S.L. Viehl's Blog, page 144

Elsewhere Again

Today I'm over at author David Bridger's blog talking about what happens when a girl from the tropics takes a busines trip to Chicago in mid-winter. Stop in if you get a chance and you might win one of three signed copies of Nightbred I'm giving away to David's readers.

Winner

All of you contributed some great entries for the Halfway There giveaway; I think you should be writing the official NaNo site pep talks for the rest of the month (have you noticed how depressing some of these have been? Maybe I should send these folks some of PBW's patented chocolate-covered Valium.)

Anyway, tonight we revved up the magic hat, and the winner is:

LynnPenn, who wrote: When I hit a snag I grab a prompt and with the characters in mind I write my way back. Pandora in the background helps keep me moving. Stopping in the middle of a thought also helps. Writing down ideas for the next days work helps also. This is my third Nano. I have produced more stuff in these three Novembers than in my ten years of pursuing the craft.

Lynn, when you have a chance please send your full name and ship-to address to LynnViehl@aol.com so I can get this package on its way to you. My thanks to everyone for joining in.

Elsewhere

Today I'm visiting with the lovely folks over at The Good, the Bad and the Unread to talk about why reading is the smart thing to do during the winter. My very kind hosts will also be giving away this lovely quilted tote (handmade by Yours Truly, and you can see a better shot of it here) that will be filled with signed books, one of my favorite reads and some other goodies. If you get a chance, stop by and say Hi.

NaNoWriMo Week 2: Halfway There

This morning's NaNoWriMo post is brought to you by the garage, where at the moment I'm hiding so I can write. My house has been in a state of utter chaos for going on three days, all the furniture shifted, every floor swept/mopped/vacummed, the bathrooms sterilized, part of my book collection relocated and objects precious to us wrapped up and stowed away for safekeeping. I personally shifted a two-hundred-pound table through three rooms by overturning it on a quilt and dragging the quilt (which is another reason why quilts rule.)

All of this effort is because in less than an hour the carpet cleaners will arrive, and then I'll have three more days of clean but damp rugs before I have to put everything back. Thanksgiving is next Thursday; the family is due to arrive on Wednesday and so far all I have is a turkey. The guest room is wrecked, I haven't yet tested the inflatable airbed to make sure it isn't leaking and the laundry room looks like, well, linen Armageddon. P.S., I started coughing on Monday, I felt like hell all Tuesday and last night I was running a fever.

For all my efforts to turn my house inside out and manage this domestic nightmare, you know what I am most proud of? At midnight last night I finished a chapter, edited three days' worth of work, and hit 25K with my NaNo novel. I wasn't going to bed until I did (and the fact that I could throw my protagonist off a bridge at the end of the chapter helped. I wasn't missing that.)

I think most writers dream of that lovely future in which we occupy a tidy, quiet sunlit home office where we can spends hours spinning our stories and enjoying our writing life. I'm still waiting on that one; right now I'm pecking out this post on a smart keyboard atop my guy's scarred, stained wooden work bench. I'm surrounded by tools of his trade, not mine. There's something in here that smells like a gymnasium. Maybe it's me; I can't remember if I took a shower last night.

NaNoWriMo founder Chris Baty sent out a pep talk to everyone on the NaNoWriMo site that addressed the struggles and slogging most of us are experiencing right now (which you can read in the archives here.) I think the second week of NaNo is the toughest because the thrills of starting a new project have mostly evaporated and the delight of spending every day devoted to storycraft has likewise packed its bags and fled. Even if I wasn't currently living in homemaker hell I'd still be struggling to keep up. The finish line is still very far away. I'm only halfway to 50K, and I'm tired. I haven't hit my daily quota for three days, and today isn't looking too promising either. My back hurts, my head hurts, and all I want to do is stay in bed for 24 hours.

I won't do that. After I finish this I'm going to get my words for the day done. If I can keep at it without interruptions (ha) I'll try to write past my quota and make up for some lost time, but no matter what happens I'm writing two thousand new words of my novel today. Those of you who are ahead of me with your progress, send some positive energy my way when you get a chance. Those of you who aren't yet halfway there, I'm sending good thoughts your way. Just write today, and know as you're struggling and slogging and trying to get through that 300,000 other writers (including me) are right there in the trenches with you.

I have a little NaNo incentive to offer, as you see here: an official NaNoWriMo tote and a 2 gb usb bracelet on which you can store a novel and lots of other stuff. I will also be putting some stuff in the tote bag to surprise the recipient. If you'd like a chance to win it, in comments to this post name something you do to keep going during the toughest times by midnight EST on Thursday, November 15, 2012. I'll draw one name at random from everyone who participates and send the winner the tote, the usb bracelet and some surprises. This giveaway is open to everyone on the planet, even if you've won something here at PBW in the past.

First Look

Here's a first look at the cover art for Nightbound, the third and final novel in my Lords of the Darkyn trilogy, due to hit the shelves next May.

NaNoWriMojo Ten

Ten Things to Help Restore Your NaNoWriMojo

Change Locations: Moving your writing to another space may eliminate whatever is distracting you. Think of an alternative place that is different from where you're writing now (i.e., if you're hanging out in a busy coffeeshop and getting nothing written, try the quiet room at your local library. Or if your quiet spot at home isn't working, try a busy coffeeshop.) If weather permits, find an outdoor space (the backyard, a park, a lake, the beach, etc.) where you can commune a little with nature while you write.

Clean Something: Vacuuming a room, doing a load of laundry or even tidying up your writing space restores order to some part of your immediate environment and, unless you like being a slob, makes you feel better about it. That good feeling can carry over into the work once you start writing again.

Emergency Reward: Often that carrot you've hung over the finish line seems too far away, so set up one that's a bit closer. Promise yourself a small reward for just making your writing goal today. Make it something good, too; the more you want it, the more you're likely to work for it.

Exercise: Another good way to vent some frustration is to get moving: take a walk, go to the gym, jog around the block, put on that workout DVD and follow along for twenty minutes, etc. Your goal is to work up a sweat, then take a warm shower and get back to the writing (hopefully in a more relaxed, refreshed state.)

Make Something Minty: Mint is naturally soothing, so drinking a cup of mint-flavored tea, chewing a stick of mint gum or otherwise indulging in a mint treat may bump you from crabby to calm.

Muse with Music: Play your favorite CD while you sit and relax for ten minutes. Don't think about anything; just listen. If you have a soundtrack made up for your story, that's a good choice -- or just listen to the sort of music that puts you in a positive mood. If you can write with the music playing, take it back with you and listen while you work.

Project Switch: This is one of my personal mojo restorers; I stop work on one project and write on another for a short period of time. I always switch to something I enjoy writing but I'm not especially invested in so it doesn't steal me away from my NaNo novel.

Scene Skip: At least once a week without fail I hit a scene that for whatever reason I can't write. If this happens to you, instead of letting it become a brick wall between you and the rest of your story, skip it and go work on the next scene. Mark the place in your manuscript with a notation [I use square brackets and a one-line description of the scene like this] so you can easily go back and write it later.

Switch Creative Gears: This past weekend I had a particularly dreary writing day during which I fought to get every word on the page. I took regular ten minutes breaks and used them to work on a small quilting project. Switching gears like that gave me little creative/spiritual boosts, which kept me from giving up.

Write Past It: This last idea is tough, but if writing stories was easy everyone could do it. You just keep writing. Doesn't matter how well you write, or if anything you do write will be salvageable. You're not going to think about how you're writing because you're going to be too busy writing. Keep working and moving forward with the story until your mojo returns (and yes, if you push on it generally does. If it doesn't, you can always edit brilliantly.)

A Typical NaNoWriMo Day (in Pictures!)

Waiting at the Finish Line

I had a chance to stop by BAM last night, and after checking out all the new releases I picked up some books that I'm going to save to read as my reward for crossing the NaNoWriMo finish line:



I have a few more to get that have yet to be released; Rogue Rider, Larissa Ione's latest release, will be out on the 20th, and Shawntelle Madison's Kept will hit the shelves on the 27th. I was hoping Linda Howard's Shadow Woman would be out in November, too, but looks like we have to wait until January (and for an excellent list of all the paranormal and fantasy reads that will be released in November check out this post by Jackie over at Literary Escapism.)

I'm late setting up my prize for NaNoWriMo because a) I've been insanely busy writing one book, revising another, and promoting a third, all in one month, and b) for all my planning I really didn't think about what sort of reward I wanted for winning. Maybe writing this book is kind of the reward.

I know, you're shaking your head, but it's true. I get to do whatever I want with this story for an entire month. Unlike my 2009 NaNo novel I'm not going to try to sell it; once I finish Taken by Night I'll be adding it to my library of free reads. So when I'm done I'll really be done -- no pitching it to the agent, no writing up proposals, no contract negotiations, none of that.

Simply selling a book often takes five times as long as it does for me to write it. Add to that the editorial, coming up with new titles, revisions, galleys, production, hiding under the bed until the cover art comes in, hiding under the bed again after seeing the cover art . . . you get the general idea. Taking a book from idea to release date takes me about two years on average; multiple that by 50 novels (I'm currently in editorial on my 50th, which by the time it's released will have taken four years) and you can understand why for once being able to skip all that for once is a genuine reward.

What's waiting for you at your NaNoWriMo finish line? Let us know in comments.

Rockaway

My Dad's family is from Rockaway, so I'm posting this as a tribute to all the folks there who are struggling to recover from Hurricane Sandy:

Rockaway Needs Us from everyone and company on Vimeo.

Also, a thought for the holidays: my agent suggested this year we skip buying presents for our friends and colleagues in Publishing and instead donate all the money we would have spent on them to any organization providing help to the hurricane victims (which is what I'm going to do.)

NaNoWriMo Week One Report

Has it been a week already since NaNoWriMo began? That was my first thought when I noticed the reminder to write this post on my calendar. That's a good sign, too, because whenever the passage of time completely drops off my radar I know my head is where it should be -- in the work. This is also why I set multiple alarms around the house, write daily notes to myself and become enslaved to my planner. If I didn't you guys might not see me until December 1st.

My stats for the novel are healthy and on track; I've been writing to or past my wordcount goals each day. I've been getting up an hour earlier every morning to have some quiet time to work and that was a good decision; I get my words done in a couple of hours and then I have the rest of the day to do other things until it's time for my evening editing session. As far as the writing goes I'm enjoying the story and I've kept it pretty faithful to the outline and chapter summaries I planned out back in October. One extra bonus of officially registering this year is the novel stats widget that the NaNoWriMo folks offer on their site; it gives me an excellent snapshot of how I'm performing. Here's what it looks like this morning:



I had planned to get out to one of the local NaNoWriMo events and meet some of my fellow writers in the area. I'd like to blame my busy schedule for failing to do that, but truth is I've not had a lot of success mingling in person with other writers, and I don't know if as a pro I'd be especially welcome. When people find out you do this for a living they see you more as an affront to their genius or a commodity to be used, and I don't care to be either. Anyway, I put that on the back burner for now.

I had one really bad day this week, which was unexpected. Fortunately, I got my words done a few hours before the trainwreck happened. I was going to use it for a blog post, and wrote up a beautiful, absolutely scalding rant about it. I waited twenty-four hours, got over it, and deleted the whole thing. I overreacted to a silly, juvenile situation that was really not worth ten seconds of my time, and as we all know, the best revenge for being derailed by someone is to get right back on track, right in their face. From my POV, by refusing to let it spoil the rest of my week I won that round.

My big reward for myself this past week was to go on a fun school field trip to the RenFaire, which got me out of the house, gave me a chance to walk for a couple hours (which my legs definitely needed) and spend quality time with the kid. I also watched and photographed an excellent joust hosted by Shane Adams (who aside from being my favorite modern-day knight was also the inspiration for Aedan mac Byrne from Evermore, who will be returning to the shelves in Nightbound next May) and found a very cool handmade leather journal at one of the artisans tents that went home with me. It was a great day, and exactly what I needed to recharge my batteries.

I'm a bit behind on my chores, and the to-do list for the holidays gets a little longer every day, so for the next week of NaNo I'm going to try to build on what I've been doing, organize my time a little better, and work a little harder at keeping everything in balance. By writing past quota I've earned an extra day off, but I don't need it right now so I'm going to save it for later on in the month when I probably will.

How was your first week of NaNoWriMo? Let us know in comments.