Ramblings of JennyRascal

NaNo WriMo 2009

2009-10-31T19:28:00.000-07:00

I am just hours away from entering my third National Novel Writing Month. Last year I was successful and I hope this year to surpass what I did last year, after all it is progression forward that I am after as well as a finished product. I promise to try to keep you all up to date on how my thirty day writing journey goes as I strove to write 2500 words a day for the month of November. So while I am coming off the Halloween sugar high my brain is plotting out a storyline and praying that my characters are ready to show me their way….

About NaNo WriMo

www.nanowrimo.org

What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month's time.

Who: You! We can't do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let's write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.

Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era's most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.

When: You can sign up anytime to add your name to the roster and browse the forums. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reajavascript:void(0)ch the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.

I’m Back!....I Promise

2009-03-15T14:54:00.000-07:00

Well we have all heard the saying when you get knocked off the horse you should pick yourself up and get right back on….I certainly fell off mine. I lost sight of my goals and dreams and let the laziness, fear, and craziness of life seep in and take over my thoughts until I was all but paralyzed and useless. I cam up with excuse after excuse not to write, or post on my blog…

I was too tired.
I was depressed.
I was angry.
I was sad.
I was broke.
I was not creative.
I was fat.
I was too busy.
I was reading.
In pain.
I was not healthy.
I was afraid.
I was not worthy.

That’s quite a lot of low self-worth. While I cannot pretend those feelings are not real. I cannot wholly accept them because I am worthy. I do have a right to be happy and productive and loved and to love. And so…with that in mind…I am back to my writing. To the thing I love to do.

I recently sent a story of mine out to be critiqued by someone who used to be a publisher and editor. Her comments and total destruction of my work devastated me. She actually asked me how old I was and if I had had any training. I was embarrassed and shamed. I thought maybe I have been wrong all this time and I chose the wrong path and I am not the good writer I thought myself to be.

Then I started thinking…wait a minute. Everybody has to be good at something. Writing is my passion. I am good. That was one critique. One. If I give up based on that, shame on me. So I have reread what she wrote. I have rewritten and made changes. Will it make a difference? I do not know. But I feel better.

So here’s to all who become discouraged….whether in their writing, life, work, finances, family, or friends….know that you are not alone and that you are worthy to be have and loved and to love. Keep doing what you love until you master your fear, only then will you succeed.

Quote of the Week!

2009-01-11T15:49:00.000-08:00

“Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.” — Lao-Tze

I read this and realized how true it is and how often we don’t watch the words that come out of our mouths. I am determined this week to become more aware of what I say and do. I challenge each of you to the same.

Stay Tuned...for more Ramblings of Rascal

Authors that Made a Difference

2009-01-08T19:00:00.000-08:00

Writers are first and foremost readers. We read, read, and read again. We spend our time divided between living in other worlds other writers have created and in own created worlds. I love books and have ever since I learned to read. While I am not into most non-fiction books, I will read them. My passion is fiction, more specifically, romance and mystery.

So which author has made the biggest impression on my life and writing career? HA! I only wish I could narrow it down to one or even three. Fortunately, there are many.

I will start with a very renowned author who I began reading at an early age. Danielle Steele. Whether you have read her books or watched them as they came up on TV movies, I don’t think anyone can say her work has not affected or touched them in some way. Her books have made me laugh, cry, and every emotion in between. She has a gift of bringing about a story that pulls the reader in. The woman has talent and her books take me places from other countries to the journey within and explore such depths that pushes her characters to test their limits in a way I find fascinating and enthralling.

Nora Roberts AKA JD. Robb is a splendid author whose trilogies I have read a multitude of times and her JD Robb series is fantastic! I think I have read every single one of her books and constantly look for her new stuff when it comes available. Her romances sizzle for sure.

Christine Feehan introduced me to paranormal romance. I met her at a writer’s conference a while back and found her to be an absolute delight. Her Carpathian series makes me drool. Sigh If only I could write like her.

Laura K. Hamilton’s books border on the erotic side of romance using vampires and were’s to lure you right in. Brilliant and dazzling.

For mystery and suspense I look to James Patterson, nother author I have read all his works, and to Tess Geritsen. I also love Tony Hillerman because I am fascinated with Native American culture and Tami Hoag because she tells a great story.

Classic…Stephen King..because..well…he’s Stephen King. Need I really say more? The man is brilliant and scary…Anyone who can scare the daylight out of me through a book is worthy of praise.

Kim Harrison has given me a new profound way of looking at the witch and demon world with her witch series. I sit on pins and needles waiting, begging, needing, wanting a new book to come out. She makes me believe anything is possible to make believable

The woman that has captivated me within this last year is Janet Evanovitch. Her Stephanie Plum series is hilarious! Add in the mystery and blunders and you have a wonderful writing recipe!

My shelves are full of many more but I wanted to give a special shout out to these wonderful folks for inspiring me!

Writing Exercise

2009-01-06T20:06:00.000-08:00

Writer’s Digest produces a whole lot of writing prompts, one for every day of the year. I don’t do writing practices everyday as I should, but I do them at least three times a week and I thought I would share this one with you all.

You're in bed and you awaken to a presidential candidate standing outside your window, staring into your face with a giant smile. What's going on? (Fictional candidates, preferably).

The morning light is filtering in through the window as my eyes slowly open. I stretch slowly as I ponder how I will spend the day. I’m in no rush to get up and out of bed, except for the tiny odd sensation of being watched. I push myself up and look towards the window. I almost fall out of bed as I see a tall familiar looking man staring in through my window. I don’t scream because I am irritated and annoyed and bordering on downright mad. Who does he think he is!
I manage to find my robe as I stride angrily to my front door. I yank it open and stomp outside.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I shout. The man keeps smiling. There is something about him that makes me think I know him. He is over six feet tall and wearing a dark suit and nice shoes as he stands amidst my flowerbed. Those teeth are so white, I think as I wonder if I need to brush mine.

“Good morning, Miss. Jenny. Terribly sorry for the intrusion, but I need your help,” the man said, still smiling.

“What could you possibly need from me at seven in the morning! I haven’t even had coffee yet,” I grumble.

“Well, I could go and get us some, I noticed a coffee house not far from here.”

I gave an exasparated sigh. “Oh, come in. I’ll make coffee. No use spending good money on bad coffee.”

I allowed the stranger into my house and sat him at the kitchen table. As I made the coffee it hit me. I knew where I had seen that face! It was plastered all over the news and televisions.
“Hey, You’re that guy that wants to run for president,” I say.

“That’s right, Abraham Simon, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Ok, right. So what was it you were doing spying in my bedroom window? You don’t have some sort of closet peeping tom thing happening?”

“No, Miss. Jenny, I’m afraid I need your help. You see, in order to run for president I need a history, a past to be delved into,” Abraham said as he accepted the mug of coffee.

“A what?” I asked, not sure what he meant or how it involved me.

“I have nothing to hide, no skeletons, no nothing really. I’m just an ordinary man with a squeaky record. I want you to write something more sordid for me,” Abraham said.

“Huh? You want me to make up a past for you? Why? And why me?” I said as I wondered if America needed to know about his psychiatric issues.

“Americans, they need someone real and real people need to have a background worthy of gossip, and I’m afraid I have nothing.”

“But that should be a good thing,” I argued.

“Unfortunately, according to the polls, it’s not. Will you help me?”

“Why me?” I asked.

“You are a writer. A creative one at that. This project needs special care and I feel you are the best person for the job.”

Well, that's all I got done in ten minutes...not too shabby...until next time.

Joys of Editing

2009-01-05T17:07:00.000-08:00

I spent today trying to edit and get some rewrites done on my novel I wrote for NaNo WriMo. It was interesting, here is this novel I worked on solid for thirty days and have not looked at since and all the sudden I was thrown immediately back into the world, as though I had never left. My characters missed me and as a reward I decided to perk up their lives a little bit more and throw in another challenge. The story is finished, yet unfinished. It lacks a bit more substance but it has all the elements. It has a catchy first chapter to pull you in, followed by a brief but not too telling of my heroines background. In rereading my story, I still feel it’s a bit flat. It has drama, suspense, a tad bit of romance, which by the way, for me, is way out of character.

I consider myself a romance genre writer, yet the novel I wrote barely has any in it. I wonder why. Perhaps, romance is not at all my strongest suit. But that’s why I enjoy writing. I get to explore all my hidden talents and discover new ones. So, I wasn’t bent out of shape I didn’t write a very steamy romance, like most of my other works. Instead, I embraced the direction that my heroine, Cassidy took me on as she explored her journey options.

I think that writing is a bit like having children. You teach them your values and hope that when it comes time for them to make decisions that they make the best one. Oh, how it does hurt when they make the wrong one, but alas, we must let go and let them grow up. So, as I am screaming at Cassidy, or another character to stop, take heed, or watch out, I know that I must ultimately step back, while biting my nails and let her proceed as I trust she will make out ok.

A big thank you goes out to my own parents, as I am sure I caused them many moments of such thoughts and hair raising experiences. One day, if I should write a book about myself I will surely add most of those moments I can remember.

Immune System Transplant?

2009-01-03T18:56:00.000-08:00

I would like to make known my official request for an immune system transplant. I must emphasize my great disappointment with mine as I seem to have picked up every bug that has graced our office at work. If they come in thinking about sneezing, in a couple of days I will pick it up. This is very frustrating. Because then I get sick, and I become whiny and wimpy and just want to lay around and then I get angry because I have no energy to do the things I want or need to do, like WRITE!

So, today while I have battled the lethargy, the sniffles, coughing and throat tickling, the bad taste of cough medicines(really, they cannot find a way to make them taste reasonable?) I am sorry to say this is the only writing I have managed to come up with today. I had a great blog planned for today, that I have to postpone. But I digress…in my new lifestyle changes for 2009 I am making my health a bit more of a priority as I realize that the older I get the less I am able to shake things off. *sigh*

Maybe it is truly that I am getting older, but I honestly feel like my body has begun to betray me….nevermind the take-out and unhealthy foods I at times find myself gorging on, or the lack of true exercise I do….Apparently, excercising one’s brain is NOT a form of physical exercise to be counted towards a healthy body. I know…it saddens me as well.

I am off now, to take another pill, blow my nose, and search online for ways to improve upon this immune system that I have been granted. Who knows…maybe I will unwittingly stumble upon the best cure-all for…everything.

Inside This Writer’s Mind

2009-01-02T11:25:00.000-08:00

I often get asked what goes through my mind, as if being a writer puts me in a special category of thinking. Maybe, in a way it does, but I have the ordinary thoughts of grocery lists and cleaning schedules and dinner menus that everyone else thinks about. So what’s different? Is there really a difference to the way writer’s think? While I cannot pretend to know what other writer’s think, I can speak for myself and say, sure, why not? I do believe I think a bit differently, more creatively, if you will. That is not to say all people can’t or don’t, as I do believe anyone can think as a writer does, it just may come with a bit more effort.

I am not sure how to really describe what I see or how I think, except that I can see more than what a scene on a street can depict. For instance, take a young woman and a man sitting a few feet apart on a park bench. You may say, yes, that’s a coupl sitting on a park bench. But I say, no, it’s a woman sitting on a park bench feet away from the man she loves because she is struggling with how to tell him she is pregnant. The man is sitting there wondering why his girlfriend has become so distant lately and what did he do to make the situation come to fruition.
Take a woman hugging another woman who has just stepped off a plane. They embrace in a flood of tears, my mind sees a young woman meeting her birth mother after 25 years. I then go on to try to figure out how each must be feeling and the journey that led them here.

We often here there are three sides to every story, the truth, and the version of the two it involves. I believe there are many facets to a story. There is what we see, the truth, and then there is the way my mind perceives and interprets a scene. Maybe, the truth is too boring for my mind, but I find it utterly fascinating to let my mind wander off and come up with the scores of possibilities. It’s so much more exciting to come up with my own conclusions and it’s something, a gift that I can carry around with me and takes up little to no space in my bags.

Ok, so I have, in fact, one more quirk that may differentiate my thinking from others. I have not always felt comfortable speaking about this one as I feel that most people cannot relate and tend to see it as a reason to put people into padded cells, but I hear voices in my head.

The voices of all my characters that run around playing havoc with my sleep schedule and find new and creative ways to make their dramas very real to me. They talk to me, sometimes constantly as they plead with me to write their story or find them some very attractive sexy and brilliant love of their life. They argue and fight with me when I throw a monkey wrench into their plans just to see how they can and will handle it. My villains make me think that leading a life of crime is a natural and often fun thing to do and please, please won’t I just let them loose to commit all sorts of helter skelter (hari kari is what my mom would have said, however, I just found out I cannot use this…see below).

However, please do not think that because my characters speak to me they tell me everything. Often they don’t tell me a lot, like their name, or sex, or they leave out vital details that would have been good to know before I wrote fifteen chapters! It can be a definite love/hate relationship that is enough to drive the sanest person insane. But insane, I am not. I am just me, a writer, and this is just how my mind works. Some people are born to be great with numbers, and I applaud them, for I try to think about numbers infrequently. I really dislike math and I find it troubling and hard, but give me words….or give me death.

Ok, now I feel I must clarify an earlier statement on hari kari. I just asked a co-worker to spell it for me, and he said, the Japanese ritual suicide? So, I immediately rushed to Google and looked it up. Ouchy! I have been using the term horribly over the years. Helter skelter is much more fitting to what I am trying to convey. Blah…here I try to call myself a wordsmith…let me get back to my dictionary.

Procrastination Foe!

2009-01-01T18:36:00.000-08:00

After a brilliant New Year’s day spent by playing World of Warcraft for 13 hours, cooking black eyed peas, and mulling over my thoughts, I thought it would be prudent to discuss my constant foe, Procrastination.

You could call him your personal demon, specifically designed to keep you from doing anything you should be doing! He’s great at giving you all the options that you want to do instead of sitting down and truly hunkering down and getting any, let’s say…writing done? I only have myself to blame I’m sure, but really I’d like to pass along some of that blame. Why should I shoulder it all?

It’s really not my fault they have designed a video game that is so enthralling and captivating that I want to sit all day and play. I don’t consider it wasting time, aren’t they supposed to build that eye-hand coordination? Besides who better than myself, or you, to play the game and pay a silent homage to the artists and creators who have not procrastinated and spent all that time producing such an intriguing world. Alas, as much as I love this game, it’s not my life and I do get tired of playing. On another positive for me…I spend quality time with my husband, so it’s not all bad. Laundry and dishes can wait, I think.

My other little personal procrastinator is reading. Don’t worry, none of them are books on writing. Just your usual run of the mill paranormal and genre romances with a little intrigue and mystery thrown in. I have a bad habit of buying and reading until done a good book. However, in my defense, I am supposed to read, read, and read books that are in the genre I am trying to be published in. So that can go both ways.

I do watch a lot of TV as well, although, in my defense, usually it’s ON and I am not engrossed, except for today when they had a load of back to back episodes of Iron Chef. I actually was engrossed, but I am human and do have flaws.

I love to put things off and I believe I tend to do my best work under pressure. Maybe that is why I succeeded in the NaNo WriMo this year. When it comes to a deadline, I will usually meet it after a lot of stress and a few tears, plenty of time in the video games or a book. Again, I think there is some perfect balance I haven’t found quote yet, but know that I am working on it. I did have time to put together a daily list of things I wanted to blog about! I only hope that my musings, rantings, and ravings can be of some use to even one of you.

So until next time….find your procrastination foe and sternly let him know he cannot dominate all of your time.

A Writer’s Organization

2008-12-31T10:52:00.001-08:00

I attended a writer’s conference several years ago to meet and listen to one of my favorite authors. Not only did I meet and like her, but I met other published authors and those that are struggling to get published. We all hung out together over the course of four days. Lunches and dinners were filled with me sitting almost dumbstruck, or awestruck as they passed around tales of their writing experiences and hassles and tricks of the trade. All of a sudden they all get quiet and turn to me and ask how I organize myself before, during, and after my writing.

I was thrown off, to be honest, I had no clue there was a process of organization I needed. Then I began to freak out, what if I was missing a very key element? OK, apart from the fact that I never finish anything I start…..but we’ll get back to that. What if all I needed to become a successful author was a great organizational process? My process up until then had always been to sit down and pound out the story that was in my head and do a little research when the need arose.

The writer’s around the table began to tell me of their different methods and rituals and I was doing my best to memorize them all, because I had none and wanted to incorporate theirs. Writer A was definitely a type A, she mapped out everything, started off with an outline, made charts, graphs, the works, and then used a nifty little writing software. Writer B would brew a huge pot of coffee, buy special pens and write in notebooks, where she left the margins open for notes. Writer C did everything by his computer where he kept meticulous files of research. At this point in my life I was handwriting all my stories, so I felt a bit outdated.

I came home from the conference with a new resolve. I was going to get organized. I invested money in buying every book on writing known to man. To call me obsessed was an understatement. I read all the books, underlined passages, highlighted things for months, until a writer friend of mine asked when the last time I wrote anything was. I realized then that I was spending all my time reading about writing and not writing. So I felt like I was back at square one. I then emailed a writer from the conference about my dilemma. She told me that I had to find my own way and use what works for me to get my writing done. I didn’t need a fancy system. Just doing what I was doing was probably good enough.

My life is cluttered, but my writing life is all in my head. It’s all there for me to pluck out into my computer or onto the page and I don’t have to spend a ton of money on how to write books. I already know how to write, I just need to do it.

30 Day Blog Challenge

2008-12-30T17:43:00.000-08:00

In the interest of keeping up with every other internet blogger fanatic, I have decided to issue myself the 30 day blog challenge. The goal is simple: to post a blog every day for a month. I figure this will benefit me in a number of ways being that I love to write and have decided for the new year that I will write at least 1500 words a day. What better way to knock off some of those words than to find things to blog about! I am told constantly that a writer needs to write everyday in order to keep the blocks away and when you think about it, it makes sense.

So I have outlined my next two weeks with a nice brainstorming session. I researched writing prompts and journaling exercises to better help me into my foray of blogging. I have an intense and grueling writing schedule tentatively mapped out and with a little help from my new Bubble planner, I will be able to keep myself on track.

While I don’t have any kids, just a husband who can be a big kid, I do have a real life and work to write around. But that’s the beauty of it all, being able to find a way to incorporate writing into my life. I’m not sure when I wanted to become a writer, maybe it was my intense love of books growing up, or perhaps it was truly the wild tales, or lies as my mother says, that I spun. My mother told me I should put my creative mind to a more productive use than lying to get myself out of trouble. Mind you, I couldn’t tell a small lie, they had to be grand whoppers filled with things so far from the truth that about half the time they were unbelievable. Now, as an adult I can look back and see how I began my journey into my writing career.

I belonged to a writer’s group for a long time and the group was amazed that I could be given a sentence and just run away with it creating a world filled with characters, action, drama, suspense, and of course good old fashioned romance. They would often tell me that it would take them weeks to construct what I had done in a matter of an hour or less. I didn’t really see anything special about that ability as it was always just there. I have theses stories, characters, plotlines just running amok in my head and with me at any given time.

I’m going to call myself creatively blessed and leave it at that, because to delve too deeply to find out the center may be more traumatic than I care to deal with.

So, you may ask, what exactly is my goal? Simply, to write, and become a famous author with books littering the best seller lists, of course. OK, realistically, I’d like to get something published. I’ve dabbled in poetry, but I know that’s not my particular talent. I’d much rather focus on people and the stories they need to tell and their interactions with each other.

OK, so my goal for this year is to rewrite and edit my novel I just finished in November as part of the National Novel Writing Month (NaNo WriMo) and get it ready to be shipped off to a wonderful and talented agent and or publisher, who will then race to get my book read in one sitting and be knocking on my door the next day with a check.

While some of my blogs will keep you all updated on my progress, most will be about other things, including my struggles in life and in writing. So stay tuned, pull up a chair, a good book, and something nice to drink, and join me as I begin my journey into the next chapter of my life.