Megan Trennett's Blog, page 5

Daily post: procrastination

What is my favorite procrastination destination you ask daily post? I could never choose just one. I could go to any of them. When I finally sit down to write it’s usually when my Lil Bug goes for his nap or to bed, and it’s typically the first time all day I’ve had to myself. So, if I’m going to be honest, I procrastinate more than I should, often in small spurts. And how do I do this?

Pinterest: I don’t really go on and pin recipes or DIY crafts, I just browse the humor boards for a chuckle.

Facebook: How can I not check to see who likes my status about Lil Bug wanting to by copious amounts of bacon, or to see what’s going on in people’s lives?

E-mail: I don’t get anything but junk typically,  but how else would my inbox stay clean.

Napping: I’m just going to close my eyes for a second.

Snacking: This one I really need to change to exercise.

Sometimes there’s TV, sometimes movies, sometimes it’s even a book I can’t put down, but as everyone I have my typical go-to time wasters. Maybe one day I’ll have less, or better ones.

How about you? Do you have a procrastination go to?

We all need a break now and then.

So I was chatting with my husband one night as I poured over pages that needed a pass over, and he was just getting home from work. As he declared he was going to spend another night watching Netflix I told him he was wasting his time. Why? I’d LOVE to have time to read a book on a nightly basis, and he squander’s it. I don’t mean this in a bad way, I’d likely spend sometime watching Netflix too. In fact, Sunday’s at 8pm during prime time season is my “Shut up and let me watch TV” time (I may be a little Once Upon a Time addicted). So why was I telling my husband he was being silly in his choices?

I work a 16 hour day, 6 days a week, and am on call 5 nights a week.

But how is this you say? One word: motherhood. I love being a Mom, I love being a writer, but these two things are hard to combine, especially when your 1.5 year old LOVES buttons. Keyboards? It’s heaven for his button mashing addiction. So from the time we get up until nap time it’s all errand running, chores, playing, reading, dancing, lunch making, ect. I get 2-3 hours of work time where I try not to squander any of it. Once he’s up, it’s repeat the morning only it’s supper, then bedtime routine. And then I have about 4 hours to work before it’s time to get some sleep or I’ll be a zombie. Let’s not forget that while he’s a great sleeper, sometimes he does get up, hence the “on call” aspect.

Phew!

So wait, how does this work that it’s only 6?

Well, I get one day a weekend ALL TO MYSELF (insert evil laugh). I run away from home with my laptop and coffee card, sometimes meeting other writers, often doing things on my own. Sometimes I sneak an extra family day, but not usually. I like to think it’s beneficial for my husband and son to have father/son bonding time. ;)

But so I/we don’t get burned we make sure to also have one family day a weekend. We may go out and do something super fun, or we may do nothing more than kick around the neighborhood. But it’s important for my sanity to have that, to have fun without all the responsibility and to let my creative side rest.

Do you and your family do something? How many hours a day do you find you work balancing writing with other responsibilities?

Change is Good

I have been talking about rewrites and revising the same story forever. Last night I finished the official revision of the storyline to An Altered Ending. It wasn’t without a lot of deliberation as anyone willing to listen to my ramblings knows, but there were gapping plot holes that always bugged me and I never felt like I had properly fixed them. That feeling became worse when I wrote How We Began. So, here are the plot holes that bothered me:

-why would anyone that in love just stop talking to the person because their parent fell ill?

-why wouldn’t he just go to her place and find out what’s going on?

-How could Helene survive 6 years with stage 4 cancer?

-And as a tie in from H.W.B., what happened with Super sexy Donovan?

I won’t get into heavy details, but these have all been fixed. I will say that Liam is still at the heart of the problem, but he did something a little more dastardly. Don’t worry, it still blew up in his face. ;)

I still feel it needs another edit for structure and grammar, but I’m happy to say that the problems were fixed with very little changes to the story. Mostly dialogue.

That being said, when it comes to writing them I hope this *finally* puts the story of Ellen and Simon to rest.

Happy Canada Day!

I’m not a hugely patriotic person. I don’t have the nation’s flag hung in or around my home, the last time I sung the national anthem I was in elementary school, and if we can be stereotypical for a moment I’m not a major hockey fan.

But I do celebrate Canada Day. I try to make a big deal of it, even more so since my son was born.

Later today we plan to go out and see the usual festivities while all decked out in our red and whites, maybe get some free cake by the beach. Supper will be bacon cheese burgers and beer (Nova Scotian, because it’s a tradition from before our move to Quebec), and if we’re lucky we’ll see fireworks.

So writing will hardly happen if at all! but that’s okay. ‘Cause sometimes we just need to let loose, Eh? ;)

Too many stories, not enough time

I have so much on the go I don’t even know what I’m doing.

Fixing one novel of it’s plot holes (easy peas after a singular night of solid brainstorming) and trying to actually write something makes one quite busy. Let’s throw in being a full time Mom into the mix. If it weren’t for Mickey Mouse, I wouldn’t be writing this post.

I’m thrilled with how well the repairs are coming to the novel, but when that’s done I need to focus solely on writing. Doesn’t sound hard, right? Well,  I technically have 3 works in progress.

I say that because there’s the overhaul I talked about in my last post, plus two others that I started and stopped. It’s a bad habit that I need to break, and I’m not sure how it came about. If it weren’t for NaNoWriMo I wouldn’t be able to say I finished a story in about 3 years.

All of them are what I consider good ideas, and I’d like to see them all come together. I guess I just need to learn to focus.

In the meantime,  I will focus on repairing plot holes, then maybe I can put the tentative titles of the other projects in a hat and see what comes next.

The power of music

I read a really bad book over the last couple days by an author I usually really enjoy, respect, and look up to. Not only did I walk away feeling cheated but it also made me take a hard look at my own stuff.

Since having my work returned to me I’ve taken the time to refine one while taking a hard look at another. It was the least popular, and while my favorite story it had many, many flaws. Flaws I knew about, and didn’t know how to fix. Flaws too obvious for my taste.

I started working on a rewrite. And by rewrite I mean an overhaul of epic proportions that takes the main ideas behind the story, all the characters, but putting them in new situations, roles, and some with different personalities.

And I love it, but that doesn’t stop me from second guessing my decision.

Putting it on hold, I started a new idea though I frankly haven’t gotten into the groove with it. I like, if not love this new idea, but it and I are just not working right now.

Which brings me back to the rewrite. I was listening to music with my son when a song I had tied very closely to the project came on. While he danced I was sucked back to that new story,  and it nagged at me. Usable for publication or not, it needs a finish. It needs to be told. And so I think I’m going to tell it after all.

I don’t know what this will mean. It may never make it’s way into a readers hands, but I write for the love of writing either way. In the meantime,  I may have to listen to that song one more time, as inspiration is something I could use a lot of as of late.

Why I write

As I was going through a crisis of identity as a writer, I had started another blog. Sadly, I kept that one up about as well as I did this one. And while I know NaNoWriMo has been over for almost 2 months, the question of why we write is always relevant. I just thought I would share this with the readers of this blog… if there are still any left.

Yesterday I posted a picture on Facebook of my adorable lil bug banging on my laptop with the hashtag of #nanowrimo. Curious if there were other people out there doing the same I clicked it. Sure enough, people hashtaged. Only one in particular caught my eye.

I don’t remember the guy’s name, and if I did I wouldn’t repost it here. Essentially he was talking about how he was too old for NaNoWriMo, too old to be living “a dream” and was there for done writing. He brought up some points I know every writer/author thinks about from time to time, but one that I know we all fear: What if no one reads my stuff?

That, I think was his selling point, that he would put in all this work into an idea he loves, creating a story he thinks is great, and then have maybe 30 people read it. Well, let me tell you, I would kill  for thirty people to read my work some days. Okay, not really, but you know what I mean. When I was doing chick-lit I would see people were buying but no one reviewed, no one “fanned” me, and as far as I knew I was a cheap read that someone bought and totally forgot about in the mass sea of ebooks that people throw out there. It was really no better when I switched to fantasy, going on Wattpad and finding no one reading my stuff. Yep, fun times.

So it gets me thinking, what’s the point? When even my Beta reader seems to have little interest in actually reading my work why am I still doing it?

Simple, I’m doing it for me.

There is a quote out there by Toni Morrison that goes

“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”

There are a lot of those. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot I want to read that are already written, but there are many that aren’t. Those are the day dreams that circle in your head, made of fantasy and fiction that you think about over and over again. Maybe it’ spawned from an ending you didn’t like, or a character that deserved more attention. Those seeds of inspiration grow wild in my head, which may be why I have switched genre’s back and forth over the last decade. But regardless of the why or the how sometimes I can’t get settled until I write those ideas down. I’ve been that way for as long as I could write story, and I will likely stay that way until I no longer can. Every writer, true writer, needs to tell stories even if no one reads them.  It’s the only way to stay somewhat sane.

So now I will return to my NaNo work. Maybe it will be read, maybe it won’t, but either way is okay with me.

This is what I’ve been up to…

So I have disappeared. I have my reasons, I really do. I’ll explain.

First, I kind of lost myself as a writer. Motherhood took over, and suddenly I didn’t have time to write, or the energy, or even the will. I tried and failed a lot, and eventually allowed myself to take a break. I then finished a fantasy piece I started long before my ventures into romance, tried and succeeded to do another small piece for NaNoWrimo, and then fell off the writing map.

Second, well, there is no *real* second. Point one sums it up. But second point is where I say that Girlebooks has or will shortly be discontinuing their author program. This means I am not going to be available any longer. Why you may ask? Well, if you read this blog at all you know I have spoken to death about a certain two characters I swear, time and time again, I have put to bed, finished with, and walked away from. Well, I didn’t. Or, should I say, they didn’t.

With Girlebooks pulling the author program I feel I have a chance to take my favorite tale and rework it. Keeping with the essence of the story, I feel the body of it will be changed drastically by the end. Maybe I’m wrong, but we’ll see. As with Heart Pulled to Pieces, I was already in the process of updating the story and giving it a more thorough edit as this was the biggest complaint I have seen in reviews.

All this being said, I also feel like I no longer have to keep myself “branded” as a particularly girlie author. While I have posted something similar to this extent before, I will also be posting more “nerdy” posts as time goes on. Don’t worry, being a woman, they will still have a feminine stand point.

For those who decide to stick around and see where I go next, thanks for the support. If you read my works, I thank you more. If my decision to make changes saddens you, I’m sorry, but maybe this will be better.

And hey, it’s a new year! Who knows what will happen, right?

 

This is why I write

Yesterday I posted a picture on Facebook of my adorable lil bug banging on my laptop with the hashtag of #nanowrimo. Curious if there were other people out there doing the same I clicked it. Sure enough, people hashtaged. Only one in particular caught my eye.

I don’t remember the guy’s name, and if I did I wouldn’t repost it here. Essentially he was talking about how he was too old for NaNoWriMo, too old to be living “a dream” and was there for done writing. He brought up some points I know every writer/author thinks about from time to time, but one that I know we all fear: What if no one reads my stuff?

That, I think was his selling point, that he would put in all this work into an idea he loves, creating a story he thinks is great, and then have maybe 30 people read it. Well, let me tell you, I would kill  for thirty people to read my work some days. Okay, not really, but you know what I mean. When I was doing chick-lit I would see people were buying but no one reviewed, no one “fanned” me, and as far as I knew I was a cheap read that someone bought and totally forgot about in the mass sea of ebooks that people throw out there. It was really no better when I switched to fantasy, going on Wattpad and finding no one reading my stuff. Yep, fun times.

So it gets me thinking, what’s the point? When even my Beta reader seems to have little interest in actually reading my work why am I still doing it?

Simple, I’m doing it for me.

There is a quote out there by Toni Morrison that goes

“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”

There are a lot of those. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot I want to read that are already written, but there are many that aren’t. Those are the day dreams that circle in your head, made of fantasy and fiction that you think about over and over again. Maybe it’ spawned from an ending you didn’t like, or a character that deserved more attention. Those seeds of inspiration grow wild in my head, which may be why I have switched genre’s back and forth over the last decade. But regardless of the why or the how sometimes I can’t get settled until I write those ideas down. I’ve been that way for as long as I could write story, and I will likely stay that way until I no longer can. Every writer, true writer, needs to tell stories even if no one reads them.  It’s the only way to stay somewhat sane.

So now I will return to my NaNo work. Maybe it will be read, maybe it won’t, but either way is okay with me.

NaNoWrimo, the fun begins

Yep, just goes to show you how into it I am this year. 3 days into the challenge and I realize I haven’t posted a thing. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

I have gone to a start party (first time for that), held a write in, and will be going to one today. I’m all geared up with my NaNo Mug and note book and hope I don’t lose too much momentum during the week. My poor child has cut 4 teeth in 2 weeks, and it has been leaving us all pretty drained from sleepless nights and napless days. I also leave for my home province in 17 days, meaning that writing will be getting harder to do. My goal? Be pretty much at the 50 000 word mark by then so it will be a breeze to finish.

Is anyone else out there doing NaNoWriMo? How’s it going? Wanna be writing buddies? Look me up (megantrennett).