Update: I'm Working at Everything but Finishing my Novel!

 

I have been struggling along all day to get something actually done on my book. I have this terrible habit of always rewriting the beginning. It drives me nuts! I did it again today. However, if the start of the work isn't working, then readers won't make it to the end. So...maybe I shouldn't be so critical of myself. I have to confess that I haven't made time to write for the last two weeks. Well...I have been writing but on a different book. I needed a little break from the my novel in order to refocus on what needs to get done on it. Today was just a foggy kind of day, tomorrow the the sun will come out! Upward and onward!!!

No Excuses for an Unfinished Novel

Well...the start of this year has been less than fantastic for me. I mean a month spent chilling in Orange County, Cali with my family which doesn't sound too bad nor does it sound awful explaining that Februrary and March were time consumed by my husband and I moving into the most beautiful loft ever. I couldn't be happier in that respect. 

In fact, I am just about the happiest girl ever except....

I haven't been writing! Yikes, how this just sneaks up without notice, day after day, little to no movement on the page, cursor blinking, ideas in your head, nothing on the page, tick, tock, that novel you've got in your head isn't becoming a reality.

Why, oh, why me? 

I've been struggling with the same novel for eons, as just about anyone who knows me has stopped asking how the book is coming along. I mean I had an easier time running the NYC marathon last November, and that was with an ankle plastic-wrapped with ice bags! What's my deal?

Fear of commitment? Fear of success? Fear of failure? Yes, yes, and yes to what ever the next fear might be, too. Isn't the whole battle with writing or running marathons, for that matter, about the case for faith and belief. My new mantra is: Make a commitment, show up, and do the work. 

Now that my computer is unpacked and I have my own lovely quiet office to work in, there are no excuses for not finishing my novel. 

Therefore allow me to publicly, or not so publicly because I'm not sure anyone actually reads my humble little blog, to declare that I am committing myself to finish my novel by JUNE 1, 2010.

I am totally out of excuses. I am no longer lost in the forest. I'm not confused by my characters motivations or my novel's plot. I am a builder that is finishing a new house, a farmer waiting for the fruits of his labor to come to harvest, and whatever biblical or otherwise silly little thing you can up with. It's important to set goals and focus, but to also be sensitive to how you achieve those goals. More importantly, I'm setting on the path of following my bliss, enjoying my life through my work, and sharing the joy and entertainment of the written word. I am writing a new future!

I will be keeping a short update at this blog on my novel's progress toward my June 1, 2010 deadline. You can wish me luck because I'll need it, but I think a pot of coffee might be more handy!!  Cheers to all those that believe in the passion to chase dreams!

One more thing...If I don't finish my novel, then the price I have to pay is this...

Yeah...I'll jump from a plane with a parachute. Skydiving is high on the list of things I really don't want to do and I should say that I won't be jumping with any military types, it would be a tandem sort of thing, but a jump, a leap of faith of the flesh and blood sort. I'd much rather make a leap of internal faith by committing to finishing the novel, so without further ado I now bow out of this blog post in order to get at the task at hand!!

Blogging is the New Revolution

Quote from Shelf Awareness that hit home to me on the purpose and meaning of blogging today...

"Printing was as revolutionary as the Internet is now when Dürer created hisMelencolia I, and it too had victims. Those medieval scriptoria were doomed, and those who clung to the handwritten and painted word would be eclipsed.

 

Critics of today's new communications see the aggression of bloggers as a vice of the digital age, but what about the aggression unleashed by the printing press? The resources of new technology that let Dürer create Melencolia I were soon being exploited to create vicious religious prints portraying the Pope as antichrist. The printing press democratized knowledge, and with democracy came spite, libel, destruction and violence. But it also brought a new beauty into the world, and every book that has ever been published, every sheet of a newspaper blown along the street, is part of that beauty."--Jonathan Jones in the Guardian's On Art blog.

Take a peak at the new blogging studio...Martha Stewart has always known how to make things look so good. She converted a barn on her property into a to die for blogging studio. 

{image via The Martha Blog}

Yet, blogging isn't about million dollar investments and that's the primary point. All one needs is a smart phone or a laptop in order to blog. Well...bloggers also need an opinion, but that seems to be high in supply!

{image via Desire to Inspire}

Harvey Weinstein on How to be Interesting to the Media

{image via Madame Lamb}

That was direct and to the point! He's got a point, though doesn't he? 

Read More to Write Better

{image: Film History}

I found a lovely blog about crime fiction writing called NeedleCity, created and maintained by Robert Lewis. 

{Robert Lewis, writer and NeedleCity blogger}

There are posts after posts of information about writing crime fiction that include everything from building strong characters to getting ideas for stories. I stumbled across his blog via an email sent to me by Guide to Literary Agents Blog, which is another must for writers that are just starting out in the game or for those writers that need some motivation to keep going after rejections. Hope these links help and start your week off to a fresh start. Now, I need to make some coffee, walk the dog, and get some pages written.

{image: Film History}

I'm back at my Desk & Chair...

{image: Musing of a Night Owl}

The Art of Simplifying my Life in 2010

Wow...I recovered the password to this blog because it's been this long. I've been cleaning up blogs, closing down domain names, and getting my cyber world into check. I've been gone for the last month on a work holiday to California where I was subjected to my family and their demands. Not exactly a work environment and I didn't get a creative word written. 

I do have a lot going on and nothing. I realized lately that I really don't like Typepad or paying $120 a year to host my website Modern Girl Style. I also feel like I can't keep up with the demands of constantly reporting on design trends. I think I need a break. I looked at the process of trying to move my Typepad account back to blogger and I find that it's impossible, short of copy & paste over 500 posts. Since I'm trying to simplify, who cares and I think I just might delete the whole blog. I'll think about it over the weekend and decide after that. 

Current Writing Project

It has been three years and I've rewritten the same novel three times. It went from a romantic chick-lit murder mystery (totally awful and didn't work) to a straight thriller (something I'm really excited about and can't wait to share). My goal is to finish this last draft and share it with the people closest to me. 

What the Deal with this Blog?

The deal is that I want to write short simple blog posts about my writing life and submission process. This should be a great place for me to cope with the whole sha-bang! I also want to share the art of a creative life with as many people as I can and inspire others to do the same. 

The world is in a crazy place at the start of 2010, but in the same respect, today is our opportunity to create the life that we want. Dreams are built day by day until they take over reality. Let's journey together on the way!

Thanks for reading, Kamela

The Power of Now

Mini Carrot Cake Cupcakes
Originally uploaded by Kamela_Cody.

Where have I been? Lost in Italy? Napping in Spain? Not even close. I've been getting lost in new things. I bought a new Canon EOS Rebel XT, doing yoga, reading, selling a screenplay. You know the kind of stuff that modern women love to do.

I have to admit that this has been an exciting summer to drop off the map of predictable schedules & daily habits. When is the last time that you stopped your usual routine? Can you image life without a Starbucks latte in the morning or tuning into the Today Show? So, who are we if we aren't our habits? What then defines who you are?

Ultimately, the big question is where do you want to go? I'm currently facing that question and I'm lost in it. So, what then?

Face the moment. Experience the calm of your breath. Do something. Do anything that will allow you to not wallow in the big question of "what am I doing with my life!"

So, try baking, cooking, knitting, yoga, or anything that you never tried before and do it with gusto. It'll be the best way to discover you are and what you need to do.

Spring's Blooming

gardeners greenhouse #E2C86
Originally uploaded by redshoesllc.

Don't wait for nature to announce Spring! Remind yourself each day with a heavenly scent, a beautiful piece of triple milled soap, or a blossoming azulea that spring is around the corner. Retreat into the all the five senses of Spring.

The Leap of Faith

one would.
Originally uploaded by antimethod.

After not being cast as an interior design TV host, I found myself living in Toronto of November of 2006 with little to do. I had been attempting to keep up with the massive word counts required by November Nano Writting Month but creating auditon videos for nameless TV executives, I didn't have the time to finish my novel. I was content that the contest had inspired me to begin my third novel.

Strangely enough, I learned something about writing novels by my unexpected launch into the world of television auditions. To summarize the experience, I understood the nature of competion. Since my days of reading the great dialogues of Plato, society demands that the artist must play his role and consider the audience. I don't believe I've ever been so avant-garde to not consider the reader, but I have been somewhat shy in terms of sharing my work with any reader! I've written two novels that I've never sent out. What role is that?

It's March 2007 and I've just returned from a trip to my hometown where I had been messing around in a garage full of my old notebooks, journals, and short stories. I came across a white binder that was completely unmarked. I opened it and I came across the first novel that I wrote in 2001. I couldn't believe what I was reading. It was good. I was intrigued. What had happened so that I could take a year of my life that I spent writing that book and toss it in a garage?

Lots. My first novel was stolen from me one week before September 11. Despite the events, I pushed forth. I completed the novel in December of 2001. I printed a copy and placed it on my desk. The day after I finished the book, my brand new Apple computer crashed and everything on my hard drive was lost. Maybe, I wasn't meant to write. Maybe, there were signs in my life that were telling me to stop reaching for my dreams. And so I did. I stopped writing for four years.

Life stories are rarely told in sequential order and this story is no different. So that I can explain myself today I must first mention what happened in August of 2005. I was told by a doctor that I was going to be immediately scheduled for a surgery due to late stages of pre-cancerous cell growth. My love life was estranged. The man that I thought was my boyfriend, whom sent me to his best friend that was the doctor that performed my surgery, drifted indifferently away from me as the surgery date approached. He even called on the day of my surgery to ask me what I had planned for the day. It was bad, if you haven't already gotten the idea. Surgery, heartbreak, unhappiness in the work place, and I had all the motivation of a woman that wanted to seek professional help.

I met with a shrink in Newport Beach. The grounds for the appointment was the surgery and recent heartbreak. I felt that the sudden illness in my body might be reflecting the diseased state of my love life that I had suffered so far as an adult. I needed to get my spirit and mental health fit.

As I began a short series of sessions about the typical father-loss and bad date life that happens to common to many single people, it soon became evident that my dating life wasn't the issue.

The issue had been my writing life. All I could talk about was the stolen novel. My true love had been writing not a guy that drove a porsche.

The shrink listened as he's paid to do. However, I did the single most important thing that patient of a shrink needs to do. I listened to myself and that's was the most important thing I got out of the month of sessions.

Sometime after my surgery, the shrink declared my sanity, not that it was a secret. He cut back on my sessions and I stopped scheduling in due time.

It was time for me to change my life. Now, I'm an OC girl that lived in Chicago. That means that though I like to be catered to, there were things in life that I had to work to get. People in OC & LA areas do not walk or take public transportaion. I was workng at an interior design firm at the time and the traffic to work was horrifying. I did some research. I found that I could take a train and one bus and make it work on time. I'd save hundreds of dollars in gas and car maintaince but even more importantly, I'd have some free time. Baby steps, I told myself, life changes in baby steps.

I finished my second novel in three months while riding the train. It was hand written in two large sized moleskine notebooks. I took the notebooks and this time placed it on a shelf in my computer room and like the first novel I never bothered to send it out. I guess those sessions with the shrink had helped me to write again but that's not enough for a writer.

Writing is a leap of faith. Although, the greater leap of faith that I'm facing today is the leap to share my work with others. Somehow, I learned from all of those auditions at the end of last year, that I wasn't selected because I'm terrible but because I wasn't a perfect fit for the show and that market. Fine. I don't want to be cast into a project that I don't fit. The similarity between television, fashion, and writing became apparent to me. I don't want to wear jeans that don't fit. Finding an agent and publisher for my work need to be a great fit. The trouble was I needed to get into the dressing room of life in order to find the perfect outfit. The writer of Chicken Soup for the Soul had his book rejected by 144 different publishers. I've never tried on 144 pairs of jeans let alone sent out 144 submission packages. It's time to think differently.

Here I am, almost six years later, a changed girl. I'm confident that I'll get rejected by agents as I send my first book submission out. Fine by me! I've already survived robbery, surgery, heartbreak, and rejection by nameless television executives-and I'm sure its not the end of things to happen in my life.

The Leap of Faith has already cured my love life. I'm engaged to marry an awesome man that I met in Las Vegas. If that isn't a leap of faith, I don't know what is. It's time to roll with the dice and gamble that one day I will win and my work will publish.

Sitting at my Desk & Chair.

Life sometimes returns old habits back into your life. At this point, my circumstances allow me to not only make writing and reading a habit but a business that I'm developing. Unpublished writers must work at formulating a plan to reach readers. My plan is to finish my novel, submit to agents, and publish a novel that entertains readers.

To write, one must read. Read everything. On-flight magazines, church bullentins, dead poets, to rocking chick lit books. Just read.

Read & Write.

Write & Read.

I'm sitting at my desk & chair inspired to build my dreams one word at a time.

Get off yr Bum & Write!

It's National Novel Writing Month which means make it happen. I'm into getting a book done by November 30-anybody else? I'll be keeping tabs on my true progess. Time to fight and create something more than ever. Time to work!

Fight! Fight! Fight!

At the moment, I'm on working on the first draft of my novel. The paragraphs are being written slowly and its hard to find time to work.

Passion is what motivates my work. It is only that. I've may have received a few blows from agents in the form of rejection letters but that won't stop me from making it into the ring and slugging it out.

Rejection

I just need to drop a few sentences on rejection. In April, I submitted a nonfiction book to three agents. In all honesty, my query letter looked pretty but read like a typical query. What is technically supposed to be the smashing opening sentence of a query sucked in my query letter. But, the content of my book is perfect for its current market. Yes, actually, despite rejection, I'm confident that my book is rad! In fact, I know that the market is searching for a book of this nature.

I know my mistakes and how I got my rejection. Its like a man wearing a white suit and approaching a lady with his shirt unbutton and the hair on his chest sticking out. I understood my project's flaws. For example, it could only truly publish at one publishing house (a bad thing in probably the eye of every agents-Didn't hold me back, I saw the cup half full and my project as an agents delight in terms of a quick sell). I knew that might make it dead in the water but I sent it out. And yes, today after I did a three mile run with Adidas in Orange County, I came home and found my final rejection letter. Not that I'll be mourning the death of the projection, like I said, I knew of its flaws but I was hopeful that I'd find an agent that would look past it all. The agent and I could have a Maxwell Perkins and Thomas Wolfe affair.

Hello sister! I know its all 21st century and sh--! But the agent at this nice respected agency did take the time to pull out company letterhead to draft a specific message about my project and it being very interesting. Dah, I know it is!

Just to add a bit more to the backstory, I had a dream one month ago where I understood that I needed to make my nonfiction book a bit more traditional in nature and bam! Later that afternoon, I got the second rejection letter. Go figure?! I've got my own intuition telling me that I need to do more work to make this thing fly. Yet, at the same time, I'm thinking my big dream is to be known as a fiction writer. Do I take fold the project? Do I push ahead? Do I spend time on the second draft of my novel? Hmm...Questions everywhere!

Rejection isn't forever. I'm not in the ground. I've got at least that much on my side...Time is in my favor. I need to write a proposal that leaves no easy path to rejection, nonfiction or otherwise.

Miss Brunette will waive her nonfiction book rejection funeral services. No book of hers will be laid to rest!

Hey Batter Batter-Play Ball!

It was strike one from Artist & Artisans Agency. A crisp note written at the bottom of my query letter said it all: Thanks so much for your query, but I'll have to pass. Best wishes with your proposal!

I'm ready for the next pitch.

Non-Fiction Proposals & Baseball

Leaving the dug-out, I walked to the home plate. Life was pitching me the opportunity to write a book. I warmed my arms up and I swung a few times. The catcher behind me was nothing more than a word processing program waiting for me to strike or hit a home run. It was time. The pitcher pulled into the wind-up, I worked feverishly on my non-fiction proposal, and then I swung at the ball. I sent my non-fiction proposal out to agents.

After sending my proposal out, I felt like it was opening day at the ballpark. As I new player to the game, I measure time differently then some of the old timers. I can't help but wonder where my non-fiction proposal is actually going to land. I hope on the desk of the New York agents that I choose.



Now I wait.

I kind of felt empty at first sending my work out. I understand that I've only scratched at the surface and the game hasn't even started...It was one pitch and one swing in the midst of the beautiful stadium know as circumstance. I only hope that my timing is right and I hit a long and lean home run. The kind that slam out of the stadium. Dreams mean the world to me but I'm not expecting too much.

The Marvelous Focus of the Mind

I sat at my desk for a week. Like remote travelers to a foreign region, I found the unknown road leading into my body of experience. I had a goal: Craft a non-fiction proposal by the end of the week. Unrealistic as it may sound, I actually complete all of the necessary elements of the proposal. Most of the work was done for a New York agent that asks of all writers to submit a query letter, synopsis, biography, and a three chapter preview. In my case, I had to create everything from scratch. Late Sunday night, I found myself showing my work to my family, a demographic that consists of taste akin to most of modern pop culture, and got a response that what I had done was created something a wee-bit too academic. Yikes! I was hoping to create something entertaining that also provided a good lesson but it seems I missed my mark.

The mind can focus on a goal and work to achieve it. I had made my goal but I've been exhausted by the sheer creative force I had to exert in order to get it done. I pushed everything aside. I stopped eating, playing with the dog, going to the gym, talking to friends, and practically brushing my hair for the last week in order to get my non-fiction proposal sent out and off my shoulders.

My sister was the one kind enough to remark that perhaps its best to not push things and blow my chance. It reminded me of an studio manager that would creep up behind me as I worked to tell me: "Sometimes you have to slow down in order to go fast." His voice is consistently creeping up like he did that day and his words have never ceased to echo in the canyons, rivers, and mountains of my interior landscape.

Buddha meditates thoughtful somewhere I have always wanted to be. I don't know where this image is from or what land it rests in. But, I'm comforted knowing that a wondrous place exists like this. A place where life slows down and the rush of life isn't beckoning at your back reminding you that there will never be enough time to do all the things that you want to do.

Achieve focus within the mind and the serenity shall follow. Whoever said that is a liar. I've got nothing but re-writes ahead of me.

Hunting for an Agent

I've switched gears this week to my non-fiction book query letter & proposal. It's heavy on the design end so its a fine break from the world of fiction. It seems like I'm in the midst of making minor changes to the project each day. Since I've learned that the freelance writing life is 25% writing and 75% marketing, I have been spending time searching for agent. Its a tedious affair of browsing the Writer's Market Online & pulling out recommendations from non-fiction authors that I adore. Tedious & still a bit tiresome when you read tid-bits from the agencies like "ADVICE: Remember you are trying to sell your work, and it should be in its best condition" or "ADVICE: Be professional and be patient." Does it always have to be all work & no play? I want an agency of style & aspiration, not dowdy advice that puts me to sleep. It must be bad being a agent, young or not, reading lots of letters that are probably not worth anybodies time. Except, my letter, of course, it'll hit them like a Tab Energy Drink.

First Draft of Novel Complete!

Hand written in two moleskine notebooks, I have finished my newest novel at 330 pages.

Q & A

Where have the Notebooks have been?
The notebooks have been with through two jobs (design firm & the other big money ticket job-don't ask-I'm not telling you where t I strip-joking, alright!). The black moleskine notebooks played a significant role as I rode the Orange Country Metro & Transit line (majority of pages written on the 7:00am train to San Juan Capistrano). Actually, the notebooks traveled with me where I went. I meant to finish the book at the start of February but illness kept me from thinking clearly (I'm not Marcel Proust).

Where happens to the Notebooks now?
As soon as I complete the first draft on my computer, I'm burning the hand written notebooks. There will never be a reason to have any one witness my madness first hand.

Hey, what's the novel about?
I'll tell you when I'm done.

What are you going to do next?
The second draft will be more akin to a first draft. When I finished the book today, I hit an important psychological milestone: The first draft. Like finishing my first novel (unpublished and hidden in a storage unit), I felt ecstatic about just completing the novel. Today, however, I feel the burden of this novel and its work ahead of me. I can visualize the book complete and I understand the work that needs to be done to get it to the tier of writing that I expect of myself. First thing on the list of what I'm doing next so to pray for the patience and the stamina that I'll need to complete a true working draft.

In conjunction to finishing the next draft, I am drafting the query letter for the book. It provides a great means of focusing the work.



Okay, I'm taking a night off to watch a movie. I hope its good.

Letter to the Editor..

I placed the precious pages on the table and took a photo of what it is that I accomplished today. By some standards, not much, but to me, I hit a milestone by actually sending my work to the editor's desk of a local magazine. It was quite simple and I thought of the manner in which a child builds monsters in the dark closet of her bedroom. For too long, I've sat inside a still room locked by my own doing. I lament the time I've wasted like Francis Parkmen creating maladies of no worth or purpose. The writer's struggle is such a personal duel with the inner working of history, personal experience, and courage. I almost felt the Archangel Michel himself tap my shoulders to say, It's not that bad, just wait for a bit of reject. I can hear my own inner voice struggle to tell my consciousness that I have many more small child-like steps in the road ahead. I've found my fighting stance and a small saber sword so that I will fight myself from locked rooms and destroy my monsters.

Courage is not the lack of fear but the ability to face it."
---- Lt. John B. Putnam Jr. (1921-1944)

I feel better when I tell you my secrets.

My last week of February should be wonderful. It's not that I've found a new lover or that I've recently visited the quiet little rooms found in the salons of Paris, but that I may just meet my meager writing goals. I have thirty pages of my novel left to write and I expect that to be done within three to four days. In addition, my query letter for a non-fiction book and an article have been received well by a few of my peers. Daunting as it seemed, the query letter leads to something bigger-the feature article itself. I've been reviewing leads from magazines to newspapers (though the NY Times is some hybrid of its own) in search for the irresistable lead. The leads at the top are just a few that have struck my fancy. Do these leads entice you to read? Do these articles make you search your own vault of locked secrets? Perhaps you might (or you have) been in a room watching three strangers have sex or maybe (or maybe you have) casually taken an artifact from an important archeological site and sent it to a friend for a little bit of cash or fame? I'll answer yes to one of those questions but I'll leave you wondering which it is that I have done...Some secrets are best left unsaid.