Sunday Salutations from the Writer Cave

Have you ever thought you knew what you were doing only to realize you completely missed the mark? Yep, that is where I am at on the writer skill chart. This week has been a strange mixture of writing success, changes, and rediscovery of items I thought I already knew! But at least my dog loves me.

Writing Success

First the success. Tod completed his edit of our first novel! Yay, an official A. Kristina Casasent first draft as both of us have written or edited it. It was a draft zero when I handed it to Tod. Too rough to be a draft one. It still had a few placeholders and many comments to Tod and myself. If I was writing with someone other than Tod, I wouldn’t have handed it off. It is also why Tod is a cowriter and not an editor/reader. He gets to change the story if he wants or it needs. (Although the naked women he accidentally added I will be removing. -Anna) Depending on the universe, one us has final creative control. For example, Tod innately groks our Nano-Sapiens (sapient dogs and cats universe). Still much “Yay” for getting it completed. I now need to read it and edit it a little before we send it off to betas and our writing group.

Writing Changes

The other big, exciting, and possibly strange news is that we joined a writing group. Rather, more of a critique group. We haven’t had anything critiqued yet, but we have critiqued one story, and I am working on another. I do find that reading other people’s work critically teaches me about my own work and I hope will make me a better storyteller in time. It is easier to see issues in someone else’s stories than your own because we are so close to our own stories. They are like part of our soul that we then cut off and sell, so that our soul will be known everywhere, both its darkness and its light. But I digress. (I just like writing with my wife. Souls are optional. LOL -Tod)

Rediscovery that I am not a discovery writer…

I am, but I am not. I cannot help but feeling a little like an idiot. Note, everyone writes differently. Some people are wonderful discovery writers (Hello Steve Diamond! -Tod). Other writers are hard-core outliners. Others are a bit of a mix of the two. I am definitely a mix. I often have a bit of trouble faithfully following an outline. However, I know that an outline helps me be productive. I even had thought I had a grip on how much of an outline I needed. But that is where I missed the mark. If it was throwing knife completions, I barely nicked the board.

I was feeling so confident after talking the story over with Tod. Made a lot of notes about the idea and plot to the point that I thought I had written an outline. I didn’t even think to show it to Tod. (My mistake. -Anna) After several thousand words, I realized I’d created a story concept for a novella. I thought it was an outline for a story. But no such luck.

Luckily, I was able to talk to Tod after the third day of going “I am almost done”. At which point, he took a look at my “outline” and started laughing. Because of the deadline, he ended up crafting a quick outline for me from a brainstorm we did together. I wrote everything Friday and Saturday. Tod is currently over halfway through editing it. Hopefully, it goes over well, and we can read it aloud once or twice before sending it into the void that is submission limbo for new authors.

(Anna requires outlines that give all the events that are happening and a minimum requirement of who is present in each scene. When I outline, I’ll sometimes include cool lines or ideas for lines for her to consider. And then she’ll do her “discovery” bit while writing and add totally interesting and cute elements to the story, that hook me at least into it. -Tod)

Random Rediscovery

Other items that are up and coming is more dog days of summer. It is summer. It is Houston, and we are training Crokell every weekend. We had another wonderful class where I was once again reminded of items that I knew but I seemed to have forgotten. Such is life and why going to a class is so good. The instructor will remind you of simple things you thought you were doing but let slide.

Crokell

Here is Crokell during training. Someday he might even look regal, but I wouldn’t count on it.