October 2012 Wrap-Up

I haven't done a monthly wrap-up in ages. I've had a very good reason--I haven't had enough progress to be wrapped up in anything other than a very depressing package. But I think I have finally gained some traction on a new project, Novel #6. Of course it will be only my fourth completed novel but there is hope, someday, that some of the others might get finished.

There were a few wrenches thrown into the works, with being carted halfway around the world and changing 12 time zones at once, etc. Trying to get back into the swing of things now that I am back home, and I've found that my time for writing seems to somehow have disappeared. Work, work out, make dinner, take care of the random things that pop up in life, and then it's pretty much time to rinse and repeat. But I am positive I can make more time as things get settled!

So, for all this talk of progress, it might seem a little low. Words written in October: 5864. But keep in mind that is about 22% of the total words I have written this year. And my second most productive month. (September was a whopping 7474!)

With another few thousand words under my belt, I am feeling good about getting more down. My goal for November is to double my October production. That's right--10k! It may not sound like much, but it feels like my own mini NaNoWriMo.

And, best of all, I think these are good words that I've written. I am really excited about this project. I've let my alpha read the first chapter, and it's just a first draft, but he said that it feels polished and like a "real book." Of course, he is my boyfriend, so perhaps not an unbiased opinion, but he usually is honest with me so I'll trust him on this one too. Just hope the rest of the chapters live up to it!

The Tortoise

I’ve never been overly fond of the fable about the tortoise and the hare. While I understood the message (that arrogance can be your downfall, to always persist and do your best), I found that the tale itself was incredibly contrived. No way is the hare going to lose that race. But I suppose that isn’t the point, and I shall try to overlook that and remember that slow and steady wins the race.

Because I am the tortoise. A couple hundred words a day, eking out my novels one paragraph at a time. Building scenes slowly, putting scenes together into chapters, letting it unfold before me. It’s like a house of cards. If I despair and move too quickly, the whole thing might come tumbling down.

So I am determined to not give up the race. The hare might be prettier and faster and seem more promising at getting published, but just maybe slow and steady really can win. I am proud of what I have been able to get done. Those hundreds of words add up, over time, and time is one thing I have in plenty. Having recently passed my 25^th birthday, I know that I’m not quite over the hill yet. If it takes me a year—two years!—to finish this manuscript, that’s hardly the end of the world.

Today I am lifting a glass (of tea) to all the tortoises of the world. May we plod ever onwards and win our races!

Far Off Places

Just a quick note to say I am still alive! Unfortunately it is a hazard of the job with the Navy that you can be called away for weeks at time with very little warning. And Blogger isn’t high on the list of bandwidth requirements. (It is, in fact, not on the list at all!) But I finally think I have figured out how to post via email. So I shall cook up an update, assuming this works!

A Day in the Life

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!)

So true? So false? Am I the only one?!

A Crisis of Faith

Recently, I went through a crisis of faith about myself and my writing career. (I deliberated using writing "career" there, but I am endeavoring to be more positive!)

I, like many, have doubts about whether or not I am cut out to be a writer. There are times when it seems all I ever wanted, and there are times when it seems like I am wasting a good chunk of my life. When the words won't come and I am mired in procrastination, when I wonder what the hell I was ever thinking, when I get no bites after casting again and again...it's frustrating. It's easy to wonder if this is worth it all. And lately I was coming down on the side that it's not worth it.

After a lot of self-examination and some good discussions with my boyfriend, who is my rock, I realized I couldn't do it. I couldn't walk away from one of my major goals and passions in life just because it was hard. What I really was looking for was permission from myself to stop feeling guilty about my lack of progress. But, in the end, that's just not who I am. Permission denied. Faith must persist!

Perhaps faith is the wrong word. Faith is belief without evidence or reason, and I don't think it's a virtue. I don't want to have faith in my writing. That would make me like one of those poor, misguided souls who puts their typo-ridden, substandard work out for Kindle and thinks they'll sell a million copies. I should say instead that I want to have confidence in my writing. Because I do have reason to believe that I have decent skills when it comes to writing. I seek out feedback on my writing all the time, and of course I'm not the next coming of Ray Bradbury so it isn't all positive, but enough of it is that I don't think I'm just fooling myself.

So I just need to have confidence, and perseverance, and keep improving in my craft. And someday get lucky!

Sketches

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.

Settling In

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.)