Final Phases

I am sipping ginger-peach tea, wearing pajamas, and discussing favored styles of gun-based gameplay while Todd explores the first areas of Borderlands for the Xbox 360. The fussy dog is remembering that she actually likes her kibble and the cat is being cattish, waiting for an opportunity to sneak-snuggle. Which is about all I have the energy for these days.

I’m coming home quite tired after my new end time of 8:00pm. I managed to fumble my way through dinner, leftovers every night, partake in some limited social interaction, and then find myself in bed by 10:00pm. This would ordinarily make me quite glum, but I’m not thanks to my morning writing sessions.

I’m on to week two. Except for the 12th, where I mostly took it easy because Todd was off for the Thanksgiving holiday, I have showed up to the blank page and I have written every work day. All but two days were above 1,000 words (one was at 500 words, one at the oh-so-close-but-had-to-go 900 words). I did finish the “non-scene” and I am now at work on Chapter 30. That leaves me eight days to write the next three scenes/chapters, all of which will run longer rather than shorter. If I can keep my pace, I will hit about 8,000 words and the first draft of my second novel will be done.

I’m at 68,700 words right now — a little short for a novel, but part of the trend I’m noticing in my work. When I write short stories, I write long and always need to cut back. When I write novel-length stuff, I tend to write lean, and need to go back and build up muscle on top of the skeleton of the story. I don’t know if that’s normal (or even a productive) way to be writing, but it’s starting to concern me. The last novel-length project was at the 85,000 mark and the current WIP may hit 75,000 words — both a little low for a proper novel.

But here’s where the Phase Outlining may be changing that.

When I started the current WIP, I had preliminary scenes drafted by hand that I typed up and then used as my guide points to create the basic outline. And I mean basic, like A visits B for the first time and learns C, but there’s a twist, D! Every time I sat down to write the next scene, a lot of keyboard time was spent trying to figure out the details of how all that happens. Since I’d had success in the beginning with drafting first longhand and then adding to it when I typed it up, I thought that was the way to go. And that worked, mostly. (I have about a third or more of the novel written out by hand, actually.) Even then, though, I’d get stuck every so often and spin my wheels. To get over that, or really, just to warm up my fingers, I started every hand-written page with mini entries: Where were we? and What’s next? I’d summarize what just happened and then brainstorm the details of what was to come.

And this helped. A lot. I was making real progress again.

Then it got too busy at work to write anything coherent. As soon as that happened, my progress at the keyboard back home ground to a halt. I wasn’t writing at all, even on my days off, and I was starting to feel miserable. I also felt that as close as I was to the end of the book, I wasn’t able to picture it in my head, not all the details and events that flesh out the story.

So I tried Phase Outlining. Not the whole rest of the novel, just the scene/chapter up ahead. I sit down and Phase Outline by hand the whole of the next chapter, all the main points, and any notes along the way, and then I use it as my guide when I sit down at the keyboard. And it’s something I can do while I’m at work, no matter how busy it is. It’s helped so much in the last two weeks. I sit down, I know exactly what I am going to write, and I find I’m writing more in each scene because I already have the skeleton to build on.

Would I phase outline the whole book before starting? Now that I don’t know. Not for NaNoWriMo. I’ll probably use it to outline the scenes ahead, but not too far ahead. I would really like to get the draft finished before the end of the week if possible so I can spend a couple of mornings working on the prep work for NaNoWriMo before November 1st.

Maybe I can sneak in a Sunday morning or something.

In The Middle

Tried to catch some a few zzz’s between panels at Ad Astra but my brain just won’t shut off – in the good way. As someone with a mind that can latch on to bad things and spend the the night just turning them around and around, having my brain hamster-wheel something interesting is, while tiring, always welcome. Just getting off my feet is a blessing. It took a lot of willpower to not book every single minute of my day with panels. Something I do, really, over-book myself out of a fear of missing something. But as I get older (not that I’m that old now, sheesh, but I can feel the difference in what I was able to do at 20 that I can at 36)) I’m better able to predict what I can and can’t handle. Pushing the limit just means I’ll be tired, miserable, and more likely to miss out on even more.

And I need time to process all that I’ve heard today. Lots of good stuff. Many pages of notes. A fair split between writing-oriented panels and science/discussion panels. Still too many things that I did miss out on, but I can’t physically be in more then one place at time.

Holy cats, I can barely type. Now my brain is getting sleepy. Maybe I just needed to write something down from my own brain, not just what I was hearing all day.

I did sign up for the Writing Workshop, although I did it with a great deal of trepidation. It will be Tamora Pierce giving the workshop and while she won’t be reading anything of ours (so, in a way, my chicken-shit reputation is still intact!) it will be a smaller group, more intimate, lots of questions. She’s one of those writers who I’d heard over and over that I must read and listening to her at the panel she seems very grounded, very intelligent, and very committed to her readers and to the genre as a whole. Because much of her work is classified as YA, I didn’t actively seek her out up until now, but after reading some of the genre, a little by accident, I think I’m turning around.

Now, I’m not jumping onto the Twilight bandwagon – thank you gods no – but there is a lot of really well done YA that’s marketed as YA simply because the protagonist is young. And I’m thinking that my style, the more I read of YA, is more what I end up writing. Pierce also made the point that the greying of the audience for genre fiction is mostly due to the writers not creating material for YA readers to get hooked into – and it’s true. As a young reader I went from kid books to adult books very quickly, but I can trace it back to a writer that made that transition for me – Monica Hughes. (Pierce even mentioned her in the YA forum today!) I read these science fiction novels geared to a YA audience and, while I enjoyed reading before then, all of sudden everything clicked for me – I was hooked. When I couldn’t find other genre YA titles I switched right over into adult genre books around the age of 11.

Gotta book it. Have to get ready for the Masquerade and the remaining panels for the night. I’d like to check out the dance, but Todd is not likely to return to the hotel tonight (he’s having out with Toronto friends) so more than likely after the last panel I’ll cozy upstairs and get some shut eye so I’ll be well-rested for the workshop.

Then again, if this chicken Caeser salad refuses to sit well, I may be making an early night of it after all.

Up Way Damn Early

Since the dog had an accident last week – we woke to a cat-shaped puddle of pee that we weren’t sure was hers until she gave it a four-foot berth when she walked past it – I’ve become overly sensitive to her overly sensitive bladder. So when I blearily blinked my eyes at 6:30, hearing the tap-tap-tap of her toenails on the metal runner that separates the carpeted area of the bedroom from the linoleum tile of the hallway, I hauled myself out of bed and stumbled down the stairs in the darkness to let her out.

Now I’m listening to some Jazz on XM Radio and the cat is curled up on top of the printer on my desk. The dog is on our bed, waiting for her Daddy to come home, which will be sometime later today.

I like Jazz. I have a hard time finding music to write to that doesn’t end up with me singing along with it, in the case of pop, punk, rock or what-have-you, or imagining what it was written for, in the case of musicals or movie scores I already own. I can’t predict the Jazz; I’m not waiting for it to neatly come round again into something familiar. Jazz tends to become comfortable background music – unless it slips off into something deliberately discordant, which it’s sort of doing now. Maybe if I switch off between it and the Cinemagic channel, I’ll find myself an audible writing home.

Got my minimum words in last night. I’m very close to finishing the short story. Where the hell that leaves the novel in progress, I don’t know. I think I need to talk about it, at least do so out loud, but I have no sounding board. Maybe myself. MacJournal has an audio recording feature (just like Journler, to be fair), and I think under my personal journal offline I may start hashing out some thoughts and use the audio recording so I won’t feel like I’m talking to myself. At least, the myself right now. My head can wrap around that I’m talking to a future self who may or may not be interested and who may think I am absurdly funny.

It’s early, can’t you tell?

I’m off to forage for some tea, and something to nibble on. I may type in yesterday’s words and try to get today’s writing done early before I even head to work.

Edited to add:  Wow, my 200th post!  Spammy little thing, aren’t I?

I Really Hate This New Schedule

Not the writing schedule – that’s doing fine – but my work schedule.  

After our campaign ended, we were all given the choice between two other campaigns to transfer.  Most of us chose one over the other, having heard that the other was stricter, the customers more difficult, and while they were desperate for day shifters, people like me with low seniority could theoretically end up with some bizarre night shift.   The campaign we went to is time-shifted by three hours, so the earliest start time is now 9:45 a.m., ending at 6:00 p.m.

Until the shift bid, which they have been dangling in front of our noses for over a month but which keeps getting pushed back by either corporate or the client – not sure which.  I am the last in seniority out of our group that transfered over, and below the middle when it comes to the whole thing.  Most of my group, however, at least two thirds of them, have gobs more seniority than the ones already here, making the regulars with day shift nervous, too.  So this monster shoe is poised to drop on us at any time and we’re all fearful of getting squished. Everyone’s anxious, just wanting it to be over. 

It is very unlikely that I will keep this shift after the shift bid. We only kept our shifts in the beginning because it was easier, and a shift bid was supposed to be coming.  Yet I’m already feeling like the time frame takes up my entire day and wondering if it will improve if I get a later shift.   And a shorter one.   When I can see the big windows in the front, see the sunshine out there, I so want to be at home in my office, writing.  Writing.  There or anywhere else.

I go through phases at work, just like everyone.  Right now I have no patience for the customers, which makes the calls harder. It will pass.  But I think, after World Con, I should seriously start looking for another job. 

More writing-related and bookish musings to follow, time permitting of course.

(PS: Still haven’t missed a day, either, tho’ I have six pages of writing to type in . . .)

Heat, Sleep & Rain

There is one true sign that the seasons have changed, one piece of incontrovertible proof. It’s not the first snow fall. It’s not the leaves turning color. It’s not the Halloween decorations on display only just barely crowding out the red and green tide of Christmas not far behind.

It’s the cat.

As soon as the temperature drops, the cat, who all summer only comes to cuddle when I’m trying to get anything done on the computer, cannot get enough of me. I might be lounging on the couch in some twisted, yoga-esque position and he’ll twist into something equally pretzel-like, all in the name of leeching heat.

As for writing … today was a strange day. After the caffeine buzz from Saturday that sent me to bed with lead eyelids and a heavy head, I woke at 2 a.m. and found myself pressed between a snoring Todd, and stretched dog, and the heat-leech who slept solid as a medicine ball on my legs. With what room I had, I tossed and turned from then on and pulled myself from bed at 7:45 a.m. An anesthetizingly slow day at work didn’t help. I bailed out on Todd’s late-night visit with family, and came to bed early, though it’s nearly 10:00 p.m. Time to put the computer away, go to bed. Dog’s already here. I’m only two animals short.

Tomorrow I type in the two pages I have written while at work, and, with any luck, I’ll have more material after tomorrow’s shift. For now, I’m going to sleep to the sound of the rain.