Great Writing ... and Not so Great Writing

The thing about reading a really great book is that it makes me realize just how far I have to go to improve my own writing. I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job and then I go and read something really wonderfully and richly written, like Deborah Harkness' "Shadow of Night" and I think that maybe I should just give up on my own writing altogether, because I'll never be that good.

But then, when I really think about it, most writers who are fortunate enough to get their work published are not nearly as good as Deborah Harkness at putting you so deeply into the sights, sounds, smells, feel and taste of a story's characters, time and place.

It's kind of like how I try to remind myself when I'm at the beach in my conservative bathing suit, wishing for even more fabric to cover my flabby thighs, that I am not the worst-looking woman chasing after her child in the sand that day. And all I really have to do to feel better about myself at the beach is keep exercising, attempt to eat better and/or buy a more flattering bathing suit.

So, I guess that means I'll keep going, keep practicing my "show, don't tell" writing, and hope for the best.

Finally, Some Inspiration

For the first time in a while, I thought of a new book idea that feels like it has some promise. I know, I know, I need to concentrate on my two books that are finished, but still in need of editing.

As I've noted several times here in the past few months since I started my new job, motivation has been lacking for me to focus on my two completed novels, even though I really want to finish editing them each one last time and send the first few chapters off to some of the agents and editors I met at a writing conference in January. Yes, yes -- tick, tock, tick, tock. They've probably long forgotten that they met me, I know.

But I had a breakthrough today after I thought up a new book idea, so I sat down and wrote, almost non-stop, for two or three hours. It felt good. Really good. I got eight reasonably strong pages written (about 3,000 words, I think). I'm going to let them sit and few days and see how they look after I've had time to think about the story a little more. I don't write with an outline. I jot down notes (mentally and physically) then dive in to the story and see where the characters take me.

So, I'm feeling pretty good. Almost sad that tomorrow I'll be away from my computer most of the day. But it'll be nice to get out of the house and spend some time with friends and family. And I already feel a little lighter having the weight of a long break from writing lifted from my shoulders.

Now, on to spend some time reading "Shadow of Night," Deborah Harkness' sequel to "A Discovery of Witches," as a little reward for my effort today.

Slight Regression

Wow, that was fast! The very next day after I pledged to quit my day job by 6 p.m. each day, I ended up finishing a project for work after dinner and now I have no time to work on my own personal writing before I go to bed. Oh, well. I'll try to get back on track tomorrow. *Sigh*

Slight Progress

So, OK, I still haven't done much writing at night, but I'm making progress. I've decided that I don't have to finish every single work assignment I take on each day. If it's 6 p.m. and I still have one more story to write for work, well, it's just going to have to wait until the next day. After all, I turn on my computer at 7 a.m. to start work each morning. I do take breaks to take my son to school and eat lunch. But, hey, 6 p.m. is not an unreasonable quittin' time. OK, with the rare exception for really important stories ... I know, I'm weak.

I can happily say that I have read some really fantastic books lately. Lots of young adult novels, but some regular fiction as well. If you have a chance to read John Green's "The Fault in Our Stars," stop what you're doing and start reading. You will not regret it. I laughed, I cried ... to the horror of my seat-mates on a flight to Boston ... I loved, loved, loved it. The best cancer story you'll ever read even without the kids finding miracle cures for their diseases (that's not too much of a spoiler, I hope).

I just finished "Shatter Me" by Tahereh Mafi. It was a really excellent, un-put-down-able book. The beginning was a little shaky, but by the end I was saying to my son, "OK, buddy. I'll get your medicine in a minute, but just wait a minute ... mommy's reading." Marie Lu's "Legend" was equally compelling. I'm already looking forward to reading both first-time writers' sequels.

Unfortunately, I did not love "The Street Sweeper" by Elliot Perlman. It was beautifully written, but one of the main characters was really great and I could really route for him, but the other main character was hard to love. And then, the story moved waaaaayyyy too sloooowwwwllllyyyy to keep my attention. I made it about two-thirds of the way through the book then did something I never do -- I flipped through the last 200 or so pages to see if the story ever actually progresses. It doesn't. No one has any kind of revelation or closure in the end. Maybe we all know a little more about the Holocaust and the Civil Rights movement, but come on, those are not exactly little-known historical events. In fact, those aspects felt a little preachy in a "You're preaching to the choir" kind of way.

Up next: "American Dervish" by Ayad Akhtar. It's fiction, but apparently it is loosely based on the author's life. It ought to be fun speculating about which events actually happened to him. I love a good coming-of-age story. Hence, my interest in young adult fiction.

Mid-Year Resolutions

I'm four months in to my new job, my work trip to Boston has come and gone, my in-laws are back in Iowa, and I'm learning to stop working at a reasonable hour each night so that I have time to spend with my husband and son, and maybe do a little housework so that I don't have to do it over the weekend. That all means that I'm out of excuses.

I've decided to set some mid-year resolutions to work toward some longer term goals: lose weight, be more engaged with my family and spend more time writing for myself, not my job. These are my resolutions: 1) Exercise for at least 30 minutes every day. 2) Snack less (or replace pretzels with fruit). 3) Work less, play more. 4) Spend a few minutes each night on a worksheet or practice reading with my son so that he doesn't forget everything he learned in kindergarten over the summer. 5) Schedule more dates with my husband. 6) Write, write, write, write, write.

I've been reading a lot, so much so that I can't even remember everything I've read. I've burned through the "Beautiful Creatures" series, made it to the last of the paperback books in the "Fallen" series, re-read the first and sped through the second book in the "Divergent" series, laughed and cried through John Green's "The Fault in Our Stars" (read it now if you haven't read it), started and quickly stopped "Swamplandia," read the short and sweet "The Girl Who Chased the Moon," and the list goes on and on.

Right now, I'm reading "The Street Sweeper" by Elliott Perlman. It's pretty literary for me. I feel like I should love it, but so far he's flipping back and forth between characters so much that I wish he'd chose a story line and stick with it. I'm 100-plus pages into the 617-page novel and can't decide if I should continue on, so I keep reading more, hoping that it will grow on me. I'm still waiting.

For tonight, I'm not going to work on any of my own novels, because I'm too tired to write. At least I've written something here after a month-long hiatus. That's an accomplishment, relatively speaking, anyway. It's a start!

Well, I, uh ...

I'm out of excuses. I'm down to just one plain and simple excuse: I spend so much time in front of my home computer, now that I work from home, that the last thing I want to do at night is spend more time at my computer. So, I haven't been working on any of my personal writing projects. Every now and then I sit down and pull up one of my novels-in-progress, but it doesn't take long before I'm too tired to focus.

I've been reading a lot, however. A lot of young adult fiction, actually. I've been requesting books from the library rather than buying them. I'm reading "Beautiful Chaos," the third book in Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl's "Beautiful Creatures" series (YA) and next I'll read "Swamplandia!" by Karen Russell (fiction), which will be a nice break from all of the addicting YA series I've been reading lately.

Otherwise, I've been working and planning for work travel, family visits and my son's sixth birthday. I've been busy, just not busy writing.

Work-Life Balance

I'm still trying to figure out an appropriate work-life balance for working at home. People ask me if I'm tempted to goof off or do housework, since I'm home all day, rather than work. Actually, I have the opposite problem: I don't know when to stop working.

I want to show my editors that they can rely on me to work pretty much unsupervised at home, which means I feel like I have to cram 10 hours into an eight-hour day to show how hard I'm working. Of course, there's also the fact that I'm still getting used to a new job, so work that I should be able to finish in eight hours is taking me 10 hours. Not every day, but a lot of days. More than I'd like.

I keep telling myself that eventually I'll get into a groove where I have a good understanding of the science involved in my news reporting. And I won't have to keep second-guessing what I'm putting into stories, because I'll have figured out what my editors are most interested in. Only time will tell.

So, my own just-for-fun, maybe-someday-to-be-published fiction writing has suffered. A lot. By the time I finish my work day, I'm not terribly interested in spending even more time in front of the computer. My poor butt is already flat enough. But what do I do instead? I sit on the couch and read. Excuses, excuses.