2008 #1 Goal Accomplished!

I cut a headline out of "O" magazine some time ago, and early in 2008 taped it to my laptop in the space beside the touchpad: THIS YEAR YOU WRITE YOUR NOVEL.

And I did! Yay. After so many ditched attempts over the years of novels that curled up and died half-way through, I finally conquered my plotting dilemmas and got all the way to "the end." And it turned out even better than I'd hoped.

As a reward for the monster crunch effort of churning out a complete draft by the end of November, I've given myself the month of December off. No novelling on my stuff, just relaxation and reading other people's books. This month off is supposed to provide sufficient distance/perspective to put Baking with Intent through another round of polishes before I head to the Left Coast Crime conference in early March.

I'm ready to dive in tomorrow (Jan.1 '09) and eager to discover how it reads now that I haven't looked at it in a month. Fingers crossed I'm still tickled pink with the fruit of this year's biggest creative effort.

Decompressing

Geeze, it was like being back in college again, when I'd put off a paper until the last moment and then have to pull an allnighter to get it done. (Not that I can pull off an allnighter anymore; just staying up post midnight feels about the same these days. Can't sleep past 7am, either, which surely impacts the too-old-for-allnighters equation in some way.)

Anyway, got my novel submission draft off to the post office last Saturday morning at about 9:40, less than three hours before mailing deadline. And then, after a week of 14-16 hour write/edit days, I decompressed. Spent most of Sat. afternoon sprawled on a lounge chair on the upstairs deck, staring into space and enjoying a leisurely brain melt.

Then, an overdue and very lowkey turkey dinner on Sunday for me and hubbie, for whose support and patience I am eternally grateful.

Now catch up on everything else has begun. I'm creeping toward getting all holiday packages in the mail, aim to do cards/calendars over the weekend, then make one more PO run on Monday. Have also made something that in the right light almost looks almost like a dent in the backlog of bookkeeping for our online businesses. Would like to be as caught up as possible on all that by 12/31.

Next week I'll look at the novel again: clean up my draft-in-progress files; start the next list of tweaks and edits to be done. I wish I'd had another week before sending it in, but such is the Slacker-Novelist way. At least three chapters are still too long, and I wanted to add in a few more details to set up, clarify, and/or wrap up various themes, character arcs, and plot threads. Next draft will have 'em.

Then I get to dig out NaNovels '05-'06, for which this recent effort started out as a pre-quel, and see what's in there that will work as the sequel to what is now Baking with Intent. Pulled that title out of a piece of dialogue near the end at the last minute, as I was still desperately in need of a title -- couldn't print out my submission draft without one. Not sure I love it, but it will do.

Done

Just typed "THE END."
Whoohoo!

Extraordinary Progress and a Major "Oh, no!" Moment

November has seen significant forward motion, mostly due to generous use of the delete key. My guesstimate that at least 20,000 words would vanish during editing is turning out to be accurate. Names have been decided upon, most plot holes filled or at least basted shut, only a few scenes not yet fully on the page, and everything else nicely tightened up. The end is (almost) in sight.

Which is good, because I dug out my entry form and read the fine print again and aaack! The mailing deadline is the end of November, not December! How did I get that wrong??? Possibly because I originally downloaded the rules/submission info for last year's competition (it was early in the year and the web page for the 2009 competition was not yet up). Or maybe I'm thinking of a deadline for a different competition. Or maybe I'm just an idiot.

Fortunately, I'm an idiot who listens to her intuition, which told me it was time to double-check contest details as I head into the home stretch. Imagine how I'd feel if I'd discovered this in mid-December! Although that might have been for the best. Would have given me another entire year to fine-tune the plot, edit out the rambling, and work on adding more visual descriptions of places and people.

As it is, though, I'm so close I may as well go for it. Too bad 11/30 is a Sunday, and the Post Office is only open until noon on Saturday. That effectively cuts 2 days from what's left in the month. I'll be taking my package to the Post Office a week from today.

Fortunately I'm self-employed, have no big Thanksgiving plans this year, and am blessed with a wonderful (supportive, patient) husband. A week is plenty of time to slog through my lengthy list of holes still to fill, details to add, corrections to make to essential plot points the story has morphed away from, and all the various other items in the "punchlist" file. And to write and at least minimally edit the "final showdown" and "epilogue" scenes that I haven't gotten onto the page yet. Right?

I'd better stop blogging and get to work.

Fun with Random Name Generator

Update: Sisters have come and gone, and final chapters are still incomplete. Churned out a lot of words last month, but finish line looks like a carrot on a stick from here. I've inched ahead, but needed breakthrough is elusive. Still missing a few key pieces of the backstory/why stuff, especially in terms of finetuning documentation/clues that surface near the end. Arghhhh. Eager for that "aha" moment where it all comes together!

Initial feedback from sisters is good. R chuckled a lot while reading, which eases my #1 fear: that I will be the only person who thinks what I've written is funny. A says plot needs more direction in opening chapters (no surprise there), but characters and dialogue are engaging enough to carry her along through the "is this going anywhere?" parts.

Today's challenge: I've been wrestling since day one on this novel with my main character's name, going around and around between several choices, and I've got to pick one and stick with it soon!

So this morning I decided I needed some new name ideas, and hopped on over to my most favorite pseudo-productive webpage (fun, and can be a time-sink, but I get to pretend that I'm doing important novel-related work).

Geeze, just a couple clicks on the random name generator and I've got enough secondary-character names to populate a dozen novels. Faves so far: Bridget Foy, Verna Blume, Leona Basile, Bertha Elliott, and Megan Atkins. And that's just girls.

But none are right for my MC. Name parameters for her are:

1) That she hate her given name ('cause I'm the author, and for some reason I like sticking her with a nasty one)

2) That she go by a reasonable nickname that's short, feminine, and not too ordinary (pet peeve: female characters with boy names/nicknames: "Sam" for Samantha, "Andy" for Andrea... gaah, hate 'em!)

3) That it be Italianate in some way (for backstory/sequel reasons that may or may not ever see print)

4) That it meet the series book cover test: "a [insert MC name here] mystery" (this implies that not only will I someday actually finish and sell this one, but that it will be a success and followed by others, a prospect that on some days seems iffy at best but is always irresistable)

Am pleased to report I've come up with an entirely new MC name option that may actually stick. But I'm not sharing yet, 'cause I've only been flipping over it for 10 minutes and changes of mind may follow.

Last week's focus was scene outlining: a horrible chore, I'm not enjoying it at all, so am also starting in on text editing, too (with heavy emphasis on the delete key). Hoping that plowing through one more time will help with final plot decisions.

Still two months left in the year. That feels longer than "8 weeks" which is about what I've got leaving a couple of days for printing/proofing/panicking/packaging/posting if I'm gonna make the mystery competition 12/31/08 dealine.

Close, but no cigar yet

Chapter 27; 122K words and counting.

That means I've met my original total wordcount goal for Draft 1 (figuring lots will be cut during editing), without getting to the end of Draft 1 yet.

Closer, but lots still to do. Have run out of "pre-written" old Nano scenes to include, gotta make it all up from scratch from here on out. New scene bubbled up yesterday that I hadn't had planned, brings some useful clues to light. Not that my characters know what the significance is yet, but they will by the end. Somehow.

Have been writing at more-than-Nano pace the past few days, hands and brain and shoulders/neck are all tense and tired. Would love a day off from writing, but sisters are arriving a week from today.

Aaack!

Onward...

Getting my ducks in a row

Moving a pivotal scene closer to the end has solved a lot of problems.

Last night I was feeling anxious about the prospects of finishing a readable draft in next 10 days (i.e., before my sisters get here), but got some ducks in a row this morning. Time is still SHORT.

Business admin tasks must get some attention today (Q3 payroll filings are still on to-do list, want to get that crossed off). I'm not complaining. Beats the hell out of having a day job. Some essential errands must be done as well. Wednesday is farmer's market day in Hilo, and our fridge is as empty as it gets; the only fresh produce in the house is one brown banana and some wilted carrots. Time to go stock up on papayas and organic lettuce and whatever else looks good.

Then, gotta sit down and once more go over the 60-page section I've been working on the past few days. I've sliced and diced and shuffled so much to fix sequencing and timing problems, finally got to the point this morning that everything (chapters, scenes, paragraphs, notes to self) is (I hope) in the new correct order.

Now I need to go back and turn all those "notes to self" into the necessary new sentences, paragraphs, and segues that will hold the shuffled mess together into one string. And make sure I got the resequencing right.

I've got one more scene from last year's NaNo that is "pre-written" and will be tacked on after I add a few more scenes of new stuff.

Then, one big challenge to go: I still don't know how the villain finds out "they're on to me" and what actions he/she takes that will lead to the FINAL SHOWDOWN. I do have some good ideas for the confrontation, but they're all still in my head.

From there, it's all wrap-up.

Gee, put like that, it almost sounds like I'm near the end.

114K words and counting.

For the draft my sisters read I may add a page at the end of chapters (where necessary) with notes of info to be added: e.g., "Missing from this chapter, a short scene introducing the character of ALAN, and Granimi decides to shop for a condo."

Onward.

Plot Tangles

Crap. I've run into a problem.

I've been breezing along, cheerfully accumulating word count, inching closer to "the end" and, ouch. Just ran into a wall.

Or, more accurately, a plot tangle. I'm at the stage where my MC (and posse) are close to gathering together (more like stumbling over, most of the time) the various bits and pieces of clues that will point them to who done it. But I'm having a little trouble with the timing and sequence of information that leads to the aha moment and (simultaneously, if I manage to be clever enough to pull it off) reveals an interesting and significant subplot twist.

There's one tidbit that MC really should have on Sunday evening (in novel time), but as of now isn't going to have until next Tuesday. And then there's the info she uncovers on Sunday that would work better (in terms of other characters, scenes, etc) if it were delayed for a day or two.

You'd think I could just switch the two incidents, but no. It's not that easy.

So, I'm taking a day off (or several, hope it won't drag on too long) from word count accumulation for some plot detangling.

Best case scenario, I emerge from this with something resembling a scene outline for at least the next few days of novel time, which ought to (fingers crossed) speed up the race to "the end."

Wish me luck.

September Mission Accomplished

I’ve done it: I’ve met (and exceeded by a little) my goal of adding 1200 words a day to the draft-in-progress for the month of September.

As I keep chugging along I am trying to stay focused on slogging forward one scene at a time, being strict about writing chronologically from here to the end.

I'm closer. A lot closer. But not close enough yet.

If I stop to think that I have to get to "The End" before my sisters arrive to visit on 10/18, I'll panic. That’s two weeks plus a couple of days for frantic cleanup and a rough draft print-out.

I’m thinking of this draft as more "lacey and tangled" than “rough” (some parts of it are quite polished). There are lots of nice plot threads in there, but they meander around and get lost and then emerge elsewhere as a dangling thread, and there are loops of mystery stuff poking out here and there and everywhere, and threads that dive into the fun halfway through with no connection to what came before, and holes still. Too many holes. Most of them much smaller than previously, but they’re there.

Biggest hole remaining is that I have figured out how the good guys figure out "who done it," but not how the villain realizes “the jig's up.” Need something to happen to trigger the big showdown scene at the end. Have ideas for that one, but not how I'm gonna sew up the big gaping gap that comes before it on what passes for an outline around here.

Nice thing about working chronologically is I don't have to solve that plot problem today. "Buildup to the showdown" is still at least 3 or 4 days away in novel time. At the rate I’m going I won’t get to that scene before the beginning of next week at the earliest. Plenty of time for new ideas to pop up.

In the meantime, gonna go pre-wash latest fabric indulgence: didn’t buy much (had to reorder a trim fabric that I'd goofed and gotten the wrong color-way of). Have decided to consider all September fabric purchases a b'day gift to myself. Now majorly want to sew up at least one new thing to wear before my birthday, preferably two. Parcel of dress patterns arrived yesterday, must resist temptation for a few more hours.

Because these days noveling comes first. Today's goal: if I add 1600 more words I can do some sewing.

So Much For That Idea

Yikes, have two weeks really gone by since my last post? Uh oh. Have not made as much plotting progress as I'd hoped, although I've added some "fit this in somewhere" points to the "how the story works" list, have fleshed out the Ouija board scene to include essential plot points/info drops, and made other small progress.

But, having fallen into recreational reading the past few days, now must junk the "safe combo found in dropped/broken golf trophy" trick, which arose during '07 NaNoWriMo writing, and which I think was pretty neat. That's because early this morning, lounging on a deck chair with a mug of coffee, I finished reading Laura Lippman's Another Thing to Fall, and darn it, a key revelation comes to light when Lloyd drops the Emmy statuette and a hidden paper is revealed.

So, great minds think alike. Anyway, Laura got it into print first (no surprise there, question of if/when mine will ever see print still wide open) and recently, so I'll come up with something else. Since that's current in my mind today, maybe I'll focus on that rather than polishing the Ouija scene, which might benefit from a fresh look after some time away.

Another Deadline

So I went ahead and sent in to the Mystery Writers of America for an entry form for the next "Best First Mystery" competition. And yippee... I got assigned to (I hope) a "good" judge: a woman author whose style and wry humor is similar (I think) to mine. I'm not gonna post her name here yet, 'cause I don't wanna jinx anything.

This ought to light some kind of a fire under my butt: deadline for submissions is 12/31/08, and now that I've been assigned this judge I don't want to blow the opportunity by not getting a submittable, near-perfect draft done in time.

I'm happy to say that the first 4 chapters are now in excellent shape, and I'm plodding forward. Chapters 5-13 are shaping up well, but need some tweaking in the plot department. The storyline itself is evolving painfully slowly still (I can write at the speed of light, but I plot like a fossilized mastodon). I'm trying to keep the plot/mystery reasonably simple -- while still achieving "clever" -- and let the characters deliver most of the fun. With a little luck and some ruthless editing I ought to be able to bring in a complete story draft at somewhere under way too many pages.

Edit Mode

I've been in "edit mode" lately. Decided (after several changes of mind) to go ahead with Rose's prologue, and after several passes have cut the length almost in half, which it needed. So much easier to write long and cut.

Chapters 1-3 have also been under the knife, but less drastically so. Now I'm poised to cruise through Chapter 4 with one hand on the mouse and the other on the delete key. Plenty of good writing in there, but the wedding reception sequence is way too long and unfocused. Need to strip it down to its essence, while finding clever ways to feed in some more backstory details. There's a subplot supposedly lurking behind the scenes that I haven't managed to introduce yet. oops.

Once this is all done I'll have (I hope) a solid launch into the middle of the story. Whether or not I'll be able to squeeze discovery of the dead guy into the first 50 pages or not remains to be seen, but knocking off Rose in the prologue takes care of the "where's the corpse?" issue, right?

Next challenge is to get back into "write mode" in order to crank out more first/second draft and fill in all the plot holes throughout the middle.

Abby and I have agreed to do a novel exchange when she comes to visit in October (I'll read hers, she'll read mind). That gives me three months and three days to pull a complete, readable draft together. Eeep.

3 out of 4 not bad

Progress! It's been appallingly wrenching to set aside the "should-dos" and "need-attentions" and allow myself to do an hour of novelling FIRST before turning to the rest of the day's demands, but I have managed to do so 3 of the past 4 days. Yay, me!

The missed day was because just as I sat down to my novel session the Sears delivery guys showed up with a new stove to replace the one that had died (no oven for a week, and only 1-1/2 working burners, which is a hardship if you cook as much as I do). So I hopped up and down with excitement and got distracted and then a couple of hours later when I sat down again, the phone rang and it was the nice lady at the gas company saying hey, guess what, our guy can stop by right now to hook up your new stove (we were scheduled for next day, so that was great!), so then that happened, and then it was time to do errands, and then we needed a nap, then workout, make dinner, etc. But still, we have a fully-functioning stove and oven (yay!) and three out of four days is awesome progress for me. Plus, I like what I wrote -- whoohoo!

So here I am boast-blogging instead of writing. Guess I'd better go see if I can make it four days out of five...

Just what I need... a kick in the butt!

Did I mention that both my sisters are coming out to Hawaii in October to help me celebrate (or commiserate) turning 50? How totally awesome is that!! I'm thoroughly psyched to see them, and thrilled they're both gonna be here at the same time.

Plus, how great to have a captive (and kindly inclined, but not likely to hold any punches) "first readers" audience. So there's an incentive for ya: how great would it be to have a complete, readable -- though unlikely to be polished -- draft to give them while they're here?! Both are avid readers: one closely shares my taste in fiction, and the other is also an aspiring novelist.

Arrival date is now slightly less than five months away... I'd better get writing!

No whining!

Holy Moly! It's been more than a month since I posted here (?!?) ... how'd that happen so fast?

I'm not up on the details, but there's something going on with the Mayan calendar about time speeding up, getting faster and faster the closer we get to a major shift in consciousness or reality or something like that in 2012.

Sure seems that way to me, these days. I'm kinda curious about this whole Mayan/timeshift thing, but have been resisting exploration of the details -- which are readily available as my husband is into it and all I'd have to do is ask him (or read one of several books he's got on the topic).

Clearly there's a big part of me that prefers to go on pretending I have all the time in the world to get things done. So far, that part is firmly in the driver's seat of my daily life.

Novelling hasn't had much attention lately, but I've been moving ahead with reinventing the opening of the book (this draft, anyway). Feels like a big improvement. Still tons to do, of both the invention and revision kind, but the clearer I get about how to start the thing, the more the rest of the vision falls into place.

I did make one clear decision last month: I am not going to let this blog turn into a whine fest about how much writing I am not getting done. So, I'm only gonna post when I have something positive to say. Fingers crossed that turns out to mean more frequent updates!

What I've Been Up To Lately

... Does not include novelling. I'm feeling bad about that.

On the plus side, hubby and I are now the shareholders, directors, officers and will soon be employees (beginning July 1) of a new corporate entity. And our 2007 taxes have been signed, paid, and mailed. It was the "paid" part that hurt: flip side to having had a really good year is way underpaying quarterly estimated. Ouch. Have done some analysis of gross profit percentages and fun stuff like that to keep scary year-end tax bill surprises at bay next time around. I hope. Incorporating is supposed to help with that.

All of this has been a major distraction. You'd think spending too much time on number stuff lately would make novelling a pleasing alternative, but I've felt locked into left brain mode. One of these days I need to see if I can remember who my characters are and what they're supposed to be doing.

I had the idea that when (as so often seems to happen) I have no progress on the novel front to report, I could share news of what books I've been reading (instead of writing). Maybe not. Here's what's been on top of my current reading pile:
1) Incorporate Your Business
2) Bookkeeping for Dummies
3) QuickBooks Pro: The Missing Manual

I'm thrilled to have these helpful tomes on hand, for business purposes, but their entertainment value is nonexistent. Fortunately, I've got Plum Lucky by Janet Evanovich right here by my side. I picked it up at Borders about a month ago to be my reward for getting the incorporating/taxes tasks done. And done they are, so, while it's true that I am feeling increasingly guilty every day about how much novelling is not happening around here, my afternoon plans include time in a deck chair with someone else's book in my lap.

Attention Diversion

I've been even more distracted from novelling than usual lately. On the non-novelling front, we are about to split off all of our non-publishing business activities into a separate corporation. Not terrifically difficult to do, but gathering/presenting/discussing financial info and options with a new accountant (on top of wrapping up '07 results for tax season) has seriously diverted my attention from right-brain creative stuff to left-brain number stuff. Next up, I have to learn how to use QuickBooksPro and get it all customized and set up for the new business. Soon, too. Can't say I haven't seen that one coming for a while, but the days of putting it off are officially over.

In other words, I haven't written squat in over a week, but have continued a little bit of playing around with the alternative POV/voice/narration to fit in/around/between 1st person. Just fell (again) for "why don't I order a few more books about writing from Amazon if I feel stuck". In the same spirit (pun intended) I decided, if I'm going to have a ghost in my novel, it would be nice to read "the Lovely Bones" again, so that's on hold for me at the library as soon as I get around to picking it up.

So much easier to read about writing than to discipline the brain and butt to work in gear and stick to the chair seat (butt) long enough to write something (brain).

Dream of having fairly polished novel done by b'day #50 has been downgraded to "maybe I can at least fill in the plot holes and buff it up a bit by then." Hope springs eternal, and all that.

Baby Steps

Not bad for a slacker... I've actually written something more days than not this week. That's some kind of progress. Can't say I've had any plot breakthroughs, or really done anything more than play around with a new "eye-in-the-sky third person" narrative voice, which I want to use to sneak in some perspective beyond the MC's first person which is the bulk of the book. This may or may not turn out to be a success. At the moment its reading like "The Lovely Bones" as written by Janet Evanovich chanelling Virginia Woolf. Personally I think the rather overblown and self-mockingly pompous tone is funny and just what I was aiming for, but am not sure anyone else will get it. Perhaps not the best way to open the book?

Feels good to have a toe or two back in the groove, though. And since I am still in the process of stumbling toward a complete draft, I'll let editorial decisions wait for later. More important is to keep slogging ahead at something resembling a steady pace.

Too much "not writing" going on around here

Seven months and 10 days until I turn 50.

If I'm gonna have any hope of meeting my goal of completing a (reasonably polished) draft of a novel by then, I'd better stop slacking off and get with it...

So I've decided to go public with my efforts. Fingers crossed that regular updates here will inspire me to keep plugging away at it at a more regular basis.

Not that I'm starting from a blank page. Far from it. I have two years of National Novel Writing Month efforts to pull together (and slash and burn) into some kind of shape. So far there's lots of good stuff heaped up, but still too many:
- Plot holes large enough to swallow small planets
- POV decisions not yet made
- Characters stubbornly refusing to be named
- Scenes, paragraphs, sentences and extraneous words destined for deadly encounters with the delete key

... and, last but first: too many days passing without any kind of novelling activity whatsoever going on.

How is it that I allow so many other things to distract me from this long-held dream???