7 posts tagged “process & craft”

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.

It used t be "writing novels sucks," but not anymore.  For most writers, novels take awhile.  The fact that I'm slower than most writers is something I don't particularly like, but I've accepted it to some degree.  Some of this slowness is lack of time (amazing what even "just" being a sub can do to your life), some of it is lack of focus (particularly with the routine blown away and not having had much of a chance to return), but some of it is method.  NPB (Novel Plot Building) takes me awhile.  But that time is better than never finishing, which is what I used to do and why I used to hate novel writing.  It may have been the natural length of the stories I created, but there was certainly nothing natural about it to me.

And then I developed NPB and the problem was solved.  For writing the early drafts of novels.  Shorts and poetry have never been a problem for me -- I could get a single short written in one day, sometimes 2.  So far only one short has ever taken longer to get a complete first draft ("The Reckoning").

What's hurting me now is revising.  "Painted" took me 6 days to revise.  And it's not even that complicated a story.  A chapter of Assassin's can take me 10 days or more to get through for a 4th round revision.  Of course, Assassin's has some very specialized concerns -- for me, Alden is more poetic in nature.  Poetic prose isn't all that easy to write.  Add in issues that I'm having with trying to fit in modern language as well, and I'm sure you can see the problems.  Every line needs ot be looked at carefully.  I have to listen to how everything flows.  The good news os the v5 revisions tend to be much easier -- all I'm doing is smoothing things out.

Unfortunately, I think these focused revisions for Assassin's are affecting how I revise everything else.  Yes there needs to be an attention to language, to sound, but not at the same level.  My other stories do not need to be poetic.  In fact, if I want to maintain the difference between most my other writing and Alden writing, they shouldn't be poetic.  They need to have a different flow.  One that works for them, but is sharper, cleaner.

I know one of my favorite authors, Patricia McKillip, has made me more aware of words.  Perhaps her writing combined with my revisions on Assassin's has made me more aware of my writing and where I want stories to go.  this may be a good thing.  But it also makes revisions even slower than writing, and it bothers me.  Maybe not so much that they're slower than the actual initial drafting, but at how slow they are.  A short story like "Painted" shouldn't take a week.  Granted, there's a lot to do with focus (reminder to self: PS2 -- Cool toy.  Don't let it take over.) and a lot to do with time (among the many issues last week was my son who is going through a tough time right now, and that means he requires more of my attention), but taking longer than 2 or 3 days to revise 3500 words is too long.  Maybe I can't be Miss Zippy when writing and revising, but I can probably be faster than I am.  I know i used to be slower at the writing and faster at the revising, and now I'm just plain slow and that bothers me.

And this problem is why I have difficulty approaching stories that need more than a revision.  "Ravani's Dance" started off as a piece of fanfic.  Names got changed, a few things got switched up, but it still wasn't working.  My plan is to approach it this week, keeping elements of the original story, but making some major changes.  This is revising but more than revising.  It requires me to look at the story in a new way.  And I've always found that hard to do.  Perhaps that's another issue i have with revising itself: looking at these words I've written in a new way so I can find a better phrasing.

But isn't this what writers do?  Envision the world in a new and different way?  If I can't do that in my revisions, what hope is there in my writing?  Since so many say they like my stories, I must be doing some re-envisioning just fine.  I re-envision every day when I write.  And that's what I need to tap into -- that success, that creativity.  With that, i can come up with a new attitude about revising.  Will it make the revision process go faster for me?  Probably not.  But it will make it suck a lot less.

It's not revising, which sucks.  It's re-envisioning, which is my job.