Tuesday, July 30, 2002 ( 7:00 AM )
During this long 10-day break from novel writing, I worked on designing and writing content for my new webdesign website. It still isn't quite ready to go live - but soon will be on the web.
Today I wrote on the Alyssa Project again - about 1050 words - a courthouse scene. Now the project stands at 20037 words total, and is probably less than half done. I'm not going to stress about the total word count needed this time, but just take the novel through to the natural conclusion and see what I end up with.
Yesterday I wrote a short article for Happy Camp News about the tragic deaths of three firefighters in the woods near where I live. Now I need to write another article about the memorial service last night.
After all the tears I shed there, I came home and slept right away. By 3am I was awake again, ready for writing. For a change I wrote my three morning pages out right away (I usually wait until noon) and then worked on the novel. If I can change into a morning person I think it would help me get more work done. I love the way the dawn feels - I just haven't seen much of it in the last year.
I enjoy looking through the websites of other writers. Tonight Steve Alten was being interviewed by Barbara Simpson on Coast to Coast AM. I would have liked to hear more about how he puts his books together, rather just about cool stuff he learned while doing research, but it was still pretty interesting. It was also... inspiring. Just what I need, since I haven't worked on my novel in a few days. Even now I am debating whether I can really work on that when I need to do the dishes instead.
What was really inspirational about Steve's website was his story about how he was laid-off or fired from a meat-packing plant with a life-savings of less than fifty dollars. Within a few days he received a 7-figure, 2-book contract! He writes complex adult adventure novels so I don't delude myself that my simple middle grade novels could bring in that kind of money, but I still feel encouraged by his story of success.
Being there
Earlier tonight I went downriver to write at a wide place in the road near the river. I was writing in my journal - and realized that when I'm in a place like that - I tend to write more location description, and less introspection. I keep that journal mainly for introspection, but then imagine that eventually I might put some of this pretty descriptive prose into one of my novels, so I keep writing it.
Example:
"I have been to this place before - I call it the 'one-tree-turnout' - just a mile or two southwest of home. There's rapids and then a huge stone outcropping in the water -- such a place could have been near the homestead of my little River Girl [This is referring to a partly-written novel that is currently gathering dust.]
"If she lived in a cabin on the other side of the river here - it has a clean, nice, easy slope down to the Klamath, some nice grassy-bushy area with sand, and then thousands of rocks that the Klamath tossed aside back when it used to be a glacier, perhaps, for these rocks, polished by the patience of God's time, bear the marks of scrapings and power that existed before recorded history.
"Then there's the constant song of the river-dance throwing itself at boulders in the rapids, its white-water jumping up and laughing, then rolling off to play some more, all the while singing, singing as time and gravity draw it ever nearer to the sea. Slowly the sky darkens and here I remain on a rock on a cliff in a rugged vale."
This stuff just goes on and on - there's no end to the descriptive force of nature when you're sitting right in it. I plan, when I re-write my Pravado novel, to go to the beach and experience the sand and fresh air and surf while I'm writing.
I have been wondering for months whether I should join the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators... if you talk to people in the profession they seem to think it is mandatory for success. I just have a hard time seeing how I can pay the $60 membership fee when I haven't earned any money at writing ... yet. I don't even have anything ready to sell right now -- if I did, I might seriously consider joining. I do love their website redesign - the site looks so much better now than the last time I was over there ... peeking over their virtual shoulders.
Tonight I worked on the Alyssa outline, getting nothing written on the manuscript. I'm sad about that, but also too tired to attempt it at this point. I was doing webdesign work earlier so that took up a lot of my time.
Tonight I added 1205 words, bringing the total to 18664. I started before I got too tired to write. I wish I'd do that every night.
I consider any night when I reach my goal to be a success.
Today I went to the July meeting of the Klamath River Writers, where we listened to Judi and Judy read their newly written bios. The rest of us flaked out on that.. though since Dennis was new I guess I can't say that of him.
Anyhow, back to the topic of the novel-in-progress... I used that final outline I wrote the other night at the café and appreciated having some form and purpose to the part I chose to write tonight. It was the first part of chapter six.
I went out tonight... and sat in the local café for a few hours working on my outline while people all around me were eating dinner. I ordered coffee and garlic bread. It is a great place - someday I'll have dinner there instead of just snacking.
Anyhow, I made some progress on planning and organization but didn't try to write on the text tonight (too tired - I spent my evening nap time at the café)... and to be honest, I'm only about half done with that new (third) outline. I'm trying to use elements of all the outlines/summaries I've done on the Alyssa Project before, so it is slow and requires a lot of thought and study. I outlined about ten chapters and there will be a lot more to it than just that.
Oh, cool thing though - when I was there, the owner of the café came over and said about four people had mentioned to him that I'd mentioned the café in the new article I put in Happy Camp News on the 12th -- and he thanked me for mentioning it... and I was really happy to know people were reading the news and talking about it.
I met my Alyssa Project goal with 1114 words tonight bringing the total to 17459 words. I have barely scratched the surface of this plot, and wonder how long this will be. Since it is a young adult novel, I don't want it to be too, too long.
Cimeron came in and I read the part I was working on to her. She said the dialogue sounded very realistic. She says the nicest things sometimes. "Who's Jaylin?" she asked, so I told her Alyssa had a baby, and she asked how old Alyssa was. I had to explain it was the sordid story of a teenage mother whose child was taken by CPS. I suggested it might be boring but she said, "Actually, it sounds pretty interesting."
Cool. I just love to hear that teenagers might be interested in this! Who knows where it may lead, but if I have an actual teenager giving me positive feedback, it makes the writing so much easier! Thanks Cimeron!
I wrote two articles for my news website today, so decided not to work on the novel as I usually do.
One article was about the Second Annual River Run we had last weekend. The other article was about the Clarridge Fiddlers, who came to Happy Camp to play during the River Run... and they were so good, and I was so impressed... they got their own article.
Now I've done several plots for the Alyssa Project. I did a 30-minute outline and a plot for Alyssa's internal journey and I had a short plot summary I did before any of the other plots... and wow, not surprisingly, I'm a little confused now. I am trying to put it all together in my head and thinking maybe I should take a night to organize everything into one solid plot. That might make it easier to guide my writing night by night.
Meanwhile I managed to turn out another 1054 words tonight bringing my total to 16345 words. I missed writing entirely on Monday night because I'd driven into Yreka that day and was too tired when I got back. On Tuesday I didn't start writing until I was nearly too tired, and only got about 500 words written. At least I'm making progress.
Today I did the three morning pages and some tasks from the back of Chapter One in The Artist's Way.
Tonight I added another 1115 words to the Alyssa Project, bringing the total word count to 14739. It is cool to see that adding just 1000 words each night, I'm making a lot of progress. At least, I enjoy seeing the total rise.
Well, at the end of the writing session tonight, I was feeling sorry for Alyssa. Everywhere she went tonight she was faced with people being mean and insensitive to her. Finally she lost her temper and told some nosy old man at the courthouse off... swearing at him in the process. Because of that I put the new poll on this page... about whether or not there should be swearing in young adult novels. Please vote and let me know your opinion!
I worked on the Alyssa Project for the last couple of hours. Now I've got a total of 13624 words and that includes the 1101 words I just wrote. I had her involved in a conversation with herself while reading from a legal document, and musing over it. I hope the scene works well and that I won't have to cut it out later. The information about the inaccuracy of the document is important to the overall purpose of the novel.
I finally got the outline done and am ready to move on with writing the story. Along with 1000 pages per day on the Alyssa Project, I've got two other daily writing goals: (1) To write morning pages, and (2) To read/revise at least five pages per day on my first novel, The Scribe of Irohila.
I'm still working on developing the plot outline for the Alyssa Project - and will take at least one more night on that before returning to the manuscript.
Other than that, I'm just too tired to write much here tonight.
Linda needs sleep...
Oh, but one other thing I'm happy about - my Artist's Way group is starting over again from the beginning. Want to join? Last time I got lost somewhere between chapters four and five. I think it was the reading deprivation week that did me in. Something about "reading deprivation" seems frightening to me. Does that mean a week without my computer, or a week just playing computer games because I can't read anything? Can I write during reading deprivation week? Well, at least by starting over at week one I don't have to make that major decision for at least another three weeks!
Yes! I finally got my writing website done... and moved this blog to be part of it!
I've already bought www.lindajomartin.com - but don't have a host yet. Eventually I'll move the site to that domain. In the meantime... this is a start and I'm glad to have the site ready. I worked hard on this today... and many other days.
I wrote two articles for my news website today, so decided not to work on the novel as I usually do.
