Writing

Challenge Me

~ Shara ~ 15 Comments

I’ve been thinking about writing. A lot. And by thinking, I’m not talking about, “Oh, I think I should go write,” and then I don’t do it and/or feel like I can’t. That’s writer’s block, to a point, and I’m rather well-researched in that (in fact, I taught a class on it). Rather, I’ve been thinking about the act of writing, and what’s going on in my head/life that isn’t giving me the gas I need to actually write. I’ve come up with a lot of interesting conclusions, but those conclusions are for a separate post.

Today I’ve been emailing with a friend of mine who is doing a final read on Telepathic Soulmates* before I lay into the manuscript and polish it into a diamond. We’ve been talking about my work from a more thematic standpoint, and it’s quite an interesting discussion, especially since she’s very familiar with the current as well as previous drafts of Telepathic Soulmates as well as my most recently completed novel Magic Elves. And I can’t tell you why I realized the following, but it was an epiphany of sorts, and I think I know what I need to start a new project.

Because having a wicked cool idea isn’t enough to make me write. Some people write to see how the wicked cool idea plays out. I just play it out in my head. So scratch that for inspiration.

The idea of having my work published and in the hands of readers is also not enough to inspire me. In fact, it does quite the opposite, for reasons I’ll talk about in a future post.

No, what keeps me going, what makes me write and stick to it come hell or high water, kicking and screaming, is a challenge.

Challenge #1: Actually finish writing a book (this applies to the first completed draft of Telepathic Soulmates).
Challenge #2: Rewrite and finish and improve Telepathic Soulmates so I could get my Masters (done, with the student debt to prove it!).
Challenge #3: Write a page-a-day and complete a novel in a calendar year (done! With Magic Elves. It needs a complete rewrite, but it’s done!).

Realizing this, I kind of sat back at work and asked, “What’s next?”

Idea challenges don’t work for me: cool ideas are just that: cool ideas. As I mentioned before, it doesn’t keep me writing.

Publishing goals don’t work either: it also won’t produce a new novel. Rather, said goals (sending manuscript out to agents, etc) are cleaning up old writing, not producing new.

So I’m pondering. Those of you who know me and personally know my work are, admittedly, at a better advantage to know what makes me tick and what might be a solid goal that’ll get me working on a new novel. Because once I meet a goal, I just can’t do it again. The point of a challenge is to find out if you can do it, and once you’ve done it, it’s not a challenge anymore, is it?

But whether or not you know me, I’m open to suggestions. The challenges listed above that resulted in complete novels (and trust me, if you were to see the first draft of Telepathic Soulmates, you’d understand why I count three completed novels under my belt rather than just two. When I rewrite, I eviscerate!) aren’t exactly ground-breaking or super-ambitious, but they were what I needed to write and keep writing.

So share with me: what are the challenges you’re working on in your own fiction? What gets you writing? And what could my next challenge be?

* = a reminder: all titles listed on this blog are code names for the real titles. I explain why here. Because that’s how I roll.

Back in the Saddle

~ Shara ~ 2 Comments

I decided on Friday to unofficially take the weekend off. Short of trying to make sure I kept up with my daily Hellblazer reading, I stayed off the blog, didn’t write, and didn’t walk. And honestly, the weekend was just too busy to consider otherwise. It was the kind of busy that makes you wish you had an extra day, just so you can take a breather and actually get some rest.

This coming weekend looks to be a bit quieter, but the weekend after that looks to be just as crazy, if not worse. I’m tempted to make THAT weekend a three-day weekend, because I know I’ll need the recovery time.

Lots of stuff on the table: neighbor is being quite amicable about repairs from his trampoline, so we’re getting official quotes. The HVAC guy is coming out tomorrow to look at our unit and giving us the official diagnosis, and then we’ll start really deciding what we’ll do there. And at work, some guys were hammering away at that HVAC unit (same brand as the one we have at home, which is a piece of crap), but we won’t know if their fix worked until we turn on the AC, which will likely happen Tuesday.

I can’t believe April is nearly over. It’s gone by so fast.

At any rate, I’ve hit the point of the evening where I don’t care what’s left on my to-do list: I just want to wash up, curl beneath the covers, and relax. I’ve got my daily walk, my daily Hellblazer, and my blog entry in for the day. Maybe I’ll try to squeeze out a page of Space Vampires. Maybe. I’m early in and already my daily feedback has me thinking of new! and improved! ways of telling the tale. That’s the hard part for writers like me: staying the course so I really know what the story’s about, rather than trying to fix things with rewrites as I go along (which always amounts to not moving forward).

We’ll see.

Our Daily What?

~ Shara ~ 2 Comments

Yesterday, I was Skyping with a friend of mine and I was telling her how I have a small list of things I’d like to do and/or am doing daily. They are:

1) Read one issue of Hellblazer.

2) Walk the neighborhood (weather permitting).

3) Write one page in current project (which is Space Vampires).

4) Write a blog entry at Calico in Transition.

So, how’s that working out for me? Continue reading →

Progress Report: 3/10/2013

~ Shara ~ 12 Comments

It’s been a hard week. Work’s been busy and stressful for not just me, but those in my immediate circle, which affects me. Writing was often the last thing on my mind, which is making me wonder if I shouldn’t go back to the page-a-day method that got me through Magic Elves, even if I’m not posting said page daily for my accountability readers. We’ll see. This week has the potential to be thoroughly interesting, but not fun and not conducive to a good head-space for writing.

Project Code Name: Space Vampires
Word Count This Week: 1,512 words
Total Project Word Count: 3,057 words
Status: Chapter One is almost complete. It’s a crappy dump of info, but it’s a necessary dump of info, and I have to remind myself that in the first draft, this is okay. Revision is the time to iron that stuff out and make things subtle. Right now, it’s just important to get the story on the page.

Other Accomplishments: the hubby and I spent Saturday running errands, and we picked up a new toner cartridge for my printer and a few reams of paper. We’re going to attempt to print out Telepathic Soulmates ourselves. Which shouldn’t sound like an impressive endeavor, but we’re going to try to print DOUBLE-SIDED on a printer that only prints SINGLE-SIDED! If that doesn’t work, I’ll take the file to the local print shop, because I really want a hard copy for editing. The tentative plan is to have that sucker out the door and begging for agents by the end of April. We’ll see.

Progress Report: 3/3/2013

~ Shara ~ 8 Comments

So I promised my two readers that I would start some sort of project in March. I decided on Space Vampires. Unlike last year, where I was writing Magic Eaters by the seat of my pants and sending them at least a page daily, I’m going for a more prepared focus. Instead of a page-a-day, I’m going to send them chapters. Ideally, I’d like to do a chapter a week at minimum, so we’ll see how it goes.

Every Sunday, I’ll do my best to post some kind of progress report on whatever writing-related activities I’m doing.

Project: Space Vampires
Word Count: 1,545 words
Completed: started the prologue on Friday, finished on Saturday, but let it sit before sending it out. Was in a hurry on Saturday to write, and thinking things over is a good thing: a minor, technical detail that was alluding me on Saturday became clear, so I was able to iron out a few things before sending it to my readers.

And that’s that! Hopefully, this coming week will have more to talk about, perhaps even on multiple projects!

Beautiful Lie

~ Shara ~ 4 Comments

When I finally finished the very first draft of Telepathic Soulmates in 2007, I was in trouble and lots of it. The sucker needed WORK, and in order to graduate, it required an extensive rewrite. The good thing is, sometimes you don’t really understand how to write a book until you’re already finished with it, so I knew what I needed to do.

One of my biggest weaknesses was (and still is, generally speaking) setting. I had a vague, generic setting for the first draft, and I needed something to fix that. Honestly, I don’t remember if I was leaning towards what I settled on before I saw the below video, but I do know that once I saw this video, I knew my setting couldn’t be anything different.

Continue reading →

You Scratch My Back, I’ll Scratch Yours…

~ Shara ~ 9 Comments

In 2012, I got back on the writing saddle. Independent of one another (they didn’t even KNOW each other), two friends of mine challenged me to write a page-a-day to get back on track. Jen, the first person who approached me, did it out of love: she’s been a fabulous voice in the past when it came to giving me feedback, and she really wanted to see me put my work out there. The page-a-day project was something she’d done the year before, and she knew how beneficial it could be. Alicia, the second friend, was also wanting to get back into the writing saddle, and she wanted a partner in crime. I figured, hey, two people are basically feeding me the same idea, so I should take them up on it. So I did. Magic Elves was the result.

Every night, I uploaded my page (or two) to Google Docs, which allowed both Jen and Alicia to read at their leisure and cheer me on. It was a very informal process: Jen knew that in order to get me back in the saddle, I couldn’t take what I was writing too seriously, so the rule was general support in terms of feedback, to show that they were reading. It morphed into something else over the year, though: they were able to ask questions about what was happening and draw my attention to things I might’ve forgotten about. They also became a sounding board for ideas. It was mightily useful.

Alicia had her own project, so what she did for me, I did for her. Jen, however, was on a different playing field, sending out queries for her YA fantasy World Maker and hoping an agent would bite. Fortunately, one did, and last weekend, I spent my time reading her “getting-it-ready-for-an-editor” draft. I’d only read the first chapter of the project before, and the premise interested me enough that I was curious to see what the book was about (spoiler alert: it’s awesome. It beats the pants of a lot of published YA that came out last year).

Here’s the thing: Jen is one of those people that I’ll read anything for. She’s been a tremendously huge support for me and my writing, and better still, I really love reading her fiction. That she’s not published yet makes me want to cry, so I really, really hope it happens for her.

This sentiment of “I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine,” is what I want to talk about when it comes to critiquing, because believe me, just because someone’s willing to read your work and vise-versa doesn’t mean it’s going to be a pleasant experience on either side. Continue reading →

What’s in a Name?

~ Shara ~ 15 Comments

So before I start really blogging in earnest, I wanted to get some technical things out of the way. While I’ve talked about how my identity will be Calico and nothing but Calico until I decide what to name my bad-ass author self, I need to talk about the names of other things.

Namely, the books I’m working on.

I don’t always have a title when I start on a project. Also, because I don’t know what name I want to publish under, I don’t want to give away the titles willy-nilly, simply because one day, an agent will Google me, discover the title of the manuscript in question on this blog and will start browsing on this blog, and while I have no intention of being grossly inappropriate, still, you know? Also, I know I don’t come up with the most original or ground-breaking titles in the world (seriously, I don’t. I envy writers with poetic titles), I’m paranoid about finally getting something and there being onslaught of other books under the same name.

Also, if I do get published, my editor might veto the original title and make me change it anyway. So there’s that.

However, when I want to talk about my writing and various projects, I need something to refer to them by, right? So here’s the deal:

I’m going to use generic descriptors. The descriptors will be SO generic that you can probably think of a dozen books that my descriptor would also describe. The descriptors might be so generic that it turns you off of the project, but I’ll make you a deal: should said manuscript get picked up and I’m allowed to make the announcement (or if I give up and go self-published), I’ll reveal the real title and the REAL blurb, and I promise, the blurb of the novel will be far more interesting. 🙂

Now that I’ve bored you with all this talk of generic descriptors, would you like to know what I’ll be talking about?

Continue reading →