Last Monday, one of my occaisional guilty pleasures, The Baub Show, hosted Dave to talk about his new project. It seems Dave is writing a book. And I had no clue the man was a writer. I listened, with rapt attention to Dave’s idea and process. Read 12 of those ‘I did this for a year’ kinds of books and then…write a book about it. Genius, eh? I’d buy it, Dave. I swear. I mean, I bought Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (didn’t read it, but…), so it’s safe to say, I’d buy that. And I might even read it.

Dave runs a blog, a Tumblr, I guess, which is pretty neat because it doesn’t allow for comments, so there’s no hecklement and harassification (I made those words up, because I am a writer. Language is alive, or so I hear), just you and your material. Today’s post reinforces something he said on The Baub Show last week and totally, totally defines my writing experience right now:

1) “I am not a woman who enjoys process. I am a writer who does not enjoy writing.”

I feel you Adrienne Martini. I love writing, but I love avoiding writing even more. You know, obviously. But I promise to do better going forward.

…

3) “That’s what I like about [the] Mary Tudor [pattern]. The pattern is for just one size. That’s it.”

“But is that going to look good?”

“Probably not. But it’s about finishing it, not wearing it,” I say.

Word. The possibility that this project might someday turn into a book, while exciting, is making me evaluate it as it goes, making me less enthusiastic about plowing forward with it when I’m not sure how the end result will read. Some things are just about doing, about finishing. Like the Marathon: I knew I wasn’t going to win, or even look good in the dri-tec t-shirt. I just did it, and I used to just do this, and I need to get back to it.

To be continued, really.

It always strikes me as kind of funny, in an ‘wow, that’s amazing’ way, to hear writers talk about how they aren’t just rushing toward the keyboard everyday and ideas just aren’t pouring out of them all the time and they aren’t deep fountains of pontifications. I wonder if Stephen King wastes time watching Reality TV while his latest novel sits somewhere in his study? Does Nora Roberts accidentally-on-purpose leave her outline at home in some purse and so, oops, she can’t pound out that new chapter? I guess probably not, but us “regular” people, us writers toiling down here near the soil, it’s not an everyday, turned on thing. I might be inspired about 4 days a month. TRULY. The amount of times that I’ve re-written 2500 words of a chapter would blow your MIND.

Like Dave, I don’t so much hate writing. I don’t hate thinking and plotting and planning and mulling over conversations and actions and settings in my mind. Actually what I hate is not writing. When I don’t have ideas, or I don’t feel like it, or I read the first 2500 words and go, ‘woof’, and close the page and watch another episode of Criminal Minds. Readers of this blog know that I regularly question whether I should call myself a writer. Anyone can put words on a page. At least that’s my opinion.

His second point hits me so strongly. Earlier today I was shaming myself. I keep thinking about that book I was going to write this year that I haven’t managed to get past Chapter 1, on. For some reason, calling it a book was so intimidating and daunting. It was like every word was sealing its fate and every sentence or paragraph or chapter was going to cement my chances of getting published. Even if I decided to publish myself, it’s still so much pressure to open up and tell people, “uhhh, so I wrote this book and uh…. you could, you know, buy it. Or whatever.” OH My. God. Would never happen. I’d be the worst self promoter ever!

As well, I’m so lately struggling with motivation and ideas. When am I NOT struggling with motivation and ideas? Seriously. Anyway, I said all that, not to say that I always feel better to see another writer struggling to actually write. I actually don’t feel alone and I feel a bit of a kinship and I don’t feel like a freak. The blogs and twitter are just full of people #writing. So much writing! 800 words! Woo! Rewrote chapter 7, alright! Got my book sold! Yay!

Me? I’m avoiding Chapters 51 and 17.

By the way, Same Time Next Week came calling last weekend. I rewrote several chapters, lopped off the diseased end and am starting forward from a new spot, without resolving all of my conflict. I think. Errr. I’m actually waiting on a friend to read the latest revisions and give me some notes back before I start up again.  In the meantime, I have more to add to the saga that is All I Wanna Do.

Looks at Chapter 51. Again. I swear I am not going to close it.

Since I was having such a hard time with the last chapter of AIWD, I was longing for something new and different to write, to get me out of the funk. Something easy, or something that came to me easier, instead of struggling over every word and trying to make them string together and make perfect sense. And then….

Same Time Next Week… the bane of my existence… my unfinished 2009 NaNoWriMo… the story that was not going to be finished… started talking to me. It started telling me where I could back the story up to and where I could lop off the diseased portion and where I could take the story from the new jumping off point. I’ve been rearranging the last two days and tonight actually added new words. And got to a point tonight that makes me excited to jump in tomorrow. DRAMZ, ya’ll!

Ugh. So excited. And so happy that ideas are flowing, and that I’m not struggling. I just needed to focus on something different, and this story is much looser with language and sexuality so I can uh… let some things flow. LOL. I guess I just need the release and every once in while I need to pull myself out of AIWD and do something else. Since I can’t quite get started on that Criminal Minds fanfic. HA!

But seriously, it’s still rolling around in my brain. *smacks self* Stop it!

My only issue is how to post the new version at the archive because I already have great feedback on what’s there and some of that gets replaced. I’m hoping it will be alright to close the old version and re-upload the same story but a Redux version. So many things are moved around and added that it’d be hard to go in and edit the old chapters. And then the feedback wouldn’t make any sense.

But I think I want to finish it, before I even start to thinking about that…..but it’s nice to think about.

It is month end, which means another update to my Get Your Words Out tally. Last month was a banner month for writing, and this month I did even better. I’ve been on a few “missions” the last couple of months, which is generating a lot of words. This makes me happy.

My total for the month of June, through about 5pm today, is 40,001 words. WOW! I hit about 35K words last month, which was my biggest month so far. Half of that is some thought and pontificating about changing my life and sharing pieces of myself over at the Diary.  The other half, I am happy to say, are additions to my story All I Wanna Do! I managed to get 2 chapters in last month, which is great! Got to keep it goin’!

My grand total for the year now is 203,927. That means I have fewer than 100K words until I hit my 300,000 mark. Uhm, seriously? I’m totally gonna make that. I have at LEAST 50,000 words left of AIWD, if not more. Plus NaNo is coming up in October- not sure if I am doing it yet, and a friend gave me an idea for something new that’s niggling at me. I’ve been laughing off the idea but damn if it’s not writing itself in my head!

Maybe in July. Maybe.

In all, I’m pleased with the progress! To think I was worried…………

Anyway, my numbers this month turned out pretty well– 39,400 words for the month. Total of 163,926. I am officially OVER halfway to my 300,000 goal. Amazing. Now for sure if I do NaNo this year that will put me over 300K, but I’m not sure I’m doing NaNo. I guess we will see once October comes and we’ll see if I have any ideas.

Til then, onward! I’m still ‘just writing’ and trying to plow through my storyline. Pen in hand,

it’s a loooonnnggg weekend, and coming up on the end of the month, which means a  GYWO word count, yay! I actually got back to some writing this month, which feels good. Getting away from needing a pat on the back for every little step and just… writing (even though I did send a very rough draft to a friend for reading because I am special like that. And she was bored. Sue me), so I’ll be adding more to that story before I go back and edit words out. I wrote them so I am counting them!

I also finished A Reliable Wife this morning. Erm. Interesting. It took me so long to finish this book I don’t even know if I can review it but I will try and post it up here. I might have bought a couple of books today…… okay I did buy a couple of books today. They seem to be oldies but goodies but I flipped through them at Target and they looked interesting. I got The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and Go Ask Alice, author anonymous.

Looking forward to reading them both!

The archive that I use to host my stories (and a lot of archives use) is efiction. It makes it easier to track and post chapter stories and even categorize your works. There’s a limit to how many characters you can post in one chapter. On mine I think it’s like… 50,000 characters or something like that. Elsewhere, the limit is lower, which translates to about 10,000 words, give or take.

Now, to some 10,000 words is an entire story. For me, for a serial story, it’s a mere chapter. I know, I write a lot. I’m wordy. It’s a blessing and a curse. I’ve found myself, over the course of telling this tale, tailoring my words to the word limit instead of letting the story tell itself. This amounts to undue pressure and stress and breaking the story up into chunks that don’t really seem to gel, if you read it all at once. It comes through like vignettes and not a complete story, something I may or may not fix once I finish it.

So my new approach is to just write. Not try to figure out what is going to happen chapter by chapter. I’m just writing. I’ll split it up into chunks later, edit so that they string together nicely, but I’m just going to write, write, write until it’s done.  There is the small matter of reviews (feedback) that come with posting a new chapter. They are quite encouraging and it’s nice to know I’m being read. I’m not sure how I’ll make it without them but I’ll find a way, I’m sure. Maybe once I get stuck on a certain part I will start posting chapters, much like I did with Same Time Next Week, where I didn’t start posting chapters until week 3 of NaNoWriMo.  Who knows??? I just know I’m going to try not to stress about it, and just write for the enjoyment of writing.

I so miss that, from the early days, rushing home to open Word and pound out a few thousand words.  Fan fiction used to be my practice. Writing used to be fun.  Time to get back to that, pull my head out of my…behind…. and write.

I’m also remembering that I had set a goal this year to write something new, some shorter stories. I’ve written two, I think– The Storm And Try to Say No (which needs to be added to my archive, I see). More, more, more I say!

Feeling renewed and inspired,

I wish I could capture some of this momentum to fix and finish Same Time Next Week. *looks at it* *looks away* *sighs*

Baby steps.

Coming up on AIWD are a few chapters I’ve been thinking about for a long time but I really have no plans as far as how to execute them. I don’t want to put a lot of time and space between updates though. Hopefully tomorrow night I can sit down with my outline and put some ideas together.

Taking the rest of the night off!

My April numbers show it, I feel. I usually hit about 30K words a month. this month I just barely scraped 25K. Got to get on the ball! Right after I take a nap.

I’ve attached the chart that I use to track and submit my numbers. There are corresponding monthly charts behind it that feed into this one. This just gives me a snapshot of where I am. Almost 50%! WOOO! Even given my slackerificness, I am head of the game.

GYWO_2010_Pledge_Tracker

A couple of fests that I’ve signed up for (more to be added):

May 1st- 50 Followers Baking Blogfest, hosted by Charity Bradford

Write a scene where your MC bakes something, anything, good, bad, yummy, burned, anything. Have fun with it, and post it on your blog on May 1st. Bake in space, for a first date, as a cave man/woman, I don’t care. Find a way to incorporate a cooking scene into your wip.

★ May 16th- Flirt Fest Blogfest, hosted by Critique_This_WIP

On Sunday, May 16, 2010 post your favorite flirty scene, either from one of your WIPs, or a brand new one you’ve written just for this blogfest. It can range anywhere from sweet to hot, and any genre is fair game…you don’t have to be a romance writer to participate!

★ May 18th- The “Let’s Talk” Blogfest, hosted by Roni Griffin

On Tuesday May 18, post a short excerpt on your blog of your most sparkly dialogue scene (no, I’m not talking about Edward Cullen).  It can be anything dialogue-heavy–a laid-back chat, an all out argument, a flirty conversation, two friends ribbing each other–whatever.  The options are endless.

Still looking through the list… basically if an idea doesn’t come to me as I am reading the description, I am skipping it. I can’t really ‘make’ myself do these things. I have to be inspired. So far, I am inspired! I’ve already written my Flirt Fest entry and it is being read and critiqued. I’ll continue to edit and perfect until I have to post it.

I’ll try to get to the 50 followers Baking Fest this week. I will be flying to NC for work this week so perhaps I’ll have some time on the plane. If not, I’ll be at a hotel. Wednesday night and flight time Thursday as well to write and have people read it. It’ll probably be fan fic, since I sort of had a scene in mind along that route anyway and I might use it later.

For the Lets Talk Fest, my idea is pretty vague at the moment but I might have something already written that I could submit. I’m pretty good at dialogue so I think that one will be a fun project that won’t make me want to toss the laptop across the room.

Now all I have to do is write something!

I’ve been following Courtney Reese for a couple of weeks now (uhm fellow Criminal Minds fan, HELLO match made in heaven)  and she posted a GINOURMOUS list of blogfests going on… basically where someone issues a challenge to write along a specific topic and then submit their entry. Fun, and it makes people write. I may join one. Or several.

For example, the new writer’s blog Critique_This_WIP has a FlirtFest going on, where the task is to write a flirt scene. How FUN. I don’t have a firm idea right now, but I’m sort of inspired by Pride & Prejudice (it’s about time to watch that movie again) and the scene between Darcy and Eizabeth Bennet, where they are dancing, though Darcy proclaims to not dance, and they’re having a particularly high brow yet very flirtatious exchange. They just don’t realize that they’re flirting.

I have completed a very loose outline of the remaining story in All I Wanna Do. I am encouraged by the fact that I know how it ends. I’m not writing into oblivion. I am trying to think of places where I could skip story– it just doesn’t seem to work. The end is very climactic and everything that’s been talked about in the story thus far is important to the emotion of the ending. I want to be lazy, but I also want the ending to make an impact. So I have to write. SIGH. And I cant just write ‘okay this happened and then that happened’ and have a bunch of lame flashbacks. Unfortunately. It’s not a novel but I like it to read like one. That means I take my time crafting the story. And that means I have to be inspired and motivated and ~feel~ like writing because when I don’t, I end up trashing it and then it’s a waste of time.

Normally, my reading inspires me to write…. it just hasn’t been. I’m smack in the middle of A Reliable Wife. It’s alright. It doesn’t inspire me much but I am trying to plow through it. I may be tempted to buy it on Kindle, just so I don’t have to drag the book with me everywhere I go and I can read it in those off moments I so often have.

Also, remember my search for an active writing community of people that aren’t from the UK? FOUND.  I stumbled onto the Writer’s Digest community. It’s totally active and awesome and there’s so much there that I haven’t had the chance to dig into it much but it is my next stop after I publish this entry!

Which I am doing NOW, because I am cold and I need some tea. And I need to get away from these donuts.