11 questions tag!

I've been tagged by C.M. Brown to answer eleven questions she posed, and then write eleven for another eleven campaigners to answer if they so choose! Here's my answers:


1. How do the stories you write about come into fruition? I think about what stories I would like to read but can't because they haven't been written. Usually philosophical themes are woven in regarding whatever I've been thinking about lately. Other than that, it's wide open...oftentimes when I'm in the car I'll zone out and things will pop up that I'll want to write about.


2. Do you think you are the type of person who plans for every eventuality, or do you prefer to live life how it comes, without any organisation? I always have a running list of short- and long-term goals. I don't like to plan for eventualities because if they're bad, I don't want to create them by planning for them, and if they're good, I don't want to put so much energy on it needing to happen that I sabotage it. That said, I like to set the energy for how my life unfolds--thinking of how I would like to feel about myself in the future rather than exactly what I want to happen--and I like to think through the bad things that could happen in order to release any fear attached to those situations that might make them manifest through my resistance. 


3. What is your favourite song? I don't have one. Different songs at different times will evoke an emotional response in me. But maybe I ought to stop being non-committal and wishy-washy. I'll say Bjork's "Army of Me."


4. Do you sing it loudly to yourself? I'm afraid I don't do much loud singing nowadays--the only thing I sing a lot is a lullaby when getting my son to nap. 


5. Are you still friends with anyone you went to secondary school with? A few friends from junior high, and a couple from high school, but none of them are very close. Most of them are on Facebook so I know what's going on with them, but I don't keep in regular touch. I still really like the boyfriend I went out with when I was 15, but I haven't seen him in at least seven years.


6. What would be your dream job? A couple elements of my dream job I already have--being a mom and writing! However, it would be nice if I actually made money off the writing. And I like variety, so other parts of my dream job would include being Christian Bale's Rolfer and massage therapist, growing exotic and medicinal mushrooms for profit and mycorestoration, and being an eco-home designer and builder. On top of that I would like to be a heavily influential consultant and Jungian therapist for all the world leaders. Hey, it's my dream job so why not?


7. How often do you speak with your siblings? The sister closer to me in age, maybe once a month. The other, once every two years as she's rather in her own little world.


8. If you were an animal what creature would you like to be? I really wouldn't like to be an animal, as there aren't any that humans don't consider as objects for human use. But since I can choose any, I'd want to be one that talks and has a human brain in it. Maybe a sphinx or a harpy. Nobody bothers harpies.


9. What is your favorite food? Hard to pick one. I have an addiction to sugar and in particular mangoes, but does that make sweet things among my favorites, since I usually don't feel good after eating them? By sheer quantity and versatility, I think my fave food would have to be the Almighty Egg, fresh from my chickens.


10. What piece of technology could you not live without? I try not to be dependent on any. But I would be very sad without my computer.


11. Do you have a favourite piece of furniture? My bed. I try not to be attached to furniture any more than technology.


The questions I would like to ask:
1. If you had to change your name, what would you change it to? 
2. Which Greek or Roman (or other culture's mythological) deity would you be (either who you'd like to be or who you most resemble)?
3. Would you like to marry a Vulcan?
4. Would you choose immortal life with the elves, or a human, mortal life with the one you love and a child-to-be?
5. If you had to write fan fiction, what fictional world would you choose to write in?
6. Do you believe in any conspiracy theories?
7. What do you consider your best quality?
8. What do you consider your worst quality?
9. Do you ever feel over-exposed on your blog?
10. If you were to reincarnate, what would you like to be?
11. What is your biggest pet peeve?  


Now, the campaigners I am tagging:
1. Christopher Ledbetter
2. Writer Steps
3. My Imaginary Beings
4. The Writer Coaster
5. The Accidental Novelist
6. The Capillary
8. Lara Schiffbauer
9. Shanjeniah
10. Another Author
11. Alexia Chamberlynn

Ways to maximize writing time

1. Change unnecessary routines with people in your life.
I just gained an hour of extra time every night. Not because of daylight savings, but because I finally let my son "cry it out." Before that, his bedtime ritual easily took an  hour to an hour and a half every night--half an hour of reading through a pile of 8-10 books, then half an hour to an hour of massage, hand-holding, and cuddling. I have to admit I was growing very resentful of him for taking so much time when everybody else was in bed and I wanted to write, and also resentful of my husband for never helping me put him to sleep.

Finally, one night last week he had stayed awake far longer than his bedtime and was inconsolably cranky. I put him in bed, kissed him, and left the room and shut the door. He banged on the door and screamed and cried for at least a half hour, but finally he crawled in bed and went to sleep.

The next two nights I repeated the process, and he only cried for a minute before going to sleep on his own. The fourth night, I left the door open; he got up once but went back to bed when I told him to.

My son is 2 years and 2 months old, so he's not a baby any longer, and I think the crying he does now at bedtime can be attributed more to toddler cranks and willfulness rather than trying to get needs met. I never saw the need to let him cry it out as a baby since we've co-slept since his birth and it's only been the last six months that his bedtime ritual has started getting so elaborate. I don't know why I didn't think of doing this earlier?! The additional time I have feels like such a blessing, and it makes me enjoy the book-reading time we share so much more now that I don't have to lie there in bed with him impatiently waiting for him to nod off.

2. Make small word count goals and if you need to, create external reinforcement of them.
The second thing I'm doing that is making what time I have to write more useful is I started using the Write or Die desktop app I purchased two years ago but never used. (It's free if you use it on the internet). It has you set a goal, say 1000 words in 60 minutes, and if you pause in writing for like 30 seconds this horrible alarm sounds that makes you jump in your seat, and if you pause even longer it'll start deleting what you already wrote. I didn't like it before because you have to cut and paste what you write in the box into your manuscript, and you have to reformat everything. But today I tried it because I had written 500 words in about two hours. And then I produced 2000 words in one hour. Yeah!

3. Have at least two writing projects going at a time.
I've gotten a lot less writer's block since I started a second novel. Now when I feel stuck with one, I simply switch to writing the other one. Usually it'll feel like such a relief to not have to solve the problem I was just engaged in that the words just flow, and as my extremely creative friend Laura says, working on two projects is "like you can angle away from one direction toward another and build momentum that way, some kind of weird creative physics."

An overdue ROW80 update

I've missed a bunch of ROW80 updates, but now that I've finally finished the first draft of my Fast Draft novel, it's time to take my ostrich head out and look around to see what's going on with the rest of the world. I wrote about 55,000 words in 22 days; it's only the skeleton of a novel, or rather, it's like a skeleton with bits of flesh hanging off of it here and there and bone or internal organ showing in other places. I'm experiencing this heady euphoria over having finished something, although it's got a lining of shame on it because I'm aware, even without looking over it, that I wrote some pretty intense tripe especially towards the end. But that's to deal with in a day or two when I print it out and begin revisions!

So lately I've gone far above my original ROW80 word count goal of 1000-2000 per day. The other goals have fallen a bit by the wayside; I've maintained exercising most days and doing breathing meditations, but I haven't been learning Spanish and I have definitely not been fasting. I also haven't been writing any flash fiction at all. No matter; I think so long as the words are coming I don't really care whether they're in long or short fiction.

However, in flash fiction news, I am happy to report that I got my very first mention in a review, for my story "The Zombissager" in Pink Narcissus' Queer Fish anthology. Hooray! I take it as a good sign that this story, which is about detached zombie penises, got a thumbs up at a time when I'm working on a novel absolutely chock full of detached penises. Or maybe I just like writing about detached penises, I dunno.

Emerging from the cave

I haven't blogged for a week here, and I've skipped at least three ROW80 updates.

I've been doing Candace Havens' Fast Draft class, which is basically a group of around 30 women who are trying to write a draft of a novel in two weeks, and revise it in two weeks. There is almost no teaching done, but Candace cheers us on, and the main thing that gets the work done is the agreement, and the witnesses to it.

That said, my two-week first draft has already stretched to three and I think I need at least one more. My pace was excellent for the first few days but dropped off sharply as I hit the murky middle of the novel. Now I'm past the halfway point and getting into the climax, but my progress is still much slower than in the beginning--I'm probably doing about 3000 words a day at this point.

It doesn't help that practically every waking moment I've been behind the initial day's pace set for writing, but I think I mostly went into my cave of non-blogosphere communication because my brain has been so fried that I knew I wouldn't be able to come up with anything interesting to say. I think it's about being interesting to myself...anyhow, as a kick in the butt to myself to snap out of that mentality and get a little more social, I'm going to join the Fourth Writers' Platform-Building Campaign:

It's my first time! Hooray! And by the time it starts, (I hope) I'll have finished two novel first drafts and will be in the fun place--Revisionland.

Bitch

This is my post for the Insecure Writer's Support Group, first Wednesday of every month.

I am writing a lot lately and loving it. My greatest insecurity right now is: how do I keep from being a bitch to my family because they keep interrupting my writing time? In the space of the last hour I had to stop writing because my youngest pooped and took his diaper off and ran outside. So I had to clean up poop off the floor and then catch him (no easy task) to clean him up. My other son has been giving me presents (pieces of paper he made in school) and asking me how many minutes until he can eat sweets. My husband has been constantly coming to use the phone (yes we live close to the Stone Ages and have a corded phone) which is right next to the computer and how can I write with this person standing right next to me, yammering on the phone, asking me to find pens for him, coughing, and burping?

How do you deal with being bitchy because you want to be writing and your family won't let you?

Quick ROW update

I've done three days in a row of writing 5000 words a day of my new slightly erotic and comedic fairy tale novel, starring a scientific female, a sexy wizard whose magic has been crippled by a disease, and a detached talking penis belonging to a moody, philandering prince. I'm completely amazed--I didn't think it was possible for me to write this much! It doesn't even take me that long--maybe about 4 hours, split up throughout the day, and the writing coach running the class I'm taking says that by the fourth day it starts getting even easier and faster as we hit our "writer's stride." It's true, it makes the story so much easier to see as a whole when I'm working so quickly. It's actually quite marvelous, and I'm realizing that this is a good way to write.

Hooray!

ROW80 new goals for coming month

I skipped my last Wednesday ROW80 update in honor of the Internet blackout against SOPA and PIPA. I couldn't find who to contact at the US embassy to voice my opinion, so I sent e-mails to reps in California where I used to live, even though I'm no longer a resident. I figure I could speak for my parents, anyhow. It is nice to see that on occasion representatives do actually listen to what the people they're representing want. Now if some of those big Internet groups would get on board some of the other important issues it would be wonderful.

So this next month, starting today, I am doing Candace Havens' Fast Draft and Revision Hell workshop. From what I hear it's going to be an insane writing pace, so I'm going to redo goals for the next month, slimming down everything except for the writing:

• Writing goal: Keep up with workshop pace! I think it may be like 20 pages a day...by the end of 14 days we will have the first draft of a novel. I don't actually think I can do it, but I'm going to pretend that it's possible until tomorrow at least. I am taking a break from my regular WIP to write something new. Something irreverent that I started a few years ago.
• Blogging: aside from quick updates for ROW80, not unless I feel compelled
• Health: breath meditation 11 minutes a day, exercise 5 days/week
• Putting on hold the Spanish and Portuguese and reading.