Tag: writing fiction

Perfectionism

Anne Lamott says that perfectionism is the voice of the oppresssor. As long as you have tied yourself up in knots over the perfect choice, what happens? No choice gets made, nothing happens, and no actions are taken.

I’m close to the end of my work in progress. I’ve done about 220 pages since the end of November last year. but these last 80 are proving to be the very devil. Because I want to get it Right when I should be concerned with getting it DOWN. Plenty of time to go back and fix what might be wrong. But right now is the time to get it done.

So wish me well as I try to break the vise that perfectionism has had on my writing. Happy reading!

Work-In-Progress

So I’ve had a break from everything this week. It was odd to realize that the book’s only been available for a month. Now it’s time to continue shifting to the future with my work.

I’ think I’ve only missed one day of writing this week, and I believe I’ve added a thousand words to the document. I finally found the right voice for the female main character, and I can see the shift in the work. The words are coming a lot easier now as I type. I hope to finish off another section in the next few days, then start the next scene I want to work on.

Yesterday I did something risky and read the first novella again just to see how it held up. I think it does. I already know where I want to fill out some areas, and I’m sure once I read the whole work together when I finish the second novella, I’ll find even more work to do and revise and add. But I feel a lot more confident approaching it now, more like I felt when I first started working on it

My next book tour stop is in Natchez for the Mississippi Librarians Association on October 10. There will be books for sale at that event so that should be a good opportunity to move some product. Hurricane Baby seems to be moving at a steady pace, selling some every week it’s been out. That’s all I can ask for.

So I suppose that’s all the updates I have today. Happy reading to everyone!

TWO DAYS!!

Hurricane Baby: Stories releases into the reading public two days from now. It seems so bizarre that right on this date a year ago, I just gave up on the book emotionally. I had two more publishers I was considering sending it to once their reading periods opened up, and then I was going to sit back until the rest of the rejections rolled in. And I was going to never create writing for publishing again. I would stick to my job at the press I worked for and just file thar dream of publishing a book in a drawer in my mind and lock it shut. Delete all my writing of my computer files, the whole works. But I was going to wait until I got my 71st rejection to do that. Giving it time for the process to wind down.

Then three weeks after thinking all of that over, Madville Publishers offered me a publishing contract–and now here we are.

I’m going to take the opportunity to thank some people for their help in making this come true:

Lori, the first person I showed any of it to, who saw the story’s promise before I even did

Chris, one of my editors who suggested that they could be more to the story than I had

Karen, Mary Jane, Jesse, and Candy, the first people who read the whole book after I finished it.

Beth and John, who swapped manuscripts with me.

Billy Watkins for giving me his agent’s email address

Jim Dickerson, who asked, “Do you have any more stories like this?”

Dawn Buck and the whole crew at New Stage Theatre who gave me a chance to see the work in action as a play in 2010

Kendall Dunkelberg, for founding the MFA program at Mississippi University for Women

Mary Miller’s fiction workshop, who were the first ones to see it the first story another ten years later and gave great feedback on it.

Rob, Renee, Shannon, Debbie, Keslsey–all who read the first version of the short-story collection and gave great honest feedback throughout this entire process

Cheryl and Laurie, who I met and jelled with at A Smokelong Summer 2022 workshop and who so graciously accepted my offered exchange of manuscripts for critiquing purposes

Christopher, for giving me the scholarship to attend a Smokelong Summer.

Steve, for reading that first book contract and giving me advice on the finer points.

Lauren, for opening so many doors for me to get the word out about my work

Katie, for giving me space in her magazine to tell the faith story behind the whole endeavor

Kim, my publisher who has answered all my pesky questions often sent to her late at night.

Mike, for recommending to Kim for it to be published

Courtney-Ann, who got me on the radar for TV coverage.

Tracy for taking my book for review,

RJ Lee who did such a wonderful first review

May, Ellen Ann, CT, Steve, for their blurbs on the cover

Jacqui for a stunning cover

John and the crew at Lemuria bookstore, Murph at the Author Shoppe, and Carolyn at Book Mart for taking a chance on stocking the book

Mic, who answered my panicked Facebook message two days ago on how to get my unboxing video back after I deleted it, and who solved the problem.

Rebecca, for taking me sight unseen into her live radio show to talk about the book on the exact day nineteen years after Hurricane Katrina made landfall

Jim at the Louisiana Book festival and Ellen at the Mississippi Book Festival for honoring me with a space as a panelist

CT for a possible future event

Robert Kneuhle in arranging stops on a book tour for our Madville Trio throughout Mississippi.

And Bob who hears me prattle on about book stuff and loves me enough to listen.

Of Two Minds

I am realizing that I might need to take a break from my work-in-progress, Looking for Home. I’m in the last third of the book, and I suddenly just dread sitting down, opening it, and writing. There’s a multitude of reasons why I could be stuck–the other two sections were more drafted, while this one is not. The events in this section are hard scenes to write. The character goes from a teenager to a battered wife and on and on. I don’t think I have a handle on the main character in this section.

What I do know is I feel bored with it. And if I’m bored writing it, you’d be bored reading.

But there’s a really good argument to be made for keeping on. I only have a few chapters left before I have a full draft. You can’t edit and refine what you haven’t written yet. The discipline is the key–if you keep showing up for yourself, eventually you’ll break through. Always finish projects, Neil Gaiman said. You have to keep your forward momentum going. I felt this way close to the end of Hurricane Baby and pushed through because I had something to prove.

And that’s all very true, too.

But I no longer have anything to prove right now.

I do know I’m about to go through a time with my book launch where my mind will be distracted. I want so much to enjoy this time upcoming. Maybe making working on LFH only a sometime thing after going through the whirlwind of events with my launch.

Ill have to think some more. Any advice, drop it in the comments!

Lemuria Books Thursday

Thursday I did a Q&A with my fellow Madville author Steve Yates, who I’ve known professionally for almost twenty-five years. He signed books for a bit in the store proper, then we moved over to the store’s event space for me to ask Steve questions about his book. I pulled from the list my friend Shannon gave to me to set up my own Q&A document on my website, and some flowed just from the conversation. All very low-key; we had a crowd of about 12 there, including a fellow who said he planned to do a story on the event. I’m not quite sure how that’s going to turn out, but we will see.

I also talked to another bookstore in north Mississippi about a signing; we will see how that goes. Supposedly they have a book on the way to them. I talked to one lady over the phone and another over email. The issue is going to be turnout, as usual–how can I conjure up a crowd? I got my post cards to mail for folks to go to my Ackerman event, so I;ll be sending those next week. Who knows what’s going to happen,

I’ve also got invited out of the blue to do a library appearance in Pontotoc, which I’m not sure I’ve ever been to. It would take me out in the middle of a week but they have a high weekly turnout. So we will will see, there, too.

Pic below of me and Steve, courtesy of Tammy Yates:

This Week’s News

So this Thursday I get a chance to debut myself a bit before my book signing at Lemuria by getting together with Steve Yates, author of The Lakes of Southern Hollow, at his signing at 5 p.m. at Lemuria Books Store in Jackson, MS on July 25. We worked out a deal where I would do a bit of Q&A with him about his book, then he’s going to do a bit of Q&A with me at my Lemuria signing, which is coming up faster at noon on August 24 than I can even think.

I also got another invite to an event that I can’t disclose yet because I am waiting on final confirmation of my materials needed to be registered. So that was nice, especially since a symposium I thought I would be able to be a part of did not work out in my favor, I found out this weekend. No skin off my nose–I’ll probably still go to the event and enjoy myself anyway.

I finally got the first “chapter” done on my second section of my work-in-progress last week. It’s definitely going to need more work, but that’s just the way it works–I have to get SOMEthing down on the page so there’s something to edit later on, right? So now I need to figure out where my next entry point into this part of the manuscript is. I think it may be Merrilyn’s first date with her future husband. We will see.

So things are shaping up very quickly in my writer world. I may have to white-knuckle my way through all the events, but maybe not. Maybe I can be calm. I’d like to be, but a little adrenaline never hurt anybody either.

Break

I took an involuntary break from writing on my work-in-progress since my oldest daughter and her son came up here from Florida. I decided that spending time with them was more important. So that’s what I’ve been doing the past two weeks.

It’s not been wasted time. I’ve thought about the manuscript every day. I decided I’m going to play Merrilyn as a woman who knows what she wants but has to find sneaky ways to get it because of the volatility of the people around her. And that affects her by making her a volatile person, too. The idea is to take the Merrilyn of the first section of the book and move her to be the Merrilyn of the third section. That’s going to take some heavy lifting.

So I suppose I need to get back to work at some point, and it may as well be now. ‘Til we meet again!

What to Do When You Don’t Have Anything to Say

Just start typing. “I don’t have anything to say today. I wish I did but I don’t, I don’t understand why but the words just aren’t coming. Mabye I’m tired. Maybe I’m burnt out. Maybe I’m still thinking about the things where what my husband said made me feel some kind of way.”

Do you see what’s happening here? I’m problem-solving as I go. I’m sorting out solutions or answers or suggestions for what might be the root cause of the situation of not having anything to say.

Or you could get more specific–“Why am I having so much trouble writing from Merrilyn’s point of view. Is it that I don’t know her very well yet? Is it that I’m unclear on what needs to happen in this section to get from point A to B to C, etc.? is it because she’s never had a voice before, and she needs to assert herself–and that’s something you’ve always had trouble doing in your own life? Do you feel like she can’t assert herself because you have always had the same problem?”

Now I’m getting somewhere. Maybe if I just sit down and just write out what all happens to her in a rush, covering incidents from the next eight years of her life. Then I can fill in the details on another rewrite.

Just start typing and see what you have to say.

Bits of Good News

Two more bits of good news have come in for Hurricane Baby–my signing at my local bookstore may have been turned into a conversation about another writer Q&A format. I think it will be cool if we can pull it off.

And a bookseller back at my old stomping grounds at college finally got back in touch with me and agreed to hold a signing event the day after I had my reading in my hometown. So soon I will need to start publicizing that.

My work-in-progress in kid of in freeze frame. I don’t know what’s really holding me back from writing it the way I want to. I just don’t know Merrilyn well enough yet. I need to work on that. I certainly don’t think I’m going to hit that August deadline–but then again, I might. You never know. I may sit down one night and just type my heart out. It might not be right for the book, but at least it will be something to deal with.

We will see. Have a good afternoon!

Ups and Downs

I’ve had other media opportunities for Hurricane Baby come up in the past week–one on a statewide-syndicated radio talk show, another on a website I wrote some for while I was in grad school that focuses on women’s reinvention journeys. I’m still negotiating with the radio show so I’m not going to announce it yet. August seems like it’s going to be super-busy!

On the flip side, getting into the new point of view for my qork-in-progress is proving difficult. I pretty much know what I have to have happen to get the effect I want at the end of it. It’s the right voice I haven’t nailed. I have this character in the first section and the end section–in both places her interactions are mediated through another character’s consciousness. This section we’re hearing directly from her, and I have to decide how she’s going to react to events, going from one kind of person to another. I’m going to let things go downhill mostly, with three bounce-backs that later blow up in her face. I’ve been writing little microscenes when I think them up.

So I’m being a bit push-pulled with the writing–proud of how much attention Hurricane Baby is getting, but a nagging thought in the back of my mind that I want to finish this manuscript, Looking For Home, so there will be a future book being worked over and possibly sold while I’m promoting the other. We will see how it goes.

Off to write some more! Have a good week! Read a lot! Write a lot, too, if you’re so inclined!