This mind can't contain all these words
I happy to announce the release of my short story anthology Yearly: A Collection of 12 Stories! Catchy title, huh? Just like a calendar has twelve months, this anthology contains twelve stories of the horror persuasion ready and waiting to unnerve you.
It’s available at Smashwords and Amazon for just .99!
I spent some time last month thinking about and sketching out the next Ivy novella. I need an idea of where the road goes before I start driving it, you know. And I admit that it didn’t come as quickly as I’d have liked. I had the basic idea, the very basic story. But the certain details I was needing, the points on the road that I needed to stop and visit, weren’t as immediate and clear as I would have liked.
All well and good. No need to rush. No need to panic. Plenty of time to let the idea boil a bit longer on the back burner.
So while I was letting this bit simmer, I got a sudden rush of an idea that needed to be written now. Here are the characters, here is the story, here is the dilly-yo, so let’s get to it.
Such is one of my biggest annoyances as a writer.
You’ve got your schedule. You are going to work on this. Everything is all nice and neat. And then BAM! Here’s this new, insistent, sparkly idea that looks so much better than the idea you’re working on, that you need to work on, that you should be working on, and wouldn’t you rather work on it?
Like a siren leading my deadlines and plans to the rocks.
Sometimes, when this happens, all I have to do is sketch it out a bit and the sparkly idea falls apart and I can move on with my original project without any guilt.
But sometimes, the sparkly idea doesn’t burst into a cloud of glitter. Sometimes it’s more than just pretty. There’s some real substance there. I can’t just ignore it. I’ve tried and it always ends up badly.
I don’t know what other writers do about this problem, but if I feel compelled to work on it, then I work on it. It’s my second project and it gets my attention as soon as I’m done with the primary project, the one with a deadline and schedule, is finished for the day.
It works out better for me that way.
Working on the second project doesn’t distract me from working on the first project and probably actually helps my focus on the first project because I want to get it done so I can move on to the second project.
And at the end of all things, I end up with the first drafts of not one, but two novellas (or short stories or novels or any combination of those), which gives me more to revise and polish, and more choices at the end of it all. It’s actually a good thing for me in the long run, these surprise ideas that end up doing battle in my head.
It’s still annoying, though.
Having done a whole bunch of revisions, both hard and easy, this month I’m looking to write something new.
It’s time to get the new Ivy novella down on paper. That is for sure. I’ve got it all sketched out. Okay, I’ve got it as sketched out as I need it to be. Good enough, time to go.
I also got an idea for another, unrelated novella that has been rather persistent and so I think I’m going to explore it as well. I’ve sketched it a bit. I think I can write it. I think I’m going to.
And finally, I got slapped with a short story idea that won’t take me but a couple of days to write, so I think I’m going to do that as well. I’ve actually had the idea for a while, but I couldn’t figure out just how to work it until recently. Now that I know, I want to get a draft done.
So, I’m looking forward to a lot of writing this month.
But, since Spirited in Spite didn’t take that much work to revise, I started reading A Tale of Two Lady Killers in preparation to revise it to completion, too, and I’m realizing that it’s not going to need a whole lot of work either. So it’s entirely possible that I might do some of the nitpicky revisions on it this month, too.
Short month doesn’t meant I’m short on work.
I’m in the process of revising Hatchets and Hearts and it’s been a pretty hard slog. I knew it would be. I knew when I was writing it that it wasn’t working the way that I wanted it to and so I knew when I finished it and tucked it away that I was looking at some serious rewrites/revisions.
Hard revisions are the worst.
I usually like revising because there’s something about stripping down a story and putting it back together to make it better that I really dig. But sometimes there are revisions I dread. Those I call hard revisions.
I guess they’re hard because they take more effort than usual. I don’t mind rewriting/revising extensively. It has to be done and most of the time I’m right there in it. But there are some stories that whatever revising I have to do is just plain work. Maybe I don’t like the story all that well at the moment or I’m not keen on the revisions I’m doing because I’m not convinced that they’re the right thing to do but something has to be done to get this show on the road.
That’s where I’m at with Hatchets and Hearts. The story isn’t what I want it to be and I’m not sure these revisions/rewrites are going to get it to where I want it to be and it makes me feel very meh and blah and uninspired. It makes me have to force myself to work on it, to do the bare minimum every day so it will get done. And then I chide myself for not putting out more effort to get more done so the whole thing gets done faster, but I just don’t have the energy for it, ya know?
And the hardest part is coming because I’m changing the ending and it’s going to be really hard because I don’t WANT to do this to the character, but I have to because the way I’m doing things, that’s how it has to go. It’s going to brutal and I’m dreading it and I think that’s part of my foot-dragging.
The thing is I’ll finish these revisions because I’ve become very good about finishing things and I’ll put this aside to settle for a bit. And when I come back to it, the next round of revisions are more likely to be easier because the slogging I did this time will pay off. There will be something better for me to work with so I can get the story closer to where I want it to be.
And that’s why I never whine too much about the hard revisions. I know it’ll be worth it.
There’s something about writing in a notebook that makes me feel powerful.
Okay, I realize that sounds absolutely ridiculous, but it’s true. There’s just something about it that really gets to me.
It makes me feel productive in a way that for whatever reason typing on my laptop doesn’t. Putting ink on paper makes me feel like I’m actually doing something.
It makes me feel like I’m not half-assing it. That I’m being all committed and serious and important about my writing.
I think part of it is perception. When people see my typing on a laptop, I could be writing, I could be tweeting, I could be updating Facebook, I could be doing a lot of things that have nothing to do with actually writing. When people see me writing in a notebook, they KNOW I’m writing. That’s what a notebook is for, after all.
I use my notebooks for different things, ideas, outlining, first drafts. But it really doesn’t matter what I’m doing in the notebook. Just the act of writing whatever it is makes me feel more accomplished than doing the same thing on my laptop. In fact, there are certain things that just belong in my notebook and the idea of doing them on my laptop is ridiculous to me.
For example, I’m outlining the new Ivy novella that I’m calling The Timeless Man. The way I’m going about working it could easily (and probably more practically) be accomplished on my laptop, but that approach feels so wrong to me that it’s like you just suggested I chisel everything out on stone. This sort of thing needs to be scribbled down in my notebook.
In my notebook lies my power.
I can’t imagine that I’m explaining this well at all and most people reading this will think I’m some kind of nut (thank goodness I’m a writer; that sort of crazy gets excused).
But I’m sure there are a few people that will read this and know exactly what I’m talking about.
Notebook power!
So as I may have mentioned in my previous projects posts that one of my plans for the year was to revise Spirited in Spite to doneness and that I was going to start this month.
Here’s a little back story on Spirited in case I never mentioned it (which is entirely possible since I don’t talk about my projects with any sort of regularity):
It started out as one of my earliest NaNo losers under the title The Spinning Room. I can’t remember exactly how the loss took place. I think I ended up not finishing it during the month, but getting it done sometime afterwards. The original idea was for something straight horror, but at some point during the first draft, I realized I couldn’t keep my face straight that long. I think that’s part of what made it so hard to write during NaNo; I was doing it wrong.
When I decided to revise it with a lighter tone, it went a lot easier. I put together a new draft and revised it once more at some point and then left it alone to do other things.
Apparently, I re-read it sometime last year, but I don’t remember doing that.
I started doing the revisions on the second. I was done within a week. And that was going slow.
I had apparently done more revisions on this manuscript than I remembered doing. I certainly didn’t remember revising it down to novella length, but also didn’t remember revising the story to the point that it was so…finished. The revisions I ended up doing this round were of the nitpicky variety, partly because I was marveling at how little I had to do.
Now, this doesn’t mean I’m done. There are minor things that I thought about changing, but didn’t change because I’m not sure about those changes yet. I’m going to let it all rest for a little while and come back to it again.
But I’m no longer thinking that it’s going to take me a better part of a year to get this manuscript done.
Looks like A Tale of Two Lady Killers is going to get its shot, too.
Finally, we get around to my first projects post of the new year.
I’ve got most of the heavy lifting rewrites done on “She’s Not Here Anymore” and it’s officially a short story now. I’m going to let it rest for now. It could probably use another round of picky revisions, if not two. But not this month. It can wait.
This month I’m going to start on one of my big year goals and start revising Spirited in Spite, which I thought was still a novel-length manuscript, but it looks like the previous revisions I did cut it down to novella-length. Now I get to decide if I want to expand it back to being a novel or just go with novella, which is kind of becoming my thing. And so my big goal takes on a new dimension.
I think I’m also going to start sketching out the next Ivy Russell novella. I’ve already got the idea for it, but it’s gonna need a little work, some fleshing out and outlining. I may even start writing it if I’m feeling good about it. You never know.
I might also start doing some work on the Hatchets and Hearts novella if I’m feeling productive. It needs some hefty revisions and I’d probably be better off getting them out of the way as soon as possible.
I had an easy time of it in December. Time to get back to work.
Last year I got quite complicated with my reading goals. I needed to have so many fiction books and so many non-fiction books and only so many re-reads to make sure I was reading new stuff and so many outside of my genre to make sure I was reading widely.
Well, it worked. I did all of that. Sure I was reading three books at once in November and then December to make sure I got everything read, but I did make it happen.
This year? Scrap all of that complicated business.
My reading goals this year are going to be very simple.
24 books. 2 books a month. Only 4 can be re-reads.
There. Done.
I think I’ve grasped the concept of reading more widely. I think I can balance my fiction and my non-fiction. The main goal this year is to read steadily. I have a terrible habit of reading in fits and spurts. I’ll go a couple of months without reading anything and then I’ll read four books in a month. It might take me three months to read one book and then I’ll read another in a weekend.
I need to be more regular with my reading and I need to make a habit of that.
Hopefully, this year’s reading goals will help me accomplish that.
Last year my big goals were revising The World (Saving) Series to the point of doneness; submitting seven short stories that were ready and waiting; working on a sooper sekrit project; and turning Night of the Nothing Man into a novella.
Of those goals, I managed to hit most of them. The sooper sekrit project hit several snags and skids and brick walls. It’s still there, but I still don’t know what it is or what I’m going to do with it yet. And I didn’t submit those seven stories. I submitted a few of them, but in the end, they got designated for an anthology. So they will get published, just not submitted.
Of course, the two big goals, World and Nothing Man did happen. Both of them done and one of them published (I’m still sitting on World, not sure what I’m going to do with it yet).
This year, similar things will happen.
Yet another of my novel manuscripts will be revised to the point of doneness. I think it’s going to be Spirited in Spite. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. And if I get it done early enough and I’m feeling adventurous, I think I’ll start working on A Tale of Two Lady Killers in the same fashion.
In novellas, I have three that need to be revised and one that I have an idea for and would like to write. I feel like all of that should happen. Novellas are kind of my thing right now and I feel like I should ride that wave all the way to the shore.
I need to get back on track with the sooper sekrit project, too. Even though it’s just sitting there, I feel like I’ve done too much on it to just shelve it. There has to be something in that mess I produced and I need to find it.
And that, friends, are my 2014 goals. They don’t sound like a lot, but believe me, it’ll be work.
As I said earlier this year, laziness led me to stop reviewing every book that I read, which was my form of accountability when it came to doing my reading goals. Instead, I kept a list of all of the books that I read during the course of the year, some reviewed on my blog before I abandoned that idea, but most of them not.
This is the full list, the whole list, and nothing but the list, but the list is not in chronological order. Re-reads are marked.
The moral of this list: my goals were achieved. At least 24 books. At least 10 non-fiction. More than one outside of my genre. More than one memoir. A couple from authors I know. Good job self.
1. Real Murders by Charlaine Harris (blog post)
2. A Bone to Pick by Charlaine Harris (blog post)
3. Charlie by Shana Hammaker (blog post)
4. Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King (blog post)
5. Fall Down Laughing by David L. Lander (blog post)
6. The Bullpen Gospels by Dirk Hayhurst (blog post)
7. Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion (blog post)
8. Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong (blog post)
9. Emergency! True Stories from the Nation’s ERs by Mark Brown, MD (re-read)
10. Resurgence by Johi Jenkins
11. The Distant Hours by Kate Morton
12. Fat Chicks Rule! How to Survive in a Thin-Centric World by Lara Frater (re-read)
13. Trauma Junkie: Memoirs of an Emergency Flight Nurse by Janice Hudson
14. The Grimm Legacy by Polly Shulman
15. The Ghost Orchid by Carol Goodman
16. House of Many Shadows by Barbara Michaels
17. The Shadowy Horses by Susanna Kearsly
18. The Murderous Urges of Ordinary Women by Lois Meltzer
19. The Year of the Storm by John Mantooth
20. Shark Attacks: Terrifying True Accounts of Shark Attacks Worldwide by Alex MacCormick
21. Secret Lives of Great Authors by Robert Schnakenberg
22. Carrie by Stephen King
23. Rescue 471: A Paramedic’s Stories by Peter Canning
24. Doctor Sleep by Stephen King
25. Writer’s Gone Wild by Bill Peschel
26. Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach
27. Aftermath, Inc.: Cleaning Up After CSI Goes Home by Gil Reavill
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