Where did the year go?

Wow! How is it New Years Eve already? Where did this past year go?

Now, I could write everything that's happened in my personal life this year, but I won't... to be honest, my memory sucks, I'd be lucky to tell you what I did last week... I could blog about how much my son has grown as he is about to turn 2 on the 12th of January. I could reminisce about times spent with friends and family, but I won't. This blog is about one thing, my journey into writing my novel, so here goes...

I know where the year has went since August. It's been sucked into my laptop in the form of an ever-expanding novel. At last count I had over 81,000 words written. Eighty-one THOUSAND words! I still can't believe that I've written so much. And if I think about all of the chunks of outline that I've removed to add in the actual chapters, I've written a whole heck of a lot more than that. Not to mention all of the other documents that go along with the story: character development exercises, setting descriptions, extended backstories, etc.

Then there's this blog. I don't even want to know how many words I've written in this blog, I know that I get long-winded when I start typing. (long winded? Doesn't sound right for typing, but oh well...) I also know that it's exponentially worse when I'm talking about my book and characters. So, I guess part of me apologizes for making such epic posts... but then part of me sticks my tongue out like a five year old and says, "deal with it, I'm a writer..."

I've been really lucky with this story though. I have wonderful friends and family that are willing to read parts of it for me and help me through rough patches. I have a husband that is super supportive and understanding when I have to write, not want to write, have to. I have in-laws that support me and even give me good suggestions when I'm having a difficult time writing something.

I have an overzealous writing gremlin, who is rarely short on ideas or creativity. And if he has an off day, now his girlfriend is staying with us too, and she likes writing a good story as well.

I've also found a really great writing forum. I've been reading the public posts for a while, but just recently joined. The members all seem to be top-notch people who sincerely want to help each other. The Writer' s Beat. Check it out!

Then there's my main beta reader. She has gotten me through many a rough patch and her enthusiasm and addiction for my characters keeps me writing at an insane pace (50,000+ words since the beginning of November...) She's my own personal cheering section, but she also doesn't hesitate to tell me if something just doesn't sound right to her. She is great for helping me work through plot holes and letting me know when something doesn't seem right for a character to say or do (i.e. - I'm trying to force the scene to go an unnatural direction.). So thank you for all of your continued help and support.


Okay, I've thought about the past year (check), made a few thank you-s (check), yay, I guess now I get to make a few of those pesky resolutions...

1. To finish writing Instinct. As it's currently about 70-75% written, this shouldn't be too difficult.
2. To begin, if not complete, all necessary revisions, rewrites, and editing. As I do some editing as I go along, I'm not sure how long this step will take, but I want to at least start the polishing process so that I can...
3. Research and possibly start sending queries to agents. I've considered trying to just send queries directly to publishers, but I think having an agent would be really helpful. I don't even pretend to imagine that I could do what a good agent can, and definitely would prefer to have one help me. If I can find one interested in me and my stories that is.
4. Continue reading and researching the industry so that I continue to grow as a writer, and...
5. Keep writing! I have so many stories outlined that I could write for years and not run out of ideas.

I guess in my "perfect world- fate decides to stop kicking me" reality, my goals would be:
1. Finish book
2. Edit/polish book
3. Find Agent / Agent finds me (hey this is a dream world... it could happen...)
4. Sell book to big publisher
5. Be that one-in-a-million author who's book takes over the literary world and sell millions of copies worldwide.

But, I won't hold my breath on the fantasy resolutions.

Well, if I'm going to finish this book, I'd better get back to it.

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

~Willow

Christmas is over, Now back to work...

Well, the holidays were really nice. We traveled up to the northern part of the state to spend them with my husband's family. Unfortunately, we were only able to visit everyone for a few days, driving up on Christmas Eve and coming back today. Luckily, we were able to see almost all of the family we would normally see on the holidays. But sadly, we weren't able to hang out with all of our friends up there though. We were only able to see one friend during our visit and it was because we went to torment him while he was at work. I really can't wait until we can move up there. Not only do I absolutely adore his family, but it'll be nice to live so close to the friends that Erich has known since high school.

I won't lie, this particular group of friends is comprised of quite a few interesting characters. And, I'm not ashamed to admit that I've borrowed various quirks and characteristics from these individuals to help create characters in my writing. Never copying them exactly onto the page, mind you... just taking various unique qualities and infusing them into my pre-existing characters in order to make them more realistic. My husband laughs when we spend longer hanging out with these friends then planned, and I say that it's for research, so we shouldn't feel guilty.

Speaking about the book, it's going pretty well. I think my writing gremlin took Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off. He was giving me all kinds of inspiration into the wee hours early Christmas Eve morning, and then *POOF* he disappeared. I guess I don't blame him for wanting the holidays off, but it felt so weird not having him there for inspiration for a couple of days there. But, bright and way too early on December 26th he woke me up and was itching to get writing again.

We spent all morning re-outlining the one chapter that my beta reader had been confused by when she first read the outlines for it. I had originally thought that it was confusing because it's a very short outline and I figured that the story just wasn't explained sufficiently enough to make it easy to understand. Boy, was I wrong! My Writing Gremlin presented me with a few new ideas for the chapter and, of course I loved them. The new minor characters that the chapter introduces are more believable and the experience does a better job showing why Casey values normalcy so much. I'm able to keep a couple of good bits of dialogue and internal monologue, but don't have to write up a lot of useless stuff now. By simply reworking one character, not only am I able to get through the important parts of this chapter faster, but I'm able to do it without being bogged down with useless information that only created an unbelievable character anyway.

Then, later that evening, inspiration struck again. I've been pretty nervous about writing one particular section of the story. It's a pretty big event, but nothing so big that I want to use several chapters to explain. I wasn't sure how I could get across all of the necessary emotions in just one chapter, so I was worried. I know everything that happens during this specific week in Casey's life but didn't know how to express it without having to explain everything. This would have easily taken three or four chapters and would have really slowed down the main story line with a lot of useless information. Now, I'm new to this novel-writing business, but even I know that allowing that to happen is a big no-no.

Well, while waiting for Erich's father to get home from work, it hit me. Well, not exactly "hit" me, more like gradually crept up on me. The beginning of the scene started playing in my head and I found myself in awe, thinking, "of course!" I exiled myself into a darkened room an let it play itself out and slowly the rest of the scene began unraveling itself, piece-by-piece. Within my outline, all of the necessary emotions are able to be portrayed realistically and yet somehow it all fits in one, normal-sized chapter. Oh, and thanks to this scene working itself out, I now know the catalyst that helps Casey work through a difficult situation later on, and it works out wonderfully.

I'm really excited to get to write this chapter out, not only because of getting to write a really emotional Casey flipping out, but also because of all of the other scenes that this one will inspire me to finish. I already know at least one other scene that is directly inspired from this one that is very eager to be written now.

So, now it's full speed ahead again. My Writing Gremlin and I took the necessary time off for the traditional holidays and now we're back and ready to get this book written. The number of scenes that are simply outlined is getting smaller and smaller every day as the blue, italic text continues shrinking.

What does blue, italic text have to do with anything you might ask? Well, I compiled all of my chapters and outlines into one big document a while ago. To differentiate between outlines and finished chapters, I decided to edit the outlines into blue, italicized text. It's worked really well and gives me a real sense of accomplishment watching the color fading to black. So, for anyone doing any form of long writing from an outline, I highly recommend this method. Having a visual representation of what you've accomplished compared to what you have remaining is proving really helpful.

Oh, and I've discovered a new way to do my writing late at night. If you've read this blog before, then you've read about my countless nights, hand-writing into a notebook by cell phone light or small night-light. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking this practice and will continue it when I'm writing out full dialogue and scenes, but for random notes and outlines I'm going to use something new from now on. For these quick notes, I've found that using my Palm Pilot is amazingly useful. Not only is it naturally back-lit, so no need for an external light source, but getting the information onto the computer is as easy as syncing the PDA to the laptop.

I'm fast enough using the special PDA alphabet to get basic thoughts down, so this is a nice alternative, and if I'm having a tough time writing this way, there's also a pop-up keyboard that I can use. Ultimately, I think that I'm still going to hand write any full scenes with dialogue that I come up with if I'm too lazy to get out of bed and make my way to the laptop. I just don't think that I'll be able to input scenes that full onto the PDA quick enough, with the correct formatting. My brain just seems to work too fast when I'm writing these types of scenes and I'm not sure if I'd be able to keep up while being able to format everything correctly. But for random notes, that don't need proper formatting or capitalization to be useful, this will be invaluable.

Well, it's getting late and I still need to reformat some notes that I just synced from the PDA... Yeah, I admit that I forgot the USB cable for it when we packed...but in my defense, I had no idea that I was going to use it for this purpose. We only packed the PDA because my husband has been using it to read e-Books lately...

But anywho, the Writing Gremlin calls...

Until I Blog Again,
Talk 2ya later...

~Willow