Amanda Frederickson's Blog: Musings - Posts Tagged "optimism"
Write is a Verb
So, between Black Friday and Small Business Saturday, I killed two pens, several characters, and a notebook, got halfway through another notebook, enlisted poor Nee-chan to type in what I'd written while I wrote more, consumed an unknown amount of carbonized caffeine, aaaaaannd... failed Nanowrimo spectacularly with 28,952 words at the finish line.
I confess, getting started on this one was tough, primarily because of my decision to put it up as a work in progress on Smashwords (did I mention how terrified I was about putting out something that wasn't finished?), and ultimately it hasn't gotten much interest, which was definitely discouraging. Writing is for me, finishing is for readers, and in the back of my mind there's been this thought that if no one wants to read it, there's no point to finishing it. Another bird to hunt down.
But.
Unlike April's camp project, where it felt like the story was getting thinner and thinner the further it went, Blood Queen was taking on more and more life, and I'm not ready to give that up even though November is over.
According to the Nanowrimo site's calculations, I'll hit the goal around December 25. That's still not half bad. I've decided to keep writing, and keep posting the updates on Smashwords because it's only fair to follow through with what I set out to do.
So. Anyone want a book for Christmas?
(By the way, this is the story I mentioned in my blog post about gratuitous death. This thing's original manuscript reached a death rate of Hamlet proportions. So far, this time around it has a slightly better survival rate. There are only five confirmed deaths, with three more who may or may not be dead. If you've ever wanted to convince an author not to kill your favorite character, here's your chance.)
I confess, getting started on this one was tough, primarily because of my decision to put it up as a work in progress on Smashwords (did I mention how terrified I was about putting out something that wasn't finished?), and ultimately it hasn't gotten much interest, which was definitely discouraging. Writing is for me, finishing is for readers, and in the back of my mind there's been this thought that if no one wants to read it, there's no point to finishing it. Another bird to hunt down.
But.
Unlike April's camp project, where it felt like the story was getting thinner and thinner the further it went, Blood Queen was taking on more and more life, and I'm not ready to give that up even though November is over.
According to the Nanowrimo site's calculations, I'll hit the goal around December 25. That's still not half bad. I've decided to keep writing, and keep posting the updates on Smashwords because it's only fair to follow through with what I set out to do.
So. Anyone want a book for Christmas?
(By the way, this is the story I mentioned in my blog post about gratuitous death. This thing's original manuscript reached a death rate of Hamlet proportions. So far, this time around it has a slightly better survival rate. There are only five confirmed deaths, with three more who may or may not be dead. If you've ever wanted to convince an author not to kill your favorite character, here's your chance.)
Farewell and Good Riddance 2013
Well, 2013 kinda sucked. Especially toward the end with my landlord raising the rent while refusing to do maintenance, AND roping us into another month because we didn't turn in our notice during Thanksgiving (when they were closed).
It could have been worse. There was no kitchen fire and no incompetent "recovery" company that stole our stuff (2010), and I did get a lot of writing done, but no goals were actually met. It feels like most everyone around me had an overall lousy year too.
It wasn't entirely a loss though. I started this blog, I published some short stories, started a Facebook author page, and even though all three of the manuscripts I wanted to finish... aren't, all of them made significant progress and I have half drafts of Rose and Blood Queen under my belt. Rose gets to wait her turn until the other Gatewalkers are finished, but Blood Queen is still making slow progress. (Though well meaning, I think my ambitious plan to write three manuscripts at once instead of one at a time was ultimately more than I could chew. Lesson learned. One project at a time. Maybe two? Heh.) Oh, and remember that contest I mentioned waaaaaay back at the end of July? Its deadline was December 31st. I got it written, finished, revised, and submitted with time to spare. By time to spare I mean about three hours, but I wanted to give it one last go-over (and still felt crazy nervous hitting the "submit" button). HA! Take that 2013. One mission accomplished.
I did also manage, between the lovely crazy stress that ended up piled on these last two months, to learn some down and dirty tricks for writing around life, which I fully intend to apply in 2014, especially in packing/moving through January.
Oh, and I got a cat. He's an adorable monster. I seriously missed having a cat. ^_^
For 2014, one goal: read more.
It could have been worse. There was no kitchen fire and no incompetent "recovery" company that stole our stuff (2010), and I did get a lot of writing done, but no goals were actually met. It feels like most everyone around me had an overall lousy year too.
It wasn't entirely a loss though. I started this blog, I published some short stories, started a Facebook author page, and even though all three of the manuscripts I wanted to finish... aren't, all of them made significant progress and I have half drafts of Rose and Blood Queen under my belt. Rose gets to wait her turn until the other Gatewalkers are finished, but Blood Queen is still making slow progress. (Though well meaning, I think my ambitious plan to write three manuscripts at once instead of one at a time was ultimately more than I could chew. Lesson learned. One project at a time. Maybe two? Heh.) Oh, and remember that contest I mentioned waaaaaay back at the end of July? Its deadline was December 31st. I got it written, finished, revised, and submitted with time to spare. By time to spare I mean about three hours, but I wanted to give it one last go-over (and still felt crazy nervous hitting the "submit" button). HA! Take that 2013. One mission accomplished.
I did also manage, between the lovely crazy stress that ended up piled on these last two months, to learn some down and dirty tricks for writing around life, which I fully intend to apply in 2014, especially in packing/moving through January.
Oh, and I got a cat. He's an adorable monster. I seriously missed having a cat. ^_^
For 2014, one goal: read more.
Being Rebellious
I won Nanowrimo this year, and I did it by being absolutely rebellious.
I decided about three months ago to plan my Nano novel in advance this year and to also try a new genre for my 10th Nanowrimo anniversary. (Yikes!)
So I did. I had outlines, character sheets, I tried out the snowflake method, I had scene sketches, the works. Then, on Halloween, after a crazy busy and stressful week(s), having freshly lost a Halloween flash fiction contest, I ditched all of my planning. I just couldn’t do it.
I rebelled.
I started scribbling on a stray story seed that had been floating in my head for a while, but I also knew it wasn’t quite ready to be a full novel; it still needed a villain, for one thing. Keeping in mind my recent resolution not to stress out over deadlines, I decided to count everything I wrote during the month toward the word count goal.
The result?
A 52,000 word end count (partly estimate based on handwritten pages, so it might technically be a little higher than that). Masquerade’s secondary plotline is slowly filling in, Kingstone is finally almost to a place where I feel like I can start prying my perfectionistic claws out of it, that fairy tale novella I started back in August might actually be a novel, I have three new short pieces (complete), and I’ve freshened up an older one that I’m now thinking about folding into an anthology. Oh, yeah, and at the end of the month, that story seed got its villain. It’s going to be epic.
For the first test of my resolution not to set impossible goals: so far, so good.
I decided about three months ago to plan my Nano novel in advance this year and to also try a new genre for my 10th Nanowrimo anniversary. (Yikes!)
So I did. I had outlines, character sheets, I tried out the snowflake method, I had scene sketches, the works. Then, on Halloween, after a crazy busy and stressful week(s), having freshly lost a Halloween flash fiction contest, I ditched all of my planning. I just couldn’t do it.
I rebelled.
I started scribbling on a stray story seed that had been floating in my head for a while, but I also knew it wasn’t quite ready to be a full novel; it still needed a villain, for one thing. Keeping in mind my recent resolution not to stress out over deadlines, I decided to count everything I wrote during the month toward the word count goal.
The result?
A 52,000 word end count (partly estimate based on handwritten pages, so it might technically be a little higher than that). Masquerade’s secondary plotline is slowly filling in, Kingstone is finally almost to a place where I feel like I can start prying my perfectionistic claws out of it, that fairy tale novella I started back in August might actually be a novel, I have three new short pieces (complete), and I’ve freshened up an older one that I’m now thinking about folding into an anthology. Oh, yeah, and at the end of the month, that story seed got its villain. It’s going to be epic.
For the first test of my resolution not to set impossible goals: so far, so good.
