On Getting Back Up

When I first moved to Kuwait, 6 years ago, I started coaching soccer. In one season, I coached two different teams. Both of those teams went on to the finals. Both lost, but just barely. In one year, I'd established a reputation.

Not only with the other coaches, but with myself. After that first season, I expected to always be successful.

And then year two came around. I went to my first game of the season for my U-14 team. We were playing a weaker team, one we'd easily beaten the year before. I even sat some of my stronger players because I thought it wouldn't be a problem.

It was a problem. We got our butts kicked. Badly.

Vacation Writing Rocks...Mostly.

The last time I was on vacation (in the beautiful Bahamas...a place I basically had to be dragged out of) I managed to finish the first draft of my Middle Grade novel.

I was excited. It was the second book I'd ever finished writing and the first book I ever finished and went "Wow, this could actually be a published novel." (Unfortunately my first novel did not give me the same feeling. It is now trunked while I consider a rewrite).

The good news is, I'm on vacation again! (Doesn't being a teacher rock?) It's winter vacation and I have absolutely no plans. For the first time, I'm not traveling or going home (sorry, Mom). It gave me plenty of time to work on the second draft of my novel.

And I'm done! Yay! But I learned something from doing all this revising.

Revising is hard.

No wonder my students always refuse to do it.

I Think I've Been Here Before

Woot!

I've finished the first draft of my second novel.  I'm really happy about it, but it's not quite that same level of excitement that I had the first time around.

I think the difference is this time, I knew I could do it.  It's like the first time I raced 5 km.  I didn't know I could do it before.  I thought I might just pass out before the finish line.  But I made it to the finish line before I passed out.  And then there was this high that just followed me around the rest of the day. (I was a bit hyper...and probably annoying to the rest of my cross country team).

The next time I did it, I was still excited to finish, but not as excited as the first time.  You really never get that first time feeling back.

I'm really not surprised that the feeling was different this time.  At the same time, I'm actually a little bit proud of myself.  An author whose blog I followed once wrote about how important it is to finish that first novel.  How you can learn so much from it.

Well, he was right.

Even without trying, I learned a lot.  I learned not to freak out about word count (I freaked out about word count in my novel--I ended up with this totally random detour that has nothing to do with my novel.  It's just to make me have to revise and edit more). I learned about routine, filtering (which is bad!), and not getting caught up in scenes.

I learned a lot.  So this book has a lot more potential than my last one.  I really can't wait to see where it ends up when I finally get to revise and edit the hell out of it.

What did your first book teach you?

Summer Vacation

What I love about being a teacher is (besides my students--usually) is having summers to myself.  It's a great chance to explore other things that I want to do.

During the summer, I workout more, travel more, and spend more time on the internet.  This year though, I've decided to try to do more writing.  Every other summer it's been hard for me to stick with my writing routine.  In fact, last summer I didn't write at all.  That was a mistake.  It took a very long time to get back to writing after that.

For some reason, this summer is different.  I've been more focused and driven to get more done.  I wish I could pinpoint why.  I think it has to do with finishing my first novel.  It's giving me a confidence that I didn't really think I'd ever have.  Now, I feel like a writer.

My new story is also going so well. (Knock on wood).  It feels different.  In my first novel, my characters meandered and wandered and I decided to throw this in and that in.  But with my new one, everything clicks.  Every scene has a purpose and I can tell you exactly what that is.  It makes me feel like I'm closer to being published--even if this might not be the one that gets published.  (I really, really, really hope it does though).  But I'm getting there.  I can feel it.

So this summer, my goal is to write at least 10,000 words a week.  My goal is to do 2,000 words a day and take the weekends off.  Sometimes I get so involved and try to push for too much that I burn out.  I think this is a much more manageable goal that I'm pretty confident I can accomplish every week...maybe except for the week I'm on my honeymoon (just a little over two weeks to go!)

That's it for me.  Shoot me a comment about how writing affects your summers.  Is it easy to stick to your routines?