Resurfacing after NaNoWriMo

My friends, it’s been a long month. While I didn’t “win” NaNoWriMo in the strict sense, I did meet my personal goal of finishing 30K words while keeping up with the necessities of life, such as work and family, and managing an emergency or two, so I’m still declaring it a win. Here are five main things I learned during November, in no particular order:

1) Getting butt in chair and fingers on keyboard works. If you do that – you are ready to write; if you don’t, guess what, no words will appear on the page. Seems like a no-brainer, but for me it was doubly true because I work best while I’m working, and even if I’m stuck, being at that computer means that when the bottleneck clears words go right where they need to be. Walking away is just giving your brain permission to get sidetracked. Stay in that chair, folks, show your brain who’s boss.

2) The internet must be off. I love the internet and there’s always something that I want to look up or look into, so I had to make sure the internet was simply not available during writing time. I turned off Wi-Fi and very sternly told myself No whenever my brain started to look for excuses to turn it back on.

2.5) Same goes for anything that’s a distraction for you. Family members watching your favorite show without you or listening to the radio too loud? Earplugs work wonders. Your spouse opening the door to your writing space every five minutes to ask how it’s going or whether you want some tea/cookies/a hug/to pet the dog who’s oh so adorable? Tell them, very kindly but firmly, that you love them and appreciate that they want to help, but they’ve got to go occupy themselves with something else because you’re writing and you’re going to keep writing until you’re done with the daily goal.

3) Sometimes you need to turn on the Wi-Fi and do some research. Toward the middle of the month I got stuck, and even though I knew what the next plot landmark was I simply couldn’t move forward. It took a bit of thinking to realize that I couldn’t visualize my characters’ environment, and turns out I have to be able to imagine where they are, what they see and smell, what they eat and who they interact with besides each other. I put my writing on hold and turned to the Internet. Guess what, it worked. I was able to fill in the sensory details and the story started to move forward again.

4) If winging it is not producing results prepare an outline. I don’t know why I thought that I could wing it. Everybody who knows how much I love spreadsheets and how I planned for the last vacation teases me about it. The outline allowed me to not worry about the major events of the plot, and instead I could focus on my characters and on tying the plot points together into one coherent whole.

5) You’re probably underestimating yourself. Don’t. With everything that’s been going on I averaged 1000 words a day. I’ve never thought that I could produce that much in a month, under any circumstances. When I took the stack of pages that were the result of 6 months of work before November and the stack from November, and compared them, the difference was eye-opening. The November pages probably aren’t all that good, but you know what, they’re there, on paper, and the first draft is just material for the second draft anyway. So no more excuses, there’s proof that I can do it, tangible and undeniable, and if I allow for reading time I know I can manage 500 words a day, no problem.

So there you have it, some pretty good lessons to learn. Now let’s go write.

NaNoWriMo Prep & Color-Coded Index Cards

Now that I’ve gotten the news about season 3 of Sherlock out of my system, kind of (see previous post), my brain’s back to thinking about November. NaNoWriMo.

I’m joining the hordes this time around. My writing group, Chattanooga Women Writers, is doing NaNoWriMo our way: we’ve decided to set our goal at 30,000 words and we’ll be working on our current novels, because although we’re allowed to suck we want to cut back on suckage as much as possible while still writing feverishly. We’re planning writing sessions during which there will be no talking or internet (that’s the plan anyway), and we’re planning on emerging victorious from this crucible of creativity and hard work.

So in order to make it possible for me to pound out 1000 words a day (which is a lot for me), I’ve been writing a pretty darn detailed outline of my WIP. I’m about 2/3 done and something has occurred to me: color-coded index cards would be very helpful in keeping track of character arcs, sub-plots, world-building and basically who said what when, and what day of the week, or month, it’s supposed to be. It’s kind of ridiculous, I can remember other people’s books in minute detail, mine – not so much. Maybe it’s because my brain is too busy constantly working on “what’s next” to remember two chapters ago. Who knows. One thing is clear though: index cards, or at least a color-coded spreadsheet might be an order. Now there’s an idea…

19 January 2014 on PBS

Write it and forget it. For a while, anyway.

I’ve done all sorts of writing things in the last several months: I’ve outlined, I’ve written, I’ve renamed a character and then renamed her again, I’ve scrapped whole sections immediately after writing them because they just didn’t feel right. What I haven’t done is read what I’ve written several weeks after writing it, which is exactly what I did on Monday for my critique group.

This experience proved to be nothing short of eye-opening. I saw some things I wasn’t proud of (grammar and spelling, I’m staring right at you), some that surprised me (one scene that gave me trouble when I wrote it read better than the one that came easily), and some that gave me pause (I’m not trying to write a YA novel, why did this section read like it belongs in one?). Sometimes it was downright embarrassing: you know it’s bad when you wrote the scene and you yourself can’t tell who’s talking. And it read just fine when I checked the pages before sending them out!

By the time I finished the two chapters I fully understood what Stephen King was talking about when he recommended leaving the book alone long enough for you to forget what exactly is in it. Doing that reveals all kinds of first-draft issues that hide in plain sight when you go over and over the same text in a short period of time. It also allows for more consistent revisions when you get to that step, whenever that might be. I know one thing: I won’t be revising until at least a month after the book is finished.

How much longer…

How much longer… I thought, looking out onto the hazy bay just before sunrise. It stormed yesterday, but you wouldn’t know it by the almost perfectly smooth surface of the lake.
How much longer…
It isn’t even a question any more, but rather a whisper sighed in an empty room over an empty bay by a shadow of the person of I used to be. They all left years ago: my husband, my children. They could’ve at least let me keep the cat, but they took her as well. She’d like it here, plenty of mice for her to hunt.
How much longer…
This house really is too large for me. When it was full of people it didn’t seem quite as large, but now with just me to roam its halls it seems as large as the mountains looming in the distance. I know its every corner and stairway as I know the lines on my own hands. If I close my eyes I can see the tapestries that used to hang on the walls. If I hold my breath I can almost hear my daughter running through the rooms, her laughter sweeter than any music. Marianne, my youngest, my only daughter. She made me feel young again when she came into this world. I just wish I had more time to hold her in my arms. My children are long gone. Their grandchildren must have children of their own by now.
How much longer…
I wish I could have gone with them, after them, but I can’t leave my home. I am part of it just as much as it is part of me. Even with the broken windows and leaves on the floor we stand together. When it goes I go.
I hope it won’t be much longer.

Writing and the Interwebz

It is a truth universally acknowledged that if a writer tries to work in immediate proximity to an Internet-capable device said writer’s productivity is going to trend toward zero with lightning speed. I had a chance to observe this phenomenon first hand last week while I was on vacation.
Being on vacation was wonderful, of course. The only way it could’ve been better is if it was longer than a week and if the mosquitoes weren’t quite as vicious, but I’ll take what I can get. I had brilliant plans for writing and reading. I told myself I would write at least one chapter, read 2 books, critique a friend’s manuscript, clean the house extra thoroughly (not my favorite thing in the world) and generally relax to my heart’s content. Here’s what happened instead: I critiqued a friend’s manuscript, wrote 5 pages longhand (a chapter is about 12 pages), and… finished watching Fringe on Netflix, baked 3 different desserts, spent a lot of time on Pinterest, cleaned out my email account, updated my spreadsheet of books that have made it on the NYT best seller lists so far this year (it’s one of the sources that feed my reading list for the next year), and Facebooked like the site was getting shut down any day now. I did not thoroughly clean the house. I did take the car to the mechanic’s.
Isn’t it kind of sad that the only decent stretch of writing that I have done this entire week happened while I was at the mechanic’s waiting for my car to have its maintenance? In retrospect it’s not kind of sad, it’s really sad. They had no internet and neither does my phone, so instead of checking to see who else posted what pictures I actually sat down and wrote. And the worst part? I actually hated when the clerk came to tell me my mini-tank was ready! I wanted to stay and write some more!
So what did I learn from this experience? First of all, I learned that I have zero willpower when it comes to the siren call of the computer screen. Secondly, that no matter how much I love it, writing is work, and it requires a lot more effort than even baking a phyllo dough apple strudel. Since asking my husband to hide the cable modem during writing time is just plain embarrassing I think I’ll have to relocate outside if I want to get any words on the page without getting distracted by the internet. I shudder to think what will happen when winter rolls around.

Getting words on the page

In the last several weeks I realized something about how I write: I have to be sitting at the table with my pen and notebook before writing-related thoughts will take any kind of shape. I can’t plot in the shower or work on dialogue on the treadmill. I can’t even think about my characters while folding laundry! If I try to do writing-related tasks while doing anything else all I can come up with is one thought on a loop, just going round and round in my head. Yet when I sit down, open my notebook, and re-read the last couple of paragraphs words start flowing, characters start doing things, the story starts moving along. Inconvenient, isn’t it? Tell me about it…. So I’m having to do this writing thing the hard way – no multi-tasking, just straight work at the table.
Is this because my brain is still new to the whole “write while not writing” thing? Or is it simply wired that way, forcing me to concentrate on being creative and not spend the precious energy on other things? I don’t know. I know one thing, I’m getting a door hanger that says Do Not Disturb and putting it to good use.

“Death was last seen in the auction room, looking worried.”

Most people there didn’t know it was Death, of course. To them he looked like a painfully thin and pale man with a day-old stubble and a bow-tie. He almost ran through the room as it was filling up, looking around as if searching for something or trying to get his bearings. If anybody asked for his name he would’ve told them it was Vince.
But it was Death alright, and he was definitely stressed. Wouldn’t you be if you were Death and your sickle was missing? He only vaguely remembered what happened last night after his usual Saturday poker game with the other Horsemen. He lost some and won some, then they went out for drinks and maybe he’d had too many. Next thing he knew, he woke up in the closet of the auction house and couldn’t for the life of him figure out how he got there. The lost hours alone would’ve been bad enough, but the sickle… This was worse than when Pestilence got them all sick with her proprietary formula of maladies (Beta testing, she called it), worse even than when Hunger sent them all on a binge just for kicks and they about destroyed the planet. The boss wasn’t pleased then, Death couldn’t even imagine the wrath when the news spread. And spread it will, if it hasn’t already. He wondered if it was Sunday or if he’d been out longer than a day.
Suddenly he heard a voice from the next room, talking so quickly it was a miracle a human ear could understand what the voice was saying. Some vase was being offered, the auctioneer promising three wishes for a ridiculous starting price.
“What kind of auction is this?” Death wondered, an unpleasant feeling spreading through his already cold limbs.
“Going once… Going twice… Sold to the gentleman in a satyr sweater!”
Death cracked the door to the auction room and peeked through the narrow opening. The winning bidder did has a sweater with a picture of a satyr on it, and curiously enough he himself looked a lot like the horned woodland god, with his hair sticking up and his beard bearing a striking resemblance to that of a goat.
In the few seconds of quiet a new lot appeared on the stage and the auctioneer started up again:
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have something truly remarkable to offer you today.” His eyes glinted with excitement as he said this and Death couldn’t help but pay attention. “This lot is not in the program because we only acquired it yesterday, but it is a marvelous addition to today’s auction. I give you…” he caused for effect, “Death’s sickle!”
In the small office behind the auction room Death fainted.

Getting back on the wagon

My friends, I need a t-shirt with this picture on it. The last couple of weeks have been tough work and life-wise, and I totally fell off the wagon. I know, excuses, excuses. I am climbing back on though. Did some writing this weekend, not as much as would have liked to but definitely better than what I’ve been getting on the page lately. Or rather not getting on the page. Here’s to keeping at it!
In other news, the literature course I’m taking online is keeping me pretty busy with lots of reading and some writing. Oh the self-inflicted torture, how I love thee. This coming week I’ll be reading Light in August by Faulkner, have never read anything by him so this will be a new experience. And I will have another chance to write an essay I myself would like three days later. Yay.
Anyway, it’s a work day tomorrow. Maybe my muse will send me something good in my dreams.

“Meet us at the spot where we made our pact…”

Prompt: You receive a phone call from your two best friends. “Hey, we’ve done something terribly wrong and need your help. We can’t talk about it over the phone. Please meet us at the spot where we made our pact back in high school. You know the place.” Nervously, you grab your coat and car keys.

“What in the world are they up to now?” I wondered as I sped down the empty highway, hoping there were no cops around to give me a ticket. Of course Helen and Jackie have always been extremely dramatic. The last time they called like this they’d skipped out on a restaurant bill and were acting like they’d robbed a bank. At least I knew they weren’t in jail. There’s always a next time. I grinned at my own dark humor; it always came out when I stayed up past two.
It only took ten minutes to get to the beach. It was just as dark and deserted as it was that night in high school when we made our pact to stick together no matter what, all for one and one for all. I couldn’t believe we thought that sneaking out after curfew to go to the beach to eat donuts and quote Dumas was incredibly rebellious. If anyone ever asked me how I knew that neither Helen nor Jackie would ever end up in jail I’d tell them about that night and that would be all I’d need to say. Of course this would explain why shoplifting a stick of gum from the gas station still seemed extreme and egging a car was just earth-shattering. It was a police commissioner’s car, but still.
My feet sank into the sand and I realized that we were more one for all than all for one, seeing as how I was always the one driving out to meet them and convince them that they were not as badass as they thought they were. Maybe I should do something outrageous, like get a tattoo. Something classy and in white, so it wouldn’t stand out too much.
I finally saw two figures huddled in the shadow of the trees at the far edge of the beach. Something was wrong, they were too quiet. I walked faster and by the time I got to them I was almost running and out of breath.
“What’s…. wrong…?” I gasped collapsing next to them. They were both staring at me with real fear on their faces and suddenly I was terrified to hear what they’d done this time.
“Liz… we’ve…” Helen choked and started crying.
“It happened so fast. We were driving down one of those side streets that go by the park and… We didn’t see him…” Jackie was shivering and her eyes wandered wildly.
“Didn’t see who? What happened?” My mouth was so dry I could barely get the words out.
“Liz. He’s dead. We killed a man.”

"Behind her the noise escalated…"

Behind her the noise escalated but Raye didn’t move. She waited for Elementa to catch up. Her sister was slow in her magnificent power and without equal. Well, almost.
A thousand years they’ve been at it, Raye always a few steps ahead, slowing down every once in a while to keep the relentless pursuit interesting. It was almost like when they were children and the game of catch got a little too serious. Now it was very serious and Raye promised herself she’d stop the chase time and time again as she watched the earthquakes split the ground at her feet or as her dress got soaked with tsunami spray. She could have kept it up for another thousand years but she was tired of her sister wanting to kill her.
Raye listened to Elementa advance, ripping the age-old oaks out of the ground with her second favorite – tornadoes. Raye waited for them, her moonlight hair whipping in the wind, her feet itching to flee with the last beams of the fading sun. She didn’t move as she waited.
The sudden quiet was almost deafening after the roar of the wind and Raye squared her shoulders in anticipation of her sister’s arrival. She turned slowly, ready for her fury.
“Hello, traitor,” Elementa called out, her voice low and hoarse.
“Hello, Elie.”
Raye had no plan: trying to predict Elementa was a thankless task even when you generally knew what was coming. She just watched her sister, trying to see the tell-tale signs of deadly force before it was too late.
“So, did you slow down to apologize or to taunt me some more, so I would be good and mad?”
As if she wasn’t good and mad already.
“I’m not here to argue. I’m not your enemie, Elie, even if you think that I am.”
“Then what are you waiting here for?”
Elementa’s already flushed cheeks became even redder and her usually copper mane looked like fresh lava rolling down a slope.
“I was hoping we could talk, clear things up. We’re sisters, Elie, we can’t keep doing this. Besides, you know as well as I do that nobody can actually win.”
Elementa glared at Raye without responding. Reason didn’t work and Raye could swear her feet tried to move on their own, to cary their mistress far away from danger.
“Come on! What do you want me to say?” Raye exclaimed.
“An apology would be a good start.”
“Elie, you know I didn’t mean for things to go like they did,” Raye almost pleaded. “I didn’t know it was serious with Michael…”
” Serious?” Elementa’s hair flared up and she stepped closer to Raye, her hands in tight fists. Behind her the twin tornadoes that seemed to have been dying down roared again and started to wheel toward the two women.
“Serious?! He was the one! Do you have any idea how hard it is for a woman like me to find someone who can handle… well, me?!”
She was now so close that Raye could smell the burning rock on her breath, as if her mouth was the mouth of a volcano.
“And you just flit around , happy little Raye, skipping from beam to beam, a smile here, a laugh there and bam! he can’t take his eyes off you, all safe and happy. It’s all a game to you, isn’t it?”
Raye could hear the pain underneath the rage and for the first time ever really understood what her sister was telling her. For the first time she could see beyond the flaming red hair and the bad temper. She couldn’t believe how blind she’d been. Her sister’s scream brought her back to the roar of the tornadoes.
“And now you have the gall to act all innocent and remind me that we’re sisters! You think I don’t know that? You think that makes it all better? Well?! Do you?!”
The heat coming off Elementa was blistering and Raye could feel her hair crackling. She could barely hear her sister even though she was shouting. The tornadoes have torn through the small wood and now seemed larger than life itself, sucking the world into their gigantic vortexes. They kept circling around the women and Raye was just happy her sister was still controlling them. Instinctively she grabbed Elementa by the shoulders, ignoring the pain that shot up her arms from her instantly burned hands. Second degree? Third? She hung on.
“Elie, I’m sorry. So sorry. I had no idea. Please, why didn’t you say anything before now? Please, I didn’t know!”
Raye’s hands felt like they were on fire but she didn’t let go. Instead she pulled Elementa into a hug and squeezed until the other woman wrapped her arms around Raye’s shoulders and squeezed back. Raye’s body was one huge blister. This was it. Another minute or so and even she would go into shock. And then she felt her sister crying, her tears searing Raye’s burned skin. She almost didn’t notice the downpour that started at the same time. The rain would soothe the burns and they’d fix the worst ones later. For now they were just two sisters making up.

Finding a quiet time to write

I’m staying (mostly) on track with my resolution to write 250 words a day and the more I do it the more I realize that the hard part for me isn’t finding the time, but rather finding a quiet time. You see, to really be able to concentrate I need it to be as quiet as possible and unless everybody in the house decides to play sculpture garden for an hour or more that is not going to happen, and I haven’t mastered the art of tuning everything out when I’m trying to be creative. So this is my challenge at the moment.
This morning I decided to try something different: got up early (a sacrifice in an of itself for this night owl) and wrote for about 45 minutes before work. With hubby and the furries snoozing I was actually able to turn out a page and a half of work and finish the chapter! It was wonderful. Thoughts flowed, plot points lined up, and words didn’t get lost in some murky abyss. The fact that I started the day doing something just for me put a smile on my face and made me feel more accomplished than I usually do before leaving the house in the morning.
So here I am, eating strawberries for lunch and pondering whether I should set my alarm an hour early to write a part of my routine. Getting up is never fun, but this is something worth suffering for. Decisions, decisions…

250 Words a Day

I’ve been listening to Mur Lafferty’s I Should Be Writing podcast where in several episodes she talks about getting your writing done no matter what and about setting manageable goals (she also talks about the Magic Spreadsheet but that’s material for a different post). One such goal is to write every day, but set the minimum at only 250 words. Life always seems to intervene, especially when one tries to juggle writing with a full-time job, family and personal needs such as exercise, but we can usually find time to get 250 words on the page.
Last week I decided that this should be manageable and that even at such a slow pace that’s still a chapter or so in 2 weeks. Every little bit counts, right? Right. Anyway, that was the beginning of the week and I was feeling optimistic. Too bad I didn’t take into account the husband and his mighty persuasion skills in the form of sad-face combined with the general human tendency toward laziness and procrastination. Or maybe that’s just me… Ahem. Long story and a few episodes of World Without End later on Sunday I found myself feeling guilty because I didn’t do any writing for almost a week. Bad, bad Olga. So I sat down in the quiet house (husband went to help a friend with a car) and dedicated 2 hours to writing. Could’ve been longer but that’s when husband got home and started barging into the office and talking to me. It’s so hard to say No when they actually want to hang out with you, isn’t it?
So let this sad tale be a lesson to you, and to me: even 250 words a day require dedication and a backbone, because you’re going to have to say No to doing other things all the time. I’m going to go practice resisting sad-face now.

The last flight left at dawn…

The last flight left at dawn but Jack wasn’t on it. He sat by the gate all through boarding and watched as his seat was given away to some girl in hot pink sweatpants and Hello Kitty slippers who dragged her pillow on the floor as she disappeared behind the last checkpoint. He watched the plane taxi down the runway and wondered whether he should regret not being on it. He finally walked away from the gate when the airline employees started to actually pay attention to him.
A while back on TV or radio someone said that not making a choice is still choosing and Jack couldn’t agree more. He didn’t look forward to calling Emily and telling her to not bother going to the airport to pick him up. He didn’t particularly look forward to calling Alice either, but deep down in his gut, underneath the brewing acid reflux he could almost taste already, he knew he made the right choice. He loved Emily, but sitting at that gate watching the display flash Delayed for an hour he realized that he loved Alice more. Not just more, he was in love with her. And if he was completely honest with himself he’d always known that Emily was an Anne Boleyn to his Katherine of Aragon of a wife. She was new, exciting and shiny, and she didn’t want to talk about refinancing the house or having her parents over for Thanksgiving. Or worse, his parents.
He could tell Alice didn’t buy his working late excuses but she didn’t make scenes or tell him he’d changed. One day she simply left a voicemail saying that she was going to visit her sister and wasn’t sure how long she’d be gone. Just like that he was free. At least as free as he could be while still being married. That was a month ago. They’d spoken twice since then. One of those times was when he burned the popcorn and couldn’t remember the code to give the alarm people when they told him they had to call the fire department if he didn’t know the code. He was nothing without her and she… she was everything. Smart, beautiful, funny. He was such an idiot.
He rode the escalator down to Departures where an airline agent with salt and pepper hair was trying to look busy.
“One ticket for the next flight to Denver, please.”
“Any luggage, sir?”
“No luggage, no.”
The agent looked him over, trying to decide if he was a security risk.
“It’s on it’s way to Orlando right now,” Jack mumbled. “My wife’s in Denver.”
The guy nodded, all business, and handed him the ticket.
“Have a good flight, sir. And good luck.”

Outlining works!

Today was the first time that I sat down to write using the outline I’ve been working on and let me tell you, it works! I think things will move a lot easier now that the direction in which the story is supposed to be going is much less vague and I don’t have to battle the “Oh, and then this will happen! Or… this will happen, and then…! Wait, how about this…? Or what if…?” roadblocks all the time.

Of course this is the first draft, I’m still learning about my characters and the outline is pretty rough (I wanted to give myself room to play and be surprised) so the story will probably change, but it’s working so far. Fingers crossed that it’ll keep working!

Hello and Welcome!

A while back I started working on my first book. Yep, got the writing bug just like so many others. The plan is that it’ll be a stand-alone urban fantasy novel with lots of magic and adventure. I don’t have a title yet, so WIP is it until I have the Eureka! moment that’ll give me the brilliant idea for a title.

The manuscript of this magnus opus currently stands at just over 9000 words and I’m figuring out that being a discovery writer (aka pantser) isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. So I’ve started brainstorming an outline the other day and in one session got further than I expected. Hmmm… Apparently you’ve got to know where you’re going if you want to get there in any kind of reasonable amount of time. Who knew, right? Right. I’m actually starting to wonder whether I should test-drive the various plotting techniques I’ve been hearing and reading about. Live and learn!

So what can you expect from this blog? First of all, writing updates. I am a newbie writer after all and will share all the pain of the learning curve. There will also be talk of the things I will learn as I go, helpful resources, fun writerly stuff (yes, my vocabulary is mighty), and even some actual writing pieces. I’ll be doing writing prompt flash fiction for my writing group and I’ll be posting those here, for all the world to see my writerly evolution. And sooner or later there will be talk of publishing, so brace yourself. Or not. It might not seem so intimidating when it’s actually time to do it, and for now I’m focusing on writing and finishing the book.

It’ll be a wild ride, I can tell already :)