16 posts tagged “life & writing”

The house has fallen through.  This is upsetting on so many different levels, but it also means that I have a LOT less stress and a bit more time to focus on my writing.  There's still fallout to deal with: getting youngest into a better school than her home school, cleaning up the financial mess left behind, recovering or adjusting routines that were disrupted and now either need to get back on track or will need to be readjusted to things like youngest's change in schools, and so on and so forth...oh! And unpacking.  We had started packing and the house has kind of...fallen apart in the craziness, so, yea, will be cleaning up, de-fleaing, and unpacking again.  Not particularly thrilled with how things turned out, but I saw what was coming and got my grieving done before the final ax came down, so I'm angry at what happened (and how), but ready to move forward with what we need to do.

The good news is that I kept up on my Assassin's Choice revisions.  I'm halfway through v6 and should have it finished and ready for beta readers by December.  At least that's my hope.  I've been so focused on A.C. that my other projects have been pretty much set aside for the time being.  I might be able to pick them up with less on my mind and less to do, but I'm not going to worry about it if I don't.  A.C. deserves to be done; I've been working on it for far too long and it's just time to get it off the plate and maybe out the door.

Why would I hang onto it after it's done?  My main concern is the chance of a multi-book contract.  I don't see my Alden books taking 2 years or less from start to finish, and most have indicated that 2 years is generally the time expected between books in a series.  So I need to get the second book to the point that A.C. is at now before I run A.C. itself around.  There may be a day when an Alden book will take 2 years or less, it's just not today. ;)

As for the other novels in process: Blood Charms is ready for me to start the building draft (which is the draft before the rough draft: a lot of information is supposed to go into the building draft, but I'm not sure that's what will happen here), and Phoenix Rising is about ready for the rough.  I've not been working on any shorts, and haven't been submitting much either.  This is one of those things I knew to drop since the house stress was already making me crazy.  Submitting shorts is already a frustrating process, so I really didn't need that on top of the house stuff.  I probably won't get back to submissions until the new year.  The current focus is A.C., Charms, and Phoenix.  Once A.C. is finished, I'll be moving on to book 2 in the trilogy, Quest for Ehlarayn, which is already stripped back and ready for me to get back to work on.

In other news, the husband is in culinary school and very happy.  Unfortunately, he also lost his job, which is actually only bad because of the lack of a paycheck.  The job itself was making him miserable and being run in an unethical manner.  We plan to report and sue, it's just taking us time to get it all figured out...and to find a lawyer.  In the meantime, he's looking for work in the industry.  He's not done a resume snow storm as of yet since midterms are a big concern for him right now, but he's started putting a few out, and the school will be holding a career fair especially for its culinary students next week, I believe.  We're looking forward to it.  In the meantime, we're looking a little on our as well.

So, it's going to take some time to get us back on our feet, especially with the job situation the way it is, but I'm ready to move forward and work on it.  And to get back to a full schedule of writing.

I keep meaning to post here and keep getting distracted by other stuff.  Even writing has fallen by the wayside of late because there's so much going on.

The good news is that A.C. v5 is done!  I'm working on some changes I need to make, which will end up being v6, then it will go out to betas.  The hope is that there won't need to be much done for v7, and I'll be able to start working up a query letter and the scary synopsis.  If nothing else, I can say it's DONE and I actually FINISHED a novel.

Among the things keeping me busy:

»  A freelance editing job.  Took up 6 weeks, and then was aborted.  I discussed the extensive story problems I had with the author, and he chose to put it on the back burner despite the fact that it had been accepted by a small press.  It amazes me that people trust my judgment that much...now why can't I apply it to my own work?  ;)

»  Buying a house.  I can't believe how much WORK it is to buy a house.  I knew it would be initially time consuming because you have to actually go look at houses.  I didn't realize the time sink would continue all the way through until after the move...and we're not there yet.  At this point, we're waiting for a check we need to help pay a few expenses and for a grant program to process our paperwork.  After everything we've done, the hoops we've had to jump, I've told the husband I'm not doing it again unless we can buy outright.  I think we've pretty much decided we're just going to stay put and never move again.  lol

»  Oldest's unemployment, which impacted the household finances in a big way even though she was out of work only for a couple of months.  Of course, the house stuff has also turned the finances upside down, so it's been a bit of a mess.

»  Getting the husband into culinary school.  He starts in October!  We're so excited for him! :)

»  Dragon*Con this past weekend.  I wimped out and only made it through half of Sunday—still have a lot of healing and strength building to do since the surgery.

This is all just the tip of what we've been dealing with.  There's been changes in routines, eating habits, and all kinds of things going on.  Most of it has been good, thank goodness, but there's been a few upsets.

Right now my biggest challenge is finding time to write in a day that's broken up into a dozen little pieces and often has other things going on that takes up what little pieces I have.  Working on it, but it's definitely tough.  About the only thing not suffering right now is Twitter, and that's just because it's so much easier to slap up a brief "here's what's going on" than to write a scene or chapter or blog post.  Things should be less crazy once the house is finalized and we've moved.

Speaking of crazy busy, have another house related call to make and need to take oldest to work then go to the grocery store, so better get going.

But, yay!  A.C. v5 is done!

I know all this up energy I've gotten since freeing myself to focus on my writing will eventually be interrupted bad a bad day or two, but right now?  Totally enjoying this energized, motivated, "this is what I should be doing" feeling.

And it shows.

This week, between new words and revisions, was a 13k week.  I can't even begin to remember the last time I had a 10k week, much less a 13.  Even days I have to run around and do domestic things like grocery shopping and picking up medications have been productive writing days.  The Phoenix building draft is now over 51k, I just finished a new version of A.C.'s chapter 33 (two chapters combined, lots of cuts made, and not so much revisions as rewrites—it'll need another go before I do my v5 polish), and just finished the outline for a new project, Blood Charms.  I've also been tinkering with a short, "Pretty Things" and submitted 2 others.

I think the personal changes are helping too.  I wake up tired, do my workout (3 times a week), and have the energy to get to writing even if I woke up tired.

Next week, I'm bumping up my count goal to 1k/day and 6k/week.  This is for new words, and I'll be sitting there for a bit until I'm sure the habit has reformed.  Shouldn't take too long.  I've already learned to do the new words first or my time gets eaten up by other things.  I just have to remember not to forget Phoenix in the process of working on the new project.

And speaking of domestic duties...must run out and get milk and eggs.  Writer or not, being a mom never ends.  ;)

I've made a major change in my life recently: I left my editing position to focus on my writing for the next few years.  My son requires me to be home for at least the next 4, and the editing position was eating up all my time, so resigning and spending the time I'm required to be home on my writing instead made sense, especially since the money being earned really wasn't enough to do anything with and won't be enough to do anything with for a long time.  I spent the latter half of the week before last clearing out of the company and sending them all my files.  Last week was my first week as "only" a writer (and a mother).

It has gone very well, actually.  I was having a great deal of trouble finding to revise A.C. when working for the press, and in the last week and a half I've sorted out chapter 32.  Hopefully I'll work through the remaining 5 chapters more quickly now, get the fixes I need to make for the next round sorted out, v6 done up, and it out to beta readers by summer.  The plan is to get it on the query-go-round before winter.  I've already been threatened within an inch of my life if I don't even try.  *g*  I do have a few agents I want to query and one small press I think I would love to get into despite it being a small press.  Have to admit, a lot of it comes from the name of the press, but they've treated another author I know very well.

In addition to that, I've started a new novel project.  I'm pretty much doing it for fun—it's in a genre that I love to read but am unfamiliar writing, so it will be interesting how it goes.  So far, the ideas I'm working with and the outline are being pretty well received by my writing group.  I love this particular phase of writing, when the ideas are fresh and exciting and all you want to do is work on that one thing.  But B.C. isn't my first priority and shouldn't be my first priority.  It's just nice to have a non-Alden novel in the works.

So, the change has gone well so far.  I'm actually getting through my writing goals rather than having the same goals over and over for weeks at a time.  I've also managed to make some time for personal improvement, like exercise.  And I'm enjoying being able to work on my writing without the nagging sense that others are waiting on something from me like edits or some other response.  I know at some point there will be less energy and excitement, but I'm hoping to have my routine pretty much down enough by then that it will carry me through.

Okay, been avoiding my short story long enough, time to get to it.

It's just been crazy of late, a lot of it good crazy, but crazy none the less.  The editing job has become very busy.  We're getting a new manuscript every day, and a lot of them are very good and so go on the to the reader panel (which I'm also supposed to be a part of), plus I've had a novella in edits that was just finalized.  So that's kept me very busy.  With my days so full of the job, it has been hard to find time to work on my own things, especially once the kids get home.  Fortunately, that looks like it might be changing as early as next week.  The tax return this year is really decent (the one advantage to almost no income last year) so I'll be picking up a "work" laptop, work meaning writing and editing.  My desk top will remain my graphics/web work computer, and I'll probably be using it during the day before the kids are home from school, but once I have the laptop, I can extend my day and actually get more work done.  At least that's the hope.

As for what I've managed over the last 3 weeks, chapter 30 is done, world building for Phoenix primarily (though there were some loose ends I finished up for A.C. as well), 2 shorts have been revised and one sent to my crit group while the other has been subbed—in fact a total of 7 stories have been submitted, and I've written 2 articles for the other editors that I lead.  I've also had one weekend down because of problems with my DSL provider and have been fighting some kind of sick since the end of last week.  Chapter 31 has been on my to do list, I just seem to keep having problems getting to it.  Guess I should take care of that, huh?

I'm actually doing pretty good on all my goals for the year so far.  Probably the worst category is finances, but that's to be expected.  The return will help some with that as well, then we have to make the rest work.  I've read 2 books so far this year, one while editing it, the other a published novel; my exercise has taken a different slant, but it is working even though most people wouldn't call it exercise (the fact that I see progress in my strength and stamina tells me it's working whether it's traditional exercise or not); my salt intake is way down, as is my PS2 playing (I've replaced it with reading); I'm averaging 5 days out of the week on feel good things; and I'm only 3k short of where I should be for my word count for the year.  Hopefully I'll start getting ahead once I have the laptop.

So, in general, things are going good so far.  Even with being sick right now, I don't have much to complain about.  This winter has been relatively quiet health wise; the youngest hasn't even been hit once with her usual bouts of bronchitis which she usually gets 2 or 3 times through the winter.  I do hate being sick, but hopefully it will continue to be a mild season for us and this will be the only time I need to complain about it.  I just need to get a move on with A.C.  Phoenix has been doing quite a bit of growing, but I'm finding it to be more my avoidance WIP at the moment, which is not necessarily a good thing, although it does help with that word count goal.

Speaking of which, I just finished doing some work on that tonight, and now I need to move on to A.C.  Just need to push on through....

Or threaten myself with another short story.  *g*

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.

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?

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.