56 Days Left

Sign indicating US Route 56 I feel like I’ve made progress this week. Not as much as I’d like, but I can say that progress was still made. With 56 days remaining until the end of the year, I have about 52k words left on my Regency Beneath His Touch and figure I’m about 42% of the way done. I’ve almost made my +5k goal for this week. That gives me Thanksgiving, Christmas and two other days off at this point. Phew!

Working with others has been extremely helpful in achieving my word count each day. Just knowing someone else is out there working at the same time on their own project is incredibly motivating and inspiring. I’ve noticed more and more people joinging in with #amwriting, #writegoal, #goalwar on Twitter and I know many people gather in chat rooms like the one on Romance Divas. Some groups are even using AIM’s group chat feature to do timed writing sprints. No matter where you find it, or what you call it, it works for many people. When you have to admit how many words you did or didn’t write, it can push you to keep at it.

Even though I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year, I’m still reading about it and one of the great finds this year is Justine Larbalestier and Scott Westerfeld‘s dueling NaNoWriMo tips on their blogs. In Ms. Larbalestier’s post NaNo Tip No. 2: The Zen of First (Zero) Drafts, someone in the comments there mentioned that Nora Roberts calls that first rough draft the “discovery draft.”

I love that term and it’s accurate for the way I write as well. I may work with scads of spreadsheets and try to pinpoint the bones of my plot down before I start writing, but I still love the discoveries my characters reveal to me along the way. I’ll never be pantser enough to completely trust these little gems, but the fact that they appear from my subconscious pleases me.

Today, I had a couple minor characters surprise me with secrets they’ve been keeping hidden close, but they opened up to my heroine with the least little coaxing on her part. I love surprises like that. It’s a similar kind of fun as setting up random code for an interactive game and watching the resultant emergent behavior of the characters controlled by the computer. It might just be a tad cooler, because it’ll never happen by chance that way again. And that’s just cool.

Monday the 9th is Excerpt Monday again… you all know what that means, right? Yep, it means I have to figure out what I’m going to share this month. I don’t think it’ll be anything new from this ms, but I’ll probably dig into The Flower Queen’s Daughter or Revealed again. Whatever I choose will go live after midnight on Monday and as soon as the other links are live and posted, I’ll add them so you can find even more great excerpts to read for free.

Warrior Writer Recap

So, the Warrior Writer Workshop. I was scared it was going to be too similar to Todd A. Stone’s Novelist’s Boot Camp, but reading the book, Who Dares Wins, I realized the Blood Lessons and the Circle of Success rang much truer and allowed me to take those ideas beyond the writing and see the applicability to other parts of my life. This is for those who want to be the elite, not just the rank and file. One is filled with only tactical approaches, Warrior Writer is a strategic approach that helps you build for overall success.

Continue reading “Warrior Writer Recap” →

Summer’s Over

patio Yup, Summer’s officially over and the kids are back in school and that means I have more time to myself again. How can they both be in middle school already?

Despite appearances to the contrary on the blog, I have actually been doing some writing related work. You know you’ve neglected the blog for too long when your mother points out the only new posts have been these Excerpt Monday things. So… since the next Excerpt Monday is coming up in about three weeks on September 14th, I figured I better get some posts written between now and then.

I’m part of an accountability group. It really helps to know that others are out there working toward similar goals and will call you on it when you fail to mark yours off the list. Currently, we’re reassessing out Long-Term Goals while the new members create theirs and I still need to finalize mine before this weekend’s over. I can do daily and even weekly goals, but have never had much luck trying to do things much longer than that.

I think the most important questions Bria posed to us last week were these: “What did I do this week to work toward my LTGs?” and “What can I do this week to work toward my LTGs?” I just need to sit down with those in my head as I create my weekly goals list and hopefully I can knock off some of these longer projects.

One of my mid-range goals is to attend a writing workshop in late September. I’ll need a writing sample if I want to fully participate that includes bringing: a one-page synopsis, a query letter, and the polished first 10 pages of a project.

Yup. I have nothing of the sort as a complete package right now. Guess what I’m going to be doing the next month. Scrambling. Sorta. I’ve started working on the synopses for the four projects I’ve been flipping between.

I’ve got one right about where I want it and then three that are just way too long and packed with unnecessary details at this point.
It still surprises to me with as much as I worked on the plot outline for BHT over the last two years, how much of a mess it remains. While the progression of events seems logical, there’s not much coherency between them. Why do certain things matter? Why do I need to show this and not that? So much of it is still this huge jigsaw puzzle where I’m not sure that all the pieces are even from the same puzzle, but they all seem to be painted this hazy grey.

The one for Revealed is in better shape, but it’s got these big huge gaping holes where the picture of Barrington (the hero) should be. He’s merely reflected off the heroine right now, not standing clearly on his own yet.

I know I have no idea where to begin FQD yet, but that story actually seems to be the best delineated of the four. Yes, it helps I started with an established fairy tale, but even with the gaps that synopsis has, they don’t feel as disconnected and jarring as the others.

The sweet story I’d started last year and never finished also seems to be in decent shape. It’s just going to be a matter of focus and effort at this point, but I still want to finish this one. I love the characters and I love the rom-com feel of it with its concealed identities and the role reversals in it. It’s just fun.

I’m hoping to finish those up this weekend and next week work on query letters. Then I’ll work on polishing those first pages. Before too much longer, I suspect I’ll know which one to take with me and that I’ll be working to finish by the end of the year. Yes, you heard me right, finish, by December 31st. So hold me to that, ‘kay? 🙂

I think I can…

uphilltrain So May is also a month of insanity around here. So why did I jump on the RD May Wri Mo bandwagon? Cause I’m a sucker for wallowing in pain and suffering with as many other people as possible? Maybe. More likely, it’s the fact that I work better knowing others are working at the same time.

Dayna Hart put everyone who signed up on teams this year. Wow, extra motivation and incentives. Dayna rules. Each team had 250,000 words to start with — some have grown with additional members. My personal goal was to add another 30k to what I had so far for Beneath His Touch. I decided I wasn’t going to push my luck and even doing 1k words a day has been a stretch with lack of practice.

However, I’ve already added 6,666 new words to the project! Yay, me! I’m slightly ahead of my goal, but I suspect as end of the school year events start ramping up, I’ll need any cushion I can get!

I still need to go back and work on the first 3 chapters, but knowing I’m working on chapter 8 is a great feeling too. I made the mistake the other day of reading through the material I already had for 4-7 and screeched to a halt. NO EDITING! ONLY NEW WORDS. OR only edits AFTER I make my word count and then some for the day.

So, if you suspect I’ve disappeared, hope I’m in a groove and staying on track!

Focus Point

out of focus In photography terms, a focus point refers to the small brackets, lines or circle in the middle of an autofocus point-and-shoot camera’s viewfinder that indicates where the camera is pointing. In broader terms, I like to think of it as what I’m currently putting my energy toward: be it a project, a routine to reinforce or an outlook to cultivate.

Lately, my focus point has been my son and his headache(s). We’re still dealing with this on a daily basis. He has made it to school this week for the state standardized testing, but today was a real fight to get him there. “Mom, this is my second worst headache. EVER!” *sigh* He was feeling a bit better over the weekend and the past two days after school he’s been miserable. He complained yesterday that he spent an hour and a half in the health office and even got sick, but the health tech wouldn’t call home because he’d missed so much school already. Hopefully, she’ll call today if he feels as bad as he says he does.

So what’s this have to do with writing? I have no focus lately. I’m still only about 15 pages into this book and I’m fighting for ever word. I don’t think I can say I’m actually experiencing writer’s block in the traditional sense of the phrase because to me that implies that you’re putting in serious effort in trying to get something onto the page. It feels more that I don’t know where I’m trying to go with the story so, I’m muddling my way through a heavy fog.

One of the things, I’d wanted to work on in my mentor program was learning to build a road map I can trust. I feel like I’m still a ways from that point. It feels like there are too many unanswered questions in the “yes, but HOW do I show this happening” part of my “working outline”. I like my characters to surprise me, but I find I still need a very detailed roadmap in order to get anywhere.

I know I have focus issues on the best of days. Having so many less than ideal days in a row is frustrating to say the least. Maybe I just have the attention span of a fruit fly, but there’s got to be a better way to work with it instead of continually against it. I need to find a way to deal with constant interruptions to keep track of where my thoughts had been and where they should be going.

I think this is why the snowflake method was so appealing. The idea is to constantly build on what you’ve already got. With Revealed, that approach seemed to work rather well. I suspect the trick is making sure all of the basic elements are present from the beginning.

Anyway, off to write something down…

Irrevocable Commitment

"Do small things with great love." -- Mother Teresa

In Chapter 8 of Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook, Donald Maass spends a lot of time on the idea of why we do what we do. Not just the big things, but the little ones too. He says it’s because we care. Without feeling like what we do matters, there’s no sense in getting out of bed in the morning.

So what happens when life presents us (or our characters) with a serious test? When faced by the ultimate stakes, we call up our deepest beliefs and convictions. Maass insists we find that point in our manuscript where the protagonist’s stakes hit home, a point of no return, and suggests writing out a paragraph to show the final unfolding of the character’s most primary motivation. Then, he asks us to imagine it as the opening paragraph.

He goes on to say it likely won’t work as an opening paragraph, but that you should be thinking in terms of that character’s irrevocable commitment from the start. What commitment has the character made that he just cannot turn away from that drives his actions and decisions and gives him the means to move forward? Why does he continue to get out of bed in the morning? Piling on heavy commitment and smothering your character with it at the beginning isn’t necessary, but giving them something to care passionately about at the beginning shouldn’t be overlooked. If it can connect to that emotionally charged moment later, even if it’s buried deep, all the better.

Maass claims this emotionally charged moment also has an opposite: a moment where of irresolution, aversion, justified selfishness or some similar reaction occurs. Identify that moment for your character. Find a place earlier in your manuscript, well before the moment of commitment, and place this juxtaposing bit there.

The idea behind this exercise isn’t necessarily to create usable paragraphs, but to enrich and deepen your characters actions with his inner commitment. If you have co-protagonists, make sure they both have strong commitments. Don’t leave out your antagonist too. Maass believes, all this conviction and emotional commitment from your characters will only increase that of your readers. It certainly can’t hurt.

Again, I think this is one of those things that makes sense on the surface, but is so much easier said than done and if done correctly, will really enrich your writing. As a reader, this is exactly the kind of thing I enjoy and appreciate when the author takes the time to work it in.

Can I do it myself? I don’t know. Thinking about Marcia and what makes her tick, I’m having a hard time with it, but I am seeing a common thread between her and Tabitha. I don’t think it’s THE thing in this instance, but it’s interesting nonetheless. I know the hero of this story needs a lot of work in this regard. I’m frustrated with his obstinate cardboard consistency.

Jodi’s got a great post about Internal Dialogue on her blog and I was teasing her about how many volumes would be in her book on craft of writing. In the comments section, she talks about wanting three sections for it. Groundwork, Technique and Layering. If you haven’t read her blog yet, go now. Great stuff there!

Anyway, my point here is I see this first section of Maass’ book as Groundwork. The stronger the foundation, the easier and strong everything else should be. It helps to know your characters inside and out to be able to tailor the plot to their particular idiosyncracies, fears, hopes, and dreams. Otherwise, the result can feel flat, formulaic and unsatisfying.

Personal Stakes

Gambling was a part of life in the Regency Era. Card games abounded: faro, whist, hazard. Fortunes were won and lost on a nightly basis in the clubs, gaming hells, and card rooms of London. But I don’t want to talk about those kinds of stakes today.

Moving forward again in Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maass to chapter 7: Defining Personal Stakes.

This is digging in even deeper on the WHYs instead of just the WHATs that your protagonists are doing. Why does it matter in some profound and personal way? How does the plot shape, mold, twist, and otherwise reveal your protagonist and what do they stand to gain if they succeed in their goals or lose if they fail or just walk away?

In many ways, this is another digging down deep exercise. The question here isn’t WHY so much as “What would make their goal, need, desire, conflict, yearning matter even more?” Also, we’re supposed to be looking for inner motives more than outer motives here.

Maass asks us to exhaust our imaginations not once, not twice, but three times in coming up with ways to increase these personal stakes. He notes that when he teaches this in a workshop setting, the participants say the resulting lists look like plot complications. You want the character to be driven forward using as many of the possibilities you come up with. The more rocks you throw at your protagonist while (s)he’s up in that tree, the more interesting their journey should be.

I suspect this exercise is going to take some thinking and percolation since for the book I’m working on this area also seems to be rather weak or at least one sided. My heroine has some personal stakes she’s up against, but the hero remains a little lump of latent clay. And looking at some of the books I’ve really enjoyed lately, this is a make or break part of a book for me.

Reversing Motives

digging deeper And with this post, I’m diving back into Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maass. I didn’t completely abandon it over the last week, but I haven’t had big chunks of time to work without distractions, so this exercise has taken longer than usual.

I think the title of this exercise is a little misleading. The main point of the exercise seems to be digging down through the characters and their motivations so that you don’t just stop at “the easy or obvious answer” but there’s no focus whatsoever on taking an opposite approach to the scene, just a different one. Maass has you take any scene with your protagonist and figure what their motivation is as written and what their objective for the scene is. Then, you brainstorm a list of ALL the possible reasons why they might want this objective. Once you’ve created a list, you take the last one and rewrite the scene with that reason in mind as their primary motivation.

Maybe I’ve done this one incorrectly and missed the original intent, but I played the Why Game. Maybe you just need to get a variety of UN-related reasons on your list, but since these characters are pretty defined in my head, the resulting ideas I came up with related to one another. Anything else didn’t seem appropriate. So, I started out with my hero and came up with the following:

Goal: Get heroine to open up to him during dinner — she’s shy and ignoring him and he takes it as a personal challenge.

Why?

He wants to prove he can be a good boy.

Why?

He’s annoyed his hostess sat him next to her to keep an eye on him.

Why?

He’s scared his hosts were serious about kicking him out of their household.

Why?

He’s tired of being considered just barely socially acceptable.

Yes, let your inner toddler free to explore and keep asking why as long as you can stand it. Personally, I hate when my kids (tweens now) decide to be silly and play that game, but it is useful here in writing. Too often the first idea to pop into your head is very simplistic or very obvious. The deeper you dig into the why’s of the piece, the more interesting, fresher and honest it can become.

So I’m off to finish rewriting this particular scene, picking one for my heroine and then doing at least 3 more for each of them. Fun, huh? You betcha.

Where’s my Calgon?

I now have less than a week to finish and submit this short story. EEEEEEK! Where the heck did September go?

I’ve been up against multiple deadlines this month and I’d hoped to have this story finished well before now. However, that’s definitely not the way it has worked. The characters have been not cagey, but playing their cards close to their chests, we’ll say. Every paragraph has been a struggle to write. I think it’s the added pressure of knowing it was intended to be submitted for real and that I’d promised myself that when it was done I’d send it to Jodi. Yeah, no pressure or anything.

“Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.”
— C. Northcote Parkinson

So, where does the story stand? Pretty much where I left it over a week ago. I have five basic scenes/plot points to hit and I know there are a bunch of things that I need to bring back to wrap it up nicely.

So, what’s the problem? A distinct lack of focus and motivation. I feel like I have a perpetual headache. Most of my other obligations have wound down for a bit but there’s still the daily grind to accomplish as well. However, I still feel like that Greenday song, “Wake Me Up When September Ends.” Oh, not anything from the lyrics or the video, just the title. After two essentially sleepless nights last week, I could use the extra Zzzz’s. Maybe that’s part of the headache?

So, why am I whining (am I? I tried not to. Honest.) about this here? DH and I drove an hour or so north of here for a friend’s birthday party on Saturday night (*waves hi to TinyFroglet!*) and to mourn the passing of her youth. She turned 40 this year as well. Anyway, she said she really enjoyed reading the blog because I wasn’t afraid to be honest about my struggles with this process. So thank you for pushing me out of the rut and making me realize that explaining it and thinking out loud about it does actually help more than just ignoring it and hoping it’ll go away again.

So, what am I going to do about it? First, I’m going to go check and make sure the premier of Heroes is taping tonight, then I’m gonna sit down with my timer and jump into one of those chat challenges at Romance Divas. Ready? Here I go….

Thursday Thirteen: Habit Forming

13 Things to Avoid When Changing Habits

As you can tell from Monday’s post, habits and routines have been on my mind alot.

Leo Babauta from Guam has a great blog titled: Zen Habits where you can go see his comments on these pitfalls. He gives permission to reprint his posts, but in what follows below are his pitfalls, followed by my own thoughts them. You should go explore the real thing if you have any interest in the topic.

I also love the quote he has on this post: “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.” by Jim Ryun.

1. Taking on two or more habits at once.: Yep. Guilty. Baby steps, one at a time.
2. Not committing a plan to paper.: The Accountability Corner thread at Romance Divas is especially helpful with this one. It’s semi-public accountability and forces me to look at least a week in the future.
3. Being half-committed.: Very Guilty. Repeatedly. Just wanting to establish a good habit or break a bad one isn’t enough. You have to actively work on it. Whoddathunkit?
4. Not having support.: This requires admitting you want to change to someone else too. Ewwww.
5. Not thinking through your motivation.: Because it’d be good for me isn’t enough. Goes back to that commitment thing.
6. Not realizing the obstacles.: Plan ahead.
7. Not logging your progress.: Again, I can look back at my Accountability Corner thread on Divas and see just when I stumbled, but I can also see the long runs of success as well.
8. Having no accountability.: Sick of hearing about the Accountability Corner yet? Too bad it’s just writing, although Bria and I talked about adding another category besides Writing Time and Writing Life to it next round.
9. Not knowing your triggers.: Logging your progress can help identify these and will help you plan ahead.
10. Not doing your reading.: Hmmm… my highly theoretical self is skeptical of this one. I guess it could be reinforcing motivations, but honestly I’ve never found it much help before.
11. Changing focus too soon.: Focus? Whazzat? I swear I’m related to gnats somedays.
12. Not being consistent.: Ooh. This one and the next sound familiar.
13. Quitting after failure.: This one is often too tempting and I can see where I’ve beaten it with some habits, but not others. Guess we better check that motivation thing again. Sigh.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 SandyCarlson	2 Tamy ~ 3 Sides of Crazy	3 Candy Minx
4 SJ Reidhead	5 Juliadamus	6 Jennifer McKenzie
7 Ava Rose Johnson	8	9

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!