C+. Passing grade with no distinctions.

It was a rough week. For those of you who don’t know, I write a quasi-popular web series based on the old Choose Your Own Adventure stories. They get published over on my professional site, JenKirchner.com. My first one, called THE RELIC, wrapped up and I took two weeks off to recuperate. On Friday, my new story, SITE 27, was revealed.

Juggling the stress and production of my VOA shorts and my ROW80 goals didn’t go as well as I had hoped. In the beginning, I cruised along with my goals and I was decent about not getting on the internet while writing. In fact, I was pretty excited about my output.

Then came Thursday. Thursday night was spent solely on edits for the VOA short. I was stressed to all hell about the new story. Tom’s editorial comments, while helpful, made me feel even worse. Poor Tom. I don’t know how he puts up with me. We got a late start as it was and didn’t wrap up until 11:30 — and don’t ask me how I did with the internet that night. I was so stressed, I hit Twitter and Google+ every five minutes. If the internet was a cigarette, I would have chain smoked it. By the time I shipped the story off to Mark Lidstone, my writing partner, I was a wreck. Zero word count for that day, and no work done on my novel, THE FOURTH CHANNEL.

I think it’s clear that a daily wordcount goal is just not possible with me — not when an entire night is dedicated to editing. Weekly goals are more doable. I’m going to have to play around with it a bit more and will post a revised goal next week.

Anyway, today’s supposed to be my day off from writing, but I want to make up for what I didn’t do on my novel. When I stay away from the internet, I easily do 1k words in an hour. I did it twice this week. Easy. I’m going for that again as soon as I finish this post.

Aside from the VOA stuff, the novel really is coming along. I’m almost finished rewriting chapter 9 and I expect to wrap it up and send edits off to Tom either today or tomorrow.

I hope everyone’s having a successful week.

Anyway, yesterday when I was feeling excited about my vacation, I committed myself to a neat program for writers called “ROW80″: A Round of Words in 80 Days.

It’s for writers with lives. Basically, each writer sets their own goals and we “check in” weekly on our blogs. Whether it’s revisions or edits or flat out word count — I understand some people just make goals to plant their butts in writing chairs for 30 minutes each day.

This might be the very thing I need.

I need to have THE FOURTH CHANNEL finished soon. My hope was to have it finished in the next two months. I don’t think that’s going to happen though, not with my next Vote Your Adventure looming. That sucker takes 2 nights a week.

So let’s say this for my initial goal:

Weeks that I’m making revisions/edits: 2 chapters per week
Weeks that I’m completely rewriting chapters (only 3 of those): 1 chapter every 2 weeks
In case the above isn’t applicable, then 500 words per day (excluding Saturdays, which is my day off)
Also (this is the biggest goal) NO INTERNET while I’m writing

In the midst of that, I will also be adding two more Vote Your Adventure stories. That’s two nights a week in itself. I’d say these are pretty hefty goals. We’ll see how it goes.

UPDATE: I edited my goals on July 4, because I realize that the biggest impediment to writing is the internet. When I’m sitting at the computer, I can’t seem to stop clicking to something every 2 minutes. My goal has now been updated to reflect the no internet policy. Hopefully this will break my bad internet habit.

I get where they’re coming from. First off, I’ve read firsthand experiences by authors who have attempted it, and that it was a great idea until someone came along and publicly ripped their writing apart.

I’ve said this before, but I think it bears repeating: My VOA segments go before a crit partner and an editor before anyone sees them. Tom’s and my schedule revolves around these short stories. Wednesday night is for writing them. Thursday night has become known in our house as “Editing Night”. Yes, it’s become a thing.

I’ve seen a lot of blog stories published over the last few weeks. Some were better than others. Overall, it was painfully obvious that the majority of those stories hadn’t been given to another writer for either critique, proofing, or editing before being published.

Now if you only takeaway one nugget from my rambling thoughts here, I want it to be this:

An editor is like false advertising. They make your work look twice as good.

Artists, your “blog” is your resume.

I hate the word “blog”. I mean, unless it’s actually a blog. This website you’re reading is a blog. JenKirchner.com is not. It’s my resume. You know that one shot with readers the agents are always talking about? JenKirchner.com is that. It’s my one shot to get in front of a potential reader and win them over. And when you’ve got one shot at impressing someone, the name of the game is go hard or go home.

I went hard.

I didn’t pick a genre that was for everyone. I picked a strong niche and grabbed a bag o’tricks. I didn’t give you dialogue and romance and steep story development. I hit you hard and fast and beat the snot out of you for seven weeks. THE RELIC was gimmicky, and I knew that going into it. I did it because in many ways, it was my one shot. The next piece will be just as gimmicky, but a different bag of tricks.

One shot.

I know I won’t win everyone because THE RELIC isn’t the genre for everyone. I’m okay with that. What I’m not okay with is someone reading my work and deciding this is my first attempt at fiction and I pulled this story out of my butt. (Hopefully this hasn’t happened. Or if it has, I hope it hasn’t happened often.) The goal is to find people who are interested in my genre and keep them coming back. If I’m lucky, I might get them interested in my book, too.

The point is, maybe we should stop referring to our blogs as “blogs” and start referring to them as our resumes or even our show-stopping calling cards at the scene of the crime. In that format, our websites are another avenue of entertaining our readers. Would you show up to an interview dressed like a hobo that’s been sleeping in a cardboard box under the viaduct? No, you wouldn’t. So make sure your fiction is dressed as best as it can before you publish to your website. Send it around, get it critted, find a proofreader or an editor.

This is your writing career staring you in the face. Treat it well.

With that said: if you don’t care about my hard day and my struggles over my novel, simply stop following this blog. It won’t hurt my feelings. There won’t be a single thing I will say here that will entertain or inform you. These are my personal, private thoughts. Of course nothing is sacred on the internet, but I need a relatively-safe place to go and clear my head. This is it. If you don’t care, follow my story site instead. New Vote Your Adventure on July 8.

You’ve been warned.

So last week I cleared my head about The Fourth Channel. I got a lot of mental bile and worries out of my head, and you guys rallied in comments, emails, IM’s, and some Twitter love. And then I finished the complete rewrite of chapter 1. All 7200 words of it.

Yeah, I write Alan Edwards-sized novels. My teeny Vote Your Adventure segments are false advertisement.

Something happened after I finished. A switch flipped on. This new chapter put the book in an entirely new light for me. It’s got a whole new tone – a spring in its step, so to speak! And now that this pressing task is out of my head, a flood of fixes and changes have come to me. I’m ready to finish it. Unfortunately it’s going to take a bit of time and I’m not the fastest writer. I’m going to need some vacation time. Lately, my day job has not been good for my writing life. We’ve had a lot of people out of the office on the worsts days possible. My stress was up and I broke out in pimples all over my neck – wtf! (Seriously, I looked like I had been attacked by a starved band of vampires.) The last couple of weeks at work haven’t been conducive to my writing life or my vanity. Double-whammy.

To make a long story short, we’ve had a run of surprise illnesses, surgeries, elderly parent emergencies — and on the worst possible day you could imagine:

The day of our Division’s Reorganization announcement.

On that day, my counterpart was rushed in for emergency dental surgery and my boss’ chief of staff had to take her elderly father in for a specialist appointment. To top it all off, our VP of SysOps, who was going to help me with the org announcement “stuff”, had gotten himself into a little poison ivy over the weekend and had a major outbreak that day. It was all over his body and face (he looked horrible), and he had to leave the office to get to a doctor.

On that day, I was doing the work of 3 people.

All this was the culmination of a rough couple of weeks already with people in and out of the office, and then this. So that’s where my head was at when I spewed venom about my novel.

But I’m better now. I swear.

It’s 10:00am on Sunday and I am going to spend most of the day working on this hefty to-do list for the novel. And then I’m going to schedule some vacation time. I’d like to knock a lot of this list off before the next VOA starts.

Oh, right. The VOA. I want to talk about those, too. More on VOA’s later.

<3
Jen

I’m questioning the latter.

For the record, I have rewritten this book four times. I know, I’ve fibbed that number and said two or three, but it’s four. I get right up to the end (once I even wrote the end) and then I tuck it all away, all 110,000 words of it, and start over with a fresh page.

Tom thinks I have a fear of finishing.

And now that I have finished The Relic, people are asking when The Fourth Channel is being released.

Um…

Right now, I should be basking in the glow of some post-story awesomeness. I should be “keying in” to how amazing I felt when I wrote “THE END” of The Relic. I should be saying to myself, “Self, you should finish this first novel so people can enjoy it just as much as The Relic.” But I’ve been staring at this damn novel for so long, my confidence is low.

I think I’m going through all the normal issues that writers face. Does my novel suck? Once I finish the first novel, will I come up with another idea? Maybe my brain will run dry after this one.

I don’t want anyone to think that I’m saying these things for praise. Praise is a very cheap gas that will only get a writer so far before your car runs dry. The only thing that’s going to get me going is me. Plain and simple. I have to get a grip on my writerly balls and finish. Then publish. Probably self-publish.

I still dream of having an agent and having enough guts to approach one. But I don’t, so here we are. Self-publishing requires a different set of goals. I have no dreams of seeing my book in film. I have no dreams of being one of the most wealthy people in the world. My dreams are modest and mostly circle around self-fulfillment. For the record, my immediate self-publishing goals are (in no particular order):

1. Release book. Find 100 people who enjoy the book.
2. Become successful enough that I can work half days on Wednesdays and Fridays.
3. Write another book.

As a new writer, those are some very modest goals and could actually be attainable. I’m satisfied with starting there. But all of this hinges on finishing and releasing The Fourth Channel.

And I have some fears and issues surrounding that.

If you ask me what the book is about, I can’t tell you. No, really. I can’t tell you. It’s about a necromancer named Kari Eliana Hunter. Her talking knives say she is the worst necromancer in human history and they’re probably right. My explanation gets a little muddled after that. There are a couple of strong side plots and I’m no longer sure what the main plot line is. And in those fleeting moments when I actually get a grip on the main plot line, I have no idea how to say what it is. I’m so deep in this thing I can’t see the forest for the trees anymore.

There’s a plot in this story, I swear. I’m just so confused now that I can’t tell you what it is. Yes, that makes me feel stupid. When I decided to write this novel, I had no thoughts of ever being published. Eventually, I got better. I realized that I liked telling stories. I loved people’s reactions to the twists and turns I gave them. All of the other extracurricular things I was doing paled in comparison. I stopped doing those other things so I could spend all my free time writing. Suddenly, after that third rewrite (LOL) I wanted to have this story published. I wanted to share it, just for the sake of giving someone an enjoyable read. I still do.

You will laugh. You will be in suspense. You might even be a little scared. There are fight scenes. A lot of them. There are talking sacrificial knives who get cranky because they aren’t allowed to actually sacrifice anyone.

Now if only I could tell you what the book was about…

And to those people who keep harping in my ear that you need to have a plotline written before you begin your novel, screw you. I like being backwards. It’s my favorite thing ever.

So anyway, that’s where I’m at. I want to finish this novel but for all the problems and uphill battles I’m facing, I kind of don’t. Alan wants more stories in The Relic world. I could do that. I could do it right now, actually. Just toss The Fourth Channel and start this new idea I’ve had simmering… It would definitely be easier and would put me back at square one with the “fear of finishing” dilemma.

Anyway, so that’s where I am at. Just throwing it out there to clear my mind.

Which is good, because I might have to kill Angela.

At any rate, in the spirit of chain letters, I now must answer some questions and tag a few more people! Here we go!

1. Do I think I’m hot?

No. My boss keeps his office at 65-degrees and when the door’s open it’s like an arctic front sweeping across my cubicle. I have a space heater on standby at all times. So it’s actually 80 degrees outside right now and I’ve got a mini furnace working at full blast to combat the freezing cold. Whenever he opens his door, the damn thing kicks on. Like just now.

2. Upload a picture or wallpaper that you’re using at the moment.

Eh, I don’t really use wallpaper. I just pick a stock photo that comes with the operating system. How about a picture of me? I don’t know why. Probably also answers the question of whether or not I think I’m hot:

No.

3. When was the last time you ate chicken meat?

I have no idea why that’s phrased as chicken meat. It sounds like a vegetarian is being underhandedly judgmental. The answer is, I eat chicken almost every day. I ate it last night for dinner. I’ll probably eat it tonight, unless I decide to make some delicious pork loin. I have a food blog as well (sadly, it’s been quite neglected these last few months) and on it you will find a plethora of tasty, tasty chicken dishes.

I love chickens. They’re so freaking tasty.

4. The song(s) you listened to recently.

My iPhone is cranking all day long at work to try and drown out the general clatter of the office. I am an assistant and the company I work for has retained the phone policies of the 1980′s, forbidding most usage of voicemail. In order to hear the phones, I only wear one earbud. But the music blares in the one ear and it sort of helps.

I’ve said before on this blog that I led worship for 20+ years in Vineyard churches and that I am a classically trained soprano. However, my husband listens to metal. Since being married to him, I’ve developed a real eclectic taste in music. The reason for this little diatribe is to explain this whacky list of recently listened to:

Nightwish – Once
Anathema – Alternative 4
Hillsong Worship – Faith + Hope + Love
Passion – Awakening (various artist worship)
Neil Diamond – Greatest Hits
Cause & Effect – Another Minute
Delain – Lucidity

Yes, these really are the CD’s I listened to in the last 2 days. Like I said, it’s eclectic.

5. What were you thinking as you were doing this?

That this blog had better not explode on me again. This blog is very old. (The reason you don’t see that many posts is because, before I started Tweeting links to this blog, I either deleted or hid a lot of my older, personal posts.) Anyway, this blog and I have had a very difficult relationship. Every time I try to post something on this blog, something happens and I get mad. This is my second attempt at posting this list. On my first attempt, something crazy happened. I must have hit a wrong control-something and 2/3 of this thing disappeared. Maddening!

If you’re reading this post, it means it actually worked. If this post disappears on me a second time, I’m giving up. Uncle.

6. Do you have nicknames? What are they?

None that anyone’s said to my face.

7. Name 8 blogging friends.

Ooh, hard. I have some pretty hot friends with some hot blogs. Hrm. Okay, in random order (because of random questions following the list) and assuming I can’t tag Angela back:

1. Alan Edwards
2. Steven Montano
3. Amber West
4. Tiffany White
5. Keyboard Hussy
6. Mark Lidstone
7. Meghan Grey
8. Mira Sanz

Questions about my list:

Who is listed as Number 1?

Alan is one of my twitter posse. He wrote a epic zombie fantasy novel called Curse of Troius. (Tagline: When a fantasy world is overrun with a mob of ravenous zombies, there are no guns to stop them. No tanks. No airstrikes. Just a man with a shovel.) I actually have the privilege of reading the sequel, which is what I will be doing as soon as I get done writing this. His blog is profane and hilarious and I can’t escape just one of his posts without spewing my coffee everywhere.

Say something about number 5.

Okay, well I heard of Keyboard Hussy because Alan and Steven (#2 on the list) both followed her on Twitter. She’s a self-pub author who blogs fearlessly about writing, without worrying who she pisses off – unless she hurts people she actually gives a crap about. I have seen her soft side and it’s kind of sweet. I had a huge writer-crush on her and secretly stalked her for a long time. Now we’re buds. She’s going to interview me on June 28. What else? Um, she wrote a hilarious romance/comedy novella called “The Vampire Relationship Guide – Meeting and Mating volume 1“. The title is a little misleading; this is a story and not an actual survival guide. I laughed through the whole thing. Definitely recommend. The author name is listed as Evelyn Lafont, which is her pen name. Her real name is something else and I could tell you but she’d probably have to kill me.

I’m sure she’d feel bad about it later, though.

How did you get to know number 3?

Um, I’m not sure how it happened. I met Amber through Twitter but I think she found me through a writing community we both subscribe to, called She Writes. It’s basically a big Facebook for writers, but with forums. I was pretty skeptical about the whole place at first, but I’ve met some great friends through it. Amber started following me on Twitter and I followed back. Once day I clicked one of her blog links. She talked about poop. Right then and there, I decided we were going to be friends. And the rest is infamy.

How about number 4?

Tiffany White is a gal I met on Twitter. I gravitated to her personality but also her blog. Tiffany and I suffer from a horrible case of mutual admiration. When we start with the compliments, you best back away because it’s going to get slobbery. Tiffany loves TV and she blogs about it religiously. And Tom and I never know what to watch on TV. Ever. So now I read Tiffany’s blog and never wonder what I should watch. It’s right there on her blog. Just last week, Tiffany and Amber started a new series together called “It’s Worth A Watch Wednesday”. They go through what’s on the tube and have a cute rating system for the shows they cover. You can also catch some of their banter (and request reviews) on the Twitter hashtag #watchwed.

Leave a message for number 6.

Dude. Where’s my dialogue?

Leave a lovey-dovey message for number 2.

Oh, Steven. That grenade launcher really brings out the color in your eyes. You’re so hot. No, really. I think I got you a little with my flamethrower. Sorry about that. My bad.

Do 7 & 8 have any similarities?

Um, they’re both pretty funny and fun to talk to, but not really similar. Mira’s blog has an ongoing story with demons and angels and prophetic dreams, though it’s taken a little hiatus recently (/taps foot impatiently). She also writes some pretty gorgeous poetry. Meg writes erotica and young adult fiction. She’s got two blogs for the two different genres, and I also have the pleasure of reading bits of her current WIP, which is YA.

Thanks so much for your support in this. I hope the new Friday short is fun for all. As I said before, if we like it enough, we’ll make it a regular thing and do another story.

See you soon!

What I really can’t wait for is a short story adventure where YOU decide what happens. Each Friday, a story blurb around 500 words will be posted. At the end, a couple of choices will be provided. Vote in the comments or on Twitter. Highest vote obviously wins.

The first Adventure is called “The Relic” and Part I is ready for you. I can’t wait.

(Not to mince words but this is actually a reliquary. Relics were/are kept safe inside and having them added prestige and mystique to a church. Really, they were just a way of getting passing Crusaders to donate more money. “We’re very holy because we have one of these here relic doohickies! No, you can’t look inside to verify that it’s there. If you had faith, you’d know it was there. Now, about your donation…”)

Update: One thing I forgot to mention is that I still plan on awarding more Kreative Blogger awards, but I would prefer to continue that from the new site. So stay tuned and next week I will introduce another great blogger!

Fast forward to a year ago. I knew I wanted to become a published author and I knew that meant sharing my blog with others to some extent. Unfortunately, a lot of the things I had posted here just didn’t fit that. So I went through my blog, post by post. Half of it was either hidden or deleted entirely.

Please don’t be alarmed. That sound you hear is Tom beating his head repeatedly against the wall while screaming, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” a la Anakin Skywalker.

I probably should have left those mundane posts. After all, who is going to go back through five years of a blog? Do you really care what my Christmas Cookie list was in 2007 or that I got an A in Ancient Art History? I didn’t think so.

Anyway, I knew at some point I would need to buy JenKirchner.com. Agents recommend a professional-looking blog and having my own name as a domain makes me feel swanky. Like I’ve upgraded from diapers to Huggies Pull-Ups. So we did. (I’m a big kid now!) And then we bought a terrific looking web theme for it. (Pretty slick for just $35.00 USD. We’re going with the dark blue color.)

Next Friday, unless Tom objects, the new site is going up. I’ll transfer most of my recent posts over and this blog will be “retired”. To kick off the swanky new JenKirchner.com, we’re going to do a riff on “Chose Your Own Adventure” books.

You narrowly escape death by cave-in, only to suffocate in your closet.

Every Friday, a short story blurb (around 500 words) will be posted. At the end of the short, I will provide three choices on what to do next. Everyone votes and, of course, the highest vote will be the next step in the story. We’ll continue each Friday until the story is completed. If we enjoyed it enough, I’ll do another. Or who knows, maybe a writer friend will want to try it out and I can direct everyone there for a few weeks. (I’m friendly and I like to share.) Anyway, I already have the first scene written, and I’m very excited for you to see it. The theme will be the MUD-world we’re working on, so it’s a military-themed, post-apocalyptic, demon-infested earth. Good luck.

Friday, May 6: JenKirchner.com! Mark your calendars! (Or I’ll just remind you.)

She must have taken a page from the Britney Spears PR playbook. All she needs now is a razor and an umbrella.

When I took interior design courses in college, one of my instructors, an architect, said in any creative profession, criticism is abundant. Therefore, it’s important for people to learn how to receive various kinds feedback and criticism, even if it’s negative. She made us do presentations in front of the class so we could get a taste of what it was like. Some people did well. Some people acted like that crazy author. I was amazed at what could set people off. In some cases, the criticism was only that they didn’t follow the instructions — the poster board was not the correct size or they didn’t label correctly. The behavior of some of the people was astonishing. When I read that crazy author thread, I was reminded of the classroom critique.

There are several morals to this story — be professional and courteous, and don’t pay close attention to every single review. Seriously. I’m sure a person could go mad from it. Mostly, I was reminded of the value of learning to receive criticism, constructive or otherwise. It’s a must. As the old saying goes, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. That’s what criticism is supposed to do: make you stronger, faster, and better than before.

My writers’ group is shutting down soon and I’m going to need another. I’ve been investigating various online groups, but most of them involve hundreds of different people who don’t know each other, the criticism is hit-and-miss, and, in order to make it effective, total strangers must download your work.

Call me paranoid, but there’s something about letting strangers download your material and keep it… It’s not like I’m the next J.K. Rowling and I don’t want anyone stealing my multimillion-dollar prose, it’s more that strangers make me nervous. The next group will need to involve people I trust, not a million strangers from the internet.

If anyone out there is looking to start a smallish critique group, let me know. I’m interested.