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 COVID and Writing by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

This past weekend I panicked two of my relatives doing one thing, but they panicked for different reasons.

What did I do?

I ended up in the hospital with COVID.

Who panicked?

Well, for starters, my sister-in-law, who lives here in town, panicked over my being in the hospital with COVID. She was afraid I was going to die because she’s already lost friends to the disease.

The other one to panic was Konnie.

Her issue wasn’t that I had COVID but that I was in the hospital with no access to my computer and a post due in a matter of days. As her last post stated, she’s in over her head with no spare time on her hands. She categorically could not sub on my turn this week.

So, now I’m home. I’ve calmed down my sister-in-law, but Konnie is still worried about me posting. Who can blame her? I am having trouble concentrating (more so than usual) and I keep dozing off.

This leaves me with sitting at my computer for a few minutes at a time trying to write something coherent when my brain would rather make the room spin than my thoughts find their way from my gray matter to the keyboard.

You would think she could be happy I lasted this long without getting COVID.

And it wasn’t like I didn’t panic myself when the ER nurse said they were admitting me. I mean who was going to take care of Patches? And who was home on the holiday weekend to even receive my call? I mean at first, no one was answering my messages, and I was even having trouble getting my church address book to open, limiting who I could contact.

I finally got a positive response, but she insisted she had no way to get into my apartment. I reminded her my neighbors had my spare keys. I’d have just called them, but I didn’t have their number!

Everything was fine until my friend let me know Patches had meowed his voice raw before she got there. He was distraught that he couldn’t find me. Now I panicked.

In the nearly three years I’ve had Patches, I spent a whopping one weekend away from home and that was just weeks after I got him. (Don’t worry, I left him with plenty of food and water.) But since then, the longest I had been away from home in a day is around 8 hours, and most days it was between five and a half and six hours. I do only work five-hour shifts. My long days are when I have stuff like appointments or errands to do before or after work. But I always return home in time for dinner until this past Saturday, a day I normally either stay home or run just one quick errand.

The way he is acting now, he has separation anxiety, because now he panics if he wakes up and I’m not where he last saw me. Either that or he’s just worried about me, considering that for the past week he has insisted on curling up next to or on me at every turn.

Yes, he was keeping a really close eye on me; I should have realized just from his behavior something was really wrong with me.

He’s starting to calm down, but now I’m worried about how he’s going to respond when I can actually leave the house again.

On top of all this, I have been trying to tweak my query and blurb for my speculative fiction novel and edit the first book of my science fiction series. (As in actually getting it finished.) I’m adding in scenes to flesh out the story better. Or at least I was trying to. Like I said, I’m having more trouble than usual concentrating.

Does anyone have time to do a critique or two on my query and blurb? If I ever get new ones written.

I’d ask Konnie, but obviously, she doesn’t have time. Me, I have way more time than I was planning to have, too bad I can’t seem to stay awake, let alone concentrate.

And to top it all off, this has been officially the worst birthday I’ve ever had, and that is saying something when heretofore my worst birthday was the one where Dad called and instead of saying hi or asking how I was doing, he announced, “He’s taller than you.”

And that was just the icing on a dreadful day all around because my husband ended up having to work on the fourth and was supposed to get the fifth off instead. It was evening when Dad called, and still no husband.

Anyway, happy writing everyone!

Panic and Writing by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

Do you want to hear a panic-inducing story?

I have a sister-in-law who lives across town from me. Said sister-in-law, Shirley, has major health issues, sometimes has seizures, and has been known to fall out of bed or just plain fall down, injuring herself.

As I am geographically her closest family who can drive, I am her emergency contact.

Cue Tuesday morning the day after Memorial Day:

I was getting ready for work when my phone rings. It’s Shirley’s caregiver because she isn’t answering her door buzzer or phone. “Is she with you?”

The young lady had been informed by her boss that Shirley was going camping with her sister over the holiday weekend.

Let me point out, SISTER not sister-in-law.

Yes, I live the closest. Yes, I help her all I can. And yes, I am her emergency contact, but I am not her sister, even if she says I am.

My husband had three sisters. Shirley is the youngest, but they are all still alive, and the oldest and her husband did take Shirley camping over the weekend.

And the last I spoke to Shirley on Monday evening, they were on the road, heading here to Pocatello.

I tried calling Shirley. It went straight to voicemail. (Which honestly should have been a clue. When Shirley is just not answering, it rings a few times.)

I tried calling her big sister, Vera-Ellen. It also went straight to voicemail, but now I’m in such a panic it doesn’t dawn on me they could still be together and in the same place. It just didn’t occur to me. I didn’t even consider it at that time.

No, in my panic I called my boss and told her I have a small family emergency and I may be a little late for work, then I hightail it across town and let myself into Shirley’s apartment, worried sick that I might have to call the ambulance.

She wasn’t even there!

I finally call the oldest of Tom’s younger brothers, Cliff, who was also with Vera-Ellen, her husband, and Shirley at Bear Lake over the weekend.

He knew that Vera-Ellen and her husband were planning to go to Scout Mountain Monday night.

Great. There is no service at Scout Mountain.

DUH! Their phones are going straight to voicemail. Cliff hadn’t heard that Shirley was going with them to Scout Mountain, but they were last known to be together.

Adding all that together means Shirley is at Scout Mountain, and I might just wring some necks when I get ahold of them.

Shirley finally called me just after five p.m. yesterday.

Yeah, she’s fine. Just after my last phone conversation with Shirley, Vera-Ellen and Dave decided they didn’t have time to take Shirley home and get up that mountain before dark, so they dragged her along with them! Without letting anyone know!

I mean, Shirley tried, but again, no phone service up there.

Had Shirley called me back right after she learned of their decision to take her with them, she would have informed me, but she didn’t even try to call until after they were up there.

Come on! It wasn’t like Shirley was driving, she can’t. She could have called before they got out of range. Shirley called while they stopped at a store. She could have called me back while they heading out of that parking lot.

She didn’t.

Shirley has Early-onset Alzheimer’s she could have forgotten until she got to Scout Mountain, and clearly forgot there is no service up there, but why didn’t Vera-Ellen and her husband consider it earlier?

As far as I know, there isn’t anything wrong with their memory.

And it isn’t like they’ve never been up there before. I’ve been up there with them. In fact, Konnie has been up there with them. We all know there is no service up there.

But I can tell you, I now know how it feels to panic like that.

Now I just need a story idea to write it in.

By the way, do any of you ever use things that really happened to you in your stories?

I have. Though I changed a few important details so while the feelings were the same, the backstory and events were totally different.

I know Konnie has too.

And that’s still funny.

The first time I read a certain scene Konnie wrote, I went, “Oh, man! Poor Jerry!”

I just knew Konnie had done that to her poor husband.

However, someone in Konnie’s critique group around that time, told Konnie the scene was unrealistic and would never happen in real life. She insisted Konnie needed to delete.

Clearly, she’s never met Jerry!

Anyway, happy writing everyone!

Signs of a Writer by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

 

It is, at this point, seven weeks since I submitted my manuscript to Entangled Press. I still haven’t heard anything from them. And I’m still praying they’ll say yes.

The problem is, much better writers have been turned down way more times, so the chances of my story being accepted are slim. Ah well. Writing is hard, and trying to sell our stories is even harder.

But I do know that I am a writer.

I read an article the other day that I found on Pinterest which listed ten signs you are a writer. First off, the article was written in 2015 on a blog by The Writing Kylie, so it is on the old side, but very valid.

Let’s go over the list:

#1. You constantly dream about writing or about your story.

                        Definitely.

#2. You absolutely love to read.

Now we all know writers are readers, and yes, I love to read.

#3. You feel doubt.

I honestly couldn’t believe this was on the list, but well, the article put it simply – you only doubt when it matters to you. Boy, do I doubt!

#4. You lose track of time when you write.

And when I read. 😊 It doesn’t have to be a story I’m writing; it just has to be good!

#5. You feel like something is missing when you don’t write.

                        So, that’s my problem!

#6. You are better at working out your thoughts and feelings through writing than talking about them out loud.

Okay, this is not me, but the list isn’t one of those where you have to have all the symptoms either. However, I am way more erudite on paper than orally.

#7. You want to spend more time with fictional characters then you do with real people.

Come on, fictional characters are way easier to deal with, even when they are fighting your ideas for them.

#8. You can’t walk past a bookstore without going inside.

Actually, I can – I’m broke. I refuse to go in because I can’t afford to buy anything. But that’s new stores. I buy them all the time used (along with Nativities). Thrift stores are our friends, and don’t forget Thrift Books!

#9. Your favorite beverage is coffee or tea, preferably in abundance.

Okay, not me or Konnie. And not just because they are against our religion, I don’t like caffeinated drinks. Though I do sometimes drink herbal tea.

#10. You have more notebooks than sheets for your bed.

Duh! I only have two sets of sheets. That’s easy who can live with only two notebooks?

I’m just wondering if there are more signs that a person is supposed to be a writer.

For starters, I’d add to #10 by saying: you always have a notepad and pen with you no matter what.

Or maybe a sign could be that there are creative people all over your family tree.

I’m not talking just writers, but artists of all sorts. Konnie and I have a family tree full of creative people. Do you?

And let’s not forget that very famous writer I found on our family tree. A fellow by the name of William Shakespeare. 😊

Writing is in our blood.

Being creative is who we are. But of course, many writers are the lone wolf in their family, so what is another sign?

Could it be?

            They talk constantly about their characters as if they were real people.

            Who thinks of what happens to their characters or the characters in a story they are reading as being real? I remember once when Konnie complained that two of her daughters were talking about the characters in my manuscript (the one I submitted) so incessantly it was driving Konnie up the wall!

And the thing is, I've done that to some extent with either what I’ve read, or what I’m writing. Have you done it? Then again, isn’t that sort of what #7 is about?

How about, does anyone ever spend hours staring at a blank screen, trying to get the words to flow from your brain to your fingertips?

I hate when that happens, but I think only a true writer would suffer from the “blank-screen” syndrome because only a writer would have doubts and fears about picking the right words to fill it. Only a true writer would freeze when it came to starting a new story.

Don’t you agree?

I think another one might be that only a true writer will edit their work. Only a true writer knows that the first draft is rough and will need a lot of work, and only a writer will bother doing that work. Does anyone disagree?

What would you say is a sign of a true writer?

Anyway, happy writing everyone.

To Change or Not to Change by Konnie Enos

Last week my sister wrote about the title of her current WIP.

Personally, I think the title she has fits the story perfectly and her beta readers are being too nit-picky. Sometimes you have to know when not to listen to critics. And just because several people agree doesn’t mean they’re right. You also have to remember not every critic knows what they are talking about.

I left one crit group because one of them commented that I had a grammar error and every single one of the other members agreed with the problem. So did I, in fact. BUT each and every one of them completely agreed I had to end my sentence, in fact my paragraph, with a COMMA.

See the problem here.

They also refused to listen to me when I explained the actual correct punctuation for my sentence. I left the group. How can they help my writing if they don’t know you can NEVER end a sentence with a comma?

Of course that’s my experience with most of the crit groups I’ve tried. They refused to do much beyond correcting grammar and they don’t even know all the grammar rules to begin with. They most certainly can’t identify echo or redundancy, and I have my doubts about them spotting any flow issues. They also don’t understand info dumps or telling.

If they are not going to recognize their own writing blunders they certainly aren’t going to help me with mine.

So choose your critiquers carefully then take what they say with a grain of salt. Just because a beta reader says something is unclear, or has negative connotations, or is worded in a confusing way, doesn’t mean it’s so.

True if most of your critics say you have a problem there probably is one, and you should certainly verify if any comments have merit but you don’t have to take all comments as gospel.

I had one guy after listening to a reading of part of my first chapter of my opus make the comment that I should change some references to more “dog appropriate” wording since ALL my characters seemed to be a “dog like” species.

In all of my opuses over 1700 pages, I don’t have a single dog or even a “dog like” species. I do have aliens (it’s sci-fi) but the ONE species, which IS based on an animal, had CAT like features. The other alien came closer to fitting the description of a TROLL than anything else. AND most of my characters are indeed very human. ALL of my POV characters are.

I can understand how he might not have picked up on the clues I gave that one alien species had cat like rather than dog like features. I however don’t understand how he missed that most of my characters are human. They have very human names and the two supporting characters from an alien species clearly have names I created.

I got another comment from the same reading that I didn’t make it clear WHERE they were and proceeded to give me ideas how to show they were on a military base on some planet.

Sorry, no cigar.

Yes, it is a military base. Yeah, you caught that detail. Exactly where that base is isn’t a detail I feel I need to expound on in the first chapter. I don’t want info dumps giving such minute details of this world. Suffice it to say, I DO give more details as the story unfolds.

My point is sometimes comments from the critics are way off base. Either they missed an important detail or they simply weren’t paying attention. Or maybe they want unnecessary info dumps.

I know one writer who insists you have to give minute detail on what they were eating every single time they eat, even if it was just a brownie. I read her work. She didn’t just say they had brownies, she described, in minute detail, the flavors and how they were cooked!

Excuse me, I know what a brownie is. I don’t need the detail to get the picture. And she did this every time they ate. It was totally redundant and unneeded. Yes, sometimes you need that detail, but unless you’re writing a cookbook, it’s over kill to do it every single time they eat! As my sister would describe it, a wall banger.

Don’t be the writer who changed how they were writing their story because of one comment, only to have the next person make it clear they would prefer the story was written how they’d already had it.

Stay happy. Write what pleases you and cherry pick what crits you listen to. Remember they might not know wherewith they speak.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.