The Worst Kind of Month

Despite all good intentions, getting through the second draft and rewrites of the second book in my Shig Sato mystery series has  been much more time-consuming than I expected

Such intentions led to a writing schedule, churning out 1,000 words a day, monitoring my (still very) anemic marketing for book 1, keeping track of meager sales, but the main thing I realized: getting it all done was a lesson in itself. I’m still learning, still striving, still adjusting to the fact I have to put in A LOT more hours than I am right now. Full-time job? Who cares. Home? Kids? These aren’t problems, they’re excuses. Everyone has things in their life that must be dealt with, If creating a writing life was so easy, everyone would do it.

Then came a death in the family.

The moment I knew I had to stop my life and go be with my family, travel from home for a week and tear my attention away from my job and my writing, was when I realized it should not take a death to sharpen my focus and get the job done. Every moment I spend with my family is precious, and I am glad for the time I spend with them. I wish I could spend more time with them. These thoughts made me think about time, and how I wasted it – days, months, years wasted when I didn’t put in the hours to make my dream a reality.

Being away from home to deal with a family tragedy forced me to realize that despite not knowing how much of it I have, time is the one thing I can choose how to spend. So how will I choose to spend my time? Watching a ball game on TV or staying up late and watching a movie on my tablet? I know I don’t read enough, write enough, spend nearly enough time on my indie author business. It’s the irony of our lives – time is the one commodity we have control over and yet we don’t know how much of it we have. That’s why it’s such a crime to waste it. When I arrived home, I realized I didn’t know how much time I have — but I know how many hours there are in a day, and what I do with them. So I must use them wisely, and make every hour count.

This writing life that I embrace has been a mixed bag of writing, stopping for years, writing some more, sending work off to magazines and agents, getting rejected, stopping altogether, then writing some more. It’s only been in the last seven years that I’ve put in the time to warrant saying ‘this is what I do’ and go flat out.

I’m not worried about the marketing, the sales — I know I will get into that more in the months to come, and that will come along eventually. For me, right now, the writing is the thing. Putting in the time is the thing. Focusing on getting the job done is the thing.

My goal for this year was to write and publish two more Shig Sato stories. One is nearly complete and may be out by December. The other is half-written, and needs a lot of work. I did not put in the time to meet my goal. I know that now.

So now I need to manage my time better, and get some more writing done.

How about you?

Five feet high and rising

My absence can be explained this way. I’m deep into editing book two of the Shig Sato Mystery series — finished the first draft, started making corrections, decided some chapters needed to go, others needed to be in different places — and while making the corrections, finding other stuff that needs attention, and even while watching TV or walking to work, thinking about new and different plot lines and details.

Sound familiar?

Writing is rewriting. This is a hard lesson to learn. I came up through the journalism ranks, the “Get it right and get it out” school of daily journalism where rewriting was a luxury only feature writers and editorial writers possessed. One of the hardest things for me to do is turn off the journalism/non-fiction switch and turn on the creative writing/fiction switch. I liken it to driving 55 mph and then slamming on the brakes and putting the car in reverse at 55 mph. (Please don’t try this.)

I am usually pretty good at shutting down the editor part of my brain while writing, so when the time comes to edit and rewrite, it’s as if the editor part is catapulted to freedom, to run amok among the words that are just-about-there-but-not-quite ready. And it likes to play. What I find incomprehensible is the flood of ideas that pass through my mind like a raging flood. It’s scary and thrilling at the same time. And addictive. It’s my favorite part of the writing process.

The rewrite — aka second draft — is about 70 percent compete. After that, another edit and then copies sent to beta readers. Then it’s on to book three.

I am getting closer, and going further.

I promise to be back. Soon.

Writing Grows from Ideas, Rewriting Shapes the Writing

A continuation of last week’s post:

Another topic in the conversations I had focusing on writing centered on how the essence of stories are lost in the verbiage the writer wants to use when stringing sentences together.  In other words, the writer knows what he or she wants to write, and the sentences come out beautifully, but the story is hard to find among the finely turned phrases. I think what happens is the writer knows what he or she wants to say but gets caught up “in the moment” of writing and the words get in the way.

 For example, find any recent college or high school graduation story, print or viral, and see if the story includes basic information: name and location of school,  the guest speaker, valedictorian, salutatorian, what was said, how many students graduated — you name it. Is it a speech story? Depending on the guest speaker, maybe it is. But far too much time was spent trying to come up with different adjectives and adverbs to describe a run-of-the-mill graduation story without getting in the facts, takes far too much time to write, and for the editor, takes far too much to edit.

How does this apply to writing fiction? Ideas tend to grow from the inside out, like dropping a pebble in a pond, and watching the ripples grow larger and larger. But writing is rewriting. It’s like that unruly shrub that needs to be trimmed back. So get some sharp clippers and have it.

Writers love to stand in shade and drop pebbles into ponds. Who doesn’t? But the work of the writer is standing in the sun, hot and thirsty, clipping back the shrubs to make them look like something. It isn’t easy. In fact, a lot of times it just plain sucks. But in the end it’s worth it.