Sunday Update - 2025 Week 25

I'm not exactly sure it is Week 25, but it follows last week, and I'm not inclined to go check, so there you are.  

I thought about writing this week.  I really wanted to be able to say that I wrote something when I did my update, but alas, I can't.  I also thought about giving up on writing this week, cuz it's not like I'm actually doing it and haven't done it for a long time.  But I'm a mule, so I guess we'll all just sit here and wait for me to write some stuff.  Or I'll sit here while what few followers I have left wander away.  I need to take a walk and give myself a good talking to all the way around.

Marketing was done.  I'm still hampered in my efforts, which isn't helping with the whole malaise, but I moved 83 books.  And someone somewhere is reading WIOH, so that's $$.  Not sure what this week will bring for sales or marketing.  Stay tunes.

Reading went slow this week.  I finished one book and then started on an omnibus of Hercule Poirot stories.  Not sure why I started this behemoth, but there it is.  I'll probably pause between stories to read something else.

On the activity front, I did stuff 4 out of 7 days - 3 walks for 3.35 miles, cleaning, and weeding.  Then it got hot and I retreated into my shadowy lair.  We won't talk about weight this week.  The heat is making me fluffy.  Yeah, yeah... that's the ticket.

Speaking of hot, no baking this week.  I meant to make cookies or cake or something, but meh.

Big news this week.  After eons of trouble with Brightspeed, I finally took the first steps to kick those assholes to the curb.  I'm going with a VoIP - Voice over Internet Protocol - service.  VoIP uses a widget that connects to our Starlink via wifi so we can use our regular phone over the internet to make calls like anyone else.  I researched it and found a company out of Edmund, OK that seems stable.  The device will be shipping to us and once I have it, I'll start the process to port our phone number from BS to our new provider.  Once that's done, I'll call BS and tell them to pound sand.  Woot. Steppin' into the 21st century like a boss.  

Okay, I think I've about updated myself out.  Have a great day wherever you are.  

Where to Begin?

I've been trying to decide how to start the journey back to writing.  One thought I had was to just grab my notebook and red pen*, and free write.  Let the ideas flow out of my fingers and onto the page where only I can see them and they can just BE.  In the past, I've done this whenever I'm stuck.  I write until I find a way through the mess in my head.  Basically transferring the mess from my head onto a page.  It works for me.  And if not writing for two years isn't stuck, I don't know what is.

The other thought I had was to pick an unfinished story and just start writing on it again.  But without getting down on myself for mistakes.  This would be a full-on 'give yourself permission to suck' - which is another way I've gotten myself out of an inability to write.  There have been numerous times in the past where I've been so focused on writing a story that would SELL that I couldn't write anything.  Time to suck with wild abandon and not care who knows it.  Suck away, my friend.

I may do a combination of both.  We'll see how it goes.  Either way may break something free.  Fingers crossed.  I will write again.  First, though, I should probably see if any of my red pens still have ink in them.  ;o)

What do you do when you're stuck?

* I always write in my notebooks with red ink.  I started doing it years ago to get rid of the fear of someone marking my writing up, pointing out all the mistakes, in red.  And I got to where I just like it.  

Sunday Update - Week 13

The thirteenth week... I guess I never noticed before it has April Fool's Day in it.  :cue spooky music:  Ahem... Anyway...

There was writing, but not a lot of it.  1796 words.  Woohoo.  Then I hit a patch of 'why bother?' and skidded out, went in a ditch, and hit the proverbial tree.  I did spent some time working on a marketing thing, which also went in the ditch.  The only thing productive I actually accomplished this week was getting SSS into print format, uploading it, and ordering the proof copy.  That should be here like Friday.  I think.  If the mails are running the way they should and Amazon doesn't fuck something up.

I finished reading two books last week.  And then I started The Three Musketeers, which is slow going, but good.  It's a big book.  :shrug:

On the baking front, I did granola bars, cake cookies, and zucchini bread. Nothing new or exciting, but yummy.

In activity news, I was active 4 out of 7 days.  Wandering the yard, working in the woods, doing a hard target walk, and deep cleaning the fridge.  (And if you think cleaning the fridge isn't active, you've obviously found an easier way to do it than I have.)  I'm up to 13 miles walked for the year.  Weight: 177.6 - so eating less and getting more active is working.  Imagine that.

Speaking of cleaning the fridge... I actually started out yesterday with the idea of deep cleaning the whole kitchen.  In determining the plan, I realized that I couldn't do the floors until I did everything above the floors... natch... and that goes for counters, too.  Well, one of the things above the floor that desperately needed a cleaning was the fridge, so I filled the sink and dove in.  I moved everything out of the door and onto the shelves inside the fridge, then took out all the little shelvey things.  Closed the door and washed those.  Then I washed the inside of the door.  Dried the shelves and put them back.  Refilled those with all their stuffs.  Did the same with the drawers.  Then the big, heavy, glass shelves.  Moving everything around inside the fridge and then putting it back as I went.  In the end, nothing was out of the fridge for very long and the damn thing is clean.  Then I did the outside of the fridge.  Of course, by the time I got done with all that, I was pooped.  I didn't do the freezer, but it's pretty clean anyway.  Today, I'll finish the kitchen or die trying.  *

I also cleaned the coffee maker yesterday.  This new maker beeps when the coffee is done.  And when it needs cleaning, it beeps before the coffee is done, so that's how I know to clean it.  About once a month.  Which is what the specs for this thing say anyway.  

It must be Spring because I'm starting to see bunnies when I'm out walking.  Yay.

Okay, it's time again to take myself in hand.  I've been letting everything get to me and when everything is getting to me, I have a tendency to let the things I need to do slide.  Housework, yardwork, work-work, etc.  I've started cleaning, so that's something.  Now I need to get back to writerly pursuits as well.  Today.  Now.  Alright, maybe not NOW.  It's early and I'm gonna need a lot more coffee before I do anything productive.  

What did your week look like?  How's things?  

* I did our taxes instead.  Now I don't feel like doing anything.

Sunday Update - Week 'Time Change'

 Well, my computer says it's 5:51, but my brain says it's almost 7.  Stupid time change.  I just saw on FB where a local news station asked how people felt about the time change and like a dozen people gave it a heart.  Those people should be slapped.  Just sayin'.

Anyway, here's the week that was...

I finally got some editing done.  Last night.  One and a half pages worth.  Then my brain started with the whole 'I'm never going to get this done' and the 'even if I do get this done, it's still gonna suck and require weeks more work and pages more edit notes and even then it will probably still suck'.  It's rough inside a writer's head.

If you missed it, I now have four books in wide distribution.  Blink of an I went first, then I did all three books in A Model Curse.  I wish I had a universal link for the series as a whole, which would be so much easier, but alas, I haven't found a way to do that yet.  I still need to fix all the blog links so they point to the ULs for each book.  I've posted the links to FB though.  So that's something.  

This wasn't the most exciting week for reading, but I did finish one book, DNF'd one book, and made progress in the omnibus I'm reading.

In baking news, I made applesauce bread one day and chocolate oil cake yesterday.  There I was doing the oil cake and I fucked up majorly.  I sifted together the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt.  Then I began adding the wet ingredients.  Stir stir st... this doesn't look right.  CRAP... I forgot the baker's cocoa in the dry ingredients.  I chucked it in and did my best to incorporate it.  Needless to say, my cake still has lumps.  I added chocolate chips to try and mask the lumps.  Then when I was making the frosting - chocolate peanut butter, by the way - I fucked that up, too.  After an interminable amount of time trying to get it right, I finally gave up and dumped it on the cake.  Except it was way too wet and started running over the edges of the pan onto the counter.  GAH!  I got the flood stopped and threw the whole thing in the fridge.  It ain't pretty, and it'll never win any awards, but it's pretty yummy, and that's what really counts.  And I was right, the chips hide the lumps.  Yay.

You know, when you're making frosting and you're totally screwing it up and it's like lumpy soup, so you add more powdered sugar, but then it's too thick, so you add more milk, but then it's too thin again, so you add more... Umm, I now have a heavily frosted cake AND a big bowl of leftover frosting, too.  I think it'll make a good ice cream topping.

On the activity front, I did 5 out of 7 days.  One day was a walk and the other four were throwing logs.  We have a sizable stack of firewood now.  Someone asked me if I was getting a woodstove for Christmas.  Umm... no.  For now, we're just accumulating wood.  It gives us both an activity where we're getting the hearts pumping and doing something constructive, so it works for us.  Weight hasn't changed: 181.6.

The big bucks are starting to wander through the yard lookin' fer love.  Magnificent.  Fingers crossed they make it through hunting season.  If they don't, here's hoping they lose their lives to people who hunt for food and not for trophies.

I think that's about it for me today.  There's probably more, but it ain't coming to me at this time.  What's been up in your world?

Getting Back on Track

So, yesterday, I got thoroughly sick of myself.  The first thing I did was go for a walk.  Sitting on my ass all the time was definitely on the list of things irritating me about myself.  The walk helped.  Later, I emailed one of my unfinished books to myself and I'm reading that now so I can get the swing of it and finish it.  (Not saying which one because I don't want to get anyone's hopes up - including my own.)  It's still as good as I thought it was.  I just need to get out of my own way and complete it.

I'm just reading it right now.  I mean, I do have a notebook handy in case I need to write down ideas, but I'm trying not to do that.  I just want to approach it like any reader would without picking at it.  Which is harder than you might think.  This is a first draft, after all, and there are tons of typos.  I just have to keep reminding myself that this isn't an edit pass and let the typos go.  I'll catch up with them all again later.

Funny thing is that I can't seem to remember why I never finished this.  It's at like 78K words and that's about 2/3rds done, if I remember right.  I think it might've been the fear of finishing it and not having the ability to get a cover made for it.  Yeah, that's kind of stupid, but it's where my brain goes.  I also vaguely remember wondering whether this should be one book or several and how to break it into separate books and...  But I don't want to focus on any of that right now because I do want to finish this book this time.  And the last thing I need right now is getting derailed by my own neuroses again.

So, I'm reading.  And I'm liking what I'm reading.  And that's really the first step in getting back to this writing thing.  

I'll walk some more today.  Get the fresh air through the system and blow out the gaskets. Try to find the positives and work toward them once more.  It's really all I can do.

Rambling

I woke up this morning thinking it was Monday.  Took me a bit to reset the brain and convince myself it wasn't. 

Saw someone this morning who'd misspelled the title of their own book in the marketing copy of a FB post.  Thankfully, the cover was spelled right.  Proofread, people.

So, I contacted my cover artist yesterday to let her know I was ready when she was.  She's jammed, so I gave her the option of pushing the UatB cover back.  It's not like I need-need it right this month.  Hell, if I don't get off my dead ass, I might not need it this year.  We'll see what she says. 

We took a walk yesterday.  It was only 48 degrees.  I am so not ready for that cold yet, especially considering it was in the 80s last week.  I bundled up in a turtle neck, a sweater, and a fleecy jacket.  I was even wearing gloves.  My core was comfortable, but my face and legs were chilly cold.  Bleh.  I guess I need to get back to exercising inside.

I DNFd another book yesterday.  Which kind of made me sad because it was in a series I had once enjoyed.  But the book was irritating the bejeezus out of me.  Life's too short to continue reading irritating things.  It was probably just me.  There's only so long I can continue reading a series before I'm just annoyed with it.  Familiarity breeds contempt and all that.  I had the same thing happen with The Cat Who series and with the Dresden Files series.  Which is probably why I stopped writing Once Upon a Djinn at four books.  Enough was enough for me.  Sorry to the readers who wanted more but writing more of those wouldn't have been a good thing for anyone.

Sitting and thinking about Ugly and the Beast, I realize the problems I was having were caused by a need to rewrite the thing.  I got off on a weird tangent and it was turning into a book I didn't want to write.  Do-over!  But not right now because I got the edits back for Unequal. 

I am so not ready to face the edits.  But I'm going to get ready because I need to get this book out this year.  I've made a commitment and I'm sticking to it.  So, suck it up, buttercup, and get your butt to work.  =op

That's enough rambling out of me this morning.  Comments?  Questions?  Whips to crack? 

"Wow, This is Really Bad"

As I sit here, reading through Unequal and attempting to whip it into some kind of okay before it lands on my editor's desk, I hear the words whisper in my head and pop out my mouth.  "Wow, this is really bad."

Wooden dialogue.  Lame descriptions.  Purpley prose. 

Yuck. 

Not the entire manuscript, mind you.  Just the scene I'm reading now.  It's BAD.  Blech.  I feel like I need to re-write the whole thing.  But I only have until Saturday to get this ready.  Hell, I'm not sure I could fix it if I had a month. 

And I have to ask myself, is it really that bad, or am I having a crisis of confidence?  (No, I won't subject any of you to it.)  I mean, I don't write bad.  But I am prone to crises of confidence on a regular basis. And the current crisis is a whopper. 

With the entirely lackluster roll-out of Sleeping Ugly, I'm wondering again what the hell I was thinking becoming a self-published author and wondering why I ever assumed anyone would want to buy my books. 

And then there's the review thing.  Losing one review wouldn't be so bad if I had loads of reviews, which I don't - a fact that whispers in the back of my head that if I was any kind of good, people would get an overwhelming urge to write a review.  I don't even spur people into writing a bad review, which would at least mean I evoked some kind of response. 

And the more I think about all the reasons why I could potentially be craptastic, the worse the crisis gets.  An endless downward spiral of crappy internal dialogue.  :shudder:  So I try not to think about it.  Except when I can't NOT think about it.

I'm not sure what I'll do to resolve the issue with this book.  I might just leave the scene alone and see what AWE thinks.  If she comes back and tells me it sucks, then I'll deal with it.  On the brightside, no one out in the world has seen it sucky and no one ever will.  It's not due out until late November / early December, so I have plenty of time to fix it.  Unless AWE proclaims the whole damn thing unfixable. 

Gah.

Do you suffer from crises of confidence?  How do you overcome them?  Or do you just motor through and hope they'll go away, like I do?

Sunday Update - Week 40?

Are there really only 12 weeks left in the year?  No, really, I have no clue.  And I'm too lazy to look it up.  If so, then wow.

Okay, last week...  Hmm...

Well, here's the thing.  I have writer's block - or as I like to call it, a case of the squirms.  I finally admitted that to myself a couple days ago.  I can't see my way through the end of this damn book.  Which pretty much means I screwed something up in the storyline somewhere along the way.  I went back and snipped some lame stuff, but that didn't help.  I thought about jumping to another story, but as long as Early Grave site there 90% finished, my brain refuses to think about anything else.  Finish this or you get nothing.  Ugh.  This will pass.  It always does.  I may just sit down and force myself to write the most outlandish ending I can think of, pages of totally weird crap, and explode my way out of the block.  We'll see.

I read three books last week.  I read another Cat Who book.  It was okay, but I'm at the point where I'm missing installments and I got a little lost with this one, having skipped one.  Oh well.  Also, Silver James' The Cowboy's Christmas Proposition released and I inhaled it.  And then I picked up a new-to-me, under appreciated author in a SF/F vein.  The Defender of Rebel Falls by Erik Christensen.  It was really interesting.  FYI, though, I had a slight formatting issue on my Kindle Fire, but it was fine on my old Kindle.  It might've been my device. Download at your own risk.

Fishing happened.  And I scored an awesome rig at the thrift store.  Nice pole with an Abu Garcia reel for only $11.25.  Yesterday, Hubs swapped my baitcaster onto the new pole and put the new/old reel on my old pole.  (The old pole needs a repair, but I have to score some superglue first.)

I went for a walk.  Not usually a task worthy of updating, but I haven't gone for a walk since I screwed up my ankle 7 weeks ago.  We didn't go super far, but it worked, so it's all good.

Sunday, I wanted to make a cake for Hubs, but he didn't want a cake, and after some thought, I didn't feel like cake either, so I made cake mix cookies.  Except I was too lazy to make them as drop cookies.  I smushed the batter into an 8x10" pan and turned out a batch of bar cookies... brownies... something.  They were awesome.  Devil's Food cake with peanut butter chips.  Warm with ice cream.  OMG. I also made spaghetti with a sauce worthy of writing it down.  Banner food week, I guess.

Okay, I think that's it.  There could've been other stuff, but I'm brain dead.  What's new with you?

Thursday This n That

The other day, Hubs got a call from someone he went to high school with.  He hasn't seen or spoken to the guy in 45 years and out of the blue... bam.  It was pretty cool.  And they had a nice conversation.  The whole thing led me to thinking about the people I went to high school with.  Which led me to the FB page for alumni and teachers who've passed away.  Some of it was decidedly depressing - like seeing that a long-ago friend of my mom's had passed away.  But two teachers I had despised also passed away, which made me happy.  Yeah, I'm that kind of person.  What can I say?  They were mean to me.  Googling, I also discovered someone I was friends with in HS is alive and well and teaching 6th grade at a local (to where we grew up) private school.  I tried calling her after our 10 year class reunion, after which we went out and talked for a while, but she never called back, so meh.  Glad she's doing well, though.  I tried googling another friend, but I only know her maiden name and she's dropped off the radar entirely with that name.

I'm in a slump with regard to writing again.  In fact, I found myself asking if I really want to do this anymore. Again.  I expect this too shall pass.  It usually does.  Right now, though...  Meh.

So, I got something in the mail from someone I haven't seen in 4 years, and it was a graduation announcement for one of their children.  Which left me wondering a couple things - 1) were they doing a blanket announcement to everyone they've ever known trying to get grad prezzies?  2) since they never sent my kid a grad prezzie or card, what exactly was my obligation?  Yeah, I'm that kind of person, too.  I sent a card.

I'm connected to a cousin's wife on FB - and she keeps asking me where I live... on FB... as if I would blurt it out there.  Other than 'SW MO', I don't really like telling people on social media exactly where they can find me.  Yep, that kind of person, too.  If she wants my address, she can ask my mom. 

BTW, my mom is total awesome dipped in awesomesauce and covered with awesonesprinkles, so I fail to understand why anyone would want to lose touch with her.  I talk to her as often as our schedules allow.  And I'm hoping she lives at least as long as her grandmother, which would give me another good 20 years with her in my life.

Well, that's it for the this n that today.  How's 'bout you?

Change Weirds Me Out

I rearranged my desk yesterday.  I had a crick in my neck and looking to the right to see my monitor wasn't helping, so I switched everything from one side to the other.  Now my monitor is on the left side of my desk, which is right in front of where I sit.  No neck craning.  Yay. 

But I have this thing that happens when I move things around.  You see, I like things the way they are.  Always.  I'm not a big fan of change.  (Who is?)  So when I do move things around, it's all weird and strange for a while afterwards. 

When it was a big move - like from house to house when I was in CO - this strangeness would derail my writing for days afterwards.  I just couldn't seem to get in the groove.  And we moved three times while I was there.  Bleh.

Then we moved here to MO.  Now, that was a big derailment.  Talk about a change of scenery.  But I eventually got over it and got back to work.

This?  This is nothing really.  I was a little weirded out yesterday morning after I did it.  I got over it and did get some work done last night.  (Not much.  Turns out it wasn't the monitor position harshing my neck.)  It only served as a reminder of what happened before and provided a jumping point for this blog post. 

I don't like change.  Not at the time.  However, change is a good thing.  The change from living in CO to living here in MO was AWESOME.  Some things took a little getting used to - driving in hilly country as opposed to flat, way more rain here than in CO, trees everywhere - but it's better here.  And I think having my monitor over here instead of there is a better change, too.  It just weirds me out a little.

How do you handle change?  Do you embrace it as it happens, or do you embrace it after you get used to it? 

Walking the Tightrope

I want to talk about something today that I'm sure hits home for a lot of writers.  (Hell, it probably hits home for a lot of normal people, too.  I wouldn't know.  I haven't been normal since I learned to talk.)  I'm talking about the fine line between doing what we do and falling fifty feet off the highwire to land on the hard, cold concrete floor beneath us. 

Melodrama much?

Okay, so it's not nearly that bad.  It just feels that way sometimes.  You know, those times when the blues catch you and it feels like a gale force wind is trying to push you off the wire.  And so you fall.  Which is scary.  And sometimes you hit bottom.  Which hurts, but is rarely as fatal as a drop from a height to a hard, unforgiving surface. 

It's easier to hang on if you know it's coming.  Sometimes, you're hanging on by the grace of your fingertips, but you're hanging on.

When it catches you unawares, it's worse.  It blows up out of nowhere and you're falling.  And screaming (inside, usually).  And crying.  You're flailing your arms hoping you'll learn to fly in mere seconds. And then SPLAT.

So, there you lay, looking up at the wire, wondering why you ever tried to walk it in the first place.  Cursing the day you learned to string letters into words and words into sentences and sentences into stories.  When all you want to do is curl up in a ball... or wad your pages into a ball... and just stop. 

But you can't just stop.

Soon, you begin to wonder how you'll ever get from flat on the ground to all the way up that little ladder to the tightrope again.  The fifty feet now seems like two hundred.  And you wish you really could fly because then you'd be fine in no time and if you ever fell again, you could avoid the pain of impact.

Eventually, you push your mangled self off the ground, limp over to the ladder, and make the climb.  You get on the rope again and do the balancing act.  You have to.  The alternative is not worth considering. 

The first time is the hardest.  You hit bottom and it feels like every bone is shattered into a million tiny shards.  Every time gets easier.  Oh, except for those unexpected strong gales, but even those you'll weather better than you did the last. 

It helps if you have something you can do to create a fresh breeze to help push you up.  A little balloon you can tie to your ass that makes the climb and the tightrope walking easier.  I fish now.  Before I started fishing, I went for walks or took pictures (sometimes both). 

Sunday, an unexpected gust blew me to the ground.  I went fishing.  Caught nothing.  It wasn't enough.  Yesterday, I went fishing again.  Stood on a rocky beach, watching my bobber, and catching a few bluegills.  Then I changed locations.  Sat on the rocky ledges, watching my bobber, and catching a few fish.  I was out there for 5 hours, all told.  That seemed to work.  We'll see.  I was already teetering when the gust came, and I'm not quite sure my equilibrium is quite up to balancing on the highwire yet, but I'll scoot myself out there and see what happens.  Might fall again.  Might fly.  Time will tell.

Neurotic? Who Me?

Just because I'm sitting on a pendulum, swinging between "Oh my god, this is going to be so awesome!" and "Oh holy shit, this is going to suck so bad!" doesn't mean I'm neurotic.

Just because I want to tell the world about my book that's coming out, but I'm afraid no one will want to listen...

Just because I'm afraid to go to the local bookstore for the first time because I think THEY'LL think I'm only visiting there now because I have a book coming out soon...

Just because I wished a forgotten friend a happy birthday on FB after not really saying anything to her for god knows how long...

Just because I sat listening to my husband read Dying Embers (to himself, no less) for the first time, waiting for any slight sound that would tell me whether he still respected me after reading my words...

None of that makes me neurotic. Or maybe it does.

Or maybe it just makes me a writer getting ready to send the first self-published book into the world.

And hey, just because I'm suddenly afraid you're all sick of hearing about my first self-publishing adventures, doesn't make me neurotic.  Much.

Edited to Add:  Oh hey, I keep forgetting.  I have a writer PAGE on Facebook now.  Go like it and the first 50 likers will be entered into a contest for a $25 gift card.   The final cover with the tagline is also up over there with the cover copy!

This and That

In case you missed the announcement at The Unpublished Writers' Guide to Survival (or you missed it over at Alexia Chamberlynn's blog), some people having a Twitter pitch party where you use the hashtag #pitmad* and tweet your pitches.  After which, I assume, anyone who likes your pitch will get in touch with you.  Personally, the idea scares the bejeebers out of me.

In other news, I had submissions out to three publishers.  The two for Dying Embers have... well... died.  As far as I can tell, Djinnocide is still alive at Harper Voyager.  Just as well, I guess, since I'm going to be a busy beaver soon.  (And that's the story I'm sticking with - like Aesop's fox who didn't want those sour grapes anyway.)

The reality of it, though, is that no matter how busy I think I'm going to be, I'll always have time to work.  (Or, if there's a contract involved, I'll make the time to work.)  My problem, though, is right now I'm thoroughly unmotivated.  I don't have anything driving me to get writing done.  Yeah, it's there.  And yeah, I still love it.  But no, it's not motivating me on its own.  Must be the Mid-winter Malaise has me in its dastardly clutches.

If you need postage, buy 'forever stamps' TODAY.  Stamps go up by a penny over the weekend, and if you get the 'forever stamps', they still work for the higher rate.  Who knows what the freight rates will be.  :shrug:  Last year they went up like 8 cents for the lowest cost Media Mail package.  Bleh.  I know it's only 8 cents, but they're nickel-n-diming me to death.

What's going on in your world?  Any this or that to share?

*corrected after Janet pointed out I had it wrong.  D'oh.

Putting Pen to Paper

I'm in that place again.  You know the one - where every time I sit down here to write, the words won't come?  Yeah, that one. 

I don't know why I get stuck in this place.  It's so much easier physically to write on the keyboard.  My hands take a lot longer before they cramp, for one.  But nooooo.  I'm stuck over there, sitting on the couch with my big 5-subject notebook in my lap and my trusty red pen. 

I'm still working on the story I wrote about for my The Next Big Thing post.  I'm really liking where this is going.  I threw in a twist I wasn't expecting and now my poor MC has to deal with that before she can deal with the curse she's under.  It's awesome.  Really it is.  But hammering through it one page at a time is killing me. 

Arrgghh.

I think I just need to kick my own ass and tell myself to quit being such a ninny.  I'm in charge here, dammit.  And I want to write lots of words instead of just a few.  So there.  =op

Until then, though, I'm stuck doing it the old-fashioned way and putting pen to paper.  Because, hey. slow writing is better than no writing.  Right?

Do you ever write longhand?  It's a great way to get unstuck.  (Until you get stuck while writing longhand, then you're screwed, I guess.)  I know several of my friends can't due to hand issues, so if you're one of them, what other trick do you use to get unstuck?  Maybe it'll help my muse to not be such a damn techno-phobe right now. 

Lagging Behind

I always seem to be coming in at the tail end of things.  When I was just a lass, I joined the local Explorers post for Veterinary Medicine (because, yeah, I wanted to be a vet back then).  Not long after I joined, the group fell apart.

I became active at Absolute Write a few months before the ownership shifted from Jen (who I loved) to Mac (who I didn't).

I really started to get excited about blogging when I heard an ugly rumor that blogging was passe. 

And I seem to get into the swing of writing a particular genre only to find people talking about how that particular genre is dead.  Seriously.  Have you seen any adult dystopian running around lately?  And what about the death knell of paranormal?

Ummm, yeah.  The story of my life.

Back in 2002, right after I got a promotion to management btw, my multi-million dollar telemarketing firm employer decided to start phasing out my branch.

It's giving me a complex.  I think I single-handedly killed the college computer club.  (Okay, so that had more to do with breaking up with the president.  It wasn't pretty.  But still...)

I know it's not me.  I think I just lag behind the curve.  That Explorer post was run by a weird chick who bred French Bulldogs in her basement and the meetings always stank.  I didn't have anything to do with AW's ownership change, and leaving was my choice.  (AW is still going strong as far as I can tell.)  D---A------ had upper management issues and my branch had a problem with honesty, so it was fated to die.  And I refuse to believe blogging is passe. 

As for the genres, I write what I love.  So what if it's not what's hot or popular right now?  When the next wave of adult dystopians hit, I'll be standing there with my manuscripts in hand.  Hell, I could start the wave.  Right?

Right.

And I'll be the forerunner of the rush for paranormal suspense (you know, when urban fantasy becomes old hat).  Yeah, yeah.  That's the ticket.

So, am I lagging behind?  Or am I ahead of my time?

Only the shadow knows.

But yeah, it's giving me a complex.  ;o)

Expectations

I'm taking a brief break from the Pitfalls posts to talk about a topic that came up in an email conversation recently.

Expectations.

Our expectations for our books.  The expectations we have for our careers.  What we perceive other people's expectations are.

When I wrote my first book, I had expectations.  The first and the worst (at least in retrospect) was the expectation this book would be snapped up by agents and publishers, and it would hit the shelves within a couple years.  I never expected it to fail.  I had nightmares that once it did hit the shelves, people would come after me with torches and pitchforks - but that's a post for another day.

After my expected success fell apart, I expected my next book to fail just as miserably - so I tried to write it according to how I perceived other people wanted me to write a book.  (i.e. I plotted.)  That awesome idea for a novel failed before it even got out of the gate.  Took two steps and broke its leg.  No Derby win, no Triple Crown.  Just a lot of thrashing in the track dirt.  Can ya say 'self-fulfilling prophecy'?  Knew ya could.

Anyway... expectations.  They're not always bad.  Sometimes they work out the way we want them to.  More often than not, though, we fall short of the things we expected.  Getting rid of them entirely, though, is impossible.  As long as there are humans and a future, people will have expectations about what will  happen in that unknown future.  :shrug:

I don't know what the answer is.  Perhaps we all should just learn to adjust our expectations instead of letting them crush us.  My first book didn't get published, so I adjusted.  My second book flopped, and I adjusted again.  In some ways, over the past almost-nine years, I learned to squash that glimmer of expectation when I send out queries.  (For the most part.  Sometimes it still pokes it's little head up and gets slapped.)

And maybe that's why I haven't gotten much done in the writerly pursuit area.  Sneaky expectations have been bombarding me.  Only this time they're "I expect this idea won't work" and "I expect people are just going to reject this".  Ugh.

So much for squashing the glimmers.  Better luck next time.

How about you?  Do expectations build you up or break you down? 

(I screwed up and posted twice this morning, so if you missed the earlier post, please go read it:  NaNoWriMo Pitfall #6.)

Letting the Voice Win

We've all had moments like I had yesterday, where we're chock full of self-doubt.  Sometimes the voice in our heads is just - as Janet put it - upping its game.  Sometimes its just being a buttwart and needs to be pushed past - like Silver suggested.

I spent yesterday on the couch - watching football and thinking (and not-thinking while everything just simmered in my subconscious).  Here's what I came up with.

This book is a bitch.  And other than the glorious period of first drafting - when I'm too close to see the flaws - it's always been a bitch.  Every time I sit down to try and edit the damn thing, I end up feeling like I've just tried to bathe ten Max the cat clones at the same time.  (For those of you who missed it, Max hates baths and by the end of each, my arms are shredded and punctured.)  But I keep going back to this manuscript.  Good ol' masochist me.  I just knew if I kept at it, I could win the fight.

But what if I can't?

I know several of you are about to throttle me.  That's okay.  I probably deserve to be throttled.  But not necessarily for the reasons you might think.

Ever know one of those people who gets into a bad relationship and they can't really see how bad it is?  The ones who may at some point manage to wriggle their way out only to wind up back with the same totally unsuitable significant other time and again?  They want to make it work.  They know if only they try hard enough, they can get the other person to be what they want to be.  They insist they love this person who's totally bad for them.  "I can change them, I know I can."  Or, heaven forbid, they end up changing themselves so whatever problems they had no longer matter - which is worse.

Not this time, Sweets.  Sometimes things like this are meant to die.  Sometimes the little voice in the back of your head telling you this won't work is right. 

Don't get me wrong.  The little voice of self-doubt rears up at some point during every book.  Most times, I let it have its way for a little while and then kick its lily-white ass.  This time, though, while preparing to throttle the crap out of the annoying liar, I realized the reason I can't make this one shut the hell up this time is - regardless of how wrong it is in some aspects - it's totally right.  This is not a book I can finish - not now and maybe not ever. 

And that's fine.  Sometimes you have to know when to stop fighting.

Don't worry, though.  I'm not sad.  I'm not even all that hurt.  Like dating, there are other fish in the sea.  There are other books in my head and on my hard drive - each one waiting for its shot to become a real book.  I'll take all of the minutiae from this, stuff it into a box and cram it into a closet.  Get it out of here before I'm tempted to try another go of it.

Maybe instead of this book, it's finally time to finish Rue's story.  She's waited long enough for her shot at greatness.  And, you know what?  So have I.

Who the Hell Do You Think You Are?

Or the All-Encompassing Writing Pitfall.

It goes like this...

"Who the hell do you think you are to try and write something like this?  You're not good enough.  You have no idea what you're talking about.  Everyone will laugh at you for this one.  Or at least every self-respecting agent who gets a glimpse of this will not only reject your book, they'll print off your submission materials just so they can set fire to the pages."

"And then there's the whole 'write what you know' thing.  Which you're totally not doing in this case.  What does a housewife from backwater, piss-ant, scrubby-ass Colorado know about the doings in Washington, D.C.  Who do you think you are, Vince Flynn?  ROFL  Right.  Go back to making shit up with your post-apocalyptic worlds or your genies and leave the reality to the boys and girls who know how to do it right."

"Sure, writing is all about making it up, but readers are going to see right through your smoke and mirrors crap. They're going to KNOW you're talking out the other side of your ass here.  What do you know about medical examiners and engineers and government agents?  Seriously.  You must've been pretty damn full of yourself to even start this project.  No wonder you can't edit it into something good."

"No wonder they rejected your other stuff."

"Hack."

NaNoWriMo Pitfall #2

Back again for the second installment of my reprise of the 2009 NaNo Pitfall posts.  So, without further ado...

NaNo Pitfall #2 or... OMG, this sucks!

So, other than the last couple days, I've been writing my little fingers into fat sausages.  I got past the first pitfall (or as someone else put it on another blog - the cardinal rule of NaNo) - don't go back and read what you've written - by slogging through.  The problem with slogging through is you may find yourself in the second NaNo pitfall...

OMG, this sucks!

As you write, you may find yourself thinking that the scenes you're slapping down are probably the worst pieces of dreck you've ever seen.  "It was a dark and stormy night..." looks like Pulitzer material by comparison.  And you know no one is ever going to want to read such crap.

Okay, here's the thing.  Most likely you're right.  It sucks, it's dreck, and no one is going to want to read it.

Now, before you get out the matches and bonfire your manuscript, I want you to understand something important.  What you're writing now is a FIRST DRAFT.  I'm willing to bet that most first drafts - even by the bestselling authors - are crap they wouldn't want anyone to read.  As awful as those first drafts might be, though, those authors kept writing them because they all knew another important fact:

You can't fix what isn't written.

So, no matter how horrible it may feel to you right now, you keep writing.  Hell, several chapters back, I wrote a scene I knew was awful.  Here's the thing about writing awful scenes, though: During editing, it'll either be cut or will end up as a completely different animal by the time I'm ready to query.  I needed the crap scene to get to the next scene, so I wrote it and I refuse to apologize for it. Even to myself. 

I wrote it.  I can fix it later. 

While you're writing, don't worry so much about how every word will sound.  Don't pick at yourself for writing crap.  Even if you're not doing NaNo, but you're having a tough time finishing a manuscript, just write and worry about fixing the problems later. 

Now it's your turn.  Ever hit this pitfall?  Did you get past it or trash your manuscript?  If you got past it, let us know how in the comments.

(Click on this linky-link to see the original post, with comments.)

Tackling the Nasty

So, there I was sitting around after my marathon session to complete Djinnocide and submit it to Harper Voyager.  I was wiped out.  And I promised myself a week off (at least) to recover.  I submitted on a Sunday.  Sunday night I felt weird because I wasn't at my computer working.  By Tuesday, I was being inundated by my other stories - all clamoring for their shot.  On Friday, I made my decision as to which of the whining bitches manuscripts I would tackle next. 

I spent the weekend thinking about how I was going to approach this particular unfinished, hot-mess.  If you've been here long enough, you may remember a little behemoth I called Nano (short for Nanotechnology - aka Bloodflow).  I finished the first draft a few years ago and then left it to simmer.  I've gone back to it several times - each instance discovering it had taken on a scary quality.  It's big.  It's got so many twists and turns it puts my paperclip box to shame.  And every time I look at it, it adopts the attitude of MONUMENTAL UNDERTAKING.

In short, it's nasty.

It has the main plot.  A sub plot.  A sub-sub plot.  A budding romance.  A villian who isn't.  A villain who is.  Henchmen working behind the scenes doing things even the villains haven't authorized.  A red herring or two...  :shudder:

Yeah.  It's nasty.  But it's also delicious.  I can totally see how this could be the BIG BOOK.  I just need to jump on ride this f... sucker like the untamed beast it is until it becomes the dressage champion I need it to be.

But frankly, the idea is scaring the holy hell out of me.  And it has for years.

The last time I tried to tame this thing, I did the note card approach.  Each scene written down with major points and key ingredients.  I have a whole pile.  And it didn't help me one bit.  (Still isn't helping - since I picked it up over the weekend and went 'arrgghh'.)  Note cards are not my process, apparently.

"Whyfor did you bathe me, Mom?"

So, Sunday I printed off the best couple first chapters I'd come up with and yesterday I sat down with a notepad and pen.  That's my process.  So far?  Well, it hasn't bitten my hand off yet.  That's something.

Wish me luck.  I may need it.

What nasty job have you tackled recently?

Oh yeah, I was so not wanting to tackle this bear that on Friday, I bathed the cat.  That ought to show you how much this thing scares me.  Max does not make bath time lots of fun.  ;o)