Getting Serious(er)

With two and half novel first drafts completed, I decided it just might be time to be more serious about this writing thing. I don't think it's going away. Not going to outgrow it or grow bored with it. No cures in sight.

So, I joined Publisher's Marketplace today. I've belonged before on their free lunch, but it doesn't provide the detail to really do the research on what's selling, for how much and by whom. You can even click on Top Dealmaker's and see who is getting the best deals by genre. Even by "Debut". How cool is that? One Mr. Lazar is rated #13 on that list for number of deals made for debut authors. He's also had several 6 figure advances recently. Loving him more and more. [But staying realistic in my expectations.]

Another part of the getting seriouser is knuckling down and doing the frikkin' rewrites. Goals for this month remain the same, because I also know I can't drop the momentum on TNN. But my January is going to be all about the rewrites. [You've heard it before, but NaNo changed something. I did something I thought I couldn't do. It's kinda magical.] I will look at how many chapters I have in MMG and Vesta, then break it down into a certain number of chapters a day. If there are too many to realistically get through both in one month, I'll settle for MMG in January and Vesta in February.

Dreaming is great. Dreaming is what's motivated me this far. Dreaming is where a lot of the ideas come from. But doing the damn work is what pays off.

Time to get to work.

December Goals

After November, it feels like I would be justified in saying no to goals for the month. But I really don't want to do that. I have a bit of momentum going, although I know that December tends to be a tough month to accomplish much in, I'm still going to keep working.

So, here they are:

--Write another 10,000 words of TNN. This is one fifth of what I did last month, and I have 6 handwritten pages already so not too worried about hitting it.
--Rewrite 2 chapters of MMG. One of the distractions that happens during NaNo (and any other time I'm writing) is that ideas for what's wrong with some other project come fast and furious. Again this one is not pushing it at all.
--Finish 4 books I've already started. I'm about halfway through Dexter In The Dark and Night. I'm about a third of the way through The Worst Hard Time and The Secret Life Of Bees.
--Do the CWC critique--of course. This is going to be fun because it's the whole manuscript of FJR with new ending.

I'm also going to try to design a NaNoReMo program for January. That stands for National Novel Revising Month. Jenny wants to do the NaNo writing in January and asked me to join her, but I have 2 1/2 novels to rewrite so they can start being submitted. Might be a tricky thing to quantify and break down, but I'll give it a shot.

Anyway, that'll be December. Along with shopping and wrapping and eating and partying and all that good stuff.

I Freakin' Did It

About forty-five minutes ago, I uploaded my submission to the NaNoWriMo website for verification. Their count? 50,102 words. Mine? 50,148. Doesn't really matter much, they are both over 50,000 words.

I just went back and looked at my writing log book. I keep a log of each day I write and how many words and pages on that day. Chalk it up to my accounting background. Anyway, when I counted the days I actually wrote this month, I found out I only wrote on 24 days.

Yeah, I'm pretty stoked about this. I finished Vesta and got 106 pages into TNN. I'd love to say I'm going to continue this pace, but December is coming. April may be the cruelest month, but December is none too friendly with writers. There's just too much going on between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I am thinking about trying for a repeat in February. Not much going on then and more than 24 days so . . . First I have to figure out what my December goals will be. I'll let you know on Monday.

But for now, I'm basking. And slacking off big time tomorrow and Sunday. Major video consumption tomorrow. A trip to see Twilight with some of the gang on Sunday. A nice reward, I'm thinking.

Thanks to all the cheerleaders who helped get me here. Once again, you guys rock.

Jenny Asked

First, a GOOD ON YA! to Jenny for getting her rewrites plus done for tonight.

How did the plan work? Pretty dang well, actually. Just saying I would do that helped me sleep. Or it was sheer exhaustion from the two previous pretty-much sleepless nights. Whatever. I slept.

And I'm still staying mildly ahead of where I need to be to have 50k on Sunday the 30th. 50k! Pretty frikkin frakkin cool as a friend of mine said recently.

I did not write at all on Saturday. I was only slightly ahead of where I needed to be on Friday so I knew that not writing anything would put me behind again. But I knew I could make it up without a lot of sweat. I'd done it before. I'd done it before from a much much scarier place. I've been 7-9k behind. What's 1,100 words? Chicken feed. I can do that with one keyboard tied behind my back.

Again, working on TNN is extra special liberating. Just the most skeletal of outlines to worry about--or ignore, which I seem to be doing more and more with better and better results. No feedback from outside yet to color what I'm doing. Just writing for the sake of making shit up. Gotta love that.

So here I am at work this morning trying to explain why my weekend was so great. "What did you do?" I wrote 3,000 words on Sunday. "And?" And I goofed off on Saturday because my cold had me down, but I wrote 3,000 words on Sunday. "That's it?" I went to brunch with Jonnie and Steve. "Oh! That's nice."

The Downside of NaNoWriMo

I wrote about being at the fun part. And I'm still there. With the shift over to TNN, I'm having even more fun because of the novelty. It's a shiny new story. No one has seen these words, these characters except me. There are on expectations on them. Plus there's the happy from putting "The End" at the end of Vesta. All good stuff.

And all the good stuff is leading to more good stuff. I've been thinking of trying my hand at a poem for a magazine Nicole turned me on to. Haven't written poetry pretty much since high school (I won't admit here how long ago that was). But something about the theme of toys, games and puzzles spoke to me. I knew what game I wanted to write about, but nothing really came to me. Then I started getting ideas of how to work it. I'm liking the ideas. A good thing. I'm also getting ideas for MMG rewrites and Vesta rewrites-how to flesh out that scene better, maybe that one should be trimmed or cut altogether. Also very good things.

So where's this downside I speak of? These brilliant ideas are all coming to me between one and five in the morning. Can't turn them off or shut them up. I get almost there. Use the breathing, relaxation and meditation techniques I learned over a year ago when I was first hit hard with insomnia. Get just about there. Right on the edge. Then Vesta will whisper something to me or Wardell (my protag from TNN) will knock over one of my notions about him or a setting from any of the books will materialize fully formed and beautiful in front of me and I start all over again. No, I haven't gotten up and written anything down, because it always feels like I immediately file it away and start slipping off to dreamland again. Until the next one starts in.

The plan is this: tonight I take my journal to bed with me. Relax, meditate and then start writing. Write whatever comes to mind about Vesta, Wardell, Kitty, Zack, Lily--I don't care who it is--and keep writing until the well is dry. It could turn out to be a lot of words that won't count toward NaNo goals. Don't care. I've got to get all these people to shut up after nine o'clock at night. They can start again as soon as the alarm goes off in the morning, but for pity sakes sleep on the same schedule as me.

Or I'll kill all of you off in the second chapter and bring in new, obedient, considerate characters.

Thank You and You and You

Thanks to all the cheerleaders who are keeping me going through this long strange trip of NaNoWriMo. You guys are great.

And another thank you to Jenny for being brave enough to volunteer to be the first CWCer to submit a whole novel to the group. It's given me an extra month so that I don't have to worry about cleaning up the mess I've made of Vesta over the past two weeks for a while. Plus I get to look forward to reading what she's done with a novel that I already like very very much.

A little light on word count yesterday, but I did finish Vesta and start TNN. Then I went to see The Secret Life of Bees with some of my non-writer friends. Had a great time, and it was a nice was to celebrate hitting the halfway point.

TNN feels like working without a net after writing the end of something I've been writing on for almost a year. This is new and different and I don't really know the characters very well yet. I don't know if they'll like me or I them, but we're taking those first tentative steps. Still being overly polite with each other. Not comfortable enough to show our true selves. But that should ease off by the end of the week. Let's face it, none of us--not even fictional characters--can keep the mask in place for very long.

Now, back to work.

For Those of You Keeping Score

That was, indeed, over 5,000 words written yesterday. 5,382 to be exact. Vesta will be finished today. Then it's on to TNN. And I have very little planned for it.

What a ride!