March 28, 2008 at 2:08 pm (Romance, Writing)
Tags: books, Romance, writer's life, Writing
Now that Spring Break is almost over, next week should bring back some routine. While I haven’t broken any records with my writing schedule this week, I have done some. Precious little some, but some.
Most of my time this week has been spent bouncing back and forth between three different projects, searching for an anchor to hold onto and get solidly back to work on one. Despite the cooperation of the weather, which has been downright cold, snowy even some days, I just haven’t been able to ground myself into a single project.
My goals for the year are clear. In fact, they are posted where I can see them every time I sit down at the computer. But I just can’t get a foot hold these last few weeks. Some of it is an itching for warmer weather and getting outside, but mostly I’m just a bit lost. It isn’t that I don’t have a passion for these projects, I do. But somehow, nothing is sticking at the moment.
No matter. Next week my routine returns. Maybe that will help. Regardless, something done is better than nothing.
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March 26, 2008 at 2:30 pm (Romance, Writing)
Tags: Romance, stories, writer's life, Writing
I have to admit the writing has been slow this week. It is Spring Break here. And while the weather has made staying inside the optimal choice, there have been too many other things that needed my attention.
But while my fingers have not been on the keyboard as much as I would like, I have been thinking about my stories. I’ve come to the conclusion on one, that it just needs to start where it starts. I’ll work on adding in the essential backstory from there. The other book (two stories that work as one) got some clarification thanks to one of my critique partners. She managed to state out-loud the very thing I wasn’t seeing – and it made perfect sense. So now to get happy with my opening scene…
As of next week, I’ll be carving out some essential time for writing. I need to get pages done now, as the next two months will be very busy ones for me.
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March 24, 2008 at 2:28 pm (Romance, Writing)
Tags: Romance, stories, timing, Writing
Some stories you just can’t rush. I’m finding this out with one I’m currently writing. As much as I want to sit down and write, I can’t.
Besides Spring having arrived here in the mountain West and my desire to get out into the flowerbeds and get my hands dirty, this story has not yet revealed enough of the emotion behind the characters to write it. Hence some weeding got done over the weekend.
I love the concept, brainstormed it with one of my critique partners last week, know plenty about my characters, but just haven’t found those emotional juggernauts yet. They will come, I know they will, in their own time and in their own way. I cannot rush this part of the process, it comes in its own time. But I want to write. I want to write this story. So I feel like a two year old stomping her little feet, but no one is giving in.
Tantrums aside, I’ll keep at it. I may not be able to rush this story, but I will tell it.
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March 21, 2008 at 12:15 pm (Romance, Writing)
Tags: brainstorming, motivation, Romance, Writing
I love to brainstorm writing ideas. And tonight I’ll be meeting with one of my critique partners to do just that. When a story is moving slow, or I’m not much in the mood for writing, this is one thing that tends to get me motivated.
Writing is typically a solitary job. It is easy to disconnect and lose touch, let everything else fade into the background and disappear into our stories. But sometimes the joy that comes from writing starts to ebb. While the reasons may be varied, it is not a good place to be as a writer. The act of not writing would only make the situation worse for me. And after a week of being sick and getting little writing done, I need that boost, that enthusiasm.
So dinner out and stories in hand it is.
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March 20, 2008 at 12:47 pm (Romance, Writing)
Tags: deadlines, page counts, planning, Romance, story concepts, Writing
As many of you have seen, keeping up with the blog this week has been a bust. Sickness rolled through my house and bam! only one escaped. And it wasn’t me. So thank you all for patiently bearing with me.
But despite all that, I have still been writing and thinking on a story concept that has me fascinated. The trilogy I mentioned a few months ago has the same concept for the most part, but this new story has a twist on even that. So I’ve actually been writing on two different stories. Very different stories. And I’m liking the way they are both going. I hope by next week, I will be back to my regularly scheduled program of writing.
Having something unexpected set you back on your project’s time schedule can be stressful. One way to avoid this is to plan ahead.
One thing I’ve heard many published authors admit to doing, is keeping a log of how many pages they typically write in a week. Once you have a good idea of your average, you know what you can reasonably produce page wise. Then figure out how many pages your story needs to be (and yes, you need to know this – every line with every publisher has word count minimums and maximums). A simple bit of math, divide your total pages by what you can reasonably write in a week, and you know how long your book should take to write.
Now, be realistic. Look ahead at your calendar. Are you taking a vacation during those weeks? Will family or friends be coming for a visit? Will your day job have you traveling? Keep those things in mind, then add a couple of weeks as a buffer. After all of that, set your deadline and write your book.
Even an unpublished author can start now, using the same time management techniques to get in the habit of writing to that deadline. By doing this, you will be able to test your deadline setting methods, test your ability to stick to your deadline, and learn to work under a bit of self-imposed pressure (trust me, that is often the case by the end of the book), and you will be ready when that editor calls to set a reasonable, realistic, contractual deadline.
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March 13, 2008 at 12:35 pm (Romance, Writing)
Tags: Romance, stories, working, Writing
The hardest thing about writing is…well, writing. Some days all you want to do is write, but you can’t, life gets in the way, a day job, families, every single thing on this planet conspires to keep your fingers from the keyboard.
And then some days the last thing you want to do is write. You’ll do anything and everything to do but write, play solitaire, surf the web, read every blog you can find, figure out how to set the time on the VCR (does anyone even bother with that anymore?). But that doesn’t mean you aren’t still writing.
For writers, even when we’re not typing at the computer, we are writing. Our subconscious is anyway. Deep in the layers beneath the daily grind, we are plotting, characterizing, churning around settings and situations.
This week, I’ve gotten no typing done. Notice I said “typing” not writing here. But it has been a week I needed to let my stories sink to the bottom of my mind and wait to see what rises to the top. Now that things are beginning to surface, I can move forward. My focus is narrowing, so soon I’ll be back to doing the hardest thing about writing…writing.
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March 12, 2008 at 7:23 pm (Romance, Writing)
Tags: history, inspiration, outdoors, Romance, Writing
One of the things that inspires me to write is the great outdoors. And living out west, the out of doors are simply spectacular. In fact, as I write this, I have to keep refocusing myself back to the computer screen and away from the red-tailed hawk that is circling outside on the up drafts.
Our home sits on a hillside, and all the windows that face the back are about level with the treetops below. A pair of hawks are rebuilding their nest. We’ll have baby chicks to watch again this year.
Much of my story lines take place outside. Historically, there were no computers and games and television. Life required the outside, regardless of sun, snow, wind, or rain. If you wanted to eat, you had to hunt, if you wanted clean clothes, you had to go to the stream. Being indoors, or taking shelter, was what one did at the end of the day, not all of the day.
I think one of the reasons that I love writing historical settings, is that the outdoors can almost become a character. It can shape and mold the happenings and add so much flavor to a story.
So the next time you want to live a little, go outside. Sit and listen and look.
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March 7, 2008 at 1:20 pm (Romance, Writing)
Tags: editing, Romance, voice, Writing
Ok, editing one book as I write another is not easy. But quite frankly, I can only edit on this book for so long before my head begins to hurt. I wrote this particular book about five or six years ago, and needless to say my writing style has changed. A lot. So not only am I pretty much re-writing an entire single title book as I edit, there are large chunks I am cutting completely, then creating new scenes or revamping the happenings and dialogue in an existing scene to match my current writing ‘voice’.
Now, ‘voice’ is a slippery thing. You know what it is, you can recognize it each time you open the pages to a favorite author, even describe it sometimes, but to catch hold of my own - that is tough. My critique partners tell me that my writing has a voice, but from my perspective, it’s just how I write, how the words and story flow. I can recognize their writing voice, but to find my own hiding among my words is…well, impossibly difficult.
But as I edit this older book, I know they are right. I have a voice (even if it has evolved over the last few years), and my challenge is to bring that evolving voice in line with the way I write now. I don’t think anyone who would read this book in it’s old form would recognize me as the author – I hardly recognize me as the author. And of all the stories I have written over the last seven years, this is my favorite. But because this story is my favorite, I’m not willing to let it languish in the file cabinet. I want it to see the light of day. So edit and rewrite, and edit I will.
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March 6, 2008 at 1:17 pm (Romance, Writing)
Tags: editing, Romance, Writing
Considering the rush, rush, rush of most days, this week has been relatively calm. I’ve been editing. Not that it is going fast, or particularly well on this book, but it’s going…mostly.
Editing is probably my favorite part of the writing process. The first draft is done – I always stress over the first draft. And I no longer have to worry about word count or page count or how the story is progressing. At this point, I know everything that has happened to my characters and why (they do like to change my original ideas), and if I need to work on certain scenes to make certain the reader does as well, then that’s not so bad.
Editing usually goes quickly for me. I might take, at the outside, two or three weeks for a single title. But not this single title, not this time.
This book needs reconstructive surgery. Not for the plot or characters – I love those. In fact, of all the stories I’ve written, this is my favorite so far. No, this story needs better structure and some rewriting to fix point-of-view issues. So the editing is going very slowly. Almost a week in, and I’m only about 40 pages into a 400 page book. Daunting…
At least I like to edit, and as my writing style has changed some since I initially wrote this story, I’m happy to get the chance to bring it up-to-date, reintroduce myself to those characters, and fall in love with them all over again.
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March 5, 2008 at 1:53 pm (Romance, Writing)
Tags: books, rejection, Romance, Writing
Life is not all rainbows and kittens. I’m not sure at what age most of us gets to that conclusion, but at some point we all do.
And if you want to be published, you better learn that fact fast.
Notice I didn’t say you better learn that if you want to write. Anyone can write, few can take the inevitable amount of rejections that will mount during the tedious and often painful process of sending out your beautiful words and getting a photocopied generic “no thank you” letter (and that can be one of the nice ones!) back in response.
But it’s part of the business. A huge part. And every person who wants to see their name on the cover of a book goes through it. Even getting a book or two published is no guarantee you will continue to sell. I know plenty of authors who sold fine books, only to suddenly find themselves orphaned when a publisher dropped that line, and unable to sell elsewhere.
So throw on your bear hide and be prepared each time you get one of those envelopes back in the mail. But if you keep sending them out, perhaps one afternoon, you won’t need that thick skin.
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