A Writer's Journey

After six years of trauma, I am finally back to what I love...writing. I recently remarried. My husband is also a writer and he has been a god-send to me. I only wish I had met him many years ago. If I had, my life would have taken a different road. I thank God for him every day.
So, here I am again. In front of the keyboard, busy doing what I love. Writing for kids. Whether I get published or not is not the issue, although I really wish that would happen. The main thing is that I am back to what is my very core. Writing. And loving my Richard.

It has nothing to do with writing and I feel like a complete idiot. I have a head-over-heels, serious crush on a man. We're still at the point of getting to know each other.
Have you ever been in a situation when you know something is right? Something just clicks? He isn't the only man I've been interested in. I've dated a few since my husband died five years ago. He isn't even the first one I've liked. There's just something different about him. I felt it the very first time I saw him, like I wanted to tell him I was the one for him and to stop wasting time. It took a month or two for him to even notice me, though, but after he did he moved surprisingly fast.
I really, really, really, really like him. I walk around all day smiling like a goofy pansy flower. He makes me giddy.
As a person almost ready to go into my 60s, I haven't felt like this in a really, long time.
He's so handsome, I can't even stand being in the same room with myself. I just don't even know where my shoes are.

So…I have finished the first draft of my novel. And I have even revised it once for minor blemishes. Close to done, right? Not on your mama’s mustache. Now the real work begins.
Revision.
Revision.
Revision.
The major portion of this book is done in flashbacks. I didn’t realize how tough writing a book like this is. How do you write something that happened 10-15 years ago and keep it up to the moment? How do you keep the past involved with the present conflict? How do you not detract from the real story? Especially when the real story is the past. How do you keep it interesting?
I’m struggling to find the answers. Why? Because I really, really want to do this book. No other reason. I love the story, I love the characters, and drat it, I love their past.
My only weapon so far is reading other novels recommended to me by fellow writers, as well as how-to books on the craft.
What have I learned so far?
This: It will be a long time before I am happy with this book.
And I thought it would be easy. Ha!

Check out the February Lucky Agent contest at www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog

A few minutes ago, I finished the 2nd revision of It Must Have Been Love. I usually do four major revisions and about 10,000 little ones. I am now in the process of printing out my manuscript to start the 3rd, which in many ways is the toughest, at least for me. This time around I will be looking for things that just don't work, and things that need to be added. I'll scour every single sentence for unnecessary words. My original word count goal was 75,000. This version rang in at 77,565. I plan on deleting over 10,000. I guess the third time around is like combing a dog's hair and looking for fleas. They're tiny. But you know there are a billion of them.
I feel good. Even if it never gets published I have accomplished something.

It festered and simmered in my mind for years. The story of two young sisters, Casey and Shayelyn Albright practically screamed to get out of my brain and onto paper, but I couldn’t find their voice. I knew the story inside and out. It saturated the very air I breathed. That didn’t matter. I couldn’t put it into words. It’s not that I didn’t try. I started writing It Must Have Been Love in March 2006.

I struggled along about 2/3rds of the way through, not really feeling it. When I subbed chapters to crit partners, they told me the story made them cry. As an insomniac, I do much of my writing in the middle of the night. I’ll be the first to admit that I am a real coward when it comes to scary stories. In the silence of night, some of Love’s scenes scared me so bad I couldn’t continue writing.

I deleted more than I kept. Dreamed about it, dwelled on it during my waking hours, rolled it over and over in my mind all the time. It didn’t matter. That book was just not coming together.

I finally put it down.

I wrote my middle grade humorous mystery, The Dumps. And dwelled on Love.

I wrote three picture books. Dwelled on Love.

I quit writing altogether to come to grips with my husband’s death. Big, big mistake. I grieved over that decision as much as I grieved over losing him.

I made a major move and sold my business. Dwelled on Love, still grieved over the loss of writing.

Went to school and got licensed as a nail technician. Dwelled on Love, still grieved, felt adulterous that I even contemplated becoming engrossed in something besides writing. Still, somebody’s got to bring home the tofu.

In August 2009 I reached a point where I couldn’t stand it anymore. I logged on to Verla Kay’s blueboards for the first time in over 31/2 years. I couldn’t remember my password to my old live journal account, and since I have a new Internet server and my old e-mail address was through the old server, I couldn’t get my hint. So I opened a new account and started posting again.

I thought it would take time to get my feet wet again. Wrong. I dove in headfirst. I posted something on the blueboards and immediately some of my old friends sent me a hardy welcome back. I was so overwhelmed. I started subbing The Dumps again and clicked open that musty old document…It Must Have Been Love.

No change! No matter how hard I tried, nothing happened. WHY COULDN’T I MAKE THIS BOOK WORK?

I got hooked up with a few one on one partners. They loved the beginning chapters. For me though, the chapters didn’t jive. Shayelyn, the protagonist had no conflict. She had a story, just no driving force.

I joined a critique group. That was the turning point. They pointed out my flaws. I think I posted two chapters that were nothing more that a bunch of mumbo jumbo. One night in the wee hours I lay staring at the ceiling. Lenora, my muse sat on the ceiling fan with her legs dangling. She smiled in all her obtrusive cockiness and said to me...“Why are you trying to force something that doesn’t work? Change it!”

Change it? Lenora had never been a drinker. Had she been in my wine collection?

Change it…Hmmm. What if I took out the negative sadness and added a little humor? My strong point is humor. In the darkness, I suddenly saw Shaye taking on new life. What if I tempered the scary parts with realistic explanations? Immediately, my plot took a sharp right and whole, new scenery and characters appeared out of nowhere. Change it! You better believe I’ll change it! Get off my fan, Lenora! You’re sucking my air!

And I did. Change it, that is.

The rest is history. It took me about 45 days. The story flowed. It poured so fast I barely could type fast enough.

Shayelyn has a whole new personality. I murdered a few of the other characters, and gave birth to others. Some have been dramatically changed. Some names were changed. There was a major change of scenery.

I didn’t scrap the old plot. In fact, it still simmers in my mind. But with the changes I have made, even the old plot is beginning to take shape and will be a whole different book. Its title will be, The Code of Silence.

In essence…I have learned that if you have a story to tell, tell it. You just may have to go about telling it in a round about way.

Thanks to some fantastic insight by Mary Kole at Kidlit dot com, I now better understand the importance of thinking twice before granting exclusivity when subbing manuscripts. I really appreciate her frankness and honesty. She points out how many months you can tie up the opportunity to sub to others. It can be years!

The process is long enough as is.

So thanks, Mary for the heads up.

I'm in a contesty state of mind.

Kidlit Contest

Check it out.

This is the longest it has ever taken me to write the first draft of a novel, and I'm still not finished.

Today I crossed well over the hump of the 3/4 mark of my goal of 75,000 words. This will be my longest book to date. I have 22,670 more words to go before I start the even more tedious revision process.

Completion of this book is still a long way off, but already I'm getting the pre-subbing flutters.This one started as a very personal story that did a complete about face mid-stream and took on a life all its own. The original outline had to take a back seat to this new one and awaits its turn next.

Completing a first draft is always an emotional experience for me, although not quite as much as when I perfect it to the best of my ability. But that's a whole 'nother blog.

She's bright, witty, funny but shy. She is really very helpful, when she wants to be. She really isn't very social and only visits occasionally, even though I wish she came around a lot more frequently, in fact, several times I've invited her to move in.

Sometimes she talks so much I can't get a word in. Other times, it's like pulling teeth to get her to even say hello. I wish she wasn't such an introvert. I wish she would just get over herself and let her rip, lose her inhibitions.

I really shouldn't complain. I've seen her more in the last month than I have in the last three years. And speak of fun, she's been a real barrel of laughs lately. She's even shown a side of her self I never knew about. Scary, off the wall stuff, a little macabre, even.

She's helped me get stuff done I've been procrastinating over a long time now. For that I am very grateful, because alone, I was just uselessly chasing my tail.

Oh, yes, "she" has a name.

It's Lenora. And she is my muse.