(Just Like) Starting Over

Wow … I remembered my password. That’s something, anyway.

Okay, so it’s been awhile. Again. But I am happy to report that I am checking in here with a plan and some enthusiasm to boot, so go me.

This past month, I’ve been working on getting back into the writing groove and finish my novel THIS YEAR once and for all. I’ve never been very good at goals, or deadlines for that matter, and I very rarely make New Year’s Resolutions for that reason, but this year, Scarlett O’Hara style (With God as my witness!) I WILL finish this book. As a started rereading my first draft for the umpteenth million time, I realized (or rather RE-relized) that although I still think with all my heart it’s a fantastic story, I only skimmed the surface of what I wanted to convey through the story. There is so much more emotion and meaning to mined from it. Part of that, I think, is because I never really did any character sketching or story discovery (something I learned about AFTER I wrote my first draft). So, I’ve decided I’m going to backtrack and do that now. I know a lot in my head about my characters, but I’ve never really wrote it down, so that’s what I’m going to do over the next couple of weeks along with some collaging of the scenes and characters so I won’t only have a picture in my mind of what they look like, but I will have some actual visuals of my characters and the made up Colorado town where the story takes place. I think that this process will help me achieve the depth I’m looking for while I do my final revisions. It’s also kind of a fun way to ease myself back into the story and back to getting this thing done.

I’ve tried to cast out my characters before, but the only one I was very clear on was the character of Julian, who I chose the very sexy Eric Bana to portray:

I struggled with who would play my main character, Carly, but I finally stumbled upon this picture of Erin Sanders which is almost exactly how I imagine Carly:

I’m working on finding pictures for some of my other characters, including Carly’s mom, Paula, who is about 35 years old, blonde and very ill, but you can tell that she used to be beautiful. Oddly enough, I’m leaning towards Gwyneth Paltrow for her, but I’m up for suggestions. Also, I need a picture of Ida – who is an older granola hippy type lady, about 55ish, with long graying hair. I’m kind of at loss for that one, so I’d appreciate any ideas if you have them.

I’ve come to realize that the town itself has become sort of a character, so I plan to put some pictures of the town together in a photoshop collage with pictures of my characters. To give you an idea of the town, it’s sort of a mix between the real-life towns of Silver Plume and Idaho Springs (not as small as Silver Plume and not as big as Idaho Springs). Thus the name – Silver Springs.

My next post will be my collage, so stay tuned.

Baby steps … Baby steps.

What a Writer Needs

Lately, as is pretty damn obvious from my lack of blog posts, I’ve been a little stuck in my writing efforts. I’m not talking writer’s block, it’s not that. I still write in my journal close to every day, and even though it’s all pretty much brain barf (a term so exquisitely coined by fellow writer, Karen), words are still pretty much flowing out of my pen with no problem.

But as far as the novel I’ve been working on for … oh, only about a quarter of a century now (you think I’m over exaggerating, but sadly, I’m not) … I’m stuck in the mud.  The story is essentially all there, all written down. I’ve made one round of very rough revisions, I kinda sorta know where all the problems are, and how to fix them. But there’s something missing that I can’t put my finger on exactly, and that’s what has me a bit paralyzed.  The whole thing isn’t geling the way that I’d like it. I’ve been waiting for it to come to me, and I can make out a form in the distance, but every time I grasp at it and try to write it down it disappears. Now it’s been so long since I’ve worked on or mentioned my novel, people have quit asking me about it. Not that I WANT anybody to ask, necessarily. It’s just that it makes it easy for me to ignore it and put it off that much longer. Countless times over the past few months I’ve toyed with the idea of officially giving up on the whole idea. I mean, who am I kidding? I don’t have the time, and when I do have the time, I don’t have the creative energy. And truth be told, I probably don’t have the talent. But the thought of giving up always depressing me to the point of wanting to hide under my covers and never come out. This is what I have that is mine. Something that has nothing to do with anybody else. My thing. For me.

But I didn’t start this post as a pity party. What I wanted to say is one thing that every writer needs is just one person … just one … who keeps needling at you. One person who keeps asking. Not in an accusing, scolding kind of way. Not even necessarily in an encouraging kind of way, really. Just asks. Now, before all of you who haven’t asked start feeling guilty, don’t. I really don’t want everybody in the world asking me about it. No, that would surely drive me crazy. You see, I think that person also needs to be writer. Someone who understands that just finding the time is only a small percentage of the battle. Someone who knows what it’s like to sit down at a blank page and hope the girls in the basement talk. Someone who has pages of pages of brain barf in front of them with the daunting task of shaping them into something coherent.

That person for me these days is my faithful Wiffer friend, Cynthia. I don’t think there has been a week that’s gone by for the past year that she hasn’t poked at me. Some of those weeks were weeks that I’d completely forgotten my story. And when I come back with, “nothing this week” she always understands, but she never ever stops asking. And for that, I am so grateful.

So when Cynthia recently came up with the idea of a September challenge, my first reaction was honestly not a positive one. I wasn’t sure if I was up for a challenge. My track record on challenges lately has been dismal at best. But since it was Cynthia, I felt obligated to give it some real thought. I started thinking about how I got my first draft done in the first place – by sitting my ass down and opening up Scrivener and just writing. What a concept, eh? Some days, the words didn’t come, or if they did come they were crap, but little by little the story started to flow and I found out I couldn’t wait to get back to it, to see what happened next. It was sort of like falling in love. And that’s what I need, to fall in love with the whole process of writing again.

And that, my friends, means I have to have an affair.

No, no. Not THAT kind of affair. I need to cheat on my current novel a bit, and take on another story. I’m not sure what it’s going to be about. I have a few pages of a story I’ve been toying with I might continue, or I might just start something else. The point is, I’m going to come the computer sit my ass down, open Scrivener, click on File, scroll down to New Document, and WRITE. Every day of September starting today (yes it’s the second, but that’s okay). It might be two words a day (like, “this sucks”) or it might be 200, or if I’m lucky, 1000. But it will be words. Kind of a NaNo sort of challenge but without a hard word count. And then maybe (I’m hoping) I can go back to my finished draft, and, well, finish.

Because I’m not giving this up. So there.

Still Alive

Yep, I’m still alive, in case anybody was wondering.

As I alluded to in my last post, oh so many weeks (months) ago, I went through a little bit of a writing slump. I generally don’t like to talk about my problems, but our business was hit pretty hard by the economy, and we’ve been more or less treading water, gasping for breath, trying to ride out the storm, so I literally had no creative energy left after work and cooking dinner each night, which is when I generally have time to write. So I succumbed instead to sacking out in front of the boob tube every night, and letting myself get lost in, appropriately, the show Lost.

That, and I found out revisions are REALLY EFFING HARD. Harder than actually writing the damn thing, especially since I pants the entire first draft without any thought of, you know, STRUCTURE and PLOT. So I’ve had to do a bunch of rewriting and even more cutting to patch things up. My first set of revisions that I did just before the new year were half-assed at best. So now, I finally feel ready to tackle a second set of revisions, this time with very fine tooth comb.

I asked my faithful friend, Cynthia, to keep my on track, and she led me to another Wiffer’s June challenge, Sleepy Jean’s MyNoEdMo. So I’ve joined up with that. My goal for June (and continuing through the summer) is one chapter a week. Currently, I have 15 chapters, so if I keep up with my goal (which I think is pretty doable), I will have a completely revised draft by the end of September and I’ll be ready to pursue some agents.

Right now, Chapter One is kicking my ass, so I’m thinking I’ll turn in what I have to Cynthia and move on. I’ll revisit it again when I’m done with all the rest. I seem to be overwhelmed knowing that the first 3-6 pages have to be enough to spark an agent’s interest, and I can’t get seem to get past that. So my only solution is to keep going and come back to hammer at it some more later.

I’d like to promise to post more often, but we all know how that goes. So let’s just say I will try harder to keep you up to date with my progress, and if you come back here and there are no recent posts, it most likely means no progress is being made. Fair enough?

Filling the Pitcher

A long time ago — or at least it seems like a long time ago — when my boys were babies, I belonged to a group called Mothers of Preschoolers, or MOPS for short. It was a sort of support group for mothers of babies and small children, most of whom were stay-at-home moms, although that wasn’t required. We would get together every other Thursday at the church that sponsored our group, have coffee and a snack, listen to a speaker, and do a craft while our little ones were in the nursery screaming their little heads off  while some poor, patient, caring person took care of them (or at least my children would scream). I don’t remember most of the topics covered by the various speakers we had, mostly because my soul purpose for being there was to be able to sit and drink and entire cup of coffee before it went cold. But one of the talks I remember clearly  was a woman who set a full pitcher of water out on the table along with four water glasses. The pitcher represented a mom and the glasses represented her family. Each time the mom answered to one of her family members’ needs, a little bit of water was poured out of the pitcher into one of the glasses. Baby up all night with a fever? Pour some out of the pitcher. Two-year-old woke up in a puddle of barf and got into bed with you? Pour some more out of the pitcher. Sat for two hours on the bathroom floor reading “Three Little Monkeys” to your toddler while trying to potty-train? Pour some more out of the pitcher. The kids had a baby powder fight in the living room and smeared Desitin all over the walls? Keep pouring. You finally got them both to sleep and drag yourself to bed, and there’s your husband waiting for you with that little grin on his face? Yep, pour out that last drop you were saving for yourself. And what do you know? Empty pitcher.

So, of course, the point of the whole talk was that you’ve got to take time out for yourself in order to “fill the pitcher” in order to be able to fulfill your families needs.

Yeah, right.

Probably one of the biggest reasons I remember that talk (other than the obvious fact that it struck a chord) was that I won the door prize that day (there was a door prize every meeting related to the topic). It was the book “Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy” by Sarah Ban Breathnach. Some of you have probably heard of it — it was a pretty popular book back then (1997ish?). I think Oprah featured it or something. It has a year’s worth of daily entries you’re meant to read each day to reflect on life’s simple joys and blessings. When I got it, I managed to read the first few entries and that was about it. The problem was that I got it in the middle of the year and it starts with January 1st, and even though I suppose you could start any time of the year, I’d skip a few days, forget where I was and it just felt like one more thing I had to do. In other words, at the time, it wasn’t doing much good in helping me to “fill the pitcher”. So, I put it away, figuring that “someday” I’d start it at the beginning of the year as intended. But of course, I eventually forgot about it.

Fast forward to this beginning of this year when my older son asked me if I had a copy of “To Kill a Mockingbird” because he had to read it for his English class. Well, of course I had it. Somewhere, anyway. I dug through some books under my bed, and along with the book my son needed, I found the “Simple Abundance” book and thought about that talk from all those years ago. I knew I was supposed to fill my pitcher, I really meant to fill my pitcher, it was on my list of things to do, really it was. Honest. But truth be told, I never did. And now my pitcher was not only dry, I didn’t even know where the pitcher was. I must have left somewhere on my way to a parent-teacher conference, or maybe it was at some business network meeting, or perhaps I lost it at the dentist office when Jake was getting a tooth pulled. At any rate, it was long gone and I was feeling bone dry. And here it was, only January 4th, so I only had to read four entries to get caught up. So I took it as a sign from the Universe that I really did have to focus a little bit on myself and my spirit, even though it felt just a little bit (okay A LOT) selfish. And you know what? It’s really good. Exactly what I needed right about now.

So that’s what I’ve been doing. I haven’t been writing a whole lot, because as I said, the pitcher was dry. So I’ve needed this last couple of months to sort of step back and regroup and take a long, cleansing breath. I’ve got another full set of revisions to do on my novel and another story waiting impatiently off stage. I’m feeling ready now, so my tentative goal is to tackle two chapters of revisions a week. There are fifteen chapters, so if I have my math right (and I’m horrible at math) that should put me somewheres around April with a completed novel, ready for beta-readers and querying and all that goodness. And stay tuned for this new story because it’s a little different, a little OUT THERE and a little scandalish. To be honest, I’m not quite sure if it’s going to shape into a novel or not, but we’ll see.

The Art of Navel-Gazing

I’m boring the hell out myself with this blog. All I seem to write is, “yeah, I’m still working on the novel, yeah it’s slow-going, yeah it’s frustrating, blah, blah, blah.” I think it’s part of the reason I don’t blog much. I’ll sit down and think “Oh, God, they don’t want to hear that again.” Or “No, I can’t write that, they’ll think I’m crazy.” or “No, that’s navel-gazing, nobody likes a navel-gazer.” or “Stop your whining, everybody’s got problems, nobody wants to hear yours.” So then I give up, and I don’t write anything. I figure I’ll come back when I have something good to say. After all, if you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all, right? Right?

Hmmmm …

One of my favorite authors, Lucy March, recently started a new blog where she is blogging every day up until her 40th birthday, which, in her words, is “a year and some change” away — 506 days from this writing, to be exact. She started it about a week ago, and it’s quickly become my habit to read her blog, along with other friends’ blogs, each morning with my coffee while I try get my brain sparking. Lucy is one of the hosts of my favorite podcast, Will Write for Wine, and has written several novels under the name of Lani Diane Rich. I’ve read most of her books, and have followed other blogs of hers in the past, but I’ve enjoyed this new blog the most. It is, in my humble opinion, some of the best writing I’ve read by her, even though it’s just chronicling her journey to forty, while going through a divorce and making some big changes in her life. I’m pretty sure that, given her situation, a lot of days she has a hard time finding something good to say, but she writes anyway. I think the reason I like it so much is because she’s thrown off all her barriers and is just writing the raw truth, fearlessly and from the heart.

And it’s made me realize something — something really important. That fearless, raw, right-from-the-heart truth is exactly what’s missing from my blog. I skim the surface of what I’m thinking; I don’t go terribly deep. Part of it, I guess, is that I’m not very good at talking about myself. I don’t find myself particularly interesting, and I’m much more interested in other people and their thoughts and their stories. It’s not like I don’t have any good stories myself, it’s just that I usually assume, for whatever reason, people don’t want to hear them. And then there’s the “crazy” factor. Sometimes I think if I really open up and let people know what I’m thinking, they’ll think I’m a nutcase. After all, there are a couple people who read this blog whose kids hang out with my kids, and I don’t want them to think, “wow, I don’t want them going over to that crazy lady’s house”. But logically I know that’s really not the case. I mean, they’ve known me for quite awhile, so they’ve GOT to know I’m a little odd by now. Or, maybe I give myself too much credit. Maybe I want to be strange, but I’m not. Maybe that’s my fear. Hell, I don’t know … my point is that I’ve got to open up more here because otherwise it’s bland and there’s no real point.

So here’s the thing, and I’m warning all of you just in case you want to bail — I’m gonna navel-gaze. I’m gonna whine. I’m going to tell stupid stories about my life. Because that’s pretty much the point of this blog — to share all of that with anybody who is interested and who might be on the same path, with the same thoughts, the same problems and the same brand of crazy. I find I can’t do that very well without a little navel-gazing and whining. I’ve even made a tags called “navel-gazing” and “whining” just to let myself know it’s okay.

Consider yourself warned.

Derailed

How in the world could it possibly have been four months since I last posted? I knew I’d gotten a bit off course, but FOUR MONTHS? No. Wait, let’s see. October, November, December, January. One, Two, Three, Four. My God.

Okay. So I got more than a little off course. Now, to be fair, I did abandon the blog for awhile to focus on revising my novel. But then there was the holidays and I decided to take a break. And now here we are in the new year … a new decade. If you want the honest to God truth, I’ve been in a bit of a slump all the way around. Running a small business in this economy is hard. Raising teenagers in any economy is hard. Writing a novel is hard. And I got really, really sick of everything being so … hard. And I dragged myself into the new year feeling like somehow my emotional thermostat had gotten stuck on “survive” and all I was doing was treading water and hoping that I wouldn’t drown.

But I’m over that now. Life’s hard, I knew that. I’ve always known that. And you know, treading water isn’t all that bad. When I was young, I spent a lot of time at my grandparents’ house in Elkhart, Indiana. They had an awesome house on the St. Joe River. One of my favorite things to do was to jump in the river and swim out to the middle and just tread water while looking up the river. This, I would think to myself, was peace. Just me and the water and the sky. And treading water in that strong river current wasn’t easy. But it was worth it. I miss that river every day.

So I’ve promised myself that I’m going to get back to the business of writing, because now that I don’t have a river to jump into anymore, writing is my peace. I’m going back to getting up early every morning to write and I will try my best to post here every Sunday at the very least to let you all know how it’s going, and to keep myself accountable. I don’t like to make New Year’s resolutions, but if I were to make one, it would be to finish my revisions and get an agent by the end of this year.

So consider me back on track. Again.

Soundtracks and Writing

Okay, here is the soundtrack for my novel, as promised (and finally). As I said, music has always inspired my writing and I was given the idea of setting a soundtrack to my story by some other writer friends of mine. I highly recommend doing this to anyone, as it has been so helpful to me, especially when I feel blocked. As you’ll see, I have a pretty broad range when it comes to taste in music. My iTunes library has everything from Classical to Metal with pretty much everything in between, including show tunes, country, R&B, etc. The only genre I do not like as a whole is Rap, which I’d argue isn’t music, but to each his own, I guess.

I have a theme song for each major character along with at least one song for each chapter:

Carly’s Theme – I’m With You (Avril Lavigne)

Julian’s Theme – Carry On Wayward Son (Kansas)

Paula’s Theme – Fallen (Sarah McLachlan)

Ida’s Theme – Hands (Jewel)

Chapter 1

Heartbreak Town (Dixie Chicks)

Chapter 2

Deep Water (Jewel)

Chapter 3

Eleanor Rigby (The Beatles)

Chapter 4

Lonely Ol’ Night (John Mellancamp)

You and Me (Lifehouse)

You May Be Right (Billy Joel)

Chapter 5

Fallin’ For You (Colbie Caillat)

One Love (Hootie and the Blowfish)

Chapter 6

Hand Me Down (Matchbox 20)

Chapter 7

Give a Little Bit (Goo Goo Dolls)

Hold My Hand (Hootie and the Blowfish)

Absence of Fear (Jewel)

Chapter 8

Play Me (Neil Diamond)

Underneath Your Sky (Marina V)

Let Love In (Goo Goo Dolls)

Chapter 9

If Everyone Cared (Nickelback)

Chapter 10

Oh My Love (John Lennon)

Chapter 11

Pachelbel’s Canon (George Winston)

Come Sail Away (Styx)

As I Lay Me Down (Sophie B. Hawkins)

Chapter 12

When I’m With You (Sheriff)

Love Bites (Def Leppard)

Chapter 13 & BBM (Big Black Moment)

Broken (Lifehouse)

Killing My Dream (Marina V)

How to Save a Life (The Fray)

Iris (Goo Goo Dolls)

Chapter 14

Angel (Sarah McLachlan)

Landslide (Fleetwood Mac/Dixie Chicks)

Far Away (Nickelback)

One Thing (Finger Eleven)

Chapter 15

Silver Spring (Fleetwood Mac)

The Mountains Win Again (Blues Traveler)

Home (Daughtry)

Better Days (Goo Goo Dolls)

Note: I listened to a lot of Goo Goo Dolls, Nickelback and Lifehouse during the time I wrote the first draft, which is why so many songs from those three bands appear on the list. Also, if you’ve never heard of Marina V, she has one of the most beautiful soprano voices I’ve ever heard. Check out her website!

So, what gives?

Yeah, I know. I haven’t been good about blogging, lately. Okay, okay … I suck at blogging in general. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing. In fact, I’ve made a lot of headway on my revisions, and have even written a few extra scenes. I took my BFF’s advise from her comment in my last post and started biting off tiny little bits until it’s finally become a big chunk. So that’s where my focus has been the last few months. I probably wouldn’t be posting right now if it weren’t for this awesome (drink!) post, by my fellow Wiffer, Pamela Cayne. It got me all tingly and inspired to blog again, because it reminded me how important it is to have relationships with other writers, because after all, we are kinda a strange breed and we need to stick together.

Another wonderful thing happened in the last couple of months while I was working on revisions. I found out what my story was all about! Yeah, I know, two years later I finally figured it out. I was having a really hard time figuring out my main character’s motivation and goal, and you sort of need that in a story. But I had faith if I kept meandering around, I’d figure it out. And the other morning? I sat down with my coffee and my journal and wrote a synopsis. Yeah. Just like that. I didn’t intend to write it. I sit down every morning with my journal just to get the cobwebs out of my brain, and out it came. All in one piece, and just like Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way. Maybe one of these days I’ll share it here, but I’m not quite ready yet.

So, now that I know what it’s about, like Pam, I’m going to do a new soundtrack for it. Music has always helped me write, and I slapped together a soundtrack when I first starting writing this book to help me get the essence of each character and some of the scenes. But now that I have a better grasp on things, I’m going to revise it and post it here.

Okay, that is all for now. With any luck, it won’t be as long until I post again, but with me, you never know.

One Step Forward

Wow … It’s been what? Almost six weeks since I blogged? Well, if you’re one of the people who keep checking back, my apologies, and thanks so much for your patience. I’d be surprised if there’s anybody left out there following my blog, but according to my stats, there’s at least a few of you.

There are a lot of reasons I could give you for not blogging, all of which would have a seed of truth to them, but the biggest reason is that I hate to have to bore people (and myself) with whining, and that’s all I’ve felt like doing as of late when it comes to the subject of my writing in general, and my novel in particular. Seems I’ve hit a wall, and have been standing here staring at it for quite a few months now. I’ve made a few futile attempts to climb over it, but all in all, they haven’t amounted to much, and I’ve made very little progress since I finished my first draft.

Okay, I’m just going to go ahead and say it. This whole revision thing sucks. I guess it just all comes back to the fact that I haven’t a clue what I’m doing. It’s just so dang overwhelming, and when I feel overwhelmed, my first reaction is to do absolutely nothing. So I guess it should be no surprise to me that I’ve been staring at this wall for so long. I just plain don’t know where to start. I’ve read over my manuscript several times and there is just SO MUCH to fix. Where do I start? I know, I know, Glenda told Dorothy that it’s always best to start at the beginning, but my yellow brick road seems to be covered with weeds and I can’t find it. If I could just clear those weeds of self-doubt, maybe I could find it. I’ve always struggled with being too hard on myself, and it takes absolutely nothing to trip me up and get me to start ragging on myself.

However, I’m so in love with my story, it keeps pulling me back. It calls to me and reassures my that I can do this. I just need to keep moving forward, one step at a time. It’s painfully slow, but I’ve got to believe I’ll get there … SOMEDAY.

So, I guess my next step is to try and figure out some sort of plan or process for getting these revisions done. So I’m reaching out to you, dear readers (bless all two of you). If you’re a writer, what have you found that works for you. Got any frogs for me to kiss? I’m hoping there might be one or two out there that will turn into my Prince Charming.

Best Laid Plans

Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.

~ John Lennon

I don’t know what it is with me. All the motivational guru types will tell you the best way to achieve your goals is to write them down. They say something like 90% of people who write down their goals, meet them. 

I must be in the other 10%.

No, I write down my goals and I may as well have challenged the Universe to unleash any chaos it can muster to thwart my plans. Truly, I’m not so self-centered to believe the Universe thinks I’m important enough to single out and torture, but sometimes it sure feels that way.

So, I enter this big challenge … the “May Marathon” some of my Wiffer friends came up with … and the very next day, I have a kid up all night barfing. I vow to carry on,  I tell myself that it’s a blessing to be able to stay home with him. I can work on my novel while he sleeps. Two days later, the guy in the car behind me at a red light decides to hit his accelerator before I do and bashes into my poor minivan. That night, my hubby is up all night with the same violent stomach flu as my younger son. And then the next day, my older son came home from school and promptly barfed. So between dealing with car insurance, making Jello, washing sheets and sterilizing toilets, I really didn’t have the time, let alone the mindset, I needed to tackle my novel revisions. And then when I figured the worst was finally over and maybe, just maybe I could dive in and get something done, the toilet I’d been cleaning for the last few days …

Became my very best friend.

I rarely ever get sick, so even though I should have seen it coming, I was completely, stupidly, foolishly unprepared. Furthermore, I found out that now that I’m older, I don’t seem to bounce back from the stomach flu quite as quickly as when I was twelve … which, by the way, is the last time I can remember having the stomach flu. I also forgot how very much it SUCKED!

I’m better now, but I’m not going to say anything about what I want to accomplish this weekend. Not a ding-dang word.

From now on, I think go with the “Just Do It” philosophy. Excuse me while I go look for my Nikes.