The first third of Gold Hill (working title) was a mess.  Out of sequence, out of time, untransitioned, and just plain messy.

I liked the individual scenes well enough, but their relationships to each other left me with my head in my hands asking if I really could write at all.

They were so disorganized my overwhelming feeling was shame.  It was the first novel I’d written in scenes and I wrote them out of order.  I really hope its the last novel to demand being written that way.  If it isn’t, I’m buying shares in Bayer and Valium now.

Just when I was planning how to tell my editing partner that we might want to scrap this one, something great happened.

The middle third is really decent.

It flows.  It relates. I progresses the story and relationships and develops key elements.  It does its job.

Talk about a big sigh of relief!  I watched my editing partner make a few ticks here and there for typos and dialogue tags and then move on.  Yes!

Faith has returned.  Energy is renewed.  The sun burst out from behind the clouds.  Choirs sang.  Really.  Well, for me they did.

I know there are two scenes in the last third that are trouble, but today I am happy.  Today is a good day.

I’ve had the opportunity to really think about the characters I’ve worked with the past 12 months.  I’m always interested in the themes that come out in a writer’s work, my own included.  Writing is, at least for me, a form of therapy after all.

I was able to identify several common themes in the lives of the last five main characters I’ve worked with.  they all live on the fringe of social groups, either from being new to the area or from being shut out or misunderstood.  they all struggle with the desire to feel accepted, even though some of them already are.  None of them want to be liked so much they would compromise their personal values.

The most profound thing they have in common, though, is loss.  Lillian loses her independence; she must learn to trust the friendship of others if she is to succeed.  Charley loses her best friend and a few dearly held beliefs.  Raelyn loses any hope of normality along with her innocent view of the world.  Evan is poised to lose his marriage.  Liz…well, Liz loses everything but her life.

The stories are very different as are the personalities, circumstances, and eras of the characters.  Their losses and reactions to them  have one common thread.  they all draw from some aspect of the losses I have experienced personally.

As I look at the common themes in my fiction, I recognize more elements in myself.  The characters all deal with their losses in a far different manner than each other or their writer, which I also find interesting.

How much of your own experience makes it into your plots or your characters’ lives?  Are you aware of it at the time or only in hindsight?

GAH!  For the readers that hate writers who can whip out the rough draft quickly, there is The Great Equalizer…the edits.  I admit I’m jealous of the steady personalities who edit at the same pace they write and do equally well with each of them.

That’s so not me.

Rough draft?  Easy peasy.  Edits?  Um.  I have to clean the kitchen.  And the car.  And the den.  After that, I have errands, and a great new book to read and…

I need to team up with a writing partner maybe, or pledge to do something disgusting if I don’t meet my deadlines.  I know, I know, some writers really struggle on the front end, while I blow past.  But there they go now, running at a nice, ground-eating jog while I limp along.

However, I do have some progress to report.  I’m on the third round of edits, and I think chapters one and two are done.  All the names and small details are fixed, one big plot issue resolved, and the first cliche/adjective check is done.  The story isn’t as loose as I feared it was, and I still like Lillian a lot.  I wrote the rough draft in August.  It’s only taken me five months to get this far…ahem.

I am glad I left it to sit for a while, though.   The work is easier for it and I’m less emotionally attached.  I even wrote another rough draft in November.  I know I sound pathetic, but this is my one area of procrastination that is not under firm control.

Do you know of any encouraging posts/articles on edits for writers like me?

Have you experienced the same irony of characters that I have?  When you want one, or at least want the one you’ve got to be…well, more than they are…it seems characters can be hard to find.  On the other hand, if you’re writing hard or working on another project or even just trying to sleep, your mind fills with crowds of characters.

Perhaps this is similar to the  old Irish fairy stories in which you can see the fey in your peripheral vision, but if you look at them straight on, they can prevent being seen.  I look hard at one project, and characters crowd into my side vision.

Problem is, I usually forget all about this truth when I am lonely and looking for a character.  If I would just look hard at an art project or even the dishes, they’ll crowd my shoulders soon enough.

An acquaintance that is developing into a nice friendship was the source of an invitation to a holiday open house at the unique residence he shares with his partner.

The house is a museum.

My friend sold and brokered art for 24 years.  His love of portraiture shows.  I lost count on the stairs alone.  In addition to antique and more modern portraits and paintings, beautiful antique furniture from several eras fill this home.  I could identify Empire, Art Nouveau, Queen Anne, and Rococo…I wish I knew more about antiques so I could have fully appreciated what I was seeing.

I listened to stories about the 77 year old house, stories of some of the pieces in the house, and stories of how some were acquired.  His partner and I discussed preferences for decorative glass and different eras for furniture.  I learned what a luster was and admired a full set of depression glass dinnerware (missing only the oil lamp).  We talked about architecture, renovation versus remodeling, and probably a hundred other topics that evening.

I couldn’t help the concepts for historical or supernatural stories that could feature this armoire or the girl in that painting.  Even the house would be a strong character with its stone facade and interesting corners.  Much more than these, however, were stories centered around people who dealt in antiques for the love of it and were drawn to old things for reasons they didn’t understand.  And just how far would a collector go to obtain the perfect set of pink lusters?

Where’s the most inspiring location you’ve been to?

I count money as part of my day job.  A few weeks ago I ran across a ten dollar bill that was stained with rust.   The red and orange coloration ran up the bill in the creases and lay across the bottom, as if it had wicked up the color from rusty water.

Oh, how frustrating to not have a moment to jot a note.  A story idea came, but was gone by the time I could write it down.

Surprisingly, it came back in full force as soon as I saw the ten again. Two characters and a location came to mind.  Over the next few hours I kept paper close by as the plot resolved itself and small details began to fit in.  A heist, a betrayal, a murder, and a hiding spot that remains undiscovered for some time…yup, quite a lot from a bill with a reddish stain on it, even knowing blood would stain the bill brown, not red.

I’m currently developing the concept into a novel-length work titled Blood Money.

What’s your craziest source of inspiration so far?

I’ve said before that inspiration can be found just about anywhere.  This week I’ll share three such incidents that happened to me recently.

When I’m not writing (and that always seems to happen from mid-November to mid-January), I’m usually indulging in some other creative outlet such as designing houses or handwork.  Last weekend I was on an art website looking for inspiration for a room when it happened.

I felt as if I was looking in a mirror.

The portrait was of a woman of similar age with the same facial structure, same shoulder set, same ears, same jaw, same furrow in her brow.

So of course my writer brain goes a bit nuts producing three or four scenarios for short stories and novel-length stories about a heroine who stumbled across a portrait that looked so much like her it was uncanny.  Add to this a 400 year time span between the life of the heroine and the life of the portrait’s subject.

The plot pot started to boil.

That’s all it takes.  Some off the cuff comment or a glimpse at an antique portrait can set your writer mind in action.

Where have you found inspiration lately?

I’ve learned a few things in the time I’ve been writing with intention.  One of those things is to write every day no matter what.  This is especially important to me in the middle of anything longer than a short story.

I didn’t write for three days.  Of course it was harder to get back into it and of course I thought it would be easier to take that fourth day off.  But discipline is discipline, so three days was as far as I was going to stretch it.

I know better.  And this time just proved all over again why I need to write. every. day.  Something interesting did happen, though.  It reminded me of something Annie Dillard said in A Writing Life.  If you just can’t bring yourself to write, the work has a flaw or you are headed in the wrong direction.  I’m not sure that fully applies to my few days off, but the story had an interesting twist happen when I began writing again.

Would that twist have happened without time off?

One of my concerns with this novel is for the reader to believe the characters believe in a situation that is abnormal…or as my MC puts it “I refuse to be a freak in anyone’s freak show.  This has gone too far.”  In the scene following the break, she said those words and exhibited her denial.  I think that’s important for the story overall and her believability.

Ah, well.  I may never know.  However, no more time off for me until the rough draft is out.

You know those old vaudeville jokes that start with “a funny thing happened on my way to…?”   I have one, and it was a first time for me.

Just imagine a long day, evening meeting, too sleepy to type up what had been written that day.  Probably sounds familiar, right?  So I wrote about eleven pages longhand during the course of my day, which gives me a different connection to the story sometimes.  The other piece of this puzzle is that I always ALWAYS fall asleep reading.  And a funny thing happened to me on the way to sleep.

So I’m headed to bed and I get happy about reading this new story.  It’s the story about the girl in Milwaukee that has a special skill.  Haven’t heard of it?  Sure you have  if you’ve been on my NaNoWriMo page.

I really wanted to find out what happened next.

I sit down on the bed to set the alarm  and glance around for the book I want to read.  Of course, I don’t find it.  That’s when it dawns on me.

I’m looking to read the book I’m currently writing.

I hope I’m not the only one this has ever happened to!

The photo here is a good image for what my MC will be facing in the next day or two.  Is she ready?  Am I?

I cannot express the joy I experience when I start a new novel.  I thought perhaps it was just a personal thing, but I was told today that my whole demeanor changes when I’m in the throes of composition.  I’m more relaxed, my body language is more open, and ideas come more readily.

I’m 36 hours into Deluge and loving every minute.  I get to insert a few scenes tonight and write two new ones.  I have no idea if it is any good, and really don’t care.  I’m laying down words from that secret place inside of me and loving every minute of it.  I’m nervous, thrilled, a bit frightened, and really enjoying the ride.

How do you experience the first day or two of a new writing project?  Is it a thrill or frightening?