Category Archives: Writing

August 5, 2011

Embarking on the crazy journey… or the one about Terra project planning her life

By terraluft

Remember a couple of posts ago when I was talking about standing at the edge and knowing that leaping into this I’m-finally-going-to-write-that-novel-I’ve-been-working-on-for-years pool was going to be super shitty and hard and basically freaking out?  Well, I pulled myself together and decided that all I needed was a plan.  I tackled this gigantic endeavor as I would any project of its scope and magnitude: I broke it down to requirements and measurable deliverables and defined how to utilize my resources.  (Told you I was a total data girl and project manager extraordinaire!)

Here are my requirements:
1)  I’d made a commitment to read the entire manuscript we will be critiquing at our August writer’s group meeting.  Since this is book two of the trilogy of which the first book already has a publishing deal, I know I can’t slack on that commitment and call myself one of the members of my kick-ass writing group.  Since typically my reading happens via iPod, having to sit down and actually READ a book represents significant time.

2) I am still training for whatever I decide to do in the fall – I keep going back and forth about whether I’m going to do another half marathon or not – so I can’t slack off on my running or sacrifice training time for writing time.  I just got new shoes.  My last pair were new in late February and I’d already run three hundred miles on them. Three hundred miles every five months makes this not a small deliverable.

3)  I have to find time to write in the non-magical world where there are only 24 hours in a day, of which I still have to work eight at my “real” job and spend at least a few hours with my family being a wife and mother.  I have to write every day and be consistent about it or nothing is ever going to be different than now where I talk about writing as if it will always be in the future and never happening in the present.  The Universe sent me LOTS of pointers on this one in the form of podcast topics and daily writing tips telling me to JUST. DO. IT.  Kind of like shouting it at me with a “FOR GOD’S SAKE” added for good measure.

So here’s the general plan that I came up with…

First, I gave myself a super tight deadline of finishing the critique for my writer’s group by the end of July.  I was only two days late.  Check that one off the list!

Second, starting August 1, I will write everyday and act as if THIS month is NaNoWriMo month and just keep at it until the first draft is done. 

And finally, stick with the same running schedule I used while training for Ragnar all year since I know for the most part it works for my life.

How does that actually look with my schedule?  Monday through Friday workdays I either run at work (short-run day) or at the gym (the night Big Sister does NOT have dance) or in the morning (mid-week longer run).  When I get home from work, I’m a Mom/Taxi until the kids are tucked into bed at a reasonable time.  No more letting Big Sister stay up as late as she wants.  Since school starts in three weeks and we need to get back to a scheduled bedtime this works anyway.  The hours between 9:30 bedtime and when my natural clock winds down for the day, somewhere between 11:30 and midnight, will be devoted to writing – with the exception of Friday nights which I protect and preserve for quality time with Hubby.  Weekends are devoted to at least one long run – typically about ten miles Sunday morning – and getting on top of mundane things like laundry and dishes and perhaps squeezing in a touch of a social life – aka, the things I have been doing between the kid’s bed time and mine until now.  Since weekends are way more flexible I will write a minimum of three hours a weekend somewhere between the two days.  My house may be less clean for a while, I’ll definitely have to drink more coffee than normal and my DVR will fill up with all the things I won’t be watching regularly; but all of these things are worth what I’ll be gaining in return – being a novelist.

I’m off to an amazing start – only two days late due to the critique deadline that I blew but who’s counting, right?  The first night I spent two hours rekindling the story in my mind and working out any bugs in the outline I’ve got so far.  I figured out that the story should actually start with what’s in Chapter Three so I had to work the back story info-dump I had planned for chapters one and two in elsewhere.  And, I determined which of the three main characters point of view each chapter/section would be written from.  In the wee hours before dawn when I was awakened over and over again for a pretty heinous on-call shift, an element of the story kept churning through my head and I came up with the missing piece of my world’s creation myth – got to love bonus non-planned creative time, right?  Don’t forget, I have RELIGION of all things in my book.  Insane, I know.  Even more so when you realize that I have to basically come up with the equivalent of an entirely new system of mythology to explain what and why things happen and why people let them happen without question.  Last night, I worked another three chapters into the outline… and busted out a blog post which actually by definition counts as part of my writing.

It feels amazing making progress on the novel and it’s crazy how I kept thinking it was going to be so hard to find all this time and stick to such a rigid and unbending schedule so I wouldn’t have to sacrifice anything in my life.  What I didn’t factor in is that I enjoy writing so much that the time just flies by and all the shit about how tight my schedule is doesn’t even matter.  Here’s to starting strong and continuing the trend all the way to the end!  I am a novelist by definition since I am writing a novel… regardless of whether I ever get said novel published or not.

Leave a comment | posted in The Novel Project, Writing

July 26, 2011

My writing lesson for the week

By terraluft

Another lesson learned this week on the trail of writing a good book: make sure your facts check out so your story is believable to everyone who reads it.  As with most things in life, this can be accomplished one of two ways: either knowing something or knowing someone.

One of my writing buddies is in the alpha-reader stage of one of her manuscripts.  About a year ago she asked me some questions about small airplanes because I used to be a pilot, sort of.  I gave her some general details and forgot about it – generalities like how crashing a single engine would be much easier that a multi-engine, etc.  And then I read “Chapter Six” last weekend and realized I should have given her way different and more specific details because what she had taken from our discussion had been used to create a very tension filled and exciting plane crash – that had little resemblance to how it would really happen.  The best thing about it is that when I text her and said “we need to talk about Chapter six” she knew exactly which part I was referring to and had been waiting patiently for me to get to that part so I could tell her exactly how to fix it.  See, she knew I would know and thus didn’t waste a lot of time researching.  Smart girl, that one!

I had a ton of fun stewing about how it could be fixed without changing anything fundamental about how the characters got to that point or how they walked away from it (aka, keeping the storyline intact) and trying to remember my pilot training that I never actually finished twenty years ago.  Luckily I have a buddy who IS a pilot who helped fill in the details.  What we came up with resulted in some very minor changes but that will make a huge difference in a reader’s perception – because now it will be authentic.

I learned several lessons from this small encounter.

1) any writer needs a trusted few who they can count on for alpha-reading.  That group of people who can read as writers not readers; those who can overlook the grammar and punctuation errors that still exist in the early stages of revision and just point out the plot holes and elements of the story and characters that could be tweaked for a better overall story.  The punctuation and grammar come later after revising to death and then “readers” (beta at that point) can have a crack at it.

2) details must be authentic regardless of the genre you’re writing in.  You never know when a reader will pick up your book and have a basic understanding of the part of your story you’ve written happening to and around your characters.  Even though it is a plane crash in a sci-fi book, it is still a plane crash and it must look realistic or you lose the trust of your readers.  I still remember when I read a book by a very well-renowned best-selling author (*cough* Richard Sparks) and found he hadn’t bothered to fact check that the ruins around a certain city in Mexico are Mayan, not Inca.  I will probably never pick up another book by him almost solely for that reason.

What this means for me and writers everywhere is that if you aren’t lucky enough to know someone who knows something about what you’re writing, you better do at least basic research.  Your book can be made or broken in the details and if you haven’t done your homework, some reader some where out there will know that you slacked off – even if you get it past your publisher – and will tell their friends how much you suck.  And hopefully you have a well-rounded writer’s group or other such potential alpha readers to make the revision process less painful.  Thank god for MY writer’s group who are chomping at the bit for me to get to alpha-reader mode already!

Leave a comment | posted in Writing

July 20, 2011

Is there really a perfect job?

By terraluft

Lately this question has plagued me.  I’ve always worked since I was sixteen and I have a super, over-achiever work ethic.  Even through two babies and their resulting maternity leaves I have never wished to be a stay-at-home mom.  But how do you find the perfect job?  Mine is nothing I have said “I want to do {that} when I grow up”.  Because have you ever heard a child say ‘Mommy, when I grow up I want to sit on my ass in a row of cubicles, surrounded by other worker bees who are a constant form of irritation in one way or another, basically typing all day – for forty hours a week’?  No, me neither.

Which is why I’m writing a book.  So I can be my own boss and make my own hours and be the one who financially benefits as a direct result of all my hard work and labor and have a glorious life away from this crappy nine-to-five world.  Only now I’m seeing, through my fellow writing buddy and her publishing deal, exactly how much work will be required once I finish and sell a manuscript.  None of it sounds too fun or exciting – it sounds like, well, work.  And that’s only IF I finish and sell a manuscript, the hardest part of the whole process being breaking into the publishing world.  (My first novel I’ve been at for so many years it’s almost embarrassing.  Yes, yes, I know I’ve learned the craft of writing in that time so it isn’t like wasted time.  But still, we are talking years!)  Plus I’m not naive enough to think that selling one book to a publisher will mean I can pack up everything and buy a remote cabin in the Montana mountains where I can go and live and write in bliss.  It will remain work, and almost harder work once I’ve “made it”.  Then comes deadlines for new books and book tours and all the other stuff that comes with being a successful author.  I’ll just be trading one kind of hard work for another and not really setting myself free.

So how do you pick the right job that will take you through to retirement with your wits still about you and not so burned out that you can still enjoy life?  And what part of your life right now, in the present, do you have to sacrifice to get to that pie-in-the-sky end result?  Unfortunately I don’t have any of these answers.  Could it be that the uncertainty awaiting me in the life of an author is the real reason I haven’t done much on my manuscript the last month?  Forget the two vacations and running Ragnar I’ve been up to lately, what if THIS is the real reason I’m dragging my feet and filling my evenings with things that are not writing?  I mean, the outline is basically done – even detailed for most of the book – with the ending all summed up with room for my characters to form their own path to the finish as they flesh themselves out.  The perfect balance for me, the discovery writer who needs a little direction to keep her characters reined in.

Bottom line, I’m not going to know if the life of an author is right for me until I become one who has finished a manuscript and done all the hard work – just like I didn’t know what I really wanted to do when I grew up before spending fifteen years getting to where I am in the working world I am currently in.  Being a writer is the one thing I’m doing now that I remember saying I wanted to do way back then.  That’s got to mean something, right?

I guess the real reason I’m dragging my feet with getting started – again – on the novel, now that I’ve turned my reflection glass all the way to internal and taken a good hard look, is that I know it’s going to be like having two jobs.  Which means it will be hard and there won’t be much sleep involved.  Picture it: work forty hours a week away from home so we can keep paying the bills; feel like a single mom at night with hubby working a ton of late hours while juggling Big Sister’s dance schedule and spending enough quality time with Baby Sister that she likes me more than the nanny; be on-call for the day job for twenty additional hours of nights and weekends; write every day for several hours to keep the momentum up and finish the first draft this year; oh, and don’t forget to run and stay in shape so I stay sane through it all.  I guess my love affair with coffee will be good and the one with my bed not so for a while.  In a way it feels like the dread and anticipation I feel when approaching a race day.  You wonder if you’ve trained enough yet are excited to see how it all goes.  I need to put on my big girl panties and suck it up if I expect to get to the end, no matter what race I’m entered in.

If I’m being honest, and when have you known me not to be, I feel like I’m standing at the edge of my future afraid to take the next step in case I fail.  Remember the scene in the Indiana Jones movie when they are after the Holy Grail and Indy has to take a leap of faith not knowing what will happen?  That’s how I feel – standing at the edge of a cliff where I have to stop talking about how amazing it’s going to be when I get to the other side and find what I really want in life waiting for me.  (In other words, start writing this novel again and this time finish the damn thing!)  I may not know exactly how it will look but until I get there to see it I’ll never know!  So here’s to officially embarking on the journey from writer to author, may it not kill me…

Leave a comment | posted in The Novel Project, Writing

June 7, 2011

Screw that, I’ve got feathers in my hair!

By terraluft

Okay, I’m officially done with my little meltdown.  Seriously, last week had me on the edge more times than I’ve been in… well, I don’t ever remember being that close that often before.  I’m always a little psychotic around a new moon but this one was a doozie and will go down in the history books, I’m afraid.  I’ll look back years from now and say “wow, remember the new moon of May 2011?  What a killer!”  I have now effectively slapped myself back to kickin’ ass and takin’ names mode and am ready to tackle the mountain of laundry I’ve let pile up and get back to writing, which I’ve been slacking on.

Speaking of writing…My writer’s group IS AMAZING and helped immensely getting me out of the slump.  We met last week which was fabulous as always.  I got to play with character development through dialogue which I didn’t realize I could do until I tried.  And, we ended the evening with a brainstorm session on my novel.  I came away with lots of the fuzzy ideas I’ve had swarming around in my head a bit more solidified AND on paper.  But, it also resulted in many a daunting realization for me.  Like am I really changing the name of my female main character?  (If you have any powerful sounding female names, please share them since she can no longer have the same name as Baby Sister!)  And am I really thinking of putting a religious aspect into my book?  (Yes, ME, the non-religious girl with religion in her book!)  And is my male main character going to fundamentally have to change everything he’s been doing in the beginning of the story?  I know all three of these things mean a much more challenging story to write but I’m excited about the possibilities and the depth they will bring to my little baby.  I can’t wait to be able to carve out consistent time again to write.  Which I will do once the insanity that is Ragnar is over in just over a week.  I’ve come to accept that there is no way to do both Ragnar training AND writing at the same time and I just have to be okay with not doing everything all the time when I bite off this much to chew on.

Sigh.  Sometimes being an overachiever really bites.

With that said, my running lately has been a joke and I’m worried that I should be more stressed about it.  I haven’t run more than four or five miles in weeks because of time constraints with the hubby’s new schedule cutting into my gym time.  And, since I’m being honest, I haven’t even been that motivated to push myself to the level of training I know I need to be at in order to be successful on this race.  Like Sunday night I totally could have done a second run in the evening but I just didn’t want to get off the couch.  And I didn’t.  If I’m rationalizing, which I’ve been doing a lot of the last couple of weeks, it’s because I’ve been suffering with a flare up of my old nemesis running injury, plantar fasciitis, and I don’t want to push myself hard and then not be able to even run on race weekend.  Then there’s the run I tried in the eighty two degree heat of a June Sunday in Utah that sapped my energy so much that I couldn’t even run more than thirty minutes before I thought I’d die – LITERALLY.  Have I mentioned how much I loathe heat?  I long for the cool temperatures of fall already and it isn’t even full-blown summer yet.  I’m probably the only person I know who trains outdoors all winter and opts for the treadmill in the summer.  But I digress…

Today I got some good news coupled with a dose of reality.  I stumbled across an article talking about the need for rest and how some runners have a tendency to overlook it.  Turns out that being stressed and tired and all the things I’ve been suffering the last few weeks takes a toll on a runner’s performance and the only cure is to take some time to rest so your body has time to recover.  So, the new plan is to not stress about how much training I’m going to get, or not get, in the next week.  Seriously, I’ve been training hard core for 18 weeks and it’s time to start tapering off so I am rested and ready for race day.  I’ll go for a few light runs between now and then but not push myself.  I know that I am indeed capable of running morning and night and the next morning – because I’ve done it already – and that I can run the distances I have on tap for each of my legs of the relay – seven miles, eight miles and four miles respectively.  It feels good being back in the mind frame of “I’m ready” instead of the stressed out “OMG I’M NOT GOING TO BE READY” I’ve been feeling.  On the way home from work today I saw a bumper sticker that said “FURTHER… NOT FASTER” and I laughed right out loud because it was clearly on the back of that Jeep just for me to see and be reminded that for me it isn’t about speed but endurance.  I need to turn off the pace calculator on the old Garmin and things might be a bit less stressful for myself.  When did I become so obsessed with being competitive anyway?

I also had an epiphany the other day when the date of my first race of the running season came and went and I didn’t even register or pretend to care that I was missing it. Once Ragnar is over, I’m going to go back to running for the joy of running and not care about a race until the half marathon in October.  By then it will be cooler temperatures and I can train hard for a few months and be happy.  After the insanity of Ragnar training it will be nice to take a break, enjoy running again, and have time to write.

To go along with my new outlook, I indulged a whim and got feather extensions in my hair at the gym last weekend with Big Sister.  It’s fabulous and sassy and represents everything I’m feeling now where nothing is going to get me!  So, the only question is, did the feathers come because of the new outlook or did my outlook change because I got feathers in my hair?  At this point, I’m so glad to be out from under the dark cloud of ick that I don’t care how it happened, I’m just glad it did!  Here’s to the downhill fun of this roller coaster I call life!

3 Comments | posted in Everyday Life, Running, The Novel Project, Writing

May 25, 2011

All I get are book reviews? What is happening!

By terraluft

I’ve been so busy I somehow forgot I’m a blogger.  I may have forgotten I’m a writer for a little bit, too.  Right now all I am is a mom and a runner…  And I’m not even doing either of those very well. 

Wow, doesn’t that sound like a pity party?  If I were one of you, my faithful if anonymous followers, I might shake my head and mutter about the downer and stop reading.  But, guess what – life is as full of downers as it is uppers.  And I’m not talking about little pills either.  So, instead of suffering alone, I’m sharing with the world – my small corner of it anyway – and hoping somehow it is the key to turning it all around and getting me out of the current slump.

It isn’t even a slump really.  I’m just overwhelmed with my life.  It happens.  Occasionally. 

Hubby isn’t happy with his job.  I’m not happy with my job.  Big Sister is, I’m hoping, a typical nine year old who would rather lolly-gag and watch TV than pick up after herself regardless of how often I yell at her and ground her and take away her phone.  Little Sister is in the full blown “terrible two’s” and is constantly throwing tantrums and screaming when she doesn’t get her way.  Hubby’s work schedule – at the job he hates – has begun interfering with everything from co-parenting to my running and we barely get to see each other.  I have the equivalent of a part time job on top of my regular full-time day job in required after-hours support.  And, I haven’t written a thing in weeks – unless you count a couple of book reviews.  Oh, and I am so busy both at work and at home that it’s been days since I got to talk to my friend who abandoned me at work and who I miss desperately.  You know, now that I think about it this can all be blamed on her – since she left there is no one around who lets me vent and keeps me sane.  Great.

So, that’s my life in a nutshell. 

Plus, I’m freaking out about Ragnar because I’ve been so crazy busy the last two weeks that I haven’t gotten to run regularly and now we only have about three weeks of training time left before the big show.  Oh, and did I mention that we’ve had to replace five of the twelve team members in the last few weeks?  Yeah, try finding runners insane enough to even consider doing this relay race who aren’t already on a team and who are willing to jump in with only a few weeks left to train.  It is pretty difficult.  Luckily I know a lot of people but we’ve pushed the limit on scraping the barrel so hopefully it is over.

Oh, and did I mention that I need to have my wisdom teeth removed?  Yeah, I’m thirty nine and I still have my wisdom teeth – don’t judge.  And the recovery time is going to either interfere with Ragnar OR trump our trip back to Glacier we had planned… Do you see why I’m a wreck these days?

I do have stolen moments here and there like glimmers of light to cling to in the darkness and keep me going.  Book club last week was amazing and the brief brainstorming session with a fellow writer afterward may have finally gotten me past the little block I had going with moving forward on my novel.  Although I haven’t had a chance to write, I’m constantly thinking about the characters and the story line and wondering where it is going to take me.  Dance season is over so I’ll get a month off from the shuttling back and forth three nights a week and school is out next week so my mornings will get less intense.

So, if you find yourself wondering where I’ve been and why all I’ve been posting are a few book reviews, picture me screaming through life with a toddler on my leg and my hair on fire juggling more than my usual share.  And with this picture in your mind, I hope you’ll forgive me…

2 Comments | posted in Ranting and Ravings, Running, Writing

April 12, 2011

Salvaging and re-working

By terraluft

Work on the novel continues at the slow speed of life with two kids and a full time job… but it IS continuing which is the only thing that matters!  This week I’ve gone back and taken the almost finished draft from before I decided to start over and began deconstructing it into outline form.  The basic story was pretty much hammered out in that draft – at least to the end of the middle – regardless of how poorly it was written in my early days of training to be a good writer.  That is the easy part!  Then I can outline the key points that have always been swimming around in my head about where the story has to go to reach the end.

But then comes the hard part…

I’ve been grappling with some massive changes that must be worked out because of some new directions I already know are in store.  For instance, I’ve decided that a different character is going to be kidnapped instead of my main character’s daughter.  The kidnapping itself was merely a means to an end to get her to follow her daughter’s kidnappers and once she got there I never wrote her authentically enough to have a missing daughter; nor could I because there were more important reasons for her to be where I had sent her.  So, no daughter kidnapped.  Solves the characterization issue but creates a whole bunch of new things to work out.  Does she even need a daughter?  I don’t think so now.  But, the daughter is key to several pieces of the puzzle – like the two main characters initial meeting happens because the daughter stumbles across him in the woods and takes him home.  If she doesn’t exist, how do they meet now without dissolving the believability of one of my favorite scenes written to date?  Okay, then maybe the daughter can stay but she isn’t the main character’s daughter.  Maybe she’s a niece?  But then that requires there to be more than a string of only-children which is how the family dynamics have already been written with an important tie to the matriarchal grandmother who is the key to everything at the end.  *sigh* 

Like I said, the hard part!

As much as I love some key pieces of discovery writing (where you just write and things happen and hopefully they all work out in the end) I don’t want to waste another year of just writing without knowing exactly how the story ends.  I need to work out all the background to the story, figure out the way all the characters fit with each other and the major plot points.  THEN I can start writing to fill in the blanks and flesh it out with characterization, description and tension.  I am a woman on a mission – to finally finish this damn thing!  If you need me, I’ll be writing… or staring blankly into space trying to figure out how to make it all work so I can start writing again!

1 Comment | posted in The Novel Project, Writing

April 5, 2011

Something new to keep things exciting

By terraluft

I’ve decided I’m going to start talking about my novel in detail…  Perhaps some teasers?  I have to have an outlet to keep things fresh and since this is what my blog does usually – plus give me perspective and allow me to vent – what better way to keep me on track and working toward the finish line.  So first, a recap of where I started and where I’ve been up until now…

The first version of my first draft began as my wanting to do NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in November of 2008.  And ended with me failing miserably and only writing like 5K words.  Plus, I found out that while I had a great idea for a story, I didn’t know squat about writing.  So, I read some books and I started learning more about the art and craft of being a writer.  The nuts and bolts if you will.  It was this year that my writing group was formed…

My second attempt at NaNoWriMo was the second version of my first draft in 2009 and I won that year with 50,000 words written in 30 days of November.  What a crazy year that was!  All while I was pregnant, too!  This was the best and biggest chunk of story writing to date but it wasn’t amazing yet.  After I went back and started editing and pulled it out to polish some stuff up to take with me to a writer’s convention last year, I realized that I’d written my main character all wrong.  Like completely wrong.  She’s supposed to be this kick ass woman who’s daughter gets kidnapped and she was instead this simpering little pussy who I would have hated to read about.  She didn’t even get that upset when her seven year old daughter was taken.  Instead she tags along with the other male character who is from another realm and isn’t even freaking out that much.

So, after trying to write something else (okay, anything else) for the 2010 NaNoWriMo I started over yet again – that makes third attempt at the first draft.  I wrote some really great new stuff involving the male main character and his other realm but when it came time to write the main female character scenes I stalled.  I still didn’t know exactly what she was going to be like and I didn’t want to fail yet again to capture her perfectly.

And then we had a writing prompt in the writer’s group last month which inspired me to write a scene that most likely fits somewhere in the middle of the book.  I nailed her character!  Being able to just write one scene and figure out how – in one isolated moment – she would react cemented everything for me and now I can go back and start writing her.

So, as soon as I’m done outlining and getting some basics down on where this story is heading so my discovery writing at least has a high level road map to keep me out of the weeds on the side of the road, I’ll be starting attempt number four of my first draft.  Number.  Four.  I’m glad I’m stubborn (my mamma didn’t raise no quitter!) or I might have thrown in the towel several attempts ago.  But, the story and the world I’ve uncovered within myself wants to get out so the world can read about them.  Who am I to argue and complain that it’s taking entirely too long?

Why I ever thought that writing a novel would be easy should be shot.  (Since I’ve read so many in my lifetime it should be a piece of cake, right?)  Oh wait… that would be suicide, so I guess I’ll refrain!  Stay tuned for new developments on this journey to a completed first draft which I’m hoping to happen before the end of the year… and yes, I mean THIS year.

Leave a comment | posted in The Novel Project, Writing

March 31, 2011

New inspiration

By terraluft

I, now more than ever, want to flog my stupidvisor (no, that is NOT a type-o).  I won’t bore you with all the idiocy about how many times he says he “will” {fill in the blank}, the future never actually coming to pass; or how yesterday I got to sit across a desk in a one on one meeting and be the one mentoring HIM on how better to lead our team with what I would consider common sense things.  No, instead I’m going to tell you about my amazing writer’s group who have given me the inspiration I need to *finally* finish my novel and do what I really want to do.

First, I’ve taken a semi-sabbatical from Facebook.  No, I didn’t deactivate my account but I took it out of my tabs that auto load every time I open my browser.  Now that little tab isn’t staring me in the face beckoning me to come and waste valuable time when I sit down to my computer.  It’s amazing the writing you can get done in fifteen minute chunks of time here and there which would otherwise be wasted just staring at all the links and videos people post trying to sift through to find noteworthy status updates from people you haven’t seen in years and who you probably wouldn’t recognize if you saw them on the street.

My writing group meeting with our real-life-published-author has really motivated me to get back to writing my novel.  Bottom line, the only major difference between her and any of the rest of us is that she actually finished her manuscript and edited and polished it so she could shop it around (a brutal and painful process though it was) and finally land a deal.  So, step one: finish my manuscript.  Should have been a no-brainer, I know, but hey I’ve been a busy girl!  Doing the writing exercise was amazing.  To see things I do in other people’s writing and learning from each other… it was a fun night full of learning.  And looking back at where we started and how far all of our writing has progressed shows the amount of hard work we’ve put into learning the craft.  You can’t go out and run a marathon without training and the last few years for me have been training for the marathon of writing a novel.  It’s almost race day… I can feel the anticipation.  My characters are back, swirling through my head and whispering things to me.  I just need to *gasp* outline the basics of the story (I’m a discovery writer mostly) and work out a few more things that happen in the middle to get to the ending I envision and it will be time to hit the starting line.  Wish me luck!

Leave a comment | posted in Ranting and Ravings, Writing

March 27, 2011

If you want it done right, do it yourself…

By terraluft

I’m very unsatisfied with my day job right now.  I have a supervisor who is totally disengaged from the team and is making changes that don’t make sense catering to the lowest performers at the expense of those of us who actually do the work.  Morale is so low, the only thing keeping me there right now are the amazing benefits and the fitness center which allows me to run during the workday.  Seriously, those two things.  Pretty shitty, I know.

Am I bitter because I didn’t get the job when I applied for it a year and a half ago?  I thought so in the beginning but the candidate they hired over me can only earn my respect if he actually does a better job than I would have done at managing the team.  Which he hasn’t.  I think almost two years is enough time to know for sure that he sucks.

So yeah, I guess I am bitter.  But do you blame me?

I’m coping by recommitting to my novel.  My good friend Christauna just got a publishing deal for her first book so I know it is possible.  And she learned everything in the same place as I did – our writer’s group.  How cool that it started as a few people who wanted to write and started meeting to support one another in our efforts to learn the trade and now there’s a real life published author in our midst!

I can’t wait for the day that one of two things happen.  1) the idiot supervisor’s plan results in a major system outage that puts his ass on the line and gets him fired (or worse, the technical lead decides she’s had enough after 30 years); or 2) I get a publishing deal of my own and I can tell them to take this job and shove it so I can just be a writer!

In the meantime, instead of focusing on the negatives and all the bullshit where they are under-utilizing my skill set and hobbling me, the overachiever, with a job I can do with both hands tied behind my back and from which I currently get no job satisfaction, I will focus on how amazing it is to get paid my salary for doing very little and use the downtime and stress-free time to finish my novel.

We’ll see how long that lasts…

1 Comment | posted in Ranting and Ravings, Writing

March 21, 2011

Spring has sprung… and I’m all over the place

By terraluft

It’s the first official day of spring today!  Which is not such a happy time for me since now I get to suffer with seasonal allergies… you’ll forgive me if I’m not overjoyed with the rest of the world to be leaving winter behind.  I added the allergy pill this weekend to the morning handful of supplements I’m taking now thanks to my nutritionist.  I don’t really have anything to bitch about today so instead I’ll regale you with what’s been happening in my crazy day to day life.

First, the nutritionist…  What a lovely and totally-worth-the-price addition to my life!  Turns out when I started actually tracking what I’m eating I was only giving my body about 800 calories a day.  That on top of working out all the time is NOT a good way to lose weight.  After a week of properly fueling my body for basic living as well as all the exercise, I not only feel better but I’ve started to see the number on the scale inching down.  No, lovely doesn’t begin to describe it – it’s fucking amazing!  Knowledge is power, people.  Remember that!

Next, running…  It’s no secret I’m in full swing of my intense training routine for my upcoming relay race.  The organizers put together two training programs and I figured they should know better than I what kinds of things I need to prepare for so I’m following them.  The first is for a beginner who “hasn’t been doing any running”.  Well, that doesn’t apply to me and good thing since it has running in MINUTE increments.  I’m used to MILE increments.  The other one, “for the runner who is already running an average of 10-20 miles a week”, was more my speed so I picked that one.  Well apparently if you slack for a week and then try to pick up where you are supposed to be, it results in strained knees.  After my disastrous attempted run last week I rested up and bitched a lot about why I was semi-injured this week.  Because I’m a data and gadget geek, I could go back to my logged data and see that I had actually doubled my mileage the week before with the warmer weather allowing me to run outdoors in the evenings instead of at work in my measly hour I’m allowed to squeeze out of my workday.  Oopsie!  Happily, I only needed to rest a bit and I felt amazing on my outdoor run yesterday.  Back on track and paying attention now.  Must stay healthy!

And finally, writing…  I haven’t been doing much writing lately unless you count my humble blog here.  Let’s face it, my life just doesn’t have enough hours in it to do much more at the moment.  My writer’s group has changed things up a bit this year and to keep up writing we are now doing writing prompts which will allow us to focus on specific tools (like dialog, description, etc.) and improve without having to commit to completing a manuscript.  I have one I have to work on this week and the thought of it makes me happy.  The one of us in said writing group who actually has been writing the past year just got signed with a publisher.  I’m ecstatic for her – and truth be told just a little bit jealous.  Knowing that the dream can be, in fact, reality if you work hard at it (and write a damn good book) makes me want to write more than I have been.  I need to find a way to multi-task my writing into my life like I did with reading.  Which, by the way, have you noticed that there are more than book club books in my list of books I’ve read so far this year?  I LOVE being a reader again – thank you audible.com!  If only I wouldn’t look (and sound) like a freak dictating a book while I’m running.  And if only voice recognition software would work with a heavy breathing runner.  A girl’s got to dream, right?

1 Comment | posted in Everyday Life, Healthy Lifestyle, Running, Writing

January 27, 2011

The How-To-Do-It-All Guide for Overachievers and Crazy People

By terraluft

Life and all the things I’m trying to cram into it has been hitting me in the face this week – HARD.  It is the first big production for Big Sister’s dance team also known as the Winter Revue which includes dress rehearsals and extra practices; it is Baby Sister’s first birthday which of course requires a party to celebrate properly; it is the official start of Ragnar training and six-day a week running schedule; and I’m excited about writing again thanks to my amazing writer’s group.  Yes, ALL of that is happening THIS week.  Oh, and don’t forget that Book Club Retreat is in two weeks so I have an entire book to read before then – luckily it looks like a fast and easy read.  And these are all just extra things on top of my nine to five job, cleaning my house occasionally and spending time with my Hubby and friends and family.  And I’m expected to do all these things and NOT become a raving lunatic.

So, it’s no surprise that I find myself wondering how the hell I’m going to do it all!  Granted – I can’t complain too much since this is all my own doing.  I have always been an over-achiever after all…

Last night was a writer’s group meeting – squeezed in after a full day of work, a dress rehearsal at dance, and a run.  One of the greatest insights I’ve had in a while came from a question posed by my most-inspiring fellow writer when she said “why do you write?”.  Which in turn led to an examination of why I do anything and general wondering on my part if there was a better way to cope since bottom line I really WANT to do it all and not get overwhelmed.  I can’t give up being mom or wife; nor would I want to in either case.  Same goes for daughter or sister.  I can’t give up my job; unless I want to drastically change my lifestyle and considering the first thing to go would be my mecca of a gym and our amazing nanny, I say hell no.  No way I can give up running and my commitment to being healthy and getting fit – especially not when I spent the money I did to register for the Ragnar Relay.  Plus, I deserve to be fit and healthy, as everyone does.  Which leaves my two luxuries and the only other things I really do: reading and writing.  At the time I was reluctantly but realistically – or so I thought – feeling like I needed to give one or the other up and since I haven’t worked on my novel since the close of NaNoWriMo in November I thought it had already kind of been decided and said as much to the group while expressing my frustration that I just don’t have the time to write, much as I want to.

Funny how it had to be pointed out to me that I am constantly writing since I am a regular blogger here and have been for several years.  Yeah, yeah, I know that’s probably quite obvious but hey, I have been talking about and toiling over and dreaming about this novel for – count them – THREE years with not even a completed first draft to show for it.  Somehow I equated “writing” to working on the novel and haven’t considered that I have never stopped writing since I’m constantly doing it, just in a different form.  *Light bulb*  And it didn’t even take a therapist, just a friend who knows me pretty well!  So, now I can quit getting down on myself about not writing and will continue to write in whatever form I can whenever I can with a new goal of at least once a week working on the novel.  To be a writer, you must live like one which means, above all – writing.

But that epiphany doesn’t really solve my overwhelming feelings of failing at being able to do everything.

Which brings us to reading.  The luxury I have loved and cherished since I was a child reading Nancy Drew Mysteries and progressing to Stephen King and everything I could get my hands on – even my Mom’s trashy romances when I could successfully sneak them away unnoticed.  It is no secret that the last two years my reading has diminished and if it weren’t for Book Club I probably wouldn’t have read even as much as I have done.  But there are only twenty four hours in a day and I still don’t know where I’m going to find more time for reading.  *sigh*

At the end of the discussion with the writer’s group, we all found ourselves either committing to writing more, declaring that we were on hiatus for a while or somewhere in between so we could structure the group for this year.  And that’s when it suddenly came to me.  Well, truth be told it was actually sparked by a sarcastic and bitchy comment about why couldn’t I multi-task more things so I really could do it all. 

Wait for it…

“Why don’t you listen to audio books WHILE you run?”

Are you fucking kidding me?  Why didn’t I think of this sooner?  (Hell, let’s be honest, I DIDN’T think of it!)  I log miles and miles a week constantly searching for just the right song or play list to entertain me while I’m at it.  All the while bitching because there’s not enough hours in the day to read anymore.  I blame the one and only time I ever listened to a book on tape and missed the deadline for the Book Club discussion “because I can read a hell of a lot faster than a person can enunciate all those words”.  After that one experience – years ago mind you – I declared that audio books were not for me.  Well, no longer can that be true – since I clearly can’t read faster than I could listen to a book WHEN I HAVE NO TIME TO READ.

Now I just need to find the perfect way to get audio books onto my iPod so I don’t have to give up anything I want to do and then look out – that list of titles I’ve wanted to read will start dwindling instead of merely growing.  (Luckily I’m a gadget-savvy problem solver so it shouldn’t take too long.)  I’ve found my secret to doing literally everything and still staying sane – the proverbial have my cake and eat it too – and I’m so excited!  Somehow I also need to find time to shop for new tights and dance shoes for the recital on Saturday plus buy birthday presents and bake cupcakes before Sunday!  Somehow I’ll figure that all out, too – I hope!

On a side note, if I haven’t said it enough – okay, have I even said it at all? – thank you for reading what I write!  And if you’re not a follower, please consider it?  I am a narcissist who’d love to see who’s reading besides my handful of friends I see all the time.  Here’s to everyone being able to find a way to make life work and get everything YOU want in the coming year, too since we all deserve it…

Leave a comment | posted in Everyday Life, Running, Writing

December 1, 2010

Okay so maybe I’m not perfect

By terraluft

Notice I said maybe…

It is officially December 1st as of fifty three minutes ago.  NaNoWriMo is officially over for another year and I haven’t written in more than a week – well, except for here on my blog.  I thought it might be therapeutic to reflect on what the month and my unsuccessful finish has taught me.  First and foremost, I realize I’m not perfect and, although I normally do exactly what I say I’m going to do when I say I’m going to do it, sometimes I just can’t do everything I want.  That’s what happened this year.

Am I wallowing in self doubt and telling myself I’m not a “real” writer?  No 
Do I want to?  Yes
Will I? Only for a minute or two every now and again before I snap myself out of it

Instead I’m going to focus on the positives of the month: 

  1. This year I wrote more in November than I had in the six months previous combined 
  2. I have a kick ass start to the rewrite of what I hope to someday be a kick ass novel people can pick up off a shelf and read
  3. I’m inspired again to work on said novel I “shelved” six months ago which, without NaNoWriMo would still be languishing in the recesses of my mind

So, what the hell happened?  How can an entire month fly by so quickly that I don’t even realize it’s gone?  Probably the same way almost an entire year has passed since I had my baby who is now 10 months old, that’s how!  She is almost walking, crawling everywhere and quite honestly I blame her almost solely for my lack of writing time this month.  I’m knocking on 39’s door and I don’t have enough energy to keep up with her, my job, my running and still have time to write.  It is what it is and I accept that I can’t do everything but sometimes getting older really sucks.  Remember the days where you could stay up until the wee hours of the morning and still get up and function all day?  Now I actually need sleep… so irritating sometimes!  Although back then I lived with my parents and had little control over my own life so there is a trade off I guess.

There were times throughout this past month I had flashes of self loathing.  Times where I would think “what are you doing?  Why aren’t you writing?” and berate myself for lack of will power and commitment.  But I realize that – although I know it is most likely a rationalization of some kind – it is okay to accept that things are sometime beyond my control with my life and it doesn’t have to mean that I am a failure.

Tonight I thought about making a final stand and spending the three hours I had while big sister was at dance writing  – just to see how much I could get done by the end of the deadline.  But there was baby sister and how could I resist those big blue eyes and that skinny little diaper butt that beckoned me to follow while she crawled all over the house and pointed at the wind chimes she wanted me to activate for her listening pleasure.  And then there was the giggling when I tickled her and the cute way she has of flinging her little head back to tell me she wants to go upside down so she can come back up and laugh some more.  And shaking her head “no” at me when I tell her not to push the buttons on the TV or open the cabinets to investigate the treasures within.  Yes, I picked her and snuggling on the couch with big sister when she got home from dance instead of making a last stand for 2010’s insanity of a writing goal.  I’m guessing even if that means it takes me another year to finish the novel it will still be worth it since I will never forget the everyday joys of the times like we had tonight.

So, there is always next year to try again.  This time more prepared and hopefully with a finished draft of my first novel already under my belt.  Here’s to growing up almost as fast as I’m growing old…

Leave a comment | posted in Everyday Life, Writing

November 17, 2010

Maybe a change of scenery would help?

By terraluft

We’ve passed the halfway mark of November and NaNoWriMo… which means I should have at least 25,000 words written of the requisite 50,0000 if I’m doing the slow and steady wins the race approach.  I’ve fully recovered from the half marathon insanity and am still running three times a week – much smaller distances now – and have switched my focus to writing.  So why do I only have 8300 words written?!?

I’ve learned several things so far this year.  First, there is a huge difference between being six months pregnant and attempting to push through pregnancy exhaustion to stay up late so you can write a novel in a month and trying to find time to write with a 9 month old who is highly mobile and needs constant care.  Baby Sister also chose November to decide that by staying on her well-established daytime nap schedule meant staying up until after ten so Mommy can’t write until way late every night; on top of no extra time while she is awake, of course.  It is what it is… and it’s one reason I think coffee was invented!

Second, all novel ideas are not created equally.  I wasn’t very focused on writing in the weeks leading up to November and didn’t really have a “great” idea for this year’s novel.  Last year my idea was amazing and I had several months to work out at least who my characters were and the basic idea of the story.  Not this year!  I conjured up a little nugget of something based on a “what if” kind of situation and tried to flesh out an entire novel from that nugget.  It took me down a path I knew little about so I decided to do some research and tapped into a friend’s vast knowledge of genealogy to help make the story more believable and authentic.  She is a natural story teller and the next thing I knew my little nugget had morphed into her version of a story that had little resemblance to what I had first been inspired by – authentic and believable to boot.  Her enthusiasm was contagious and I was totally fired up to write THAT story… until a few days into trying to do it when the spark died.  The characters were blah, the story was blah and I was not feeling it… at all. And it showed in my dismal word count that didn’t grow much that first week.

So I abandoned that fragment and decided to start writing something else.  Remember my first short story?  The one that sucked but was packed with tons of emotions?  I thought it would be cool to flesh that story out so I started to.  But I still didn’t feel it after I wrote the initial opening scene.  *sigh*  Now what?

At that point I got a really great pep talk in email that somehow was written just for me.  Bottom line, NaNoWriMo is not about writing a polished novel and if it is a ton of tangents that you feel like writing and have only a flimsy relation to one another but still add up to 50,000 words then you still did it. Okay, so just keep writing!

What I ended up doing is pulling out the really great idea I’ve been working on for two years and instead of revising – the idea of which overwhelmed me – I decided to start over… again.  It began as a mere exercise in rationalization that, in my brain, went something like this:

I wonder if I could just rewrite the prologue… just to get me back on track… yeah, I think that’s a great idea!

And several thousand words later I have a fabulous prologue where before there was only a shadow of it.  The action starts in a completely different place, the characters are much more believable, and most importantly, I’m inspired again.  I’m going to just keep going on the re-write instead of a revision of what I’ve already written.  I know what happens in each scene so just re-do them with a different eye this time around.  At this point I have to write something insane like 3000 words a day to finish on time but I’m willing to try!

So, although I did move my writing chair to a different spot for a change of scenery hoping to inspire, it is really just the inspiration of a great idea that I really needed.  Wish me luck!  If you need me, I’ll be writing…

Leave a comment | posted in Writing