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How once woman went from being a SAHM of four to a published freelance science journalist |
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I'm revising this intro after more than 15 years to better reflect my intention When I started this blog in 2004, I was a stay at home mom to two small children, a college graduate with a degree in English and Astrophysics. By 2007, I had four small children, ages newborn, 2, 4, and 6. For several years, Writing.com was how I kept my sanity. This blog began, first as a way of staying connected. Later, when I worked on a novel, I used it to stoke the writing fires as I plotted out short stories and the next step of my novel. Ultimately, I moved my writing preparation to "Invalid Item"  In 2010, I became a single mom who had homeschooled her children for several years. I had a 2, 4, 6 and 8 year old and had never had a "real" full time job, since I was married while in college. Everyone told me that I would have to buckle down and take on a "real" job. Instead, I decided to attempt to live my dream: to make it as a writer. I knew that if I didn't try then, I would never really dive in. I counted my money and set a deadline. If I hadn't began making a decent (defined) amount of money after so many months, I would suck it up and get a J-O-B. After some thought, I decided to play to my strengths. I served an internship at Sky & Telescope magazine while in college and enjoyed writing about space and astronomy. With an astrophysics degree, I thought I would be able to sell myself more easily, and a small niche should be easier to penetrate. It's been about ten years since I was first paid for an article on Space.com. In that time, writing - journalism - has been my primary moneymaker. I've often thought about setting up a blog on my website - www.astrowriter.com - but just haven't gotten around to it. There are a few things I would like to share for those who are interested in scientific journalism in general. Now that I'm back on WDC, there's no reason not to combine the two and use the site blog for that sort of interaction. There are certainly plenty of folks on this site interested in the publication process. So while I'll probably meander around some, that's the intention of of this blog: to share some of my struggles as a published journalist and to help answer oft-asked questions. |
| So...yeah, I failed. I don't know what's going on over here but I cannot seem to motivate myself to write. I have basically the entire novel scripted in my head, but when it comes to sitting down to do it, I have the blahs. Probably a side effect of real life. I am working on changing my attitude, being more positive, etc. We also got our new homeschooling curric in the mail and started it last week, which had everyone excited. I'm prepping my oldest for her first standardized test <shudder> and trying to plan out our field trips and next year. Plus wrap up this year. I have to turn all sorts of crap paperwork, including a portfolio, at the end of June, and I'm trying NOT to postpone preparing it until then. So combine hectic with blahs, and you get no writing. I've also been doing some thinking abt the blahs. For one thing, I'm wondering how much is really a part of me just not feeling motivated to write a love story. I picked up the Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull, who was one of the speakers at the writing workshop. It's slanted towards 5th and 6th graders, but based on what he said, I figured my daughter would love it (and she did). I've started reading some other books in about that range, and it's had me thinking abt writing for that market, or perhaps just a touch younger. I've mentioned before that there is a dearth of boy-geared books in that reading range, and I also realized there are very few books at all that have homeschoolers as main characters, that aren't basically about homeschooling. So I've been thinking about that. Finally, we've been watching an (excellent) History Channel video on Alexander the Great, and I'm determined to learn as much as him as I possibly can. He's amazing, in a scary kind of way. But as I'm watching this video (15 mts at a time, with the kids, because it is geared for adults and my daughter doesn't have a huge interest once they stopped talking abt his horse), I started thinking about a historical novel in that time period. I was already thinking abt a YA novel that touches on that, but this seemed like a good way to merge the two. In fact, I could probably come up with three novels somehow relating; a 5th/6th grade level, a 3rd/4th grade level (already have the idea for that), and then a grown up novel. The first two shouldn't be overly difficult to write, although I may just keep with the two. So I'm back and forth. I mean, I already have a novel in my head, I know how to write it, I just have to do it. But I feel very blechy about it at the moment, while I am actually kind of excited about the other two. Of course, it may well be that it's not the novel, in which case I'll slog through it. I started taking some anti-depression meds in January, and while talking to a friend of mine from high school, who is a pharmacist, about some things, he said he wound up dropping it because he no longer felt like playing the guitar - and that's his passion. So it could well be the meds. Or it could be situational. Or it could be the novel. Or it could just be that I'm a big fat slacker. <sigh> Anyway, I'm going to continue to learn abt Alexander. I know I'd like to write a novel about him at some point, but I'm not certain exactly what the storyline would be. But I want to follow his rise and fall, so that gives me a base. We'll see. In the meantime, even if I study him in depth and never write anything, I will have learned something, and that's pretty cool. |
| I don't know what the deal is, but I'm off to a slow start. Maybe it's because I skipped my warmup, or maybe it's because I'm essentially rewriting a beginning that I already liked. Actually, it's probably the second one, and what I really need to do is basically restructure what I wrote in December that was already from Jonathan's point of view. I originally intended to just rewrite from scratch but here's what happened today: I wrote the first scene, and then I realized that the one I already had was, in fact, better. So I deleted the two pages I had already written and replaced them with three better pages. I don't know if that is making me feel blaghy, or if it is because I didn't do my warmup, or if it's because I'm tired. You see, over the last few months I've been rather depressed and sleeping, and today I got up early. Actually, that's probably what is really doing it: I got up and took the kids to the library and then the grocery store, and so now I'm exhausted. You wouldn't believe how quickly taking four kids somewhere wears me out. I'm trying to convince myself to write anyway, but I feel like my brain is mush. I'm really considering either napping - seriously - or stopping. I worked for an hour. I know, big whup. I think I'm lazy. But seriously, I'm changing around a lot of routines, including doing more housework - when I'm depressed, the cleaning goes out the window, for some reason, lol - as well as writing. I say that as justification because I can feel the tempting voice in my head telling me to go play WoW. Ugh. Now, in my defense, I gave up on a raid last night to go to bed early, which is like huge for me. And I really haven't played all weekend, because I was out of town. All of these, however, are LAME. I think the rewriting is frustrating me. Maybe what I really need to do is print out what I already did and just rearrange it. Hmm. I am supposed to take my daughter to Girl Scouts tonight, and then the other three kids and I will be hanging out at a nearby park. I think I will just print those out to rearrange, and then tomorrow I can do that. So, yeah, I'm wimping out, but uh...writing is a muscle? And uh you have to ease back into it? Wow, so many excuses, so little time. |
| Well, I was going to actually go to bed before 11 - I turned the comp off already - but I realized that if I wait to blog this tomorrow, I'll spend too much time on the wrong focus. Instead, I figure I will write a bit tonight, and then tomorrow will begin my regular pre-writing exercises. First, let me tell you about my weekend. I went to a writing workshop, which all by itself is just a cool thing. This particular workshop, however, was headed by one of my favorite authors, Orson Scott Card. Also in attendance was Brandon Mull, author of Fablehaven (which I am checking out of the library tomorrow), Aaron Johnston, who collaborated with Card on one book and has worked on several other projects, and Edmund Schubert, who edits the s-f magazine Intergalactic Medicine Show and wrote a book I can't wait to read, The Legend of Dreaming Creek. The entire experience was awesome. There really is no other way to describe it. It was an 8.5 hour session, with a working lunch, and it really rekindled in me my desire to write. But more than that, I really felt the creativity come to life during the brief assignment - like a 15 mt assignment - we were given. As soon as Card said, "I want you to write..." my brain started jumping over the subject and coming up with what I needed to put down on paper. That in and of itself made the workshop worth the money, but there were other things that really helped me, as well. Most of what helped me was more in the way of giving me a clear picture of something I knew instinctively, which reaffirmed my confidence in my writing skills. This website helped me accomplish that, as well. You know how you can read something and it doesn't quite fit, but you aren't sure why? Well, reviewing on WDC seriously helped me put my finger on those things, which then enabled me to watch for them in my own writing. Similarly, the workshop helped me to make concrete some things that I kind of felt but didn't have concretely, and I know that will help me. For instance, I'm pretty sure I posted here at one point that I just didn't have enough in terms of setting. So I think it was Card talking about point of view, of all things. In discussion of 3rd person limited, he noted that those things in the setting that will stand out are only the things that the PoV character will notice, and because that's what they notice, we learn something more about them. Now, of course, this doesn't mean to avoid setting, but glopping it on so thickly that it distracts from the story at hand is fail. I think that's one of those things that I knew instinctively but questioned, and I think that knowing it in my head will help me to smooth out the story itself. What else. I took 8 pages of notes, and I'd like to put up here what really stood out, just so I keep a record of it. And also because I know you are dying to know.   In his introduction and discussion of marketing, Brandon Mull and OSC pointed out that book signings are not about selling books. The people who want you to autograph their book already know who you are, and are already fans. Signings are about building good will, particularly with book store employees. Those are the people who, when someone comes up and says, "I'm looking for a book about such-and-so," will remember and recommend you. I never really thought about it (in part because I have yet to reach the point where I think about book signings, lol), but in retrospect it makes perfect sense. Edmund Schubert, in talking about how he became a writer, said that after hemming and hawing and "one day I'm going to write a novel," he finally got around to "deciding to do it." Card talked about the revision process, and how some writers get married to an idea. "That's how it happened!" they insist, to which he responds, "You made the whole thing up! None of it happened!" He said, "If you want a career as a writer, you will change anything to something that's an improvement." (He caveated from 'change anything'.) The intro was done, Card said, to show us that each of the four of them took different paths to publication, and that there is no "one" way. But they all had something in common - "We actually wrote" Speaking on intros, Card noted that most editors only read the first two pages of a novel submission. They are looking for good writing, and if you fail to deliver, you fail to sell. He also stated that hooks were cliched and amateurish. Card did a great lecture on PoV. Although I know all of them, he talked about why 1st person was in fact the most difficult and why 3rd person limited was the most liberating. He also talked about the various levels of penetration in third person limited, and staying consistent in them. I honestly did not realize that there were varying levels.  Again, in retrospect, it's obvious. The whole thing inspired me to pick up and review a grammar book, although I have a pretty good familiarity with grammar. As Card stated, as writers, we should know our tools, and that means grammar. Next, Card did a presentation on Inventing the Story. The first part of this literally consisted of the 40-50 people in our group putting together the bones of a story. Card wrote the details on the board as we came up with them. When we finished the exercise (and I was kind of excited to write the story we had, lol), he made us think about how each detail came about. It was because Card continually asked "Why?" and "What result?". This exercise really helped me not just when it comes to creating a brand new story but I think it will help me get through writing blocks, to reason my way through them. Well, maybe not to reason, but to imagine. I should add that, again, this is something I have done instinctively, but not deliberately, and the recognition of it as a deliberate act will, I think, help me significantly.Okay. I'm tired. Actually, I'm exhausted. I want to continue to review my notes, because that's one of the best ways to really grow from them, but let me skip to the next step for the moment. I'm restarting my novel. I did actually write about twenty pages in December, but it's been so long, and I rethought my intro, that I think I'm going to start over from scratch, just to keep the flow. I think I can continue with the 4,000 words/day or 20k words/week, which would have me finished in a month (ironically, just before my birthday). Or, if not finished, close. Furthermore, one thing that really surfaced here is "why are we writing this story?" or "why should this story be told?". Among the answers was the "write for yourself" answer, which is one that somewhere in there I forgot. So I am going back to it. One last thing. I drove home 5 hrs today, by myself, because the kids stayed with my husband this weekend. I spent a lot of that time thinking about my novel, and what I am going to do with it. I am really excited about starting it again, and about getting it finished. The entire workshop was an excellent experience, and I felt like I grew tremendously from it. I can't wait to get started writing again, first thing tomorrow. Of course, this life revision also means I have to cut back on my gaming...I'll try to survive that somehow. |
| Yeah, so, it's been awhile. And it will continue to be awhile. Real life is being a monstrous pain and I am doing as little thinking as possible. I have lost motivation and, quite honestly, I'm really depressed at the moment. Here is a sure sign of my depression: I lay in bed at night, and I see scenes from my novel in my head. And I carefully choose the words for each scene, and I analyze how to move the descriptions along quickly while making the reader feel as though they are part of the action. And yet, when it comes to applying pen to paper - or fingers to keyboard, in this case - I have no desire to sit down and do it. I have solved many of the problems I have with the novel. I think I will be okay writing from Jonathan's PoV. There is one singular question I have left, one problem I am trying to sort out, and then I'll be good. Otherwise, I know how I want the novel to go. I can see it in my mind. And there is a part of me that wants to make it happen. But. Most of me is very lackluster and doesn't care. Most of me just wants to stay in bed with my covers over my head. So the rest of me does. One of these days.... |
| Still trying to get the RL stuff sorted out, which of course is distracting me. But along the way I've been thinking about my novel. I've been trying to figure out a few structural issues, and I realized something tonight. I have been making Jonathan act out of character. First off, I planned to write one whole section of trust building. In the first draft, it took something rather catastrophic for him to trust Caroline. But Jonathan, by nature, is an open and rather trusting guy. He's not naive or gullible, and he's going to be slow to doubt because the villain, Alex, was his friend, but he's not going to take years to build trust, and it won't require something huge. So on the one hand, this is good, because of course I want to write him true to character. But on the other, it sucks, because the gist of that section was the building of trust. I suppose I can make it happen but faster, and I can go a little more in detail on the settling in. Actually, because it's his first introduction, I'm going to have to, so that's good. Actually, that works out perfectly, I think. The other problem I have is that in the first draft there was some fifty years between their meeting and their hooking up/falling in love/getting married. Again, it's not realistic, although as I think about it, it probably is close for Caroline. But for Jonathan, no. He's going to realize he has feelings for her before his first leap. And because he's a very direct, up front person, he's going to talk to her about it. This is the part I realized tonight (I realized the other part earlier, although I struggled with how to resolve the technical problem). Now I have to figure out how she's going to handle it. I mean, to say, yeah, we got married about fifty years ago, well that kind of sucks on the tension. It also could damage their relationship, in changing it. Well, I dunno. You act differently if you know someone is going to say 'yes' than you do if you don't know, you know? And you might start to second guess yourself. Not Jonathan, though. I dunno. I'm going to bed. Someone told me I am having a motivation problem. No s***. I had some excellent motivation for my first draft but I honestly don't believe I will ever be that motivated again. I'll get it done anyway. But on less motivation. |
| So, yeah, it's been awhile, and it will probably be a bit longer, what with all the real-life stuff going on. Which is mostly a mass of confusion, and when I get down time, I'm using it to engage in something that takes essentially no brainpower, ie playing Warcraft. All of that said, I have still been thinking about various parts of my novel, and trying to figure out a few essential 'how will I make this work' areas a little further, so it is still in my head. I've also been replaying parts that I pretty much know how they will end, trying to keep them fresh in my brain so that when I sit down to write, I can make them happen. Finally, I told you that I gave my first draft to a friend; there were a few points that I was a little iffy on that I wanted to see if he thought they came out reasonable or if they were a stretch. I'm still not sure I'm completely there on writing from Jonathan's point of view, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to put in one or two scenes that were told from Caroline's PoV because Jonathan wasn't there, as well as how to bring some of Caroline's thoughts and memories to life without overplaying it. So there are still kinks, although in all honesty if I just sat down and wrote through them, I would probably come up with how to make them work. But we'll get there eventually. |
| So last night I went to bed with my novel running through my head, which actually is the first time in the last two weeks that has happened (and a pleasant change, I might add). In addition to coming up with quite a few solutions to some problems that have been plaguing me, I also realized what is holding me back at the moment. I've been blaming my hesitation on writing from the male perspective, but the fact is, I've written from the male perspective before, and I've done a decent job at it, I think. And writing from Jonathan's perspective, the same thing. I'm pretty sure I've written some form of love/romance also from that PoV. So I was laying here, doing a back and forth, and asking myself, what am I, a fail writer, or am I a good writer? Can't I put myself in someone else's shoes, even if that someone else is a guy? Am I not a strong enough writer for that? And the answer, I think, is yes. The problem is, I think, that I've invested too much of myself into Caroline. Also somewhat fail. There are a number of differences, but in many ways, we are very similar. And so to write about someone being in love with her is just...kind of strange. There is a solution to that, of course. Change her. And actually, there are a number of things that need to be shifted in her character, because as I think I mentioned earlier, she is very flat and stagnant. Hopefully that will make a difference. But the biggest thing I need to overcome - and now that I recognize the problem, I think I can do it - is that split between us. Like I said, recognition should make a difference. I am so sick. Like, someone just called me on the phone, and I was all, I'm sorry, I'm sick, and they were all, yeah, I can tell. So I have a bunch of stuff in my head that I need to write down but I am soooo tired I don't know if I can do it. Even sitting up is killing me at the moment. Ugh ugh ugh. |
| Yeah, so obviously, I took some time off. I'm not sure if I'm reinvesting. Haven't said anything to the kids yet, everything is changing, real life is too confusing, fiction is usually better and I probably would've wrapped myself up in it but for a couple of things. Not the least of which being a total devistation at the idea of writing from Jonathan's PoV. On the other hand, that should keep it from being overly sappy. But still, I am so not a guy, and writing any form of romance from the male perspective freaks me out. I've played with the idea of switching between the two but a) that's too complicated and b) I don't think it would work because then of course one would spill things about the future. I'm not sure I'm quite ready to sit back down - still juggling RL - but I'm trying to get things orderly and hopefully by next week I can be on track, although I've considered trying to get back into it tomorrow. I might spend this week doing some mapping and ordering, since I'm basically changing the entire novel around. I'm just not quite sure I can handle Jonathan's perspective, I feel a lot of self-doubt here, on top of the regular novel-writing self-doubt I've struggled with for years. So also on my plate is the plan to work on regaining that self-confidence without relying on others, and to hold onto it. But that, of course, is like a whole personality change, so I dunno. And for now, we're trying to make the marriage thing work, so.... We haven't said anything to the kids yet. |
| Yesterday's Word Count: 3,020 Total Word Count: 4,804 Wow. I don't even know what to say. I seem to be losing my drive. I don't know what the deal is. Granted, I got a late start yesterday, btu I allowed myself to get distracted by inconsequentials and never finished the writing. Part of the problem is that I am struggling to find a voice with Jonathan. When I was writing from Caroline's PoV, Jonathan was a lot different. Personality-wise, he's still very much the same, but because I lose some of the effect he has on Caroline, it changes how I write him. Also, there's a couple of things I'm trying to wrap my head around. And then most exciting - there is supposed to be an underlying love story to the novel, which I have already been having a difficult enough time writing. Now I'm supposed to write it from a guy's perspective, which is just insane. For that, I really need to pick up some more Koontz books and see how he covers it. There's a fourth issue, too. My husband and I had a couple of long discussions and worked out a custody and child support arrangement. What we decided was that after the house sells, the child support will go up to $2,000/month. That is a significant jump from the aforementioned $1,500/month, and while it's not long-term significant, it takes off some of the edge. So because the need isn't huge, I've allowed myself to slack when the writing has gotten difficult. My goal is still to get published; $24k is at the high end of the poverty level, but it's still poverty level, and there won't be room for things like retirement or college savings. And not a lot of wiggle room. So, I probably won't be stressing per se about getting published, but I am going to continue to write novels and get it done. I am going to hit that 5k/day goal for this week, and I'll probably keep it at that level post-divorce, although next week, etc will be tougher once we break things to the kids - and I'm fine with that. I know it's doable, and I'm going to do it. As for me, well, I'm borderline falling apart, borderline doing alright. It switches on a daily basis. Thank God - I mean that literally - for good friends to walk me through. They've been a big help. |
| Well, everything seems to change around here faster than anyone can predict. My husband generally never has work the last week of the year, simply because most places are closed, so he decided to take the kids and go to Georgia to visit his family. Well, actually, it was my idea. I thought it would be good for the kids, and not so bad for him, either. We haven't told them yet, we're going to tell them next week. What this means, from a writing perspective, is that I am here, by myself, all week. If there were ever a week that I was going to nail 10k a day, this would be the week. Of course, I'm off to a lousy start; I slept in today and got up at one. And I need to change the oil on my car, too, I had to go buy a wrench so I'm waiting for the engine to cool. I figure I'll wait til I get stuck writing and do it then. So anyway, I went ahead and hung out with and played with the kids last week, and just kind of chilled on the writing, knowing this week was coming - that's my lame excuse. Okay, I was also kinda ticked about the whole idea of a rewrite, too. Especially since I should have known it was coming, given how flat I felt about the story. If I'd known how big a help Ben was going to be, I would have bent his ear about the novel way back when. He talked me through some good stuff.It's already 3:15, so I dunno if I'm going to make the 10k deadline today, but at a minimum, I'm knocking out 5k. I don't have to stop and make dinner, or get up to check on the kids, so I'm writing til I'm done. And if I can get done fast enough, then I might, might go up to 10k, but probably not. We'll see what happens. The kids are driving back Saturday, so that actually gives me six days of fast and furious writing, which should get me pretty close to the end. Of course, that ignores the fact that somewhere in there, the story I originally wrote is going to change, and I'm going to have to figure out how to write the details. LOL Of course, the whole stinking story has changed, so I don't know why that would make a huge difference. |
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