Success! All Around!

Posted by Joanne Huspek

I’d thought my road trip across two countries, ten states, and five Canadian provinces would spark my writing on the current work in progress and send the doldrums out the window (I seem to write far better and far more often when I’m on the road), but alas, that was not the case this trip. Oh, I tried – I guess I get an “A” for effort. If you want to catch a glimpse of my travels, feel free to click HERE.

I like driving, but it does have a downside. It takes up a lot of precious time. But as a writer, I look at the experience like this: I’m mining for new story lines and new inspiration. I’m meeting new personalities and reconnecting with old friends. I’m immersing myself in new settings.

Ah, but it would be really nice to travel in style. A self contained motor home like this one. Some of my hotel rooms were nice, but others were downright scary. They were all dog-friendly, but some charged extra for my pooch. In a couple of hotels, my pup ‘found’ things in our room – wrappers, candy, food, a condom. Dude, you should pay my dog for unearthing what housekeeping missed.

In the end, I came home after two and a half weeks, loaded up the classes I’d missed, and started to write with a vengeance. And I FINISHED! Yup, on September 30 with just hours to spare on my Novel in Nine class, when I finally typed The End at the end of 98K+ words.

There was the nearly teary goodbye to my Novel in Nine teacher, Michelle Richmond, and the rest of the class during the last video conference and subsequent group chats.

Now comes the harder part, and that’s editing. I’ve got a notebook full of the things I thought I’d missed, the things I wanted to include (I realized I had left out a key realization and now I’m wondering where the heck I should put it), and then the other things that popped up because some of my research sources steered me away from my wrong assumptions regarding late 19th Century Colorado. I’ll need to run the document in Smart Edit and fix all my overuses before I send it off for the next phase in my novel’s life.

I’d like to finish the first round edits before November, because…NaNoWriMo. I’m debating if I should start a new project or perhaps actually finish the last four or five of my November stories. I’m tired of leaving things half finished. They all need work, they all need those defining words The End. Still, even my hot messes of NaNoWriMo feels right somehow, even though the thought of tackling that chore feels daunting.

It’s all good.

It’s not just writing or the road trip or the unconditional love of my puppy. Life feels complete and even. There is a rhythm, in writing and in life (and even with the pup, who’s amazingly housebroken!) that is gentle. It all makes sense.

That’s where the success comes in. You don’t have to be a best selling author or rich or famous (although if the MegaMillions complies, I may get that motor home!) to feel contentment. Sure, you want all those things – everyone does.

The success doesn’t lie in the journey’s end – as much as I celebrated the completion of my novel with champagne and woohoos – no, the real success is in the journey.

Something to think about.

Safe travels.

 

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The Ups and Downs of the Write Life

Posted by Joanne Huspek

Namaste Mosaic Sign by Nutmeg Designs Image: Creative Commons

Well, it had to happen.

After a whirlwind of a July, where I wrote more than 20K words – they flowed like never-ending wine, the good stuff, mind you – August ground to a horrible crawl. It was the hangover of the summer. I’d wanted to crank out another 10K words, but barely managed half that much.

What happened? Real life, for one thing. After my epic month of writing, I decided to take a few days off, which inevitably ended up much longer. We went white water rafting. It was fun, made more fun in that I didn’t fall out of the boat. It was scenic, as we traveled through parts of Colorado you don’t see from the car window. Then there was also a lot more work than I’d anticipated (which isn’t much anyway, but a few more hours each day leaves me exhausted and unable to think creatively). I have since semi-retired from my retirement job, getting the house back into some semblance of normalcy. When you have pets, you really should vacuum more than once every two weeks. Plus the Pooch and I are taking a long mother-chihuahua road trip, and I have to make sure the Big Guy doesn’t starve to death while I’m gone.

It doesn’t end there. My puppy went to training class, then got sick, then got neutered. He’s nearing adolescent puppyhood, so he’s not sleeping as much and barking more and not listening at all. (He’s pulling on my sweater as I type this, like the Coppertone pup.) Then my cat became gravely ill. (That vet made bank off us, yes indeedy.) He’s okay for now, but he must have lost five pounds and still doesn’t eat as much as he used to. We looked for houses in the mountains (many houses – thanks Realtor Jeanne), put an offer on one, and it was declined. THEN I went to the doctor and found out I have sciatica. Hello, physical therapy and crappy health insurance. Oh, and I bought a couple of therapeutic pillows to sit on and those babies aren’t cheap.

I could go on, but I’d bore you.

The big thing is that I’m at the point of my novel where I’m filling in. “Doing the plumbing,” as Michelle Richmond says. The garden has been planted, but now comes the weeding. (YUCK.) The bones are there, the fun stuff is written, now it’s a matter of sitting down and finishing the darned thing. Where in July I thought I needed a couple of chapters and a few scenes, in August I realized I need at least three chapters and a couple dozen scenes. I started writing, and writing, and then not writing, because at 88K words I thought I should be closer to “The End” than I am. Feelings of frustration and inadequacy swelled up.

*sigh*

It’s a matter of getting butt in chair and opening the file (which is always open just in case I am hit by the lightning of inspiration, which happens, but not often enough for me).

The point is, writing is not a straight line up, or a straight line across. It’s ups and downs. It’s zig-zagging all over the map. It’s taking two steps forward and five steps back. It’s a quiet lull and a frenzy of activity. It’s a marathon and a leisurely stroll. It happens, and it doesn’t.

I keep telling myself to give myself a break, just as I unearth the cattle prod called internal nagging to goad myself into forward movement.

Small goals, then action.

Forgive your Real Life, and then carry on.

 

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Re-Reading For Pleasure and Education

Posted by Joanne Huspek

Well, I am coming into the final stretch of my current work in progress, An Education for Addie, which is why I’m not blogging or writing anything else lately. I’m on a tear, and I’m not going to abandon my tear until the well runs dry! Thanks to Michelle Richmond for offering the class, Novel in Nine – I’ve gotten so many good ideas from not only the lessons, but from the feedback and comments of the other participants. This is a prime example of a class that makes sense to take. I’m not only pleased at my progress, I’m full of passion to seeing this to completion. This is when writing in exciting! Not sure it’s anything of note; we’ll wait for my Editor for Life to give his yea or nay.

I took this photo last year while on a walk, before I’d even thought I’d be writing a novel set in 1898 Colorado Springs practically in this very spot.

I did decide to take some time to read, one of my favorite novels, In a Perfect World by Laura Kasischke. It’s short, it’s haunting, it’s poetic. Imagine my dismay when I went to retrieve it from my terribly pared-down library (due to retirement and moving across the country) that my copy wasn’t there! I was so excited about this book for many reasons, that I’d lent it out to several people, most of whom returned it  – obviously not the last person, who I can’t remember because it was probably years ago.

Thank goodness for Amazon. (Yes I know, AMAZON, but the local bookstores didn’t have it. The author is from Michigan which is the only place I’ve seen this novel on the shelves.) I received my replacement copy the next day. (And from now on, I won’t be lending my books out, not unless I know you and know where you live.)

Reading, especially good books, it not just entertainment for me, it’s education. I take the book apart; I see what works and what doesn’t, what hits it out of the park and what’s a little weak. Yes, even my favs aren’t perfect – and neither am I. Sometimes I look at sentence structure in what I’m reading and try to break it down.

My current work in progress is not in the same vein as In a Perfect World. There’s little poetry in my words, as it’s historical fiction – it’s what I call a basic story with a basic plot and running linearly. There’s good, there’s bad, there are challenges, challenges met and conquered, The End. I might change that in a future draft, though.

However, my last NaNoWriMo takes place in the same place(s) but 85 years later, and that story has some twists and turns and is dark. In a Perfect World is dark. It ends, but leaves you wondering just how it ends and what the characters’ future will be like, beyond the last page. This is why the novel struck me so, and after my recent reading, strikes me still.

‘They’ say you should read if you’re a writer, and I agree. Since what I’m working on is considered ‘sweet’ – no real sex – I read sweet romances. Since it’s historical, I not only read recently written novels set in a similar time frame, I also read novels written during that time frame, as well as letters written by people who lived then. (My novel isn’t full of the stilted vernacular of the time, but I wanted to include a flavor of it.) None of these genres is my preferred reading material, but sometimes you must step outside your comfort area and read something new and different.

My takeaway is that reading other work is just as important as the effort you put into your own.

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Writing Without Time

Posted by Joanne Huspek

This morning, I did a little clean up on my mother’s grave.

See that little juniper tree to the right? We planted it about twenty years ago, the intention was to keep it to bonsai size as a tribute to our mother. But… a lot of us lived out of town. The ones who lived in town didn’t want to tackle the task of a yearly trim, which entails digging it up and shaving off the roots, among other things. The one who lived away but was reasonably close and was interested in keeping the bonsai shape maintained the tree for a few years, until she got pissed at all of us and dropped off the face of the earth. Before today, when I hacked off some sucker limbs and trimmed the rest of the greenery, our little “bonsai” had become so monstrously huge and thick that it obstructed the right side of the headstone. This monster bush also obstructed the left side of the next plot (thank goodness family friend). Plus, weeds. Thigh high weeds. What a mess.

(Oh, yes, I know. I’ve been in town now for almost a year. When I visited the site last fall, shovel and garden snips in hand, the mosquitoes beat me back to the car before I could get out of it.)

I wanted to remove the thing, but the ground there was like a clay cement. I’d need a backhoe. Instead I made it as pretty and as compact as I could, given the fact that the mosquitoes hadn’t gone anywhere in the last eleven months and I didn’t want to be completely covered in bug bites (only 85% covered now).

So I’m futilely swatting and whacking and clipping and chopping at weeds, thinking that cremation is definitely the way to go (drop half of me off Ocean Beach, please, the rest beneath a redwood), when a few truths come to me.

One, I’m at the point in my current work in progress where all I have to do is fill in a few holes (I’m thinking four or five chapters, totally doable), but I’m balking a bit because holes are like mosquitoes at the cemetery. It’s unpleasant and you don’t want to battle bloodsuckers.

The upside is that once you’ve completed the task, you’re left feeling satisfied and with something aesthetically pleasing.

Two, there’s never enough time. My mother was 58 when she died. That’s young. I wake up every day wondering when my time will be up. In fact, the question of time and lack thereof is being written into my novel even as I type this blog post (not at the same time, of course, I only wish I had four hands!). The clock ticking is the only thing that motivates me to plunge on and complete the writing I want to.

This month the time constraints have been brutal. My daughter visited. My husband needed surgery (he’s okay, but still healing and kinda cranky). Yet, I’ve managed to squeeze in 40 minutes here and and hour there and twenty minutes here. Yes! I even took my laptop to the waiting room at the surgery center and managed to write there!

The thing is, there is never enough time. You think when you retire your entire world will open up and vast prairies of time will be available for you to pick and choose – um, NO. I know when we owned businesses and rental properties and I was working seven days a week, I still managed to eke out a few minutes to write. Enough to complete two novels and a book of poetry I self-published, and more.

Writing is a commitment, to choose time for your craft, to force yourself to sit down and do it, because if you don’t make the conscious effort, you’ll be sitting in front of the TV watching Dr. Phil or playing annoying games on your iPhone or something else which might entertain you for the moment, but ask yourself the important question. What will you have at the end of it?

And now, I will be delegating some time for my current work-in-progress’s completion.

Happy Monday! Happy July!

 

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How Writing a Novel is Like a Run to the Shrine

Posted by Joanne Huspek

A few weeks ago on a Saturday (May 18), I completed one more thing on my ‘bucket list’ – which isn’t really a list because it’s not even big enough to fit into a bucket. I signed up for and completed the Run to the Shrine.

(For those who don’t know, the shrine is the Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun, located halfway up Cheyenne Mountain. It’s quite an impressive five-story monument. Of course, most people will need to Google Will Rogers to understand who the man was and why he has a Shrine.)

It’s not a long race, about four miles, but it is nearly straight up. I’ve walked many neighborhoods near the Shrine, since I live in the area. Most roads situated on the side of the mountains are fairly steep, even steeper than some of the trails around here – one reason I ruled out buying a house on a hill. The race starts out at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, where I’ve taken a part time job in guest services. Every day I work, the Shrine is there looming 1000′ above me, teasing me to tackle it. (Believe me, walking up to the employee parking lot is no small feat.)

After walking some of the roads around here, I was convinced I was going to die on the way up, or at least require medical attention, but that was not to be. I placed 19th out of 66 runners in my age group (1:07). I made it across the finish line well before some younger people I know. It felt good. It also reminded me that to run a race from beginning to end is much like writing a novel from beginning to end.

1. Like a race, a novel needs a plan. I thought about this race for a while. My pre-race walking paths included inclines. (As on race day, the downhills were easy; it was the extreme elevation that was trying.) I tried to take a walk at least four or five days a week, at least three miles each day, which was a good goal that was easily dashed by late spring snow storms and bomb cyclones.

Likewise, you can’t just sit down and write a novel without a plan, without foresight, and without exercises along the way. This spoken by an avowed pantser, but having started writing both with and without a clue, I’ll admit having some sort of roadmap before you begin is helpful.

2. Like a race, a novel requires a writer’s stamina. This is what happens when you start out strong, especially without preparation – eventually you’ll run out of steam and give up. Everyone else will pass you by and you’ll feel like a failure. (Been there, done that.) I started the race out slowly, then realized I could actually go faster, although running uphill was out of the question. I gave myself small goals (I’ll take a drink at that tree, I’ll rest for a moment at this switchback). I found that once I completed the small goals, I could push myself a little farther.

If you think you can write a good novel in a month (exception made in November, of course, when you can complete a novel, albeit it won’t be “good”), you are wrong. You might not write a *good* novel in six months, in a year, in five years. No matter how long it takes (and it WILL take longer than you think it will), you have to commit to the project over a long term. You have to give yourself small goals (write 500 words a day, edit for X amount of hours this day) in order to keep from getting overwhelmed.

3. You could quit, but why? I thought about turning around halfway up the first challenging incline and switchback. (They put a serious one at the beginning, let you think you’re doing great in the middle since the elevation doesn’t increase much and it’s a rather long stretch this way, and then the last quarter mile or so is a Herculean test to your body.) But I was being passed up by ladies pushing double strollers full of toddlers and people way older than I am. And that guy in a wheelchair.

It’s so, so, so easy to quit writing. Avoid hard work, avoid falling into pits, avoid the struggle. Might as well stop writing and start watching TV. Instead of saying “you could quit” how about using the mantra “you can do it.”

4. Number 3 leads me to, it’s not so much about the competition, it’s about the people cheering you on. Wow, was there ever a cheering section, all the way up the mountain. People with water (of course), people with noisemakers yelling their encouragement. A band of drummers. Then another band at the top. Then of course the finish line, with a local TV weather personality, lots of swag, more water, and snacks.

In writing, there are ALWAYS people around to cheer you on. My good writer friend who I lost to cancer a few years back was one, but you can find them if you look hard enough. You must be willing to reveal your vulnerable side, be open to critique and comment. I want to be that person to others, to cheer you on when you feel like you’re failing.

5. Don’t worry, the downhill is way easier. The one good thing about the Race to the Shrine, once you’ve made it to the summit, it’s all downhill from there, and let me tell you, the downhill is easier.

Likewise, I might struggle with a novel (I usually do about halfway through), but there is a point you’ll get to where the puzzle pieces all click together perfectly. It’s usually right at the point of climax. I find writing endings far easier than building up to that climax. It’s my form of the downhill run.

6. As with a race, finishing a novel gives you an adrenaline high. I didn’t think it would happen, but crossing the finish line gives you more than a sense of satisfaction. You feel good, but you also feel high. I ran with two of my younger sisters (one who IS a runner, made it in 44 minutes, the other about an hour and a half), and after the race we were talking like crazy people about doing another race.

As a writer, when I finish a novel, I’m happy-dancing all over the house. I glow. I celebrate. There is nothing more satisfying than writing “The End” at the conclusion of the story. I might let my head and fingers rest a bit, but I’m usually on to the next story percolating in my head.

As with running, if you’re going to write, you’re going to have to commit to the task, start to finish.

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Using Calendars to Fill In Holes

Posted by Joanne Huspek

(Just a small aside and gripe: I wrote this entire blog post and it was just eaten by the Internet! I will try again.)

My April efforts for my class, Novel in Nine, fell a bit short. There was out of town company, there was sickness, there were other challenges, but I used the last few hassle-free days to catch up, so my final word count for the month was 38K+, a good showing but no cigar (40K).

My topic today is the use of calendars when writing your story. Not the use of calendars to keep YOU, the writer, on track, but using them to keep your story on track. I’m such a sucker for using devices when I write, like personality questions, color coding, lists, etc., that I don’t know why calendars aren’t a common ‘thing’ with writers. (Or maybe they are and I just don’t know it!) It’s another device I find useful.

I first started using a calendar for writing NaNoWriMo stories, and this is how I wrote Virtually Yours. I assigned each of the characters a day and wrote from their point of view on that day, with the last few days of the month ending up a melange of POVs to wrap the story up. It’s a no-brainer to use a calendar during NaNo, the yearly story telling blitz. You are tasked with writing a first draft (albeit, as we know, a messy first draft) in thirty days – a total of 50K words. As a result of my using a calendar for NaNo, most of my “November” stories are thirty days in duration. They typically start on or about November 1 and end November 30. I will take a monthly calendar page to plot out the action, or use my Hobonichi or other notebook to make one myself.

For Finding Cadence, I didn’t employ the use of a calendar until maybe the third draft. (I wrote this story before Virtually Yours but didn’t start editing until after…way after.) I needed the calendar because the story was very long and confusing to my beta readers. It was so long I ended up breaking it into three distinct parts while I sought to edit out many thousands of words. It was about the same time I plotted the story on a calendar that I found the story was following three distinct movements of a Rachmaninoff piano concerto that I listened to every time I sat down to write. Finding Cadence takes place from early February to October of the same year, and I printed up monthly calendar pages and stuck them together. Using the calendar helped me balance  each of the parts so that they were about equal in actual word count size and story.

Since I’m currently writing a historical novel set in 1898 Colorado Springs, there was much research to be done. Once I began researching, I found that I had to keep the story somewhat ‘real.’ While it’s fiction I’m writing, I’m mentioning actual people and places and events, such as the Antlers Hotel fire (which occurred on a Saturday afternoon, who knew?). I didn’t want a bunch of history buffs nitpicking my story over days of the week!  So I printed out a calendar for the year 1898 so I could visualize the story’s movement. The story starts Monday, July 4, when Silas dies, and ends Monday, October 3. My calendar is on a peg board right in front of me.

I’m making some strides this month. Now that I have much of the novel completed (about 55%) and I know at least in my head where the plot is going, it was time to take down my calendar and update it, along with the random business cards where I’ve written notes. After updating the calendar, I went back into my draft and put notes (chapters) along the way that correspond to the events that I have laid out or have already written.

I’m not writing this story in a linear fashion (although I started out writing it that way!); I have a solid beginning, a fairly good ending, and much in between. What I’m doing now is going back to fill in the holes in the story. The calendar is a constant reminder of the holes I need to plug up with scenes or chapters that I know have to be included before I can be reasonably satisfied with the first draft. The note cards are reminding me of specific things I need to include or work on.

Okay, so I’m a dinosaur but I made the transition from a manual typewriter to a computer. Someday I might graduate from Word to Scrivener. Like on a week where I have time. 🙂

Until then, I use calendars as a visual time line. It keeps me from wandering, which as we know, I tend to do.

 

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Word Count – Schmerd Count

Posted by Joanne Huspek

My current work in progress is coming about through an online class I’m taking with Michelle Richmond (The Year of Fog),  the class titled ambitiously enough Novel in Nine. We students are tasked with completing a novel in nine months.

For some, a nine-month deadline is nearly impossible. I know the feeling. It took me a four long years to finish my first novel. There were times when I felt like giving up, because to be frank, time was NOT on my side. Of course, I was greener then, basically stumbling/typing in the dark, not knowing what the hell I was doing. Practice might not make perfect, but it definitely increases your chances of completion.

Classes are a good way to keep to a schedule, to set small, reasonable goals and attain them. It’s all about the baby steps. Our class happens to include discussion, always helpful in that you realize you’re not toiling alone, nor are you the only one guilty of making mistakes. I was thinking about that today because our “assignments” happen to be reasonable with the possibility of completion within the week. Plus, they’re geared toward being included in the Novel.

Likewise, NaNoWriMo is a writing-cattle prod device that works well for me. 50K words? It’s nothing in November. I just tell myself it’s got to be done and it gets done. (Probably not agent-ready, but what first draft is?)

Michelle has given us a goal that can be managed easily, 10K words a month.

Here’s the difference between the class and NaNo: It’s about the word count, but it isn’t about the word count.

I don’t know why or how, but in November I can sit down and pump out a couple thousand words in an hour and a half. In the class, I’ve got my eye on the word count at the bottom of the document, but instead of writing as fast as I can, I find myself trying to write as well as I can. Plus, if I know something is coming up in my personal life, I can forge ahead and finish my assignments early, which is what I did in March.

I’m at the point now (about halfway through) where I have a solid story going, including a beginning, the start of a middle, and a pretty defining ending. I know what scenes and plot lines I have to weave in (six more things…totally doable). Many of the scenes I have to fold in coincidentally have something to do with the lesson of the week. This type of writing is more carefully thought out and not so haphazard.

Oh, I’m still a pantser. I’ve got the requisite index cards all over my desk scribbled with information that may or may not end up in the final draft. I’ve filled up my journal with drawings of houses and maps of the area and handwritten spreadsheets of characters and where they intersect and how much time I’ve given them. I’ve got a stack of reference books I’ve purchased from eBay stacked up under my desk.

And yes, I’m still a procrastinator. Just because I know what I need to insert doesn’t mean I just jump into my chair first thing in the morning and start writing. I’ve got a house, bad weather, a web site relaunch, a new puppy, and a part time job, as well as wanting to dabble in the other artistic pursuits that have caught my fancy.

There are upsides and downsides to each method of getting the writing done. The journey is the same; it’s the modes of transportation that are different. The thing is to find the one that works for you at the time and to enjoy the ride to The End.

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