Musings

First mark in the November calendar has been placed! Sarah and I are doing a 10k day on the 2nd (Now it's announced, we have to ;) ) So excited!!! It'll be awesome to do it at the start of the event when all the ideas are still fresh. Luckily I've got a fair few plot threads that I can dabble in if I lose steam on one. Gaaaahhh! I think I'm the most excited about this novel. I hope I don't fall flat on my face!

Today was an early start, so I'm sitting in Kaldi's drinking mocha, bingeing on Avril Lavigne and typing up the couple of scenes I've been working on these past few days. Still not sure where I'm gonna slot them in... Hurtling towards the end of Moon Path now!

 Been doing a lot of thinking about what I want from the rewrite of In the City of Guilders/The Freedom of Dragons, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to consolidate them both into one book. They'll make for two distinct 'parts' that I think will work for one book. I thought of a title for it last night but I'm too tired to remember it. Got a lot of little extra things that I've learned about my characters in the last year that I can't wait to implement, and a new character that I met in April's novel who I think might turn things around a fair bit. Whatever happens with this series, I'm excited to see it completely complete! I think it's going to be something I'll be very proud of in the end, even if it doesn't get picked up. 

Oh, had the big emotional turn-around in MP and I'm pretty satisfied. The 'moment' needs tweaking just because it's one of those lines (you know the ones) that needs to be really perfect, but I finally got the boys to cooperate and they did a good job. 

Now to rip it all to pieces :) 

Is It November Yet?

But actually.

How am I supposed to concentrate on Book 1 when I have Book 4 stuck in my brain?

Unbearable Kai feels today/everyday.

Just gonna leave this here...

Settling Down

I feel bad for not updating and leaving the last post on a low because everything has picked up again (doesn't it always?) So here's what's going on -- 

My wonderful betas have caught up with me, and their eager anticipation for the ending is spurring me on. Honestly, these last few days I've been insanely invigorated. I feel like everything is coming together and all my beautiful circles are getting completed. I have an ETA of two weeks until this draft is done. And then the hard work begins (hahaha!)

Work is wonderful. I was afraid that I'd resent the time away from writing, but to be perfectly honest it's just focusing me. I start at 10:30, so I go in the wife two or three hours before a

nd write and catch up with emails, then take another hour in the evening. Every moment at my keyboard is precious, and I feel like I'm really able to use that time well. It helps that I really love my job -- my boss is awesome and my coworkers are lovely. I haven't had a day where I haven't wanted to go in, and it's really exciting to see our savings start to grow again after all these months of insane expenses. We've been able to start looking seriously at apartments (!!!!) and are hoping to move around New Year (!!!)

Time is going fast, and that means November is almost upon us (!!!) So frickin' excited for NaNo! Trying not to jinx it by over-thinking, but I've worked out my title and the last scene I want for the series. It's going to be so weird to wrap up this whole story, but at least I'll still have three books' worth of revisions ;) I just hope I give myself enough breathing space between the end of this draft and November first. April just about did me in! 

I will leave you with some music; a track that I feel sums up NaNo 2015 -- Wires by Athlete. 

Stalled. Again.

Ugh.

Endings are the worst.

Beginnings suck; middles are impossible, and endings are the worst.

So many bloody threads and trying to tie them all up right and get all the bits in the right places whilst maintaining the flow and the emotion and the honesty... asdfghjkl!!! I feel like every draft is the same and I'm never going to be satisfied.

I thought I was happy with the words I did yesterday, but thinking on it last night, they're just plain bad. There's so much work I need to do, and I never really take any steps forward. The beginning is deceptive. It makes me believe I'm making progress, but I'm not. And I feel myself sticking,  again, in that trap of, 'Oh, it's okay, I can go back and fix it.' Which is true, but how many times do we have to repeat this?

Half of me feels like I need a break and I need to just get this draft done.

The more practical half knows perfectly well that rushing is death and will only make the revision more arduous.

Ugh.

It's going to be okay.

A Conversation with Michelle Kass

Okay, some background first: my aunt has been bugging me for a couple of months to let her have my first chapter to show her literary agent friend, Michelle Kass, and last week -- following some pep from a CP -- I caved. A day later, my aunt emailed me saying that Michelle wanted to talk to me, so we arranged a skype conversation. That happened today. 

I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I'd agreed at the height of an adrenaline arc, which has subsequently come crashing down this past week, leaving me once again with crippling self-doubt in all aspects of my writerly life. Who the bloody hell was I to presume that anyone would have anything to say about my nonsense, let alone a very busy agent like Michelle. Ugh. Suffice it to say, I slept badly last night. It didn't help that I'd just discovered that my computer's microphone doesn't work with headphones plugged in, and here I was in the middle of a busy Starbucks. I spent the morning leading up to 10am feeling sick and trying to compile a page of notes, knowing perfectly well that I'd forget literally everything as soon as the call began. 

I knew, also, that it would be fine once I got going. 

And it was. 

I was talking to a professional who knew her stuff about my favourite subjects on earth -- writing and my baby. 

She was wonderfully nitpicky, going through the chapter line-by-line, questioning me where I needed to be questioned, pointing out places that needed to be tightened... It was exactly what I needed to move on. 

More than anything, she liked it, and she reiterated that several times. She liked it, but it's going to get better, and that's going to take time and patience. The resounding lessons, the ones I really needed to hear were: Clarity -- Be Purposeful and It will take as long as it takes. These are two things I've been knowing for a fair while; I know I need to slow down and push less, and I know I need to go through and make sure everything is crystal clear. Time and space at the end of this draft will help with that. 

She said, also, that I reeaally need to work out who I'm writing for -- is it YA, is it adult, and what will change in either of these situations? I need to step back and just let myself think and breathe. And that is so true. It's driving me crazy, but the answers will come eventually. She recommended a lot of books that she thinks will help me, so I'm looking forward to taking my reading month at the end of this draft. 

She liked my dedication and my passion, and she thinks I've got the art side down, it's just a matter of honing the craft aspect and bringing it all together, and CLARITY. I'm very excited for the next stage for this novel! 

So, in summary:

• I am the mistress of my universe
• Find answers to all the questions
• Don't get tangled up by your PoV
• Find the balance between art and craft
• Be empathetic to your readers
• Take your time.

And she wants me to send her the revision when it's done. Whenever that may be!