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[SGC Week 4.5] Finding Eira

March 26, 2022March 26, 2022 Laura Highcove

This week got away from me a little bit. I had some doctor things going on, all good, but necessary and requiring time and attention. The SGC call on Monday was talking about agents and querying and so while there were no cool breakthroughs with my story, I started getting back into the idea of being able to query again. Obviously I still need to finish this book, which likely won’t happen by the end of the course as I’d planned because I had such a huge shift in Eira that I needed to start over. But that is my process. Trying to force myself to keep going when I don’t have what I’ve already written to a certain point doesn’t work, and I’ve proved that to myself enough times through failure that I’m starting to accept it.

That being said, I am much happier with the beginning of the story now. Eira and I are still working through some things where I think I want her to care about people more than she actually does, but there isn’t no care there, which is what I was always the most scared of. And I got really good feedback this Thursday from my group when I gave them the first chapter and a half (rewritten, though they’d never read the old version). I mean there was the fact that what I’d given them before was very ‘rough draft’ and this was far more polished, but I was surprised by how well they responded to it.

I had my first moment of real ‘impostor syndrome’ where they were praising things I’d done and I’m just going ‘I have no idea how this story plays out’ and ‘I don’t know how to carry that theme through the whole book’, but the encouragement was nice and, well, encouraging. And I do still feel like I’m making progress, and that’s the whole point. Right now I’m just going to keep going and when the SGC is over in two weeks, I’m going to reassess where I am and how quickly I think I can finish this book. I got very close to the end before I restarted this time, so I think finishing draft 0 isn’t too far off. Then it’s just a matter of finding out how many huge plot holes I have to fill.

Goal for this week is to keep rewriting a scene or two a day. Some are easier than others, it’s really not an exact science, so it’s more that I work for at least a half hour each day. Usually I go a bit over. Also, read my group’s submissions. Since it’s so late in the week that’s all I have. Hopefully I’ll get my next post up closer to the day I had planned.

[SGC Week 3] The Epiphany

March 15, 2022March 15, 2022 Laura Highcove

I have been trying, when doing these blog posts, to write about what has happened with my writing/life in the past week, which means before Monday. But I was sick this week, the blog post got delayed, and on Monday I had an epiphany. Prior to Monday I am working my way into the ending climax part of the story, and some pieces of that are coming together, but Eira was still…not right.

So I have been writing Blessings of the Neriel for a while now and I have never really gotten Eira, the main character,’s personality down. I’m still writing the book because that’s how I work. I write until I find out what I’m supposed to learn about the story and then I go back and fix it. It was taking a long time with Eira, or really, not so much. See, I had a period where I thought Eira might need to be a narcissist or a sociopath, but on researching it, one of the main traits is a lack of empathy. They literally cannot care about someone emotionally. And so much of the heart of what I write is about emotions and how people connect with each other this was just not an option. I couldn’t have a main character who cannot feel emotions, so I pushed it away.

But the writing exercise we did on Monday’s SGC writing class was ‘What does your character want’, and then exploring that like what’s in their way and what are the risks/consequences of going for it and for failing to get it. So I started writing and it was pretty easy to see that when I was forced to think about her motivation in those terms, that the only thing she cared about was getting back to her former glory by any means necessary. So she’s doing all this stuff that seems ‘good’, but for entirely selfish reasons. She just wants to be awesome again.

And that upset me, cause I’m back in the ‘well she doesn’t care about anyone’ space. I cried as I explained it to the group. I was encouraged to read some books with antihero protagonists, and to look a bit more into narcissism. I will tell you, one of the problems with looking narcissism on the Internet is that most of it is for people who know/love/interact with a narcissist, and how to keep from being taken advantage of or losing yourself in their narcissism. This is important, to be sure, but most of the first results do not talk about what it’s like to be a narcissist from their point of view. I suppose because a narcissist wouldn’t care to look up ‘am I a narcissist and what do I do about it’?

But I did find one thing that gave me hope, a quote from this article.

Both past and current life circumstances can evoke multiple features, but may not necessarily be an ingrained part of who someone is (their personality).

A broad, general example of this would be someone who experiences a season of financial hardship after years of financial wealth. They may be preoccupied with fantasies of the wealth and power they used to have. They may also feel superior to others, become envious of those who are wealthy, and tend to gravitate toward people who make them feel important. This individual may present with features of NPD, but these features are connected to their circumstances and not necessarily their personality.

In other words, just because a person may possess features of NPD, does not mean they don’t have the ability to love. However, it is quite possible that their capacity to love may be limited.

Which basically describes Eira’s situation. She was top of the world, loved, praised, talented and then it was all taken away from her. So she could present with bits of NPD without the undesirable (to me the author) complete lack of empathy. Obviously I’ll need to do more research, not that I think if I portray narcissists incorrectly they’ll be all that upset about it, but still, it’s the right thing to do. And hopefully after this, the story will start to come together a bit better, including the opening scene that I knew was not the correct opening scene.

Goal for this week: Keep up 1k words a day. (I have been and it’s been so awesome.), read my group’s submissions. Get my next submission ready.

[SGC Week 2] Settling In

March 7, 2022March 7, 2022 Laura Highcove

It’s a blah kinda day, but really not all that bad. Been playing Triangle Strategy and Stardew Valley. Been keeping up on my words. Been keeping the pets fed. Been going to work. Been hanging with the husband. Been keeping the house somewhat in order. It’s a rather full and varied life, but that works for me.

I think one of the more interesting things I’ve realized is that writing 1k words a day isn’t really that much of a drain. Like, I’m getting it done but I don’t ever feel like I have to spend a whole lot of time in front of the computer doing it, and I’m still able to get other things done. Part of my brain wants to tell me ‘well then obviously you could be writing more’, but truthfully, the fact that I’ve been pretty consistent about getting this done for the past two weeks is awesome. I don’t want to try and do more and then burn myself out, especially since, like I’ve said before, this is the rough part of the book. If I can just make consistent progress for the next month I will be super happy.

The SGC writing class last week was on narrative distance, where were saw where we normally wrote, then tried the opposite. I write close most of the time, and writing far was really weird. I could see a point for it, but I don’t really like it. :p And the Write Ones group critiques were the other two people in the group. Both stories were enjoyable. Though we had one of the critiquees come out of the loving bubble of silence and then start explaining everything we had said we didn’t understand about the story. After about five minutes I took off my headphones because they just kept going and I didn’t want to hear it. The point is that you should find out about it from the story, some things should be questions, but I totally understand that desire to explain everything. I used to do it as well, so I don’t blame them. But I just didn’t want that information so I can continue to not know when I read more of the story.

This morning I still hadn’t put in my next pages for critique. I was feeling way too self-conscious about the roughness of my rough draft. But the group leader convinced me to submit anyway, and so I hope it goes well. The next critique day is on my Birthday so that will be exciting. I will have cake!

Goals: 1k words a day, keeping it up. Be accepting of the critique that will come in on basically the roughest thing I’ve ever let another person read. I know my group wants to help, so there’s no real danger, I just have to convince my lizard brain of that.

[SGC Week 1] First Impressions

March 1, 2022March 1, 2022 Laura Highcove

So the first week of the SGC is behind me now. First impressions? It’s done what I expected it to do in that I have a group of writers to chat with, but mostly it’s applying just enough of that expectation of accountability for me to get things done. As much as I’d like to say that I can do things without some sort of oversight, I can’t. At least not on a regular basis.

But I have gotten my thousand words a day done, and I am very convinced that I have no idea where the story is going right now, which is not surprising. It’s that part of the book and I knew I was going to have difficulty with it. Right now I just have to convince myself to keep writing because that’s the only way I’m going to figure out what’s going on and get an actual story in the end.

More on the actual SGC, I really enjoyed the way we did the bubble method of receiving critique. In the past it’s always been that the critiquers are supposed to ignore the critiquee, and the critiquee is supposed to pretend not to be there, but that can be really hard to do. When someone says something about your story, you want to defend it. And even if you’re not defending, you feel the need to nod or agree with what people are saying. Since we were on zoom, the critiquee turned off their mic and camera so they could be neither seen nor heard. This means that I (when receiving critique) could respond, and emote and whatever, but they had no idea I was doing so, so they actually had a conversation among themselves, talking about what I had written. It was actually really cool.

And even though I plopped them into the middle(ish) of my story, and they didn’t have the benefit of the first part of the story (There is a story sketch they get that gives them some information, so they didn’t go in blind.) I still got some very good feedback on the scenes I gave them. So now the concern is that many of the newer scenes I’m writing, because I have so little idea what I’m doing, might be worthless for critique. But I keep reminding myself that I signed up for this class mostly just for the accountability. So anything else I get out of it is just bonus.

Now that I’ve spent time writing this, it’s time to get to writing my actual story. Goals are the same as last week, 1k words a day, and doing the two meetings, though this week I don’t have anything of mine being critiqued, so I just want to be a good critiquer.

[SGC Week 0] Realizations and Goals

February 25, 2022February 25, 2022 Laura Highcove

So today started out pretty good. I got a package that was a video game shirt my husband had ordered for me. I pulled out the women’s large, and put it on, and of course it was entirely too small, because ‘women’s’ shirts are always that baby doll shape that actually comes in one, if not two, sizes smaller than that shirt would be for the ‘default’ (ie, a man). I had been looking forward to this shirt and now I can’t wear it, and it put me into a bad mental place because this is again one of those micro-aggressions society throws out against women. ‘You need to be small and petite.’ ‘Your breasts are too big.’ ‘Clothing never fits you, because you’re not ‘right’.’ It is the reason I spent so many years feeling like I wasn’t ‘woman enough’ even though the main reason this shirt wouldn’t fit is because my chest is too large. I have mostly moved past that, but today it popped up in an unfortunate way.

Then I had the first group call for a Small Group Coaching program I signed up for through DIY MFA. It’s eight weeks of group critique and writing classes and I’m hoping to use the accountability of the group to finish the rough draft for my next fantasy project, Blessings of the Neriel, which is half done but has stalled a bit. While everyone was introducing themselves, I realized that ever since the first book I finished, The Law of the Prince Charming, only got generic rejections from agents, and even though I had mentality prepared for that, and expected it, and tried to challenge myself to get like 100 rejections, it hit me really hard, to the point where I’ve been subconsciously not wanting to write because …’what’s the point’? Even though I know the point is that I love to write and I want to tell these stories. It’s funny how you can know something logically so well and yet your heart can still effect you in the ways that it does. And there’s nothing to do about it except eventually realize it, and start working toward your goal again, which is what I’m doing now.

We did a worksheet that has to make your overall goal, and then break it down into smaller, more obtainable steps. My first goal was sending out queries for Blessings of the Neriel to agents, but that’s not something I could, or would want to try and, do in the next eight weeks. So I broke down the first step toward that goal into it’s own three steps for the goal of getting the rough draft of Blessings of the Neriel done. Since it’s about halfway done, it should only be another 50k words or so, which doing in eight weeks instead of the four for NaNoWriMo, should be easier to handle. And along with that I get two meetings a week, one for learning new skills, and one that is group/critique meeting. Those will help to keep me up on things.

And this blog is just because writing things out like this very often helps me get it not only organized in my head, but helps me to remember the stuff I know logically instead of always acting on my feelings alone. Plus, I like being able to look back and realize how far I’ve come from the beginning, and I think that will be cool to do with this class.

Goal for the first week: 7k words and get what I can from the group critique and the group teaching.

Working for Productivity

March 7, 2021March 7, 2021 Laura Highcove

As I said last week, I got through my goal of getting all I have of the Wizard smoothed out by March. I was then going to write a few more scenes, but a number of those ended up not working because I just don’t have enough of a handle on where those characters are in order to move forward.

The next step is going to be going back through BOTH the Huntsman and the Wizard and making a master list of things that need to be fixed/written. It won’t take as long as going through and editing things, for sure, but I’m still thinking at least a month. I’m going to aim for April 4th, which is a Sunday, to get this pass through done. Then I’ll make another plan.

Blessings I did not touch at all this week. I’m a little sad about that, as I would like to work on it. It’s just hard to have an actual goal right now. I suppose just word count?

Also, not that I mention it here a lot, but my house is a freaking mess. So I think I’ll have to spend a considerable amount of time on that in the next week as well.

Been trying for a while to get back to more productivity and I haven’t quite found that sweet spot yet. Of course I don’t think I ever really felt comfortably productive at any time, so maybe I’m just grasping at shadows. But I’m going to keep going anyway.

Timelines are for Wusses

March 1, 2021March 7, 2021 Laura Highcove

Met my goal with the Wizard. I got through everything I had written and even started writing a scene or two that if beyond what I had already written. So I am super stoked about that. I really didn’t think I was going to hit my goal, but while there were some spots that really dragged when it came to fixing them up, there were even more places that absolutely flew by both because they were pretty tight already and I just enjoyed the scenes.

The timeline of this story is going to kill me, not only am I doing more povs than I ever have before (eight), but different Kingdoms have different day/night cycles that just don’t line up in many cases. I am not looking forward to having to hammer that out, but again, right now is about finishing the story. I certainly think I’m at the point now where I need to figure out what my ending is, and then write to it. I don’t want to accidentally write to the ending and then realize I left out a huge plot point. All the other books could end with loose ends, this one had to have most of those tied up.

And while I haven’t gone back to Blessings, I did have some nice ideas for the story that I was able to jot down. When I do get back into that story I think it will provide some things for me to aim for, and to help define some of the characters that are still up in the air.

Next step, write out the scenes in the Wizard that I know I need to write. Then I’ll probably go back through the story, and smooth it out some more before I make a master list of everything that needs to be done. I’m going to give myself a week to write out those new scenes, and then I’ll see where I am.

Going for the Goal

February 21, 2021February 21, 2021 Laura Highcove

Progress since last entry. I’ve been doing more of my writing before I get out of my barn work clothes. It means I’m still dirty from barn, but it means I got through my two scenes every day which is really the most important thing.

I did, just yesterday, run into the part of the story that is the least cohesive. That means I had to basically rewrite the whole scene and add new stuff, still got two scenes done but I figure I might run into scenes soon that take much more effort. Still want to make sure I get at least a scene done a day. Not sure what this means about my desire to get done by March. I have another week and a full weekend, so I’ll still aim for it. I’m sure I can do it. It will just require a lot of focus.

I haven’t, however, done any more with Blessings recently. I’m not thrilled about that since I’m very close to where I would be writing new words, but that’s possibly the reason I’m slacking, cause new words are generally my least favorite part, especially at this part of the story. I love revision, when I have my framework, or when it’s all beautiful and new and I don’t have to worry about where the story is actually going.

Anyway, that’s my update. Still trucking along and I’m rather proud of myself.

Untitled

February 13, 2021February 21, 2021 Laura Highcove

So I failed at my goals. In two weeks I did only seven scenes and almost nothing on blessings and legit nothing on j55. No real excuse, I just didn’t hold myself to the plan. I did find that instead of taking a shower right after lunch, that I’m more productive if I stay in my work clothes, so I’m going to try that for this next bit and see what happens.

I have 30 scenes left in wizard now. Two weeks until march. That would be two scenes a day. A bit of a tall ask but I feel like I need to do it. I can’t just give up on my goal. What if it was a real enforceable goal? I’d have to power through. Does mean j55 will go on the back burner. I think three stories was too much but I’m going to keep trying with blessings.

I want to finish this story but I think I’ve ended up in a place of resignation about ever publishing anything which dampens my enthusiasm. It shouldn’t be about publishing, but then who will ever see my stories? I want people to read my stories. That’s the point really. They’re just so much out there about how even if you’re good its all about luck. I understand why that dialogue exists, however its actually rather discouraging to me. I could be amazing. A once in a lifetime talent (not that I think I am, but you know what I mean), and it doesn’t matter if the right person/people don’t see it. Which I suppose is an argument for getting the most stories out there and getting myself out there, but that just isn’t the way it lands for me.

I want to finish the storyteller trilogy to prove I can. To actually end something. I wish that was motivation enough in itself.