Billy Jean

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Has it really been two months — no, crap, three months! — since I posted last? It’s been a wild 2012 for me so far. I’m still happily employed — despite how overwhelmingly busy we are every day — and I’ve been taking two classes a week. It’s been a lot more work than I expected, so unfortunately, writing is off to the side until classes end in about a month. Once they’re done, my goal is to spend the same 12 hours a week writing. For three months, that should finish Stages.

And speaking of, I was tagged in Rance’s Lucky 7 blogfest. He tagged most people I would already tag, so unfortunately, I’m not going to retag all the same people again. That being said, it was an odd section that came up for me. It comes from my absolute favorite section of the book, with the introduction of a character named Billy Jean. This is a part of the novel where the concept of ghost “powers” comes into play and… well, see for yourself.

This excerpt comes from “Growth,” the second section of the book:

Billy Jean’s wrist twisted. Her fingers then drew back, her palm up, as if she were gesturing something closer. All the kitchen cabinets slowly moved open in unison, displaying a few cobwebs. The cabinets creaked, as if arguing with her, as the opened as far as the hinges would allow. The refrigerator door fell open. Billy Jean’s face scrunched, a soft groan coming from her wrinkled throat.

 

It’s a tease. I’m sorry for that. Looking at this though, I really can’t wait to get back to writing. I miss my world of the dead.

Writers, I hope the world is treating you well. I can’t wait to get back to it.

Writing: Work or Hobby?

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So yesterday, I was thinking about writing. On Sunday night, I came back from my mother’s, who lives an hour and a half away from me, and all these songs came on my iPhone that had inspired much of Stages.  I thought about all the things I had created in this novel and how many places it has gone. I realized how much never made it into the novel at all, and how much bigger this thing, that was once a fifty page short story, became a series.

 It was a point of pride to realize that I’m at the end of the book and that I know most of what I need to do at this point. I’m no longer so intimidated by it and I can see myself finishing it a lot sooner than later. I thought to myself, “You know, tomorrow, I’m going to write.”

 Tomorrow, which was yesterday, came and I knew it would be my last three-day weekend until my vacation at the end of March. I thought to myself, “Man. I don’t feel like working today.” I had to stop and wonder when writing became work, especially since no one is paying me one fat nickel to do so.

This is what I pose to you, readers. Unless you have a contract and write for a living (and by which, this question does not apply to you), I ask you: is writing work? Or is writing play?

 I don’t write for a living. I have no intention of being a full-time author unless someone with a really fat checkbook comes by and asks me to. I enjoy working (except when I have a blasted case of the Mondays) and therefore, writing can’t be work for me, even if I do get published. So therefore, if it’s not work, is it a hobby? If it is a hobby, why would I rather play a Storm Trooper in a video game that does not matter in any sense than sit down and enjoy the fruits of my imagination?

 Yet, I’ve said it, and other writers have said it, “I should be writing, not [insert activity].” I actually have the audacity to feel guilty if I don’t write. It goes away once I write and stays gone for two days. Then it comes back and won’t go away until I write again. I feel no sense of guilt if I don’t rail bullets into some Imperials or catch up on How I Met Your Mother.

 So why do we when we write?

To alleviate guilt, we find time to sit and write. We post in our blogs and on Twitter how successful or unsuccessful we are. We high-five each other if we write one page or a hundred. If writing is not work, and therefore a hobby, why do we proclaim when we’re awesome or whine when we’re not? It’s not often someone says on Twitter, “I just won back all the bananas in Donkey Kong!” No one really cares about your bananas. But writers care when someone does well, or someone is struggling.

 So again, is writing work or a hobby?

 Today, I will now answer it, but I have an opinion of my own. Tell me how you define writing.

Life and Writing Update

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Before I start this, I have to quote one of my dedicated readers, Colin, who left me a lovely comment when I started temping again.

“Seriously, Kate, I’m really pleased you’ve got work, even if it’s just a temp job. You never know what it might lead to.”

I’ve heard this before. In fact, when the job started making mentions of hiring me full-time, I didn’t take it too seriously. It’s well-known that some temping assignments will tell people this to motivate them to work harder and to eliminate short-timers syndrome. I have been a part of it several times, so when the idea was brought up to me, I mostly just nodded my head and continued on.

In general, I’m a hard worker. I really don’t know how not to be a hard worker. I don’t know how to enter a job with a short-timers mindset. When I left Washington, and the real estate agent I was assisting, I was still pumping out work until the very last day. As I worked forward on this job, and then they had me fill out an online application for the position I was fulfilling, I began to wonder.

Five weeks later, I went through orientation. As of Monday, I’m gainfully employed again! When Colin originally left me this note, I smiled, appreciated the sentiment and doubted its contents. I got very lucky with the job I got: it was good timing and simply, as one of the attorneys (I am working in a legal office) said to me, “It’s just a good fit.”

It’s so funny how good news can affect you. When you’ve been stressed for months, you almost forget how not to be when everything is suddenly okay. The knots in your stomach look for things to be worried about. It’s taken me some time to even realize that I’m employed again, that I’m wanted in a professional environment, before I even realized I should blog about it. When things go well, traffic is no longer so bad and the sunshine is just a bit brighter.

On Tuesday, my writer’s block lifted. I started the last chapter of the novel and churned out seven pages without any difficulty in an hour (that’s 2100+ words, my friends). I had time to figure out where Quinn had left off and I wrote an amazing section of dialog that is meant to reveal the majority of the secrets in the book. The last chapter allows me to resolve the matters that need resolving in this book and leave an ending that allows for at least one more. I felt accomplished. Not only did I earn gainful employment where I’m getting better and better at my job, I was able to do what I love again without any problems. My overly critical mind had nothing to complain to me about.

Overall, it’s the start of a new year and a good start at that. I couldn’t ask for more.

Slumps

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So it’s January 7th, and one of the things I promised myself is that I would begin writing more. Last season was rough for me, with falling into unemployment and having a financial situation that I had a very hard time managing. Where was my money going to come from? Who was I going to interview with this week? Then the holiday season came, and most of my writing goals were put to the side entirely.

Now, with some potentially very good news starting next week (which I will reveal later on), I forgot one very important thing: I haven’t written anything in two months.

This blog unfortunately went on the back burner for a while, and as is expected, readers have gone away. I certainly don’t fault them for that. I would’ve too. So per the lovely K.T. Hanna, I made a promise to myself to start blogging again. For some reason, even that seemed difficult. I was so lost on what to write, what I should be saying, and it wasn’t until I talked to Rance just a few moments ago that I realized something important.

Writing is not hard. We, as writers, make it hard.

There’s a lot harder things in life than writing. I will say that finding employment that meets your specifications is one of them, recession or not. I had been offered a few jobs during my time of unemployment and I turned them down, whether it be due to the hours, the pay or lack of benefits. I was looking for something specific. Managing a family; that’s hard too. Getting over an addiction or resolving deep-seated family matters. Those are hard things.

Writing can’t be hard. Honestly, it’s one of the few professions where you need next to no experience whatsoever to do. Take Jim Butcher. He had no writing experience at all, took a few classes and in the end, got lucky enough to be published. Now, he’s fairly huge, with a (albeit failed) TV show and lives off his books. All the while, I have the audacity to sit here and go:

“I can’t finish my book.”

And yet, I think about my novels all the time. I think about where I am in them, both around the same area of the novel, where I’m passed the climax and working on the end. Stages is about 50-70 pages from being done and yet, I’ve done nothing with it.

It’s occurred to me why we make writing hard. It’s not that sitting there and formulating sentences is hard. It’s the discipline that’s needed.

I’ve talked about it before that when you work for yourself, it’s so easy to ignore the responsibilities you’ve set. Frankly, writing responsibilities are arbitrary. They’re goals. Unless you have a contract, no one is saying to you, “You need to finish this by this date or else you’re done.” There’s no loss to avoid; no consequence other than your own disappointment in yourself. Writing successfully — and by successfully, I mean completing — takes a lot of self-discipline and self-motivation. Like I’ve said previously, writing is like weight loss. You can’t see the 100 pounds you need to lose, but the ten pounds that you can accomplish this month if you try really hard.

Ultimately, I have no answers regarding the discipline part. I’ve been in a writing slump for a while now, allowing other things in my life to take control. Sometimes they have to. But I’ve seen people with unemployment, families to take care and they still have time to write. It takes a certain amount of will power to overcome that slump. Overall, no one’s alone in them. We all have them.

Now kick your own ass and get back on the horse, Kate.

Rant: Offices and Elevators

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This is another new section I’ve decided to add to the blog. Rants, unlike Storytime, are things that I get to witness that just make me crazy in some way or another. I don’t expect many rants, because it’s not too often that I find the need to have one.

However, today. Today, I need to have one. I don’t know about you, but most of my office environments did not require my use of an elevator (and if you read my post last time, you’d know how this already started badly on my first day). I’ve been at this job two weeks tomorrow, and using an elevator is something I end up doing every day.

And there are certain things that happen at these devices that need to cease immediately.

1. Pressing the elevator button once it’s already pressed. Look. I get it that if you need to go up, you press the up button. But do not stare at the button that I’ve just pressed, see that it’s lit and then press four or five hundred times afterwards. It will not make the elevator move any faster. It will not answer to you and ignore me. It’s an elevator. It doesn’t have a mind of its own.

2. Pressing the down button, after the up button has been pressed, and there’s only one elevator. This means you’re stupid. It’s going to go up before it goes down and you get to sit inside a tiny room of cell phone poisoning and silent farts. Wait until it goes up before you try to hit the down arrow.

3. Holding the elevator for me when I’m more than five feet away. Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate you wanting to hold the elevator for me. But you’re one person, whose surrounded by at least three other people who now hate you with the passion of a thousand suns. Not to mention that I’m a big fat ass, and when you do this, it forces me to run to the elevator, so I don’t deal with the holy wrath with everyone else on this elevator. At least three days out of the week, I wear heels to work. Heels were designed to make legs look tone, instead of the flabby sausages that God gave most women. Now you’re expecting a fat ass to run in heels. This usually ends in a crash. Don’t do this. Just leave me in the dust and I won’t be heartbroken.

4. Using the elevator to go one floor. This. This is the emmy award winner that makes me wish I could breathe fire. I can’t describe how nuts this drives me. Who is this lazy? I’m pretty much a professional at being lazy, and even I don’t go this far. Nevermind the stair cases are right across from the elevator. If you had a cane, or some other disability, sure, no problem. But when you’re about twelve years old, head-bobbing to an iPhone, you make me want to remove your eyes with a melon baller. Take the stairs.

5. Watching me take the elevator while you, ever so proudly, take the stairs. I have to park in the third story of the garage, since I’m technically a guest of the place of employment. I wear, and run around all day, in heels. (And I’m also an aforementioned fat ass). When five o’clock hits, and I have to walk through two buildings just to get to the garage, I’m tired. I’m awaiting the 45 minute car ride of traffic ahead of me. I don’t feel like taking the stairs in the cold. Do not, under any circumstances, stare at me with those eyes that say, “She could really use the stairs.” I know I could use the stares. Use them for me.

6. Having a full-blown, intimate conversation when I enter the elevator. Do you have any idea how truly awkward this is? Do you know how easily it is for me to make fun of your every word? I don’t have sentimental conversations at work, let alone on an elevator. I also don’t care how many hours of sleep you need a night, or how you wish you got off at 4:30 instead of 5:00. Shut up. Ride the elevator.

7. Hollar at me from down the hall. Look, I get you’re in a hurry. Stairs are for hurries (and when I’ve been late, I’ve walked up as many flights of stairs I need to and have always beaten the elevator). But if you’re running to the elevator, don’t start yelling for me to hold it. Refer to item 3. I owe my elevator-mates that responsibility.

8. Talking on your cell phone in an elevator. This is right up there with being on the phone when checking out at the super market. Just don’t. They can wait thirty seconds. Not only should you now have to censor what comes out of your mouth, but you have to make the person riding with you a billion times more awkward, and the urge to throw your phone down the elevator shaft is very difficult.

9. The elevator starts making weird noises. Now, this is only slightly due to human error. Elevators, in their physics, are fairly simple things and it’s not too often that they snap and go crashing, or lock a person inside. However, when your usual floor ding!  goes to BLARGH!, I get seriously concerned. Someone, replace this poor thing’s batteries and remind me that I’m not going to be living in this thing for the next twelve hours.

10. Slow-opening elevators. There’s no reason for this. If your elevator goes a thousand miles and hour to a floor, and then creeps and crawls those last three inches, thinks about it, adjusts s’more, and then just sits there long enough to cause the rider some panic, you need to reprogram your elevator. There’s no excuse for this. A rider should never have to wonder if they can break through the glass at the back of the elevator in order to get some air.

Perhaps I should just stop riding them altogether.

Storytime: How I Got Locked in a Stairwell

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It’s been over a month since I’ve posted. This is mostly due that I put my writing on pause to look for work. It’s been fairly rotten. I’ve been on four interviews, none of which offered me a job (we’re not talking about this job market. At all.) This week, I got lucky enough that a temporary agency that I deal with sent me some place. It’s not even confirmed when this one will end — whether in a few weeks or a few months — but you get to the point when you need money so bad that you don’t give a crap.

Under normal circumstances, I don’t post unless I have something writing related. This begins the section of the blog called Evil Katie. You see, Rance Denton has Evil Rance. Evil Rance is when the love of my life goes on an absolute tirade about nothing in particular; all in all, it has nothing to do with writing and our craft.

So, it’s my goal that whenever you see “Storytime,” it is a tale how the world decided to have a field day with me. It, too, will have nothing to do with writing.

Today was my first day on the temp job. I’m working in a legal office, doing administrative work and the whole day itself couldn’t have gone better. I spent the first hour getting a badge and a parking pass. I also spent an exorbitant amount of time sweating like a pig as I walked around the building for different errands. I had the look of a high school freshman: constantly confused and unless my bottom was planted in a seat, I had no idea where I was.

Still. The kitchen was over-stocked with Keurigs pods and a Keurig that was not only hooked up to water but had its own pod disposal. I thought I was in coffee heaven. I drank more coffee than is reasonably healthy. (They did say, ‘help yourself’ so I don’t think I did anything wrong). I got to use a computer that functioned well and a printer that sat not six inches from me.

Then I went about my day, learning a fairly simple database and working with legal contracts. The latter is new to me, but I do have some contract experience when I worked in real estate. 5:00 came around. The client, who serves as my boss, asked how the day went and all in all, I couldn’t have asked for a better day.

Until when I decided to leave.

You see, this small campus is composed of three buildings, all of which are connected on the second floor. I went to the second floor and went in the wrong direction. As I reached a locked door that I was convinced was the right one, a custodian said to me, “Excuse me? Do you need to get somewhere?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m looking for the parking garage. Isn’t it through this way?”

“No,” she says. This is the first lie. “You need to go through the elevator down to the first floor.”

There’s so many problems with this sentence that I could vomit. First, I had spent the whole day, walking around these buildings and the only way to get from one to the other was on the second floor. I didn’t imagine my boss tell me this. I also didn’t imagine one of the legal secretaries, who trained me most of the day, telling me this. I didn’t imagine it yesterday, when I visited the site, when a perfect goddamn stranger told me this. My instinct screamed NO DON’T DO IT, but I did what she said.

The second problem with this scenario was that this elevator was creepy. I was in a very high-class office building. The elevators were pretty and comfortable. This one was full of heaping bags of garbage that smelled of old taco meat and diapers. I go down to the first floor.

It looks like a hall way under the hotel that Jack Torrence lost his shit in.

I knew this was wrong. I found a stairwell. I opened the door, finding it unlocked (this detail is very important. Keep this in mind). I run up two flights of stairs. I know I’m on the second floor, the right floor and I open the door. I come out to this little balcony with a door on the other side.

It’s locked.

I run back downstairs, gnawing on my urge to not panic to go through the door I came in.

It’s locked.

The Oh Shit Moment bashed me in the face. I ran up to the top of the stairwell to find another locked door. I run back to the balcony. Maybe, I’m thinking, we’re on a hill and I can just step over the railing. Wrong. Two flight drop equals two broken legs and definitely no work tomorrow. I call Rance.

“Hey, babe.”

“Hey, honey! What’s going on?”

“Um,” I said, breathing heavily, “I’m trapped in a stairwell.”

“What?”

“I’m locked inside a stairwell.”

I can only imagine what runs through his head.

“I’m going to call night security and see if someone can get me out,” I said.

“Is there anything I can do?” Rance asked.

“I’ll call you back and let you know.”

I don’t call security, simply because the business’s website is a nightmare to manage on an iPhone. So then the claustrophobia really sets in.

It feels like this. Seriously.

I do the only thing I can think of. I run back to the door I entered in the first place and bang on it as loud as I can. And I mean, loud. Loud enough that I even scared myself a little.

A woman comes and finds me within seconds and opens the door. Apparently, the whole first floor can hear a crazy woman banging on a door.

She walks me to my car, as I explain what happened. She said, “Bless your heart” a whole bunch of times. This is now 40 minutes after I was supposed to be home.

Then, the world decided it had to add just one more thing: I sat in traffic for an hour.

That was my first day of work in two months. If that doesn’t deserve a medal, none does. This concludes this segment of “Storytime.”

Starting a Critique Group

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If there’s one thing I learned about this campaign, it’s that there are a lot of people in the same position I am. Struggling writers, whether it is to finish their manuscripts, get inspiration or deal with the discouraging agent-hunting, need each other to better themselves. Let’s face it: most of us wouldn’t be writers if we didn’t have the hope that someone else would get the opportunity to read it.

Since writing can be such a solitary hobby, it wasn’t until college that I really understood the need for others to read your work, and not just make an opinion on it, but tear it absolutely apart. I took just about every creative writing class my university offered and I was equally destroyed the first time someone destroyed what I thought was an absolutely brilliant masterpiece.

And like most writers, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Being out of college for a while now, it’s hard to find a decent group of people who you can rely on and trust. A few years ago, Rance and I tried a writing group via Skype. For a few months, it worked, and it eventually fell to pieces. Some of the participants didn’t seem as interested or dedicated in the idea. Eventually, it just didn’t work and Rance and I decided to just critique our own work.

We both received so much help through the writers’ campaign, from making new friends or having the opportunity to have written pieces looked read by others. We decided that we would like to take some of these great, dedicated writers that we met and form an online critique group. Having done this in the past, we’re lucky enough to know what mistakes we’ve made and we’re hoping to benefit everyone in this group.

We are looking to ask five to seven people to be apart of the group (who are more than welcome to decline). We would prefer that each person have a completed work, whether that is a novel, short stories or a collection of flash fiction that each person reads and sends critiques back. These will be done either through email or preferably over a forum. If someone wants to have physical edits mailed to them, that can be done too.

As we develop this idea more, we’ll have more defined rules written. Here’s hoping that the people in this group can help each other just as much as the writers’ campaign has helped us.

My “Before They Were Published” Interview

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During my writing hiatus, I had the amazing opportunity to be interviewed by Jessica Byam, who had great interview questions. It was new for me to talk about myself, and my writing, knowing that I’m unpublished and not really famous by any regard.

However, I really enjoyed it. It’s funny how hard it can be to talk about yourself. Sometimes, just like at a job interview, they ask questions that you aren’t ready for and I was lucky enough that I had the time to answer them. Jessica does interviews for any up-and-coming author, so if you’re wanting to be interviewed yourself, take a trip over to her blog, read the interviews and submit for your own!

Here’s how mine went:

What is your earliest writing memory? What did you write about? Did it have a title?

My brother has always been a bit of a prodigy. He was older than me and brilliant at an early age. When he was 10 years old, he already started writing very short fiction and all my family did was praise his genius. I had such a fit of jealousy that I sat at our Apple II computer and wrote a small story. It didn’t have a title, quotation marks or even paragraphs. It was a story about four girls who were friends. I don’t recall ever printing it out, but my first years of writing was in the attempt to write something better than my brother had. I just never stopped.

When you were 6, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A teacher. My mom had bought us a small chalkboard. Usually at the end of the school year, teachers would give out old workbooks, and sometimes textbooks, that they wouldn’t be using. I would use these to pretend to be both a student and an instructor. This kept me entertained for most of the summer.

What is the best compliment your writing has ever received?

“I tried to hate this, but I couldn’t.” I know it’s an odd compliment, but when I was in college, I took both English Literature and Creative Writing courses. In my introduction to creative writing, we had to write a short fiction. I chose to write what ended up being the first few chapters of an unfinished manuscript I have. There was one student in the class that did his very best to rip everyone’s work apart. He had found something in every single student’s work that was terrible. When it was my turn, I was ready — I thought it would’ve been easy, since it was fantasy and featured a humanoid race of fairies — and he looked at it and then at me, saying, “I tried to hate this, but I couldn’t.” He then went on to discuss what he loved about it. I was the only classmate he didn’t tear to shreds.

Afterwards, we had to meet with the professor privately about it. I thought the story was done. He said to me, “This is not a short story. This is a novel. You have to make this a novel.” It was the highest bit of praise between these two strangers that I could have ever asked for.

Can you tell us a little about your current WIP?

About two years ago, I was reading a lot of urban fantasy (Jim Butcher, in particular) and watching a lot of supernatural shows (Buffy: The Vampire Slayer). I was reading a lot about werewolves and vampires. I had always a fondness for ghosts; despite not enjoying horror movies, I always was drawn to ones about haunted houses. I had tried to find some urban fantasy that featured ghosts and couldn’t find any. I decided I was going to write my own. Stages: A Survival Guide for Specters is a novel told by Quinn Landers, who has recently died and found herself roaming the earth with other ghosts. They surround the world of the living, but do not interact with them. Throughout the novel, Quinn speaks directly to the reader about being a ghost, showing its dangers and heartaches. There’s a fair amount of action, friendships, love and a lot of betrayal that Quinn faces as she tells a ghost story from her perspective.

Do you follow a routine when it comes to writing?

I try very hard to have one, but it doesn’t always work. I try to sit down, three times a week, for an hour. I find having a routine and being used to it is the only way writing works. When you step away from it, it’s easy to put it all aside and forget you were even working on a novel.
What do you find hardest about writing?

Not being overwhelmed. As a novel writer, I find it’s easy to see all the things you need to do and become buried in it. Since this isn’t a paying job, there’s lots of “what’s the point?” moments or “I have better things to do.” The first five minutes of writing tend to be grueling, almost impossible, but it’s smooth sailing after that. You get to remember why you decided to devote your time to this in the first place.

What is your favorite book (at least currently)?

Dracula, by Bram Stoker. I know it’s odd, being that I usually look down on all the vampire fiction out there, but this novel didn’t really focus on the nature of a vampire. It focuses on the gothic better than I had ever seen done prior. It set the mood; the words itself engulf the reader, giving a constant sense of dread and hopelessness. I have always adored this book and will read it over and over again.

What non-writing hobbies do you like to participate in?

I’m a massive knitter. I picked up knitting about three years ago, when I was going through so hard times. Knitting became very meditative; when things go wrong, I pick up the needles and just go with it and I find it calms my nerves and clears my head. In the end, I get fun clothes to wear and I get a lot of compliments on my completed projects.

If you had $1,000,001, what would you do with the $1?

I would buy something from Office Max. I find sick joy in organization and desk equipment.

Give us one random fact about yourself.

I have a tattoo on my back that I drew myself that represents my creativity. The drawing occurred to me out of the blue, and the odd thing about it is that I can’t draw at all. I grabbed a piece of computer paper and frantically drew until I got it perfect. I stared at it for days and knew I wanted this to become a part of me. I went to see a tattoo artist and had it drawn in black on my left shoulder blade. I always look at it when I’m suffering writers block or lacking creativity in some other regard and it always picks me up. This is why it is my current photo on twitter.

 

You can also read the interview here. Enjoy!

Life Update

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I know. The blog posting has been ridiculously lax and so has the writing. It’s been a tough month, with two interviews and no job offers. I have admittedly turned down a few simply because they either didn’t pay enough, the hours were awful or were simply too far. The job market is tough now, guys. It’s tough like the writing market.

I’ve spent a lot of time writing resumes. That means hearing, “Don’t do this” and “do that” and being quite sure that they contradict depending on who you’re talking to. The thing is, I know I’m a hard worker; I know I’m talented. Every job I’ve taken, my employers always drop the “I’m so surprised. I didn’t realize how good you’d be” line and are willing to wave the Kate flag. But it’s that foot in the door that’s tough.

Here in Maryland, even the staffing agencies are having trouble. They can’t seem to get much beyond 2-3 month jobs. Employers are just holding back and that’s okay. I’m just looking forward to finding a place to call home.

That said, being off for a month hasn’t been bad. I’ve definitely gotten some refreshing times and with all that time off, you’d think I’d be writing. I find it hard to write when you’re worried about other things. At the same time, though, I think I made a mistake in not writing; what better way to escape than in your own world? Stages needs work and I didn’t meet my September deadline, but I’m not kicking myself about that since I was let go. I’ve come up with short projects that I’m considering on doing.

At the same time, I’ve also been working on knitting. I don’t talk about knitting much here, but I am guilty of spending an exorbitant amount of time doing it and occasionally, I get inspired to write my own patterns.

No, I definitely didn’t design this cardigan, but I enjoyed the crap out of making it and wearing it. I read a lot of patterns and I always end up redesigning my own (as in, this one, I changed the way the diamonds looked by changing a stitch). I’ve been knitting a Gryffindor scarf for one of my roommates and that got me looking into other patterns.

Long story short, I started writing my own.

So for readers who care, I will be posting patterns that I write. They’re free to use and if you notice issues with them, please feel free to comment on them. I find even this kind of creativity gets my juices flowing and hey, writing is always writing.

So what have you been up to lately?

Critiques

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If you guys remember, about a month ago, I wrote a flash-fiction for Rachel Harrie‘s first writing contest. I was a random winner that was chosen and I was awarded a fifteen-page critique by Jocelyn Rish. All in all, it’s an experience that every single writer needs to go through over and over and they’re all nerve-wracking.

First, Rance is really the only one who’s ever read my work. I’m generally very protective of my writing, since none of it is professionally copy-written yet and I worry about an idea being stolen (which possibly makes me arrogant, to think my ideas are so great that someone would want to steal it). So the idea of having my writing critiqued by a total stranger made me uncomfortable. What was worse is that it was the first fifteen pages of Stages, which is the section that was written two years ago. There’s a huge difference between the first segment and the segment I recently finished; the style is the same, but a lot of issues that I’ll need to edit out are still there.

I sent off the excerpt to Jocelyn and she got back to me about a week later. I’m so grateful for her, since she gave me an overall critique of what worked and what didn’t as well as a line-by-line edit. Line-by-lines are really for writing style (I had a lot of unnecessary details and repetition, for example). They really can’t cover content as they go into so much detail on the words. There were many things she liked and a few things she didn’t. So why do I bother telling you this?

Because it’s very easy to get discouraged, or even angry, by a critique.

Lucky for me, my critiquer was kind and courteous in what didn’t work for her. What I learned in this process is that a critique is merely one opinion written out. There were several things that Jocelyn mentioned that I hadn’t considered before. There were things I absolutely agreed with. Then there were things that I completely and totally disagreed with. Jocelyn was at a disadvantage; being this is a novel, there were a lot of questions she had that simply got answered later in the book. Still, her critique was astoundingly helpful.

So what’s the conclusion? Embrace your critiques, especially the ones that really point out a lot of issues. Keep those issues in mind. Give it to someone else. See what they say. While I can’t quote him directly, I know Stephen King pointed out that if you have ten people read your book, and all ten find the same problem, then it’s truly a problem. But if only one person finds that problem, then it’s merely a difference of opinion. You have to pick which criticisms you need to consider. Some will benefit your book; others will cripple it.

The entire world can read your novel, but it’s your opinion that truly matters. You are the creator, its God, and you know better than anyone else what your novel needs. You know why the characters do certain things, or why the narration is written a certain way or why the dialog has certain idiosyncrasies. Your writing group, your friend or your kind stranger don’t. They can certainly point out what you can work on, but as Jocelyn said to me, “You have to go with your gut.”

Thank you, Jocelyn. You taught me a lot about my novel early on. To everyone else, be ready to find your readers!