Nano is Around the Corner

Well, it's October 31st. Halloween and less than 24 hours to Nano. Do I feel ready? Despite all the prep work I've done (and really enjoyed doing), no I don't feel in any way ready for it. I won't be able to make any of the local New Orleans write-ins because they aren't bus accessible. Those have really helped me in the past,so I know I'll miss them. Also being new to the area, I don't personally know anyone else doing Nano. So I will essentially be going at it 100% solo.

GULP!

That scares the crap out of me. I do have many friends doing it, and they are only an internet click away, but it's not the same as going to the events or being able to call up a nearby buddy and saying, "I'm going insane with this. Help!" or, "Give me the kick in the ass I need to write today." I know that BS will give me the kick in the ass when I need it, but otherwise? I'm on my own.

Finished!

I guess if you can't sleep, you might as well be productive. Tonight I finished the Character synopses for my Nano project. All of the 15 characters that I really need to know in order to write the story well are done. And I have to say these synopses really have helped me understand who my characters are, what they want, why they act (and react) the way they do, and what motivates them in all the conflicts throughout the story. These really have been amazingly easy to write once I got started. Hopefully they will do what they are meant to and will help the actual writing move smoother and faster. And help me not have characters completely morphing into someone else randomly throughout the story. Yes, that is something I really have a problem with - keeping a character consistent. Even though the characters (especially the main ones) must grow and change or they don't hold a reader's interest, it's not good when they do a 180 degree change every few chapters.

Now I better try to get some sleep since I have to be awake in 4 and 1/2 hours for work which promises to be just as hellaciously busy as Saturday morning was.

Time Consumers

Work, outlining for NaNo, taking care of Magnum, and trying to figure out how I accidentally erased my blog background and how to get a new one I like - these are the things that have kept me beyond busy this past week.

I love my job, so work isn't a problem, just a time consumer. My boss has moved me up to 5 days a week in preparation for the busy tourist season (which starts this weekend with VooDooFest) and given me all the busiest morning shifts (yay! means more tips for me!). But she's been out sick for a few days and that left me with having to train the new girl. Not exactly my idea of fun, especially when she has no experience whatsoever in a coffee shop. Or any customer service industry. She's never even run a register before. But she's learning and will continue to learn. I just wish I could train her on some not busy shifts instead of when I have customers lined up out the door and every table filled. I can do one or the other well and in a timely manner (deal with the customers or deal with training her that is), but not both. One will suffer while I focus on the other. Which means the poor girl's training is going to last longer than expected.

Outlining for NaNo has been fun this past week. In the past my outlining was boring. I'd guesstimate how many chapters the book would need, make up an outline with that many bullets and then list 2-3 plot points (major and minor) that would happen in each chapter. A common way to outline, but I hated it. I did it for every story I worked on, but it was like pulling teeth, and I rarely ended up following the outline anyway. So this week I've been trying something different. Instead of one outline document I have three. One is titled Informational tidbits which  just has random (but important) facts about the society and the characters the story centers around. 

The second is a character list. In it I have each of the major and minor recurring characters and have written a one page, almost synopsis of each. In the synopsis I talk about what their relationship is to others in the story, what their main conflict is, and a little bit about their personality. (I really don't care too much about looks and rarely described my characters physically - at least in the first draft. I save that for rewrites when I'm already tearing my hair out.) Here is an example:

Justin - The oldest of Kendra’s siblings and twin to Jordan. Outwardly he has embraced the lifestyle demanded by their society. He makes himself available to all women in the village at all times. Handsome by any standards, old enough to live in the men’s dorm rather than at home with his mother and siblings, and a member of the elite Night Watch at only 19 years of age, he is much sought after by all the women and barely has time to satisfy all the ones who request sex from him. The only issue he has ever secretly had with the laws the original Matrons set up was that fathers don’t exist. Promiscuity is the name of the game in an attempt to make humans once again the dominant species on earth so women rarely know who impregnated them, and if they do, the relationship is not acknowledged. But he loves children and wants to be a part of any child he fathers life. He doesn’t want to be just an “Uncle” as all men of age to live in the dorms are called by children. He doesn’t want his children raised by the community, but by him and whoever the mother is. When he finds out that Serena is pregnant and he is the only possible father, he struggles with what the right choice to make is.

The third is an actual outline, but instead of bullet points for plot points I have these as my bullet points (though more might be added):

1. Characters
2. Setting
3. Emotional connections/growth
4. Conflict

It really seems to be helping me understand what I want to happen better than the other format did.

Magnum too has been a wonderful addition to BS's and my household. We absolutely adore him. Only he has separation anxiety. Which leads him to bark like a maniac anytime we both have to leave the apartment, and we have no idea how to cure him of it. So far I've been dealing with it the same way I did with my daughter when she went to preschool. Can we say "Not working"? Any suggestions would be most welcome.

Same with my problem with the blog background. I am at a loss and could use any help you readers could give me to fix it.

So all of these have been completely occupying my time and leaving me very little free time. Yet, psycho that I am, I am still job hunting for a second job.

New Beginnings?

Yes, there is a question mark there in the title. You see, I've had so many new beginnings in my life that I'm actually getting kind of sick of them. Though for the most part this one has been better than many of the others.

First of all I found a city that I love. I felt at home in New Orleans from the first moment. A far cry from Annapolis which I hated as soon as I set eyes on it. Most people who know me are stunned by the fact that I survived my first summer here. (I am known for loving the cold and snow.) I can't say that I loved the heat, but I got used to it. And of course it was a fairly mild summer, or so I'm told. I am looking forward to their version of winter though :)

One of the best things about New Orleans to me is that it is a city of contradictions. The old and the new (and don't forget the new that has to look old), different architectural styles right next door to each other (not separated by neighborhoods), there's city and country, educated and uneducated, rich and poor, beautiful and ugly, clean and dirty. The list could go on forever, but I think you get the gist of it. I'm sure a lot of people in other cities would say the same thing about those others cities. They might be right, but I've never seen, never felt it in any other city I've been to. New Orleans truly has something for everyone if they take the time to look past the tourist traps in the Quarter (and totally skip Bourbon Street).

So New Orleans is now home, and I have a feeling that even if I leave some day, I'll be back.

Second, I opened one of my documents today for the first time in ages. Almost a year really. Things were so hectic from last spring until now - plus my laptop was stolen with all the newer versions of the writings I had been working on (yes, I know - very bad to not save in many different places - lesson learned). So writing has been nonexistent for over a year.

But today I did it. And honestly I'm kind of sorry I did. Pretty much everything I've ever written I looked at today and thought,"Really?? You considered this worth your time?" I'm not saying it's all crap, but even with extensive work, I doubt even 10% of it will ever be worthy of querying.

Even though I sound annoyed by it, it been very beneficial reading over everything. For starters, it's really helped me realize where I want to focus my writing. I used to be all over the map YA (sci fi, fantasy, romance, paranormal, contemporary), chick lit, romance, mystery, erotica. You name a genre and I guarantee you I had at least one project if not more going in it. But one thing rereading everything did was it showed me what I really want to write - edgy YA for those teens who are truly on the brink of adulthood but are not quite ready to move on to books where the MC is 10 to 15 or more years older than them. I want my readers old enough that I don't have to censor myself so much in my writing (I have young teen kids. I know there's stuff I don't want them reading so why would I put it in my books?).

The other great thing about this whole new beginning was meeting my current roommate, whom I will call Bald &Sexy (or BS for short). Not completely bald, but it works as a pseudonym. I met him my second day in New Orleans. He also was staying and working at St. Vincent's Guesthouse (and that whole saga is a post of its own). He was one of those people I just clicked with. And when the owner of the Guesthouse fired him because he demanded the money he was owed for his work, I was devastated. Thanks to one of the guests in town for Jazz Fest with her husband, I made a choice that changed my time here in New Orleans a great deal.

See, one thing all the people living and working at St. Vincent's had in common is that we were all broke and had nowhere else to go. We worked as hotel employees in exchange for our room. So when BS was fired, he lost his home with it. Irene (the guest I mentioned) convinced me to go after him and not leave him alone. I followed her advice that afternoon, and we spent the rest of the day and a good portion of the evening in the Quarter. BS has lived here on and off for the past 15 or so years and showed me the city as only a local could (notice I say local and not native - big difference). At about 1:00 a.m. I knew I had to get back and go to sleep, but I was terrified for him. He had nowhere to sleep and no money. Having spent my share of time homeless, I didn't want that for him. Already he was one of my best friends and you don't turn your back on friends. So instead of letting him sleep in the park, I snuck him back on hotel property and into my room. That was on April 7th this year. We've been roommates ever since.

Hurricane Isaac is how we got found out though. Hotel management found out he was living in my room and I got fired. Believe me when I say it's the best thing that happened to both of us. Now we work, we have a real apartment, and just on Tuesday we got a dog. And I'm back to writing.

So maybe new beginnings aren't as bad as I was beginning to think they were. When I break it all down like that, it seems like this one is actually pretty kick ass :D

Sprint or Marathon?

A fellow blogger and friend, Janet, posted today about her goal to spend 45 minutes every morning for the next 30 days writing before logging onto the internet. No email. No facebook. No nothing. Yikes! I can't imagine it. I am a serious email junkie. Not that I get much that isn't spam, but still. I love seeing the flashing envelope that tells me I have mail waiting for me. And don't even get me started on facebook! After I unfriended my parents, I actually started using it.

Yes I am aware of exactly how awful that sounds, but it's true. Mainly because the majority of what I post has to do with my writing and schoolwork. My writing they don't believe in because of what they saw happen with my cousin (whose name I'm not going to mention). Anyway, my cousin published her first book in 1995. It sold pretty well and was nominated for the Arthur C Clarke award. She knew she had many other stories inside her waiting to be told, so she quit her job and focused on writing full time. When her next book came out in 1996, it didn't do quite so well. Then her next book wasnt published until 1999. In the meanwhile, she was struggling, actually drowning, financially and couldn't find another job.

As my mother put it when I told her about my writing, "I don't want you to end up like [my cousin], 50 and nanny to someone else's brats because you thought the crap you came up with would actually sell."

Wonderfully supportive, wouldn't you say? After all, there is no chance I could possibly be realistic and know I'm not going to be raking it in like Rowling or Meyers. (Of course having been jobless and homeless, I also know how to survive on very little money, unlike the rest of my family.)

So while my parents were my facebook friends, I never felt like I could post a word about my writing. Now I feel free to do so.

And I have gotten way off topic :)

I freeze at the thought of sitting still for an entire 45 minutes and doing nothing but writing. I sit down at the computer and it's like one big (excuse the expression) brain fart. I couldn't even remember how to type my name. But short little writing spurts (especially if I am racing against someone else to see who accumulates the most words in a given time frame) work really well for me. I can type about 500-600 words in a 15 minute time period. It doesn't seem like a ton by itself, but multiply that by 4 separate 15 minute periods and suddenly I have 2000-2400 words. That's not a bad go for a day.

One of the reasons these short little writing spurts works so well for me is that the excuses are gone. Writing for an hour? My brain has a million and one excuses, I mean reasons why I can't sit for an entire hour - school, kids, job hunting, cleaning, food, etc. But 15 minutes? I can squeeze 15 minutes in anywhere. It's not long enough to interfere with everything else going on in life, yet the word count still grows steadily.

So that's my goal for the next 30 days - find at least 3 times a day where I can write for 15 minutes. That does not include school writing.

Are you a sprinter like me?

Or are you more a marathoner like Janet?

My original post today (until I read Janet's) was going to be a rant about the abysmal state of our school system and how they are ruining our children, but I will save that for a day when I have nothing writing-wise to post.

Waiting For The Right One

Originally I wasn't going to post until Tuesday since I missed Thursday due to LIFE, but I had some free time (amazing how that happens when you don't sleep at night) and an idea for a post, so here goes.

I don't know if this happens to other writers (I assume it does and that I'm not just some freak :) ), but I have 3 novels with the entire first, second and third drafts done and am working on the next revisions. BUT I don't plan an subbing them to agents even if I get them to the point where I think of them as done.

It's not that I think they aren't good or that the concept of the story is completely unoriginal. I just have this gut instinct that they aren't going to sell - or at least not right now. Do I have anything to back up that feeling? No I don't, but it's enough to make me not want to query them to agents. I also have the series I started that has a ghost as the MC of which I am in the midst of the first draft. That one I think might sell. However tonight as I was looking through the coursework for my online classes, an idea came to me. It took me about 15 minutes to write up the outline (and I do mean outline - 3-10 bullet points per chapter) of the 26 chapter story. And as I was writing it, I just knew that if I can write it well and do justice to the concept, this one will sell. This will be the novel I query first, and I already know which agents I want to query with it.

Until tonight, I thought maybe something was wrong with me that I didn't want to query any of the novels I've already written. I worried that maybe I wasn't really that serious about getting published. Which is silly since aside from my children and school, writing and getting published is the one thing I am most serious about. So I was thrilled when I realized I finally have a novel I am going to write and know I will submit to agents.

But what makes one idea click when others don't? I love all my story ideas. All the ones that I only have outlines of, and the ones I've actually written one or more drafts of. So why this one? If anything, compared to my other ones, it's a bit more on the ordinary side, similiar (though different) to what's already out there. So why does this one make my insides sit up and go, "This is it. This is the one that is going to actually get seen."

Does this mean I'm going to drop my work on the others? Yes, at least temporarily while I work on this one (working title What You Make It), but I'm not giving them up completely. I do believe that eventually I will submit those to an agent and try to get them published. They just won't be my first, or maybe even my second or third, but someday they will be brought out into the light.

So for the moment, I am going to take down the word count bars for my other novels and put up one for What You Make It and leave that as my only one while I work on it. And let me know, please, whether or not I'm the only one this happens to, or do some of you have works that you don't plan on querying any time soon?

Impossible Situations

I’ve had a really difficult time recently sticking to a writing schedule. Part of that is due to job hunting. To job hunt effectively, a person really has to spend time at it. Part of it is due to school. Being the nerd I proudly admit to being, I insist on reading through all my textbooks, taking notes on them and writing up vocabulary lists from each chapter before classes ever start, and that takes up a lot of time as well. Part of it is that I have had houseguests off and on (mostly on) since the beginning of September. I write best in silence. I despise noise, and houseguests are rarely quiet (to my needs) even when they try their best to be quiet. They watch movies or listen to music (something I almost never do) or just move around. Normal activities, but when a person is used to living alone and spending most of their time in complete silence, it’s noisy.

But I can’t really get rid of the houseguests, even though I desperately want privacy so I can write. My original guests were a friend, his cousin and his cousin’s girlfriend. They were through out of their aunt’s house with no notice and no where to stay. So they stayed and got jobs (and drove me out of my mind J ). My friend left at the beginning of November, and the other two went back home to California the first week of December. For a month I had my apartment back to myself and writing happened. I revised a couple of more chapters on my YA #1and wrote outlines for my YA #3 and it’s sequels (yes, that one is meant to be part of a series). Then last week I get a call from another friend. His buddy has been thrown out of his house and my friend’s family won’t let the boy stay there. It’s below freezing out, the weatherman is calling for snow, and the boy is only 16. I truly don’t think that anyone with a conscience could refuse to help. So long story made short, I once again have a houseguest.

So writing has pretty much come to a standstill again. School stuff is completely finished, I am still job hunting, but I am itching to write. Literally. It’s like this scratching inside my brain of ideas trying to get out and into the computer. But I just can’t do it. Writing does not happen for me with people around.

To make matters worse, as soon as this boy is gone (he leaves on the 28^th to another place) the girl who went home to CA is coming back. Her mother refuses to allow her to stay there since she is pregnant. She has nowhere to stay here in Maryland, so it looks like I’ll only have a week between my two houseguests. I’m going to have to write nonstop that entire week to get any significant work done next month. Either that or learn how to deal with noise, but seeing as I’ve been this way since I was young, I don’t see it changing any time soon.

Are there any situations in which you find it impossible to write, no matter how many ideas are clamoring in your brain?