Before I begin my Arrested Development marathon… Monday, May 27, 2013

My goal this month was to post about what I’d written every day, but obviously, that didn’t work well. I made some strides this week and a little the week previous, but I’ve still got another 20 chapters to review. That said, the month’s not over and I’m off of first-job for the next few days, so there’s still a chance that I could get damen12i done before the start of June.

Either way, I’m terribly stressed about the when, but just moving forward so that I don’t end up wondering “what if.”

I’ve been doing some research into the literary world again; I’m not sure why I do as all it does is discourage rather than encourage me. This time, it was all about how ebooks are making life difficult for new writers, blah, blah, blah. For the first time in ten years, I’m content with first-job and, while it’s not what I want to do for the rest of my life, if writing allowed me only to supplement my income rather than become my entire income, I think I could be happy with that…for the present time.

I think it’s also worth mentioning that yesterday marked the second week in a row that I’d attended church, a feat not accomplished since around February or so. It was good to be in the house of the Lord. Despite the nagging questions and uncertainty that plague me from time to time about life and religion, I know I belong in the church.

I’ll try to pick up my post-a-day efforts again in June. Hopefully, by then, I’ll have brand new topics to discuss!

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“There’s always money in the banana stand.” Friday, May 17, 2013

I’m completely out of post titles, so I’ll be using Arrested Development quotes from now until the show comes back on Netflix, or until the end of the month, or until I run out of those, too.

I read through about 3 chapters today and I actually edited a lot more than I thought I was going to at this stage. All the better, I suppose. Maybe I’ll hit 120k after all.

I’ve not a lot to say today, but I think I’ll make some notes on Reruns this weekend since I’ve not looked at it in a long while and I think I really will like to begin posting those stories the same day I first contact an agent about the book. Given that I’m quickly reaching that point, I figure it’s prudent to have something worthwhile the post.

Tomorrow, I’m going to aim for the lofty goal of about 4-6 chapters to read and then keep that up until I’ve gone through the novel again. At this rate, there’s a chance, however small, that I can get something truly accomplished before the end of the month.

Cheers to me, so and so forth…

14 Months and 5 Edits Later Thursday, May 16, 2013

So, I attempted to post something yesterday, but I hate just posting for the sake of posting. The good thing is that I’ve actually got something worth capturing today.

I finished a “final edit” of Damen, meaning that outside of anything that irks me as mind-blowingly wrong when I read through this twice more to catch missing words, grammar issues, etc. this book is as done as it can get.

The current word count is just shy of 122k at 121,944. I highly doubt I’ll find 2000 extra words somewhere in the text to excise, so that’s probably the best that I can do. The rest of this month will surround reading the whole book twice, or even thrice more.

I do something a little odd with regard to my paragraph indentations as I write. For some reason, my brain doesn’t switch into “write” mode unless I’ve got the first line of a paragraph flush with the margin and the remaining lines indented as below shown.

I’m not entirely sure why I can’t really tell my brain to write, not read without the proper indentations, but it is what it is.

So, I’ll need to read through the book at least once with its current indentation and once with the indented paragraphs of a normal book. If I’m feeling really good about it, perhaps, I’ll Kindle-ize it (yep, that’s a word now) and read it as if it really is a normal book before I begin the agent search.

As strange as it might sound, this point in the process is feeling a little anti-climatic. I don’t know if I was expecting resounding horns and bells or something, but I think all the overabundant joy I had March 18, 2012 melted away once I realized that since no first time author gets published at 290k words, I had a good year’s worth of work ahead of me.

Maybe at this juncture, I’m sensing another year’s worth of agent searching and a lot of disappointment/rejection as I work towards my dream.

I suppose it could be worse. I could have given up on all my writing dreams and settled on “good enough,” but…This is my one and only life (as far as I know) and the last thing I want is to always wonder “What if…” What if I had kept writing? What if I had kept pushing towards my dream?

I don’t want to become the next Rowling or another King at this point. I just want to be a simply published author who can do what she loves.

And so, as I’ve got another two read-throughs of this book to do before I finally start Part 4 of this journey, I suppose I’d better get started. Onward and upward!

The Remaining 2K Sunday, May 12, 2013

Before I go onto my writing, I’m going to lament about church.

I work nights and despite quite literally asking God for every facet of this current first-job, I can’t help noticing that it gives me almost everything I want, except the ability to attend church at my leisure.

Because I’m too lazy to look up the exact day in my blog.doriennesmith.com blog, I just use Mother’s Day as a general anniversary to really becoming a Christian and today, more or less, would be seven years in the church. There’s a part of me that wholly desires to go, but there are bigger, more sonorous parts of me that can’t be bothered out of fatigue, general laziness, and a fear of over-emoting myself.

The entire way home from work this morning, I wondered what would I do. I want to go to church because I need to go to church, but I don’t want to sing in the choir today and, as selfish as it may sound, I can’t deal with all the pain that comes with this day. There are so many people, especially in church, who when they hurt, I hurt and with so many people and so many lost mothers, the pain is almost agonizing. Just thinking about it starts to bring tears to my eyes. It’s difficult enough at Christmas or any other holiday, but for some reason, Mother’s Day seems to hurt worst of all.

Maybe it’s because I miss my own mother who’s just a few states away. Maybe it’s because with two grandmothers and a my own mother and a godmother and my godmother’s mother all alive and well, I can’t help morosely preparing for the ultimate pain and sorrow that this day will eventually bring for me. I’m not sure how to describe this. I should be happy and sending cards and making calls to all my loved ones, but instead just thinking about the pain of those who can’t share in my happiness brings tears. All of this from a Hallmark holiday.

I think the bulk of my ultimate rationale for not really wanting to attend church today is that I hate crying in church. It’s a baptist church and people do it all the time, but I still never want to do it. Despite only now just drying my own eyes, I still feel that tears should only occur when someone has died or if a limb has been chopped off and if it must be done, it should be done in private. To put it as succinctly as possible as I can at this point, I hate crying in church and, on a day like today, I don’t trust myself to keep it together.

In other news, I got a good deal of work done today and my current word count is 122,008. I’m going to hold off with editing these final two chapters of the book for a couple reasons. The first is that they are the saddest things I’ve ever written and even though I’ve known how this was going to end from the time I conceived the first two principle characters, I still sob uncontrollably while I re-re-read this. Given the aforementioned tears I’ve already endured this morning, I know re-reading these chapters won’t be good for my health. The second is that I’ve long thought I shouldn’t work on a Sunday if I hadn’t gone to church and, as I live my life as if my second job will eventually become my first and only job, I just can’t purposefully skip church and then turn around and spend the day writing. God gave me these gifts and, if I can’t drag my behind in to go praise Him for who He is, I don’t get to use His most special gifts, either…

One hundred twenty-two, nine hundred Saturday, May 11, 2013

I’ve got 3 chapters left to review in this edit of Damen and the current word count stands at 122,955. It’s a far cry away from the first draft’s 289,000, no?

I doubt I can excise another 3k words out of this book on my own, so after this edit is finished, I’ll review the book twice more for missing words, grammar issues, etc. and then away it goes.

I thought that I would begin my Reruns project the day I sent off the book, but honestly, I think I need to take a writing sabbatical. As writing is something I am rather than something I do, I doubt the sabbatical will last more than a week or two, but I want to take a breath and give my brain and my hands a long needed rest before I jump onto another project or six. I took about 2-3 months following Flight, but that was both the end of a 455k-word novel and graduating from my university, so that was more of a rest and get my life back together hiatus than a true writing rest.

Damen has been at the forefront of my mind for more than 4 years and I’m lost past ready to focus on other characters and other plot lines before I get too old to create them.

If I can just maintain focus instead of jumping from activity to activity like I’ve got ADHD, I may even finish this edit by Monday. How about that! 🙂

Sooooo…tired Friday, May 10, 2013

Well, as I’m entirely off schedule this month, I think it’s relevant to post the tiny bit of progress I’ve made with the novel this week. When I mean tiny, I absolutely mean tiny.

I’m still on the last little part that remains before I have my 12 edit of a Damen file and all I can say is that the ugly teeth of porcrastination have not just bitten me, but dragged me all the way to bottom of the Lake of Failure.

There’s hope, however, as I play to get a full “night’s” sleep so that I can get some decent writing done later, but as I’m typing this mostly with my eyes closed as the effects of the Zquil I’ve taken are forcing me to close my eyes.

So…onward and upwardzzzz….

Quite literally, almost there Monday, May 6, 2013

No pun intended on the “literally” either…

So, I’d forgot to post yesterday. Meh, Sundays are hard on night shift-working church goers. I’m just happy I went after a two-week absence. I always feel better when I go to church, so I’m not sure why I sometimes let my desire to sleep overcome the need for church, but that’s for another post.

About a week or so ago, I’d sat down and tried to understand all the remaining parts I left to cut/rewrite and came up with just 3 “parts.” Over the weekend, however, I finished the last of these parts, but in re-reading the 4th and 3rd to the last chapters of the book, I saw that a mass re-write and some unfortunately painful cuts are in need. Not so much for word count as I’m down to around 123K, but just because I no longer see it as necessary. It’ll be painful to make these cuts, but as I’ve compromised on several others throughout this problem (e.g., Dana Barrington), this round of cuts and edits doesn’t feel quite as agonizing as others.

After, I’ve done these 4th and 3rd to the last chapters, I’ll finally be able to tackle the 2nd to the last and the last chapters, which because they make even me cry hard, I’ve left virtually untouched since they were in note form. These should be done in another day or two and once that’s done, I move onto the edit file I’ll call dameni (or perhaps I’ll skip to damenk) which will be my last read-through before I fix all the margins, read it again, turn it into a Kindle book and read again as a Kindle book, before I begin the quest of finding an agent.

It sounds like a lot of “3rd to the lasts” and the file before the last file before the last file, but this is, indeed, the process. It’s long and arduous and generally unpleasant when compared with the fun of using my imagination and crafting a plot, but if this is what I plan to do with my life, it’s got to be done. It’s a lot like first-job. No one wants to spend a year or talk on the phone talking to customers and no one wants to work 60-hour weeks as a manager to work a dozen projects, but these horrible tasks are necessary in order to the get the long-term perks.

I suppose I’m finally growing up to the point where instant gratification, no longer gratifies me and, hence, I’m able to remain patient throughout all of this.

May the Fourth Be with You, Always Saturday, May 4, 2013

Happy Star Wars Day!

Or Cinco de Mayo Eve, if that suits you better…

I got very little accomplished yesterday. I’d say that I’d needed a break, but given that I’ve been “breaking” for most of the year, I won’t give myself much credit.

I think I may have got about 4 lines done in my Chapter Details and made a tiny change to the actual text yesterday. Not a huge accomplishment, but as I’ve been saying here for years: Some is better than none at all.

I’m not sure if I’ll get much done since Sundays are usually difficult between church and working this night shift, but hopefully, I’ll have more to say tomorrow than half-garbled, half-asleep posts via Siri.

Onward and upward, and May the Fourth be with you!

Day 3 of May’s Madness Friday, May 3, 2013

Writing-wise, today was not as productive as yesterday, but I did make some progress, which is always better than none.

I still have that same last bit to do, but today, I’ll be able to focus on that part and see if I can get that finished. Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to get the whole thing done by the end of my weekend…

As I am once again writing this from near sleep, using Siri as a guide, and since yesterday’s post probably had very little coherence, I’ll end things right now. Cheers to me for tomorrow and the rest of my weekend!

The Rocky Road of Productivity Thursday, May 2, 2013

I’m posting this via iPhone/Siri from my bed because I don’t want to miss my first day of posting, but it really is bedtime for me.

Yesterday, I made a short list of parts of the novel to fix and I actually got them fixed today. The last two months have been spent making a list of chapter details for each chapter, so that I could have a master list available at a moments notice and be able to figure out what could easily get cut and where the novel was going wrong (I love that Siri actually adds commas when you add ask it to). This daunting process has annoyed me endlessly, but I’ve finally got to a point where it’s actually becoming useful.

Using my chapter details, I’ve been able to make the quick list that I used yesterday, hence the productivity.

Tonight’s goal will simply be to finalize the last two chapters before I reach the final two chapters of the boo, if that makes sense.

I’ve hardly made changes to the very last two chapters of the book this entire time, so that’ll be an adventure in itself in the coming week. These last two chapters before those final chapters, however, are going to be what I will consider the end of the part called Damen H. Damen I should be my final edit before I have a true first draft and then…finally! I’ll have something to send to agents. 🙂

On to tomorrow…

The Final Five Thousand Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Admittedly, not as cool-sounding as The Last Ten Thousand (which would be an awesome title for that James of Avradel thingy I never finished…), but I suppose it is apt.

I’d wanted to post something yesterday so as not to go an entire month without posting my progress, but I dislike posting just for the sake of it, especially when I’ve nothing particularly relevant to say and, until early this morning, I’d not done anything particularly relevant to this blog.

I’d wanted to have the book finished and shipped before April 1st, but my interest waned as I came upon three points of the novel that just weren’t going anywhere. Everything before and after them were fine, but these three parts were keeping me from having something worthwhile to present and, so, rather than force it until they worked, I did everything but write. I bought a new laptop which increased my FPS on Minecraft from around 7-10 fps to averaging around 121fps and I was able to give the old laptop to my cousin. I played around on the Internet a lot and spent countless housrs playing The Simpsons: Tapped Out (seriously, I’m too into this game; I’m kaitco there as well). I generally passed the days as if my twenties would last forever and just reveled in the idea of not having anything to do. All idle time must, however, come to an end.

As I find myself most productive when I remain accountable and since this is the beginning of a new month, now is as good a time as any to start another 30-day push with the novel. Current word count is around 125,800 which puts me very close to my goal, though, it’s quite likely, I’ll just send it when it’s done since I’m just sick of thinking about word count.

I’ve been saying this for the last 14 months: I’m so close. I’m not going to “plan” on sending anything on June 1st or June 15th or even July 1st. I’ll just send it when it’s done. The goal here, however, is to just keep Damen at the forefront of my mind so I don’t face another September and another birthday still working on this bleeping novel.

I’ll do my best to post my progress daily, if only to have a log for the final days in writing Damen. Cheers to me!