ROW80: Know when to fold ‘em
Well, I’ve already gone against my own advice. I know I said it’s important to keep going even when you hate your WIP, but mine got to be a little too much to handle. The more I write on it, the more holes that present themselves. At this point, I feel like if I continue to write it I am throwing away effort and words that could be put into another project. I don’t mind going back to edit, but if I’m going to do away with entire chapters because I need more worldbuilding, then it’s not worth it.
So, I’ve moved back to working on Drawn Together, my fun contemporary romance novel about an indie comic book artist and a lawyer-turned-comic book shop owner. It’s so much fun to write, and I really love the characters I created. That makes it an easy choice to see me through to the end of NaNoWriMo, and I might even make my 50K word count! I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again–I never thought I’d write a romance novel (instead of just a novel with romantic elements) and I don’t think I’ve ever had as much fun writing before.
I have about 20K more to write on it and planned to finish it in December, so I’m really just getting a head start. I was pretty easily able to write over 4,000 words on Saturday and plan on writing at least that many today. That leaves me writing about 2,800 words per day through Friday, which is tough after a long day in the office, but definitely doable.
As for my other goal, critiquing a novel for my wonderful CP, that is actually going really well. I got an app for my iPad that lets me edit and create Office documents and it features track changes, and that really makes a difference in my productivity. When I am not chained to my desk, I can edit in small portions here and there (and in a comfortable place!) rather than having to knock out 20+ pages per session in my desk chair. I should be done with that critique really soon.
I hope all my fellow American ROW80 participants had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, and good luck to everyone who is sweeping through this last week of NaNoWriMo!
It’s okay to hate your book.
I have a secret. I really hate my NaNoWriMo project at the moment. Somehow I am still managing to write over 1,500 words a day on it, and they’re flowing pretty easily, but part of the reason why is because I just don’t care right now.
You see, when I started writing Touch, I had a pretty developed idea of the premise and I plotted out about 25 scenes in detail. They felt tight and crisp, paced evenly and broken up well. I also knew the end, including the twists that will happen, so I would know where I’m writing to once I finally get to the end of the currently plotted scenes. I also had a pretty good idea of the near-future dystopian Earth I have the book set in, including the technology–or so I thought, anyway. It turns out I didn’t do even close to enough world building, so I have some plot holes big enough to drive a giant manned robot through.
It’s really frustrating and it makes me feel angry with myself, but here’s the thing. This happens. You start writing a book you were really excited about and you realize you actually hate the premise. Or the main character. Or the love interest. You write a page and you hate the dialogue, or the twist you so painstakingly crafted in your mind comes out like a ham-fisted homage to M. Night Shyamalan. It happens all the time.
But unless you’ve figured out through your writing that there is absolutely no way that this premise is going to work for you anymore, you just have to keep pushing ahead. My friend Sasha Devlin says that you have to “Brokeback that book” and refuse to stop writing it even though you want to. I told her I needed that on a t-shirt. Touch, I wish I could quit you. No, really. I wish I could stop writing you right now. But I won’t.
Although I feel like my plot is being held together with duct tape and Jeff Goldblum’s hacking skills from Independence Day, I know that this premise is still solid. I love the twists I know will eventually come into the plot. I love my angry, plucky little heroine and her sassy AI friend. I even love that I have to really dig in and deeply develop this world once I get past NaNoWriMo. All is not lost on this draft, even. I have some great ideas from it, some golden dialogue, and I am sure I can just add on to some of the scenes once I beef up the world around them.
It’s okay to hate your book. You just have to keep on writing it.
ROW80: Finding what works
This week is going really well so far–way better than last week, that’s for sure! I’m going into day 14 of NaNoWriMo ahead of the minimum by 570 words…not a lot, but I’ll take them. It’s feeling really easy to make my daily quota, and it’s because of the writing I’m doing in the mornings and evenings when I’m riding the train.
I have 28 minutes to do nothing but try to ignore the crazy people and block out the screaming children, so I just pop on my earbuds and fire up Writing Kit on my iPhone. I don’t really have the room to pull out my iPad and type most of the time, so I decided to try my phone instead and it works much better than I thought it would. Even though I’m typing with my thumbs, I’m able to get between 500-750 words per ride. My progress gets synced to Dropbox, which then syncs back up to Scrivener when I get home and open up my novel file. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing my session target bar almost complete and knowing that I can relax for the rest of the evening!
The struggle to write after a full day at work has always been tough for me, so I am more than pleased that this strategy is working for me so far. I’m going to keep it up throughout the month and seek to write on the train at least a few days a week after that (it’s also great reading time!) so that I can keep some great momentum going on my upcoming projects.
Hope you are having a fantastic week too, my ROW80 and NaNoWriMo friends!
The Next Big Thing: Touch Me, I’m Alive
So, my lovely ROW80 mistress and Writechat buddy Kait Nolan decided to tag me in a meme all about my current project. Since I can’t resist a good meme, I thought I’d comply and talk about my NaNoWriMo project.
- What is the working title of your book? The working title is Touch Me, I’m Alive. It actually doesn’t work for the incarnation of the story I am actually writing, but it will do until NaNoWriMo is over and this thing is edited.
- Where did the idea for the book come from? Well, it’s a well-documented fact that I love my technology. I never leave the house without at least one gadget on me. So the idea of technology becoming sentient has always been fascinating to me. I don’t think that all technology would necessarily want to just destroy humankind, because so many of us love and rely on it every day. So the idea that a girl and her personal assistant AI could be best friends was intriguing. Originally the story was supposed to be set during the “awakening” of the tech (thus the working title) but I was having trouble making that work plot-wise. So, I went a different route.
- What genre does your book fall under? I am excited to say that this is my first venture into science fiction!
- Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? I actually chose some pictures to represent my characters when I was doing my NaNoWriMo prep. I don’t always do that, but for some reason I kept seeing the Evan character as this certain actor, so I couldn’t just choose someone for him! Just mentally swap the hair color for Milla and Evan and we’re good.
Jennifer Lawrence as Milla
Josh Dallas as Evan
Michael Hogan as Victor
Emma Watson as Lucy, changed last minute from Cassia
- What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? A gifted young woman and her best friend, a sentient AI computer, must join forces with a band of rebels to save mankind from power hungry robots and their loyal human servants. (Wow, it sounds pretty boring when I boil it down to brass tacks.)
- Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? It needs to be finished first! LOL But actually, I am leaning towards the possibility of self-publishing this.
- How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? It’s in the process of being written.
- What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? Oh, that’s really hard. I don’t know. I’d like to think my heroine is smart and spunky, but also vulnerable. Those traits make me think of my first and forever favorite sci-fi heroine, Killashandra Ree from Anne McCaffrey’s Crystal Singer series. This book is absolutely NOT comparable to those, but it’s definitely an inspiration. So is Ann Aguirre’s Sirantha Jax series, but again not even close to comparable.
- Who or what inspired you to write this book? I’ve always wanted to write a sci-fi book, since they are one of my first literary loves, so the idea of trying my hand was very appealing to me. It is really hard though! I didn’t research or prepare quite as much as I normally would, since this was a quickly plotted NaNo project, so I will need to go back and research quite a few things. I would say my love of technology also spurred me to write the book. I named the AI Sara in my original notes on the project, before Apple even introduced Siri. I thought that was kind of a cool coincidence.
- What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? This is the first book in a planned trilogy. This is what happens when all your writer friends write series books and you claim to have never written a series before. Your brain will betray you. Also, there is a pretty cool twist (I think at least) that leads into the next book. I can’t wait to write that part!
Now, apparently I have to tag 5 other writers to talk about their works in progress. So, I am going to tag some of my favorite writer peeps!
Friday Fail: Sinus Infection,The Reckoning
So this week kind of fell apart on Wednesday. I came home from my weekly Team Awesome writing date on Tuesday night and promptly got a spell of vertigo when I went to bed. You know that feeling when you’ve had too much to drink, and when you lie down to sleep it off you stop moving but the room keeps going? Yeah, that, except without any fun imbibing beforehand. It’s happened to me only twice before and it’s a bit scary.
I woke up on Wednesday morning feeling quite sick from all the crazy dizziness and managed to get it to stop long enough for me to go to work. I stayed until lunchtime and decided the doctor was probably in my best interests. On the way to the doctor, I started getting a migraine and all the additional fun that entails. Then, when the doctor saw me, she informed me…I have a raging sinus infection AGAIN and the vertigo is a fun new migraine symptom. Lovely. So, to recap:
Blinding facial pain due to migraine + blinding facial pain due to sinus infection = No writing (or ROW80 check-in, for that matter)
I am feeling a bit better today now that my fever has broken, though I still have a toned down version of said blinding facial pain and I’m so tired I’m about to face plant on my desk. Thankfully I was already almost 2,000 words ahead of my goal, and as of today I’m only about 330 words behind where I should be in order to finish the novella by March 24. So, that’s a relief. I am hoping for a great writing day on Sunday that will help me get back ahead of my goal.
I’m crossing my fingers that I’ll be feeling a lot better tomorrow so I can enjoy the day my husband and I have planned to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary. I hope everyone else is having a great week!
ROW80: Creating a habit
This has been another great week, despite losing a day to a migraine that started Wednesday night and took me out for all of Thursday. I managed only 66 words on Thursday, but I was proud of even getting those down considering how bad I felt! I finally had to shut the laptop because it was just too painful to look at anything bright, even with the backlight turned all the way down on my screen.
I haven’t had the 2K days I enjoyed last week, but I have plugged along steadily and exceeded my daily planned goal by at least a little bit every day but Thursday. It hasn’t always been easy, as I’ve been tired and have a bunch of good new books to read, but I’m still super excited about this project and really enjoying myself while writing it.
This constant push to meet a daily goal has really helped me in re-creating my writing habits. They have been in woeful disrepair for too long, and it feels so good to finally get in the groove again. I’ve written over 6K since Monday and hopefully today I will have a little more time to write and get myself to the 20K mark on my draft! I’m about 2K ahead of where I should be in my planned goal despite losing a day this week, so that feels really great. I’ve added a word count meter to my sidebar to keep myself motivated.
I had two more awesome things happen this week–I found out that I don’t have to strip wallpaper in our house after all! I got one wall almost done, but we were talking with our contractor about retexturing the drywall underneath, and he said that it’d be better and easier to just prime and retexture right over the existing paper! One less step is fine by me. I can’t wait to get to the painting…I have all our colors picked out, except for my studio. I’m still waffling on that one.
The BEST thing about the week happened on Saturday, though…my husband and I scored badges to San Diego Comic Con in July! Tickets went on sale early in the morning and we parked in front of my laptop with our fingers crossed. We were over 10,000th in line when we got into the online ticket waiting room, but we managed to grab two 4-day passes right before they sold out. It’s our first time to go and we’ve both wanted to for a long time, so it will be a fun vacation. I even managed to score us the last room at a hilariously themed but awesome B&B right across from Balboa Park and the San Diego Zoo for our stay. It’s totally affordable, has great amenities, is in a great location, and should get us away from the daily crazy. We’re beyond thrilled to finally visit Geek Mecca.
Finally, my goals for this coming week:
- Keep up the pace on Drawn Together! I am so proud of my current progress and I can’t afford to lose any steam if I’m going to make my goal date and get this thing polished for submission.
- Write a few more non-ROW80 blogs.
- Work on the site for my romance-related alter ego.
How has your week been, ROW80-ers? Are you meeting your goals? Have any lofty new ones for the week ahead? Click here to check out how everyone else is doing.
ROW80: Rocking weekly goals like a boss
I love the incredible feeling of accomplishment that comes from meeting your writing goals. I said I was going to kick it into high gear, and I did. To recap, my goals for last week were as follows:
- Write at least 1,000 words a day on Drawn. More on Tuesday for sure at my writer hangout.
- Set a plan to meet for writing and editing Drawn for the submission call.
This week I ended up writing over 12,000 words. Monday was the only day I didn’t meet my bare minimum goal, and Friday was the only other day I wrote under 2,000 words. The story is flowing so well, and it’s so fun to write. I’ve never written a contemporary romance before, but I love my characters and their voices. I’ve been excited to go to the keyboard every day, and doing it even when I’ve been too tired because I am THAT eager to keep the story moving forward. I even managed to get a bit above my minimum goal on Friday, when I had a migraine. That is a huge accomplishment for me, because even thinking can be difficult when a migraine has taken hold.
I did it all to stay on the plan that I set for myself on Tuesday. I figured out how much time I think I’ll need for editing and a quick run through from my crit group, and planned backwards. I am using David Gale’s awesome tool WriteTrack to keep track of my word count, because it recalculates your bare minimum to reach your goal date based on the amount of writing you log. Right now my bare minimum is down to 1,030 words a day to complete 40,000 words by March 24, but if I keep to my current pace I should finish at least a week early. I’ve been shooting for at least 2,000 words a day, but it’s nice to know that as long as I get about half that, I don’t have to worry.
My goal for the week is simple–keep plugging away on Drawn. I want to get at least my bare minimum per day but am shooting for more like 2,000 words a day to keep my momentum. I’m also planning on setting up a new website for my romance alter ego and doing some blogging. But the main goal and total focus is those words. I am determined to make that anthology call and getting the words on the screen is the only way that’s going to happen!
ROW80: Not so fast, apparently
Let me say this first…I am still feeling VERY positive about this week. Seriously.
With that said, I have not accomplished even a smidgen of my weekly goals so far.
This week has been another high octane one at work. In addition to my daily job of marketing and social media, I’m doing the PR for a new client alongside my boss. I really love PR and how enmeshed it is with social, but it can be time consuming and very quick turn. I spent hours today writing, editing, and editing some more. I’m happy with the results, and more importantly, the client is. But I’m burned out for today. The past two nights I’ve been busy until late and then just fallen into bed, exhausted.
Tonight I don’t have to pull a late one, and I’ve had the opportunity to relax, to do a few chores, to let my brain rest. It’s all I can do to even type a blog post. And you know what? That’s okay. My book will be here tomorrow.
ROW80: Back in Action!
So I kind of fell into a black hole last week called Work. I still absolutely love my new job, but it was a super busy week with a lot to accomplish. I fell into bed exhausted almost every night, my tiredness exacerbated by a lingering headache/migraine that lasted for three days. So, needless to say, it wasn’t the most productive writing week…I really didn’t accomplish anything.
But, I feel refreshed and ready to go. I have the basic plot sketched out for Drawn Together and I am going to fully outline it tomorrow so I can start WRITING! I am really excited about it, because I think it will be fun to write and I’ve never tried my hand at a true contemporary romance novel before.
I also have some blogging to do…it’s hard to blog for me when I am in that zone all day for work, but I know I can do it.
What are your goals this week? Have you had a week get away from you like I did?
ROW80: Birthday week!
So, my birthday is Tuesday, and I tend to have a week-long celebration of sorts. Tomorrow will be fairly low-key, but Tuesday I am going to dinner with girlfriends, Wednesday I’m going for drinks with co-workers, Thursday and Friday are still open for any revelry, and Saturday is my birthday party!
I am smart enough to realize that I am probably not going to get much done this week, so I’m narrowing my focus to the characters in Drawn Together.
I have been working on some character profiles for my two main characters. My goal this week will be to finish them, maybe write a few scenes to figure out their voices, and do some quick profiles for supporting characters. (And do my ROW80 update on Wednesday of course!)
Overall I am happy with my progress…I have kept up with doing a little something on all my goals despite being busy. I really want to kick it into high gear next week so that I can end January feeling accomplished.
In the meantime, I am going to relax, enjoy time with friends, and read on my new Nook Simple Touch (an upgrade from my original Nook, an early birthday gift from my husband!). Have a great week ROW80ers!
authoress of urban fantasy and paranormal, grammar nerd, serious geek
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