Madge's Weblog

Can something be too action-packed?

I'm editing one of my 'babies' right now.  I call it my baby, a term I don't normally use for my stories, because this one contains two re-accuring characters.  I have in my head a whole series of novellettes with these two characters, even though I have yet to sell a single story featuring the two of them.  I've gotten close.. so close.. twice.  I thought if I went back to the world and wrote the second story that's been stuck in my head I'd have more ammo to get the two of them out into the world.  Except, I can't seem to finish the edits and get it out the door.  I've come to the conclusion that the problem that needs to be fixed is that there is too much action and not enough character development.  In my head all of my characters are nicely developed, because I've written them before, but the reader (who might read this as a stand-alone piece) won't know the backstory.  How do I insert the character development without slowing down the action?  Even worse, how do I do that and keep the wordcount down?

Ack!  Well, there will be no answers until I actually take out the editor's scalpel and the sutures and do some work on this beast.   

Writing Spaces

Bright and sunny, that's what I need to write.  In San Francisco, where fog is the rule rather than the exception, bright and sunny can be hard to find.  I improvise for my muse by surrounding myself with lamps.

My little writing nook is tucked into the dormer windows in my apartment living room.  Unfortunately, from my desk I can see the TV out of the corner of my eye so the temptation is there to turn on the TV.  If I had more space in my apartment I would rearrange so I wasn't tempted.  Since I don't have more space I just have to learn to overcome temptation -- its been good for development of my willpower.

My advice to beginning writers is to figure out what kind of environment works best to get you in the mood for writing.  You aren't always going to be able to find it or improvise it, but its good to know what it is for those times (like during NaNoWriMo) when that extra oomph can mean writing that day or not writing at all.

In a previous post I also talked about how writing in different environments can directly influence your writing.  Sometimes that influence is good and sometimes its bad, but you'll never know unless you get out of your writing space comfort zone from time to time.

Okay, no more blog-o-crastination for me.  I have to get back to some short story editing.

NaNoWriMo Blues

After NaNoWriMo I literally had no more words.  I finished early, but that basically took all the oomph out of me.

In December I finished revisions on one short stories and started revisions on a second.  I attempted to finish a Novellette I'd been working on since before November, but that hit a dead-end.  I decided that I'd spend the month of December revising and submitting rather than trying to create 'new' work.  I also updated this blog with a history of my submissions.  Many people think that getting published is easy, but it isn't -- its a really long process of submission and rejection.  I decided to pull my rejection battlescars out of the closet for the world to see.  Someone once told me that you aren't a 'real' writer until you hit rejection #100 :-)  I don't necessarily know that is true, but it often feels like it.

I've decided to spend this January pulling myself out of my NaNoWriMo Blues and going back to my very first NaNoNovel -- Lia and the Solider.  I only got about 25,000 words that year, my first, but since then I've added about 10,000 to the count.  I'm hoping that I'll have the first draft finished before March, but we'll see how it goes.