Tag: The Middle Princess

On the Job, Naughty or Not

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

Something about these bird tracks in the snow seems heartbreakingly sweet to me. They make good neighbors, the birds. Yesterday they were busily eating all the seed they could, ahead of this storm. They must be tucked in somewhere today because it’s very quiet out there.

I’m at one of those funny crossroads places.

I mentioned yesterday that I’d finished The Middle Princess. Now I have a brief window of time before I get edits for The Novel Formerly Known As Obsidian. That’s right – we’re retitling. It’s my own damn fault. With Sapphire out there, Obsidian sounds like a sequel, which it is most decidedly not. So, if any of you who’ve read Obsidian – hell, even if you haven’t – feel free to suggest better titles. Something that suggests the fantasy/science theme. 

Get busy, would you?

My plan is to write a new BDSM short, to please at least one of my editors, but I’m not feeling it. Part of my mind is still with my princess and her adventures. A huge part is taken up with better ways to present the graphics for this deliverable for the #dayjob. And still more is lining up when I can put up the Christmas tree and which cookies I should make. Kinky sex is just not in the mix right now.

But this is where I have to pull out the professional chops.

I know, I know – it sounds ridiculous to refer to writing naughty stories as buckling down and getting serious. Still, just like I have to make myself work the #dayjob when I don’t want to, some days I have to apply the will power to focus on a writing project that contributes to the career.

Maybe I’ll sneak in a batch of Christmas cookies, too.

On Not Being Finished

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

We have a Winter Storm Watch in effect and the moon is giving its own misty ring of warning.

It’s funny, when I finished drafting The Middle Princess last month, I didn’t feel much of anything. No exuberance. No post-partum sorrow. I’m not sure I even mentioned it here.

I understand now that this is because I knew I wasn’t really finished with it.

Oh, I’d written clear through to the end. I’m a beginning-to-end writer, writing the story as if I’m reading it. Which is often how it feels: write the next page so I can find out what happens! But I also knew the ending wasn’t right. I had an idea of how the problems should resolve and I kept thinking it would pop up. Maybe in the next scene? And then the story was done and this magical thing I thought would appear never had.

So, I went straight back to page one and started revising.

I knew all along I’d have to immediately revise. I’m starting to learn my own process and that’s just part of it. Now, let me make clear that this was a painful growth step for me. I know – it sounds absurd. All writers have to revise. But I don’t like it. (Though apparently I do like italics, especially today.) Back in my younger and far more arrogant days, i.e. college, I composed all of my papers on a Brother Correctronic typewriter. For those of you young-uns, this was before the popular use of the home computer and word processing and my typewriter could remember and correct an ENTIRE LINE of text. This was a miracle after years of struggling with white-out and correction tape. In the snow. Uphill both ways. Seriously, people in my dorm lined up to use my typewriter.

Anyway, I wrote all of my papers in one sitting, composed on the typewriter, with no revision. I mostly got away with it, too.

But what I’ve learned about myself as a fiction writer is, because I don’t (can’t) pre-plot, the story drifts as I go. I discover new things about the world and the characters that I didn’t know at the beginning. I’m now more resigned to the ugly need for a “do-over” on each draft.

This is totally how it feels to me. Like I didn’t get it right the first time and I have to do it again. In my head, I understand this is not a reasonable attitude, but…

So, I went back to page one and began revising, reworking and smoothing the story as I went. Making the histories consistent. I hoped that, as I approached the end for a second time, this magical something would appear.

It did.

Hallelujah.

I don’t know how I missed it the first time, but last week, I found the missing scene. The one that ties up all these little clues I found along the way. I wrote it yesterday and sped right through to the end. Everything fell into place.

This time I felt the relief, the exuberance and sorrow of finishing.

I only wish I could have whipped that final page out of the typewriter with a triumphant flourish.

I kind of miss that part.

Finding the End

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

Full moon rising the other night. Just a bit of nostalgia.

I’m catching up a bit here, on photos and topics, both.

The other day (see?) I had an interesting Twitter conversation with the charming Abby Mumford. She announced to Twitter at large that she believed was done writing her novel. Then she asked how she should know if she was really done.

This might seem like a silly question. Duh – you’re done when the story is over. Thing is, when you’re writing, you don’t always know when the story is over. In fact, if you’re like most writers, the story doesn’t really end at all for you. You have this sense of the ongoing thread of your characters’ lives. Perhaps this crisis is over, but it’s not like they all fall over dead at the end, not unless you’re writing a Shakespeare tragedy.

(Even with those, the role-call of deaths in the final act begins to feel a bit contrived. Really, Will? EVERYONE??)

So, I told her that, if she’d tied up all her threads, then she was done. Even a thread that continues into the future needs a nice little knot at the end of a particular story. She thought they were, but she was feeling still unfinished. I finally suggested that she type “The End” if it made her feel better.

She did and it did.

This might seem like a false resolution, but endings, especially on first drafts, are moving targets. By the time you go back through the whole novel, cut, amplify, eliminate, massage and tighten, then ending might have moved by 45 degrees. Which is necessary, sometimes. I’ve heard that  John Irving never starts a book until he knows the last line. But I also know, from reading about his process, that he revises over and over, getting to that ending.

For me, each book is different. Usually I have to write to find out how it all ends. With Middle Princess, I’ve had a pretty good idea how it ends, but I’ve been sneaking up on that ending for days now. In the past, when I’ve gotten close to the end, the words flow in a great, ultimate rush. Not so this time. I keep telling myself it doesn’t have to be perfect, that I’ll likely change it in revision. Still, it only feeds at a measured pace. I’m tying up the knots, one by one.

Soon, I know, I’ll be done.

After the First Mile

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

David and I have been dragging rear a bit this week. It’s probably a mild virus, possibly something that hitchhiked from the tropics. Not awful, but we haven’t been hopping up and hitting the gym like usual.

Today, though, we mustered up the will power and did the workout. Afterwards, David said, “It didn’t feel good at first, but after the first mile, I got my rhythm and then it felt great.”

You know me – I thought of writing.

I’ve been working my way back into the groove this week with Middle Princess. I know I’ve talked about it before, how difficult it can be to get back into the writing every day and, more, trying to hit at least 1,000 words/day. A lot of people out there are doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which calls for 50,000 words in the month, or about 1,666 words/day.

For me, I’ve really found that that first mile is really the hardest. Wordcount-wise, it’s somewhere around the first 350-400 words. Those can be painful and take forever to get out, but after that, it starts to feel good. Oh sure, some days I have to eke out to the very end, but often if I can just get past the 500 word mark, I can go pretty easily.

David said he thinks the hormones kick in after the first mile and I said, no, that shouldn’t be the case, because I see it with the writing like this.

What I think it is? The subconscious. Our subconscious is like a little kid or a pet. They like to play, to have fun, to run around and enjoy life. It’s the conscious, the left brain, who says “no more goofing off. you’re going to sit down and accomplish something.”

No, the subconscious doesn’t like hearing this. And, like a toddler or a puppy, it will test you.

Oh look! A yummy book to read!

Oh, let’s go outside!

What’s going on in Twitter-land?

If we want to get something done, we have to keep gently steering the subconscious back on task. I do mean gentle. If you scream at it, it’ll shut down and sulk.

But, if you keep running on the treadmill, keep tapping those keys, eventually the subconscious will play along. Then it starts to have fun. And, that, my friends, is when you hit the glory point.

It’s there. Believe me.

Let’s Mist Again

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

We’re predicted to freeze tonight – exactly 32 F for the low. Time to bring in my container plants and bedding down the perennials for the winter.

That’s okay, as we’re a week into October now.

(No – I have no idea how that happened. One of my editors is planning to report the theft of September to the proper authorities.)

I’ve been thinking about imagination and creating stories lately. Totally part of my Neil Gaiman kick, I’m sure. It’s also because I found out that Marcella, Laura and I will be presenting a writers panel at the RT Booklovers Convention in April called I Was Born This Way! We all have really different styles of plotting, pre or no, and now we’ll have to find coherent ways to discuss it. I, of course, represent the mister pole, where I plot virtually nothing ahead of time. Not because I don’t think that sounds like a great idea, but because I just can’t.

Yesterday I wrote the scene where my Middle Princess arrived in the foreign country. All through the book so far, people have told wild tales about the place and the people. Tons of misinformation. In many ways the book has turned out to have the theme of things not being what they seem. So, she’s been anticipating – kind of dreading, kind of excited – arriving in this near-mythical place which will become her home. Believe me, I’m giving nothing away here. We know from the beginning that her fate will go in this direction, no matter how she fights it. She’s all interested to see what it’s really like.

And so was I.

Cuz, um, I had absolutely no idea.

This seems to be how my imagination works. I can think about the place, come up with hints and ideas, but until I write my heroine and I’m riding in her head, seeing the place, I just can’t seem to know much about it. While this creates uncertainty, it also makes writing really fun. But the place turned out to be… well, that part would be spoilery.

Suffice to say I was surprised.

Damn, now I want to tell you all about it.

😀

Buffing Up

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

This is not how Baltimore looks this morning. No, Baltimore is moist and grey. I can’t see the rain, but people are going by with umbrellas. I’m missing my Santa Fe blue skies.

(Yeah, okay, we had a couple weeks of not so blue – here’s my photo contrasting with the same flowers against a stormy sky from a few days ago.)

So, as long-time blog-gobblers know, I’ve been a proponent of the 1K/day. It worked for me to try to write 1,000 words each day, which I do before I start the day job. On Twitter, someone started the #1K1hr, where write either 1,000 words or for an hour, whichever comes first. That’s kind of fun to do, because groups of people sprint together. However, I find that the time pressure interferes and I don’t enjoy the storytelling as much. Then this one gal had to start bragging about doing #2k1hr, saying that 1K is for wimps, which felt all competitive and awful to me.

There’s a reason I didn’t do team sports in school.

Um, besides the fact that I was a klutz and no one would have me. But, funny, no one ever yelled at me to read more books! Faster!

(Now I’m picturing the librarians like the football coaches, with track suits and whistles, veins bulging in their temples. “You’re just not putting effort into it, Kennedy! I want to see 100 pages in thirty minutes – now, go!”)

At any rate, I think I mentioned at some point here that I’ve changed my approach a bit, with drafting The Middle Princess. When I was in my long spell of revising, it naturally didn’t work for me to shoot for 1K and the then switch to the day job. So I was revising for two hours. That worked fine. And I did it long enough that working for two hours became a habit. (And habit becomes ritual which becomes sacred and then you’re golden.) So I started drafting for two hours. My goals are all set up (on spreadsheets) for 1K/day, but now, once I reach my 1K, I keep going until my two hours are up.

And wow.

I don’t want to jinx myself, but I’ve been amazingly productive. Like 10,000 to 12,000 words per week productive. Plus it feels good and not draining or exhausting. I’m at over 60K on Middle Princess and closing in on the Act II climax. I’m a week ahead of my self-imposed deadline.

Which is good, because I’m braced not to get anything much done while I’m on day job travel.

But, maybe that will change, too.

 

Story Intrusion

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

This is Isabel’s favorite summer snoozing spot – on the east side of the house, in the shade, where she gets a lovely little breeze. It has the added bonus of a wall she can put her back against or, as she is here, press with her back paws.

Yes, I have to go pet her all the time. The cuteness is too much to resist.

The other evening I was out on the patio, too, reading Zoe Archer’s Blades of the Rose bundle. (For those of you not snapping up every ebook deal you can find, a “bundle” is like a digital box set. In this case, I was able to get all four of the books in her Blades of the Rose series for the price of one book. Fab deal. The only thing is, Kindle measures reading progress by percent, not page numbers. So, when you’re reading four books essentially at once, you’re stuck in the low percentages FOREVER. 3%. 4%. 5%. I have to get over it… But I digress.) While I was reading her lovely story, bits of The Middle Princess started floating through my head.

This is a good thing. First, it means that Zoe’s stories are inspiring and put me in the best frame of mind to create my own stories. I think it’s really a high compliment to the author. Second, it means that Middle Princess is talking to me and that part of me is connecting to the story even when I’m not actively writing. I don’t know how other novelists do it, but I really need that kind of ongoing flow, especially since I can’t work on it all day long. It’s also a lovely, dreamy feeling.

The phenomenon reminds me of REM intrusion. REM is Rapid Eye Movement sleep, of course, or dreaming sleep. What’s really interesting about sleep-deprivation studies is that they all show that the main effect of sleep deprivation is sleepiness. This seems silly until you think about it. The symptoms of sleepiness – feelings of fatigue, intense desire to sleep, blurred vision, murky thinking – all intensify the more sleep is missed. With sleep, the symptoms disappear again.

The really measurable effect of sleep deprivation is when REM sleep is lost.

Studies have been done where people were allowed to sleep as much as they liked, but were awakened whenever their brains kicked into REM. This has dramatic and rapid effects. People quickly lose the ability to make rational decisions instead of emotional ones. The most minor problem becomes insurmountable. After a few days, the need for REM state becomes so desperate that the brain spontaneously goes into REM even while people are awake, called REM intrusion.

Yeah, you actually start dreaming while you’re up and about. Puts a whole ‘nother spin on hallucinations, doesn’t it?

I kind of wonder if Story Intrusion (my term) isn’t similar, though less pathological. I hope.

Maybe I’ll go have a nap by the side of the house.

Why It Has to Be Every Day

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

When newer authors ask me for advice, which they sometimes do, apparently laboring under the notion that I know what I’m doing, they often ask if they really truly have to write every day.

It’s funny, because I remember asking that very same question, in the neighborhood of 15 years ago. I was at a writers’ weekend retreat and someone asked our esteemed visiting writer guy about his writing schedule. He said he got up every day at 5am and wrote for two hours. That he had to. to get it done. I ended up being the voice of “really? truly, EVERY day?” He said, with rare exceptions, really, truly.

I didn’t want to hear it.

It’s not welcome news.

Someone said on Twitter just the other day that she was considering getting up at 4:30am to get her writing done, but was dragging her feet. I replied that I did it for two years and it worked. She said, wasn’t I exhausted? I said, yes, at first. Then I got used to it. It was the only time of day I could be sure to write every day and it totally worked.

I’m not convinced that, for true writing productivity – especially creating something new – anything else does work.

I rediscover this periodically. This last week I’ve been getting back into drafting The Middle Princess. After an extended spell of revisions on several different works, I’m composing again. I’d gotten about 26K into this novel when I had to set her aside. I figured she was well on her way, with good momentum. She’d wait for me.

Oh no no no.

Frankly, for the last week? She’s been a sulky bitch.

That’s the hardest part of writing, I think. When every word put down is a day’s labor. When you work for two hours and get 250 words. Being in that place is the polar opposite of everything we love best about writing. It’s the 40 years in the desert. It’s traversing the Fire Swamp, only less interesting. And like those travails, I truly believe there is only one way through it.

Keep going.

It’s tempting to think, oh, something’s wrong – that’s why it’s not working. Or, I’ve written myself into a corner, that’s why I feel stuck. Even if those things are true, you still have to keep writing. Delete and write. Or rework and write. Or skip and write. But the one answer is always the same.

Keen readers will note which thing that is.

And yes. It has to be every day.

Finally, yesterday, after a week of agonizing through my 1K/day workout, the story started to flow again. It’s like the ice breaking up on the river. I’m not riding the rapids in glee yet, but at least I’m not chipping away at frozen stuff.

Hallelujuah.

Got It for a Song

admin / / Blog

I did lower body weights at the gym this morning.

Usually when I weight-lift, I don’t listen to music. The treadmill absolutely requires my aerobic track to keep me distracted. For weight-lifting, though, I’m counting and not fighting the certain despair that I’ll never catch my breath again.

Today though, Air Force Guy had the TV up really loud with awful news about Libya. Since I have a strict policy about not depressing myself with news about events I can’t affect, I jumped up from the adductor machine and grabbed the headphones.

Since I was mid-count, rather than searching out my weights playlist (why do I have one if I never use it? Hmm) I just clicked play. This one song that my long-time friend, Kev, sent me came on.

Because I could, I played that one song over and over. I love to do this. I can listen to the same song probably 50 times in a row. Something, I’ve discovered, the people around me don’t enjoy so much.

Go figure.

Its an emotional song that strikes me on many levels. As some songs do, this one makes me want to write a story about it. I’ve never actually written a story from a song, but I think I might this time. As I kept clicking the back button to hear it just one more time (there’s a way to put it on repeat, right? one day I should learn to maximize my iPod use), the story played out in my head, snippets of conversation. I could see the opening line, the penultimate scene.

It could be a great book.

Yesterday, I worked on two projects. If you follow this blog, you’ll know I’ve been musing over whether I can move two writing projects forward at the same time. I’m a monogamous gal by nature, mainly because I’m simply not inclined to cheat. The thing I’m in love with is fine by me. It occurs to me now that this is the same aspect of my character that likes to listen to the same song over and over and over. Apple pie for the rest of my life? Sure! Still, with writing, I’d like to get more going.

So, yesterday, I clocked off the Internet for my usual two hours. (Yes, I’m weak and cannot stop myself from clicking if it’s there to be clicked.) I wrote my 1K on the new novel, The Middle Princess. For the remaining 45 minutes, I worked on Sapphire revisions, from the editorial notes that came in this weekend.

And it worked!

Normally I’m not allowed to deviate from a current project, but since that experiment worked, I might try writing up a little of this morning’s story – just enough to keep it alive and kicking.

Boy on Boy

admin / / Blog

I’m just about out of Tucson photos. I need to get busy around here again.

I’d hoped to be taking a lot of nifty pics in Boston this weekend, but alas we’ve canceled our trip. Ironically, I also finished my revision of The Body Gift, which had been consuming my thoughts and energy. So I don’t even relish my suddenly free weekend to work on it.

I am, however, going back to the novel I started before Christmas, which I think I’ll call The Middle Princess for the time being. No, I don’t always do three-word titles. Sometimes I do one-word titles or, in a salient example, an eight-word title.

At any rate, I’ve been thinking about male/male romance.

What – you didn’t follow that transition? Keep up!

For those of you living under a rock, m/m romance is a huge trend these days. These are essentially traditional romance novels, except that the hero and heroine are a hero and hero. The novels are largely written by women and read by women. There’s all kinds of debate about whether or not the stories are accurate depictions of male homosexuality, and if they should be. Every once in a while someone will produce an article where gay men make scathing comments about the romance/sex/level of realism. And they speculate about why women want to write and read this stuff.

The astute women ask why hetero men like to watch girl on girl so much and leave it at that.

It would be kind of amusing to see an article about girl on girl porn scenes, asking lesbians about the level of realism and whether these scenes accurately portray a lesbian love-affair.

So, I read one of these books a bit ago, partly to broaden my horizons and partly because the book received such a good review. I enjoyed it, too. One of the characters was more dominant, a business-man who wasn’t openly out of the closet. The other, flamboyantly gay, “never topped.” The dynamic felt familiar. One man was more ambitious, busy and closed off, the other more emotional, who loved to cook and read.

Some conflict revolved around being out together in public, with the one being so flamboyant, dealing with family and similar issues that this less-acceptable sexuality brings. But the main conflict came from the balance of power in the relationship, vulnerability and intimacy. As the more flamboyant man sulked, threw fits and struggled emotionally, I realized that a lot of that behavior would have annoyed me in a female character. It was as if, by being male, he had license to behave as outrageously as he wished. In some ways, his emotions were more valid to me, than they would have been in a female character.

So, this is one book and I’m not a sociologist. Still, I’ve grown up in a culture where women’s emotionality is considered boggy ground. As professionals, we’re expected to behave more like men emotionally. In relationships, being too emotional is considered cheating. I wonder if the m/m romance gives more room to explore the love relationship without bringing up those damming triggers.

When I brought this up with a group of writer friends, though, the ever-saucy Darynda Jones blinked at me and said, “I just think they’re hot.”

There you are then.