Orycon 35

Okay INKers, it's Orycon time again. Orycon has a really nifty online program. Hopefully this link will take you straight to my schedule, forever. Maybe. As long as it lasts, anyway. I'm not sure if the individual program schedules stay on their respective websites forever, or if they get overwritten by the current year. I suppose I could go test it out, but ... meh. Anyway, I have a reading. A fifteen minute reading. I'm more than a little nervous about that. Put me in front of lots of people to blather about pretty much any ol' subject, I'm good. Put me in a room with 1-12 people where I read my stuff aloud? I get all shaky and shy. What's with that? It's not like my words on the page are all that different from the words I say out loud during a panel. Are they? What's the difference?

Maybe in conversation and on panels my words have no soul, no emotion, no life. Zombie words. But on the page they come alive! They have fears and courage, pleasure and pain ....

It seems kind of backwards. I mean, I've had time to revise and polish words on the page (though I'm not supposed to, ahem, do too much of that.) In theory I'm prepared, right? All I have to do is read those words. I'm much more likely to make a fool of myself saying something wrong while yammering on. And yet, I'm more nervous about the works that I picked carefully. Very weird.

Maybe it's because I wrote them without any feedback. I mean, you can get feedback after the fact, but that's not the same as talking. When you're talking, you have the opportunity, even if you can't or won't take advantage of it, to read your audience's expression and reactions and adjust accordingly. When you're writing a book or short story, you just keep marching on and hope that you aren't marching right off a cliff.

Or maybe I'm just being silly. That wouldn't surprise me in the least.

I'm also Nanowrimo-ing. I've got a personal goal of 80,000 words this time. It's kinda touch-n-go as far as whether I'll make it or not. I'm on track for 50,000 so far (can't get cocky, especially this early on. Remember the time my office flooded? Yeah, me too) but behind if I want to make the eighty. And so I'll spend part of my time at Orycon adding words.

This year I'm doing something YA-ish. I'm not convinced it *is* YA. I'm not familiar enough with YA to make that call. But that's not my job. Right now my job is to write. Lots. Lots and lots.

Which I should go back to, but I think instead I'll make some tea because my butt is going numb.

See some or all of you at the con!

Submission Machine

I went on a total submission spree.  Now almost all my inventory is out, leaving the remaining few still at home whining about when it's going to be their turn.  I've got seven things out at the moment.  That's not bad for someone who doesn't usually write short stories, eh?  I've got three 'problem children' I'd like to tweak a bit before sending them out again and a few more that I'm not quite satisfied with enough to debut.  If I can get all of that done and away out the door, I think I'll have a non-zero chance of making a second sale.  

Not a shabby August so far, not at all.

I've upped my month goals because I finished them, and it's only the 6th.  I've got to have at least a shot at failure here!

Catching their attention

I got a nice rejection today.  Part of it said: 

The story caught our attention but after consideration we’ve decided it’s not a piece
we can use.

Not too shabby, I say.  

My distractions are piling up, but writing is still happening.  I've been mainly editing novels and frowning at my legless story.  It'll all come together.  The part that's sticky right now is that I've got all of four days to send out an agent query or I'll have failed my goals for the month.  Ackity ack acka ack.  I always procrastinate with those things.  But I haven't been idle.  I've been reading Query Shark, and thinking about what the strongest thread in my novel is so that I don't muddy the synopsis with dumb stuff.  You know, the stuff that everyone, especially me, feels is so critical to the story but everyone with a few synapses firing in their brains and a somewhat-accurate memory of what the novel is about knows is just window dressing?  That stuff, the stuff I want to leave out.  If only it was color coded or something.  

Anyway, I'll get it done soon.  I'd better, or I'll owe the group a buck at a time I really ought to be saving my bucks.  Four days may seem like a lot of time, but it really isn't, especially since I want to try a fresh take on that synopsis.  It's not quite right as it stands.  I can do better.  I will, and I must do better.  

Gee, I haven't even got to the hard part yet, you know, the part where the book is out and I'm trying to build interest while still working on other books.  This is the easy part, y'know, even though it drags on and on.

And a writing goal in a pear tree

I am so looking forward to the New Year.  Yeah, yeah, live all year round, don't wait until January to make goals.  Gotcha.  Me and teh INKers have been making goals all year, thank you very much, and even meeting some.  But there is something special about January, besides it's ability to make me grind my teeth each time I write 2008, have to change it to 2009 and initial it.  Laugh if you want, but I do get caught up in the energy of all those resolutions being made at once, and it's fun to ride the energy wave, even if it washes out for most folks in February.

I was inspired enough even to make a deadline at the last minute, the WotF deadline Dec. 31st.  I made it extra hard for them to give me squat, since it was the wrong length, wrong voice, wrong everything for this particular contest, but you know, the dumbest thing that writers do is reject their own material.  It's genre.  It's within the listed word count.  It qualifies in every way.  I may not be playing the contest smart, but I'm playing, and I'll let the judges decide how ridiculous I was to try with this one.

In the meantime I'm working on yet another short, a non-fiction project, and a novel in a pear tree.  Oops, wrong season for that sort of thing.  Sorry!  My goal this year--let not my publishing credit be a fluke!  Into the breach once more, my friends!  A writing career awaits!

Announcements

First announcement:  I just made a short story submission, which completes my goals for the month.  Yay!  I guess I have to go back to writing now.

Second announcement:  If there's anyone interested in joining the Lucky Labs, contact me.

The who?

No no, not The Who, Lucky Labs, aka the Lucky Lab Rats.  This writing group has historically gotten members via OryCon schmoozing (this was news to me even though that's exactly how I was invited) but after pub food and some hat whacking the consensus, as I understand it, is that I can ask my beloved INK members if they'd like to join.  

Lab Rats:

*Write speculative fiction.  SF/F/H or genres that make wet, intimate contact with SF/F/H only, please.  If you don't write it, read it, love it, you won't like how the Rats smell.  

*Meet every three weeks.

*Want people who want to learn how to write better, get published more often (in my case, more times than zero,) critique better, and who won't cry if Jim tells them their story is crap.  If everyone says your story is crap it's okay to cry but you have to hold it in and say you need to use the bathroom, and be sure to wash your face before you come back.  

*Want people who submit writing on a regular basis, and who write on a regular basis.  (Hat whacking  and virtual finger pointing over this issue occurred during the meeting.)

*Want stuff I don't know about because I'm a new-ish member.

*Want world peace.

I've observed that a thick skin is helpful with the Lab Rats.  They're never cruel or mean, but they tell it like they see it.  If that includes "scrap this one and write something else," you'll hear it, maybe even in those exact words.  I've also observed that the Lab Rats are inclusive rather than exclusive.  They're all about the writing.  And the publishing.  And the improving.

In the past a former member repeatedly submitted a first chapter to a novel, hoping to polish it into white rice, I suspect.  The fact that they started with a potato probably wasn't helping.  Anyway, it inspired a rule--six months between re-submitting same material.  It's generally a good idea to keep writing and submitting new stuff to keep from inspiring more rules.

We discussed a member cap.  Because we don't seem to be overwhelmed with submissions the consensus was that there is no member cap until we need one.  If that makes sense.

Anyway, after the rats get a membership story sub we discuss it at the next super-secret meeting at the Lucky Labs pub on Hawthorne at 2pm (next meetings are  June 7 and June 28) and then the idea is that the prospective member comes to the nearest following meeting they can attend to critique whatever's on the table and hear the critiques.  If they don't run away screaming and everyone is good, we end up with a new member.

So send me an ms if you want to play with rats and, since this isn't being done at an OryCon schmoozing session, it may be helpful to the Lucky Labs if you include a wee bit about yourself and your writing goals.  This isn't a cover letter thingy by any means.  We're not that formal (as evidenced by puns, sarcasm and other bad habits.)  I'd just tell them about you guys myself but then I'd feel weird like I'm pitching you.  Not the stuff that comes from trees, or throwing you like a baseball, the other pitching.  No, not throwing you in the garbage!  Oh, I give up.

Escape

My brain is looking for escape routes.  Yesterday I wanted to write on anything except what I was supposed to.  Last night I even came up with a new story idea.  This morning I came up with more ideas--luckily one was for Masks--but the primary idea was for a project that has been on a backburner and will probably stay there for a long time.  I can blame my heavy schedule for this bout of escapism, but that would be just an excuse.  I know how to kick this.  Write anyway.

Definitely owe INK a dollar, and considering Radcon, that'll be another dollar because I'm not going to get a sub in by next Monday either.  Might as well pay up now.  But hey, after Radcon I'll be home free for quite a while.  With two day jobs days of work a week, three max, and the fact that lately my schedule has been arranged so that the workdays are consecutive, I'll have a lot more free time to get writing projects done.  I'm really, really looking forward to that.  Radcon has become my Thunderdome, and all I want to do is get beyond it (she said, dating herself yet again.)  I'm sure once I get there, though, I'll have such a blast that I'll forget all about these silly things called deadlines and goals, at least for a while.

Submitting Again?

Tomorrow is Monday and it's time once again to drop another Masks query in the mail.  I'm starting to get better at this.  Although they wanted yet another format for the submission, I managed to put it together in about an hour and a half.  That's fast for me.

I think I'll go play on my website.  Some of the modifications I made to the synopsis (to make it fit on one page) gave me some ideas for my book descriptions.

I've got a nasty headache that keeps reaching evil blobs of tension into my neck.  Ugh.  I think it's the rapid changes in the weather, but I'm glad the wind has calmed down and the temperatures have risen.  I love the snow on the ground, and it feels relatively warm outside.  They say we're going to get snow again tonight.  We'll see.  Maybe I can spend the day with my family and get some writing in edgewise.  What would really be nice is if I could get some painting done too.  I haven't cleared out the time and space for that in ages.

Somewhere in there I need to make time to make a snowman.

Bring It!

I won't be repetitive and reprint all my 2008 goals over here. If you'd like an in-depth look at them, I have them up on my blog. I have quite a bit more than last year and I'm feeling ready to tackle each and every one, all at once. I must pace myself.

So I'm setting monthly and weekly goals. It's good to have focus.

To kick off the New Year, I'm going to finish my current short story ("Telling it True"--which took a serious plot twist yesterday), finish reading the Reven novel so Kami and I can hammer out the final version, and figure out where my novels are going and how best to get them there. Next week, and probably the rest of the month, needs to be all about the novels.

As for revisions, I have four short stories on my plate, one of which will be chewed up by INK this Friday. I also have The Trinket Box to transcribe/edit, Reven coming up on the table, and The Inkwell Cult bluescreen. Which makes me realize I need to set some revision goals or I'll never keep it all straight. Not a bad problem to have considering where I was this same time last year. So this week I'll try to get another 15 pages of The Trinket Box finished.

In other news, I found this interesting revision plan. I like it. It will help me cut Purgatory down by another 110 words. It's Ken Rand's 10% Solution. Thanks to Jim Van Pelt for posting about it on his great New Year's Resolutions for Newbies (and lapsed Oldies), which has fine advice as well.

Snoopy Dance Time

Hit my monthly goals: submitted to INK, submitted to Writers of the Future, wrote 70 pages.

Hit my yearly goal: 601 pages.

2008--Bring it!

A Quiet Pleasure

It's weird to be so pleased with myself when I know Kami and her family are grieving. I feel so badly for their losing Mojo.

So I'm holding back my snoopy dance for finishing my first short story in over two years. Oddly enough, it didn't feel like that huge of an accomplishment. I think because I know I have lots of revising to do on it before it is really close to finished. So I'll save the snoopy dance for when I finish the edit.

I have spent the last two days catching up on missed work. I wrote 13 pages yesterday, which puts me even with my best Nano writing days. For some reason, 13 seems to be the highest number I can achieve in a day, at least at this point. By the 13th page, my brain is mushy, my back aches, and my fingertips are numb. It's no slouch of number, approximating 3250 words of writing. While I'm pleased I got that far along, I really did want to finish the story yesterday, but I had to wait until today to write the last 7 pages of the story.

I was close to my guess on the length of the story, too, which surprises me. I figured about 30 pages and I ended up with 37 pages, thanks in part to a nice little twist at the end. We like little twists that take the story one step further. This one worked out well and kept with the theme that managed to develop in the story.

My plans now are reading Reven, which I haven't started yet (bad me), finishing the [title withheld for sheer perversion] revision to get it ready for the WotF contest, and coming up with something to fill the 28 pages I have left to write for the month. It will be spent on another short story. I have some prep work to do on my current novels before I can pick them up again.

Which One

I have a lot of stories to choose from.  They all have flaws.  I'm having a hard time committing.  I thought I'd go with Comes in Colors, aka Colorized, but now I'm having doubts.  So I've decided to throw this list online, basically thinking aloud, to see what happens.  (In other words, I'm inflicting my thoughts on the universe, not asking that everyone vote, although if you have suggestions I am so, so willing to hear them!)  

It's really hard to judge my own stuff.  I have the same trouble painting.  The ones people gravitate to are not my faves, generally speaking.  I'm only looking at fairly recent stories.  I don't want to dredge up really old ones for WotF.

[Secret WotF sub]:  People remember it.  It's pretty clean (though Ris is right, it could use trimming.)  It has some good visuals.  Overall, though, I'm afraid the idea is not very creative, and it certainly doesn't have much punch.  Even after editing I don't think it'll be a vivid story.

Calling In:  I think it's funny, and it recently got funnier thanks to some tightening and a plot adjustment.  I like that it's very short, the shortest thing I've written.  But, it's humor.  Humor is hard, and humor pieces deserve recognition, but I don't know if this humor piece does.  

Flight:  This is the oldest of the stories I'm considering.  It's also a shorter story.  The tale of the engineered child whose first flight is recorded in JonBenet Ramsey style has some moments that I still think about, but I think I missed the mark with it.  I dunno.

Invaders:  Although this idea of robots being engineered to imitate alien invaders is nothing new, I think having the pov from the robot is unique.  The critique I got from Strange Horizons when I offered it for publication was that it was a near miss but it felt 'slight.'  I guess I didn't go deep enough, or the situation was too cliche'.  I don't know if I'll be able to get out from under that response to submit it to a contest.

Walking the Earth:  This rambling story about an alien born on Earth after his ancestors crash landed here has some fun moments, but plot-wise it verges on a mini-novel.  It's a classic Kami short story in the sense that I had a novel plot and tidied it up enough to fit into a short story.  I've had cleaner ideas but I really like the characters in this one.

[Secret Future WotF entry]:  A story about a general who switches to the losing side of a war.  I like that she dies at the end, and how that happens, but the opening starts on one of Diedre's nits--with a bloody fight.  I suppose I could change the opening.  It wouldn't even be that hard.  Despite being last on my list, this is the one I'm closest to considering submitting to WotF instead of [The Current Actual Entry.]

I just realized that I could submit Comes in Colors one quarter, and Causes another.

And I really need to start writing more short stories if I'm going to be submitting to contests.  Sheesh, you guys, I'm a novelist!  I'm not even supposed to be here!

A month past the middle

We're a month past the middle of the year. How are everyone's goals coming along?

I'd love to write all day today, but I have outside chores galore. Maybe when the day gets super hot I'll slink in and do some writing. It's not too much of a hassle, though. Butterflies galore out there, the hummingbirds providing entertainment via constant warfare, goldfinches flitting around the feeders--it's all good.

Last night Mark went out into a storm. I didn't do as much with it as I could have, so I may go back today and plump it up. It could be as much a symbolic event as a real one. No need to keep writing no matter what--that's one of the few nice things about editing as opposed to first draft writing. I give myself permission to go back and change things or rewrite scenes when that's what I feel like doing.

Today, in Mark's life, the party, where bad things will happen.

Eyeing The End

Hit 81 pages on my script today. That's 17010 words (give or take) in word count speech. Only 3000 words left to go. And in two days. Heck, I've come up from behind from much farther during NaNo, so I'm not sweating the next two days at all.

It helps that I had a rather chatty character show up in the last scene. I never thought the Queen of England would be so chatty, but she was. She really wants to stage the show. And she was so much fun to write, I was tempted to let her. But I got through the scene and even stayed on subject and ended up two more pages along than I planned. Always a bonus. I'm trying to figure out a way to have the Queen make another appearance before the end.

I'm very close to the end now, too. I'm debating about having one more pass at an attempt on my heroine's life (which would be giggles of fun). Just one more, so my dashing first mate can save her. Or rather come in to find her saving herself and clean up the mess. Hee.

And then I get to blow up many ships. Fun.

I'm still enjoying this whole scripting process. And I'm already considering ideas for the rewrite. Yup, I'm going to take a week off from the script and then turn around and start on it again. But this time I won't have to nail myself in front of the typewriter with only the script. I can pick up Mummy Case again and Warrior Storm and another idea I've been toying with (because I'll have one story off the rough draft list, so it's time to add a new one, right?). It's actually an older idea that I've had a couple of failed attempts at, but I've had some new inspirations.

The one thing Script Frenzy has absolutely proven for me is that I like my pace of three to five pages a day and the freedom to work on whatever story is on hand that strikes my fancy for that day. I keep proving to myself that I can knuckle under and work on just the one story but it isn't my favorite way to write. So . . . I've decided I won't be participating in NaNo this year. Four years is good for me (hey, that's like going through High School, right? I'm graduating). But I'll be free to serve as cheering section and sounding board for any INKers who will be doing it again!

And I'll be encouraging you to give Script Frenzy a try next year!

Little pieces of progress

I'm getting there.

A bit ago I was whining about how my schedule disrupted daily writing. Well, I'm daily writing again. Sometimes it's just a few paragraphs, but that's all I need. I think. Here we are at June 13th, almost halfway through the month that will mark the halfway point in the year, and I have got to get hopping to get this thing done before December 31st because I am NOT buying a PC, thank you! Time pressure is good, though. Time pressure means that when I start writing excuses in my head (I'm really good at writing excuses, too) the overriding image will always be a rubbery-faced salesperson with a half-smile asking what kind of PC I'm looking for today.

In Masks, Mark is drunk, very very drunk. It's fun impairing him when important things are going on. I don't think he'll get drunk like this again in a long, long time, if ever. Ah, nineteen. Yes, we make stupid mistakes like this when we're nineteen.

It's my first official day as a jester and I've just been invited to a party for which I'm not in the least bit prepared. I know! I'll go find a cute guy and he and I will kill a bottle of high-percent alcohol together! This will relieve my stress!

Mmm hmm.

Did you tell anyone where you were going, Mark?

Uh, was I supposed to?

What if someone sees you?

Um, would that be bad?

You've already had an attempt on your life in this part of town. Might you not be attacked again?

What are the odds?

Can you figure the odds?

Um, hang on. Let's see. Uh ... what was the question again?

I rest my case. And there's a knock on the door. Who is it, Mark?

I hope it's someone who can pour me home ...

Asserting Myself Around Town

I've had a couple of odd dreams in the past few nights where I am suddenly very assertive. As in, calling people out when I don't like what I'm seeing or experiencing. For anyone who knows me, they know this isn't a typical Ris reaction. I'm more of the put up with it until I can escape type. I'm wondering, though, if these dreams mean I'm actually becoming more assertive in my waking day. I'll have to keep an eye on my own reactions to see.

And that wouldn't be a bad thing at all. After all, running away at the first signs of difficulty isn't a good way to be a writer. Which might accounted for all the files I have of started but unfinished stories. I put them aside as soon as I ran into plot troubles and moved on to something easier (and less work). I haven't done that lately. Sure, I've gone from one story to another, but I end up circling back around to the first story after a while. Sometimes all I needed was fresh eyes to find where to take the story next.

But if that doesn't work, I'm still not running away. I'm embracing other methods.

Take Mummy Case. I'm to a point where I'm starting down the muzzle of the plot gun, but it hasn't fired quite yet. I'm starting to questiong the validity of scenes and ask myself if this trip is really necessary and all those other cliches, but I haven't put it aside. Instead, I'm telling myself Go Outline, Young Writer! An outline will make it all better. Or at least clearer on how each scene is building up to the other and how they'll all come together. I guess I'm to the point where I need a map to find my way around.

And that feels right. I've tested the characters up to 17,000 words and found them compelling and fun. Testing characters can only happen by writing characters. But testing plot can happen in outlining to a point, and I think that is where I'm at now. Testing the loose plot ideas I have in my head, and figuring out how and when I can add in more elements to the story to advance the theme and the genre along with the plot. And that feels good, even when I'm not ending up with word count after the day is done. Well, a few words, but not where I'd like to be during a typical day of writing.

And that's okay, because untypical days come up! We like untypical days. Untypical is fun. (Is untypical even a word?)

Finished.

I DID IT! I wrote, edited, rewrote, and finished a short story! 3,472 words of dark fantasy/horror. My first! And I like it too!

I'm just so happy and excited I could squeal.

*squeeeeeeeee!*

Thank you. I return you to your normal Internets activities.

57,501

I reached the end of the first, large section of Masks. The way I remember it, the second section is shorter. It also needs the most revising. Still, here we are in May and it looks like I'll finish Masks well before the end of the year. Then, finally, I can send out queries (and upgrade to another Mac instead of the dreaded PC. Boy, talk about a motivator.)

I should mention that INKers have cattle prods after the style of a writer who, if he didn't meet his writing goal, forced himself to write a check to a nasty conservative religious group he particularly despised above all others. He told his friends of this goal, and the one time he didn't make his goal, he wrote a check. He never missed a goal after that.

My cattle prod is that if I don't reach my goal, which is to finish revising Masks by the end of the year, I'm not allowed to upgrade my computer to a Mac. I must upgrade to a PC. I told my fellow INKers and anyone who I thought would care about this. Not following through is not an option, and I want to throw up when I think about upgrading to a PC instead of a Mac, hence, not reaching my goal is not an option.

It's the strongest motivator I've found since I've started writing. It's taken me through Chapter Eight in Masks, to 57,501 words that I wouldn't blush in total shame to show an editor or agent. Masks will still need a final polish before I can send it out, but after the revision I shouldn't need anything in perfect (or as close as I can get it) form for queries. Queries will require ten pages at most of the manuscript if any at all, and while the queries are out I can polish to my wee heart's content. And should a query come back with a request for the whole manuscript before I'm done polishing, I won't mind the last part being rough. If they read that far, I'm doing good, and they'll know I'm capable of doing better (or they may find the rough part reads faster and is more entertaining--polishing does tend to suck the freshness and soul from a manuscript.) At that point any rewriting will be to spec--oh joy! No decisions to make, no worries about if this reads too fast or too slow or is too cliche'--an 'expert' (more importantly, the person responsible for getting me paid) will make most of the decisions for me. Unless they're way off base and derail the plot with a suggestion (which is wholly possible,) I see no reason to argue a fine point in a rewrite when they're offering me money to do it.

But I'm getting way, way ahead of myself. This is a display of excitement and enthusiasm after reaching a landmark in the editing process. Boy, I hate editing. But sometimes, it can be fun. Today was a good day.

Finishing a Month

There is something very satisfying about finishing out a monthly word count goal. I've felt it enough with NaNo to recognize that gleeful buzzing inside me for what it is. I thought that I wouldn't feel it so strongly with a word count goal just barely a third of NaNo's hefty goal, but when I finished out March after a 3,000 word push on the last day, I was insanely pleased. Now I've finished out April and I'm just as pleased, only this time I saw it coming over a week ago.

This morning, thanks to my HUGE writing day in the middle of the month and the fact that I kept up with my writing since then, I only needed 18 words to finish out the month. No pressure at all to sit down to peck them out and end up writing over 300 instead. It was such a pleasant change to that desperate final push that I'm more accustom to facing that I simply must do it again. I can handle leisurely completely a deadline rather than making a mad rush of it.

But the only reason I was able to do that this month was because of that unheard of 8,000 word day. I'm wondering if I can make those come more frequently than, say, once in a lifetime. And without starting a whole new story to do so.

Though I do have this one idea about an alien crash landing in lovely young woman's garden . . .

Career Track

I broke 10,000 words on my new story today. I'm only 4,000 words shy of my monthly goal, too, and the month isn't half over yet. I feel like a truly career track writer, now.

It wasn't pure writing today, either. I hit a little snag and ended up backtracking to do some editing to get me back where I needed to be. I lost maybe 1500 words and then made them all up without batting an eye. But I didn't mind the loss, because I ended up with a stronger story, one pointing in the direction I needed it pointing. It felt good to take that step rather than stumbling along, forcing myself onward.

Which brings up a good point. I've hammered it into my head that there is NO EDITING while writing the first draft. It's from several years of writing during NaNo, where every word, even the really crappy words, count. So now I tend to plug onward and try to write myself back on track if I end up in a bad spot.

Today's little sidestep into editing was like freeing myself from a chain. It was okay to back up and edit my way into a better place. I took control of my story and my writing of it, and it felt good.

It's made me rethink where I'm at in my other stories. I'm still not sure why this one story is going so well compared to those other tales but applying this new outlook will surely help me get up and running on those stories, too. I'm looking forward to it, if I can pull myself away from this latest story long enough to try.

And in case you were curious, this new one is a paranormal romance, which isn't something I've ever written before. But no vampires or werewolves or shapeshifters for me. But that's all I'm going to say for now (though there is a small hint the blog labels).

Nobody Gets Out Unscathed

That would be my new take on writing characters. Which probably isn't that new, considering my friends have been calling me the Mistress of Evil for years now. I guess I started the trend early in all those role-playing sessions I use to run.

I've come through the last month with new goals, new priorities, and a system based on reward rather than deprivation. Guilt, I've learned, is not my best motivator. Rewards, however, like cookies, are delicious temptations which I cannot refuse. Must . . . have . . . cookie . . .

But before we get into the goals, a few things I've learned over the past month: I haven't much problem starting a story anymore. Beginnings, while not necessarily easy, no longer bog me down under a cloud of confusion and doubt about what scene to start with, what character to use as PoV, how to make it interesting. I think I realized that when I started on my current stories by having one of the female protagonists turn the daughter of her lord and lover into a zombie with his permission. Well, not quite a zombie. More like a golem. It was a very good moment in writing.

But middles are an issue, because I don't have many stories where I've reached middles. Four, actually, written on my own. Usually I start getting close to the middle, barely out of the beginning, and realize I'm clueless how to proceed through it toward what I see as the end, and stop. Pick up another story. Start over. Which is why I have more experience and comfort with beginnings. Lots more beginnings than middles written. Ends are even worse. Three, just three!, endings reached during my novel writing career.

So this year is about middles. Next year will be about endings, hypothesizing that by next year I'll have several stories that will be in the middle so I can work on them to the end.

Which brings me to my goals. This year, 180,000 words written by the end of December. No set number of stories, though my goal in doing all those words is to get several stories well into the middle of their tales. So I shouldn't just be starting stories out of hand, but trying to keep to only a handful of tales.

180,000 words by December, starting in March, means 18,000 words a month. Which is around 600 words a day. For a writer who has tackled four years of NaNoWriMo (and won three--sorry, have to toot that horn, I'm proud of it), 600 words should be a walk in the park, right? Well, it would be if by the middle of NaNo I wasn't pulling out my hair and whacking my head against the keyboard with cries of "why me? why me?" On a good day, I can whip out 1500 words and hardly notice I've done so. My good days come maybe once a week. The other six days, I have to prod myself into the chair, prod myself into a scene, prod myself through a sentence, and hope all that prodding will prod loose 600 to 800 words by the time I'm sore from all that prodding.

Not that I don't like writing. I love it! But it is work to transform the scene in my head to the scene on the paper, because I see scenes visually, like movies playing out for me. And movies don't always translate well into the written word (which is funny, since most of them came from a written script).

So 600 words is the best daily goal for me. 600 words isn't a daunting number. It's attainable for me in one sitting (and as anyone who has studied goal-reaching knows, attainability is one of the most important parts in a goal). but it isn't a cake walk. 150 words is a cake walk. 600 means I have to prod. I have to work for it. So when I reach it, I feel good about having done so (another important part).

So 600 words a day, but if I miss a day (and of the actual 25 days in March that I had left after I set my goal, I missed 9 of those days), I'm not going to beat myself up. Nope. I'm just going to try not to miss the following day.

Which is where the 18,000 words a month comes in. I missed 9 out of 25 days for writing. But some of those writing days were good days, where I wrote over 1000 words. Still, by the last day of the month, I had a choice. I was 3000 words shy of the monthly goal. Do I just pat myself on the back with a "well, you came really close! Good job!" or do I go for it and pry out those last 3000 words, NaNo fashion, to hit my goal.

That's where the reward comes in.

I would love to attend the Willamette Writers conference, which they hold every August. But it costs nearly $400.00 to attend the three-day conference. I can't afford that, even on a good month of budgeting. But, if I start saving now, I can go in 2008. So, my reward is if I reach the 18,000 words by the end of the month, I get to set $40.00 aside toward going to the conference. If I reach my 180,000 words by the end of the year, I still get the nifty typewriter I've been wanting for a few years now (yes, I know I have a computer, but I still love typewriters).

Three goal, two rewards, and several stories to write. At the beginning of the month, I had one novel sitting unfinished and three sitting at under 1,000 words. I've come out of the month with my novel finished (huzzah!), two of the three at nearly 4,000 words, the third at nearly 10,000 words, and a brand new story already at 2,500 words. And I'm enjoying each one of them!

It's a good life.