Tag: projects

Writing–March Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

green flowerYou may have noticed the lack of blog posts in the month of February. Or maybe you didn’t. Maybe you didn’t care. Whatever the case, the point is that you can expect random and fewer blog posts to be the norm for a while. My world is in a bit of transition at the moment, sort of like when I had the existential crisis last year, except it’s less crisis, more change.

Anyway, that doesn’t mean that I’m not doing writer stuff. My goal to clear out my backlog of projects remains intact.

Last month I finished making notes on (Vampries) Made in America and it has all been put to the side for the moment. I’m sick of looking at it. I also finished revisions on Odd Section of Town and Firebugs and Other Insects. I’m satisfied with how they turned out for the most part and I think the next step for them is beta and minor tweaks/polish. I also wrote “A Ride in the Country”, which was actually less writing and more taking a chunk that didn’t make it into Night of the Nothing Man and revising it into it’s own little stand alone bit that will go into one of the anthologies.

Speaking of…

This month, I’m going to be working revising short stories that I’m going to use for future anthologies. I’ve already finished a revision on “Nadie Has a Dog” just a few days into the new month (productivity, what?). Also going to be revised this month “People Are Terrible”, “Cover Up” (a rough draft that I found that I think will go nicely in one of the anthologies), “The House Down the Road”, and “The Seaweed Man”. Of these four, it’s “The Seaweed Man” that’s going to take the most work. It’s going to be more of a rewrite than a revision.

Slowly, but slowly, the backlog decreases.

Writing–February Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

roseThere is no love here.

Well, maybe a little.

The (Vampires) Made in America saga continues. I will continue to assess this disaster area and attempt to rebuild.

However, in decidedly more productive ambitions, I’m going to put The Odd Section of Town and Firebugs and Other Insects through their first revisions. I’ve already given The Timeless Man it’s final polish (see, some good things did come out of that (Vampires) debacle last month), so working on the other two Ivy Russell novellas makes sense. I’m fairly optimistic that these revisions will not cause me any eye twitches, but I don’t want to get my hopes too high. I’ve got a great ability to jinx myself.

I’m also planning on writing a new short story called “A Ride in the Country”. Don’t panic! This story will be for one of the in-progress anthologies, so it totally counts towards my objective of getting all of the old projects completed.

And, of course, I’ll be publishing something this month.

Look for it around Valentine’s Day.

Writing–Happy New Year! January Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

fireworksA new month, a new year, a lot of old projects that I need to finish up with.

Revisions on (Vampires) Made in America continue. I got about half-way through the latest round of revisions when something clicked and I realized what I really needed to do to make the story work. Which meant I had to start all over. Fortunately, I’m no stranger to such stupidity, so this prolonged round of revisions doesn’t bother me. Much.

I’m also going to do what should be the last round of revisions and the polish of Hatchets and Hearts. Then I can be done with that novella.

I figure that will be good enough to start the year.

I also need to figure out a self-publishing schedule for the year. Putting out three things last year worked out pretty well. They were pretty evenly spaced out and such. I’d like to do that again.

It’s just a matter of what and when.

And I currently have no idea about either of those things.

So, yeah. Off and running, kids. Off and running.

Writing–You Guys Would Watch My TV Show, Right?

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Rainbow paperWhenever I’m writing a story and I end up writing a huge chunk of dialogue (which happens often, I know, you’re shocked), I can hear my mother in my head saying, “Why don’t you just write scripts? Your stuff is mostly dialogue anyway.”

The woman is not wrong. I’ve always had a natural tendency towards dialogue and a hundred years ago, a lot of my stories were pretty much all dialogue.

I’ve experimented with script writing before. I participated in Script Frenzy one year before the program closed down and I tried my hand at adapting one of my novellas into script form just for the practice. I even wrote my own TV pilot for shits and giggles (it was mostly the shits).

I find myself drifting back into that script territory once again.

I got an idea for a TV show over the summer and to amuse myself, I’ve been jotting down idea for it in a notebook, something to do when I need something to do. And over time it’s sort of took on the shape of an actual thing. A decent thing. And I think it might be fun to run it out as far a it will go in my spare time. It’s sort of a black comedy murder mystery thing. In my head it’d be like an anthology series, each season would have a different murder and different people solving the murders, but it’d be set in the same town and you’d see a lot of the same faces. The first season is a couple trying to solve the murder of a man they found on their doorstep for the reward money.

See? Fun!

I’m doing a similar thing with another idea, only it would be more like a TV movie or a mini-series (seriously, I feel like we could do with more of those; remember when they were on the Big 3 networks every week, sometimes multiple times? Yeah). Originally, I figured the idea would be a novella, but I sort of like the idea of hashing it all out in script form. Maybe I’ll end up writing it out as a novella after the fact, but for now, I like doing it this way. It’s fun.

See? Even more fun!

Logically, I know that nothing will come of either of these things in script form. I can’t make anything come of anything I write in my other forms. Scripts are an even tougher sell, particularly when you have absolutely no connections and you live in the middle of a cornfield. I love my corn, but it doesn’t network well.

As far as I’m concerned, though, anything I do that has to do with writing has value.  This isn’t a time waste. It’s a good, productive thing.

At the very least, it just furthers my crusade to clear out all of the ideas from my brain.

But, you guys would totally watch my show if on the very, very off-chance it ended up on TV, right?

Right?

Writing–December Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

SnowflowerThe only thing I have on tap for December is revising (Vampires) Made in America. That’s it, that’s all, and there ain’t no more.

With the holiday gauntlet I run and the Grinchmas practices I observe, time and energy are in short supply in December. I’ve found that having one big project to work on during the month usually yields better results than trying to obliterate some huge To Do List. The lack of pressure lends itself nicely to me getting the thing done and then getting more things done. It tricks me into being more productive than I intended to be.

So far I haven’t caught on yet.

If I do get my revisions done quicker than anticipated (and that’s quite likely), I’ll probably pick another project to revise, most likely the Zak novella (still no title) or one of the other stories that I want to put into the People Are Terrible anthology.

I’m actually looking forward to revising (Vampires). When I first wrote it, I didn’t like it all. After re-reading it, I find that it’s actually a lot better than I thought it was. It’s got potential.

Revising it should be an interesting time.

Writing–November Projects aka NaNoWriMo 2014

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

nanowrimoNovember means NaNoWriMo and NaNoWriMo means that I write like a madwoman.

My NaNo this year is similar to last year’s in that I’m going to do two 25,000 word novellas instead of one 50,000 word novel. I am once again breaking rules, baby. But I couldn’t think of a good novel idea and decided NaNo would work just fine to clear two more items off of the To Do List.

This year’s NaNoWriMo project is The Odd Section of Town and Firebugs and Other Insects, the next two Ivy Russell novellas. Possibly the last two, I don’t know. I don’t have any ideas for this character beyond these last two novellas, so I suppose we’ll see. You know me. I’m not good with commitment.

The Odd Section of Town involves our intrepid private investigator Ivy dealing with several cases in  the Odd Section of Buddington, an area of own that seems to be plagued by a rash of bad luck that seemed to start around the same time an old friend came for a visit.

Firebugs and Other Insects finds Ivy looking for a mentally ill man during a rash of fires that are certainly the work of one weird arsonist.

I felt like it was a good idea to get these two written since I already had the ideas and the only thing holding me back was The Timeless Man wasn’t fixed yet. But with that scratched off the To Do List, I actually switched two different novellas out to write these two and finish up the Ivy series, at least for the time being.

I’m already off to a good start and anticipate being done by no later than the 16th (yes, I realize I’ve probably just jinxed the hell out of myself). Which poses an interesting question.

What am I going to do with the rest of the month?

The answer: I don’t know, but nothing heavy. Between Thanksgiving, working Black Friday, and going to my first con in about six years, the end of the month will be no time to start anything serious. I’ll probably end up doing some revisions on projects that will only take me a day or two to accomplish. I’ll figure it out when the time comes.

My brain is kind of crowded right now.

Writing–Let’s See Where This Goes

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Rainbow paperI’ve been working  on “Nadie Has a Dog” for the better part of the month and I’m finally getting to the point where it’s wrapping up.

I’ll be honest with you; I’m only now sure how it will end. I wasn’t sure before. In fact, the ending is nowhere near where I thought it’d be.

That’s probably because when I started the story, I only had a couple of scenes in mind.

-The beginning, in which we establish who Nadie is and how she got her name.

-The scene in which she acquires her dog.

-The first scene illustrating what she and her dog do.

After that, I figured I’d wing it. More than likely, writing those scenes, stringing together those parts of the story would lead me to the end. Actually, I thought the last scene was the climax and Nadie and her dog would ride off into the sunset.

Only they didn’t.

And I had to see where the story decided to go.

That happens occasionally with my short stories. I try to be a little more planned out with my longer works, like novellas and novels, just because there’s so much going on that I need to keep track of all of my threads. I let myself have some room to play, of course, but it’s more like dallying between set pit stops on a road trip rather than full on wandering in the woods.

With short stories, I can wander more, though I don’t usually. When I sit down to write, I know what the story is. I still manage to surprise myself, but the overall story is usually written with a solid beginning and ending.

With Nadie, I thought I knew the ending, but I didn’t. There was more story there than I’d originally thought. That’s both scary and neat. The potential to go so far off the rails that the story meanders into nothingness is there and that worries me. I don’t like it when my stories end up as bupkiss. But it is kind of a thrill to just write as it comes and see what happens and see where things go.

Nadie has turned out to be longer and not as overtly shocking as I thought it’d be. Instead there’s a touch of sweetness and a even a little humor to the story. And I like that! It feels right.

Sometimes it’s good to wander.

The Unhappy Productivity

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

treesWhen I’m feeling blue I have a tendency to bury myself in projects.  Writing, sewing, drawing, crafting, jewelry-making, anything creative that has a tangible result.  For me, sitting still, wallowing and indulging in my unhappiness, even for a little while, which would be perfectly acceptable, just makes it worse for me. I feel like I’m not doing anything to not be unhappy. I’m being a lay, fat lump and that just makes my blues worse.  Happiness is something I should always work for!

So I take action.

I fill up my time with projects until my mood changes.

I’ve been feeling a low grade unhappiness for  the past few weeks, just a subtle, lingering thing that won’t seem to go away, like a cough, and it’s finally motivated me to action.

I’ve cleaned and organized my fabric and sewing projects and my jewelry stuff. I made a cardigan. I’m going to make alterations on my mini dress (which may be a bad idea, but I’m riding it out; unhappiness makes me reckless, too). I made trees. Maybe I’ll finish my memory blanket. I have plans to upcycle two t-shirts and make another cardigan. I submitted work to an agent. I’m working on writing two stories, planning for NaNo, and revising two projects. I’ll probably write another story and revise another project before this is all said and done.

Basically, I jam my time full of things to do.  I can’t be bothered about being unhappy when I’m busy. This is particularly helpful when I’m unhappy for no/no good/stupid reason/reasons, which is usually the reason I’m unhappy.

If I’m lucky, by the time I stop for a break, I’ll feel better.  If I don’t, well, I always have things that need to be done.

These periods tend to yield a lot of things I have no room/need for, but that’s a separate problem.

At least I’ll feel better.

Writing–October Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

pumpkinsJust because I’m experiencing a writing crisis of sorts doesn’t mean the party stops. While I’m  seeking validation by submitting to agents, I also have a different plan on the board that I’m executing, one that is sort of independent of that whole writer-validation thing that I talked about doing last week. Basically, it’s Operation: Get Some of This Shit Off Your To Do List, Woman!

So, last month involved me doing a round of revisions on the Zak novella (no, it still doesn’t have a title), writing a couple of short stories (“The Seaweed Man” is a lot longer than I thought it’d be and I’ll need another week or so to finish it; I also ended up writing another short story called “People Are Terrible”), and getting the pre-order of Spirited in Spite set up. All of the was done even while I was having my “Why am I here?” troubles.

This month, since it is of course October, I will have NaNo prep, which will basically just be me going over my outlines for the next two Ivy Russell novellas to make sure I know what I’m doing. Yes, I’m doing two novellas again for this NaNo and I will talk more about them in another post.

Speaking of Ivy Russell, to help me get in tune with that world, I’m going to finish the rewrites on The Timeless Man, which means finally figuring out and writing the new ending. It will be smooth sailing on further revisions once that is done.

I also need to do another revision of Hatchets and Hearts. I’m changing the time period. I think that will be the final big change that will really tie the whole thing together. It seems like everything I wrote during a certain few months of last year/this year was nothing but a struggle. It will be a victory when I get that all sorted.

And so there won’t be any dull moments, I’ve got a couple of new short stories I could write if I need to: “The House Down the Road” and “Nadie Has a Dog”.

Slowly, but surely, I’m going to get this To Do List whipped.