25 Wednesday Sep 2013
Posted in WIP
≈ Comments Off on Yesterday, not so productive
436 words yesterday. And, unfortunately, deletion of another few hundred. I’d call it neutral, but I did some good research. Canoes, mansions, and Floridian trees. Here’s hoping that today the research pays off and the words flow a little more fruitfully.
Start posting, Lynda! I can’t encourage you if you don’t give me something to encourage. 🙂
23 Monday Sep 2013
Posted in WIP
≈ Comments Off on Revisions, revisions, revisions
I decided to just plow through on my revisions today. Finished them all, so my plot holes are comfortably repaired. It wound up being a negative word count day, but it was still the most productive day I’ve had in ages. I’m at 47,000 words. Tomorrow I start cruising back toward the finish line, with the potential for much more tension in the ending scenes.
Are rainy days good writing days? Or was it just that I was motivated because I had a really clear picture of what I needed to do?
22 Sunday Sep 2013
Posted in WIP
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Puzzle though I might, I cannot figure out how to make my climax work. I discovered a huge plot-hole a few weeks ago, and spent a fair amount of time patching it, but honestly, it’s the kind of plot-hole that will destroy your story’s suspension. A little too much shock absorption! (Ha, obscure puns amuse me.)
Ahem, anyway, I figured out today that I could fix it the same way I fixed an earlier plot-hole, and it would be much better, much stronger. Less like a patch of asphalt and more like repaving. But unfortunately, it means re-writing at least two chapters. *sigh* And I think I need to do those rewrites before doing much more, because the story will make more sense if I’ve got those done. So today I’m debating going back and revising or just plowing forward, knowing that changes to what I’ve already written will be happening later. Decisions, decisions.
On a random other note, I saw Pacific Rim today. R hated it, said it was totally stupid, but I actually sort of loved it. I’d call it gloriously hokey, truly an old-fashioned Godzilla movie, complete with mad scientists and ridiculous technology and plots that make absolutely no sense. But a spectacular old-fashioned Godzilla movie, merged with awe-inspiring special effects. I laughed quite a lot and couldn’t take it seriously. It definitely had problems, first of which is that it was many movies merged in one; the story of the brave Australian, marching off to certain doom with a tear in his eye for the family he left behind just did not blend well with the two scientists teaming up to read an alien embryo brain. Ha. Even just writing that out made me laugh again. But it amused me greatly.
(Cross-posting to Wynded Words, since I wound up digressing so!)
21 Saturday Sep 2013
Posted in WIP
≈ Comments Off on Ch14, pt 1, Gift of Time
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So my friend Tim read and reviewed my last chapter on fictionpress. A really great review, thoughtful and also supportive, the kind of review where you know the reader actually read the chapter and enjoyed it. He ending with something like, “And I want the next one. On Saturday. Grin.” Because he knew that was so, so, so unlikely. I’ve been producing chapters at the rate of that drop of viscous liquid that took some guys in Scotland forty years to see.
It worked, though. Totally motivated me and today was a satisfying 1200 word day, not including the 300 word conversation I wrote that will come later in the book. That happened when I got stuck and refused to give up without finishing 1000 words. I figured I’d just write where my brain was, work it in later.
Good writing day! It also included margaritas, I wonder if I could declare those things connected?
21 Saturday Sep 2013
Posted in WIP
≈ Comments Off on Chapter 13 and moving on
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Finished off Ch13. I wish I could claim 1000 words, but it was probably 200 new and a few dozen revised.
Then realized that I didn’t quite know what would happen next. Spent a lovely few hours plotting in my head, but no real time writing. But I’m okay with that, because I do know what happens next now. The real words can happen tomorrow.
20 Friday Sep 2013
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I’ve been working on this chapter for a week now and I’m finally getting somewhere. Last Friday, I wrote over 1000 words, felt great about it, but on Monday I hated it and started over. Grr…
Yesterday the words were dull and lifeless, so today I’m procrastinating. But I’m going to aim to make it another 1000 word day. Will update later to report on success or failure!
31 Saturday Aug 2013
Posted in Food, Randomness, Writing
I’m not going to turn this into a food blog, I promise. Apart from any other reason, I don’t feel inclined to learn enough about photography and lighting to do all the pretty pictures most food blogs have. That said, I’ve had so much yummy food lately.
I made this recipe for grilled shrimp with italian tomato salsa from simplyrecipes, and it was delicious. Brushing the shrimp with olive oil and sprinkling with salt made it so much tastier than shrimp just stuck on the grill, so yay, learned something new.
The next night, we made fish in parchment pockets again. We had a lot of the italian tomato salsa left over, so it became the vegetable used on top of coho salmon. 
. Yum, yum, and yum again. Never tried tomatoes with salmon before, but they added a lovely flavor.
Last night, we were going to have chicken and I decided to try an Asian-inspired pan sauce. Sherry, red wine vinegar, soy sauce and red paper flakes with a teaspoon of butter. It didn’t work out exactly the way I expected it to, because I decided to cook the rice noodles in the sauce and the sauce got soaked up by the noodles. Instead of a sauce poured over chicken and rice noodles, it wound up being spicy rice noodles with chicken. The noodles had serious kick to them, which blended well with the plain chicken, so serendipity for the win. 
In other news, writing has been going really well, until this morning, when I decided that the chapter I’m working on stinks. *sigh* Yes, that is the reason I’m writing about food now. I promised myself I wasn’t leaving the house until I’d written 500 words one way or another, and this post counts for at least 350 of them.
However, I still love–and am definitely going to save, somehow, one way or another!–this bit:
Zane shrugged. “Tough to say. If you ask Akira, she’ll mutter some mumbo-jumbo about quantum entanglement and the position of photons in time.”
Hmm, when I went back to copy that bit, I found at least three more bits that I quite like. So maybe this chapter isn’t as bad as I was thinking it was an hour ago…
21 Sunday Jul 2013
Posted in A Gift of Time, Randomness, Writing
So, I finally finished what we might call the first act of A Gift of Time yesterday. Six chapters, about 25,000 words, and the story is established: background, Natalya’s gift, the history between Natalya and Colin, and most importantly, the major aspects of the plot, which involve Natalya’s precognition and a lost little girl.
Woo-hoo! So on to what we fondly call the “murky middle”–the part of the story that leads to where I know I’m going, the outline details of which consist of clear guidance like, “Stuff happens and time passes.” I actually kind of like this part of the story, because it’s where there’s the most room for surprises. Instead of trying to get things done, it’s when I expect the characters to take over and do what they do. In the case of Natalya and Colin, I expect arguments and fun, some movement toward romance, heat in unexpected glances and most importantly, a gradual pulling together as they work towards rescuing a hurt child.
All of that is great. I’m happy with it and it’s good news.
But–why is there always a but?–I went back and re-read the last draft that I still have in order to see if there were any parts that I wanted to save. And damn it, damn it, damn it.
I pulled Rose out (mostly) of the latest version of the story. I realized that one of the things that I was not satisfied with in A Gift of Thought was that writing from a ghost’s point-of-view is limiting. Dillon’s sections sometimes feel slow to me because he can’t talk to people, he can’t act, he’s limited to watching. And a watchful point-of-view is hard to write and hard to make interesting. So I cut Rose. But re-reading the draft that I haven’t looked at in months made me go “ARGH!” and want to pull my hair out because Rose is awesome.
I should learn from this to stop editing myself, at least until I’m done. Really, it’s depressing to go back to a version that I tossed and declare it good. But here’s a little angelic Rose for a Sunday afternoon read. (It won’t be in the final book most likely, but don’t read if you hate all spoilers. Also, it’s first draft, unedited, ya-da-da-da.)
*****
Rose really hoped the sheriff wasn’t counting on her angelic nature to do him much good. She’d tried telling Akira that with no wings, no halo, and no harp, she couldn’t possibly be an angel. “Mmm-hmm,” Akira had murmured. “So why exactly are you babbling about hospitals and safe places in the middle of the night?”
Rose hadn’t had a good answer.
Natalya, though, said, “Pfft.”
Rose approved.
“So far our angelic assistance has consisted of vague presentiments of danger. I’m gonna want something a lot more concrete before I consider that useful,” Natalya snapped before stilling. Glancing around warily, she added, “Um, Rose? Are you here?”
“Yep,” Rose replied, laughing. “Don’t worry, I don’t mind. I can’t say as useful has ever been much in my nature.”
Natalya looked at Colin questioningly.
He shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t hear her. Did Akira call you earlier?”
Rose pursed her mouth. She leaned down, as close to Colin as she could get without letting her ghostly energy move through him and yelled in his ear. “I’m right here.”
Colin rubbed his ear as a faint frown creased his forehead. “Or maybe…” He tilted his head slightly, turning it up.
Rose tried again.
“Almost,” Colin murmured. He glanced back at Natalya. “Or I could be imagining it.”
Rose wrinkled her nose. She’d thought last night that Colin had heard her pretty clearly, much more so than most people did. Maybe that was because he’d just died. Maybe being a spirit, even if only briefly, had left him more perceptive than usual. But if so, it had been only temporary.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Natalya muttered, before saying, in a louder voice, “If you’re here, Rose, can you give us a sign?”
“Help Wanted?” Colin suggested.
Natalya’s lips twitched, but she didn’t smile. “Trespassers will be shot?” she offered instead.
“Now how angelic would that be?” Colin drawled, his grey eyes alight with amusement.
Rose looked from one to the other, her lips curving up. She couldn’t read minds and she didn’t know the sheriff well, but she could tell that his thoughts were not angelic. Good for him, she thought. Life was meant to be lived after all and she’d always enjoyed a good flirtation herself.
“Dillon can send text messages,” Natalya told Colin. “If Rose can do the same, maybe she’ll let us know what she wants us to do now.”
“Oh, that’s so hard,” Rose protested. She’d tried, she had, but she’d never succeeding in replicating Dillon’s skill at controlling cell phones.
Still, Natalya had only asked for a sign. Maybe Rose could manage some other ghostly feat? She was good at switching channels on the television, but that wouldn’t work while they were outside. They wouldn’t notice unless the little girl came out and complained, and she didn’t seem like the complaining type.
With a sigh, Rose stepped away from Colin and into Natalya. Standing on top of her, her legs lost in Natalya’s body, she tried to think of the worst, saddest, bleakest thoughts she could.
It took her a minute. Death, the obvious tragic thought, just didn’t scare her anymore. Not hers or anyone else’s. Sure, it would have been sad if the little girl died, but she probably had a nice granny waiting for her through the passageway, and Colin, why he’d practically been looking forward to seeing his parents again. No, death wasn’t scary.
Loneliness, though, that had power. Rose imagined herself still tied to her house, but without Henry, without the boys in the backyard, without Dillon or Akira or Zane, without music or television or visitors.
Natalya shivered, tugging the light cardigan sweater she wore closed, and tucking one hand into a fist by her neck.
“Do you hear anything?” she asked Colin.
He shook his head. “Not a word.”
“Huh,” she said. “Well, maybe she’s not here.”
Annoyed, Rose tried harder, concentrating on the thought of a completely silent, completely empty world. Why, it was such a miserable idea that she almost wanted to cry herself. Natalya couldn’t possibly miss that.
Natalya shivered again, wrapping her other arm around her body in a tight hug.
“Weather’s supposed to change tonight,” Colin remarked. “Cold front coming in.”
Rose stamped her foot in frustration. “Cold front? I’m not a cold front! You asked for a sign. I gave you one.”
Natalya stood. “It’s lucky we’ve had warm weather for the past few days. And dry, too. If there’s rain tonight and the temperature falls much more—well, it’s good that you found her when you did.”
Colin rose to his feet as well, standing on the step below Natalya so their eyes were level. “So no angelic assistance, huh?”
“My phone’s not ringing.”
Colin slipped his phone out of his pocket and thumbed it on, glancing at the screen. “Nothing on mine, either.”
Natalya dipped her head in acknowledgement. “If Rose is here, she doesn’t seem to have anything to say.”
Rose snorted, finally stepping outside of Natalya. “I’ve always got plenty to say. You’re just a terrible listener.”
*****
07 Tuesday May 2013
Posted in A Gift of Time, Self-publishing, Writing
I dreamed last night that I got a one-star review on A Gift of Ghosts. And not just a one-star review, a really mean, really hateful one-star. I’m personally a firm believer in everyone’s right to not like something and say so — the world would be bland and boring if everyone had exactly the same taste — but this review was different.
I just started to edit the first line of this post, but then I stopped myself. See, I actually think that reviews belong to the book, not the author. When Ghosts is reviewed, it’s the book that gets the review, not me. Instead of “I got,” that line should read “Ghosts got a one-star review.” I believe reviews are about the person who wrote them first, the story second, the author of the story a far distant third, and I try not to take them personally. (I wrote that originally “I don’t take them personally,” but I’m not a saint — of course there are times when a mean review lingers. But I try!)
Anyway, my opening line is actually right the way I wrote it in this context, because this hateful review was me. It was me being mean to me. And I realized it even before I woke up. (I admit, I did go check Amazon just to make sure I hadn’t found it while half-asleep and imagine that I was dreaming it, but no surprise, it wasn’t there.) Nobody is meaner to me than I am.
So… new plan for today. Not continuing rewriting Time from scratch — or giving up entirely, which was where I was at yesterday — but figuring out how to keep the parts I like of old Time, while resolving the plot holes that were giving me a nagging itch of incompetence.
The worst part — really, the only negative part of self-publishing in my experience — is that there is no one around to save me from myself, for both good and bad. No one to say, “Yes, you’re right, this isn’t working,” and toss out some suggestions for fixes but equally, no one to say, “No, you’re wrong, stop trying to re-invent the wheel and just have fun.”
03 Friday May 2013
Posted in A Gift of Time, Personal, Thought, Writing
Right about now, minus one year, I dropped out of graduate school. If I’d stayed, and stayed on track, I’d be graduating soon, maybe even this weekend. I’m trying to decide if I have regrets. I sort of think the fact that I’d rather go drink a glass of wine and watch Doctor Who then sit with this feeling means that I do, at least a few.
Ostensibly, I dropped out of school to become a writer. Really, I quit because it was increasingly clear to me that I wasn’t healthy enough to be the person on the professional side of the counseling relationship. If it hadn’t been such an incredibly difficult year, filled with loss and pain, I think I would have managed, but in the long run, I don’t think it would have been good for me. The more into it I got, the more I felt like I was wearing a mask and that the mask was part of the job description.
I’m not sure being a writer is going to work out for me either, though. I know how to earn a living as a writer: write fast, write what you think people want to read, write and let go. Write to sell, basically, and produce as much as possible as quickly as possible. It’s basic math. Instead I’ve spent the past year kicking around A Gift of Time, writing and revising and thinking and revising some more and thinking some more. There is no possible way to become a successful writer if I spend a year working on one project and at the end of the year toss everything and start over. (Oh, by the way, I started Time over again this week. Ha. Back to the beginning.)
On the other hand, I felt really pleased to be starting Time over. Thought — well, I had promised to deliver Thought by June 2012 and so I did. And I love parts of it, just the way I love parts of Time. But I also think that it’s not nearly as good a book as I’m capable of. I learned a lot writing it. I worked on action scenes and pace, movement from place to place, descriptions, dramatic tension. But it was never all that clear whose story it was: Dillon’s or Sylvie’s or Lucas’s. I think Lucas is a better character in my head than he is on the page, and I wish I’d had sections in his POV to get him down better. Honestly, Lucas is probably the truly most important character — he’s the one who has the clearest goals — and he’s not nearly as good as he ought to be. The ending should have been his ending, as much as Dillon’s and Sylvie’s and it just wasn’t.
I could persevere with Time. I’ve been doing that for six months. I’m actually at 35,000 words, which is a solid chunk of book. And if I was going to earn a living as a writer, that’s probably what I ought to do: write, write, write, finish it off, accept the fact that it’s not as good as it could be, and move on. But I just can’t do it. I’d rather not earn my living as a writer, but love what I’m writing. Love and be proud of. I want to someday re-read Time and think, ‘oh, I amuse myself’ with a cheerful glow of contentment, the way I do when I re-read some of my best fanfics. That means starting over. That means being profoundly impractical about the hour-per-product investment of time.
I don’t know that dropping out of graduate school was impractical — maybe not nearly as impractical as quitting my editing job was in the first place. But a year later, I don’t seem to have figured out anything at all about my life and how I intend to make it work. Except maybe that doing work that I’m proud of and that I love is more important to me than my long-term retirement planning? Which is a nice thought, of course, but it’s not going to pay the mortgage when I run out of savings.
Meanwhile…back to Time. The nicest thing about starting over is that after a year with these characters, I really know them. I spent six months fighting Natalya’s propensity to be sarcastic and now I’ve given up. She’s the kind of sarcastic person who can usually keep her mouth shut, which is why Akira thinks she’s so serene and sweet, but Akira doesn’t know her insides the way I do.