Okay, not so much on the road as on the plane, train, and autobús, but the saying is a good one!
I love to travel. This time, I have embarked on a somewhat-impromptu trip to gorgeous España. Hey, when the airfare deal is hot, you got to strike! (See also, my upcoming trip to Peru.) I love Spain, and my boyfriend has never been, so I am very excited to be here with him. I studied Spanish in college, including a month-long study abroad program in Spain, and although my skills have gotten verrrrry rusty, I still love the langage and the chance to speak it.
Aside from the opportunity to "grathias" my way across the Spanish countryside, travel opens my mind to the world beyond myself and energizes me to re-approach my own life with renewed perspective. I love seeing the people walking past, each an entire universe unto themself, complete with their own set of thoughts and problems just as deep and intricate as my own. As I am facing some Big Life Decisions right now, it is a much-needed dose of context!
I also find that travel helps fill my creative wells. Yesterday, we traipsed through 14th century ruins of a palace and its accompanying castle fortress, and the place practically sprang to life. I could almost hear characters calling to each other across the tiled courtyards, the creaking of armor as they patrolled the narrow ramparts, the aching sense of enclosure and safety both beneath the thick walls. And that was just one place we visited! While I may not have much time or energy to actually do a lot of writing when I travel (I prefer to read during my down time--this blog post is brought to you only by my boyfriend's need for a pit stop), it recharges the parts of my brain that can help come forth with details, stories, and lush bits of magic that make a manuscript sing.
The random WiFi hotspot aside, I am disconnected from the world in a way that I badly need from time to time for the benefit of my sanity and my writing.
I used to say that I was so jealous of people who had a goal for their life. The ones who knew that they wanted to be a doctor or a teacher or whatever. Me? I would shake my 20-something head and say with a laugh that I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. But that isn't the truth, is it? Because I've always known. Ever since I was a little girl, I knew I wanted to be an author. Alongside fleeting notions of being a ballerina or, at one point, my life's ambition to be a lifeguard, it was constant. I would draw pictures of the books I would write someday. I came up with lists of titles and wrote fake obituaries about myself and my body of work (okay, to be slightly less morbid, that was a class assignment in middle school!). I daydreamed of pen names and genres.
Which is to say, I have always known exactly what I wanted to be when I grow up. But it isn't a "real" dream, it isn't a practical one like being a doctor or a teacher. It's more like wanting to become a movie star. Honey, it probably ain't gonna happen, and you better get real good at waiting tables in the mean time.
I suppose in one way I am lucky that it is the writing bug that bit me. Writing is probably one of the artistic pursuits that is most amenable to having a day job. I don't have to be flexible to attend auditions on short notice. I don't need to time the light just right or try to get all the paint out from underneath my fingernails. I don't need to spend a lot of money on fancy gadgets. I just have to write. And so I can pretend to be a good, honest, upstanding citizen from 9 to 5 while I spin tales of folly and fantasy on nights, weekends, and lunch breaks. I don't even have to live in poverty!
But it still takes its toll. I try to set goals for myself that are within my own control. Write X amount of hours or words. Read this book or try this writing exercise. Send X number of queries. Let the externalities come when (and if) they will. But there is no denying that my real goal--the deep, burning hope for my life--is to be a full-time, published author. It is for people to read my books far and wide. It gives me motivation and fire, it forces me to be better, to strive, but it also sets me up for endless disappointment. I can't just go to medical school and come out the other end with my certificate. There is so much luck and timing and talent and skill that all have to come together. Some of it is in my control, some of it is not. I may never achieve my life's goal. I might die a disappointment to myself.
5. “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” –Ernest Hemingway
This is a great quote for those days when writing feels hard and, because it feels hard, you start to question the entire edifice. Maybe you aren’t meant to be a writer, if writing is hard for you. Writing is easy for good writers, right? Well, some people think Mr. Hemingway was a pretty good writer…
I don’t think writing has to be a masochistic exercise of bleeding all over typewriter (or Scrivener, or whatever), but if it is, that is not unusual. It’s not the end of the world. It’s a normal feeling for writers of every skill level. So open up that vein, but don’t quit!
4. “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” –Stephen King
I know, I know. The last thing you need is another thing to fail at, another area where you aren’t doing what you need to. But sorry, I am going with Mr. King on this one. Reading is so integral to writing. It’s important on the business side. You need to know where your book fits into the market in order to pitch it, to market it, to sell it. And so you need to know the market, which is just a fancy way of saying read! But it’s also important on the craft side. Reading is some of the best writing education you can give yourself, especially critical reading. Look at how other authors create tension or dialogue that sparks right off the page. Look at how other authors make you check to see if the book is ever going to end and skim yet another section. Learn what you love and what you don’t. And for me, reading is the ultimate form of inspiration. Reading a good book makes my inner writer yearn to be set free and create. It replenishes the wells of creativity that I drain during writing.
3. “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” –Ernest Hemingway
I am a perfectionist. That isn’t always a bad thing. Striving for perfection can be a way to rise to the next level, to overcome obstacles. But for my own mental health, I have to remember that perfection is an illusion. There is always something else to learn, always some way that I could be better. I am still an apprentice. But! So is everyone else. We are all apprentices. There is no need to castigate myself for failure to achieve mastery, because that is impossible. I will keep learning, I will keep striving, and I will take pleasure in the process, not despair.
2. “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” –Ray Bradbury
Oh, this one. Cuts me right to the core with its truthiness. Writing as an industry is so, so hard. I’ve written for my entire life, and so far I don’t have much to show for it besides a pile of unpublished manuscripts. Querying is the epitome of soul-sucking. You have to find that inner source of joy, the intoxication of writing. Otherwise there are too many opportunities to give up. Too many ways to realize that the odds are very much against you. But writing is always there. It is always available to you. You are a writer, and you write, and that in itself must be enough to carry you through all the times (the many, many times) when everything else is going against you and your writing.
1. “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” –Dr. Seuss (or maybe Bernard Baruch?)
This isn’t necessarily a writing quote so much as it is a life quote. And it’s one that has resonated with me since the first time I heard it. I’ll be honest—I’m a bit of a strange duck. And I have social anxiety, so getting along with other people can feel like a monumental task. But when I’m getting down on myself for being awkward or weird or whatever, I just have to remember that those who truly care don’t care!
But beyond that, it is a writing quote too. It can be so easy to get caught up in the paralysis of what other people will think about your writing. Whether you are going to offend someone you care about it. If agents and editors will laugh at the premise before they even finish hearing your pitch. Whether it will be received well by readers. And I’m not saying that you shouldn’t consider the impact of your work and take that into account, but at the end of the day, if it’s something you need to write, then write it. Don’t let the paralysis win.
And if you want to hear me talk about all of this as well, today's post is also a video! It's two-for-one writing quote happiness!
4. You finished a book! Most people will never manage that!
Yeah, okay. I finished a book. Yay me! It is a big accomplishment, but it’s also one that I hit for the first time when I was 13. I’ve written almost SIX books now. It is hard to see writing additional books as anything but a failure—as in, I’ve written six fucking books that I can’t sell. I’m just piling up rubbish manuscripts, and that doesn’t feel like an accomplishment at all.
3. But writing is its own reward! Don’t think about getting published!
Writing is hard goddamn work. Which doesn’t mean that it can’t be its own reward, but it isn’t something that fills my life with rainbows and sunshine. I do derive great pleasure from perfecting a turn of phrase or making a plot come together just so. Obviously I must enjoy it for its own sake on some level or I wouldn’t still be doing it. And for some people, just writing is their goal. That’s great! But for me, I want to share my writing. And while I do that in various forms already, the biggest way that writers share their work is by publishing. That is my goal.
2. Well, I’ve read your stuff, and it’s so good!
I know, complaining about praise seems churlish. And I do love getting feedback of all kinds on my writing (seriously, I crave it, harsh or kind), and positive feedback can make me feel like a thousand bucks. But in the context of publishing, it’s disheartening. Because if I’m so good, then I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, which means I can’t fix it. And I’ll spend another 14 years doing whatever I’m doing and not getting anywhere with it. And even if I really am good (doubtful), then it just makes it feel unfair (ha, I know, that word) that I haven’t had any luck at all wading through the slush.
1. Yes, agents get tons of queries, but 90% of them are pure crap—can’t follow guidelines, can’t string together a sentence, can’t even spell check! The odds aren’t actually that bad for the good ones.
On first blush, this should be a good thing. I do research agents and their guidelines and requests extensively, and I do spend a lot of time and effort perfecting my query letter. I proofread and edit and still have not ever accidentally sent out one with the wrong name. So I should be ahead of the game! Except I’m not. Which means—oh gods, I must be the 90%. I must not be good at all. Worse, I am one of those delusional people who thinks she is doing okay. But I can’t even beat out the half-trained monkeys sending “To Whom It May Concern” queries about their sparkly teenage vampires. Fuck.
Anyway, I know this is all very complainypants, but I’m in a complainypants space right now. I may or may not have cried myself to sleep last night, as my queries for novel 7 draw to a close and novel 8 continues to refuse to come together. I’m feeling discouraged, and I want to feel uplifted, but it seems that every “inspiring” quote or post is just making me feel worse. I think maybe I need to disconnect from the writing community for a little while, do what I can for this first draft of novel 8, and remember that I do love writing for what it is—and right now, it definitely not is getting read.
I have written before about my writing music—or the lack thereof. I don't listen to music while I write. I'm the kind of person who is compelled to sing along to every song, so it would be a bit of a distraction from the whole actually writing thing. But there are songs that I listen to when I am not writing that inspire me. The one I talked about previously, Jordin Sparks's "One Step at a Time", is still my number one for that. But it's an older song, so I pretty much only hear it when iTunes pulls it up randomly.
There is a song currently getting a lot of radio time (yes, I listen to top 40 radio, not ashamed) that just thrills my writing sense all the way down to my fingertips: "Am I Wrong" by Nico & Vinz.
For one thing, the song is catchy as hell. Lots of "ooh oooh ooh" that are fun to croon. For another, the song was inspired by their own dreams of becoming successful artists (clearly, they were not wrong). As a pre-published author, who hasn't struggled with that question? All of the time, the effort, the tears, the rejections, the heartache—is it all just going to go down the drain?
My favorite line in the song is "I ain't tryin' to do what everybody else doing, just cause everybody doing what they all do." Sometimes it can feel like the world is overrun with wannabe novelists. It is daunting and overwhelming, to see myself as one of a faceless horde, yammering at agents and publishers. But I'm not doing what everybody else is. My books are my own. They could not have been written by anyone else, they would not exist without me. I do have something unique and wonderful to offer, and I am not wrong!
It has never been a secret that I want to be a writer, so it is totally normal that I received Terry Brooks's Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life for Christmas sometime in high school. (The book was published in 2003, so probably my junior year.) I read the book a couple times, but this is not going to be a review of that book. Mostly because I don't remember it well enough to say much about it! (The thing that sticks out most is him saying that lounging by the pool with a drink is working for a writer mulling over ideas. I think of that almost every time I go to laze outside!)
But the title of the book, ah now there is something. That has been popping into my head all week. Why? Because it's true. Sometimes the magic works! And it is amazing.
Writing is not an easy business. I've never heard of anyone say otherwise. There are days—and months and years—where it can be incredibly frustrating. I don't even want to go in to how many times I have been checking my email, refreshing my QueryTracker list for new comments, stalking agents on Twitter hoping to glean a hint of where they are at with queries, checking my email again, etc... Rejections mount up. Ideas dry up. Words refuse to come. We wonder why we ever wanted to do this at all, and we think about giving up.
But then! There are the times that we write and write. That what we are writing may not be earth-shatteringly great, but it's pretty damn good. It's a book that I want to be written just so I can read it already. Words pour forth, scenes flow, a book comes together almost as we envision. It makes almost everything else worthwhile, to be caught up in the creation of an entirely new thing that has never existed before. It can't really be predicted or pinned down or explained completely. We take it when we can get it.
Sometimes the magic works.
I still have the book! It sits on my shelf between Theodore Rex and Service Etiquette. And don't judge my messy office!
I need to start keeping a list of ideas for blog posts. During the week, I find myself thinking "Oh, I should write a blog post about that!" all the time, but then when Saturday rolls around (nominally the day that I blog), I can't think of anything to write about.
Case in point, I saved the above as a draft last Sunday and have several times since then thought about what I should write about, but when I sat down to finish it this morning, I still had no clue what I was going to write about! As someone who is a pretty meticulous writer in my fiction, perhaps I just need to adopt a similar planning style for blogging.
Anyway, last night I went to a book club meeting for one of the two book clubs I belong to. Both of these book clubs are based from Meet Up and I have been a member of both for years. Yet I didn't actually start going to any of the meet ups until the past couple months.
Partly this was a logistics issue, because it's hard for me to know my schedule very far in advance with duty and underways and such. Probably the lion's share of it was that I am very introverted and getting me to leave my apartment can be like pulling teeth. Seriously.
Now that I've started to go, I'm kicking myself for not going sooner. For one thing, it gets me to read things outside my comfort zone. 99% of the books I read are SFF and that is also what I write. Sometimes I get so immersed in the world of genre fiction that I forget there are a million other fantastic books out there. Case in point, I have had my Kindle for over 3 years. Currently I have 42 books under Sci Fi, 71 under Fantasy, and only 4 under Fiction and 3 Non-Fiction. (Plus 9 Sherlock Holmes and 8 Anne of Green Gables and 15 Classics). Actually, that breakdown is interesting and I'm going to go ahead and stick a pin in it for a later post. So one of my book clubs is SFF and one is not, which helps me widen my horizons.
I also find it helpful for me as a writer. Being able to see how a wide variety of people respond to a book, the things that stick with them, both good and bad, helps me identify weaknesses in my own writing. For example, last night we were discussing Christopher Moore's A Dirty Job. Everyone liked it overall, and found his writing to be funny, but many of us mentioned the abrupt ending as off-putting. The falling action was minuscule and the resolution mostly delegated to an epilogue. His racist caricatures were mostly distasteful rather than funny. His main character was whiny and hard to relate to at times. His writing was hard to stop reading, his tone was delightful.
So. I'm glad that I came out of my shell a little and started to actually attend book events of these book clubs. Good for me as a reader and a writer and a person, so really, it's a shame I can't attend next month because of an underway. Sigh.
While watching Diane Keaton accept Woody Allen's award at the Golden Globes a few weeks ago, it occurred to me that I had never seen a single Woody Allen movie. I knew who he was, with the thick glasses and the marriage to his sorta step-daughter, but as the clips of all his most famous works played, none seemed familiar. I checked his filmography and, sure enough, I had never seen a single one.
A little while after this, as the whole media furor began to build, I mentioned the fact to my boyfriend. He is more of a movie buff than I am, and he has seen a couple, so he recommended Midnight in Paris as one I might enjoy. Turns out my boyfriend must know me pretty well!
Maybe it's the writer in me, but how can you not just gasp when you realize that is the Zelda Fitzgerald? Watching Gill discover his literary idols in all their glory and vanity and humanity was amazing. Gertrude Stein as a beta reader?? Where do I sign up?!
Not to mention that Inez was one of the most delightfully horrid characters I've met.
It made me think a lot about my writing. Hemingway on having another writer beta your work: "If it's bad, I'll hate it. If it's good, then I'll be envious and hate it even more. You don't want the opinion of another writer." Do I think that's 100% true? No. But it is something to keep in mind. We should want the opinion of readers, not other writers. At least, that is why I write. Not to impress other writers or to hobnob around in Paris bars trying to steal lovers from Pablo Picasso, but to make people feel when they read my work. To be astounded and grieved and amused and every possible thing in between. I want people to hate my Inezs and to shake their heads at my Gills and to laugh at my Dalis.
Anyway. The movie in itself was nothing all that special, but for me as a writer, it was nothing short of magical.
[Also, I've been learning French for the past year, and I am dying to go to Paris! Maybe it can rejuvenate my writing. (Said every writer ever, it seems like!)]
I have written before about the somewhat odd relationship I have with both working out and writing. They are two things that I love, that I constantly strive to make part of my life, that help calm my mind and order my thoughts...and that I absolutely hate doing.
I was thinking about this today, as I sat on my comfortable couch, scrolling through random internet pages (damn you, StumbleUpon!), and trying to convince my lazy ass to get up and move. I did, eventually, and although my workout was long, sweaty, and painful, I was so glad I did it. Hm, what else does that sound like?
Not every writing session is painful, of course. If it was, I'm not sure that I could ever do it, no matter how great the end result. But just as there are some workouts where it feels like I've got 100 extra pounds strapped on my back, there are many times when every word feels tortured out of me. Yet even at those times, it is important to keep going. That is what I tell myself when I'm struggling up that hill, for one more rep, or just a little bit of extra speed. It's also what I tell myself when a blank page is staring me down, when my characters just won't do what I want, when my dialogue is unconvincing, and when my plot seems dumb and an ending hopeless.
There are two main ways I motivate myself when I am working out (or, more likely, when I am trying to convince myself to start a workout, because isn't that always the hardest part?). One is the immediate reward. If I do the workout I planned, then I get that swell of endorphins and that I can-do-anything feeling of accomplishment. Is there a moment quite like standing there, chest heaving, sweat dripping down your nose, knowing that it's over and you kicked ass? And that's just the immediate reward. The other motivator is the long-term goal. If I workout today, and tomorrow, and every day (with proper rest and recovery, of course), I'll get that body I want.
Not me. Yet.
So it also is with writing. When I get writing done, I feel like I've done something. I'm a real writer, and even if what I wrote is crap, it's still an entirely new creation that has never before existed. And when that happens today, and tomorrow, and every day (except, you know, I'm human, so maybe not), I'll make those novels that I will be proud of. Every writing session, I climb a little bit higher on the mountain. Does it have a summit? I don't know. But I'll never stop trying to find it.
Coincidentally, I started writing this post earlier today, and saved it. A little later, I was looking through my feedly when I came across this post on Storyfix. This video is exactly what I'm talking about! The same thing that drives elite athletes (and not elite athletes!) is the same thing that drives writers. We have that deep need that will never be sated unless we do our very best or die trying. How does this not make you want to knuckle down and pound out that last paragraph or just one more push-up? Welcome to the grind!
(Sorry this post was delayed while I was out at sea again!)
The retreat was amazing. I only wish I had the means to do it more often! Unfortunately, at that rate, I'd just be paying for this book to be written, which is not exactly a long-term strategy. So I'll just have to splurge every once in a while when I really am feeling that I need it.
I had to run some errands so ended up getting to the B&B about 20 minutes late (precious writing time gone!), and then of course they had lost my reservation. I was almost done filling out the paperwork again when they found the original one, so that was a lot of fun. But still, it was before 4 PM by the time I got my laptop set up, put on my pajama pants, and started cranking.
At first, it was just like any other writing time. Then I got to the point that I would usually stop, and instead I had to just push through. And do that again. And again. Finally, my stomach would not be ignored any longer, and I headed out to grab a salad from a nearby fast food place. Of course, that ended up taking a while since my quick Googling had neglected to inform me that this fast food place was in a busy mall food court.
Back to my writing hole, I devoured the salad and kept churning through the scenes. I had just returned from an at-sea period in which I had gotten a little sleep-deprived, so I had to call it quits from exhaustion before 10 PM. Still, in less than 5 hours of writing I had put down over 4k words. I set my alarm for 7 AM so that I could get a few more hours in before check out at 11. It was hard to get into the writing before breakfast--I am not much of a morning person--but I managed, which made the breakfast taste that much better. I returned to the room and powered through the last two hours. That morning I put in about 3 hours for about 3k words.
El Primero Boutique Bed & Breakfast
So in only about 7.5 hours of writing time spread over two days, I managed to write 7,097 words! That may not sound like much, but that is more than I wrote the entire month of May. It also propelled me into the last section of my book, and restored some of my passion for the story. I even started playing around with new plot bunnies in my head while I was falling asleep!
All in all, the mini-retreat was a huge success for me. I can really see the light at the end of the tunnel on this draft, now!
I have what most would probably consider an ideal writing set-up. I have a dedicated desk in my apartment, beneath a calming picture I love. There is no television in the room, and there is no one but me in my apartment. True, this desk is located about 1 foot from my bed, and I have to squeeze by my printer to use my bathroom. But all in all, it is an environment conducive to writing.
The only problem is getting myself there. It's a huge mindset shift to move from my couch to my desk. Being at my desk sends the "work time" signal to my brain. I can't always pull off a lot, but once I sit down, I can get something. And yet so many times I never make it to that desk. I sit on my couch and look at it (I can see it from my living room--yes, my apartment is pretty tiny!) and think "Gee, Nora, you should go do some writing."
And instead I Stumble around looking at dessert recipes and funny pictures until it is time for bed.
It's so frustrating! I kick myself in the ass about it all the time, but it doesn't always help. So I decided that what I really needed was a bigger change in environment than merely stepping from one room to another. I logged on to my laptop (from my couch, of course) and booked myself a room at a local bed and breakfast. A mini writing retreat. No distractions, just me and my manuscript. It is a period of less than 24 hours--surely, even my own scattered brain can handle that!
I don't know if it will help. It's possible that I'll spend the entire time tucked up in a foreign bed watching reruns on Animal Planet and eating cookies. But I think that by forcing myself out of my comfort zone and into a writing zone, I'll be able to get some good work done. And once I get some good work done, I will be past this block in the novel and be on to the races for the finish!
The past week or so I have been able to get what feels like an astounding amount done. I have written, I have outlined, I have plotted, and I have written some more. The ending, while still a ways off, is suddenly in sight.
I am prone to bursts of productivity like this, but usually they happen due to a nebulous fount of inspiration. This time, however, it's due to me digging down deep and pushing through a lack of inspiration. Getting through the rough patches is the real meat of writing, and it is something I have always struggled with.
The reason that I've been logging the time lately is because I keep asking myself, "Do I want to be a real writer?" Now, normally I dislike differentiating between "real" writers and the rest of us. My writing may be unpublished, but it's just as real as anyone else's. So I tweaked the question and made it, "What would I do if I were a professional writer?" And the answer is that I would write. Even when I didn't feel like it.
Reading about the writing routines of famous authors makes one thing abundantly clear: you must write. These people are logging hours at a time, multiple sessions a day. Obviously, that isn't normally a viable option for me or anyone with another job. But on weekends, what is stopping me? Only myself. And this goes triple for those days when I end up getting time off that I wasn't expecting. Because it's only healthy to want a day off on the weekends, free of stress, even the lovable stress of writing. But if I get to leave work early on a Wednesday? Those hours need to count.
They say you should dress for the job you want, not the one you have. And I say that I should write like I'm a real, professional writer, even if that's not currently the case.
I usually like to write at the library. It is quiet and relaxing, and it reminds me of a childhood spent falling in love with books. There is internet in case I need to do a quick bit of research, but it does not tempt me to lose myself in surfing the web. Plenty of table space and outlets, and no one to bother me while I work. And no food to distract me!
On top of all that, I find it inspiring to sit in the midst of the stacks, surrounded by books. To imagine myself joining the ranks of published authors and to picture my book sitting in its place on a shelf.
Usually.
Today something feels different. Maybe it is because I am quite tired, but today all these books just make me feel insignificant. How many of these books will I never read? How many will my eyes just pass right over on the shelf without a second thought? And if I were to ever clear the massive hurdle that is being published, what would make my book any different to everyone else? If I ever finish my debut novel, and if it gets accepted and published, what then? It will just be one more book on the shelf. A drop in the ocean, a grain of sand on the beach.
Still, I'm not going to give up. I just finished another chapter in novel 6, and I do in general feel good about it. And even a drop in a nameless stream can someday hope to be a drop in the ocean.
(On a mostly unrelated note, the above image is from Beautiful-Libraries.com, which is a pretty freaking awesome collection.)
Here I am, back with my nose to the grindstone, missing the lovely shores of Costa Rica and the amazing luxury of getting to see my boyfriend every day for 9 whole days!
I have to say, vacation is a wonderful thing. Not just for the beaches and the cuddling and the great food, but for writing! I told myself that I was off the hook for writing over my vacation. I wasn't going to worry a bit about not getting any words down. And that was just what I needed.
Having a planned vacation is so much different than those drawn out, accidental departures from productivity. The kind where you say that for sure you are going to write today, but then you're crawling into bed with nothing done. First one day, then two, and before you know it, it's been almost 2 weeks since you've written. (I can't be the only one this happens to...right?) That kind of vacation is terrible for writing. It destroys any momentum or rhythm you've established for yourself. The guilt eats away at you until you start wondering why you ever wanted or thought you could this in the first place. When you finally do get words down, they're stiff and horrible.
A real vacation is not at all the same! By taking a dedicated, guilt-free break, I was actually excited about coming back to my project. I was champing at the bit, wanting to get going again! My mind was refreshed, my characters more vivid, and I was ready to start up again firing on all cylinders.
Sadly, my vacation—and all the wonderful things it entailed—is over, but it is some consolation that novel 6 is going strong! Escaping to another planet of my own making is like a mini-vacation every day.
For some people, writing and music go hand in hand. I know several writers who have particular music they like to listen to when they write. That is not me!
I used to listen to classical music during my writing time. Then I realized that it was doing nothing for me. At best, I ignored it while I got in my groove and wrote. At worst, it distracted me from getting into my groove. (To be fair, when I'm having trouble getting into that groove, anything can distract me.) So I have nixed the classical playlists for my writing. I prefer to write in silence, now. No music, no TV. When I'm out in public, obviously I can't get silence, but background noise doesn't bother me. That's just white noise and easily blocked out. (Unless that couple at the table over is having a really intriguing conversation, which has happened from time to time, but some things are just worth missing a bit of writing time!)
So I don't listen to music while I write. But that doesn't mean I don't have writing music! There are a couple songs, in particular, that inspire me. My number one writing song is One Step At a Time by Jordin Sparks.
This song isn't about writing, of course. But it is about perseverance, believing in yourself, patience, and never giving up. If that isn't about writing, then I don't know what is!
I've been writing as long as I can remember. I wrote my first novel manuscript when I was 13. Sure, I didn't think I'd be a published author by 13. But by 25? Yes. Of course. I figured if you do anything for 12 years, you'd eventually succeed at it. Well, I was wrong. But that doesn't mean it's impossible. It means I have to keep going, one step at a time, and it will happen when it's supposed to happen.
I wanted to make a post about NaNoWriMo. (On a side note, how is it time for NaNo again? I swear this just happened--where does the time go?!) I am not attempting this year. I know I wouldn't be able to make it, and setting an unreachable goal is worse than useless. It actually just makes things worse. So I've set my own goal for the month (10k, not quite on track but still determined), but I want to let the real NaNoers (NaNites?) know that they aren't alone.
Because I had some time on my hands (okay, yes, I was procrastinating my own writing), I made a little pep talk video:
I'm pretty sure every single writer ever has, at some point, procrastinated. Or at least I hope so! Then I don't feel quite so bad. If you have never experienced the utter frustration of your mind wanting to focus on any single thing except what you want to write, then this post is not for you. Leave us poor procrastinators to wallow in our misery!
Anyway, I was inspired to put this together today. I thought it would be amusing and, of course, it provided me the perfect excuse to not get any writing done...
(I am paying for that now, though, as it is way past my bedtime, and I've still got writing to do!)
Oftentimes, it seems that our writing goals are always our works in progress. It makes sense, of course. For many of us, the end goal is to be published (or to be published again), and to do that, you have to produce manuscripts. Sometimes it is easy to lose focus on other writing tasks that just don't seem as important, and I think that's a shame. I love my SFF genre, but if I spend all my time trying to come up with innovative new ways of hiding the savior to the world on a far-flung farm (I kid!), I'm bound to lose some of the other writery skills that I need.
Something that I like to do is jot down brief sketches from time to time. I will spend fifteen minutes just writing a character sketch about one of the multitudes of people that live on the fringes of my brain. This character is not intended for use in any particular project that I'm working on--it's merely a practice for me at coming up with characters. And, of course, if I need a character later on, it can come in handy! Especially for providing depth to tertiary characters without derailing yourself from your current project. I often include a snippet of a scene that places the character in context, giving me a chance to see how the character acts. Sometimes this even leads me down the road of a new idea for a novel or story!
Another kind of sketch that I like is to try to capture pictures. I'm sure we've all had moments where our breath catches at the unique beauty (or horror) of something that we are observing. At least for me, I want to share that with people, but this is no easy task. Can you really explain the curve of that mountain fading into the distance? With practice, perhaps! I keep a file on my computer where I will type up a sentence or two and try to capture a particular moment in time. This is something that is very difficult for me--my writing tends to be terse and action-oriented--and so I must practice.
Here is an example about the view I had of downtown when I got to work the other morning:
The city rises into the sky, the highest buildings piercing
into the bottom of a heavy gray cloud. Their tops are lost in the gloom, but
between them rays of sunlight find a way to peek through, lancing through the
buildings from some distant place where clouds do not hold sway.
Will this ever be useful in one of my projects? I don't know. I don't tend to write many locales that involve skyscrapers! But even so, I think it is useful to develop my skills in passing along inspiring, vivid scenes to my readers.
I have been mired in the often-painful process of moving across the country over the past few weeks, and it has taken over my life! It is hard to make time for writing when your apartment is a mess of boxes and heaps of junk, and your to-do list gets longer every day, not to mention getting acclimated to a new job and the sudden loneliness of leaving behind a serious boyfriend. So writing has not so much been happening.
But now, as I get settled in, I finally have my desk set up and am ready to get some words flowing! And just in case I was lacking in inspiration, the recent move has unearthed random things I had forgotten about (as moves do), and I find it hilarious.
I keep a small notebook by my bed. I jot dreams down in it if they strike me as very vivid. Who knows, maybe I'll dream the next Star Wars? But alas, no luck so far. I found this page, hastily scrawled in a half-asleep state some long ago morning:
She meeets [sic] these aliens and accepts a job with them but then finally lands an acting job, not realizing it was arranged by the alien people, frozen lake walking 4 girl friends.
I'm not sure what the hell that was about, but maybe someday you'll see my bestseller on the shelves...Frozen Lake Walking 4 Girl Friends. Chick lit meets sci fi meets nonsense! (Or meeets nonsense.)
