GPS for Writing?

I’m still stuck on my WIP.  So I’ve decided to go back to the chapters I already have and just re-read and re-write.  I know, I’m not supposed to worry about revising until after the first draft is done, but it’s not like I’m making progress.  I may as well go over what I already have, tweaking here and there, and hopefully when I get to the end of what I already have, I can just… continue.

It’s not like I’ve written myself into a corner.  More like a busy intersection.  Where do I go from here?

Do I take the interstate- quick and straight?

Or do I take the country road- the slow, scenic route?

Or how about just going through town- with lots of traffic lights and twists and turns?

If only I had a map.  Oh, right.  That would be the outline.

Unfortunately, I’m just as stuck on the outline as I am on the story.  So back to re-writing I go.

Shannon

Why am I Not Writing?

I have a story.  I want to write it.

But I’m not writing it.  Why is that?

I know the story, pretty much.  There are still a few details that are fuzzy, but I know where it begins and where it ends.  The middle is still open for developement.

I know my characters.  I know them better than any other characters I’ve ever dreamed up.  I know who they are, and where they’ve been.  I know why they are attracted to each other and why they think they can’t be together.

I know why my female character is so driven.  I know what her strongest attribute is and I know where it springs from.  I know what her weakness is and I know what she is self-conscious about.  I know what she’s afraid of and how she reacts to that fear.

I know why my male character is so relentless.  I know what his strongest attribute is and how it’s shaped him.  I know what his weakness is and the thing that he’s self-conscious about.  I know what makes him afraid and I know what that fear will push him to do.

I know what they both think and feel when they look at each other.  I know why and how they fight the attraction.  I even know how and why they’re going to give in.

I know what the outside force is that threatens them.  And that’s in addition to the villain, who poses the most immediate threat.

So if I know all this, why am I stalled?

I’m going to bang my head on my desk and see if I can shake any ideas loose…

Shannon

I’m Fine But I’m Just Thinking About the Right Words to Say

Remember that old song from the 80’s?  “I know they don’t sound the way I planned them to be…”  Sometimes I just don’t know why this writing thing has to be so hard.  I mean, I know how to write.  In fact, I’m already published. 

Oh, all right, to be honest I’ve had a couple of projects published in craft magazines:  two beaded jewelry projects and a counted thread needlework sampler.  The thing is, the craft magazines didn’t really care about my writing all that much.  They just wanted to know if:

     a.) my project would appeal to their readers, and

     b.) could I write at least well enough to get the instructions across so the readers could actually make said projects.

Quite honestly, if the projects themselves had been interesting enough, they probably wouldn’t have cared if I could string two sentences together because they could always have gotten someone on the staff to write the copy.  They definitely weren’t particularly interested in my plotting skills or things like POV, setting, passive vs. active voice, etc.

I also write a lot at work.  I’ve written newsletters, training materials, and tons and tons of reports, proposals, and memos.  However, my boss does not really care if my weekly report brings tears to his eyes.  In fact he probably prefers that it doesn’t.  The writing I do at work is just not the same as writing fiction.  In fact, it’s a breeze compared to writing fiction.

Right now I’m stalled on my WIP.  In my previous post I mentioned needing a new outline, but the truth is, I’m having just as much trouble with the outline as I am with the story itself.  My plot feels too simple and in some places too contrived.  I know I’m the writer and therefore the characters have to do what I say, but I’ve never really bought that.  I keep asking myself why.  My characters have to have believable motives.

Of course all of this agonizing, whining, and rambling blogging means that no writing is getting done.  I think I’m going to take Angie’s advice and just work on a practice piece.  I can at least exercise my writing muscles in the hopes that when I get back to my WIP, maybe it won’t be so difficult. 

Who am I kidding?  Does it ever really get any easier?

Shannon

practice makes not as crappy.

Shannon is the one who introduced me to the idea of writing for practice.  For the past few years Shannon has talked about and shared that she often writes stories that she never really intends to publish, for some real, concrete novel-writing practice.

I’ll be honest, at first I thought “I can’t waste any of my super fantabulous, awesome, never been thought of before ideas on measly old practice”.  (No, much better to keep them all filed away in a folder on my computer than take them out and actually write on them!)

Of course I still need to exercise the part of my brain that writes, along with the part that thinks up dialogue, pacing, exposition… and I’ve discovered it really does only get better if you practice.  I think the writing part of my brain gets some practice on a daily basis on my blog and in writing instructional materials for class. The rest of it though?

So, as is usual with these types of things, Shannon was right.

Yesterday I dusted off a fairly recent (but I’m not married to it) story and started practicing.  I love these characters, but I honestly don’t care if this one finds a publisher.  I do want to finish it, but this is not the one sneaks into my thoughts every day on the drive to work.  No, this is a quiet, easy to tell story that sits on my computer waiting for me to visit now and then, but has no agenda.

It’s easy to tell because it has no “lofty ambitions” as I told Shannon last night.  It is what it is, a sweet little historical romance.  Practicing on it liflts some of the anxiety to be “good”, which enables me to just write.   I don’t even stop and spell check.  Ever.  I don’t worry about poor word choices or awkward dialogue.  I just keep writing.  And guess what?  It gets easier and easier as I go.

When I go back later to read what I’ve written (sometimes months later!) I can cringe and giggle at my lameness, but I can also see what’s working.  It’s a nice confidence booster. And it never fails to spur me to write more, usually on that nagging “real story” that’s waiting to be told.

Practice.  It’s a good thing.

A Slight Change In Plans

I added 696 words to my WIP tonight.  It was a real struggle.  You see,  I’m not very clear on where the story is going.  Well, that’s not really true.  I know where the story is going, I just don’t know how it’s going to get there. 

 I have a very rough outline, but I’m not happy with it, and several new ideas have occurred to me lately that I want to explore.  I’m thinking I need to make a new outline.   

Shannon

time flies.

Shannon has now guilted me into posting by posting TWICE to my ONE.  🙂  AND she’s writing…but I’m not (or at least I haven’t in the past few days).

I do think it’s funny how she says “only 716 words” and I’m all WOOHOO I wrote 716 words!!  Ha.  I honestly cringe when I think that if I had been writing just ONE PAGE a day over the past 3 years (of any single novel I’m working on) then it would be finished by now.  With a sequel.

I have been writing.  I took a 3-month “hiatus” from my original post on our blog because I wasn’t sure what direction I wanted to go with this whole writing thing.  Sometimes its just too hard to put it into perspective and still do my “regular job” well.  (I’m a teacher, so it is really important to me not to slack in the regular job area! I need to be there, 100%, every day.)

Sure, I’d rather be writing.  And yes, nothing I have ever done in my entire life gives me the high that writing does.  But when you know you can’t do it, day in and day out, and that even if you do stumble across success, it will likely always be a struggle to continue doing it because of daily obligations… well, it becomes hard to find motivation.  I’m trying to find my mojo though, because I made a promise to myself (see my first post on this blog) and by darned, I’d like to keep it.

My other big problem is concentrating on one story at a time.  I have so many stories to tell!  Several are fleshed out or outlined enough that I can see the “big picture”.  I love them all.  I don’t want to leave one out, or let one slide by unnoticed.  But I know that to actually meet my deadline of November 24, I need to buckle down and concentrate on just one.

I’m torn between three, all three completely worthy of a telling, and all three interesting enough (to me) to keep me writing.   Of course once I decide “this is the one!”  I immediately begin hearing dialogue between the characters in one of the others (and often that dialogue is PIVOTAL to the story and MUST BE TOLD.  NOW.)

Shannon thinks blogging about our struggles will keep us writing, and I’m inclined to trust her judgement.  She’s just smart like that!  So here is my truth…I love writing. I write well and have a story (or 10) to tell.  I just need to fine tune my focus.  This is my baby step.

Baby Steps

I squeezed out 716 words tonight.  Not good words.  But hey, I’ll take whatever I can get right now.

I was definitely not feeling it tonight.  I decided to write anyway.  I’m sure that all 716 words will be tossed later on in the re-write, or at least modified beyond recognition, but that’s okay.  I’m just thrilled to be working on my WIP again.  It’s been (ahem…) a while since I buckled down and just wrote.

It feels pretty good.  Maybe I can get a couple hundred more words tomorrow.

Shannon

Hi, I’m Shannon. The other Literary Girl.

I am a writing wannabe.  I wannabe writing.

I have loved the written word all of my life.  I can remember being a very small child and pestering my parents to tell me what street signs and billboards said.  I just had to know.  Learning to read was a huge milestone in my life, and reading became a huge part of who I am very early on.

I have pretty much never been without a book in my life.  I am always reading something- sometimes two or three different books at a time.  I cannot imagine my life without the pleasure and the knowledge that reading has brought me.  I suppose that it’s only natural that the desire to tell stories should grow out of such a deep need to read.

I can remember having a story playing in my head almost as far back as when I learned to read.  Every night as I laid in bed, trying to relax and fall asleep, I would play out the story like a movie in my head.  Except that it sounded like a novel.  Characters would often speak with a dialogue tag added on.  And their thoughts and actions were described just like the setting.  Eventually I had a whole collection of stories to choose from.  It was like taking a book down off the shelf in my mind every night for a bedtime story.

The years passed and the stories changed.  New people came to me, in my dreams, from between the books on my shelves, from loose threads left in other stories, and sometimes movies.  All of them had something to say and a story to be told.  It began to get crowded in my head and i wanted to write the stories down, get them out of my head and onto a page.

So that’s where I am today.  After procrastinating for one reason or another for almost forty years, it’s time.  I want to get at least one complete story out of my head and onto the page.

But you know what?  Writing is hard.  The stories that flow so effortlessly through the crazy maze of my mind don’t necessarily want to flow out and onto the page.  Some of them, in fact, seem to be fighting to stay in there.  Hopefully, blogging about it will help.  At the very least it may help me stay motivated and accountable.  And maybe someone out there will read this and have some advice to offer.  Or maybe someone else who is struggling with getting their stories out onto paper will read this and know that they’re not alone.

an introduction

I thought an introduction might be a nice first post, and a little bit of the “why” behind The Literary Girls.

I’m Angie, and my partner-in-crime is Shannon, and we created this blog as a way to journal the writing and publishing process, as experienced by a couple of complete amateurs.  (that would be us, the amateurs.)

First, that blog name.  Just so there’s no confusion, we’re not especially Literary.   We aren’t planning on writing fictional masterpieces.  We don’t expect to be part of some future high school English class’ required reading.  But we are Literate and we’re Girls.  We had a bunch of corny names lined up for the blog, but since I was the one doing the admin portion, I had to choose one.  This one rolled off the tongue the best of the lot.

So what DO we write?  Well, I’ll let Shannon tell you about herself, but as for me, I like to think of my stories are more of the guilty pleasure variety.  I’m particularly fond of trashy romances and madcap comedy adventures (with trashy romance).  Sometimes I dabble in sci-fi and fantasy.  I tend to write more in a historical fiction vein than not, although one particular story arc (I like to refer to as “Hot Cop”) is set in the present day.

I don’t really think of what I write as “books”.  I’ve always been a storyteller, so I write stories. I started writing fiction when I was in grade school and wrote a bunch of “serialized” YA stories for my friends.  (In #2 pencil on notebook paper!) I continued writing my little novellas until I, myself, grew out of the YA age-bracket.

I’ve always had a writing notebook.  I jot down story ideas, scenes, dialogue bits, character descriptions… pretty  much everything that I might possibly use at some point in some story I haven’t dreamed up yet.

My biggest problem with writing is finding the time to devote to it.  Years ago (approximately 10 years ago) I wrote an entire YA novel.  Just to prove to myself that I could do it.  I made a deal with myself, to finish the novel by August of 2003 or enroll in college and finish my teaching degree.   I did finish before August was up.  It was pretty crappy, but it was finished and I remember the heady feeling of accomplishment quite well. I never attempted to publish because it was more of a personal goal than a writing goal.  (As a side note, I still enrolled in college and finished my teaching degree!)

This year, I have a landmark birthday looming in November, so I have done something I don’t normally do.  I have set another timed writing goal.  I will finish one rough draft by my birthday.  (Since I have about 10 novels in progress at any given time,  it would be awesome if I finished more than one!)

This blog is to help me stay focused, but also to record my personal journey along the way; the process of writing a novel and attempting to find representation and publication.

Hopefully we’ll hear from Shannon soon too.  What makes us an interesting pair, I think, is that we are so alike in some ways, and yet so completely different when it comes to writing.  She is more “by the book”, and I don’t even want to know the rules.  I’d rather muddle through and figure it out on my own, and she likes to have feedback and critiques and help along the way.  I don’t know that either way is more beneficial to the process than the other, because I really do think it depends on the person doing the writing. But it will be interesting to see us together on this journey, doing the same thing in an entirely different way, hopefully both finding success at the end.

Welcome to our blog, I hope you’ll follow along with us!