Getting Back on the Horse

A few days ago I started a blog post talking about how I'd been kind of down lately, mostly feeling sorry for myself. The non-writing project I've been preoccupied with is a baby. I'm into the second trimester and, for some reason, the puking has started now. I'm getting over a cold and my husband has been out of town for almost two weeks. It went on to say that when I'm feeling bad and especially when my husband is out of town it's easy for this stay-at-home-mom-ness to feel monotonous and thankless and lonely. It doesn't usually feel that way. Usually, I genuinely enjoy it and I'm thankful that I'm able to stay home.

Then it said: I know that the remedy for this is writing.

I'd planned to say that writing grounds me, always has. When I'm working on a writing project I have direction and focus. I'm a better me when I'm writing. I'd planned to quote Franz Kafka, "A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity." I'd planned for all of this to kick my butt in gear. Even though it's hard to write when you're throwing up in the kitchen sink. I was going to power through and make it happen.

But then last night I woke up in the middle of the night and instead of talking about writing or writing about writing, I actually wrote something. I'd been thinking of my son's birth and a particular memory made me cry into my pillow. Instead of wallowing in it, I got up and wrote it.

After fourteen hours of labor, including two hours of pushing with nothing to show for it, the doctor said, “This baby is either very large or in a strange position,” and recommended a C-section. Shortly after 1:30am I held my nine pound, two ounce baby boy with a head two inches larger than the average baby. He was chunky and perfect with a full head of dark hair.

The next morning, I sat up in the hospital bed, still exhausted from the night before. My fine, straight hair was already hanging limp and greasy around my face. I was swollen all over. My belly still looked quite pregnant even minus the nine pound baby. I was holding my son when the student nurses and their supervisor asked if they could come in the room. I said sure.

The supervisor put a hand to her chest and said in an awed voice, “Oh, you look so beautiful. You’re just radiant. You are such a beautiful new mother.” I started crying. I knew what I looked like. My sarcasm meter started to go off. It was such an over-the-top, almost ridiculous compliment but when I looked at this woman’s face, all I saw was sincerity and kindness.

I still rate it as one of the kindest things anyone has ever said to me. Perhaps this woman, who spent a lot of time with women who’d just given birth, said that to every new mother and maybe the student nurses told every mom that their baby was the cutest one in the nursery. 

I sure hope so.

Even in the middle of the night, writing is never the wrong answer.

Word Count

I'm working the parallel plot lines and things are happening. I have 25,000 words, which in NaNo Land would be halfway but since I'm aiming for a real length with the sequel it's not even close. But! It's words on the page. Words on the page is the hardest battle.
Yesterday I read a blog post by a writer who keeps track of every single word he writes in a spreadsheet. He's written a million words this year. How motivating! I love word counts but I hadn't thought of having a running word count that included every project. I need that. I'm starting that today.
 And with minimal effort I've already written 114 words today! Bam! 115!

I May Have Lost My Mind

Okay, so I didn't really mean to start writing the Baker's sequel. It just happened.

I'm still working on Miraculous Conception. I did mean to take a little break from Miraculous. I need a little space from the manuscript so I can see it with new eyes before I get into rewrites. I also need a little space from it so that I haven't memorized and fallen in love with every word on the page so I can hear what my betas have to say without dying inside. 

I meant to take a break on this book but I didn't mean to write another one. But, like they do, the words just showed up. And I just wrote them down. I thought, "Okay, I have the opening scene. But that's all I'm going to write." And then more words showed up and I wrote those down, too. Now I just can't stop.

I thought I might save the sequel for NaNoWriMo but I've completely lost my mind and instead I'm thinking that I'll write a first draft of book 2 during these two months I gave the betas to work on Miraculous. And then for NaNoWriMo I can hammer out book 3.

Is this the worst idea I've ever had or 
THE BEST IDEA IN THE HISTORY OF IDEAS!?!?!

Part of my mania is fueled by the fact that for the 3 days The Baker's Memory was free on Kindle there were 834 downloads. Normally the scale of my royalty reports is one to five. It took me a moment to realize that the scale was in hundreds. Hundreds.

834 downloads in 3 days. 

That's a lot of new readers. A lot of new readers who need a sequel.

Wanted: Beta Readers

Seeking beta readers for a science fiction novel with religious themes. There might be magical monks and theology libraries.

What is a beta reader?
A beta reader is someone brave enough and kind enough to read a still crappy first draft and willing to give constructive, un-soul-crushing feedback.

Examples:

• What's working? What isn't? 
• Does the plot make any sense at all? 
• Where do I need more description? 
• Does the male protagonist sound like a man? 
• Do the two voices sound different enough? 
• Where are the plot holes? 
• Are their problems with continuity? 
• How bad is the theology?
• Call me out if it's the exact same story arc as The Baker's Memory

Requirements:

• Applicants must like me as a person and not seek to crush my soul 
• Must be proficient with Word and be able to write specific comments
• Must be able to complete assignment within 2 months
• Especially seeking beta readers who identify as male for help with the male character who still "sounds like a girl" according to one male beta reader

Compensation:

• Baked goods. Lots of baked goods
• My undying love
• Credit in the acknowledgements
• Reciprocation for any writing, editing work etc.

Sitting on Writing

 

I haven't updated in a while. Because our internet has been ruining my life wasn't working. And we went out of town for a while. And it's summer so I'm feeling lazy. And sometimes thinking about all the writer platform stuff I'm not doing is so overwhelming that it becomes paralyzing and I just throw my hands up.

I carry three writing notebooks with me at all times. The purple one is for quotes. I've been keeping a quote book since freshman year of high school. The striped one is for writing. The pink one is for things like "BAKE MUFFINS TOMORROW." Most of the time I end up scrawling song lyrics, hoping to find the song later. That's what most of that sheet is covered with. However, it also says,

Oblivion closet hula hoops.

I recently went through my notebooks mining for gold and I found 

Oblivion closet hula hoops

And I thought, "What in the world does that mean?" 

I don't even understand my own weird shorthand.  For a few days I laughed at myself, completely perplexed by those four words. But then I remembered. They were from a scene in the spiritual memoir. 

At some point in our lives we all live in closets and they may feel safe or at least safer than what lies on the other side of the door but I’m here to tell you that no matter what your walls are made of, a closet is no place for a person to live…We know it’s hard but we need you out here.
-Ash Beckham, “Coming out of your closet”, TEDX Boulder

I was hiding from myself in Tom’s bedroom.
And maybe from God.

After a few months we mutually agreed that it wasn’t working out. It was the simplest, least painful break up I’d ever experienced. After we broke up we became better friends. I stepped out of the closet that I’d built for myself out of Tom’s arms. I opened the door, squinting in the sunshine, feeling exposed in the bright light. I couldn’t stand being in the light. It was too hard. I quickly replaced that closet with walls made of hula hoops and badminton nets, roller skates and pints of beer. I went to hide at the Fun Vortex with Ben. 

The memoir has just become this thing I'm sitting on. It's like one of those wood bead seat covers. I can't decide if it's a good thing to sit on. Is it the best thing ever or is it awful? How long can I sit on this? If I decide to stop sitting on it, what do I do with it? Was this made for sitting on or does it have some hidden purpose? 

Oblivion closet hula hoops

   
    

Bear Feels Scared

Bear Feels Scared is a book Little Guy and I checked out from the library. It's about a bear that gets lost and his animal friends go out to search for him, only to find that he's only ten feet from home. It has great pictures and it rhymes. One day I noticed the dedication.

Once upon a time, a writer felt scared. But standing by the writer's side was a friend who gave the writer courage. The friend's name was Sarah Lanier (who later became Sarah Goodrich). Dear friend, thank you. Write the novel. With love- Karma Wilson

A few weeks ago The Baker's Memory became available for purchase, I set up the Kindle copy, my webstie went live and I set up a Facebook author page all in two and a half hours. I'd been working towards these thing for months. The dominoes just started falling into place. Bam. Bam. Bam. I could finish things. It was thrilling. I felt so accomplished. But then my heart wouldn't slow down. I felt like I'd just blanketed the internet with Emily. I was everywhere, which was terrifying. I felt exposed. Then this bear started to feel big fears.

Then the congratulations started flooding in, the friends who said they'd already ordered a copy, the friends who said they wanted it signed. The friends gave this writer courage. I was able to feel confident in putting myself out there. My friends gave me bear hugs and they calmed my bear fears until this bear felt maybe not safe but brave. Brave enough to keep writing the next novel.

Brave

For the past four years I've participated in National Novel Writing Month. The goal for NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. One year, one of the winners' prizes was a free proof copy of your manuscript. I wanted a proof copy so I had physical evidence of what I'd spent so much time working on. I just wanted for it to sit on my bookshelf so I could admire it. I never even read it all the way through because by the time I was done with it I was too sick of my own words.

Recently I read a friend's self-published novel. It was fun and entertaining and I read it in a couple days. But it wasn't perfect. It wasn't the greatest novel ever written. But it was great. I realized for the first time that nothing I ever wrote would be perfect. I could spent the rest of my life trying to perfect one manuscript or I could work on it until it was good enough and share that.

I read the proof copy of The Baker's Memory that had been sitting on my shelf for two and a half years. It wasn't perfect but it was fun and entertaining. I'm always surprised when my writing hangs together. It's like I think I just throw words on the page waiting to see what sticks. When it works, when it actually makes sense, I'm always surprised. I shouldn't be. It's happened more than once.

My new goal is to be brave enough to share my good-enough work because good-enough is all I'm ever going to have. If I don't share that, I'll never share anything.

Hello, world! Meet The Baker's Memory!