Posts

procrastination

Procrastination: Putting Me On Notice

/in /by

Okay. It’s deadline time. No more procrastination. Right.

One of the hard things about writing in a vacuum is not having a deadline anyone will enforce. Procrastination is way too easy when you are your own boss. If I were working in a corporation, for instance, there would be consequences for missing a deadline – a blot on my work record, for instance, or a stern talking to with the implicit threat of losing my job.

But I am working for the Monumental General Corporation of Me. So those meetings in the boss’s office go something like this.

Boss: “Ms. Grey, I see you have not met our production quota this month.”

Me, squirming guiltily: “I meant to, but the siren call of avoiding cleaning the tub by playing online solitaire was too much to resist.”

So here’s the deal.

I am announcing to the world that by the end of February, I will have my character studies done and my plot structure outlined. Writing will start on March 1.

First step will be making excessively decorated signs to put up near my desk detailing the order of my tasks. Then I should check all my pens to make sure they are working. I’ve already re-organized my desk, in a previous attempt to avoid the inevitable. But the supply cabinet in my office – now that is badly in need of a clean out.

Of course, I can’t ignore the basic duties of running a household. That would be just selfish. So I need to factor in cleaning out the refrigerator, washing windows, scrubbing the bathroom tile and digging out sticky dust balls from between the radiator fins.

That should leave a few hours on the evening of February 29th to do the actual writing prep. Wait. This is a leap year, right?

Well, shoot.

Rose Grey has written three romance novels and is hard at work on a fourth. If you liked this book review, come visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.

fiction

Fiction and Truth; Non-Fiction and Your Imagination

/in /by

“Fiction is a story someone made up.” Miss Wood tapped her desk for emphasis.

“Non-fiction is fact. You find non-fiction in an encyclopedia or in a newspaper so you know it is true.”

This is how my sixth grade teacher Miss Wood once explained the difference between fiction and non-fiction.

I’m going to pause now until you stop laughing (or crying). Nowadays the line between truth and untruth is painfully blurred. But when you are in sixth grade, you don’t feel that way.

To be fair, I should explain the context. The class was assigned to write reports about animals for science class. I’m sure Miss Wood didn’t want me using Wind in the Willows as a resource.

But now I am about the age Miss Wood was when she made this pronouncement, so I feel justified in my rebuttal.

Encyclopedias and newspapers may or may not be factual, but good fiction is true.

Non-fiction writers generally try to preserve the illusion of detached reasoning. But no fact operates in a vacuum and authors of non-fiction often get away with ignoring inconvenient aspects of their theories. They have to do this because the world is full of unexpected quirky facts which get in the way of theories.

A writer of romance novels, cannot afford to be as random as real life. In a sense, the whole point of a good story is its reassuring predictability. Because when fiction begins with fully fleshed out internally consistent characters, the paths of those characters and their interactions must be, if not predictable, at least inevitable.

The result of that inevitability is a kind of truth. Maybe the closest we get to it.

Rose Grey has written three romance novels and is hard at work on a fourth. If you liked this post, come visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.

finishing

Finishing a Novel and Letting It Go

/in /by

Finishing and Letting Go are Not the Same Things.

So much of writing a novel is about beginning it – plotting, character exploration. Beginnings are optimism incarnate. But finishing has a distinct flavor too, a bittersweet tang.

Today I finished novel number three. Really finished. Drafting, spelling and grammar checking, fixing sequence errors, sending it to the editor, fixing all the sequence, grammar and spelling errors I missed the first time, the second time, the third time.

I knew I needed an editor but until I worked with one, I had no idea how sharp eyed and persistent editors have to be. Or maybe they aren’t all sharp eyed, but mine is.

Waiting For You is the best writing I have done so far. And now that the story is complete, I feel like I should be celebrating but somehow I’m not there yet.

Because part of finishing a manuscript is saying goodbye to your characters – letting them go.

It’s true Aidy and Max may return as side characters in a subsequent novel, but the part of their journey which I was the first to witness is concluded. Which leaves a kind of emptiness in a place they filled. As though one heard a voice, turned around, and found no one there.

I feel this same sense of wistfulness, sometimes, when I finish reading someone else’s writing. And if I do, I know those characters will stay with me, will speak their minds when I least expect it, not so much a haunting as a comfortable inner presence. I think that defines good writing.

So as I set my own characters free to roam about the world of fiction, I wish the same for them – that they should live on in the hearts and minds of their readers, distinct voices and distinct personas. I’m not sure an author can ask for more or better than that.

Rose Grey has written three romance novels and is hard at work on a fourth. If you liked this post, come visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.