Not Nanoing

As Nanowrimo passes me by this year, and my prescription for my SSRI has run out without refills because I don't have a doctor locally yet, I am struggling with inertia, frustration, and feeling a little lost.

Kauai is not an easy place to live, despite being a wonderful place to have an amazing time. I have had more fun in the months since we moved here--more unadulterated joyous fun--than I had in the last ten years, easily. I love the ocean, I love waves, and I (newly) love boogie boarding. It's heaven, in that respect.

Yesterday there was a sea turtle sunbathing on the beach. It's the third one we've seen doing that since August. I mean, flipping AMAZING.

It's the most beautiful place I've ever lived. And I've lived in some beautiful places, and I even feel disloyal to those places saying it, but let's be real. There are flowers everywhere. In the bushes, in the grass, on the trees, in people's hair, everywhere. Rainbows are almost a daily occurrence. I'm not even exaggerating, I think it might actually be daily. I love the wild chickens, trailing chicks behind them peeping, and the flamboyant roosters everywhere. Geckos--some bright green--on the walls. People don't dress as tacky. I mean, I'm not the fashion police (like, at all). But give me Hawaiian prints over hot pink zebra stripes any day.

But everything you heard about it being expensive is true. It's oddly not the way I expected, somehow, though I didn't have a clear idea anyway. But Jeff and I are both working full time, and we borrowed several thousand dollars from family to move, and now I'm really stressing because we barely make ends meet and we have to pay these people back. I cannot live with not paying them back in a timely manner, I just can't deal with it. They were so generous to help us and we're eating ramen and quesadillas most nights and we are overdrawn in one bank account. It's overwhelming.

Getting a new driver's license is going to be a mountain to climb because I'd let my CA one expire so now I have to go through the whole process--road test, learner's permit, the works.

I have yet to get all my paperwork in to the Hawaii DOE for my job and I'm afraid that when I do they'll dock my salary because of sticky details that shouldn't make a difference but probably will.

My job has these wonderful aspects and these super annoying and stressful aspects that I won't go into detail about. All I'll say is that I'm very grateful to be working with the co-teacher I'm with. He's awesome.

And Jeff is seriously considering applying for PhD programs so it's likely we'll move at the end of this year. Which, considering all the things that make living here hard, is probably going to be the best thing in the long run. But it's more uncertainty and another hella expensive and challenging move... my three year old regressed on potty training with the Kauai move--will he be in diapers in Kindergarten if we move again?

I'm venting. I started out writing this post as a way to feel like I am writing even though my WiP is sitting in a digital drawer gathering binary dust instead of moving along in the Nanowrimo flow. I miss the Nanowrimo flow. I miss having more than a half an hour to write once a week when I should be lesson planning.

Anyway... are you doing Nano this year?
What uncertainties are you staring down these days?

Wow, it's been a year!

Jeez, guys! I'm sorry I've been so MIA. I didn't realize so much time had passed.

Last year was busy and in many ways a great year. I really enjoyed my teaching job and got to do a *lot* of new projects which is probably one of the main reasons I let this blog sleep for so long. Then this summer several not-so-great things happened which definitely cramped my writing style both in terms of any blogging that might have happened and any novel writing. But that led to an amazing new chapter in my life: we moved to Hawai'i--the Garden Isle of Kaua'i, to be precise.

There's been a bumpy adjustment period. Many things have changed. For one thing, I'm now teaching middle school math! I really enjoy it, but it is very different from what I was doing before (one of the bad things that happened is that the district closed my school--I'm heartbroken about that). I've started a blog where I'm going to explain how to teach certain math lessons. It's mainly for the parents of my students to use, but you can check it out here, if you're curious.

There's a writer's conference locally in November and I really want to go! One of my goals for this new WiP, which is not set in any of my previous universes, is to attempt to go the traditional publishing route. I make no promises. I may lose patience with that very quickly. One of the reasons I indie publish is that I am a control freak so it really suits me to do everything myself. But I've decided I want to give it a shot, just to see what happens.

I'm snatching little moments here and there to work on the WiP. Like, sometimes only 15 minutes. It's better than nothing. And honestly I'm totally out of the habit of writing for long stints. I stayed home from work one day and could have written for hours and could only manage an hour or so.

For the current WiP I've been doing a lot more planning, outlining, etc. than ever before. I used to be such a pantser. But it's been a gradual process over the last few years propelled by the challenge of not having regular time to write. Now with my writing time in ever more brief snippets, the outline and brainstorms and character descriptions and everything are absolutely essential. There is no way I'd keep track of anything without them.

I have 29K words done and I wish I thought I could do NaNo this year. Maybe I'll try to set myself a more attainable goal and go for it.

How about you, where are you at with your creative projects? How have things changed for you over the years? Let me know in the comments!

No Nano this year...

At least, not the real 50K deal. My quiet goal is to work on my current WiP every day, or as close to it as I can. I know last year I embraced the challenge Kristen Lamb threw down to MAKE TIME. And I'm hoping next year that'll be possible, maybe. Sigh. This year I just don't see it. Between actual demands on my time and the exhaustion that some days makes it impossible to concentrate, it's too much. Do I sound like I'm arguing with someone? I am. I am arguing with the part of myself that only cares about my writing. That part is like, DUDE. IT'S NEVER GOING TO BE EASY TO SCHEDULE WRITING TIME. But right now I'm a nursing a baby parenting three kids under five part time teaching trying to keep the house from exploding machine. I'm just hoping next year, it'll be more doable. The eldest will be in school, the middle will be in preschool, and the littlest will still be napping. BY GOD HE WILL STILL BE NAPPING.

Anyway. I'm working on Masks in the Glow, the third book in the Raud Grima trilogy. The other day for the first time in months I did some work on it, rereading most of the sections for one point of view (I ran out of time but the goal was to read them all) and improving them. One of the things I'm really focusing on in this novel is voice--I have four points of view that I switch between and I really want each to be so distinct you'd have no trouble reading a couple of lines and figuring out which character it is.

Oh, and pretty cool news:

On November 18 I'm going to be interviewed on S. Evan Townsend's Speculative Fiction Cantina program on the Writestream Radio Network. He says to prepare to read a 5 to 8 minute section of one of my books (PG-13 rated). Um. This makes me really nervous. I'm going to have to practice reading it about fifty times. I don't know what to choose, either. Suggestions welcome!

Chuck Wendig and Writing Goals

So today I read a (very long) blog post by Chuck Wendig, which addresses what a mid-career writer should be concerned about. You don't see a lot of these blog posts as most tend to be geared either towards beginning writers, or address very specific aspects of writing and not so much career stuff. It was an interesting read, though quite a lot of it didn't apply for me because I'm self-published (he talks about agents and advances and such). But two aspects did stand out: 1) find a way to survive as a writer and 2) it's a smart idea to spend some time thinking about your writing goals.

In terms of #1, the idea is that mid-career is when a lot of people throw in the towel. Wendig emphasizes the survival goal as being the most important because of this. I think he's right, though I don't worry that much about quitting. I need to write to stay sane. If I take breaks for a couple of months at a time, no big deal, because I know I'll come back to it. If I don't, my mental health quite literally suffers, so there's really no choice in the matter. Of course I get discouraged when my sales tank (which they aren't doing right now so much as dipping rather unpleasantly), but in the end it doesn't matter. I could never sell another book again, I'd still have to write.

For #2 Wendig talks about how he plans his goals for one year, five years, and ten years. Reading that made me want to make myself a flowchart, so I could visualize my goals. I didn't go beyond a year(ish), though. I mean, my five year goal is basically to have completed the goals in the flowchart, and I can't picture what comes after that. General stuff, sure: be selling enough that I can use some of the money to pay for marketing, for one thing. But that's not a goal I can control so it's just sort of floating there. The one year goals are much more doable, so I focused on those. Of course it's probably more accurate to see them as like, three year goals. Even without two kids (and a third on the way! Yep, I'm insane--it was a surprise, folks, and I'm happy about it but woo-nelly, am I going to be swamped come mid summer)* there's too much to do to finish within a year. And one goal is to try to get traditionally published so that's going to take more than a year anyway, especially since I haven't finished the first draft of the novel I plan on submitting.

Anyway, here's the chart:

I've had several comments from readers of the decopunk books (The City Darkens and After the Fall) about how I need to get the third book out ASAP. I did start working on it a few months ago, but I didn't have a lot of it planned out and ended up stopping because I didn't know where I wanted to take it. I've been thinking about it lately, though, and I think I will probably get back to work on it soon.

I will definitely be writing another Veronica book (which would be book 5). I have several ideas for book 5 as well as book 6, and the world and characters are so familiar and easy to get into now, it's just a matter of deciding that's what I'm doing next, and I'll crank it out. As such, though, it's not my top priority. I do think the Veronica series is the most likely to seriously take off. The decopunk trilogy is going to be too weird for a lot of people, and it has some flaws I just can't figure out how to fix, though I love the story and the characters. The decopunk trilogy has been such an opportunity to stretch myself as a writer, and for me that's worth it, but I am realistic about it. It's not what I set out to do when I started it, for one thing. I trying to create a story like Kushiel's Dart, only set in a decopunk 1920s type world. Loads of people (myself included) wish they could visit Terre d'Ange, and I wanted to create a setting like that. What came out, though, was a cold dystopia I would avoid visiting pretty much at all costs, though. Too much of my cynicism found its way into those books, and book three is going to be very much in the same vein. I don't know if I'm even capable of creating a world that people want to visit or live in. That's actually the core of my goal with the YA magic school series (which may end up being a New Adult rather than YA series, depending on how much sex I want to include--I haven't decided). Yes, I am absolutely going to aim for something reminiscent of Hogwarts, because I love Hogwarts, and I want to manage to write about a setting I love. I'll deviate quite a bit, too. For one thing, I dream of visiting the Mediterranean again one day, so the setting of my magic school will no doubt be very much a place like Corsica or Greece. Maybe it'll be inspired by Ancient Greece, or at least a fantasy version of Ancient Greece. And I can tell you that it's going to be a bit of a response to The Magicians, which I was terribly disappointed with. I mean, come on, what a cool premise! A college like Hogwarts, with adult students learning magic? A loser kid who has a chance to have everything he ever dreamed of? So cool! And then the loser kid never changes or grows or enjoys the gifts he's given. I wanted to throttle him. Anyway. Trying to talk back to The Magicians--that ought to challenge me to step away from my cynicism. If there's a core flaw in The Magicians it's the book's awful cynicism. But in any case, that one's not going to happen any time soon, I want to finish the trilogy and the book I labeled Twin in the flowchart first.

Twin is the working title of the book I wrote during NaNoWriMo this year (made it to 50K!). It was going well but I needed a break because carving out time to write every day was quite a strain on the family. But I'm definitely finishing it, I have lots of notes and ideas. The big question is, do I start with that or the third decopunk book?

And then there's the story of my grandmother Evelyn's life. I found out the third baby is a boy, so there goes my plan to honor my grandmother by naming a child after her (Evelyn used to be a boy's name, up until the 20th century, but I'm not going to saddle a boy with it). My grandmother was the most amazing woman, and one of the kindest, most generous people I have ever known. She used to tell stories of her life all the time, and she had such a fascinating life. Some of the stories were no doubt embellished, and some of my memories of the stories have probably distorted them. And on top of that if I were to write a novel based on her life I'd have to fill in a lot of blanks. So it really would be a novelization of her life. But I think it would be pretty awesome, nevertheless.

And finally the space opera idea... I love soap operas. I love cheesy space stories like Flash Gordon (and A New Hope--it is a space opera, folks, even if it's franchise has perhaps risen above that since--perhaps). The thing that really draws me to write something like that is the challenge of creating amazing worlds and locations, like Cloud City in Empire Strikes Back. Say what you will about Flash Gordon, it took a powerful imagination to create that setting! So often worlds are clearly based on Earth and Earth's existing cultures, but in FG if that's the case it's really not obvious to me. The worlds in FG aren't even spheres! They are floating island-like places with various climates and topography. How does a person imagine places like that? That would be the challenge. Again, that's not happening right away, but I do see it happening most likely within the next three years. We'll see, of course. Another idea may come along and demand to go first. I'm not one to ignore that kind of thing.

What are your writing goals? Can you see beyond the immediate ones, to five or even ten years down the line? What ideas are percolating for you, story-wise?

*FYI if you are my friend on Facebook (not my author page, I'm talking friends with my personal profile) I haven't made an official announcement about the baby yet. All of my immediate family know, but I do intend to put together some sort of cute picture, so please keep the secret until then!

NaNoWriMo 2015!

I recently started an online writing group and it has done wonders for my motivation! I love talking about writing with other writers. I also rediscovered Kristen Lamb's blog after several years away thanks to Lori Sizemore, and found it to be super motivating. Back in September when I thought about doing NaNo this year I figured, "Meh, I'm not going to hit 50K with my current schedule, but I'll do as much as I can." Not anymore, baby. Lamb is especially responsible for this with her post about Good Girls and her post about why your writing career might be stuck. This quote from the Good Girls post really did it for me:

How many of us are getting up before dawn or staying up after midnight because our dream might just inconvenience someone else? Let them be inconvenienced for a change!

We ladies bend more than the karma sutra and that is okay, but if our husband actually has to watch the kids for an hour in the evening that is too much?

No.

Because this is me. I fit my writing in wherever I can, and I don't ask my husband for any extra time. And it's not like he'd ever say no. He's totally supportive. But I feel guilty taking time away from him and the kids to go write. After reading these articles, though, I knew I have to do it. Just for November, I'm telling myself. We'll see how it goes. But on days when the older kid comes home at noon from preschool (there are two days a week where he stays in the afternoon, giving me several glorious hours for writing), I will leave once my husband gets home and go to the library for an hour and a half to write.

Yesterday I took three loads of laundry to the laundromat (because the piles of laundry were seriously starting to take over the house, and we don't have a working dryer) and got started on my NaNo book. It's my first foray into YA, a supernatural thriller set in the 1960s. I'm so excited about it. 1750 words so far, folks. Yay!

Are you writing a novel for NaNo this year? What's your schedule like? Do you have trouble giving priority to your writing?

Getting the momentum going...

...is hard! Hard, I tell you! Gah.

"What in the world is she yelling about?" you wonder.

I'm trying to start book three in the Raud Grima trilogy. I've done a bunch of brainstorming and I've written the first 1600 words, but today I had several hours to write and instead I used them to participate on a debate forum I enjoy.

But there were people disparaging trans* folk, man. I had to call them out!

Not that I was alone in doing so... and it is possible that the other posters had it covered...

The real issue is I have this large scale habit when it comes to writing. It's a seasonal thing. I write the most in November-December. Then it tapers off for like six weeks to two months. But then it picks back up in March-May. Then in the summer, when usually the most I do is editing, and my writing dies down again, and it doesn't really get going until the following November.

The pattern has been that way for years--since 2006, I think.

NaNoWriMo is a big factor. I gear up for it and in years where I'm not overwhelmed by other stuff I do the 50K words in November, always with a new WiP. Then I keep going for a while, usually stalling a bit around 75K words. I have a hiatus, and then drive myself crazy thinking, "Come on, Sophia, you're so close to being done!" Which is not entirely true, as most of my novels have anywhere from 15K to 30K more words to go after 75K. But compared to the work that led to the production of 75K words, it's still a lot less.

So anyway, my point is it's September. This is not, historically, a productive month for me. I'm trying to buck the old system but my lazy self is just like, "Noooo.... writing is work and work hurts my brain..."

The next time I will probably have some uninterrupted time for writing is Monday, so really, what needs to happen is for me to not go on that forum at all. No checking for updates, nothing. Just sit down at the computer and write.

Do you have seasons when you are more productive? How do certain habits help or hinder you?

Here we go, NaNoWriMo 2014!

Well, I'm giving it a shot! So far, I have something in the neighborhood of 2200 words written, so I'm on track to achieve my 50K in something like February. But some writing is better than no writing! And I'm hoping my husband will be able to take the three year old to the park or something for longer this weekend, and I can maybe get a bit more caught up.

I deliberated a lot about what to write. I had a dream with this awesome setting. I can really see it working for a Harry Potter-esque young YA fantasy novel in a steampunk/early dieselpunk setting--you know, 1920s again, maybe with more of an art nouveau feel than The City Darkens. The trouble is, it really hasn't had enough time to percolate, so I'm going to put it on hold.

I decided to go with another idea I've been chewing on for the last year or so, which is more of a sort-of cyberpunk, futuristic urban fantasy dystopia story. I still haven't fully decided if I'm going for YA or New Adult in terms of my target audience... the difference is how much sex there'll be in it. I'm being vague about my MC's age for the time being (2200 words in, it's not hard to be vague about that) and I guess when I get to the first scene where sex is an option, I'll see how I feel about it. Oh the joys of NaNo, where you really don't know quite what you're writing until you get to like, the 30K mark.

That said, I did create an outline for this novel, which is unheard of for me. I figure with how little time I have in each sitting, I need a road map or I'm going to get lost. However, yesterday I was looking at it and I'm not sure what I meant by half of what I wrote. So there's that.

I'm a pantser at heart.

How about you? Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year? How well is it going, if so? What kind of story are you writing? Are you a plotter or a pantser?

When You Don't Feel Like Writing

First of all, let me say that I do not subscribe to the school of thought that would address this problem with a simplistic, "You write anyway!" exclamation. Writing is not boot camp. Toughing it out may work sometimes, in certain situations. For instance, about a week ago because I'm doing NaNoWriMo I did force myself to write on a day when I felt really stuck, and I did break through the wall I was banging my head against, and so it really was worth it to endure the discomfort of that. But I'm not really talking about that sort of situation here.

What I'm talking about is an overall feeling of blah, I'd rather be <insert other hobby here> that I have sometimes. Generally, I find my writing happens in cycles, and may be tied to seasons. For the last few years, I've had writing frenzies, in which I must write or feel like I'm losing my marbles, mostly in March through May. And I've also always really wanted to do NaNo, ever since discovering it in 2006. I haven't been able to do it every year since then, but in the years that I didn't, I really missed it.

This is the first year that I can do it, I am doing it, and I'm really not into doing it.

I'm not sure why. The story is working. I'm pleased to be back in Veronica's world--in other words, she's not the problem. I can only chalk it up to how hard the summer was. I think I went through a minor depression, and I think I'm not really out of it completely. I've gone through a major depression in the past and this is not like that, but one thing the two do have in common is I have no desire to write.

Now, I have been under the impression in the past that not writing leads me to feel bad, and sends me in the direction of depression. So you'd think doing NaNo would help me get out of this minor depression, but it doesn't seem to be doing that.

Another possibility is that my writing has been taking a darker turn lately. The sequel to The City Darkens (as yet untitled, but technically Luka's Chosen, book 2), is kind of a study in how to write about violence without making it titillating. The fourth Veronica novel, which will probably be called The Cradle and the Grave, although I've been considering reversing the order, has a lot of really dark moments. Which I don't think is entirely out of the ordinary for the series, but I just got through writing some of the darkest scenes, and that's been draining.

Still another option has to do with how my writing happens in general. I go through periods when I don't want to write. Like usually in the summer, despite having more time to do it, I don't write a lot. Summer is for playing outdoors. I actually did try to write quite a bit this summer and eventually gave up as I went into my shell. So it could be that rather than dragging along the vestiges of my minor depression this not wanting to write is really happening because I'm just not in the mood, and I will be in the mood in a couple months. It wouldn't be the first time.

Because, kittens.

So I think when I hit 50K for NaNo I'm stopping for a while. If I do, I'll have two WiPs sitting around at 50K words. Which is uncomfortable. I can't help worrying about them. It's unlikely I'll abandon them so far in, but it does mean I'll have to reread them and scratch my head a bit when I pick them back up to continue with the story. So I don't know. Maybe I'll only take a few days off and then get back into one or the other.

How about you? Do you ever take breaks from writing or producing whatever art or craft you're passionate about? Do you think it's best to always force yourself to keep going?

Time Just Gets Away From Me

Well, it's been ages since my last post, and I can account for that. I started a new job, and between lesson planning and everything that goes into teaching jobs, carrying for my now one year old (!) son and everything that goes into being a wife and mom, and working on my masters and everything that goes into that as well as finishing my BTSA, I just haven't had much time for writing fiction, much less keeping up with this blog. I miss it! I love being a mom, but when it comes down to it, carrying for my son takes most of my time, and I do miss the days when I had hours and hours to just do whatever I wanted, be it writing novels or blogging or whatever.

Anyway, I did get back into writing for about a week and a half in November, and I started a third book in the Veronica Barry series (technically fourth, if you count Veronica in Paris). Wait, you say, what about the decopunk serial? I will get back to it, I promise. I just hit a wall with it, and now I have to let it simmer for a while. Besides, I so strongly associate Veronica to November--NaNoWriMo, you know. In fact, I (vehhery) optimistically announced I was participating in NaNo this year, and then the holidays struck, and I was too busy making pecan pie and green bean casserole and hanging out with friends. Oh, and being a mom and writing a paper for my MA. So yeah, didn't even hit the halfway point in NaNo. Oh well. At least my novel is off to a strong start.

Although if I'm being honest, I also ran up against a big problem with the plot, and had to stop and think about it for a while. But that's resolved. So I hope to continue to make progress on that front--maybe not every day or anything, but steadily, and have a first draft done some time in the spring. Fingers and toes crossed.

My goal for this blog is to post a review of Jacqueline Carey's Naamah's Blessing soon. And what I'm really really hoping is that I might possibly maybe get her to do a little interview to go with the review. Can't hurt to ask, anyway, and hopefully she won't think I'm a big flake for taking so long to do this (she sent me the copy of the novel to review many moons ago).

My current "shoulds" of writing

My cbt therapist (or should that be cb therapist?) Shiva, would probably tell me to rephrase this, but there are several things I "should" be doing for my writing right now.*

First of all, there's the sequel to The River and the Roses, which has been through one round of revisions, and probably could stand to undergo about nine rounds more. If I gave it some serious time and energy, I could probably get it up to par for April, and publish it. I even have most of what I need to create the cover. I've been meaning to do this for about six months, with the intention of dropping the price for River to $0.99 once the sequel is out. Why have I not done it yet? Well, aside from the whole pregnancy/bed rest/newborn baby distraction, revisions are... well, work. And often annoying, painful work at that. I read a quote on twitter the other day, I forget from which famous author, saying something about how revisions or rewrites are more pleasant than producing the first draft because you don't have the dread of not finishing the novel hanging over you. I can relate to that, but for me, revisions are way more difficult to get into. Still, and Shiva would approve of this phrase, it would be satisfying to get that item done.

Then there's marketing. I stopped actively marketing my books nearly a year ago, I think, or at least nine months ago. I'm still on twitter and I update my facebook page from time to time, most often to notify you all that I've got a new blog post, actually, but as for directly sending out messages on twitter suggesting that people check out my book, no. Michael R. Hicks, one of those lucky and driven self-pubbed authors who is living the dream (he quit his day job last April, I think it was--I admire him so much!) suggests that the "tipping point" for twitter as a marketing platform is to have 1000+ followers. At the moment I have about 845. I use my twitter account to recommend news articles and just talk about things I'm doing or am interested in. And also let people know when I've posted something new on either this blog or the recipe blog. I don't advertise the family blog because it's much more personal and I figure if you're really that interested in me you'll check it out off this page. And probably most people aren't that interested in me! Anyway, I don't have a problem with people posting on twitter to advertise their books (in fact I try to retweet them when it's clear to me what they are about). Although some people will spam the feed for like, ten minutes, and it makes me wonder whether they've ever read an article about twitter etiquette. So my point is, though, I haven't been doing that. Why not? I feel like until I've got something new to offer, I don't want to risk losing followers because I'm self-promoting for the sake of self-promoting. Probably not sound business reasoning, but there it is. Maybe this week I'll send out a couple of links to my books.

I'm on Pinterest, now, too. Please feel free to follow me. I even have a board devoted to books, although they are books I want to remember to check out, so it seems weird to post my own books there. Maybe I'll create a new board for my books and stuff related to them. I do have a decopunk board where I collected a bunch of stuff to help me world build my current story. So I suppose when (if) it's done and I've published it, I could pin it to that board and it wouldn't be weird.

Speaking of the current novel, it is teetering on the edge of that going-to-be-abandoned cliff because I haven't been working on it regularly and I'll lose so much steam I'll never get it back at this rate. And that would be a shame, I think, because I have some interesting ideas for it. So what would be good there is to set up some sort of schedule or something... and bribe myself with some reward for achieving a word goal too, I think. My attempts to create NaNos outside of the official NaNoWriMo have failed thus far. It's silly, it shouldn't (there's that word again) make a difference whether I'm looking at the official site's graph for the word count or a ticker I created myself, but for some reason, it does. So the trick may be to abandon the large goal of a NaNo and make smaller goals. Shorter term, too. And small rewards as a result. Hm... must give some thought to what rewards would motivate me.

Any suggestions? Must be cheap. We are broke-ish.

How about you, do you have any writing "shoulds" or other projects that need your attention? How do you get yourself on task?

__________________
* By the way, if you have ever struggled with depression or anxiety, I strongly recommend going through cbt. Changed my life, no exaggeration.

Modes of Story Writing

I did a little bit of writing today: maybe 20 minutes worth. And a little is better than nothing. I'd like to get into doing it more regularly and doing more of it, though, because this story hasn't gained the momentum it needs to start moving along without a lot of extra pushing on my part.

Sisyphus (from
http://www.mythweb.com)

I find there's different stages, or maybe just modes, as stages implies a chronological order, to writing stories. The mode I'm in is the trying-to-overcome-inertia mode that NaNoWriMo is so wonderful for curing. The next mode, and the one I seem to spend the most time in usually, is the this-is-work-but-I-know-where-I'm-going mode. Then there's the story-is-writing-itself mode: that's the best one, the one I wish I lived in. It's rare and elusive, but usually by the last week of NaNo I reach it.

How about you, do you find your writing has different modes? Any tricks for how to get from one to the next?

Update for the Week

Well, this week there is good news and bad news. Good news: I sold a book! Considering the fact I did close to no promo (that's the bad news, also very little writing or editing), that's pretty wonderful.

Here's the thing, folks. I'm pregnant. Yep, about a week after I wrote that blog entry about being child-free I found out. I'm due in December. This is my first experience with pregnancy and I vascillate between joy and terror. I'm 38, which means the pregnancy is higher risk than it would typically be for a 25 year old, but so far all my tests are good.

The biggest downside is, I'm exhausted most of the time. My friend tells me I'm building a placenta and that's a big job. Okay, but I'm a writer! I need to write! A lot! Yeah. My body has other plans, involving eating crackers while lounging on the couch and watching 40s movies. And of course, I still have to go to work, and some days it's really really stressful. We had a day last week where three kids got suspended (I personally suspended one of them: a six foot tall, 250 pound, 18 year old country boy who likes to bully women) and a fourth got arrested and spent the week in the hall for threatening to stab his teacher (the same woman who told me about the exhaustion of building a placenta, actually). So the writing and everything associated to it has been suffering.

Nevertheless, I will write! My big plan for May was to do a pseudo NaNoWriMo to get 50K words written on Veronica book 3. Realistically, it probably won't be 50K. I also planned to edit the heck out of Book 2 in the hopes of being able to publish it soon. The good news is, school lets out for summer June 10, which is also the start of my 2nd trimester, and I'm told the second trimester is the least exhausting. We will be moving either in June or July, so that will take a chunk of time and energy, but I'm still hopeful that the summer will be a productive time. I really want to get Book 2 out because I plan to lower the price of River to $0.99 promotionally when I do and I'm optimistic about sales picking up then.

What kinds of crazy, unexpected things have been popping up in your life, and making achieving your writing goals harder than you expected? Do you have children? How do you find the time to write as a parent?