Blog Award

A long, long time ago -- something like three weeks now -- I was tagged by the one and only Rachel Simon to answer some writer-type questions. At the time I was knee-deep in NaNoWriMo 2014 and didn't have the physical or mental or emotional capacity to put together anything resembling a coherent blog post. But, since this happened a few days ago...

...I'm in a much better place for posting. So thanks for the tag Rachel, and sorry for the delay. Here we go:

Describe your current WIP (work in progress) in 6 words.
"Self-discovery prompted by personal tragedy."

Who was the first fictional character you had a crush on?
I had to think hard about this, because the reading I did growing up wasn't exactly populated with crushworthy characters. I was about to give up on this question and pass until I remembered my devotion to the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland when I was about five. That standard at such a young age ruined all other blondes for me.

What authors would you like to do a panel with, and why? 
Easiest question on the list -- the rest of Team Howland. Why? Because we're collectively that awesome and our panel would be historic.

What is your favorite beverage to have when writing / revising? 
This was given to me as two separate questions, but I'm combining them because they're the same answer: Diet Mountain Dew. Or Orange Vitamin Water Zero in the summer, when I don't need to rely on the caffeine quite as much.

If you could describe your main character as a candy, what would it be and why? 
I would choose a fictional candy -- Littmus Lozenges from Because of Winn-Dixie. Everyone in the book described them as being sweet, but containing a buried sorrow. I think that describes my character Molly very well.

Did you ever change a character's name in any of your works? And from what to what?
Yes. In a previous (and soon to be reactivated) manuscript, I changed one character from a "Jake" to a "Will," because his best friend also had a "J" name and it wasn't working. Ironically, since Rachel was the person who tagged me for this, I am about to change the name of a character in my current manuscript from Rachel to something else I haven't decided on yet. No offense Rachel, but I keep seeing a former student named Rachel when the character comes up in the story, and that student is in no way related to the character so it's messing with my head.

If you could describe your WIP in a song, what would it be?
There are so many songs on my Following Infinity writing playlist I feel perfectly capture different moments or themes, so it's difficult to pick one. But after a scroll through the 254 songs on that playlist, I think one of the best overall would be "Life Must Go On" by Alter Bridge, both for the lyrical themes and the musical tone. And trust me, since this is a music question, I put some serious thought into my answer.

What is your main character's astrological sign?
I honestly have no idea. I don't even know when her birthday is specifically, though I do know it isn't between early October and New Year's Day.

If you could re-cast your favorite movie for today's audience, who would play who? 
I'd have a heck of a time even narrowing down to one favorite movie, though since one of my current favorites would still be "The Avengers" and that's already pretty recent, I don't think any recasting would be necessary.

Since I cut my list down to nine questions instead of ten by combining two of them, I'm going to borrow one of the questions Rachel had to answer on her blog to complete my list:

If you could have dinner with any author, alive or deceased, who would it be and why?
I would go with Justin Cronin on this one. Because: A) He writes with amazing voice. B) Everything I've seen about him -- from his interviews to his tweets and Facebook posts to how he was at his book signing -- convinces me that he's just a really good guy. C) I could sit at that table and go all "Chris Farley Show" on him: "Remember...remember that time when you wrote The Twelve? And that time when you came to Minneapolis and you did a book signing in Roseville? And I was there? And I sat in the third row, and you were awesome? And then you signed all of our books, and remember when I said I was a teacher who wanted to be a writer, and you said, 'Well you know, I also started out teaching before I did this?'"

That was AWESOME!

The 777 Challenge

The 777 challenge is when one author challenges others to post seven lines of text, seven lines down, on the seventh page of a work in progress. Early this morning I discovered I’d been tagged for a 777 post by my agent sister, the one and only Rachel Simon. I’m more than willing to participate and post my seven lines of text, because they turn out to be seven lines I really like.

In case you may have missed my several dozen earlier references to it here on the blog, Following Infinity is a literary-leaning contemporary middle grade novel I’m currently revising with the insightful guidance of my agent. In this scene, my main character, a thirteen-year-old girl named Molly, is attending the funeral of her younger brother, Michael.

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The pastor gave a sermon about Michael’s life that kind of annoyed me. You could tell he was probably reading from some pastor book like Things to Say at a Child’s Funeral and plugging in details about Michael along the way to make it sound like he knew him, like how much he liked roller coasters, or soccer, or collecting rocks. Sometimes he’d tell a funny Michael story or make a joke to break some of the tension, and everyone would laugh more than the joke deserved. I hated that. The laughter was a moment of relief, but it hurt even more when the relief passed.

Most of the crowd followed us to the cemetery when the service ended, an easy walk from the church. The afternoon sky was a deep blue, broken up by the kind of heavy clouds you see on a clear day in October.

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Hope you enjoyed that little sample of the manuscript. Thanks for tagging me and putting up your seven lines, Rachel! I'm really looking forward to the day I'll have all of our Team Howland titles sitting next to each other on a bookshelf in my house.

And now a brief update. If you had read my previous post about NaNoWriMo 2014, I’d outlined some plans I had coming together regarding my Following Infinity revisions, and how I planned to take advantage of all the work to be done during NaNo to help that cause. I think it’s now safe to say those plans have been shelved. In the time since I wrote that post, another project has crept to the Number One must-write spot, and it’s all the more likely that’s what I’ll be drafting in November. Which is all I will say about it now, because for all I know another pretty idea might come along between now and late at night on October 31st and I’ll change my mind yet again. Stay tuned....

NaNoWriMo 2014

Back in 2008, a teacher friend of mine wanted to participate in National Novel Writing Month, a.k.a. NaNoWriMo, but didn’t want to do it alone. She knew writing was a hobby of mine and convinced me to sign up as well. If you aren’t familiar with NaNoWriMo, it’s an organized event challenging people to write a complete novel during the month of November, with the benchmark of a complete novel being a written work of at least 50,000 words. Anyone and everyone who reaches that 50K mark wins the event, even if you don’t finish telling your entire story. The point isn’t to get everything perfect and polished, but to pound your way through that first draft. My results so far:

2008: Contemporary middle grade satire - Win. Good idea overall, but it started as one story and evolved into a different one halfway through. It remains in the vault.

2009: Literary-leaning contemporary middle grade - Win. Plus it got me an agent four and a half years later, so Win x 100.

2010: Literary-leaning middle grade contemporary fantasy - Win. I still love the concept behind this one, but the manuscript is a mess. Maybe someday it will get another shot.

2011: Middle grade horror - Win. That year I actually took an older manuscript and rewrote it from the ground up, then kept working on it to the point I queried it and even had a full request before I shelved it in favor of a manuscript I was more confident about. I LOVE this one. Now that I have representation, I have serious hopes it will see someday see the light of day.

2012: Contemporary science fiction young adult - Win. This one has a great concept, but is so freaking ambitious and complex I felt I was struggling to do it justice. The first draft remains only mostly finished at about 70,000 words, most of which will have to be rewritten in order for me to ever make it into something real. But the story...ooooh, man... I’m going to have to revisit it someday.

2013: Middle grade comedy - Win. Again, first draft unfinished, but at about 68,000 words. When I finish the revisions on my current project, this one is probably next in the queue.

So that catches us up to 2014, and into an autumn that I’ll openly admit has had more than its share of time demands and stress, not to mention finding me in a place where my writing time and energy would really be best served by working on my latest round of revisions. But does that mean I’m going sit out this year and rest on my winning streak?

Not a chance.

Instead I think I found a way to both work on revisions and aim for my 50,000 word win, which is a goal I have every intention of reaching. This year’s manuscript isn’t going to be one continuous story, but something I’m going to write just for me -- a collection of short stories featuring the characters from the manuscript I'm revising, FOLLOWING INFINITY. By doing this I hope to gain deeper insights about my characters and their relationships, especially as I’m preparing to build up some currently smaller roles into more significant ones. Since the stories I’m thinking about will take place both before and after the events in the story, and possibly even concurrently or from an alternate-timeline perspective, having those added events will give me better background material to work with when I get back to actual revising. It’s been forever since I’ve tried writing short stories and I’m excited about what this could help me discover. (EDIT -- It's a week and a half later. I had a conversation with my agent since writing this post, and consequently got so fired up about a different idea I changed my project over to that. So this whole paragraph? Yeah. Ignore it.)

To any and all writers reading this (especially Twitter folk, and of course anyone else from the greatness that is Team Howland): If you're planning on participating, go ahead and add me as a writing buddy when you sign in. You’ll find me under the username Hooshea (it’s a nonsense word created by a second grader; long story). Having gone from writing in isolation and existing in online anonymity for so many years, I’m looking forward to connecting with other participants. Everyone can be a winner in this, and it never hurts to have more people in your camp! You prod me along and I'll prod you right back.

And if you're one of my non-writer Facebook friends, I'll be posting frequent word count updates during November. Supportive comments along the way are always helpful and appreciated.

Wish me luck!