Finding time to write

Since placing in Writers of the Future, I’ve been in a bit of a panic. That was all I had ready, so now what? I can’t be a writer on just one published story. Shortest career in history.

So I’ve been trying to find ways to slip writing into my schedule more than I have. Which is tricky. I go to conventions and sit in panels filled with men who tell me that finding time to write at home is easy. All they have to do is focus and if the kids act up, they just send ‘em to talk to mom!

Well, that’d be a lot easier, if my name wasn’t mom.

My reality, that I’ve had to accept, is that I simply won’t ever have 14 hours a day for three straight months to focus on spitting out a novel. I just won’t. I’m not the primary breadwinner. I am the primary caregiver. And it's pretty much going to be that way until the youngest leaves home. The best I can hope for is 8 hours a day, 5 days a week during the school year once my little one hits first grade. Only somebody still has to do the laundry.

Anyway, in my quest to find time to write, I bought the NanoWrimo Writing Tools Story Bundle as advertised by Dave Farland. It’s a bunch of e-books about writing, one of which was Million Dollar Productivity by Kevin J. Anderson. In his 25 year career, he’s written something like 130 books or so. I’m assuming that number is higher by now because that man never stops writing!

I was a bit skeptical at first. I was expecting things like, “Think about your story all the time.” That one was in there and it wasn’t a surprise. But do you have any idea how hard it is to follow even the simplest thought from point A to point B with “Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom!” interrupting your thoughts every 30 seconds? It’s like wearing the thought canceling earphones from Harrison Bergeron, designed to make even the brightest of person below average in less than a day!

But then there were some other suggestions that really caught my eye. Keven J. Anderson hikes A LOT. Which, when he first mentioned I was a little jealous of. I love hiking and it’s one of the things that have given way in the face of all the rest of my life’s responsibilities. But as he hikes, he dictates into a voice recorder. He can dictate several chapters of first draft in a day, then he sends it out to be transcribed. There are times when he employs 3 typist full time to keep up with him. Cool Huh?

Wasn’t sure it’d work for me, but I thought I’d give it a go. For the past 2 days, I’ve turned my phone off and hiked into the nearby national forest. I’ve always talked to myself anyway.

Total breakthroughs on the story that I’m working on! I’ve been stuck for a week. This afternoon, I took my laptop, got as far as a picnic table and pumped out 1200 words of the climax in about an hour and a half. When I got stuck, I got up, hiked around and brainstormed into the recorder. When I figured it out, I sat down and wrote. Not quite his method, and I haven't exactly climbed any 14ers, but 2 days in, it’s working for me.

And bonus, because I was 20 minutes from home, there were no looming chores to bother me. Everybody else’s needs got left behind. All I had to focus on was writing, brainstorming and enjoying an incredibly beautiful fall day. Now all I need to do is figure out where I can go in the winter time where I can walk around, talk to myself and not get kicked out for weird-ing out the other people in the room.  

I’m a fan. Even though I have an office, I’m going to keep leaving the house to write. I’m going to start carrying my voice recorder everywhere I go. And I’m going to keep taking advantage of the little moments I can find in the day. Eventually progress will be made, right?

I’m hoping to get my story finished before NanoWrimo starts so I can spend the month doing first drafts. Only 7 days to go. NanoWrimo has made November the best month of the year!

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Holy Freaking Cow, I still can't believe I've won!

Monday night, I got the phone call I’d been waiting for from Writers of the Future. My short story “The Graver” won second place in the third quarter. I am so excited! Come April, I will be flying to LA for the awards ceremony and book launch. But the real prize is the week long conference leading up to the ceremony where I get to learn from professional editors, agents and authors. From what I've read on other blogs, classes in the past have consisted of things like "how to give radio and television interviews" and "how to decipher contracts". But mostly, I get to network with all those editors, agents and writers!

It’s been a weird couple of days. You enter a contest like this, and you spend a lot of time fantasizing about what winning would be like. At least, you do if you're like me. You picture yourself getting off the plane. You imagine conversations you might have with other winners. You think of questions for the editors and agents that you might not otherwise get the chance to ask. You pre-write an acceptance speech about a billion times in your head.

But then, you make yourself forget everything because entering isn't winning and there are literally a thousand other stories that are bound to be better than yours. And all this is empty fantasy anyway. It's wasting time you could be using to write your next story that might actually have a chance of winning. Because this one was awful and it's a good thing the judging is anonymous because no one wants to be laughed at by a professional.  

Only, since the phone call I've had to put my brain into reverse. I actually get to get off that plane. I have to start thinking about how I'm going to interact with the other winners. Editors and agents will happily answer my questions and Holy Freaking Cow, I actually have to write a real honest to goodness acceptance speech!

So, so weird.

I keep telling myself that it's real. At some point in the next few months, I'm sure I'll come to believe it.

This is the moment when it starts. I'm a Writer. Technically an award winning one. Someone wants to pay me money for my words on paper, for my imagined characters and worlds. And sooner or later, someone else will pay me a second time for the same. And then again.

There will be rejections. This is going to be hard. No writer starts a career with nothing but acceptance. Writers start with 2ft tall stacks of rejection letters and then struggle up from there. But with this first acceptance, it's begun.

The first act of a story has always been my favorite part!

Patience - Not my virtue

It’s been two and a half weeks since finding out I was a finalist in Writer’s of the Future. Sometime in the next week and a half I’ll find out the final results. I’ll have to admit, every day that goes by, I’m a little more nervous than I was.

When Writer’s of the Future posted the names of the eight finalists on their blog, I was excited. I cyber-stalked a few of them. A couple have already published. So you know, I’m like, not intimidated at all, right?

Well I knew intellectually what it meant to get this far in the contest. From what I understand, they have somewhere between 800 and 1200 entries per quarter. So to be at the top of that list is pretty good for the self-esteem. Even if I don’t place, my story made it to the top eight and that rocks! But last night, they posted a list of all the finalists, semi-finalists and honorable mentions. I read down the list and it just kept going, and going, and going… Suddenly I started to realize just how many people 800-1200 must be. And the names on that page that kept scrolling were the very best of all of them – just a fraction of the stories submitted. It sort of made it real, if that makes any sense. I was terribly humbled to be included in that top group of writer’s in any capacity.

So now I wait. And I’m really not very good at waiting. I know so many people who are so good at patience. My neighbor across the street is one of them. Nothing seems to ruffle her. You should see her with kids, she’s amazing. Patience seems to be one of her primary virtues. I’m so not like that. I’ll keep chewing at my fingernails and try not to snip at my poor kids while they just try to get through their own day.

My husband likes to remind me that whether I’m good at waiting or not, the same amount of time will pass. Worry won't alter the time stream. I’ll still have to wait, so I might as well not worry.

Wish I could actually apply that wisdom. :)

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Writer's of the Future Finalist!

As of yesterday afternoon, I am officially a Writer's of the Future Finalist! I'm vacillating. One minute I'm consumed with despair that the other 7 finalists have all got brilliant stories and my inclusion in the group was some sort of Carrie-esque practical joke. The next minute I want to run screaming through the streets that my story was awesome and I'm going to win I just know it!

These next 2-3 weeks are going to be very long. . .

It's finally September though, and my kidlets are finally back to school, which means I can finally get back to writing. I started the summer really believing that I was going to be able to fit some writing in here and there. I was going to submit a story once a month, get ahead on some publishable works. Yeah. Didn't happen. I have two boys. The younger one, I could raise twelve of. He's sweet and adorable and listens to every little thing you ask him to do. Then there's my older son. Who feels very much like twelve children all wrapped up into one. He's sweet when he wants to be and he's incredibly smart, but all the really impressive qualities like independence and out-of-the-box thinking that I hope he holds onto as an adult make him exhausting to raise. He's a perfect personality clone of his dad.

But the summer wasn't a total loss. In fact, it was kind of awesome. We spent time in Colorado with Brandon's family. I took the boys to Ontario for three weeks to see my parents. And I got a surprise trip to London. How awesome is that? I came home with a double decker bus shaped notebook filled with ideas that I'm dying to start fleshing out. Hopefully I can keep my brain busy writing while I wait to hear back from WotF.

Two to three weeks isn't that long right? And even if I don't place this quarter, being able to land a finalist position on the very first story I've ever sent in has to count for something. A lot really. It means I'm on the right track, and this little dream of mine isn't quite the delusion I've always feared. Especially considering that this is the very first story I've ever actually finished. I've written completed first drafts before. Lots of them. But this was the first time I've ever gone through and actually rewritten a story. It's something I'm going to have to practice more of.

Here's crossing my fingers!

Another story sent in

Well, today I sent out my second submission ever. Ah! It was to a writing competition with a word limit of 3500 words. So much harder than I thought it would be!

The story is called 26 Minutes. It's about a girl's who's been infected with a virus that's turning everyone into mindless mutant monsters. She has a baby in her care that might just hold the key to curing everyone. If she can manage not to kill him first.

In fact, when I started the story, I thought it was going to be flash fiction-- just 1000 words. I just barely managed to squeeze the story out to exactly 3500 words. Not a word to spare. When I turned it over to my editor friend, he actually told me not to send it in until I'd fleshed it out to novella length. But, since it was already mostly done, I made what changes would fit and sent it off anyway. The worst they can say is no. And since no won't do any real harm, I can always flesh it out longer and sell it somewhere else later.

I'm pretty good at being tender when it comes to criticism, even when it's not really criticism. A friend of mine once said that writer's were all raving egomaniacs with poor self esteem. I find the statement pretty true. He was probably quoting someone. When I wrote the story, I was sure that I was going to be able to write something super short and when my editor said I hadn't really managed what I thought I had, I was pretty crushed for a few hours. Right up until my husband handed me a calculator and pointed out that right now at 6 cents a word, my story is only worth so much. Is it really a bad thing to be asked to write it out at 5 times the original length and make 5 times the money on it? It's still a good story. I just need more of it.

So, now my kids get out of school in a week and a half and my time to write this summer will be cut back drastically. Which is frustrating, now that I'm actually getting somewhere. But the ideas are still flowing and collecting, so I think I'm still going to be able to make good use of at least part of my time. I've spent the past couple weeks since April rewriting this story and my WotF story and getting them both sent in, plus putting in my garden and catching up on all the household work that's been ignored for too long. It's been amazing how hard it's been to focus on anything since the writing slowed down. I think I might actually get more done when I'm squeezing life in around the writing and not the other way around.

I find out at the end of July how this story did, and at the end of September what came of my WotF story. My fingers are tightly crossed. I guess my next step is to start prepping my next WotF entry. Submission starts in July.

It feels so good to finally be getting somewhere. My husband laughed at me the other for wanting to be a writer. It involves a very large amount of both waiting and criticism. Both of which, I really, really don't handle very well. I guess I'll just to practice, right?

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First submission ever

Today, I submitted my first story. I submitted Writer's of the Future. This is it. Whether the story does well in WotF or not, I have officially crossed over into the world of actual, real-life, trying to sell my stories. I am now a Writer.

How weird is that?

All these years of dreaming, I've never sent anything else off. In fact, I've only ever submitted my work once before. It was in 12th grade. I was sitting in English class and my old English teacher from 10th grade burst into the room with a paper in her hand. She slapped it down on my desk and announced, "You have to submit this to the contest!"

Totally random.

It was an cheesy poem I had turned in for an assignment two years earlier. It was about a unicorn. Yeah. I'm that girl. I still remember most of it. Cloven hooves and golden horn, Wings of sparkling white. She fly's by day to the sun and back, The moon by way of night. I submitted it and ended up winning 1rst place for the whole school. The prize was an expensive bottle of shampoo. I had to spend $20 to get the conditioner that went with it.

Now that I'm actually sending things away, the rewards have the potential to be much better than shampoo. And I'm really excited. It is my intention to start sending one story out each month and continue to do so until the kids are in school and I have a bit more of my life back. Then I'll send out more.

I won't know how I do in WotF until late September and I'm not sure how that's going to be. Patience is not my strong suit, but I guess it's going to have to become so. There's a whole lot of sit and wait involved in writing.

I'm really not very good at it though!

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Life really is good, isn't it?

One day left of Camp Nano and I'm sitting at 53500 words and 5 completed first draft short stories. That's just 1500 words away from finishing. I'll be able to easily pump that out today on revisions and rewrites by the time I pick my youngest up from preschool. And I've got to say, I'm feeling really good about this.

Last year, my husband announced that he was going back to school to get an MBA. It wasn't a surprise to me. We'd talked about it on and off for years and I knew it was a goal that was eventually going to catch up to us. But it was something I'd been dreading. When we got married, we were both in school and it was easy to balance schedules and homework and everything else, because we were both doing it together. But this time around we're balancing his full time job, full time school and two little kids at home. It was not sounding fun to me at all.

But when he started classes in January, I realized his MBA might just be the best thing that's ever happened to my writing career. The boys are in school for a good part of the day, which has opened up all kinds of day time hours for me. But now in the evenings, I'm looking forward to the nights when he's got homework. Because I get to sit down and write for hours without any worry about neglecting kids or husband.

And just so you all know, I have the best husband in the entire world. With the amount of time his MBA program was going to take this year, I was most worried about having time with him as a family. Eighteen months is a long time to not see dad. But he's gone out of his way to make every minute at home count. If the boys are up, he's playing Lego's with them. If there aren't any assignments pressing, he's reserved the evening for me. I think the hardest thing so far this year has been realizing that when he has time between classes, I need to fold the laptop up and make sure I'm making time for family too. I'm determined not to let a fantastic marriage drift apart, just because we're both trying to get somewhere. And it feels good to finally know that we are both getting somewhere.

Last night, we started keeping 'gratitude journals' with our kids. We have one son who simply isn't capable of seeing anything but the sunny side. Our other son is pretty upbeat. most of the time. But when he gets down, his entire world falls apart and there's nothing good anywhere. And there never will be ever again. He can be pretty dramatic. We thought that keeping a daily account of the good might gently help to steer his focus. Remind him of what we have. Our little family has a lot to be grateful for. Brandon and I are keeping these journals too.

My first entry was about gratitude for my husband. He believed in in my ability to write before he ever read a single word I'd put on paper. He encouraged me to seek an education and to think of ideas and concepts that when I was young, I'd have sooner ignored. He's made time for me to write and read every word I've written since I started. He's become a fantastic Alpha reader for me, because he wants to see my writing in print as much as I do. But most of all, thirteen years into our marriage, I still know that he loves me. More now than ever. I was pretty picky when I chose my husband. Turns out it paid off. I wound up with the very best.

And I am very, very grateful.