May 28, 2008: I can't uncross my eyes!

I've spent the last two hours in a cycle of emailing myself query letters, checking to see where the little oogies arise (lines breaking in the wrong place, for example), fixing those, emailing myself, fixing the new ones I caused by fixing the original ones, emailing myself... two hours. And I now have two completed queries ready to send out on the weekend. (I'm actually happy about this - I expected to only have one finished. :)

Raoul went off on a tangent today as I was reviewing its outline. Basically, I thought of a way to reverse the roles of the male and female main characters. I find it difficult when a huge book-changing idea hits me like this - I'm never sure whether to run with it or not. I'm leaning toward 'not' in this case, because it'll take away a big part of what I wanted to explore, but I'm not completely there yet. It's going to percolate until Friday morning and we'll see then!

I walked to and from the grocery store today and the post-race soreness seems to be nearly gone. Tomorrow I'll try the elliptical machine, and if that doesn't destroy me I'll get back into running. I'm doing a ten-mile race July 13th (yes, the day before my birthday :) so I don't have a lot of time to get ready again. I must like being busy, I guess!

Writing Project: Raoul's outline review and Seven's queries
Time Planned: 2 for Raoul, 3 for Seven
Time Spent: 2 for Raoul, 3.25 for Seven (lost track of time and honestly didn't hear the Palm signaling the end of the session)
Favourite Part: seeing a few areas to deepen Raoul

Exercise: walk to the grocery store
One Fun Thing I Did Today: spent time in City of Villains (online game) making costumes for my characters. Seriously, such a nerd. :)

May 26, 2008: Half Marathon Report

Short version: if you haven't trained in 23 degree Celsius heat, the race isn't a lot of fun. If you happen to wear black shirt/shorts/cap at the same time, it's even less fun. Sometimes you have to walk even when you don't want to.

I did the Mississauga half marathon two weeks ago in 2:40:47. I wanted to do Ottawa in 2:39 or less and I really wanted 2:35. The problem? I had no basis for thinking I could achieve that time. I didn't finish Mississauga feeling like I was full of energy and like I could have done more. The last 2km were rough, and I was tired. So why'd I figure I could be faster in Ottawa? Well, because I wanted to be.

But sometimes that just isn't enough.

I was nervous at the start in Ottawa, likely because inside I knew I didn't have what it would take to get the time I'd essentially pulled out of the air. There's been a point in every race where I've seriously felt I couldn't keep going. I hit that at about the 4km mark in Ottawa, a BAD sign given there were 17 more km to go at that point. I started to feel a bit better, and from 13km to 17km I was doing well, largely because I gave up on the time goal and decided to go on what felt right. I found a pace that felt comfortable but still a challenge and stuck with it.

Just past the 18km mark, I started to feel really thirsty, and ridiculously overheated. I took a cup of water at the aid station there, which I hadn't planned to do (I take my own Gatorade), and since I can't drink while running I had to walk.

And then I couldn't get going again. I kept saying, "I'll run after this next post" and then walking past the post. Just before the 19km mark, I said to myself, "This is not how you want this to go. You have a choice right here: you give up and walk the rest of the way or you run and you don't walk again. What's it going to be?"

I ran to the end.

I was likely not a lot faster than I'd have been walking, but I did run. I nearly quit running several times but I didn't let myself, and I'm so glad. I still wish I hadn't started walking the first time (my plan was to walk only my scheduled walk breaks) but I am so glad I made myself run again, because when I finished I knew I'd given it everything I had.

That's how I want my writing career to go too. I worked my butt off on Seven last week and I know there wasn't anything left to give. The book is the best I've got. Everything I know how to do, at this stage, is in there.

All I can do, in writing and running, is know I've put everything I have into it. And I've done that with Seven. And I did it with the race too. And I'll continue to do it.

Until I achieve that 2:35, and until I see my books on the shelf at every bookstore.

And then I'll set new goals and achieve those too.

One race at a time.

May 23, 2008: Seven. I haz it.

I need a good LOLcats-style picture of a frazzled cat holding a 110,000 word manuscript, because that's what I am and that's what I've got. Another 4 hours and 20 minutes today, and Seven is complete. And I'm completely wiped out. The seven hours yesterday took a LOT out of me and doing the time today was not a cakewalk by any means. But I love what it's turned into.

I'm off to Ottawa tomorrow for the half marathon so there will likely not be any bloggy goodness until Monday afternoon/evening or Tuesday, depending on how tired I am when I get home (and also on whether the hotel has Internet access that doesn't cost two arms and a leg). As you were, until I return. :)

Writing Project: Seven's final read-through
Time Planned: I expected to finish in 3 hours
Time Spent: 4 hours and 20 minutes
Favourite Part: Feeling my heart beating faster when the main character had to do the one thing she couldn't do

Exercise: 20 minute run
One Fun Thing I Did Today: wandered slowly around cleaning up the house. Might not sound like fun, but the 'slowly' part is significant. :)

May 13, 2008: Too much tea?

I didn't believe it was possible to have too much tea. It's like having too much happiness or too many polar bears. (That last one could be just me.) But it is possible to have too much tea, and, as the LOLcats say, "I has it."

The picture shows an entire shelf in the kitchen cupboard I organized today, full right to the back. There's also a single box in a different cupboard because I just couldn't make it fit. Several are duplicates (I have three tins of strawberry tea, which I do like, but as far as I know we're not suffering a tea shortage so I could likely have bought more later) but most are different flavours. I drink one cup a day, two at the most. Egad. Still, it's nice to have options, right?

This week, I'm working through Margie Lawson's emotions course, about writing emotions and non-verbal communication. I've made some changes to Seven as a result, and am working on internalizing this material so I'll automatically write Raoul that way. Interesting stuff!

Writing Project: Raoul's planning - nearing the end!
Time Planned: 2 hours
Time Spent: 2 hours
Favourite Part: Recognizing the 'big decision point' that should have been near the end of the book was too early, and fixing it by just dragging scene titles around. Ah, outlining. :)

Exercise: scheduled rest day
One Fun Thing I Did Today: changed my Facebook profile picture and my Blogger picture to be the one taken after the race. I'm holding my race medal (although not facing forward for some reason) and wearing a plushy blue sweater I crocheted that I love.

May 12, 2008: Running and writing

So I ran a half marathon yesterday. And it hurt quite a lot in the latter stages. I didn't want to stop, but I certainly didn't want to keep going either. But I kept telling myself I wanted to do this, that pushing through and giving it everything I had would be worthwhile. I'm never going to win a marathon, or half marathon, never going to have that kind of speed, but I can get better. And every time I try and don't quit, I do get better.

Writing's much the same. Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it hurts a lot. In running, you get medals. (Everyone in the distance events gets a finisher's medal, which is part of the appeal for me. :) I've printed cover pages for the novels I've finished. Three are finished first drafts and I have left them behind, and two are polished. But looking up at them pinned to the wall above my desk reminds me of how hard I worked to get there and how good a marathon can feel.

Afterwards.

Writing Project: Raoul's planning
Time Planned: 2 hours
Time Spent: 2 hours
Favourite Part: incorporating a few "wouldn't it be cool if" thoughts into the plot in an integrated and useful fashion

Exercise: Walked to Tim Horton's for an iced cappuccino
One Fun Thing I Did Today: see above. :)

May 8, 2008: Write now, clean later!

I'd planned to work on Raoul this morning and then spend the afternoon in various decluttering projects and finishing off my article. I did the morning, and was about halfway through creating Raoul's scene list. In the afternoon, I did the article and then felt like working on Raoul.

"No," I said to myself, "you're supposed to be cleaning." And then I realized the foolishness of that. The clutter is nearly all of the hidden variety these days - kitchen cabinets and whatnot - and even if it were teetering piles of junk, why would I put off an urge to write to clean instead?

So I didn't. I spent two more hours on Raoul, I have the scene list finished, and I am ridiculously happy. So a good day!

I was going to put said scene list into Excel, as per the instructions on the Snowflake Method I use to write my books. But in the past, I've had trouble keeping track of little tidbits of dialogue or action, little "ooh, this should happen in this scene" things... so this time, I'm using an outlining program on my Palm called ListPro.

The picture shows the first few scenes. See the little plus sign? It expands to show the tidbits (which I'm not showing YOU... you'll have to read the book when it's done! :) and now I don't have to do my usual method (which involves putting all the bits into an enormous Word file and then scrabbling through it whenever I need something). The code in the note field is to tell me which subplot(s) the scene is covering. I feel so organized. 'All' that's left is to write the book. :)

The Mississauga half marathon is on Sunday. Sure hope I'm ready!

Writing Project: Raoul's planning
Time Planned: 2 hours
Time Spent: 4 hours
Favourite Part: CRAVING doing more

Exercise: scheduled rest day
One Fun Thing I Did Today: played with my new Bluetooth adaptor which I'm using to wirelessly synchronize my Palm. I am a nerd and I love it!

April 29, 2008: A focus! YES!

As my exuberant subject line would suggest, Raoul is coming into focus. There are several sub-threads to the book, and choosing which one is the real plot hasn't been easy. But I know now. And a one-sentence description follows.

A money-driven aspiring artist's accidental new job massaging an ailing pro hockey player jumpstarts her artistic career, but her creativity disappears as her sales rise.

I'm 95% happy with the wording of the sentence, and 105% happy with the direction the book's going. It's starting to click in my head, and little bits and pieces of dialogue are coming to me. This is always a good sign. I used to panic that I wasn't getting them all down, but over time I have learned that the key scenes will run through my head again and again, and the bits that really work for me will stick. By the time I write a key scene, I can see it so vividly it's just a matter of getting it on the page. (Just. And a marathon's just 26.2 miles.)

Speaking of which, my first May half marathon is in less than 2 weeks. I have no idea where the rest of 2008 has gone.

Writing Project: Raoul
Time Planned: 4 hours
Time Spent: 4 hours
Favourite Part: when the focus clicked.

Exercise: scheduled rest day
One Fun Thing I Did Today: went out for lunch with Wes

April 18, 2008: Last long run before the half-marathons

I ran for 2.25 hours today. It's been quite a while (too long) since I did a run longer than about 1.5 hours. That last 45 minutes... harder than the entire rest of the thing.

That's life, though, ain't it? Putting the finishing touches on a book is often harder than writing the first draft, doing the last few bits of a housework task seem harder than doing the rest of it. I'm working on being the kind of person who finishes what I start, and the running can train me to do that.

And now, because I ran 2.25 hours, I'm off to bed. :)