A journey into the wilderness of authorhood
I had a migraine from Friday through midday Sunday. Needless to say, I didn’t do anything worthwhile. I’m still in recovery mode, trying to do all the things that didn’t get done, so I’ll just leave this as an update and say something epiphamazing tomorrow.
I’ve been talking with a few fabulous people lately. Well, not necessarily talking, but pixelating. One of these people has volunteered to share with me her experiences in an effort to help me understand Amber from Second Chances. I had a phone conversation with her a few weeks ago, then recieved an e-mail and a voice-mail yesterday. I had another e-mail waiting for me this morning.
This woman is incredible, and the fact that she’s willing to relive that time of her life to help me with this project is just, well… stunning.
Ever since I decided to “take it seriously”, I’ve come across individuals and groups who have been so supportive, so keen on what I’m doing, that it makes dreaming about what might be seem not so silly. There is just a hint of pressure… the desire to not let them down by failing… but for the most part, it’s support, a go get ‘em attitude, and a dialog about what works and what doesn’t. And then I have people who are willing to relive and share the most painful experience of their lives on just the chance that something worthwhile will come of it.
Fabulous people. Just fabulous.
If you are reading this, you are probably one of the people I’m talking about.
With RWA Nationals just getting under way, everybody is talking about conferences.
More specifically, they are talking about how nervous they are, how much they hate shopping for clothes, how they’re afraid they’ll forget to pack something, whether they have been able to lose the 5, 10 or 20 pounds they wanted to before hand, and about how hard it was to not be a wall flower (really, some of this talk started at least as far back as May when I first started reading the author blogs).
When I was a Systems Analyst in Memphis, I had to go to week-long conferences once or twice a year. I never remember people being this nervous about a professional gathering. What is the difference here? Is it that the attendees are almost entirely women and women are their own harshest critics? Or is it that writing is, by nature, a solitary enterprise and everyone is being taken out of their comfort zones?
It’s an interesting phenomenon. It’ll be even more interesting in a year or two if I wind up being one of the attendees. How will it affect me?
Not sure what happened yesterday.
Well, actually I am. I didn’t get up as early as usual, was running ragged most of the day, and had things to do during lunch. By the afternoon I’d forgotten all about my blogging responsibilities.
Things are proceeding comfortably for now… Gabby doesn’t seem to be holding a grudge and I’m making a concerted effort to pay attention.
Meanwhile, the model I was going to meet in DC has backed out… apparently she thought I was going to be there at the end of this month as opposed to the end of next month. No worries. I will just spend a day doing what I had originally planned to do anyway. Architectural photography in black and white.
I’m running late again this morning, so I need to get going. Too many late nights with Gabby. Talk to you tomorrow.
I wrote this morning. That’s two mornings in a row now.
I haven’t touched the beginning yet. So far, everything I’ve written since the End Of The Block has been strictly dialog… all these conversations that I’d ignored while trying to fix what wasn’t broke. When I say “strictly” dialog… I mean out of roughly 1,000 words, fifteen of them are not contained within quotation marks. I have to get these conversations on paper. Then there is one scene much later that will have a little more action and description that I have to write down. After that, I can come back and make sure it all works.
I haven’t decided what to do about the beginning yet. I think my frustration with it is driving the temptation to trash it entirely… but I think I can make parts of it work if I place them in present tense as it happens rather than memories. I will come back to it after the pain has subsided a little.
Working today, so probably no writing until tomorrow.
Still no check in the mail. I got the negatives sorted and waiting. Trying to be good and not hound the bride for money. The thing is, I won’t actually make a profit from this wedding until I pick up final payment in a few weeks… hopefully before I go to DC.
I’ve started a new category.
Once I’m a successful author, with multiple sales and more than three people who read this blog, I want to have a topic to help all those people who are where I am now. And, since by then I’m sure to have it all figured out, I should have twenty or a hundred rules collected and be quite a font of knowledge and folklore, eh? I could be the guru on the top of the mounta… Ouch!
Gabby’s telling me to get on with it.
So here’s the deal… I spent far longer twisting in the wind than I thought. I spent nearly a month without accomplishing much at all in the way of Words On The Page, at least not words I can be proud of. The biggest reason for that is that I ignored Gabby. (The ironic thing is that I ignored her while working on her story!)
We weren’t having conversations anymore. She’d whisper in my ear and I’d say “Not now, Gabby. I’m trying to get things organized.” She’d be almost in tears trying to tell me something important, and I’d say “I’m doing this for us. Just be patient.” Even when she gave up and quit talking to me, looking at me from her chair in the corner with Bassett Hound eyes, I kept plugging away at what I thought I had to do. Then when I took a breath and looked up to see what she wanted, she wasn’t there.
I didn’t know there was anything wrong until this past Sunday.
Starbuck’s Sunday is my writing time. I can have a horrible week of writing and make up for it on Starbuck’s Sunday. This past Sunday didn’t help. The right people weren’t there. Not behind the counter, not the customers, and most importantly, not Gabby.
And even as I write this, I realize that I did the worst thing you can do in any relationship. I concentrated so much on fixing the mechanics of it that I made the actual relationship part worse.
So here it is, Rule #001 - Dance With Her That Brung Ya.
Whatever method of writing you have… whether it’s similar to the relationship I have with Gabby, or if you are uberorganisch, stick with it if it’s what works for you. The worst thing in the world that you can do to your creative process is to try to change it to something else, no matter how many headaches you think it will save you in the end.
Rule #001 is that there are no rules to writing… except that in order to write, you have to create. If you can’t work with clutter, you need to tidy up. If you need your clutter, leave it the hell alone. Dance with her that brung ya, because if she walks out on you, you will miss her when she’s gone.
Gabby’s smiling again, so we’re going to have a good weekend together.
Next time I try to change my writing method, whether due to some of the frustration that comes from scribbling out scenes as I dream them only to have to later try to figure out a way to get them all to gel into a cohesive story, or because I’m so disorganized sometimes that I frustrate even myself, or successful authors have suggested that things would be easier if I plotted my stories before I wrote them… well, whatever the reason, next time… stop me. The truth is that if I don’t write what I want to write, two things will happen. I will go insane. I will write nothing worthwhile.
I was on the verge of giving up on writing.
At least until things got to the point where Gabby wouldn’t let me sleep until I got words on paper… but I was going to give up, really.
The only reason I want to be published in the first place is for the validation of my abilities (that, and the fact that I have read many books where I was left thinking “I could have done better with that premise”). Extra cash is a nice bonus, but knowing that somebody else thinks I have a talent is driving the desire to be published. Not the desire to write, mind you; that comes from the desire to live somewhere other than a padded room with only Gabby for company (and her telling me over and over that I would have been a lot happier if I had listened to her). The only way I see being able to stay sane AND be published, is to keep on keepin’ on the way I’ve always done it.
And if any of you hear rumblings of me talking about how there must be a better way, remind me that I’m about to create a self-inflicted writer’s block on myself and hope that I listen to you.
I really don’t want to go through this again.
Finally.
I now know what I’m doing wrong. In simple terms, you could call it “Banging my head against the wall”, or possibly “flogging a dead horse”. Regardless, heads are being banged and there is definitely flogging going on. Whether walls or dead horses are involved, and to what extent, remains to be seen.
So, this explains what, you ask?
Writer’s Block, silly. What else could it be? Well, unless Real Life had reared it’s ugly head, or I was talking about my latest photography project, or my horse just died and I was stuck in a dead-end alley. But it wasn’t any of those other things. It was indeed writer’s block that I was refering to. Or to which I was refering. Though, actually, as I understand it now, our English teachers were lying to us all those years and there is nothing wrong with ending your sentence with a preposition. But I digress. I was talking about beating a horse with a dead wall, or something to that effect.
The problem I’m having with Second Chances is that I don’t like the way I’ve introduced my characters. It’s boring. It’s not necessarily boring to read (though that may indeed be the case) but it’s boring to write. It’s infodump. It’s explaining how the characters came to be in their particular situations. The information is key to me, to my understanding of the characters, to everything that follows.
But is it necessary for the reader?
I’m beginning to realize that everything I’ve written so far might be more appropriate for a character sheet than a novel. Is it possible that I’ve written 3,000 words and have yet to start my story? I think that’s exactly what I’ve done. I’ve been fighting the urge to skip the beginning and get to the good stuff. What if my urge was right? What if the book should begin with the good stuff and just let some of the beginning percolate through as backstory if and when it becomes important? What if fighting the urge was exactly the wrong thing to do?
Huh! Look at that. The horse must have been sleeping, because now he’s up and running again. Go figure.
I stole this from Dr. Sanity. A list of proposed state mottos follows:
Alabama: Hell yes, we have electricity.
Alaska: 11,623 Eskimos can’t be wrong!
Arizona: But it’s a dry heat.
Arkansas: Lituracy ain’t everthang.
California: By 30, our women have more plastic than your Honda.
Colorado: If you don’t ski, don’t bother.
Connecticut: Like Massachusetts, only smaller.
Delaware: We really do like the chemicals in our water.
Florida: Ask us about our grandkids… and our voting skills.
Georgia: We put the fun in fundamentalist extremism.
Hawaii: Haka Tiki Mou Sha’ami Leeki Toru (Death To Mainland Scum, Leave Your Money).
Idaho: More than just potatoes… Well, okay, we’re not, but the potatoes sure are good.
Illinois: Please, don’t pronounce the “S”.
Indiana: Two billion years tsunami free.
Iowa: We do amazing things with corn.
Kansas: First of the rectangle states.
Kentucky: Five million people; Fifteen last names.
Louisiana: We’re not ALL drunk Cajun wackos, but that’s our tourism campaign.
Maine: We’re really cold, but we have cheap lobster.
Maryland: If you can dream it, we can tax it.
Massachusetts: Our taxes are lower than Sweden’s, and our Senators are more corrupt!
Michigan: First line of defense - from the Canadians.
Minnesota: 10,000 lakes… and 10,000,000,000,000 mosquitoes.
Mississippi: Come and feel better about your own state.
Missouri: Your Federal Flood Relief tax dollars at work.
Montana: Land of the Big Sky, the Unabomber, right-wing crazies, and honest elections!
Nebraska: Ask about our State Motto contest.
Nevada: Hookers and poker!
New Hampshire: Go away and leave us alone.
New Jersey: You want a ##$%##! motto? I got yer ##$%##! motto right here!
New Mexico: Lizards make excellent pets.
New York: You have the right to remain silent, you have the right to an attorney… And no right to self defense!
North Carolina: Tobacco is a vegetable.
North Dakota: We really are one of the 50 states!
Ohio: At least we’re not Michigan.
Oklahoma: Like the play, but with no singing.
Oregon: Spotted Owl…It’s what’s for dinner.
Pennsylvania: Cook with coal.
Rhode Island: We’re not REALLY an island.
South Carolina: Remember The Civil War? Well, we didn’t actually surrender yet.
South Dakota: Closer than North Dakota.
Tennessee: Home of the Al Gore Invention Museum.
Texas: Se Habla Ingles.
Utah: Our Jesus is better than your Jesus.
Vermont: Too liberal for the Kennedys.
Virginia: Who says government stiffs and slackjaw yokels don’t mix?
Washington: Our Governor can out-fraud your Governor!
West Virginia: One big happy family… really!
Wisconsin: Come cut cheese!
Wyoming: Where men are men… And the sheep are very nervous.
The District of Columbia: The Work-Free Drug Place.
It was a weekend without a flow.
Friday was my day off, and though there were a bunch of things I wanted to get done, not much was actually accomplished. Originally, I was supposed to meet with the bride from the wedding I did a few weeks ago to pick up her enlargement order. That didn’t happen, so it also means I didn’t pick up the check for the enlargement order. Even though I did meet with her yesterday, I still didn’t get the check. Well, as it turns out, I did some shopping around. If I use my old lab to process the order I can save about 25% even after paying for postage, but I would need to prepay the costs which isn’t possible without getting paid first. This takes the brides costs from $800 to $600, so I’ll call her later today to see if she wants to send a check otherwise I’m going with the original quote.
On the good side of the tally for Friday (or at least interesting side), I was at Common Grounds just chilling out, when a young lady came in that I recognized but couldn’t place where I knew her from. I thought maybe I’d just recognized her from the coffee shop. It turns out we spent about four hours sitting next to each other playing a trivia game in a bar about six or seven months ago (I was helping her beat the competition, who were none the wiser). As it turns out, she just got a tattoo on her side (which is beautiful, by the way) and I’ve been looking to shoot a tattoo. So after it heals a bit, we’ll do some pictures of it.
Saturday I was at my day job, but I did make time to meet with SS to give her the prints from three of the seven rolls we shot together. The other four rolls were slides and my local lab doesn’t process slides in-house anymore, so they were sent off. It’ll be a few weeks before I can get those to her.
Sunday, was Starbuck’s Sunday, but it was not successful. There were a lot more distractions than usual (or at least I wasn’t able to block them out), and the bride was late arriving which threw off my day. I was really disappointed in what I was able to write Sunday. Actually, I was disappointed in just about everything Sunday. It was almost the kind of day where you would have been better off staying in bed.
And actually, that’s what I wish I could do today. My back hurts. My knees hurt. I’m unmotivated in both my day job and in writing. It’s a good thing I’m going on vacation in a month. It’ll be good to have a change of scenery.
I’m still not sure what my decision is going to be in the end, but tomorrow I’m taking only Second Chances with me to Starbuck’s. It’s at a point right now where the first two chapters have a skeleton. I wouldn’t be comfortable setting the story aside without at least fine tuning a few things in it first.
I’m going to give Amber Marie a sister. Jason already has a sister, so I’m going to introduce some of his staff as well. Then it’s a matter of filling in the backstory a little better than “and then this happened, and then that happened, and then…”
Though I haven’t received an e-mail confirming it yet, I think I will also have a meeting with the bride and groom from a couple months ago with the order for their pictures. She e-mailed me yesterday saying they were ready, so I might as well take care of that tomorrow, too.
I watched a movie instead. I watched Maverick last night, the one with Mel Gibson and Jodie Foster. I’d forgotten this exchange:
Maverick: I’ve just noticed something.
Annabelle: What?
Maverick: You can’t help it can you?
Annabelle: Mmm?
Maverick: You are irresistible.
I don’t know why, but that exchange just really tugged at me. I know it’s total pick-up line material, but it’s all in the presentation. And Mel can present.
Well, crap.
Look at this. Look at this mess I’ve made. Because I listened to my muse (Gabby, I still love you, so please don’t leave me), I’ve been working hard on Second Chances… writing, plotting, character sheets (!?!)… even thinking about the perfect cover and the perfect model to cover the cover with. So you’d think that Second Chances is my Number One manuscript, wouldn’t you?
Well, it’s not.
Number Two?
Nope.
I have been working like hell to make my Number Three manuscript the most awesomest piece of literary accomplishment of my entire authorhoodness. Do you remember me telling you that Sea of Dreams has a self-imposed deadline of August 15th? Have you noticed lately how many times I’ve been posting about progress bars and word counts?
I’m so screwed.
I want to be a published writer (or at least an about to be published writer) by the end of the year. I’ve got to make some choices, and either move Second Chances to the top of the pile officially, or concentrate on Sea of Dreams.
Oh, and Gabby’s reminding me not to forget about Angel in Disguise or LM might get upset.
Me: “Um, here.”
::hands a plastic bag with a few clothing items to co-worker::
CW: ” ”
::co-worker stares at me, not sure what is going on::
Me: “Your daughter left these at my place Saturday.”
::co-worker nods::
CW: ”Thanks.”
Me: “Sure.”
The results are in for the 2006 contest. Here’s the winning entry:
Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you’ve had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.
Jim Guigli
Carmichael, CA
But I really like the runner up:
“I know what you’re thinking, punk,” hissed Wordy Harry to his new editor, “you’re thinking, ‘Did he use six superfluous adjectives or only five?’ - and to tell the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement; but being as this is English, the most powerful language in the world, whose subtle nuances will blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel loquacious?’ - well do you, punk?”
Stuart Vasepuru
Edinburgh, Scotland
The Romance category winner was this gem:
Despite the vast differences it their ages, ethnicity, and religious upbringing, the sexual chemistry between Roberto and Heather was the most amazing he had ever experienced; and for the entirety of the Labor Day weekend they had sex like monkeys on espresso, not those monkeys in the zoo that fling their feces at you, but more like the monkeys in the wild that have those giant red butts, and access to an espresso machine.
Dennis Barry
Dothan, AL
Take a look at the category winners and honorable mentions here.
