Writer-In-Progress

You’d think that since I haven’t blogged my writing progress lately that there hasn’t been any.

You’d be mostly right.

Picked up a nasty chest cold early last week and unfortunately, cold and sinus medicine do nothing to up the creativity or energy levels. I know writers are supposed to persevere through everything for the sake of writing but I must admit here that being able to easily breath and not cough up a lung trumps being able to write…

So now that I’m sorta getting better (less fever, more energy, less coughing), I’m writing again. Maybe I just needed a little out-of-my-mind break (love those dreams I have on cough medicine LOL).

Tonight I added to my story. All totaled it’s now 6 solid pages and comes in at just over 1400 words. It ain’t a novel yet but it’s still pulling my interest so I’m happy with that. For now. Until the Nyquil is out of my system, anyway….

• Comments Off
• Filed in Random Writing Stuff

What the hell is it with my writing that happens every time I try to set good, solid, reasonable goals and something always flies in about a day later to completely screw with my plans?!

I signed up for the 70 Days of Sweat Challenge with the honest intention of writing 750 words a day–at least. Figured it’s a good time to start the novel rather than just brainstorming til I’m 80, plus with the short story due out reasonably soon (still awaiting the release date) I’d need to follow up with a second story to the editor.

Sounded great til I got a notice from a writing friend who mentioned an editor was looking for authors for work for hire. Basically, the publisher has titles they need to put out and need to hire writers to do a lot of writing in a short period of time. Before my brain could stop my fingers, I fired off a query to the editor only to have her send me the list of titles and prompt me to pick five. I did, and those had all been bid on. Picked three more, and those were gone. Picked three more on Friday and haven’t heard back from the editor, but I do admit none of those titles were really great. But the challenge of writing a 65K word book in 90 days is too great to pass up (she says stupidly).

So, anyway, in the meantime, I’m working on this challenge. I wrote three pages today, which, added to my one page from before, brings me to four. A whopping 843 words, but I’m into the second scene of the story (dialogue always comes to me first before description) and still cranking it out. And I’ll be back again at it tomorrow night unless something else comes across my email and I think I have to write it.

Why can’t I stay focused? Maybe I should work on that in my writer’s coaching course…lol.

And do these blog posts count into my 750 a day? I wish!

• Comments Off
• Filed in Random Writing Stuff

Since I’ve heard that question more than once in my life (the answer is almost always yes), I figured I’d prove it:

I just signed up (on impulse, like buying that pair of purple heels I picked up on clearance last year at Macy’s and have worn only once…today…) for yet another writing challenge: 70 Days of Sweat at http://70daysofsweat.com/wordpress/archives/71

Why nuts? I just started a course on coaching writers through creative issues (12 week class), am busier in the day job than I’ve ever been before (7-5 most days) and am coming into basketball season (I keep scorebook for two, sometimes three teams a week..or twice a week). And now I’m committing to writing a minimum 750 words (3 little pages) a day. Wow. Even I think I’m nuts!

But I’m excited. While I’m enjoying the brainstorming process for the upcoming story, I also don’t want to use that as an excuse to not write (pet peeve: writers who’ve been working on the same “story” for more than two years). Might as well dive in now….

Why am I here and not writing? I have 3 pages to finish…..

• Comments Off
• Filed in Random Writing Stuff

Since we didn’t get to catch up (the Serious Writer girls, see previous post) for this three-week span, Katy emailed (for sake of conversation) a question I always love asking of writers everywhere: what’s your process?

Katy asked specifically if I’m writing to get to know my characters or if I’m working on something else (nonfiction) while I work on the characters in my head. Interestingly enough, up to this point of my writing career, I’ve always gone with the latter. I always have four or five writing projects going at the same time (can’t sit still…) and find that when I get stuck on one I can flit to another and find something else to work on easily.

But this time–at least with the fiction–things are different. I don’t remember if I mentioned it but the hero of my current story (Christopher) has been telling me bits and pieces of himself at really odd times (you know that if you’re a writer you’re always thinking of your story so don’t pretend like you never “hear” things from your characters…LOL) and instead of keeping them all in my mind, I’ve been writing them down. I’ve almost filled up an entire notebook with Chris and Lily (the heroine) notes. I’m not used to this–my preferred method of writing fiction is to solidify that first all-important, crucial scene in my mind 99% then settle in and write it.

The problem has come when that first scene (often first chapter) comes out easily but I’ve written everything i know about the character to that point into that section of the story, leaving me with little to go on. I don’t always plot out all the crucial scenes (gasp…!) so I find myself lose interest in the story or it takes a wild tangent I didn’t expect, which ends up being an excuse not to finish.

So I thought…what the hell, I’ll try something different. I must admit it’s a really refreshing feeling. I don’t have that “dread” when I sit down to write that I often had in the past where I don’t know what comes next. I’m having fun writing about the characters, discovering tiny details about the character or setting I think I might have missed had I just written fast from the start.

The fun will start when i finally get the real story started but the hope is that I’ll have a wealth of info from my notes to draw upon and use as my map. I guess I won’t know til I get there but I’m having a darn fun time trying it…

back to the notebook…

• Comments Off
• Filed in Random Writing Stuff

I gave a presentation earlier this week to a group of teachers and had an interesting flashback experience that shows just how my mindset toward being an author has changed since I started writing…and feel like sharing, since this is my blog…LOL

When I started grad school three years ago, first class, first day, we had to introduce ourselves and tell the class something about ourselves. As everyone shared around the class, I panicked about what to share. I finally convinced myself to share that I was a writer (yes, i said it out loud to a group of strangers…), but didn’t mention that I had only a few credits to my name. I was so worried that there was some unwritten rule that I had to have a minimum two books or x number of magazine articles published to qualify as a “writer”, but as it turned out, I wasn’t struck by lightening.

After that, sharing that I was a writer became easier each time I did it (to strangers..lol). At the presentation, the teacher of the class introduced me and gave high compliments on my writing. She said she had no idea I was a writer until she checked out my website, and how impressed she was with my writing. I was surprised (pleasantly) to say the least, but unlike the old Beth in grad school, I smiled and thanked her without hesitation. Later, as I thought about it, I realized how, had that occured three short years ago, I’d have blushed and insisted I wasn’t a real writer yet because..why? Because I hadn’t met those lofty and undefinable things that qualify people as a writer?

Lori Foster, in her infinitely wise and down-to-earth way, once said that everyone who writes is a writer. There is no checklist to complete, no hoop to jump through, no group to join, no prerequisites for publishing–the act of writing qualifies you to be a writer. The difference, she said, is that some people who are writers eventually become published authors when they sell their work. It’s an easy, simple distinction that works well with the writer’s delicate psyche, and it’s true.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have someone publicly acknowledge that for you, either…

• Comments Off
• Filed in Random Writing Stuff

The Seriouswriter girls & I were supposed to meet on Thursday for our ritualistic three-week catch-up-drink-coffee-set-goals (and pay up if you missed the last one)but real-life stuff intervened and we set goals via email.

Katy qualified her goal by claiming it was lame as compared with everyone else’s goal but I think it’s the toughest at times: to work on the same writing project every day for three straight weeks.

I disagreed with her because I think that setting, establishing and keeping a true daily writing schedule (if you aren’t a fulltime writer or don’t have a day job/life to interfere with writing) is often much more difficult than setting a page requirement to complete. The way life unfolds daily is never the same as the day before, and working to carve out that uninterrupted period of time where it’s just you and the words can be damn near impossible sometimes. But even if it’s only fifteen minutes, it’s a start.

Part of the challenge of setting writing goals that will help your career as a writer is taking into account one simple thing: LIFE–and structuring your career around it so that you maximize your experience with both. And since no one else can live your life the way you want, don’t worry that someone else’s goals don’t fit your career. Your writing, your life, your goals…and your $5 if you don’t meet them…LOL

• Comments Off
• Filed in Random Writing Stuff

So that last post was on the galley…this time the post is on the FINAL galley. When I send this bad boy in (ok, good boy..), my editor says I’ll get my release date. I think that means almost showtime, huh?

It’s odd to think that all this time I’ve wanted to be published in fiction has come to (almost) fruition and now I’m a little afraid. What if someone doesn’t like my story? What if only my mom buys a copy? What if it’s the worst seller in company history?

What if?
What if?
What if?

It’s enough to make a girl crazy. Guess the only place I really can go to escape is the fictional world I’ve recently created for this newest story. It’s a vicious cycle…lol.

• Comments Off
• Filed in Random Writing Stuff

woohoo! Just finished up and send my (sparse…I think there were only like 10 max) galley edit changes back to the editor. Not bad, since I promised them no later than today. I actually did them yesterday while working at the yoga studio but couldn’t stay awake to type them up.

I remember hearing an author once say that even though you send in a final proof of a story (novel, in her case, I believe), you never feel like it’s really, completely, 100% finished–I’m finding that. I had the urge to send a note to the effect of “oh, and if I can keep it another week, I can make all kinds of descriptive changes….” but I resisted. Guess that’s what I shoulda done before submission, right?!

Anyway, it’s a relief (a good one) to have gotten the story back in such a fast time frame. Now I have time to work on that letter to the editor I mentioned…

• Comments Off
• Filed in Random Writing Stuff

I’m hot.
And bothered.

No, no. Not like that. (That’s another post for a different blog, anyway).

I try (oh, so hard) not to read editorial letters in the Columbus Dispatch. Really, I do. And I try equally hard to maintain a level head when anyone insults my Buckeyes. I’ve been hit by frozen marshmallows and pennies in Michigan Stadium (God’s cereal bowl), pennies at Camp Randall in Wisconsin (thank heaven college kids don’t make much money..quarters would hurt), been the recipient of a littany of rhyming words at Penn State (we are the BUCK-eyes..use your imagination here), have endured the annoying biting shadow hand-puppet of the Wolfpack (hey, you had Chuck Amato…I understand your need for simple entertainment), to name a few.

Even when the ex-president (affectionately referred to as Karen AHole Brook by my 15 year old son) of a university makes a sweeping statement that the entire college population of said university is a “riotous culture”, I bit my tongue. But as usual, some idiot in C-bus had to validate AHole’s assumption that just because there were isolated riots by idiots a few years ago, we’re all a bunch of rabblerousers, and I couldn’t hold back.

I read the letter to the editor this afternoon and just had to share that I crafted what might possibly be the a)fastest, b) most alliterative and c)best quality piece of writing I’ve done in a long time to send to the Dispatch. Don’t worry–it has all that trademark sarcasm my editorial fan club (see: When it Rains) has come to expect in my pithy editorials.

Like I didn’t have enough to do with making cookies for tomorrow’s tailgate or proofing the galley…but if you’ve learned anything from me, you better learn never to hack me off about the Buckeyes…or piss off a smart-alec writer. Forget sticks and stones…I’m about to level someone with words.

Fingers crossed the editors calls to confirm my details (with a snicker in her voice)…

• Comments Off
• Filed in Random Writing Stuff

I feel like when I say “galley”, I’m aboard a pirate ship cooking fresh-caught fish…haha…but not so.

For those non-writers of you in the audience, galleys are the final copy for proofreading a story or book before it goes into actual publication…kind of like that final draft you dreaded when your 8th grade English teacher assigned it for homework over the weekend. Yeah, so I’m a geek…I’m more excited about my galleys than I am about an upcoming birthday party for a friend…ah well!

My galley arrived today in my email…a sight for the weary as the day job has really worn me down this week. I only had time to print and glance at the cover (on my website if you wanna check it out…I love it…) but will snuggle in with it tonight, along with my trusty red pen. (Old classroom habits die hard).

I’m still tossing around the mental disbelief that someday soon, those words on my page will be out in the public eye. Now that’s scarier than any red-pen-marked-up-assignment…as any writer will tell you. I think having the courage to put out your babies (writing babies) before the public is the ultimate form of soul-baring (or sadomasochism, in some ways). We’ll see how it goes….

• Comments Off
• Filed in Random Writing Stuff