We've all been working hard on writing goals, NaNoWriMo and butt-in-chair.Let's reward ourselves with some FUN!
Share a favorite sentence or paragraph of your current WIP (work-in-progress) or even one from someone else in the comments. Be sure to include the title and genre with your paragraph.
Feel free comment on others' as well!
We'll get you started...
Ellen
Jack Schmidt clenched his hands at his sides and glared at his father. The man, aged beyond his years, sat collapsed on his chair, staring at his fragile wife through a whiskey fog. As his once-spirited mother fell deeper into her illness, his father slipped farther into his liquor bottle, barely acknowledging the existence of his three children.
-- Untitled YA Historical Fiction, set in 1905 (Wausau, WI to LA's Bunker Hill). [For all of Ellen's books, including her middle-grade Charlie Chameleon series, visit http://ellenbuikema.com]
Jenny
Fear stalked through my childhood, a rabid dog that refused to be put down. As the child of a retired military officer, who cuddled his glittery narcissism beneath a shadowy cape of PTSD, I grew used to navigating a world filled with fear.
-- The Six-Percent Baby, unpublished memoir
Julie
Rachel looked past me, and a pained expression flashed across her face.
I turned to see Cade Wilson, another baseball player and long-time friend of Wes and Hunter, staring into my window. "Speaking of idiots..." Pushing open the door forced Cade out of my way.
"Hey"—he jumped back—"you could have injured my jewels."
Most
days, I feel like a human Golden Retriever: loving, loyal, dependable. But in
my experience, humans with those traits tend to go unnoticed. The dogs, on the
other hand, people find adorable.
She’s
probably headed for a convention on, ‘Saving the Universe Through Toe Massage’
or something.” My grandmother was New-Age before it was new, trying every
religion, every weird philosophy out there. Hampering her enlightenment is the
fact that she has the intellectual depth of a kiddie pool, and the attention
span of a caffeinated gnat.
— The Road to Me, unpublished Women's Fiction
We can't wait to see your favorite lines! Please share them down in the comments.
I have been writing since 2010 and have penned six book-length manuscripts and several short stories. Among all those, one always stood out to me as the breakout book. I'm not saying the others aren't good — I certainly like them — but one particular novel has a high concept, a timely topic, and has been written, rewritten, and edited so much it's pretty much print-ready.
Since I landed my agent and finaled in the Golden Heart with this young adult novel in 2015, I have never wavered in my belief that it would sell to a traditional publisher.
But it didn't.
I don't fault the story. I don't fault myself. I don't fault my amazing agent. I don't fault the publishers.
Am I little annoyed? I'd be lying if I said no, because they just turned down a really good novel. But they all had good reasons for passing, and my book just wasn't one they wanted to publish.
Still, what do you do when the plan you had for your novel doesn't work out? What if your dream for your story doesn't come true?
You can let your dream die, or you can make your dream change.
Some writers want a traditional book deal, but they don't get an offer.
Some writers want to self-publish, but that route proves too frustrating.
Some want to write in a particular genre, but the interest and sales aren't there.
Some want to pen six novels a year, but can only squeeze out a single book.
When we knock on the door of our dream, and it doesn't open, we can keep beating that door ... or we can knock on another door.
How do you know if it's time to change your dream?
Getting the dream would cost more than you're willing to pay.
Let's say to write those six novels, you'd have to give up homeschooling your child or acting in your local theater or running your other side business. Some writers would say you have to prioritize the writing! But not necessarily. You have to choose your priorities and decide what's most important to you. Maybe you'd love to write more novels, but you don't want to give up being Ophelia in Hamlet. So don't.
There's a cost to pursuing a dream, because personal dream fulfillment actually requires a lot of hours, elbow grease, and compromise. You may not want to sacrifice those things, at least to the point required to carry out your original plan.
For my book, there was one publisher interested who might have offered a contract if I was willing to change the tone and theme of the book. It would have been awesome to sign with this company! But I wasn't willing to do what they required for me to sell to them. In the end, that was simply a cost I wasn't willing to pay.
You can easily imagine and feel calm about taking another path.
Most paths have obstacles and brambles, but when you're ready to change direction, a new path doesn't seem quite so daunting. You might have some challenges, but you can imagine yourself plucking your way along toward a new destination.
For some authors, that calm only happens once they've beat back as many vines as humanly — or even superhero-ly — possible, only to discover the way still blocked. Then the other path begins to look pretty darn good, and a peace settles on them to think about another way.
I admit that self-publishing previously scared the pants off me. Not only because I'm not the kind of control freak savvy entrepreneur who tends to do well with making all the decisions, but I didn't previously have the resources and connections I now have. The idea of putting out the book myself isn't as frightening as before. In fact, it's rather exciting.
While I couldn't have foreseen this path for the book a few years ago, now I'm ready. Are you ready to imagine a different way? Can you see yourself getting it done?
Trusted writer friends tell you it's time.
A friend of mine wrote in a particular genre for years and experienced success in contests and in getting an agent. But her books didn't sell. The critique group she'd been with for more than a decade finally cornered her and suggested her writing voice went well with a different genre. They suggested she give it a try.
Were her other genre books bad? No, they were great! But it was time to move on. Since my friend trusted her critique partners, she sat down to pen a novel in the new genre. Months later, she'd finaled in contests, gotten an agent, and had signed a book deal.
Sometimes your close friends and fellow writers can see a situation better than you. You're tangled up in the trees, and they've got a view of the forest. If they see a better path for you, it might be worth listening.
By the time my novel submissions had reached the end of the line, I had the support of friends and family telling me to move on. They confirmed my decision and then encouraged me set a new goal — one they knew I could accomplish and they would support.
But what about persistence? Determination? Perseverance? Those are absolutely necessary in this business, and continuing to pound the door might well get you what you want. That certainly happens for some writers!
For others, you get a bruised fist, or at least a bruised heart. And you may decide your time and effort are better spent rethinking your dream and pursuing that path instead. If that latter one is you, it's okay to change directions. In fact, it's probably time.
Have you ever changed dreams in your writing career? Are you currently considering a different path?
About Julie
Julie Glover writes mysteries and young adult fiction. Her YA contemporary novel, SHARING HUNTER, finaled in the 2015 RWA® Golden Heart® and is now up for preorder! When not writing, she collects boots, practices rampant sarcasm, and advocates for good grammar and the addition of the interrobang as a much-needed punctuation mark.
Julie is represented by Louise Fury of The Bent Agency. You can visit her website here and also follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Have you ever had the chance to sneak away for a writing
retreat? Have you had the chance to experience the synergistic feeling of
creating while in close proximity of other creators? One of the best perks is
that when temptation shows up, to jump on the socials or play a game on the
phone “while you figure out what’s going on in the story”, a quick glance
around the place silently peer pressures you back to doing what you went there
to do – write.
One of the greatest perks of NaNoWriMo is that it creates a
sort of collective, online recreation of a writing retreat. Logging on the
website provides the opportunity to see how well other people have been doing,
provides a little graph to show where you should be.
That said, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement and the word counts and the competition of the whole thing. And it’s easy to get caught up in the guilt and shame should you have a bad day (or two or ten) and get on to see how “far behind” you are. So while I am planning to participate in NaNoWriMo this year, while I have participated for many years, I always do it with a caveat: Only maintain that speed of writing a story if it is working for the story AND if it is working for the writer.
One of the keys to succeeding at this NaNo event is to
consider where you are in your writing. Do you need to do a deep dive revision?
Do you need to sort out the muddy middle? Do you have a beginning but then have
no idea what to do next? While it is fun to make sure you are playing the game
with your writing friends, just because 50k isn’t in your wheelhouse right now
doesn’t mean that you can’t use the benefit of this international, month-long
writing retreat to your advantage.
Take a break
It can be tempting to keep rehashing a story over and over
again. Our mind tells us just one more edit, just one more revision, and it’ll
be just right. But if you haven’t put the story in a proverbial drawer and left
it alone for at least a month during your creative process, believe me when I
say stepping back is the best thing you can do. Play with a different story,
keep the writing muscles strong, celebrate the actual act of creating. Then put
your NaNo project in a drawer, pull the other one out, and see what your fresh
eyes reveal.
Revise, revise, revise.
AKA NaNoReviMo. I didn’t make that up – go ahead and google
it or check out the hashtag. A lot of people use the energy of this month to
revise, edit, fix, clean up. While the official counter of NaNo won’t really
work for this, the same concept is there. Have a daily goal, or consider your
month-long goal and break it down. Five pages a day? Ten? TWENTY?!? Whatever it
is, you can make a little graph or bullet journal it or create a paper chain. And
get after it. Remember the caveat: Only maintain that speed of revising a story
if it is working for the story AND if it is working for the writer.
Cheat (kind of)
While the purpose of NaNoWriMo is to start a new novel and
get after it, 50k is 50k. If you have a start of a project, use that. If you
have almost half a project, use that. Keep a note somewhere that indicates what
your word count was when you started (and don’t cheat on this part) and shoot
for the 50k from there. The NaNo police aren’t going to come after you just
because you didn’t start a new project. Use this as the opportunity to advance
your writing.
Set a Goal of your Own
This is a great way to start in on a habit or to have something less on your plate during winter holiday celebrations. You can NaNo all kinds of things in your writing. The key is to trust yourself as a writer (I know, imposter syndrome is a bully, but you can beat it). Want to make the goal to write 500 words every day? NaNoHabiMo (National Novel Habit Month – I think I made that one up). Make an official NaNo profile or don’t.
You get to be in charge here, you get to sort out what you need from this energy, and you know what you need. Do that.
What kind of work are you hoping to accomplish in November? Do you participate in NaNoWriMo? If not, what is your personal goal for November?
About Tasha
Tasha Seegmiller believes in the magic of love and hope, which she weaves into every story she creates. She is the president of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association and studying in the MFA in Writing Program at Pacific University, and teaches composition courses at Southern Utah University. Tasha married a guy she’s known since she was seven, is the mom of three teens, and co-owner of a cotton candy company. She is represented by Annelise Robey of Jane Rotrosen Agency.
