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