Ides of January

Earlier this year I made myself a sort of half-hearted promise that I would do something to move closer to my goals every day. One day I made a pitch to an editor (and haven’t heard back”, submitted a book review (and haven’t heard back), worked on some block posts, explored avenues for internships or a new job, expressed interest in changing my position at my current job, solidified a concept in the novel I finished this fall and revised the last three chapters to include it, and started a new novel.

I read a memoir. I looked at the other books on my to-be-read pile. Today I finally picked up book one of the Outlander series. I made it to approximately page 150.

I am working six days a week at Target. Yesterday was my regular day off and my next one comes on next Tuesday. I’m volunteering as cookie mom for my daughter’s Girl Scout troop and in a couple weeks my duties as a trustee at Mary Meuser Memorial Library resume.

I helped a friend register her car. Did laundry and dishes and did them again. Finished House MD and really want to do a review of the whole series. Which I loved.

My friends and acquaintances tell me that they didn’t like House MD. Either the medicine got too repetitive or the whole thing felt formulaic. Having seen every episode I disagree. The core characters and the changing supporting characters explore so many everyday struggles. They make you laugh (we rewatched the ‘speed dating’ episode from Season Six tonight) but they also make you consider issues that effect the human psyche. House’s addiction to pain meds. House’s search for his biological father. Cuddy and her desire to be a mom. Taub and his marriage. 

That’s where I’m at.

And the new novel? It’s not really new. It’s the French medic in Algeria story except now I’ve completely gotten her and my existing protagonist intertwined. What I thought was a story that happened between some of my other stories with a cameo by some overlapping characters is now the next logical story in the sequence.

I’m not sure I’m ready for that.

Everyday routine

Overwhelmed.

As a writer, my job is to be creative, dream things up and build worlds. As a journalist, my job was to provide people with the information they need from the right sources so they can live their lives in an educated manner. Yesterday my job was to try and hold my household together.

I have a part-time job at Target. I took this job more than four Christmases ago. The newspaper industry in my area had started its decline. I had seen the end of three newspapers (and I stayed with one of those until the end) and watched others I used to work for sell to a new owner. After leaving newspapers, I managed an after school program for a local non-profit and freelanced for the local daily. I decided I wanted to return to school and professional part-time work made that complicated. 

I graduated from Lafayette College in May 2013 with a second bachelor’s degree in International Affairs, with a keen interest in post French colonialism, Muslim affairs and contemporary politics. This accompanies my English language and literature degree from Moravian College.

I love working for Target. It’s not what I set out to do with my life, but it’s a good corporation to work for. I am hoping, in the next few weeks, that events at Target can provoke either minor or major changes for some of the struggles my family faces at home. I am also applying for professional jobs, as I have been for the last year. I have gone on interviews in Manhattan, D.C. and here in the Lehigh Valley. I honestly don’t know exactly what direction I want for the rest of my life. I hope when the right opportunity arrives I am ready.

This brings me to yesterday. My daughter had a day off of school for extreme cold temperatures. Yesterday was my day off. And I had a doctor’s appointment. I did three loads of laundry, with the wee one’s help; loaded and reloaded the dishwasher and washed the pots and pans; researched refinancing the house and talked with a mortgage representative; made breakfast for the child and I; fought with a frozen whole chicken and finally got it in the crockpot (we thought there was a bag of giblets in the chest. There wasn’t); got gas in the car; went to the eye doctor; picked up my husband from work; and started homemade chicken stock.

My day off was exhausting. Today, daughter has a two-hour delay which means my morning routine of household chores will then lead to taking her to school at 10:30. I will return home from my very frigid walk at 11. Need to have lunch ready for my husband and I at 12. At 1, I will drive him back to his office so I can have the car to drive to work later. Daughter gets out of school at three. I will walk her to Girl Scouts and then go directly to work. I will close Target Café, come home and have a similar day tomorrow and Friday.

And somewhere in all of this mess, I need to add time to talk to a different financial guy, update my resume, and apply for internships and professional positions. I’d like to pitch more articles and fiction projects to potential markets. And it would be really nice to write more than a sentence in my latest project.

I like my latest project. It gives me something completely new to think about, which allows me to look at the world in a new way. So, yes, I’m a little overwhelmed right now, but these moments force a person to prioritize and I keep realizing I am no closer to having a vision of what my priorities and goals are. I keep doing everything until something works. I need to streamline.

Outside the comfort zone

I finished Happenstance in the late morning yesterday and quickly drafted a review for Hippocampus. While I felt the book deviated from standard storytelling technique, in the end, the author (Robert Root) brought everything full circle and fully incorporated his title. Well done. And his message seemed much more thought provoking than I thought it would be. I try to connect with what I read and I found more of myself than I thought I would in this piece. If you want to know more, you’ll have to wait until the issue releases.

I also did something out of character for me and pitched a creative non-fiction piece to the editor of Hippocampus. It involves another writer, one I’ve known and respected for quite some time now, and I hope this gives me a chance to bridge our careers. The boldness of pitching a story idea without even knowing if the subject would say yes is, again, something out-of-character. It made me wonder if I could find something to pitch to someone every day. That is a lofty goal, but the change in thought process might prove to force me from my rut and perhaps bring progress. 

The child returned to school today and the husband to work. I don’t work until 4 p.m. It’s a wet day and all of my umbrellas are missing so after walking child to school I am enjoying a hot cup of decaf chai. I realized this morning that I only have six more months of my morning walk as next year my daughter will ride the bus. I’ve had the same routine for four years and the change may prove disorienting. 

My list of things to do is short, but it’s an unpleasant list. I already tackled the dishes and I think the laundry will wait. I need to decide what comes next. Work on my resume? Research refinancing the house? Deal with bills? Develop a long range budget? Organize the 2013 paperwork for tex season? The choices are undeniably dull. 

I could entice myself with tasks like “query an agent” or “pitch to a magazine” but my heart isn’t there either. Would writing be a valid choice or would that be neglecting more important household duties?

I have made dribs and drabs of progress on the Jacqueline/army medic story. A sentence here and a paragraph there. I think I sorted out the time frame last night. I think the story begins in early February 2003. Why 2003?

These initial novels take place in a certain historical context. My main characters have to be a product of post World War II France. My strong female character in the Fashion and Fiends trilogy Basilie d’Amille was a corporate raider in the 80s and had other business background that just wouldn’t work in the dot com and later economies. Later, my fashion model character has to come of age in the late 1980s because she’d be too curvy and athletic to be a supermodel post Kate Moss’ success.

Even their families couldn’t exist with a shift in time, the impact of various wars and international conflicts impacted these families in ways that created who they are.

But don’t worry, later stories can bring the families up to date. 

Happy 2014

With a variety of goings-ons, I thought this blog might end (and a rightful assumption that was since my attention to this space has always been sporadic).

2013 brought with it much closure... I graduated from college for the second time. I ended my volunteer commitment as newsletter editor for the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group, which also allowed me to step away after five consecutive years on their board. 

I still maintain my relationship and service as a trustee at my local public library. I am still reviewing books for Hippocampus magazine.

My online portfolio (angelackerman.com) has developed and has received consistent web hits, but my friends have lamented that it's not as quirky as I am. I am contemplating this. 

I have survived a fourth Christmas season at Target, which is no minor feat. I feel no closer to "what I want to be when I grow up" (whatever that is/whatever that means).

I need to be more dynamic in reaching my goals, or perhaps more clear in setting them. Bring more energy to my web presence. Pitch more fiction and non fiction pieces for publication.

Continue to enjoy my family. That is one thing I haven't lost sight of. I started working at Target for the flexibility to finish school and to "be there" for my daughter. Soon, she won't need me. Not in the same way.

Academically, I need to work toward an application to Johns Hopkins. They have a Ph.D. program that fits my honors thesis from Lafayette.

Those little wow moments

I think I had a revelation this morning.

The last few months, heck maybe even the last year, have been full of excitement and challenges. These events leave me minimal time for anything. I've forgotten my hobbies. I have no idea how to do anything fun. I also have lost the art of deeper introspection.

Now that I have graduated, I still have excitement and changes, but my daughter is home from school for summer vacation so this forces me to slow down and do the housework I've neglected for eons. This also gives me time to think.

Today's nugget:
My husband and I have discussed for about 9 months now the possibility of me returning to full-time professional work. The ends haven't met in a long time, and the finances have reached the point now where the car payment comes out of the grocery budget every month. Or, shall I say, the car payment consumes the whole grocery budget. Earning this new degree was to facilitate potential career change and give me a chance to recover from life as it used to be.

That's simply put.

My daughter is older now. She was four when I returned to school. I needed a flexible work schedule when she was home, in half-day kindergarten and in the early days of her academic career.

I spent four years as a college student, while serving on boards and working part-time. I thought, when my daughter was young, that I would use that time to promote my writing to publishers, editors and agents. But I didn't. I did earn a bachelor's degree. Why did I spend so much time on a bachelor's degree? If I spent the same amount of effort on promoting myself, I probably would have built some sort of fledgling career by now.

Do I not want it? And the answer is...

I don't know. My behavior suggests that I have no interest in a career as a creative writer. I think that's because I don't like the uncertainty. I have spent too much time being poor. I don't like the life of a freelancer, especially tracking everything for my taxes. I don't like not knowing how much money will come in or when it will arrive.

Writing has always given me solace and comfort. Maybe by trying to sell it, I'm sacrificing the element of my writing that provided me with escape and comfort and replacing it with the stress of using something I love with so very much of my soul as the means of my survival. That's ALWAYS why I resist the life of being a writer first.

Part of me also needs to be more than a writer. What makes writing so fun and interesting to me is that I can use what I learn and share it with other people. I can learn about haute couture or dance moves or even political circumstances and pull other people into that universe.

I want a master's degree some day and I know I could get into several MFA programs without an issue, but I resist. Instead I dream of a master's in international journalism, or international development, or foreign service... But then when I contemplate my Ph.D. I dream of history and Johns Hopkins because of my interest in post colonial Algeria-France relations.

And the MFA is on the list. It's just not the top of the list. Weird for a writer, isn't it?

Right now, I want to feed the family. I want to grow as a person. I want to do good. I want to help make a better world.

Fiction will remain my stress relief.

I need to see what I can do in this world, before I can help my fictional people make their mark.

Challenge of the Ordinary

I'm still working on my honors thesis, getting ready to present at NCUR in a few weeks. Gulp. I'm occasionally working on my werewolf coming-of-age story as a stress relief. I just finished another GLVWG newsletter and I'm still applying for jobs.

Since the winter is slowly transforming into spring, many of my writer friends have found success with their New Year's goals. Fellow GLVWGer Linda Frindt has met her goal of blogging everyday, despite many personal challenges.

So, it makes me feel like a slacker. Even though I have everything in paragraph one going on, plus work, and family.

But I need to spend more time exercising my writer brain, if only as a way to sharpen the senses.

Now, with Easter coming, and my conference, I probably won't meet a goal of posting everyday. I have met my personal challenge of renewing my journaling habit.

I extend this as a next step: post a blog entry everyday, short, but developed, on something ordinary. Bring to it my writer's eye.

Today it's a toss up. My morning tea or my car.

Here's some words on my car, totally off the cuff and unedited. First draft.

BEAUTY THE NISSAN

A few months before my husband and I got married we bought our first new car, a 2000 Saturn SL2. The SL1 didn't have enough pep. The Pontiac Sunfire we drove had red dashboard lights that my husband said looked like staring into the fires of Hell. I don't remember what else we looked at, but the choice clearly came to the Saturn.

It had no fancy features. The SL1 we looked at had every special doo-dad. The SL2 didn't even have power windows. They had similar price tags. We took the SL2 for the bigger engine. $14,500 in August 1999.

We used that car to move (twice). We drove to Boston, to Niagara Falls, to Virginia, to North Carolina. We brought home our baby in that car. We piled our bikes into/onto that car and went for rides.

It blew a head gasket last August. Two weeks shy of having it 13 years. I'd been spending about $2,000 a year on car repairs for several years and had already spent my annual car repair budget when it happened. My husband and I discussed it and there was no way we were spending ANOTHER two thousand on an old car.

We started shopping for a new car, but we only had a day to make up our mind. And we saw the price tags on the new cars, close to 30K for a car we thought was comparable to our Saturn. We knew we couldn't spend that. We went to the used car section. At our budget, the salesman was showing us two-year old Hyundais. I had never been so disappointed.

Then, I saw her. She glistened in the sun, a beautiful dark red (my favorite color). A 2005 Nissan Altima with 24,000 miles. She had leather seats, a sun roof, even a six CD-changer. Using our monthly grocery budget as a guide of what we could afford, we bought her. We charged the $1,000 down payment, knowing my mother-in-law was giving us our Christmas present early.

My daughter named her Beauty. She had named the Saturn "Herbie." Yes, like the Love Bug. Even Herbie has a happy ending. My dad had him fixed and we sold him, making a $800 profit once we reimbursed my dad for repairs.

Beauty is fun to drive, but tomorrow we find out how fun. Even though we've owned her for almost six months, tomorrow she takes her first road trip.  

May resolutions

I always anticipate the month of May. Spring approaches, and to me that's the sign of a new year and a new beginning. When the chives sprout, the forsythia turn yellow and my hyacinth pokes its head out of the ground. At least, I think it's a hyacinth. I did not inherit my mother's green thumb.

By May, the roses are blooming. They usually open their buds for Mothers Day weekend but this year they bloomed two weeks early.

Spring in recent years has started with hope and ended in disarray. Losing a job (twice in spring), fighting anemia, breaking my teeth, recovering from anxiety, and now the stress has threatened its resurgence with an incident at work that has been fighting old anxiety and knowing I got a 59 on the economics final about which I felt really confident.

But May also brings my highest hopes. I plan to have fun with my daughter, read those books on the pile, clean the house, bicycle, scrapbook...

Write.

Finish the manuscript that I discovered is ready for a new ending. Yup. After all these years I noticed that book one of Fashion and Fiends cries for a new ending.

Finish the travel piece I'd started regarding my journey to Tunisia.

Get a good start writing the initial stages of my honors thesis, which will look at the role of the Algerian independence movement in the creation of the French fifth republic and how that affects "anti-Muslim" laws and the rights of Algerians/French citizens of Algerian descent in France today.

So, May is my New Year. My clean slate. And it sounds like I'm making resolutions.

Something has to be different

Since I returned from France, I've written about 600 words on my novel and a 900+ word poem about Paris, not including a preliminary literature review I had to present for a research project and a narrative that is more or less a grant request for my local library.

School has hit the midterm, which means exams and projects are popping up every other day, even though I only have to classes. I started a new job at a major retail chain who has already scheduled me for more hours that I agreed to at hiring. (A trend I can hope is temporary, but I won't hold my breath.)

I spent a lot of time sick this summer, and it taught me a lot about myself. One major lesson involves the infamous cliché of taking care of myself. This does not mean make sure you eat the right foods and get enough sleep and exercise. I did all of those things and ended up sick because of neglecting myself emotionally. Or at least, that's what I believe.

Medically, at least for now, they might not be able to connect officially the severe anemia I had with the stress I had experienced over the last several years. But anemia and stress do have a link, and the doctors agree it could be possible that the stress caused the havoc in my body that led to anemia. They don't exactly have a test that says "Aha! Definitely! That's it!" because none of their tests for anything are that clear cut.

I've learned new techniques to stave off emotional upheaval from stress. One is designed for the manic, hyperactive me. When things get hectic, I ask myself: "What if this task took twice as long?" Then, I emotionally grant myself that long to get the job done. Maybe dinner ends up getting on the table at 5:30 instead of 5, but I've given myself permission to daydream while stirring the sauce and end up packing less into a day, alleviating that rushed intensity. Even when I'm at my busiest, I've employed this and so far, it hasn't bitten me in the butt.

The second technique involves my new mantra, "Something has to be different." It's about turning around moods that slide in an irritable direction. A wise therapist once told me, "I mean this is the kindest way possible, but when you're overextended, it makes you crazy." So, when I get irritable, I tell myself "Something has to be different." Then I set out to find what I can change.

So, now some of you are saying, "what does this have to do about writing?"

Well, for those of us who have a lot on our plates or a lot on our minds, sometimes, the easiest thing to change is our work. Our writing work. I didn't intend to write this morning. I planned laundry, errands, history chapters and work tonight, but no writing. The stress building in me vetoed that. I need something to be different. And I think the best change I could make today is to push aside the history book and hang out with my imaginary friends. I can take the history book to work tonight and finish reading about the 19th century at work.

For some of us, our hobbies provide an important escape from stress. Don't deny yourself that hobby time-- for writers, this is our writing time, our soul infusion-- or in the end, you'll wear yourself down.

Take a Chance and Tap Dance

As writers, we often get to research topics that interest us and no one questions this. Like Nisha, from Pocono Lehigh Romance Writers, who spent last weekend at an archery lesson for her book (which sounds like an incredible retelling of some mythic Indian stuff).

For me, this usually means fashion and French stuff and Paris.

Artists get to explore their dreams in unique ways. Normal people could, but normally don't give themselves permission.

I gave myself permission.

There's a side bit in my story. It's serves a purpose, as an indicator of Étienne's health and... um... self-control. He learns to tap dance.

I have always wanted to tap dance, but I have cerebral palsy so it seems like a stupid thing for me to try and do. My daughter is in ballet and tap now. So, I asked her:

"If you knew something Mommy didn't know and wanted to learn, would you teach me?"

She said sure.

So I bought tap shoes.

And we started lessons. I love it. It took ten minutes for the six-year-old to forget anything else to teach me, so we turned to YouTube and we've started working on Rod Howell's dances classes from UnitedTaps.com.

I'm no Gene Kelly, but tap is teaching me lots of exercises for moving my feet and my ankles. It's also using muscles in my calves that I don't normally use. Which is great for my CP. I wonder if someone would have enrolled me in tap as a kid if I would have better control walking now...

So, it just goes to show, everybody needs to indulge. I've been told I don't know how to have fun, and this summer has worried me that maybe that's true. Tap dance is something that serves no purpose, other than having fun.

Yeah, I can blame Étienne, but really, I didn't need to learn to tap dance for him. I did it for me.

Progress and Typographical Errors

I have written every day for the past several days, but only a couple hundred words a day.

Is this progress? Perhaps.

Allegheny Beast and the level of detail required for a thorough synopsis have taken all the fun out of my revisions. I decided last week to change the secret army operation in the story to some sort of environmental terrorist organization. In preparing a "character sketch" of that organization, I thought it might be cool to make it a group of college kids who originally went out to the woods to play Live Action Role Playing games. They picked the location in hopes of seeing the Allegheny Beast. But how do you make the leap from role playing geeks to dangerous environmental terrorists?

In my mind, you don't. Since I had planned to submit this manuscript, I have to hash out the details so that I can make the revisions to both the synopsis and the manuscript. But having too many details mapped out, even for revisions, has destroyed the fun of the writing process.

Have I learned a lesson?

I don't like writing with a detailed outline in front of me. In fact, it has ruined this project for me.

I have switched to the prequel to my Fashion and Fiends series, because it's a romance with some paranormal elements. But because it's loosely attached to the series, would I want to market it to romance publishers?

It's Étienne's and Basilie's love story, which happened more than 20 years before the trilogy I have done for the Fashion and Fiends series. But it's still Et and Bas. And yes, I could change the names and some of the details, but part of what makes the story special is that it belongs to Et and Bas.

Which brings into question my goals. See how this begins to fit?

Every published writer says to write the book, polish it, let it go, and market it to agents and editors with the same passion it took to write it. You must have that passion to make it. You have to have the passion to survive the "slings and arrows."

I'm looking for an agent, using the first book of the Fashion and Fiends series in my query. So far, no luck, but really, less than 20 rejections thus far. I'm not sure because I stopped counting. But with everything else on my plate, I've only been half-heartedly looking.

Meanwhile, I thought I'd finish and submit some romance manuscripts since many houses accept unagented manuscripts.

So, do I throw myself whole-heartedly into the agent search? Do I keep pushing in romance? Do I start that YA novel I have kicking in my head? Do I finish the project I was in the middle of what I got this brainstorm (inspired by LA Banks' workshop)? Do I write the short story I have plotted out for a call for stories for an anthology?

But I need a few days to write for fun. Even if I don't have plans for it.

Part of me is discouraged because of the books I read that disappoint me and the books I see coming from small, independent, and electronic-based presses. One author, at a press that markets very well on Facebook, caught my eye.

I went to her web site. The author web site. Her book comes out June 28. On the page on the web site for that book, one of her main characters' names is spelled inconsistently. Now I recognize that it was a simple inversion of letters while typing, but the author should have instantly noticed that and fixed it.

But (believe it or not) I decided to give her another chance. I clicked on the "read excerpt" link. In that passage, the author mixed up "pleas" and "please."

I fully believe that the eReader and the internet have given many authors a place that never had one before. I also believe that many less talented writers are seeing "print" and that's okay, because readers also have levels of proficiency. No one enjoys a book written above their comfort level.

But basic typing? And an editor who's paying attention?

I still want that.

Troublesome Chapter Nine

I think I finished troublesome chapter nine. It took me a month. Part of that could be blamed on life, since school, work and volunteering have been hectic.

Ironically, yesterday was PLRW and I made my monthly goal to finish chapter nine. That's what made me go back and read it last night and discover that I had written more and better than I thought. That's always a nice feeling.

My next immediate task should be to work on my pitch for the GLVWG conference (The Write Stuff) which is less than 2 weeks away...

I need to freshen my approach and rebuild my enthusiasm. No matter what we're doing-- whether writing or something else-- we all reach that point where we need to freshen and rebuild.

So, let's see...

I write sexy paranormal chick lit where the bad guys make are bad and so are the good girls.

In the first book of my series, supermodel Adelaide Pitney has to protect her feminine power-- the same power that made her a superstar--from a 400-year-old witch who wants to use her latent elemental magick and blood rituals to bend the universe to his will.

Okay... next draft:
Angel Ackerman writes sexy paranormal chick lit set in the high fashion industry. Her bad guys stay bad, her heroines wear high heels. in her first book, supermodel Adelaide Pitney has to protect her feminine power-- the same power that made her a superstar--from a 400-year-old witch who wants to use her latent elemental magick and blood rituals to bend the universe to his will.

Writing, writing everywhere

So, my daughter won the reading contest at school. Today, in addition to Read Across America and the reading-related events for Dr. Seuss's birthday, her school is hosting a children's nonfiction author. The top reader in each grade level got to attend a pizza party with the author. My daughter, who read about 1500 minutes in February, earned a spot at that party.

I am beyond proud. She told me she was going to win that contest. She set a goal and she did it.

Speaking of goals, I am slowing meeting mine. I'm writing today (since someone had to go to school early for the lunch). I've probably spent an hour writing, and I'm editing/smoothing over a difficult chapter. Since my writing time lately has meant a sentence here or there, even an hour seems like a wild success.

A writer I know mentioned that she keeps a monthly spreadsheet of her daily word counts. At first I dismissed this as crazy, but then my curiosity piqued. How productive am I? If I made such a spreadsheet it would need several categories: fiction (by story?), press releases for work, writing blog, food blog, homework, journal.

How productive am I? How much do I really write?

A new angle

At last year's The Write Stuff conference, I took a workshop with Karen Blomain in which we submitted a first chapter from a work-in-progress and then we literally cut it (with scissors) and rearranged it to explore other possibilities for where the story starts and other examinations of our own structure.

As a newspaper person, literary re-arranging didn't bother me and I found the act of tearing paragraphs apart (literally with my hands and ripping) quite therapeutic.

Now, I find myself struggling with a chapter and it irritates me and I find myself falling back on some of Blomain's techniques. Where does my story start? Or in this case, where does my chapter start? What do I need to convey?

More importantly, how else can I start it? Most of all I'm lacking momentum. I feel like once I find the beginning that works, the story unfolds naturally, especially since this is no longer a first draft.

I tried weaving some memories in with the character's (Étienne) present-day worries, using some of that imagery to symbolize the problems. It felt cliché. I'm tempted now to give him a nightmare, similar to his wife's nightmare a few chapters ago. Similar but different. Her nightmare was literally her subconscious tapping into the magic around her. His nightmare would use those same memories I used earlier to show his feelings... but they could have a quick exchange later about how "the house" is making it impossible for them to sleep.

I hate the idea, but I'm tempted to try it because everything else does not feel right.

As writers, we often push ourselves where we don't want to go.

An unorthodox goal

Saturday was my second PLRW meeting, the Pocono Lehigh Romance Writers, our local affiliate of the national Romance Writers of America.

I may have mentioned earlier, but at every meeting, members state a goal. The goal gets published in the newsletter and the next month, you must tell the group whether or not you met the goal and you get a smiley face or a frown face in the newsletter based on your performance.

I thought my goal was ambitious: successfully revise chapters 5-8 and get my schoolwork done. I did that, with close to two weeks to spare, but have spent almost three weeks on chapter nine now and it's not getting any better.

So, with the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest, the Great Expectactions writing contests and my own expectations... I set an unorthodox goal and I made it official.

To adjust my attitude and write for fun.

Because I have met every ambitious goal I set for myself recently. And it's not helping.

Writing Vacation

I have been in a stressful patch with my writing, averaging less than 300 words a day. The scene I'm stuck on is part of the problem, some of the problem is also due to goals and expectations burning me out regarding the writing process.

Goals can be motivators, but sometimes if you get too wrapped up in reaching goals, you lose the fun.

I'm looking for the fun. I have ideas for short stories... but they're still connected to my novel, so I'm not sure whether I should allow myself to indulge. One is connected to the idea of Étienne's intersexual daughter, which is connected to one of my classes... So I might pursue that...

But this short little entry is to remind everyone: Keep it fun.

I forgot

I have posted that I would write in this blog Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays. Yesterday I forgot. I thought of it at work, but that's not the time nor place. Then I thought of it at home when I was in bed, and I thought my compulsion to go get a computer and write an entry quick was a sign that maybe I should let it go.

So I planned to do it first thing this morning.

With a kid who had a cough that kept us all up most of the night and the four-times-daily pink eye drops, I forgot AGAIN.

And now I'm just flummoxed.

Isn't that how writing often goes? We makes goals and deadlines and often miss them, not because we're lazy, but because life gets in the way. Well, the reality is, these 'failures' are okay, as long as you're only disappointing yourself and not an agent or editor. What matters is whether we use one 'failure' to alter our goals or deadlines. It's like New Year's resolutions or a diet... It's only a true failure if you allow one mistake to derail you. You have to keep at it, no matter how many times you disappoint yourself.

Too hard on myself?

Today, I ran errands with my daughter, took her to dance class, picked up lunch for my family (they were painting in the children's dept at my local public library), typed the minutes for the non-profit board where I serve as secretary, printed my history journal, read a GQ, showered, waxed my legs, helped a friend with a query letter, reminded my daughter how to play jacks, answered three phone calls from my mother regarding me doing her taxes tomorrow, and got a rejection letter, a form rejection letter at that.

The rejection didn't even sting, which I suppose is a good thing, but it's only my second form rejection. I tell my writer friends to expect 100 rejections before they can call themselves a writer, and who knows how many it will take before success. But form rejections create a sense of complacency in me.

First and foremost, I write for me. The more seriously I try to play the publication game, and the more published writers I meet who still work at their full-time jobs and/or have to deal with the same waiting/rejection process from their own editors, the less I want to deal with the game. That doesn't mean I plan to stop writing, it just means I am losing my drive to 'get it published.' It will return, it always does.

Meanwhile, I beat myself mercilessly for not meeting my writing goals. I feel like I'm not writing enough. What's enough? I don't know. Did I sit down and make myself quotas? No. Did I make a milkshake? Yes.

I think I'm still recovering from a stressful week and the constant demands don't help that, but such is life. It's 6:30. My husband is putting our daughter to bed, and while I should be writing or prewriting, I'm counting the minutes until I can go to bed.

I also did some plotting regarding Basilie and her parish priest. I realized the obvious parallelism/symbolism between her pregnancy and that of Elizabeth in the Bible. Plus, Basilie attends Saint Jean Baptiste... Yup, John the Baptist.

Tomorrow... Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest

Do I even have to mention that feeling when you challenge yourself to meet a goal that seems outside your comfort zone? In my case, my ears ring and I get queasy.

I'm preparing materials to enter the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest. Contest begins at 12:01 a.m. January 25 and continues until they reach 5,000 manuscripts or Feb. 7 or something. Whatever happens first. Being more neurotic than I care to admit, this means I will be staying up late tonight.

I have all sorts of fears about my work ending up in the wrong hands, or getting stolen, because you have to provide the ENTIRE manuscript in a .doc or .rtf. I would be more comfortable if I could submit in a .pdf that allowed me to block copying the words.

But it's a chance at a contract with Penquin.

It literally makes me want to vomit from worry and fear.

The contest has specific needs. Like the 300-word pitch and a 300-word description. Most writers have problems reducing their words. Not me. I seem to max out at 200. Even with my bio.

My bio:
Angel Ackerman—francophile, aspiring fashionista, and journalist (in that order)—has used most of her words on the Lehigh Valley (Pennsylvania) newspaper scene,with 15 years in weekly and daily journalism.

Her professional career includes developing and running a technology literacy program for urban pre-teen girls and public relations.

She also serves on three non-profit boards: president ex-officio of the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group, trustee of the Mary Meuser Public Library, and board member and former executive committee officer of the Advisory Board for the Penn State Cooperative Extension of Northampton County.

She recently joined Romance Writers of America and its local affiliate, Pocono-Lehigh Romance Writers.

She holds a BA in English Language and Literature from Moravian College and attends Lafayette College studying International Affairs.

Her favorite authors range classic greats Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Alèxandre Dumas to modern writers Stephen King and Joyce Carol Oates.

She spends her free time writing, watching French television, and spending time with her crazy family: one husband, one five-year-old daughter, two cats and one tortoise.

My blurb (still working on pitch/description):

In Manipulations (93,000 words), Adelaide Pitney, fashion executive and supermodel, cannot escape her attraction to “aspiring photographer” and elemental witch H. Galen Sorbach, launching her into a destructive spiral.

Four hundred-year-old Galen exploits Adelaide’s untapped healing powers to temper his lack of feminine power. Adelaide wants her magick gone, before it irreparably alters the life of her best friend, designer Etienne d’Amille.

Adelaide must master her power to end Galen’s perilous manipulations of the universe before she destroys the relationship most dear to her.

Something I'm working on:
Fashion meets paranormal forces, as if Stephen King rewrote The Devil Wears Prada. There’s more at stake than the right outfit, Manipulations challenges our definition of normal relationships and how people love.

Troublesome Chapter Six

My self-imposed goal for this year is to revise a chapter a week of my second novel, Courting Apparitions. I needed chapter six complete last night, and spent an hour an a half trying to find the write transition between the two halves of the chapter.

I was merging elements from the revised chapters five and six, plus an older version of chapter eight, AND parts of the original chapter twelve.

It was painful.

I finished it a few minutes ago. I got the job done last night but reread and smoothed this morning.

Sometimes, the hardest goals/deadlines to meet are those that are self-imposed. At the same token, missing these goals cause the most disappointment because you made them yourself and you should know your own capabilities. On the opposite side, when you greet them, there is enormous relief and satisfaction... but it is fleeting, after all, no one will pat you on the back for meeting your own goal.

My constitution

I know my next blog entry isn't due until Monday, but I'm inspired. I attended my first quasi-official PLRW (The Pocono Lehigh Romance Writers), the local chapter of the Romance Writers of America. In the previous meeting of this group I attended, I found them amiable, nurturing and very serious about their writing. While they may not all be published, they all work toward something, which I don't always feel is the case with some other writers I know.

So, they set goals every month. And announce them. The newsletter editor publishes them and then she asks the following month whether or not you met your own goal. I am competitive. I am deadline oriented. This is a good thing for me.

I said I'd finish revisions to chapters five through eight of my second novel.

The speaker today was member Nisha Sharma. She spoke about applying Asian time management techniques to your writing. I had to leave earlier because of my daughter's dance class, but she really got my applying the same skills I normally use it my own life to my writing. I won't go in depth about her talk, because its her talk. But here's her web site:

http://nisha-sharma.com/

Now the first couple steps of her system involve writing a letter to cheer yourself toward your goals for the new year. Here's mine:

We’ve had a great few years with the wonderful support of family. I think you’ve managed to make positive steps toward reinventing yourself when many of your colleagues from the journalism industry are still bitching about not having a job.

I think you’re a tad crazy for going back to school, but you’re setting a good example for your daughter and stimulating your own intelligence, which will come through in your writing. So with all of this going on, keep with the writing. I know you keep wondering if realistically writing is an endeavor that makes sense, but it makes you happy, as your husband says, and your husband likes when you’re happy. It will come together.

Then she said to set goals and list them in priority order. Here are mine:
Finish revisions to book two
Query/web/network
Finish the "prequel"
Begin revisions on book three

Next she instructed us to make a plan of how to do these things and assign a reasonable time frame. So...

Finish revisions to book two
HOW: revise at least a chapter a week
have daily uninterrupted writing time, no Facebook, email, or iPod, or drinks
TIME: the book should be finished around 25 weeks, or six months. Get the book cleaned up by July-- though Spring Break should be the time to REALLY move it forward

Continue/ramp up trying to ‘sell’ book one/agent/ Web?
HOW: network with folks, read more, internet research
TIME: -- submit a query a week, minimum two a month

Prequel/market as paranormal romance
HOW: chapter outline, then revise beginning to get in swing, write synopsis and use this piece as the center of your membership in PLRW/RWA
TIME: before the PLRW may workshop, have a synopsis and a chapter outline for that manuscript, and July is devoted to the prequel, writing

Begin revisions to 3
HOW: read in August, not before. Outline the third manuscript as succinctly as possible by the end of August.
TIME: August and fall 2010

This almost seems doable, doesn't it?