wantstowrite

Praise and Stuff

I finished The Never Ending Novel about two weeks ago.  I went back and did a major revision and then some additions.  I really like the way it has turned out, but I’m not “shopping” it currently.  Shopping is when you submit it to agents for possible representation.  Once you have representation your agents will begin pitching your manuscript to publishers for publishing.  I make it sound easy, finish a book! Get an agent! Get published! Become the next Stephen King!  It’s not really like that.  There’s the business side of things… Is the agent looking for authors like you? Are publishers looking for books like yours? Is the public reading what you’re writing? It’s all connected.  My NEN is currently very trendy.  But, that means that everyone and their brother is writing what I did.  So, for now, it’ll sit pleasantly on my hard drive and I will do everything I can not to fiddle with it.

In the meantime I’ve started a new manuscript.  It’s something I’m quite excited about since it’s something I know.  As a kid I read a lot of books about teens with cancer or other life threatening illnesses, since I’d been that kid, I related.  I loved but was frustrated with the fact that there was never a girl (or guy for that matter) with one leg.  It was like it was a topic too hard for the authors to handle.  The one time I remember a character almost losing a leg there was a miracle in the book and she got to keep it.  I was so frustrated.  So, after years of frustration, I’m writing my own.  It’s more than a book about a girl losing her leg.  It’s about teenage struggles.  Fining your own way.  And at it’s heart a love story. I am a sap after all.

I got this Email today from my aunt… 

Yesterday before I left from work, I was about to print your book off.  I had to pick the girls up from band practice around 6:45 pm so I started to read the book while I waited on them.  (Which of course made the girls mad that I was reading it first, although, they have a copy in their email which has been downloaded onto the computer.)  I’m half way now and really like it.  I like it better than the one the girls got me to read last week, The Hunger Games.  Just thought I would let you now that we now have a copy.  I’m sure Jessica will want some of her friends to read, but I won’t let until she checks with you. Hope you get it in print! Aunt Brenda
While I don’t think I can ever be compared to Suzanne Collins, it makes me feel pretty darn good.

When I was 13 my mom bought me two second hand typewriters at a flea market. On one the return key didn’t work so I had to manually do it. The other would both stick and run hot. I’d spend hours moving between the two hammering out various story starters. I’m still notorious for starting and never finishing. I loved working at those two old typewriters.

Endings… Sorta

So, I finished my second revision and renamed my WIP.  It’s interesting to me that I struggle with the same parts each time.  It still might not be completely right, but I’ve got it down on paper and it’s closer.  My awesome friend, Megan finished reading the last draft and gave me some great comments that I was able to work into this draft.  It was both nice and terrifying to hear Megan’s comments.  She hasn’t ever read anything (other than my blog posts) of mine and she reads a lot of what I do.  So, when she said she liked it, it meant the world to me.  

  I’ve now sent it off to my friends who I consider my toughest audience.  They include my mom, husband and a few friends who are writers themselves.  One of whom worked in the pub industry for sometime.  I’m only slightly nervous and think about throwing up a few times.  I’m trying to get the manuscript in shape to submit to the RWA (because it is a romance, above all) Golden Heart contest.  It’s not a contest for the faint of heart, but for some reason it doesn’t intimidate me the way that other, less recognized, contests do.  

  I guess I should go back to not throwing up.

Acting/Writing

Way back in the day I was an actor.  

Way back in the day I was a theater teacher.

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the two things and how they mesh with this whole writing thing I do now.  

Acting and writing are weirdly similar.  In each case you are creating characters and breathing life into them.  You have to think about how they would think and react in situations, not how YOU would think and react if you were in the same situation.  Your characters are often larger than life or in extreme circumstances.  Things that would never happen in real life often happen in these fictional worlds. 

When I was teaching theater I was often creating worlds.  It could just be the world of my classroom and the rules that the society should follow (my former students might argue that it was quite dysntopian).  Then, when I was directing a production I had to create entire worlds for the characters my students would be portraying.  

There is also the way you shop your work around.  In acting you audition.  You give the directors a minute or so monologue.  Maybe if you’re lucky you’ll be asked to read something.  In writing you send a query letter (like and audition), if you’re lucky you get to send in a synopsis or some pages (like a cold reading).  If you’re REALLY lucky you might get to send in your manuscript (a call back).

I find the fact that I’m drawn to these particular lifestyles interesting.  VERY interesting.

Done. Again. Sorta?

  In July of 2008 I finished my first draft of my manuscript.  Then went and got myself all pregnant and high risk and stuff.  In July of 2011 I finished the second draft of my manuscript.  I corrected a lot of things that I’d been thinking about for the last three years.  I changed the ending completely.  I created an actual bad guy versus just a figment of one.  I like where it is.

  Another big difference is this time I’m letting people read it.  I let a couple of people read parts of it.  Then, when I didn’t necessarily agree with their feedback I stopped.  In the time since that has happened I’ve grown a thicker skin and also know that it’s feedback, not something I have to change if I really don’t want to.  It’s an opinion, not a mandate.  

  I’m planning on submitting it to a pretty competitive competition if I can get it ready in the late fall.  They don’t give feedback just your ranking.  I mean, it’s a long shot, but why not?  While it’s in submission I’m going to keep working on my contemporary YA and finish the outline to the sequel to the fist manuscript.  

 Of course, when I get feedback from my peers I’m going to take into consideration of what they’ve said and work on it.  I’m going to keep moving this piece forward and not let it stall out.  ’Cause are you really a writer if you don’t write?

Fanfiction

I might tick folks off, but I’m kind of doubtful that anyone I could tick off reads this blog.  

There was a time in my life that I read a lot of fanfiction.  For the uneducated, fanfiction is when a fan expands on an already written piece of work.  There are many categories and my first “fandom” was the General Hospital fandom on the old AOL message boards (that’s right, I’m dating myself).  I even wrote a story.  That’s right, I wrote a REALLY AWFUL piece of fanfiction about Liz and Lucky from General Hospital (she got cancer and Lucky took care of her… ‘cause their teenagers and their parents were TOTALLY okay with it).  I should have realized then that I’d always write YA.  Of course back then I was that demographic.

With all of this said, some of the fanfiction I’ve read in my lifetime has been AMAZING.  Cassie Clare of the Mortal Instruments fame (City of Bones, City of Ashes and City of Glass) wrote Harry Potter when I was in college.  It was because of her that I almost didn’t turn in my senior thesis on time.  I knew then that she was an amazing writer.  When I found out she had a book deal I knew that I’d love her books.  And I do.  

So, it always makes me giggle when I hear of a particularly bad piece of fanfiction is being “edited” and published.  I also don’t always understand why it had a gazillion reviews of how good it is, but that’s another story.  I will say that it makes me feel like my chances of being published are better ;) 

Note to Readers:  I’m mostly joking.  Please don’t send hate mail to me.  I don’t have to time to read it anyway.  I’ve got more bad fanfiction to write/read and a toddler that doesn’t understand why the laptop is out.

  I put the period on a “finished” book the week before I found out I was pregnant.  After that I didn’t even look at it again until about four months ago.  I couldn’t concentrate on anything for any length of time then.  It was almost like my brain could only concentrate on the whole making a baby thing and then making sure said baby didn’t stick her finger in any electrical sockets.  The entire time I wasn’t writing I was thinking about writing.  I was thinking about what I wanted to do with that “finished” story.  

  It was during the Lent season that I decided that I needed to write again.  I needed to not only blog, but write again on my piece of fiction.  I’d missed the characters and I missed writing.  So, on the first day of Lent I sat down in my favorite coffee shop and started writing/ editing.

  Since I’d finished my first ROUGH draft of the story I was really just going through it and making those changes I’d been thinking about for the past two years.  I did have to do some major rewrites and I see more in my future.  I took out entire characters and reduced others to the point that they were barely there.  I changed two of my main characters names.  

  With 20 pages left to edit I’m feeling semi-confident about the story.  I know I have at least one more MAJOR rewrite coming up. I had one today that I’d been delaying and delaying.  When I finally finished it I squealed so loud that I woke Kennedy up from her afternoon nap.  It was so EXCITING for me.  I loved the way it flowed and the twist it added to the story.  I had to pat myself on the back for my own ingenuity.  

  Now, not all of my edits have been this easy or exciting.  Some days I sit at my computer during nap time and just stare at the screen.  I have to battle with myself to stay off of the distracting sites (IE twitter, facebook, blogs) because I have the attention span on a gnat and I’m easily distracted.  I have to remind myself over and over that writing is hard.  Writing is work. If it wasn’t everyone would do it.

New Blog!

  Over the weekend I was having lunch a dear friend who is a journalist.  We haven’t seen each other in YEARS (like, before K was born) and she was asking what I was going to do when Kennedy gets out of school.  I mentioned that I might go back to school to see if i could get my MFA in Creative Writing.

   ”Oh, then you can be a real writer like me.”

  I nearly choked as i said i already was a writer.  Sure I’m not paid yet, but it is what I do. Sure I’d love to be paid to write.  And maybe I will be someday, but just because I’m not yet, doesn’t mean I’m not a writer.