Summer

Summer is here. I should be celebrating. Jumping up and down. Dancing. Running. But alas I have a bummed ankle and cardio is not my friend at the moment. If that's the case, I should be writing and editing, right? I am, but not a lot. I'm so restless. I feel out of touch with myself. I said I'd use summer as a chance to rediscover myself, but the only thing I'm discovering is my inability to relax. My novel says it all...

She sips the hot chocolate and feels her insides start to melt. She doesn’t like the sensation; when her emotions grow beyond a state of calm she feels miles from her skin, out of control and intolerable. It's like looking through a mirror and seeing a stranger that reminds you of everything you’ve lost.

I'm revising/editing Pluto yet again. I've sent it to friends/family to read, but haven't heard back from anyone yet so I'm doing another round of scrutinizing. This time I'm noticing how much of myself and my life I've put into the characters. Things I've said to people, things they've said to me, experiences, the good the bad and the ugly. It's my most personal novel yet and I want it to be polished to the extreme before I query it. I'm being patient this time. The agents aren't going to vanish over night and it's not like I have to worry about my novel not being in style a few months from now because it's a romance and romance always has a hungry audience.

My main concern with my novel is the fact that I have teenagers having sex by chapter 2 and they barely know each other. My mom's initial reply was: "Who has sex with a stranger in a hospital?" And of course, she criticized my female lead as being slutty and bitchy, ignoring the fact that the girl's dad is dying, she's tramatized by her past, and she has social problems galore. Yes having sex with a stranger in a hospital is an extreme choice, but in the world of fictional writing anything is possible so long as you can support it with honesty. People do crazy things when they're emotionally upset. And as a writer I push my characters to follow their impulses because it creates conflict/change. I wish I would follow more of my impulses in life.

I like YA. I appreciate YA that has real young adults in it. Real young adults make mistakes. LOTS of mistakes. For fiction, the bigger the better. So I'm thinking YES, I should keep the sex scene. I don't even describe it. It's a .... ending. I just have to make sure the built up to it is honest and the "need" is genuine.

Maybe I ought to visit someone in the hospital. A complete stranger and see what happens.

Goals, Life, Updates, I Heart Thor

I have been neglecting my blog duties for quite some time. I know when summer hits I'll be posting every day and commenting on all my favorite blogs, but I could do better now. I've just been so busy!

My weekdays have revolved around this schedule:
5:55 Wake Up
6:30 Go to work
7:15 Arrive at Work
3:00 Leave work
3:30-5:00 Work out at the gym
5:00-6:00 Dinner/chill time
6:00-8:00 Edit novels/read old stuff/organize life
8:00-9:00 Eat popsicles and read a book
9:00 Sleep

It's actually a great schedule and I've been following it religiously. My diet is going great and I'm actually losing more weight since I've increased my calories. Total weight lost- 19 pounds in 10 weeks. I feel awesome. I look awesome. Check plus for health and body.

Check plus for finally finishing the edits and revisions to WALKING OFF PLUTO. I've given copies to a few of my friends and look forward to their feedback. While I wait for their critiques, I'm gonna work on my query letter and make up a list of agents I want to send my query to. This is the first non-fantasy book that I'm querying, so I'll actually be able to query a lot more agencies than before. I really have faith in this book. I know it's a good book because it's honest. In order for a novel to be believable you have to write based on what you know, what you think, and what you truly believe in. And everything my characters go through are similiar issues I have dealt with. I feel like I have grown as a person by battling through these problems with my young heroine.

I've also been re-reading and starting to revise some old novels that got put on the back shelf. I wrote a vampire/werewolf novel about two years ago. I queried it and actually got a few agents to read the entire novel. But alas, the main problem was my super slow beginning. So I've been chopping words, scenes, and entire chapters in order to pick up the pace.

There's also my dear NANO novel that is shy of 5,000 words. I MUST FINISH IT!

And there's another novel I wrote last summer that is YA Fantasy and only 96,000 words. Need to edit.

So I have 3 novels to work on while I wait for PLUTO feedback. Though I have a dozen ideas for new novels, I'm not composing any new works until all old projects are edited, revised, read, and queried. I can't keep writing these novels and forgetting about them all because I have a zeal to write more. My library of completed works is overflowing. I must concentrate on what's good, what needs work, what's sellable, etc.

PS. I HEART THOR TIMES A MILLION.

May 1st!

Did I fulfill my April goals?
Not all of them...in fact, as of this moment none of them are fully fulfilled. By May 1st I was supposed to have edited my novel so people can read it (as of now I still have 4 more chapters to disect), edited my play (it is edited and the edits are due tomorrow, but I'm rereading it for grammatical errors), and finished my Nano novel (I never even looked at it this month). So...now I must revise my May goals.

May goals:
1- Finish edits to novel and give to friends/family to read for feedback.
2- Work on query letter and come up with a list of potential agents to query
3- Finish NANO novel!

I should be able to get through that list. I should. I should.

a much needed post

Shame on me for not updating my blog!

There's so much to write about and I'm awfully tired after dogsitting Gus, aka a clone of "Marley." Tomorrow I journey to PA to visit family and celebrate Easter. I'm not Catholic so I always feel a tad out of place at church. Actually, I feel very out of place.

Life has been kind of crazy, so I'll just make a list of it:

1- I got rejected from all my grad schools. I cried a lot about it. But I realized that I don't need grad school to become a great writer. I just need my laptop, motivation, and plenty of stamina. And of course, creativity, but I was born with that. :-)

2- I've lost a lot of weigh. 13 pounds in 6 weeks. Most of my clothes don't fit me anymore and I'm getting lots of compliments so that's always a confidence boost.

3- I have beach plans for memorial day weekend. Camps to teach this summer. A possible roommate for the fall. All good things.

4- I am almost done editing my play. And my novel is almost ready for people to read. I'm taking my time with the edits. I have no desire to start any new projects until old projects are taken care of. Usually I can't wait to start on a new project, but I'm really proud and attached to my current projects, so I'm nursing them a little extra.

5- I'm reading. Book reviews of HUSH HUSH, THE BOY WITH THE STRIPPED PAJAMAS, and SILVER BORNE shall be posted shortly.

6- I can run again! 6 miles in an hour!

Yeah, so that's life.

Now how am I feeling? A mixture of many things. When I was younger, I used to post lyrics on my facebook to summarize my feelings. If I had to pick any lyrics to match my feelings right now it'd have to be good old Jar of Hearts.

I know I can't take one more step towards you
Cause all that's waiting is regret

But if I'm strong, I'll be stepping towards a better me and a better tomorrow.

1st Draft :-)

The 1st Draft of my novel WALKING OFF PLUTO is at last complete at 77,000 words. How do I feel? Very excited and a little sad. I'm attached to my characters and want to continue their stories, but I wrote the novel with the full intentions of it being a stand-alone novel.

I am determined to get this book published. I will be patient. I will edit it. I will make hundreds of revisions until I am beyond satisfied. If it takes a year, so be it. I'm not rushing this time and ruining my chances with a crappy query and bad editing. Agents expect polished manuscripts.

But I'm also not going to jump right into editing either. I'm giving myself a two week break to work on other projects: my play and my unfinished Nano book. My play revisions have a real deadline, so that's a priority. My nano book, I should have finished months ago, but Pluto took over my writing world. I also have two novels I wrote back in 2010 that need editing. OH wow. I have lots to do!

No new projects until the old projects have been worked on. I have a list of pitches for future novels, but I will hold off on writing any of them until summer.

Yay for more daylighT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sex in Novels (i suspect I'll get a lot of readers for this posting wink wink)

I'm about to hit 60K in my novel and feeling really good about it. I'm 3/4 of the way done. Almost at the climax of the story.

Speaking of climax, I've been meaning to blog about sex in novels. I for one like it when authors are not afraid to be graphic about sex. Stieg Larsson does an excellent job of this as well as Audrey Niffenegger. But for many writers, it's very easy for the wording to come across as a porno. So you have to be careful. I also believe that unless the sex is vital to the plot or reveals something important about a character, then it should be avoided. Throwing in a sex scene just for fun is not productive.

Looking back at all my novels, I have written my share of R-rated (and sometimes NC-17) sex scenes. They've included passionate first-time affairs, lesbians in the desert, high schoolers fooling around without using protection (what dumdums) and rape. I think I probably could and should have cut or shortened about 40% of those scenes. One (and I'll admit it was the lesbians in the desert) really doesn't add to the plot or reveal something about a character. It's there for pure shock value. And it doesn't work. It needs to be cut (and saved for a more appropriate setting).

So, let's hear it. What are some sex scenes you've written that you probably could have done without? Or better yet...when did you write a sex scene but tone it down because you were scared to be graphic? Think you might wanna go back and add a little "classy" steam?

Goals

Writing Goals for March 2011

General:
Use similes sparingly
Don't overthink everything, that's what editing is for
Write, write, write

To be accomplished by April 1st
Finish 1st Draft of WALKING OFF PLUTO (25k left)
Edit play SAMSON AND MS DELILAH
Finish Nano book!!! (5K left)

30,000 words in one month? I can totally do it!!!!!!!!!!!
And if not, who cares? I'm on nobody's schedule but my own.