Why you can't "do" NaNoWriMo if you are revising - my latest epiphany

Remember when I said I wasn't going to do NaNoWriMo this year? And then I decided I was a big fat liar since I was going to do it but bend the rules and not write something new? I'm here to tell you it wasn't a good idea. When I'm drafting a brand new story, I can bust out a couple of thousand words a day and finish while still having a life - or whatever my life usually resembles. Revisions are not the same as vomiting a story from your subconscious with the motto running through your head of "Write First, Ask Questions Later".

I've written consistently this month - six days a week with the exception of the two days I was too sick to stay awake that long. But I only have 20,000 words to show for it. So what the hell is happening?

Revisions are FAR different from first drafts. I delete more words than I write because I'm focused on quality rather than sheer quantity. I'm trying to write coherent scenes that tie together and take my characters from where they are to where I know they are headed. The place they must be headed if the story is to remain consistent. And entertaining. And marketable. And entertaining. You get the point. So while I've been consistent, I'm only averaging about eight hundred words a day.

I started out the week feeling dejected as I saw everyone I know near the finish line. I felt stressed that the goal of "winning" with 50,000 words was slipping further and further from my grasp as this week continues with more of the same productivity. But then I remembered that my personal goal this year is very different. I'm still on track for that goal which is the only thing that's important.

I will "win" when I finish this revision by the end of December. Oh, and submit a short story to a writing contest. Because why not? I've had the idea knocking around in the back of my mind and recent events make it possible to do it without treading into murky "it can't be published yet" waters. (First rule of publishing: release deadlines never stick!)

It is uncharted territory I'm exploring. The path to figuring out exactly how to write a novel was long and fraught with hardship. Now I'm on what I've declared as the path to getting published. I fear it will be just as difficult and just as fraught with obstacles. But damn it's exciting to be here!

Halfway there check-in

What is it with November? Do I get sick every year coincidentally or is it a side-effect of NaNoWriMo? It is week three and I'm behind because week two - the dreaded week two - had me sick and unmotivated. Week one went splendidly and I was on track for the minimum recommended word count. Week two, I penned in the couple of hundred of words a day range instead of the thousands that I needed - if I wrote at all. Now I'm thousands of words behind.

I could wallow but the real goal is to revise this novel so I'm focusing on the fact that I've written seventeen thousand words toward that. I'm still plugging along and loving this revision process. I know exactly what the ending looks like, and exactly what I need to be writing toward from the beginning. I know what needs to be foreshadowed, and what motivates my characters. Most of them, anyway. About half of what I've written is brand new stuff because I added supernatural elements and changed the story in fundamental ways. It's been fun, even if it's been exhausting. I could definitely get used to this revision thing thanks to having a fabulous developmental editor I can employ as soon as the first draft is written.

See you on the flip side of November... win or lose I'm sure to be sleep deprived and highly caffeinated but loving every minute.

Embarking on Revisions - and why I'm a big fat liar

Game on for NaNoWriMo 2014! Wait, what? I know. Right now you think my addiction is showing and pray that I get some help after my confession just ten short days ago. But let me explain...

When I set out last year to write my second novel, I swore it would be the one that I figured out the fearful and overwhelming process of Revisions with. All of 2014 so far has been devoted to just that. What I didn't know, is that after I employed the services of a developmental editor it would be necessary to re-write basically every scene. Every. Single. One. Oh, and add in more of course and layer in more elements that are still missing.

My editor is phenomenal. Sometimes I hate what she tells me but it is always spot on. Seriously, if you're a writer and you haven't found an editor you trust then you have a moral imperative to find one. After ten years of working together, I know I can trust her not to lead me astray. (She is for hire, if you're in need.)

I got my edits back a couple of days ago, had a meeting with her (on our yoga mats, it was beautiful) and hashed out the big things that need to be tackled. I came away knowing that while I am not writing a new story this November I'll be completely re-writing my current one. I may as well use the website tools to track my progress and milestones and keep me on track and motivated for the entire month. Does it make me any less of a NaNo'er that I am writing 50K works of a story I've already hashed out? It might, but I don't care. I will donate to cover the costs of my usage and my conscience will rest easy about my little white lie.

Holy shit, I have 11 days to prepare! And lots of questions still unanswered. Better get brainstorming... If you need me I'll be re-visioning. Otherwise known as re-writing. There's still time to join me and all the other November novelists at www.nanowrimo.org

Why I'm NOT doing NaNoWriMo this year

It's October. Weeks away from my historically statistical most productive writing month of the entire year. My email is hopping with updates from National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) getting me geared up and ready. My creative juices are already brewing and I'm on a roll with new material waiting to spew forth...I'm like an addict in need of intervention!

Hi, I'm Terra and I'm addicted to NaNoWriMo and writing first drafts.

It's been a very fruitful year for me in the writing department. And my writing group already intervened months ago forcing a commitment from me to revise one of my first drafts between now and February. I told them I would be ready to pitch to agents and publishers by then to see if I can get someone to buy one and publish it. So, I won't be using November to write a shiny new novel - a skill I've mastered after having done it so many times already. Instead, I'll be revising. A piece of the craft I have yet to master as well as the first draft. Probably a better use of my time in the grand scheme of things.

After LTUE last year I committed to writing short stories to figure out how to revise on a much smaller scale. I did it - with a story I'm super proud of but which is on draft number seven - seven - in preparation for publication. (Yes, I might have some very exciting news coming soon!) If it takes seven drafts of a novel to get it ready, I've got a lot of work ahead of me. Guess I better get to it! If you need me, I'll be writing - I mean editing!

Obsessions, confessions and creativity

What a week I just had... or was it ten days? I sort of lost track. It started with this book release that I've been waiting for from this one author - you might have heard of him - Brandon Sanderson. Yeah, I just listened to a FORTY EIGHT HOUR audiobook in just under twelve days. With my life, that is crazy talk. And definitely explains why I have been MIA on my blog. Sorry! But, Words of Radiance is one of those books that reminds me why I love to read so much. Luckily it takes a while for him to write a tome of this magnitude so, while I swore I would never start or commit to another series that wasn't completed after Robert Jordan died - DIED - before finishing my last fantasy obsession, I have a while between books so my life can get back to normal.

Here's another confession - I might have been obsessing about reading because I was hiding from my novel. Creativity is such a bitch some times and this writing thing is HARD work. Sigh. I'm knee-deep in revisions on my novel from November and realized that I started the story halfway through. No biggie, I just need to go back and write the beginning. Problem is, my main character came to me after she'd gotten herself into a predicament and I hadn't given much more than cursory thought about HOW she had gotten there. And every idea I came up with was totally cliche or worse, boring. I rationalized all week that I was "refilling the well" by reading instead of writing. That thinking about my story was the same as writing. After all, I was still thinking about my story. When I wasn't immersed in the world Sanderson built instead of my own that is. Truth is, I barely wrote anything all week.

Sunday I woke up early to a quiet house. Should have gone for a run but instead I brewed a pot of coffee and proceeded to drink the WHOLE thing while sitting on the couch with my headphones plugged into the last hours of my book. Nobody's perfect, right? When it was over, I had nowhere left to hide from my creative road bump I'd been grappling with all week. I dove into a project I've got going with my writer's group (hiding again) and shouted out to Facebook for inspiration. At the end of the day, kids all tucked into bed and Hubby watching his latest installment of Walking Dead, I finally took my own advice and put my butt in the seat and just started writing. I knew it would probably suck. It was first draft territory after all. And, I was probably writing the equivalent of clearing my throat by faking it till I figured it all out. But it wasn't going to write itself. Big girl panties... check.

An hour later, I had exhausted all my coffee reserves and had to force myself to stop. Yes, force. Because a few minutes into it, I found one tiny nugget of inspiration and realized I knew all along what had happened. I just had to get over myself and the irrationality about how I didn't really know (your subconscious isn't really you, right?) Hurdle cleared. Now on to the next one!

Someone this week reminded me that there is a huge difference between talking about writing and actually writing. My life is always an exercise in balance - on steroids most of the time. And while I'm good at juggling everything I'm not always so great at recognizing when I'm telling myself lies about what is really happening. Here's to it getting easier to recognize next time and not wasting any more of my writing time unnecessarily.

Surprising Things I Learned

It's the end of the first week with my new part-time job. What? You didn't realize I have a new job? Yeah, it's called being a writer. And it can be described no more eloquently than how I heard it from a very successful author: "butt in the chair, hands on the keyboard". I know I should remember exactly which famous author from LTUE said it but truthfully I can't remember if it was Larry Correia, Michaelbrent Collings or Johnny Worthen. (How's that for name dropping, huh?) In fact, I think all three of them might have said it which is why I can't remember exactly who it was.

Here's what I've learned so far:

1. The work gets easier the more consistently I do it. And I'm more consistent when my writing time is scheduled in my calendar and everyone knows that's what I'm doing in that time slot. It may be that I slid easily into this habit because it's the same way I navigated writing in November when I did NaNoWriMo, but I also suspect that my logical and organized mind just needed it laid out like another commitment I had to fit into my crazy schedule.

2. Even if I only have a couple of hours on most weekdays and one day of the weekend to devote to writing, I still got FAR more accomplished than I thought I would this week. This was a pretty big surprise for me. In my corporate life, I usually need large chunks of time devoted to enormous projects to make real progress. When I don't get that, it usually is more counterproductive to get going just to have to stop. Writing has proven far different. I can plug away in smaller time increments and still get lots of things done. This week could be an anomaly but I'm guessing it isn't. Even my 'Marathon Sunday' of writing this week included time to get my house clean and my laundry done while taking advantage of my built in breaks. Since my family got my undivided time on Saturday and I wasn't some recluse they didn't see all day on Sunday, my guess is they may just think I'm messing around on Facebook like nothing is different. Won't they be surprised when I have more than a Facebook feed to show for my efforts? Another bonus: I got more sleep this week than I usually do on top of doing more every day. How does that work, I wonder? I'm not complaining but I suspect not watching television has much to do with it. 

3. Revision isn't as bad as editing when you look at it as part of the same process of writing. I always thought of the editing process as something separate from writing your first draft. Truth is, once you get the rough draft down, you just keep going and revising (or re-vision-ing as I like to think) until you can't improve it anymore. Even then you will need another set or two of eyes to see what else there is you missed and then if it's good enough to sell to a publisher you'll have to do it all over with their editors. Now that I realize I can't compartmentalize or avoid revision, it is a much more enjoyable process.

I'm currently working on several things. Which I also never trusted could be done when authors talked about writing one book and editing another. I'm brewing a new story in the back of my subconscious while I work on revisions of the novel I wrote last November. I finished reading through the first draft after I let it sit for a couple of months so I was reading with fresh eyes and a memory that had faded a bit. I found lots of plot points that needed to be fleshed out or tweaked for consistency and now I'm seeing the entire whole for places that can be improved. I find so much excitement working with a finished draft because the bare bones of the story are all there and now I'm just adding organs and connecting tissue to bring it more fully to life.

I love going back and seeing how things shift for me years down the road so I'm going to keep documenting what I think of as "My novel project" for my own hindsight as I explore what works for me and what doesn't. Why have a blog if not for your own personal benefit, right? I'll also keep regaling my faithful readers (all ten of you?) with the craziness of the rest of my life. Hopefully you'll remain entertained and keep coming back. If I learned anything from attending LTUE it is that I've grown as a writer the last four years even if it was in miniscule steps I didn't realize until I look back and compare then to now. If you need me, I'll be reading, drinking excessive amounts of coffee, running around with my hair on fire to keep up with where me or my kids need to be, and writing into the wee hours of the night. My goal is to have my revisions done of my current novel by the end of the summer.

NaNoWriMo 2013 Recap

Is it me or is this getting easier?

I've done National Novel Writing Month six times now - not including the failed Camp NaNo attempt this past summer that never really got off the ground. This was my third year winning and the first time I not only finished the 50K word count but also finished the rough draft of the novel I had started. It was also the easiest attempt in my memory. I have a theory about why...

Is it because I had already completed a rough draft of my first novel and know how to get to "The End"?

Is it because I have used all these years to build a habit for daily writing - at least during November?

Is it because I planned ahead this time with character studies and a plot outline before November hit?

I think it has a lot to do with all three of these key elements.

This November was not the perfect month to pick to impose this crazy deadline on myself and life threw even more wrenches into the works. I was too tired on Halloween to stay up past midnight and write a couple thousand words to start off with a buffer like I always have before. Little Sister (who is now three) came down with a nasty flu at the end of week two and I had to hold her while she suffered with high fevers for a solid week. The only time I could write was while she was drugged and sleeping. Then one night of planned house guests a couple of days before Thanksgiving turned into three days and I could only write after everyone had gone to bed - much later than a normal night.

With all of that plus the craziness that always comes with my life anyway, I still managed to write every day except three over the course of the entire month. And I hit the daily word count goal an average of four days every week. I caught up little by little on the nights I wrote well and spent the weekends holed up with my laptop while my family tried to manage itself without me at the helm. Big Sister did her own laundry to help out a couple of times, and my amazingly supportive Hubby did dishes and grocery shopping all month and even cooked huge meals on the weekends when there was more time so we could eat reheated leftovers during the week. As a result, I only stayed up past midnight once the entire month - very unlike any of my previous winning attempts. And, I was DONE EARLY and enjoyed a celebratory date night on November 30th which was super strange. Usually I'm frantically clawing for word count to validate my novel with minutes to spare in the wee hours before the 30th comes to a close.

So how did I really do it?

1. I spent all of October fleshing out characters and plot points so all I really had to do in November was write the story I'd already thought through. Of course I got halfway through and realized the plot was far too elaborate and my characters had gone and gotten us pretty far off course so I had to rethink the ending but that wasn't as hard as I imagined.
2. I invested in software especially designed for writers that made managing my plot a breeze. (If you haven't checked out Scrivener, do yourself a favor and do. It is super affordable and once you start using it you are hooked.) This allowed me the flexibility to write those scenes I'd planned to happen in the order I was inspired to write them rather than how I planned to lay them out. Keeping the creativity juices flowing made the actual writing so much more effortless.
3. My family and all my friends were on board and supportive of my efforts. This is huge and I can't stress enough how important it is. Writing is like having a job and if you want people to take you seriously you have to treat it as such. My family knew that I had scheduled the time after the kids went to bed at 9:00 until midnight every night to devote to writing and then large chunks of each weekend as well. Friends supported me from afar and didn't extend invitations they knew would tempt me from my writing.
4. I didn't deprive myself entirely of those things in life that keep me grounded and happy. All three of the days that I didn't write were nights that I used wisely. One night I spent with Hubby; one was an impromptu night of laughter, tears and wine with a friend that went further in recharging my batteries than I might have imagined before I spontaneously threw caution to the wind on a whim; and I didn't write on Thanksgiving. I still did yoga three to four days a week. And I still went to my monthly book club. I could do these things because they helped me stay focused on maintaining the daily word count when I was writing so I could slow and steady win the race.
5. I wrote every day (with the noted exceptions above) whether I was inspired to do so when I sat down or not. This made it so I didn't ever get so far behind that I had to do massive feats of will (or caffeine) to write enough to catch up. Remember the last time I won when I wrote something like 18K in the last five days? That was insane and I swore I would never do it again. Instead, I never got more than about 3K behind the 1667 words a day pace and was able to keep the goal easily within sight. It seems like the simplest and silliest writing advice anyone ever gives when they say "Just write" but that has boiled down to the key for me.

This year was noteworthy because all four of us in my amazing writer's group finally did NaNoWriMo together. Most of us have attempted it at some point or another over the past six years but this was the first year that all four of us planned ahead and were poised to participate at the same time. It was amazing to have each other for support and everyone agreed - win or lose - that we learned something AND wrote more than we would have if we didn't participate. Everything is better with friends to lighten the load and ease the pain, to share the excitement and the milestones, and to lament the frustrations that come with any worthwhile endeavor.

I'm taking the month of December off to celebrate the holidays and reconnect with my family. And come January I will again embark into uncharted territory when I begin the process of editing my rough draft from the messy, grammatically incorrect, tense-switching, inconsistent and full of plot holes state it currently is into something worthy of submitting to agents and publishers. It is sure to be a wild ride!

T-Minus Ten Days

It is almost November. That busy month where most people are gearing up for mainstream things like Thanksgiving and Christmas shopping and crazy writers like me are attempting what initially seems like the impossible: to participate and hopefully win National Novel Writing Month on top of all the things everyone else is doing. If you're new to the blog you may not understand the massive undertaking I challenge myself with every year for the past six. Writing fifty thousand words in the thirty days of November. Last year there were over three hundred thousand others globally who joined this challenge with me and I've heard this year is going to be even bigger.

I've been plotting and character developing since mid-September in preparation for writing the first draft of my next novel starting at midnight on Halloween. Have I got everything figured out yet? Nope. Am I worried? Nope. Am I secretly rejoicing that my health has improved so much that I feel almost one hundred percent like my old self so I can realistically imagine pulling late nights night after night and consuming massive amounts of coffee to keep me awake the next day so I have a chance in hell of winning this year? You bet your ass!

Have you thought of writing a novel but never did anything about actually doing it? NaNoWriMo is the coolest and best writing event to develop personal habits that easily translate to the rest of the year. No matter what the rest of the year looks like for me, I always know I'll be a writer who writes every day during November. And usually that habit persists well into the rest of the year. I haven't "won" every year but I write more every November than I would without this silly contest/challenge and that is all that really counts.

For more information and to join the party for free check out www.nanowrimo.org and register to join me! There is a real-life side to the online contest too if you want to meet other local writers at the kick-off parties or participate in write-ins in your area. My favorite part of registering is getting access to the word count statistics where I can obsessively and continuously update my word count and see the very real and uber-cool progress I'm making every day.

A new project for Camp NaNoWriMo

I've got a new project I'm working on. A new novel. And how lovely of the folks who run the NaNoWriMo website to offer the same online tracking and motivational tools and shenanigans of November in April to help me bang out the rough draft quickly this month. They call it Camp NaNoWriMo, I call it brilliant.

Wait, what? You want to know what happened with my first novel? I'm getting ahead of myself? Sorry... let me explain.

Last time I talked about my writing I was anxiously awaiting critique from my writer's group on the first draft of my first novel and stressing that they weren't going to like what I'd written. Well, turns out they all loved it and wanted to jump in and make it better and polished and pretty enough for submission and hopefully publication. And while I want that someday as well, I decided that wasn't the novel to do it with for several reasons.

First, it's my first novel. There's a reason the majority of first novels never get published - they are learning curve victims left to die along the path to becoming a seasoned author. Of course there are famous (and not so famous) exceptions like Harry Potter (and Twilight). And I truly believe that if a new author wants to write and re-write a first novel until it is just as good as a second or a third, it is possible to learn enough on your first idea to make it happen. My good friend has done that and is well on her way to publication. I also know she has most definitely written that book more than once.

Second, I'm lazy and I want the learning return with smaller investment up front. My first book (working title "Natural Balance") is a fantasy. And after all the time it took me to finish the first draft I still don't have a fully fleshed out world built and there are still holes in my magic system. My goal is to someday be published which means I need to learn how to write a first draft and then how to edit that rough draft into something people want to read. So, I've figured out my process of completing a rough draft. But do I really want to learn how to edit using an idea that I'd honestly bitten off more than I could chew? Not so much.

Third, I've learned that I am not going to write fantasy for a living. While I love reading it, it just isn't the genre niche that I'm going to be great at writing in. Another argument for not editing this one in hopes of publication. Say I worked my ass off for the next months or years and did sell this book. Then I'd (hopefully) have fans who'd want to keep reading my work because they loved my fantasy novel. And I'd have no other fantasy to give them? It was my baby, my first real idea for a book that panned out into a plot but the fact that all the subsequent ideas I've had are NOT fantasy is something I need to fully acknowledge. Perhaps someday I can pull my baby out of a drawer an abandoned flash drive and publish it under my well established name and hope some of the same people like this completely different piece of work. But I'll never build a career out of one fantasy novel.

So, I'm going to practice my new-found skills of completing a rough draft by starting and finishing another idea. One that doesn't require me to invent an entirely different world with culture and religion and magic different than ours. This new idea is mainstream fiction set in the world I live in and know everything about. All I have to do is develop some great characters who have tragic and exciting events happen to them that keep the pages turning. That's the novel I'll learn how to edit with. 

And where I go from there, I don't even know yet. There's a chance there's still pieces of this writing thing I still don't even know I need to learn before I'm successful. We shall see! In the meantime, my goal is 30,000 words and a fully fleshed out rough draft/outline by the end of April. Wish me luck!

The stress factor of critique

I sent my entire rough draft off to my writer's group to read and critique late last night. I am so stressed that even in my sleep deprived state of meeting my submission deadline - self imposed so there is enough time for them to read the whole thing before we meet to discuss it - I still couldn't sleep. What if no one likes it? What if they think it is total crap? What if their critique makes me cry? These are the thoughts going through my head.

The reality is, this is a rough draft in every sense of the word. There is at best cardboard cutouts for characters because I haven't added all the layers and depth that need to be there. Description is very lacking in lots of places. But that's because at this stage of the project, all I've done is gotten the story down from start to finish. Now the daunting process of editing for content and pacing and characterization and all the other things that I don't have at this point will begin.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Writing is hard work! Wish me luck that my fellow writers like it enough to invest their time and effort into helping with that editing and revision process so that others may someday read it, too.

I wrote a book... now what?

I wrote a novel. Holy shit! I. WROTE. A NOVEL. Or more accurately, the first draft is finished!!

And it only took me four and a half years...

I started 'writing a novel' back in 2008 when I first participated in NaNoWriMo.And while technically I've been working on the same basic idea I had for that first book, nothing is the same in the finished draft as it was when I started.The character names are different, the character who's point of view the story is written from has changed, even the scope and focus of the story shifted.Then there are my writing skills themselves. I trashed so much writing in the past four years to start all over when I learned another skill in the writing process and realized everything I'd written was now shit.

Let me tell all the aspiring writers out there some basic truths that I discovered along the way to my first completed rough draft of a novel-length work.

Just because you read a lot doesn't mean you'll have an inherent talent for writing. This was a hard one for me. I thought I could just sit down and write a novel. I've only thought about being a writer since I was in junior high. Sure it was going to be a lot of work and sure it was going to take some time. But surely I had what it took because I've been reading novels since I was in elementary school. Then I found all these things that I didn't know - point of view, tense, showing vs. telling, plot structure, character development, voice, narrative voice... The list goes on and on. And all these things have rules that work and things that you can't do and ... and ... and, yeah. It took me several of those first years stumbling around all that unknown territory realizing there was far more in the "things I don't know I don't know" column than there was in the "things I know" one. I still remember one of my very first chapters I ever wrote where the point of view shifted between two different characters as quickly as the dialogue they exchanged. There was a whole lot to learn that I understood subconsciously as a reader but that I had no real idea how to do as a writer.

Writing is hard work. I have a full time job, I'm a wife and I'm a mom to growing girls - one with a schedule all her own to keep up with. Part of me - not the overachiever part of course - wonders if it is even possible to write for a living on top of all that I'm already doing. This past year I've watched my friend and writing group partner sign with a publisher and embark on what comes next in the road to publishing. She doesn't work outside the house and she thought some days it was more than a full time job commitment to keep up with the editing she had to do. Deadlines up until now have been of my own doing and could come and go with zero consequences if I happened to miss one. What happens if I do publish a book and I don't have the luxury of writing at my own pace. If it has demands like a job will I still love it? And would my psyche rebel if someone told me I had to do something I didn't want to do - because that is never a good thing for me. Plus, writing is not the quick way to fame and fortune - you have to sell many many many books in order to make enough to quit your day job. Frightening!

Writing is humbling work. You put immense effort and emotion into creating characters and worlds and this story and you shed blood, sweat and tears to make it the best you can. Then people want to read it. And you want people to read it and tell you how much they love it. And sometimes they do say that. But most often you hear more about the things that don't work or that could be improved. And even when you trust and love these critique partners that you've asked to tell you these things it can hurt to hear them. If you can get past the initial sting and instinct to defend your work to the death, you can learn from what others see. But getting past those things can be very, very difficult. In the four plus years I've been writing *this* novel I think I've let my writer's group see a total of six measly chapters and not even that much of this current draft. I'm both sorry for that and not. They are my biggest supporters and I owe it to them but somewhere deep inside where I don't go very often, I am super scared no one will like what I wrote.

Writing a book isn't the same as publishing a book. The first thing people want to know when they hear I've written a novel (my daughter included) is 'when can I buy it and read it?'. Most published authors write countless novels before they are ever picked up by a publisher. Brandon Sanderson - who is such an amazing writer that Robert Jordan's widow picked him to finish the Wheel of Time series - wrote close to ten novels before he ever got published. (I only know this because my other friend and writing partner is his biggest fan so I might have the facts wrong...) Regardless, there are probably hundreds of unpublished writers for every one that gets a break and gets to publish a book. Then there are even fewer published authors who sell a ton of books and whose names are nationally recognized. Those are staggering odds and I know there is still no guarantee on where I go from here.

Writing a first draft isn't the end, it's only the beginning. I didn't even take two nights off from writing to celebrate before I was busy with revising. Key parts of the story morphed in the middle to make the ending work which then made the beginning inconsistent with the ending. And since I have a submission deadline for my writing group to read and critique the entire thing, I have to fix it right away. After they get a crack at it, there will be edits and revisions based on what they give me feedback on. At some point I need an editor to go over it and figure out all the things none of us have seen. Then beta readers for a look with fresh eyes, more revisions. And THEN I can hopefully find an agent who likes it enough and thinks he/she could sell it through the querying process which I haven't even wanted to look at details of because it is like having a full time job, plus a writing job PLUS a querying job until you find an agent. In the meantime, I will move on to the next idea and write another first draft and start the complete process over from the beginning. I've heard of published authors who are editing two books at the same time they are writing a third. Another argument in the 'writing is hard work' area.

While I know this is one of the more important steps - finishing a story all the way to the end - I know I am still on a journey of discovery. I'm having a blast and learning new things all the time. For today, I'm trying not to be overwhelmed by everything there is still left to do and instead taking this time to revel in the fact that I have done what I set about to do all those years ago. Or the first step of it anyway.

Everything changes

One of my favorite sayings is "Change is the only constant in the Universe".  And recently it's been particularly true for my life.  Fundamental things I thought would never - I mean NEVER - change, are changing.

Monday morning I got up at five o'clock.  That's a time people usually have to remind me happens more than once in a day because I'm guaranteed to be sleeping through the AM version.  Why did I ON PURPOSE drag myself out of bed that early?  On a Monday?  For yoga.  YOGA!  And guess what... I found out how much I like to work out in the morning.  I felt so amazing all day.  Yes, part of that was because I did yoga which always leaves me feeling amazing.  But there was more.  I had no anxiety about when I was going to fit exercise into my crazy day.  No lamenting about the day having slipped by, taking my best laid plans with it, and falling into bed without having worked out.  Nope.  Instead, I'd already done it before I would normally have been out of bed.  Brilliant! And the best part: I had so much energy all day that I didn't even feel sleep deprived.  Monday mornings now mean yoga at six o'clock AM.

Today I realized that subconsciously I've been changing my night owl activities all week.  I'm slowly training myself to go to bed a tad bit earlier so I can eventually wake up early and run before work.  Because, let's face it, my days of working out during work have been gone for at least eight months with no promise of returning.  And that half marathon is just getting closer by the day...

Then there's my writing...  No, no, I'm still doing it.  BUT, I think I've been writing in the completely wrong genre.  My first novel, poised for completion of the first draft after five long, grueling, frustrating, learning years is an urban fantasy.  Its the genre I have typically read the most so it must be the one I will write in, too.  Right?  Except that both of those stories I've got brewing in my head are NOT urban fantasy.  They are mainstream fiction, character-driven stories.  And I'm so much more excited about them!  So much so that I haven't forced myself to write the conclusion of the first one yet because every time I sit down to do it, I find myself thinking more about the next ones and the writing is crap.  I refuse to abandon my first baby until I've written "The End" and have at least the rough story down on paper.  THEN I can put it away in a drawer to pull out and re-work someday when I've got several more under my belt and could truly make an urban fantasy work.

On the home front, Hubby found out he has off-the-chart cholesterol so the entire family is now eating healthier.  My carnivorous husband hasn't eaten a cheeseburger in almost three weeks.  Even Big Sister has embraced wheat bread, although I'm certain her BFF who always thanks me prolifically for having white bread when she eats over will be sad.  The best part:  I'm no longer the odd one out when fixing meals because now I just fix what I'm eating for everyone.

So while I still can't completely explain it, man am I loving this cycle of change...

What is it about November?

Why is it that when the air turns crisp and the nights get longer I suddenly find new energy for writing?  Its like just the thought of November and it's designation as National Novel Writing Month looming in the coming weeks magically motivates me.

I've been in the "percolating" stage for months on my novel.  Which is writer speak for I'm-not-actually-doing-any-writing-but-I'm-thinking-alot-about-writing.  I used to fight this time when it would hit me but I've learned that if I wait it out and allow the percolation I am surprised at what my subconscious spews out when it's over.  This time was no exception.

Remember that the last writing I did was on my camping trip when I got reacquainted with where I'd left the story and all the characters and then banged out a new chapter.  Fast forward to yesterday when I sat down and without much thought produced a pretty killer chapter to fill a hole in the middle that until then had a one sentence of "this should happen here" as a placeholder.  Once that hole was filled in, the flood gates opened wide.

Tonight I spent my allotted writing time NOT on Facebook (miracle) and read the entire manuscript putting one sentence synopsis with each chapter heading.  (I just upgraded to Word 2010 and I'm really digging the default navigation bar on the left that shows you the headings in list form.)  Now I can see the flow of what every chapter accomplishes - as well as the few remaining holes that have yet to be written.  HOLY. SHIT.  I've only got 4 chapters to write and I'm done with my first draft!!

Surely I can write 4 chapters in the next three weeks.  Because then it will be November and I can start on the other thing the most recent percolating has conjured: a new story idea.  Yes, you read this post correctly.  I procrastinated percolated finishing the rough draft of my first novel so long that now I only have three weeks to finish it AND plan a new story so I can do National Novel Writing Month again this year.  Talk about working better under pressure and setting high expectations of yourself, eh?

Here's to burning the midnight oil and drinking more coffee than I have all year so I can basically write at breakneck speed for TWO months instead of one.  And may I live to tell about it when it's all over.

It's like riding a bike - only you need to practice

I finished my second race of the year yesterday.  I have a great friend who is a brand new runner and needed a 5K for her first race this weekend to coincide with her chosen training plan.  The only race she could find was a half marathon relay.  So she recruited her daughter and I to run the other two legs leaving her with the final 5K leg into the finish.  It worked out perfectly for me.  We called the team "Two Old Ladies and a Ringer".  Her daughter - being the ringer at 21 and a serious athlete - ran the first 4 miles all up a canyon.  I ran the next 6 miles down the other side of the canyon.  It was a great run even though I hadn't trained hard.  Sometimes just getting out there is all that matters.  It was all downhill and a distance I know I am capable of running so I wasn't stressed that the two weeks before had been a whirlwind and I hadn't been able to stick completely to my weekly workout schedule.

I was all alone with my thoughts and the tunes on my iPhone, surrounded by the changing leaves of fall in northern Utah and IT WAS SO MUCH FUN.  Did I wish I had more time to devote to running so I could have gone faster? Yes.  Did I revel in the fact that I was still capable of 'riding' this particular bike because I had been doing what I can whenever I can to keep in shape?  Yes.  Did I find an analogy to make in order to compare this to my writing?  Of course!

Hubby and I took our girls camping a couple of weeks ago and I persuaded him to trek into the woods alone with the kids and the dog so I could have at least an hour of uninterrupted writing time. He fell for it - further proof that he loves me - and I sat down and dusted off my manuscript that I still haven't finished from NaNoWriMo last year.  I read the last chapter so I could remember exactly where I'd left my characters and started writing.  Amazingly enough, I was still writing when the hikers returned two hours later.  I'd taken myself from the end of the middle to the climax of the ending.  And there are only a couple of 'holes' in the middle where its still a little muddy with placeholder statements of "this is what happens here" left to fill in.  Perhaps I'll get this draft complete and pick up the editing process where I got mired down before November yet! 

The current lesson here: writing is an ongoing process of getting on the bike but you have to keep getting on it to get any better at it.  It's not a new lesson, just a different way of looking at it for me.  I've also learned that in my own writing process I have to finish getting the story down before I can start editing.  And, much like my exercise plan, I have to squeeze writing into my insanely busy life wherever I can in order to keep myself progressing forward.  Someday when both of my kids are in school (and perhaps Big Sister is driving herself to dance) I'll still be writing and be better at it than I am now.  And I'll look back on this part and know how much it was all worth it to stick with it.

You're doing it wrong

I took another step on my journey of figuring out how to write a novel this week.  In an attempt to pull myself up by my bootstraps and self-motivate some action in the writing department since writer's group looms over my head, I reached out to my editor for some advice. 

I know what you're thinking: Wait, she has an editor?  But she isn't even finished with her first draft!  This is my friend who I found out recently is also an editor.  He will be tasked with editing my work once I get it finished.  And since I think it is super cool to refer to the fact that I have an editor, I'll now be doing so every chance I get.

Remember I said I was currently discovering my own editing method?  I told him what I had been doing and how unmotivated I'd become and asked for some advice on the whole process.  Turns out, I was doing it all wrong.  In my haste to have something for my writer's group to see, I was doing the editing completely out of order.  I was editing on the micro level instead of the macro level.  I haven't even worked out the big picture and filled in all the gaps yet.  I haven't figured out what the outline is to make sure I flow from scene to sequel and back to scene yet.  All this has to happen before we go through chapter by chapter which is what I'd been doing with my alpha-readers.

AH-HA!  No wonder I wasn't feeling the flow!  It was like recapping a race I hadn't even trained for yet.

I know my writer's group is going to be sad that they won't get to see what I'm up to for a while again, but I'm back to the writing desk.  This time with some direction on how to get from here to the end.  And with my new knowledge I'm excited to be here again which is the whole point.

This also reminded me of something else a lot of people have said...  Writing is damn hard work.

Finding your own method

I've been at this novel writing endeavor for many years - more years than I'd like to admit.  The lions part of the journey for me was learning the craft.  Like so many others have said before me, the only way to get better at writing is to write.  Yes, you can go to conventions and conferences and listen to others talk about how they do it - did that.  You can read books on the craft written by others who are successfully doing it - did that.  You can form and join writing groups who encourage and critique - did that.  But bottom line is that what works for others doesn't always work for you.  My novel is the most complete and mature to date (this is the third time I've started again to write the same story among writing other things) because I think I've found what works for me.  Of course time will tell if I've really got the formula completely dialed in but so far here's what I'm doing.

1. Outline.  Oh boy did I spend too long thinking I didn't need any version of this before I wrote.  I have several projects that ended in the middle of nowhere with characters who I didn't know anything about doing crazy things I couldn't get them out of and which had nothing to do with the story I wanted to create.  This time I put together a rough outline to get me from beginning to middle to end with enough vagueness to allow my romantic notions of discovery writing to still exist between the sign posts.
2. Character studies.  It helped so much that I spent an entire month of preparation writing about what makes my characters tick.  What their motivations are.  What their character flaws are.  What their goals are.  Then when I put them in a scene, I know enough about them to write their reactions and interactions with each other consistent with what I know about them.  This also helps move the story along between the outline sign posts.
3. Write like mad until the very end of the draft.  I almost got the entire story down during NaNoWriMo in November.  My motto was 'write now, ask questions later'.  Later comes in the editing process where I fix all the stuff that doesn't work in the first draft and finish up the ending that's already been worked out in my head.
4. Editing with my writing group.  Every two months I get feedback on two or three chapters from my most trusted alpha readers as I start to polish re-write the first draft.  The only think you do more of than writing in this process is re-writing.  I'm learning that lesson currently.  I take comfort in knowing that no one gets it right the first time and that the first draft is supposed to suck.

I've learned another thing during the current editing process.  I'm resisting making many huge changes as I get through the first round of editing.  Sure, there are a couple of chapters that I know need to be completely rewritten because the very beginning had my main character acting kind of out of character since she wasn't as well developed in my mind at that point.  And there are a couple of plot threads that started out pointing in one direction that I morphed to another that need to be fixed in the beginning for consistency.  But other than that, the feedback I'm getting from my alpha readers are going in a "to-do" list that will wait for me to get through my first edit all the way to the end.  That way, my story is the most complete version of my story it can be before major revising prompted from outside editing influences will be entertained.  Why does this work better for me?  I don't know, it just does.  And that, my friends, is exactly the point.

Revision - embarking on the scary journey

The past couple of weeks I've had to suck it up and dive into the part of writing I've been dreading since I started writing - and rewriting - each draft I've started of this crazy novel that I swear someday will be finished: revision.  I've never voiced that I'm scared of the whole undertaking until now but I am.  I even procrastinated an entire month of writing time between critique sessions because I didn't know where to start or how to go about it.

There.  I said it.

I started this current draft with a fairly basic outline and well-thought out characters which was new for me having been a purely discovery writer on all the earlier drafts.  Even with an outline, I was still doing a fair bit of discovery writing between the sign posts.  I already knew I needed to revise parts of the beginning to match where the ending had morphed to during writing so it should have come as no surprise.  But I still had to slap myself and put on my big-girl panties just to dive in.

What I found after three excruciatingly hard weeks of writing sessions with little to no changes in overall word count is this:  Just like everything else it seems when it comes to writing, you just have to do it and it gets easier the more you do it.  I had to get over my OCD of a perfectly formatted word document and start hacking things up and making side notes in the margins and deleting them when they were checked off.  This meant reading and rereading to make sure there was continuity between the old and the new - constantly tweaking a word here and a sentence there. 

(Does it surprise you that I found a way to have a checklist even in this area of my life?  I guess it shouldn't, right?)

After three weeks of doing nothing but rewriting, I can report that chapters one through three have gone through the first revision gauntlet and I have polished chapters four and five to submit for critique at tomorrow's writer's group.  It is amazing to have blown past this obstacle and know it has no power over me.  No longer will I cower on the sidelines worried that I don't know how to revise.  I know I can and do it I shall.  Which is good because do it I must if I plan on finishing this thing.

The beauty of having a well established writer's group is that they keep you honest - and writing.  Without knowing it, that's exactly what mine did for me this month.  Without these three amazing women, I would not be where I am today.  Period.

Wait, it's not November!

What the hell is wrong with me?  I go back and read my own posts circa November and I see how determined and motivated I was to write.  And how I vowed to keep it up until I was done with my rough draft.  Fast forward to present and what have I been doing for the last two months since my last writer's group meeting had me motivated to polish three chapters of my NaNo writing for submission?  Nada.  Zilch.  Nothin'.  Well, not really - the last two days I finally got off my lazy ass and started my late night writing sessions again and have a whole chapter to show for it.

Yes, I might be PMS'ing... why do you ask?

Every once in a while I get down on myself like this and rant and rave to Hubby who calmly reminds me about all the things that I do in addition to writing.  Like a forty-hour a week job, twenty-hours a week of being on-call after hours, our two kids I'm basically raising by myself while he works in the evenings, training for another Ragnar in June, etc, etc.  And that most of the people I'm comparing myself to don't have jobs other than being Moms.  I get this and I understand that I'm being hard on myself but that doesn't stop me from going to this place when I feel overwhelmed by trying to drive myself to accomplish everything I want out of life.  Being an overachiever has its costs - don't let anyone tell you any different.

Thank god for my writer's group who have agreed collectively to hold ourselves to producing writing this year.  They and are keeping me honest by demanding new material to read and critique every couple of months.  If it weren't for them, "tomorrow" would always be when I was planning on writing and I wouldn't have that shiny new chapter of "showing" in place of the three sentences of "telling" that was there before.

This post is also driven by the fact that I got to hang out with some old friends who we haven't seen in about five years this past weekend.  One of the women, who I've always looked up to and admired, shyly tells me that she's been writing fan fiction and got so obsessed with writing that she's also written a novel.  IN. THREE. MONTHS.  I wanted to shout 'Are you fucking kidding me?!' at her and throw my napkin down in a fit of anger then stomp off to anywhere else to wallow in the fact that it's taken me years and I don't have a single completed draft to show for it.  Instead I told her how amazing that was and gushed about how I couldn't wait to read it because that's what you do when other people do the things that you want to do and haven't yet.  There is a silver lining.  I found out that one of our mutual friends is an editor so when I have a completed manuscript I know where to go for the next step and it will be someone I trust. Plus my competitive nature has kicked into full gear which helps drive my late night writing sessions as well now.

If you need me, I'll be brewing pots of coffee and depriving myself of sleep in pursuit of this crazy dream!

A week of milestones

Last week was crazy and looking back on it I realized it was full of milestones for every facet of my life.  I should have something quirky to say right here to peak your interest and hope you'll take time out of your life to read about mine but I'm too tired to try that hard right now. Oh, and I turned forty.  FOUR. OH.  Like oh shit you're old now.  So forgive me?

Is it me or were those who told me that everything changes overnight when you hit forty right?  

We had already celebrated officially since Hubby also hit this milestone last month so we picked a day in the middle and had our good friend cater a fabulous meal for us and our closest friends.  It was amazing - both the company and the evening.  And so when the official day of my birth arrived, it seemed kind of anti climactic.  I got to do exactly what I wanted to do all day which included a whole lot of sitting around without guilt and getting caught up on movies.  Oh, and a trip to the running store WITHOUT KIDS.  It was a decadent hour of my life that I will cherish since it happens rarely. A couple of days later I was at the doctor's for my annual checkup and since it's the first of the year I had to fill out yet another new page of demographic and insurance information "for their files" and paused just slightly when it came to that blank next to "Age:"  How brutal to have to write that number before I'd even had time to process it let alone embrace it.

I quickly got over this insane milestone that, when I was young, I heralded as the beginning of old age.  After all, I don't look forty and I sure as hell don't act forty.  Plus I'm in better shape physically and mentally than I ever was at thirty.  Besides, I didn't have time to wallow since Baby Sister turned two under a week later.  

Apparently I suspected subconsciously that "they" were right about the mind being the first to go.  Because I had individually told everyone on the guest list in my head to save the date for the birthday party for Baby Sister in the weeks before my birthday.  Lucky for me since I remembered to send out an actual invite (via email) with details three days before the party and stressed that no one would show up because I didn't remember having invited everyone already.  Seriously, totally off my game!

Lucky for us, too, we learned the right lessons with Big Sister.  Like the one that says "until your kid is old enough to remember the birthday party you shouldn't go overboard on it".  We kept it low key with dinner for our immediate family.  The three or four people Baby Sister sees on a regular basis and who comprise her world came later for ice cream and cake.  It was perfect - well, except for that page I got at the end of the evening since I couldn't get out of my on-call shift.  The next day on her official birthday she got her ears pierced.  She's officially a big girl and I'm sad to lose my baby forever.

Another milestone in the last week involved work.  I'm busier than I've been in years.  Literally.  The entire week I didn't leave the office until after 5:30.  I've been thrown on a new project - which I love - but not only do I have to come up to speed in the middle they are in the throws of major conversions so there's not a lot of leeway for me to learn everything before I am required to perform new duties.  Gives new meaning to "sink or swim" that I hear all the time but never experienced before.  Plus, I've been assigned as the primary trainer for two new hires which carves out two hours of every day devoted to sitting in a conference room talking theory and principles and not doing any real work of my own.  Oh, and did I mention the slacker on my team who is supposed to take my pager shifts and hasn't been?  It all has turned into a perfect storm of high-stress and no time to run at work which makes Terra a very bitchy woman.  

And then Friday - on top of everything else - my laptop decided to die.  It may or may not have been a result of someone trying to help fix the issues I was having and making it worse.  Now I could connect to the network in the conference room for training but not anywhere else in the building.  Makes it really hard to work that way.  In all fairness the hunk of outdated hardware had been on its last leg for months but this timing sucked.  I ended up losing a full day and a half of productivity.  Friday ended with me skipping my planned trip to the gym and coming home to yell at the kids, pour a very large adult beverage and plop on the couch for the evening to drink it and decompress.  I needed it so much I didn't feel more than a twinge of guilt for not running.  I was emotionally and physically drained and it would have been a shitty run anyway.

I am still struggling to get back to running shape for proper Ragnar training which started officially today.  I did three miles but the last two thirds were all walk/run fartleks where I pushed myself harder than I normally would have for a training run.  Hoping it pays off next time I go out and my heart and lungs are in better shape.

Last week also marked a milestone in my writing.  I submitted the first three chapters of my rough draft from NaNoWriMo to my writer's group for critique.  It's been years since I had any work I thought worthy of being seen by others.  Two NaNos had come and gone and my beloved writer's group hadn't gotten to see the fruits of my labors or their encouragement.  I was so stressed between hitting send on the email and getting feedback at our meeting.  But it turns out they liked what I'd written and wanted more.  Plus they gave me some great feedback on ways to tighten things up.  Considering it was a true rough draft from NaNo land of "write first, ask questions later" I was happy and encouraged.  They make me feel like a real writer.

So here's to life which marches on and delivers milestones in the weirdest places sometimes.  Do you ever have weeks where everything happens all at once in every area of your life or is it just me? 

Back to the beginning

This past week felt like the beginning of more than another year.  I did my first run without pain in more time than I can remember and I started editing what I wrote in NaNoWriMo.

While my body has healed from my injury and I'm finished kicking myself for waiting so long to address it as the injury it was for a year, that doesn't mean I just pick up where I left off.  I thought I could but I was wrong.  I have to start all over again.  I've lost so much ground with my cardio that I couldn't keep my heart rate down in the aerobic zone if I ran more than a few minutes at a time at my comfortable pace.  After a frustrating mile of running with some irritating walking interspersed (accompanied by curses mumbled under my breath which I'm sure still offended the girl walking next to me) I climbed off the treadmill and opted instead for a spin bike.  It was my first time on one and I loved it.  Well, once I got it adjusted appropriately for my short legs anyway.  It was easy to lose myself in my audio book and make easy adjustments to keep my heart rate in zone 2.  I came away from it feeling as refreshed as if I'd run the whole forty minutes.  I guess I'll be doing a bunch of walk/run and spinning for a few weeks until I can get my heart and lungs back in shape.  It's a road I've traveled before and I've heard it comes back fairly quickly.  Let's hope so!  I'm looking back and regretting skipping the gym entirely just because I was dejected about not being able to run.  If only I had kept up with my cardio... *sigh*

Editing my writing is a road I have not traveled too much - unless you count that first attempt at NaNoWriMo where I wrote a chapter and then obsessively edited it over and over again losing sight of the whole point.  This is different editing altogether.  NaNo is all about writing first and asking questions later which I embraced wholeheartedly.  The drawback of this is that you get to the end and your characters and even their motivations have changed since you've gotten to know them better.  Plus, the story itself evolves.  I'm at a place where I can't finish the ending unless I fix the beginning to keep things consistent.  I started doing that this week and while it is cool I find it takes a lot more time to see progress than just banging out a first draft with abandon.  I've got my first two chapters pretty well polished and ready for my writer's group.  They refuse to be patient enough for me to finish what I started during NaNoWriMo to read something and I really can't blame them.  After all, they were with me every step of the way and should be rewarded accordingly.

So far 2012 is promising to be a great year!