Although, I'm very grateful for the blog just now. The daily deadline helps me get something down on paper, even if it's not the usual content.
So, routine is good.
Probably a new routine, but almost any kind of routine will help settle the mind.
One of my clients, Jeff Marks, told me his to-do list is now organized in 30-minute segments. Do the one thing you must at 10:30, then do all the scatterbrain things till 11:00. List, rinse, repeat.
Agent Lucy Carson said she's reading things twice right now cause she doesn't fully trust herself as a reader/editor right now.
That resonated with me.
The thing that helped me the most though is remembering that I can read books and it really does count as work.
You don't have to be writing to be working as a writer.
61 comments:
I'm writing every chance I get because it is the one thing that is still mine. It may or may not be anything good, but I run things in my fictional world, and it helps.
Nope. Rain Crow has gone from 132,000 to 160,000. Thank you, Save The Cat Writes A Novel exactly what I needed. No, I don't know what I'm going to do with it. I'm just writing the story at this point. It did need fixing.
I'm also working on another project.
Here's a hint. Turn off the damned news. I keep telling you this, but no one will listen. You think those reporters want to give you any good news? No. They want to keep crap stirred up as long as they can and as bad as they can. I'm amazed anyone with two brain cells can't see this. I read good news stories and then out of curiosity search to see if it's been reported anywhere on the msm and surprise surprise, nope. Not a hint of it. Not a hint.
I'm not burying my head in the sand, but I am not letting msm do what they do best, infect me with a vile stream of misinformation and distorted bs to keep people terrified.
"If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast.--" William Tecumseh Sherman
Try reading Corrie Ten Boom. Read something uplifting. Focus on something positive for a change. Stop driving yourself insane. Find ways you can help even if you are homebound. Terry Dresbach of Outlander fame organized a bunch of home sewers to make face masks for hospitals and other places who were requesting them.
A church banded together and asked people to donate their Chick-Fil-A points on their apps to send food to a local hospital for the workers there as a thank you. The recipients loved it.
Order seeds and start a little herb garden on your window sill. Grow green onions from the tail ends of your green onions.
Be thankful for the days you live in. We have more food, more opportunities, more care than at any point in history. You are not going to die of starvation. People are working to find a cure. People are working to improve conditions.
This will pass. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Focus on that and not your fears.
“Don't let the bearers of bad news become the pallbearers of your happiness.”
― Stewart Stafford
Looks for the "Like" and "Amen" buttons for Julie's comment. :)
I have good days when writing is not a problem. But most days I sit here trying to concentrate on writing while that damned list of shouldas disrupts my creative process. I'm two people: Kitty is the creative one and Katharine is the hall monitor. So, while Kitty is trying to write, Katharine is ticking off all those things I should be doing instead. At this point, COVID-19 can not compete with Hall Monitor Katharine.
I'm reading little Stevie King's On Writing...again.
Like visiting an old friend less than an arms length away.
I agree with Julie that too much news-gazing can be detrimental to your well-being. Too much fear is never a good thing. But the opposite can be detrimental, too. I was floored when I talked to a good friend Friday (he stopped by in his car, maintained six feet) and he revealed he was at a neighbor's house on Thursday night, drinking and playing cards.
Cards? Is that really necessary? I and my family have been holed up for fourteen days. Telling my boy he can't hang with his pals. Struggling to maintain some kind of order. And this whole thing might be prolonged because someone thought, "let's go play euchre. Because this is all no big deal."
And no, it's not the media that gets in the way of my writing, it's the disruption. Trying to keep a family sane when you're all confined to the same space. Supervising your kids' schoolwork while trying to evaluate your own students. Finding time to play games with the kids, cook with them, get them to help with the housework (which there is a lot more of).
So, yeah. Don't drown yourself in media. But it's still hard to focus. Hopefully this will burn itself out and be much less of a big deal than the doctors (and nurses, God love them) are saying. Yes, we will eventually return to normal. I hope my card-playing friend and others don't mistakenly turn a quarantine which should be measured in weeks and turn it into months.
I listen to the news on WJR which is a local AM radio station for me. Dick Haefner still reports the news as news without any opinions thrown in, any rhetoric, any...anything. And he reports it equally. I ignore everything else.
I haven't written in awhile now, before this really started. I just can't seem to write myself out of the hole I've dug but I like this story and really don't want to scrap it. *sigh* what to do...what to do...
I'll echo what Julie said and "turn off the damned news." My husband would sit in front of the news all day long if I don't put a stop to it. On the weekends I ban the news altogether and turn on the Hallmark Movie channel, which he calls treacly torture. It works because he doesn't rant'n'rave on the weekends.
I'm not writing as much as I want to be, but right now, that's because I'm spending my free time cuddling an extremely elderly rat and rubbing his cheeks in the exact way he likes. He's in end stage heart failure, but has spun out "his last few days" on palliative care to three months and counting. As long as he gets his chocolate custard and baby porridge (his chosen diet - we've tried!) and can fall asleep on a lap having his head rubbed, he's happy. Bringing that comfort into a tiny old life feels a particuarly worthwhile use of my time right now.
Don't want to deter too much, but can I ask people's opinions of flashbacks in novels? I'm usually not a fan when they're a steady component throughout the story, but they can sometimes work if done well. I'd rather that info come out organically through the present story, but sometimes that would be too distracting and it's more interesting to experience them live.
I'm struggling with that debate right now on my current story. I wanted to avoid them, but I tried to see what it would look like, and wound up writing basically a four chapter flashback for a supporting character. If I go that route, I'd need to do the same for some others, which could wind up leaving 20% of the novel as flashbacks.
So what's your take? Flashbacks: yay or nay?
We're doing pretty well. Things haven't changed too much on the homestead. I think we're some of the lucky ones. HOWEVER, I'm not getting any writing done because I have four kids at home, three involved in online schooling, plus a hubby working from home. And we keep getting snow. There is no alone time. There is no sanity. I spend most of my time supervising the online things and keeping the two year old out of everyone's computers and trying to keep the kids from arguing each other to death. I keep wondering if the new normal in the future will involve virtual reality school. If so we need an addition on the house. To get that I need to sell books. To do that I need to write books. To do that I need to get the kids out of our small cramped house. It's a vicious cycle.
Steve
Flashbacks, if done right, can be very effective. Diana Gabaldon uses them to great effect.
I use them in Rain Crow because I have characters who behave in what people think are totally irrational ways. Also, the mother of the MC is almost a villain, but when you see what she's gone through, the reader begins to understand why she has a terror of her daughter falling prey to some things.
People are not one-dimensional. As Hemingway said, don't write characters, write people.
If your story needs them and you can feed them in seamlessly, do it.
Thank you for this sentence, Janet:
You don't have to be writing to be working as a writer.
Yeah, can't seem to write right now.
Just doing fun things with my new laptop, camera and mic.
Talking to friends all over the world.
Thinking of you, coming here every day.
Just wanted to say hi. Hi!
Love, K
Steve Forti, the best use of flashbacks I've ever read are in Nora Ephron's "Heartburn." I'm reading it again to learn how she does it so seamlessly. (And I'm reading it for the laughs.) She weaves them into the story without the reader realizing they're reading a flashback. Most writers' flashbacks sound stilted.
Feeling better after forcing myself to take a break yesterday. My fingers are crossed our best and brightest are figuring out a way to navigate this crisis in a way that keeps us all going. I'm feeling more optimistic about that now than I was a week or two ago. But things are going to get (and look) worse before they get better. We just have to have the resilience to see it through.
Resilience was ... not something I had a week or two ago. I'm still writing, but it's mostly my "pages"--those freewriting pages featured in Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way.
I hope everyone in this community is doing well and coping....
Steve: I've already used my "Amen" button with Julie once today so I'll just have to agree. Flashbacks are one of those things that have to justify their existence. If there's another way to convey that information, do it. But if the flashback is the way that is most organic, and if it's the way that will make the most sense to the reader, go for it.
S.P.: It is interesting to contemplate what changes might come about to society as a result of this crisis. World War Two essentially gave us the internet, among other things. What will COVID-19 give us (not that WWII and COVID-19 are equivalent events, but they were/are both global crises that forced innovation and adaptation)? Perhaps when this is all over and people take stock of how we better prepare for something like this in the future, online connectivity will be a consideration. Perhaps not a wholesale move to online education, but such technology might get more emphasis and development. Perhaps in the future, shaking hands will be seen as a form of intimacy, or assault? What would a murder-mystery look like in a world where social distancing is the norm?
Food for the creative imagination... :)
"Commonwealth" and "Station Eleven" both do a great job with vaulting chronology and flashbacks.
Well, I understand how annoying watching the news can be, especially in America. Not quite so much over here. And one can be worried even without watching the news all the time because of reality. Reality is still there.
With all respect, and I'm glad Julie is coping so very well (I am coping too!), but then I wouldn't think that "Life is good" at the moment. (I noticed that comment has gone now.)
Anyway. I love the advice that we don't have to be writing to be working as a writer. Now I know what to say when Fiancé discovers me late at night, hiding in the bathroom, tweeting:
"I am working late."
Someone may have already posted this--Hope it's not heretical. Open Library offers thousands of books free to be read on line.
Steve Forti Flashbacks are absolutely ok and probably essential for multi-faceted characters. However, in your flashbacks you must use every prompt word Janet has set for the Reef's flash fiction contests. This is just how it is.
Amen to Colin, which is essentially, two amens for Julie (sorry for the not bolding, I just didn't feel like it!)
My hat's off to all of you with jobs and little kids to juggle. It must seem like the guy with the plates spinning on top of poles. I trust that you all will manage it with only one or two broken plates.
Organized the pantry last week. This week I will tackle the little room I don't have a name for. Is it an office, is it a library? It has bookshelves and a printer and two trees. A solarium? And it shouldn't take a whole week, but I want it to. I do know in there are all my writing books. A vault? A repository?
And Timothy? Yeah, your friend doesn't get it. He's not sick, his friend isn't sick but either one of them may be infected. This thing is devious that way. That said, some of the restrictions defy logic.
We are under a stay home order. The whole state. No one can go fishing. This makes sense if you view it as what would happen if all of Seattle congregated at the same outdoor space. But there is more to this state than Seattle. Big, wide open spaces where a person could walk or fish without meeting another soul. I don't fish, but the logic defies me.
Rosanna: As I understand it, the strategy is to get through the next few weeks and as more and better data comes in, start looking at a county-by-county approach to getting the country back to work. Yes, this one-size-fits-all approach does seem a little strange in parts of the country which practice social distancing by virtue of demographics (we used to have cows for neighbors). But that approach was a precaution because no-one could be sure who did and didn't have it. I know we all have different opinions on whether that was the right approach, but that was the reasoning behind it. Future adjustments will be (so we are told) more nuanced based on good data when they have it.
Just trying to be a little light of hope and optimism... :D
At my house, the most difficult aspect of this is watching my disabled son. He's 24, developmentally about age 5. We've tried to explain it to him using words he understands, and he's trying, but he's having such a hard time. His basketball and baseball leagues were cancelled. His therapist doesn't come see him. We don't take him anywhere, including to the grocery store because he likes to hug everyone. Before this all started, we spent a looooooong time showing him that there's more to life than sitting in front of his computer, and he finally realized that. He has so much fun doing these other activities, but now he's back in front of the computer. We're glad he misses the stuff he did before, but it's hard to watch him. He points at our calendar with everything crossed off, and he walks around the house holding his basketball jersey or maps of places he's visited, and looks sad. Last Saturday, we went for a family walk in the neighborhood and taught him to stay 6 feet away from everyone, and he was sad but compliant. We've started putting new items on the calendar in late May and June and July, so he can understand that there will be an end to this. We hope we won't have to push those events out even further, but at least he's starting to understand that this won't be his new life forever.
But it breaks my heart.
It's all a matter of perspective.
I have been stranded on a country road in a car for three day in a blizzard and finally started walking out because I knew if I didn't, I would die there. I had taken a short cut to get home and no one knew where I was. Luckily, after a few miles I stumbled across an oil rig.
I've walked in from a dude ranch I was working on in Wickenburg, AZ several miles to town in the middle of the broiling summer heat with no money. The owner refused to allow the hands to give me a ride. He also refused to pay me my wages when I quit. I quit because he told me, "He would have that ass."
I got a job in a cafe, slept in parks, washed in gas stations until I could rent a small kitchenette.
I've been seven months pregnant and without a washer and dryer. Washed clothes in a bathtub with an antique scrub board and scooted down steps on my butt with the laundry to go hang out laundry because of nerve damage that would cause my leg to give out and being afraid to try and walk down stairs. This is the same pregnancy where I was flipping in and out of labor constantly and having to go to the hospital or get ivs because I was so sick I was severely dehydrated.
I've walked to a park blocks away to haul buckets of water to the house to water a pony and dogs and heat water so my boys could bathe every day, and to wash clothes because our water well was out and I couldn't afford to fix it for another three weeks. My boys were never dirty nor wore dirty clothes.
I've looked in the pantry and seen flour, rice, powdered milk and one can of cranberry sauce, and in the fridge had lard. This is what I had to feed kids for over a week before payday and we were all a little sick of rice with gravy before it was over.
I've been without heat for two weeks in sub zero weather and asked my neighbor to be sure and look to see if there were tracks outside my house each day in the snow to see if Gage had been out. I was worried the snow might drift us in. My real concern was I might freeze to death during the night and Gage would be alone.
I've fed cows with a team of horses for weeks in minus forty weather and that's before the wind chill. We had to fork loose hay onto the hay sled and then drive out to the pastures to feed. I drove the team and no matter how many times you tell yourself to keep moving your fingers, your hands are on the lines and there is only so much you can move them. Someone would have to knock my hands loose twice a day and then began the slow and painful process of thawing my hands.
All I have to do is keep my head down. Order food. Get by until this passes. I'm exercising. Eating sensibly. Writing. Reading.
I'm not letting people drive me insane.
So, yes, I am coping very well.
Old-Fashion Parlor Games
Julie: Alternatively, you could have a go at the "Pure White Hell" jigsaw puzzle. :)
Steve - I think flashbacks are fine if done well and as long as they don't take the reader too far out of the main story for too long. Not sure if this would work for your story or if you already considered this, but what about dual timelines? Might solve the flashback issue.
If all else fails, there's always a popular porn site that donated 50,000 face masks to first responders.
I asked my son, "Am I missing something here? PH just donated 50,000 face masks to medical workers."
"They're giving back?"
OK, I'm done. Back to writing.
Colin
I have a full plate, but thanks.
My schedule is tighter than a flea's butt.
I have a non-fiction project that I start each day determined to work on, but I keep finding myself watching TV or doing the dishes. I know why I do it and I still can't stop! So today I am carving it up into many very tiny projects. Maybe I can sneak one past the internal editor without her noticing.
For news, I do what I always have done - choose my news sources carefully and don't listen to people who are fiercely scraping the bottom of the pot so they can bring up the burnt bits and spoil the stew. I find the good stories. Last week our large local Iranian community was celebrating Nowrooz (Persian New Year). Their planned celebrations were cancelled, but a couple of times a day at a scheduled time they went out on their balconies to shout and bang on metal pots and other noisemakers. Very festive.
I'm holding back on listening all my personal hardships I have experienced, except for that it started when I was 18 and still at school when my parents told me to move out because of my OCD. Oh and I had no washing machine, by the way...
It was only the beginning of the hardships. In fact, it wasn't.
People might not die of starvation at this time, or any other examples we have gone through in the past, but they might die of coronavirus. 750-950 daily in Italy. And now also in Spain.
No criticism here that people are coping very well (again, I am too), but I just can't play the current threat down for those who are struggling at this time. Life isn't good for them.
texasblogger, many of those thousands of books are posted in violation of copyright. Open Library does not pay anything to publishers (and thus to authors) for those titles. I strongly urge any of you who have published books to check OL for your titles and send them take-down notices. My book, fortunately, isn't there, but six of my father's are--I'm working through his publisher to get them taken down.
Steve Forti, I'll second what everyone else is saying: used well, flashbacks are a perfectly legitimate option, just like prologues. Used poorly, they're a sin against the reader, just like prologues. Use 'em when the time is right.
As to the original question, the writing is going okay. Not as good as I had hoped, but saying goodbye to a feline family member will do that to your schedule and ability to focus.
I read the newspaper in the morning, and then go into work mode: put something that won't disrupt my attention on (the re-runs of classic World Series games are great for that. I already know who won, so I'm not invested in the game, but the sounds of normality are soothing.)
Stay away from the 24 hour news channels, Twitter, and FB. Take what news you get in small batches.
And remember: it's okay to see other people. Skip the handshakes and hugs, yes, but you can have a conversation from a six foot distance. If that's what you need to stay sane, do it.
Julie ... You win.
Dena ... You almost made me cry.
Steve ... I love flashbacks, because they usually usher in a surprising reveal.
I was blocked. Did some research, got unblocked, then what happened next in the story was so horrifying that I almost regretted it was now flowing.
I don't have much time to write it down, though, home schooling 3 kids.
Well, Steve, I'm not a fan of flashbacks. I think it depends on the story whether you can get away with it or not. But when I'm reading, I want to push forward, not stop and go back and get caught up with a flashback. Drop it into the narrative.
But I think reporters by and large do a pretty good job too, so you might want to discount my opinion. Can't blame them for the 24-hour news cycle we demand.
It's all a little entertaining when you step back and take a wide view! You can still have a healthy respect for the situation at the same time.
The self-schedule thing really helps me, too. I have banned myself from certain websites (twitter and news are two) until 8:30 at night, and a few Reefers are keeping me honest there. I have also set some daily goals like:
- practicing my new harmonica
- going on walks
- eating an apple or a salad
- flossing (sad I have to make this a goal, I know)
- strengthening exercises! push-ups and stuff
I have to do at least 2 out of those five a day. Technically this was my Lent thing but it's helping me with quarantine too.
Glad to hear the updates from you all. Dena I just sent you an email.
RosannaM, I adore the word solarium. Vault sounds pretty badass though.
I've been exercising like crazy (which is certainly not my normal habit) because it keeps me sane, and my mom and I have been making mask covers that go over respirators to keep them clean and extend their life. We're part of an assembly line and our job is making the ties, so we spent hours yesterday making 54 of them (so only enough for 27 masks). Feels like such a small drop in the bucket.
I'm struggling with writing too. I'm working from home, and finding that it drains me completely. Who knew how much energy you get from the people around you in the office? But I have managed to get through edits from the publisher of a novella I've written for an anthology. Maybe once I send those in I'll be able to write again.
Steve re Flashbacks - I'm not a fan. Done badly, I get thrown out of the narrative, confused, and annoyed. However, lots of people don't mind them at all, so who I am to say. If, as you say, the workaround is pages long, then stick it in and see what happens.
PS: How do you do that thing where you reply to a message with the person's account name in bold. Doubtless it's all very easy, but I can't figure out how to do it. I had to insert tags, which should bold everything nicely, but I think there's an easier way.
My "day job" is in essential services and I've been putting in some long days. That said, I'm thankful to have a job to go to, and to have a reason to leave the house. It's eerie, though...streets are empty and shops are boarded up. At the end of work week I am so tired that it takes a couple of days to recover.
But today is my first day off, I'm feeling relatively rested, and I'm excited about getting in some solid writing time.
Julie - your comment on what Hemingway said, "Don't write characters, write people," is just the boost I need to get started today.
Forti - flashbacks are a yay from me, as long as it works for the character and as long as it's seamless. I know...not much to ask, right?
Adele: If there's an easier way, I don't know it. I use tags.
Steve, I'm good with flashbacks in order to make sense of the current story, but four chapters sounds like a big detour from the main story. Does it all need to be in one big chunk, or can you parse it out? Is it backstory, or part of the current plot? You're the only one who can decide if it works.
Re: flashbacks, the first part of my current MS is told on two timelines: the aftermath of a crisis, and the events that led up to the crisis, so there are flashbacks galore. I'll find out on April 28 wether it works for my beta readers. But first I have to finish it.
As for the news, I think you need to know what you need to know. I thrive in a high-information environment. The day before our three-year-old was diagnosed with cancer (long ago), I was ravenous for facts and sought out every bit of information I could find about what we might be facing. Dr. Google was just a young resident back then, but I found enough info to spend a sleepless night rehearsing what it might be like to face treatment with our son, and even what it might be like to lose him. When morning came and my fears were confirmed, I was armed and ready for battle. It didn't save him, but it probably saved me.
My husband, on the other hand, operates on a need-to-know basis. While my brain was whirring down nine different tracks, he absorbed the shocks as they came and he was fully present in each moment he had with our son. Together, we make a good team, but he probably chose the better part. That doesn't stop me from scouring my reliable sources, mad to protect our surviving sons, one who's immunocompromised and one who was half an hour from being put on a ventilator during the H1N1 pandemic. The illusion of control is a potent drug.
My writing schedule hasn't changed much, except that I have a bit more time on the weekends since there isn't anything else to do. It's nice to be immersed in projects that have nothing to do with contemporary issues, though as a historian, my mind can't help making connections. Still, I keep looking ahead, thinking, Well, maybe in June I'll be able to....
My writing is on shaky ground. It is hard for me to pick up the thread and go, my mind is not melding into the story.
I am currently on call with our emergency management people. I have a first responder ticket and offered myself to them. They are not doing anything grand yet, but the day is still young.
Adele: You use the angle brackets (<>) to enclose the letter b at the start. At the end you use the brackets to enclose /b.
B is for bold and I is for italics.
Fearless Reider, I take your path. Our husbands have the better part, and I need MrBrigid to take that present role, but he needs me to write the map. I imagine it's similar for you two.
I'm very sorry for the loss of your son. Praying your family is protected from harm and sorrow.
Dena, I tell my small child that we are helping to fight a great battle by staying home, and protecting those weaker than us. She's sad too. The tenderhearted ones take it hardest, I think. We do a lot of videochatting in this formerly screen-free house.
No writing. No time. Moving and feeding and putting small people back to bed takes up my 24.
Regarding Open Library:
Writer Beware on it and Internet Archive
Author's Guild on the issue
I've been spending too much time on social media. Beyond that, my life isn't much different. I order in instead of going to restaurants. And I've actually been finding more headspace to write, probably because things haven't changed much for me. I know I'm lucky.
My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone affected by this crisis.
Thanks for the inspiration, Reiders. I managed 668 words today thanks to y'all. And thanks to one particularly savvy soul here, I managed to fix a pretty large issue in the WIP.
Onward and (hopefully) upward!
Thanks for everyone's input!
I don't doubt that part of what I wrote will exist only to better inform my own mind about the character so that what survives editing is that much stronger for it. But to answer other questions, it doesn't need to be a single shot. It does kinda play out on dual timelines a bit, if I were to pace it into "Now" vs "Then" chapters where they make sense to reveal something relevant in the Now. We'll see. That's for way down the road when I've got the full rough cut in place to go back and chop to pieces. Love the input!
Good to read about what everyone is going through. Not because they're going through it, but because you're all great and sharing with this community that even just having people to talk about it with is helpful to cope.
I read the two references on Open Library. I certainly am against copyright infringement. But let me share one of my experiences with Open Library.
I know lots of books are given away to induce people to buy others.
I recently got interested in Jane K. Cleland's Josie Prescott mysteries. (Don't know just how.) I believe there are eleven in the series. I wanted to read them in order, so I checked with OL and found (I think) four available. I read these four intermixed with the seven I bought on Kindle. (I shop Kindle mainly because of lack of storage space--and I live a distance from a book store.}
Those four "free" books got Ms. Cleland 7 sales. I wonder how many other older copies of her books were sold.
Just a thought or two.
I lurk and read and enjoy the banter.
I strangely, am not having a hard time writing, but I also think my lifestyle (if you can call it that) is hermit'ish and not much has changed for me.
But I don't really care about that b/c in a random scroll on the comments, I saw something that made my eyes bug out, and my heart go ker-thump, and I don't think it ever came up from where it dropped. Somewhere near the floor.
Her Grace? DoY? Tell me it ain't so, but I scooted all the way back to Sunday, and said a few choice words, then a prayer.
You know, I just learned a friend has Stage 1 breast cancer - and I sent her a note, cheered her on. Didn't get teary eyed, but then I read about Her Grace, and here I sit, sniffling.
I don't know what that says about me, but the loss of a beloved pet just does me in.
Hang in there, Janet. Sending you light, and prayers.
Fearless Reider, my heart goes out to you. You are indeed fearless.
Steve, my WIP has 7 chapters of pure flashback. I strongly believe they earned their right to their standalone status. Beta readers seemed to agree.
I've only now found my way back to writing/revising after weeks of writer catatonia. Limiting social media and dystopian news to 15 minutes a day was key for me. And tiny neon colored post-it notes.
My apologies, I don't have time to read all the comments today, but that relates to the answer to Janet's question... yes, it can be hard to write, but that's only because with home-schooling, and keeping Barbarians active, it's hard to find the time.
I'm mentally gearing up to immerse myself in story revisions (again), which will mean getting strict about the internet (yes, even here). But it's going to have to wait another day or two because I had a moment of PANIC earlier when my brain abruptly reminded me, "OMG, TAXES."
I empathize on the reading issue. I just finished reading a book by one of my fav writers. It was short, only 235 words, usually a one-day read. It took me 6 days to finish it. And the next day I couldn't even remember how it ended, so I had to skim back through the last chapter. Objectively, it was a good book. In the notes section of my reading spreadsheet I wrote: Did not hold my attention, took forever to read; I blame COVID-19.
So, yeah, I don't trust my judgment right now either. Perfect time to dig back into my own work, she said glumly.
Steve, it sounds like you're in first draft mode? I know some people need to edit as they go (hey, whatever works), but maybe try not to do that in this case. Let it all flow and then see what you've got. I know I have to write certain parts, usually the beginning, just to tell *myself* the story. The reader doesn't need that part, so it gets cut later. Maybe also ponder whether the flashback is actually the story you need to tell, rather than the present day. Good luck!
I appreciate everyone's comments, especially today's.
Steve, as long as flashbacks don't grind the story to a dreadful halt, I'm all for them. Check out Louise Penny's Bury Your Dead, which deftly weaves flashbacks in and out.
My work keeps me too busy to get in much extra writing time during the day, but I'm still keeping my pre-COVID schedule of writing my sequel at night. I had moved on to Chapter Five, until one of my CPs gave me such excellent feedback on Chapter Three that I have been working on rewrites there every since. Speaking of which, check your email Dena (but not about my book).
Finally, I just want to share that I got edits on my debut novel today, which makes publication more and more real, so it's back to Book #1 for a bit. Speaking of flashbacks.
Take care, everyone!
I found it really hard to focus enough to write much. Yesterday, Husband ans MIL looked after the kids and I managed to get a big chunk of editing done (I banned myself from looking at my phone).
Talking about all you can read books, does anyone have experience with Scribd? A friend recommended it to me. For a paperback a month price, you can read as much as you like of many many books. They say they pay authors per book read, and work with their publishers, but I do wonder how much authors get in royalties out of such an arrangement. I have Libby/Overdrive but my library gets new books very rarely, and I've read all the ones that looked good. Plus if you want to read new books, the waiting list is months+++. I want books!!!
I both read and write in bursts. I do limit my news intake, but since fb and my phone are my only connections to my friends, I get sucked in a few times a day, become horrified, try not to cry, and then eat a cookie. Then move on to whatever I actually need to do.
Ultimately, I have to overcome the "omg, is it even meaningful" boogeyman when I sit down to write. Some days go well. The days that don't, I don't torment myself.
Laura, that sounds inspiring. The best of luck with the edits.
LOL. Glancing over my earlier comment, I feel the need to clarify: the book I just finished reading was 235 PAGES. Taking 6 days to read 235 WORDS would be cause for extreme concern indeed. Maybe even an intervention.
Yes, I can see revisions in this state of mind are going to be . . . interesting.
And:
Julie I want to read your memoirs.
Dena That sounds so heartbreaking. It was hard enough explaining to my 4yo why she couldn't visit her grandparents for a while when the furthest future she can imagine is this afternoon.
Steve I'm not a big fan of flashbacks because they tend to throw me out of the narrative, but one book I read recently that did it well was The Subjects by Sarah Hopkins. You end up realising that the main narrative is actually flashbacks, which was cleverly done.
Fearless, I get you on the need to know everything side. My husband and I work just like that too. He relies on me for info, I rely on him for emotional stability. But the experience of losing your child... I just can't even imagine how awful that was.
As for the debate about reading the news... I'd say read it so you aren't living in a bubble, but choose the time and place carefully, and don't spend too long on it. My friend's doctor recommended only having a small percentage of your "daily information consumption" (I think 20%?) being about coronavirus. Also, choose your news sources carefully. I'm only reading BBC, because I know it's well-researched and they try to avoid political bias.
Yes.
I like hearing that other people have 3 am cold dread. It means I'm not alone, although I live alone. This crisis has prompted my family to check on me everyday, if I haven't checked on them first. That's my silver lining. The other one will be if we/they all live through this, including my family in the medical field.
I'm thankful for cyber connections and DO hope we don't all break the internet.
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