Here and There

Isn't the view from these windows fantastic? Even when the branches are bare, I still love to look out and dream about being up in a tree house. This is the room I want to tranform into our writers' room. I say our and not my because I will be sharing the space with my husband. He's the one who is actually making money off of his writing these days so I will play nice and not lock him out.

Right now we're using the room as a temporary guest room while we redo the other bedroom. It's not large, but there is plenty of space for more bookshelves, a long table (to go under the windows) and some comfy chairs. The blinds will be replaced by something softer, either Roman blinds or sheer panels. Or maybe nothing at all? The walls will be painted a soft color and I already know what prints I want on the wall.

The landing...I love how the room is tucked away by itself. Really, I don't think there could be a better spot in my home in which to work.

My hope is that by thinking about how I want this room to look and function, I will start taking myself seriously as a writer, as someone who is good with words and who deserves a dedicated space to create and grow. I know good writing can and does happen everywhere, from a crowded train to a small coffee shop, but I also know that I need a hidey hole in which to find my voice.

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In other news, I am still brainstorming ideas for Nanowrimo and am not coming up with much other than the genre, which I will reveal in a future post (hey, gotta get you to come back here somehow). Despite not having a plot just yet, I am looking forward to Nano more this year than possibly every other year other than my first. I might end up something so atrocious with which I wouldn't let line the litter box with, but no matter, I am going to have a lot fun with it.

How are the rest of you coming along with your Nano plotting? Are you going to share your ideas or keep them close to your chests until November?

Emerald City Writer's Conference

This afternoon I’ll be leaving for the 20th Annual Emerald City Writer’s Conference sponsored by the Greater Seattle Romance Writers of America. This is my third year attending. Signing up for ECWC that first year was the best thing I could have done for myself as a “pre published” writer.

Writing conferences, especially those geared toward your chosen genre, are a great way to meet people of all experience and skill level. From NYT best selling authors to those who are just starting out and everyone in between you can learn from everyone. Conferences are also a great way to have face time with editors and agents. I’ll be doing my first ever live pitch to an editor and an agent this weekend. I should be nervous and I am but I also acknowledge the opportunity of what I’m about to embark on and the excitement of what it might bring my future.

Conferences are about networking and meeting new people (as well as connecting with old friends) but they also offer great workshops. From craft to business to technology, most writing conferences will offer a wide variety of workshops given by the best in the business. This year I’m looking forward to a session about writing a series and one on western characters which I have the privilege of moderating. There’s one hour block in particular where I want to attend all of the sessions being offered. Thankfully the planners are taping most of the sessions and making CD copies available in a couple of weeks to those who want to buy. (As an aside the RWA National conference has made the handouts from the last couple of national conferences available on the website.) We also have a book fair featuring 50 authors, most who are attending and/or presenting that is open to the public. Not to mention the basket raffle that is held on Saturday and Sunday during lunch. Last year I was one of the co-chairs of that event – it was a ton of work but a great time.

Then there are the keynote speakers. This year we are lucky to have Deborah Cook (at lunch on Saturday), Christine Warren (at dinner tonight) and Lisa Jackson (at lunch on Sunday). All of the keynotes in the past have left me truly inspired and I’d imagine these ladies will do no less. Then of course there is the Cherry Adair “Write the Damn Book” challenge which I accepted last year and completed. Getting recognized this evening by one of my favorite authors is going to be a thrill I know I’ll remember for a long time.

If you’ve never been to a writing conference I’d highly encourage you to find one in your area and attend. It will be well worth the money and I promise one of the best weekends you’ll spend – until the next conference!

How My Netbook Changed The Way I Write

When I first started writing, back in high school (during the pen-and-spiral-notebook days), I tried to keep the fact that I wrote a secret, at least from my family. I was pretty sure my older brother, at least, would have made fun of me. My younger brother knew I wrote, but he was always cooler about such things. On the other hand, I was pretty sure my mom wouldn't have understood at all. She'd want to know why I was wasting time on things like writing when I could be doing things like cleaning or yardwork.

So most of my writing in those days (and on into college, since I lived in my parents' house until I got married) took place either during free periods at school (and sometimes, I blush to admit, during the less-interesting of my classes), or late in the evening, between the hours of 10:00 pm and 2:00 am. I'd usually curl up in my bed or my beanbag chair with my notebook and scribble away until I just couldn't stay awake any longer.

Once I got married, I struggled through years of writing on various desktop, portable, and laptop computers. I found it easier to write on a computer -- once I stopped feeling silly about it -- but it was never as handy as that spiral notebook that I could carry with me and curl up with anywhere. The laptops made it better, but it still wasn't quite the same.

Then this past January, my Beloved Husband and I decided to treat ourselves to netbooks for Christmas. Mine didn't actually arrive until February (there was a problem with the first one they sent), but when it did, it was love at first touch. I'd worried that I'd find the 3/4 size keyboard difficult to use, but that turned out to be a non-issue -- after about two hours, my fingers adjusted, and I can now type just as fast on the netbook as on any other keyboard.

In many ways, I feel like I've returned to my spiral notebook days. The netbook is small and light enough that I can carry it with me almost anywhere -- and I do! Which means that any time there are a few free minutes, I can write: first thing in the morning; at lunchtime, at work; while waiting for the take-out pizza; curled up in bed at night.

I've listened to a lot of writers speak about how to find the time to write, and one thing I hear over and over again is that if you wait for a free three-hour block of time before you even consider writing anything, you'll almost never get any writing done. But if you take advantage of the little bits of time you can create here and there, the next thing you know, you've got a novel on your hands. I'll talk more about how I manage those little snippets of time later, but I think my netbook is helping me to find them, at least!

Oh, and the one big disadvantage of a netbook? When I whip it out in a crowded room, I inevitably have to spend a few minutes responding to all the cries of, "Oh, what a cute little computer!" The fact that it's pink probably contributes to the problem...it really is cute!

A Room of Your Own

"A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." - Virginia Woolf

I'm not a big fan of Virginia Woolf (don't hate!) but this quote of hers rings true. Money- or some semblance of financial security- is important, yes, but I’m more focused on the room. Carving out a proper writing space is crucial to the creative process, for me anyway, and it is something I’ve neglected to my detriment.

For example: Right now I’m sitting on the loveseat in my living room. My laptop is resting somewhat awkwardly on my lap (my legs are crossed), while a pen and pad of paper sit just out of reach on the coffee table. An old episode of Cops is playing on the television and even though it’s one I’ve seen at least half a dozen times already, I stop every couple of minutes to check out the latest train wreck. My husband, who is crashed out on the other couch, comes over a couple of times to show me something on his own laptop. Nellie the cat is sitting next to me, swiping at the battery cord when she is not trying to climb onto me. This is where I can be found most nights and this is how it usually goes. Guess how many times I’ve started and stopped this entry since Monday. Too many to count. I’m sure that’s not at all surprising considering the atmosphere I just described. If I’m having this much trouble with a blog entry, imagine how productive I am with my novels.

I need a room of my own. Clearly the living room is out. The dining room is nice, but the table is a shade too high for comfortable writing. There is a bedroom just off of the living room and there is even a desk and a couch in there. Not too bad. It doesn’t feel right, though. While not large, the room feels too big. Upstairs, however…upstairs there is a little room that might be just right. I am like Goldilocks in the three bears’ cottage, trying out this space and that one. This room is just the right size for a writing table, a couple of bookshelves and a comfortable chair. The light is bright, but not too harsh. The three windows look out into the trees, making the room feel sort of like a tree house. Perfect. I’ve had my eye on this space for about as long as we’ve owned this house. The room is being used for other purposes but it won’t take much to reclaim it for my own. My own room. No more distractions and no more excuses. If I want to be serious about my writing, I need to be serious about the space in which I write.

Do you have a room- or space- of your own? Does it matter what is around you as you work? How important is it to you to have a special place for writing? What does your space look like?

Save Your Work

I had thought about talking about NaNoWriMo this week or the Emerald City Writer's Conference (which I'll be attending with Colleen this coming weekend), but instead I'm going to talk about something else (those other topics will be addressed in coming weeks).

I'm sure I don't have to tell my fellow blogmates here to save their work. It's something we all do. But do you keep back-ups? If tomorrow your computer were struck by lightning (what? it could happen) or stolen by nefarious individuals at the local coffee shop, do you have back-ups of your WIPs?

I'm terrified of losing my WIPs, as well as notes I've made on future ideas. When I'm working on a project, I save the file in multiple places - my netbook, a USB drive, my external portable harddrive, and I email a copy of the latest version to myself each time I update it. This way I never lose the most recent version.

Am I a little paranoid? Maybe. But I currently live in an area which as been told that there is a strong likelihood that we'll be flooded out this winter (we're in particular danger because I live just a stones throw from the river in question). I'm already thinking ahead to what do I move to the second floor and what do I take with us, when and/or if we get the evacuation notice.

Books, I can replace. Same with dvds and cds. But the ideas collected on my computer, those I can't replace.

Pitching – (or what am I getting myself into?)

Next weekend is the Emerald City Writer’s Conference sponsored by the Greater Seattle Romance Writers of America chapter of which I am a member. This is the 20th anniversary for this conference. If you’ve never been, romance writer or no, I’d highly encourage you to check it out next year.

This year is my third year attending. It’s also the first year that I’m going to pitch at it. They have three editors and three agents attending. When you register you indicate your preference and find out who you’re pitching to when you get your registration packet upon arrival at the conference.

Pitching at a conference (from what I’ve been told anyway) is a group pitch. Meaning that you are with other people and you get literally a couple of minutes to make the editor or agent want to request pages from you. The ECWC has a great event on Friday evening called “Pitch Fest” where you can ask questions of the editors and agents and then get help from people who’ve done this before on toning up your pitch.

I have two things I can pitch depending on who I get. My historical western and my romantic suspense. I realized this afternoon I have no idea what I am doing. I mean I get a few sentences to talk about my story, make sure to mention the conflict and hope that it doesn’t sound like a snooze-fest. One thing I have in my favor is that I’m at my best when I’m presenting something to people whether it’s a job interview or at a meeting. Hopefully that will help.

So this weekend will be spent tightening up my pitches. Check out my post on Friday when I’ll be blogging (late) about the first part of the ECWC.

Getting Organized and NaNoWriMo

As Andrea mentioned earlier this week, we're just a month away from the start of National Novel Writing Month. I've done NaNoWriMo twice now, in 2006 and 2008, and "won" both times. (I skipped 2007 because we were refinishing all the wood floors in our house and I just didn't have time.) Though I have to be honest and admit that neither story was "finished" in 30 days and 50,000 words; the first one (The Vedia Gamble) came in at 120K words and took me until December 20th to finish, and the second one (The Serendipity Caper) took me until May 31, 2009 to wrap up -- at a whopping 280K words. Both are set in what I call my "Phoebe-verse," in which Nebraska librarian Phoebe Caldicott accidentally gets swept away by a crew of space pirates and becomes their captain.

Both books were great fun to write, and I think the process of putting out an average of 1,667 words every day for an entire month is incredibly freeing. When I don't stop to edit each and every sentence to death before moving on to the next, I get a lot more writing done. Actually finishing my writing projects was something of a challenge for me before I met NaNoWriMo (though I did complete two books and a couple of short stories before then). But now that I've seen the value of just telling the story first and worrying about the fine points later, I'm hooked. After all, no first draft is ever pretty. Right?

And I have to admit ... the endorphine rush of actually finishing a novel is pretty darned heady. I could easily get addicted to it!

I think both are good stories (and my alpha readers actually seemed to enjoy them), but both require a bit of work in order to get them ready for submission to publishers and agents. In the meantime ... November is approaching, and I'm not ready to dip back into the "Phoebe-verse" for a third helping until I have the first two books in a more final state. So I'm obviously going to have to look elsewhere for inspiration this year. The question is, where?

Like my friends here, I get lots of story ideas. Sometimes it's a whole story, and sometimes it's just a character or a setting or a plot point. And they can come from almost anywhere -- a photograph, a line from a song, a mis-read headline, an overheard snippet of conversation, or a fragment of a dream. At one point, back in college, I actually kept a paper journal where I jotted these thoughts and ideas down. Sadly, I'm no longer that disciplined.

I do keep a file called "Story Ideas" on my netbook, and at least some of my ideas have made it in there. The problem is that I also kept one on my old laptop, and on the laptop before that, so now I have idea files all over the place. Not only that, but since an idea can jump out at me from just about anywhere, I often have them when I don't have my netbook handy. So then what?

I did get a small notebook to keep in my purse, where I can jot down ideas. Sadly, I don't use it much, though sometimes my steno pad at work serves that purpose too. I have a feeling both will see more use when November rolls around.

Interestingly, the tool I've found most useful recently is my LiveJournal. I can access it from anywhere there's an Internet connection, and it's an easy matter to jot myself a private entry that I can then pull up later. Tagging these entries with "story idea" makes it easy to pull them all together in one spot for easy reference.

So now I'm considering moving all of my story ideas onto my LJ, using a standard format that looks something like this:

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Title: The Vedia Gamble
Genre: SF/Adventure
Status: Editing

Quick Synopsis (1-2 sentences): A middle-aged spinster from Nebraska is inadvertently abducted by space pirates, accidentally becoming their captain.

Jacket Blurb*: Phoebe Caldicott didn’t think her life could get any worse. Not only was she trapped in a dead-end job that she hated passionately, but she was in debt, single, rapidly approaching forty, and still a virgin to boot. And now she was on her way home from her sister’s funeral, on an overcrowded airplane that was running late and out of peanuts – of course. How could her life get any worse?

The pirate spaceship The Damned Strumpet was just dipping into the Earth’s atmosphere to replenish her oxygen supplies when she accidentally scooped up part of one of the planet’s primitive aircraft. And wouldn’t you know, the craft’s only survivor -- Phoebe -- somehow managed to kill The Strumpet’s captain – which meant that she was now the captain!

No doubt about it, Phoebe “Ace” Caldicott was in for one hell of a ride!

Notes: There are one or more saboteurs aboard the ship, and Phoebe needs to find them and stop them. (etc.)
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*Note that most of my story ideas get written up first as the copy from the book's (as yet imaginary) back cover. I figure if I can't get the basic idea down in one or two snappy-sounding paragraphs, I'm not ready to write it up yet.

So I'm going to give this a try. My goal is to get my ideas organized by next week, so I can pick my NaNoWriMo project. I'll let you know how it works out!