The Ides of March

It's been two weeks since I last wrote. A lot has happened.

As you know from the last post, we bought a house. Last week we finalized the purchase after the home inspection (which was nerve wracking).

The other thing is work (day job) related. Alberta held a general election which resulted in a cabinet shuffle and a new break down of the ministries. Boring stuff to you outside folk, right? Well to us who have to work inside, it's cause for confusion. The end result being that my unit is being moved to another ministry. Joyful Stress!

So why the blog post title? Well the Ides of March is the Roman term for the 15th of March (or thereabouts since it was according to the Roman calendar). The house purchase was finalized on the 13th, the confirmation of our ministry move was on March14th, and...

Word Count:

Saturday (March 15) - 1,496 words on Ice Debt (in 2 1/2 hours)

Ice Debt is coming along really good. I'm really enjoying not having to follow a previously developed plot line. It's taking longer than I thought it would, if only because I'm not writing as much as I should, but I like what's coming together. I broke the 10,000 word barrier, which means a lot for someone who has a hard time getting past chapter 2 or 3 (I'm on chapter 4).

All in all, the Ides of March or the middle of March has been good to me. It's thrown a lot of changes my way, but they say that this time of year is good for that.

Maybe I should aim for next years Ides of March to try and get my novel published. It's always worth a shot, right?

I hope the winter months haven't been too hard on you, but you can be glad they're over. Tomorrow is the first day of Spring.

Tina

Week Three

You're wondering what happened to week two, right?

Well, My friend Rox calls everything before week two PPC: Pre-Pincher-Creek.

D has been looking at getting into a new trade, wind turbine technician. This would take him to southern Alberta, most likely to Pincher Creek. This of course sent my head into nowhere land, because I deal with change so well (that's sarcasm).

Anyway, since September 19th until now, I've written just under 1000 words. Ouch!

So, I have 11 days until the PureSpec conference. I think I may have to settle for my very first goal... having one or two chapters done. I have finished chapter one, so I've already hit that goal.

I think goals and me just don't work. I have to write because I want to, not because I have to.

I'm going to work on cleaning up chapter one a little more and then I'll be sending it to my tutor and see what he has to say about this change in direction.

On a side note: Pincher Creek is quite pretty, however unless I can find a job there I don't think we'll be moving anytime soon.

Have a great thanksgiving long weekend. We'll chat before the conference.

C

Week One

*NOTICE: I've changed my 30 day novel into a 40 day novel. This is because doing a chapter every three days sounded nicer to me than one every 2 and half days. I came up with this on Friday morning so I'm not trying to soften the pain of the word counts you will see below.*

I wanted to do weekly updates on my novel progress, but Tuesday's are such good days for me to blog, I think I'll cheat this week and update you on only 5 days of work (Thursday to Monday). I'll let you know right now, my word count is not were I want it to be.

Goal word count on Monday - 12,500 words

Actual words on Monday - 2,634 words (ouch)

To be fair, that is a lot of words to write in 5 days. Here is the word count break down:
Thursday - 1,001
Friday - 0
Saturday - 497 (and edited the 1,001 words from Thursday)
Sunday - 0
Monday - 1,136

You can tell which day's I freaked out. Doubts filled my head and would not leave. I sat down in front of the computer on both of those 0 word count days, but my brain was so frozen in fear of what I was trying to do that nothing coherent come out.

Even Saturday was a lost day. I tried to write, but all I could think of was how awful that first paragraph sounded. And, you know how it is. Once you go back to edit one paragraph the next one could use just a little bit of tweaking too.

I'm no where near my goal.... but I'm almost done my first chapter and that is something to be proud of. And it's something to keep me going. I can't keep freaking out because I'm trying something new, so I've told myself that I'm just going to try. There will be no consequence if I don't finish on time, because this is just an experiment.

Surprise, surprise. Once my subconscious believed me, I was able to write out over a thousand words in less than two hours yesterday. I'm slowly getting back up to my 1000 words an hour, and that is also something that will make this 40 day novel adventure worth it.

"Put one foot in front of the other, and soon you'll be walking across the floor". One week down, five weeks to go.

C

So Close

Ever feel so close you could taste something?

I'm stressed out. I've got too much day job work, too many family events, and D is thinking about going to school in a different province next year. Too much stuff is going on. I want all of it to stop... because I'm so close to being finished my outline, I'm itching to just start writing.

I know better. If I don't have a complete outline of how things are supposed to go at the end, I'll mess up the beginning and have to rewrite it anyway. Sounds odd? That's just how it works. I have to know the end before I can write the beginning. So, I wait for tomorrow.

Wednesday, Library day. The day were I get to take a few hours out of my life and just focus on writing. It's a permanent fixture in my week, and I honestly can't remember how I got by without it. Tomorrow, I should be finished my outline, and then I can start my novel.

I want to have a couple of chapters done really quickly. Not only do I have to get back in touch with my tutor (from my novel writing course), but there is another conference coming up in the middle of October and I want to have a few chapters done by then. Not that I'll actually show them to anyone, I just want to be able to say that I am on Chapter X, and I started writing in mid-September. I've got a month. Think I can do it? Hmmm.... Maybe, just two chapters...

Still, plotting can be really fun. Who knew the Galder Elves seeking revenge on their Pure Elf cousins, would play such an integral role in my novel? (Galder Elves are creatures of my invention, and no I won't go into an explanation right now).

I hope you have a fantastic writing week, and I'll keep you posted on the progress of my novel (Love Light Rising) as it unfolds.

C

(PS: I only have three more boxes to unpack before I can say that I've officially moved in. We've only been here for a month and half, so that's not bad at all.)

3-Day Done

I did it!!!

This weekend was intense. I wrote for long hours, had minimal food and sleep, but somehow I completed a 75 page novella that's not that bad. The weekend went something like this:

Saturday - Got up at 8:30 ready to go, but the writing came hard and slow. It started picking up in the afternoon and evening, but my new-old laptop (new for me but actually old) decided to break... yeah, Ok, I broke it accidentally. I finished off the day around 8pm.

Sunday - most of the day was spent looking for, buying, and setting up a new laptop. I didn't get started until around 4:30 in the afternoon. (yikes) So I pushed my sleeping limits and wrote right into the wee hours of the morning.

Monday - Starting writing around 9:30am. By this time my body was sore from sitting, so I tried writing standing up with my laptop on a bookshelf, kneeling on the ground, even on my stomach (which I won't recommend). I wrote for 15 hours in total and came in just under the wire (meaning I wrote right until midnight).

My novella (because it's a bit too short to be called a novel) is called "Beloved Child", and has 6 chapters, a prologue and an epilogue (it's sitting at 19,108 words). And unfortunately, I'm submitting this is unedited, because I pushed the midnight deadline just to finish. I did go through as I was writing to make sure things were spelt correctly and such (and it's very possible I missed some), but I did nothing of real editing.

I read through it last night before bed (yes, between midnight and 3am). There are a couple of choppy bits, some bits that don't seem to make sense, but over all it's not half bad. It's really fast paced, more than I'm used to, but hey... it was written in three days, so of course it's going to be fast paced. I also wrote a little blurb after "THE END" that goes over what I've learnt from this. This truly was an experiment in trying to write an entire story from the bad guy's point of view, and I did that. I also manage to write my very first (and second) fight scene, and I don't think I did too badly.

I must have needed the sleep today though. Yes, I went to bed at 3am, but I slept until 2:30pm this afternoon. I haven't done that since I was 15 years old.

I'm glad it's over. It surprisingly painful to write for that long every day, but at the same time, it was very rewarding. Because this was an experiment for me, I pushed my limits. I got really depressed at one point because writing from the bad guy's point of view doesn't give you a lot of hope. Yet overall, I found a way to push passed it. I think the end result turned out pretty good. (oh, I also found out that I love short sentences right now, and I think I used them a bit too much. Oops)

If you get a chance to do it next year, I would recommend it. I might even join you.... Hmmm, do I really want to do this more than once? Probably :)

Have a good one,

C

Changes

Well things certainly have a way of changing rather quickly.

It's still too soon to go into all the details from the conference, there was just too much going on. However, there was something that happened that was quite profound.

My novel "Athea", the one I have been working on forever, has officially been set aside. I have grown too much in the last while for the writing in it to have kept up, and plot is now too slow and boring for me. I know I can do better. So it is with great respect for everything this novel has helped me learn, that I set it aside. I will come back to it later, but I think I will have to re-work the entire plot.

So, this means I have decided to take on my second novel idea, as my first. "Love Light Rising" needs to be plotted out a bit more, but I think I can start on it soon. Maybe even tonight. Things are exciting. I can write faster now then a could before, and I have a set schedule I can implement to get it done. This novel will not take me very long to finish, and that's a good feeling.

I'll keep you all posted on the developments. (hmm I wonder how my tutor will take this shift in my choice of novel?)

C

I'm Back!

I'm back, safe and sound, and I'm slowly getting back into the groove of things.

It was a wonderful week away from it all. It almost seems like a dream thinking back on it. Was I really there? (yes, and I have the pictures and tan lines to prove it)

I kept a travel log that will need some polishing (what with writing some of it very sleep deprived in an airport at who knows what hour of the day) but I plan on putting in online somewhere with a bunch of my pictures. Maybe in the fun section on my website, I'm not sure yet, but I'll let you know soon.

And thanks "Woman of Words" for the comment on my blog. I knew I had to update it, I just hadn't gotten around to it yet. It's funny because I changed my answering machine on my cell phone to let people know that I was away for the week. Well, a bunch of family members called me yesterday and left messages telling me to update my voicemail, because they also knew I was home.

Sigh, I guess it takes a few days to get everything back in order. I haven't even uploaded the pictures from my camera to the computer (its a digital). So as of yet, I have nothing to show for all this disorientation.

I was very jet lagged on Sunday, when I got home. So tired, in fact, that I cried that morning when we had to do laundry (yes, I'm a bit of a cry baby). All I wanted to do was go to bed. To be fair, I HAD been up for well over 24 hours. I took a nap that afternoon for a couple of hours and it seemed to help, but by 7:30pm I was done for the day and off to bed.

It was back to work on Monday. Back to the same old, same old. It's good though. I feel like I've had a good rest and can go for a while. I can tell you right now, I spent most of the trip on the beach, with the ocean lapping not 5 feet from my toes. Sleeping, reading, relaxing. It was awesome.

This whole trip helped a lot in terms of my novel too. While I was down there, I couldn't actually write. My brain wasn't there, but it almost was. It was like I was comparing everything around me to the world I created around Mikayla. How would Mikayla handle this heat? Would Mikayla's people have hats made of palm tree leaves? Would they take naps during the mid-day heat? Would her food taste like this or that? It was just really good to know what it feels like to be in that kind of heat, to swim in the ocean with heavy undertow and feel fish rubbing into your legs. Mostly just what it feels like to live on an island. I couldn't have asked for more, and I had a whole week of it. I'm going to take a few days to get back into real life mode and then it's dive, dive, dive into my writing. I'm looking forward to it. Like a friend you haven't seen in a while and can't wait to go for coffee to catch up.

The very scary thing is I need to really look at my plot. The story is supposed to be about Mikayla. Her journey. Her challenges. It's all about her. I think I've finally separated me from her enough (well as much as one can) so that I can look at her and say "OK, what is YOUR story?" I think she's missing something. She's not doing something she should on this journey of hers. Now I just need to know if it's major or minor. I think it'll be minor, but I want to be sure.

I'm starting this weekend. It's time to take that novel off the shelf and take a good hard look at it. My short story is easy (easier) and so I'll leave it for when I hit a wall, or need a break. Right now, I need to finish my novel. It's funny how something can turn from a want into a need.

I'm glad to be back, as much as it was fun to be away. It's good to be home.

C

Aw, boff me with a flaming stick 'o dynomite!

I love fun stuff. I just added two more sites in my Fun Stuff section. Random generators are great ways to waste time... I mean, get inspired.

Actually, I found the name generators really help when your in a pinch and you need a name for that character who will be dead in 4 pages. You really don't want to spend a whole lot of time coming up with a really good name only to kill the guy. So, name generators. I don't always use them exactly as them come up. Some of them are odd.

Like Annoi (hehehe Annoy), I would use this as Annie or something. It helps just to get the brain moving.

I also like the cuss-o-matic. That's where I found the title for this post. Others would be; "Flaming mother of a salivating centipede-headed rat!" or "Well, spork me with a broken curtain rod!". Traditional swearing is just so boring, these are much better.

What a great way to spend the day... Ok, so back to reality.

What have I done lately on my writing? I've been writing. Yesterday I wrote about 1,200 words and half an outline for a new short story. Today, I wrote about 400 words and I'm going to the library after work for a couple hours to write some more.

I think my attention span for writing is about a 2 hour block of time. After 2 hours nothings happening. So I wrote for two hours yesterday, cooked and cleaned a bit then went back to writing for another two. It Worked So Well. Today, I only put in one hour at lunch, but then I'll put in another 2 this afternoon. This could really work (knock on cyber-wood).

"White Cats and Suicide" - my short story- is really coming along. It's creepy dark, but soooo much fun. I think I'm getting the hang of this.

Let me ask a question of you readers out there...
- Do you really hate it if you don't know the main characters name for the first 6 pages of a story?
- Or is it OK when on page 3 you realize it's because she doesn't want anyone to know her real name and the name you learn on page 6 is fake?

Let me know. Remember this is a short story I'm talking about. Maybe a 60 pages, 1.5 spaced. It would be interesting to hear your feedback.

Well, I think that's good enough for the moment. I'll try and keep you posted a little more often.

C

Tutor Trauma & A Second Wind

I don't think I've written on here since my tutor got back to me. I guess this is a break down of what happened.

I had no plot, which is kind of vital if you're writing a story. Turns out I was afraid it was too dark and wouldn't sell because of it, so I tried to make it 'happier' when really I just took out all the major problems that would have propelled my plot forward. So, after I had myself a good cry (Hey, this is my baby being ripped apart), I had a chat with a good friend of mine - and fellow author. We hacked and ripped at this story until I found the dark again... and it's quite dark.

I think I've created a monster. I always wanted the story to be a 'coming of age' type story. Meek becomes strong, kind of thing. I still have that, but now there is a bad guy trying to kill her and destroy everything she represents.

I think it makes it a lot better, but we'll see what my tutor has to say. I sent him my latest assignment along with the updates to my plot. Hopefully, he'll see a plot now. A week plot is better than no plot... you can always make a weak one stronger but coming up with a plot from nothing is quite a bit harder. I'll keep you posted on his thoughts.

I'm back to writing again. My short story about Tom is now either a novella or a full blown out novel (If that's the case, I won't truly work on it until the 1st draft of Mikayla's story is done). I also have another short story waiting in the background of my mind to hit paper. Things are good. I can feel what long distance runners must feel... that surge of energy right after you though for sure you couldn't run another step. It's an amazing feeling. I can't wait to put this energy to use.

Talk at you soon.

What's new crazy lady?

So you're probably wondering what's new? New year, new approach?

Did I come up with a great idea to add even more suspense to my already magnificent novel?…. (yeah I'm a little low on the self-esteem today, gimme a break)

In truth, I've done a lot of planning. I re-organized the last half of my novel to reflect the personalities that have grown while I was actually writing. It's funny, when you plan out your novel you think your characters will do certain things at certain points and that’s the end of it… but after you've written about them for a while, and their personalities are more etched in your mind, you realize that they wouldn't do A or B, they would do C. And that just messes things up for a while.

Anyone who writes is reading this going, "Yeah that’s a nice way of putting it, but where's the crazy?." Ok, I'll be honest. My characters revolted. They didn't want to do what I was telling them to do, and I've just recently finished my negotiations with them. They won on most points, and as a result I've had to change where I wanted them to go.... "There's the crazy!"

Besides the craziness of your characters coming to life, it helps a lot if you follow their lead. In the end you have a better story, one people can connect to. It's ok that I had to change the scene where they are: 'sneaking into the palace, stealing stuff to help them get away and are seen' into, 'sneaking past the palace to get away, trying not to be seen but are'. The end result is the same, they are seen and thus starts the chase portion of my story. (stupid picky characters)

Once I finish tightening my plot, I can get into writing it again. (please let that be soon)

I've also been working on the novel writing course I start last year. I stopped when I got into my story more, but since the negotiations, I've need a little break.

Well that is pretty much all I've got that's new. I'll keep you posted once I get back into the writing of the story.

Dust