Journeys

Life Takes Over

nobody@vox.com(Domy) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 10:33:42 -0400

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.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Stalled

nobody@vox.com(Domy) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 03:33:46 -0400

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?

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Phoenix About Ready

nobody@vox.com(Domy) — Sun, 25 May 2008 03:05:34 -0400

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.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Making Progress

nobody@vox.com(Domy) — Thu, 22 May 2008 18:42:54 -0400

Both in life and with my writing. Life right now is a bunch of annoying, but necessary doctor appointments. Taking care of a recurring female related problem and finally getting back on my heart medication. Just can't love being winded all the time. Kids are out of school, though youngest will be going to summer school in June. Husband is working. Things aren't better than they were before, but they aren't worse, so this is good.

I'm on ch. 23 of Assassin's Choice and almost 34k in on Phoenix Rising. Plus I picked up my Novel Plot Building book again and just started chapter 4. I'm actually sailing through A.C. at the moment. I'm still behind but managing a chapter a week (both v4 and v5 revisions), sometimes going into a second chapter. It looks like I'll finish 2 months after my self-imposed deadline, than I'll need to make the v6 revisions I have planned. Most of those shouldn't be too hard though—the big ones involve some character/race changes, but even they aren't that big. I expect the book to go out to beta readers by the end of the year. I'll take a break and early next year start thinking about the query letter, outline, and synopsis. NOT looking forward to that, actually. :P

The night owl schedule is definitely a big part of the productivity. When I do finally get out of bed, I'm usually quite ready to get to work rather than needing time to wake up and figure out my day. At night, I use my most creative part of my cycle to make progress in my revisions, which seems to be really helpful in keeping me going despite being at the most difficult part of the novel.

I've given up on shorts for the time being, maybe permanently. Shorts are a hard length for me, the market hunting frustrating and exhausting, and the pay not worth the time put into the process. Granted, I don't write to make a living...yet, but, at the same time, I'm not writing to put more money into trying to get published than I get out of it. I have a few credits, some of them in some pretty decent zines. For now, I'm content on that front and just want to focus on the books, which I'm more comfortable with anyway. It may be awhile before I get published again, but I'm okay with that.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Yes, It's Been Awhile

nobody@vox.com(Domy) — Mon, 12 May 2008 02:53:28 -0400

I've actually had an amazing amount of personal stuff get in the way of my usual activities, some of it health related, some of it family related, and a whole lot of it disruptive. Things appear to be settling now, for the most part, and I've made a few changes to make my days easier for me. Not sure they will get me on this blog more than usual, but they are already helping with the writing aspect of things. Now we just need the weather to be cooperative...which is not likely to happen consistently any time soon. We need the water, don't get me wrong, so the rain is welcome. The tornadoes and lightning, however, really aren't as necessary as they seem to think they are. ;)

Of course, the biggest concern has been my health. I had to go back on my iron to combat anemia, and finally gave in and went to the doctor when the last 2 weeks proved to be far more difficult than they should have been. He's put me on medication as a stop gap measure (which is already working) and is having testing done to see what we can do to keep the issue under control in the future. A lot of this has to do with my weight, and a lot of it has to do with my age. I was taking tiny steps towards a healthier me when the newest wrinkle showed up. With the temporary measures already having a dramatic affect for the better, I'm already trying to get back into some of the habits that were helping me before. I may hold off on exercise for a bit, though, just to allow things to stabilize before I go adding something back into the mix.

One of the biggest changes I've made is to my schedule. I'm not sure why, but months after leaving my substitute teaching job, I was still on the working girl schedule: up early, awake all day, to bed around midnight. For most people, this works...except maybe the midnight thing. For ME, this is a nightmare. I hate mornings (I like to say I'm allergic to them) and have always done better with a night time schedule--meaning to bed at 3 AM (or later) and up at 10 or 11 AM. I don't even start to feel creative energy until 1 AM or later, so being in bed at midnight robs me of my most creative time. After talking with the husband about this, it was agreed that I should try to go back to my own schedule, with a small change: I still have to get up to get the kids off to school. I just go back to bed once they are on their buses and sleep until 11 or noon. The old work schedule rears its ugly head still, so the shift over is proving a bit more difficult than I thought it would be, but, as I said earlier, the positive results are already being seen. I've been working A LOT faster on A.C. than I was before starting to switch over. Nothing beats working within your own creative cycle.

The editing job has also gone through some changes. Our acquisitions editor resigned for personal reasons that had nothing to do with her love for us. She just didn't feel it was the right fit for her. As a result, my position as senior editor is now merged with acquisitions, and I've had to do some shuffling around with my responsibilities to get everything to fit. Fortunately, it's still quiet for us. It may not stay that way once we have our August launch and release. I'm looking forward to it, but we also still have a lot to do to get 3 of our 4 books ready on time (the 4th may or may not be ready, and we're okay with that).

In other news, my essay "When Tears Fall" has been reprinted in Voices of Autism, an autism anthology. I am VERY excited about this antho. It's already received at least one wonderful review:

The fifth entry in the Voices anthology project from the Healing Project, this work includes over 40 different stories and vignettes written by parents, teachers, and people with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) that showcase how families and caregivers measure perseverance, understanding, and success. Many of the selections stand out, including an author’s account of her autistic son, a seventh grader’s perspective on her two siblings with autism, a memoir by an adult with autism who relied on a tire advertisement to get through tough times, and an account of the challenges of dating an adult with Asperger’s. The book’s real strengths are the adult-penned passages, which will give readers a better sense of what autism truly is. Taken individually, the stories show glimpses of the impact that autism has on individuals and those they love. Taken collectively, they paint a rich landscape that many will find familiar. Highly recommended for public libraries and academic libraries with disability collections.

-- Corey Seeman, Kresge Business Administration Library, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor

I hope you will consider picking up a copy. Autism is probably one of the least understood but most prevalent disabilities in the world today. 1 out of 166 people are diagnosed with autism, and it affects everyone in the autistic's life. Probably the most frightening part of the disability is that those who have it look normal. It's not like so many disabilities where you can tell there's something different just by the person's appearance. When you combine this with the lack of knowledge about it, the result can be devastating for the family. I've been a target of the blame game, of being told I should get another opinion because it's probably not autism, of having to fight for everything that my son is supposed to get by law. The only thing that will help is education. The essays and stories in this book come from our personal experiences as family members of autistics and from those with autism. Nothing could inform better.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

A Few Quiet Weeks

nobody@vox.com(Domy) — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 12:59:05 -0400

Between personal stress at home, work, weather, and a few other things, not much work has been done on my own writing recently (note previous entry). However, I have finally reached the current halfway mark in Assassin's Choice in terms of chapter numbers. I may be past that in actual word count because there's a huge chunk towards the end of the book that may get cut. Phoenix Rising also got a nice, healthy word count addition this week--I now have a Friday buddy that I meet with to work on "alternate" projects. Hopefully meeting with her every week will help keep me on track with it.

In publication news, two of my short stories are now available on AnthologyBuilder.com: "In the Blood" and "Intended". One of them even received positive comments from the site editor. I need to update the site to reflect that, I suppose. ;)

There's little else to post about really. I'm ruminating a new Meta and considering writing a new article on critiquing (yea, like we all ne4ed another one--but this one comes from something I realized about the crits I receive and how I react to them). I'm still working on a short, and, yes, it's very odd for me to plod my way through a first draft of a short like this. I just finished a S. L. Veihl book and have one other novel and an omnibus lined up for me to read. For work, one manuscript has been returned to the author for round 2 edits, and the second manuscript is about done with round 1.

I did start trying out a new hard copy method for tracking my submissions. It's going to take a bit to get all the old stuff in the columnar book...and I may end up having to do it all over again because I'm not so sure I like it. I like the idea of a book and the information I'm trying to keep (in general), but the book is a bit...big. I'm thinking of making my own template then having it copied and bound at Staples. We'll see.

And...that's about it. Told you it's been quiet.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Writing Through Stress

nobody@vox.com(Domy) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 08:49:24 -0400

Despite the title, writing through stress isn't something I do well. When stressed, I tend to veg out and watch TV...anything on TV (well, almost anything—you couldn't pay me to watch Flavor of Love...actually, pay enough and maybe—we could use the money), or play on the PlayStation. There's just something about killing bad guys on the PS that even non-violent me can get into. But it also sucks up my brain and my time. So after editing for the day, I take my chapter down to the living room (where I keep an eye on my son after school) with good intentions, and yet I never follow through. I end up playing instead (especially now that the cable is out...DVDs? what are those?) And it usually doesn't help with the stress/depression.

Which really has me wondering how well I'll do when I actually have a novel out and another that should be on the way., but that's probably for another entry/discussion since there's a whole lot more that plays into that concern than the stress factor.

The last week and a half have been very stressful. Most of that should be alleviated tomorrow, but it still means almost no work this past week. I did manage a decent bit this past weekend, but that was early enough in the situation that it wasn't as bad as this week. This week has made it clear to me that I need to find a way to keep working despite the stress. I'm already 5 chapters behind schedule on A.C. It might be my own schedule, but I imposed it to try to learn to meet deadlines, which I'm so not doing right now. I met 99.9% of my deadlines in college, but that's a whole different kind of writing (although, some of my ECS projects were totally killer)—it wasn't nearly as hard as novel writing. And not nearly as time consuming.

Regardless, I've got to find a way to keep working despite the downs of life. I suppose the first thing is to resist the PlayStation (oddly enough, I can write/revise when the TV is on—it provides a way for me to handle the ADHD but doesn't seem to take over unless I'm too stressed and tired and can't find the energy/motivation to do more than just lay there and stare). I'd take today and toss in a season of Stargate SG-1 or a movie or something, but I have editing to do. My overly developed sense of responsibility won't allow me to let other people down if I can help it. I've got deadlines coming up and authors waiting on me to get their work published.

Maybe that's a clue for writing through the stress and making deadlines (especially if the novel ever gets submitted/accepted): somehow seeing it as my responsibility to others—the agent, the editor, the publisher, someone—and using that to stay on target. Right now, the only person I'm responsible to is me. For me, not meeting the deadline just means another delay in starting the query process, and that's just not enough to kick me in my arse and get me back on track. It should be, but it's not. There's no money riding on me finishing on time, no one else I'm responsible to for it, not even a grade involved. It's quite possible that having a contract will change the whole deadline process for me because then something WILL be riding on finishing on time.

Definitely something to think about.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

And the Weather Wins!

nobody@vox.com(Domy) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 08:50:39 -0400

There is a downside to doing everything on the weekend: tornado weather can get in the way.

This weekend, I didn't get much done because the weather pretty much took me offline for about a day and a half. If I owned a laptop, it wouldn't have been as big a problem, but all I have is the ol' desktop. Since I can't afford to replace it should anything happen to it, I tend to be a little over cautious with it. As a result, not so much done this past weekend. With this being just the beginning of the spring storms, it's going to be an interesting couple of months. Then we get the humid summer, followed shortly by hurricane season. Why, yes, one of these days I really do need to get a laptop. *g*

This week I actually need to focus a little on world building. I used to love world building, but I think I burned myself out on it and never quite recovered. So why do I do it? Because, simply, I'm forgetful. I want consistency in my worlds. So I use world building to set things in my head a bit and to check things when I forget. And, yes, I have used my files to check on things. I pretty much have to write down every background decision I make or it gets lost the next time I come around to it. One downside to being both ADHD and anemic is a really poor memory.

At any rate, I've finally hit the chapters in A.C. where I left off my world building. So this week I need to do a little before I continue onwards. Then I'll have 4 or 5 chapters before I need to do more. It used to be that I'd do a whole bunch of world building at once before I even needed it, but I've not been as into it, so now I just do it when I need it. I try to be thorough--get everything on that particular profile complete all at once--but I don't build ahead much any more. That may change when I have another world that needs the basics, but most of that stuff is done for Alden.

But, for now, I'm off to do work. I'm going to try to carve a little time out of my day for my own writing work and see if I can get started on the one profile I need. I'm not so much behind on the one manuscript that I need to dedicate my whole day to the editing job now. It'll be nice to have my hour back.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

It's Nice To Have A Productive Week

nobody@vox.com(Domy) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 13:09:51 -0400

I think I'm finally figuring out how to make the editing job/writing career thing work. Of course, I shouldn't say that too loudly--could end up having the whole thing not work out for several weeks in a row and then where would I be?

Pretty much my weekdays are when I wear the editor hat and do my LP work. Mornings are devoted to slush pile reading, afternoons to editing. If there's no slush pile, then I work on editing all day with a nice break for lunch and house things (like, you know, dishes).

When my son gets home around 4, I get off the comp and use the afternoon and evenings for revising Assassin's Choice (or anything else I need to tackle). This has worked pretty well so far; I actually managed to get chapters 15 AND 16 into v5 last week by doing it this way. It allows me to revise by hand (which I still seem to need to do despite being able to edit on the screen) and keeps me from my usual internet distractions. ;)

Weekends are devoted to new words and world building and the like. This is also when I do all my DII admin stuff.

And last week, following this pattern netted me over 12k in words processed.

Now to just try to get it to work like that EVERY weekend. ;)

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Trying To Find The Track

nobody@vox.com(Domy) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:24:52 -0500

I'm trying to get back on track here, but it's proving to be slower going than I imagined. I still have the cough from being sick, though I suspect that, for the first time in almost 4 years, some of the issue is my asthma flaring.up. It's weird having to deal with that again after so long without it. There's also a little congestion left and the two are waking me up intermittently through the night. The lack of uninterrupted sleep isn't helping any, either.

One of the biggest things I'm having trouble with is working on my own stuff during the week. The only thing I can think of as being a hindrance is that I do editing all day. So, when ti comes time to work on my own writing, I'm about writing-ed out. I've already processed a couple of thousand words. A couple thousand more, even if it's my own, just overwhelms the brain. I'll have to work on that, obviously, in the meantime, it looks like it was a very good idea to make Friday a part of my writing weekend. Even though I'm not getting much done during the week, I do seem to be fairly productive on weekends (over 7k this past Saturday and Sunday alone). I just know I could get more done if I would just take advantage of my evenings.

Motivation. It's such a fickle thing.

I'm not sure how much I'll be able to work on this little problem in the near future, however. Because of being sick, I'm behind in my editing work, so I've had to drop the hour I reserve at the end of my work day (before my son gets home) for my own writing—I need to use that time to get a little more done on the manuscripts in my care. I'm also stepping in for the Acquisitions Editor who needed some personal time, and had to adjust my daily schedule as a result. So, right now, work is very busy, which makes me even less inclined to work on my own writing in the evenings.

I'm about 25k behind on my word count goal and 4 chapters behind with A.C. I still have world building I really need to get done for A.C. (and my other Alden novels in general), and I've picked up Novel Plot Building as an in progress project again. I really need to find a way to get past this block I have on doing my own writing in the evenings. I'm participating in a writing challenge to hit my problem areas, but that won't do any good if I don't find a way to get past my own blocks.

It's sad. I rarely suffer writers block, but I do have large amounts of motivation block. All these ideas and projects, and I just can't seem to push myself to get them done.

Have to find a way.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend