Surrey!

Last weekend I was lucky enough to attend the Surrey International Writers' Conference in Surrey, British Columbia near Vancouver. It was fabulous! This is the second time I've attended the conference (the first was two years ago) and both times I learned so much. It has such a positive atmosphere and I love being surrounded by so many other writers.

One of my goals this trip was to pitch my book. I met with four different literary agents, and three of them requested more from me when the manuscript is ready. (The fourth said she'd be interested in reading more as long as the story had a "women's fiction" bent to it, which I'm not sure it does.) I was happy to hear that my idea intrigued them, but I'm not counting any chickens. It's all good and well to have an interesting concept for a novel, but if the writing isn't up to par, it doesn't matter how great the premise is. Still I'm glad they liked what they heard. It's another baby step forward!

Some random observations from my trip:

When you miss your initial flight, the airline wipes your whole itinerary. Yes, even the flights of your return trip. (Which is why I had to wake up at 3:45 on Monday morning, and got to spend five hours in the Seattle airport trying to catch a connection home.)

Boy, those hands-free cell phones make people look bizarre! I must have seen ten different people, walking through various airports, talking away to no one, cyborg-like electronic devices clipped to their ears. Too weird!

Why is it so difficult to trigger the motion sensor on those knob-less faucets in public bathrooms (or washrooms, as they say in Canada)? I felt like I was constantly waving at the sink, trying to get its attention.

What could be cooler than sitting in a room with 20 or so other people and listening to three well-known authors (Diana Gabaldon, Jack Whyte, and Michael Slade) read from their own work? Not much!

As great as it is to be away from home, immersed in the writing world, it's even greater to come home!

All before sunrise...

4:30 AM

Beep, beep, beep...beep, beep, beep...beep, beep, beep. My watch alarm already? It's dark. I'm sleepy. But I get up anyway.

4:31 AM

"MEOW! MEOW!" Bristle's hungry. I try to finish up in the bathroom as quick as I can so she doesn't wake Scott.

4:45 AM

The cats are crunching away at their bowl. My coffee and oatmeal sit steaming next to the computer. I press the power button and flip open the print-out of my manuscript to where I left off.

4:50 AM

The computer is booted up and the document is now open on the screen. I start keying in the edits I've marked on the print-out. I flip back a few pages to check on something and see a sentence that doesn't read very well—awkward wording and vague, lazy description. Shit! I thought this part was in pretty good shape already. I start tweaking the language, trying to get it to flow better.

4:52 AM

I'm still struggling with the part I thought I'd finished already. I have no idea how to improve it. Fear and insecurity make every word seem like gibberish. Who am I kidding, anyway? It's all crap. I've been spinning my wheels for months, no years and this stinking heap of ineptitude is all I've managed to come up with. (And now I'm ending my thoughts in prepositions! Some writer!)

What's sad is people I know are actually excited to read this! It's going to be so embarrassing when they see how much it sucks. I spend a minute feeling sorry for them because I know they'll worry about sparing my feelings. Poor souls.

4:53 AM

I finally figure out how to fix the sentence that's been torturing me. Thank god! Now I flip back to where I started and try to stay focused on the words themselves without getting overwhelmed by everything else.

4:59 AM

I'm clipping along pretty well—able to float down the wordstream on the page, not worrying anymore, almost too engrossed to notice I’m not worrying anymore.

5:00 AM

"MOOMMMYYYY! MOOOMMMYYY!"

Kyle. He’s not supposed to be up until six, although I usually hear from him earlier. Not this early, however. I dash back to his room before he wakes up anyone else.

“My nose doesn’t feel right,” he says. His consonants are thick with congestion.

“Oh, are you stuffed-up? Would you like a Kleenex?” He nods and rubs at his droopy eyes.

I sprint to the kitchen and the Kleenex box, consider bringing back the whole box so he’ll be less likely to ask (no yell) for more in 10 minutes, but then a premonition hits—the floor of Kyle’s room, littered with thick clouds of delicate white tissue paper. I pull out three sheets instead, and return to his bed.

“Here you go, Honey.”

“Thanks.” He swipes the tissue across his nose and curls up on his side with his eyes closed.

“Try to go back to sleep, okay?”

“Okay,” he mumbles.

I cover him up and tip toe out, closing the door as softly as I can. Usually if he wakes up any time after four in the morning, he’s up for the day. But he was acting so sleepy, maybe he’ll go back to sleep this time…. I decide to be optimistic.

5:05-5:29 AM

I’m working, editing page after page. My critical voice is only whispering now, and I’m able to ignore her most of the time.

5:30 AM

"MOOMMMYYYY! MOOOMMMYYY!"

Kyle again. I race back.

“I don’t want to lie here anymore. I want to get up.”

“I’m sorry, Sweets. It’s not six yet.”

“But I don’t want to lie he-“

"MOOMMMYYYY! MOOOMMMYYY!"

It’s Kara this time.

“Just a second, Honey,” I tell Kyle. “I’ll be right back.”

I zip to Kara’s room and open the door.

“I need to go to the baaathrooom!” she sings out in her best Larry the cucumber imitation.

“Okay,” I say holding the door open for her.

“Didn’t you hear how I told you?” she asks, disappointed I didn’t chuckle over her Larry impersonation.

“Yup, just like Larry!” I try to sound cheerful, but it’s not even 5:40 yet and I should be editing right now instead of playing bathroom escort.

Kara, bless her, quickly does what she needs to do and returns to bed without a fuss.

“Can I read until six?” she asks.

“Sure!” I answer, then turn on the light, close the door, and head back to Kyle’s room

“I need to go to the bathroom!” he announces in his normal voice, apparently not in the mood for Larry.

Déjà vu.

I escort Kyle to the bathroom so he can use the facilities and then march him back to his room.

“Can I go in Kara’s room?”

“No.”

“Can I play in here?”

I pause, considering. Technically he’s supposed to stay lying in his bed until six. But if I let him play, I’m less likely to hear another round of "MOOMMMYYYY! MOOOMMMYYY!"

“Okay.” I nod. He beams.

5:40-5:59 AM

I’m editing, but also listening for trouble or cries for assistance from either of the two back bedrooms. Miraculously, all stays quiet and I finish up page 50.

I've now edited 50 pages! Yay! Only 400 more to go! Crap.

6:00 AM

Kara and Kyle come skipping out, happy that six has arrived at last. I’m less than happy. In fact, I’m many things and happy is not one of them. I’m frustrated about the editing, worried that the manuscript sucks, irritated that despite doing my best to carve out some uninterrupted time, I still get interrupted.

And I’m guilty about feeling irritated. After all, these are my precious children who need me, whom I love so much simply thinking about how much I love them makes me wince. I shouldn’t let myself get irritated.

6:01 AM

I swallow my frustration, irritation, and guilt; save the file; turn off the computer; smile; and start making breakfast.

This is fun!

Cindy correctly pointed out that I needed to change the name of my blog. Renee, write! Finish that novel! doesn't work any more! :o), so I decided to revamp the whole thing. I'm not sure if I like this layout or not, but it certainly gives a different feel. I wish I knew more about html code so I could do more customizations.

And here is a new picture. Not super flattering, but since this blog is mostly about writing, I thought it made sense to do a writing picture (FYI, the pic was taken by my sister in the Maui airport on the way home from our trip this summer.)

I'm editing away. Currently about 75 pages into the manuscript. I'm enjoying the process and am trying not too worry so much about getting everything perfect. Susan posted a link to an Elizabeth Bear essay that I think of often when I'm panicking because I can't get the words just right. It's helping me not obsess quite as much.

I'm cutting where I can, but am nervous that I won't be able to shave enough off to make it marketable. Publishers don't typically like long first novels. It's tricky, though, because I don't want to cut just for the sake of cutting. There definitely is some superfluous writing I can ax, and fortunately I don't have a hard time pressing that delete button.

Things continue to move right along, and it feels great!

Guess what?

I just finished my novel.

I did it! I'm sitting here stunned, and proud, and in a state of extreme disbelief.

I wrote a novel.

I did it.

I DID IT!!!

Here's another teeny, tiny blog entry...

...but I wanted to pop in here real quick and share. I'm three pages from the end and am having a difficult time editing because what's going on in the scene is so exciting it's hard to focus on the text!

Pretty cool, huh?

Preschool has started!!!

Today's entry is microscopic, because I don't want to squander this precious editing time, but I just had to share...

Preschool has started again!

Hooray!

I don't know why, but I'll take it!

Finally, a good editing session. Why is it that sometimes I'm filled with anxiety--so scared I can barely put two words together, and other days I'm not? This morning, for whatever reason, fear did not dominate me.

It was such a relief.

I have trouble with faith. How many times have I had these cycles in confidence when it comes to writing? I'd go back to the beginning of this blog and count, but it'd be too way too depressing and embarrassing. The thing is, I always come out of the low phases, but when I'm stuck, it's so difficult to believe that the words will ever flow again.

Today they did. Why, I don't know. But it was fun again.

Phew!

Floundering in a pile of...

I knew this would happen.

You might remember that I typically write scene by scene--I expel a first draft of crap, spend a copious amount of time revising and polishing it until the scene is in pretty good shape, then move on to the next one and start all over again. Scenes range in length from five to ten pages, and the longer ones are tougher because they take weeks sometimes to get just right.

You might also remember that I abandoned this scene by scene approach to push through to the end and finish the story. Which was thrilling while I was doing it, and very satisfying, but meant that I ended up with a gigantic pile of...okay I won't be crass this time...less-than stellar writing to revise.

When I typed my handwritten pile of you-know-what into the computer, it was 25 pages. Now, after editing it for the last couple of months [*gasp* Has it been that long?], it has grown to 37 pages--27 of which I've already edited and 10 more pages of dreck that still need to be revised and fine tuned. While I enjoy certain aspects of editing, I'm getting tired of only editing. One of the things I liked about the scene by scene approach is that I was able to flip-flop back and forth between editing and drafting. Lately I've missed the creative surprises that pop up regularly during the drafting phase.

Oh well. I'd better get used to editing. Once I finish these last scenes, I'll read through the whole manuscript to correct any inconsistencies and slash out everything unnecessary. (Did I mention it is over 500 pages?) Then I'll give it to a few wonderful, selfless people who've volunteered to be my beta readers, and I'll revise it again based on their comments. Once it's as perfect as I can make it, I'll start submitting it to literary agents, which if I'm lucky, will lead to many more edits and revisions as it makes its way through the publishing process.

So there's a lot of editing in my future. Which is kind of cool when you think about it! After all, I've been working to really hard to get to this exact point.

You know what? I'm going to stop complaining now, and get back to editing. It's really not that bad! ;o)

Balance

Please bear with the following stream-of-consciousness blogging... (It's all I'm up to at the moment.)

I've been struggling with balance lately. It's a chronic struggle--how to give enough attention to everything and not neglect anything.

For example, my daughter wants to be a Girl Scout. I was a Girl Scout growing up and loved it and I know my daughter would love it too. So, what's the problem? The waiting list for troops is so long, the only way she can be a Girl Scout is if I volunteer to be a leader and start up a new troop. But aren't I trying to finish a novel? If I take on something new, it'll be that much harder to squeeze in writing time. Still it would be fun to do Girl Scouts with my daughter. Before long she'll be grown and interested in other things and I don't want to miss out on what could be a wonderful experience with her. So I've sent in my leader application and will soon have one more thing to balance along with everything else.

Finding a balance has been especially tough recently for many reasons: We've done lots of traveling lately; School just started up again; There have been more than the usual number of distractions.

As a result, I've lost my writing focus. I find I'm an all or nothing sort of person. Moderation is not my strength. So, as my thoughts and energies have turned towards other areas of my life, my drive to write has weakened. And it's so easy to be distracted from the novel right now because I'm in the midst of a tough section. The end needs to be powerful and it takes a lot of effort to get it the way I want it. Not to mention my insecurity is poking up its ugly head yet again. Being almost done means the moment of truth is almost at hand. Others will be reading my novel in the near future.

Unless I let myself get so distracted I never finish.

No! I want to finish. Sure it's scary and difficult, but I've spent too much time and energy on this story. I won't cheat myself by wimping out at the end.

So, I'm going to put more energy into finding that balance. I want to finish my novel. I want to be available to my kids and family. It's got to be possible to do both, don't you think?







(If you managed to wade your way through this brain dump... thank you! I'll try to compose something more coherent soon.)

Links!

I've updated my links list at last: friends, other writers, good reading...it's all there. Oh and if you know anyone who is looking for an adoptive family, check out my sister and brother-in-law's web site. They are wonderful people!

On the writing front, I'm still editing those last scenes. My progress has stalled somewhat thanks to a kidney stone, which I had over the weekend, and a migraine, which I had Monday and Tuesday. But today I'm pain free and am hoping to make some good progress. Surprisingly, it's a lot easier to edit when one isn't in agony. Go figure!

There's nothing wrong with being earnest

Yesterday as I was googling, I came across this: The Process of Being Mentally Ill, Part One. It's from Joshilyn Jackson's blog: Faster Than Kudzu and describes, in extensive, witty detail, the mental breakdown stage of novel writing...at least from one author's perspective.

Read it. It's both comforting and hilarious at the same time.

Small world, the internet. Faster Than Kudzu is the first writer's blog I ever read. I came across it about 2 years ago when Jackson's first novel Gods in Alabama was about to be published. To be honest, her blog scared me away from writer's blogs for a long time. Why? My own insecurities of course! I found Faster Than Kudzu to be clever, entertaining, informative, and completely intimidating. After reading a couple of entries, I thought if this is what real writers have to be able to do, I don't have a prayer.

Joshilyn Jackson is cool and honest and funny. I'm earnest and a dork. The thing I've come to realize, however, is that there are lots of writers out there and just as many types of writers. Sure there are those who enjoy cool, honest, funny writing, but there might be a place for the earnest dorks of the world as well. And even if there isn't, it doesn't mean that I can't write or that I shouldn't write. (Yes, I'm trying to bolster myself up here.)

It's interesting, coming back to her blog now that she has two books out. (The second is called: Between, Georgia) She's developed quite a following. I think it's a good example of how a writer can use a blog help publicize herself. (Although, I doubt generating publicity was the reason she started blogging, or why she keeps at it.)

Obviously, I don't have a problem with writer's blogs anymore. In fact, I now follow several. (Note to self: Make a list of links!) I'm not sure my confidence level is quite high enough to regularly read Faster Than Kudzu, but I'm sure I'll be up to it eventually.

Two-thirds more

I've edited about a third of the notebook scrawl. My goal, if you remember, was to get it all revised by the end of the month. It might still be possible. The family and I just returned from Maui (sorry!) and I'd hoped to get a lot of work done during our trip, but surprise, surprise, I wasn't able to do as much as I'd hoped. Now that I'm home, I should be able to make better progress.

Speaking of progress, the kids are playing quietly, so I'd better take advantage and get back at it!

More soon...

done...sort of

I'm sort of done...but not really. I did finish the story, but now I have all these notebook pages of SFD (shitty first draft) to type into the computer and try to craft into something decent.

It's finally starting to dawn on me, though, that SFDs are okay, and so far I haven't had too much anxiety during the revision process. For example, check out this quote from a recent Laurie R. King blog entry:

...when a beginning writer looks at a book like THE ART OF DETECTION they often say, “I couldn’t write a book like that.” And I have to agree, I couldn’t either.

But I could rewrite a book like that.

Rewriting is where the serious work occurs. There's nothing wrong with rewriting--on the contrary, it's an essential part of the process. When this section of my book is finally complete, no one will know the sorry state it was in when it was first conceived. It's okay that it reads like crap right now. I can make it better. (I know I've said all this before, but I'm hoping this time my feeble brain will finally accept it as truth!)

In related news, I made the possible mistake of setting another goal. This time to get the polish/edit of my notebook scribblings finished by the end of July. I think it's possible, but lord knows I haven't always done the best job of estimating realistic time frames. I'll give it my best shot, though.

Oh and after over three years, I finally have a title for my novel. It's not set in stone, but for now it feels right.

I'm still inching along, but I'm getting there!

Antsy

I'm antsy and jittery and it's not from coffee.

My story is so close to being complete. I know I've said that before, but this time it's true, I swear! I'll should finish it today--maybe tomorrow at the latest. Yeah, yeah, yeah, then I have to go back and revise and polish--but still...it's exciting.

And I'm going to send out a short story I wrote two years ago. It's been rejected from three magazines so far and has been languishing for months in another journal's slush pile with no word as to its fate, so I think the time has come to dust it off and submit it somewhere else. I'm going over it again, and tweaking it slightly (just word changes here and there, no alterations to the story) and want to get it in the mail to another lit journal today or tomorrow. It'd be nice to have a publishing credit when I start sending out queries for my novel. (Well, a more relevant publishing credit than the parenting articles and a more recent credit than the story published in Jack and Jill magazine when I was 10.)

Did I mention my daughter's 7th birthday is tomorrow and I still need to finish shopping, clean the house, and decorate for her party?

No wonder I'm antsy!

Tri no more

I've fallen out of the blogging groove. There's lots I could say, but I'm not always in the mood to say it.

The good news is I haven't fallen out of the writing groove: I'm writing away as usual. Last week we went camping and I wrote every day in a notebook, sitting in a beach chair by the American River. Talk about a picturesque writing spot! The notebook writing was so enjoyable, I decided to keep it going, even though I'm now back in civilization. It's good right now, because the story is sweeping me along faster than that American River (which is both high and swift thanks to all of that late spring snow and rain) and I want to follow it to the end--which is coming, believe it or not, in the next couple of days. However, I could be setting myself up for weeks of hell as I revise and polish all of those pages of notebook scrawl and I'm sure I'll come to regret abandoning the scene by scene method I've used up until this point. Right now, however, it feels good to charge forward to the end.

On a not-completely-related note, I think I'm going to give up on a goal I set for myself at the beginning of the year. I'd planned to do a women's sprint triathlon in September, but now I'm thinking I just don't have the time if I'm ever going to get this novel finished. The thing is, I can do my Body for Life workouts while I'm taking care of the kids. (I'm an expert at gasping, "I can't talk right now Honey, but I'll tell you in a minute," when the kids ask me a question mid-weightlifting set, and slapping together peanut butter sandwiches during the one-minute breaks between sets), but in order to train for a triathlon, I'd need to utilize my babysitting network, and I want to reserve them for uninterrupted daylight writing sessions. I still want to do the triathlon, but I'm thinking next year makes more sense. I'm kind of bummed, since I was really looking forward to the challenge of swimming, biking, and running all in one race, but as much as I'd like to prepare for a triathlon while finishing a novel, it's not realistic to do both.

One time-consuming, selfish goal at a time!

Rest Time Writing Revisited

Did I mention it's summer vacation? No school...less me time. Actually, it's okay. I really love having the kids around and that our schedule is more relaxed. But I need to find some more time to write. So I think it's time to bring rest time out of retirement. The swimming bribe worked pretty well the other day, but it's unseasonably cool right now, so I can't use that strategy again until it warms up.

It's okay. I have lots of ideas! Today, we'll go rent Ice Age from the video store. They haven't seen it yet, and it should keep them reasonably occupied for 90 minutes or so. Then tomorrow we can go see Ice Age 2 at our local theater (it's part of their free summer movie series). And I'm going to be a big weirdo and bring my lap top to the theater and write during the movie.

That'll be a first--writing in a movie theater, that is. I'm often a big weirdo. (No surprise there!)

Jogging

Still jogging along, trying not to panic. A new scene I wasn't expecting cropped up yesterday. It's good for the story but it means I have more to do than I thought. As Stuart Smalley would say, "And that's...okay!" (Have I quoted Stuart, yet? I'll have to do a search of my past entries and see.)

I stumbled across a blog the other day belonging to an author I really enjoy, Laurie R. King. She recently did something exceptionally brave, in my opinion--she started a short story live on the web. It was an exercise to demonstrate the writing process and what a first draft tends to look like--even if it's the first draft written by an established, award winning author. She plans to post both the first draft and the final version of the story (when completed) on her web site.

Check it out: Writer's Improv

Better

Things went much better yesterday and again during my early morning writing session this morning. The words flowed for the first time in weeks. I finished one section and almost finished another. (Thanks, Mom, for watching the kids yesterday so I could write!)

The kids are going to let me write for an hour this afternoon and then we're going to go swim at our local pool. (As a parent, you sometimes have to resort to bribery!)

I'm feeling more optimistic about it all again. Yay!

Salieri

Ever seen the movie Amadeus? Remember the character Salieri--who wanted to compose music as beautiful as Mozart's, but didn't have the talent to make it happen? I often feel like Salieri--although not so jealous of someone else's talent that I'd resort to poisoning him or her. It's more that I see the type of writing I want to be able to do, but it's SO hard to get there. And I often don't.

I haven't blogged in almost a month for two reasons:

1. I haven't been making a lot of progress on my novel, and
2. I'm going through another low self-confidence, panicky, who-the-hell-am-I-to-think-I-can-do-this phase.

Do you think the two reasons are related?

Uh, yeah...me too.

I'm trying to write more. I'm trying to force myself to sit down at the computer and forge ahead, even though it is SO hard right now. The end is in site and a lot of baggage comes a long with getting near the end. I know I'll get past it. Heck, half of this blog documents the low phases I've worked past. But that doesn't make things any easier right now.

Warrior Girl wrote a great blog entry about why writing a novel is so difficult.

Writing Past the Demons

See? I'm not the only one!

May 9 has come and gone...

...and May 9 was when I hoped to have finished--six months from the day I started this blog. I didn't meet the goal I set back in November, but I have made a lot progress.

Since November 9 I have written 120 pages and come within a couple of scenes of finishing.

In the six months prior to November 9 do you know how many pages I wrote?

28

Now I write regularly, almost every day, which was something I was not doing last fall. I've also dealt with lots of fear and insecurity and pushed through those panicky feelings instead of giving up when things got hard. I realized I'm an artist and quite normal--well, as normal as an artist can be, anyway.

So maybe I didn't get exactly where I wanted to be right now. I'm not done. But I am very close and I have accomplished much more than I probably would have if I hadn't set the goal.

I feel pretty good about that!

Wow

Two scenes to go. Or maybe three. I can't believe how close I'm getting. Of course, at my speed, it could still be a month or so, but wow.

I'm almost done!

Omphaloskepsis

My headache is gone and I'm writing away. Life is busy as usual so I don't have much time to blog, but I had to share the newest addition to my word list...

omphaloskepsis

It means, "contemplation of one’s navel".

Perfect title for a blog entry, don't you think?

ugh...migraine

i'm knocked flat right now with a migraine

no fun

it's my first bad one since i started my current bfl challenge.

ugh!

i didn't wake up early this morning because i hoped extra sleep would help me shake it...

no such luck

today is a preschool day so maybe i'll do some writing then

or maybe i'll lie in the dark with an ice pack on my head and moan

sorry for the pity party

it just hurts

It's been a week since my last entry...

...and I want to do a new one, but I don't have much to say. Actually, that's not true, I have a lot to say, but I don't have the time to say it. I want to talk about "the process" of novel writing (and how there really isn't any one process, every writer does it differently) but today is going to be another busy day and there aren't enough spare minutes to do the topic justice.

I also had three great bits of story appear to me recently, which fit in perfectly with what's come before. It's so incredible when that happens. It really feels like these things "appear" out of the thin air and not like I have much to do with creating them. I'd love to write a blog entry about it all. But again, no time!

So we'll have to settle for another boring update on my progress.

My new mantra is "Trust Yourself". And I think it's helping me even out the ups and downs. I haven't had a panicky, paralyzed-with-fear writing session in a while. (Which probably means I'm due for one soon! ;o)

I still feel like I'm moving at slower than a snail's pace with all this, but even snails get somewhere eventually. I've finally accepted the fact that as much as I'd like to sprint to the finish line, I'm not a sprinting type when it comes to writing. So I'll continue to creep along.

Do you know that even this short, boring, uninformative entry has taken me over an hour to put together? Although to be fair to myself, I haven't exactly been uninterrupted--I've also refereed several squabbles, made breakfast, and participated in some extremely intense Easter candy negotiations. Now I'm going to attempt my lower body workout, do the dishes and the vacuuming, and then the kids and I are going to get ready for Scott's birthday. (Happy Birthday, Honey!)

No wonder I can't manage to get in more blog entries!

Weaving the Web

Every step of this novel-writing-process has had its own challenges--issues I never thought about before I tried doing it myself. Right now I'm tying together a lot of loose ends in my story. I know generally what's going to happen but there are still many little decisions that need to be made and I want to be sure it all hangs together in a logical way. It's time to write the big climactic scenes and not only do they need to be air-tight, but all the smaller threads need to connect believably. Motivations have to make sense. Whenever a character does something, especially something risky or unexpected, I need to make sure their motivation for acting that way is believable.

I've used the puzzle analogy before when talking about language and trying to find the right words, but the plot is also a puzzle whose pieces must fit together. And elements rely on each other. So by sending a character down a particular path, countless other parts of the story are affected. It's like a gigantic web--all interconnected.

Believe me, now that I'm writing a novel myself, I can see the temptation to wrap things up as quickly and easily as possible. Sometimes I want to have a character do something that will advance the plot to where I want and expect it to go, even if it doesn't gel perfectly with that character's personality. But I resist, because I know these people so well, it would bug me too much to force them to act a certain way--a way that's out of their character--simply for my convenience.

Clear as mud, eh? Sorry to be so cryptic. It's hard to explain what I mean without describing the story itself. And that's still top secret!

Renée

Renée: this is what my email program does with my name when I spell it with an accent. IRL, I always write my name with the accent on the second-to-last "e", but in cyberspace, I almost never do, because of the Renée issue.

Come to think of it, Renée, might make for an interesting pen name. Kind of like Prince, when he didn't want to be called Prince anymore and wanted to be referred to by that unpronouncable symbol. At least Renée is something people could say.... I'll have to think about it. ;o)

I'm still getting up early. Still writing. Still making progress. Still getting closer and closer to the end.

Still, still, still! It's not very interesting to read about all my stills, perhaps, but still is a good thing. Working on the novel is all very automatic now. It's just something I do. This blog has helped me so much in that regard.

I also just finished week five of my BFL challenge, which I find miraculous considering everything else that is going on.

And I'm also starting to think about what to write next.

Then there's all the wifely and motherly stuff I do.

Wow. When I stand back and look at it all like this, I realize I should be proud, but I'm not. Renée doesn't often give herself credit. Maybe it would be easier for Renée.

I'll put some more thought into the pen name idea.

Give life

Yesterday I gave blood. I've given blood regularly ever since Hurricane Katrina. It makes me feel good. Our dear friend Lauren who died in January, needed many transfusions throughout her fight with breast cancer. When you're close to someone who's seriously ill, or has been critically injured and needs transfusions, you realize just how important donor blood is. So, if you've ever thought about donating, call and make an appointment with your local blood bank. It's an easy way to make a big difference. Plus you get free snacks!

However, since it's important to get a little extra rest after you've donated, I slept in this morning and didn't write. Today's my day to work at Kyle's preschool, so I won't be able to write then either. But I will write during the kids' rest time this afternoon. Rest time writing isn't typically the most serene experience, but it's better than nothing!

Why can't it always be like this?

This morning, I simply wrote.

No agonizing, no fear, no doubts.

Why it went so well today, I have no idea. (Did you catch the Yoda-like sentence structure there? Kyle's still on his Star Wars kick!)

Up swings rock!

Not so terrible

This morning, for whatever reason, I had a good writing session. Not one of those glorious, exhilarating highs, but not one of those filled-with-fear, torture sessions either.

Maybe that means I'm on the verge of an up swing. Here's hoping!

New Title--Same Content

I changed the name of this blog. I really doubt I'll finish by May 9 (although I will finish soon), and so I didn't like seeing "6 Months to a Finished First Draft" staring at me every time I logged on here.

But the content of the blog hasn't changed one whit.

Down, down, down is where I am--again! It appears the closer I get to finishing, the bigger the struggle.

Phbtbtbt! (That's a rasberry and I'm blowing it at myself!)

Baskin-Robbins Blues

And now for something not related to mood swings or writing. Tragedy has struck! One of my favorite free day treats during my last year's Body for Life challenge was Baskin-Robbins Peanut Butter 'n Chocolate ice cream. For someone like me who looovvvesss chocolate and looovvvesss peanut butter it is beyond divine.

Well as I mentioned a while back, I'm doing another BFL challenge this year--trying to keep it low key so I don't lose the writing focus--but still exercising and eating clean 6 days a week and having one day where I can kick back and eat up. Today was that day and Kara and I headed for Baskin-Robbins to take advantage. And...they didn't have it! No chocolate/peanut butter. I was crushed! Why would they do away with the best flavor ever?!

I just checked out the Baskin-Robbins web site and it appears that Chocolate/PB is a "permanent flavor", so I haven't lost all hope. Maybe my particular BR was just out of it temporarily.

I hope! I hope!

Know of a good antonym for ataraxis?

Sadly, the peace from early last week is gone. I'm floundering again.

I realized something, however. It's not just writing-related insecurity that sends my spirits plummeting; it's also the story itself. Last week something appeared in the story that I hadn't anticipated. It's very powerful and adds a lot of richness and depth, but it's also disturbing. The day after I wrote about it was one of my lowest yet and I know I was reacting to this new element. Always good to know why I'm depressed, I guess, even if that knowledge doesn't seem to help me feel better.

I think all of my ups and downs are more dramatic right now because I'm getting so close to the end. I'm excited, I'm scared, I'm proud, I'm filled with doubt--basically, I'm just a big ball of emotion!

Pity those around me who get to experience my moods first-hand.

We miss you, ataraxis! Come back soon, okay?

Remember your reader

I'm still clipping right along with my novel. Thankfully, there's not much new to blog about it. I continue to be in an up phase--enjoying the process as well as that sense of peace I wrote about in my last two entries.

But I do have a writing-related thought to share.

One of the most important lessons I learned from Words Fail Me: What Everyone Who Writes Should Know about Writing is to always write with the reader in mind. You want to make it as easy as possible for the people reading your writing to understand your meaning. If your language is unclear or distracting, whether too flowery and jam-packed with impressive vocabulary words, or peppered with misspellings and bad grammar, your reader is going to focus too much on the words themselves and not the meaning behind them. My goal when I write is for the language to be invisible--for the readers to be so engrossed in the story, they don't pay any attention to how it's being told.

So even though I keep a list of new-to-me vocabulary words, I rarely use such imposing language in my writing. I also try very hard not to use words incorrectly. I want to make things as effortless as I can for the reader.

For example, take the word "anyways". It's an informal term, and some might argue, an incorrect version of "anyway". That doesn't mean, however, there aren't times where it might be perfectly appropriate. If you are writing a scene and one of the characters is a teenager, or someone without much education, the person might utter a phrase like, "What does it matter anyways?" In that case, the usage of informal, nonstandard english makes sense.

But when someone is trying to make a criticism, using an informal, arguably incorrect word like "anyways", is distracting. It makes the reader focus on the writer's weak language-skills, and ignore the substance of the writing.

Keep the reader in mind and use language that's understandable and appropriate. If you do, your readers are much more likely to give credence to what you're trying to say.

Ataraxis

I added a new word to my list: ataraxis. It means, "the absense of mental stress or anxiety".

Gotta love ataraxis!

The peace from yesterday is still with me. I know it won't last forever, but I'm sure enjoying it right now. The writing I did yesterday afternoon and this morning was both pleasurable and productive.

What a nice change after all those days of self-imposed stress!

Peace

I've been floundering around for the past couple of weeks. Feeling so much stress and pressure about finishing by May 9. Trying to find more and more time to write, as if that were the only answer. It's not.

Lately, every time I sit down and try to write, the pressure to go as fast as possible has paralyzed me, and prevented me from losing myself in the story. It's been frustrating and upsetting and not what I want writing to be. Lately I've felt I have to rush so I can finish by this arbitrary deadline I've imposed upon myself. Ironically, that desperation to go as fast as possible has frozen me and made my progress even slower than usual.

Yesterday, Scott took the kids out on errands for a couple of hours. It was my time to get a lot done, but I just couldn't find the words. I started and stopped and started and stopped and the longer I tried, the more panicky I felt. I knew I had to write as much as possible, but nothing I wrote sounded right and my fear and paralysis grew and grew.

But then I had one of those flashes of insight that seem to come out of the blue. I remembered I'm a slow writer. I can't force myself to go quickly. It comes as it comes and it can take a long time. It's nothing I can rush. This realization filled me with peace. I started the section again, and once more the story spoke to me and I knew which words to use. Strangely enough, once I allowed myself to take my time I was able to write more in one sitting than I have in weeks. And this morning the peace was still with me. I'm moving forward fluidly now and should finish the current scene tomorrow or the next day. It's all coming relatively easily again, because I'm not trying anymore. I'm letting it happen as it happens.

I know I will finish my novel--maybe by May 9, and maybe not, but I will finish.

I can't force it. I can't rush. I have to let it come as it comes.

And now for something completely different...

I had another discouraging morning. But I'm tired of blogging about my fear and self-confidence issues. So instead, here's a list of interesting words I've come across in the last year. Gotta love that Virtual Thesaurus!

Tramontane: on or coming from the other side of the mountains

Strident: harsh, loud, grating, or shrill

Umbrageous: providing shade and coolness; easily offended or likely to become irritated

Pulchritudinous: used of persons only—having great physical beauty

Crepitus: the grating sound heard when the broken ends of a bone rub together; a crackling sound heard in the chest of somebody who has a lung disease, for example, pneumonia.

Crepitate: to make a crackling or grating sound; to make the crackling or grating sound of crepitus.

Crepitation: the sharp sound of snapping noises

Cresylic: relating to or containing creosol or creosote

Vituperation: an outburst of violently abusive or harshly critical language; the use of violent abuse or extremely harsh criticism.

Vituperative: marked by harshly abusive criticism.

Stertorous: of breathing, having a heavy snoring sound. Full of or characterized by loud and nonmusical sounds.

Stertor: noisy or laborious snoring, heard when somebody is deeply unconscious or when there are obstructed air passages.

Limen: the smallest detectable sensation

Obstreperous: noisily and aggressively boisterous; strongly objecting to something or noisily refusing to be controlled

Iridesce: be iridescent

Etiolate: (adj.) weak in color, developed without chlorophyll by being deprived of light; (v.) make weak by stunting the growth or development of, bleach and alter the natural development of a green plant by excluding sunlight, make pale or sickly

Rodomontade: vain and empty boasting

Oscitant: showing boredom or lack of attention

Rive: to tear something apart. To split or become split.

Novercal: relating to or said to be typical of a stepmother

Zaftig: with a full-figured body

Embonpoint: a body weight that is above average and causes an impression of roundness

Attrited: worn by rubbing or friction

So don't resort to vituperation if someone calls you pulchritudinous! Now you know...a simple "Thank you" is much more appropriate! ;o)

Finally!

I finally finished the section I've been working on forever. It ended up being 16 pages! But, yay! It's done at last.

Less than 2 months to my May 9 deadline. I'm starting to feel pessimistic about finishing by then. I'm still going to try, but there's quite a bit more to do.

As Dory would say, "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming..." (If you haven't seen Finding Nemo this won't make a lot of sense.)

All I can do is continue pushing forward. I'll finish eventually, no matter what!

Ack!

I haven't had any daylight, non-rest time, writing time in over two weeks. Today I actually have several hours kid-free and I'm freaking out. This morning I tried to write and it went horribly.

Ack!

I could potentially get a lot done today, but not if I'm in one of those phases where it's all a big struggle.

*deep breath*

Please let me bust out of this funk, so I can make some good progress today. Please!

Rest time writing

Rest time writing yesterday went surprisingly well. In fact, I realized why part of the scene I'm currently working on wasn't working and made a change that reads much better. Often I feel like I can't concentrate fully during rest time since part of my brain is listening for the kids, but yesterday that didn't seem to matter as much.

I'm frustrated though, because I've been tinkering with this current scene for what feels like forever. One of the reasons I've had a hard time with it, is because of that part that wasn't working, but the main reason is the darn thing is 13 pages long!

Remember my intention to keep the scenes shorter so I wouldn't have to spend days on each rewrite/polish? Didn't happen with this one. I guess that's okay. I want to do the scenes well, and some of them are going to end up longer than others.

I'm going to write again at rest time today!

Final Stretch

There is only a little over two months until my May 9 deadline. I need to write more if I'm going to make it. I've said this before, but I'm going to follow-through this time. We will do rest time every day this week. It will give me an extra 7 hours of writing time!

I'm in the final stretch. I've got to do all I can to get to the finish line.

Argh!

I slept through my alarm this morning!

That's a first.

Oh well, I guess there are worse things in the world than getting over nine hours of sleep in a night. (Can't remember the last time I slept that long.)

So I don't know that I'll get any writing in today. Bummer!

Masochistic Tendencies

Kyle was pretty sick last week, so I couldn't write as much as I would have liked; it's hard to get up early when you've already been up multiple times in the night with a sick child. Fortunately (for both of us!) he's better now, so this morning I dragged myself out of bed at 4:30 to get back to it and had one of those painful, crappy, discouraging writing sessions that makes me question the wisdom of attempting something so difficult and beyond me.

Predictably I'm now wallowing in yet another gigantic, self-indulgent, muddy funk. Charming.

Logically I know one of the reasons I had trouble today was because I haven't written much this past week and have gotten out of the habit. And I also know that soon (maybe even next time) I'll have another one of those exhilarating creative experiences, where I'm so jazzed about how it's all going. But logical, rational thought doesn't drive away my current feeling, which is that I am ridiculous for spending so much time and energy and hope on something that's never going to be as good as I want it to be.

Still, the masochist in me is eager to sit down and work on it again. Even if the process is painful and discouraging sometimes, I can't wait to get back to the story. (If for no other reason than the hope that a more positive, productive session will obliterate this nasty funk.)

Up and down up and down on and on and on.

Here's hoping that the next up lasts a good, long while!

I need to do both

I haven’t written an entry in awhile, but I’m going to try to start blogging more often. It really helps me stay in the writing mindset, and I need to do all I can to stay focused on writing because I’ve taken something on that could easily get me off track.

Last week I decided to do another Body for Life challenge. Just about a year ago I began my first BFL challenge. It was a great thing for me to do in so many ways. After 12-weeks I ended up really fit and strong, and felt much less stressed in general. For the past year I’ve been exercising regularly and eating much healthier food, and I never would have made all those good changes if I hadn’t started BFL.

There was a big downside to doing that first challenge, however. When I was in challenge mode I spent so much time thinking about nutrition and fitness, I stopped focusing on writing and I didn’t make any progress on my novel.

I think in a lot of ways it was good for me to have another goal to strive towards—something that was more concrete. If you eat right and exercise, you get in much better shape. That’s the bottom line. Novel writing, though, isn’t nearly as cut and dry. A lot of times you feel like you are spinning your wheels and it’s hard to feel a sense of accomplishment when the process takes such a long time. It was refreshing to have a goal like a BFL challenge that I could achieve in just 12 weeks. So I understand why my thoughts and actions drifted away from writing, I just don’t want it to happen again.

Now I need to focus on writing. I can’t get obsessed with food and exercise and seeing my abs, or I’ll lose my drive to finish the novel. Consequently, after our trip to Mexico in November I eased up on nutrition and exercise, because I didn’t want to get off track again with writing. I didn’t stop exercising completely, and I still ate relatively healthy most of the time, but I wasn’t nearly as “clean” as I’d been when in the midst of a BFL challenge. However, one huge benefit I’ve gotten from BFL nutrition and exercise is that it really helps minimize my migraines. And with easing up on the exercise and nutrition, the headaches were returning. When I have a bad migraine it’s hard just to get through the day taking care of the kids—getting up early to write and staring at a computer screen is out of the question.

What I want to be able to do is strike a balance. I want to be a really healthy and fit writer. I want to do both. I hate how awful I feel physically and emotionally when I’m not in challenge mode—and minimizing the headaches makes it all so worth it, not to mention all the other health benefits. So I’ve decided to do a challenge, but I’m going to do my darndest not to obsess about it.

Whenever my thoughts stray to:
• exercise
• food
• wondering how much fitter I’ll be by the end of the challenge
• hoping my shoulders and biceps will continue to look more developed, etc.

I’ll try to nudge them back to writing-related thoughts like:
• my characters and the story
• plans for my next writing session
• visualizations of how incredible it’s going to feel to type “The End”
• hopes that I can get my manuscript in good enough shape to pitch it at a writing conference in the fall.

Today while I was doing interval training on the treadmill I kept repeating to myself: “I’m strong. I write. I’m fit. I write.” I can’t forget that I’m a writer. Even when I’m exercising, I want to be thinking about writing. I won’t finish this novel if I don’t push myself. There are too many excuses and reasons to slack off.

After one week, I think it’s going pretty well. My energy level is right back up again, and I haven’t had a headache in five days. When I get extra hungry, it’s hard not to think about my next meal, but I try not to focus on it. And I think continuing to blog about writing and the final stages of this first draft will help keep my mind back on writing—which is where I want it to be right now.

Over half-way there

February 9 has come and gone. It's been over three months since I set my goal to finish in six. I'm over half-way there. And I just might do it, which is both really exciting and really terrifying.

I'm working a lot on my novel but I haven't been inspired to blog much lately; there isn't really anything new to say here. I'm still rolling up and down. The downs suck, but I keep pushing through them. On the up side, exicting things are happening to my characters. I feel sorry for them, since I know how the story's going to end. It's fun for me but pretty rough for them, poor things.

Breakthrough

I had a mini-breakthrough today--some insight about a character I've been struggling to get to know. Suddenly I understand him much better, which is such a relief because he is one of the main characters and if he doesn't ring true, it will really weaken my story.

As much as I torture myself about this writing thing, as much as I agonize over all the details and struggle with getting it all down as well as I can, I also love it like nothing else on earth. It's such a powerful feeling, working through a problem that's been nagging at me for months, receiving these flashes of insight from who knows where. It fills me with a happiness that borders on euphoria and lasts for hours. It's why I get up at 4:30 in the morning and have stuck with it for going-on three years. It's days like today that keep me at it on the days when nothing seems to work.

I wish every time I sit down to write could be as glorious as today, but I guess it's the painful writing sessions that help make the productive ones taste so sweet. Maybe if the lows weren't so low, the highs wouldn't be as high.

Location, Location, Location

This won't be a long blog entry, but I did make a realization this week I wanted to share. While I don't feel uncomfortable, per se, writing sex scenes, I need to be home to write them. Can't write those types of scenes at the library or a coffee place.

I'm not going to say any more about it, though. My parents and in-laws read this, after all!

(Oh and as a quick side note, I'm out of my funk--for the time being, and have gotten a lot done this week.)

Won't you take me to...Funkytowwwn?

Bored yet? Tired of my endless repetition? Well too bad!

I'm in another funk. I think it's because of my last two blog entries. My critical voice is nagging at me--telling me how presumptuous it is for me to think I have any business educating anyone about writing.

Sheesh! I know I'm being ridiculous, but I just can't stop these critical thoughts. So I'm going to use this blog for the purpose for which it was originally intended. (Man, talk about awkward phrasing!) To help me get over myself and write even when I'm stuck in Funkytown.

Two hours. Rest time and after the kids go to bed. Even if it's painful. Even if the words come slow as chilled honey.

I'm doing it!

Writing Resources

As I mentioned in my last entry, one of the things that helped me get started writing regularly was reading about writing. Aside from learning a lot, perusing writing books and web sites helped me think of myself as a writer.

HOWEVER...

You can't spend so much of your time reading and researching about writing that you don't ever sit down and write.

Butt in chair. Hands on the keyboard. (Or pen in notebook, if you're one of those odd, "write by hand" people.") It's the only way you are going to get anything written.

That being said there is an overwhelming amount of information out there for the aspiring writer. Here are some of the resources I've found particularly helpful.

Books

Words Fail Me: What Everyone Who Writes Should Know about Writing
A fantastic book! It focuses on how to make your writing clear, logical, and easy to understand. Plus it's really, really, REALLY funny.

On Writing
This is the most inspirational book about writing I've ever read, bar none. I don't know if I ever would have gotten started writing my novel, if I hadn't read this book.

The Outlandish Companion, by Diana Gabaldon
Okay, this isn't a book about writing--it mostly provides background information for the first four "Outlander" novels. But it is one of the things I read before I got started that prompted me to try to write my own novel. Diana Gabaldon is such a terrific writer and storyteller. She has a great web site with excellent writing tips (see below) and one of the sections in this book gives a fascinating look at her methodology for both research and writing. There's also a hilarious description of how she gets her work done in the midst of all the pulls of real life.

The Courage to Write
I picked this one up after I'd been writing for awhile. If you've read any of this blog, you can probably guess why I'd be drawn to a book like this!

Bird by Bird
This is a "must have". It's filled with truth about the writing process and the writing life. The SFD concept is described in this book. Need I say more?

Fearless Creating
Along with including lots of great information about dealing with creative anxiety, this is a workbook. It contains many helpful exercises to help artists of all kinds overcome their fears and get to work.


Web Sites

Writer’s Digest
This site is filled with information on all kinds of writing and every stage of the writing process.

Momwriters
I subscribed to this email group right after I started writing magazine articles. I don't belong to their list anymore, since I believe they now charge a small subscription fee. But I did learn a lot from them when I first got started.

The Compuserve Books & Writers Community
If I were to get involved with an online writing group, this would be it. There are SO many wonderful writers who participate here, from newbies just getting started, to bestselling authors (including Diana Gabaldon).

Diana Gabaldon's Web Site
Notice a trend here? I've included Diana Gabaldon on this list three times because she's one of my favorite authors and also because she is a natural teacher with lots of great information for aspiring writers. The "Writer's Corner" part of her web site is both helpful and interesting. Check it out!

The Writer’s Almanac
You can listen to the Writer's Almanac on National Public Radio (performed by Garrison Keillor). You can also sign up to receive the transcripts via email. Very inspiring!

Getting Started

Karenna was wondering how I got started on the novel. It's kind of a long story, so I thought I'd make an entry about it.

It was nothing I planned in advance. True, I had wanted to write, and thought up story ideas from time to time, but I'd never had the self-discipline to write on my own. I'd always been great at meeting deadlines and doing work as part of a school assignment or for a job, but I was never able to write just for myself.

I used to think of myself as a good writer. When I was in fourth grade, I wrote a story for school and entered it in a Young Writer's contest for Jack and Jill magazine. The story was called, "How the Skunk was Gifted, and What He Did with His Gift". It won first place and was printed in the magazine, making me a published author at the age of 10. I won another contest when I was sixteen (that story was called "Doris the Dot"), just a local young author's contest put on by the school district, and I don't know that it counts as publication, but my story was copied and bound and put in all the local libraries. I always did well in English classes, and earned good grades on essays and reports. Writing came easily and naturally. It wasn't hard. I wrote with confidence, knowing it was something I did well.

Then I went to college and took a required Humanities class where my writing was ripped to shreds on a regular basis. Whereas before I was able to express myself fluidly without worrying about whether or not I was doing it "right", now I doubted every word. I didn't understand what they wanted, and it knocked the confidence right out of me. I've never regained that certainty, that clarity I used to have when I was young, where I trusted myself and the words came so easily. And I haven't thought of myself a "good" writer since.

I never lost the interest in writing, however, or lost the desire to write. It wasn't lack of confidence that held me back but rather that I couldn't muster up the self-discipline to write on my own. But in the back of my mind I hoped I'd be able to give it a try someday.

Fast forward many years to me as a new mom with a baby and a toddler. One day I was thumbing through a regional parenting magazine and I came across a blurb that the magazine was looking for freelance writers to do articles with a local slant. For some reason, on a whim almost, I went to the computer and dashed off a short email to the editor of the magazine with a couple article ideas I thought up off the top of my head. A half an hour later she called and offered me an assignment. I was stunned, but very excited. That first article led to several more (14 altogether, I think). I also wrote a few articles for our local paper.

For the most part, I enjoyed doing the articles, but never gave up on the idea of writing fiction. If you want to be a fiction writer, however, you have to do it on your own. No one is going to give you an assignment and a deadline. You have to be completely self-motivated. And I still didn't have that in me.

What finally prompted me to get started? How was I able to get myself to write regularly? I don't know completely. I think part of it was writing the articles. I hadn't written much since I left my job to stay home with Kara, and the articles got me back in habit of putting words together logically and concisely. I also read a couple of writing books--again nothing I thought about doing ahead of time--I just picked them up because they looked interesting. The most inspiring was Stephen King's On Writing. It's part memoir, part description of the way he writes, and it's completely fascinating. Even if you're not a fan of his work, I highly recommend reading it. Stephen King doesn't outline, he doesn't plan out his stories in advance, he just gets a kernel of an idea (for example: recovering alcoholic and family snowbound in a creepy hotel all winter) and goes from there. He writes without knowing exactly where the story is going, and according to him, the story then takes on a life of it's own.

I was so intrigued by this idea. I've been a voracious reader all my life and I love getting completely immersed in a good story. I wanted to get immersed in my own story. I wondered what would happen if I took my own idea and wrote. Would my story take on a life of it's own?

One day I was washing the dishes during my kids' rest/nap time and feeling pretty stressed and unfulfilled, when a voice spoke in my head and said, "You're a writer. Write." I went to my computer, switched it on and wrote until my little boy woke up. I'd had a kernel of an idea percolating in my head for awhile, and I just went with it. From that point on, I wrote at every rest time. I didn't call it a novel back then, I thought of it as writing for fun, letting the story sweep me along. Still, it wasn't easy (I had to freeze the words "Shitty First Draft" at the top of my screen, so I wouldn't stress as much about the quality of the writing) but it was incredibly rewarding. I felt a hundred times better about life in general. I think that feeling is what kept me at it. Plus I loved the watching the story unfold. It truly was amazing seeing the story develop through the process of writing it. Really interesting characters would pop up, seemingly out of nowhere, and I wanted to see what they would do next.

As the months went on and the story grew, I became more confident. I admitted to myself that I was writing a novel. I told my friends and family about it. I realized I am a writer. I don't have to put "SFD" at the top of my screen anymore. Obviously, I still struggle with confidence, but I don't have a problem with self-discipline. I want to write this novel. And that desire is stronger than my fears or innate laziness. I feel better about myself and life in general when I'm working on it and I don't want to lose that feeling.

Keep 'em short!

I thought of a new metaphor for my writing mood/confidence swings. A sine wave! I oscillate up and down, up and down, on and on, over and over.

Forgot your high school trigonometry? Here's a link from Wikipedia: What is a sine wave?

I wonder how many times in history a sine wave has been used as a metaphor for one's mood? Maybe I'm the first one to do it? Probably not, but it's something to ponder...

Anyway, I'm up right now. I just finished another section and figured out more details on how the book ends. My moods can definitely be traced to the point I've reached in the scene I'm writing. When I start a scene I'm usually terrified, but that quickly changes to excitement as I bang out the scene's skeleton--the bare bones of what happens. After this stage I feel pretty good, since in I've finished the first draft of the scene and have moved the story ahead. That positive state of mind lasts until my next writing session where I read over the crap I've written and have to start reworking it.

Have you heard of the "Shitty First Draft" concept? I first learned of the SFD from a Martha Beck article on perfectionism in the Oprah magazine. Recently, I read an even more detailed description of it in Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird (a terrific book on writing, by the way).

The basic idea behind the SFD is accepting that the vast majority of the time, your first stab at a story, article, or scene is going to be pretty bad. And that's okay. You can improve it during the re-write/polish stage. But if you don't let yourself be bad at first, you might freeze up trying to be perfect right from the start and not write at all. This is a very helpful realization to perfectionists like me. It's better to get down something--anything--rather than agonize over every word.

Still, the result of the SFD is pretty dreadful writing. And it's reading over the SFDs of each scene that make my spirits sink so low. Because they are so bad, and require so much reworking, and the polish/re-write stage can last forever. I spend days polishing up a scene. And that makes me feel like my progress has come to a standstill, since while I'm polishing/re-writing, I'm not moving the story forward. Re-write/polish days are the ones where I practically have to tie myself to the chair to keep at it.

But eventually, I get it the way I want it and that's a terrific, wonderful, fabulous, feeling! Then the scene truly is done and I get to add it to all the other scenes I've already written. This is where I am right now. I just finished a 10-page scene that took me forever to get in good shape. Now it's done, though. Yay!

So I know all this about myself and the reasons behind my sine wave-like oscillations in mood. But understanding why my mood fluctuates, doesn't change the fact that it fluctuates. So I'm going to try break up my scenes more and write shorter SFDs so I can complete the whole cycle quicker. 10 pages are too many to agonize over. If I keep my sections to 5 pages or less, I won't have as many days in the excruciating re-write/polish stage. Not as many days in a row, at least.

Eh, who knows if it will help, but it's a thought. Keep 'em short. Cycle through the mood swings quicker.

I'm going to give it a try, anyway.

Write!

Today I have the luxury of several hours free.

I'm going to write, write, write!

Art and Life

I've been getting up early for over a month now. I think it's starting to take its toll. Yesterday I realized I had been walking around all morning--taking Kara to school, running errands, grocery shopping--in mismatched shoes! True they were both running shoes, but obviously different running shoes. Different brands, even!

Oh well. It's not exactly like I'm known for my style and fashion sense.

This morning Kara woke up at 5:30 and Kyle woke up at 5:40. Granted, it was only a half-hour earlier than they usually get up, but I force myself out of bed at 4:30 so I'll have an hour and a half of quiet and I don't want it cut short, even by a few minutes.

Actually, that's only true most of the time. I don't mind terribly if they wake up early when the writing's going badly. When I'm struggling, bring on the distractions and interruptions! Give me any excuse to stop! This morning, however, I was clipping along pretty well and therefore kind of annoyed not to get the full 90 minutes.

But, you know what? That's life when you've got kids. And it's okay. I want to write, to be sure, but I also love being a mom and I adore my children. I'm a mother first, and a writer second.

I started writing this novel almost three years ago. From day one, it's been a balancing act: a supreme effort to juggle the demands of motherhood with the focus and determination I've needed in order to write regularly. Sometimes I've gotten really frustrated that I couldn't dive into the story and write for hours at a time. I've longed for the freedom to write as much as I want, whenever I want.

Did you ever see the Johnny Depp movie Secret Window? It's not that great of a movie, but I love the setting. He's a writer who lives alone in an isolated mountain cabin. He wanders around the house in his bathrobe, takes naps in the middle of the day, writes whenever the spirit moves him--the stereotypical eccentric artist. He doesn't have to change diapers, make snacks, do laundry, drag the Little People play sets up from the garage, all the while desperately hoping his toddler will take a nap that day so he can have an hour to himself: a good description of my life at the time I decided to write a novel, and about as far from Johnny Depp's Secret Window life as you could possibly imagine.

But remember that Stephen King quote?

"Life isn't a support-system for art. It's the other way around."

When I started my novel, I felt so stretched and tired. Stretched because almost every waking moment was spent taking care of small people. Small adorable people to be sure, and people I loved tremendously, but demanding, sometimes unreasonable people, nonetheless. I loved being a mom, but I was also really tired and wished there was some way to escape mommy mode for just a little while every day.

Writing brings me that escape. It gives me something for myself--a way to create and feel productive and use my brain. What's more it helps me become more relaxed in my role as a mom; I have so much more patience when I've been writing regularly.

So I try not to get frustrated and annoyed when my real life interferes with my creative life.

Art supports life. It makes it richer and fuller and better, but it's not more important.

I wouldn't want to be locked away out in the boonies, wearing my bathrobe all day, completely alone. As frustrated as I can get about trying to balance writing with motherhood, there's no other way I'd want my life to be.

Cool Word Tool

I love to play with words. Part of the reason I'm such a slow-poke, snail of a writer is that it often takes me a lot of time to find just the right word to convey whatever it is I'm trying to convey.

This helps. Plus it's just a lot of fun.

Virtual Thesaurus

Check it out!

Oh and my friend wyo, the wonderful, prolific writer I described in an earlier entry, has graciously given me permission to post a link to her blog. Here it is: Temporary Digression of the Spotted Kind

Happy reading!

Gaining momentum

I got up early to write yesterday, I wrote while my little boy was at preschool, and I wrote for an hour in the afternoon while the kids were resting.

I woke up at 4:30 again this morning, and I'm going to write for several hours today while Kyle is with his grandma.

It feels SO good!

Picking up the pace

I'm a snail when it comes to writing. It takes me forever to write the shortest thing. I have a friend who is a wonderful writer and doesn't seem to have that trouble. You should see her blog! (I'll post a link, if she says it's okay. I'm sure she knows who she is!) I check back with it every few days and each time there are scores of new, thoughtful, well-written entries. I can't even keep up to comment!

So I'm slow, slow, slow, and I've accepted that. It's one of the reasons I don't post a lot of lengthy blog entries myself. They take too long.

And while I'm moving forward with my novel, I'm crawling along so slowly, I'm never going to finish in the next few months unless I start putting in more time.

Getting up early can only be part of it. I'm going to start trying to write for an hour in the afternoons too.

A quote from "On Writing", by Stephen King

"Life isn't a support-system for art. It's the other way around."

I think it relates well to my last post. Sometimes there are more important things in life that one's goals.

I'm writing again, and happy about that, but I don't regret or feel guilty about taking last week off to support my family. They needed me.

More on this soon...

Two months ago...

...I started this blog to motivate myself to finish my novel. And now there are only four more months until my self-imposed deadline of May 9.

Can I do it?

I'm still see-sawing/roller-coasting along.

Right now I'm down--out of my routine for a variety of reasons. The kids and I were away last week visiting friends and family and I didn't write very much while we were gone. We're home now, but Kyle is sick with the flu. And, sadly, a wonderful family friend passed away on Tuesday. It all has made it difficult for me to focus on the novel.

The truth is, I have to be in a selfish frame of mind to be productive. I have to be self-centered and focused almost to the point of obsession if I'm going to write regularly. I couldn't be selfish last week and I didn't want to be selfish. The people I love are more important than my novel. But I don't want to give up on my goal. And now that things have settled down a little, I want to get started writing regularly again.

I just need to get back into that single-minded, borderline obsessive writing mode.

I will. Early tomorrow morning it'll be me, coffee, a dark, quiet house, and my story.

I'm ready to focus again.

See-sawing

I was up, up, up yesterday, so predictably, I'm lower today. Not as dramatically low as has happened in the past, though. It's more of a see-saw low instead of the roller coaster low I wrote about weeks ago.

It's bizarre. Sometimes the writing comes so easily and other times it's like pushing a boulder up a gravely hill in bare feet: tough and painful and extremely slow-going. The really strange (but fortunate) thing is that later on, once the section is polished up, I can never remember whether or not the initial writing of it was effortless or difficult. I try to keep that in mind when I'm struggling: although it's no fun to struggle, in the long run, fighting to find the right words doesn't affect the quality of the work.

Early birds

I'm surrounded by early birds. If my kids wake up after six a.m., they've slept in. It's nothing new--they've always been this way. So if I want some alone time in the morning, I have to get up really early.

4:30-ish seems to work best. It gives me about an hour and fifteen minutes to write before I'm on mom duty. Any earlier and I have trouble focusing (even with help from my new best friend, coffee). But any later and I don't have enough time to get much accomplished.

So this morning I wake up at 4:25, make my breakfast and coffee, and sit down to write. Around fifteen minutes later, just as I'm getting thoroughly entrenched in the creative process, Kyle's door opens and he stumbles out all adorably tousled and bleary-eyed. Yup, he's awake and it's not even 5 yet. I lead him back to bed and get him tucked back in and hope he goes back to sleep. Not just for my own selfish reasons, but because he's only four and is a lot more pleasant to be around when he's well-rested. (Aren't we all!)

Nothing doing. 20 minutes later he comes out again and says he's full of energy and doesn't need to sleep anymore. So I get him settled on the couch, put a Rugrats tape in the VCR (bad mom, I know), clomp my earphones over my ears (itunes on my computer--it's just the coolest!), and manage to pound away at the keyboard for another half-hour before Kara wakes up.

Not my ideal early morning writing session, but not a total loss either. I just hope it was a fluke and not a trend for the future!

I'm excited, though. I'm getting closer and closer to the end of the story. And not only is it taking shape on the computer screen, but the parts I haven't written yet are coming together in my mind. Now I know how it's going to end! There are still a couple of plot points I need to figure out, but for the most part the story is finished. I can't express how thrilling it is to understand how it all gets resolved. I've been creating/discovering this story for going-on three years, and now I see how it all fits together. It's exhilarating!

The course to the finish line is laid out in front of me. All I have to do is follow it.

But what does she look like?

I'm still writing in the wee hours of the morning. Not only am I progressing with my novel, but I'm constantly coming to new realizations about the writing process. (At least my writing process. I don't want to speak for everyone!) There's just something about that dark, silent time of day that makes me philosophical.

My latest realization concerns physical description.

Physical descriptions of characters and settings don't come naturally to me. I just don't pay a lot of attention to how things look. I can't tell you how many times I've been driving along a street I've already driven down a million times, and all of a sudden I see some store or restaurant I never noticed before--something that's obviously been there for years. And when I'm reading, I often skim through extensive descriptions of the characters and their surroundings. I'm much more interested in how people feel, what they do, and why they do the things they do.

Still, physical descriptions are an important and necessary component to a good story. Great descriptions make stories richer and help the reader visualize what's happening. They also can reveal a lot about the plot or what's going on with a particular character. But I don't always "see" my characters very well, so physical descriptions are often difficult.

One amazing phenomenon that happens while writing fiction is the characters start taking on a life of their own. (Actually the whole story takes on a life of it's own, which I'll write about in a future blog entry.) You can have someone pegged in your mind as being a certain way, and then they'll do something you never would have expected, and you suddenly realize there's this whole new dimension to their personality you weren't aware of before.

Well, I'm finding the same can happen with physical appearance. One character, in particular, I could never visualize. I just didn't know how she looked. But I kept writing about her, and now I'm finding little aspects of her appearance popping up as the story progresses. Now I know she has a long, thick braid dangling down her back, and her mouth is usually set in a harsh line. These are qualities I couldn't "see" when I first wrote about her, but can now that I know her better.

Weird, huh? Most of the time the way someone looks is one of the first things you learn about them. But when writing about characters and places I can't see, I don't always know how they look right away. I need to get to know everything about them--including their appearance.

Instructions for Life

I continue to get up early to write, and haven't missed a day in over a week! It's such a busy time of year (I still haven't finished my Christmas shopping), and I know I wouldn't be making much progress if I weren't writing first thing. I love starting the day by working on my novel. The house is completely quiet. I'm alone with the story. I can have uninterrupted thoughts! This morning's writing session wasn't the greatest, though. I had a hard time finding the right words; but amazingly I did not freak out about it. I just did what I could, knowing that next time it'll go better.

A friend from college emailed this to me. I almost never forward things, so I thought I'd post it here. It addresses a lot of the issues I've been writing about in this blog. (Especially numbers 1, 2, 4, 8, and 14!) And then there's the pleasant surprise I'm going to get for passing the message on! I'll keep you posted on just what that is ;o)

Coffee

I managed to avoid it for 35 years, but no longer. I'm one of those people now. I'm a coffee drinker.

I never used to like the way it tasted. I always loved the smell of coffee. But the taste? Yuck! Also I'm a morning person. I wake up easily. I never needed it to get going in the am. So why bother?

But in my late 20s I started getting migraine headaches and I learned caffeine could help. So if I woke up with a migraine, I'd take some advil and choke down some coffee and a lot of the time that would do the trick. I drank coffee, but it was only for medicinal purposes. I still thought it tasted disgusting and I wasn't a habitual user.

Then I started exercising regularly, and found out that some athletes drink coffee before they workout to give themselves a boost of energy. So I thought, why not? If it helps me get fitter, I should give it a try. And I started drinking a cup of coffee in the morning on my cardio days. It did perk me up, and although I'm not convinced it helped all that much with my athletic performance, I kept at it. And you know what? It didn't taste so bad anymore.

But now I really have crossed the line. I'm drinking it every morning. And liking it! Why? What's turned me into an official coffee drinker?

Well, it's simple. Since Tuesday, I've been getting up every morning at 4:30 am to write. I eat some breakfast, drink some coffee, and work on my novel until 6 when Kyle wakes up.

I’m focused, I’m alert, I’m productive, I’m a believer! Now I understand why so many people are dependent on the stuff. It’s making a huge difference in what I can do. Praise coffee!

I'm in the middle of a tough section too. The narrator is describing a conversation between two people she can hear, but can't see. So it's tricky to give the scene depth. I'm limited to relaying the characters' emotions through their tones of voice, since I can’t describe their facial expressions or body language. And I also can't use the typical stage direction type of descriptions (He crossed his legs. She started thumbing through the book., etc.), unless the characters are doing something the narrator can hear and identify. It's taking a lot of concentration. But thanks to coffee, I can do it! Even at the ungodly hour of 4:30 am.

It's a miracle! I'm definitely going to include my new caffeine-laden friend in the acknowledgement section of my book.

It's making all the difference. ;o)

Fearless Creating

I'm better. I was in a funk all day Saturday, though. My thoughts are so wrapped up in the story right now. When it's not going well, I feel horrible.

Yesterday I picked up a book I've had for years. It's called Fearless Creating. Here's a link.

I bought this book maybe ten years ago. It caught my eye when I was browsing my way through the SFMOMA museum shop. Back then I wanted to write, but I just couldn't bring myself to sit down and do it. And the first third of this book is all about the very early stages of the creative process—going from the wishing stage to the doing stage. Ten years ago, I read that first part but I still couldn’t get past the wishing stage, and the book's been gathering dust on the shelf ever since.

Reading it again now has been SO helpful and empowering. First of all, it reminded me how much I've already accomplished. I've been working on this project for 2.5 years; I've written over 300 pages. I'm way, way, way past the wishing stage. I'm doing it. I've found a way to motivate myself to keep at it even though it can be really hard (see Saturday's post!) and I certainly don't have to write a novel. No one's forcing me. Ten years ago I couldn't do what I'm doing now. I didn't know how to motivate myself. I didn't have the strength to keep trying.

I do now.

And the middle of the book, the part I couldn’t get to before because it deals with actually creating something instead of just wishing to create, describes so many of the thoughts and fears I now experience regularly. Apparently all of these issues with confidence and self-doubt are typical for artists. I'm not a freak. I'm an artist hip-deep in the creative process and when you are creating something, it's normal to struggle and agonize about the quality of your work. I couldn't believe all of the margin quotes from really famous artists and writers relaying their difficulties with confidence. I keep thinking I should get to a point where it gets easy and I feel good about what I’m doing all the time. That’s not going to happen. When you are really trying and stretching yourself and risking failure, you’re going to have doubts. The trick is to keep going without letting them paralyze you.

I’ve managed to do that, but I’m still going to try some of the exercises from the book that help artists overcome their fears when those crippling doubts strike. It’d be nice to simply deal with the fears as they come and then get on with the writing instead of feeling like a complete failure and moping for hours.

Anyway, I ended up having a great writing session yesterday. Scott took the kids out on errands and I wrote for over three hours. I felt scared and unsure and had a hard time getting started at first, but eventually the story grabbed me and pulled me in and I forgot about trying to write well. I just wrote.

I’ll never get to the point where I’m “fearlessly creating”, but that doesn’t mean I’m a failure and shouldn’t try to create something. On the contrary, it’s a normal part of the process, something that artists of all levels constantly experience and struggle to overcome.

I’m not a freak.

I’m normal...for an artist, anyway.

A low place

It’s 5:45 am. I woke up early to write, but it didn’t go so well. I’m in a low place—everything seems bad—the writing inane.

Question: am I wasting my time? Is it admirable to work so hard on something when it’s not very good? Great books have great stories of how they were written and the sacrifices that their authors made to complete them. But isn’t it ridiculous and delusional to try so hard, when what I’m doing sucks? I could be sleeping. I could be warm in my bed oblivious to all this anxiety.

Focus on the process, right? Let go of the end result. All good and well when the process is enjoyable. But when it’s torture and only makes you feel bad about yourself, it’s difficult to appreciate the value of the process.

It’s the language that I struggle with the most. It’s so insanely hard to get the words to flow smoothly without any awkward phrasing. Most of the time, anyway. Every now and then, they come easily. But most of the time I spew something crappy, then go over it and over it, manipulating the vocabulary and word order, adding description, revising again and again, until I think it works. Right now it all looks terrible no matter what I do. Even sections that I thought were in pretty good shape read like complete drivel.

DE-pressing!!!

Like I said. I’m in a low place.

I’ll try again later today.

One month gone already?!

Ack! Today is December 9. One month since I set my goal to finish in six. I have certainly made progress, but there's still a lot to do. May 9 seems a long time away, but it'll be here before long.

I've got to keep at it!

Anyway, I did my UBWO yesterday and I wrote. Success! Kyle "exercised" with me using some red, vinyl-covered 4-lb. dumbbells. He took it very seriously and was really cute about it. I also did a 20-minute HIIT (high intensity interval training) on the treadmill this morning. So, I think I'm getting back in the exercise groove too. I don't know why I have such a hard time getting motivated to exercise once I've gotten out of the habit. I always feel so much better afterward.

I wrote at the library yesterday while Kyle was in preschool. I love to write at the library. It's quiet and far from the interruptions and distractions of home, and I get so inspired sitting in a carol with my computer, typing away in the midst of all those books. The only negative associated with library-writing, is that they don't want you to bring in drinks. Normally, I like to sip some sort of caffeinated beverage, or at least water, while I'm writing. It helps keep me awake. But I chugged a Lipton Diet Green Tea (tasty!) right before I went in yesterday, and managed to stay alert the whole time.

I have not yet started the 1-3 am plan since I've been fighting off a cold and don't want to make it worse. I might try it tonight (or should I say tomorrow?). I bought a new alarm clock and everything. Also, miraculously, both kids slept until almost 7 this morning. If that trend continues, I might start getting up before them to write like I did last winter.

Five more months to go. Can I do it? I honestly don't know, but I'm getting much more done now than I was before I started this blog.

Focus on the positive, Renée!

Writing? Yes! Exercising? Uh.....no

I'm on a writing spree! Over four hours today. (Wednesdays are typically high-volume days.) The confidence issues aren't bothering me too much. I think writing regularly has a lot to do with it. I continue to be very excited about how it's all going. I still don't know if I can get it done by May 9, but I'm certainly making better progress than I was a month ago.

Unfortunately, I haven't been exercising. I'm eating well, and seem to be losing the fat I gained while on vacation, but I haven't gotten back in the exercise habit. Tomorrow I will though. I commit to it here! I will do my upper body workout tomorrow morning after dropping my daughter off at school.

Speaking of vacation, here are a couple of pictures.

This is where we ate breakfast every morning! Not the best quality picture, but you get the idea.















And here's a pic of me and the kids out on the hobie cat.













(Huge sigh)

It was a great trip!

Finding Writing Time

I wrote for an hour and a half on Thursday, but didn't get any in yesterday. The day was swallowed up with other things. I don't know when I'll write today. It's another busy one. I'm itching to get to it, though. I want to put more time in, and that's good because a couple of weeks ago I found any excuse I could not to write.

Earlier this year I was getting up at four in the morning every day. That worked pretty well--I made great progress and in a masochistic way, it was lovely being up at that hour, writing in the dark, all alone. The problem with doing that now is that my kids are currently waking up at 5 or earlier. So if they saw me up too, they'd want to get up and I wouldn't get that serene, quiet, solitary writing time I'm trying to find. I'm actually thinking of trying in the middle of the night, from 1-3am, say. I know it sounds nutty, but it's really the only time I can count on being undisturbed.

On the exercise front, I did lunges for the first time on Thursday and now I'm so sore I can't walk normally! It's weird because they didn't seem that tough while I was doing them, but I guess they worked some muscles I don't usually use because I'm the sorest I've been since I started lifting weights back in February! Yeouch!

Four hours!

I wrote for four hours yesterday while Kyle was with his grandma, and Kara was at school. Our heater isn't working and it was cold and foggy outside (45 degrees F, which is positively frigid to a Californian), so I lit a fire in the wood stove, brewed some hot tea, grabbed my laptop, and parked myself in the recliner with my feet up. Talk about ideal writing conditions!

Today, Kyle has preschool so I should get in an hour-and-a-half, minimum. And I'll try for another hour at rest time.

I'm chugging right along and it feels great!