Third time's the charm...

So, I think it must be something MPT has about 39 Steps, but remember what I said about Masterpiece Classic back in April? Well, tonight, they're doing it again.

::chuckles::

They really love that movie for telethons, I'm thinking.

...And so do I.

The Joys of a Dangling Carrot

This week, I've been thinking about how lucky it is that I've got people to work with that understand the joys of a dangling carrot. For the last couple of years, it's been a real motivator: while I've created my own goals, I've had someone to cheer me on and offer some sort of reward for success. It never has to be something big or serious. Sometimes we send candy or cards. Occasionally we trade books. Sometimes it is something big, like a tee shirt or a piece of jewelry. But, more often than not, it's something totally funny. Among my favorite prizes are a little keychain-dangly Angel, a little knit bottle hat, and a little figurine of a woman with a sword (who is currently on my desk, wearing said hat). I'd like to hope that they've gotten the same giggle from the "Writing Rescue Dog" I sent as a trophy or the Halloween pins and stickers for goals accomplished in the weeks surrounding the holiday. Or baked treats. Or a candy they love and haven't had in a while. A little something to brighten the day and a lovely surprise in the mail. And these days, who gets good mail all that often?

And I know, that if it gives me a warm and fuzzy to see that lovely package in the mail, no matter what's hidden behind the plain brown wrapping, it does the same for my Comrades-in-arms. So, in giving there's an added and shared joy, a celebration of success for that other person and a wonderful knowledge of something wonderful is going to brighten their day, too.

I'm telling you this in part to say thank you to my writing mates, without whom this journey would be so much more difficult. While promising yourself ice cream for accomplishing something is great, it's just not as stimulating or rewarding as having a friend promise to send you stickers if you make it through another week of editing the story that feels like climbing Everest.

But, I'm also telling you this to offer you something to think about for yourselves: what sorts of dangling carrots help you move forward? I'm always looking for ways to help and things to offer as treats. Genn and I have been talking about offering prizes and giveaways here on Sea Monsters. Or even offering formal challenges to each other via the site, for all the world to see. What do you think we should do?

Your insights would be illuminating.... ;)

Thursday Tidbit: A Shoe on the Side of Time's Highway

Why is it discarded shoes are always found alone.... even ancient ones?

5k away my Slump.

So, i've read (and been told) that if you can visualise something you can make it happen. As long as you can see yourself working those steps towards whatever your goal is, anything is possible, right?

With this in mind-- I've decided to train to run a 5k. Yes, I am blogging this to the world, so I have to actually do it. Slightly terrifying. I haven't yet booked a race to run-- that's a bit too scary and ambitious for me, but I have actually printed off a training schedule and set a date to get my feet out on the street-- tomorrow. To be honest, the training doesn't look as scary as I had originally envisioned. It's only three days of actual running, two days of exercise and two rest days. Looking at the training that way, its not only doable, but it seems well, a bit crazy I haven't attempted this yet. You know, besides the fact that I don't really like running. But, as much as I 'don't like running' I've found that the more I do actually run the more I enjoy it. Weird, huh?

And this got me to thinking about my goals for 2010-- and why I've hit such a slump.

I've blogged about being unaccomplished this year and floundering, but I never quite put my finger on why and now I think i know why. I've just lost focus. I'm trying to do so many things (and do them well) that I'm just scattered all over the place. So this week, I'm going to try something else. I'm going to try to set my writing goals out onto a schedule just like the 5k training spreadsheet. Will this be just another procrastination tool? I suspect that might be the case-- but I am awake early on a Monday morning writing this blog post-- one of my many goals for the week-- so that's some modicum of success already, right?

So, today's first goal is accomplished. That's something (and done before work). My second goal for today rests on me being able to finish the scene that refuses to be written. Let's hope I'm that successful.

Unaccomplished

2009 was kind of a bumper year for me. At the very end of 2008 I switched jobs and wound up (finally) in my dream job (woot). I finished my first novel mid 2009 and successfully completely NaNoWriMo for the second year in a row. Overall, I was feeling very accomplished-- very much like everything was on track for 2010 to be the best year of all.

And then... editing struck. My first novel had some really lovely concepts and ideas-- but the book I’d written and the book I started out writing were two very different stories. Stories that would need comprehensive months of editing to merge into one readable draft. Our writing group began to set deadlines and make up schedules to swap around our stories... At the time I was completely in denial about the amount of work it would take to produce a draft I felt vaguely confident in showing to other people (even my most trusted readers). So, when the first deadline came up, I had to admit I had failed. I was unable to send out a draft-- but I still had a draft to read from my friend. So, I was now editing a rough manuscript and reading a friend’s draft. Then, the next deadline came along and I was again still working on my novel, editing my friend’s draft and then editing a second draft. Everything had snowballed quite quickly and I was buried.

For a few weeks I felt completely overwhelmed and defeated. I made no progress on any fronts-- not my own work or my friends. I hadn’t just let myself down but now I was letting down my group. I was more upset to see my group let down, if I’m honest.

Then, I began to regroup. My first novel had to be broken before I would be able to see any real progress. I had to get through they very shaky beginning (and the eight new scenes I had to write to tie the two stories together). So, I spoke to my first friend and she agreed it was more important to get my story moving. Two weeks of just concentrating on my book meant I was able to ‘break the back’ of the whole mess. I was able to set a goal for editing my novel and working on hers again. Just taking a tiny bit more time meant I was able to get everything back on track.

Here is the big lesson I’ve learned-- when you work as a group you have to do what works best for the group, but you have to remember what works best for you. I am not great with deadlines. I usually have to set one, then push it back a few times. And as I’m not a professional writer and I’m doing everything in my ‘spare’ time this is fine. If this was my ‘day job’ then I’d just have to embrace deadlines and make them happen (I do just that very successfully in my day job). I work well with small weekly goals. A tiny checklist of things I need to do to move my work forwards. A huge looming deadline doesn’t generally work for me. Maybe it’s my ADHD-- but something so big tends to boggle my brain. It makes me only see the big end result and not the small obtainable steps I need to break everything down into to get there. Now, I’ve got the quiet confidence I was lacking to admit when what I’m working on needs more time. It’s not a race, and while I’m still working on my first novel I’ve finished editing my friend’s first novel and am about two third’s of the way through my second friend’s. I am able to get their stories back to them so that I am no longer letting them down as well. Which is beyond important to me. My work can wait-- but making sure my group is getting the support they need really matters to me. I really don’t mind being behind-- because at least being ‘behind’ I’m making progress. Before, when I was in denial and trying to struggle to stay on schedule, I was just spinning my wheels.

I will never again have the freedom I did in 2008 to just write one project. Going forward I will always be writing something and editing something (maybe not at the same time-- but they will definitely overlap). So, rather than look at 2010 as a series of failures-- or missed goals, I am looking at it as a chance to learn a new skill base. A new way of working on multiple projects that ends in good results.

16th President and Vampire Hunter...?

So, I finished up with Sense, Sensibility, and Seamonsters, a rather fast and enjoyable read and, still madly in love with his prior novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, decided to pick up Seth Grahame-Smith's Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. And while I know that this behavior is *PROCRASTINATION* (yes, all in caps), I (pardon the pun) devoured it.

Yes. This book was that good. It's got such an engaging tone that I would read this even if there weren't vampires. And without the vampires, Old Abe's life is a string of sad circumstances followed by periods of shouldering the burdens of the young nation.

But, where this book really diverges from a normal history -- other than, of course, the vampires -- is that the writing style injects such life into the telling of it. I think this is more along the lines of why I love this book. Because even with the wry humor of our 16th president and the vampires, it's still a very sad story about a man who lost so much and shouldered so much and died for his belief in freedom. The same story we've all heard over many, many years, dusted with chalk, punctuated with the period bell.

I've always heard in those history classes that Abraham Lincoln had a sense of humor. Reading this book, I could actually see that sly wink.

Epic Mother's Day Fail

Okay. So, I kinda knew this was going to happen. But still. This is how far I got with my wrap for Mom:

Which, unfortunately, after about a month of work is still 5 feet 2 inches shy of the finished length.

I ended up buying presents for Mom and then missed my opportunity to get them into the mail.

Sorry, Mom!

I can't win for losing.

Poking a Jellyfish with a Stick... And Hoping not to Get Stung

It seems I'm having a few problems this week getting the process going. I'm currently editing two stories concurrently (try saying that three times fast....), mostly because I figure that when I hit a roadblock on one, I can do something with the other.

This is, of course not always the case, but it does seem to be working for now.

The problem is that I'm finding myself leaning more towards the one that reads more easily than the other that needs more work. The one that needs more work needs almost a full re-write. The story just doesn't work as is. The characters are flat, the story comes to it's conclusion far too quickly, and like Pandora's Box, having unlocked the endgame, it's proving hard to stuff the crap back in there to make the darn thing work. The easy one, I'm finding I'm just skimming along. Occasionally, I hit some little thing, make a note about it and move on. Easy as pie. I can almost see the end from here (although I know I'll be telling myself to "work on this").

I just end up feeling guilty because, like last week, I spend the larger part of my time reading the good one -- ten, twenty pages at a time --, while I'm doing maybe a page a week for rewrites of the other. But, at the same time, it's hard for me to balance that out more. I just don't know, right now, how to fix the story that needs work.

Ugh. Well, I'll take the blessings with the burdens. Hopefully, by the time I've sorted the edits on the easier story, I can come back to the harder one with renewed purpose.

But, does anyone have any advice?

Butt-in-chair method has gotten all of the stories I've written thus far (4!) together, and while editing is always slow, I've been pretty fortunate that the one that's got me stumped has been the only one with the problems I'm having. Along with everything else -- shaky plot, faded characters, hard-to-work with character with perhaps too unique a problem for my writing ability -- I'm also having Pre-mature Ending Syndrome. I feel like I've stumbled over this ending and found "Surprise! You've got nothing else here!"

And it's got me scratching my head, looking at a re-write. Maybe the sea monsters came in over night and stole the rest of the book. Things go missing, perhaps it was the kelpie. Who knows?

So, come on people. The floor is yours. What should I do? Keep on keeping on with the one that works and set this aside? Or should I set aside the easy path? Is there a real compromise between the two that can be had? I'd appreciate any and all feedback.

Undercover Writers

Do you know any undercover writers? I'm going to bet you do. You're probably one of them yourself. Someone who, like me, not only has a day job, but a day job that has very little to do with writing or the genres they love. People who write over their lunch or late at night, people guiltily scribbling away during meetings and never taking "notes."

Have you ever noticed that when you catch some one (or are caught yourself) just how many other people out themselves around you as someone who does the same?

It's funny, really.

And encouraging.

Yo-Ho-Ho and a Bottle of Rum

On topic with a post I wrote for Not So Solitary, a trip to the bookstore a few weeks ago provided me with a myriad of new reading options playing off of the world, characters, and life of Jane Austen, up to and including a book where Jane is residing in modern times -- as a vampire. We'll see how that one turns out.

I am currently about half way through the madness and mayhem of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. And I'm enjoying the trip.

I picked it up after having enjoyed Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

And Zombies??? You ask. Yes, and Zombies. And Ninjas, too.

I enjoyed it so much that when Quirk Books released Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, I figured, Heck, why not.

They aren't written by the same author, but both are irreverent takes on classic books, which, in my mind really only heightens the enjoyment. I love recognizing things you liked about the original story combined with something completely different.

Makes me wish I'd thought of it first.

Books I should not be allowed to read on the Tube...

I read about a book a week on my daily commute to/from work in London. My commute isn't that long (about 45 minutes), but it gives me some vital time to just relax and read a book. I am thankfully not blessed with a Blackberry, laptop or any other electronic shackles. I'm able to just be in my own world for 45 minutes (each way) everyday. Lovely.

As a result, I get through a fair few books.

Generally, I read across varied genres (mostly fiction) and lately I've been on a YA kick. I just finished the fabulous Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter (more on this in another post, I suspect) and picked up Gayle Forman's If I Stay. I'm only about one hundred and fifty pages into this book, but already I can tell this is really not a book suitable for commuting. The book is about a teenage girl and her family who go off one snowy morning to visit friends. Along the way, their car is hit by a truck. Most of the family is killed instantly, but the girl lingers on in a coma and she has to make the choice do I join my family? Or Do I stay? What is there to stay for? The book is brilliantly written and moving, but I can constantly feel the threat of tears pricking at the corners of my eyes. I've sobbed over a fair few NFC (Not for Commuting) books before like The Book Thief (I cried and sniffled to the point of embarassment). I love books that make me feel deeply-- but I also know that they are not the best ways to begin my day (or end it). While I only have around 100 pages of If I Stay left, I'm hoping to finish it this weekend-- because I'm pretty sure starting my Monday morning sobbing is not the best omen for this week.

What about you? Have you read any books that have made you cry while commuting, on a plane, train or bus?

The Drama of Masterpiece Classic....

I just want to share, this amused the hell out of me:

So for the last many months, I've been recording Masterpiece Theater for my Saturday and Sunday morning watching. And this is the second time I've captured 39 Steps.

This is also the second time I've captured the public television telethon. And even though the lady says: "It's so rare that we do this. We're interrupting Masterpiece Classic this one time...," this is the second time I've seen this movie with the telethon interruptions and the only two times I've seen the telethon in the last while (it's been some years now... I suppose I just keep missing it). I had to watch the end last time on the internet because my recording was only for the usual length of the program time (and this time too) and telethons double it.

I know I should just delete it but it's a good movie... so I'm watching it again....

Silly woman....

53 Stitches at a Time

One of my (many) hobbies is knitting. Right now, it's the only one other than writing that I'm consistent about (with the possible exception of singing, although I don't think I can count "in the shower" or "with the radio" as practice, even if those are the only places I perform in these days). And that's because I can do it on my commute to my day job.

The project I'm working on right now, I'm getting in about 53 stitches at a time when I sit down. Which would be great, except that for what I'm working on each row is 103 stitches. And the pattern involves 7 repeats of 72 rows, two sets of 12 rows, and one set of 41 rows. Before placing it into this context, I thought that I was doing pretty good.

At this rate, I'll be lucky to have it done for Christmas, let alone Mother's Day (sorry, Mom!)....

I need a little more time and a few less hobbies (don't get me started about the list of "hobbies" I fuss with)... ;)

But really, it is the story of my life. In the last few years I've gotten a lot better about my writing my putting it into a "small, regular goals reap large, long-term rewards" format. But, it can be a little disheartening to see a couple hundred words, knowing that to get to a full novel you need to get near 50,000 words.

But, everyone needs to start somewhere. And every project needs to start somewhere. Who knows, I've picked up the pace writing before, maybe I'll get faster with the fine yarn and tiny needles.

I'm sure as heck not giving up yet. (This pattern is way too pretty to give up on!)

*Pattern is from 101 Designer One-Skein Wonders.

Don't ask me. I'm new here...

I'm relatively new to the blogging game. I really don't have anything I can teach or preach about. I'm just me: Angel. And, I'm still too new at this. I like to write -- fiction. But, I'm not a professional writer. And, right now, I'm not likely to be one. I write because I enjoy it. Not because it's going to make me rich or famous.

I'm not particularly literary. In fact, I've had a teacher despair that I'm “too clinical” for fiction writing, while a professor of biology claimed I was “too emotional” for science.

Well, that's fine. Because I'm not here as a professional. I'm here because I'm looking to share: Anecdotes, random stories. Thoughts on a book I've read. Really, that's all I've got. And that's not a voice of a teacher. That's the voice of a friend, talking to you about what she's got going on. And hopefully, it's enough. Because that's what I have for you. My unprofessional, random thoughts.

I just hope you don't mind hanging around and letting me know a little about you and your random-and-professional-or-unprofessional thoughts. Talk with us. We'd be happy to hear from you.