Happy New Year

Happy New Year 2015. I hope everyone has a great year ahead of fun, adventure, personal gains and accomplishment.

I am spending the holiday in Arkansas with my future in laws. It is 23 degrees here! My Florida bones don't handle that well.

My year will have lots of changes ahead. My fiance will be leaving the Army and moving to Florida. We will be moving from my apartment into a place of our own and getting into wedding planning mode for our spring 2016 wedding date.

I have also been challenged to a 2015 reading challenge we found on Pinterest. The wager for who finishes the challenge first is that the loser has to buy the winner any book they want from Barnes and Noble.

Needless to say, I am going for blood.

Have a great, safe holiday and head into 2015 with high hopes and realistic goals and it will make for a great year.

Write on. -T

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas 2014. I hope everyone is having a great holiday season and I look forward to a 2015 of writing,  updates and new projects.

There is still a spring release date planned for my first book so keep eyes open for that!

Thanks everyone for your continued interest.

With a New Set of Eyes: To Kill A Mockingbird

Most times I do not re-read books because there are so many that I still need to get to but I have found that the practice is very worthwhile in regards to the required readings of high school.

I took another look at The Great Gatsby as an adult and it truly changed everything for me. The book was so much more relevant and meaningful as an adult then it was when I was force fed it as a fifteen year old. The same holds true for To Kill a Mockingbird.

The Harper Lee classic was required summer reading the term before freshman year. At the time I had just turned fourteen. Fourteen! How can someone with such a small grasp of the real world even begin to appreciate the social hierarchy, racial tension, and literary breakthrough that this book is? They can't. The mastery that is 'To Kill a Mockingbird' was completely lost on me and every other high school student who has read accompanying notes instead of the book in an effort to not fail the test.

On one hand I understand that if some people aren’t required to read they will not....actually I don’t understand that but I digress. If in high school, when authority and fear of failing the tenth grade actually have some pull on students, the opportunity is wasted to introduce them to literary classics then those people may never in their life read them. However, the other hand shows the tale of a student who is forced to drudge through Shakespeare and literature that is not relevant to their lives and it turns them off of these stories forever. Who knows maybe later on they would have discovered them only to turn their nose down and remark 'ugh, I had to read that in high school, it's terrible.'

If this little blog does any good let it re-open your mind to considering revisiting some of these classics. To Kill a Mockingbird sheds a light on a time when racial inequality was considered necessity and protected in little Maycomb County Alabama. Atticus Finch, a literary power house of a character, takes on the defense case for a Negro man charged with the rape of a white woman. Precocious Scout Finch and her older brother Jem give us a look at racial tensions through the innocent eyes of children who are yet to be corrupted into thinking people are not equal. 

Layered in with the story of poor Tom Robinson and Atticus' defense is the mysterious recluse Boo Radley. Radley is such an intriguing character that in print hardly exists. We learn little about him but in his subtle way becomes a prominent character.

So many aspects of this story are ahead of its time, it is hard to highlight them all. The challenge of gender roles by Scout, the revolution that was a white man being defensive of a black man, the very mature life lessons learned by children showing that they are more than 'seen but not heards'. 

If classics have been on your list of things to read, or you buy those nice hard bound Dickens' and Austen's telling yourself that you will get to them, then add To Kill a Mockingbird back to your list. It will not drudge on, it will not fly over your head but it will make you appreciate the masterwork of Harper Lee and you will realize that literature, life lessons, and girl in overalls can all coexist and make you a better person.

To not read and appreciate this would be...well it would be like killing a mockingbird.

20%

On my way into work this morning the figure of 20% took on a very big, very new meaning for me. The report over the radio said that only 20% of men would read a book written by a woman. I am generally a cynical person and take the realistic view point but even I was shocked by this. As a writer, who happens to be woman, this discouraged me.

I tried to look up the source of this data but could not find one, so take it with a grain of salt but in the process of researching I came across another correlating article from NPR (link below) that says that men account for only 20% of the fiction market overall. There's that 20% figure again. The story says that men who do read lean toward works of non-fiction in overwhelming numbers.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14175229

The story goes into speculative reasons for why there is such a gap. One reason given is that women have a broader emotional range with more empathy so they gravitate toward fiction and find more enjoyment in stories. Another reason given is that in early childhood girls have a longer attention which allows them to grasp reading and comprehension earlier, thus leading to a lifelong love of reading targeted towards fiction. I'm not sure I personally believe all of what these theories say but there is no disputing the fact that men do not read fiction in anywhere close to the numbers that women do.

I think men read less overall and that has some weight on the imbalance but I also see how men are more concrete. They want hard facts that cannot be disputed. They don’t enjoy the nuances of emotional relationships and character tensions. They don't find value in love triangles, he said she saids, and whether or not the characters declare their secret undying love for one another at the end of the book. I am obviously generalizing here but I think overall the numbers and my observances prove true. 

Are we going to change natural male instincts now? No. But I think it's worth making a special effort with our young boys to inspire their imaginations and help them find the value in fiction. Without fiction boys would not have the role models of Harry Potter and Percy Jackson. They wouldn’t have the adventures in the maze and the Hunger Games Arena and they wouldn’t be able to explore space with Ender. Fiction is just as applicable to boys as it is to girls and every child should know what it feels like to be swept out of reality and into an imaginary world.

Men value facts and hard bottom lines but they can also be taken back to their childhood envisioning themselves as the Roman hero or the British super spy. Fiction allows us all the change our circumstances. It gives us a place to go when we have to stay still. Fiction puts us in other peoples shoes and teaches us to accept, or at least appreciate, the value of another persons trials, tribulations, and triumphs.

I hope the next generation of our boys retains enough of the innocence and playfulness that will help them to become not only lifelong readers, but fiction readers at that. Everyone can benefit from a good story. In the darkest of times the words become a lantern; a lantern to safety, to healing and to acceptance. Who doesn't need that kind of light?

The Clock Has Struck Twelve

It is bewildering to me to look at the calendar and see December at the header. The cliché of 'where has the year gone' is smacking me right in the face and all I can do is offer the other cheek. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love December. I love the holidays, the parties, the endless list of opportunities for things to do, but it also brings along an end. Some years I welcome the end and approach it as a fresh start but more often than not I see another year passed, another year older, another year entrenched in some routine. 

This year December 1 has a new significance; it is the first day post NaNoWriMo2014. The month of November for me has been challenging but rich in lesson learned when it comes to writing and how I perceive myself as an author.

To recap  a bit; NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is a grass roots social event that aims to motivate writers all over the world to finally write those stories they say they have inside them. With a daily word goal of 1,667 and thirty days, come the 30th of the month you should have 50,000 words of a first draft on paper ready to progress with as you see fit.

This was my first year attempting NaNo and I fell short of the 50,000. As of this morning my draft has 31,025 words. Despite not meeting the 50k mark I am extremely proud of the results of the month's efforts. Here are some of the most important things I learned this past month:

-Writing is a job. 

If you want to write for a living that means it is a skill that you are paid to perform. It requires time, effort, talent, and rigidity. Living a writer's life is romanticized but make no mistake, it is difficult.

-Writing is pain.

I don’t mean the emotional kind, although this is a lot of that too, I mean physically. You will get calluses on your fingers, your neck with hurt, your eyes will burn, your butt will go numb. Of all of the ailments the fingers were the worst. Not only do I have to type consistently for my job but the added keystrokes of 1,667 words a day really took a toll.

-Consistency is damn near impossible.

NaNo expects that you write every day. The forces of the universe don’t give a crap about your regularly scheduled writing time. The Monday to Friday sessions weren’t too bad because it just naturally has a better routine about it but weekends and nights were tough. I missed several days just out of unexpected scheduling conflicts.

-My attention span is zero to none.

I have no idea how I make it through daily life. I swear when I am seated in front of task that needs doing I can find ANYTHING else to focus on. I would write a sentence or two and need to change the song on my iPod, another sentence and then I would see dog hair on my floor, a paragraph and the dishes magically needed to be cleaned that moment! The final count of 30k is evidence only to how involved I get in the writing once I get going. If things are on track I can ride the momentum for a bit before the inevitable distraction comes into play. This is the one area I can work on getting better at so my future projects progress more smoothly and efficiently.

-My writing space is not very inviting.

In my apartment I use my second bedroom as a library/office. Sounds like the perfect place to write doesn’t it? Surrounded by books and typewriters and dark wood? Ya, wrong. I found it very stale, uncomfortable and too formal. I did most of my writing on the couch or in coffee shops. I think the coffee shops allowed me to get out of my cave and make an event out of the session and the couch was more for comfort. The downside of both of these options is that it required me to use my laptop which is clunky and outdated. I have a beautiful iMac at my office desk but I did not want to sit in there. In moving forward on other projects I will need to decide what changes need to be made for the space to be used. I need to concentrate and commit but if I won't get in the room then I'm done before I even start.

                  On this December 1st I am glad that I took on the challenge of NaNoWriMo2014 as it has taught me invaluable lessons. I plan to take the month to read for pleasure and relax. The start of 2015 will bring the final edits of my first completed manuscript and will be spent getting the book into production and finalized! I have several other projects that are begging for my attention and when the time comes I will follow my momentum and make progress on the one that is drawing me most towards it.

              Will I go back to this first draft and continue on? I don’t know, I will leave the option open however. Although it was only 30 days worth of writing, the effort is there and perhaps it will surprise me with its potential at some point in the future.

NaNoWriMo2014 is at an end but a writer's life never stops.

Write On -T

5 Days Left!

        

       I have learned so much about myself and about the job that writing is in these last twenty five days of NaNoWriMo2014. I can honestly say that I underestimated the undertaking, I let my mind convince me that once I was behind I would never be able to catch up, and that the whole endeavor was inconsequential.

Three plus weeks of the obligation of writing has been exhausting. Even when the story seems to be there my motivation to put it on paper isn’t. Mid last week I let the numbers game take over and I felt so defeated seeing how far behind my word count was that I thought I should just give it up now and give it a shot next year.

But then I realized that some momentum is still left to find in the story and six days is a lot of time. Is it ideal to try and write around 30,000 words in five days? Absolutely not, but in the spirit of all that NaNo is, the words don’t have to be polished and runway ready, they just have to be written.

Will I reach that magical 50,000 number? I don’t know. But I do know that I will tackle these last 5 days with intensity and vigor to put in a respectable showing. No matter what that number at the bottom of the screen shows on the 30th, this experience has been so beneficial and I look forward to recapping and summarizing it all. I am all ready a more knowledgeable and appreciative writer. I take back all the times I cursed the author of a series book that I was hotly anticipating when they pushed back their release date....I am truly sorry, I understand now! You can take all the time you need, I will still be waiting (Samantha Shannon, I'm talking to you).

Okay, I need to walk away from these words and put down some more where they should be. Check back later for more updates or more picture of Benedict Cumberbatch...you can never have too many of those.

Write on. -T

Damn you NaNo!

Who thought this project was a good idea?! I mean writing 1,667 words a day is insane! 

Okay, it's no one's fault but my own that I've gotten so far behind but I still am going to exercise my right to be a prat. Between overwhelming stresses at work, needing to blow off the steam on weekends and having had a mini vacation thrown in I am well off my word count goals as we pass the halfway mark on the month. 

My plan to make up words a little each day to make up for the shortage was a good one but I didn’t follow through on it. I was writing everyday but I wasn’t even hitting the daily 1,667 minimum so I was continuing to dig my hole deeper when I really needed to be climbing back out.

The easy answer is that I am getting distracted and am not writing but the true answer is that I am not believing in my story and myself doubt is making me believe it's not any good so I am not wanting to work on it. I'm not sure if my lack of planning worked against me here or if the idea has just run its course.

I feel encouraged today though because a unexpected plot twist seemed to crop up which will give me some momentum. If I can ride the wave and build the second half of the story around it then I may just yet hit the 50k goal come the 31st. 

I need to keep my mind focused on this month as a beneficial writing exercise and a task in persistence and consistency. Outwardly I told myself that I wouldn’t write a Pulitzer prize winner in the month but my writers ego still hoped I would. Now eighteen days in the realization hits my pride and lets me know clearly this isn’t going to be anything special but it will be...

• Beneficial
• A learning experience
• Great practice
• Developing discipline
• Making me better

That is what these last thirteen days will be about; accomplishing a goal, not giving up, and continuing to try and leave me doubts behind. This will not be the best thing I write, nor will it be the last.

On a happy note, this is a picture of Benedict Cumberbatch which always makes things better. Enjoy.

-Write On -T

The Inevitable Fall Behind

Oh, to be in love. The very welcome visit of my Military boyfriend turned out to be a welcome distraction from work, stress, and (I'm a little ashamed to say) NaNo.

The long weekend celebrating our one year anniversary was packed with trips to the beach, bookstores, frozen yogurt, mini golfing and lots of naps. With him being active duty and based in Colorado our time apart unfortunately far outweighs our time together but we have managed to form a bond that transcends the distance. I am happy to say that we are at the final countdown to the end of the long distance relationship. 

Even with all of the activities going on I did manage to write something almost every day but even the days I did write I did not meet my word counts. Despite him asking me each of those days 'did you get your words done?' I managed to be too distracted. It didn’t help that his visit coincided with, what most NaNo writers claim is, the hardest week.

If we were constantly together I don’t think the words would have suffered because the overwhelming novelty wouldn’t be there and we'd be living a much more routine life but seeing as it was basically a vacation for both of us we threw routine to the wind and just enjoyed our days.

Now I am in crunch mood trying to regain some ground. I am not going into it thinking I have to get make up all the words in a day but I certainly do need to break the required amount by a hefty margin over the course of a few to reach the 50K mark at the end of the month.

Twelve days in NaNoWriMo2014 has proven to be a formidable beast but I am determined to keep trying and to come out with at least 50,000 words as evidence of my persistence.

Wish me luck and stay tuned for updates.

Write on. -T

On·o·mat·o·poe·ia

Five days into NaNoWriMo2014 and oddly enough one of the things I am finding most challenging is putting the sounds in my head onto the page. Without giving too much of it away, my story is largely based on a character who cannot speak in a way that we humans can understand. 

As I am playing the story out in my head I am making certain noises and expressions that I cannot figure out how to put on the page. When I was a kid I thought words like onomatopoeia sounded dirty and where funny to say but it turns out that this word and its definition will either make or break the story I am writing. 

onomatopoeia

1. (Literary & Literary Critical Terms) the formation of words whose sound is imitative of the sound of the noise or action designated, such as hiss, buzz, and bang

2. (Literary & Literary Critical Terms) the use of such words for poetic or rhetorical effect

Think about it; just take a second to be cognizant of all the ways you express emotion through sounds.  Everyone does this so differently that you can't really put it into words. But there are some universally recognized words in literature that express sound. Take an easy one, 'Pow'. You get a mental image or can easily associate that sound to some context. But what about something like the word sigh? Short from writing 'Sally sighed' it is difficult to express the noise of something sighing. And I've found in the case of onomatopoeia, subtext is king. You have to be able to describe the situation in appropriate detail to make those words work as you want them to.

Sounds and body language can be just as powerful as words but in the writers world those things have to be expressed with words. I've had to search for terms to use as I write for this character and I have found that the alphabetic combinations are not doing my mental sounds justice.

It falls back on me, the writer, to creatively and thoroughly describe scenes, contexts, and background for the limited options of onomatopoeia to make sense and create the impact that I want them to. This was a unique challenge I didn’t see coming but I know the practice under the insane expectations of NaNoWriMo will serve me well in other works later on.

26 days to go! 

Write on -T

3 Down, 28 to Go.

November 3rd all ready. It really is crazy how fast time can go. Three days into the month and three days in NaNoWriMo2014. It has all ready proven to be an interesting undertaking.

In the first three days I have managed to meet my word count goal without a whole lot of difficulty but I can all ready tell my story needs some serious direction.

I went into the month with very little planning which is actually okay for something like this. You are trying to be a word generator and anything that needs too much focus or pre planning will lead to your words stalling. With that said however I came in with an insanely minimalist idea. I had one main character and my supporting character and a general couple of words to guide me in writing what should happen to them.

This approach has left me almost too wide open with my plot. I like having options but at the same time having no guideposts is letting me flounder. My story is going in and out of focus but I have enough of an anchor to keep it coming back to where it started.

Also within three days I have all ready altered my perspective toward this experiment. I am not hoping to have a substantial draft by the end of the month but I am more concerned about the exercise in writing that the month can prove to be. Getting used to putting words on paper everyday is a hugely beneficial skill as is letting my inner critic die so I can get text on the page will serve me well later in my career.

The month should be about learning to let your inspiration flow and remembering that sometimes it leads to better results than others. Everything is a learning experience and I am enrolled in the intensive 31 day course that is NaNoWriMo.

Write On!

NaNo Eve

I can't believe it is here. Tomorrow is November 1st. 

NOVEMBER 1ST...WHERE DID THE YEAR GO?!

  For most people today is all about Halloween. Sane people are planning the last minute details of their costumes and are getting ready to make their big entrance into at least one party. I however will be calling it an early night to let me my brain rest for the first day of the insane challenge that is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

For those of you who are unfamiliar, NaNoWriMo is held every November and is a grass-root, social movement to motivate people to write their stories. The goal is 50,000 words by the end of the month which works out to 1,667 words per day.

 I can tell you now that I realize this is a ridiculous goal but I am also excited. The novelty will wear off but hopefully at that point I have a story I enjoy enough to want to see through to the end. As it stands I have a very vague idea so here's hoping.

Having a full time job will make the timing of this hard as will the physical toll. I know you're reading that and thinking 'How is writing a physical toll' but think about it. Anyone who has a desk job knows that sitting in a chair for any length of time is agonizing, your head starts to feel like an anvil on your neck, your eyes burn from looking at a screen, and continuous typing will seriously leave your hands aching.

I have the double whammy of having to work eight hours during the day doing keystrokes at the computer and then having to come home to sit at another desk...but I shall suffer for my art! 

I have multiple distractions this month as well that will need to be worked around. The first weekend of the month I will have a very welcome visitor for a long weekend, and then of course there is the Thanksgiving holiday at the end of the month and the subsequent shopping that goes along with it. My goal in these situations will be to up my word count in the days prior so that if I really cannot carve out time to write on a few days I wouldn’t fall too far behind.

As much as I have really enjoyed the downtime these last few weeks I am excited to explore a new writing style and a new story. As the clock strikes 12 on the 1st my journey begins. Wish me luck and look for updates!

Plotting or Pantsing?

One of the biggest debates in the writing community is over whether it is better to be a plotter or pantser. Plotting is just like what it sounds; when you have an idea for a novel you structure it out with major plot points, plan out a general sequence of events and fill in as many relevant details as you need.

Pantsing is a term based on the saying ‘flying by the seat of your pants.’ Pantsers jump right in head first. Some of the first words they put on paper are in the draft. They have an idea and just let it take them where it will.

There are benefits and drawbacks to both theories and depending on what kind of personality you have and what kind of writer you are will determine what camp you fall into. Let’s take a more in depth look at these theories.

 

Plotting:

-Allows for a structure that is easy to follow

-Guides your writing

-Ideally prevents major re-writes later on in the process

-Provides continuity for details throughout the story

-Keeps things organized

-Creates a source for background information that you can go back to later on

-Allows you to plot multiple stories at one time to come back to later

 

Pantsing:

-Taking an idea and jumping straight into writing

-Allows for fast paced creativity

-Leaves room for any and all directions

-Can lead to inconsistent details

-Requires little to no prep

 

 

In my experience I have written three formal manuscripts to date and have done three different methods. My first finished manuscript was straight pantsing. I would take note of details after I wrote them to try to keep continuity through out but it was not planned other than for the initial idea. This worked well because I could put my ideas to paper instantly but I did have  MAJOR re-writes and editing because half way through my draft the story took an entirely unexpected direction and I changed the entire ending. In defense of pantsing, had I plotted this novel I’m not sure I would have plotted this unexpected ending, it was just something that happened. But I did have multiple character name changes, many cut and pastes that need to be sequenced and overall continuity issues.

My second manuscript was a totally different genre and required a lot of invention and imagination so I took a much more plotted course on it. I wrote out character profiles, definitions, words, and plot points to create this imagined sci-fi world. I like this method as well because it served a very useful purpose. When I was creating a world from scratch I needed to think many steps ahead to make it believable and something I could build off of. I couldn’t pants my way through this subject matter so in this case I give to edge to plotting when writing about an imagined setting.

On my third manuscript that’s in production I did a fusion of both. I had the initial idea and got some very basic details down so I would not forget them. When I say basic, I mean basic. Like one word setting descriptions, arrows pointing from one keyword to another and maybe a few key notes on potential endings. With the basic idea in mind I set my hands to the keys and let it rip. When the flow is there I get going and don’t feel the end to go back for more details or make sure I’m on track with my guide. This manuscript however was a story based present day so I wasn’t inventing anything other than characters and storyline. I didn’t have to build a world or put my readers in an understandable but foreign setting.

My final opinion on the subject, just like with everything else in the writing world, I think whatever works best for you is what you should do. If you like to let it flow and go back to clean up later then go for it. If you want to see it all mapped out in front of you before you dive into it then plot away. You can even kill two birds with one stone by taking advice from Agatha Christie. She said “The best time for planning a book is while you're doing the dishes.” 

No matter what your theory writing should be personal and real. Whatever can bring the best out of you is the way you should go. The only wrong thing to do is to not start.

 

 

Please Tell Me If I Suck

Yesterday I did what I think is one of the hardest things any artist has to do… I sent my work out into the world for criticism. 

Last night I e-mailed my manuscript off to a half dozen readers for critiquing. To some of you that may not seem like a big deal but to me it is the bravest thing I have ever done for myself. 

This book has been a very long road from desire, to conception, to the actual writing, to sharing it. I have written things for as long as I can remember but never considered myself a ‘writer’; I felt like I wasn’t in that league. One day though I knew that I could be if I gave it some real effort and attention. These words have kept me up at night, they have tortured me, mocked me, they have excited me, and they have given weight to all the things flying around in my head. 

For those of you who don’t know me personally I will let you in on a little secret; I am not the outwardly emotional type. I do not cry in front of people, I do not want to be your therapist, and I will not ask for help until I am dead in the water. I am very loyal, trustworthy, and a good friend but I do not participate in the mushy, over sensitive, theatrics of life. And to defend myself a bit, the people I surround myself with very much appreciate that about me.

The juxtaposition here is that internally I am nothing but emotion. I think constantly, am usually worrying, I feel things very deeply, and I carry around a lot of unnecessary weight on my shoulders. Words are my release for all of that. Words allow me to say what I need to from a distance that keeps me comfortable. Up until now all of my thoughts and emotions have been kept to myself as I like them to be…not anymore. I have willingly, for the first time in my life, taken down all the walls and am letting people deep inside to the inner works of who I am…and it’s terrifying. Vulnerable does not even begin to describe how I feel. 

But I know that if I want to progress as a writer and become the best one I can be I need to be able to set my ego and fears aside to let people tell me their honest, unfiltered opinion of my work. It is hard to reconcile the fact that they are not judging me but my work because in my life they are one in the same but my readers are truly commenting on the story in front of them. 

I’ve selected a mixed variety of people and ones who I think will look past the name on the cover and not hold back in telling me what they think. I have given a deadline for return critiques so I can compile the responses and decide where my next edits will need to take the book on its path to completion and publication.

Until then I am reading as much as I can and watching some bad TV. Come November 1 I will be diving head first into NaNo and they will take all of my time. 

The anticipation of the responses is killing me and I can only hope that my readers actually enjoy my book. If not, it will not deter my passion for writing, it will only force me to hone my craft and work harder to practice more and become better. 

Some day soon I hope to have a post here that has a link to where you can buy this book. That will be the true cherry on the top of this endeavor, but as it stands now, I am still very proud that I believed in myself enough to work I through to this level and I have more enthusiasm than ever for future projects.

Thanks for sticking by me and checking in with what I have to say. A huge part of my success will be for people to back me up and support me from both near and far. A HUGE THANK YOU to every one of you. Only bigger and better things to come!

-T