New Territory and a New Title

I've done it. The book I've been slaving over for the past two years is nearly out of my hands. In the next few days, I'll submit this precious, powerful, exciting, deep, complex, and magical story to total strangers (aka: agents). To be clear, the road to find an agent is not just bumpy, it's down right uncharted. I know that I'm in it for the long haul and it may take several hundred dozen attempts before the right person comes along for this book. That's fine with me. The point is that I believe in this story, my characters, and my dream to share it with others. Sounds cheesy, yes. But, true is true.

And then it occurred to me: I'm in a brand new territory I've never seen before. I've written many books, but never taken one of them this far before. This is the farthest I've ever been from the Shire. (*If you're a geek and got that reference, pat yourself on the back.)

I want to underline for you how great it feels to push yourself. Challenge yourself daily, weekly, monthly, whatever. But do not let your days bleed into one another. Instead, mark each day with an asterisk. Make them noteworthy in your life and for yourself and/or others around you. (Note the "and/or" there. It's okay to pick you as the only one enriched.) That's what I feel like I've been doing by quietly working on this book while the rest of the world slept. I'm proud of each day I put into it.

That said, I've also played around a lot with the title. Burning Spirit always felt like a placeholder for me, so now, the current working title is The Flame Wars. That's how I'll pitch it from now on and if further down the road it needs changed, then I'll change it again. So there you have it.

* The Flame Wars by Margaret Telsch-Williams *

I rather like it. What do you think?

Getting Shit Done

So I started to write this almost apology blog post about why it's been so long since I've updated the blog. But it's been discussed before. (I'd link to all the times I've mentioned it, but I'm too busy to find them.) When I focus on writing, the blogging goes to the back burner. Not you, of course, dear readers, but the blogging. Instead this will be a post about getting shit done.

While you've been missing me terribly and suffering through having to read other fantastic things, I've been editing. If writing a novel from beginning to end was a fifty step process, I'd say I'm somewhere near forty-four or forty-five steps in.

Today I'm prepping the novel Burning Spirit to be sent to beta readers. While I'm glad to be nearing the end, I'm terrified of how much these amazing readers may point out my flaws. That's writing in a nutshell, I suppose.

Self doubt + hard work = a better book than when you started.

Take away either of those elements and the story/characters/magic may fall flat. But this isn't a writing blog, you say, so what else has been going on?

We moved! Yep, through all of this novel writing journey, the fam and I picked up and moved across town. We've done a move like this before, but for whatever reason (perhaps because it feels like I lost about 40,000 square feet of space), this move has been a challenge. I don't know where anything goes, and I don't know where anything is. Don't ask me, okay? 'Cause I don't know where it is. I'm just thankful I know where my laptop is and I can find the printer. That's really all a girl needs anyway, right?

Also, I'm still getting the plot and first draft of Burning Spirit's sequel on paper. Everything I've written I cannot wait to share, and then--much like our move--I don't know where anything goes or where it is after that. Don't worry though. About eighty percent of the story is in first draft form, so it's just the last twenty percent that needs to be written and I'm working out the best place to stop and leave off for the third book in this series.

Lastly, when I haven't been pulling my hair out with edits, I started a few boards on Pinterest. There's one for each book, in fact, so check them out and see what interests you over there. Now that's a website I could get addicted to.

There you have it, so I better get back to edits, huh?

Becoming

There's a phrase that often repeats itself inside my head. It says, "I am becoming."

You see there's a gap between the person I was and the person I am going to be, so within this gap I am becoming the person I want.

Anytime you've had a goal or a vision but aren't there yet, it's okay, because you are becoming.

You are reaching down, digging up the courage/ability/willpower/gusto to do this thing you want to do, and once you've done it, you will "be." "Be" is a good place too, don't get me wrong. "Be" is like a beach resort destination, but "becoming" is where you live the other 360 days of the year.

I've been away from the blog for a few months, but it's because I've been busy becoming. In the last two months, during this year's NaNoWriMo, I wrote the sequel to Burning Spirit, which is currently titled Darkened Sky. I've never written a sequel before. I had to adapt--to learn how to be a new kind of writer. Again, "becoming."

So, I am still becoming. And I don't mind if I wear this title for years because "becoming" is a state of constant change. Always striving for the better element.

I'm certain if you think about it, there are elements of your life you want to improve on, and so I wish you a safe travel through your "becoming" no matter how long it takes. I'd love, however, to hear where you're going, so feel free to leave a comment on your journey.

Item of Importance: The Key

A few weeks ago I wrote about Items of Importance in books and movies, and how much I love them. I also mentioned that I'll be sharing my own Items with you as I write and edit my novel, Burning Spirit. My hope is they are intriguing enough that you get a feel for the book through these items before you have the chance to read the story. Well, today I'm happy to share with you the first Item of Importance from Burning Spirit, and that item is a key.

Elsbeth, the main character, first receives this key when she goes to an inn. While it seems simple enough--insert in lock, turn--the key represents something more, something Elsbeth herself isn't aware of.

Elsbeth lives a life of secrets as she searches for other witches, but the person who gives her this key knows all too well who, and what, she is. What other doors could this key open beyond Room 9?

Total Side Note: Margaret 1, World 0

Just throwing this out there into the world that there's been much healthy debate about my novel Burning Spirit's presentation in first person, present tense.

I've gone back and forth about what to do and if it should be changed to past tense for the sake of marketability and publishing trends, etc., etc. I've even been told by a critiquer, whose critiques I adore, that present tense is good for short stories, but past tense is the "correct" form for novels.
Well, I went on vacation this past week with The Hunger Games on my Kindle and lo and behold, it's first person, present tense. In no way am I saying I can hack it like Suzanne Collins, but I am saying I now firmly believe I'm okay to leave my book as is in the tense department.

Items of Importance

Whenever I read novels or watch movies, I love when there are key physical things incorporated into the plot. I call these "things," Items of Importance.

In Harry Potter, a major Item of Importance is Dumbledore's wand, made from an elder tree. Major plot lines are constructed around it, yet most of the time we hadn't given it any thought; we didn't known it was even important, until it was. Recently, I read Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus and red scarves are used as a way to identify other "dreamers" in a crowd. The scarves become so real in this already visual tale, that I could imagine people lined up for book signings wearing them the same way kids wore Harry Potter glasses to the book and movie releases.

Items of Importance have a place in our minds because we crave for elements around us to have power or symbolism, and we want to be near to those things even when it's only in our imaginations.
As I'm writing and editing my novel Burning Spirit, I'm consciously aware of how I want to give you a few special Items of Importance to follow and hang on to. So far these include:

Burning Spirit - The Pitch

February, so far, has been a busy month. Between housesitting and just about everyone coming down with some kind of temporary sickness, it's been hard to keep up with the blog and talk to you. However, when things get busy, I keep writing. I keep working on my witch novel, A Burning Spirit, editing, cutting, adding, etc.. But, to be honest, when the squeeze of time happens, I'm sorry, I choose the novel over the blog. If I didn't, then I wouldn't have anything to submit to agents/publishers down the road but an idea, a first draft, and a lot of blog entries.

Get Thee to a Library

I don’t know if you’ve been to the library lately or not, but if you haven’t, you better get your butt in gear and go. To be "well read" or even to isolate yourself into one genre, one of the best places to do this is in between the stacks of the library. Also, for anyone to be a “good” writer (good being a relative term) they have to be a “good” reader (good meaning to read at least a book or two a month). If you buy all of your books at full price in hardcover you’re looking at spending anywhere from $300 to $360 a year on books. This could be more if you read more than one book a month. This is equivalent to buying 120 lattes or doing something that is actually meaningful with that money.