Dawn Bonanno

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.

The two edits I have been preoccupied with are both finally in submissions (and in one case, out to another market already). Now I can focus on short stories for SAD. And putting my hastily scribbled notes from the past two weeks, I have four story ideas in various levels of develoment. And then I plucked out my “ideas” folder where I tend to drop tidbits I don’t have the time to deal with for “later”. Later is here.  One of those is going to get resurrected, possibly.  While I don’t like leaving things unfinished, these aren’t exactly started; they’re just characters waiting for life.

So one SAD is done, and I have four in the works. My editing pool is growing. I guess I don’t have to worry about being short of stories to edit. 🙂