How Kristin Writes Part II

Okay. I'm about to get personal. Really personal. I'm about to post some pictures of what I've looked like when writing the ending of Immortal, Beloved: Book 2 in the Crimson Bay Series. (And think about how personal it is...my laptop screen is the only thing that sees this side of me...the troubled, contemplative, working side.)

Now, keep in mind...this ending has been in my head since early December...but for the life of me I couldn't write it. Remember the performance anxiety post? Yeah. It's plagued me for going on two months.

So finally FINALLY I buckled down, trudged through the first few paragraphs and got some GREAT writing done. I set my webcam to take an auto picture every fifteen minutes for an hour. Get ready, get set, for the progression of my writing hour. (And NO, sadly, this is not a joke.)


At first, I was ready. I was writing up a storm. The ideas were flowing. I even knew when the webcam went off. I think I wrote a few solid paragraphs at this pace. Not great. But not too bad.


Oh, and then came the irritated stage. You know, the stage when things aren't going as smoothly as you'd like (to say the least) and the writing is total and utter crap? Yup. That's my I'm never going to be able to fix the mess that is this chapter face. I start to get ticks. I bite my nails. Fluff my hair. Adjust my shirt. Change the channel on Pandora (Jack Johnson is my absolute favorite) or Facebook a minute or two.


And now I'm on a roll. The ticks have stopped. I've facebooked. I've tweeted. I've updated my blog and posted comments on others. Pandora is playing music I ABSOLUTELY LOVE. I'm in a groove. I have no clue when the webcam is flashing because, let's face it, I'm not looking at the clock. And although it looks like I'm dreaming about very important things like when the next new episode of The Vampire Diaries is coming on, I'm not. I'm editing. Hacking away the dead parts of the chapter. I'm skimming for repetitious words or phrases or clumps of adverbs and adjectives. I'm making headway. I LOVE BEING A WRITER!!


What's this a picture of? Oh, that's right. You guessed it. I hit the wall. This is a picture of me--back hurting, hands cramping, arse numbing and ravenous for more coffee. This is me a few minutes before I get up, throw some laundry in, watch some Judge Judy, make a sandwich or run circles around my dog. (Wouldn't I be bad ass if I could do all of that at once?)

I've learned that it takes me a bit to warm up to writing every day. Most of what I write sucks. It really does. But I go back, again and again, and again, every single day and smooth things over, ramp things up, and delete, delete, delete things that aren't working. (DON'T BE AFRAID TO DELETE!) (Seriously, the Immortal, Beloved "cut-out" file is 72 pages long. The actual novel will end around 350.)

So that's my progression. (And I should also add that I write for, on average, three hours per day...so this cycle repeats itself another two times. No joke.) What's your progression look like? Take some webcam pictures and see! It's great to take a look and laugh!