Southern Writing

Crazy November

November has been one of the busiest months of my life. Even busier than October, when I was working four jobs.

I've been trying to get into the University of New Orleans's alternate graduate certificate program for teaching and set up a couple of backup programs, just in case. I'm still working 30 hours a week and freelancing on top of that.

I started out writing a NaNoWriMo novel, but due to computer problems and a trip to New Orleans, I gave up the dream and started to work on rewrites of my previous novel, which is more important, anyways.

On top of this, I'm trying to power clean my apartment for the day I move out, which should be December 31. I am 90 percent certain that on January 1 I will be driving to New Orleans and my new apartment.

My New Orleans trip cemented the fact that I want to move there in my mind. I'm tired of quasi city living and want to live life to the fullest. Who knows what's going to happen tomorrow, let alone next year?

Life up 'til now

I'm still working towards my University of New Orleans goal, but now I have a backup plan. I'm also applying for my professional teaching certificate in Florida, and by this time in January I will either be attending classes in New Orleans or working for the school system in Florida, even if it is as a sub.

I'm also working on a project for NaNoWriMo. During my breaks at Howl O Scream, I've been outlining, fleshing out characters, and setting scenes. By the end of November, I plan to have my second novel in the bag.

That's about all. I'm overworked and tired, and I plan on enjoying some coffee and music at Sacred Grounds tonight.

How September's been treating me

September's almost over, and it's been a pretty good month. The Jewish New Year was a week ago, and since that day, my life has been a whirlwind.

I've registered for the Praxis exam, which is the subject test for New Orleans teachers. I'll have my transcripts sent to the teaching program next month, and I plan to have my ACT scores sent to them as well.

My family is going to drive me to New Orleans, and it will be a mini family vacation. My friends Moira and Josiah will take over Friday night, and Saturday Moira is going to drive me to take the test. Once I have all of the paperwork and testing completed, I get to wait to interview with the program people.

I've also decided to buy Scrivener. It organizes my work too well not to use it. I don't use any of the flashy features (think corkboard and outlining) but what I do use is worth $30.

My future looks pretty bright right now.

The woman with the plan

The most I make in a single month during the year is around $2,000, because every October I work at Howl O Scream. Usually, the amount I make is closer to $1,000.

Now, I have a plan. I'm going to apply to a program at the University of New Orleans that would allow me to earn a teaching certificate while I teach. In the fall, I will hopefully be teaching science classes to middle school or high school students.

I've wanted to teach for a while. That's one of the reasons I'm working part time now as a principal's assistant for the religious school at my synagogue. I've also loved New Orleans for a good long while, and I've wanted to be a bigger part of the recovery effort. Now, I just have to figure out how to spell this out in 500- 1,000 words without seeming like a creep or a weirdo. Fun times.

Because, for me, there is no life that isn't the writing life, I will probably update this blog on my progress on getting into the teaching program. I expect this summer this blog will be filled with posts about fast-track teaching classes, and this fall it will be filled with posts about transitioning into teaching. Life is exciting again.

Life, life, life

Today has been a very busy and productive day. Not in the writing sense, but in the life sense.

I am currently getting ready for some sort of double blind date thing, so that is awesome. But, earlier, I was thinking about how as a writer I will have to work five times harder than everyone else. I'm going to have to have at least one day job and write in my spare time. This worked fine for the last novel, but it's important to consider that, at all times, I will have at least two jobs.

I'm up for the challenge. I'm not sure I could live without writing. Although, I do have to say it would be more difficult to live without reading.

 I was reading Chip MacGregor's blog today, and he had a great post on making a writing career plan. Any writers out there, whether you're a freelance journalist or a novelist, should read it. Not enough blogs/ sites/ books focus on the business aspect of writing, probably because it's the least romantic.

Meeting Victor Bockris

I had the pleasure of attending a lunch discussion led by Victor Bockris, a writer who has written biographies of Andy Warhol, Muhammad Ali, and other epic celebrities. After the lunch, he led a group from my synagogue on a tour of the Warhol exhibit at the St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts. (The group actually split up, about half following the museum docent and half following Bockris.)

I have to say, the experience was pretty awesome. Bockris is a compelling speaker, and his stories about hanging out with Warhol at The Factory and anecdotes about the artist's life were engaging. The counter culture movement reminds me of my own friends, and it made me think that maybe I should try to record some of my life and own interactions for the future.

The trip also made me think about branding and art. Warhol really opened up the art world to the idea that art can be marketed and openly sold for large amounts of money. He also brought forth the idea that art can be of the modern world and include aspects of pop culture and mass production. He was vilified for it in some circles.

With my writing, my sense of humor, and the people I hold court with, I could easily be considered a hack (I like to get paid!). My whole message could be misunderstood. It's near impossible to control one's image and force the world to grant one's dreams at the same time.

I just realized that I should send a thank you card to Bockris, because the discussion and tour were amazing, and it's not every day you meet someone who lived a history as amazing as Bockris's. Remember kids, etiquette is important!

Creating motivation

I joined a writing group, She Writes, a week or two back. One of the preoccupations of many of its members is motivation, and what to do when it's lacking.

Lately, I've been lacking in motivation myself. A number of factors have been contributing to it. It's summer, and I battle a hot weather depression every year. (I like snow, not beach weather.) I'm poor and stress out way too much about money. Plus, it seems like no one is willing to pay me a living wage to do anything I'm qualified to do. ($8 an hour just isn't cutting it, even if I were to move back to full time.)

I'm not writing this to be a downer, or to whine about how my life isn't exactly how I planned it would be while still in school. This is just to illustrate the hows and whys of my current motivation problems.

There are a few ways I've been able to combat ennui. I figured I'd share them for everyone who isn't on She Writes and hasn't been reading my responses there.

• Clearing out clutter. I'm naturally a packrat. Or, as some would call it, a hoarder. Except, when I'm at my worst, I can barely function. Right now, I'm working on clearing out all my old junk and cleaning out my apartment, which has been increasing my productivity 10-fold. Plus, cleaning is a good task to work on when I get tired of writing. After about 10 minutes of scrubbing floors, I'm ready to get down to business.
• Working out. This can be a double edged sword. Sometimes, after I work out, I crash. Sometimes, I'm so hyper I run around my apartment like a crazy person and can't concentrate on anything. But, I've noticed a correlation between working out and my energy levels. More energy = more writing. Feeling strong = more confidence. More energy + more confidence = writing my debut novel in a little more than a month's time.
• Reading. This makes a lot of sense. Reading is the foundation of writing. But, when writer's fatigue sets in, I find it helpful to read for a while. I pick a time limit or a page length and read until I reach my stopping point or replenish the will to write.
• Writing in small snippets. I usually do this a lot when I first start writing every day. Sometimes it's not even writing. Sometimes it's just putting a title on a page or opening notes I have to work by. But, the little things add up over time. After a few quick spurts of work, I usually end up writing up a storm without noticing I've gotten into the groove until I look up and realized I've written a few hundred words.
• Ignoring the end goal. In writing, keeping your eyes on the prize can be a fatal mistake. I'm not saying you shouldn't think about your ending. You should. In fact, I usually write the end to a project long before I finish it. What will be fatal to your project is keeping track of your progress in relation to your word count. If you do that, you will probably either get overwhelmed with your inability to reach the count or freak out when you realize you're almost finished. That's just the excuse your inner censor needs to start in on you. This brings us to my last bit of advice.
• Shitty First Draft. I read about this philosophy years ago. In fact, I can't even remember where. (If you know where, please let me know in the comments, so I can attribute properly.) Understand that a first draft isn't supposed to be perfect. It's a first draft. It's supposed to suck. As silly as this concept might seem, it really is freeing to know that a first draft is a ROUGH draft, and no one needs to see it if you aren't happy with it. Just keep writing and worry about grammar, spelling, and rewrites when you're done. Kill that inner censor. You don't need it, especially when you first sit down to write.

Tinkering around

I'm playing around with my blog design today. I've already cleaned up some categories and added an "About Me" page.

On the writing front, I've submitted some queries to agents. I'm stressing about my synopsis.

I've put my sequel to the side for now, and I'm writing a novel of a different genre. It's giving me a well needed fantasy break, and if my first novel doesn't sell by the time I finish it, I'll be able to query two markets at the same time. It's a little bit harder to write the new novel, though, because it's based in reality. I don't have as much room to play.

If anyone out there has recommendations for urban fantasy agents (I just read the genre is dying in an industry blog- fun!) let me know. I need all the help I can get.

Revisions and queries and life, oh my!

I find it strange how fast the writing process has gone for this book. Previously, I tried to write a novel during NaNoWriMo and failed. I've been working on the same epic novel for ten years. In school, I was always starting a novel, writing a few pages, then giving up. I've won a couple of awards for short stories and even had one published, but novel writing has always been just out of my grasp.

Now, all of the sudden, I've managed to write an entire 60,000 word novel and rewrite it in a little less than two months. It kind of makes my head spin. I guess that's what the threat of poverty does- it makes you take a chance on your dreams and do the work. While at the time I was writing in just about every spare moment and pushing most other things off to the side, now it seems like a dream.

I'm thinking I'm going to send a query a day to agents; I have four ready to go and one I just sent out tonight. This whole process is fascinating to me. If I have nothing but rejections after 30 or 40, I'll start sending queries off to publishers.

In other news, I'm going to be in Howl O Scream again. At least I can always have scare acting to fall back on if the economy keeps going South. Now that's the kind of marketable skill everyone should have.

Cue fanfare

I finished my novel. Now, I'm working on preparing the manuscript for submission to agents and going through the whole thing to tweak it here and there with suggestions from my beta readers.

This is new to me, so the people who read this blog now have the chance to follow an aspiring author as she goes through the process of finding an agent and publishing a novel. I'm thinking that next week or the week after I'm going to submit the novel to five agents and see what happens. I'm thinking the worst case scenario is no one wants it and eventually I take it to a writing group or workshop for critiques.

I've already started on the second novel in the series, and I'm working on a submission to an anthology. More about that later. Right now, I'm going to celebrate with my coffee.