Right or Left: Exploring Alternative Universes

Life is crazy.  There are never enough hours in the day. I have way too many interests and not enough time to spend on any of them.

The good news is that I am making progress on my writing. I’ve made this my year for rewrites and editing.  I’ve gotten a lot of work done in the limited amount of time I’ve been able to carve out of my day.  Still have lots to do though.

I’ve been working on not only the story arcs but on the series arcs. Yes the plan is to make this a multi-book series. I’m working on the world building that you have to do for a scifi series. For every part I finish, I find at least a couple more things that I need to world build.  Recreating a society from the ground up really changes the way you look at the world around us.

Religion, economics, education, politics, language, sociology, geography and so many different things all work together to shape the world around us. Think about all the different things that have to go together to make the world function. Then think about all the different things that had to happen at the right time and order to have what we have today.  What would happen to our modern world if something went in a different way or didn’t happen? How would that affect the outcome? What if there is an alternative universe for each and every pivotal moment that shows what could have happened if?

Doctor Who had a great episode called Turn Left if I remember correctly.  If you know the show this idea was shown really well.  I’ve been looking at this premise as part of my story. Not only what moments affect the world as a whole but each of our lives. Where would we be if we made a different choice at key moments in our lives? What were moments in your life where you had to make a choice? What would have happened if you had chosen a different direction that day or moment? What would have happened to your life?

It’s an idea I’ve played with all my life. The what if game taken to a different level. What if I decided to do something I wanted to do instead of giving up on it the way I did in my real life? How would my life have been? What would the changes have been? What if my parents hadn’t taken in my cousins when their mother died and I stayed an only child? How would that have changed my life? Better or worse? So many ways this could play out…

In a way, this is what writer’s do every day. We ask that question, What if? We explore it. We write it.

 

Ordinary Heroes: An Update and Some Inspiration

Just wanted to give you an update on Derrick & Barry’s Awesome Comic Book Ordinary Heroes kickstarter project.  They have already reached their funding goal and then some.  On one of the updates they sent about their project, they demonstrated the process they go through to create their unique comic book. It’s really cool.

Every time I get an update from them it reminds me that we can’t give up on our dreams. Whatever they may be, if we believe in ourselves and we are willing to put in the work, we can find a way to make our dreams come true. Proud of you Guys!!!

It is also why I was up before 7a on a Sunday morning instead of sleeping in. Trying to take advantage of the peace and quiet to get some work done on my own writing. The year of editing is underway. Currently rewriting the first chapter and turning it into a short prequel I can use for promo. Then I can rewrite the intro chapter in the book to flow better.  Going is slow but when I feel like things are not going well I check in with my writer friends like Derrick and recharge my writing battery.

If you want to support the guys and their efforts, theirfunding window is open until March 3rd. Send them some love.

Avoidance: The Fine Art of Not Editing

My writing goals for this year are to finish edits on the novels I have already written and finish writing the scifi story that I started. I also want to move forward on the publishing front. Since I currently have 5-7 novels in various and sundry states of completion it has been a little difficult to focus on just one.  Three of my stories are romance novels. Two written third started but not quite finished. There are three scifi novels written with parts of two others at different stages of completion. Plus the scifi novel I started during Nanowrimo this past year. Two previous nano novels were written that covered the backstory and world building on this novel.

I have also been working on my blogging.  I currently have about six blogs but only 4 that I am writing on regularly. Writing blogs such as this one takes quite a bit of my time. I am trying to publish on them at least once a week but currently publishing twice a week or more.

I am also working on new product development for my business and end of year reports. I also updated software for the business and have a big learning curve. Then there are the long neglected hobbies including the genealogy one that includes writing the family book I had planned to have finished last year. I could keep going. Really I’ve barely touched the surface of things that I could and should be busy doing.  Yet I haven’t mentioned edits since the first line of this blog.

Yes I have a busy life. I find new things to do everyday. Most of its a way to avoid doing what I need to be doing. Editing my books and doing more fiction writing instead of blogging.

I have the fine art of avoidance down. I may even qualify for a world championship in avoidance. I know I should be working on other things but I would rather play on facebook than edit. Munchie time instead of editing. I needed to clean instead of edit. Everything and anything is more important than getting the editing done.

Why?

That’s the big question. Part of its fear. I was afraid I wouldn’t finish the first time I did Nanowrimo so I did an unofficial one first. Part of it is trying to decide on which story to work on. Part of it is legitimately finding time that I can work and not be interrupted every time I get going. But I think the biggest part is that I’m afraid that it just isn’t good enough or that it won’t be good enough. If I avoid doing the editing, I never have to face how awful it really is.

I have spent a lot of my life avoiding things that I am afraid of to the point its approaching an art form. I just managed to spend 3 hours of uninterrupted time that could have been spent editing. What did I do? Facebook, emails, blogging and a little reading. All things that I didn’t have to do but now its getting close to the time everyone will be getting up. I need to get started on the editing. I also need to get some paperwork filled in for the business.  I will edit for a while then paperwork then back to editing.  Oh darn I have the other stuff too do this afternoon. Okay editing time now.

Don’t Fear the Editing

There is a song that has a line that goes something like ‘don’t fear the reaper’. I’ve heard it in tons of movies and on the radio over the years but I can never quite remember the tittle or the artist. Death comes to all of us one day. Sad but true. It makes the writer in me try to imagine what the future will bring. I wonder about the things that will happen in the future that I won’t live to see. Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to science fiction and fantasy novels as both a reader and a writer. Trying to imagine what will come one day future. The possibilities I will never see. But with it comes fear too. Fear of what may go wrong, of what may come.

As a writer I think I have two major fears. One is that no one will like my stuff while at the same time I’m afraid that they will. Mostly because if they don’t like it that would mean that my writing sucked, the other because then I will need to write more which means more editing. I have a love hate relationship with editing. I like the fact that I can get rid of the truly atrocious stuff but at the same time it’s my words. My thoughts and I hate to delete them. Right now I’m editing one of my novels. So far I have rewritten the chapter while highlighting the stuff that really needs to go instead of deleting it.

I’m afraid that after I delete the words I will find a need for them. Which is stupid because I have an entire back up file that is unedited in any way if I need to go back. Plus I have a backup file of the pre-edit draft, first edit draft and a couple of others. Those words won’t be lost. Simply not used. Currently I am leaving the highlighted words but they are going to be biting the dust soon.

I have the novel broken down in to chapters and scenes. I’m working on just cleaning up the one chapter today. I’ve highlighted two paragraphs and rewritten two. I have a long way to go. Getting rid of unnecessary words, sentences and paragraphs, making the language clearer and more descriptive. I may need to go through this chapter and scenes a couple of times before I let someone else read it.

The current draft was over 71,000 words with pretty much no descriptions. Just bare bones and dialogue. Some of it flowed without any effort other parts were not so easily written. I think that if I work really hard I will be able to get the first rewrite finished by the end of February if not before. Finding time is always the hard part.

Once I do finish the first rewrite it will be time to start on the next one. I want to have all of the novels that I have written so far through the first edits by the end of June and started on the next rounds. I don’t know how I am going to do it but it needs to be done. I am going to focus on those in the same genre first. Then work on the other two.

Time to put up or shut up. I’ve been writing for years and saying that I want to publish. So it’s time to make good on that desire. I’ve written 5 books. Some are in better shape than others. Once I get in editing mode I know that things will go faster. I just need to push past the fears and get the editing done. People will either like what I write or they won’t. I can’t live in fear I just need to get my but in gear and do this for me. People liking my novels and wanting to read them, well that’s a bonus. It’s time to look past my fears and get the editing done. I write because I have a compulsion to put words on paper. It isn’t all going to be great just as it isn’t all going to be awful. I don’t want to end up at the end of my days still saying that I want to publish a book someday. It’s time to stop fearing the editing process. Editing is the writer’s friend as long as it doesn’t keep you from getting the writing done.

Perfectly Imperfect: Writing vs Editing

I am starting out the new year with a great deal of determination. Let’s see how far it goes. I have a lot of what most people would call new years resolutions. I personally think of them as short term goals on my way towards my life long goals.

One of my life long goals has been to publish a book that I have written. For a long time I felt that it might just be one of those impossible dreams. Kind of like the tone deaf person who can’t carry a tune wanting to be a pop star. I could come up with story ideas but couldn’t seem to execute them. 

Then I found Nanowrimo and learned that I could execute them by giving myself permission to write crap along the way and not try to be perfect first time out. That resonated with me since I have struggled with a need for perfection and the disappointment of failing to achieve that in my life. Thanks to Nanowrimo, I have learned to unleash the creative side and write what I feel, hear and see my characters doing. It’s a wonderful feeling. 

I just need to find a version of Nano that can do the same for me when it comes to editing. Because this year my goal is to take notes on stories ideas instead of writing them since I will be super busy editing my books. I have five of them written and in various states. One of them I have started to edit.  

I did discover a really cool writing program and I am going to be transferring my stories into it. It breaks everything down into chapters and scenes. I think if I break things down into smaller bites it will be easier to handle and not so discouraging. 

Well its time to go pay for the no longer free version of my new writing program while I can get a discount. Then its writing time, I mean editing time for me. I’m not even going to take the time to edit this post.

Happy Writing!

Mistakes or Hidden Blessings

Sometimes mistakes turn out to have hidden blessings.

I am always trying new things. I get bored and need to find a new way to entertain myself. I think that’s why I always have so many manuscripts going. And why my to be read pile is so big. I have this huge list of things that I want to try someday. I guess most people would think of it as a bucket list. But it really isn’t. My bucket list is very different and shrinking. I think of it as a This Sounds Interesting List.

Most of the things on the list are there because they aroused my curiosity. Some of them have been on the list for along time. Including having my own business since I didn’t know what I wanted to do for a long time.

Having my own business has been a big learning experience in a lot of ways. I have even been able to take things off my lists because of it. So that has been a major benefit. One of the things that I have wanted to do for a long time is to make my own soap. Recently I went to a convention for my business and they had a demo on soap making. They even gave us some supplies to use in making our own. So a couple of days ago I made my own soap.

So you may be asking what does that have to do with mistakes? Or did she blow up something in the process and meet a cute fireman? Or it must have been a complete disaster!

Everything went really smoothly or as smoothly as it can go when you are trying to figure something out as you go. In the process, I made one mistake that I know better than to do. I made an assumption. They had given us the ingredients and a recipe leaving us to add only one ingredient water. We needed a few supplies but they were all things that you can find in your kitchen.

I gathered everything together and started measuring. Everything they had given me was matched the recipe so when it came time to add the final ingredient I assumed it was the same. It wasn’t. I didn’t realize that I was wrong until after I was finished. I thought I had ruined my first batch of soap for sure. I was heartbroken and pissed at myself after all I know better. Never assume!

I went back to the instructions and tried to figure out just how bad the mistake was in terms of what would happen to the soap. When I finished I was sure that it was going to be an utter mess. I wondered if there was any way to salvage my disaster. After some research it turned out that my mistake may not end up a complete loss but that the results could be interesting and unpredictable. I crossed my fingers and hoped it wouldn’t be too awful.

After 24 hours I tried to unmold my soap but it was still way too soft so I left it to dry overnight. In the process I got soap all over my hands. Turns out that my soap as a really nice lather and smells divine. Also a little goes a long way. But most importantly my skin felt so soft afterwards.

My skin is very sensitive and I only have a couple of brands that I can use of soaps and laundry detergents. Even then I have to be careful because my skin itches and dries out really badly. Think fine grain sandpaper. Seriously. Not after using my ‘I made a Big Mistake Soap’. I can’t wait to use now.

The moral to this story? Just because you make a mistake doesn’t mean that its a bad thing. Don’t throw something away just because you made a mistake. Make sure you can’t find a way to salvage it first. We learn from our mistakes. It’s how we learn. If everything went perfectly the first time life would be boring.

The same lesson applies to writing. That’s the beauty of rewrites. Sometimes the things that we write don’t turn out the way that we wanted them too. So what, there are always rewrites. But before you go throwing out everything that was wrong take a moment and see if you can’t salvage it or use it to make something better. After all perfection is boring and that applies to writing and characters not just our daily lives.

Stress and the Single Word

I finally had a day that I could focus on writing. I was thrilled and couldn’t wait to get away for some writing time. I ended up at the local coffee shop/book store where I spend usually one night writing each week. I bought my peanut butter cup cookie and chai latte before settling in to write. I booted up my computer and opened Word then my mind went blank so I decided to check my email and FB despite how bad of a time drain it can be. I spent way too much time on nothing. Eventually I started writing up some notes on a murder story that I had outlined at least 15 years ago. Then I chatted with a friend in the Caymans on FB about the story and got some good ideas down. I am also supposed to keep him posted on how the story is going.
Then I ended up trying to work on the current book for a while but just couldn’t get very far. The story just wasn’t flowing. I just finished up writing the chapter I was working on and just couldn’t get anything else to come to mind to write. I thought it might be that a different story might work better. So I changed gears and tried to work on a different story with no luck. After 3 attempts on current works I tried to work on a new idea. I was able to get a little bit done but not most. But still nothing was flowing. I couldn’t focus on anything really. I was beginning to think I’d developed a form of attention deficit disorder.
The only idea that seemed to speak to me is the one about the serial killer. I worked on the opening scene but again everything seemed forced rather than few flowing
In the end, I wrote maybe 500 words. That’s it. A whole day to write and I get a measly 500 words. I managed to write over 5000 words in a single day during the last Nanowrimo while working 4 jobs. Something is just wrong with this picture.
I knew was stressed not only at my day job because we are so short-handed but with the business and lack of writing time. I just hadn’t realized just how much the stress was getting to me.
Stress sneaks up on you and slowly saps your powers of creativity away. Right now I feel the need to do something creative yet I can’t seem to make it happen. I am going to try pulling out the notebook I was using before and start writing morning pages again. I found it really did help get all the stress and crap out first thing so I could focus on the good stuff. I’m not going to let stress take over. I need to keep writing and not worry if it’s any good or not. It’s time to institute the NANO rules of writing for a while and just write crap or not. And set aside some time to do revisions.
Of course that only deals with one problem if that. Right now I need to be busy editing not writing another story that needs editing. If I want to publish I need to stop procrastinating and get the work done. The fact that I have legitimate reasons for using my free time for things other than editing doesn’t help. I have to question whether or not the reason I’m not editing is a valid behavior. Which just adds more stress and only a handful of words written.
I did at least get a paragraph or two worked on. Still don’t like the opening but I have gotten rid of some of the nano wordiness. So much to say, way too many words and never enough time to edit.

Procrastination: Art or Vice?

I freely admit to being a procrastinator. I always start out with the best of intentions but things don’t go the way that I plan.  Take this morning for an example. I got up early with a plan to stop by the bank then go to breakfast before running a few errands. Then the plan was to go to the library and work on editing one of my novels interspersed with reading a book for my book club.

So far today I have been to the bank then ran my errands minus one, I am now at the bakery eating a chocolate croissant and drinking a chai. I have my printed novel covered with red ink beside me along with the notebook with my revision notes. I’ve been here an hour and all I’ve gotten done is to play on the internet for the last 45 minutes. At this rate, I should get to the editing around mid-afternoon. Maybe.

I always seem to find something totally fascinating or absolutely critical to do so I don’t have to do what I should be doing. It’s in its own way an art form. Looking back I wonder why I thought those things were so important. Maybe it’s a delusional disorder. Unfortunately, I know that I can crank stuff out under a deadline. In fact I do some of my best work under stress and deadlines. I think that’s why I like Nanowrimo so much. The pressure to write under a deadline, while doing all my daily work somehow spurs my creativity.

Procrastination is in its own way a form of fear. At least when it comes to editing. I put it off because I’m afraid that when I get done the novel will be worse than it was originally. Does that qualify as fear of failure or fear of success? I started to read a book on procrastinators once. Fear of success was one of the things they suggested was at the root of procrastination. Maybe there is something to that. When I was in college I was at the library first thing on Sat morning and stayed there until all my work was done. If that meant a couple of hours great if it meant all day then that was great too.

Now I find myself putting stuff off right and left. I think maybe procrastination has become a habit. Right now though I am going to stop procrastinating and publish a blog. I might even procrastinate and finish some of the blogs I have half written instead of editing. Time will tell.

To Write or Right?

Not being able to work on editing my current work in progress sucks. But not being able to work on my current work in progress forced me to do some of the world building and plotting that I needed to do. So that has become my silver lining in this mess. Instead of using Word, I am using Wordpad and the difference is glaring.

It showed me just how lazy I had become with my spelling, typing and grammar. The typos are legion in the stuff I got done last night. It reminded me of what a teacher friend of mine told me a couple of days ago. Apparently with all the testing that is done now to see how good the schools are at educating, the focus has switched from teaching the basic to teaching how to score well on the tests. When my friend was in a training session about this, the group was told not to worry about grammar, spelling and sentence structure because it wasn’t going to be counted off during the testing. Because its not graded on in the mandatory testing, the students are no longer being taught basic writing skills and their work is reflecting that. Don’t get me wrong my grammar isn’t always the best but I try. These students don’t even know how bad they get.

I have a guilty pleasure. I read fan-fiction on occasion. Most of it’s childish rewriting of the original authors work. But sometimes there is a good original story. A lot of people use it as a way to learn story telling. Some of them should be banned from every posting there again. I’ve seen some good writing and I have seen some truly atrocious writing.  In one story I tried to read the writer used sense and since to mean the same thing in the same line. I now understand why it seemed the author didn’t know how to edit even though they said they did several times. They don’t have any clue that they really are bad.

What kind of future do these kids have? How can they write functional resumes or reports for their jobs? Scary isn’t it?

What is going to happen to those who want to be writers? How are they going to get into college if they can’t write a personal statement? IF you are only being taught how to pass a test when are you going to get an actual education?

Education is more than just regurgitating a bunch of facts for a test. You have to actually learn to use  the material that you are learning. Problem solving skills evolve from trial and error.  From what my friend was seeing in their classroom the students didn’t know how to correct the errors even when they were told they had errors let alone fix them beforehand.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that there has to be a way to determine if the teachers and the schools are doing their jobs. But telling teachers not to focus or waste time on basic skills because they don’t count in the mandatory testing is not the way to do prove your school is a good place to learn.

The future is not looking bright.

Glitches are a bitch!

Life is filled with little disappointments. Sometimes its something simple like the local Cafe is out of your favorite writing snacks. Other times is something bigger like finding one of your favorite bands is playing in a nearby city and you can’t get tickets because they just sold out. Personally, I’ve been looking forward to having some extra time so I can get some writing time in. Since I was no longer working the second job I thought for sure I would have a lot of free time to get stuff done for the small business and sneak in some writing. Instead I have been too busy taking care of little glitches. My computer caught a couple trojans that sneaked by my antivirus software. I was able to download a different program and take out the trojans but as a result of them Word developed a different kind of glitch. It tries to open but just gets stuck there and never actually opens a document. Since I misplaced my back up discs I had to order new. It takes two weeks for them to get here. Frustrating. Because I know that since I paid for them already I will find those misplaced backups and moment now.

So here I am sitting at the cafe with my Chai latte and a peanut butter cookie writing a blog instead of working on my book. While I will have a difficult time doing rewrites since I don’t have a print copy of the chapter I was working on, I can still work on creature development and world building. The current story is a paranormal/urban fantasy type. The main character has been groomed all her life to fulfill a purpose she knows nothing about. All she wants is a normal life. The story begins with her thinking she has found that normal life only to have everything she has been running from prove it was only an illusion. The story follows her journey  as she finds out who she really is, what she can never have that normal life and the purpose of her existence. She is definitely not going to give up on her dream without a fight and a lot of kicking and screaming.

The world building shouldn’t be as bad as when I write fictional worlds in my scifi stuff. Then I have to create the world, the creatures, the history, the societies, and everything we take for granted in everyday life. Not only have I got different societies on one world, I have several different worlds and all of their societies to create. 

Tonight is going to be dedicated to working on the creatures and stuff, plotting the story arc out some more and maybe reading something by Robyn Peterman. Although if I do I will have to wait until I get home.  The first chapter had me snorting and laughing when I read it at work. I had to stop reading so I could breathe. 

Back to writing!