Bright & Dark

Happy New Year’s Eve Eve. It’s been exactly a month since I last posted, and that’s too long. December has been a whirlwind of day job (office hours ’til 3 AM, oh boy), holiday shopping, holiday baking, and writing. I’m *this close* to writing THE END on the novel I started in July, after which there will be more whirlwind of getting it to my Trusted First Reader (TM) and then out to workshop for the February novel workshop on the Oregon coast. The story has launched its typical light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel takeoff. I’m having to force myself to write only scenes at this point, and to focus, and not to rush toward the ending. Not to mention that my morning sitting meditation today found itself interrupted by potential upcoming plot points. I can live with that, and breathe with it to.

Breathe in . . . breathe out . . . BUT WHAT IF X HAPPENS? . . . Breathe in . . . breathe out . . . THEN Y!?!

and so on.

I’ve had a lovely Yule season, and I hope you have, too. There have been some amazing gifts of the material kind and more valuable ones of the not-so-material kind. I am reminded to be grateful for all the people in my life, and for all the love. And also for movies that knock my socks off. I’m not so enterprising (nor do I have so much time; see above re: *almost* end, and the need to actually write it) as to attempt a 2009 gratitude list at this point. And I’ve occasionally written these sorts of lists at other times of the year. So to prevent a case of supreme redundancy and time eating, here’s today’s top eleven list.

1. The people in my life who I happen to know. I love you. You know who you are.

2. The people in my life who I have yet to meet. Same goes.

3. This morning’s walk in the cold rain with the Doggie Ranger, replete with morning prayers and connectedness.

4. An awesome wiki article on Kabbalah that I actually had time to read.

5. Avatar. Still heavily on my mind since I saw it on Sunday morning. I’m going to have to catch it again, this time preferably at the IMAX which will NOT be sold out the next time I want to go.

6. Tea. Preferably Barry’s Irish, Gold Blend.

7. Blueberries, fresh and huge and bursting with juicy flavor.

8. Surprises.

9. Calvin and Hobbes.

10. Plenty of time to write.

11. That I get to take my lunch hour at 9:15 tomorrow morning to go to Nia. There will be dancing! And Queen Latifah!

Best wishes, everyone.

Thanksgiving: a holiday designed around the conspicuous consumption of turkey, dressing, cranberries, and pumpkin pie. Or, a holiday designed around gratitude.

Oh, I know — those aren’t the only choices. But they’re the ones I’ve adopted. That said, here’s my short list of things to be thankful for this holiday season, in no particular order.

Family and friends. There are so many wonderful people in my life who I feel blessed to know. There’s nothing as precious as time spent with someone you love. In person is best. Phone or virtual is good, too. I have so many friends hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Writing time. Four glorious days off for Thanksgiving weekend. 6,500 glorious words. Over the 300 page mark on the book and into the last 100 page light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel sprint. The coolest thing by far is figuring everything out at the same time my characters do.

Dance. Four glorious days off also means three mornings spent at the Nia studio — one with a mix of music honoring one of the founders of Nia, Carlos Rosas, and two instances of Sting’s Brand New Day, which choreography and music makes my whole self sing. Through thick and thin, during times when I felt comfortable and sometimes worried in my own skin, Nia has nourished me, body and soul.

Food, Glorious Food! ‘Tis the season to be baking, fa la la la, la la la la. Fig cookies, banana bread with chocolate chips and crystallized ginger, and sometime this coming week: gingerbread. I love the feel of dough in my hands, the warm, spicy, sweet smells wafting from the oven to fill the whole house, the dance of flavors on the tongue. Many thanks to Gluten Free Girl for a website of glorious gluten free recipes, ripe for the making.

Story. For great books and movies and stories spoken from the mouths of friends. This weekend, I’ve been New Moon-ed, which I liked just fine, and the company was awesome, too. Really love spending time in the Bella-and-Edward ‘verse. I’ve also been reminded of my great love of all things Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Monk, NCIS, and of course Sons of Anarchy. On deck: the honkin’ huge novel on my coffee table, just itching to be opened and read. Could this book be by Stephen King? Why, yes, Virginia. It is.

Song. I had the good luck (and the determination) to see U2 this year after many years of having missed them when they came to town. Definitely worth the wait. A giant shot in the arm full of love and hope and general shiny goodness. Tomorrow night, I have the privilege of going with a very good friend on a birthday adventure to include Jackson Browne. Doctor, my eyes will be full of Jackson Browne-ness and my ears will be full of lovely tunes.

Sunset Walks. Sunset walks on the block with the Doggie Ranger. Evening breeze rustling the leaves of the oaks, ashes, sycamores, holly, palms, golden raintrees, sweetgums, and magnolias. Crows gliding through the air, calling out to the world. And the way everything must smell really interesting, what with all the times we simply MUST STOP to smell the (fill in the blank).

Love. Needs no description.

Also:
Tea
Hot Chocolate
Christmas fairy lights
Flickering candlelight
Cider
A fuzzy scarf
and
Muppet Bohemian Rhapsody

Mama!

I offer you this bit of warmth on a cold, rainy day.

Sliante!

There’s been radio silence around here for the last couple of weeks — busy, busy with life. A round of updatery is in order.

Mmmm, mmmm, good.

A couple of days after the U2 concert, we had the annual Bosses Day bake-a-thon. My rowmate at work and I treated our attorneys and legal assistants to a smorgasbord of breakfast tacos with homemade salsa, peanut butter cookies, banana bread with chocolate chips and crystallized ginger, and more.

I had fun baking the bread even with my entire lack of sleep. For the curious, the recipe is here. The ginger really gives the bread some wow factor.

There has also been a spur-of-the-moment trip to the store for pumpkin makings, because the season downright demands it. So Sunday night I baked pumpkin custard (aka, pie filling sans crust — didn’t want to deal with the gluten-free crust on a Sunday night). Between that and the cold front that has swept in, it feels like fall around here.

Write On!

Slow and steady wins the race. Or at least it will.

This book looks to be the longest I’ve had the pleasure of writing, which is not to say that it’s ungodly long, just that my novels usually top out at about 350 pages and this one looks like it will go around 450. It’s a bigger book — big world, big worldbuilding, high concept, dual-moving-into-triple POV. It’s still a blast to write and I’m still writing it one 800-1,500 word scene at a time, focusing on the emotion. I can’t wait to see how it comes out.

Meanwhile, it’s fascinating to me that any intention on my part to power through large sections of this book just ain’t working. I can’t pull several hours on a Saturday or Sunday at this point. I don’t know whether it’s me rebelling because I want to be sure to have a life or whether it’s the book rebelling because the story definitely wants to told at its own pace. Either way, as long as there’s steady progress, that’s all right.

Hey — are you gonna read that?

Just finished up my friend Christy Evans’s debut cozy mystery, Sink Trap. So much fun! I can’t wait to read the next one when it’s released. I need to see what Georgiana Neverall has up her plumber apprentice’s sleeve.

Since life’s too short not to have a good story to dive into, I’ve started Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Very interesting so far. It hasn’t moved as quickly as I would normally like, but something about it holds me and it’s getting a might more interesting. Looking forward to seeing what’s in store.

How many miles can a writer run?

Still not many as it turns out. I’m getting some treadmill and/or Nia time in every day and not only do I look better, I feel like a million bucks. A well-oiled machine, even. That’s pretty cool.

The Weight Watchering is going very well, too. Down 11 pounds so far since I’ve started. This is a huge milestone for me on account of how I’ve tried and tried to make this happen and haven’t hit on the right formula — physical, mental, etc. — until now. So, down 11. Only 20 more pounds or so to go with an interim goal of 11 more because a girl’s got to have manageable goals, doesn’t she?

***
There’s more, but that’s enough for now. I’ve got lots to do around here, a bunch of writing, a phone call with a friend later, and after that I’ll settle in for my weekly episode of Sons of Anarchy. Who’d'a thunk I’d fall so hard for that one?

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

Once upon a time, I thought this kind of thing involved sitting at the computer for a certain amount of time every day and meeting my goal word count.  Plus, every so often, attending workshops taught by people far ahead of me in the game so that I could learn what I need to always be bumping up my level of craft and business knowledge.   And then there’s all the amazing people I’ve met and continue  to meet at those workshops.  Fast friends made under trial by fire.

All of that is at the top of the list for being and staying in writing shape.  But that’s not all.

There’s also the part where I have to take care of body.  If the body is unhappy – slug-like from so much sitting, or not getting enough nutrients, or slug-like from so much sitting — then I actually can’t sit at the computer.  Or if I can manage it, I’m not in top form to create.  So that means exercise and fresh air and, for me, actual cooking with, you know, vegetables.  (Like this morning’s big breakfast of egg scramble with kale, ground turkey, and pico de gallo, with corn tortillas.)

So far, so good.  (And so far, so full; just waiting on the tea to steep.)  But wait, there’s more.  If you order now, you get this nifty set of knives and a salad spinner.

Which means there’s another thing that I can’t do without:  sitting meditation.  Yes, more sitting.  Only different.

This kind of sitting involves actual stillness and silence, noticing my breath as it moves in and inflates my lungs and belly and as it moves out, contracting my stomach muscles just a little, lengthening and strengthening my back.  All those stories spinning in my creative imagination come to a rest.

That rest is a re-set button.  It’s a deep breath before the plunge.   Without it, I run out of air.

And then there’s the ingestion of every kind of story I can get my hands on. — first for pleasure and then for studying.  That means books — which, in the last month or so for me, include The Luxe, Duma Key, The Last Templar, Ink Exchange, and The Constant Gardener.  On deck:  Christopher Moore’s Coyote Blue.  It also means movies (last weekend, District 9; this weekend Julie and Julia).  And all those excellent stories on TV, which one I am most anticipating is the second season of Sons of Anarchy.  Not to mention LOST, which after a Netflixed disc-and-a-half has hooked me well and good.

And lastly:  I need adventures.  I need to be around friends and meet new ones, go dancing until all hours of the night, enjoy art wherever I find it, go for neighborhood walks and hikes and beach strolls.

Whew!  That’s A LOT.  But what it really is, is life.  Getting into and staying in writing shape for me is all about life.

After a long weekend of working with story structure, I joined a group of six folks working one-on-one with Dean on advanced story structure.  I was really excited about having the opportunity to do this because as far as I was concerned I had major structure issues with my some of my short fiction and had spent lots of time writing the first 100 pages or so of novels only to realize they didn’t work and throw them away before beginning again.

I thought I had my problem narrowed down to emotion in structure.  Emotion is one of several author decision points in a story, and it must be balanced with other qualities in order for the story to work.  Writing a blazing hot action scene?  There’s not going to be a lot of emotion, and if it’s there it won’t be written in thick prose.  Otherwise it’d throw a splash of cold water on that blazing hot action and put out the fire.

The issue I thought I had with emotion is what I called “knowing the emotional thread of a story.”  A story’s emotional thread, the way the characters feel and their motivations, their emotional journey through whatever happens, and how they are changed in the end is what makes a story worthwhile.  It’s my holy grail.  If it’s not there in any particular book I’m reading, regardless of genre (and counting, of course, what’s appropriate for that genre), I don’t care.  I am officially Dark-Willow-bored-now and outta there.

I labored under the mistaken impression that I should know all that holy grail stuff before I ever start writing, or at least within the first 1,500 words.  (Cue sinister laugh.)  Because I never really have known it ahead of time (even if I thought I did) I would often write until 2/3 or 3/4 of the way through a story or to about page 100 of a novel and then the thread would reveal itself.  Problem was, I hadn’t laid the groundwork — all the little clues my subconcious would normally place in the front part of the work — to support it.

There is almost always no way to fix a situation like that.  Hence the stories that fell apart and Humpty-Dumptied themselves (they couldn’t be put back together again).  Or all those thrown-away novel pages and re-drafts.

I understand now that that emotional thread in stories always shows up on its own.  It can’t be manufactured.  It can’t be engineered toward.  When I try, it shifts on me like quicksand.

What does work, however, is writing the story one scene at a time or one 800-1,500 word segment at a time.  And in this segment, I concentrate on the emotion.  That way, instead of trying to eat the emotional elephant of the story or the book, I am laying that necessary groundwork for the emotion point of the story, whatever it turns out to be.

It took me all five days of one-on-one work to understand all this.  Literally, to the end of the working period — it all finally clicked into place at that last group lunch.  In those five days I plotted a short story, 800 to 1,500 words at a time, concentrating on the emotion.  And I started writing a new novel, jumping off a dark science fantasy YA short story I’d finished a few months before, that I’d never even contemplated writing.

(The writing was a trip if for no other reason than my roommate was busy writing a very funny romantic suspense in the back room, and whenever the kids in my book were at their most terrified, she would cackle because she’d just written something off-the-charts hilarious.)

I’m still working on the book fast and furious, with my focus on emotion, one scene at a time.  You know what?  I’ve never had so much fun writing anything in my life.