End of 2013

This has been kind of a crazy, rollercoaster-ride of a year. I started this "plan" the end of 2012 -  my first attempt at a blog on January 1st, 2013. It was a flop and bored me immensely. I immediately started putting together plans for this writing blog and The Red Handed Writer, building them and learning all I could about wordpress and plug-ins etc etc through the months of January and February until the eventual opening of both sites on my birthday. Since then I have made a lot of remarkable progress but also hit some mountain-sized bumps along the way.

Having my baby in May forced me to take a small hiatus, but when I came back to the blog, armed with my new laptop,  I came back into writing in full swing. I had new story ideas coming out of my ears (at least, that's what it felt like). I started a new novella series "Crow" and began tackling the final rewrite of my fantasy novel "Firechild". I made some pretty significant progress on both. I'm still very proud of the amount of work I got done this year. It may not seem like a lot to some writers, especially those who are able to write every day for several hours undisturbed, but considering I was doing it with a newborn and a wild, energetic toddler I think I did pretty damn good.

In late August I stumbled upon a blog post from Joe Konrath ("A Newbie's Guide to Publishing") where he issued a challenge for people to write, edit, format, create a cover and upload / publish a book in 8 hours (one work day I suppose.) I managed to get mine written in one day but the other steps, which were new to me (and I had to wait a few days for my cover) took me about a week. I published my first "Story-in-a-week" the beginning of September on Amazon's digital book platform.

At this point, things were looking up. I was writing just about every day and making progress on all of my projects. I had gone through the e-book publishing process, had created an Amazon Author page and was finally on Goodreads. It would figure, all these good things would crash down on me in the most ridiculous way. Yes, I'm talking about the laptop / toddler mishap. It completely derailed my entire plan that I had been working so hard on all year. The laptop is completely destroyed and it will take me some time to be able to afford a replacement. I was able to get the work off the hard-drive at least, so all my writing for the past year is not lost.

The loss of my little muse, my furry familiar Delilah, at the beginning of this month added a whole new level of depression. If you are an animal lover you will probably understand. My fur-baby (because, let's be honest, before my husband and I started having kids, our kitties WERE our kids) had been in my life for the past 8 years. She was six months old when my husband and I started seeing each other. She escaped out into the hallway of our apartment building one evening, sneaking out the door behind a guest who wasn't paying attention. Apparently half of our neighbors saw her in the hallway but no one can tell us for certain what became of her, though someone suggested that one of the neighbors put her outside (it has snowed like 4 times since then - which only made my anxiety worse because she's an indoor cat 100%).

We searched everywhere - sent emails to all our neighbors, put up signs all over the neighborhood, checked shelters, ran out in the middle of the night every time someone called us with a possible tip. And then there was the jackhole in our building (we still don't know who) who went about sabotaging our efforts to find her - tearing down all our missing cat signs and leaving us a nasty note Christmas Eve morning that read "Not going to be Found!!!" (Yep, some people are that cruel). It is also highly possible that this mean-spirited individual has kept our cat and just doesn't want to give her back but we don't know for certain. It has been a heartbreaking month for the entire family. After a month of searching, we finally decided that, if we couldn't have our Delilah, we would open our home to some other kitties in need. I adopted two young cats over this past weekend - Elora and Willow (yeah, like the movie, but our Willow is a girl). I can't properly express how much having them here has lifted my spirits.

I received my first payout from Amazon for "Imaginary Self - A Short Story" a few days ago. It wasn't much (at 99 cents a pop I only get 35 cents per book) but it was still nice to get my first official pay as an author. Definitely motivated me to get back to work!

And that, in summary, is 2013. Tomorrow is New Years Eve - I don't normally do "resolutions" but what I will do is post my intentions for the next year (because, you know no one ever actually DOES their resolutions. Last year my list included most of what I actually accomplished this past year so I think I'm pretty safe to make new ones ha!)


My ambitions for 2014:

• I intend to kick off 2014 by picking a project (I'm considering either going back to Firechild or getting more into the Crow stories) and brainstorming ideas before I begin. I'm waiting on my new laptop, which I'll likely get in February or March before I can really get down to the writing part.


• I hope to finally finish organizing and putting together my "writing room" in our apartment, which, for the last 2 1/2 years, has been more of a ginormous closet space. Hopefully, having a set place to work in will help keep me organized and working regularly.


• AND (drumroll please.....) I intend to write, edit and publish at least two books this year. I know, my ambitions are growing wildly out of proportion, but I think, with all I learned this last year, that it may actually be achievable.

That's it for today. I hope you all have a wonderful New Years and I'll check you again in 2014!

Getting Realistic

I've been thinking a great deal the past few days and I've realized a few things.

The first is that, once again I've been a bit overzealous and I need to back-step and be realistic about my goals. I will continue to work on the novel but I need to admit the very likely possibility that I won't be able to finish the novel and publish it by February. Doing so, I would be forced to cut corners and rush; that is not something I am willing to do. I want to write the story right and be content with it - not push it out before it's ready because of a deadline. This is NOT me giving up, I'm just trying to be truthful.

The second thing is that, upon a broader view, this project has not been a total failure. Even if I can't publish the novel by my next birthday, the aim of this project has done what I meant it to do. I have learned so much in the past 8 months and I've accomplished more writing than I had in the past 5 years. I've renewed my ambition when for so long it sat on the wayside. This has been a crazy year - with new baby (who is teething now and won't let me alone for 5 minutes) a wild toddler (smack in the middle of her terrible-twos!), learning about blogging, about the independent publishing side of things, working on my novel, writing and publishing my first short story since 2007... And the fact that, even though it's not a novel, I HAVE published something this year, is a great accomplishment. I'm learning and growing everyday and my goals are growing and changing with me. The loss of my laptop and my work on Firechild has thrown me way off course, but it's a small detour. I still intend to try to reach my deadline - but if I can't, this has not been a complete waste. Armed with everything I've done and learned this year, next year is bound to be three times more productive.

Just my thoughts.
Thanks for reading.

Disaster and Depression: A Toddler Mishap

I have avoided posting this because, in all honesty, I have been avoiding the very thought of it. Maybe I've also been in denial...

It seems almost fated this would happen - the irresistible combination of having a toddler in residence, me possessing a relatively new laptop and, in hindsight, the misfortune of not having my work backed up - leading to the inevitable disaster.

About a week ago, still reveling in our victory with the One Week Challenge, Imaginary Self, going live on Amazon... my daughter decided to help herself and dumped an entire pitcher of water on my laptop. We tried our damnedest to dry it out - hoping it would resuscitate - but no luck. It's deader than Disco.

This happened at a time when we cannot, financially, afford to replace it or even to get it repaired. We are still behind on our bills after my maternity leave (because New York Maternity laws and pay suck ASS!) There is a distinct and depressing possibility that I may have lost all my writing and work from the past six months. We can only hope that when we are able to get the laptop serviced they will be able to retrieve the documents from the hard drive. If not, this will effectively halt and doom my goal of having the novel completed and publishable by next February. If the writing cannot be salvaged, I will be forced to start over again and truthfully, I don't have the heart for it right now. The loss has crushed me.

There is this deep seeded dread for any creative mind, of losing work we are really happy with and proud of. There was half a year (a fairly productive half year too) worth of work at stake. If lost, I fear I would be inclined to step away from it for a great while. It's like trying not to think about a recently deceased loved one - every reminder sinking you into sadness. I haven't decided what to do yet. Perhaps this is the denial at work - in my mind I keep hoping it's a bad dream and the computer screen will flicker on with a big flashing screen saying "Fooled Ya! LOL" or some shit.

For now, I am doing what I usually do when depression pulls me in that slow sucking cycle - distracting myself with cleaning... (I know - how domestically unlike me, right?) When I figure out my next step, I will let you know.

The Publishing Experience - What I learned last week.

I met the One Week Challenge, though technically it took me two weeks to get "Imaginary Self - A Short Story" up. I finished the first draft, as well as the editing, by the deadline; however, when we started trying to get the finishing touches on, we started having issues.

First, the original cover art my husband created wasn't working out. Halfway through creation we decided neither of us really liked it, and it didn't convey the aspects of the story that we wanted - so we scrapped it last minute and started from scratch. For those of you who like "Easter Eggs", the face used in the image is mine. It was unbelievably cool watching him distort, crack and dissipate my face for the cover! Kind of like doing a really dramatic make-up effect on Halloween.

The formatting wasn't too hard, since it's a short story, and I use the Scrivener program, which makes it insanely easy. I did have a few things that needed to be adjusted once I started uploading to Amazon, but it wasn't anything major.

We started the process of uploading to Amazon on September 4th. The formatting issues were easy to fix through the preview function but the cover was showing up completely inverted - like a negative on a color photograph (you remember those right? Before digital photos took over the world lol!) It took awhile to figure out that the .Tiff image wasn't getting read properly. Still not certain why. We changed it to a .Jpeg and it corrected. Unfortunately, we lost some of the vibrancy in the cover's color when we changed the file-type. The background was originally a stunning shade of maroon, but it still looks pretty cool regardless, so I won't complain too much.

I decided to sell it for 99¢ since it's a short story - roughly 24 pages (Amazon says 22, but whatever...) I don't think it makes sense to sell a short for more than that. Granted, I'm only making 35¢ per book, but that seems sufficient for the length.

We finished the uploading process on September 5th and it took about 18 hours to complete, officially going live on Thursday morning, September 6th. After going live, I started trying to get the word out - my marketing has been limited. I posted on my Facebook, here on my blog, added it to Goodreads, plugged it on Google+ and Twitter, spread across the past few days. So far the Amazon report says I've sold 6 copies, though I've been told by many more people that they've gotten a copy. Amazon states that the report updates automatically, but after further digging, I found out it updates as payments are processed, not necessarily when a book is purchased. I'm interested to see how the number of copies sold updates after the weekend when banks and credit cards usually process weekend purchases and take them out of pending status.

It has been a pretty great and informative experience so far. Going through the self-publishing process from start to finish has been highly encouraging. Now that I'm better acquainted with it, I'm eager and ready to get back to work on my novel to get "Firechild" up there alongside it.

Imaginary Self - Release

When a young woman receives an email invitation to a salacious website, she has no idea that her desolate life is about to change forever. She’s given 48 hours to find her “companion” before she ceases to exist - the only problem is, she hasn’t left her apartment in years. Can she overcome her greatest fear before she loses herself completely?


Check it out on Amazon for only 99¢

And remember: If you read it, REVIEW IT! Reviews are an Author's best friend!

One Week Story Challenge

It seems after the amazingly inspired progress I made in July, I burned myself out somewhat... I've had several false starts and wonderful ideas but have been having a difficult time initiating anything. I got up to a relatively intense and important scene in my novel, one that starts a climactic upward slope where the whole story changes, and got stuck. I KNOW what comes next but I find myself just staring at the screen like an impotent frog afraid to leap.

This past weekend Joe Konrath ("A Newbie's Guide to Publishing") issued a challenge on his blog for people to write, edit, format, create a cover and upload / publish a book in 8 hours (one work day I suppose?). He did his in one hour while drunk, and while it's not any work of literary genius, it was fun to do and he did it, not with the intense pressure and stress of writing a novel and fretting over every little detail until it's polished perfect, but was instead done just for the pure joy, creativity and FUN of it.

I honestly think that is what I need right now. With my self appointed deadline seeming to speed towards me faster than I can blink (we're already 6 months into this and I've only done 1/4 of my FIRST DRAFT? WTF I'm so screwed!!!!). The frightening amount of work I have yet to do is weighing on my mind and making it that much harder to get it done.

Now, I'm nowhere near ready to tackle a book in one hour, or even eight hours - I'm still too new to the process - but one week to write a decent short story, self-edit and format while my husband creates a book cover sounds doable to me. Because it's not "my novel" / "my baby in book-form" / "something I've been agonizing over for YEARS" it doesn't carry with it the intense pressure I've been feeling lately with Firechild. And I'm playing with it - writing in a slightly different style, using humor, and just plain being silly. I'll probably clean up a lot of the nonsense when I edit, but for now I'm enjoying writing things like "The darkness of my apartment was suddenly ripped open like a vibrant claw rending the belly of an enormous hippo." Yeah I know, absolutely ridiculous and it probably won't make it past my editing eyes, but it was a lot of fun to write.

I started brainstorming the idea for Imaginary Self on Saturday after deciding to do this challenge. I started writing the first page and outlined some of the plot yesterday. I'm anticipating having it finished and (*fingers crossed*) uploaded to Amazon by Thursday night (8/29/13). It's two days short of a full week but I have to work at my real job on Friday.

If anyone wants to follow along, I'll probably post updates on my progress on my Twitter and Facebook throughout the week, along with an announcement when it goes live. (Ohhh I got a tingle when I typed that. ZAP!)

What defines "Success" for a writer?

As I do most mornings while drinking my caffeinated bliss, I stumbled upon a guest post in J.A.Konrath's blog "A Newbie's Guide to Publishing" (one of many I read). This particular post by Alan Tucker, and the heated debate it sparked in the comments, left me pondering what I would define as "success" for myself as a writer. (If you'd like to read the blog post and it's comments, you can find it HERE.)

Let me tell you a little back-story about myself first: 
I suffer from something I like to call "creative depression".
When I was in High School, shortly after finishing the first versions of both Firechild and Lusus Naturae, I hit a creative dry-spell. Some might call it "writer's block" - some might say it was just teenage hormonal dysfunctions at play. Regardless, I sunk into a nasty depression and became highly self-destructive.

One of the side-effects of this was a complete lack of enthusiasm for my education (let's just say I cut almost a full year's worth of classes and was grounded for what felt like an eternity.) My guidance counselor was obviously concerned and, deeming me "too intelligent" to kick out of school, instead sent me to an Alternative High School and recommended my parents put me into therapy (yeah, it was that bad.)

Believe it or not, it was the best possible thing that could have happened.

The alternative school surrounded me with new ideas. I learned new crafts - worked in various creative environments (I interned for a potter, a feminist bookstore, two theatre companies, went to art galleries regularly, learned silk-screen printing - the list goes on and on.) In the two years I spent there I happily absorbed everything I could. My creative nature was satiated and I was content.
On a side-note, this is also where I met my future husband but that's another story.

My college years went very similarly...
I sought out any and all thing that inspired me and in doing so I was happy.
I never finished my novels, though there were several false starts and one or two submissions to agents and publishers which came to nothing.

After college I took a turn back down that road of creative depression. There was always something else taking up my attention, excuses why I just didn't have time blah blah blah.
This creative depression lasted YEARS and I was completely miserable and felt like only half a person.

I got married - I had my daughter - more time passed.

When I became pregnant with my son I felt like I was sinking. Don't get me wrong, things are hard financially and time is a rare commodity, but by the end of 2012 I had finally had enough. I started putting the wheels in motion to get back to what made me feel complete.

This little story only really serves one purpose.
In the pursuit of finishing my novels and finally putting them out there for others to enjoy, I have forced myself to break through the creative depression that has held me down.

I am writing, even if it's only a page or two, EVERYDAY. It feels amazing. The mere fact that I have finally accepted that no matter what, I am going to reach "THE END" and push that little publish button is a success for me.

Writing when for so long I felt I couldn't is a success for me.

While I don't measure up to most people' definition of success - I live in a low-income apartment, we're buried under mountains of debt and when you have to scrape through the change drawer to come up with enough money to buy a gallon of milk for your kids, you don't feel very successful, but doing what I love when so many people don't makes me a success.
No, I haven't made a red cent from my writing (yet), and yes, I could really, really, really use the money (got two kids to feed and I live in New York City - enough said), but there are varying levels of what I'd consider success in this venture .

The first, reveling in my creativity on a daily basis, my mind filled with ideas, plots, roaming the black wasteland of my stories is the first step and I have been successful so far.
Pushing that publish button will be a triumph.
Getting that first check from my booksales, even if it's pocket change, will be a success.
Doing it again and again will be a success each time.

When will I feel truly successful?
In monetary terms, it will be when I can make enough to finally get out of my tiny Harlem apartment and give my children a house to grow up in.

The epitome of success for me?
When I look over at the person sitting across from me on the subway and they have one of my novels in their hands. This last one will probably never happen, but a girl can daydream, right?

Life happens - and we adjust...

I've made some alterations to my writing "plan" for the year to account for the inevitable break I took the past few months. If you're wondering what the difference is, the revision of the first draft has been pushed back to span from July through the end of September.

I'm hoping I can get the new first draft written in 10 weeks so the editing stage would begin the beginning of October. I started writing regularly on it the in the middle of July and thus far gotten an additional 25,000 words added, so I seem to be on track for this new goal.

The remaining plan remains the same on the same schedule. All this really means is that the first stage is now having to be fast forwarded since it's taking up the time slot when I had hoped to be editing.

I admit that it was very naive for me to assume that having the baby, and the first weeks caring for newborn would not affect my plan. There's just no way to account for that level of writing while working on a newborn's schedule. Hoping things go smoothly and there are no more unexpected [haha I had nine months to know he was coming - not exactly unexpected] delays to finishing the book.

On another note, I will be making some needed adjustments and hopefully improvements to the web site so don't be surprised if things are rearranged in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully, the changes are for the better and focus more on writing that I need to do and less on distractions.

Until next time,

Gettin' it Done

I've been writing consistently for the past two weeks.
(Go me! About frickin' time, right?)
So far I've managed to add 13,000 words to Firechild in the past week and a half and each day I'm writing more than I did the day before. It feels AMAZING to be writing every day again - I feel as if my mind is waking up and I'm constantly being flooded with new ideas. The fact that I'm going to sleep at night looking forward to writing the next day is a good sign. I don't remember the last time I felt this motivated.

We seem to have finally settled into a temporary schedule - temporary because, let's face it, I'm still working on newborn and toddler time and that can be a finicky thing.

My typical day now looks something like this (excluding the days I go to my actual paying job, because those days have their own issues and rarely involve much writing time):

I get up sometime between 5am and 7am to feed the baby.
I stumble aimlessly around my apartment making coffee then sit to read whatever catches my fancy that day (facebook, writing blogs, some novel I've been into). I attempt to wake my brain up.
If I'm having a good morning, usually determined by how much sleep babyboy allowed me the night before, I will have started writing by the time my little girl wakes up.

I recently started hearing a lot about the Pomodoro technique and laughed when I realized that I already seem to have my own version of that. I write until I hit a section of the book where I need to do some brainstorming or when my brain is just tired and needs some fresh perspective - need to visualize, can't decide what sort of snappy remark my character makes or can't focus on what comes next due to my daughter screaming for "Yo Gabba Gabba" on Netflix. I usually take a break, feed my kids, wash some dishes, pick toys up off the rug etc etc all the while running through the dilemma that made me pause until I'm ready to tackle it.
Then more writing until the next need for a break arises.
My daughter naps somewhere between 11am and 1pm at which point I'll attempt to sneak a shower and work on one of the million household projects on my to-do list before settling down and getting back to my keyboard.
This pretty much goes on throughout the day until my husband gets home from work.
So far its been working and I've been amazingly productive, not just in my writing but also with everything else. It feels wonderful though I wonder how long I can keep going at this pace.

I've been writing somewhere between 1,000 and 3,000 words per day, 4 days a week. That may not seem like much to some people, but I don't exactly get "uninterrupted creative time".
I think it's pretty amazing.
I have a general word goal of 125,000 (or 500 pages roughly) and have been keeping track of my wordcount per day. I'm not usually a wordcounting writer, but since getting writing done in the chaos of my home is tricky, it helps me see my progress day to day. The novel is finished when it's finished whether its more or less than the wordcount goal - plus, I thought it might be nice for you people out in blog-reading-land to watch the progress as well so you can hold me accountable.
If I continue at this rate the "re-written first draft" (is that an oxymoron?) should be completed and ready for editing by the end of September.

So, you all keep waving your pom-poms and watching the words pile up and I'll keep pecking along on my keyboard.

Thanks for reading my rambles!

Procrastination is death

I keep coming up with new ideas for stories and projects to work on - really GOOD ideas that I'm excited about, but it makes me wonder:

Is this just procrastination kicking in?

A hidden, inner fear of failure, or a worry that finally finishing this novel I have worked on for so damned long and thought about constantly would be the end of something I would miss like a long-lost lover. Or, on the optimistic side, perhaps since I am working and writing again consistently my brain is just reveling in the creativity.
I like the second option better.

It leads me to believe that once I've finished this novel I will not slow down or stagnate but will be able to jump from one inspired project to the next. I have Book 2 of the Firechild series already mostly written (I checked the word count the other night and was shocked to realize that I had already written 425 pages of Book 2 that just need to be re-written and the story finished, which means I should be able to turn around and publish Book 2 fairly quickly after I finish Book 1.)

I also have Lusus Naturae mostly written, also just needing the same treatment.

Add to that the Crow Series I've been brainstorming (I started writing for it in May while I was on hiatus during my third trimester of pregnancy) and about half a dozen other ideas I've been thinking over. There is also a graphic novel I'm dying to write with my husband doing the artwork.

This just cements the fact that I desperately need to finish this novel as scheduled. I have so much to do and procrastination is just going to kill me slowly. The more I write, the better I feel - the more motivated and inspired I am.

Keep focused and finish. Don't let self-doubt or procrastination sink it's nasty claws in and distract me. I'm making progress - just keep taking steps forward and I'll end up at the end of one and the beginning of the next.

And we're back . . .

I've been absent for few months and for good reason - I've had my hands full.

I had the baby towards the end of May, and things have been hectic ever since. Having a newborn along with an energetic toddler, I'm surprised I haven't lost my mind yet. What this means for my writing project is that I've had to take a break and re-evaluate how I'm going to get the work done. In order to keep working, I'm having to get creative with my methods.

For the initial update, when I say I have my hands full I mean it literally. Since new baby boy is EBF (for those of you who don't know what EBF is, let's just say little man doesn't take a bottle) this means he is in my arms 90% of the day. Kind of hard to type when my hands are full of a wiggling nipple-muncher.

Also, it is safe to assume that sleep is nonexistent.

So, since I don't have free hands for typing, I'm experimenting with Windows Speech Recognition program on the new laptop so that I can continue to work during the day.
(Hell, I'm using it right now. We'll see how it turns out...)

With all of the new stuff going on in my life, my writing schedule (and of course my blogging) has been thrown way off course. Anyone with little kids knows - your time is not your own. I'm working on toddler and infant time here.This doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about it constantly. I am going to try to use this speech-to-type program to continue working on my novel re-write and hopefully catch up.

Just this past week I manage to find one of the versions of Firechild that I have been looking for for months. As I've said before, I've been working on this particular novel off and on for 16 years and there are at least six different versions of various sections as I experimented with first person, third person, flashbacks and tense to try to find the voice that worked best for the story. All of the other versions had been copied into my Scrivener Project but this particular one had eluded me. After digging through my chaotic files, I managed to find a printed copy of the version I have been looking for.

Luckily for me, I've always been paranoid enough to print out everything after I type it, so even though the digital copy is missing I still have something to work off of for this rewrite. This particular version held some sections and ideas for the novel that I had never written in the other versions, so it was important to find it and include them in the rewrite.

I'm very excited to get back to work and try to make up for lost time. Even though I am months behind, I still anticipate finishing according to schedule. This will get easier once my baby boy starts taking regular naps (in his crib, not my arms) and I can work freely - you know, use my hands and stuff.

As far as the blog goes, now that I'm working again I hope to post updates more regularly. I will most likely revamp both websites as I have had some new ideas in the past few months that I would like to implement. The blog is a learning experience for me, and we're still in our blogging baby-stages - growing and changing until we find our way. It may take me a little while to get the website back up to snuff and I will probably only be able to post sporadically. With so little free time, and so much to catch up on, my main focus needs to be on finishing the novel. This means my blog posting (and all the random other things) will take a backseat.

Well, this was a very long blog post, but considering it was three months overdue that seems appropriate.

Enough procrastinating! Back to the novel!

Eager Beaver

Yes, I am aware that my postings on both sites have dwindled to almost non-existence the past few weeks but I promise once I've told you why, you won't be able to be mad at me (actually, I don't think you could stay mad at me even if you wanted to *wink*) But to be serious, or at least attempt to be...

I have gotten so caught up in the organization, re-reading, character bio creation etc etc for my novel that I actually jumped ahead of my projected timeline and started the re-write of the first few chapters early.

What actually happened was, I started re-reading the various older versions of the novel to begin setting up my outline. I started with the very last version that I started in 2009-2010 (when I first decided I was going to publish it myself / start my own publishing company). I had only re-written a handful of chapters for that version so I thought it was a safe place to start. Turns out, I was so taken with that version and the changes I had made that I have decided to continue where I left off. I spent the first few days reading through it and making adjustments to fit with the new outline I'm creating and then went from there. So far I've got a little over 7000 words but most of it is polished (not rough draft) so I won't have to do too much to it until I start to edit.

Also, I've had a bit of personal chaos that has taken up a great deal of my time and attention:
My daughter is turning 2 this weekend so I've got Mommy duties and party planning going on at the same time. I'm anticipating a return to my writing work after her party when things fizzle down a bit (like, low boil as opposed to the raging inferno I have going on right now). I feel like I'm being pulled in a dozen different directions with not enough time to really devote to any one in particular - thus, blog has hit the backburner for a little bit.

But writing on the novel > blog posts.

Eager Beaver is looking forward to getting this re-write moving along. A little too eager, since I'm not finished with the outline or the remaining character bios, but screw it... if I feel like writing, I should be writing.

Whatcha up to, Everyn?

Glad you asked!
The outline is underway.
I have to admit, as I stated in my last post, having Scrivener has really improved my writing life. I had so many years worth of content, annexes to keep track of characters, locations, culture per kingdom, maps I had drawn along with notebooks and various scraps of napkins and paper table cloths with random ideas scribbled (sometimes in crayon). Now it is all in one place... except the very first draft of the novel, which I have in three binders on my desk (they're covered in marker and red pen already from previous re-writes so I'm probably better off using those anyway.) Now that I've gotten myself mostly organized, I've started remaking the annexes and writing out character bios for the main characters. My character bios are pretty extensive and it took me almost a whole day to finish one bio, despite the fact that I know these characters better than I know my children and longer than I've known even my own husband.

I've pretty much been eating, breathing, sleeping the story for the past week. Which is great, but kind of awkward when I'm flooded with ideas in the middle of the train during rush-hour on the way to work, with no way to whip out my pen and paper to write it down because I'm standing (you'd think being 8 months pregnant someone would give me a seat, right? That's a rant for another day though,) and we're all packed in that car like sardines - forgive the cliche. ACK!
I've gone off on a tangent.

Anyway, I'm starting the read-through of the various versions and taking notes for how I want to arrange the new outline. I'm hoping to have it prepared by next week, which is a full month earlier than I originally scheduled. YAY ME! Current estimated start-date for beginning the new first draft is April 1st. I'm hoping to put myself on a writing schedule to get somewhere between 2000-5000 words per day written (5 days per week) to have it finished somewhere before end of May (which happens to be when new baby is due. The thinking is, it'll be a whole lot harder to keep any sort of schedule with new baby here). So, we're off to a good start and ahead of schedule.

When I'm not working on the outline, I've been doing a lot of research - looking at other authors in similar genres' cover art - or more specifically, scoping out cover artists that I like and may want to work with. Snooping through the Best Covers on Goodreads, I found quite a few (mostly on DeviantArt) whose work I adore...

Unfortunately, I ended up getting distracted looking at the reviews people posted on Goodreads for a lot of these books and got a little freaked at just how harsh some of them are. I know it's honesty (I've done my share of brutally honest critiques, but usually for people who are looking for advice on a work in progress). I think I need to steel myself ahead of time for the tough love reviews. It comes with the territory and you can't expect everyone to like your work. I'm just not ready to be thinking about someone ripping my work a new one when I haven't even gotten it finished yet. It tarnished my excitement a little.

I'm also trying to break out of my socially awkward anti-social shell and attempting to connect a bit more (thus Goodreads... oh and I'm learning how to use Twitter, which I have avoided like the plague for years. I always wondered what that hashtag nonsense was about... still not really sure I get it either.) Anywho, I'm trying to connect instead of disconnect, which takes effort for me. If you see me around on the social sites, say hi. I promise to try and not freak out (see sad little Everyn cowering in the corners of her Twitter page, hyperventilating.)

And now, back to work!

4:49 AM

Yesterday was the one month mark of this website and The Red Handed Writer Project. It was also the day after I finally got my brand spankin' new laptop (I've needed one desperately for a long time now. Mine was about 9 years old and stubbornly refused to partake of the internet.)

The very first thing I did (after going half mad trying to figure out Windows 8) was upload Scrivener and begin transferring my writing files.

I have fallen hopelessly in love with the Scrivener program. I feel as if I've been doing this stuff the hard way for years. I can already attest to the fact that my writing life has and will get a whole lot easier now that I have an organized method for my work and a new piece of hardware to work on when and how I want (increased productivity! Whoohoooo!)

I've managed to find, organize and begin working with all the various versions of the Firechild book except, strangely, the very first version. I suppose this now means I will have to get even more old school and see if I can find my old floppy disks, burned cds and zip drive to see if I still have the backup copies. If not, never fear... I still have the printed copy (I've lost too much work due to temperamental technology NOT to back things up in multiple places!)

I suppose the real question is: Why is this blog post titled 4:49AM?

Simple answer: I'm so worked up with ideas and working on this project I can't sleep... which is actually bad because I have to get up for work in a couple hours (you know, real 9-5 get a paycheck type work) and I've not really gotten any rest.

Hmmm. To have my coffee and try to work more on the character bios I've been creating OR attempt to get another hour of sleep before my alarm starts screaming? Decisions...

Soundtracks and Writing.

I don't actually remember what I was listening to the very first time I started working on The Firechild books.

At 14 years old, I had a music obsession - CD and record stores were still fairly prolific and I spent most of my allowance (remember, I was in high school) on new music just about EVERY WEEK. I bought and listened to a new album over and over for a week or so and then started listening to something else. You can imagine just how immense my music collection is, I just wish I had the patience to upload all of it to my computer (sooo many CDs, ack!) I think, as with most of my fantasy stories, I probably listened to a great deal of Celtic music, classical music (nothing with words to distract me) and things like Enigma and Dead Can Dance. I am also incredibly fond of Loreena McKennitt.

The second major re-envisioning and writing of the Firechild novel (not editing, but actual full re-write - it turned into a whole different story, which I will probably make into the second book in the series,) I was in college and worked at a local bookstore. All I listened to for two months was the band Stabbing Westward as I churned out 350+ pages in inspired fury. That version probably would have stayed the version I would use for Book 1 except that it had too many point of view shifts and skipped the two main characters' entire childhoods, using constant flashbacks instead. It got very very complicated (I was trying to alter the tone of the novel by writing it from their "adult" perspectives - I did not want it to turn into a YA novel.) Regardless, it didn't work for my purposes but provided a whole lot of really good ideas to be used on the second book.

The point was, I now completely associate the series with that particular band. I can still listen to classical and Celtic music while I work, but I feel most in tune with the story while blasting out some slightly dark Stabbing Westward.

So, to share my current tone while trying to get back into this world I have created, I share some music:

What do you listen to when you create? Does music influence your mood / the tone of your work / does it give you ideas?

Novel Decisions - The Firechild Series

I have finally settled on which novel to tackle first.

Despite my desire to complete my stand alone novel “Lusus Naturae”, I have finally decided on the more daunting task of finishing the first book in my fantasy series (which I have tentatively titled "The Firechild Series”.)

I suppose I was avoiding this decision because, to be honest, the fantasy series is a MESS right now. I started the first draft 16 years ago (for those of you doing the simple math, I was 14 and a freshman in high school). I started "Lusus Naturae" the same year – I guess it was a good year for inspiration and my muse was in a pretty good mood back then.

I have written and re-written the first novel of the "Firechild Series" at least six times since then.

I have written it in first person perspective, I’ve written it in third person perspective,

I’ve written it from one character’s POV and from multiple characters’ POV.

I have written it starting in their youth and progressing into adulthood and I have written it from their adult perspectives with childhood flashbacks.

I have written the first book of this series in EVERY POSSIBLE WAY IMAGINABLE. So, when I say this is a daunting task, I am not exaggerating.

The next step is to get all of it organized and sift through it to decide how the final version should be written (picking a perspective and a story arc progression would help).

I need to gather ALL of the versions and read through the whole of my work - decide what I want to keep, what works and what doesn’t, what scenes I’ve grown out of (because I did start writing this when I was 14 and some of the content from back then was…. ummmm, childish). I plan to take the important bits that I intend to keep and use the “flashcard method" to get the scenes organized and work out a reasonable format and outline (like a movie storyboard, only with words and pretty colored markers). Once I have this in place, the actual re-writing will be a lot easier.

Granted, I’d have to do something similar when I finally re-write "Lusus Naturae", but I have only re-written that novel twice in those 16 years and it is not a series, so there isn’t as much info to work through to get the outline organized.

And there it is. Decision made. I’m starting with Firechild.

Now I’m excited.

Animal, Not Vegetable

Animal, Not Vegetable

Prompt Response for 2/24/13
Written by Everyn Kildare, All rights reserved © 2013

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The simple feline. That is what she called me.

I turned my head to the side, listening with my right ear. She likes that. It makes her eyes go wide.

"Are you hungry, kitty?"

I strolled over to her outstretched hand and rubbed my face into her palm in acknowledgement.

"Why else would I be in this room?" I meowed.

Her fingers rubbed under my chin and sent my fur tingling. I yawned and stretched my arms out in front of myself, arching my back.

What a dreary morning.

I could hear the sound of the metal snap as she pulled the lid off of the can. Immediately I could smell the tangy juices - my mind drifted to visions of tender chucks of white fish and gravy...

My daydream was interrupted by the shrill "Briiiing-a-liiiing! Brrrrrriinngggggg-a-lliiinngggggg!" of that incessant black box she always had in her hand. She placed the box next to her ear and started speaking in a slightly lower octave than the one she used when she spoke to me.

"Hello?" she paused, "Yes, of course. How've you been?"

I watched her set the can onto the counter and she bent down to pick my bowl up off the floor. She paced from the counter to the large cold foodbox and then back to the counter.

"Oh no! I was just about to get some lunch. I'm free for awhile" She smiled to herself and walked back over to the foodbox, opening it and bending down to peer inside.

I sat near the counter where she had placed my bowl.

"Mreow?"

"Yes, yes. One second!" She waved her arm at me dismissively without bothering to look away from the foodbox. I wasn't sure if she was addressing me or the talking blackbox in her hand.

These humans are so odd...

She stood suddenly in the foodbox doorway and tilted her head to the side in a gesture that mocked my own.

"Sure. I remember him...." She reached inside the foodbox and pulled out a small red container without looking down. She placed the container on the counter and mindlessly tapped her fingers on the lid. "Really? I had no idea!"

This had gone on long enough.

"Mreeeoooooow!" I protested.

"Yeah. Okay, okay" She pulled the lid off of the plastic container and dumped it into my bowl.

What was she doing? Where was my can?

She stooped down and thumped the bowl down in front of me and turned on her heel to walk out of the room.

What sat in front of me was green and smelled like garlic and butter. I could still smell the lovely fish aroma on the counter above me.

Prompt for the week of 2/24/13:

Write from the first person perspective of an animal.

Choose any animal (the more unusual, the better) and write in first person perspective: what do they see, hear, smell, taste? What other creatures are around them? Where do they go and what do they do? Be as descriptive as possible!

You Might Be An Artist If...

 

I think the first one is dead on... the rest are pretty true too!

 Source: amandaonwriting.tumblr.com via Everyn on Pinterest

Time to choose

“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.” – Saul Bellow

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I only got about 3 hours of sleep last night. There are about a dozen reasons for this, but the biggest one would be the inability to make my brain STFU! I got out of bed four times to jot down ideas that were buzzing around my head: some for the websites, one for a play (not sure what that was about, since I don't even write plays), and the other stuff had to do with my main character in my fantasy series, tentatively titled "The Firechild Series" (I've always called it that, even before I Googled and determined someone already had a novel with that title. GRrrrrrrRRRrrrrr!)


I've thoroughly committed myself to this mission of tackling one of my novels; bribing my muse into submission, and getting my re-writing and editing completed on at least one of these long-standing projects by a year from now - but which novel? I had originally planned to work on my novel "Lusus Naturae", which involves incubus-type creatures who have the uncanny (and unfortunate, in my protagonist's case) ability to absorb, not just the memories of a person through physical contact, but also their being (or soul, if you will. That which makes them unique).

OR

Do I start from scratch with a new story? I have a bunch of ideas waiting in the wings... but I suppose that would be too impetuous. I really need to finish these novels and see them to their final destination so that I can move on. I've been working on them for so terribly long that I fear I may be avoiding finishing - I suppose maybe I'd miss them too much.

There's nothing quite like your first.

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Adventures In Insomnia - Introducing....

My first "Official" post here on my new and shiny Author blog!

I've been working on getting this site, as well as The Red Handed Writer page, set up for the past few weeks... been posting all the beginning content and making adjustments since 5am (when my toddler decided she wanted to wake up. Some birthday, eh?)


But it is just that: My Birthday. 
The big (or not so big) THREE ZERO. The "Dirty Thirty", as my friends keep referring to it as. Feels just like every other day... except that I'm trying to get this project in motion and am more exhausted than anything else.

If you're wondering why it's called "Adventures in Insomnia" - let's just say I don't get a lot of sleep. There will be a lot of posting at the ass-crack of dawn, so do be warned :D

Been writing and uploading and tweaking backgrounds and creating images until my brain started to feel like mush, so I'm going to step away here and leave you with a little music.

Since it would have his birthday as well (*had he still been alive*), I figured I'd share a little Kurt Cobain with all of you:

Welcome to EverynKildare.com

 And Voila! I am reborn via internet for my 30th Birthday!

The opening of this website marks the end of my twenties (or at least, it will starting tomorrow) - time to stop twiddling my thumbs and get back to my writing. I've had a lot of false starts and stops over the past few years, so here's hoping you guys can keep me on track.

Wish me luck,