2011 year in review

I am shocked that it has been almost a year since I wrote a blog post for The "Write Approach". Time certainly has a way of getting away from me. It wasn't because I haven't been working on other areas of my life, however. It has been a busy year for me. I started working on my bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts in January, and have already started my sophomore year. The fact that I have been in an accelerated degree program has definitely taken a large chunk of my time this past year.

Not only that, but I also have started a part time job. I work Friday nights at an artsy kind of restaurant in West Plains, Missouri called the A La Carte Cafe. Susan and Jon Lumsden are the proprietors of the establishment. The food served is, as much as possible, from locally procured sources. Much of what they serve is also organic. As you might realize from my other blog Simply Living, I support local foods and organic foods. Not only does this establishment have the foods I like, it displays creative outlets. Susan spent many years creating artistic quilts. She has a number of them hanging in the restaurant. Jon is a singer/songwriter. The reason I have the opportunity to work here on Friday nights is because on these nights local musicians from all different music styles come into the restaurant and entertain the patrons. From time to time the restaurant also has special events, some of which I have able to be a part. I have also been busy trying to network on the Internet through Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. During the first part of the year I built my twitter account from around 300-1000 people I was following. During the last three months I have increased my following to nearly 2000 and my followers to over 1500. I hope that by the end of the year I will be able to increase my followers to just over 2000. In March I had a major writing setback which has caused me to play catch up ever since. My husband decided to wipe the computer where I had all my documents. I had recently bought a new computer so I told him that I wanted all my documents stored on a flash drive so that I could transfer them to the new computer. Rather than making sure that I had everything off of the computer, he went ahead and wiped the computer. Later, when it was too late, I discovered that he deleted all of my Microsoft Word files and just saved "my documents" files that had been on the computer. My published book had been deleted from the computer as well as the three rough drafts I had of my upcoming novels. I had to start all over again. Fortunately I was able to find an old copy a draft of Soldiers Don't Cry on an old computer that was here in the house. I have since taken that draft and expanded the manuscript to almost 300 pages. I have been working on editing the book since March, and I plan to publish Soldiers Don't Cry on June 30th of next year.

Day 28 of the 2009 NaNoWriMo

The book is coming along quite well, I've less than 4000 words to write and two days to write them in. I'm just coming up for air long enough to write this blog to show that I am indeed working and that I really haven't dropped off the planet. I've missed a few days of writing here and there for various reasons throughout the month but for the most part I have written every day. I've learned so much. I can't wait to finish and bring myself into the 2009 NaNoWriMo Winners circle.

Day Four of 2009 NaNoWriMo

Today I was again done writing the 1667 words by 10 o' clock in the morning. I'm starting to develop a routine that works well for me. I'm hoping that I can continue this pace, not just through the month but beyond as well. I'm finding that writing 1667 a day isn't difficult. Because the book is actually in two parts right now, (Three if you count Elizabeth's diary entries), I actually have to plan what is happening the following two chapters rather than just one chapter. It's almost like writing two different books although later they will merge and hopefully in such a way that you didn't really expect would happen. There are hints in this book in several places but I hope that everyone that reads it will be shocked when they find out what who Head of Stone is.

I would have written in here earlier in the day but I had to catch up on a backlog of emails because my daughter had her dentist appointment yesterday. (no cavities, maybe braces but I doubt it. She just got her front teeth in and they haven't entered their final position yet. Her brother's teeth when they came in were in a worse position but they straightened out just fine.)

I'm glad I've read about how even famous authors had a lack of confidence concerning their writing. Stephen King had thrown Carrie in the trash. Ray Bradbury thought his writing was crap. Puts my own self-confidence or lack of it in context.

Day -30 and counting

Time is buzzing right along. Yesterday the official NaNoWriMo site reset for the 2009 event. I signed up for the Springfield Missouri region as my home region because it's the closest to my home though I have a friend who is talking about heading up a region which is closer to where I live so if she does establish the new region, I'll be able to sign up there as my home region.

I was thinking yesterday about how I'm going to begin the novel. I had the ending determined about a month and a half ago but I just figured out exactly where to begin the book yesterday evening laying on my bed after a busy day at the computer.

Although I have an rough outline of my book, I'm familiar with my characters and setting, know the beginning of my book and where the book will end as well as having done a lot of research for the book.(It his a historical novel--there's a lot of research that goes into a historical novel.) I still say that I'm a technical virgin with this book because I haven't actually put any actual words of the story itself onto paper. That is where I draw the line. My husband suggested that I begin writing the novel on my word processing program then when November rolls around, that I transfer what I've already written onto the Nano page. I told him that I couldn't do that because that would be cheating.

'Oh, come on, Cyg, who would you really be cheating? Afterall, it's not like you're REALLY winning anything."

That's exactly why I'm not starting to write the book until November first. My true competition isn't with someone out there. My true competition is between me and the clock. My aim is to push my word count up to close to 2000 words every day for the entire month. I intend to write a chapter every day throughout the month. This process will instill in me the habit of writing close to 2000 words per day. Talk about a milestone in my writing career. I have a writing habit of writing most days including writing in this blog most every day. So writing close to 2000 words in a novel every day will enhance my writing by giving me a high word count to aim for which builds on those other habits thus making me even more prolific.

I challenge everyone reading this who has a desire to write a novel to give NaNoWriMo a serious effort even if you don't actually sign up at the website. Work on writing your novel during the entire month of November. Set yourself a word count that is higher than you normally do each day. Don't quit until you meet your quota. DO NOT EDIT. Just Write it. Do your editing in December and beyond.

This is what I actually did last year. This year is my first official NaNoWriMo. Lat year I worked on my book When God Turned his Head for the entire month. It was actually a project I had started before but hadn't pressed through to completion. National Novel Writing Month gave me that push to get it done. For several months after that I worked on editing and polishing and then in April I began to send it out to agents. The point is, I used NaNoWriMo unofficially as a catalyst toward catapulting my writing career.

I have read that an activity takes whatever time you give to it. It is possible to clean a house in 30 minutes and do a fairly good job or if you give the entire day to cleaning your house, it will take you all day. Your novel can take you a lifetime to create or it can take just a month. Which would you choose? I'd rather get it written in a month.

Day -33 and counting

I just wrote a blog on my other blog: http://cygnetbrown.blogspot.com/ that tells about Myrtle Yester-daze and what it's like living here in this area. I'd be honored if you'd check it out.

It's been a bit of a let down for my daughter now that her BIG event is over. Although she's still a princess to her family, the kids at school are reminding her that she's still just Boni Brown their classmate.

For me, the weekend was a practice of living in the moment. One of the things I have a habit of doing is to live in the future even when what is going on is a big event. So this weekend I decided I was going to not think about writing (much) and concentrate on making the memory with my daughter. I find it amazing that not only did my relationship with my daughter improve but it gave me more prospective on my writing. I've got several things to draw on to write about that I didn't have Friday.

Yesterday I didn't get much writing done. Because we were out all weekend, I didn't keep up with the housework so I needed to get the house whipped back into shape before I threw myself back into writing. It took me most of the day yesterday to finish that. My husband is enough of a male chauvinist that getting the house back in order benefited our relationship. So now that my relationships with my husband and daughter have been reinforced, I can selfishly return, unashamedly back to my writing.

It's hard to believe that in just 33 days, the 2009 NaNoWriMo begins.

Day -37 and counting

I read a quote today made my Ursula K LeGuin that made me go look her up. The quote was this:
"The creative adult is the child who has survived."

I think this is part of my deal lately and why I've been whining. I haven't been allowing my inner child out to play much lately. There were a couple of days there where I let it go and let my inner child just say what she wanted to but then the editor in me had to go to work and put the child away to play quietly in the shadows while the adult editor got to work. This whole thought process got me to wondering more about this woman.

I googled her. I found that she is an author of more than 3 dozen books. She was awarded the Newbery Honor for the second Volume of Earthsea Cycle, The Tombs of Atuan. Among her many other distinctions are the Margaret A Edwards Award, a National Book Award and five Nebula Awards.

Her work includes six volumes of poetry, twenty novels, over 100 short stories, four collections of essays, eleven books for children and four volumes of translation. She calls Portland, Oregon--home.

I read an interview about her at teenreads.com where she was describing her views on writing and the part of the interview that really impressed me was when she said:

"I have never heard a dancer asking for advice about how to stay focused on her footwork, or a painter complaining about the dull day-to-day task of painting. What task worth doing isn't worth daily effort? Do you think Michelangelo was having fun the whole time he was on his back painting the Sistine Chapel's ceiling?

What is it with writers, anyhow? If you've done it long enough to have some skill, the making of any art or craft gives you continuous satisfaction. But the satisfaction is seldom a thrilling or instant reward. There is rarely a moment of "Ooh wow, look, I just created a masterpiece!"

I am going to be rather hard-nosed and say that if you have to find devices to coax yourself to stay focused on writing, perhaps you should not be writing what you're writing. And, if this lack of motivation is a constant problem, perhaps writing is not your forte. I mean, what is the problem? If writing bores you, that is pretty fatal. If that is not the case, but you find that it is hard going and it just doesn't flow, well, what did you expect? It is work; art is work. Nobody ever said it was easy. What they said is: "Life is short, art is long.""

I read this and I know that writing is what I need to be doing and I realize too that it's not for everyone. I've seen people who've written here on the internet and couldn't put two coherent words together. I've read others who when they didn't make instant big money on the articles that they wrote, they left whining blaming the site for their inadequacies. The truth is writing is work and we owe ourselves and our writing the time it takes to pay our dues.

Day -43 and counting

The month of September is slipping away into October quite quickly. Today is already the 18th and I've still got a lot of projects on my writing and household chores list that I hope to have done by November first. The sun is out today but there is a nip in the morning air. I worked on more research for my book yesterday and I've agreed to write an article for a new magazine that is being put out this fall. Again I don't know if I've bitten off more than I can chew. (Don't you love the cliche?) But I'm doing what I love so I'm okay with it. I really don't have much to write today and I hate boring people with nothing so even though this post is short, I hope it doesn't bore anyone too much.