Where Do You Write? Creating a Writing Sanctuary...

It doesn't have to be big. It doesn't even have to be a room. And, contrary to popular belief (or want) it doesn't even have to segregate you from the rest of the world. Of course we'd all love to have that perfect little hideaway, secluded from noise and distraction.

"There, and only there, will I write my masterpiece..."

But where you write best sometimes doesn't come with it's own key.

I know I used to have one such place. Although it was situated in the belly of the house, my 'office' had a desk, carpeting, a window, and...drum roll please...a door. With a LOCK!!! No heat...but it was mine... whenever I could carve away even the tiniest amount of time alone to write.

One hour, one day, one minute....one minute....one minute...half a minute....

Except, more times than not, the moment I sat down with my hot cup of tea and vanilla-lavender candle a glow, someone needed me. Or someone popped in the door crying and screaming about this and that...

"He touched my toy!" the three year old cried.

"She hit me!" the five year old cried.

"My wife left me!" the thirty-five year old cried. "Oh, wait. There you are! I've been looking all over for you!" kiss, hug love... "The kids need you, honey."

Suffice to say, my room away from it all wasn't all it was cracked up to be. I hardly ever had more than ten continuous minutes to rub together. And when it takes me thirty minutes to 'get there', aka: into the story, ten ten minute increments of solitude a day isn't enough to eek out an outline, let alone an entire novel.

Surrendering, I took to the dining room table with my laptop. Or if the kids were downstairs, down to the table next to the play area. Outside on the patio table after a good amount of playing and gardening with the kids. Laptop open, manuscript ready, there I sat. Totally open. Totally available. Totally in the middle of things. My novel, my life as I only dreamed it, doomed...

But you know what?

By being out in the open...everyone leaves me alone more! I don't know if they only felt like they had to seek me out before when I was locked away by myself. Maybe it made them feel uncomfortable to have mommy out of the loop, unavailable for boo boo kisses and such. I don't know...kids, husbands...you know how they are ;) Now, when I sit down to write right where they are, they don't come looking for me.

Yes, I still get interrupted. Yes, I still have to stop mid-sentence to help locate a MIA toy or make a snack. For some reason, since I'm writing in the middle of the mix, when I do get asked to stop short and switch gears, I don't loose it, (aka: get taken out of my story) as much. My thinking process isn't stopped as much being out in the open, in the middle of things, as it did when I was totally immersed in solitude.

Maybe that's just it.

Perhaps creating a writing sanctuary doesn't have to involve candles, closed doors, and a window with a view. It just has to be 'where you write', whether it be the kitchen table or with no table at all.

Where do you write? How do you deal with the distractions and interruptions? Do you wait until everyone's gone to bed? Or carve out an hour or two on the weekend?

Ever since I left my room to write at the dining room table - an hour here, twenty minutes there, where I can hear and see everything going on around me - I feel as though I've not only written more consistently, but I've written better, as I can write everyday if I want. I don't need to wait for the perfect moment when everyone in the family has been taken care of and everything in the house is done. I can just say, "Hey, they don't need me for the next half hour. I think I'm going to write a little bit."

And I do.

;)

Deadlines, Editing, and My Unofficial Query Letter....UNofficial...

So, I totally blew my self-imposed deadline of March 23rd to have finished all edits and send out my first query letter. Death, taxes, 6 feet of snow, and the Olympics...all things totally unrelated, yet all things I've allowed to stray me away from my goal.

Therefore I'm imposing a more SANE deadline of "by summer", and this gives me time to polish and shine my query letter. A few weeks ago I polished and shined my "one sentence" pitch of my novel, and I am happy to say that I LOVE IT! No need to edit any further. Next step now, is to start with the paragraph synopsis of what happens in the novel, beginning to end, leaving nothing out...

How the hell?!?! The whole book, explained in detail, in one paragraph!?!?!?

Enter, the query letter...

Whether you snail mail or email an agent, you need to formulate one hell of a kick ass query letter to not only GET their attention, but also KEEP their attention.

I took a quick crack at swallowing my entire novel into one horribly written paragraph, just to see if I could manage to get all the major points in there (NOTE: there is much work to be done on this...the following is just for fun). But I did manage to capture the darkness of the novel, and then show that it all turns bright by the end. I think for me this will be my biggest challenge. I can't leave out the fact that my MC is a bit of a nut case in the beginning (of course 'nut case' by normal standards. I think she's fine, just needs a little TLC...we've bonded ;)

So, without further delay, here is one horribly written query for my amusement only (and yours too, I hope ;).

My novel opens with a past rape scene, moves forward to the present, where you see my MC living with the after effects of an abusive past, she goes to therapy, you are inside her head, see her odd living style, hear voices, all sorts of strangeness, until she breaks free from it all and finds a way to heal, finds her courage again, finds herself again...then she meets someone, falls in love, has a normal life, albeit there are still triggers from her past, some of which threaten to suck her back down into that deep black hole...but she's a new woman now, has tools to help her stay in her present and deal with her past, and she moves on and up and it's great at the end!

Phew!

That is one long run-on sentence ;)

Yet, somehow, I feel one tiny small step closer to my goal...Feel free to leave a link to your own horrible one paragraph synopsis!

;)

Sanity Check...Keeping Your Characters at a Distance

If you follow this blog, then you know I've written a novel, and I'm now in the process of editing it, start to finish. Although Waiting for Paint to Dry is a fictional work in it's entirety, it also has significant elements that ring true to my personal life, past. This brought up some great questions concerning the repercussions of doing so, mainly what other people will find out and how you will feel about them knowing these true details of your life.

Since writing Waiting for Paint to Dry and successfully finishing the first draft, I re-lived my real life events during the beginning stage of the novel. It was a rather cathartic undertaking, dissecting and examining those events and myself at that time, but it turned out to be one that had tremendously positive results for both my book and my psyche.

HOWEVER, there was something that I hadn't considered as a side effect of including those true life events, until recently. Although editing has improved my book to the point of publish ready, it has also incurred a dramatic negative effect on me, to my psyche.

The editing process...

I didn't realize that by going back through the chapters, beginning to end, I would again be brought face to face with the demons that I have already conquered. Although I worked through the healing process in real life long ago, then again while writing out the first draft, my character, Matty Bell, will forever live in still life.

Flip the book open to any page, and that's where she's at, at the moment. She's forever stuck. She doesn't move forward unless you read on.

At the beginning of the book, my main character has yet to over come anything. And since her emotions are so raw, so real, I've had to relive and relive and relive the roller-coaster with her, while I edited and edited and edited the first few chapters. They are dark ones, reader be forewarned.

And because I was in the trenches, again, with her, it took me a good long while to notice that her internal turmoil was effecting me. For a while there, I felt as though the events that took place in my own life, that I've weaved into my novel, were happening all over again...and again...and again.

And I felt stuck too! I haven't felt like that in years. Stuck in the past. I was again reliving the moments, not being able to stop thinking about them, talk about them, like I was at the beginning of my own healing process all over again...

The moment I finished editing chapter 3, its final run of edits, I finally pinpointed my problem: I was feeling stuck because I was reliving the trauma by reading and editing it so many times over. It was all coming back to life.

Needless to say, I started with a few mantras right then and there, reminding me that this happened a long time ago, and that I'm a new person now. And better for it.

Although I feel sorry for Miss Matty Bell, she too will be fine, soon. I just have to edit on so I can bring her to the place of healing that I've come to know and love.

And that will happen soon. Very soon...

I'm so excited and relieved to get beyond the dark shadows of my book. I'm now moving on into the lighter pigments, which cast a beautiful glow. I like the sound of that side effect.

The rest of the book, after she gets going, is a fun ride for sure, reader be ready!

Then, in the end, she... Well, you'll have to read it for yourself to find out.

:)

Writing During the Holidays...

Ha! Writing during the holiday season?!

It's basically impossible, if you ask me.

Every free moment you run across gets taken up with getting those holiday cards out the door, trimming the tree, wrapping presents, cooking something to bring to holiday parties and cookie exchanges...and then there are the parties themselves! Fun, totally fun. But they take up all your weekends!

So writing...gets pushed to the back-burner for a month or two. I usually write off writing for the months of November and December, pun intended. And it sucks. All I want to do is finish my second draft so I can start submitting queries. Yet, I don't want to short-change my final product by half-assin' it either, know what I mean?

However, when you don't have the time to sit down and write, edit, it's a great time to jot down notes that come to mind. Keep a tally of all the chapters you want to re-work, darlings you want to kill, to make your final draft sparkle!

I could give you a list of ideas to help you sneak in some writing time. But I think taking a break during this season of too much is good for your writing in the end. Come January you'll be so geared up and excited to write! That you will have enough stamina to last you until next October ;)

So, keep a pad of paper and pen with you always to jot down those quick thoughts and ideas. And if you find chunks of uninterrupted time to write and actually get to partake in them?! Great! Write your heart out!

But don't hurt yourself. Take it easy and save up your energy for next year ;)

Kill Your Darlings...

I've heard this expression over and over again for as long as I've been writing. Recently I have been reading Stephen King's On Writing and I have finally come to realize what this phrase means!

Yes, I know, I'm slow...not to be mistaken with blond, although my husband would beg to differ...

Killing your darlings...

Before I thought it meant that you should kill your darlings! As in whichever character you learned to love while writing your novel you should kill off in the end.

Bittersweet endings are better than la-di-da ones, right? Again, my husband's opinion ;)

And maybe some authors do kill off their characters after they invest an entire book on them -likeJodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper killed off poor little Anna. And yes, it invokes a heart wrenching emotional response that stays with the reader long after they take up another book.

However, that's not what kill your darlings means. Maybe to some people, but not to me. I know who my darlings are now...

My darlings consist of one or two phrases, or a couple paragraphs. Even a whole chapter. Words strung together that I've poured my heart and soul and sweat and blood and tears into. I've worked on them for hours, my effort plainly see in the perfection of the beautifully executed prose...but, for whatever reason, and totally beyond my control...they don't go.

They don't work with the story.

For whatever reason, they work against the flow, the pace, the story. They take up too much space. They repeat again and again, however eloquently, the same things I've mentioned in previous chapters.

So, for this exact reason - no matter how much I love and adore my darlings - I have to let them go. I can't keep them. They have to go.

Too many words - no matter how wonderfully written - are just that. Extra.

So, what do you do? Keep it there just because you can't just delete your wonderful hard work? And risk your entire novel sounding horrible because you said the same thing a hundred wonderful times too many?

Yes, I'm repeatedly rambling on here to make a point...

No matter how much it hurts...you have to kill your darlings.

Save your darlings in a separate file. Maybe you'll be able to use them again. They are good, no great, after all. Of course you'll be able to use them somewhere else in the future. Maybe another book.

Do whatever you have to do to make yourself feel better about killing them.

And then...kill them...kill them all!

So, what will be left, after the slaughter? A clean, streamlined book that gets straight to the point without filler. Beautiful!

Once you see how perfect your novel starts to sound without all those dead darlings hanging around, you'll start to respect the task. And yes, it will be easier as you go. Maybe like me, you'll even look forward to slashing and slaying your chapters to make them read clean and true. This is what the second draft is all about. Finding out what your story is really about and then streamlining everything, getting rid of the extra nonsense. Don't want to loose that momentum, right?

Keep those files around. Maybe you can use them later...

But for now, just kill.

Kill! Kill! Kill!

You and your story will be better for it...