IWSG: In Which My Ego Turns Everything into a Blistering Inferno

The first Wednesday of every month is Insecure Writers Support Group. A fabulous blog-hop. Head to the list and support some other writers today. 

 I'm halfway through my big picture edit/rewrite of this manuscript and I'm ready to set it THE FUCK ON FIRE.

No but seriously. Burn it.

I thought I had my subplots tightened up. I thought I had my  hero and heroine figured out. I've written the story essentially three times now. But here I am, ready to scream and break things as this manuscript refuses to be... GOOD.

Okay I have a couple of issues at play here. One is that I have been using scenes I've already written sort of piecemeal. "Oh, this scene will work right here!" So I move it. And now, I'm halfway through this rewrite/revamp/hell and I have completely lost the thread of tension and narrative. I don't know if it's moving too fast or too slow. No idea if it even makes sense any more. Argh!

The second, larger issue, is my ego.

My friend Lyssa Kay Adams just indie published her first novel and it's effin' good, ya'll. So effin' good. Funny and snarky and well-written and the reviews are pouring in and they are all saying what I'm saying. The book is freaking GREAT. I'm super happy for her. She's rad and she deserves the applause.

What if I don't get that? What if my first book comes out to the sound of crickets chirping? What if none of our mutual friends say a word? I didn't become a writer for applause, I really didn't (and if you did, you're in for some pain, I fear) but I also don't want to be the suckiest writer out of my group of writer friends. This worry comes from a place of deep insecurity within me, I know. Many of my writer friends are professional writers. They were journalists or work in publishing or advertising. They know a side of the business that I don't and they are way more educated than I am.

Often when I'm forced to defend my genre from people who want to make me feel small about it, I say that many romance writers are highly educated and that a great deal of my favorites went to ivy league schools and teach writing. Which is all true and it's a great brag, but I'm not one of those people. I dropped out of community college because it was putting me into debt and it wasn't actually helping. I consider myself a fairly smart human being and I stand by that decision. Community college wasn't preparing me for a writing career and it wasn't worth the stress or money. But I never expected to be surrounded by so many educated, brilliant writers. I figured my smarts would carry me through. But I'm still never sure when I should be using a semi-colon and I still have to Google how to punctuate parentheticals in parenthesis and I feel like at any moment, I could screw something up and no one will ever take me seriously and I'll deserve it because I couldn't even hack community college and who do I think I am trying to write novels?

Worse yet, am I going to be the kind of unskilled writer used as kindling on the blaze of derision that eternally burns the romance community like wildfire? Is that labored simile my fate?

This has been bumping around in my head, bruising my brain for a month now. I am burning with insecurity and it's making my editing clunky and impossible. I am losing perspective faster than Supernatural episodes lose narrative cohesion, which is to say, FAST.

Angels are so touchy.

IWSG: UNDER THE RAFT

 The first Wednesday of every month is Insecure Writers Support Group. A fabulous blog-hop. Head to the list and support some other writers today. 

You know that feeling where you're in the bottom of a swimming pool and you panic a little but you know it's okay because only have to swim to the surface? There is such sweet relief as you rise until you find yourself unable to go further because you are stuck underneath someone's stupid tire raft and for a brief moment, you think, I'm going to die while my cousin farts on my head.

No? Maybe that's just me. 

That is how I feel about this novel. I finished the manuscript and rewrote it twice. I started a third rewrite, thinking that I might be rising to the surface, only to realize I'd started the novel in the wrong place, the external conflict sucked and I'd used a character as a plot device instead of a person. 

So now I'm stuck under the raft.

I'm a pantser so I go into novels with no idea what's going to happen. I have detailed character sketches but no plot.  It's not an efficient system and I usually end up with a nonsensical first draft.  So I rewrite. Then I have a bad habit of writing again and again until I can't stand the story anymore. 

Art byFearEffectInferno

I do this because... well, I don't know how to edit. I can line edit but "big picture editing" as the kids call it, is beyond me. I feel overwhelmed and a bit thick because I can't figure it out. I need a system. My writing lobster Meika is having the same problem. Yesterday she sent me a blog post by writer Julie Dao, all about her editing process. She's a plotter but her hands-on approach to editing appeals to me so I'm giving it a shot.

I've started outlining scenes and I'm already finding it helpful. Sooooo.... I'm under the raft, fart bubbles are headed my way but I'm working up the strength to tip the damn tire, break the surface and breathe the fresh air.

I hope.

Maybe.
Or maybe I'll eat this chocolate strawberry pop tart and take a nap because my optimism is already waning. Sigh.

What is your "big picture" editing process?

Editing done and NaNo Begun...

Who has two thumbs and wants to do NaNoWriMo on a book she has neither outlined nor created character profiles for?

This girl!

It also looks like I might be rapping like Eminem. There's a "Yo baby, wuz up?" quality to my artwork, don't you think?


So I edited fifteen chapters of my last book in about one week. The first eleven chapters are hash but I'll deal with those in February. I finished rewriting the end chapter last night. Its much better and sexier.

Its time to put these characters I adore to rest. They will still exist in my next book or two, but I won't be inside of their heads anymore and that fills me with a certain kind of sadness. Also this new book is lighter. Still heavy themes (family dysfunction, perfectionism, single mom-hood, etc) but not as heavy as the last one. And the characters don't have a built in relationship like my childhood friends turned lover did. I actually have to build it from the ground up. Scurrrrry.

Anyhow that's all. Just a quick update before I start flipping out over NaNo.

See you on the other side kids.

Perfectly Positive Monday #5

In the spirit of positivity, I will try (and sometimes fail) to post something positive and true on Mondays. Because Monday is the day you need positivity the most.

It's another glorious Monday. It's not below freezing. It almost seems like Spring is here. Yay!


Writing Life:

I just need to add a few lines to chapter seven and eight. Then I can move on and figure out how to rewrite nine. I've rewritten it a number of times and it feels... I dunno, too soon. It's a great scene but it's in the wrong place. My favorite thing I've written in Chapter nine is this:

             She picked up the book next to her feet and played with the edges of the pages. “Tell me about your life, Conor. Got any dirty secrets or illegitimate babies?”

              His head snapped up. “Uhm, no.”

          “That's boring. Let's try something else. Are you into any of the following?" She began counting off on her fingers. "BDSM, Clown fetishism or toe shrimping?”
     
             Flushing an adorable shade of pink, he took a long time before responding. “I’m not even sure what two of those things are. But I’m going to go ahead and say no to all of them.”

             “Good good," she leaned toward him. "Now that I’ve warmed you up with my famous charm, what are doing these days? For a job?”  

 I think it's my goal to mention as many sexual fetishes/positions I can, in one novel :D

The Rest of Life

Season four of Archer is on Netflix so life is officially decent.

The best thing was getting my Android fixed. For two years I've had problems with my cell phone. I took it into the phone store and they were like, "Bummer, want to look at a new one?" It started acting up again so I went in to look at a new phone and the very nice guy behind the counter was like, "First you need a new battery. Also, it's no wonder you hate Droids now, you have model X. That is the buggiest, worst Android ever made. It needs to be updated but its so buggy you can't update it online." So he took my phone away for a half hour, updated the OS on their computer and gave me a new battery, all for free. Now it's like a completely new phone! Seriously, the look of the desktop is different, the texting is totally different.It's awesome.

That  saved us a lot of money. Which is good, because my poor little 2.1Ghz desktop PC is dying. She makes weird wheezing sounds and quit running Sims2 altogether and Minecraft is running like an arthritic old lady in a sack race. So we ordered a custom desktop PC last week and it cost quite a bit more than I wanted to spend. But we are getting a BEAST with a lot of ram, a  faster processor, 2TB  hard drive, graphics card with 4G on board memory. It's sweeeeet. Should be here by the end of the month.
 

Shit I love:

Archer's Krieger. He's not an actual doctor but he is dangerously unstable and has access to millions of dollars worth of lab equipment. He just wants what any clone of  Hitler would want; to tape bum fights for his own sick pleasure, make genetically modified animal versions of himself and test highly suspect drugs on his coworkers.

Finally got around to watching Season 2 of Sherlock and I'm sad I didn't do it sooner. The sheet scene just killed me. 

 My new skin care routine for my sensitive, combination skin is working! I took all the elements of Clinique's 3 step line (which I'm way too cheap to buy) and researched dupes and/or better products. I settled on Cerave Foaming Facial Cleanser (which has rave reviews from actual Dermatologists online), Simple Soothing Toner (the ingredients list was spare and mostly natural), Garnier Moisture Rescue Gel-Cream (which is wonderful) and Cerave PM Facial Lotion that I use on the dryer parts of my face because its too much in my T-zone.

While I was at it, I bought some Cerave Moisturizing Cream for my alligator legs and it's working wonders. I'm really impressed. I have some kind of Eczema or something on my legs and they always feel painfully dry and look scaly, but right now, they just look like good ol' pasty Michigan legs with no scales at all.

So what brings you joy this fine Monday?

IWSG: Outline-Induced Narcolepsy



IWSG

1st Wednesday of the month is Insecure Writers Support Group. It’s a blog hop where you post about the joys and difficulties of being a writer.

I’m struggling a bit with editing my WIP. I’m a pantser by nature. I wish that I weren’t. But I have a little-understood disease called Outline-Induced Narcolepsy. It’s quite serious. As soon as I set pen to paper or fingers to keyboard in an attempt to write an outline, interview characters or summarize my novel, my eyes glaze over and I pass right out, which has led to another serious condition; Qwertytis.

With my current WIP I’m using Microsoft OneNote (because I’m too cheap to buy Scrivener) to help me organize my work. I love it! Outlines bore me to tears, but I like making character profiles and town maps. I wrote out all the scene snippets that I want in the story; which is new to me. I’m usually a linear writer. I start at the beginning of the story and write in order with no idea what’s going to happen.

But oddly, being more organized hasn’t helped at all. With my last WIP I stalled out at chapter 9 because I kept re-editing the beginning and couldn’t move ahead. Guess where I’m stalled out with this one? Chapter 9. I’ve written bunches of scenes for later in the novel but nothing that will move this part of the story along. I finally had an idea, but it required a bit of re-writing to make it work. I had been trying to use MS Word’s track changes feature for anything that needed fixing so I can go back and work on it later, but this is major stuff and I sort of need to fill in the gaps to make sure it’s going to work. So now I’m writing ahead and I’m writing behind and I’m not getting any of the middle done and I’m somehow in the exact same place I was when I completely pantsed my previous WIP.

What the eff?

IWSG: The Indecision Tango



1st Wednesday of the month is Insecure Writers Support Group. Wherein I post about the difficulties and joys of writing. 

My writing is going fairly well. The rewrite is moving at a decent clip. Not as fast as it should be, but that's okay, I forgive me. However, I recently discovered two things about myself:

1. I can't make decisions

2. I'm terrible at naming things.

 

This is a bad combo. Whether it comes to character names, novel titles, or the simple name of a restaurant, I suck. I come up with long lists of terrible ideas and then I can't narrow them down. So I find myself reaching for a lot of outside help which in turn makes me feel like a talentless hack. Aren't writers supposed to be creative? You may be thinking, "Oh Mencara, you can't be that bad, can you?"

I named one of my characters Tiramisu. I'll let that sink in.... 

Obviously I woke from my fugue state and changed it. But it took weeks of deliberation, discussion on Facebook because wanted her name to be Anika but I was worried people wouldn't pronounce it right. They wouldn't pronounce her name right in their head while they read the book and this was unacceptable to me. Basically, I'm a wackjob.

Finally I settled on a name, but then I had to change her surname because it no longer worked.  That took a week of searching and pairing names together and requesting that my friends participate while I figured out the best one. Then I couldn't figure out what to name a restaurant in my novel, so I turned to my creative friend, Jeannie, who came up with one for me. Then this past week, I've struggled and failed to come up with a name for my character's bridal shop.

Then yesterday, it occurred to me that I wrote the rough draft of my W.I.P. back in 2009 and never titled it. Imagine having a four year old child that you never bothered naming. I'm becoming Holly Golightly now. So I tried to come up with a book title and each one has been worse than the last.  I'm back to taking suggestions for the name of a novel that no one has read fully but me. See what I mean? I'm a hack. I wondering if I have to give my Facebook friends credit when the book gets published, since they're making all my decisions asI run to them for input.

Also it took me an hour to choose the image on the right ---->

Am I just a needy writer? Indecisive? Perhaps it's a bad case of Atelophobia? You decide in the comments below!*

*See what I did there? I'm hilarious.

IWSG: Editing is for lesser beings, right?

1st Wednesday of the month is Insecure Writers Support Group. Wherein I post about the difficulties of writing. 

 I hate editing. There I said it.

Before I had an actually work-in-progress, I imagined that the editing process would involve meeting my editor in a sun soaked cafe in L.A. I'd slide my Michael Kors* sunglasses off my face and air kiss my obsequious editor who would slide the manuscript across the table and express her shock and joy that every manuscript has been so well written that she has not needed to edit a single one. Then she'd let me know that I was contacted by two more movie studios who are dying to make my novels into feature films. From there I wax on about my art and how I would never sell my artistic integrity to Hollywood.

Apparently when I imagine being a romance writer, I think I'm Mary Fisher, living in a pink palace by the sea. Except without the nervous break down over a broken fingernail.

As it turns out, editing is less glamorous than you'd imagine. When I signed on to be a writer, I had no idea that anyone would actually have anything negative to say about my work. I mean, how ridiculous. I'm clearly a frickin' savant of writing. My 7th grade writing teacher said so. My best friend nods when I say so. It must be true. So why, WHY do I need to take all the those glorious words, those fantastic characters and those genius love scenes and criticize them? Doesn't that seem a tad unreasonable? I mean, isn't revision for amateurs? Everyone knows that real writers complete perfect manuscripts...

Hush you.

I'm told by other writers that no one writes perfect manuscripts. They are, by nature, a bumpy, lumpy mess. Mine is worse than most because I wrote my novel during NaNoWriMo. If that combination of letters means nothing to you, it's National Novel Writing Month. Every November thousands of insane people from all over the world decide that it's a good idea to write a 50,000 word novel in thirty days. People often ask me, "Why would you do that?" The short answer? Well clearly I'm a masochist. The long answer? I'm SERIOUSLY a masochist.

NaNoWriMo is actually a lot of fun. You go to local meet ups with other writers and you do contests like fifteen minute timed "sprints" and the winners get stickers and emotional validation. The entire point is to prove that you are capable of writing a novel. You have to turn off the part of your brain that judges your work as good or bad. You learn to turn off your inner editor and just write. Just puke up whatever is in your soul and put it on the paper, no matter how silly or how poorly written it will be. The point is quantity. Quality is irrelevant.

The upside to this is that you end up writing a the bones of a novel. Also you prove to yourself that you are more than capable of doing it and finding time to do it, no matter how busy you are. Also, if you survive the thirty days and still want to write, then you are probably on the right path (or you are a bigger masochist than the guy from Fifty Shades of Grey).

So the great part is that I can say, whoo hoo, I wrote a novel! Sort of. The downside to that great expulsion of creativity is that I now now have a steaming pile of manure to edit. Because IT IS BAD. Make no mistake. Writing without any editing at all means you end up not with a novel but with the skeleton of the story and all the skeleton's bones are broken and need to be set before you add on the muscles and tendons and all the gross innard type stuff they talk about on Bones.


Basically I have a bunch of disconnected, hurriedly written scenes and I've been writing in circles trying to edit a story that is finished in only the most generous of definitions. I don't actually know what happens in the second act of the story because I never really wrote it. I was in a hurry to get to the end and just listed a bunch of stuff I thought should happen.

Wow this is getting long and wordy. As you can see, I'm really bad at editing my own work.

I've lived my life as a pantser, not a plotter, meaning I write intuitively (by the seat of my pants) and don't plan or plot my work ahead of time. But now that I'm editing I'm seeing the necessity and beauty of at least having a rudimentary outline of how I'd like the story to be structured. But every time I try to read about HOW to outline a novel, my eyes glaze over and I fill up with the fear that I'm going to destroy the art process by limiting my story.


So after much whining on my part, my lovely friend Meika sent me the Youtube link on the left here, to a video by writer, Katytastic. She breaks it down in a way that isn't overwhelming to me. She tells how she creates an outline by breaking her novels into three acts, nine blocks and 27 chapters. I took notes during the video and then went into my manuscript and noted where each chapter and block occurred so I can see where my novel is missing parts and what I need to do. It was very useful.  

Yeah, this post is meandering and I don't feel like editing it. Because editing sucks.

And yes, I pretty much plan to use every IWSG post to whine about editing. It is way harder than writing the damn book in thirty days.


*Also I'd like it known that I do indeed own a pair of Michael Kors sunglasses that I found at T.J.  Maxx for less than $20 and I have never worn them without namedropping the designer. Mostly because I used to watch Project Runway and I love MK with a fierce passion but also because I'm kind of a douche.

A quick question for my writerly friends...

What is your process for editing a very rough draft? I feel as though I'm editing in circles. I rewrote the opening chapters so I rewrote the next four chapters. In rewriting those I changed some things and then re-rewrote the opening chapters and then had to rewrite the next four... the snake eating it's own tail is still in my house.

What is your process for editing? In detail please, because I clearly need a system and I don't know how to do this. Previous to this book I've only written short stories so editing was a very different beast. I just rewrote everything over and over until I liked it. This requires being more systematic but I don't know how to begin.

HELP!

Ups, Downs and Siren Songs

Truly a day full of ups and downs...

UP!

I fixed my header. Apparently when you save a .png as an image from MS Publisher you must save it at highest resolution otherwise it comes out all choppy and awful like mine did.  So I fixed it! Woot!

DOWN!

My husband started feeling sick again this morning and went to urgent care. He was diagnosed with Viral Gastroenteritis. He has Norovirus and most likely I do too which explains why I feel so run down, nauseated and headachy. Booo.

Wow once it's all written out it really seems more down than up doesn't it?

Oh well. Time spent resting is time I could be writing. I might do it too, you know if Gossip Girl doesn't lure me away from the computer. I'm on season four and Chuck and Blair are off (again) and she might be about to date Dan Humphrey and I mean... I have to see what's gonna happen with that train wreck. Because no. Dan and Serena need to be together. Not because I care about them but because they deserve each other. They are both insufferable jerkwads, permanently attached to their high horses.

Plus I love Blair's clothing. I COVET.

Anyhow, assuming Chuck Bass doesn't seduce me away from the computer, I have two fantastic story ideas that are trying to derail me from editing my current novel. There is nothing more alluring than the siren song of a brilliant idea. There is no judgement, no frustration, it's perfect because it doesn't exist except as a dream. It's like having a crush on someone, it's beautiful and flawless because it's only in your head (like my love affair with Chuck Bass and Ryan Gosling). They are whatever I want them to be. Truth is Chuck would be a terrible boyfriend and Ryan Gosling... he probably farts in his sleep and leaves the kitchen counter all messy. Reality is a harsh mistress both when it comes to love and to romance writing.


XOXO,

Gossip Girl

Mencara

A Hideous Betrayal...

The premise and hook of my romance was already done (almost identically) on an episode of some show that shall not be named because I'm being pissy about the whole thing.

My lovely friend Meika text-ed me, saying, I know there is a way to make you love your story again. I hope she is right. I have listened and read a lot of advice from my wonderful friends and fellow writers on how to handle this. I've decided that first, I need some time away from my manuscript to deal with my disappointment. I had never been more confident in any of my work as a writer than I was in my ability to sell this novel and now that confidence is shaken. Maybe it's not original or interesting like I thought. Now I can't stop wondering how much of it is trite and derivative and maybe I just couldn't see the truth of it because I am too in love with my own work.

After I shake off this new found insecurity, I need to get back to work on the novel. Though I'm going to make some changes to distinguish my premise from the POS show that got there first (insert colorful cusswords here, followed by grumbles).

But truly, the hardest part is the betrayal I feel. Because all of this time I thought it was just me and my premise; laughing, drinking caramel hot cocoa in cafes, painting our nails and admiring the hell out of each other. I never asked how my premise felt, I just assumed that she felt the same way as I did. That we were perfect for each other and belonged together. Little did I know, my premise took a much looser approach to relationships than I did. Where as I am a one premise kind of gal, she turned out to be a filthy cheating whore. 

She rubbed some serious salt in my wounds too. She didn't just cheat on me with some newbie writer from Scappoose, oh no. She cheated on me with famed Buffy writer, Jane freakin' Espenson (who co-wrote the episode which will not be named). I cannot express to you how much that pisses me off  because it's awfully hard to be mad when I'm secretly sort of thrilled that Jane Espenson and I had the same idea.

Can I be both a sore loser and a squealing fangirl?

Stuck

I'm writing a romance/chick lit/whatever it is- love story that takes place in Detroit. There are felonies, firings and (if the characters behave themselves) there will be steamy knocking of boots. Oh and just perhaps they'll fall in love somewhere in there too. But I can't get my characters to the boot knocking because I'm woefully stuck. 

It's not writer's block either.

There isn't a pithy phrase for the span of time when you want to write and you can write all you want, but it simply refuses to be... good.

I have been rewriting chapter six for two weeks. It's an underachiever. It doesn't want to improve itself. It feels fine being smelly and living in the basement; having flat soda and stale Cheetos for dinner every night. I have tried flattery, cajoling, tough love, hostility, threats and now I'm simply resigned. My chapter doesn't want to change. I can't make it want to take a shower and look for a job. It does what it wants and it wants to be mediocre.


The hero's little sister, a character I really love, refuses to be introduced. She's an unusual girl and she deserves a fun intro, but it's not happening. I keep trying to fit her into my scene and she raises and eyebrow and a middle finger at me. It's very hurtful.

I think part of the problem is that I never had siblings, so I'm struggling with their dynamic. I've settled on eye rolling, sarcasm and insults for their treatment of each other. If that kind of behavior is good enough for my friends, I imagine it's good enough for siblings. But so far it's not working on the page. It feels forced and unfunny. Sad face.

I'd move onto the next chapter, but I need to have this one ready for my writing group by the end of this weekend. Something has to click into place before then, because seriously, you are better than this chapter six. Snap out of it. 


Tonight's Writing Soundtrack:  Grenade (cover) by Memphis May Fire