I Take That Back

No, I still think it's a nice time of year (though summer is best), and I think NaNoWriMo is a wonderful, happy, energizing event, but I decided I'm not going for the 50K this year. I have just over 6K words right now, and even though that puts me about 19K words behind, I know I could still make it. I could write 3K words a day. Or I could have a couple 10K word writing days. But I don't want to do that this time. I already know I'm capable of writing thousands of words in 30 days.

But now, I just want to write a novel.

My novel this year actually feels like a novel, too. I did some outlining. I'm taking my time going through the story instead of being pushed by wordcount deadlines. Writing is actually a pleasant experience! It's such a refreshing change from staring at my Excel word-tracking sheet and freaking out as Nov. 30th gets closer.

I'm going to take my time and write a good story. I'm sure I'll do NaNo again some day, but this year, I'm just writing for me.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

NaNoWriMo starts in 30 minutes! For me, anyway. I don't know what time zone you're in.


This is my 6th year doing the event, and for once I've actually done a bit of outlining ahead of time. Usually I just start on Nov. 1 with no real idea in mind, but I've realized that makes it VERY difficult to revise, especially because during most of the novel, the characters are either talking about what happened in the first 30 pages, or they're wandering around and saying to each other, "Well, now what?"

So this year I'm using some characters from my 2007 NaNo novel, and I've outlined what I remember about them. I'm also planning to write this as short stories that can stand alone, though they'll all be related. I'm hoping that if I think in short stories then plotting won't seem so daunting.

Also, instead of charging through and writing as fast as I can, when I get stuck, I'm going to stop and think and outline. I already know I can write 50K in 30 days (actually, it only takes me about 14 hours), but this year I want to write a good draft that I can actually work with and revise after November. That means keeping up with my daily word count and not procrastinating till the last week.

So, yay! Now it starts in 15 minutes, so I'd better get my thoughts in order.

Slate's Short Story Contest

Slate has a short story contest happening this week. The deadline is Oct. 16, and there doesn't appear to be an entry fee. The goal is to write a story (500 words or fewer) about the object pictured in the article, to be part of the Significant Objects project.

Seems cool. Just passing the word along.

I'm Back

Where did I go? Nowhere, I just wasn't blogging. I got tired of saying, "What I'm really going to write this week is this" and then not doing it and having to say so the next week. I think I will just blog as the mood strikes or if I have something to say.


Last night I went to Denison University, my alma mater, for a reading by a novelist and a poet. I graduated five and a half years ago, and I thought being on campus again and seeing all the students would make me sad and yearn for those days. But instead, I just felt grateful that I wasn't a student, feeling anxious about my writing career and worried about what the heck I would do after college. The only thing I really miss about college is the open schedule, but getting paid decently to sit in an office for eight hours a day isn't so bad.

Anyway, the readers last night were Nancy Zafris and Jill Bialosky. I had never heard of them before, but I'd always enjoyed the readers Denison brought in while I was there. Nancy read from her work in progress, a novel about a car crash that divides a small town in Ohio, and I really liked her prose. She had some wonderful sentences which made me smile, and I liked the flow of the book and could easily picture the events as I sat there and listened. Then Jill read several poems, most of them out of her new collection, Intruder. I have to admit I've never been much into poetry--I guess I don't get it, but her poems had a narrative feel, and two of them I really loved. I think if I knew more about poetry, I would've appreciated more of her work.

One thing, though, that I've noticed every time I've heard a poetry reading, is the poet reads in this kind of monotone, but every few words the inflection goes up just slightly, not as much as you'd have when asking a question, but I guess just enough to let the listener know the poem isn't over. Most poets seem to do this, so I guess that's how it's supposed to be read, but to me it sounds distracting, and I start to lose the moment. I just wish they would read them more as a story, if possible, and just follow their punctuation. But then again, I'm no poet.

After the reading I bought Nancy's The Metal Shredders and Lucky Strike. The Metal Shredders was out-of-print, but they had new, hardback copies for $5! And I'd read good reviews about Lucky Strike before the reading. She signed both books. I didn't tell her I was a writer because I figured most of the students attending were in the creative writing program, and she'd just be like, "Oh."

I'm glad I went and discovered a new author, but mostly I was happy to not feel the anxiety and panic I used to feel around visiting writers. I know what it is to have a full-time job and write. I know that I'm not dead because I haven't published anything yet. And best of all, I know I've found a wonderful writing community online, and my reading and writing life didn't end when I left the classroom.

Work-in-Progress Wednesday

Wednesday! Which means it's almost Thursday. Which makes me happy because I get to work from home on Thursdays.

I didn't write last week. But I finished reading that screenplay for the guy in my writing group, and I was so impressed with his revisions! I wonder if he will send it off now. He wrote a horror script a few years ago that was excellent. This one I finished was more of a mystery/thriller. Anyway, he's really talented, and I hope to see one of his movies someday.

I also sent another short story to Lady Glamis, and Davin read it, too, and they both liked it! That made me feel good, and I'm going to find some lit mags to send it to. I sent it to Glimmer Train a few summers ago but didn't make it. That's okay, though, because I read a Glimmer Train story about a year ago and it was amazing. I should subscribe to that magazine. Do any of you subscribe to literary magazines? I had a subscription to Tin House one year. I guess they always seem so expensive, but then again, you get a lot of stories to read. But, I have a hard time choosing which one to subscribe to. Maybe I could do a different magazine each year.

Anyway, but all this sharing of short stories made me want to write short stories again, so I'm going to! The Literary Lab is talking about shorts this week, and I'm inspired. Davin told me he's taught writing classes before, and one exercise is to have the class write 10 short stories in less than a week. I'm going to do that. Starting tonight! Next week I will tell you how that went.

Also this week I finished reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower which is a coming-of-age novel published in 1999 about a high school freshman. The novel is written as letters to an unknown person (though the person is obviously just the reader). I liked the book pretty well. It was a quick read, and Charlie, the main character, had some sweet and interesting moments. He was a very sensitive kid, and I was curious the whole time to see what his deal was. I finally found out in the last few pages, and I was let down. I just didn't think what happened explained enough, and I felt a bit cheated. And the ending was too nicely wrapped up, for me. It reminded me of why I didn't like Catcher in the Rye when I read it in high school, which Wallflower referenced a few times. I do like coming-of-age stories--an amazing one is Grab on to Me Tightly as if I Knew the Way--but I guess I don't like when the narrator is like, "Okay, that's all I'm going to tell you. See ya." I do recommend the book because it really was fine up until the end, and the ending might not be a problem for anyone else. My friend who also read it loved it.

And finally, this week I've been dealing with a horrible case of poison ivy. It's the 4th time I've had it this summer, and I realized it's from my cat who keeps going off in the woods. I'm never petting her again! At least not till winter. Here are some gross pictures of my left and right hands, which I have been aiming the blow dryer at every few hours, "scratching" it. It hurts so good.

Blog Chain: Who Makes These Rules, Anyway?

Oh, writing rules. The blogosphere is full of them. I've been writing and studying writing for years, but I've only been reading blogs about it for several months, and I'm often shocked by all the posts about rules. It's overwhelming, and I think most of these posts are counterproductive. Which I guess makes me a bit hypocritical for writing such a post of my own, but, it's blog chain time.

Kate has me thinking about rules with her question:

What writing rules/advice - whether it was a matter of cannot or will not - have you broken?

Check out Sarah's post before mine and B.J. after me.

The two writing "rules" I most often read about are Write, Write, Write and Read, Read, Read. While I do spend my time writing and reading, I don't think I'm doing them as much as I should be, so that is a rule I'm breaking, though not so much in a willful way. It's more an issue of time management and lack of confidence than a crossing my arms over my chest and saying, "Not gonna' do it!" But, I do believe that the more writing and reading a writer does, the better that writer will be.

As for writing advice I won't follow, most of it has to do with marketing and social networking. Maybe I'm digging myself a hole by saying this, but I think social networking and marketing on blogs and twitter etc. is a lot of hype. I now know dozens of writers with agents and book deals, and I know what their books are about, but that doesn't make me want to buy them. I will buy or read a book that's interesting to me, but I'm not going to pick something up just because I heard about it a lot. Sometimes, the more I hear about something, the less interested I become. It's oversaturation. It's like how stores began displaying their Halloween merchandise in August. I love Halloween, but I've already seen so much of it, and by the time the end of October is here, I'm going to be sick of it.

I'm not saying having a blog and writing about your book is a bad thing. Obviously, I do the same thing every week. I'll be reviewing my wip's progress after this post. I like having my writing blog because it keeps me accountable with my projects, and I have met some awesome people and found truly inspiring blogs through this process. But I don't consider this blog a very effective marketing tool. I'm on facebook, but it's for fun, not for networking. And I've tried Twitter, and I don't like it. For me, it's a waste of time. I already said I have time management issues, so I don't need more noise keeping me from writing and reading.

So, just like agents are inundated with query letters, I'm inundated with the rules of writing and publishing blogs. Agents filter out the stories that don't speak to them, and I'm filtering out the rules that don't feel true to me. I don't blog to build a platform, and I'm not concerned about "hooking" my reader on the first page, and I don't really care what the market's doing or what the next breakout novel is. I just care about me, haha! There is not a lot of time in the day, so if I'm ever going to write amazing stories, I need to be writing them and not reading about how to write them.

And I must stop talking now so you can write, too.

Work-in-Progress Wednesday

Another Wednesday, another blog post. Because, yeah, I'm light on the posting.


Last week I didn't crack open Outlaw Song, but I revised my short story a bit, and then I sent it to Lady Glamis, and she was kind enough to say it had potential. She said other nice things, too, and constructive things. It was pretty much a second draft that I sent, so I knew it had a lot wrong with it. But I was thinking about what she said about potential, and how you can have all the potential in the world, but it does you no good if you're not using it. So, what I'm saying is, I need to write more. Which is always what I'm saying.

Also I've been critiquing another script by someone else in my writing group, and it's very, very good, and I've seen a few versions of it, but he has vastly improved it since last I read it, and it's very exciting for me to read and see his progress. I guess that shows, too, that if you keep working on something, eventually it gets better, and then it gets done.

Speaking of done, I finished reading Revolutionary Road a few weeks ago. I liked the book, but I didn't like the characters, except maybe for John, the crazy son of the neighbors. I couldn't decide if Richard Yates was rooting for his character Frank or if he thought he was a terrible person, and he just wanted to write about a terrible husband and father and a terrible wife and mother. I thought it was a pretty easy read and certainly a commentary on the late 50s in suburbia. I saw the movie, too, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. I felt like the book was about Frank, and the movie was about April. So, that was interesting. If you like to read books about people screaming at each other and talking with a lot of, you know, emphasis, I recommend it. I don't recommend the movie, though. But usually when I read the book first, that's the case.

And that's it!

Work-in-Progress Wednesday

I did get some writing done this past week, thank goodness. Carolyn saved me, and we wrote at Panera, and I cut another 3400 words from Outlaw Song. My goal was to finish reading and cutting by next week. I don't think that's possible anymore, because I still have over half of it to read, so I'll just shoot for end of September. In the meantime I want to work more on my short story, which I did revise a bit today. I want to have another draft of that ready for my writing group in two weeks.

I've also been critiquing a screenplay by someone in my writing group, and I edited two chapters of Carolyn's nonfiction book about using psychology right in your writing, and it is going to be awesome. It's packed with information and very well-written, and I can't wait to read the rest.

So, not a bad week, really. How was yours?

Blog Chain: Advice for Writers

Yes, the Blog Chain was established to dispense advice to you, the blogging writers of today. And this round is no exception. It is perhaps the most advice-filled episode yet.

Cole wanted us to, "In one sentence (no more than 20 words), please summarize the most important words of wisdom you can impart."

Thusly,

Everyone else is writing a book, which means you can, too.

Sarah let forth with her wisdom yesterday, and Abi will give you all something to think about tomorrow.

Work-in-Progress Wednesday #026

I only wrote one day last week, which is another day down from my previous week, so I'm going backwards. Must get more serious about this! But, work has been insanely busy (at home), and truth be told, I've not had a happy week. Until today, anyway, when I went to the grocery store and found these:


I love Cheetos. Love. Mostly I'm into the crunchy ones, but these are pretty good. I can fit them in my mouth, but it takes some effort to crunch down. And, I kind of sprained my tongue trying to dig out Cheeto bits from my back teeth. But that doesn't mean I probably won't finish the bag tonight. Hey, there are only like 40 Cheetos in there! They're giant!

Anyway, writing. I am still deleting, and I cut another 5400 words. I've read through the first half (NaNoWriMo 2005), some stuff I wrote about a year after that, and now I'm reading what I wrote last November. I noticed an improvement in my writing between both halves, and that made me feel good. I think the second half will be far less rambling, and I don't remember what I wrote, so I'm excited to unearth some good prose in there. I have to find something, right?

But, so as not to take forever with this deleting project, I think I should give myself a goal. Because next comes the hard part of figuring out what story I really have, and you know I've been procrastinating on that. Thus, my goal is to finish reading and deleting by the end of August, so in September I will begin, essentially, writing the 2nd draft. Whew. I'm already scared.

Blog Chain: I Can't Make up My Mind

When Terri started this chain I thought I'd have a simple time answering her questions. She asked,

Do you focus on one project at a time, or do you have many irons in the fire at any given moment?

But I've been writing the post in my head for the past couple days, and I've been rambling. Then I'll sit down to start writing, feel discouraged after a few sentences, then walk away. That's pretty much how it is with my writing projects, too.

Yes, I have "many irons in the fire," and they are too many, and it kind of holds me back. Plus, in case you've blacked out while reading my posts and somehow missed this: I am a procrastinator. I think I have too many projects on purpose just so I can stoke my procrastinating ways.

I have stories I started in college and just after graduation that I sometimes go back to and play around with. I have 5 novel drafts written in the last 5 years. Well, I guess one is complete, but I know it could still be revised. I have a handful of notebooks going at once, in which I'm either freewriting or trying to get some of my stories down in longhand. And I have pocket notebooks in which I'm always putting new ideas.

I have parts of stories and pieces of prose literally everywhere--on my computer, in various emails, on lists buried under clutter, and in all those notebooks. Nothing's organized. And I'm always telling myself I'm going to organize it. Yeah, right.

Too many projects, which means now I'm trying to focus on one at a time. So I've been working on Outlaw Song. And, in the event that Outlaw Song isn't going well and I want to jump on something else, I've recently created a spreadsheet of writing projects, where I'm simply noting the date, the project, and what I'm accomplishing on the project at the moment. I'm hoping this will be the start to some organization, and I can stop feeling so overwhelmed by all my "starts."

Because, that is the real pitfall of too much going on at once: nothing get's finished. And that has to stop.

Check out Sarah's post before mine and B. J. Anderson after me. And, if anyone has tips on organizing projects, I'd love to hear them!

Work-in-Progress Wednesday #025

Why, hello there, Wednesday.

I wrote two days last week, which I see is down from my three days the prior week. Hmm.... Well, it's something. And I cut another 12,000 words off my first draft, bringing me to a total of 28,000 words chopped since I started chopping. If my math skills are good (they're not), I think I've cut roughly 27% of my 101,300 word novel. I'm kind of hoping to cut like 70%. I think then I will find an editable story in all those words.

What else... Oh, I've been writing lots of story ideas down in my little notebook while staring at my computer at work. I don't know if I'll ever use any of them, but it helps me to feel creative during the dull work day.

And, I've been reading Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates. It's okay. The characters are selfish, and I don't really care about them. I'm trying to figure out if Yates wrote them that way on purpose, for some kind of social commentary, or if he thinks they're really great and that I should be cheering for them. I imagine only bad things will happen to the two main characters.

Anyway, that's it! Stay tuned for next week when I tell you again that I hit the delete key a lot.

Work-in-Progress Wednesday #024

There is still a bit of Wednesday left.

I didn't post last week because I was up in the north woods of Wisconsin, and I stayed off the Internet entirely, and it was so wonderful! I could've brought my eeePC into town to the Java Lodge and used their wifi, but I resisted, and I know I made the right choice.

My family (as in parents, siblings, nieces and nephew--my husband stayed home for school) and I were in Crivitz on Lake Noquebay, where my mom's family has been vacationing for 49 years! I've been there 10-15 times, as it's far from Indiana where I grew up, and it's amazing because it's remote and wilderness-y, and it never seems to change, even though it is a different experience each time.


I didn't write last week, but I got to know my nieces (4 years and 14 months old) and nephew (18 months old) a lot better, which was awesome, and we had lots of campfires and boat rides and just sitting on the grass and staring at the lake. And a big thing I took away from the trip is that I don't need to read all the web sites I read all day, like CNN and Slate, that just depress me and make me feel helpless. No matter what I think about those stories, I can't change them, so why worry? Why waste all that time and mental power?

As a result of my Internet realizations, I've done lots of writing this week! Like, real honest-to-God writing, and it feels so nice. The last three nights each I've written for an hour, working on Outlaw Song and writing odds and ends in my notebook. I never feel like I want to write, at the beginning of the session, but once I get into it, it's enjoyable, and then I'm really proud of myself after I'm done.

Right now I'm slicing and dicing Outlaw Song. I've deleted 12,000 words in the last three days, 16,000 total since I started chopping away a few weeks ago. This was a 2-year NaNo project, so there is excessive crap.

One thing I've noticed is that during NaNoWriMo my writing is very wordy (huh) and repetitive, and I'm always throwing all these stupid roundabout phrases in. I was reading it yesterday, just slogging through, listening to the voice of my writer self from 4 years ago, and I just wanted to scream at the novel, "SHUT UP!" There is a lot of blabbering being fed to the delete key.

But then tonight I read a scene that I just loved, and it even made me sad (it's a sad scene), and I was almost on the edge of my seat. So, the whole novel isn't a bust.

Anyway, that's my week! Please share your progress, too!

Blog Chain: I Have This Great Idea, But Is It Really Mine?

The blog chain is back, and this time it's my turn to pick the topic. Argh! I'm so nervous! I know what I want to say, but I don't know how to say it. Hmm, sounds like writing.

But first! Please welcome back two people to the chain who have been away for a while. They are Senshi and Terri, and it's nice to have them here again. I'm new to Senshi's blog, and I read some of Terri's when I first joined the chain, so I'm looking forward to getting to know them both better.

Okay, what I want to talk about has a bit to do with inspiration and a bit to do with research. Kat started a chain on research not too long ago which is what got me all worried about my worries. These include:

Do you ever get inspired by a real-life event or news story and fear you're ripping off the story too much? Do you ever get inspired by a song or poem or line from a book and worry you're stealing that original person's idea? What if your research is overtaking your originality?



Okay, maybe I am projecting worries into my future, and if I just kept going with a story, it would develop into it's own thing, and all my worries would become unnecessary.

But maybe I really have something to worry about! Like ending a sentence with a preposition!

Anyway, some examples may help. I started my novel Outlaw Song from a song I heard, called "Outlaw Song." (Mind-blowing, isn't it.) I'm not going to really title my novel that, when it's done, and my novel is not about the story of the song, but I feel very inspired by the song, and other songs on the album, and sometimes when I'm stuck I will start writing around lyrics in the song, and then I AM just writing what is happening in the song (when I'm stuck), and I worry, is that a kind of plagiarism? Does this mean I have no creativity? Will anyone even notice anyway? Am I supposed to contact this band (which is no more), and ask them if I can quote, if it comes to that, their music?

Or, I was watching a show on Food Network one night, and they were talking about this restaurant somewhere, and I thought the story behind the restaurant's creation was interesting, and then I started thinking what about the restaurant owner's life made him open this place, and my mind was coming up with all this morbid stuff. I was just joking around with my husband about it, and he said I should write a story about it, but immediately I felt I wasn't allowed to do that. Is that original enough, to make up the first half of this guy's story? I mean, I can change the name of the restaurant, but what if someone else saw this episode on Food Network, and they call me out on it? Or what if the restaurant owner finds out, and he doesn't like what I made up about him, and sues me?

Again, all these fears are probably unfounded. I know writers get inspired by everything all the time: stories in the news, conversations overheard, family stories, other books, movies, songs... I'm sure the list is endless. I guess my problem is, where does inspiration end and originality begin? Do you have to credit your sources of inspiration? How do you do that?

And, if you are inspired by something, a news or historical story, maybe, and you go researching it more, where does that end? What if the more you research, the more trapped you feel? Maybe I wouldn't worry about this if I actually researched a novel one day, but what if??? How many questions can I ask in one blog post?

I need your advice. I think this has a lot to do with confidence, maybe with voice, with knowing yourself as a writer. Knowing your story well enough that it actually becomes yours, separate from whatever inspired it. Probably I should just keep writing, and all this will iron itself out. But I have to admit my worries of ripping off someone else's idea stops me a lot from writing.

I know that if I put a song lyric up and asked 20 people to write a story inspired by it, I'd get 20 different stories. But I guess I'm just afraid, for me, that maybe I will accidentally plagiarize and write the story too close to the song. Kind of like when I was little and writing stories, and only when I was older did I realize that I was pretty much writing exact copies of my favorite stories. I didn't know it at the time, and it was an honest mistake, but still.

So, yeah. Help! How do you know your stories are your own?

Please see Sandra's answer to this question, as she's going right after I am. (Sorry, Sandra!)

*I know "plagerism" is misspelled on the poster. I don't know how to fix it.

Work-in-Progress Wednesday #022

It's Wednesday, that day of progress and the works being, uh, progressed on. (what?)

Sorry, I am currently sitting in a storm of layoffs, and I have no idea how the day will end, but I look to writing to distract me and cheer me up.

So, this past week I have continued to be generous with the delete key on my novel. That's pretty much it. Still deleting. Still figuring out the story. I'll let you know when that changes.

But, in other writing progress news, I want to introduce my dear (and real-life!) friend Indigo Girl of the blogs Word Gypsy and Blue Agate. She has just pulled off every writer's dream of quitting her corporate job so she can devote her life to writing. Way to go! She now has more time and energy to focus on her writing dreams, and in only a few short weeks she has made some major progress on her short stories and even a play! Her dedication to writing and willingness to take risks have really inspired me lately to get more serious about my own writing. I mean, what am I waiting for, right? So, check out Word Gypsy which is mostly about her writing journey and Blue Agate which showcases her stories and poems.

In other happy writing news, I got an award from Kate! (She started the WiP Wednesdays, for anyone who doesn't know that.)

Thanks, Kate! I love your blog, and it was one of the first I started following.

Now for the blog award rules:

1. Each Superior Scribbler must in turn pass The Award on to 5 most-deserving Bloggy Friends.

2. Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author & the name of the blog from whom he/she has received The Award.

3. Each Superior Scribbler must display The Award on his/her blog, and link to This Post, which explains The Award.

4. Each Blogger who wins The Superior Scribbler Award must visit this post and add his/her name to the Mr. Linky List. That way, we’ll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who receives This Prestigious Honor!

5. Each Superior Scribbler must post these rules on his/her blog.

The 5 people I'm passing this award on to are:

1. Michelle at The Innocent Flower. She has been another huge help to me and my novel these past few weeks, and I can't thank her enough!

2. Carolyn of Archetype Writing Blog. She got me into this whole blogging thing and out of the no-writing wasteland.

3. Elana of Mindless Musings. Each of her posts is more hilarious than the last, and I love her attitude and insights.

4. Davin, Scott, and Michelle at The Literary Lab. These three are so smart, and the conversations that continue in the comments field are often as good as any writing book.

5. Robin of My Two Blessings. Robin was one of the first who started commenting on my blog, and I've enjoyed getting to know her through her blog. And, she is the most voracious reader I've ever heard of.

Lots of links today to lots of great blogs. If you have time, check them out. And, if I lose my job, you know my Wednesdays will be full of more progress.

Work-in-Progress Wednesday #021

Omigosh! It's WiP Wednesday! I almost forgot!
This week, I don't have to write a long, whiny gripe about not writing because... I have been writing!


Yes, last night and the night before, I've been working on Outlaw Song. I am going through the first draft, which is two NaNo's worth of writing, and I'm cutting out all the horribleness. I started with 101,365 words, and as of now, I have 98,795 words. I'm thinking by the time the read-through is over, it might be closer to 50K. That's fine, though, as I have been spinning my wheels with this novel. I am really excited about it, but truthfully, I still don't even know what the story is about. I'm figuring that out. As I go through the draft, I'm going to write down all the major scenes/events that I want to keep.

Today I did a bit of research on the setting and time period. And, by a bit of research, I mean I looked up Wikipedia pages and bookmarked them for later reading. I also requested a book from the library that I think might help. I know, all this is a small start, but I'm excited! I feel like this novel will take me forever to write, like years, but I'm really fired up about it.

Also, I forgot to write last week about my newest (and hopefully last-purchased for a while) writing toy: the eee PC! I bought this on Woot! last month, and I'm pretty excited about it. I already have a laptop, but these are sooo cute. And, it's more portable than my laptop, as my laptop is currently hooked up to all kinds of stuff, and it's heavier. This thing weighs like 3 or 4 pounds, and the battery life is longer.

It did come installed with Xandros (Linux), but I put Easy Peasy on it (also Linux, but somehow better for netbooks). So, I need to learn a bit of that operating system. I got a book from the library for that, too. The eee PC also only has a 4GB hard drive, which is very small, so pretty much all I can do on it is run a word processor and surf the Internet. This is fine with me. Oh, and the keyboard takes some getting used to. As you can see, it's very small.

But, now I can carry my manuscript all over the house, and out of the house. I mean, this thing fits in my purse.

Well, that is the progress! Writing and eee PCs! How are your projects coming along?

Blog Chain: Feel This Post

Can you feel that? It's blog chain time again. This round was started by Christine, and she wants to know how you're handling your emotional writing. She asks,

How do you add emotional depth to your stories? How do you know when you have enough emotional content? And how do you keep it authentic?

These are good questions and ones I don't think I've consciously thought about before. Well, maybe a little bit I have. Whenever I read a short story by Lorrie Moore, I think how can I write a story that is both funny and sad? How can I bring my reader down to feelings of hopelessness yet also have him or her experience the funny subtleties of life?


I haven't found the answers to those questions, except for maybe: I try. Honestly, a lot of times I'm not thinking about emotional writing. I'm just trying to tell the freaking story. But if I've just come off reading something great, then I'm reminded about the emotions. So, I try to think how I would feel in the situations my characters are experiencing. And I feel like I've nailed the emotion when I go back and read the scene and feel what the character is feeling. But, it's hard to tell. I mean, I wrote the thing, so I know where the emotions are coming from. And that's why critique groups are helpful, as others have mentioned. I can get comments back on a story and tell immediately if my reader came away with what I was trying to describe. I guess having crit buddies is how I know if I have enough emotional content and if it's authentic.

I do hate inauthentic emotions, though. I hate when I'm reading something and the characters are freaking out over nothing. I guess I'm more a fan of the dialed-down emotions. Or maybe the slowly-built-up emotions. Or an emotion that is running steadily beneath the surface for the whole book, and that is part of the tension, and then when the emotion breaks, I'm either crying or really happy for the characters. When I read Cormac McCarthy's The Road, I thought it was very dark and depressing and just full of despair. But there were lots of hopeful moments, hoping for the characters, and that's what brought all the suspense. I mean, I wasn't like crying through the whole thing or hyperventilating with anticipation. But it was a persistent feeling, the sadness and despair, and the feeling stayed with me even when I wasn't reading the book, and that is the kind of emotion I like best.

If I'm going to be writing those kinds of emotions in my stories, I think it will take lots of revisions and reworking the story and stepping back and thinking about how I feel about everything.

Um, emotional writing is hard. You certainly don't want to hit your readers over the head with feelings, but you can't leave the story barren, either.

Hmm... I don't know if I've done this chain justice. Clearly I have more writing to do so that I can figure out my process and actually be able to explain it.

For more coherent discussions on emotional writing, please visit Elana's and Sandra's blogs. I know they'll have helpful advice.

Work-in-Progress Wednesday #020

It's WiP Wed number 20! Oh my gosh! I think for the past 10 weeks I have done, like, nothing. Except maybe talk in circles. You know, it's what I do.

Let's see... last week... Well, I went to Cedar Point on Saturday and lost my glasses! I don't even know how, either. I was taking them on and off for the rides, and then for about a two-hour period I had them stowed in a locker (I can see without them. I use them for reading and distance. No, they're not bifocals. They have prism), and I think getting used to not wearing them made me confused. I'm pretty sure I lost them on Disaster Transport (what a disast!), as that ride is all in the dark, so maybe that made me less aware of them falling off my face? That ride doesn't go upside down, though, so it's odd. Or maybe I put them on top of my head? I just don't know! I was so clueless about losing them that it was 2 or 3 more rides before I noticed, and I went to pull them out of my purse, and--GONE! I was shocked and sad. Oh, and my husband lost his cell phone on Maverick. Yeah, it was a great day for rollercoasters but not so for personal items.

But, today, a package arrived from Cedar Point, and inside were my glasses! Yay! I was bummed about replacing them because I didn't renew my vision insurance this year, having just bought new glasses and not planning on visiting the eye doctor. D'oh! So, I was either going to wear my old pair for the next six months or consider shelling out more bucks. But now I don't have to! See?


They look fine, no?

Anyway, on to writing, of which I have done none. I don't even think I wrote down a couple sentences in a notebook. I mean, maybe I did. Obviously, it was earth-shattering stuff.

I did think about writing, though, and had many great conversations about it.

It's coming, I promise! Just give me another week.

Work-in-Progress Wednesday #019

It is amazing, my habits, how difficult I make things for myself, the worries.

My vacation last week was awesome, and I felt very inspired by my surroundings, and the break from work was also refreshing, and I even felt like I got some perspective on things at home (like realizing Columbus, Ohio, is far from the middle of nowhere). I also read a lot of good blog posts about research, and I was feeling excited, doing a little dance in my chair, thinking "Research sounds like fun. I want to continue my Outlaw Song novel. I'm going to complete this old-timey epic, whoo!"

And this past week at work I thought about writing. And I read a great post by Davin over at the Literary Lab about revising, which I don't like to do (I mean I don't like revising, not I don't like reading great blog posts), even though that is the meat of writing, and many of the comments put revising in perspective, and I thought, "Hey, that sounds pretty interesting. I am going to revise Outlaw Song. And I will have fun doing it!"

Then last night at home, trying to do freelance work but not able to sit still, I thought, "The time has come! I will open the manuscript and cut out all the crappy bits! I am not afraid!"

I opened the ms. which is over 100,000 words right now, and I read the last few sentences (written near midnight during last NaNoWriMo), and of course they sucked, and then I thought about all in that ms. that probably sucks, and I was immediately deflated. So I thought I'd share that despairing feeling with all of you, ha ha.


Right now I'm reading Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About It Now. (yes, I have problems, and yes, lately I like reading books about them) I started it over a month ago, then procrastinated on reading it, and now I'm back. The first couple chapters talk about procrastination's link to perfectionism, and the fear of failure, and the fear of success. I feel like I belong in almost every scenario of the book. I shake my head at the ridiculous ways the people mentioned in the book think, but I also know I think in those ridiculous ways.

Take writing/revising. As you can see if you've been reading this blog, I do a lot of talking/worrying about writing and revising, but not a lot of actual writing and changing of words. I have these crazy thoughts that everything I write must be perfect, and so I write nothing in fear I'll write something horrible. EVEN WHEN I KNOW ANY WRITING IS FINE, I ALSO THINK IT'S HORRIBLE. I put it off and think, "Well, if I'd really given myself the time, I'd totally be published by now." It's all my own fault, but somehow making not writing my own fault is better than not writing. (?) Yeah, I don't get it either, but it's how I think.

There is also the fear of success, I guess. What if I do finish a novel and I do query it and I do get an agent, and suddenly it's harder and more work and I can't cut it? Or, what if getting an agent or being published doesn't solve my life? What if I don't Completely Change Into a Perfect Person upon publication? Yeah, I know. I have real things to be afraid of.

And THEN! I came to a huge realization. I have been putting off really writing while dragging my feet for so long because somehow it's like who I am. This worry and anxiety I keep. And, if I just brush all that aside and stop obsessing and start writing at a real pace and don't analyze it too much, well... what would I worry about then? And do I even deserve to bring my writing life to that level? I have wasted all these years; maybe I don't deserve to relax about writing and Just Do It. Because if I can change now, by giving my writing a fair go (and not just thinking about it and writing sort-of-updates each Wednesday), then it's like, why didn't I just do that before? Why did I wait so long to chill out? And that is another kind of failure, in my mind, not "having realizations about my writing and getting on with it" at an earlier time in my life. Because you know, if I had quit with all the whining years ago, I'd be published by now! (she says)

Well, if I've lost any of you after that, I'm not surprised. It is tedious to me to keep blabbing on and on about all this (in a public forum, no less) even as I can't stop blabbing on and on about it.

I hope some of you understand where I'm coming from. Writers are supposed to be crazy, right?

I just have to get over myself. These worries and loops-of-excuses in my mind are silly, and they're not helping, and I must STOP. It's just writing, after all. Not like my house will burn down if the words don't come out right. (Right?)

Going back to the Outlaw Song ms. now. Not going to let my thoughts kick my butt.

Save Ohio's Libraries!

I just learned last night (via Leah on facebook) that Gov. Strickland is proposing to cut 50% of funding for Ohio public libraries. This will cut staff and library hours and even branches!

He made the proposal on June 19, and they have to decide by June 30, so there isn't much time for action.

Please visit the Ohio Library Council's Web site for details.

If you or anyone you know lives in Ohio, please contact your legislators. Or, even if you just love libraries, tell Ohio legislators, especially Strickland, that you don't support cutting library funds!

I love the library! Every time I go there it's happiness. And libraries are an invaluable resource to all communities.

Thanks for helping!

Blog Chain: Research, Where Do I Even Begin?

Blog chain time has come around quickly again, and Kat started a discussion on research. She asked,

How do you do research for your settings, your story, and your characters' quirks? What interesting tidbits about yourself and the world you live in have you learned along the way?

Research, research... I'm on a trip in and around the Appalachian Mountains right now. The point isn't for research, but I have kept my mind open to story ideas for my novel Outlaw Song. And, I've been getting lots of inspiration from the forest-y and mountainous surroundings, but I wouldn't call any of that research.


But could I? Is being somewhere new and paying attention to how it could affect my stories considered research? Or am I supposed to go to a library and read books and interview strangers to ask them what something is or was like?

I didn't do any research for my first novel because it was set in some Midwestern town in present day with three characters who were all ages I've been. And my next four novels were written during NaNoWriMo, and I certainly wasn't going to stop and worry about research then.

Now, I have this Outlaw Song novel I'm working on, and I think it takes place sometime between 1850 and 1920 (I'm hoping it'll be an epic), and I think it takes place in our around the Appalachian Mountains, and I want it to have Indians in it, and religion, and lots of death, but I don't want to get too historical fiction with it. Like, I don't want to take a character or event from time and write about it. I just want to write about fictional characters and places that could have existed in this time and place. My husband says (yes, I don't know history. I have to ask him everything) the Civil War happened around this time period and in this place, but I don't want to write a novel about the Civil War. Maybe the war can serve as a backdrop. I don't know. You see? I have a hard time with real times and places. I don't want someone to read this and go, "Hey! That didn't happen in this place!" But, again, I don't want to write historical fiction, so I don't know how much it matters.

So, research. It's like the more I think about, or even when I start to do it, it just makes me more unsure about my story, and less confident about what I can actually write about.

To answer Kat's first question, then, I research by trying to pay attention to what's around me and writing down my ideas (as opposed to thinking I'll remember them forever and then being sad in 10 minutes when they're gone). I would like to think that as I figure out Outlaw Song more, I'll get deeper into research if need be. But, I'm trying not to let research scare me right now so that I can just get my characters and the plot down firmly.

As for interesting tidbits about myself and the world... um... I'll get back to you on that after I've actually finished a novel that I researched.

Question for you all: Does research ever trip you up? Does it paralyze your story because you're afraid of getting everything right?

For more on this topic, Elana posted her thoughts on the "R-word" before me, and Sandra will be up next.

Work-in-Progress Wednesday #018

This past week I haven't gotten much writing done because I've been on vacation! We (my husband and our friend from CA) left Friday night and made it out of Ohio to stay in London, KY. But, before we got to Kentucky, we stopped in West Chester, OH, to return a coffee table to IKEA. I had tried building it, but the legs needed to face a certain way to attach the lower shelf, and both my husband and I couldn't tighten the legs and put them in the right position. And, the table was smaller than I wanted it to be, after I got it in the room. Anyway, I tried to return it, and the woman would not let me! Their return policy says if you're not completely satisfied and you have the receipt and original packaging, you can return an item, but the customer service woman said I had already built it (not true), and then she took it in the back room and forced the legs on the table, and then there were scuff marks on it (obviously they used some kind of wrench or vice), and she said it was built, so she wouldn't accept the return. I said I couldn't fit it in the car that way, because we were on vacation and driving through (I live 2 hours from IKEA), and I said I didn't want it, and I wouldn't be able to put it back together on my own, and it was scuffed now, and I wasn't completely satisfied so they had to honor the return, and she said no, no, no. I said I have spent thousands of dollars at IKEA and she was going to lose a customer, and she didn't care. So I left the table there and walked away. I was so mad! I love IKEA! At least, I used to. Now I don't feel comfortable buying furniture from them anymore, and I'm certainly angry at that store's customer service. So, I'm going to call my credit card company and dispute the charge, and I'm going to email corporate.

Anyway, but the rest of the trip has been good. We saw the location of the first-ever Kentucky Fried Chicken. We hiked a bit on the Cumberland Gap. Then we drove into Gatlinburg and went to a Mirror Maze and the Ripley's Believe-It-or-Not Musemu, and then the next day.... I met Kate! I knew she lived in Knoxville, and I had messaged her and said I was going to be nearby, so we met at a Starbucks and chatted for an hour or so. It was really great to meet a blogger I've been following, and she is super nice! Here we are outside the Starbucks.Kate is on the left in the white shirt, and I'm the one in sunglasses. Yay! Thank goodness for summer and road trips and meeting friends from the Internet!

As I said last week, because I've been driving around Appalachia, I've been keeping my imagination open for my novel-in-progress Outlaw Song. I think I have maybe, finally, figured out a time and place for the novel, and I also think I've worked out some major plot points in my mind.

In the last day and a half we've also driven along the Blue Ridge Parkway, and it has been very rainy and foggy and lonely and isolated, and I've been thinking of a bunch of creepy scenarios, and I've been writing down horror/paranormal ideas for new stories. So, I haven't been writing a lot, but I've been brainstorming and taking notes.


See? Kind of dark and misty and eerie. I keep expecting to be run off the road by a deranged murderer or attacked by radioactive black bears. Or, what if the car breaks down and we get out of the car and, for some reason, all walk in separate directions, and after 50 feet, we're lost in the fog and never see each other again? See? Lots of story ideas on this trip.

How about you? Have you been inspired by anything in the last week?

Work-in-Progress Wednesday #017

Wednesday again! How the days fly by. I've been really busy this last week with work and more work. I am totally jealous of all you people on summer break. I wish I were still a student. Or taught. Or something that gave me my summers off. J-E-A-L-O-U-S.


Also, a friend of ours is staying with us all of June, so that is a distraction, and Friday night we're leaving to go explore Appalachia. We're hitting 5 states, and I don't know what we're going to see. We'll just drive around and stop at any promising place. I'm thinking I will get some inspiration for my 2005/2008 NaNo novel Outlaw Song (working title). I also hope I get a lot of reading and writing done in the car.

I went to Barnes & Noble again today, and I wrote 3 pages in longhand of my short story "The House That Sucked" (also working title). I wrote using my new fountain pen! It came in the mail a couple days ago, and it is awesome. Well, except for looking purple sometimes, and not silver-blue like the web site said, it's awesome. It writes sooooo smoothly and easily. And I got the extra fine nib, and it doesn't leak through regular notebook paper. It hasn't scratched or skipped at all. Hooray! Here's a photo:



And! I ordered something else the other day (ahem, I've been on a bit of a spending spree), and I'll show it to you when it arrives, but it is also for writing, and I'm excited about it.

I know, I know, I don't need to buy a bunch of stuff in order to write, but it's still fun. And very motivating. And it's working, because I've been writing, and I'm having a good time doing it.

How has your writing week been?

Of course, I did not have the brilliant idea for WiP Wednesdays. They were started by the now-revising Kate, and you can read about the beginning here.

Blog Chain: I Love You, I Love You Not

Huh. I started writing this post earlier today, and now it's gone. THIS MAKE ANNIE ANGRY! ANNIE SMASH BLOGGER!!

Can you feel the love? Well, I can't. After reading everyone's posts in this blog chain, I'm realizing just how much romance is missing from my reading and writing life.

Sandra started the chain with many questions about romance in fiction:

Do you write romantic relationships in your books? If so, what do you do to show the attraction between your characters? What problems do your characters encounter? What qualities do you think make a romantic relationship work in fiction? If you wish, feel free to include examples of your favorite couples.

Elana posted before me, in which she said I'll have something impressive to add to this discussion (not likely), and after me is ... hey, I'm last! Probably for the best, as it sounds like most everyone else is a romantic, but I don't think I am. What this says about my relationship, I don't know. Let's not discuss that. (Seriously, though, my 3rd anniversary is tomorrow, yay!)

On to the topic. Um, no, I don't really think I write romantic relationships in my stories. I shy away from romance in my stories. For some reason, I'm not letting my characters feel those feelings. Maybe it has something to do with the romeo/juliet relationship I had in high school, when I was a freshman in love with a senior guy, and of course my parents didn't approve. So of course this guy and I did everything we could to be together, which involved a lot of being grounded and secrecy and more of me being grounded. We wrote hundreds of letters to each other during the one year we were in school together and after he graduated and moved away. Later those letters, which I hid in a hollowed-out stuffed bear, were found by my mom (after she found, then destroyed (!) my journal), followed by more grounding. And me literally counting the days till I turned 18 and could run away with my true love. Then I did turn 18, asked my parents if I could see this boy again, and they let him come over (he had to stay in the yard), and we lasted maybe another month till I was over it. Maybe it was just me getting older and ready for college. Maybe I was exhausted from all that forbidden love. Maybe it was because I was finally allowed to be with him. Whatever it was, it worked out for the best, BUT I do often think that all my romantic energies were used up in that relationship, and now I just don't care. So no romance for my characters! Mwuhahaha!!! (although, maybe I can write a story based on my story.... hmmm....)

One of the biggest problems my characters encounter is that they don't have any romance in their lives, and I'm starting to see that those relationships are great for plotting and moving a story forward, which is maybe also why my characters get so stuck. Maybe we all need couples therapy together. And, because my characters aren't experiencing any love, it's really easy for them to skip town when things get difficult, because they have no ties to anyone, but running away from problems isn't good conflict. Another reason why I don't plot well.

There have been some couples I've read about in the past that I really loved. Clare and Henry in THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE. Richard and Kahlan in WIZARD'S FIRST RULE. And clearly I loved Romeo and Juliet. But later in life I've been more intrigued by the relationships that end in affairs or heartache. Or when half of the couple dies. My husband and I like to watch those Bachelor/Bachelorette reality shows. He said his favorite part is seeing when someone is rejected and their heart is broken on camera.

Yup. That's what I have to say about romance in fiction. Maybe you all can throw some earth-shattering romantic titles my way, and I can find my high school self, and we can curl up with a book together, and I can learn how to give my own characters some romance in their lives.