Let's face it, 2008 sucked. I was sick for 6 months, had surgery, the husband was unemployed, my oldest's marriage disintegrated in record time, we went through 2 cars before getting anything reliable, and, really, need I go on? As of today, I'm closing the book on 2008 and looking forward. Here's my goals post from my personal journal. It's been posted in several places, which I hope will keep me honest and on track.
I don't do resolutions, and I believe this is my first year of making
goals other than those that are for writing, but there are some things
I want to take care of next year, and goals seem the best way to
approach it. To me, a resolution is a promise. You're not saying, "I'm
going to aim for this", you're saying, "I will do this." A promise is
not something I make lightly, and I try to make promises I know I can
keep because I'm giving my word and my word is important to me. It
needs to be trustworthy. Resolutions also tend to be inflexible. We
don't adjust them based on circumstances or on how well we are or are
not doing in reaching them. Goals are easily adjusted. It's a fine
line, but a very definite line in my view. Thus goals, not resolutions,
for me.
Goals have worked fairly well for my writing. I don't always make them (this past year was dismal, but then I also ended up with a lot of health problems that interfered with my ability to even function much less write), but they do keep me motivated. Since they have worked well for me, and I do have other things I want to reach for this upcoming year, expanding them beyond my writing seems like a logical way to aim for the other things I want in my life. I've been thinking about them for about a week or so now, carefully considering what is reachable and what steps I can take to actually make them. Now I just need to figure out how to make them a part of my daily awareness like my writing is. With my writing, it's easy. The goals are more...conducive to breaking down into weekly goals that I can check off as I reach them. Some of these non-writing goals can be taken care of the same way, others not so much. At this point, I'm thinking of using a post-it note and just moving it in my planner each week. My planner is an important part of my day. I write down my weekly goals, my plans for each day, and cross things off as I finish. It helps keep me on track.
Finances/Family
· get back to splitting the utility payments during the month
· start taking care of the little things around the house (laundry baskets, for ex.)
Now these goals are dependent on saxy keeping his job, and I know that. If the company he's with closes up shop before he finds a new job, we won't be able to get caught up enough to start trying to put these in action. Even if he keeps the job, getting back on track (like we were starting to before he lost his last job) will probably end up with some weeks where we're on a very tight budget in order to make the payments to places we've caught up with while dealing with disconnects. It'll be worth it in the end, but it will take awhile.
as for the second item, we have a number of little things we need to take care of: getting enough silverware and plates to make it through a day now that we have extra mouths in the house, our laundry baskets are these pathetic things that are pretty trashed, and so on. At least these things I can do in bits and pieces as we have a little "extra" money here and there. No big ticket items on this list (washer/dryer, mattresses, etc) because we can't afford those at this point, but the little things that cost $10 or less, those I think I can make progress on. I hope (see the above paragraph).
Personal
· exercise 5+ days/week
· reduce salt intake
· less PS2
· do something to make myself feel good every day
I'm not working on weight related goals here, but health related goals. The exercise goal will probably be the toughest since I seem to have trouble keeping that up. I'm starting small (2 days/week) and am going to work my way up. The salt intake is also a tough one that I tend to go back and forth on, but I think it affects my migraines and I know it affects my blood pressure. The PS2 goal is so I have more time to do more productive things -- my writing, reading, and stuff like that. As for the last one, I figure it'll be easier to keep the other three if I feel good about myself. Something as simple as putting on nice earrings can change my perspective on myself and my day, especially since most days I just end up in front of the comp in my PJs. It's time to give both myself and my day more importance. I'll just have to come up with some creative ways to feel good about myself without resorting to food. ;)
Writing
· finish/submit A. C.
· 375k word count total
· Phoenix to v4/5
· R. K. project to rough draft
· N. P. B. 1rst draft
· finish/sub S. P.
Seems like a lot, but it's not really. This year I only made it to 288k, but last year I made it to about 440k. This year just had all the crap that interfered. A. C. is almost done -- I'm on chapter 30 of my v4/5 revisions. Hopefully one more on my own to fix obvious problems and one more after beta readers, and it will be ready to go. Finishing A. C. is the priority -- I need a novel done if just to prove I can finish one (it's just my tendency to over challenge myself that had me choose one of the hardest books I plan to write as the one to finish; hopefully everything else will seem easy after this monster). N. P. B. and S. P. are my alternate projects for the year -- projects I can work on when my main projects are driving me crazy. Besides, S. P. is very short and could probably be sold this year if I quit delaying on it.
I am also considering doing some work in nonfiction since nonfic actually pays better than fiction at my level (I made my first "pro" sale this year, but it was in nonfic rather than fiction), but since I haven't decided for sure, it's not on the goal list. I may dabble a little and then expand for 2010 if I do well.
Regardless, I'm sure the key to this goal is keeping Friday through Sunday for my writing unless there's a really pressing deadline -- and I mean really pressing. And I need to work on revisions when down watching TV, not just veg out the way I have been of late. I used to take the little spaces in my day to work on writing, but I've stopped doing that since I stopped subbing (teaching). It's time to pick that up again. Have my notebook or current chapter always with me, use my ability to multitask when I can, and so on. This is not to say I don't deserve some down time, just that I need to use my time more wisely. I promise not to take my work with me when the family goes out to eat. ;)
Reading
· 1 book/month
This is an annual goal related to my year of reading clique (which I need to check through sometime soon). My reading has gotten slower over the years, and my schedule makes it difficult to read a book every week or two the way I used to, so a book a month, pretty darn good. I actually managed a bit more this year, but several of them were manuscripts I was editing. I'd like to make this already published books, but that may not be possible either. Besides, as an editor, the books I work on get read 3 or 4 times. I think I can take one of those as reading a book that month. ;) I also have a little other help set up since I'll be joining in the Patricia McKillip challenge this year. My choices actually take care of half the books I need for the year: Cygnet book 2 (need to reread book 1), Riddle Master book 3 (need to reread books 1 and 2), and Harrowing the Dragon. Also on my list: The Queen's Bastard (currently in progress), With the Light vol. 3, and several other books already stacked by my night stand (my to be read pile really is insane). I used to read before going to bed, but that has given way to the PS2...thus the goal to reduce my PS2 time and retake that time with reading and revisions.
It looks
like a lot (especially with those explanations in the middle!), but I
think I can reach these. I'll reevaluate in June, maybe earlier if the
threatened job loss happens (at that point, those goals will have to be
let go and survival will be the priority; but let's hope the job loss
doesn't happen). I'm really hoping for a better year, especially
healthwise. If anything will derail me, that would be it. But, barring
that, I think these will do for 2009.
We writers all have different reasons for writing, but the one reason I think that puzzles non-writers the most is the need to write. They do not understand how writing can be a need. Even though I am a writer, that particular reason to write used to puzzle me as well. But not any more. I've discovered that I'm a writer who needs to write.
I've written all my life. I started with cheesy poetry as a kid, wrote a few kid short stories, tried my hand at lyrics (sucked), and went back to short stories around high school with an interest in writing a novel. Didn't have novel ideas at the time, but was definitely interested. Even after some dufus "pointed out" that everyone was writing the "great American Novel" and that anything I wrote would probably land in the circular file, I kept writing. To be sure, i stopped with the short stories and went back to poetry (it was safe) and eventually picked up gaming (which was safer) as outlets for my need to write, but I never stopped writing even when my goals for it changed because some idiot told me I couldn't cut it and I was too sensitive a kid to take that and use it to fire me up. I wrote until I started subbing, and even then, for the most part, I found ways to write.
However, the one time writing would fall out of my life was when I was long term subbing. Long term subbing takes up your entire life because you may be the sub, but you ARE the teacher, no matter how impermanent. You create lesson plan, hunt down or create materials, create tests, grade, go to meetings, and do everything that the regular teacher does. There's no time for life, much less writing when subbing long term. It's a hard job and I enjoyed it for about 3 years. My last long term position took all the joy out of the job for me, and I finally resigned from subbing at all. But whether I loved them or hated them, there was one thing all my long term positions had in common....
The lack of writing.
I had no time to write at all. I barely had time to read more than the textbooks at hand, the materials from meetings, and so on and so forth. Long term subbing was hard. But I'd had other sub positions that were longer than a day and shorter than a week, positions where I was expected to create/grade the homework and so on, and I never had the same downturn in emotions and attitude as I did when long terming for months. The biggest difference? No writing. For MONTHS. Not a few days, not a week or so -- months.
And I discovered what happens when I don't write fresh words for a long time: I become irritable and snappish, I lose interest in other things I enjoy, the PS2 gets more time than my creative well, and I end up being someone very different, someone unlikable and almost impossible to live with. Once I start writing, and I mean writing fresh words, new words, working on stories and creative projects that are new and untouched, all of the nastiness fades away. I come back to myself.
I haven't been writing for awhile. Oh, every now and then I pick up Phoenix, but I don't work on it consistently. My focus has been A.C. and critiques for my writing group, not new stuff. In fact, most of the stuff I've even looked at lately is stuff that needs revisions. I even set aside my short stories for a few months because I was tired of dealing with the market aspect of things. I never even thought that there might be another reason to write those shorts: to keep me sane while I worked on the novels. And lately there seems to be a change of mood that has no other real source, nothing I can point at and go "that's what's making me this way." That's how it always is for me when the not writing mood builds -- it seems to have no real source that I can point to for the reason.
So, tonight I'm going to set aside A.C. despite being behind, set aside the crit I started, even set aside Phoenix and work on a new short instead. And starting tonight, I'm going to try to make sure I get fresh words in at least every few days. I suspect it will not only help my moodiness, but that it just might help me become faster in my revisions and help with the restlessness and lack of motivation that's been plaguing me lately.
Some of us writers write because we NEED to write. Apparently I'm one of them and I better stop ignoring that fact.
Yes, it's been a month since i last posted. No, the progress hasn't been so good of late. Seems I have a touch of SAD, plus some life stress stuff going on, and I'm struggling to make a schedule that works in the sense that I actually get things done, and all of this has interfered with just about everything. The one thing that is getting done is my editing work, but that's purely because it's for someone else...and there hasn't been that much coming in or to do of late.
For about 2 weeks, I did nothing but sleep -- the consistently overcast skies made me more and more down, more and more lethargic, until, somewhere near the end of those two weeks, there was no doubt about it: I was depressed. The sun finally came out for a few days and I was instantly better despite the fact that the other issues in real life were still issues. Since then the clouds have been in and out, and so has the lagging, dragging, put me to bed feeling. The biggest frustration is how this also affects my night time work -- I'm just too plain tired to want to do much of anything at any time.
I finished A.C. chapter 27 in a timely manner, then 28 took 2 weeks. Now I'm trying to slog through 29, but finding myself dragging on it as well. As a result, I'm so far behind on my novel challenge that I dropped it. I am still working on my crit challenge (a little behind, but I think it's still doable) and the world building challenge (also behind with a 4500 word count required for each of the next 2 weeks to make it, but I think I can do it). I've switched from A.C. world building to Phoenix world building for the challenge just to be sure to make my word counts. Besides, once the basics are down, I find it hard to world build too far ahead of where I'm at in the revisions. With the way revisions are going on A.C. now, it looks like it will come to about 130k, give or take, but I suspect cuts are coming in a few chapters towards the end, so we shall see how close that is.
I have another project starting to tug at me a bit, but it definitely needs some background work before I can start developing the plot and actual novel(s). I'm considering picking up a notebook and just fiddling around with it while I continue to work on A.C. and Phoenix -- nothing major: basic world development, character histories, working out some of the decisions I need to make before I can start writing. Those things will take awhile, so I doubt I'd start the actual writing until well after A.C. is off my plate, so to speak. Of course, then I have Quest to worry about, but hopefully it won't be nearly as difficult to put together.
I do have to say, A.C. has been quite a journey. Sometimes it's been as frustrating as hell, but I think I've learned quite a bit about writing in general and my process in particular. Even if it never gets published, that right there makes it a success. At least it will once I actually finish it. ;)
My progress on A.C. and Phoenix has been slower than I would like it to be. Granted, a lot of that was the physical problems that literally slowed me down and forced me to bed. Without a laptop, doing any kind of writing was particularly hard. With my iron levels as low as they were, it isn't any surprise that all I wanted to do was sleep. So, I'm not kicking myself at being so far behind on either book, but I am disappointed in general. I was hoping to be finalizing v6 of A.C. by now and getting it off the beta readers. Instead, I'm still floundering my way through v4/5. And I had hoped to be working on v3 revisions of Phoenix by now, but I don't even have a rough draft done. Like I said, it couldn't be helped—being sick for 8 months took a lot of wind out of my sails, so to speak.
So the first thing I've done to help myself out is to readjust my goals for the two books for this year. I'd like to just get the v4/5 version done for A.C. And a rough draft for Phoenix would be nice, though I suspect that might be pushing it a bit. I may have to be content with just getting the building draft done plus a whole lot of world building.
Which brings up a point quite briefly: just because you're writing in the same world doesn't mean no more world building. In this case I need a whole bunch of different locations developed and I'm in a different time period than A.C. So, yea, a lot more world building on my end. The good news is that most of the basics are pretty set: magic, the gods, and so on, giving me a ready foundation for what I need to do for the other book.
Anyway, the second thing I'm doing to help get me going is to sign up for some challenges through my writing group. Now, admittedly, I do this every time they hold a challenge, but I decided to join into this one a bit differently than in the past: I've focused my challenge choices so they apply to these two novels, especially A.C. Now I do have a critique challenge in there, but the other two are novel revisions and world building specifically. Neither has a high goal at the moment, but I will push them higher if I can. I won't know if I can until I'm close to completing the ones I have: revise 7 chapters in 8 weeks and do 24k in world building. I had to resist adding other goals that could derail me by giving me too much to do—I need to keep my focus on the two novels at hand and what I need to finish for them.
The one down side is that I've cut my weekly word count goal for Phoenix itself, the reason being that I need the world building before I can go too much further into developing the book itself. That's part of what the building draft is all about: pulling together the information you need for descriptions and whatnot and putting all of it in the where it's needed. When you get to the rough draft stage later, it's just a matter of working the details in that you need where you need them and spreading them out a bit.
Trust me, it works, for me anyway.
My weekly and daily goals are now adjusted a little to make the challenge goals the priority. I'm actually not too worried about the world building stuff. Between the two books, if I can't come up with 24k, then I'm just being lazy. REALLY lazy. But the revisions do worry me. I'm in the last 11 chapters, yes, but I'm also in the chapters that are going to require the most change. Some are going to see drastic cuts. Others are just plain going to have to be rewritten. I suspect in the end I'll have 8 or 9 chapters instead of 11, but the chapter a week thing just may not happen with the amount of work that needs to be done to get there. But I guess that's kind of what challenges are all about: you reach for something you're not quite sure you can make and hope you actually do get there. If they were all easy, it wouldn't be a challenge, right?
One of the things I've been neglecting as I work on Assassin's is the world building. I put a lot of thought and effort into world building early in the novel's creation (or, actually, it's fourth incarnation), but I ended up burning out on it and stopping for a very long time. Really, not the best thing to do since I need the world building. Most authors seem quite capable of remembering things from one chapter to the next, but my combined ADHD and anemia make memory a serious issue for me. It's so bad, I like to say i have a 5 minute memory lifespan...literally.
I need the world building, and I need it on paper where I can double check in case I forget and can't easily find it in previous chapters (Alden actually has 5 separate binders for world building), so ignoring it as long as I have isn't a good thing. I have characters and things towards the end of the book that I haven't taken the time to think about or get to know, and that not only means inconsistencies in the writing, but it also means it will be harder to weed out the clichés and the images that have been seen before. The best reworking of certain ideas for my world has come when I've written something down and let it percolate a bit before I am set on it. Waiting so late in the novel's development means there's less of a chance of the unique taking root, and that can be a real problem. For example, one of my races is dangerously close to a gaming race, and having the time to think about what I've put down in their cultural profile gives me an opportunity to redevelop them a bit and take them further from that comparison.
In fact, some of what's been holding up any work on Randi Kayde is the world building. I have an entire new concept for it to work out and just haven't wanted to tackle it. Loving the concept of a book doesn't necessarily motivate you to work on the much needed background material. Besides, I have my hands more than full with the novels I'm currently working on. Once I need a break from Alden, then I'll probably revisit Randi.
Since I've got little going on for the editing job at the moment, I'm taking my unexpected "free" time to work on the missing world building for the end of A.C.. Getting it done now will provide me a little time to do some rethinking for when I work on v6—which is a revision brought on largely by changes in my world building. Mind you, there are other things that need to be worked out in v6, but a large part of the reason to revise again is the world building. I'm just not able to stop where I am and go back in a draft and make changes based on a new idea I just had. Which I think is a good thing—waiting until I've finished the current revision gives me a chance to think through and develop the changes a bit.
So, while I'll still be working on actual A.C. chapter revisions, the main goal this week is to get through the rest of my world building list. I've already had a character's new profile force a change in a battle scene in the chapter I'm currently revising. This is the one thing I have to admit I enjoy about world building. Other authors get to know their characters and locations while actually writing them; I discover my characters and locations when profiling them. My characters rarely, if ever, surprise me in the story; but they frequently surprise me as I work on their profiles. I find that very cool.
I've actually made enough little bits of progress when trying to get myself in a place to work on world building (seriously, when I'm working on world building is when I am most easily distracted in my writing) to make a decent dent in what was left of my list. I now have less than a dozen things left to profile, and most of that is characters (which are the most fun to profile). Since we're heading into the weekend, and Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are the days set aside for my own writing anyway, I should get these all done fairly quickly.
Then I get to start again for Phoenix. The good news there is that some of the building will have already been done since Phoenix takes place in the same world as A.C. And I'll take whatever breaks I can get.
I've been doing so much editing work lately, even when I get the chance to work on my own stuff, that I'm feeling the lack of writing in a bad way. So today we work on Phoenix 1. I'm not quite ready for the building draft, which is the next stage of its development, but I can skip around so what I'm missing is no big deal. Right now I'm pulling all my world building notes out of the notes draft and creating my world building list. Once I have that done, it's on to actual writing—scenes, dialogue, action, pov, all of it. This is the stage just before the rough draft, and there's still story development going on, but this is when the excitement really begins. No more (or very little) exposition, narrative, and summary. The rough draft will expand upon this draft, intertwine the descriptions, and so on, but this is where it all starts.
It's exciting!
It's been crazy since I last posted here. Since the 20th of last month I've:
» Checked the edits on 3 novels for Lilley Press
» Checked 4 various versions of the ebooks about to be released
» Gone through 18 slush manuscripts, and read beginning to end at least 6 of them
» wrote up revision notes for yet another novel
» edited a novella (round 1!)
» had 2 doctor appointments, one which was canceled but only after we arrived
» revised a chapter and a half of A.C.
» revised a section of Stolen Priest
» posted 8 crits to my crit group (and am working on at least 2 more today)
» started some world building profiles
» did the Admin stuff for the writers group, including removing inactive members, updating forums, and writing the newsletter
» held an editor meeting for Lilley Press
» hired a new editor
» scored 3 or 4 editor tests (well, 6-8 since it's a 2 part testing process)
» spent an entire day at Carmax trying to get a "new" car (we ultimately prevailed but weren't home until after 11 PM)
» reviewed and made fixes to a website
» spent a day and a half trying to find out if one child will actually get to go to high school
» registered 2 kids for high school
» took the husband to the airport--will be picking him up on Tuesday
» helped find errors in a pdf file when InDesign tried to eat the imported manuscript
» did school related shopping
» celebrated a kid turning 16 with cake and a movie
» had an "I will have to quit if it's not fixed" crises at work--dealt with, I think
» pulled my Metawriting from an ezine after huge editor/author issues--and the edits of the last article took 2 days as well
» revised the 3 handbooks and style sheet for Lilley
» fought and won against one sucky Canon printer
» been to the farmer's market and 2 other grocery stores at least twice each (we know where to shop for what for the best prices)
» helped the husband with his resume
» added an authors page to the Lilley site
All that and some sleep in there, off time because of stormy weather, and family time.
Is it any wonder I haven't been around lately? I am working on A.C. as best I can during all this. With the release date coming and more subs coming in, it's been very busy at the job. I've hired editors to help with that, and may possibly be hiring one more just because I think we'd be REALLY lucky to have her.
Today is sort of a catch all day. I'm doing crits and updates all over the place. We'll see if I actually finish any revisions or manage to get back to any of my ignored writing. It'll be an all nighter, so there's a chance, but I'm also likely to be so tired I won't make any sense.
So, at the beginning of this month, I said my writing was stalled. Turns out it was a lot more than a stall and a lot more serious than we realized. I ended up having an emergency, minor surgery about a week ago. It wasn't really a big deal, but it did need to be done, and I've felt immensely better since. My energy levels are rising, my concentration is better, and, most importantly, the physical issues that were interfering with my life and my writing seem to have been taken care of. The problem now is getting back into the routine of things after being out of it for so long.
Getting back into my editing job hasn't been so hard. I suspect it goes back to being responsible to someone else and on an external deadline. Being behind by about 2 weeks has also eaten into the time I have to do my own writing. I usually reserve Fridays for my own work, but with the amount of work that needs to get done and soon, I've dropped that until I'm caught up. As for during the week, I spend the mornings working and the afternoons resting because I'm still recovering and want to make sure I get healthy as soon as possible. I want to work on my own stuff, I'm just too tired to.
I have done some tinkering with A.C., but not much. A.C. is my first priority, though, so hopefully as I get stronger, I'll get back into it and move along as well as I was before all this health stuff interfered. It's just nice to know the "stall" wasn't me being lazy, that there was a solution. The constant drag is gone. Now all I need to do is start building up some of those reserves I lost over the past few months.
It's scary how your physical state can have such a devastating affect on your writing.
There's been a lot going on—mostly health issues, but a few other things a well—and now A.C. and Phoenix are stalled. Hopefully not for much longer, but I'm having a lot of trouble getting back with it. It's like I didn't fall off the cart but got tossed off instead, and no one noticed I was missing so the cart kept going.
And this is going to be another place where I have problems if I ever become pro: how do you write when you're sick and stressed, and how do you get yourself back on track when you can barely get out of bed?
Don't get me wrong: I needed the week off I just took. I wasn't getting enough sleep. I could barely sit up most of the time. I'd not only not make coherent sense if I even tried to write or revise, I wouldn't be doing my body any favors either. When you're that sick, you take the break and just accept it.
But when you're done being that sick, you've got to get back on your feet, and I'm not doing so well at that. I am picking at A.C. revisions, yes, and most of that needs to be done off the comp (I revise by hand; revising by comp doesn't work for me), but picking is the operative word here. I'm definitely not doing as much as I should be. I can't even seem to convince myself to do the world building I really, really need to get done for both novels.
I am managing to get back on track with my editing work, but my own writing? I just can't seem to find the motivation to get with it. And it's driving me crazy that my own motivation, or lack thereof, is what could be my downfall as a writer.
We've got more upheaval coming this month, but, somehow, I've got to find a way to work through it. Any suggestions?
Phoenix Rising has been sent off to a writing buddy for a plot check. The notes draft isn't quite done—it needs some actual notes—but the story itself is. Politics play a big part in this novel and I needed someone who likes that kind of thing to make sure they work. Last thing I want is to get to the point where I'm posting it for crits with my writers workshop and find out that the politics really don't work so the whole thing has to be stripped back to a point where I can fix them—probably back to the outline. I would have sent it off at the narrative draft stage, but there isn't really enough in that stage to see this kind of thing. It can help with general plotting, help makes sure the subplots are fairly woven in, stuff like that, but it's not so great at something like this because there's just not enough of it to see how well it works.
While my buddy checks it, I'll be adding notes and starting some character profiles and the like. I'll also be continuing with A.C. revisions. The current chapter has gone slower than the previous few, but it also was written out of order and about...7? years ago—and hasn't been touched since being written. It was originally going to be, get this, chapter 10. I should finish it by the end of this upcoming week.
Regardless, it's been a wonderfully productive weekend so far. Tomorrow (erm, later today), I'll work on notes for the notes draft and probably chapter 4 of NPB. I need 13k/week to make my word count goal for the year. With a little pushing, I think I can actually make it this week. We'll see about next week.
