11 posts tagged “process & craft”

There's just something about deciding that you WILL do something.  No hedging, no "if I can", but a definite "I WILL do this."

2009 started with a little bit of a stumble—I was still struggling with chapter 30 of A.C., but I've since kicked myself in gear.  Today, chapter 30 will be done and posted (along with the 4 previous chapters) to the workshop and sent to my two readers (in a 10 chapter section).

Which also brings up the fact that it's sometimes silly what finally gets us motivated.  In this case, I thought about writing a new short...and ended up finishing off chapter 30.4 revisions in 2 days.  I guess writing a new short is a threat to me?  Whatever works, right?  The only problem with this is that I do indeed need to write a new short.  A Christmas one for a private advent calendar, so I'm going to have to get over it being a threat soon.  I write and revise too slow to wait until we're too much further into the year to get started.

So far this month, I've written or revised a total of 11k.  In new words, I'm holding steady at 3900/week for the moment.  It was a bit of a stretch, so getting back into the habit of making that particular goal each week is more of a priority than trying to push more words just yet.  These words have been split between world building for both A.C. (which is now pretty much done) and Phoenix 1 and working on the Phoenix 1 building draft.  The other projects haven't been touched much yet, and that's fine.  I probably need to get A.C. off my plate first.

There are two things I'm really trying to put into play as I recover from the mess that was last year: 1. knowing my limits and being patient with myself because of them, and 2. easing back into things and being patient with the process.

Knowing your limits is as important as understanding your process, I think.  This doesn't mean you don't try to increase your limits, just that you realize that you have them and may need to build upon them.  Otherwise frustration sets in and you give up.  this was a real problem for me last year because my limits had decreased because of my health issues.  I needed to allow myself to heal before I pushed, but was just too used to pushing to convince myself to do that.  This year, I am measuring success a little differently.  Yes, I want to reach my goals, but I want to enjoy what I'm doing (for the most part since I'll probably always hate revisions) and reach those goals a bit more consistently.  To do that, I have to realize where my limits are, find the point where it's a challenge, then take the time I need to actually consistently reach that goal before I try pushing some more.  Last year, when I made my goals at all, it was more of a "Oh, I made my goal this week!  time to add more for next week."  Habit building just doesn't work that way for me.

Baby steps can be frustrating, but right now, that's what I need to take.  So, I've got a long way to go before I'm where I want to be, and I might have put too much in the goals to be able to reach them all.  The good news is that I still have a lot of year left.  And if I don't reach them all, I'll at least have a better idea of where my challenge point is and either cut back a project or two or keep the same number for next year.

And, really, THAT progress, that understanding of what I need to do to be happier in what I do and be less frustrated with myself and my writing, is a better achievement than the word count so far.

Now, about that exercise problem....  ;)

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!

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.

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.  ;)

I've spent the last couple of weeks dealing with some unusual (for me) insecurities.  One had to do with family, but was indirectly related to being a writer, the other was directly related to writing and led to a realization about how I need to work.  I've also been learning that even established authors still deal with insecurities when it comes to writing.  Which is kind of depressing in the sense of "oh my Gad--you mean I'll never be free of this crap?!"  But it can be reassuring too--maybe I won't piss off fans with my own sense of self-importance the way a few authors have in recent years.  (I've already told friends that if I ever get to the point where I think I don't need an editor, they are to slap me silly.  I can't see myself ever becoming a popular enough author to warrant such arrogance or ever getting over my own insecurities enough to ever think I don't need help, but who knows what the future holds?)  The thing about insecurities, though, is you have to find a way through or around them to keep going.  You can't let them strangle you.

My first demon had to do with not providing financially for my kids.  Writing doesn't pay much for most authors.  MY writing doesn't even cover the cost of supplies yet.  (Are you kidding?  Ink alone wipes out what I make in a year!)  while the amount I make is rising, it certainly can't be called a paying job.  I'm in that "paying my dues" phase of my writing career--and may be here not only for a very long time, but for the entirety of my career.  We have to be somewhat realistic: writing is a brutal business and, even with more opportunities to get paid publication, only a few really ever make this a supporting career.  The funny thing about all this is that I've only ever wanted to be an at home mommy anyway.  Now that I am, because of some issues that prevent me from working, I'm angsting about it.  I guess it would be easier to deal with if I'd had more of a choice in the matter instead of making the only choice that made sense (because, yes, there was another option open to me, but taking the option that reduces our income when we barely get by as it is hardly makes any sense at all).

So, right now, regardless of the financial implications of my writing, I'd be home anyway.  However, this doesn't mean I don't provide for my kids, and I had to realize this.  I keep us from losing more money by giving my husband the hours he needs to work.  I keep us from paying for childcare--which would probably eat up most, if not all, of any paycheck I would get.  As a sub, there's no guarantee I'd be working every day--though I did work most days because I was one of those subs teachers wanted in their classrooms.  And over the last year, it's become more and more obvious that I wasn't getting paid enough to really offset the cost of me working.  So, even when I was bringing in a traditional income, I wasn't really providing financially for my kids.  Towards the end of my subbing career, I was even paying for me to work.

Then there are the non-financial reasons for me to stay home.  I provide something for my kids that a daycare never could: me.  My time, my presence, my interaction.  I help them get ready for school and see them off, make sure they've done everything they need and have everything they need.  I'm here when they get home and can listen to their day and make sure they get their homework done and do whatever else they need to do.  When my husband is late, I feed them (he's usually our cook).  I provide stability in the routine of the day, something my son really needs.  In this house, quality time goes hand in hand with quantity time.  They get me, their mom, and no one can replace that.

So I do provide for my kids.  Maybe not with money, but I do provide for them.  And, since I'd be home anyway, I might as well write.  There's ways to keep the costs down and ways to increase the income, both of which I'm working on.

Demon #1 dealt with.  Hopefully for good, but angst has this annoying tendency to resurface, so we'll see.  At least I now have this post to look at when it does.

Demon #2 is an odd one for me.  I'm used to crises in confidence, but this had nothing to do with confidence.  This one had to do with what I "should" be doing with my time.  I wasn't thinking "hey, you're a lousy writer, give it up."  I was thinking, "I may be an okay writer, but should I be writing?"  I'm not even sure it came down to money, even though I'm sure that was part of it.  I am selling, not frequently and not everything, but I'm seeing more sales now than when I started.  But should I be trying to get published?  Perhaps this was more of "how much of a waste of time is this?" kind of thing.  The solution to this demon came down to two things for me:

1.  Going back to the kids a bit here: I'd be home anyway.  The press I edit for hasn't taken off enough for it to take up all my time, there's only so much housecleaning a person can do (if they even want to do that much housecleaning at all), and I'm not a TV and bonbons kind of person (even the PlayStation gets old after awhile--something it's starting to remind us of lately)...and I've always wanted to be a writer.  And...I'd be home anyway,  Might as well fill that time with what I love to do.

2. Oddly, what helped the most was writing fresh words.  Not revising.  Not checking for sense, technicalities, or anything--just getting a story down.  It'll need to be revised later, yes, but, for now, I can just write it.  Apparently, I need that to keep sane about my writing.  Revising is about fixing the problems.  Focus on nothing but fixing the problems, you begin to wonder if it's what you should be doing because all you're doing is fixing problems and there's always problems to fix.  I don't like revisions.  I know they're necessary, but, no, revising isn't a part of writing I enjoy.  I don't enjoy them and see so much wrong with my writing that it's hard to feel like this is what I should be doing.  To keep my love of writing alive, to think I should be doing this writing thing, I need fresh words.  This means making sure I have a novel in that early part of creation while revising another project.

Once I wrote some new words on Phoenix Rising, that feeling that maybe I shouldn't be doing this dissipated.  I just have to remember this the next time I get that feeling that I maybe I shouldn't be doing this writing thing.  Granted, it may not come back, but I should plan for it anyway.  For one, I tend to hyper focus.  It's part of the ADHD, believe it or not.  At some point, I'll get so totally focused on Assassin's Choice that nothing else will get worked on.  Assassin's is in revisions and will be for the rest of the year.  No (or very few) fresh words.  So it will be easy to get caught back up in it and let anything fresh just slide because this "needs" to get done.

Demon #2 dealt with...for now.

Writing is such an odd profession.  It's generally not thought of as a career unless you're Stephen King or J. K. Rowling, neither of which would be told by their spouses or parents to go get a "real" job.  Even visual artists get more respect and support than your average writer.  Despite the number of markets out there, it doesn't pay a living wage for most of us--a lot of which has to do with what those markets pay (or, more frequently, don't pay), but there are other reasons in there as well.  So it comes with these "extra" demons.  It's bad enough to be fighting feelings of insecurity, but we have to deal with all this other stuff as well.  And it's a constant thing.  There's this subtle pressure to prove yourself (by selling BIG, of course) or get out of the way.  And that, apparently, never goes away...except maybe for King and Rowling.  ;)

All of which makes me kind of glad I'd be home anyway.  If I end up being able to fall back on nothing else for my writing, I can always remind myself of that.  Hopefully, that, and the few publications I get each year, will be enough to keep me going despite my demons.  I'm home anyway.  Might as well do something I love to do.  :)

A.C. is still in revisions, but it's all posted with my crit group and I'm pulling chapters and getting it done.  I'm trying to keep a fairly steady pace, not always easy even when I'm really focused on it -- which I have been.  During May, I ended up subbing for most of the month, and that really derailed me (work always does).  Then my second daughter moved back in, bringing chaos with her  -- less than when she lived here before, but it was still quite a disruption.  And now the kids are out and I'm trying to find something other than teaching as a job.  A steady pace now days is when I manage to work on revisions 2 days in a row.

I've started Phoenix Rising, the first in a series of 5 related books with different main characters.  In fact, they're also at different times in Kree (the nation in which they take place) history.  So they kind of stand alone, but they do chronicle the rise and fall of one major house in Kree.  The Thalionrhoes become a part of the first council when the last Life Guardian of Alden dies.  They resist the pressure from the human members to change the consistency of the council.  Later, they create an underground railroad of sorts, this one helping the lyanthry, declared traitors by the council, flee to Serayn.  Finally, the council turns on them completely and attacks their manor, razing the land, killing any surviving members they can find.

That's the whole series.  Yes, I've had it in my head for some time (like most my Alden novels).  Phoenix 1 is the rise of the family to power.  The main character is chosen by the last Life Guardian herself to become a council member.  And it is she who is by the Guardian's side when she prophecies and dies.  This is the main story, and now i have to build the rest -- the conflict from those who would rather the Guardian choose 3 people to take the places the Guardians once held, the conflict with the MC's own house and the spirit guardian that watches over them.  Unlike A.C., I don't have this one all thought out yet, so it's going to take me some time to pull just the plotting form together.

I'm considering looking at books 2 and 3 in the Heroes trilogy again too.  Neither were long enough rough drafts, so I need to go back a step or two with them and see what I need to do to build them up.  I'm thinking I may have to start back at the outline or plotting form and see if I need to develop anything more than I did, then rebuild.

Even if these 3 books never get published, they are certainly teaching me a lot!  I'm hoping A.C. will be ready for whole book readers by the end of the year, and ready for me to query agents by next summer, maybe earlier.  I keep letting myself get hung up on things that I don't really need to be hung up on.  I really have to stop doing that.

The building draft for Under A Blood Moon was finished last week.  It came in at 55,112 words.  However, it didn't survive the scrutiny of most of my alpha readers.  There are some huge plot problems that I need to think about before I work on it, or any of the series, any more, so the novel (and the series, if there will be one) has been set aside for the time being.

I'm already starting to consider another project to work on in its place.  So far, it looks like either Mirror Master or Mist & Shadow book 1.  Mirror has the least amount of work done (like, next to none), but has been on my mind the most frequently of late.  Mist & Shadow has been an on again, off again project that I think is cool, but I just haven't been as interested in it as it deserves if I'm going to work on it.  Another one in the consideration pile is Huntress (title not really settled), which is one of the newer of my project ideas, but it isn't nearly as formed as I think it needs to be for me to work on it.  I'm obviously still doing some thinking about what to pick up.  I don't mind the few days off, but I know I also need to pick something else up fairly soon.

In the meantime, I'm still working on A.C. (which is still a ways from completion, but is also the only book I have in revisions at the moment).

Really, now that I've proven I can draft a book, I really need to finish one.

Therre's a lot of talk about how writers need to be readers and need to write every day and so on.  Very little is said about how writers need to also be learners.  We never really fully know our craft -- there's always something new to explore and learn, whether it's a new genre or new guidelines about what works or new background information that we need for a story or novel.  Writers should always be pushing their boundaries or they become stale.

I'm learning a "new" genre.  Under A Blood Moon is urband fanrasy, not so hard, mixed with mystery, I guess.  Think Dresden Files meets Anita Blake, only with a paranormal main character.  Now, I read these books, and Phyllis A. Whitney.  Reading mysteries doesn't prepare you for writing them as much as one would think.  While I'm still using my NPB method, I've had to add a step or two and modify a few things.  And there are so many questions -- what forensics do I need to know?  How do I keep the real perpetrator from being obvious?  Then there's the doubt -- can I really do this?

I'm plowing through and trying to keep it fun while I do -- Assassin's was such a struggle despite being a learning novel, that I need fun in addition to not mind bending.  But every step of the way comes with new questions.  I just did a timeline and not only found an error (I doubt a detective agency would be open on a Sunday -- most places aren't) that I'm going to have to figure out how to fix (I just need some Sunday padding), but am now wondering if the time from start to finish is too short.  Granted, I'm not done yet, but there's also not been much "down" time so it's only been 11 days so far.

I did end up cutting a murder from the total.  So, today I get to make the adjustments, then I get to turn those adjustments into the narrative draft format.  I was worried it would be too much work and I'd have to go back to the outline, but it'll be fine.

Best of all, despite the second guessing and all the doubt and the questions, I'm enjoying the story and delving into the genre.  And that's a very good sign.