Mini Goddamn Deadlines

Not only does this represent how I've felt lately,
but this is the Manitou Incline.

I *may* have agreed to do this.
I reserve the right to change my goddamn mind.

One month has been frittered away due to brain mutiny. We're now closing in on July and with my *new* goddamn deadline just two months away, I feel a need to take action.

I need mini goddamn deadlines.

This week, I am gonna be in Colorado visiting a close friend. So, starting any new kind of regimen (besides trying to adjust to a new time zone) is probably out of the question. Besides, she's planning on having me do some crazy ass stuff like climbing the Manitou Incline. Oh, shit.

So, here's what I'm proposing starting the week of July 4th:

I'm going edit 4 chapters a week. 

There are currently 36 chapters to do in 9 weeks. Considering I wrote the majority of the book in 2 months, I see no reason why I can't make this happen.

It may involve me letting go of my lazy wake-ups that I've taken on since the concussion and get my bum back into my 5am wake-ups. (Shhh. Don't tell anyone, but I'm kinda looking forward to that.)

So that I keep in line with my word, I plan on posting my progress on my facebook author page. If you want to know if I'm keeping up my end of the bargain, check me out there.

This way, it's just one more way to be held accountable. ;)

What are your goals/plans? Are there any that I could help hold you accountable with?

Another goddamn deadline

It's that time again.

Now that I've finished the first draft of Pendomus, I feel the need to reestablish a deadline.

What can I say, I'm a glutton for punishment. HA!

I'm in the process of adjusting, editing POVs, fixing typos, etc. I have a super - fantabulous critique group (CRITS RULE) and a few super - fantabulous friends who have agreed to critique it at as well. I'm so blessed to be surrounded with the amazing people I am. Every single person reading this thing brings their own unique perspective and strengths. It's fabulous! I want to let all of you know how much I appreciate your efforts and time. You mean the world to me.
(And by world, I mean both this one AND Pendomus!)

While I don't want to rush this process, I also don't want to sit in it forever. At a certain point, enough will be enough and I have to let it go. I could critique this sucker forever and... well, I don't want to!

So, without further ado, I give to you my latest Goddamn Deadline:

~September 3rd, 2011~

That gives me three months to the day to get my proverbial editorial crap together. Or in scooper? Maybe it's a heap? Eh, something like that.

By that day, ideally, I want to be sending out the first of my query letters to prospective agents.

So what do you guys think? Realistic? Unrealistic? Crazy?

Sooper cool? 

(Side note: the editor that's arisen in me thinks I should fix that... the artist in me says it's funny and leave it. How do I reconcile this?! HA!)

Hit me up! Tell me your thoughts. Is three months enough time for this insane, double-ended candle burner to get this sucker in tip-top shape?

Is it drafty in here, or is it just me?

Looks a little drafty.

Happy Miscreant Monday, everyone! 

Well, my goddamn deadline is all but upon me and I'm happy to say that this time, I freakin' nailed it! I finished running through the last chapter yesterday (three whole days early)!

But...

(I hate that I have but face after something as great as that...but I do.)

It's drafty in here. Perhaps not this drafty----------------------->
But drafty enough.

There's a few spots that are plaguing my brain and I can't seem to let them rest. Particularly, Chapter 2 and one of the final scenes. Overall, it's nothing terrible. Yet... they plague me-- following me around like a massive hangover. I gotta make them right. They have to be as cool on paper as I see in my head.

I know I can make them better.

I realize this is the first draft, so it's supposed to be drafty, but I fancy myself Wonder Woman, alright?
(Where's my damn golden lasso and invisible plane when I want them?)

While I could say that I have 3 more goddamn days to make it perfect, I'm gonna call it. The first draft is done and I'm entering phase 2-----> über editing (otherwise known to me as perfecting).

Maybe now I can regain a semblance of my previous [in]sanity and allow myself to chill a bit. Who knows? Maybe something wicked will plop into my brain and make it even awesomer yet! (yes, that's a word!)


Thanks for all of your support, everyone! You guys simply rock! 

For those of you interested, my plan right now is to be querying by September or October at the latest. The inception for this book came to me on October 10 last year, so that's the ultimate deadline, if all else fails!

Wish me luck on this new phase... it's a little daunting! ;)

Well, bowl me over

Guess what, guys!?

I'm almost done with my first draft!  

Holy freakin' flying monkeys! As it stands, I have one more chapter to finish editing for this round and I'm super stoked! I'm actually gonna make this goddamn deadline! Who knew?

Well, okay... you guys did. You kept reminding me and pushing me forward, so THANK YOU! Without people like you (and uber cheerleader, beta reader extraordinaire Sherry, my goddess of a mother and saint of a husband) I wouldn't be closing in on this deal as excited as I am.

Of course, there will still be more cleaning to do... wordings, sentence structure correction, tenses, etc. The good news is, I have a critique group who I'm thrilled to be working with in the upcoming days--> (Uber Kick Ass Fiends, unite! Or is it untie? I forget.) With their amazing eye, I've no doubt, my book will be ready for querying soon. (Thus begins a whole new kind of terror.)

~~~

On a fantastic side note, I've had some wonderful bloggers tip their hats to me lately and I wanted to give a quick HALLA out to them for being so amazing. I haven't had a whole lot of time to think up new things to spew about myself (been working to meet that goddamn deadline) but I still want to thank you.

Each of you deserve this award.

Sooper sweet bloggers------>

First, to Anita for being so amazing all the time.

Second, to Sophie Li who started the blogger award trend with Anita & I thank them a million times over for taking notice.

Third, to Cherie, who is always a rock star. I love her to pieces.

Third, to Orlando for being as great as he is and bestowing a sweetie blogger award.

Fourth, to L. Carroll for her amazingly sweet words about my blog today.

Sixth, to Jack Flacco for his amazing attitude and writing.

There are so many other amazing people who I've met who could easily deserve this award as well. You guys astound me every day and I hope you know how much your support (and sometimes chiding) means to me.

I'm convinced that the writing community is the absolute best.

Now... off to cure cancer. Meh. Maybe I'll just finish my first draft. ;)

Do I seem neurotic to you?

No, wait. Don't answer that.

So my awesome family doctor (whom I love dearly) told me at my latest visit (Come to find out I probably have have Valley Fever, YIPPEE!) that when he first met me, I seemed neurotic to him-- but I'm better now.

For the love all that's blissful & holy! I laughed the entire trip home! (The things that man doesn't know! HA!)

On the flip side, he corrected himself, saying that he thinks he TOO is a bit neurotic. He has to do things in a certain way and that's just simply the way it has to be done.

It made me curious. (Yes. You should all be afraid.)

Dictionary.com defines neurosis as:

neu·ro·sis

   [noo-roh-sis, nyoo-]  Show IPA

–noun, plural -ses  [-seez]  Show IPA. Psychiatry .

1.

Also called psychoneurosis. a functional disorder in which feelings of anxiety, obsessional thoughts, compulsive acts, and physical complaints without objective evidence of disease, in various degrees and patterns, dominate the personality.

2.

a relatively mild personality disorder typified by excessive anxiety or indecision and a degree of social or interpersonal maladjustment.

Obsessive thoughts... "must write book, must write book, must write book" Check.
Compulsive acts... must write book, must write book, goddamn deadline, must write book. Check.


However, I do not have anxiety (OMG! MY DEADLINE'S LOOMING), nor indecision (Wait, should I say that?) nor any social or interpersonal maladjustment. (You all like me, right? RIGHT?)

But it makes me think that to one degree or another, we're all flippin' crazy.

The only difference is, are you my personal brand of crazy?

Well, I hope so, 'cause you're reading this and I love you for it.

Side note: try saying Coccidioidomycosis without giggling. I can't.

The *New and Improved* Goddamn Deadline

So, after much deliberation and hair pulling trying to meet my May 1 deadline... I've decided on a new date for having the first draft of The Pendomus Chronicles, Book 1 completed.

{Que sparkles and trumpets}

May 25th, 2011

This time, I know without a shadow of a doubt, this sucker will be done by deadline.

Why May 25th, you ask?

Well, because it's my #1 cheerleader's/co-conspirator's birthday and it seems like a good present to her. While I have number of awesome friends and family who support me, she's the first one who encouraged me to write. She's been here all along the way and continues to push me forward when I need it. Everyone needs someone in their lives like her. Of that, I am entirely certain.

Thank you, Sherry. I would not be sitting on 134,000 words without your pom poms.

So let me ask you something... 

For those of you who have gone the Traditional route for publishing, what was your next step? The first draft is complete-- at what point do you send out query letters? Obviously, I'm neurotic. I probably won't stop looking at this thing until it's being pried from my cold dead hands screaming, "I can make it better!" 

But at some point, I need to get the ball rolling. I know it can take months... years... *gulp* to get into the hands of the right person. At what point do you bite the bullet, feel it's good enough that if someone asked for the whole manuscript tomorrow-- you could hand it over? 

Thoughts? Opinions? Experiences?

For those of you who went Indie... do you ever regret that decision? Or are you completely stoked with how things have turned out?

Right now, I'd like to attempt the traditional route first. I like working with others and bouncing ideas around. I think I'd like the support and help having a team would/could offer. However, I've got an extensive printing/graphic design background. I know could pull it off on my own, if it came right down to it.

Discuss!

If at first you don't succeed... change the goddamn deadline.

Okay. Fine, I admit it.

Perfectionism and a freakin' cold have been interfering with my May 1st deadline.

That's not to say things are far off... they're really not. That damn light is so close I can almost touch it (or get run over by it), but... it's still further off than I'd like.

See, I'm a numbers girl. I know when I've been had. This just happens to be one of those times and I'm a little pissed about it. I hate LOATHE missing deadlines.

I'm currently in the midst of the edits for Chapter 32-- out of what I believe will be roughly 40 chapters. That means I have at least one last chapter that needs to be written completely from scratch, with six left to edit.

Yeah, this is not gonna happen. Not in FIVE days, anyway.


It's not for lack of trying, though. I've been at this sucker all month, working to have a new chapter edit done a day... Has this ever happened to you? You work your butt off, only to see the deadline approach and know there's no way it's possible?

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." ~Douglas Adams

I mean sure, I could slough off. I was my idea in the first place, right? Most of the chapters are done-- I could just write the ending, pretend I've gone through the last six... I could make this work. You'd never know the difference... but I'd know. And it would eat my brain.

So what to do now? Deadline's looming - I'll probably get another few chapters done between here and there, but it won't be finished. Not the way I set out and intended it to be.

Well, in my world, there's only one thing TO do: Move the goddamn deadline.

I am an author.

Period. End of sentence.

Okay, seriously, I titled this blog the way I did to hammer home the point (at least in my crazy head) - I'm an author. Sometimes, I need to remind myself of that. I may not be published yet, but I have a world I've been working diligently only for the past 7 months. I have more faith in this story than most people have in humanity. I don't need some sort of outside recognition of that fact to accept the label of author for myself.

Here's my logic. Our subconscious mind is powerful. It is, in many ways, the magic driving this machine that is life. It's just under the surface (Duh -- it has the prefix sub in it! HA!) and we can't escape it. So, why not then, make it work for you?

There are a lot of people out there who are working just as hard as I am, yet want to downgrade their work. "I'd like to say I'm an author, but I think I'd have to have something published for that..." Yada, yada.

So what?

You're setting yourself up for failure -- or at the very least, a long ass wait to get published. Why? Because in the back of your mind, you've given yourself permission to feel inadequate. To not push yourself to the brink of greatness. And guess what? You're great. You feel the desire to write for a simple reason: we need to hear your voice.

I know I bring her up a lot, but Jillian Michaels is amazing. She reminds me everyday in my workouts (Because I own every damn DVD she' ever made. Call me nuts, I can take it.) of what it means to go after something.

"Why would you choose failure, when success is an option?"

Why, indeed?

Recently, I've gone back to earlier chapters of my novel and found myself hating most of what I wrote. Not because it's necessarily bad... but because I've grown as a writer. It doesn't stop me from shuddering at it and wanting to drop everything to go back and make it perfect. (In case you missed it, I've a bit of a perfectionist at times. It's a condition I would happily pass off to just about anyone who would take it!)

However, I'm also deadline oriented. I've given myself this deadline of May 1 to get a full first draft done and I keep pulling myself back into that goal. The goal is not a perfect draft. The goal is a first draft. I want to be able to sit down, read it straight through and it makes sense. I can tweak afterwards, give myself a new goal, etc.

I am also really damn impatient. I want to share this world and the hardest part is having to wait. I think the universe is laughing maniacally as it teaches me patience.

"Ha ha, silly girl. You think you can tame me, you pestilent being!" ~Can't you just hear it? No? Just me, then? Wonderful.

Honestly, I know 7 months and counting is not a long time. In fact, there are many authors out there who's first novel took them years. Even J.K. Rowling. Especially when you are creating a whole new world from scratch. (Did anyone else have flashbacks to Disney's Aladdin right there? Yeesh.)

Anyway... What about you? If you're an author, how long did your novel take? How long is it taking?

It's days like these that I regroup and refocus. What's my goal? Why am I questioning things? Is there an answer?

Then I remind myself: I am an author.

Time will tell if that means anything to the outside world, but it means something to me. I enjoy what I do and even if I chuck out the entire second chapter... I'm cool with that. ;)

I work best under stress...

Okay, I've decided.

No more slow meandering through this rewrite and smoothing process. I've made it to the final stretch and I need to give myself a deadline. I work best under stress anyway. Just ask my husband during NaNoWriMo! HA!

My goal/deadline is actually twofold. Personally, I think I could quite possibly be done with this novel sometime mid-month (especially if I really apply myself) but I do also have a number of distractions - birthday parties to plan, for example. So, just in case... I'm going to have a default.

So, here and now, I proclaim that I will officially have the first draft written by May 1st, 2011 and ready to be sent for editing.

If, by the graces of the universe, I'm able to finish it sooner, I'd like to have my queries ready to send out to possible agents by May 1st.

Either way you look at it, May 1st is a big day in my world. Both literally and figuratively.

Wish me luck.

Better yet, skip over to my facebook fan page and press LIKE. :)