Category Archives: Writing

Well, more ready than before I submitted it to WOTF and received my rejection. 🙂 This particular story has been on the revision burner since April. I posted it to two crit groups shortly after I submitted it to its first market (on a deadline, or I’d have waited). I usually have 3 – 5 short stories in progress at once in various stages of first draft, revisions, crit queue, and second revisions. I knew something was wrong wth the story, but couldn’t put my finger on it. Then, between my two seperate crit groups, I received pretty much the same feedback. And, 99% of was accurate.

I think I’ve nailed it this time, I spent hours on a major revision, including a more intimate voice. Most of the stories written before 2010 have voice issues, and I need to address those in the first revision.  I’ve come a long way, and I’m hoping this story is the one. 🙂

I read a novel one of my writting buddies wrote with the intent of critiquing a genre  (young adult) fantasy that I don’t normally read. I was really afraid of committing to a critique when I wasn’t sure I could pull it off. But, better to try and let him know where I failed than to not try at all.

Amazingly — I loved it. Not that I’m posting his critique here mind you. I didn’t realize the depths of YA, and though I suspected one of my novels may be flirting with the line between adult fantasy and young adult fantasy, my buddy’s novel made me realize: Forgotten Star falls quite heavily in the genre. Shadow of Blood will too, if I take out those scenes no living being will ever see because of how awful they are. I thought I was writing dark fantasy when I started it. I was, really. But I’m really not a dark fantasy kind of gal. Not that kind of dark. So here I am with the best two prospects for a novel deal and they’re YA.

Guess this means I need to read a lot more of it. 🙂  What YA do you enjoy that’d you’d recommend? I’m also wondering if YA science fiction is as difficult to write as adult science fiction…

The bad news: I didn’t win the 2010 Parsec Short Story contest. The good news? My story was one of ten that made it to the final judging panel.  I can’t tell you how much I needed to hear tht today. 🙂

Forward moving, I’ve gotten some feedback on the story from some pros, and it needs a quick revision. 

Congratulations to the Parsec winners! I hope you’re enjoying your moment. 🙂

It’s taking me longer to complete tasks, but I’m back on track, writingwise. The day job is a challenge at the moment, which is my primary mental reason for distraction and physical reason for the exhaustion. Suffice to say I’m pleased they trust me to take on new things, and that I’m equally pleased to be employed. That said, I’ve come up with a way to manage myself mentally and physically, and before I spout off to you about what I’m doing, I’m going to try it out first. 🙂

The orchard story is making progress though slowly. I’m also trying to map it. I usually map first, create the world and then build cultures and problems into it. This story was written at a time that this wasn’t precisely my MO, so I’m going backwards. It’s much harder to create a map and environment for a story that already exists. I know what I need and I’m under pressure to get the geography just right. But I am enjoying it, despite this afternoon’s mapping session ending early because both kids decided they wanted in on the action. We all had our colored pencils and crayons and white paper out. It was fun, and I’ll map this evening instead.

I’ve been asking for feedback on two of the forums I’m on (one of which I’m part of a small but efficient and wonderful writer’s group). My critiques of late have been reflecting the same basic feedback regarding the story (4 different stories, actually) being part of a bigger picture, or asking if it was part of a novel, or stating they’d read on if it was a novel when it was evident from the submission format that it was a short story. I’m sitting here, mentally scratching my head at this feedback. Most of these people don’t get to see each other’s feedback since the two groups are mutually exclusive at the moment. Something is there. And I don’t want to submit another story for crit unless I figure that out. So I asked them what they meant, or what they thought it could mean, because damn if I couldn’t figure it out.

The feedback was varied, but the underlying issue seems to be conflict resolution (which I knew is an issue but I haven’t been able to work through), and very possibly a style issue. The writer who suggested the style issue (aside from catching me off guard with a big OH!)) suggested I take a novelist I like and find some of their short stories and compare them. Love the idea, dying to find the time. I have to research this first. My reading has changed in recent years because of the kids and I’m way behind on novel reading. I’ll figure out who to find because my hunch is it’s a combination of the two issues. If I can get past these… oh man, just thinking about it tickles me. If I can get past these instead of giving up.. my stories will improve. Maybe someone will like them enough to buy them. Or I’ll just be writing more crap with a different problem.  Time will tell, as will reading.

And the simplest lesson relearned? Baby steps get more done than freaking out over what I can’t do. A page per writing session will get this revision done in about 3 weeks, but imagine getting it done. 🙂

Guess what – I didn’t win the Writers of the Futures contest for quarter 2. Oh well. That story’s in revision.  No soup for me. Next!

July was mostly a loss. There were a lot of real life issues to deal with, plus a slight obsession over vp results, plus forcing my brain to work on a novel when it didn’t want to. I should have stuck with the shorts. So all I did in July was 4 critiques. Oh I tried to do much more, but each attempt resulted in some excuse or physical manifestation of the stress that nothing got done.  So I came up with a new approach.

Feed the monster what it wants.

The muse wants short stories: she gets 3 to revise, 1 to write, then I get to play with the novel. I don’t  have to give up the shorts. I’m hoping once I’m happy with the outline and the new race I need to build, that it’ll be easier to jump into the novel writing. But that’s something to deal with in September. Right now, short stories, and building blocks of a novel. And critiques of course. Many many critiques.

Onward and upward, my friends. Hope you had a better month than I did. 🙂  Good luck with August, because my job is not getting any easier, and my workouts are about to take center stage.

PS I read! does that count?

Routines are good. I’m back on mine, thanks to my spiffy little recycled paper notebook.  I’ve been receiving crits back and critiquing for other writers this week, and I think I’ve hit another realization/glimpse into my own writing. Setting has always been a character for me, and in these two stories I was focusing on voice and other things that I didn’t give setting the attention it needed for the story. In one, I had a thought in my mind that it was “just a valley” so of course it came across that way in my writing. In the other, I had a lot of learning to do about a very specific environment. The information hasn’t been easy to find (I really need a library afternoon), and that also has come across in the story. But in both of those stories, are unique voices, or a unique situation. It’s not enough to carry it right now, not for submitting, but I’m working on it.

Some days I feel like I need a checklist for making sure I don’t forget something a story requires.

Truthfully, I’m making strides. I’ll get there. And whle I’m striding along, here’s a little something for you: Routines for Writers

So I didn’t make it into the workshop. I’ve had my submission story critiqued at OWW, and I now see what the story is lacking. I also reviewed the letter I wrote them, and between those two items? I sound like a robot. So what did I do?

I applied fiction writing concepts of voice and character and wrote a new letter for VP15. Yes, that’s right. The submission period opens in January, but I’ll probably wait until around May to send it in so I have time to workshop and revise a decent story before the deadline.

I should probably sign the damn thing “Ms. Glutton F. Punishment”.

I bit the bullet today and dragged myself out of this pit of confusion I’d fallen–no, thrown myself–into. The answer is right in front of me: just finish the damn book. So I’m working on the Senkari, the long living race of magical people that Kelyn belongs to, and hasn’t seen since he was ten years old, and wouldn’t you know it, they aren’t who he hopes they are. How miserable to find your family and they’re really not interested in leaving their own backyard to lend you a hand? I know how they got that way, at least I think they do, but now I’ve got to incorporate that into Kelyn’s challenge.

Thanks for the support through this hiccup guys. 🙂

I despise how floundering over a problem kills productivity. I’m a list maker and I check things off as they get done. One thing done, and it was a completion item, something I’d been working on for two weeks. So, I’m working on Hunting the Red for the time being. I’ve had a few complaints over the setting, that they really couldn’t connect with it, and I was wondering why at first, because it was just a valley. Then it hit me. Just a valley to me, could mean something different to another person. I also have a hunch my visualization of this valley may be a little off from a typical valley, which is something Id need to point out in the story. Geography research? Earth science research? Yes, but probably not anything extensive today: 4th of July holiday. 🙂 That actually gives me another day to figure out which novel I’m supposed to work on next. I have a hunch I should dive into the Forgotten Star revision.

I wanted to read some YA before I got into that revision because I’m half afraid it’s venturing into coming-of-age stories, but I know other adult fantasy that starts with younger characters. There are some dark things that happen, including a mad king’s attempted rape of a character that I’m not sure I’d want to touch in YA. The second story hits a major dark spot for the character, inclding torture and a descent into evil magic. It feels like it’s too much. So if my issue is the characters’ ages, I could just make them a little older, right? Their society is not typical, and their coming-into-their own is triggered by an accident that results in the two lovers meeting.  I don’t think this will affect what currently needs fixing in the novel, but I’d rather not revise it twice…  time to look up YA guidelines?

See, damn it, I just want to write.

Maybe this should be a focus-on-short-stories month, and I’ll work out the issues while I’m getting the shorts into publishable quality.

I’ve decided that I’ll return to short stories while I mull the problem over. My brain tends to work better when it’s occupied by fictional characters and their problems. Makes my problems seem much simpler to deal with. 😀

I always promised myself that if I wrote past the first chapter in a novel, it was begun, and I had to get to the finish line and type THE END. I made it through three novels that way, but then novel # 4 came along all bright and shiny but got interrupted by two pregnancies. I picked it up again, read the story and admitted that at least 20k of the 40k just needs to be deleted, but I can move forward without deleting. I’m ok with that.

It’s the worldbuilding. So many of my notes don’t make sense. It’s like I threw them in there just because i found something neat in my research and threw it in the mix. For some reason, I came up with the concept that (yes you’re allowed to laugh) shoes had some status meaning, and that slaves weren’t allowed to wear shoes. Except that they live in a desert city and the sand probably gets pretty damn hot. Never mind they do all the physical labor. Okay, dumping the shoes thing. Then we have the second culture that shows up midway in the book, that I originally based on Japanese names/language, but it ends there. I didn’t even make a “Laws of Magic’ document which I always always always do. What the hell was I thinking??

Oh yeah, pregnancies. Gah.

What to do now? (I ask myself as my short stories creep up onto my shoulders and say ‘look at me, look at me!’ Down, down! Hush you…) What do I do with this novel? The two main characters interest me. I’ve created an interested story arc, and there’s a villain who is delightfully twisted, but is that enough? Do I create the worldbuilding on the fly, just so I can get this done and shove it in a drawer for five years and then rewrite it completely? Which is what I’d end up doing – the writing here is over five years old. I’m a different writer.

I promised myself completion. Will it kill me to finish it? No, but the revision is going to absolutely suck, and knowing that drags my writing spirit down hard. Throws it down and squashes it like a cockroach going crunch.

This is the hard part. Deciding.

One possible approach is to scrap the background I have and rewrite it from memory (mostly memory; I don’t want to waste details I researched to create a believable environment).  Rewriting my notes might at least bring the world to life for me again, and give me proper contrast for creating the second culture.

There’s also a third ‘culture’ that comes into play which I hadn’t figured on earlier, but they do affect things, so I need to come up with something for them.

I’m not ready to write this, but even as these letters fly across my screen I know I don’t want to give up. I guess this is the hard part, the blood, sweat, and tears moment.

I’m not giving up on the story. I think I just need a few days to work through these issues. At the very worst, it’s practice, right?

June Results

 Lots going on, but I did something writing related almost every day. I don’t feel like I have as much to show for my efforts, but they were really divided between multiple projects. I’m taking a different approach for July.

•  Forgotten Star reformat/print–done
• Forgotten Star / HTRYN lesson 1 (in prg)
• Shadow of Blood – 3 writing sessions
• Crits x6
• Short Story Revisions: x3
• Rejections and Resubmissions x3
• Submissions: 1 (Treischan Strength in subs for reprint publication)

July Goals

• Shadow of Blood: 1300w daily for JulNoWriMo
• Short Story Revisions x2 (Hunting the Red & Rise of the Tiger Princess; if time allows I can add more)
• Crits: 6 (3 on FM, 3 on OWW; aiming for about 2 weekly)

 How’s that for focus? At a rate of 1300 daily, I can finish this novel in a month.

I finished revising the tiger story, and it’s up for crit on OWW. I’m planning a few crits for tonight and tomorrow, and I’m going to tinker with Hunting the Red because it’s almost right. 🙂 Then it’s outline work for Shadow of Blood because baby, it’s getting done.  I’ll have a goals update shortly, but I have some pretty big wishes out there right now in the meantime. WotF is starting to respond to the 2nd quarter entries. I haven’t heard a peep yet, and I know the story isn’t perfect, so I’m hoping for another honorable mention. I have more hope in my Q3 entry. Then there’s the Parsec Short Story contest which has disappeared into the nether. I’m sure they’re just busy, but I have high hopes for that story and these guys are teaching a massive lesson in patience. 🙂 Then there’s the 6/30 deadline for Viable Paradise — to which I applied three months ago. So I’m really hoping for good news there.

I promise to stop checking my email every hour. I promise to stop obsessing over responses for which I have no control.

That’s the plan. 🙂 But I have to tell you, I’m pretty pleased at the Tiger Story. It’s almost there!

Sleep helped, and I even got up at 4;15, as difficult as that was.

In my mind, I’m a full time writer. It’s all I think about, even when I’m not writing. So it’s hard to give myself a limit on what I can do.  Limits are good, helpful things when used properly. They’re not a sign of weakness; rather they’re a sign that I want to do so much more. When I have the financing to back up full time writing, I have no doubt that I’ll be able to handle the mutliple novel schedule with miscellaneous projects included. For now though, limits.

Three writing sessions a day. One for novel, one for short stories, and one for miscellaneous (crits, market research, story research submission work, etc). So… since I’m not willing to abandon my short story work, I need to hold off on one of the novels. It’ll be quicker to finish the first draft (I’ve had to do a lot of work to get to this point), so I’ll finish that novel, then go edit Forgotten Star.

Limit: one novel at a time? I guess I can deal with that. I’ll just need to work a little faster on them. Right? 🙂

I have young children, a full time job, pets, and a house that all require different levels of my attention at various points throughout the day. I have a passion for writing which shows in the multitidue of projects I’m involved with, but my ressponsibilities conflict with my writing times. I can’t always get up at 4am for those novel writing sessions.

Current projects including writing one novel, revising another novel, and a short story revision, plus critiquing. I have short stories in queue, so when this short story revision is done, another short story project will takes it’s place.

Someone mentioned their participation in JulNoWriMo, and it would be a good outlook to get my novel in progress complete. I have about 40k remaining. But that means abandoning my novel revision or my short stories for the month. I suppose a month wihtout working on short stories won’t kill me, but I’ve been going strong on those since last September and really learning a lot. I’m enjoying thm. But it all comes down to career goals, doesn’t it?

The stories might help me make my way into novel publication, but the novels are more important for that, aren’t they?

The issue I’m looking at is that I’m resuming my lunch time fitness routine, so I’m losing that writing time. I have the 4am session (for 1 hour) which I’ve been making only once a week lately. I have the after work writing session for an hour which conflicts with errands on the way home, so I only get that 2 – 3 times a week. And evenings, well, they for whatever I can force out of my exhausted mind.

So this “NaNo” option would get me to finish Shadow of Blood and then I can focus on one novel project. Maybe I need one novel and one short story at a time. I don’t want to lose my momentum with Forgotten star (hah, one page revised, that’s freaking awesome momentum!). But I’ve got a few short stories on the verge of being ready for submission, not to mention I joined OWW and have been critting over there too.

I just want it all. 🙂

Something to sleep on, I guess.

I’m moving forward with the tiger story. My mutlipe project balance has died, but at least I’m making progress on this story. On other fronts, I’ve had two critical readers tell  me Calico is good. No issues. Nothing to improve. They liked it. I’m kind of stunned. This is only a version 2. I guess it’s technically a version 3 since I handwrote it and then kind of edited a little as I transcribed.

Submission news: no news from Paarsec, and another two weeks until I hear from VP. Calico is going out to Dreams of Decadence as soon as I get one more review confirming what the others have said. Then a quick clean up and then it goes out. 🙂  I’m doing it.

Lots going on. Last week, despite the sick family and dr/medical issues, I got quite a bit done. I made good progress before most of that hit, so I was able to do minimal writing and mostly keep up with my goals. I think the short story revision took a hit; I’d probably have been done by now. The big thing is that I figured out the voice/distance issue. I think I got it, and the short story is my test. When it’s done, I’ll be posting it for crit. This one will probably go up on OWW as I’ve got two up for crit on FM and one of them hasn’t gotten any response. I’m not sure why…

But onto bigger and better things: the revision for Forgotten Star and the concurrent taking of Holly Lisle’s How to Revise Your Novel is moving again. The first lesson is very slow as I sort it out, but mostly I want to write a big X on the page and say REWRITE because I’ve definitely gained enough distance to say the writing on the page doesn’t match the story in my head. I hope I can bring it there, because the story in my head is aweseome.

And since I’m actually up for my moring writing session, it’s time to get back into Kel.yn’s and Serena’s adventure. They’ve got some issues right now.

I’m not sure how this story turned into a time travel story, but it did. It snuck in there. I may have to revise that angle out, but it’s a nifty little angle. I posted it for crit on FM, we’ll see what folks have to say.

I’ll tell you what’s on my mind: my characters. Dozens of them. I’m aware and thinking about any of these guys at any point in time, sometimes just in the back of my mind, with their problems simmering into catastrophes. Here are my projects:

Forgotten Star: fantasy novel in revision. Rereading it as I’m formatting the word errors out of the document. Using Holly Lisle’s How to Revise Your Novel class to revise this beast. Love the story. It was originally inspired by Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar series and is very near and dear to my heart. It needs a lot of work. The main character is a princess under abuse.

Shadow of Blood: fantasy novel in progress. 1/2 complete and at a pivotal point in the story. Difficult point for me since I put this down five years ago during a pregnancy. The characters won’t leave me be, so I’m torturing them in return. Aiming to be done with this by August.

Short Story Revisions: these are all I’ve touched this week, so very much alive in my mind. Aiming to get two of them submitted by the end of the month. If they’re ready.:  Calico Under Cherry Blossom;  Rise of the Tiger Princess; The Encroaching Hand of Winter. Also planning to revise Watering the Black Violas and Hunter’s Honor by the end of the month.

Short Story Drafts: these are from prompts that I started for the May SAD challenge and intend to complete between June and July: Moondust (werewolf story); Seascraper; Untitled werewolf wedding story; Takeshi’s Gift

And somewhere in there, I need to fit in 4 – 8 critiques this month. Two are started and two are waiting for me.

That’s why I’m never bored. 🙂  So, what are you up to these days?

Jumped into two more short stories last night: Calico Under Cherry Blossom (which is redlined and ready for its first revision) and The Encroaching Hand of Winter (which is redlined, but need something more.)

Since I’ve turned my attention toward the character focus in my last few stories, ‘Hand clearly shows that. She’s got a great background which really comes out in the story. But the setting fell flat, as did presentation of the story’s problem. So everything essentially happens waytoofast. The good news is, this is fixable, and maybe I’ll remember this the next time I’m writing a story. 🙂

And, a little something for me. Decided to pick up the art again, to a lesser degree. I used to draw and sketch but didn’t really progress to far. It was a private thing I didn’t want to share except for a person or two. My parents pressured me quite heavily (I’m sure they thought they were being very helpful), but I was around two people in my very small class at school that were incredibly awesome at art and I did not compare to their skill. Further, they were not very interested in sharing. Granted it was a thirteen year old thing and I’m sure they’re both very nice people today, but it marked me at the time. If that was what an artist was like, I didn’t want to be one. So I did my art classes required for school, but turned to music where I could. I’d still like to pick up piano again, but that’ll have to wait until the kids are older. 🙂 I need time for wrting. In the meantime, my husband and I went through some library books and decided to have a couple of art sessions together. It’ll be fun. I always did enjoy it, and it’ll be awesome to share it with my best friend.

Now, back to the writing. I’ve got characters waiting for me to rescue them from revision limbo.

Tiper Princess is going well. I’m working out the character stuff and did research to enrich the setting. It just needs time for me to go through. Hunting the Red was rejected with some interesting comments that coincided with a crit I received on it just yesterday, so I revised that one and sent it back out.

Now I’m off to format Forgotten Star and get back to the Tiger Princess…

I’ve been so torn over this screwed up manuscript. I didn’t want to retype it, but that would have taken less time than trying to fix the formatting errors in that word file. I don’t give up easily. Maybe it’s the Irish in me, or the German, possibly the Italian…. but I’m short, I’m from NY and from a family of five kids. You don’t survive THAT to be bowled over by a measely word file.

So I experimented. I figured, what the hell else can go wrong?

Except that it didn’t.

It worked 90% perfectly. There’s maybe 10 pages in this now 250 page document that requires manual adjusting, and it responds properly to a “enter/tab”. And if I can figure out how to make Word 2007 auto tab in this file, it’ll be even better.

I didn’t give up. Whatever’s bugging you, give it one more try. Attempt something different. Just don’t give in and don’t give up. You’ve got it in you. How else have humans stuck arond all these years?

I feel like I’m in my own personal LOST. I picked up Forgotten Star again and started the first How To Revise Your Novel lesson, but it only left me bewildered. Not the lesson; my manuscript. Six months ago, it stopped me in my tracks. Two years ago, it stopped me in my tracks. Some crazy form of hell removed the paragraph marks from the 400 page manuscript in a very nonconsistent manner. I used find/replace to fix what I could, but now it’s beyond help. I need to just put the story in a new Word file. The errors all copy over no matter what I do. So I have to retype this beast.

Lovely.

Good thing I type fast.  I need to keep up with my other projects, so if I aim for 10 pages a day, it’ll take me about a month. I guess the revision is waiting one more month.

Might as well get to it.

Priorities are a funny thing; usually something becomes more important when you’re avoiding something else. So, priorities balance according to what we don’t want to do. So instead of cleaning the bathrooms, I picked up my novel Forgotten Star, the one I scheduled myself to begin revising in January. Well, I had short story deadlins through March 31st and April 15th, I couldn’t concentrate on a novel revision, so I let it sit. In April I picked up my novel in progress, Shadow of Blood, read that, and got back into writing it in May. A scene. Short stories again.

It’s always short stories. So what is that telling me? That I really DID learn how to write a short story. I’m working on # 43 at the moment. That’s a good count. I want to write them and I’m dying to revise them. I even came up with a schedule based on what’s the easier to get into submission readiness.

I sat up looked around and realized I’m avoiding my novels. Why am I avoiding them? I don’t know. Yes, writing is hard, but I love it. It’s what I think about all day long. I dream about it. I wake up in the middle of the night to jot down inspiration. So what is it about avoiding my novels?

I don’t know. I wish I did.

But getting back on my schedule should help. I divided my time by task. Early morning writing session is for novel first drafts. Four lunches a week are for short story writing/revising and critiques; the other three are for working out. Four after work writing sessions are to continue short story writing/revising and critiques. Evening writing session is supposed to  be for novel revision. I’m lucky I get to break it out so many different ways instead of getting one big block.

I think my issue might be committment. The last time I was fully committed to a novel project was in 2005/06. Ever since then, it’s been little children and short stories. My girl is turning 4 in a few weeks. My boy is a year and a half. I have my brain back though I admit there are pregnangy induced holes wether it’s from trauma or hormones I can’t tell you… Am I afraid I’ve changed too much? Can’t get back there? Surely not. I’m still getting ideas. I’m still thinking about my characters. I’m evening working on an article on planning interpersonal relationships and using that tool as a conflict generator. Maybe I’ve forgotten how much I love novel writing…

The answers aren’t forthcoming tonight, but I have a feeling once I work out the schedule (2nd alarm clock in the bathroom!) I’ll be back on track. Just watch. You’ll see.

This guy makes me think. I usually have a bit of a learning curve with most of his posts as I’m desperately trying to learn the industry, but I wholeheartedly agree with this post. And it fits ANYTHING, not just writing. If you want to do something and you aren’t good at it, don’t give up. Just keep at it.

Dean Wesley Smith: Talent Is A Myth

I’m working on another short story. I’ve been thinking about this one for about a week now and trying to get the details right. There’s some political (fictional course) elements to it, and some fairly deep manipulation and soul searching. Oh yes and werewolves. But my sore throat and my exhausted human body are keeping my fingers from typing and forcing me into bed.  Yep, more writing tomorrow. Maybe I’ll be able to finish it up over lunch.