Writing–March Projects

March 6, 2013January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Something old, something new…I’m in the mood to pile a whole bunch of stuff on my plate right now and since I’m feeling so eager and willing, I’m going to go with it.

In the old category, revisions continue on The World (Saving) Series. I’m done with this round of serious business revisions, but I’m going to start from the top in a couple of weeks and go through it again. I’m getting pretty happy with the way everything is working out and I don’t think I want to do any more major changes to the story. Thank goodness.

Also in the old category, revisions on Night of the Nothing Man. I’m tightening things up and getting picky with the sentences. The goal is to have it up on Smashwords before the end of the month, which I’m pretty sure is going to happen without much trouble.

In the kind of old, but kind of new category falls a couple of short stories. They’re Outskirts stories that I’ve already written and intended to get up on the blog a while ago, but never got around to revising to completion. That’s going to happen.

In the totally new category, I’ve got an idea for another short story that I’d like to write and put up in the freebie section. Free reads are good reads.

And finally, in the classified files, work on the sooper sekrit project continues and I’ve added sooper sekrit project #2. In my continued effort to broaden my abilities, I’ve started work on a script. I’ve only completed one before and actually had quite a lot of fun doing it. I’ve got an idea (don’t ask) and I’m going to run with it and get some practice in.

Getting some of these things done is not an option. I’m running out of room on my plate to add anything else.

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–Reading Goals/50 Rejections Results

December 26, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

I set myself two goals for the years. I wanted to get fifty short story rejections and I wanted to read twelve books. The results were mixed, but honestly, it was an overall fail for both goals.

First the fifty rejections. That was kind of a lofty goal, in retrospect. I tend to submit in bursts and I really didn’t have enough completed short stories to make this possible. Even the short stories I wrote during the year weren’t really enough to make up that deficit. Even though I scaled back the goal to twenty in November, it still wasn’t enough. As of right now, I garnered seventeen rejections for 2012. An improvement over last year’s total for sure, but far short of my goal. I think next year I’ll be a little more realistic and shoot for a more obtainable number.

The reading goals I set for myself were pretty specific (if you remember; I didn’t…I had to look them up). Not only did I have to read twelve books, six of them had to be fiction and six of them had to be non-fiction. Of the fiction books, at least one had to be in a genre I don’t read. Of the six non-fiction books, one had to be a memoir and only one could be a re-read.

The good news out of this is that I ended up reading a total of twenty books and I did read a couple of genres I normally don’t read. The bad news is that I failed in the non-fiction goals.

14 1/2 of the books were fiction (Margaritaville had both short stories and essays so I counted it as half). 5 1/2 books were non-fiction, falling half a book short of my six book goal. Two of those books were re-reads. And I didn’t manage to read a full on memoir.

So while I read more fiction than I usually do and read more overall than I have in a while, I totally bombed the non-fiction portion of the goals. I think next year’s goals are going to reflect that and my need to achieve balance.

Overall, I’m pretty disappointed with my lack of achievement. I’ve got some work to do next year.

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–December Projects

December 5, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

December is always a screwy month for me. I’m coming down from NaNoWriMo, I’m dealing with the holiday gauntlet, and in general my time and energy is in flux. I never know what to schedule for myself during December because I never know how this roller coaster month is going to work out. I either give myself too much to do, decide to take on projects that are too ambitious, or I don’t give myself enough and I end up feeling like a slacker.

I’ve decided to err on the side of slackerdom this time around. I think I’m going to end up working on some Outskirts stuff. I’ve got a Paxton story I’m working on and some ideas for some Maisie Day stuff. I’ve got this idea for a couple novellas as written by Maisie (since she is a writer, you know). I think that’s what my morning project is going to end up as and I think I’m going to revise and cut down the Ivy novel I wrote over the summer to be one of Maisie’s. I’ve also got an idea for another one, but I haven’t done anything with it yet.

Working on all of that is both productive, but also low-commitment in a sense. There’s nothing urgent about it.

I will also continue my quest for rejections. It’s because obvious that I’m not going to meet my goal of 50 by the end of the year since I’m sitting at 15 right now. But 20 is within reach and I’ve got five stories out and four ready to go. If I finish the revisions on “Just Visiting” (I’ve already done most of the heavy lifting), that’ll be five. I didn’t submit at all in November, didn’t even really look around much. I need to finish the year with a final burst.

Trust me. It only LOOKS busy.

Writing–Rejecting “Just Visiting”

November 28, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I received a rejection for one of my short stories, “Just Visiting”. I wasn’t surprised by the rejection because I wasn’t thrilled with the story when I sent it. I was, though, surprised that I got feedback for it. Most places don’t have time to give feedback.

Most of the feedback was pretty critical and that sort of thing always stings. Even though I didn’t think the story was that great either, it still stings to have someone else say so. Rejection isn’t supposed to be taken personally when it comes to writing, but I’m human and sometimes I take it as such. My mindset wasn’t in the best place when I got that email.

I was already feeling questionable about the work I’d been doing on my NaNo project. The rejection for “Just Visiting” was a direct blow to the ego, particularly with the criticisms. Those two things combined with reading a book of short stories that I really like and think are good led me to question if I wasn’t wasting my time with this whole writing business.

However, there was one glimmer of hope for me. Included in the critique was one line of praise that really struck me. I was told the story had some good descriptive lines. When I first read the email, I wanted to respond and ask which ones because I feel like that is my weakest area as a writer. That one bit of positive feedback kept me hanging on and kept me from trashing the story all together.

After a few days of contemplation, letting the whole thing simmer on the back burner of my brain, I’ve now got a plan of how I can revise “Just Visiting” into what will hopefully be a better story.

I think my ego will appreciate the effort the next time I send it out.

Writing–October Projects

October 3, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I’ve really only got two projects in mind for October.

The first is a freebie project. To celebrate my favorite holiday, Halloween, I’m going to post a new freebie horror story every Wednesday, the last coming out on Halloween and being directly related to my favorite movie related to the holiday (like “How the Night Haunts”). So check the freebie page every Wednesday for a new fix. I’m still in the process of selecting the other three stories.

And I have to write the fourth.

No worries. It’ll be fine.

The second project is self-publishing my novella “Gone Missing”. Five people on Twitter said they’d read it and that sealed it for me. Okay, maybe not. Maybe it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while, but was on the fence because I thought I should give traditional publishing a shot at it first. And then I took a look at the market and went, “Yeah, okay, I’ll just do this myself.” My “not a fit” monster rises again.

I’m thinking it will be all digital unless there’s a sudden demand for print copies (I don’t think there will be). I just have to decide what venue to use.

The short story submitting continues. Battling my own insecurities about whether or not I should submit a story some place is rather tiresome, but it’s a very real obstacle that I’m dealing with. The finished stories are piling up.

It’s time to just bite the bullet and submit.

Writing–The Story of Four Stories

September 26, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I’ve got four short stories in various stages of revisions right now: “Whistle While You Work”, “Aftermath”, “Just Visiting”, and “Lady on the Stairs”. They were all written about the same time, but in pairs (“Whistle” and “Aftermath” together; “Visiting” and “Lady” together). They’re different stories, but it’s just interesting to see how different they are in terms of writing/revising them.

Of the four, “Lady” needs the most work. I was sure what it was when I started writing it, but when I got to the end, I figured it out. It’s going to take a few rewrites to get the tone just right and make sure I get across what I’m trying to say.

I knew what “Visiting” was when I started writing it, but it’s taken quite a bit of tweaking to get the right mood, more than I anticipated.

I knew, but I didn’t know what “Whistle” was about. I had the scene in my head, but I didn’t know the why of the whole thing until the very end. It started off pretty straight forward and then my brain gave me the twist. It was kind of like “Lady”, except I had a much better handle on what was going on when I started the story.

“Aftermath” is basically done. The story came out as it should be. It just needs a little tweaking.

People who aren’t writers often think that writing short stories is like working an assembly line. You’re doing basically the same thing every time. The process is the same. So therefore, the idea that one story might be easier or more difficult than another is baffling. You’re doing the same thing? Why is it so hard this time when it was so easy the last time? Or vice versa.

Sure, the process is the same. But every story is it’s own beast. Going back to the assembly line comparison, it would be like I’m putting on the headlights, but every car that comes down the line is different. So even though I’m doing the same job, it doesn’t get done exactly the same way because I’m dealing with a different vehicle ever time.

While I’m following the same basic writing process (first draft, rewrites, revisions, polishing), different stories require different amounts of each step.

Non-writers aren’t the only ones that need to be aware of this, though.

I need to remember that, too.

Writing–September Projects

September 5, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Having spent the better part of my summer working on two novels in some form, I’m feeling a little lost. For three months I knew exactly what I was going to be working on every day. Now that they’re done (for now), there’s a little rudderless panic that happens at first. I had mine and now it’s time to work.

It’s time to swing things back to the short story.

I’ve got seven stories that are ready for submission. I’ve got two that need to be revised. I’ve got two ideas that are begging to be written. And “Gone Missing” needs one more polish after one of my lovely beta readers caught a few mistakes. Okay, it’s more of a novella, but still. I can count it for this.

So between writing, revising, polishing, and submitting there’s plenty to keep me busy this month. And since I’ve acquired a few day jobs that I’ll be starting this month, it’ll be easier to work the short story projects into the new and changing schedule.

Of course, that’s a mental thing. It just feels easier because short stories come pre-broken down into bite sized chunks that I can work on. Novels feel like a huge chunk of meat that you have to swallow whole and I have trouble breaking them down and working them into a day job schedule without feeling like a slacker.

I’m straying from the point. The point is I have a lot of short story work to do this month and some decisions to make one which stories I want to submit and which ones I want to use at freebies.

Because I think we could use a few more freebies on the blog. Don’t you?

Speaking of if you check out the Outskirts tab up at the top, you’ll find that I’ve moved everything from the old site over so you don’t have to leave home to read about the Skirts!

I’m convenient like that.

Writing–I Write For No One

August 15, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

This is a post of frustration. I want that known right up front. Because this might come off as whiny/bitchy/cranky/crabby/selfish and a whole lot of other not so nice words (that I’ve grown accustomed to being called).

But there’s a lot of frustration in writing. There’s frustration in trying to get the right tone, the right word choice, the right pacing, the right dialogue, the right word count.

And then there’s the frustration of getting your work published. Finding a publication that fits your story, following all of the guidelines (which an border on ridiculous, but that’s another post for another day), submitting, waiting, and then hoping that whoever is on the other end reading your work will like it and if they do like it, they can use it. And, of course, there’s the frustration of rejection that goes along with that. After so many times, you start wondering about the story in question.

Speaking of wondering, there’s also the frustration of being read. As in nobody seems to want to read your work. Friends, family, acquaintances, Twitter followers, Facebook friends, nobody is interested. No offense! But they just don’t like that kind of story.

It’s the last two frustrations that are currently topping my frustration cup.

I take submission guidelines seriously. I don’t want to waste their time or mine. As such, I scrutinize what publishers want very carefully. And it seems like what they want, I ain’t got. Finding a good fit for my stories seems to be getting harder and harder every time I look. I realize that part of the problem is my own limitations because there’s only one place that I submit to that doesn’t pay. Every other publication I look at has to give me some sort of coin for my work. And I limit myself even further because I try to approximate those token payments as closely I can to the work I’m submitting, i.e., how much would I lose on this story if this place published it.

I realize how snobby and entitled that sounds, but do you get paid for YOUR work? Yeah, I bet you do. Now considering I can put weeks/months into a 2,500 word story only to be offered five bucks for it (a penny a word is my baseline, so that story would net me 25 bucks), yeah, I’m going to shoot for a better payday.

This is a frustration I’ve mentioned before, but I’m mentioning it again because I feel it bears repeating. Call it a need for justification. It’s a head-banging-against-a-wall feeling that non-writers have trouble relating to.

The second frustration is really hitting me hard lately because I’m in need of some support and I don’t know where to go to get it. I write horror fiction for the most part. It’s not a genre that a lot of people I know care for. Of the ones that would read it, there seems to be a real lack of time on their part. Read that as they have lives and don’t have time to beta for me. And that’s fine. I understand it.

But it still frustrates the hell out of me.

It would be nice to have someone, anyone, take an actual interest in my work. Without me forcing them. Without me begging them to make some time to read a story. Without me feeling like I’m nagging people. Without me feeling like I’m guilting people into it.

But I haven’t reached that point in my career yet. I’m not in demand, even with people that actually know me. It’s understandable, but no less of a bummer.

And no less frustrating.