I won't back down

When do you have enough education? I've never perceived myself as a "perpetual" student. Well, I'm always learning something new. But actually getting in the car, driving to the campus and attending classes with all those "younger" folks?

I hate being a late-bloomer. It’s not that I’m slow. It’s that there are so many roses along the way! (You know…stop and smell the roses?)

When I was 26 I had a midlife crisis. At 27 I told myself I could continue as we were or I could make a difference. At 28 I was accepted to Kent State University. My desire was to write fiction, but everyone told me I needed a Plan B to get me through life until Plan A happened.

It wasn’t easy studying for 12 credit hours of classes (for every hour of class you need two hours of study time;) taking care of two young daughters (6 and 3-1/2) and our home, and be a wife, daughter, sister… As I arrived at one hour short of senior standing as an elementary education major, I withdrew from classes for a multiple pregnancy requiring complete bed rest.

Over the years I contemplated returning to Kent State to finish that bachelor degree. But I had stumbled into journalism and was making a paycheck doing what I’d wanted all along: writing. I covered meetings, observed people…Village Council, Board of Education, Board of Public Affairs…events like Martin Sheen’s arrest for an act of civil disobedience when he climbed over a fence at the Port Authority in East Liverpool, Ohio in protest of the hazardous waste incinerator that was forced in over public protest and still sits at the East End of the city on the Ohio River. I wrote feature stories—my favorites. I honed my writing skills. And at the end of the day when I went back home I wrote some more, my “stuff.”

In 2007, because my elderly parents wanted me to go back and finish what I had started so long ago—and knowing that my children and grandchildren needed to know I meant it when I said you finish what you start—I resumed my studies, this time as an English Major. Dr. Swartz tacked on the Writing Minor. Really? Yes, she answered. Then she pushed me on in to the Honors College. Seriously? I asked. Why? “Because you belong there.”

I did three years work in two. I graduated with departmental honors and distinction in English. I successfully wrote and defended an honors thesis: writing a novel. Dad died six weeks before I walked up to that podium to claim my BA. But Mom was there, even though she never remembered the day. (That would be the Alzheimer’s.)

Dr. Swartz wasn’t going to let me stop there. She urged me to go to grad school: Master’s in Fine Arts—Creative Writing. I didn’t begin it because my mother, with Alzheimer’s and unable to take care of herself, needed me. She passed away in 2011. And I began to plan my return to the university scene.

Hey! Nobel in Literature! I’ve got my eyes on you. I’ve been approved for admission at the School of Graduate Studies and Research of Youngstown State University. I’m not going to back down, not going to quit, until I have you in my hands! The world is my oyster!

In the meantime, I’m working on that body of works required for a Nobel in Literature. And I’m about to prove that good things DO come from my little town.

(c)2012 Cathy Thomas Brownfield ~ All Rights Reserved

Red Letter Days

It's turning into a red letter day. A broken romance in the family. A change in the way my publicist wages are paid so there is no direct deposit today. A disagreement with my spouse that caused him to storm out of the room threatening to pack his belongings and leave. And me yelling after him, "Do what you feel you have to do!" All within less than a 2-hour time span. Gee. I wonder what other good things are headed my way today? What happened to the biorhythms all of a sudden?

Sounds like a soap opera, doesn't it? Right now I want to scream. It wouldn't do any good. Why can't things operate smoothly around here? It might be better to put all of that pent-up emotion into one of my stories.

Last week a friend of mine (she also was my English prof and thesis project director), sent me a short story she wrote for a class. It was humorous and she thought I needed a good chuckle. I read the story. I did chuckle. And it reminded me of some things from my life. Then, on Saturday morning, I wrote a short story. A sweet romance of about 1,505 words for a market that pays $20 for romance up to 1,500 words. (Would you say I'm pushing my boundaries a bit?) I sent it to my friend who said, "I hope you're going to submit this." The next email from her was a link to a contest that awards $1,000 to the first place winner, among other things. So, I am submitting that short story to that market.

Since Saturday I have been writing short stories based on writer experiences in life. Awesome! I HOPE I'm on a roll because it sure would be a good thing right now.

Obstacles? Or challenges?

Things just seem to get in the way of progress, making the way foggy, unclear. When I fall into that rut, it's just easier to walk away, look at it again tomorrow...maybe. THAT is procrastination!

"Resistance," writes Victoria Lyn Schmidt in her Book in a Month, "is the way your subconscious tries to protect you from taking risks."

Is that what I'm doing?

Some years ago there were mounting obstacles on the home front. Obstacles have a way of bogging you down, sapping your strength, overwhelming you, and removing all the wind from your sails, casting you into "the doldrums." You land in a stagnant place, confused, crippled, dead in the water, accomplishing nothing.

Yet, when I visited with a particular person (I could start out grumbling, miserable and unhappy, perhaps angry) but when I walked away from him, my energy level was restored, my spirits were boosted, and those obstacles were gone, transformed into challenges. And who isn't up for good challenges?

When I become distracted I start negative self-talk and nothing gets accomplished, except for me to run myself down because I spent an entire afternoon playing at writing instead of getting down to business. And I didn't get down to business because every time I started to do that I was interrupted by something "important" to someone else. (My first priority always has been family.) When nothing gets accomplished the threads of the story are lost, and discouragement leads to some other less mind-demanding activity with a more imminently achievable completion time.

But what about that desire to write your stories? Your brain children? The work you really need to do in order to feel the confidence and worth of your works from your soul's depths? Is there anything more important than that at the moment you are working and interruption tempts you?

(c)2012 Cathy Thomas Brownfield ~ All rights reserved.

When life nudges into the plan

It is appreciated when someone tells me they believe I know what I'm doing and I'm going to succeed. Somewhere deep inside of me I know I can do what I want to do if I am willing to work hard to get there. But inside my head I see the doubt in the eyes of people I know. I hear them say, "You will get there someday," but I imagine that they don't really believe it. They are living by the credo that mother's teach their young: If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.

I know a little about writing. I was a newspaper reporter/editor for how many years? But I haven't published a novel yet, so I don't think other writers take me seriously. And so, that little seed of doubt is enough to hold me back from achieving my dreams. To hear someone close to me, whom I trusted, say, "I gave up on your writing long ago. You aren't ever going to do anything with it" shakes my self-confidence.

Do you know--have you ever heard--that you have to believe in yourself when you think there is nobody else to believe in you? So, why am I holding myself back? Why am I not believing in me? Why do I think I don't know enough? Life has taught me so many lessons, and I remember that long ago day when I asked God to teach me what I needed to know about my gifts so I could use them for him. It's more years later than I want to admit. Isn't it about time? Then there was that thing I read a few weeks ago...it takes 10,000 hours of doing something in order to master that something. Haven't I gotten close to 10K hours yet?

Well, as I've told my husband many times, writing is not the only thing I've been doing all of this time. And many times my writing took a backseat on my list of priorities. Family has always been first for me. Children, husband, parents, home...And at the end of the day I would drop, exhausted, into bed and immediately drop off to sleep. There was no time for my dreams then. But I held to the faith that one day it would be my turn.

Is it my turn yet? My children are grown. My parents are gone. My husband drifts in and out of my days, doing his thing, grumbling that I haven't done anything with that degree I had to go back to school and get. (Actually, he's careful what he grumbles about because he knows I'm not going to forget and he's going to hear about it whenever the time is right for that conversation.) But I've been busy! But maybe it's time to set my busyness (business??)and move on to the dreams I've been procrastinating over. I'm not getting any younger!

So, here it is, Nov. 18, NaNoWriMo is at Day 18 and my word count is at 9,704 at 12:20 a.m. If I marathon write this weekend--Friday midnight to Sunday midnight--will I be able to pick up 20K more words? That sounds like a lot, but if my writer friend, Carma, can write in excess of 80K already this month, surely I can come up with 20K in a weekend! Well, first I have to revise my outline. A major change took place in the story line that I was NOT anticipating. And I'm just starting Chapter 5 of 22 or so.

Pacing the floor is no longer permitted. What am I waiting for? Just do it!!!

(c)2011 Cathy Thomas Brownfield -- All Rights Reserved.

NANO 2011

It is Sunday, Oct. 30, my dad's birthday. He would be 85 if he was living. Fourteen of us gathered at the cemetery, where we lovingly refer to Mom and Dad's headstone as "Dad's Pad." This is Mom's first year at the annual Silly String Fight. Three years ago the grandchildren hosted a birthday party for their grandfather because they feared he would not be with us to celebrate the next one. They were correct. Five months later he was gone. At that SSF, Dad had SUCH a good time! We have pictures! So, we decided that it would become an annual event in his honor. Mom passed away in late August, so she was there for this one. And now, with the celebration of our parents' lives behind us, it is time to focus on NaNoWriMo 2011.

I usually write by the seat of my pants, not really planning a story, just starting in writing and seeing where it takes me by the end of 50K words or 30 days, whichever comes first. But this year I am going to write a story I've been thinking about for several years. It came to me one day as I was driving to classes at Kent State-East Liverpool Campus. I was thinking about the kinds of films Clint Eastwood has written, directed, starred in, etc., over the last 10 years or so, and what kind of story I could write that might gain his attention for another movie. Since he's the same age as my mother, and I think I heard that he wasn't going to do any more movies, I guess that doesn't matter. But if the book would ever become a movie, I would want Mr. Eastwood to have the lead male role. I know he would do it justice.

So, I sat down yesterday and decided I needed to plot it out a bit. I have a synopsis/outline for 22 chapters, the story from beginning to end. But I didn't have character names so I started to play with that. A friend (Karen) said the names would come. I don't know that I like the names, and maybe they will change, but I did come up with them. I started to do character studies, but I haven't gotten very far with that. I think I read that Stephen King just starts writing and sees where it goes. Well, with the number of books he has published, I guess by now he can do that successfully. Well, I will see how it works for me as I attempt to follow his lead in this respect.

I'm not usually much of a follower, but maybe there is a time to lead and a time to follow.

If you are participating in NaNoWriMo this year, good luck. If you haven't made up your mind, you still have time. You can do what works for you. You don't have to write 50K. You can set your own goals. You won't know what you can do until you try. NaNo comes only once a year. Go for it!!!

(c) 2011 Cathy Thomas Brownfield--All Rights Reserved.

Making Habits

Novel blogging.

The beauty of novel blogging--even if you are the only one who reads it, is that it forces you to think about novel writing. The more regular you are about updating your blog, the more you consider the study of novel-writing, learning to develop your stories to novel length, and actually working on your WIP.

Even if you have only a few minutes a day to devote to your study of novel writing, to actually put words to paper, do it. Make it a part of your daily routine. When it becomes a daily habit, stretch a bit further. Instead of 10 or 15 minutes,write for half an hour.

What I have found is that when I become involved with my writing, I forget everything around me. When I look at the clock, I can scarcely believe how much time has passed.

But too many interruptions and distractions occur that break concentration, even if you have an office in your home. It seems that when you work from home people don't think you're working. And perhaps you begin to think they are right. You feel guilty about taking the time for yourself when someone else needs assistance. Maybe you were raised that thinking of yourself and your needs is selfishness and a cardinal sin.

Set your writing time. Mark it in your day planner in ink--essentially, in stone--and keep that appointment as you would keep an appointment with your doctor, your accountant or any other professional.

If writing at home doesn't work out, go to the local library, a cafe, or even McDonald's,perhaps the park. And don't stop or leave until you have written everything you wanted to get written at this sitting. Make it a habit.

The more you write and meet your goals and make your daily habits, the better you will feel about yourself because your productivity goes up, you hone your writing and editing skills and get closer to the goals.

Let me know how this works for you.

Don't give up!

A writing colleague at an online writing group posted that after 14 acceptances of articles he had written, he had received two rejections and was giving up.

Hmm.

I told him all writers experience rejection. (Actually, several of us did.) It’s sometimes (often?) a matter of getting hooked up with the right market, the right editor. In doing our homework we should check the writer’s guidelines to see what they are looking for and how we can adapt our work to fit their market.

My husband is fond of saying, “Writing comes easy to you.”

Well, yes. Yes, it does. The words tumble from somewhere inside of me, flow through the pen in my hand to fill the blanks on the writing pad in front of me. BUT (and there is a but) the hard work is making those words into what a potential editor wants to read.

Sometimes I get very discouraged as I try to focus on one WIP (“work in progress,” for newbies who don’t know what that term means) because something causes me to have a sort of epiphany about another WIP that must be written right then or be forgotten forever. It is usually a crucial scene.

Sometimes I think I will never complete a novel. Other times I think there will be several novels released in rapid succession as I complete them close together.

One of my projects is a novella. It will be for a specific market, designated as eBook and will be 10,000 to 15,000 words. I believe it’s a new market by a long-time publisher. Several years ago I was selling 8,000 word romance stories to True Romance magazine. (Editor Pat Vitullo, where are you?) If I could write 8K word stories for True Romance, I can write 10K to 15K novellas for this eBook market that just happens to be within my reading and writing interests. It feels like the perfect fit! So, I am encouraged, motivated and enthusiastic. AND writing. :D

I’m pretty sure Stephen King, in his book On Writing, mentioned the spike in his office on which he impaled all of his rejections…maybe enough to paper a room? That point is irrelevant. The point is, all writers receive rejection letters. But we shouldn’t take it too hard. Get the piece back in the mail. Maybe re-read it and see if there are any changes you’d like to make, but don’t hold onto it too long. Send it out anyway, and get to work on the next story, whether it is a novel, novella or short story or a non-fiction article or book.

Someone, a local businessman, once told me, the person who fails is the one who gave up too soon.

DON’T GIVE UP!!! Even if nobody else believes in you, YOU need to believe in YOU! Persistence and determination are the key.

Now, what are you writing today?

Doubts aside

There are times (like yesterday) when I ask myself what EVER gave me the idea that I can write anything anyone wants to read; times when I am tired of working, over and over, on the same group of words. At those times I want to get up and walk away. But something drives me to keep my behind glued to my chair. And in retaliation my brain messages that maybe I should put this story aside and work on something else. It’s just another ploy to impede my writing progress. Next trick, become so bored my eyelids get heavy and want to close. Then I read a part of the story:

Thick, brown hair tumbled around Seth Smith’s shoulders. He wasn’t old, but he’d lived hard for too long. Nervous energy kept him moving. He couldn’t sit still even for a few minutes. He appeared not to focus on anything, but Kate knew he was taking in everything around them. He thrust his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. Then he pulled them back out and crossed his arms, his legs bearing his evenly distributed weight. Although he appeared to be looking at her, she knew he was looking past her.

“Seth?”

“Not a good idea for us to talk here.” He shifted to one leg.

“You suggested it.” They stood on the dock watching coal barges move up and down the river. The spring festival had a good crowd. “Want to walk?”

He set off. Kate had to double-step to keep up with his stride.

“You trust Snead?” he asked.

The question startled her. She hadn’t thought ever to question the director. “Is there some reason why I shouldn’t?”

Seth shrugged. “What about Ambrose Aisling?”

“Why?”

They walked on, eyes ahead, ears sharp. Either Seth was paranoid or there were eyes on them.

“Carlos Menz.”

There were reasons for listing this who’s who. She’d been pondering the same.

“Talk to me, Seth.”

He stopped and looked dead-on at her. “I’m not sure I can trust you.”

“You know me, Seth. Have you ever known me to betray the team?”

He shook his head.

“Women are disappearing. Someone has to make it stop. That’s my job.”

“Honey, I have to check my car for bombs before I touch it. I have a post office box so mail can’t get to my house unless I take it there. My wife and I got a divorce so she and the kids are safe. I don’t even know where they are.”

What could she say? She’d told Snead it was time for her to get out of the business. She wanted children, and the clock on that was running out. Focus. This man was strong. Stacked conspiracies were his forte. She didn’t want to end up like him…

It may not be Robert Ludlum, but it has potential. How can I quit, walk away, and never dabble in words again. “Dabble?” That’s a problem. I don’t want to “dabble.” I want to delve into it, a serious endeavor.
All the years I was raising my children I kept telling myself I would get my turn when the children were grown.
It’s my turn.
Why would I want to waste it?

Focus and learn to say, "No."

I did it. I wrote a novel for my thesis. It was not the finished product, but it had a beginning, a middle and an end that I could get excited about. When I submitted it, the publisher said it was an important story that needs to be told, but it needs a lot of work first. It’s two years later. Why haven’t I written, finished, submitted and been published?

A host of family obligations happened to slow me down. I’ve had some false starts. I need to do a few things:

• Make writing a priority so everyone around me will do that, too.

Jessamyn West said, “People just don’t think of writing seriously. If I had been going off to teach all day, it would be different. They wouldn’t interrupt your work if you were employed at a grocery store. That’s considered serious business. It’s because you work at home. People think they can interrupt writing.”

• Learn to mean, “No.”

A writer can be filled with good intentions, armed with a plan of daily goals, like writing for two hours a day or setting a daily word count. But when the phone rings and a family member needs you to babysit, transport them to a doctor’s appointment, or your spouse wants you to spend time with him/her, what happens?

• Don’t procrastinate.

There are easier things than writing. And negative self-talk slows us down. Playing games on the computer, chatting on the Internet with friends around the world, playing at Facebook are all distractions. It’s great to stay in touch with people you know, but a lot of writing time is wasted because we have convinced ourselves that we should wait til tomorrow or we really can’t write that novel.

• Focus on the current work-in-progress (WIP).

Why are you having trouble staying focused? Have you planned the novel? Who are the characters? What is the journey that becomes the plot? Whose story are you telling? Who is narrating the story?

I can see now why an outline is valuable to the novelist. It acts as a map from the beginning, through the middle to the end. It helps to maintain continuity and sequence through the story. Writing at the same time everyday doesn’t just help us keep track of our stories. It helps us establish our writing habits, strengthens resolve to say, “No,” and leads us to achieving goals.

A writer can write a novel, but it takes a storyteller to develop characters. As a writer friend advised me, “Just write a good story.”

Craig Lock (at http://www.write101.com/) advises the main novel writing pitfalls are:
1. Focus: too many subplots, characters, issues.
2. Plot weak with boring, trivial details.
3. Weak character development.
4. Telling instead of showing.

I know what I have to do. How about you?

Accountability

Friends at an online writers group have similar problems to mine: procrastination is easier than writing, focusing on writing is a challenge with family and other obligations, and distractions like housework that eat away at writing time. Someone said she would be glad to moderate a goals group on list and the rest, as they say, is history. We have just completed Week Two. Let me report my success.

Week One felt like a bust. I had so many things on my to-do list. But how realistic was my list? I found that I was doing something I discovered was helpful to me years ago: make a daily list and prioritize the items on the list because there was no way everything was going to get done. Because I was listing, I had more awareness of how I was spending my time. And I didn't come close to achieving everything I wanted to that first week.

Week Two was more realistic. Every time I have thought I needed to check email or play a game at Facebook I thought of my friends at the goals group and what impression I was going to make if I didn't have something positive to report. I am becoming more accountable. And that is making a difference for me.

Yesterday (Thursday) I sat down with my netbook and summarized the 24 chapters of my novel. First, let me say I was surprised to discover that most of the story has been written. To have 70,000 words was encouraging, but I was thinking there was an ending still to write. The story isn't finished, but I have a beginning, a middle and an end to my story. Now I am writing the synopsis and will use it to keep me on track as I edit and revise. I can actually see the end in sight, which I couldn't before.

Accountability. That factor can be a driving force for a writer who is so afraid of failing, she is afraid to succeed.

Writing time

What began as a novel challenge among some of my writing friends resulted in this, my writing blog. So, it's pretty obvious that this blog should be about, surprise, Novel Writing. Today, I guess it's unclear if this column should be here at my writing blog, or over at my critical blog, Patchwork & Petticoats. I'll let you decide.

My husband periodically says, "You've been working on that novel for 25 years. When are you going to finish it?"

I'm not sure how he can ask a question like that when he comes face to face with a shelf and a half of folders containing writing and research every day when he gets out of bed. He knows about the full filing cabinet at my desk, the boxes of writing projects in my office, under his pool table and in the top of the garage. And he can ask when I'm going to finish the novel I started 25 years ago???

Here's where this whole thing crosses over to Patchwork & Petticoats...My family has been very patriarchal up to my children's generations. Mom always said, "You can do anything you put your mind to," but actions spoke louder than words and held me back.

I think a major clue was the first time Mom muttered, "I sure hope there's a heaven because if there isn't I sure have wasted my life." Now back to the writing blog.

Mom's words about wasting her life are my mainstay for continuing to write when I can snatch fragments of time for penning words.

Yes, I have finished rough drafts.

Yes, I am rewriting stories.

Yes, I am struggling to make writing a priority.

Now, back to Patchwork & Petticoats: It's not easy to prioritize my own interests when I am drawn to whichever grandchild needs or desires my undivided attention. The grandchildren are the future of my family. They need to know what I can give them to hold onto when they can't find something else to get them through the hard times.

Back to the writing blog: Fifteen minutes a day for novel writing isn't enough. If I don't take my writing time, if I don't make it a priority, nobody else will, either.

Persistence

A local businessman once told me, "The person who fails is the one who gives up too soon."

A friend says, "You need to finish something you already have started before you start something new! I don't know why you're wasting time doing another NaNo novel."

Sometimes I say to myself, "Am I NEVER going to publish a novel?"

I have even said, "It's time to build a bonfire in the backyard and just burn everything I've ever written."

The work of a writer is just like the work of anyone else. It takes time and lots of practice to improve it. So that's what I've been doing. And each time I write a novel for NaNo, I accomplish a better quality novel, hone my skills and, now, I am ready to finish something. It's time.

Dis-COURAGE-ment

I read, just today, that writers and artists are most creative at night. Is THAT what I've been doing wrong? Unfortunately, if I sleep during the day, well, I don't sleep during the day. I won't say that I can't. Once in a while I succumb to the persuasion of a siesta. But the normal pattern of my life has been as an early morning person. I love to be up at sunrise, even before sunrise, to listen to the world wake up: birds singing as the last fingers of night pull away the darkness, the breeze picking up to tickle the leaves of the oak and maple trees in my yard, and talking to God as I drink my first cup of tea.

Should my family members be described as distractions? I drop everything for them. Isn't that what a good mother/grandmother does?

But what about my writing? Would I be more productive if I slept dayside and lived and worked through the night when the world is still except for the semis that speed down off of Canton Hill and race past my house through town on their way to the hazardous waste incinerator in East Liverpool and other destinations unknown to me or too numerous to mention?

I am working on Ramblings. At this point I see it as a series of stories...seven generations of women in one family. Dr. Swarts said I had too many sub-plots for one story so it required too much work on the reader's part to keep up with everything. And that helped me. I know better what to do...well, on the one hand. I'm looking for a good book on rewriting/revision. And I think I will send what I have revised to Dr. Swartz for some input. Or not. I have to get past the discouragement (dis-COURAGE-ment. Where is my COURAGE???)

Writing time

I'm not sure how to get organized enough to do the writing I need to be doing. Someone advised me to go to a hotel (ALONE) and relax for a while. I'm considering that suggestion. My best relaxation is playing with words, writing. But with a house filled with people, pets and housework to be done, I am having trouble playing with words. Every time I get to a good place and have the motivation, and I'm working away, an interruption arises and I lose my thoughts.

My son-in-law built a two-story shed on their property. It's the perfect size for my office. Library upstairs, writing space downstairs. Run electricity to it and I can have heat and Internet within 300 feet of the router...Yeah. I like the sound of that! But...would my equipment be safe from theft outside of my house? Maybe it's NOT a good idea. Well, I could carry the laptop from house to office to house. The objective is to get my office OUT of the house, AWAY from interruptions and become more PRODUCTIVE.

Seems to me the first thing I need to do is designate my writing time at the same time every day and allow NO interruptions during that writing time. How else am I going to write that body of work that will earn the Nobel for Literature?

(c) 2010 Cathy Thomas Brownfield

Write what you like to read

Ah! There is the "problem." My reading preferences are as diverse as I am! I tend to write diversely.

I can consume a suspense novel in a day. I like a good Stephen King or Dean Koontz terror suspense which takes longer than a day. (SK's The Stand, unabridged, took a year. I read a while, set it aside for long periods before reading a little more and setting it aside again. I think I struggled through reading it because he struggled through writing it. He talks about it in his book On Writing.) I enjoy literary fiction: The Dollmaker by Harriette Arnow, Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marchez, Possessions A.S. Byatt, and African-American literature like Mama Day by Gloria Naylor. (I am English/Irish/Welsh/German descent. That doesn't really matter because it's not about my ethnic roots. It's about writing a good story!)

While diversity gives me the best of all worlds, mastering one genre likely will get one published sooner. (I don't know that for sure since I haven't published book length yet.)

I'm leaning toward suspense romance with an SK-like twist. He begins a common, everyday life story and at the most unexpected moment slips in the twist that takes us on that horrifying, that other-worldly, ride we have come to expect from him.

He said (SK, I mean) he reads all the time. All kinds of things. I recently read Arthur Clarke's space odysseys: 2001, 2010, 2061 and 3001. I couldn't help noticing Clarke's influence on other writers whose work I read...like SK and JD Robb's In Death series. (A highly instructive surprise.)

If I should complete my current novel in progress, revise it, submit it and sell it, I expect to read a critic somewhere who says, "It could be taken from the day's news headlines." Indeed, the seed for this story began with a news headline and is taking on a life of its own, to address issues like "woman's place in a man's world," with concepts like Tammany Hall. (What, you ask, is Tammany Hall? When I asked things like "what does that mean" my mother always sent me to look it up "so you'll remember it longer." Hehehehehe!)

Should my novel be contemporary, futuristic or historic? I've started writing it as contemporary. And now a thought occurs to me. Someone wrote to an online writer list, "I find myself writing the same story over and over again."

Ah! I can write the contemporary version. Then the futuristic. Then the historical, or any order I want, each to address the point: "woman's place in a man's world."

And you can disagree with what I write, if you wish, because "good" literature gets you to think. And THAT is the goal for my writing because it will give my works longevity for that very reason: It makes you think.

(c) 2010 Cathy Thomas Brownfield
All rights reserved -- Contact author for permission for use

What works?

Is it because I went back to college and completed a bachelor's degree in English with the Writing Minor? Or would I have reached this point anyway? What am I talking about, huh?

I am writing one manuscript after another in rough draft.

I am staying focused as I write one story after another, but the temptation is great to set aside the current work and begin another.

I am reading the Inheritance Trilogy by Christopher Paolini...which actually has been upgraded to a four-part series. I hope it gets wrapped up in the fourth book, but if it doesn't, I will continue to read it because my grandson, Aaron, is reading it. We're reading it together, sorta. :)

I am reading the space odysseys by Arthur Clarke, 1.) because I wanted to read something by Sir Arthur Clarke. 2.) My great-great-grandmother's maiden name was spelled "C-L-A-R-K-E" and she was from England, disowned by her family because she didn't marry the right man, according to one family legend. "They" are all gone now, but "they" used to tell me there were well-known writers in the family but never gave me any names. I am a writer.

The odysseys aren't a series, Clarke advises in the afterwards I've read. But I'm reading them as if they were, one right after another. I am ready to begin 3001: The Final Odyssey.

I have a story I started long ago. I won't mention the title. That can't be copyrighted and I am vain enough to think I shouldn't reveal it at this time. It is a fantasy story. I put it away because I wasn't sure where I was going to go with it. But in reading the two above selections I have stumbled upon an idea for it. But I have to finish what I'm working on first or I will bounce around forever and never get anything finished.

My favorite place at the "department" store is pencils, pens and paper. I found bound journals size 8-1/2 x 11 inches or so. Occasionally I pick up another one. I have several and picked up the one, the cover of which is designed with hummingbirds. I was keeping notes from various projects in it. I decided to write a novel in it, longhand. The first draft is nearly done. I carry it with me everywhere I go. All of the pages are together, in order, and I have no choice but to write from beginning to end. I suppose any notebook should do, but currently I like these journals. I am meeting goals. I am writing daily. It is working for me.

Now, to make the leap to revisions and publication.

New starts

My muse is giving me trouble. And I'm not happy about it. I am supposed to be spending this year writing fiction. But I feel like I am all over the map most days. There are so many tasks on my daily to-do list. I mean, how long can I ignore my housework?

My honors thesis project director advised me to put Ramblings away for a year. But every time I start something new, it seems to be a restart of Ramblings. So, I guess I'll rewrite Ramblings. I am rewriting it longhand, carrying my bound journal with me just about everywhere I go. Every spare minute I can find, I yank it out and write some more. I'm using the same characters, but I'm focusing more on the relationship between the heroine and her husband than I did in Ramblings. Maybe it's NOT the same story.

I have to be writing something. I have to be writing somewhere. And posted on the window at our local McDonald's is a sign that says, "FREE -- WiFi". Well, it's about time! Maybe I can take my netbook and head to McDonald's when I can't write at home. Since I have to be writing. :D

When I really feel dry, though, I go to something I wrote a while--sometimes a LONG while ago--and work on it. That gets me jump started. For now, I have to set aside the novel writing and get to the Family Recovery writing. I'm falling behind.

(c) 2010 Cathy Thomas Brownfield
All rights reserved -- Contact author for reprint permission

NaNo Success

In 2006 I participated in NaNoWriMo for the first time. And I won. I seem to remember spending hours upon hours working on that manuscript. When it was done, I had met the 50K word count. And put that novel aside to work on "some day." I suppose there were some salvageable nuggets in it but I've never picked it up again.

NaNoWriMo 2007 came and went. I didn't have time for that because I was taking 18 hours of college credits to earn a BA in English with the Writing Minor. NaNoWriMo 2008, I signed up for it but there wasn't time to write that novel. I had one and a half semesters to write a thesis novel. That took priority. I had to orally defend it April 7.

In late September 2009 a fellow writer spoke of a plan she discovered, Book in a Month by Victoria Lynn Schmidt, Ph.D. I found it. I bought it. Chris and I planned to work together. We would do BIAM together in October in preparation for NaNoWriMo in November.

BIAM can be discouraging until you find the secrets of the whole thing. There we were getting lost in some of the activities that we couldn't figure out how to work through. It was easy to set the book aside and ignore it. But I wanted to know the plan before NaNo. What did I have to do to make this work?

1.) Be persistent. When I felt like quitting I had to keep pushing.

2.) Set the book aside and just write. I would do the activities I understood and let the rest go. The important thing was to keep writing.

3.) Figure out where the story was going--beginning to middle to end.

4.) Work into the plan other writerly tools I've collected along my writerly journey.

I probably could number other things, too, but there are some things I want to insert here. I don't want to forget them.

As I was trying to figure out how Schmidt meant the outline to come about I did a few things. First, she suggested using index cards to write the 10 major scenes of the story. Ok. I did that. Then I remembered something I learned a LONG time ago, the "W" format. I grabbed a piece of printer paper and used a ruler to draw a huge W on it. The top three points of the W are Act I, Act II and Act III. The two bottom points are the two major turning points of the story.

THEN, I took the 10 index cards on which I had recorded the 10 major scenes of the story and penciled them in on the proper places on the W. You will have to figure that out for yourself. I suspect it will be different for each author, each story.

THEN, I continued to write. When I felt I was going on a tangent, I went back to my formatting tool and found my bearings. I used a major quote from each of my 10 major scenes that helped me focus on what I wanted to say in that scene. I could keep all my notes together. I could see everything at the drop of a hat...or tangent, and know where I was and how to keep it all in sequence.

I don't know if this will work for you, but I used it when I wrote my NaNoWriMo novel and it worked. As many hours as it took to write that first NaNo novel, I have to say, this time around it came a lot easier. There were days that I didn't write because Real-In-My-Face-Life was beating down my door. And I still made 50K. And I ended up with a novel that I am excited about going back to revise and edit and hone it into something I can submit.

Oh! The other thing...I started NaNo with one novel and ended up changing my mind three days into the challenge to write a completely different novel. And I still made it. I suspect that each novel I start to write will come more easily than the one before. I've always said I want to write 100 novels before I die. If Nora Roberts can do it, Cathy Brownfield can do it. I'm just not sure how marketable that name is...Cathy Brownfield, I mean.

(c) 2009 Cathy Thomas Brownfield

Put it away for a year???

OK. I graduated from college May 15, 2009. Late-blooming seems to be my forte.

OK. I wrote a novel and enjoyed a successful oral defense. I sent it to a publisher and paid $20 for a reader to critique it. And I got it back, rejected, but with a critique highlighted with the statement, "This is an important story that needs to be told."

Several weeks ago I met my project director, Patti, and my other writing mentor/friend, Maureen for lunch.

"Put it away for a while. Start working on something new," Patti advised.

"A year?" Could I have heard her right?

"Even Stephen King says he puts his work aside for a year before he looks at it again."

OK. It's the waning days of August, four months after the oral defense...five months since I turned in my project to my committee.

"What about the other one?" Patti asked. "The other one I read part of."

She referred to the novel, the first four chapters of which I included in my creative writing portfolio.

Maybe she's right. So, OK. I have pulled out that manuscript--never did finish it, but that doesn't matter. I can finish it now. I am starting at the beginning. And I'll be writing about this process as I go through it.

Oh, yes, I also am writing some short stories to submit to competitions and markets. Seems that I have a lot to say right now, particularly about aging, and even more particularly, a parent's Alzheimer's.

(c) 2009 Cathy Thomas Brownfield

Blocked

Blocked. Why am I doing this to myself? Or is it the universe at work? Is it negative self-talk, even at this stage of the game when I have graduated from college with honors and know better what I am doing? Or do I? I finished what I started--a Bachelor's of Arts) though I have yet to receive my diploma in the mail. (Not awarded in the leather cover handed out at the ceremony.) But much of my work was independent study. But going back, taking two years to get my feet solidly on the ground after years of floating through financial chaos, things I couldn't do anything about, well, it was worth it for that alone!

A writer friend or two has said the first novel is often autobiographical to a degree. I pulled it out, started to revise it, and felt...I don't know. Like I need to get a better grasp of things. The reader said it is an important story to be told, needs a lot of work. Perhaps the problem is interruptions. Or that I feel like I'm not paying enough attention to Mom. I am her primare caregiver. I never was any good at finding balance between my responsibilities for my family and obligations to myself. I have always pushed me and my stuff to the back burner to tend to "Someday."

Um...I'm running out of Somedays.

I pulled out the manuscript for the novel I was writing before I went back to school. The first four chapters were included in my creative writing portfolio. It IS good. IT needs to be written, too, but since Ramblings is the one I am shopping around, that's the one I should be working on. So, OK. Ramblings it is. And mental block, you must depart. I don't have time for you right now.

The reader said relationships needed more clarity. I remember that my thesis committee asked for the family genealogy to help clarify relationships. I've seen such family trees in complex novels I've read. Ah. So my novel also is complex. Well, that isn't really a surprise. Women's lives, generations of women's lives have been complex. Every time another human being or critter is added to her life, her life becomes less simple, more complex, yet she is expected to keep track of everything, keep everything on track.

Have I put too many characters in this story? Has each one justified its presence in the tale I am telling? Are there enough characters to tell this tale? Six generations of women, each formed by the times they lived in.

Alice Mary, b. 1872, age 19 when she had her first child:
Gabriella Rose, b. 1899, age 32 when she had her fourth child:
Mariah, b. 1931, age 22 when she had her first child:
Amaris, b. 1953, age 21 when she had her first child:
Unnamed, unmentioned, needs name, mention, b. 1974, age 32 when her second child was born
Anna, b. 2007

Alice Mary was born during the Victorian Era, not too many years after the Civil War concluded.
Gabriella Rose was born during the Victorian Era.
Mariah was born during the Great Depression.
Amaris was born as the Korean Conflict ended and post WW2 economics took off into one of the wealthiest periods in American history.
The unnamed daughter lived through the Economic Malaise of the late 1970s and 1980s which began well before she was born--the economic boom that was, perhaps, a facade for what was really going on.
Anna was born during the New Economic Crisis/Recession/Depression/Malaise. All mean the same thing: economic downturn...depression.

Need to know more about the barons, men like Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan and the Rockefellers and their influences on society.

Amaris is central character.

The reader didn't understand why Amaris was so contemplative for so much of the story, but could suddenly make the decision to be gone, and actually execute leaving. I am curious to know how old the reader is that she wouldn't understand this. A younger woman might not. My daughter, Beth, is reading Ramblings for me so I can see what her thoughts, feelings and questions are. She said she can read it right away.

Points I want Ramblings to make:

* women haven't always had rights.
* women teach each other and pass their knowledge to the younger generations as they come along.
* relationships--connectedness--are important for well being.
* communication is vital; what happens when men get selfish
* emotional vacancy harms everyone: have to give, can't just take.
* the more things change, the more they stay the same.
* when the heat gets hot enough, it will blow the lid off.
* religion and faith: interpretations

So, the reader said she wants more from Amaris, her kids, and their life. She wants more story line, conflict; more economic tragedy--go deeper; more depth to husband's suicide threats. OK.