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In every race, a runner at some point hits his or her wall. The point in which the mind and body have no will to go on, to keep going. The desire to lie down and curl up into a fetal position looks good and inviting.
Today, I've hit my wall--my writers wall. I look at my nanowrimo story and I think: I have a crazy guy looking for Red (my female character). What am I gonna do with him? I don't know. I have a zombie-loving mother with a rifle. What am I gonna do with her? I don't know. Where's Red and Wen (another character in the novel)? I don't know. How are they gonna get out of this mess? I don't know. I blink. I have no answers. But it’s your story, you say. You should know what you’re doing. True. It is mine. I am the author. But sadly, I haven’t a clue. The characters in my zombie western novel have led me in directions and along paths I know nothing about. I do not plot. I do not outline. I allow the story to take me where it will. Sometimes it ends up being a problem. Like now, when writing a nanowrimo type novel (a novel in a month). There is no time for revisions. Not now. Not in November. December, yes. But November no. In November, I have to write, and write quickly, and then I have to commit myself to what has been written and press forward. My children are in bed and I can't write. I've written myself into a corner, I fear. The concept is good—I like the twists and turns. It could be a great thing if I can figure out what to do next—the writer behind the concept, not so much. I need a Pepsi. I have been without for the past 3 days. It's starting to show.  I have always had an active imagination—even as a kid. Some might even say an “overactive imagination.” In some respects, I would probably have to agree. I can get carried away some times.
Why I make mention of this, is that this morning Callie woke up earlier than usual and came and crawled into bed with Scott and I. “I had a bad dream,” she said. “It was scary.” This got me to thinking: my daughter is sooo much braver than I was when I was a kid. I had bad dreams as a little girl, but there was NO way I was climbing out of my bed to go find my mother. There was NOTHING you could do to make me step foot on my bedroom floor. The obvious reason—there were living things under my bed. Things that would grab my ankles and drag me under and into the dark abyss where monsters and boogiemen reside. Nope. No way, was I getting out of that bed. Instead, I would scream for my mother until she came for me. It is a well-known fact that monsters do not like mothers. It’s true. (My mother has never seen a monster, and now that I am a mother myself, I have yet to lay eyes on one as well). I also believed that if I lay in the very middle of my bed—the VERY VERY middle—no monsters could reach me. Because everyone knows, especially little girls, that though monsters are HUGE, their arms are not. Their arms can’t stretch to the middle of the bed, only the edges. So I did not want to accidentally be found sleeping or resting near the edge, not even if my bed was pressed up to a wall on one side—monster arms can be thin and still slide up the side of the wall. I also made sure my closet doors were closed each night too. I could NOT have it opened even a crack. Monsters live in closets too (just ask Disney). I fully believed these things. I remember having two large stuffed lions (carnival game prizes someone gave to me) and I would place them on either side of my bedroom room. They were big, maybe two feet high, and they looked scary with their red and pink fur. They were my protectors. I also believed that stuffed animals had souls and feelings. I would struggle in picking only one doll or one stuffed animal to sleep with at night, fearing I would hurt the feelings of the ones I had not picked. I had tried to come up with a rotating system, so everyone could have their turn. I tried for equality. (Funny thing, I still feel bad for the stuffed animals Callie does not choose to sleep with. I look at them sitting there, hopeful). When Toy Story was released, it confirmed everything I had ever believed. Toys are real. Obviously, I was not the only one who believed as I did—Disney did too. Me and Disney, we’re like this (crossed fingers—tight). Anyway, I still have bad dreams. Awful, end of the world, apocalypse type dreams. I kid you not. My first was when I was a teenager. I still remember it to this day—men on horseback rounding people up to slaughter. Since then, I get one every so often—the world burning while I hide in a cave as hot lava pours down the sides of the mountain; buildings falling in on people, like sand, crushing them; 9-11 dreams where I am in the towers, the building is burning and I am trying to call my loved ones to say goodbye; I even had my very first zombie dream several weeks ago (this dream is going to be a scene in the zombie-western I’m writing. Creepy) Now this dream, I blame myself. Zombies have been on my brain a lot while I was preparing for NaNoWriMo, so dreaming about them was bound to happen. But the others, I have no idea where those come from. Crazy? Maybe. Imaginative—OH YEAH! Perhaps that is why I am a writer. My brain is TOO full of creative things (It is. Don’t look at me that way) and so writing is my outlet. I have mentioned before, I have been writing ever since elementary school. I was told by my sixth grade teacher (years and years later, when I ran into him and asked him if he remembered me), that I wrote the longest short stories of anyone he had ever taught. I am different. I know it. I overheard a lady at one of my book clubs mention that to go away on a writing retreat would be torture for her. She couldn’t think of anything worse than to have to write for hours and hours at a time. I had to stop her right there and insert myself into the conversation, because to go away on a writers retreat and write for hours and hours without interruption or having to participate in the rituals of everyday living (dishes, laundry, yelling kids, etc, etc . . . ) would be my DREAM. I would LOVE it. I think that’s what I want for my 40th birthday—send me off by myself somewhere nice to write, and relax (maybe hit a spa too) would be a great gift. I hear Hawaii is perfect for that kind of thing. I am grateful for my overactive imagination. It helps me create novels. I love it. I embrace it. Except when I hear weird noises downstairs in the middle of the night, then I’m not too fond of it. Because EVERYONE knows, creepy noises mean homicidal maniacs are in the house. Writing about zombies has been quite interesting this past week. I’m actually creeping myself out a little. Oh, let me tell you about how creeped out I’ve been . . .
I was busy typing away, listening to my iPOD (jamming out to country music to get in the western mood), when Scott snuck up behind me (he had actually been calling my name, but I couldn’t hear him). He leaned over my shoulder in an attempt to kiss my neck, but OH MY GOODNESS! I jumped from my chair, screamed like a little girl, and slapped at him a couple of times. “What the heck?” he yelled. “NEVER, NEVER sneak up on a person writing about zombies and put your head near their neck! NEVER do that!!!” (It is a well known fact that—not much different from vampires—zombies go for the juggler). After I calmed down, we laughed at how stupid I was. Super funny. You should have been there. But writing about zombies hasn’t been as lighthearted and fun as I had at first imagined it to be—zombies kill, zombies bite, zombies are gross. I find myself writing horror, which is NOT something I do. It’s bothersome, BUT (a great big but) I am willing to go outside my comfort zone, my normal writing genre, and do something different, just to see if I can. How much more different can it get than to write a zombie-western-romance? I really can’t think of anything, can you? Also, I am taking this opportunity to write in the 3rd person and in some chapters, from a male perspective. My last three books have all been 1st person POV from a female perspective. So this is all new uncharted territory for me. I know I had mentioned in the previous blog entry that I would post my first chapter of the zombie book for y’all to read, but I’m not so sure about that chapter. That chapter may become a prologue instead—it’s dark and dreary, but plays a role in why the girl (heroine) of the story is the way she is. But it paints me in a pretty bad light as far as writing goes (it’s a gross, sad chapter). So instead of posting that chapter, I am going to start you off on chapter 2 (which may become chapter 1 anyway) where it is less yucky and more fun (you be the judge). Also, I am going to post the first little bit of another story that came to me after I woke up from a dream in which someone kidnapped Callie and I couldn’t prove she was mine. The people who stole her had all the records to indicate she was actually theirs—I had nothing (not sure why. That’s just how dreams work sometimes). Anyway, in the dream I ended up kidnapping her back. When I woke up, I knew I had the makings of a story—a woman’s daughter is kidnapped from her car and she has no way to prove the little girl was hers to begin with. This is a story I want to revisit after nanowrimo is done, because I want to give it more thought and time. I think it could be an interesting story, if I do say so myself (ha,ha, I just said so myself). So check out the tabs above and PLEASE feel free to comment and let me know what you think, which story you like best, if you think the zombie book is disgusting, and such. I’d love to hear from you. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2010/11/12-reasons-to-ignore-the-naysayers-do-nanowrimo.html
I just loved this article and want to pass it along to you all.  It’s that time of year again, folks—NaNoWriMo time.
November is the National Novel Writing Month. It’s where all writing hopefuls start on November 1st and write a 50,000 word novel by November 30th. Impossible, you say. But no, it’s very possible. I myself have participated twice, and twice I completed the goal. Were the novels I wrote any good? Not so much, but I had fun writing them. Whether the novels are good or not, is besides the point anyway. That’s where December-October comes in (the revision months). You can’t revise if you don’t have anything written in the first place. What do I win if I complete the goal of 50,000 words? The ultimate prize—a sense of self-satisfaction. There is no money to win, no tangible prizes to score. This is a contest between yourself and no one else. So this year, which was different than last year, I actually have an idea of what it is I want to write about. I even have a little bit of a plot in mind—Young Adult, zombie-western-romance. Strange, you say. Yes. Yes it is. But I embrace it because it is going to be super fun. AND that is what writing a novel in a month should be about—fun. Last year, I had no ideas, no plots and yet I wrote “Out of My Head”. It still needs a lot of revision work, but I am proud of it none-the-less. It was the first book in which I had written a beginning, a middle and an end. For a very long time, most of my books had beginnings and middles but no ends. So this was an accomplishment. This year, I want to do the same thing. I want a completed novel by the end of November. I would like to push myself to write maybe 60,000 words instead of just 50,000. That would roughly be 2,500 words a day. Now, I have a couple of things going for me this time around that I didn’t have last year: I have three writing buddies that are going to attempt this NaNoWriMo thing with me. That should give each of us motivation and inspiration to keep typing away. It’s gonna be fun to encourage each other along. So if this sounds fun for you in anyway, or you have always dreamt of writing a novel, come join me. Let me know and I can help get you set up on the NaNoWriMo website. Wouldn’t you like to say to your friends, “Hey, what did you do in November? Nothing. Ahh, that’s too bad. Me, well, I wrote a novel!” http://www.nanowrimo.org/ I will post my first chapter of this new novel on my “Writing Page Tab” above, once I have written it. So you can see how the beginning of this zombie-western-romance novel starts out. Be looking for that by the end of the week and be sure to let me know what you think of it. So if my house is a mess, the laundry ain’t done, I look like I haven’t showered in days, it’s because I’m writing and writing a lot. Come December, I will be back to my normal chaotic self. I promise.  Yep, this is my critique group at work—me, Diana and Elisa. Scott thought it was so funny that we sat at the table with each of our laptops open. He said that usually when you see three people, with three laptops, all in the same room—their computer gamer nerds (he would know).
Well, I prefer the term “Writer Enthusiasts.” That is what we are. Actually, we normal don’t have our lap tops up and running, but this day was special. We were working on formatting our manuscripts, plot synopsis, and excerpts for a League of Utah Writers writing competition. We were helping one another. Do we plan on winning? No, we are realistic, but the intriguing aspect of this contest is feedback. As a writer, feedback is the pot of gold under the rainbow—desired and searched for. Any feedback is good feedback. Positive feedback is fantastic and keeps the writer moving forward, but it’s the negative feedback that improves a writer’s work. Is negative feedback fun? Oh, heck no. To be told, your writing right here in this spot is, well, “cheesy” or “I don’t get what you’re going for here” is not fun. I have dished out a few of these terms to members of my critique group, and I have had my fair share in return, but it’s honest feedback. You take it and use it to improve your writing—if you can’t handle it, then you shouldn’t be a writer. Writers have to be tough, because a writer’s world is full of rejections, edits and suggestions. It’s the way it is. Why write then? For me, it’s because I have too. I’m slowly getting tougher in handling the negative. I hardly cry anymore :) These two ladies in my critique group have been amazing for me. They push me to write. They push me to enter contests. They push me to write query letters. They push me to get out of my comfortable little box. These are two of the greatest ladies and writers I know. I can’t wait to own a signed copy of their books. A novel is like a newborn baby. You created it. You nurtured it. You watched it grow into something amazing and wonderful—something you can touch, something tangible. It’s real and it’s yours. You love it. It is a part of you—a big part.
Now, as you present your baby to the world you hope for acceptance. Give me ooo’s and ahh’s. The one thing you hope never to hear is, “Wow, that is the ugliest baby I have ever seen.” No one wants to hear that—not a parent—not an author. Validation is the key. I’m a very insecure author. I admit that. I write and I worry. Is it good? Is it a big piece of bologna between two slices of crap? Will people like it? Will people hate it? Will people look at me and wonder, “I can’t believe she would write something like that. What is wrong with her?” And the biggest question of all—am I any good at this or am I wasting my time? (Please, oh please, don’t tell me that). Well today, I received validation—only a small piece of a really big pie of validation—but enough to make me smile ear to ear. I entered the Absolutely Write, Premier First Page Writing Contest. AND . . . drum roll, please . . . I won! I received 100 out of 100 points and 9 out of 10 (in the tiebreaker round) to come in FIRST PLACE for the Young Adult General Fiction category for my novel in progress called Desert Rice (title recently changed to Momma’s Little Girl). Is this a big deal? In the overall scheme of things, probably not, but for an insecure writer like me . . . it’s a HUGE DEAL. To see my name posted online as the First Place winner in my division—WOW! And not just second or third place either—I TOOK FIRST PLACE. I beat them all. Wahahahaha. I am thrilled. I am ecstatic. My heart is full of joy. I’m a teenier, tinnier step closer to realizing that maybe, just maybe I am on to something here. I’m not wasting my time. I am creating something that someone deemed worthy enough to give a first place title to. I love to write. I can’t imagine not doing it. Someone out there thinks I'm doing an okay job of it. My baby isn’t ugly and there is no better feeling than that. Subjectivity. Writing will always be at its whim.
Obviously, I did not make the cut. At first, I was rather sad and disappointed, but with time and discussing the whole contest with other ABNA authors who didn’t make the cut, I’m feeling much better. There were authors who made it to the quarterfinals last year, who submitted the very same pitch this year only to be booted in the first round. Strange? That’s subjectivity for you. Many great writers moved on. Many great writers did not. I’m okay. Really I am. No one even read my manuscript. They have no idea what I am capable of. So being cut in the first round is not a reflection on what I can write. All they read was my 300 word pitch. Pitches are difficult—take a 250 page book and describe it 300 words or less. Now make it enticing. It’s tough. I tried. I learned. I am better for it. Next year though, if I enter next year, I will make sure my manuscript and pitch contains vampires, werewolves, and fire and brimstone, because that seems to be the key to getting past the pitch phase. I had none of those things. I was so foolish. I will keep plugging away. I may never catch a break. But that is not why I write.  I am chomping at the bit—so nervous! Today is the 25th of February, the day that the Amazon Breakthrough Writers Award (ABNA) announces those authors that get to move on to the next round in the contest. I am still waiting to hear. Nothing has been posted yet. It is 2:27pm and the wait is just about killing me.
On the ABNA discussion boards, writers from around the world are biting nails, compulsively checking email boxes, and some have even taken to the drink. It’s that intense. Come on ABNA, just post the next 1000 entrants that get to move on. The suspense is too much to handle. We have already had to wait a month for this day to come and now that it is here…nothing. I couldn’t sleep last night. In my dreams I was checking my email over and over. One time my email said I was moving on to the next round. Another time, I was not and a third time, I had sent my manuscript to ABNA in a completely useless format—all written in Chinese or something like that. What do I believe my chances are? Statistically, I know it to be a 1 in 5 chance. Probability, it really is a lottery—what kind of judge looked at my pitch; which pile of pitches contained mine; the mood of the judge. There are a lot of factors here. Does this mean I am a horrible writer if I am cut in the first round? Not necessarily. A lot of good manuscripts will be cut due to poorly written pitches. A lot of horrible manuscripts may make the cut due to well written pitches. Writing a pitch is hard to do (see mine on page two). I thought I did alright. I had received great reviews on my pitch and excerpt, but who knows really how this contest will play out. My fingers are crossed. I am one of the compulsive writers that are hitting the refresh key on my email for any sign. At this point, I just want to know one way or the other. I have no more nails to chew. |
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