Sighing, Willow bangs her head against the wall...

Casey isn't speaking to me... Of course Casey would be the heroine from my current WIP, Instinct, not some random friend I've offended in some way. I'm pretty sure I haven't offended anyone in real life lately...

As you will remember from my last post, it was my last one right?... anywho... I had begun outlining a fun story about a pop/rock singer named Lisa. Not that I want to spend all of my free time working on yet another fun story that I'd like to write, I simply had no choice. I'm sure I'm not the only writer who's been hi-jacked mid-story, well I hope I'm not the only one, that would be weird and kind of lonely...

Well, Lisa has a very strong personality and wasn't about to let me ignore her. I would begin visualizing a scene from Instinct and she'd just walk right in and plop herself down on the couch, turning on the TV and saying something like, "Oh don't mind me, I just have a few things to settle with her," while pointing skyward, towards me. So, yeah... my cast of characters in Instinct got a bit fed up with this so I decided to take a few days and write up a synopsis of Lisa's tale to add to the TBW (To Be Written) pile.

So here I am, quiet house, husband at work, toddler napping... and what am I doing? Blogging. Oh, I tried to work on Instinct- I really did-, but as I mentioned before, Casey's mad at me. As she's the main character and everything is from her POV, this puts me in an awkward position. I understand that she's upset that I took a few days to write up some stuff for Lisa, I really do. Why can't she see that I did this for her. Now Lisa is happily sitting in her own file knowing full well that her story is spinning around in my subconscious, brewing up all sorts of misadventures for her to have. Now I'm free to work on Instinct without any more interruptions from a certain pop/rock princess.

I guess I didn't make things any better between Casey and myself when I pointed out that she is acting just like Heather towards the end of the book. Yeah, that didn't go over well... how could I forget the temper she has? I really should've remembered that, after all she can channel the instincts of Ares to help fuel her anger. I was quickly reminded of this fact once I uttered the stupid words, "You are so being Heather right now..." with a roll of my eyes. The way her eyes flashed bright red as her hands balled into tight fists at her sides before she turned and stormed out of the room... yeah big ol' reminder there. I'm just lucky that the Casey from the end of the book was the one I was talking to, at least she has some semblance of control over her gift. I shudder to think about what could've happened if I had encountered a Casey from an earlier chapter. But seriously, where were the gray eyes of Minerva with all of her wisdom when I needed them, huh?

But anyway... Last night I was able to write the beginning of a chapter that was otherwise done. Yeah, I'm horrible about skipping the beginnings of chapters. I know what I want to happen, just not the best way to start things off to hook the reader. So I use my "blue text" technique and write down a quick summary of what I need to include in the beginning and make it blue and italicized so I can tell what isn't done just by glancing at the page. So far this has worked really well for me.

I'm not really happy with what I wrote though. I think Casey was silently fuming while we were working things out and not cooperating very well. Something with the voice of the scene just sounds too... harsh? compared to everything else I've written. I hope that I'm not losing Casey's voice because of all of these other characters that are swimming around in my head. That would suck because I love Casey and her story. I'm just going to hope that I'm able to smooth out that section of the story in the second draft.

So what am I doing right now to try and locate Casey's voice amongst the ever-expanding crowd of characters in my head? I've tried listening to Edwin McCain singing I'll Be on my iTunes and looking at pictures of the celebrity cast of Instinct that my friend M and I compiled a while back. I'm really hoping that this helps pull me back into Casey's world. I'll Be is sort of the love theme for Casey and one of the men vying for her heart. If this doesn't work I'll have to loop the book's playlist all day while re-reading the entire manuscript, all 236 single-spaced pages of it. Not that I don't enjoy reading the book, I really do, I just wish I could be writing it today.

Maybe the secondary love theme, Why Don't You Kiss Her? by Jesse McCartney will help too... the scene it goes with is one of my favorites so far. Maybe Mina's themes, Do You Believe in Magic? or I'm Walking on Sunshine would do the trick... Man, I need another mad Casey scene to write... all I can hear is her angry voice right now.

Anyone else have characters revolt on them before? Any way to make them cooperate without threatening them? I'd try the whole, "Behave or I'll delete you," but she'd just laugh at me, knowing I couldn't do it. I'm actually tempted to say, "Fine. I'm sure Lisa would be happy to have her story worked on today..." but I'm pretty sure that wouldn't help my case any either. What do you think?

Well, I'm off to have an argument with the voices in my head... man that doesn't sound good...

So, until I blog again...
Talk 2ya later...

~Willow

New story idea & "Are you Willow?"...

I'm ba-ack!

Still no news on the job my husband applied for or about my short story. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for both though. I've lived in Southern Illinois my entire life and due to personal issues with my family, I'm more than ready to get out of the area. Long story short, after the death of my father in 2003 things between me and my family went downhill fast. Lucky for me, I absolutely love my in-laws and can't wait for us to move closer to them.

But anyway, this blog is supposed to be about my writing... so I'll get back to that.

Still waiting on news from the editor at the publishing house on my short story. It's been over two weeks and no form rejection yet, so I'm still hanging on to hope. My realistic goal is to receive a personalized rejection letter while my "head in the clouds" goal is to get "the call"... which would actually be "the e-mail" in this case, but you get the idea...

Today was the final day for the Pen & Muse short story contest. I'm not sure how long it'll take them to judge all of the entries and come up with a winner, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that as well. It would be nice to have a contest win to list under my bio in query letters. I'll keep you updated if I hear anything.

I've made a little bit of progress on Instinct this past week. Nothing like I was accomplishing before I got sick and had to stop completely for a few weeks. Man, I cringe just thinking back on those days. So desperate to write, so stuck in medicine-head-land...

I know what my lack of progress this week was about though. Once again my lovely Writing Gremlin or his girlfriend, not sure which, decided to have me jot down yet another story idea. This is the second YA (Young Adult) novel idea that they've presented to me in the past month. The first was Megan and Joseph's story that came from my short story, On Occasion.... This new one is about a girl named Lisa and her adventures as a pop/rock singer. Dealing with her singing career, a very public breakup from her boyfriend, paparazzi, interactions with friends (celebrity and not), and the ups and downs of starting another "Hollywood relationship" fairly soon after her breakup... that's a lot for an 18 year old girl to handle! Watching this story play itself out in my head the past week has been crazy! I felt like I was on a roller coaster ride because her emotions are all over the place! Then, the night before last, she let me in on an absolutely heartbreaking moment from her past that makes her character so much clearer to me. She has such a fun voice that I'd really like to explore writing in, which leads me to my next dilemma...

Now I don't know what I'll write once I finish Instinct. I have a folder full of ideas (that is growing every week it seems), some more fleshed out than others, that are all just screaming to be written. To make matters worse, I have three or four that I've really made a connection with the characters. To make things even worse... Instinct is supposed to be the first in a four-part series! Gah! I need to learn how to manage my time better so I can write multiple projects simultaneously. It shouldn't be that hard, right? I just have a house to run, an over-active toddler to chase, typical errands and appointments to attend to, a horrible addiction to celebrity gossip and blog reading... Oh boy, I could really be in trouble here...

For right now though, I think I'll just focus on Instinct and keep filing away all of these story idea outlines as I think them up. The sooner I type up this new twist in Lisa's story, the sooner I can wipe it from my memory and free up some mental space for the novel at hand. I'm getting so close to having the first draft done that I can taste it! If I can get the rough draft done then I can start working on one of these new projects while I work on edits. I know that most of the hard work on a novel comes after the first draft is done, but I'm looking forward to it. I'll keep ya posted on my progress on everything.

Let's see... what else?

I had my second Southern Illinois Writers Guild meeting tonight. It was really fun. And, get this, I wasn't the youngest person this month! A man brought his daughter, a freshman in high school, to support her dream of becoming an author. How cool is that? Why couldn't my family have been supportive of my writing like that? I gave her the best piece of advice that I could come up with, "Don't let anyone talk you out of your dream." I then told her a 30 second run down of how I let well-intentioned family members talk me out of pursuing a college degree in Journalism and Creative Writing because I'm "good with computers.." But that's another blog that I'm pretty sure I've already written...

Had an interesting experience tonight. I was actually recognized by my blog at the meeting. It felt so weird to have someone call me "Willow" in real life. I mean, I play Final Fantasy XI online as a character named Willowdream (known fondly as Willow) so people type it as my name a lot, but it's still a different experience to hear someone say the name out loud. I know that I've considered using Willow as a pseudonym should I get published, and I guess tonight I got my first taste of what that would feel like. I just can't decide on the whole pseudonym issue. I'll probably just go with my gut instinct on what name to publish under once I sell a novel.

Speaking of blogs, I found a small group of ladies in the group who blog regularly. We so need some really cool name for ourselves amongst the guild members... but I'm tapped out on creativity at the moment though... so tired... So big cheers to Kristin and "Neechiwoo"!

Well, as I'm tapped out on creativity as I mentioned above and the two year old is refusing to sleep... again *groans*... I think I'll sign off for tonight.

So, until I blog again...
Talk 2ya later...

~Willow

No news is good news...

Willow, reporting for blog duty!

Well, it's been a week since I sent off my short story, On Occasion... to the publishing house and no response yet. Part of me keeps reminding myself that in publishing, "No news is good news..." is a general rule. If the editor has read it and didn't immediately send me a form rejection, that's always a good start. Now, of course, my story could be one in a long list that he has to read and he simply hasn't gotten around to it. Either way, I'm just happy that I found the courage to send off my story for consideration.

I wouldn't even blame this editor if he hadn't gotten around to reading my story yet. In the past week this publishing house has made the news several times. Once reporting their financial situation and another announcing that they are doing away with a couple of their imprints. With all of that going on, I wouldn't blame anyone at the company for being behind. It doesn't appear as if they are going to scrap their short story project though, a new short story was posted on their website this week... so that's a good thing.

I'll just maintain my standpoint that no news is good news and even if I end up with a form letter. At least my story was read by a professional editor. If I hear anything, good or bad, expect a blog post about it. If it's bad news, I'll chalk it up to my first professional rejection and see it as an opportunity to develop the thick skin necessary for this business. If it's good news... well, I'll be freaking out again. I'll call my husband, if he's not home. I'll call my friend, M, who beta reads my writings. I'll have my husband start calling the family because at that point, I'll most likely be a quivering mass on the floor. Once I'm able to function normally, I'll email the editor back, thanking him profusely, but professionally, and then write up a blog post. Not that I've thought this through or anything...

Now for an update on Instinct...

I'm still having a blast writing this story and working with these characters. This past week I've continued my useless scene weeding. I found several places where I had outlined a scene that would be more powerful if I just mention it in passing.

For instance, at one point Casey is sent to a counselor about something that happens to her. I had the scene all outlined out with her and the therapist, but then realized that the entire scene was one big info dump. Not a good thing. The story will be much more powerful if I begin the scene with her walking out of the session and let all of the information she was going to spew out to the shrink reveal itself in small chunks throughout the rest of the story. I'm really excited with how the scene is outlined now and can't wait to write the short transition from the counselor's office into the next scene. I love writing Casey mad!

I've also been going back and finishing up scenes that I found myself stuck writing before. If I find myself stalled on part of a scene, I simply add a comment about what I want to add in and move on. I have these "incomplete scenes" scattered throughout several of my otherwise complete chapters so I'm going back through now and seeing if any of them are clearer now.

Once I'm done rechecking my incomplete scenes, I'll click through my document map and see which unwritten chapters want to be written. I have several of these chapters that are attempting to write themselves in the back of my head, but I don't think they're ready yet. It's like baking a cake. I take my characters and my outlines and mix them up and toss them in my subconscious to "bake". Every once in a while I'll check on them and see if they're done early for whatever reason, but if not, I leave them to do their thing. Right now I'm waiting on that mental "ding" to let me know they're done.

The scenes that are appealing to me right now are the more paranormal ones. I've written a few scenes where Casey has random episodes, but these scenes are different. The ones I'm cooking right now are where she is going through training, trying to learn how to control her gift before it controls her. Of course having her try to avoid getting back together with her ex the entire time will add some interesting internal drama for her. This point in the story is especially cool because this is when Casey starts coming into her own and accepting herself for who she is. She deals with making new friends and losing old ones... she's able to move past events from her childhood and recent past... she decides to give love another shot... In other words, it'll be a blast to write!

Here's an update on where I am right now:

• Pages (single spaced) - 232
• Words - 89,053

So I'm making pretty good progress considering how little time I've been able to devote to the story this past week. Even with cutting a lot of scenes, my word count at the end of the day keeps going up. My goal is to have the first draft done by April. I'm giving myself plenty of time because, if things go well, we could be moving in between now and then. My husband is applying for a pretty good job about 6 hours from where we are now, in the same area where his family lives. I really, really, really, really hope he gets this job. Not only would he be making more money, but we'll be so much closer to loved ones. All-in-all, we'd all be a lot happier if he gets this job, so fingers crossed!

Well, that's about it for today's update. I have to get some work done off of the computer... blech! So...

Until I blog again...
Talk 2ya later...

~Willow

I don't want to jinx anything, but...

Hi again!

Has it been an intense week for anyone else but me? Well, maybe not the entire week, but definitely the past couple of days.

Let me explain... Now I don't want to jinx myself, so I won't list specifics, but... yesterday something crazy happened. I stumbled across an open call for short stories. As it so happens, I have a completed short story that I'm pretty happy with. I'll go so far as to say that I down-right love the story. Loved the characters so much that I've even outlined a full novel for them to be written... sometime...

Finding a call for short stories isn't that impressive, but this call was put out by a MAJOR publishing house. I don't want to provide any names over the blog because I'm scared that I'll somehow jinx myself...

Anywho, there weren't any guidelines listed, just an email address. I copied over the address into my trusty Gmail account and sent off a quick email asking for specifics (formatting, length, genre, etc.) and waited, not expecting much because it was after what would normally be considered busines hours. Around an hour later, I had a response telling me how to submit and that they would gladly read my story.

Okay, at this point I was really excited. Not only is this a major publishing house but they don't usually take unagented work. And here I am -unpublished and unagented- given permission to submit my short story. I quickly make the required adjustments to my file and send it off, really excited that my story was going to be read by someone at...

Now, I do my best to stay on top of the publishing industry and know the major houses, but... as my novel isn't complete yet, I haven't done a lot of research on the actual editors at these houses. Sure, I know of a few, whose blogs I follow on my Google Reader but, for the most part, I'm clueless.

I pretty much assumed that the person I was emailing was a junior staff member or at most a junior editor, but still treated everything as if I were emailing a big wig in the company. Boy am I glad that I did! After sending off the email, I knew that doing anything else for my novel would be near impossible so I Googled the name of the person I had been corresponding with. While I was unable to find any company hierarchy or listing of agents with titles, I did find a news release from a couple of years ago. The news release listed him as being the editorial director for one of the publishing house's imprints...

*THUD* -- That was the sound of me passing out at the memory of what was going through my head when I first read that...

I also found a short summary of an article that was published maybe 6 months after the news release that I mentioned before. This summary mentioned something about this person being a VP at the publishing house... As I was unable to read the entire story in context, I don't want to assume that what I read means what I think it could mean... I don't want to draw conclusions based on a short blurb that was cut off mid-sentence when I can't find any other information to substantiate this.

But anyway... unless this publishing house has two people with the same name (and it's not a common name that you hear a lot...) it looks like I was emailing at the very least an editorial director at a major New York publishing house.

*THUD* -- There I go again...

Can you see why I'm alternating between mild and major freaking out episodes? If my story gets selected, it would be published on a website for this particular imprint of the publishing house alongside short stories written by other published and unpublished authors. Do you have any idea how hard it is to wrap my brain around what that could do for my writing?

To be perfectly honest, I'm just elated that someone at this house is even reading something that I've written. I'm too scared to even think about what would happen if they really like it. I keep having to repeat, out loud, that, "an editor at ... is going to read my short story. An editor at a publishing house that, for the most part, doesn't accept unagented work. One of the largest publishing houses in the country, if not the world..."

*grabs a paper bag to hyperventilate into*

I don't know anything about having short stories published, everything that I've researched thus far has been specific to novels. I'm not sure what the typical turn around time for getting a response to this type of submission should be. If it were a novel, I'd have a general idea of what to expect, but I never even considered having a short story published. Heck, I never expected to write a short story.

For now I think I'm just going to be excited that an actual New York editor is reading my story. Sure a part of my brain is shouting for me to finish Instinct so I can strike while the iron is hot should On Occasion... get accepted for publication... but the rest of my brain is numb from freaking out. At this point, I don't think that I'd be that upset if I'm not chosen. There are a limited number of slots available and I'm not sure how many are available for unpublished authors.

Is this what it always feels like when you have something out for submission? I feel like I'm checking my email every five minutes, even though I know that any sort of decision that I would like would take longer than it's been. What's sad is that I don't even have to "check" my email to check it... I found that if I keep my Gmail open in a tab in Firefox, it will update the tab name to show that I have an unread message. So now that tab never closes, lol. If I'm doing something away from the computer, I make random passes by it... just checking the tab title... How pathetic am I?

So, other than that... I've made a little bit of progress on Instinct, not as much as I had hoped... but I think I have a decent excuse this time... I've mostly been weeding out scenes that I had originally outlined, but now realize have no real value to the story. Nothing new is presented in them and they don't do anything to further the plot along. Nothing is lost by removing them, so they've been stuck in a file for ideas that just didn't cut it. This way, if I need to add something in in a later draft, I have pre-outlined scenes to consider. It feels so weird to see my word count going down and knowing that I'm actually making progress.

I have my "To Write..." list made up for tomorrow. It includes a couple of incomplete scenes that I'm really excited to finish up. So, hopefully I'll make some decent progress later tonight and into tomorrow.

Well, that's my vague, big news and a boring update on the novel. I'm sorry again for being so vague, but I'm still trying to convince myself that I'm not dreaming. I check to make sure that the emails are real a couple of times a day as it is... Maybe I'm overreacting to the situation, but this is pretty exciting considering that I've never submitted anything for publication before.

Until I blog again...
Talk 2ya later...

~Willow