WIP Wednesday, kids edition

I have been thinking of a character for the last year. It started out as an early chapter book, but that didn't work out. I have found this character is much better for the picture book format. It also took me about that long to figure out what to do with him, because good characters are sometimes hampered by the situations you can effectively put them into. Here is the beginning of an almost done picture book.

Harry the dog lived with the Pawson family It was Harry, Mr. Pawson, Mrs, Pawson and baby Pawson. Harry the dog was an escape artist. There was nothing that could keep him in. He had escaped from the house. He had escaped from the yard. He could even escape from his leash.

It was always getting him in trouble.

I would post more but it is very short to begin with. The tenative title is Harry, The Great Houndini. 

This is not my first foray into picture books. It probably won't be my last. I hope to finish it later this week and beta it with some adults (they are the target audience of children's books, believe it or not. If they don't like them, they don't buy them. Pretty simple economics. Why do you think Lego blocks are so big- they are fun for adults to play with as well.)

Time to get philosophical on y'all

I will apologize in advance for this post. You can move on if you want to. I am going to talk amongst myself for a minute or so.

I spent a good chunk of my afternoon in a Zen-like state with my chainsaw. We became one with each other. I had time to think about my current WIP and the state of my yard and came to the conclusion that they are linked, in more than one way actually. My WIP is about a boy who goes to work for his Grandpa for a Summer. More specifically he is putting in a fence around the farm. If anyone has done this they know is it hard work. It is even harder when you are only 13. I think it gets more difficult when you hit 36 as well, but that is a story for another day.

the fence is only part of the story. I was looking around my yard and the flooding that is occurring right now. It is different than previous years. The water is running a different way but it is coming from the same places. What has changed? I put a load of rocks (they sprout like weeds every year in my pasture) in a washout that has caused me problems in the past. Not a big deal. It wasn't even that many rocks. Still, it changed the route the water took. Steered it I guess you could say.

Now I bet I have a good chunk of you wondering how rocks and water and fences and a chainsaw have in common. Not a lot, to be honest. I go to thinking about the rocks and how I change little things in my manuscript and the ramifications it has for the entire story. If something happens to this character or this character doesn't experience this how will it change the greater story? I am still thinking about it and the grander picture of it, but I am glad to have these thoughts out in the open.

Sorry to bore everyone with this little monologue. Carry on.

I am a bad writer

Since the beginning of the year (and what are now? 6 days into it) I have written a grand total of 500 words. I blame myself. It has been hectic and not entirely unproductive. I have edited re-written 20 or so pages since then, but new material has only been lingering on my brain with little time to get it down on flash drive.

Part of the reason is life. Life has become incredibly busy and unproductive and this does not make for good writing time. It also doesn't help when every waking minute is spent trying to figure out how your two year old reached the spray bottle of bleach on the back of the counter and where he sprayed the little bit that was left in said bottle. It really has been one calamity after another. By the end of the day I am so beat that all I want to do is fall asleep. Maybe today will be a little better.

Oh, look. It is starting to snow. Just what we needed to go on top of the two feet we already have. The forecast is calling for 6-10 inches and blizzard like conditions tomorrow. This will not help the writing cause as I will be spending hours clearing out my driveway now. ACK! Lucky for me the story I am working on doesn't seem to want to die but the words aren't coming very easily. I don't know if that makes any sense at all.

Have a good Wednesday. Sorry I don't have anything for WIP. Maybe next week.

WiP, the unruly child edition

My current WIP is actually the same as last week. I have just changed the beginning. Now that I have started it (curse me for starting another story when I have so many others that need work) it has taken a life of its own. It doesn't know whether it wants to be a short story (it has so gotten over being a flash piece), a novella (a very real possibility at this point, or a short novel. I have thought up enough subplots to explain my mysterious prism and the people around it that a novella is probably where it is heading. another story with a very small chance of getting published but it seems to fit around the themes that I have been working lately, namely my stories Wine for Two (Ruthless Peoples Magazine, issue #3), Play Date (Sand, issue 5) and Monday Morning (still looking for a publisher on this one). They are ghost stories but not the boo, gotcha kind.

Hope everyone else has stories that are cooperating with them.

WIP Wednesday

It is a blizzard here. I have large drifts of snow behind my garage doors that are probably taller than my truck at this point. The wind is blowing like crazy and occasionally I lose sight of my mailbox which is only about 20 yards from the house (probably closer). Not a single car has traveled the road this morning, mostly because the plows haven't been by yet. As I am writing this my wife's job called and said they are closing for the day. I think the only thing open around here are the grocery stores and no one can get to them.

I saw yesterday that the Triangulation Antho series is open for business again. I subbed to them last year and didn't make it in, so I thought I would try again this year. The theme is End of the Rainbow. Interesting, or so I thought. I am giving it a whirl. Here is my opening-

It was the last thing I received from my grandma. A prism. At least that was what she called it. It always sat in her kitchen window, which oddly enough, faced the north and never caught the sun.
I could never get it to work, not even on the most brilliantly sunny days. My father speculated it was cut wrong and couldn't refract the light properly. Still I kept it, in my kitchen like she had, even though in my tiny apartment the kitchen had no windows.

WIP Wednesday, kind of-

I have had a slump of sorts. Sure I have worked and finished 2 (maybe three, I haven't decided if one is complete enough to be called a story yet, even flash) stories this month and I feel very unproductive. The first story took me ten days to write and was only 3900 words long. The second was only 371 words long and took me all day, a writers day, not a normal persons day.

Now, this morning I am trying to come up with a short story idea and I have three different tabs on my monitor, all are shorts, none are finished and I think they will all be deleted without being saved before I leave the computer this morning. Mostly because they not only suck, but they aren't going anywhere.

I am considering starting another book at this point. The other idea is to leave the rest of the month be and just read instead of write for a couple of weeks because the writing is going nowhere.

Now for something I have tinkered with this morning:

Still, I am finding it oddly relaxing, sitting here. Listening to the worms as they edge closer. Tiny scratching sounds like millions of tiny fingers working against the earth. So small, but in unison they could move the planet, change it somehow.
Even now I can feel the thump of footsteps above me. They walk with impunity, thinking little of what they are on and caring not, for the dead can't know.

One down

So we are down one week in October already. At this rate I am going to be scratching the bald spot on my head November 1st and going, Where the Hell did October go? Right after that I will be going, Crap! I have to start my NaNo project! (I would be off to a rough start on the first day of it and consider myself behind.)

I have been plugging away, a couple of hundred words at a time, trying to finish the story that I have been working on since last week. It is a slow go, but I think the effort is worth it. I am a little frustrated that the words aren't running from my fingertips like I think they should be. I have something in my mind that is making me edit it as I go. This is especially frustrating since I am not sure which information is relevant to the storyline yet. It might go in a direction I have not seen yet and wipe out half of the manuscript yet.

Anyway, that is where I sit, at a couple of thousand words and no idea where they are going, with November looming around the corner.

Have a good Wednesday. *sigh* here is the last little bit I wrote for WIP Wednesday (I almost forgot)

“Are you busy today?”

Something in the back of my mind told me to say yes, I was incredibly busy. “No, I've got nothing going on as far as I know.”

“Come on over to my friend's house.”

She hung up before I could change my mind