COURSE CORRECTION

Someone brought this up on Twitter a couple of days ago and it just now sunk in.
Just. Now. 11:40 pm.

It's such a profoundly simple question...simple like turning the wheel on your car, to get you back on course after running a guantlet of pot holes.

I'm here to tell you, Newanda, that I'm turning the wheel now. Yes, now. At 11:40 at night, I'm getting back on course. I'm nearly too excited to sleep, but I will. Santa can't come until you go to sleep, right? And Santa's coming tomorrow. I'll have to mark my calendar. January 30 is the new Christmas, baby. At least it will be for me.

2010 was a good year for me. Sorry, but it was. The year you sign with an agent is always going to be listed in the positive column.

But one major struggle I had in the past 12 months was with a particular manuscript. And tonight I clearly see the problem; I was so busy avoiding regular pot holes, I didn't realize I was IN one GIANT pothole.
Just like Matthew Broderick in Godzilla, I was missing the reptile's footprint because I was standing IN the reptile's footprint. It was so much bigger than I could imagine, and yet, so simple.

Get on with it? Okay, I will.

Here's the magic question: Are you writing something you would want to read? Are you? The manuscript I struggled with was certainly in the genre I love. The characters were the type I like of course. The situation was ripe with potential and plot, just how I like it. So why wasn't it something I would want to read?

Good question!

My problem was, I was trying to write a good book, a marketable book, a clever story with great characters. A problem, you ask. Why is that a problem?

The question should be, "What SHOULD I be writing instead?"

I shouldn't be trying to write a good or great book. My goal should be to write THE PERFECT BOOK. If I was writing THE PERFECT SCOTTISH ROMANCE, instead of a great Scottish romance, I'd put everything in the book that made me love the genre. My characters would be the perfect combination of...whatever. The setting would be perfect, etc. Scottish fans everywhere would praise the book and read it when they wanted to re-read a favorite, and so on.

But this fantastic book would never be written by someone wanting to write a great book. Throughout 2010, I'd pick up this manuscript, thumb through it, and try to puzzle out what was lacking. But what it lacked was my passion.

I was looking at the market, at the fans in the stands, instead of the catcher's mit in which I needed to throw the perfect pitch. I was settling for something over the plate, in the strike zone, fast enough to be swung at and missed. I put all my effort into throwing a strike, instead of throwing the perfect pitch--a pitch that would smack into that dark leather shadow with such a tight fit the folks down the block, who'd gone to bed too early, would wake with a start. A pitch thrown so hard, with every muscle woven through my arm, it would cause the catcher to pull his hand from his glove, his face a blend of satisfaction and pain, sure that his hand would look like shattered glass, but honored to have been a part of the event.

Look back at the first book you wrote. Weren't you trying to write the perfect book then? How long down the career path were you when you started thinking "great is good enough?"

Forget the market. Forget the fans in the stands. Remember the fan in your skin. Write the perfect book for you. Chances are, it will be the perfect book for someone else too. Maybe your sister...but maybe the world.

NANOWRIMO and ROPE THEORY

There is a theory in business management that states that completion of a given task will take the time alotted for that task. Meaning, if you alot an hour for a job, humans being humans, status being quo, it will take an hour to finish that job.

So, if you give yourself an indeterminate amount of time in which to write a novel, it may, or may not, get finished at all. But most of us dearly want to finish, don't we? This is why NANOWRIMO is a good thing--so good in fact that it shouldn't be saved for just once a year.

I say, listen to the experts. Make a SWAG (scientific wild-assed guess) on how long it would take you to crank out a first draft of a novel, or whatever you're wishing you could produce. IF you were focused. IF you made the time. IF you intend to really make a career of writing. And by all means, be honest with yourself.

Don't plan to write every day. I'm planning for 5 days per week and calculated accordingly. If I miss a day, then it will cut into my weekend, so that's just more motivation.

I looked back at the last book I wrote (I kept a little record) and looked at my average page count for days I actually wrote some. (This was just writing for a few hours a day, not 6 or 8 hours.)I multiplied that by five days a week, then 52 weeks a year. Then I divided that by 350 pages and had, in front of me, how many books I can crank out in a year.

I had to sit down.

SIDE NOTE: If your SWAG is more than 6 months for one book, then you can stop reading now. You have better things to do than read this crap.

For those of you still reading, I suggest you stop for a moment, do the little exercise with your calculator, and see just what you are capable of. I think you'll be surprised. I think you'll be disappointed in yourself for not doing better in the last twelve months.

I know I am.

Also, don't feel pressured into making your plan longer than is reasonable for you. Small bites. Reasonable goals. I just happen to be making a plan for the next 12 months, not just one. Would one be reasonable? Yes. Is 12 months unreasonable? Maybe, but I'm moving up from String Theory to Rope Theory.

Before I tell you my plan, let me warn you that my plan also involves editing an hour or two in the evenings and on weekends. I know there will be other duties to this BUSINESS besides cranking out raw material. I haven't lost all ability to reason. I'm not functioning under the influence of a full moon. (That was days ago.)

Also, a note about my last book: I was MOTIVATED. I was writing to the market--gasp! I was armed with an agent's prediction of what was the new hot thing and I was going to crank out just that. I did have another novel I had to finish and send off before I could start on THE BOOK, but once I started (I'd given myself 6 weeks), I did it in four.

You see something wrong here, don't you? So you should. I'd given myself six weeks to get it done. I told that agent I would be sending it in 6 freaking weeks! Only I was determined to edit it and have some beta readers go over it first--THAT's what cut my time back to 4 weeks.

The completion of any given [novel] will require the time alotted for that [novel]. I alotted four weeks. It took four weeks. Did I miss days altogether? Yes. Did my husband resent it a little? Sometimes. Did the commitment to that agent drag me over each and every obstacle?

No.
My ambition did it.

I am an ambitious beyotch. I'm sure I can come up with reasons for it. But ambition is my strength and my weakness. Somedays I pay dearly for it. Someday it'll be paying me.

This year is no different. This year I'm planning to write six novels. It's reasonable...for someone with my drive, and honey, I drive fast.

That's nearly half a million words, by the way. It's 7.3 pages per day. Five days a week. No weeks off. I'm going to set up a countdown on this blog, so you can see if I'm behind. I'm going to stay off email for the most part and hope I don't lose friends.

I'm also going to be published by Valor Publishing; the first book comes out in April. I'm going to do booksignings out the wahzoo, get a son graduated, sent on a mission, and get the older one back home and married off. I'm going to be babysitting Copy and Paste when needed, work part time, and keep my husband and I on our Biggest Loser Roller Coaster Ride. NO! You won't be seeing a grid on that info! Suffice it to say, it's nearly half a million.

So no, I won't be living with my laptop in a closet, being fed through the cracks by a bunch of sons who would be more than happy to share less and less of their daily alotment of food. (The theory they've proven is that whatever the amount of food alotted for a meal cannot expand to fill the imagined caloric requirements of male subjects under 22.)

I will be living my normal abbynormal life. I will also be living my normal abbynormal dream. I'll either live to tell about it or make more traditional use of that ROPE THEORY.

EMBRACE THE HORROR...YA.

Inspiration is an amazing thing. Like pennies from Heaven, you never know when inspiration will pour into your lap, clinking for attention, shaking your femurs with the sudden weight.

My legs are shaking now, not with the thrill of an historical romance unraveling in my mind, but with something I never intended to write...a YA.

When Harry Potter came out I had five kids between ages 8 and 12. In their blind belief that their mother could do anything, they pleaded with me to write a Harry Potter. I laughed.

A few years ago Twilight came out. The same children, now older though no less optimistic, suggested I write the next Twilight. Their lives, they reasoned, would be so much easier if I were rich. Having another series of books to read would be an added bonus.

I explained to them my main requirement for writing a book is for the story to drop into my head and demand to be recorded. At that point only Scottish historicals had the coordinates of my skull. YA wasn't even something I read, let alone something that would "speak to me". But boy, is one speaking now!

Do I feel transparent, writing to the market? Absolutely. After all, I'm the kind of character who fought reading Harry Potter books just because the rest of the world loved them. I NEVER love what's popular. Now I feel like the first rock star to allow VISA to sponsor my concert, or like a republican taking campaign donations from oil companies. In spite of my shame, however, I'm going to do likewise and embrace the horror.

This pile of pennies is weighing me down, holding me to my chair, demanding that I write the story. I feel as if my lower half is buried in a silo of oats and I'll be trapped here until the novel is complete. Every time I need a great idea for a scene I hear a clink and holy crap, there it is. The floodgates are washing down the hill, and I'm afraid whatever stands in my way is going to be ignored like the tiny town of Thistle, Utah, which now clutters the bottom of a reservoir.

You've all been here. I know you have. But just which story was it? Which genre? Are you there right now, gripping your lifejacket and hoping your raft stays right-side-up until it's safe to climb out?

And here's another question: When these mudslides/dam-breakers/writing marathons happen to you, do they always seem to happen when your schedules are full, after major events in your life, or do you make them happen? Is it only Nanovember, or have you poured body and souls on your keyboards during other seasons?

Spill. Share.
Ainsley, who is headed to the store for Prep-H, tissues, chocolate, and a DO NOT DISTURB SIGN for her office door.