Q&A

Happy NaNoWriMo, everyone! To celebrate the beginning of this glorious month and to circumvent the standard "I'm sorry I haven't posted in so long" blog-apology, a Q&A:

Q: Elly, why no updates in so long??

A: The autumn is quite a very busy time at my day job, which happens to be a mentally taxing one, full of much reading, writing, and editing. It's a tough thing to read, write, and edit all day, then come home and do same but in an entirely different mode. I've been zapped, and progress on the book stalled.

Q: Oh no!

A: I know, right?

But that's not all. I came to the realization that I had really deluded myself that time spent marketing--including blogging, tweeting, networking, reading about marketing . . . --was time well spent. It wasn't. It was merely a new mode of procrastination that allowed me to feel productive, but was actually keeping me from finishing the book. You can't market something that doesn't exist. When I did have time and energy to work on the book, I was self-stalling by doing things decidedly not work on the book.

Writing about writing is now low priority; writing is the priority.

Q: Totally understand that, though I do miss your wisdom and guidance. What's the status of the book now?

A: End of October, I completed a very large project at work and got a much needed vacation, which has been fully dedicated to finishing my substantive edits.

Q: So are you still on schedule?

A: My original schedule was to release the book in December, to coincide with my 30th birthday. The major delays originally threw that schedule out the window. However, I've realized that if I skip unnecessary steps like the Kickstarter campaign, trying to get advance reviews/blurbs, and picking a place to have a book release party, I can still get the book out in December.

I decided that Kickstarter may, at this point, be too crowded to be successful for me. I've chosen to bite the bullet and self-fund the publishing, while cutting upfront costs as much as possible. I've also decided that advance reviews and blurbs are an unnecessary step that would very probably put me back in the same self-doubting mental space as searching for an agent did. Regarding the party, yeah, that'd be awesome. But it can wait.

I need no more self-defeating, time-eating endeavors. Getting the book out is most important, even if it is a "soft" release.

Q: So, December?? Really?

A: Yup. It's on, baby.

And guess what else: the cover, title, and an excerpt will be released today.

Well, Hello There

Boy, when I said "off for a while" I didn't exactly mean 8 months. But I'll tell you, it has been a MEAN 8 months. I've been extremely busy at my Clark Kent job, i.e. Proposal Manager Extraordinaire. So busy, in fact, that I become accredited by the Association of Proposal Management Professionals and had my first speaking engagement as such a professional, delivering tips on how to make your proposal more compelling through using Win Themes.

I'll bet you had no idea that I'm, like, an actual corporate professional with credentials and stuff. My proposals do not have two-heads.

So what else? I finally got off my butt and finished my novel, using NaNoWriMo as an excuse. I was about 25k away from finishing the draft, and wrote those words during the first 2 weeks of NaNoWriMo. Then VOILA! I had a complete draft. Holy $#!+!. It's the first and only full-length novel I've ever completed, ever written the words "the end" for. Even though I can really now call myself a writer, I don't have words to describe the feeling of that accomplishment. I'll save that for another post.

I am currently 75% completed with revisions and polishing. I have a completed synopsis and a query letter, which has been submitted as chum for the Query Shark. I will shortly be commencing the full-blow, ego-crushing foray into the Agent Submission Process, and guess where I'll keep you up to date?

Right here, where I write here.

NaNoWriMo Reflections

Like thousands of writers across the country, I participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in November. Due to a series of unfortunate events, including my car getting broken into in a Baltimore alley (one that I park in at least three times a week), I almost didn’t. I gave up before I began, having only written 149 words by Day Five. However, when on Day Five I realized I had blogged nearly the same amount of words as my required daily quota for NaNoWriMo (1667), I told myself that noveling was a far more rewarding and worthwhile past time than blogging, and set myself to the task of catching up.

I was officially behind for about the first twenty days of November, when I suddenly surged ahead. I “finished” my novel (read: 50,169 words of it . . . after un-contracting all my contractions) four days early. It was a vomitous first draft—full of such flaws as wordiness, repetition, inadvertent rhymes, typos ("soul heir"), mixed metaphors, purple prose ("never ending slumber of death"???), meandering plot, redundancy ("ghostly apparition" ??), etc.—but it was a first draft nonetheless. It is officially the second longest piece of writing I’ve ever done, and has provided great groundwork for a significantly less flawed second draft.

My NaNoWriMo experience was most likely exactly the same as every other WriMo’s experience in that it was deeply individual. I make that seemingly self-contradictory statement on purpose, because I think that is part of the human experience: to feel exactly the same things as countless other living and dead humans, but to experience them in a state of complete self-absorption and solitude. Or maybe that’s just writers.

But in any case, a lot of time NaNoing is a lot of time spent alone. Even those occasions when I partnered up with a fellow WriMo for sessions of solidarity, we were still very much inside our own heads during much of our time together. Not only is writing “butt in chair,” it is “mind in mind.” Unlike an artist painting a figure study from a model, fiction writers create almost solely from within their own heads. A lot of time spent inside one’s mind can lead to many negative things—antisocialism, narcissism, self-consciousness, low self-esteem, etc. But it can also be a transcendental and uplifting experience, as was my NaNoWriMo experience.

I learned many things during this time, that I want to just get down in words. I’m still digesting the whole experience, but this is what I have for now:

1) Writing fast encourages you to write in a fat and bloated way; you write the way you eat on Thanksgiving—and there is great pleasure in that. But there’s a reason Thanksgiving only comes once a year. It’s not healthy to do that all the time. Something can be said for turning off your inner editor, but I say put her in the next room. Don’t send her home on an extended leave of absence.

2) Outlining would have been a really good idea. I once did the Three-Day Novel Contest, and the ONLY reason I finished was that I had an extensive outline and notes beforehand. If I had used an outline, I might not be in the position I am now, and that is the position of rewriting a second draft from scratch. I have written Chapter One three times now, and it’s still not right.

3) 1667 words a day is nothing. Stephen King recommends 2000 words a day—and we all want to be Stephen King, don’t we? (Just kidding.) If you can’t find the time to put down 1667 words a day, you don’t deserve to call yourself a writer. Harsh, I know, but I’m growing tired of the “someday” people (myself included). You’re not going to someday win the lottery and be able to quit your job and suddenly have an extra nine hours a day to devote to writing. Even if you do win the lottery, you’ll probably spend those extra nine hours a day getting really familiar with daytime television—or shopping—or (like I probably would) staring at your bank statement in orgasmic disbelief.

If you want to succeed as a writer, you should be putting in a little time every day either: writing, editing, or sending out submissions. Even if you’re not working on your novel or a short story or a poem, write something. It will be good for you and will help you develop a habit.


Right now, I’m taking a break between my first draft and the “official start” of my second draft. It’s giving me a chance to catch up on my reading (the second best thing you can do to improve your writing is to read) and also to let my mind wander around the plot and the various holes I need to tidy up. Then I’ll finish and refine my outline, which has been dribbling out slowly, and finally I’ll begin earnest work on my second draft. Around that time, Writers Block will hopefully have started back up, which no doubt will prove to be very motivating to me.

Blog Renaissance

If you've visited my blog before, you know it has previously been dedicated to my craftwork, soft sculpture, and stuffed animals. Due to various circumstances, I am no longer working on that type of artwork (though there are still some items left in my store). Rather, I am focusing my energy on working full-time on my writing career.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with me, I am a 25-year old professional writer working in living in Baltimore, MD. I have my BA in English from Goucher College, where I was fortunate to study under the amazing Madison Smartt Bell. My passion is for short fiction, and my stories have been published in Preface and the unfortunately defunct Baltimore Writers Project. I've also been a staff writer for several periodicals. I'm currently honing my poetry skills and revising a novel I began during National Novel Writing Month, which deals with gender roles as they relate to power, wealth, and status.

I will be forthwith dedicating this site and blog to my journey as a writer and a reader. Though, due to publishing standards and copyright issues, I will not be printing any of my pieces here, I currently have one story on the web from my undergraduate days, which you can read here.

Thanks for visiting!