The benefits of structure.

I've been thinking a lot about structure lately. Being one of those people who are not dominant on either side of my brain I both crave the beauty of balance and symmetry and cannot follow a detailed plan for my time to save my life. Visual structure, yes. Lifestyle structure, no. I have no concept of time and am incapable of fooling myself onto believing that following a schedule is important.

Well, unless it is following my autistic son's schedule, then life depends on it! But even that is only important because of the effect that ignoring the schedule has on him and therefore the rest of us. No one cares if I waste hours of my day and I can't seem to care either, even if I have a detailed schedule sitting next to me on my desk. As a matter of fact, I can waste lots of time making schedules and plans. I feel very mature and proud as I gaze upon my list of intentions but ultimately feel irritated as soon as it begins to try to dictate my time.

I like to follow my muse as much as possible when the kids aren't around. So much of my day is spent taking care of them and seeing to their needs and the needs of the house and such that when they are not home I want to do what I want to do. It seems like the structure that I tried, with good intention, to put into my day is demanding that I give up more of my time instead of helping me to manage what I have.

I think that this is the artist in me, the part of me that wants to follow the flow of the universe around me and see what I find. It's easy and fun, relaxing and refreshing. As a matter of fact, I think that spending some of my time this way is very healthy for the mind, body and soul and highly recommend it.

But I have noticed that no steadily published author does what they do without structure. As a matter of fact, they all say that until you find a structure for your day, the way that you pursue your career as a writer and for the writing itself that you will never succeed.

Damn, but I think that they are right.

Case in point, I have a tendency to sit and write whatever is in my head. Most of the time I sit down and wonder what I want to write about at that moment. I have paragraphs and pages from all kinds of stuff on my laptop. Now that's okay, but how many of those have I finished? One. How many times have I approached an editor? Once. An agent? Once. This is not how a career is started. I am just way too scattered.

Luckily I consider two wonderful authors to be mentors to me. They are both extremely generous and have talked with or emailed me and I kind of hang on every word that they say about writing. The coolest thing about this is that they seem to represent the two sides of my brain. The first is Marjorie M. Liu, she is the creative side. She comes up with a situation or a great first sentence and then follows the story from there. Organic, she calls it. This is wonderful because she writes with the same process that I do and is so good at what she does. But she is able to sit and write in the story that she is working on. There is method to the madness in the fact that she does what she needs to do and finishes her stories. This is what I learn from her - to allow myself to write the way that I do but to temper that with just enough structure to be dependable as a writer.

The other author is Lynn Viehl. She is so structured that it's almost a military operation, which is fitting since she used to be in the military. Lynn likes to make a notebook about her characters, their world, pictures and plot. As a matter of fact she has even done posts about how to log what you do in a day, figure out how much time you spend on what and then make a schedule for the day, week, month and year to maximize your writing without taking too much away from the rest of your life. I confess, I didn't even read those posts too closely since being that detailed about that much structure made me bored. That is probably a large part of my issue with structure, I don't like to be bored. Structure is sooo boring! But Lynn is a prime example of why structure can work, she has a full and seemingly happy family as well as work life - a goal that we all strive for.

So I've been thinking about what structure can do for me if I find a way to make it workable. A way to combine Marjorie and Lynn's philosophies, as it were. For me, it seems to boil down to daily and monthly goals. One or two of each only - let's not go crazy! I want to blog daily and write for 2 hours on non-work days. There, daily goals that are accomplishable. Monthly goals will be set monthly depending on my status and involve the business side. Since there are only two weeks left in the month and it's the holidays, I've set my goal for the end of January. Right now it is to finish revising my book and send it to the Knight Agency. That means I need to do a whole new synopsis and query, so the monthly goal does have some writing to it but will involve submissions and followups.

There! I feel more organized and structured already. Success is mine. For today.

Book Review: Shadowlight by Lynn Viehl

Finally, I had the time to read the wonderful new book Shadowlight by Lynn Viehl.  Recently Ms. Viehl was cool enough to let the followers of her blog volunteer to be sent an eARC in exchange for a review.  An ARC is an Advanced Reader Copy, the pre-release book that is sent out to people in the business for reviews and such.  The e part just means that it was a file that she sent me instead of a hardcopy - saving trees one author at a time!  I thought that her idea was a bit odd at first, those of us who would normally buy the book now have an electronic copy and I am too cheap to buy what I already have.  The actual truth is that we who received an eARC are now singing the book's praises before it is released in stores.  So I have changes my mind and now think that Ms.Viehl is some kind of crazy genius who stays away from conferences because her brilliance is too much for the public to handle in person.  

Another thing that made it so cool was that I felt like one of the big kids.  Sure she sent a copy to anyone who asked - but as a newbie writer trying to get anyone in publishing to notice me, having an established author let me have an ARC was a big deal.  Plus she gave me a deadline for the review.  I had a deadline that someone else set and that person was a big time author - be still my palpating heart!

The book itself took me a little while to read because I was busy and not hooked by the opening chapter.  I could tell that it was the nice and gentle opening before tragedy struck but I just didn't like Jessa, the female lead character, from page one.  Unfortunetely that dislike carried through the whole book.  I think that some of it was my personality, I don't like nice string o' pearl wearing women who have lived lovely lives and wear tailored suits.  There is nothing wrong with them but I just don't jive with them and so when a character in a book is like that it is almost a given that I won't like them.  Another thing about her was her intense distrust of people who shared psi-abilities with her and her inability to accept the possibility that there was a race, the Darkyn, that had all of the same abilities but had to stay out for the sun and drink blood.  She had never been actually pursued for her talents and the leap from psi-ablilites to psi-abilities and drinks blood is not so big in my mind.  So her resistance just struck me as annoying stubbornness after awhile.

Having said that, I did enjoy the story and most of the other characters in this book very much.  The Takyn series seems to be a little more high on adventure than your average Darkyn book and I like that.  Once the action started it just kept on coming.  I loved the psychotic Lawson as a crazy guy obsessed with Jessa and GenHance as the evil corporation that has no qualms about playing god.  The chase scenes got my heart pumping and I felt a real sense of dread as Jessa was stalked.  That is why this book is good writing and Ms Viehl deserves her bestseller status.  If I never fully warm up to a character but am still able to place myself next to her as she runs from a psycho and feel my heart pound in a shared fear then that author has mad skills with a keyboard.

A word about a character that I did fully warm up to - Rowan.  Man, I love Rowan.  Here is a woman who has struggled and has more than one tragedy in her life.  She has been molded and bent but never broken by a hard past.  At the end of the book there is a sneak peek at the next Takyn book which is Rowan's and is called  Dreamveil.  It looks so awesome that I think I whimpered when the excerpt ended.  I cannot wait until 2010!

So I definitely recommend this book to anyone into paranormal romance.  It's an exciting first book for a series that explains what it needs to but doesn't skimp on the action.  I have found that some first books in a series are so busy world building that they forget to show me why I should care.  This book made me care even if I wasn't initially inclined to.  The release date is October 6, so keep an eye out for it!

In the queue...

Well, I have finally finished switching offices with the hubby.  My crafting and sewing is still in the attic but he now inhabits the little office nook.  I had been so excited about it until I tried to write in it.  Turns out I don't like to be boxed in and I especially don't like looking at a wall.  I need windows and light, lots of it.  

Hubby is a pack rat when it comes to offices so the transition took awhile.  But now I have my space and look forward to using it.  In that vein, I have been making plans for the blog through the second half of the month.

First of all, I am working on reading an electronic ARC (Advanced Reader Copy - that means the book hasn't hit the shelves yet) of Lynn Viehl's new book Shadowlight, expect a review when I'm done.  Also, there will be a review of The Fire King by Marjorie M Liu.  That book is already out but I'm hoping that as I do more reviews I will eventually be able to get more ARCs.  Lastly, I will be posting short stories and/or chapters on Scribd.  An excerpt will be posted here on the blog along with the info to get the entire story.

I'm looking forward to rounding out the blog and beginning to work with Scribd.  Eventually I'll add interviews but I think that my plate is pretty full for now.  If anyone has any other suggestions of things that you would like to see here on the ol' blog, just leave a message in the comments and let me know.  I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

Enjoy the picture of me being happy in my new office digs!   : )

Seven days and counting...

Here we go, boys and girls!  Last night I learned that extreme adrenaline highs make for poor writing.  I just couldn't settle down enough to write.  Too much squealing, not enough story making.

 Today has been better though.  I find that one of my biggest problems is that I just don't like sitting and typing for very long.  Isn't that helpful in trying to start a writing career?  I find that about once an hour I want to not only get up and walk around, but change my scenery.  I'm like a nomadic writer.  I want to drive all over in the course of a writing day.  Coffee shop, library, lunch out, different coffee shop.  It can get expensive if I'm not careful.  (Yes, hubby, I know you're reading and nodding.)

Well, today I have gotten two chapters done and mostly done with a third.  Went to yoga class and aligned my chi or whatever, and got my highlights redone.  I plan on writing late into the night and doing it again tomorrow.  I feel hopeful that I'll finish in time for the Get Together.  

Speaking of which, I had pretty much thought that making an appointment with an agent was the best choice because they can shop you to various publishers.  The lovely Lynn Viehl backed me up (Thanks!) and I'm in the process of setting up my 12 minutes in the limelight.  : )