What is this THING you speak of: Ready?If only

So WELCOME friends to the Insecure Writer’s Support Group first Wednesday meeting! You can find out all about IWSG here, and I encourage you to join if you have not already. Tons of great friends, support and resources. Plus the knowledge we are not on this journey alone.

If only it were this easy...

As a format, the group has been throwing out a question each month. October’s question is this:

When do you know your story is ready?

And the truth is, this is the crux of my problem. I have published 6 books and a short story. All published with DEADLINES. Because you see… I will keep tinkering and thinking “just this one more thing” forever unless somebody kicks me in the back side and says TIME!

Now three of my books (and the short) I had external deadlines imposed--an editor waiting for the book and a date it had to be there by. And that worked out pretty well… well the 2nd book was rough, as they edits they asked for were pretty large. But mostly that all worked out. I had to say “good enough” and because they were going to a professional editor, I could trust somebody else would call me out if they were not ready.

The flu trilogy was different. That was me trying to publish serially and because the first part WAS GOOD I dived, but then I didn’t want to leave people hanging too long waiting for the rest… sort of a forced speed of it that only allowed so many iterations.

Yet here I sit with probably 12 completed books, at least 5 of them pretty near ready, and I keep tinkering… I am calling one DONE. Maybe I will start with that.

Now go visit some people who have their act together, because clearly you aren’t going to learn anything useful here… erm…

Why Do I Do This?

So remember how I said I was going to release A Shot in the Light serially? I proceeded to make myself a CALENDAR and some DEADLINES... and I started to research everything I need to do.

Man, this is HUGE!

But I will do it.

My first deadline is TODAY. I need to have the first book first draft READY. And by first draft, this is not really typical... this is the first draft of the BIGGER thing, but the original thing had a first draft last summer. So SOME chapters, this is a first draft... for 7 of 12 chapters, this is NEW (as of the road trip). For 2, I have changed PoV and added some, but taken from the original. And for three, I have just changed from first to third person.

It's invigorating to do.

The overwhelming part was looking into the TOTAL timeline. Because not only do I need to plot MY deadlines, I needed to build in appropriate time for the myriad fantasticos who are helping me. First readers, second readers, and my editor.

So each book has not ONE but SIX deadlines I marked on a calendar, and SOMETIMES, one deadline for one book is the same as a different deadline for a different book... BUT when I broke it into 4 calendars for the different tasks, it isn't quite so much to think about. Everyone but ME really only needs to be on top of their own tasks, after all.

SUSAN KAYE QUINN is a GODDESS

That just needed to be said. Because the OTHER thing I did last week was immerse myself in her very helpful and amazingly organized list of blogs to help self-publishers. Man, she has laid it ALL out there. I am currently in AWE. Though I still feel overwhelmed, I ALSO feel like I have a very good set of guidelines there. Anybody considering self-publishing should GO HERE and you can learn everything you need to know.

I spent MUCH of the day Friday there and I'm only through about half of what I am trying to learn.

Deadline for the Win!!!

Okay, so first... sorry I didn't blog yesterday... I intended to, but I had something BIGGER that had to get done first... maybe I should tell you about it.

You all know how I start BuNoWriMo tomorrow, yeah? (you SHOULD know, hopefully oodles of YOU will join us!)

Well I had my looming Cozy Mystery that I was DETERMINED to finish before that. So I committed to a mad writing weekend...

Now Friday my husband also started a new job. It's been a while since he worked—he's been taking classes for a couple years... but besides that... last time he worked he was a lunch lady. That meant he worked about 4 hour shifts cooking, serving, cleaning... respectable work, but rarely respected... I mean seriously, how many of your kids say... say... I'd really like to be a lunch lady when I grow up...

So the lunch service at the schools privatized in 2007, and they kept him on another year because Chartwells is made up of deceitful bastards... and then they laid off ALL employees who'd worked in the kitchens when the employees were school employees... no offer of, 'look, if you're willing to take a pay cut we can keep you...' just GONE. ALL of them. (see, I told you they were bastards)

So HWMNBMOTI decided he wanted to go to school for some actual training... he's been doing nursing pre-requisites. And as part of it, he took a course (and a state certification test) to be a certified nurses assistant. He finished his pre-reqs earlier in the month, and since the waiting list might be as long as two years, he decided to work USING that CNA. He got a job as a home health aid.

So Friday was his first day... and darned it if he didn't want to TALK about his day... there I was (naked, of course... in the tub... my writing time) trying to write, and he kept coming in and sharing something else... and it was too cute to say 'stop it!' but I think I only got 100-200 words written Friday. [note: HWMNBMOTI is not normally effusive and so honestly, I love it when he wants to talk... but that story isn't as amusing]

So on Saturday I asked my FB crew to double dog dare me to finish by Sunday... I looked at where I was and made a calculation... I figured I had about 4000 words left.

Note: I don't wear hats. My head is big.

Whereby I Prove I am Delusional

I managed to write 2500 words on Saturday... felt pretty good—that is about a thousand past normal in my world. I was pleased... but I could also see I was NOT 1500 from the end. My estimate had been off. So Sunday I got up rearing to write right off the bat... I wrote a little... I went next door and sat by my neighbor's pool and wrote a little more (I have the world's BEST neighbor)... I came home, I wrote some more... I got in the tub and wrote some more.... 4000 words on Sunday... AND I STILL WASN'T FREAKING DONE! *sigh*

BUT, I figured I had also written 2500 words more than I planned, so it wasn't like I'd been slacking. I decided to be a LITTLE gentle and just extend my deadline by a bit (well not a BIT... but... you get what I mean).

And so I DID IT! About one yesterday afternoon I looked and thought... I need a tiny wind down and the press release (done later in the evening), but this BOOK it DONE...

That was book #9!  YAY!]

And Now to the Discussion Portion of this Blog

Is it me, or do I seem to take longer and longer to get to the point? Call me brain fried. No, call me DESERVEDLY Brain Fried...

I seem to be able to push myself so much harder with a deadline looming. This 'has to be done before I start the next thing' FINALLY kicked me into gear. This book has been the slowest write I've had in ages—more than a year, anyway... I think I've only averaged... lets see... I think it took 15 weeks to write 68,000 words. That is less than 650 words a day. NORMAL for me when I am writing is about 1500. [that average goes down quite a lot when you take out the 8000 in the last three days]

Funny, I don't think this book ended up any worse for being so hard to write... We'll see after it has it's sitting time, but it feels okay at the moment. I'm SURE I didn't make the mistake I made last time of having the killer too obvious, as I changed killers about three times in the end.

So any of you have some made deadline drives recently? Do you work better with a deadline? Do anything fun when you meet one? (for instance I cleaned the bathroom and sorted my writing piles *shifty*)

The Beauty of a Deadline

There is something I don't like much about myself, but it is no less true for its annoying nature. I'm more effective when I HAVE TO BE. I think it's human nature, to buck up and come through when we're under the gun, and sadly, I'm not abnormal on this one.

As a college student, I didn't let myself get too behind, I didn't procrastinate, because frankly, I don't read fast enough to do it all last minute. At the time I erred under the misconception that meant I wasn't like all those procrastinators... in reality, I just had a decent read on all that HAD to be done and how much time I needed to do it.

But by my work years, I quickly learned that PACE will adjust to meet demand. It was true in advertising, in waitressing, and it is true in research... if there is a deadline, I can impress people with the speed at which I analyze and write. Absent a deadline, the same project can lead me on so many tangents that it seems NOTHING gets done. [this is one of the reasons I believe so firmly in writing fast, actually]

So somewhere along the line, I started giving myself faux deadlines. And you know what? Even though I KNOW these are only self-instilled, they still work. (or at least work a lot better than NOT having them).

I've tried since the very first time it looked like I really might finish a long writing project to instill these for myself in this domain, too... early on it was two chapters a month, then one a week... then I had my first WriMo experience... and I started looking at the writing world for these 'DEADLINE opportunities'.

There is one COMING you know...

The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest

It happens yearly (this will be the fourth year), and it is a writing contest for any unpublished work (though I think they keep tweaking how they count self-published)... and a writer who had a work... say... WRITTEN... and needed some incentive to CLEAN THE DARNED THING UP... don't you SEE what a perfect opportunity this is?

And so I am madly editing something I haven't touched since I finished writing it (June 28, 2010 if the date on the file is right)... and what I've written is about 90% good stuff... but the ORDER is sort of a mess and there is a LOT missing (at least that is my assessment from the halfway point because you see, not only do I need to EDIT it... I am having to TYPE about a third of it... so it's still a little slow... BUT I WILL GET THERE!!!)... but I have my work cut out for me.

But see, the UPSIDE of this I HAVE TO! If I DON'T I will be HUMILIATED! No truly diagnosed FOMS carrier is allowed to skip such an event so it HAS TO BE READY!


So in the spirit of being the bad influence I aim to be... I want each of you to look at your 'to be edited' pile. Is there something winking at you? A nice DOCUMENT saying 'look at sexy me!' Come on, you know there is... you've GOT TO PLAY!!!

If anyone DECIDES TO and is on Facebook, there is a smallish group (mostly veterans thus far) you can join for discussions, pitch polish, get questions answered... support... It's a nice bunch thus far and I don't have any reason to think that will change.

And if you want to sign up for ABNA itself, just go HERE.

Other Deadlines?

Well... this is one of the reasons I love WriMos... and now I have REAL deadlines...

As for that real deadline... My next is September 30... but I have given myself the FOLLOWING leading up to it:

March 31: 1st draft done
April and May will be devoted to first basic, then my own first rewrite.
June will be peer review
July will be the FEEDBACK rewrite
August will be agent month
September will be revise and polish

See that... half a dozen steps... if any gets behind I know I need to speed another... It is not a bad strategy, I think...