Show & Tell of a Newbie

So I'm having commitment issues with my novel. All the pieces are there to bring my rough first draft up to a semi-smooth second. Somehow I, the girl who settled down with her high school sweetheart, who makes tricky decisions in the flash of an eye, and believes decisiveness is a key to happiness, somehow I can't commit.

The plot is staying true to the first draft, more or less, but the characters are shifty. Something is missing, and until I pin it down, writing is a bit of an aggravation: little progress, lots of free writes and pondering.

This is why my new hobby is so extremely rewarding. Yes, it's March and I've only just finished my first project. But in only two and a half hours or so, I transformed a pile of fabric into a portable changing pad for the baby.

You see, I figured I would start with something that few others would really see. A changing pad seemed safe. And this handy version has a coordinated bag to hold diapers and wipes for the diaper bag, which together are about $20 on Amazon.. The pattern was in a wonderful book called One Yard Wonders. With the help of this book, I had a concrete finished product with no loose ends, edits, or nagging, fluctuating details. Plus I only spent about $5, thanks to my new stockpile of remnant fabric.

Not that it's perfect. My seams are crooked. At one point I ran out of thread on the bobbin.... but it's finished. And I taught myself (channeling my mother) how to use the machine. Hooray for finished projects.

I can return to my writing with renewed energy!

On to the Next Thing

NaNoWriMo is over! And I held up my end of the bargain: 50,000 words laying the foundation of a promising story just begging for additional research and edits. I'll get to that when the ache in my wrists subsides. I may have saved too many words for after the Thanksgiving visiting.

I'll post the few pictures I took this weekend,but for those of you still watching, I'll now be updating Growing! regularly once again.

Maya's new camera has some fun features!

My pies are getting less ugly all the time!

Our tree is up and decorated. Let the Christmas dance parties commence.

Half Way

Somehow, November is half gone. The November book writing craze is half over, and for better or worse, my humble attempt is half way (plus a little) to the final word count goal of 50,000 words. At least I can say that this second earnest attempt at NaNoWriMo is significantly less terrible than the first one. The story has a bit of an arc, the characters are becoming a little more interesting every day, and at least I am not bored with the topic yet.

While I just don't seem to have the energy to keep up with the girls, keep up with the word count, and manage both blogs, I have missed a few major points of interest that would otherwise have made it on Growing!

 The pictures can speak for our fun in this year's very first snow. I'll try to catch a video of Elliot referring to something (the cat, the baby at ECFE, a dead ladybug) as "such a cute little crumb cake" with the overbearing affection of a sitcom great aunt.

But I really should take time to savor that moment when I witnessed the first pick-up line Maya ever received.

She ran into an old friend from way back... Her first year of preschool, a cute little guy named Grant followed her all over the classroom. When he spotted her at the grocery store last week, he was clearly as besotted as ever. He dashed past the lettuce to catch up to us at the grapes. He opened with a debonaire, "Hi Maya." Then turned back to his mom, who happens to be a teacher at Maya's school, "Look mom, it's Maya." His little boy voice carried to where she was hurrying to catch up with him.

Meanwhile, Maya smiled curiously while she asked, "Mom, who is that."

I don't think those two have seen each other for two years, and given the odd amnesia of childhood, I'm not surprised she didn't remember.

The kids spent the next half hour waving at each other while his mom and I leapfrogged over one another in an attempt to scavenge for the items on our lists. Somewhere over by the canned goods, Grant laid out his best line with the timid honesty of a five year old. "Mom, I really like her, can we buy her some candy?"

As we checked out, coincidentally in adjacent check out lines, he ferried over the piece of candy he had begged from his mom. If only I had a camera to capture that look on Maya's face!

Word by Word

This is going to be a quiet corner on the web for the rest of the month. Pictures here and there perhaps, but little else. I'm funneling every word I can spare into the annual National Novel Writing Month. I'll still be writing over at Doing Good Together a couple of times each week, so if you want a peek at the girls from that angle, just head over there.

This year, inspired by the riveting, frightening, and hysterical book Super Sad True Love Story, I'm trying my hand at satire. My own humorous reflection on the state of the world is Sister Savior, and just three thousand words in, I now understand why every review of Shteyngart''s work included some version of the following: "Satire is notoriously difficult to pull off."

Unlike my 2008 attempt though, my goal this year is a finished product that potentially deserves the love and attention of a second draft. So off I go, word by word to build a satirical novel in November worthy of attention in December and beyond.

What the Storm Blew In

This fall of unseasonably warm days and shockingly blue skies has kept us in denial. Today, there is no denying that the next season, with its forced hermitage and excessive darkness, is bearing down on us.

This year, though, the cold weather may not feel so stifling.

I haven't seen the girls in two hours. They are deep within an expansive fort of sheets and pillows and heavy-duty paper binders. I hear the occasional shrill "Neigh" and the offer of a carrot. I see them climb the stairs on all fours, ponies wrapped in blankets tucked under their arms. I have to intervene, slightly, when they attempt the return journey down the stairs head first on all fours. Um, not a good idea. But beyond that, they are content in their own little world.

What good timing, as I'm scrambling to put together an outline for this year's National Novel Writing Month. Nanowrimo is just around the corner, and it looks like this might be a good year to finish a project! What about you? Is anyone else interested in participating. There is just enough time to cobble together an idea and see where it leads!

Zen and Still Waters

Our book order arrived! I've had my eye on Zen Shorts for a long time, and it arrived on just the right day, as I mentioned over at Doing Good Together.  Without too much detail, let's just say, a little time for zen was much appreciated, and my meditation practice has been revived.

Now to revive the novel writing habit, which waxes and wanes and gets shoved aside when more practical writing and a giant backyard and a lovely family require the spotlight instead.

Where better to find inspiration than the words of others. Today, I'll offer up Maya's very first recorded story. She has told us a few good tales, but thanks to her homework, I found a pen for these two:

Story One: Once upon a time there was a girl named Maya. She did something brave for her mother and father. One day a dragon came and punched a hole in their house. Maya got some nice wood and painted iit and nailed it to their house. So they had a place to live forever.

 Story Two: One day there was a kitten named Sockfear. He lived with his mother and father in the woods. Then one day a tiger came and then Sockfear's mother and father fell in the lake. Sockfear saved them by using his jet. He sent down a rope and his mother and father grabbed the rope and were saved forever. The End.

There you go. If a five year old can absorb the basic construct of beginning, middle, and end, story telling must thrive in all of us. Now I just have to carve out the time in stone.

My Own Milestone!

This morning, bundled up against this lovely fall air and camped out on our sun-drenched deck, I passed the 20,000 word mark in my new project. In the last month I finally declared the old project dead, after months of spinning my wheels.

A year actually. How did that happen?

This morning, before the writing, it was Joe's turn to sleep in, so the girls and I made pancakes. Crepes really, to be topped with nutella and banana. This is everyone's favorite, and so everyone was happy.

Everyone was happy, until Maya took her first bite and declared, "We're running out of time."

I checked the clock. It is 8 A.M. on the second day in a three-day weekend. For once, I felt like time was piled up at my feet to be spent recklessly. When I asked what she meant she elaborated, "First we have to have breakfast, then clean up, then dad will wake up and we'll plan and the day will be done."

How is it that at 5 she already shares that sense that the moment is slipping away? My girl. My worrier. Of course, the beauty of 5 is that worries slip away just as quickly as time, and soon she was off with her dad and sister to the park, and I was clicking away at the keys.

And for now, while there is time, this new project flies. It is a thread picked up from last November's sadly abandoned Nano project. It is deliciously free of the over-planning that strangled the last project. It is building momentum, and it feels so effortless to move my main character through each scene. Truly, fly-by-night nanowrimo-style writing is so much fun. And hopefully this draft will not only reach completion... but will receive much-needed edits as well!

All Powerful

My four year old had her tonsils out this week. Ugh.

My work on Upturned Stones fell off a cliff, as my mental abilities were spent entirely on soothing and medicating my girl. Both girls actually, as little sister ironically contracted strep throat the very day big sister's tonsils came out. That was unfortunate!

Luckily, between my detailed outline and the chapters I've already written, it has been relatively easy to jump back into the story. As I reread what I've accomplished so far, I corrected that nagging little issue of voice.

First person still sounded off to me. It felt more like blogging than writing fiction. So I finessed the first three chapters into a reasonable facsimile of third person, to be more thoroughly edited later. I haven't worked on enough new material to know if third person will work, or to develop a flow, but I have high hopes that it will come.

If only life wouldn't keep steamrolling my resolutions! I really want this draft to be done by mid-October at the latest. It's a gentle resolution, really, but I need to keep moving, come strep throat or high water!

This Voice or That Voice

I drafted the first two chapters of Upturned Stones on a whim. They were exciting and inspiring and in first person.

I took a break after the second chapter to outline. I spent a good month figuring out back stories, getting to know the characters, and then detailing the scenes that would tell the story. And in my dictatorial fashion, I declared that the real first draft would be in third person.

I re-drafted the first chapter in third person. It was fine, but not as exciting or inspiring. I tried to begin the second chapter, and as I mentioned yesterday, I just spun my wheels on it.

With renewed vigor, I took up that important second chapter again today, and out it came. Not great, but in a big gust of ideas and excitement. It roughly but adequately laid the groundwork for the next scene.

And it is in first person.

I didn't realize it until halfway in, and instead of fighting it, I embraced Evie's voice. I'll chalk it up to following my instincts and trying something new, even though I tend not to like first person fiction as much. I have heard that for novice writers first person is far easier to work with, so I guess I'll just go with it.

Cheers for almost 3,000 words today!

Oh, and I Really Should Update My Writing Blog

That's exactly how Upturned Stones is going at the moment. I wrote Chapter 1 with enthusiasm. Then I went out of town for four days. Now...

I really should weed the garden... and make some zucchini bread for my neighbor that just had her fourth baby, poor thing... and hang the laundry on the line... and maybe I should catch up on that aging stack of Harpers that I haven't read all summer... And I really need a word count widget on my blog.

So, one tidy garden, 2 loaves of zucchini bread, tons of clean clothes, several enriching articles, and one word count widget later, I'm all set.

And right back where I started. Is it writer's block when you know how the scene should play out (more or less) but can't find the words to describe it? I think it is.

Part of the problem is that this second chapter sets up a lot of the rest of the book. The MC's internal struggle that drives the rest of the book is introduced here, along with several other key characters (to a lesser degree). It feels burdensome.

At this point, I need to mentally trap my "inner editor," to quote the Nano jargon, and lock her back in the depths of my uncertain writer's brain, maybe in the same storage unit as my old college papers so she has something to amuse herself with until it is time to edit.

Right then, trap the editor, and get on with the words. Off I go... but some ice cream sure sounds tastey.

Outlined-ish

I can see Upturned Stones unfolding before me. A week of long walks, plus a month of daydreaming, and I think I have a reasonable grip on the story, and the scenes critical to helping that story unfold.

To be fair, my grip isn't as ephemeral as I would like it to sound. It doesn't seem quite as artsy to say I have an excel-style spreadsheet with a scene-by-scene road map for the book.

Yeah, my mathy husband is awfully pleased at how mathy I've made my writing process.

But, I'm just learning. I'm experimenting, really. With my first novel, I began with the hyper-organized Snowflake Method, but ditched it in favor of my poor, underdeveloped muse. I attempted to get a grip on the characters and a general sense of where the story could go, leaving the rest up to intuition, inspiration, and caffeine. It didn't work out very well. The result was a meandering mess that veered so far from the story I really wanted to tell, that I have sidelined both the manuscript and an outline for the second draft for some future surge of inspiration, intuition, and caffeine.

In other words, it stunk.

So as stuffy and systematic as the Snowflake Method is, I'm going to give it another go, all the way through, and see where it puts me. So far, I really like how the story is shaping up, I still love my characters, and there is a lot of mystery in how the scenes will unfold. There are a few bits of research to complete along the way, and certainly there is room for future changes as necessary.

I'm not worried about getting bored with the writing... which starts today. Scene 1... The Murderess.

Off I go then.

Bounded Knowledge

This week I'm quietly researching the details of Upturned Stones. I've been digging up details of Feminist Wiccan traditions, pagan rituals, crystal and stone enchantments, and ground-breaking foody inventions. Odd, huh?

As usual, I find it difficult not to get pulled away from the story and into the details of whatever I'm learning about. To prevent against that, I've been taking frequent breaks from the research. I read a bit of material, then take a walk or play sand box cafe with my girls while working out how this new information adds to or detracts from the story.

I'm trying to learn just enough to back up my characters and fill out the minor conflicts, but not so much that I end up bounded by the information. Or overwhelmed by the need to stay true to bigger, real-world concepts. It will be easier to draft this puppy if most of the details can come from my own imagination and decaying memory of feminist philosophy, rather than volumes of research.

Next week, my four year old will be engaged in a morning summer camp, so hopefully I can wander around the neighborhood with my two-year old in the stroller, working out the last bit of the outline in time for a major August push on the first draft.

Progress continues, though it is slow.

Conjure Crickets Chirping

That ubiquitous summer sound is my daily word count this month. In the spirit of offering my writer's soul the same gentle understanding and benign confidence that a mother offers her children, I'm trying not to worry about it.

Upturned Stones is still bubbling away in my day dreams. I'm jotting notes about scenes and building a stronger sense of the major and minor plots of the story... so all is not lost in these simultaneously busy and lazy days of summer. Between my garden, five chickens, two little girls, and a family lake cabin not far away, I've had little time to generate thoughtful word counts.

Well, I've taken little time. I really don't want to miss these good summer bits with my girls. Splashing in the pool, playing silly games in the yard or the park... and by evening, we're all beat. I'm still filling notebooks, though, and updating a document I've titled "Upturned Stones Working Papers." There I'm maintaining summaries of the characters, the synopsis, and a general list and descriptions of the scenes I've already got in mind.

In other words, I'm not writing much, but I'm building a lot. I'm going to give myself two weeks, until the 25th, to get all of this in some sort of working order and conduct the minor pile of research that must be done ahead of time, and then from the 26th to September 7th, I plan to pound out the draft.

Uninteresting details, I realize. That's the plan; I'm too good at plans. My intention is to see this one through, and reward myself with a workshop class at the Loft Literary Center to help edit the manuscript.

In the meantime, my word count sounds like crickets chirping and looks like a blank white page with all that potential, and all of that trembling expectation.... I hope to start blogging more regularly, about 3 or 4 times a week again when I return Wednesday.

Off to adventure with my girls...

Nothing New Under the Sun

How am I supposed to create unique characters when I'm not even sure I know unique people?

Seriously, in my brief and all but halted experimentation with facebook, that was my take away lesson. None of us are unique. Everyone (mostly) works so hard to craft the most clever status updates, charming list of interests, and surreal photos, and yet each one has a twin even in my meager friend list.

Blogging generally gives me that feeling too. Hundreds of thousands of us would-be writers out here toiling away into the ether, pulling up the same ideas, same struggles, same issues. Each mom blog churns out variations on the same mom observations of the same classic kid foibles and fun.

If actual people are this predictable, how can I possible create charactes that are outstanding? Fact is supposed to be stranger than fiction, right?

Whoa. I'm really not trying to be a downer here. I'm feeling practically jubilant about the cast of Upturned Stones. I've spent significant time with each of them over the past couple of weeks, and three of the four biggies are alive enough to push back when I try to cram them into subplots or situations that don't fit.

I'm hopeful that they are not two-dimensional cliches. My vision of them certainly isn't. I'm not sure how to convey it on the page. I imagine the very thing that disturbs me about the facebook/blogger/twitter portrayal of humanity offers a lesson.

The common bits, those things that keep reappearing in everyone's status updates and blog posts, exist because people within one culture share many experiences, and social networks are disgned to share those common experiences. Everything else, the detail that isn't showy enough to list under interests, the inner turmoil that isn't suitable for a status update, that is where real life is lived, and that is where an interesting charater starts from. The details beneath the window dressing. And from what I can see, internet personas, sadly even mine, are just that, window dressing.

Wish me luck as I furnish the complete houses of my characters. An at home mom, an out of work engineer, a feminist icon, and a retired sorceress with a dark secret all need my full attention.

Upturned Stones & Summer Break

Have you noticed the Work in Progress gadget on my sidebar? Well, my poor writer's blog has been silent for a while, but my writing, thankfully, has not.

I've been giving myself as much time as possible for both writing and daydreaming. In the past, I've sat down at the keyboard during my allotted (read: stolen from my real life) writing time with a frenzy of ideas, but no unscheduled, wandering, thinking time to draw them all together.

I think I expected journals full of random notes, snippets of dialogue, and flashes of insight to weave themselves into a story as I typed.

I'm having much more success daydreaming first. Lately, my mornings have all featured long walks with the little ones munching apples in the stroller while my mind was a million miles away. It is so absolutely effective! I realize I learned this lesson a while ago while running, but all my company caused some brief amnesia... oh but I'm back!

I haven't added to the official word count of Upturned Stones, but I have come up with a decent and very brief summary and a few pages of notes on the characters, key settings, and key plot points of the book. Over the next two weeks, I hope to finesse these notes a bit more and conduct a little research on stone and crystal enchantments (you'll see), and then dive in with a Nano style first draft to be edited later.

So that's the plan.

And here's the summary:

Evelyn Butler-Lydell, at-home mother of two and the daughter of a late feminist icon, has lost her balance and her lucky pendant. With her children off to school, she sets out on a mission to find them both and gets swept away by the meandering adventures of her audacious neighbor Greyson Roy, an out of work engineer on his own quest for meaning.

When Evelyn is not testing uncharted waters with Greyson, she is searching her mother’s cluttered lakeside bungalow for the pendant that she’s certain was lost there a year earlier, when the balance of her lovely life began to wobble. There she is faced with her mother’s past and her own forgotten ambitions, and so she decides to put her talents as a landscape architect back to work. She volunteers as a gardening assistant for in a retirement village where she becomes enamored with Abigail Giltch, an aging and self-proclaimed sorceress whose charming obsession with Evelyn draws her, and Greyson along with her, into the strange world of stone magic.

Suddenly Evelyn sees magic everywhere, most vividly in the sudden animation of her mother’s belongings. Everything from lost essays to a vintage piggy bank appear with alarming consistency just as the need for them arises. Though Evelyn vows to leave no stone unturned in her search for her lost pendent and her self, she instead uncovers the truth about the lurking stranger from her childhood, the full force of her mother’s love, and her own unexpected capacity for magic… and murder!

Now I know

Last week was my first full week without writing in more than a year and a half, and it's official. I'm a writer. One who writes. Published or not. Good or not.

I need to write.

My sanity swung shakily on rusty hinges all week. By Friday, I was teary at the drop of a hat and seriously plotting an escape from my life. Not permanently... of course. I love my girls and hubby and much of my life too much for that.

But last week, every spare second was swallowed up. Nap times, post bedtimes, and even Cassie's cleverly effective dinner time escape. Every second was just gone, and I was beat. Without any time to siphon off a few words or thoughts or scenes, I was much worse off than I should have been.

Only a few days after my breakdown, after a few days of focused writing sessions and a little daydreaming, I feel fine again. Centered. Happy, even.

And now that I've reconnected with my story, the words are flying again. It's fabulous. The writing may not be any good at all, but now I know that doesn't matter as much as the fact that the words are flowing, the ideas are coming, and somehow, that is keeping me sane.

So I write.

Not Really a Flow

The words aren't flowing like the Vinyasa Flow yoga I've been thoroughly enjoying once a week. The story, Upturned Stones, is moving ahead, though.

It isn't planned out at all, which is unlike me, but it is still marching forward as if the plot has somewhere to go. I'll follow along, take good notes on the questions to be answered later, and see where I come out. The characters, at least the two main ones, feel really knowable, really solid already. I'm hoping this is because I've been pondering them, percolating them for a good month or two now and NOT because they are based too heavily on real life people. We'll see, I guess.

I've allowed a little of my free time this week to divert to yoga instead of writing. The Vinyasa Flow feels so comfortable, yet challenging, that when I'm finished, I'm just full of words. Energized, and full of words.

I only added another 1,000 words to Upturned Stones in the last two days, but it is still progress. And the story has me entranced... I can't wait to find out what happens next!

1,000 Words on Upturned Stones

Yea for progress!

It was painful, I'll admit. I finally had the time to write, and nothing came. Even when I forced it, the result was gibberish.

Of course, I then did what every self-respecting amateur writer would do... or wait... I found my hubby and ranted a while. We have no time. When I have time, I'm too tired to write. Blah, blah, blegh....

Then, I went back in the yard, found myself a comfy chair in the sun, and I sat. While I sat there, my newly planted garden grew a bit. Puffs of cotton seeds from my neighbors oh-so-annoying cottonwood tree flew through the air at surprising heights. The effect of that white cotton zooming this way and that against a strikingly blue sky was strangely similar to the effect of snow in front of a car's headlights on a dark winter night. The wind blew cool, almost chilly air through our too tall grass while the warm spring sun threatened to burn my too pale, Minnesotan skin, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The sitting. With no paper or pen, no computer, no kids, no book...

no multitasking.

After a mere 15 minutes, I was inside once again, typing away on Ruby.

Upturned Stones is now officially In Progress. It's opening was really quite surprising... exciting too.

With luck, and maybe a little sitting, I'll have no problem getting back into it tomorrow.

Again I say, yea for progress!

Sputtering

You may have guessed....

I haven't posted in ages. Just as I bragged that my company was worn out by my girls, I realized that I was worn out by my company.

I accomplished almost nothing in the past few weeks. Well, I outlined a few key scenes and stole some good dialogue from my guests. Beyond that, though, nothing.

Time to get that A## In Seat time. The next few weeks are free, my garden is planted, and the days are long. Whether I'm "in the mood" or not, I'm going to make some real progress before this "work in progress" ends up next gathering dust with my tennis rackets and calligraphy kit.

Not to Worry

In my last post, I fretted about the parade of out of town company that could very easily derail my writing progress. Now that Well Beyond Waiting has regained a starring role in my writing time, it has a momentum of its own. I hope to see it through.

My worries completely overlooked the fact that constant toddler activity easily wears out unpracticed visitors. Somehow, the two main attractions that pull me away from writing, my busy kids and frequent overnight guests, effectively neutralize each other.

By noon, they all fall into a pile for nap time, giving me a little space to write.

Unfortunately, I'm struggling with the dialogue. For now I'm just putting down the core of what the character's are trying to say, but it doesn't sound "right" yet when I reread the material aloud. I'm a researcher... a studier... so I'm tempted to chase down the highest reviewed "how to write dialogue" book out there. Spend a few weeks studying up.

But no. Then the momentum would be lost and I'd be out of touch again, just as it has finally taken off. I'll save the research for the next lull in writers energy.