In Which I Say Stuff!!

Somehow, over the last few months I have acquired a couple of new followers. I've NO IDEA how this has happened, since apparently I am incapable of blogging and pretty much am only on twitter during school hols, but anyway, however you found your way here - hi! And thanks :o) And sorry. :D

Anyway, below is most of a post I started like two weeks ago, and then didn't finish. This is Me And Blogging at the moment - it's not that I don't think of things to say, it's just I never get around to saying them (although for a long time it WAS because I had nothing to say, mostly because I wasn't writing). So, without further ado, post:


So, it's been a long time since I actually had stuff to say on here. [no kidding; delaying this post by like 3 weeks made that even longer, woman!] I blame term 2 (I loathe term 2 with a passion; it's the busiest and most dismal term of all, not helped by ever-encroaching winter-lack of daylight) and the fact that my body has been preoccupied with other stuff. This, for example:



Rah. Crazy how much that thing messes with your brain.

But anyway, it's FINALLY holidays, and my brain is FINALLY kinda-sorta working again, and I Have Stuff To Say! Rawr.

First up, I just want to note that I've gone through and tidied all the meta pages; TBR Pile of Doom, Books Read, WIPs and Published Works are all now uptodate. Hurrahs! I just started Like Clockwork today, [being like 3 weeks ago] and I am LOVING it SO much. I honestly haven't been this enthused about writing since I wrote the first book in the series over a year ago. It's a really nice feeling. [but apparently not nice enough to get me past chapter one :P]

The fact that I have evil brain-washing clockwork fairies, plus friendship and learning to trust and broken promises and betrayals and assumptions-that-turn-people-evil, to look forward to helps. A lot.

[It does. Very much. But what DOESN'T help is realising that a few things need to be sorted out in the first book first. So drafting is on hold and I've just yesterday (like really yesterday) drawn myself up a revision timetable for Sanctuary, which has me finishing right on December, which is rather full of happiness. But more on that in another post.

For now, suffice to say that I am going to endeavour to post about once a week, now that I no longer feel like the living dead (just the living exhausted ;)), and if I don't, you're free and welcome to come after me with pitchforks, knives, and other uncomfortably pointy objects.

Thus concludeth perhaps the most pointless and rambly post I believe I've ever written. Oi.]

It's Time

Wow. Hi everyone! It's been so long, it feels kind of crazy to be back. It feels even crazier to like being back, if that makes sense. (It does. Honest.)

See, there was a time a couple of months ago where I actually thought about shutting this blog down. Life had gotten too much, writing wasn't happening, and I felt like a total phony blogging about writing when I wasn't actually writing. It's like the cliche of those people who wander around wearing tweed jackets with patched elbows moaning about their writers' block; we all know they're not really writers.

And for quite a while, I didn't really feel like one.

So. What's changed? To be honest, nothing much - except my perspective. Last year was full of crazy; new job, new house, new addition to the family (the four-footed variety), new having-to-deal-with-long-term-illness (not serious, but annoying). Lots of new, lots of crazy. And in the midst of all that, writing became just one more thing I had to do, one more thing that had to be checked off a very long and exhausting list.

Long-time reader will know that I've been keeping monthly writing statistics for a while now. For ages, this really worked for me. I could count off the days by the words, and see that I was making progress, and prove to myself that I could write as much in a year as a pro author could.

But last year, I fell prey to the numbers. I had a few months in a row that were very nearly my lowest months ever, well below half what I usually expect as my minimum. The numbers started going down, and so did my writerly self esteem. Maybe I'm just not cut out for this, I'd think. Maybe I'm just a hobby writer. Maybe I'm not tough enough to be pro; maybe I'm just not supposed to do it all.

Throughout all this, I was getting some excellent advice from friends and you guys, my awesome readers. The one thing that remained consistent about all the advice was that I needed to take a break, have some fun - only I kept protesting to everyone, I AM taking a break! What do you think three months straight below HALF my minimum is if it isn't a break?!

Yeah. It was me protesting and complaining and beating myself up about having a break, which, as any of you who have done this will know, isn't really a break. So in December, I had a real break. I still wrote when I felt like it, but I did something really, really scary. I put away the spreadsheet.

Eeep!!

Yes, it's true. I have NO IDEA how much I wrote in December. I have no record of what I worked on, or even when I worked, or how much. So! Terrifying!! In years to come my descendants will have no way to see that on the ninety-second of Thentember I wrote sixty-two words on "The Most Brilliant Story"! *swoon*

But (of course), it worked. I feel less stressed about the whole writing thing than I have in a long time, and although I'm still not talking to myself about going pro (even though I'm secretly plotting it where my head can't hear me O:) :D), I'm enjoying writing. And for the first time in a long time, I have The Itch.

It's a great feeling. And to celebrate, I'm going to dig out the edits I've been avoiding for the last three months and kick some draft.

How are YOU going to start your new year? :D

A Bit Of A Ramble To Kick Off The New Year...

So, it is Wednesday. Yes, uh huh, it is. And I was supposed to post on Monday.

...

I did, didn't I? Can't you all see that lovely book review down there, saying it was posted on Monday? O:)

Well, it's the 7th already: an entire week into the New Year. How exciting. How tremulous. How... odd. I've been thinking about 2009 for so long now that it's strange to think I'm now actually here. This year will be a very different year for me: I've got a new job, and am supervising people (scary but good), I'm starting a new uni course at a new uni (hoorah, I'm nearly done!), my mum and baby sister are moving away (sniff, tears) - and I plan to query.

Yes, that's right. It's 2009, the year in which I intend to make my query debut. Hoorah! Ideally I would like to start doing this mid-year. It will depend on how busy the new uni course ends up being, and consequently how much time I will have to write - a lot more now I have the new job!

Writing for the last month has been nearly non-existent. I mean, I did write a 10,000+ word play, and add about 3k to the 33dogs book, but nothing on any novel. I'm absolutely itching to get back to Jesscapades - but alack, that shall have to wait until February. This month the 33dogs book is due, the play is being performed (in a week and a half, argh-argh!), I'm going away for 8 days without internet access (during which I'll be directing the play and helping run a banquet). I have to create about 40 characters with profile and motives and goals for a murder mystery night, keep the house in a saleable condition (hoorah, open day on Saturday!), help my Mum move, and create Dad's birthday present which is now only 1.5 months late :S

Argh. This month is going to be insane.

I'll do my best to keep up with blogging, but consider this forewarning: you might be getting a disproportionately large number of book review posts O:)

On Friday I'll recap what I achieved officially last year, and ponder on what goals I'll be setting for the coming year.

Thanks to all of you who regularly read Inkfever - it's truly heartwarming to watch my little visitor counter at the bottom of the page slowly ticking its way towards 2,000 :) The blog is now officially one year and one month old, and I know a couple of you have been following it right from the beginning.

To readers old and new, to readers writerly or not - thank you for sharing in my life, my dreams, my goals and my opinions. May 2009 be good for you (yes, good for you, not kind to you - sadly, two very different things ;)), and may you blossom through all adversity.

Here's to making our way through another year, and celebrating once again at the end :)

~Inky

Month One: Think Sideways Review (Plus Some Goodies)

Warning: this post is loooooong.... O:)

I’ve been thinking a lot over the last week about how I wanted to write this – because I have been wanting to write it for the last week, but as you can see, uni has prevented me from posting much of anything :D One thing that I think is rather sad is that whenever anyone follows the words ‘This is really good...’ with the words ‘...and you should buy it!’, their motivations are immediately called into question. So I’m going to get the ‘deal’ bit of this review out of the way now, and then move on to the fun stuff – including a free pdf for you if you read all the way to the end :)

The Deal

Holly Lisle’s Think Sideways course is a brand new course that teaches ways to think sideways, and survive a writing career. The 300-seat first class sold out within three days, and that the second class isn’t going to open until the present one ends – aka, February.

However.

All students are automatically affiliate members, and while the program wasn’t going to open until the second class did (not much point otherwise, really), as it stands 4 people have had to drop out of the course for financial reasons.

So the affiliate program is opening early. Next Monday, Think Sideways will open for registrations through affiliate links only. This is where the deal comes in: should you decide that this sounds like something you want to try, and sign up through my link, I get a 50% commission on what you spend. If you let me know that you bought through my link and show me a copy of your receipt, I’ll send half of that 50% back to you when I get it (paid at the end of each month, I think). In effect, it means you get a 25% refund. That’s the deal. On to the review.

Cost

Hehe, the killer. When I was reading the pre-discussions of this course, I was all like – Squee!! This sounds so AWESOME!! But how much will it COST?? And of course, the price wasn’t released until the course went live, and it went live at 2am my time... Me, get up in the middle of the night to register for a writing course? Would I do a thing like that? O:) Heh, when it comes with the added bonus of not having to disclose the price to my DH until I’d already paid for it, you bet I would ;):D

Anyway, cost. The course is US$47 per month for 6 months. Payments are monthly only, via paypal. You get 4 lessons per month (actually 1 per week, so occasionally you’d get 5 in a month), which equates to something random like $11.50 per lesson. Not bad – but still not small change. What sold it for me was the refund policy: drop out of the course at any time and you’ll get a full refund for any lessons you haven’t yet received for the month. I figured worst case scenario I’d get lesson one and have to drop out, and the experience would have cost $12. Not so bad.

Fun Stuff – what I’ve learned

Ah. The rave section. :o) Honestly, I really do love this course to pieces, so if I end up raving, I’m very sorry *blush* :D

So. Month one. The month of learning to communicate with your Muse, aka your subconscious mind. Some of you, I expect will be familiar with the concept of brained-ness – people tend to be left brained (logical, rational, planned, etc) or right brained (creative, artistic, spontaneous, etc). But writing uses both sides of the brain. You have to think and plan and be logical, otherwise your story will have plot holes a mammoth could run through. But you have to use your right brain, too, to give your story heart and sparkle – to make it shine. And that’s what this first month of lessons has been about: learning to get both parts of your brain to communicate with each other, at will, on demand.

Lesson One begins with four barriers to ‘thinking’ and how to break them – the biggest one, for me, being perfectionism. I’d like to think I’m a recovering perfectionism, but when I’m in the grips of a first draft, and the story is beginning to spiral off track and I hate everything I’ve written and everything I’m going to write... Or when I’m mid-edits for the fifth time on a story and still can’t get it write... Yeah. Perfectionism rears its ugly head. So, this is an introductory lesson, but it also includes techniques for breaking your thinking barriers, and setting yourself up for successful communication – with yourself :D

Lesson Two. I’d like to say this has been my favourite lesson, but the others are cool too :o) It’s certainly awesome, though. This is the lesson that introduces the concept of a Sweet Spot Map, a map created by your unconscious that directs you towards the heart of your writing. You can pull stuff of this map and shove it into any story, in any genre, and still be guaranteed to love it. It’s a great tool for sad-but-occasionally-necessary changes of direction mid-career. For me, it’s just sheer FUN. My Muse adores this map so much that I quite literally never go anywhere without it, and am often pulling it out to add a word here or there. ‘The sound of glass shattering’ was today’s addition to ‘I love’. Yesterday I added ‘which triggers a DNA shift’ to ‘I get shivers from’. (No, I’m not entirely sure what it means :D That’s kinda the point, though). ‘Ocean’ showed up more than ten times, scattered variously between ‘I fear’, ‘I get shivers from’, and ‘I am drawn to’ :o)

Lesson Three is learning to call down lightning :D It’s about getting your muse to generate the good stuff on a deadline. The techniques in this lesson are so fabulous, I’m using them for everything and anything that I need input on from my tricksy subconscious. You set the parameters, and wait. Learning to trust that the muse knows what it’s doing has been hard, but I’m still practicing, and it’s generating more concrete ideas and plot twists and so forth for my current WIPs in a shorter time frame than I’ve ever gotten before :)

Lesson Four. Wow. I still can’t get over just how huge the impact of this lesson was. This is the lesson where you learn how to tell the bad ideas from the good, and the good from the great. In a way, many of you have been affected by this lesson already. Reading this lesson is what prompted me to re-evaluate my WIP list, ensuring that the ones that made the final cut were the ‘great’ ideas, not just the ‘good’. Re-evaluating my WIP list prompted a lot of my friends from Critique Circle to re-evaluate their WIP lists, shaving off the fat, trimming dead wood – weeding their great ideas from their ‘just okay’ ones. And they haven’t even read the lesson. In fact, most of them didn’t even know I had, or why I was evaluating my WIPs. And yet the content of this lesson was still conveyed to them. *shakes head* I’m still amazed :)

So there you have it. One month. Four lessons. The entire way I approach my writing changed. I’m proud of those stories that have made the final cut. I’m itching to write them, and I know I’m going to have a lot of fun doing so. But also, I can see something else that’s important: the final cut aren’t just a random collection of stories. They’re a body of work. A collection. They share similar themes and tones, issues and styles – they share me. I can see someone, in years to come, reading one of these books and going ‘Yep, that was a Laurens book.’ (Hopefully followed up by ‘and it was just as good as the rest of them’, of course :D)

To finish, the free pdf I mentioned J Holly has a newsletter where she answers questions that people email her, and last week someone happened to ask a question that Holly had just answered in a Think Sideways module – so she’s giving the module away for free J It’s Lesson Seven, which I’m not actually up to yet, so it’s new for me too. Reading over it, I like it, and I can see how it ties in to the continuum of the Think Sideways course – but it’s on character development, and some of you will already have a pretty firm handle on that. Mind you, I guess if I were Holly I wouldn’t be giving my best modules away for free either ;) Anyway, here it is :)

Congratulations and *cookies* for making it all the way to the end. You deserve a medal ;):D

I'm Itching

It's now been a week since I've set fingers to keyboard, or pen to paper in a serious attempt to write, and my brain is starting to itch. I've been horrendously busy, with no spare time at all, but the Muse has been tossing me tasty tidbits left, right and centre in an attempt to lure me back to the keyboard.

And today, the itch began for real. I really, truly, honestly feel like I have to write. If I don't, I'll burst.

It would be a horrible feeling - except it's remediable. This afternoon, and tomorrow afternoon, are All Mine. Well, this afternoon I first have to go visit some friends who had their car stolen last night (recovered this morning without a problem, thank goodness). But after that, I'm free to write.

Well, I should probably spend some time with the husband, since I've barely seen him in two weeks, and it was his birthday last Tuesday...

But after that I'm free to write.

Oh yeah, I have dog classes tonight.

But after that..........

:D