What's Up Wednesday

What’s Up Wednesday is a weekly meme started by Jaime Morrow and Erin Funk that allows us to touch base with blog friends and let them know what's going on in our crazy writer lives.

What I'm reading

Three words, you guys: THE DREAM THIEVES. Oh man. So, I'm not sure if I've talked about my favorite book that I read last year, but it was THE RAVEN BOYS by Maggie Stiefvater. Following at a close second was THE SCORPIO RACES by Maggie Stiefvater. As you might be able to tell, I have a thing for Maggie's books. I've never read something and been so overwhelmed with how pretty the sentences and paragraphs are but these books do it to me every time. I actually took a picture of one paragraph and saved it in my phone as "What Character Descriptions Should Be Like!" Maggie just has a way with words and THE DREAM THIEVES, which is the follow-up to THE RAVEN BOYS is everything I hoped it would be. I'm a little bit obessesed. Just in case you couldn't tell.

Read them!

What I'm Writing

I'm still working my way through edits, trying to strengthen it wherever I can. I love this book so much, but honestly, I'm not sure I planned for anyone else to read it when I wrote it. I just wanted to write something different from what I normally do. I grinned and giggled a lot while drafting it and it's probably the most fun I've had writing a book. Which says something because there is probably nothing else in the world I love doing more than writing the first draft of a new book. I need to get it done though because The New Idea was ok'd and I'm ready to roll with it for NaNoWriMo!

What Else I've Been Up To

I probably picked the wrong season to do this, but I've been dragging myself back to the gym these days. Maybe it's because all I want to do is eat and bake and bake and eat, and if I don't go to the gym I wont be able to fit through the front door, but it's happening. I'm not one of those people who loves the way I feel after the gym (normally just tired) or feel a runner's high (I'm convinced it's a myth made up by personal trainers) but the big 2-9 is coming up, so that's motivation enough.
 
What Inspires Me Right Now


I think writing is what's really inspiring me right now. As I've mentioned here, I'm working a lot and last week I didn't have a chance to write or edit at all until the weekend. When I was finally able to sit down and put words together, it was almost like I exhaled. It just feels right, which sounds cheesy but it's true. Hell, I'll take my Writer's High over a Runner's High any day. ;)


What's up with your Wednesday?

December to Remember.

So I haven't blogged lately, even if I do have a lot to blog about.  I haven't told you guys about YALLfest yet, which I still plan to do.  I haven't blogged about what I've read, which is just bad because I think we now know, if I don't blog it, I don't remember it.  Lots of things.

And we'll still have to wait another day for those because I have December on the brain today.

See, now that I've all but finished the first draft on my NaNoWriMo book, which is titled HOOD, by the way, I feel like I'm kind of floating in the land of unknown.  I always feel lost when I finish a book anyway but after writing one in a little over three weeks, I feel like my center of gravity is off.  You know how when you've been swimming for a while and then you get out of the water and suddenly you're all, "Why is walking so hard?!"  That's how I feel about stepping back into the world after being hunched over my laptop for a month.

It also just so happens that my life isn't going to be very busy in December.  My semester ends this week, NaNoWriMo is over... hell, even Sons of Anarchy's 4th season ends in two weeks.  Besides normal life stuff, my schedule is significantly lighter.  Which would be an awesome time to write a book, except that I just finished one.

So I plan on making December The Month Of Creativity!  First off, I want to do a few rewrites on HOOD before putting it up for a little bit.  Then I have revisions to do on MISFITS and some pretty big rewrites on KILLER CUPCAKES.  I'm literally going to be up to my eyeballs in my own books!  I'm pretty excited about it.

I also plan to brainstorm a lot, listen to a lot of music and write down every single idea that pops into my head for the new year, in which I'm hoping to write three books and jump back into QueryLand.  That's right.  Bring it, 2012!

So while I am kind of staring wide-eyed at December, I'm also really excited.  It will be nice to not have major goals and to just let the creativity flow.

So, to other NaNo-ers and No-NaNo-ers, what are your plans for December?

Brandy

Quick Monday post.

So, I would like everyone to take a minute to look over to the right at my word counter widget and see that I'm 40% DONE WITH MY NANO WIP!!  Eeeee!

Okay, seriously,  I'm under no illusion that a) what I'm writing is fantastic just yet or that b) I can keep this kind of writing up.  My eye twitch and nightly headaches are making me crazy but watching other people's word counts go up, paired with being excited about what I'm writing makes me pro-duc-tiiive.

I have tons of work to get done before I leave for South Carolina for YAllFest and a mini family vacation that it will probably be hard to write everyday this week, but I feel good that I've got a little stockpile of words to fall back on.  Also, I can't wait to listen to all of those awesome authors give out advice and then be able to post about it!

Back to NaNoWriMo for a sec: Being the person that I am, I'm excited about how much I've written but mostly, I'm suspicious about all of these words.  Clearly, none of them can be good if they're flowing that freely, right?  Surely at some point I'm going to hit a wall... or something.

I know I should just enjoy it, I do.  But it's strange, guys.  Very strange.

So, how's everyone else's NaNo going?  And the NoNaNo folks?  What's it like outside?

Brandy

Happy NaNo Eve! Oh, and Halloween too!

So while everyone else is eating candy corn and celebrating Halloween, I am completely focused on NaNoWriMo.  I'll go ahead and admit that I did all of my Halloween things this weekend, which mainly included watching documentaries on Vlad the Impaler and eating WAY too much candy, so it's not like I wasn't festive.

My NaNo idea is bubbling over the top of my brain, so I'm ready to write, but as always, I have to walk the fine line between letting the story play out in my head to plan a little bit and letting it play out so much that I don't feel like writing it anymore.

I'd love to say my pantser quality is all about letting the story flow freely from my brain, through my fingers and out into the world but that's not entirely true.  While planning stories does make me jumpy in a way that only a person with commitment problems can, my main problem with plotting is that if I let the ideas flow too much and I see the whole story in my head, I don't feel like writing it anymore because, to me, it already happened.  I know that's probably weird but that's just how I am.  My very first book took me a year and a half to write and I firmly believe that it's because I, trying to plan like I saw so many awesome writers talking about online, got tired of that story and it slowed me down. 

Knowing exactly what happens in my story takes me out of the game very early, so I try to keep the planning to a minimum (who the main characters are and the conflict), which is what I'm fighting right now waiting for NaNo to start.  I actually think I'm going to jump in at midnight because these characters are screaming at me!

I'm ready! And nervous.

I didn't do my regular blog posts last week, because I was trying to take a break from the computer in preparation for NaNo as well.  I developed a really awesome eye twitch while writing MISFITS, so this time I'm trying to be really careful with my eyes.  But I do plan on keeping the blog updated in November to document my breakdown experiences during NaNoWriMo.

Happy Halloween/NaNoWriMo Eve!

Brandy

Monday Meme, except not really.

I was going to do my normal Monday Meme about writing today, but my mind is totally, and completely full of NaNoWriMo.  So I thought that instead of answering questions about writing, I would talk about my game plan for writing 50k words in thirty days.  *deep breath* No, I'm fine.  Totally fine.  Not overwhelmed at all. *deep breath*

So last night I realized that there was not only a week left in October but that November, does in fact, come after October.  You do the math, people.  NaNoWriMo is coming up fast.  So, being the list person that I am, I sat down with my planner and figured out, with my schedule for November (which is nuts) what I'll have to write to make my goal.

November is the month where school work piles up in preparations for finals in early December.  It's also the month of my birthday and my mom's birthday.  It also includes a trip to South Carolina for YALL Fest and my niece's softball tournament, Thanksgiving and a midnight showing of Breaking Dawn.  Plus ALL OF THE OTHER THINGS.  But I figured it out!

All I have to do is write no less than 2k words most days, and on non-busy days, crank out 5k words, which I did every Wednesday while I was writing MISFITS.  That will help make up for the days, like the SC trip, where I highly doubt I'll write at all.  If I keep up with my schedule, I should actually hit around 60k before the end of the month, which is pretty much my norm for first drafts.

Besides being overwhelmed to the point of dizziness, I'm still SO excited.  This is my first NaNo, and it's something I've always wanted to do but my work schedule never allowed.  This year though, I'm in!

So, is anyone else around here doing NaNoWriMo?  I'd love to have a few people to keep up with, and hopefully help keep each other motivated.

-Brandy

When big ideas don't work and NaNoWriMo

So I've had this BIG IDEA rumbling around in my head for a while.  I've talked and talked and blogged and blogged about The New Project over the last month and yet every time I sit down to write it, I feel a little... weird.  I still love the idea and really love the characters but something is just off about this book, which I planned to write before NaNoWriMo in November.  Then, seeing how little progress I was making on figuring out what's wrong, I figured that I would just write The New Project for NaNoWriMo and spend this month planning.  I normally don't plan at all but this kind of idea needed it, mainly because I had no idea what I was writing about and there was a little bit of a historical background that I planned on using... and none of this has helped.  The idea feels lost.

I really hate that because I'm normally one of those, If You Start It, You Finish It, kind of people but I'm thinking this idea needs to go to the back burner for a little bit.  Or maybe it needs to marinate!  Or maybe I should stop watching The Food Network!  Either way, it doesn't feel like the right time to write this story.  I will write it someday, but now apparently isn't the time.  Does that happen to anyone else?  How do you deal with it? 

So with all of that said, I think I've finally settled on what I'm going to write for NaNoWriMo.  This is another idea that I've had for a while, with a folder on my phone and all, for when I think of something while I'm mid-conversation with someone, or when I'm grocery shopping.  It's growing in my head every time I think about it, so I'm taking that as a good sign.  For NaNoWriMo, you just kind of have to GO and this is the kind of idea I can jump out of the gate with.

And quickly, can I just tell you how excited I am for NaNoWriMo?  It's my first go round, although I've always wanted to participate.  With my last job, November was entirely too busy to dedicate to writing a whole book, but this year is different, so I'm going for it.  Is anyone else participating this year?

Have a good weekend!

Brandy

Can't stop, won't stop.

So, last week, a week before my self imposed deadline to finish my current WIP, I wrote the last word of my first draft.  Exciting!

As I mentioned in my last post, I'd kind of been immersed in writing , so much so that my friends were begging to talk about something else and my first readers were tired of the 20 questions (fine, 100) that followed everything I sent them.  I'm not saying I was mean, really, just... focused on getting answers.

Anyway, I love what I have, although since the book took a little bit of a turn as I wrote it, I know I'm going to have to re-write a lot of the beginning.  After my last revisions on KC, I feel like I have a better idea of my revision process although, (like I do about everything else in the writing world) I worry that it's completely the opposite of what I should do and what everyone else does.

First off, when I'm working on a WIP, I write 2k words a day.  I'm a pantser, so I don't outline or anything, I just jump right in.  I'd like to say that I don't write on weekends but that kind of goes out of the window when I really get into the groove of writing.  I actually took two days off before finishing this WIP and started recapping when I wrote again, like I was starting the second book and needed to remind the reader what happened.  It was a mess and I think I was doing it for me because I felt like I hadn't written in MONTHS but really I just took the weekend off.  Anyway!  I don't like taking time of from writing.

I always read and revise the previous chapter before I write a new one, just to get back into the groove of what my characters are up to.  These aren't in depth revisions or anything, I'm basically catching myself every time I write "my" instead of "me" which I do ALL THE TIME and I don't understand why.

On Wednesdays, a slow day life-wise for me, I double up.  I've dubbed this Double Up Wednesday, which is really just a way for all of my friends and family to know that when it's DUW, I don't want to be bothered.  On these days, I try to write between 4-5k but I split up my writing.  I've got this weird eye thing happening, where my eyes get really sensitive to light if I'm on the computer for a while, so I take a break and go to a bookstore, lunch or even grocery shopping.  Anything to get away from the WIP and the computer.  The bookstore always helps get me motivated to write more because I see all of those fancy, shiny books and I want one to be mine.  I love DUW.

All of this means it normally takes me about a month to write a first draft.  I know a lot of people say to walk away from your WIP for a long time but I can only last about a week, which I'm in the middle of right now.  It sucks.  Next week though, I'll dig back in.

What I feel is weird about me, (in a long list of weird things) is that I don't cut down my word count during revisions, so much as add them.  Sure, I cut scenes that I don't think are needed or that slow down the pacing but I still end up adding words.  I word build a lot during revisions, and add things that only finishing the first draft can show me need to be added.  During my last revision of KC, I added 4k words.  And I cut out a lot.  Weird.

Then, of course, I read the WIP somewhere around 9,849 times.  I read it on the computer, on my nook, printed out, on the comp again, maybe one more on the nook, who knows?  It's just a lot.  And this time, I'm going to send this (as well as KC) out to beta readers.  I'm on the hunt now in fact, so if anyone is interested in reading my stuff, let me know.  I'd totally be willing to swap too.  And then maybe we'll be friends forever.  Probably.  In my head, we will be.

So July is my revision month and hopefully I have a new, shiny idea for another book while that's happening, so August can be a writing month, followed by September being another revision month.  We'll see how that goes with school.  All I know is, November is officially reserved for NaNoWriMo.  I'm so stoked for this because I've never been able to participate because of The Old Job, which maybe I'll talk about soon.  The only thing that will interrupt this will be a day to celebrate my birthday and a day to celebrate my little baby niece's first birthday. (And of course, if an agent wants to sign me before or during November, I will do whatever the hell the ask me to do.)  Other than that, I'm writing.  I need a doorknob hanger for that!

So what's your process like?  And don't forget, anyone interested in being a beta for me, let me know.  Remember the lifetime of friendship, okay?

-Brandy