It’s October, and that means Tristi’s Writing Challenge is on. I’ve been doing these month-long writing challenges ever since she did her first one three years ago, and I give that first contest a fair bit of credit for jump starting my stalled writing efforts. In fact, when I calculate how long it took me to write Bumpy Landings, I start counting in October, 2007.

Here’s how it works: Go over to Tristi’s Challenges blog and put in a writing goal for October. It can be anything writing-related. My goal is to finish my Bumpy Landings edits when I get them in a couple of weeks, finish filming the Bumpy Landings teaser animations, and add 5000 words to Into the Wind.

Hopefully I’ll actually get more than 5000 new words written, but with edits and the trailer, that number is probably fairly accurate. My first three days only yielded 889 words. But having the challenge helps me focus on making time to write.

Also contributing to my writing-time difficulty is the fact that I’m traveling this week, and my visits to Utah are so full of awesome that it’s hard to fit in writing time. For example, last Friday I drug two members of my entourage (aka my sisters) to Annette Lyon’s signing for Chocolate Never Faileth.

We also did a hike and lift ride up at Sundance to see the fall colors.

And a big “Don’s in town so everybody come” family dinner.

Now I’m trying to make the most of my time in the office and get two weeks of work done in the next four days. But there will be time to write, because I have to report my progress back to everyone participating in Tristi’s Challenge.

This past week was a real mixed bag. During the whole of the Christmas weekend, I did nothing but open my WIP and look at it. Too much going on. Anyone else notice that?

But this week I’ve been trying out a slightly different daily schedule – one I hope will allow me to put in a full hour every day, along with work, sauna, exercise, and everything else I need to do in the day. So far it’s worked well – we’ll see what happens next week when I add getting the kids ready for school.

My goal for this revision was to finish up by the end of the year. That gives me until tomorrow, and since I have the day off from work and only four more chapters to go, I think it’s a distinct possibility.

Then it’s time to clean and straighten and polish it up during Tristi’s January Writing Challenge. Hopefully my new routine will allow that to happen fairly quickly. And hopefully I haven’t burned out all of my beta readers, because I will need some in the next few weeks. (Hint, hint)

This revision has been quite an interesting experience. I’ve learned a lot about writing during this process, and even more about the good and bad in my own writing style. I’ve given myself permission to confront rather than avoid difficult situations, and use them for the betterment of the story.

Have a great finish to your 2009, and a wonderful start to 2010. And it’s not too late to enter the cocoa maker giveaway here!

I’ve been without a “work in progress” for a couple of weeks now, and while it’s been nice to have a break I think it’s time to start writing again.

Actually, Tristi thinks it’s time to start writing again, as she’s throwing another one of her writing challenges. However, I don’t want to launch back into revisions on my current story until I have some more feedback.

So I’ve decided to begin something new. Today I started work on a middle-grade science fiction story. I’ve sketched it in one of the new notebooks that Santa brought me. I’ll probably flesh it out a bit the next few days, and then see how much I can get written while I wait for feedback.

It’s something completely different, and I’m excited to work on it for the next few weeks.

You know that song? The one that starts out “Nobody likes me, everybody hates me”? Well, that describes how people feel about chapter 6.

I took it to my writer’s group; they panned it.

I made some changes for the beta draft. All of my readers still complained.

To be honest, I don’t even like it much.

So my linear editing now comes to a screeching halt as I regroup and rewrite Chapter 6. The dance. I worked on it this morning. I don’t think it went well.

I never really cared for dances when I was in school. Little good ever came from them. I’m finding the same holds true about writing for dances.

But I have a new angle. Same dance, but a completely different beginning, middle, and end. Hopefully it can serve the same purpose while entertaining the reader rather than causing them to set their hair on fire in protest.

The dance is within the first 30 pages, so it really needs to work.

With patience a virtue I still need more of, I stubbed out the remaining scenes in my story last night and printed the thing for review. I still have hopes (delusions?) of pulling together something coherent and readable by the end of the month for a few people to see.

I began reading this morning, a notebook and colored pens at the ready.

I like the pacing, and the organization. The catalyst scene comes right about page 35, which is much better than 100-something.

The whole “flat and emotionless” criticism applies pretty well across the board.

That’s as far as I was able to read this morning, and in those 35 pages I used enough red ink to supply a major airline’s accounting department for a week.

Ladies and gentlemen, this thing needs work. But then I knew that.

The more I write and then read what I’ve written, the more my respect grows for all published authors. Even those whose books I didn’t particularly care for. And even those writers still seeking publication, who finished their book enough to submit.

Hats off to all of you.

I’m not in trouble yet; at least not anything that involves the police. But one of my favorite scenes is in real jeopardy.

I shared this scene back in April. Nobody commented on it, so maybe I’m the only one who likes it, but I do. And it fills several important roles.

The scene involves opihi, a small seafood delicacy that has become increasingly rare in recent years. In moving the story from 20 years ago to the present, I’ve had to try and figure out how to rework this scene so it fits modern reality.

Just when I thought I had it all figured out, I came across an Hawaii State Senate Bill that, while not law yet, threatens to turn my two lovebirds into common criminals by making opihi harvest illegal in the time and place the story requires. Some of my characters wouldn’t think twice about breaking this law, but these two would never do it.

I guess I’ll write it the way I want for this draft, but keep one eye on the bill and the other looking for alternatives.

I always figured I’d be writing speculative fiction instead of this realistic mumbo jumbo, and now I think I know why.

OK, so I’m not actually writing a sequel yet. Up until a few days ago, I was adamant that there wouldn’t be a sequel – this story would say all there was to say.

But as I’ve drawn closer to the conclusion of the book, I’ve been trying to decide just what that conclusion should be. I know how I want the story to end, but a nagging voice in the back of my head tells me that some readers might not like the ending all that well. The main conflict is resolved, but some important questions are left unanswered.

The solution came to me in the form of a sequel. Two sequels, actually. Vague napkin sketches is all, really. But this continuation of the storyline does two things for me.

First, it helps me clarify and define the characters and story I’m currently writing.

The second is it gives me permission to write the ending I’ve always envisioned. If readers really care enough about the characters and story to wonder how the loose ends resolve, then maybe a sequel isn’t such a bad idea after all.

Of course, if nobody cares then it’s all a moot point anyway.

But everyone is going to care. I know it.

I feel it deep down in my delusion.

I have been paying a lot of attention to calendars lately. There’s the calendar that tells me I have four days left before the family starts driving home.

Then there’s the calendar telling me I have nearly three weeks left in Tristi’s BIAM challenge.

And the one counting down until the LDStorymakers Conference in March, which is the self imposed deadline for me to finish my WIP.

But the one giving me the most grief at the moment is the calendar inside my story. See, where some people get worked up over spelling and grammar, I have a hard time with failures in consistency.

This book has a college setting, so I’ve looked up all of the important dates at the school – semester starts, semester ends, finals, last day to drop – and written them on the calendar.
And there are holidays and other activities that need to fit. So everything has to work together, and my story calendar is getting marked up pretty heavily.

The good news is I’ve almost written my way to Spring Break. Hooray!

OK, so I was very sad today to read this story about the Laie Theater closing down. And it’s not just all of the memories associated with the theater, either. It was the setting for a fairly pivotal scene in my WIP!

I can work around this, I’m sure. Maybe it will even make some things easier – who knows. I’m just glad this didn’t happen the week before my book launch. It’s one of my biggest fears about trying to write a contemporary piece set in a real location.