Writing–January Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

January is going to be one busy, crazy month.

I’m rewriting/revising Spirited in Spite for a contest. The deadline is February 5th, but I’m going to try to have the novel done by January 30th. Yeah, considering most of the book has to be rewritten, there is no way this can end well. If I can get it in somewhat readable shape, I’ll be happy.

The contest is in three stages: pitch, excerpt, novel. I will declare this contest a success if I can get past the pitch stage.

Really, since there’s no entry fee, there’s nothing I’ve got to lose by doing this. The hard deadline, the goal, will help keep me focused. I’ve rewritten/revised one other novel, but I didn’t complete it in the sense that I would feel comfortable with sending it. I can’t imagine I can get this book perfect in about 30 days (okay, to be fair it’s more like 45 days since I actually started working on it in December), but what I will end up with when I submit my entry is going to be better and closer to finished than what I’ve got right now. There’s no reason for me to pass up the opportunity to really work on my novel revising skills in a specific time frame and with a definite goal.

There will be stress and frustration. Let’s just hope that it’s not so severe I end up pulling out my hair.

I’ve also got a few short stories that need to be finished from December. “Another Deadly Weapon” is done and ready to go. “How the Night Haunts” will be up on the blog shortly. The rewrites on “At 3:36” ended up separating the piece into two different stories, “At 3:36” and “Powerless”. “At 3:36” needs more work, but “Powerless” just needs some polishing up, I think. “Anniversaries” and the untitled short story need more work, too.

Aside from “Powerless”, every other story is going to wait in favor of the novel revisions. With “Powerless” done, I’ll have four stories (along with “Soul Sister”, “Playing Chicken” (the anthology it was going to be in was canceled), and “Another Deadly Weapon”) to shop around, which I plan to do in earnest. My goal is to submit a lot more short stories this year.

Let’s see how this all works out with my birthday and me being in Chicago for four days. Let’s just see.

New Year Hopes

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I’m one of those people that is pretty superstitious about transitioning from one year to the next because my aim is always to go into the new year with the idea and aim to make it better than the last. (I’m sure that nobody wants to make their new year worse than their last, but I’m sure some people wouldn’t mind holding pat; either way, neither here nor there in terms of this post.) I always go into each new year with specific hopes and goals. I wouldn’t call them resolutions. Resolutions are made to be broken. Hopes are meant to be had and goals are meant to be achieved.

My hopes and goals are one in the same. I have them and I’m going to work to achieve them. Here are some of the goals and hopes I have for 2012.

-I want to be happy. I’m a firm believer that happiness is something you create and I’d like to create a lot of it this year.

-I’m going to continue the practice of positive thinking. This one is hard for me. I’m a natural pessimist. I expect the worst, anticipate it for every little thing I do. I’m like Eeyore in that respect. Whatever I do, I attach a certain cloud of gloom to it. I’ve been working on correcting that outlook and I plan to continue that effort.

-I want to succeed in my ventures. This is going to take hard work, I know. Harder work than I’ve been putting into it, I’m sure (I’ll never feel like I work hard enough). But, it’s also going to take the positive thinking. Continuing my work with an anticipation of success instead of anticipation of failure is a must. I need to put myself out there more and not be afraid to sell  myself and my work.

-I want to have fun. Sometimes I’m so dedicate to work and making money to pay bills (even when I have some sort of regular paying day job), that I forget to stop and relax and have a good time. I’ve been known to put fun on my To Do list. Might as well put it on my goals list just to be sure it gets done.

-I want to purge the excess from my life. I am a packrat by nature, not hoarder levels, but I’ve still managed to accumulate more than I need or want. I need to continue to get rid of it. I’m already selling some things on eBay, but a full-scale rummage sale is going to have to  happen this year. I’ve been avoiding it because of all of the work that goes into one, but this year I need to put my laziness aside and get it done. The dead weight needs to go.

-I’m going to make some changes. Big and small, things need to be changed. Sameness can breed stagnation and I’m afraid I’ve got ponds of it in my life. Change isn’t easy, particularly for someone like me. I like to be safe and secure, but that yearning has actually had the opposite effect. I don’t feel that way. I feel more like I’m in a prison. The only key to my freedom is change. Just another thing I can’t put off doing for another year.

The nice thing about having hopes and goals is that success lies in trying. Even if I fail, there’s a certain amount of success that I made the serious attempt to do these things. That’s more than I can say for not trying at all.

2012 Resolutions

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I’m happy to say that I kept my resolutions from last year for the most part (that not losing too much weight resolution counts since I may have gained a little weight). It’s now time to turn my attention to 2012.

Here are my five resolutions for the new year.

1. Not get dead. My guaranteed-to-keep resolution.

2. Dance. I feel 2011 was lacking in dancing. I’d like to do more of that.

3. Take pictures. I forget to capture life’s moments. I need to make a goal of that this year.

4. Give. I’d like to do something for one of my favorite charities, even if it’s just spreading the word.

5. Have a good time. This is my other guaranteed resolution. I will always find a way to have a good time.

Writing–Getting Personal

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

Earlier this month I took a step in a new writing direction. I submitted a personal essay for a contest.

I’ve thought about writing personal essays before, because if there’s one thing I love, it’s talking about myself. I wasn’t exactly sure HOW to write a personal essay, but I’ve never let lack of knowledge stop me from trying anything.

I read several how-to articles on writing personal essays. Lack of knowledge doesn’t stop me from doing things, which includes educating myself so I don’t end up looking like a fool. While I learned, I jotted down ideas in a notebook. In November, I decided to try my hand at it. During a marathon day waiting in the hospital while my dad had surgery, I ended up writing two essays in my notebook (along with meeting my word count for Nano that day, reading two magazines, and killing my phone; it was a REALLY long day). Once Nano was over, I typed them both up and picked the one that I thought would be the best to enter into the contest.

I don’t expect to win. I think the essay I submitted is a passable first legitimate attempt and I think it’s good enough to encourage me to keep doing it.

In fact, it’s given me an idea.

There’s a definite theme to the two essays that I wrote and the ideas I’ve been putting in my notebook. It’s developed into a new project for me. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it yet, whether I put it this project up here for free or self-publish it. I may try submitting more of the essays I end up writing if I can find places in that market.

At any rate, it’s a project I’m going to continue to work on and develop. It uses different writing muscles for me. It’s like blogging, in a way, but there’s far more emotional content to it. There’s definitely more refinement than my typical blog post and more of a narrative need, like fiction-writing. It’s a challenge, particular the emotional part. Sure, I like talking about myself, but I like to keep it superficial. Digging out those emotions and putting them out there for other people to see is a little daunting, but it’s something I have to do if I want the essays to be good.

And I want the essays to be good.

This doesn’t mean I’m going to suddenly stop writing fiction. I think it’s good for me to explore and experiment. It builds up the writing muscles and helps me get better.

And in the end, getting better is what I really want to do.

Writing–Rejected Motives

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It’s time to come clean about Rejected.

While it was true that I self-published those nine stories to gain some experience in self-publishing and marketing myself and that I did want to put those stories to readers on why they thought the stories might have been rejected, I had another motive for publishing those stories.

I spent several years writing, revising, and submitting those stories, wash, rinse, repeat. While working full-time, my commitment to those stories was usurped in favor of a paycheck and the time and energy it took to maintaining it. When I finally decided to make a break for it and try to put together my own income through odd jobs, I came back to those stories and frankly, I didn’t like what I saw.

It’s not that I didn’t like the stories or thought that after several months of ignoring them that they suddenly became horrible. It’s just I was looking to make a new start. I wanted to start this go-round fresh. These stories were not fresh.

So I looked at them, arranged them, packaged them, and published them as much to put them out for people to read and judge them as I did to clear my own writing slate. Fresh start.

Not all of the stories written on that board during that time were wiped from that slate and put into that book. One of them, “Another Deadly Weapon”, was still out, waiting to be judged (it ended up being rejected). “Soul Sister” was finished, but isn’t a horror story, so it didn’t really fit in with the other stories, all of which are horror. “At 3:36” and “An Active Sleeper” were junk and not fit for publishing. So all of those stories ended up carrying over into this new go-round.

The mental effect of publishing those stories has been a great one. Those pressing weight of those stories, needy for homes of their own, aren’t crushing me anymore. They’ve got their home. Now I’ve got room, so to speak, to create new stories to try to house. That mounting pile of rejection has been swept out of my mental house. Now I can get to building a new pile.

I can always publish a sequel.

Showing My Hand

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

I’m quite the secretive person to an extent. There are lots of things that go on in my head and in my life that only people I carefully select are allowed to know. I’m an organized person and that includes compartmentalizing my life and the people in it.

This month I’ve taken measures to come clean, so to speak, with my family and friends, the people who know me in flesh and blood, not just on the Internet. See, the people on Twitter and Livejournal and this blog, I can tell them anything. I don’t hold back with them. They know I’m a writer. They know I sell jewelry. They know the true status of my gardening gig. They know I sell t-shirts. They know the crap I’m hocking on eBay. They know just how successful (or unsuccessful, depending on the way you look at it) I am.

The people I know in physical life don’t know any of that. Oh, I share when I’ve had some kind of writing success, because most of them know about my writing “career”. But they don’t know the extent of my cash making schemes. They don’t know exactly what I’m doing.

Unless they’re reading this.

In an effort to drum up some popularity, I made a page for myself on Facebook. And I posted the link on my personal Facebook to see if anyone would be interesting in liking me.

This is a big step.

You see, there are two big reasons why I’ve left my family and most of my friends out of this. First of all, I don’t want to think about them judging me harshly. I imagine most of them do anyway from what they know about my life, but this, in my paranoid mind, is just adding fuel to the fire. In my head, they won’t see this as me trying to build my own career and life, scraping together something workable with what I’ve got. I’m afraid they’ll see me as a failure. I’m afraid they ALREADY see me as a failure and they’ll just view this as confirmation.

Two things I’ve never wanted to be was a failure and a disappointment and I imagine that to some people I’m both.

The second big reason is that I was afraid to confirm what I’ve known most of my life: I am not popular. Not even with my own friends and family, not even for the two seconds it takes to click a link and click a like button, am I popular. This translates in my head as not being worthy of attention or support, something else that’s nagged at me most of my life.

The page, for those who dare to like it, will contain updates of all kinds. New t-shirt designs, new jewelry, breaking writing news, and, yes, a link to this blog, something I’ve only provided before on Twitter for fear of the flesh and blood people finding out about it.

But you know what? I can’t be held back by those fears anymore. I can’t care what they think of me. If anyone wants to back me on this life adventure, then dammit, I’m going to make it worth their while and I appreciate their support. And if they don’t? Their loss. This wagon train will be moving on without them because I don’t have the energy to drag them along.

When it comes to some things, I don’t care what anyone thinks about me. When it comes to other subjects, I do care. I care a great deal. But I’ve got to be more selective about WHOSE opinions I care about. Some people I just can’t worry about anymore. They’re not worth my time.

So, if you think I’m a failure and a disappointment, then you’re just reading this blog to watch me fail and disappoint. I’m sure you’ll be quite pleased with what you find here.

But, if you’re here reading this because you want to watch me fight to succeed, then you’ll be quite pleased, too.

It’s all in how you look at it, I suppose.

So here’s my whole card, gringo. What do you see?

Writing–Surprise! Idea!

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes I’m going along, minding my own business, and BAM! I’m hit by a great idea for a story. Naturally, I’m excited by this prospect as ideas to a writer are like gold to anybody. The trouble is I sometimes get great ideas at the most inopportune moments.

I’ve already blogged about how I keep an idea notebook for these ideas. I also have a Post-It note program on my computer that comes in handy for these things (particularly if I come up with an idea for a story I’ve been trying to revise for months and I don’t want to lose it before I get a chance to try it). Both of these things are great. Sometimes I kick myself for not using my idea notebook more. But that’s because, like I said, I get my ideas during the most inopportune times.

The idea for “How the Night Haunts” came to me right before NaNoWriMo, while I was still struggling with the American Vampires outline. “Anniversaries” came to me during Nano. Both great ideas, both with rotten timing. I jotted the basic premise for both stories down on my computer post-its and hoped they’d be there in December.

I don’t mean that I was worried I might accidentally erase the notes. I mean that sometimes, at least for me, a good idea must be acted on NOW for it to be a good story. Giving it any time at all to cool down and it ends up being as appetizing as the skin on gravy. It doesn’t mean that the idea still isn’t a good one, but it does mean that it’s going to be more of a struggle for me to translate that good idea into a good story. Without those piping hot images and that burning need, my appetite for it isn’t as strong.

Some ideas, though, are made to last. The longer they sit, the more they simmer in the back of my mind, so that when I do get to them, I’ve got an even better idea of what I’m doing with the story, even if I wasn’t actively thinking about it. Those stick-to-your-ribs kinds of ideas are the ones that while acted on in a flash might be good, letting them roast a while makes them better.

My trouble is that I don’t always know which one is which. I lucked out this time with “How the Night Haunts” and I think I cut it close on “Anniversaries”. If I had waited any longer on that one, I think it would have burned. Some stories, I’m not so lucky on. The idea either doesn’t pan out on paper or I never get around to writing it in the first place because I can’t rediscover that magic that brought the idea to me in the first place.

But, I never throw an idea away.

You never know. The right time for that recipe might come around again. And I want to be ready if it does.

Writing–December Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

After spending a month (okay, it was more like three weeks) with a novel, December is short story month.

I have three new ones I’m looking to write. “How the Night Haunts” will be a freebie for a the blog. “Anniversaries” and an as yet untitled one have no definite intention yet, but I imagine I’ll be trying to submit them whenever I deem them ready.

I also have three old ones that are in need of revisions. I need to rewrite “At 3:36” with the new angle and fix the ending of “Another Deadly Weapon” because I’ve never liked it. And then there’s “An Active Sleeper”, which needs something, but I’m don’t know what yet. All I know is I don’t think I’m achieving the affect I want. I’m guessing that one is going to be the big struggle of the month.

All of that, plus working on getting Rejected on Kindle should keep me plenty busy this month.

The De-Cluttering Project

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I have a problem with accumulating stuff. Not a hoarder-level accumulation problem, but it’s a pack rat problem, nonetheless.

I come from people that don’t get rid of things if there’s still some use for them. We drive cars until they won’t run anymore (mine’s a ’93 and I’ve had it ten years now). We’re the kind of people that wash out and save butter tubs for storage and keep cloth scraps just in case. We do our best not to rip the wrapping paper so we can use it again. And don’t forget to save the bows!

So, I acquire things that I end up eventually not needing or using, but I have trouble parting with them for various reasons. You know the ones. So-and-so gave this to me. What if I need it? I might use this eventually.

Last year, I started lightening this material load by selling most of my action figures on eBay. Yes, they were nice to have, but they were just sitting in some tubs upstairs. I had no room to display them. They were going to waste. So, I made the tough call to sell them. I cleared out some room in my storage, someone else got something they were looking for at a bargain price, and in the end, I realized I didn’t miss them.

I have once again begun de-cluttering the material portion of my life and I’m using eBay as my garage sale. Do I need the money? Sure. Do I need the space more? Yeah. There’s no sense in me keeping these things when someone else can get more use out of them. And there’s no reason to let these things continue to take up space in my life if I’m not going to make the most of them.

It’s a thought process that’s kind of hard for me to get used to, especially since I am such a pack rat by nature. There’s nothing wrong with saving things for later or trying to make the most out of what I have, but I need to put a limit on things. Consider it service-time limit. If I haven’t gotten my use out of it by a certain time, then I need to put it in the “get rid of” pile. And then follow through with the getting rid of it.

I’ve got a tub full of wrestling magazines. Stacks of writer magazines. DVDs I never watch. Books I’ll never read again. Clothes I’m holding on to for no good reason. Boxes in the basement filled with mystery contents. Why should I let this stuff rot in my house? I shouldn’t. And that’s the way I need to look at it, particularly with some of the items with some sort of sentimental value attached to it. I have to measure that value very carefully. What’s it really worth to me to keep this item?

Eventually (I’m hoping sooner rather than later), I’m going to get out of this house and move into my own place. I have to ask myself how much of this material life do I want to take with me? Do I want this stuff cluttering up my new world? Do I really want to move this stuff (the lazy person in me screams “no” when it comes to that question; I hate moving)?

It’s best that I start purging now. And it’s best that I get into the habit of purging now. I’ve got to get out of the rhythm of looking at something I’ve had for twenty years, forgot that I had, and then put away once again, just in case I might need it.

I won’t need it. But someone might.

Time to let it go.