A word link and a small update

First, here's a link to 12 famous writers on literary rejection. Makes me feel much better about my own work and my own rejections—and much more encouraged to keep trying. Just what I needed this week.

As far as my own writing goes, I'm working on some small revisions on LITTLE SUN. Just a few tweaks, really. I also had one teenage reader get back to me, and she told me she read the book twice in two weeks! That's a pretty good sign.

Also, I have another project I'm just starting on that is kind of exciting. It has helped me remember that I do, in fact, like to write. I had nearly forgotten. Anyway, it's very fun, but I'll have to write more about it later, as I'm not quite ready to divulge any specifics yet.

This SNL skit is not the same story line as my book.

But it's strangely close. And also humorous.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/489151?playlist_id=1031&asset_scope=all

Book Club Party Time

So tonight was my friend's book club discussion about LITTLE SUN. Remember how absolutely excited I was? That's why this post gets four excitement stars. (Plus, they're just fun.) Anyway, tonight was so amazingly fun. And probably, in part, for very dorky and possibly egocentric reasons, but I don't really care. I'm still riding the high.

Tonight was the first time this book club had an author attend their discussion, and they were very interested in the writing process. And, frankly, it was fun to talk about. How often are people super interested in something you've done and ask questions and let you talk about it for an hour and half? Maybe that happens to you all the time, I don't know. But tonight it was awesome.

They wanted to know how long it took me to write, how I came up with the idea, if I had to map out a floor plan of the main character's house (yes, yes I did), among other things. My friend who was hosting also mentioned that they like to make some kind of food and try to tie it in with the book of the month somehow, and she had us guess what she made. People were tossing out ideas and it was fun to hear how familiar they were with the book, and I also realized how much I wrote about food. But she didn't choose any of those dishes. She made a dessert called "Death By Chocolate" because death is a major theme in the story, obviously. I totally, geekily loved that.

It was also so fun to really discuss the book, what things meant, different themes, what people understood from it, and how they imagined the characters. I learned A LOT, and I have ideas for some changes to make it better. And like I said, it was so fun to talk about it with people who were so familiar with the story. They knew the characters almost as well as I did, and that warmed my heart.

They were also curious about the publishing process and where things stand. After I told them, it made me want to get more queries out there and to keep trying. I've taken a long break, but I was motivated to get back at it.

The whole experience was thrilling, and it made me excited to be an author and proud of what I had done. Best of all, they seemed to genuinely enjoy the book. An evening very well spent.

Mediocre March

So yeah. The title says it all. Mega March did not go as planned. I knew my goals were lofty, but wow. I so didn't get as much done as I thought.

But that doesn't mean I did nothing. I did more research and organized my research notes (which was awesome), I outlined the first couple of chapters, and I even spontaneously wrote half of the first chapter one night. So that's something. I haven't sat down and pumped out a night of writing like that in a while, and it was fun to remember what it feels like. It IS fun, and more ideas come as I go. I need to remember that when my ideas start to run dry. I feel like it's been so long since I've really worked on LITTLE SUN that I don't remember how to do it anymore. But this half chapter reminded me.

So all was not lost. But there's plenty more to do. Here's to Awesome April.

Word News

A couple interesting things in the world of words happened recently. First, March 4th was National Grammar Day. I know you were probably all out celebrating, but I came across this post on Cake Wrecks and was nerdily delighted by it.

http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2013/3/4/grammar-geeks-unite.html

Also, the use (or misuse) of the word "literally" has always been an entertaining point of discussion, so I found this Slate article rather interesting and wanted to share.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/03/06/literally_definition_has_changed_over_the_years_dictionaries_recognize_this.html

And in case you were wondering, my goals for March are coming along horribly, thank you very much. (I should note for future reference to not make such lofty goals and then leave town. The goals did not fare so well that week, but I sure had a good time.) But all is not lost! There are still 10 days left in the month! That's enough time to get something done . . .

Mega March

So with the holidays, several bouts of sickness all around me and in me that needed attending to (don't worry, I won't go into the tuberculosis details again), and life in general, my writing has sadly been put on the very back burner over the last couple of months.

But I have big plans. I have renewed dedication and want to announce that this month will heretofore be known as MEGA MARCH. I'm excited about these plans on their own because I'm excited about my ideas, but I also know that I accomplish almost nothing without a goal or self-imposed deadline. So it's time to get down to business.

This month I will . . .

• Outline my next project (the first book in a middle-grade series that I will write more about later).
• Complete research for said project (it's set in 1910 for reasons that are somewhat elusive to me, but I think it's meant to be this way).
• Write the first five chapters.

Those are lofty goals, but at least working toward them will help me make some progress—any progress—which will be a lovely change of pace from absolutely nothing.

Also, in VERY EXCITING NEWS (I had to include the excitement star because this is so amazingly awesome), a friend's book group, of their own volition, is reading Little Sun this month!!! And I get to attend their book group meeting in April and discuss it with them!!! I am EXTREMELY EXCITED, as you can see by all the caps and exclamation points. Can't wait for that. I'll let you know how it goes.

When the planets align

When I was finishing up the first draft of LITTLE SUN, I knew it still needed something. Since I had never written a book before, it took me a while to realize that, to begin with, I was a fairly bare-bones kind of writer. I wrote generally what happened and that was about it, kind of like a very thorough outline in prose form with some dialogue. I needed to add what often makes a book a book—the imagery. So one of my tasks was to go back through each chapter and flesh it out a little and describe this and that, sometimes what people were wearing, sometimes what they were doing, sometimes a look they had on their face. I don't like too much description, especially about the scenery or anything too flowery, but you need just enough so the picture you are painting is more easily imagined.

It was about this time that I started reading a book called The Garden by Elsie V. Aidinoff. It tells the story of Adam and Eve, God, and the serpent and all they go through in the garden, mostly from Eve's perspective and from a very different angle. There were a lot of things I didn't like about the story (one being how the serpent is Eve's mentor), but there were several elements I found fascinating. One in particular was how the author portrayed Eve's first experience with everything. The minute I opened the book, I felt caught up in the description and like I, along with Eve, was experiencing what it was like to feel and see and have a body for the first time.

“The Beginning” 

Something heavy on my center, smooth against my skin, shifting very slightly within itself, stretched and retracted, occasionally a tap to the side, always in the same spot. I breathed. Instantly the thing was still. I let out the air. Again I inhaled, deeply, and pushed against the heaviness as I filled my chest. The thing began to move. Slowly, stopping and starting, it wound back and forth across my thing, around my knee, down my leg. it slid over my ankle, passed gently by my heel, with a little touch to my instep along the way. There was a wish. Again, silence and dark. I felt light, unburdened, empty, as if I might float away. Soft things swept my face, my cheek, my ear, wafted across my nose. My hands rose from my sides and brushed them off. There was a tickle in my nose. I gasped, gasped again. A great noise burst from my mouth. My eyelids jerked open. And I saw. 

At first there was only blue, limpid and luminous, stretching wide above me. A white, fluffly mass appeared, scudded across the expanse, tumbled into pieces, and melted into the blue. I lifted my arms, spread my fingers. light came through them; the ends glowed pink. I curled a finger into my palm and felt it scratch the skin. On my arms fine hairs glimmered in the sunlight. Still lying flat, I turned my head to one side. Not far away several forms, tall and dark and topped with green fluff, stretched toward the sky. Scattered around me and floating through the air were weightless bits of pink, turned up around the edges: blossoms falling from trees; it was one of them that had tickled my nose.... 

That first day, of course, I didn’t not know it was the sky I saw, the wind that moved my hair, an apple tree that shed pink petals on my toe. Cloud, face, blossom: all were unknown. I had no knowledge, no words. Each time I turned my head and found, before my eyes, something I had not seen, the world expanded.  

From The Garden by Elsie V. Aidinoff

Anyway, the planets had aligned and it was perfect timing to read something with excellent imagery. Even though this kind of writing isn't really my style, it still helped me learn just when I needed it. Not only does reading something like this give you good ideas about new techniques and all that, but once you do it enough or become entrenched in it, it helps you start thinking that way, and the process comes easier and more natural. 

Kind of like how I felt like my humor reached new heights when I watched all 10 seasons of Friends back-to-back while nursing during Anna's first year. Maybe my time could have been more productively spent, maybe not.

A Survey: Adult Voice vs. YA Voice

I am currently in the middle of trying to find an agent who wants to sell my manuscript of LITTLE SUN to a publisher. I started querying in late October, and, though I took a big long break over the holidays, I haven't had any takers yet. A couple responses have been form letters, but others have been personal and kind and even encouraging.

But one agent in particular was concerned that it is the mother's voice that begins LITTLE SUN in the prologue (the story is told from dual points of view) and thought we should first hear from the 15-year-old daughter (who starts Chapter 1). She said it is young adult fiction, after all. At first I disagreed, thinking that it wouldn't have mattered to me when I was a teenager (and thinking it ridiculous that my masterpiece could actually be improved upon), but then I really considered it and decided to rewrite the prologue a bit to see how I felt. And I still don't know. 

In the rewrite, the mother's voice still begins the book because I think it's important to start with the accident, but I shortened the prologue and took out the part about the daughter's birth so that we could get to her voice sooner. I really started to wonder if I only liked the part about her birth because I'm a mother and if maybe YA readers would, in fact, find it less accessible. The removal of the part about the daughter's birth is pretty much the only change.

And I still don't really know how I feel about it, so I thought I would put the question to you. You can answer in theory, about if this kind of thing in books matters to you (or mattered when you were younger), if it would or would not have been off-putting, or you can read for yourself. I made two new pages where you can read each version of the prologue and the first chapter:

Little Sun Intro

Little Sun Intro Rewrite

So please let me know what you think. I will appreciate any and all feedback. But if nothing else, maybe you can at least enjoy the sneak peak.

Names

Choosing names for characters in my book was an interesting experience because all of them seemed to come about differently. Long before I had a finished manuscript or even a chapter one, I had the first sentence of the book. And I wanted to fit that in with the main character's name, so that's how I got her name. I had a certain idea of what the dad would be like, so I picked a name that seemed to fit. The mother's name was a little more elusive. I tried out a few different names, but none of them seemed right. They sounded fake, which indeed they were, but I wanted them to sound real. Oh, the irony... After a while, I happened upon the right one (after searching popular girls' names from the 1960s when she would have been born, had she been real), and I knew it instantly.

It was an involved process to name the main characters, but sometimes I only needed to come up with a throwaway name for another student we'd never see in the book again. And I wanted those to sound real too. I tried to pick middle-of-the-road names—names that were a little unique, something unlike Bob Johnson, perhaps, but not too unique so that the name detracted from the story, like Petal Kazowsky, for example. Although the more I look at Petal Kazowsky, the more I like it. Maybe I'll use it in another book someday . . .

It was this way with place names too. Sometimes I used combinations of names and places that were familiar to me, and sometimes I dreamed something up in my head, only to look it up and see that it was an actual place and the name of several cities across the U.S.—and none of them near me. True story.

Anyway, this is all to say that it was sometimes hard to come up with the right names, names that felt right. For characters, I tried to use different kinds of names: modern, classic, ethnically diverse. And while I was in the thick of writing, I was absolutely fascinated when I came across this supercool map of surnames in an issue of National Geographic.

Here's a link to the NGM blog post about it, where you can also enlarge the map in case you don't have superhuman vision.

Anyway, it's incredibly interesting to me to see how common last names are distributed in the U.S. It shows the countries of origin for the surnames, and you can see patterns of where immigrants from certain countries settled. The article also listed a website that lets you find hot spots for last names around the world: http://worldnames.publicprofiler.org/ You can look up your own, and it's very, very interesting. Frankly, I didn't know Scoresby was of Celtic origin.

So I tore out the map, and now I keep it in my writing stuff because I love it and it's useful to look at if I can't think of last names for my characters. Besides Smith, Johnson, and Miller, there are plenty to choose from.

QUESTIONS: What are some of the best names in literature? What would you say makes a good name? Any names that have bothered you?

Distractions

I've said before that I have ADGD: Attention Deficit Google Disorder. It seems like every time I sit down at the computer to do pretty much anything, my mind suddenly thinks up 10 or 20 other things I need to google RIGHT THEN—approximately one per minute—and none of them relating to what I sat down to do.

Distractions, when writing, are a given. And google's only one of them. Here's what I have to do to stay focused:

1. Makes rules for myself. When I sit down to write, I have to mentally tell myself email and facebook are not allowed. Otherwise, if left to my own unruly devices, I will be emailing my great-aunt, thinking I have good reason, before you can say chapter 1. And my brain will always justify getting distracted, so I have to stay on top of it. I don't always keep the rules, and I allow myself some messing around once in a while, but if I want to get anything done, this is sometimes what I have to do.

2. Treat myself. Making rules also may or may not involve rewarding myself if I keep said rules. Sometimes I say to myself, "I'll write for the next hour, and then I can watch the next episode of _______." Or "After I finish this scene, I will look up new recipes for a dessert I have to make." I can focus more if there's an end in mind and a reward, no matter how pitiful.

(Also, is it weird that the brain that justifies any distraction is the same brain that makes the rules and gives the rewards? Does this make me totally insane? Possibly. Or maybe it's just called self-control. Who's to say?)

3. Take notes. I set a notepad by me wherever I'm writing so that when my brain will think of anything and everything but writing and come up with a bunch of things I just HAVE to do right then, I write them down so I don't forget. But then I wait until later to do them. This notepad habit also works for getting writing ideas when I'm not at my computer. I have two notebooks in my purse, several random notes on my phone, and post-it notes coming out my ears.

Do you make rules for yourself about stuff? Please say yes so I don't feel like a total nut bag.

Revising: Overused Words

One of the things I consciously tried to regulate, whilst working on my novel, was word frequency. I remember Stephenie Meyer being mocked for using "liquid topaz" on nearly every page of Twilight to describe Edward's eyes, and I knew I had to work hard so no one could mock me for anything similar.

And I thought I was safe. But one friendly critiquer brought it to my attention that there was a word I used much too frequently. I had used it 401 times, in fact, which is more times than I had used the name of the main character. The word was "just."

"Just" is different than many other frequently used words. "It's" or "so" are understandable, and you accept them as necessary and your eyes pass over them. But "just" is different. Much of the time, it's extraneous.

How could I use "just" 400 times, you ask? Like this.

1. I used "just" to limit or moderate a statement so that it wasn't too extreme.

"Sitting up is just too hard to do right now."

"I just wanted to talk, that's all."

This use freaked me out a little. I started to wonder if I found the word so many times in my writing because I say it a lot. And then I wondered if I say it a lot because I can't say anything directly and feel like I have to soften everything or like I'm always a bit defensive. It drove me a bit crazy there for a while.

2. I also used it when characters would stumble over their speech.

"I just . . . I just got so angry."

3. And sometimes it was a filler word and could easily be taken out:

"I guess I might as well just get straight to the point."

Pretty normal ways to use the word, but it was still excessive. You want to know what 400 justs look like?

just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just
just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just just

And that makes for a very boring story. (Love the haphazard hard returns in the middle of this mass.)

But I went through each and every one and decided if I should cut, keep, or reword, and I got the number down to 247. It took several hours. I will never see "just" the same way again.

Another word I used too frequently was "awkward." I guess I was writing about teenagers, after all, so it makes sense. (Ooo, burn!) I had used it 50 times, and I whittled it down to 27. Because really, there are so many other words to describe the strange and special circumstances people sometimes find themselves in. Unpleasant pauses, for instance. An uncomfortable feeling. A clumsy high-five.

It was surprising to me to find out that I had these idiosyncrasies (and others—I also used parentheses way too much . . . like right now), but it was good to go back through and rewrite and tighten the story. And now I'm very careful about how and when I use "just." If I do use it, it has to be for a darn good reason because I'm not getting anywhere near 400 again.

How's the book?

The book is great! It's been a while since I have given an update, so here it is. A few kind and generous readers plowed through my completed first draft and gave me excellent suggestions for ways to make it better. So over the last couple months,  I was busy making revisions. I was surprised by some of the suggested revisions (like about the time I used "dear" when I was talking about the animal—the editor in me nearly cried at such a rookie mistake), but they were all really helpful. In the biz, these first readers are called beta readers. Now you're in the know. I, however, will continue to refer to them as friends and family members.

So the second draft is done, and I'm pretty happy with it.

Hang on. That sentence deserves more excitement. THE SECOND DRAFT IS DONE!!!!! It was a huge feat and it took a LOT of work, and I am extremely proud of myself and the finished product. It definitely didn't take me as long as the first draft, but it was still huge and medal worthy. So, thanks. I'll take one in gold.

There.

Anyway, story lines were smoothed out, the characterization got even better, and the whole thing got a nice polish. Plus, after focusing on certain chapters and scenes for a while there, and jumping around from place to place (coming up with synonyms for the many, many times I used the word "awkward," for instance), it was really nice to give it one last read through from start to finish. It made me remember that it really is a whole entire cohesive book that flows really well.

When I started this whole write-a-book thing, I, of course, had no idea what I was doing and imagined things very differently from how they turned out. In the beginning, I guessed that the book would have about 10 chapters and around 50,000 words. Silly, silly Ashley.

Here are the current stats:

• Chapters: 23
• Words: 80,000ish
• Pages: 272ish

And, if you'll remember from this post, here are stats for these even more important categories:

• Times I use the phrase "sugarbum": 2
• References to Tom Jones or a Tom Jones song: 3

So, yes, there's quite a difference. But now I know what it takes, and I bet I can pump out the next one even faster. (Especially because it's a children's book, but that's neither here nor there.)

So what now? Now I try my darnedest to interest an agent in my book so that he or she can, in turn, sell it to a publisher. You do this by querying (sending an email to an agent, explaining your work and why you're awesome) and receiving many rejections. I have sent out several queries and will send many, many, many more, I'm sure. But I'm excited for the rejections to start piling in because then it will make this whole process feel even more real. If someone can say no, then it's certainly possible for someone else to say yes. (And who knows? For some, multiple references to Tom Jones might be what seals the deal.)

Anyway, keep checking back each week as I share some of what I went through to get to this point and other random stuff I decide to write about. It'll be fun. And comment. If you comment, you'll definitely earn more cool points. And I know you need some.

(You might think insulting readers may not be the best way to keep them interested, but you would be wrong.)

Also, p.s., I don't think I've ever shared the name of said book, so here it is, the big reveal: My first book is titled LITTLE SUN, and you can read more about it by clicking on the title at the top of the page.

Now posting weekly

So this blog has been in the works for a long time, but it's finally up and running and ready to go. I will now be posting weekly—every Thursday—so follow along* as I share writing quandaries and adventures on the road to publishing awesomedom. (<— A phrase I just coined and a little taste of what you can expect to find here.)

*And seriously, follow my blog, if you'd be so kind. You will earn my thanks and many cool points if you do. Maybe like 500.

So, it's been a year.

That's right. It's been one year since I went public with my write-a-book-by-30 goal. What have I done since then? I wrote a book.

By the time I turned 30 last November, I had a significant rough draft under my belt. But there were some holes and it needed some revisions, so I kept working. I've been working on those and fine tuning and fine tuning for months (with several breaks in between because I sometimes get tired of myself).

But now I'm done! <pant, pant> (I seriously just finished the final revisions a few days ago and I'm still feeling a bit out of breath. It was hard work. My matted hair and glazed-over eyes had quite a tale to tell.) So I'm done and I'm quite proud. It was a feat, and I accomplished it. There are more feats ahead, like getting an agent and getting published, but at least I've done this much. And even though this book has been my constant companion for the last year, staring it in the face for hours on end, and a nearly constant source of emotional upheaval (for good and for bad), I don't hate it.

But I wouldn't say I'm in love with it either. The hard part about doing this is having better taste than what I can actually produce. It's not as good as I want it to be, and that's a hard pill to swallow. But I think it's a great first draft, I'm proud that I wrote it, and I will focus on that.

So here's where things stand:

• I have a first draft, and now it's being read by a few friends and family for some much needed feedback while I put my feet up and catch up on all the ice cream I've been too busy to eat.
• I have a first draft, which means there will be other drafts. This almost makes me cry a little, like a baby, because getting to this point was such a challenge, but I think the first might be the hardest? Maybe? Someone tell me it is. At least I know how to get this far now, and I don't have to start at zero all over again. (That is, until I decide to write another book.)
• So I will continue to revise and make it the best it can possibly be.
• And then I will start querying for an agent.
• And then that agent will try to get my book published.
• And then it will get published and I will finally get to swim in that pool full of pink starbursts like I've always wanted.

Thanks to anyone and everyone for your excitement and questions. Talking about the book kept me excited and motivated to finish. And there's only more excitement to come! <pant, pant>

On writing a book: Part 5 or whatever number I'm on

[Pretend that you just asked, "How's your book coming?"]

Well, I'm so glad you asked! Here's what I've been doing, since my birthday deadline, in my make-it-up-as-I-go-along journey to write a novel:

• realizing how underdeveloped the book was
• and thereby dreaming up another couple of storylines almost involuntarily (Brains are weird—blessings and curses, if you ask me. Sometimes mine totally comes through with some pretty ingenious ideas, and other times I stare at the screen and the best it can come up with is to drool.)
• filling in necessary holes
• adding detail and fleshing out scenes since I'm a pretty simple, barebones kind of writer in the beginning stages (Apparently. This was new to me.)
• changing a character's name (This was weird. It was just never sitting well with me and so it needed to be changed. I have found that when I need to come up with a name for a character, what I pick almost invariably sounds weird to me for about a week or so. It sounds trite and fake and totally made up, which, of course, it was. But then I get over it and they start to sound like real people (or at least real characters), but this one was not doing it, so it had to go.)
• studying up on querying, which is the next step I will take when I have a solid manuscript ready to put out there.

The birthday.

November 30th has always meant a lot to me. This year I have looked forward to it because it's my birthday (which I apparently can't stop talking about like I'm a small child), marking the end of 30 Days of Ash because I'm now 30 years old on the 30th, and it's also my deadline. It's been a good year and a great month (largely due to my thoughtful and cool sister who came up with some amazingly amazing gifts, the rest of my amazing family, my friends, a trip to H&M, some birthday donuts from Lehi Bakery, and—let's be honest—my parents, as the reason I have a birthday at all) and the many thousands of words that I dredged up from the deep recesses of my brain to finish this book.

So yes, in a word, the book is done.*

*Meaning, not done. 

I'll explain. The rough draft is done: there is an excellent beginning, a hefty middle, somewhat of an end, and nearly 50,000 words, but it's still going to take some revising and fleshing out before I'm happy with the first draft. There are some holes and I know it, so I need to go back and fill them in.

And, by the way, I really hate knowing that it's not as good as I'd like it to be. Thinking about that reminds me of this quote from Ira Glass:

"Nobody tells this to people who are beginners. I wish someone had told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it's just not that good. It's trying to be good, it has potential, but it's not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn't have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know that it's normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you finish one piece. It's only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I've ever met. It's gonna take a while. It's normal to take a while. You've just gotta fight your way through."

So there's your inspirational/demoralizing quote for the day. (It's good that it fits both moods.) But truly, I'm happy with the progress I've made. I'm glad that I can say that I [essentially] wrote a book by the time I was 30, which was my ultimate goal. (I don't care if it's a loose interpretation.) So I will keep working, once the birthday celebrations quiet down, and for those of you lucky enough to read the darn thing, I will alert you when I'm good and ready. Merry birthday to you.

Let the countdown begin.

Happy November. This month is going to be a big one. I'm scared and excited all at once, which is resulting in my going from rapid clapping and squealing from happiness right into the fetal position and back again, figuratively, several times a day. (It's pretty exhausting.)

Anyway, besides all the normal life stuff going on, here's what else is on the docket:

1. My book deadline. [squeals of excitement] I gave myself seven months to write this book, as a present to myself for my birthday, and here we are, folks. I only have one month left. (!!!) I began pretty ignorantly and I've come a long way, for sure, but now that I know what I know, I know I have so much work left to do. I'm excited but a little scared as to how it's all going to happen. But it's also totally awesome that November just so happens to be National Novel Writing Month. Super cool coincidence, right? It's cool even though I'm not, like those folks, going to write a novel in a month. But I am going to finish one!

2. So yeah. My self-imposed book deadline is my birthday. My 30th birthday. Which is huge. And not only that, I turn 30 on the 30th, which means it's my GOLDEN BIRTHDAY. [rapid squeals] So exciting. My amazing sister sent me a huge box of presents so that I have one to open every day this month, an event she named 30 Days of Ash.

What a sight. Isn't it amazing? I've let out several squeals just thinking about it. And Anna's twice as bad. I've had to pry her fingers away from the pretty packages (days 4 and 17, for instance) more than once.

Anyway, there's a lot going on. So many presents to open, so many thousands of words to write, so many parties to plan. I'm swamped, but in the best kind of way.

In the immortal words from "Major Tom": "4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1. Earth below us, drifting falling . . ." (What?)

Let the countdown begin!

On writing a book: More lessons

This is exactly what I look like when I write.

Remember how I'm writing a book? (I know, it's so cliché.) Well, I feel like I learn volumes every time I sit down and write, so here are a few more brief lessons and things I'm noticing, just in case you're wondering.

• Sometimes I'm excited to write. I'm just feeling it and things are happening and life is good. Other times, it seems like everything is coming out sounding like a ten year old wrote it. Or I'm just tired of thinking about it and tired of making myself think about it. It's nights like these where you just have to surrender and, say, watch Ghost Dad in the name of research. (There's a little teaser for you—you'll have to guess how it's related to the book. Cryptic?) That way, you're still making some kind of "progress" on your book and you don't feel so guilty, even if no words were written.
• It's been interesting, learning the way that I write a book. It's almost like I have to learn over and over again that the book is not simply going to flow out of my brain with perfect ease and perfect prose and a pulitzer prize stamped on it. I hate learning that. But I'm realizing that I have to just get something down on the page—sometimes it's good and sometimes it needs work—and then I have let it sit for a while and then go back and make adjustments and additions and subtractions. I should have learned this from how I blog: I usually post something at night and then my brain goes to work while I'm unconscious, and I almost invariably make changes or additions the next morning. Have you noticed?
• Speaking of brains, brains are amazing. Mine even gives me ideas before I consciously try to think of them. It does so much work on overtime and totally doesn't get enough credit. Here's your shout out, brain. Thanks for all the good ideas. (But you're also to blame if this book bombs.)
• Once upon a time, Anna left a purple-glitter-filled bouncy ball on my desk, and it's been there for a couple months now. Almost unintentionally, it has become my thinking ball. When I am at a stopping point and need to think and find some direction before I move on, I grab the ball and give it a twirl (it's just so shiny and pretty) and maybe try out some cool David Bowie moves à la Labrynth. It totally works. And I'm not giving it back. 
• I feel like I've made pretty good progress, considering I started this whole thing not knowing what in the world I was doing. And I feel like my momentum is definitely increasing, as I now know what I'm actually writing about and what needs to happen. That's a nice feeling.
• But I'm starting to get just a tiny bit nervous that I only have three months left. I'm probably one-third or halfway finished. I can still do it, but wow.

So here's my progress report thus far, since my blog is apparently my accountability partner.

My book so far.
Pages: 73
Words: 20,780
Chapters: 8
References to a Tom Jones song * : 1 . . . so far
Times I use the phrase "sugarbum" * : 2, and maybe more to come

* the mark of a good book

On writing a book: The first month . . . ish

Since you, my seven blog readers, are now my obligated book fans, here's an update on how the book writing is going. I feel like it's been a roller coaster ride already, with undoubtedly more changes and extremes to come. But here are a few things I've learned thus far.

It's fun.
I was all excitement the first couple of weeks. I made relatively fast progress, spewing out everything I had been thinking about for the past four years. And I did not anticipate the sudden increase in new ideas. It was as though my brain was waiting for the first ideas to get down on the page so that there was room for more. That was great.

It's hard work.
That said, there have been some challenging times. Sometimes the words just come and I'm happy with them. Other times I know what I want to say but I feel like I have to climb way up into the treetops of my brain and painstakingly pick them one by one after careful selection. And other times, I know I need to say something more but I don't know what it is yet and my fingers just sit on home row, waiting and waiting for direction that never comes.

When I set out to write this thing, I don't think I understood how carefully I was going to have to plan every little detail, how thorough I would have to be, and how I was going to have to build this house of a book brick by little tiny brick. Imagining the completed house is much easier than building the whole thing from the ground up. And it's overwhelming to think that I've probably only scratched the surface. So overwhelming that sometimes my laptop stays closed and I try to give it some distance when I walk by it.

Filter, filter, filter.
I have to do so much hard thinking about the story and the characters that sometimes I think too much. Sometimes my mind will go a little crazy and try to tie EVERYTHING to the book. I've had to fine tune my ability to filter these thoughts so that when I think "Oh, I should include that funny little bit I just came up with about the raspberry jam!" I can say, "No. Stop right there. It wasn't that funny." Not every thought that crosses my mind needs to go in the book. It's "write what you know," not "write everything you've ever known."

I am my own worst enemy.
Sometimes I'm like, hey, I have thirty seconds, I'll just open up the laptop and squeeze in a bit of writing because it's just itching to come out. Other times I feel like I want to write, but there are so many other distractions. Like the other night. I told myself that I would just check my email and then start writing; I wasn't allowed anything else. But when my one email was about something posted on Facebook, I had to go check it out, right? And then I found myself halfway down that slippery slope thirty minutes later, not having written anything but up to date on several friends and several blogs I had been wanting to catch up on. Geez. So I now find myself creating little rewards or mini deadlines to make myself accomplish something (like, finish writing this scene and then I can work on my blog post about writing a book).

There's a delicate balance between planning and flying by the seat of my pants.
What a great expression that is, by the way. Anyway, these past few weeks have been an interesting experiment in both planning and flying in this manner, for me. I'm a pretty organized person, for the most part. And, if this amateur can say so, organization is very important in book writing. So I have planned and plotted and made many lists about many things, but you can't plan everything. There are times when I just sit down and start a scene without a care in the world and it's so fun to see where it takes me. I'll be going along, kind of sort of knowing the direction I'm heading, and then I'll be like, "Whoa. I just created a new character. I like it." And off I go.

Anyway, it's been an experience. Sometimes I get scared that this book will be my practice novel, that writing it will be the way I learn how to write a real one. I'm scared it will be terrible because it's my first. I want this one to be good. I'm very tied to it. So I guess I'll keep trying to make it good, but seriously, keeping Self-Doubt at bay is a full-time job. Sometimes I succeed and have a stellar night like tonight, where ideas come and words flow and holes are filled and I think I can actually make something good out of this. And other times I warily eye my laptop like a scared animal, frightened that I'll sit down and nothing will come and I'll realize that I've been foolish to think I could do this. But I'm still committed. The nights like tonight keep me going, and I'll keep writing, hoping for more of them. Five more months to go.

My golden birthday present

I'd like to make a public announcement. This November, I will have my golden birthday. And I decided that, for my golden birthday, I am going to give myself a present. A golden present. (Just kidding. I promise not to say 'golden' anymore in this post.) I am going to write a book before I turn 30. As April 30th just passed, I now have seven months to do this. I think I can do it. In fact, I can totally do it.

Sounds pretty bold, right? I know. But I'm also excited—as in, really.

I'm also simultaneously scared out of my mind. Of course I'm riddled with self-doubt. Like I can write a book! Okay, so I've written a lot. I even do it professionally, but I've never written fiction. Long fiction, anyway. I don't know anything about pacing, character development, arcs, writing dialogue . . . And who in the world is going to read it, besides my seven blog readers and my parents? [p.s. I love you, blog readers. You're not chopped liver.]

And for another thing, I so hate the bandwagon thing. (It took me a while to read Harry Potter, for heaven's sake, just because everybody else was already doing it.) But it seems like everyone is writing a book. And I don't want to be one of those people. I can just imagine the conversation now: "Hey Ashley, what are you up to these days?" "I'm writing a book, actually." CRINGE. That's only cool to say if you're good at it. (And see how bad I am at dialogue???)

So what the heck am I doing? I ask myself this constantly. I guess I'm saying to heck with all of that and throwing caution to the wolves (yep, I just did that) and saying I'll learn along the way. And, like the lesson I learned from Harry, many people doing something isn't a good reason for me to not do it too. (Does that even make sense?) So I'm doing it.

Because the fact of the matter is this: This said idea has been weighing heavily on my mind (and gaining weight as we speak) for months now and I. Just. Can't. Shake it. It needs to be reckoned with.

Here's how it all came down. Writing a book has been a goal of mine for years and years (probably 15). This was back before I even knew I liked to write; I just thought it would be cool to write a book. But I specifically remember writing it down as one of my goals during a Relief Society lesson in college, and that was probably 10 years ago. Anyway, I've always loved to read, but some time after that lesson, I decided on majoring in English, took up editing, and have been a lover of the written word ever since. And the more I edited and the more I wrote, the more my brain started to think about writing and shaping phrases and translating thoughts and life into words—and doing it the way I liked to do it. I think about it a lot.

And then I got a story idea. Just a tiny seed of an idea. It grew slowly at first, taking years to add anything significant to it, and then this last year it seemed to take off. And now the more I think about it, the more my brain kicks in to overdrive and I make lists and lists of ideas. And they just keep coming.

I have the first line, maybe even the last one, and the first couple of chapters pretty much planned out. But I don't know what's going to happen from there. So my self-doubt was successfully keeping any progress at bay—until this last week when it was all just too much.

First I saw another post from a friend who is feverishly writing and networking and trying to get published someday. (Props to you, Julia.) Another knock on the door from the book in my brain.

And then I read again this quote by Joe Konrath that she has on her blog: "There's a word for a writer who never gives up . . . published." Argh. Another prod. But Self-Doubt was still totally winning.

I also saw a link on Julia's blog for the book Supernaturally, the sequel to Paranormalcy, the best-selling book written by a girl I went to school with. I read the first book. It was fun. And I'm so excited for her—but I'm so completely jealous of her success. So I think, "If she can do it, why can't I?" One more prod. Self-Doubt was starting to get worried.

And then I remembered this Maya Angelou quote I read a while ago that has long since rankled me: "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." Argh! I know! Or at least I'm beginning to understand.

Then I read this post from another friend, about how it is her dream to be an author. So many things resonated with me from her post, but it wasn't until I thought about it and the book and my dream for a few days and then finally made a decision (and a public comment—gasp!) on her blog, saying that I was really going to do it this year, that Self-Doubt took a huge beating.

It's still there, to be sure, but it's quieter. And kind of hiding in a corner, probably lurking until the next time my defenses are down. I've told half a dozen people or so about my plan and the more I talk about it, the more real and achievable it seems. (Although I will say that telling people about my extremely private story idea has made me feel incredibly vulnerable, but I think that if I want people to read and buy my books, I'm going to have to get used to the idea of them eventually finding out what the story is about. I'll work on it. So stay back, Self-Doubt!)

But I'm excited to have a plan and to just finally do what I've always wanted to do. Who cares if it sucks? I will have achieved my goal and I can move on from there, hopefully writing something less sucky the next time around.

So I'm aiming for somewhere between Thoreau and Total Crap. I'd like my book to be thoughtful, a little fun, and interesting to read. I think those are modest goals, but I still really don't have a clue about how I'm going to bring them to fruition. But like I said, caution to the wolves.

So here I am, climbing up the ladder to take a seat on the big author bandwagon. But I'm doing it consciously and with good reason, not just to fit in. That makes a difference, doesn't it?

Here goes everything.