Dark Night of the Soul

So . . .

I finally finished my guest blog post for Ilima Todd's blog at http://ilimawrites.blogspot.com/ . It should go live this upcoming Wednesday the 9th.

Lately I've been working on really detailing Hana's outline. Obsessively outlining. Almost a Dirty Draft in and of itself.

But, whenever it came to writing actual text, yikes. I've been fighting myself. I just don't feel like writing.

Finally, in my deep depressed lack of motivation funk yesterday, I realized I was having a 'Dark Night of the Soul' moment--day, week, month--of deciding whether or not I want to keep writing or give it up.

Would I be happier?
What do I really want?
Was the sore throat and exhaustion getting the better of me?

Suddenly, I realized ... if I was having a Dark Night of the Soul, the part right before the hero puts everything that they have learned into motion, faces their fears and, and . . . BINGO!

-- Well, I can't go further without spoilers, you'll have to hop over to Ilima's blog come Wednesday.

In the meantime, here is a little list of things I've told myself I will refer to when I am in those doldrums.

  . . . and yes, it did in fact snow today, hence the dredging up of one of my old quote photos.

Writing the Bones

Great article from Writer's Digest on 7 Reasons to Write the Entire 1st Draft here.

But... seeing as how I cannot seem to get this through my thick skull -- well, enough to actually DO it-- I'm going to post the following where I have to look at it every day:

  ***

 

See the original article, visit Martha's site. 

 Article 7 Reasons to Write an Entire First Draft by the Plot Whisperer, Martha Alderson

I'm so EXCITED!!!

The

PERFECT

conference workshop is now available

The Lab: A Novel Workshop for 

Serious Writers

by Cheri Pray Earl

The Lab: A Novel Workshop for Serious Writers

From Scraps to (manu)Scripts: Conquering the Murky Middles: Rescue those stalled-out novel manuscripts from your computer boneyard and bring them to this new, innovative, paddling-through-the-murky-middles workshop. This is a workshop for our faithful writers who have polished two or three beginning chapters in a WIFYR workshop in the past, but who need help getting the rest of their novel on paper and submission-worthy.

Workshop Goal:  “Finish, Polish, and Submit” is the mantra of this workshop. 

For five days, you will work harder than you have ever worked before (and so will Cheri), you will work smarter than you have ever worked before, and you will experience writing success like you have never experienced before.

Preparing for the Murky Middles Workshop: 

Prior to the conference, students will submit a murky-middles portion of their work (two to three of their murkiest chapters), a brief description of the problems of those two-to-three middle chapters, and a chapter-by-chapter synopsis (two sentences per chapter) of the entire novel, from the first chapter to the last. This is the material you will work with for the five days of WIFYR, so choose wisely.

Workshop Content: 

Each day, Cheri will share a different solution to novel-writing problems including Plot, Conflict, and Pacing; Character Development and Voice; Setting and Description; Scene, Summary, and Dialog; Developing Themes and Introducing Backstory.

Daily Assignments: 

Participants will write and workshop specific scenes that emphasize plot, pacing, character development, moral conflicts, and so forth, in addition to revising their middle chapters and, in some cases, writing new ones.

Final Project: 

Participants will present two to three completely revised and murk-free middle chapters on the last day of the workshop, a revised and annotated plot outline, a plan for finishing their novel, and . . . they will confess their love for writing, each other, and above all, their workshop teacher.

 

Click on the image to find out more . . .

 

It's almost here . . .

REGISTRATION for the upcoming

One of my mostest favoritest authors is coming back, Martine Leavitt-- and openings are VERY limited--
But, I must say, that it really is unfair to say Martine is so great when honestly, I haven't had anything but excellent experiences with all my authors in the past. I mean you've got ALL these authors, agents and editors to learn from . . .

Cheri Pray Earl     *** DON'T MISS***	Introduction to Writing for Children Class
Sharlee Glenn	Picture Book Class
Steve Bjorkman	Illustration Class
J Scott Savage	Middle Grade Class
Kris Chandler	Novel Class
AE Cannon	Novel Class
Martine Leavitt	Specialty Novel Class (more info to come)
Matt Kirby	Advanced Class
Mette Ivie Harrison	Full Novel Class (Limited to 6 participants)
Carol Lynch Williams	Writer's Boot Camp
Utah State Poet Laureate Lance Larsen	Keynote Speaker
Alyson Heller	Editor for S&S
Ammi-Joan Paquette	Erin Murphy Literary Agent
Stephen Fraser	Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency

Seriously, you get a lot of bang for your buck going to this conference. I highly recommend it. Don't miss out.

Check it out HERE

4:00 a.m. Reconciliation

Writer's Guilt and the Beginnings of a New Hope

It seems to me that being a writer involves a lot of apologies.

~Saying sorry for being so deep in a manuscript that you've forgotten the time.

~Being so overwhelmed with ideas that every other important item in your life sits at the wayside waving as you obliviously pass it by... sorry, the check was not in the mail before, but now it is!

~Not getting as much done as you had hoped to get done. I said I'd have that done... today?

~Asking a friend to read a half-baked text to see if you are totally off your rocker, or if there is a nugget of an idea worth pursuing buried deep within a flood of words.

...and a big one for me:

~ Not doing everything I learned I need to do in order to be what I've been told it takes to be counted as a "truly dedicated and productive writer", ie: waking up at 4:00 a.m. every morning to get my writing done. (and possibly for my terrible punctuation and ill-phrased run-on sentences)

I apologize to myself, saying I know I should get up, I have no other time, I am terribly busy and if I truly want to consider myself a real writer, I need to get up in these wee hours and get the writing freaking done . . . but then I don't. Get up. I apologize and promise to do it  . . . soon. Not.

Another hobby of mine is to read books and articles on how the brain works. How we reason. What makes us creative. Why does story have such a powerful hold on our souls. Why am I so, so aarrrrgghhh . . . so frustratingly me.

Guilt and Information -- an interesting combination, particularly when marinated with an unhealthy dose of procrastination, set to forget in simmering pot, ideas tucked away, forgotten on the back burner, playing hide and seek in the intermittent percolations of  primordial soup-for-brains of one hyper busy and terribly remorseful wannabe writer. Aha, light-bulb.

Creativity and Sleep.

All those articles I've been reading . . .

(I should link you to the articles, but if you just Google REM Sleep and Creativity, you'll get some good articles on your own.)

In any case, here is the scoop:

The first 4 or so hours of dreamtime result in fairly literal rehashing of the things that have been on your brain already. This is what I have come to refer to as the nightmare time. When all those stomach churning, vomit inducing doubts of the 2:00 a.m. variety come a knocking. This is when all my failures, forgotten and have-to-get-done tomorrow things rear their ugly heads.

The second 4 hours or so, now these hours are a creationist's golden hours. This is when your frontal cortex loosens it's hold on your reality and your brain starts to free-wheel it, making unlikely, bizarre, and unusual connections. This is why my characters are so amazingly annoying and vocal at an almost set-your-watch-by-me-4:00 a.m.-timing. This is when Oliver started to float (hmm, some deep analysis could be done on this one, later, now is not the time). This is when I solved my current 30 Days 30 Stories-and-I-can't-think-of-anything-but puppets-but-I-need-something-fresh-to-write dilemma.

This is why I now refuse to ever feel guilty about not waking myself up at 4:00 a.m. to write. Talk about killing the flow! To get up right when my brain is ramping itself up as it launches itself into imaginative heights? I don't think so.You have to get that last 4 hours of REM sleep to be at your artistic and innovative best. If you wake up, get up, and don't get that sleep, well, it's curtain time on the creativity. Kaput. Done. Dead.

What does it all mean?

In the end . . .

~I do promise to keep scribbling my 4:00 a.m. notes, in the dark, sometimes by the light of the cell phone charging on the nightstand, in a barely legible scrawl, those nuggets of dialogue, those unexpected turns to a phrase that has plagued me for days, to those wondrous enlightening nuggets of treasured wordplay.

~I do promise to really work at getting those full 8 hours of sleep that my body and my mind need.

~I do promise to not feel guilty anymore about not being a 4:00 a.m. writer.

~I now give permission to myself to be a 4:00 a.m. note scribbling dreamer instead.

The Beauty of a Well-Timed Rockstar

 . . . the caffeinated drink that is.

This NaNoWriMo is already starting to drag me under. I'm thinking that by the time the end of November finally rolls around, I'll have the timing on some well-placed energy drinks down pat. I just hope my heart holds out ;)

So far I'm less than 500 words behind. As long as I make my mark for today anyway. If I manage a good 2,000 words today I'll be right on track. Of course that doesn't help a lot when the goal is to be ahead of the curve.

In my defense, I have started writing on the 750words site - serious fun! Try it out, write a few days, then check out your metastats and subconscious - cool beans. I've not included any of that writing in my tally. Neither have I counted anything I have to write for work. I've got 2 big workshops coming up next week that are requiring a lot of mental attention and physical time.

At present, I have reviewed and updated my character sketches, reviewed and made notes on where I want to go in the outline, and then I went back to Blake Snyder's Save the Cat books and started hashing out my Beat Sheet for the novel. I love Blake's books! Seriously. It was a tragedy when the world lost Blake. I am grateful he put out what he did do, and honestly I can't think of anything more he could have added, but to have taken a class from him directly, now that would have been epic.

No more dilly dallying! Time to get that count in for the day.

________

Parting shot -

p.s. if you ever feel guilty about drinking caffeine, read The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution and the Birth of America by Steven Johnson - the chapter on the Coffee Houses of London and the meetings of the Honest Wigs.

Review From The New Yorker

The author of Everything Bad Is Good for You provides an entertaining account of the eighteenth-century scientist and radical Joseph Priestley's monumental discovery that plants restore "something fundamental"—what we now know as oxygen—to the air. Johnson also offers a clear-sighted and intelligent exploration of the conditions that are propitious to scientific innovation, such as the availability of coffee and the unfettered circulation of information through social networks.

see . . . does that not sound familiar? Will they be writing books on the availability of energy drinks and social networking of today in the far ahead future? What discoveries await a well-timed dose of caffeine, some brilliant minds, and a connection via Facebook?

(BTW, I suggest only reading the first half of the book, the second half--when it goes more into politics and religion--seems to stumble around and is not near as interesting as the science and discovery in the beginning)

National Novel Writing Month

NaNoIdioNoMoWriMo Turmoil

In signing up for the November 2011 challenge to write a novel in one month, to write 50,000 words in a  month, that's 1,666 words a day--does anyone else find that an ominous number??-- I've once again taken a leap before looking.

I signed up before reading all the rules, I even posted a synopsis of my current project - and then looked at the official rules: You have to start from scratch. Suck.

You have to use a new idea, or if you are using an older, previously worked on idea, you need to set it aside and not look at what you have already done. Start over. New point of view or whatever it takes. Or, if you don't you can still join in the fun, but you will be a rebel.

Now most of the time I enjoy the label of being a rebel. But in this instance, I wonder if I am dooming myself to failure by choosing to be a rebel? ie: cheating in one area is one step on a treacherous slope wherein the next step is letting something else slide, like not getting all my words in and on and on until I've totally sabotaged my writing experience and not gotten what I needed out of it.

Amidst all this back and forth and confusion and really wanting to work on the project that has me the most excited and interested, I finally realized that I need to write out what I want most from the WriMo. It doesn't matter if I choose to restart with the Hana novel, or start out fresh with an unwritten idea like Afghanistan, or even the Gabe story; if I have no idea what I want to get out of it. I need to know what I want for my end result. 50,000 qaulifying words or no. So here they are . . .

Goals:

~ To establish a regular writing pattern.
   Develop a habit of daily writing – productive writing
~To finish, once and for all the Hana project while it's hot and exciting and in my head.
   Come out of it with a full draft – all the way to the end!
~To find out if I've got what it takes to really be a novel writer.
   Power through, despite all opposition.
~To use this as a stepping stone for the rest of the YA and MG stories that are sitting in my head.
   Write the minute inspiration strikes (carry a notebook and pen/pencil)

Challenges:

~Getting stuck.
    Letting lack of inspiration drive me to inactivity
~Fear of not being good enough.
    The 'I can’t do it' negativity
~Focus on one project at a time.
   . . .  or at least long enough to make some good headway


In the end, I think I've figured that I do need the added pressure of sticking to the rules. Not a single step out of line. Next, Hana and Denton are preying on my mind, I have to get them out. Ergo... I will set aside all I have done previously and start fresh.

Luckily, it is what I'd already started to do, just in case. I needed the word counts each day and I knew I had enough material waiting that had not been written yet. This gave me the extra few days to get my head on straight. Now I just have to resist any temptation to go back and retrieve anything from the previous draft. ugh.

 . . . now for some 'words to ponder':

Am I a writer or someone who just wants to have written.

Do I enjoy the process of writing or do I just want accolades?

Although I do imagine a life as a writer, once I get in the act of writing, I find that I'm obsessed. I am 100% in love with being in the thick of my book's world. I never want to come out. I'm almost more excited to write than read! For goodness sake, I'm an omnivore of a reader, what's this about preferring writing over reading??! Weird. And, for some reason--at least in the picture book writing--I've realized that the revision process is energizing. I wonder if it will hold true through the length of a novel? I get so absorbed with word play and manipulating the world, imagining the surroundings, getting in my character's heads... I could go on and on. The only thing I hate so far is being stuck trying to figure out a path that makes sense, is exciting and works for my characters.


Some Tools to help
(thanks Ann Dee Ellis for the tip)

750 Words
(inspired by the Artist's Way)

Archetype: The Fiction Writer's Guide to Psychology
Book on Amazon / OPL Link

NaNoWriMo.org