Life

The Minutiae of Life

I got the book done and away, so now it’s time for a little regrouping. My housekeeping habits slid in the last week or so, which means I desperately need to tidy up and clean. I also have a few business tasks to deal with. I do have a small writing project I need to wrap up, and there are some promo things I’ve been wanting to do.

But other than that, I want to do some relaxing. I’m even thinking about taking a vacation.

It’s funny, when I’m in the final days of finishing a book, especially when I’m on a tight deadline, I spend a lot of time thinking about what I’ll do when I have free time again. Those things sound so wonderful and tempting at that time. But when I have time to do them, they’re suddenly a lot less interesting.

It’s tempting to spend a day or so relaxing before tackling all that stuff, but I think if I dive in while I’m still in work mode, then when I take some time to relax, I can really relax without worrying about things.

At least, that’s the plan. So, off to deal with the minutiae of life.

Day of Collapse

It was quite a busy weekend. I was finishing proofreading, going to a convention, and it was my church’s 140th anniversary, with a big service full of music.

I would consider it a day of collapse, but I have a couple of get-togethers today, so the rest of the day will be social, and then tomorrow will be the day of collapse.

I did pace myself with the convention, so I’m not as tired as usual, but I went back over for the closing ceremonies and ended up having dinner with some of the guests. I made new friends and had a lovely time. Now I have almost no voice left, between all the chatting, my reading aloud to proofread, and all the singing I did Sunday morning.

I’m sure I’ll have lots of thoughts later, and I got some good blog post fodder from convention panels, but my brain really isn’t up to anything more detailed today.

writing

On to Proofreading

I’ve finished the edits and am now doing my proofreading by reading the whole book out loud to myself. I thought I’d edited thoroughly, but it’s astonishing how many little things I’ve caught in just the first couple of chapters. They’re not necessarily errors (though I have caught a few of those), just awkward phrasing or unnecessary words.

And I’m really liking this book more and more. Although reading out loud catches errors, it also means reading it through in a way I haven’t really done, and I’d like this book even as a reader. That’s a good sign.

But as much as I like it, I will be glad to stop working on it and do something else for a while.

I’ve been pretty diligent so far this year. I’ve almost spent as many hours writing as I did all of last year, and I’ve already passed the amount of time I spent writing in most of the previous years. Let’s hope this book goes somewhere because I spent most of this year’s time working on it, and it would be nice to have something to show for all that effort.

writing

Revising Some More

I’m almost done with this draft, so I’ll just have proofreading to deal with, and then I’ll be done with this phase of this book.

I’ve tried something different in my revisions. I know I tend to get impatient, and so I rush through, probably not changing as much as I should. A big part of rewriting seems to be adding a line I think is needed, then finding that line already there a paragraph or so later. This time around, I fought the impatience by making lists of things that needed to be fixed, then skipping around in the book to fix them, without worrying about reading straight through.

For the next round, what I’m wrapping up now, I read the section and take notes on what could be improved, then take a break, then come back and actually revise the section. That means I already know that perfect line is there so I don’t keep adding it all over again. I’m looking at the section from a big-picture perspective, not just rearranging the words (though I’m also fixing the words).

I’ve made a lot more changes than I usually would at this phase of a book, which is good. Strangely, the word count has remained more or less the same. I’m cutting as much stuff as I’m adding. Some scenes need fleshing out while others need trimming.

Monday, I’ll send this book to my agent to see what she thinks. I feel good about it, so I hope she thinks it’s marketable. She may have some suggestions before it gets submitted, if it’s something she wants to submit.

But for now, I’m really looking forward to taking a little break next week.

Life

Looking for Fall

I am so ready for fall, and the weather here isn’t cooperating at all. I love fall. It’s my favorite time of year. I love cool, gray days, when I can enjoy sitting with a cup of hot tea and reading (or writing) a book. I love the sunny days when there are crisp, cool mornings and just slightly warm afternoons that are good for spending outdoors. I love taking long walks in the woods, enjoying the colored leaves, and coming home with cheeks tinged red from the chill in the air to have a hot cup of tea. I love sitting on the patio with a shawl around my shoulders. I even love the fall thunderstorms. I love sweaters and blankets, hot soup and fresh-baked bread.

But we haven’t had a high temperature below 90 all September. We should at least be in the 80s by now. Instead of sweaters, I’m wearing tank tops. It’s a bit too warm to go walking even in the morning. I guess we’re being punished for our summer starting later and not being very intense until August.

I keep saying every year that I’m going to travel to a place that has real fall. If I ever have the money, I’m going to do a grand fall-chasing tour — start in August in Scandinavia or Alaska and work my way south, coming home around Thanksgiving, when we finally get fall-like weather. And then maybe I’ll go to Australia in the spring for their fall. Either I’ll get it out of my system or I’ll be even more dissatisfied once I know what I’m missing. Some people move to climates where it’s summer-like year-round. I want to find a place that has a good, long fall, starting maybe with a cool-down in late August and lasting until December (but preferably without a harsh winter). I’m not sure such a place exists. We get the beginnings of a slight cool-down in late September but don’t really get what I’d consider “fall-like” weather until late October. The fall-like weather might last until early December, but it’s on various days, not really a season.

On the bright side, for once I shouldn’t have a big deadline in October or November. There’s stuff I’ll be working on, but it won’t be so urgent that I can’t declare a day off whenever we get one of those perfect fall days.

In the meantime, I do have a big deadline Monday, and I’m behind where I hoped I’d be because rewriting the ending took me most of the day yesterday. I love what I’ve done with it, and it’s so much better, but it’s all taking more time than I planned.

writing

Rewriting

I spent the weekend mostly with my head down in my book. I’m at the point where I’m making subtle changes that add up to make a big difference. I’m also cleaning up the words. I find that I tend to state the same thing several times in multiple ways, like I’m searching for the best way to say it so that it’s most clear. On this draft, I’m cutting the first few attempts and just leaving the last one that works.

There’s also a lot of stuff lingering from earlier ideas, where I changed plans but the stuff I put in to set up the original plan is still there. In spite of writing quite a bit of additional material, I’ve cut more than a thousand words so far on this draft.

Today’s project is to rewrite the ending. I’ve revised the first half, so I’ve hit most of the stuff that sets up the plot threads involved in the ending. Now I need to write that ending so that I can drive toward it in the rest of the book. I may even start from scratch rather than using what I’ve already written.

After I finish this round of rewrites, it’s on to proofreading, reading the whole book out loud.

And I have a week to do all this in, with a convention during the weekend. Fortunately, I’m not very heavily scheduled at this convention and it’s very close to my house, so I can run over when I have a panel, then run back home. I’ve been questioning the value of conventions to my publicity plan, anyway. This is mostly going to be a chance to catch up with some friends — that is, when I’m not working.

Becoming a Video Star

Last weekend, I fell into the rabbit hole of curly hair care YouTube videos. It started when I got a mildly disappointing haircut that was made more disappointing by the cost of it nearly doubling. It wasn’t really a bad haircut, but it was just a simple blunt trim, no real shaping or layering, at the cost of what should have been a designer precision cut. I was in and out in less than 45 minutes, and that includes some waiting at the front with a glass of water, some chatting, the shampoo and hand massage, the cut, a bit of blow drying, and paying. But since my last haircut, the salon upped its prices, the stylist got a promotion so her rates went even higher, and they dropped the option of just getting a cut without the blow dry and style, even though I don’t really want my hair dried, and all that added up to doubling what I paid for my last haircut.

I started pondering the idea of cutting my hair myself, since it’s long enough that I can reach the back, and since it’s so curly, it’s pretty forgiving. Out of curiosity, I Googled it, and it turns out that cutting your own hair is a big thing in the curly hair world, since it’s so hard to find someone who does it well, and the specialty curly cuts run about $125, which is way outside my budget. I’m not normally big on watching videos. I’d rather read text to get information, but this is the kind of thing you need to actually see, so I started watching the videos. And that brought up suggested videos on related topics, like curly hair care and styling tips. I’d read the Curly Girl book, so I knew a lot of this stuff, but seeing it put into practice made it a lot clearer. I was already doing a lot of the things they recommend. I’ve had my hair blown straight once (the stylist more or less forced me — I’d have had to make a scene to escape), I never flat iron my hair and only blow dry on cool to remove excess water if I have to go somewhere within a few hours of washing my hair. I mostly use the right products. There were still some tips that, when I tried them, made a big difference — so big that I realized I’m going to have to let my hair grow out a bit because my hair is curling up more, so with this new cut it’s just a bit too short, coming at an awkward length.

But there was one thing I noticed in watching these videos. One of the people was reviewing some new product (which I was already using), and she mentioned that the company had flown her to Hawaii for the product launch, where their stylists had demonstrated the products. I guess she’s what they call an “influencer,” but it’s not like her videos were at all slick or professional. She was just a girl talking to the camera in her bathroom, not even with a good microphone or lighting.

And then in today’s newspaper, there was a lengthy article about the woes of the “professional vapers” or “vaping influencers” now that there’s the worry about health risks and a possible ban. There are people who make a living vaping on camera, doing tricks with the smoke or reviewing various pipes and liquids. Their videos get hundreds of thousands of views.

I really need to start playing with video, I guess. My degree’s in broadcast news, so I have the skill set. I don’t even care about hundreds of thousands of viewers or making a living doing it. But it would be nice to get several thousand views in a way that would raise my profile and maybe sell a few more books.

And if someone wants to fly me to Hawaii, that would be okay, too.

I really will have to start playing with that after I finish this book.

Back to Children’s Choir

Last night was my first real night of children’s choir. I had no idea what I was facing — how many kids, which kids, what they’d be interested in — which made it hard to plan. I had four kids pre-registered on my roster. Two of those actually showed up, and then new one kid was registered last night (I’d been expecting him, since he was in choir last year). There are a couple more I know of who might end up joining us. So far, this could be a good and relatively easy group, though one of the kids I think might end up coming is a bit of a problem, the kind of kid who somehow changes everyone else’s behavior as soon as he shows up. I can have a room full of angels, and then that one kid shows up and they all turn into crazed demons — and then this kid’s parents will claim that one of the other kids is a bad influence on their perfect angel, which means we can’t use the “do I need to talk to your parents?” threat.

But if I have the kids I had last night and the ones who are on my roster, we could have a fun year and actually do some teaching instead of barely getting through with crowd control. Which I guess means I need to come up with more activities. One positive from having the out-of-control groups is that I don’t have to do much planning, since we spend most of the time wrangling the children.

I’ve broken my streak of having a set of twins in every class. I do have a twin as one of my youth helpers (she was part of one of the sets of twins I had in the past), so maybe that counts, although her twin isn’t also with me this year.

If everyone on the roll shows up, I’ll have close to an even number of boys and girls, maybe with more girls, but I had more boys show up last night. I’d love it if the boys kept with choir, but they tend to drop out, usually when sports kick in, but these kids are already in soccer, and two of this year’s group (a boy and a girl) are in gymnastics. We’ve had to state a “no gymnastics in class because the room is too small, the floor is hard, and we don’t have mats” rule.

You’d think that with all the time I spend around kindergarteners, I should write children’s books, but books for that age kids aren’t actually about kindergarteners, usually. They’re more about funny talking animals. I’d have to get into the mindset of what appeals to them, and I’m really not sure about that.

Sanity Attack

I had a rare burst of sanity yesterday when I looked at the calendar and was trying to plan out my work for the rest of the year. I’d had grand ambitions about getting that Christmas story written, after coming up with that series idea, but when I saw the time available and looked at everything else I have to do, I realized that it’s just not realistic, not if I want to do a good job.

Plus, every year I tell myself that I’m going to let myself enjoy autumn, my favorite season, rather than frantically working. I don’t want to set myself up to be frantically working.

My Audible book will be coming out in early January, so there will be promo around that, and I have that Rebels book to write. I may play with the Christmas idea in December for something fun and seasonal to work on. So maybe I’ll launch that series with a July 4 book. That will give me time to really develop that “world” and set up the various characters that will be in the series. We’ll see. There’s also another series idea I want to play with and develop. I suppose it depends on which one wins — which one is truly ready to write first.

I still have plenty of work to do the rest of the year, but now I have a little breathing room. I haven’t taken a real vacation this year, and I’m thinking of doing several short road trips. There’s a trip I’d like to take to Central Texas, and there are a couple of places I want to go in Oklahoma when it gets cool enough for good hiking and walking. I also need to finish reorganizing my office when it gets cool enough to work upstairs.

But first I have to finish rewriting the book I’ve been working on.

writing

Planning the Rewrite

I’m working on revising the book I’ve been working on most of this year, getting ready to send it to my agent, and I’m trying something different this time. In the past, I’ve tended to just go back through the book, revising as I go, but I’ve found that this tends to lead to me rearranging or fixing words rather than tackling structural issues. I found some books on revising at the library that suggested making a “map” of the book, going scene-by-scene to analyze each one on the basis of what’s going on, what the characters’ goals are, what subplots are present, what the purpose of the scene is, etc.

I spent yesterday doing this, using a sheet of paper for each scene so I’d have room for additional notes (one book suggested using index cards, and there’s no way I could fit this info on a card), and it’s interesting how just going through this exercise made some of the problems more obvious. You can’t help but notice your “darling” scenes that you love but that don’t really have a purpose in the book. For those, you either have to cut them, possibly moving some of the elements you need elsewhere, or you have to find a way to incorporate a key plot point so that there’s a purpose.

Doing this also shows the plot points that don’t go anywhere, the things being set up that don’t really pay off.

But I also found that I’ve entirely unconsciously incorporated some pretty powerful symbolism. Now that I know it’s there, I can use it deliberately. We’re talking term paper kind of stuff that English teachers would love. I didn’t plan on these things serving that purpose, but looking back, it really does track what’s going on with the character. I love it when stuff like that happens.

After doing the scene-by-scene analysis, I went back and wrote a plot outline, then outlined the emotional internal plot and the various subplots. That showed me where some things need to be fixed. I can go in and fix these elements in these scenes, and that way the book should be more or less in order before I go through it and fix the words.

And I have two weeks to do this. Eep!