Making 'The Decision'

To write or not to write, that is The Decision.  Whether it is nobler to suffer the vagaries of banging away at the keys or to make it, and all the stuff that comes with it, stop

This morning a writer friend of mine made the announcement that she's taking a hiatus from writing.  It's totally understandable, but it gives me a sad.  

I'm sad because it means more of her books won't be dropping onto my Kindle any time soon.  But I'm also sad because I know how hard it was for her to make this decision.  Lord knows, I feel like I'm never too far from facing the decision myself.

And I don't even have the health problems she's faced over the past few years.  Sure, it's harder physically to sit here and write for long stretches.  The wrists, doncha know.  And the hips.  And the eyes aren't what they used to be.  I'm getting older and the body has been through some trials in the past 51 years.  

For me, it's mainly the heart that keeps me wondering whether I should just chuck it all and take up throwing tires at the warehouse down the highway.  Not heart as in the thumping, pumping muscle.  That sucker is fine. No. HEART as in the will, the gumption, the driving force.  As in, some days I just don't have the heart.

Of course, it's also the other part of the brain that thinks all of these words suck.  Yeah, I know you don't think they suck.  You can't convince that pissy part of my brain it's wrong.  I've tried.  It's a futile battle.

Right now, I know of two other friends who stopped writing altogether.  (You know who you are.)  I had another acquaintance who stopped writing her own books and went ghost writer, so I'll never again know what books she's written.  Who knows how many others simply disappeared from the blog roll and the shelves?

Many of us make the decision during the whole 'finding an agent' phase.  It's hard to keep going when all you're doing is reading rejection letters.  Man, don't I know it.  If you make it through that intact, then you've got the 'sales suck' phase.  Also known as the 'why the hell am I doing this' phase.

I spend a lot of time in that last phase.  'Sales suck' morphs into 'everything I write sucks' which inevitably leads to 'I suck'.  Ever seen an ant lion trap?  The ant lion is a bug that makes a sort of funnel in soft sand or dirt and sits at the bottom of it under the surface.  When a bug wanders into the funnel, it starts to slide downward toward the waiting predator.  If it tries to get out, the ant lion spits more loose dirt at it until it ends up at the bottom and in the crushing mandibles of the ant lion.  The writing life is sort of like that.  For me, anyway.

Honestly, there's no shame in making The Decision.  At least there shouldn't be.  But there is.  Oh, I don't think other people cast shame on these writers.  I think the shame is all internal.  Each person who's made The Decision probably feels like they've given up.  They've let their dreams down.  They've let the pissy part win.  

Some days, it's the only thing that keeps me going.  Fear of the shame.  :shrug:  I won't let this bastard win.  Dammit.  

Most days I try not to think about it.  Soldier on and all that, doncha know.  

If you need to stop, stop.  Take a break.  Take a hiatus.  Regroup and re-evaluate.  Down the road a piece, you might be ready to forge in again.  Or you may find it freeing and never come back to this masochistic way of life.  But you may also rediscover your love of writing and jot little stories for yourself again, like you did when you were younger and full of hope.  No one can know what the future holds.

For me, I'm still at it.  I may take little unannounced hiatuses here and there, but not for too awfully long.  I'm not ready to make The Decision yet.  

Friendly Ass Kicking

Okay, so Silver James yelled at me yesterday because I was whining about not writing (see Sunday Update and comments from The Writing Spectacle).  I thought about the book and how to get past where I was so I could move forward again.  Last night, I ended up with 1644 new words.  And I finished on a shocker I hadn't seen coming.  So... Thank you, Silver, for verbally kicking my ass.  I needed that.  

I also set up a sale for the genie books.  The first book is free from the 23rd to the 27th.  The others are all 99c for the same days.  Merry Christmas.

Anyway, as you can plainly see, sometimes I need my ass kicked.  Usually I kick my own ass.   This time, someone kicked it for me because I was, at that point, unable to.  That what friends are for.  

Maybe I need to do some friendly ass-kicking, too.  I have a couple of writer friends who aren't writing right now.  Both of them are awesome writers.  I've loved everything I've read from either of them.  I'd love to see more.  So...  If they're reading this, and I suspect they are, here's a message to them both:  Get your asses in gear and write me some more stories, dammit.  Don't make me thrash you soundly.  Your mothers were hamsters and your fathers smelt of elderberries*.  Write or I shall taunt you a second time.  

Not sure if that was sufficient to get either of them going again.  Maybe I'll sic Silver on both of them.  She's better at it than me.  

*If you haven't seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail, you really need to rent a copy**.  It's hilarious.

** do people even do that anymore?  Rent movies?  

Shut the Voices Up and Write the Damn Book

I'm writing again.  Three days in a row now.  I'm not burning up the keyboard or anything, but it's progress.  And I had a major plot point jump into my head yesterday, so I'm feeling pretty good about what lies ahead.

As you all know, it's been a rough year writing-wise.  And it seemed like the longer I went without writing, the less I felt like I could write.  Sunday broke that all apart.  Here's what I did...

I told myself to stop listening to the negative voices.  And there were a lot of them.

- the reviewer who thought Jo was too whiny in In Deep Wish... can't have whiny... is Jeni too whiny?  SHUT UP
- the reviewer who hated all the characters in Accidental Death... can't have people hating my characters... is Jeni too hateable?  SHUT UP
- the editor* telling me I have too much backstory in the beginning and a character did this in chapter one but did something the opposite in chapter two... gotta have continuity... SHUT UP
- the editor telling me I am using too many thats or justs or evens.  SHUT UP
- the marketing whiz whispering to me Sleeping Ugly isn't selling so why am I writing a third book?  SHUT UP
- the agents rejecting me for whatever reasons... (yes, it goes back that far).  SHUT UP
- the little voice reminding me that I haven't finished editing Ugly and the Beast, so what the hell am I doing writing the next book?  I have to finish editing before I start new words.  SHUT UP
- the accountant shouting that I don't have the money to publish anything right now.  SHUT UP

Once I got them all to shut the hell up, I went through what I had already written on CU and then started writing where I left off.

Is it any good?  Who the hell cares?  If the beginning sucks, I'll rewrite it.  LATER.  Right now, I'm writing new words.  Editing is for later.  Is Jeni whiny?  Hell, yeah, but who cares?  Will people hate her?  Probably, but who cares?

All those voices are doing is stopping me from doing my job.  My job is writing.  I get weird when I don't write.  (Well, weirder.)  So, I need to stop worrying about every little freakin' thing and write the damn book.  Any worries that might actually be legitimate can be dealt with after I finish the damn book.

So, that's where I am right now.  Writing the damn book.  I'm at 6500 words.  Like I said, not burning up the keyboard, but it's progress and I haven't really made any progress in months.

*No offense to my editor, but I do not need her in my head when I'm writing a first draft.

Angsting and a Snippet

Sitting here trying to think of what to post this morning.  Generally, when there's nothing on my radar to talk about, I turn to posting snippets.  And I'd really like to post a snippet of Evil Space Bunnies, but it's horribly raw.  Not raw as in rated-R, but raw as in way undercooked.  Like one of my usual Thanksgiving turkeys - pink in the middle*.  A Salmonella Express Production.  Which would be seriously disappointing.

And then I got to thinking how I didn't want to disappoint anyone by posting a snippet and then not being able to actually publish this book for some reason.

And Voila! a post subject presented itself. 

I don't know how many times I've stopped myself from doing something out of the fear of disappointment.  Disappointing myself.  Disappointing others. 

What if I can't finish this?  What if I do finish it, but it's not as awesome as I thought it was going to be?  Either way, someone is going to be disappointed. 

Here I sit, telling people about this book and I'm not even sure I can put my money where my mouth is.  (And wondering why I told people about this book at all, but I was just so excited to be writing again, I couldn't help myself.)

What I have to do is get over myself.  And get over this fear.  The only way to never disappoint anyone is to never do anything.  Never try anything.  Sit in a chair, watching TV, and slowly atrophying.  Sounds like a blast.  Not.

So, to combat that, here's a snippet of the undercooked, 'way too first drafty' Evil Space Bunnies:

A cute and fluffy bunny hopped across the meadow toward me.  His shiny button eyes twinkled and his tiny velvet nose wrinkled.  Next thing I knew, the little bastard whipped out some kind of ray gun and shot me in the ankle. 

That’s the last donation the ASPCA gets from me, I thought.

Looking back, that’s how this whole thing got started.  One minute I’m enjoying a beautiful summer day; the next, I’m running for my life.  It was as if the whole species  of lagomorphs suddenly decided they’d had enough of being darling, and decided it was high time they took over the job of King of the Forest.

It wasn’t until much later I found out about the space ship.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  My name is Ronald.  Ronald Aardboer.  I own a small vegetable farm in the middle of Indiana.  I raise lettuce, carrots, cabbage… Anything you might get the urge to toss together and drown in the dressing of your choice.  People around town call my place Salad Acres.  Funny.  I didn’t think a thing about it, but I guess my place was the obvious starting point for the invasion.

Like I was saying.  The damn thing hopped out across the meadow… You know the one.  Just past the lettuce beds and before you get to the pond.  And before I knew what was happening, the damn thing shot me in the ankle.  Hurt like hell, but it was such a tiny gun it really didn’t damage anything.  So I turned tail and ran like the dickens back toward the barn.  I keep my 12-gauge in there for scaring off critters.  I grabbed the thing, and ran back toward where that rabbit had been.  Sure enough, there he was, and he was laughing at me.  Well, I cocked the rifle and blew his itty bitty head clear off.

I probably shouldn’t have done that, thinking about it now.  ‘Cause it really pissed off the hundred or so of the little bugger’s buddies.  They came flying out of the woods and out of the long grass, screaming to beat the band, and each of ‘em had a little ray gun.

This may or may not be a whole book at some point down the road.  So don't get your hopes up.  Let's just bask in the happy of my actually writing again.  K?


*Which is why I don't do Thanksgiving turkeys.  Or any whole turkey.  Every turkey, every time - pink in the middle.  Years ago, Hubs took over turkey duty.  Probably to save himself from potential food poisoning.  Give me any other meat and I am awesome.  Put a turkey in front of me, and I lose my ability to cook.  :shrug:

Getting Back Into the Swing of Writing

Obviously, the best way to get back into the swing of writing is to never get out of it in the first place.  But if you're like me, life intervenes, editing must be done, things are getting published, marketing beckons... and the writing of new words get shunted off to the side. 

I haven't written new words for any length of time in months.  Last year, I kept saying I would write and then didn't.  I couldn't get the gumption up.  And the longer I went without writing, the harder it got.  I went from being able to sit down and bang out a couple thousand words to being lucky if I could put together a freakin' paragraph. 

So, how does one get back into the swing of things when the swing has stopped and you've lost your inertia?

Got me by the ass.

I think maybe I'm going to try baby pushes.  Push a little, back and forth back and forth, until the inertia builds again and I can really get swinging. 

I'm also going to try and spent more time thinking about writing.  When everything's quiet and my brain is left to it's own devices, I'm going to try and shift my thinking to writing.  What happens next in the story?  What about the idea for X?  How do you see that progressing?  What new and interesting things can you throw at your MC?  And I'll be writing these thoughts down whenever possible.  Get the juices flowing, even if they aren't flowing in the direction I thought I wanted them to go.  :shrug:

I've gotta do something.  I can't just sit here letting dust gather on my writing career.

Torn

It's that time again in editing when I'm torn between loving the hell out of this book and wanting to print it all off just so I can send it through the shredder.

"Man, this is awesome."

"Gah, this book is total drek.  Why did I ever think I could write?"

So, what am I doing about it? 

Motoring along.  I know it's not total drek.  I also know it's not totally awesome.  Not yet.  And the only way to get it there is to keep working on these edits.  Once I get them done, it will be closer to awesome.  Then my AWE will mark it up again and send it back so I can get it as close to awesome as I can get it. 

Which, at the rate I'm going, will not be this month.  Sorry about that.  I'm still shooting for 'before the end of the year', though.  I think I can hit that.  Just in time for Christmas?  Give the readers a prezzie. Or something.

Such is the life of a self-pub writer.  On the bright side, it won't be a year from finished to pubbed.

Also on the bright side, amidst the pink spurts of edit suggestions my AWE is leaving loads of "LOVE IT!" notes as well.  So I got that going for me.

And on a happy, ego-stroking note, my one face-to-face fan was super excited to get a copy of Sleeping Ugly and told me she needs to reread Project Hermes again because she loved it so much.  Sometimes I stop in to see her just to get a much-needed boost.  (Under the guise of needing feed for the deer.  "No, no, Hubs, it's no trouble to pick up feed today.  Happy to do it.")

Anyway, the torn part will pass.  It happens every book.  As Unequal gets closer to publication-ready, my mood will shift and I'll stop wanting to trash the whole thing.  So, I'll keep moving forward.

Editing Block

Editing is hard.  I know that.  After all these years and twelve books out the door, how could I not?  But this manuscript is kicking my ass.

I'm not sure why editing is so hard this time around.  Usually I can look at the edits and the changes pop into my head, bing bang boom.  Now?  I look at the suggested edits and my brain just blanks out.  Which is making me totally not want to sit here struggling for more than a 15-20 minutes at a time.  And 15-20 minutes means like one paragraph.  Blerg.

Between Friday and Saturday, I got page one done.  Sure, the first page is the most important page, but come on.

Yesterday, I bribed myself.  Edit until I wanted to bash my head on the desk and then I was allowed to play one round of my online word game.  Then back to editing.  Do that until I couldn't stand either one, walk away and come back later.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  Off and on, all day. 

And at the end of the day, I had eight pages done.  Out of an almost 300 page manuscript.

It's not the edits.  They're not really any harder than any other book.  There really isn't more pink ink on the pages.  (AWE edits in pink instead of red.  It's cheerier.)  It's totally me.  My brain is farting all over the place right now.  Maybe it's editing block. 

Okay, I admit that I hate editing.  And when I first got the edits, I really didn't want to do them.  But I changed that.  I really did want to edit over the weekend.  It was my plan and the clock is ticking.  I really do want this book to be the best that it can be and the only way to do that is to edit.  But there's some kind of disconnect between wanting to work and being capable of doing it.

So, yeah, I think it's editing block.  I mean, when you want to write but can't, it's called writer's block, so why can't there be editing block, too? 

Today, I will sit here until my eyes bleed.  Do the work, you big, whiny baby.  :whipcrack:  Screw editing block.  Screw the struggle.  Life's a struggle.  Get over it. 

And with that little, personal pep talk, I hope to get at least a couple chapters done today.  Two weeks left until my deadline.  Couple chapters a day should do it. 

What about you?  Ever get editing block?  How do you combat it?  Do you give yourself little 'drill sergeant' style pep talks?

Stuff and Junk

Hey All.

First things first, apparently a bunch of people got notification letters*, so it's official that Createspace is closing.  Don't panic.  I seems like if you do nothing, Amazon will port all your books over for you eventually.  If you'd rather not trust them to do it right, you might want to start thinking about moving your titles over ASAP.

There was also something about being able to move all your titles at once, but I can't find that on Amazon.  I'll check CS.  And something about being able to just move your book without a whole bunch of set-up mess, which I thought I saw the last time I was in there, but last night I couldn't find it.

Okay, with that out of the way, I wanted to remind you all of the immortal words from Galaxy Quest: "Never give up.  Never surrender."  Yesterday morning, I was in crisis about my book.  Several of you gave me advice and pep talks and offers of assistance, all of which I appreciated.  Yesterday afternoon, I kicked my own ass and made myself do the work.  Once I got out of my own way, it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be.  After I got rolling, it took me about three hours to fix all the problems with that horrid scene.  And I stopped for the night feeling pretty good about what I'd done.  We'll see what today's editing session brings.

Yesterday, between crisis and resolution, I read.  Which makes me want to remind you all again, find a good proofreader (or an editor who proofreads, too).  The book I'm reading is edited pretty well for all the other things, but it has a problem where an incorrect word is in place of the correct one.  I can't think of any examples this morning.  Oh, yeah, STATING instead of STARTING.  They missed the R and no one caught it because it's still a word and no amount of spellchecking software will catch it.  Now, I know mistakes happen, and if that was the only one, I wouldn't bother mentioning it.  But it's one of many so far and I'm only halfway through.  It's harshing what would otherwise be an awesome read. 

Speaking of software, Elizabeth Spann Craig mentioned a program the other day that helps edit for you - ProWritingAid.  She's not recommending it in place of a good editor, but more along the lines of using it to catch crap before you send to an editor or what have you.  It's only $50 a year, which is pretty reasonable if it helps stop flaws from muddying up your work.  I don't have the $50 to throw around right now, but I'll be thinking about it in the future. 

In a pinch, slogging through Word's grammar-checker will work, too.  Oh, it throws out a lot of suggestions that don't make sense, but it also catches things.  Use whatever tool you can to make your book the best it can be, right?

And that's about it for me this morning.  Feel free to chime in.


*I have not gotten any letters from CS yet, but I expect them shortly. 

But First, Coffee

I was sitting here yesterday morning inputting the edits from AWE when I hit a mental roadblock.  A crisis of confidence, if you will.  Sort of a...

"I can't do this."  "No one will like this."  "OMG, this is so lame."  "I'm going to need at least three more edits to make this anything anyone could even kinda want to read."

So, I walked away.  Not a 'walk away dejected to never return', but a casual stroll to get out of that creepy headspace.  I ate a sweet roll.  I watched some TV.

Someone somewhere (I forget which blog) talked about the whole 'feeling like a fraud' thing the other day.  This is it.  And while I know in my heart that the little voice in my head saying all those things lies like a cheap rug, it still gets me from time to time.

But...

I can't let it stop me.  I can't let it even slow me down.  I have promises to keep.  I have to shut this unproductive brain thing down and move on.

Thank goodness I built some extra time into the publication schedule, though.  Because I do need a little time because it does slow me down.  A little.  And I've already used some of it up dragging my feet because I think my subconscious knew this was coming.

and*...

I think I hit on the crux of the problem, the seed - if you will - of my crisis.  I want this book to be perfect.  Perfect.  Every sentence laid out so the reader has perfect clarity.  Which is nigh on to impossible.

As I said before, this is a scary book - for me, as a writer.  This is why.  I don't think I've been this nervous about a book since I finished my first one and sent it off to be ground up by the query machine.

Today.  Today I am committing myself to sitting my ass here for as many hours as it takes to accomplish some actual progress.  Because I will hit my deadline. 

But first, coffee.  

*I actually wrote this post off and on throughout the day yesterday and some this morning.  The first part up to the * was written in the morning.  The next part was written around 2:30pm after several failed attempts to work on editing for more than ten minutes without succumbing to the crisis of confidence again.  Realizing this, however, did not help.  I only managed 21 pages edited yesterday.

Be Vewwy Vewwy Quiet

I wrote words last night.  But I am trying to be vewwy vewwy quiet about it so I don't chase them all away.

Yeah, sometimes words are like bunnies.  No sudden moves.  No open acknowledgement of their existence.  Or they'll run away.

Hell, I don't even like to acknowledge that I have writer's block because with WB, it's the opposite.  I acknowledge it and it swarms all over me.  Bleh.  I have to ignore that shit so it'll go away.

I said yesterday that I might do something totally off the wall to get my writing jump started.  That wasn't the trick.  In fact, I spent all day yesterday trying to think of something off the wall to write and came up empty.

What worked?  I sat down here last night and read the last good bit of writing I had on Early Grave.  And I saw where I had glossed over something and then omitted something kind of important.  I reworked that last patch.  Then I deleted about a thousand words past that point and wrote a scene where the hero and the heroine argue.  And although he's kinda of right, she can't see it and it totally pisses her off, which makes her do something unwise which will lead to where I need the plot to be.  Tada.

:fingers crossed:

The reason I'm crossing my fingers is that I don't want this bunny to run away.  I need this bunny. 

So, be vewwy vewwy quiet.  K?