Reading & Talking About Writing

Saturday was a great day for writing even though I actually wrote very little. I got to spend the entire day with writers at the Ozarks Romance Author's meeting who were talking about writing. Then later in the evening, I got to party with Sleuth's Inc. writers to celebrate our combined successes for JANO.

JANO was the local version of NANO (basically write a novel of 50,000 words in a month). There were several "winners". Winners were those who achieved the 50,000 word goal. One winner was a twelve year old boy. I think that is awesome. I hope Grace gets interested in participating at some point.

The meetings are very inspiring, and give me just enough of a push to keep me motivated. I haven't done any work on my novel this past few weeks since finishing it on MLK day. I have been letting it percolate. Today is the day. I am finally sitting down to start working on the editing. It's a pretty daunting job, but not as daunting as starting from scatch. At least I HAVE something to edit. You can't ever publish a blank page.

I've had my sights set on Harlequin Nocturne and still do but ORA has a conference in Springfield this June. Two agents will be there. They both buy paranormal romance and represent some very reputable authors in the genre. One agency even represents several Harlequin authors. That means, I have until June to get my shit together, polished and smelling like a rose.

I can do this.

Let the editing commence.

January Resolutions

I had a long list of resolutions that I was considering for this year. I've decided to simplify them and just concentrate on one or two each month. This month's area of focus will be WALKING and WRITING. I signed up for JANOWRIMO which is the local version of NANOWRIMO. Basically to write a novel in a month or 50,000 words.

Most people start from scratch and write, write, write without editing until they hit the 50,000 word goal to 'win'. Some work on 'works in progress'. I'm going the WIP route as well as the blogging route to shoot for my word count. My real goal is 18, 591 on my novel because THAT will put me exactly where I need to be.

I'm going to need to write at least SOME on it every day this month to achieve that. No easy task! Time is the enemy of ambition. At least it is for me.

I am excited to meet some new people next Saturday at the Write In at the Springfield Creamery which will give me eight uninterupted hours of writing and smoozing with other writers. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday.

I've put a word counter at the top of my blog to try to keep track of the writing (all forms) I accomplish this month.

Here we go!

Write In - Write On

This is what a Write-In Looks like. I was set up beside the girl in the red sweatshirt against the wall. I've mentioned several times that November is NaNoWriMO which I did not participate in. These folks did. There was actually about a dozen people that came to the Brown Egg last Saturday to participate in a twelve hour write-in. The Brown Egg is a new place one block from MSU and it just opened last month. I hope it lasts. It was super cool. I was BY FAR the oldest one there ... by a decade ... or two.

There was a very cute young man making and selling his zombie art while we worked. Who can resist zombie art? Not this girl. He's working on the piece I bought in this picture. I just wish I could remember his name. Timothy something. I can't read his writing where he signed my piece.

Here is the piece I bought. I'm going to hang it in my office over my writing desk. Seems appropriate.

 We spent half the day at the Brown Egg and then the second half a few blocks away further downtown at Boca Mocha . It was fun. I was just working on my revision and trying to get the word count up which is easier than you would imagine now that I can tell you what the other characters are up to.

I spent ten hours working on my novel and revised half the book and added seven thousand words for a current word count of 57, 627 words. I only need 22, 733 more to go. I have a couple of big fight scenes and the ending to finish so I'm feeling pretty confident.

I just need about eight more days like last Saturday to get it done.

Write & Wrong

So this month is National Novel Writing Month  in which I am not participating. Saturday was the Ozarks Romance Writers' meeting and several of those members were participating, so I had some writing envy. I decided I needed to love the one I'm with and work on my own already in progress novel.

I have waffled between rewriting it from third person or sticking with the first person point of view. Why I didn't just do that from the beginning I can not explain. Honestly, I didn't think it would really matter what point of view I used. I've read plenty of paranormal romances from both viewpoints.

Harelequin is probably the most new writer friendly publisher. Probably because they publish so many romances each much. Lots of awesome writers have cut their teeth in serial romance. In fact, so writer and submission friendly is Harlequin that they are having a free online conference all this week specifically on the how to's of writing romance. You can check it out at So You Think You Can Write if you are interested.

Last night I was trying to check out all of the events and podcasts from the first day and the main editor that accepts submissions for Harlequin Nocturne (the paranormal romance editor) had a podcast. She seemed great and gave good advice but also dropped a couple of bombshells. First, the word count for Harlequin Nocturne just got raised from 70,000 to 80-85,000. Yeah, I have 51,858 now. I've got some work to do.

Secondly, at the very end of the podcast she just happened to mention that submissions needed to be in third person point of view. Nowhere on the submission guidelines did it say that. Maybe it was supposed to assumed. Maybe I just didn't know what I didn't know what I didn't know. Now I know.

So my dilemma has been resolved for me. I have to rewrite it.

I guess the hardest part is committing to a course of action. Once there's a solid and clear plan, it's usually easier to proceed, right? It's good to have a plan.

So after all that waffling and hoping to take the easy way out, now I know, as with most of the things in life, there is no easy way out.

Bryon's pretty sure I'm windy enough to make it all work out. He's probably right. I just need someone to offer up their lake home to me for a long weekend so I can work on it without distraction. Either that or I'm going to have to check myself into a hotel.

Either way ... I got this. 

Storytelling - Day 28 of 31 Days of Blogging

I am not a good oral storyteller. I am a much better written storyteller. Relating a story to someone orally is a lot more difficult than writing it down for me. Bryon is a much better oral storyteller. He can take the slightest event and turn it into a twenty minute detailed narrative. He's especially good at relaying hunting stories.

He would have been an extremely valuable member of society back in the days before writing when oral tradition was the only way histories, laws, folk tales and literature were relayed. Think The Illiad or The Odyssey but much shorter . He's such a Homer.

He can spin a yarn or tell a story in a way that's both engrossing and interesting. Of course, sometimes he uses his power for evil and not good and tricks me with elaborate fairy tales and when I finally ask, "Really??? You're kidding!"

He says, "Yeah, I'm kidding."Aaaarrrrrgggg!

He used to get me all the time that way.

I'm still not immune to his ruses but I do still like to hear his stories. He fishes me in every time. And trust me, in the past 25 years, he's had a LOT of stories.

 I'm a much better written storyteller. I have to see the words appear before me and then rearrange them like puzzle pieces until they are just right. When I TELL a story, I don't have that luxury and under pressure, the story loses it's cohesion and impact. Sometimes I hear myself talking when I'm trying to tell a story and think, what the hell am I even saying? This story makes no sense.

It makes perfect sense in my brain. Somehow it between my brain and my mouth it loses it's potency.

The great thing about writing is that until the very last minute you can edit it, rearrange it and dress it up in different clothes until it's just right. Then, if you still aren't happy with it, there's always the rewrite.

I haven't worked on my novel much this past few weeks because I know that is what the next step is: the rewrite. I have ideas for at least two more books so I can make it a trilogy. Trilogies are very hot right now. But I can't do that in the first person, which is the point of view I've used for the first 50,000 words.

The good news is that when I do finally sit down to rewrite, it should blow up as I am able to expand the vision of the characters and flesh them out more making it pretty easy to reach my 75,000 word target. The bad news is that it's going to take some extensive time and uninterrupted concentration to do it.

I had really considered trying to participate in NaNoWriMo in November where you write a novel of 50,000 words in 30 days but I think I will be better served to concentrate on working on the one I already have in progress than starting another one. So I'm punting NaNoWriMo and hope to work on the rewrite instead.

Maybe if I can spend the next 30 days working on the rewrite, I'll have a brand spanking baby New Year book by 2012.

Write on.