I finished the first draft of my novel yesterday - I don't know how many words I wrote. It was more than 2,000 and the wordcount minimum shouldn't be an issue for the entire redraft. That's my usual process, to struggle and have crises and want to cry through the first, awful draft, then step back, see what I've written, and be able to write with a purpose through the redraft. I hate that first part. I *love* the second part.
Not that the second part is all downhill. I'll still hit key scenes that just won't work and will require major restructuring of the overall plot. I'll still have crises of faith where I look at how long I've worked on a piece and convince myself that I'm wasting my time and everyone will laugh at me when I send the piece out.
But over the last ten years, it has gotten a little easier. When I graduated from Clarion West, I wrote and wrote and wrote and sold nothing for five years, even though I could produce a short story a month. Now I write and write and write and produce even less - those short stories that used to take a month now take 3-5, because my awareness of their faults has been refined some. But, quite often they sell. Now I'm working on a novel that I believe in and that is not just artistically challenging, but fun. I don't want to sound too confident about selling it for fear that I'll jinx myself.
However my feelings for this novel are like the feelings I had for Time and Eternity - my Mormon romance. It was really, honestly, the best I could do. I was throwing my whole self, all my hard won skills and all my hopes and dreams for selling a novel into it, and it sold to the second place I sent it. That was the LDS market, which is much smaller and less competitive than the national market.
The last novel I sent out to agents for the national market got me quite a few personalized responses and even a request for a rewrite. Many who rejected it conceded that it was publishable and that I should be able to find an agent for it. Why did I quit looking? Because I didn't love it as much as I felt like I should, and the reason for that was because I'd held myself at a distance while writing it. I didn't want to get hurt when it got rejected time and again. This time I'm not holding myself at a distance, and so the submission process will be way more painful. I'll be more tenacious, though. I've put way too much of myself into this project to give up easily. I'll sub it to 50 agents if I have to, or a 100. This time, I'm going all in.
Friends of my husband may want to be extra nice to him this coming year. I'm conscious of not taking my stress out on him, but we're all happier when neither of us is stressed!
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Saturday, December 19, 2009
We have our visas (and I have a cold!!!)
Better than just knowing our visas are approved is actually having them in hand. Our passports were returned to us yesterday and we're cleared to live in the UK until October 2014. In all likelihood, Trevor's course will be complete in 2012. Meanwhile, the property market in London is still slow, which is great for us. More properties are listed every day and the one's we've flagged to look at haven't rented. We'll see if there's any holiday rush on those, though that'd be odd.
As soon as I got home from my trip, I came down with a cold. It's an interesting test for my new and improved nose. I feel stuffy, but not like my nostrils have grown shut. The surgery won't reach full effect for another week or two as my tissue continues to scar back. So far, though, so good, though I despise being sick. Especially head cold's. Those are the worst.
But I still have written my 2000 words a day. My book's well into its third act and the first draft of it is completely stupid. I look forward to the day when I can skip that step, but honestly, it may never come. When I know I've got to do something difficult, like a satisfying climax, I find it best to freewrite and then pick through the garbage I've freewritten. Then, from there, I structure the rest of my plot. I just find that works better than being structured the entire way through - what I think sounds good in my head sounds terrible on paper and it ends up all contrived and forced. We'll see if this turns out better.
As soon as I got home from my trip, I came down with a cold. It's an interesting test for my new and improved nose. I feel stuffy, but not like my nostrils have grown shut. The surgery won't reach full effect for another week or two as my tissue continues to scar back. So far, though, so good, though I despise being sick. Especially head cold's. Those are the worst.
But I still have written my 2000 words a day. My book's well into its third act and the first draft of it is completely stupid. I look forward to the day when I can skip that step, but honestly, it may never come. When I know I've got to do something difficult, like a satisfying climax, I find it best to freewrite and then pick through the garbage I've freewritten. Then, from there, I structure the rest of my plot. I just find that works better than being structured the entire way through - what I think sounds good in my head sounds terrible on paper and it ends up all contrived and forced. We'll see if this turns out better.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Visas approved (and we're home again)
I got home late last night to the news that our UK visas are approved and on their way. That's one major obstacle dealt with. It took us longer than we expected to get all the paperwork in order because we first found out that the most recent forms are not linked to from the UK Border Agency website. We had to dig through some links in the Imperial site to get to the forms. Once we filled those out, we learned that we actually needed to apply via an email form, so we filled all the same stuff out again. We had to get paperwork we didn't expect to need, like transcripts from MIT for Trevor, but once we had all that together we overnighted the materials to the consulate in LA and just got word via email that our passports with visas in them are on their way back to us.
Most of yesterday I spent traveling home from New York. My son and I had two flights, one to Chicago Midway and a connection to Albuquerque. Since the layover in Chicago was three hours long, I had time to write my 2000 words sitting on the floor in a low traffic area while my son played with his toys.
Most of yesterday I spent traveling home from New York. My son and I had two flights, one to Chicago Midway and a connection to Albuquerque. Since the layover in Chicago was three hours long, I had time to write my 2000 words sitting on the floor in a low traffic area while my son played with his toys.
Monday, December 14, 2009
On the road and still property searching
I blogged a post from the Denver Airport, then lost my wifi signal and also lost the post. Oh well. I've been traveling since last Thursday, first to visit my friend, Smythe, in Delaware, and now to visit family up in New York/New Jersey. Smythe's real name isn't Smythe, but she was given that nickname at the United World College of the Atlantic, which we both attended from '93-'95. I don't really know the story behind the nickname, though, because we didn't become friends until the last two weeks of our time there. Something about a book character with a similar name, something, something. (So my storytelling abilities are stymied by this...) It is always wonderful to see her. Ten years ago she was a Brit studying in London. Now she is married to a Texan and living in Delaware. Odd how times change, but wonderful how the friendship endures (if I did anything to blow it this time, I haven't yet heard about it.)
While I travel, Rightmove is emailing me new apartment (flat) listings every day. I add those that meet our criteria onto a list of saved properties on the site, and not a single one of those has moved in the last week. Hope that bodes well for us getting a place we can afford!
While I travel, Rightmove is emailing me new apartment (flat) listings every day. I add those that meet our criteria onto a list of saved properties on the site, and not a single one of those has moved in the last week. Hope that bodes well for us getting a place we can afford!
Monday, December 7, 2009
International move
Now that it's December I've started looking a little more seriously for a place to live in London. We won't sign a contract until we get there (doing that sight unseen is not a good idea), but I've been searching Rightmove.co.uk to find areas that are in our price range. My university classmate, Guy Dennis, has been wonderfully helpful, answering my questions about phone and internet services and suchlike, and he finds my property search very entertaining as he's lived in London most of his life and I've spent a couple months there with friends, once, and am doing this search from 6,000 miles away.
In order to afford London, we aren't going to live like we've lived here. No more four bedroom house with .2 acres of yard. No more having 2 cars. In fact, we won't have any. I've never bothered to try driving in Britain - except for the occasional tractor while I was in boarding school - and don't see any reason to start now. Mass transit will be more economical and safer, especially for other Britons who cross our path.
The nice thing about doing this in 2009 is that Rightmove can email me every day with new listings that match our criteria. Right now I've set a very broad filter just to get an idea of what neighborhoods have listings in our price range. I can also go to the London Transport website and type in the nearest tube, rail, tram, or bus stop to the property and figure out how long it would take Trevor to get from there to South Kensington.
My hope is that rents will drop as winter sets in, and so far that seems to be the case. In fact, as the listings keep appearing in my inbox, I am more and more hopeful that when we arrive we'll have several viewings set up and be able to sign a contract shortly. We won't be bringing over any furniture or housewares. It's cheaper to just rent a furnished place and buy the items we'll be using over the next three years. Our American home, meanwhile, is packed away in storage with the checking account set up to auto-pay the fees.
Three years is the longest I'll ever have been away from New Mexico in my life. Even when I went to school in the UK or LA or worked summers in DC, I went back once a year or so. For that matter, I only spent part of the first year after I was born living outside of New Mexico; my parents moved there before my first birthday. This'll be strange, which I prefer to dull anyday.
In order to afford London, we aren't going to live like we've lived here. No more four bedroom house with .2 acres of yard. No more having 2 cars. In fact, we won't have any. I've never bothered to try driving in Britain - except for the occasional tractor while I was in boarding school - and don't see any reason to start now. Mass transit will be more economical and safer, especially for other Britons who cross our path.
The nice thing about doing this in 2009 is that Rightmove can email me every day with new listings that match our criteria. Right now I've set a very broad filter just to get an idea of what neighborhoods have listings in our price range. I can also go to the London Transport website and type in the nearest tube, rail, tram, or bus stop to the property and figure out how long it would take Trevor to get from there to South Kensington.
My hope is that rents will drop as winter sets in, and so far that seems to be the case. In fact, as the listings keep appearing in my inbox, I am more and more hopeful that when we arrive we'll have several viewings set up and be able to sign a contract shortly. We won't be bringing over any furniture or housewares. It's cheaper to just rent a furnished place and buy the items we'll be using over the next three years. Our American home, meanwhile, is packed away in storage with the checking account set up to auto-pay the fees.
Three years is the longest I'll ever have been away from New Mexico in my life. Even when I went to school in the UK or LA or worked summers in DC, I went back once a year or so. For that matter, I only spent part of the first year after I was born living outside of New Mexico; my parents moved there before my first birthday. This'll be strange, which I prefer to dull anyday.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Writing Every Day?
It's been a pretty typically insane week for us, so I figured I'd ramble a little more about how to keep writing when you're busy. This information is no doubt available from hundreds if not thousands of other writers out on the web. I am not at all good at following other blogs and thus will no doubt be redundant. To be honest, I'm rather shocked at how many people mosey on over to this little corner of cyberspace that I babble in and leave their comments on my blog or Facebook, or tell me about what they read when they see me face to face. I don't consider myself a real blogger because I don't put in the time reading other blogs and being part of the online community. I'm just a full time writer/mother/random hobbyist that happens to also have a Blogger account.
Anyway, this week we've been getting our medical needs taken care of before we head to Britain. On Monday I met with an ENT about my allergies, then had surgery on my nose Tuesday. On Thursday I went to the dentist, and yesterday Trevor and I both went to the eye doctor to get our prescriptions up to date. We drove to Albuquerque for that - it's two hours away but our eye doctor is very good. We're charging more on our credit card this month than we ever have before (but yes, we pay it off every month, and this one will be no exception. Really important to do that.)
On Thursday, on my way to the dentist, I lost control of the car and banged its wheel against the curb. I hit a patch of ice, but fortunately I wasn't going all that fast and had plenty of time to brace myself. I'm fine, the wheel got bent, so we've got a mechanic's bill to pay too.
When life doesn't fall into a normal schedule, it requires some creativity to find time to write. When I was an attorney, I just got up at 5am to write and that was my routine. At 5 my mind was too sluggish to come up with excuses. Some writers keep this structure no matter what the rest of their life looks like. They get up at the same time (always a good idea regardless), have their morning ritual, and then sit down and write either for a set time or up to a set wordcount. The advantage of this is that it's habit forming and you'll probably keep it up. The disadvantage I found is that when the hard times hit and you don't sell anything, it's feels like a daily ritual in futility. You have a real clear log of exactly how much time you've dumped into an endeavor that pays nothing. It can feel worse than having worked a bad job for years; at least even bad jobs pay. Once you break your habit, it can be impossible to get any writing done until you get your head on straight again.
And writing is all about momentum. You've got to keep going, even when it looks bleak. Some people insist that a writer must write every day. That's not altogether true. What is true is that once you take a day off, it's that much easier to take another and whole months can slide by. But it's also true that if you let this get you down, you're only compounding the problem and should never let your emotions get in the way of sitting back down at the keyboard and picking up where you left off.
What works for me is setting a wordcount to write every day (mine's 2000 words) and getting those words in whenever I can. 2000 words might be a daunting task first thing in the morning - although it isn't always - but if I've written dribs and drabs throughout the day, I might find myself with only 600 words to go after my son's gone to bed. I write on a little Asus EeePC that I carry around with me, slipping it into the diaper bag when I go out. Sometimes a wait in a doctor's office is a chance to get some words down, and sometimes a nice long block of time in the afternoon is better spent playing with my son than staring at a computer screen. What's been important for me is to have a concrete goal.
But if you browse around other writers' blogs (and there are a ton) you'll find a million different approaches to getting stories and novels done. Right now I'm very grateful for the method I have because my life is crazy at the moment. It's provided me with tons of flexibility and still I can move forward.
The only real rule is that you find what works in your life - which is pretty obvious but here it is in black and white. Don't try to set up a regular schedule if you don't have a regular schedule and won't be getting one any time soon. Don't give yourself flexibility if you're bad at self discipline. People often seem to see writing as this bizarre, passion driven process that is wild and unschedulable - but anyone who thinks this is, to be blunt, an amateur and a blockhead. Writing is like any kind of independent contracting. Your boss isn't in your face every day and it's up to you to meet your deadlines. Tons of people from small business owners to construction contractors to lawyers need to know how to do this, so there are far more examples of how to structure a writing career than people realize. If it is just a passion that you indulge in when the words flow easily, then it's a hobby, not a career. (And even if it isn't just a passion, it'll take a ton of time to become a career in any case.)
Anyway, this week we've been getting our medical needs taken care of before we head to Britain. On Monday I met with an ENT about my allergies, then had surgery on my nose Tuesday. On Thursday I went to the dentist, and yesterday Trevor and I both went to the eye doctor to get our prescriptions up to date. We drove to Albuquerque for that - it's two hours away but our eye doctor is very good. We're charging more on our credit card this month than we ever have before (but yes, we pay it off every month, and this one will be no exception. Really important to do that.)
On Thursday, on my way to the dentist, I lost control of the car and banged its wheel against the curb. I hit a patch of ice, but fortunately I wasn't going all that fast and had plenty of time to brace myself. I'm fine, the wheel got bent, so we've got a mechanic's bill to pay too.
When life doesn't fall into a normal schedule, it requires some creativity to find time to write. When I was an attorney, I just got up at 5am to write and that was my routine. At 5 my mind was too sluggish to come up with excuses. Some writers keep this structure no matter what the rest of their life looks like. They get up at the same time (always a good idea regardless), have their morning ritual, and then sit down and write either for a set time or up to a set wordcount. The advantage of this is that it's habit forming and you'll probably keep it up. The disadvantage I found is that when the hard times hit and you don't sell anything, it's feels like a daily ritual in futility. You have a real clear log of exactly how much time you've dumped into an endeavor that pays nothing. It can feel worse than having worked a bad job for years; at least even bad jobs pay. Once you break your habit, it can be impossible to get any writing done until you get your head on straight again.
And writing is all about momentum. You've got to keep going, even when it looks bleak. Some people insist that a writer must write every day. That's not altogether true. What is true is that once you take a day off, it's that much easier to take another and whole months can slide by. But it's also true that if you let this get you down, you're only compounding the problem and should never let your emotions get in the way of sitting back down at the keyboard and picking up where you left off.
What works for me is setting a wordcount to write every day (mine's 2000 words) and getting those words in whenever I can. 2000 words might be a daunting task first thing in the morning - although it isn't always - but if I've written dribs and drabs throughout the day, I might find myself with only 600 words to go after my son's gone to bed. I write on a little Asus EeePC that I carry around with me, slipping it into the diaper bag when I go out. Sometimes a wait in a doctor's office is a chance to get some words down, and sometimes a nice long block of time in the afternoon is better spent playing with my son than staring at a computer screen. What's been important for me is to have a concrete goal.
But if you browse around other writers' blogs (and there are a ton) you'll find a million different approaches to getting stories and novels done. Right now I'm very grateful for the method I have because my life is crazy at the moment. It's provided me with tons of flexibility and still I can move forward.
The only real rule is that you find what works in your life - which is pretty obvious but here it is in black and white. Don't try to set up a regular schedule if you don't have a regular schedule and won't be getting one any time soon. Don't give yourself flexibility if you're bad at self discipline. People often seem to see writing as this bizarre, passion driven process that is wild and unschedulable - but anyone who thinks this is, to be blunt, an amateur and a blockhead. Writing is like any kind of independent contracting. Your boss isn't in your face every day and it's up to you to meet your deadlines. Tons of people from small business owners to construction contractors to lawyers need to know how to do this, so there are far more examples of how to structure a writing career than people realize. If it is just a passion that you indulge in when the words flow easily, then it's a hobby, not a career. (And even if it isn't just a passion, it'll take a ton of time to become a career in any case.)
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Surgery over
I'm home again after surgery and feeling like I'm coherent, though this post may prove otherwise. I don't know what kinds of drugs I've still got in my system :-) Before I could sit down and write more than a few lines last night, I fell asleep! Yay! That's a major accomplishment for me, not being able to stay up. I've worked for over a decade on that.
I was still tired, even, when I went in for surgery this morning. According to the surgeon, everything went well, and now I'm sitting with a piece of gauze taped over my nostrils. Sad but true, I can breathe through this about as well as I could breathe through my nose some days. The surgeon even commented to me that the membranes he operated on were "absolutely huge" and he said the same thing to my husband over the phone. Now I hope my mouth breathing days are almost over.
One of the odd things about the drugs they use before surgery is that one of them wipes the patient's memory. I don't remember anything after being told that they were going to put a drug in my IV, even though I was awake for a while after that. I'm just hoping that I didn't start doing anything embarrassing like singing or yelling swear words (my sister-in-law has some stories about people doing thinks like this, and the stories are really funny... to everyone except those people, I'm sure). My surgeon is the bishop of one of the local wards, so I really hope I didn't shout profanity at him, though I admit that even I would find that pretty hilarious.
I was still tired, even, when I went in for surgery this morning. According to the surgeon, everything went well, and now I'm sitting with a piece of gauze taped over my nostrils. Sad but true, I can breathe through this about as well as I could breathe through my nose some days. The surgeon even commented to me that the membranes he operated on were "absolutely huge" and he said the same thing to my husband over the phone. Now I hope my mouth breathing days are almost over.
One of the odd things about the drugs they use before surgery is that one of them wipes the patient's memory. I don't remember anything after being told that they were going to put a drug in my IV, even though I was awake for a while after that. I'm just hoping that I didn't start doing anything embarrassing like singing or yelling swear words (my sister-in-law has some stories about people doing thinks like this, and the stories are really funny... to everyone except those people, I'm sure). My surgeon is the bishop of one of the local wards, so I really hope I didn't shout profanity at him, though I admit that even I would find that pretty hilarious.
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