For Why?

My laptop cord died. My laptop battery has been dead for awhile. This is serious news. Why? I obviously have access to a computer, and as I've not handwritten a manuscript in years, I can certainly continue the work I've deemed important. Well... I've lost my security blanket. It's not a REAL blanket, silly. My laptop has all my book info on it! All of it! I usually give myself a very brief run through before I start writing to prevent wasted time on work that is at its very conception useless due to a deviation on the current  course. Silly, yes, but it makes me feel insecure without it (and its not even the first Wednesday of the month!).

What's more- this shouldn't have happened. My Husby is a brilliant man and quite awhile back started preventing me from losing my most precious material possession, by backing up my WIP, and putting it on a drive of sorts so that it would never be stuck on a hard drive to be eaten in said hard drive's imminent demise. I speak from experience *sheds one tear for lost work*. My Husby is a superhero of sorts. Well it turns out that his arch nemesis is actual a hidden sabotaging streak that I was unaware dwelt within ME.

I thought my actions were harmless! I was just looking for a new writing program! My Husby even supplied it. I normally use Liquid Story Binder. Better than word, but definitely flawed. He brought Scrivener to my attention and I decided that I'd try the 30-day trial. I brought in all my writing, and started using the product. Incidentally, it was proving to be pretty awesome, and I was sneaking peaks at our bank account wondering if I could prudently drop the $40ish to buy it. I wrote and wrote, and then my computer died and died, and I didn't have a back up of what I'd written. After all - I figured I'd try the trial and then export my work to safety. Dumb, dumb, dumb. I wonder if I looked closer at the cord  if I'd find my own bite marks. That would add an additional "Dumb" to the lineup.


I haven't really lost anything but time (though that's an expensive thing). I'll get a new laptop cord and I'll get into my Scrivener and back up my work. It won't happen again. I just had to give myself four paragraphs of facing the truth of the event. Now I'll open up a Word document (*sigh*), and try to write.


Anyone use any writing programs to help with organization an' all that jazz?

Gee Golly, it's Giddy Good News!

I just have to take the opportunity to shout out some of the good news I've got! First! I've been feeling great lately. The last three years have been a doozy for me - and my husband. Things have been improving for numerous reasons - part of which was getting my job with Dr. Cool, and getting treatment from him. Lately though, things have gotten even better. Over the last few days I've felt like ME! Me for real! It's been years since I've felt like me - and I've nearly been in tears from the joy of it. It's amazing what getting the right help can do.

Second! And this is on the same thread as the first. Today my husband ended up mentioning that he hasn't had hip pain in about three months. He wasn't talking about a little stiffness or aching. He was talking about excruciating, zinging sciatica that was so debilitating at times that he couldn't walk, and lying down - sleeping!- was almost as bad. He's had amazing good news over the past few years. He got rid of his migraines, made his tummy happier, got his head back on straight - lots of things. However, I really worried that the hip was a structural issue that would never improve. It just kept coming back! I've been proven wrong! I couldn't be happier. The thanks all goes to God, Dr. Cool, and LAc. Cool. (If you think alternative medicine is a crock - you just haven't had the opportunity to see the masters at work. I have see miracles from God wrought by non-traditional doctors that would blow you away - and that is not an exaggeration.)

Finally the final good news! This awesome husband that I've made you all covet helped me with some brainstorming tonight. You see, recently I realized that the book I was writing needed to be split. I just couldn't get everything into one book without glossing over thousands of years of things happening or by making it a 700+ page book. I just didn't want the single book to be that long, while still skimming over things that I wanted the book to express. Well, who knows if I end up skimming the book down enough to make it into one again - but I feel good about the decision. However, this meant that I had to have a good splitting point. Well it turns out that the splitting point gave me a relatively small amount of writing left to do in order to finish book one (of two). Then comes the rough part - tomorrow (I guess today now, but whatever) is Saturday - which is my designated "write or you prove yourself to be a lazy bum day"- and I had serious gaps left in my outline of the rest of the book. My husband - being awesome, as you by now know - helped me fill in those gaps tonight. Not only that, but he helped me improve some of the plot arcs. Now I can get to work tomorrow with out having to brainstorm without my wonderful sounding board. My book is going to be great! I have the best muse in the whole world *gush*.

Those Coveted Beta-Readers

Heya ladies and gents!

You probably don't remember me, after I fell off the face of the map and all, but I still exist and I'm coming back with a vengeance. I had a crazy few weeks of building stress, followed by three weeks of crazy busy, and finished off with a week or two of recovery (ie., being sick as dog, cleaning my filthy house). To show the extent of damage this whole series of events caused: I wrote under 300 words in May, and in June I desperately wrote about 1700 words the last week, just to prove I couldn't go a whole month without writing. This in comparison to better months like April where I pulled out 16,000 words. I know 16,000 doesn't shine too bright compared to many writers - but, I'm proud of every little word (even if half of them get scrapped in the end).

But! That is all a diversion from the real topic today. As it's time for my IWSG post, I have a new quandary to inquire about. You see, I read posts by authors and authors-to-be in which they talk about beta-readers. Lately I've been thinking more about these blessed beings. I have two beta-readers currently. One is my husby. He rocks. He gives great feedback and is my biggest fan. My other beta-reader is one of my very best-est best friends who also writes. She's fabulous. Great writer. Also gives fantastic feedback. The sad news for me, is that she's had wonderful news that's going to take her away from me for almost two years. I'm losing one of my precious generous bundles of feedback and support. 

This leaves me feeling even more sparse than I did previously, but by-golly what do you do about it? I know it should seem kind of obvious, but I mean it. I've had people ask to read my work -- people who seemed intelligent and supportive and interested! So, with bile in my throat, I handed over this precious work  ----- and!!! Well, more often than not, they never got around to reading it, or didn't give any real feedback, or professed interest in more, then seemed to lose interest all together. Obviously it might simply be that they weren't a fan of the work itself, or the genre, etc., but more often, I've noticed that because I was giving them a WIP, they'd grow away from it, forget pieces, and re-reading was more trouble than it was worth just to read another partial. I'm rambling.

My questions are: How have you found success in this department? Do you only give beta-readers finished manuscripts? Do you just keep asking people? Do you get really selective? How many beta-readers do you have blessing your piece? How'd you get that help? 

P.S. Pardon my shotty writing :p I've lost brain cells and vocabulary from watching T.V. *Word - verb- that I can't remember* that currently. ---- Remedying! Remedying that currently. That's it. Wait. Is that a word?... Should that have been, "Currently remedying that bad habit"-? Geeze. Excuse me while I eat peanut butter with a spoon and stare out the window.

Revved Up! (IWSG)

Not only am I late with this post, but for the second time in a row I'm not posting the Insecure Writer's Support Group logo-link-thing, on account of the technical difficulties that are apparently occurring on Alex's site. That, and my husby's not here to show me how to use it. Next time.

I was looking over my blog today and felt a little wussy-panted. I haven't been posting very much. I mean, I figure I should be racking my brain at least couple times a month! The truth is, however, that I've been pretty hot and cold with writing this month, in general. The hot was two weeks ago. I met my four hour a week goal and pumped out 6300 words. Hurray! Dents in writing are a good thing. The cold would be last week. When I only wrote for about 20 minutes putting out 519 words. There were of course extenuating circumstances, but it got me thinking about motivation, and I thought it might be an interesting blog topic.

I'm interested in getting some feed back for an additional reason that I'd like to preface my statements with. I've noticed looking around at other writer's blogs that everyone's end goal is not the same. I probably expose my naivete, but I was a little surprised. I thought that everyone that wrote was driven by the desire to publish! However, more than once I've read posts indicating that some writers write for the joy of writing, or are satisfied to write for friends and family - or simply speak about publishing as an "eventual goal, but in the meantime (etc.)" - all acceptable and admirable goals. It was an interesting discovery as I'm on the other end of the spectrum. By heavens, I like writing, but if my book does nothing but sit on my shelf as a manuscript, I feel like my soul will fester. I want it to reach the masses! I want to share it with all lovers of the genre! I want to bring another re-readable book to the audience's libraries. I was inspired to write when I found a book that opened a new world to me! I want to do that for another person. There are all sorts of reasons for this desire, and how it's fueled, but that's for another blog post that will likely never see the light of day.

My point in bringing this up - is that since people have different goals, they must also have different motivations. When needing a writing shove, I used to read for motivation. In retrospect this proved problematic for me. I quickly learned that reading genres different than the one I was writing threw of my writers chi. Eventually I realized that for me to stay focused in what I'm writing, I can't actually read much at all. Being a character lover, when I read a really good book, I want to emulate it! Well that can obviously be a slippery slope. So I decided that while this is a real bummer, it's worth it to me to retain my core story and character arcs. I figure I can start reading once my first draft is done. Then I know I won't look back and gag when I realize that I sucked the life out of a book I read only to spit it into my own writing.

While occasionally I'll just force myself (which usually brings out inferior product) - the most common practice I have is to get excited about the success of FINISHING - and this is where I tie into that tangent about goals- *wink*. I often go read the blogs of published authors in the genre I write. My two favorite are Patrick Rothfuss's blog (he's very entertaining) and Patricia C. Wrede's blog (she's very informative). Reading about people who have "made it" gets me excited about the potential success within my reach. Something I haven't done for awhile, but want to begin again, is reading a section of "Robert's Rules of Writing" by Robert Masello. It was a book given to me by my grandma when I was in high school, and she were trying to encourage me. I actually know nothing about the writer, but the book makes writing cool, and is both entertaining and informative. I don't always agree or follow what he says, but the book does what I want it to do: It helps me get writing.

The last thing that I'll occasionally do is get feedback from my beta readers. I have very few at this point... basically two. Coming up with the right questions for them can sometimes kick start my mind. Similar to this, is getting my husby to brainstorm through the problems I'm facing. Sometimes we'll do so over dinner, and can last over an hour, sometimes two. These help a ton, though, usually in a long term way, as I'm usually burned out for the day by the time we're done.

What about you? What do you do when writing doesn't sound fun, but you know you need to do it?

I'm Innocent! I Swear! (IWSG)

On behalf of the "Insecure Writers Support Group" Web-logging-Wednesday - I thought I'd share a writing dilemma that I hope I am not the only person to have had. If I am, well... that would be embarrassing. So, even if you haven't, consider saying you did to prove your angelic nature.

Have you ever enjoyed a season of being wrapped up in your writing? You've been working, and brainstorming and getting excited about the fruits of your labor. Then, you pause briefly to step back and breathe in the finished work, only to choke slightly because you realize that something brilliant you've added to your book resembles an element of someone else's book. Egads! What do you do now? I mean, it's not like the story is a carbon copy. In fact, the point of what you've written is to get across a very different story! There are plenty of differences! It wasn't on purpose! In fact, if you think about it- you came up with it before you ever read that other book!

Aside from this being somewhat discomfiting, the real trouble comes as you begin to wonder, "what do I do now?" Does it need to be changed? Do you twist it into something different? If you don't will you be passed over by agents? Or worse! - what if it isn't passed over by agents, but the scathing reviews fill Amazon and Goodreads (etc.,) about how the book is just a poor rendition of "Awesome Book That Now Holds the Rights to All Things Cool Therefore Negating Anything Cool and Original in Your Book". Admit it, you've all seen those reviews - maybe you've even written one yourself (no, judging, I promise).

While the solution is rarely simple, it eventually has to be made, and the writing moves on. But, now the question of truth - anyone else faced that sinking feeling of worry upon such a discovery? If so, did you end up keeping the "familiar element", alter it into unique-ness, or nix it right off?

That Being Said...

I don't know if it has thus far been mentioned, but the truth of the matter is this: I'm really excited about this new book I'm writing. I admitted to a friend today that I was worried I had committed some self-sabotage by setting aside what is now a sequel book in order to pursue the writing of the, then prequel, now kickstarter novel. I thought, "What if this is me making sure that I never succeed in finishing a book?" Working in a off-shoot of the "health-care field" I'm afraid I know just enough about the body, the psyche, and so forth to be truly worried about this. However, I've since set this aside. This is the book that needs to go out to agents first. - Ack! I just noticed that my fridge door was left open! How long have I been wasting money with the expulsion of cold air from my Frigidaire!? Gracious! - Anyway, despite the delight I'm experiencing in the creating of my book, progress is slow. Not dead slow, but possibly frozen-zombie-walking slow. However, I've proven to myself that I can break through the writing blocks, and reach (or nearly-reach to be honest) the end goal. Yes, that sentence doesn't sound all that impressive, but the truth is, that near-success achieved the goal that I hadn't realized I was needing. Now that I know that I can finish this book, and likely (most definitely: hopefully) within the year, it's only a matter of doing the writing itself. Silly sounding yes, but once you reign in the psyche you can accomplish new and inspiring things.

That being said... I have made a reassessment of my writing goals and have settled them down to 4 hours of writing a week. It's silly, but I am going to clarify - 4 hours of WRITING - not four hours of sitting at my computer, or even researching. I mean, 4 hours of typing the thought creating my book onto paper. I feel this is achievable under my normal writing circumstances - as I usually write during the weekend, and can expect myself to sit down for two productive hours on Saturday and Sunday. I also feel that it's exceed-able! Which just makes me feel good. This should mean I'll finish the rough draft of my book by the end of the first week of July, if it ends up being as long as I anticipate.

As one last note - in search of some writing company, I've decided to look into the Insecure Writers Support Group. I don't know that I'd say I feel insecure. But lonely for sure. Writing is by nature a "lonely" business. I like to see what other writers are up to though, and wouldn't mind if they likewise looked to see what I was up to. This in turn, has required me to switch my blog to Blogger. *Shrug* Whatever.

Adieu!

Out Like a Light.... Hit with a Hammer

The light at the end of the tunnel has been demolished. I have a lantern, so in truth things are not so terribly bleak, but honestly - I was really excited to be free of the cave. Of what do I speak? My book, of course. As you may or may not recall, I have been plodding along with my book, making small leaps of progress that have quite frankly brought me immense satisfaction over the past few months now. Further more, I've recently become increasingly excited about that "light at the end of the tunnel" thing that was supposed to come to fruition about April. Well, a week or two ago, I was doing some research and this horrible realization came upon me. It was, that while I consider my books together to be prime material for publishing, the particular book that I've currently been working on... well... it's not a good book to pitch to agents. It was something of a ground-shattering discovery for me, and if I remember accurately, I cried for awhile. Though, perhaps that isn't a good qualifier. After all, I cried watching Panda 2, though not as hard. My point is, while I didn't necessarily have to face "scrapping" my book, it would need quite a bit more revision that I anticipated... and well... I'll to set aside this current mature project, and set my focuses on the books "prequel". That is in quotations, because it is no longer the prequel. It's now book one.

(Continuing a week or two later) I've dubbed this new "book one" = Unbanded. Just so it won't be referred to as "book one". I'm started it. Right now (as I take a break from fantasy to write about reality) Unbanded sits at 9800+ words. This is only depressing when I think about the fact that Banded is over 110,000 words. Ach, why did I just do that to myself. I suppose I've been on a bit of a stats splurge lately. You see I discovered that, on average, I can write somewhere around 1500 words an hour. I suppose, however, that is somewhat deceiving. After all, I don't often sit for an hour straight typing. I usually get diverted to change music, and look at facebook, and in truth, my words per hour would look absolutely hideous if I counted the amount of time I sat at my computer with the intention of writing. No, I'm talking about actually the actually typing timed. My writing program does that for me. As long as the window is open and being worked on, or stared at, it counts the time. So for every hour that I actually have my book open before me, I get about 1500 words written. I'm also discovered that when I'm writing more or less nonestop-,I usually only last about two hours, getting 3000 words written - sometimes more. After this, I'm somewhat burned out. I'm not proud of this. Some part of me screams that I should be WAY more hard core than this. After all, haven't I previously declared myself possible of achieving hard-core non-wussy-panted awesomeness!?

Well in light of these recent thoughts, and with four days off in my future, I decided to push myself to the limit. My goal was that on the four days off (spanning two weeks time) I would double my normal word count for a hard core writing session. So each of my days off I would write for six hours getting me to 9000 words each day, and 36000 words by the last of my days off. Well.. I'm at the end of that first week, ahem, and like I said, I'm just under 10000. Needless to say, I haven't proven so great at doubling my word count. In fact, it was hard to get any writing done at all. I know when to revise a goal, so my intention is to do a good normal sitting on this upcoming Tuesday (day 3 off), and at least SOME writing on Thursday (day 4 off). In my defense, Thursdays are saturated with dance stuff. I was busy! - and I'm sure I'll be busy this upcoming Thursday.

I'm not entirely done with my stats though! You see I made a rough estimate that Unbanded should be around 500 pages long. I think, I can tell the story I need to, without getting too long-winded within that amount of pages. Now, in mass market paper back, which has about 250 words per page, this leaves me needing to write approximately 125,000 words to finish this book. Meaning it will take me about 84 hours to finish. That's four straight days of writing, or 42 of my "normal writing sittings". Well I don't particularly like that number, because that means if I continue to write on the weekends like I do, it could take me somewhere around 5.25 months to finish. lame. So lame that I didn't capitalize the 'l' in that one word sentence.

Obviously I need to make some new goals, but the truth is, I'm nervous about doing so. I'd like to take no more than 3 months. This means that I'd have to write - actually write - about 7 hours a week . I know this sounds weak-sauce. I could totally spend 7 hours a week writing. In fact, I should change my tone right now. I'll give myself 3 months - starting March. That gives me the rest of February to continue to create a nice pillow for myself, in case I run into some hard writing times. So June, I should be sending THIS book - Unbanded - out to proofreaders. Oh that would be so fun! Actually - that lines up with the goals I had for Banded. The difference is, Banded was already mostly written at this point. In fact it's over 400 pages long right now...

Okay, okay, I'll stop lamenting. Got to go make some new goal sheets!

(Written February 12th 2012)