Slow Days of August – CoronaLife Day 166

August 27, 2020 By 1 Comment

This week has been slow for me, although productive. My Board of Education duties took up a great deal of time this week, with policies to review (they are good for curing insomnia).

I am also beta-reading a manuscript with my daughter. My friend Keith Strunk wrote a middle grade book and asked my 10-year-old daughter to give him her thoughts. I am reading it with her because she is always scared to read a new author alone, and it is a fun thing we can share. I was also glad to do it because I have been hearing about this book for a long time and couldn’t wait to finally see the finished story!

In my own work, I had gotten hung up with revisiting my story Vertias. Lisa Cron’s Story Genius was guiding me well, but then I ran aground on a concept I could not quite wrap my head around. I felt I was very close to crafting a compelling “third rail,” but I knew I didn’t quite have it. So I turned to my friend, author and editor Kathryn Craft, who simplified the concept and came at it from another angle so my pandemic brain could comprehend it properly. I need to re-read all that she put in her insightful and detailed email to me, but once I do I think I will be able to move forward with more confidence. I feel that if I can get this right, get the beginning right, the rest will follow more easily.

As summer comes to a close, we are preparing for a new school year. It will be unlike the beginning of any other school year ever, but we are up for the adventure and we know we will all get through it together.

How are you spending these last weeks of summer?

Family & Frustration – CoronaLife Day 159

August 20, 2020 By Leave a Comment

We got tested for coronavirus at the end of July and it took 2 weeks to get the results. We got tested because we were trying to get my daughter together with her best friend for a long weekend, so both families were going to get tested. That didn’t work out, but we decided not to waste our tests, so we went to visit my parents for only the 2nd time since February.

We had a nice visit outside, distanced, with masks when we had to use the rest room, but this time we visited longer because it didn’t rain on us. My mother is recovering from back surgery, so it was good to see how she was healing. Our visit made the day feel almost normal, like pre-COVID times.

The writing front was not so fulfilling. I reported last week that I was making progress with Veritas by using Lisa Cron’s Story Genius. For a brief time I thought I finally had figured out my character’s “third rail” – what she wants vs. a misbelief that holds her back. But now I am not so sure I managed it, and the frustration has returned. I am hoping for some inspiration, or for something to “click” but sometimes I think maybe this just isn’t a story I am capable of telling.

I wonder how much of my struggle is the pandemic pressure. We have all been home pretty much 24/7 since mid-March, and my introverted self is feeling oppressed by it all. That and the constant anxiety suppresses creativity, at least for me. But with no end in sight, I will have to figure out how to work through it, because NOT writing is galling to me.

Hopefully next week I will have more forward movement to report on Veritas. I’m not giving up!

A Present Normal – Lockdown Day 47

April 30, 2020 By Leave a Comment

It’s hard to believe that tomorrow is May 1st. The month of March seemed to be about 3 years long, but April sped by. Perhaps this is a sign that I am adjusting to the new normal. Or perhaps I should call it the present normal, because the situation is ever-evolving, and there can be no true new normal until we have a treatment or vaccine for this virus.

In my present normal, I am able to indulge my night owl tendencies to an extent, by getting up a couple of hours later than I did when we had to be out the door for school, and therefore be able to stay up a few hours later at night. In spite of this, I really don’t feel well-rested. I am too on edge to sleep deeply and well. My anxiety is strange, in that when I am at a certain level of anxiety, I feel the urge to not sleep. As if my being awake can stave off whatever impending doom I am fretting about. I did this the night Superstorm Sandy blew through, as if my prowling the windows all night long could keep us safe. Apparently, that’s the level of stress I am currently experiencing. If I move into deeper stress, I move into the I-want-to-sleep-all-the-time escape mode. I am not there yet—and hope to avoid getting there.

Also in my present normal, I spend more time than I thought I would helping my daughter with her schoolwork. A large part of that is organizing and time management. My daughter’s organizational and time management skills are non-existent, so I spend a lot of my day putting her back on track and helping her with things she doesn’t understand. I also spend a lot of time feeding her. She eats constantly, but you’d never know it to look at her. Of course, she has grown an inch and a half in the last 4 months, so perhaps that explains the voracious appetite!

The one thing my present normal does not have is writing time. Part of it is because I am doing a lot more work with everyone home. Part of it is “pandemic brain” where a lot of the time my brain is fuzzy and it’s all I can do just to put out fires, forget about creativity. But even when my creative brain is working, I can’t seem to get to putting words on paper. I need some quiet alone time to do that, and that simply does not exist right now.

So hopefully my future present normal will have some time for that. I might have to wait until summer, when my daughter’s school will be out and I won’t have that time issue. But finding that time is my next challenge, the next step toward an inner normalcy, if not an external one.

How are all of you doing out there? How are you finding a new balance in this new world?

3 Ways Writing is Like Swimming

February 6, 2020 By Leave a Comment

My daughter likes to swim. She started swimming at age 3, was on her first swim team at 6. She has been on a swim team every summer for 4 years.

In order to compete in swimming, you need 3 skills: form, speed, and stamina.

Turns out, you need those same 3 skills if you want to compete in writing, too.

FORM

In swimming, getting your body to form the right patterns in the water is vital. If you perform the strokes correctly, if your body parts all work in perfect sync, you go faster with less effort.

Writing is similar. Our craft is our form, and the sooner we master the elements, the smoother our writing process becomes. As we get the myriad craft elements from structure to grammar to work in sync, the stories flow faster and with less effort.

SPEED

Efficiency of form helps you cut through the water faster, so you increase your speed. You can’t win if you are slow. However, swimming is not just about beating the other people.  It’s also about personal bests, competing with yourself and trying to lower your times every time you compete.

Writing efficiency will help you compete in the publishing trenches, because you can put more work out more quickly. This does not mean you need to be a speed demon in writing. I am not, and other successful writers are not. Some are. But you can’t focus on other people’s speed. All you can do is hone your process so you can write efficiently without losing quality in your work. You are always looking for a personal best.

STAMINA

Competitive swimming requires endurance. When my daughter started swimming, her first races were more a matter if she would make it the full 25 meters without having to stop. Now, at age 10, the freestyle is 50 meters and the other strokes are still 25. But next year they all go up to 50 meters. That will require building stamina (and mastering how to turn).

A writing career is a long-haul career. Success usually does not come early or quickly. And if you write novel-length books, each project can be a marathon in itself. We need to cultivate creative and emotional stamina to get us through. There are many paths to success, so we need to master turning when one route is blocked. Sometimes our muscles hurt and we can barely catch our breath, but if we persevere we will eventually touch the wall.

Whether we write for fun or for profit, all writers share the joy and passion for writing. But for those who do want to publish, we also need to develop form, speed, and stamina.

Once we do, we can swim with the best of them.

NaNoWriMo 2019: Week 3

November 21, 2019 By Leave a Comment

When I started this project, I wasn’t sure I’d make it to week 3. It’s a difficult thing, trying to write 1,667 words a day when you have multiple other responsibilities. But I surprised myself by managing to stay on top of things.

Until this week. This week killed me. I have been so busy with other obligations that I have had to schedule time to breathe. Write words? Forget it! I’ve lost 2 days to zeros and am likely to lose one more.

All is not lost, however. November 21st (today) is 3 weeks. If you wrote 1,667 words a day, you would have 35,007 words by the end of today. As of this writing, I stand at 37,007 words. So even with those 3 zero days this week, I am 2,000 words ahead. A little over a day’s work ahead. It just feels like I am falling behind because I am losing my cushion.

I should be able to keep up and hopefully forge further ahead in the coming days, as my schedule lightens considerably. Thanksgiving may well be another zero day, but hopefully I will be comfortably in the home stretch by then.

I’m also not trying for the 50,000, although if I do it will be icing on the cake. I am trying to get a first draft of this story. I figure I have about 8 more chapters at most, so that would put me short of the 50,000—maybe about 45,000. But as long as my last two words are THE END, I will count this as a success.

I will be writing over my holiday, as much as I can. I wish all my fellow authors some productive creative time, whether you are doing NaNo or not, and I wish everyone a happy and safe Thanksgiving with friends and family.

NaNoWriMo 2019–hitting the wall

November 14, 2019 By Leave a Comment

I told you all last week that I am unofficially doing National Novel Writing Month. Only I guess since I’ve announced it to all of you, it’s semi-official now. But I haven’t joined on their website, so it’s not official-official.

Anyway, I’m doing this thing. 50,000 words in 30 days. And I’m a bit shocked at how well I’ve been doing. I’m almost halfway there. As of Tuesday night, I was at 24,500 words. Cool, right? But then Wednesday I hit a wall. Kinda like a runner when they’re on that last few miles of a marathon.

I guess I should have expected a wall at some point. I am not an outliner, although I have a basic plan to follow for the book, and I’ll admit I am a tad unsure of where to go next. But I think my brain is also just tired. I mean, I just spewed 24,500 words out in 11 days.

That’s a lot of words.

It’s also cold as all get out here right now, so it’s perfect weather for curling up with a warm drink and a good book, not for pulling words out of your brain. On Wednesday I realized I wasn’t going to write. I scrolled Facebook, I fought with a webpage as I tried to make an appointment, and did other work–like this blog post and the links-roundup over on The Author Chronicles. So while I didn’t write any fiction words, it was overall a productive day.

Hopefully this “day off” will let me jump back into my manuscript today with some energy and push through that notoriously difficult middle of the story. They don’t call it the “sagging middle” or “muddy middle” for nothing, after all.

So that’s where I am in NaNoWriMo–a bit lost, a bit tired, but not giving up. Any other fellow NaNo writers out there? How are you doing? And if you’re not doing NaNo, what are you up to these days?

5 Lessons about Writing from Recess Runners

October 24, 2019 By Leave a Comment

My daughter’s school has a program called Recess Runners. It is a totally voluntary program where kids can come at recess and run or walk around a 1/4 mile track. When they amass a mile, they get a token to hang on their necklace.

Now, if anyone had told me in school that I had the option of running a mile at recess for fun, I would have told them “No way!”. But the program is very popular. Lots of kids running/walking. And I realized I could take some writing lessons from those kids.

1. Find the joy

These kids are having fun. Some are running because they love to run. Some enjoy walking and chatting with their friends. But it is fun for them. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in the business side of writing that I forget to have fun. Or I lose the fun of writing under the constant worry that this book won’t be good enough. I need to find the fun again—feel the wind in my face as I write.

2. Go at your own pace

They all start at the same line, but they all go at their own pace. Some zip around 4 or more times in one recess. Some make it twice. For some it’s a struggle; for some it’s easy. But they all made progress. It can be hard not to compare your own career to other people’s. Some authors are prolific, pouring out books like coffee. Some are snails, a book every few years. My journey is different from theirs, and I need to remember that.

3. Remember this was voluntary

The kids don’t have to participate. They don’t even have to participate in every session. It’s a choice for them. Writing is, too. Well, maybe not the urge to write, but the choice to write for publication. I chose to go the extra mile to continually improve my craft and pay for workshops and conferences and edits. I chose to seek representation and the rejection that inevitably comes with that process. So if it ever becomes too much, I can choose to reassess and see if it’s still where I want to be.

4. Set your own goals

Every kid has a different reason for being there. Some just want to run and get energy out. Some are competitive and want to rack up as many tokens as they can. Some are there because they want to be healthier and get more exercise. Some just want to walk and chat with their friends. Every writer has their own goals, too. Some only have one book and just want it out there. Some don’t care about the money and just want to see their work available. Some want to make a living at this writing gig. My own goals are modest, realistic, and so far largely unattained. But I am working toward them, just like all those kids are.

5. It’s the effort that counts

The biggest thing I’ve taken away from this, however, is that it’s all in the journey. The striving is what needs to be applauded. We can’t always control the outcomes of our efforts, and we won’t always reach our goals. But we are in control of our effort, our dedication, and our attitude. I won’t use the platitude that the work is its own reward (although sometimes it is), but sometimes the effort leads to opportunities and rewards we didn’t expect, if we are open to them.

So kudos to all the kids having fun running, and I hope to incorporate the lessons I have learned from them in my writing life.

Philadelphia Writers’ Conference 2019: My Biggest Takeaway

June 13, 2019 By 1 Comment

This past weekend was the Philadelphia Writers Conference. I consider it my “home” conference, and I have been going for about 10 years.

Every year I think about what my biggest takeaway is from the conference. I learn so much every year, it’s hard to pick. This year, one thing echoed in almost every workshop: there is no one right way to write.

There are so many ways to write a book. Plotting vs. Pantsing. Linear vs. The Jigsaw Puzzle. Scientific vs. Intuition. Efficient vs. Meandering. And you know what? They are all valid. As long as you end up with a finished, polished product, it’s all good.

The thing I have found about the writing process is that it changes over time. It changes as your skills mature, and according to the needs of your book. For example, my multiple-POV, multiple-subplot YA scifi required more planning than my middle grade single-POV quest story.

Young authors often think there is only one correct way to write a book, and that the professional teaching the workshop is the holder of that Holy Grail. This is certainly not the case, and I was heartened to hear so many of the workshop leaders espouse the uniqueness of each person’s process.

A great thing about a multi-day conference is that we get to concentrate on the writing. We can dim or even turn out the lights of the outside world and immerse ourselves in the writing world. At the beginning of one of my classes, a bird got into the room. It flew around, disoriented, banging into the mirror, until one person got the smart idea to open the doors and turn out the lights in the room. As soon as we turned out the lights, the bird raced to the open doors and flew through to freedom.

Go into the light, my friends—and write your own way.

Celebrating the Small Victories

May 2, 2019 By Leave a Comment

Face it, we live in a world where society only celebrates the big victories. But many of us don’t have huge victories to crow about, and therefore feel like we’re not enough. I’ve got good news for you, though–even small victories are victories.

Small victories are earned, just like the large ones. In fact, most often the large victories can’t even happen without the small ones happening first. Can’t publish a book if you don’t write it first. Can’t write it except one chapter at a a time. Can’t write a chapter without sentences.

So it ALL COUNTS.

Words on the page. Forward progress. Baby steps. It all adds up, and it all becomes something bigger than the sum of its parts. A lot of us have family obligations, day jobs, other must-do things on the To Do List. So just showing up to do the work is a victory.

Why am I thinking of small victories today? Because in April, I racked up almost 16,400 words for the month. Which is more than twice as much as the previous best month of 2019. Even more exciting to me is that 10,500 of those words were revision of my YA novel Veritas.

April's small victories

I have not worked on Veritas in any word-countable way since September of 2018. Half a year ago.

I was working on it, in fits and starts, but not in the computer. I revised longhand, working from a printed copy. The revision is still far from finished, but I’ve made substantial progress–enough to put my revisions to date into the computer and print a new version to move ahead with.

It’s gratifying to see the longhand-work translate into word count. A small victory, slow in coming, but I am happy with it.

Maybe next month I will break 20,000 words.

Small victories. What victories are you celebrating today?

Developmental Editing: Necessary or Not Needed?

February 28, 2019 By Leave a Comment

On Janet Reid’s blog, she weighed in on whether or not you needed a developmental edit of your manuscript prior to submitting a query to an agent. She and the commenters agreed that you do NOT need a developmental edit prior to querying.

Their feeling is that you can get your manuscript query-ready if you have good critique partners and beta readers. And I tend to agree with that.

That said, I have used a developmental editor for every manuscript I have ever queried. I realize I am lucky because I can afford developmental edits, which are not usually cheap.

For me, that edit is a very specific part of my writing process. My original writing process was honed with a writing partner who has since passed away. I am therefore very collaborative in my process. I do have critique partners who are the first to dig into the manuscript—usually after about the 3rd draft. Once I incorporate their feedback, I go through several more drafts.

Once I reach the point where I feel I cannot edit any better, when I have reached that point where I have lost objectivity, that’s when I go to my developmental editor. She gives me an in-depth edit of my full manuscript, showing me places I need to improve. The particular developmental editor I work with has an extraordinary feel for and understanding of character and emotion in the story, and that is precisely the area I want to focus on when I send things to her.

While I cannot claim these edits have given me a leg up in querying (I am still not represented), I can say I have learned a great deal from each one. Every manuscript has come back with fewer and fewer edits needed. Not only have the edits made each individual manuscript better, but they have collectively raised my craft level.

So while I agree that in most cases a developmental edit is not necessary prior to querying, for me the money has been worth it.

Do you use a developmental editor at any point in your process?

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