Greetings From Deadline Hell

by Maggie Marr

In this cycle we Girlfriends are blogging about the Crazy. While many have blogged about crazy characters and crazy stories, I am blogging about my own personal brand of Crazy: Deadline Hell.

Every writer who has ever put pen to paper has felt the press of this Crazy. It starts to form as we push up against those ever present (and for me necessary) deadlines whether self-imposed or because a manuscript is due to a House. This year, my deadlines are self-imposed so I have no one to blame but me--ah smell the scent of self-punishment as we embark on this journey.

First there is the: I can get this done if I do x number of pages per day. This, usually starts for me, in revisions at about the T-30 day mark. I do the math. I mark the calendar. I inevitably fall behind. As the page count of actually revised pages falls further and further behind and the day-count grows greater and greater, I sink into a firm state of denial. I redo the math and think calmly to myself: Of course I can revise 179 pages in 3 days--really who can't?

(Cue maniacal laughter.) Bwa ha, ha, ha, ha!

At the T-48 hour mark there are certain things every author embraces and certain things every author gives up. A little list of my faves.

1. Sleep. Who needs it? Why would anyone want it? Especially in the depths of despair of chapter 14 which has no reason for existing. My brain works BETTER without the zzzz's.

2. Coffee. (See 1.) In order to inhabit any deadline one must guzzle coffee as if the nectar of the Gods. Fortunately I can thank college and grad-school for this little nugget of knowledge.

3. Showers. Forget about it. My computer doesn't have a nose. We're all good.

4. Children. I had two before the deadline, and fingers crossed they are smart enough not to throw knives and play with fire, because at this point it will take a 3-alarmer or a laceration to get my attention from this damn book.

5. Friends. I'm an introvert, they get it. Plus they know I'm a writer which makes me inherently odd.

6. Communication. None. My characters are getting everything I have.

7. Sunlight. Maybe if I can stand up after 14 hours and it's still daylight, I might haul the computer outside and work. Then again, I'm fair-skinned and easily burned. Hello darkness my old friend...

8. Pajamas. Come to Mama! Truly the biggest perk of any deadline. Their is no expectation that I clothe myself in the traditional sense. I could (haven't yet, but hey, it's early in my career) go to the grocery store, the dry cleaners, and even the mall in my pajamas, wouldn't even flinch. I'M ON DEADLINE!

9. Email/FB/Twitter. Distraction? Did you say distraction? Yes, I want a distraction. Okay, just for 5 minutes...oh my God it's been TWO HOURS! WTF! I am on DEADLINE.

10. Food. Only the essentials. Chocolate, potato chips, and chocolate. Did I mention chocolate?

And finally--PANIC. Okay, not really something we want or should embrace as writers, but hey fear can be a motivating force.

So this is my current cup-o-crazy, the Deadline Hell. Please add your little nuggets of Crazy in the comments and once I turn this manuscript in (PLEASE GOD LET ME TURN THIS MANUSCRIPT IN) I'll let random.org choose a winner and send you a copy of Can't Buy Me Love. That's of course after I check on my children, sleep for a week, shower, put on some clothes, eat a salad, call my mother, and go outside.

xoMaggie

Maggie Marr is an author, attorney, and producer. She used to be a motion picture literary agent in Hollywood. She is the author of Hollywood Girls Club, Secrets of The Hollywood Girls Club, and Hollywood Hit. She also writes the new adult Glamour Series. Hard Glamour and Broken Glamour are out, and Fast Glamour is KILLING HER. Can't Buy Me Love is the first book in her Eligible Billionaires Series and One Night For Love, book 2 will publish this summer if she lives through her revisions of Fast Glamour. Courting Trouble is book 1 in the Montecito Montgomery Series, which Maggie dearly loves, but for some reason doesn't sell as well as the rest of her books. Courting Trouble is only .99 cents. For only .99 cents why not give it a read? Maggie lives and works in Los Angeles. She has family and friends who are gracious enough to welcome her with open arms each time she turns in a book and exits Deadline Hell. 

Writing In Isolation

by Cindy Jones

One of the places I did not go this summer.

I have been telling my husband:  if I had one week of total isolation I could finish my novel.  Well, I got my chance to prove it.  As of 8:00 am last Monday morning, I was HOME ALONE.  For five days it was just me and my novel.  

Day T-1:  I wanted to hit the ground running so I cleaned my office (for the first time since 2013) and cleared my desk of everything not related to the novel-in-progress.  The result was exhilarating and I decided I should do that more often.

Day 1:  Problem:  My ending does not work.  I've been stuck on my ending for four years.  I have tried several resolutions but they were either forced, pat, or unrelated to what the book is about.  How could I make any real progress with this unresolved problem?  And if I couldn't make progress in a week of isolation, when would I ever?  So there I was on Day 1, driving the last three family members to their departure gate, battling construction detours, lost, arguing, and nearly sent home by security.  Bottom line: everyone departed.  BUT as I drove away in the wake of that total chaos, after four years of eluding me, my new ending appeared.  (Why?  My theory is that I had been reading contest manuscripts and reviewing writing rules.  In my subconscious the rules were applying themselves to my story and the ending worked itself out, helped by the adrenaline fueling our airport run.)  Day 1 was great.  I wrote a new synopsis to guide me and revised my beginning to fit the new end.  

Day 2:  Everything was crystal clear when I woke up.  I went straight from my bed to my computer and started working.  Every time I looked up an hour had passed.  My husband called from Fairbanks to say goodbye as they headed out to remote country and I told him about the new ending.  He has learned to conserve his enthusiasm when I have epiphanous mornings resulting in what, at the time, appears to be final glory.  At noon I broke away from my novel for social interaction with live humans and while it was delightful and necessary for sanity, when I returned to my desk where 80,000 words, three story lines, and an unstable emotional arc had just had a 2 hour break, getting back to the drawing board was not as easy as it sounds.  If I break for too long I have to start over and walk myself back down.  

    

Day 3:  I kept passing closets that need to be cleaned and rooms that need to be decluttered and, being home alone, there is that urge (that I never get when surrounded by family) to dig into the mess.  Instead I ran some errands midday and when I got home in the afternoon, tired, I found myself reading bits of my first novel (the one in the drawer).  It went downhill from there ending in a Facebook binge.  I really don't want to talk about Day 3.

   

Day 4:  Made up for the previous day’s squandered time.  I won’t even tell you what time I changed out of my nightgown.  Worked from 7 AM to 9 PM without looking up.  As in time lapse photography, you could see the sun moving across the sky, shadows shifting on my desk, and my hair going flat, but I did not move from my seat.  Thoughts were allowed to develop without interruption or distraction.

  

Day 5:  Running out of time, haven’t made enough progress, and now I needed to research new material.  Found online resources and a book which I instantly downloaded to Kindle and read for way too long.  I got the details I needed but had that bad feeling I was too far out on a research limb and needed to retrench.  What was this novel about, again?

Day 6: Time’s up.  My son must be fetched in 2 hours and although it will be just the two of us for another four days, the isolation part is over.  Except, it's not!  Jet lagged, he went to bed as soon as he got home.  I managed to finish the new ending before he woke up.  

Day 7: It's raining outside!  Bonus Day!  I read my whole manuscript.  It took most of the day but I was able to make notes, review notes, and--most importantly--check out the new ending.  Bad news--the new ending does NOT work.  It is depressing.  If I were a celebrity writer it would be critically acclaimed, translated into 32 Eastern European languages and filmed in black and white.  But I'm me and this ending will not work.  Bummed, I got in my car to drive 30 minutes to attend an event, lamenting my inability to produce given a week of isolation.  But being in this hyper-concentration mode, I wasn't 15 minutes from home when a twist came to me that fixes my ending problems.      

So now, as soon as I post this blog, I'll get back to work.  I won't be finished before the house is full of people again, but at least the heavy lifting will be done so that when my concentration is forced to break it will be the easy revisions left to do. Best thing:  I can still produce in isolation.                 

(I should disclose that this is the 8th time I will have finished this particular  novel).

Will you get any time to write in isolation this summer?    

 Cindy Jones is the author of My Jane Austen Summer, the story of a young woman who thinks she may have realized her dream of living in a novel when she is invited to participate in a Jane Austen Literary Festival.  Her problems follow her to England where she must change her ways or face the fate of so many of Jane Austen’s secondary characters, destined to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

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I'm . . . Quirky

As the newest ‘Girlfriend’, I thought in my first blog, I’d introduce myself. 

My name is Laura Drake, and I’m a bit – quirky. 

Not  ‘eccentric ‘– I don’t have the kind of money it takes to earn that title.

Not as in ‘odd ’ – I don’t hoard things, own 53 cats, or speak to people no one else can see (except for my characters, but all authors do that. Don’t they?)

It’s just that I’m not like most women I know.  

·         I’m a tomboy. Still. I started out that way, and never grew out of it. In general, I tend enjoy the company of men.  At a party, I’m much more likely to be watching the game with the guys than having a glass of Zin with the women.

·        

       I ride a motorcycle. I rode a hundred thousand miles on the back of my husband’s, propping a paperback on his back and reading on the boring stretches. For my fortieth birthday, I learned to ride my own. I have logged 100,000 miles on my two BMWs, Elvis and Sting.

·         I don’t watch TV. I didn’t own one until I got married. I once offered my kids $5,000 apiece to give up watching for a year. They turned me down in about three seconds.

·         I can be a bit obsessive. I get up at 3 am to write. Every day. Including weekends.

       I’m terminally organized. I can find anything I own, at any time, blindfolded. Well, I could, until I married The Chaos of the Universe.

 

·         I follow one sport – the PBR (Pro Bull Riding).  It’s the only thing I watch on TV. 

I tend to throw myself at life headfirst. I grew up in Detroit, and my sister and I packed everything we owned into our two Pintos, driving cross-country to move to Southern California, sight unseen. I skydived until my chute didn’t open, and I had to throw the reserve. I’ve been married three times. Third time must be a charm, because we just celebrated our 27^th wedding anniversary.

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t recommend doing things this way. Leaping without looking adds lots of miles to a body (and a face!) It’s just that I don’t know any other way to be.

But there’s been an added benefit to most of the above – it makes for great characters, and plot fodder.

My heroines are flawed, but scrappy. My stories are set in the West – taken from my motorcycle seat memories. 

My passion for Professional Bull Riding spilled into my novels. My Sweet on a Cowboy series with Grand Central is set in that world, and I have a Women’s Fiction proposal out now about a woman bull fighter! Not the Spanish kind – the crazy guy who draw the bull away from a downed bull rider.

No telling what plots will hatch next, but they’ll most likely be a little – quirky.

Laura's debut, The Sweet Spot was selected as a RITA^®  finalist in both the Contemporary and Best First Book categories. Winners will be announced at Romance Writers of America^® national conference in San Antonio in July.

What Writing Tools and Software Do You Use?

by Wendy Tokunaga

I’ve written all of my novels using Microsoft Word. Before and during my writing I do extensive research on the Internet and print out articles and keep them in file folders. Occasionally I like to get away from the confines of my computer and desk. So, instead of heading out with a laptop, I print out my work-in-progress drafts and bring them and my research to a café. While sipping on a green tea matcha latte and trying to avoid purchasing that oversized chocolate chip cookie in the display case with my name on it, I’ll make corrections and notes on my drafts, brainstorm further, re-read articles, ponder and daydream. It’s important for my writing well being to sometimes get away from my home office and computer screen, my working-from-home husband and my demanding Siamese cat.

But lately I’ve been feeling stuck with a revision of a finished novel as well as the beginnings of two novels-in-progress (yes, I am a Gemini). Colleagues and students alike have been raving about Scrivener for years now and the questions come to mind, “What am I missing out on?” and “Is there something I could do differently with the help of tools that will enhance my creativity in ways I haven’t considered?”

It’s not that I haven’t tried a few programs before. But I’m famous for downloading them and then letting them rot on my desktop, saying I don’t have time to learn them and I’ll get to it once I start my next novel. Or I simply use them once, throw my hands up in the air and then forget all about them.

I finally did recently purchase and download Scrivener (very reasonably priced) as well as the Scrivener for Dummies book. Fellow writers told me that I may not need the book—that the online documentation was quite well done, but trust me, I do usually need how-to books as well. I’ve only just begun to explore Scrivener and I find that it seems best for help with becoming better organized and having research all in one place (though not easy to print out, which I guess isn’t the point). It also has a virtual corkboard and index cards for storyboarding, which was fun to play around with, but I couldn’t seem to print that out either or copy and paste the text and take it to the café unless I wanted to print it on actual Avery 3x5 cards.

Organization is not usually a challenge for me. I guess I’m looking also for help with plotting and brainstorming—something that will help me get the ball rolling. I know how to do this intellectually, but I feel that it’s good to have a jump-start and a way to bounce ideas around that will stimulate my creativity. There are other software packages designed with this in mind (The Marshall Plan, Dramatica, etc.) but I have heard these are difficult to learn and perhaps more complex than they need to be. So I guess it’s good to know up front what you want in a writing software and how it is actually meant to help.

Researching on the Internet I see that some writers like to use a variety of tools instead of one dedicated software package. There’s Pro Writing Aid, which is a writing improvement and editing software; Visual Thesaurus; and Evernote, which you can use for clipping scene ideas, notes, photos, etc. And there are many more.

I also see that Scrivener has a way to set a draft and session “target”—a total word count goal that plugs into a deadline. I think this could be useful, if I do indeed end up using Scrivener but it’s also something I could easily set up for myself.

So, girlfriends, what software and tools do you use, if any? Do you utilize any kind of plotting or story development software? What works for you? What doesn’t? And if you do use and like Scrivener, what are the features that you find the most helpful?

Find me at:

www.WendyTokunaga.com

Twitter: @Wendy_Tokunaga

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wendy.tokunaga

Call Me Crazy

 

One of the main reasons I write is to get the crazy out. I’m not just talking about wild ideas, rants about the universe, or a need to share experiences. No. I am talking about getting to say and do all the things I would never say or do in real life. 

 Most writers limit the crazy to supporting characters. My crazy comes out in my heroes. You know, the one that is secretly me.

My first novel, 66 Laps, was inspired by my desire to throttle a model/mom who pointed out my first gray hair during a play-date for our toddlers. I wanted to slap the bitch. Guess what the first line of that novel is? “I slapped the bitch.” That reaction led to grave consequences for Audrey. While I smiled and let the comment slide, but poor Audrey’s identity issues made her the kind of character who reacted, so she was also the kind of person who would react to larger things. In fact, when she thought her husband was having an affair, she allowed herself to be seduced by a younger man. Unfortunately, tragedy ensued. Poor Audrey. But me? My only consequences were a literary prize and a contract with Random House.

 

Clearly, crazy was working. In my next novel, Wife Goes On, there are four protagonists, so I spread the crazy around. There’s an overworked mom who gets to rule the world, a ball busting lawyer who wears designer clothes, an actress who humiliates off her cheating ex on national TV, and a sweet young ex-football wife who sells sex toys. They become they kind of friends we all need. And they do crazy things that I’ve only imagined.

In What A Mother Knows, I explore the impulse to kill someone who threatens my daughter. You’ll have to read the book to find out if I did. I mean, if Michelle did. But that’s not all. The character faces all my worst nightmares and comes out okay. She also gets to have a makeover, a fabulous love affair, and a new career. See the pattern?

The greatest challenge to this method is that editors sometimes complain that my main character needs to start out more “likeable ." When they say that, it’s hard not to be insulted – they are talking about me. Then I realize they just need to see more of the real, boring me before they meet the hell raiser reacting to a gray hair, a divorce, or a threatened child.

So far I’ve gotten to swear, have an affair, come very close to committing murder, and have a happy ending.

Call me crazy, but it works. 

 _________________________________________________________________________________

Check out the film trailer for What A Mother Knows, email me about a book club visit, or read my NYT Modern Love column at www.leslielehr.com

Please "Like" the normal, not crazy me on Facebook to keep up with events and writing tips. www.facebook.com.authorleslielehr

Writing Retreat!!!

By the time you read this, I'll be in a car, my daughter and I will be driving 8 hours from home in Illinois to northwest Michigan. My darling teenager goes to Music Camp every year for a one-week institute. I go and spend the whole week in a hotel nearby (requested by the kid in case she get's homesick/breaks a leg/just needs to know I'm 20 minutes away) for a self-imposed writing retreat.

And I can't wait. Just me and my laptop in a hotel room, writing, for a whole week. Without the usual interruptions:

• No house to clean. Maybe I should repeat that. NO HOUSE TO CLEAN;
• No pets who want outside, followed immediately with wanting inside, then outside again. I really should install a remote controlled sliding glass door;
• No 'emergency' trips to the grocery store because the 14 yr. old is out of  Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Pop Tarts, or to take the 16 yr. old to the movies/girlfriends' house/mall because she'll 'die' if she has to spend one more minute in this house (this usually means her uncanny sixth sense has alerted her to possible, impending yard work);
• No house to clean.
• No one interrupting me to ask 'what's for dinner,' or 'when is dinner' or 'can we have McDonalds?' - usually followed by 'will you drive to McDonalds?'

Instead, it's:

• Lots and lots of quiet writing time with nothing to interrupt it but breakfast, snacks, lunch, snacks and dinner (usually followed by snacks);
• Lots of the snacks I like - not the stuff I only eat because my kids won't (don't ask me how many times I've had to eat what they insisted they needed, only to develop a sudden hatred for that thing once halfway through the bag);
• When I need a break from writing, no one to interrupt me reading or knitting or just staring into space with, 'oh good, you're done! can you drive me to.../cook for me.../find my.../let the dogs in and out and in again?'
• Someone comes in and cleans the room for me every day. EVERY DAY.

Does it get lonely spending 24/7 by myself?

No. Not ever. Sorry family. I need this. If I don't get this, I might kill all of you.

And the best thing this year? My daughter has her learner's permit (we're 3 weeks away from getting the full driver's license - much to my horror and weirdly, relief) so I don't have to drive the whole 8 hours, each way.

Of course, I have to produce. I have to justify this trip financially by having a supernatural amount of pages done when I get back. But that's probably the best part.

Well, right behind the maid service and snacks, that is.

Hearing Voices: When a Character Cracks Up

My first novel, Adventures with Max and Louise features a woman who, through a surgical error, is given unwanted breast implants. Before they can be removed, they start talking to her. One is an English bloke, Max, the other a black woman of a certain age, Louise. Both have very strong opinions on what Molly, the main character, should do to fix her life, which is stuck firmly in the past.

In other words, Molly is completely nuts. And she knows it. She's hearing voices. The completely

mental thing about it is that when she starts listening to them, they make sense. Both Max and Louise, although they clash wildly, want Molly to break out of her shell and take some risks in love and life.

When I was writing the book, people at cocktail parties or my daughter's soccer games either laughed uproariously or they took a step back with a confused look on their faces, asking "Seriously? A book with talking boobs?" And to be honest, readers either willingly suspend their disbelief in order to enjoy the story or they don't.

But the insanity of the idea is what made it interesting to me. Weighed down by years of guilt about an accident in which her mother died, Molly's breaking point is the surgery, which cracks her open, spilling out all the fear, loneliness and guilt that have shadowed her since the day of her of her mother's death. With the breaking point comes two voices that change her life forever.

If you ever read any books by neurologist Oliver Sacks, such as The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, featuring stories of patients with various mental disabilities, Molly's voices aren't that much of a stretch. But unlike many real and debilitating mental illnesses, this one goes away once the Molly has reached a crisis point and moved beyond.

Great fiction takes characters and tosses them into the sea of crisis, spitting them out changed, for better or worse. In every day life, when faced with the chaos that life throws our way, we all have various coping devices. Sometimes going a little bit crazy is one of them. In fiction, writers can take it further because unlike real life, no one is going to end up getting hurt.

And in my books, I can promise you a few laughs along the way.

A native of Seattle and graduate of Smith College, Ellyn financed her MFA at The American Film Institute by working as a cook on fishing boats in Alaska. After several years as a screenwriter, Ellyn came to her senses and returned to Seattle, where she wrote her first novel, Adventures with Max and Louise, which was pubished in 2012. Her second novel, Divine Moves, was published the following year. She's polishing her third novel, Fifty Acts of Kindness and outlining her first YA novel, Finding Nirvana.

When she can find the right mix of humor, depression and hysteria, she'll write about her years in Los Angeles.

She lives near Seattle with her family and a shelter dog.

For writing news, sneak peeks at new projects and her blog, visit www.EllynOaksmith.com