A Year in the Life

2012: A Review

I find it extremely useful to look back at the year that has just passed as a way to move forward in setting goals for the upcoming year.

I've written these year-in-review posts for as long as I've been blogging and I find a curious thing: while I almost never actually meet my yearly goals, I accomplish an enormous number of things. They're just not necessarily the items I had anticipated.

Perhaps this is not quite the problem or failure it might seem to be. Life throws curve balls. If there's one thing I have learned in the past several years, it's to be flexible in the face of the unexpected. (Now, stop laughing, I didn't say I enjoyed it, or even did it gracefully. . . )

So in that spirit, I offer this restatement of the goals I set this year for 2012:

In 2012, I intended to:  

1. Shepherd THE BETWEEN to its ideal readers

My first major goal for 2012 was to get THE BETWEEN in the hands of its readers. I spent a lot of time in the beginning months of 2012 working on obtaining reviews, doing guest blog posts and giveaways, and crafting a marketing plan that felt authentic and not sleazy. I think I accomplished that and made authentic connections with readers and potential readers.

2. Generate enough support and interest to write and release its sequel.

In terms of working on the sequel, I have a bare bones structure for when I return to that world. But I realized that raising awareness for one novel while trying to kickstart another was a way to burn out.

3. Finish the first draft of the "YAGSIP"

Goal number 3? I was all over that. I *owned* that goal. It was an excellent writing year, actually. Now if only I could find a name for the %$#!! novel.

4. Return to my poetry roots

Poetry. I filled several small notebooks with lines, stanzas, and drafts of poems. I also participated in the annual August Poetry Postcard fest, where I wrote 31 original postcard poems and sent them all over the world to 31 different poets.I also got to attend the 2012 Dodge Poetry Festival, which always fires up my soul with the sheer beauty of language.

5. Focus on my physical wellness

Well being? Well, that was a major fail. I know this has been on my list of goals for several years now and I need to do something about it. I'm healthy, but in poor physical shape. I could berate myself for laziness, but it's also that I've had to cope with some significant personal and family stressors in the past year, including the death of my mother and my father's multiple hospitalizations. 

So, what DID I accomplish in 2012?

• In addition to completing the first draft of the Ghost Story, I also started and am set to finish a Science Fiction novel (DERELICT) that I project to come in at 100,000 words. (As of last night, it's at 92K) That represents 1 1/2 novels written in 2012. 
• I revised FUTURE TENSE with feedback from both my agent and some wonderful beta readers (shout out to the lovely gals of the #SWFG and Rebecca Blain from G+)
• Approximately 100 new blogposts, the majority of them here at the Once in a Blue Muse Blog, but also as part of several blog tours, including the Merry-Go-Round Blog tour and the Black Ink White Paper group blog.
• Speaking of DERELICT, I decided to do something different with my work and serialize it as a novel in progress. I've been slowly garnering a wonderful community of interested readers and have really enjoyed the process of being accountable to them during the process.
• At Readercon last July, I had dinner with my fellow graduates of Jeffrey A. Carver's and Craig Shaw Gardner's Ultimate SF&F Workshop. Sitting around the table, it struck me that I was in company with an enormously talented pool of writers and suggested we put together an anthology. I'm thrilled to say that this project is moving forward and my co-editor and I will be meeting to review our submissions over the next few weeks with a plan to have the anthology ready in time for 2013 Readercon.
• I released a slew of new short stories to subscribers of BlueMusings, my newsletter.
• I got to meet my agent, the lovely Nephele Tempest of The Knight Agency, for the first time during a recent trip to L.A. We are working towards the same goals and in the same direction, weathering the vagaries of the publishing industry.
• I applied for, and was invited to run a panel with the estimable Tamora Pierce at 2012 ConBust, a small SF&F con run at Smith College in Northampton, MA. It was a wonderful experience, one I will treasure (especially since I got to meet and stay with the utterly wonderful Jane Yolen!!)

In 2013, I Intend to Accomplish:

• Revise/edit the ghost story (which really, really needs a title) and DERELICT
• Brainstorm with Nephele regarding what to write next/continue to align goals with the aim of publication
• Complete and publish the Ultimate SF&F Workshop Anthology
• Write 4-6 new short stories

To my reader and writer friends: May the New Year bring you joy and peace.

Endings and Beginings

I started writing what I came to think of as the 'YAGSIP' (YA ghost story in progress) in July of 2011.  The story started with 5 handwritten pages in a small notebook I bought at Readercon. 

Usually, I travel with pen and paper, but I forgot to pack one of the many Staples brand single subject notebooks I buy every back-to-school time.  (Best writing bargain ever--they were on sale this year for .08 each!) Luckily, the folks at Clarkesworld Magazine had these little blank books for sale.  This one reminded me of an old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon I loved, so that was the one that I bought.

I didn't have much of an idea, other than a visual of an abandoned amusement park and a grieving teenager. I knew she had lost someone dear to her and that she was a photographer.  Other than that, it was all up for grabs.

 The first lines I wrote were in her voice:

Grief makes people squirrely.  They want you to be over it, coping, strong.  If there's some expiration date on pain, then I guess I'm way past it.

Once I discovered who she was, I needed to find a name for her, a history, a goal, and obstacles.  All those things, and more, unfolded over the course of the next 8 months.

On Sunday, I finished the novel, all 78.5K words of it.  Well, the first draft, anyway.  It takes more than 8 months of furious writing to create a novel.  Now that I have the raw material, the real work begins.

There will be revising, editing, and proofreading.  Maybe multiple rounds of each.  As well as the brainstorming on coming up with a title.  All this will happen in the next half year and I will do my best to be patient with the story and do it the justice it deserves.

This was an emotionally difficult piece to write.  While it was not *my* story, it was a story of loss and grief, and it resonated with the losses I have experienced in my own life.  Even when writers make stuff up, we root it in our lived experiences, so it will have its own truth. Without that spark of emotional truth, the story cannot hope to connect with the reader. 

At least that is my experience.  Every story I have written has to have something real at its core, or I cannot be fully engaged in the writing of it.  And if the writer is not engaged, the reader will not be, either.

I am grateful for all the comments and support I received from readers along the way when I posted snippets of Tess and Marco's story.  Thank you for taking the journey with me.

The Ghost Story at 52K

With a little help from my friend Sue, I'm calling this one "Shattered Spirits" and if there's a sequel, (and I think there is) it will be "Unfinished Business". At least that's what I've decided for now. I really have a hard time with titles.  It's something I struggle with in everything I write, from blog posts, to poetry, to short stories, to novels.

I have to trust the the right title will show up one day.

Here are some first draft words from Marco's POV.  He's my ghost character, murdered 6 years earlier in his beloved amusement park.  One of the story threads in the ghost story is Marco trying to discover and take his revenge on his killers. This is a scene when he revisits home and his parents for the first time since he died. As you can probably see in this snippet, Marco has issues with his family.

First draft warning applies--typos, awkward prose etc, ahead.

. . . .

I raised my hand to knock before I realized how stupid that was and slid through the front door. The entry hallway was as narrow and dark as I remembered. Patterns of vines and roses climbed in parallel lines across faded wallpaper. The ticking of the grandfather clock sounded like a heartbeat. It was claustrophobic and stifling. Exactly the way it had been when I was alive.

The clinking of silverware and the scrape of a chair against the floor were the only other sounds in the house. No conversation, no laughter. This was a mistake. How was I going to find a connection to Teflon Tony here? But that wasn't really the reason I wanted to flee. Not if I was being honest with myself.

I hovered just outside the dining room trying to find the will to see them again. My parents. Tired, old, and rigid, even in my first memories of them. I was a late in life baby, after my mother had endured years of miscarriages that when the doctors couldn't prevent, she turned to the priests and their prescription of prayer. When I was born, she made a vow to dedicate me to the church. Too bad I stopped believing in her god when I was still a kid.

The soft chant of a prayer in Italian drifted from the dining room. It was my mother saying the apostles creed over and over. Io credo in Dio, Padre onnipotente, creatore del cielo e della terra; e in Gesù Cristo, suo unico Figlio, nostro Signore, il quale fu concepito di Spirito Santo. . . Unbidden and unwanted the translation bubbled up from deep in my memory. He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God, the Father almighty.

If listening to the thud of dirt on your own grave as you panic, trapped in your corpse is hell, then I'd been there. It was less than three days and I did eventually rise from the ground, but I certainly wasn't in heaven and I definitely wasn't any sort of saint or diety. I couldn't be certain God didn't exist, but I knew I hadn't run into him yet.

My father's voice mumbled the prayer along with her, both voices blending for the 'amen.' I slipped into the dining room just as my mother began to clear the table. My father poured himself a glass of his home made grappa. It was the way every sunday dinner I could remember ended, but the years since my murder hadn't been kind to either of them. My mother was stooped, her gray hair tucked in a neat bun covered by black lace. Her hands were distorted by the arthritis that had always pained her when the weather turned and deep lines creased the skin around her eyes and in parallel lines across her forehead. My father didn't raise a finger to help. He stared straight ahead, sipping the grappa slowly, but steadily until the small glass was empty. Then he refilled it from the unlabelled bottle and drained it again.

His hair was still dark, but thinning, his narrow face and small dark eyes made him look a little like a fox.

"Hello, Father," I said. "At least some things never change."

He downed another glass before setting it and the bottle in the center of the table for my mother to take care of. He would sit there while she cleaned up from supper, washing and putting away all the dishes. Then he would demand his coffee before retiring for the night. I hated that he treated my mother like she was little more than his servant. And I hated her for letting him.

I left him staring straight ahead while the candles burned down and wax dripped on the lace tablecloth to follow the sound of running water in the kitchen. Drying and putting away the dishes had been my job once I could reach the cabinets with the small stepstool tucked between the refrigerator and the stove.

It was still there, the hinges rusty. The overhead light buzzed and cast yellowed shadows on the dingy linolium floor. My mother used to scrub it every saturday morning on her hands and knees, but the tiles were so old and worn, nothing would help except for tearing them up and starting all over.

She turned off the water and dried her twisted hands, staring out the window.

"Mama," I said softly, even though I knew she couldn't hear me. "You should make him help you." And I knew that could never happen either.

Plugging away at the ghost story

The ghost story still has no name. I'm still calling it YAGSIP (Young Adult Ghost Story in Progress).  One of these days, maybe in the shower, maybe when I'm walking the dogs, the right name for this project will pop into my head. But for now, YAGSIP it is. :)

I've been floundering a bit, as I trudge through the middle of the story. This is nothing new.  Every story I've written grinds to a halt at this part of the arc.  It doesn't mean I like it, but I've made may peace with the process. 

I'll get through this and charge through to the end. That's how it works.  Even as I get frustrated by some aspects of storytelling, I am really enjoying writing this one.  The characters are complex and the stakes are high.  Here is a snippet from this week's work, through the POV of Marco, the ghost Tess finds at the abandoned amusement park. Tess is struggling to make sense of her brother Thomas' death.  Enjoy!

I drifted over to the building, watching her as she picked her way across the littered path. Dark smudges under her eyes gave her face a hallowed out, distant look. I was fascinated by the beat of her pulse at her neck and as fragile and wraith-like as she seemed, there was still a burning vitality to her. The living place such little value on what they have.

I looked away before she could catch me watching her, angry and ashamed at my helpless longing. My life was done and there was nothing I could do to change that, no matter how unfair its ending. Besides, that wasn't Tess' fault.

The crunch of glass beneath her feet pulled me from my self-pity.

"Lovely place you have here," Tess said, kicking at the shards of a broken bottle.

"Home, sweet home," I said, shrugging.

She stopped and looked at me, unwelcome pity in her eyes. "If you're not stuck here, why don't you go home?"

An image of my parent's house flashed through me. The living room that no one lived in. Not even dust was allowed to mar the perfect, creepy altar with my mother's precious collection of saints. No, this place, even crumbling to the ground and decayed was more my home that that place ever had been. There was a darkness that colored everything in their lives and it wasn't just the heavy curtains shutting out the sun from each room. Every moment I spent there, I struggled to keep it from smothering me.

I waited to answer until she turned to step over the threshold of the entryway. The door creaked shut behind her. "You wouldn't understand." It would take a few minutes for her eyes to adjust from the sunlight. I faded to the color of shadow, leaving her groping in the dark space.

"Try me," she said, looking at the space where I had just been. I didn't answer her. "Marco?"

It was petty of me, but I couldn't help it.

"Marco?" Her voice had a ring of panic to it. She put her arms out in front of her and walked into the center of the room, shuffling her feet to avoid walking into any surprises. In the darkness, her eyes glowed and silver shadows wreathed her slim form. It was like there was a ghost inhabiting her skin. A ghost I could see, but not sense.

"Here," I said, drifting over to the benches against the far wall and letting my outline glow. Hers faded and if I hadn't seen the field inside her with my own eyes, I would have believed I made it up.

"That wasn't funny." Her lips were pressed together in a tight line and her eyebrows slanted down over her staring eyes. She strode over to the first bench and sat down, putting her camera down and opening her pack. "I don't suppose you have a flashlight?"

I shrugged. I could do better than that. Her eyes widened as I glowed more strongly.

"Thank you." In the metallic light, she rummaged through her pack, pulling out a small handheld meter, two large pens and a pack of thin needles. I turned away in disgust. Alcohol and pot I could understand. But putting shit in your body with a needle?

"I hadn't pegged you as an addict. Vodka not enough for you?" But maybe that was part of it. Maybe that made her weak enough for the field to take advantage.

"Fuck you," she said, and slid one of the pens alongside her index finger. For some reason, I couldn't look away. A single pearl of bright red blood glowed as she squeezed her finger, letting it drop onto the meter.

"What the hell?"

"I'm a diabetic, you idiot." She stared up at me, daring me to say anything. "And I don't drink. Not ever. Alcohol is sugar. Sugar means more shots." I looked away from her face and down at the supplies she had organized on the bench beside her. The apparatus in her hand beeped once and she sighed. "I've been doing this since I was seven years old. It sucks and I'm tired of it. But I'm not stupid."

I watched her hands as she unwrapped a needle and twisted it onto the end of the other pen. She turned the barrel and tapped it a few times before lifting her shirt and pushing the needle through the pale skin of her stomach. I had never seen anyone stick themselves before. If I were still alive, I probably would have puked. "And I don't want to kill myself. Not like Thomas. So tell me," she said, staring me in the eyes as her thumb pressed the pen's trigger. "What the hell was I doing chugging from my mother's vodka collection?"

Procrastination=avoidance

"Each month, our participating authors from around the world agree to blog on a single topic throughout the month. By following the links in each month's post, you'll discover a whole bunch of new authors in a variety of genres, levels of experience, and styles of writing."

The Dreaded Porch Mess

Every month, on the 10th day, I take part on the Forward Motion for Writers Blog Tour. Every month, I get to the 10th and realize in utter panic, that I haven't thought of what to write for the monthly topic. Ironically, this month, the month when the topic is procrastination, I'm actually writing this post ahead of time.

I've been thinking a lot about procrastination lately, because I haven't been hitting my 1K/day goal on my current WIP, the YA Ghost Story in Progress, or what I affectionately refer to as the YAGSIP.

Now, if you asked my family, they'd tell you if procrastination was an olympic sport, I'd probably win the gold medal.  It's something I'm quite good at, if I may say so myself.  And here's the thing.  For me, it's really avoidance.  If there's something I don't want to do, it can find its way to the sub-basement of my to-do lists. And it's a vicious cycle.  The more I don't want to do something, the more I procrastinate on it, the more I *really* don't want to do that thing.

Right now, it's about emptying the screened in porch attached to my office. There are things in there that never got moved inside after our fire-renovation. It's not that I don't want the porch cleaned out, it's that I really just don't want to do it myself.  And the longer I avoid doing it, the worse and the harder the task feels, until it's become this impossible mountain to climb.  

If I just spent 20 minutes and did it, it would no longer have power over me. My rational mind knows this, and yet, I still find a thousand other things to do rather than the few things I really need to do.

I've hit the middle of this novel in progress.  I hate the middle of any book. It's like I've wandered into a swamp and the further I push, the thicker the mud gets, until I'm at a complete standstill.  I hate that feeling, so I avoid even opening the file.  Instead, I haunt FB, Twitter, and G+. I decided to focus on updating my Tumblr blog. I do endless research, all the while trying to fool myself that I'm doing important things.

I write endless to-do lists.  Not just on scraps of paper, but using clever programs and systems that never get me over my time-wasting procrastination. (Yes, I am aware that endless organizing *IS* procrastination.)

And yet, I do accomplish a lot.

Another irony:  Maybe it's this clash between what I want to do and what I need to do that helps me accomplish so many interesting things.  Things that never make it to my to-do list but are important and fulfilling in their own right.

Today, I sat down, turned off the wifi and wrote for a solid hour, pushing a little through the middle.  And in the next week, I absolutely will clear off the porch.  I have no choice.  A carpenter is coming to repair the broken screens and door frame.  It will feel utterly delightful to have the task completed, so why has it taken me a year to get to?

Head over to the Blog Tour main blog for other writers' takes on procrastination. Just doing my part to help you avoid!

Busy Week Roundup and Sneak Peak

First, some video of my reading last week, for your viewing pleasure.  Three small sections of THE BETWEEN, including part of the opening chapter.  There really aren't any true spoilers contained here, so feel free to listen if you haven't read any of the story.

I didn't realize how much I talk with my hands until I watched these videos!






 

And a teaser for next week: An upcoming interview with the lovely and talented Jade E. Zivanovic, my cover artist extraordinaire, in which we learn which classes she got in trouble for drawing when she should have been studying, among other tidbits!


I'm also nibbling away at the YAGSIP (YA Ghost Story in Progress) and am just shy of 40,000 words of a proposed 70,000 word draft. Stay tuned for some more snippets from that story as well.