BLOGFEST 2009: Day 5,6,7,8

Took a much-needed weekend break :) Here are the questions and my answers!

Have you ever just wanted to give up?
I am the queen of starting projects and not finishing them. I have a closet full of partially knit scarves and baby blankets, and a fair-isle sweater, minus the fair-isle part, dating back to 2003 that I refuse to pick up because it's just too hard.

However, with writing, I don't leave things unfinished. I might not write in chronological order, and I have turfed my third novel, 'GLOW,' into a nice little carafe in my brain where it's still percolating in favor of the horror novella 'Unearthed.' It's too easy to just give up, and I don't feel like I could take the easy road out of a problem and be happy with myself. I've had to, as a dear friend of mine described, 'recharge my creative batteries' with a week or two off, but when I'm back and the ideas are flowing, I'm on top of the world.

So, no, I've never just wanted to give up on writing ... even if that fair-isle sweater is a lost cause. Grr ... stupid beautiful design ... too hard! :)

What hobbies do you have?
I love to knit and attend a bi-weekly knitting group at my favorite yarn store. It's so much cooler than it sounds, and those woman put me to shame with their intricate scarves and sweaters and dresses ... my little slippers and scarves tend to look feeble in comparison, but I still like it.

Another geeky admission: I play DnD. I'm a level 7 Drow Rogue named Gyndra -- a weapon of stealth who can see in the dark and slash through monsters before they can even react. My level 8 Half-Orc Rogue Grainne is a femme-fatale pirate with the strength of 3 men and the smile of a supermodel. DnD is such a wonderful release -- you can pretend you're someone else entirely for a few hours once a week!

I also read more than I probably should, love watching movies on XBox HD and enjoy hosting TV premiere parties and football Sundays.

More so than everything else, though, I love my family time. I've got two very young kids, and I play with them, crash on the couch with my husband and relax as a family as often as possible.

How often do you have to edit and rewrite while working on a piece?
If you asked my husband and main critic, the answer would be, 'Until it is perfect.' And, he has a point.

I am an editor by trade, so I go over my own work so many times that I can't count. This is the process:

I write out a chapter, usually in one long session when my mind is thrumming with ideas. Then, I set it down for the day and go to sleep. The next day, I open it up, love some of it, hate some of it, and rewrite whole passages to fit better. I add in dialogue and most of the meat I left out in my mad dash to transcribe the muse. Then, I set it aside and go to sleep. Third day, I pick it up again, re-read it for what feels like to 10th time, add in more details, change the sequence of events, change them back, then write forward into the next chapter, thus starting the whole process over.

The point is that I edit nonstop while I'm writing. I am a reader, and when I enjoy reading something, I feel happy. So, I edit until I feel happy. Sometimes, it's just a feeling that a scene doesn't work, or it's an idea of what could work better. Once, I switched an entire novel to third-person on a whim because I thought it might work better that way. It did.

Rewriting never makes things worse. Some of the best chapters I've ever written were done after my computer erased the entire original file and I had to start from scratch, or, came right after a 'recharge' where I couldn't move past a problem. I like my work to be perfect, and I've already completed so many versions and edits by the time my husband reads things. Doesn't mean I don't enjoy the criticism. :)

Do you feel that you stick to a certain theme (if you have written more than one book?)
Quick side note: Simon & Schuster didn't punctuate the above question correctly. I left it as-is, but it still irked me ... Didn't want you all to think it was my error.

I love fantasy: taking a normal person and throwing them into an abnormal environment or circumstances. Family within the abnormal circumstances is a big theme in my books -- how the dynamic changes, what the meaning of true family is, etc. I also touch on my own personal beliefs as an environmentalist, especially in 'Arcane,' where that is one of the main themes. Another quirk: There is an instance of knitting in each of my stories. Just a touch, nothing heavy handed.

Be sure to check in tomorrow for another installment!

Hi, my name is... and other introductory info

I'm learning a hard lesson right now -- but one that is not wholly unexpected: Writing isn't the hard part when it comes to getting a manuscript published.

Quite the contrary.

You see, I spent about six months writing my debut work, a awesome fictional novel whose premise I'm not about to divulge online (because it'll get published one day...).

I delighted in the 'brain bursts' that led to multiple pages and witty dialogue, and I wallowed in the problems I simply couldn't solve. I planned my twists and discovered my main villain at about the same time I'd expect a very sharp reader to. To me, my characters became real -- their story more a personal memory of mine that made-up wanderings.

It was intensely fun and self-revealing -- and much easier than I expected it would be, considering all the work that went in to it in retrospect.

You see, I'm not only a novelist -- I'm also a mom of two very young boys, a wife of an exceptional man (and drill-sargent critic) and a full-time employee for leading out-of-home media company Captivate Network. I cook dinner every night, work out three times a week, and participate in leisure activities that include but are not limited to Facebook posts, weekends and nights playing Dungeons and Dragons with my husband and friends, weekly Rock Band 2 parties and, of course, my monthly facials and Friday night knitting group.

It's a lot to take on, but, as Tim Gunn would say, I make it work. I am a trained and naturally gifted writer -- come on, we all have something we're good at, and it's OK to be confident in your attributes. Some would say I border on cocky, but that's debatable.

But... the 'getting published' part. Well, that just has me a little apathetic at the moment, to be honest.

My novel, while very well written and based on a strong story, has garnered more interest than I logically had the right to expect and/or deserve. I am, literarily speaking, a nobody from nowhere who one day decided she was going to write a book.

But, that's not where the story goes bad -- I've actually had quite a bit of intense interest in my novel. It's just that, in the given market, no one is willing to commit to something they aren't wholeheartedly passionate about. Unlike like 99% of writers whose first books go unnoticed by agents and have to resubmit numerous drafts, I've been contacted by *four* separate agencies about possible representation. That's truly amazing and an incredible compliment.

It's just that three out of the four have now declined. After requesting the whole document, I was really thinking the last agent was going to be the one -- because, after all, it only takes one.

That may become my new mantra: It only takes one -- one agent to like it, one agent to sell it and one publisher to buy it.

It's time to keep writing my second novel and, while awaiting word from the last pending agency, keep moving forward.