New Story-it's so shiny!

I have a new idea for a novel.  I'm about 25 pages into it.  While I was at Weekend of Awesome, I did the following things:
Gathered resources for research
Wrote up a COMPLETE outline
Created 10 different worlds (it will make sense when you read the pitch)
Created character sheets
Wrote the first 23 pages.  

I have to say, I LOVE this idea.

This is the sort of book I'd want to read and since that's the single BEST advice I keep repeating I figured it's about time to follow it.

Um, Erinn, don't you have OTHER BOOKS, you've written?

*awkwardly glances at the side bar* um, yeah.

Well, what's going on with them?

*awkwardly stares down at my feet* I'm doing stuff with them.

Really?  Are you?

Yes.

I'm revising them.  And stalling.

Erinn, why are you stalling?

Because I don't know if you got the memo, but writing is hard.  VERY hard.  And it's heart breaking.  I'm querying one book, and honestly I don't really want to go through that stress again.  not right now.

But I have a plan.  A serious plan. And if I blog about it, I feel like it holds me accountable.

Ready?

Write Universal Breakdown over the summer- First draft to be completed by August 20.

Revise New York Karma and send it to one last beta (Little does Holly realize it's her... insert evil laughter here.)  By October.

Revise Penny and Hank and send it off to beta's (WOA girls and writer's group) Decemeber.

Start to query New York Karma; March 2012.

Revise Universal Breakdown. March 2012.

Yes it takes me a long complete the whole process. Mostly because I put a HUGE amount of time between drafts. 

But this is my logic, if (when) I get THE CALL, and the agent asks, 'what else do you have?" I can say, "Well, I've got three other books sitting on my harddrive, wanna hear about them?"

With every book, my writing get stronger, I learn more about the industry.

Besides, the logic, a new book idea is so exciting.  It's so shiny.  It's so pretty.  New characters to play with, new worlds to explore.  Is there anything better?   I say no.

Wanna hear an early pitch?

When Cassandra is laying in her bed, she can see paraelle universes.  One blink and she's surrounded by dinosaurs, another blink and she's in a world where Hilter won WWII, one more blink brings her to the world where the boy she's in love with lives.  But the membranes holding the universes together are breaking down and now she must travel between them to help build the one device that can save not just her universe, but all universes.  The good and the bad.


Ok so that's an early verison of the pitch, but cool right?

So I'm going off to go write it.

Later gators

Don't forget: 

How about THE ROOM PRIZE PACK!  

You get a copy of the Masterpiece THE ROOM, plus popcorn to throw at the screen and the drinking game I created.  With rules like, "drink whenever someone laughs at in inappropriate time" you're sure to have a BLAST with your friends.

Please note due to content of the movie you need to be at least 17 to enter and to really really really really enjoy to movie you need to be 21. 

Swing by the other WOA Girls to see what they are giving away-- I can promise you, it's pretty cool!
Contest ends next Friday at noon

Commuty Theater and writing

A few weekends ago a student of mine was in a play at a community theater and asked me to go.  Since I have a shocking lack of a social life, Hubby and I were able to go.

It was two one act plays and they were excellent.  The one my student was in was about Juliet and Cinderella in a therapist office talking about how "things just didn't work out how they expected it." Spoiler, Cinderella was disappointed that Juliet didn't die at the end of her story.

The second play was good too, it was about a guy who thinks he's a super hero.

The night opened with two musicians, a girl and a guy.  The girl had a voice like a soul singer from the 40's.  She was breath taking.  I could have listen to her sing all night.  She was raw talent and I couldn't figure out why she was doing on a Saturday night.  There was only 56 chairs in the whole place.  She should be on Broadway.

The guy playing piano was good until he decided to break out a new song... and it got awkward FAST.
Somehow in my mind it's ok for a teenage boy to sit on a stage and sing about his broken heart but it gets creepy when he's forty. 

I couldn't tell if the songs he sung were good, bad or cheesy.  I don't know enough about music to be able to tell the difference... but I think I could compare it to reading the Twilight books.

So that got me thinking about different forms of art and writing.

I fully admit I got back into writing thanks to fanfiction but a lot of the writing community and most of the writing industry looks down on fan fiction-- much like the acting community looks down on community theater.  There are tons of talented writers who write  fan fiction. I'd even lump unpublished writers in the community theater label.  We've all read stories of writers who query their first draft and it makes the rest of us *headdesk headdesk headesk*   Unpublished writers are a mix bag of talent and "still learning how the industry works"  We're getting close but we're not quite there.

I would called a writer with an agent like a actor in a playhouse-- the venue sits at least a hundred people and they do plays that are well known like Alice in Wonderland, they have a budget and their doing well, but their exposure is limited.

Actors on Broadway would be writers who have had their book published, it's selling alright but they aren't a blockbuster. People who are like John Green, doing well, great in fact. No one is questioning his talent but he's not out selling Percy Jackson or Twilight.

A list actors are like New York Times Best Sellers.  Really in the population of writers and actors it's only like .5% that hit it big (I'm totally make up that number but it seems about it).

What other industry can you compare to the publishing industry?

Welcome to my life

Help:  I'm drowning in paper work, meetings, planning, grading, recording, and general real life.

Anyone else feel like their real life gets in the way of their writing and blogging and social interactions?


I'm heading back into the writing process.  ONE LAST set of revisions before I send it off to agents. 

Sunday I had 2 hours to work... I wrote three sentences. 

Maybe this weekend I'll get more in. 

Writing news

Fun Fridays

I finished revising this week.  After 13 full drafts and at least 500 pages of rewrites, between cutting out 50 pages at a time and adding in another 50, I've finally produced a draft I am excited about.

It's got a cool hook.  Minor characters have been fleshed out, subplots were expanded and made more interesting.  I'm proud of this draft.

Whic means one of two things, it's sucks or it's awesome.

Are there weak places? yes.  The prose is a little weak in spots.

But are the characters interesting?  Yes. 

Is the plot solid? Yes.

Are there marketing issues: Yes.  I have a male protag--- basically the kiss of death. The girls in my book are sort if bitchy.

I've been working on this for about 3 years.  Yikes.  Over course I've been doing other things, writing other novels, working full time and raising a kid and husband, so it's not like 24 hours a day I've been devoted to this story.

My point is it took a LONG time to get it to a place where I'm happy with it.  The first draft had a lot of drama for drama's sake.   Don't ever be ashamed of the drafting process, make changes and tweeks.  After your done and you STILL feel just as excited about it when you started, that's an awesome sign.

A few months ago my hubby won a critique from Kathleen Ortiz for me for our anniversary  I sent her my MS last night.  I'm super excited about it and terrified at the same time. 

I've also made a new change to my novel.  The title.  For a long time it was called No System At All.  The novel itself is about a band's rise to fame.  But I sort of hated the name.  It wasn't catchy or cool.
Now I've fleshed out a subplot where the main character does acts of renvenge of douche bags who hurt his friends.

New title

How to Pwn nOObs and Become a Rock Star.

What do you think?  Would this title make you want to read my book?

Music and Writing

I love music. I hate silence. Serious, it freaks me out. As a teacher I get panicky when I hear NO noise, it means something BAD is about to go down. I need sound, music or the screams of a child to make me feel at ease.

When it comes to writing NEW material I found I can not listen to music I love. I can't do it. I start off writing about the character's mother and her relationship with the mailman and the next thing I know I've got Green Day Lyrics filtered through out. Or worst of all, I start to sing. No one needs THAT in their lives.

I can listen to the music I LOVE when I'm revising and doing line edits or doing a Seek and Destroy... that's what I call going through the entire document and cutting all the adverbs, that, just, pretty, all the empty words. I normally do a find and replace sort of thing in Word.

When I write, I need music I've never heard before. Normally I bust out my i-Tunes and start listening to my recently added list.

I won't lie, music is my biggest expense. I buy a lot of music. Why? Because the music is hurting more than the publishing industry. I know the band only makes 10% of the CD sales, but the band has a lot more people they have to employ.

Sometimes I use music I don't even like very much, artisy folk music where the musician isn't singing about sex and drugs, but about real life. I sort of hate that crap. Sorry if I offended anyone.

When finishing Penny and Hank I listened to Arcade Fire and the first Manchester Orchestra EP.

So what do you listen to when you write?


BTW- I've been away in BOSTON since Thursday. I've been writing the blogs ahead of time. I'm not snubbing you and I promise to get back on track when I get home.

Penny and Hank 24 hours left

Today sucked. The whole day. From 2 pm until about 9:30 I wanted to punch kittens in the face.

Every time I went to write someone or something would interrupt me. I sat at Starbucks and wrote for two hours. I got some solid work done, but still it wasn't moving as quickly as I would have liked.

Then I had a dentist appointment it was my third one in two months, Ive been so foolishly trying to get my teeth cleaned. Yep they still aren't clean.

Then I got lectured by an elderly lady who was way to positive that I should live each day for itself. Great advice, but I was NOT in the mood to hear it.

Then I went to Panera, I ordered a new salad, it wasn't as good as I would have liked. Hubby called, I told him I had 1 hour to write before I picked up our daughter. Then the women next to me started to talk to me. FOR AN HOUR!!!

Then my daughter was exhausted (YAY) when I picked her up. YAY YAY and she wanted a nap. YES YES YES. I wrote one paragraph and Hubby came home and started to clean. Now I feel pressure to clean with him. I'm on the verge of tears.

AUGH

Daughter went to bed at 7:45 and I"ve been writing since then. I have three scenes left. They should be sort of short.

Plan for tomorrow, Drop of daughter at daycare*, go sit at a library and write. Then go to Let's Dish with Cindy, go to lunch, Best Buy and get the comics. Go back to a library and finish writing. Pick up kid by four. Write until it's time for bed.

*I'm not a stay at home mom who sends her kids to daycare. I'm a teacher and my school shut down three days earlier then the rest of the school system because it was getting renovated. Since I already had my daughter scheduled for daycare, it would be a SHAME and a CRIME not to use it.

Word count 5510 words written today. Total 56k

Penny and Hank update-- two days left

I hit 50K today. I dropped by kid off at daycare, drove to a Starbucks, parked my butt down and wrote until I' hit 50K... I was 4 thousand words short. It took about three hours. It was also a very emotional and slow writing part as well.

Once I got home I wasn't nearly as productive. I ate lunch, commented on TONS of blogs and did laundry. It was real life productive but not writing productive.

Tonight my plan is to write after my daughter goes to sleep.

I'm also really glad I outlined (sort of) because I LOVE to cross things off a list.



I'm on item 21, I've got 24 left to write. Plot Bunnies exploded and I might add more.

My plan is to repeat the process tomorrow.

Blogging to avoid life and deadlines

You may know this about me, but I write. My current WIP has a deadline, not a deadline imposed by an editor or agent or even a loved one, but by me. June 23 I need to have the first draft finished. My plan is to sit in Starbucks while my daughter is in daycare and finish it on Monday. (Today) You will be updated on how well the planned worked.

I will tell you at this moment, my daughter is asleep, my husband is out of the house, my laundry is done (almost) and this is the perfect moment to be writing. But I am not. Why? Because of the aforementioned plan. I will be away from the internet for a little while but I want to make sure I have my blog updated and ready to go.

So here is what today's entry is all about. THE GAME! Watch this video and then come back to me.




If you can't watch the video because you're firewall at work won't let you, (for shame for blogging at work--- totally kidding) I will recap. Hank Green tells his viewers about this game called The Game. If you think about The Game, then you lose The Game. All desire ends in lose. The only way to win The Game is not to know about The Game. The Game can be anything. If you're living for it, you'll never win.

Wow depressing right?

Sort of.

Is he right? Yeah.

Right now on my hard drive there are 3 (almost 4) manuscripts. How many of them have been published? None. How many of them will I try to get published? Don't know. See for writers The Game is publication. But then there's all this crap after publication. Let's say you're lucky/talented enough to get an agent and that agent sells your book. Now the real work begins. You have to face the public, criticism (worst then anything you think about your book, because we are our own worst critics-- nope there are people out there who get paid to read books and write their comments on them) Then there's the internet trolls who get off by being mean.
Then you have to face your fans. If you're lucky enough to have any.

Then your book gets moved from the new release section to the shelves and before long it in the bargain bin, where books go to be forgotten and die.

Now your agent and your publisher and your fans want a follow up. Pressure is mounting and this wasn't why you got into writing in the first place. Was it? Did you just lose The Game?

For the record, my heart goes out to any writer who's book explodes over night and Hollywood comes calling for a movie that goes to number 1 and breaks box office records. Worst of all when Hollywood remakes you book and does it better then you could. (True Blood I'm looking in your direction) The fame might be nice but the pressure has got to SUCK. <-that was NOT meant to be a vampire joke.

Writers, readers, friends, family, I ask you this, are you playing The Game? What are you playing The Game for? Are you willing to lost The Game? Winning does not mean happiness. Happiness does not mean winning.

Mommy week- Regrets and late night worries

First off all I want to thank all my new followers! HI! Thanks for joining the party. When I hit 50 followers I want to do some sort of contest so please let me know what you think will make a good prize.

Writing is selfish.

There I've said the very dirty truth...

I withdraw into my imagination- play around, type type type on my computer, get annoyed when I get interrupted.

I've ignored my hubby. I've been slow to rush to my daughter's side when she wants to show me something... in all fairness for the last 2 years she mostly wants to show me the dog. "Honey, I"ve seen the dog. I know what he looks like, you don't need to tell me he's cute. I know he's cute that's why I bought him."

When my daughter was born the doctor asked my Hubby if he wanted to take a picture of her while she was all goopy and covered in slime. Both Hubby and I said, "No, yuck!"
The doctor said, "She will only look like this once in her life."

She will only be this two years old-- once in her life.
She will only be learning how to walk once in her life.
She will only be potty training once in her life.
She will only have THIS day THIS moment ONCE IN HER LIFE.

I missed some of those, because my characters were calling me, because I wanted to blog, because the plot bunnies exploded, because I was trapped in editing hell.

I love my daughter. She's the coolest person I've ever met. (For the record-- I've met a LOT of people)

Writing isn't like knitting or scrapbooking where you can do it in the same room as your kids, no, you have to be alone. Being alone means missing out on stuff.

So Mom Writers out there, I ask you this, how do you deal with Mommy Guilt?

Road Trip Wednesday- When did I start writing?

YA highway asked today on the Road Trip Wednesday:
When/why did you start writing?

Here's the long and deeply personal story of When did I start writing.

I started writing back in 7th grade. Back in middle school I discovered the wonderful world of comic books. I was a Batman girl. I liked Robin, -- Tim Drake, not Jason Todd, or even Dick Grayson. Tim Drake was my Robin. He was also one of the reasons why I started to write.

In my head I had been writing for since birth, running around, talking to myself, living in the wonderful fantasy world in my head. But in 7th grade I started to write on paper. By 8th grade I though, "yep- I'm the most amazing writer that ever was."

In 9th grade was I diagnosed with a learning disability, in language. I leave out words, I reverse letters, I don't read what's on the paper, I make up my own words that sound better. All signs were pointing to, "Erinn, you need to stop." But if Robin could put on a suit every night and fight crime and go to school the next day, surely I could write a short story.

Throughout high school I had a story I wanted to write, because EVERYONE who read comics has a story they want to see in comic form, or they want to draw it.
I wanted to write comics, I wanted an ainmated series. I wanted a live action series. I wanted my characters on the big screen.

So I took every opertunity to do it. I took an elective every year to move ahead in my writing.
But reality started to creep in, I wasn't the best writer in the class. I wasn't the worst but I wasn't as talented as others. If I couldn't win an award in my writing class, then how can I get published. <-- a thought that still lingers with me today.

I went to Salisbury University because it had a creative writing major. I lasted one week when I opted to double major in English and Education. I remember thinking that I was giving up on my dream.

Still my story haunted me.
I discovered Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the Power Puff Girls and other shows that protrayed women as strong and fighters. Plot Bunnies exploded, but they never made it on to paper.

Finally my senior year of college, I was living alone, no roommate to distract me and one of my friends had published his own book. Now was my time. I formatted it like a comic --- still holding on to that dream.

I graduated with about 17 "chapters" of the story. To this day it's still sitting on my bookshelf.

Then I started to work, with a real job. I was a teacher, I started dating my husband, I was a bride, I was a homeowner and poof 4 years had gone by and I had no writing to show it.

Then I started watching The West Wing. Josh and Donna infected my brain as much as Buffy, my own story and Robin had in the past... and I started writing Fan fiction. Some people are ashamed of their fan fiction, I know it's not something I talk about a lot. But fan fiction was the reason WHY I got back into writing.

First The West Wing then I moved on to LOST. I was a shipper. Josh and Donna, Charlie and Claire. 10/Rose. Yep that's who I was. Then I wrote a Fan Fiction taking place in an AU for charlie and Claire... when it was over I said, "Nope, it's not." I changed it from characters who were "real" to my own characters. The story was so far removed from Lost I thought it would be fine.
That's how No System At All was born... sort of. But I called it Love Wears a Sucidial Fish Hat,-- it made sense in the book, I promise.

I did some edits, added scenes and flashbacks. Wrote a query and poof. I had a few requests for partials.

Awesome. I was half way there.

Nope. As it turned out the book sucked, and I was pregnant. So I had to make a choice, give up on writing or push on.

Motherhood loomed in front of me. Life changes didn't even begin to say it. During week 22 of my pregnancy I said, "no, I'm not giving up on these characters and I want to make the book into a series." It would be story of a band's rise to fame. My frist book Love wears a Sucidial Fish Hat would be the series finale and I would just go back and write the band's orgin for the first book.
Author's Note: Yeah all those plans have been thrown out the window, Fish Hat was my "practice" novel and it will NEVER see the light of day.

I spent the next 16 weeks being pregnant, teaching, getting ready for the baby and writing. I was 20 pages away from finishing when my daughter came month early. I went the hopsital and agrued with the nurse, "No, I can't have this baby, I need to finish my novel."

The nurse didn't listen.

Neither did my daughter.

This summer marks 3 years since I started writing No System At All. Since then I have written one other complete novel- New York Karma and I'm 1 week away from my third book Penny and Hank.

20 years since I started writing and you know what, my heart still belong to Robin.

Why do I do it?--- it's the plot bunnies, they don't leave my head, the story infects EVERY aspect of my life until I get it out on paper then I can move on. Beside I owe it to my characters to try. I owe it to my beta readers to make the story better. I owe it to myself because I love it.

Penny and Hank- update

I went dark for a week because I really wanted to win a contest and in my insane logic the longer I had the posting up the better chance I would have to win. News on the contest will come soon.

I've been thinking a lot about this blog, how I can gain more followers, how I can reward my followers, what sort of content I should fill the blog up with.

So I will ask you, all of those who take the time to read this blog, and ask, what sort of stuff do you want to see?

I was thinking about doing a round up all links to all the cool blogs I read in a week on Fridays.
Maybe pictures of things I like one day of the week.

Anyway Penny and Hank. I have less then 1 month to finish the book. I hit 22K words this weekend. Page 89. I'm 2/3s of the way to my goal.

I've also hit the point in my book where I've gotten my characters to the main setting, now they need to do something. How many pages do you think I can commit to them watching TV? At least 150, right?

I have the book mentally outlined, although the outline changes all the time.

How about you my writer friends? Do you plan out your story ahead of time with room to change or do sit at the computer and let the words come? Do you control your characters or do they control you?

all about me

Today I'm going to start a new project. It's a new novel, because I have two WIP that are currently being critqued by other writers.

Fun fact about me:
When I don't write, I get grumpy. I get cranky. I'm awful to live with.

So with the summer looming ahead of me and while I'm waiting for feedback, I'm going to start a new novel.


Last night on my car ride home, the entire story, characters, conflict and setting has come to me so quickly.

We'll see how quickly I can get the crappy first draft done.

I'll keep you updated.

My question to you, how often do you get flashes of inspiration? How often do you act one them?

late night ramblings

I’m feeling surprising nostalgic tonight. I’m not sure what brought it on. Was it my joking facebook status?

"9:30 on a Friday night, I’m on facebook and reading... 10 years ago I used to go to parties... ok not really, 10 years ago I was on the internet and reading on my Friday nights. sigh"

Was it reading a book that is written about a thousand times better then I could ever write? Or is it the fact that the main character’s life mirrored my own to a freakish amount?

Save one fact, the character in the book is WAY smarter then me. And cooler too. Seriously.

Annoying because the author has to be smarter then their characters otherwise it’s just a superficial statement, of my character is smart, but I’m not going to back it up with any support other then the fact that I have other characters saying she/he is smart.

Was it reading a book that is written about a thousand times better then I could ever write? Or is it the fact that the main character’s life mirrored my own to a freakish amount?

Save one fact, the character in the book is WAY smarter then me. And cooler too. Seriously.

Annoying because the author has to be smarter then their characters otherwise it’s just a superficial statement, of my character is smart, but I’m not going to back it up with any support other then the fact that I have other characters saying she/he is smart.

John Green reminds me three times a week what a smarty pants he is. And now Megan McCafferty is showing off her brain power too.

On an unrelated note, I remember my dreams.

I remember some dreams better then I remember my actually memories.

I remember talking about Confucius in my middle school gym class, which is NOT something that happened in real life at all.

I don’t remember much of college through.

Get your minds out of the gutter, it has nothing to do with drinking or illegal or immoral activities- It didn’t do any of that stuff, hence why I don’t think I have any memories.

I have a great life. I really do. I’ve been it amazing places, Hawaii, St Thomas, Italy, various places in Mexico and the Caribbean different parts of the US and to Canada <--- that one is nothing to brag about. Still my point is, all the places I’ve gone, and all the things I’ve seen and my favorite place is my bed.

My bed.

I have 1200 thread count sheets, a wooden black 4 post bed that didn’t fit up the stairs and the most comfy comforter in the world. My favorite thing to do is to plop Zoey on it, watch her bounce, read to her and play with her. Prior to Zoey’s birth my bed was still my favorite place.

So did I miss out on opportunities? Nope. I don’t think so.

Am I a little envious of people who go out and play with their friends every weekend. Sure.

But right now, I’m lying in bed, I just beat Peggle and I’m feeling nostalgic and I thought I’d share.

Sort of a mish mosh of random thoughts .

Congrats to Mo and Alicia who reached the NaNoWriMo goals of 50K.

Good night all and to all a good night.

Crappy First Drafts

The writing process sucks.

No, wrong. Writing, creating, playing God to your keyboard and your characters, that's awesome. Playing with my imaginary friends and making them a little bit more real, that's incredible.

But reality, that sucks.

Writing = being alone,(expect for your friends in your head)
Worst of all, Writing = REVISING.

Now revising SUCKS.


There are several stages of revising:
Global and line. Those are not really things, that's just what I call them.

I am now on draft 10 of my novel No System At All.

I started it when I was 16 weeks pregnant. Zoey is now 22 months old.

How and why I created this novel is an interesting side story.

I wrote a 535 page CHICK LIT. Yeah you read that right. It was 135K words.
For those of you who don't know, industry standard is 60K. Then I had the balls to SEND IT OUT TO AGENTS.
I got four requests for pages and four rejections. Do you know why? BECAUSE IT SUCKED. Seriously it was 135K.
So I sent it off to an editor for an MS review- maybe something I should have done before hand?
The editor said, "it sucked."
No, really she gave me EXCELLENT feedback. And she was right about a lot of it. But I didn't like it. Of course I was 15 weeks pregnant, uncertain of my life and sort of in the worst mental state I could be in. So instead of revising I opted to... TURN THE BOOK INTO A SERIES.

Welcome to the birth of my insanity.


Draft 1 of the story was originally 4 parts spanning a total of 4 years, telling the story of Bryce and Colin, two bothers who were in a rock band. Colin was destined to be a musical genius, Bryce was going to be a screw up. Colin has a girlfriend, who he loves and Bryce steals her. Oh and they stay in the band together and ultimately get a record contract.

Draft 1 included a 50 story arc with Bryce selling drugs, and being in love with his English teacher. He had Lizzy also have an affair behind Colin's back for a year. And there was a rape scene. Oh and Colin and Bryce find out their mom has cancer.


Draft 2 I ran it through spell check. <-- Seriously that was a full draft

Draft 3 I cut the rape scene and trim back the affair to a month and Lizzy leaves Colin for Bryce. (Why does Lizzy leave Colin for Bryce? I don't know-- I'm the Author, the GOD of this world, and I have no friggn' clue why) I wrote twenty pages that never even made it into the draft, Bryce was helping his teacher plan a wedding (What?!?!) you can see why it never made it in.

Draft 4
I vaguely remember draft 4 not sucking too much. I think this is when I sent it out my friend Alicia. <-- although after reading it, I'm not sure why she's still my friend.
Another important side note Alicia has an awesome blog. It's about writing, and waffles and on Thursdays she write about Zombies. If you're reading this, you should click over and go follow her blog too.

Draft 5
Took all of Alicia's suggestions, cut, trimmed, added. BTW Mom gets to live in this draft.

Draft 6
Took all of Danielle's suggestions, she's Alicia's friend.

Draft 7
Cut 30K and added 30K. Changed from 4 years down to 3. Bryce's entire back story is now being told through e-mails to his teacher. Including e-mails, IM's and other interesting format goodies.

Draft 8
Reread Danielle's and Alica's comments. New fixes, new content, old stuff trimmed.

Draft 9
Repeat process from draft 8

Draft 10
Novel is 2 parts.
Takes place over two and a half years.
NO LIZZY and BRYCE love story at all, cutting close to 30K.
NO IM
A character who was introduced and cut and introduced again back in draft 7 returns to play a HUGE part in the story.
Lizzy is a bitch, which is fine, since no one liked her anyway. I never did, either.
A whole new back half of the book.

The total number of pages which are the same from first draft to last: 20. A grand total of 3 scenes.

Total page count 300, word count 75K.


Is there a point?
Yes.
First Drafts are bad.
VERY bad.
You shouldn't show them to anyone.
So anyone doing NANOWRIMO, it's great your doing it, but don't rush out to query it. take your time.
Your characters aren't going anywhere and they will love you and respect you more in the morning if give them time to grow and not make them do retarded things.

Here's proof if you want it: Listen to John Green prove my point in a funnier way.

So how many more drafts before I can query?

One more.
I'm waiting on feedback from people from this last draft. Maybe draft number 11 will do it.

Until it's time to line edit. Insert ominous music here.

Writer's OCD

So I've finished draft 10 of my novel No System At All. I've been working on it for three years now. I started while I was pregnant with my daughter Zoey. Between draft 1 and 10, about 20 pages have remained the same. So Anna Lamott was completely right, it really is a shitty first draft. In another post I'll fill you in on what was cut and added then cut again.

Anyway, I'm not nuts, I don't finish a draft and instantly start the next draft. No, I put it down for a month or six depending on my mood and how much I miss the characters.

Between drafts of No System At All, I started writing New York Karma, a novel that will not take ten drafts to get right. Why did I start New York Karma? Beside the fact that plot bunnies had overtaken my mind? No, it was because I had finished the sixth draft of NSAA and I needed something big on my plate.

Apparently it's not enough to be a wife.
It's not enough to be a mom of a toddler.
It's not enough to be a teacher and teaching a brand new content.
It's not enough to be a healthy individual.
No, I need to have a giant ass project on my metaphoric plate.

I feel uneasy and guilty when I'm not stressing myself out about writing. If I don't have a never ending do to list I feel like I'm wasting the very little time I have on the planet.

So right now I have two works in progress, and I'm in a weird limbo.

Maybe it's because everyone is doing NaNoWriMo and I feel like a slacker.

But I think I need to start to write again. Otherwise I will shrivel up and become a very boring person. You know, because writer's are known to be the life of the party.

My current writing to do list:
Write Query letters for New York Karma. (Check started that yesterday)
Write Query letters for No System at All

* Please note these are shitty first drafts of these letters and neither work is ready to be published, I just have FREE time and I thought I should get a head start on these. UGH I'm SO OCD

Write synopsis for New York Karma and No System At All (I'm a little hesitant to do this because NSAA's plot has changed SO much, it might end up to be about vampires by the time I'm ready to send it out, sparkly vampires)

Write a sequel to NSAA<-- Do you see this? Are you kidding me? WHAT?!? Even as I write this I know it's fraking insane. But the OCD part of me really wants to do it.

The simple fact is, I like my characters, I've known them for a very long time. I want to see where they will take me and where I can take them.


So dear readers and friends, who wants to take bets? How long before I start the sequel? This weekend? Next weekend? What do you think? Any other writers out there know what I"m feeling?