Posts Tagged ‘NARWA’
Unfortunately, all my time hasn’t been spent making writing my day job.
I have, however, managed to get a few things done.
- On Sunday, I wrote another 1,000+ words on Meg and Matt’s story, bringing my total since Jan. 17 to 7,389.
- Monday, I spent rereading/editing “Blind Date Bride.” After getting through the whole thing, it’s now ready for me to print out a few of the pages again — the ones with a ton of changes — and pass it on to one of my NARWA sisters who offered to read it.
Well, I guess that’s it. Tuesday, I worked and ran errands all day, so nothing got done. And today I’ve been doing the same thing. Ugh.
Not as impressive as it sounded in my mind. Oh well. At least I’ve accomplished something.
Last Saturday, we had our NARWA meeting and I was inspired to launch “Operation Treat Writing Like a Day Job.”
Today I capped off my operation, which admittedly isn’t as amusing as “Operation Snag Mike Brad,” with another good day. I wrote 1,421 words on Meg & Matt’s story (still untitled) in two writing sessions — one at Starbucks and one at the house.
That brings the week’s total word count to 6,209. I’m 6 percent finished with NARWA’s 100K word count challenge. Can I get a woo-hoo?
I’d have stayed at Starbucks longer, but I was falling asleep in my chair. I left because I kept thinking about how embarrassed I’d be to wake up drooling. Well, that and the fact that I couldn’t stay awake long enough to concentrate … I really like my writing time at the Bucks, and I don’t want to do anything to embarrass myself so I can’t show my face there again.
Once I got home — and helped shovel off our deck (again!) — I was awake enough to start writing again. Now, about 400 words later, I’m ready to nod off again.
So even though it’s very early for me (only 10 p.m.), I think I’m heading off to bed. The operation continues tomorrow with the start of Week 2 … perhaps it’s time to do a little more editing on “Blind Date Bride.” And Monday, I’ll ship off a couple more query letters.
I sure am more productive when I can’t leave the house on my day off!
That’s not entirely true: I did make it to Starbucks for a couple of hours this afternoon. I got some writing done there — but I also did quite a bit at the house.
The end result: 2,702 words on Meg & Matt for the day — and I haven’t decided if the day’s over yet. (It probably should be. I have to be to work by 11 a.m. because we’re clearing the paper way early — by 7 — courtesy of the monster storm set to dump up to 5 feet of snow on Flagstaff Thursday and Friday).
Even if I don’t get anything else written tonight, I’d say 2,702 is a very good total — more than the last three days combined.
Why such a difference? Today, I was on a roll: the scenes seemed to write themselves. (It helped that they got to have nooky for the first time. For some reason, I have no trouble tearing through sex scenes that leave me tingling — and laughing.)
I was glad to leave Kara and Gareth behind and get back to the romantic comedy I do so well. (That was another one of Jennifer Ashley’s tips last weekend: “Learn how to write the story you write best.”)
For me, that’s romantic comedy — at least until someone tells me differently. 😉
I hope no one ever does that.
It’s better than wishin’ and hopin’, I guess.
I did spend more than an hour writing today, so “Operation Treat Writing Like a Day Job” is still going strong on Day 3. The bad news is, it took me more than an hour to write about 550 words. I’m definitely not on a roll at the moment.
As usual, the dialogue comes easiest for me. (I’m giving my first presentation on writing good dialogue in March, to my NARWA sisters. Time to start doing some research on what makes good dialogue so I sound like I know what I’m talking about!)
When I finished writing the 500 or so words, it was after 1 p.m. — time for a lunch break. After lunch, I started looking for a paper I wrote for my English novel class my senior year of college. It compared and contrasted the heroes of “Jane Eyre” and “Wuthering Heights,” and theorized about the effects the Bronte sisters’ brother, Branwell, had on both. The book club was reading “Jane Eyre” and I thought it’d make a good addition.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a hard copy. I think it’s on disk somewhere, if I can find a computer that reads small floppy disks anymore.
I did, however, run across something else: The first novel I wrote that I consciously tried to make NOT a romance. The “hero” — if you can call a drunken 20-year-old who occasionally slaps the heroine around a hero — is dark and tormented; the heroine has her own demons.
What did my characters do? They ended up getting together anyway, but not necessarily in a good way. I never finished it, because I think to give it a satisfactory ending, I have to break them up and leave them broken because their relationship is so dysfunctional … but I can’t bring myself to do that. I want them to make it, and be happy.
The thing about it is, some of it’s pretty darn good. I have no idea where it would sell … parts are a mess. It tends to be superficial, and doesn’t do much more than scratch the surface of my characters.
There’s no head-hopping, though, because it’s told completely in first person, from the heroine’s point of view — until she goes into labor. Then I switch to his POV, and I think that’s part of the reason I’ve stopped writing. It’s much harder to be in Gareth’s head than it was to be in Kara’s — she was, as all my heroines are, somewhat like me.
It’s so different from what I normally write, too. I usually do lighthearted romantic comedy. This is much, much darker, with abuse on lots of levels, an incomplete trip to the abortion clinic and visits to see Gareth’s father in jail.
I’ve no idea what to do with it. Probably nothing. I don’t need to go back to the place I was when I was writing it. I don’t remember liking that place all that much.
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