Writing–January Projects

January 8, 2014January 1, 2014 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Finally, we get around to my first projects post of the new year.

I’ve got most of the heavy lifting rewrites done on “She’s Not Here Anymore” and it’s officially a short story now. I’m going to let it rest for now. It could probably use another round of picky revisions, if not two. But not this month. It can wait.

This month I’m going to start on one of my big year goals and start revising Spirited in Spite, which I thought was still a novel-length manuscript, but it looks like the previous revisions I did cut it down to novella-length. Now I get to decide if I want to expand it back to being a novel or just go with novella, which is kind of becoming my thing. And so my big goal takes on a new dimension.

I think I’m also going to start sketching out the next Ivy Russell novella. I’ve already got the idea for it, but it’s gonna need a little work, some fleshing out and outlining. I may even start writing it if I’m feeling good about it. You never know.

I might also start doing some work on the Hatchets and Hearts novella if I’m feeling productive. It needs some hefty revisions and I’d probably be better off getting them out of the way as soon as possible.

I had an easy time of it in December. Time to get back to work.

Writing–2014 Reading Goals

January 6, 2014December 31, 2013 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Last year I got quite complicated with my reading goals. I needed to have so many fiction books and so many non-fiction books and only so many re-reads to make sure I was reading new stuff and so many outside of my genre to make sure I was reading widely.

Well, it worked. I did all of that. Sure I was reading three books at once in November and then December to make sure I got everything read, but I did make it happen.

This year? Scrap all of that complicated business.

My reading goals this year are going to be very simple.

24 books. 2 books a month. Only 4 can be re-reads.

There. Done.

I think I’ve grasped the concept of reading more widely. I think I can balance my fiction and my non-fiction. The main goal this year is to read steadily. I have a terrible habit of reading in fits and spurts. I’ll go a couple of months without reading anything and then I’ll read four books in a month. It might take me three months to read one book and then I’ll read another in a weekend.

I need to be more regular with my reading and I need to make a habit of that.

Hopefully, this year’s reading goals will help me accomplish that.

Writing–2014 Writing Goals

January 3, 2014December 17, 2013 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Last year my big goals were revising The World (Saving) Series to the point of doneness; submitting seven short stories that were ready and waiting; working on a sooper sekrit project; and turning Night of the Nothing Man into a novella.

Of those goals, I managed to hit most of them. The sooper sekrit project hit several snags and skids and brick walls. It’s still there, but I still don’t know what it is or what I’m going to do with it yet. And I didn’t submit those seven stories. I submitted a few of them, but in the end, they got designated for an anthology. So they will get published, just not submitted.

Of course, the two big goals, World and Nothing Man did happen. Both of them done and one of them published (I’m still sitting on World, not sure what I’m going to do with it yet).

This year, similar things will happen.

Yet another of my novel manuscripts will be revised to the point of doneness. I think it’s going to be Spirited in Spite. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. And if I get it done early enough and I’m feeling adventurous, I think I’ll start working on A Tale of Two Lady Killers in the same fashion.

In novellas, I have three that need to be revised and one that I have an idea for and would like to write. I feel like all of that should happen. Novellas are kind of my thing right now and I feel like I should ride that wave all the way to the shore.

I need to get back on track with the sooper sekrit project, too. Even though it’s just sitting there, I feel like I’ve done too much on it to just shelve it. There has to be something in that mess I produced and I need to find it.

And that, friends, are my 2014 goals. They don’t sound like a lot, but believe me, it’ll be work.

Making Grinchmas

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

I make as many presents as I can for Grinchmas. The present depends on the person. My nieces always get jewelry, but what kind of jewelry varies from year to year (and request to request; I’ve been making them jewelry for years so they anticipate it now). Other folks I try to come up with something unique, but if I can make several for different people, I find that handy.

Last year a couple of my friends got little recipe books that I personalized for them while several of my family members got mason jars that I wrote on with hot glue and then painted silver so the writing would show up. I filled the jars with either tea or hot chocolate and attached candy canes with ribbons.

This year I found a recipe to make dough for Christmas ornaments and decided that would be a good idea. Creative and unique and I could make several of them for different people. Of course I’m making jewelry for my nieces (including the newest one I picked up through my sister’s marriage) and my cousin’s girlfriend, and my mother requested that I sew her some kitty curtains and coasters for her new house (I’ll post an explanation with pictures about all of that later).

While it’s nice to have everything known and lined out and whatnot, I’ve found that once again I’ve put the pressure on myself time-wise. And I even started earlier this year than last year!

Part of the pressure comes from trying to do all of these things between three jobs and writing. The other part comes from the fact that some of this stuff has to be mailed and if I want it there before the holiday, I need to have it done sooner than everything else.

The biggest part of the pressure, though, comes from my brain. I feel like I need to have this done NOW. And I won’t be happy until it is all done. Never mind that I sew by hand and that I have to wait for my charms to arrive by mail and that paint needs to dry. Now. NOW.

It’s like there’s a self-imposed deadline is in my head. More like a clock ticking down to detonation. If I don’t get this all done by a certain time everything will blow up.

The clock was running down for me this past weekend. I could see it in my head, ticking down to Sunday night. Which was kind of silly. Of everything that I still had to do (most of the jewelry and the kitty curtains were already done), only the coasters HAD to be finished (I delivered the curtains last week and I promised the coasters by Tuesday). Most of the ornaments won’t be delivered until Christmas Eve/Day. Of those that have to be mailed, I still have time for that. Ditto with the bracelet I have to make (the one for my niece’s birthday, which is a week before Christmas, is a little more pressing, but not that much really).

So I spent the weekend frantically thinking about all of the things I needed to have done and doing those said things.

Not the most restful weekend, but at least I’m almost ready for Grinchmas.

Now I just need to start wrapping things.

But that’s another post.

Writing–December Projects

December 2, 2013November 30, 2013 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

December is always a rough month writing-wise for me. Between the NaNoWriMo hangover (which, I admit, can’t be bad this year since I was done in two weeks) and the holidays and the holiday obligations, writing seems even more of a chore than it should be. In order to combat that, the writing-goals for December get toned waaaaay down.

This month I only have a few goals which shouldn’t tax my brain and my patience too much.

I need to get the cover art done for the Ivy novella, which finally has a name! I’m calling it Cheaters and Chupacabras, which is a crappy name, but it’ll do, pig, it’ll do. And once I get the cover art done, I will be publishing it so you can find out if the novella itself is less-crappy than the title (I think it is).

I also need to get the cover art for my next anthology, Yearly, done. I’d like to have that published in January. And don’t let the title fool you; it’s not a yearly thing. It’s just the way the stories ended up representing months and I decided to capitalize on it.

And finally, I’m revising “She’s Not Here Anymore”. It was originally written as a novella, but after reading it again, I’ve decided to rewrite it as a short story. I’m taking out certain elements of the story because it ended up not being what I wanted and the new way will be better. I’m giving myself the whole month to do it because I’m not exactly enthused about it, but I think it needs to be done. Once I get the rewrites finished, I think I’ll be happier with the story and therefore, a little more inclined to work on it.

So that’s what I’ll be doing in December. Enough to keep me productive, but not too much to make me feel like an utter failure.

Writing–Cover Me

November 26, 2013November 22, 2013 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I think it should be obvious that I create my own covers for my self-published titles. I also think the reason for that should be obvious: I am poor. I don’t have the money to hire someone to create a cover and frankly, I don’t think my penny operation is really worth the effort of hiring someone to do the covers.

So that leaves me and I think I haven’t done too bad of a job of it.

For my first self-titled venture, Rejected, I just used a cover generator type deal and it actually came out pretty close to what I was hoping. Yeah, it’s plain and not exactly creative, but it served the purpose.

For Gone Missing, I actually lucked out a little bit. There’s a bit of my great-aunt’s backyard that looked to me like a spot of woods that might be lining the town of the missing. I took the picture, added the text, and ta da! Cover!

For Night of the Nothing Man I knew what I wanted and I knew I was going to have to draw it myself. I’m no artist, but what I had in mind was simple enough. I wanted a crude shadow of a man standing on a hill set against a white background. Again luck was with me because it only took me one try to get the drawing just as I wanted. Then it was just a matter of adding text and whatnot.

Knowing that I’m the one doing the covers presents some advantages and disadvantages. While I don’t have to worry about paying someone who delivers substandard work, late work, or no work at all, I do have to accept that my ideas aren’t always workable because the person executing the ideas (Me) has limited abilities.

I also have to accept that I don’t always have ideas.

I’m facing that particular problem right now. I’ve got two projects, a novella and a short story anthology, fit to publish and yet…no covers. I’m not exactly sure what I want to do with either of them. This is kind of a problem because I sort of have this idea for publishing deadlines for them, though I have more time with the anthology than the novella.

I just paused writing this entry for five minutes to think about possible covers.

It’s something that’s going to bother me, always simmering away in the back of my mind until suddenly, the good idea will come to me.

Then I’ll just have to worry about being able to do it.

Rerun Junkie–The Guest Star Game

November 22, 2013November 13, 2013 ~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

I watch a lot of reruns, as you may know. Most of the time, my TV is tuned to Me-TV for my rerun junkie needs. Because I watch that station so much during the day, it’s not unusual for me to see the same guest star faces several times during the day. Some actors got around A LOT and some were kept very busy by television.

As such, I’ve developed my favorite guest stars, faces I’ve love to see pop up on my shows (but that’s another post). And since I’ve gotten so good at recognizing the faces that other people might not notice, it’s led me down the road to other thinky thoughts.

For example, one weekend I was bored off of my rocker and as I was watching my reruns I suddenly wondered who had been in the most shows that were on the current Me-TV fall line-up. My guess was Virginia Gregg because that woman was in EVERYTHING. It’s not uncommon for me to go a couple of weeks in a row and see her pop up somewhere at least once a day.

Then my thought went a little further. How many guest stars would it take to represent the current Me-TV fall line-up? What’s the fewest number I could come up with?

And so the game was born.

I started off with the guest stars I thought I saw all of the time: Virginia Gregg, J. Pat O’Malley, Dabbs Greer, Kevin Hagen, Vitto Scotti, and went from there, adding and researching new names as I came across them. It turns out that Vitto Scotti was in more of the shows than Virginia Gregg, but the two of them combined covered most of the line-up. After that it was just filling in the blanks.

So far the game stands at 11 as my lowest. Eleven guest stars cover 65 shows.

Some shows are harder than others to find one of my familiar faces on and oddly, some of the shows were surprising in their difficulty.

But the game continues. I’m sure that if I pay attention and keep researching, I’ll be able to get that number down under ten. I’m just sure of it.

And when the schedule changes in the spring, like I”m sure it will, I’ll start the game all over again to account for the change.

Okay, yes, this is a pretty geeky timewaster, I admit that. It’s taking rerun junkie to a new limit.

I’m an overachiever.

Writing–Ten NaNos

November 20, 2013November 13, 2013 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Yes, my friends, it’s November so you shouldn’t be surprised that I’m talking about NaNoWriMo a lot, but this post should be the last one.

Maybe.

Anyway, this year was my tenth year participating. I didn’t realize I’d done so many until I got to counting the years.

I’m actually pretty impressed with this feat. When I started I had no idea that I’d do more than one. When I first started, the idea of finishing a novel was pretty much a dream for me. Now, not only do I finish the NaNo novels I start on November 1st, NaNoWriMo as a whole has become a sort of ritual for me, a half-to. It’s part of the season in my world that spans Thanksgiving, Christmas, and my birthday. There have been a couple of NaNos that I’ve gone into that I wasn’t really prepared for, having only just got the idea I was going to use a week, maybe a couple of days before, but the idea of NOT doing it never occurred to me.

I can cay with some confidence that NaNo has helped me become a better writer.

Over these past ten NaNos I’ve learned what works for me. I figured out that I’m not a pantser, but that I’m not great with a diligent outline either. The past couple of years I’ve written out a page or two summaries, sort of outlines, and written by them. It’s enough that I know what I’m going to write when I sit down in front of the computer and where the story needs to go overall, but not so much that it takes away the opportunity for me to riff and explore and see what that story has to offer.

I’ve gotten better at my discipline. I’ll always be slow to start, I think, but I’m more dedicated to putting that first word down and going from there. If I say I’m going to show up to write, I’m going to show up, period. Most of the time I go above and beyond what I expect of myself, too. I get it done.

Over the years, I’ve explored several techniques to getting the words down. The first couple of years I just muscled it out. Then I discovered sprints, write for ten minutes, goof off for ten minutes. Those really helped me build my writing muscles. The last couple of years, I just wrote. Two thousand words in a day had become easy for me to get in one sitting without getting too distracted. I could do it in a couple of hours. This year, with the longer writing jags, I found taking a break every thousand words or so helped me keep up my stamina.

My NaNo first drafts are still crap, but they’re less crap than they used to be. I’m getting the hang of telling a longer story right the first time so I don’t end up having to rewrite most of it later.

My first NaNo, I chain-smoked while I wrote. My tenth NaNo, I drank cups and cups of green tea. Not really a writing improvement, but it shows just how much life has changed during those years in between.

I went from feeling completely overwhelmed and unsure that I knew what I was doing to sitting down to my computer with a certain feeling of “I got this”.

NaNoWriMo made a writer out of me.

Here’s to ten more.

Writing–2013 NaNoWriMo Done

November 18, 2013November 13, 2013 ~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

Let’s review: this year’s NaNo project was going to be a deviation from my usual NaNo ways by writing two 25,000 words novellas (that go together) instead of one 60,000 word novel.

I was lucky this year to have a three day weekend to kick off the writing and I took advantage of it, getting myself a good head start. I then continued at my usual pace, logging about 2,000 words a day during the work week.

And then I hit another bit of luck.

Though I worried about how I was going to have time to NaNo with three jobs, it turned out to be all for nothing, as is my way. I got an unexpected two days off from one of my jobs, which set up yet another three day writing weekend. I ended up writing about 17,000 words in those three days, nearly 13,000 of them coming on Saturday and Sunday.

Looking things over, I figured that if I could take advantage of an easy Monday and get 4,000 words, I’d only need 2,000 words a day after that to finish in exactly two weeks, an amazing feat in my world because the quickest I’d ever done it before I think was in about twenty days.

I got my 4,000 words on Monday.

Then the cold I’d been battling since that past Saturday got the best of me.

I wouldn’t be able to work one of my jobs while sick. I decided to yet again take advantage of this lucky break (if you want to call not being able to breathe and getting worn out just making dinner lucky) and see if I couldn’t make one final surge.

5, 799 words later, I was done.

On November 12, I checked in with 50,188 and the completed first drafts of two novellas (written basically as a novel).

Here’s what I learned from this year’s NaNo:

-That I can push myself if I really want to and I shouldn’t be afraid to push myself sometimes.

-That I’m getting better at how to work. I set my goals, planned out how I was going to accomplish them for the day, and I got them done.

-I will never feel like I write enough words in the day. If I still have time before sleep, I feel like I’m wasting it not writing. That’s both a good and a bad mindset.

-That all first drafts continue to be crap, but I’m getting better at making my first drafts less crap and more usable stuff.

This was a good NaNo. I’m pretty proud of my drive this year. I don’t think I want to try it again, not for a few years anyway, because it was quite draining. And it hasn’t escaped my attention that I still have plenty of time to write another novella if I wanted to.

But, I think instead, I’ll enjoy being done early and move on to tie up some loose ends on some other projects.

Ah, the sweet smell of victory.

Writing–Three Day NaNo Weekend

November 4, 2013November 3, 2013 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

The stars aligned for me this year when it came to NaNo’s kick-off.

This year NaNo happened to start on a Friday that I didn’t have to work. I chose to seize this opportunity and schedule myself a three day weekend devoted to eating, sleeping, and NaNoWriMo.

I was originally going to start at midnight like I used to do and try to get a couple thousand words in right out of the gate. It turns out that I like sleep too much and ended up going to bed around eleven.

But I made up for it.

After my usual round of procrastination that usually happens whenever I start any new project (but happens most notably with NaNo), I found that the words came a lot easier than I thought they would with this project. An hour and a half in and I had 2,100 words. After a lunch break, I got another 2,000 words or so in that same amount of time. I decided to do a third jag just to finish the section I was working on and ended up with 4,457 words. Not as much as I was hoping for, but I did have to write a couple of blog posts, so it was a good enough start.

That sort of productivity really lights a fire under my ass. I feel invincible, like I’ve got the story by the tail and I can go as far as I want to and this weekend, I wanted to go far. I wanted to get as much done.

On Saturday, I decided I need to really push it. I ended up writing 6,100 words (bringing the total to 10,557) and feeling like I didn’t write enough. It’s part of my stupid writing guilt; I feel like I never work enough even when I exceed my goals/expectations. I did 2,000 more words than I’d hoped to do (I was gunning for 8,000 total) and it still felt like I should have done more.

I’d originally had a goal of 12,000 total for Sunday, but since I’d done that extra 2,000 on Saturday, I bumped it up to 14,000. The words didn’t come nearly as easily as they had on Friday and Saturday, but I still managed to exceed my goal, writing 4,443 words, bringing my total word count to 15,000.

This is probably the most I’ve ever written in a three day period. I think 8,000 words might have been the most I’ve ever written in a day, but the 6,1000 I wrote on Saturday were probably the easiest mass I’ve ever typed out.

What’s more, a lot of what I’ve written isn’t bad. The story is good enough that I should have something to work with when it comes to revising.

This opening weekend has given me some confidence that this NaNo might be okay, no matter how many jobs I’m working. It also shows me how far I’ve come as a writer when it comes to my discipline and my ability to turn off my internal-editor and just let the words fly.

I’m calling it a success.