Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Life Crazy

I put Eleanor Rigby on my play list for Glimmer Girls. I thought at first it was a version of Life Crazy. But I'm listening now and I see the connection. Clara, in the midst of so much attention is lonely. Dilly, sequestered away and kept from the world - lonely. Johnny, who can't commit to a relationship because all his energy goes to keeping his sister safe and happy. Molly, working her but off to keep the hotel running, but she really loves to paint.

Clara comes into their lives and changes everything. For the better in the end. I hope. But before she comes it's Eleanor Rigby.

Emotion is so important to the story, it drives my characters actions. The need to feel better. So it's good I can feel those things.

The problem is that when life crazy floods ME with emotions I can't write. The feelings sit in the pit of my stomach, making me feel sick. When I feel sick I want to go to bed and pull the covers over my head.

Isn't it interesting that the very feelings I need to feel in order to write characters that readers relate to cause me to shut down, keep me from writing. I've always had too much emotion for my brain to process. I retreat, pull in on myself, hide. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, I don't have the time or opportunity to spend days holed up in bed hiding from the current version of Life Crazy.

I've committed myself to writing through the crazy - at least for this week.

On another note, I discovered yesterday that I can write a five hundred word essay in twenty minutes, even though it takes me all day to write fifteen hundred words of a novel. So along with committing myself to writing through the crazy I'm also going to write for an hour straight out every morning before doing anything else. I hope this is not doomed to failure. To get an hour of quiet in the morning means the getting up at five am routine. I'm not good at that.

To tell the truth I think the reason it takes me all day to reach my word quota is that I'm writing in a room full of teenage kids. Five in the morning is starting to look much saner than when I first mentioned it.

Friday, April 9, 2010

The Not Writing Week

In case the title isn't clear, I'm not writing this week. It's not an intentional Not-Writing-Week. I started in a blue funk over some uncontrobable thing, moved into reading for a writer friend who wanted some advice and ended with oh-here's-California-Schemin' and you-need-to-make-some-changes from my California expert and line editor de jour, Lisa.

I'll get another set of changes before too long from my other line editor de jour, but hopefully they won't be a bunch different from Lisa's. But they may not be too different from the ones I already have. I hope. I hope alot.

So I haven't writen one word of Glimmer Girls. Really. Not one word. It's kind of hard to make word counts when I'm not writing. Duh. As it happens I'm not getting the Glimmer Girls mood this week either. I haven't got a sound track yet, and the collage isn't finished. So my usual fail-safes for getting into the mood, aren't in place.

The weekend is here so I'll push myself to stay up late and do a sound track. The collage is harder, because I need certain kinds of pictures on glossy paper. I usually use magazines, but there's a certain magic element that isn't common in gossips rags. I may have to break down and print color pics off the internet onto photo paper. Expensive, but there is a NEED for it.

Being a poor writer sucks sometimes. If I was flush I could just go to joannes or michaels and buy lovely scrapbook items to put on my collage. I have to be more creative than that, which is okay, but takes time. As time is skint too, I have to get really creative and manufacture time and materials and stories. After all it's all about stories. People in my head that refuse to go away unless I write about them.

The Glimmer Girls voices are surprisingly silent this week. I doubt that will last.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Bree MacGowan Rides Again!

It's come to my attention that I never blogged the good news about Bree. Having unloaded my guts onto the internet many wonderful people came to my rescue and bought enough copies of Moonlighting to make my editor reconsider. She's willing to read California Schemin' and publish it if it's any good.

California Schemin' is the second of the Bree MacGowan Mysteries, I'm hoping you all enjoy it. I hear the second book is nerve wracking for a writer. Trying to get the right mood, making it as good etc. It certainly is making me nervous - Did I write a good enough book?

I guess we'll see how I did when the book comes out!

And Thank you, to everyone who bought Moonlighting. My readers are the best.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Monday Ticker on Glimmer Girls

It's bad. Very bad. Total word count as of today: 30797. That puts me a third of the way through the book. So very slow....

As you may have heard the new title (for now) is Glimmer Girl. Titles are always up for grabs until the book is on the press. At that point you're pretty much stuck with it.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this blog today - I've got a lot of book to finish!