Nano and Me by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

Here it is October 26 and Nano is less than a week away, and I have no idea what I’m going write this year.

Oh, I have a character, but that’s about all. I have no idea what sort of story this will be, and I don’t have an outline. Okay, I usually don’t have an outline, but I also usually have more than just a character in my head by this time too.

Actually, I usually have a bit of an outline in my head but not written down before I start any project. I mean I do know things likes and dislikes of the characters, what in general is going to happen. I can think of lots of times I’ve asked for help brainstorming and told the person helping me their ideas won’t work because of some reason I already had in the story that I hadn’t written down yet. So, in essence, I outline in my mind and rarely write it down.

But this year, I think I’ve spent far too much time editing my epic sci-fi to be thinking about something new. And then there is the issue of how many novels I’ve started and never finished. Some I just can’t seem to think of something more to add, others I have ideas right up until I open the manuscript to start writing then my mind goes blank.

I’m thinking that the ones I can’t think of more to add to I need to scrap. Though I am not sure about even that. A few might even count as novellas if I just had a satisfying ending. Some others have clear skips in the storyline that need filling in, and I keep drawing a blank on just how to write those scenes.

Actually, I have trouble with any story where I skipped around. If I manage to write sequentially, I am more likely to finish it. This really bothers me because I know of writers who do skip around during the rough draft. They write what scene comes to mind at the moment then when they edit, they move the scenes around.

I can’t seem to master that. I am trying. I actually have two stories that I can think of where I have been adding scenes into the middle of them during edits.

Actually, on both of them my rough draft was more like an exceptionally long synopsis: boring and telling. I have been going back and not just adding detail but showing the story.

If I think about it, all my rough drafts fall into that category. I have to work pretty hard to show the story. Show don’t Tell is something I have always had issues with, so maybe I need more practice on that.

On another note, this will be my 21^st Nano. I can hardly believe it’s been that long, but my first Nano was in 2001 and here it is 2022. I am officially the old pro in my group.

In fact, back on the 15^th, my group had their Preptober meeting, and one of the ladies who attended mentioned this was her first official Nano, and that she wasn’t sure if she could manage it, which prompted a brief discussion on who had done it the longest, which ended up being me. Everyone else, including our two leaders, started participating after me.

There wasn’t even a local group when I first started. I did the first couple of Nanos without a single write-in or group get-together. And even then, the lady who organized our first write-ins has since dropped out because she was too busy.

And I know one writer who only participated a few times, even though she still writes, during the winter, when there isn’t a whole lot to do around her farm. She’s one busy lady.

Actually, not too long ago, I was talking to a friend and happened to mention I know a local published author, and even mentioned that her first book was “A Monster Like Me” and the person I was talking to freaked at the idea I knew the author. She loves the book, and she asked me if I could manage to get her copy autographed. I mentioned the author’s connection to a locally well-known farm.

The person I was talking to hadn’t realized she’d met the author at the farmer’s market! It had never dawned on her that the author was even local let alone that I might know the woman.

And for those of you who don’t know, the author is Wendy Swore.

Anyway, are any of you doing Nano this year? If so let me know. I’d like to know what you are writing and how you are doing on it.

Happy writing everyone, and good luck on Nano!

Of Writing, Sleep and Other Distractions by Konnie Enos

 

Last night, as it was getting later in the evening and a good time to go to bed, I was moaning because I didn’t have an idea for a post, and I seriously didn’t feel well which made thinking about something to write even harder. I was seriously thinking about just writing, “I’m sick and can’t think.” And leaving my post at that.

About then, Jerry decides he’s going to bed and talks me into doing the same, even though I haven’t written my post yet. He said that you think better when you’re well-rested and the ideas always come after a good night’s sleep.

Well, I did lie down, but laying down doesn’t mean I’ll get a good night's sleep. Most of the time, I’m never quite comfortable and I wake up two or three times a night. Then when I do finally give up in the morning, it’s because I’m so uncomfortable a change in position is necessary. Which is usually what prompts me to go to bed in the first place.

Yes, that’s right. I go to bed at night because I get so uncomfortable sitting here that I simply have to change positions and the only one left is laying down. Then I get up in the morning because I am again that uncomfortable and I need to sit up again.

But being uncomfortable doesn’t help you get the best sleep.

So last night, I’m trying to get in as comfortable a position as possible and Jerry in all his sweetness does everything he can to help me, even to the point of making him less than comfortable.

I slept pretty well last night. I didn’t even have to change my position a bunch of times. I only did it once. Then when my alarm went off this morning I was already awake. I’d been lying there for a few minutes trying to decide if I wanted to get up yet. The only reason I hadn’t gotten up yet, was that I still had no clue what I was going to write about.

 Of course, when my alarm went off, I had to get up. I had to get my computer out and I had to get writing or I wouldn’t have anything to post this morning. But opening my computer up and starting Word doesn’t mean the ideas will come.

So I’m sitting at my computer, attempting to write something when I happen to notice what time it is.

I look around me and listen.

No one is moving about and no dogs are barking.

Jerry is still curled up in bed beside me.

I look at the time and then look around again. Nothing has changed.

I attempt to wake Jerry up. He does a “hmm,” thing and goes back to sleep.

I look at the time again.

Okay fine. I have less than an hour to get my as-yet-unwritten post up but it’s apparently more important that I take the time to feed some fur babies (and make sure Mabel gets her pills) than write my post.

Normally when it’s time to feed our fur babies, I’m alerted to the fact because Melinda heads to the cat food bin, which I can see from my bed, and the dogs start barking, a lot, to ensure I wake up and or move (depending on if it’s morning or evening).

I don’t even see Melinda until I’m already heading out of my bedroom. Our dogs start barking.

“I thought you weren’t getting up.”

“Of course, I’m getting up. It’s barely seven now.”

I head up the hallway to feed the dogs and they stop barking, though Xavier is whining about getting into Tina’s old bedroom. “It’s been seven long enough for me to notice.”

So this morning, we didn’t have the cacophony of dog barking because I was already heading for their bowls.

 But that just means I had already run out of time to write my half-written post.

So I get back to my computer and type words as quickly as they come to me, hoping I can finish in time only to get distracted from my task yet again.

This time by a text message.

“Yes, Bonnie. I know. I’m working on it.”

At least I got some good sleep last night, and I’m feeling a bit better this morning. I haven’t even wheezed yet, so no nebulizing treatments yet to keep the wheezing from distracting me from my writing.

Maybe I’ll get through today without that distraction.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Writing and Me by Bonnie Le Hamilton

I have no idea how much I’m going to write today; I had another of what I term a “bad night.” Though this time it wasn’t the usual aches and pains causing me trouble. Last night I fixed myself a cup of tea and I overfilled the mug so as I walked from my kitchen to the living room (only a few steps) I sloshed some of that boiling hot water onto my foot.

I immediately put burn ointment on it; it feels better this morning, but I didn’t sleep all that great. It was hard to get comfortable when I couldn’t let anything beyond air touch my foot. And I have issues with getting comfortable at night anyway.

I always have to find a position that doesn't bother my back, accounts for my bad knee, and doesn’t set off my carpal tunnel, which is easy to do. And I should have worn my brace last night, but I didn’t, so I am paying the price this morning. Namely, I’m wearing said brace while I try to type.

I have also been trying to edit more of my sci-fi, only trouble is I didn’t get as far as I wanted to this last week; mostly because on Monday while I was at work, I came up with an idea to tweak the first chapter, so I was doing that Monday after work instead of getting further with my edits or doing something productive like maybe start this post.

Nothing like waiting until the last minute, especially when you didn’t sleep well the night before.

Anyway, my sci-fi seems to be getting better by the day (but who am I to judge? I like it). Konnie’s sci-fi is getting closer to polished by the day.

Konnie and I had a conversation this past week about how far along our respective sci-fi’s are. I had to point out to Konnie that she had a completed rough draft long before I started mine, so hers is clearly closer to “done” than mine is; especially since I don’t have a completed rough draft of even the first book in the series and she has a completed rough of her whole series.

I might also point out that while both stories are sci-fi, and both even have war as a central part of it, they are nothing alike. For one, hers centers around the relationships of the characters in her story while they deal with the issues of war, mine centers around the cause of the war. At least that is my central theme. Of course, I do have relationship issues in mine, but the underlying driving force is the character who caused all this conflict whereas in Konnie’s the cause of the conflict isn’t discussed, the war is only mentioned on how it affects the characters’ lives.

I think if I thought about it a little longer, I could think of other differences. Well, for one, she has more POVs than I have.

So far, I only have two POVs, with a possible third later in the series when he finally enters the picture. Konnie has, I believe, seven POV characters in the whole series. I don’t think I can produce that many.

There is a whole lot of difference between having a large cast of characters and having a lot of POV characters. Large casts I can manage. I’ve done that, but I’ve never had more than two POVs in any story. Seven seems astronomical to me.

Not that Konnie doesn’t see it that way too. Keep in mind that we both generally write romance, and those usually only have two POVs; the couple the story centers around. Even my speculative fiction centers around just one couple even if there are more couples in it. And, like I said, the majority of our work is romance.

In fact, for the longest time, I categorized my spec fiction as romance, or paranormal romance, with a hint of sci-fi, but none of those genres really fit. Then I discovered the genre called speculative fiction and that fits! Up until that point, I was worried that the story didn’t really fit anywhere, which was making it hard to sell. I am so glad I finally found a niche for it. Now just to sell it.

Finally having the right genre might actually help with selling it. Does anyone know a good speculative fiction publisher or agent?

Yeah, I have to work on my query and possibly my synopsis for that one as well, but I don’t know if I will have time with Nano right around the corner.

And that’s another thing; what do I write this year?

Anyway, happy writing everyone!

Of Birthdays and Holidays by Konnie Enos

 

Recently I saw a post where someone asked us to “imagine having a birthday within 2 weeks of Christmas.” Just think about having a birthday anywhere from December 11^th to January 8^th.

Well, that got me thinking.

I know a lot of people with birthdays in that period. I even know some people with birthdays in the first half of December who had complained about having their birthdays overshadowed by Christmas. The most common complaints were getting birthday gifts in Christmas-themed wrapping paper and or receiving just one gift to represent both events. This was particularly bad when it was relatives who gave their siblings two gifts a year, one for each event.

When I learned the due date for my fourth child (oldest son, Tony) all the information I had about December birthdays came back to me. But I had one as yet untapped resource, My cousin was born three days after Christmas, hence the same week my baby was due.

I had an enlightening conversation with my favorite aunt (said cousin’s mother).

She mentioned not only the two complaints mentioned above but also some family and friends who completely ignored that my cousin had a birthday. Yes, he experienced this, and yes, he noticed.

I took note. I even put my foot down. I told my family members they had to treat all my kids equally. Either they gave all of them both a birthday and Christmas gift or gave them one or none. But they could not give my other kids gifts and not my December baby. I wasn’t going to tolerate them overlooking one kid’s birthday just because it was close to Christmas.

I also told them I preferred that birthday gift not be in Christmas-themed wrapping paper. This meant that I could not use Christmas wrapping paper for birthday gifts. Now, as a rule, I could not afford a lot of wrapping paper so I wrapped most of my children’s birthday gifts in groceries bags.

However, one year I did find some birthday-themed wrapping paper and started using that. I ran out just before I needed to wrap my December child’s gift. I kid you not. Even the store where I’d found it before only had Christmas-themed paper in December.

I believe I resorted to using some plain red Christmas wrapping paper. He does like the color red. Now I plan to make sure I still have some birthday-themed wrapping paper when it’s time to wrap birthday presents for my December baby, and also for those people I give birthday gifts to who have birthdays in the above-mentioned period.

And yes, I have more than just that one cousin or my son, Tony, with a birthday so close to Christmas. Looking at my calendar I also have two nieces, another cousin, my son-in-law, my husband, and a sister-in-law and her late husband with birthdays between December 11^th and January 8^th. And those are just the ones I know about.

Then again, I also thought of all the people who have birthdays on, or extremely near, major holidays. Imagine people overlooking your birthday because it is within days of Thanksgiving, Easter, New Year’s, Labor Day, or national independence days (like July 4^th).

Try planning a birthday party on or near your birthday when it happens to be on or near a major holiday. All your friends ended up declining the invitation because their parents said, “that’s family time.”

Growing up, Bonnie and I had the best attendance at our birthday parties when we planned them for at least a week after the actual event. I think our biggest birthday party was when our big day was on a Monday, though just the one year, which happened to be 1976. With the fourth on Sunday, our town had a huge celebration on Monday. So it felt like the whole town was celebrating with us.

There are also our two youngest brothers. One was born on Labor day and the other on the last Friday of November. I’m not sure Labor Day had as much of an effect on my baby brother, but my other brother felt it. Far too often his friends weren’t available to celebrate with him because they were celebrating Thanksgiving with extended family.

So, as the Christmas season quickly approaches, I think not only about those numerous family members who deal with birthdays far too close to the event but also everyone whose birthday gets overshadowed by a major holiday.

As the holidays approach, think about the people you know who have birthdays on or near that major event. They want others to recognize their birthday the same way they do everybody else’s.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.