Oct 21, 2007 | Writing |
On one of my loops recently, someone said that one of the ways she motivated herself was to imagine that she couldn't write at all. That her writing life was done and she just never wrote anymore. That, she said, made her fly to the keyboard to prove it wasn't true.
And I thought, yeah, good for you! And then I thought, if it were me, that wouldn't do it. Because writing is NOT all that important to me.
Now, before I seem nutty or like I don't appreciate what it takes to live a writer's life, I'm not saying that I don't want to write.
What I'm saying is that it's not WRITING that keeps me writing. I hate to write. I love to tell stories. If I couldn't tell myself stories anymore, if the pictures in my head dried up and no scenes ever appeared, yeah, I'd be seriously depressed. It's all about telling those stories to myself. Actually writing them down, well that's a pain in the posterior. I don't enjoy that part of writing. I enjoy the thinking and imagining and seeing.
I have always had stories in my head. I've even spoken the dialogue, pretending to be two characters (or three or four). When I was twenty and doing that, I thought that if anyone could see me, they'd think I was pretty crazy. Hell, even I thought it was pretty odd. I didn't know that I should write it down, that the act of writing it would release the tension from my mind and let the story flow across the page.
I'd always written things, mostly short stories, but it never occurred to me that what I was seeing in my head were scenes from a novel. Took me until 26 to figure that out. Once I did, I had a blast. Until the real world intruded and selling what I'd written wasn't very cut and dried after all.
The pictures didn't dry up, but the desire to put them on paper did. I didn't understand that I had to push through that, keep writing them down, and keep sending them out. Not writing isn't a scary prospect to me. Not having the scenes inside my head — yeah, that terrifies me.
But I'll keep writing, because now I know how this stuff gets done, how you keep climbing the wall, even when you slide down a few pegs, until you reach the top and get the contract. And then you have other walls to climb. 🙂 But telling myself that my writing life is over? Nah, won't work for me. Take those scenes away, however, and I'd be lost.
Oct 21, 2007 | 70 Days of Sweat, Writing |
Thursday words written: 1278
Friday words written: 1248
No words done on Saturday, or yet today. Weekends are much harder because of hubby being home and things needing done. 🙂
Weekly total = 6543. So, I actually beat my five day goal by 118 words. Whew!
Oct 18, 2007 | Books, Reading, Writing |
I'm thinking of Simon and Garfunkel, of course, and replacing Joe Dimaggio with LK.
I received an order from Amazon yesterday, and as I greedily handled the books I'd ordered, I realized something. There was only one historical in the bunch. (And only one straight contemp that didn't feature suspense or some version of a vampire, demon, shapeshifter, whatever, but that's another story.)
What happened to the long, lush, character driven historical romances of yore? Where is Laura and why isn't NY throwing petals at her feet? I know she burned out, I know she had trouble, but my God, the woman came back with Shadowheart. This is the woman who wrote Flowers from the Storm, Seize the Fire, and The Shadow and the Star. Not to mention The Prince of Midnight, The Dream Hunter, and For My Lady's Heart. (Okay, my command-copy-paste fingers are getting tired. Go to Amazon. Search for Kinsale.) 🙂
She wrote a book with dialogue in Middle English. She wrote some of the most lush prose ever. She made me weep with longing to write like that. She also depressed me because I knew I never could.
I didn't like all her books. I wasn't a Midsummer Moon fan. It wasn't the prose or the storytelling so much as it was the ditzy heroine. I just couldn't connect with her. But, damn, I still admired the craft. Disliking characters is better than being indifferent to them. 🙂
I started thinking about this because of a discussion over at The Soapbox Queens the other day. Brenda Chin was talking about her first romance novel and how it changed her life. Woodiwiss cropped up quite a lot in the comments, and deservedly so. But, if I'd thought more about it at the time, I'd have realized that it was Kinsale who affected me the most.
I miss the woman. I checked out her website, found a post from nearly 2 years ago where she stated she wasn't selling her latest book because NY wanted dark and she'd written light for a change. She had offers, but they weren't what she wanted, so she shelved it. That, my friends, is a tragedy.
My fabulously talented critique partner and I have been discussing this for a while. She's sick of suspense (though she sweetly reads my stuff anyway and offers great suggestions). She wants big contemps that are character driven — the SEPs and Rachel Gibsons — novels without a car chase, dead body, or explosion (oops, the current WIP has all three).
I agree. There's room for a lot more variety than we're getting right now. I do seem to be picking up a lot of paranormal these days, but is that because they're there or because I'd pick them up anyway? Not sure, though I do enjoy the good ones. Just like I enjoy any good romance.
How about you? Is there any writer you miss? Are you sick of certain trends? Or do you think they'll continue?
(No 70 days update tonight as I'll be going to dinner and a concert with hubby and parents. But, so far today, I've made half my word count…)
Edited to add: All this talking about Kinsale got me distracted into searching up stuff on her. I found two posts over at the Smart Bitches where they do lightning reviews of all her books. Only one book got less than an A grade from them (which, if you follow the SBs, you know is pretty amazing). Go read if you're interested….
Part I
Part II
Oct 18, 2007 | 70 Days of Sweat, Life, Writing |
Goal – 1285
Total – 1208
I'm happy with that, however, since I wrote extra words the first two days. Now my only problem seems to be that I'm not going to wind this book up in 60K. I'm afraid it's going over. Ah well, that's what revision is for.
I sure am sorry to see Clive move down the page. Maybe I can turn him into my blog header….. 🙂
Happy writing! I'm off to watch Life and Pushing Daisies. Love those shows.
Oct 16, 2007 | 70 Days of Sweat, Photos, Writing |
Does it get ANY better? *sigh*
Okay, so it's really sweating with Sven, but a girl can dream, right? 🙂
Day 2 of sweat = success.
Goal – 1285 words.
Actual – 1467 words.
Must. Keep. Making. Progress.
Today wasn't easier, but I finished much earlier. Got busy sooner and kept plugging away. Lots of staring. Lots of thinking. Some deleting, some new ideas, but the point is the words got written.
Thank you Sven and all the sponsors at Sven's gym! 🙂 (And of course thank you to Clive. When the going got tough, you were there, gazing moodily into the distance, inspiring me with your pretty green eyes….)
Edited: picture deleted. Sorry Clive. 🙁
Oct 16, 2007 | 70 Days of Sweat, Writing |
It took me all day to get in gear, with many stops and starts, but I did it. I wrote my 1285 words for the day! In fact, I wrote 1342 words.
And believe me, I didn't think I was going to make it at one point. I opened up the WIP and stared. And stared some more. And read some of the challenge participants' blogs. And stared.
Well, you get the idea. It was painful going, but I wrote 875 words on my nearly done GH entry and 467 words on the new book.
Having accountability is a good thing for me. I knew I HAD to get this done. I made a commitment and I told people I was going to do it. Failure is not an option.
So now I'm cracking open a beer and celebrating. Maybe tonight, I'll sleep like a baby. Or a lazy cat….
