"Old" People Writing for Teens V

Kaylinn57 said:

*stumbles in after three months*

Hi guys. Been a while. How are things?

Work has been insane since the beginning of the year so I've had no time to think about anything but getting through the day and then getting home. Then when I'm home, I only have time to think about home stuff so I haven't been doing any writing or coming on here.

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^Ditto this^.

Hi everyone! Writing and querying have been pretty much nonexistent but reading has been great. I've been reading a mix of adult and YA to see if my writing my be better off in the adult camp. The jury is still out. I think my next work is still going to be YA.

And I'm breezing in and out again. Got called to substitute as a chaperone at my daughter's school camping trip tonight. This should be fun.

jtrylch13 said:

Thanks for the encouragement everyone. One fear I have is that with several books written by white authors of late featuring POC antagonists, whether in a fantasy or other world setting, and the unintended but inherent bias and racism in their books, will make editors think twice about publishing another book by a white writer with potential issues. On the one hand, they SHOULD think twice about publishing such books, because there have been some doozies of mistakes by these authors. On the other hand, I have done my due diligence to do this correctly, and am definitely going to get more sensitivity readers before it's published, so I'm the sort of author they should consider (not that I can't make mistakes). Anyway, I think that too many editors have no clue about what is racist, sexist, bigoted, etc. because it is so ingrained into our society that they might miss something that a person that represents that identity would note, so they're going to go from "take a chance on a white author and get burned" to "forget diversity, especially written by white authors, let's go back to the status quo".

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jtrylch - I understand your fears and I hope it doesn't come to the point that editors back away from diverse stories. I don't think it will; I think they're more likely to want to educate themselves on identifying what makes for problematic manuscripts. I just wanted you to know I empathize. You just have to do the best you can and hope.

ETA: And then there's this to watch out for, too (see last paragraph in post #4596).

I totally am involved with both What I Should Have Said Theater and Why The EFF Did I Say THAT?!? Theater. Heck, sometimes both productions run simultaneously. Because my Brain totally wears a scumbag hat. Brain is all like, "Where you left your keys? Beats the heck out of me. But why don't we talk about the time you peed yourself in third grade or when you fell apart during a presentation on Pythagoras in high school?" My brain is a dick on a magnitude that not even Superman can achieve.

RaggedEdge said:

jtrylch - I understand your fears and I hope it doesn't come to the point that editors back away from diverse stories. I don't think it will; I think they're more likely to want to educate themselves on identifying what makes for problematic manuscripts. I just wanted you to know I empathize. You just have to do the best you can and hope.

ETA: And then there's this to watch out for, too (see last paragraph in post #4596).

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Oh, yikes! Free speech is definitely taken for granted here.

Hi Kaylinn!!

After one day of concentrating on cleaning/fixing/preparing house for sale I have decided I don't want to! I have no choice, but I'm bored and tired already. And Hubs is not the most help. I know he works all day, and when he comes home he concentrates on kids so I can do stuff, but it can be frustrating that the 4 of them go to baseball practice while I'm scrubbing floor grout with a toothbrush.

It's nice to be back. The last three months have been so crazy. Thankfully, with things slowing down slightly at work, my brain has finally been able to star thinking about writing again. I'm just not sure where to start. Having been frazzled for so long, it's a bit hard to regather all my thoughts about what to write.

I am constantly subjected to What I Should Have Said Theater and Why The EFF Did I Say THAT?!? Theater. Most often, my insomnia is caused by thinking about all of the things that I could have/should have said or the stupid things I did say at some point years ago.

Hi JTR! Also, I think my least favorite experience in the last few years was having to get my condo ready to sell 1.5 years ago. It didn't help that hubby and I are not the best at getting rid of things. And this was before Baby Girl came along. I completely feel your pain.

Speaking of BG, she turned 1 year old a couple months ago! She's officially a toddler, walking around and throwing fits about the silliest things. I love her, but the kid has some serious attitude some times. And she's only 14 months old. I don't even want to think about when she turns 2. Or 15.

Kaylinn57 said:

I am constantly subjected to What I Should Have Said Theater and Why The EFF Did I Say THAT?!? Theater. Most often, my insomnia is caused by thinking about all of the things that I could have/should have said or the stupid things I did say at some point years ago.

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This is how I am, too. Or it's caused by trying to plan out conversations I know I'm going to be having and trying to be prepared for anything the other person might say. I've had a lot of those nights lately.

Kaylinn57 said:

I am constantly subjected to What I Should Have Said Theater and Why The EFF Did I Say THAT?!? Theater. Most often, my insomnia is caused by thinking about all of the things that I could have/should have said or the stupid things I did say at some point years ago.

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Head weasels are stupid.

Oooo, Head Weasels! They live in my brain!!!! Like some troll came in my Twitter mentions telling me feminism was dead and I actually laughed to myself about it because he's so off, but I ignored. Yet his words and what I could have said kept running through my brain for days. And I don't even care about him! Why does my brain persist in thinking about things I don't give a crap about?!!

Hugs to you, jtrylch, for having to prepare house for sale. So much work.
We're rebuilding our house in August, and have to move almost everything we own into the office room and the basement while they work on the main floor. When they open the floor to put in a staircase I have no idea where to put things :O The basement is currently a separate apartment we rent out, so we're going to stay there when the builders work upstairs. Then there are a few weeks where we'll be staying in whatever room is available...

In writing news, I am on a roll this weekend - have clocked in almost 3500 words, and will probably manage around 1K more tonight, getting very very close to writing THE END on this first draft My personal deadline is the end of this month, which looks realistic right now. It feels SO GOOD to be writing at this speed after months of little or no writing due to bad shoulder (improved, but might have to operate ) and work-work and life in general.

Ellaroni said:

Hugs to you, jtrylch, for having to prepare house for sale. So much work.
We're rebuilding our house in August, and have to move almost everything we own into the office room and the basement while they work on the main floor. When they open the floor to put in a staircase I have no idea where to put things :O The basement is currently a separate apartment we rent out, so we're going to stay there when the builders work upstairs. Then there are a few weeks where we'll be staying in whatever room is available...

In writing news, I am on a roll this weekend - have clocked in almost 3500 words, and will probably manage around 1K more tonight, getting very very close to writing THE END on this first draft My personal deadline is the end of this month, which looks realistic right now. It feels SO GOOD to be writing at this speed after months of little or no writing due to bad shoulder (improved, but might have to operate ) and work-work and life in general.

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Congrats, and good luck with finishing the rest of it! Hope your shoulder keeps improving, and it doesn't have to come to surgery.

Ellaroni said:

Hugs to you, jtrylch, for having to prepare house for sale. So much work.
We're rebuilding our house in August, and have to move almost everything we own into the office room and the basement while they work on the main floor. When they open the floor to put in a staircase I have no idea where to put things :O The basement is currently a separate apartment we rent out, so we're going to stay there when the builders work upstairs. Then there are a few weeks where we'll be staying in whatever room is available...

In writing news, I am on a roll this weekend - have clocked in almost 3500 words, and will probably manage around 1K more tonight, getting very very close to writing THE END on this first draft My personal deadline is the end of this month, which looks realistic right now. It feels SO GOOD to be writing at this speed after months of little or no writing due to bad shoulder (improved, but might have to operate ) and work-work and life in general.

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Oh, dear, moving or renovating is so stressful; it's bad enough when you're by yourself. Hope nothing goes wrong or the workmen 'misunderstand' you.

Good for you; it's nice being on a roll.

I too head towards THE END for my YA, but alas, it's midterm week, I'm knackered and I am working on yet another edit on another project (Legion) before the beta project begins. That's a gargantum 140k work (not YA). I'd already removed 20-30k.

Hope the shoulder doesn't require surgery. I imagine it would cost a bomb (assuming you're in the US).

jtrylch13 said:

Oooo, Head Weasels! They live in my brain!!!! Like some troll came in my Twitter mentions telling me feminism was dead and I actually laughed to myself about it because he's so off, but I ignored. Yet his words and what I could have said kept running through my brain for days. And I don't even care about him! Why does my brain persist in thinking about things I don't give a crap about?!!

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FYI for those who experience "head weasels", I learned some techniques to deal with intrusive, negative thoughts from a mindfulness meditation app I subscribe to (Headspace). I don't experience these thoughts with anything like the same frequency or intensity now. Although I'm sure the antidepressants also help.

Thank you Para! I will check that out. I'm getting better about it, but just barely. I need to banish the head weasels for good.

Ellaroni - Yay! for writing words! And good luck on renovations. The last time we did major reno we lived outside the home we were working on, so that saved us one headache. Living inside a reno is difficult. Whatever new house we buy will probably have small projects we'll work on now an then as we go along. Can't afford anything major right now. But that's going to be one of the hard parts for me. I designed, planned and selected every tiny detail of the house we are in now. And other than the original hardwood floors (that we refinished) we had all new finished surfaces. I.e. no one but us has touched them. I get kind of weirded out thinking about other people's dead skin cells in my carpet or that someone has touched this tub or a butt other than my families has been on this toilet. I know it;s slightly silly, because we have guests in our home and we go on vacation and stay in hotels, but still. The thought of living with someone else's house is creepy.

So I get to experience severe fatigue today. Yay! I have so much to do and I can't afford to sit around doing nothing. I think I'll work on my son's photo books for graduation while I wait for this episode to pass.

travelgal said:

Hope the shoulder doesn't require surgery. I imagine it would cost a bomb (assuming you're in the US).

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I am fortunate enough to live in a welfare state - in Norway, this surgery will cost me maybe $50. I'm serious! Free healthcare is fantastic. I gladly pay my taxes to be part of this. Social democracy at its best

Ellaroni said:

I am fortunate enough to live in a welfare state - in Norway, this surgery will cost me maybe $50. I'm serious! Free healthcare is fantastic. I gladly pay my taxes to be part of this. Social democracy at its best

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That sounds so wonderful. I'm watching the bills come in for my hand (two appointments - stitches in, and stitches out) and still waiting for the specialist's bill... and he suggested a month before seriously talking surgery to repair the nerve damage. It's already all costing crazy money, and I have insurance!

Good luck on the almost-finished though!

Healthcare is crazy in the US. I hope that gets fixed sometime soon. We sock away $ in a Health Savings Account, but have to use it or lose it. We have $700 left and have to use it by the end of June. I am going crazy trying to figure out how to do that (ordering contacts, refilling as many prescriptions as we can). Strange we have extra money, since my son broke his wrist last year and cost us thousands.

JTR, selling your house is no joke. I hated having to have it show ready within 30 minutes while still managing life. Hated it! I didn't want buyers to know we had cats, so I also packed up the cats and their litter boxes. That was fun.

Buying a house is no picnic either. Not one of my family members liked the house we eventually bought, but I knew it was the one the instant we walked in (4 BRs, 3 car garage, perfect location, in the target school district). My oldest son said he knew too, and thought, "Ick, this is going to be our house." He likes it now. I want to paint the walls and put granite in the kitchen and he goes on and on about how perfect all the beige is.

I'd like to say I am getting a lot of writing done, but I am not. I am learning a lot of new stuff at work, and some of it is pretty cool. I just got handed the social media stuff, which I thought was just tweeting stuff, which is easy enough, I use Twitter, but it is so much more than that. I have much to learn.

While my WIP gently weeps. (Although learning these new tricks in social media can only help my writing career, yes?) I am learning how to make really cool Twitter graphic posts.

JK, you had to spend thousands for your son's busted wrist? Holy molly!

When I broke mine, it only cost a couple hundred after insurance, but I didn't pay for it at all because my department insisted on it, since it happened on campus (thanks to black ice).

I don't get Twitter. Hell, I'm hardly ever on FB, although I'd been on that since 2007.

Not wanting buyers to know you had cats is a smart move, but given I'm allergic to cats, I would have sneezed my head off and wondered what the hell was wrong with the house.

JKRowley said:

Healthcare is crazy in the US. I hope that gets fixed sometime soon. We sock away $ in a Health Savings Account, but have to use it or lose it. We have $700 left and have to use it by the end of June. I am going crazy trying to figure out how to do that (ordering contacts, refilling as many prescriptions as we can). Strange we have extra money, since my son broke his wrist last year and cost us thousands.

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But the whole point of HSAs is that they allow you to build up a reserve. What you're describing sounds more like an FSA (flexible spending account)?

Either way, the US healthcare system is f'ing broken.

Yeah, it is probably a FSA. Money is taken out pretax for medical expenses, resets every year. They are getting more picky about what you can use it for, which ticks me off.

Mind Weasels love me so much. I find that it's easier to get rid of them when I recognize what's going on and actively work to make myself think about something else. Praying helps a lot too. For really, really negative thoughts or very strong anxiety, I often recite one of my favorite verses and then pray about it which always works.

Elleroni - Good luck with the renovations and hope your shoulder starts feeling better.

Still no writing getting done, but I think I have an idea about what I want to work on when I finally get around to writing again. I think I'm going to go back to the WIP I rewrote last year since I have a good idea for how it needs to change now that it's sat for a few months. Feels like another big rewrite is in its future.

On a sort of related note to that, how many times would you do a major rewrite of a novel before you would decide it's time to completely move on to something else? I think I've completely rewritten this story five times and I still don't feel any closer to getting it done. Granted, I started the original version of this when I was a teenager and knew nothing of how to write, but even in the last five years, I can't seem to make headway on finalizing it. It always need some major change made to make it make sense. I keep wondering if I should just shelve it and move on to other things. I want to finish it, but I also want to write other things and as long as I'm working on this, I'm not working on other things. How do you know when it's time to move on?

Parametric said:

FYI for those who experience "head weasels", I learned some techniques to deal with intrusive, negative thoughts from a mindfulness meditation app I subscribe to (Headspace). I don't experience these thoughts with anything like the same frequency or intensity now. Although I'm sure the antidepressants also help.

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I use 'insight timer' for meditation sessions. I think is similar to headspace but free. My sister likes headspace but I've not tried it yet. I wear sleep headphones which cover my eyes (these have changed my life) and listen to a guided meditation for sleep (usually something by Jennifer Percy, yoga nidra) and it usually helps, except in extreme circumstances.

Writing is going on hold as I have to write a research proposal and also have a job interview to prep for (yay!) I am going to ditch the current manuscript. I'm 9 drafts in (I'm such an effing newb) and I do love it but I think I'm flogging a dead horse now. I doubt I can sell it. Had some nice feedback from betas and for now that will suffice. I think I want to start with something FRESH when I start writing for pleasure/recreation again.

Kaylinn - As for your 'when to move on?' question, have you had betas read any version of your story? They might be able to better see what's going on with it, good and bad, if you've been involved with it through so many revisions straight. If you haven't, I suggest you give it to some trusted betas or find some new ones, telling them you know it's still not fixed. I think it's especially hard with our first novels especially to take what we've since learned about writing and make it all work. Or if nothing else, a good long break from it is probably due. Either way, sounds to me like it's time to work on something new!

One of my favorite authors has pretty much made her career from taking stories she first wrote in her teens and rewriting them, sometimes multiple times, and now they are award-winning and best-selling. But she wrote dozens of short stories in the meantime and who knows how many other projects that had to be shelved also.

It's hard for me to let go of my novels too because the next project seems so daunting, but now that I have time for writing again, I'm learning how to just write something anyway: write character sketches, write little scenes I think of, write nothing but dialog, and I move from one potential project to another from day to day, since right now that's what it takes for me to just write.

I thought everyone had a throwaway novel. I had one. I don't think it went beyond two drafts, and still such a mess. I have thoughts of picking it up one day.

That said, it is not unusual to have dozens of drafts. I had that, maybe even more for the first novel I published. I have that and maybe more on a MG novel I abandoned. My fellow writers in my critique group have up to 15 revisions on their novels, and many of them are complete overhauls, including changing the character POV, what the story is about, etc... I have now written more than a handful of novels, and I am noticing I am doing fewer revisions, yet I am still learning new stuff all the time. Lisa Cron has changed my life. Her books on getting to the heart of a story and growing it from there are fantastic! Check out Story Genius and you may be able to fix that mess (or write something else that is fantastic).

I think that is key, keep writing, whatever you are working on. If you need to give that manuscript space to breathe, work on something else. Just keep writing.

This Twitter thread is great...