Tag: revisions

April Writing Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Yellow flowersRemember last month when I said that I was forcing myself to revise two short stories that needed a lot of work and I didn’t like them and it was going to take me forever and everything was terrible?

Yeah, that was all nothing but an empty whine because I ended up getting them both done in about two weeks. I didn’t anticipate that, but it happened, and I’m happier for it.

And since I got them done so quickly, I just moved right on to the next big revision, The Haunting of the Woodlow Boys, which I’ll continue working on this month. I’ve got over half of it done already, but it’s the last third or so that really needs a lot of work and rewriting. I’m going to take my time with it. It’s the last story in the still-untitled ghost story collection that needs major revisions. Once it gets done, that whole thing should come together pretty quickly.

In side project news, if you follow me on Twitter (you probably shouldn’t because I’m terrible) or read the tweets that come up on the blog, then you know I’ve been referencing five outlines. First I talked about finishing them; now I’m talking about writing synopsis and fifteen pages. It’s possible you might be wondering what the hell I’m talking about.

(It’s also possible that you don’t give a shit, and that’s also valid.)

I’m going to try my hand at the Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition again. Nine years after winning 10th place in the genre category and a few failures in other categories since then, I’ve decided to try my hand at the script category. I’ve only written a script once before for Script Frenzy (which they don’t do anymore), so I’m looking at this as a personal challenge that’s going to cost me a $25 entry fee.

So what’s the deal with the five outlines? I took five ideas that I had and outlined them. Now I’m writing the first fifteen pages and synopsis (the requirement for the entry) of each one to see which one I think is the strongest entry. Then I’ll take the one I think is strongest, polish it all up, and submit it. Is it a lot of extra work to do it this way? Yeah, probably, but it gives me some practice. Am I cheating by only doing the first fifteen pages? Yeah, probably, but I will finish whatever one I submit for sure. It just won’t be done by the deadline, which is in May. I only have one more outline that needs fifteen pages and a synopsis written, so I’ve got plenty of time to get this done. I find script writing to go very quickly for me.

Which means I’m probably doing it wrong.

March Writing Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

green flowerBeware the Ides of March! Or in my case, the whole month because this one is going to suck for me.

What possible writely punishment could I be putting myself through? I’m revising two short stories I don’t like.

I really liked the ideas of “What You Don’t See” and “Short Hallway”. However, the first draft executions of both were awful slogs that did little to capture what was in my head. Not a problem, as I tend to be hard on myself during first drafts and I feel like revising is something I’m better at.

I reread both stories last month after I finished revising Voice, thinking I’d make notes on them and get a jump start on their revisions.

Instead, I made a few notes and then put them both aside to sit for the last week of February because I had no desire to even attempt to start to revise either one of them. The first drafts are as a bad as I remember and they’re going to take a lot of work to revise and it’s going to be such a slog because I don’t like the stories. Any time I decide that I don’t like a story, it means that all future work on that story is going to be painful. I’ll be stomping my foot like a little child being forced to do something against my will, procrastinating even though I know it would be better to just get it over with. I can’t help it. On the outside I’m 36, but my Rainbow Brite shoelaces should tip you off that on the inside, I’m 5.

Why don’t I just give up on the stories if I don’t like them? Two reasons. One, I’m loathe to give up on ANY story no matter what the circumstance. Two, when I finally do quit on a story it’s because I’ve tried everything and the story just doesn’t work. I’ve completed and submitted and/or published several stories that I hated from first draft to last, but they worked. Even if I hate them, I have to honor that.

I think with the required effort, these two stories will work.

It’s just a matter of summoning up the necessary energy in order to put in the required effort to make them work.

I don’t wanna.

February Writing Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

roseLast month I finished the first drafts of “Short Hallway” and “What You Don’t See”, which were both a real slog for some reason. I also wrote, revised, polished, and submitted a short story called “Don’t Feed the Animals” to a contest. It was one of those rare stories that came out pretty much done in the first draft. It just needed some minor tweaks. Pretty handy since I needed to have it ready to go in only a few weeks.

I think I was going to try to write and enter two stories because at the time I had two ideas, but when it came time to focus, I only had “Don’t Feed the Animals” in my head. I can’t for the life of me remember what the other idea was. Oh well. It was either a moment of brilliance lost forever or it was an idea better forgotten. I’ll never know.

This month I’m going to go back to revising Voice. I’ve done the structural changes and I’ve made all of the notes. In theory, this shouldn’t be much of a challenge to fix, but I haven’t been able to bank on anything lately. It’s been a tough go mentally as of late for me (but that’s another post).

If I somehow get done with Voice, then I’ll move on to revising something else that’s going into the ghost anthology because there’s a lot of revising needed to be done for that.

I’m going to be doing so much revising this year.

So much.

December Writing Projects and Other Tidbits

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

SnowflowerIt’s December! And December means that I don’t do as much writing work because I’m too busy wading through all of the holiday cheer to get much done. And yes, that was sarcasm because this has long been my least favorite time of year and I think I lost what precious little Christmas spirit I might have had back on November 1st when I inhaled about a pound of artificial snow during a floorset.

Anyway. Writing projects.

I’m going to continue working on The Haunting of the Woodlow Boys novella. Just writing 500 words a day, taking it very easy. I’m also going to start revising Voice, again taking it very easy. I have almost nothing made for Grinchmas so that’s where most of my energy is going to be directed. Making little bits of progress on writing projects is better than making none or stressing myself because I’m struggling to write and make Grinchmas. I can go full blast again in January.

Tidbits and News:

The distribution of The Ivy Russell Novellas paperback has hit a snag because that book is jinxed and/or I am terrible at my job. So for the foreseeable future, it will only be available on Lulu. Sorry for any inconvenience, but there shouldn’t be much because Lulu is just as good as the more popular marketplaces.

Speaking of other not so popular places, I’m doing a couple of holiday deals through Smashwords (which is compatible for most all eBook platforms) for my two 2015 eBook releases, The Ivy Russell Novellas and People Are Terrible.

Use the coupon code CW86C to get 15% off of The Ivy Russell Novellas.

Use the coupon code DS99F to get 15% off of People Are Terrible.

These coupons are only valid at Smashwords and the deals end on Christmas, so don’t miss out!

October Writing Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

pumpkinsHonestly, I don’t have a lot going on this month. This is mostly due to NaNoWriMo looming. I don’t like to jam my schedule full the month before I’m going to be focused on writing 50,000 words as quickly as possible. It wears out my brain and renders me useless.

The only things I HAVE to do this month are finish the revisions on the novella-turned-novel, which hopefully include finally giving it a title, and finalize my outline for this year’s NaNo endeavor, The End of the (Werewolf) Curse.

Things that I could do if I feel the urge: revise Voice, revise “The Wind Chime Tree”, revise “Darling”. I don’t think I’ll start writing anything new unless something irresistible pops into my brain.

Most likely I’ll be saving that energy for November.

If you haven’t voted in the poll to decide the fate of the Ivy Russell novellas, please do so. The poll closes next week. Yes, I know it’s only been open a day. What can I say? This has been eating away at my brain for months now and I’d like to finally have a conclusion.

And, if the majority rules that I do anything other than nothing, then I’ll have something else to do this month.

July Writing Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

FireworksThings don’t always go the way we plan, sometimes for good, sometimes for not so good. For me, this happens more than I’d like to admit.

For the two of you that were probably anticipating it, no, you didn’t miss it. The Timeless Man wasn’t published last month due to technical difficulties (which will get their own post). Because it wasn’t published last month, it sort of mucks up everything else planned to be published for the rest of the year and I’m still working out how it’s all going to get done. We’ll see, we’ll see.

In much brighter, less aggravating news, the novella I started working on at the end of May which I continued to work on in June is most definitely not a novella now. I’m at 44,000 words and still going, so. Yes. Definitely not a novella. Definitely a novel. Still doesn’t have a title. I’m only doing about 1,000 words a day on it and since I’m doing this without an outline, just seeing where the story goes, and I only have a vague idea of how it all ends, I could get it done this month, but I’m not going to carve that into stone.

In addition to this, I’m going to write a couple of other things. One is a short story called “Darling”, which will mostly be posted as a freebie here on the blog because it’s been ages since I’ve given away free, fictional words. The other is a novella called Voice, which will go in the next anthology. I will also be revising “A Ride in the Country”, also slated for the same anthology.

So, aside from the non-publishing debacle, things are chugging right along and I’m getting my To Do List of Doom wiped out.

Thank goodness for that.

June Writing Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

pinkflowerLast month was a bit of a struggle because I wasn’t feeling all that motivated to write. Little by little, I finished the two short stories I’d set out to write, “Through the Electronic Looking Glass” and “Cabintown Road”. I wrote a page a day on each of them and then did a finish line sprint one weekend when they were almost done. It took two weeks to get them done that way, but considering how rundown and blah I felt about the whole thing, I was just happy to get them finished.  Whatever it takes.

The last two weeks were supposed to be spent writing a novella. The one I picked to do doesn’t have a sure title yet, but the idea was pretty fresh and I thought a thousand words a day would get it, if not done, then pretty close to done on the shorter side of the novella scale.

That didn’t happen.

I’m working without an outline and after about a week I realized that there was more to this story than I thought. So, it’s either going to be a longer novella or an outright novel. We’ll see. I’m going to keep working on it this month.

I’m also going to revise (Vampires) Made in America down to novella size. Since this first step is focusing primarily on cutting out all of the fat and repetition and such, I don’t think it will be too difficult, nor will it take too long.

Now watch me struggle with it.

And of course, it’s time for yet another self-publishing release!

Look for The Timeless Man, the second Ivy Russell novella, to come out sometime this month.

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–I Think This Manuscript Is a Disaster

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

flame box elder penThe revisions on (Vampires) Made in a America continue to drag on, mostly because the more I work on it, the worse it seems to get. Like a knot in my sewing thread. The more I fuss with it, the tighter and more impossible it gets.

I thought I had it figured out in December. I thought I knew what I was doing and what needed to be done. And then I got a third of the way through the manuscript and went, “This is utter shit and it’s a total mess and this fix don’t fix it, son.”

And that’s how several other smaller writing things got done. Because I was needing to work on something while I tried to figure out how to salvage this manuscript. It’s not the story that’s bad. It’s the execution of the story that’s god-awful.

After a few days of thought, I realized that my biggest problem was that I needed to see the forest and at the moment I was looking at nothing but trees. I needed to get a sort of aerial view of the forest of this story to see if I can’t figure out where all the dead wood is and how best to rearrange the trees before this whole grove burns in a tragic wildfire of my own frustration.

So, I’ve been going through chapter by chapter, writing down a summary of each. Sort of like a map I guess. I’ve only been doing a chapter a day, though, because I’m pretty frustrated with this story and to do any more reminds me of what a disaster this manuscript is and makes me more likely to throw it all out. And I don’t want to do that. I want to keep a level, logical, objective, non-burny approach here. I’ll let you know if doing this helps because MY WAY is always the HARD WAY.

Thankfully, I have so many other writing projects that need attention so I don’t feel guilty about not doing enough during my day. I just do a quick chapter summary and then move on to something else that has the potential to piss me off.

I like to keep that writing frustration moving, kids.

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.