The Perfect Drug

I admit to rarely (if ever) bothering to read entire articles printed in the RWR (Romance Writers Report), the monthly magazine printed for and by RWA (Romance Writers of America).  But this month’s “The Last Word,” written by Jillian Clemmons, screamed at me.

“Are Books Your Crack?” was the title.  Simple answer?  Yes, yes they are.

I knew that I didn’t even need to bother to read the “Eleven Ways to Tell if You’re Addicted” to know that I had a serious problem.  One look at my Quicken expense report on how much I spent on books last year would be enough.  I had one bill totaling over $100 in one trip.  That’s bad, folks.  And there’s no Readers Anonymous meetings for those of us compelled to read more than we write.  Still, I feel compelled to share this list.  And no, I’m not going to tell you which ones I’m guilty of.

-          Your bookshelf is stuffed with unread books, and you just bought one more.

-          You have a different audiobook every day… for your car, laptop, and iPod.

-          The library clerk has to remind you, again, that you’re at your limit for check-outs.

-          You have more than 200 friends on Goodreads.com, but the local librarian is your best bud.

-          The only writing you do is book reviews.  (Okay, so clearly doing a review of this article makes me guilty of this one.)

-          People have begun to follow your reviews.

-          You’re skimming a magazine on the elliptical machine, while you’re listening to a book on tape.

-          There are more than 500 books on your to-read list.

-          Friends say they’re amazed at how many books you’ve read.  Repeat: read, not written.

-          Neighbors marvel at your ability to walk the dog while reading.

-          Your family resents books.

While the above list can easily be laughed at and even seem somewhat extreme, it is actually a real problem for me and can very much be blamed as one of a few reasons why I haven’t finished one of my manuscripts yet.  (I plan on covering the other reasons another day.)  The article listed twelve steps to recovery, but that list is somewhat longer and more involved and not necessarily relevant to me.  So, I’m going to use parts of it to create my own fail-proof method for making sure I get some writing done.

1. No more buying books for a while until I get through the books on my shelf. Now, I know this sounds harsh, but it will also put money back in my pocket.  I’m excluding books purchased with gift cards and I’m also excluding the possibility of utilizing the library.  We’ll see how this goes.
2. I must limit myself to reading no more than one non-craft book a week. If I’m reading more than one book a week then there’s the potential for all sorts of things not getting done in my life.  So this is just good practice.
3. I’m not allowed to read until I’ve written at least 1,000 words on a weekday or 100 words on a weekend. Breathe, Kathryn, you will live through this one.  This also goes for craft books.
4. Leave the dishes there. They will still be there later.  So will the laundry, the cleaning, the bills… ugh.
5. Take a solid week off from reading. Eek!  This was one of the suggestions from the article, but I admit that I am too weak to even think of doing this one right now.  I just started a new-to-me series and I want to get through the most current one before I do this.  I hate forgetting what happened in prior books.  So yeah, that’s my excuse.  Lame, I know, but…moving on!
6. Set goals for myself. Again, taken from the article.  Letting these manuscripts drag on unfinished for however long it has been now is tragic.
7. Stay away from time-wasting websites and no logging into Yahoo! Messenger during writing time. This will be another hard one.  So if you see me online when I should be writing, throw a virtual shoe at me?

With any luck, some or all of these will help push me closer to finishing one or all three of my current manuscripts in progress.

Writing Software: The Journey

After starting three separate manuscripts, I’ve discovered that writing in Word is not what to do if you’re trying to accomplish a completed full-length novel.  Successful novelists I’ve spoken with look at me as if I’ve told them I’m using an abacus instead of a calculator.  Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but I’m not far off.

I had started researching various writing software after I read on someone’s blog (possibly Larissa Ione’s, but I’m not sure) about Scrivener.  Scrivener seems to be what many prefer, but that only works if you’ve got a Mac.  Much to my dismay, the software is not available for Windows-based systems.  So, while I’m now (for the first time ever) praying for a Mac, I decided to investigate some of the software programs recommended by the Scrivener folks for those of us not blessed with a Mac.  They list several good ones on their website.

Last Tuesday, I went to an ARWA meeting where our speaker was going to be our own Julie Kenner talking about building a story bible.  Little did I know, this would be a life-changing experience for me.  Well, okay, a writing-changing experience for me.  She had several screen shots printed out of what Scrivener looked like and how she used it for various things.  She also used something called Evernote, but I have yet to look into that.  After asking some of the ladies in our group what they used and after some investigation, I discovered that WriteWay Pro is my best option.  For a close but not quite comprehensive option that’s free, look into yWriter 5.

For me, the more organized I can make something, the more excited I get about it.  This goes for just about every aspect of my life.  Case in point, I bought a new family planner recently and sat down for quite some time just to play around with the dates, stickers, etc.  My schedule is now highly organized, but I digress.  I was feeling lost and overwhelmed after sorting through 100+ pages of current manuscript trying to figure out when the first time my hero bit my heroine occurred.  Yes, I said bit; it’s a vampire story.  Plugging it into WriteWay Pro (only the demo right now as I have yet to purchase the full software) has been extraordinarily helpful, but it is taking away from my writing time while I try to organize my scenes into chapters.  The good news is my first chapter is 100% established and I feel that this manuscript now has a concrete base that I’m excited about continuing to develop!

Note: I don’t have links to any of these posted, but if you Google the aforementioned software, it’s easy to find.

The “Write” Way… for you!

Just finished reading a great blog by Laurell K. Hamilton about finding a pace that works for you and not trying to live up to someone else’s expectations.  Of course, this thinking all goes out the window if you’re a published writer and up against a deadline.  I know plenty of authors who get nudged by this and end up writing several thousand words in a day, literally living in front of their computer and locking the office door to make their deadlines.  That’s just a different animal altogether.  I find myself in the writing mode of being a stay-at-home mom with a kid in school and one on the way.  Most any stay-at-home mom I know with a kid or kids in school and none at home find that the weekdays while their kids are at school is the only time to get writing done, or at the very least, the best time.  I relate to this 100%.  I don’t have a home office space and there’s absolutely no room to escape to if I want to get writing done while everyone’s home.  My laptop typically resides on the dining room table or on a tray in the living room where I tend to be more relaxed.  Best writing from me is done at the table.  I’ve also found that my brain is more able to make sense earlier in the day because it hasn’t bee up for hours, bombarded by worries and stresses of daily life.  I know that sounds perfectly fine, but for me, it’s a bit of a conundrum.  Since I write paranormal, I’d rather write at night when things are known to go “bump” because it puts me in the mood.  I suppose it’s why I love rainy, dreary, cold days for writing.  As such, just imagine how much I’m looking forward to what we funnily call winter here in Texas.  Snow is the stuff of myth and legend in this part of the state.  We might get ice, but usually not much and if it lasts more than a day, we all go into this state of shock where we must stay home and stare out our windows in awe.  But I digress.  Anyway, that’s why I write when I write.  Number of words?  I feel accomplished at the rate of over a thousand a day.  Now, of course this isn’t feasible on the weekends, and I’ve joined ARWA’s writing challenge in order to strive to write at least 100 words on Saturdays and Sundays.  I used to not bother with writing on the weekends, but I’ve found that the little refreshing boost each day helps keep me from wondering where the heck I was come Monday.  It also helps keep me focused and motivated.  Having lost focus with “Awakening Bloodlines” over the summer and even growing somewhat bored with it, I’ve now seen how important it is to keep on task.  And with my current work, I’m seeing changes I need to make to “AB” in order to make it work.  I’m forcing myself to stay focused on this current work, though, despite the weak call of “AB”.  I’m making small side notes whenever the mood strikes about “AB” so I can easily go back and more or less rewrite what’s there, but the current (obviously still untitled) work needs to get out of me first.  It’s far too personal and concepts from it have already tried to force their way into my other WIPs where they have no place being.  In a sense, I need to put my current work “to rest” and let go of it so I can move on and write without being restricted.  Restricted isn’t even the right word, but with it being so personal, I refuse to do it a disservice and move on.  Just can’t do it.  Already got my thousand in for today (woot!) and may even do more (double-woot!) if I get some housework done and the mood strikes.

Today’s agenda also includes writing a small book review for the ARWA newsletter.  I’ve chosen to do it on J. R. Ward’s “Dark Lover,” by far my favorite vampire romance of all time.  Not sure why, but maybe in the course of working on this review, I’ll figure that out.  I may post it here once I have the finished product.

When It Rains, It Pours

What is that old saying?  Bad things happen in threes?  Well, if that’s true, I hope that means that nothing else is gonna hit me from out of left field for a while.  I have a new hard drive, so near as I can tell, problem number one is fixed.  My second problem isn’t so much a problem as it is an unsolvable worry.  I called my mom on Thursday to just to say hi and she informed me that she was once again back in the hospital.  Great.  She had been running a high fever and this mystery infection she’d had before seemed to be back based on an MRI they’d done.  They were planning on doing a CT scan for the purpose of inserting a scope and pulling out some of the infection so they could culture it, but then on Friday, she stopped running a fever, so they sent her home.  I called her today, and she started running a fever again on Saturday.  So now she goes to the doctor today at 2pm and we’ll know more then.  My poor mom.  Problem number three?  I hopped in my car this morning to take my son to school, started backing up and thought my car was acting strange.  When my front tires hit the edge of the driveway, I heard scraping and pulled back in.  I got out to find my front, driver’s side tire sitting flat against the pavement.  Lovely.  The tires are past old, though, and we’ve been holding off purchasing new ones because we can’t afford it.  Well, now we’re being forced to afford it.  We have no other choice.  We’ll just buy two for now, costing around $228 and hold off on the others for a month or so.  Thankfully, my neighbor whose daughter attends the same school as my son was able to give us a ride up there this morning and then drop me back off.  I’m hoping my other neighbor, who has Mondays off, can give me a ride up there to pick him up this afternoon.  And then once my husband gets home, he’ll throw on the spare and off we’ll go to Discount Tire.  What fun!  Not.

So, rain.  Wow, lots of it!  It’s one of the good things I have to comment on at this point.  There’s another saying for you: Texas droughts always end in floods.  Well, yeah, Jarrell got 14″ in one day?  Something like that, and they’re just a short drive up the road, where I heard they had to shut down part of I-35 on Friday due to water over the road.  I have no idea how much rain we’ve gotten at this point, but it’s enough that I have little baby mushrooms growing up around a wood divider between my sidewalk and my driveway.  Cute.  Actually, this dreary weather is so perfect for writing that it’s a shame I got off to such a foul start this morning.  Writing this blog has seemed to settle me a bit, though.  And that’s good.  Especially given that the only possible chore in the house that could really keep me from making writing progress is laundry.  And even then, I think there’s only enough to do one load.  I spent all weekend getting my hard drive up and running as well as making sure this house was in perfect condition for me to have zero distractions this morning.  Hah!

Alright, enough bitterness from me.  I’m thankful to have had the time to blog because as always, writing is a good catharsis, even the kind where all I do is sit and bitch.  I think I may go read for a bit, and then sit down and write.  I’m expecting my husband to call me during his first break this morning in a few moments where I’ll expect to discuss my idea as well as discuss the possibility of growing the world’s first real money tree.  Well, one can dream.

Yea Monday!! …Well, sorta.

I was under the impression that my son’s first week at school would mean life might slow down a little for me, be a little less stressful, and give me time to write.  Boy was I wrong.  So much happened last week that when I sat down and stared at last week’s blog title, I was in disbelief.  Had it really only been one week since my son’s first day of school?  Sadly, yes.  So, what all happened to make me so nuts?  Far too much.

Firstly, I couldn’t be more pleased with my son’s school, with one huge exception.  Everyone there is so incredibly nice and helpful… with one exception.  This “exception” has caused me to contact the school district’s superintendent with my concerns.  We played a little phone tag last week and I’ll be trying to get in touch with her again sometime this morning.  This has become such a huge issue for me, last night instead of being excited and happy about the prospect of taking my son to school today, I was anxious and nervous.  There’s nothing like sitting in your car and telling your child to wait just a moment while you wait for someone else to disappear behind doors of the school you won’t be going through just so you can avoid them.  I probably shouldn’t even be talking about this on here, and I’m leaving out many, many details, but it was such a huge part of stress in my life last week that I couldn’t not talk about it to some degree.

My hard drive was probably the next biggest issue that came up last week.  It’s been acting flaky for a while now, and a couple days last week it took 3-4 hours to get it to boot up properly, and then on… I think it was Wednesday, it started up several times in such a way that I could only describe it as getting a flat-line.  After running the recovery disk and realizing that the only real and huge important thing I didn’t backup was my iTunes, I managed to get my computer back.  Against my better judgment, I allowed my husband to take the hard drive out of my laptop.  We noticed what looked like possible evidence of overheating.  I do admit that I often keep my laptop (my main computer for doing just about anything) on all day long and have sometimes only put it to sleep overnight.  I’ll no longer do this, but at the same time I recognize that my laptop was originally a store model and the damage could’ve been done long before I brought it home… which is quite possible because I recall having to run the recovery disk not long after I brought it home.  After spending some time on Tiger Direct’s website, my husband discovered that a replacement will only cost around $50-$80.  That’s a huge relief and I’ll likely only upload very few things to this computer until we purchase a new hard drive.  It’s still acting up a little and I don’t trust it.  Also, rather than upload all sorts of stuff only to lose it, I’d rather just wait.

Everything else that happened last week seems incredibly minor compared to those two biggies.  We signed up the kiddo for soccer and he starts practicing for the first time this week.  I attended a writing workshop led by Sherry Thomas in conjunction with a critique session that was full of all sorts of things I could mention, but none of which would be appropriate.  The workshop was informative, but the critique session… Let’s just say that I left feeling not-so-confident about my work.  After I returned home, I received an email from one of the critiquers (probably the most qualified of the small group) telling me not to believe everything I hear.  I guess what I need to do is put my fears aside and enter my first chapter into a contest.  What’s the worst that could happen?  I’d be out the entry fee and some contest judge would tell me that my writing sucks?  Well, yeah.  It seems like such an easy thing to put aside, but my work is a close part of me.  I’ll admit that it’s not as close a part of me as it once as, but we’re working on becoming reacquainted.

On that note, happy Monday and hopefully I’ll have a better week than the last one.  I wish the best for all of you, too.