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How’s it Going?

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I thought it might be fun to share some of the things that have happened already in this NaNo write for those who might be following along. It’s already been a learning experience for me and probably for a few other.

Day one – I started off with a bang and wrote for around six hours. Two chapters later, I felt like I had a solid start. I was sticking with my chapter outline.

Day two – I was slow to start. Distracted by everyone and everything – brain bounce is not a norm for me but it happens.

Then I got in trouble – I wrote a small bit about my heroine going to a local gym to fit in a workout. Not your usual LA Fitness kind of place. This is a place that doesn’t advertise. Janice was sent there by her teammate who happens to know the owner, a man named Oscar Islas. Oscar is an ex-SEAL and his gym is for the specialists – bodyguards, cage fighters, mercenaries, etc. Oscar is also someone that Janice finds herself so comfortable with that she tells him of her concerns about her future. I like Oscar – a lot.

This little meeting grew from what should have been a couple paragraphs of “color” to several pages and an interesting character who could seriously alter my plot. I’m not sure yet what Oscar means to the story arc. At the very least, Janice will be thinking about him at some point and possibly comparing him to Mac. Just how much of a conflict or what role he will play isn’t clear to me.

Now – if I was a man writing “manly” books. My hero would meet someone other than the woman that he’s supposed to be interested in and if he liked her, he’d simply have an “interlude” and then go on with his life. All the female readers would roll their eyes, while the male readers would beat their chests and nod enthusiastically. But if I let Janice enjoy an “interlude” with Oscar while she’s still interested in Mac – she’d be nothing more than the Whore of Babylon. Breaking that tradition might be honest, but it could also make Janice an unsympathetic character and hurt the book.

Day three – By eight p.m. I had not even opened my document. I realize that everyone thinks all I do is write, but I don’t get to do it 24-7. I have other things that require my attention such as appointments, cleaning, and grocery shopping, so no writing. That is until Heather Rae Scott fired off a Facebook post that she was going to do the 1K in 1 hour challenge, and wondered who would care to join her. That’s picking an hour out of the day and trying to get a thousand words down. I said what the heck and jumped on the bandwagon.

Chapter four began with a new character being laid off from his job. I don’t know if this is really my bad guy or if he’s related to my bad guy. I’m still not sure I can actually write from a psycho’s perspective. I’m not even sure if this chapter will stay in the story, but we’ll see – editing is for December. I didn’t make the thousand words in the hour – I came in at 850, but I kept working for another half hour to finish up the chapter and ended with over 1100 words.

Not bad for a day that I hadn’t planned on writing anything.

The one other thing that I wanted to share is that I’m not worrying about a daily word count. If you divide up the goal of 50,000 words for the month, it’s 1667 per day. That’s a doable goal, but what if you have a day like I had today? I have days where the words pour out and then I have days where I couldn’t choke out 500 if my life depended on it. I’ve decided to go with a weekly goal of 12,500 so I don’t worry about a day like today. We started on Tuesday, so I have until Monday to meet my goal. If I hit it before then, I’ll let you know. I’m confident that I will.

I hope you are all having some success with your writing – keep at it!!!

Get Off Your Butt and Write!

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It’s pretty rare that I go through a week without hearing from someone about their interest in becoming a writer. They express a desire to successfully share their knowledge in the form of articles, their family history and genealogy in stories, and then there are the crazy people like me who want to write a book.

The most frequently asked question is “How do I get started?” My answer is pretty standard and stolen from Nike, “Just do it.” Sit down and go to work. Tell me what you have to say. Don’t try to make it perfect – just get it on the page. There is no wrong way to do this!

There’s no time like the present to do that. November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and it’s all about putting words on paper. Will you write a complete novel or story? Probably not, but it is a great way to get started. For those of us who participate, it’s about a commitment to thirty days of no excuses – we write. In NaNo it’s not about the structure of the novel – it’s about getting the words down.

The biggest problem people have is the opening. How do you write that perfect first sentence and paragraph. You don’t, so quit worrying about it. Start with whatever it is in your head that you feel the need to say. If it’s a novel, and a conversation is what you hear in your head – start there. Let your story take you where it wants to go. When I wrote Protecting Parker it all started with a “what if?” conversation. What if this woman came home from the deployment from hell only to find that her husband has tossed her out and become a violent dangerous man? I opened the book with that conversation and then told the story.

In doing NaNo, many writers don’t worry about creating a structured story, they write the vignettes that make up their story. So if they were writing the novel that might eventually become Demolition Man, they might write the individual scenes of John Spartan being frozen, then John Spartan being awoken, perhaps that would be followed by Spartan learning to drive, or Spartan discussing the three sea shells. In NaNo, those scenes can be written with page breaks between them and no thought about order or connections. Sometimes, writers begin NaNo by writing a basic synopsis of their story and then describing their characters and locations before launching into the story.

I’ve learned some hard lessons about keeping track of my people and timeline since writing Protecting Parker and Blood Link. After several books, I know how I like to write and how I want to get from point A to point B. I have an idea for a story and I jot down my idea in a paragraph or two and go from there. I write a one-paragraph character sketch that includes a name, physical description, and the basics of who they are. Sometimes it’s only a sentence: “Parker doesn’t think she needs a personal life or family because she has her job and the troops she’s responsible for.” I refer back to these notes frequently – I swear I can’t remember eye colors to save my soul.

I’ll be entering NaNo this year trying to actually write my novel from start to finish in order. I have my character sketches and my synopsis. I even have a blurb – not a good blurb mind you, but a blurb! I also have created a time line for my novel and laid out the basic chapter structure. All of this is rough – I don’t worry about making this perfect.

You can click on the links here to look at what I’ve done creating a blurb, background, and synopsis in one document, and a timeline in a separate excel document.

You’ll notice that I’ve made a note that the chapter structure could change if I add chapters for the bad guy. It could also all go out the window mid-way through if my character has other ideas. Sometimes they say unexpected things and I’m forced to adapt by going back and making adjustments. However, during NaNo itself – I won’t be going back – only forward.

December should be called National Editing Month since that’s what most of us will do – if we don’t toss the whole damn mess. I don’t toss anything – just because it didn’t work here, doesn’t mean that you can’t use it.

So why do this? Published author Heather Rae Scott always reminds me, “You can’t edit a blank page! No one writes a perfect sentence, paragraph, or chapter the first time. Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, or all the stuff that gets in the way of being creative. Just tell me the damn story!”

So all you wannabe writers need to take this golden opportunity to get off your butt and tell me the damn story!

Today’s Rant – Public versus Private!

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There used to be standards about acceptable behavior. What was said between friends when their parents or the children weren’t around versus what might be said at the dining room table. What was said in public versus what was said in the barracks. The difference between public and private is no longer blurred – it’s gone. And I openly admit that my foul mouth has contributed, right along with everyone else, to its demise.

But I do have to question a few things. When did it become okay to wear a tee shirt with the “F” word into a restaurant for dinner? When did it become okay to stand in line at a bank and discuss your sexual conquest from the night before? When did it become okay to talk about erectile dysfunction during family hour on television? And don’t even get me started on the people that talk on their phones (’cause we all know how important they are) while in line, in restaurants, or at the movies! When did everyone’s personal rights become more important than those of the people surrounding them?

And heaven forbid you say anything about that behavior. My husband politely asked the young man in the bank to hold it down because there were ladies present, and got a rant from this crap bucket about his right to say whatever he wanted. Managers of restaurants and retail stores say nothing because someone has told them that “the customer is always right.”

It would be really easy to blame it on television. The first time Arnold smarted off to Mr. Drummond and the first airing of The Simpson’s may have sounded the alarm for the end of the polite child. But it isn’t their fault. It’s ours. We didn’t teach our children (or our friends) what was acceptable or polite, or the difference between public and private.

And now, we’ve crossed to the dark side where we may not be able to change some of those things. Parents now face being brought up on abuse charges for delivering a well-deserved smack on the butt to a brat. Restaurant and store managers face being fired for asking people to control their children or asking them to leave because their dress or behavior is offensive to other diners.

Let me be clear – I would happily eat out in a restaurant that had a no-kids section. I hate going into a brew-pub and finding a mess of kids in the place because they’re allowed in since food is served. Really! Let’s take the kids to the bar with us? Is there no safe place? I don’t want to sit in the bar and listen to your kid scream. What is this? Date night for the people who are so dysfunctional they wouldn’t even qualify to get on Jerry Springer? I hate to tell you people – most of us don’t like your kids. We don’t think they’re cute. We’re just sorry you didn’t have to have a license to reproduce – you wouldn’t have qualified and we’d have had a nice meal without them and you. And if you’re going to ignore them – why not leave them home unattended rather than inflicting them on us!

If you are the type of parent that needs me to stand in front of the security camera as a blind so you can smack your brat – I’m here for you. If you aren’t going to control your brat – don’t call me – we aren’t friends.

I would also happily pay a little extra to eat in a place where I didn’t have to see every girls bra straps or whale tail, muffin top, bare midriff, cottage cheese thighs in short-shorts, men’s underwear – or worse – their butt cracks, and tee shirts with the “F” word. I’d also pay a little more for a restaurant that banned cell phone use completely. No ring tones, no texting, no checking your mail, and no talking to someone loudly on the phone while everyone else is forced to put up with your rude and insensitive behavior. Unless it’s a sports bar, I’d also be happy to go to a place that didn’t have a television. It’s hard to talk to people sitting across from you when they keep looking at the TV or their Facebook news feed.

But the simple fact is, the boundaries have changed and we must now live with a good bit of behavior that would have earned most of us a whipping when we were younger. There’s no way to go back in time to a kinder and gentler society – that ship has sailed. But there is always time to choose how you behave, what your boundaries are, and who you will associate with.

Here endeth the rant!

Pretty Boys All!!!

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One of my beta readers asked me, “Is everyone in this book handsome or beautiful?” Well, yeah, kinda. They aren’t all in the drop-dead category of handsome that most books are, but in the reasonably good-looking way that all fiction should be. Let’s face it, who wants to read about people that look like… well… us. For the most part, I try to make them a little more normal than the standard fictional hunk or beauty, but there’s a limit to being realistic. No pimples, muffin tops, wobbly thighs, bacon back, crossed eyes, or missing teeth need apply. You will not find a character who has athlete’s feet, gas, a rash, or dandruff. It’s fiction!

Truthfully, I try really hard not to over describe my people. My main character yes, but not all the ancillary people they deal with. However, I did such a poor job in one book that my favorite beta reader completely missed that one couple was black. I had said it, but I didn’t use some of the better descriptive words that would have made it completely clear for her. Part of the reason for limiting my descriptions is that I’d rather if the reader assigned certain things. I’ll give a woman auburn hair, dark blue eyes and a wonderful complexion. The reader can decide if she has an oval, round, or square face, or if her jaw is strong, and whether her nose is sharp or button. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder – or in this case, the reader.

What I do try to avoid is the use of generic terms for characters, such as “tall, dark, and handsome.” Tall is a relative term. I’m fairly short at five foot four (sorta), so I think anything over five foot eight is tall. I have a tendency to make most of my heroes between five foot ten and six foot one. Any taller than that and most of my female characters would be craning their necks. My men are not slabs of beef. They are reasonably well muscled and things only ripple when they are doing something that would realistically call for them to ripple. I’m not sure I’ve used any descriptive even close to “wash board abs.” These guys do work out, but it’s because they need to be strong for their jobs, not to enter a body building contest.

My women are fairly normal too. They worry about their “assets” and the effects of gravity, but they aren’t obsessive. I also refuse to turn them into Barbie dolls. These are women who are busy living their lives, getting into trouble, falling in love, and getting out of trouble. The fact that they are pretty is less about their actual appearance, than it is about how they are perceived by the hero in the book. The women I write about are smart and most of my men are attracted to that quality. Looks are simply a bonus.

As for my friends – I’m unlikely to judge them by their looks. I acknowledge that I have a few that are downright gorgeous (male and female) and some that are not, but I have never chosen a friend based on a picture. I choose my friends based on their brains, their sense of humor, and their willingness and ability to overlook my many flaws.

Thirty Years This Week

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My father Jack would be the first to tell you that he was not God’s gift to fatherhood. He’d tell you that he was just a guy who tried every day to do the best he could for his family. I’d like to immortalize him in some way with all kinds of praise or flowery speech, but I know he wouldn’t really like that. If there was some kind of award involved – he’d rather if I saved the prose and gave him a new fishing pole. Daughters adore their daddies, and I wasn’t any different. In my eyes, there wasn’t anything he couldn’t do and not a problem he couldn’t solve. In truth, there wasn’t much around the house or in the garage that he couldn’t fix, but I always thought he was at his best in the woods. He could build a camp that kept you dry in the rain, his fire always lit on the first try, and he had a built-in compass so he was never lost in the woods. He was a decent shot, better with a fishing rod, and he could cook anything he brought home.

Dad grew up during the depression and always had some sort of a job. He was delivering papers when he was nine years old and he was never out of work after that. During the summers when he was in high school, he worked in logging camps in the Oregon woods setting chokers. This was hard and dangerous work for any man — let alone a teenager. He came out of high school with a B average and headed for the Air Force, joining in 1949. There he was trained as an air traffic controller. He was the tower chief at tiny towers with very little air traffic such as Phelps Field, Alpena, Michigan, and at busy towers such as Nha Trang Air Base, South Vietnam.

The thing I never noticed about my father until I was older was just how smart he really was. He could do complex math in his head as easily as he could string a new fishing pole. This was the go-to guy when you had that stupid math problem of the train leaving the station in St. Paul and heading for the train that just left Seattle. He didn’t need a pencil and paper to tell you the collision would occur in Missoula at 8:45pm. He could convert kilometers to feet, fractions to decimals, and dollars to pounds without looking away from whatever he was working on at the time. The man was a flat-out mathematical wizard.

When it came to work, he was at his happiest on a busy day in the tower. He considered himself to be at the peak of his abilities while in Vietnam, directing air traffic at Nha Trang. When it came to off-duty, he was at his absolute best in his boat fishing for salmon out of Winchester Bay. He loved to watch golf and football, and if he was simply sitting somewhere, I rarely saw him without a book in his hand.

Most people who talk to me about my father mention his smile and his laugh. He was a glass half full kinda guy and smiled much more than he frowned. He was also a man that loved to tease the people he loved, and he was the biggest instigator at family gatherings. He’d get everyone wound up and then once the ball was rolling, he’d simply sit back and laugh. Dad liked to laugh.

Dad was also a man who tried to accept the changing ways of the world – an old-fashioned man with a daughter of the seventies. He was not always happy about some of the decisions I made in my life. We had more than one fight about my choices. We’d yell, he’d point his finger at me, and then he’d order me to my room. The next morning, he’d apologize for yelling and tell me why I was an idiot one more time and then unless it was simply too much for him to bear, he’d leave the decision up to me. I know now that it was tough for him to let me go and do something that he saw as a bad choice at the time. But he was the best type of father. He let me make my own mistakes. More than once I landed on my butt in the dirt from those mistakes. Dad would shake his head and tell me I was an idiot, then he’d help me get up, give me a hug, turn me back around to face life, and give me a push. Each time with an, “I love you. Go do what ya gotta do.” He didn’t waste a lot of time on the blame game, he just went for the hug and the push.

He died thirty years ago this week at the age of 54. I’m now older than my father was when he died and I’m absolutely sure that he wasn’t ready to go. There were so many more things he wanted to do, places to go, fish to catch, and books to read. I’ve never been worried that he didn’t know what I was doing or that he missed out on my life in these last thirty years. My father always seemed to know what I was doing even when I didn’t want him to, so I’m sure he’s been keeping up with me. He’s probably shook his head more than once at my decisions, and I’m sure that I’ve felt him nudging my shoulder to get back in the fight and face the world. My only regret is that I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye, so I would like to have him back for just a few minutes. One more hug and one more I love you with that little push would be great. But this time, they’d be for him, not for me. I sure would have liked to have sent him off to face whatever it was he was facing with the same gifts that he always sent me off with. There’s no doubt in my mind that he knows that too.

Not Supportive?

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Fair warning – this is a rant! The next person who says my husband isn’t very supportive because he doesn’t read my books is going to find out that the long line of axe murderers in my ancestry – is alive and well in me. Make sure your insurance is paid up – health, dental, long-term care, and life, because one way or another, this will not end well for you!

Mr. Scott likes to say he hasn’t read my books because he has to live with me. To a degree that’s true. We’ve been together over twenty-five years and we’ve operated on one basic rule – we don’t lie to each other. In order to live within the parameter of that rule, we have learned to NEVER ask a question that we don’t want an answer to. So I don’t ask Mr. Scott, “Does this make my butt look big?” He has reminded me more than once to not ask him those questions that will either get him in trouble or hurt my feelings. This has worked very well for both of us. Based on this agreement, I’m actually grateful that he hasn’t read my books. If I asked him if he liked the book and he didn’t – I would be hurt. His opinion does matter to me, so I choose not to go there.

The real reason Mr. Scott hasn’t read my books is amazingly simple – he doesn’t read novels. So it isn’t like he’s throwing me over for some other author that he likes better. He devours car books and magazines and has an amazing retention about the technical aspects of American muscle cars. He has also voluntarily read all of the family history pieces that I’ve written concerning his family. His critiques of those pieces have been articulate and fair.

He did read (at my request) the first two chapters of Protecting Parker and when I asked him what he thought – he complained bitterly that I had made Gray’s Camaro a convertible. Mr. Scott has always owned hardtops. I was looking for commentary on the writing or the story – he chose to discuss the car. I offered him the opportunity to read another chapter. His response, “Unless your hero is discussing the rebuild of the Camaro’s engine – no thanks.” I was good with that.

However, many people seem to feel that Mr. Scott should read my books, and whether he likes them or not, he should spray rainbows of Skittles around the room to make me happy. That’s not support – that’s pumping sunshine up my derrière and I get enough of that from my elected representatives – I certainly don’t need it from Mr. Scott.

Tell me how I’m not being supported when you see the following.
Mr. Scott has never once:
Complained that the house was a mess – I’d rather write than clean and it is obvious.
Complained that there was no dinner – I’d rather write than cook. He’s capable of feeding himself (and me) in a pinch. He makes outstanding fried egg sandwiches or Ramen and he is a master of the drive-thru!
Complained about laundry – I keep up with that one.
Complained that I’m not taking care of the pets – they won’t let me ignore them – the cat is quite vocal if she isn’t fed on schedule or the litter box isn’t cleaned.
Complained that the other chores aren’t done – I fit in the important stuff – there are no biological mold experiments in the bathrooms or refrigerator.
Complained that I’m not making enough money – Who gives a rat’s ass – the bills are current.
Complained that I’m ignoring him – I don’t mean to, but when I’m on a roll, it happens. Most of the time, Mr. Scott would probably actually prefer if I focused a little less of my attention on him. Fortunately, he is a fully actualized human being with very few real issues, and he enjoys his alone time just as much as I do.

What Mr. Scott has done:
Moved to three different places he didn’t want to go because of my career. All of our joint military assignments were driven by my career choices not his.
Accepted my career path, in which I was often the only female in the shop, in the class, or on the TDY/deployment. 98% of my co-workers were men. I was and am much more likely, based on numbers alone, to have a night out with the guys rather than with the girls.
Backed my career choice to become a First Sergeant. He didn’t complain that my job would be 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year and would take me out of the home at the drop of a hat. He knew upfront that when the phone rang, I would walk out the door and go to work, whether it was 0200, Christmas Day, or in the middle of dinner out with friends. And, I would be gone for as long as it took to do the job. In the days before cell phones it meant he might not hear from me until I showed back up.
He sat through countless rubber chicken dinners as “The First Sergeant’s Husband” at events that meant nothing to him, but were important to my unit or me. There is no doubt that on most of those evenings he would have rather been at home hanging out with the dog.
He didn’t hesitate to step up to the plate and accept the burden of family care. He stayed behind and cared for my mother after her stroke while I went to Korea for a year.
When I had to change careers after retirement, he supported my decision to be self-employed even though it meant our income would be lower and definitely more sporadic.

For the record:
This doesn’t make Mr. Scott a candidate for sainthood. He’s just a guy and he can be pointy, stubborn, prideful, and downright mean and cranky on any given day. I freely admit that on those days, I would like to run Mr. Scott through a bright and shiny wood chipper from Sears.

But the truth is that I AM and always will be the one who is – a giant pain in the ass!!! I have pretty much always done as I’ve pleased and he’s backed me every damn time. That doesn’t make him a pushover – he’s anything but. What it does mean is that Mr. Scott has loved me enough to let me be whatever the hell it is that I needed to be.

So – saying Mr. Scott is not supportive because he doesn’t read my books just doesn’t cut it for me. And it IS me with the issue. You see, Mr. Scott is one of those self-confident men – he doesn’t really give a damn what anyone thinks. Never has – never will.

It’s me you have to watch out for!