Welcome to the 2014 A to Z Challenge. My theme for this year is why I shouldn't be participating. Thank you to David for writing the post that got the voices in my head working against me.
Ambition. I hadn't given this challenge any thought since wrapping it up last year until David mentioned it on his blog, which I randomly had a few minutes to read one day. I haven't had much time for keeping up with my favorite blogs lately either.
While the A to Z challenge was fun last year, my current stock of ambition is wrapped up in editing my very first NaNoWriMo novel from 2006. It's a mess and needs a lot of help, but I love the story and I think I might be worth the effort. It's requiring a lot of effort due to the fact that since 2006 it's been resurrected twice for a couple weeks to have more words thrown at it. No really, thrown at it. They don't match in tone or style. And both have twists and subplots that hadn't been set up in the original 50,000 words. This was back before I figured out that I should keep record of the characters involved or a chapter by chapter synopsis in remote effort to keep myself organized. After rewriting a good portion of the story, I finally have a finished draft and am in the midst of a second pass to fill in details and weave in the subplots that were added later.
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Sunday, March 30, 2014
April A to Z Challenge
But like a story idea that won't shut the hell up, the idea of participating in the blogging challenge using the theme of why I'm not participating keeps niggling at me. So yeah, that's what I'm doing. The entries will be short. I totally admit that I'm writing them all ahead of time, because I really am too busy to do this everyday. However, its a challenge, and I have a hard time saying no to those, especially when I've done them before.
So onward we charge into April and twenty-six reasons why I hadn't planned on participating this year.
If you would like to sign up, there are 1800+ blogs out there waiting for you to join them.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Another Short Story Published
Sunset Cruise has been published on the Writing Through Your Divorce Blog. This is a great collection of stories of all sorts from people dealing with all angles of divorce.
Though mine was long ago and relegated to 'things we don't talk about anymore' territory, it was still therapeutic to write this story and share it with others.
May all your relationships be free of shining knights on horseback.
Though mine was long ago and relegated to 'things we don't talk about anymore' territory, it was still therapeutic to write this story and share it with others.
May all your relationships be free of shining knights on horseback.
Monday, March 24, 2014
The Estate of Waiting
I should have chosen "Wait" for my one word resolution or perhaps "Patience". Not only I'm I waiting to hear anything on (some for a very long time) several submissions and a couple accepted shorts to finally be released to the big world, but after wasting over four months with a bank who kept dragging their feet and offering every excuse in the book (which finally pushed us to kick them to the curb), and three productive weeks with another, we finally got our construction loan. The new house is in the works!
An hour after massaging our hands from the strain of signing all the paperwork, we gleefully called our builder to let him know we were ready to roll. That's when we learned that even though it's barely started to thaw around here, the seasonal road weight restrictions had gone into effect. The same damn day. No kidding. The excavator can't get his equipment there. The basement wall people can't get their crane there. We're dead in the water, again, until probably May. Thank you so very much extreme winter. You suck.
In writing news, work on Sahmara's story has being coming along at a good pace. Weaving all the strings tighter is definitely my favorite part of novel writing. Just when I start making progress with my 10k of fleshing out goal, other words need to be deleted. At chapter five, I've managed to add all of 1,000 words. This may take a few passes, or perhaps, one more and then tossing it out for critique. That's usually a good place to get nudges as to where I'm too bare in the bones. At least there's progress somewhere, right?
An hour after massaging our hands from the strain of signing all the paperwork, we gleefully called our builder to let him know we were ready to roll. That's when we learned that even though it's barely started to thaw around here, the seasonal road weight restrictions had gone into effect. The same damn day. No kidding. The excavator can't get his equipment there. The basement wall people can't get their crane there. We're dead in the water, again, until probably May. Thank you so very much extreme winter. You suck.
In writing news, work on Sahmara's story has being coming along at a good pace. Weaving all the strings tighter is definitely my favorite part of novel writing. Just when I start making progress with my 10k of fleshing out goal, other words need to be deleted. At chapter five, I've managed to add all of 1,000 words. This may take a few passes, or perhaps, one more and then tossing it out for critique. That's usually a good place to get nudges as to where I'm too bare in the bones. At least there's progress somewhere, right?
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Popping out of my writing cave for a breath of fresh air
Sorry for blinking in and out of following blogs and returning critiques, but I've finally reached the end of completing the first draft of Sahmara's Sunset. When I get into novel writing mode, which has been rather rare these days, I go into hermit mode in my writing cave.
This particular novel has been a nine year process of rushing through 50K for NaNoWriMo, shelving it to finish Trust (and write several other novels), then returning to during two other NaNos to add more words, and now, finally filling in in the last gaps.
Some of the original bits are just plain horrible. A few even scenes made me laugh out loud. Sadly, they weren't supposed to be funny. Anything in those two categories has been rewritten. A third of the original text fell into the 'wow, I wrote that?' category. That stayed. The newer sections weren't half bad and the newest stuff is too fresh to objectively say one way or the other, but I feel safe in saying it's a good start at being a decent story.
One big issue is that I need a new title. I was so proud of myself for this particular one because I'm not usually (like near never) a title first kind of person. Apparently there's a good reason for that. The story has outgrown its original plot and, now, being more, needs something that fits better. This is going to be hard one to wrap my mind around changing because it's been with me for so long.
I have greatly enjoyed dropping into novel writing mode again, losing myself for hours in weaving another life in another world. It's keeping that momentum going that has been my big issue in the past couple years, which is why I've ventured into writing short stories. We're all about the instant gratification these days, aren't we? There's nothing about a writing, editing or a submitting a novel that's instant. Not that shorts are all that instant either in the submitting arena.
Much better notes were taken this time around as well as a summary outline of each chapter. With that big task out of the way, its time to spend some time with the summary and see what areas need to be expanded. I'd like another 10k to fully round out the story. It feels rushed in some places yet and the beginning needs some weaving work to mesh with the new end. Speaking of the end...
Sahmara's story was the first novel where I proved to myself that I could buckle down and finish a damn novel. Before this one, I'd been reluctant to write those words, scenes or anything resembling a halt to my merry rollick with my beloved characters in their world. But once I did write that ending, something clicked and I discovered that finishing something felt pretty good and wasn't the end of the world I'd invented. Trust finally got an ending shortly after. Finally. And I was able to move on to other novels. Also, finally.
However, the ending I'd originally written for Sahmara no longer fit all the new meat I inserted into the missing middle of the story. So, join me waving goodbye to roughly 8K as it swirls down the drain. Bye bye pretty words. I do like the new ending much better so that takes the sting out of it a little.
This particular novel has been a nine year process of rushing through 50K for NaNoWriMo, shelving it to finish Trust (and write several other novels), then returning to during two other NaNos to add more words, and now, finally filling in in the last gaps.
Some of the original bits are just plain horrible. A few even scenes made me laugh out loud. Sadly, they weren't supposed to be funny. Anything in those two categories has been rewritten. A third of the original text fell into the 'wow, I wrote that?' category. That stayed. The newer sections weren't half bad and the newest stuff is too fresh to objectively say one way or the other, but I feel safe in saying it's a good start at being a decent story.
One big issue is that I need a new title. I was so proud of myself for this particular one because I'm not usually (like near never) a title first kind of person. Apparently there's a good reason for that. The story has outgrown its original plot and, now, being more, needs something that fits better. This is going to be hard one to wrap my mind around changing because it's been with me for so long.
I have greatly enjoyed dropping into novel writing mode again, losing myself for hours in weaving another life in another world. It's keeping that momentum going that has been my big issue in the past couple years, which is why I've ventured into writing short stories. We're all about the instant gratification these days, aren't we? There's nothing about a writing, editing or a submitting a novel that's instant. Not that shorts are all that instant either in the submitting arena.
Much better notes were taken this time around as well as a summary outline of each chapter. With that big task out of the way, its time to spend some time with the summary and see what areas need to be expanded. I'd like another 10k to fully round out the story. It feels rushed in some places yet and the beginning needs some weaving work to mesh with the new end. Speaking of the end...
Sahmara's story was the first novel where I proved to myself that I could buckle down and finish a damn novel. Before this one, I'd been reluctant to write those words, scenes or anything resembling a halt to my merry rollick with my beloved characters in their world. But once I did write that ending, something clicked and I discovered that finishing something felt pretty good and wasn't the end of the world I'd invented. Trust finally got an ending shortly after. Finally. And I was able to move on to other novels. Also, finally.
However, the ending I'd originally written for Sahmara no longer fit all the new meat I inserted into the missing middle of the story. So, join me waving goodbye to roughly 8K as it swirls down the drain. Bye bye pretty words. I do like the new ending much better so that takes the sting out of it a little.
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