NaNo FAIL

[lydamorehouse]

I kind of suck at NaNoWriMo. I don't write the right way for competative writing, I think. In fact, I got really mad the other day when I checked in at the site and saw that someone had posted a reminder: Revise Later.

That's probably really good advice on some level. If your problem is never getting to the end of a novel or a short story, just pushing forward is exactly what you should do. But, I actually have a hard time going forward without revision, because, if the change is big enough, everything after that point is effected by it.

I also think that my mistake this year is not having an outline. I'm experimenting writing original fiction this way--without a proposal--and it's taking its toll. I stop to think. I stop because I get stuck.

Well, it's only half way through the month. It ain't over yet.

In other news, I spent a good part of the weekend baking holiday cookies. We like to get a jump on baking because Shawn loves to have cookies in the freezer to pull out for guests. So we invited our nephew Jonathan and his girlfriend Sarah over and we spent the good part of Sunday baking up a storm. We made spritzes and cut-out sugar cookies (with the shapes you decorate with frosting), "black-and-white" (which are cream cheese cookies half dipped in chocolate), and a metric tonne of pizzelles, which are Italian ainse-flavored cookies that you press with a special pizzelle iron. We also tried a new drop cookie that's pumpkin-flavored which were deemed Minnesotan "interesting" (which is to say, yeah, we won't be trying those again soon.) I also discovered a recipie from King Arthur Flour for an easy soft pretzel which the family loved so much that I've already made them twice since. The big complaint about those? Make two batches! Need more!!

We still have quite a few more cookies that Shawn would like to make, but I think she feels good we've got so many under our belt. But Shawn is one of those people who adores Christmas and loves to pull out all the stops--never mind that we're pagan.

For me, I like the community of baking big batches of things. It's fun to spend hours with family and friends around some project like food, because you spend enough time together to get past some of the awkward of not been super-close friends, you know? It's a bonding thing. Plus, you don't have to just sit and come up with things to say. You can just chat easily while focusing on other things. Works out really well.

I also applied for a job at Sixth Chamber Bookstore. I didn't get it, though I think if I'd been super-excited and less hesitent about working evening shifts, they'd have hired me on the spot. Even with my total lack of experience. The poor guy who owns the place hadn't had a vacation or a day OFF for six months. Since Thursday night when I dropped of my application, I keep mentally trying to make my schedule work so that I could go back and offer myself more sincerely, but the idea of being away from Shawn the one time we have together doesn't appeal. And the bookstore isn't the kind of job to make that loss entirely worth it. Maybe if they paid a zillion dollars and hour and came with health benefits, you know? Still, I'm kind of sad about it. I adore that bookstore and I think the atmosphere there would have suited me well. Both of the people who own it are the kind who talk to customers about books ina very overly-friendly, non-Minnesotan way, which is part of the place's charm, IMHO.

Mason is off now for Intersession until after Thanksgiving. He's super disappointed that there's probably not enough snow to go sledding--though we may try anyway. I heard, however, it's supposed to warm up enough today that our dusting might just melt. We'll have to see. Our family LOVES snow. Yesterday, however, to be fair, Shawn didn't have work and Mason had no school so we could hunker down and have a "pajama day" (where we sit around and play video games and read and do a whole lot of nothing.) We did have to bust out and go to Target, though, because Mason has outgrown his shoes... and sweat pants (which he wears to bed)... and we needed lightbulbs. So we had to make the trip to the store at some point.

I think that's all I know. How was your weekend?

Comments

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Those cream-cheese and chocolate cookies sound divine.

[lydamorehouse]

Says the woman who already has 50,000 NaNoWriMo words! Not that I'm jealous, but, yeah, I've got cookies!!! *tease*

Actually, the cream-cheese cookies with the half-chocolate are my FAVORITE. I got the recipie from a book of 1,001 cookie recipies and we've made them a bunch of times since.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

I have a lot of practice getting out of my own way, and this was a book that's been waiting to be written for almost 12 years...! I don't think it's fair to compare your lack-of-outline "getting back into this" attempt with my "have been writing novels for money for 7 years now and have it down to a science" project! Be kind to yourself. :)

I think I have a cream cheese cookie recipe, now that you mention it. Hmm. Starting early on the Christmas baking sounds like so much fun, but if I make them now I will eat them and then I will get glutenated and fall over half-insensate. And then my daughter will try dragging me around by the foot, and dislocate it in her zeal. >.>

[lydamorehouse]

I've been writing books for money for almost the same amount of time, too, though usually my deadline is a year out, not a month! :-) Though I will totally grant that you probably have a lot more practice writing fast and in a very different different way (which I respect and I'm desperatly trying to emulate!!) I'm definitely struggling writing without my usual prompts: a contract and a proposal. :-)

I also consciously/unconsciously resist this model because I did a Clarion Write-A-Thon way back before NaNoWriMo was popular and I still have a completely useless piece of crap novel in which I got bored with the hero half-way through and killed him off and replaced him with his evil twin. No kidding. Sooooo stupid. So I'm trying not to just do that again. I don't need a paperweight. I want to have something at the end I can try to sell.

As for cookies--my family has a weird amount of willpower. I can make cookies and have them sit around and get hard. Even really yummy ones. But we also leave candy out and somehow manage not to eat it all. I don't really understand it, because I normally don't have a lot of self-discpline when it comes to food and sweets.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

*hunts around* Speaking of books for money... I see Archangel Protocol on Amazon, which I read when it originally came out, but it's all used-book sales stuff. Did the rights not revert? Who's been publishing your books since then, and why are they not getting them to us? I am offend. I want to re-read these. >.>

[lydamorehouse]

I recently sold the e-rights to a British publisher who is sitll working on getting them in print because I wrote that first one before e-books were a standard THING and we've had to clean up the document we had to steal from Torrent. (Seriously.) Just FYI, with Penguin, I had to write a very specific letter to the legal department to request a reversion of rights, which they granted after several months.

Since those books came out, I changed my name and have been writing romances steadily as Tate Hallaway. My last book under that name came out in August of this year. I also wrote another AngeLINK book as a small press venture as Lyda.

So there hasn't been any more science fiction, but there has been a ton of romances by Tate. I, in fact, make most of my money as Tate these days.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I wonder if the British publisher will make them available in the US for US prices? There's another author whose work I like, but he only publishes via a British publisher and I can't afford the UK cover prices on his e-books. The exchange rate is not in our favor... :/

But hey! Romance novels! *goes to check that out* How do you like writing them? Do you find them easier than your science fiction? Harder? Different? Were you received differently by your audience/the writers' organizations?

[lydamorehouse]

Everything will be available in US prices too, from what I understand.

I find writing romances both harder and easier. Harder because you have to put a lot of effort into relationship stuff (and sex scenes don't come easily to me.) There's a similar amount of world- building, but I find the contemporary setting easier in a way. (I don't have to invent the future of telephones, cars, etc.).

Reception... That could be its own blog post. SF readers tend to look down their noses at romance writers. That's often true of my professional colleagues too. However romance readers tend to buy a lot more books than SF readers. It's an interesting trade off.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

I've done NaNo twice, some time ago, "succeeded" both times, and was co-ML for Toronto once. I honestly think that it's most a fun activity. However, in terms of helping writing, I think it's absolutely best for people who don't think they can do it. For them, "revise later," is good advice, because the goal is just to prove you can do it, not produce a great work. (I wouldn't ever dream of trying to work my two NaNo projects into great works without just extracting the brainstorming and starting the actual writing over.)

[lydamorehouse]

Yeah, exactly. If I'd done NaNo earlier in my career, I think it would have been tremendous, and clearly it works for a lot of people. And, it *is* working for me, but just in a different way. Nano made me choose a project to work on (something I needed) and is prompt to try to put some words on the page every day when I'd RATHER WRITE ALL THE FIC.

So, it's working, just differently than advertised.