K.C. Shaw's Blog, page 26

Just add time!

I'm awful. Not only have I not been posting, I haven't been reading my friends' blogs. It's been busy at work, busy at home, and I have been frantically reading a series of mystery books that I'm obsessed with--one more and I'm done until the next one comes out--as well as trying to scrape up enough words to keep from being defeated in this year's NaNoWriMo.

Here's what I've been doing. This is the condensed-soup version. Just add time!

I bought my membership for the 2011 DragonCon, since I checked with my coworker who is the only one who can cover me on Saturdays, and she said she can work for me that weekend in 2011 and 2012. This is what you call planning ahead.

I finished the steampunk Goldielocks story, which turned out to be 20,000 words and not appropriate for the market I had in mind initially. I edited it and sent it out to IGMS because the editor sent me a nice personal note last time I subbed to them.

One of my (few) short stories has been shortlisted at Apex!

After I finished the Goldielocks story, I intended to start work on Adventures in Zoology. Instead, for some reason I immediately began to work on my untitled romance. I've added about 7,500 words and I'm actually getting pretty close to the end. I reckon another 10,000 and it'll be done. It'll still be too short, but there are some scenes I want to add anyway, which will hopefully get it to the right length for a Harlequin Intrigue. Once I finish this blog post, I'm going to jump right in and write a steamy sex scene, ooh la la. For the romance book, I mean, not the blog.

I've decided that November should be my "read nothing but mysteries" month, in hopes that I can read without it distracting me from my NaNo projects. Instead, what's happened is that my NaNo projects have become not-fantasy. The Goldielocks story started out as fantasy but it almost immediately turned science fiction instead. And of course instead of writing fantasy after I was done with it, I went to the romance book. Apparently what I'm reading affects what I want to write. That explains why I started writing Christopher Kaplan suddenly a few months ago--I'd been reading a solid diet of middle-grade books at the time. Incidentally, Christopher Kaplan is up for finishing as soon as I'm done with this romance. I'll have to stop reading mysteries and go back to MG books, though.

And speaking of mysteries, I know what my next new project will be. I plan to plot it out very carefully before I start writing, but I have a title. It's going to be a...mystery! Bet you didn't guess! And I'm finally going to use the character Darla Dare, which I've been dying to write about for literally years but didn't know what to do with her. The title will be Darla Dare, Girl Detective and it'll use my other old idea of a mystery series with a woman who works as a temp. In Girl Detective, Darla Dare takes a temporary receptionist position with a private investigator, who promptly drops dead. Darla has to solve the murder! Because no one else thinks it's a murder!

So anyway, that's what I'm up to. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to write a sex scene.

I am totally not dead

I don't know why blogging has become my lowest priority this month. But I am totally alive and doing the same old boring things as always, and on Wednesday I might actually have time to blog about that.

Right now I have to do laundry, type up all this handwritten stuff I've been scrawling in a notebook, and finish reading this murder mystery. I've been home from work a whole half hour and all I've accomplished so far is eating leftovers!

I'm actually writing (and enjoying writing) my untitled romance. Possibly I have been abducted by aliens and replaced with a cunning replica who enjoys writing romances. I mean, how would you know if I was an alien replica?

(Upon rereading this post, I realize I sound like I'm drunk. I'm not, promise. Unfortunately.)

Coming up for air

Whoa, I haven't updated here all week! I've been typing. Er, writing.

I'm 7,500 words into NaNo (well, nearly--something like 7,300), so I'm doing great. Of course, my mom is over 20,000 words, but she's retired and is racing with another retiree, so there's no real way I can compete with her. She's writing short stories with weather themes and plans to go past 50,000 words because she can. I think she's inspired because she sold her first story to Every Day Fiction (still her first story because the market she sold the same story to last year folded before it was published). It'll run on Thanksgiving day!

Anyway, I'm currently working on the steampunk Goldielocks story. It's going extremely well, but it's also going to end up much longer than the limit of 12,000 words. I'm just going where it takes me; once it's done, I can trim it down under 12k if I can; if I can't, I'll call it a novella and see if I can sell it somewhere.

(oh, btw, if you want to buddy me for NaNo, my username is Saanen.)

Here we go!

Less than two hours to go until NaNoWriMo!

I've decided to do it this way: Tomorrow I will open a brand new file on my computer. Every day during November I will type into that file, no matter what project I'm working on. At the end of the day, I'll copy the day's text and paste it into the appropriate WIP file. That way I can keep track of how many words I've written while still working on more than one project. With 50,000 words, I'm bound to finish at least one project even if I mess around and add to all of my six projects during November. Yes, six. Freaking crazy.

For those keeping track at home, I'm actively working on Adventures in Zoology, the steampunk Goldielocks story (tentatively titled "Goldie"), How Christopher Kaplan Learned to Lie, Little Sparrow, Stag in Ruin, and the untitled romance. Seven if you count the revisions I need to do for The Trickster Society.

I'm also going to have to spend NaNo working on edits--not just for The Weredeer but for my novella coming out soon from Double Dragon, The Dragon Whisperer. Which was last year's NaNo project, as it happens.

NaNoEeeeeeek!

I don't have anything to say, but I need to blog.

I am so completely unprepared for NaNoWriMo. Two freaking days and that's it! I'd planned to outline the rest of Adventures in Zoology but of course I haven't. I guess I know what I'll be doing this weekend.

I have come to the conclusion that I'm not actually done with The Trickster Society. As soon as NaNo's over, I'm digging in for a complete overhaul of the plot. I pretty much know what I want to do although I still need to decide what the bad guy's motivation is and how that will affect Ivy. I think the rewrite will only take a few weeks; hopefully I'll be able to go back to querying by the beginning of 2011.

But by hook or by crook, I'm going to finish Adventures in Zoology this year. It's waited long enough.

Awesome. Just awesome.

My copy of Cate Gardner's awesome book Strange Men in Pinstripe Suits came today! I can't wait to read it!

As if that weren't great enough, I also got a great big box from my brother's family, full of birthday goodies! Seriously, I don't know which part I like best--the Clan Shaw T-shirt (awesome) or the Halloween throw (awesome) or the B&N gift card (awesome! because of course I don't have enough books) or the drawing from my littlest nephew (fridge-door-worthy awesome).... Anyway, it's all awesome.

It's pouring rain here tonight. The only task I have for myself before bedtime is ironing my work clothes for tomorrow. Then I can get into my pajamas (who am I kidding? I'm already in my pajamas) and read all evening while I listen to the rain. Again, awesome.

The me of 20-some years ago

The summer before my sophomore year of college, I started what I called The Sandwich Diet. I had a sandwich for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, and a sandwich for supper. Usually ham, because I like ham sandwiches. Every afternoon I walked down to the store and bought a 3 Musketeers bar, which I ate. When I started back to school that fall, I looked fantastic. Not that I thought I looked good. I still thought I was fat.

I was thinking about that as I walked back from the store today after buying a 3 Musketeers bar (I'm not on the Sandwich Diet. I just wanted some chocolate). I was wishing I could pop back in time to meet myself as an 18-year-old college student, to tell her to enjoy being young and trim with her whole life before her. I also wished I could give her my sword and tell her to join a fencing group, because then I'd already be a good fencer and wouldn't have to be nervously putting off joining a local group until I lose just five more pounds.

And after that, of course, I wished I could just sit down and talk to my 18-year-old self. I think the conversation would go something like this, once I'd convinced her that I was actually her older self....

2010 Me: I've brought you a book about how to study effectively. You're going to need it next year. Oh, and don't take any classes from Dr. Sears.

1988 Me: I have to. He's the only one who teaches that class on the Romantic poets.

2010 Me: He's going to retire next year. I've also brought you a reading list. These are books I wish I'd read when I was your age.

1988 Me: These books look boring.

2010 Me: Yes, I know, but trust me when I say that you need to read Dorothy Sayers right now. Now, this box here contains printed-out copies of manuscripts. You'll have to retype them before you send them out on submission, but do not change one freaking word. They've been edited by someone twenty-three years your senior--that would be me--and I can't give them away because of the economy. Here in 1988, publishers will buy anything.

1988 Me: I have to type all this? Don't you have floppy discs in 2010?

2010 Me: No. No, we don't. Just type them. Here's some money for the 1989 Writer's Market. Look, if I get back to 2010 and I still have my dead-end job, no agent, and no contracts with major publishers, I'm going to come back in time again and kick your ass. And I'll take this sword back, see if I don't.

1988 Me: I'm kind of too busy to type this much stuff.

2010 Me: You are not busy. You've spent the entire summer sitting around reading horse books and listening to the radio. Speaking of which, you need to get a job. Seriously, it will do you a world of good.

1988 Me: I'm a sensitive flower. I don't think I can handle the pressures of a job. I also have a massive intellect and shouldn't have to work for a living. I'm a writer.

2010 Me: No, I'm a writer. You're a poser. Hell with it, I'm going to kick your ass just for the exercise.

Flabby 2010 Me kicks 1988 Me's ass thoroughly, since 1988 Me is weakened from her three-month diet of nothing but ham sandwiches and 3 Musketeers bars.

2010 Me: Now sit down and type this stuff up, get a job at a book store, and join a fencing group.

1988 Me (wiping her bloody nose): When I'm your age, I won't be such a bitch.

2010 Me: Oh yes you will. You just won't notice it happening.

Backtracking

I haven't been able to settle to anything after finishing The Trickster Society, which surprises me. I finished it some two months ago and NaNo's coming up. I should have dug into something new by now, but I can't leave Trickster Society alone. I keep going back in and rereading parts of it. I even did a full editing pass earlier this week.

Last night I realized the problem. It's not done. This is not a good realization when you've got 20-some queries out to agents.

The problem is the beginning, which is unusual for me. Usually I have trouble with endings. The book starts way too slow and the inciting incident doesn't occur until a third of the way in. I spent an hour last night trying to figure out how to rearrange a very closely-plotted book to make things start faster, and finally moved the book's opening back about twelve hours of book time.

Now there's a brand new first chapter where something alarming takes place, which hopefully will add a sinister pall over events in the next few chapters. I was able to introduce the shadow people properly in the new first chapter, too. I plan to cut several thousand words from the scavenger hunt since it's no longer as important (and just drags on way too long). I'm also shortening chapters when I can, which will help the pacing seem faster.

I wish I'd done this before I'd started querying agents. I should know better than to start querying so soon after finishing revisions, since I always come back to a book after a few months to fix stuff. But there are still a lot of agents out there I haven't queried yet.

Six! Six reviews ah ah ah!

OMG, my brother (who goes by Lertulo sometimes online and sometimes just goes by his name, Richard) has posted FOUR reviews over on Skunk Cat tonight, and I've posted one! That's FIVE REVIEWS in one evening! This is, like, the best day ever!

NO HE JUST POSTED ANOTHER ONE! *faints* That's six reviews tonight!

NOW SEVEN! *faints again*

Yet another bunch of plans

I didn't get much writing done this weekend, but I did catch up on a lot of other stuff. The upstairs bathroom is finally really clean (well, except for the floor) and I bought myself a new toothbrush and lavender soap, and made some awesome beef stew with the best turnips I've ever seen in my life, and finally planted the winter radishes and cleaned out the garden a little, and read someone else's book that I'll review tomorrow, and did laundry. I have my usual end-of-October feeling of setting things right for winter--compounded, of course, by the feeling of getting things sorted before NaNo.

The steampunk Goldielocks story is going well. I'm not as far along as I want to be, but I think it's really good so far. I'm definitely on track to finish it by November, at which point I'll pick Adventures in Zoology back up and finish it over NaNo.

No one believes me anymore when I set out my writing plans. I don't believe me either. Oh well, whatever works. As long as I'm writing and finishing at least one book a year, I think I'm good. Of course, my "need to finish" projects are piling up.

I've still got two and a half months left in 2010. I want to finish the Goldielocks story, Adventures in Zoology, Christopher Kaplan, and possibly even the unnamed romance this year, but I'll settle for any two of the four.