Tampering with perfection & #ROW80 Report

Posted on July 27, 2016September 9, 2016 by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

I am so tired I ever could.

Because last night I waltzed up to the watermelon buffet and chose

Complete the edit the AMW story for its (I hope) final major critique

If I’d been taking naps, #1 would be only a memory. But there’s more to do.

Weeks ago, I edited out a couple of sentences but later realized I’d removed a bit of necessary information and created a contradiction. The error would be so difficult to resolve, and the lapse in logic was so subtle and so trivial, and the remaining text flowed so smoothly that I thought about saying, with Walt Whitman,

“Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then, I contradict myself;”

and leave it alone and hope no one would notice.

But someone always notices. Sometime, somewhere, some reader would say, But the character says this is going to happen, and this doesn’t happen, or maybe it does, but whatever happened, she never says another word about it, so it sounds like maybe both things happened, and she should have told us…

So I tried a number of fixes, none of which pleased me, settled on one, and moved on. In a few days, I’ll go back and try again.

In moving on, I went from editing/revising to tampering. The official word is polishing, but I tampered: with words–thank goodness for thesaurus.com running in the background; with phrases; with sentence structure… Tampered with things better left untouched.

Tampering–especially when you think you’re polishing–is doomed to fail. It usually takes place near the end of a project, when you think everything is perfect, but not quite. So you make one little change, and then another, and another, and soon, part of your brain–the part where judgment lives–shuts off and you go on automatic pilot. You keep on clicking that mouse, cutting, pasting, copying, deleting, inserting…

Do this long enough and you can drain the life out of a story.

I’m most likely to tamper when I’m tired. I was tired last night. I should have watched Acorn TV or read or, better yet, given in and gone to bed at a reasonable hour. But I didn’t. Hyperfocused on the manuscript, I lost track of time and stayed up long after midnight. Then, in a perverse turn of events, I woke today up at 7:00 a.m.

So, as I said at the top of the page, I am tired.

A deadline approaches. I need to finish that story. First, though, I’ll let it rest. Several days. A week. Until I’m sufficiently rested. Until I don’t hate it with every fiber of my being. Until I’m detached enough to distinguish the good from the bad from the ugly.

#ROW80 Update

The July 20 Buffet

The original Buffet was meant to cover 80 days beginning with July 4, not just a few days or a week. Some haven’t been completed. Number 5 is on-going. So nothing changes.

Complete the edit the AMW story for its (I hope) final major critique
Tried but didn’t finish, might have created a monster instead. See above, if you haven’t already.
Draft the second half of the story “Texas Boss” and submit to AMW for critique–Nope.
Finish a very rough draft of “Thank You, Mr. Poe”–Nope.
By September 5th, read at least ten of the books on my 20 Books of Summer 2016 list. (The list appears at Writing Wranglers and Warriors.)
Still reading Isabel Allende’s The Japanese Lover, 68 pages toBy Mutari (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commonsgo. I used the calculator to figure that out. I didn’t have to. I can still subtract in my head. But I don’t want to think that hard. Sad.
Post #ROW80 reports on Sundays and Wednesdays.
It’s Wednesday and I’m posting.
Visit three new #ROW80 blogs a day.–Nope. I don’t know why, but nope.
Take three naps a week.–Nope. And I’m so sorry I didn’t.

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The July 27 Buffet

They don’t change much. The point of the buffet, per shanjeniah, is to have choices and plenty of them. So I’ll add more watermelon.

Complete the edit the AMW story for its (I hope) final major critique
Draft the second half of the story “Texas Boss” and submit to AMW for critique
Finish a very rough draft of “Thank You, Mr. Poe”
By September 5th, read at least ten of the books on my 20 Books of Summer 2016 list. (The list appears at Writing Wranglers and Warriors.)
Post #ROW80 reports on Sundays and Wednesdays.
Visit three new #ROW80 blogs a day
Take three naps a week
Go to bed at by 11:00 p.m.
Cook at least one decent meal for David
Spend an afternoon at the Blanton Museum of Art
Play the piano
Dust the piano
Get rid of ten things a day
Collect and organize books
Shred

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A Round of Words in 80 Days (#ROW80) is The Writing Challenge That Knows You Have a Life.

To read what other #ROW80 writers are doing, click here.

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What Have I Done?: The #ROW80 Wednesday Report

Posted on July 13, 2016 by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

“watermelon” by Harsha K R is licensed under CC-BY-SA-2.0

My #ROW80 goals posted on July 10, plus progress:

Edit the AMW story for its last (I hope) critique;
Not yet, but tomorrow I’ll get a critique from another partner. It’s better to have everything in before making changes.
Write and schedule the WWW post at least two days before the July 19 deadline;
It’s finished, and SIX days before the deadline. I’m going to the doctor to see what’s wrong–I never finish a piece SIX days before the deadline. I’ll continue to change little things, but it’s polished enough to be posted today. So I’m putting this one in the Watermelon Met* column.
Draft the second half of the story “Texas Boss” and turn in to AMW for critique;
Finish a very rough draft of “Thank You, Mr. Poe,” the story I started last week;
Complete the piece for the AMW blog and schedule it to post before midnight tonight.
I posted it. Not before midnight. At 3:00 a.m. But I met the AMW deadline, and that’s close enough. Watermelon Met.

Summary: I set out to meet two deadlines and met them. The three remaining tasks aren’t time-sensitive. They carry over. The first, polishing the story for the proposed AMW anthology, must be finished by August 1, so it’s priority.

I’m adding three new goals to the list. Then I’m going to take a nap.

Edit the AMW story for its (I hope) final major critique
Draft the second half of the story “Texas Boss” and submit to AMW for critique
Finish a very rough draft of “Thank You, Mr. Poe,” the story I started last week
By September 5th, read at least ten of the books on my 20 Books of Summer 2016 list.
Post #ROW80 reports on Sundays and Wednesdays.
Visit three new #ROW80 blogs a day.
Take three naps a week.*

*Start as soon as this has been posted.

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Read about A Round of Words in 80 Days (#ROW80)

Read posts by other #ROW80 bloggers–check the list on today’s #ROW80 Linky.

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Watermelon Met will be explained in my Tuesday, July 19 post for Writing Wranglers and Warriors.

Mama and the Ground Glass Resurface

Posted on July 4, 2013 by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

English: This is Alpine, Texas with the six-th... — This is Alpine, Texas with the six-thousand foot plus Ranger, Twin Sisters, & Paisano Peaks in the foreground. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In Monday’s post, I announced my goals for Round 3 of A Round of Words in 80 Days (ROW80):

To write 300 words a day, five days a week; and
Not to haul myself out of bed at 5:00 a.m. to write the 300 words.

So far, the latter goal has been easier to accomplish than the former. Nonetheless, I made my 300-word minimum and then some both Tuesday and today.

I’m working on a short story that began as a ten-minute timed writing at the Writers’ League of Texas Summer Writing Retreat at Sul Ross State University in Alpine a couple of years ago. I spent the week in Karleen Koen’s class, Writing the Novel: The Basics. That was probably the most productive week I’ve ever had. Karleen told us she couldn’t teach us to write, but she could teach us to play. And she did. She’s teaching the class at this summer’s retreat later in July. She also teaches for Rice University’s Continuing Education Department in Houston. Anyone who has the opportunity to take one of her classes should do so. Lots of writing, lots of fun.

The timed writing that I hope becomes a full-fledged story begins, The day I found Mama stirring ground glass into the eggs she was about to scramble, I took the eggs away from her and called a family conference. When I started, I had no idea where it was going. Back at home, I added to it and showed it to my critique group. They said I should work it into a novel. I still didn’t know where it was going. Or where I could make it go. But it didn’t seem like novel material, at least in my hands. Last summer, I tried to turn it into a ghost story but kept running into obstacles, the chief of which was that the plot was forced and downright silly. Now, a year later, an invitation to write a different kind of story has come along. Once again I dragged out Mama and the ground glass. And this time I think I can pull it off. It’s not over till it’s over, of course, but I’m optimistic.

It takes time to get some things right.

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To see what other members of ROW80 are writing, click here.

Mystery Novelist Janice Hamrick & Death Rides Again

Posted on July 1, 2013July 11, 2013 by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

The day Eddy Cranny got himself murdered started bad and went downhill from there . . . especially for Eddy. ~ Janice Hamrick, Death Rides Again

When I reached the second floor of BookPeople for the June 19th launch of Death Rides Again, Janice Hamrick’s latest mystery novel, my day turned around and started uphill at a gallop.

Janice, who lives in Austin, made news in the writing–and reading–communities when the manuscript of her first book, Death on Tour, won the 2010 Mystery Writers of America/Minotaur Books First Crime Novel Competition. Published in 2011, the novel was nominated for the 2012 Mary Higgins Clark Award and the Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award.

Scott Montgomery and Janice Hamrick, 2012 Texas Book Festival

In 2012, Janice followed Death on Tour with Death Makes the Cut. Now she presents the third in the Jocelyn Shore series, Death Rides Again.

Critics have been complimentary. So have readers. From her tour of Egypt, to the high school where she teaches, to a family reunion at her Uncle Kel’s ranch, main character Jocelyn Shore has a talent for solving murders and gathering fans as she goes.

At the book launch, Scott Montgomery, Crime Fiction Coordinator of MysteryPeople, BookPeople’s store-within-a-store, interviewed Janice before an audience of mystery lovers. This was the second time I’ve seen the two together: at last fall’s Texas Book Festival, Janice appeared on a panel Scott moderated. The subject was using humor in mysteries, something Janice does well. (See quotation from book, above.)

I took copious notes, as I always do on such occasions. The conversation ranged far and wide, however, and my notes comprise two pages of scrawl, on the diagonal, a series of jottings devoid of connective tissue. Turning them into paragraphs would take several hours and considerable energy (for reason, see “Why I Am Not a Journalist”), so I’ll share a few bullets:

Janice got the idea for Death on Tour from a trip she made to Egypt (during which no one was murdered). The idea for Death Rides Again came from a setting–her family’s ranch near Brady.
Some reviewers class the Jocelyn Shore novels as cozy mysteries; others don’t. Janice is glad the books aren’t easily categorized. She describes them as funny but hopes they have more depth than the typical cozy.
Asked what she learned while writing the series, she said that between Death on Tour and Death Makes the Cut, she learned, “I can do it.”
She’s working on another book–not a Jocelyn Shore–but she doesn’t talk about that one yet.
Janice rises about 5:00 a.m. and writes before going to work. She sets out to write 1500 words a week: 300 words a day, five days a week. On a bad day, she says, she can produce 300 words and feel okay. On a good day, she can “blast right through” her goal.

Now this is where things get personal. I began this post by saying my day went uphill because I attended the book launch.

Goals have never been my friends. Most people find them energizing. To me, setting goals is stimulus for digging in my heels, heading off at a 45-degree angle from the rest of the group. When my CP, who likes goals and thinks I should like them too, makes me set some for the coming week, I growl, scribble in my notebook–almost, but not quite, singing Nyah nyah nyah to myself–and then ignore them.

But Janice’s description of her 300-word goal–low enough to attain and feel good about, low enough to sometimes blast right through–spoke to me. Her system is so logical, so sensible, so humane. Sitting there in that folding chair, I heard the little light bulb above my head click on, and I said to myself, Well, d’oh.

So, on that basis, I’ve decided to jump into Round 3 of A Round of Words in 80 Days, the writing challenge that knows you have a life, with the following goal:

I will write 1500 words a week: 300 words a day, five days a week;

and this stipulation:

I will not rise at 5:00 a.m. to get the job done.

Now back to the book launch:

The question on the mind of nearly everyone in the audience was, What happens next?

When you’ve spent quality time with a character like Jocelyn, gotten to know her and her family, watched her fall in–and maybe out–of love, deal with matters of life and death, turn shaky post-divorce self-esteem to strong self-confidence–you don’t want the relationship to end. Three books, the number Janice contracted to write, aren’t enough.

So what might influence Janice’s publisher to ask for a fourth Jocelyn Shore novel?

Here’s Janice’s answer: Buy the book!

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You can follow Janice’s blog at blog.janicehamrick.com.

The Jocelyn Store mysteries are available from booksellers listed on Janice’s website.

On Saturday, July 20, Janice and Hopeton Haye, host of KAZI Book Review, will appear at the Pflugerville Library for an interactive discussion about the Jocelyn Shore series, mysteries, and writing. On Saturday, August 31, she will sign copies of her books at the Round Rock Barnes & Noble.

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For more information about A Round of Words in 80 Days (ROW80) click here.

To read what other ROW80 participants are writing, click here.

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The Eight Suggestions for 2013

Posted on January 2, 2013 by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

Yesterday I said I would post my Seven Suggestions for 2013. Copying them, I found there were eight.

Here it is, the unalliterative but expanded version of The Eight Suggestions.

1) Finish the @%%&$@!% novel (aka either fall in love with it again or chuck it);

2) follow through on the Sacred Writing Time Pledge ) to write one hour a day;

3) write a daily blog post, and if that becomes too difficult, reduce to three posts per week;

4) participate in at least one A Round of Words in 80 Days challenge, which is no problem for anyone who sets out suggestions and then blogs at least once a week;

5) fix up an office in the spare room;

6) go to bed before midnight so the rest of this list has a chance of being done;

7) keep a timesheet;

8) trim this list to #s 1, 2, and 5 if necessary; do some calculations and acknowledge that #s 1-6 won’t be a burden if the person doing them just gets up and DOES them.

Amen.

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For the first week of A Round of Words for 80 Days, I’ll focus on Suggestion #2.

01.01.2013: As Yet, Unfinished, but Finished Now

Posted on January 1, 2013January 2, 2013 by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

I’ve done it again. Gotten my days mixed up.

Earlier today, I decided to enter the WordPress Post Every Day 2013 challenge. I added the badge, which had just become available, to the blog’s sidebar and congratulated myself on having already posted on January 1.

At 11:58 p.m., something moved me to look at the date of the previous post, which I’d published on January 1. It read, December 31, 2012.

I won’t explain the mental gyrations I went through to turn today into yesterday and tomorrow into today, but for a person of my genius, it was nothing, really nothing.

Something, really something would have been composing and publishing the January 1 post in less than two minutes.

Here’s where genius stepped back in and righted things. I entered an appropriate title, saved the empty draft, and clicked Publish.

To some, this might seem dishonest, underhanded, unscrupulous, unethical–cast your own aspersion–but I see it as artful and astute. Foxy, but in the nicest way.

If the calendar hadn’t betrayed me, I would have laid out my New Year’s Suggestions. But I’ve already messed up on Suggestion #5 (Go to bed before midnight), which is the foundation for #2 (Honor the Sacred Writing Time Pledge, 2013 that I signed this morning), which, in turn supports Suggestion # 1 (Write for at least one hour a day.)

And because I don’t want to spend a second midnight scrambling for a calendar, I’ll retire at the first opportunity. Like now.

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Coming tomorrow (aka later today): The Seven Suggestions

ROW80 1.2.12 Goals & Boiling a Frog

Posted on January 2, 2012January 2, 2012 by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

A friend says resolutions should be brief. Her resolution for 2012 is Move.

Ten years ago, when she was into metaphor, she adopted, Boil the frog slowly.

The former refers to being more physically active. The latter might be phrased, Make small, incremental changes.

I admire her artistry, but deplore her lack of clarity. They’re her resolutions, however. If they work for her, that’s all that matters.

A Round of Words in 80 Days #5 begins today. I was supposed to announce my goals January 1, but didn’t get around to it. Whether such tardiness portends good or ill remains to be seen. I’m pretty sure I’ll accomplish more than I did during ROW80 #4, when I met about 1% of what I’d set out to do. I offer no apologies for the lapse. I remember 2011 as one long series of lapses.

A medical professional, and my hero, once told me, “You can’t tell your hypothalamus what to do.” Unfortunately, my hypothalamus has no problem at all ordering me around.

Anyway, while good old HT and I are on speaking terms, I re-enter the challenge and state my goals:

1. Write about Molly at least 5 days a week.

2. See #1.

There it is. Simple. Measurable. Doable.

Concerning goals for the non-writing part of life, I haven’t made it beyond the one that’s topped every New Year’s list since I was fifteen. I’ll come up with something else before the end of the month. The process is complicated this year because I’ve gotten so many good ideas from other bloggers:

Ariana at Pearl’s Twirl introduced me to “The Anti-bucket List.” Those resolutions are no trouble at all to keep.

Totsymae helped me with both 2012 resolutions and my anti-bucket list in “Things You Should Admit to Yourself Before You Enter the New Year (or Positively Negative).” Totsymae knows what she’s talking about.

Kate Shrewsday, in “The Milestone Mirage,” reminded me that our small acts define us, and convinced me to write down my pebbles.

Pseu1’s Blog showed me how to record small stones and introduced me to River of Stones.

So. I’m off to tell ROW80 what I’ve decided.

And then I’ll visit Molly. She’s a delightful girl. If only she didn’t depend on me to choreograph her every move.

To see what other ROW80 participants are up to, click here.

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The day Eddy Cranny got himself murdered started bad and went downhill from there . . . especially for Eddy. ~ Janice Hamrick, Death Rides Again

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