Sunday Sundries--Get Thee Writing!

I am truly my father's child, this Father's Day. I know exactly how he felt, all those years working on the railroad, when he had to be away from home and alone. There were a few years I had to be on the road for a job where I spent a third of my life traveling. I feel him when we walk into a Rural King or Office Depot. Cleaning out the old house, I saw dozens of folders and organizers he would use for a few months and then abandon.

This one made me smile--you can see Mom in the mirror behind him taking the picture. She had issues getting things done too. I remember her rushing around cleaning before the pinocle club took their turn at our house.

They are laughing at me. Dad passed in 2001, Mom in 2004. They are both asking me:
"Why don't you get to work so you can have the success you deserve?"
"Why are you still putting things off, when it would feel so much better if you do the work rather than sit and play your games?"

Don't have any good answers. It helps me to know they are egging me on in my thoughts, apologizing for bad habits from childhood, confident it can get done and done well.

So, here are a few things to help you and to help me get going. This one is my new desktop background:

Yes, Lord Vader. If you will let me continue to breathe, I'll get right on it.

Right? Keep plugging. Get it done.

I started physical therapy this week for a shoulder injury that involves a schedule of exercises every day. I'm thinking I will put specific times for me to check each email/Facebook/Pinterest account. It's got to help, right?

I know part of my problem is that I want to edit/rewrite as I go. So many professionals say you need to get the story down, then go back and seriously edit. As Christina Dodd says, "I can't edit a blank page."

I had several instances at my job outside the home last week where I had Learning Experiences. Yes, that's where someone points out I was wrong. It's okay. I long ago realized I wasn't always going to be the smartest person in the room. I believe a good part of my procrastination is a fear of making a mistake. I need to get over that, don't I?

This has been a real problem lately. With my shoulder injury acting up, I haven't been able to do even my minimal cleaning and organizing. It means, I have hundreds of magazine articles and pictures I want to scan in boxes in the office. It means, I remember writing that scene in a notebook years ago, but I can't find it in the notes I've transcribed. It means, I get discouraged and end up playing Jewel Quest III instead of recreating the scene and getting on with it.

I did work on about twenty pages of a story about a daughter of the two main characters of my second novel in the series. Reney and Carter's story is basically written, but I have it in third person. I'm putting all my novels in first person, because the stories seem more compelling and cleaner. When I mentioned I was working this other story, my husband gently nagged me to finish the book I'm almost done with first. He's right.

How many of these sound familiar? Number ten is hitting particularly close to home for me.

But this is my truth:

My characters have lived with me for almost seven years now and are as real to me as my local friends. I have almost thirty notebooks and boxes of files of ideas, research and snatches of stories that need to get put in some sort of order. Rather than saying, I'm going to work on something today, I need to break down specific, doable goals. And get writing that story that Mom or Dad would love to read!

Blog ideas and WD Dear Lucky Agent contest

Sorry, I haven't been posting as much recently, but I've been collecting things to talk about. As I've searched "the interwebs" and Facebook, I've cut and pasted articles, quotes, web links, etc., into a Word document. So far, I have over sixty pages. And that's in less than two weeks.

I'm trying to focus on writing and editing my own fiction and getting notes from my 35 plus notebooks into a computer file. That and Chris has been on vacation, so I've had to share the computer a little more. While I've been fighting another case of the creeping crud, the doctor took some gunk samples and they're at the lab. Hopefully, we'll find out what we're dealing with soon. That and getting through the Hidden Quests in Jewel Quest III. My bad.

So, opening one of my blank books at random, I see notes I scribbled while watching a gardening show on our local PBS station on daffodils/narcissus/jonquils. One of my characters is an expert gardener, so I find myself discovering things here and there. Did you know deers won't eat daffodils or their bulbs? The show recommended planting a swath of them about 5 feet from your garden, as a kind of fence. Also, after they bloom, you need to fertilize and bundle the foliage, but don't cut, so the bulbs will grow and split for next year. The show featured a high school that sold bouquets as a fundraiser and I can just see my character, Mary Margaret, helping with that and with a church summer social fundraiser booth, selling plants. There are over 13,000 hybrids, so choose several types so you'll have blooms over a six week period.

I also took some notes on a cooking show where they made a bread pudding out of a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread and put some canned pumpkin in the custard. Cinnamon is Mary Margaret's favorite flavor and smell, so I'm always looking for good recipes. She and her family are vegetarians, so I have a bunch of notes and recipes to sprinkle through the books. Heaven knows, my husband thinks the only vegetables are potatoes and corn, so I would only be fixing them for me in real life.

On another page, I noted that on March 3, 2011, my manuscript for Seven Days was 584 pages. By 5-8, I got it down to 512 pages. I have a lot to cut out of Saturday (starts Monday night), because a good chunk is told from the secondary characters' POV (Mary Margaret and Rob) and that will be the beginning for the second book, Seven Months, which is their story. I really love keeping track of my edits. In this notebook, have about eight pages of a young adult novel I want to do, told from the POV of the daughter of the characters (Will and Elizabeth) in Seven Days and about five pages of story for a separate novel (most in another notebook) that was originally a subplot in a third book, that involves two injured Marines from the SD hero's unit.

So, there are decades worth of ideas, many would serve as separate blog topics, that I need to get into the computer and flash drive, to be inserted into my manuscripts or just to serve as back story research. It's fun to go through the blank books, which I've been keeping since 2006. There are a lot of things I'd forgotten I wanted to do and a lot that I've changed. Originally, for example, Will had a dog, but it wouldn't work out in the story.  He will have a cat later, a Manx who will choose him, because that is what Manxes do.

And as I mentioned above, he will be a father. While my father passed almost ten years ago, I do have a wonderful father-in-law that I'm going to make a big batch of beef vegetable soup for his son to take over tomorrow. Here's a picture of me with my dad, who loved to read and even loved to read romances. He preferred the big family historical sagas, but would read a Sandra Brown or Janet Daily on occasion. I know Dad would be proud of what I'm doing and I think I've been channeling him a little for one of my characters later on in the story.

Also, I'll be entering the Writers Digest "Dear Lucky Agent" Contest and I have to submit the first 150-200 words of my book. I also have to post it here, so part of that I think is by telling you all I'm doing it, I'm committing myself and I will publicize it a little more. Here's the link:

Guide to Literary Agents - 9th "Dear Lucky Agent" Contest: Women's/Upmarket Fiction

And the top three winners get a critique by an agent of the first ten pages AND a free one-year subscription to Writers Digest. How cool is that? Deadline is the 26th, so if you meet the requirements (women's/upmarket fiction), please consider entering.