Excuses?

It’s in our nature, I think, to make excuses. I could easily compile a list of why I haven’t been writing: I’ve been really busy; Jake absorbs so much of my time; I’ve got other pressing matters to attend to; I’m not in a good place at the moment. And they are all very real issues that provide a barrier between my writing and me. But the only person I’m really making excuses to is myself, they’re necessary to ease the guilt of not making time to sit and put words to paper.

At some point we have to stop making excuses. Writing is something I do purely for pleasure, and purely for myself. So I only have to ask myself one question: “Do I want to write?” The answer is “Yes!”. And the response to such an affirmative is: “Well, stop mucking around and sit and write.”

It’s simple. I’m a writer, so I’m going to go write.

Reassessing Goals

There was a time (year before last) that I could crank out several thousand words in a day. Winning NaNo and SoCNoC was an very achievable goal. Then ’09 hit, and since then things have been pretty awry in the world of my writing.

Due to the creative writing paper I did in semester 1 last year I am no longer able to just slap anything into the story with the knowledge that it can be edited out on the next pass. The class also destroyed any confidence I had as a writer. That’s been something I’ve been working on remedying ever since, but it’s a long slow process and most days I look at my writing and think it’s all just crap, why do I bother?

The mistake I made in that class is that I stopped writing for me. It stopped being about the sheer pleasure of crafting words into sentences, and sentences into a story with characters I love. What it comes down to is that while you can dedicate a story to someone else, the one person you have to write it for in the first place is yourself.

And this is why I think my poetry is now better than my prose. I’ve always written poetry for myself. I don’t care if others don’t get it, don’t read it or think once they have read it, ‘if this was on paper I would now burn it’. So I get more pleasure out of writing poetry now, which is odd, becauase a year ago I was still in the position of ‘I’m not a poet, I can’t write poetry, I’m not going to waste my time trying’.

I’m determined to get back to being able to write prose solely for my own pleasure. I’ve accepted that I won’t win HalfNoC again this year, I just don’t have the luxury of pouring everything I have into the story for the next week. Jake, afterall, does need feeding. But I am resetting my goal of writing 1k a day, so I will have 15k on Memoirs of an Assassin by the end of the month.

Then I can examine what I have and decide whether it’s novel material or novella, or whether I can compress it into a short story.

I have posted a few poems over on my new Words page. If you want the password just shoot me an email. redfox4239 at hotmail dot com. I hope to put an extract of my WIP up there in the next week as well, and maybe some short stories, although I’m not sure I have anything that I wouldn’t want to give a thorough edit first.

In homelife news, I’m pretty sure Dale has swine flu. He’s been really really crook, not just man flu crook, but neither Jake nor I have caught it. If it’s swine flu that makes sense because I got immunised while I was pregnant.

Quickie Post

Jake’s waking, so just a quick update.

Writing has stalled for now. Nothing yesterday and only a poem today with no more planned (even that wasn’t planned). It’s not the story that’s stalled, just no time to do it. I’m trying not to get frustrated. My MC has officially had a sex change it’s working heaps better with a male MC. I’m really enjoying toying with reality vs. perspective. It’s fun .

We spent the whole day out yesterday. We had our ante-natal class reunion. Of about 20 couples at the class only 4 couples turned up. But we should get a good mums group out of it . I planned to get some writing done last night but mother in law turned up. She’s coming over again today (they’re only in Chch every few weeks, so she doesn’t get to see Jake very often). It’s good though. We get along pretty well.

Right, off to feed my darling.

The ‘Why’ Behind the ‘What’

I got to a stopping point in the flash back scene I’ve been working on. It’s turned into a really long scene, and I think when I edit it will probably get its own chapter. It’s not quite finished, but I’m happy with it. There’s been twists and turns and an unexpected death which turns out is essential to the development of the story. It’s right on track to end where it needs to, I just had to stop for a bit.

Some aspects of the story weren’t quite fitting, but the thing that was really bugging me was that there was no real reason for the story. I had the story, but why did it need to be told?

I sat back and knitted for a while. I love knitting because you feel like you’re achieving something but you are free to think. Kinda like housework, but more meditative and satisfying, and it’s still done the next day (I’m knitting Cassie’s new baby a hat. It’s very exciting.)

And I got to thinking. Suddenly, I don’t even know what was going on in my brain, I think I was playing “what if?” for a bit, but suddenly my MC turned into a male and a million things clicked into place. Suddenly there was more emotion and complexity, and a reason to tell the story.

I can’t really explain the process, because I don’t understand it myself, but it worked, and I had a beginning for my story, and a working title: “Memoirs of an Assassin” or maybe “The Assassin’s Memoirs”. I’m not 100% sure, but it’s been a long day so I’m not sure on anything at this point. (Got up at 4am, it’s now 11pm. I’m not manic, just tired. I’ve analysed myself a bit to make sure, well, as sure as I can be. Hmm. I sense circles happening here. I really think it’s time for bed.)

I’m not sure I made a point let alone the point I wanted to make, but I’ll hit publish anyway.

So, I wrote heaps today. It was great. Even word warred, tho that was interrupted by crying baby. It’s really nice to be in the thick of it again. (Yes, that’s all this needed to say. I got there eventually.)

Priorities

My priorities list is a little askew at the moment, and I’m trying to get it straighted out. Writing has all but fallen off the bottom, which I’m not happy about. Jake’s needs, of course, will forever be at the top. But in middle there’s things that need rearranging, things that need removing (ie. playing Echo Bazaar, it’s just a time waster) and writing has to be nudged up so it comes before something like blogging . And maybe eating should go on the list.

I didn’t get any words on my HalfNoC written today, and only about 100 yesterday, so I’m about 2k behind, which is a lot out of 25k. I’ll try catch up, it’s too early in the month to give up, but I’m not going to get all worked up over it, I’ll just keep writing when I get time. At least the story is there in my mind, simmering away; another scene came to me today so there’s plenty to write.

It doesn’t help when Jake decides he’s not going to sleep well during the day. I’m just really glad that normally he sleeps well at night.

Tomorrow is another day, and hopefully one with time to write.

Queen’s Birthday

Queen Victoria’s, not Elizabeth’s, and it’s not really either, it’s just a day we’ve attached that name to. But it’s a public holiday, and that means Dale gets time and a half, and I don’t have to go anywhere (thank goodness cos the weather is pretty ghastly. Nasty southerly!).

After blogging yesterday I decided to walk away from writing for a while, it wasn’t working. Forcing it is not an effective way to remedy that. I did some dishes and let my mind wander over my story, none of which was asking to be written at this point. There was still something missing.

There’s a tactic some writers use to try get into their character’s head a little, and get to really know them. You sit down and interview them. Some people use a specifc questionaire, but I find it more effective to write myself into their world for a scene where I can have some one on one time with my character in their environment. That’s what I did with my MC.

We had a wee chat about insignificant things, and then she launched into a story, and that is what I needed. I’ve dropped myself out of it completely, and now it’s more a scene told in past tense and first person POV. I’ll admit that it’s not well written at this stage, but it’s a first draft, and I have to keep reminding myself of that so I don’t keep editing. I need to explore and find out as much as I can so when I do do an edit it’s a major one and I don’t have to do one that major again. I still haven’t finished the scene but it’s coming along really well, and getting me heaps of words toward my HalfNoC total .

Meant to be Writing

I have been writing. My 750 words have been written for the day (sixth day running, I’m impressed with myself), and I’ve done a few hundred on my HalfNoC novel which really needs a working name. I’ll work on that.

It took several days of cogitation but finally I found the character that is going to carry this story, so after writing 1k yesterday I signed up for HalfNoC. My story is about a women who is betrayed by her sister then is forced to accept that everything she was raised to believe is morally wrong and she must find the courage to betray her country in the hope that she can initiate change. (I read somewhere it’s good to write a sentence encapsulating what your work is about so you have something to refer back to when you lose your way. This is my very rusty sentence I just wrote and it’s subject to change as I get to know my characters and their world. If you know where I read this can you let me know where it was?)

I did the math, and I have to write 1k a day to win. That’s not really all that much. I know I can do it. It’s maybe an hours work if the words are flowing (like yesterday), several hours work if I don’t really know what direction it’s going in (like today).

I need to find some tactics for finding my direction so when I sit down to write the words are right there. It’s much nicer to write that way, more calming and yet also more exciting, somehow. I don’t like writing when my only motivation is that I have to produce ‘X amount of words’ by the end of the day. The time drags, and the words feel awkward as I force them onto the page, almost as if they’ve become stickers that have lost most of their stick so each word has to be pressed hard and if it refuses to stick completely an alternative has to be found. It’s tiring, and for me that’s not what writing is meant to be like. There’s also the ‘giving up’ part of writing like that too, or, mid-work procrastination, like what I’m doing now. It’s not good for the writing.

Now to non-writing related topics for a moment. We got Jake’s cot yesterday (we tried to on Fri but it wouldn’t fit in my brother’s car) and so he’s now sleeping in that. He settled himself in half an hour the first sleep he had in it and we thought ‘awesome, this will be easy’. Then he was put to bed for his night sleep and he refused to settle. He was upset for about an hour and a half, until finally I opted to give him another bottle to settle him and he fell asleep on me so I put him in his cot and he slept for about six hours (yay!). After his night feed he settle quickly because he was mostly asleep when he was put in there, and the same story for this morning. I’m hoping that if I put him in there wide awake he’ll be able to settle himself now.

He’s just woken up so off to be a mum .

Yay for sunshine

and for feeling good. I had a good nights sleep cos Dale did the night feed, and he’s looking after Jake today, so I’m getting a break and a chance to get on with stuff like washing. It’s certainly one big advantage to bottle feeding.

I went out for a “coffee” with a chick from my ante-natal class yesterday. It went really really good. I was pretty nervous cos we hadn’t actually talked at the class. I have talked heaps to her mum, cos she works at Baby Factory, and so she gave me her daughter’s cell number and vice versa, and now I have a new friend. lol. She’s keen to meet up once a week, and she’s a dancer and wants to get back into it, and I’ve always wanted to learn, so she’s gonna find a local class and we’re gonna go together, leaving our babies at home. Her little boy is almost as cute as Jake (she said Jake is nearly as cute as her boy. Bias still wins lol).

My little brother is coming over this afternoon and we’re gonna go pick up Jake’s cot. I can’t believe he’s ready to move into one already. I was hoping he’d stay in his bassinette for a couple more months, but I think he’ll be happier with more space.

I’ve still got heaps to get done today. I’ve got a hat for my neighbour to finally finish, and then I can get onto the one for Cassie’s new baby. I hope I’ve got lots of time to get knitting done, cos I don’t want the baby to arrive before I’ve sent it! (Pass that message on to your bump Cassie! )

Titles are the bane of my existance

I thought I would take a moment while Jake is still sleeping to blog a little. He hasn’t been sleeping well at all today. Between 8:30 and 4 I think he slept maybe a total of an hour here and there. So frustrating.

Went to Plunket. I’m doing a PEPE course for 6weeks to 1year. There were heaps of people there today compared to only 6 mums last week. It wasn’t fun. I didn’t feel like socialising and I’m the only one bottle feeding so when he decided he was hungry I felt really awkward. All the mums that were there last week understand why I gave up, but most of the women there today weren’t there last week, and while I’d like to think they weren’t judging me I still felt judged. Probably cos I still judge myself. I hate that I’m bottle feeding even though it’s so much better for both of us.

Anywho. Last week I got along really well with this chick Andi, so today I gave her my cell number so hopefully some kind of friendship can develop there, though I hardly got to speak to her today. I also got a text from one of the chicks that was at my anti-natal class this morning and we’re gonna catch up on Thurs at some point. I must remember to text her again and sort out a time and place. It’s nice to be finally making some friends here; it’s just so damned hard. I wonder if normal me that I don’t know is extroverted or introverted. I swing between the extremes, but was always told I was extroverted. But then I was also always told that I prefer things to be open to change and not set in stone, yet I actually prefer things to be fairly rigid and I hate being late and dislike people being late. One of the things I am having to examine is how much of how I am is actually me, and how much is me being what I was taught that I am. Does that even make sense?

I was perusing the forum over at KiwiWriters (I still haven’t made a decision re: to HalfNoC or not to HalfNoC, btw.) and found a link to this 750 words thing. I decided to give it a go as writing like that is just what I need and will no doubt provide some insight on my mind. We shall see how long it lasts.

And it’s June, already. That in itself is depressing. Officially winter. That I don’t mind so much, I prefer winter over summer, it’s just tricky when you have a baby and no car. Another couple of months and my brother can teach me to drive .

Speaking of little brother, he’s coming round for dinner tonight. God knows what we’ll be eating as I have nothing organised. Time to ring hubby and put in a supermarket order I think.

And Jake’s still sleeping!!! Thank goodness.