Night Owl

August 5, 2009

“Dawn: When men of reason go to bed.” – Ambrose Bierce

SJ Day (aka Sylvia Day) had a great post up on Murder She Writes a couple of weeks ago about how changing routines can sometimes screw up a creative process. I chimed in my agreement, mentioning that for the past year or so, I’d had to change my writing routine. And how that new routine isn’t working nearly as well as I’d like it to.

Instead of writing late at night, like I used to, I was going to sleep earlier and writing all day. Or, trying to write, that is. Because I’ve discovered that I’m not all that great writing in the day, especially during the week. Weekends are a little better because the house is quieter. For me, during the day is good for things like working on revisions, reading galleys, doing copy edits, writing blog posts and generally attending to the business end of writing.

But the night? For me, that’s where the real magic lies. Give me my music and the laptop and something changes. Worlds open up. Words flow. New words. New ideas. New stories.

Worth the lack of sleep? Yeah. Plus, since I’m not trying to force daytime writing, it leaves more time for things like…rest So a win/win.

I worked all day on revisions. Got a lot done. Tonight is for working on the proposal. I’ve got some great ideas that began to generate as the 9PM hour hit.

I think there are morning people, afternoon people and night people and when you find a time that works for you, trying to change it can be really detrimental to your creativity. it was to mine and I don’t like to mess around with that stuff. And while I think it’s always good to try out new things / add new things to your process, you’ve also got to be willing to bend to the way your creativity rolls.

What about you? Do you – both writers and non-writers – have a time of day that you just know you’re more ‘on’ than other times?

The way my muse rolls

May 31, 2009

Cam’s books is done – it’s the one due out after the third book in the SEAL trilogy, tentatively titled, Don’t Look Back. Although I hesitate to use the word done, because that seems…wrong. I can’t say the first draft is done because it’s really not a first draft. The first pass, maybe? The one that I send to my editor with the highest of hopes (mainly that she doesn’t hate it – I’m never under any illusions about revisions – I need them) and the one that ultimately comes winging back to me in less than a few weeks time like a returning houseguest who eats all your food and orders payperview movies on your credit card but doesn’t want to actually give you anything in return.

Some books are like that. Most of them are. And so I’ll revise and send, revise and send, but for now, the book is done. And when I finished, I honestly couldn’t see straight. Larissa and I also completed the Sydney short story that will appear in the Mammoth Book of Special Ops (Pub Date TBA).

And even thought I was spinning, and I left my computer behind to go hang out outside with Zoo and the kid and the dog, convinced I was taking the rest of the day off, a few hours later, I felt it. The niggling in my brain of the story I’d pushed aside. It was saying, you’ve got some brand new Claire Fontaine notebooks waiting for you. And nothing to do for an entire day.

So I wrote about 2K on the story – it’s one that will probably be just for me and that’s okay. My way of refilling the well. Of letting my muse know that she gets to tell me what to do and I usually like it. Because I’m not one of those, there is no muse, I just sit down and write people.

I recently read this great story about Alice Walker, about how she was given a grant and a year’s sabbatical to write, The Color Purple. And for something like eleven months, she sat in a vacation house and she knit. And knit. And knit. And didn’t write. And the grant people were getting very nervous because the was no writing there.

But when she did finally write, the story was there in front of her. She simply had to let it grow before she could start. Really, the writing was happening – it just didn’t happen on the page.

My writing works very much the same way. I might have a deadline that’s six months out – and I’ll definitely tinker. And write scenes here and there and collect music and just think. And then I begin to panic when I can’t or don’t write on it. Inevitably, the month before it’s due is when the writing gets done.

Is that the best way to work? Absolutely not. Is it my way? Absolutely. It’s my process. It scares me and it humbles me every time I write a book. Sometimes I think, I can’t pull this one out of the fire – nothing’s happening. But somehow, the muse arrives. Granted, I do think the real work is in the revisions, but that first pass, that’s the storytelling draft. The one the muse and I want to write – if we don’t put it all down, we’ll never be satisfied, always wondering, what if...

Why your mom shouldn’t plot your books

April 14, 2009

So my mom calls me yesterday and is all like, Did you see that a SEAL team rescued that captain?

I tell her that I’ve been following all of this forever at this point and say yes.

Then she’s like, you know, I was washing dishes when I heard it and I stopped to watch the story. And then I turned back to washing the dishes and I thought, you know, this is something Stephanie should write about. She should write about the SEALs.

(This is the point where I tell my new readers that my mom has never read any of my books.)

She continues, And then I thought, wait, I think she does write about Navy SEALs. But I don’t think you have a plot like this. You should write this exact plot. It would be so timely. And all the work is already done for you…

things get in the way…

April 9, 2009

So, Zoo has tonsillitis and I’m hoping that the antibiotics work so he doesn’t have to have them out. Mainly because he’s telling me he won’t have them out until after his fishing trip at the end of April.

I’m guessing he doesn’t realize that he’s not going to have much of a choice.

So I’ve got that going on, coupled with several days in a row of no nursing for the kid. Add in a book due soon, copy edits and two different sets of revisions and well, I might’ve just hyperventilated. Seriously.

If everyone would simply go to sleep at a decent hour and sleep through the night, I could make some real progress. Which brings me to my next point.

Okay, I personally do not like the Teletubbies. But the kid does. Loves them. Finds them soothing. They help her sleep.

And the DVDs are being discontinued.

We kill DVDs around here. Mainly, because my daughter likes to grab and bite them and then, well, they don’t really work all that well. My mom’s been searching eBay for them but man, come on Teletubbie people – it’s so not right to pull the plug on these little dancing idiots. Think of the children!

Think of the parents who can’t get their children to sleep. Like me. A sad parent with a pissed off Delta Force hero just waiting for me to get him out of trouble. Or into it.

I’m going to have to start a, bring back the Teletubbies, club or something.

I’m betting Delta Force hero wouldn’t mind helping. I’m imagining him marching into the Teletubbie offices (well, not offices with Teletubbies in them because that would just be silly. And kind of funny) and demanding their secret stash of unsold videos. Maybe I could send a team in on a covert mission to recapture the little dancing idiots.

What can I tell you – I’m desperate.

Free Will Astrology

March 29, 2009

Aries horoscope for the week of March 26th:

Don’t you think it’s time you toned down your manic aspirations? Aren’t you curious about the sweet, sensitive success that could be yours if only you got really calm and peaceful? Wouldn’t it be interesting to explore the more manageable opportunities that might become available by accepting your limitations with humble equanimity? APRIL FOOL! Don’t you dare do any of those things, Aries. Your spiritual duty for the foreseeable future is to be a brave initiator of ingenious experiments . . . a high-powered self-starter who competes primarily with yourself . . . a pioneering warrior who’s in quest of transcendent exploits that make it unnecessary to go to war.

I don’t think I’m reading these horoscopes anymore. They exhaust me. Mainly because I was excited about the whole getting calm and peaceful thing.

This week requires a major writing push on Cam’s book (you’ll meet Cam in Hold On Tight, trilogy book 3)…like, a lock myself away with chocolate and don’t come out until major progress is made. Although I did have a great brainstorm on the way to dinner last night. If I can pull this off, I think it will be awesome. But there’s a big if.

Keep your fingers crossed for me. Somewhere, my editor just let out a silent scream.

Hey, have you been watching The Unit? I like the new guy, but Mac is still my favorite…

Elizabeth Gilbert on creativity

March 28, 2009

I found this over on Genreality – it’s author Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Love, Pray) and she’s giving a lecture on a new way to think about creativity. I think it’s a fascinating lecture for anyone, but especially for anyone who’s in any kind of creative field.

You know, I’ve often thought about the whole, writers / artists / etc can’t afford to wait for the muse – put your butt in the chair and just write thing. I hear authors say that habit / practice leads to better and more frequent writing. And while I truly believe that’s a huge part of any endeavor, I have to think there’s more to it than that.

See, I believe in the muse. I truly do believe that you can show up for work and type your heart out and still get total crap on the page some days. But there are days when, even though you’re not doing anything differently, somehow the words / the scene / the characters just shine. You lose track of time, you feel like you’re possessed, almost a scribe. And I’ve experienced that and I love it and I pray every time I sit down to write that the muse comes to find me.

Anyway, this video really subscribes to the notion that you must come to work every day, but that doesn’t necessarily mean your muse does. She finds a way to take some of the angst off the creator and instead, talks about how the muse lends us the inspiration…I can’t explain it nearly as well as she does, but please watch. It’s about 20 minutes long and very worthwhile!

YouTube -

recalculating

March 21, 2009

So we’ve got this new GPS for the car and it’s been great. Well, except for the time when it didn’t realize that the new road was built and showed our car off-road and the voice was yelling, recalculating – you are not on the road. You are in the wrong place – recalculating!

But I feel like that’s such an appropriate word for what’s happening with me these days – lots of recalculating. It’s rarely straightforward writing, although to me those days are the best. No, it’s more like, write a little, find copy edits for a different book at your door, stop, do those, write new book, get a revision letter on another book, stop, figure out how long that will take and can I still get the new book in on time and oh, look, email and website things and…so yeah. Recalculating.

Of course, if you talk to my mother about the GPS, she will inevitably bring up the time the GPS directed a car directly onto the railroad tracks. So here’s a tip, don’t mention GPS’s in front of my mother. Or sailing. Or really, just tell her you never leave your house and that will make her happy. :LOL:

If all goes well, the proposal for the 6th Sydney Croft book goes out the door on Monday. One

less thing on the plate. That book is tentatively named Firestorm, which is a really great name (Larissa’s picked it) because it ties in the Storm and the Fire from all the books and I so hope we get to keep it. Now I’ve got to get moving on Cam’s book, tentatively titled, Don’t Look Back. But none of my own titles ever seem to stick, so don’t get too attached to it

And, fingers crossed, you’ll be seeing a brand new website up later this coming week. It is SO awesome and I love it. I hope you all will too.

Any big weekend plans on your end?

longhand writing or I don’t wanna key all of this in

March 4, 2009

I’ve been doing a lot lot lot of longhand writing these days. I go through spurts like this, and it’s all fine and good, especially when I have really pretty new notebooks like the new Clairefontaine notebooks currently in my possession. The paper is so smooth and heavy and I need that, since I write with more of a marker-like pen.

And I’m sure there’s a better description than marker-like pen, but I’m having one of those months where I can’t think of the right word for anything or the right name for anyone and I’m doing a lot of calling for Gus, Zoo, Lily…until I get to the right name. My grandmother used to do that. I used to think it was funny.

Felt tip! But that’s not exactly right either.

So anyway, the downside to all this longhand writing is that I have to obviously type it all into the computer. And I’m usually pretty good about keeping up with it and not letting it get past 20 pages or so. But I think at this point I have about 50 pages to type in. And the thing is, I change things / add things / flesh things as I’m typing, so in a way it’s good but I’ve been putting it off because OMG, a lot of work.

Before I bought the Mac, I’d bought myself Dragon Naturally Speaking, which would allow me to talk the words into the computer. (Talk the words into the computer – WTF?) You know what I mean. But the Dragon version is for windows and although my desktop is still windows I was thinking I should probably get a Mac version and then I was like maybe I’ll load it into windows and try it out for these 50 pages but then I sit there and go, oh look, a Real Housewives of New York marathon is on and then, well, yeah…

Anyway, I guess I should probably try the speech recognition program. Soon. But then I’d have to train it to recognize my voice. I guess it’s a good thing that I don’t have a funny accent like Larissa or Maya or Amie.

deadline brain

February 4, 2009

It’s more like deadline brain meets migraine brain, which is always an interesting combo.

But first, why is it that when Zoo and I watch American Idol and we think someone’s awful, the judges love them – and vice-versa?

Because we’re both tone-deaf? Could be it, sure.

Anyway, I’m under total deadline with Sydney book 5. I’m at the point where I’m starting to call my kid’s nurse by one of the character’s names. Seriously.

So, anyway, deadline crunch means I needed to take a ton of time and do things like, update the website a little bit, update my Facebook account. Oh, and open a Goodreads account as well. And Twitter, except I have NFC what to do, which is why the page is blank.

Whatever. I’m supposed to be writing, people! Do you not understand that? But, I mean, if you friend me on any of the above sites, it’s not like I’m going to ~~procrastinate writing by~~ be rude and ignore my email…

moments

November 23, 2008

Sven for the week came in around 8K. Over half came this weekend with Sydney book 5, so I’m pretty happy. Once Larissa and I get rolling on the Syd books, they tend to fly, so I’m hoping this one will follow that pattern.

I was thinking this weekend about moments - I’m talking those gut-wrenching, tear your heart out moments, in books or movies or TV shows – and how they can be so simple and yet so profound at the same time.

What got me thinking about it was this weeks Grey’s Anatomy, when Army guy (OMG – Boone would kill me for calling him Army guy) tells Christina that she’s beautiful. It seriously made me put my hand to my heart, it was so simple and romantic and perfect. It’s like that moment in The Holiday when Cameron Diaz and Jude Law are lying together in his daughters’ tent and one of the girls mentions the 3 Muskateers and you know that’s what Cameron’s family used to call each other and Cameron and Jude touch hands and…sigh. Just sigh.

I tend to write my books around moments – sometimes I write the moment scenes before anything else and I work backward from there. If I start a book without a moment scene, I feel lost until I plan those out. Cam’s book has a moment scene already for the subplot and I’m brewing on the main plot. And praying my agent likes the proposal as well.

Got any favorite moments from books/movies/TV to share? How was your weekend?

Steph T.