Is It Possible?

If I deny myself of the needed hours of sleep, and write like crazy the next couple weeks, I think I might actually finish my first draft of my princess and the pea story before the Storymakers Conference. Maybe, just maybe it'll happen!

Word Count: 1,793

Phrase: Annalie took two ropes out of her pack and tied Kevin and Klaus each to a rope. She saddled herself on Gustav and led Kevin and Klaus out of their stalls toward the barn doors, placing the stolen keys on a window sill near the doors. Then she stared at the barn doors preparing herself for what would happen next.

Daily Word Count Check In--Wahoo!!

Wahoo!

Word Count: 939

This is a seriously awesome thing for me. I usually can't do more than around 600 in a night. I even got a late start tonight, so I'm really excited about this word count!

Phrase: Annalie realized she hadn’t planned anything to say to the guards. She’d forgotten they’d be an obstacle to reaching the city’s center and finding the right manor’s farm. She hugged herself tighter on her horse, squeezing his great, strong body with her thighs and wrapping the reigns around her wrists and arms.

Writing Stuff and an Update

So you may or may not have noticed that I haven't done my daily word count check in. You may or may not care. I've been exhausted lately and have just wanted to go to bed once the kids are asleep. I started to write a couple days ago and after getting 9 (yes, nine) words, one of the kids woke up and crawled into bed with me. Then she complained that my computer light was too bright for her to sleep. What an articulate 21 month old I have. Both Emma and Megan have to sleep in complete darkness. They hate light to be in their rooms when they sleep. Weird. Then there's Jeremy who will wake up, cry, and come in my room if I turn his nightlight off.

Anyway, I am working on the story tonight. As for my last question about names, I decided to not only completely change the names of the crazy medium spiritualists, but I took one of them out, too. When I looked back at the history I realized it didn't fit as well as I thought when I first read it and to avoid having Swedish history buffs hate me and denounce my book, I figured I'd change it so it was obvious I was going the I'm-making-this-up-but-it's-still-based-on-some-truth route. After all, the story is fiction.



UPDATE:

Daily Word Count: 673
Sentence: "So there would be an hour or two before you go to jail. I still don’t see how this is helpful, Annalie,” Nee said, sitting down again on the bed.

Daily Word Count Check In and Question

Just a reminder, if you don't mind, leave your opinion on the last word count post where I asked about character names. Try to keep in mind that once introduced, the last names of the charaters in question won't be used often, if at all.

Word Count: about 180

I did some research today. Dang it. I didn't read well enough last time and I have some revisions to make. People who know their Swedish history are going to think I'm an idiot unless I fix some of this. Yes, it's fiction, but I'm using enough actual history to help the story along that I feel like I can't skip a generation of people, ya know?

Daily Phrase: “Yes, and now he’s forcing his son to follow in his footsteps, to never make a choice himself, not even who he marries,” said Annalie.

Daily Word Count Check In

Word Count: 525

Phrase: She glanced down at the paper in her hands, reading the names again, willing them to change. Finally, Inga brought her eyes up to look Nee and then Annalie full on. “Ulrica Arfvidsson. I saw her. And also Henrik Gustaf Ulfvenklou. I saw him, too. They were together with the King quite often while I was there and my sister, Rose said they are frequent guests to the king. They huddle together in various rooms of the castle, muttering and whispering, performing séances late into the night.”


Here's something new for the Word Count Check In, A Blog Reader Question section. Sometimes I have questions about how something sounds or should be.

Blog Reader Question:

The names of the two people mentioned by Inga, Ulrica Arfvidsson and Henrik Gustaf Ulfvenklou, these were real people who really did have great influence over King Charles. Do I keep their real full names, or make them easier? Like Ulrica Avidsson and Henrik Gustaf Ulvenklou. They are still crazy names, but are more pronounceable. Or should I leave them alone because they are real people who did some of what I'm saying they did?

Help!

Daily Word Count Check In

Word Count: Um. I don't know. I did some research today and then was bad and let myself do some editing. I read it out loud to Megan and saw all these places that needed fixing. Aagh. So sorry.

Sentence: Annalie hadn't even had time to try to look innocent before Eugenie knew it all.

Daily Word Count Check In

February 6, 2010

Word Count: 516

Phrase: "Don't let yourself look like you're lurking in the corridors or listening in on any conversation that might be going on around you," Nee said, "but if you can be in the same room as the King or Queen, or the Prince and Marie and her lady in waiting, stay as long as you can and look inconspicuous." Inga paled and looked at Annalie for help. Then Nee added, "And try to stay within earshot."

Daily Word Count Check In

Word Count: 450

Phrase: She was dressed in fine clothes, but her jewelry was not ornate. The workmanship was delicate and expensive, but instead of being made from gold or silver, it was all cast iron. She held a small, red velvet purse that jingled as she walked up and down the booth, purveying the goods.

Daily Word Count Check In

Tonight was another word count zero day. Last one for this week, I promise. (Except Sunday, I don't write on Sundays.) I have another excellent excuse though--a great writer's group critique meeting.

We did a writing exercise in which I practiced by writing a back cover blurb for one of the other books I'm working on (the one on the right with the highest percentile bar) and another fun one where I wrote about a falling star from the star's perspective. Then we read them out loud and it was a lot of fun. After that we discussed the chapters that had been submitted to critiquing and of course got off subject a ton :o)

It was great and the writing exercises and critiques gave me some things to think about with the manuscript so far.

Tomorrow I will have a word count for the Arlie book. Promise.

Daily Word Count Check In

Wednesday January 3, 2010

Word Count: 0

So, sorry. No phrase or sentence since I didn't write. I actually did write, just not on this story. I wrote something that I submitted to be included in a collection of stories. I'll let you know if it gets accepted. If you want to know a little more about what I'm writing, I included some information about it in the last post's comments.

Catch ya tomorrow!

Daily Word Count Check In

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Word Count: 583

Phrase: "Erik, that doesn't matter. You should not have taken it. You could have fallen and hurt yourself, or Victor could have woken up and seen you. They'll know what happened, Erik," Arlie said as she sat down on his bed next to him.

Writing Contest!

I just found out from one of my writing buddies that there is an awesome contest going on at Kidlit.com. The contest is one where you send only the first 500 words of your manuscript, so not a lot of pressure--yet:)

If you're interested (and if you're part of the Seven Quills or another writing group, I hope you are) check it out here:

Kidlit Contest

Progress, Take Two

I finally fixed my progress bars. It's kind of funny.

I was talking to Nathan about my dismal abilities in math only an hour or so ago.

Ten minutes ago he asked me about my progress bar, if I'd made it to 1% yet.

This of course was depressing because I believed I was at .1% and had been excited moments ago to have finally reached it. It's pretty depressing to have a progress bar that doesn't actually have a bar moving across it, you know?

So I decided to update it with him there, so he could see the new percentage. He watches me and then (I don't know how he did this without laughing at me) says, "Kell, you've got to multiply it by 100."

Yeah. This is why I was an English and History major.

So now I have progress on my progress bars. Yay!

Progress

You've probably noticed the three progress bars to the right. I've had one up for a while, but since I'm working on three different stories at the same time, I figured I'd put two more progress bars up. Just so you know (that is if you are even interested) they are all based on a goal of 80,000 words. So if you multiply the percentages by 80,000, you'll know how many words I have on each rough draft.

Right now it's kind of depressing because the percentages are so low that there's no little bar to see. I'm not sure how high the percentage has to be to actually get the bar to show up. I hope we find out.

I've made a goal to write for at least an hour every day, so the percentage on at least one of them should go up every day.

And should you still be reading this post, here is a quick bit about each story so you kind of know what I'm working on when those progress bars change.

The Hinky manuscript (none of these are the titles, they are just working file names so I can keep the stories straight) is a reconstructing of what was once going to be a collection of embarrassing moments. I have gathered hundreds of embarrassing moments from people I've met and haven't met and at first I was going to try to publish them as a simple collection with some witty bits about embarrassment-what happens to us physiologically and emotionally when we get embarrassed or recall those memories, the various ways people deal with embarrassment, what it means when people don't get embarrassed vs. what it means when people say they don't get embarrassed, but really do, etc. I decided that wasn't working for me when Deseret Book asked for something additional and there was really no way I could do it being that I have no idea where 99 percent of my contributors are now.

So now it is a fiction story that incorporates many of the experiences I collected as well as many of my own. I am still thinking I'll try to sell it to Deseret Book or Cedar Fort. We'll see.

The Two draft is about what happens to a woman when she chooses something other than her destiny and is given the opportunity to change her life to reflect the choice she "should" have made.

Arlie is a retelling of The Princess and the Pea.

So there you have it. Three of the ideas floating around in my head. I have others, but these are the three that I am choosing to actively think about and plan.

Midnight Madness Leads to Morning Madness

Ok, so just as I thought, I can't do my writing at night. I stayed up late last night to do it because I never (honestly, not making excuses here) got a chance to do it during the day or early evening. In fact, I didn't start writing until after midnight. Now this morning I am grumpy and feeling mean. I babysit today :/, so maybe the older kids can entertain each other while the younger ones nap (hopefully at the same time) and I'll be able to get some writing done.

My Manuscript

Nathan set up a percentage bar on the blog. It's just right there on the right. It should change every day as I should be writing every day. And just so you know, the manuscript I decided to work on for now is one that I actually had a lot of work completed on as a non-fiction, but at the conference I digitally tore it up and decided to make it fiction. Much easier that way. So that is why the completion bar is so low. I started all over. Kind of. And I think right now, a reasonable daily word count goal is 300. I've done more than that tonight, but I may not always be able to. So for those of you who care, there it is.

And for those of you in my ward who write, we need to start a writing group. I think that would help us all out.

The Best Writer's Conference Ever!

(This is a small portion of our online writers' group, Authors Incognito)

I got back late last night from the LDSStorymakers Writing Conference. IT WAS AWESOME! (Once again.) This is my fourth time attending and every year it just gets better. I'm still a little tired from traveling yesterday and getting up at 4:30 AM (Utah time) to be with my kiddos today who decided to wake up at 6:30 AM (Ohio time).

While I absolutely loved going, I felt guilty this year. You see, I haven't done a lot of writing in the last year (not counting blogging). Since the last conference I have been really busy with anything but writing. I traveled, I had a baby, I moved across the country, I started babysitting three or four times a week, and I played lots of board games with Nathan and friends from dental school and Church. But my worst excuse is I stopped believing in myself and my abilities. It was pretty easy to say I didn't have time to write. I did a little bit of therapeutic writing shortly after we moved here, but that was it. I didn't work on my books at all. I blamed it on lack of time, but really it was lack of faith in myself. I'm terrified to submit. Thinking about it makes me tear up and get shaky.

Any confidence I had gained in writing from my college professors (because that is where nearly all of it came) was gone. I hadn't been in school for a long time (or at least hadn't taken an English class in a while). I'm not sure what happened to zap my confidence, but it was gone. I had a blog that people told me they enjoyed reading, I had a couple stories accepted for a collection in a book, and recently I was asked to write some articles for our Stake's summer musical, This is Kirtland! and in the past I've had letters to the editor published in USU's paper, The Stateman, a paper that isn't easy to get into if your letter is actually well-written and thought out. But I haven't worked on my stuff for a long, long time.

If there is one thing that I learned at this conference (ok, I'm going to list more than one here, but they all go together) it is this: write anyway. Write, write, write, and stop editing my stuff so much. I never get very far because I stop to edit and try to make those first chapters perfect. Then when I can't, I get discouraged and stop writing altogether. I need to make writing one of my priorities and that scares me. What? I have to have ANOTHER priority? I don't have enough priorities already?

Yeah. I have to make it a priority and make myself do it because, hey, it is what I want to do, it is something I do actually love doing when I believe in myself (and like what I'm writing about--payday loans and injury lawyers are topics I do not enjoy writing about so please do not ask me to write about them as a ghost writer on your nephew's website simply because you don't want to do it yourself. I will say no.).

So, from now on I am not allowed to tell myself that I was stupid when I thought I could write. I WILL write every day and after seeing what is reasonable for me I will make a daily word count goal. I will hold myself responsible to those of you who read my blog (I will try to create something that I can check off daily on my blog to let you know, as if you care, that I reached my word count goal for the day), the wonderful people in my writing group, and to my husband. Oh, and to Jeff Savage because he made me promise I would have one manuscript finished (not polished, just completely written) by the end of the summer.

I'm ready.

So here I go. Ready, Set, Go!