I blame Jesi Lea Ryan for getting me thinking about my old novel again. *shakes fist in air* Curse you for telling me I shouldn't trunk it!
Er, something like that anyway.
(Thanks again for reading it!)
So now I'm once again considering work-shopping the bad boy. Write By the Lake is coming up, and they do have a novel-polishing section...for $750.00. Ouch. I mean, I just had to spend $1300.00 on fixing The Bulldog. (Most expensive pair of socks EVER.)
On one hand, when you're this far in debt what's another $750? But then again, that's a really crappy attitude to have when you're trying to get out of debt. But this is an investment, right? Arg!
On a related note, I've decided I need to stop going shopping. The Husband can go grocery shopping and walk out with food for a week for less than $100.00. I practically spend half that just in fruit when I go. And today I went to Walgreens to pick up a few necessities and walked out with $15 in candles. Yes, they were on sale and yes, at the sale price they cost a quarter of what the candles at the local handmade soy candle place cost...but if I hadn't gone in at all I would've saved $15! Why can't I think of these things when I'm there? I see the sale price and go "Oh! That's a great price! Heck, I should stock up! The last time we stocked up on cheap candles they lasted us about ten years!" (And we're just running out now.) But it's not like I need candles. They're nice and all, but I don't need them. The Husband does not have this problem.
Maybe if I let him do ALL of the shopping, it would cover Write By the Lake. Hmmmm.
Showing posts with label workshop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label workshop. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Friday, July 2, 2010
100 Words About: July
Looking like a big month for me. Next week the monthly critique group I recently joined will be giving me feedback on my short story "Succor the Child." My first time getting feedback from this group, and only my second time attending, aught to be interesting.
The weekly group a few of us have been talking about should be starting the week after that. The tentative format for that one will be everyone brings 4 pages and reads them out loud. I'm looking forward to that. My intention is to only bring new stuff to that, so hopefully it will be an incentive to keep butt in chair.
I'll be doing a guest flash fiction over at Christi Craig's blog, more details soon!
And at the end of the month I'll be giving my very first informal workshop, woohoo! Fortunately I have my notes mostly written out already, but I'm a little nervous. I hope I don't start babbling like an idiot.
The weekly group a few of us have been talking about should be starting the week after that. The tentative format for that one will be everyone brings 4 pages and reads them out loud. I'm looking forward to that. My intention is to only bring new stuff to that, so hopefully it will be an incentive to keep butt in chair.
I'll be doing a guest flash fiction over at Christi Craig's blog, more details soon!
And at the end of the month I'll be giving my very first informal workshop, woohoo! Fortunately I have my notes mostly written out already, but I'm a little nervous. I hope I don't start babbling like an idiot.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Romancing the Workshop
So on Friday I decided to buckle down and get working on the 1794 revision, instead of starting a new short. I added more showing to the first few pages where some colleagues had suggested it…and then promptly set it aside and wrote 1200 words of backstory and world-building for the shiny cyberpunky story I thought of last week. Which at least felt really good and got it out of my system somewhat.
On Saturday I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a workshop with Ann Voss Peterson on Keeping the Romance in Your Romance Novel. This was fabulously useful, and if you ever get a chance to take one of Ann's workshops I would highly recommend you do so.
One thing that was really refreshing is that Ann mentioned that she's always had an easy time with the suspense and action, but a hard time with the romance. I feel the same way, as some of you may have guessed. I tend to write romances where the romantic conflict comes from the outside, rather than conflict between the characters involved in the romance. ("When in Rome" and "Encore" being exceptions to this, which is perhaps why I think those are two of my better short stories.) I think part of this is due to the fact I have spent most of my adult life trying to avoid drama, and I've always rather viewed a lot of romantic conflict as pure drama. What I loved about Ann's workshop was that the romantic conflict she espouses comes from real believable fears and needs, not from misunderstanding or angst or the fact that people have unrealistic expectations.
1794 has suffered from a lack of romantic conflict, which I knew but wasn't quite sure how to fix. Part of that was sheer laziness on my part—I didn't want to have to make these characters hem and haw over things that I thought would logically not be that big a deal. But once I started thinking about each character's deeper emotional fears and needs, I started to see places where I could add more interpersonal conflict both romantically and plot-wise without making my characters mopey whiney curs. Hooray!
In short, it was a very well-timed workshop and I'm excited about working on the story again, rather than looking at it as a chore. Thanks Ann!
On Saturday I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a workshop with Ann Voss Peterson on Keeping the Romance in Your Romance Novel. This was fabulously useful, and if you ever get a chance to take one of Ann's workshops I would highly recommend you do so.
One thing that was really refreshing is that Ann mentioned that she's always had an easy time with the suspense and action, but a hard time with the romance. I feel the same way, as some of you may have guessed. I tend to write romances where the romantic conflict comes from the outside, rather than conflict between the characters involved in the romance. ("When in Rome" and "Encore" being exceptions to this, which is perhaps why I think those are two of my better short stories.) I think part of this is due to the fact I have spent most of my adult life trying to avoid drama, and I've always rather viewed a lot of romantic conflict as pure drama. What I loved about Ann's workshop was that the romantic conflict she espouses comes from real believable fears and needs, not from misunderstanding or angst or the fact that people have unrealistic expectations.
1794 has suffered from a lack of romantic conflict, which I knew but wasn't quite sure how to fix. Part of that was sheer laziness on my part—I didn't want to have to make these characters hem and haw over things that I thought would logically not be that big a deal. But once I started thinking about each character's deeper emotional fears and needs, I started to see places where I could add more interpersonal conflict both romantically and plot-wise without making my characters mopey whiney curs. Hooray!
In short, it was a very well-timed workshop and I'm excited about working on the story again, rather than looking at it as a chore. Thanks Ann!
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