Here's a list of things I slowly absorbed over the past year, though they were all told to me in one 20-minute conference with novelist Joyce Magnin last March.
1) Don't try to be too mysterious in your novel's opening. I've read in other places too that your reader should know what the character is privy to. (Well, I see some exceptions to that, but in general I'm beginning to get the overall principle.) I was sooo guilty of this. I didn't want to name Maizy's husband/the baby's father mentioned in the prologue's first paragraph. What the reader got was a lot of confusing "he" pronouns--some referring to the father, some a newborn baby. I had this hangup about not naming the man in the prologue because the first chapter went back in time to when Maizy was with a different man, and if I named the man in the prologue, the reader would instantly know that relationship in chapter one was doomed. I thought by not naming the man in the prologue, the reader would be able to meet the rest of the story with the ability to wonder which man she'll pick. It sounded good to me, for years, but now I get that frustrating ambiguity doesn't serve much but to add confusion. Besides, my prologue carries enough ambiguity--the point is to make you wonder what happens to the baby and what she did that she feels so much guilt--those are the hooks my novel needs.
2) Don't dump a lot of back story in the your novel's beginning. Save as much back story as you can for later, sprinkled in bits and pieces as you weave the rest of the forward-moving story. My prologue had once been 30 pages--all from a short story that I wanted to keep in tact. A lot of it was back story. I cut it down to 9 for this conference and felt quite accomplished. But in the conference, I remember feeling like I was back in school, at the desk of an English teacher with a red pen, as Joyce sliced through paragraph after paragraph with a pen: "We don't need to know this yet." Slash. "Not needed." Red slash. "Not needed." Ouch. But a year has gone by, and I see she was right. There was actually very little that the reader needed in that introduction. The reader didn't need to know how Maizy got where she was--yet.
3) The reader doesn't need to know how your character got where she got--yet--but he/she does need to know where she is now! My opening was scant on setting the scene and developing atmosphere. Joyce said I needed to spend more time on world building. Up to that point, I'd been so focused on following earlier advice to shorten my prologue that I'd been cutting, painfully cutting, to shorten the word count. But I'd been cutting the wrong things and preserving things that were better sprinkled throughout the rest of the novel.
4) De-clutter dialogue. Especially in the opening, my dialogue was cluttered with all the details I was trying to squeeze in--characters' appearances, mannerisms, emotions, etc. It was so full of information, the conversation moved very slowly, the reader constantly asked to process new information and yet not lose the momentum of the conversations. Joyce also took her pen and slashed through my synonyms for "said." I've read it in books before: "forget what your high school creative teacher taught you." Writing declared, retorted, implored, reported, spat, enunciated, replied, etc., should be rare. "The reader doesn't really notice 'said,' but the other words slow her down," Joyce said. Dialogue should move, not bog down, generally.
5) Simplify sentence structure. I'm super good at writing very complex sentences, with proper punctuation and everything. But what's good for poetry and academic writing is not necessarily good for contemporary fiction. Sentence variety, yes. But I was really burdening my prose with over-long sentences. Maybe Twain is noted for it, and countless writers before have had paragraph-long sentences, but it's hard to pull that off in today's publishing world.
Joyce ended my conference saying, "I do think you do have a story here," like she was generously searching for a diamond in the rough. "But you have to learn the basics of fiction writing."
(As an aside, I should tell you I think that was the worst reception of my writing I've ever experienced. I was that kind of student in high school and college who always excelled, whom professors asked to stand and read her writing for the whole class, even when I was a sophomore among senior English majors. To find that my skills didn't seamlessly translate to the world of contemporary fiction was a bit...deflating. But necessary.)
To follow what kind of feedback I got on my revisions a year later, in conferences last week, follow to the blog post "A Year Comparison: Shopping My Novel's Opening at Writers' Conferences."
Articles I've written:
What is a Disposable Diaper Made of Anyway?
Are Schools Expecting Our Kids to Read Too Early?
Hormone-free Milk: Dairy Companies Pledging Not to Use Artificial Bovine Growth Hormone
Chemical Imbalance Theory of Depression Incorrect; Antidepressants Ineffective
Saturday, March 31, 2012
A year comparison: shopping my novel's opening at writers' conferences
In my last blog, I talked about a tough conference I had a year ago with a published novelist who took a literal red pen to my work. That blog entry listed 5 Rookie Mistakes for a Novel's Opening, because I made them all, but obviously, was mostly ignorant of them.
That was the worst reception of my writing I've ever experienced. I was that kind of student in high school and college who always excelled, whom professors asked to stand and read her writing for the whole class, even when I was a sophomore among senior English majors. I write and sell articles to periodicals now. I am used to seeing myself as a good writer.To find that my skills didn't seamlessly translate to the world of contemporary fiction was a bit...deflating. But necessary.
It took me a year to absorb all that good advice for my opening prologue. Granted, I could be generous with myself and say that I was busy learning other things about the craft--it's not like I was being obtuse for a year, stuck on those things, never moving forward. I just set the opening aside, let all I'd been told settle, and worked on other things. Then I dusted the opening off and reconsidered it for 2 conferences, one at the end of January which I've written about (learning to write meaningful specifics for characters, and managing time to write), and the most recent one a week ago today. Suddenly, I saw the purpose of my prologue differently in light of Joyce's advice. I shaved my 9-page prologue down to a page and a half. Then I had room to go back in with details to flesh out the setting and atmosphere.
The results? I had three 20-minute conferences with published novelists last week, and constructive criticism on my opening was not at all part of the conversation. One novelist complimented me on the details that painted the characters' house and lifestyle and social class. And another novelist told me my writing was excellent, some of the best she'd seen that day. Amazing how much I can grow and have my perspective changed in a year.
Now that I know what I know, I can't believe I didn't know it before. Or rather, that I didn't recognize it before. Or I think I did know it once, then forgot. But whatever the case, I see I'm making important progress. (Now I just have to apply all I've learned to revising hundreds of pages, some of which I wrote 4+ years ago and that may likely shock me!)
Articles I've written:
Choose Your Best Birth Options
Organic Food: Eight Benefits for You and Your Children
Omega-3 Fatty Acids Protect Against Obesity?
When Miscarriage Means Labor
That was the worst reception of my writing I've ever experienced. I was that kind of student in high school and college who always excelled, whom professors asked to stand and read her writing for the whole class, even when I was a sophomore among senior English majors. I write and sell articles to periodicals now. I am used to seeing myself as a good writer.To find that my skills didn't seamlessly translate to the world of contemporary fiction was a bit...deflating. But necessary.
It took me a year to absorb all that good advice for my opening prologue. Granted, I could be generous with myself and say that I was busy learning other things about the craft--it's not like I was being obtuse for a year, stuck on those things, never moving forward. I just set the opening aside, let all I'd been told settle, and worked on other things. Then I dusted the opening off and reconsidered it for 2 conferences, one at the end of January which I've written about (learning to write meaningful specifics for characters, and managing time to write), and the most recent one a week ago today. Suddenly, I saw the purpose of my prologue differently in light of Joyce's advice. I shaved my 9-page prologue down to a page and a half. Then I had room to go back in with details to flesh out the setting and atmosphere.
The results? I had three 20-minute conferences with published novelists last week, and constructive criticism on my opening was not at all part of the conversation. One novelist complimented me on the details that painted the characters' house and lifestyle and social class. And another novelist told me my writing was excellent, some of the best she'd seen that day. Amazing how much I can grow and have my perspective changed in a year.
Now that I know what I know, I can't believe I didn't know it before. Or rather, that I didn't recognize it before. Or I think I did know it once, then forgot. But whatever the case, I see I'm making important progress. (Now I just have to apply all I've learned to revising hundreds of pages, some of which I wrote 4+ years ago and that may likely shock me!)
Articles I've written:
Choose Your Best Birth Options
Organic Food: Eight Benefits for You and Your Children
Omega-3 Fatty Acids Protect Against Obesity?
When Miscarriage Means Labor
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
The risk, the challenge, to obey your characters in writing that novel...
I've been meaning to write this since I went to a mid-winter retreat. There I met an editor and novelist who read my novel opening and heard the two possible ways I had been considering telling the story of my novel: tell the stories of both the younger and older couples in two separate tracks, or tell everything in the present time period with a lot of flashbacks for the story of the older couple. I even asked for reader feedback on this. As mentioned in that post, what most readers said they preferred was the 2-track idea. I tried for a few weeks, but just couldn't make it work.
Well, what do you think the editor and novelist had to recommend? Exactly what you readers told me: I'd been hung up on 2 things: 1) that it seemed like a phenomenal amount of work to rework the 85% of the novel already written and 2) I wasn't sure the pacing of the stories would mesh well together. (Oh, I guess 3 things: I was just more comfortable in the point of view of Maizy and Curt when they are older, looking back.) I left the mid-winter retreat encouraged because novelist Susan Gregg Gilmore really gave me a lot of encouragement, expressly because she talked about just having written a novel in the manner in which I write. She even had to start over, renegotiate a deadline with her publisher to do that phenomenal amount of work. But she did it. It is possible.
Last Saturday, I went to the Lancaster Christan Writer's one-day conference. I met with novelists there too who read my opening and my plan for the structure. Again and again, it was affirmed that the two-track idea for the 2 couples is the way to go. With Jeannette Windle, political suspense novelist, I admitted that in working on fleshing out the story of the older couple, I just felt daunted sometimes because I realized how much I didn't know about their story. Writing periodic flashbacks let me touch down on their story only every few years, even skipping a decade or more. But writing their relationship from a to z, in chronological order to have it parallel the other couples'--wow, is it hard! It's changing the story--eek! My characters are informing me that things I thought they did in their 30s or 40s or 50s are no longer logical or likely--because their 20-something or 30-something actions and situations in life change them in ways that change who they will in the future I imagined for them.
But multiple times, I was encouraged in this hard task, a task that may derail me from my goal to have a complete draft by the end of July. I was also told that my writing is very good and that my opening was gripping. My story gave them mystery. So for all that, I shall take heart and keep plugging away.
An it's not entirely unpleasant. I'm enjoying discovering exactly how Maizy and Curt were in their marriage through the years. It just really frustrated the goal-oriented side of me that still wants the goal to be "be done soon." I have to reprogram my goal to be "do what's best for the story. Just write it, and go ahead and overwrite it even, so you can find the best story."
Other things I write:
Postpartum Depression, Psychological Distress Predicted by Previous Traumatic Birth
Well, what do you think the editor and novelist had to recommend? Exactly what you readers told me: I'd been hung up on 2 things: 1) that it seemed like a phenomenal amount of work to rework the 85% of the novel already written and 2) I wasn't sure the pacing of the stories would mesh well together. (Oh, I guess 3 things: I was just more comfortable in the point of view of Maizy and Curt when they are older, looking back.) I left the mid-winter retreat encouraged because novelist Susan Gregg Gilmore really gave me a lot of encouragement, expressly because she talked about just having written a novel in the manner in which I write. She even had to start over, renegotiate a deadline with her publisher to do that phenomenal amount of work. But she did it. It is possible.
Last Saturday, I went to the Lancaster Christan Writer's one-day conference. I met with novelists there too who read my opening and my plan for the structure. Again and again, it was affirmed that the two-track idea for the 2 couples is the way to go. With Jeannette Windle, political suspense novelist, I admitted that in working on fleshing out the story of the older couple, I just felt daunted sometimes because I realized how much I didn't know about their story. Writing periodic flashbacks let me touch down on their story only every few years, even skipping a decade or more. But writing their relationship from a to z, in chronological order to have it parallel the other couples'--wow, is it hard! It's changing the story--eek! My characters are informing me that things I thought they did in their 30s or 40s or 50s are no longer logical or likely--because their 20-something or 30-something actions and situations in life change them in ways that change who they will in the future I imagined for them.
But multiple times, I was encouraged in this hard task, a task that may derail me from my goal to have a complete draft by the end of July. I was also told that my writing is very good and that my opening was gripping. My story gave them mystery. So for all that, I shall take heart and keep plugging away.
An it's not entirely unpleasant. I'm enjoying discovering exactly how Maizy and Curt were in their marriage through the years. It just really frustrated the goal-oriented side of me that still wants the goal to be "be done soon." I have to reprogram my goal to be "do what's best for the story. Just write it, and go ahead and overwrite it even, so you can find the best story."
Other things I write:
Postpartum Depression, Psychological Distress Predicted by Previous Traumatic Birth
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
No More Freelancing
Ok, I did it. In my last post, I talked about being hesitant to even say aloud what I KNEW I needed to do to give myself a fighting chance at finishing my novel. I wrote the first half of the equation in my last post about time management, admitting I was scared to say, for fear of accountability, what else I knew I needed to do. But, I've been doing it for two weeks, and I'm not dead.
OK, I'm being dramatic, but it did feel like such a hard thing to do: stop freelancing for magazines. I remember, two days after I made the commitment, I spent an hour searching out new magazines and having ideas! And that's exactly what has to stop if I'm going to finish the novel! The nap time novelist and nap time freelancer can't both succeed well right now. I told myself, "It's only temporary." I hope to be done with the novel draft by summer's end, and then, I tell myself, I can do some freelancing again. (Caveat: I'm already committed to one freelance assignment, so I do have to do that, but then I'm done....)
So far I haven't felt too bad about not freelancing. But then, with the slow way the business rolls, I'm still getting paychecks and seeing periodicals come out with my articles. In a few months, that will stop, and I'll reap no benefits, and I will miss them. I still get ideas all the time for articles. But I am disciplining myself to write them down and ignore them for 6 months. Or whatever's necessary.
The benefits of this change is the freedom to really keep the novel's plot and characters in my head space, instead of crowding them out for other assignments. I've found I accomplish much more with them because of this change, confirming this is what I needed to do. I'd been riding the fence between these two applications of writing ever since I started writing again in February 2010. I've been praying, weighing the pros and cons, and stubbornly trying to do both this whole time. I never would have thought back then it'd take me so long to just pick one to focus on.
Here's to finishing my novel! I'm feeling good about my goal. I've been writing nothing but the novel for 2 weeks now. It's good. It's really good.
A sample of my online freelance articles:
Natural Deodorants: Do Any Work as Effectively as Popular Commercial Brands?
Organic Food: Eight Benefits for You and Your Children
High Fructose Corn Syrup: Thirteen Reasons to Avoid It
Job Search: How to Make Your Application Climb to The Top of The Pile
OK, I'm being dramatic, but it did feel like such a hard thing to do: stop freelancing for magazines. I remember, two days after I made the commitment, I spent an hour searching out new magazines and having ideas! And that's exactly what has to stop if I'm going to finish the novel! The nap time novelist and nap time freelancer can't both succeed well right now. I told myself, "It's only temporary." I hope to be done with the novel draft by summer's end, and then, I tell myself, I can do some freelancing again. (Caveat: I'm already committed to one freelance assignment, so I do have to do that, but then I'm done....)
So far I haven't felt too bad about not freelancing. But then, with the slow way the business rolls, I'm still getting paychecks and seeing periodicals come out with my articles. In a few months, that will stop, and I'll reap no benefits, and I will miss them. I still get ideas all the time for articles. But I am disciplining myself to write them down and ignore them for 6 months. Or whatever's necessary.
The benefits of this change is the freedom to really keep the novel's plot and characters in my head space, instead of crowding them out for other assignments. I've found I accomplish much more with them because of this change, confirming this is what I needed to do. I'd been riding the fence between these two applications of writing ever since I started writing again in February 2010. I've been praying, weighing the pros and cons, and stubbornly trying to do both this whole time. I never would have thought back then it'd take me so long to just pick one to focus on.
Here's to finishing my novel! I'm feeling good about my goal. I've been writing nothing but the novel for 2 weeks now. It's good. It's really good.
A sample of my online freelance articles:
Natural Deodorants: Do Any Work as Effectively as Popular Commercial Brands?
Organic Food: Eight Benefits for You and Your Children
High Fructose Corn Syrup: Thirteen Reasons to Avoid It
Job Search: How to Make Your Application Climb to The Top of The Pile
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Meaningful specifics: Draw out your character's essence
In Writer's Digest, I just read another writer saying that it's all in the details--things about your character that make him real, true-to-life for the reader. This is such foundational advice, I've been aware of it since middle school creative writing classes. And yet, how long can it really take to master this art?
"Meaningful Specifics." That's what novelist Susan Gregg Gilmore called those details at the mid-winter retreat I attended last month. As an exercise, she showed us photographs of houses and people and had us describe them, picking out, or making up, the details that characterized the personalities. Pretty simple stuff. And yet I can write thousands of words and know so many details about a character I write that I've lost sight of what are really the essential details. I have to ask myself--of the list of details I know, what are details that really define him: that played soccer in high school, that he loved grilled cheese sandwiches, that he wanted to be an illustrator but couldn't succeed in college art classes, or that he's perpetually late?
I read another article, in The Writer, about how to draw the details that give you maximum mileage. It included an exercise to draw, in a single sentence, a description of the essence of a few closest friends. I did, and I found it came down to a story I'd heard that, for me, defined how they were in their essence.
Here's one, I'll call this friend P:
"When there was no food left in the house, P concocted a soup for her siblings and parents that has lived on in legend." To me, the essence of P, what I most admire about her, is her resourcefulness, her ability to create art when everyone else sees nothing of worth. And her ability to survive hard circumstances.
Here's another, I'll call this friend H.
"Despite how difficult it was, and how everyone expected her to quit the nasty job of dealing with fish entrails for a suburban restaurant, H. refused to quit." That white-knuckled determination won my respect early on, so I've carried around this story for years.
I realized that in both instances, what encapsulated my idea of these friends existed in a story, both from a rather distant past, that for me defined who I saw they had been or become. I realize that for my characters in a novel or story, the "meaningful specifics" are the details of the same variety. SO, for my character Ash, is my knowing that he played soccer really that important? maybe not. What about grilled cheese sandwiches? Well, I know that he loves them because his mom made him ones with 3-slices of grilled cheese, out of guilt, when he was a chubby, isolated boy, and that is a foundational story for his link between food and love. He's never made it as an art major because his mother, an artist, criticized his lack of "eye," and his supportive girlfriend isn't with him in college to counteract his lack of confidence in the face of tough professors. Maybe that detail is important. I know his being late certainly is. He was an hour late picking up his date for the senior prom because he spent the time consoling a friend who never got a date and was on the verge of something extreme. His lateness is a "meaningful specific" because it reveals, upon further inspection, that its rooted not in lack of character or respect for others, but instead, a respect for others so deep that he cannot leave someone in need, no matter what obligations he'd previously assigned to himself.
I still feel like I'm wading though a swamp sometimes, when it comes to my novel. I've got so many ideas, words, pages. I see that my revision stage will be about carving out those meaningful specifics from all the other "stuff" I've collected over the years.
I feel encouraged by an epiphany of how to apply this business of specifics. In an opening chapter, Asher describes his wife for the reader: what she wears, her shoes, etc, all of which reveals her personality. And then I have a scene where he comes home and sees her sitting at her computer. I remember I have her wearing bed clothes and bedroom slippers--only because it was evening and it was a practical choice. but I realized the other day, I should combine the two things--the description of her clothing habits and the scene of her at he computer. I should simply have Asher describe her sitting at the computer in clothes and shoes typical of her personality--saves words. There was nothing wrong with her being introduced in bedroom slippers and sweatpants, and yet, it does nothing for the story and wastes words. It's a simple thing to realize, really. And yet I hope I'll continue seeing my manuscript through such eyes--seeing how I can economize every detail and word, to get the most mileage out of each. And thereby reduce my word count!
Other things I write:
Choices for Your Best Birth: Five women share what helped them most, and what they wished that had done differently for their deliveries.
High Fructose Corn Syrup: Thirteen Reasons to Avoid It
How to Determine If Your Child is Ready to Begin Kindergarten
100% Wheat Bread with Honey or Molasses, for a Bread Machine
Lyme Disease and Autism Patients Prescribed Diets Free of Genetically Modified Foods
"Meaningful Specifics." That's what novelist Susan Gregg Gilmore called those details at the mid-winter retreat I attended last month. As an exercise, she showed us photographs of houses and people and had us describe them, picking out, or making up, the details that characterized the personalities. Pretty simple stuff. And yet I can write thousands of words and know so many details about a character I write that I've lost sight of what are really the essential details. I have to ask myself--of the list of details I know, what are details that really define him: that played soccer in high school, that he loved grilled cheese sandwiches, that he wanted to be an illustrator but couldn't succeed in college art classes, or that he's perpetually late?
I read another article, in The Writer, about how to draw the details that give you maximum mileage. It included an exercise to draw, in a single sentence, a description of the essence of a few closest friends. I did, and I found it came down to a story I'd heard that, for me, defined how they were in their essence.
Here's one, I'll call this friend P:
"When there was no food left in the house, P concocted a soup for her siblings and parents that has lived on in legend." To me, the essence of P, what I most admire about her, is her resourcefulness, her ability to create art when everyone else sees nothing of worth. And her ability to survive hard circumstances.
Here's another, I'll call this friend H.
"Despite how difficult it was, and how everyone expected her to quit the nasty job of dealing with fish entrails for a suburban restaurant, H. refused to quit." That white-knuckled determination won my respect early on, so I've carried around this story for years.
I realized that in both instances, what encapsulated my idea of these friends existed in a story, both from a rather distant past, that for me defined who I saw they had been or become. I realize that for my characters in a novel or story, the "meaningful specifics" are the details of the same variety. SO, for my character Ash, is my knowing that he played soccer really that important? maybe not. What about grilled cheese sandwiches? Well, I know that he loves them because his mom made him ones with 3-slices of grilled cheese, out of guilt, when he was a chubby, isolated boy, and that is a foundational story for his link between food and love. He's never made it as an art major because his mother, an artist, criticized his lack of "eye," and his supportive girlfriend isn't with him in college to counteract his lack of confidence in the face of tough professors. Maybe that detail is important. I know his being late certainly is. He was an hour late picking up his date for the senior prom because he spent the time consoling a friend who never got a date and was on the verge of something extreme. His lateness is a "meaningful specific" because it reveals, upon further inspection, that its rooted not in lack of character or respect for others, but instead, a respect for others so deep that he cannot leave someone in need, no matter what obligations he'd previously assigned to himself.
I still feel like I'm wading though a swamp sometimes, when it comes to my novel. I've got so many ideas, words, pages. I see that my revision stage will be about carving out those meaningful specifics from all the other "stuff" I've collected over the years.
I feel encouraged by an epiphany of how to apply this business of specifics. In an opening chapter, Asher describes his wife for the reader: what she wears, her shoes, etc, all of which reveals her personality. And then I have a scene where he comes home and sees her sitting at her computer. I remember I have her wearing bed clothes and bedroom slippers--only because it was evening and it was a practical choice. but I realized the other day, I should combine the two things--the description of her clothing habits and the scene of her at he computer. I should simply have Asher describe her sitting at the computer in clothes and shoes typical of her personality--saves words. There was nothing wrong with her being introduced in bedroom slippers and sweatpants, and yet, it does nothing for the story and wastes words. It's a simple thing to realize, really. And yet I hope I'll continue seeing my manuscript through such eyes--seeing how I can economize every detail and word, to get the most mileage out of each. And thereby reduce my word count!
Other things I write:
Choices for Your Best Birth: Five women share what helped them most, and what they wished that had done differently for their deliveries.
High Fructose Corn Syrup: Thirteen Reasons to Avoid It
How to Determine If Your Child is Ready to Begin Kindergarten
100% Wheat Bread with Honey or Molasses, for a Bread Machine
Lyme Disease and Autism Patients Prescribed Diets Free of Genetically Modified Foods
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Mastering Time Management to Meet Writing Goals
It's not that I haven't been aware of what's keeping me from meeting my writing goals. I know. And I'm going to tell you in this blog, which is why I'm still somewhat hesitant to publish it. Because my problem is not awareness--it's about the next step--commitment, and publishing is nearly like asking for accountability.
In honor of the new year, Writer's Digest had an article about revamping your writing routine--check if what you're doing is working for you, and adjust as necessary. Then last week, I went to a writer's retreat with author Susan Gregg Gilmore (Searching for Salvation at the Dairy Queen and The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove) and she asked what do all writers have in common? Her answer was, a routine. I remember her photo in the power point presentation: an alarm clock with six o'clock blazing. It happens to be the time I used to get up at regularly.
So I confess, this is a problem. I went through many changes last fall. My husband changed his work schedule and that affected mine. Illness and back pain thrown in, and I lost a lot of time. I used to write during 2 scheduled times a day. I got up at 6 and could get an hour of writing in before the kids were up. I wrote again during nap time. I thought, when my husband started a job that required more travel, that I'd get more writing done during the evening hours when he was off somewhere else in the world and my kids were asleep. However, that hasn't really happened. Not only have I not accomplished extra writing, I haven't even been sticking to my two scheduled times when my husband is home. Sometimes I just didn't want to get up, or was honestly not well and needed to sleep. (I also went through bout of insomnia, and I knew I had to sleep in to compensate in order to survive the day of being, essentially, a single parent.)
My husband is currently not traveling, but his new job has flexible hours. Instead of having to get up at 6, he can decide to not go in until an hour later, and turn off his alarm and sleep until 7. Sounds nice in the moment, but then, when I get up with him later, the kids are up, and that's it for any hopes of mine at getting any writing done.
My other problem is my afternoon habits. I appreciated when Gilmore talked about how she starts with facebook, twitter, email, etc. "A warm-up," she called it. I get that. I can't go from the stress of putting two (usually) cranky kids down to nap, immediatley into typing words for my novel. I need a way to decompress and switch gears. I have been checking facebook and answering email to do that. The problem is, an hour slips by, the kids can be up in 30 minutes, and my writing time has just been squandered. I did the same often when I had opportunity to write in the evenings when my husband was traveling.
If I'm ever going to meet my deadline of finishing a first draft of the novel in July, I've got to get a handle on this again. I've got to commit to getting up early when my husband is home, evne if it means I respond to the alarm when he just turns it off for his own purposes. And during nap-time, I've got to limit myself by time. I need to allow myself the facebooking, but, honestly, I get kinda numb and keep scrolling down mindlessly. I even start searching for mindless things to do just because I feel fried and don't know how to transition to the real writing. But I need to limit all that, even if it means setting a timer for15 minutes!
So that's one of the biggest things I got from my writing retreat at Aaron's Books in Lititz. It's not earth-shattering. It's not some great writer's trick to cut in half the amount of work my novel needs. But it's fundamental, crucial. My level of self-discipline will make or break my writing career.
At least that's half my problem. The other half, I'll save for another post. That one's even harder to confess because I'm not sure I have the strength to attempt holding myself to it.
Other writing I've published:
Natural Deodorants: Do Any Work as Effectively as Popular Commercial Brands?
Organic Food: Eight Benefits for You and Your Children
High Fructose Corn Syrup: Thirteen Reasons to Avoid It
Job Search: How to Make Your Application Climb to The Top of The Pile
In honor of the new year, Writer's Digest had an article about revamping your writing routine--check if what you're doing is working for you, and adjust as necessary. Then last week, I went to a writer's retreat with author Susan Gregg Gilmore (Searching for Salvation at the Dairy Queen and The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove) and she asked what do all writers have in common? Her answer was, a routine. I remember her photo in the power point presentation: an alarm clock with six o'clock blazing. It happens to be the time I used to get up at regularly.
So I confess, this is a problem. I went through many changes last fall. My husband changed his work schedule and that affected mine. Illness and back pain thrown in, and I lost a lot of time. I used to write during 2 scheduled times a day. I got up at 6 and could get an hour of writing in before the kids were up. I wrote again during nap time. I thought, when my husband started a job that required more travel, that I'd get more writing done during the evening hours when he was off somewhere else in the world and my kids were asleep. However, that hasn't really happened. Not only have I not accomplished extra writing, I haven't even been sticking to my two scheduled times when my husband is home. Sometimes I just didn't want to get up, or was honestly not well and needed to sleep. (I also went through bout of insomnia, and I knew I had to sleep in to compensate in order to survive the day of being, essentially, a single parent.)
My husband is currently not traveling, but his new job has flexible hours. Instead of having to get up at 6, he can decide to not go in until an hour later, and turn off his alarm and sleep until 7. Sounds nice in the moment, but then, when I get up with him later, the kids are up, and that's it for any hopes of mine at getting any writing done.
My other problem is my afternoon habits. I appreciated when Gilmore talked about how she starts with facebook, twitter, email, etc. "A warm-up," she called it. I get that. I can't go from the stress of putting two (usually) cranky kids down to nap, immediatley into typing words for my novel. I need a way to decompress and switch gears. I have been checking facebook and answering email to do that. The problem is, an hour slips by, the kids can be up in 30 minutes, and my writing time has just been squandered. I did the same often when I had opportunity to write in the evenings when my husband was traveling.
If I'm ever going to meet my deadline of finishing a first draft of the novel in July, I've got to get a handle on this again. I've got to commit to getting up early when my husband is home, evne if it means I respond to the alarm when he just turns it off for his own purposes. And during nap-time, I've got to limit myself by time. I need to allow myself the facebooking, but, honestly, I get kinda numb and keep scrolling down mindlessly. I even start searching for mindless things to do just because I feel fried and don't know how to transition to the real writing. But I need to limit all that, even if it means setting a timer for15 minutes!
So that's one of the biggest things I got from my writing retreat at Aaron's Books in Lititz. It's not earth-shattering. It's not some great writer's trick to cut in half the amount of work my novel needs. But it's fundamental, crucial. My level of self-discipline will make or break my writing career.
At least that's half my problem. The other half, I'll save for another post. That one's even harder to confess because I'm not sure I have the strength to attempt holding myself to it.
Other writing I've published:
Natural Deodorants: Do Any Work as Effectively as Popular Commercial Brands?
Organic Food: Eight Benefits for You and Your Children
High Fructose Corn Syrup: Thirteen Reasons to Avoid It
Job Search: How to Make Your Application Climb to The Top of The Pile
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Prescription: Writer's Retreat, 1 dose for three consecutive days
I said I was going to cut back on freelancing for magazines to devote more time to completing the first draft of my novel by July. Followers also probably wondered if I was sticking to that goal at all, based on my posts about taking on more assignments! Yes, I've been shooting my novel in the foot with article success. In December particularly, I took too many assignments and barely touched the novel.
So how can I get myself back on track with my goal to complete the first draft by this summer? When I know I say it, and then still keep taking more freelancing opportunities?
It's just that I really like freelancing. It's that magazine article writing is very manageable, finite, and comes with a firm reward and pay at the end. I like the satisfaction of completing something and getting paid (however low it may be at some publications...) I get weary sometimes of writing something to difficult, so long-term that I can barely see the light at the end of the tunnel. Freelancing revived my love of writing, many times--but there is too much of a good thing. I said I'd stop seeking new assignments after Christmas. That too has not been true. I was seduced multiple times by call-outs for a few magazines.
When I set my July goal for the novel draft, I thought I was being generous, thinking I could even finish by January. It's now February...
I needed some accountability and encouragement, clearly! So I went to a three-day fiction writing retreat though Aaron's Bookstore in Lititz, PA, featuring editor Kate Kennedy and author Susan Gregg Gilmore (Searching for Salvation at the Dairy Queen and The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove).I hoped it'd energize me towards completing my novel.
So far, so good. As I drove home last night from the conference, my mind was at warp speed entertaining new possibilities for getting my characters to that end--my mind thinking about basic equestrian knowledge, Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing that I'll have to brush up on, and beach scenes. I got up at 6 with my husband this morning and put in over an hour toward moving my novel towards its end in the plot.
And now I'm going to take that inspiration and work some more this afternoon. But I hope, in later posts, to share what I learned at the writing retreat. But for now, I've got to use my drive to write for the novel!
Articles I've published recently:
Job Search: How to Make Your Application Climb to The Top of The Pile
Lyme Disease and Autism Patients Prescribed Diets Free of Genetically Modified Foods
How Much Genetically Modified Food Do You Eat?
Prostate Cancer: Nutrients for Prevention and Defense
So how can I get myself back on track with my goal to complete the first draft by this summer? When I know I say it, and then still keep taking more freelancing opportunities?
It's just that I really like freelancing. It's that magazine article writing is very manageable, finite, and comes with a firm reward and pay at the end. I like the satisfaction of completing something and getting paid (however low it may be at some publications...) I get weary sometimes of writing something to difficult, so long-term that I can barely see the light at the end of the tunnel. Freelancing revived my love of writing, many times--but there is too much of a good thing. I said I'd stop seeking new assignments after Christmas. That too has not been true. I was seduced multiple times by call-outs for a few magazines.
When I set my July goal for the novel draft, I thought I was being generous, thinking I could even finish by January. It's now February...
I needed some accountability and encouragement, clearly! So I went to a three-day fiction writing retreat though Aaron's Bookstore in Lititz, PA, featuring editor Kate Kennedy and author Susan Gregg Gilmore (Searching for Salvation at the Dairy Queen and The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove).I hoped it'd energize me towards completing my novel.
So far, so good. As I drove home last night from the conference, my mind was at warp speed entertaining new possibilities for getting my characters to that end--my mind thinking about basic equestrian knowledge, Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing that I'll have to brush up on, and beach scenes. I got up at 6 with my husband this morning and put in over an hour toward moving my novel towards its end in the plot.
And now I'm going to take that inspiration and work some more this afternoon. But I hope, in later posts, to share what I learned at the writing retreat. But for now, I've got to use my drive to write for the novel!
Articles I've published recently:
Job Search: How to Make Your Application Climb to The Top of The Pile
Lyme Disease and Autism Patients Prescribed Diets Free of Genetically Modified Foods
How Much Genetically Modified Food Do You Eat?
Prostate Cancer: Nutrients for Prevention and Defense
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