Work In Progress Wednesday!

I feel like I haven't done a progress report like this in forever, because I've been revising for ages, and recently, querying :).

I feel like I've learned a ton writing my first novel, Legacy of the Empress, and now that I'm ready to dive back into my second (Hollow Land), I know what to change and what to avoid.

I'm about 5500 words into my novel right now, and I realized, I had a lot of backstory and needed to start with more action. However, to start with action, I needed to fill in some holes in the brief outline I'd created. My husband and I sat down last night and brainstormed like you wouldn't believe. I feel incredibly confident now that I know where the story is headed, and now that I have someone else who thinks my plot is solid, too.

Here are some tips I've picked up from this experience:

1) If you find a plot hole in your outline--PLUG IT. I've learned from experience that it's better to brainstorm various options now then put it off until later and get stuck and have to do a big re-write. Last night, when I came to a sticky spot, my husband and I threw out crazy ideas while I took notes until something stuck. Don't be afraid to experiment :).

2) Get a partner to help with your outline. Get someone you trust and show them your outline, then talk about it step by step. They'll be able to tell you up front if parts of your plot seem wonky, weak, or missing entirely. You can go into your first draft with a boost of confidence that you're at least working with a solid foundation.

3) Take notes! If you have an idea about what feelings you want a scene to evoke or how you want your characters to react to it, note it briefly in your outline. Trust me, this will help later on when you're writing it.

4) Remember that nothing's set in stone. You can change anything you'd like at any time :). An outline isn't a ball and chain, it's a key to freedom! Now, you don't have to be afraid of getting "blocked" because you don't know where you're going, but you're also free to let the story take on a mind of it's own. Use the outline as a tool--don't let it use you!

So, what about you guys? Are there any projects that you're working on? :)

Work In Progress Wednesday!

This past week I actually took some time off both from blogging and writing to recharge my batteries :).

It felt great, and now I feel like I'm ready to really nail my edits and finish Legacy of the Empress once and for all.

At this point, it's a lot of minor word adjustments, killing the last bits of passive voice, and fixing places where I repeat words. So, wish me luck this week, and good luck to you!

How have your week's been so far? Any progress?

Work In Progress Thursday!

Okay, okay. I know I'm late for Work In Progress Wednesday, but I don't care.

Know why?

Despite having kind of a crazy week, I've actually made progress! AWESOME progress!

Here is a list of progressy goodness for you to feast your eyes upon:

1) I edited a lot of LEGACY OF THE EMPRESS. There's still a ways to go, but I'm okay with that. I want it to be so shiny when I send it out to agents that at least one of them goes temporarily blind.

2) I finished a short story that I've been ignoring for far too long. You know what I'm talking about. That short story I swore I'd finish and polish 100 times but never got around to touching. Well, baby, I finished that mofo!

3) I wrote a whole other short story! BOOSH! I've read it several times, and I'm still proud of it. Now it's percolating before I edit it again.

How have your weeks been going? :)

Thank you for all of the support along my journey, blog readers and friends! I hope this little community here has been a support for all of you as well.

I'd love to hear what projects you have going on!

Work In Progress Wednesday!

Hello, Blog Friends!

We've come to another Work in Progress Wednesday, but I'm afraid there's not a lot going on other than me slowly reading through LEGACY OF THE EMPRESS, deleting a stray word here and there, moving commas around, and generally futzing about.

I feel like I'm playing the waiting game, but unfortunately while I am waiting for some fabulous critiques (I love you, beta reading friends!), I am also waiting on myself. I need to read faster, darn it! :P I'm my own slowest critique partner. Bad, me!

In the meantime, I thought I'd share this video I found on YouTube while procrastinating today. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aPCHwNaKGY

Also, I'd love to hear about your projects!

How are your weeks going, and what all have you been working on?

Work In Progress Wednesday!

Hello, Blog Friends!

I hope you all had fantastic Labor Day weekends and did much relaxing!

As some of you may have noticed, I unplugged as much as possible over the past four days because it was my husband's birthday weekend as well. YAY! We sat around, him playing video games until his eyes bled and me reading beside him and getting him beers (this was my present to him.) So the good news is that I'm not dead. I was just relaxing with my family, something we all need now and again.

I didn't get much done last week because of all the leisure, so now it's ON for the next few days! I'm at the point where I'm waiting on some fabulous critique buddies to get back to me, and am rereading my manuscript to see if it flows as a book and is ready to see the light of day.

It's almost query time! I'm very excited and also really nervous :). It's all in a good way. I feel very ready for whatever comes my way.

How were your weeks and weekends? Any exciting progress to report?

P.S. I just got CATCHING FIRE (the sequel to THE HUNGER GAMES) in the mail and am dancing with barely repressed glee. It's like Christmas! No one ruin it for me, or I'll have to take you out, Katniss-style! *runs off and starts reading*

Work In Progress Wednesday!

Happy work-in-progress Wednesday! It's still Wed, right? Better late than never :).

This week, I've been kickin' ass and takin' names!

I've edited my novel, LEGACY OF THE EMPRESS, fixed my ending scene, sent my ending scene off to my fabulous crit buddy, fixed my ending scene again, and re-edited parts that I'd changed.

Now, I'm rereading it (again) to make sure everything's together as a story and catching any last little edits, while my husband and another crit buddy check it out one last time.

I vowed to take it slowly and make sure it's as perfect as I can possibly make it before sending it out... and the beautiful thing is, I think I'm really close. After my last last edit, someone will have to slap it out of my hands so I can let it go and send it out into the world.

Of course, there's still a lot to be done :), so I'm not patting myself on the back just yet.

How are your weeks going? Any progress? Setbacks? Successes?

I'd love to hear about your projects!

May everyone have a blessed week.

Now, enough blog reading. Go kick some ass!

Work In Progress Wednesday!

Hi, All!

I'm sorry and excited to say this will be a really short post today.

I'm sorry because I love this blog and hanging out with all of you wonderful writer friends, but excited that I'm SO CLOSE TO FINISHING editing my WIP (squee!) that I'm taking time to hammer that out instead of blogging.

Please look at this picture to tide yourselves over. I sort of feel like this in anticipating of finishing Legacy of the Empress up and handing it off to critters one more time. YAAAY!

How are your weeks going? I'd love to hear about your progress!

Work In Progress Wednesday!

Kill Your Darlings!

The voices in my head yelled this phrase while I was editing last night.

Me: Hmm, this sentence has lots of adjectives and a simile that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Sure is pretty, though!

Voices: KILL! Kiiiiiiill!

Me: I love comparing things to hands and fingers, but I've already done it a couple of times. Maybe it's getting old?

Voices: Cut the fingers off!

Me: Wow, this description of the trees is beautifully written, but I think I said the same thing a paragraph back.

Voices: Burn the forest down! Fire is PRETTY!

Me: Oh, no. No, I love that dialogue. What does my crit buddy mean by "it doesn't make sense in context?" Noooo!

Voices: Do it! Duct tape his mouth and throw him in the river!

Needless to say, although frightened and queasy, I acquiesced to the voices' demands and Killed My Darlings.

It was tough. Tougher than in a lot of my other edits because this time I'm down to the nitty gritty and am forced to make brutal decisions. It's down to the wire.

Garrote wire?

No! Shut up, Voices!

Aaaanyway, this week I've slashed and hacked through about 40 pages, and I have 56 more to go. Wish me luck!

Any progress to report this week? How's it going?

Were you forced to commit murder most foul to any favorite words?
________________________________________________

"Kill your darlings."--William Faulkner.

Work In Progress Wednesday!

After my vacation, then a week of in-laws visiting and house cleaning, I was chomping at the bit to get back into my manuscript.

The funny thing was, before I left I was getting really sick of looking at it because of all the time we'd been spending together. Maybe distance really does make the heart grow fonder? After some curing time, getting back into the swing of things felt GREAT.

Last night, Legacy of the Empress and I spent some nice quality time together. I edited and edited and edited, until at 10:30, my husband finally told me to knock it off and relax.

But I was relaxed :). I love feeling like I'm getting stuff done, and I feel SO CLOSE to getting back out there and querying.

However, I've learned from the past and this time I'm not going to rush it. I'm going to go over it after my "final edits" once or twice more in its entirety (along with my dear, live-in beta reader) and make sure that it's as perfect as it can possibly be.

The break from the manuscript seemed to be just what I needed to get my head back in the game :). Yay!

How are your weeks going so far? Any progress? Anything you need some cheerleading on?

Let us know!

I'll leave you with this deep thought:

I try to leave out the parts that people skip. ~Elmore Leonard

Work In Progress Wednesday!

It's only Wednesday, but it's already been a rough week. I've been cranky for a variety of small and silly reasons.

For example, I'm going on vacation in 11 days, which is wonderful, but this means I needed to buy a swimsuit. You ladies over 100lbs out there understand what I mean when I say trying on swimsuits is a traumatizing experience. After much bikini-wrestling, I finally said "Screw it, this one is fine" and bought one. Yet the crankiness was already implanted in my subconscious from staring at my pasty midsection in a poorly lighted fitting room mirror. Weak. Sauce.

I'm also sleep deprived because my brain has been hyper the last few nights, and am starting to suspect one of my legs may be longer than the other. No proof yet, but troubling nonetheless :P.

Luckily, before the wave of crankiness hit, I was really productive last week and this weekend! :) Hooraaaay for progress!

--I did a ton of editing on my novel and am about halfway through the manuscript combing for any and all passive language.

--I got some suggestions on how to make my closing scene ever more Epic, and have jotted down the changes. I am ready to roll.

I feel like I'm about 2-3 weeks away from really having a Perfect Manuscript, which is an amazing feeling. (Disclaimer: "perfect" is here defined as "as close to perfect as I can possibly get it.")

So, now I'm trying to shake the risidual crankies so I can be productive tonight as well. The picture below definitely helps the mood, especially when I imagine Patrick Stewart reading the caption:




Hehehehe. Every time, man. Every time.

I'd love to hear how you are doing!

Any tips for battling crankiness?

How is your week going?

Work In Progress Wednesday!

As promised, I have made progress this week! (*trumpets and choirs of angels*) Woooo hoooo!

Legacy of the Empress and I have been on a break and seeing other people, but on Monday we reunited. It was beautiful. And kind of brutal. We needed to change some things. A lot of things.

Thanks to my fabulous crit-er (Abby!), I realized that I have

a) a ton of words/imagery that I just love and can't seem to use enough, and

b) a lot of passive language that needs to get off it's bum and become active.

So, I put on my rubber gloves and dug in.

I managed to hack and slash all of the useless "thinking" tags off my inner monologue. After all, do you really need to say "she thought" after you've just put something in italics? I think we all get what I did there. Duh.

I went from using the word "clutching" 500 times to only using it 2-3 times in the novel (yay!), and am slowly phasing out "she realized."

I stopped using "hands/fingers" imagery for everything scary and am mixing it up.

"She saw" is now being removed. My main character has come to grips with the fact that she doesn't have to see or realize things for them to just happen around her. It's much more exciting that way.

All in all, there was much work done, and I feel good. It's always a tiny bit depressing when you realize that there are a ton of little things that could be stronger in your manuscript, but I know that I'm polishing it up into something wonderful.

When I'm done with it, it's going to be shinier than a new penny :).

Thanks for the support and accountability! You guys rock!

How are your weeks going so far? Any progress to report?

Fiction Friday: Work In Progress Wednesday's Slow-Moving Cousin

Yaaaay! I've accomplished things this week :).

They weren't the things I thought I'd accomplish, but I'm thrilled nonetheless.

Halfway through the week, I said "Screw you, LEGACY OF THE EMPRESS revisions. I want to work on my poor, neglected, work in progress, HOLLOW LAND!"

Let me tell you--nothing reinvigerates the writing mojo like working on something new. I'd forgotten how much fun that was to write new stuff instead of just rearranging old stuff.

I'm loving it! So far I've got 5,500 words (4% of a full manuscript, woot!), and have realized something that fired me up all over again.

The 5500 words don't suck so far. In fact, I'm rather proud, which is a new feeling for me when looking at a draft. Not horror, shame, or dejectedness. Pride.

This is such a far cry from my start on Legacy of the Empress, that I can already tell I'm improving as a writer. I think the rewriting pergatory I've been in has groomed me and helped me better understand plotting, pace, and how to get it in gear with a new story.

By the way, blog reader Scott's suggestions on the opening paragraphs I shared for HOLLOW LAND made it in, and the opening is already way stronger.

Thank you, Scott, and my other fabulous blog readers :)! I love it when you share tips and advice with me. As a writer community, I really feel that we all sharpen one another. Not only does that make us better individually, but it means we'll all have great stuff to read when all of our Works In Progress hit the shelves! So, thank you. Your commaraderie is invaluable!

Any updates from you this week? How did you do? Can we support you in any way?

Have a great weekend, and happy writing!

Work In Progress Wednesday!

This week my goal was to finish my rewrites on Legacy of the Empress, and I'm happy to say I DID IT. Booyah!

Tonight I fixed the last bit of my ending, and did the dreaded Ctrl + F to fix all the times I wrote "seemed to" in my novel. Passive voice--prepare to die!

I feel very good about where I am right now, which is very exciting. I'm sending it out to a couple more beta readers, and then after some more polish, it's Query Time.

Although it was rough realizing that my whole ending needed to be revamped, I feel like this process has only made me stronger as a writer. Plus, hearing "yeah, your plot needs work" from your husband and your mom does a lot to thicken the old skin ;), which is never a bad thing in this industry.

So, how are you guys doing? I'd love to hear what you're working on, how you're doing, and if you need any encouragement.

We writers have to stick together, after all.

As Albert Camus said, "The purpose of a writer is to keep civilizaton from destroying itself."

So, you know... no pressure.

Progress Update!

I'm happy to say that I've written over 4000 words and deleted many as well this week (yay!). It's been crazy, but since it's mostly re-writing and editing, I feel pretty dang good about it.

SHOUT OUT to Elana J and Christine F for their awesome Weeks-In-Writing! :D You guys make me look like a slacker! Good on ya!

Here are some of my favorite writer quotes to aid us in the upcoming week's work:

"I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning and took out a comma. In the afternoon, I put it back in." --Oscar Wilde (My week in a nutshell!)

"The business of the poet and novelist is to show the sorriness underlying the grandest things, and the grandeur underlying the sorriest things."--Thomas Hardy

"Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him to the public."--Winston Churchill

And lastly, because I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of a new book this week:

"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me."--C S Lewis

Happy Wednesday!

Progress Update!

Hi, All,

I hope this evening finds you well! Yes, it's that time again--time for an update so I can show you that I'm not just a slacker, blogging away all of my writing time ;).

This week I've been going nuts on my revisions (in a good way), and feel like I've been accomplishing a lot. Have any of you ever noticed that when you add a new scene to beef up your story that it comes out about 10 times stronger than your "first draft" writing? What's up with that? I think it must have something to do with the fact that I know how the story goes, unlike when I was writing the rest. I know how it starts, ends, everyone's motivations, and most importantly exactly what I want to add to that part of the story.

I once read somewhere someone saying "I'm not a good writer, but I'm a great re-writer." I really feel that way this week, and it's encouraging. Also, it's encouraging that no one has to get it right the first time.

Here are some other great quotes to sum up my week:

"The waste basket is the writer's best friend." --Isaac Bashevis Singer

"The writer, when he is also an artist, is someone who admits what others don't dare reveal." --Elia Kazan

"Even the best writer has to erase." --Spanish proverb

"The role of a writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say." --Anais Nin

Hooray for the DELETE key, that keeps us all grounded! Isn't it nice to know that all writers both strive for the same outcome that we do, and struggle along the way?

I've also been blessed with the challenge of critiquing other people's manuscripts, which is just a lot of fun, and a great way to procrastinate. All in all, I've been a busy gal, and loving every minute of it.

I'd love to hear from you guys what you're up to with any works in progress!

Happy Wednesday!

Progress update!

Hi, All,

Progress Update Time!

Recently I've been working feverishly on revising my novel, LEGACY OF THE EMPRESS to make the ending stronger. My mom and husband had some awesome things to contribute (my mother is a hard woman to please) and I've been working on the ideas I agree with, fleshing them out and making my story fuller.

Today, I got three AWESOME volunteers from the query tracker forums to be my first officially non-family member Beta Readers. I'm so excited and grateful to get their feedback, and am still working to pad out my ending, to get that "Zazz Factor" as high as I can. I'm only going to start querying again once I get this feedback, and I'm stoked about the process.

It feels amazing to have the chance to have another chance to make your work not just "ok" but "great."

As a side note, I have another work in progress: my body. My goal is to become stronger and leaner slowly but surely. I'm starting some heavy weight lifting (squats, deadlifts, assisted pull ups, bench presses, etc) and working on not eating as much crap.

If you are starting a strength training or weight loss regimen to get rid of that "writer's butt," I highly recommend www.stumptuous.com. It's literally THE BEST website ever for ladies wanting to get fit, and dispels a lot of myths and lies we've heard our whole lives.

Yes, bitches can lift heavy things. No, it won't turn you into a grotesque She-Hulk. Enough said. We can do it!

Wish me luck, and good luck to all of you on your various Works in Progress :).