Dawn Groves Land

Thanks for coming back.

Well, I finished NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) Nov 29th. Over 50K. Woo. I felt pretty damn good until I looked at what I’d written.

Hmmm.

So. No more podcasts to help NaNoers. They’re done. I’ll leave them up because they help folks keep writing.

I do choose to finish my novel despite setbacks (yes Carpal Tunnel I’m talking about you). The book is a mainstream coming-of-age fiction about massage parlors, set in the late 70’s early 80’s when masseuses weren’t massage therapists. It’s based on personal experience.

Yep. That was me. My wrists worked better then.

This blog is morphing to a chronicle about the writing and sale of my first novel. My new deadline is March 3rd because that’s when I’m taking the book to a conference on Whidbey Island. I plan to write another 50K this month. A personal NaNo. I’ll podcast once a week about it. Hey, if everyone else can podcast a bunch of this-is-me crapola then why can’t I? So there.

Feel free to keep me posted on how your book is going. Don’t stop writing. Let me know your goal. The Writing Chronicles have begun.

Be Afraid.

It’s too easy to allow a rough draft to languish forever; new projects always look more appealing. But your work deserves better. This podcast will help you recharge your energy for transitioning into the next phase of authorship: rewriting and editing.

Note: My nice new microphone suddenly blew out. grrrr. And the substitute mic makes me sound a bit stuffy. Please excuse.

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No matter how many times you’ve started a project and then stopped it, you can start it again — fresh. This podcast will help you begin anew and perservere.

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Yesterday I managed to dictate 2000 words of bad dialogue using my voice input software, Dragon.

“Damn you carpal tunnel syndrome. I’ll see you in hell!”

The problem is that I lose the words as I speak them. I have a decent vocabulary but it often rests on the tip of my tongue as I struggle to find it. That is, I used to struggle. Now I simply stop talking and wait for the word to come. It usually takes about five seconds of silence. My family and friends have adjusted to this odd, staccato-like form of speaking. Other people just think I’m a stroke victim.

It’s a big problem when *writing* with Dragon because when I lose the word, I lose the flow. And I then I curse. Unfortunately, words such as damn, sonofabitch, and shit are not part of Dragon’s resident vocabulary so when I say *Oh Shit,* the program types *on pit* or *off sit.* Not at all satisfying.

Now I’m training Dragon to swear. It’s necessary for my novel and, well, it’s fun in a look-up-butt-in-the-dictionary kinda way.

In other news, my word count is still low but I’m picking up speed. WriMo radio gave WriteNow a nice plug yesterday (except the URL was wrong — off sit), as did Mur’s I Should Be Writing podcast and Debbie Ridpath Ohi’s Inkygirl site. It’s great to be valued by other writing-specific productions. Much obliged.

It’s about time for writer’s resistance to rear its ugly head. Fortunately there are a several strategies you can use to manage it. This podcast is one of them.

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