Updates (Six Month Hiatus Explained)

Well, it's been six months since I was last here. Sorry about that. Here's a few quick updates, then I'll make a second update about what I actually came here to write.

Health: I learned recently that I do not have carpal tunnel, but that I actually have cubital tunnel, which is somewhat similar, but uses the ulnar nerve and runs through the elbow instead. I'm on anti-inflammatories and some light therapy, but I think the thing that really helped it was just knowing the cause and the things to avoid. But more importantly, the pain I've been feeling is not a result of cubital tunnel syndrome, but is in fact a "more serious issue" we're currently trying to determine. I go in on Wednesday for blood tests to determine whether or not I have RA, which is the most likely result.

Zenith: Has a new intro that I rather like, but other than that, has been sitting ignored for a few months. I really need to go through and do final edits, but I just can't seem to find the motivation lately (we'll get to that in a minute).

Inevitable aka the TimeWIP: If you only follow me here, you don't know about the TimeWIP yet. It is my current project, which involves time traveling Historians. Yep, I gave time travel to one of the most boring professions and denied it to everyone else. Basically, the Collective Historical Society has unlocked the key to time travel and they've found a way to limit access to it. Historians are sent back in time to witness important events and collect facts (and occasionally artifacts) on these events. The MC, James, is told when he's 12 that he'll become a Historian, because in the future he's already one and the CHS needs to make sure this happens. There's more to it after that, but that's where I am at the moment. I really enjoy writing about time travel.

NaNoWriMo '11: I will be participating again this year, partially because I want to get back into the habit of writing everyday, partially because I want to challenge myself with something I'm not very good at (realistic fiction), and partially because Casye needs a writing buddy. Originally I thought about using the TimeWIP, but I had already written pieces of it, so that would be cheating. Instead I'm going to write about a bunch of friends from college who get split up after graduation, which will highlight different kinds of LDRs and LDFs.

NaNo Countdown: 3 hours

NaNoWriMo '10 is about to start and has already started for some of you. Exciting, right? More like terrifying. I just had my first case of Writer's Doubt and Panic and November hasn't even started yet. I'm not entirely sure where my story is going or if I even have an actual plot. Yes, I posted that bit about Caroline, but I don't think it's strong enough to carry the whole story. I've toyed with other ideas, both to improve this story and to pursue other options.

Panic is common, doubt even more so. Getting past that and getting words on the page is what makes you a writer.

The Monsters of Writing

We as writers risk our lives every day, trying to give the public what they want. We are like gladiators, facing terrible monsters and opponents all for the sake of entertaining others. Writers are no strangers to fear and frustration, believe you me.

The Biggest Monsters You Will Be Asked to Face as a Writer

• Research - after coming up with an idea and forming a rough plot, you might be asked to face Research, one of the biggest monsters of the Writing World and one that will pop up again and again. You cannot ever truly defeat this beast, it is immortal. When you face this creature, keep that in mind; you are not fighting to kill, you are fighting to survive. Still, facing Research is essential in your quest as a writer and each time you face it, you will grow stronger, gain knowledge, and be able to face your novel with more courage and confidence than ever before.
• Doubt - This is another creature that will spring up time and time again, generally when you least want it to. It's always hard to beat and afterwards your confidence is shaken and you constantly question your ability to complete your Journey. Doubt generally coincides with other challenges, such as The Wall and The Unmarked Path. Sometimes the best defense against this monster is to simply ignore it. Embrace that 5-year-old mentality that if you don't acknowledge its existence, it can't truly exist.
• Revision - This beast often attacks at the same time as Doubt on the second leg of your Journey to Publication. You've acquired your basic skills and materials and you've finished the first draft of your Novel, but now it's time to revise. Don't be afraid to really fight this monster, cutting out words, sentences, chapters, and limbs. Don't hold back, because if you do, you'll only have to face it again later. Each time you face this dreadful foe, it's harder and harder to put up a fight, as it wears you down. You thought you were done and Revision rears its ugly head to remind you that you aren't. It's like starting over, but it is survivable.
• Querying - This is the true test of your strength and skills. Your Novel has to be the Best in Show, able to blow away any obstacles and impress the judges like no one ever has before. This is not quite the final battle in your Journey, but it is the turning point. Every foe you've faced up until now has been in preparation for this terrifying beast. Luckily, there are many guides that can help you train for such a match scattered about on the internet. I urge you to study them before you charge into battle.

That said, know that I am facing the first Monster on this list with my next project, as I've defeated the somewhat lesser foe of Lack of Inspiration, a close cousin to Doubt.

If you have any other Monsters you feel should be included in this Survival Guide, or any additional notes on how to defeat the ones above, please leave them in the comments.

On Querying and the Loss of Inspiration

Hello all, thanks for being patient with my lack of posts as of late. It feels like my desire to write and be inspired has been on pause for a few weeks, no doubt due to a mass of real-life drama, but I'm doing my best to get back to the thing I love most. Unable to truly get back into it full force, I opted for editing one of my short stories, The Damsel, which I speak about here.

When I write and edit my works, I usually know which ones I'm going to query and which ones are mostly just for practice. I get a feeling that Hey, this is really something special, I could maybe do something with this. Or, it's good enough that I'll let my friends read it, so I should try it out with agents, too! And then sometimes I get a feeling that okay, yeah, this is not going anywhere--but I do try to finish those pieces anyway.

With Zenith, the feeling was most definitely I Could Query This, and I will, once I go through one more round of edits (and hopefully hear back from more than one of my beta-readers). With The Damsel, the feeling was more I Need to Share This. I've gotten quite a bit of good feedback on that one, so I hope that no one is lying to me, as this is what I generally assume of people reading my works.

So, yeah, I'm querying The Damsel today. I did some research (mostly utilizing AgentQuery) and will be sending off the queries themselves either tonight or tomorrow. I'm waiting to hear back from two agents that I would love nothing more than to be represented by on whether or not they represent short stories. If not, I'll go directly to my #3 choice whom I am especially excited about also. I'll keep you all updated on the process!

The New Order

This morning I emailed off my last paper for my summer course, which means I am now free to spend any time outside of work editing my novel. That's...a little scary, honestly, but it's okay. I had a migraine earlier, but once the excedrin kicked in I thought I might go read and I decided "No, I'm going to try to do some edits. If it doesn't work, I'll go read some Fitzgerald, but I at least need to try." Because that's my thing, I don't always try, I put it off, because "don't feel like it," or some other crap excuse. Today I tried--and turns out, I actually was able to do something with this MS.

When I am writing and especially when I am editing, I sometimes look at what I've written and think "Wow. I wrote this? Seriously, I did? This is actually really good." I might even realize deeper meanings in the prose that I hadn't consciously placed there originally, but is just so gosh-darned good. I amaze myself, sometimes.

Other times I look at the page and wonder how I even managed to get this far. I should have stopped ages ago, because obviously, I suck. I really suck. And I make really stupid mistakes, like using the wrong name for a character or have a seriously huge error in continuity or something like that.

But, it's edits, these moments are supposed to happen, right? (Oh God, I hope that's right.) I'm supposed to realize that I actually can make something out of what I've got so far and see the potential in my own work; realize that I have talent and build up my self-esteem to get me through to the end. I'm also supposed to find all those really stupid mistakes so that I can fix them—that's what editing is all about, really. I'm supposed to take something that pretty much sucks, but has potential, and turn that piece of coal into a shiny new diamond, ready to be cut and placed on a ring that I can later use to propose a marriage between myself and an agent.

So, bad news: The entire first half of my novel needs some serious work and the second half has a lot of errors with names and places.
Good news: I think I figured out how to fix it all, by rearranging some of the chapters in the first half. What was once chapter 1 is now chapter 4, and the prologue is gone completely (for now?). What was once chapter 15 is now chapter 5, and the end of chapter 4 will have to be rewritten to reflect the changes. Well, a lot of things will have to be rewritten to reflect these changes. All writing is rewriting, after all.

Writing is Inescapable

There are some jobs where you go to the office, clock in, do your work, clock out, and leave. Writing is not one of those jobs. Writing is who you are, every minute of the day, whether you're working on the story or not.

As I mentioned, I'm working on editing Zenith and I have until the end of June to do so, a date that is approaching far quicker than I'd like. After that last post I went to my day job as a receptionist, came home, and went into immediate care. I spent the next seven hours on a doctor's examining table, getting my blood drawn, being sent to the hospital, having a CT done, and waiting for results. Through that whole ordeal, between thoughts of "I bet it's appendicitis" and "ow ow ow OW" and "OH GOD I HATE NEEDLES" and just "uuggghh," there were thoughts like "I'll have to remember what a CT is like for when I'm writing about Ciera" or "Maybe the disease she can have is stomach cancer." I've had Ciera's story rattling around in my head for years, (where a teen is struggling with a terminal illness and doesn't tell her friend) so even when I was on the table, part of me treated the experience as research. It's a job you can't leave at the office, you can't leave at home.

That said I haven't gotten much done since the last entry here, because I spent such a long time in the hospital. I'm alive and I spent all of yesterday out of town away from my computer at a Memorial Day picnic. Tonight hopefully I can find some time to focus and get a few chapters knocked out before I have to turn my attention to homework.

Deadlines are great for me, ovarian cysts are not, even if they afford me chances to research a future project.

The Conqueror; Organization is a Battle

Total word count: 13,729
Words written today: 0

Yup, zero words written today, I know. Same for yesterday. My reason for yesterday is that I had a paper & a presentation to prepare for my Colonial Literature class and I had gotten home late from work/school. My excuse today is that I spent my hour off writing this post on the marketing behind the new Twilight book instead of working on my novel. Why? Because I'm not sure where to go next.

Which brings me to my topic: organization. Not all of the work that goes into a novel is writing. Sometimes you need to stop, take a moment, and figure things out. I have so many ideas bouncing around in my head, build up from the last 6 years since I dreamed up this novel, and I don't know where half of them go anymore. There is a huge hole in my narrative, some of these plots no longer exist, some need to be taken out to spare the world. So tonight instead of writing I went down into The Archives, which is the name I have for this semi-organized mess in my room where I keep all my writing things. I have finished copies, rough drafts, edits, & random loose scraps with notes that make no sense anymore. Tonight I went through, found everything that related to The Conqueror and refreshed my memory on everything. Also in my room I have a bulletin board with all the major plot points from the original idea still up there from 4ish years ago. It makes me wince to look at some times. I took all the scraps & I typed them up into two doc files on my laptop, for characters & misc ideas. I also have a paper from earlier tonight covered in questions about where am I going or notes on what things I definitely need to work towards.

I haven't figured out much, but it's a work in process. Hopefully this weekend and next Monday (no school!) I can do more work on these. For right now, I need to work on the outline for my research project in Ethics, and tomorrow is devoted to a literary review of all my sources for Comm Theory. College is not all parties, my friends.


EDIT: I finished my outline fairly quickly & had about 12 minutes before bedtime. I still don't know what's going to happen next (it's less a matter of what will be in the chapter as which chapter is next, narrator-wise) but I didn't want to spend a lot of time figuring it out, so I put in a blank chapter and moved past it. This was a chapter I had almost forgotten until I went through The Archives, but one I think needs to say. So I wrote 224 words before midnight & before I got word blocked.

Help: What is the word for when someone goes "aargh?" Like out of frustration? There is a word for it. It is a word I can't think of. Please to be helping me with it.

Total word count: 13,953
Words written today: 224