Row80 update May 6, 2012

Cinco de Mayo is behind us, and a great and fun week at the symphony has been put to bed. More on that this next week.

Concerning my Row80 goals – once again, it’s a mixed bag. I had my frequent house guest, and between that fun and work, the beds didn’t get made! The one thing that I’m bitchin’ with is the walking – I walked every day, mostly 30+ minutes, even though the heat is ramping up here in South Texas. The bathroom is still a science experiment. I’m grateful that my guest didn’t mind!

Last Sunday I wrote over 1800 words… then didn’t write another the rest of the week. This is not okay with me… and will change this week! I spent a lot of time on Social Media on Sunday, and continue to read blogposts and comment. I feel good about that.

I was supposed to write a non-row80 blogpost last week. As you can see, I didn’t. However, I have 2 posts in mind for this week, and they will  be accomplished!

I have been practicing, mostly due to necessity. I have some big parts to play in the next two weeks, and would like my stress level to be as low as possible. Right now it’s off the charts. By the time we get to the concerts, all will be well.

I started a new knitting project – a mohair cardigan – and am almost finished with a very generously-sized gauge swatch. I have no idea if I’ve “gotten gauge”, but the fabric is so wonderfully light and airy that I don’t care if I end up knitting another gauge swatch, or two before actually getting to the sweater. The wool scarf that I started a while back is on the back burner for now. As I’ve mentioned before, I have creative ADHD. I have a gorgeous AVL weaving loom that I’ve been trying to sell for some time to no avail. However, the weaving bug may be biting again, so I guess it’s a good thing that I haven’t sold it yet!

I haven’t done anything toward learning mask-making, even with inspiration like this.

I still haven’t managed to schedule a meet up with any local writer tweeps for May – we’re all so busy!

A successful week: Row80 update

I feel a sense of satisfaction, glancing over my list of Row80 goals. I’m happy with my progress in almost every area under Better Life Habits, so much so that I’m adding a couple of other goals.

While I haven’t been religious about walking every single day, I’m well on my way to establishing the following habits: turning off lights, making my bed, shutting cabinet doors, having a clean kitchen sink, so I’m adding the following: keeping the bathroom clean, and brushing the dog 1x/week. My canine is a miniature poodle, so brushing her is essential… and I’m a bad doggy mom. I let her go, and then it’s a huge chore when I get around to it… which is a task that I’m still putting off. TODAY, Ms. Blossom – I promise! I’m sick of the science experiment that is my bathroom, oy. Enough said, or perhaps too much.

Creatively, I’m now officially unblocked! As I blogged two days ago, I had a major realization, and the ideas (if not the words) are flowing again. Yay! Unfortunately, I haven’t been practicing, knitting, or starting on the mask-making project, because I’ve been rather out of control re: Facebook, Tiny Wings, and Stoneloops of Jurassica. And instead of finishing my scarf, I’m thinking of starting on a sweater. Or a weaving project. I must have creative ADD.

I posted a non-Row80 blogpost (linked above) this week, and have another planned for next week (yay), this is my Sunday check in. I’ve been on Twitter and reading blogs, and did the monthly get-together with local writer tweeps. Come to think of it, we need to schedule one for May.

Next week will be more of a challenge, because my houseguest will be back on Tuesday for 5 days. I hope I can have some boundaries with her, and get some stuff done while she’s here. I know she’ll understand – and she has a couple of projects to work on, too.

Row80 is turning out to be a positive thing for me, this time around. Last time my health issues got the better of me, but that is more or less in the past, and I’m looking forward to the next several months. Except for the temperature part. Summer is tough here in South Texas.

How are you doing, at the end of April? Have you made Row80 or New Years’ Goals that you’re struggling with? What are your success stories?

Quit Resisting the Muse!

By Julia Indigo/@juliaindigo

 

The past several weeks have been, for all practical purposes, novel-writing free. As you might remember, I received a sleep apnea diagnosis a while back, and have now completed two months of treatment using a CPAP machine. I’m finally feeling mostly better, having more energy. If I wasn’t superstitious I’d say that I’m over the hump.

:::knocks on wood:::

Most weeks I’d barely managed 1,000 words, and that mostly blogposts, some weeks were a big, fat zero. Then on April 22nd I knocked out over 2,100. What happened? I stopped trying to tell my muse what’s what, that’s what!

I have been trying to hog-tie my (now 116,000+ word) novel into something that made three-act sense. I was looking for that opening scene, that inciting incident which would hook the reader into reading something that I hoped would be around 85,000 words. And it wasn’t working. I was blocked up, unable to move until I figured out where the heck to begin.

Then on Sunday morning, in the shower, my muse hit me over the head. (She has a way of jumping me when I least expect it).

“Just write the damned thing! Tell this man’s story! Damn the word count! We’ll figure it out later!”

Um, yeah. By the time I had dried my hair, I had the beginnings of three new scenes begging to be put on paper, and was ENTHUSED about writing again.

Today? I’m all WTH if it turns into a 210,000 word-trilogy. I’m unblocked, and writing better than ever.

And… I found a website with a novel-writing system that really appeals to me: the Snowflake System.

 

I’m going to take that out for a walk today, going through the steps for this particular novel, and fitting in the scenes that I’ve already written as I find them. Then I’m going to finish this novel, and self-publish it.

Row80 update, 4/22/12

This past week has been full of misfortune and woe, stark realizations, and progress.

On Sunday, two baby hummingbirds were taken by some bird of prey. I know about this because I had been watching Phoebe’s webcam. The recorded video from the attack stung my heart – though luckily the hawk had perched on the webcam and knocked it down, so you couldn’t see the predation. As you can see, she’s already rebuilt the nest, in another place. I think there’s a lesson for us all in this. Her human watchers were all aghast, but Phoebe? She got on with it. (There is another hummer webcam, Emma’s nest, if you’re interested. She has two hatchlings as of this writing.)

Then on Monday I learned that a dear friend’s 22-year-old son was killed in a one car automobile accident early Sunday night, the 15th. It was late, and he was driving through the Texas Hill Country near Driftwood, TX. Four other people have lost their lives on that particular stretch of road – something about a blind corner. There is nothing good to say about this circumstance. The funeral was Saturday.

Later on Monday I learned that my mom needed to have a breast biopsy on Tuesday. On Thursday the preliminary pathology report came back: it is cancer. She is 81, and a 16-year breast cancer survivor. It seems that this will be another easily-beaten cancer, though at this time we don’t know what she will have to go through. Last time it was a lumpectomy plus radiation. At her age, I hope they don’t prescribe chemo.

She is surprisingly unaffected by this diagnosis – she just wants the tumor OUT… NOW! The women in our family have a history of breast cancer, going back to her mother, who had a mastectomy. My 88-year-old aunt has had a double mastectomy, after having breast cancer twice. I imagine that my turn will come soon enough, within the next ten years if my mom and her sister’s experiences are any indication. I am accepting of this risk, and get my yearly mammograms.

I also had an echocardiogram and a 24-hour cardiac monitor this week, because I’ve been having palpitations for a couple of months. I don’t think that it’s any big deal – I’ve had them off and on for years – but a friend recently had a heart attack and needed to have a stent (she is a couple years older than me, and is slender!), so I took it as a friendly head’s up and decided that I’d better check in with a cardiologist for the first time in about four years. I won’t know anything for a week or so.

So – on to Row 80 and my goals. You’d think that I would have been knocked for a loop, but I wasn’t. The holter monitoring was a huge bother – I thought the itching under the tape was going to drive me insane – and I’ve been a depressed, but on Friday I came out of it and actually wrote a blogpost! Will wonders never cease…

Better Life Habits: I’ve been doing quite well in the mornings, actually making my bed before noon most days. (huge grin) I managed to walk five times in the past seven (helps with the depression), and the lights are off and the cabinet doors are closed most of the time. The kitchen sink has proven to be more of a challenge, but hey, I’m managing. I’ve spent too much time on Facebook, and when I’m depressed iPhone games are too easy.

Creatively, I have had a moribund week until Friday, when I wrote the above-linked blogpost. The muse came out and kicked me in the butt, and I tried to do some writing over the weekend, to no avail. Today I’m going to go for a walk, then sit down with the laptop and start pounding away. It will probably be shite, but that’s better than the total lack of progress I made last week. I’ve done nothing with Holly Lisle’s How To Think Sideways course, but it’s there waiting for me when I decided to actually do something about it. I haven’t been practicing the flute, but that may be changing soon. I haven’t had the inclination to knit, or work on my mask-making project, but I have been delving back into tarot again, participating at Aeclectic Tarot from time to time. I have a large collection of decks, and this week added a much longed for deck: the Tarot de Paris. I enjoy reproductions of historical woodcut decks, and this is one that I’ve lusted after for years, after just missing the winning bid on eBay a while back. I also have discovered some wonderful self-published decks, like the Incidental Tarot. I don’t know where my revitalized interest in historical and new tarots will lead me, but it makes me happy, so that can’t be too bad!

Social Media: I haven’t been on twitter (bad, BAD writer!), but I have written the non-row80 blogpost, and will have a writer meetup today at 2:30 with a couple of my writer friends. I’m SO looking forward to that!

I finally got an invite to Pinterest, and have some thoughts for image-collecting there. But for now I’ll leave you with an unattributed quote from yesterday’s funeral.

Great is the matter of birth and death;

impermanence surrounds us.

Be awake each moment;

do not waste your life.

Godspeed, J.J.

Early Row80 Check in

Since I have this afternoon off, I thought I’d go ahead and write Sunday’s Row80 check in. The week has been a mixed bag, in large part due to a house guest, and finishing up my tax return.

Better life habits: Housekeeping: I was much better with the cabinet doors/lights/ and kitchen sink. However, I didn’t make up my bed the entire week. FAIL! I have to laugh at myself. I was getting up too late and rushing around at the last minute.

I didn’t walk much at all – and I’ll blame that on the weather and my schedule. And my house guest. I did limit my Facebook time – that was a success. iPhone games? Not so much.

Creativity: I did not spend any time with my HTTS course, or finish my plotting. I managed to write yesterday, and have been knitting every day during downtime. I didn’t practice every day, but I did think about it. Does that count?

Social Media: I didn’t write a blogpost, but I am managing the Row80 check in. I have been on twitter, and the get-together with local writer tweeps is scheduled for the 22nd.

While I didn’t manage to make these goals a reality this week, I’m not down on myself. Health-wise it was a difficult week. A couple of days I was dealing with heavy fatigue, when simply breathing seemed like work. I also had my friend visiting (she works with me), and some of my creative time was taken up by social time with her… a trade-off that I don’t regret at all.

The one thing that I feel bad about is not making up my bed! Julia! Just get up when the alarm goes off and do it!

I find that my word count takes a nosedive when I don’t take the time to exercise. It’s as though my Muse requires me to get into my body in order for her to speak. Taking a shower works, too, as long as I have the time for a leisurely shower. Holly Lisle talks a lot about getting/letting the Muse speak in her How To Think Sideways course, and I can’t wait until my life evens out more so I can get into the meat of that course. For now, it’s one day at a time.

Oh, and the IRS owes me money: THREE dollars. (applied to next year’s taxes, of course!)

It Builds Character

By Julia Indigo/@juliaindigo

My initial inspiration for writing was character-based. I invented a man, gave him a name, a profession, and built his character from there. I thought you might be interested in how I did it… and, of course, there are gaping holes in my process that you might be interested in pointing out to me in the comments. How could it be otherwise? I’m a newly-minted writer. I don’t know much. I’m going on instinct.

Oddly enough, for a musician, I am a very visually-oriented person. The first thing I determine about a character is his appearance. What kind of physical impression does he make? How tall? What kind of physique? Is he athletic and muscular, or friendly and pudgy?

 

Superficial things like eye/hair color and hair style. How does he walk? Does she stride, or mince? Does she live in her head most of the time, or is this someone who is completely at home in her body? Yoga, or softball, or websurfing? Or regular surfing? Running? Couch potato? Golfer?

Then style of dress. Does she dress up all the time, fashion forward? Is this someone who pays attention to grooming, or has he given up on all that?

 

Canelli is (obviously) of Italian heritage, and wealthy. Of course he wears Italian leather shoes! How could he not?

And what does it feel like to be in her presence? Does he dominate a room? Or is she a wallflower? What kind of conversationalist? Listener? Does he give you his entire attention, or is this person constantly scanning the room, in case there’s someone else they’d rather be seen with/ needs to talk to/ wants to seduce/ is dying to meet?

Is the individual an optimist or a pessimist? Do they kvetch? Constantly? Frequently? Rarely? Never? A joiner, or a loner? A thinker? A feeler? A sensualist? A judgmental S.O.B. or an airy-fairy ‘all is forgiven’ type? Oooh. I could see this turning into one of those online personality sorter questionnaires! There’s a thought! Go take the MBTI/enneagram tests AS THE CHARACTER!

What is his family history? I found this to be indispensable! In the case of Steven Canelli, he’s the youngest of seven, the only boy. The Canellis are a very wealthy Italian-American family. His father established their highly-successful family-owned ethnic foods company. They are Catholic, and live in Lake Forest, an upper-crust community north of Chicago, IL.

 

I don’t know about you, but when the above came to me, I knew bucketloads about this guy. Adding in that he is the product of his mother’s love affair, and as such his very existence is a constant (unpleasant) reminder to his (also unpleasant) ‘father’ that he’s a cuckold… well, you have the recipe for difficulties later in Steven’s life: addictions, problems with women, overachievement/workaholism, etc… and the story flows from these difficulties.

 

Then there’s history. I already know where he grew up. If he went to college, where did he go? What was his major? What did he like to do for fun back then? What is his work history? What is his relationship history? Did he break someone’ heart? Was his heart broken? And… How has that history molded him into the man he is today?

 

One method I use to construct temperament is to visualize/fantasize being the character. What does it feel like to be in his body? What is her point of view? This works well when I’m stuck, particularly when writing dialogue. I imagine myself as one of the characters, and physically move the way they might, if they were responding to what someone said. Do his eyes harden in response to someone’s comment, or do they soften? Does he glance away? Does she take a deliberate breath, or sigh, or pretend to cough? Is he cocksure, smirking and coming on to her? Does she meet his eyes, then roll hers dismissively?

 

And finally, what is the character’s reaction to the shit that I sling at them? As Chuck Wendig says, ‘Torture your characters! Throw them against the wall! Kill their kittens/puppies! etc…’ That isn’t a direct quote from Chuck, but you get the idea. Yes, I love Steven Canelli… but the dude’s got issues! The whole point is whether or not he can overcome them, and what craziness it takes to eventually get his attention. Hint: it isn’t called ‘hitting bottom’ for nothing! Oh wait! That sounds kinky, and I didn’t mean it that way! Let’s just say that the guy has a lot to lose, and yes, he loses it.

How do imagine your characters? Do you base them on people that you know? Do you interview them, or write their histories (as I have learned to do)? Let me know in the comments. And thank you for reading!

My First Anniversary: My First WIP

Today is my First Anniversary… my first writing anniversary! I have been writing for one year.

February has historically been a questionable month for me. After all the darkness of winter I’m left in a deep depression, waiting for spring. I hit my lowest of lows in February 1994, when I had a nervous breakdown of sorts. I still have my struggles with depression, but for the most part, I’m okay now.

So it’s a blessing to put a gold star on February 20th, a star to brighten an otherwise bleak month.

My bestie is a writer, among other wonderful things. Sometime last winter she sent me a few pages of the novel she was writing, and I was blown away. Then it was as if a tiny angel whispered in my ear: you can do this too, Julia. Just give it a try.

I sat down with my laptop and opened up a word processing file, and started to write about Steven. I am character driven, but already had a scene for him. Boom. There it was. I opened up skype and read it to my bestie. She said, “Oh my god, Julia, you’re a writer!” I took on the mantle from that moment.

My life changed in an instant. Today I’m a happier person, more focused, more passionate, devouring everything I can about the craft… and, of course, WRITING.

I plotted out Steven’s life, and wrote out of order. For almost a year I had no idea how this book would end, but I kept on writing in fits and starts, until I had 90k words. Then I put it on the back burner for NaNoWriMo, and only returned to the Story of Steven Canelli in the past three weeks or so. I finally figured out the ending, which brought his life back full circle. Last night I wrote that final chapter, with a short epilogue planned.

But… and it’s a huge but… the book is nowhere near finished. I’ve cut out huge swaths of material (perhaps for a reader freebie in the future), and am seriously considering a complete rewrite to first person.

Even with that, I don’t know if I’ll ever publish this story. It is, after all, my first novel… and I hear that most writers have four or five of their first work in a drawer somewhere. But you have to start somewhere, and I did. I am a writer. One of the Creatives!

Catching up

Life has happened, recently.

I haven’t written a word since the 5th, mostly because of health issues. I am shatteringly exhausted, but I have a good medical team, and things will sort themselves out soon enough. We’ve been working on this since early January – which is why I ditched Row80. It’s frustrating (to say the least) to not be able to do what I really want to do: write. I can’t even concentrate enough to participate on Facebook or Twitter.

The only thing I have energy for is work – and the only reason I have energy for that is the need to ‘put food on my family’, to quote President Bush. Thankfully, we have this week off, and I have a list as long as my arm of Very Important Tasks to do. This Virgo likes to strike things off lists… but that isn’t happening this week. I’m hoping to accomplish one thing per day – and sleeping might well be that one thing.

I’m sorry for the whinge, but I wanted you all to know that I haven’t fallen in a crevasse somewhere. I’m at home, propping my eyelids up.

Dealing with Difficult People

By Julia Indigo/@juliaindigo

… at least, those you can’t summarily dismiss from your life!

Lucky me! I’m in the midst of a deepening friendship, with someone who is outwardly completely different than me. We’re different ages, races, ethnicities, we don’t speak the same language (though she speaks mine quite well), and if you saw us out together you’d probably look twice. We share gender and profession, and a direct manner of speaking. You never have to look for subtext in our words. We say what we mean. We’re also at the same level of emotional development – maybe. I say maybe because I have a feeling that she’s more emotionally mature than I am.

No, actually, I’m sure she is.

But I digress.

The other day we had a long lunch, discussing a particular situation in one of our lives… a situation with an emotionally manipulative and immature person, but one that is dear, and will remain close for some time.

How do you deal with that?

We talked about the situation and batted around various methods of dealing with the person. In that process, we came up with three attitudes that one can intentionally bring to any interaction with a difficult person.

COMPASSION

As my friend said, “We are all stuck in this hard life.” I hadn’t thought about it this way before, but life is definitely not easy. Time moves forward inexorably, and it’s easy to be swamped by the environment. Whether it’s being caught driving in a hailstorm, acquiring a damaged car in the process (as several of my colleagues were on Friday night), or finding oneself old and almost friendless, it’s easy enough to be caught unawares as the world passes you by. Decisions made in better times turn out to have been wrongheaded, decisions made by someone else impact you negatively, and you struggle.

At times it’s easy to put oneself in another’s shoes and see what their life is like, but whether or not it is, one can always choose to approach another with compassion for their humanity.

ACCEPTANCE

In my own interactions with a particular difficult person, I realized that the true struggle between the two of us was the desire on both our parts that the other change. Neither of us accepted the other as we were! There was no end to this difficulty, until I decided that the other was fine just as they were. After all, who made me the judge of anyone else!

There is a wonderful passage in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous concerning acceptance. I’ll quote a bit of it to give you a taste of its wisdom.

And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation — some fact of my life — unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.

I respectfully suggest that you go read the whole thing… it’s not very long.

And here’s the kicker from my experience, and it’s HUGE:

Accepting someone as they are frees them to grow, if they so choose. Because beating someone over the head with a stick that reads ‘you aren’t okay until you do X’ guarantees that they will armor and defend themselves, and resist changing!

It was only as I accepted the other as they were, that our relationship changed from one of almost constant dissonance into the relative peace that we experience today.

RESPECT

Many, many years ago I had a rough relationship with a colleague. It was obvious to me that he did not respect me, and it grated. Our work relationship was fraught, and it affected everyone around us (I hope I used ‘affected right! Let me know in the comments if I didn’t!).

Then something happened which is as fresh in my mind as if it happened yesterday. I was at home, and in a flash I realized that I didn’t respect him, either. That realization pinged my value system – and I made the decision to respect him from then on, no matter how he treated me.

Can you guess what happened?

The very next time I saw him, before I spoke a word to him, before there was any interaction between us AT ALL… he changed. It was as though my decision went through the ether, and affected him (that word, again! AAUGH!), and he treated me differently. He treated me with respect, and to this DAY our relationship is friendly. No, actually, it’s not friendly, it’s close. He’s retired now, but every time we see each other it’s a hugfest.

I wish I could say that I bring these three attitudes to all my interactions in my daily life, but that would not be true, as I am a work in progress. Blogging about it is yet another way to cement it into my consciousness, and perhaps, just perhaps, the people who I meet from now on will experience me as more compassionate, accepting, and respectful.

How do YOU deal with unpleasant and difficult people in your life? Do you consciously bring these attitudes, or other positive ones, to those relationships? Please share, I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

My First WIP is…

 

… giving me indigestion.

 

I bought Scrivener a few days ago, and was happily putting my NaNoWriMo novel into it. I love the way each part of the story is easily accessible, and how the outline and corkboard views make it easy to see the story’s trajectory. So far so good. I was psyched.

Then I decided to put my first (unfinished) novel in, and uff da. What a mess! What I’ve written covers most of the protag’s life, from just after birth to his 50s in therapy.

 

::excuse me while I die laughing at myself::

 

 

************************

 

 

Ahem. That took a while. Advice from the writing blogosphere: don’t write your character’s therapy. It’s boring to read! (in my defense, I got bored myself and didn’t finish the scene…)

I was a complete pantser when I wrote the Canelli book, with no concern for plotting. I had scenes in my mind, and though many of them turned into true chapters, the chapters don’t fit together. In fact, the character changed as I wrote, becoming a much more complex, darker character. That kind of character development works well in novels, but I’d been writing his story out of chronological order. At 38 (which I wrote in August 2011) he’s a dark character, while at 48 (which I wrote in March 2011) he’s a happy being of light.

I hope to rescue this 96k novel and turn it into something more readable. (Yes, I wrote nearly 100k in this meandering mess.)

My first task: setting up a three to four-act plot. What is the point? Who/what is the antagonist? What does the protag want? What is his passion? What scares him to death, makes him break out in a cold sweat? What would he give everything he has to have in his life?

My second task is like unto the first: deciding what happens in the end, and write it. Is the guy salvageable? Or have his secret compulsions backed him into such a dark place that there is no way out? Will he manage to weasel his way out of XXX?

Can I bust out a series of short stories from this manuscript? Or a bloody TRILOGY? (Duology?) Or a sensible Contemporary Fiction 85k word novel? Or will I finish it at all?

 

That’s a lot of questions to be answered. There’s a bunch of dreck to be deleted, okay stuff to be rewritten, and some awesome wordsmithing in the manuscript. Time to spend some time coming up with a working logline, and plot from there.

The basic formula for a logline (from Anne R. Allen’s linked post above):

When______happens to_____, he/she must_____or face_____.

That’s what I don’t yet have… but I will!