And in the meantime...

Ever ready to take the advice of members of my critique group, I have started novel number three. I know, I haven't finished the first one yet, but I've been working on two at once all year, so why not start a third?

I'll tell you why this makes sense to me: I've had a lot of jobs that required me to switch gears from one type of writing to another. If I tired of working on one project, I'd pick up another for a change of pace, then go back to the first one later. I nearly always had at least three projects in some stage of construction at any given time. So why not three novels? Number one is a light romantic comedy, number two a slightly more serious coming-of-age book, and number three is a sort of a spoof of the Dashiell Hammett-style hero (heroine in this case--a hard-boiled lawyer/sleuth). I'm finding that a little work on number three gets out a lot of hostility and stress so I can focus better on number one and two. BTW, there is a direct connection between books number one and number three: the spoof is included, partially, in the romantic comedy--it's excerpted as the book that my main character is writing. :) Fun!

We'll see how this shapes up. If it goes well, maybe I'll get all three done before my daughter goes to college (about six years from now). If it goes REALLY well, I may get all of them done within the next year or two. If it does NOT go well...I'll know by February.

Why isn't everyone reading Rett MacPherson?

Rett is one of those "least known, best writers," to quote Liz Duckworth (another one of them) who write really good books, but who doesn't have a lot of name recognition. Add Marion Duckworth (Liz's mother-in-law), Nancy Kennedy, Donna Andrews (well, Donna has a bit more attention, maybe), and a whole slew of other writers who labor in heart-felt anguish (I may be a bit melodramatic here) to produce great reading across a multitude of genres.

Those of us who write for publication risk never being read. Our books have to pass through agents, editors, publishers, and bookstore owners to get to "street-level" readers. If they do sell, we make about 50 cents off every book. So, obviously, we're not in this for the money, and judging by the writers I've named above, we don't get much fame either. So, accepting there's really no money or fame in the game, we obviously write for our own pleasure. There, I admit it. It's all about me, after all. :)

Great ideas come from other people

Because of my background in journalism, and since this is my first foray into fiction, I'm always hunting around

the world for ideas and information that will help my writing process. Becky Levine, an author I've mentioned here before, has a great blog about her writing . ( Why is this stupid thing indenting? I wish I were more techy.)

It gives me lots of great info. This list came just in time, since I'm hung up about where to go next in my novel.

I've revised it by leaving out the name of Becky's heroine, but otherwise, these questions are straight from her.

Questions to ask about my heroine:

• What did she do in the previous scene or few scenes?

• What were the consequences of those recent actions?

• How does she feel about what she did and about what happened?

• Who did she set up a conflict with?

• What other character has a strong goal at this time?

• What story element have I not dealt with in, perhaps, too long?

Can you see how brilliant these questions are? Thanks to Becky for putting them in her blog so I can use them, too! Please check out her blog at http://beckylevine.com/2009/12/01/what-would-caro-do/

It is a myth that writers work alone. Most of us need a team, whether we know them or not! Yes, the writing time requires being alone with our stories, but I am not one of those writers who enjoys creating without input from others. Which is why I'm always talking about my critique group. BTW, Becky has just released a book on critique groups, through Writers Digest Books.

A little more here, and a lot more there

Thanksgiving is past and now that I have finally finished the clean up (it took two days to cook, why not another two days to clean up?) I am freer to sit down and look through my last "entry" in my novel, then go from there. Right now, she's in a good place, but it may be more like the frog in the warm water--there's trouble brewing just ahead. It has to be that way. The poor girl will end up fairly happy at the end (we have to have a few unmet desires), but the story wouldn't be very interesting if it were all smooth sailing!

My critique group includes a few of us who are well along in our books--and one who is done with the manuscript, but doing a bit of finessing--and we have laid on the table the idea of meeting weekly to encourage faster progress. I'm not sure how I feel about this. If I were the average woman my age, my child would be grown and married, and I'd have the time for it. Now, I'm not sure that it wouldn't just create more pressure in my already pressurized world. I have to be aware of my limits all the time. If I blow past them, everything melts down until I can get back in balance. I may be interested in creating calamities for my heroine, but not for myself.

Of time and rewrites.

Time. It runs out, it races, it stops at the worst possible moments, it's "on" or "behind" or "over." For me, it's just too short. Every day it's a challenge to control it and make time for BIC (butt in chair) work.

This is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month for the uninitiated), when writers sit frantic and frenzied, writing a whole novel! The goal is to write about 50,000 words in the month of November--about the equivalent of a first draft. The idea is not to produce a publishable novel, but a draft from which you can sculpt a decent work of art later on.

I have to admit I like the idea a lot, but I never get there. Being mom takes over most of my time (as I truly believe it should), so there are only little puddles of time that I have for writing. When I worked in radio copywriting and later in news, I found that when you write on deadline, you can't sit around waiting for some muse to waft in and dump great prose on you. You just put your BIC and write. That myth busted, there was another I DID succumb to: I thought I needed a block of time to write. You know, like a couple of hours to get into the zone, live out my characters, really inhabit that fictional space. Let's bust that myth, too.

As a mom, I don't have two- or three-hour blocks of time. The "zone" is like the muse--not there. I have to write anyway. When my head is doing laundry I still have to write about a journalism professor conflicted over identity and love. When I'm in the middle of chaos, I still have to write about my heroine's peaceful home. When my characters seem stupid and alien, I still have to love them and make them lovable to others. And that all has to be done in very short bits of time, wherever I can find it. At least at the moment I can rest in the saving knowledge that it's just a first draft. NaNoWriMo'ers may produce 50,000 words this month, but my goal will be closer to 1,000.

All right, all ready!

Just when I get a new chapter done on my book, half the critique group comes down with the flu and we cancel for this round. Rats! Now I have to wait until Nov. 4 (we meet twice a month). I guess that gives me time to re-write the chapter (again, and maybe a fourth time). I know we're supposed to (according to all the "experts" at writers conferences) write the whole stinking book first, then go back and rework it--and I will, sort of--but first, I have to reread the section leading into where I want to start, so I can get the rhythm. And that makes me want to reword stuff here and there, drop a sentence, improve a description...I can't help myself.

I did have some minor satisfaction this week, besides the writing. My 12-year-old daughter asked me something like "do you have any presidential autographs?" (only the Lord knows why) so I dug out a photo from my news days. I was standing with Gerald Ford, and the photo was signed "best wishes" to me. The usual photo op that news people get with any president, especially one campaigning, as Ford was at that moment. My kiddo was muy impressed. She wanted to borrow the photo to show her friends, but I suggested it was really not for handing around the neighborhood, and besides, nobody would really give a rip. It's not like it was REAGAN, for pete's sake!

Well, back to the novel. At this rate, it may actually be done in time to pay for a couple of her college textbooks.

Playing make believe

Let's face it, sometimes writing fiction is simply a heck of a lot of fun because it's an extension of playing make believe. I create people, a place for them, and all the action. That is an awful lot of fun.

I always liked playing the bad guy when we kids were cowboys. The bad guy didn't have to play by the rules. If someone accused me of not being fair when I ambushed them, my response could be, "What's fair? I don't care, I'm the bad guy!" At least it was fun until my sister got mad and threw a broken toy gun at me. The ragged edge caught my cheek and left a nifty triangular scar that lasted a good many years.

I still find the bad guys more fun, and easier to "play." Am I warped? I have a character in my current novel who is full of herself and bad tempered. A lot of what she says is mean spirited and sarcastic. I love her! She says a lot of things I have thought of saying to people, but am too nice to say. And my niece said something really horrible recently that was so funny I'll probably put it in my character's mouth, too. A good line is a good line, if it's in character and advances the story, and I have the perfect spot for that line.

My heroine has to be a better person than that, but not completely good, or she'd be a total drag. Nobody would relate to her. So I also get to enjoy "playing" her bad side. And when she's good, she's so conflicted that I'm beginning to find that fun, too.

Playing make believe is a truly wonderful pastime for kids or adults.