So because I come late to things and because I'm once again eating cold hummus with warm pita which makes me happy, here's my outlook on writing, applicable today only, since I'm, yanno, likely to change my mind fastern' mass culture can turn its back on Michael Cera:

Stay true to your vision.

Yah, indeed, 'twas the "DUH" heard round the world. But as I said, I tend to come late to things. Especially obvious things. (It wasn't until I was in my 30s that I realized guinea pigs are so-called because of their, yanno, PIG-like squealing. See?)

All of this is because my short story, "Send It By Four" was a steampunk kind of thing. And obviously so. Which is why, I now realize, it was obviously not working (yesterday was bad, y'all. Tears n' stuff). I don't write steampunk. Nor really read it (though I am kinda liking Gibson & Sterling's awfully pretty "The Difference Engine" and Cherie Priest's rip-roaring "Boneshaker.").

And when my story was mostly done yesterday, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. Which is worse than outright suckitude. So it's back to the next chapter in the horror novel. And if I return to the short story format this week, if at all (cuz, verily y'all, I ain't too keen on that format, either, if we're being truthful about staying true etc. etc.) it'll be with a dark, ugly, present-day touch. Cuz, yanno, that's what I do.

Before I go, here are some links to staying-true-to-vision type stuff:
Chiron O'Keefe's post, aptly titled "Stay True To Your Vision".
Agent Jessica Faust's take on it.
Author Jennifer Stanley tells what happened when she didn't...
This post talks about it, too...
And this one.

Got it?

Why do I come so late to things? Like Maud Newton's great blog, packed with the sort of knowledge that's chunky and useful? And this post, specifically, which offers the only method for battling the fear-fueled and crippling procrastination and whose advice I'm trying so desperately to follow?

Dudes. I'm feeling this story. And this way of writing (no outline, just pantzn!), which just sort of allows the scenes to unfold, instead of me forcing them to). Huh.
Anyway, my daily progress: 1253 words. To wit:

"Leave A Light On"


Things Accomplished in Fiction: Wrote some great dialogue, established a funky commune, reinforced some sub-plot, made some shit scary.

Things Accomplished in Real Life: Uh...it's a rainy Thursday. Word count done, clients invoiced...I think I'ma let this one melt, y'all...

I hate it when I'm all set up and no follow through. Which I think plagued me all through the writing of my first novel (the dread Manuscript-Stashed-In-A-Drawer that all of us must evidently create. Or not.) Anyway, my point is that I think what holds me back is just plain ol' fear - and not necessarily of success or failure, but of getting the crux of the matter, the lynch-pin of the plot.

For me, it resulted in endless set up and a lot of dancing 'round the plot in that first book. This time, it shall be different as, lo, did I write the last of the setup-type stuff in today's 1K word quota, and, verily I say, I will face the plot and its demons square on tomorrow (did you catch that safety-in-procrastination thing??).

This being a work of horror fiction, the problem is doubly hard to overcome, since good horror depends on good set up. So the trick will be to balance it, get it done swiftly and then it's onward with lantern glowing into the darkest bits.

Which brings me today's word count (both thrilling at more than 10 percent, but also worrying because I'm at more than 10 percent). To wit:



Things Accomplished in Fiction: Confronted someone's personal demon, hinted at the subplot, saw a lazily spinning funnel of blood - eek!, and realized it's time to move past set up and start trending toward payoff.

Things To Be Accomplished in Real Life: Quick rewrite of one or two of client's website pages, invoicing said client, going for a walk/jog, critiquing the work of tonight's writer's group. Then coming home and planning out on paper (just lightly so) the tiny bits of plot that I need to effectively stay out of set-up-only mode and keep forward trajectory.

Reading: "Boneshaker" by Cherie Priest (Awesomeness). You'll notice I'm linking to Barnes & Noble instead of Amazon, on account of the corporate shenanigans of Amazon and McMillan - ew.

So, huge pile of day job-type stuff on my freelancin' desk, which means ibosh-kay on the iction-fay. Temporarily at least. Like an injunction. BUT, I did squeeze in 453 words, which may or may not stay in, but which helped illuminate my sub-heroine's world view a bit, so there you go.

Things Accomplished in Fiction Today: See above, or below:



Things (To Be) Accomplished in Real Life Today: Read five chapters of a memoir (and I don't even have the galleys, just the ms in Word, oy, HATE reading on my computer screen) so's I can write his press kit, drafting some notes on a customer case study, then reading another chunk so's I can write thebest. Pitch letter. EVAH. Or, yanno, one that media outlets will pick up on his behalf.

Back to it.

So, I'm trying to get through a stack of books (well, there's *always* a stack somewhere on my desk, in my library, under my coffee table, on the floor next to my bed) in an effort to read daily, just like I have to write daily. And it's interesting, all this reading like a writer stuff. It's awesome to fall into a story, but be present enough to note strong beginnings, see how authors float plot lines and subplots and then tie them all together. I do the same thing with movies and television now - and it's cool, except when it isn't (starting to spot the plot twists and story arcs a mile away.)

Anyway, I dig the Shelfari widget, which is a nifty way to spot books peeps are reading on their blogs and whatnot. So, over there on the right *points* is what I'm reading now. Finished Caitlin Kiernan's The Red Tree day before yesterday, and dug it immensely. Girl nails the dark brood, man, nails it. Some passages actually creeped me out (was reading into the (t)wee hours) and that was cool. Protag's 'tude got on my nerves after a while - such a *fractious* one - but she served the story well. My only beef was all the dreams, well-handled tho they were. On to finishing the last two stories in Olive Kittredge, and finishing up Poe's Children, which is a little disappointing for me. And then there's the Lost City of Z! (And must order Joe Hill's Horns. Good times, y'all. Good times.

So, it's a little creepy how much fun it is to write Leave A Light On. I can't think about it too much, or I'll start to believe that it shouldn't be, and that, further, it's seemingly going so well only because there's something wrong with it and I, even further, lack the skills and expertise to recognize what's wrong.

Ahem.

So, as I'm *not* going there, I'm taking the high road:



Things Accomplished Today in Fiction: Moody foreshadowing, intriguing context - without the backstory info dump! Yay! - and slamming my characters together in a generally pleasing, rapid-fire kind of way that, I hope, keeps shizz moving right along. Also discovered how much easier it is to write when I think only of the story and not trying to Write Real Purty and stuff.

Things Accomplished Today in Real-life: Nothing. Yet. But I'm 'bout to begin drafting a client newsletter, then will hit some light house-keeping stuff, a la dishes and a load of laundry and the like.

Things are swimming along since I decided to Do it Dark (i.e., fully embrace my horror tendencies).

To wit, I'm working on a shorter, hopefully tighter, cleaner horror novel and have committed to submitting one short story per month for the next several months. The goal? Write every day and understand and engage the horror market on a regular basis. And it's working, by God. So far, anyway. See?



Things Accomplished in Fiction today: infused a Denny's with some demonic inklings. Named my Indian sub-heroine. Understood my sub-hero's ish (suddenly--!), with dire consequences for my heroine. Chose Third Person Omniscient, though, verily, First Person did put up a fight. (Too YA-ey for this particular work.)

Things Accomplished in Real Life: Put out feelers/responded to ads to drum up day-job projects. Laundry. Drank lotsa coffee. To do this afternoon: walk, more laundry, celebrating a ladies-only-style berfday for my sister-in-law.

Because it aches after a frenzied couple hours re-crafting a scene longhand. And you know what? It works. IT FREAKING WORKS!!! Gonna go freelance now that I'm not, yanno, PARALYZED WITH WRITER SUCK anymore. Cuz the 'lancing, it pays the bills.

So, maybe this is why NaNoWriMo may not work out for me: I. Can't. Seem. To. Get. This. Opening. Scene. RIGHT. *claws at self* And the point of NaNo is to write heedlessly, recklessly into the gaping maw of November (which may or may not make sense anyway, sez this pretty insightful guy who tried, bless him, to be democratic). But I can't write heedlessly. And I know that I can't "turn of the inner editor" as we're mandated to do, because this is important, dammit! The opening is crucial, a serious argument for the book, one that will make Prospective Reader NOT close the book with a snort and pick up the Glenn Beck instead. Rather righteously.

So, back to rewriting the (#&%#&*!@ beginning scene. The scene that won't die. The scene that won't leave me alone. The scene that won't let me cross off the other scenes straining, open-beaked, for my attention (see my previous post? Wasn't I just the apple-cheeked one?). So that's why NaNo may not work for me.

Also, yanno, the talentFAIL currently tumbling rather epic-like from my fingertips. Happily, there's craft. Strengthening craft trumps 30-day, madcap writing goals any day.

Blergh.

I can mash-potato,(I can mash-potato). And I can do the twist,(I can do the twist). Now tell me baby, (Tell me baby) Do you like it like this?
(Do you like it like this think you can write four scenes before the day's out?)

So, yeah. That's my (like seven hour) novel rewriting work schedule today, brought to you by the Contours! (Do you love me? Do you love me?) If only machete-ing your way through a dense, leafy nightmare of OMG do I really suck at writing and should I be attempting this at all? was so danceable.

But it's not. Hence, my digression. So now, without any further ado (or plenty of it, depending on my level of procrastinatude) here's what I have to get done today:

• Finish rewriting opening scene, in which we understand our protag's 13-year-old condition and, yanno, some esoteric stuff.
• Rewrite scene introducing protag's father and His Main Ish.
• Rewrite our salty professor's intro scene, in which we understand Some Metaphysical Shit Will Be Going Down.
• Rewrite scene with the always cool, down-for-anything Wyclef who, besides having a cool name and some natty 'dreds, may or may not be...well, I can't give that away, now can I?

So, once again, it's NaNo time - as in National Novel Writing Month (and it even has its own website). Being loosely affiliated with the "NaNolantans," (i.e., those of us doing it NaNo-style in the ATL), I'm peppered with small bits of guilt and motivation. On the one hand, it helps to find one's tribe. On the other, it feels overwhelming to be part of something that's so big, it's a national movement. Seriously? Hundreds of thousands of would-be writers dashing to finish 50,000 words in 30 days? I'm such a pea in a monstrous, world-sized pod. *dwindles*

But seriously: Is everyone writing full speed ahead a good thing? Why doesn't everyone paint full speed ahead for one month? Or weld? And what do agents think? Do they clap their hands over their mouths in horror when the desk blotter calendar gets ripped off to reveal November? Or is it worse for them in December; do they get thousands of raw manuscripts?

As usual, I digress. I guess my main question is whether I'm truly going through with NaNoWriMo this year, and whether I'll use the 30 days of heaping wordcounts to finish Draft One of the novel (which you can help me name by voting in the above right poll--pretty please?). Or not. *GAH!* Oh, I waffle. I waffle. (and clearly procrastinate. sigh.)

And verily I say: I want to go to a Con. Like, and sit behind a booth. And stuff. Cuz it strikes me as a sign of Arrival, as in, wow, you've made it. Even if you're surrounded by a bunch of people in costume. Cuz, seriously, everyone's doing it. Like her. And her.

But of course, they're doing it because they've already DONE something else first, (e.g., write a book, direct a short, or pencil a comic WHILE also kicking ass as a roller derby girl. Seriously.). Which means, Christ it all, I'm done procrastinating (seriously, when will it end??) and going back to Do My Something first, which is finish this scene and move on to the next.

Only 51 more.

Why is it so difficult to kill your darlings? In my case, it really shouldn't have been: a Cancerian given to melancholy, it's easy for me to drown my writing in a kudzu patch of adjectives. See?

But I killed all sorts of darlings today, which only served to illuminate scores (SCORES, I tell you) of other adjective darlings now facing the grinder.

But, scene done. I'm calling it, dammit.

No, really. It doesn't. Because this happening paranormal writer is crazy productive, and her blog makes me feel guilty and envious of said productivity. So I read it pretty much daily (even when there are no new posts, which is *not* stalkerish) and it drives me to try to be even half as productive, while being like, twice as old, yet, maybe equally as hip. But yikes! The girl writes, revises and edits herself into a bloody pulp (fiction) and I'm hooked. So, now that I've read her blog post, updated my own and swilled coffee I'm...oh, hell. Procrastinating. Off to write at least one of four scenes due by Monday.