Tweaking the Baby

Posted by Joanne Huspek

Last Friday, I finished the edit on VIRTUALLY YOURS, and sent it back for a second pass. I also gave it to a few select beta readers for their input.

You know how I was so happy when I first finished it? Then I was deliriously happy when I placed in the Query Tracker contest? And I was bubbling with joy when I attended the San Francisco Writers Conference and received so many thumbs up from so many agents? Then so happy that Mr. Ed loved it and offered great tips and encouragement?

Well, I felt that way for what? almost the entire weekend…then the doubts started sprouting up like so many mushrooms in my basement.

Since Monday, I have re-edited the manuscript a total of two times and am currently doing the third pass. Never mind that before last Friday, I went through three times before.

See, I thought of more things to add, more things to remove. I thought of plot lines that were mysteriously left up in the air with no resolution. I thought I should bolster the dialog of my Best Man, give him some colloquialisms to get my point across. I checked my commas and quotation marks, made certain my homophones were correct. I took out telling and inserted dialog. I even woke up in the middle of the night and remembered what I’d forgotten!

I feel like an over-protective hen mothering my egg. Since I’ve gained weight in the last month, I just hope I don’t squash it. I want a published novel; I don’t want an omelet.

This leads me to wonder: Is a Work in Progress ever complete? Those magic words “The End” in actuality mark a beginning. Will I ever walk away and say “I’m finished, this is it,” or will I constantly be tweaking my baby until the end of time? (or publication.)

I’m getting ready to query (which is another post altogether – talk about the work involved researching agents and houses!), and now the dread begins to settle.

I’ve incubated this little sucker for almost a year. I’m proud of the story and even more proud of how far I’ve gotten in this journey through fiction.

When do I know she’s ready for an unveiling? When do I cut the cord?

I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

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NaNoWriMo – Editing Wrap Up

Posted by Joanne Huspek

Well, my intentions of working on NaNoWriMo while simultaneously editing last year’s NaNo effort lasted only about a week. But before you think I fell off the wagon and onto my LazyBoy with the remote control in one hand and a box of Godiva truffles in the other, let me emphasize that the editing on VIRTUAL MOMS continued.

In fact, I’m into the 80K range now on the re-worked MS, with about 50 more pages to come from Mr. Ed. So if we are talking about numbers of words, I probably topped the 50K mark for November, if you include blog posts and my writing in the other forums.

*pats self on back*

NaNoWriMo isn’t meant to be an exercise in finishing a book in 50K words or in 30 days, although I know prolific writers who do just that. (Hate them. Not really. 🙂 It’s really meant to jump start lazy asses like me, who can find a hundred and one things to keep me distracted. It’s supposed to get you into the habit of writing — rough to do when there’s a Real Life — and hopefully the habit stays with you the other eleven months out of the year.

For me, the Muse comes and goes, followed by the Anti-Muse. That’s just the way I am. Without a deadline (like NaNo) I tend to return to my slacker ways.

The good news is I am super-excited about VM. The edits brought out some good points, which I expanded on, and showcased my impulse to meander on and on with the back story. This is a huge problem for me. GARGANTUAN chunks were cut out, sliced and put in later, and it’s all good. The beginning doesn’t feel right to me, but we shall see when Mr. Ed looks at the re-write.

Other than that, it’s back to the salt mines. Too busy to read, but I will get back to that very soon.

By the way, have you heard of #FridayReads on Twitter? You can get more info about it HERE and HERE on Facebook.

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NaNoWriMo – Week Two

Posted by Joanne Huspek

I’m not going to say I’ve fallen off the wagon, but I will admit I’m momentarily jostled out of my seat.

There was a major problem in WIP #2, which I hadn’t realized until I’d received the latest twenty pages from Mr. Ed. This involved way too much back story, and as we know, I am the queen of the back story. However, I’m also never, ever at a loss for words, so I ripped out huge chunks and inserted dialog. This alone should warn those in the NaNoWriMo frame of mind that the first, second and even third edit might not help a NaNo manuscript (such as WIP #2 is). You need at least a half dozen sets of eyes and then some. Unless you’re a freakin’ genius, you cannot pump out a best seller in thirty days.

Working on the edit put my NaNa efforts on a temporary stall as I slaved away to get the obvious kinks out of my baby. (Actually, it doesn’t feel like slaving. It feels like fun.)

Good news! Mr. Ed is backlogged and will not be sending my next few pages for a while. This leaves me time to catch up on the NaNo project, as well as do a few things for fun.

One of these is my current offering at Blog Critics, a cautionary tale of growing too old to break into your own house. I hope you enjoy it as much as I didn’t enjoy clinging to the second floor ledge.

On deck is what NOT to buy your boyfriend for Christmas. (I’m having a helluva good time with this one, remembering all the stupid presents I gave my husband when we were just dating.)

This weekend promises to be a NaNo weekend. If I can pump out 2K words in an hour and a half, just think what I could do with 48 hours?

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A NaNoWriMo Update

Posted by Joanne Huspek

Don’t you wish every month was November?

That’s what I was thinking as I crossed the 20% mark on my current attempt at NaNoWriMo. Ten thousand words by Thursday? Day 4? I was doing the happy dance while breaking out a treat (no margaritas – too cold, but I allowed myself have a chocolate cookie).

After months of tinkering with two manuscripts, held up by personal crises, work schedules and general laziness,  November 1st came in like a lion. The ideas, they flowed from the brain down to my fingertips and onto my computer screen, helped in large part by Write or Die. (I can write 2K words in an hour and a half using that software. A cattle prod, yes. A godsend? Double yes!)

Super-charged with motivation and energy, yesterday was spent writing two articles – all in an hour – then I tackled Major Re-Write #2. This was a bear – prompted by my editor, I decided to change one of the characters from loving sister to loving gay brother. At first I was wallowing in disbelief that such a major shift would be helpful – not to mention, wondering what kind of headache I’d be left with at the end of the exercise – but, YAY! it worked!

I’ve also caught up with my editor…again.

Perhaps my infused energy had to do with NaNo (I’m fully willing to give the activity my full support) or maybe it had to do with my husband being in Austin for two days. I need complete silence to write – no ambient TV noise, no clatter of dishes (and yes they are still in the sink), no piano playing or occasional harumphs coming from his side of the room. I write best when I don’t have to think about preparing dinner, much as I love to cook.

Yesterday was a marathon – six whole hours! I could do this for a living. Yes, I could.

However, I think I’ll keep my day job until this writing thing can sustain me.

On to Week 2.

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Online Backup is This Writer’s Best Friend

Posted by Joanne Huspek

The last few weeks have been whirlwind. I’m getting my edits back, a friend (once our foreign exchange student) came from Germany for a visit, and I made a quick trip to Colorado to visit family. I managed to get some of my work done in between the visiting and the chaos.

On the plane from Dallas to Colorado Springs, I whipped out my trusty laptop and plugged away at a few edits. I decided to start at the beginning and work my way up to where I’d left off the week before. (I KNOW! No writing for a week? I’ve been a very bad girl…) If I haven’t looked at it for a while, this helps to familiarize me with the characters and what I had to do with them before being so rudely interrupted by Real Life.

Halfway through the flight, my computer died. This is because the battery life, claimed to be at four hours, is oftentimes only an hour and a half, depending on what I’m doing. I save after every line I edit (perhaps that’s OCD, but I’ve lost things before) so I figured I would recommence once I was near electricity.

Well, it didn’t happen that way.

When I got ready to work, my laptop was uncooperative. Downright balky. It turned on, but cycled over and over to the log-in page and promptly did the same.

After the 20th time (I’m just guessing, as I just let it run), the dreaded Blue Screen appeared with gibberish (code) as to why my computer was cranky.

I wasn’t in a panic yet, although with each passing day I was falling behind in my edits. Not to mention my email was piling up even with a Smartphone in my pocket. This is because my brother is a computer genius, and I figured he would save the day. Plus, in the worst case scenario, I signed up for Carbonite online backup. When you have stashed over 400,000 words in four novels and a collection of articles and short stories in one device and you are horrible at remembering to back up your files, the $55 a year seems like a mere pittance for keeping the system safe and me sane.

Well, all of that college education my brother has had couldn’t help me, even though he tried valiantly for two days. Depressed and worried, I carried my six-pound worthless paperweight back to Detroit with me.

The first thing I did was cash in my Staples rewards for a new machine, because even though our office computer guy took the damaged computer to work on, there would be two problems: 1. He is incredibly slow and time’s a wasting, and 2. It probably is dead and can’t be brought back to life.

Yesterday was spent restoring my files. It only took about six hours. Not only did I have the written word in there, there was also all my photographs. Afterward, I had to figure out where they were. (In a Carbonite folder all by themselves.)

The first thing I did was to bring up the current MS and see what happened. It was there! Also the edits, minus a few recent ones that missed online backup by a few minutes.

Of course, it wasn’t as easy as that. I have to bring up each file and then resave them on the computer in My Documents in order to work on them. With thousands of files, this will be an ongoing process.

Tip of the day to fledgling and not so fledgling writers:

BACK UP ON A REGULAR BASIS!

I might even buy a flash drive and staple it to my forehead just in case.

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Woo Hoo! Word from the Editor!

Posted by Joanne Huspek

This is actually old news, since I received my edited manuscript in an email last weekend. However, I haven’t had a moment of free time to look over what my editors have suggested. TODAY is the day.

I’m one of those dinosaurs who have a difficult time reading from a computer screen. My eyesight cannot stand the glowing page for more than an hour or so. I am also woefully antiquated and unable to grasp the concept of track back on Word. (Plus my version of Word is the old, old version, because the new version somehow causes my computer to hiccup.)

So I had to print out my book.

The first time I saw a printed copy of my MS was when I met with the editor in San Francisco. It’s crazy, I know, but I never print out my work. It might be a good idea to do so, especially if catastrophe strikes and my family members can’t get into my computer because they don’t know my passwords. My MS was in a very large binder. It’s only 275 pages but it looked massive. Mr. Ed. gave it to me (actually, I asked for it).

I showed it to my kids, and my daughter-in-law began to read it. She read the first chapter and the last few pages and decided she wanted to finish it, so I left the binder with her. (I really didn’t want to drag it back to Michigan anyway. I had enough stuff in my bag.)

Two-hundred and seventy eight pages of my own paper later, I dragged my edited version home for the ultimate slice and dice and clarifications and corrections. I have only scanned the edited MS (free time being a rare commodity these days) and noticed pages of unmarked passages. But then, toward the middle, some very red paragraphs. I know I’m only “aspiring” and I know I make horrible mistakes, but this was what I was looking for.

Yes, that’s right. I welcome critique.

Finally getting my MS back has put me into a better frame of mind when it comes to my writing. I had been in the doldrums and questioning my pursuits. I’d also been depressed over the end of summer and a few other things happening in my life right now, but the writing thing was really getting to me. I had been waiting (and waiting and waiting) for my edit and started work on the re-write of my first novel. Then I hit a wall with it right when I had been cruising along.

In the meantime, I gave myself writing tasks on Associated Content. These are newsy blog items, but they do pay in real cash money. (A HUGE plus.) Plus, I need the threat of impending deadline to kick my butt into gear.

Well, now I can finally work on my MS! I hope to get the preliminary edits finished this weekend. I’m on a mission, probably because there is a deadline for a writing contest of October 31 and I want to submit VIRTUALLY YOURS.

Don’t cross your fingers, just hope I keep the enthusiasm up.

🙂

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The Laziness Quotient is High These Days

Posted by Joanne Huspek

I’ve not been out of action, I’ve just been out of action.

That doesn’t make any sense, I know.

What I’ve been doing lately is Real Life. Summer was long and busy, and now I’m decompressing from work, flying to San Francisco, family matters and police matters. (Yes, police matters. I’m not going into it in detail, because if you’re a really savvy Internet stalker, you can figure it out from posts I’ve published elsewhere.) Two days after returning from my California getaway, I began canning an embarrassment of tomatoes. The family plot was productive this year, and so far I’ve done plain tomatoes, tomatoes prepped for Italian sauce, tomatoes prepped for chili (so yummy on a cold Michigan December day), and lots and lots of salsa. The salsa was an exceptional hit: It’s been traveling all over the country and ending up in mailboxes from coast to coast.

I noticed the days getting shorter. Ah, the onset of SAD. So I started my prescription, but I’m still rather lethargic, even after five weeks of it. Getting out of bed in the morning is a monumental task. I try to arouse my intellect into action, but, well… I think I’m losing the battle. A trip to the doctor might be in order.

Writing? I’m not doing a lot of it, as a result of Real Life. I’ve really got to kick myself into gear. I feel extremely lazy, and it’s not a good feeling.

I’m trying to encourage a spark by reading. However, I’m not finding anything of a fireworks nature in my collection of books to read. I’m also going back to reading the dictionary. I love words. I love really unusual words too. I recently read a novel where the author used the word “intuit” several times. The first time it felt a little strange, but by the end of the book I was loving the word.

I’ve also submitted an application for a writing gig. Yes, me. I’m not great, and it’s not fiction, but I think I need definite boundaries and some sort of deadline. I work best under stress.

As for the works in progress, Virtually Yours is coming back from the editor in dribs and drabs. I don’t know if I should devote ten minutes at a time to it, or wait until I have a pile of things to do and then start working. I began working on Cadence during the interim, but the last three weeks of laziness has claimed that endeavor too. My crit group finally decided on a meeting day in October and so I think I’ll slam the pedal to the metal and get my butt in gear.

After all, one can’t be lazy forever.

🙂

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