With the indie author hat comes a great responsibility. If you have the power to bring any words you want to the world, then you shoulder the WHOLE responsiblity of making sure they’re the best words you have to give.

Self publishing is not the easy way out. Sure, it *can* be easy if you’re doing it wrong – and yes, lots of people will do it wrong – but to do it right takes a great deal of self-discipline (even more self-discipline than it takes to publish traditionally, since the only deadlines and bars set for you will be your own). It takes a lot of stubborn-headed persistence and a little bit of idealistic hope.

And maybe some insanity too.

But most of all it takes the responsibility to know when something is ready, or when it’s not. (more…)

There is no story for my photo this week. (And by the way, I’m sure anyone following this will have noticed that I’m hopelessly behind in my weeks, with little chance of ever catching up – and I don’t really care.)

Last Friday, I passed 50K on the second draft of my novel-in-progress, and just about as fast as I crossed that line, I promptly disappeared from the internet. Work-related anyway. I took an impromptu weekend off. I wasn’t supposed to be taking the weekend off, since I still need to plump and polish this draft by about another 18,000 words, and there’s this monumental and looming deadline to finish before my kid finishes school for the summer – self-imposed, but since I’m my own employer, I’m being kind of a hard-ass about it, lol! Oh, and we’re also simultaneously planning a trip to England in these same three weeks.

Yet even with all there is left to do, my brain spit out that 50,000th word, and shut down. It felt called for, felt necessary, and so it happened. (more…)

So after having a bout of cold feet on my 1st person alternating POV narrators, 35% into the second-ish draft of my novel, I decided to look through a few of my all-time favorite books and see how they were done. I was very surprised to find about 90% of the novels I own (as many of my favorites as I can afford, of course) were written in first-person, and a good handful of those used alternating 1st person narrators too.

Kind of telling then why I’m trying to do the same for my own novel – whether I can or can’t has yet to be decided

The list, favorite novels in 1st person:

A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
The Feast of Love, by Charles Baxter (4-5 different narrators)
Kiss Me Judas, by Will Christopher Baer
Lolita, by Vladimir Nobokov
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital, by Lorrie Moore
A Gate at the Stairs, by Lorrie Moore
The Virgin Suicides, by Jeffrey Eugenides (1st person plural)
Then We Came to the End, by Joshua Ferris (1st person plural, and one chapter in 3rd person)
My Sister’s Keeper, by Jodi Picoult (4 different narrators)
The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
Timequake, by Kurt Vonnegut
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz (2 different narrators)
The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
Survivor, by Chuck Palahniuk
The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner

***

Not counting short stories, and not counting books I loved but don’t own.

Chapters 1 and 2 are fine. Chapters 6 and 7 are fine. Chapters 8, 9, and 10 are in pieces, but have potential, and will probably end up fine.

But chapters 3-5 are not fine. They feel like soggy bread, you know, like when a bit of sandwich crust ends up in the dirty dishes?

Once upon a time, I thought I’d finish the first draft of my novel by the end of May. A silly girl I was, hopeful, bold, and too many clouds in my head. In reality, the end of May approaches quickly, and the novel is expected to reach a scrawny, but extremely endearing 30,000 words by then. Maybe more, if I can buckle down and focus. My novel is that delightful skinny child that doesn’t look like much now, but you just have a feeling might grow up to be something “special.”

I have no qualms with these clouds in my head, or the reality that shows up and tells me how silly I was. I replot my schedule, and see a finished first draft by not May, not June or July, but probably September or October instead (and even then, it’s only hoping). Out to agents by the end of the year? Oh no, probably not. Finished and solid first draft by my 30th birthday is the new goal – beginning of September. If I do nothing else, I want to have finished a solid draft of a novel before I turn 30.

Just to say that I did it.

Can I tell you a secret? Sometimes I want this book finished so quickly because the year 2012 is coming up so fast, and I want to see my book in print and being adored by the masses before we all become blindsided by Planet Nibiru.

Do I really believe there is a Planet Nibiru? No, probably not. They usually turn out to be flops, don’t they? Am I just fascinated by “end of the world paranoia”? Oh, probably. Am I weaving it in as a major undertone of my novel? Oh yes, I’m trying!

So, how about you all? What do you want to get accomplished in your life before we get smashed into oblivion by Planet Nibiru?

not a musician:

Playing this week, “I Will Follow You Into the Dark,” by Death Cab For Cutie. (listen here, good guitar lesson here.) I’m in love with this song this week. It’s quiet and beautiful, and it inspired a heartbreaking little story idea.

not a film critic:

Into the Wild: Very thoughtful, and inspiring. Now I wanna backpack through Alaska. I know, the book is usually better, but my “to-read” list is a mile long already. Hubby read it and enjoyed it, and was able to point out where the differences were. I’m wondering if the film might have better suited the visuals of an adventure anyway?

I expected to be bored by it, but I absolutely wasn’t. I mean, how interesting can one guy be out in the wilderness? But the point is, he spent much of his journey meeting very interesting people, making these fantastic human connections that he outwardly rejected. He seemed to have such an impact on so many people, and came to an unfortunate conclusion in the end.

I make myself a promise though – when my kid(s) is grown and self-sufficient, I’m totally going to climb a mountain!

progress report, week of 12/7:

Not much bulk added to the novel this week (a few random lines, a couple good paragraphs). Christmas is starting to happen in a consuming way, hubby is sick… it’s just that time of year.

I did manage to send a story back out into the world again this week, and I wish it luck. I hope I’ve taught it all it needs to know, so that it might stand on its own little feet and prosper. Again, I subbed it to one of my top favorite magazines, lol! If it doesn’t work there, I might try my hand at simultaneous submissions next time. And maybe I’ll cast a bit more modestly, lol! You know, reaching for the stars and all

This week: whatever I can manage, considering it’s the week before Christmas and all. I still like the goal of having part one entirely first-drafted before the new year. It’s still doable, I think.

I’m going to share my first chapter with you all after the new year. (Eeek! I said it!) So I hope you’ll hold me to that

I’m a sucker for a good love story, whether that be romantic or platonic love. I don’t consider myself a romance writer, but I do write a heck of a lot of stories about love, whatever form it might manifest itself in. (And I have a theory, that on a very basic level, all stories come back to love in some form.) They’re hard to write though, without dissolving into a syrupy mess.

It seems in the past weeks the world has been thinking and reflecting on the topic of love in writing, and I’ve been collecting a few of the links I’ve found.

First, an interview @ Maud Newton w/ Marlon James: about his novel, the Book of Night Women (which sounds fascinating, by the way!), and writing about love.

I remember calling friends shouting, “I just wrote a love scene! All they do is kiss!” to which they would respond, “. . . and are they then dismembered?” and I’d go, “No, after that they dance!” It was hard. I resisted it for as long as I could because I didn’t believe in it at first, and even when I did, I couldn’t figure out how to write it. Not until Irish novelist Colum McCann gave me permission by giving me the best writing advice I’ve ever gotten from a writer: Risk Sentimentality.

There’s a belief that sex is the hardest thing for a literary novelist but I disagree: love is. We’re so scared of descending into mush that I think we end up with a just-as-bad opposite, love stories devoid of any emotional quality. But love can work in so many ways without having to resort to that word. Someone once scared me by saying that love isn’t saying “I love you” but calling to say “did you eat?” (And then proceeded to ask me this for the next 6 months). My point being that, in this novel at least, relationships come not through words, but gestures like the overseer wanting to cuddle. Or rubbing his belly and hollering about her cooking, or teaching her how to dance or ride a horse — things reserved for white women…

…I think, as a writer, the important thing was to layer the relationship with complexity and contradiction. There were situations where I could have left certain storylines one-dimensional and gotten away with it. I think the relationship is gripping not because they love each other, or think they do (or not) but because even with such a horribly skewed dynamic, hearts do what they want. And people don’t always fit in the roles that have been assigned to them. But of course the relationship is doomed; any slavery love writes its end in its very beginning.

On a similar tangent, I certainly don’t consider myself an erotica writer either, but I can’t seem to write a story that doesn’t involve or at least elude to sex in some form.

Here, an article on how writing about sex in fiction is almost never really about the sex.

More on writing sex here, from Storytellers Unplugged.

And finally, a must-see movie – film, I guess, we call them films when they’re artsy and thoughtful Good Dick: I suck at writing reviews, and there are plenty of good ones on IMDB, but really, it’s a hilarious, twisted love-story, but at the same time surprisingly sweet. Emotionally taxing, but so worth it! Movie trailer here. (Oh, rated R and not for the kiddies though!) Enjoy!

I’m finding it MUCH harder to get writing done with a three year-old than at any previous age. The “terrible twos” were difficult, in terms of behavior, but the terrible threes are just as terrible, for different reasons. Two year-olds just don’t understand the things they want, which makes things frustrating – but three year-olds understand everything, they know their parents well, and they know just how to get what they want. They’re bold and manipulative and stubborn!

And they don’t nap anymore.

And they don’t sleep through the night because there are monsters in their bedrooms now. And they have bad dreams.

And even though it’s lovely that they’re potty trained, now they’ll wake you up to take them to the potty in the middle of the night. You almost want to tell them, “Oh, just go in your underwear, we’ll pretend it’s like a diaper and we’ll change them in the morning, Mommy needs to SLEEP.” But you don’t.

And they wake up at 7:00, on the dot, every single day, and ready to GO – and keep going, and going, and going…

The amount of involvement he needs is just so much greater. He should be in school this year, but you know, life happened in an epic way this year.

This has to be the hardest age. At one, they were adorable! Do you remember one, with their toddling and babbling? And newborns! My God, newborns were easy! They sleep 16 hours a day! Just strap that sucker to your chest and you’re good to go! Two was trying, because they just don’t understand the world yet – but three is impossible because they do.

Four gets better, right? Somebody tell me four gets better! (Lord, please, lol!) But if nothing else, at least there will be preschool next year. God bless school!

progress report for the week of 11/9:

If a zombie tried to write a novel, she might write about 1200 words in a week.

But they can’t all be great weeks. They can’t all be like last week, where I sat down and wrote about 1200 words in one single hour. Nope, not all hours can be like that. Certainly not. It might be near impossible for me to make my 20,000 words for the month, but I’m not giving up hope just yet. Better weeks will come, they always do.

On a more positive note, part 2 is itching to be written. Which is odd since I don’t have a damn clue what happens in the present narrative of part 2, but all the corresponding flashbacks are screaming at me!

Hey, that’s better than nothing, right? It’s better than being a zombie with no part 2 screaming to be written.

I changed the title of this blog a couple years ago. And when I wrote this new title, it wasn’t to put down those who write mommy blogs. Not at all. I enjoy reading mommy blogs. But this blog isn’t supposed to be one. This blog is a reminder to myself that before I became a mother, there were these things I wanted, and that my life was headed in a certain direction.

My hubby asked me a very important question a couple weeks ago, except he didn’t know how important it was when he was asking. He tends to do this, spout off insightful comments without knowing how insightful they are – and then I usually unleash a bitch-fest on him, because I don’t do well when the truth hits me hard in the face.

He asked if I thought of myself as a stay-at-home-mom, or a work-at-home-mom?

My answer to this question means two very different things. Am I a stay-at-home mom, who raises children for a living and writes for a hobby? Or am I a work-at-home mom, who aspires to write for a living, while simultaneously raising a child and not keeping up with her housework? In my current state, I’d say I’m pretty unproductive at both. But in truth, what I want to be is a work-at-home mom. The only distinction between me and other working moms is that my career ambitions don’t pay out until after the story is already written and published.

I need to start taking my writing life a lot more seriously. Events like these are effective enough to make you stop in your tracks and say, whoa, we might not have as much time as we thought we did. Considering my parents checked out at 38 and 54, I could be well past prime here.

This year has sucked, I’ll give myself that much credit. Do you want to know how much this year sucked? Hubby lost a job and found a very swift relocation, epic cross-country move, no family or friends here, gained fifteen pounds (!!!), hate this apartment, dad died – and hey look, I’m actually an orphan now (if a 29 year-old woman can be counted as an orphan – I don’t feel ready to not have parents). This year sucked! This year sucked so bad, you might even be inclined to laugh, in the way something can be so unbelievably horrible it becomes laughable.

I might even rank it up there with my 24th year, where we ended up moving back home to my dad’s, sleeping in a closet because there wasn’t actually room for us there – it was a big closet, you might even call it a room if it had a window. Come to think of it, I gained fifteen pounds that year too. I guess I’m quite obviously a stress-eater.

But even in my 24th year, I finished my degree. There was that. No year can suck in its entirety.

I had this draft saved from almost three years ago:

This was my first post to my paper journal after I found out I was going to have a baby:

“I haven’t written in this thing for so long. I find myself wondering if there is even any point anymore. I guess there must be. When I am 45, when my children are grown and going off to college, I’ll probably wonder what kind of woman I used to be before it all started. When I was young and newlywed, when my breasts and butt and belly were all in the right places.”

I could so easily become engulfed by this sweet sweet boy. I could forget everything I had ever hoped for myself and want nothing more than to be his mother. That is exactly what I am afraid of.

I had this conversation with Jim this morning (sometimes I amaze myself with my depth of thinking and intellect – only sometimes): that Dylan has come and joined our family, not the other way around. We were on a path before he came, and he joined us. It doesn’t mean we should change our plans, and it doesn’t mean we should stop. But just accommodate this little traveler and make him a part of our already existing life.

Even then, I was so afraid of letting my life escape me, and forgetting about all those dreams I had as a young woman, all those things I knew I really wanted.

So if I am going to consider myself a work-at-home mom, then that means not having made any money off my writing yet makes me a very unsuccessful one. This is not a mommy blog. This is the blog of a woman who is trying to jump-start her professional storytelling career, who happens to also be a mother, among other things.

I remember my very last rejection. It was from Zoetrope All-Story, aiming quite high for my first submission out of college, lol! But I got a note handwritten from whoever read it that said, “Thanks for the interesting read.” Hey, I’ll take “interesting” as a compliment, because from what I hear, magazines don’t just toss out compliments or even comments just for the hell of it.

I wasn’t very disheartened by the rejection. I mean, hell, it was Zoetrope, and it was exactly my fourth submission to anything, ever! We were taught well in my undergrad writing program about how many rejections writers get out there in the real world. We were taught about constructive criticism and how to make your writing grow from it.

I also took it as a sign that I wasn’t quite ready yet. I had just finished my undergrad work, I needed to practice on my own for a while, and that’s what I’ve been doing. I moved to two different towns, I had a kid. I wrote many failed short stories, two failed attempts at a novel, much, much, much practice writing, much learned from my former writers group, and five years later, I think I’m finally at a point of ready to try again. For real, this time. Taking myself seriously.

Trying is scary. I have this theory about avoiding fear of failure though not trying. If I never tried to publish one of my stories, then I could still say I haven’t failed. I could say that the only reason I haven’t published is because I didn’t try, or because I didn’t really want it. It wouldn’t be because I wasn’t good enough. I could still tell myself I’m as good as any of those writers. I could tell myself I could be published, if I wanted to, if I really tried. And I could make myself believe it. I could keep on writing for a hobby and finding people who love the stories I write, and live secure in this fallacy that I could be published, if I wanted to.

That’s how you avoid fear of failure through not trying – and I am expert at it!

Or I could try, actually try, and here’s the scary part – if I try to make this all real, and it doesn’t work, then I really have to say I’ve failed.

So I’ll try then. I will stop wasting time, I will finish stories to completion, and I will submit them. I even have a story in mind to start with, the one I submitted to Zoetrope, the “interesting read.” Looking at it five years later, I can see where the voice hadn’t matured yet, and where I am now better able to pull it together. Looking back at it again, it was a damn good story, just not ready yet. And maybe I’ll start a little more modestly this time. You know, maybe not one of the top paying markets in the country, lol!

I need public accountability. I need you all to take note of these goals and be critical of how much I’ve accomplished by Friday. I need that because I don’t know if I can keep myself accountable enough on my own. So…

writing goals:
- I’m going to submit something, somewhere, by Friday. That’s my assignment for the week. I just thought I’d put that out there, and I hope you’ll all hold me to that.
- also I want to make a good stab at chapter 3 of the novel
- fill out the bones of a second short story I’m working on (also have a market in mind for this one)
- finally (for crying out loud!) finish reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being!!!
- and don’t worry LH fans, two scheduled updates for you this week too

non-writing goals:
- finally get my Virginia drivers’ license and plates – I’ve been here seven months, I think that’s highly not allowed, lol!
- buy a new dresser from Ikea (oh the hard work!)

All this while raising a brilliant, well-adjusted, and potty-trained (thank you very much!) three year-old?

We’ll let the laundry suffer probably. We usually do.

not a reader:

These links aren’t exactly new or anything. I think I’ve had this post in my drafts for two weeks.

A good story, in The New Yorker – not a new story, I clicked through to read one by Lorrie Moore, but ended up reading this older one instead: “Brother on Sunday,” by A.M. Homes. Love her! Just revel in this line for a moment. Has anyone ever written a better line than this?

“My brother is coming, after all,” he says. His brother, Roger, visits the beach once a year, like a tropical storm that changes everything.

Have to buy this issue of Tin House! (Issue #40) Charles Baxter! Amy Hempel! Joshua Ferris! Stuart Dybek! And poetry by Stephen King? OMG, get me one of these right now!!! Seriously, I might even brave taking Dylan to a bookstore to get one of these! (Dylan gets traumatic in bookstores for some reason – toy stores, fine; bookstores, meltdown!)

not a writer:

My novel isn’t dead, but in hibernation, still. It is not technically dead, no one checked their watch and said, “Time of death, 10:53 a.m.” Is it on life support, maybe? Or in cryogenics, to be revived at a later date, when its medical condition might be helped by future breakthroughs we have not discovered yet?

I started working on new a short story, actually. I never thought I would write one again, but I suppose “never again” is a pretty big statement to stand by. The penultimate short story I wrote was one that turned into the first version of my attempted novel. Then my last short story was the one that turned into my current version of my novel, which isn’t technically dead, yet. I totally need to stop doing that! This short story, I’m pretty sure, has no chance of turning into a novel. I could be wrong. I’ve been wrong before.

But I started that story last week, and have not actually written anything “valid” this week. No, not a word. Did you ever have those kind of weeks where it ends up being Friday, and you’re like, wasn’t it just Monday a minute ago, and what have I actually done with these last five days of my existence? I’ve been writing the usual things, as well as some rants, some snark, some comments on facebook.

But “valid” fiction (“valid” = stories that might be sold and/or published to further my professional writing career), no, not really. Not this week. Maybe next.