8: 25 am: Queenie and Sailor Boy are off. The kettle is on. The document is opened and I have typed my first sentence, which is: “[Redacted] presided over the head of the table, his back straight, his coat buttoned to the neck and still bearing every medal and insignia [redacted] had ever awarded him.” I know, I don’t think it’s my best work, either. That’s what revisions are for.
9:35 am: Tea brewed, clothes put away, twitter read. Wrote 350 words. My favorite of the bunch: “bulbous.” And now that I’m fortified with caffeine, maybe the next hour will go better.
10:35 am: Had shower. Sent list of recent ARC requests to publisher. Replied to a few emails. Wrote 150 words, including the word “nepotism.”
11:30 am: Cut 600 words. I may have added some in there too, but sum total is negative. Had epic email exchange regarding covers, for me and other people. Made plans for this weekend. Watched a book trailer that I thought at first was a parody of book trailers (lots of bombastic music over cliched, meaningless floating phrases). Sadly, was not, but I do think Funny or Die needs to get on that kind of thing, soon.
12:25 pm: 375 words. Plus I talked to Carrie.
1:30 pm: lunch
2:30 pm: read for an hour. Back to work. 200 words.
3:30 pm: sidetracked by admin. Grrrrr. 300 words.
4:30 pm: My computer is acting up. I still manage 350 new words.
5:30 pm: Pick up kidlet from daycare. Go to dinner.
6:30 pm: Visiting hour.
7:30 pm: wrestle a very resistant kidlet into bed. She’s got a cold, poor thing, so she does not want to go to sleep.
8:30 pm-10:30 pm: cleaning out computer as I watch TV.
11 pm: BED.
Verdict: Not very much. I think I got about 1k out today. But now that my computer’s nice and clean, I may not lose momentum as much on Thursday.
I am participating in NaNoWriMo this year, though I think, officially, I’m cheating. Because I’m working on an already-started book, which is, according to the NaNo rules, “punishable by death.”
Seriously, that’s what it says.
However, in chatting about this with Carrie the other day, we came to the conclusion that published authors can cheat at NaNoWriMo, firstly because we’ve already achieved the stated goals of NaNo, which is to get off your butt and write already, and secondly because the chances we’re able to start a new book from scratch precisely on November 1st is… not so much.
Who am I kidding? I think anyone can cheat at NaNo. The point is to write, right? Get to 50k. Everything else is details.
In the end, I decided it was better for both me and the universe (and my buddies in WRW, for whom I am this year’s NaNoWriMo coordinator) that I do it this way than not do it at all. No harm, no foul.
So what I did decide to do was count everything I’ve already written in the novel as zero. And since I have, I’m estimating, about 50k left to write on the novel, it’s perfect. So, starting from zero on November 1st, I now have, this lovely Friday morning, 7,773 words. I need to write another 2400 today to stay on track, since I suspect I won’t get much of a chance to write on the weekends.
Anyone else doing NaNoWriMo? I’m “dianablue” on the site. Friend me and we’ll cheer each other on!
When you write a novel it’s like a boat-load of short stories, with the same characters, and they tie together, right? So how would someone with great ideas get them onto paper if they don’t have the time to sit down and write? Me, for instance.
Hi, T.! That’s awesome that you want to write (a novel or short stories), and that you have some great ideas. You have some very good questions.
Let’s take this one at a time.
1) No, a novel is not really like a boatload of short stories, even if the short stories have all the same characters and are interconnected. Short stories are their own discrete items that exist unto themselves.
This is a short story:
This is a bunch of connected short stories:
This is a novel:
A novel is a great big complex thing that all needs to hold together, so it is a lot harder to do than a short story. At least, for me. I have friends who would much rather write a novel than a short story, because then the get to put all those flowers and such together, whereas their short story would topple over under the weight and actually not exist as the bite-sized confection it ought to be. They have different needs, novels and short stories.
But if it’s easier for you to think in terms of writing small things rather than big things, then do so. Because that wedding cake up there? Was decorated one flower at a time. The first time I wrote a novel, I was very scared that I wouldn’t be able to finish it, even though it was going to be a very short (60,000) word novel.
(I say “short” now. At the time when the most I’d ever written was a 25 page college thesis, that seemed enormous. But now I’ve written 120,000 word novels, so 60k seems like nothing by comparison.)
How did I do it? See below:
2) Novels are not written in days or weeks or even, necessarily, in months. Some people take years. There are novels that I have been working on for years.
The first time I wrote a novel, I told myself that all I had to do was write one page every day. That’s it. Just one. If the page had a lot of dialogue, so much the better. And I made myself a deal. I really, really wanted to join a writing organization, but the dues were $100, which was an enormous amount of money for a poor, underemployed college graduate living in New York City. So I told myself if I finished writing a book, a whole book, then I had proved that I was serious enough about this writing thing to deserve to spend the money on that organization.
Maybe your “carrot” is something different. Maybe you just want to prove to yourself that you can do it. All you have to do is write one page a day. At the end of the year, you’ll have a whole book.
Don’t tell me you don’t have time. You have time to write one page a day. When I did this, when I first graduated from college, I had two jobs plus I was trying to get freelance work from newspapers. Set your alarm clock for 20 minutes early. Choose not to watch TV in the evening. Use your lunch period not to talk to friends, but to go sit somewhere quiet and write while you eat your sandwich.You have to make sacrifices.
If you don’t have time for that, then no, you can’t write a novel. There were periods in my life when I didn’t have time for that. When I had a newborn baby, for example. Maybe you’re going through a time like that. Maybe you’re caring for an ailing parent, or currently in combat, or working four jobs to keep a roof over your head, or you’re on a reality TV show that requires twenty-four hour surveillance, or you’re in a coma in the hospital. That’s okay. Don’t beat yourself up.
One page a day is 250 words. If you can do that even five times a week, by the end of the year you’ll have over 65,000 words. That’s a novel. You’re done. If you’re writing a long novel, well, bump it up to 7 days a week, or do it for 18 months.
Using this method (and, I’ll be honest, some cramming) I have written TWELVE novels, SIX short stories, FOUR longform non-fiction essays, half a dozen unfinished novels and proposals, four newspaper features, dozens upon dozens of food reviews, and hundreds of blog posts since 2002. And I’m lazy. I know a lot of people who have done like five times that much.
So if I can do it, so can you.
This year, I’m doing NaNoWriMo, which is a fun project in which I promise to write 50,000 words in 30 days. It’s not going to happen. But I’ll have fun trying. The last time I did NaNo, I did 10k in a week, and then had to put it aside to work on another project. But that’s 10k I didn’t have before.
But you don’t have to do it like that. Start with asmall goal. One page a day. You can do it!
On Monday, I cleaned all her NB clothes out of her drawers in the nursery (sniff! sniff!) while she enjoyed her mobile (she’s finally noticing it!). Then we went to pick up my neighbor from nursery school. When we got home, she napped while I made turkey stock out of the Thanksgiving leftovers and did some mail. Then we packed up Rio and took her to the park for our first ever “just the three of us” walk. Which went really well. We stopped at the grocery store on the way home and picked up some bay leaves (I was out) for the stock, and I grabbed a package of muffins as well, which I made when SB got home. We had leftovers for dinner, as that’s what you do the week after Thanksgiving.
On Tuesday, I went to the dry cleaners with all our winter coats, since the temperature has dropped a ton in the past week and Sailor Boy need his wool coat for the first time this year. I bundled up the lil’ bit and we took Rio down to the park for a big long hike (my first since I was about 8 months pregnant). She slept for about 2 of the 3 miles, and then for the better part of the next hour in the car, as I went to a new mom class. After that, we went to lunch with some other new moms. I got a chance to chat with Carrie in the afternoon (yay, “work”) and we brainstormed some stuff for our books. We both have a bunch of short stories to write in the coming months. Then I cleaned hte kitchen. Then I went out with a friend and had my first martini since January (yay! Martinis!) Since it was my first, unfortunately, it threw me for quite the loop, and I went to bed early.
Goals for the day: Walk Rio again (providing it’s not too rainy and Rio is feeling okay — see below). Call insurance company (some moron scraped up my left rear bumper in a parking lot some time this weekend). Call vet (Rio’s been limping on her front left paw and I can’t figure out what part hurts). Go to Post Office (for reals). Make more turkey stock (I couldn’t fit the whole carcass in the crock pot). And maybe, just maybe, do some actual writing work. After all, it’s December now.
Sailor Boy has gone back to work, and, as my father keeps reminding me, if I were at a real job, my maternity leave would be up, so I guess that means that I, as my boss, should be firing me, as my employee, given that my company (i.e., me) does not qualify for FMLA.
But can I, as my boss, decide that my employee, me, can take the full 12 weeks? I think I can. Which gives me four more weeks to ease my enlarged-by-50% office workplace into a new schedule. I know how lucky I’ve been — to have so much help for two whole months (my mom stayed here for the first month after the baby was born), but now I have to figure out how to handle things on my own. This past week I took the baby with me to the grocery store for the first time (she was great!) and she slept all morning while I cleaned the kitchen and prepared for a Thanksgiving dinner.
I wonder if she’s trying to lull me into a false sense of security?
Today, we’re going to the post office and the dry cleaners, and making turkey stock with a leftover turkey carcass. If I’m feeling really good, I may take Rio out for her first walk with just the baby and me (up until now, I’ve either walked her alone or brought someone else to help while I carried the baby).
As for work work, I’m mostly in the daydreaming phase. It’s been a while since I put any words down on paper. I hope to start easing myself back into that this wek as well, starting with getting a print out and reading through my current WIP.
I know I’ve been very absent from this space this month, but with good reason. I’ve been trying to fulfill my New Year’s Resolutions. In fact, I’ve already fulfilled several of them. Like the bit about signing a new contract. And half of the bit about writing two books this year. That’s right, I wrote a book this month. A short book, but a book nonetheless.
Now you can understand why I didn’t have time to blog.
I promise to be better about it in February.
Off again, since I have a few thousand more words to get down this month. And then, thank goodness, the pace lessens somewhat.
I was reading Justine’s blog the other day and saw her post talking about which of her old ideas she was writing and how few of them were things she thought she’d be working on. I went and looked back at my most recent post about the subject, which is from May of this year, and was kind of shocked. Because, um, I don’t even remember what two of the four projects I mentioned are right now. I do write all my ideas down, though, so I’m sure they are still around, but I haven’t the foggiest what in particular I was talking about.
As for the other two, things are still in progress. I’m still working on one of the projects, and I recently submitted a proposal that included the other. So… yay. We shall see if anything comes of those.
The two untitled 2010 releases I mentioned in that post now have titles: Ascendant, the second of the killer unicorn books; and “The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn”, which will be released as part of the Zombies Vs. Unicorns anthology.
Also, in Brazil, we shall see the release of Rites of Spring (Break).
I also have two more releases planned for 2010, and hopefully I shall be able to talk about them soon. (!!!) Speaking of those two unnamed releases, that’s what I’m working on finishing up right now. Hardcore. And that’s basically the first month of 2010 for me right there.
And after that, we’ll see. What I work on come February of 2010 is a bright and beautiful mystery, dependent on the far more prosaic circumstances of what I sell. One of the interesting facets of this job is how much it changes depending on where I am in my contracts. What my “job” was in 2009 was a very different thing than it was in the three years of full time-writing that came before that.
2009 started out in a rough patch. One of my imprints was folded up; one of my books had its release date pushed back. That winter, I was pretty depressed about both of these things, but in retrospect, I realize I was lucky. Unlike a lot of titles in this recession, neither of my books was canceled. When Tap & Gown came out, it was well-received by my fans, and Rampant had an amazing release. During the spring, however, I was pretty sure the publication delay was going to kill me. I wasn’t used to the scheduling of YA, and I’d already waited so long for it to hit the shelves. To my regret, I let my disappointment and anxiety drag on me way too much last spring and summer. I’ve always thought my publisher made the correct decision in delaying the release, but given my massive anticipation, I felt like a kid being told I had to wait until Easter to open my Christmas presents. I’ve learned my lesson in that regard. Sometimes books come out when you expect them to. Sometimes not. Either way, moping’s not going to do me much good.
As the year progressed, things got considerably better, in large part because I was working hard. I was offered two short story contracts (my first two ever), as well as the secret project. I got my first-ever royalty check. I had my first viable “new ideas” since 2005 (the year I came up with Secret Society Girl and killer unicorns), and wrote proposals for them both. It actually turned out to be a pretty good year, though there were parts of it that had me worried.
My career is very young, and though I’ve been warned that in this business that there are up years and down years, I hadn’t properly prepared for it. And again, I’m really lucky. A NYT bestselling friend of mine told me about how she went 12 years between releases at one point in her career. Seen in perspective, 2009 wasn’t actually a “down year.” I had two books out (and a non-fiction collection) and I ended up selling several new projects. The moral of 2009 can be best summed up in the immortal words of Dorie the fish from FINDING NEMO: “Just keep swimming.” Just keep writing, keep getting projects out there, and see what happens. I took this mantra to heart especially in the latter half of 2009, accepting opportunities that came my way, and seeking out new ones.
(In fact, I just (this week) got an offer, which goes to show you that things do happen at Christmastime.)
That my takeaway from this last year is about focusing on my work will doubtless surprise no one who has been in this industry for any length of time. “Protect the work” is a truism for career writers, not only because the work is the only thing we have utter control over, but also because it’s the only thing that truly satisfies. However much I love a good review (and believe me, it’s a LOT), the thing that has me singing and skipping after a long day at the keyboard is having had a long, productive day at the keyboard. I adore “having written” (to misquote Dorothy Parker), because that — more than seeing my book on the shelves or getting an email from a fan or reading a good review — is what reminds me that I am working at my dream job. Creating these stories, getting so excited about them — that’s the very heart of my job.
Now I’m looking at 2010. What exactly it will contain isn’t clear to me yet. If everything goes as I hope it will, 2010 will be whirlwind of writing, even as it’s also a whirlwind of releases. (Again: four!!!). My goals are pretty lofty this year. We’ll see if I can hack them.
Goals for 2010:
Paint rooms in house I want painted.
Write at least two novels.
Finish Secret Project #2. (Please note: this might be one of the 2 novels, but I’m listing it separately, since I really want to write THIS ONE especially.)
Take Rio to agility classes.
Install bookshelves in rec room.
Go on a real vacation with Sailor Boy.
Redecorate master bedroom.
Make a podcast.
Sign a new contract.
Plant a garden again.
Read at least 50 books.
Write a totally unexpected project of some sort. (I did this in 2009 and it was inspiring.)
Unsurprisingly, more than half of the respondents to yesterday’s poll were like “Whatever, Carol. Tell me more about Poe.” I am curious if the response would have been similar had the poll been “What about Amy?”
Anyway, I’ve got a big fat working month ahead of me that has unfortunately started a week and a half late. But I shall not despair! And I shall begin each day with these forty, inspirational speeches (in two minutes):
I will also be participating in the sweating this round, though mine may not be lasting the full on 70 days. This is the goal:
We’re looking for a total word count between 60-100k. This means between now and May 16, (77 days total, 7 ‘free’ days worked into the calendar), you will write 850-1500 words a day.
Are you up for it? For me, I’ll be finishing the unicorn book, and then getting a big chunk of Knights In Black Polyester done.
A few tricks that work for me when you are staring at that “white bull”:
1. Get up first thing in the morning and write for fifteen minutes before doing anything else. This will set your mind in “writing mode” for the rest of the day.
2. Turn off the email.
3. Read the scene you wrote last night right before going to bed. This will keep it in your mind.
What works for you? What will you be working on for the next two months?
