Exsanguination

I’m prepared to challenge myself to writing 14,000 words in 14 days starting May 1. While this may seem like a pittance to most authors, I seem to bleed out my words (painfully, messily, at times grotesquely), so a story dump like this would be a major event.

Can I do it? Yes.

Will I do it, is a better question. The heart says yes. The bloody mind, as always, is a little iffy.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Crumble Not

May looms with an ungodly amount of work to be done.

Despite my basic mope-mouthedness the last week, I refuse to view this upcoming mountain of writing as a bad thing. We (the four-legged, furry muse and I) are taking this as a healthy challenge. I rarely back away from a dare, skittish as my brain circuitry may be.

So, bring it on, world! I may complain, but I will not crumble.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Power Write

Along the lines of a “Power Nap,” I attempted a “Power Write” yesterday.

Stone cold (with no priming the old authorial pump, no reviewing notes or other such prep work), I sat down with pen and blank paper in hand to see what I could do on Twisted Intent in precisely 20 minutes…

Yes, well, let’s just say the Power Write experiment will not be repeated.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe    

Challenge Accepted

Sanity will be challenged this week.

Having a lead on a new literary agent, I will be spending any spare time I can squeeze out of the Thanksgiving monster on tweaking The Hushing Days manuscript. I want it nice and shiny for Monday’s trip to new eyes.

I also have a short story due December 1 that is begging to be written. We’ll see if I can swat that down or fold under its relentless whispers.

As surviving Thanksgiving is always iffy for me, this could indeed get ugly.

Take cover.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Frosting the Hoar

One week.

1500 words.

Hoar frost.

I’m giving myself exactly seven days to write a short story tentatively titled “Hoar Frost.” This should be completely doable… hence, it will turn out to be anything but.

I’ll keep you updated.

(And, yes, that is a threat.)

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Brittle Edges

Odd angles, sharp points, brittle edges? Yes, well, that would be me. So when I’m asked to write a character who is everything but odd, pointy and brittle it can be a little bit of a struggle.

Oh, I don’t shy away from such lovely cuddly players in my stories, but I do view their creation a challenge. Kind of like a bushel of artichokes trying to pop out a peach…

Ok, that makes no sense whatsoever. Apparently one of my brittle edges just snapped off. Apologies. 

Let me go and clean up the mess.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Fourteen Days

Home welcomed the muse and I back into its arms yesterday with a big, squishy hug. The skies drizzled out their tears in our honor, while the clouds grumbled out a few lackadaisical hours of thunder.

Weather could do little to dampen our spirits however. The four-legged, furriness and I are ready to dive headfirst back into our work. I should have a two week period of “writing trumps all” and I’m challenging myself to see what me and the ol’ girl can churn out.

So, join me, everyone, as we raise our glasses to fourteen days of speedy fingers, quick wit and a firestorm of creative spark!

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Spitball Theory of Challenges

Sometimes you’ve got to sneak up on a challenge instead of meeting it head on.

Trick it into thinking you’re ignoring it completely…

Make it believe you’ve bowed to its superiority and cowered away…

Lull the beast into a false sense of security, sing a couple of campfire songs if you must…

Then, when the challenge has turned cocky and turned away, you strike!

Ok, perhaps the exclamation point is a bit much, since when I say “strike” I’m meaning shooting a spitball in its ear and sneaking by while the beast digs the wet wad out of its head.

Yep. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Spitball Queen.

*waves innocently from behind the finish line*

Case in point:

I’m not only a perfectionist, I’m a perfectionist who suffers a knee-buckling, rib-cracking gut punch at every single error I make.

Don’t ask me why. That’s a job for my psychiatrist to publish a paper on.

All I know is that it happens and I have to deal with it.

So in my constant need to push the limits of my off-kilter brain, the last few weeks I have begun to tiptoe around the “surviving my own imperfection” challenge.

How?

I’ve started volunteering on genealogy sites transcribing old documents (passports, birth records, passenger lists, etc) into digital form.

Each of these transcriptions is checked by somebody who actually knows what they’re doing and my efforts are graded.

Big deal, right?

Freaking huge deal for a maniacal perfectionist.

Clicking that submit button when I know that what I’ve transcribed is only the best, educated guess of what the old, faded handwriting I’m seeing is saying is, well, tortuous.

Or at least it was when I first started a month ago.

Every day (because I do work on it every single day), the punch in the gut is getting a little less brutal. Ribs are no longer snapped with their edges threatening to puncture a lung, instead they are merely fractured and held in place.

Yeah, kind of pitiful, I know, but…  at least I never stop shooting my little spitballs in the challenge’s ear.

That’s something, right?

Until tomorrow…

Chloe (Queen of the Spitball)

Fighting the Fade

Getting reacquainted with characters you haven’t seen in a while can be rather, well, demoralizing.

Case in point: Sabella and Conyer from my West Africa novel.

After spending the majority of last year working on The Sun and the Sand Cat, a reasonable person would think that getting back in sync with the good doctor and the special agent would be a breeze.

Wrong.

Big, demoralizing wrong.

Oh, I remember the details.

Her backstory is still crystal clear in the old noggin.

His work travails are still carved cleanly in my memory.

But…

Sabella’s cadence of talk and thought has faded into a warm hum I have to struggle to hear.

The sun has bleached Conyer’s intensity into something unrecognizable.

Recapturing the tone of the novel (3/4 of the way done, remember) is like trying to catch fireflies in a bright noon sky.

Yep, demoralizing.

But…

Challenging.

And I am a sucker for a good challenge!

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Masochism?

Stumbling, bumbling along, I finally got some real writing in yesterday.

Over 1,250 words were picked off of Writhe’s sequel’s back like bloated ticks off a hound dog...

Ok, admittedly that is not a very pretty picture.

Apologies.

Sometimes, however, writing is more of a task than a joy.

I’m struggling through that right now as I try to detach myself from obsessive sales watching on Book One (see yesterday’s blog for all those pitiful details) and get my ass back to creating Book Two.

*sighs*

Would somebody please pick the bloated OCD tic off of my back for a bit?

*grins shakily but carries on*

What worked yesterday and what I’m hoping will work today in getting those creative juices flowing again is setting Book Two up as a writing challenge for me.

Every writer has things they struggle to write, be it the sex scenes, action, humor, or whatever.

The things I feel like I could do better I’m concentrating on in this sequel. Forcing myself to make those tricky-to-Chloe scenes into strong pieces of writing to be proud of.

Normally, I shy away from my weaker points, going heavy on the stuff I feel I’m really good at. I’m sure most writers most of the time do the same thing. Nothing wrong with that. After all, it’s easier that way.

But Chloe ain’t doing easy this time.

Nope.

No siree Bob!

If the writing is going to feel like a task anyhow, I might as well be learning something from all the hard, picking-ticks-off-hound-dogs work.

Right?

Or have my slight masochistic tendencies suddenly spilled over into my writing?

I don’t know.

Kind of wish I did, though.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe and the bloated ticks