24 Weeks....

Hi!  It's been a minute, huh?  OK.  So, I am finally ACTUALLY feeling better!  I know I thought I was out of the woods on my last post... but NO SO FAST.  My body decided to be sick for almost 6 months.  Yikes!  Well, now I'm 24 1/2 weeks and feeling better for the most part!  Well at least not nauseous ALL day. So I am planning on writing again.  I know you've heard that before but now Im SERIOUS.  For real.  I even set up my writing room. :)  Anyway, I will be posting more frequently while I try to get more finished on the book and get ready for the baby!  Oh, it's a BOY, by the way.  My due date is Sept 21st, which will be here before I know it!!  Anyway, I thought I should just post my INTENTION on here that I am gearing up to get going again, now that I don't want to die. :)


More SOON!!

a riddle...

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riddle:  what happens to a dedicated writer when she finds out she is pregnant and has hoooorrrriiibbbllleeee morning sickness that lasts all day and all night??


answer:  she falls off of the face of the planet for the first trimester. 


Hello.  Its me.  I am alive.  Barely.  So first, I apologize for the lack of EVER writing, or even mentioning what was going on.  I basically was just trying to survive. 


It is a true miracle that I am pregnant.  We have been trying for about 6 1/2 years and have done everything short of In Vitro, which we were planning on doing this summer.  And then... WHAM I just got pregnant all on our own!  Everyone says that always happens, when you stop worrying about it or stop trying.  But I swear, I've not worried and not tried before, and nada.  


Anyway, the one day that I didn't write on here, that I said that there was a family event... well that was me finding out I was pregnant! :)  I was COMPLETELY shocked and almost a week late because I never get pregnant! Anyway, it has been very very exciting, short of me thinking I was dying on a daily basis. 


I am feeling better sometimes in the mornings now, and so I'm ready to keep writing.  I am doing an edit of what I have written so far, and just to help me get back into the groove.  So once I finish that, I will be back to a set word count again. 


The baby is due late September and we are soooo excited!!  Again, my apologies for going AWOL.
But hey... I'm just growing a human. :) :) :)


Hope things are going well for everyone!!!  More soon.... I promise!!   Have a great FRIDAY!!

end of week 2- "a month of obsession"

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End of Week 2 of "a month of obsession."
Yay!  Made it to the end of two weeks.  Here are my numbers:

Jan 18- 640 (This was my one exception, but since I wrote 7K words right before, and I had a major family thing that day, I'm letting it be ok.)
Jan 19- 2,207
Jan 20- 2,034
Jan 21- 2,107
Jan 22-  2,113
Jan 23- Day Off

The best part is the feeling I get when I've hit my word count for the day.  There is nothing like it.  I get this huge grin on my face and I'm so excited!  The other thing that's really fun is to look at my 'project statistics' in Scrivener.  It keeps track of my word count for each section, but also the whole tally.  It tells me how many pages it would be printed out and how many that would translate to in paperback.  It is so exciting to see my progress when I'm writing like this!

I can't believe we are towards the end of January already!  This month has flown by and I'm so excited about what I have to show for it.

Ok gotta keep it going!!

end of week one- a month of obsession

END OF WEEK ONE!!


I am so proud to say that I have kept up with my goal, and even surpassed it!  Here are my numbers since last time:


Jan 13: 2,107
Jan 14: 2,125
Jan 15: 2,052
Jan 16: 7,116 (!!!!!!!!!)
Jan 17: Day Off


I can't even TELL you how much of a difference this is making.  I have had so many breakthroughs, it's intoxicating.  


The first thing I learned about writing 2000 words a day is that its DIFFICULT.  Sometimes, I just ended up sitting there.  Waiting.  Thinking.  Trying to be brilliant.  Or just maybe write a word- yes, let's start there.  


Before this Month Of Obsession, that's where I would have stopped.   But if I wasn't at my wordcount,  I couldn't stop anymore.   So I would just keep thinking, and thinking.  I had decided that I wouldn't let myself do anything else (internet, reading, movies, etc.) until I had hit my wordcount for the day.  Sometimes, that ate up the entire day.


But, you know what?  EVENTUALLY, I thought of something. Every. Time.  I didn't know I could do that!


Another thing I learned is something that I've read a bunch of times, and Stephen King says it in On Writing, but for some reason I didn't just LISTEN to him, I had learn it the hard way, of course.  Here it is: If you are IN your book, your story, your creation- ENOUGH- your brain starts connecting things in ways you have never experienced before.  It always takes me a little bit of time to get back IN it, before it starts flowing.  What I've found when I'm writing so much more is that I'm thinking about it ALL THE TIME.  I wake up thinking about a character.  I see something and suddenly think of a perfect way to tie in two seemingly unrelated story lines.  It became so real, I found myself dreaming about it, and waking up thinking of solutions, or where I will go next.  


Sunday was supposed to be my day off.  I don't know if since in my mind I was thinking I didn't HAVE to write, that it just all flowed, or what, but it was AMAZING.  I seriously couldn't stop.  Honestly I didn't get out of my pajamas until about 3 in the afternoon.  I just wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote.  It was like I couldn't stop!  I was in the ZONE.  I mean... 7,116??  For me, that's a personal best.  :)


It's interesting, because I have been working on this series for years, and I have soooo much written.  But  a few months ago, I finally got the storyline SOLID.  I finally got it to work.  I figured out an ending and solidified how I was going to write it.   


Now its just getting it OUT.  On the paper.  


It really helped me to tell my friends and family about my commitment.  They ask me about it every day and keep me motivated and accountable.  


I havn't finished today, so I've got to go for now.  But it feels good to check in here, and say that I'm still going strong on A Month of Obsession!!

word count ~ 2000

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Feeling good, feeling good.  I have hit my goal every day so far:

Jan 10: 2006 words

Jan 11: 2093 words

Jan 12: 2570 words

The first day I hit it pretty easily.  The second day was rough.  But a day like that is exactly why I need a word count because when I pushed myself I FINALLY got it.  Granted, it was 10:30 at night.  But I got it. Yesterday I had my 2000 by 11am.  So it just kind of depends. I decided to tell family and friends about my commitment and that has really helped.  I didn't do that before because I think I was afraid that I would have to REALLY do it, no matter what.  So, once I got out of my own way... things are going nicely.

I am trying to read a lot lately, which I really believe helps with my writing.  I read a large variety of genres and authors, and that helps a lot too.  I'm in a book club and this month's book is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, which surprisingly I haven't read and I'm excited about.  I have also started next month's book, Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare because I am moderating next month, so want to be ready.  For my psychological thriller, I'm reading Thr3e by Ted Decker.  

I also try to watch good movies, and I find that I pick up on different things from doing that.  On Sunday my husband and I watched The Godfather.  I hadn't seen it, which is unacceptable.  Fantastic movie, of course.   I'm excited to see the next two.  Yesterday for my lunch break, I watched "The Machinist," with Christian Bale.  I can't believe how much weight he lost for the part!   Holy hell, he was skin and bones- literally.  Crazy movie!  

I swear its good for me to be exposed to a lot of books and movies while I'm writing.  Yes, for my job, I get to read lots of great books and watch movies, all in the name of research. :)      

A MONTH OF OBSESSION... continues.....

obsessed- a one month commitment

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One Month.  Today is January 10, 2011.  Here is my commitment to be obsessed with my WIP for a month.  We are talking totally immersing myself in it, pounding the pavement and putting everything else aside.  I WILL hit a minimum of 2000 words a day, six days a week.  There you have it.  A Stephen King inspired word count for someone who is serious.  

I feel like it's a movie that I've seen, and I just have to get it down on paper.   Here we go....

I can feel it seeping into my system.  The obsession.  Bring it on.

a lesson from my learning curve...

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Happy New year!  Sorry its been a little while, but the holidays just grabbed a hold of me! :)  That's ok, I spent a lot of time with family and friends.  And my manuscript.  So that was good!  I also read a bunch of books: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, How to Write Killer Fiction, The Girl that Kicked the Hornet's Nest, The Firm and The Uglies (my reviews are on my goodreads).  


So.  It's a new year.  2011.  I have very high hopes for this year.  Things are going to be better, Im going to be better, more dedicated etc.  My biggest new years resolution is obvious: FINISH BOOK 1.  And not by the end of the year.... SOON!  Im gonna become OBSESSED.  That's my goal- obsession. 


I feel like Im on such a good track with it right now.  I have a solid outline and Im no longer struggling with the ending (of the trilogy).  I have a SOLID plan.  Seems like I should have had that before now right?  Well, originally the story started with what is now book 2, and so in developing my antagonist in book one, I fell in love with the character, and was struggling with having the character do what he/she does.  But I think that's what will make this character great.  A complex character, with decisions that aren't black and white at all.   Characters that are faced with impossible situations, where no matter what they choose, it will change them and stretch them.  


Another thing I decided, or rather learned the hard way, was that I am going to write the book from multiple viewpoints in 3rd person limited.  There are a series of things that I have learned a long the way that I WISH I would have known at the beginning.  This is one of them, so I'm going to give you the cliff notes of my research.


Point of View- this is a HUGE deal.  I didn't think it was, or I thought I understood it, but I didn't.  POV  will dramatically change how your book is written and how you shed light on things as the author.  


First Person (Thoughts and feelings of one main character who is telling the story) First person will always have "I" in it.  This is a good choice for a first time writer because it's not confusing at all and you can help the readers feel like they are inside the head of the character, allowing them to identify with the author fully.


examples: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox, The Woods by Harlan Coban


Second Person (Turns the reader into the character) Second person will have "you" in it.  This is not used very often and is not a good choice for a first time writer.


example: The Orchids by Thomas Cook


Third Person Omniscient (All knowing, can include thoughts and feelings of any character and can head-hop within scenes).  This is a good choice for a huge body of work, something like Lord of the Rings, because you can move your story forward and let the reader in on many viewpoints along the way.  The downside of this point of view is that there will always be a barrier between the reader and the characters.  They will never feel as if they are IN the situation, which you can achieve with either first person or third person limited.  This used to be the preferred way of writing but has fallen out of favor in recent years.


This is the viewpoint I had unknowingly started writing it, and then I did all this research and basically its a huge NO NO to write your first novel in this viewpoint.  Everyone says STAY AWAY, to the point that publishers may not even look at it.  So, that caused a lot of rewriting for me, BUT I think that its better now, because exactly what they say would happen did.  You feel MUCH closer to the character.  The thing that was crappy for me learning this later in the game, was that there were scenes I'd written that now I have to take out completely, or rework them into another perspective.  


examples: A Time to Kill by John Grisham, And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, Lord of the Rings by J.R. R. Tolkien, Anna Karenina by Leo Toldtoy, Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell


Third Person Limited (Thoughts and feelings of the main character, similar to 1st person, but instead of "I," the character's name is used.  Phrases like "he said, she said") This perspective is often used and is recommended along with 1st person for beginning writers.  


The challenge for me with this is that there is no way this story can be told from only one person's perspective because it is very complex and in my opinion would not do it justice.  So that brings me to another option of Multiple POV.


examples: Harry Potter by J.K Rowling, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway


Multiple ViewPoints (Includes thoughts and feelings from more than one main character, but ONLY one at a time.  It will be broken up with *** or through a new chapter)  This is not a recommended style for first time writers... but its what I'm using.  I just feel like it would be impossible to tell the story from one persons perspective.  But I do like using the 3rd person limited instead of omniscient because I think you will really feel connected with the characters and that's really important to me.


The caution with this viewpoint is to use as few perspectives as you can and still effectively tell the story.  Readers start to identify with whoever is telling the story, so if you switch it too often, you will have frustrated readers.


examples: My Sisters Keeper by Jodi Picoult, The Memory Keepers Daughter by Kim Edawards, The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares


Within these categories, the book can either be written with objective or subjective viewpoints:
Objective: Basically a camera's perspective- no thoughts or feelings, just the what someone says or facial reactions.
Subjective: Allows for internal thoughts and feelings.


So, that's my sum-up of POV.  I have learned what a big difference this can make in a book.  From me just switching from omniscient to 3rd person limited from multiple perspectives, it was challenging to think of new scenes that get the same thing across, from one of my POV characters.  


I'm plugging away, and loving ever second.  I'm still in love with Scrivener.  It's a fantastic program.  


Well I should be back to regular postings again.  :)  Hopefully this POV explanation was helpful- it helped me solidify it all in my mind by writing it!


Ok, I'm off to hit my word count for the day! 2000!