Weary

I think I underestimated the amount of time two things would take in my life:

1) My voice II class with Barbara Samuel.
2) Allowing my kid to be in band.

:-)

Neither are wasted, nonetheless, that was my day. This is the first time I've been on blogs today, which is probably some kind of record.

Today's beauties,

1) Wisteria. This stuff is amazing. It appears as if by miracle, lush lavender grape-like clusters, hanging upside down on vines that look completely dead. I mean, grey, broken, scraggly, look like they need to be cut down and removed vines. Speaking of bluebonnets, my daughter didn't know what Wisteria was called and named it "Upside down bluebonnets!"
2) Djembes. (Amazing djembe player in my daughter's band competition this afternoon. Wow.)
3) Clean, sweetsmelling little girl hair all fixed up for picture day.
4) Quiet after everyone else has gone to bed.
5) Fresh butter-flavored tortillas from Kroger. Yum yum!

The Craziness of March has come, but it has not passed

It's going to be a busy month, and it's already nearly half over!!!

I'm starting Barbara Samuel's Voice II class next week, the kids have Spring Break, and I'm working on these revisions.

Revisions are going okay so far. I was going to start with printing out all the pages of my first draft, punching them, and filing them in a binder to do a read through, as I've seen suggested in several places. I still plan to do that, but I already knew of a few obvious plot holes with relatively easy fixes to make before I read or got any beta readers involved. So I decided to do those first, which has been keeping me pretty busy for the last week or so.

Hoping to trek over to Office Depot for the printout in the very near future. I figure it's better to abuse their large printing monsters than torture my little HP photo printer, and it will probably be less expensive in the long run than using all my own ink cartridges and paper.

Not to mention I have "bonus bucks" to use after purchasing my new laptop from them. (I am sad they failed to mention that "cash back" really meant credit to use in the store. Grr.)

Not to mention me and printers have this thing. We don't get along very well.

When I worked in an office, people assumed that since I was kind of tech savvy--I worked on the departmental intranet site, and I could always get them out of their fixes, like lost toolbars--I could also troubleshoot printers and copiers. Um, no. I am terrified of them. :-)

I went on an online scavenger hunt this afternoon, looking for more articles about character arcs, change, etc. Somehow (isn't it funny how that works?) I ended up at Margie Lawson's site. I've been there before. I'm considering either taking her Empowering Character's Emotions workshop in person--she'll be at a local writer's group in May--or downloading the packet from her site.

Anyone taken this class or downloaded the material? Would love to hear how it worked for you, and also any other good resources for writing emotion and nonverbal communication.

By the way, can you name the source of my (somewhat altered) post title? Ten points if you can. Ten points for what, I still don't know, but I'm keeping track. ;)

135,000 words later ...

The draft, she is done. Hovering right at 115K after the 20K I cut a few weeks ago, it might not be the most beautiful thing just yet, but it is finished.

Now for the real work.

Earlier tonight, I was studying this High Tension Workshop website, wishing I could attend this May workshop in Austin. It looks like the perfect class to take in the midst of revisions. Alas, it is pricey, and does not seem to fit into my continuing ed budget this year, no matter which way I look at it--even standing on my head and crossing my eyes just right. But simply reading the class description is helpful. Look at this:

Building tension on every page--meaning tension in dialogue, action and exposition. Then tension in scenes. Next, tension in premise.

Those are words of wisdom for free.

I can't do it, R2, I can't go on alone.

I was a little stuck in my story last night and took a sidetrip over to the Crusie Mayer Writing Workshop. This is a great resource! It's a lot of material to absorb if you didn't start at the beginning of the year (I didn't), but I often just pick a place and start reading.

The section I read last night is on "Expectation," and when I finished reading, I asked myself, as they suggest, "What would the reader expect to happen at this point in my story?" Then, "What could happen differently that would surprise the reader, but not pull the rug out from under them?" In other words, it has to make sense--you can't just randomly pick something and expect the rest of your story up to that point to still make sense, or expect the reader to not feel somehow betrayed.

Voila! I was off and running, at least in my head while I was falling asleep (and let me tell you that was a little tricky). I'm excited about where my story is going again, and looking forward to my next writing session! Which should occur right after I go to the Y to work out. GRRRROAN. It's been a while since I was there. :-(

(And just for anyone who cares--the title of this post does not indicate I am a die-hard Star Wars fan, I just like using song titles and quotes...ahem...in case you didn't notice.)

Do you hear what I hear? A blog, a blog, sneaking in the night...

It's been far too long since I posted here, but it's been a weird month in writer's land for me. I've had several good bursts of energy to rework my middle grade manuscript, but in the between times, I've been unmotivated to work on it, so I have put off saying anything about it. I think it'll get done, but slowly, slowly.

I'm going to take an online class starting on New Year's with Barbara Samuel, one of my favorite authors. It's less about technique and more about inspiration and keeping on keeping on, it sounds like, and I think that'll be a good way to start the year.

I finished another short story, and considered entering it in the Writer's Digest short short story competition, but decided I had better chances sending it out on submission to some literary magazines, so I will do that after I polish it a little more, along with the other one.

Since the last time I wrote here, I came up with what I think is my best idea yet for a mainstream novel. I started and have written the first several chapters and am really pleased with it. I been wandering a bit in this area as I have struggled with voice and getting that really unique idea, but after some feedback and doing my first 5,000 words or so, I am really excited about this one.

It's going to be tough, but after telling my 18-year-old son about it and then hearing him describe it to my mom as "edgy," I am pretty excited. I haven't been able to find a single other fiction story like this, but I think it deals with an issue we'll see more and more in the next decade as "times they are a changin'."

I played the "What if?" game in my mind after a conversation with my son one day and it hit me, then I played the "What if?" game on paper with the broad topic, narrowing it down into many smaller questions, and I can see the potential for lots of story layers, but one "high concept" main idea, and that's a good thing, I believe.

So, that's been the last, um, month for me and writing. I'll try to do better updating here because I don't want to lose my three readers. ;)

LJWC report

I apologize, I apologize...

It's been much too long since I posted anything of much length or interest here or on my other blog. I've been plumb tuckered out and last week was supposed to be kind of a vacation, but ended up being an emotional rollercoaster instead for various and assorted reasons.

The La Jolla Writers Conference was amazing. If I had my choice of heaven, it would probably be a never-ending writer's conference. I didn't come back with any "bites" per se on my middle grade manuscript, but I learned so much I am almost overwhelmed. I had a great read-and-critique session with a childrens/young adult agent (Laura Rennert) who helped me see where I need to rework TF, which will thus heretofore be called CC. :)

Over the months, I've attempted to research where my manuscript might be considered cliched or overdone, but I think it's hard to know that for sure until you talk to someone in the business who sees submissions day in and day out. Just because you see a few published books on a topic doesn't mean they aren't getting a million submissions on the same behind the scenes.

So, I could just keep plugging on in my revisions and leave the story the way it is and throw caution to the wind, but you know, this is not the "project of my heart." It's simply a project I began to have some fun in between the more serious adult mainstream stuff I'm working on, so I'm willing to rework it and see where it takes me. I had great feedback on my main character, her unique present day circumstances, and my "voice" and humor from both the agent and another children's editor, so I'm going to capitalize on those. My manuscript went from about 200 pages to a shocking 80 when I pulled out all the material related to time shifting, but I'm okay with that. My kids and their friends are enjoying the original, and that's a wide enough audience for me for the first draft.

In the meantime, I have finished a short story and gotten some good feedback on that, although it needs some revisions, I'm working on an essay based on something that happened as a result of my trip, and I might go back to working on my first-ever adult mainstream manuscript before I earnestly get to work on GEW because I've gotten a second wind on it. (Oh, for more time!!!)

I met a lot of authors at the conference. The La Jolla Writers Conference people state they hand pick the staff (who are not paid) to find authors willing to sit and talk and eat with the attendees, and I found this to be true. None of the sessions I attended had more than about 5-7 people, except for keynote addresses and maybe one or two that had about 8-9 people. Several stood out for me especially.

Linda Lael Miller, a prolific author of romances (something like 80), is a smart, funny, down-to-earth lady. I had two sessions with her, including a group read and critique. She has to be one of the most encouraging authors I've talked ever talked to, either in person or online. Her words to me, both face to face as well as on a book jacket she signed, "Julie, you are very talented," will stick with me. Maybe she says that to all the girls, but it meant a lot to me. (And she also told me she didn't tell people that unless she believed it, so nyah :). Watch for the Lifetime TV presentation of Last Chance Cafe on November 13, which is based on her book of the same name.

Sara Lewis, led a session called "Finish what you started." This was timed perfectly as it came right after the aforementioned R&C session with the childrens/young adult agent where I realized I needed to revamp my "completed" manuscript a whole heckuva lot. Sara didn't have a chance to answer everyone's questions during the session, so she pointed to me and another lady and said, "You guys are eating dinner with me tonight." True to her word, she came and found us during the cocktail hour before dinner and took her time answering those questions. Neat lady.

It was really fun to sit in on a session with Catherine Ryan Hyde, who wrote Pay it Forward, and chat with her for a while during a book signing session. I'm going to read her book Love in the Present Tense when I'm finished with the other million I'm in the middle of. She has two more stories, Electric God (with Nicolas Cage) and Walter's Purple Heart, in film development.

The last two sessions I attended were led by Ken Kuhlken, who has written a series of private eye mysteries. His upcoming release,The Do-Re-Mi, is about a murder at a hippie folk festival in the early 70s. I think I might have turned him on to David Wilcox. :) Anyway, his first session was about finding your muse, and really resonated with me. (I also learned at this conference that to be a real writer, you have to use the word resonated a lot.) The second was another group R&C where I got some very encouraing feedback from him and the participants on a series of items I am using in my mainstream fiction manuscripts. Both sessions were positive ways to end my first conference experience. I started out in another session and for strange reasons I won't elaborate on here, moved to Ken's. I'd have to consider it "timing with a capital T." :)

All in all, I am thankful I chose this conference and saw it through. Couldn't have asked for a better experience, and if I can go again next year, you can bet I'll be there.