The Joys of Writing

Today I get to kill someone.  Okay, well I get to decide who gets killed, but not actually kill them.

Before you call the cops, I suppose I should explain.  My epiphany (which is what I'm calling the writing exercises I've been working on) today requires me to gather together three or four ordinary people whose task it is to decide who should be killed.  I'm not allowed to convey why they have to do this, and I'm not supposed to reveal their thought process, other than what is spoken out loud to each other, and the death is not supposed to happen in the scene.

My first reaction when I read the assignment?  This is going to be fun!

Which started me thinking.  Just how sadistic am I?  This is a topic that my friends and I have all the time.  And our non-writer friends usually give us that look like they're worried we're about to have a mental breakdown.  We don't take offense to that.  If we were them we would probably be worried about the same thing.

Because I'm a writer, though, I understand the thought process that goes into the idea that having a group of ordinary people deciding on who they're going to kill is fun.  I understand that if this were happening in real life, I would be absolutely horrified.  No doubt I would seeing a news story about it, my mouth would drop open and I would think  'that's terrible!'

The fact is, though, the person getting killed is a character.  And not just any character, but my own character.

While I often contend that my characters are real to me, the truth is I know just how not real they are.  And how real I need to make them feel.

That's the heart of it, really.  We as writers are aware of just how not real our characters are.  And we know that our readers will feel the same way.  So we make them real by putting them in situations that no one would ever want to be in and force them to make a decision, or react.  That's how we can make them 'real' even in our own heads.  That's how they get their voices and personalities.  It's how we form them in our heads.

So when I say that it will be 'fun' to place characters in this situation, what I really mean is this is going to be interesting.  To see how there characters grow and develop in the short amount of time I'm giving them.

To see what answer they come up with.

Now I'm going to go force my characters to make an impossible decision.  Wish me luck.

What's the worst situation you've ever put a character in?

Productive Days

This isn't something I get to talk about very often.  In fact, most of the time I'm complaining about how far behind I am in all of my goals.  But not today.  No, today I get to tell you all about the productive day I had on Sunday.

It started out fairly well.  Without the use of an alarm clock, I was up by ten.  (For those of you who know me, you'll know that this really is a feat.  I tend to sleep in when there's nothing waking me up).  As I thought it was closer to noon or one, I started the day on a happy note.

I didn't get up right away (because, why would I?) but I also didn't go back to sleep, which I'm pretty proud of.

By eleven, though, I had already gotten to work.  The first order of business was to catch up on the editing that I hadn't managed to get to the two days before.  That wasn't difficult, as I'd already gone through the chapters, I just had to put the changes into the computer.

Then came the blog post, which was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be.  See, I had tried to do my epiphany, and got a little stuck, so I wrote a blog post, which helped with my idea for the epiphany.

By the time I had done all of that, it was about one, and all I had left to do for the day was to do the two chapters of editing that I had scheduled for that day.

I'll admit, I slacked off a little at this point.  I might have gotten distracted by gag reels of comedies.  It started with How I Met Your Mother and quickly progressed on to Friends.  I had a few good laughs, but eventually I had to get back to work.

When I had finished my daily editing for the day (and had even managed to polish off the epiphany for Monday and got it all set up to post) I decided that I deserved a treat for sticking to my work all day (I don't really count the slacking off.  It was just a break, I swear!)

Anyway, I decided to watch Pitch Perfect, which I've seen before, but can't seem to get enough of.  It was a nice little way to reward myself, and when I was done, I thought, I might as well get a bit more work done.

So I did my Monday editing, and threw together another blog post (yep, this one right here) just to give myself a kick start for the week.

Now, if that isn't a productive day, please, tell me what is!

I'm happy with the progress I made.  I'm sticking to my goals for the year, which is surprising me.  I'm not usually good about keeping them.  Generally I procrastinate so long that it's no longer plausible for me to finish on time, and decide that I might as well just push back that deadline since I'm not going to meet it anyway.

With the way this year has been going, I'm going to accomplish all of my goals.  My first novel of the year is going to be edited to the second draft by the end of the month, and I couldn't be happier!

Now I'm going to go...I don't know...maybe work on another chapter of editing that doesn't need to be done yet.

How are your goals for the year going?  Have you started on any of them yet?

Blood, Sweat and Epiphanies

This year, as I'm sure you all know, I've decided to do all 201 writing exercises in Brian Kiteley's The 3 A.M. Epiphany. (I've been calling them my epiphanies, and you can check them at here)

So far they've been really hard.  Some days I stare at the exercise and think 'What?  I can't do that!  Who can do that?'  I've had stories where I could only use I or me twice in the entire thing.  I've had to write from the POV of someone who told a story that wasn't true.  I've had to write from the perspective an entire family.  I'm telling you, it's been really freaking hard.

Today's assignment is to take an old story that I've written and redo it as a first person perspective.  And, while I'm at it, count how many she's I had and cut that in half.  It's probably one of the easier assignments I've had so far, and for a second I thought 'Finally!  I can get this done in no time!'

Nope.  I'm stuck.  What am I stuck on, you ask?  Quite simple: I can't decide which story to rewrite.

I know, it's pathetic.  It's not like I have a shortage of stories or novels.  They're all sitting there on my hard drive wondering if I'm ever going to dust them off and look at them again.  Honestly, I didn't think I would for most of them.  Now I have delve down into the depths of the books that needed far too much work to even make them worthy of critique group.

I have to pick out one of the novels that I didn't want to work with anymore and work on it.  I have to face the characters that I've been ignoring for months, or even years.  What will I say to them?  Will they understand?  Will they hate me forever?

So, rather than facing that decision, I decided to write my blog post super early in the day.

I'm a coward.  I know it, you know it, let's get past it, shall we?

I know I can't put it off for the entire day. (Okay, that's a lie.  I probably could put it off for the entire day.  There is a backlog of shows on the PVR I could watch, and if I really wanted to, I could just do a whole bunch of editing and act like that was what I was going to do all along, but I don't want to.)  I just need to suck it up and find a story that I want to work on again and hope that my characters are still willing to talk to me.

Alright, I'm going to go for it.  Dangerous Waters it is.  I hope that this change will inspire me to get back into that book, because I really did love it.  I even have a map of that world, and every time I look at it I feel a little guilty that I shelved it.

Time to get back to my epiphany.  Come on over and see how it turns out?  Maybe you'll be inspired to do a couple of epiphanies yourself.

When You Just Can't Write

There are times in a writers life where writing just becomes impossible to do.  I'm not talking about writer's block.  For those of you who are wondering, I don't believe in writers block.  Of course sometimes we get held back because we really don't know where the story is going, or we just can't figure out what about the plot isn't working, but I don't believe that's a time to throw in the towel and complain to anyone who is willing to listen about how there's no way the writing is ever getting done and damn you, writer's block.

No, when those uninspiring times hit, in my humble opinion, there's only one thing to do: Write.

Yep.  Do the very thing that you think you can't do.  Even if that scene isn't perfect, or the plot isn't going exactly where you want it to, if you just leave it to sit on the screen and be glared at, nothing is going to happen.  Keep writing, even if what's being put down is utter crap.  You can fix it in editing later, and you'll get past whatever was slowing you down to begin with.

Anyway, as I was saying, I wasn't talking about writer's block.  I'm talking about those days when writing is the last thing you want to do.

Usually these come about for particular reasons.  Like, say, a headache that you just can't shake.  Writing with a headache is like poking a bruise over and over and not understanding why it's hurting more and getting bigger.

When headaches appear, the writing goes away.  I've learned from experience that even if I force myself to write through it, what I produce isn't worth the effort.  I'm talking about unrelated tangents and stupid decisions.  It's just not feasible, at this point, to continue.

Also up there on the list are bad moods.

Don't look at me like that, yes I did just say bad moods.  Not one of those 'my day wasn't spectacular, and I feel bleh' kind of moods.  No, one of those 'Go ahead.  Try it.  See what happens.' kind of moods.

Yesterday I wasn't having a good day.  Nothing overly bad happened.  Well, the car doors were frozen shut, and I did over sleep.  Then my sister managed to piss me off.  And that was all before I even got to work.  Throw in finding out that my books were supposedly delivered last Wednesday (but never arrived) and by the time I opened my computer to begin writing -- or editing, rather -- all I wanted to do was punch someone.

Since none of my characters were about to be punched, I turned to the critiques I was supposed to do.

After a few minutes of trying to get through a paragraph, I gave up.  The last thing I want is to give someone an unjustly harsh critique.  So, rather than being at all productive, I spent the day watching TV shows.

While I regret that I'm not about four chapters behind on my editing goals, I don't regret not working yesterday.  I was in such a foul mood, I didn't talk either on the way to, or on the way home from work.  And, if you know me, you know that's serious.

Today I was hoping to make up for that.  But, as this is the first thing I've done today, and it's already so late, I'm guessing that's not going to happen.

Still, I'm going to do as much as I can tonight, and try to finish the rest tomorrow.

Sometimes writing is harder than we realize it's going to be.  Sometimes we surprise ourselves with how much we can dread the process that we love so much.  But the truth is, just like everything in the world, sometimes we do need a break.  And the biggest challenge we have is to figure out when those breaks are required.

Have you had a day where you just couldn't write?

The Crooked Path of Progress

I read something in one of my books today while I was editing that made me stop and think for a minute.  Not because it was some profound thought (I can't honestly see those in my work, if they're even there or not) but because it made me think about how it relates to a writer.

In my book I mentioned a colouring book that a child had been given a couple of years before (she likes to colour, and they travel quite a bit.  It's become something of a cherished possession.)  In the beginning of the book there were random lines strewn about the page as the child thought that she was colouring.  Soon enough she was colouring in the lines, maybe getting outside once in a while, but staying pretty close, until eventually she was getting good enough that she was starting to add just the beginnings of shading to each picture, crudely drawn in with her cheap wax crayons.

So, just like everything else in the world (or so it seems some days) I started thinking about how that might relate to a writer and what they go through as they try to get published.

Each of us starts out with a pen and paper (or computer and keyboard) and a blank page.  And when we start writing we all think that we're amazing.  That this is the best book anyone in the world has ever written.

Soon enough we see that those words that we thought were so great were really nothing more than scribbles on the page.  (I'm not saying we suck, we're just unpracticed and don't really know what we're doing)

We try again, maybe focusing more on one area or another.  Something that we've noticed we lack in the clutter of colourful lines that don't quite fit together.  Or may something that a friend as discerned, but we plunge forward, always ready to make that mark on the page that proves that we are determined to be writers.  This time we more in the lines, but the colours are all wrong.

Every time we try again, we get a little bit better, until suddenly the colours are right, and suddenly we're seeing that shading coming in.  Rather than stumbling over dialogue that makes us cringe, it flows through, and all of a sudden we're seeing foreshadowing that we didn't even know was going to be there.  And where did that subplot come from?  Wait, who are these characters, and why do they seem so real?

Slowly, oh so slowly, we learn to do the very thing that we love doing.  No longer is it nothing more than a collection of lines that amount to nothing more than a piles of colours that create utter confusion.  Now we have a beautiful masterpiece.  Something that we can proudly show the world and shout 'I did that!'

I don't know if I'm making masterpieces yet, but I certainly hope that one day I will.  That soon I will be able to point out my work and proudly explain all the shadowing, all the intricate little details that I put in there that made this more than just a coloured in picture, but rather a Mona Lisa worthy of display.

Now I must be off to do some painting -- err...writing.  Can't wait to see your masterpieces!

Another Dip in the Editing Pool

In November, a group of us spent a lot of time writing together, which does tend to happen during NaNoWriMo.  It's so much easier to get the writing done if you have other people doing the same thing as you.

Anyway, we were talking about it, and we couldn't help but wonder why we, as writers, are so willing to work together and have a similar goal during November, but not the rest of the year.  Why do we let ourselves become less productive just because it isn't time for NaNo?

It didn't take us long to decide that we needed to come up with another month that was much sooner than April's Camp Nano session where we could all work together, and decided to have a February challenge for writing.

Why February, you ask?  Simple.  That was when I thought I would have something ready to write.  Yep.  That was the entire reason.  Turns out, I could have had something ready for January.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm going to have something ready, but it's all good, I can just start planning another novel.

Here's the agreement:  During the month of February, we would have a writing challenge.  We all pick a writing goal (mine is 100k words, which should get me the second novel in my Jayne Pheare series written).

I'm quite excited for this.  It will be a month that isn't Nano where I might actually be productive (which was one of my goals for the year).  There won't be any websites to track our progress, but we will all be accountable to each other, and try to keep everyone on track for the month.

But wait, you say, what does all of this have to do with editing?  Now, that's where the story gets interesting.

You see, we were discussing this idea of ours to have a writing challenge and another girl said she would love to do it, but why not do an editing challenge in January too?


I, for one, was more than happy with this idea.  I have a ton of editing to get done, and having other people working at the same time for some reason always seems to help.  So I agreed immediately, and after a few other yeses, we had ourselves an editing challenge.

Of course, I finished the novel I was editing, and it's currently with beta readers, but I'm going to be editing Stolen Magick, a YA about a young girl who discovers that she has the ability to wield magick.  I had a lot of fun writing it, because a lot of stuff happened that wasn't originally planned.  Characters, plot points, love interests and entire chapters were added in, and I can't wait to see how it turned out.

So on January first, I will be diving head first in to the pool of editing another novel (which means that I have to actually pay attention to a world than the one I've been living in for the last little while).  It's going to be interesting.

2013 is going to be a great year, and it's going to start with some editing.  (nope, I never thought I would ever say those words either).

Are you going to get some editing done in January?  What's your favourite part of the writing process?

Plot Points, Characterization, Descriptions, Oh My!

For the last year I have been doing everything I can to improve my writing.  This included starting a critique group with a friend (that has improved my writing more than I ever imagined)  Then we added Pen duels, where I send out two prompts, and everyone picks one and writes a short story (there's always rules to follow).  When we're all done writing we get together and read them out loud then give feedback.

All of these things are awesome, of course.  Every exercise we do helps me in some way or another, and as a result I find that my first drafts are getting better and better.  The biggest problem that I seem to be having now is that getting the book to a second or even third draft is far too difficult. And I think I know the reason.

I have been spending so long working on my writing (which isn't a bad thing, by any means) that I haven't worked on my editing skills at all.

Okay, I'm not horrible at editing.  I catch most of the mistakes, but I think the biggest problem I have is that I don't know how to find everything that needs fixing.  I need to figure out how to determine exactly what needs fixing in order to have my editing go better.

My solution: Get books on editing.  No, I haven't done it yet, but it's going to happen (right as soon as I have money again, which is definitely going to be after Christmas.)  I can't wait to get my hands on one and see what other ways I can edit to make what I'm doing more effective, and hopefully to cut down on the amount of time I'm spending on it.

So, this year I have a couple of goals (why would I want free time anyway?  That's just boring...):

1) Edit 4 complete novels!! (Hence the need to cut down on the time editing)
2) Participate in April's Camp Nano session (script with friends)
3) Complete all of the exercises in 'The 3 A.M. Epiphany' (201 exercises)
4) Participate in July's Camp Nano session (novel)
5) Write at least one novel not during Nano
6) Write 300k in November (One epic fantasy novel)
7) Attend WWC in August
8) Attend SIWC in October
9) See my boyfriend at some point...

Okay, I don't know if all of these are going to happen, but let's see if I can try!  All exercises I do from 'The 3 A.M. Epiphany' will be posted.  Either on my blog, or on my website (which is another goal for this year).

Do you have any goals for this year?  What's something that you need to work on when it comes to your craft?

All The Ideas

First, I would just like to say, I'm sorry I'm a day late on my blog.  Yesterday was a not great day.  It was stressful at work, I had no sleep because my mom was admitted to the hospital and the doctors didn't know what was wrong, and I editing on my break really didn't go well

Anyway, the point of the matter is that I made it through the day, but the concept of putting up a blog made me want to cry a little bit, so I decided that I would just wait until today.  Hence, a blog post on Thursday!

Lately it seems like I've been completely focused on Pandora, and the Jayne Pheare series.  This isn't a bad thing.  I have other projects I'm working on, so I don't want to be too wrapped up in it, but on the whole I would say that being focused definitely has more benefits than drawbacks.

I'm currently editing Pandora (Book 1) and planning Malice (Book 2).  Along with that comes unexpected surprises.  Like ideas for book 4 (it has a name, can't remember it right now.)  I've had ideas for book 3 running through my head since I started the series, but to suddenly be hit with ideas for book 4 was a new experience, and one that has me excited.  It means that I'm really starting to take this series seriously.  I'm starting to see where it's going, and that means that I might actually see this one through!  While I've completed books before, I've never completed a series, but I have hope now!

When I start a new series, I can usually see the first book pretty clearly (hopefully, since I'm planning or writing it) and the rest just seems to be shrouded in fog.  I have vague glimpses of a light shining through, giving me a general idea of where I want the books to go, but there are no details to accompany it.

Now that I'm getting further and further in to the series, that fog is beginning to lift.  I'm starting to see how some of the things that I've known are going to happen will come about.  I can see the motivations that I knew must be there but didn't really understand.  And while I can't see the exact ending, I'm starting to get hints of how things are going to turn out, and that makes me so excited.

Not all of my characters have happy endings, of course.  I have at least four characters who die (I hate the idea just as much as you guys, but sometimes it just has to be done).  And I know that I'm going to have a YA spin off that features kids that don't even exist yet in the book (like, not even the possibility...).  But the closer I get to these things happening, the more I know that it was the right call, even if the way it happens wasn't what I originally thought.

So now I anxiously want to start writing a YA series that I can't start until (at the very least) book 4, but which I probably actually can't put out until after the series is done.  I desperately want to plan book 3, but can't until I'm done Malice, and all I think about are these characters, which can be a problem when I'm getting a critique about a different book.

For now, though, I'm just going to do what my brain tells me to, which is to work on the Jayne Pheare series.  I'm going to get it done for January, and then I'm going to get it published.

Have you ever gotten caught up in a book?