Long Day of Nothing . . . Sort Of

I hate those days when I feel like I have accomplished absolutely nothing at work. The days when I only close out one or two or three projects and it's taken me the entire day to get in touch with a consultant or two. And of course, today was one of those days.

But complaining about my day job seems some what pointless. These days will inevitably happen. I just wish less occurred less frequently.

In other news, I'm working on character stuff again. This time it's for my contemporary fiction story. I found this great character tool a while ago and just rediscovered it. I've been using it to get a better handle on my characters. Creating normal but interesting people is kind of hard. I'm used to building characters around some bit of magic or another. I don't have that in this story.

But now that I think about it, maybe that is a good thing. Honestly, these characters feel more like they have personalities than my fantasy characters. Maybe I should do this more often.

Ah well, enough of me boring you with my musings on characters you may never meet. I'm off to watch more Star Trek (the original series, since I've never actually seen all of those) and muse some more.

It's Been a While

As I've stated many time before, I'm kind of bad at keeping up with this blog. It's so easy for me to get distracted by other things (the Sims, watching Netflix, earning a living) that I often just don't feel like posting. There's also the issue of not really being sure what to write about.

That's actually my biggest obstacle. If I actually felt like I had something worth saying, I'd probably post more. Generally, though, I don't feel as if I have much to say.

As of late I've been working on a new project (when I'm not traveling to Italy. Well, actually I only did that once, but still, it was Italy). I needed a break from my first WIP. Time to be away from it. Time to get some distance. So I've decided to step back for a while and work on a couple of other ideas that I've had for a while.

The problem I'm facing at the moment is trying to decide how to spend my writing time. I really want to work on my new fantasy project, but I also find myself being drawn back to a contemporary project that is far more lighthearted than any of my fantasy. It's fun to write in my sarcastic voice. I wish I could figure out a way to bring that voice to my fantasy. I think it would make it more interesting.

Anyway, that's what I'm working on at this point. That and my day job.

I will try and write more often. Struggle though I might, I know it's important.

Is it Time to Move On?

By move on, of course I mean, start fully focusing on another project. This is a question I've been asking myself for months now. I'm not sure what the answer is.

Why am I thinking about this. Well, let's face it. I've been working on one story for something like ten years, and honestly, it's not any closer to being published now than it was a few years ago. It needs an overhaul, or at least I think it needs an overhaul. But I just can seem to see it clearly anymore. I've spent so much time caught up in it's world that i can't get out of it. And I'm not sure that's a good thing. Not being able to see it clearly means I can't do the story justice.

The second reason is that I haven't finished anything else in all these years. Not a real novel length story at least. I've written some short stories and started a few novel length ideas. But I haven't finished another book yet. And I really need to. I need to be able to write more than one book. And it's pretty much a given that your first book almost never gets published. Sad, but true.

But this is really hard for me. I love this book. I love the characters and the story and the entire concept. It's been my baby for so long that I'm honestly scared to call it quits. I find myself thinking that I won't be able to finish or come close to finishing anything else. I fear getting stuck and never getting published.

But the more I think about it, the more I think it's necessary. As i said before, i can't see it clearly anymore. I am stumbling around trying to find the right way to write it, and I can't, at least not right now.

So I think it's time to say farewell to this project for now. As much as I love it, I know I can't give it what it needs right now. So it goes on the shelf, and it's time to turn to something else. Perhaps, hopefully, one day I'll be able to come back to it and make it the amazing story I know it is. I just can't do that right now. So I'm moving on.

Life and Creating New Characters

Who knew that writing could cause physical pain. Oh sure, I spend so much time trying to figure out the right thing to write next, how my characters work together, reworking plots, and everything else about writing, that I sometimes forget that writing can be kind of hard on me physically. I don't generally mention this to most people, though, because, like everything having to do with my health, I hate talking about it. But lately, it's really been getting in the way, which is part of why I don't update this blog as regularly as I'd like. I spend eight or more hours per day writing up reports at my day job, that I often have trouble typing more when I get home or finish my work for the day. Thus, I have not been writing as much as I'd like too. *sigh* But enough of my physical issues. How about some writing ones.

I am attempting to work on a new story idea that is unconnected to my current WIP. I've had the idea for a year or two now, but I've just started working on the characters and plot lines. It's kind of exciting because, though it's a fantasy, it's also another genre that I've never thought about working in before. It's kind of exciting, but a little stressful as well. It's difficult, but I'm very excited about what will hopefully come of this. As usual I have no title (I'm really terrible at those), but hopefully one will come to me as I go. I'm also excited because I'm thinking of setting the story in a culture similar to the Byzantium Empire. Of course, this means lots of research, but I like researching stuff.

So know I'm going to give my poor wrists a rest, and possibly do some more research on Byzantium and this other genre.

Later.

Sarcasm, First Person, and Big Edits

So the title of this blog may be a little confusing. How, you ask, can all those things go together? Well, they don't, necessarily, unless your me. And the big edits doesn't really go at all, but I wanted three subjects for my title, so there you go. :)

As for how sarcasm and first person go together, at least for me, let me explain. It's something I've been noticing more and more about my writing. When it comes to writing a story in the third person perspective, I find it infinitely more difficult for my characters to be sarcastic than it is for them to be sarcastic in the stories that are in first person. I haven't totally figured out why that is, but I have a theory. When I'm writing in third person, I find I'm not really writing in the character's voice so much. There is a voice there, and it's always limited to what's going on with the character that's the focus of that particular scene or story, but their thoughts (sarcastic or otherwise) tend to get left in their heads, or only seen through physical action. And for me it's very hard to be sarcastic in physical action without doing the same thing over and over. I'm still learning different ways to show my sarcastic side, physically speaking. I raise an eyebrow, smirk, roll my eyes, and I'm sure many other things, but it's always the same. And being the sarcastic person I am, those actions happen over and over again throughout the day. If I were to do this in writing, it would get really monotonous really fast, don't you think?

This, however, is not as much of a factor when I'm writing in first person, mostly because I'm inside my character's head. That means I can be sarcastic in the way they think as much as in the way they talk. They don't have to say their witty remarks out loud. They can just think them, and since they are narrating, can tell the audience them, without those remarks having to be heard by the other characters. Thus my 1stP characters tend to be far snarkier (that's a word right?) than my 3rdP characters. And I kind of like that. But that's just me.

As for big edits, I still haven't started mine yet. Almost there, but there's still work to do polishing the latest draft of the novel. I will, of course, keep you updated.

Now I'm off to do some work at my day job. The research is never done. :)

Plot and Major Changes to Mine

I have discovered that I may have a serious plot problem. This kind of sucks.

What, you may ask, could that problem be? It is that I think I have major events happening in the wrong order and too close together. This equals massive reworking of the whole middle section of my novel. That, understandably, scares the crap out of me.

Why? Well mostly cause I'm not the best with change. I kind of try to avoid it. Like the plague. And here as I'm trying to work out the plot for a completely different story I discover possible major issues the book I thought I was almost finished with. I almost wanted to cry when I came to this conclusion.

See I love my book kind of the way it is. It's taken years to get it to this point, to where it's feeling close to being finished finally. And then I start reading about plot, and I realize, maybe I do need to reorder those two major scenes in the middle. And the idea of having to take those two scenes and swap them after rewriting them to work in their new place and rewriting all the transitions between the scenes, is a daunting idea. So daunting I haven't been able to look at my WIP in a couple of days.

So what am I going to do, you ask. Well I could be a wuss and say nothing, but we both know that's a cop-out. So instead I'm going to do the hard thing. I'm going to finish this draft (Numero 6) including the big chunks I haven't worked on yet. Then, once that's finished, I'm going to give it to my friend who's read two of the other drafts along with the new crit partner I hope to be finding soon (thanks to Natalie Whipple and her fantastic Crit Partner Classifieds), then begin the massive rewrite for draft number 7 while they read it. Once that's done, I'll have them read #7 and see which is the better layout for the story.

It's a seriously frightening prospect, especially because I may do all that work for nothing. But after thinking over it for a couple of days, it's feeling more and more like what I need to do. So I'm going to do it.

So that's my thought for the day. Now I'm off to write or something.

Lost, Edits, and Snow

It's been a while. It's February, and my edits are still unfinished. But that's okay. I've decided that it's okay if I don't get my edits done in time for the conference. I tend to push myself too hard then get frustrated when I balk and don't meet my goals. I'm great at meeting goals for other people, but when it comes to personal stuff, I find it hard to keep pushing myself.

That being said, I am going to be done with this edit by the end of the month at the latest. I want to be able to show it to a crit partner (assuming I can find one) starting in March. Then more edits. Maybe this summer I'll start the query process, but I don't want to commit to too much, so that's still a maybe. I really want to, but I'm not going to send the manuscript out before it's ready.

Meanwhile, I've been watching Lost for some inexplicable reason. I started it last week and can't seem to stop watching it. I can't say that I like the show, but I don't hate it either. It's mostly just that I can't stop watching, like an accident or something. So I keep watching, trying to figure out why I can't stop and why I want to know what happens next.

Oh yeah, and we in St. Louis have been hit with a massive winter storm. So I'm stuck at home. My car is frozen with a 1/2 inch of ice and I've been working from home for two days. I probably will continue to do so for at least one day, if not two.

So I'm off to do more edits, watch some more lost, and do some more work.