books

Year In Review

/ emhardenburger / Leave a comment

This writing blog has been sorely neglected. For those of you that follow–I apologize! This absence of posts reflects the busy year and introspective change in my attitude as a writer. I suppose that statement requires an explanation that I’m afraid will be rather lengthy, but, luckily for me, it’s cold outside so there’s not much better to do than hole up indoors with a computer and read this missive. I’ve always been fond of lists as they organize my always disorganized thought process, so here follows a list of what I’ve done this past year in writing and life.

I Started Another Blog 

For those of you who follow me via Facebook, this is old news. For you exclusive WordPress followers, this will be new. In March 2016, at the urging of friends, I decided to take my fashion obsession to the Internet and begin a style blog called Luna Elise. I have been lucky enough to have several amazing shoots with friends and, through these talented photographers, I have met even more connections to collaborate and shoot with. Books and clothes are two of my favorite things in life, and I have definitely enjoyed extending some effort towards fashion. Since Luna Elise’s inception, I have come a long way. I’ve gained a decent following, become a more confident model, gotten a sponsorship with a well-known online boutique and even made the runway model roster for Kansas City Fashion Week! To learn more about my other blog, check it out at http://www.lunaelise.com!

I Traveled a LOT 

This past year has been crazy and amazing with the amount of traveling I’ve done. Aside from going to Cancun, Colorado and Austin, I also went on a once-in-a-lifetime road trip with my boyfriend. The exhaustive list of places visited–The Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, Devils Tower, Yellowstone, Glacier National Park, Crater Lake, Seattle, San Francisco, LA, Las Vegas, The Grand Canyon, Aspen–plus all the amazing highways and little gems along the way. The entire trip was a month long, then we immediately headed out to Colorado with my Dad for the annual mountain climbing trip. All this travel amounts to nearly two months of my year, which is a pretty ideal work:play ratio if you ask me. 🙂

I Did Writer’s League of Texas Conference Again

The travel wasn’t all play; I attended the WLT Conference in Austin in June. This was coming off of the huge realization that Capacitance needed a much more involved rewrite than I had envisioned. As I went back through the story (which I originally thought I would have rewritten for the conference and ready to pitch), I realized that the entire storyline needed work, needed depth. It was frustrating, but necessary to accept. Thus, I went into the conference ready to pitch ideas, not land a deal. I remember sitting in my hotel room right before pitching to an agent, brainstorming a plot that I would pitch on the fly in 10 minutes time! The plot I pitched was DRASTICALLY different from the original Capacitance. It still has the same characters, but the set-up is quite changed. I pitched to Jessica Papin at Dystel & Goderich (despite my former rejection there), and bluntly asked her if she thought the idea was salable and good. She said yes, and that she would like to see the rewrite. But here’s the thing–I have no idea whether to believe the agents at these conferences. Especially at the pitch sessions. We pay to pitch to them, so I am wary of their reactions. It is so much more comfortable to say something encouraging even when you’re thinking how much it sucks. Hurting someone’s feelings is uncomfortable. So, maybe this is just my perpetually hyper-critical brain being paranoid, or I’m onto something here. Almost all agents at conferences say they want to see material. Honestly, I think that’s just easier on them than saying no. What’s another email to just delete? All said and done, my experience at WLT was interesting, but it just added to my general frustration on the professional world of literature.

I Took A Break

Which leads me to my next point. My six weeks of traveling came hard on the heels of WLT, and I took that as a sign to pause and breathe. Jessica Papin wasn’t going to be sitting with bated breath at her computer waiting for my revamped version of Capacitance. She might not even really want it anyway. So, I decided to give my mind a break from my characters. It may not make sense to anyone but the writer, but your characters are always with you. The brain is always carving away at them, shaping them and trying to fit them together into this perfect story. Believe it or not, it’s rather difficult to make the mind stop doing this! However, as Johnny and I hiked mountains, walked beaches, and sipped poolside drinks, I was able to let the characters go and give my mind a much-needed respite from what had been a very high pressure journey of expectations that were too high on a timeline that was way too short.

I Moved 

After our travels, not wanting to cease our constant companionship of the past six weeks, Johnny and I moved in together. It was a very natural choice, especially since I no longer needed the secluded haven of living on my family’s farm. However, my delicate, over-thinking writer brain always needs time for the proverbial waters to settle after they are disturbed by any major change (thanks, brain), so during this transitory time, the characters in my mind continued to stay silent–or were drowned out by all the other noise. Until one day they spoke up again. Although this time it wasn’t Mara and Runey clamoring for my attention, it was a completely new story, inspired by this old, odd river town I’d moved into. A town where Victorian mansions march up and down the riverfront hills, shoulder to shoulder with a Catholic university and mystery fills the air (to romanticize it heavily). It’s always said to write what you know, and I think small town Kansas fits the bill and represents an unexplored potential for stories. Johnny and I aren’t in this small town by choice but rather by career moves, but I think this piece of our puzzle serves several purposes, one of them being major inspiration for a new novel. I am not going to say much more about this project I am working on. I’ve already said too much about it! This time around, there won’t be any jumping the gun. No aspirations of fame dancing in my mind after the first draft. But I will say, I am excited about this project and I’m approaching it in an entirely new way by doing more planning and structuring of the plot before I start writing. So now I appear more lazy than ever since much of this work has been contained to the old cranium thus far (HA).

In conclusion, no, I haven’t forgotten Mara and Runey’s story. I don’t think I ever will forget it. That statement makes it sound so final, and that’s not intentional. Truly, I plan to tackle that saga again in the future and implement new ideas–maybe even the ones I improvised 10 minutes before pitching! That being said, I am in no hurry to get back to Capacitance. I got severely burnt out on it and I want to make sure I am fully fresh and ready to be excited by the project before I start it again.

What’s in store for 2017? Already, I have a lot of travel planned. The Luna Elise blog is picking up steam. Thus, there will be distractions. However, I am going to go into full-on writing mode. Like, hide in the basement with notes all over the walls and a giant white board full of outlining writer-mode. The downside of going offline in my writing mind for so long is that it makes it VERY hard to get back into the habit of self-discipline and treating writing like a job. That is the ultimate struggle. So, 2017 is going to be a tough one. I welcome your encouragement and understanding of my very infrequent blog posts. 🙂

 

New Year, New Horizons

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I promise this won’t be a stereotypical New Year’s resolution post–but with the coming of 2016, I have some different goals in mind for myself as a writer.

Last year, the goals were unrealistic. I think every writer goes through this–they’ve finished a novel, they can’t believe they actually wrote a novel, and naturally said novel will soon be famous. I definitely fell into this trap. There’s a fine line between believing in your book, and being blinded by your book. I’ve crossed this line, toed it, jumped back over it and fled back to the other side of it to huddle in scorn of my own art.

Looking at the big picture, this is a natural process. And it’s one to learn from. I have never been a good conceptual editor, so one of my goals for this year is to be less afraid to go back and make big changes to my work. Slogging through a rewrite is something I still haven’t worked myself up to a fever pitch of excitement about, but it’s something I need to do.

Last year, I had the big goal to finish three manuscripts in one year, all the while querying trying to sell my first book. This is too much. Not only was it jumping the gun on the query trail, it led to such burnout for the series in general. I need to set more realistic goals for myself. Aggressive writing goals, still, but not burnout inducing, one chapter a day or I’m in trouble type goals.

Finally–and this may be the biggest change–I had a comment on a previous blog post, which I unfortunately deleted by mistake because technology and I don’t get along at times, that talked about keeping multiple projects rolling at once. Different manuscripts that you can bounce back and forth between when you’re getting really sick of one or the other. I love this idea, and it especially speaks to me because I want to try my hand at other genres. I’ve been told over and over again, why not try romance/erotica? I never would have envisioned myself for this genre, but the more I think about it, the more I say “Why not?” Obviously, I picked a very hard sell genre to start out with–dystopian, over sold–so by branching out to see how other genres fit, I hope to grow as a writer and become more confident in all areas and find my niche.

Those are my writerly goals for the year. I will admit, it is going to be difficult to keep to them and make big moves this year as I have a whole lot of personal changes in the works for this year (think business start ups and a big out of state move). Stay posted, and I hope everyone is having a spectacular start to 2016!

Reading, Writing and…Well, Who Needs Arithmetic Anyway? ;)

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It may sound cliche, but I feel as if my best education in writing has come from the books I’ve read. In today’s MFA culture, sometimes the degree one has seems to count for more than practical experience. While a master’s degree in creative writing would certainly be valuable, I think its important not to discredit the hands on learning that books offer an author.

I have been reading since I was very young and it has always been my preferred escape rather than the sports or video games that my contemporaries engaged in. I don’t believe there has been a time in my life where I haven’t had a book I was currently reading. In college, my reading list became somewhat dictated by my English professors, but the point is, I kept reading.

Thus, in the back of my mind, I always wanted to write one of these stories like the ones I have devoured constantly. And, when the time came (after so much writer’s block!), I found it relatively easy to let the words flow and trust that they would fit themselves into at least decent construction of a novel.

I think this osmosis of writerly learning is best demonstrated by how I have navigated through writing a trilogy. Characters popped into the storyline and filled in little gaps, complicated the plot, and I had usually not premeditated their arrivals all that much. When I started writing Inductance, it was second nature to me to gloss back over some of the major events from Capacitance in the first chapter, to refresh readers (even though I personally let my eyes skim over these reminders in books that I read).

As well as giving one a sense of how stories are crafted, a lifetime of readership can provide the wealth of random and seemingly useless knowledge that a true writer will have accumulated in their gray matter. I can’t tell you how many times I have spouted off with some random fact or known the answer to a trivia question in a board game, and when questioned how I came by that knowledge my answer was, “from reading.”

So, if you’re a writer, don’t spend so much time trying to get your book on the shelves that you forget all the other titles alongside it. And even if you aren’t a writer, never underestimate the mind expanding nature of a good book. 🙂