Writing–Musing on Muses

February 13, 2013January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ 4 Comments

I don’t have a muse.

Other writers talk about having muses. Their muses abandon them and show up in the middle of the night, begging for attention. They show up with nothing but a blank page or they leave them with pages and pages of finished work.

But I don’t have a muse.

I think it’s a neat idea. Like a little, disagreeable fairy that helps channel your creativity. It’s something to blame on the bad days and something to champion on the good days. It makes writing feel a little less lonely to know that there’s this little writing devil with a halo sitting on your shoulder.

But I still don’t have one.

I show up and I write. Some days go better than others, but in the end, it’s just me.

This doesn’t make me any better because I don’t believe in invisible helpers. In fact, I feel a little deficient because I don’t have one. Call me a little jealous. I’d like a little sprite to discuss things with on my writing journeys.

Instead of muses, I just have characters. Some are persistent little things that won’t leave me alone. And I do talk to my characters a lot. I ask them questions and hope they’ll cooperate and answer them. That’s how I develop the stories sometimes. I just sit back, look that character straight in the eye, and ask them, “What gives?”

Okay, all of this takes place in my mind (I save the talking to myself for hashing out dialogue to make sure it sounds real). Sometimes those interviews go well. Sometimes I find out the characters just want to exist and they really don’t want to do anything of interest.

I suppose talking to my characters is the closest I’ll ever get to having a muse. They show up, kind of like a muse does, and they help me write their stories. Sometimes they’re more helpful than other times. Sometimes they can be really annoying pricks.

But in the end, when it comes to the actual work, they step back and let me put fingers to keys and pen to paper. When it comes to the actual work, it’s all on me. I’ve got no muse to bail me out there.

Which is a shame. Some days, I could use it.

Writing–February Projects

February 6, 2013January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

The revisions on The World (Saving) Series continues. I’m making progress and I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how some chapters are in better shape than others and how many of them are in better shape than I remember. My goal to be able to call this manuscript done by the end of the year is looking promising.

Work on the sooper sekrit project also continues. It’s being upgraded from the morning project that kills time while I’m minding the kid two or three days a week (because I’m off that job for the month while the kid spends the month with his mom while grandma is vacationing in Florida) and I expect to make some significant progress on it by working on it more than a couple of days a week. I’d like to have the barest bones of the whole business done by the end of the month so I can definitely see what I’ve got going for me.

The big project this month, though, will be revising Night of the Nothing Man from a novel to a novella. Considering the strains I made fleshing it out to make sure I hit 50,000 words, cutting won’t be much of a problem. Really getting that story to be what I want it to be might take a little more work, but I’m still hoping to get it done by the end of the month. I’d like to be able to put it out on Smashwords by March.

The month is just a few days shorter, but I’m going to try to pack them as full as I can. I’ve got a lot going on and I’ve got a feeling I’m just going to be adding more to my plate. At the very least, there’s going to be a lot of idea jotting. I’ve been getting hitting hard with that lately, but I’m having trouble penciling all of them in, so they have to wait.

When it rains, it pours, and I’ve been caught in an idea deluge.

I hope my umbrella holds.

Writing–Does My Productivity Look Lacking In This?

January 30, 2013January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I know I shouldn’t compare myself to other people, but I do it anyway. I’ve gotten better about not comparing my work to that of other writers (thought I still have my jealousies and wish I could do certain things as well as others), but when it comes to the process, I can’t help but compare.

I judge myself harshly when it comes to comparing my productivity to others. I feel like I’m never working hard enough/fast enough/producing enough. I feel like a right slacker compared to the other writers I know/follow/interact with. On Twitter, I see the word/page/project output and I look at mine and think it’s a good thing I talk more about reruns than I do about my writing.

I know I should just be pleased with what I can get done. Any progress counts. But I can’t help but hold myself to a much higher, sometimes unrealistic standard.

For example, working The World (Saving) Series revisions, I think I should be working much harder and much faster on it. Except I’m SUPPOSED to be going slow. I made a conscious decision to go slow so I won’t rush myself, so I’ll pay more attention, so I won’t feel pressured.

Yet here I am, pressuring myself because I see other people doing more.

Writing is a very individual process. What works for one person doesn’t work for another. What speed works for one person doesn’t work for another. I forget that. I want to be done like yesterday and I want to be done twice as fast as the person next to me.

It’s not even a question of making it an active competition or trying to be better than anyone else. That’s just where my standards lie. I don’t want to look like a slacker to the writers I associate with. I want them to respect my productivity.

It’s a silly ego thing and I fight with them all the time. I can only go as fast as I can go and I can only do as much as I can do. I shouldn’t be ashamed of that. I should own up to what I can do.

So while others are doing theirs, I need to remember to mind mine and ONLY mine.

I’ll work better that way.

Writing–So About This Non-Fiction Business

January 23, 2013January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

My new sooper sekrit project is non-fiction. I’ve read a lot of non-fiction but unless you count blog posts, I haven’t written much of it.

Non-fiction is kind of intimidating to someone who spends most of their time making shit up. Sure I have to have my facts that I do use straight, but that’s just in the background to make the lies more real. Non-fiction leaves no bullshit room. It’s all gotta be accurate.

There’s also the worry of being boring. There’s no witty characters to hide behind. It’s all on me, baby. I’m somewhat entertaining on Twitter and in blog posts, but the idea of maintaining that for an entire book-length work seems scary.

It IS scary.

I’m terrified of being boring, mostly because I know how boring I can be. There are whole stretches of my life that are broad strokes of blah beige. I don’t want any book I write, fiction or non-fiction, to be boring. It’s just easier, to me anyway, not to be boring writing fiction.

To combat my fears and insecurities, I’m tackling this project bit by bit, no pressure. I’ve got an outline and now I’m writing out the basics. No pressure. No worries about the need to be correct or entertaining. It’s all about getting it down on paper and seeing what I’ve got.

Hopefully, it’s something real.

And not boring.

Writing–2013 Writing Goals

January 16, 2013January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Last year I gave myself the goal of getting 50 rejections and ended up falling miserably short. However, I did learn quite a bit when it comes to goal setting my writing like that. First of all, I need to be more realistic. Second of all, not every goal is going to work for me.

The idea of getting 50 rejections seemed like a good one at the time because it would motivate me to submit more of my short stories. The problem with this approach is that I really don’t have the short story inventory to generate that many rejections, particularly when the rejection process is on a completely different time table. I have no control over when I get the rejections. They can take days or months. Combine that with a limited inventory and I found out that I tore my ACL before I even made it out onto the track.

However, had I not given it a go, I wouldn’t have learned that. I’m a sucker for learning things the hard way.

This year, I’m going to take a different approach to my writing goals.

My biggest goal is going to be revising The World (Saving) Series to a point of doneness. Not THE point of doneness, but A point of doneness. That means that I want to get the novel to a point that I’m done messing with the story and the structure and all I’m worried about is consistency, word choice, and descriptions. I want to be satisfied with the big picture of the story, so to speak. Giving myself until the end of the year seems reasonable, I think.

I’ve got seven short stories waiting on my ready list. I want to submit them all at least once. I’ve got three stories still out from last year. If they all get rejected, then I want to submit them all at least once, too. Any new short stories I write, I want to send those out at least once as well. Not exactly a lofty goal, for sure, but sometimes I feel very divided with my writing. This is a way to motivate some progress without being too hard on myself and getting discouraged. It also encourages me to give all of my stories a chance on the market instead of holding them back, afraid to let them be seen by the world.

I haven’t abandoned my idea to edit Night of the Nothing Man into a novella and self-publish it. That will get done sometime this year.

My current sooper-sekrit project is under way. Even though I don’t want to talk about it, I’m working on it. And even if I don’t like the way it’s going or think it’s a flop, I’m still going to finish it. I need to develop a little faith in myself when it comes to working on non-fiction projects (that’s the only hint you’re going to get!).

I think these goals are good enough to keep me busy for the year. We’ll see how it shakes out.

If you’re taking bets on if I’ll be scrambling to submit stories in December, it’s probably a pretty safe bet to take. I know me.

Writing–2013 Reading Goals

January 9, 2013January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I need to come up with some tangible reading goals for 2013. So let’s do a quick review of what my 2012 goals were and what I actually did.

My goal was to read 12 books, 6 fiction (at least one from a genre I didn’t normally read), 6 non-fiction (at least one memoir and only one could be a re-read). In reality, I read 20 books, 6 fictions, 6 non-fiction, and at least one of the fiction books was from a different genre. I kind of blew the rest of the goals.

So here’s my idea for 2013:

-Read 24 books. That’s just four more than I did read and it averages out to two a month. That should be more than doable for me.

-At least 10 need to be non-fiction. I failed to read my required number of non-fiction books last year (strange since I usually prefer non-fiction to fiction). I need to do a better job of balancing my intake. It’s not quite half, but it’s close enough.

-Only ONE non-fiction re-read counts towards my total. I re-read non-fiction a lot so I have to watch it. I need to look for new stuff.

-At least one of my non-fiction reads needs to be a memoir. This was one of the goals I failed last year.

-Only one of my fiction re-reads counts towards my goal. I don’t usually re-read fiction, but I’ve been hankering to read a couple of Stephen King books again.

-I will continue exploring other fiction genres. That means I need to limit the number of horror books I read. I say no more than eight.

-Read more of books by people I know. I need to be more active in supporting the authors that I interact with on Twitter. Reading more of their books would be a good idea.

I think these goals will be a great way to keep me productively reading this year.

Let’s hope I do better at meeting (exceeding?) them than last year.

Writing–January Projects

January 2, 2013January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Towards the end of December I got a real bee in my bonnet about ripping apart and revising The World (Saving) Series. I put it off because with the holidays and all, I didn’t want to get into it. And there were a few short story things I wanted to wrap up.

Hopefully, the bee hasn’t settled down and I can get some major work done on World. I’ve really got to be more consistent and dedicated to revising a novel to completion. This is my shot at doing that and I’m going to take it. I want to see how far I can get this month.

I’m also kicking around an idea for another project. I don’t want to say too much about it because I know how I am. I think something is a good idea, I talk about it, I start doing it, the idea dies, and nothing comes of any of the talking that I did. Talking about an idea that doesn’t have some actual substance to it in the sense that I am either done working on it or nearly done working on it is a jinx for me. Total jinx.

But there is a project idea I’m kicking around, so if it comes to being anything, we can all refer back to this post as the one in which it was first mentioned.

Because that totally matters and whatnot.

Writing–Reading Goals/50 Rejections Results

December 26, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

I set myself two goals for the years. I wanted to get fifty short story rejections and I wanted to read twelve books. The results were mixed, but honestly, it was an overall fail for both goals.

First the fifty rejections. That was kind of a lofty goal, in retrospect. I tend to submit in bursts and I really didn’t have enough completed short stories to make this possible. Even the short stories I wrote during the year weren’t really enough to make up that deficit. Even though I scaled back the goal to twenty in November, it still wasn’t enough. As of right now, I garnered seventeen rejections for 2012. An improvement over last year’s total for sure, but far short of my goal. I think next year I’ll be a little more realistic and shoot for a more obtainable number.

The reading goals I set for myself were pretty specific (if you remember; I didn’t…I had to look them up). Not only did I have to read twelve books, six of them had to be fiction and six of them had to be non-fiction. Of the fiction books, at least one had to be in a genre I don’t read. Of the six non-fiction books, one had to be a memoir and only one could be a re-read.

The good news out of this is that I ended up reading a total of twenty books and I did read a couple of genres I normally don’t read. The bad news is that I failed in the non-fiction goals.

14 1/2 of the books were fiction (Margaritaville had both short stories and essays so I counted it as half). 5 1/2 books were non-fiction, falling half a book short of my six book goal. Two of those books were re-reads. And I didn’t manage to read a full on memoir.

So while I read more fiction than I usually do and read more overall than I have in a while, I totally bombed the non-fiction portion of the goals. I think next year’s goals are going to reflect that and my need to achieve balance.

Overall, I’m pretty disappointed with my lack of achievement. I’ve got some work to do next year.

Writing–Writing Longhand

December 19, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

Using my child-tending mornings two/three days a week to work on writing projects has me writing in a notebook. My laptop is in need of a new battery, but even if it didn’t, it’s much easier to walk a notebook next door than to bother with my laptop. It’s been a while since I’ve written longhand this much.

Back in the day, when I first started to write seriously for publication, I drafted all of my short stories longhand. I’d do my first round of revisions when I typed the story up. It’s a habit I got into because I was working retail and I’d write on my breaks. It’s a habit I got out of when I stopped working in retail because I had my computer at my disposal at all times. It seemed silly to bother with writing it out longhand and then typing it up. It was like a waste of paper.

Getting back to it now in the mornings I’m telling the boy it’s time to take a shower and eat his breakfast to break up his Pokemon DS quests, I realize that it’s not silly or wasteful. It’s true I don’t get as much done in that time span writing it out by hand, but I’m a little more thoughtful doing it that way. It’s not as easy to correct myself with ink and paper. And I don’t like a lot of scribbles marking up my paper, even if it is a first draft. So I pay a little more attention. The idea that I can go back and fix it (which plagues me because I still do battle with the voice in my head that I MUST get it right the first time) is still present in some sense, but I think I end up with a slightly better first draft than when I type it on the computer first.

I think part of that is because writing it out by hand does slow me down. I type like 70 words per minute (that’s an estimate based on a typing test I took at some point in high school, so there’s very much a margin of error here). Because my fingers can nearly keep up with my thoughts, I don’t take much time to pause and reflect when I’m getting that first chunk of story down. Writing longhand slows that whole process down. I can’t think about what’s coming next because I’m still working on what’s happening right now.

It’s a nice change of pace. Writing on the computer and then writing on paper is doing me more good than harm. The back and forth makes me feel more productive and better at what I’m doing.

It makes me FEEL that way. I can’t guarantee that’s actually happening. But it’s a nice feeling.

Writing–I Have No Idea What I’m Doing

December 12, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I feel like that sometimes, like I have no clue what the hell I’m doing. Not just when I’m working on my writing, either, though that happens plenty of times. For every day I think I know what I’m doing, there are two that I feel like I don’t.

I’m still not sure I know how to write a novel because I’ve yet to successfully revise one into completion. Working on short stories, more than once I’ve stopped to ask myself, “Is this right?” Even when it comes to blogging, I feel lost at times, like I’m just faking my way through it, looking like an idiot all the way.

But this feeling of not knowing what I’m doing goes beyond the writing doubts. It encompasses my whole career (if you want to call it that). Should I be splitting my time between writing novels and working on short stories? Is the Outskirts a waste of time? Should I really be self-publishing my novellas? Should I even be writing novellas? Should I focus all of my time and energy on getting one novel manuscript finished so I can start shopping it to agents? How do I connect more with the writing community? I need to get into it, but where do I start? Should I wait until I do have a novel manuscript finished and few agent rejections so I don’t look like the impostor I feel like? I consider myself a writer, but will they?

It feels like flies on a dead body in June when my brain buzzes like this. It freezes me. I can’t make any decisions, can’t even look for a logical place to start trying to figure anything out. I can’t even figure out what I DO know because I’m not sure I actually know it.

It’s kind of a bitch.

When this sort of overwhelming “where am I?” happens, I find myself throwing up my hands and yelling “fuck it!” at the sky and going back to work on whatever it is I’m working on. Do I know what I’m doing? Fuck it! I’ll do it anyway! That’s the spirit!

Which really doesn’t do me any good because it doesn’t fix the underlying problem, but at least I do get something done. And the productivity makes me feel better. It makes me feel like I at least know how to cross something off my To Do List for that given day. It’s a sense of accomplishment.

It’s just the rest of it I still need to work out.