The Confabulator Cafe

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  • In 2012, I Took Every Challenge

    From a writing standpoint, 2012 rocked.

    I sent out a novel for the first time. Even though it got rejected twice, the “revise & resubmit” was pretty much the best thing that could have happened.

    I finally (finally!) understand passive voice in my writing. I don’t always see it, and I don’t always correct it, but its so much better now. I’ve also gotten more confidence in my writing. I’ve taken more challenges, I’ve tried new genres.

    But most of all, I just wrote more. I usually wrote NaNo every year. But beyond that, I didn’t do much. A couple pieces of fan fiction here, a drabble there.

    In 2012, I wrote 256,213 words of fiction alone. I’m sorry, I bolded that to brag. In years previous, I would probably write NaNoWriMo, maybe a handful of one-shots. This year I went for pretty much every challenge that came at me.

    Crossover challenge with a minimum of 20,000 words? Hell yes. Shipping challenge, another 20,000? Here, let me write 40,000. Wait, lets do both months of Camp NaNo! Why the hell not? Oh, and don’t forget how into NaNoWriMo we all are.

    Sometimes I drowned. August got stuck watching my son while I locked myself in the bedroom to finish Camp NaNo August. (I did more or less the same thing in Camp NaNo June, but my husband was home to manage the child.) But I damn well got it done. (Okay, except the two flash fiction assignments I totally dropped the ball on. Whoops.)

    With the flash fiction assignments, short story ideas, and the handful of ideas I wrote without any sort of prompting, its been a great year. Unfortunately, it means that 2013 is going to be a year of an awful lot of rewriting and editing. But I got so much done in 2012, that I’m pretty amped about 2013.

    And hey, this month I’m jumping in with Sara & Ted to finish my NaNo novel in January.

  • The Dead Lines Crossed Off

    http://cdn.be-your-change.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/confidence.jpg
    Yeah, confidence is buried in there somewhere. Just has to be unearthed from the pile of insecurities. 2013 is about capitalizing on that.

    Oh what a year 2012 was. In November 2011 I wrote the best thing I’d ever written and I intended to get it edited and submit it for consideration to publishers.

    I did that.

    I’m not talking about resolutions, I’m talking about what resolving to do that did to me.

    There’s this theory that I have talked about in the past in other places about how everything is built on the simple concept of The Line: a connector between points A and B or S and T or whatever you want them to be. Once humans started connecting things we were fated to do things like write with pictures then letters or numbers. To build things with branches and stones, to connect one corner to another with a line of materials and then to keep building on those lines.

    A Wandering Line is a connection that’s not made or that veers off away from point E to points unknown or undefined. A Dead Line is one that terminates before it reaches the intended connecting point.

    Prior to 2012 there were a number of Dead Lines in my writing career. I have to acknowledge that some of those missed connections (aw, jeez, who’d’a thought I’d make THAT reference?) were simply from the fear of making that connection. Those Lines might, indeed, have died but at least they would have been natural deaths instead of just sort of falling off a cliff, dragged by a huge hairy wolf made of fear.

    I’m talking about rejection.

    No one wants to hear that their work isn’t ready or good or anything that isn’t positive.

    But I’m not afraid of that rejection any more. Not at all. I’ve gotten several “thank you but no” emails after submitting short stories and I got one very nice “I like it but it’s not ready” note.

    But I made those connections. Those points were joined and now they have to be built upon.

    I got there by having the time to spend on the novel, making the effort to revise the thing and make it better.

    So how have I changed as a writer this year? Quite simply I’ve identified some glaringly obvious (now they’re obvious) problems with my work and made myself better. Hopefully I’m good, but I’m definitely better than I was when I wrote that novel that I’m so proud of.

    That “I like it but it’s not ready” note wasn’t at all troublesome. In fact it increased my resolve to continue the Line that would take me from enthusiastic amateur writer to published author.

    2013 is the year of having the confidence to build on those Lines, make the connections, and get to the next point. It’s time and I know it. So improved writing skills and the confidence to keep after it are the major changes for the year.

    I’m looking forward to making the connections that will allow me to garner readers. Then building on them to define a universe that pulls you in.

    And crossing off those Dead Lines and not worrying about them any more.

  • Oh Dear. Another Learning Experience

    When we started the Confabulator Cafe a year ago, I was the rebel. I was going to be the one writer posting from the nonfiction perspective. After all, I am a nonfiction writer, it’s been buttering my bread for many years. In fact, looking back at my posts, there’s even one in which I pretentiously declare that I am too serious a writer to do anything so plebian as to submit a story for publication. [0]

    Yeah. Some days I need to just get over myself.

    The appeal to blogging for the Cafe is that it would require me to stretch myself, to commit to a long series of voluntary deadlines, and just release stuff out in the Universe and see if it flies [1]. Develop, in public, as a writer. In Cafe editorial meetings we talk about expanding our readership to beyond ourselves and maybe our immediate families. I sit quietly and try to pretend that I’m not glad that our readership is modest; that deep down, the idea the future employers can Google me already freaks me out. I haven’t even told my own mother about the Cafe [2].

    As far as developing as a writer, though, the most educational assignments have been the short stories. As I have stated repeatedly, fiction is not in my wheelhouse. Short form fiction, written within the stated limits of the Cafe, and posted online is so far out of my comfort zone that you can’t even see the soft, fluffy pillows and high-loft comforter and cats snoozing in front of the crackling fire from there. So safe. So dull.

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  • 5 Changes to Succeed in Writing

    When you want something you've never had, you have to do something you've never done.About 20-some-odd years ago, I decided I was going to be a published author. After many mistakes and missteps, this dream finally became a reality in 2012 with my first sale of a short story. (My story will be published as part of an anthology in August.)

    Now, 20+ years is a long time for such a dream to come to fruition. Certainly. But to be clear, this was not some arbitrary self-imposed deadline. I never said 2012 was going to be “the year I get published.” (In truth, I’ve been saying that for several years.)

    So, what made this year different?

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  • No Fear

    self_esteemThis year has been crazy awesome, and it’s changed me accordingly. It’s quite possible that I, myself, am crazier than I started out at the beginning of the year. Or maybe I started out this way. You have to be at least a little nuts in the first place to choose writing as a career.

    Over the course of the last year I’ve written countless blog posts, more than a dozen short stories (thanks in large part to this blog), and another novel. I’ve also gone through edits with a fabulous professional editor on two other novels. Over the course of all that, I know I’ve improved as a writer. I think it would be impossible not to get better with all that going on. (more…)

  • Becoming Technical

    It’s hard to say how, exactly, my writing has changed in the past year. Most of the writing I’ve done has been in new, uncharted territory. This past year I put a pause on creating new content and instead have been working on editing my novel, writing blog posts, and buying guides. So, I suppose, if I were to judge how my writing has evolved, I’d have to say it became a lot more technical in nature.

    I’ve learned how to write to fit somebody else’s guidelines. Or rather, I’ve honed that skill from when I was a college student. I’ve learned how to research. I’ve learned that I can only write so many technical articles before I’m ready to snap and give up on writing altogether. I learned from that lesson and resigned from my second job before I did something drastic, because let’s face it, writing is just too much fun to give up on. (more…)

  • Serious Face Is Serious

    The biggest changes in my writing happened in the year following my mother’s death. It’s been almost two and a half years now, and sometimes I still feel like my writing is suffering from that fallout.

    Although suffering probably isn’t the right word. I feel that each year I improve as a writer, so my writing isn’t suffering – but my characters are. I used to be pretty nice to my characters. If I made them feel pain, it was usually short-lived. If I challenged them, usually the choices weren’t hard.

    Not so much, these days. (more…)

  • The last year or so…

    Hello everyone! What a great way to make an introduction to this blog, by explaining how my writing has changed over the past year.

    The first and most recent change is I’m writing here now. Yay! I’m looking forward to sharing this space with some of the great people I’ve gotten to know over the past several months.

    The biggest thing that happened to my writing life was participating in National Novel Writing Month for the first time. And I totally kicked its ass. I don’t know if what I wrote is any good, but I know that before November, I wasn’t sure I had it in me to write fifty-thousand words in a semi-coherent structure with a beginning, middle, and end. Now that I can mark “Write a novel” off my bucket list, I have a lot more confidence in my writing than I did before.

    This year I’ve written a lot more than I have in the past couple years combined. Thanks to good friends, I’ve been motivated to take some of the crazy ideas bumping around and to put actual pen to actual paper and get some of them written down. Most didn’t pan out to anything more than interesting diversions, but just the process of regularly writing again has given me a focus that I sorely missed having in my life.

    I started out the year by beginning a journal full of whining and angst, and ended the year making the planet die a slow and suffocating alien death. I call that progress.

    Hopefully this time next year, I’ll have a lot more to say about how my writing has changed and improved. The biggest and best change this year though is that for the first time in a long time, I feel like I can actually call myself a writer. And that’s pretty cool.

  • Confidence: It’s a Friend Thing

    I’m a guy who’s never been good at making friends.

    It’s not that I’m a hermit, though my family has speculated as much. And I honestly enjoy the company of others. In the past year, I’ve discovered that I’m actually quite fond of people. Who knew?

    But what has always tripped me up in the past is some deep-seated insecurity that has set up shop in the darker corners of my brain. Whenever I would start to hang out with people on a regular basis, I would inevitably begin to question their motives.

    In my mind, new-found friends were always humoring me. When they would invite me to do things, I was sure it was only out of a sense of obligation or pity. After a particularly enjoyable conversation, I’d go home and dissect the exchange, highlighting all the areas where I’d either sounded like a fool or come across as an arrogant ass. Whenever I would get a compliment, I would immediately deflect it and chalk it up to false, albeit well-meaning, kindness.

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  • A New Year’s Self-Evaluation

    You never stop learning as a writer. I firmly believe Hemingway when he says “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” As you read, write, and then read and write some more, you change as a writer.

    Sometimes, that change is barely perceptible, like a rock in a desert that moves only a couple of inches a decade. Only by looking back at the trail can you even see movement. Other times, change comes in spurts. I think a lot of us at The Confabulator Café are at the stage where our writing changes in spurts.

    Go back and read your writing from a year ago. Look at its rhythm, tone, voice, and even its content. Chances are, if you were to write that same passage today, there would be something different about it. Language, structure, or something else would change. Maybe there are passages you wouldn’t have written, at all.

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