The Mess in Progress

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
Oh, no! it is an ever-fixéd mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come’
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
– Sonnet 116, William Shakespeare

The husband and I were married ten years ago today, and we used the above sonnet in place of the psalm in our wedding ceremony. It hasn’t always been the easiest of roads, but I’m glad to have him as my companion along the way.

I found it interesting that HelenKay Dimon mentioned receiving a copy of The Luxe just the other day in her blog. Interesting because The Luxe had been an impulse purchase for me, a pre-order about a month before it’s release date. My eye was caught by the cover with its enormous skirt and the idea of “Gossip Girl” meets “Age of Innocence.” I first saw it, read the description and thought, “That’s interesting.” I didn’t order, though; it took several instances of the books showing up in my recommended list before I clicked through.

Impulse buys generally move to the top of the mountainous TBR pile; for one thing, I’m already somewhat engaged in the book because I’ve just spent money because I was intrigued. I’d like to see if I’ve made a mistake or found an unexpected jewel. I’ll be the first to admit there are a number of unfinished books around the house that were impulse purchases. They weren’t bad enough to become wallbangers or definite DNRs; I just…drifted.

At this point, I don’t think The Luxe will fall into that category. The book centers around a young woman who should be the cream of New York Society in the last years of the Nineteenth century, but who finds her position and fortune may not be as secure as she thought. The tone is somewhat modern, though I haven’t run into any serious anachronisms that scream at me, but this is very much guilty pleasure material. Given that the week was somewhat stressful, a little guilty pleasure doesn’t seem like a bad thing.

What makes you pick up a book you hadn’t planned on picking up?

Please note: having your car need a new starter motor three weeks before Christmas definitely falls under the category of Not Fun.

After posting for 31 straight days during NaNoWriMo, I’m finding my way back into the regular swing of things. Posting for NaNo was easy; I decided I wanted to do quotes, chose a theme for each week, found the quotes on the web appropriate to the theme and wrote a small meditation. Most of the pieces were written well over a week before they posted, often two or three at the time. Sounds great, huh?

There’s a small problem with this routine. I kinda got out of the habit of regular blogging. I had a large backlog of posts, so I didn’t need to think about coming here and composing on a regular basis. Now I find myself struggling a little because without that month-long structure, I’m feeling a bit lost.

Feeling the same yourself sometimes when you’re watching the cursor blink in WordPress? What seems to help me is having a set stable of themes to go back to. Monday is goals, Tuesday inspiration, Wednesday recommendations from around the web, Thursday craft, Friday business, Saturday books (putting on my reader hat), and Sunday is about refreshing and relaxing.

I also go looking for advice and suggestions from other people who regularly blog. One such source is the new Dandelion Blog hosted by Suzanne McMinn and Kacey of Wine on the Keyboard. The site is designed to help writers grow their own websites, to offer advice and tips to make the most of both your site and your blog.

Our websites are our public faces to the world. If I want to simply natter with my friends about TV, vent about work or my mother-in-law, I have another journal where I can do that out of public view. Here, the idea is to put my best foot forward and present my public face. It’s a different headspace, but it’s very much part of the business of writing.

I never had any doubts about my abilities. I knew I could write. I just had to figure out how to eat while doing this.
–Cormac McCarthy

Eat, fix the car, buy the gifts we need to at this time of the year, keep a roof over my head and the lights on. If I could do all of that with writing, I wouldn’t be heading into an office job five days a week.

Writing isn’t the easiest calling to succumb to; it’s often not taken seriously by those closest to us, and strangers often have no understanding about how stories travel from our head to the pages in their hand. It’s not uncommon to be asked how much it cost to publish a book (i.e., what the author paid) or if we’re now rolling in money. We’re asked how we could possibly think up our ideas…and then told that the speaker has an idea for a story.

Since I’m not professionally published, my husband refers to my writing as my avocation, that which I do because I must. There’s been time when that’s annoyed me because I see it as a career, but he’s right in so many ways. There is a business side to this, decisions to be made on rational thought and careful planning, but I wouldn’t be making the decisions if I didn’t know there was no other thing I would rather spend my time doing, no matter how much I might whine, moan and complain.

Even though I’m still sweating with Sven, things feel a bit less frantic this Monday morning with NaNoWriMo over for another year. At least, they feel less hectic on the writing front. Daily life has decided it’s going to rear its ugly head and remind me that I’ve been very focused on my writing for the last 30 days. So there are some definite goals that need to be taken care of this week, the do or die kind.

• Work on Revisions for Sweeter Than Wine — This is part of my Sven goal and has been sorely neglected in favor of the NaNo project. With some of the craziness of the weekend, I did get to read through the draft, but I didn’t get to actually dig into revisions as I’d planned. That needs to change this week.
• Get Car Fixed — Sadly, this is the big one. We headed out the door for church Sunday morning and the car wouldn’t start. Since there was actually a thing layer of ice of on the roof, we thought that perhaps it needed to warm up and we’d hit the later service. No such luck. It’s going into the shop, though they may not be able to get to it until tomorrow.
• Try Not To Go Insane About The Holidays — ‘Tis the season, and it seems everyone wants a piece of your time. At this point, I’m being very careful about what I decide to commit to and remembering that saying “no” because there’s too much on my plate doesn’t make me a bad person.
• Make Notes — A new idea is rattling around in my head. I seriously need to write the idea down and make some notes on it so I can put it away and not have it interfere with what I’m trying to do.

I’ll check in on Thursday to update where I am. We’ve got less than a month left in 2007; let’s make it a good one.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow it, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
–J.R.R. Tolkein, The Fellowship of the Ring

We’ve made it through November and another NaNoWriMo. Now the holidays loom ahead. I know there are a number of people who are waking up and thinking, “Thank God, I don’t have to write today.” I don’t count myself among them. Yes, I’ve put my NaNo project aside for the moment, but that’s only unitil December 15, when I’ll take it up again to start revisions. However, Sven is still acting as a taskmaster, so I’m going to turn to revisions on another project that I included in my goals.

Challenges are great for getting you off your duff and moving you into high gear. The big question, though, is what do you do after the challenge is done? It’s easy to let yourself slack and the momentum to fall off; challenges can be very tiring and there are ugly things such as laundry and cleaning that get left undone during those periods. It’s good to back off a little, bring the level down to a bit less stressful, but you need to beware of ratcheting yourself too far back.

Make plans. Finish the draft you’re working on. If you’re at a point where you need to put the work aside for a while, work on something else, even if you’re only noodling on a new idea. NaNoWriMo 2007 is done; now the next step in the journey begins.

Technorati Tags: NaNoWriMo

Harlequin Presents is sponsoring a rather interesting contest: Instant Seduction, for which authors submit a first chapter and synopsis of a previously unpublished, previously unsubmitted novel aimed at Harlequin Presents.

The prizes certainly sound worthwhile. First place wins an editor for a year, while the two runners-up will receive editorial critiques of their first chapter and a telephone consultation. Rules can be found here and they’re reasonably straightforward. Entries can’t have been previously published, submitted for publication or won an award in a previous contest, and all rights to the submitted entry are retained by the author. Entries may be submitted from January 1 to February 14, 2008 aka Valentine’s Day.

I’ll admit Harlequin Presents isn’t a line I’ve ever considered submitting to; I don’t believe my style necessarily fits the tone of the line. If I wasn’t involved in the currently projects, though, I might consider pounding out 5,000 words and an outline. There’s no entry fee and what do you have to lose?

Success comes to a writer, as a rule, so gradually that it is always something of a shock to him to look back and realize the heights to which he has climbed.
–P. G. Wodehouse

And here we are thirty days later. Some of us made our mark, some of us exceeded it, and some of us didn’t reach the wordcount we’d hoped for. We all tried.

I am now tied with three “wins” to three serious crash and burn years. All of those have been interesting experiences — and they are something of a road map of where I’ve been and where I am now. Six years ago, just the idea of writing 1,667 words a day for thirty days was an enormous stretch. The high end of my range was 1,500 words and I couldn’t do that for more than a couple of days in a row without burning out. A good day was usually 1,000 words.

It’s been a long climb, but the 50,000 word mark is no longer quite so daunting. I draft faster and more and more of that material that’s quickly drafted is usable. Success is measured in many ways, and we have many marks on our journey where, no matter how far we have left to go, we can look back at where we’ve been, recognize where we are now and say, “I’ve done well.”

Technorati Tags: NaNoWriMo

When I’m creating characters, I often go looking for photos of an actor to serve as a visual starting point. At some point, the character takes on a life of their own, but having that image is a great help as I’m drafting.

The question, though, is what does one look for when choosing a hero? Obviously, the type of character has something to do with the decision. I mean, if you’re writing a bodyguard who’s protecting a woman who’s being tracked by a mysterious stalker, you’d look for someone who’s tall and broad-shouldered, right? I was originally picturing a Humphrey Bogart type — strong, silent, someone you can rely upon when times are tough and scoundrels who can rediscover their honor are needed.

I’m still trying to figure out how I ended up with David Tennant, especially David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. The image just popped into my mind while writing at one point and seemed…right. He’s not short, but not so tall, chatty, wiry, and a ball of barely restrained energy. At the same time, however, he can be deadly still and project a true sense of power and strength. It’s a choice that’s providing some interesting moments in the current project, but I’m also aware I’m writing somewhat against the “type” one pictures when dealing with a character who’s in this profession. Perhaps that’s the attraction, that he is against type as far as what you instantly expect.

Naturally, readers won’t necessarily know he’s the inspiration and by the time I’m done, the character will have his own voice (I’ve already stripped away the accent), but they will see what I hope is an interesting character who isn’t quite what they expect. In a good way, of course. Oh, and I am definitely letting him keep the glasses for reading. Since my heroine’s a bit of a fashionista, they make her twitch slightly. Besides, I think the slightly studious look hints at another side to his personality, one that he doesn’t reveal to everyone. (Yes, I know some would say it makes him look geeky, but since I like “Ten”, I’ll go with studious.)

Of course, one walks a line with using an actor as a visual. you can get too locked into recognizable mannerisms and not let the character grow as they need to, and if you describe them too closely it can put the reader off. One of my pet peeves in descriptions is the ones that name the original image, such as “He looked like a young George Clooney.” If George Clooney doesn’t float your reader’s boat, the love affair is over before it can even begin. You can reference touchstones, saying, “He strode forward with the air of a big-screen action hero ready for his close-up,” and know that you mean whoever, but the reference is broad enough that you don’t lock the reader into one image.

The image a character creates in your mind is very important. Can you picture anyone besides Humprhey Bogart as Richard Blaine (certainly not David Soul)? How about Indiana Jones? Frasier Crane? Prose is somewhat different from film because we create our images with words, so there’s more leeway, but part of our work as writers it to create memorable characters and weave in those little gestures and quirks so these people we’ve created linger in the readers’ minds, no matter whose face they see.