Category: Personal

Writing Journal 11.17.2019: Diving deeper into fantasy and keeping up with things

I’m sort of in a weird place in my life. I’d have to say that for at least the past three years, I’ve been in a transitional period of time.

 

I’ve been counting down the time when both of my kids were going to be out of high school and starting their journeys into adulthood. In May of next year my daughter will graduate from high school. I think my wife (Laura) and I had been looking toward that date for a while as an opportunity to make a change. As it turned out, she finally got a great job opportunity. This summer, it looks like I’ll be moving away from Muscatine, the town I’ve lived in off and on for 30 years, and it’s not likely I’ll ever go back except for a visit.

 

I’ve begun to wonder how this uncertainty might be affecting my writing. Much of the writing advice that I’ve ever heard says you should try to establish yourself as a regional writer, but I’m going to be leaving my region in less than a year. I’ll be in central – well, south central Iowa, and there appears to be a good community of writers in Des Moines. I’m not sure how many writers there are in the county that I’m going to be living in, but given there’s only a few thousand people in the town I’m living in, there might not be as many as I knew in Muscatine. But, I will be looking for them, as well as trying to hang on to the writing connections I have made during my time in Eastern Iowa.

 

So, that means that I’m marking time on many things, even on where I’m going to live and work and what that is going to look like. However, there are several months before that finally happens. And, like my wife, I have never been the most patient of people. Maybe that’s part of why I’ve been getting into more fantasy, getting so obsessed with Game of Thrones that much of my writing recently has been fanfiction. There’s a whole series of projects I should be working on, but my mind seems to be idling.

This blog seems to be getting more personal the longer it goes on.

I’ve been reading some more classic fantasy recently, trying to get more of a feel for the genre. On my reading list this week is The High King by Lloyd Alexander and A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin. I read The High King as a kid. I’ve never read Earthsea, but her book The Beginning Place was one of the best books I discovered as a teen. First impressions – The High King is definitely aimed at kids, and Earthsea is pretty good. However, you really have to use a magnifying glass to read the map there (see the featured photo for this entry). I’ve becoming a connoisseur of maps recently.

I’m going to close with the stats for this week. Not the worst, and fairly consistent work, even though production was not how it has been. Well, I’ll see what next week brings. Later, everyone.

+2,715 words written.

Days writing: 5 of 7.

Days revising/planning: 5 of 7 for  330 total minutes.

Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 7  of 7 days.

 

 

 

Writing Journal, 11.4.2019: Status quo

Hi, sorry about the delay. I’m feeling a little bit better than yesterday, and got through work, so that went OK.

 

There’s not too much to talk about for this week. I did more writing than planning this week, even if it was fan fiction. It’s still giving me some ideas for Project F, which seems it is becoming more of a thing. I’m on the verge of picking out names for places on a map. Pretty soon I’m going to start making characters with names and then I’ll really be cooking. 🙂 Either way, that’s going to end up being big.

 

Still waiting on the proofing of my Project A, and then I’m going to have to start seriously shopping that around. I would like to get that published, because I’ve easily got enough ideas to tun that into a three-book series at least.

 

Everything else is on pause for right now. I’m trying to trick my brain into working enough from week to week. When I’ve been living a certain way with a certain person for 20-plus years and then the entire apparatus is turned around, that can throw someone off. Everything’s OK, but everything is changing and that is weird getting adjusted to, from my wife not being around too much for a while to the start of my kids not being around at all.

 

In some ways, I’m eager to get the transition over with, because even though the kids will be eventually doing their own thing, I’ll be with my wife on a new adventure. Patience is not something I have ever been good with, and waiting for a year is something that was guaranteed to drive me nuts. But I’m getting through things OK, honest.

 

OK, here’s the numbers below. Basically, more words written, less planning, and one day I just goofed off. (There’s already one day this week where that happened, so don’t be surprised when you see it next week.)

 

+6,920 words written.

Days writing: 6 of 7.

Days revising/planning: 3 of 7 for 90 total minutes.

Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 6 of 7 days.

 

I keep on promising some sort of midweek article, but those deadlines keep flying by. Eventually…

 

 

 

Writing Journal 10.13.2019: Holding steady

Just like the title says, holding steady.

 

Even the photo is a little bit holding steady. It’s another shot of one of my bookcases. (As always, shout out if you recognize a book and/or see one of your favorites.)

Again, this will be short.

Things are still going. I haven’t had the chance to do too many public events since the summer – it’s a bit off to try and do publicity as a local writer when I’m not likely to be living in my local area by this time next year. It will be interesting to live closer to Des Moines – I’ve heard good things about the writing community there.

I’ll also try and connect with writers in my own local community, but since it will be about half the population of my current town, and there is a strong but quite small group of writers there, I’m frankly not sure what I will find. (If there are any writers from the Lucas County, Iowa area, I’d love to hear from you.)

Not much new to report from my past few weekly journals, so I won’t repeat myself.

I’m glad texting exists because my wife feels like she is around even if she isn’t. ❤️

The #USMNT beating Cuba 7-0 was a cool soccer match.

The stats to finish off (not much difference from the past few weeks):

+6,420 words written.

Days writing: 5 of 7.

Days revising/planning: 2 of 7 for 180 total minutes.

Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 7  of 7 days.

I’ve started writing a Wonderdraft review that I’m going to work and try and put out this week. (Fingers crossed?)

 

See you later.

Writing Journal 9.30.2019: It’s the little short-term goals getting done that matter most sometimes

The picture tonight is of the fall (read: Halloween) lights my wife put up at the house. I decided to use it because I’m getting tired of 80-degree (F)-plus days in Iowa and I’m hoping this was the last one of 2019. I hope.

Not too much change from last week. Same story this week, different day. Trying to find motivation to keep going forward on any and all projects is a slog at least. I think I was getting overwhelmed with trying to do too many long-term projects at once and feeling guilty that some set on the side.

I’m not going to deny that I’m missing my wife, either. Right now I’m stuck only seeing her on weekends if I’m lucky and I now still have eight months of that to go before it’s finished up. It was the best decision for us in the end, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to suck before it’s over.

Pardon me if I talked about this before and you’re hearing it again, but I never understood writers who said they got their best work when they were depressed or in emotional turmoil, hence their decisions to live dysfunctional lives. Whenever I get into a bad mood, I usually have to fight the urge not to just watch TV or surf online the entire day and not be productive. Oddly enough, getting chores done helps to get me in a better mood. Accomplishing stuff seems to get me in a better mood.

And I got a few things done this week. Little things, both professionally and personally, that made me feel like I had really taken care of some business. Not the biggest of things, but enough that I’m seeing forward progress. More and more little victories build on themselves.

One of the biggest is that I’ve finally looked for and found a pro proofreader for my Project A. I’ve already had two beta readers go through it and I’ve done at least three rounds of revisions, and I think this will be the next step before I feel comfortable enough trying to shop this property around. To make sure you are taken seriously, I think it is money well spent for a good proofreader. She’s a local writer (who I promise to plug after the work is done, thanks very much).

So with that, the stats. Not too much to look at this week (mostly fan fiction, lol) I’ll just show it below and tell you to have a good night. I’ll check in soon.

+8,794 words written.

Days writing: 7 of 7.

Days revising/planning: 0 of 7 for 0 total minutes.

Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 7 of 7 days.

Writing Journal 9.1.2019: Entering the new month at a new normal regarding production

It’s getting hot again for no reason in Iowa, to be honest. The city we’re likely to move to in the next several months is farther south than my current home, so I guess we’re going to get more of this humid weather in times to come. Since I prefer the cooler weather, I decided to have a picture of colder weather to keep cool today.

Not too much to talk about this week. We’re starting school slowly, and that has gone better than I anticipated. We’ll start doing the first round of standardized testing two weeks from now, which is a little bit wild. Still, one week down, more to go. I’m still hoping that the rumors I keep hearing about it being a cold winter in Iowa are just rumors. Missing all of those snow days last year and having to make them up with longer school days was not fun in the least.

Once again, the numbers for the last week of August:

+1,138 words written.

Days writing: 2 of 7.

Days revising/planning: 5 of 7 for 270 total minutes.

Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 6 of 7 days.

I’m beginning to wonder if I am hitting a plateau on my revising/planning time during the week. Sometimes I wonder how effective that time spent revising is. I have to admit that there are days I feel like I got plenty accomplished, and other days when I felt like I just stared at a screen for 30 minutes or whatever, thought about what I should change, and then called it good. But even that should be some form of progress in writing, right?

Trying to quantify the work I do planning and revising is always difficult.

On the good side, however, I made some revisions to my Project B for the first time in a couple months. It was enough to make me see that I needed to do some more to that work to make it flow better. One of the things I realized during this process is that if there is anything I can do to simplify the story, I need to do it. That will be interesting, since the story is already about 40,000 words, which is about the size of the fanfiction it only took three months for me to do.

I think I’ll do another midweek (read, possibly Friday) post regarding where I am on some of my projects. Prepare for altered deadlines… 😅

I’ll see everyone later.

Writing Journal 8.25.2019: School’s in session

Today is actually the last day of summer vacation before I begin teaching again. As I mentioned before, it is likely that this will be my last year at the district I’ve been teaching at since last year.

One of the things that I’ve noticed about myself (and if I might be repeating myself from earlier in this blog, my apologies), is that uncertainty is not something that I’m comfortable at all with. Not knowing how things are going to be for you six to 12 months out can be a highly stressful situation for people, and I’ve found that it’s a highly stressful thing for me.

It’s a situation that has been ongoing for three years due to several factors, including both my and my wife’s work, other professional prospects, and the impending high school graduation of my two kids.

Right now I’m feeling more stable than I have in a while. My son’s graduated and is moving on (though still in the house until he finishes trade school) and my daughter has one last year left in high school. She’s in the process of figuring out which of two universities to go to after being accepted by both of them.

So, I think I know what’s going to happen in the next year, and pretty much all of it I’m expecting to be good. But it goes back to my old journalism days, this feeling. You never can say with 100 percent certainty that you have a story done until you turn in all of the text and photos, have everything revised and edited, and send the lot of it in some sort of coherent organization down to the printers and/or the servers. It’s not in hand until it’s in hand.

How much all of this is going to have an influence on my writing is an open question. Hopefully, it will not be a significant factor. I never got anyone who ever said that they could only write if they were going through depression or a bad time, that negative emotions were the key to their creativity. In my case, whenever I get into one of those moods, all my mind wants to do is spin its wheels and distract itself by any means possible.

So, I am going to take the advice of my wife to keep positive, finish strong, and not beat myself up over every little thing. I’m hoping that time moves faster as it tends to do the older I get and that soon it will be time for me and my wife to live in the same place.

Well, that’s usually way more personal than I usually get on this blog, but maybe I needed to get into it tonight. I’ll do a quick mention of the projects and rundown the stats for this week. (Project details here.)

  • I have finished up Project S. I’ve now posted it on two fanfiction sites and am checking out some of the feedback. Right now I’m leaning toward actually sharing a link on here, but I’m not sure. I want to produce occasional content, but I could see fanfiction becoming a hobby and something that could spark my imagination in some ways.
  • Leaning toward getting Project C ready to submit for a poetry contest. I have no idea what chances I will have of making things work. But, I’m interested in seeing what might come of it, if anything.
  • Yeah, I know I set some goals for some of my other projects. We’ll see how that works out in the next few weeks.

Writing stats!

+410 words written.

Days writing: 1 of 7.

Days revising/planning: 7 of 7 for  360 total minutes.

Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 7 of 7 days.

Eh, I’ve seen a lot worse. I’ll save the analysis for later.

Thanks for checking in, by the way. See you soon.

Also, the photo for this entry is another shot of my library collection. I think I might keep doing this for a while. Shout out if you see some favorites.

Writing Journal 7.28.2019: A tiny step closer to submitting stuff

Well, I want to keep things short again this week. Sorry I didn’t midweek post – I had a college trip I went on with my daughter. I’ve had the chance to go on three of those with her during the last month or so and it’s been a great time every time. We were up in Madison, Wisconsin, for one of those and my father tagged along with us. It was a great experience having him show us around the town he grew up in for a day. I learned a lot of stuff I wasn’t even expecting.

Point being, there were a few real-life things that interfered with the blogging, but I will get back on it. At least I’m posting regularly on the Facebook and Twitter sites, for what it is worth.

The numbers were slightly better this past week as opposed to the previous week, so there’s that.

+525 words written.

Days writing:  1 of 7.

Days revising/planning: 6 of 7 for  total minutes.

Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 6  of 7 days.

Not much else to say about them, except that I am continuing to try and push them up.

I’ll make a quick mention of my projects below.

  • Project A: I finished another revision for this project, and I’m currently formatting and making some light revisions for a beta reader to give me a proofreading edit for the piece. Once this is done, I can begin making queries in earnest (see below).
  • Project F: Been doing a bit more mapmaking and experimentation with Wonderdraft, but I need to set up a planning file in OneNote or Scrivener. I’ll see which one seems to work better.
  • Project S: I want to finish a first draft of this (even though I’ve been revising it as I go along as well) by this week. This has been taking up too much of my headspace. After I’m done with it, I think I might show it on a couple of forums before deciding whether to run it here. I’ll let you know the reaction.

For those interested, my “official” writing handle on Reddit is u/librarysqatter. Do what you wish with that information, or drop me a line.

I’m hoping to get out a midweek post this week. Hoping.

 

Writing Journal 6.9.2019: Cruising along on productivity but trying to focus on outstanding projects

Well, I have to say that vacation has been going quite well. My wife is settling in to her new job, but it was great to have her back for this weekend as we celebrate my son’s high school graduation.

This week has been good as far as getting out and about, meeting with other writers. Today, I plan to be out at a local writer’s retreat discussing how I’ve used my writing journal as a way of helping to stimulate my writing.

Last Friday, I saw a presentation at the Musser Public Library by Dennis Maulsby, an Ames writer who shared some of his poetry, short stories, and novels. Once I actually get some spare change, I want to try and get some of his work. His website is here if you’d like to check it out. As I plan to move next year to south central Iowa, I’m making more of an effort to connect with Des Moines-area writers and writing groups.

And, I’ve been writing more than a little bit. Here are the numbers – some of the best that I’ve had in a while.

+14,935 words written.

Days writing: 6 of 7.

Days planning/revising: 0 of 7 for 0 total minutes.

Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 6 of 7 days.

Compared to the previous month’s doldrums, I will take these numbers any week, any time. Much of the writing has involved blogs or this weird Game Of Thrones epilogue that I’ve been obsessed with over the past couple of weeks. (For lack of a better term, I’m going to call that Project S for Stark.)

As some of you who have been following me know, however, I’ve got a few things on tap that I want to get done as far as writing projects go. Even though I’ve finally gotten published this year, I don’t want to stop this whole process. Getting published causes you to want to get more stuff published. I think I might update this list that I put out a couple of years ago regarding my projects – actually, I think I’ll just put out a new blog post on it mid-week.

But for now, I’ll update you on my progress regarding those projects.

  • Project A: I want to finish one last revision and get it proofread as I begin doing queries for this. If there is one project I would love to get done through a traditional publisher, this would be it, especially since I can see it as the start of at least a trilogy of books. I checked out some recent Writer’s Markets to start collecting candidates for queries, but I think I will get a subscription once my next payday comes in, which will be later this month.
  • Project B: I need to get back on this to finish the first revision/second rough draft. Then, I’ll take a breath, revise again, and get it to some beta readers. Again, given the relatively short length of the book, the local setting, and some other factors, I think this book is a candidate for getting something out quickly and efficiently, maybe through self-publishing.
  • Project C: The presentation Dennis gave on Friday gave me a new perspective on this project. I had been looking to put this out as a whole collection, but he mentioned how he was able to generate more interest in a poetry collection by getting his individual works accepted by various publications. I’m going to take a close look at some markets (especially those for regional writers, as much of my work has an Iowa or at least Mississippi River theme) to see if I can have some luck there.
  • Untitled Fantasy Project (We’ll call this Project F for Fantasy): Mostly just musings and initial plans at this point. Given the genre, I would have to this this would be a long-term project by its very definition. I would be interested with bouncing ideas off other fantasy writers to see if what I have in mind makes sense.
  • Project S: See above.
  • The projected deadlines for those projects:
  • Project A, begin querying agents and publishers: Sometime in early-mid summer 2019.
  • Project B, finish major redrafting of the rough draft (more of a second rough draft rather than a more focused revision): End of summer 2019.
  • Project C, finishing creating rough draft poems: End of 2019.
  • Project F: None
  • Project S: Maybe posted by the end of the month (tentative)

Didn’t think that I’d have too much to write about this week, but it turned out not to be the case. I’ll see all of you later.

Writing Journal 6.2.2019: Rolling into June with some positivity

Well, even though I have not made progress on some of the “major projects” I had going on for the past week, I have been getting writing done, which is more than I could say for most of this month.

As I admitted to everyone in this space, the end of Game Of Thrones has thrown me for a loop, and made me think about trying to do some fantasy writing myself. I’ve actually thrown myself into doing some goof-off project, a speculative epilogue to the GOT TV series.

I’m now up to more than 8,000 words on the project. What the deuce.

I’m planning on completing this weirdness this week, and posting it here on the site. Once I get that sorted out, I’m going to post my thoughts on GOT, because I’ve raved on about it so much. I am hoping to do that this mid-week, and I actually might be able to do this on time this week because I am now officially off work for the summer for the entire week and extending into the immediate future.

I’ll hold off on detailing the projects that I’ve been working on, since I’ve been repeating myself a little bit and there isn’t really any news on those for now. I was almost tempted to put these into a different post, but I think the projects I am working on are as important as the amount of work I’m doing, so that has to remain in the writing journal for now.

Speaking of the journal, here’s the raw numbers for last week:

+9,540 words written.

Days writing: 6 of 7.

Days planning/revising: 0 of 7 for 0 total minutes.

Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of revisions): 6 of 7 days.

So, while not the most productive week I have ever had, it was certainly the best week of this last month, and certainly a week I would find acceptable most any time of the year. My ultimate goal for each week, obviously, is to meet my daily writing goals every day during the week. Obviously, that can be hard, because not every day is easy to carve out some time behind the computer. However, I think that if you can try and shoot for that goal, your overall productivity can improve, and the more that you are writing, the more chances that you have to improve as a writer.

OK, that’s what I had to talk about tonight. With the rest of the evening, I plan to get some more work done on this “fan fic” (more like mental therapy), plan out some posts for the Facebook and Twitter pages, and make some general life plans for the week. See you around.

Life Changes IRL: An update

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