In Which I Attempt To Shame Myself Into Writing

So you might be aware, from some of my (sparse) recent posts that I'm starting a new book. Or, attempting to start one, anyway. I have an idea that I'm very excited about but it's a bit daunting in it's complexity and so rather than writing, I've been making lots and lots of notes. And staring into space. And sighing.

I've come to the realization it's time now for me to man up and start putting real words on the page so I've decided the best way to make sure that I do this is to announce my goal publicly so that my fear of humiliation will keep me on task.

So here it is. This month, starting today, I intend to write a minimum of 1000 words every day on my WIP PARADOX (see, doesn't that title just sound complex?), for an end total of at least 30,000 words on May 31st. I'm putting up a little counter on my sidebar so that I can keep tabs on my wordcount each day.

Please feel free to harass me on twitter or facebook and ask if I've done my 1000 words for the day. I'll try to post on my progress, but I'm not sure anyone wants to read the melodrama about all the hair I'm tearing out while trying to get this done.

If any of you out there are looking to do something similar let me know. Maybe we can support each other.

3 Signs That I'm Starting A New Book

Inspired by Kristi's post yesterday, here's some signs that I'm writing a new book:

1. I can't hear you. What's that? Were you saying something to me? So sorry, I was thinking about that plot twist, and what it's like for my character to experience this whole new world I'm building her, and how I'm going to manage to squeeze in a kissing scene.

2. Flip-flop. Chances are I'm somewhere in the middle of W I D E mood swings from OMG this is the crazy-coolest most awesome idea ever!!! to What was I thinking? HOW WILL I EVER MAKE THIS WORK???

3. Gone missing. You can't find me anywhere. Not on g-chat, or twitter. I'm slow to answer emails. Hopefully because I'm typing away on that story or more likely, because I'm avoiding my computer like the plague.

So there you have it. My dirty little secrets revealed! How about you? Are you better behaved than me when starting a new project?

Woohoo!

So I'm totally going to post an update on the Birthday Extravaganza, highlights from BEA, and the latest on being a Pretty Little Liars Secret Keeper... um later.

Right now I'm coming out of the revision cave to post that my entry from my WIP SLEEPER was selected as a finalist in Nathan Bransford's ROCK PAPER TIGER Chase/Action Writing Contest Extravaganza!!(gotta love anything with extravaganza in the name!)

See the official announcement with a link to my entry post on Nathan's blog.

I really thought I didn't have much chance because even though he also asked for suspense scenes, most of the entries were action or chase scenes.

I'm so excited that with over 500 entries I was picked as one of the top ten! Woohoo!

Be sure to check out the finalists and vote for your favorite!

Hello? Anybody here?

I know I have been seriously neglecting my blog lately, but it's for good reason! I've been very busy working on a query and freaking out and revising and freaking out and critiquing. So... yeah. My bad! BUT I'm going to a local SCBWI Conference this weekend and after that, I should have a little more free time.

I'm also planning a BIG international contest when I hit 400 followers, and a MAJOR international contest for my birthday in June! So spread the word. The sooner I get 400 followers, the sooner I start giving stuff away!

What have I missed in the blog world? Anything exciting happen to you or someone you know?

OMG! I won Secret Agent!

So, I'm kind of stunned right now. I just found out my entry was one of the winners in Miss Snark's First Victim's Secret Agent Contest!

You can read my entry here

This month's agent is Jennifer Laughran from the Andrea Brown Literary Agency and her prizes are so generous and so amazing! She chose ten winners!

What an awesome way to start the week!

Doubt

This is my weekly post over at Sisters In Scribe

Recently, I had one of those moments writers dream of. An agent read some of my writing samples on my blog and requested a partial.

Awesome, right? AMAZING! I was stunned and surprised (and let this be a guide for everyone hoping to draw attention to their work, two tips - 1. MAKE SURE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS IS ON YOUR BLOG and 2. TAG your teasers!) and then moments later, the elation turned to that most evil of all emotions - DOUBT.

I won't get into what those doubts were, they were the standard fare that I'm sure you can come up with on your own. What I doubted is not the point. The point is that in a moment that should've felt like validation, I was personally invalidating myself.

The important thing is that I realized I was doing it. And 90% of solving a problem is figuring out what that problem is. (Okay I just made that up, it could be like, 78%.) Knowing I was having an irrational reaction helped to tone that reaction down and keep it from overwhelming me and convincing me that before I send anything I need to say, rewrite my entire book in the 3rd Person POV of a snail, and remove all instances of the word "the".

So what to do about doubt? I don't think it will ever go away. It's like the weather. Sometimes it has to rain, but you can prepare for it, and you can know it's not going to rain forever. If you're serious about being the best writer you can be, and creating the best work, then you will have moments of doubt. Even Mother Teresa questioned her faith!

Just make sure that when those moments come you recognize them for what they are - your desire to be your best - take a deep breath and don't email or delete anything until you've calmed down!

Fear of Success and Self-Sabotage

This is my weekly writing post over at my crit group's blog Sisters in Scribe.

Now that I've moved from writing my first draft to revising it, I'm getting reacquainted with an old friend. You know the one. He reminds you that you really should get on organizing your Netflix queue (there's got to be something in there that would be great for research!) Insists you absolutely cannot do anything else until you remember the name of that book you liked when you were 12 (it's totally something that your MC would've loved too!) Begs you to join him in just a few hours of video games (because you know, teens play them a lot, it's good research!) Hints that the idea you had but didn't write is actually the better one (you don't want to be wasting your precious time on the wrong idea!) Tells you if you don't spend more time on Twitter and Facebook your friends will forget you and then no one will buy your book - wait, your what? Oh right, that thing you were supposed to be working on until your old friend Fear of Success stopped by to distract you with a little Self-Sabotage.

What is Fear of Success? It's that nagging fear that if you actually finish your book, you'll have to send it out and people will want to read it, and they'll expect it to be good! What if you can't live up to that? Plus, think of all the work you'll have to do if an agent likes it or an editor decides to buy it! What if you do everything right, and someone actually agrees to publish it, and then everyone reads it and discovers your secret - that you are a no-talent hack. Or worse, it's a success and now everyone expects you to write another book! And it will have to be great too!

Whoa! Getting a little ahead of yourself aren't you? That's usually where the self-sabotage comes in. We come up with another, better idea and abandon our current project. We take time off for "research" or to get some "perspective". We reward ourselves for 5 minutes of work with 2 days of relaxation. We rationalize.

When you find yourself doing these things, remind yourself that writers write. And every single successful writer has probably dealt with the same thing. Remind yourself that you deserve to have your dreams come true. The quickest way out is always through. Put your butt in that chair and write through the fear. It will look so silly from the other side.

Revisionland

I have officially entered Revisionland! Or is that I have officially entered Revisionland *insert creepy laughter here*?

Yesterday I decided to stop wasting time while I thought about what other scenes might be missing and what order the scenes should go in - aka procrastinating. I wrote out of order, which was very helpful because I think in scenes, but left me with quite a mess. So I stuck the scenes loosely in order and printed out all 186 pages of my first draft. I figured it was better to read what I had and see how it all fits together before writing additional stuff.

Now, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. There is SO MUCH paper! And words! So many words! And somehow I'm supposed to make them all come together into a real live book? I have to say though, that looking at that huge stack of paper - like two inches, seriously - makes me feel accomplished. I wrote all those pages! It makes me feel that much closer to achieving my goal. If I can write that, surely I can shape into something worth reading right? Right?

I just need to scrape up some courage, grab my trusty hot pink pen, and curl up on the couch with my book. Because I wrote one. Like, for real. Wish me luck!

the secret

I think I finally figured out what the secret to finishing a first draft is. It's not being afraid to write crap. I'm such a perfectionist, I agonize over one sentence until my eyes go blurry and I can't stand to sit at the computer one more second. It's stupid.

I already learned this with screenwriting, just get the draft out. Get words on paper and sort them out in the rewrite. I actually love editing, I love pulling the pieces together like a puzzle and honing them until they tell the best version of the story possible.

The difference between screenplays and novels though is all the words. There's so many words in a book! The thought of working through so many in a revision is overwhelming and so, rather than trusting myself that I will get the bare bones that I need for a good edit, I am constantly going back and revising or taking time away to rework the plot.

It's time to stop. It's time to put my butt in the chair, write some crap and sort it out later. Today, I'm giving myself the permission to write the worst scenes ever. I will finish this first draft in the next two weeks. No, really, I will!

breakthrough

I had been feeling really anti my book for the last couple days. You know the whole, "this sucks, why did I think I could write?" drama, and I couldn't figure out why. I was really happy with the last chapter and was thinking I was on the way to some really good stuff then all of a sudden I can't bear to write it.

It took some serious thinking (or okay, total distraction by playing the Sims) before I finally realized what the problem was. The next scene I needed to write was boring. It was going to involve sitting around having a long conversation full of necessary exposition and since so far the story has been unfolding at a fast pace - so fast in fact that I've wondered if maybe it's too fast - it was really going to slow things down. Once I figured that out, it actually made me more depressed. Oh no! I thought. How did I take such an action packed story and turn it into this?

It was another day of moping at my overall suckiness before I remembered one of the most important rules of screenwriting (which I think applies here) make the scene interesting. If characters have to talk about something, put them in the middle of something exciting. And that's when I knew. A car chase! My characters need to shout their exposition at each other in the middle of a car chase. It actually works out much better in the overall plot development too.

I can't believe I almost had them sitting around and talking. In a basement. Whew! Maybe I'll break 30,000 words and the halfway point this week after all!

Dreaming Up Ideas

So last night, just as I was falling asleep I had a vision, so to speak. An image of a cute boy with a backstory so interesting that I knew immediately that he had to have his story told. By me. In a book. Probably, several books.

One problem. Writing his story will require massive amounts of research. I mean MASSIVE. I need to learn about an ancient religion, folklore, a major city I've been to once, for one day, and of course, magic. For most of the topics, I don't even know where to go to get the info, so I would have to research researching! Still, I'm pretty fascinated by the idea. These are all topics I've been interested in for a long time. I'm going to build him a little room in the back of my brain and see if he tells me something more about himself and where his story is going.

Bringing on the Heartache

I'm about to bring on the heartbreak for my main character. Is it wrong that I am sort of insanely excited about this? And of course, I'm also feeling guilty.

I used to read writer's blogs when they would talk about how bad they felt about putting their characters through trials and tribulations as if they were real people and I would wonder what that must be like, to think of them that way. When writing screenplays, so much of a character's inner monologue is left out, and it's such a tiny snapshot of their lives, that I never really felt as connected to the characters as I do with the characters in my novel. I think writing in first person has something to do with it too. At any rate, poor Caitlyn has already gone through some pretty life-shattering events and is questioning who she is and all that good stuff. But recently, she just had something really awesome happen, something that has given her hope, and I am about to rip that hope right out from under her and leave her with practically nothing. I'm so mean.

It's a scary feeling. I'm moving right into the middle of my book. The thing I fear more than anything, even spiders! I'm at that point where even though I've plotted out some basic signposts to reach, I have no real idea what paths I'm going to take to each of them. It feels like my story is about to spin out of control and all I can do is follow along behind and hope for the best. As a serious control freak, this is the thing I hate and love most about writing. It's like going skydiving. It always feels like a risk, and I don't know if my parachute will open up and save me or not. Looks like I'm bringing on the heartache for myself too!

Procrastination Tango

I'm finding that I have a pattern with writing. I hesitate and ruminate on what's going to happen in the next scene until finally, I feel like I know where it's going and then I psyche myself up for a few days until I can sit down and force myself to write it. Then I think, wow, that was easier than I thought! It's kind of good! Or it will be, once I revise and revise and OMG what did I write? and revise it some more. Then I realize that what I just wrote doesn't necessarily match up with what I thought I was going to write next, and I panic, and then the whole process starts all over again, leaving me with an average of one scene sequence and maybe 2,000 words done a week. Which is oh, about 8000 words less than my weekly goal!

It's especially annoying because when I started my current WIP I was so excited, and so clear on what I was going to write that I sat down the very first day and wrote almost 5,000 words! In something like 3.5 hours. The only reason I stopped was because I had to go to a family event. Usually when I'm writing, that's how it goes. I get this idea and it comes on so strong that I end up getting out of bed at 5am because I can't stand to sleep anymore and I need to get started. I find that the faster I write something, the more cohesive it is, because I'm right in the middle of it the whole time. Right now I feel my character's voice wavering. Not so much that I'm losing my who she is, but more like I know there's a ton of stuff I'm going to have to do in revisions to really make her personality come through.

I've been trying to figure out if the reason is because I have set this goal for myself to really write a book, and I have an outline that goes all the way to the end. In some ways I think I feel a little trapped knowing that I have to follow a path to a complete ending. Even though I am not particularly attached to the ending in the outline. I'm open to seeing what happens but I think I'm just at the point where I'm starting the middle of the book and I feel like I'm just flailing around in a raging sea of indecision. I feel like I have no idea how I'm going to pull all the threads I laid out together into one climax that doesn't suck. I'm worried the ending won't live up to the beginning, something I always hate. Or maybe it just seems harder because it's so important to me, and I think, like one of my crit partners said, that I "have a book" in there. This is probably the best writing I've ever done. I love my concept and I think other people will like it too. If I can just get it finished!

Thank God for Write or Die or I'd never get anything written!