IWSG: Remove Your Pants!

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. 

This is going to seem like a weird thing to talk about in February but bear with me.... Do you know why I love NaNoWriMo?

It's because, back before 2009, I couldn't finish a draft. Or even come close to it. Then my fantastically talented friend Jean said,"Hey this thing? We're doing it!" It wasn't even November--I think it was March. But we read No Plot, No Problem, made a whole bunch of horrible videos on writing that no one thought was funny except for us and then wrote some damn novels. And it was rad.

NaNoWriMo gave me one of the most valuable tools a writers needs (in my humble blah blah blah). It taught me the value of a deadline. It cannot be overstated that just sitting down with the vague notion of write something, is a recipe for avoidance. You check Facebook. You snap a selfie, annoy your cat with a paper bag and  then take a Buzzfeed quiz to find out which Friends character you'd be.**

And after all of that, you'd open your writing software or notebook and write... nothing. Absolutely nothing.

So once I had a deadline, I wrote. I wrote a lot. And it was THE WORST writing. But that was okay, because I got better. And since 2009 I've written three full manuscripts. But I haven't successfully edited any of them. I fell into the same patterns with editing that I did with writing. I'd sit at my desk with the vague intent to "edit." This often became an exercise in futility as I rewrote and rewrote, hoping the problems with plot and pacing would fix themselves.

I'd somehow missed the most important thing NaNoWriMo waved in front of my snoot... the knowledge that a deadline is nothing but a goal and it's goal-setting that matters most if you want to achieve a dream.

I feel a little dense that it's taken me so long to realize this. If I want a writing career, I can't pants it. I just can't. Now I know, you can probably name someone who is doing it. Some famous person who doesn't take notes or make outlines and if they exist, GREAT. But I think once you get to editing, being a pantser is like putting on a blindfold while walking backward and sideways at the same time. Yeah, you might get somewhere but it's more likely you'll just fall on your ass.

I think this is the point in the process where pantsers just throw their hands up and shout "Fuck it!" They have the story. They wrote it and liked it. But now they don't know how to make it better. So vague promises to edit turn into guilt and self-doubt and then you set fire to the manuscript and start a new one.The bird toy endlessly drinking... never satiated.

 So I've set a deadline for my editing and a goal. First goal was an outline. I outlined the story as it was. Then I wrote a rough synopsis of how I wanted the story to flow with better character arcs and a stronger secondary plot.  Then I re outlined it, scene by scene on color-coded sticky notes. Coral for scenes I've written from my hero's POV, blue for my heroine's. Neon yellow for scenes I haven't written yet.

Look at all this m-effin' cohesion

What I ended up with was a cohesive look at my novel and a very measurable method of goal-setting. writing lobster and I set a deadline of March 31st, for me to do a complete big-picture edit and for her to finish her current novel. So we set word count and edited-page goals, and we printed calendars that we could put stickers on to mark our progress. When one of us hits so many stickers, the other buys that person a small gift.

We are plotter-ing it up over here and we're both making progress.

I guess what I'm saying is pants the crap out of your story if that's what you want to do. But if you're struggling, whether in the writing or the editing, it's time to set some goals. Make some deadlines. Be a plotter. Because it's really effing hard to work when you are vague about what you want to achieve.

Plot on!

**The answer of course is... I'm what would happen if Chandler and Monica fell into a puddle of nuclear waste and melted into one neurotic, funny, perfectionist mess.

My Lisa Frank stickers bring all the words to the yard...

IWSG: Better Late Than Never

A quick and late IWSG.

I'm struggling with this story. I've taken to writing scenes rather than a complete story because these characters are further from who I am and that's a challenge. A single mom (when I don't have or want kids, what possessed me?) and a middle-aged businessman (of which I am neither).

I'm starting to get that fear. You know the one. Where you think, maybe that was it. Maybe I only had the one book in me and there won't be another good one. I'll be the Vanilla Ice/Blind Melon/Dee-Lite of the romance world and people will say, "What happened after that first crazy book?" and shake their heads.

As you do.

Also I wrote a scene. A great scene. I love it. But the more I'm staring at it, the more I'm wondering if I didn't steal part of it from some other book I read. But I can't put my finger on it. But it feels familiar... dammit writing is hard.

So yeah. That's it. But, I'm still kicking ass at NaNoWriMo, cuz when in doubt... I just write a sex scene. I've already written two. WORD COUNT ACCOMPLISHED, BITCHES.

This is why no one should ever take writing advice from me.



How YOU doin'?

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.

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.