Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You

I have been working furiously on a new novel, The Breaker, which I hope to publish later this year.  Writing is an interesting, solitary career choice.  You can bounce story ideas off of others, but most of the work is done inside your own head, in which you question your character actions and the way the tale will progress.  Since the book is located in a place I have vacationed twice, I am paying attention to the geography of the area even though I already changed the location of one location, in a move to add more detail to the chapter in which the event occurs.  It is interesting to write about things empathetically when you have never experienced them in your own life.

Faster Than the Speed of Life

There’s something to be said for taking things slowly and completing a project at a reasonable pace.  I recently finished writing a novel in two weeks’ time, and I hope and pray when I begin the editing process that it is worth reading.  My writing involves lots of brainstorming but rarely do I write anything down beforehand.  I simply open the document, write out a few passages or an entire chapter, save it and move onto my next project.  I am beginning to wonder if this torrid pace and method is a good idea.  I think I should consider some type of note-taking program where I can outline my ideas, but that also seems to run counter to the spontaneity and fluidity of writing.  When you write on the fly, you are free to change ideas without the entire story crashing down around you like a house of cards.

The good news about having two complete novels in the pipeline is that I can launch them simultaneously once I’ve completed the editing, formatting, and design.  I already have a cover in mind for one, so that’s another project for me to work on. 

Will You Love Me Tomorrow

I will try to maintain this blog as long as there’s a thought in my head, but I have to be honest—writing is no longer the great creative outlet it once was for me.  I recently finished my novel, the one I had been writing in fits and starts for four months. I have completed the first round of edits for Chances, but I can’t say that it turned out completely as I had planned.  I have several ideas for a new novel, ideas that have been marinating for more than half a year, but I wonder if I start to write it, will it be as good as it seems in my mind’s eye?  I thought all of my books were good ideas before I wrote them down, and I've enjoyed reading and rereading each of them, though after enough of that everything starts to run together, and it’s no small miracle that I ever removed typos from any of them.  I hope that I will keep writing for as long as I am able, but I figure there’s little-to-no profound knowledge to be gained from reading this blog unless I treat it as either a journal or a travelogue and review the posts on my own in order to glean something.  The good news is that writing has been my income the past two years—it was never exactly either a substantial income or a living wage, but it was far more money than I had earned in the previous year of unemployment.

Taking Stock

It has been approximately two years since I published my first novel.  I’m too lazy to look for specific dates, but it was June 2012 when I was reading Windswept on my Kindle while I edited the rough draft of Kentucky Summer, which was published a month later.  In the following two years, I have published eight novels under my own name, another under a pen name, and two novellas under an additional pseudonym.  I also submitted Heart Trouble and had it published via Crimson Romance, which gave me the opportunity to have one of my works available through more than one sales channel; the paperback edition has also been added to the collection of at least one public library.  I am currently working on another novel that is taking much longer than my standard pace; at nearly three months and counting, I am still not sure when I will put this one to bed.  I have ideas for at least one further novel, but aside from that I am nearly tapped out in the ideas department.  So what have I learned from these many, many hours of hard work, multiple rejections, and many sleepless nights where the ideas wouldn’t be silenced?

1. Writing is never easy.  Even when it’s easy, it’s still not easy.  You’re always digging, searching, and forcing yourself to make everything the best it can be.  In the course of typing, you will put words where they shouldn’t be and in the process of editing will have to try to figure out what your intended message was.

2. Writing is not a quick trip to fame and fortune.  It has been my only income for the past two years, through no fault of my own—I’ve been in the job market for more than three years, and it has been almost as long since my last interview.  I have had decent months of income, but none of those occurred until I had published my sixth novel.  There have been other months where I made so little that I didn’t merit a payment at all.  My sales have really trickled down to nothing over the past several months, which doesn’t exactly provide a great incentive to continue with writing as a vocation.  If I ever built up a nest egg I would love to pay for professional covers if not professional editing for my novels.  Heart Trouble undoubtedly has my best cover.  If worse came to worse, I wouldn’t mind learning how to create my own covers via some type of graphics program. 

3. Writing does not necessarily lead to instant popularity.  Not everyone will care about your writing.  Some people will care about it only so long as it doesn’t cost them anything.  Ultimately you have to work to make sure your completed novel is something you enjoy, a piece of product that is the best it can be—and if not, spell check and edit the darn thing, massage it and streamline it until you can love it.  As conceited as this might sound, if you don’t love your own work, there’s very little point in putting it out into the world. 

Rewind

I would never presume to tell an author the right or wrong way to craft their work; I believe that whatever method works for you is the right one.  I tend to write in a linear fashion, from point A to point B without reviewing what I’ve written previously.  Indeed, sometimes I only find out what I left on the page when I go back and perform the first edit upon completing a novel.  There have been exceptions to this rule; sometimes I will write about six chapters and do a read-through just to refresh myself on what I’ve written, because the early chapters in any story provide the building blocks for your characters; their first meeting, or the inciting incident that brings them together, or any other source of conflict you can imagine. 

I found myself in an unfamiliar place on my latest project.  I completed 23,000 words in a quick amount of time, and then found myself stuck.  I closed the document, put the book aside, and began to write a novella that appeared unexpectedly in my head.  I completed the novella, edited and published it, and brainstormed how I was going to get back into the swing of things.  I knocked around a few ideas and considered some possibilities.  Honestly, I am still considering some of them as I write the book!  But I decided the best solution for this novel was to go back to the very beginning, reread the entire thing, do some revisions as I went, and then see where I found myself.

I deliberated and finally decided to introduce a new character in order to give the story some additional balance.  I changed a few things and added other new elements, which may or may not improve the overall story.  Time will tell.  The good news is that via this experience I was able to continue my writing in earnest, surpassing 45,000 words.  I’m not sure that I will ever work up to full-novel length again.  I did two novels in the 100,000 word range, but I tend to be the most comfortable between 70 and 75,000 words.  Those also seem to be the easiest to edit.   

We Need a Resolution

As I have stated in the past, I don't make New Year's Resolutions.  I also don't set overarching goals for myself.  I tend to focus on short-term goals:  I want to write an entire book in one month, I want to apply for six jobs next time I'm online, etcetera.  There would be no point in setting a goal such as, "I want to travel to Europe by this summer," because I would never be able to earn that amount of money.  At any rate, I am continuing to work toward my goal of self-improvement for 2014.
1) I haven't given up on the beard, which is an accomplishment in itself.  For someone who never leaves the house without a razor first touching their face, this is a big step.  But heaven help me if the hairs start to come in grey...
2) I purchased several reference books, and though they would not come under the general heading of "self-help", I'm going to pretend that's what they are.
3) I'm trying to cut soda from my diet by tapering off.  I may need to keep it around just in case of emergency, because trying to remove the Pepsi drip from your veins after twenty-plus years is not easy.  I'm not so much concerned about the health drawbacks as I am the empty calories.  Perhaps one a day, counteracted by lots of water, is the way to go.  To be continued...
4) I've got to get back to editing the novel I wrote in November.  I actually haven't done anything to it since Christmastime, so I'm anxious/nervous about checking back in.

In Too Deep

I have embarked upon every author’s favorite task—editing.  Insert sarcasm here, please.  So far I have uncovered one continuity error that I knew was there during the entire writing process but didn’t bother to fix.  It has now been altered.  I found the usual amount of typos, but also a first for myself:  places where the word is so far off the mark that I have no clue what I originally intended to write.  Anyway, in those cases I had to look at the context of either the sentence or the passage and hope for the best.  I’ve never written anything—yet—that turned my stomach afterward and required a complete deletion, but I have to say that I really like the chemistry between the characters in this novel.  It’s fun to watch their story unfold yet again.

Ace in the Hole

In the course of editing, revising, and prepping Heart Trouble for publication, I completed two additional novels.  I’m either an overachiever or a masochist, but any regular follower of mine knows that I have a lot of spare time on my hands.  My latest novel, at 70,000 words, is the longest thing I’ve written since I completed TheArt of Love.  Now the fun begins, sarcasm included at no additional cost.  Editing is always a fascinating process—some passages you read over and think, “That’s pretty good—I wrote that!” while other times you review a paragraph and scornfully question, “Was I lucid when I typed that?”  Typos are a fact of life, but I always find myself worried about the inevitable continuity errors.  I’ve been lucky in that regard, considering I write on-the-fly with the outline existing only in my head.  Little wonder I don’t sleep well, huh?  It’s hard to turn that neon sign of thought and creativity off.  This recent novel also branched into a genre I’d never touched on before, adding an element of danger and suspense to the proceedings.  I’d actually envisioned Kentucky Summer as a suspense thriller before the characters led me in a completely opposite direction.  I’m still not sure I did the genre justice, but it was nice to have my characters thrown together against their better judgment and working toward a common goal.  And now I work toward my next goal—getting published again.

Easy

After a two-month hiatus from writing, where my primary task was editing Heart Trouble, I have ventured forth with another novel.  The idea for this one has been recorded on my computer dating back to last year, but I never had the confidence to tackle it.  Truth it, I’m still not sure I can do the idea justice, but plot and characters are mine alone.  If I don’t give them life, no one else will.  So far it’s going well; let’s hope I continue to feel that way tomorrow.  I’m shooting for the kind of book I put out easily when I first starting writing, something around the 75,000 word mark.

Always on Time

I unexpectedly finished my latest book in just under a month.  It is just a hair under 62,000 words, so that may have something to do with it.  I've also completed the first edit.  It was pretty easy to write, though I'm not sure when I'll share it with anyone.  Maybe soon.  It's nice to finished, though, for now.

Burned Out

As the editing process for my sixth novel winds down, it’s safe to say that I am burned out on the writing process.  I’m not saying I’ll never write again—that would be a fallacy—but I could stand a break.  You arrive at a certain point where you’ve left everything you had on the page, played all of your cards, and your brains starts to go mushy.  It’s been an interesting thirteen months.  All I wanted to do was complete one novel, to prove to myself that I could.  That one novel turned into a four-book series, with two enjoyable unrelated novels in the interim that I’m also really proud of.  I guess when you’re trying to prove something to yourself, it’s far different than proving things to others—your focus is on internal mechanisms within your mind, hidden emotions, subconscious fears…you learn about yourself in the process.  What I learned through this process is that no matter how bad I was feeling about myself, how negative I viewed my life situation, I was able to create something happy and meaningful for my characters.  I could be at my lowest emotionally and still put something surprising on the page, something my faithful readers would enjoy.  And that was always, always the silver lining.    

12/12/12

No one asked me to marry them, and I didn't play the lottery, so nothing magical happened for me today.  I'm just sitting here, editing my fifth novel.  The year is nearly done and I completed five novels, with more to come.  It's an incredible feeling, honestly.  I don't always feel good about myself, which is obvious to anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis.  But I'm working on it--every day that I'm alive, I'm working on me.

Randoms

Some random musings from my brain this week...

• Just finished reading "Looking for Alaska" by John Green.  It's interesting--I think I understand the themes in young adult fiction far more now than I did when those kinds of books were in my milieu.  The book had a lot to say in its brief 221 pages about the struggles of life as a whole, not just young life, and it also had lots to say about faith and believing in a higher power. 
• Rediscovering lately my love for Shania Twain and her music.  It's never really gone away, but with so few albums to her credit I wind up gravitating toward other artists.  Her second album in particular seems to define a time and place in the mid-90s when I was moving from kid-land toward young adulthood, but still blissfully naive of life's problems.
• Making good progress on editing this book. I always wind up forgetting a certain amount of the story and through the editing process I am reminded of passages and high points.  Ultimately, I am reminded of why I started writing this novel in the first place.
• No progess on the jobs front.  I did update/edit my resume for the 459th time, so that's something to report.
• Nice weather this week.  I tend to like the in-between, not-brutally-hot-but-not-quite-fall- yet weather.  Am I ready to break out my sweaters?  Um, no.
• Getting lots of nice feedback about my novels.  It's fantastic to be appreciated, read, and enjoyed.

Reflections

I imagine I will wind up using the title "Reflections" for more than a few blogs since it is one of my favorite songs by The Supremes.  Anyway, through writing and editing I have become more reflective about myself and the choices I have made throughout my life.  Some were good and some were not.  Some things I should have pursued more ardently.  Some things I should have avoided completely.  At times I should have tried harder, and other times I should have simply pursued fun.


Currently listening to "No One Needs to Know" by Shania Twain

Editing to the Third Power

Editing my book, as of last night.  So far it's going well, because I started in the middle rather than the beginning.  It's interesting to note that, once again, the final chapters seem to be much longer and more detailed as the story reaches its climax.  Gotta work more in the future on spreading out the story.  Still thinking about the book cover as well, and wondering if I should paint something or use a photo.



Currently listening to "I'm Gonna Getcha Good" by Shania Twain

Not Starting Over

Last night I finished writing my third novel.  And I didn’t start writing another one.  I’m going to let this one ride for a while.  So far I’ve finished reading three novels and started reading two more, all the while completing one in my own pen.  Editing is always the worst part of the process because inevitably you find mistakes and things you never intended to say in the first place.  Oddly enough, I had intended to write a slightly shorter novel this time, only to wind up with another 75,000 word-wonder.  Yikes.  I suppose when you set your goal at 60,000, you then challenge yourself to see if you can get past that.  It’ll be interesting to see how quickly I can get this book out into the world.  I have no timetable for editing and no concrete ideas for a cover photo.  If anyone wants to design a cover image and allow me to use it for free, drop me a line!

Spelling Test

I may change my mind later, but so far my least favorite part of self-publishing has been self-editing.  Earning two college degrees, suffice it to say I spent a lot of time editing and perfecting my own work.  However, editing fiction seems to be a different animal entirely.  In reading fiction, the mind seems to fill in gaps and enhance the story--it's all about using your imagination.  So when I read, and then re-read, it seems as though my mind has skimmed over annoying little typos, and even more alarmingly, a missing word.  Someday I wouldn't mind having an editor peruse my work.  But for now, it reflects me and my quirks.

More Fun with Editing

I have new-found respect for people who edit books for a living.  It's a laborious job.  Going back over my own work is fun but also draining when you consider that it warps your own view of your work.  I've had the same problem in the past with other projects--you invest so much time and energy that you are bordering on hatred by the time you complete the job.  In writing, though, I have only been writing characters I love so it is easier to spend time with them.  At some point I will have to branch out and invent a darker character that I don't like.  It's all a part of the growing and learning process, pushing yourself to test boundaries and step outside your comfort zone.

Currently listening to:  "I'm Kissing You" by Des'ree

Editing

How much is it necessary to censor ourselves in everyday life? Clearly there are situations in which we need to maintain decorum and standards of niceness.  The weird thing about my writing is that, well, I never seem to find the need to do much editing.  Since so much of it just goes straight from mind to keyboard, I don't find as much need as I should to edit or reduce.  It's also hard to find constructive criticism, so even if someone told me to edit my work I would be hard pressed to follow through.  I'm sure all authors, and indeed any person who creates, struggles with this--letting your work go out into the world in order to be examined, disseminated, and scrutinized.  How will I feel, react, when I receive that inevitable bad review?  As long as it's not from someone I like, perhaps it will all be okay.


Currently listening to:  Forever Changed by Carrie Underwood