writing

Massages, peppermint fudge, and 1k

/ Alex Whitehall / 2 Comments

Despite the fact that it’s winter and I should have plenty of time to be getting things done, February has been raucous. Fighting depression, plus my usual busy-ness and my old back injury acting up, has kept me very occupied.

This morning, however, I wrote another 1k for my shifter story, so that felt good. And I got in contact with a potential beta reader (…and then later realized I haven’t put the final touches on the one sex scene, but THAT’S beside the point).

What I love about this story is that because it was born and killed so many times, I actually plotted everything out. And so while sometimes the blahs keep me from writing, when I do sit down to write, I at least know where I’m going. And so far things have been doing okay like that. They don’t always unfold quite the way I planned, but I’m not off-track (yet).

I spent the rest of the day getting a massage (because my old back injury was waking me up in the middle of the night in pain, boo-hiss) and making peppermint fudge.

Because my friends and I have started having themed gatherings. We don’t see each other often (we’re a motley crew and don’t live terrible close for frequent visiting and are all in very different parts of our lives). The first party started as a pumpkin spice party, because someone kept posting delicious pumpkin spice recipes and we ALL wanted the food. So we decided to each make something, get together, and gorge!…I mean hang out!

It was a blast, and so we made plans to do it again, and this time the theme was peppermint (which most people aren’t doing because there aren’t a ton of peppermint recipes and 99.9% are super sweet desserts). But I made peppermint fudge. My first attempt at fudge, and it’s not half bad. But it’s chocolate, so I think I’d have to work super hard to screw it up!

After my massage, I swung by the barn to visit my riding instructor/the horses (and to drop off some fudge). My instructor wasn’t there, so I just hung out with my main man, Hoover.

I love this pony so much. He did nothing but tear at the grass like a starving man and beg for treats…but he’s a horse, so I sort of expect that from him. I also suspect the kid who’s riding him his spoiling him. A little.

I grazed him and groomed him (and didn’t give him a treat, the little bugger…but mostly because I didn’t have any, because I’ll admit I spoil him a little bit myself). It was a gorgeous day (in the fifties!) and it was fantastic to get out of the house and down to the barn. Hopefully the weather keeps being this gorgeous (or at least NICE) and I can start wiggling in some pony time. Um, once the ring unfreezes and dries. Or else my pony is going to need ice skates/galoshes, depending.

Well, it’s time to head to my peppermint party. Hope you enjoy your evening!

Oh! I’m going to be doing a blog tour when Second Skin comes out, so if you have topics you want me to talk about, or questions you want me to answer, feel free to drop them in below.

AND the cover for Second Skin is revealed now. Go drool over it!

1/12 of the year is done…

/ Alex Whitehall / Leave a comment

I spent the last week of January pet sitting, which involved caring for a geriatric dog and a horse, and I’d like to blame that for why my productivity slipped, but it’s more likely because I had access to TV. And fast internet.

So much TV. I watched all of Jessica Jones, all of Gangsta., and few episodes of Sekku Boys, which is just for fun because Japanese idols that are actually sculptures is kind of amusing. It seems.

I still got just under 10k written for January, a rough set of edits done for HtPD, and a book read. So pretty productive. Except for that whole “take care of health” goal.

Coming home after a week away is always a wonderful thing, because I get to sleep in my own bed, where I sleep better, and my responsibilities are half of what they are at the pet-sitting gigs. The horse is about an hour each day, which isn’t much, but is still an hour. And then this little thing.

She doesn’t look like much, but she can be a needy thing  🙂

Anyway, I got home and depression hit me hard, and then my muscles all tightened and made my head/vision wonky. Which really knocked out any productivity. I think I may have been pushing myself a bit too hard and putting a bit too much pressure on myself. So I’m trying to take a break this weekend (at least a little). If things get done, they get done. But otherwise I need to breathe and not freak myself out.

I KNOW I just did a post about “slow and steady” but I’m really bad at listening to myself. 🙂

Slow and Steady Wins the Race?

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I think one of the most dangerous parts of social media is how it lets competitive people (say…me) see how quickly other authors work. While just generally seeing books come out is a big indicator, seeing updates on the feed can give a sense of “I’m writing a lot, awesome!” or “How do these people do it, have they no lives? Am I a failure?”

I know I’m not the fastest writer, and a lot of my writer friends write full-time or may not have the same obligations I do (although I’m sure they have plenty of others). And yes, I’m sure for some of them, writing might come more easily. But that doesn’t mean I don’t look at their word counts and my word counts, and think I’m an utter failure.

But I’m not! One of the hardest things about being in the publishing world (author, editor, or just SEEING it happen) is that as a writer, I feel like I need to be an author. As in, I can’t just write to write. I have to write to published. Which puts pressure on how many words I write and if the content is marketable and if the writing is good enough.

And that can really take away from why we write to begin with: because we enjoy it. Or at least that’s why I write. I write because I want to tell a story. And yes, I want to tell the story the best way I can. And yes, I’d love for other people to read this story. But instead of being competitive or disheartened because I only write 5K a month and other people write 5K a day, I need to just return to enjoying writing.

That’s not to say I don’t enjoy writing now. But I think I need to find the part of me that really enjoyed it (say, in college or six years ago) and see if I can find balance. Because I hope if I enjoy writing the story more, then people will enjoy reading the story more.

And if anyone has any suggestions, let me know!

My temporary workstation.

But for now I’m going to be happy that I do get to write as much as I do. Because if I push too hard, I think it’ll be a chore. And that’s now what writing should ever be to me (because I hate chores). So I may not put out a book a month or two books a year or even one book a year (though I’d like to put out at least one a year), but as long as we’re all having fun, that’s the important part, right?

How things go…

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As I watch the counter on Scruples remain the same in the sidebar, I struggle to not feel frustrated at my lack of writing.

But yes, Scruples is on hiatus as I write the shifter story, which I’ve done about 2-4K on since the beginning of the year. However…

Mostly this month has been focused on heavy edits for HtPD, which eats up a lot of time as I rework sentences, add details, and sometimes add entire scenes. And when I’m in editing mode, I’m not as great at being in writing mode. Something I need to work on. Yet HtPD has gotten an additional 1,000 words and I’m only just over the halfway point. So while my other stories may have briefly stalled, I at least have been busy.

But my ultimate goal is to read a book for work, read a book for pleasure, edit a book for pleasure, and write a book, and keep all the characters separate and in my head, keep all the facts straight, and remember who belongs in what story.

No pressure, right?

Revising…again.

/ Alex Whitehall / Leave a comment

I hope you all survived the holidays. I’ve been having a very busy year (and yes, it’s only 10 days in)!

So in November I mentioned the short story I was writing for fun. Well, I sat on it a week, then returned to it…and felt a little conflicted. One, it was sorta similar to Second Skin. Two, the conflict felt…unfocused. Like, the conflict was definitely there, but I was avoiding actually showing it. Three, there was just something wrong.

I spoke to my friend about it, just giving her the general outline, and she agreed it sounded similar (in summary) to Second Skin, but that it obviously wasn’t in other ways. And then she offered some possible solutions, one of which was to make it more romantic comedy.

At which point I glared, because I don’t DO romantic comedy. My humor is not like other people’s and it’s just not something I’ve done a lot of. At least not on purpose. But we talked a little, and I tucked the ideas in my hat and thought on it.

One, I realized if I wanted this to feel very different from SS, I needed to change POV (AGAIN). Two, I needed to actually have the conflict on screen (which is, like, no duh). Three, I think the only way I’d survive this conflict is if I aimed to make it more rom-com. Give myself the leeway to not be aiming to rip people’s hearts out, but rather to make them smack their foreheads in frustration. I have NO IDEA how that’s going to go, but that’s the plan. I’m allowing myself to be a little goofy with descriptions, going more in depth in the sex (or the lead up), and just kind of playing with the scenes as I work them.

I have the plot written down in a notebook, so I don’t need to focus on how I’m getting to the next plot point. I’m already over 6K, so this is probably going to break out of the short story length (theory: I’ve lost the ability to write really short stories). I’m okay with that, since the deadline for the prompt has passed. But I’m also excited to see where this story goes.

You Get What You Pay For

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This past weekend, while doing the final review of a PDF of Sharing a Pond and trying to squint at the screen of my phone (which I was using so I could lounge), I considered getting a tablet (for the twelfth time). My dilemma has always been that I really don’t NEED a tablet for most things. And I hate spending large amounts of money.
So I went to the local bargain outlet and purchased a Bright-Tab for roughly $60. Yes, it’s only 8GB (but so is my phone, so I figured it would suffice) and yes it is Android based (I’m rather fond of my Apple phone), and I figured it wouldn’t be the fastest thing, but I wasn’t planning on watching movies or anything, so it’d be fine.
The device itself is a good size (7”), thin, light, and has a nice screen. The Android system isn’t too bad (though I notice that you always have to click ABOVE where you want it to select instead of the actual thing, and I’ve noticed this on more than just my device), and the device is a touch slow, just as I expected. I’ve heard horror stories online of people complaining that after a week the wireless gives out, but we’ll see how that goes.
Right now my biggest issue is the battery is shitty. Like, it’s a tablet, it shouldn’t gobble through the battery power in one day, especially when most of the time it’s just sitting there not doing anything. According to the papers, the battery should last 4 hours (in use), and that might be true, but not if you’re doing anything too intensive, I imagine.
On the other hand, I definitely like it for reviewing my work, and while I don’t think I’d do major edits on it, when I’m going through something and noting minor things or making a few larger notes, I think it will work quite well. And it’s definitely much more enjoyable to read PDFs on!
But if you’re going for a tablet and it’s something you’re going to want to use often, do not go cheap. If you want something to get and throw away after a year, then go cheap. I’ll be happy if this tablet lasts me a year (that’s only $5 a month). If it ends up lasting longer and exceeding expectations? Well yay!
It may also tell me if I should bite the bigger bullet and buy an actually, good-working, long-lasting tablet.
For now, I’m mostly happy with what I got for what I paid for. Hopefully things don’t go downhill. 

The forming of words…

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So before I hand something in, I tweak it, I tweak it, and I tweak it again.

The problem is that I’m making minor changes (generally). A comma, removing a preposition, using a different word. These are all good changes, but they don’t really get to the heart of the problem in some of my writing. But that’s kind of hard to do…finding your own weaknesses, you know?

So I started going to a writers’ group. And at first I was super tentative. The crowd seemed old and didn’t have a lot of writing background/experience…or talent. Not that they didn’t have potential, but they weren’t naturally strong writers. And most of them didn’t go through extensive classes and all that sort of thing. I was glad for feedback, but I wasn’t confident much of it would be useful.

And then some new people joined. They were younger and had experience and skill.

On Thursday we had another gathering and I feel like I got some really good feedback. I know the story that we’re currently going through is some of my more stilted language, but it was still good to hear it. And they gave some positives too. And some places where it fell through. It just felt REALLY good. And I want more of that feedback.

I’d love to have a bunch of beta readers to give that sort of feedback, and I may have one or two, but even they haven’t torn into my piece. (Um, not that I want my heart broken and bleeding on the floor. But, you know…)

But I also know I can’t just rely on the beta reader. I have to strive to improve my own writing. And while putting out the stories is important, putting them out well is even more so.

Now I just need Hermione’s time-turner in order to get everything done.

Once More Unto the Edits

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Please remind me to never do my edits on paper again.

BaW and I have had a long, long relationship. I wrote it *muffled noise* years ago, submitted it, was rejected (but given feedback). And then proceeded to get distracted. Go figure.

Then I started working on it, in spurts and fits. I gave it to beta readers for feedback, added pieces to the end. Read a book about plotting. Considered reworking it completely. Re-read it. Removed and reorganized pieces, but left it mostly as it was. Printed it out and did edits by hand.

I just finished entering in those changes. And I don’t think I can read this story again with anything near clear vision.

So I need a beta reader again. Anyone interested can drop me a line (alexdwhitehall at gmail). It’s possibly the softest, most mellow apocalypse you will ever read.

In other news, I’ve been hitting my word goals (somehow), and my reading goals (go me!), and am looking forward to spring.

In February I read Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. It’s done in illustrated/comic form and while it was good, it wasn’t really my cup of tea. I found the beginning to be too disjointed and often vague. I had trouble following some plots–or else being completely lost as to why this information was being shared. I struggled through that part, and it could be that as a child, we were shown things like a child would share things, but it didn’t work for me. I didn’t connect with the main character and, in fact, I was generally kind of annoyed with her a fair amount of time.

In contrast, as she aged, I found her more likable. While she was a trouble maker and cause stress for her family, everything felt realistic and more alive. Her struggle felt more real and as a person she blossomed into a real being rather than…whatever it was that was on the page before. I liked the change and while I was still annoyed with her at moments, it was in the way that I’m generally annoyed with people doing stupid things. But the circumstances and her life seemed more real.

I don’t regret reading this (it was a gift from a friend), but I doubt I’ll return to it again.

And since I read that super quickly, I read volume 2 of Crimson Spell.

And for March, I’m reading Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris. This is a collection of essays, but also also an interesting thing he hasn’t done before where he writes at essay from a kooky perspective. It’s been a while since I’ve read his other stuff, but I think this is my favorite of his books so far (not that I don’t thoroughly enjoy the other stuff). This one just resonates with me more, for some reason.

The essays that are biographical are also entertaining, though they feel more hit or miss to me. But as with any time you’re trying something new, that’s the risk. I haven’t quite finished it yet (four or five stories to go, I believe), but I’d recommend picking this one up.

And that about catches me up, book and editing wise. Writing…well, I was going to continue working on one of my old pieces, and actually wrote 900 words. And then…something happened. The file was…damaged. All the writing I did (and edits earlier in the piece) were gone. I plan that I was saving directly to the flash drive on my Mac using Office Libre. I’m not sure which one is to blame, so they each get one third.

So I lost motivation for that piece and instead decided to start writing one of those post-it note stories that I’ve had hanging around. So now I’m working on trans cowboy story, which I have sort of plotted out and as long as I can get over the next hump, I think will be pretty awesome.

Spring is coming soon!!!

Exciting news!

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As my Twitter follows may have heard, I had exciting news earlier this week!

My shifter novel (with very little shifting and lots of threesome) was accepted at a press. I’m not saying much yet, because I’m not sure all the details and stuff, but I’ll be sure to keep everyone updated when I’ve more news!

Along those lines, I’ve been rather dead on a lot of social media lately because I’ve been, fancy that, writing.

I have a computer that’s not hooked up to the internet (well, it is but it would take soooo long to do anything on it, it’s  not worth it) and I’ve been hopping over to it to write for a bit every day. To entice me, I’ve set up a Chrome extension on my main computer that blocks all the sites I tell it to. Like Twitter and Tumblr and Facebook and…you get the idea. It forces me NOT to waste time on those sites.

And if I don’t write the whole time during that blocked period? Well, I find I end up doing more stuff around the house.

In the past three or four weeks I’ve written 27K words. I don’t know how much of it is good, but it felt good to write it. And I’m hoping to keep up the serious amount of writing even when this story is done.

So, a book accepted for publication and lots of writing this past month. Of course, I didn’t work on the project I had PLANNED on, but I guess that will be next month. Or something.

Oh! I also finally looked at the feedback I got on GR. I just skimmed the information, and I think some points are valid (and some not so much, but I can perhaps draw attention to the answers that are already in the story). I was glad that the reviewer suggested to emphasize the alternative world elements rather than remove them.

…Oh, I guess that should be my next project.  😀

Wake me up when… Shit.

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August’s goals

1. Apply what I learned from Code Academy into a website project.
2. 1,000 more words written
3. Review HtPD and see if it can become something. Currently it’s super short so it either needs to get more written for it to stand alone, or I need to hunt down an anthology for it to fit into.

August was different than I was expecting.
1. NOPE. I did absolutely nothing for this. I think because I lost my momentum after June, this goal just fizzled and died.

2. YES. This is actually where all my efforts went. I probably wrote roughly 7,000 words this month (guestimate). I made good progress on a current WIP, and I’m feeling positive about it. I felt since this was going well, I’d go along with it rather than derail potential progress here for Goal 1 work.

3. I sent it to a beta, and it’s currently with another beta, who has offered up some ideas that need development. I don’t know if I have 1,500 words of development, but if I do, that’s going to be awesome. I’m waiting for the final report from the Beta 2, but I’m busy with the other WIP, so I’m not too worried about this.

I looked around at a few places for this one, but the length is going to need to go up first for pretty much any publisher I send it to, so I’m focusing more on the revision than anything right now.

And now…September.

September’s Goals
1. Work toward finishing current WIP (trans* story).

2. Do an editing pass on SaP (shifters).

3. Work on baby blanket (for my second niece). This isn’t writing related, which I’m trying to focus on more, but this is going to suck some time and it needs to be done for the solstice, latest, so I need to give it some serious attention (and it’s going to take forever).