Category Archives: NaNo

A Lonely Magic Cover

27 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by in A Lonely Magic, Cover design, Grace, NaNo, Self-publishing

≈ 2 Comments

Several days ago, I mentioned that I had — impulsively — commissioned a fifth cover for A Lonely Magic. Yes, insane impulse, I know. How many covers does one book really need? The short answer is five, because I am so absolutely pleased with this cover that I can’t imagine ever looking at it and not feeling a thrill of satisfaction.

ALM-JCaleb-FinalCover

Jake at jcalebdesign is phenomenal. He took the info I gave him and got creative, and then he took my absolute nitpicking insanity and managed five or six more rounds of design, changing and tweaking and never telling me that I was a pain and always trying to deliver what I was looking for. I am so pleased that at Thanksgiving dinner yesterday, I actually picked this cover as the thing I was thankful for — well, and then added my delightful son and darling dogs and lovely family and terrific guests. I’m not a total ingrate about all the blessings in my life. I’m just counting this cover as one of them right now, because it makes me happy to finally have my feelings about this book captured in an image.

And now I have to go reformat A Lonely Magic for print, because I want a paper copy of it with this cover.

Sometime today I’m also going to be trying to write like mad to catch up for my two NaNo days devoted to Thanksgiving dinner instead of word count, but I’m also feeling this great impatience to be done with Grace and Noah. I really, really want to get back to writing A Precarious Balance right now!

The ever elusive last swimming day

21 Saturday Nov 2015

Posted by in Books, NaNo

≈ 2 Comments

November 20th. Maybe.

All week long, I was pretty convinced that swimming was over for the year. I’m not sure I even stuck a toe in the water. But yesterday the sun was shining, the air was hot… so yep, swimming on November 20th. Real swimming, floating, playing ball with the dogs for a solid two hours. It made me remember why I love living in Florida.

Today, though, has been a weird day. I’m not sure why my schedule is so skewed, but I woke up, did the normal morning stuff, came back to the bedroom to get my Saturday chores started — strip the bed, laundry, etc. — and thought, wow, I’m so tired, I’m just going to crawl back in bed for twenty minutes and think about what comes next in Grace before I get started.

I woke up at one o’clock. One! In the afternoon! I suppose it would have been worse if it had been one in the morning, but I have no idea why I suddenly needed four extra hours of sleep. The day’s been off ever since. I still haven’t done the morning chores, didn’t make it to the library, haven’t cleaned up the kitchen and it’s now almost 8PM and I’m finally writing my blog post. I haven’t written a word of Grace.

I did read an enjoyable Amazon First book, though: The Short Drop. If you’re a Prime member and you haven’t yet chosen your free book for the month of November, I recommend this one. I haven’t had a lot of luck with those books — some months, in fact, I haven’t even bothered to download one because I’ve grown so dubious about them. But this one was pretty solid. My sister called while I was in the middle of it and after a couple minutes on the phone with her, I had to say, “Sorry, even though I’m pretty sure it’s totally obvious why the missing kid went missing, I need to keep reading.” It dragged a little in parts and I skimmed some, and a bunch of the so-called plot twists were obvious from the beginning, but it was an entertaining way to spend an afternoon. Technically, for me, it means I again fell into the trap of reading fiction at breakfast, although it was almost 2 when I started. I still intended to only read a little bit and then get to work, but five hours later, yeah, not so much.

Ooh, and that thing I just did — the “yeah, not so much” — it’s called a contranym. The “yeah” in that context doesn’t mean what it ought to mean. I read a great article, What Part of “No, Totally” Don’t You Understand? in The New Yorker about contranyms, and I love the concept.

A dog with an extremely dirty face is sitting next to me looking pleading. I’m not sure what she wants, but I should go see. And then I should start writing the words that count. 🙂

Ideas

19 Thursday Nov 2015

Posted by in NaNo, Randomness

≈ 4 Comments

In the early morning, half-awake, snuggled and cozy time, I like my mind to drift to my story, imagining what comes next until it’s vivid and then thinking about the words that make it as vivid to someone else. Lately, not so much. Lately, I think about all sorts of other stuff, most of it boring. Like, can I possibly repair the front door this year or am I going to need that money to pay taxes? And is my computer going to survive or will today be the day that the N key finally gives up? (Not today, yay, although I have to bang quite hard to get an 8, which fortunately is not often so necessary as an N.) Also, how the hell did I get poison ivy and is it ever going to go away? That one takes up far too much of my brain because, of course, it itches when the allergy drug wears off. It’s not so bad during the rest of the day.

Anyway, this morning I tried desperately to force my mind to stay on Grace, because I am just struggling. I tossed out my outline and my plan a long time ago because it was going nowhere and now I am lost in the murky middle. I’ve got ideas, but I can’t seem to navigate my way to them. The timeline of the story was supposed to be months — we’d go from meeting in late Feb through March and April to Natalya’s wedding in early May and Akira’s baby in late May, and the climactic scenes would all take place in the hospital while Henry was being born. Instead, all of my action so far has taken place in four days–from a Tuesday to a Saturday morning. First of all, that doesn’t feel like nearly enough time to fall in love, but that’s just what Grace is doing (and I kind of think Noah was already there from minute one) and secondly, if 2/3 of the book takes place in three days, how does the last third take three months? It’s frustrating me. I have a terrible, terrible temptation to start editing, but I am resisting with all my strength, because I know where that path leads.

Meanwhile, could I keep my mind on Grace? Why no, I could not. It kept drifting to an idea for a NaNo project where I might actually be able to write 50K words in 30 days. Done diary-style, so first person, which gives lots of room to babble. The story opens the day the aliens arrive. The aliens make some announcement, which transmits everywhere there are screens and radios, interrupting all broadcasts, and then release a sparkling dust over the planet that looks like clouds of pollen. Our POV character is a twenty-something female narrator living in Seattle, so she can record in her journal both the news of the day, how people are reacting world-wide, what people think it is, and her experiences of the day, how she’s interacting with the people around her, and her own priorities. The dust–and this is clearly my desire to play in the Agents of SHIELD world, but that’s okay, there’s no such thing as a new idea–gives people super-powers or powers of various sorts. Now, would this turn into a reasonable book? I have no idea. But I do think that I could write 50K words in 30 days based on that idea, because it has so many, many possibilities. Any time I get stuck, hey, new character with new super-power. Or new speculation on what the aliens have done and why. New translation of their message. All sorts of possibilities. New danger for the heroine, new romantic love interest for her… yep, this is what I’m thinking about when I should be thinking about Grace.

Of course, if I’m not going to be thinking about Grace, probably I should be thinking about getting a job. Or at least earning money with some actual freelance work. Hmm, and the moment I started typing that, all the dogs (three of them today, because Gizmo is visiting) began shifting around, B snuggling closer, G turning circles, Z trying to get onto my lap. Either they recognize me having stressful thoughts or they’re ready for walks. Or both.

When I started writing this, I had some specific story I meant to write and it had nothing to do with anything that I’ve typed, but I have also totally forgotten what it was. Oh, well, if I think of it, it’ll give me something to write about tomorrow! Happy writing, all my fellow November writers! May your words flow like… huh, all the things that come to mind flow terribly. May your words flow better than molasses and ketchup and chocolate syrup. May they leap out of your fingers and onto your pages with gleeful abandon. 🙂

Word counts

18 Wednesday Nov 2015

Posted by in NaNo, Randomness

≈ 1 Comment

If you are following me on NaNo, you might have noticed my word count leapt yesterday. It’s not because I miraculously wrote ten thousands words in a day, although I’m still going to succeed in doing that someday. Instead I decided that rather than give up on NaNo, which is what I usually do about now, I would aim for writing 50,000 words in the month, regardless of where those words wind up living (or even if they wind up living at all).

So I made myself a little spreadsheet and totaled up all the words from blog posts in the first half of the month. In the second half of the month, I’ll be counting blog posts, plus all the words in my draft versions. My final total for the month in real story words is probably not going to be anywhere near 50K but it’ll be interesting to see how many I get when I count all the words I write. I’m behind now — nowhere close to the 30K I should be about to hit — but I suspect that I’ll be able to catch up and swing on past the 50K goal without too much difficulty. I believe that tight writing is a good thing — every word should reveal character or move the story forward — and that’s just not compatible with NaNo goals. Writing tight and writing 2K words a day are mutually exclusive, at least for me.

And it stresses me out to be failing in a way that doesn’t motivate me. Every time I’ve tried NaNo previously, I’ve wound up barely writing at all. I started A Gift of Thought during NaNo and it took me another six months to finish that book. Then last year I started A Gift of Grace and here I am, a year later, still working on the same project. Back when I was writing fanfiction and there was absolutely no pressure or motivation outside of the pleasure of writing, I wrote a lot faster and a lot more prolifically. And if those stories were bad, that would be okay, but I can reread them now and still find them pretty good. Not perfect, but fun reads. It would be nice if NaNo convinced me to write like that again, but instead I shut down. Alas.

Speaking of fanfiction, I reread my unfinished Amy & Rory story (Doctor Who) recently — probably because I got some message from fanfiction.net and was at the site — and I should really have finished that story. I know why I stopped — it’s because I started doing research on the era (NYC, 1938) and discovered that I’d already gotten too much wrong in terms of race relations — but I should have adopted the “abandon reality” motto and kept on going. I stopped writing when Amy & Rory were headed off to a jazz club and I can practically picture the scene, the crooning singer, the glittery dresses, the behind-the-scene tensions, Amy being forthright and direct and Rory hanging back, but swinging in to rescue her the moment she’s in trouble… ah, they were fun characters.

I stopped watching Doctor Who a while ago, when I realized that I’d stopped getting angry (translation: I’d stopped caring), but I wonder if it has regained its sense of fun? I guess I don’t wonder enough to try again, but maybe over Christmas. R and I spent a few years watching Doctor Who on Christmas Day, so maybe we’ll do a marathon this year and get caught up on what we’ve both missed. Or perhaps not. Last year we watched movies and that was fun. Mine was Kiki’s Delivery Service and I would happily make watching it every year part of my holiday tradition. It’s not exactly Christmas-y, but it is charming.

Wow, and this is a wandering post. But that’s the price of daily blogging. 🙂

On to story words. I still haven’t finished the chapter I’ve been writing for the past nine days, but maybe today will be the day. No, wait — I’m thinking positive, right? — today WILL be the day. Many words, flowing happily!

DNFs

17 Tuesday Nov 2015

Posted by in Books, NaNo, Randomness, Reviews

≈ 4 Comments

I have a tickle in my throat that will not quit this morning. I keep coughing, clearing my throat, blowing my nose, slowly sipping water — but there it lurks, a little itch somewhere low in my right… something. Is the throat made up of parts? The sinuses must connect somehow, right? But that’s the spot, I suspect — right where the sinuses join the throat — and no way for me to scratch. Except to keep trying to clear my throat. The dogs are not sure they approve.

So in a comment on the last post, Carol* asked:

Question — have you ever been turned off by a book to the point where you quit reading it? I get the feeling that you did just that with the Shinn book you just reviewed. Do you ever feel guilty about it and hang onto the book, telling yourself you’ll give it another chance some time in the future? Or do you just pass it along or donate it?

I love this question! First, though, I definitely didn’t do that with either of the Shinn books. She’s such a good writer that even when I have issues with a story for one reason or another, I keep reading. It’s why I risked the hardcover purchases — not a risk so much because of the price, which was excellent, but because I don’t really like keeping books made with paper anymore. I don’t want the clutter. If I let myself go, I would have a house filled with bookshelves, overflowing with books, accumulating dust. Instead, I try to keep my bookshelves limited to only books that are keepers, that I loved enough that I will reread again and again, or that are meaningful to me for some other reasons. I’ve read some of the books on my keeper shelves dozens of times. Sharon Shinn’s got plenty of books on my keeper shelves and The Turning Season will join them. She writes so beautifully, even when I want to object to elements of the story. Plus, it’s a really hopeful book and sometimes that’s what I’m looking for in a reread. Yes, it’s on the bleak side, but a reminder to search for blessings in the midst of sorrow is not a bad message.

But I didn’t mean to write more about that book — instead I wanted to answer the DNF question. Yes! I used to persist with every book I picked up. If I started it, I felt obligated to finish it for some reason. As if the book would know that I didn’t like it and have its feelings hurt. I read so many utterly forgettable books that way. But now… now I am merciless. If a book doesn’t grab me or it loses me somewhere along the way, I just stop reading. And I don’t even feel guilty about it anymore. Or at least not very guilty.

At the beginning of 2015, when I decided to really try to track the books I was reading on Goodreads, I also tracked DNFs (Did Not Finish). There was a Kindle Prime book where my review started, “I’m admitting the truth on this one: I’m never going to finish it. I just didn’t like the main character and I don’t want to spend any more time in her head.” and another book that I picked up from the library, where my review included the line, “If it wasn’t a library book, it would sit in my “keep trying” pile forever, but since I had to bring it back, I can admit the truth — it’s a DNF.”

Another one is a pretty perfect example of a DNF review for me. It was Nevada’s Barr’s Destroyer Angel. My review, in full:

4th DNF of the year for me, but I’m not blaming the writing. I have enjoyed Nevada Barr’s books before, so I didn’t look too closely at what the book was about, but this one is more thriller than mystery. Three women, two girls, and a dog are attacked in the woods by a gang of men. When the bad guys first hurt the dog and then debated killing the dog, I realized it was not going to be what I was looking for in a reading experience. I’m sure in the end good triumphed over evil, but the intensity level was not for me. Ironically, one of the bad guys is willing to kill the women but not the dog — I guess he and I have something in common, because I read plenty of books where women get abused, but I apparently had to draw the line at dogs this week.

I actually stopped tracking my DNFs, though, because most often — especially with ebooks — a DNF is either obvious within the first three chapters or falls into that “maybe I’ll try again later”. If it’s obvious right away, I don’t want to leave a review on Goodreads, because it doesn’t seem fair since I haven’t really read the book, and if it’s “maybe later”, I don’t leave the review since, you know, maybe later.

I definitely used to feel much guiltier about not finishing books, though, and I have tried really hard to give up that guilt. The world contains more books than I will ever, ever be able to read, and I figure if I give up on one, I’m making time to read another.

Hmm…you know, I am not going to follow that train of thought out to its logical conclusion, which is that if I give up on writing A Gift of Grace, I’m making time to write something else. I am not giving up. Not, not, not. And so I think I’d best get back to it. But great question, Carol, and thanks for giving me something to write about today!

*Californian Carol, not New Zealand Carol. It’s kind of funny in a blog with half a dozen readers or so that two of you are named Carol. I’ve wondered more than once if I was just confused but since you both commented separately on the same post, I have once and for all concluded that you are two separate people. 🙂

Winter

14 Saturday Nov 2015

Posted by in Bartleby, Boring, NaNo

≈ 2 Comments

Winter has finally arrived. My neighbor was out putting blankets over his bushes, which I assume means that it might even freeze tonight. I haven’t bothered to look that up, of course, nor will I make any effort to save my bushes, but I don’t think he was doing it to dress up the house.

Given that it’s the middle of November, I suppose it’s about time, but it was really nice to get to swim so long. Summer swimming was pretty miserable this year, because it rained so much and so long. If I hadn’t swum by about 10AM, chances were that I wouldn’t get to swim at all until late August. One can, of course, swim in the rain, but in Florida, rain generally comes accompanied by thunder and lightning and swimming with possibility of lightning is a no-no. I assume if the pool gets hit by lightning while you’re in it, you basically get cooked, but I have never looked it up.

Huh. Now I have a gory fascination with the idea. Off I go to google… well, I did not find any graphic descriptions of people dead from swimming during lightning storms, but definite internet consensus that yeah, it’s stupid to swim outside during a storm and yeah, the lightning will kill you if it hits the pool.

Side note: why do we call them thunderstorms when the thunder is meaningless? Noticeable, of course, but lightning storm feels so awkward and yet the lightning is the dangerous part of the storm. Storm alone could, of course, simply mean heavy rain and wind, so I understand the need to clarify that we’re talking about electricity, but I think its strange that we think the thunder is the meaningful part.

Ahem. Moving on! B was a very good dog at the vet yesterday. He had many things done — blood drawn, his ears cleaned, an ultrasound, a biopsy of the liver — and apparently he was well-behaved throughout, even when he was getting his ears cleaned. I assume they put a… whatever their fancy name is for a muzzle… on him because he has a clear notation at the top of the file warning the tech that he may not be so nice. But he was nice. I’m proud of him, but it’s funny to try to explain to your dog that you’re proud of him for behaving well. B gets that I’m talking to him and paying attention to him and thinks that means he should try to lick my face a lot, which disrupts the glow of good behavior pretty thoroughly. Still, two years ago, he would growl and snap and try to bite, so having the vet tech tell me he was a sweetheart pleased me in the same way that parent-teacher conferences used to please me.

Words… well, didn’t do much yesterday. I did make it to some understanding of why I’m stuck, but I didn’t get unstuck and today — well, it’s 5:39 and I’m still writing my blog post. But I’m hoping to get a solid hour of writing in, so I’d best get to it. Good luck, fellow NaNo’ers. I hope you’re doing better than I am!

Mediocre dog mom

13 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by in Bartleby, NaNo

≈ 2 Comments

I took B to the vet this morning and dropped him off and it’s thrown off my whole schedule. Nearly forgot about writing a blog post entirely!

He’s getting his liver enzymes tested again. They were too high a few months ago and he’s been on liver pills ever since. I wish I could say that I thought he was going to be all better, but I have a sneaking suspicion that what he really needs is to lose weight and to not get any treats. I, however, lack the willpower to make him stick to a diet. He’s such a beggar and his eyes are so eager. The moment when his ridiculous fluffy tail starts to droop instead of frantically waving just gets to me every time and I succumb.

That said, he’s in such great shape compared to how he was when he came to me. His fur is gorgeous and sleek, his eyes are bright, he doesn’t hide, he lets me clean his ears and put my hands by his food… I wish I was the perfect dog mom and he got nothing but kibble and the occasional greenie — oh, and got his teeth brushed every day! — but we stumble along in our mediocrity.

Managed to get some writing done yesterday, although only a few hundred words. This morning I’ve written 103. Not NaNo numbers. But I’ll persist. I keep reminding myself to just tell the damn story, but I’m finding my current scene really difficult. I can remember, years ago, having a therapist very patiently ask me, “But what were the feelings?” and to whatever I’d answer, she’d say, “That’s not a feeling. Try again.” That’s what’s happening in my current scene. Grace is having feelings and I don’t know how to name them. Fear led to anger led to… ? Self-recriminations, I guess, but maybe my problem is that I’ve gotten there too fast. Anyway, I’m going to get back to it — I hope all my fellow November writers are doing better than me. More words!

Lost Day

12 Thursday Nov 2015

Posted by in NaNo

≈ 5 Comments

I have no idea what happened to me yesterday. I didn’t feel well, but I didn’t feel like I was dying or anything either — hmm, I wonder if I ate some gluten recently without realizing? Because around 11AM, I just gave up on the day. I had so many things I wanted to do — yoga, a writer’s group meeting that I’d been planning to go to for weeks, words to write, kitchen to clean… and instead I went back to bed. I didn’t swim or even sit outside, the dogs didn’t get their second walk, I didn’t even think about NaNo. I just read and played Sudoku and napped and then did the same thing all over again.

I want to have had a migraine or something — some excuse for failing the day. But I didn’t.

Today I still feel crappy. Not sick, or not dramatically sick, but not well and definitely not motivated. Energy level: 2. I could get out of bed if I had to and obviously, I am succeeding in writing my blog post, but the dogs haven’t even gotten their first walk today and I would pull the covers over my head if I could. I suspect I will eventually, but first, I am going to at least stare at my Word file for a little while.

On Tuesday, I really wanted a sandwich and I didn’t have one, damn it. If I’m going to have a gluten reaction, I wish I’d at least gotten to enjoy the gluten.

Story with a capital S

10 Tuesday Nov 2015

Posted by in Grace, NaNo, Reviews

≈ 4 Comments

Checking my email first thing this morning and Amazon had sent me a link to a new Sharon Shinn book. Argh! She used to be an auto-buy for me, but I was not so fond of her last few books. This one was $13.99 for the Kindle version. I promptly checked the library but they didn’t have it, nor any sign that they would have it (based on the fact that they didn’t have the two previous books in the series). Dilemma, dilemma, dilemma… but I couldn’t resist. Mostly because I still had money on an Amazon giftcard so it was spending money that couldn’t be used for groceries or the electric bill anyway. My day is therefore starting about four hours later than it should, because I spent them pleasantly reading Jeweled Fire.

And pleasant reading it was. Also, from an aspiring writer perspective, it was interesting to analyze. If it had been written by an author unknown to me, nothing about it would have put the author onto my auto-buy list or my permanent keeper shelf. I probably wouldn’t even remember the author’s name. That happens a lot with authors — the first few books are really good and then they become, well, pleasant. The stakes are no longer high. The characters are harder to invest in. But it’s not just that the ending is guaranteed to be happy — I prefer happy endings so most of the books that I read are going to end well. It’s also that nothing along the way is going to be too unpleasant. But that should be okay, too. I like pleasant books.

But it made me realize that the books I like best are the ones where the characters are having an intense inner journey, a passionate emotional experience, regardless of the actual events of the story. Not a lot of action is not a problem for me as long as the character despairs, at least for a moment or two. This book — which, again, was a perfectly nice book — has a character who’s having a story. Scared, trapped, in love with the wrong man, her mother and sister murdered, driven to the verge of suicide, saved at the last minute, slowly making friends with strangers who may be safer for her than her family… seriously, she’s got a Story.

Unfortunately, she’s not the protagonist. The protagonist, on the other hand, is the kind of character who — pretty much the moment she realizes she has no money — receives a shipment of coins and clothes from the family she ran away from. Problem solved. She’s occasionally in danger, but she’s never remotely at risk. And sure, she’s discovering she’s in love with maybe the wrong guy, but there’s nothing much keeping them apart and he probably sorta loves her, too. Also, he’s a nice guy who any sensible person would be in love with. Pleasant, nice, readable, mildly entertaining. Not a keeper if storage is tight (although yay for ebooks, and certainly a keeper for my Kindle library.) Definitely not an auto-buy, despite the $14 spent.

There’s a scene in Grace that I haven’t been sure about. I keep circling around it. It might change my world-building somewhat. It might be out of place. It might not fit the kind of story I think I’m writing. But I think I’m going to write it anyway, because emotional intensity is interesting to read, and when it comes right down to it, I think I’d rather write interesting than pleasant. (Although I like amusing as well.)

I wonder if I will ever finish writing this book?

Yesterday’s word count was something like 1800 words — not quite the 2K I’d like to be making every day, but enough to break the 10K mark. And now it’s almost 11 and I haven’t even started my real writing yet, so it’s time to get to it!

09 Monday Nov 2015

Posted by in NaNo, Writing

≈ 1 Comment

I’ve been having bizarrely vivid dreams lately. Last night’s had me trying to make peppermint tea, needing to share it with someone else, finally making it in a plastic bag that unexpectedly contained sand and salt, so that my tea tasted like ocean water in the end, not at all drinkable. I suspect it was my subconscious revealing my feelings about the book I’m writing. It feels like the ocean, too big, too salty, too sandy — but you know, if you weren’t expecting peppermint tea, the ocean is great. Not for drinking, but certainly for appreciating. Trying to make the ocean in a plastic bag, though, is not so easy. When I woke up this morning, the dream was so real to me that I had a moment of thinking I needed to go find the bag and clean up the mess I’d made.

Yesterday — not a good writing day. Maybe I set myself up for such by talking dust bunnies so early in the morning, but I wound up with a day where I did get lots of stuff done — clean kitchen, two loads of laundry, vacuuming, clean sheets on the bed — but not lots of writing done. Still, two or three months ago, I would have been perfectly happy with a day that included 400+ words, not wincing at the lack thereof, so I’m not going to be too hard on myself. But I am going to dive right into the story this morning. What I was writing yesterday wound up distracting me with worries about cultural insensitivity and lack of knowledge, so today I’m going to try to resolve those issues with some research and move on. The true NaNo-inspired writer would just move on and worry about the research on a second draft, but I’m just not that good at NaNo. Still, with any luck, I’ll hit the 10K milestone today — admittedly, a milestone that I should have reached several days ago — and that will be gratifying. Yay for milestones!