You really had to be there…

Today I want to chat about Point of View. In the writing world this is known as POV. 

I usually write in first person, past tense POV.  I never thought I would do that, but I feel there’s more power to my words when I write in this way.  All the main characters voices I’ve written to this point are female.  However, the novel I am working on currently(my WIP), HEAT,  doesn’t seem to be the same and it’s puzzling me what to do with it.  

Recently there have been several books making popular a multi-POV format.  I don’t write for trends.  I write what comes to me.  My concern here is that HEAT came to me as a male idea though I didn’t really realize it at the time.  This means that the idea is very much from my main character, Asher’s point of view.  It freaked me out a bit because I didn’t know if I could write from a male perspective. When I began writing the story surprised me again opening with the female character and not the male who gave me the idea! 

I started the story in first person female POV.  Then not wanting to appear to follow a trend, I attempted to change it over to third. It was downright painful to do!  I feel like it takes the power out of the story and I can’t seem to get the flow right on it when it’s written in third.  UGH!  I couldn’t even figure out how to avoid the constant “He” and “She” and forget it when you have three characters in a scene!

This is even more interesting because in FLASH I have written third person, male, serial-killer cameo’s throughout and my crit partners generally love me writing in that voice. But now I can’t even begin to figure out how to make it work in HEAT?!  

So….to all you writers, what POV do you write in? Why?  What are your thoughts in general?  Obviously I could use the input?!  In the end, I’ve decided to keep it multi-POV for now and just deal with it that way.  I really know no other way to make it work!

Easy? I think not!

I saw this one day in searching for something and it gave me pause. I do actually enjoy the song….but the message?  I guess maybe I’m old and bitter or….maybe just a Mormon?  Either way, I’ve soured to the belief in it.  Since I am a Christian, church-going woman with six children Sunday morning is anything BUT easy.  In fact, I often ask myself why I even go to the trouble.   Attempting to get eight people out the door to church, seven of which are female, seems comical at best.  Often I get to church feeling angry and stressed and I can’t say it improves much during the course of our first Sunday meeting as I tell each and every child repeatedly to shhh, or stop that or whatever is required of me.  A lot of times I am breaking up arguments between 16 year old and whichever child she happens to be sitting next to.  I do it because I must.  And the two hours after it I do get to feel some blessed relief and uplifting. 

Right now I’m waiting.  I told myself I wouldn’t think about it, wouldn’t keep checking my email constantly throughout the day.  I promised myself I wouldn’t lament over every single rejection I got.  It’s the same as that famous lyric above.  It sounds great; music to my ears, BUT……the reality is harder to cope with than the fantasy.  

Sometimes it seems endless.  I question myself all day every day in every single aspect.  Am I a good Mother?  Am I worthy of friends?  Will I ever make it?  So many avenues lead to self doubt and loathing.  I try to find a calm happy place inside myself that says, “I’m okay. I’m enough. I’ll get there.  But sometimes it’s harder than others.  

I’ll do what I can.  It’s all I know how to do. All my life I’ve been told to dream big. I am. SO big.  Have you ever been told though to not get your hopes up?  That’s easier said than done, isn’t it?  

There are some who get upset with me when I try to keep myself grounded. They say that negativity will bring me down and make that my reality.  I don’t agree.  If I think everything I do is the bomb and will get the response I want then it hurts too much and too often.  So I say what I say, and underneath it I hope and dream. But those words that I say…those are the fence around my hopes and dreams and I build it to protect me.  The bonus?  It has a gate!

Have you ever heard of Wordle.net?  It’s awesome fun making word art!

But…..I use it as a tool.  /\ This is FLASH. My current WIP which I am editing for AOA. You just copy and paste the entire body of your novel into the window and Voila! The size of the words is the frequency that they are used. Anyway, this tells me I have some issues I need to fix.  Now I will use this and do a “find /replace” command in word and review each and every use of words that have NO business being that BIG! “Just”….just hates me, it ALWAYS does!!!

Anyway, with each novel I write I get a better idea of which words I am habitually overusing and it improves my rough draft in subsequent works. It’s awesomesauce!

What tools do you use?

What would you do?

Are you afraid of agents?  I am. Kinda.  I mean, I fear everything in regards to getting one, not the actual people themselves.  I know this is unreasonable since I have pretty much loved every single one I have had the opportunity to meet.  Sadly, this does not stop my irrational fears or constant barrage of mental anguish in my mind when thinking of dealing with them.  Will they be mad cuz I wrote that?  Will tey think that is presumptuous?  Will they google me?  If they do, what they heck will they find?  What if they don’t even want to google me?  *Why do I think I’m that important? UGH! Anyway….you get the idea.  If you’re a writer, maybe you’re nodding along with each question and snickering a little.  Maybe not.  Again with starred question above!

My newest anguish is that I that an agent, who is kind of a big deal, requested my full a while ago, well 5 weeks ago….um 37 days ago, er — 888 hrs ago.  But, who’s counting.  The way in which the query was sent to begin with is a story in and of itself.  Maybe someday I will share that, but not today.  After (AOA)agent of awesomeness requested it, I began to tie up loose ends with it and just polish it.  Then all heck broke loose around here with sick kid in and out of the hospital and all manner of other things requiring my full attention which left me with little to no time and even less brain power.  So everything has been on hold.

I am finally able to get back to this again but I am afraid that agent of awesomeness will, A)Wonder why the heck it took me so long to send it, B)Wonder why she/he ever wanted it to begin with,  or C)Totally discount me out of hand SINCE it took so long to send it. Ugh.

I’ve thought about sending it with a brief explanation, but then I reconsidered that thinking, did I really want to be making excuses from the start? Agent of Awesomeness doesn’t know me, and doesn’t know this is not normal behavior for me.  I even considered a few dishonest options, such as: sending AofA an email asking if he/she got it at all, or apologizing that it had somehow ended up in my spam folder, but  then I thought, what if AofA changes her/his mind and also the dishonesty didn’t seem right.

I’m kind of of the opinion that if AofA wanted it March 21 then she/he will probably still want it April or May 21. Am I wrong? (See asterisk again) And also….if AofA decides against it and/or looks down on me as a writer/potential client because of this, maybe AofA isn’t a good fit for me anyways…even if they are as previously stated: “Awesome” and “Kind of a big deal.”

So, what would you do?  I really need input from other writers here! Please help!  I know I’m not that important…I do.  But I really want this.  I don’t have a lot of followers, well any really…but I’m hoping someone will read this and offer their opinions.

*As a side note: I don’t know how to get people to read my blog and/or comment on it, other than beg, post it everywhere I am, actually blog on it, and maybe even be interesting….does anyone have any suggestions for that?

Priorities

I bet you thought I was lost again.  I was.  But not really.  I have some good things happening with my writing, but less than great things happened in my life.  Sometimes you have to put EVERYTHING else on the back burner and focus on priorities.  My family is my number one priority.   My writing will always take a backseat to my children, as can be assumed by the fact that I have seen seven anniversaries of my 29th birthday already and I have yet to be published. I spent the years while my kids were little, raising them instead of writing.  I think there is a season for everything and the season is different for every person.  Some people can handle more than others.  I don’t handle chaos well.  My brain can be all over the place and while I was having my children I just couldn’t handle writing.  Now it is great therapy and I need it in my life.  My nine year old daughter has been dealing with some health issues.  It has been a long month or so but I am hoping and crossing my fingers that we are now out of the woods.  So, I’m back to working on my second priority and hoping that I can make really good progress.  I currently have eleven different ideas plus sequels for current WIP’s.  The ideas keep coming and some are SO great!  I’m blessed to keep having them even though some can be louder than others…anyway, I’m glad to be back chipping away at my ideas.  Maybe someday I’ll have good news for you, other than that I’m still working!  But working is better than nothing! 

LTUE 2012

This past weekend I went to LTUE AKA Life, The Universe, and Everything.  It was a good experience and I find that these conferences always light my fire again.  I wish I could go to one every week!  I’m hard at work on FLASH. It’s so close to being done I can almost taste it!  That’s exciting!  Then the editing begins…it’s long, but that is where my story truly comes together.  I’m thinking especially with this story since it’s a thriller/mystery and I never had any intentions in the world of writing this genre!  It’s really not that odd that I am though, I mean…I love to read it I guess it makes sense that I would write it!  I don’t think I’ll ever be pigeonholed into a certain genre though.  All my ideas are so different.  I have a finished Paranormal Romance(time travel), and I have begun a fantasy, a contemporary, another thriller/dark something or other, and another that may go sci/fi.   I also have a new idea I’m tossing around for a dystopic!  It’s not what I thought when I started this journey but I write what comes and that is what I must do!  Hey, I totally discounted the two children’s picture books I have completed as well.  I’m all over the place!  But I’m doing this for the love of it.  I think when I started out with this I had these big dreams.  And by that, I mean HUGE dreams.  People around me got HUGE deals and everyone liked my book(at least that is what they said, really who knows?) But anyway, agents didn’t seem to like it and I got down and depressed.  I’ve now come to the realization that I just want to get paid.  That’s it.  Any money I might make on a book is more than what I make now with my hobby.  Since it’s so hard to write knowing it is (for now)just a hobby when I can think of all the other things I could and should be doing I had to really figure out what I wanted and that’s what I want.  Anything is better than nothing and I’m happy as a clam with whatever I may get.  Now that I’ve accepted this I think it will keep me grounded and make it much easier for me in the future.  Let’s hope!  Anyway, I’m off to do housework.  Tomorrow I’m hanging with my kids and then Wednesday, I’m writing! Oh happy, happiness!

Hey–those tears might smudge my writing!

Well, they would……IF I wrote in ink.  I was so excited to actually write something yesterday and then, well then…..my laptop cord wasn’t totally plugged in and since I have NO battery to speak of it shut down without warning.  At the time, I was not too concerned because stuff ALWAYS autosaves, right?  WRONG.  I signed back into Word only to discover that the over 1000 words I had written were gone!  Ugh.  And in trying to figure out what the heck happened I lost the words I had written the day before somehow as well! CRY! CRY! CRY!

What can I learn from this?  First: I need a new battery for my lap-top!!! No. Really I need to be religious about hitting control S, and I may want to let my wonderful hubby who knows a lot about computers (He should, it’s his job!)re-install windows and fix all my crappy computer issues!  In the meantime..I’m trying to recall all the awesomeness that I wrote yesterday!  Anybody know any magic tricks?  I could use ‘em!

 

Writing for what?

Does it ever look like this inside your brain?  It does in mine.  When I decided to become an Author, or try to, I figured, I have a thick enough skin and I can do it.  I’ve been feeling down about a myriad of things recently, some are ridiculously unfounded and some are painfully true and I know it.  As I was thinking about it though I decided all I need to do really is look at this another way.

I don’t write for money.  Somewhere inside of this process of attempting to find an agent and get published I think I lost sight of a very important thing, why I do it.  I write because I love it.  Story-telling has been a part of my life since I was little(just ask my Mom, she LOVED it;)  It would be so great to achieve my dreams and see a book I wrote get published but I think I need to remind myself that it’s not the end of the world if I don’t.

If the only book I ever see in print is my second grade (award-winning, mind you) “book” entitled, “The Sun,” than at the end of the day it doesn’t matter.  Because I like what I am doing.  I write for therapeutic purposes and because the stories inside need to get out.  That needs to be enough.

All the other stuff is just icing on the cake. 

Update!

I have been a bad blogger! But NOT a bad writer It’s amazing what you can accomplish in a month, isn’t it? I found that, for me, a lot of the mystery in a mystery comes in after you finish the book in subsequent edits (which are many friends, MANY! We are talking DRAFT 6…BABY!) You know what happens when you decide to take a break, not think about something, and you are OK with that? THE opposite!!! FLASH is GREAT! I guess allowing myself to leave it behind gave me what I needed to kick its butt….er….binding, well–you get the idea!

In other news: I went to LDStorymakers conference this weekend which gave me even more fuel for my fire and now..I’m going to work on HEAT with vengeance and passion and all that is required of me! Conferences inspire and ignite me and it’s great to be among so many other people of like mind! To all who made the conference possible: THANK YOU!

Broken promises to myself

Don’t we all make promises to ourselves only to break them?  How often does this happen?  Countless times, at least, if my life is any example.  And yes, I must confess to all of you (I’m dreaming of throngs of people, sitting at their computer screens across the world here, humor me!)  I have done it again!  I have broken a promise.

But, with that said, ALL is not lost!  I’m thinking sometimes we make promises to ourselves without considering the future and what it might hold.  I promised myself I would finish one book before starting another.  End of story.  I know my weaknesses and I am not great at finishing things.  I start them full of vigor and fresh commitment.  But then…well, my A.D.D kicks in and…..LOOK! A YELLOW BIRD!!!!!!!

I started Flash, on Thanksgiving day in 2009.  It was a GREAT idea and I was excited about it.  I did, however, have some reservations about it from the start.  Flash is, at it’s heart, a mystery.  I have NEVER written a mystery in ALL my years of writing, never even tried it.  But this book is one.

I thought I had the chops to do it, I wanted to.  The book is nearly done and I know how it ends (pretty much) but here is where I show my utter inexperience and question my actual chops as a writer.  Well, not a writer, but a mystery writer.  I used to read thrillers, years ago, then I got on the romance train and haven’t made any mystery side trips since then.

I chalked up my lack of finishing Flash to my lack of time to write it.  That is a very true statement.  Kind of.  I mean, I am a Mom, of SIX!  I am a wife.  Life is busy around here.  But what has become glaring obvious of late, is that I was a Mom and wife when I wrote, and FINISHED, Hourglass, which ended at around 130,000 words. (It’s edited down to 90,000 fellow writers…BREATHE!)

Anyway, I can’t finish Flash.  Not right now.  And I’ve GOT to write like I’ve got to breathe, so setting it aside and just not writing anything while I do some more mystery reading, sharpening my tools, so to speak, so that I can finish it, is not an option.  Especially when I have had this new idea (Heat)taking over my mind in a way I can’t articulate for the past several months.

So, I am breaking a promise to myself.  I am abandoning Flash for now.  In doing this I hope to get that fire again and re-inspire myself.  While I do that, I’ll be reading, lots of mystery and also Stephen King’s book on writing, knowing that once I’m ready I’ll finish Flash with a vengeance!  I see this more as a step along the way closer to finishing it and not as  a step away from it.  It’s still there and I intend to tie it all up.

Those who have read parts of Flash, really like it and I think the idea is very good, but there are some questions I have about it that I need to ponder as well, so I can make it the best book it can be!

So……. what do you think?  Do you EVER do this?  Do you ever set a project aside and begin a new one?  Or do you make it a cardinal rule that you MUST finish one to begin the next?  I’m really wondering what others “rules for writing” are.

Are fellow-writer’s brains like mine?  Do new ideas bombard you frequently?  If so, what do you do about them?  I have lots that I write down in my new ideas file and plan to explore at a later date.  Most of those ideas are perfectly happy there, they are patient and considerate, willing to wait their turn.  Lots of times I get more than one idea for a particular book that come over time and I add those to that book idea.

Heat, is not patient or considerate.  This idea came to me and has wound itself through my brain endlessly until I just cannot continue to silence it.  I’m thinking that HAS to mean something.  Or…I’m a bad “idea Mom.”

Oh man – I’m not even a good “idea Mom”!  I guess whether they are “actual” kids or ideas….there’s always that one of the bunch that just refuses to behave!