Month: August 2014

Editing Still

Lynn

Ouch. I had hoped to be done by now. I’m at 71% done. The good news is that the last 20% or so should be in much better shape than the other 80%, the bad news is that I don’t actually know that.

I’m feeling more apathetic about this story than I should and that scares me. :o There are sections I wrote where I had a lot of fun and sections I wrote where I was excited, etc, and now those sections are doing nothing for me as a reader. :O I write for me so I can enjoy my own stories later and as you can imagine, I’m very concerned about my own reaction to what I’ve written. I’m not usually one of those people who gets sick of their stories. And maybe I’m not sick of it now, maybe I just need some distance. Maybe I’m still in the critical space in my head I’ve been trying to climb out of over the last few months, because I admit, I’m having trouble reading and enjoying any fiction at the moment—and even my favorite television shows feel distant as I watch them. So maybe it really is just me.*

So, does this mean it’s time to panic? You’d think so, but I am taking this moment to remind myself that I’ve done the best I can at this moment in time and that’s all I can do. It’s either okay or it’s not, but agonizing over it isn’t going to help. Working over the story more isn’t going to help either. I did that with the novella that never ended and all it got me was a novella that never ended. :o

I’ll be putting the finishing touches on this thing, formatting it, and releasing it into the wild and then moving on to finish the next book.

And now, it’s time to get back to it. :)

I love all my books. But maybe it’s true that I love some more than others.

*Update: This book has gotten me my highest average rating on Goodreads to date for any of my books. So, yeah, I can’t trust my feelings on these issues—at least not at the moment. 

Editing Day Do Over Do Over ;)

Lynn

So, yesterday I totally blew off the editing because I made a book cover instead. It started out innocently enough, with me working over possible titles as I had breakfast. Then I decided I needed a bit more time before I sat down to read, so I hit the stock photo shop and spent an hour of the hour and a half I allotted for that looking at photographs. I found something tempting and decided to very quickly pull up the template I was going to use for my book cover, and try out the photo and my title on it.

I changed the title. I bought the photo license. ;)

At that point, I decided to go ahead with the cover design and save the editing for the evening.

I finished the cover in 5 hours and 42 minutes, plus an hour searching images, so probably a record time for me on a novel cover! And I’m quite pleased with it. I’m not saying a pro couldn’t have done better, and I’m not a pro by any stretch of the imagination, but I finally made layer masks work for me and was able to do a few other interesting things I don’t usually do. That learning curve is finally leveling off a bit. Whew! It’s only taken how many books? :)

Anyway, I’m getting to the editing now, though, so time to get busy today. I have a book to edit, files to make, an ebook to proof, and uploading to do (probably not all today, but ASAP, nonetheless).

Oh, and I finished my 50 words last night after almost forgetting to do them for the first time since starting my daily writing habit. I’ll have to remember to be on my guard about that while publishing stuff, but I wrote them in Evernote on my phone just before I went to sleep. Just checked this morning, and it was 97 words. Close call, that. ;)

Editing Day Do Over

Lynn

So, yesterday didn’t work well as an editing day. Sick kid and all that. Other reasons too, but why bore you? So, today, it’s an editing day do over. :)

This morning I think I finally have a title for my book. I’m also working on cover copy. The house is cool, but I’m sweating, so I might be on my way to a cold to match the one my kids had. Yuck. I must get this book ready to go before I actually get sick though, so headache, be gone!

I’m going to have a long day, because now I not only have to finish editing the book, I have to do a cover (something that often takes me two days because I hate doing it and I’m not that proficient with the software) and cover copy, and if I have time (I won’t, but I’m trying to be an optimist) format the epub with Jutoh. :D

I always plan to have a lot more time between finishing a book and releasing it, but alas, it never seems to work out that way.

Editing Day

Lynn

I’m probably going to keep my daily writing streak alive today with the bare minimum word count, because for the moment, I have lots to do.

I didn’t start editing yesterday as I had planned. Night before last, I tossed and turned and woke up absolutely certain that my ending wasn’t right. I tried to ignore that feeling, but I never could get more than a page in on the editing, and I finally gave up and read a few pages from a few different writers’ books I enjoy (Spider, Spin Me A Web; Bird by Bird; The Courage to Write; Self-editing for Fiction Writers) just to loosen my mind. Then I sat down and fixed my ending. It took me just over 6 hours and I was finished at 1:06 AM.

But I love it! This was exactly what I needed to do and I’m so glad I did it. I don’t have even one tenth of the anxiety left that was plaguing me about the book. Yay! :)

Sometimes, it’s just hard work, but it pays off in the end.

Maybe the book’s good, maybe it isn’t, but I like it and that’s all that matters to me right now. :D

I sent the book to my Kindle last night and now I’m just about (yikes!) as soon as I pick up my sick kid I’m going to get started reading it.

Finished Book Woes

Lynn

I am totally and completely freaking out about this book I just finished. It’s the first novel I’ve completed since January and … it feels like my writing abilities took a huge step backward in the intervening time.

I’m going to read this thing today and hope my insecurities are a product of my imagination.

Hmm.  That was a bit of an unintentional pun.  Ah well. :D

Time to get to work!

Finish the Book—Day 2 after the Deadline

Lynn

The good night’s sleep has helped immensely. Writing is going well this morning, and the ending is back on track! Yay! :D

UPDATE: I’ve deleted over 2,400 words (bye bye gunfight! but this ending is moving right along now! Love it. Whew! I might actually make it today. :D

I can feel the book coming to a close. I actually had to go back and find my ending (that’s why all the deleted words), because I overshot it. I don’t know if that makes sense, but I had a scene that probably should have been the end but I was treating it as just another thing… I fixed that and voila! 

UPDATE: Done!

Finish the Book—Day After the Deadline

Lynn

I do not like drama of the personal kind. But of course, drama is impossible to get away from completely, and this afternoon I completely failed to escape a diabolical attempt to interrupt my ridiculously tight schedule.

Because of that, I lost a few hours of writing time, and, yeah, this is where I admit I didn’t finish the book yesterday even though yesterday was my seriously serious deadline. Now I’m going to be up tonight later than planned trying to finish, and will probably get a late start tomorrow as a result, and … this is why I hate drama!

But I also had a sick kid home from school today and that weighed on my mind, making it a bit hard to concentrate in my earlier sessions.

After giving it a few minutes thought, I actually think I’m going to get some extra rest tonight and give this a fresh go in the morning. I don’t want a lack of rest to make me more susceptible to catching the cold my kid has. I do not have time for a cold right now, so I’d appreciate it if it would stay away until at least September 19th. ;)

Also, I’m not sure where the ending it going. I’ve stalled out and I don’t really like what I have, so it could be that I need some additional thinking time on this. I’m going to use my beloved “send to Kindle” app to send this book to me for a quick perusal before I drift off to dreamland. I doubt it can hurt! :D

Finish the Book—Deadline

Lynn

Okay, so I didn’t finish last night. I wrote a lot, and ended the day with a net word count of 2,419. That put me 304 words over my goal for the book. There was plenty of working over of the last few scenes as I worked stuff out, but I ended up with some really good stuff. ;)

I still have to write the climax and ending. Ah, the beauty of deadlines. I’ve done much better on this book than my last few, which all went way over the goal word counts, by tens of thousands of words. My very last book, in fact, went 27,000+ words over.

I feel like a total success with this one even though I know I’m going to end just a bit high! :D

My goal today is to end the book in 3,000 words and to write all those 3,000 by 1 PM. It’s possible I’m being optimistic here about how few words I need for a good climax and validation, but we’ll see. I’ve already managed to get a bunch of my threads tied up in the last couple of chapters and set everything up to go boom in the very next scene. :D

UPDATE: Gunfight! :)

UPDATE 2: I wrote 1,265 before I broke for lunch. I came up quite short of my goal. Now I’ve swapped out my spindle-back dining room chair and settled into my new seat because it’s more comfortable and my plan is to write straight through for 4 hours with as few breaks as I can manage.  Can’t do that in the hard chair. I do 5 minute sessions in that chair and yeah, maybe that’s 60 sessions but that’s also 60 breaks! I don’t want to be taking breaks for the next few hours. I want to fall into my story and just write toward that ending I need to get done tonight. :) Wish me luck!

Good luck, me! :D

Finish the Book Challenge—Day 3

Lynn

Still working on finishing the book. Today I’m going to push hard to get to the end.

I’ll be over my word count goal in less than 2,000 more words, but I’m hoping I don’t go too long! ;) I need to be done today because tomorrow is the deadline and I’d like to finish early. :D

UPDATE: I’m over my word count goal for this book at this point, although not by much (216 words). I took a quick break to have supper and watch a favorite show, and now I’m getting back to work. I have a bit to delete as I go, so I doubt I’ll increase the count by too much at the moment, although later tonight, as I really get into the climax, I expect to grow the story by another few thousand words.  But I’m so happy the ending is finally coming together. I had a strange twist happen, but it fits so perfectly, it’s like I set it up intentionally, and I love it when that happens!

Finish the Book Challenge—Day 2

Lynn

I did not finish my book yesterday, so I’m trying again today. :) I have 3 days until my self-imposed deadline that is not as self-imposed as it sounds. If the book isn’t done on Thursday, my publishing schedule will be completely messed up and I will in all likelihood not publish by the date I promised the book, something to be avoided at all costs.

I’m excited because I think this book is winding up for a finale and that gives me hope that I’ll be done on time.

I’m planning to get started early today, so off for breakfast and I’ll be back to start writing very shortly. :D

Finish the Book Challenge

Lynn

I’m hoping to finish a book today! :D I supposedly need about 5,240 words to finish. Supposedly, because that’s how many words it will take to reach my goal word count for this novel. I actually have no idea if that’s going to be the end of the book, but I’m hoping to find out today!

I’ve set aside 7 one-hour blocks of time today to work on finding out and to reach 5,240 words.

I need a decent climax for the book and it hasn’t come to me yet. In fact, I’ll be completely honest here, I don’t have a clue if this book is even going to hold together. I’m trying to wrap up a plot that I don’t have figured out and I’m also trying to find something in what I’ve written that I can bring together into a satisfying ending for this story.

It feels kind of like a collection of events with no true—and ah ha! I might have just had a realization. The plot is secondary to the relationships in this one and I think I need to have one of my characters have some kind of realization about this relationship, then I can wing it with the plot and end that and the book might be done.

I’m really hoping I don’t do another book like this one for a while. The plot just never has come together for it. I’m not even sure what promise the beginning makes—seems like it has to do with the relationship much more so than anything else now that I’ve had that thought, so we’ll see!

Oh, and there is one other element that absolutely must be addressed and now that I think about that—that could definitely be part of the promise and should be part of the climax as well … which will create an issue for the relationship and will hopefully all fit together nicely.

Time to get to work!

I Must Stop Visiting Most Writers’ Forums and Blogs

Lynn

It’s time I started to avoid the self-sabotaging habits of visiting certain writers’ forums and blogs.

There are a few blogs I read that I find helpful and inspirational, even motivational, but there are also a number of blogs I’ve had to quit reading altogether. One makes me mad every time I read it, one disappoints me, a few more just leave me feeling disheartened when I read them—I face reality every day and I completely agree that writing is hard work and you have to be willing to put in so much more than you’re going to get back to start with, but the constant refrain of “if you don’t do this, you have no chance of success” annoys me when I clearly don’t do “this” and yet am not a failure.

I guess what I’m saying is that I didn’t realize so many writers were assholes. :D I’m not sure I like having found that out, and I definitely don’t feel like reminding myself of that every time I open a web browser.

Several forums make me feel the same.

Maybe a better way to explain it is that reading these forums and blogs on a regular basis sucks the creative energy right out of me. I lose my enthusiasm for my stories, for writing, for creating. These places make me feel all tangled up inside. I want to spend time with other writers, but I really don’t want to spend time with people I don’t like. That makes it sound like I don’t like most of the people I’ve met on forums and through blogs, but that’s not true. Not true at all. But I find being around people I don’t like so destructive that it completely overwhelms the joy I get from being around people I do like.

I don’t know why. I’m sure there are lots of writers who enjoy these places and receive more energy from these places than they lose, but that’s not me. Interacting even with people I like takes a lot of energy from me. Putting myself in the position of interacting with people I don’t like? It’s starting to feel a bit self-destructive, tbh.

I’ve become a conflict junkie. I don’t create it or participate, but I find myself drawn to those threads and those blog posts, reading about how horrible all writers are for not caring about this or that—or readers. Good Lord, am I tired of that one! I am a reader. I care about readers. I just chose to care mostly about the things that I as a reader would care about and that’s not the things that some of these other people care about—obviously—but my reader concerns (and therefore writer concerns) are apparently wrong.

Anyway, didn’t mean to go there, but maybe you’re getting the point here. I need to get away from that stuff.

I need contact with other writers, and I’m not sure how I’m going to get it, but I’ll have to figure something else out.

I need to spend more time reading good fiction (without discovering how much I just don’t like some of the authors of some of that good stuff because it completely ruins the reading experience for me). I need to spend more time reading and re-reading good craft and writing life books. I need to spend more time learning new things because this inspires my creativity like almost nothing else.

Now, this has made me almost an hour late getting started on my writing today so I’ve got to wrap it up.

Finally, here are some blogs that I still love.

  • J.A. Konrath’s blog (lots of conflict but his stuff is different because he’s so inspiring)
  • Hugh Howey’s blog (such a positive person that his posts are easy to read and enjoy)
  • Dean Wesley Smith’s blog (sometimes abrasive but inspiring and very helpful and friendly when you have real questions)
  • I’m sure there are more but I can’t think of them—the pressure! I’m in a hurry to get writing before this post starts eating into my second hour of writing time! :D

 

Are the five minute sessions changing the way I write?

Lynn

Well, I have to say this book started out with a lot more promise. :D At the moment, I’m feeling iffy about the through-plot—not sure I have one—and I’m also very worried about what the five minute sessions are going to do to my writing as a whole.

I’ve done several experiments lately where I’ve tried setting the timer for longer periods of time (forty minutes and fifty minutes specifically, because they match the amount of time I usually end up with when I do the five minute sessions for an hour) but I can’t reach the same speeds, not even close. The best I’ve done was 477 words in fifty minutes. That’s about half the speed I often reach when I’m writing in the five minute sessions.

I think it comes down to focus and how I’m able to stay better focused with a five minute timer versus a longer timer. I just can’t seem to hold my attention to one specific task for much longer than the five minutes. And if that isn’t the reason, then I’m stumped. I have no idea what else could make such a difference.

This all matters because I haven’t had a chance to just sit down and read what I’ve written lately and I have no idea how the pacing of this book is going. My scenes have shortened. I didn’t mean for that to happen, and it might not be a difference in my writing but a difference in this specific story, so I’m not going to judge that just yet. Still worrying about it though.

I need a title for this book; I need to figure out where I’m going; and I need to figure out if there’s a decent story here.

Yikes!

One thing I’ve absolutely learned with all this is that even five minutes is more than enough time to sit down and write something.

Whether or not that something is any good is yet to be determined. :D

Tomorrow’s Reading: Zen in the Art of Writing

Lynn
Zen in the Art of Writing - Ray Bradbury

Just today, I told myself I needed to make more of an effort to read more fiction every week, but there’ll probably be no fiction reading tonight or tomorrow. I received the book I ordered, Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity by Ray Bradbury.

I ordered this once and Amazon told me there’d been a problem with delivery, could I wait another 8 weeks for it? I said no, so I cancelled the order. Then a few days ago I noticed the book was available again and eligible for 2 day shipping so I reordered it. Got it today!

I’m very much looking forward to reading it. Can’t do it today because I have a lot of writing to do! :D

Going to Back off on the Planning Posts

Lynn

Well, blogging the writing stuff is helpful sometimes, and other times, it’s just boring. :D

I think I’m going to back off on the planning posts and no more zero word days posts for a while. I will definitely still update my yearly word count on my progress page and I might even do weekly word count updates or something—not sure yet about that.

It’s not that the planning posts take that long, maybe 15 to 30 minutes tops to put together and another 10 or so for the updates each time (that’s accounting for opening the browser, loading the page, checking for errors and fixing typos I notice too, but it does take some time to do those things.

And it’s not that the no more zero word days posts are a bother either. I just don’t see the point, tbh. We all know I’m the only one reading these posts, and writing them has gotten kind of boring lately. :D

Not Enough Napping

Lynn

It’s time I started making more of an effort to nap. My naps were really working to refresh my creativity and generate story ideas when I was taking them regularly.

Starting tomorrow I’m going to try not to miss my nap, same as I try not to miss exercising. :)

Hey, it’s the beauty of this career. I should appreciate it more. ;)

Making It up as I Go along Today (Success!)

Lynn

So I made some detailed plans this morning to try again for that 6,000 word day I’ve never had.

Then I kind of gave up early. So here I am editing this post to fit my revised plan to reach 3,000 today and save the try for 6,000 words for another day this week, because today just isn’t that day.

The Plan

8:20–9:20 (finished at 9:38, did 10 sessions, reached 751 words) (must have started late without realizing it)
9:30–10:30 (finished at 11:05, did 10 sessions, reached 733 words) (getting behind on time and word counts, not sure why tbh)
11:30–12:30 (finished at 12:53, did 6 sessions, reached 303 words) (crashed and burned this session! Had to read ch 1,2, & 3 to see if something made sense and poof, my time was gone and I’d done only 6 sessions and it was way past time to stop for exercise and lunch)
7:30–8:30 (479 words)
8:40–9:40 (775 words)

Success! I wrote 3,041 words today. :D

For each hour I have a goal of reaching 750 words. To start with I’m going to do ten 5 minute sessions per hour, with a goal of maintaining an average of 75 words for those 5 minute sessions.

I think I’m going to try harder to visualize what I want to write before each 5 minute sprint and see if that helps me reach higher numbers. (So far this hasn’t helped at all. I’m not having any luck today visualizing the scene before I start typing. I don’t know, it’s kind of like I freeze up when I sit down and can only get into the scene as the words start coming together.)

The one thing I’ve definitely noticed is how much more doable a 3,000 word goal feels after having done 4,000 and 5,000 words more than usual these last few weeks. :D

 

Read Another Book—12 of 60

Lynn

I read another book, and it’s another short story: Beginnings and Ends by Suzanne Brockmann (a story with related characters from When Tony Met Adam, which I read a while back).

Beginnings and Ends - Suzanne Brockmann

I just haven’t been able to get into a novel for the last week or two, although I did pick up Timecaster again yesterday. Maybe I’ll finish it this time. I remember liking what I’d read so far, not sure why I dropped it, but most of the time I don’t know why I put a book down. I mean, if I have a reason, I don’t forget that. I just don’t usually have a reason. I simply get distracted. Anyway, I love time travel stories, and this reminds me that I never finished The Cutting Room, and I really do want to read that. Maybe I’ll see if it interests me this time. I wanted to read it when I bought it, but then I didn’t start it right away and tbh, I keep forgetting about it. I hate when that happens. :D

Anyway, on to the next!

NOTE: I decided to make an effort to read more books this year. And since I have so many unread books, I set a goal to read at least 60 of the books in my backlog by the end of the year. I’m even keeping a log. :)

Today’s Plan

Lynn

I had a plan. I deleted it. I also deleted 2,891 words this morning. So even if I had reached a respectable 3,000 words today, I would’ve only been a little over 100 words ahead of yesterday. That kind of disillusioned me this morning and I had a terrible time getting started today as a result.

I was able to write enough to get back on track, but not enough to actually make any progress with my word count. So I’m ending the day with -2,721 words.

The bad news is that puts me way behind in the great word count I wanted for this week. The good news is that at least I wrote 170 words there at the end. Better than nothing and I do believe I’ll be able to more forward tomorrow—no more deleting for the moment!

Today’s Plan

Lynn

Today’s plan is to reach a record smashing 6,000 words.

I’ve set aside 8 hours for my 5 minute sessions, and I’m trying for 750 each hour in ten 5 minute sessions of approximately 75 words each.

9:20–10:20 (8 sessions, 574 words)
10:30–12:00 (10 sessions, 741 words) (interrupted in the middle of the hour)
12:10–1:10 (10 sessions, 840 words) (switching stories when I come back after a break)
3:10–4:10 (10 sessions, 614 words)
5:00–6:00 (7 sessions, 424 words)
6:20–7:20 (10 sessions, 752 words)
8:30–9:20 (5 sessions, 422 words) (cut the session short)
Hour 8 (cancelled)

But … I’m off to a terribly slow start in the first hour. I have 20 minutes left, and as I write, I’m barely cracking 50 words in 5 minutes. Sometimes I’m not even doing that. I stopped to write this because I feel like the book is screaming out to me that something’s not right and I’m totally ignoring it. And it’s slowed my writing to a crawl.

I should just put everyone in bed together and say to heck with it all. Surely that’ll perk things up! :D

For real, though, I’m having difficulty with something that’s going on. I’m just not sure how to explain it. I’ve set up this really great thing and the payoff is taking too long. But stuff is happening that is forcing that delay. Yet I know I need to do something about that and I have no idea what that something should or could be. Sigh. What a mess!

Ah, well, back to writing. My brain feels foggy and if I don’t get a move on, I’m not going to come in anywhere close to the word count I planned for today.

Also, although I hadn’t planned to bother with a list of the specific timing of my hours, I remembered that I’m planning to revisit all these posts in the future to see if I can identify any patterns of better/worse times to write. So, I’m appending the time as I add the counts. :)

I’m at the beginning of hour 7 and right now, I’m looking at my numbers and thinking it’s going to take a miracle (or one heck of a breakthrough in the writing) to make it in two hours. The sad part is that I’ll be close enough for one more hour to do it, all things staying about the same. The really sad news is that I don’t know if I have that extra hour to give tonight because I have somewhere to be tomorrow! My brother’s wife will be delivering a baby. :D

On that note, I’m going to get started even though I’m really close to cancelling my last sessions after I reach 4,000 and saving the run at 6,000 for another day. We’ll see.

Well, I did end up cutting the next to the last session short and cancelling the last. The numbers just aren’t there and I don’t want to drag this out too late since 6,000 is off the table. :D

Partial success! I reached 4,367 words today. That’s way over my minimum of 2,464 and an excellent day’s writing for me. :)