60-some pages in

Why is it that as soon as you start a serious project, your creative juices overwhelm you and nag you to return to your fun projects? For me I think it has to do with my stress levels, that my brain automatically defaults to thinking about my characters to remove myself from the difficulties of day-to-day life.

Speaking of some escape, I recently devoured Laura Florand's The Chocolate Thief. Truly delightful. I didn't think the epilogue chapter was necessary, and if anything, it weakened the romance of the whole story. I also found myself enamored with Sylvain, the chocolatier, who seemed more interesting than the main female character. Rounder and less two-dimensional than the rich girl character.

I love the French feel. Love the language and the easy flow of the book.

I think I enjoyed it equally, or perhaps for different reasons, compared to her first book, Blame it on Paris.

My hectic life enjoyed a little breather.

100%

The last few months I have kept myself sane by working on what I term "the prequel" but even it has reached that point where you have to either develop a structure and take the project seriously or keep writing for fun and acknowledge that most of what you have done will later be undone when you try to transform "fun" into a marketable piece.

I never came to terms with this when the final book in my series started kicking about in my mind again, more like an emotional haunting, where I find myself trapped in the characters' angst.

So what does this mean?

I heard fabulous news from a colleague of mine from the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group (GLVWG), Kathryn Craft, whom I respect as a writer and for her diplomacy, wisdom and personality. She signed with an agent at Donald Maass' agency.

She had queried 129 agents prior to the one who signed her.

Meanwhile, other friends wait for news from small publishers, agents and contests. Other friends walk the "Indie" route and explore E-publishing, self-publishing and developing their own small presses.

And then people ask me what I'm doing. I'm sitting on my work.

I am still not confident the concept is 100% and I am close to nailing down what it should be. I want to see more of where the publishing industry is going. When I enter this game again, I hope to have three solid manuscripts and other projects in the works. That way if one doesn't sell, I have two others to hawk. And if the first one sells, I have the material for a multi-book deal.

But the key here is 100%. Because I think-- in anything in life-- you must stand behind it and be 100% confident. If you're not, those you're trying to impress will find your weakness and exploit it and crush you.

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.

Ghosts of writing past

A friend visited the other night and offer a big pitcher of my purple margaritas, we started talking about the benefits of a critique group and how writers learn from each other. We started talking about our own writing journeys, and how we have seen our styles change, and more importantly, we discussed how we see signs of that progressive journey in other writers.

Then we went into the discussion of how bad some of our drafts are.

And I bared my soul.

I went into my closet and grabbed the true second or third draft of the story that morphed into the Fashion and Fiends series. I wrote it in 1993. I used every cliché available and had the Anne Rice-style "misunderstood vampire" angst oozing from every other sentence. Now, my vampires are witches who practice blood magick.

I wasn't even 18 when I wrote this manuscript. It got shelved for several reasons.
1. It sucked.
2. It obsessed me and I could not move on with developing my real life.
3. I had no real life experience so the characters were cliché and two-dimensional.

When my friend, who is also a member of my critique group, saw this manuscript, we had a few chuckles. In the end, she recognized certain elements of my style and certain writing practices that I was good at then and how they're my strengths now.

It took me seventeen years to improve my writing, and those seventeen years brought a literature degree, foreign language study, raising a family, finding more of myself, and lots of reading and writing.

Writers who work together can achieve similar growth a lot faster, but we all travel the same road and have some point struggled with the same problems in writing growth.

Direction

Today was an amazing day. Started in it tears, ended it exhausted. My little girl had her first day of first grade. Six hours and 15 minutes of conformist brainwashing to make her one of the masses. I say that in jest but also in earnest. A German friend and I were discussing the educational system here and she couldn't believe how many hours American children put in and how little they achieve. It couldn't have felt too long as my daughter could tell me only the minimum. They did a craft. They had recess. They did a coloring sheet. And my favorite-- "We did a bunch of stuff we learned last year."

Today was also my first day of school, my fourth semester working on my second undergraduate degree. To complement my English/French studies my first time, and to augment my career in journalism, I am studying International Affairs (a blend of history, politics, business and foreign language).

(This will relate to writing, but in a round-about way.)

So, I went to my 100-level "History of the Modern World" class today expecting to be bored out of my mind. It's a survey class. Probably lectures. Boy, was I wrong! The teacher was young, a tad crazy, very energetic. I love her.

In my 200-level class on research methods, it looks like we'll be spending the bulk of the semester on one 12-page research paper, topic of our choosing. This should be easy. Especially since I think I know what I want to do.

Between these two classes, I met with my professor from my history colloquium last semester.

Why?

For "direction."

This is really no different than how we meander through plots as writers. As writers, one common comparison of writing styles pits those who plot (plotters) against those who fly by the seats of their pants (pantsers). I am 75% plotter with a touch of pants. In life, I am the opposite. I seem organized. I seem to know what I am doing. But the reality is, I'm flying.

Since I am also trying to slow down, have more fun and relax, this has led to some interesting conflict. I have financial resources that may or may not last now that I have been unemployed for five months. I have a child that has reached full school-age. But now my past industry (journalism) is dying...

And I want more education. Like a master's in French cultural studies and/or a doctorate in history (20th century French history).

Without getting into what my professor said, he said one thing really interesting which should apply to writers: "Tell everyone your aspirations." He meant everyone who could potentially help you. Reminder~ Network.

But he also caused me to look at my motivation. I love what I'm doing now, but maybe, by relaxing and enjoying the process I can keep talking to people and find something I enjoy doing (as a career) without immediately making that jump to graduate studies. Isn't that how our characters do it? They might say "I'm going to do BLAH."

But do they? They start to. They get distracted or diverted. They might eventually end up in the place they wanted to be, but we sent them on a dynamic journey to get from A to B. We didn't make it a straight line.

To consider this, I have declared this semester and next semester a time of exploration. I have 2-3 more years working on my degree. So the next one will focus on finding the options. Then I'll start choosing what items I need to do to fulfill some of them. I can take the GREs regardless of what exactly I plan to do. I can take a French class to improve my grammar even if it doesn't fit in my major. Theoretically I could take Spanish as I've always contemplated.

If I were a character, what would the author want me to have in my background, in my current life, to make me the person I need to be for the story about to be told?

Cross the line

As writers, we all have passages that disturb us. Things we've written that chronicle the darkness in our own soul. Sometimes we hide these things. Sometimes we share them.

The characters whose argument gets violent.

The sex scene that turns intense in a non-standard way.

Hurting children.

Bombing civilians.

Exploring taboos.

Yes, I feel one of these coming.

Some writers write it as a purge and shove it in a drawer. Mine usually end up as pivotal parts of my dénouement.

Word counts as success

The more you write the better you get.

True.

Write everyday if you "want to be a real writer."

False.

A real writer is compelled to write when the mood strikes. It doesn't matter what else is happening. A two-year-old on the toilet who needs help wiping? 9/11/2001? When you have the deep writing bug, you write through things that move you and you write because the idea moves you. You can be moved by life to write. You can be moved by ideas to write.

Writing everyday improves your technique, makes you better, makes writing easier and makes you more professional.

When I am truly working hard, I write 5,000 words a day. If I lose interest and force myself to write anyway, I get 1,000. Or maybe 2,000 but 1,000 might be crap that needs to be edited out later.

Lately, I have written a sentence or a paragraph a day. This refers to my fiction project. I have still written in my journal, to my friends and on my blogs. I am still plotting in my head.

Why stress over the word count when I know without a doubt that once I get the plotting right, and I am ready to sit down and write, I'll produce the 5,000 words, probably in one sitting. So, why stress for a week trying to force myself to do something that will effortlessly take a day when I'm ready?

But, please not, I do open the file, read it and write anywhere from a sentence to a paragraph everyday to keep myself engaged and remember what problems I am supposed to be solving.

The Recipe

I have tried to return to my habit of writing three blog entries a week, but I find myself uninteresting. I used to write newspaper columns. Deadlines do not scare me. The empty page does not intimidate me.

But if I find myself dull, you won't give me a second chance.

Could you be a tad more forgiving?

But, seriously, I have tried setting a thrice-weekly reminder on my iPhone. I have tried writing a blog before I commit to projects.

In the end, I failed.

In the last few days, I've noticed this blog has gone fallow, so to speak, and my recipe blog is growing. While the recipes have faltered with my lack of cooking as of late, the voice and the contemplation about what I eat, how I eat and why seems more reflective and creative.

Here are two recent samples:
http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2010/08/mac-and-cheese-taste-test.html
Mac and Cheese Taste Test
Although I would like to believe Betty Crocker taught me well the basics of mac and cheese, I do have boxed, processed macaroni and cheese two to three times a month. My husband likes it (as he does my baked mac) and more importantly, it's something he's comfortable making.

As a family, we prefer Wegmans mac and cheese. The generic Wegmans stuff. The spirals. NOT the white cheddar. Not the elbows.

Kraft is yummy, especially that new formula they have out now, but I won't pay their prices. If I pay that for mac and cheese in a box, I'll go with Nature's Promise Cheddar or Anne's Organic. Some of that Anne's organic stuff includes significant vegetable matter.

Even Aldi's generic mac and cheese will do in a pinch. My husband often adds a touch of cheddar to make it more appealing. But it will do.

Tonight, we tried Target's Archer Farm. First off, it was more expensive than what I would normally pay. But we wanted to see if it was worth it. Sometimes it pays to splurge as a treat, and sometimes it just proves you aren't missing anything by buying the cheap stuff.

From "Monday Update" http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2010/08/monday-morning-update.html

"Carbohydrates. Not including the jam for the PB&J, two of the items in this morning's meals have lots of carbs. Bread, that's obvious. And yogurt, may not seem so obvious. When I had gestational diabetes, I was allotted 3 servings of carbs with my lunch, not including one fruit, and 4 with my dinner.

That's why to this day I make half-sandwiches instead of whole. Because each slice of bread counts as 1 serving, and 13 doritoes/potato chips etc is also 1 serving. If I wanted the chips, I usually skimped on the bread. And I learned that a half-sandwich is just as filling, and depending what's on it can end up tasting really thick, as if you put double meat or cheese on it. I still don't miss that extra slice.

Compare this to yogurt. Because yogurt is made with milk and lactose is a sugar, and then our American palate likes it sweet so we add MORE sugar... A low-fat yogurt that has that thick creamy pudding-like taste had 2-3 servings of carbohydrates. That's an entire lunch worth. For a diabetic pregnant woman (who, by the way, gets more food than your everyday diabetic). And fat free yogurt sweetened with asparatame STILL has 1 full serving of carbs. With that choice, I'd rather opt for a low-fat oatmeal cookie. Probably leave me more emotionally satisfied.

So that's my rant."

And then there's the entry about shopping at Target, another about saving money on CVS.

Once again, I think my intellect is trying to hard when my soul knows the answer. Write what you love and it comes easily.

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.

Return to writing

So, I haven't written since Monday. I had pledged to let my synopsis rest, and start revisions (especially with the change from a military presence to a terrorist one) but it didn't happen.

To make matters worse, I didn't write anything.

This morning I've already revised a few lines of my synopsis.

But it's hard "to get moving again" when you've already "let the ball drop."

How do you get motivated?

Any way you have to.
Set deadlines.
Bribe yourself.
Make incremental goals.
Try a different project if the old one has you burnt out.
Write messier than usual/don't be so strict with yourself.

But write.

Clues to building a synopsis

Somewhere around Tuesday, I finally found my voice for my latest synopsis.

Having complete these pesky detailed outlines for three other manuscripts, you'd think it'd be easy.

It's not.

Writing never is.

The trick to writing a decent synopsis is to remember you're proving your storytelling abilities, not merely outlining your novel. If you proceed in a "this happens" "and then" format, it sounds like a middle school book report.

But unless you have a gift for these things, finding the right voice for a synopsis can be tricky. It needs to evoke the mood of the genre, capture your craft skills and reveal what happens in the book, in a way that makes agents and editors want to read the book.

I don't have the answer for how to achieve this, but a synopsis is a detailed pitch followed through to the end of the book. So, I like to think about how the words sound when I'm typing them focus on flow, clarity and brevity.

Since this latest project is a paranormal romance, I have to focus on not only the murder mystery, not only the supernatural elements, but also the love story. And, being me, I need to find a way to write it so it doesn't seem sappy.

In my case, for the Allegheny Beast project, I've constructed a reverse outline to guide me with the synopsis. I've taken the manuscript and made an outline of what's actually in the story. Now from there (and yes this is time consuming and that part of it makes me crazy) I'm creating a detailed synopsis that has everything in it that I think might need to be there.

It's currently 924 words, and I expect another 500 before I finish. I'm not going to submit something that huge with my first three chapters. This will be my starting point to edit. Those of us who hail from the newspaper industry prefer to start with too much and whittle down than risk putting a story in the news hole and have blank inches staring back at us.

And we're not afraid to delete words. It's part of the process.

The conversion continues

A week and two days ago, on May 8 to cite the precise date, I came home from LA Banks' Fire Up Your Fiction workshop energized and convinced I could transform my paranormal suspense manuscript into a paranormal romance in about a week.

I have a tendency to make lofty goals.

The scary thing is: I usually achieve them. This time I did not, and the "failure" was intentional. I could very easily transform this manuscript if I lock myself in my office and write 24/7 until it's done. Author Molly Cochran might even encourage me and say that's a good thing, if it gets the job done and moves me further toward publication.

But selfishness is not a problem for me. In most areas of my life, I can be selfish. I also can be altruistic, but it's not natural for me. Blame it on my Taurean side.

I want to be a productive writer and a good mom. This is no different than dilemmas other people face. Some people balance a "real-world" career and writing. Some people balance jobs and hobbies. Some people struggle with the right blend of family vs. community/volunteer commitments. I think a politician faces this dualism daily. A politician (or a celebrity?) has a private and a public life.

So while I have undertaken this project because I think the market is right for it, I also need to NOT make myself crazy. If I strive to hit a self-imposed deadline and succeed, have I put forth my best effort? Will a week or a month make that much difference in the long run?

You could argue that markets change rapidly. Well, if that's the case maybe I've already missed the boat. Or maybe, if I get my manuscript mailed on Friday, it arrives in X place on the manuscript pile and gets on the desk of editorial assistant Ms. I-Hate-Werewolves, whereas maybe if I send it on Monday, it ends up in Y place, and Ms. I-Live-For-Shapeshifters reads it. You never know. Luck factors in greatly in this game.

I joined PLRW (the Pocono-Lehigh Romance Writers, our local chapter of Romance Writers of America) because my stories have always been relationship-driven and I know I can do this. I resisted because most of my stories have realistic (unhappy) endings. But if I can still tell the same story, make the main characters overcome with a happy ending AND sell it, who cares?

It's about hope. A good story gives up hope for humanity.

I had meant this entry to be an entry of what I've done on the manuscript lately. Yesterday I listened to some of the editor podcasts from Harlequin. I'm interested in their Silhouette Nocturne imprint. I'm having trouble with the synopsis. I can't decide how much detail to put in.

My friend Tiffani encourages me to write it as detailed as possible before I decide.

To that end, I'm revamping my manuscript outline to have a paragraph for each chapter. This is something way more organized than I usually do.

I also have concerns that my heroine doesn't have "good enough" supernatural powers. So I beefed them up, which in turn heated the conflict. Of course, I'm starting to worry I've tread into the area of major rewrite as opposed to edits, but comes with the territory I guess. Though I also must remember part of this exercise is to practice "production writing," the kind where I expend my energy selling the text and not tweaking every last word for literary perfection.

Multiple projects

Thanks to inspiration from Saturday's workshops, I have decided to convert my paranormal suspense manuscript into a paranormal romance. The story was already a love story, but it had a rather heartbreaking ending so switching the genre is more or less a matter of changing it to a happy ending.

Then I can submit.

So, I was in the middle of changes based on the input from my critique group on Chapter Seven of Courting Apparitions. And in my head, I'm still working on Chapter 17 of Courting Apparitions (it's a sexy chapter and I'm in the mood). Plus while walking to school, I decided to edit the beginning of the manuscript of Courting Apparitions to edit out Adelaide's parents.

Completely.

So, with just that, I have two projects underway and seriously something I'm actively working on:
1. Courting Apparitions, the second volume of my Fashion and Fiends paranormal chick lit series
2. Allegheny Beast, my former paranormal suspense about to become a paranormal romance

But I still want to work on the historical paranormal YA set in 17th century Ireland. And the post WWII werewolf short story.

I think this is a time to devote energy to whatever project feels like I'd be most productive on... and make sure I devote extra effort to the project that I think I can sell.

Managing projects

My work on the werewolf short story was stalled by the 18-page essay I did for my take-home final in my French history class. Last night our critique group met, and it was only four of us, with three of us presenting chapters. I presented Chapter Seven of Courting Apparitions.

The beauty and agony of working with other writers in a critique format is when other people are right.

I leave these critique meetings feeling energized about my craft, but when they articulate problems that either I didn't notice or I thought I had fixed, it can be demoralizing. That is part of the process. And once you establish a relationship with your critique group, you learn to lean on certain members to find certain things.

You can rely on me to nitpick about tight sentence structure. One member of our group is what I like to call a visual reader, because she seems to visualize every detail in her mind and will let you know if anything seems out of place or confusing with the logistic flow especially with moving people from place to place. Another member seems very into verbs.

They also have opposite tastes when it comes to some things, which is good, because it shows how some readers will like what another reader doesn't.

But mostly, they start poking around in a chapter talking about the tension and the action and sometimes I realize, I've missed the boat as the author. That my text, which so clearly has a mission in my mind, has fallen completely flat on the page. Other writers will know what I mean when I say that sometimes you write something beautiful, with no particular flaws except one: it doesn't move the story forward as you intended. Then, the reader might ask, "Did I miss the point?"

As an author, I've had several experiences where people said this about a scene. So, I look at it and I read it. Removed from the creative impetus that spurred it, I no longer remember why it seemed so perfect. I cannot say why I wrote it.

And so it must go. The scene gets deleted. Or, as might happen with this manuscript, characters get deleted.

Yes, I am starting chapter 14 of Courting Apparitions, my second serious full draft, and my critique group has pointed out that some characters aren't adding anything.

So, they are between Chapters 7 & 8, and I have made the decision to remove Helen. But I'm not going backwards now. She will no longer exist from this point forward and I'll fully remove her in the next draft.

Hopefully we fix Pierre and Jules. There's been some rustling that they don't belong, they feel extraneous. They shouldn't be. They earn the right to be salvaged. But poor Helen, she's gone.

No matter what your project, you have to be willing to dismantle something that's not working, no matter how beautiful it looks.

In Character

WARNING: This blog post may contain colloquial language, vulgarity and discussion of different sex acts.

2ND WARNING: Author has had three cups of coffee

Sometimes, as authors, we view our stories and our plots with the detachment of an outsider. I'm not saying we don't get lost/caught up in our stories, because we do. What happens is more like worrying about making sure we get the road to lead where we want it to that we don't pay attention to the actual path.

I was editing a chapter today. In that chapter, Galen the bad guy is coping poorly with the fact that the now-dead ingenue from the previous book (Adelaide) has possessed him. To add insult to injury-- to use a cliché-- Adelaide has noticed a young man her age and her lust has left Galen with an erection. Galen gets into his car where his mate and fellow witch, Flidais, laughs at him for his predicament.

Now the basic road map for this scene required that Galen and Flidais drive from Point A to Point B. I got the sense upon reading it, that Flidais would do more than laugh at him. I spent the next 24 hours contemplating whether Flidais would give him a hand job or a blow job.

Yes, seriously.

One of my friends suggested a little bit of both. But that didn't seem right. As a writer, I typically can write through big problems. Little problems like this, or even smaller ones like what the characters had for dinner, can halt my progress for hours.

Today, I labeled why these things often stump me. It's not because of the sex acts. It stems from not thinking inside the character's head. The chapter I'm writing comes from Galen's third person limited point of view. I pondered the problem as if Galen had a say in which sex act Flidais performed. Which, he could ask, but he doesn't.

As soon as I considered the conundrum from Flidais' point of view, I had to weigh the magical consequences. In that case, a hand-job seemed vulgar and like a waste of male essence. She might try that if she wanted to weaken him or merely distract him. I think she would perform a sex act for her own gain. In that case, what can she receive?

In my series, any sex act has a supernatural weight to it and it all means something. Feminine power must be given, not taken. Masculine power must be taken. Sex, in the male/female intercourse variety, adds something to the universe and provides energy that can fuel rituals.

The answer became obvious, Flidais had to give Galen a blow job because she needed a shot of masculine power and that was an easy way to take it.

The moral of the story:
If you're stuck at a point where characters have to make a choice, make sure the characters reason out the problem and chose according to their motivations, not yours. Don't confuse the POV character's preferences with the character who is actually the one in control of the choice.

My Journal

When I was in high school, a fabulous English teacher somehow got me to go to a writer's conference on the campus of UPenn in Philadelphia. I think I was 16. I started my first official journal in the spiral bound Penn notebook they gave us, while my dad drove me home.

By the time I graduated from college I had more than 100 journals of all shapes and sizes.

I used to number them in the corner, every new one got a number on the inside cover. I stopped this process and I wish I hadn't. It made it easier to put them in order and easier to label exactly how prolific I'd been.

I kept pretty detailed journals during my pregnancy. That changed with the birth of my daughter. Then I journaled when I could, but no longer with the intensity or the frequency that I used to. It got to the point, and this was recently, that my journal entries would be a weekly affair instead of the breaking news format I used to follow.

With some of my recent health issues, I thought I needed to return to as-needed journaling. I wanted to record everything I'm thinking and feeling in order to connect or perhaps disconnect my physical and emotional problems.

I have done this for about three weeks. Maybe four. I'm worrying that these entries are clinical, full of my rants and fears, and make me look like a basket-case. But then I see a glimpse of the old me, and the old journals, with hastily scribbled items like this:

How many thaws from frigid winters
until a heart can no longer be reached
with the frayed and weakening stems
of dandelions held by the tiny hands
of strangers' children?

And I do think that journaling has redirected my attention from social media and also put me more at peace. Now, if only I could make the time to resume my bicycle rides and do some yoga, I might regain some real peace of mind.

The Job Doing What You Love

When I was in college, someone (I don't even remember who) asked me why I didn't pursue a journalism major. I had two reasons:
1. I don't believe in a journalism major. Journalists must have broad education or at least an intelligence that allows them to question and receive information. The craft of writing is part talent, part experience and part having the right mentors. I don't think journalism professors are the best mentors. The fast-paced universe and the breadth of topics that appear in a journalist's world are constantly in flux and an academic at a university has lost touch with this and cannot train a journalist for this.
2. I love to write. I didn't want to ruin that by writing all day long.

I was right. I spent four years in public relations and publications. Then, I moved to my journalism career. I wrote an average of ten stories per week for years on end. Sometimes I did as many as twelve or fourteen.

By the time I got home at night, I had no words left for me. I have given them all "to the people." I didn't want to read words. I didn't want to write words.

The pleasure had gone from them.

I remembered this recently when a friend of mine recently finished her honors project for her bachelors degree. She lamented to me that her brain had been in "research mode" so long that she looked forward to returning to her creativity.

And I understood.

Many of us who write creatively also use our skills professionally. This can hinder productivity. It is important to do something you love as a career. It is important to have skill in what you do. But any career that involves creativity in its day-to-day life will drain you.

So you must be careful.

If I ever get the chance to write my novels and stories as a career, that means I will no longer have that as a hobby (and perhaps could return to having hobbies that involve putting my photos in albums, gardening or oil panting). But if I use those skills in my next career: for press releases, articles, whatever... I have to weigh if those things add to or detract from what I want to do with my words.

If the New Yorker calls and wants me to go be Adam Gopnik in Paris, I am there. If the AFP (French Press Agency) calls and wants me on staff, I'm there.

Other opportunities? Depends how badly I need the money. Depends how much of my soul they demand.

In America, we don't sell our souls to the devil, because corporations so gladly take them off our hands.

Writing in my head

I love when I find myself writing in my head. It provides a welcomed escape from what normally occupies my head, which right now is something like this:

Oh my... the car's brakes and inspection cost almost $700. We have $100 in the checkbook for food and unexpected bills and it has to last throughout all of April. I have lots of schoolwork due and my textbooks for my seminar are still in the car. I hope I don't overdose on iron. I have a doctor's appointment Monday and I think I'm looking forward to it. Sh*t, tomorrow is Easter. I forgot.

So, I'm in the shower. And instead of these things I'm thinking:

Galen sits on the bench drinking coffee. A cute guy walks by. Adelaide, now dead and cohabitating Galen's body with him notices. Would she have the power to prompt a sexual response in his body? If so, what would it be? What would Galen think? And since she later uses her powers to assist impotent Étienne, maybe she should inadvertently cause something now we foreshadow that she can *ahem* assist the male anatomy.

Which also brings to mind... What kind of guy would Addy find attractive? Would he be a hip, young, American Étienne?

The Selfish Writer

My apologies to Molly Cochran for stealing her desired title for the talk she gave at last week's GLVWG The Write Stuff conference. The talk was actually titled "Finish your novel" or something equally boring, but she really wanted to call it "The Selfish Writer" because that's what it takes.

Sometimes you have to neglect your children, your life, your job.

And those of us who spend our lives being way too serious need to hear that.

I finished my agent submission Tuesday night and emailed it. When I should have been in class.

I allowed myself to work on a scene five chapters away because my emotions seemed drawn to that scene.

And I promised myself I would make time for writing. That no matter what happens, I will give myself 30 minutes to an hour of writing time a day.

Because I need this.

Grand Lessons from Camus

There's a character in Albert Camus' The Plague that struggles with his desire to write. A secondary character, at least through parts one and two that I finished reading today, Joseph Grand is a poor, low-level civil servant who joins the sanitary squads after the plague infects his town.

This comes in direct conflict with his desire to work on his manuscript, but he feels it is necessary. He feels citizens have to do something against this menace.

The story he has composed thus far is merely a sentence about a woman on horseback. Throughout the novel, he dickers with that sentence obsessively but the plague forces him to push it from his mind.

“He made honest efforts not to think about his ‘horsewoman,’ and concentrate on what he had to do.”

At the end of the section part of the novel, Grand's opening sentence is this:

"One fine morning in May a slim young horsewoman might have been seen riding a glossy sorrel mare along the flower-strewn avenues of the Bois de Boulogne."

The author promptly complains about the number of S sounds in that sentence. In the novel, he changes the opening phrase, the description of the horse, the adjective regarding the woman and even the bit about the flowers.

But he never writes beyond that sentence. He shares the sentence and each minute change with his peers in the novel, but never does he progress.

Camus tells us that Grand is the type of man who struggles with the meaning of words, but Grand is not alone in this. How many of us struggle in a similar fashion? How many of us cling to a sentence?