writing

Writing: an update

/ Alex Whitehall / Leave a comment

When I went to the neurologist at the end of January, I was told I shouldn’t return to work, so like a good little patient, I didn’t. It doesn’t mean I haven’t bee working on things, although all of that has been slow and laborious.

Writing: Just to keep in the habit and give myself faith that I was still capable, I start writing a little each day, with no real plan of a story. Then I got a plan, at least for the characters and their history. I’ve written and rewrote them several times and I’m still not satisfied that they have a story to tell. Maybe one day. I’m just not sure, which is frustrating, but bearable. So that is coming in starts and stops. After my daily nap, I started thinking about a different story that I had put on the back burner, and now I sort of want to return to. We’ll see.

Edits, round 1: I sent a novel (FIW) off to an author for a beta read, and she got back to me (quickly!). Now I have to grow the pair of balls to read all  her comments. Generally she seemed to enjoy it, so I think I’ll be able to handle the comments, but MUST GROW BALLS.

Edits, round 12: I decided to return to a story (BaW) that got shoved off the table due to my accident. The editor wants changes and I’m struggling with them, so I sent this story out to more readers to get feedback (and some people I can brainstorm off/with). These people aren’t going to have a 3 day turnaround time like the awesome author above, but hopefully they’ll help me figure out what I want to do with it.

Other than that, I’m trying to heal and mend, and rest. Daily naps seemed silly in the beginning, but as I push my brain and eyes to work harder, I let myself take naps to help them rest and hopefully heal.

I go back to the neurologist on March 14. I’m hoping that general time proves happier for me than for Caesar.

Warning: Emo ahead

/ Alex Whitehall / 1 Comment

November usually means Nanowrimo for me, but not this year.

This year I figured I’d be working on editing the one submission that needs redone and working a job and a half and I wouldn’t have time. And I suppose the beginning of the month was busy, but this last week has been quiet (too quiet) and I wished I was using that time to write.

Except I got a massive case of writer’s block. Or maybe I should say seasonal writer’s block. Too dark to motivate me to write. So I started just write a little bit each day. Completely unrelated things just to keep me writing. Things that will probably not form into anything. And if some of them do seem to be taking shape, well that’s just a perk.

I’ll be sure to share all the ones that have no future. Because I’m fun like that 🙂

Right now I’m very much struggling with depression, which kills motivation for me and makes me exhausted constantly, so even though I’m sleeping 8 to 9 hours, I wake up sleepy and am ready for bed by 7 most nights. Oh, and I read about author pairs writing over 50,000 words in three days and I crumble into a fit of self-pity and -loathing.

But I’m trying to remember the positives too! I have two submissions coming out in December, I have one with an editor, and I have multiple stories that need a refining touch before I can send them off, so I figure even if I’m not writing all winter (if the despondency continues), I can still edit. It takes more work, but less creative efforts.

And hopefully my next update won’t be such a downer.

Keep warm.

Reading, writing, and worrying

/ Alex Whitehall / 2 Comments

Blankets, books, and brewed tea
all a reader really needs!

Isn’t that some lovely poetry? 🙂

Enjoy it, because it’s practically the only writing I’ve done recently 😦

OK, not really, but there hasn’t been a ton. Partly because of work, partly because of muses, partly because I’m not really feeling inspired on any of the three pieces I’m working on. One involves sexual abuse and asexuals (which I will eventually finish, but can’t get in the right headspace right now), one involves sibling sexual abuse and some weird repercussions, and one is a follow-up story involving the previous character’s father. That one I’m actually kind of enjoying, as it’s light and will eventually have a very happy ending. 

But not much writing has been actively happening. My two Christmas submissions were both accepted, and the submission I sent in at the end of October has come back as “This needs to be an actual full book.” Which makes me cry a little (a lot). I can agree with the editor, and I knew the story had some issues, but just thinking about having to broaden everything makes me groan and curl up in a ball. And while I can objectively say to myself, “Well yes, but she’s willing to work with you, which means the writing/idea must be good enough,” most of my sensitive writer parts shriveled up. 

We’ll see how and where that goes. For now, I’m just trying to balance work, my job, my writing, and my life. And getting sleep. Getting sleep is important.

Victory doesn’t mean the war is over

/ Alex Whitehall / Leave a comment

As I anxiously await the second edits that I’m assuming are coming on my submitted piece (the print date is listed as Sept 14)…

I got two submissions out the door, both for Christmas/Holiday-theme calls. One is straight up soft, gooey marshmallow fluff, contemporary Christmas story, the other is a fantasy continuation of the already accepted submission. So I got both out, which means victory.

Of course, I still have plenty of work ahead. I made a spreadsheet of my writing to-do list and it’s terrifying how many stories I want to write. Having the time to realize those stories is another matter. I worked this weekend on doing a quick edit on a story (to see if there were plot holes, inconsistencies) and want to write the sequel now (thankfully it was already on the list)…but have a submission due In November that is uber priority.

And I started writing a romance with an asexual lead, but got horribly distracted, so it’s on the back burner for now.

Now to bury my head in edits 🙂 Happy apocalypse edits. Woo!

Surprise! It’s August

/ Alex Whitehall / Leave a comment

August is a month of mixed emotions for me. When I was a kid, I was torn between wishing summer would never end and wanting school to start again (Shush, I was one of those!). Also, my birthday is in August, so I always got excited about that.

Despite continuing to age, I still look forward to my birthday presents and I no longer dread summer ending, as it just means the weather is going to get nice and cool (before getting VERY cold and me looking forward to April).

This August snuck up on me. I’ve been busy writing 30,000 words for ‘Camp Nano’ (You can see the progression here.) Plus working full time and part time, riding my horses, and flitting around place to place for birthday parties and other familial events.

But, I did get my Camp Nano done (code name BAW), I got back MotF edits (*weeps*), and I finished up and sent out to beta MotF2. I have two stories I want to submit at the end of August, one at the end of October, and several others I’ll get to when I have time to check my pulse! I’m feeling like an actual author, just a bit 😉 Of course, all of these could get smacked down and not accepted, but yeah…that’s part of feeling like an author too 🙂

On a happier note, I have 12 billion stories I want to tell and no idea how many of them will make a complete story. Pretty little trinkets in the mind don’t always translate into a story others want to hear (or stories that the characters want to tell). Some days I just want to make a book of snapshots of various characters. Maybe I will.

I’ll put it on the list.

Quick Note

/ Alex Whitehall / Leave a comment

I probably won’t be doing much blogging here for the month of July, for two reasons:

1. I’m going to be doing Camp Nanowrimo in July (instead of June or August, because I’m a rebel like that). I shall continue posting reviews, which means working full time and part time, reading, reviewing, riding horses, exercising, and writing 1,700 words a day.

2. I’m going to try to make a tumblr post every day, just as a general update, vent frustrations, that sort of thing. It can be found here: http://www.tumblr.com/blog/alexwhitehall. They shouldn’t be long, but if you’re interested in my progress, there it shall be.

Come August (ack!) I’ll give an update on where all my projects stand, as it feels like they are in a constant state of flux! Thanks for your patience.

Big plates

/ Alex Whitehall / 1 Comment

With one submission out the door and a huge life decision made (for better or worse), I decided I really need to get off my arse with the writing/submitting thing (especially since said decision was related to that).

I know, I know, you’ve heard it before.

This time I mean business. I tapped together a monthly planner (because buying one at Target was expensive considering my needs…yes, I’m that cheap) and jotted in some deadlines and some submission deadlines and, well that’s it. Oh, and I wrote down holidays. Hey, it’s a start!

With MotF out the door, I was trying to focus on PN, but that ol’ Valentine’s day story nudged me and pointed out it was missing some scenes, so I’ve been working on them. Not sure why, but why not, right? So after the V-day story I’ll finish PN (though the ending keeps getting farther away), resume writing CLRewrite and make edits to BiB.

Not all this month. But I would like to get a chunk/all of this done by end of summer.

I’m not even thinking about betas yet.

Into the depths

/ Alex Whitehall / 4 Comments

My writing/editing/general work ethic has been floppy lately. I work full time and part time, so I guess there’s an excuse, but excuses are just that, so bleh.

I’m rewriting CL, although after the first chapter and a half I got derailed by two boys playing piano. Two boys flirting over piano is much easier to write than a man who is heart broken, devastated, and has nothing to live for.

I got the edits done for MotF and submitted it. No idea if it’s good enough. As my bosses have proven to me, I have no sense of my self-worth. 😀 Well, it’s been submitted, so I can’t do much else about that.

I have a few other stories that keep floating on the edge of my vision, one of which needs some major edits so it doesn’t feel cheesy (or any more cheesy than I naturally am), one that is stalled and has great potential but no movement, and I really want to make a submission to the BDSM holiday open call, but the guys are being suspiciously quiet.

That’s it for now. One day I’ll post more than once a month 😀


Not as Planned

/ Alex Whitehall / 2 Comments

Unsurprisingly, life doesn’t go as planned. Writing sometimes even less so.

My plan to work on CL, really dig into my beta’s edits, and get the show on the road during the month of February was a complete and dismal failure.

First came the Valentine’s story (which is waiting for a friend to read and may be waiting forever for that to actually happen), then I read through my beta’s notes, jotted down some ideas, thought about what she said…

…and then I was stuck. She was really encouraging about wanting to see the story published, but after reading through some of her comments about things she thinks needs fixed, I don’t even know where to begin. Some of them are major changes that will require pretty much re-writing the entire thing (or at least I feel like it will).

This leaves me with three choices: Make the changes she recommends without doing complete re-writes and then find a beta to read the new version; get a second beta to read the current version get his/her input; or re-write the whole damn thing.

I know writers are their own harshest critics, but part of me doesn’t even know the story I was telling in CL anymore. I wanted it to be a steampunk tale of how a man falls in love with his servant and his servant falls in love with him. But along the way it got complicated…distracted. It became something else. And while I don’t necessarily hate the story it became, I’m not sure if it’s the story as I meant to tell it.

Where does the leave the author? Kinda depressed, honestly, although not enough to want to give up on the whole endeavor. CL isn’t dead, it’s just not talking to me at the moment, and I’m not sure leaving messages and texting it every week is going to help. So I may give it to another beta, see what that person says and then decide if I’m hobbling it together or starting from scratch. Both are kind of terrifying.

Meanwhile, I have a short story that everyone who read said it felt like the beginning of a story, so I’m re-evaluating it. Taking notes, trying to get a sense of the characters, and wondering how it would be constructed, because I don’t think it feels like an A to B to C plotted story.

(PS, the image is just an amusing thing. Thanks for putting up with the whining!)

A bit off course

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Okay, so as February started, everyone on my Twitter list started talking about Valentine’s stories and suddenly I had these two characters who stumbled upon each other. 11,000 words later, their story is either done or just beginning and I’m not sure enough to say. Their romance has a very long way to go and it’s not really a Valentine story, so I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it, yet.

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But of course writing that means I didn’t do much on CL yet. Oops. I did go through my beta’s notes and while she has lovely things to say, she also has some pretty major issues with it. So the plan is tomorrow (since I’m ‘finished’ with the V-day story) to start pulling apart her issues and seeing what can be fixed and what can’t (or shouldn’t change) and how I need to rework it.
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That’s it for now!