Kim Neville

It’s been a month since Shane and I both started working from home and splitting the child care duties. So far it’s been fantastic for both of us. It took a couple weeks to work out the kinks. Shane had to get used to a shorter work day and to working through the distractions of home life. Because sometimes there’s no stopping your two year-old from running into Daddy’s office to get a high-five for going pee on the potty.

As for me, I had to adjust to having a lot more writing time and a lot more freedom. No, I’m not complaining. It’s just that with so much extra time it’s easy to get distracted by fun stuff on the Internet, or shopping trips, or sunny days that beg for beach walks. I had to re-discipline myself.

Things are very, very good for us right now. One of us works in the morning while the other takes care of Cass. We meet for lunch and then switch until dinner. Every day, we both get to create stuff that excites us. And every day, we both get to spend quality one-on-one time with our amazing little girl. On Sundays, nobody works and we spend time as a family. It’s a perfect balance.

Now, if we can just make some money so we can afford to continue living this beautiful life…

Kim Writing life adjustment, balance, Family life, freedom, living the dream, Writing life

I’m deep into the revision process, to the point where I want to spend every possible minute immersed in the world I’ve created. I’m falling behind on things like laundry and blog updates. Just wanted to say it’s going well and I’m having fun.

My novel finally has a working title. Up until now I’ve been referring to it as “the Fairyland novel” (a reference to the fictional theme park in which the story is set). From now on it will be known as “The Glass Doll”.

This week I’m going to do something I’ve never done before, something that I think means I’ve reached a whole new level of nerdiness: I’m gonna draw maps of my fantasy world. I can’t wait!

Kim Writing life maps, nerdiness, revision, The Glass Doll, Writing life

There are bunnies living in the park where I go for walks. They make me happy.

Also, One Shoe Highway was rejected by OSC’s Intergalactic Medicine Show. Next stop, Clarkesworld.

Kim The rejection files bunnies, happy Kim, Jericho Beach, One Shoe Highway, rejection, submissions

Happy New Year. Since the year began, I’ve been reading through the novel I finished in November. I got to the end yesterday, and since then have come to some conclusions about my NaNoWriMo experience.

To recap, my novel is 75,000 words. I wrote the first 25K over September and October, and the final 50K in a mad rush in November. (My reasons for doing this are explained here.)

I thought, considering the speed at which I poured the words out, I might be surprised at what I’d written. Not so. The novel reads exactly as I expected. It looks, approximately, like this:

• 80 pages of pretty good stuff (that would be the pre-November writing);
• 50 pages of not so good but fixable stuff;
• 120 pages of unsalvageable crap; and
• 40 pages of story with the potential to be great if it weren’t crammed into 40 pages in a desperate attempt to finish by the end of November.

I knew while I was in the middle that I was descending into crapdom, writing scenes that I’d have to cut later. I kept telling Shane, “I’m so bored writing these scenes,” and he’d say, “Then don’t write them.” But I wrote them anyway; I couldn’t stop myself.

Why? Maybe that was my process. Maybe I needed to write all that crap to get to the heart of the story. Maybe, but I don’t think so. I have to be honest and guess that 1) I was just getting through the words in order to meet my daily quota, and 2) I felt compelled to stick to the stupid outline I threw together just before I headed into NaNoWriMo.

I’m just glad that near the end I figured it out, and abandoned the outline and let my characters go do what they needed to do. (Incidentally, I knew, too, when I stopped writing crap. I knew because writing ceased to be a chore. I was having fun again.)

So would I do NaNoWriMo again? I don’t think so. The experience reaffirmed my stance against outlining. I know it works for lots of writers. I’m not one of them. And my brain’s just not quick enough to write that many words in such a short time without a plan. I need time for contemplation. Next time, I’ll take it slower.

For now, my path is clear. As soon as I post this, I’m going in and cutting the entire middle out. About half the novel, I’d guess. That’s a lot of lost words, but I’m not sad to see them go. Really, they’re so painful to read I can’t wait to get rid of them. I suspect that once the excess verbiage is gone I’ll actually have a decent story to work with.

Kim Writing life delete key, it's a bad sign if your own novel bores you, NaNoWriMo, revision, The Glass Doll, Writing life