The next chapter:  October/November 2021 update

Sweet Lord! It feels like forever since I wrote one of these. Forever and a week. And three days. Sorry about that. The last couple of weeks have been hectic at work. Ran out of weekend on the 4th/5th (what with all the Christmas-ing). And I ran out of weekend again on the 11th/12th because it was my mother-in-law’s 80th birthday party. Both of those will feature in December’s next chapter update.

The month(s) in writing

 Will start off with October … if I can remember that far back 🙂

The writing was not going well.

I was still recovering from my autistic burnout, still being kind to myself, and still busy at work. There are more days when I did not work on Reality Bomb than days I worked on it. Of my conservative 5,000-word revision goal for the month, I only revised 3,060 words. That’s 61%.

I did work on a piece of short fiction, but it was focused editing to reduce the word count, so there was nothing to record. I submitted the story and the rejection came back two days later.

Aside from RB and the story, I kept up with my curation posts. I wrote 4,811 words of my 3,500-word goal, or 137%.

And that’s all I did in October.

The November update is just going to be summary 🙂 I embarked on NaNoWriMo 2021 with a conservative goal. All I really wanted to do was get back to a regular writing habit, if for no other reason than to prove that I could do it.

I was a NaNo Rebel and titled my project NaNo Rebel Combo. I counted everything I wrote or revised in the month. It helped that I had the first two weeks of November off work, but I sincerely thought my progress would crater after I returned.

Surprisingly, it didn’t.

Words revised on RB and edits to its story map: 44,854

Words written on short fiction: 1,424

Words blogged: 2,138

Words written on (my last) Speculations column: 1,653

Other words written: 360

Total words revised: 44,854

Total words written: 5,575

Grand total: 50,429 words

I submitted the short story I wrote to an anthology call. Will let you know if anything comes of that.

Filling the well

In October, I attended two virtual writerly events. A reading by Wab Kinew, and the combined Writing Excuses/Surrey International Writers’ Conference online. Both were lovely. And WXR/SiWC posted all their sessions for attendee viewing for 30 days after the event, so I was able to watch all the sessions I had to miss because work.

My mom hosted Thanksgiving for our family.

I also tracked down a therapist who specializes in autism and scheduled an appointment with her in early November.

I went in to work on October 29th and retrieved my chair. It was an accommodation request resulting from an ergonomic assessment before we got our adjustable desks at work. At the time, sitting was the issue and standing was the solution. After eight years of standing to work and write, I decided to change things up and try sitting again for a while.

I adjusted the seat pan and back to encourage me to lean back, so I wouldn’t get tense and torque out my neck, back, and shoulders the way I used to. And it’s working. I had some difficulties with the height of the arm rests, but now that I’ve resolved those, I’m golden. I credit my NaNo win, at least in part, to my new, comfortable sitting arrangement.

I made the tough decision to stop writing my column for DIY MFA. They’ve become a kind of family. I’ll miss writing for them, but I have to refocus on myself right now.

In November, aside from NaNo, I attended several virtual sessions from this year’s Wordstock Sudbury and a couple of Jane Friedman webinars.

Home for the Howlidays, with my short story, “The Wolf You Feed,” was launched on November 23rd. It’s available on Amazon if you want some wolfish holiday reads.

I had my first session with my therapist, got a note from my doctor for insurance, and submitted my first claim (which was subsequently paid). I investigated the accommodation process at work. In short, I made progress.

My two weeks of vacation in November, compared to the two weeks of sick leave I took back in September, were truly restorative. September was just about getting my head back. My success in NaNoWriMo cemented for me that I can still write and/or revise daily, that everything I produce is not crap, and that I can still accomplish lofty creative goals if I commit.

But now, there’s another urgent project that needs to be completed at work, and I’m taking another break (not voluntarily). I have to manage my energy levels and health.

And get lots of cuddles!

What I’m watching and reading

Watching first, as has been my pattern of late.

The Black Widow movie wasn’t as bad as I’d been led to believe. It didn’t blow my mind, but it was enjoyable.

I finished watching the last season of Riverdale, for real this time. Not fond of the time jump and the super-clichéd storylines. Betty’s basically Clarice Starling, Jughead’s every substance-abusing writer ever rumoured, Archie’s a veteran now, but all his flashbacks look like WWII (?), Veronica is the vixen of Wall Street … just ugh.

The New Mutants was okay. I always enjoy Maisie Williams and Anya Taylor Joy, but I wasn’t fond of how the latter, as Illyana Rasputin, was framed as a mean girl. It just didn’t fit with my experience of the comics.

The series finale of Supergirl was sappy, as expected. The conflict felt off all season, though. Kara (and everyone, really) made a lot of uncharacteristic decisions, because final season? A little disappointing.

Phil and I watched the second season of Locke & Key. Not bad. Better than season one, I think, but it took a while to kick into gear, and, honestly, it had been so long since the first season, I was unclear on a lot of the plot, even with the season one recap under my metaphorical belt. It came together in the end, though.

The latest season of Doom Patrol was … frustrating more than anything. Excuse my language, but they’re all still fucked up fuckups. You’d think they’d have spanked their inner moppets by now.

Finally, the shining view of the last two months, Reservation Dogs. Loved! That is all. Go watch it now!

In the reading department, I read nine books over the two months. Having said that, I’m currently nine books behind in my 2021 Goodreads challenge. I may not even make last year’s goal (which I surpassed, by the way) of 60 books.

I listened to Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, part 1 on Audible. It was a fully produced audioplay, with top actors, and I loved it, despite its meandering story. It was originally a graphic novel, and episodic, so that was to be expected. I’m looking forward to the Netflix series.

Having read and enjoyed P. Djèlí Clark’s Master of Djinn, I thought I should fill in the gap with the novellas that lead up to it. The Haunting of Tram Car 015, was fun and focused on supporting characters from the novel, Hamed and Onsi.

I read Django Wexler’s The Thousand Names as part of a book club my critique group started. It was good, but the protagonist, Winter, doesn’t show up right away. Maybe it’s because the novel is more properly Marcus’s story, but, being a woman, I connected to Winter more. As a result, it was an uneven read. I enjoyed it, and the world building was great, but Marcus was a very traditional protagonist in epic fantasy. I wasn’t as interested in his story and thus didn’t enjoy the novel as much as I might have.

I finished This is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar next, though I’d started it before taking up The Thousand Names. It was actually the first novel selected for our book club. I loved the lyrical nature of the book and the largely epistolary structure. Other readers were not as enamoured. El-Mohtar is a poet. So am I (sometimes). I really got into the words, savoured them, rolled them around on my tongue and in my brain. Loved.

Witchmark, by C.L. Polk, was an enchanting (pun intended) read. It was so good I can’t wait to get into the rest of the series 🙂

Alice Payne Rides is Kate Heartfield’s follow up to Alice Payne Arrives. It was interesting reading this so soon after This is How You Lose the Time War. There were enough similarities that I wonder if El-Mohtar might have been influenced by Heartfield’s Alice, at least in part.

Catherine Hernandez’ Crosshairs was a bit of a harrowing read. It’s a dystopia, which takes as its genesis that Canada followed our neighbours to the south in instituting a totalitarian, fundamentalist, and fascist regime. In fact, Hernandez imagines a Canada that goes even farther, instituting workhouses for all “others,” be they people of colour, Indigenous peoples, LGBTQ2S+, or followers of religions other than Christianity. An excellent novel that challenges everything you think Canada is.

I then listened to Tanya Talaga’s All Our Relations. Excellent. I now want to find out more about the Sami, Scandinavia’s Indigenous people.

Finally, I read Roshani Chokshi’s The Bronzed Beasts, the third book in the trilogy that began with The Gilded Wolves. Yum! Bittersweet ending that in some ways reminded me of The Invisible Life of Addie Larue.

And that was the last two months in this writer’s life.

Until next time, be well and stay safe; be kind and stay strong. The world needs your stories!

NaNoWriMo 2021 wrap post

As promised, here is a fulsome review of my experience of NaNoWriMo 2021.

The plan

I had no expectation of winning this year. Because I had just come out of an autistic burnout and was finding writing or revising anything challenging, I decided to be a NaNo Rebel again this year and I set my goal low.

In addition to revising Reality Bomb and filling in my chapter and scene map for the novel, I was going to write my Speculations column for DIY MFA, work on a short story (I had hoped, more than one), and to round things out, I also counted my blogging. In short, I counted everything I wrote in the month.

Even so, I thought I’d only get 30,000 words revised on RB, 2,500 words each on the short story and blog, and 1,000 words on my column. 36,000 words seemed like a reasonable goal.

The progress

I did have the first two weeks of November off work. I was kind to myself, got a solid 8 hours sleep each night, ate well, walked Torvi twice a day, watched television and streaming, and played a computer game as a nightly reward. I didn’t put any pressure on myself. I think it was a good approach 🙂

Between RB and the map, I revised 44,854 words, or 150% of my goal.

I finished my short story in 1,424 words, which was only 57% of my goal. I also submitted it.

I blogged 2,138 words, or 86% of that goal.

On my column, I wrote 1,653 words, which was 165% of my goal there.

Plus, I wrote 360 words on a little side project.

I wrote 5,575 words of the 6,000 I had intended to. That’s 93% of my writing goal.

My winning total for NaNoWriMo 2021 is 50,899, but when I add everything I recorded up, it totals 50,429. So, I made a mistake of 470 words somewhere. Still, I won!

Evidence …
I was all over the place!
The only badge I didn’t get was recording 1,667 every day.

The pivot

I had expected my progress to slow when I returned to work. And it did, but the progress I’d made in the two weeks I was off, plus the work I was able to do on the weekends was enough to shore up the low production days.

I’ve hit a problematic part of RB at this point, though. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s the mid-point of the novel. Yes, my middle is saggy. It’s going to require some thought and strategic thinking to tighten it up.

So, I’m going to take another little break, let things percolate for a bit, decorate the house for Christmas (which I haven’t done for … years), and marshal my resources.

I don’t know if I’ll get back to revisions later this month or wait until the new year. I’m going to take the same approach I did with NaNo. I’m going to be kind to myself, set reasonable expectations, and do what I can.

The other factor at play is my recent diagnosis as autistic. I’ve found a therapist, joined a support group, and I’m looking at workplace accommodations. And I’m working full time. I know there are a lot of authors who work full time, but with this new understanding of, and context for my life, I can see the times when I’ve been overwhelmed and burned out. I can’t do it all, all the time.

This weekend, I’ll be posting my next chapter update for October and November (the November piece should be short, ‘cause mini updates).

Until then, be well and stay safe; be kind and stay strong. The world needs your stories!

NaNoWriMo 2021, week 4, mini update

This will be a super quick update today. I’ll have a more complete update on the 30th. Or maybe the 1st. Depending on how I feel. I usually need to take a bit of a break after the blitz.

The plan

 Keeping on as I was keeping on appears to be working out 🙂

The progress

Between revision on Reality Bomb and filling in its map, I put in 11,484 words.

I wrote 393 words on my short story. Probably only going to get the one done this month.

And this post is 162 words.

Total for the week: 12,039 words.

Running total for NaNoWriMo 2021: 49,861 words.

Think I’ll make the 50k? Yeah, me, too 🙂

The pivot

There are only two days left (!) No time to pivot, even if I wanted to.

As mentioned of the top, I’ll be posting a NaNoWriMo 2021 wrap up on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Until then, be well and stay safe; be kind and stay strong. The world needs your stories!

NaNoWriMo 2021, week 3 mini update

It’s the end of week 3 and I’m still doing well … ? Better than I thought I’d be faring at this point, that’s for sure. Best be grateful, eh?

The plan

I expected my production to dip with my return to work, and there was one day where I only managed 407 words of revision, and two others where I logged less than 1,667 words (1,187 and 1,099, to be specific). Otherwise, though, I recorded over the 1,667 and made up for the shortfall.

There were a couple of stressful days (the ones where I logged 407 and 1,099, coincidentally), but overall, I’ve been trying to manage a better work/life/creative balance. I think it’s working?

The progress

Revisions to Reality Bomb and filling in my scene map amounted to 10,451 words.

I wrote another 360 words of short fiction.

And this update is 214 words.

My total for week 3 is 11,025 words.

And my total for NaNoWriMo 2021 so far is 37,831 words.

The pivot

I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing, I think. No pivot necessary. Of course, I’ll have to watch the work stress. It’s getting better, though.

I hope all my American friends have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Until next week, be well and stay safe; be kind and stay strong. The world needs your stories!

NaNoWriMo 2021, week 2, mini update

Here we are, on Sunday of week 2.

The plan

The plan was to finish my Speculations column and submit it, and to continue revising Reality Bomb and working on my first short story. If I was so lucky as to finish the first story, I’d start a second. There are several open calls and contests coming up. I know I won’t hit all of them, but I’m going to try for a couple.

The progress

I wrote 748 words to finish my column. It’s 1,653 words in total. A little long, but it’s another personal post.

Between revisions and my evolving map of RB, I racked up 12,446 words. I’ve finally made it past the point where I realized I’d have to change the POV to first person and start over. It’s good to be forging ahead.

I wrote 112 more words on my story. It’s a cute one. I’ll tell you about it later in the year.

This update is 359 words.

And … I did a little personal project that amounted to 360 words.

This week’s total word count: 14,025.

NaNo 2021 running total: 26,771 words. That’s an average of 1,912 words a day.

The pivot

Tomorrow is my first day back to work after two wonderful and restorative weeks off. I expect that my productivity will be significantly lower during the week. It’s to be expected. I usually write or revise 250 to 500 words a day when I’m working. It’ll be a bit more than that because I’m not curating. Optimistically, we can probably double that to 500 to 1,000 words a day. But that’s being optimistic. I might catch up a bit on the weekends, but I doubt I’ll “win” this year.

It’s all about the motivation, though. Writing something every day has been good for me. I’m feeling refreshed and inspired. I’m remembering why RB was important to me (actually, I didn’t forget, but autistic burnout messed with my head for a couple of months).

My best wishes to everyone who’s participating in NaNoWriMo 2021 in any capacity. You can do the thing!

Until next week, be well and stay safe; be kind and stay strong. The world needs your stories!

NaNoWriMo 2021, week 1, mini update

Today is November 7th and I’m happy to report that I’ve written 12,746 words so far.

The plan

I named my project this year “NaNo Rebel Combo.” And it’s exactly that. I’m working on next round revisions on Reality Bomb, including the work I’m doing on my scene map as I go, some pieces of short fiction, and my next Speculations column for DIY MFA. I’m even counting these blog posts (and my curation posts) toward my goal. It’s a real mixed bag this year 🙂

Also, I have the first two weeks of November off from work. I expect my productivity to take a nosedive starting on the 15th.

The progress

On RB and the scene map, I’ve written 9,872 words;

I’ve written 141 words on a short story;

I’ve written 905 words of my Speculations column; and

Including this post … I’ve blogged 1,353 words.

Grand total for week one: 12,746 words (1,820/day).

The pivot

Once my Speculations column is submitted, I’m going to refocus on RB and the first short story. When that short story is finished, I’ll start another.

As I mentioned, I’ll be returning to work on the 15th and don’t expect to accomplish as much after that. But I’ll keep plugging away, as I’m able, and see what I can put together.

We’ll see what I can do in the next week, but I’m not set on winning this year. This is just motivation for me to get back to a more regular practice. As you can see, I’ve only set myself a goal of writing 36,000 words on my spreadsheet. I think that’s reasonable, but what I often think is reasonable turns out to be a stretch.

Until next week, be well and stay safe; be kind and stay strong. The world needs your stories!

NaNo Eve Mini-Update

Hallooo, writerly friends! At the last minute, I have decided to NaNo. I am once more a rebel, hoping to make some progress on this next round of Reality Bomb revisions as well as penning some short fiction. The hope is that, between the two, I’ll rack up a reasonable word count.

I am not, however, striving for 50k. I’m not going to stress. This is going to be a casual NaNo this year and my emphasis will be on trying to get back my writing mojo. My practice has been spotty since my burnout and I really just want to get some words on the page. Or revised. Or something. It just doesn’t feel right, not writing.

To facilitate this recapturing of joy, I’m going to hold off on my next chapter update until December. I will not be doing my regular curation beyond this week (because I already have the Tuesday and Thursday posts completed). I will be scarce on Twitter.

I will offer mini-updates every week, however, to make up for the lack of content otherwise.

Then, in December, I’ll do a double update (October and November), resume curation and Twitter, and I’ll let you know if this little experiment works out 🙂

If you want to be my buddy on the NaNo site, I am (unsurprisingly) MelanieMarttila.

Until tipsday, be well and stay safe!

NaNoWriMo 2020, week 4 update

Holy cow! The last week of November was another week of weeks 🙂 It took me a couple of days to recover. Hope you don’t mind.

I reported last week that I’d revised my 50k to “win” on Nov 20th. On the 23rd, I met my personal goal of revising 60k. As of the 30th, I’d revised 79,819 words, though I was not quite at the end of the draft.

I’m still not at the absolute end of it, but I’m withing a couple of pages. At this point, I’ve only cut a little over 14k. I’ll give you the definitive number in this weekend’s next chapter update.

My crazy NaNo graphs.

Mom’s doing better every day and transitioning from soft foods to a normal diet. She’s gotten her proper walker and the loaner should be returned. A friend gave her a lovely bouquet of roses and she’s been chatting on the phone and taking the occasional, physically distanced visitor.

On Thursday last week, I received THE LETTER OF OFFER for a new position at my employer. It’s what I’ve been working toward for the last ten years or so. Two days in, and I’m feeling welcomed and optimistic and all kinds of good. It’s an acting position, but everyone’s hoping that everything works out.

On that note, I shall leave you with a squeeeeeee!

Curation will resume next week.

In the meantime, be well and stay safe, be kind, and stay strong. The world needs your stories.

NaNoWriMo 2020, week 3 update

Just a quick update this week, though it has been a momentous week.

Mom was released Monday evening. Though we were a bit surprised, we figured the hospital didn’t want her staying longer than necessary, because covid. Phil and I have been taking care of her (mostly Phil as I’m still working during the week) and Mom has graduated to soft foods. All is going well.

As of November 20th, right on schedule (according to the NaNo site), I “won” NaNoWriMo. That is, I edited just over 50k words. I’ve now cut 12,627 words from the draft. I have eight chapters left and don’t think I’ll meet the goal of cutting 30k this time around. Maybe I’ll make 20k, but not 30k.

I’ve revised 58,244 words in November. I had revised 24,714 words at the end of October. I’ll keep going until I’m finished with the draft.

Fortunately, I have until Dec 25 (yeah, yeah—I’ll be giving my critique group a Christmas gift) to give the draft another sweep and cut those extra words. I think I’ve got the story structure in good shape, though. I’ll have to parse the draft at the end of the month to say for sure (are the plot points coming at the right percentages of the draft?).

So that’s my progress this week.

Until next week, be well and stay safe, be kind, and stay strong. The world needs your stories!

NaNoWriMo 2020, week 2 update

I’m late with this update (duh). For reasons.

Last Monday afternoon, my mom got sick. On Wednesday, she asked Phil to take her into emergency. Neither of us could accompany her because covid. That evening, we finally heard from the hospital. Mom was in recovery. Unfortunately, she wasn’t settled in a room until after visiting hours were over.

I didn’t find out the details about her surgery until the following day when I was screened in as her “health partner” or designated caregiver. Thank goodness my employer offers family-related leave.

Mom was discharged yesterday evening. It felt like it was a little early, but they didn’t want to keep her longer than necessary, again, because covid. Phil went to pick her up and we got her home and settled, changed her bed and got her into it, and then Phil ran around to get her prescriptions filled and the clear fluids she’ll be on for the next week or so.

Understandably, I didn’t have time to put this update together until today.

I continued to edit Reality Bomb though there were a couple low-count days (right around when Mom was admitted to the hospital, wouldn’t you know), but I kept at it, as was able.

As of yesterday, I have revised 36,746 words and I’ve taken the original draft of 120,071 words down to 110,753. So far, I’ve cut 9,318 words off the draft. NaNoWriMo predicts that I will reach my goal of 50,000 words edited by November 22. I’m at chapter 24 of 38.

I’m thinking that I might manage another four or five thousand words cut by the time I reach the last chapter. I’ll take another run at it in the time I have remaining in the month and see what additional damage I can do.

And that was my eventful week!

Until next week, be well and stay safe, be kind, and stay strong. The world needs your stories!