Wherever my mojo had wandered off to those first few months of the year, it has decided to return with a bang and bring with it reinforcements in the form of focus and determination. It’s a welcome homecoming but there’s no time for a party to herald the event.
I have decided to think more strategically this year. I have the potential to have 4 completed manuscripts in my possession by the end of this year as well as the first draft of a fifth. One is already completed, the other just needs a little tweaking to clean up a plot issue I discovered, one is thisclose to being done and the last one is in first draft form and ready for revision.
All that being said, I decided to take a look at what contests were available that would have final judges I would want to target with my work. Also, with the tweaking and revisions it would be great to get some feedback from people who haven’t read the manuscripts previously. So after some review, I picked six contests with deadlines in May and June.
Which means for the next two weeks I will have my nose to the grindstone while I prep the entries and write/revamp the existing synopses (oh joy).
Once the entries are sent off, my focus will turn to finishing the final run through of Salvation Falls and start marketing it, then fixing the plot issue in Brimstone I noticed the other day and sending out agent queries, then completing revisions on Invitation to Scandal and sending out queries on it.
That should take me up to end of October, leaving November open for NaNoWriMo and the opportunity to complete another first draft. I already have manuscript chosen. I am redoing Finding Home, Dash and Lucy’s story - or as my brother calls it – Juicy Lucy and Her Big Bat. There’s a reason I don’t let him pick my titles…
Finding Home is my contemporary that I began over a year ago but the plot just wasn’t working. So I’m scraping it, keeping the characters and most of their backstory and going back to the drawing board on the plot / storyline and conflicts.
December I will spend working on the outline for my historical fiction, The Tangled Garden.
So I have my work cut out for me in 2009 but I finally feel like I’m moving forward again with more momentum than I had when the year started.
First, on the writing front, I have finished the first round of revisions on Salvation Falls and have started the read through. I’m hoping to have the manuscript ready to send out by the end of the month. I’m considering a couple of contests as well but we’ll wait and see. Money is a bit tight for the next few months so I have to pinch some pennies and watch where I do my spending.
The historical novel, The Tangled Garden, is not progressing as quickly. I thought I could research while revising the other one, but I seem to keep forgetting how many hours are in a day and that no matter how much I want to get done, I still need to go to work and sleep. So for now, rather than overload my plate and feel frustrated, I’ve decided to get Salvation Falls and Invitation to Scandal out the door first, then settle in to work on The Tangled Garden. My mother reminded me the other day that I’m always trying to jam my entire life into five minutes and maybe I should just try tackling one thing at a time. Sometimes mother does know best…
Meanwhile, the sickness that invaded the other week is being beaten back with a vengeance and so we are all very, very thrilled about that, not to mention breathing a collective sigh of relief that things are going so well.
The puppy is also doing well. I get regular reports from my boss who said the pup, now named Bailey, has this annoying quirk where when Boss tells her no, she sits down and argues with him. He is convinced I trained her to do this. I did not bother to disabuse him of that notion.
The snow that hit us the other day is pretty much gone. I can’t wait for the weather to improve so I can finally get into my gardens. The past couple of years I’ve been horribly lax in tending to them (I have quite a few despite a relatively small yard). And now the lack of attention is beginning to show. Which is a shame because they used to be quite spectacular.
The garden at the bottom of the deck steps is going to be completely revamped. The tree I hate. It’s ugly and overgrown. It’s coming out. The grass in front of the garden is a nest of stupid ants every year. Something must be done about that. And the walkway and the weeds…sigh…so much work to be done.
And don’t even get me started on the stupid basketball court. JG wants to take a jackhammer to it and I’m not going to stop him. Have at it, I say. I never wanted the stupid thing and ever since the hurricane in 2005 the net has had a rather threatening lean to it.
The front garden I want to add some color to and maybe put out some baskets or flower boxes that hang off the step railing.
In a year or so, depending on the markets, JG and I are hoping to list my house and buy one of our own, so I want to get as many improvements done now to up the value and add curb appeal. Now if the weather will just cooperate, I can get to work…
I have committed to finally buckling down and writing the historical fiction novel that has been rattling around in my head for I don’t know how long. At first it was just a kernel of an idea but over the past few months it has grown and evolved.
But here’s the thing – unlike historical romance…uh, wait…this is going to sound wrong so hang with me while I try and explain what I mean… in historical romance, the setting is historical, but the main focus is the romance. In historical fiction, the history almost becomes a character in itself. And by virtue of that fact, there is a lot more research that needs to be done and a lot more description of the history that will make its way into the historical fiction novel. That’s not to say you don’t do a healthy dose of research when you’re doing an historical romance, it’s just a bit of a different animal. At least for me, especially since I’m dipping my toe into unchartered waters. I hope that came out right.
My story is to take place in a small fishing village somewhere in England beginning around 1780. So right from the get go I am in a new time period, a new setting, and using characters many rungs below the social economic ladder than I write about in historical romance. And while I love the grit of being able to delve into this side of things, I’m a bit stymied as to where to start.
I’ve decided that while I’m revising Salvation Falls and Invitation to Scandal, I will spend part of my time doing research for The Tangled Garden. But when I look at all the things I need to research, my head starts spinning and things go black. Where to start, not just as far as what topic to pick first but where do I go to get the info? The library would be the logical choice and I plan on jumping across the harbour to the Halifax Library where they house all the good research books. But the problem with that is that the books there are usually non-circulating. And thick. So how do I get the info I need without taking the books with me? I’d be sitting in the library for eons reading/searching for the info I need.
I am feeling a bit overwhelmed with the daunting task ahead of me. So I have decided to…drum roll please…make a list. I figure if I can break it down into 8 sections, I can do one topic each month. Surely that should get me started. Then, once the 8 months are up and the revisions indicated above are completed, I should have enough info to get me at least started on the first draft.
Now, the question is…what are the 8 topics and which one do I start with??
That’s right…it's resolution time…ahhh yes. Another reason to make a list. And we all know how I do love a list.
I really had to sit down and think over what I wanted to accomplish this year. I’ve been feeling a little burned out on the historical romance genre of late. Not the historical end of things, but more on the parameters of the romance genre part. I keep hearing how the editors / agents are looking for books that break the mould, how they want the books to be sexier, etc, etc. And while that’s all well and good if it fits the story you are telling, a part of me is beginning to feel as if the story is coming in second to the sexy. And I don’t want to tell a sexy…I want to tell a story. And I don’t want to be told to sex it up for the sake of sales at the expense of the story.
Now, maybe I was just having an off day when I was doing my goals, and I’m not saying that I will no longer write historical romance. I have every intention of keeping my toes in that pond. But my ultimate goal has always been to write historical fiction with a romantic element – think Elizabeth Chadwick, along those lines. Where the story and the history and the characters have top billing and the romance feeds into all of these elements but at the same time you are not constricted in what you do. There is a freedom in historical fiction to really branch out into the grittier side of things, to explore different eras that might not sell as well in the romance genre, and to bring to life characters both real and fictional who come from all walks of life rather than just the upper crust.
For the past several months I’ve had a story percolating in the back of my head that wants to be told. It is straight historical fiction and bit by bit the heroine is revealing herself to me, to the point where I had begun to make notes of who she was and what her story is. Then the title popped into my head, and once that was done, there was no turning back.
When it came time to write down my goals, I had to decide what the best use of my time would be this year, given that my writing time is limited to 1.5 hours per day in the morning. As Brimstone has yet to sell, jumping in and doing Book 2 didn’t seem to be a good idea until I knew what was going on with Book 1. So I decided to look at my inventory. I have first drafts of a western historical I did for Nano in 2007 (Salvation Falls) and the first draft of a new series I did for Nano this past November (Invitation to Scandal).
So here are my writing goals for 2009:
1) Do revisions to Salvation Falls (Jan – Apr).
2) Do revisions to Invitation to Scandal (May – Aug)
3) Research historical content for The Tangled Garden and develop outline (Jan – Aug)
4) Write first draft of The Tangled Garden (Sep – Dec)
Next up…figure out my personal goals for the year, one of which will likely be to work off the gelatinous spare tire developing where my waistline used to be…
Wherever my mojo had wandered off to those first few months of the year, it has decided to return with a bang and bring with it reinforcements in the form of focus and determination. It’s a welcome homecoming but there’s no time for a party to herald the event.
