A progress report

I've been home for about a week now, and I'm still not back into the swing of things as far as my writing goes. Vacation always alters my life's "schedule," and even after it's over, I find myself feeling sort of off-kilter. Before we left for our trip, I had been working on my novel during the hours before the kids woke up, but since we got back, I've been using that time to catch up on laundry and all the other household tasks I had neglected to do before we left, and work on my WIP has been put on a back burner. As far as my novel goes, then, I'm giving myself a C for effort--and that's only because I'm grading on a curve! ;) Maybe next week I'll feel less tired and stressed and more inspired. Here's hoping!

I have been managing to keep up with my 100-word exercises, however. I enjoy them. They usually don't take long, which has been a bonus lately, and they allow me to get other thoughts out of my mind in order to make room for reflection about my projects. (Even though I haven't been writing my WIP, I have been thinking about it.) The exercises are also a good way for me to banish some of the doubts I have about myself as a writer. Through them, I let my inner critic speak. When she's done having her say, I feel like I can ignore her for the rest of the day, which helps my creative mind immensely. I generally don't post these 100-word "talks" with my inner critic, but maybe someday I'll share some of them here.

Enough about me: I feel like I'm so behind on all of your projects. How are they going? How would you grade your progress?

My ongoing battle with time

One of the things I'm still struggling with as a writer is finding the time to work on my bigger projects. As a mom, I realize that the moments I can carve out among cooking and cleaning and playing with the kids are precious, yet at the same time, I have difficulty utilizing those ten- or twenty-minute writing sessions effectively. Although they're perfect for writing things like blog posts and drabbles and my 100-word exercises, when I attempt work on anything larger, like my novel, I find that I can't concentrate, and before I'm even able to begin, the moment is gone and something else calls me away from the computer.

Getting up a couple of hours before the kids do used to ensure productive writing time, but I'm finding now that I'm often too exhausted to write, as I generally get only four or five hours of sleep a night. Going to bed earlier might solve that problem--and that's something I'm working on--but I have trouble unwinding after a long day with the kids and find that one of the only things that relaxes me is reading. Unfortunately, I just don't know when to quit, and I often stay up until one or two in the morning, going to sleep only when I can't keep my eyes open one second longer. These marathon reading sessions are creating a new problem: I often oversleep, something I wrote about in my 100-words entry this morning:

I overslept this morning, which has been happening more and more frequently lately. I had one of those heart-stopping moments where something woke me up (thankfully), and I sat up quickly, pulse racing as I realized that the clock said 7 a.m. and not the 6 a.m. it needed to say. My daughter's two-year checkup was scheduled for 9:30, which made my getting up late all the more difficult to deal with. Before I had kids, I never imagined how hard it would be to leave the house on time.

Now I know.

Anyway, regarding my larger writing projects, I'm at a loss. I don't believe it's an issue of finding time as much as it's an issue of learning to use the time I have more effectively. I'd be interested in hearing how you utilize the small bits of time you carve out during the day. How do you make the best use of those precious few moments?

Novel update

Tonight I only have time for a quick update on my WIP. My husband worked all weekend, leaving me with the kids, and as anyone who's a stay-at-home or single parent can attest, being with the kids all week long and then having no help on the weekend makes for two long, very tiring days. I think I'll actually have to do something unprecedented tonight: go to bed early.

Anyway, I'm still in the planning stages of my novel, but the work is going well. Right now I'm doing research and outlining the story's major events, after which I'll go back and fill in some of the individual scenes. I wasn't sure in the beginning if I was going to outline this story or not, but I'm glad I decided to take the time to do so. I feel more confident knowing where the story needs to go. However, I also know that I need to leave room for my talkative protagonist to tell me as I'm writing if he intends to take another path.

He's crafty that way!

Mining the past

Now that I'm working on a young adult novel, I've found myself thinking about high school and trying to remember what it was like to be a teenager all those years ago. Grades were important to me then, as was band (I was definitely a bank geek!), but boys made my "Things That Matter to Me" list as well. I dated one guy, Greg, during my last two years of high school and while I was studying for my undergraduate degree, and it was a relationship that we both thought would last forever. We talked marriage and kids... I shake my head when I think of that now. We were so young and knew so little about life and love and what "forever" really meant. Still, the memories I have of the relationship are mainly good ones, and unearthing those experiences has been both fun and useful for my writing.

Greg inspired this 100-words exercise I wrote last February:

I've thought about my high school boyfriend occasionally throughout the years, and sometimes I wonder what life would have been like if we had stayed together. We dated for six years--two years of high school and four of college--and I was the one to end the relationship. I was restless, fearful of becoming so comfortable with life that I would miss out on whatever it was that could be ahead for me. I've always felt bad about the way I ended things. He's a good person, and I hear he's doing well. I'm happy for him.

Do you ever think about your high school relationships? What about that girl you thought was out of your league or that guy you'd had a crush on for years but were afraid to ask out?  There's such a rich mine of writing material to be found in our pasts! How do you use your memories to add realism to your writing?

Embracing the moments

I wake up each morning with the best of intentions. I'll work on my novel before the kids get up, I'll say to myself. And I'll clean the kitchen and sweep the downstairs rooms and call my sister, too. But these are just lies, apparently, because I undoubtedly finish only one or two tasks, sometimes ones that aren't even on my "Good Intentions" list. Today, however, my goal is to forget everything but writing. Dirty dishes and laundry be damned. This morning, I'm going to do what I love to do: I'm going to write.

I wrote this exercise early this morning, and I'm happy to say that I did write, although I had a hard time ignoring the dirty dishes waiting for me in the sink. (Lucky for me, they were still there when I finished writing...) I didn't do much work on my WIP for the rest of the day, however, as I instead ended up doing bits and pieces of other things around the house, accomplishing a lot but nothing that would really be noticeable to anyone else (i.e. my husband). But this morning's writing session was peaceful and productive, and I hope to make early-morning work on my novel more of a habit on the days when the kids sleep in and the laundry pile graciously declines to beckon to me.

Dana the Spy

“The great advantage of being a writer is that you can spy on people." -Graham Greene, English novelist

I'm a writer; I'm a spy. I listen in on conversations, even those I'm not a part of, and I write down the things that you've said. I watch as you tap your wedding ring on the dining table, run your finger around the rim of your wineglass, ogle the woman with Sarah Jessica Parker hair sitting across the room. Everything you do, everything you say, every gesture you make--I capture them all. Thanks for the inspiration.

**********

I wrote the paragraph above during one of my morning writing sessions a couple of months ago, and I often think about it. I love the idea of being a spy. As a child, two of my favorite books were Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spy and The Long Secret. Harriet knew everything, and I wanted to be her. I would lurk around corners, hide in closets, listen to conversations with my ear to the wall... And I would write down what I heard and saw: tidbits of information, flashes of dialogue, descriptions of the colorful personalities I came across each day. These real-life details helped me in my early attempts at writing; they brought life to my stories.

As I grew older, I continued to spy on people, although I was no longer a lurker. Instead I spied out in the open, usually at restaurants or while waiting in lines. When I first moved to New York a few years ago, my then-boyfriend and I went out to dinner, and I think he was a little annoyed with me because I continually shushed him so that I could hear (and write down) the conversations around me. I remember remarking that our waiter looked just like my main character's best friend, and then I took out my purse-size notebook so I could record all the details.

I still spy today.

I love being a writer, and I think to be a writer, you do need to spy. You need to pay attention to the people and places around you and use what you learn to help make your characters real: three-dimensional rather than flat and one-dimensional. The details count, and what better place to find them than in "real" life?

April showers bring new writing goals

At the beginning of January, like most writers, I established some writing goals for the year. I took a look at those goals today and am happy to be able to say that I'm doing well with most of them, like blogging every day and contributing daily to two other writing sites.

The only writing goal that I seem to be having trouble with is my current novel. Now, traditionallyI feel that I'm better at writing short pieces: character sketches, flash fiction, etc. I have written novels before, so I don't think I'm freezing because the story is longer than what I do most often. Still, I'm not entirely sure why my current project is going so slowly. Maybe I'm too close to the idea, and fear is keeping me from working on the book as diligently as I should. Or maybe it's that self-doubt that I wrote about in yesterday's post. Whatever it is, it has succeeded in frustrating me and keeping me from telling the story I want to tell.

Well, I'm through with that.

My goal for April is to shake off whatever it is that is keeping me from working on my novel. I'm going to put much more focus on that piece, devoting more of my time--especially my more productive morning writing hours (something I mentioned in a previous post)--to getting a good start on my first draft. I will tell the story.

I have to.

I'll continue writing the other pieces I love, and I'll continue blogging. But my focus, my heart for April, needs to be on my WIP.

And it will be.

That's my goal.

Wherein I complain a bit, then make a plan

I write every day. In fact, I've done more writing thus far this year than I did all of last year and many of the years before. My problem? I don't feel like I'm getting much done.

Early morning is probably my best time of day to write. I love how quiet the house is after my husband leaves for work and my kids are still asleep. (I'm blessed with two late sleepers. They normally don't get up until 10 or 10:30.) I use my mornings for journaling and 100-word pieces of fiction. I consider these writings my daily warm-up. I love them because they help me to empty my mind of everything that is not my current WIP while still giving attention to those pesky plot bunnies that crowd my mind and scream for attention. Later in the afternoon, during my daughter's nap, I write some short pieces for another site and try to work on my daily blog posts. However, my concern is that every day I feel as though I'm cheating my novel-length project, which I usually get to late at night, after the kids are in bed, the house is relatively quiet once again--and I'm exhausted.

I know that no writing is wasted, but there are days when I ask myself why I bother with the early morning pieces and the other little bits of writing I do. My novel is my big project, yet I don't give it the attention it needs. There are days when I find its word count daunting, and some nights when I sit down to work on it, I feel like it's an impossible task. However, I want to write it; I love the idea, and the story is important to me. Something has to give, somewhere amid all the things I have to do and want to do during the day.

I need a plan.

I think that getting up just a few minutes earlier--even just fifteen minutes--will give me more time to work on my big project in the morning while still taking care of the small ones. Doing so will mean getting to bed earlier than my usual 1 a.m., however, and that may be a bigger problem. But more importantly, I think I really need to start treating my novel not as a novel but as a series of short pieces. Writing short seems to be my forte; I think I'm less intimidated by the smaller writings; the larger ones often loom in my mind like huge obstacles that seem too difficult to overcome.

It's time for me to change my thinking and my way of seeing my work. Today.

It's all about perspective

Often when I write, all I can see are what I perceive as flaws. I'll think that the writing doesn't flow as it should, that my dialogue sounds stilted, that my characters are two-dimensional, and, perhaps worst of all, that my idea just isn't any good--that it's boring, redundant, or unbelievable. I don't even know for sure how many stories I've started and then abandoned because my inner critic told me that my writing was just no good.

Recently, however, I was going through some boxes and unearthed a hard copy of a novel that I had started about a year ago. It was yet another in that long line of stories that my inner critic convinced me were going nowhere. I admit that I began reading it with trepidation: I wasn't sure I wanted to know just how bad it was. I read the first paragraph. To my surprise, it wasn't bad at all. In fact, I found it engaging, and aside from some sentences that I would probably structure differently had I written them now, overall, I found the story idea to be sound and--dare I say it?--interesting. Setting the story aside for all that time had give me the perspective I needed to see that, although some revisions need to be made, the idea itself is sound. Perhaps more importantly, I learned that my inner critic, while sometimes helpful, is not always right.

These may seem like simple lessons, and perhaps they are. However, every writer knows that her inner critic is powerful, and making a discovery like this one returns to the writer what she thought she had lost: her confidence.

Welcoming the unexpected

I find that the best story ideas are the ones that sneak up on me, often when I find myself unprepared and suddenly scrambling for paper and a pen. One of those wonderful ideas hit me today, and I spent some time writing notes and talking to that lovely character who had chosen that particular moment to make herself known. Did she give me a short story? A novel? I'm not sure yet, but I do know that the story has ignited a passion in me that the story I had been working on didn't. I'm excited again--about an idea, about writing, about sitting down at the computer and opening a document file. I think the difference between this new idea and my current WIP is that my WIP feels forced--I'm having to work really hard to brainstorm and outline; the ideas and words haven't come easily. My new project feels more organic. The idea flows. I'm excited to start working on it. 

Forty Days, Forty Boxes Update: Today's box (and many, many boxes in my future) was filled with books, mainly old textbooks I either used when I was teaching or had received as review copies from publishers. I decided to get rid of all but my favorite one or two. After all, I'm no longer teaching, and even if I do teach again one day, I'll need new books, of course. Two boxes down, thirty-eight to go...

Procrastinating my life

Procrastinating. Spinning my wheels. Standing in one place while the world passes me by. Whatever words I use to describe it, I feel ... stagnant. I feel as if I'm not doing enough to realize any of my goals and dreams. I'm finding too many reasons to quit, too many reasons to say that I can put whatever it is off until tomorrow. But what if there's no tomorrow?

I'm procrastinating about many things right now. First, my WIP. I haven't done much more than think about it these past couple of months. But last night as I was getting ready for bed, I asked myself, "Dana, what are you doing? You want to write this novel; you want to tell this story. Why aren't you doing it? What's stopping you? If you want to tell the story, you need to tell it. Stop merely thinking about it. Stop dreaming about it. Just do it. Just write."

For the first time, I really listened to what I was thinking; I finally heard myself. I can't keep thinking about this book; I need to write it. I still don't know what's holding me back on this project, but I realize that now is the time to write. Now. I can't listen to that critic in my head, the one who tells me that my idea isn't good enough. I just need to write--now. What if I don't have tomorrow?

This line of thinking extended into a couple of other things that have been bothering me. First, spirituality. I don't feel close to God anymore, not like I used to, and I feel such a need to "fix" that. I tell myself nearly every day, "Oh, I'll get back into Bible reading tomorrow" or "I'll start studying scripture again just as soon as my life gets a little less crazy." But I never do--I don't read; I don't study. I know I need to. Part of the reason I feel so aimless so much of the time--so directionless--is because I let the guilt I feel about how I live my life prevent me from nurturing my spiritual life. I miss that part of my life.

And then there's my weight. I'm not heavy--not even close. However, I do have a few extra pounds now after giving birth to two babies. I want to lose the weight, but the fact is, I'm lazy. I hate the treadmill, hate any form of exercise. And I love chocolate way too much--it's become an addiction. I feel like I have to have it or I can't get through the day--and that would be funny if it weren't the absolute truth: I can't cope with stress without chocolate. And I feel lethargic, out of shape. I need to change; I need to get healthy again. I need to stop saying that I'll do it tomorrow and start taking care of myself today.

I'm procrastinating my life. I keep putting things off for the future without knowing for certain that the future is there for me. I'm being stupid. I'm wasting time. I have to stop.

Now is the time to reach for my goals. Tomorrow may be too late.

The pressure to create

I've been thinking today about the pressure I'm putting on myself as I try to write my new novel. I don't like to say I have writer's block; I'm not sure I even believe in that term. I write every day, fiction and nonfiction, and for the most part the words come easily. But every time I start to think about my current WIP, something in me freezes, and I can't let myself go--my words and thoughts are tangled, and nothing I write seems, well, right. I don't feel the freedom that writing usually gives me; I don't feel like I can let my words just dance across the page. Instead, writing each sentence--each word--is agonizingly difficult. The pressure is on--and I'm the one causing it.

I wrote today, as I always write, but I wrote nothing on my novel, and each time I started to think about it, I would shove the thoughts away. I don't know why I'm doing this, why writing is suddenly tortuous rather than freeing. Maybe I'm just putting too much pressure on myself. Maybe it's not time for this WIP yet. Maybe I need to set it aside for a month or for six months. Maybe I need to allow some time to pass so that I can gain perspective on just what it is I'm trying to accomplish with this mother's story.

I'm frustrated. I have so much to say, but I can't find the words.

The enemy of all writers

Procrastination.

And I'm finding it an all-too-familiar enemy with my current WIP. Maybe I'm too close to my subject. Maybe I'm spending too much time on other things when I should be focusing on my writing instead. Maybe I'm just allowing my busyness to be an excuse.

Whatever it is--a slump, a block, or something else--I haven't been working on my novel nearly as much as I should. It's time for me to get back to my online writer's group, join in on the timed sprints, and make writing this novel the priority it needs to be.

Is it weird that I want to pat myself on the back?

I am horrible about throwing things away, especially if they have sentimental value. As a result, the four of us live in a very cluttered house. I've tried many times to declutter, but I get overwhelmed by the number of boxes and piles of stuff we have, and trying to decide what to keep and what to get rid of is difficult for me. However, today I want to pat myself on the back because, although I've only been a Flybaby for four days, I've slowly been making a dent in my clutter, and I finally feel hopeful about getting this house in order. Every week we clean one zone--this week is the kitchen--and I find it so comforting to know that as I scrub my counters or clean out my refrigerator, people all over are doing the same thing. As silly as it probably sounds, I don't feel so alone anymore, and that in itself helps so much.

In addition to making headway on the cleaning, last night I made some progress with my novel. Yesterday was what Flylady calls Anti-Procrastination Day, and she advises everyone to do whatever it is that he or she has been putting off. For me, it was my novel, although I haven't been putting it off so much as I've been putting it last each day. Yesterday I actually gave it priority, and I logged into my favorite writing chat room and got some words down, so I'm really happy about that.

I'm feeling pretty good right now on the progress I've made on the house and on my writing, and I'm hoping I can keep up my enthusiasm and momentum.

Red pen, don't fail me now

I'm about halfway through the second pass of my sister-in-law's novel, and I'm hoping to have it done and e-mailed back to her by the end of the week. Then I'll finally have time to get back to my own novel. I love editing--Developmental English was my favorite class to teach--but I love writing too, and sometimes (as I've blathered on about before) there just aren't enough hours in the day to do both.

Keep the ball rolling

I haven't had time to work on my WIP for several days. With the hours of editing I'm doing for my sister-in-law, I haven't even had time to think about my own novel, and I'm concerned that if I don't find time for it soon, I'll start to lose momentum. This all goes back to my previous lament that, no matter how early I get up or how late I go to bed, I just can't do everything that needs to be done in a day. It's such a hard beam to balance, this line between what has to be done and what I want to do. I feel like I'm spending my life trying to juggle everything, and most days I drop the pins.

Back in the Dark Ages

Before I had children, I was a college English and journalism instructor. I left that job when my then-husband and I moved to another state. A couple of years later, after my divorce, I moved to yet another state and started working from home as a freelance editor. I enjoy editing, but unfortunately, after my second child was born, I no longer had the time to take on as much work. I miss it.

Recently, however, my sister-in-law asked me to take a look at a novel she's written, and I feel like I'm finally back in my element, the world of language and words, punctuation and grammar. I'm looking forward to hanging out my shingle again years from now when the kids are in school.

Whip that WIP!

I had a breakthrough on my current novel last night. I managed to get over the bit of a block I'd been having and outline most of the major plot points. I'm excited about the direction the story is taking; it's a book I would want to read, and that makes me happy. I still have a long way to go, but I'm getting there, and last night's success has renewed my confidence and given me the encouragement I need to continue working on this project.

Still plotting away...

I'm still working on my novel. I'm trying to do this one a bit differently in that I'm creating an extensive outline before I begin to write. So far, the work has been going pretty slowly. I'm finding that it's hard for me to come up with the level of detail I think an outline of this type should contain. I'm not normally by any means a pantser; I can't just sit down with a vague idea and turn it into a cohesive novel with little or no planning first. I'm a plotter; I need to have a plan. I like to know where my main character is going and how she's going to get there. I like to understand the relationships between the characters and how those relationships will affect the storytelling. My usual method of planning is to write notes about each of the main plot points, scraps of dialogue, scene ideas--that sort of thing. Then I take all of these haphazardly written notes and try to create a story out of them. It's not a perfect method, but for the most part, it's worked for me in the past.

For the last several months, though, I've been taking an online novel writing course, and the instructor advocates detailed outlines as a way of avoiding the stubborn plot holes and snags that sometimes occur when the writer hasn't considered his novel idea as carefully as he should have. What I'm learning, though, is that I get stifled by being "forced" to come up with too many details before I've begun the actual work of writing. Normally, as I'm writing a novel, I get into a zone, and the words just flow; scenes I hadn't even known were needed suddenly appear on my screen. I start with my idea and my rudimentary plan, and then words and ideas just seem to evolve. It's really a magical experience. I'm finding it harder to let my imagination take over within the confines of a detailed outline, however. I think I'll try working out a few more scenes as the instructor asked, but if I find that doing so is continuing to stifle my creativity, I'll go back to my own tried-and-true style.

Do they all plot against me?

I'm having one of those go, go, go days where I work and work and seem to get nothing done. I'd planned on writing today. I need to make some headway on my novel outline, but so far, I haven't been able to do much more than think about it. We had church, followed by a pancake breakfast. Then I had to work on getting the butter stains out of my daughter's outfit, definitely a task I hadn't planned on doing today--or ever, really. I tried writing after that, but it just seemed like one thing or another kept taking me away from the computer: my baby's cry, my son's plea for more milk, my own tiredness (I really need to start getting more than four or five hours of sleep a night)...

My daughter is napping now, though, and my son is playing quietly. I've had my afternoon coffee and am feeling slightly more alert. I'm posting this blog entry in the few minutes I have before dinner. It's something, and I feel better now that I've gotten some words down today. When I don't write, I feel incomplete; I need to write. I'm hoping that I can do more after dinner. Fingers crossed.

**I wrote this almost three hours before I was finally able to post it. That just shows the kind of day it's been. And even though dinner was over two hours ago, I still haven't gotten to the novel...