Birthdays and Other Musings

No, it is not my birthday.  That was two weeks back (when I was traveling which led to my missing posting).  I can't explain (well yes I can, but it's laziness which is not really a good explanation) the lack of post last week, so I'd prefer to pretend like that didn't happen even though we all know that it did, including the one person who apparently got so mad at my one week of "sorry no post" and subsequent week of actual missing post that they unsubscribed, thinking I had been raptured, perhaps, on May 21, or that the world was ending and my blog didn't matter anymore.  And no, I don't normally keep crazy tabs on how many people view or subscribe to any of my feeds or sites (yes, I do, we all do, of course, don't we?  It's not narcissistic if Google gives you the information, is it?).

So now, here I am, one year older (and that birthday cake in the picture is really an interesting one, and while I am not a fan of birthday or other cake, I am intrigued by this concept), or actually, more accurately, about 14 days older, than when you heard from me last (especially since my last post was after my birthday but didn't really contain any valid info), and searching for a topic other than dwelling on my lack of proclivity to post recently.  So here goes: today I have TWO topics - appropriate ways to take a break and using other people's cattle prods to shock you into moving.

For the first topic, I was listening to I Should Be Writing a while back and Mur Lafferty was talking about how, as a freelancer, she never really gets to take a break or vacation, unlike her family who get breaks from work or school.  To me, this sounds like a double edged sword - sometimes I think writing is a break from the other stuff that I'm doing, but also, at the same time, if work was my only job, I'd feel like I would HAVE to have a break from it (staycation, vacation, playcation or otherwise) or I would drive myself batty.  However, having taken a break from writing now for a little while (mostly due to that same bout of laziness lack-of-priority-setting), I know that it is difficult to get back into the swing of things.  So, question one: how do you appropriately take a vacation from your writing and not separate yourself to the point that you stop writing altogether or that you build up a giant learning curve to get back into it?  Discuss amongst yourselves (and/or give ideas in the comments, if you don't mind).

Second topic, I know my giant wall that I have to scale in order to make it to the next level is revision.  I've search high, low, haven't quite reached the end of the internet, but I'm close, and I know lots of little adjustments and tweaks that would be great to make in an almost finished story to get it ready to ship out the door, including a few character things, some dialogue tweaks, etc.  What I'm missing is a process to get to the point where polish is all that is left.  And so, I'm looking at some options for learning/developing that process.  One of those is Holly Lisle's How to Revise Your Novel workshop.  Upside, she's got what she claims is a repeatable process for polishing the steaming pile of pages rock into a gem, and I've seen more than one published or agented writer/author credit her class with helping them get there.  So that's good.  Downside, it's expensive and until I try it I'm not sure it will work for me.  But then that might highlight how much this is a "me" problem and not a "process" problem.  I can learn stuff.  Sometimes.  So, I'm going to save a few coins and hopefully set aside a chunk to pay for this class, and see what we can do to turn either White Rock or Seven Doors into something other than a predictable piles of goo that it currently is.  I know a few of the big things that will have to change (a character name and half of his backstory, a few plot items that really don't lend themselves to good structure), but I let myself sit in paralysis trying to figure out where to stick the knife first.  So my plan is to use someone else's structure to make that happen.  If you've gone through the course and have thoughts or comments or suggestions, I'd welcome those as well.

Anyway, that's all for this week - just blatant solicitation of comments and feedback a few discussion points that might or might not start a dialogue.  Off to hop yet another plane, so until next time...