First, there’s the novel’s new scenes.  Done, plugging in, and suffering the consequences of three different formats.  Working on it.

Then I did beta reading for two fellow writers.  I’ve critiqued one.  Working on the other.

I just finished the 30 Blessings Project at Rising Upward, a month-long challenge.

My town was flooded May 3rd.  As a result, I’m actively writing for Clarksville Cares as well.

In between I find great ways to procrastinate and I’m developing several new novel concepts.

In other words, I’ve been busy writing, though I haven’t been writing here.

The video below is nearly a year old, but that’s okay.  I’ve been spending  time thinking about teaching the love of writing, especially after taking over the Clarksville Writers Group.  This video is one reason why I feel any time spent instilling the love of writing is never time wasted.  I found the video originally on Lighter Footstep.

All my adult life I’ve dreamed of cabins tucked away in the woods or the idea of running a retreat center.  As Sally Field said after a divorce,  “I have a high need for alone time.”  The extroverts in our lives are clueless.

The past six months have brought a new level of desire.  I’m not just day dreaming about cabins.  I’m designing them in 3-D, researching optional heating sources, looking at construction methods.  It seems an impossible dream.  My city-raised husband thinks our town of almost 200,000 is too small.  There’s no way he’ll move to that cabin with me, especially if I plan to live off the grid.

I’m not sure what generates the desire for a retreat.  I mean, obvious introverted behavior aside, I have a job, electricity, running water and the internet.  Why the drive to give it all up (well, except the running water) and retreat to write in the woods?

Part of it may stem from the distractions of life.  The job, the internet, even the husband, can distract me.  I have no quiet place to go for my writing time and can’t always work another location into my schedule.

I am never alone except in the car for ten minutes twice a day.  I’m sure this has caused stress for my introverted personality as well.

I dream actively and often of getting away for a week, two weeks, or a month.  Just me and my notebooks, though I’d prefer electricity for a laptop.   I imagine all the writing I could get done and how relaxed I would be.  The truth is I’d probably do a lot of sleeping!

Is this yearning common to all writers or just the introverted ones?  Have you ever taken a writer’s retreat?  Was it worth it?

The first third of Gold Hill (working title) was a mess.  Out of sequence, out of time, untransitioned, and just plain messy.

I liked the individual scenes well enough, but their relationships to each other left me with my head in my hands asking if I really could write at all.

They were so disorganized my overwhelming feeling was shame.  It was the first novel I’d written in scenes and I wrote them out of order.  I really hope its the last novel to demand being written that way.  If it isn’t, I’m buying shares in Bayer and Valium now.

Just when I was planning how to tell my editing partner that we might want to scrap this one, something great happened.

The middle third is really decent.

It flows.  It relates. I progresses the story and relationships and develops key elements.  It does its job.

Talk about a big sigh of relief!  I watched my editing partner make a few ticks here and there for typos and dialogue tags and then move on.  Yes!

Faith has returned.  Energy is renewed.  The sun burst out from behind the clouds.  Choirs sang.  Really.  Well, for me they did.

I know there are two scenes in the last third that are trouble, but today I am happy.  Today is a good day.

I’ve had the opportunity to really think about the characters I’ve worked with the past 12 months.  I’m always interested in the themes that come out in a writer’s work, my own included.  Writing is, at least for me, a form of therapy after all.

I was able to identify several common themes in the lives of the last five main characters I’ve worked with.  they all live on the fringe of social groups, either from being new to the area or from being shut out or misunderstood.  they all struggle with the desire to feel accepted, even though some of them already are.  None of them want to be liked so much they would compromise their personal values.

The most profound thing they have in common, though, is loss.  Lillian loses her independence; she must learn to trust the friendship of others if she is to succeed.  Charley loses her best friend and a few dearly held beliefs.  Raelyn loses any hope of normality along with her innocent view of the world.  Evan is poised to lose his marriage.  Liz…well, Liz loses everything but her life.

The stories are very different as are the personalities, circumstances, and eras of the characters.  Their losses and reactions to them  have one common thread.  they all draw from some aspect of the losses I have experienced personally.

As I look at the common themes in my fiction, I recognize more elements in myself.  The characters all deal with their losses in a far different manner than each other or their writer, which I also find interesting.

How much of your own experience makes it into your plots or your characters’ lives?  Are you aware of it at the time or only in hindsight?

GAH!  For the readers that hate writers who can whip out the rough draft quickly, there is The Great Equalizer…the edits.  I admit I’m jealous of the steady personalities who edit at the same pace they write and do equally well with each of them.

That’s so not me.

Rough draft?  Easy peasy.  Edits?  Um.  I have to clean the kitchen.  And the car.  And the den.  After that, I have errands, and a great new book to read and…

I need to team up with a writing partner maybe, or pledge to do something disgusting if I don’t meet my deadlines.  I know, I know, some writers really struggle on the front end, while I blow past.  But there they go now, running at a nice, ground-eating jog while I limp along.

However, I do have some progress to report.  I’m on the third round of edits, and I think chapters one and two are done.  All the names and small details are fixed, one big plot issue resolved, and the first cliche/adjective check is done.  The story isn’t as loose as I feared it was, and I still like Lillian a lot.  I wrote the rough draft in August.  It’s only taken me five months to get this far…ahem.

I am glad I left it to sit for a while, though.   The work is easier for it and I’m less emotionally attached.  I even wrote another rough draft in November.  I know I sound pathetic, but this is my one area of procrastination that is not under firm control.

Do you know of any encouraging posts/articles on edits for writers like me?

Have you experienced the same irony of characters that I have?  When you want one, or at least want the one you’ve got to be…well, more than they are…it seems characters can be hard to find.  On the other hand, if you’re writing hard or working on another project or even just trying to sleep, your mind fills with crowds of characters.

Perhaps this is similar to the  old Irish fairy stories in which you can see the fey in your peripheral vision, but if you look at them straight on, they can prevent being seen.  I look hard at one project, and characters crowd into my side vision.

Problem is, I usually forget all about this truth when I am lonely and looking for a character.  If I would just look hard at an art project or even the dishes, they’ll crowd my shoulders soon enough.

An acquaintance that is developing into a nice friendship was the source of an invitation to a holiday open house at the unique residence he shares with his partner.

The house is a museum.

My friend sold and brokered art for 24 years.  His love of portraiture shows.  I lost count on the stairs alone.  In addition to antique and more modern portraits and paintings, beautiful antique furniture from several eras fill this home.  I could identify Empire, Art Nouveau, Queen Anne, and Rococo…I wish I knew more about antiques so I could have fully appreciated what I was seeing.

I listened to stories about the 77 year old house, stories of some of the pieces in the house, and stories of how some were acquired.  His partner and I discussed preferences for decorative glass and different eras for furniture.  I learned what a luster was and admired a full set of depression glass dinnerware (missing only the oil lamp).  We talked about architecture, renovation versus remodeling, and probably a hundred other topics that evening.

I couldn’t help the concepts for historical or supernatural stories that could feature this armoire or the girl in that painting.  Even the house would be a strong character with its stone facade and interesting corners.  Much more than these, however, were stories centered around people who dealt in antiques for the love of it and were drawn to old things for reasons they didn’t understand.  And just how far would a collector go to obtain the perfect set of pink lusters?

Where’s the most inspiring location you’ve been to?

I count money as part of my day job.  A few weeks ago I ran across a ten dollar bill that was stained with rust.   The red and orange coloration ran up the bill in the creases and lay across the bottom, as if it had wicked up the color from rusty water.

Oh, how frustrating to not have a moment to jot a note.  A story idea came, but was gone by the time I could write it down.

Surprisingly, it came back in full force as soon as I saw the ten again. Two characters and a location came to mind.  Over the next few hours I kept paper close by as the plot resolved itself and small details began to fit in.  A heist, a betrayal, a murder, and a hiding spot that remains undiscovered for some time…yup, quite a lot from a bill with a reddish stain on it, even knowing blood would stain the bill brown, not red.

I’m currently developing the concept into a novel-length work titled Blood Money.

What’s your craziest source of inspiration so far?