Sometimes, The Idea of a Thing is Worse

I weighed myself yesterday.  It had been 3 weeks since the last time I weighted myself and frankly, I was sure I'd be disappointed with the number.  After all, I've been baking and eating a lot.  And with the weather being craptastic, I haven't been active.  And with the stress I haven't wanted to do anything inside either.  

I gained two-tenths of a pound.  That puts me at 182.6 - a pound up for the year.  Better than the four or 5 pounds I was sure I'd gained.  Which goes to show you that sometimes the idea of a thing is worse than the thing itself.  

I was going to say 'fear' there instead of 'idea', but I'm not afraid of gaining weight.  It is what it is.  Gaining weight just means more work.  And while I am terminally lazy sometimes, I'm not afraid of work.

It's the same with writing/editing.  Although there is a bit of fear there, it's the idea of being done and sending my work out into the world only to see no sales that, more often than not, keeps me from working.  And this is even when I've had some good feedback on said work.  

It's not the work itself.  Right now, it's me staring down the barrel of a net income of a nickle for the month of February. That's with holding three sales this month.  And that's only if the per page price in KU holds.  It might only be four cents.

Imagine if I'd actually exercised and eaten less this month only to gain weight.  That's what it's like.  

But let's turn that around.  What if the idea was instead that I bust my buns on this book, send it out into the world, and see loads of sales.  If I look at it that way, the only thing holding me back is me.  

Don't let the idea of a negative outcome stop you from doing your thing.  Don't let it stop you from even trying.  'Cuz the only way to consistently fail at anything is to not do it.

It's like I tell myself sometimes in poker: "You lose every hand you fold."  

Okay, so what's something you're not doing because the idea of failing is stopping you?  What's something you've lost in the past because you folded rather than seen it through?  

Personally, I would've had a straight flush the other day if I'd followed the cards all the way to the river.  Pissed me off to no end.  Here's hoping Duke Noble is a straight flush kind of book, because I'm damn well gonna see this through to the end.

P.A.M.

Years ago I was a tragically negative person.  To the point where a co-worker and friend said he was going to start calling me Pam.  At my confused look, he explained...  P.A.M. is short for Piss And Moan.  (What can I say, I attract straight-talking people.  Someday I'll tell ya about another friend of mine, Larry, who wouldn't let me get away with anything.)  And whenever I would start being all negative around him he would refer to me as Pammy.  As in "Okay, Pammy, whatever you say, Pammy."

I don't know if that marked a turning point in my life.  I know I still get into moods where I am totally PAM. but they're less frequent than they used to be.

Unfortunately, it seems like more people are turning into PAM every day. Or maybe as I get more positive about life, I notice the negativity more.

One thing I do know is that negativity never gets you anywhere.

Sure, someone situations suck.  Sometimes your whole damn life can feel like it sucks... HARD.  But letting yourself get lost in all that suckage doesn't make the suckage any better.  Hell, most of the time, it makes it worse.

Now, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that you shouldn't be bummed out because other people have it way worse than you do.  That never helps either - and it just makes you feel shittier.  Yes, there are people who can top your personal heartache with a royal flush of pain, but that doesn't mean you aren't entitled to feel like shit.  I'm just saying it doesn't help.

Lemme tell you a little story...

Once upon a time there was a silly girl who'd just been in a car accident.  Everything hurt.  She couldn't think straight.  She couldn't walk.  She couldn't remember stuff.  And every morning was just as sucky as the next.  Some chick she didn't know would roll her out of bed, into a wheelchair, and roll her down to physical therapy where she would have to undergo a serious increase in her discomfort.  And all she could do was bitch about it.  To anyone who would listen.

Then this dude ambles over to her one morning while she's bitching about how much PT hurt and how she COULDN'T walk so just stop making her try... DAMMIT.  Now at this particular moment her therapist had gone off to get some thing or other, and she was just sitting there, waiting to bitch at Blondie Therapist some more.  This dude who ambles up he was wearing one of those erector sets that keeps you from moving your head.  And he gets in her face - as much as he could for a guy who couldn't bend, and tells her "Will you QUIT WHINING."  He said some other things about how if she spent more time working and less time bitching, she could get off her ass and walk. 

Turns out he'd broken his back in a motorcycle accident.  But that wasn't the point.  He never said 'Look at how bad off I am and I'm not bitching'.  He just said 'Look at how good off you are, so quit your bitching.'  And he was right.  I mean, at first, she was totally shocked and offended, but by the next day, she saw how right he was.  She started actually trying, and learning to use the walker, and getting more active by rolling herself to therapy.  All of it got way better after I... I mean SHE got more positive.  (And okay, so I wanted to show that know-it-all nosypants that he DID NOT know everything.)

It's all in the attitude.  You can choose to be PAM or you can choose to kick PAM's ass and be Positive Polly instead.

It's like this weekend's golf tournament.  I don't know how many of you watch golf, but it was the US Open.  And there was this guy - Erik Compton.  He'd never won a major tournament in his life.  he wasn't even on anyone's radar for being in the top 10... 15... 20 players.  What he was that made him kinda noteworthy is a two-time heart transplant recipient.  One heart transplant when you're 12 is awesome enough, but surviving a second one when you're in your late 20s is spectacular.  That alone is an achievement.  He could've waved the flag right there and spent the rest of his years kicking back on his laurels.  But he wanted to play golf.  He wanted to thrive at golf.  And he tied for 2nd.  His attitude was phenomenal all the way through.  And every time he went in the weeds, he could've shrugged and given up.  Every hole he didn't birdie could've made him walk off the course.  But he didn't.  He kicked ass.

Attitude people.  If you don't like what's happening in your life, you have the choice of complaining and being all PAM about it, or you can choose to change your attitude.  Life sucks?  Well, it's better than the alternative.  Ya know?

Or you can sit and bitch.  Cuz, like that's the most fun thing ever. (Not really, but if you spend enough time on social media, it sure can feel like people think that some days.)

Now, what's something you can change your attitude about today?  Personally, I have an upcoming 'big thing' that I can't talk about online* but that's making me all negative and nauseous, when I should be looking at it as an adventure.  And since Friday, every time I start to get all Negative Nelly about it, I sing this in my head:  Think Good Thoughts by Colbie Caillat.  And I actually slept the last few nights straight through!  Wow.

*It's not anything crucial, but like everything else I tend to think ahead of time of all the bad things that could happen.  Prepare for the worst and hope for the best - that's been my screwed up philosophy for years.  Problem with that is that in preparing for the worst, I think of every potentially awful thing that could conceivably happen.  Which is also why I wasn't sleeping, btw.

NaNo Update #1

Okay, so despite my grousing and the occasional comment that I may be insane, this year's NaNoWriMo is actually going well.  Here's how the first week broke down:

11/1 - 2735
11/2 - 2556
11/3 - 1183
11/4 - 1491
11/5 - 1014
11/6 - 2515
11/7 - 2136

Which left me at 13360 for the first week with an average of 1947 a day.  Since I needed to be at 11669 and average 1667 a day, I'm pretty pleased.  Getting ahead early really takes the pressure off.  And I'm proving to myself how committed I am to this project by not sitting back on my ass when I'm ahead.  Not that I haven't wanted to.  Thursday I felt like warmed-over, leftover goat excrement for most of the day. 

As an added bonus, I'm getting a lot done around the house because I'm trying to make myself stick to the schedule of writing at night.  So when I feel the urge to write in the morning, I go do chores.  Sure, I could be farther ahead.  I could also be burned to a crisp right now and dreading the weeks ahead.  Slow and steady wins the race.  You won't catch me so far ahead I'm napping under a tree while the tortoise crosses the finish line.  No sirree bob.

With yesterday's additional 2222 words (totally didn't plan to hit the all 2s, but hey, cool), I'm sitting at 15852 NaNo words for this project.  That puts me 2516 words ahead. 

Not sure what the weekend will bring.  I might write during the day on weekends... or not.  We'll see how it goes.  I do know as soon as it warms up, I'm going outside to rake leaves.  I love our new big, treed yard, but having it means a lot of leaves on the ground right now.  ;o)

How's the writing going for you?  Are you participating in NaNo (and if so, are we friends on there)?  If you're not, that's cool, too.  NaNo's not for everyone.  Hell, I haven't officially done it since 2010.  If you're not writing, how's life in general? 

Day 6: Wherein I Lose My Grip

:cackles:

I sat down to write my 1667+ yesterday evening.  I was being so good.  I cooked chili in the crock pot so I wouldn't be bothered with dinner. We even ate early so I could get right to work after Jeopardy.  (Cuz I gots to flex the brain muscles, donchaknow.)  Problem was when I sat down and tried to pick up the thread of the story, it occurred to me that I couldn't remember some of the characters I'd already dropped into the story.

So I went back over the text, scanning for people names, in order to make a character sheet.  Easy enough. 

It was at that point that a little lightbulb went off over my head.  It's possible I have taken a way larger bite than I could possibly chew. You know, since I picked the hardest possible genre to write quickly - especially when you consider I didn't do any pre-planning.  I mean, seriously... fantasy?  With all its inherent world-building?  "Are you freakin' nuts?" I said to myself.  "Of course," I replied.

I can't even keep the freakin' names straight and I'm supposed to keep a whole new system of magic, within a whole different world, all up in my head???  WTF was I thinking??

But I am forging ahead.  Oh, there are definite flaws.  Like getting one character mixed up with another character and giving girl #2 the traits meant for girl #1 while totally forgetting I even named girl #1 several chapters earlier.  And what the hell did I mean when I said X back in chapter 2 only to have it be completely weird by chapter 5?

But I am forging ahead.  Even though I have no firm idea where any of this is headed.

Sure, as I was laying down for a nap, I had a great idea pop into my head for a whole new beginning which would make the goals and motivations so much clearer.  When I woke up a little later, it occurred to me that no matter how I write my 'great idea', it's going to look like a total ripoff of part of Terry Brooks' Elfstones of Shannara.  Good thing I caught that before I wrote several thousand words toward down that path.  Sheesh.

But I'm forging ahead.  Not sure how firm my grip on sanity is at this moment. 

Heh.  That's NaNo, I guess. 

:wanders away to pick flowers off the wallpaper:

On the Trail Again

:whipcrack:

I'm on the submission trail again.  Over on QueryTracker*, I'm working through the list of agents that represent suspense - prioritizing who gets queries in what order, and who I'm not going to query because they're not a good fit.  200 agents.  Tonight I got through page 4, which means 160 down and 40 to go.  I had planned on not querying any of them until Monday, but I found two today that seemed like such a good fit, I couldn't help but shoot queries right off to them. 

I'll get those other 4 done tomorrow morning and then set it all aside so I can get some re-writing done on RTL.

And maybe talk the husband into a drive somewhere or a walk or something. 

Monday, I'll pare down the top half of the agents and send out queries to a select group of those.  More a day or two after that, and so on, until I get a nibble or I feel like I need to re-adjust my query.  (Not again, please for the sake of all that's holy, not again.) 

What am I querying?  Dying Embers.  It's gotten some positive nibbles in the past, but I always just wimped out after too-few rejections.  This time I'm gonna ride that horse until she drops, and then I'm going to drag the carcass across the finish line.  This sucker will be published if I have to do it my own goddamned self.  So there.  Everyone who's read it loved it - and they weren't even family.  Some of them were even published authors.  Double so there.  =op

Yeah, I'm feeling a little immature and bratty tonight.  You wanna make somethin' of it**? 

;o)

Have a great weekend, if I don't see ya around the webs.

*If you don't use QueryTracker, you really should try it.  And if you try it and like it, it's worth paying for the premium membership.  Seriously worth it.

** All in jest, I assure you.  Which just underscores the fact that I am full of piss and vinegar... vim and vigor tonight.

Unexpected Positive

So, I was sitting around the house this weekend when an email arrived from a friend of mine.  It was in regard to that Twitter thing I did on Friday.  She was asking if I had any bites.  When I told her I hadn't, she expressed surprise - natch - and wondered why a particular agent hadn't snapped me up.  Then she suggested I query this particular agent directly. 

Needless to say, I was hesitant.  I've got lot going on, and... okay, I'll come right on and say it... I was afraid.  This gal seemed awesome, but her querytracker listing didn't say she wanted suspense.  (And the last thing anyone needs is another rejection.)  My friend kicked me in the ass nudged me to send a query anyway - pointing out an article where it specifically says the gal's looking for my genre. 

I hemmed and hawed, but promised to send a query.  I had planned on waiting until Monday, but Sunday night, I got a wild hair, gathered my materials together, tweaked the query letter and sent that puppy off.  I wasn't expecting anything to come of it.

I got a reply around lunch on Monday.  She wanted a full!  Coulda knocked me over with a feather. 

Anyway, after the Hubs went back to work, I sent out the full and the synopsis she asked for.  Keep your fingers crossed.

But well wishes isn't why I'm writing this post.  (Well, they're always nice, but not my main goal here.)  I wanted to let you know so you can maybe see that sometimes, when you least expect it, good things can happen.

So, send those queries out.  Even if you're crazy busy.  Even if you're pretty sure they're not the right agent for your manuscript - because the information out there says they aren't.  Even if you don't think you can take one more rejection.  Because you never know.  You could get a request for full.

And who knows?  It might turn into an offer of representation.  Stranger things have happened.

I'm not holding my breath, but I am crossing my fingers.  ;o)

Tackling the Nasty

So, there I was sitting around after my marathon session to complete Djinnocide and submit it to Harper Voyager.  I was wiped out.  And I promised myself a week off (at least) to recover.  I submitted on a Sunday.  Sunday night I felt weird because I wasn't at my computer working.  By Tuesday, I was being inundated by my other stories - all clamoring for their shot.  On Friday, I made my decision as to which of the whining bitches manuscripts I would tackle next. 

I spent the weekend thinking about how I was going to approach this particular unfinished, hot-mess.  If you've been here long enough, you may remember a little behemoth I called Nano (short for Nanotechnology - aka Bloodflow).  I finished the first draft a few years ago and then left it to simmer.  I've gone back to it several times - each instance discovering it had taken on a scary quality.  It's big.  It's got so many twists and turns it puts my paperclip box to shame.  And every time I look at it, it adopts the attitude of MONUMENTAL UNDERTAKING.

In short, it's nasty.

It has the main plot.  A sub plot.  A sub-sub plot.  A budding romance.  A villian who isn't.  A villain who is.  Henchmen working behind the scenes doing things even the villains haven't authorized.  A red herring or two...  :shudder:

Yeah.  It's nasty.  But it's also delicious.  I can totally see how this could be the BIG BOOK.  I just need to jump on ride this f... sucker like the untamed beast it is until it becomes the dressage champion I need it to be.

But frankly, the idea is scaring the holy hell out of me.  And it has for years.

The last time I tried to tame this thing, I did the note card approach.  Each scene written down with major points and key ingredients.  I have a whole pile.  And it didn't help me one bit.  (Still isn't helping - since I picked it up over the weekend and went 'arrgghh'.)  Note cards are not my process, apparently.

"Whyfor did you bathe me, Mom?"

So, Sunday I printed off the best couple first chapters I'd come up with and yesterday I sat down with a notepad and pen.  That's my process.  So far?  Well, it hasn't bitten my hand off yet.  That's something.

Wish me luck.  I may need it.

What nasty job have you tackled recently?

Oh yeah, I was so not wanting to tackle this bear that on Friday, I bathed the cat.  That ought to show you how much this thing scares me.  Max does not make bath time lots of fun.  ;o)

Done and Done

Well, that didn't at all go like I planned.  You see, when I first heard about the Harper Voyager unagented submission window (See Oh Holy Crap from 9/15), I was all like "Hey, I can finish this and then tweak that and maybe, if there's time, I can polish that, too." 

Yeah.  Talk about pipe dreams.

I got one thing done.  Well, lots of things for one submission.  In the past month, I have...

- Finished inputting the last third of a total rewrite.
- Done a line by line deep edit of the entire 124K word behemoth, chopping out 16K words.
- Written a 1500 character synopsis.
- Polished the blurb part of a query letter.
- Re-read through the entire 108K words for typos.
- Fixed all 10+ pages of handwritten notes on said found typos
- Fixed two plot holes I missed before.
- Wrote the rest of the query with personalization for the contest.
- Submitted the synopsis, the query, the first 1000 words, and various other stuff via web form along with the entirety of the manuscript (attached in .doc form because they don't do .docx)

Everything but the first two items on that list, I've done in the last few days.  Proving, of course, that I can in fact do this deadline stuff when I have to.  And I did it with about 8 hours to spare.  AND I took care of a stray kitty-baby, plus tackled a clogged shower drain.


My house is a pigsty.  We did Dairy Queen for lunch and dinner today - and lunch on Friday.  Yesterday, I think my family foraged around the kitchen.  I don't remember.  I don't remember much of the past week.  I don't remember hardly any of the weekend.  Michigan won, but I didn't get to watch the game (due to said shower drain).  I watched the MSU game while I edited on the couch.

But I'm done.  I did it.  For a while there, I wasn't sure I could do it.  (I mean after the initial over-confidence went fizzle.) 

And I'm done.  Like a Thanksgiving turkey dinner, done.  Baked, basted, stuffed, and by the end of the day, down to the carcass.

Needless to say, I will not be participating in NaNoWriMo.  (Maybe NaNoEdMo, but that's something to think about on Halloween.)

This week, I will be cleaning my house before my family stages a revolt and the cats go on strike.  Do not expect anything writerly of me this week.  (Well, unless one of my queries comes back looking for a partial or a full, then I'll work.)

What did you do this weekend?  How does the coming week look for you?

You May Be Alone, but You Are Not Alone

"Writing is a solitary pursuit."  I heard someone on TV say this yesterday and I was all like 'well, duh'.  But thinking about it this morning, I realized something.  This may be a solitary pursuit and one no other person can really help us with (unless, you know, you're like working on a collaborative manuscript), we're in this together.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm all about the individual - doing his thing, being his own person.  What I mean is more along the lines of we have a shared experience.  Each of us is working toward a personal goal, and along the way, we face the same pitfalls, the same elation, the same deep dark depression and endless misery.  So, it just makes sense that we help each other however we can - even if it's just putting a hand on a friend's shoulder so they know they aren't alone.

Our paths are different, but we're all walking in the same direction.  Toward publication.  (Even those who are already published are still walking.  Just because one book is sold doesn't mean the journey ends.)

So if you see someone faltering, reach out a hand and help them back up.  If you see someone making progress, cheer - because the cheering inspires and heartens.  And if you feel like you can't take another step, call out so others can maybe help.

Writing may be a solitary pursuit, but you don't have to go through it alone.

Playtime is Over

This morning on Jeffe Kennedy's blog post Doggedness, Stick-to-it-iveness and Perseverance she mentions an encounter with a three year old - Betsy - and something the little girl said that's now stuck in my brain.  “I *was* having fun, but I’m not having fun anymore!”

I think Jeffe talked about it in reference to trying to find the fun when all it feels like you're doing is working, but it hit me a little different.  For me, I keep wondering if I haven't been playing Betsy for months now.

I think I might be sitting around pouting because I'm not having fun anymore.   :stomps one foot in disgust:  And I wanna be having fun.  Dang it.

Oh puleeze.

Nobody said any of this was going to be fun.  And I'm way too old to throw a pout-fest when it's not so much fun.  This is my frickin' job.  Sure, I'd like if it was fun all the time, but the reality of it is that it's work - sometimes damn hard work.  If I wanted it to be fun all the time, I'd just sit here writing and never bother to edit.  I'd never bother to try and get my work into some publishable shape.  I'd just write and write, like I did when I was a little girl.

Heh, maybe that's why I have so many manuscripts I never really finished.  I wasn't willing to put forth the effort, and now I've got so much work to do it seems insurmountable.  (But that's a theory for another day.)

Needless to say, my inner Betsy needs to take a nap.  Or sit in a time-out for a few weeks so I can get some genuine, totally un-fun work done.  Playtime is over, little girl.

So, regardless of whether this is supposed to be my day to relax or whether I have other more fun things to do, I need to spend some serious time doing serious things.

What do you have planned for the weekend?

I Can't? Oh Yeah? Watch Me.

There probably isn't much I hate more than being told I can't do something.  I'd tell you to ask some of my old therapists, but the ones who told me that I couldn't do stuff... Well, I fired them. 

Not that I'm irrational.  If someone tells me I can't do something and presents rational reasons, I might be persuaded, but to tell me 'You can't do that' and just assume I'll agree?  Yeah, that doesn't go over really well.  My answer...

Watch me.

So, over the weekend, I was looking for something to bake.  I had a box of cake mix, but I didn't want to make plain old yellow cake.  And I sure as hell didn't feel like baking a batch of cake cookies. Again.  Then I remembered I had a few butterscotch pudding cups in the fridge that we probably weren't going to eat.  And, knowing that people often put dry pudding mix into cake, I wondered whether I could just use the pre-made pudding. 

I went online to find out if it was possible.  First, I hit allrecipes.com - my go-to place for new recipes.  No one did anything with pre-made pudding, except for like parfaits and junk.  Then I gave Google a whirl, because ya know, if it's out there anywhere, it's on Google.  Not a recipe to be found for what I wanted to do.  So I typed in something like...

How to use pudding cups with cake mix.

And I stumbled across a forum where some poor woman asked the same question.  The answers she got back: No.  No, it'll be too wet.  There's no way to do it.

Oh yeah? thinks I.  Watch me.

So, I put the cake in a mixing bowl and thought about it for a minute.  Now the directions on the box called for 3 eggs, one cup of water, and a half cup of oil.  Pudding is already pretty wet, so I knew I needed to cut back on that somewhere. I added two eggs (because that's all I had in the house) and a quarter cup of oil.  Then I scooped in two pudding cups.  That didn't seem quite wet enough, so I added another.  Looking good, but still dry and that was my last butterscotch pudding, so, I went back to the box directions and got that cup of water ready.  As I blended, I added water until it looked about the consistency of any standard box mix.  I ended up using the whole cup, so it was perfect.

I poured it into the pan, put the pan in the oven according to the box directions and waited. 

I checked it at 25 minutes.  Still pretty wet in the center.  I checked it again about 7 minutes later.  The toothpick looked clean, the center was firm but not hard, and it was nicely browned.  I took it out and set it aisde to cool. 

When I went back to check it later, the damn thing had fallen down from its nicely curved top to pretty-well flat across.  Truth be told, my heart sunk a little.  I thought it was going to be dense and gross.  Screw it, I thought while I threw some stuff together to make a frosting to go with a butterscotch cake.  Worst that could happen is the texture is off.  I already knew it tasted good from licking the beaters. 

I slapped on the chocolate/butterscotch frosting I threw together and sent a little prayer to the baking gods.

Yep, it was flatter than a normal cake, but oh my god, it was the best cake in both flavor and texture that I'd ever eaten.  In fact, I had a piece last night and two today.  Even now, as bed time is approaching, that damn cake is calling me. 

And to those people who said it couldn't be done?? Eat my cake!

On second thought, forget I said anything.  Keep thinking you can't make this cake, and then it will be MINE, ALL MINE!  Bwa ha ha.

So, next time you want to try something and the world is telling you that you can't do it, give it a go anyway.  You might fall flat on your face, sure, but then again, you might end up with the best thing you've ever had.  And if it's not quite what you hoped, learn from the experience, so in the future, you can tweak your tries.  Sooner or later, you will succeed.

Oh, btw, if the person who told me I couldn't ever write a whole book happens across this... he can bite me.

;o)

So, your turn...  Ever do something after people told you that you couldn't do it?  Details, people, I want details.  I can't be the only one who's this bullheaded.  LOL