Still Here

Just dropping in to say I’m still here. I am working on notes for a couple different story ideas. Writing’s taking a back burner at the moment due to some other real life stuff. But I will get back to as soon as I can.

In the mean time, here’s a thought/question for you: Many want to rave that “Casablanca” is on of those great romantic movies of all times.  And I freely admit, I really like “Casablanca” (enough I even bought it on DVD, and I only buy about 6 DVDs a year, most years). Here’s the thing though  - if you’re a fan of romance, you must really hate the ending, right?

That’s my one complaint with the movie. Great characters, great dialog, great plot (for the most part). BUT, the ending is crap. To this day, I still want to choke the heroine. I mean come on! You love Rick, but you’re leaving with your genius, humanitarian husband? (I refuse to entertain the whole issue that she was still married when she was with Rick in Paris - to the best of her knowledge (and everyone elses) her husband was dead. Therefore, she was a widow. Yes, the husband turns up alive, and I can see why she would have gone back to him then. But, to stay with him again, in the end?!?! Spare me. )

And, yet, it’s this whole “Oh, well, she and Rick both knew that her husband needed her so he could continue with his great humanitarian work!” He didn’t really love her, she didn’t really love him (ok, maybe they loved each other, but they weren’t in love with each other). Seemed more like a marriage of convenience, or  they’d married ’cause they were friends and had similar goals, and it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Of course, I think this plays into my whole issue with self-less martyr type people. I can understand sacrifice and working hard. I can understand people to who say they’d do anything for a person, or small group of people (their family, their best friend, etc. etc.). But, it’s these self-less martyrs who are committed to a cause and incapable of true to commitment to another human being that are incomprehensible to me.

So, there you go. The whole world knows it: If I’d been writing and filming Casablanca, she and Rick would have gotten on the plan together and gone to live mostly happily ever after.

(This also feeds into my whole theory a romance novel, or a romantic movie, must have a happy ending. Spare me the psuedo-romance that ends sadly, but with a supposedly “uplifting” message.)

Updates

Good morning. See, I am alive and well.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately.

I’ve been tied up with some “real life” stuff. I’ve also, as I mentioned in my last post, found it best to go back to the drawing board and start over.

Thanks to Susan I have a couple great new writing tools to play around with. She turned me on to Text Block Writer (really cool software) and gave me some super templates to work from. And at hers and Joely’s urging I’m also playing around with PBW’s novel notebook.

But, I will be absolutely honest, I’m not writing actual content right now.

Last week was Thanksgiving week, and I took time off work to have the week off. Wanted to enjoy the holiday properly with family, and also have time to take care of other things. The week previous to that, I told myself that I would spend my time off figuring out my writing schedule and so forth.

In essence, I did. But I also came to some understandings about my other commitments, and other activities, and just life in general between now and the new year. I’m not someone who handles failure particularly well. Therefore, I think it’s awfully important that I don’t “set myself up to fail”.  I needed to set reasonable goals and plans, otherwise I don’t meet them, and it makes it all the easier to get a defeatist attitude about things (not just writing, for that matter, but any thing).

So, I decided that I would work on planning, plotting, and generally getting ideas and concepts lined up for my novella/novel (I’m not tying myself to a projected word count yet). And that is all I will do until January 3, 2008. Yes, you heard me. I am giving myself approximately 5 and a half more weeks for plotting, planning, character sketches, and that sort of thing. Doesn’t mean I might not scribble a bit here and there, but I am not actually going to try and hold down a daily writing schedule, and write actual story content, until the new year.

For one thing, I really want to pay attention to this stage of the writing process, continue playing around with my new writing tools, get a nice novel notebook set up, and really (for the first time in a very long time) have the plot set in my mind before I start writing the content.

For another thing, I need to cut myself  some slack.

Yes, I just said that. I know as writers, we spend a lot of time cracking the whip, keeping ourselves motivated, keeping ourselves writing. And that’s incredibly important. But, I think sometimes we also need to cut ourselves a break. We need to always be stretching ourselves, setting new goals, and trying to attain them. But we also need, every now and then, to take stock of what’s going on around us, and realize we aren’t super human. We aren’t amazing, mythical writing machines. (Be cool if we were, wouldn’t it? )

What I’m saying, is I’m self aware enough, realistic enough, and ok, fallible enough, to know that I am not (at least not this year) capable of holding down a full writing schedule, holding down a full time job, and doing everything I need to do for the holiday season, all at the same time. And it is important to me to have the time to celebrate the holiday season with my friends and family. Doesn’t mean my writing isn’t important to me; it’s more than important to me, it’s precious to me.  But, sometimes it needs to share center stage, instead of hogging the spotlight.

At the same time, I recognize that I don’t want to take a full haitus from my writing. So, instead I’m using the holiday season as my extended planning and plotting period, and doing my best to have myself full prepared to settle down and start writing seriously on the 3rd of January.

And, in some ways, I feel that if I give myself permission to focus on the holiday season with friends and family (and let writing be less strenuous during this time), then on January 3rd I can reverse the roles a bit. Writing can be more of a focus of my time, and other things can drift into the back ground a bit.

In the mean time, I want to send a huge THANK YOU to my great writing friends that I’ve met through my writing blog, who are encouraging me, and offering me help and advice. I’m so glad I’ve met you all!  You guys are all awesome, and I always look forward to reading your blogs, comments, emails, etc.

So no, I am not disappearing off the face of the earth until January 3, 2008.

I’ll still be around in the mean time, reading blogs, leaving comments, and I may post some entries. You never know what might motivate me to babble. But I just thought I should post an update and outline my plans, after 2 weeks of silence.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.

PS: Anyone who, in some small part, might be reading this thinking.. “Oh geez, excuses! excuses! and more excuses! You wait and see… come January she’ll have some other excuse. At this rate, she’ll never finish writing anything other than blog entries.” — Well, that’s ok. I can kind of understand where you might have gotten the notion. You’re totally wrong, but I can understand why you might think it.  And if you want to hang around and find out how wrong you are, please do keep reading this blog, and checking back in, in the new year.  I am going to write, and I am going to finish the things I write. Because I am going to succeed in writing in 2008. 

And on the 8th Day of NaNo My Muse Gave to Me…

… not a damn thing.

Yes, I’m struggling. NO, I am not giving up.

But, I’m realizing a couple important things about myself and my writing, at this point in time. The first one is this: despite my problems during the first Round of the 70 Days of Sweat, where I learned I really need to learn to plot, make notes, etc. etc. if I’m going to stand a prayer of finishing a story, I didn’t learn my lesson. True, dental surgery sucked two and a half weeks out of my life, during which time I should have been doing that planning and plotting. Is this an excuse? Yes, and no. Yes, I couldn’t have done anything during those two and half weeks writing wise. I could barely function to do my real job. But, I should have busted my butt between then and the start of NaNo, and done some plotting and planning.

There’s a paragraph at the end of Chapter 6 in The Complete Idiots Guide to Getting Your Romance Published that reads as follows:

“Connie Bennet is an oft-published contemporary and historical romance writer who has studied plotting extensively. She says writers who don’t plot ahead often write their way into a dead-end. ‘You get an idea that you’re very excited about and you can’t wait to get it on paper,’ says Connie. ‘You get three or four chapters and where did it go? The enthusiasm dies because you don’t know where you’re going. It’s suicide. That’s where the book takes a dive and goes into the drawer and a new idea surfaces that’s much more exciting. And so you start again.” Connie says plotting ahead will increase your chances of finishing your book. ‘If you never get a book done it will never get sold.”

When I was re-reading sections of that book before NaNo started, I read that paragraph, and had a sense of dread. And then I hurried on to other chapters. You know why? Because that paragraph describes me and my writing for the past year. For those of you who don’t know, previous to 2007, I’d taken about a 6 year hiatus from writing. (No need to get into long explanations right now, not when I can just sum it up as “real life got in the way”.) So, this past year I’ve come back to my writing and tried to get serious about it.

But, I think I’m being necessarily stubborn about it in a way. I keep telling myself things like “I never plotted before in the old days, when I was writing all the time, and I finished plenty of stories.” “I never took notes, I just wrote like crazy, in the old days.” Well, that’s true.

But there’s a couple of differences:

1. I wasn’t generally writing novels. I wrote long short stories and novellas. In general, nothing over 30k words, the occasional 40k story. I wrote one novel. It’s much longer. No, I never attempted to publish it, because I saw it for what it was: a learning experience. I no longer even have a soft copy of the files, just a hard copy print out.
2. I wasn’t holding down a full time job back then. I was in high school (not to mention, it was a high school for the arts, where my major was writing, so hey, writing time was even built into my school day). Then I was in college. Yes, I went full time, but even a full time college schedule tends to leave plenty of time outside the class room for the rest of your life. And then, just about the time my writing hiatus kicked in, I was in that “time off” period between college and work. Basically, I had a lot more flexible schedule then, and didn’t have to put in at least 40 hrs a week to a job.
3. I honestly had fewer commitments in my life in general.
4. Even at the best of times, I never wrote much in November and December.

Basically, what I’m getting at this is: this writing by the seat of my pants thing worked great when I had a more flexible schedule, and plenty of time to day dream about writing, and think up ideas, and all that. And when I had hours a day to write.

Well, I don’t have all that luxury now. And I’ve become that cliched writer who doesn’t plot, as described in that paragraph of The Complete Idiots Guide to Getting Your Romance Published. And do you know why I think that is? Because I have to “quality over quantity” writing time now.

What do I mean? I don’t mean that I have only write good stuff, and that I can’t throw out whole days worth of work if it sucks. I’m saying because I have fewer hours each day to write than I did in the old days, when I sit down to write now, I need to actually sit down and write. I need to know, at least in bare bones, what I’m going to write during that day’s scene/writing period. If I don’t know what I need to get written that day, I sit there during my writing period trying to decide what to write. And I don’t actually get much written (that’s what’s happened the past two days).

And I don’t know why I’m resisting this. I know several of my writing buddies do just this: they have an outline and a plan. And they know when they sit down to write roughly what scene or scenes they need to write that day. (I’m not saying they might not deviate, or have surprise scenes pop up and get written, but all of that happens because they’re actually sitting there writing, because they knew what they planned to get written that day.) And it’s working for them. They’re racking up word count as we speak!!

So, what I’m saying is this: I know now, without a doubt, I need to change how I approach writing, if I ever want to finish another novella, much less a novel. I am not giving up. I AM NOT GIVING UP. (Pardon the repetition. I thought it would be good for my flaky muse to have to read that twice, just to make sure she gets the idea.)

As a writing buddy pointed out to me very recently, #1, it’s only 8 days into NaNo. I can still catch up. #2, if I can’t meet the magic 50 k deadline by the end of the month? Well, then, I”ll just keep writing until I do reach the end of the story, at whatever word count that may be. Nano’s a great motivator, but the most important thing is to start FINISHING things again, instead of having yet another story, where I got 4 chapters in and then gave up on it, to go with my growing collection of such failed attempts. (So far, I have 5 of them from the past 12 months. I really don’t want a 6th.)

So, instead of trying to write today, I’m going to try to write notes. I want to write notes about my characters. I want to write notes about my setting. And yeah, I need to plot. I’m going to try to fill in some plotting and character related note sheets that people have suggested to me lately. Things like a Character Chart, and there’s also The Novel Notebook . Basically, there’s some good tools at my disposal. Now I need to use them.

NaNo Day #2

Here I am, on day # 2 of NaNo.

I’ll own up to it: yesterday was a complete bust. I didn’t write a single word. Not the most promising of starts, eh? But I honestly just wasn’t “feeling it” yesterday. Not the writing mood in general, and not this story in particular.

I’m not so sure how today would have gone either, writing wise, had I not checked my emails around dinner time…

See, it was a typical Friday.  Couple last minute deadlines at work, some stupid emails full of stupid-er questions, the usual work hassles. Add to that, when I got off work, I had to go to Wal-mart (on a Friday evening! Oh, the horror!) for well… everything. I hadn’t made a proper grocery/necessity/household stuff trip since dental surgery, three weeks ago tomorrow. I’d been making do with just running to the closer grocery store for a few things.  I imagined I would be exhausted by the time I got home, and spend the evening vegging and maybe reading a little.

In short, I was expecting it to be another wasted day, writing wise.

But then, when I got home from the store, and finished putting away all the junk I bought, I sat down at the computer to check on something I’d ordered. And while I was checking through emails, I found a gentle nudge in the right direction from a friend. So, thanks to Susan for reminding me I need to just sit my butt in the chair and write. See, this is why it’s good to have writing buddies; they’re there to give you a gentle, well aimed kick in the butt when you’re being lazy!

So, I plunked my butt in the chair and wrote. And at the end of my writing session, I’m pretty much caught up. NaNo word count = 3474 / 50,000. That’s pretty much on target. That’s chapter 1 written, and the first few paragraphs of chapter 2 written.

Just 3k words into it, and I’m starting to have a much better grip on my characters. Plot points are still kind of hazy, though.  For a change, this story actually began from the hero’s POV. Usually I start in the heroine’s head. This time, it just felt better to jump into his head first.

In true NaNo spirit, I’m not editing as I go, and I’m not re-reading much. Therefore, I expect major editing after NaNo is over. In fact, I expect at some point it the story to write myself into a corner or something. But it can all be worked out in draft #2, right?

Writing plan for the weekend: write at least 2k by the time I go to bed Sunday night. (Yes, I know that’s a bit below pace, but I’ve already realized my writing schedule works well M - F, and doesn’t work worth a crud on weekends. So, I’m lowering the bar a little as far as weekend writing is concerned.)

NaNo Prep

So, I still am being on actual writing notes and plotting. But I’ve been trying to re-read some of my writing books as a sort of preparation, as well. Last night I read the first few sections of The Complete Idiots Guide to Getting Your Romance Published by Julie Beard.

(I stuck with the parts about the genre, and about writing, and skipped the parts on marketing, submission, editing, etc. etc. I figured lets focus on the writing, and worry about the other really important stuff after I actually have a finished draft.)

First, I will say it is a really good book; well written, easy to understand, a great overview of the romance genre, its subgenres, etc. etc. And it does make some good points about writing (character, motivation, conflict, etc.). But, as the title implies, it’s strong suit is all of the industry & submission info for getting the romance published, and not so much info on writing it.

(Of course, I have other books devoted to that, which I’ve looked at, and I’m hoping to look at some tonight.)

What I found interesting, was just how much the romance genre continues to evolve, change, and grow. This book was published in 2000, and in the past 7 years, things have changed and grown. And it was interesting to see that. There are some really funny & spot on observations about the genre in the book, that hold up 7 years later, though.

Such as the popularity of books about cowboys and ranchers. Oh, and how books with the words “cowboy”, “rancher”, and “baby” and “bride” tend to sell very well. There was even a candid quote from an author (I don’t remember who, and I don’t have the book in front of me to quote), saying she’d noticed this trend, and made sure to put several of those words in novel title. And that novel went to go to be the first she ever got in the Walden Books bestselling list.

I don’t know about you, but after being a devoted romance reader for more than 10 years, I’ve reached the point, I’m pretty much over the cowboy/rancher thing. In fact, most of the time, if the word cowboy or rancher is in the title, I won’t even pick up the book to read the blurb on the back. Sad, I know. And I may be missing out on some good books. But, I just don’t think I can handle one more contemporary romance dealing with cowboys or ranchers.

Perhaps if it was a really different kind of story? I don’t know. I just know that when I first started out reading romance I read a lot of Kensington Precious Gems (you know, I still miss that line! I wish they’d bring it back. There was some really great talent writing for Precious Gems), Harlequin Temptation (another line I wish they’d bring back! Temptation was awesome, and I usually bought every book they put out each month), and a smattering of Harlequin Intrigue and Silhouette Intimate Moments.

And absolutely NO disrespect to any of the great authors writing for, or who wrote for those lines, because it was what was selling in the late 90s and what the publishers wanted, but there was certainly a plethora of cowboys riding and romancing through the romance aisle in the book store.

(Historicals are another story. I’m a bit more open to it there. Admittedly, lately most of the historicals I’ve been reading have been set in England/Scotland. Lately when I’ve wanted historical, I’ve been reaching for Stephanie Laurens, Amanda Quick, Lynn Kurland, or Lynsay Sands novels.)

So, what sub-sub genre of romance novels are you pretty much over? Which are you loving? What’s your favorite?

1 Day till NaNo

So, with one day to NaNo, I felt I had to share this. My sis sent to me a couple years ago as an email attachment, after we’d both had a truly whacko kind of week. And it just fits. Let’s face it, if you want to write, much less you sign up for NaNo, you are slightly insane. So, let’s get it out of the way, embrace it, and go on!

Best of luck to everyone doing NaNo ‘ 07. (Click graphic to see fullsize.)

Quick Update

My apologies for my absence. Having oral surgery will screw with your life. That is what I have learned in the past ten days. I had my little field trip to the oral surgeon Saturday before last, and spent all of last week in a haze of pain, pain killers, and sleep deprivation.  Oh, and had to use a couple vacation days from work, as well, which didn’t please me. But, there was no way I could concentrate enough to work, so what are you doing to do?

Good news is this week is better. I’m still not 100%, but I’m at least sort of functional, and back to work.

Thankfully, this hasn’t done too much damage to my writing schedule, as such. Right now is planning time. I am doing 70 Days of Sweat Round 2, but I’m going to do it to coincide with NaNo, so  until Nov. 1st is planning time.

I haven’t done as much planning as I’d like, so it’s my hope I’ll be in good enough shape by the weekend to do some serious note making.

In the mean time, I do have the story idea boiled down to a few lines, just sort of catch phrases to keep in mind. That much I can share:

“A fallen rock god and the best friend he hasn’t spoken to in two months, after she picked a pretty bad time to declare her love.  He didn’t believe her, and she took it as rejection. She’s always been there to catch him. Now it’s his turn to catch her,  when bad luck costs her a job, and a fire in her apartment building literally had her falling three stories into the fire department’s make shift trampoline.”

PSA - WIP Clip Wednesdays

You may have heard of Friday Snippets? (The fun a meme where bloggers post snippets of their own fiction on Fridays for others to read and critique?) Well, a friend of mine has come up for a spin-off of the Friday Snippets aimed mostly at those of us writing romance (any sort of romance, any of the sub-genres of romance (suspense, historical, paranormal, etc.)).

Susan and her critique partner have come up with WIP Clip Wednesdays. If you’d like to know more, I point you to her post about it: WIP Clip Wednesdays

I won’t have anything to post this week, as I’m in the plotting and planning stages for NaNo and 70 Days Round 2. But, I plan to participate just as soon as I start writing my next project.

NaNo 2007

 

So, yes. I decided to do NaNo again.  Yes, it may make me crazy. But, I think the extra motivation will be a good thing.  Of course, it’ll be a bit nicer when they get the NaNo website functioning correctly. I figure they will by Nov.1.

This gives me 2 weeks to plot, and plan, and get it all straight. Then on Nov. 1 I can start writing like a woman possessed.

70 Days of Sweat Round 2

So, I the details for the Round 2 of the 70 Days of Sweat writing challenge are up over at their website (see icon in sidebar). And once again, I’ve signed up. I really do love that challenge, because it got me writing, and helped keep me motivated.

So what’s my goal for this time around? COMPLETENESS. Yeah, some of you may have noticed, I have a bit of a problem finishing things.

My most important goal for Round 2? To have a 100% complete first draft of a novella, and have started on another after I finish that.

Anyways, the challenge doesn’t officially start till Wednesday, 10/15/07, so I do have a little time for planning and plotting.

I think perhaps I do need to plan and plot a little more. I’ve always had a bit a of a stupid mental blockage about planning and plotting. I always figured if I planned and plotted too much ahead of time, I’d kill all the creativity, the wonder, the surprises, and constrain myself too much. Which is stupid. I reminded myself of this last night, when I was thinking abut the issue. It’s stupid because, I’m the writer. I’m at least partially, mostly, in charge of the story (the characters get a pretty big say in matters, too). That means I can plot and plan, and if, as I’m writing, a better idea comes along or a character deviates from the plan, that’s ok. I can change the plan, as I need to. But having a better plan at the beginning might make finishing things easier.