I’m in a weird mood.

I’m pulled in several directions, based on the things I need to do.  I’ve been thinking about adding to this blog for a few days now, but just haven’t got around to it before now.

I did manage to write another chapter of my work-in-progress, but feel the need to push harder to get another chapter out.  I think that has to do with my self-imposed deadline that’s creeping ever closer.

Then, there are the impossible tasks I set myself.  I want to write a novel to complete a series of young adult stories.  I’d enter this as-yet-unwritten work in a local creative writing competition, for which entries open in June.  It’s impractical, but I tend to do my best writing when I’m under pressure.

Weird, I know.

Today, I got an email from a literary journal announcing a competition – deadline April.  I entered a short story last year, which made the short list, but didn’t win.  Another Jamaican did, and that made me proud.

I often wonder why I push so hard in some areas and not in others.  One of my goals this year was to submit a short story per month for publication.  To date, I haven’t. But tell me about a competition and I’m there like a shot.

I suppose like many other writers, I need some kind of win as affirmation that I can write.  It matters not how many times I hear that I tell a good story, I still find a way to take part in some competition that I don’t need the pressure of entering.  But coming away with a medal from a panel of tough judges is my reward for travelling this road these past two years.

Besides, when I get this trilogy of young adult tales published, it’ll be great to note somewhere on the covers that they all medalled in the local competition.

Will I send out the short story for publication?   I might.  Will I attempt to write a 50,000-word novel in a couple of months, while pushing ahead with book marketing activities for Contraband, and writing the stand-alone sequel?

You better believe I will.

Matter of fact, I feel a burst of energy coming on…better try and get that submission out before my enthusiasm dips again.

That said, it would be interesting to find out if others write in fits and starts like I do.

When the publisher told me my manuscript was on the way back to me, I hoped that I wouldn’t have to make many changes.  Luckily, I didn’t.  But what I do have to work at is wrapping up some stuff I thought I was complete.

I hinted at some of the stuff in conversation, thinking those ends were nicely wrapped up; however my publisher thinks otherwise.  The hanging threads need to be sewn up tight, leaving no doubt as to the outcome of two critical situations in the novel.

The facilitator at the workshop  I used to attend always warned the group never to write down to the reader.  Always assume the reader is more intelligent than you are, he used to say.  I’m wondering if I took a good saying too far.  Nonetheless, I’ve learned some good things from this experience.

1.    Don’t gloss over solutions: Better to write in what I consider tiny details that could turn out to be important in terms of leaving the reader satisfied.

2.    Don’t be sloppy: In the story, one of my characters is abducted.  The men who did it got nabbed, but I never mentioned how the accusation was laid against the kidnappers and how the police tied that crime to the heroine’s uncle, except to say that he knew his cohorts would finger him to save themselves.   That’s one of the things I have to fix.

3.    Never stop learning: Like a lot of other writers, I’m learning on the job.  When I went through
the manuscript , I noted that the editor added a lot of comma’s I missed the first time around.

In the interim, I’d done some more editing and put most of the commas in, so that wasn’t a
hardship.  The point is that I’ve improved in my craft, so much so that I got most of the commas
in the right places.  I’m a firm believer in learning something new every day, and I figure as long
as I’m writing, I have tons more that I need to know.

4.    Beware improper document formatting: Somehow, I ended up with a nightmarish situation, wherein I had double spaces in my double spaced manuscript.  The extra spaces refused to go away, no matter what I did.

My writing pals gave wonderful advice, which should have worked, but all to no avail.  I started the document in Word 2003 and eventually transferred it over to Word 2007, so I’m not sure at what point my file might have got corrupted.  After half the day spent deleting spaces one paragraph at a time, I’m not willing to take on that kind of horror again.  I plan to be very, very careful with formatting my manuscripts.

5.    A manuscript is never, ever complete: no matter that at some point, usually after the 50th or so read, the body of work in question feels as if nothing can possibly be out of place.  The editor put in some simple questions, which made me realize that I hadn’t shown how the character felt about a particular situation, or a significant bit of news.

Needless to say, I’ll still feel there’s stuff to edit an I will want to edit the book when I have it in my hand.

6.   Spare some of your ‘had’s and ‘wases’: Unpublished writers tend to be hard on each other for the dreaded ‘was’ and the loose use of ‘had’, but hey, like other writers about to be published, I’ve come to realize that sometimes there’s no getting around them.  I’ve gone to the point where I avoided the use of these two words at the peril of having my sentences sound unnatural.  I’m not advocating going overboard, but if my story is compelling enough and I limit myself, then there’s nothing wrong with making use of ‘had’ and ‘was’.

7.    Relax and enjoy the ride: I’m now ready to admit, I’ll never cross every ‘t’ and dot every ‘i’, but I’ll come as close as I can to submitting the perfect best possible manuscript every time.

If I can remember this stuff for my next manuscript then I’ll be way ahead of this game.  Hope this will help you as you navigate through your work-in-progress.

I’ve not been doing much writing based on the editing load I have, but I can never resist a challenge.  Sooo, off I went to the NaNo site, logged in and my new novel idea is on the front burner of my mind.

Last November passed in a fog.  Now that I know what to expect, I wonder if I’ll be better prepared or whether I’m setting myself up for thirty days that I won’t be able to remember much about in 2009. 

I’m such a sucker for punishment.

I must take some time to do a bit of plotting for the story I’m supposed to be working on.  I’m part of a writing group at an online network and it’ll be my turn to have my book critiqued in another couple of weeks.  We do three chapters each time and use a detailed format to do each review.  I banged out a chapter a week or so ago so the group could read chapters 17 - 19 and give me their feedback.  Since then I’ve written nothing at all. 

I started scratching down some ideas, but lost track of those, so it’ll be back to the drawing board for me. I don’t mind, because I started this novel more than a year ago.  It’s time I finished.  

I’ve written another since that time, but my main character is playing stubborn and refuses to tell me the rest of her story.  But I have to cut her some slack because she has mental issues she needs to deal with.  Meantime, I’ll be coming up with more danger for her to field. I gotta warn her though, she’s got a major decision to make.  Is she going to stick around with the man of her dreams or will she keep running?

It’s unsettling to not know for sure what happens next, but it’s something I’ve battled before.  I have no doubt inspiration will strike when I’m  getting ready to tear out my hair.  Meantime, I’ll be working on that project that’s due next month.

More anon…

I’ve read a time or two that it suits us writers to make our work fit into a certain mould.  That is, we should have an idea of where our novel might find a home once it’s complete.  Too bad I’ve never followed this particular rule, which is one reason why I’ll have a hard time finding an agent/publisher.  Not to mention the fact that I live on an island.   If you have any encouraging success stories along this line, I’d like to hear ’em.

Have a look at the submission guidelines for various types of romance novels and you’ll notice the word count is somewhere between 80,000 – 90,000.  A few publishers will stretch this to 100,000 words and even fewer will allow 120,000.  Too bad I wasn’t paying attention to the smaller numbers when I wrote my romantic suspense novel.   

I have an overactive imagination, therefore the plot twists are many.  Naturally, the word count slipped over 100k.  Too late, I realized I had a problem on my hands.  No overworked editor/agent is going to be happy at the prospect of reading a novel that big, even if I do think it’s a clever story.

While it’s nigh on impossible to squeeze an irregular-shaped peg into an itty-bitty round hole, I’m going to have a crack at it.  After I make my way through querying publishers who don’t mind the high word count, I’ll take on the daunting task that lies ahead.    

I’ve rehearsed the pep talks I’ll need to start the job of paring down my baby.  What am I going to be strong enough to chip away?  Think I’ll get started from the logical place, slough off the parts I thought were ever so nifty and work my way forward. 

More than anything else, I think I’ll need to stick post-it notes in places I won’t miss to remind me to cut out the ten dollar words and run with the five dollar ones.   And did I mention abandoning circuitous routes and sticking with the main road?

Big sigh…

Next time I’ll work on the basis that it’s better to have space that can stand filling in.  Shearing away at my darling is going to be a painful, but necessary process.

Onward I go.