Dawn Reno Langley's Blog, page 7

Heating Up the Wires Again

The writing muscle lives in several places in the body: the mind, the shoulder, the hand, the gut, maybe even in the tapping toe anxiously waiting for the next word to come. Lately, I've thought they live in veins and arteries, as well . . . the ones attached to the writing muscle. And in order for the writing muscle to kick into gear, the veins/arteries/wires need to be heated up. That's what I'm doing now: heating up the wires that are attached to my writing muscles that work together to produce publishable words. I need them at peak production, and they are now well-oiled and humming. Just a matter of time now.

Done with the novel . . . for now

Finished writing and editing ELEPHANTS FOR DANNY several days ago, and it was like my body instantly disintegrated as soon as I sent it off. A bronchial-type-flu set in, taking me down for the count, and I've been either in my bed or on the couch ever since. The only thing I've been able to do is watch TV or read. I do have an essay I'd like to complete, and I want to finish the novel I'd started before this one, but my body is saying: rest. Right now, damnit. Do not get up. Do not write. Just rest.

So, I am.

Any writers out there who listen to their characters?

Sometimes I wonder whether I'm just writing for myself or if I have an audience. Occasionally, someone comments on one of my blogs or reviews, but most of the time, I feel like I'm just exercising my fingers.

Whatever the case, I wanted to take a break from my novel to comment on how the characters work in it. The story is set in Thailand, but I realized that for my own convenience, most of the characters are British or American. Yes, there are several Thais and I've worked hard to make them integral to the plot, but when I brought in a new character, I made him a mishmash of European, so he'd speak English.

Today when I was working on the story, I had this niggling feeling that this character was too much like the others and that I was being lazy. When I realized I was missing a very big part of the population in Southeast Asia who would have direct connection to Thais, I realized this man was Indian. And, yes, Victoria, he could speak fluent English.

All of a sudden, the character came alive with much more of a realistic placement in the story than he had before -- and man, did the scene I was writing spark with sexual tension. I hadn't planned on that!

Sometimes your characters tell you who they are. You just have to listen.

Old School Writing: By Hand

So, it's slow, first of all. Writing by hand is also difficult when you write at night, sitting up in bed, as I often do -- because when I start falling asleep, I'm still writing. That last paragraph that I write just as my eyes are closing is often . . . ahem . . . shall we say: interesting? Ah, what the hell. Sometimes it makes no sense at all! Sometimes I have absolutely no clue what was going through my brain as sleep took over. The paragraph isn't connected to the story at all, and in fact, often sounds like I was hallucinating.

Someday I'm going to examine that moment in between our last moments alert and awake and those first few moments when REM steals our brains.

For now, I am wishing I could get a few more moments of slo-mo writing in every night because I'm not racking up the pages in my novel like I used to.

Whatever the case, I'm enjoying it.

Did any of this make sense?

Won NaNoWriMo again :-)

Yes, I cheated a bit and had about 20K words written before I started the month, but I have to give myself some slack since I am writing this new novel by hand . . . yes, with a pen and paper. I think that all of those people who write with laptops during November have a definite jump on me. Whatever the case, I'm very proud of finishing the month and getting in my 50K+ words, because now I need to finish this novel since (...wait for it...) I already have interest in it! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this is the break I've been waiting for and working toward.

In the past couple of years, I've completed 5 projects with 2 (this novel and my last one) half finished. At this point, it's time for one of these projects to sell -- and if it's the latest one (entitled Elephants for Danny), I'll be happy. Hope it paves the way for the others.

I've been interviewed -- just in time for NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month has become a celebration of November, my least favorite month, as well as a time when I can truly push myself to create more words than I normally do. I've decided I'm a slow writer, and nowadays, I'm even slower because I've gone "old school." I'm not writing by hand the way I did in high school. Surprisingly, that has changed my writing for the better. Unfortunately, my strength as a typist (which used to be great because I'd get more words on the page -- because I type fast) is no longer helping me.

At this point, I'm up to about 32K in my latest novel (I cheated a bit: had a couple of chapters already done before the month started), and I was just interviewed by another writer about writing itself. Read the interview here: http://www.jimheskett.com/2014/11/6-q...

A New Novel . . . and A Need for 48 Hours a Day

Since my last blog post, I've been working with the Author Salon Novel Writing program and getting quite a bit out of it. I'm surprised, actually, at how useful it's been for me. It's taught me to write deeper, to think about characters differently, and to thoroughly analyze the outline before beginning. That last part was something I've always done, but this time -- with this program -- I've really gone into it far more than ever before.

Has it worked? Right now, I'm not sure. One thing I do know is that I'm writing differently. I've been putting pieces of the novel together in a mosaic fashion rather than a linear one. And I've been writing by hand. That, in itself, is slowing me down and forcing me to think about a scene completely before writing. I think that's actually a strong positive. I'm not just ripping out thousands of words without knowing where I'm going. Instead, I'm crafting sentences.

I like this much better.

More as the process continues . . . I have almost 100 pages done, so far, and I'm going to put my final lesson onto the website within the next week.

Back to the Drawing Board

I was halfway through writing SUNFLOWER when I decided that since no agents/editors asked for anything after the full manuscripts were sent to them, there's obviously something wrong. I don't think it's my writing; I think it's my story structure. So, I decided I either need a developmental editor or a course in writing novels (even though I've been doing it for years!). I chose the latter, and for the past couple of months, I've been working on a NEW novel based on a recent trip to Thailand.

I have to say that this course (called The Author Salon/6 Act, 2-Goal Novel structure) is forcing me to slow down and completely map out the novel before I dive into it. I'm used to having a brief outline and changing it as I write, but this is feeling to me like the cart is before the horse. I worry that I won't have any steam left when it's time to start the actual writing, but one thing's for sure: I will know my characters and my plot inside and out. I just want to be sure they are given the leeway to act in a way that's unexpected.

I'm going to move forward and see what happens. It's perfect timing to be in this course because my life is quieter. Once college classes start up again, I'll be much busier, and my mind will be filled with a lot of crap that pushes out the creativity I need.

In the meantime, soldiering on!

Sunflower

I'm more than 100 pages into 'Sunflower,' my latest novel. This morning, I had the horrid thought that I might be halfway, which would make this book far too short, but when I checked my outline (which is rather extensive), I realized I'm just about a third, so I breathed a sigh of relief.

Thankfully, I've had a couple of writers willing to read the book, and I've gotten good, constructive feedback.

Onward and upward.

This week, we all received the sad news that Gabriel Garcia Marquez passed away. The world will be a little poorer without the richness of his written worlds.

Peace.

The Business of Publishing

Sometimes I check the ads for those companies that will do all the "busy work" of publishing for you. They say they'll send out the query letters, keep track of which agents (or publishers) have responded, and keep sending out those letters until something sticks. Sometimes I think maybe the money I would pay a company like that would be worthwhile since it would free up hours and hours of time that I spend sending out proposals and query letters and give me those hours back so I can write. Sometimes I think that maybe I don't want to see the rejections that all of us writers get on a regular basis and maybe paying one of those companies might save me some pain and heartache.

But then again . . . .

I don't have the extra funds to pay strangers to send my babies out into the world, I want to hear whatever comments the agents and editors make on my work so I can deem them worthwhile (or not) in determining whether I'm going to dig back into a work and incorporate changes, and I remind myself continually that if I simply mark out time for myself once a month to sit down and write those letters, send those emails and keep track of answers on a spreadsheet that it really isn't THAT much of my time.

And when I get an email back from a top-notch agent who says, "Yes, send me that complete manuscript," I'm the one who receives it and can rejoice for however long it takes before a decision has been made. I wouldn't want someone else stealing that moment from me.

Ultimately, I'd like to see the day when I don't have to worry about queries to agents, that all my queries go from my agent to various editors, and that the emails filling my inbox are about tailoring a book to an editor's needs or answering questions about what would be most important to include on a book cover or determining whether to do a booksigning at this book store or that one.

When all is said and done, I guess all of it is what should be embraced as part of the life of a writer. And I do.

Honestly!