Woodwork is moving in tiny bursts, as I come to repeated dead stops to create jigs to perform the next task.  Writing is moving in tiny bursts, as I drag myself to the keyboard once a fortnight for a half hour, 2/3 of which I permit to be taken by minor emergencies.  Work is a full day ahead of deadlines than it was last week.

I am utterly failing to answer emails.  I am losing contact with most of the world as I try to juggle events.

This balance and perspective thing is difficult.

But.  Progress.  However hard to detect.

This is what it takes for Catie (C.E. Murphy, world-famous author and graphic novelist) to be pleased with herself.  I feel, in her shoes, I would be pleased as well.  And my feet would hurt, ’cause, well, big feet compared to Catie’s.

I suspect I don’t need that intensity of accomplishment to be pleased…and, with the recurring fecal storms that eat my brain, I think it might be productive for me to find out — if not where the line of please/displeased is exactly — what zipcode it has on its mailing address.

‘Course, the yardstick might be different from day to day, but that doesn’t make the question without merit.

Rose City Romance Writers, of whom I am a member, met yesterday, and I was in attendance.  This was my second meeting.

My initial goal in joining RCRW was twofold; to do something that, monthly, would remind me that I have mentioned from time to time that I want to write professionally, and to get Lisa off my back follow Lisa’s suggestion because it was good and wise and I agreed with it.  In fact, Lisa was right, and I’ve considered this at some length.

Which, for a change, I won’t recount here.  It has to do with, where you put your time and your money, there, too, will go your life, for if you don’t follow the metrics of your life you suggest by implication that you have squandered them.  Fair enough, and borne out by my experience; since last meeting I’ve been moving back toward the writing.  Good.

At the meetings there is opportunity to declare goals.  To do this, one writes down a measurable goal and throws the script, with a dollar, into the pot.  Next meeting the goals will be assessed; those successfully met will be entered as tickets in a drawing, and the money from all the goals is won by one of those who met theirs.

The chance to win is as nothing to me; I have little belief in luck, for all that I have the scintillating, tripped-on-winning-lottery-ticket sort.  The opportunity to fail means something, though.  ”Only where love and need are one, And the work is play for mortal stakes” — that’s about right, and if the stakes aren’t mortal, at least there are stakes.  I like having stakes, however slim, in games I play.  And there’s the stuff I mentioned about money, above.  Thus, this meeting, I entered three goals:

• I will write each Sunday (and perhaps other days, but at least then) between now and next meeting
• I will complete my (first draft of) Christmas short story by next meeting
• I will write a flash fiction (probably with Lisa) and submit it professionally by next meeting

My money was tendered, and I am laid bare to the potential of a soul-rending failure; my goals unmet, my declaration of accomplishment shown to be so much air, and three dollars gone from my pocket — or success, wild success, such as has never been known by man nor god.

Well then.  Off to the mills for me.  I’ve coffee at elbow, detective-story jazz on Pandora, and my chores largely done for the day.  I believe it’s time for the Toughest Christmas Elf to get roughed up by some shady characters.

ETA:  Wrote.

Word wars with Lisa and the War Room at the same time; 900 words that I didn’t have before, and moving along well in my short story.  I’m having a very easy time writing a detective; I’ll have to try another one of these when this one is done.

One without a Christmas elf as the detective.  That part is throwing me a bit.

Writing for the first time in, I believe, ever.  My darlin’ told me she’d build breakfast if, in return, I sat down with my cup of coffee and tapped out words.  How could I refuse an offer like that?  Besides, I was fresh from the RCRW meeting, and was suitably inspired with “huh, people write stories.  I remember liking that.”

I immediately began to slump at the notion of slogging away at Self Sacrifice some more.  Dutydutyduty called, and I wanted to let it go to voicemail.  Writing wasn’t a joy, wasn’t fun, wasn’t anything but heavy and gray and unlusterful.  Clearly it was time to contact the Muse and order up a fresh batch of joie de’ecrit.

So this morning I’m working up Hardboiled Christmas Candy (working title), a cross between The Maltese Falcon and Rudolph The Rednosed-Reindeer.  How can I not have fun with that?

scurries off for more fun with that

This week I managed to put in 280 minutes.  Bafflingly, I have written fewer words.  I cannot account for this.  I imagine that there is something here about the curvature of the planet, or karma.  Maybe the fey took a hand.

Or, y’know, it could be more of that actions-consequences thing I keep hearing about.  Sounds like magic to me, but who can say?

Whatever, I only averaged 1,700 words/hr this week.  Only.  I think speed is not going to be my problem.  Duration, that’s my problem, and frequency.  I get those in line, and I’ll give Catie a run for her money.

I also note here that I seem to creep along when I count words, but I do damned well when I count minutes spent writing — and count the words as an interesting affiliated datum.

I have no idea what I would think of the Fast Draft method if I had the time to put into it daily, but I think the world of what I’ve been doing the past two weeks.  I think I’ll continue.  I may or may not keep posting my writing metrics here; it seems that would get fairly tedious to the casual viewer fairly quickly.

06:35 — Max 25 minutes

05:30 — Ringler’s Annex 35 minutes

Sat upstairs at the Annex this time.  I didn’t feel nearly so picturesque, but I could see where I put my beer.  Sometimes, things balance.

This has been very frustrating.  Nothing catastrophic, but it’s been very difficult to get to the keyboard.  However:

12:10 — Sun room @ Work 30 minutes

Ohgawd, so much better.  My diction was backing up and my imagery was compacted.

I’ve knocked out nearly 20,000 words in less than two weeks.  I am pleased.  Addtionally, I’ve put about 3,000 of journal posts.  Not bad for a two week stint.  I appear to have broken free the part of my brain that is happy to just sit and yammer, and that assumes that, if I say enough things, I’ll say something worth saying.   Well and, as the poet has said, good.

I’ve also broken free some part of me that is now aching in my hands and wrists.  

Until now the only repetitive stress injury I’ve had was a blister.  This sort of sucks.  It’s not debilitating, and I won’t let it be, but it’s an irritant.  Now I don’t just sit down and type, nor do I stop at having done so, leaping up and proudly announcing that today, again, I am a writer.

No, now I warm up.  Now I stretch out and cool down.  My theory is that, essentially, RSS is an athelete’s pain, and I’m treating it that way.  Warm up the muscles, get the blood flowing and the knots all limbered, use them, then gently bring them back down.  In between times, a bit of strength training to make it harder to get hurt again.

I’m still waiting for the endorphin rush.  Maybe this week.

So now I carry Jarvis around everywhere and carry a rubber ball, as well.  Gentle compressions on the thing beforehand constitute a warm up, and likewise a cool down.  I add some variety and use the supporting muscle groups by manipulating the ball as well as squeezing it.  

What else could that title be intending?  Jeez, you people are odd. 

Okay.  Warmed up.  Off to write.

Oh — !

There’s a story I started some time ago that involves people breaking promises to voodoo loa, and the story ends badly (as it must) for the people, because you just don’t renege on deals with supernatural entities; they’ve collections departments that are uniformly more horrific than the IRS with PMS.

But the story didn’t really go, and got trunked informally.  I didn’t know why.  I mean, the people were showing during the story that they were going to deserve what they get, and I felt the horrific thing that they get was appropriate and unexpected.  But it didn’t go, so it went.

I just realized, while thinking about other things entirely (a quote by Neil Gaiman about bird’s eggs, and why data combined cannot be uncombined, and why people want things that they won’t want to pay for) when it occurred to me what was wrong with the story.  The collections department has to have a series of requests, then dunning letters, then threats of strong legal action, then the warning shot, and then the unexpected horrific thing.  You can’t just jump to garnished wages, you have to get there with a feeling that it has been a long time coming and there was a point, somewhere, when it could have been averted but everyone was too foolish to notice, and now things have become inevitable and Just Desserts.

– oh!

I’ve got to hurry through the rest of my novel draft so I can untrunk the short story, go through a draft of that, and move on with editing the novel.  Or perhaps edit then untrunk.  But the story is back on.

Standing room only on Max into work

Lunch @ 3:00

No breaks

Standing on Max on way home

Beer.  Bed.  Literature can wait until tomorrow.

EDIT:  9:20 — sat down at the behest of Shannon, who declared that ten minutes would be a good thing.  I killed a couple of hundred words I’d written yesterday (including notes for rewriting the entire scene) and wrote –whoosh-- many more than that.  12 minutes.

Smart wife.  I don’t feel like the day beat me, now.

12:48 — Sun room @ work, 35 minutes

Standing to and from on the Max, no breaks at work, short lunch…I get down time tonight.  I’m going to bed.

6:17 — Home waiting for pants to dry 10 minutes

1:03 — Lobby @ work 22 minutes

8:45 — Home 60 minutes

So, another 92 minutes on the WIP.  Go, me!

I had to stand on the Max this morning, so no writing then.  I had to stand on the Max tonight, and then it got stalled out in the tunnel for 45 minutes.  No writing then, either.  I wrote tonight mostly out of a petty determination that, on the second day of this, the world was damned well not going to get in my way.

Actually, tonight was going to be 15 minutes, just for the gesture.  But at the 15 minute mark, I was at 38,782 words.  How could I stop that close to 39,000 words?  What was that, anyway — another five minutes?  So I went, but the scene was dialog that was forming as I wrote it, and I didn’t want to be rude and interrupt.  When I stopped I was at 39,744 words.

How could I possibly stop, less than 300 words from 40k?

Shannon and I call this The Catie Wordcount Syndrome, and it is evil.  Evil!

I can’t think whether I should write a thank you or a blaming letter to Catie.  Must think on this.

Lisa has decided that she’s moving too slowly for her tastes, and so has decided to run herself through a Fast Draft. Essentially what that means is that she turns out 20 pages a day as quickly as she can, no dithering, no revising, no stopping, no whining. In two weeks, she’ll have a workable first draft that can then be revised.

She wanted company, I think, and felt it would do me some good. I’ve never been terribly clever, so.

Ideally, one counts pages or words (250 per page is about right), and then one can determine if one is on quota. This one has determined that Quota is the name of a demon in the fourth ring of hell, the one for correcting those who sell themselves short because there was a quantifiable datum that showed them to be less than perfect — and then torture their loved ones with whining for 25 years.

Quota, thus do I cast you out.

I have a job, a wife, a life, and some moderate need of sleep. If I set myself to 20 pages a day, I will fail, and, failing, will begin the process of self-castigation, publicly mourning the waste I have made of my gifts and my days. I will reflect loudly that no one should love me, for I am an underachiever and ne’er-do-well, and that children should be kept from me lest I soil their lives with my poor influence and bad character. While I am castigating, I will neglect to keep writing, thus proving my allegations.

*yawn*

So, yeah, casting out the demon Quota. *casts* Good upper body workout, throwing quotas out the door.

My goal is just the same as Fast Draft, without the number attached. I will work as hard and as often as I can, in any spare minutes. I will treat this as a two-week sprint; I don’t need to do it forever, I just have to do this to the finish line. At that point I will have so much manuscript complete that whatever is left will be the work of another few days, and then I can edit.

I suspect a whole new hell will be opened then, but that hell is for tomorrow.

With this as preamble, the next post will be the norm for the next 14 days.

No, not the readable sort.  

Flashing is the act of exposing onesself in public.  I’ve an hour in a bar with Jarvis in front of me and no company while the wife is being therapeutically tortured.  I intend to write, but it will be no trouble at all to dodge out and twiddle the hour away.  The best remedy for that behavior is self-discipline, but, lacking that, I’ll use the prospect of embarassment instead.  I’ll check in, update this post with my wordcount, and live with the remorse or exultion that results.

Which, now I’m thinking of it, is a kind of self-discipline.  Well, then.

• Beginning Count:  30,001
• Ending Count:  30,929

Here we go.  The usual fluffy stuff, lust-ridden entendre, and (everyone’s favorite) navel gazing.  Gazing, hell — I examine my navel intensely, learn its habits and stalk it until, triumphantly carrying its carcass over my shoulders and returning to this, our little etheric village, I can lay it out for all to have their part, providing for us all.

(Okay, here’s where I reel myself in and, teeth set to exhibit my exerted will, entirely stop myself from going off on some tangent about an entire aboriginal culture who hunted and lived on the thundering herds of navel.  All parts of the belly button would go to use in this culture.  The umbilical scar would not merely be prey, but treasured cohabitants of the high plains.  Meat, of course, and leather, would be had from them, but warmth, too, in the form of harvested and dried lint, and even the hairs from the more unruly could be woven into useful — I said I wasn’t going to do this.)

Here’s what I found in my navel today.  

Death, pouring beers.

They flowed over us, those dread ides and the week that followed, a dark tide with currents strange and vast, and bore us we knew not where.

Life this week has been extremely life-like, and I’d like that to stop. Shannon’s workplace began to eat her alive, and she bore this with characteristic passivity (like, “Back the hell off or I’ll impale you with your own grandmother’s still-bleeding spinal cord!”). About the time the distemper shots kicked in and she was calming, my workplace rose up and began to eat me. I saw a doctor for a moderate ailment, and had several new experiences associated with that event, some of which (if I am feeling horrid and foul and want to hurt folk who’ve done me no harm) I may share with you all in great detail later. Last night, hot on the heels of this, we stayed in town and helped Lee & Dorothy set up for Orycon, which we will begin to attend today.

Through most of this I have kept my words flowing, but day before yesterday was only 300 words and yesterday was naught but work and sleep, and was sufficient. Words may or may not happen this afternoon; I favor “will”, but will only hold me to moderately super-human standards.

I’m getting much better about that. It’s making the writing process remain fun, which was one of my goals for this year. Good.

And. Still on track for first draft. Also good.

EDIT: Better than on track. The goal I am shooting for is between 80k and 90k words (short novel length). If I perform two 20-minute stints with Dr. Wicked each day, I will be done with the first draft two weeks ahead of time.

I’m okay with that.

18,059 words, with more to come in a few minutes.  Well on track for Amazon, even if I am behind on NaNoWriMo.  I am sustaining, and having a nice time with the process.

I rejoice.

I’ve just play-tested Dr. Wicked’s Write or Die machine. I don’t like the way the tab works, but I gotta say, that was a fast 500 words….

	503
10
lab.drwicked.com

So….

Recently, I’ve been discussing NaNoWriMo with others.  The thought they have had (there were several of these) was that NaNo is a made-up sort of deadline, and thereby rendered without teeth.  

I give my NaNo teeth.  I give it teeth by telling my family, friends, you guys, my cow-orkers, posting a NaNo flyer in my cell cube … I give it teeth of Embarassment.  Worst of all will be how I feel when, a year or a decade from now, I read through my blog and note my enthusiasm, my grand plans, my optimism … and how I let it dribble away without a word.

*shudders*

The worst thing I can imagine is adding things I regret to my life.  So, NaNo has teeth for me because I’m horrified at the thought of how I’ll feel if I’m slack and let ennui or inertia master me.

This year, NaNo is going well.  I started with “50,000 words … but if I hit 45,000 and wrote well and enjoyed it, then I win, because this year I’m shooting for sustainability instead of endurance and ultimate effort.”  That’s fine, but not quantifiable.  Goals without quantifiable measures of attainment are … toothless.

I will say that, so far even with lack of sleep and several days of social activity taking the place of writing, I am writing well and much and enjoying the process.

So.  I told Lisa, mentor et ami sans reproche

I will, working daily, complete an editable first draft of Self
Sacrifice by January 19 and have a revised manuscript based on
that draft ready to be uploaded to the Amazon Breakthrough
Novel Award Contest website NLT February 5, 2009.

And, because I am a masochist, I will publish this to E&S and
install a countdown timer indicating my two deadlines.

Uhm.

I must be ready for this, because I am very aware of what I
just committed to do and it seems perfectly reasonable to me. 

Yikes.

Countdown timers will be forthcoming.

Ambercon was this weekend, which warrants its own post.  Ambercon eats wordcounts.  However, I am sufficiently recovered that yesterday I wrote a few hundred words, this morning I wrote a few hundred words … I’ll write a few hundred more at lunch, and again on the way home.  Progress is happening.

Surprisingly, I didn’t seem to feel a need to self-flagellate over not having written for three days.  Just recognized that I had enough brain power to stay awake on the commute and pulled out Jarvis.  I keep omitting drama that I used to have regularly.  You’d think I’d be used to having cut it out, but it still surprises me.

My synopsis sprung the tiniest of leaks this morning; my protag glared at me from the middle of a drunken conversation with the Victim of the story and asked me sharply just what the hell I thought I was about; wouldn’t it be better to just get on with things.  

“I mean.  I mean … listen, I’m not sht … not stupid.  [This thing] just happened, and [that thing] has been happening, so … and I’ve got more’n two brain sh-cells to rub together.  I think I should [undertake next action scheduled for three chapters later].”  I was lacking in convincing arguments, so let him go.  

Which was an odd conversation.  I’m  a little bit sorry that it will necessarily have to be omitted from the final draft.  

The short version:  

• Synopsis — good
• Jarvis — good

After weeks of typing nothing — no emails, no posts, no stories — I am breaking silence and taking part in NaNoWriMo. And 70 Days of Sweat. And, somehow, am going to do this without obsessing over word counts, but about involving myself in something I enjoy instead.

How can take part in two word-count oriented events without worrying about word counts?

An excellent question. Next question, please?

It’s fair to say that I’ve spent about 25 years sorting out not what is important, but how to tell what is important…and then sorting out whether what is important really ought to be, and what to do about it if it oughtn’t be so important.

Frighteningly, I have most of that sorted out.  Why is that frightening?  Because it’s been taking up most of my time and energy, and with that off my plate (or at least off to one side of my plate) there’s time and energy to deal with other things.

This has been a sort of shadowy feeling in the back of things for me, but yesterday it moved to sharp relief.  I was concerned about my reasons for writing.  Not the writing itself, not how to do it or when I would find time.  I was concerned that perhaps my reasons for writing at all were pathological and should be treated in therapy by a strong willed professional armed with whip, chair, and thorazine.  See, I get a rush when I receive a acceptance letter, and another when my work is suddenly out there for everyone to read.

Okay, stop laughing.  My concern was that I was basing my self-regard on the basis of the value others placed on me; ie I was worthwhile because someone would publish my work.  Sure, that motivation would move me right along, but it was faulty in premise and would all end in tears.  I was paralysed with doubt; could I, in all conscience, continue to write when I was feeding this horrible breakage in my psyche?

Shannon pointed out, at this stage (fifteen minutes or so into my thought process) that I had been writing for years without publication or payment.  ”Oh, that’s all right, then,” I said, and finished my first draft of Wet Footprints.

Clearly, things are much more self-evident in my head these days; short months ago I would have agonized for days before I said anything, and then would have held severe reservations on the findings of impartial consultants.

So.  (There’s always a “so”, with me; every thought has its resultant action, otherwise what’s the point of thinking?)

So.  Since things are clear, I worked out a Map To Success, have formulated several concrete steps to take along various paths, and have realized that  I am (finally) approaching a point where I can make plans and have reasonable expectation that I won’t let the ducks nibble the footings out from under them.  So I have (a year after my mentor suggested I do so) downloaded Consistency, and have set it up for use.  Go me.

My Map To Writing Success:

I want to write stories, publish them, and be paid so that I can write more stories more of the time, because I love telling stories and entertaining people (and, yes, holding their attention); therefore, I will write as much as I can sustainably until I am writing daily and submit what I write for publication.  My passion is what makes people tick — I spend silly amounts of time thinking about that — and being whimsical.  Those can only add depth to my writing.

Wet Footprints, spawned from Deathless Pose 7,000 words of conventional horror, has a first draft that may now be revised.  I know what it needs, and where it goes astray.  I am well pleased.  It can now come out of the darkroom for editing.

My first authorial payment ever arrived in the mail today. I didn’t chew on it or roll around on it, but I did press my cheeks against it to mark it with my scent. My hexicle at work has two acceptance letters and an extremely nice — wonderful, even — email appreciating Apology (Hi, Jessi!). We are going on vacation today, and I have carefully planned what I am going to write, and how many times daily I will twist the ladybug.

It’s not obsessive. It’s not, really.

Let me tell you about Writing 121.

Bonehead English.  The writing class that even the dimmest bulb can pass.

I failed Writing 121.

Seven times.

I was unable to get the Black Cat.  I had to accept that fate wished me to have a ladybug, instead.

Grab-and-twist interface, makes a noise at the end, portable.  Ladybugs are fine with me.

Goals are lovely things.  Short term, long term, those hard-to-grasp midterm goals, they’re useful and give you a sense of accomplishment when you’ve set them.

I’ve a few goals.  Write novels for publication, write short stories for publication, live in a house, have my finances clean enough that I don’t need to think about them any more, get our debts ordered (an odd thought; do they ever run short of debt and have to order more?), get enough sleep for as a habit instead of an anamoly….  I find that I’ve listed my goals in what I have come to consider Long term to Short term order.  The last goals listed are making such a ruckus in my life (or, in the case of sleep, such a drain of emotional energy and mental capability) that I can’t pursue the othes well.

Since the others are the ones that are important to me, that’s making me sort of fussy.  I spend my days fiddling around with the UNIMPORTANT goals, like getting enough sleep or getting out of collections, when there are LIFE CHANGING IMPORTANT goals out there to work toward, like writing a short story that will sell for a few dollars.

I used to think that, since the short term goals were immediate (and thereby more urgent),  the implication was that my long term goals were not important.  Not so, I now realize.  The short term goals are almost not goals at all.

My long term goals are Things To Achieve or Lifestyle To Live.  My short term goals … very much resemble a list of Obstacles To Overcome.

So…perhaps my fussiness comes from having my eye on goals of achievment and existance, but my daily life is centered on slaloming through life’s pot-holes, not attaining anything or existing in a perfect fashion at all.

No WONDER I’m fussy.

…

Today I will go buy me something classy, like this, and use it daily.  I’ll set it for 15 minutes (number picked from the air — they float all around me these days, like pollen or gnats, but quantifiable) each evening and write during that time as the cat spins ’round; emails, journal entries, notes of bathroom wall scribbling, short stories, novels — writing.  I don’t care what kind, at this point.  It will be a daily exercise, no matter the state of my brain-death, in Attaining instead of Dodging.

So.  A short term goal that is positive.  Good on me, I feel.

Dear R. Scott Shanks, Jr.,

Thank you for sending us “Sight Unseen”. It’s beautiful, and I’d like to purchase it for production on Pseudopod.

Attached is a contract…

Ohmigodohmigodohmigodohmigodohmi—