Art Remarkable

Full Steam Ahead (?)

Administrator — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 05:31:12 +0000

Ok, so I got this cherry thing dropped in my lap which basically meant I would have had to sacrifice my writing life.

I prayed about it a lot, and while it looked like a done deal, it fell through. There is a part of me that is relieved.

Then again, there is a part of me that is pure disappointment. Or at least, was…

Thing is, Commoner Days is something I’ve been writing forever, but it’s my 2nd attempt at a novel. (My first attempt was when I was young & stupid, and far more concerned with living and visiting cool places, and didn’t have a computer, and didn’t know that you could spend WEEKS on end editing one page and hold up your novel.)

Commoner Days was conceived during my first pregnancy and written over a year later in a NANOWRIMO 2003 (yes, you heard me). I dropped it like a hot potato when I was done because I was terrified.

Do you hear me? Terrified. Of what? The usual. Failure. Success. Commitment. Putting myself on the written page for the world to see. You get the picture.

It kept growing as a story in my mind, blossoming, taking on politics during those awful Bush years, and religion during my awful God-struggles, mother-daughter issues as I lost my mom and gained 2 daughters. I picked it up, edited a bit, put it down.

Then in November, 2008, I got serious. I picked up Create A Culture Clinic, by Holly Lisle and set to world-building. Mind you, I was terrified of this task, but Holly’s book was a great help. After that, I needed to get serious about editing, not the junky stuff I had done in the intervening 5 years (which was barely anything). First, I read both How To Write Page-Turning Scenes and the very awesome The First Five Pages: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile, then I printed out all 264 pages and got to work editing by hand. I tried to make page deadlines (as in, 5 per day), but that was just discouraging.

I’m down to the next edit and it’s getting better. But let me tell you that as I was shaping up those first 50 pages for submission to the contest I mentioned, I realized how much it lacked. The religion and politics of the backstory got a hell of a lot more interesting, but it just wasn’t in the story. I’ve grown in a year of editing and writing/not writing, blogging - personally and professionally. I’ve been reading a lot, with an internal eye on what works and what fails (stunningly and frequently, even on popular books). Perfect books exist, but they are few and far apart. My God, so much can go wrong (see “First 5 pages”), without the author even realizing.

So I was ready to throw in the towel. Why couldn’t I want to do something easy with my life, like civil engineering or become an abstract mathematical theoreticist? (Yea, I’d do that last one. Stopped reading P&W when they wrote an article about a guy who’s both that AND a prolific literary novelist. Sheesh.)

But writing a novel is all kinds of difficult. It’s easy, for me, to keep the balls that you need to juggle in the air for a short story (in terms of being literary, economical and profound), but over the long haul of a novel it is damn hard.

I needed advice and direction. Maybe I should dump this kind of writing and focus on a different format, or plunge deeply truly into web design, maybe with the right kind of job.

Enter a 2nd cousin on Facebook, who said all kinds of wonderful glowing things about my blog. And while that is a different format of writing, it gave me the encouragement to continue. After all, if I can blog (and I quote) with a “writing/style …like a box of really good popcorn…you just can’t put it down until its finished”, then why the hell can’t I write fiction like that?

The answer is, I can with a lot of hard work. Somewhere along the way I got it that my gift would come easy. And some of it does, but not all of it. I was reading something recently (again), ok, actually a few things I was reading, and I realized I was already better than these published folks. I’ve got my ready-made audience too, but I do really have to blood-sweat-and-tears this. This is how great artists are made. And make no mistake, that is what I desire from my writing, not just entertainment, but great art. The writers I love are great artists: Jane Austen, Iris Murdoch, Harper Lee, Connie Willis, Barbara Kingsolver (gee, and they’re all women, look at that!)

As a result, I’ve decided at this point in time to lay “Commoner Days” to rest. I’ve completed it through a number of edits and have submitted it to a contest and a critique. I’ll make my bones there, because I already know how brutal the critique will (and should) be. More or less, I have seen the project through as I’d like to, and I’m probably 100 or 200 thousand words on my way to one million. (You know that saying, right? It takes a million words to get prolific as a writer?)

I have a few things I need to decided between: fic or non-fic, and if it’s fic, then the period-historical-literary romance or the time travel romance? A survey may help. How do I decide? Good question, answers welcome!

First Novel Submission!!!

Administrator — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:03:59 +0000

Well, I coughed up some bucks and submitted “Commoner Days”, the 50 pages anyway, to Word Hustler’s Literary Storm Contest and even added some extra for a critique. Good grief! This is a big big deal for me. So, what are you going to do with your writing in 2010 that involves jumping into the fray? Share!

(Note the contest is for all genres and deadline is now extended to February 26th, 2010. Go for it!)

What’s Holding you Back?

Administrator — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:42:22 +0000

One of the things that holds me back is a word I said to another writer friend, that writing is something I’d like to “master”.

I was surprised at her response, which looked at the downside of mastering something (”to know everything there is to know about something” and how it’s impossible). It made me realize that the quest to be a perfect writer might be holding me back from being a decent writer, then a good one, then a better one, and so on.

Because it is in the doing that you learn to improve your craft.

I also do web design, something I also stress out over “mastering”, and I got this solid piece of advice: you don’t have to be a web guru to sell your designs or code. There is a market for every level and as you improve your level gets better.

I think this applies to writing too. Have you not read early books by writers you love, and go “yuck”? Or “eh.” Or even “this one’s better”?

I’m also an EXTREMELY discerning reader, so I could be a lot harder on myself than someone else. So yea, what I’m saying is that maybe I should get my stuff out there, after I tweak a bit more and get some reliable critiques/first readers. Maybe “Commoner Days” can get pitched in March at the 2010 Write Stuff Conference. It’s a worthy goal and then I’m onto to write my historical romance.

What do you think? Do you feel the need to “master” something before you sell it? Is that perfectionism?

So I promised you I’d post more…

Administrator — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 04:35:33 +0000

…and then a month’s gone by with nothing! I’ve been filled to the brim with so much freelance work (on top of my full time job) that even my family is missing me. And writing?

Dropped the ball on editing Commoner Days more than a week ago, can’t remember how long.
Dropped the ball on my Holly Lisle course after second week.
Didn’t even attempt NANO.
Decided not to a $15 editing workshop that I should do.
Had a “writer’s crisis”

You know the kind, well, maybe, if you are a writer, then most likely, you do.

The whole “should I be doing this” crisis.

Do I want to be a novelist? Good LORD, it is a hard-core task of stick-to-it-ive-ness, not my strong suit, the likes of which I’ve never imagined. And then editing, the whole thing about this being a YA book, and switching it to strengthen the mother-daughter conflict - a key element - from position of an teen-to-adult woman, well, geez, it had “throw in the towel” written all over it.

I thought: short stories? But I don’t care for them much. There are some great ones, don’t get me wrong, but I’m all about character, and good characters with issues require a book because a short story is just a tease. I don’t want to lose this; I lost my gift of poetry some years back for the 2nd time, and apparently 2 chances is all the Muses give ya.

What to do? Well, I consulted with a good writer friend and she told me that’s just how it is with writing, we all go through it.

Ugh. It’s a terribly painful career, but I suppose in some aspects, it has to be. It’s the pain that makes us great writers.

Add to this that I’m reading “Wuthering Heights”, a painful wretch of a book in it’s…shocking portrayal of humanity at its most passionate, if passion encompasses all the negative attributes of human emotion. (I did used to believe this, as a young woman. I was quite the nihilist in my day, hence I know every lyric to every single Smiths song…)

My sage friend recommended I write something else for a bit. I’m desiring to write a bit of non-fiction that requires some planning and research, and it would coincided nicely as an ebook (or partial ebook) and a reconstruction of mom-blog. I don’t know, but it sounds good to me.

Well, at any rate, the fiction is NOT off the table. It’s still my dream to be a novelist despite the dismal state of book marketing. And believe it or not, somewhere in between reading “Heights” and watching that boring “New Moon” film tonight, there lies an anti-hero in development and a strong woman who can choose to take him down or give him her heart, with action and angst in the middle. Hmmm…

Ok, so maybe what I need to get back to is “CHARACTER STUPID”, since that what draws me to write in the first place…

peace out, I’m going to sleep.

maybe…

To be continued.

Genre Jumping

Administrator — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 04:02:25 +0000

I just read an article about how to change genre’s to ensure safety as a writer and boy, do I feel better now!

For better or worse, my current WIP is high fantasy, and as mentioned, I’m going to shoot for YA. My next two novel ideas are either an historical romance or a paranormal romance /SF tale. AND I have a wonderful idea for a non-fiction book that I haven’t seen out there yet.

So instead of being blah, I’m thrilled that genre-jumping is real. Add to this my blogging and viola!

I am I am I am a writer. (inner critic, your power dies a little more every day….)

Now the REAL questions is what do I do for NANOWRIMO? Write the romance, OR finish my WIP. Hm…

Good grief, I’m writing YA!

Administrator — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:34:36 +0000

Yesterday in the shower, it was plain as day that my high fantasy WIP has to be YA. The main character is, after all, 17, so what was I thinking? This has some benefits:

YA is 75,000 words, unlike the typical 110K or so for standard fantasy. I’ve been just over 60K the whole length of this process, so I can maybe actually write a novel in a salable size.
This makes a great way for me to approach the mother-daughter tension in the book which I’ve been struggling with, since it seemed to come out of nowhere. Positioning as YA makes me consider a different audience, and breaking up with mom is right in there with teen angst.

There are some bad sides:

As you know, I know nothing about fantasy. Turns out I know FAR LESS about YA. sigh…

The next novel I’m writing may not be an historical romance, or I may go for broke and do 2 at the same time. For now, I’m wiped out and need to get to my 5 minutes of editing…

Great Links for Mid-October, 2009

Administrator — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 01:48:42 +0000

First Guest Post at MamaWriters

Administrator — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:11:51 +0000

It’s about editing (or writing) when you don’t have time:

Five Minute Editing

Stalled out again!

Administrator — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 02:25:41 +0000

Well, I feel terrible that I haven’t updated this blog, nor upgraded, nor redesigned. If ANYONE is still reading, here’s what you need to know:

I’M WRITING

Yes, truly, only 5 minutes a night and that leads into much, much more. Thought I was doing NANOWRIMO but I’m so deep in now, I feel silly to start my next novel. Maybe I’ll do it on my own in the spring. But “Commoner Days” is coming along, at last! I have to find a good system for remembering all the threads. If I had a Mac, I’d had Scrivener. Hm, maybe after I get my Mac, I can start my next novel! Something to shoot for.

That’s it for now, I promise I’ll work on upgrading this week! Happy writing…

Back on the horse

Administrator — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:13:26 +0000

Well, much needs to be done on this blog, but since my laptop crashed, I have not been editing. That was 8/27, but I picked it up last night and it felt GOOOOOOD.

I realize it’s only about 6 weeks to NANOWRIMO, and I have to take some vacation days to make this work, but I will do my best to make it work. I doubt I can wrap up editing in 6 weeks and my new novel is percolating in my head, but we’ll see.

FYI, November will make one year I’ve been trying to edit Commoner Days. We shall see where this lands me. I’m smarter now, and even last night, I can feel my writing has improved in one week.

I owe a debt to the following authors, who’s writing is making mine better:

I highly recommend their work, especially if you like novels with steamy romance - apparently, it had to be handled properly for me to enjoy it! “Trapping a Duchess” is especially HOT.

I’m buried in work this month, but I’ll be doing my best to keep the writing coming. Namaste!