Well, I was a bad girl and didn't get too much writing done this weekend.

I'm at 69k in the Beau book, and while it's not leaps and strides ahead, I'll take it. I'm kinda disappointed it's not 70k, though. 70k feels like much more of a milestone. Maybe I'll hit it tomorrow, and then I can feel all smug and justified with my writerly self.

I should have written a lot this afternoon, but instead, I talked shop with charleneteglia and michelle_rowen and Stacey Agdern (does she have a LJ?). It was a lot of fun, and we should do that more often.

Writing is always better with teh gossips.

Original Plans:

1) Edit friend's book
2) Write in my book
3) Watch TV and relax


What really happened

1) Made breakfast
2) Read friend's book for an hour
3) Nap that ate entire afternoon.

Woe. I don't feel like doing squat now. Am too lazy.

Dude. Is it just me, or is Sam like totally hot this season?

Snippet of Dooooooom!

( hereeeee )

 Minds out of the gutter! *raps knuckles*

So it occurrs to me the other day that while I have a bunch of books that i've written, a lot of them have been problematic when I returned to them for edits. Nevermind the Nano ones where there are deliberate gaping plot holes (just so I could get to the end by the end of the month). I'm talking about honest-to-goodness If I could just get the feel of it right, this would be fabulous type books. You know what I'm talking about. Endless revisions, and at the end you're no closer to a successful novel than when you started. Maybe even further away, because now you're heartily disgusted with the thing.

Here's my problem. I'm always trying to write like someone else.

I don't know when it started. Maybe after I wrote two light, snarky paranormals in a row and neither one sold as soon as I typed "The End", I was convinced that I was doing it wrong. Maybe it's because everyone said "Oh, humor is SO subjective and such a hard sell." Maybe it was that super-nice agent that passed on my work because he said it was antic.

I have no idea. But I then thought I should change. I should write out the funny. Write srs stuff. Srsly. No funny, just doom and gloom and SERIOUS.

And it never works for me.

Oh, I finish the novel (eventually). Get it out on paper. But it feels broken. I've done it all wrong. I've made the characters something they're not, and it's painfully obvious to me, and I can't get past it. Worst of all, the dislike for it carries over into the edits. They feel wrong, and the more I tinker, the wronger it feels.

Mind you, it doesn't read BADLY. It just doesn't have the spark I love in my other stories.

Some books are easy to write. SEX DRIVE (the sequel to SEX STARVED, Pocket Books, 2009! Woot!) was a piece of cake. Heck, it was the whole cake. That book was pure fun, and I powered through it in 2 months.

The rewrite of the valkyrie novel (now with more srs!) took me something like 2 and a half years. Yeah.

I'm working on the Beau story now. It's not entirely serious. Parts of it are quite funny (at least to me) and it's fun again. Writing is actually a pleasure and not a millstone hanging around my neck. What does this tell me? That I need to stick with what works for me.

I always hear that "writing should be a challenge". That if the story isn't breaking your brain, you're doing it wrong.

WHY?

Why must I torture myself? Why can't I write a fun story? Why must I be miserable to succeed with a novel? At the end of the day, the hard book still sucks, and the breezy, fun one wrote itself.

So this is a reminder to me. Write what your instincts tell you. Write what comes naturally to your voice. You are not Nalini Singh. You are not Meljean Brook. You are not Ilona Andrews. You have to be you, warts and all.

And let yourself write that six-page scene about the characters arguing over underwear in the hall. Eff it!

(And if you feel like we've had this conversation before, dear livejournal, we have. I just need to reaffirm it with myself sometimes.)

 

(Me being the moron in question, of course)


Email conversation between me and meep_snookies earlier tonight:

ME : So how long is your current book?
meep_snookies : 48,593 by ms word count.  57,000 by smf
ME: What's SMF?
meep_snookies :  Standard Manuscript Format. The way to format manuscript before you send it to publisher?
(At this point, I'm pretty sure she's staring at her monitor and scratching her head, wondering how morons like me get anywhere in the world)
Me:  Er, I don't know how to do that...
meep_snookies : *patiently explains how to format a manuscript with SMF*
Me: Dur, I never knew this. Proof that you can get published while being stupid. Er, which one do editors use?
meep_snookies : SMF...
Me: Uh oh.

See? Everyone that thought they had to have their formats beautiful/perfect before subbing to agents or editors...maybe you do. Maybe you don't. But it's apparent that dummies like me slip through the cracks. *g* This should make everyone feel better (cause I know it makes me feel LAAAAAAAAAAAME)

My husband laughs, but I am giddy with TV anticipation tonight.

Men look forward to the SuperBowl.

I look forward to the Survivor season finale.

Five more hours to go! *runs around in circles*

more cat pictures

Managed to squeeze out 1500 in the current novel (the Beau book, also called Heat). Not exactly racing to the end, but I'm hoping to get at least another 2k tomorrow so I can continue to limp towards the end. The remaining plot pieces are starting to slide into place for the ending, though I'm not exactly sure of all the nuts and bolts yet. Which is cool, cause I still have about 15k to go, heh.

( Minor squee about a minor old ms epiphany )

I'm going to sit on this idea for a bit (mostly to finish the Beau book) but I really really like it. And I think it would work like a charm. Oh, the possibilities.

Sigh. I have been awake for how many hours now? Only written 100 words or so. My brain is just not focused on the book today.

I am totally wanting to write something with medieval tones. Someone stop me!

Also, I am finishing my 6th Jo Beverley book in the past 2 weeks and it is awesome. She has an amazing sense of historical detail, and her books just suck me in and take me away. I love all of her medievals especially. Jo Beverley is an awesome writer of historicals - I seriously cannot say enough good things about her books.

Out of curiosity, I ran over to Amazon to see what kind of glowing, glorious reviews that these books (her medievals) had gotten from other readers, and was surprised. Not good reviews at all, for the most part. One book that I thought was really great was roundly blasted. Very surprising.

It truly is a subjective business. One person's treasure is another person's one star on Amazon. Heh.

The very funny author of BITTEN & SMITTEN and LADY AND THE VAMP Michelle Rowen has a livejournal now, over at michelle_rowen .  Go say hello and friend her!


She also says some things that hit me very close to home in this post.  I swear we were separated at neurotic birth, or something.  Everything she says sums up how I feel lately.

And the stuff about sticking to your voice? So true.

Close-up shots of photos. I don't care if it's a headshot. That doesn't bother me.

I hate the chin/nostril shot. The I'm-Being-So-Clever-By-Only-Showing-A-Small-Piece-Of-My-Face shot.

God I hate that. I don't want to count your nosehairs when I visit a messageboard. It's distracting and I can't read your posts.

No. Just no.

I'm going to be lazy and just post a snippet today:


( Read more... )

So I mentioned the other day that I wanted to talk about some changes. Now that I can sit upright in a chair for more than 10 minutes at a time, this seems like a good opportunity.

Sometimes we realize we're in a rut and it's time to make some changes. We establish bad habits, and when we don't get slapped on the hand for the bad habits, we can repeat them. Sometimes we continually repeat them until the bad habits become THE habit, and it's time to stop. And for me, it's being lackadasical in the writing. Time to stop that shit, and get back to work. I completed Valkyrie, I'm heading towards completing Heat, and it's time to stop fooling around and get things moving again.

That being said, now let's talk about changes.

1) I'm dropping out of the League of Reluctant Adults. They're all terrific writers and fun people, but I've noticed that it's become less of a 'priority' for me to participate, and that's not fair to the rest of the team who put a lot of effort into making every week fun. They're a great group, and I wish them the best - and I think everyone will be pleased with a few of the changes that are sure to be upcoming very soon. :)

2) This one is a little more difficult to talk about, because the internet is a public forum. And sometimes, no matter how delicately you say things, it's still interpreted the wrong way. But it still deserves to be said to avoid confusion, of course. With that being said, I've sat on this for long enough and thought I would throw it out in the open.

I left my old literary agency in March. I still think they are wonderful people and do a great job.

I am, however, thrilled to announce that I will be working with Rachel Vater of Folio Literary Management in the future. Rachel is vibrant, enthusiastic, and willing to take a slacker and whip her into shape, and I'm soooooooooo excited to be working with her! We'll be submitting my next book after it goes through some edits, and I am really really looking forward to it.

Fr Srsly.

Hurt my back on Monday and have been laid out flat for the past 5 days. Doc says it's a 'severe muscle sprain' in the tailbone. Fun!  I never realized how crucial it is to be able to sit upright in a chair until I couldn't do it.

Getting better but only able to sit for very small periods of time. I'll give a more extensive update in a few days, because I've got some stuff brewing that I'd like to share, but I hurts too much at the moment to post it, preciousssss.

Watch this space for more updates!

(PS - Not going to lock comments, but be aware I probably won't be answering 'em either. :)

After thinking about it (very very briefly), I've flipped back to the Beau & Bathsheba story (also known as Heat) to try and finish it up, now that I've gotten one monkey off my back.

I haven't worked on this story in weeks, so I was worried that I was going to have to 'force it' for a few days. Write a bunch of crap and end up deleting it, just to get the feel back of the story.

Didn't have to. I had a scene in mind and wrote toward it, and it was easy peasy. So easy, that it makes me wonder why I break my brain on other stories, when stuff like this comes out better and is twice as much fun. Glutton for punishment, perhaps.

So anyway. Heat is back on the table, and I have 1700 in it today, and I am pleased. I'd like to have this one done by the end of May, but we'll see how that goes. It's up to 57k, but the front end needs a little work (as well as finishing the back end). I'm not going to force it, though.

(Oh, and the ideas are coming fast and furious. I just got the most severely excellent idea for a stand-alone sequel to Heat and now I want to write it too. Arrrgh!)

Now I'm off to go read my little brains out.

Of Valkyrie, anyhow.

It's at 77k, all story lines are complete and wrapped up. It's as rough as as a dockside whore for the last 10k or so, but it's done and I'm pleased. I suspect that once all edits are in and everything is made purty, it'll bloat by about 10k more, putting it in the range of 'perfect'.

This book nearly broke my brain. Everyone tells you that writing is supposed to be hard, and challenging. I am here to tell you that I hate being challenged, and this book was a challenge. I dropped it more times than I can think of, and for better or for worse, it's done.

#11 in the hopper.

It needs massive edits, but those can be done some other time. I'm off to curl up with a lovely re-read and suck my thumb write a little on Beau, since I have been threatened with bodily harm by the Snooks if I do not complete it.

Hmm?

Valkyrie continues apace in an unentirely-exciting-to-talk-about-fashion. This isn't the glamorous part of writing, where everything is fantastic and amazing. This is the after-the-party-Bob-barfed-on-my-floor-get-the-lysol writing. Now it's time to clean up the mess. I wrote 4 or 5 pages last night, and I'm still writing the denouement. Who knew that I had so many balls up in the air, eh? I tend to do that, though. I keep dogpiling problems and situations until it all comes down to one bitter (or glorious) moment when everything collapses...also known as 'The End'. 

So, it's not done yet, but it will be soon.

And it's good that it'll be soon, because all kinds of projects are fermenting in my brain. I know that I need to get back to Heat - and I will - but my brain is enjoying the mental playground of creativity. 

Lately I've had a particular story-piece running amok (amok amok amok!) through my brain. We'll call it Story Number One. Number One plays out  in my brain on the drive to work. It plays out on the drive home from work. Certain words (or books) that I read trigger the scene over again, and like a crazy person, I let it spin out and enjoy the ride. I want to write this book. It's a total mismatch, but I still want to write it, if nothing else to see if I can.

Story Number Two cropped up, fully fleshed, when a couple of friends and I were shooting emails back and forth and discussing one particular popular novel. My brain shot out a plot concept, a paranormal twist, and a love interest in a matter of seconds (thank you, brain). But this one is not going to come out just yet, because I think I would have liked to write it as historical, and I'm not sure that it should be historical. But if it's contemporary, it loses some of the edge. So I'm sitting on it (mental image of a fat, squatty chicken here) to see if it hatches into something even better.

Story Number Three started a while back, and has really been digging is claws into my mind. The problem is, Story Number Three doesn't have a story or a setting. It has a heroine that I would love to write about and explore, but she can't be dropped into the other two stories. She needs her own vehicle, and I'm running low on steam when it comes to plot vehicles.

Maybe if I sit here long enough, something new will erupt, like a zit. There's a nice mental image. Story zits. Crossing my fingers for a breakout. ;)

 

Thing #1: You know when you go through the drive-thru and the person drops your credit card on the ground? And you have to get out of your car and hunt around for the fallen object, all the while cussing like a sailor that someone has bothered to inconvenience you? That happened to me yesterday, and dumb-thing of all dumb-things, I managed to hurt my hand. Not badly, but I pulled something. In my hand. MY HAND. How asinine is that?

So yesterday there was no writing. I curled up in bed with a yummy book (Jo Beverley's A Lady's Secret - total yum!) and read for hours and went to sleep.

Thing #2: I used to have dreams about my teeth falling out. Someone told me that those were dreams about money. Okay, I can see that, because I used to worry about money a lot. Except last night I had the most disturbing dream about scuba-diving in the Arctic (don't ask) at midnight. When I came up for air, the boat had gone, and I was alone in the dark, scary ocean. This freaked me out on every level of my being, and I actually had the 3 AM waking-up-in-a-cold-sweat thing happen. So does the abandoned-in-the-ocean dream mean anything?

Thing #3: I keep forgetting to update my journal. Always, always. There's memes I'm behind on and an interview to post. And metrics are practically non-existent. Gah. I suck.

Thing #4: I finished the fight-scene from hell in Valkyrie! Woot!! The only thing that is left is the repercussions-of-the-climax scene and then the denouement. I can practically taste this book's completion, and I'm really excited about that.

Thing #5: There's an interesting conversation going on over at Fangs Fur Fey about education and writing. There are a LOT of degrees being thrown around. To me, degree = smart & dedicated. I am a little in awe. Luckily stacia_kaneis my sister in Un-education so I don't feel alone. *sekrit handshake*.