Tag: writing

Writing–May Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

April was neither a rousing success or a crashing failure. Adequate would be the best word for it. But getting the job done puts me in a good position for May.

Of course the big project continues. I only got one chapter revised on The World (Saving) Series last month so I have some serious ground I’d like to make up. I’m shooting for two, maybe three. Minimum.

I’ve got two short stories I need to review. “Another Deadly Weapon” and “Soul Sister” are on the agenda.

A new Outskirts story will be going up this Saturday (get “Wait ‘Til Next Year” read while you still can). I’ve got two that need to be revised and one of them will be going up.

It doesn’t sound like a lot of work, but with falling behind on the novel revisions, it will be some serious work to not only catch up, but also get ahead. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been slacking on it and I need to change my ways. I need to rededicate myself to this project if only to say that I got through the first round of revisions.

Keep plugging away.

Stories By The Numbers

Submitted: 1 (“Such a Pretty Face” is still out)
Ready: 8
Accepted/Rejected: 0

The Many Career Changes of Kiki

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

Like most kids, I wanted to be a lot of different things growing up. Unlike most kids, I never grew out of that changing career state of mind. Whatever it is I find that I’m interested in, I want to do that.

My first big career choice came early in junior high. I wanted to be a meterologist. Weather and storms fascinated me. I didn’t necessarily want to be on the TV talking about the seven day forecast, but being in one of those weather centers, tracking tornado spawning storms appealed to me. I thought it would be a fun, exciting gig.

It wasn’t very well received. Saying that I wanted to be a meterolgist conjured up the images of people pointing at maps on the TV and I got a lot of teasing for that. I decided that keeping meteorology as a hobby was better for my self-esteem.

Then towards the end of junior high I set my sights on being a marine biologist specializing in sharks. I love sharks. Shark week was made for me. I read a lot of books about sharks and shark attacks. It was particularly the attacks on humans that fascinated me at the time, but really all aspects of sharks and shark behaviors held my attention. There’s an air of mystery about them that makes them fascinating and makes me want to learn more about them. Being on boats for weeks at a time didn’t really bother me. In fact, my cousin’s grandma offered me a place to live if I wanted to pursue my degree down in Texas.

But, it wasn’t very well received by everyone else. The one thing I kept hearing was “do you know how much math and science is involved in that?” despite the fact that I’ve always been told that I was smart and held to the highest academic standards.

So I changed my mind and looked elsewhere.

I wanted to be a surgical technician.

Too much blood and guts.

I wanted to be an actor.

You won’t make any money.

When I finally got out of high school and into college, I first wanted to study English with the idea of being a proper writer, not just the amateur stuff I’d been not showing to people up until that point. No one said anything because by that point they weren’t interested anymore. I was in college (a community college that I was paying for) and that’s all that mattered.

The second time I went back to college, my eyes were on studying sociology. I’d become fascinated with it during my first college go round after I did a paper on prison rehab programs. I thought that might be a good gig for me.

That lasted as long as I was in school.

My last go round on the college merry-go-round, I was majoring in psychology with the ultimate goal being a forensic psychologist. There was no way I could be a therapist. I don’t have the compassion needed to succeed in that field. But analyzing and tracking down bad guys is something I think I could have excelled at. I was pretty dedicated to it, too. Took all of the psych classes I could get into (as well as all of the sociology classes; hadn’t quite given up using that) and was doing well in them.

Until I was looking into starting the math classes I’d need to get my associate’s degree so I could move on to get my bachelor’s degree, I realized just how long it was going to take me to get through all of the schooling I’d need (at least a master’s) to get my career started. That’s when I realized that I didn’t want to be a psychologist enough to spend years getting there, which would be even longer since I could only go to school part time while I worked.

It was also then that it dawned on me that the only thing I wanted to spend years struggling to do was what I’d been spending years doing all along: writing. I gave up on the idea that I needed any sort of formal education or validation and threw myself head long into making a career of it.

But that hasn’t stopped me from thinking about pursuing other interests as careers (most recently: helicopter pilot, personal trainer, and sports analyst). Of course, I always look at the time it will take to make those things happen and change my mind.

That’s why writing is the perfect career for me. With a little research and by living vicariously through my characters, I can be all of those things while spending my time doing the one thing I really love the most.

Writer’s Doubt

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

There are times when I don’t feel good enough. I look at what I’m working on and think it’s garbage and I don’t know how to fix it. I have no clue what I’m doing. Nobody is going to want to read this story. Everyone else is doing so much better than I am. Why do I keep bothering with this? I’m no good. I’m not a writer.

Ah, writer’s doubt. I know that feeling so well. It hits me at least once a month, sometimes just momentarily, sometimes it lingers for days. It could be a devestating, debilitating thing if I weren’t so stupidly stubborn and unable to leave things unfinished that I can’t walk away. Which works out in my favor, of course, as persistence is a big part of success as a writer.

But there are times when I’m not feeling very successful. I’m not feeling inspired. I’m not even feeling coherent. In those times of struggle, and like I said, they happen more often than I’d like, that doubt creeps up into the back of my mind like a spider looking for a soft spot to lay her eggs. Those are the times that I start comparing myself to other writers. I look at who’s getting published, what they’re getting published, and then I look at my little list of credits and wonder what the hell I’m doing.

Then I look at what I’m writing and wonder the same damn thing.

It’s a frustrating part of the writing game. I try not to let it get to me. I remind myself about the persistence factor. I remind myself to be patient. I remind myself that not every story I’ve ever written is crap and there is nothing wrong with the places that have published my work. They have good taste.

(Does anyone have that problem? Not only do you doubt yourself, but you doubt anyone on your side, too? I wouldn’t be surpised if I’m the only one and I hope I don’t offend anyone with my issues.)

I have no fool-proof method to combat it. I just keep plugging away and try to ignore that voice in my head that says I suck. I admit that some days the doubt manages to slow me down. It roughs me up. It makes me question my commitment to this writing life.

And that’s where the doubt stops. I don’t want to be doing anything else. I want to be writing something. Short stories, novels, blog posts, personal essays, non-fiction, articles, whatever. I want to be writing. I would be writing even if I wasn’t getting published.

Knowing that, recognizing it, really helps me get back on the mule and keep going.

And sometimes, if I’m lucky, the mule kicks the doubt for good measure.

Stories By The Numbers

Submitted: 1 (only “Such a Pretty Face” is still out)
Ready: 8
Accepted: 1! “Playing Chicken” will be published in the Library of Horror anthology Made You Flinch–Again!

Writing–The Stillness of Writing

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

Just because I’m looking out the window doesn’t mean I’m not working.

Okay, maybe at the day job it means I’m not working on day job stuff, but it doesn’t mean I’m not working on writing stuff.

It hasn’t been easy for me to be taken seriously as a writer to begin with. It’s that not bringing in a regular paycheck thing that throws people off. There’s this idea that, paid or not, writing isn’t work. And that idea gets a boost when people see you sitting there doing “nothing”.

Well, I’m here to tell you that most of the time I’m not doing nothing. More than likely, I”m thinking about something.

That game of Bejeweled Blitz could be a break between writing jags. Ditto with checking email or checking Twitter. I’m a big fan of writing sprints, ten minutes writing, ten minutes not, particularly when I’m working on longer projects and particularly when I’m struggling. And if I am sprinting, then those ten minutes I’m not writing aren’t going to waste. I may look like I’m doing nothing, but in reality, I’m plotting what I’m going to write for the next ten minutes.

A lot of plotting and idea developing are done while doing “nothing”. Or while doing the mundane. I’ve done a lot of idea development while playing mindless games of Spider Solitaire and Free Cell or while cooking dinner and doing the laundry. Some great ideas have come to me while I was just staring out the window.

Hell, that’s how I got the idea for this blog post.

My point is that appearances can be decieving and writing is more than just typing. Writing is actually work. It’s an involved process. Maybe it doesn’t make me break a sweat, but it does involve some serious effort. It can be frustrating. The idea doesn’t jump to the page from the first second it appears in my brain and it doesn’t make it onto the paper perfectly the first time. Only once have I had an idea hit the paper so smoothly that it only needed a little revision, but the idea still needed a few days to percolate before I could get down the first word.

Believe me. I’m working a lot, even if it doesn’t look that way.

Okay, maybe not as much at the day job.

Stories By The Numbers

Submitted: 2 (“Playing Chicken” and “Such a Pretty Face”)
Ready: 8 (“Customer Service”, “Game Night”, “An Active Sleeper”, and “At 3:36” join “Husband and Wife”, “Elevator”, “Bigger Than a Squirrel”, and “Erin Go Bragh”)
Accepted/Rejected: 0

Writing–Non-Fiction Attraction

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

I have a real love for non-fiction.

It started when I was a kid. I liked to read biographies. It didn’t matter who was the subject. Sports stars, actors, presidents, muscians, anybody, it didn’t matter; I liked to read about other people’s lives. I read about my obsessions. Sharks, dinosaurs, tornadoes, anything that scared and fascinated me.  I read about all things pop culture. To this day I love useless knowledge.

There came a point, some time in high school I think, that I realized that I read more non-fiction than fiction. I’m still that way. Check out my bookshelf and you’ll see. I’ve got books on dead bodies, morgues, fat girls, baby names, horror movies, writing, astrology, spells, tarot, body language, psychology, genomes, algebra, serial killers, and a few memoirs. I even kept all of the text books from my three stints in college so I could read them at my leisure.

I guess it’s just a draw I have. I like to learn things, all kinds of things. A lot of my books are acquired because of my obsessions and interests. I admit that I’m looking into getting some books on baseball, specifically pitching and stats, to feed my current addiction. But then I’m also looking at a book on Hell and a book on the positive effects of peer pressure because I came across both in the paper and they looked interesting.

One would think that as a fiction writer, I would be reading lots of fiction. And really, I should be. It’s an important part of my job. Don’t get me wrong; I like fiction. I don’t consider reading it an unpleasant part of this gig. But when I’m cruising through Amazon or prowling the shelves of my library, non-fiction has a tendency to catch my attention first. Odd since fiction is considered the flashier of the two.

I’ve thought about writing non-fiction, but I’ve never really gotten up the gumption to take the plunge and give it a shot. I’ve get ideas and I write them down and I try to develop them, but it doesn’t go much farther than that. As marginally qualified to write fiction as I feel I am, I feel totally unqualified to write non-fiction.

That’s not to say that I won’t, eventually, give it a go, of course.

I just need to read a little bit more first.

Stories By The Numbers

-Submitted: 2 (“Such a Pretty Face” and “Playing Chicken”)
-Ready: 5 (“Customer Service” joins “Husband and Wife”, “Elevator”, “Bigger Than a Squirrel”, and “Erin Go Bragh”)
-Accepted/Rejected: 0

Writing–April Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

It’s more of the same old, same old when it comes to writing in April.

I’m going to continue working on The World (Saving) Series revisions. I’m going to try to get a few more chapters done. Slowly, but surely, I’ll win this race.

I’ve got four short stories that need to be reviewed: “At 3:36”, “An Active Sleeper”, “Game Night”, and “Customer Service”. I actually sold “Customer Service” a couple of years ago, but it was never published and the ezine folded, so now it’s back in my pile. I’m looking forward to reading it, since it’s been so long. It’s also been awhile since I’ve laid eyes on “An Active Sleeper” and “Game Night”.

It’ll never be long enough before I read “At 3:36” again.

The goal is to get these four stories onto my ready list. Evenutally, I’m going to be more proactive in submitting my work again and if they’re ready, it makes my life a little easier.

I’m also going to write another short story for the blog. The point of these stories is to drum up some interest in and awareness of The World (Saving) Series and what I’m calling the Outskirts Universe. If people like the short stories and the characters in the short stories (and not just because they’re free), then should I ever get the book published, they may be moved to read that as well. Right now the stories are mostly focusing on Stanley, since the book mostly focuses on Stanley, but I’m looking to give other characters a starring role in their own shorts.

I have no idea if this is going to work, especially since I have no idea if I’ll ever get the book published or not, or if it’ll end up being a waste of time, but I guess it’s worth a try. I don’t think it’ll hurt anything.

Not giving it a shot would probably hurt more.

Stories By The Numbers

Submitted: 2 (“Such a Pretty Face” and “Playing Chicken” are still out.)
Ready: 4 (“Husband and Wife”, “Elevator”, “Bigger Than a Squirrel”, and “Erin Go Bragh” are still waiting in the wings.)
Rejections: 1 (No go for “Another Deadly Weapon”.)

Writing–Rejection Before the Rejection

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I knew that when I decided to pursue writing as an actual job that I was going to have to toughen up pretty quickly. Rejection is the name of the game and persistence is the only way to win. To be persistent for the long haul, you have to be able to shake off the NO’s, heal quickly, and move on.

I caught on and adapted quicker than I thought I would, particularly after I realized just how subjective rejections could be (as I rambled on about in a previous post). There’s not much sting to them anymore. I make note of them for my records, jot down and consider any feedback I get (some of it has been helpful, some of it hasn’t), and put the story in my review pile so I can re-read it, tweak it, and send it out once again. A rejection now hardly gets a rise out of my disappointment meter.

In fact, I’ve gotten so good at rejection that I started rejecting my stories before they officially get rejected. If it’s been more than six months (usually it’s longer when I look at my records and realize that the piece is still out), I consider it rejected and move it to the review pile. Yes, I should probably get into the habit of inquiring about submissions because that’s good practice, but I still have to get over my hang up about feeling like I’m bugging people. Instead I just guess rejection and move on.

This has worked out for me so far, but has recently led to some confusion. As in I’ve gotten rejections for stories I already called as rejected. a couple of those official rejections came not too long after my own rejections.

However, the most recent one came several months after I considered it rejected, almost a year after I’d submitted it. The letter (an actual, physical bit of paper) was addreessed to me and was sorry to inform me that they wouldn’t be using my story. Except the story they referred to in the rejection letter was actually the title of an anthology that I had been published in that I offered up as a credit. Oops.

Yeah, I might have been momentarily confused, but that rejection didn’t sting at all.

Writing–Script Frenzy

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

Script Frenzy is next month.

I participated in it lst year for the first time. The goal is to write a 100 page script of some kind (movie, TV show, stage play, graphic novel) in 30 days. It’s like NaNoWriMo for the non-novel set. I thought it would be a fun way to get some experience writing in another format. It was also a good excuse to do nearly nothing but dialogue. Yes, I love dialogue.

 In order to hit 100 pages in 30 days, you have to write at least 3 1/3 pages every day.

I decided to write two episodes of a 60 minute TV show of my own creation. Since one minute equals one page, it meant that I’d have to write 120 pages. And since I’d want to do it in the 30 days, it meant that I needed to write four pages a day. And since I like to overachieve and set myself up for disappointment, I pushed that up to five pages a day so I could either finish early or build up a little cushion in case of bad days.

Honestly, despite my fondness for dialogue, I thought I’d struggle with it. I prepared myself, notecarding scenes and whatnot, but I thought the new format and style would cause me some trouble. There was also the possibility that my brain my seize up and I wouldn’t be able to work the storyline that I had planned out.

In the end, it went well.

I caught onto the new format, found a pretty good rhythm with the story, and really had a blast doing it.

So it bums me out to think that I’m probably not going to be able to particiapte this year. I’ve got a couple of ideas I could sketch out, but I’ve got less than ten days to do that and more pressing business to attend to. I should also focus my April on revising The World (Saving) Series and seeing to my list of short stories. Not to mention the time crunch the day job puts me on would make Script Frenzy a little less fun and a little more work.

But I haven’t ruled it out completely.

I’m a sucker like that.

Stories By The Numbers
Submitted: 3 (“Playing Chicken” joins “Such a Pretty Face” and “Another Deadly Weapon”)
Ready: 4
Accepted/Rejected: 0

Writing–The Reading Requirement

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

Stephen King says that to be a good writer you must read a lot and write a lot.

I believe that.  His book On Writing is like a bible for me. I respect the man. I enjoy his work and his advice (and his sense of humor; I have endured many a dirty look from a cat startled awake by my cackling). Uncle Stevie has yet to steer me wrong. He’s an influence on me as a writer.

Which is why it pains me to say that I’m letting him down.

I will be the first person to admit that I have terrible reading habits. I like to read. I do. I enjoy it. My parents started me young. I learned to read at three and trips to the library were the highlight of the week during the summer (we read in the winter, too, but we got to walk to the library in the summer, therefore bigger deal). But no matter how much I read, I never got a good rhythm established.

I read in bursts. I can read two, three, four books a month for three months and then read nothing by writing magazines for three months. Then I might spend two months reading a book that would normally take me a week. Then I’ll got a month without reading anything deeper than baseball news.

It’s terrible.

I’m horrible with time management and even worse about setting aside time to read.  It’s far too low on my priority list. Growing up, reading was a downtime thing. You did it when you got everything else done. You did it to relax. It’s a mindset I can’t get out of now.

Reading is part of my job as a writer, but I have trouble getting that through my thick skull. I can’t rationalize reading when I have this, that, and the other to get done. So, I put off and the reading gets done in inefficient fashion.

It’s long past time to establish a better habit and to move reading up on the priority list. I’ll do it like I do most things, gradually so I make sure it sticks. The thinking behind this is by doing it slowly and giving myself time to adjust, it also gives myself time to change the way I think about reading.

That’s the key.

Transforming reading from a pastime to a job requirement.

Stories By The Number

Submitted: 2 (“Such a Pretty Face” and “Another Deadly Weapon”)
Ready: 4 (“Husband and Wife”, “Elevator”, “Bigger Than a Squirrel”, and “Erin Go Bragh”)
Accepted: 1! You can now read “Summer Rot” on Suburban Fool!

Writing–Writing With a Day Job 2: The Revenge

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

My initial enthusiasm for the challenge of writing with a day job, essentially working two jobs, lasted all of a few days.  Everything went downhill pretty quickly after that.

In short, February was a disaster.

I didn’t edit one chapter of The World Saving Series. I had a list of short stories that needed work.  After struggling with rewrites on “The Guinea Pig” for a week in order to meet a deadline, I gave up when I finally realized that story just wasn’t going to do what I needed it to do. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t spent the week before that struggling with rewrites on another story that I ended up not rewriting.  Three short stories that I needed to review/revise got pushed into March, therefore really pushing the deadlines on those pieces.

February led me to question whether or not I really was committed to being a writer. With some of the urgency gone now that I have stable income, I was left to wonder if I was just writing for the money and now that I’m getting the money, would I eventually stop writing.

Maybe it’s just me wanting to believe the best in myself (which is pretty unlikely), but I don’t think that’s the case.

After all, I started this crusade in earnest when I was still working at my last job. I wrote for about six months while working part-time in retail with little trouble. The difference was the situation. Then I was working part-time and had only a few short stories that I was writing and revising. Now I’m working full time and I have probably a dozen short stories in the mix and at least three novels in various stages (that haven’t been lost to the two computer crashes that happened a year apart). The motive and goal is still the same: to establish a successful writing career. The situation is the only thing that’s changed.

I think it’s going to take some trial and error to find out what the right work load is now that I’m working full time. I’m also going to have to work smarter. I can’t spend so much time battling one story with no payoff. And I’m going to have to accept that I’m going to be tired sometimes after a long day in the cube and just get my writing done anyway. A little progress is better than no progress and I need all the progress I can get.

But the key is going to be the workload. I can’t keep scheduling my months like I’m not spending forty hours a week doing something else.

I need to meet myself half-way.

Stories By The Numbers

Submitted: 3 (just sent out “Another Deadly Weapon”; “Summer Rot” and “Such a Pretty Face” are still out)
Ready: 4 (“Husband and Wife”, “Elevator”, “Bigger Than a Squirrel”, and now “Erin Go Bragh”)
Rejected: 1 (“Spillway”)