Writing–Scripting It

March 13, 2013January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I remember my mother once telling me that I should skip writing short stories and novels and just write scripts because I like writing dialogue so much. She had a point. My stories have a tendency to be dialogue heavy and description can be a struggle for me. I’ve written a few stories without dialogue and let me tell you, it wasn’t easy. If I can have a character talk to themselves, I will.

Sooper Sekrit Project #2 is a script. I think I mentioned that. Anyway, a few years ago now I participated in Script Frenzy, a now defunct off-shoot of NaNoWriMo. I wrote two 60 minute episodes of a TV show that I made up. I had great fun doing it. It held its own challenges, sure (format? Thank goodness for script programs!), but I got to exploit what I consider to be one of my strengths.

Sometimes I get ideas for stories and it’s during the hashing out phase that I realize it would make a lousy short story or novel, but it would make a great script. I then shelve it because, hey, I don’t write scripts.

And then last month it occurred to me how dumb that was. Why shouldn’t I write scripts? Just because I don’t live in Hollywood and really have no ambition to be a film/TV writer, that doesn’t mean there’s no reason for me to flex some different muscles. Let me be vain for a moment. What if one day one of my stories and/or novels is published and then optioned for film? Wouldn’t it benefit me to say, “Oh, yeah, I can adapt that. No problem. Let me do that for you.”? I think it would.

I’ve already got plans to practice my adaptation skills with Night of the Nothing Man once I get it up on Smashwords.

The reason why this a Super Sekrit project is because it’s a play thing that I have no intention of doing anything with seriously so I have no real urge to discuss it much in-depth. It’s a fun play thing that’s only for me. And so I’ll admit to doing it, but I won’t say what the script is about.

Just know that this project, even if I do nothing with it, isn’t a waste. It’s me developing and honing a different kind of writing style.

You never know. I might have to go to Hollywood one day.

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–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–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.

Writing–NaNo Completed

November 21, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

What? Already?

Of course. That’s my goal every year. I always aim to finish before Thanksgiving and this year I finished nearly a week before the turkey deadline. I did fall short of some other goals, though.

I aim for 60,000 words. That didn’t happen this year. I ran out of story right around the 50,000 word mark, which is great for winning NaNo, but not so hot with my own personal pride. I could have added an additional ten thousand words on a related story that would reveal what really happened to the missing girl that sort of threads the story together, but in the end I decided to just stick with the novel itself and let my ego take that lump.

I also put an interesting restriction on myself. Since the story is set in the 70′, I challenged myself to not use any language that would have been censored on 70’s era television. It was a silly little challenge designed to make me think a little bit more on my dialogue and encourage myself to be a little more creative rather than relying on the easy out of swear words for insults and exclamations. I mostly did it. Mostly. I fully admit to writing while tired and not caring about this self-imposed little demand.

On the other hand, I really pushed myself on the word count, writing 4,000 words a day four days a week instead of just on the weekend like usual and then sticking to 2,000 words on the three days of the week that I worked more than one job. It’s nice to know that I can maintain that level of demand if I really put my mind to it.

Overall, I’m rather pleased with the way the novel worked out. Not getting too far ahead on my outlining wasn’t a big deal and I think actually helped me be a little more creative with my story since I wasn’t concerned about getting too far off track. On the other hand, I think I could have benefited with a general story line set out before hand instead of going in as cold as I did. I admit, I didn’t have an ending when I started and that usually doesn’t bode well for me. This time it worked out.

As of right now, I rather like Night of the Nothing Man. It’s a pretty simple, straight-forward horror story. I’m thinking that it could be edited and revised down into a nice novella and I think I’m going to try for that.

All in all, I’m going to say this was a pretty successful NaNoWriMo. I certainly didn’t think it would turn out this well.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Writing–November Projects

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

It’s NaNoWriMo time!

This year’s project is called Night of the Nothing Man. In addition to the challenges raised by not coming up with this novel idea until a week before the start, I’ve given myself some other guidelines that I’m going to try to follow as I write. I’ll reveal those at the end of the month.

If you recall, I wrote a novel manuscript this summer in a different fashion. I outlined a few chapters, wrote those chapters, and then revised those chapters before moving on. I’m going to be doing something similar with this NaNo project. I managed to get about six chapters outlined before the NaNo countdown clock wound down. This was partly by design. I do better during NaNo when I outline, but in the course of my writing, I end up changing or deviating from my outline that typically results in some frustrating revisions and rewrites. I liked the outlining and then writing of the summer novel experiment in that I stayed on track, but I could make changes. So I’m going to attempt to do NaNo in this fashion.

Dangerous business for me, but I like living on the edge.

Also during the month I’ll keep working on my Lucy and Jamie story. I’ve got a good idea where it’s going and I think it might be good for me to write a page or two of something else while working on NaNo. Kind of like a morning warm-up.

I may or may not start poking at The World (Saving) Series again. I’ve got an idea of some revisions I’d like to do and I’ve been kicking them around for the past couple of months. They wouldn’t be too taxing to do when I need an evening break from NaNo, but don’t want to be unproductive.

It should be a good month full of words.

Writing–NaNo?

October 10, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

You may have noticed if you read my October Projects post that NaNoWriMo was left off of my To Do List. There’s a very good reason for that.

I have no idea what I’m going to do.

In past years I’ve gotten my NaNo idea in September, August, July. I once came up with my idea in March and held onto it until November.

But this year I’ve got nothing.

I’ve thought about going rogue this year. Instead of writing a 60K word novel like I usually do, I’d write two 25-30K word novellas. I’ve got a couple of ideas that I could use for it. They’re pretty good, but neither one I think would flesh out to be an entire novel. Doing them both as novellas would satisfy the word count even if it wasn’t exactly a novel.

I’m not completely sold on the idea though. I’m a bit of a traditionalist. Even though I’d really like to do those novellas (as they’d be part of the Outskirts Universe so they’d be useful to have done) and doing both would count, I’d still feel like I was cheating a little bit.

So if I don’t do the novellas, what do I do?

Logic tells me that I should do something in the Outskirts Universe. That’s my “thing”, after all. On the other hand, it might do me some good to break out and do something completely different.

I don’t know.

The good news is I’ve got about three weeks to figure something out and get it outlined. The bad news is I feel like right now, I’ll take all three of those weeks to come up with something and won’t start outlining anything until 10PM on October 31st.

No matter. I’m up for the challenge.

Writing–The Novel Experiment

August 29, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

A few months ago (I think June, but I’m too lazy to go back and look for sure), I blogged about starting a new novel and writing it in a completely different way than I was used to. I was going to outline a few chapters, write those chapters, revise those chapters, and then move, sort of leapfrogging my way through the book.

I’ve admired the writes that can do that sort of thing. It looked like a much more efficient way to write a book. They don’t have to wait until their finished with the first draft to go back and fix glaring story problems or character issues. They revise as they go along to catch those things. Then when they do finish the first draft, they’ve got a whole lot less fixing to do. In other words, their first drafts put them a lot closer to a final draft.

That’s great for them. I still admire and envy them. But that’s not for me.

I used this technique with the Ivy novel (it still doesn’t have a title). While I did like not getting too far ahead in the outline so I could make adjustments and I liked the ability to go back and fix big story problems or combine chapters before I got too far ahead of myself, overall, I found the whole process rather tedious. By the time I started outlining the next few chapters I was relieved because I was sick of the chapters I’d been working on. That sickness has followed me all the way through the draft.

As of this post, I’ve still got two chapters to write and four chapters to revise (though, I don’t think I’ll be doing much of anything major to those chapters) and I’ll be done with the draft. Yes, I’ll be a lot closer to a final draft when I’m finished and that’s great, but I don’t think I want to write a novel this way again. At least not for a long time.

I do think I’ve picked up a couple of useful tricks from doing writing this way, though.

Not getting too far ahead in my outline is a great help. I think I need to start doing two outlines. The BIG outline of the general story arcs I want to tell. And the DETAIL outline of what goes in each chapter. The BIG outline will keep me from forgetting things. The DETAIL outline is what I need to stay on task (this is invaluable to me during NaNo when I must hit my word count for the day; I know exactly what I’m going to right about so I don’t have to waste time wondering). If I only outline a few chapters at a time, then I can make the adjustments I need to it without derailing the whole thing.

The second thing is that it’s okay to go back and change big, glaring story problems while writing the first draft. Okay, yes, this isn’t exactly time efficient during NaNo, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be done. And it doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be done just because I am writing a first draft and I prefer to write it all the way through without revising. Sometimes it’s a benefit to break that self-imposed rule. In the end, it helps me out more than it hurts me.

So, while I think I will always be one of those writers that has to get it all down on paper in one go, I do think this experience has made me a little smarter about how I can go about that more efficiently.

Stick with me, kids. I’m learning.

Writing–August Projects

August 1, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

My focus in August is going to be finishing the revisions/rewrites on The World (Saving) Series. I’ve got less than ten chapters to go and while the rewriting is going to be heavy, it shouldn’t take me the whole month to finish.

I started two short stories at the end of last month, “Just Visiting” and “Lady on the Stairs” which I’ll be finishing as well.

And then…?

I need to get back to working on the Ivy novel. Things got derailed when I did my writing protest for a week last month. I’m not sure how much I like the outline/write/revise method. I think that’s where part of my writing frustration came from. I may just finish the outline and then write the rest of the novel so I can call it done. As it stands, I’ve written/revised over half of it so I wouldn’t be in horrible shape if I did it that way.

I’ve got half a mind to start outlining another big project. It’d be a freebie for the blog. However, I make no guarantees that anything will ever come of it. It’s just something I’m thinking of doing.

And of course, I continue on with the 50 Rejections saga. It’s been rather disappointing lately. I don’t want to talk about it now.

I’ll wait until I can go on and on at length in a post of its own.

Writing–Moving On Up

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

Okay, the title of this post is misleading because in truth I am not going anywhere. What has “moved on up” is a couple of items now gracing the link bar up top right underneath my lovely banner.

Notice the additions?

Here, I’ll help.

First of all, I’ve moved the links to the stories I’ve had published from the sidebar to the top. They were buried down there like I was ashamed of them and there’s no telling how many people missed them because there weren’t prominently displayed. So now if you click on the “Read me” link above, you’re taken right to the list. And the freebies are listed first, in case you’re not ready for a monetary commitment (hopefully reading the freebies will convince you to invest a little green in my work, you know what I’m saying?).

The second change is the addition of a new experiment under the heading “Chapter One”. This is a feedback experiment. All I’ve done is posted the first chapter of one of my novel manuscripts and asked a simple question: Would you read more of this book?

This accomplishes two things. One, it satisfies my need for feedback, positive or negative. Writing is lonely and a lot of it is done without any sort of encouragement or acknowledgement of any kind. When you get to a point in which you wonder whether or not you should be spending all of your time on this project, a little feedback helps, preferably honest feedback.

Yes, I realize that I’m setting myself up for serious disappointment if a bunch of people tell me that they wouldn’t read any more of the book. However, that’s not going to discourage me from finishing the rewrites and revisions. I want it to be done and it’s going to be done. It might, though, seriously discourage me from trying to get it published. But that’s a bridge that I’ll cross should I get there.

I think the bigger possibility is that no one will read the chapter at all. Or they might read it, but they won’t comment on it. And that’s a disappointment I’m used to and it’s not going to dissuade me much from going all the way with this book.

There’s something fun and risky about putting this first chapter out like this. It’s something I don’t normally do. My roommate reads a lot of my short stories when I’m in doubt, but my novel manuscripts are rarely seen by any other eyes. Letting it go like this is a step for me.

I’m pretty sure it’s a step in the right direction.