The Road I Travel

This past weekend I met with my writing accountability partners. We all know we want 2010 to be an awesome year for writing and I, for one, need all the help I could get.

2009 was a tough writing year for me, despite my Golden Heart final. I had periods where I wrote a lot and submitted, but I also had long times of drought where no words would come. My characters were utterly silent. There was no joy in what had once been one of the biggest sources of happiness in my life.

Why? Coming out of this "dark night of the soul” required me to ask myself this very question. I’ll be honest, I seriously considered giving up writing twice last year. I say this not to garner sympathy, but so you can understand that the writing journey isn’t all hilltops of flowing words and finished manuscripts. It can be a tough road to travel, as well.

But in asking myself “Why?”, I had to face the depths of fear and confusion hidden behind those silent periods. The fear that I’ll never publish a book. The fear that I’m not talented enough to be more than mediocre. The confusion over high contest placements and low editor interest. But in the end, all that matters is the story and my love for it. I decided that I was ready and eager to recommit to my writing. My accountability partners are ready to help me see that commitment through, for which I cannot thank them enough.

I knew that one of my Big Goals this year would be to establish a daily writing habit and to raise my writing time to a higher daily priority. So I decided to initiate a 30 Days of Writing Challenge. I’m committing myself to writing something, anything, every day in an attempt to form a daily writing habit. Whether it is one paragraph or ten pages, I must write or revise each day. This goes hand-in-hand with making my writing a priority in my daily life. I want it to be the first thing I do, not the last. I don’t want to get to the end of the day and realize that the one thing I wanted so very much to do – Write – I didn’t even touch. This isn’t going to be easy, but in recommitting myself to my characters, books, and talent, I’m willing to face this tough assignment.

For those of you who are writers, I’d love for you to join me in this experiment. I’ll be posting my progress on FaceBook (you can friend me under Danniele Worsham) and weekly checking in here on Mondays. Hearing about your progress would help inspire mine! For you readers out there, I know you can understand the emotions behind this struggle, even if writing isn’t your thing. We all have that one dream in life that both challenges and rewards us. Writing just happens to be mine.

What are your dreams and goals for 2010? What are you recommitting to this year – your writing, healthy living, relationships? What is the one thing that would really benefit from your focus for 30 full days?

Angel

Write Ins

Believe it or not, writers can sometimes have a difficult struggle to get words on the page, especially within a reasonable amount of time. Let me rephrase that: It isn't the words that are the problem, usually it is just the time. Finding the time, that is. As many of you are aware, each of the Playfriends is participating in some form in National Novel Writing Month during November. But getting 50,000 words written, even in daily increments, isn’t easy. So the people over at NaNo suggested having group write-ins.

Yes, it is sort of like a sit in, but much more fun and definitely productive. Writers descend on their place of choice, loaded down with laptops, alphies, pen, storyboards, and plot notes. Then we write. Sometimes it is a coffee shop, restaurant, pub, or, in my case, my house. Yes, there are lots of distractions there, but there are also lots of toys and computers to occupy my preschool age child. Also plenty of plugs, a refrigerator to keep drinks cold, and no one will complain when the timer goes off.

That’s right, timer. Because we aren’t silly enough to think we’ll write the entire time we’re there, I set up a schedule. 45 minutes on, 15 off. For those who don't mind a task master, we’d do a 45 minute stint of writing, then stop for snacks and to discuss any problems. Then back to the grind stone.

Sound weird? Maybe. But does it work? Definitely. With a little self-control, and lots of sugar and caffeine. Besides, you knew writers weren’t normal, didn’t you? :)

Have you ever tried anything of this sort?

Angel


P.S. Check out our current totals in the blog sidebar. We need all the encouragement we can get!!!!

Three Weeks Late and 5k Short

In early April, I challenged Instigator to a writing competition to light a fire under our tails. I’m uber-competitive and there’s nothing like it to get me to push through a tough writing spot. We opted for a race to 125 pages. If one of us finished our book before we reached 125, whomever had the most pages at the time of completion would win, even if their book wasn’t done. At the time, I was at 100 even, so once I hit my goal, my book would be almost finished. I was on fire at the start. 10-18 pages a day, no problem. Then I went to Disneyworld for four days. Then Tampa. Then Nashville. Three consecutive long-weekend trips and I was toast. She smoked me, finishing her book after 112 pages while I still sat somewhere in the 80s.

I will be graciously buying us both a mani-pedi before Nationals this year. In the last challenge, PC and I decided that win or lose, we should both get a mani-pedi as a reward for our hard work. I quite agree. 100+ pages in a couple weeks is nothing to sneeze at.

So, better late than never, I hit 125 pages yesterday with a grand total of 4 full love scenes (this is a major breakthrough for me, I assure you). I still have about 5,000 words to go on Red-Handed, but I’m close. I have to work out all the post-black moment internal angst and burn down a building. I seem to do that a lot. You'd never know I was pyrophobic. Anyway, I wanted the book finished and edited by June and I think that might just happen. I just need to find a few people frustrated enough with their own books to stop and critique mine. :)

Now that I'm so close, I'm of course being tempted by the lure of the next book. I don't have much, but what I've got is GREAT if I say so myself. I've done a little research and found some perfect stuff. This should be interesting to write, if nothing else. Unfortunately I can't start on it until I FINISH THE OTHER ONE. Argh.

This of course is on top of a million things happening this weekend. Teas, luncheons, dinners, parties...all with outfits I still haven't chosen. Sigh. All I had to say to DB was that it was luncheon weekend and he was like...oh, see you Sunday, then. Pretty much sums it up.

So, what has your brain pulling in 5 different directions today?
SP

Circle of Five:
1 novella pending with Nocturne Bites
2 short stories and 4 short features with the Trues
(yeah, I know it hasn't changed...)

A Concession Speech...

So, I lost the writing challenge. I put in a good showing though, so I’m not ashamed of losing. I should finish up my pages today (I would have finished yesterday, but I had to chaperone AC’s field trip.). I’ll still have some pages left before I can type The End, but I’m very glad I participated in this challenge— even if it did cost me a mani-pedi and a bit of my dignity on the blog.

(Honestly, I built SP’s prize in to my budget the day after I agreed to this challenge. SP is very competitive— the challenge itself got her moving. I, on the other hand, am deadline-driven. I dragged myself along in the early stages of the contest— mainly so I didn’t look like a slacker to the world-at-large— but once SP crossed that 90% threshold, I suddenly realized there was a deadline, and that, more than anything, kicked my butt into gear.)

I doubt I’m the only unpublished writer who struggles when it comes to producing pages. It’s tough to pour your heart and soul into something, knowing the odds are it will be returned to you with a “No Thanks.” Yes, we all understand on a rational level that we can’t sell a book we haven’t written, but investing that much of ourselves into something where there’s only the slimmest of chances it will amount to anything... Well, if that doesn’t teeter on the edge of soul-destroying, I don’t know what does.

In fact, I know I’m not alone. If I were, no one would be Sweating With Sven right now or gearing up for National Novel Writing Month. These challenges (much like our Playground one) have some accountability built in. It’s not a contract with a paycheck attached, but at least there’s a deadline and people expecting on you to get there.

Having that meter on the page and knowing folks (or at least the Playfriends) were eyeballing my progress forced me to slog through those sections where getting the words out made pulling teeth sound like great fun. There are about 40 pages in the middle of the book where I’d write a paragraph, delete the paragraph, stare at the page for a while, write a sentence, delete the sentence... The only way out, sadly, was through. (Especially for someone like me who can’t write scenes out of order.) Once I got through that section though, the words came easier. Without SP shaming me into action, though, I’d still be avoiding that section of the book.

I was reminded of something very important during this challenge, though, that I’d like to share with y’all: Never confuse feeling productive with actually being productive. Oh, I wrote a lot during this writing challenge-- blog entries, chapter bylaws, newsletter articles, resumes, letters to the parents in AC’s class... I’d feel so productive on those days, and I’d reward myself with an evening in front of the TV or with a good book. At the end of the day, though, I’d have little or nothing to post on the meter. I felt productive, but it didn’t take long to realize how false that feeling was. Maybe you play this game with yourself in other ways like cleaning house, planting pansies, or organizing your sock drawer. At the end of the day, you feel like you’ve been very productive, but wait— there’s no pages to post on the meter.

I’d recommend to anyone practicing WIP avoidance techniques to take on a challenge. Sweat with Sven. NaNoWriMo your heart out. Join one of those Survivor-style writing loops. Or just find a friend and up the stakes. Create a goal, a deadline, and some kind of accountability plan, and maybe you’ll find your way out of that rut.

Thanks to SP, I’m on pace to get this WIP finished, polished and off to the Golden Heart contest (which I already paid for— see, I created a deadline for myself). Kicking me out of my rut is well worth the cost of a mani-pedi.

I’m not Sven, and I certainly don’t sweat if I can possibly help it, but let’s talk about goals today. What would you like to accomplish between now and December 1?

PC

Dragging Across the Finish Line

It’s over.

(Both SP and PC breathe a huge sigh of relief...)

The Playground writing challenge is done. Both PC and I put up a valiant fight. I managed to write 140 pages in 44 days. PC is close behind and will probably finish her book off later this week. Although I technically won, I can’t say there is really a loser. Both of us are finishing books we’d gotten stuck on. Although I had a strong start and was able to keep a lead, PC worked hard to close the gap towards the end, so I don’t think anyone could be disappointed by their performance. Both of us are getting a fabulous mani-pedi. We worked hard, we both deserve a little pampering. Only difference is one of us gets it for free.

I know that only comes out to about 3 pages a day, but I took off most weekends and was out of town on a trip for several days, so that boosted my average up to almost 5 pages a day when I actually wrote. Low for some, but pretty darn good for me. And besides... compared to what I’ve written since I got a big, fat R earlier this year – this is AWESOME. It isn’t as though rejections make me go into self loathing mode where I don’t want to write, it actually mentally robs me of the capacity. I struggle for each sentence, each word. It’s a mess, so I just stop for a while. Even without an R, I typically stall out in the middle of a book – lose direction, lose enthusiasm, lose my mind...but this forced me through it. Now - my book is actually finished. I’m going to set it aside and go back over it in a couple weeks, let some CPs look at it, clean it up, and hope that someone wants to see it in the near future.

I considered entering the Golden Heart this year to really boost my motivation, but at this point, I think I’m just too tired for all that. After my CPs look it over, there may be some major overhauls required and I doubt it will all come back together in time. I don’t want to throw away $50 just so I can say I entered. Besides, I don’t even know what category this book should be – Single title? Paranormal? Romantic elements? My brain is so foggy right now, a decision like that could take me down for the count.

I want to celebrate my victory with a nap, but they frown upon that at work. I’ll have to settle for a bottle of diet raspberry white tea and a low carb granola bar. Yum. Congrats to PC for chasing me to the finish and making me incredibly nervous toward the end. May you celebrate with the carbs I can’t have. :)

What accomplishments have you made lately that you're proud of? Brag on yourself!

SP

Battle Cry of the Procrastinators

A little battle music to get us started...

"Dum...dum, dum, dum...dum, dum, dum...dum, dum, dum! Rising up, back on the street. Did my time, took my chances. Went the distance, now I'm back on my feet. Just a man and his will to survive! So many times, it happens too fast. You trade your passion for glory. Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past. You must fight just to keep them alive! It's the eye of the tiger, its the cream of the fight. Rising up to the challenge of our rivals! And the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night and he's watching us all with the eye of the tiger..." (Survivor, Eye of the Tiger)

So we're four days into the SP/PC writing challenge. No timelimits, no minimums, just a race to 140 pages. This could take a week if one of us buckles down or six months if we creep along at our current pace. Who knows what will happen?? So far, it hasn't been too painful, at least for me. I had to psych myself into it, though. I took the last few weeks leading up to the challenge to prepare. I looked at my outline and made a list of major scenes that need to be written. Sure, there will be scenes that come along as I go, but I captured the high plot points to move the story along. I went back and edited what I'd already written so I had a better idea of how many pages I really need to write to be finished. (The goal is 140, but if one of us completes our book at say, 125 pages, the contest will end there and the person with the most pages at that point, even if not done, will win.)

I've also started going to bed about twenty minutes earlier. I choose a scene and lie in the dark, thinking out how it would go. I fall asleep with the scene in my mind and wake up ready to write it the next morning. Instigator has always written her scenes out of sequence as they come to her. The thought of this has always made me crazy, but I'm trying it now. I'm writing the scenes that seem the most alive to me at the time. I'll go back and string them together later. This may not be the best method, but I'm getting words and scenes written, so I say don't knock it till you try it. I have to go back and layer a bunch anyway, so it doesn't matter. The pages don't have to be perfectly revised and submittable to win, but they do have to be clean without gaps, etc., so I'll have to do all that before the race is done.

Of course, it takes the threat of public shame and financial burden of losing to movitate me, but that's ok. I say whatever works at this point. I haven't quite gotten my method down as a writer, so challenges like this force me to work through my issues and get books written. That's the whole point, right? Someone said you have to write a million words before you get to the level that you should be published. That comes out to 12.5 80k books for me. So far, I've cranked out 5, so I still have a way to go.

As of Thursday night, our numbers stand at:

SP:6,500 / 35,000 (18.6%)
PC: 3,750 / 35,000 (10.7%)

There's a long way to go until the mani-pedi is awarded, but I think we're both off to a good start. Is there something in your life you could use a little movitvation to start or finish? Share with us and maybe we can give you a boost to get going.

SP

Fear Factor

So, you're probably wondering what happened to the big Playground battle between myself and PC. All gung ho after drinking at a restaurant, we decided we'd start the following Monday (cause all challenges, like diets, start on Monday.) Well, then we postponed for the knee surgery and desk assembly. Didn't want anyone to have an unfair advantage that might taint their victory. We told ourselves September 1st. Hmm...that's tomorrow. So I sent an email to PC to renegotiate - yes, its the beginning of the month, but what challenge starts on a Saturday? It should start on Monday the 3rd. Wait. That's Labor Day. What challenge starts on a holiday? Tuesday then. Yes, Tuesday the challenge will begin!

I'm a little freaked out by the whole thing. Yeah, I'm sure I jumped right on it when the suggestion came up. Yes, I'm super competitive and know that the pain of losing will be much worse than the pain of pulling 140 pages out of my hind end. I know I cocked an eyebrow at her and raised the stakes so high, there was no way to blame the peach bellini and back down. But still, I worry. I worry like I do with every book, but this one is worse than the others.

I really like this book. I like the characters. I think what I've got so far is great. Yeah, there are issues, but...what if I screw it up? 140 pages, whether written in 6 months or 6 weeks can be screwed up. What if I ruin this story? This great story. This could be THE story. Makes it that much harder. And what if I don't screw it up? What if its great and it sells and they want the other three books that go with it? What if they can never be as good as the first? Darned if I do, darned if I don't, although I'd be stupid to complain about having the latter problem.

This will probably come as a shocker (hush, y'all) but my list of fears does not have spiders or snakes on the top. I'm pyrophobic, but that's an irrational fear and doesn't really count. My personality type is the mastermind. The problem solver. The perfectionist. What I'm afraid of, really afraid of, is failure. Followed up by a close second of rejection. Guess I got in the wrong business, eh? I mean, I think most people don't want to fail and they pray not to get an R in the mail, but I'm actually afraid of it. Occasionally paralyzed by it. Got that whole "if I'm perfect maybe my daddy will see and love me" or some psycho-babble crap thing going. Not as exciting as spiders or those people with odd ones like fear of hairballs or mayonnaise.

Well, I've shaken hands and gotten myself into this challenge, no matter what. We'll see how it goes. Hopefully we'll both break through our barriers and get some good work out of this. In the meantime, what are you afraid of? Share your neurosis with the group, please, so I'll feel better about this. :)

SP

What part of Amazing doesn't she understand?

The Amazing Child started school last Tuesday. First Grade—she’s quite the big girl now, you know. This is real school—homework, tests, etc. So when she brought home her first homework assignment, I told her she needed to get right on it.

But the homework was for ME. Not a joint Mommy and AC project. An assignment for me.

Seriously, it’s the second week of school and I have homework. Due by Friday, but she’ll let me turn it in late if things are just too crazy this week. Very nice of her.

Except I don’t want to do homework. Been there, done that, got the diploma to show for it. Besides, I’m a teacher. I assign homework; I don’t actually do it.

Whining aside, let’s just say I don’t think I can do this assignment properly. I’m supposed to write a letter to AC’s teacher describing my child’s character, her strengths, what I hope for her to gain this year.

Is she serious? She wants me to describe AC’s character? Her strengths? She’s the Amazing Child, for goodness’ sake. What more does she need to know?

But I’ll give it a shot. Let’s see. AC is an absolute genius. She’s bright, caring, kind, intelligent, creative, artistically inclined, independent, happy, and all around Amazing. There are many things I’d like her to learn this year. If AC is going to be the first Olympic gold medalist astronaut who uses her Nobel Prize money to fund her ground-breaking cure for cancer while serving as the President responsible for ending poverty and crime and brokering World Peace, then we need to get some basic spelling and math skills under her belt PDQ. And can you convince her to tie her own shoes?

Hmm, I think I lack the emotional distance necessary to do this properly.

Is this some kind of weird test sent home by the teacher? Am I being judged here? If I don’t sing my child’s praises, the teacher will think I’m unsupportive and uncaring. If I tell her how utterly brilliant AC is, then I’m an unrealistic, possibly hovering stage Mom who is raising a self-centered brat. There’s just no way to win here. (And there’s no way I’m going to tell her teacher the annoying thing my child is doing right now that makes me want to scream and possibly snatch her bald-headed…)

Sheesh, my thesis didn’t give me this much trouble. My WIP is a piece of cake in comparison.

So I’m going to go choose my words carefully. Meanwhile, feel free to tell us how amazing your child (or dog, or niece, or whomever you’re proud of) is.

PC

*******

The PC/SP type-down has been delayed until September 1. Although my knee surgery shouldn't keep me down for more than a couple of days, there's always the chance I'll need a longer recovery time. Plus, SP has a new desk to put together and some house stuff still to do. We want this to be a fair competition, so we'll wait to get it started. Any writing done between now and Sept 1 won't count toward the final page count, but maybe I can get the beginning of my WIP rewritten by then...

A Friendly Competition (with a side of Shame and Greed)

Every now and then, you’ll hear us talk about “writing challenges” here on the blog. You challenge yourself to write X number of pages in X amount of time. Usually it’s a daily page total. You let the others know your goal and check in with your progress. A great idea, right?

Well, there are two flaws to the average writing challenge:

1) If you don’t make your goal for the day, there’s no real penalty.

2.) The pages don’t have to be any good. You can write garbage and still get credit for meeting your page goal.

So, while they're a good idea, the shame factor is relatively low and you're not really competing against anyone but yourself.

Smarty Pants and I are obviously having some motivation problems. WIP issues we don’t know how to fix, life issues that need to be dealt with, and confidence issues of feeling we suck have all worked together to stall out our manuscripts. Something must be done or else these books will languish forever.

Saturday night, we hit on something that should kick our butts in to gear. A competition. Well, more than a competition or a writing challenge. More like a bet. A down and dirty bet.

We have the same goal—140 pages. (That’s not an arbitrary number—we have reasons for that page count). However, they must be 140 GOOD pages. Not pages of “blah, blah, blah, I’ll fix that later.” Not pages of crap that must be massively edited to be presentable. The goal is 140 pages of good, “ready-for-prime-time” stuff. That may mean rewriting. That may mean going back to page 13 to change something and having to deal with the ripple effect though all the pages that follow. (Critique Partners, brace yourselves.) We’re going for Quality as well as Quantity.

There’s no set time limit, other than First One to 140 Wins. But it is a race. No dawdling and fiddling around.

And there will be a prize. In addition to gaining bragging rights and avoiding public shame, we decided there needs to be a tangible prize. Something we want. Something we wouldn’t want to lose. Shame and competitiveness will only go so far. We’re going for the baser motivations like greed as well.

That’s where we’re stuck. We need y’all to help us come up with a prize. Remember, it needs to be tangible and it needs to be good. We’re avoiding cold hard cash or really expensive things (partly because I’m a kept woman these days and feel bad about betting too much money I don’t actually earn). Manual labor can be involved—the painting of each other’s offices did come up in negotiations. We’re not into public humiliation beyond having to admit on the blog that we lost. Nudity is also out. Y’all know us pretty well by now; what do you think a good prize would be? What would you want if you were in our shoes?

Give us your ideas for the Grand Prize (If it’s what we chose—or leads us to the final choice, I’ll send you an awesome prize pack of your own.)

The start date has been set for August 13, so we have less than a week to come up with final terms. Help us out, then be ready for a ring-side seat as PC and SP go keyboard to keyboard in a no-holds-barred race to 140.

Knowing us, this should be interesting...

PC

******
PS: Our first MOANday winner is Ellie! Email Angel for your prize.

PPS: In a late-breaking addition, erotica writer Colette Gale will be here tomorrow!