Laura Roberts's Blog, page 98

12 girls, 24 titties, 13,537 words

My novel is 27% complete, according to my Scribometer.

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Oops, that should read WORDS, not PAGES!

Currently, the plan involves putting a minimum of 500 words on paper per weekday (Mon-Thurs), and 1,500 words on paper per weekend day (Fri-Sun), so I can finish this first draft in a month and a half if I stick with it.

Today I wrote 930 words. And I may go for the glory and do another round after lunch, just to really nail it.

I find meeting a word count so much more satisfying than crossing the day off with an X. I think it's because when you break the chain, you're back at zero again, and that is FAR more depressing than having to make up for lost word-counts with extra writing on the day after you slack. Don't you agree?

For shits & giggles, here's a quote from what I was working on today:

Out front the bouncer doubles as the guy trying to sweet-talk you big lugs into coming into the club and shelling out your hard-earned cash on some damn dames. His line? "12 girls, 24 titties! Yes, that's TWENTY-FOUR TITTIES!"

I always wonder what might happen if he yelled "12 girls, TWENTY-FIVE TITTIES!" instead.

Naked Montreal update, 1-14-2011

As I said in a forthcoming article I wrote for Peevish Penman, I've instituted a personal policy for the new year with regards to my novel, Naked Montreal. In order to see results and learn from my mistakes, I've decided to post weekly check-ins to keep myself on track. This constitutes the first of these check-ins, and while I was hoping for a glorious gloat-fest, unfortunately, this was not meant to be.

You see, Dear Reader, I am a hopeless procrastinator when it comes to writing my daily quota of words. Or, perhaps more correctly, I just have far too many projects going on at once. Never one to be pigeonholed into any specific writing niche, genre or set of ideas, I've always got multiple writing projects circulating at once. Writing for business vs pleasure; writing for myself vs others; writing blogs vs poetry vs chapters in my novel… the list could go on, but you get the idea.

While I have kept my entries at Don't Break the Chain up to date, my writing for Naked Montreal has been haphazard at best. See my progress, illustrated in glorious green, below:

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Sad. Actually, I was doing pretty well last week, dammit. Why didn't I start my check-ins then?!

So, yes, this week was a chain-breaking FAIL. Do as I say, not as I do. BUT! Notice that today has been marked off, as I am writing my scenes as soon as I finish this little update. (I swear!)

Some things to keep in mind when noveling, which I have learned from my chain-breaking failures this week:

Don't beat yourself up. It's a sure way never to get back to your novel and, thus, never to finish. And thus, to die alone in a ditch like the horrible, unloveable person you really are. (Wait, did I need to take it there? Sorry, yes. Yes, I did.)
Don't take it too easy on yourself, either. Paradoxically, the more you are inclined to cheat by counting brainstorming or making a map of your novel's physical locations, the less you are actually WRITING and therefore that X on the calendar is pretty meaningless. Sit down, turn off the Internet, and do the work. The WRITING work, not the editing or the mindmapping or the outlining. Write 500 words. Write for 20 minutes. Whatever it takes, but get words on the page.
The outline is never really "done." You can keep adding stuff, but this is not writing. It's not contributing to your novel's word count. In fact, it is slowly chipping away at it every time you decide to add another scene that you don't really need, but that might be funny. Write the important scenes first, and then go back and fill in the gaps.
Novels are effin' hard. They're big, they're clunky, they're SO 19th century! Trying to keep all the threads straight is time-consuming and mind-bending. Still, people seem to like reading them, so it's best to break them down into manageable chunks when writing one. Envision scenes, or chapters, or short stories with the same characters appearing in a linked set. Do what you have to do.
Get the words on the page. That's really it.

If any of you poor bastards out there are also working on a novel, feel free to tweet me about your experiences @originaloflaura. In the meantime, I'll be banging my head against the keyboard until the words appear. See you next week, same place, for my GLORIOUS GLOAT-FEST!

Haiku for Haters on sale now!

I'm currently publishing mini-books under the name Buttontapper Press. My first installment in a series of "Haiku for…" books is entitled Haiku for Haters. Perfect for those who hate to read wordy poetry, it contains 24 painless pages of 5-7-5s and costs only $1 (+ shipping/tax). You can purchase a copy via Paypal by clicking the "Buy Now" link below.

Here is a photographic example of the book you will receive, signed by the author (cat not included):

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Choose shipping destination




USA/Canada $2.00
Everywhere Else $4.00

P.S. In case you're (rightfully) scared of buying things from random weirdos on the Internet, I've also got an Etsy store to prove I'm on the up-and-up. Click here to buy safely and securely through their evil middle-men. (Just kidding; I heart Etsy.)

Mapping Naked Montreal

To better help myself visualize the spaces I'm using in my novel, I started adding locations to a private Google map. But then I thought, what the hell? It's not like these places are well-kept secrets. So I went ahead and made them public.

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Click the image to see the map in "real" time

Now you can watch my field of blue push-pins grow as I add new locations to my list, which means new scenes and (hopefully) new pages added to the book!

As always, if you've got any suggestions for places that you think are awesome and would like to see in the novel, feel free to let me know. I'm not making any promises, but I'm always a fan of audience participation. You can tweet me @originaloflaura.

Mini-books for the new year

Since my novel is taking longer than anticipated to actually complete, due to a wide variety of complications (and sheer procrastination, I admit), I've decided to start publishing mini-books in the meanwhile. They will each be about 24 pages in length, self-published, and available for purchase here (and possibly in a forthcoming Etsy store) upon completion. The first in the series is currently entitled Haiku for Haters.

Some of the haiku may concern bonsai.

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(photo by Flickr user CoffeeGeek)

Here's what it says on the mini-book's back cover:

Some say poetry is a dead art. Some say haiku is for losers. Some say blogging is the future, and anyone wasting time printing words on dead trees needs to grow up and get a real job.

This book is for the haters: Without you, whom would we artists have to rebel against?

XO, Laura Roberts

Copies will be available as of January 1, 2011 for the rock-bottom price of $2 each. In the meantime, Merry XXXmas!

Publisher wanted for 12-year-old's novel

Just saw this ad on Craigslist in the writing "gigs" section, and felt compelled to respond with a few suggestions for the writer in question (NOTE: typos, etc, are included as originally posted):

SUBJECT: Publisher

Hello, I am looking for a publisher who can publish my novel, this is a 20 chapter novel, it is one of a series of five that I am writing. I am currently on my second book. It is fiction and has romance, adventure, suspense and action. By the way, I am only twelve, so of course my mom is trying to help me find a publisher. But we need direction.

Thank you all in advance.

Obviously, this kid needs to narrow his or her focus; romance, adventure, suspense and action are all great, but you've gotta pick ONE to sell it to an agent or publisher.

Other than that, I'm impressed that the kid already has a 5-novel series in mind with 2 done. I'm still working on my first novel at age 32. Geez, these precocious kids today!

Best of luck to ya, and be sure to hit up Haggard & Halloo, Green Leaf Books and Dalton Publishing with those queries!

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P.S. She may have some friendly competition from this 15-year-old author in Canada, but only if her book is also a fictionalized version of former PM Paul Martin's childhood.

What I've been writing

Here's a list of some of the things I've written lately, in case you've been missing out on your daily dose of all things Laura (don't fight it, baby):

A review of the hilarious cult film Grandma's Boy for my buddy Jimmy Callaway's blog, "Let's Drink Everybody!"
In Briefs: Snooki Writes A Book – Why Jersey Shore is ruining everything, including (unbelievably) literature
Paper Books vs. eReaders – This binary system is broken; let's all get Kindles AND read "real" books!
Feminism Today – Why Sarah Palin's no feminist, and I'll punch anyone who says she is
Review: The Social Network – Screw all this zeitgeist talk and just go see it already
Vegetables – You should eat them because they are awesome, and because baby carrots are now being marketed with the excellent tag line "Eat 'em like junk food!"
In Briefs: Willow Smith's "I Whip My Hair" – Will Smith's daughter whips her hair like a porn star; we all watch in horror as the Fame Machine gobbles up another young'un

Last but not least, I've also been ghostwriting my cat's blog The Daily Nedwardian (which I need to go update for His Highness). Yes, my cat has a blog. And a Twitter account, too.

In closing, here's a photo featuring the miniature Salvador Dalí my husband bought me for my birthday:

I can't resist a man with a mustache (photo by Laura Roberts)

KICK-ASS Writing Contest at Black Heart

My literary magazine, Black Heart, is holding a writing contest! You can preview the details via my Facebook event here. Official details will all be online at Black Heart Magazine starting Monday, October 25, 2010!

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Okay, and here:

We're sick of writing about all the crappy writing contests out there. It's annoying to keep posting them every week. So you know what? We're starting our own!

Here's the deal:

Write a short story, any genre. It should be maximum 5,000 words long. If you go over this word count, we'll toss it.

THEME: KICKING ASS. Take that literally or figuratively or just send us something you've written that you feel kicks ass.

ENTRY FEE: $2 to enter, $5 to get a free one-page critique whether you win or lose. Find out how to improve your writing, for just $5. Pretty sweet deal, if you ask us.

PRIZE: Winner takes all – $50 and publication, and any honorable mentions will be mentioned, given some SWEET MICROCOSM TITLES and potentially published as well. KICK-ASS!

DEADLINE: November 20, 2010 – giving you a little under a month to whip something up.

TO SUBMIT: Use our special new Submishmash sections (available starting Monday, Oct 25!). Please choose WITH CRITIQUE or NON-CRITIQUE as appropriate. Payment is required upon submission. DO NOT submit the same story to both sections. Multiple submissions of different stories are, however, welcome.

Judges are currently TBA, but will be posted shortly. This is our first fee-based writing contest, and if it works out well, we look forward to running more in the future.

In other words: TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS!

Questions? Hit us up online at http://blackheartmagazine.com to use our handy contact form. Please put "Kick-Ass Contest Question" or something similar in the subject line so we can be sure to get back to you ASAP.

We look forward to reading your work!

For the full deets, just click here.

15% complete!

Being that I have been at this 500 words a day thing for 11 days straight now, I am happy to report that my goal of 42,000 words or bust is now 15% complete!

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This means I am not a total slacker, woohoo!

That seems a bit more impressive than it is, in some ways, and truly unimpressive it others. But I'll break it down like this:

GOOD:

Chipping away at the novel in manageable chunks
Writing every day
Focusing on the goal, which is a coherent overall story line written in small doses

BAD:

I "started" this novel back in, what, April? And I'm only 15% done?!

But really, I only truly started this novel with my 500 words per day goal. So although I am "behind" in the sense that I started planning and thinking about writing this months ago, I've only recently truly planted my butt in the chair with the daily intent to get it done.

So I guess that all evens out in the end, right?

If not, you'll just have to wait a few more months for my masterpiece.

Oh, and by the way, I realized that this is actually a tale involving so much more than sex. Here is the formula:

Punks + classical arteests + wealthy assholes + sexy vixens = MY AWESOME NOVEL!

Dig it. I love how this shit continues to evolve.

42,000 words or bust

My novel is suffering from a case of the hiccups. I'll start, I'll stop, I'll blog, I'll set it back down, I'll pick it back up. Idea here. A few hundred words there. Not enough to get the steam whistles blowing and the train really moving down the tracks.

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So I'm going to publicly announce my re-entry into Debbie Ridpath Ohi's 500 words a day challenge, to force myself to be held accountable for my word count. This is a logical amount of words one person can write in a day. It's not too big, and not too small. Even on the shittiest days, you can write 500 words. And the trick, as Jerry Seinfeld says, is to get out your calendar and put an X through each day you complete the task. But not just that. More important is:

DON'T BREAK THE CHAIN.

You can have all the excuses in the world, but we've all got 24 usable hours in every day. Start off with your 500 words in the morning. Do them before bed. Do them in the last hours of the day if you like. But don't break the chain, or you're done.

The chain is what keeps you moving forward. 500 words is not the challenge. The challenge is doing it every day. The challenge is not breaking the chain.

So I've got my calendar out. I did my 500 words yesterday. I'm doing them today. I've got a chain. I'm not going to break it. And you can check my progress in the word count widget on the right hand side of the page to help keep me honest.

I've got 12 weeks left in the entire year of 2010 (jeez, can you believe it's almost over?!). If I write 500 words a day, 7 days a week, for 12 weeks, that's 42,000 words.

42,000 words or bust. Novel ho!