Happy New Year, 2017 Edition

Poke poke.

Is this thing still alive?

Sigh.

Yes, I have been sadly remiss in my blogging duties. Truth is, I’ve been remiss in a lot of duties! I jot down endless things that I want to do, that I mean to do, and somehow they never come to fruition. In my defense, I’ve spent the past couple months starting a new position at work, moving across the country, dealing with a fire in our moving truck, finding an apartment, holidays, traveling, etc. etc. It’s been a bit absurd, like I am somehow living a completely different life than I was just 3 months ago.

So I won’t break out the hair shirt, but I will say that, as things have begun to settle down a bit, I am resolved to get back into my better creative habits. My writing goal for this year is to write at least 1,000 words every week. It’s not much (not even an entire book in a year), but it’s a good place to start. And those are new words I am aiming for, so any editing and querying and such are on top of that. It’s not a bad goal. I also hope to complete one short story a month. I struggle on and off with shorts, but the few I have managed to write I like, and I think it will add to my repertoire of writerly skills.

I am damned sure going to finish this manuscript that has been languishing in the 50k doldrums for a long time.

I am also going to read a lot. I read 60 books last year (more detail on that in a future post), and I want to hit 65 this year. Hopefully from a wide variety of authors and genres, but I don’t want to hold myself to anything specific there. More non-fiction for sure, as I find it gets my creative gears spinning.

So—here’s to 2017, another year which will undoubtedly be messy and full of starts and stops and disappointments and hopes and progress and backsliding and all the joy and anguish we call life (and writing). Cheers!

Time of Death: Now

It’s always a sad day to close the lid on a novel. To admit to yourself (and to the world) that the thing you wrote and edited and loved just isn’t going to make it. And so I am sounding a solemn dirge today for novel 7. In fact, I actually declared it Over and Done on August 23, closing out the last lingering queries and shading its spreadsheet tracker to gray. But today I am finally taking the time to mourn that little guy, who I loved so much.

You were fantastic, novel 7!

Novel 7 was conceived on June 14, 2014. At least, that is the day I created a WikidPad file and began to type up some of the notes that were accumulating in my writing notebook. I sketched out characters and locations, developed mythical mythologies and pantheons. The plot bunnies that had been cavorting about my brain started to get corralled into an outline. The outline went through multiple iterations, as I attempted to decide whether I would use a multiple or single POV for the story. It seemed to cry out for single POV—it was truly the story of this one god—but I worried that it would be too slight in that form. I planned out a beefier multi-POV version, but it didn’t feel right. I settled on the single POV and wrote up a scene plan.

And so novel 7 was born on June 17, 2014, when I created the draft 1 file. It started that day with a modest 1k, but it quickly grew under my fingers. By the end of June 2014, it was almost 15k strong. It lived and breathed, begging to be developed. I wrote like a madwoman that July, spurred on by unemployment and loneliness in part, but mostly answering that siren’s call of creation. And on August 11, 2014, that first draft rested complete at barely 41k words.

Well, that wouldn’t do at all. It was novel 7, not novella 7! I let it rest while I turned my attentions to a doomed #PitchWars bid for novel 6. Eventually, I came back. I re-read, made notes. I wrote a new scene plan. On October 8, 2014, I started a second draft. It was difficult but rewarding to find the areas to tease out more story, to fill in some of the gaps my initial rush had missed. The second draft came to rest on December 13, 2014 at close to 58k.

Still, I knew it wasn’t enough. I went back through, armed with post-it notes and a dazzling array of colored pens. I sought critiques and beta readers. I vowed that I would do justice to this story that resonated through me. I wrestled with every scene, contemplated adding entire new storylines, and eventually settled on to a final version of novel 7. It was about 63k words.

I sent out the first query on February 2, 2015. I overhauled my query countless times. I worked on a synopsis, which I actually liked. I overhauled the query again. I queried more, and more, and more. I racked up rejections and non-responses, moped about it, and sent out more queries. I sent my 96th and last query on August 7, 2015. Overall, I had 2 partial requests (1 form rejected, 1 never heard from again) and 1 full request (polite rejection). Not the greatest track record. It was time to admit defeat.

I can’t say for sure what it was that did in novel 7. I did not receive a lot of personalized responses from the professionals, and the beta readers seemed to love it. I suspect it was the length, which at 63k for adult fantasy is LOW. I knew that going in, but I had told the story I wanted to tell. I still think it is the best piece I have ever written. (Disappointing, in fact, to know that novel 8 is so much worse and wonder if I peaked with an unpublishable novel.) Perhaps someday it will find a home, but for now, the coffin is closed and the nails driven. RIP, novel 7.

If You Want Change, Change It Up!

My most productive writing month ever was July 2014. My boyfriend was on deployment, and I was unemployed. It was basically a glimpse of what life could be like as a full-time writer, and it was awesome—I wrote 24,172 words! (Okay, boyfriend being gone sucked, but it did make for a lot of free time.) It was no surprise that my productivity tapered off as I started a new job in August, but I did still manage to finish and edit novel 7. It was back to normal for juggling writing with a lot of other priorities.

And so it remained. August 2014: 8165 words. September 2014: 1374 words. October 2014: 4124 words. November 2014: 10,286 words. December 2014: 4484 words. January 2015: 5129 words. February 2015: 127 words. March 2015: 9629 words. April 2015: 23,459 words.

Wait, what?

How did I manage my #2 most productive month ever while working full time, spending time with my boyfriend, going back to school for accounting, bonding a pair of stubborn bunnies, and training for a half-marathon? I briefly touched on this in my last post, but now with more data under my belt I want to re-emphasize it.

First of all, I started writing a new manuscript, which obviously is going to boost word count. Writing short stories and editing just don’t produce as much raw new words. Secondly, productivity breeds productivity. Having to actually think about what is most important and how I am going to manage things can lead to a lot more work getting done then when I know I have plenty of time to do it, which I then fritter away. But the biggest source of this productivity surge was a schedule change.

I am not a morning person. Really. Given my way, I’d stay up until 3 AM every night and wake up at my leisure. Sadly, no one seems to want to give me my way in all things. Until I win the lottery or retire or decide to drop off the grid, I am chained in part to the rat race. And it’s exhausting. My day job schedule is approximately 7:30 - 4:30 with a 15-minute commute on each end. It leaves plenty of time in the evenings, but it doesn’t leave plenty of energy in the evenings. I would come home, get through my workout, scrounge some sort of dinner, and collapse into my couch-potato spot until bedtime (about 10:30). I would kick myself for wasting those 2-3 hours. Plenty of time for writing, Nora! You’re just lazy!

Okay, well maybe I am. But I was just expecting too much of myself. So I decided—what if I got my writing done before my soul was sucked away at my day job? Since I can’t stay up all night anyway, does it matter if I have to go to bed at 10 PM instead of 11 PM? Is getting up at 6 AM any worse than getting up at 7 AM? I figured I would give it a try.

And I’m still trying it! Since I started this, I have missed only ONE day of my pre-work writing. No matter how much I hate it when my alarm goes off, no matter how much I think “I can’t do this,” I force my sorry ass out of bed and into my desk chair. And then I write. I focus on time, not output. It works out to ~45 minutes of writing, or usually 900-1000 words. Five days a week. That is easily 20k words a month, not including any bonus sessions I do on weekend. That’s a first draft in four months! Considering the first draft of novel 6 took me, oh, almost two years, I would call that a success. (Novel 7 took much less time, but was also only 42k long in its first draft, so not very comparable.)

Unprecedented pace of writing for me.

I honestly never thought that writing in the morning would work for a night owl like me. But identifying an obstacle (lack of motivation to write after work), implementing a trial solution (getting up earlier to write before work), and observing the results (33k words into novel 8) is never a bad idea. And if it comes to a point that this isn’t working for me, I’ll try something else. But just trying to do the same old thing and berating myself for failing at it was a terrible strategy. Don’t do it!

2014 Wrap-Up: Another Year In Review

Well, well, well, 2015. Here we are. Together at last--or already? It's hard to say for sure, because on the one hand, holy shit it's 2015. But on the other, 2014 was eons long!

 

It was definitely a big year for me, both in terms of my personal life and my writing.

 

In February, I applied for the Clarion Workshop. I didn't get in, but even trying was a big step towards being more serious about my writing. In May, I put on my Navy uniform for the last time, closing out a very big chapter of my life. I also finished novel 6 that month. I participated in my first Twitter contest in June. In July, I launched my #FlashFridayFootage series, which has had 10 entries so far. I tried my hand at #PitchWars in August, which was a ton of fun even though I didn't make it. And I started, finished, and did one edit of novel 7 in less than 6 months, an accomplishment I would have thought unbelievable before.

 

Not to mention that my boyfriend went on his first deployment in July (which he is still on, omg kill me), moving to a new apartment by myself, acquiring first one pet rabbit and then another, I got a new job as a civilian, lost 12 pounds, got braces--yeah, 2014 was a kind of crazy year!!

 

Here is what I wrote in January:

Looking forward into 2014, I hope to average at least 100 words every day, with 40k as my goal for the year. I hope to write at least 129 days this year (a 50% increase over last year's goal). And, most importantly, I want to sell or be close to selling novel 6 by the end of year. I plan to be done with my re-writing and editing by the end of April, and I think that gives me some time to get some serious eyes on it and some offers. Is 2014 going to be the year? We shall see...

So how did that all turn out? Really not too bad, actually! I wrote 73,526 new words last year (not to mention editing 2 manuscripts). I only had 93 writing days, but a lot of that was due to breaks between major revisions, so I won't castigate myself too much. And no, I'm not anywhere near selling novel 6. In fact, I'm close to giving up on novel 6. But I did give it my best shot. I sent out over 50 queries last year, participated in writing contests, and am still persevering through what is a very long and painful process. So maybe 2014 wasn't "the year", but it was a year, and a damn good one in terms of writing.

Now--2015. What have we got here? Well, I don't want to plan to write too much, as my focus will probably be on editing and refining novels 6 and 7. But I'll probably get cooking on novel 8 at some point (or revisit any of novels 1-5), so I'll aim for 60k words. I also want to write a bit more consistently, including more short fiction, so I'll stick with the 129 writing days goal and hopefully land it this year. And I can't say that this will be the Year of The Call, so I'll just say that I hope to continue querying novel 6 (up to at least 100) and begin querying novel 7 (up to 50).

So cheers and good riddance to 2014--bring it on, 2015!

Am I Good Enough? How Do I Know?

I don’t think artists and writers are, in general, known for being completely calm, level-headed, secure people. Stereotype it may be, but I sure live up to the idea of a writer whose confidence varies wildly, rising to euphoric heights before crashing down so low I just want to curl up in a ball and moan “Whyyyy did I think I could do this??”

And I’m in the latter phase right now.

Editing for novel 7 has been slow. And not just slow but excruciating. Completing even a single scene, which may involve as few as 100 new words and some minor information dropped or a twirl of description added, seems like a gargantuan effort of will. I look at my list of revision notes and wonder why I so blithely dashed off notes to myself about entire new worlds and scenes to populate. And most of all, I look at the manuscript that I once loved and I think—I can’t do this. I don’t have what it takes.

It’s not just this revision or this manuscript or this moment in time, either. It’s the long slog of an unpublished writer. I read constantly about the hundreds of rejections that published authors had to overcome. I know about the endless rounds of querying and the “it just takes one yes!” mantra. So I, like many others, chin up and soldier forward, in search of that elusive agent, that elusive contract, the elusive dream of my book on a shelf for readers to enjoy.

But how do you know if you’re on the “hundreds of rejections before I found my agent” path or the “hundreds of rejections followed by hundreds more” path? Basically, how do you know if you’re actually good enough?

For a lot of people—myself included—this is a large part of the draw of trad publishing. I don’t think I could deal with the soul-crushing defeat of self-publishing and then no one reading it. It would be the end of my writerly aspirations, the humiliating squeak with which my unborn career dies. So I churn out query letters, I read books on craft, I write as much as I can, I read books on editing, I revise my writing, I get betas, I seek feedback, more query letters, endless lists of agents and the frissons of hope at every agent email that lands in my inbox. My turn could be coming.

Or maybe it’s not. There are a million wannabe writers out there, and while it’s nice to believe that none of them have mastered craft and storytelling and grammar like I have, while it’s nice to think none of them know how to follow submission guidelines, that we’re all just grinding out against the faceless wall of “no response means no” until we catch a break that is akin to winning the lottery. But the fact is that there are writers getting signed and published every day—and I’m not one of them. I’m in the slush pile with hundreds and thousands of other writers who are every bit as talented as I am and more.

So how do I know? How do I know if it’s delusion on my part? How do I know if the problem is my query letter or my first page or my first chapter or the whole manuscript or every manuscript I write?

I don’t know. I guess I just have to keep going until I find myself curled up in a ball, moaning, and don’t know how to get up anymore.

September 2014 Wrap-Up

October already?!

I can almost believe it, actually, since I was back in my hometown last weekend and saw the fall foliage. Amazing how much of a difference that can make in seeing time pass! San Diego truly is the endless summer, which can make the months and years bleed together. Not that I mind! But it was nice to see the leaves going out in a blaze of glory.

Anyway, aside from traveling to Iowa for a dear friend's wedding, what did September hold for me? Well, my birthday for one. And another month away from my boyfriend, for another. And a wee bit of writing! A rather mixed month, all in all. I only got down 1374 new words over 5 writing days (so 25 non-writing days).

Wordcount goal: 49.1%
Non-writing days goal: 88%
Agents queried: 0
Rejections received: 3 forms, 1 closed due to no response

I didn't quite hit my wordcount goals, but I did hit more of my intangible goals. I finished the readthrough of novel 7, although the plethora of post-it notes has not yet made it into a coherent revision plan. I wrote 3 flash stores and one longer story (though it bordered on flash as well). Not prolific, but not bad for someone struggling to adapt to a new job and an entirely new lifestyle. I certainly won't hold it against myself!

As October dawns, I have big plans. BIG BIG plans that I won't go into here. But suffice to say that I am becoming even more serious about my writing career (something that is already my number 2 priority). More about that later. As for writing goals--I want to continue to produce my weekly flash stories (expect to see a new #FlashFridayFootage this week!), so I plan on 4 in October. I'd like to do at least 1 longer story for an anthology I have in mind. And I am going to attack the second draft of novel 7! The revision plan should be drawn up by the end of this week, and revisions will commence immediately. I am still SO excited about this novel and cannot wait for someone besides me to read it--so I need to get it written!

Because novel 7 is a bit stunted in its current form (barely over 40k words), I'll be adding a LOT. I hope to finish the revision by the end of November (no NaNoWriMo for me this year, sadly), and I need to get to at least 65k. Which means I better get close to 13k down this month. That sounds like a lot now that I write it out...

Anyway, between all of that, I am looking at a wordcount goal of 14,300 words! That would be a productive but not record-breaking month for me, so I think it is completely possible. That works out to less than 500 words a day! I could do that on my lunch break. So my goal is 14,300 words with no more than 10 non-writing days.

Bring on the pumpkin spice and the writing! Let's do this, October!

August 2014 Wrap-Up

Only a couple days behind!

August was A Month. I don't quite have words to describe the whirlwind of emotions and ideas and everything. There will probably be a very introspective post next week--breaking the chain of all my previous light-hearted posts...

But for today, let's talk August numbers!

I knew August was going to be low-key after my crazy productivity in June and July. I did achieve my goal of finishing novel 7's first draft! It's a short lil thing, only 42k, but it's there for me to work on now. I intended to fill my "cooling off" period by writing shorts and editing novel 6. I did do some editing, but no shorts, and there just wasn't a lot of new words in August. But that's okay! Not every month needs to be a 25k month. Especially not ones where I am moving apartments and starting a new job at the same time. Plus traveling. And, you know, life.

Between all that, I came up with 8165 new words over 9 writing days (so 22 non-writing days).

Wordcount goal: 85.1%
Non-writing days goal: 31.8%
Agents queried: 9
Contests entered: 1
Rejections received: 3 forms, 1 personalized, 5 closed due to no response

All in all, I am happy with August. Did I meet my metrics goals? No. But that was more because my metrics weren't set right than anything else. I did spend plenty of time working on my writing, editing and reading about the writing craft and submitting to #PitchWars and all that good stuff. I'm headed into September with my head held high!

So what does September hold? Editing, mostly! Yay! I have already broken out the purple pen and the post-its, and novel 6 will yield to my crushingly awesome editorial skills. My goal is to have my quick read through and notes done and my revision pass in hand by the end of the month. That may not sound like a lot, but it most definitely is! I would still like to do some work on short fiction, so I hope to write one flash fiction story a week (I have to for #FlashFridayFootage!) and one longer short story over the course of the month. Which means I would need at the very least 2800 words, so goal is set! I would say I could do that in 8 writing days, so let's put the non-writing days goal at no more than 22. Again, this doesn't sound like a lot (because it's not!), because the focus is editing, which I don't have metrics for. Mostly becayse I'm not sure how to enter blood, sweat, and tears into Excel.

And on I go!

I'm just glad my kitchen doesn't look like this anymore!

July 2014 Wrap-Up (Post #100!)

Update: I just remembered that this was 100th post! I was going to do something special, but this is what I did instead. Yay for the longevity of my writing blog, and here's to another 100 posts! :cheers:

First off, let me say that I know it's Friday, but there isn't a #FlashFridayFootage this week. With my parents in town plus 3 job interviews and trying to get writing done, I didn't have a chance to make a video! But rest assured, it will be back in full swing next Friday!

Now, for July: WOOOOO!

Yup, July was as great as June. Better than June. It was thoroughly awesome and everything I had hoped it would be when I did my June wrap-up. That is not a very common occurrence, so I am fully enjoying the feeling.

Remember how June was my most productive month ever at 15,385? Well, let's just say that record no longer stands. In July I wrote 24,172 words with 8 non-writing days.

Most of those went towards novel 7 (which is turning out to be more like novella 1). I am still having so much fun with this project and think it definitely has amazing potential. Usually at this point I am already hating what I am writing, so it's refreshing to still be excited about it!

As for novel 6, it hasn't had quite such a good run of it. I spent most of the month trying to re-work the query to get my response percentage up, and I'm still not quite happy with it. I submitted to the #NewAgent contest run by Michelle Hauck and had great fun, even if mine didn't make it past the screening. I gathered some new beta feedback, and am ready to push forward with another round of queries as well as #PitchWars in August! Lots of great stuff to look forward to.

Wordcount goal: 104.0%
Non-writing days goal: 125%
Agents queried: 1
Rejections received: 10 forms, 8 closed due to no response

I honestly never knew I could write almost 25k words in a month. It would have been even more, but the first week of July was my boyfriend's last week prior to deployment, and this past week with all the other non-writing stuff it has been a little hectic. A reminder of what it is going to be like when I go back to a full time day job, but hopefully I can still find the energy and motivation to keep trucking with my writing goals. I have accomplished so much over the past 2 months, I don't want to stop now!

So for August, my goal is to finish this first draft of novel 7. Since it is painfully short so far, I estimate another 7000 words should do it. Then I'll let it sit until September. I also want to write some short stories as well as do a light revision of novel 6 before #PitchWars (which starts on August 18!). I have some ideas about novel 8, but I don't think that is going to be an August project for me. Between novel 6 and novel 7, plus toying with resurrecting novel 1, I do not need to add another project right now!

Since I will be doing a bit less original writing in August, I've revised my wordcount goals downwards. However I do still intend to be spending an equivalent amount of time, if not more, working on writing. I should really come up with some metric for editing/revisions. What can I say, I am just a metric-motivated person! So in the first week or two, while I'm finishing novel 7's draft, I'll still aim for 750 words a day. Once that wraps up, it'll drop down to 100 words per day. That puts me at a total goal of 9,600 words! Since I plan to be doing lots of writing work, I'll set my non-writing days goal at 7. One week off throughout the month should be easily doable.

With a good June and July under my belt, I am feeling more and more like a "real" writer and very ready to improve my craft and move to the next level!

Done done done done DONE!

Last Saturday, sitting on a cramped middle seat of a Southwest airplane, leaning forward to both escape the encroaching elbow of my seatmate and bolster the drooping edge of the tray table, I scribbled out the last edit for novel 6. (!!)

Yes, I was a little behind schedule, as I had aimed to finish by the end of April. But the end of May is not so far off! It was an extensive overhaul, fixing unsatisfying plot points, tweaking boring characters, cleaning up repetitive language. 135 manuscript pages and there was not a single one that didn't have some purple ink on it.

That's just the front...some of the backs are entirely covered!

It was a tremendously satisfying moment. I still have to type up all of my edits (and even as I am planning to start this immediately after this blog post, I still haven't decided if I'm going to edit my file or re-type in a blank one!) and then there is the daunting prospect of queries, synopses, rejections, and more edits. But just moving on to that stage is a thrilling feeling. I am so ready! It is important to savor these small victories and not just dwell on the inevitable problems to come. Life is full of good moments, and I won't let anxiety take those away from me.

Novel 6 is in the bag!

The Age-Old Question (of Age)

I have been writing for a very, very long time. It's hard to put an exact number on it because I literally cannot remember a time that I wasn't writing. The first story that I can vividly recall was one I wrote as part of a short story competition with my brothers. It was titled, appropriately, "The Competition," and detailed the troubles of a young girl who was the star of her ice skating team but broke her leg before their big competition. I'm not sure my exact age, although I know I was still living in Wisconsin, so probably 5 or 6. So I've got at least 2 decades of writing experience under my belt.

One, writing that makes me feel old. It brings to mind this excellent xkcd which lists the relative ages of keystone movies. "Did you realize The Matrix came out not last decade, but the one before that?" (The comic itself is dated to 2011 which just adds to the sting.)

Two, it makes me feel defeated. The real gutpunch of that xkcd comic is the alt text (the true key to xkcd's awesomeness, in case you were unaware). "If you're 15 or younger, then just remember that it's nevertheless probably too late to be a child prodigy." I know this sounds silly, but I always had dreams of being a sort of child prodigy when it came to my writing. I finished my first novel-length manuscript when I was thirteen. Sure, it had its problems. But it was my starter novel. I finished my second novel when I was a sophomore in high school. I was fifteen. Surely I had learned from my earlier mistakes. A little editing would make this one salable. I was well on my way to being an astonishing teenaged author of a blockbusting fantasy novel. I would do a book tour that included Conan O'Brien (still on NBC, hosting Late Night) and Oprah.

Me about to commence a serious writing career!

Well, that didn't happen. And to add insult to injury, that was right around when Christopher Paolini became famous for being the astonishing teenaged author of a blockbusting fantasy novel. I told myself that my second novel was just a warm-up, and my third novel would surely be The One. Maybe I was too late to be published by the time I was 16, but 20 was still far away.

Turns out I didn't even finish that third novel until I was 22 (I took a long hiatus!). And as much as I loved it, and as much as I edited it, I never got any nibbles on those queries (it is the one known as "novel 1" here). The third novel went on the back of the shelf. I worked on short stories and other projects and other novels, and eventually I started on what is now "novel 6" (it's my fourth completed novel ms). And time kept passing by. Now I'm 26, and I am old enough to realize I'm never going to be an astonishing young author. People my age are getting published all the time. And even though I've been working on it for two decades, I'm not among them. It's disheartening and frustrating and insanely stupid to worry about.

I know I'm far from old. But I'm also not young anymore. I'm an adult, and it's time to follow through on childhood fantasies and make them a reality!

Deadlines

"I love deadlines. 

I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by." 

-Douglas Adams

Oh, Mr. Adams. Not only were you a brilliant and hilarious writer, but you were a speaker of truth. Deadlines can help me knuckle down and produce, but they also love to go rushing by without being met. Especially the self-imposed variety. It's too easy to extend it by a week, or a month, and then...it's been a year and you're still not finished with that novel.

I know I write slow. I always have, and while I've been able to improve some, I don't know that I'll ever write at a 2 books a year pace. Part of that is because my first drafts tend to be relatively polished. Not ready straight out of the box, but not a mess of contradicting cliches or anything. Editing, on the other hand, I feel like I can do. Felt like I could do, anyway.

Yes, the end of April was my goal to be done with novel 6. I have 34 more pages (single-spaced, 11-point font) to go, and there are some significant changes to be made in those pages. So I didn't exactly make my deadline. Oops. That's frustrating for me, as someone who likes to consider myself detail-oriented and conscientious. Maybe it's just because it is my own arbitrary deadlines. No one out there is waiting with baited breath for my book—not yet, anyway. Hopefully the next one! It's far too easy to let myself slide.

I don't really know how to change that except to try harder. It should be easier now that I am leaving my job and going into a period of unemployment. If that doesn't give me time to write, I don't know what will! So, 34 pages. I can do that in 2 weeks, absolutely. Taking into account a week-long vacation I am taking with my boyfriend towards the end of the month, I think that I can have this draft of novel 6 not only finished by the end of May, but I can also have a solid query written up and an initial list of agents. Yes, I can and will be querying novel 6 by the end of the month!

Setbacks Don't Mean Give Up

It's been an interesting time for me as a writer recently. I was so full of optimism when I set out on my editing journey, and visions of book contracts danced in my dreams. I still feel good about novel 6, but the doubt has begun to creep in. It's slower going than I expected. I'm itching to start something new. I am dreading trying to query. I haven't had any great insights in how to fix a character that maybe isn't working.

I read this post yesterday about whether or not I'm publishable, and I closed the tab with the unshakable feeling that the tea leaves were definitely not in my favor. I was in a really down place. This anxiety over my dead-end future in writing combined with my current looming unemployment to make me feel like a complete loser. But then my boyfriend came home, and after lots of hugs and crying into his shoulder, I began to see things in a better light. So maybe none of my queries have been successful. That's just a problem with my queries. It doesn't say shit about my book, because no one actually read the book. I ended up knocking out another couple scenes and reaching the halfway point of this edit.

Yes, it's been 2 months and I'm only halfway. It's frustrating. I gave myself a 3 month deadline, and obviously I am not on track for that. It's tempting to give up. It's like when you're trying to eat healthy, and you end up having a piece of cake, so then you think "Well, I already fucked up," and go on and eat the entire cake (I'm not the only one that does that, right? RIGHT?!). But eating a whole cake is way worse than eating a piece, and giving up on something because I'm behind is way worse than just finishing late. So it's time to gird my loins, buckle down, and finish what I've started. And maybe eat some cake.

I'm not kidding about the cake. This was mine and my boyfriend's Saturday night last month!

Hell, it's not even too late for me to make a good push and still meet my end-of-April deadline!

August...September...October...damn...2013?? Wrap-Up

Okay, so...yeah. It's been forever. I know. I set up a repeating to-do on Todoist for a blog post, and every day I get a reminder telling me how overdue I am. I am now up to 102 days overdue. Oops.

In my defense (and because, fuck, no one reads this anyway), I had a lot of shit going on. After 1.5 years of 3000 mile long distance, my boyfriend and I moved in together here in San Diego. I had to find an apartment for the two of us, and then I flew out there to help him with the drive here. Then moving in. Considering I just put my artwork up on the walls two weeks ago, a blog post was not so high on my list. Not to mention holidays, weddings, and a vacation to Kaua'i to ring in the New Year.

Not pictured: Me thinking about writing. At all.

So, having been so long absent from the detailings of drafting and editing and gnashing my teeth, what has the result been?

Well. I did finally finish the first draft of novel 6. Huzzah! That was my goal back in July, but I didn't actually finish until October. Still, that was the goal I set last January for the year, so it's a pretty big deal to me. Also, it meant that I had November free to start something new. Yup, I attempted NaNoWriMo 2013! I failed, by a lot. Total words was only 12,256. All in all, that's a horrible NaNo but a great normal month, so I think it was a successful experiment. Unfortunately, I was also attempting to pants. I am not a pantser, and I realize now what a mistake that was. It means that my work on that idea has come to giant halt, because the story is just all over the place, and I have no idea what the next step is.

2013 had some ups and downs for me, and it ended on a long down for productivity, but since it was the year I finished novel 6, I am going to count it as an overall success.

Total in 2013, I wrote 69,969 words. I wrote those words over 90 writing days. Last January, I said I thought it would take me another 70k to finish the draft (I was about 13k off due to some words being for different projects, but close), and I hoped to have 86 writing days. So suck it, 2013. You tried to defeat me, but I did it!!

Looking forward into 2014, I hope to average at least 100 words every day, with 40k as my goal for the year. I hope to write at least 129 days this year (a 50% increase over last year's goal). And, most importantly, I want to sell or be close to selling novel 6 by the end of year. I plan to be done with my re-writing and editing by the end of April, and I think that gives me some time to get some serious eyes on it and some offers. Is 2014 going to be the year? We shall see...

The Retreat!

(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!

May 2013 Wrap-Up

The good thing about setting low goals is you can meet them!

Actually, sarcasm aside, that is an important part of goal-setting. According to the (admittedly rather annoying) SMART acronym, goals should be Attainable. Which was what I tried to do for May, since I knew it was going to be a busy month.

And it was! I spent about half the month out to sea, and the other half I had the normal multitude of demands on my time. So I am not too disappointed in myself for what I got done this month. I more than met my goals, and since the majority of it was accomplished in the last week of the month, I feel like I have a good momentum going into June.

For May, I ended up putting down 6930 new words (almost 2 whole chapters!) with 19 non-writing days.

June is also a busy month for me. I will be underway for 2 weeks, and those weeks include a training team visit and our annual ORSE inspection. But since I was able to get stuff done despite scheduling issues in May, I want to up the ante a little for June. I think 250 words a day and no more than 18 non-writing days is a SMART goal!

Percentage of wordcount goal met: 111.8%
Percentage of writing days goal met: 105.3%

April 2013 Wrap-Up

I was so full of excuses about how busy March was (and they were real!), but I have nothing to explain April. Okay, work was a little crazy. But mostly I was just "not in the mood," which makes me so mad at myself. If I ever want to be a "real writer," I can't let it depend on something as capricious as my moods. Twelve years since I wrote my first manuscript and have I learned anything?

Anyway.

April started out promising. I wrote 6 of the first 7 days, hitting way above my goal for wordcount, and then it all fell away. Seriously. After that first week, I only wrote one other day. Which means I had 23 non-writing days and only a total of 3921 words. Still, that was another chapter. Getting closer!

May is going to be crazy with underway and everything, so I am not going to put too much pressure on myself. I've revised my daily wordcount goal down to 200 and my writing days up to 20 non-writing days. And anything more than that will just be a happy bonus!

Percentage of wordcount goal met: 42.2%
Percentage of writing days goal met: 60.9%

February 2013 Wrap-Up

February is over already? Yikes!

But although the month was a bit of a crazy one for me, I managed to make it a pretty good writing one as well. My goal was both a word count (5900) and a number of non-writing days (not more than 14). I met both of those goals!!

Okay, so maybe I didn't have an epic breakthrough or anything. My final total for the month was 6655 words and 13 non-writing days.

But I set my goals for a reason, and meeting them makes it a successful month. No point in worrying about whether I could have met them more--I can always up the ante for next month!

Which is what I'm doing. February was 210 words a day, March will be 300. It doesn't sound like  a big difference, but it brings my goal for March up to 9300, which is not an insignificant amount (about 2 chapters). I'm also angling for not more than 14 non-writing days again, but where that was 50% for February, it's only 45% of March. So slightly increasing the pressure on myself. I'm currently sitting at almost 50k for Novel 6, which means about halfway. I will finish it this year!

Percentage of wordcount goal met: 112.8%

Percentage of writing days goal met: 107.7%

Submissions: 1 (Short Story 2), resulted in form rejection

January 2013 Wrap-Up

Not a bad start to the year. I ended up at 7128, or 109.0% of my goal, which makes me pretty happy. I had 21 days of no writing, which makes me less happy, but taking into account my vacation at the beginning of the month, it’s not bad.

My goal for February, short month that it is, is a fairly modest 5908. I think perhaps I need to start evaluating my writing goals in terms of days actually spent written. So in terms of that, my goal is to have only 14 non-writing days. One of those things that sounds easier than it is? Possibly. But it’s also possible that I could smash my goals! I like to think on the bright side at least some of the time!

Happy New Year!! 2012 Wrap-up

Okay, so technically 2012 isn't over yet. But since I am sitting at the airport, preparing to jet off to Costa Rica with my amazing boyfriend, the writing year is over for me! I'm taking a real vacation for the next week and a half. NO guilting myself into writing (although if it happens, it happens) or freaking out about work. Can't wait! =D

But before that, I have to take a look back at what this writing year has been for me.

December was a little less productive than I would have hoped. One of my friends got married, which ended up wiping out a solid 4 days in the middle of the month, and after that I felt like I was playing catch up. So the month ended up being 3767 words total. (On only 4 different days!) Less than I'd hoped, but it represents another chapter done!

Which means that for the year, I clocked in at 38438 words. Yikes! But that was still more than 2011, and it met my goal  for the year. Because my goal was just to write, and I did.

But on the bright side, those words all represent progress on my novel. Brand new words that have never seen the light of day, coming together to build a new story! (I've dithered back on forth, but decided on not including my blogging in my wordcount.) And I only actually wrote on 43 separate days. Which means both that my writing sessions were decent when they occurred (~890 words on average), but woefully infrequent. Lots of room for improvement, then!

That's a good third of a novel. Sure, I'd like to write faster than 3 years per novel (I'm no GRRM!), but I won't turn my nose up at 1/3 of a novel!

For 2013, I have high but reasonable hopes. By this time next year, this novel is going to be complete. Originally I wanted to say second draft complete, but since that would include a month "rest" from the novel and an extensive drafting process...well, no need to set myself up for failure. I estimate that I have about 70k words to complete this first draft, and that seems like a decent increase over this year's lackluster total, but not an insurmountable task between work and travel and everything.

With a goal about twice what I wrote this past year, I'm looking at 86 writing days. That's less than 2 days per week! When I think about it that way, I know I can definitely do it. Butt in chair! And forward we go!

Happy New Year!!

November 2012 Wrap-Up

I'm a little late on this, but I have a good reason! My boyfriend was in town last weekend, and it was the first time I'd seen him in almost four months! Needless to say, I had much better—much!—things to do than write a blog post. Alas, my boyfriend is gone again (22 days until we meet again, boo!), and so here I am again.

November was a really good month for me. My goal was 10k. Not a NaNo, but a good chunk of writing nonetheless. If I could do that every month, I'd have a novel every year!

I was right on track to make, if not exceed, my goal for the month, but the last week derailed. I spent a lot of time trying to get everything just right for my boyfriend's visit. Yes, I'm a bit of a perfectionist. I didn't get everything done, but we still had an almost perfect weekend, so I don't consider the effort wasted!

So, my final tally of words written in November: 8754.

Not bad! My most productive month of the year so far. I am pleased, and hopefully December will live up to the standard I just set. I'm slightly behind already, but I'll have plenty of time to catch up. I have no plans for the holidays, until the very end of the month when I'm headed to Costa Rica.

My goal for December is 5400 words. Should be an easy target! It would be great to finish off the year on a high note. Just worked through some plotting kinks for the next section of the novel, so I am ready to go on a bender until I have a few more chapters under my belt!