Speed Writing--Update

Just as I promised, I tried out the Speed Writing last night. I had my six projects up and ready to go, a timer, a glass of water, my kids sleeping, etc. I was ready.

Round I: My first novel, one I have not even glanced at since January, 2009. Prologue... hmmm... just as I suspected, it sucked. But, amazingly, not one minute into the speed writing session, I knew exactly how to change it! It would solve my late-arriving villain, would introduce the Old English facet, and would set the creepy tone for the whole thing. Perfect! I started writing, modifying, filling the page with dialogue... the alarm went off, but I was almost finished with the scene! I couldn't stop now!

So, there it is. It took another 18 minutes to rough out the prologue, and as I started glancing through the first chapter, I knew exactly where I was going wrong. I have my project.

Yes, I set aside the five other projects. It's probably best for me to do this novel, anyway, for it is the roughest of the three, and once I rewrite it, I can set it aside while I revise #2 and #3, and hopefully have them all ready for publication soon. I am tired of having them languish on my laptop, though, so at least I'm moving on them actively.

Did the speed dating work? Yes, and no. I do have a project, but I also didn't really do the whole speed dating thing. I picked up the number of the first guy I met and walked out the door with him. That's me, not playing by the rules. I can certainly appreciate Jeff's knowledge that speed dating doesn't work for him. If I get in a bind again, I might try it, but I wouldn't be surprised if the outcome is the same.

Now to tackle that novel, and make it brilliant ;)

Speed Writing

Speed Dating is a relatively new phenomenon, consisting of a bunch of single(?) people getting together somewhere public and rapidly moving from prospective partner to prospective partner, talking to each other for somewhere between 30 seconds and 5 minutes (I have no knowledge of what time limit is ideal, as I've been married longer than many of you have lived on the earth).

At the end of the Speed Dating "session," participants get to request numbers of those people who made an impression on them. If both participants request each other, then a connection is made. If both don't, there's no really uncomfortable moment when anyone has to reject the other, for no commitment has been made. Supposedly, it's a great way to meet lots of people and reject most of them in a very short amount of time.

As most of you know, I've been in writing limbo, drifting around without attaching myself to any of my writing projects. Do I want to write another veggie book for children? Revise one of my three novels? Work on my Oxford play? Write a ten-minute comedy? You see, it isn't that I don't have any ideas... it's like a filthy house: where does one start cleaning?

I've decided to play my own sort of game: Speed Writing. I'll set up six different writing projects on my computer--the three novels, the Oxford play, a blank screen for the ten-minute, and another document with several veggies listed (cabbage is next, I think)--and I'll spend ten minutes with each of them.

At the end of ten minutes, whether I enjoyed working on the project or not, I'll switch to the next. At the end of an hour, I'll have tried them all, and I might have discovered the one I want most to work on. More than likely I'll be down to two, and I'll spend a longer date--30 minutes--on each one to figure out which will be my "steady date" for a while.

I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow. I've never tried anything like this before. Have you? Do you have six (or more) projects that could use some doing? Might this work in other activities, like painting, sewing, etc.? What do you think?

Stuck Inside the Box?

Two fabulous posts reflect some of the changes I've made over the last 24 hours. I was going through my methodical way, forcing myself to do stuff on my list while hating every minute of it. The advice from all of you, dear readers, was to step away from the drudgery and work on something that inspires me--in effect, to try something new.

And then I saw Neatorama's post showing Leroy Anderson's little composition entitled "The Typewriter." I was fortunate that my father liked classical music, and as a kid I was exposed to several of Anderson's compositions, and this one is a personal favorite. Who would have thought of making a typewriter into a musical instrument? It works beautifully, too. His "thinking outside the box," to use the modern cliche, turned into fun for my whole family this morning. I showed the video to my kids, then showed it again (at their request).

Another post, by one of my fashionista friends Ordinary Girl, showed a letter she'd written to herself, vowing to take better care of herself and not let stress take over her life. I could not agree more, but it reminded me that this was one of my faults, too, and this year it had really gotten out of hand.

My lists are my aid in life, helping me be far more productive than I would be without them. However, they are also a force to stifle me if I let them take over. Yes, I can get done what I must today, but, at least for the summer, I am going to do what I want every single day, even if it's for an hour. I'm starting to work on my novels, and making them into unique, fascinating manuscripts will be my goal. If that means the dishes start stinking in the sink, or the carpet get a little gross, so be it.

How are the rest of you stepping outside of your own boxes lately? Or do the sides seem too steep? Are you living without the box completely?

I admit to liking the box in the same way I like sonnet form and haiku as opposed to free verse. But a little free verse isn't a bad thing once in a while, is it?

Writer's Block

I worked very hard this academic year. I taught twelve classes, four of them completely new, and I have worn out my grading hand pretty thoroughly. I thought when summer came that I would want nothing more than to write.

I guess I was wrong.

Over the past four weeks (yes, FOUR), I've managed to do dishes, play piano, do laundry, go shopping, sweep, and even vacuum more than write. I think I have spent more time cleaning out the cat box than I have writing. I have used every excuse there is, but the truth is, I've had a bit of a block.

For perhaps the third time in my life, I have writer's block.

It doesn't feel good. My stomach squirms, I spend far too much time playing free games on Yahoo, I eat more, I'm bored, and I feel pretty foolish.

I have done writing-related activities. I just finished going through my fourth resource for the Oxford play I'm planning (discussed in an earlier blog). But research isn't writing, and my doctorate is no indication that I love research. The books on Oxford so far--barring one--have been pretty lame, too, filled with assumed information in much the same way that biographies of Shakespeare are filled with assumptions. Every author is snide, too. The Stratfordians sneer at the likelihood of Oxford (or anyone else) authoring a single word of the plays, and the Oxfordians sniff back. It isn't pretty, it isn't nice. Furthermore, it isn't me. That's why I'm not writing a stuffy textbook expounding to the world the "truth" that I have "discovered." I make no assumptions about what the truth is in this case, mainly because until I die and go talk to all of these people myself, I won't know what really happened. (It kind of reminds me of faith--I can't fault someone's beliefs just because they don't coincide with mine, for I can't know that I'm right.)

Anyhow, while I'm slogging through the research, I'm not loving it, and it's causing me to avoid the computer, the books, everything to do with writing.

Solutions? I'd love it if you have some. I certainly don't want to start teaching in late September only to realize that I didn't write a word all summer.

I've decided to skip the research for a week. I can renew the books indefinitely (it's not like anyone else wants to read them), so they can be waiting when I actually want to "work" on writing. For now, I'm going to play. I'm going to plan out adventures, revise my novels until they are bright and shiny and ready for publication. And if I get in a rut, I won't let it last. I'll just switch gears and find something I want to write instead.

What do you do when you get stuck? How do you resolve writer's block?

From Book to Video

Wow, did I ever get some fantastic news! My little book has moved into video!

Some resourceful guys (plus a girl and a dog) have made actual videos of a few of the places I wrote about in my book Ghosts of Southeast Kansas. The main producer seems to be Alexm141, and in both of the videos I found, the intrepid investigators risk life and limb to venture into restricted and/or dangerous territory to find signs of what the stories in my book discuss. Here's one of the videos:

My photographer friend Cherilyn, who also took the fantastic photo for the book's front cover, found this video on YouTube and its counterpart. Thanks Cherilyn, and thanks to Alexm141, too, for the publicity. My book is shown at the beginning of each video, and I could not be more pleased! They even rescue a turtle off the highway in the video about Lover's Leap. So brave!

Who knew others besides myself would find the history and hauntings of such a rural area so compelling? I'm kind of sad I don't live in Kansas anymore, after seeing the two videos. I really adored researching that book, meeting all the eyewitnesses, investigating all over the countryside...

I'm so glad I found this! I hope Alexm141 produces some more videos just like it, too.

What are You Afraid of?

A recent incident of paranoia left me shaken. I was at the YMCA, doing my hours of Zumba, and I came across a person who looked remarkably like someone I knew--and mistrusted. Within moments I had constructed a scenario whereby this person and others had checked my kids out from the childcare area and taken them away. At the end of my exercise class, I would find my children gone, and I would never see them again.

Frightening stuff. Paranoid, yes, but frightening enough that I left the class and had a long discussion with the childcare staff about other people trying to check my kids out. I found out that my own husband would not be allowed to check them out without prior notification by me.

I felt relieved. I also felt stupid. And paranoid. But I just couldn't help it. I have one huge fear in my life, and that is losing my children.

When my oldest was an infant, I drove two hours a day with her to work, dropping her off in a daycare right across the street from where I taught (so that I could nurse her in between classes). I'd wake up from nightmares about trucks slamming into my car and killing her, and I drove stiff with tension, certain that if I lost my concentration for a second, my daughter would suffer for it.

Once I became pregnant with my second, the nightmares turned to drowning, where I would put my daughter in a floatation device, only to have someone steal it from her, and find her body drowned under the water. I cannot tell you how many times I woke up screaming from that one.

Now the nightmares mostly consist of losing my kids in public places, or having someone come into my house to take them. Each one makes it impossible to go back to sleep, for I know of nothing in the world so horrible as losing one of my kids.

I am not sure how to turn that fear into writing, but looking back at what I have written, much of my plays and novels deal with lesser fears, and fictionalizing them has helped me handle the fear more effectively. Fear provides a serious risk for the characters, one that readers will find compelling.

But are some fears too hard to face? I read a YA book about a month ago that shivered me to my bones, a book told from the POV of a girl who had been kidnapped, raped, and dominated by a man for nearly six years. It was too painful, too scary, and for the first time in my life I skipped to its end, just to make sure she got out of the situation. Had I not been a mother, I might have been able to read the book in its entirety. My children--and my greatest fear--made that impossible.

What minor fears work on you? What major fears are too much for you to handle? When do books go too far, or not far enough for you to care?

Needing to Write

I did splendidly well on my weekly list. Only the hem of my dress needs to be sewn, and then it will be finished. Even better, all of the exercising I've done so far this week (after zumba this morning, I will have exercised a total of 17.5 hours!) have made it possible for the dress to fit me fantastically. I'll be wearing it July 4.

Only my "want-to" list wasn't quite completed, so I am taking some Oxford books with me to Mom's house for the 4th weekend, along with the piano books (thank goodness she now has a piano!) so that I can practice and keep the kids' lessons going. I'll be taking my computer, too, so I might even get to that ten-minute play.

I'm really itching to write, not edit. Perhaps in this coming week I'll need to put some actual generation on the docket. I'll likely sew something, too.

Because I'll be gone, though, I will likely not post again until Monday, or Tuesday at the latest. Happy fourth, you Americans, and I hope the rest of you enjoy laughing at us as we shoot off fireworks. Then it will be back to work on Tuesday for me. Oxford is waiting!