Old Friends and New

We had a pleasant surprise at writing group on Monday. Rick, one of the founding members of the group (though he hasn't come in several years) came back! I love his whimsical writing! And he brought along one of his friends who had never been to writing group. The Monday night group is growing! If Rick and Jordan continue coming, that will put us at 9 members! Wow! That means our meetings could run quite late, depending on how much reading, writing, and sharing we do. With the newer members we have started doing timed writings again, which I had missed doing. I don't know if we'll do them every week, but I do enjoy those very much. When I'm at home, I almost always work on my current novel. Rarely do I merely write whatever comes to mind just for the fun of it. That doesn't mean working on my novel isn't fun. Don't get me wrong there, if it wasn't fun I wouldn't do it. But the free-writing we do on Mondays is purely pleasure. Often something we write has the makings of something longer, but it might not. So here's to the growing group!

Ideas, Ideas, Everywhere

I've been slowly making progress on Discovering Family. This one is going to take a while, I think. Partly just because it is going to be longer than The Moonlight Cafe, but partly because it starts in the late 60s or early 70s, before I was born. It is going to require a lot of research on the time period so I can make it feel authentic. It also takes place in a city in which I don't live. One I have visited before, but not lived in, so it will take location research as well. I guess it gives me a reason to take a trip back there, for it's a city I love. Vacation in the name of research. :)

I also had another idea pop into my head yesterday morning. What's that? Creativity on a Monday morning? I know, it's very strange. So I had to get the first 4 paragraphs down on paper before I logged into work. The first sentences were very loud in my head, and I wanted to get it down before it went away. So next time I go to look at it, I'll have a starting point.

So now i have 3 idea on which I want to work, in addition to others that are patiently waiting their turn, and a possible major revision to Moonlight. Yes, I'm already sending out query letters for it, and it is done, but that doesn't mean I can't keep playing with it, right? It might be a while before I find an agent. Out of 8 letters I've received 4 rejections. Oddly enough they haven't hurt. Maybe because they're all form letters, very impersonal. Maybe when I get a personal letter it will hurt more. As Tina has found, the ones that say "I like your novel, BUT..." are the ones that hurt most. Makes sense. We'll see.

So many ideas, so little time. I'm not complaining. I'd rather have this problem than the opposite.

Busy with research

I've spent the past week doing a lot of research.  It's not for my novel though, it's for something my writing group and I are going to do.  The beginning stages are the hardest and take the most time, I think, but the research for it has taken away from my writing.  That's ok, though, because I've been kind of stuck at a the current scene anyway and needed a break from it.  Hopefully I'll get back into it tonight.  If not, I'm going to work on some ideas for another young adult novel.  One or the other, I will do creative work tonight.  This other project is very exciting though, and I'm not at all complaining about the work on it.  It's left me a bit wiped out though, which is why I haven't posted anything recently.  The last time I got stuck on a scene I started freewriting about the fact that I was stuck, why I thought I was stuck, and where I needed to go with the novel.  It helped.  After about 2 pages of handwritten complaining, ideas started flowing.  I will try that again tonight if I don't get anywhere.

Writing Day

Yesterday the 5 members of the Zen Writing Group gathered at Tina's house for our now-monthly writing day. We scheduled dates for each month through July to meet, just the 5 of us. Monday nights are for anyone, but these Saturdays are just for us five. Yesterday was a very exciting meeting, as we came up with some new ideas for the group. I'm going to leave it at that for now, until we have the details hammered out, but there will be much excitement in the coming months. I can't wait until I can tell everyone about it.

I made progress on my new novel. We spent an hour of solid time writing. Next month we are going to aim for two hours. Between planning out the new stuff, talking, lunch (Tina made a fantastic potato soup!), and sharing what we had written, we didn't write as much as we would have liked. But that's ok, the day was absolutely wonderful.

I also have ideas for 3 more young adult novels. Moonlight Cafe has 2 main characters, and the main characters' best friends. I am going to write stories of the other 3 characters, which will encompass the timeframe of Moonlight Cafe, but also what these characters did before and after. Now I have to decide how much time to devote to Discovering Family (the new novel I am working on), and the first of these three.

Ready, Set, Query!

I have my first query letters to agents ready to go. Tomorrow on my lunch break, I'll go to the post office and send them off. This is so exciting!

I spent the majority of my holiday break editing The Moonlight Cafe. I finished editing tonight, and spent the rest of the evening putting the finishing touches on my query letter and synopsis, and preparing the packets to be sent out. Each agent wants something different. Some want the query letter and synopsis only. Some want the first 5 pages, or 10, or even 50. I have carefully researched agents, what their requirements are, and what genres they are looking to represent. Wish me luck.

And of course, happy new year to you all. I hope everyone had a safe new year. I spent a quiet night in with Cory, which was a nice change. Usually we host the party at our house. We don't like going out New Year's Eve. Too many amateurs. But this year we spent the evening just the 2 of us. It was very nice and relaxing.

I made one of the most stereotypical resolutions ever - to get in better shape. I didn't set a specific goal, just the generality of "better." Maybe I'll actually use that gym membership this year.

My other resolution was to write at least 4 days a week. It doesn't have to be a lot, just something. I figure 4 days is reasonable. Sure, just about every writing guide out there says to write EVERY DAY, no matter what, but when it comes to setting goals, I think being reasonable is much better than every day. That doesn't mean I won't write more than 4 days, but it does mean I will write at least 4 days every week.

Good luck on any resolutions you made. I'm really going go try to stick to mine this year. The writing one should be easy. Getting in better shape, well, we'll see.

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays everyone! Whatever you celebrate, or don't, I hope it's been a good week. I've had a busy couple of days with parties and such, but it's calmed down now, and I'm writing and editing full force. I'm running The Moonlight Cafe through autocrit (www.autocrit.com), a nifty online tool (though it requires a membership for full functionality) to find redundancy, cliches, and such. I'm taking it chapter by chapter with my thesaurus open beside me, and it's very helpful.

I started one interview today, but the woman was interrupted by a conference call she had to be on. Hopefully we'll get back together tomorrow and finish up.

I think I'm going to do some more autocrit editing, then start researching agents and getting my query letters ready, because I'm confident I'll be ready to start sending them out next week. How exciting!

Oh yeah, my best friend gave me one of the best xmas gifts. She made a cappuccino scented gel candle in a black coffee mug, and wrote "Moonlight Cafe" on the mug in silver, and on the matching saucer, she wrote "by Jennifer K. Sights." It's very cool, and I just might have to commission her to make some more once I'm published. I loved it!!

Too Long

It's been over a month since I wrote anything here. Sorry everyone. The project I was working on at work has finally slowed down. The new system is in production, and now we're just working on clean up stuff. I'm finally back to sane, 8 hour days. I am almost finished with all my xmas shopping and wrapping, so I finally have time to write and edit. I finished my final read-through and edit of The Moonlight Cafe tonight. Still need to do those 2 interviews. Those will come next week when I am off work. But my edits are done. A friend who is an editor is reading through it, and making comments. She's only sent me the first chapter so far, but I got a lot of helpful comments from her. So I'll be doing one more round of editing as she sends me her comments. But I'm getting close. If it weren't for those 2 pesky interviews, I'd be ready to start sending out query letters. Hopefully that will come in January.

Relaxation

For the moment, I find myself at a comfortable place with the workload of my dayjob. For the past 2 weeks I have been working 10 or 11 hour days, leaving me with little time for anything else. But today, I had the blessing of working from home, which meant no one could randomly stop by my cube and talk to me. I didn't have a 40 minute commute each way to eat away part of the day. And I got to sleep an extra hour. That was slightly marred by Tiberius peeing on the bedroom floor, because I was too lazy to get out of bed earlier to let him outside (he's 7 months and mostly potty trained). But aside from that, the day was good. I got a lot of work done (not that I haven't been otherwise), and I felt I was at a place where I could log off at 6:00 instead of 7 or 8, or later. (My normal quitting time is 4:00.)

I cleaned my desk. It serves 2 purposes. A desk for the days I get to work from home, and my writing space. I was piled high with books, papers, and clutter. I organized it, cleaned the dust, and it feels much more harmonic now. Cory is playing Halo 3 online with some friends, so I have the entire evening to myself. I took a hot bath, long enough that the water cooled and I had to refill it with hot water. I finished a book I had started weeks ago. And it was only 8:00. Feeling refreshed, I sat down at my laptop. Not my work laptop, but my Mac.

At our Saturday writing session (which I will write about in another blog) I had written the scene I had been dreading. It came quickly and easily. I read it to the group. I had ideas to make it better. So I sat down at my Mac, and edited it. One step closer to finished The Moonlight Cafe. Now I have 2 interviews to find time for. One I believe I can set up in the evening, as the gentleman is retired, but the other must be done during the day, as I don't want to intrude on this lady's personal time, and my questions relate to her job. That will be the tough one to squeeze in right now. But once I talk with her, I can write the last scene (or 2) that needs to be written. The other interview will let me verify facts, and true up a few items. Finish the editing, and the novel will be complete. I am aiming for the first of the year for it to be complete. I have 4 days off for Thanksgiving, and the entire week between Christmas and New Year. I plan to edit a lot during those times. The new year will find me madly sending out query letters. If I dare to hope and dream, 2009 will find me with a contract, or at the very least an agent.

It's 9:20. I'm going to go play with the puppies. They miss me from all the work I've been doing lately. The night is a bit chilly, but perhaps I'll bundle up and take them for a walk. Tiberius still needs to learn to walk politely on a leash, so walks with him are not much fun right now. Time and patience. That's all dogs require. And love, of course.

Free Rice

I found an awesome website today. You absolutely MUST check it out.

http://freerice.com/index.php

It's a cool little word game. They give you a word, and you choose from 4 definitions. For every word you get right, they donate 10 grains of rice to Thrid World Countries. All the details are under the FAQ on the site. It's a fun resource for learning new words. I definitely recommend it. And pass it on to everyone you know. Get smarter, and help feed a hungry person. I don't see anything wrong with that.

Thanks for passing this on Tina!

Real Work Interferes

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted anything. My income-bringing job has been interfering with my writing something awful. We've been working on a big project all year, and it's going live in a few weeks, and of course we're nowhere near ready, so everyone is putting in a lot of overtime. Gotta love corporate America. By the time I get home from work, I grab dinner, log back in and do a few more hours work, then go to bed. Not much time for writing in between.

Because of all that, tomorrow will be even more appreciated than normal. My writing group is meeting for a special Saturday session. Our Mondays are open to anyone, but once in a while we have a writing day with the original 5. We have developed such a close bond as writers and friends that we want time with just the 5 of us once in a while. So tomorrow we will meet at Mary's house in the morning, have bagels and coffee (mmmm, coffee,) and write until we can write no more (or at least until the real world calls us back to it.) I am always excited at our special writing days like this, but because work has been so hectic, I am even more excited than usual.

I think in my last post I talked about a scene that I had been dreading writing, but my writing group gave me inspiration. I still have not had time to write it. When I have had a few spare moments, I have been editing. I think I am about a third of the way through with the initial edit. Once I complete that, I will go back one more time and read the entire manuscript out loud to myself so that I can hear how the writing flows. Sometimes something looks great on paper, but once you hear it you realize how awkward or choppy it is. But tomorrow I will work on that missing scene. I had some notes on it to go by, and some research I will either do tonight, or print out to bring with me tomorrow. I plan on relaxing the rest of tonight, take a hot bath and read, maybe do some of the aforementioned research, and get a good night's rest so that I will be ready and creative in the morning.

I also have a bit more research to do. Again, work has been interfering. I have 2 people I need to call to ask questions and verify some facts. Perhaps I will do that Monday. I am off work for Veteran's Day. I am planning on going to the zoo with Cory, but I think part of the day will have to be dedicated to those phone interviews. I am very much looking forward to spending the day with Cory though. Going to the zoo is one of our favorite things to do. St. Louis has a wonderful zoo. And it's free, other than parking.

I will try to post more often, but until this project is complete, I can't make any promises. Thanks for bearing with me.