Hello? Is this thing on?

It's day one of NaNoWriMo and I have zippo.

For many months - nay, a few years, now - I have fantasized about writing. Death, divorce, and a reluctance to let go of said fantasies have kept me at a safe distance from actual creativity. Since 2008, I have done nothing more than pick up long-ignored works in progress and, at the first sign of a challenge, cast them aside a few days later. All it would take was a bad day or even a bad sentence and my manuscript would end up back in the box with the other misfits. Having been hurled there from across the room.

It's obvious: I have been too scared to write.

No, I don't fear failure, because I'm not functioning anywhere near that level yet. I don't have any grand plans for my stories at the moment. What I fear is not knowing what will emerge when I tap into my creativity. I can't even sort through my myriad of emotions these days, so how will I get any emotion on the page? If I manage to get inside a character's head, what will it feel like to do that? I don't know, but it seems pretty obvious to me that it needs to be done.

While I would love to pound out 50,000 words this NaNo, my goal is, instead, humble and simple: write.

Self-publishing vs traditional

All I have to say about the new self-publishing wave versus traditional publishing and the fact that cheap downloads are selling like crazy is, "Thank you, e-reader manufacturers, for getting people to READ again!"

Here I Am, Baby

I just discovered that I lost the electronic versions of my short stories. Every single one, and there were about 40.

Ouch.

Still undecided whether this is a moment of freedom or if I want to take a hammer to my laptop (or my head).

Regardless, I'm working on a rewrite of My Dearest Julianne which will be about 20,000 words, give or take a few thousand. My friend Madison Leigh inspired me by revamping one of her stories and igniting my muse.

I find that I am so far out of the habit that the "what if" phase is progressing with a limp. Hoping to work the kinks out with a little more familiarity.

One page per day

My writing friends are all so encouraging. They haven't given up on me or stopped believing in me. They haven't taken me off the email loop or kicked me out of the online group. I've spent a good long time wanting to be back doing what they are doing - writing, polishing and submitting -and feeling like an impostor because I haven't written anything in forever.

My friend, Melanie, knows what a struggle it's been for me to be away from my writing for so long. A career change, some major "life" events, getting used to working full time again, health problems, relationship issues, and remodeling my home have all added up to a necessary sacrifice on my part. But...I'm not happy when I'm not writing. So Mel challenged me to write just one sh*tty page today. Fifteen minutes of my time. Free-write, whatever, so long as I was writing something.

I did and it was awful -- but I loved it :)

Can it be done? One page per day, good or bad? Just trying to fit it in gives me fits of anxiety because, at the end of the day, I already have so much weighing on my mind that I should have done but just couldn't find the time to do. However, we hear all the time that it's important to carve time out of our schedules to nurture the soul, right? Maybe lunch hour.... I wonder, though, if it will be worth it, writing a page of crap. Reasonably, the act of writing will eventually effect an improvement, I would hope. I seem to have forgotten so much about my stories. Maybe it would be better to start with a short story, and work my way up to writing a page a day on a novel.

It all seems so big and overwhelming, but one page a day, now that sounds possible.

It can't hurt to try.

Wow, really?

March 7th was my last post?? I have a bit of updating to do!


I'm doing it again, that hopping from story to story thing, and changing up my stories. I'm learning something about the way I need to write: start a story, play with it, let it sit. Let it evolve from one concept to another until I find the right ingredients for the characters. I simply cannot make my characters fit into the first outline I write; it must be the other way around. But once I know, I know. Everything clicks into place, and I can't STOP my characters from telling me their story.

The YA Driving Lessons is still a work in progress. I adore those characters, but they needed some time to simmer. I wasn't happy with the way one of the characters was coming across on the page, or rather NOT coming across. He isn't what I want him to be. Yet. It's fun and easy to write the other characters, though, so I hope to get back to Sarah and her friends real soon. The exciting thing about them is they leap off the page, straight to your heart. That story will be so satisfying to finish.


While Driving Lessons is simmering, I'm toying with my mystery again and loving it. Remember Rebecca and Erik in Err Apparent, previously known as Art of Deception? That story has been simmering on a back burner for 2 years because it was missing something. I wrote it twice, but both times stopped at the black moment. I let my mind wander one day and suddenly there was this Really Big Idea. I'm adding this new ingredient and stirring the pot :) It's so exciting!

Since my last post, I've found a new job. It was necessary for me to work full time, and the bank - despite the fact that I enjoyed the work and the people I worked with - didn't pay enough to support my family, so I'm back to my pre-kids career of accounting. I found the best job I've ever had! The company I work for is family-friendly, and in the two months I've worked there, everyone I've met has been warm, caring, and supportive. I absolutely love my job. And the pay :)

My husband is working again, too, after almost 2 years of unemployment. I probably don't need to explain to you that having a stable income alleviates a lot of that creativity-stifling pressure.

In other news, we got a new puppy and the kids dubbed him D.O.G. (pronounced dee-oh-gee), Hannah got braces, Sean is driving (eek!), and we're resuming work on the remodel.

So, back to writing. And back to my stories. My goal is to have a complete story by November, so that I can spend January editing, and spend February shopping it out.

First things first: Err Apparent needs a new title. Something to fit that Really Big Idea.

Driving Lessons Excerpt

Austen Update: Book three, Mansfield Park. Love Fanny Price.

Just ran across this passage in my work in progress and I had one of those, “LIKE!” moments where I’m surprised that my character really filled the page like she does in my head. Wish I had more of these moments :)

From Chapter 2 of a very rough draft:

I remember with perfect clarity the moment Owen walked into the hospital room the day after Willie was born, carrying a big brown teddy bear in a t-shirt that read, “It’s a BOY!” Owen was wearing a smile and what Dad called his “civvies.” I had a picture of Owen in uniform on my dresser at home, but I’d know him anywhere because for as long as I could remember, he was my Owen.

When I was eight and he was getting ready to ship out, I told everyone I would grow up while he was gone and he would come home and marry me. When I was ten and Owen was stationed overseas and I heard he’d married Terry, I cried and vowed never to speak to him again. He came home a year later with his new wife and scooped me up in his arms and declared that I looked just like my mom when she was my age and that’s when he’d fallen in love with her, but Dad had won the battle and the fair maiden and he’d had to go slay dragons in another port and the rest was history. He told me to hold out my hand, and I did, and he placed in it a fluffy little dragon with fierce red eyes and I’d forgiven him even though my heart was broken.

I’d last seen Owen two years ago. A lot of growing up can happen to a girl in two years, so when he walked through the door, I wasn’t sure what I would feel. He winked at me and waved the teddy bear, and I smiled back, and I realized that I was almost sixteen and he was just one of Dad’s friends now, not my Owen any longer. It made my heart feel a tiny bit heavier.

Reading and writing through Jane Austen

Karen Joy Fowler must have been inspired by it, right? She had to have read through the Austens and thought, "That Jane Austen really had a gift for characterization." She must have analyzed what worked so well. Perhaps she plunged into the Austens one day because she was struggling with her writing.

Or maybe she just loved Jane Austen. Like me. Her characters became like friends. I feel as if I've sadly neglected them these past ten years or so. It's been a long time since I've actually read an Austen.

So when a friend of mine asked at book club if anyone was interested in reading through the Austens, I quickly raised my hand. Of course I've read them all before, but lately I've only read works inspired by her (Bridget Jones' Diary, Becoming Jane, Lost in Austen, Jane Austen Book Club, to name a few). (Interesting note: all of those examples were made into movies and I've seen them all, too.) (And let's not mention how many times I've watched P&P, the A&E version.)

At Barnes & Noble the other day, I spied a display of novels that continue where Pride and Prejudice left off (amusing), Austen books featuring zombies and sea monsters (weird), and one particular gem which I plan to savor after I've completed the Austens: Sandition, the unfinished novel by Jane Austen, finished by Juliette Shapiro.

We read Emma last month, and this month's selection is Sense and Sensibility.

It is safe to say that I am in no danger of becoming one of those copycat writers, emulators, or plagiarists crowding the bookshelves, but I do find the model of her work inspiring. She is often dismissed by modern readers as too far removed from our hurry-up world with its lack of polite society. They don't think they can identify with the world of Jane Austen's books. However, I am finding upon this reading, much of her writing still rings true today. She wrote about families and friends, and how they interact; how we can be taken in by charm and appearance, but one's true nature wills out in the end.

She is providing a good lesson for this writer.