My 30-Day 5K Thursday, May 31, 2012

I won’t be doing any running, of course; that’s just madness. I will, however, be writing and editing a lot. The plan here is to spend the next 30days writing and/or editing a minimum of five thousand words every day. This should get me through, in theory, about a chapter every two days, letting me finish with a nearly complete product by mid-month and then another 15 days to clean up things.

This is a bit drastic and a little illogical and I’ve set up things like this in the past quite often and have also failed in these self-challenges just as often, but it’s time to do something.

I feel my life starting to slip into simple mediocrity without anything meaningful to help me feel creative any longer (yes, I’ve stopped watching Downton Abbey for the moment) and I worry that if I keep going like this, if I just stop writing or stop daydreaming about the stories I’d like to write, I’ll turn around, realize I’m 30 and my life still hasn’t started.

On top of this, I’m really going to pay close attention to my spending and concentrate on debt reduction next month, since I make a good enough living to be living better than I do, but I’m wasting all of it on debt increased by the number of times I eat out rather than cook something…which brings me to the third goal for June, which is that if I’m too lazy to pack a lunch for myself the previous night (on top of writing my 5K), then I’ll just have to go hungry.

It’s hard to punish oneself, but I’ve been a very spoiled brat for too long and someone’s got to do it.

I’ll post daily to keep me honest and make me really think about whether I’m going to lie on the sofa in the evening and do nothing since I’ll know I’ll have to answer for it. With my wrist feeling a little bit better, I’m willing to push myself, so even if I’ve got no chance at achieving all three of these goals, at least I’ll get a little momentum going on one front.

Minecraft Abbey Friday, May 25, 2012

Yesterday was the first day in almost three weeks that I did any significant writing. I’ve known for about a month earlier that I would get the writing “bug” again once I returned to my normal job at first-job, but it wasn’t until I actually returned that I saw my own “prophecy” fulfill itself.

I’ve only got excuses for the last week; the rest of this month has been a blur of fatigue. I was on vacation last week and instead of using the time to just plow through and finish this book once and for all, I spent ten days watching the old X-Men cartoon, the old Pirates of Dark Water cartoons, reading X-Men comics and watching and re-watching Downton Abbey. On the latter end of this vacation, I discovered Minecraft which, like The Sims, is the detriment to all things literary. My blame, however, for not writing will be placed mostly on the shoulders of Downton Abbey.

I love the characters of this show and I am really invested in a TV show for the first time since I started watching SVU, almost a decade ago. Given that they only produce 7 or 8 episodes a YEAR, I’ve taken to watching the available episodes often and often while playing Minecraft, either on the iPad or just on the laptop. With such focus, I’ve been oddly left with my literary tastes whet and with no desire to write at all. I even found myself wondering if I should even continue writing anything at all.

Thankfully, I died an aggravating and horrible death in Minecraft and decided to shut off Downton for the time being and this cleared my head long enough to for me to want to write again.

It’s rare for a TV show to satisfy me in a way that previously only the act of writing could, which I think speaks volumes about it, but it troubles me that I could be swayed into giving up my very being over something so simple.

I’m back to writing, thankfully, and I am, in many ways, back where I belong. That said…

I’ve been having flashes of all sorts of nightmarish conditions for myself as I consider what could possible be wrong with my left hand and wrist. Some time last week, in the midst of Minecraft, I noticed some pain in my left pinky finger. The altering numbness and pain spread into my ring finger and now across the back of my hand, making it very difficult to type normally, hence the reason I’ve decided to pen this via iPad, while it would take half the time on the laptop.

I’m not sure if this is carpal tunnel or something worse, but a writer, at least in this day and age, who is unable to type is really quite crippled, isn’t she? I know I have to keep writing no matter what, so for now, I’ll revert back to my old ways when playing soccer and basketball in high school and “play through the pain,” but I can’t help noting that I’m a bit worried.

…all this not withstanding, I know that whatever happens, God will provide.

May the 4th be with you…always Friday, May 4, 2012

It’s been May for four days now (Happy Star Wars Day, btw!) and I’ve started and deleted three different posts for this blog. This week has been the proverbial rollercoaster in terms of my writing moods and indecisiveness definitely clouded all of them.

Twice this week, I’ve come close to just giving up on the novel…if you can imagine that. It’s like running all but the last five steps of a marathon and the lying down to take a nap in the middle of street just in front of the finish line.

Fears of inadequacy have been plaguing me; What if this doesn’t make sense? What if no one finds this interesting? Is this interesting? What if I ruin the whole concept? What if I’m no good at writing? What if I can’t follow through on any of these ideas? What am I going to do with my life? What’s the purpose of this life? Have I really just wasted the last 4 years of my life with this? Am I pushing for nothing? Can I even sell a book like this? What if people hate me for it? What if people try to emulate what they read in it? What happens if nothing comes of it at all? What if I’ll never figure out how to make these last chapters work properly?

…this has been my week. Needless to say, it’s not been a very productive writing week as it’s difficult to create when all these questions and doubts are running through your mind at full speed.

I am better today though. Despite the upheavals at first-job, I am better and regardless of my fears, I will still write on this May the 4th. I’m beginning to think that all writers (would-be, aspiring or successful) go through these same thoughts…I just wish there was a list somewhere of how to counter all of this.

I know the bible says that worry is a sin itself, but it’s such an easy one and whether it’s just devil whispering in my ear or these troubles are unfounded, I still worry about my future.

The fine line Wednesday, April 18, 2012

It occurred to me yesterday that I’m finally beginning to understand that fine line that exists between showing my audience what I mean and telling them what I mean.

I previously thought I learned my show vs. tell lesson after writing Flight, where too much tell resulted in an incomplete character, or rather a disconnect between what was supposed to be a favored character and my audience. As I push through this edit of Damen, however, I see that I have many, many lessons yet to learn in my writing endeavours.

Where Flight told too much, Damen has overcompensated by showing far too much and telling far too little. As I re-read, I find that I can map out the character Damen’s every movement between August 2007 and May 2008. It’s unbelievable!

I’m sure that when I was writing most of this last year, all this detail seemed relevant, but in hindsight, the details just make me want to pull out my hair. That’s not to say that it isn’t interesting to see every facet of a character’s life; it’s the fact that I spent nearly 300K words doing it and now have to rewrite entire chapters as I concede to a word count that’s aggravating.

…thus ends my rant of having to re-write the entirety of Chapter 14 due to my own hubris…

I’m down to 240K words and am finally into the meat of the novel. With that, however, comes to realization that I’ve a lot of re-writing coming to me. The first part of the novel was finely polished and led to my overall goal, but into Chapter 15-16 and beyond, I’m starting to see where I floundered a lot last year, hence the 15K chapters.

I think I may just sit down and just read for the rest of this week, focusing on whether what’s on the page is relevant and have a rough idea of how I’d like to reorder the remainder of the book. Unfortunately, with more than 20 chapters left to edit in this manner, this means that I’ll have to back my final draft goal to May 31 and the agent search to July, but I’d rather have all the proverbial ducks in a row and know I did this right, than rush it and face rejection when I didn’t do my best.

A chapter a day, makes the book…yeah Sunday, April 15, 2012

I’m currently on Chapter 14 of 40 and I’m down about 44K words, which brings me to a current word count of 243K words. Still quite a behemoth, but it’s getting manageable. If I stay at a rate of about 40K words deleted per 12-13 chapters, I should be able to hit my ideal word count. The problem, however, is tackling that length.

I’ve fallen into this routine of measuring the word count first (10K for Chapter 14) and then reading through the chapter figure out where I was going with it. Sometimes, I’m lucky and I can even recall saying to myself, “I’ll have to cut this on the next draft.” as I was creating the original prose or dialogue, but sometimes this involves almost re-writing an entire chapter. Chapter 14, at first glance, looks like one of those luckier chapters since I know I’ve got loads I can just strikethrough and keep trucking, but it’s tying together the relevant pieces that will require a general re-write that is so infuriating.

Some days, it’s like I take two steps forward and three steps backwards.

I keep praying and asking God if any of this is at all relevant and at all a part of His plan. I don’t get the booming voice from above saying, “Yes, Dorienne. Stay the course.” so there’s that part of me that’s unsure whether some of this frustration is coming from some nagging voice telling me there’s something better I should be doing or if an “I quit” attitude is just so much easier than pushing and pushing.

I suppose the real frustration comes from knowing that I’m not quite sure what else I could do outside of write. When I look back on my childhood and adolescence, all I remember is storytelling. Verbal stories I would tell myself as a very young child and then putting those stories to paper as I reached the latter end of elementary school. From there, I started to write novels and even finished two of them before my eighteenth birthday. Writing is all I know. It’s who I am and to be so close to just touching my goal, only to sit and wonder what else I can do with my life if I fail is a little discouraging.

I haven’t any snippets of inspiration for myself today’s post. The sermon at church today was all about how frightening and hot hell is and while fear can motivate, it does little to inspire.

Maybe I just need to get some sleep…

Ongoing Thursday, April 12, 2012

This process has seen both good news and bad news.
The bad news is that I’ve seen myself ready to give up on this book at least twice in the last few weeks because of all this cutting. As annoyed as I am, I’ve got no one to blame but myself. I’m the one who rambled on about scenes longer than King or Tolkien and it’s my fault that I’ve got so much to cut.

The good news, however, is that my short term memory is just about shot. I’ve found that if I delete a large section, just start the re-write and take a quick break to do something else for a minute, when I come back to the novel, I’ve completely forgot what I’d just deleted and can just pick up from wherever I’d stopped. I have little attachment to whatever I’d deleted and I’ve been able to speed up this process a bit. Where it took me three days to edit just one chapter, I’m almost up to 2 chapter edits a day; it’s not great considering I’ve another 30 to go, but all progress is progress.

This last chapter I’ve finished ended at just over 6200 words, which is more bad news, but I’ve clipped more 40K words from the novel in 11 chapters, which is more good news.

Life in general seems intent on interrupting me from my writing; boy trouble; first-job stress; family issues. It never ends. Thank God I’ve got God to keep me upright and pushing until I reach the end.

Last week, I sang in the choir for the first time in a while and we sang a song who’s lyrics have been repeating this whole week. I’d add them here but I’ve already Tweeted them. The main thing is that even through this trying, trying time, I’m still okay.

I’m not sure if I’ll make my 4/30 deadline for completing this draft, but as I said numerous times last year, on I trek.

The most heartbreaking process of all Monday, March 26, 2012

I can’t help comparing Damen and Flight, especially when the drafting process is so very different.

With Flight, the goal was to provide as much detail as possible and allow my readers to stay in the Dorienne-version of SVU as long as I could. There were no word count limits; I just needed to tell my story.

Damen has been so tryingly different. Here, I must take word count into consideration with every paragraph, to the point that I must almost re-write chapters to remove some of the detail that, while very pretty and beneficial to painting the scene, does nothing but push my total word count above 120K before I want to be.

A few years ago, I remember writing Chapter 3 of Damen and even then, I thought it was a little too long, but in re-reading it, the detail is so splendid. I see these characters and the setting as vividly as I did when first writing it…but, I have to lose all of it. It all has to go if I’m going to push this thing under 120K. And, 120K is the highest end for first-time authors! I may even have to cut it even further.

I took out some detail this evening that was just plain heartbreaking. When I think of all the time I put into choosing the right words, it all comes down to summarizing the text with “English class, taught by Mrs. Kayler, bored him within ten minutes of the roll call.”

The only good thing I can think about this process is that it’s teaching me to be concise and the true lessons of show versus tell. What good are all these details about what the cafeteria looks like and the nuances of some of Damen’s teachers if we won’t visit any of these teachers later in the novel and it won’t make a difference whether my audience sees my version of the lunchroom versus their own idea of it?

These are some hard lessons to learn.

I’d taken a week off writing notes for Reruns, playing Rock Band and the Sims and even reading other folks’ work for a change as a mini-vacation to make me as fresh as possible for this process, but I’m not sure that was even enough. The only reason I push as hard as I do is that now that I’ve got the novel actually complete, the only thing holding me back from sending this to agents and achieving my dream is how hard I work to pull the book into it’s proper shape.

As dreadful as this process is – tearing apart my baby of carefully chosen words – I know this is necessary and, overall, it’s making me a better writer. All this notwithstanding, I can’t WAIT until I’ve got time to write fanfiction again, where I can be as verbose and detailed as I want to be.

Perhaps fanfiction will be my detailing outlet. Where my creativity is stifled by word counts and the shorter attention spans of the majority of the reading populace, I will find solace in writing what and how I want in fanfiction.

‘Til then…I’m cutting so much my hands are bleeding…

Woot! Finished!!!! Sunday, March 18, 2012

It’s rare that I get to have a post that includes FOUR exclamation points, but I thought this post was worthy of it.

I FINISHED!!! The first full draft of Damen is finally done.

I don’t think I can actually count how many years it’s taken me to get to this point…but I’ll try.

The idea came to me with one of my normal “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” thoughts in the middle of my 16th century Brit Lit class and that was towards the end of 2007. Some of the earliest notes I can find for Damen are tagged as last edited in mid-2008 when I decided to pace myself on the novel because I wanted to see whether or not Barack Obama would get elected. If I look back to my first post about writing at this blog in May 2009, I mention trying to understand some nuances between Damen and Jessie, which would have been still very early in the novel (maybe even the third chapter out of 40) and when I was still doing the heavy notes for the novel…So, I suppose that puts me at a little more than 3 YEARS writing this thing.

I’ll note that I’m not as overjoyed as I should be given that, at 287,984 words, I’ve got some definite trimming ahead of me and I’m also rather tired, but I’d like to take a moment and look back to the first time I finished a novel five years ago. I think I’m in that same place.

Today, March 18, 2012 at 11:24PM ET, I finished my first “publishable” novel. I’ll also note that between Flight, Evan and Alex, this is actually my fourth overall novel, but to have some thing in my virtual hands that I could actually send to an agent/publisher is an achievement I knew I would get, but had never considered the moment until now. In fact, it made me tear up, just a little.

And so, on I trek! With almost 200K to cut before I can start sending this to anyone, I’ve got my work cut out for me, but I’ll posts will be still be forthcoming since I’ve never had to edit my own work before, so this will be the start of a brand new adventure!

Just another couple days Saturday, March 17, 2012

I had wanted to finish Damen today. I’ve been writing since 11am ET and I’m just exhausted. I’m starting to feel that strange ache in my stomach that at first feels like hunger, but then I realized it’s really just plain exhaustion. The spirit is willing, very willing, but the flesh so weak!

I find myself often asking God why I’ve been cursed with this body that just always need to be fed and if it doesn’t get enough rest, it just doesn’t function. I almost never get the answer I want.

So, either tomorrow or Monday this novel should be done. I have less than 3400 words of notes to fully write and I may even just push through the remainder of this chapter leaving me with two nearly completed chapters left in the whole book!

I’m so excited, but it’s difficult to express it since I’m just so darn tired, but after years and years of writing…it’s just a couple more days.

I HAVE been writing Friday, March 9, 2012

I know it does not look like it from the lack of posts, but really a lack of posting at this stage in the book simply means that I’ve spent more of my time focused on writing.

I’ve got maybe ten chapters left of this thing. I had only nine, but then I split one chapter into two and I’m certain I’m bound to do the same before the end, but I’m just so close.

The notes for the doc damen29-end (as in Damen chapter 29 through the end) was less than 14K words when I first started it. That 14K worth of notes is littered with mostly complete dialogue and prose so I know I’m close…so very close.

I’ve got Jill and Reruns popping up in my dreams now and my thoughts come back to them and even Luka or Evan or even Annie more often than focusing on Damen. Just yesterday, I “saw” Jill and how she interacted with her friends and realized that I would be making her far more like myself than I had done with Brit…but this is just the flow of my mind; a mind so anxious to move onto other projects that it makes me want to cry that I’m just so close to finishing Damen.

When I was young, I used to get mad when a TV show I liked ended or changed drastically because one of the actors got bored and left the show. I never used to understand it. How could they do that? Didn’t they care about the overall story? What about the people who’ve watched this since Day 1? Lately, however, I get it. There comes a point in a project, any project, where you’re just so…over it.

I love Damen. I’ve loved creating these characters and imagining this world where they interact together, but I’m soooo ready to move on because I’m just so close to the end. So close…