Reading and Echoes

Ever have the feeling your email must not be working because there's nothing in the inbox? So you check it. Frequently. Because darn it, something should be in the inbox.

That's my inbox the past month and half. I'm usually a pretty patient person when it comes to the submission waiting game. I really am. But I've got four projects floating out there at the moment and they've all been out from one to six months. Usually there's at least one project that bounces back with a quick form rejection to prove that my inbox is indeed operational. Not that I'm begging for a quick form rejection, that just how the submission game usually works.

Now that I've broken down and complained about it, the rejections will come flying in. That's also how it usually works.

Deep cleansing breath.

While I'm waiting, I've been busy writing. Swan Queen, which I've been searching for a new title for now that I've adjusted what I'd originally set out to do with the theme, is creeping along. Chapter three is now done.

I've also been busy reading. However, not much from my TBR pile. That pile has been there long while as have two books I'm in the middle of that I just can't seem to finish reading. Nothing is lighting my fire at the moment. Meh. Even a trip to the bookstore didn't reveal a book that I knew I could dive into and love. Tis a sad state of anxious emotional affairs I've worked myself into.

Instead of reading from my pile, I did critique a full novel last month. My month of reading accomplishments isn't totally lacking. I also had the driving urge to read Trust and Chain of Gray. Not for editing, but for enjoyment, though I did fix a few lurking ninja typos. Sneaky bastards.

Now it's time to get back to chapter four and, yes, waiting.

Getting Crafty: Recycled Dictionary Page Coasters

In another fit of craftiness, I cut into my old dictionary for writing related words. There are an awful lot of them in you get specific about it.

By the time I had gotten sick of finding words and their definitions, I had quite a pile. In fact, I ended up making four sets of coasters and still had a pile left over. I suppose that means there is another project in the wings.

All the stuff you need.

To make a set of coasters, here's what you'd need:

Ceramic tiles
Mod Podge
A brush
Words
Tissue Paper

1. Cut a square of tissue paper to fit the top of your tile and apply a layer of Mod Podge.



Mod Podge Tissue Paper to the tile

2. Once the paper is affixed to the tile, find the words you want to use. I went several different ways with this. On one set, I burned the edges of words that had long definitions. On others, I used stripes of words and made more of a collage.

3. Mod Podge the words on top of the tissue paper.

4. Let the tile dry.

5. Apply a top layer of Mod Podge.



Mod Podge your words onto the tile.

6. Cut a square of felt or cork. I used felt because it seems some mice got into my shed. (Where I'd last used the cork to make a new washer for my rustic water pump. Some ants had eaten the old one. Stupid ants.) The mice ate my cork. Stupid mice. Shredded cork doesn't work very good for this so, yes, I opted for felt. Felt is also much cheaper by the way.

7. Using Tacky Glue, affix the felt t o the bottom of your coaster.

8. Sit back, have a tall, sweaty drink and enjoy your craftiness.

Some of my finished tile coasters.

Rewriting: To write again

So I've launched into a major rewrite of an old project. I'm not talking a little revising here either. Now that I've seriously been at this writing thing for a while, it's interesting to see how far my stories have come. For instance, the novel I wrote back in 2007 that I thought I loved.

Don't get me wrong, I still love the idea and the fact that it was my first attempt at writing a novel through multiple POVs. I rather like all my characters. But the level of telling and the whimpery female MC... Gah. It makes me cringe.

And so, the rewriting process, or mine anyway, goes a little something like this:

Open document.
Consider reading entire story from 2007.
Decide re-reading story will taint new ideas because I remember what the main issues where that made me shelf the thing in the first place.
Paste entire story into a new document.
Close the original and back it up for safe keeping.
Adjust new document to novel format to make eyes and brain happy.
Shuffle original words to halfway down the page.
Read the half page of words.
Scroll back up and start writing from scratch.
Once the gist of the original text is rewritten, delete old text and queue up the next half page
Write more.
Delete more.
Delete entire crappy paragraphs without rewriting them.
Enjoy ah ha moments where I can pull the story threads tighter.
Enjoy making characters much deeper.
Delete more old words.
Rub hands together evily.
Write more.

Yes, my method introduces new typos. Oh well. The retyping of all old words allows me to make better word choices, sentence structure changes and maintain the current voice of each POV character as I round them out much better than before. Allowing myself to keep old sections makes the voice and telling inconsistant with all the progress I'm trying to make.

I hope all this effort will be worth it. I'm already loving how the story is coming together and can see fixes to some of the plot problems that bogged it down before. The percolator has been mulling this one over for a long time.

Chapter three is halfway finished and I'm gleefully writing the twisted mind of Kenric. Not that he's totally twisted, he just sees the situation a little differently than the other characters.

Now, please excuse me as I go milk the giant cow and get back to writing...err...rewriting.

The percolator strikes again

There are times when we need to step back from our novels to give them time to lose their shiny luster of newly written awesome so we then see them more objectively and fix them. Sometimes that means weeks or months or years.

After completing a novel critique last week and pondering my overall plot comments, something clicked in my percolator and *poof* I knew how to fix one of my old novels. I love when this happens. I wish it would happen more often. I'd have a lot more done writing-wise. But it would seem my percolator can only do so much, so often.

I brushed the virtual dust off my 2007 NaNo novel yesterday. New notes were created as I reacquainted myself with the characters and their plotlines. A new chapter one is in progress.

While the novel went over well with crit buddies, I'd worked myself into a pantser corner around chapter 22. The princess needed to marry someone. Her aunt was roaming the countryside building up support for the princess. Her uncle (from the other side of the family) was gleefully sitting on her throne and putting the final touches on the wedding of his faux son to the faux princess. The man the real princess needed to lead her army was stuck in a distant country. Any of the men she could marry to gain hold of additional forces sucked.

The pieces were all there. And there they sat. Staring at me. Glaring. Waiting impatiently for me to make the story work.

Funny how writing notes on how to better pull the plot together for someone else, triggered an epiphany for my old novel, but hey, I'm not going to ponder this miracle too deeply. I need that thought power to fix this story.

There's the obvious character modification, then some plot holes to patch up and about 15,000 words to add to bring the story to it's conclusion. Let's just hope I can get this done before April, when I hope to launch myself into a new project that hit me the other day.

Guess that means I better get writing.

Bucket List Progress

Greetings from the frozen northlands of Michigan.

I'm happy to be able to cross off a little of my writing Bucket List already. Funny how actually typing and posting a to do list can light a fire under your behind.

Short #1 has been revised, sent through a round of critiques, edited, and sent off into submissions as of this morning. That feels good!

A synopsis for A Broken Race as been created and is now resting for a few days to see if it still works once the relief of getting through that task has passed.

Not on my list, but something I'd always been going to do: I finally hung my novel wordles in my tiny writing area. If you have not played with wordles before, beware, they are procrastination friendly.

Every time I finish (that's a relative term) the rough draft of a novel, I create a word cloud from it. In some ways this is a visual reward by seeing my words artfully displayed. More useful, though not as much fun, is the visual of which words I'm overusing.

Creating a wordle for the two novels I consider really finished, and comparing them to the old ones was also gratifying. Words like looked, smiled, glared, etc are all much smaller or not used enough to even be on the cloud anymore. Gotta love progress.