Playing with Numbers

Things are about to get interesting.

At least, for me personally. (I don’t doubt it will be as boring as cleaning out your tea-maker to read, but hey!)

I am a day short of doing a nine-day stretch on the phones and a shift change. After several of us affected pointed out that nine days straight of talking to customers might be a stress situation we could do without, most of us (I’m assuming) got a day off in there. The Sunday, no less, of the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday. So I have three days of my old schedule, a day off that will be mostly taken up with pie-making, paint-ball, and turkey, in that order, and then five days at my shiny new 11:30 am to 8:00 pm shift with weekends off. (!!!)

Now, the down-side is that I won’t be cooking for the majority of the week. And I can’t live off of cold sandwiches for dinner. It’s going to be … complicated … trying to manage what I eat and when. The upside is weekends off, meaning that we can properly clean the house together and even go on the odd road-trip. Luxury!

But the real upside, the one I’m actually excited about?

I have weekday mornings to write, uninterrupted, for the next month and a half. If I can get myself organized and ready by 8:30 am, I can write from then to 11:00 am and then be out the door and at work for 11:30 am. And with NaNoWriMo right around the corner, this is perfect.

I have three weeks on this schedule before November 1st rolls around. I’ve also had allowances made for my weekly writing group meeting every Thursday. While I won’t make it out to most of the weekday NaNo events, I can make the weekend ones. So that’s three weeks of, let’s say, 2 hours a day, five days a week to get Spirit Cat/Last Witch finished — that’s 30 hours of writing, not including any time I write on weekends or at the weekly meetings. I’m going to play with the math, today, plan out what I think the last bits of the book will take, and then figure out my schedule.

And as for NaNoWriMo, that would be 40 hours, not including weekends. That will be trickier, but I can squeeze more time for it; it’s NaNoWriMo after all, and Todd won’t begrudge me that.

As for me, time to scoot! I do have to work today, but tonight, writing and cheese and tea and good talk.

Not Enough To Just Write?

Before I get into the meat of the blog post, I just have to squee a little regarding my most recent book purchase: Eyewitness Companions Architecture, an entry in the series from the Dorling Kindersley publishing company who, I am guessing, have realized the insane popularity of their children’s guide books because now they seem to be publishing reams of adult-level guide books covering all sorts of topics. I have most of the big ones, like their Human, Animal, Plant, Earth, Universe, Battle and Weapon, and now I’m discovering smaller books running the gamut from Gemstones to Religion. Love ‘em. They are walking idea encyclopedias; you can’t turn a page and not get a spark. And, bonus, no more hunting for the word to describe what you can visualize in your mind but cannot verbalize to save your life. This architecture book will help so much in one WTBIP (Work To Be In Progress) that is a novel or two down the line.

Anyways, what I’m writing about is this blog entry, Ignore Anyone Who Tells You To Write, Write, Write.

Essentially, he feels like the blanket advice of write, write, write can be unhelpful, if not downright detrimental. That just ploughing through all problems, whether they be life or fictional, is the only solution. That writers do a lot more than just typing out words. It takes planning, reassessment, and sometimes life does get in the way. (See the bleeding analogy.) Above all, the writer must find their own path through the wilderness, must find what works for them, and damn any advice that tells them It Must Be This Way.

Which, fair enough. There is never a single way to turn this crazy, weird, impossible thing we all try to do into a crazy, weird and possible thing. But I think he’s missing the intended audience for this writing mantra. It’s not for working writers. Working writers already know their moods, know their strengths and limits, and have committed to making the impossible possible on whatever schedule they have deemed appropriate. They are already writing. They are already on their path.

The advice is for people who haven’t yet started the journey, who look at writing with the same awe and reverence as the medieval man might regard alchemy — full of dangerous and unknowable potential. They wish, they dream, they languish, instead of writing. They haven’t yet learned the chemistry of writing, that it is more sweat than magic, that there are patterns and reason behind it all, not magic and faith.

But this fundamental understanding can only be gained by writing. Lots.

When you can look at all the pieces of writing with an analytical mind, when you love it without revering (and fearing) it, then the advice to write, write, write may not apply like it once did. And that’s okay. Every writer writes their fiction in their own way. The advice (and the skills) that they need at the beginning of their journey will be different than what they need in the middle or at the end/apex of their career.

As one of these newbies who needed this advice, I can’t tell you how many times I read it (books, magazines, websites) before I actually took it seriously. In fact, the suggestions he offers for when you are stuck are exactly the same things I used to do — writing something else, planning and planning, waiting for inspiration — were what let me avoid the actual hard work of writing without me feeling bad about it. Not that they aren’t part of the process, but they cannot replace what you learn from doing. I don’t mystify the process any more, and that’s been huge for me.

I am far from being on the path yet, far from being what I consider a working writer (still too many kinks in the machine that need working out), but I can guarantee that any personal progress I have made has come from that old straw of write, write, write.

And that’s who the advice is for — the ones who haven’t yet looked behind the wizard’s curtain to see themselves standing there, fiddling with the levers.

Pants or Pants-less?

It’s that time of year again, when writers across the globe get itchy-fingered because the start of National Novel Writing Month is just a few weeks away.

Have you signed up?

I’m pretty excited this year. After winning NaNoWriMo the first year (though by “winning” it only means you managed 50,000 words), I wasn’t so successful the second two. A pre-planned (and un-re-schedulable) trip kiboshed the second year and the third year I used it to continue work on my novel-in-progress and only managed 15,000 words.

This year, though, it will be different.

My work schedule is changing. (Again.) I’ll be shifting to an afternoon schedule, where I work from 11:30 am to 8:00 pm, which will be life crippling but offers weekends off. That said, what it will grant is uninterrupted writing time every weekday morning. At least two hours where I can write without feeling like I’m neglecting something and at the beginning of the day when I’m freshest.

This could be very, very good.

It will only last until the beginning of December, when the training class starts at a freakishly early in comparison, 8:00 am to 4:00 pm. After that, well we’ll see what times I’ll have for writing. (After training, in January, I likely will have lots of time in the mornings.) So, until then, mornings under the new schedule, starting October 12th, will be writing mornings and it will dovetail perfectly with NaNoWriMo.

Those 50,000 words are mine.

But before I can start NaNoWriMo, I need, nay, will, have the draft of Spirit Cat done by the end of the month. With two weeks of mornings available plus my remaining days off before the switch, this is very doable. The only question is, what do I want to do for NaNoWriMo? Right now, I have two impulses: pull out that old werewolf story I’ve been trying to write forever (and have a workable plot sketch for) or do something totally seat-of-the-pants. The idea really took root when I was toying with the idea of writing something brand new and looking over at once of my visual prompt book. I thought, what if I just used it, day after day, and worked the new image into the story as I went along? Wouldn’t that be fun? Hell ya. Almost just as quickly I was trying to talk myself out of it. Do I want to waste a month of time on 50,000 words that I’m no going to do something with? But then I thought, just as quickly, that it might be fun anyways, and a nice break after I finish off the novel and before I end up editing. So, who knows?

Meanwhile, I have four weeks to finish my novel. Hell. High Water. And all that.

The Mouse Has Me

I seem to have developed a growing fear of the end of my novel.

When the biggest a-ha moment came to me, about a month or so ago, I could see the whole end of the novel laid out before me like I’d crested the hill and could take it all in with one sweeping, cinematic shot. It was just a matter of tumbling down, letting gravity take control and hurtle me down to the end. I thought, foolishly, that it would be effortless.

Which, in writing, is never the case.

Instead, the whole thing’s turned into a bit of ‘cat and mouse’. I am the house cat, of course, circling the cornered mouse with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. I know it’s trapped, I know it’s mine, but at the same time it’s still quite living and surely has a surprise or two up it’s furry sleeve. And it’s staring back at me, knowing it’s the end game and daring me to pounce. This mouse has balls, it seems, having played and survived this game before, while for me, it’s only my second mouse out and my first mouse practically killed itself.

(How’s that for some tortured imagery?)

Anyways, I have about 10,000 words to go. Approximately. Maybe. How does one quantify an ending you haven’t written yet? I have the big theft, I have the discovery of the wounded friend, I have the gathering of resolve, the final confrontation, and then the denouement. Would that be 10,000 words? I don’t know. But that seems like a fair target to sum up what is left to write and something accomplishable for the month of October.

Because the plan is (the new plan, or the ‘newer’ plan, or the ‘plan for this week, until I change my mind’) that I finish the draft by the end of October. Originally, that plan was to have it done by the end of September. Ha. Between being solo for the week with the dog and the purchase of the last video game I will ever buy because they are glorious time sinks (see the ever delightful Katamari Forever), I’ve written a little bit but then found excuses to not nab that mouse.

(And it’s tweaking it’s little nose and whiskers at me. Little bastard.)

I have plans for the critique group submissions so I don’t really have to think about them too hard. I want to get an idea of what I’ll be doing for NaNoWriMo, as I plan on fully committing to a new novel by November 1st, with Spirit Cat written and resting for a while before I get back to it. That is the plan. And the plan involves writing. Not procrastinating.

(Like blog writing. *smacks self* OOW!)

To break this habit, I’m dipping into Phase Outlining. Modified to fit my needs, of course, since 80% of the book is written by now, but to not let myself stall when I sit down to write. Part of my slow down in production has been how busy it’s been at work — no down time at all between calls, so no writing long hand to work from. When you have a minute or less between calls you just cannot get more than a sentence fragment out. Trust me, I’ve tried, and it just frustrates me to pieces. And that’s when you have a minute or less!

But, I can crank out a phase outline for the chapter or scene here and there. That’s all I managed the last day at work, a single phase-page for the next chapter, and while it’s just an outline I felt so much better for most of the rest of the day while at work. And now I can come to the desk today with a rough plan of what I’m going to write.

(Also realized I forgot to write something important into the last scene, but at least I know now … sigh.)

So, I’m mouse hunting for the month of October. If I get done the draft before the end of October, I will reward myself handsomely. With what, I don’t know, but I’m sure something will pop up.

Probably another mouse.

Cheese? Let’s Never Fight Again.

Last night was our first critique session. The set up for the group is submissions due by the 1st of every month with the critiques themselves on the third Thursday. This was it. We were either going to get it right or fumble along and waste everyone’s time.

Nervous? Yeah, of course I was. We changed locations, meeting back at La Fromagerie again where the tables and the tea are just so much more conducive to writing and discussion. I was there super-early, too, having booked off the time from work to make sure I wouldn’t be late. Super-early, and super-alone. I took a peek into the cheese shop, saw none of the writing crowd, and immediately started texting in a panic. Turns out a few were grabbing a bite somewhere else first, so I went in, said my hellos to the proprietor, and set myself up for the evening.

Eventually, the six of us who submitted all gathered at the table and got down to three solid hours of critiquing.

And it was great. It could have been so terrible but it was so great. Left me totally jazzed about editing. Editing! Editing hasn’t even been in my vocabulary until the last six months. Don’t worry, I didn’t subject any poor editor with my stories but after a traumatic attempt at editing my first novel (insert peals of laughter here), editing had become a dirty word. Only in the last few months, with our first tentative steps towards critiquing, swapping a story here and there, have I felt like I unlocked the door the tool shed out back and now have designs on the whole garden. Editing isn’t frightening anymore.

What I thought was really interesting was where the crits overlapped and where they diverged. In most cases, if something was sticking out like a sore thumb, everyone picked up on it. Hard not to admit that something in a piece isn’t working if more than three people mention it or agree with it as the crits go ‘round the table. But just as often someone would pick up on something the rest of us didn’t think of and occasionally that would rift into agreement but just as often there would be a valid difference of opinion. No egos, no abuse, just very thoughtful, constructive advice all around.

It was so valuable having five sets of eyes on my story and just as valuable as getting to crit their stories. Now, that’s something you’ll here often about these sorts of working groups, that you learn as much or more by critting than having your own work critiqued. But it was just as interesting to hear the other members critique the other stories.

The experience was energizing. This is what I wanted. This is what I need.

In my bag, I brought home five copies of my story, all marked up, suggestions in the margins. I had three people stumble on one scene, with two different suggestions on how to improve it (hehehe, I’ll just have to try both), finger-waggling at me for leaving in place-holders that I meant to fill in (need jungle varietals), cultural and temporal markers (art deco or art neuveau?) and some awkward faux-british description to get under control (I say, pip, pip).

Concrete, fixable stuff.

Once I get this editing thing figured out, the next stage is … where the heck to I send it?

A Drop In The Bucket, Or Box.

After this morning’s brouhaha with Dropbox, it appears to be working smoothly now. I added another scene today to the novel, some 1,028 words, and Dropbox was happily updating in the background. This is good. My only wish now is that I could figure out some way of moving the location of the MacJournal data into Dropbox so I could have a backup of it, which includes my blog and all of the cool things that I find on the web, like writing advice or news articles that spark story ideas. I am sure there is a way to change the location. I just can’t be so thoughtless as to blunder my way through in finding it. There’s a lot in there, more than what Scrivener currently holds, and losing it would be just as big a blow.

Also pulled out my old Excel word count sheet, created a blank year template for next year and updated it with some current data. Feel kind of bad that there are three months between the beginning of the year and now which are totally blank even though I was writing, just a little.

One of the things I’ve noticed lately is that I’m tending to write more when I sit down and do it than I used to. I’m easily getting 1,000 words out without any teeth grinding or hair pulling, or, frankly, worrying if I am going to even make it to 1,000 words. Bit of a watershed for me, and even managed to do it on a work-night last Saturday.

I managed good word counts on my first NaNoWriMo, but hadn’t been able to match it since. In fact, I thought maybe I couldn’t — not long term, not while I was working full time. It may also be because I can see the ending in sight for the novel, but then again when I end up working on some sort of writing exercise, I suddenly find myself lost in the flow and cranking out words I didn’t even know I had. This is good. I mean, it’s not like I’m going to be quitting my job or choosing deliberately not to work any time soon. Gotta stop day-dreaming about that and just get down to producing, ya know?

And tomorrow, our first critique session! I can’t wait to get my story back all marked up, chewed on and crumpled up. I hope they mangle it like a hungry dog. Hopefully they will find my critiques useful. It should prove interesting. We’re also heading back to the La Fromagerie (first time in about a month) so I’ll get to nibble on some really good cheese and have a nice pot of tea instead of pre-fabbed sandwiches and a calorie-laiden chai tea latte.

I am a MORON.

Seriously.

So, remember that story I sent out for that Zombie Erotica anthology?

Yeah.  Didn’t send it.  Only realized today.

Why?

Well, in an attempt to be proactive about backing up my files to make sure I don’t lose anything.  I had had a close call with Dropbox recently, where I opened an older file in the Dropbox than the one I had on my computer which looked like it had wiped out the newer file.  This was because I wasn’t using Dropbox properly — I had turned what should be an automatic system by keeping the files separate and moving the files manually.  So last night I spent an hour or two cleaning up my filing system and moving all my fiction into the Dropbox folder so that, in theory, as I edit them on the computer Dropbox would seamlessly make a copy on its site.

So last night as I am swishing back and forth between files, it looked like I had only saved writing files, grabbed them out of the trash, put them back in, only to discover this morning that, once again, I had the old June file of my WIP — missing seven chapters.  Tears/screaming followed.  I was able to find them, replace them, one at a time, made a secondary backup.  Then I went through and checked my other recent work to make sure they were up to date, too — especially my little zombie story.  Sure enough, the second draft I had mailed out was missing.  The attachment didn’t turn up in search of Postbox, so I went over to iGoogle to get it there.

Only to realize that I had never attached the story in the first place.

You may remember me doing so for the critiques.  And I did it when sending a friend my WIP just this morning.

I laughed and laughed and kicked myself.

So, I have yet to actually send a story of mine ANYWHERE.

*grump grump grump*

(Cross posted to the Underground Writers, so they can have a good laugh at me.)

More Tea Please. Critting.

I am going to be petulant this morning because I feel it is unfair to start my two days off feeling ill. Yes, whining, I know, but I had plans and now it’s 10:30 am and I am still in a housecoat, bladder strained from the pot of tea I’ve inhaled already, and with a brain veiled in a half-dizzying fog.

Not cool, Universe. Not cool.

Bound to happen. They forced a woman at work to come in even though she had bronchitis. They tell us our seating isn’t formal, that we shouldn’t try to stake out a claim to any one pod — even though sitting at your own station without sharing would cut down on the spread of germs and with the crumbling campaigns there is room enough for everyone to have their own station. I’ve harped on this before at work, that by not permitting us to feel like we have somewhere just for us, there is an anonymizing of the job itself, a dehumanizing, something hard to explain when supervisor’s desks are decked out with pictures of family and pets, drawings and doodads and all manner of space-wasting personalizers.

Okay, enough whining.

Time for some cheering.

I have been surprisingly productive on work nights lately. Mostly because I made a point of deciding that I was going to be productive. Cranked out over 1,000 words on a Saturday night after work, critiqued four of the five submissions over the weekend, and then while doing a writing exercise during the first hour of the shift and this science fiction section just blossomed out of nowhere that’s now tickling at my brain.

I came to realize (slowly, as though my brain were a dinosaur brain, naught but a pea lodged in my massive frame) that I need to stop fantasizing about what a perfect writing day might feel like and figure out how to quantify it. And that means production, that means reading and doing the crits. I’ve said else-blog that I know I am happier when I am productive, and miserable when I am not. It’s such a simple answer, but the pea-dinosaur brain howls at the simplicity.

Which is why I’m pissed that I’m feeling poorly this morning.

So, I’ll put off writing for later and sit back with a critique, the last I have to do before Thursday. If I am feeling up to it, I’ll likely go back and print out the other pieces sent before we got the group into critique mode and bring them in as well. Crits, office-related tasks, and more tea. I also need to jot some notes down on the next chapter in the novel.

More Books, More Worries

The last couple of weeks have been eaten up with work and worry over a job I was applying for. The dust seems to have settled on that matter, so it’s back to regular life-stuff.

Which mostly hasn’t been about writing.

I finally got my hands on a copy of The Idiot’s Guide to Publishing Science Fiction by Cory Doctorow and Karl Schroeder (tho’, rather shittily, Schroeder is not credited on either Indigo or Amazon’s book page and I put the blame squarely on the stores). I picked it up after seeing them both at the Cecil Street Irregulars panel at World Con in order to bolster my notes. I thought I was going to mainly skim it save for that section, but I’m enjoying it quite a bit. Zippy and fun, and clarifying some terminology that I’d heard of but never had explained, like “over the transom.” Both websites show a more recent publication date, 2003 verses the 2000 copy that I have, and I wonder if any updates were made for that second printing. I know at least half of the web-links are dead or changed and this book pre-dates the podcasting trends that are so prevalent now. I was thinking, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have an updated version with Doctorow’s thoughts?” But then I realize that I have read them, scattered across the web. Unfortunately it’s totally out of print, so no getting my own copy. More note-taking. The most useful thing about the Idiot’s Guide book is a section about how you think about writing, that writing isn’t a single activity, but multiple activities that you have to make room for every day. Got me pondering.

Meanwhile, the Underground Writers group is … progressing. We are meeting mostly weekly, we’ve sent our first group submissions for critique (all but 1 of us, anyways), and we’re posting on the group blog.

But.

We went from the three of us, to four, and we were posting fairly frequently on the group blog, until we added the last three. One of the newcomers does post, but the others have yet to do so. Part of that is connectivity issues that the pair has (which would drive me insane … I need my Internet!) but it’s disappointing to see the site usage decline with the addition of new members. I am partly to blame. With the last two weeks my own productivity and posting has tapered off. That’s changing, starting today.

Still, we feel, to me at least, fractured. That we have yet to find our groove. It’s early days yet, of course, and I know that. I just hunger for a tight-knit group, all the same page, plugging away at it night and day. And, again, I pine for the bustle of a place like Toronto, where it would be easier to find like-minded fellows.

I’m going to be re-subscribing to the OWW, and this time I’ll post, I’ll critique, and, gods-willing, take part in the email list that I’ve been lurking on for over a year.

To “e” or not to “e”?

Time for a book entry, since my writing has gone to shit and back!

Finished reading Sarah Monette’s Melusine on my iPhone in Stanza, but purchased in eReader and moved over.

The book itself? Quite good. Strong 1st person narratives from two, one could say even three, perspectives, and rich world building built upon the European Renaissance cultures with a heavy dollop of magic thrown in to all the right places. (Is this a new sub-genre? The fantasy Renaissance? Books like this and Lynch’s Locke Lamore series and Kusher’s Privilege of the Sword make me think so. And make me want more…) But while it resolved three story points, the madness, the relationship between the two narrators, and their origins, it really felt like we were at the first major truck stop of the journey. Still so much more story to go. Very much a Book 1.

As to how I read it? Well, this was the first experiment. I have downloaded books that looked interesting for my Stanza reader. Plenty of good, free e-books out there to try. But while I had a bunch, none of them were in my massive to-read pile, my books of shame that keep amassing on the book shelf every time I turn around. These e-books were all interesting, but nothing I had bought, excited to read.

So, while I swore off buying any more books, I did buy Melusine through eReader. I’d wanted to read it forever, I hadn’t seen a paper copy anywhere in town and just hadn’t added it to my last few Chapters purchases. I thought, if I paid for it, I’d be more likely to read it on the iPhone instead of just letting it take up e-space.

First, why the buy and switch? eReader is the closest thing I have to the book selection that Amazon affords for it’s segregated Kindle, but I’m not overly keen on the interface. Stanza feels and reads more comfortably, and a dictionary comes built in.

Second, the book experience itself. I liked it, for the most part. It did seem like I was reading it faster than I read a regular book, but it’s hard to tell for sure. I can’t get a page-count that compares to an actual book, so I can’t calculate how many words the novel was. And while I seemed to read it faster, that was only when I was able to sit down with it. The limitations I feared — primarily battery life — did come in to play and there were times that I couldn’t read because I just didn’t have the juice. While I will read one fiction and one non-fiction at the same time, I can’t read two novels at the same time. So there were instances when I wanted to read fiction, and couldn’t. Which was weird. I’m also not allowed to have my iPhone out and about at work without getting into trouble, so that didn’t help, either. Still, it was nice having the backlit screen and the ability to reverse the colors. Reading white text on a black screen at night is the best — no bright lights to keep Todd awake, you can read in absolute darkness yourself, and it’s very easy on the eyes.

Still, it was a relief to get my hands on a book. Next up, I’m reading Asimov’s SF 30th Anniversary Anthology. Started it last night, in the tub (another thing I wouldn’t dream of doing with my iPhone), and I flipped to the first page — where I found Connie Willis’ signature. Another thing that an e-book can’t do. I didn’t get to see her at World Con, but she came by the Tachyon book and signed copies of the anthology where her story, Cibola, is reprinted. God, I dropped nearly all my money at the Tachyon booth, one of the few US companies who braved the border and our tax regulations to come and sell us Canucks hard-to-get books.

So, coffee, shower, and then hitting the road. It’s the world’s Monday and my Friday. It’s been a struggle this week, one that’s pulled me under a few times, left me gasping. Got to refocus. Tonight I’m going to map out the plan for the next two days. And Thursday, the Underground Writers meeting!