Writing Short

Although I’m not working on a novel, I’ve taken up a Flash Fiction challenge. You can find what it is here: Flash Fiction Spring Challenge .

I enjoyed writing it. I think it was mostly because I knew it was finite. Had I been writing that day's output of a novel I don’t think I would’ve felt the same. I’d know that I’d have to go on and on and on. I can’t handle that anymore. I like going to bed when I wish and getting up when I wish. And other things that go with not writing. I can’t see that changing anytime soon.

At any rate, you’ll find my Flash Fiction here on May 3rd.

Coming Back

Loyal readers don't disappear, please.

I'm going to return very soon.  Thanks to all for hanging in here.

A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That

It’s been a month since I’ve posted. How time flies when you’re having fun! I have been, mostly. Although it’s been a snowy, cold winter here.

When last you heard from me I was thinking. I think I’ve thought enough. I finally got a handle on the book I started and was attempting to return to. You know that feeling when it all falls into place? Nothing better.

But here’s the thing: the thought of writing book 20 puts me into a coma. I feel I don’t have the stamina to write another novel. This may not be true but it’s what I feel now. Thinking about 400 pages or so gives me a stomach ache. I don’t want to do it even though I now know how to do it. It’s overwhelming. Yes, I know about one page at a time. Doesn’t help.

Strangely, there’s another side to this. Sometimes when I think about doing that book it feels exciting. But that feeling comes much less than the other.

Please don’t tell me to get another profession. I either write or I don’t. There are no alternatives for me because I don’t want any.

So here I am feeling I don’t want to write that book. But given who I am, that could change. And given who I am it will never change.

Update

Thinking.

First Writing Day

One and a half pages. Better than no pages.

Last Day of the Week

Yesterday I made some important changes in the novel and today I finished reading it. I still feel it has potential and I’m eager to start writing on Monday. I know I’ll be anxious by Sunday night, but that’s okay.

For the record I’m still not going to be on my old rigid schedule. I’ll try to be at my desk before 10 and write as long as I can. In case you don’t remember I used to write for 3 or 4 hours. And I will again if it feels okay. Some days it won’t and some days I probably won’t write at all.

There’s no one waiting for this novel so I can do what I feel like doing when I feel like doing it. I don’t recall ever writing this way except when I wrote those 80 pages. One thing I often did was to go to the movies on Friday afternoons. And I still do in a way. I don’t go to a movie theater anymore because that means driving for over an hour. The local one doesn’t have matinees in the winter.

I have an attachment you buy through Netflix called a Roku. As you look for movies on Netflix some of them have a blue tag that say "play" and they’re the ones you can put on your Roku list. And there they sit in your living room waiting for you. Picking two for the afternoon is fun. I’ll do that soon today.

I’m restating a lot of what I’ve written here some time ago. I want to make it clear how I’m going about writing this novel. For instance, I don’t write on weekends. When I’m doing a second draft I write on Saturdays. But that was then and this is now. I have no idea if that’s what I’ll do if I ever finish the first draft of this book.

I’m pleased with my first week. We’ll see how I feel at the end of next week when I’ve actually been writing. Why can’t everything be a second draft? Yes, I know this makes no sense, but doing the second draft is so much more interesting to me. When I first started writing I hated rewriting. Now it’s what I like best.

I had to write a flash fiction piece this week and it occurred to me that it’s a wonderful writing tool. It forces you to learn how to be economical with words. Something I strive for. If you get the opportunity try one.

Okay, it’s 11:46 a.m. and I’m finished with my work day. On to the movies!

3rd Day

I've read the first half and I feel it has possibilities. I got so little done because I had bureaucratic phone calls to deal with. That can take 5 or 6 hours!

More reading tomorrow.

Last Day, First Day

When I awoke on Sunday morning I had an enormous anxiety attack. I thought it was Monday. And Monday was the day I’d planned to start writing again. Almost all Sunday I felt depressed.

Later I realized I felt that way because I wasn’t at all excited about writing the YA. I had a title and that was all. What was the point of starting any book like that. Beneath that was the fact that I didn’t want to write a YA, after all. (Sorry ll) I wanted to write my flash fiction piece and go back to the book I started last spring. Suddenly I was excited.

The next day, Monday, was the first day of my writing life in 2010. I felt good when I got up. By the time I got to my desk I was eager. I worked on my flash fiction story and got a first draft. Today I finished it and sent it off.

Tomorrow I’ll read the 80 pages of the novel I started last year. What if I hate it? What if it’s terrible? I don’t know.

I can say this. I feel wonderful having written the flash fiction piece. Nothing makes me feel better than writing. I have bad days when I’m writing but they’re worth all the days I’m not.

I hope I like the book I started, it’ll make my life easier. I have no illusions about selling it but that isn’t the point at this juncture of my life.

Cross your fingers that I like it.

When They're Over

The holidays, that is. I plan to go back to writing on January fourth. After this long break I’m both excited and apprehensive.

I have to make a decision between the book I started last winter/spring and trying a Young Adult after all this time. For those who don’t know, I published 5 YAs in the seventies and early eighties. Writing another one hasn’t appealed to me until now. I can’t say why this has turned around.

My agent has wanted me to do this for years, but I had no interest in it. Months ago it suddenly felt right. I’ll need to do some research (that means reading other people’s books) to get myself updated re clothes, language and whatever else is going on. I don’t mind that part at all. I’ll write in the morning and read in the afternoons.

I guess I’ve made my decision. Thanks blog.

This means there are twenty days until I start. I will be doing a flash fiction before that and I’ll consider it a warm up. And then back to trying to write another novel.

Be still my heart.

Gone?

I knew I hadn't posted anything in a long time but I didn't realize how long. Seeing that it's almost two months reinforces my thoughts to close this blog.

Something else has come up that is keeping me from writing, going on with the book I started last spring. And I have no idea how long I'll be in this situation.

Then I think, why bother making it official? It can sit here and I can come back when it's feasible. I don't think I'll never post again, or never write again. So I guess I'll let things stay the way they are.

So you know, I'm not happy being in this quagmire. I'd like to be writing. Imagine that.

Not My Fault?

The question mark is because in a way it is my fault.  Not being able to write.  I hoped to start again right after Labor Day but circumstances wouldn’t let me.  I created the circumstance but had no idea that after L.D. this would happen.  I was living in a dream world, I guess.

I do want to go back to the novel I started last spring.  I have no idea when I can.  There might come a time when I can do a little here and there but that isn’t the best way for me to write a novel.  Probably isn’t best for anyone.

I’m not the kind of person who can write on the subway or in a diner so running in here and doing a paragraph or so doesn’t appeal to me.  On the other hand, over the summer I realized some mistakes I’d made and although I don’t normally go back over pages until I’ve finished the whole novel, these are not normal times.  It certainly would be a new way for me. But all of this is new.  No set hours, etc.

When I can I think I’ll give that a try.  Maybe it’ll work.  I’ll let you know.

Another Update

Thanks to all for your concern. I’m better. Mentioning Lyme and puppy was a slip. This blog is meant only for things about writing.

And I’m not writing now. But I want to. A lot. And that’s a big change for me, I think. I hope I can start after Labor Day, but things might keep me from it. Still, a day will come when I’ll get back to it.

Update

I have Lyme disease.  The puppy is here.  No writing being done.

Dreams and Business

On DorothyL these last few days people have been up in arms because Chris Grabenstein's John Ceepak series hasn’t been renewed by Minotaur.  Some have suggested a write-in campaign and others are calling for everyone to go out and buy his latest hardcover or at least a paperback of one of his four previous books in the series.

For the sake of full disclosure I have to say that I’ve never read one of Mr. Grabenstein’s books and I don’t know him, although his picture makes me feel I’d like him.

He’s won awards, gotten good reviews and he’s the president of the New York Chapter of The Mystery Writer’s of America.

That’s all terrific but it doesn’t translate into having a series renewed.  It’s all about the numbers.  The numbers of your advance and the numbers of your sales.  If you don’t make back your advance, or if the publisher doesn’t make money from you, then nothing else matters.

It’s sad, but publishing is a business.  As we just found out from the automobile industry, if you don’t sell cars then you go out of business.  Or you get a bail out.  That’s where the comparison ends.  Nobody is going to bail out Mr. Grabenstein.

Some on DorothyL have said that they can’t believe another publisher won’t snap up the series.  I believe it.  Those other publishers will look at the numbers over at Minotaur and if the books aren’t selling why would any other publisher want the author on their list?  At least with that series.

I might be totally wrong about all this, but obviously I don’t think so.  I’m glad Mr. Grabenstein writes other books because no one wants him to fade away.  I’m certain he won’t.

This leads me to Shirley Ann Grau.  I’ve been thinking about her a lot lately.  What?  You never heard of her?  I’m not surprised.  In 1965 her third novel, The Keepers of the House, won the Pulitzer Prize.  She wrote a book of short stories and two more novels and then she was quiet for about eighteen years or so.  I was surprised just now to find that she’d published a novel in 1996 that I’d never heard about.  Imagine, this wonderful writer who’d won the Pulitzer was not even reviewed in The New York Times.  I’m pretty sure of that because had it been I can’t believe I would’ve missed it.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that no one is safe.  Well, maybe some…you know who I mean, but most writers can’t count on anything.  So don’t hang your hat on your laurels and don’t expect that your career will keep getting better even if your writing does.

Another Form

Suddenly I have this idea for a YA novel.  I have to admit that my dentist gave it to me.  It was something he said and I thought, what a great title.  That’s all I have so far.  A title.  I can’t work on it now anymore than I can work on anything else.  But it’s in my mind.  And I’m about to read a YA that sounds like it’s much more sophisticated than the YAs I wrote back in the seventies.  Of course it would be, wouldn’t it? 

Too Much Else To Do

Okay.  I admit it.  I haven’t gone back to the novel.  I haven’t even reread it to get myself up to speed.  I don’t feel like it.  I’m going away in July so I tell myself it’s pointless to get started again when I’m going to have to stop.  Ridiculous.  I’m going away for about ten days.

But then there’s this other thing.  I’m getting a puppy the third week in July.  How can I write while I’m trying to train a pup?  Am I wrong?  Can I do both?  And how long will I be in that state?

I’ve always hated writing in the summer.  In the past I’ve done a lot of reading during summer months. More than I normally do.  That’s what I want to do again.  Will I be able to read while training a puppy?

The last time I put aside a non-contract book I never went back to it.  I have a sneaking suspicion this might happen again.  I suppose if it does it does.

In my mind I loathe the book I started.  Maybe loathe is too strong a word.  Despise comes to mind. 

I think I might be making a lot of excuses when I really don’t need to because I can do what I want at this point in my life and shuttered career. 

Not writing today or tomorrow.

Flash Fiction Challenge

The challenge was to get the words "a wedding cake in the middle of the road" somewhere in the piece.



Tit For Tat

Me and Timmy wanted to take a road trip but we couldn't drive cause I'm ten and he's eight and my mom said it would be six more years fore I could get my license but I don't have six years which is somethin my mom doesn't know cause I ain't told her.

I gotta get out of here now.

And I gotta get Timmy out, too.

The thing is our dad beats us up bad and Mom doesn't stop him. Maybe cause she's too busy doin her work.

I thought about tellin Mrs. Fisher at school, but then she'd have to tell my dad and after that he'd beat me worse. Mrs. Fisher didn't know what Dad did cause he never hit me on my face. That's why nobody knew.

Timmy said we should tell Mom. But what does an eight year old know? And what could she do about it anyways?

See, Dad knocked her for a loop. I didn't know what that meant but I heard her on the phone tell my Aunt Becky, "George knocked me for a loop last night." And then she started cryin.

At school I asked Charlie Dunbar what a loop was. He said his older brother, who was in the Air force, sometimes flew his plane in a loop. I didn't think that was what my mom meant. So I asked Mrs. Fisher.

"Well it can be many things." She showed me in the dictionary but none of the meanings answered my question.

I decided then and there that it didn't matter and I wasn't gonna waste any more time on it. The important thing was he knocked her around. Knocked her for a loop.

So why hadn't she run away herself? For awhile I thought it was because of us, leaving us alone with him and all, but she could've taken us with her. Couldn't she? I think she liked Dad too much to leave. She liked him better than me and Timmy. I figured if we ran away she probably wouldn't miss us. Not notice, maybe.

Whatever her reasons we needed to get out today. Before Dad came home from hanging out with his friends at Smitty's bar which he always did on Saturdays. The thing was he was always drunk like a skunk when he came home. And if we were still there when he banged into the house he'd beat the hell out of us. See. Now what did that mean? Hell was inside us? Hell was supposed to be below and heaven above. How could you beat the hell out of someone? But that was what he always said.

"Get over here Bill. I'm gonna beat the hell out of you."

He always made us come to him for the beatings, never came over to us. Sometimes Timmy would run outside, but when he came back, Dad made him come over and he'd beat the hell out of him.

Dad didn't usually get home on a Saturday until about five so our plan was when Mrs. Crawford came to the door for her pickup we'd yell to Mom through the window that we were goin over to our neighbors to play. But we wouldn't leave right away. Me and Timmy would stick around to hear what Mrs. C. said and then we'd leave and run through the yards and over the fences until we got to the highway where we'd hitch a ride with somebody. How hard could that be?

Earlier, setting things up had been tougher than I thought it was gonna be. We almost fell twice. What a mess that woulda been and not fun neither. We had to take it from the back porch where Mom put them until people made their pickups, carry it around the side of the house and go through some trees so Mom wouldn't see us and then get it out there.

The bell rang and Timmy and me looked at each other. My heart started beatin hard. "Mom, we're goin over to the Fergusson's."

"Okay. Be back for dinner."

"We will."

"We better go," Timmy said.

"Not yet, I told you. We have to hear what Mrs. Crawford says."

I heard Mom leave the kitchen and walk to the front door.

"Hello, Jane. C'mon in."

"What the heck is going on, Alice?"
I already felt like laughin.

"What do you mean?" Mom said.

"Well, there's a wedding cake in the middle of the road out there. I hope that's not the one for my daughter."

It was.

"What are you talking about, Jane?"

Timmy was pullin at my sleeve. I shook him off.

"I'm telling you, there's a beautiful three tiered wedding cake sitting right in the middle of the road."

"Ohmigod," Mom said.

"Now," I said to Timmy.

We ran fast as deer and made it through the yards and over the fences in no time. When we got to the highway we were out of breath but Timmy said,

"Isn't Dad gonna knock Mom for a loop when he finds out she lost that wedding cake sale?"

"Yeah," I said. "I expect he will."

Comfortable

I haven’t written anything since the last post.  And I probably won’t until June 8th.  There have been life things to deal with and this week left me with today, tomorrow and Friday.  If you’re a regular reader of this blog you know I wouldn’t go back to work on a Weds. and for only three days.  Next week I also have only three days.

Why hurry?  Why make myself crazy with a routine I don’t want anymore.  Actually, when I was writing with a contract I adhered to the above schedule.  Not, of course, when I was close to a deadline.

I did finish my flash fiction piece.  As I posted, it’ll appear here on June 4th.

 

Not Pressing On

I managed to finish Chapter Eight last week and then I stopped.  Two reasons.  I didn’t feel like writing and I didn’t know where I was going.  So I took a break.

This week I’ve been working on a flash fiction piece for Patti Abbott's challenge.  This is my third piece and it was the hardest one.  It will be posted here on June 4th.

It was lovely to have the freedom to take off and do this piece with no feelings of guilt.

Yesterday, when I told somebody in publishing that I had no illusions about selling the book I was writing, she said, “You’re being very realistic.”  Then later she said, “But you never know.”  So there are two sentences for those of you working on a book.  I suggest you take both.

I’m not sure if I’ll go back to working on my novel tomorrow.  I have to see what the day holds for me.  I don’t mean chores.  I mean my mood. I still don’t know exactly where I’m going, but a quick look through the manuscript will probably help me.  Taking this little break from it will also be helpful for me to look at it with fresh eyes.

I want to stress again this is no way for a new writer to approach a book.  You have to have a routine.   The only reason I can do this now is because I had that routine, was disciplined for all of my career.  That means many years.  And now that it’s unlikely that I’ll publish that 20th book I can take it easy, do what I want.  BTW, doing what I want is writing a crime novel.  I think.  I’m not sure what it is I’m writing but it does have a police detective as one of the leads.  So what does that tell you?  Yeah.  Me, too.

Niggling Things

I wrote today after a two week layoff.  The company was part of it.  Then I didn’t want to.  Today I did want to.  So I did.

I did do some fiddling last week.  Changed names.  When I went back looking for said names I discovered discrepancies like someone being Asian in chapter 3 and Native American in chapter 6.  Well, not quite, but almost that bad.

So I’ve started a character page.  Person’s name and pertinent facts and family.  I still need to do back stories on the most important people.  The trouble is that bores me.  I know I have to do it more now than I ever did because of the memory problem.  Still, it irritates me that I have to do it.

I’d rather write and catch it all later.  I might.  But I know some things won’t make any sense this way.  What does it matter?  Anything can be fixed.  And if I don’t feel like fixing them by the time the book is done? So what? Is Michiko Kakutani waiting to read it?

Forge ahead, I say.  Just get it down.