Writing and Reality TV

From Nathan Bransford (a great blog, but this entry - on what he learned about writing from watching reality TV - sticks out as particularly hilarious and enlightening).

Halfway there!

Tonight, I hit 25,279 words for my NaNo.

WooHoo!

My hands ache a little, and I definitely lost a lot of time revising my first 25 pages for the Writer's in Paradise workshop. But my submission is more or less ready (I have some final edits left), so no more time should be wasted editing pages. Just writing my little heart out.

The hardest thing I'm coming up against right now is what to do with one of my characters. I've got him in a situation, and there are only two outcomes if I want everything else I've written so far to be believable (and I would very much like that to be the case). One outcome seems to be more logical, but from the way the people who read my first 25 pages reacted to this character, I don't think my readers would love it. The other outcome might ultimately make the reader happier, but I'm afraid that it sticks me with some big problems. It also might give me more plot fodder, which would be great, just in case I need it. However, I'm afraid of doing too many things that have been done before. But I guess there's a reason those things have been done before - they work. They make readers, agents, and publishers happy, and they sell books.

I think either outcome would be fine with me - either way I'll have written something interesting, and I could definitely see both solutions being plausible. The only reason I didn't write more tonight is because I'm trying to figure out what to do with this character. I better decide tonight, because I want to get ahead of my word count again so I can finish my novel by the end of November! (I think this novel is about 65,000 - 70,000 words, not just 50,000, so even though it only takes 50K to win NaNo, I'd like to finish the book by the end of the month.)

My Muses

Every writer should have a muse. Something that motivates them and keeps them going, something that inspires them.

One of my muses (or I guess two) are my dogs. As silly as it sounds, they keep me going. All day I look forward to just snuggling on the couch with them, and they happily sit beside me as I write. Usually it will only be one or the other of them, tucked under my arm as I sit with my computer across my lap. Observe, Evie in her natural habitat:


Please, no comments on the fact that my dog is wearing a sweater. I realize I live in Florida, but we never run the heat, and the dogs shiver or bury themselves in blankets. Plus those sweaters have LEGS. How cute is THAT?!

Sometimes, when I'm really lucky, I'll get one under each arm. I'll admit, it is a little more difficult to type when they arrange themselves that way, and I have to reach around them to get to my keyboard. But it is totally worth it for two reasons:

1. It is absolutely effing adorable.
2. I don't want to disturb them when they get all cozy like that next to me, so I don't get up, so I tend to write for a lot longer.

Unfortunately, Millie, my other little Italian Greyhound, wasn't cooperating tonight. She is still sitting, all by her lonesome, on the other side of the couch on top of a large pile of fleece blankets. But she's been around longer (7 years), and she usually sits with me better (Evie has a tendency to stand in the way of my screen, move around a lot, and be a general pain in my ass, but Millie will just plop for hours on end). It didn't feel right to leave her out of the post, but it also didn't feel right to put up one of my normal pictures of her with proper lighting and focus. So I took one of her with my camera phone so it would be just as grainy as Evie's. Enjoy! (Ignore her demon eyes...it's the flash, I swear.)

Ugh, they are SO much cuter than this in person. Oh, well.

If you're a writer having a hard time getting inspired, try changing locations or sitting in a new place, or just sitting with a new person. They don't have to say anything (of course it's better if they don't), but just their energy or their presence might motivate you in a new way. Or head to your local rescue and adopt a pet! (hehehe)


UPDATE: About an hour after I posted this entry, I fed the dogs. Millie is actually a pig, not a dog (excellent example: she just burped right into my face. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried), so she always finishes her dinner first. Since she came over to sit with me, I thought I would snap a (terrible) picture. Now I'm trying to coax Evie girl over to join us. If it happens, you can bet I will post another update with more pictures. I am going to be SO obnoxious as a mom.


SECOND UPDATE: SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!!!! Awful picture, delightful cuddling. I really need someone else here to capture the adorableness that this whole thing is. It's amazing.

SHAMELESS.

Do you remember in my first post where I said I would sometimes ask you, the reader, for suggestions and inspiration? No?

Here's a refresher.

There's this short story contest I really want to enter. The word count is only 1,500 words, which is nothing. If anything, I'll have trouble keeping it brief. I do have some ideas, but I thought I would use my blog to my advantage and see if you can suggest something interesting. It's actually a huge national contest, so I don't really harbor any delusions that I'm going to win. So if I don't win and the contest organizers run laughing in the other direction, refusing to ever publish my piece of crap story, I will publish my awesomeness here for all to see. And if I do place high enough that the story is published, I will cry with joy, thank my adoring fans, and post the link here so you can go read the story (if it's made available online).

So, all of that being said, here is my shameless call for suggestions. Post a comment with a single word, phrase, or plot point that you want to see me write about. You could even put, "write a story about me!" I might not use it (though I do plan on doing something later where I post maybe 250 words on every subject you comment on...but that's for later), but if I do, you will be thanked. If there is something you have always wanted to read about, put it here. If you hate me and have a terrible idea that you know will fail, post it here. If you want me to buy you an ice cream cone when I win with YOUR idea, post here.

One word: cone

Ice cream is a delicious treat. I love its rich and velvety texture, and the way it drips over my hands and makes my fingers sticky. But today, it is too cold for ice cream. I am wrapped up in a sweater in my freezing cubicle, wishing for a hot cup of cocoa and the warmth of a cozy blanket.

Write your own at oneword.com! Post your answers in the comments!

Proof that I steal ideas from other people (but at least it's pretty!)

Shannon over at Ramblings of a Wannabe Scribe wrote this awesome post yesterday, and I decided to totally rip off the idea (at least I am admitting it, giving her credit, and providing generous links to her blog. I think that's fair, right?). Basically, it's all about this great tool for creating beautiful word clouds, which you can then use to analyze which words you are using too often, whether or not your major characters are getting enough play, etc. She posted some of the wordles she created from popular books, and one from her own book. I decided to see what my first chapter, which is partially edited thanks to the awesome comments I've gotten, looked like in wordle form. When I saw it didn't give too much away (since I've already posted some excerpts anyway), I thought I would post the wordle to give you something pretty to look at. So here it is!

Some things I learned/noticed:
1. Obviously, death is a major theme of my novel. But I was very surprised to see that it took the No. 1 spot. Now I'm concerned that I should be using other words. But then, maybe this is right, since that's kind of what my book is about. Hm...
2. When your main character is also the narrator, her name isn't said very often.
3. There are a few evil adverbs in this wordle! I must remove them from my draft before they devour my soul!!
4. My first chapter has only seen two or three revisions, and it's already infinitely better than the rest of my novel. The wordle for my whole draft was too embarrassing to post, but I will admit that the biggest word was JUST (which actually makes a pretty decent appearance here, too). That is shameful, and I never would have known how much I overuse that word! Amazing. But now I know, and already I have tried to avoid using the word in this entry. See? I'm learning. Another issue in the wordle for my whole draft was that a lot of unimportant words had a huge placement, while characters and places were smaller. I think it's fixable; I need to get some more character into my plot, which is fine because I love my characters. Mostly.

To see some gorgeous wordles from the first chapters of Twilight, New Moon, The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and a few other books, head over to Shannon's post!

The verdicts are (sort of) in!

After a tense 48 hours of waiting, I've gotten a few initial comments trickling in about the pages I sent out to the women from my book club. I've only gotten one marked-up draft back, and then it was only some of the pages. I definitely don't blame anyone, since I sent them 25 pages, and these people do have lives (jobs, husbands, families, and most of them NaNos) of their own. But I was so excited about my initial feedback I wanted to share!

So far, everyone said they really enjoyed it, and they would want to keep reading it when I'm done. A good sign, right? The detailed notes I got were awesome. The person who wrote them is actually in the middle of workshopping her own YA novel, so it was really wonderful to get feedback from her perspective, since she knows exactly what to point out in a weak manuscript. The notes addressed some issues that I knew I was struggling with (my tendency to jump between past and present tense, some world-building questions I had) and some new challenges with character development which I hadn't considered before. I'm really looking forward to reading the rest of her comments, and what everyone else has to say!

Tonight, though, I was so exhausted that I didn't write much. I fell asleep at the keys. I made it a rule that I wanted to write a little bit every day, so I got a few words in. I'm still ahead of the NaNo curve, and since my husband and I are headed to Plant City on Thursday (40 minutes in the car one way) and Orlando on Friday (two hours in the car one way), I'll have time to play catch up since he offered to drive.

Finally, I've been reading Stephen King's On Writing, something I should have done a long time ago. (If you are a writer, a Stephen King fan, or want to learn how to form a better sentence, pick up On Writing. And The Elements of Style. But that second one should go without saying.) The book starts out as a memoir of sorts, explaining all about how King got into writing and telling the excruciating details of his rejections, then later his struggles with addiction. The second part of the book is my new guidebook on how to write, and I can't believe I have lived my professional life thus far never having read it. Already I'm trying to cut out adverbs, remove extraneous "thats," and make other changes he says book editors are just going to make anyway. I'm also trying to use what I learned when editing articles in my professional life, because our magazine deserves good writing (even if it comes from amateur writers).