Writing, the Muse, and the Juggling Act

I want to thank Sara C. Snider for tagging me in the Writing Process Blog hop. Sometimes all a fledgling blogger like me needs is a gentle push from a fellow blogger to get back into blogging mode. I know I’ve been lax in blog posts this year, largely because preparing my sequel, Prism, for publication has taken up the majority of my time. But it feels good to belong to such a great community of writers who give encouragement and support just when I need it! Be sure to check out Sara’s fantastic blog and look for her debut novel, The Thirteenth Tower, now on Amazon.

Here’s how the blog hop works:

1. Introduce who referred the blog tour to you
2. Answer the following 4 questions:
a. What am I working on?
b. How does my work differ from others in its genre?
c. Why do I write what I do?
d. How does my writing process work?
3. Introduce the people you’re passing this on to (3 – 4 people if possible who will then post a week later)

Let the blog hop begin:

Question #1: What am I working on?

Now that Prism is published, I’m free to concentrate on Book 3 of the Psyne series entitled, Radiant. I started the manuscript during National Novel Writing Month last November and made good progress. In the spring, I created a working outline for Radiant that will aid me in finishing the manuscript. I’ve never worked with a completed outline before but I’ve wanted to start using one. I’m hoping that an outline will keep me focused and help me to write the novel quickly so that I can begin the editing process in hopes of publishing next summer.  With my two previously published novels, I spent a year to write them and a year to edit them and then had some time away from them before polishing for publication.  Radiant will challenge me to be disciplined because I’ll be writing, editing and polishing it in one year’s time.  I think practice makes perfect and I’m excited to put all the skills I’ve honed with the first two novels to good use in this third one.  Confidence in my abilities has also been something I’ve struggled with but seeing my completed works on Amazon for readers to enjoy has gone a long way toward helping me in that respect.

While my mermaids take most of my attention these days, I do have to battle against getting side-tracked by a multitude of other fantastic worlds, characters and story lines.  Many writers know exactly what I’m talking about and half the time it may seem like the place one’s ideas come from is hindering more than helping.  I’ve learned over the years how to take the snippets of inspiration for other novels and put them safely away for the future.  Over time these snippets of notes add up and after a while, I can go back to them and see that I have enough material for another book series.  After I finished writing Luminous in 2008, I wrote a novel about vampires (this was during the vampire craze when it seemed like everyone was writing about them) and I enjoyed giving them a unique mythology like I’d done with my mermaids.  I’d love to get back to writing about vampires but I’m also being pulled in a different direction, to write about a fantasy culture that revolves around horses and dance.  We’ll have to see which one succeeds in winning my attention in the future.

 
Question #2: How does my work differ from others in its genre?

My Psyne series is Young Adult Fantasy and centers around mermaids. Unfortunately, mermaids make up a very small niche in YA Fantasy since they’re eclipsed by the multitude of books about more popular fantasy creatures such as vampires, werewolves, witches, fairies, angels and demons. The YA mermaid books I’ve encountered largely fall into two categories: the ‘metaphor-for-puberty’ books and the ‘first-time-on-land’ books. The first overused, tired story line involves a human teenager who becomes a mermaid through a latent gene or magic like in the lovely TV show H2O: Just Add Water. The second category involves an innocent/naïve mermaid who ventures onto land for the first time and falls in love with a human like in Disney’s The Little Mermaid and the 1984 movie Splash. While these classic stories are very entertaining, it gets tedious reading the same old plot lines. I wanted to write something new and re-imagine mermaids so they were fresh and exciting. My Psyne book series takes the reader on adventures from the mermaids’ points of view with surprises around every turn, a unique mythology for the reader to explore and page-turning conflicts that make these books difficult to put down.  In my imagination, mermaids have always been so much more than the simple, trivialized way they’ve been conveyed in pop culture and my books strive to showcase them with all the magic and mystique due them.

 

Question #3: Why do I write what I do?

I write fantasy because fantasy rocks! Reading and writing fantasy makes my heart soar, gives my imagination free reign and thrills me like no other genre does. Fantasy is a place where anything is possible and I mean, anything. Magic is always involved in some form or another and that’s just plain cool. Mermaids have always appealed to me, since I was very young, and I was always disappointed by the regurgitated story lines. Mermaids are one of the longest persisting female archetypes in history but usually they’re relegated to stereotypical roles of the naïve, the vain or the vicious. I saw the potential for what mermaids could truly be and I jumped at the opportunity to reinvent them. Mermaids represent women and as a woman, I know how multifaceted, how complex and how extraordinary we can be. I wanted that depth expressed in the mermaids that populate my Psyne series. With my novels, I hope to change the way readers and our society view these most magical of all fantasy beings.

 

Question #4: How does my writing process work?

One of the reasons I enjoy writing novels in a series is because the next book grows out of the one that came before it. It’s all very organic in its creation. So by the time I’ve finished one novel, I have pages of notes and the beginnings of the outline for the next book in the series. I also love staying with the same group of characters and in a way, they become like a second family. By the second book, they’ve revealed so much of themselves to me that they really end up dictating how they react to events in the story. I really enjoy seeing how they handle the situations I throw at them.

But I’ve gotten off topic. Raising two small children during the day means that when their bedtime rolls around, I’m glued to my laptop. For the initial writing of the novel, I force myself to work at a desk with an ergonomic keyboard and I use two monitors so that I can have my manuscript on one screen and the internet with windows to dictionary and thesaurus and various types of research on the other. I love to write late at night when the house is quiet.  There’s something about the night that helps to put me in another world but I can only work a few hours an evening because I have to be up early the next morning to keep up with the kiddos. That means I have to deal with a fair amount of frustration when I force myself to stop but it also means I have to be extremely disciplined in writing every day. All I have to do is ask myself how badly I want this next novel published and I’ve got all the motivation I need.  Sometimes you just have to dig deep and do it!

One thing I’ve found in recent years is how to access the Muse directly which may sound absolutely strange to most of you. It started when I became a new mom and sleep was scarce. They say, “Sleep when the baby sleeps” and so I got into the habit of forcing myself to rest by counting down from ten. Practice makes perfect and I got very good at being asleep before I got to number four (it also helped that I was exhausted most of the time!). Once I was able to incorporate my writing into my daily routine, I got into the habit of thinking about my current plot problem that I needed a solution too. Then when I’d lay down to rest, in that place between being awake and being asleep, the answers began pouring out and I had to make a choice: continue to fall into unconsciousness or wake myself enough so I could jot down the ‘inspiration’. Depending on my level of exhaustion that day, it was sometimes a difficult choice but most days I’d write down the nuggets of gold my semi-unconscious mind had hand delivered and fall asleep happy with the insight I’d been given.

There are a ton of books out there on the subject of the Mind, dreams and unconsciousness. I’m no expert but I think there’s something to be said about quieting the mind (as in meditation) and allowing the answers you seek to come forth. Give it a try and you might be surprised what the Muse whispers to you. Anyway, back to the nuts and bolts of the writing process.

Once the bulk of the manuscript is complete, I switch to editing mode where I get to snuggle up in my bed or on the couch with a blanket and my laptop. This is my favorite part of the whole process because: 1) I get to be more comfortable (and since I’m not typing that much, I don’t need to employ my ergonomic desk), 2) As editor, I get to view my novel from a different perspective and I see my characters more objectively, and 3) That said, insights become revealed and more nuggets of plot gold become plain to me. The plot really begins to come together and the magic in it becomes clear. You can tell I love this part of it, it really gets me excited!  Then I get to polish, polish, polish which means substituting words, cleaning up dialogue, streamlining chapters and lastly, making sure typos are gone and the grammar is pristine.

Once I have a nearly finalized draft, I always have it read by other people.  Luckily, I have a small group of friends and family who are avid readers and they give me the much needed feedback I need to make my manuscript ready to publish.  It’s so important to have one’s work read because it’s far too easy to become too close to the project.  A pair of fresh eyes is essential to elevate one’s manuscript to the level it needs to be so that when it’s published, readers will have the best experience possible.  Having it edited by an outside source is a must!

Those are the nuts and bolts of my process but here are some other random facts.  I love writing during summer. I think it’s the feel of the longer days and the fact that my novels take place during the summer that helps me get excited about diving in and continuing my characters’ story. Sometimes I listen to music and other times I use ear plugs so the world around me falls away. When I first started writing the series, I’d light candles that smelled like vanilla sugar cookies and surround myself with my figurines of mermaids or winged horses but now, all the inspiration I need is in my head. I usually have a first draft that I can give my select group of readers by Thanksgiving so I can get feedback from them and begin the editing process after the holidays. Then I’m on track to publish by the beginning of summer when I can begin serious work on the next novel and the process starts all over again for another year.  I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog post and happy writing!

 
I choose to tag the following phenomenal writers, whose blogs I really enjoy, to share their writing process on the blog hop next week (July 14-20):

Julianne Kelsch:  She has two occupations: mom and writer. Her life revolves around her amazing husband and three adorable little kids (5, 3, and 1). Writing is her other passion, and the biggest goals of her life revolve around it. Her interests include reading, writing, piano, family and learning. You can connect with Julianne on her blog.

 

Heidi Angell (we’re not related but she has the same rockin’ last name as me!):  She has been passionate about writing since she “published” her first book in her first grade class! She has written thousands of short stories, plays, books and poems. She has published a psychic thriller novel Elements of a Broken Mind, an urban fantasy/ horror The Hunters, a children’s picture book Royal Prince Vince, and an activity book Creative Exercises to Inspire. Heidi is also the vice president of Soul Star Publishing. She is a mom and a wife, active in Cub Scouts and in her community. You can connect with Heidi on her blog, website, Twitter and Goodreads

 

Jennifer Windram: Her current work in progress is a paranormal romance novel (Yay vampires!), with historical elements. She love animals (even the creepy ones), a buttery glass of wine, and a good book or series on Netflix that she can binge-watch with her hubby. Her favorite food is sushi and she believes in ghosts. You can connect with her on her highly entertaining blog.

Another One Bites the Dust – NaNoWriMo Update

After 17 days of taking the National Novel Writing Month challenge, I have a newfound respect for those who stick with it and successfully meet the goal of 50,000 words.  The first week was rather enjoyable for me with the story flowing easily and it was wonderful to be back writing after such a long absence.  The second week was a bit more trying with more time spent plotting than writing and it became harder to find time to meet my daily quota.  When I wasn’t able to write one day, I was fairly good at making up the words the next day as well as meeting the quota for that day which meant an extra long amount of writing.  But that too became harder to do.  As you can see in my log below, during the latest week, I haven’t written or even been able to make up for the day before.  While I was hoping to do better, I try not to be too hard on myself.  There’s a good reason that I haven’t attempted this writing challenge before and that reason is the holidays.  In years past, I’ve taken a break from writing in November and December to concentrate on all of the 1001 things I do to get ready for the holidays including entertaining, family visits, Christmas decorating, holiday activities, parties, cooking and with two small children to raise full time, I need every spare second I can muster.  This year appears to be no different. In American culture, the preparations for the holidays largely fall on the women and it can be quite the undertaking on top of the tasks of daily life.  It makes me wish National Writing Month was in the spring or summer when life is less demanding. While I will continue to work on my novel this month, I owe it to myself and my family not to become a crazed lunatic and so I won’t put a ton of pressure on myself.  Life is all about priorities and while the writer in me is balking at the idea of being put on the back burner, being a writer is not the only role I play and I need to fulfill my other responsibilities as well.  So all you writers out there, especially writer moms, be kind to yourself during this, the busiest time of the year!
Log-  Day #1: 1670 words + 743= 2413, Day #2:  1947, Day #3:  1705, Day #4:  1768, Day #5:  1673, Day #6:  0, Day #7: (make up day: 1697) and 1841, Day #8: 0, Day #9:  (make up day: 1690) and 776, Day #10:  (make-up day:  894) and 1160, Day #11:  (needed to make up day: 510) and 270, Day #12:  761, Day #13:  1763, Day #14:  0, Day #15:  0, Day #16: 0, Day #17: 0

NaNoWriMo Update!

I’m happy to report that 5 days into National Novel Writing Month, I’m still alive!  Last Friday, November 1st,  I was really hoping to start out with an outline but it just didn’t happen.  I usually don’t have a working outline until I’m a good quarter of the way into a novel so I wasn’t too worried.  To help me stay on track, I wanted to calculate how many words I needed to hit each day in order to reach 50,000 words by the end of the month so I divided 50,000 words by 30 days and got 1666.666666666667.  My first thought was “wow, that’s a whole lot of 6’s!  Is this a sign of some sort?  A bad sign?”  But since I’m not a superstitious person, I shook off my initial alarm.  More importantly, I was a tad relieved because reaching a quota of 1,667 words a day isn’t that much more than the 1,200 words that I would normally hit when knocking a novel out in the past.  My next thought was, “This crazy endeavor might actually be doable!”

I’ve done really well logging in my daily words so far because my novel is practically writing itself at this point.  I chalk it up to having been away from writing for so long and now that the flood gates have been opened, it’s all just rushing out in a torrent that I can barely keep up with.  During the entire process of preparing my novel, Luminous, for publication and then promoting it on the internet, I kept thinking, “I’m so not cut out for this.  All I want to do is get back to writing!”  And now that I am writing again, I feel in my element again, no longer a fish out of water, or rather, a Psyne out of water.

Another reason the story is flowing well is that I’m writing the third book in the Psyne series so I know my characters really well and the plot is very organic, growing out of the cause and effect from Book 2 entitled, Prism.  I commend those NaNoWriMos who are tackling a new novel with entirely new characters in it.  I would be seriously struggling if that was the case because it can be a bit like pulling teeth when getting to know new characters.  In my experience, new characters like to take their sweet time revealing themselves and their motivations.  It can be downright frustrating under certain time constraints.

I’ll be sure to check in weekly to give you an update on how things are going.  To my fellow WriMos, stay true to your own unique writing process and the words will come!  You can do it!

This is my writing log for the first 5 days.  Day #1:  2413, Day #2:  1947, Day #3:  1705, Day #4:  1768, Day #5:  1673

It’s NaNoWriMo Time!

Every writer is different and each one has a unique process that works for them.  This post is about my process.  I’ve completed three novels over the past six years and with each one, I naturally fell into a routine that worked well for me.  I usually start working on a novel at the beginning of the year in January and I have the bulk of it completed by late August.  From September to November, I edit and polish it.  By Thanksgiving, the manuscript is in the hands of my close circle of friends/family who give me their impressions.  From Thanksgiving until New Year’s, I take a much needed break from writing/editing and devote my time to preparing for the holidays, holiday shopping, my kids’ birthdays and all of the 1001 things I tend to put off during the year while I’m immersed in writing.

But this year was different:  I spent the first half of the year preparing my novel, Luminous for publication and editing it over and over, countless times.  I was also working with my graphic designer on the cover, going through the self-publishing process for the first time, establishing an online presence in the form of my website and social media sites, promoting the book at a local convention and a myriad of other tasks to establish my marketing platform.  My head is still spinning!  Since the Luminous ebook was released in mid-August, I’ve been feverishly researching promotion avenues as well as preparing the paperback for release.  Still, the best thing an author can do to promote their first novel is to write another one and publish the polished, edited, shining example of your work as quickly as possible.  With that in mind, I’m feeling pretty comfortable since I have the sequel, Prism, completed and waiting for the final polish for ebook publication.  The book that has me a little nervous is the third novel in the series because I refuse to publish the sequel until I have a decent, completed draft of the third book waiting in the wings.

With that said, National Novel Writing Month is November.  How fortuitous!  By accepting the challenge of NaNoWriMo to write 50,000 words in 30 days, I’ll be giving myself the best Christmas gift this year–peace of mind knowing that my third novel in the Psyne series is completed and that I can proceed with publishing the sequel on schedule for release in May 2014.  Since I’ve been spoiled with writing my novels over a 10 month period of time in the past, this will be quite the challenge for me but I thrive under structure and I’m hoping this is just the boost I need to focus so I can complete my third novel.  It’s time to leave my past behind.  I’m not merely a writer aspiring to publish anymore.  Now I’m a published author with fans to think of and I need to supply them with what I know best–my Psyne!  I’ll keep you posted on my progress come November and I wish all the best to my fellow WriMos!  May the Muse be with you!