Writing–Breaking in a New Novel Method

May 9, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

I’ve spent the past couple of days breaking in a new pair of heels. I haven’t worn heels for quite a while. I’ve gained some weight and messed up my left knee since the last time I did. It’s taking some work to get used to them. If I’m going to be standing in them for several hours, comfort is important.

The same thing could be said for this new novel I’m writing. I’m taking this new approach of outlining a few chapters, writing them, then revising them. After doing it for several weeks (I started back in April), I can definitely say it’s taking some getting used to.

On the plus side, I’m able to go back and fix major story problems immediately. I don’t have to wait until I’m finished with the first draft and into revisions to fix something that’s nagging at me. For example, the first three chapters of this draft were terrible. They were a downright boring info dump. So before I went on, I had the opportunity to fix that and better mete out the information while keeping it all interesting. I don’t have that specter hanging over my head as I move on.

On the other hand, it’s definitely slow progress. If I were doing this in typical NaNoWriMo style, I’d either be done or at the very least, close to done by now. I’d have a shitty first draft as usual, but I would be done. And that shitty first draft would probably need a lot of work. As of right now, I haven’t gotten past the initial first story-fixing revision on any of my novel manuscripts.

So with this new approach, what I can guarantee that the draft I’m left with when I write the last sentence should be in better shape than a draft written the NaNo way. That’s the theory, anyway. It will still need revisions because what I write will always need revisions. But it shouldn’t need as much in the way of revisions. At the very least the story should be solid.

It’s too soon to tell if this will become my main way of writing novels. I doubt it. After all, I don’t plan on wearing my heels every day. But this will be a nice method to pull out in between NaNoWriMos when I’m feeling restless and tired of working on short stories and sick of working on novel revisions and I need to create something original or when I have an idea I just can’t shake.

For the those times when I need something a little different, I think this will work just fine.

Some Kind of Luck

May 7, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

So, I had a week of what some might consider bizarre luck. On Sunday, I found a dead body. That Friday, I won two tickets to The Dempster Family Foundation Casino Night, an event I’ve been wanting to go to since it started in 2010. Now, I’ll tell you this. I felt like the time between that Sunday and that Friday was weeks, possibly because these two things are like polar opposites of what you want from your day (unless, of course, you’re looking for a dead body and you can’t stand the Cubs and/or casinos, but let’s not go splitting the hairs of a bald man here and focus).

When I won the tickets I couldn’t believe my luck. I don’t have that kind of luck. No one would call me a lucky person (unless it comes to avoiding dying in fiery auto crashes and in that case, I’m really quite lucky). If there’s a group of people and something good could happen to one of them, I’m not that one. So my natural reaction is disbelief followed by thinking it’s either a dream, a delusion, a joke, or I’m misinterpreting something. After I won the tickets, I told Carrie that I hoped my luck would hold through Casino Night.

But that got me thinking…what does that even mean?

Someone once told me that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. I’ll buy that in terms of good luck. Too often I’m ready, but the opportunity doesn’t present itself. And then when it does present itself, I’m not ready. At least for me, these two points converge only rarely.

But if we go by this definition, then bad luck is either not being prepared or not having an opportunity. So me finding a dead body wasn’t bad luck, like some people said. It was just unfortunate. And therefore, winning the tickets wasn’t a turn around of luck that week. It was just a spot of good luck after an unfortunate incident.

I was presented with the opportunity and I was prepared to say yes (having a little black dress at the ready didn’t hurt).

So this leads me to think about the rest of my life. Preparation is important and I know that. I do try to be prepared. I fail at that a lot, but it’s not for lack of trying. I have very little control over opportunities presenting themselves. I try to make my own opportunities, but like being prepared, I tend to fail. It kills me when I get a shot at something I’m not ready for, particularly because I know it’s not going to come around again.

And so, I am unlucky. I tend to have bad luck.

But those spots of good luck, however rare they might be, keep me working to be prepared for opportunities. Some day, I will turn my luck around.

Writing–May Projects

May 2, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

This month is all about novels.

Okay, that isn’t entirely true. In my quest for 50 rejections, I’ll continue to review, revise (if necessary), and submit my short stories. I’ll also do another round of revisions on “Gone Missing” to try to get it into publishable shape.

But my main creative focus is going to be on two of my novel manuscripts.

The first doesn’t have a title yet so I’ve just been calling it The Ivy Novel since the main character’s name is Ivy. I started working on the first draft last month, taking a different approach. I outlined the first five chapters, wrote the first four, then revised what I wrote. I’m going to do this leap frog method of writing for this draft just to see how it works out for me after doing so many first drafts in the NaNoWriMo style.

Not that I’ll ever stop doing NaNo. I’m addicted to that self-competition. And I like revising a crappy first draft into something better. It’s a winner all-around. But, I also think I should explore as many methods as possible. It’s all in the pursuit of getting better.

I also intend to revisit The World (Saving) Series. I do not deny that I hit a wall when it came to revisions because while I knew significant changes needed to be made and I had a good idea what they were, I also felt like the manuscript was lacking something. Between work on The Ivy Novel (which has a slight connection to Series) and the magic of me getting ideas in the shower, I think I found my gimmick for the book. I want to test it out on the first few chapters of the revised manuscript to see how it works.

I’m looking forward to working on these two projects. I need to stop avoiding the work it takes to produce a good novel manuscript in favor of the more instant gratification of the short story.

It’s time for me to long-haul this with some focus.

A Dead Neighbor on Sunday

April 30, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

The Universe has an interesting sense of humor. Last Sunday, just days after I finished re-reading Deadhouse: Life in a Coroner’s Office and typing up a blog post for it (it’ll be up Friday), I found a dead body.

I took my cat Maudie Moo for a walk (our “walks” involved wandering around the yard together; Maudie likes it when her people are outside). At the end of our yard is a narrow alley and on the other side is the backyard of another house. It’s fenced in with a weird sort of chain link privacy fence that makes it difficult to see into the yard. I got down to the alley and walked down it a few feet, trying to lure my cat into the sun.

There I was, standing in the alley, singing along with Paul Simon on my iPod (“50 Ways to Leave Your Lover”) when I realized there was someone laying in the neighbor’s yard. At first, I was a little embarrassed that I’d been singing along without realizing someone was there. Then I realized the person that was there probably wasn’t in any condition to hear me. He was laying on his back next to his lawn mower, one arm outstretch, his other arm curled up with his hand on his chest. A water bottle stuck out from his sweatshirt pocket. He looked like he was napping, but I knew he probably wasn’t.

I approached the fence and asked him if he was okay. No answer. I got closer and asked again. Still no answer. I got right up to the fence, peering between the weird privacy slats that blocked the view but didn’t. He wasn’t moving. It didn’t look like he was breathing. His skin had a waxy look to it.

I figured he was dead, but I ran to the house and got Dad for a second opinion. He confirmed it (Dad is uncanny with his ability to determine death without taking a pulse; 25 years as a cop helped develop that skill) and called it in. I then sat back and watched as first police officers, fire rescue, and paramedics, then the coroner, dealt with the body, my dad holding court with all of them just as he had when he was still working.

Meanwhile, I was left to explain to the neighbors (and friends of the neighbors who were on vacation, but heard the call on the police scanner) what had happened. Near as we can figure, he’d been out mowing that morning between 10 and noon. Dad saw the mower out, but didn’t see him, which he didn’t think much of at the time. I found the body sometime later, around 4:30. Dad said the mower was in a different position than when he last saw it, so he probably came back out, maybe started the mower again, maybe even mowed some, and then collapsed. He’d been laying there for at least four to six hours. Rigor was already starting to set in, so he wasn’t long for the world after he collapsed. There probably wasn’t anything that could have been done for him. Speculation is that it was most likely a heart attack, but he’d been taken to the hospital last week for his blood sugar, so maybe that was the deciding factor. I’m not sure.

Carrie felt bad that the man collapsed and died in his backyard and no one noticed for several hours, but really, I think it was a blessing. He was a quiet man, not exactly social, though very nice when he did speak. If he’d died in his house, it might have been days (or longer) before anyone found him. I think that would have been worse. And really, it was a nice day to die in the yard. A little chilly and breezy, but sunny. Not much in the way of flies, if you want to get scientific about it.

People kept asking me if I was okay since I was the one that found the body, which one hand I found odd, but on the other hand, I appreciated. It was nice of them to ask, but I couldn’t understand why they thought I’d be upset. I didn’t know the neighbor very well. And as my personal beliefs dictate, the soul or spirit of the man was long gone by the time I found his corpse. That’s all it was. A corpse. Out of the ordinary, sure, but not traumatic.

This isn’t to say I didn’t feel bad. I did. It’s a shame. But I guess I’m just one of those people that doesn’t fall apart at the sight of a dead body. I suppose, with reading all of those books about death and decomposition, it makes sense.

However, I’m not immune to those weird human thoughts when confronted with death on a back lawn. At the time I’d been sick for over a week and I was still dealing with a cough. While standing at the fence, waiting for the circus to arrive, I kept coughing and every time I did, I thought it would get the dead man’s attention. And then later, a slight case of embarrassment set in when I was recounting the story to someone because I’d realized that I’d asked a dead man if he was all right. Of course, I wasn’t certain he was dead at the time, but still I felt a little silly admitting to people that I’d tried to start a conversation with a corpse.

And honestly, I felt less awkward trying to talk to a dead man than I did trying to talk to the living neighbors.

That’s because death is more natural than my socialization skills.

Writing–Essay Conclusion

April 25, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

When we last left our hero, the first draft of the personal essay I was working on, I wasn’t happy with it. I couldn’t get the emotions working the way I wanted them to. I was struggling because I was too hesitant and couldn’t stop myself from holding back. The solution was rewriting the first draft from scratch and then working with the new draft.

The good news is that this approach worked. I rewrote the draft in my journal where my emotions are free to roam without judgment, and then typed up the result. Subsequent revisions from this new draft worked well and I’m pretty happy with the end result. I think I fixed the problems that plagued it in the beginning.

The bad news is that I really don’t have the confidence to submit it to the contest. I like it, but I’m not sure it’s good enough. And with money tight, spending 25 bucks on something I’m not sure of doesn’t make sense. I feel like I could benefit from more practice before I think about submitting again.

I know that I submitted one piece to a contest before, but that was just to do it. It was an opportunity to try something new. However, if I’m going to pursue this seriously, then I’m definitely going to have to get more practice and build up my confidence before I submit again.

I don’t mind taking my time in this case.

Active Sleeper

April 23, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

Tile mosaic in sidewalk on Broad Street, Mid-C... — Tile mosaic in sidewalk on Broad Street, Mid-City New Orleans. "Sand. For Restful Sleep". Remainder of the long gone Crescent City Bed Company factory which was formerly at this location. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m an active sleeper.

What does that mean?

It means that when I go to sleep there’s no guarantee that all of me goes to sleep. There’s a spot in my brain that doesn’t always sleep and it has the ability to keep my body awake without the rest of my sleeping brain knowing it. As such, I’ve done some weird things in my sleep.

I’ve always known I was a talker. My mother once came in to yell at my sister and I for talking when we should have been sleeping only to find out that we were both talking in our sleep. Mom said it sounded like we were having a conversation but when she really listened, we were talking about two completely different things.

I had a couple of sleepwalking incidents as a kid, but nothing serious. For the most part I keep my activity contained to my own bed.

That I know of.

My roommate Carrie once walked by room on her way to the bathroom and heard me calling her name. She stopped and responded. I apparently asked her about something, but she couldn’t understand it. She said yes anyway and said that I told her okay and then she heard me get back in bed. I sounded like I was right on the other side of the door. I have no memory of any of it.

I’ve woken up sitting up in bed unsure of how long I’ve been sleeping that way. I’ve woken up completely turned around in bed with my pillow and head in the open window. I’ve woken myself up screaming, yelling, gesturing, laughing, and spitting in my sleep.

I once dreamed that someone punched me in the nose and woke up to my own fist hitting me, resulting in a nosebleed.

It’s always interesting when I close my eyes.

There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason or pattern that I can discern. I’ll go through a quiet period and then one night wake up sleeping half on my bed or wake up one morning with the sheets off the bed, but the blankets intact.

It’s a little disturbing sometimes. Obviously, punching yourself in the face in your sleep is bound to be disturbing. But the freakiest thing for me (so far) has been waking up to find that I had been sleeping sitting up. I tend to wake up a little bit when I roll over or otherwise move, so to find that I’m sitting up and have no memory of moving into that position is really bizarre. When I have an active sleeping period, I wait for that particular incident to happen again.

Being an active sleeper, it makes me wonder what will happen should I ever acquire a human to sleep with full-time. I already refuse to sleep with my cats, not because I’m active sleeper, but because I’m convinced there’s no bed big enough for me and a cat and I currently sleep in a twin.

But I’m open to sleeping with someone else and I wonder how that will work out during active periods. Will they stop because I’ll subconsciously know that there’s someone in the bed with me? Or will we be able to find a bed big enough to accommodate those active periods? Or will I have to sleep on the couch?

Those are questions that I won’t be able to answer until I’m actually put in the situation, so there’s no sense in worrying about it now. I’m in no immediate danger and neither is anyone else.

Until then, I’ll go to sleep wondering how I’m going to wake up in the morning.

Writing–Reading Goals Update

April 18, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I said sometime close to the beginning of the year (the exact date of the post eludes me) that one of my goals for the year was to read. I needed to change the way I thought about reading and to do that I set the goal for myself to read twelve books this year, at least one a month. Six had to be non-fiction, six had to be fiction, and only one could be a re-read.

Well, I’m happy to say that I’ve been living up to the challenge I set for myself. Not quite four months into the year I’ve read seven books, four fiction, three non-fiction, one re-read. I admit that the book I’m reading now, a non-fiction book, is also a re-read, but I think I can make up for that seeing as I’m over half-way to my goal and I still have a little over eight months left in the year.

I’m glad to say that the challenge is doing exactly what I’d hoped it would do. Because I have this goal hanging over my head, I’m making time in my day to read, even just a little bit, because I don’t want to fail. I’m conditioning myself to read every day as part of my job. I’m getting it out of my head that I don’t have time to do it and instead, I’m making time to do it.

As it should be.

Kiki’s Guide To Being a Bad Fan

April 17, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

During Opening Day, I tweeted that my new Cubs fan followers made a poor choice because I would piss them off, to which one of my old Cubs fan followers added, “Kiki enjoys losing baseball. Beware.”

There’s a point in this statement that I have to argue. I don’t enjoy watching my team lose. I enjoy watching them win. I’d like them to win. I root for them to win. I do, however, enjoy my team despite a loss. It drives people mad (which I enjoy).

And it makes me a bad fan.

There are a lot of perks to being a bad fan. First of all, my day isn’t wrecked by a Cubs loss. I get bummed out, sure, but the boys losing 2-1 isn’t a disaster of epic proportions that results in me needing to drink. Hell, the guys losing 13-1 isn’t enough to make me require alcohol. They lost. Bummer. I guess I’d better get dinner started. Put on The Monkees.

Man, that pisses people off.

It drives them insane that I can enjoy a team that’s not very good. I’m from the school of “dance with the one what you brought”. This isn’t fantasy baseball. I have no input in who ends up on the Cubs this year, last year, or next year. These are the players I’ve got. I’m going to get to know them, cheer for them, praise them when they do well, and enjoy whatever they can bring to the table, even if it’s just a cute face.

Lunacy!

Now, sports fans, don’t think that this sort of attitude means I can’t have an intelligent discussion about baseball and about the Cubs, that I don’t like such things. I do. I’m as realistic as the next fan when it comes to assessing my teams talent in the form of statistics. I’m sure you’ll all be pleased to know just how well I interpret the implication of David DeJesus’s OBP and James Russell’s flyball/grounder ratio. I can dig discussions about what the Cubs need, what trades they should make, the best use of a player, etc.

What I can’t stand is the gloom and doom whining about a team YOU predicted to be a 100-game loser back in January. What is the sense in that? Why bother punishing yourself by watching the games of a team that you don’t even like? It’s akin to watching a TV show you despise and then complaining about how terrible it is. There’s just no logic in it. No one will think any less of you for checking out fewer games in a crappy season. Consider it. It might improve your health.

Or you could be a bad fan like me.

The trick is to not attach so much of your ego to your team and to change your point of view. If all that matters is winning, that your team isn’t worth shit unless they win it all, then I’m afraid you’re going to have make due with a lot of disappointment. However, if you enjoy the game, and the winning that comes with and is hopefully the end result of it, then your season dramatically improves even when the team is garbage. Call me a Pollyana, but even in a blow-out loss, I can find something to be glad about (and usually in blow-out losses, that’s Len and Bob and their ramblings).

In addition to detaching the ego, it also serves you to get over yourself. I don’t think this team owes me anything. They don’t owe me a World Series championship. I would love for them to win one. But they’re not winning it for me, I don’t care what they say. They’re winning it for themselves and they should. When I pay my money to see a game, they don’t owe me a win. They owe me a good game. And so far, at least for me, they’ve come through on that.

Of course, if they happen to shirk on their end of the deal, I can still find a way to have a good time in spite.

Pisses you off doesn’t?

It pays to be a bad fan.

Playing What If

April 16, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

As should be evident if you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, I didn’t take the traditional, expected life path. Instead, I veered off into the woods, sometimes cutting my own path, sometimes following one that I found.

Naturally, walking a road like this in the midst of many friends took the paved freeway (which is in no way an insult; they did it their ways and I’m doing it mine and together we fight crime, or something), I think about what if. I wonder if my family and friends ever think about what if when it comes to my life. I have a sneaking suspicion they have more regrets about my existence than I do.

But let’s play what if for a second, shall we?

What if I went to proper college right out of high school? What if I’d gone to another state to study? Or even stayed in IL, but lived on campus. What would I have studied? What degree would I have ended up with? Would I have ended up with a degree? Would I have stayed all four years? Would I have gone for a Masters? A PhD?

What if I had gotten married? Had kids? Would I still live in town? Would my hubby and I have moved to bigger cities looking for prosperity? How many kids would I have by now? Would I be a working mom? Would even still be married? Would I be divorced? Would I be looking for husband number two? Married to husband number two? Would I have step-kids? Would my kids have half-siblings? Or would I be struggling to make it alone as a single mom, the wounds from my divorce too deep to heal?

What if I had moved out at 18? At 21? Would I be stuck in some job I hate trying to make ends meet so I don’t have to move back home? Would I be putting up with being miserable for the sake of some notion of independence? Would I be forfeiting my dreams to be considered an adult?

What if I took the freeway of life? What if I did all of the things most other people do? Would I be here now? Would I be writing? Would I be blogging? Would I be published? Would I be hustling? Would I be wondering how to make the ends meet? Would I be annoyed by a rejection letter with my name misspelled? Would I be a best-selling novelist? Or would I have never written another word because I was too busy being a grown-up?

Like the Tootsie Pop, the world may never know.