I was ready to set the world on fire

My writing hiatus has lasted a little over a month so far. (Although not really, because last week I wrote a teeny tiny little scene that was in my head and wanted out.) Today I felt compelled to work on the draft of a query letter for the middle grade novel. (Because really, I have nothing else I should be doing.) So it's sitting open in the background while I work on more critical projects. Right now, it's at the stage I call "what I REALLY think" and will need to be made polite and politically correct and refined and so forth before I send it to any prospective agents. (If I send it out to any agents.) What can I say, I was in an extraordinarily honest mood this morning.

No, I am not taking part in NaNo this year. The very thought makes my head want to implode. (I've even been avoiding my usual rounds of agent/editor/writer blogs lately.) But cheers and good luck to those out there who are participating. It's only a little over 1,500 words/day. You can do it!

In other news, I have found myself feeling very privileged to be the mother of two such fine young men lately. I wouldn't even know where to start with singing their praises, and it's not always fun and games for me or for them, but they both make me very proud.

And if you wanna hear God laugh, tell Him your plans

So, unless I'm buried by an avalanche of registration forms over the next couple of days, the writing class is off. Apparently I managed to find the wrong combination of class format and timing, or maybe there just wasn't as much interest as I thought in the middle school. I'm a little disappointed, but not crushed. I'm glad I at least made the attempt, because if I hadn't I'd always wonder and feel a little guilty for not making the effort. Now I know, and I can move on. Failure is God's way of saying, "Nice try, I appreciate the effort, but that's not exactly what I had in mind for you."

I am also taking a hiatus from writing. I'm not sure yet if I'm just burned out and need a long rest or if I have also reached the "Nice try, I appreciate the effort, but this is not exactly what I had in mind for you" point with writing. "The effort" in this case netted me 15 published stories, and I can definitely live with that. Maybe I just need to stop thinking in dollar signs and listen to that little voice that keeps telling me I'm a short story writer, not a novelist. I quit writing for a couple of years previously, and that hiatus also came about after I pushed myself to write novel-length instead of short. I do not yet have enough mental or emotional distance to think about that objectively, however, so I will go back to just saying "I'm on hiatus."

Fear not, I have plenty of (long-neglected) household projects to occupy my time!

I'm the same old trouble you've been having for years

Just enough time for a quick update! (I hope.)

1.  Adjusting to school is still in process. I'm guessing we'll be all settled in just in time for next summer.

2.  The middle grade novel has been rested, re-opened, and heavily notated for revisions. Actual write-in of revisions is about 1/5 completed.

3.  WORDS Writing Classes is officially open for registration. Flyers went out to the local 6th-8th grade today. I am both excited and nervous.

4.  That weird noise I keep half-hearing is the dog snoring. No need to call the A/C repair guy after all. Whew.

Time to go be afternoon carpool driver. Hope everyone out there is doing well!

When the hitman comes, he knows damn well he has been cheated

I am officially in full summer mode--I can barely keep track of what day it is, let alone tell you what I accomplished or did not accomplish over the last week. At least, not without thinking about it really hard. And I am going to pass on that.

I can tell you that the house is mostly clean, the laundry mostly caught up, and the kitchen well-stocked enough to prevent starvation. We have taken walks, sat on the back deck and read or talked, played cards, played Rock Band, and just generally enjoyed each others' company while also finding time to go off and do our own individual things. The whole "late to bed, late to rise" thing is kinda nice, too. I know I'll pay for it when I have to readjust in August, but right now, I just don't care.

On the writing front, I am making no plans. No outlines. No word count meters. I'm trying to put in at least a couple of hours a day toward doing something writing-related, but that's the limit of my goals for now. What I have been doing is working on Crowmaker. In a very laid-back, roundabout, no pressure kind of way. Vincent suggested another song for his playlist today. I have been reading up on assorted, semi-related historical topics as it strikes my fancy. I have written the skeletons of a couple of new scenes. But that's all I'm going to say about that, for fear of scaring off the muse.

In the meantime, I am steadfastly refusing to think beyond the end of June. 

I'm looking for a complication

Yeah, I know. Just as soon as I say I won't be here much for a while...

But Editorial Ass is having a giveaway contest to celebrate her 500,000th hit--a first 20 pages crit! I don't know that I have 20 pages polished enough to show anyone on Crowmaker yet, but I figured I'd spread the word anyhow.

If you never owed them anything

I live! 

In the interest of keeping this short, a brief recap of the last two weeks:

The allergy/asthma/bronchitis thing seems to be better. OTC Zyrtec and a zap of Proventil when needed, which has been maybe twice in the last two weeks. I can live with this.

Spring cleaning. Lots of it. Two weeks' worth, as a matter of fact. Yay for two strong boys to help. And a school with a really big recycling bin.

Writer's math: Completed percentage of estimated total word count = 74%.  Completed percentage of estimated total scenes in my outline = 63%. (I'll spare you the convoluted calculations used to arrive at those percentages.) However, clearly 74% =/= 63%. Analysis? Probably have a longer ms on my hands than I initially thought. (Good thing I poured all that cash into an accounting degree so I could figure that out.)

I will probably be scarce around here for a couple of months. April and May are shaping up to be busy on the school front, and I am feeling the serious urge to just dig a hole and spend as much time as I can on Crowmaker. (I say that now. As soon as I go back to it after this short blogging break, I'll be ready to give up. Until the characters kick in and starting giving me directions again. At which point, I'll get interrupted as soon as I get on a roll. Because that's just how that works, y'know.)

I still have an email address, however! I welcome waves and updates anytime.

Miles away from those I love, purpose hard to find

The week in review:

Uh. There was a week. I'm sure of it. And stuff must've happened. See, this is why I keep a time-tracking journal--so I don't start feeling like I'm accomplishing nothing, when in fact I am accomplishing quite a damn lot.

In the writing world, I am caught up on my 2YN assignments, despite hemming and hawing and trying to talk myself out of doing them each week. I taught my class, and while the enthusiasm for one of the exercises I had them do was lackluster at best, we had a decent discussion toward the end of class about the difference between showing and telling. And the high point of my youngest son pointing out that the phrase I had just used was a simile, not a metaphor. Silly teacher. More rough draft happened for Crowmaker, and I am now in a research phase for the next set of scenes. I also got smacked upside the head with an idea for a middle grade novel. It's a very fully-formed idea, so I may work on it a little once I've checked off my daily list for Crowmaker.

Health-wise, I'm not exactly sure what's going on. The meds I mentioned last entry did wind up helping--or at least the steroids did. As soon as the stepped dosage stepped down to about three a day, I could feel all the good breathing I'd had start to come undone, until I felt as bad as I had before by the time the cycle of meds was complete. Yet a doctor's appointment Tuesday gave me a clean pulmonary test--it was hugely improved from the week before. Chest x-ray showed my lungs look good. Blood test for allergies came back negative on the specific allergens they tested for, but high overall, which indicates I'm having an allergic reaction to something--we just haven't determined what yet. They're supposed to be setting me up with an allergist. I am beginning to be highly frustrated by getting so easily winded doing little things I should not be winded from doing. Like carrying a basket of laundry from one room to the next. Seriously.

The week ahead:

Last week of school before spring break! I have a list of cleaning and clutter-reduction jobs for the boys and I to work on starting next weekend. Here's hoping I'm feeling well enough to get them tackled, because the clutter is really starting to bug me. And I would so like to get things cleaned up well enough to do some more room painting this spring. My plan is to take a break from writing the entire week of spring break. This week I will focus on getting through the current research phase of Crowmaker so things are all tidy and ready to go when I get back to it after spring break. I will also put together my next lesson plan for my class and do this week's 2YN assignment. If there's time, I'll fiddle some more with the middle grade idea, too.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

I got some money in my pocket, I got the alligator shoes

You may recall that last week, I struggled with a snooze-worthy scene and how to make it less snooze-worthy. I wrapped up the week having written four scenes for that particular sequence of events. Over the weekend, I concluded that all four of those scenes would put me to sleep, particularly if I encountered them that early on in a novel. Furthermore, I don't think I really need them. I have scooted the entire sequence into my scratchpad at the end of the ms and spent most of this week regrouping and finding my new direction. All right, yes. There was also a minor bout of the familiar "you suck, just give it up now" game. Game over, I win. There will be no quitting just yet. (Confidence, or sheer stupid stubbornness? I have no idea.)

Over the weekend (once I came down from my euphoric mother moment), I also reached the conclusion that I should really not be having so much difficulty breathing, no matter how out of shape I may be. A trip to the doctor yesterday netted me a diagnosis of asthmatic bronchitis and prescriptions for an antibiotic, a steroid, and an inhaler. I'm not sure I feel terribly better overall just yet, but there have been patches of betterness. I think. I'll keep you posted.

And all that you hope to be

That scene I mentioned last entry? I have scrapped it entirely. OK, no, not scrapped entirely. I copied it into the scratchpad section of my document, because there are bits of scenery and character description that I can likely make use of, if nothing else. But I woke up yesterday thinking how boring this scene and the next planned one were, and how I wished I could just get on to the one after that instead.

Uh. Here's a clue, Lori. If you feel that way, then maybe, just maybe, you should consider skipping this scene and the next and going to the one that matters. So I took another look at what I wanted to accomplish with the two snooze scenes and determined that I could accomplish the same things if I meshed them into the more exciting scene. AND I don't risk slacking up on the pacing of the story at this early point where I probably should not yet be slacking up on the pacing of the story.

So yeah. Now I just need to do the work. Yesterday was a bust, in part because other things demanded my attention, but also in part because I was having a fuzzy brain day. I am having a fuzzy brain day today, too. Hence the blog post--I'm trying to wake myself up, remember how to string words into sentences, and convince myself that I want to wake up and string words into sentences.

The non-writing stuff that kept me busy yesterday consisted, aside from my afternoon stint working at school, of taking Joe to register for his freshman classes in the morning and then spending a couple of hours at evening meetings to go over field trips for Michael's 6th grade class and Joe's 8th grade class. And to discuss 8th grade graduation, which is a big deal in these parts because St. Rose only goes through 8th grade, and the students then depart for a variety of high schools, depending on where they live and/or whether they enroll at one of the Catholic high schools.

One of the things they do at the graduation reception is a slide show of photos of the graduating class as they grow up. I started going through pictures last night. I may be in a funk of motherly sentimentality for a few days. It's a bittersweet, wistful sort of experience. I should be used to the feeling by now, but I kinda figure I never will be.

Think I have about sixty miles of gasoline left in my car

Research for the next group of scenes has been accomplished, and that should be the biggest part of the research overall, save for some inevitable smidges along the way. (Knock wood.) I have begun writing the next scene and am probably about halfway through it. But I stopped because there are a couple of fiddly details that are not sitting right with me. The right characters are in the scene. They are behaving as they should be (mostly) and the necessary relationships and setting details are being revealed. But these little fiddly details are bugging me. I think I have decided to push ahead and finish the scene anyhow, with the resolve to mull over what needs to change about the little fiddly details--because I know at this point that they need to be different, but I do not yet know what they need to be instead of what they currently are.

I also need to tweak the behavior of one of the characters, because I am not quite capturing who he is. And I do need to nail that before I go on, or I will be floundering in every scene after this one.

Any writing is good, as long as it's taking me somewhere. Right?

You know love's a funny thing, you just gotta let it be

It didn't take me until the end of the week to hit the 30,000 word mark after all. I pretty much had it Monday night and then just finished up the scene I was working on Tuesday morning. At which point I realized I needed to move into a different character's head, as well as a different physical setting. At which point I freaked out a little: "OMG, I don't know enough about this setting. I can't write it believably enough. I'll never be able to make it convincing! I should just quit now!"

I can be pretty dense like that sometimes. I have since remembered that a) I didn't know enough about the other two time periods/settings/historical characters/cultures I've written scenes in before I researched them, either, and I think those scenes turned out reasonably well. And b) Um, that's what that stack of books over there is for. To READ before you try to write these next scenes, remember? It's called RESEARCH?

I have always gotten very easily fixated on word count and daily production of it. My agreement with myself on Crowmaker was that I would try a different approach this time: I did the basic, absolutely necessary research before and during outlining. I will do the nitty gritty, need-the-details-please research as I write the draft. This necessitates relaxing my stranglehold on the word count tracker, because it takes time to do the research before I can write the scenes. Which is, y'know, what I've been doing. I just sort of got all caught up in the excitement of watching that little bar grow, I guess.

That, and I want to get this next part written so I can get back to the two characters I have to leave in limbo while I switch to these other characters. I'm going to take that as a good sign. Even better will be if by the time I get to the end of these scenes, I don't want to leave these new characters, either.

It's like falling backwards into no one's arms

We had no school Monday, because Archbishop Buechlein gave all Catholic schools in the archdiocese a free day to show support for the hard work and leadership of the Colts. (We have to make it up on President's Day instead of having that day off, so... yeah. It was a nice thought, I suppose.)

We had no school Tuesday or Wednesday, because most of the state was under a winter storm warning. We didn't really have all that much snow, at least not as compared to what I remember us getting when I was a kid in northern Illinois. But apparently there was much blowing and drifting in the outlying areas. And hey, who am I to argue with a day off? (Although again, I hesitate to call them "free" days, because you know they're coming out of future days off at some point.)

And then we had an early dismissal day on Friday.  Although I did work for about an hour and a half. But, y'know, considering I didn't work at all on my usual days of Monday and Wednesday, I cannot complain.

Joey's buddy Matt has been here since yesterday afternoon, and the three boys are currently romping around upstairs. I think they think they're getting dressed to go outside for an airsoft fight. But I also think that given the rate of distraction and goofing off I hear, they're actually getting dressed so that Matt will be ready just in time for his parents to pick him up in 45 minutes. (Side note: What I love about Matt--about Joe and all of his friends, really--is that they always include Michael in what they're doing. If Michael wanders off for some alone time, they will even come looking for him. I suppose some parents might worry that Michael never asks to have any of his friends over, but... Joey and his friends ARE Michael's friends. He has other people he hangs out with at school, but given a choice of who to ask over, he opts for whomever Joe is asking over.)

Work accomplished this week:

• I taught class on Thursday (the ONLY full school day of the week). We talked about story premise, looked for it in books and movies we know and love, and recalled fondly the in-class group story premise brainstorming exercises we've done in the past. (I have been told, repeatedly, that it was the best class session ever. If I let them choose what we do, I think that's all we'd do.)
• I have prepared my lesson plan for next week's class. Funny how it's always easier when the kids have participated enthusiastically the class before.
• I have completed this week's assignment for the 2YN class over at Forward Motion. I was kinda bleh about this one, since I'm already 99.9% positive what point of view I'll be using. But it was cool to revisit these characters after not thinking about them for years. Except whenever I hear Boston's "A Man I'll Never Be," which has been Zaras's theme song for as long as I can remember. Y'know, it's possible the song even helped give birth to him, now that I think about it.
• The early part of the week was heavily loaded with research reading for Crowmaker before falling into a pattern of somewhat lighter research and scene design/preparation followed by actual writing of the scene in question. As of this morning, I have completed three scenes to the tune of 5,750 words total for the week. I have a fourth scene researched and prepped and will hopefully get at least some of it drafted today or tonight. I am pleased with this progress. By the end of next week, if all goes as planned, I should have 1/3 of a novel. This also pleases me.

Sure make a hell of a car

By the way of brief explanation, so that I don't sound like a complete wacko to any of my non-writing friends, when I work up characters for a story (or anything else), I start with your basic information about them--what they look like, what they do for a living, what kinds of things I have in mind for them to do in the story (so that they will be the kind of person who would believably do such a thing), etc. And I continue to fiddle with their bios as I plan the story, adding stuff as it comes up. And at some point, they "show up," more or less like I've summoned them by the magic ritual of writing down the facts of their fictional existence. I like when that happens. It makes the whole writing business so much easier.

At any rate.  I was fiddling with some technical details a few days ago, trying to come up with a fictional title for a fictional rank in a fictional outfit of gunfighters/security guards/organized mercenaries. Mr. Vincent Bradley is a member of this unnamed rank, and he hadn't had a word to say to me yet.

Got out the thesaurus. Started writing down possibilities: regulators, enforcers, implementors, administrators...

Pause. Snicker. Tools...

You bitch.

And not only did I hear him call me that, but I could hear him do this awesome little laugh-snort along with it. 

Next day, hubby is cooking and has AC/DC cranked up. I am not overly fond of AC/DC. But as I walk through the kitchen, I hear Mr. Vincent Bradley's voice in my head once again.

That's my kind of music. You're gonna need that on your soundtrack.

 And then he smirked at me. And he's grinning right now. Apparently, he can really turn on the charm when he likes. And yet there are those cold eyes, still, reassuring me that he is capable of gunning down any idiot who gets in his way.

Hello, Mr. Bradley. Why yes, we should get to your scenes very soon now. Just put the weapons away and try not to wear anything out with your impatient pacing.

And I get scared but I'm not crawling on my knees

I told myself I could not blog until I'd finished the scene I intended to write today. But it's at nearly 2,000 words and still not over yet, so in the interest of giving myself a breather, here I am.

Nearly 2,000 words is actually right about 1,750, and honestly, I wasn't sure I'd get more than 10 when I started out this morning. I have researched everything in this scene that needed to be researched. And then some. I knew what needed to be written--I've been seeing bits and pieces of the scene for days now. I even knew the first line. The scene was THERE. I was READY.

And I just could not get myself to sit down with it this morning. OK, granted, the morning started with getting up at 7am, checking email to find out that school was canceled for the day, and sending everyone back to bed, myself included. So it was 10 before I got back out of bed, got dressed, had some breakfast, and even attempted to wander back to my desk. But as soon as I sat down...  Stage fright. That's what it was like. This is the first big scene of the book--everything else I've written so far will eventually be incorporated later in the story. This will be the scene that has those magic first five pages. This is the scene that launches all those later scenes. And I think I just let myself over think it.

But no. I don't think I over thought it. I believe the amount of planning and research I've put into it was absolutely necessary. So it wasn't over thinking so much as just forgetting to turn off the thinking and planning portion of my brain and turn on the part that takes all those facts and structures and makes magic with them. So yeah. We're back to stage fright. The scene is so big and so clear in my mind that I was afraid I could never do it justice.

At which point, once I'd realized I was falling into that trap again, I was able to remind myself that no scene EVER comes out as perfectly on paper as it appears in your head. But it sure as hell comes out a lot clearer than if you never write it at all. So I took some deep breaths and put on my Crowmaker soundtrack. And once I sat down and forced myself through the first sentence and then the first paragraph, it got easier. Like it always does. And it started flowing. Like it always does. And the muse handed me some lovely poetic bits crafted from hard-earned research facts. Like it always does.

Someday it will take me less than two hours to talk myself into remembering how this always works. Someday.

But in the meantime, yes. Almost 2,000 words on today's scene.  If you average it out over the research time I put in on Friday, that's still almost 1,000 words/day, and I don't count myself done for the day just yet. I can live with that, I believe.

Edit:  Final word count on the scene, as of 12:30am, was 2,750.  Whew.

Don't need much, just enough to get me through

Let's see. Friday was library and research reading day, followed in the evening by the much-touted annual Punk-N-Rock show at the middle school. Sixth grade serves as stage crew, so Michael got to wear black and hop around backstage. He also got to catch a wheelchair after it was flung down the stage ramp as part of one of the skits. This was Joe's last year, since he's on to high school next year, and his entire class (yeah, all seven of them) looked so relaxed and like they were having a ton of fun up there, which made every skit they were in all that much more fun for those of us in the audience. They did covers of everything from the Hee Haw gloom and agony song to "Crazy Train" to Veggie Tales to "Love is a Battlefield" to Jonathan Coulter (plus a whole bunch more I just can't think of right now). I will follow up with pictures and perhaps video when we get the dvd we ordered, but my own camera sucks, so for now I will simply assure you that Joe made an awesome Bob the Tomato.

Yesterday's writing time was devoted to putting together next week's lesson plan, and today's was spent on the 2YN class I signed up for over at Forward Motion. I've been wavering on how badly I really need to be working on another project right now. But so far, the time spent on it each week hasn't been overwhelming, possibly because so far it's much resembled the process I already put myself through. Which also makes me question how badly I need to be in the class. But I keep telling myself it's not about learning an entirely new writing process at this point. It's about picking up little bits and pieces of other people's processes that I might incorporate to strengthen my own process.

And honestly, it's also about walking through the process with other people. Because let's face it, writing is pretty quiet work, even for a seriously introverted introvert like me. And since I gave up WoW, it's kinda nice to have other online "voices" around once in a while. So hello to any fellow 2YN participants who happen to wander through! Feel free to say hello. I promise I won't yell and chase you out of my yard.

Hey satellite man your time has come

Today's productivity countdown:

• Hauled not only children, but also drum kit, to school this morning. The drum kit will be used for mass tomorrow morning, and for the annual middle school lip sync/skits/musical production tomorrow night. (Unless winter unloads on us. Then we'll have to see.)
• Supervised the crew of 8th grade boys who unloaded the drums, which involves such difficult feats as asking them to NOT beat on the drums INSIDE the school, please, and reminding them that yes, they do need to go back to class now that the kit is stowed safely on the stage.
• Confiscated the guitar amp that somehow made its way into the trunk with the electric guitar, because I'm pretty sure Mrs. B. only wants the guitars for props, not for actual loudness. (I'm sorry, I can't help it. I haven't been able to use that word without picturing that band since the 80's. Seriously.)
  
• Made a quick restocking run to the grocery store because have I mentioned lately that the boys are bottomless pits?
• Spent six--SIX--blissful hours working on Crowmaker, either rough draft or research. You will notice that my progress bar now stands at 20,000 words. That's 20% of a draft. I am mildly psyched. New word production will likely fall off for a few days now, since I need to pause for some more research before embarking on the next scenes.
• Picked up the boys from after school dress rehearsal, coached them through getting a couple of quick pieces of homework done, and herded them off to take showers. They had pizza after rehearsal, so I didn't even have to cook supper tonight! Any night without cooking is a good night.
• And it's still only 8:30. I could conceivably get a good chunk of research done yet tonight.

On the street where you live, girls talk about their social lives

For those of you who pay attention to such things, a progress meter has reappeared over in the sidebar for Crowmaker. No, I do not recall how many times I have supposedly written a draft of this story. Yes, I am hopeful that I will really wind up with a real first draft this time. Cross your fingers, knock wood, all that jazz.

If you are paying attention, you may also have noticed that I started this draft last Saturday and have officially hit 15,000 words. That averages out to almost 2,000 words/day. That's a reasonably blazing fast speed for me. I feel obliged to point out, however, that I have been working on this story off and on for nearly two years. And even when not actually working on it, I have been dreaming about it. And I just spent the better part of the last two months outlining the hell out of this story. It had damn well better be just about falling off my fingertips.

Having said that, I'll be switching time periods and character viewpoints sometime in the next week or so. I also have some upcoming family obligations/events that will cut into my writing time. So I don't anticipate continuing at quite as breakneck a pace. But it's nice to watch that progress meter jumping ahead while it lasts.

A life you don't live is still lost

The first week back to school and work following winter break felt much like being hit by a bus. Repeatedly. This was due at least in part to me overestimating what I could accomplish during my "free" time. I pried my fingers loose from the goals I'd set, took several deep breaths, and reminded myself that I wasn't on my new work schedule just yet, so I wasn't going to get that much work done for myself for another couple weeks. This week was mostly a transition period between my previous 25 hours/week with the kindergarten/preschool crowd to my 10 hours/week schedule which will officially start next week. It also involved the usual smattering of dentist, orthodontist, and other appointments. And on Friday I got to play roadie for Joey, as we hauled his drums in to church so he could play with the pianist and choir for an all-school mass. I overheard a couple of teachers plotting to get him back for a repeat performance sometime, so I think he did well. (I thought he was awesome, of course, but we all know how objective mothers are about such things.)

My primary projects for 2010 are Crowmaker, the 2YN class over at Forward Motion, and my Fiction Writing elective over at the middle school. Actually, with the priorities in the reverse order, pretty much. If anything happens with the novella I finished and subbed late in 2009, I'll probably shuffle Crowmaker off to the side and work on a follow-up project for that same publisher. But that's a big "if," so I'm not counting on it.

The way electives are set up over at the middle school, the kids have the option to switch to a different offering mid-year. No one in my first semester class opted to leave. I got five new students, all of whom seem as enthusiastic thus far as my initial group. Our first class of the second semester, I gave my pep talk which is summed up with "No attempt at writing a story is a waste of time if you learned something from it." Then I asked my first semester students, even if they hadn't quite finished their story or weren't completely happy with how it turned out, did they feel like they knew more about writing than they had at the beginning of the school year? I got a big round of enthusiastic nods in reply. I am pleased, and my motivation is renewed.

But I'm too young to worry

Today's blog title is dedicated to Jimmy Owen Sullivan, because Joey is seriously bummed about the death of a drummer whose style and technique he admired. And hey, I kinda like some of Avenged Sevenfold's stuff, too. And just because it's always pretty sucky when someone that young dies.

Tomorrow is back to school and work day. I knew winter break would go by too fast. I was right. I have organized myself and set some writing goals for 2010. With some trepidation, I've signed on for the Two Year Novel course at the Forward Motion Writers' Community. I tried telling myself I didn't need any additional projects, but myself kept answering with that niggly little "but I really think you need to do this" tickle in my gut. So I caved and signed on. I do usually learn a lot by trying out other writers' processes, and the community in general seems like a decent group of folks.

And to kick off 2010, I have sold a story. "On A Black Horse" will appear in the anthology The Four Horsemen from Pill Hill Press. That was another case of the niggly little tickle, that time inspiring me to dig out an old almost-story and turn it into a real story because it seemed like it would fit so perfectly in that call for submissions. Thank you, niggly little tickle.

I know there's a balance, I see it when I swing past

It's funny, because I picked out this entry's title and then peeked at my first 2009 entry to ground myself in where I was a year or so ago before I attempted to write this entry. And lo and behold...

"The key word for 2009, I think, will be "balance." I will continue to hold a good balance between time for family and time for writing and time for just me. In my writing, I will continue to seek that elusive balance between doing the smart things I need to do to pursue a career, and doing what I want to do because I love it."

Overall, I think I mostly succeeded at that goal of balance. Oh, I had my off days (weeks, months...), but looking back, I feel mostly good about the last 12 months. Some highlights:

Zero stories sold. BUT. I started three new short stories (two of which were flash pieces), three novels, and a novella. I finished one of each, got a nibble and subsequent rejection on the novel, and got the short and the novella out into submission-land. The novel has been trunked because it was written specifically for a single market, but I learned a LOT from its writing, so I call it a success nonetheless. And I still have the three stories I finished in 2008 out there, too, although I have one back in my court and a second that probably is even though I never got a formal rejection from its most recent submission. Possibly I should take a few days at the start of 2010 and re-evaluate both of those.

I also pitched and landed a gig teaching a fiction writing elective at the boys' middle school. And then spent a part-time job's worth of hours putting together lesson plans in addition to the 45 minutes a week actually teaching the class. My students all seem to really enjoy the class, we've had some great discussions, and most of them have turned in some reasonably workable bits of writing. Sometime in the next couple of months, I suppose I should give some attention to determining if I'll offer to teach the course next year, as well as whether I might offer some classes outside school hours. I need to do some thinking about the time I'd need to put in vs. the time I'll have available, since Joe starts high school next year (!) and our schedule will be changing to accommodate treks to two different schools each day.

In the non-writing, work-related arena, I have spent the first semester of this school year putting in 24 hours/week with the school's extended care program, primarily working with the kindergarten-age students. It has been a mixture of joy and agony that only children can provoke. I have one more week with them in January, then they go full-day kindergarten and I go to a 2 day per week schedule working with the preschoolers instead. I will miss my kindergarten kids. And I cannot wait to be done working with them every day. Given the previously mentioned schedule change next year and the low rate of pay associated with the job, I think it's fair to say I will not be working there on a regular basis next school year. But honestly? I think I've held my ground far better than I feared I might--I may have mentioned a time or two that I do not thrive in people-intensive situations, and working at the school has most definitely been people-intensive.

This been a growing year for me. (For my boys, too, but I will save that for another entry, I think.)

I can't put numbers to this claim; there's no word count or chart of stories started or completed or timecard of hours worked to support this claim. There were short stories jotted down in first draft form and never looked at again. There were novels half-started and then put away to make way for other projects. There were months of spinning my wheels on figuring out what to do with a novel I thought I had a first draft of but came to realize that I hadn't really even begun. There were weeks I blew on leisure activities that had nothing whatsoever to do with writing. (OK, yes. Gaming. I said it.)

But I honestly, sincerely feel like I have a better grip on what I'm doing than I did 12 months ago. I came across the phrase "exploratory draft" in a fellow writer's forum signature today that shines a crystal clear light on what that first draft of Crowmaker really was. I finished my first play-through of Dragon Age: Origins and had a series of mini-epiphanies about plot structure and character motivation, seen from a fresh angle. I did some experimental, "not-for-real" writing just for me that helped me break through walls and bring a new confidence to my "real" writing. I got a rejection letter that informed me in one fell swoop that my writing style was beautiful, but the story itself just moved too slowly, which chimed a note of recognition somewhere deep inside me and brought to my conscious mind what my subconscious had evidently been trying to tell me for some time--that all my effort on style was great and starting to pay off, but now I need to pay more mind to story structure. And a hundred, thousand other tiny moments of learning that I may have missed if I haven't spent the last couple of years struggling to listen to my instincts.

Looking forward to 2010, then:

I will not fool myself. There will be rough patches. There always are. But there will be periods of energy and productivity, too. There always are. I will continue to try finding my personal work rhythm and developing my writing process. I will continue to look and listen for the tiny moments of learning and attempt to apply them to my writing. I will cross my fingers on the stories currently out in the submission void, I will (possibly) work on getting out there again if/when they come back, and I will charge ahead with the novel that is beginning to feel like the great but challenging love of my life. Last year at this time, I was afraid of Crowmaker; it feels much more doable now, although still frightening. We'll see where it goes in 2010, I suppose.