Category Archives: Writing

“Carnival Farm” finished!

I finished the first draft of my next novel, Carnival Farm. It’s about a travelling petting zoo for a carnival in New England. It’s based on my job as a carny one summer after I met my husband. Paper Angel Press will be publishing it some time this year. My job is to edit and rewrite as needed. I have a week and a half for that.

Now I’m going to rest it. I’ve worked on this for almost two and a half months. Time to chill out, write maybe something short and sweet, or dive into the next book. Three years between books is pretty bad. Now that I have time, I can catch up. Hopefully. If I get ideas.

No more (writing) books!

This weekend, I plowed through my writing books to figure out what to get rid of and what to keep. What to get rid of is a small group, but I don’t know what good home to give them to. What to keep is bigger, mostly because “It took me so long to find this book” or “I plan on doing the exercises in this book” or some other sentimental value. Note sentimental. It’s not because they’re great books, helpful references, or anything like that – it’s because I feel something about them.

That’s most of them. I also organized my Kindle library and noted that a couple of years ago, I was into every writing book that came out. How to write a mystery/fantasy was the biggest topic. I don’t know why I bought those. Because now, I know the real secret to writing books is reading books.

I’m presently reading a lot of magical theory/non-fiction books, so my sense of fiction is pretty meh. I’m planning on reading some books and magazines I got on Kindle Unlimited that are fiction, just to see what people are doing. My biggest wait is for Morgan Chalut’s series from Water Dragon Press.

I’m also back on Twitter @warwriter . Look for quick and dirty reviews, daily life musings, and retweets that I find to be interesting.

“Carnival Farm” just hit 40K. Today’s writing seems forced – my Muse doesn’t want to work today. I think it’s because She knows that I’m waiting for other things to happen today (my friend is supposed to come over and I had other plans for today) and doesn’t want to put me “in the zone”. I mean, I showed up for Her this morning, but, oh well.

I want to write, but I want to play-write, write without a reason. That’s another thing that all these books say: You have to have a purpose, an audience that you’re writing for. I’ve been brought up with that and taught that. In my first incarnation of 800 Words I would write scenes for the fun of it. Take a character, take a situation and go.

I want that again. 800Words.net was supposed to be that, but requires a picture. Sometimes it takes me a half hour to find the picture that matches the bit that I wrote. Maybe that’s my goal for today: Play-write. But when I play-write, I usually do it in a notebook.

One month to go

I’m going along with Carnival Farm. My publisher-imposed deadline is April 1, and I’m 32,000 words (180 pages) into it. I’m just over half way done!

I have also written a short story for a project with my writing group. It’s called “Hippolyta’s Dagger” and takes place in the Orange Sector of the Truck Stop at the center of the galaxy. That’s the name of the anthology: “The Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy.” It may come out next year or late this year.

Other writing is spiritual essays, mostly exploring my own religion. I’m not Christian, that is for certain, so it’s more exploring magic; other, new traditions; and trying to sync what I find with what I believe. Because I have time, I’m looking into trying some daily rituals to worship the gods I do believe in. I feel that worship is necessary because–and this might sound morbid–I sense my ending is sooner rather than later.

I have been watching The Twilight Zone series, and there is one episode, “Nothing But The Dark”, that has stuck with me since I saw it. It’s about an old woman who does everything she can to avoid death, but ends up being manipulated by him into a calm, gentle death. That’s what I’m hoping for, that Hermes Psycopompos takes me gently and calmly, offering his hand and showing me the way to the “heaven” or afterlife.

I need to get things straight in my life first, so that my family doesn’t have to worry. I don’t want what happened to me when my husband died happen to anyone else in my family. I want the arrangements to be done and paid for.

So while I look in the dark, in my crone years, resolving my religion and spirituality, I write it out.

Sorry

Welp, it’s been a while. Sorry about that. My life has been busy (even with the Corona Virus).

I’ll let you know, though, that I’m working on a new novel. Well, actually, it’s a rewrite of an old fantasy novel that I did in my 20’s. Now that I’m more mature, I can see silly things I did back then. At least I never used, “He smiled aloud (pet peeve).” But there’s a lot of smiling, looking around, looking at, staring, going, starting, and the word “just” on almost every page.

I’m plowing through it with a notebook at hand, taking notes like, “Describe here!” “More action verbs!” “Details!” “Why is that character doing whatever?” “Does the MC care?”

At the time I wrote it, the MC was an angry young woman who wanted to be a man. (Maybe that was too influenced by the writer at the time.) She let the bad spirit take over and reveled in it. Now, after reading it over the first time, I realized that a conflict may be in order here. Although there’s a lot of action, and it kept my attention, there are a few things here and there that I definitely can improve.

My goal is to get it done by mid-July or August 1 and hopefully have it out early next year, depending on the publishing schedule.

Let me tell you the hook:

What if Northern Maine was host to the biggest Ren Faire EVER? And what if they all weren’t actors?

I’ll leave you with that. I need to work on the elevator pitch next.

My life, in three words

Dialysis: My life revolves around the needle and the machine. Three days a week, first thing the morning, I get stuck with two needles. One has my blood going in, one has my blood coming out. And for four hours I sit, sometimes napping, most times staring out into space, sometimes reading, sometimes listening to music or podcasts. Four hours I wait, watching the clock like Fred Flintstone, while the machine filters the toxins out of my blood. Then a half an hour both to stick me and to disconnect me. Half an hour to and from the place. Six hours, three days a week.

Work: Three other days a week, I work for ten hour days. Luckily, it’s not a totally stressful job, where I have to take it home on the days I don’t work. I moved my office to the third floor because the cellar was freezing in the winter (50 degrees, and no heat). Good thing about it, I now have heat. The bad thing? (Or maybe it’s a good thing,) I can’t snack as much as I used to because the kitchen is in the basement/cellar, and my office had been right off the kitchen, in a refurbished “pantry”. After last year’s Purge cleared out the pantry, I had more room for the computer and papers and a chair. But it was cold, even with a space heater.

Sleep: The final day of the week, Sunday, is a day of rest. And I mean rest. I’ve timed that I can sleep for 12 hours. If I sleep after seven a.m. on Sunday, I’m up until at least nine p.m. Sunday night, when my usual bed time is around six or seven p.m. Then I’m up at 4:30 Monday morning to start it all over again.

This week is a little different, in that I have dialysis on Monday and Tuesday. Last Saturday I couldn’t have it because my access, the port where they plug in the needles, was clotted with blood. I have to go to a special out patient procedure to get the clot cleared out. Supposedly, according to the nurses at the dialysis center, they put a balloon in my graft to expand the area and get the clot to flow. But where does the clot go?

I have been worried sick about this. My OCD has kicked into overdrive when I’m wondering whether or not I’ll have a stroke or a blood clot to the brain. My blood clots well, sometimes too well; which I don’t understand since I have anemia.

Writing: I’m trying to write daily, but it’s been such a chore that I’m lucky if I can get a hundred words a day out. The story I’m writing is one that I’m interested in, but it’s testing my memory. It takes place in 1974 Providence, RI, during the height of the organized crime gangs in the area.

I’m wracking my brain about whether things existed in 1974. Remote controls? No. Lids on paper cups? They didn’t have that, or hot paper cups, either. Styrofoam. Aluminum can Budweiser? Nope, bottles. Recyclables? Are you kidding me? Smoking in bars? Yep. Drinking on the job? Yep. Weed, meth, heroin? Yep, yep, yep (though meth wasn’t what it is now–it was speed, then).

My goal is to get it done by the end of the summer, so that it’s available for RI Comicon (Yes, we’re going this year, November 6-8.). There will be no magic involved in the story, which means I have to make my protagonist very crafty. He will be. He has a lot of secrets to hide.

Resolved: More Cowbell

I need to get cracking on writing some stories. I’m involved with a writers’ group now and I have no excuse.

Well, I do. I have no ideas.

But that’s an excuse, not a reason. Being tired is an excuse. Having no time is an excuse. I can’t let that stop me.

I’m thinking of getting back to 800 words; if not daily, then at least three times a week. Maybe on my dialysis days.

My goal is to get a novel out next year. Since Nano was a bust, I have to start with something different. There’s a big market for romance still, but I have such a hard time getting into ti. YA is still a big thing.

What to write, what to write. A whole different genre? Something that brings some order into my chaotic life?

Writing prompts, ahoy.

NaNo, lost.

By week three, I had lost all interest in The Band Singer, mostly because I was exhausted. On Thanksgiving week, I had planned to wrap it up at least. I couldn’t even get the gumption to go online to a Google Hangout Virtual Write-In. I was in my big comfy chair or in bed most of the weekend, dozing on and off.

Heck, I didn’t even do the podcast. Next week, promise.

Now I’m ready to put that novel aside and start something new. But what? And this time I’m going to plan it out a little more, but not the end. That’s what killed it for me last time. Seeing the end on-screen, even if it was just a blurb, solidified it for me, saying “You’ve written the story.”

I’m going to wait to see where my next idea shows up from. I want to branch out from the Urban Fantasy/Magical Detective genre. But I love mysteries, going way back (Scooby-Doo, anyone?). Though it’s something I like to read, I want to put a different spin on it. I’ve read some real trash in the Urban Fantasy field recently, so I know what I don’t like.

Maybe another Grim story?

NaNo, week 2

I’m up to 21K words on this horrible novel that I’m going to trash when I’m done. I worked on it all weekend and half the day today so I could take tomorrow off on it, since it’s a dialysis day and I’m usually a wreck on Tuesdays.

I did a podcast if you want to listen to it.

A part of me is wondering why I’m even bothering with this novel if I’m not going to do anything with it. I might do something with the characters in the future but the story itself is stupid as hell. That’s what I get for pantsing the thing.

So far, I have one explosion, and now I’m writing the aftermath of it. Just to get words, I’m describing EVERYTHING in detail. It’s like reading a Victorian novel. Problem is, I’m listening to AC/DC while writing, and the music wants action. So I have to switch to Steve Winwood on loop as white noise. Otherwise I will put myself to sleep with my own writing. (And that’s pretty bad.)

Almost there!

The good thing about dialysis is I have time to read books. I broke down and got Kindle Unlimited, so I could get some fiction books for “free” ($9.99/month). I also purchased a few Kindle editions of books that are best sellers or recent sellers. I downloaded a few novel-writing workbooks, too, that I’m working with in my journal.

So far, I have a few scenes for NaNoWriMo’s story. I need subplots. I’m making up this entire thing. It’s not going to be an accurate representation of Latino life, and I’m not appropriating that culture for this. This story is mine and mine alone, and is never going to get published because I’m not backing it up with facts. You know me, I research things to death before writing anything, which is why War Mage took me so long to write. I finally threw my hands up and just said, “Forget it,” and wrote War Mage just to finish the story.

I found the original story in one of my notebooks, and I’m kicking myself for not sticking with that original story. It would have been better, I think.

I read most of a book called Shadow Company by Michael Hesse. So far I’m the only reviewer on Goodreads for him. I gave him four stars for military accuracy and interesting story world, but the character had been through too much by the time I got almost half-way done with it, that I didn’t want to bother anymore. I didn’t realize that it was a 500 page novel, either.

Shadow Company has a bit of “The Chosen One” trope, which I have outgrown since reading the Dragonlance series and attempting (every few years) to read the entire Lord of the Rings series. But I would suggest you read it if you like military fantasy like I do.

I plan on doing a podcast today in anticipation of NaNo, and hope to do podcasts every week updating people on my progress. I’m tempted to write the story upstairs on my Mac, without any distractions other than some music and tarot cards for jumping off points.

Memoir

I bit the bullet and sent my memoir, Torn Asunder, to my publisher to have him take a look at it. Right now he’s in the throes of publishing Corporate Catharsis, an anthology that I wrote a story for entitled “Hextron, Inc.” so I’m not expecting a response to it within the next couple of months. Catharsis comes out November 1, and that’s also the start of National Novel Writing Month, when the publishing company shuts down so we can all concentrate on writing.

I don’t think I’m going to work on it this year, especially with my time constraints. I know for certain I won’t be able to make the minimum daily requirements. But the other thing is I don’t have a freaking clue what to write.

Ova has turned into a real shitshow. The problem is I’ve written the story once, I liked it, but it got taken out with The Purge of my house I did in March. I don’t want to sit here and retell a story I’ve already told myself. That’s not how I write. I’m a pure discovery writer. I plot the beginning and the end, and how we get to the end is totally left up to the Muse. I’m just along for the ride.

Ova might be interesting to others, but I can’t seem to get myself into it. So instead of excuses, I’m just going to dump it and consider it lost.

While cleaning out my filing cabinet, I found my old floppy disks (the 3 1/2″, not 5 1/4″ ones) with Hunter’s Realm on them. I do have Hunter’s Realm on my TB drive, and I liked how that one came out. I loved Luther so much – he was a real Mary Sue, though. I should read through it and see if it’s viable. As a YA story, I think it is, because I wrote it when I was in college.

NaNoWriMo requires a new story, though, so that’s where I’m stuck. I have so much going on…what story could I do? And what time do I have to do it?

I’m beta-reading a story for someone, and while I’m reading it, I’m thinking, “I can do better than this with my eyes closed.” I’m catching small things that are really good, and glaring errors. An example stuck in my head is using the word “junkyard” in a fantasy world with elves and dwarves. It brings to mind rusting cars. Maybe “scattered about like a pile of junk.” Or, my favorite word of the year, detritus.

Should I yank out my old D&D books?