Wednesday, May 1, 2013

New Posting Schedule for May and IWSG


I can't believe May is already here. April flew by and I'm not even sure what I accomplished. Let's see what we can discover in my IWSG post. If you want to learn more about this monthly blog hop, sign up, or just find more people who are participating, CLICK HERE.

And...

Although I participated in the A to Z Challenge last month, I felt like the majority of my time was spent waiting to close on my house. I tried to write but found it hard to concentrate. There were a few emotional frustrations dealing with my WIP as well, but I'll get to those in a minute. Since Talia didn't want me to write about her, I worked on three other projects last month.

1. Exiled--a short story originally started for a Unicorn Bell Anthology. We decided not to put out the anthology at this time, but after struggling to come up with this thing for a year I found that I sort of liked it. It's scifi all the way and deals with assassins and travel through time and space.

2. Fallen--a short story that you first got a glimpse of during a Show vs. Tell Blogfest in 2011. I worked on it last year and messed it up. This month I believe I've fixed it with the help of my awesome writer's group. It's on submission so we'll see what happens.

3. Fade Into Me--a YA Contemporary Fantasy (with my scifi twist on it). I pulled this out a week ago because I found myself thinking a lot about Ryanne after I wrote about her for Y day. After a day reading the 34K that I had written I wanted to dive back in. Yesterday I emailed the first 140 pages to my daughter and asked her to just read for 10 minutes and tell me what she thought.

She read for an hour and then said, "Dude! This is really good!"

I just wish I didn't think this was THE ONE, you know? It keeps paralyzing me and I'm afraid I'll never finish.

Which leads me to the insecure part of this post. I really wanted to have Search For Knowledge, the sequel to The Magic Wakes finished by now. It's been outlined for two years and half written for one. I stopped writing while I finished all the revisions on TMW and hoped to ride the high of being published to finish SFK.  I like what I've written so far, but I keep letting the inner editor interrupt the writing. What little I did write last month, I wrote in my notebook. For some reason I just couldn't deal with the doc open on my computer. It was way too intimidating.

I think I finally got to the bottom of my frustration.

I need to stop reading reviews.

Yeah, I know. Here's the funny thing. The written reviews have all been good and I can say they've made my day at times. However, there have been some things mentioned that I agree with, but I can't go back and fix it now. The frustrating thing is that 75% of the mentioned issues are things that got cut from the final product. Knowing that my instincts were right, but I let myself be talked out of them, is hard.

I feel like I let Talia down. Maybe that's why she isn't happy with me right now. She doesn't trust me to tell her story the way it's coming to me.

But I will.

I've learned a lot these last few months and I'm ready to take her story to the next level. If she'll start talking to me again.

How are your characters treating you right now?

Mid-Day Update:
I realize that I didn't post my new schedule for May! I'm going to post on Tuesdays and Fridays for May and probably the rest of the summer. I'll need the extra time to unpack and organize my house. And then it will be time to travel, sit by the pool, camp, etc.

I'll return to M, W, F posting this fall when my kids return to school.

27 comments:

  1. My Characters are ignoring me. So in return I am giving them the cold shoulder. One day we will make up and play nice. haha

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  2. That's tough when you know you had the right stuff in place and ended up cutting it. It's all a learning experience. Now you know to trust yourself.

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    1. Yep, but I'm so mad at myself. That's what's really killing my writing at the moment. I can't forgive myself. That's what I need to work on.

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  3. I like the title for the next book. I think you need a vacation to recharge your batteries.

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    1. Another cruise would be lovely. Alas, buying a house made sure that won't happen this year. I'd better pick a really good one for next year, don't you think?

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  4. I am so sorry. It would be so hard to 'know' what is right and have someone else say "No, do it my way". IMHO some things were out of your control. Forgive yourself. Talia will forgive you and come back.

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  5. Sorry Talia isn't talking to you. I'm having fits with mine. Of course, they are pirates, so I should have expected them to give me the finger before asking for more rum. Now if they'd only get on to attacking ships and taking over the world, we could get back to it!

    Characters, can't live with them, can't kill th--wait a minute, I think I might have a solution!

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  6. Have confidence in your work and never give up. Glad you took part in A-Z and now IWSG.

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    1. Thanks Sheena-kay! I'm glad I did too. It's kept me connected during this crazy time.

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  7. Ah well. Once you let go of the should-have-beens, you'll get back to it. Perhaps now is just not that time.

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  8. Aloha Charity,

    Hope the house-closing thing went well, because it seems like you got a LOT done in April, wow, I'm jealous :)

    And GOOD LUCK with your THE ONE wip, and think if it's meant to be, it will be.

    (I think I will NOT read any reviews once a book is published... I won't be able to do anything to fix it, right? Well... maybe, I'll read just one...

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    1. LOL, thanks Mark. I always told myself I wouldn't read reviews, but then I saw a post on keeping the good ones in a file to pick up your ego when you need it. Most of my reviews have been good, so I really shouldn't complain. It's the perfectionist in me who knows that my story isn't perfect that's struggling.

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  9. Oh, Charity, I want to hear the story of the cutting and how it is that you can't revise. Didn't Orson Scott Card release a new version of Ender's Game? I think I have received "major revision" notices for about 20 books on my Kindle in the last year from Amazon. My blog partner is doing a major rewrite on his chapter book to see if he can push it to a new level of success. I think he can.

    I know the feeling after cutting so many parts where my MC thinks because my crit partners wanted action. But I'm a thinker and I like books with internal dialog along with the action. So I wonder if any of those people who didn't mention problems would have gotten bored if you'd left in those parts you cut. Which group is the majority? I don't even know if that was the type of problem. Now I want to read both versions, LOL!

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  10. Thanks for the insight into your world. Good post for today and I hope that you can get back to the story. My characters... well, they can't decide who gets to speak next. I may have too many there because they struggle to let me get one story done at a time. Actually, I'm trying to edit one of my novels because I've never submitted any of my novels before and just want to reach that point some time soon. Good luck to you.

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    1. Good luck with editing and submitting! It's scary and exciting and who knows where it can take you.

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  11. Hope she starts to talk to you again! Good luck with your projects.

    My characters are mostly quiet and giving me that look which I know to mean "You've been ignoring us. So we're going to say nothing."

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  12. i like the spacey mood in here!
    i didnt know magic wakes started out ya, definitely needed to be na!
    congrats on finishing the challenge! it wore me out!
    i may cutback to blogging 2x a week too.
    yay for your progress!

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    1. Go for it. I think we've all earned a bit of a break. ;)

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  13. Wow, you were busy! I've had a hectic time with deadlines lately, so most of my characters are getting sick of waiting for their turn. One keeps hitting me in the back of the head with spit balls.

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    1. LOL, I bet that's the one that gets your attention first.

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  14. I'm amazed how much you seem to have gotten done in April. Your stories sound wonderful. I love the type with a scifi twist :)

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    1. Thanks! It's funny because I didn't think I was doing much, but when I look at it in the post I see that I did. :)

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  15. At the moment, my (new!) characters are saying the same thing to me over and over again, because I haven't put any of it down on paper. I guess they think I'll forget if they don't keep telling me. And you know what? They're probably right. Problem is, we're not making any progress, just covering the same ground. Guess I should do something about that when little Mackenzie is napping!

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