Writing Stuff. Here’s the resolution for the new year:

Finish the first draft on one (1) novel.

I know, this isn’t too impressive for those who’ve finished their novels during the November NaNoWriMo project–one novel, one month (why November, I’ll never know). Nevertheless. Hm…this ramble can wait. Something smells suspicious, and I’ll bet you a dollar it’s not the ham in the oven.

You know, when your child eats pieces of styrofoam, you get the nastiest poops this former nursing home CNA has seen.

Euuuuugh. Gross. Wait! Come back here…

Later.

Ok. So the goal is to finish the novel this year.

Problems: This is the first novel I’ve written, and I don’t know how to do it.

Right now, I’m spending a lot of time analyzing everything I do, breaking it down into chapters, into parts of chapters. What do I want to accomplish now? How about now? I’ve made a map. I’ve done little character sketches.

I have two months of work in the damn thing already, and nine first-draft pages to show for it. But I’m excited about reading it, when I re-read it. That doesn’t happen very often, for me. I hate re-reading what I’ve written.

Problems: I have trouble staying motivated over a long period of time doing anything except staying married and raising my bebe.

I need to average out a page a day to complete the novel. I can write a page a day. I don’t write a page a day. I do planning, plotting, and research, take a break, and write three pages. I hope. I’ve asked Lee to help me stay motivated on other projects, but he sucks at staying motivated as well, so he isn’t motivated enough to keep me motivated. I think.

Maybe the best way to keep myself hyped is to show what I’ve written to other people. If they’re excited about it, want to read more, I get a huge lift. If they don’t like it much, I’m discouraged but determined to re-write it so they do like it.

Maybe a calender, to mark off the days?

Maybe a reward? One spoil myself reward a month? Hm…I don’t think that’ll work. Rewards don’t motivate me; they’re just nice bonusus.

Maybe strict breakdowns of deadlines?

Maybe a certain time every day that I can set aside to write? –Maybe I have to stay up after the bebe’s in bed and write until I’m done, if I haven’t done my writing yet for the day.

Problems: I need a couple of objective voices to read this thing, so I know if what I’m doing is working.

As always, Lee is the prime guinea pig. On a very few occaisions, what I’ve written is good, but so outside his realm of enjoyment that it doesn’t apply. Even on those occaisions, if it really is good, he’ll say, “This isn’t what I normally read, but I kinda liked it anyway.” I wrote the first three chapters of this story once already, but he didn’t like them. Bye, chapters. I’m still using the ideas, and the chapters were very useful to have written (I don’t feel LOST), but–buh-bye.

I have a couple people at work that I’m going to hand the story off to, one’s a writer-in-training like yrs. truly and the other’s someone who likes fantasy novels and is SCA. I might be able to get Joe to read parts of it, but we’ll see. I might ask a couple of other people to read it, but I’d like to save a couple of people for when I have the damn thing finished. Like Doyce. Heh. Not to mention my brothers…eh, you know what? I think I might ask Jackie later on, because this might be the sort of thing she likes better than Doyce would. Not that they’re two sides of the same coin or anything.

“It’s been a real preasure…it’s been a real preasure and a pliviledge to work with these gentlemen…” Tom Waits.