Summer!

School is officially over for us homeschoolers, which means the long, lazy days of summer have arrived. Hours at a stretch with no lessons, no errands, just me and the kids and nothing to do but enjoy the great outdoors, a good book, and all that time to write....

Only this summer, due to our remodel, we won't get long, lazy days; we'll get long days of hard work. I'm already obsessing over the constant clutter, feeling the walls closing in around me as more "stuff" ends up inside our tiny house. Even bringing in the mail can send me over the edge, or the little pieces of broken up asphalt that stick to shoes. My idea of remodeling involves a daily clean-up session and on-going organization of the waste to be removed or tidying up the debris. To everyone else's tired bodies, these are not good uses of our time and energy.

I get very tired keeping both the house and the demolition in order.

On the up-side, I'm developing my arm and back muscles. I'm hoping all this demolition will slim my backside as well. And more good knews! As those of you who have read my 9 year old daughter's blog (cortanie-animallover.blogspot.com) know, we are an environmentally-conscious family. Ridden with guilt, I loaded up the pickup with the the lumber we couldn't reuse, the gutters that we tore down, and pieces of the concrete slab - and I headed to the dump. Looking at that mountain of waste was depressing - more so, as I contributed to it. Expensive, too, as it should be. It shouldn't be cheap for people to be wasteful. Then along came my brother-in-law with a solution: he found a place that will recycle the pieces of our concrete slab AND they'll recycle the asphalt, too. Hooray! I feel much better now, though I still feel guilty about my contribution to the landfills.

On the writing front, I'm discovering a "morning" phase. I usually write at night. When I'm in the throes of a new story I can write through anything and at any time of the day. I'm in the process of analyzing my novel, Falling Short, moving scenes around and deciding what needs to be changed or deleted in each scene. This analytical process only seems to work for me in the daylight hours. Perhaps when I get to the crafting side, the rewriting of the scenes, I'll once again be able to burn the night oil.

You'll hopefully - soon - be able to read more of my short stories on Echelon and Fictionwise. I'm expanding "My Dearest Julianne", "Duty", "The Painting", and "False Idols". I'll be submitting these shorts to Echelon in June and July. "Hear The Wind Blow" isn't at the #2 spot any longer but it was great to be up there for a while!

I made the bestseller list!

The bestseller list on Fictionwise, that is. I'm still waiting to find out if I'll be the first author of a short story ebook to make the New York Times bestseller list ;)

In it's first week on Fictionwise, "Hear The Wind Blow" made it to number 4 out of 509 fantasy short stories, and number 40 out of all 5,167 short stories. Woohoo! That news is motivating. I appreciate the sales. THANK YOU!

If you bought my story through Fictionwise, will you do me a favor and rank it? There's a choice on the left sidebar of your 'bookshelf' for ranking the stories you've purchased. It will help me in the long run if my readers add a favorable ranking. Thank you, again! (Echelon purchasers please post a review on Echelon. I'd like to use them in my promotional booklet.)

But...on to other writing projects.

I finished printing my manuscript. I simply must have a hard copy in my hands at this stage. I said that on the last post, didn't I? And I said I was making changes, but I wasn't very specific. Currently, I'm in the process of updating my summary outline so that it matches my manuscript because I deviated a bit and then I changed the whole story goal (the latter was in my mind, not on the manuscript). Next, I will use the summary outline to look at each scene. From there, I can edit, delete or add to fit my new story goal.

For some reason I can't do this manuscript review phase from the computer screen. (How many times have I said that?) I don't know why I need a hard copy. Maybe I need the reassurance that I've actually accomplished something? Looking at 300+ pages of printed manuscript and knowing I wrote it sure feels like an accomplishment. But, like all writers, I look at it and wonder if it was just a colossal waste of time or if it can be made into a story. This motivates me to work harder, to make sure those 300+ pages are worthy of the time and attention I put into them.

My optimistic goal is to have this draft completed by May 31st.

Beyond the novel.... Short stories seem so quick and light compared to the heavyweight, the novel. I don't have a specific goal in mind, really; I just found that working with a short story is a useful way to take a break from the novel and still keep my writerly mind agile.

Be sure to check out my Fictionwise page if you haven't already!
http://www.fictionwise.com/eBooks/JanelleDakotaeBooks.htm

Fictionwise

Great news for those of you who had trouble purchasing my e-book on Echelon Press: Hear The Wind Blow is now available at http://www.fictionwise.com/eBooks/JanelleDakotaeBooks.htm. Fictionwise has secure payment options of Micropay, PayPal, and credit card.

To everyone who has purchased a copy, thank you! I'd love it if you could post a review on Echelon.

Falling Short is going through scene revisions. My trusty old HP printer died. I sure hope my backup printer holds up. I don't know why, but I cannot do revisions without having a hard copy in hand.

I'm looking at attending a conference in October - in South Carolina. That's a long way from home, I know, but I'll have friends there.

Seems everyone I know is making the most of the shorts they've written, so why haven't I? I've decided to revise several of my short stories and send them out. My short story file is bursting at the seams. I just have to remove all traces of the prompts, bring the word counts up over 2500, and they'll be good to go. Piece of cake, right?

Acting Out

I talk to myself when I write. I get up and walk around or try to envision an expression, a movement, or a body language. Sometimes I use props or crayons so I can see a setting or gauge an action. Many writers do this, but most writers write in their jammies in the privacy of their homes. The bulk of my writing is done at home, too, and my family is used to my antics, but my children and I are out and about several days a week to group classes or music lessons. I have blocks of time when I'm waiting...perfect opportunity to write, right?

I get strange looks from people.

How else can I put the reader in the scene if I don't use these visualization skills? Visualization can be most effective. I use music to get me moving along on a scene, to get the mood right, or to find the right tone for the narrative. I try out different laughs to see which one fits my character. I read sentences aloud that aren't working, and try different inflections or words to get the sentence to flow. When I'm stuck, I really get vocal: I talk to myself and try to look at the plot point from all angles. If a scene is flat, I'll have my main character narrate what happened, past tense and off the page, speaking my character's dialogue as if I were him or her and I was relating the events to a friend. (It works - I can see what's missing or if the scene needs to be omitted.)

I try not to do these things in public, which is my point. If I'm in public, I try to work on editing or revisions. But when I'm getting the novel down or adding/replacing scenes, I'm in the creative process, hence the full-action writing.

At least, I hope it was my antics that caused the strange looks....

Tendonitis Frustrations

The tendonitis has been a deterrent to my writing. I have thoughts, ideas, even whole scenes coming to me (with dialogue!) that I can barely scratch out on a pad of paper. I've made cryptic notes in my manuscript file on the computer. Typing left-handed only? Well, that had to stop. My south paw is too slow and I end up getting frustrated and typing with both hands, hence, the continuation of the tendonitis.

Preparing for home renovations hasn't helped much, either.

Tendonitis aside, the story must go on or I'll go crazy. I love my family - my husband and children come first in my life - but even they are aware (perhaps the most aware?) that I must write or lose my sanity. So I have tried everything: writing left-handed (like deciphering a physician's scrawl), left-handed typing (argh!), and even a typing schedule of 15 minutes on/15 minutes off (apparently, 15 minutes rest isn't enough). And slowly, s-l-o-w-l-y, despite the tendonitis, I am making progress on my novel.

But I'm excited about the story and I want to be able to get it all down! This is very frustrating.

From breakthrough to setback

Tendonitis in the wrist has a way of hampering noveling progress. Could there be a better form of torture for a writer than the physical impairment of her writing hand, especially when the story is flowing?

Due to the inability to type, I have been spending mental time with my characters as I go about the necessary tasks for remodeling preparation. I think brainstorming and daydreaming are vital to my writing: without them, I don't have the zest for the story or the infatuation with the characters. Sorting and classifying household items that I haven't used in a decade is a good exercise for pondering plot lines and character sketches, story arcs and titles. The beautiful 70+ degree weather we've had here in the Seattle area the past two days has made the task of culling the useless accumulation in my garage much more bearable, but I admit to wishing we were out enjoying the day at a park or the beach. And speaking of beaches...

Our passports arrived and I am waiting to hear from my mother on the date of her upcoming surgery. A trip to Mexico is not far off. Undoubtedly, I will be taking my laptop, hoping to find some quiet moments while I'm away to write the scenes I've been daydreaming about, though my experience has been that if I'm not writing daily at home, I won't be writing daily away from home.

Still ruminating on a title, as well. For now it is still Falling Short.

Breakthrough!

An exciting morning: I had a major breakthrough on Falling Short!

Backtrack: Falling Short is a complete rewrite of a project from last May. I hit it with Karen Weisner's First Draft in 30 Days and titled it Best Stressed Woman for NaNo in November. After finishing NaNo, I began the process of filling the holes in the plot - little things that came up as I wrote that needed to be filled in earlier. Then I set the story aside, unable to put my finger on what the story needed. More tinkering prompted a title change. Still more tinkering resulted in a few characters being omitted. And today...

I GOT IT! I figured out what the story needed!