September 26, 2006

You’ve got to have guts to be a writer. We’ve heard the talk before. A writer has to deal with criticism and rejection, sometimes on a daily basis. Whether you write fiction or non-fiction, every word is scrutinized. If an action in your story is not believable, someone lets you know. If you give your opinion on something and that opinion offends someone else, they definitely let you know. Especially with the internet.

Thankfully, I’m strong in this aspect, and I’m stubborn. I write for my pleasure and because it’s the way I reach out to others. I’m crappy at small talk. I’m a hermit at heart. Couldn’t read someone a story to save my life, much less just tell one. But I can be sociable with words.

Even so, sometimes my confidence takes a beating. One thing I noticed lately is that it seems to be from Real Life stress. At times, when it seems that nothing goes right in RL and that everything I do is wrong, to have someone tell me I got something wrong in the story just plucks a little bit more confidence out of me.

Sometimes I read a crit from a fellow critter and think, “Can’t something be fine just the way it is for once?” And that’s wrong. I know that because normally my reaction is, “Oh yeah. I can do that and it’ll make the story SO much better!”

Lately, just a little confidence has been endangered. It’s that RL interruption thing. I’ve had reason to feel ‘out of my element’ here lately, and I find it’s carrying over to the more stable area of my life that’s in the writing field.

And my schedule is getting hard to keep. My RL schedule is so chaotic and out of synch right now that I can’t get things going smooth. And I need that. Add to it increased tiredness. Not sure what that is about. But I’ve started on my morning smoothie breakfast again that I let slip by, and I’m going to start a few other lifestyle changes to help alleviate the tiredness.

Speaking of schedules - I got out of jury duty this week due to my son’s appointment with the specialist. Thank God! If I had jury duty, I would have been so panicked about this week. I have so much to do and so little time to do it in. And it’s all timed stuff - can’t be put off until next week. It was hectic enough already, and then we have a funeral thrown into the mix for Thursday to prepare for. (Thank God it’s Thursday….)

And that’s why I must go. I have to get this work going so I can work on the website and other things I have to do also this week.

September 14, 2006

I think we’ve finally got the computer situation set up at home. If I can work tonight, I’ll get to work on website building and emails to the editors.

Progress on writing:
Dancing Wind (story for WS Halloween issue) is complete and just needs to be posted to the workgroups and revised.

TKQ - Write in progressing well. Finished the spreadsheet for the wordcount and pov stats. Found a logical flow flaw in the later chapters during building the spreadsheet. Dagan connects with Taun and helps her through a situation. Only, that situation doesn’t happen to her until three chapters later. That area will need some serious reworking when I get to that point in the write in. Next, I am creating a spreadsheet to help me track when characters appear. I think a few were brought in and then just melted into the background - and that won’t work for important characters.

PLS - First draft progressing forward. Not as fast as it should because of other progress, but still making its stand. (no pun intended)

BOE - In world building status. Haven’t worked anymore on the world building during this time. At this point jotting notes down here and there. (this one will be in the building phase for a few years yet I think)



It’s been anthology time - and now we’re going to start the story edits and I have a lot of crits to catch up on. Plus the website building. So I don’t plan on having too much going on with the fiction writing for a while yet.

Copywriting is not progressing as fast as it should. But I’ve made great progress and feel really positive about my ability to kick out quality dm letters. Been talking to someone about a fundraising letter too.

September 4, 2006

Still plugging along. Created a works-in-progress sheet for my longer works, novels and non-fiction. I actually have 14 books in the works! Didn’t realize that. Three fiction ones are active: one in edit stage, second in writing, third in worldbuilding. The rest are waiting their turn and notes compiled as ideas come to me. The non-fiction one is the collection of religious reflections that I’m not sure what I’m going to do with.