Another Missye K. Clarke 1st: A 1st Unofficial NaNo Pep Talk

It’s that time upon us–nip in the wood stove-smoke air, days are shorter, and that damnable Daylight Savings is a memory. Oh, and Thanksgiving. Food, glorious food!

And NaNoWriMo. It’s nuts. If you’ve done it, you’re nuts. If you haven’t, try it. It’s nuts. I’m doing it again. Yes, I’m nuts. Make mine pistachios, pumpkin, and pinions (oh, my!), please. 😎

So I’ll go back to Casebook #4 while you enjoy this little pepper I gave a fellow NaNo nutter frightened her book is a pile of hot garbage. It well could be; we don’t know until seeing the final version, if ever. May this give you a booster as I hope it has for her.

Oh, right . . . I promised y’all my news since last month’s post. Time to fulfill a promise, as The Patrick Bowen Files author Steven James oft says to do.

JERSEY’s got two reviews on ‘Zon at 4.5 stars! And my first-ever go for a story album submission, I made it in, squeeeee! Soon as I receive details, y’all can enjoy “Punxsutawney Kill” in the 2020 BOULD Anthology when it’s available. Although I still think I should’ve picked “Groundhog Slay” for the story title, my husband Pete says “Punx” has mure a nyah–zhuzh edge to it; its quirkyness was why I made it in “Slay” doesn’t have. Well, that, and we’re living in battleground state Pennsylvania, so . . . 😏.

Happy reading! Back again next month, Lord willing, the last before 2020 ends. What a ride it’s been, huh?

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Aawww, honey. It’ll be okay, I swear. At the expense of coming across like a mother hen to her daughter chick, instead, see me as your wise old “Slappy Squirrel” big sister (Yeah, I’m just as cudmudgeony, but I mean well.). Follow my train of thought for a bit, okay?

My first mystery I indie-published in 2018 was HARDLY the book that came to me in 2005 (yeah, 13 years, I know.). But for two stinking scenes–TWO, AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!!–in 2011, I scrapped the entire MS I’d drafted since 2005. Lord God, I about clewed the grey from the pavement outside my house, I was so mad at the time. Another writer friend from TX, sadly now deceased, reached out when she heard I was lit up. She talked me down, said this will pass, because SHE scrapped her first book, too. And from the words of a Writer’s Digest instructor during an assignment in 2009, most of the submitted chapter had a severe lack of credibility that began on a different topic altogether. Put another way: if that chapter was seriously questioned, the book around it was a hot pile of crap, but I was too emotionally invested. She said the story was fine, but where I’d plucked the execution from for it, was a poor fit.

“Eureka!” lightbulb, on!

Your MS is a pile of hot crap–so what? Every author writes or has written a book version of an Edsel. I think in past NaNos, YA author Meg Cabot said you’re going to write over A MILLION WORDS before you dig into the gold, so let this book be your trainnig ground to get you there. It doesn’t have to see the light of day in its early stages, nor should it. Leave yourself some secrecy, some dignity in how that magic came to be. The story being sound is what counts. It’s the rejected execution you’re ticked about, mad at, elated and pissed over, laughing at/to/or for that’s got you rattled–but if you know in your heart the MS needs to be trashed where it is, do it. It stinks hearing and reading these words, but trust me on this. I’m a Gemini. I’m the product of Speedy Gonzales and Ricochet Rabbit, thanks to my untreated-since-childhood ADHD. I’m a 9 Life Path; I’m naturally harder on myself than most are, and I’m not naturally prone to patience. Coming from somebody with my background, you best believe it’s damn tough to trust the process!

But everybody in our position before us were right. The scenes I’d rebuilt JERSEY DOGS around bookends Ch. 12’s “Brother . . . Oh, Brother,” to segue the badass “A Message From Ewe.” And it is badass, not because I drafted it, but because of the stinking “Wow!” magic doing it for me building it. Had I not scrapped the ’05-’11 book, “Ewe” might not’ve happened. So allow the hurt, frustration, jealousy. confusion, anger, shock and sorrow over your loss fuel you to construct an MS better, stronger, leaner, and meaner than you’d thought. Why? Because the bloat of your story’s backstory is out of the way, you know what’ll go in and/or what’ll be left out in the next MS, and you’ll know where your story is telling you where its execution lies. You’re okay. You will be. Honest. It’s just words, tools none wasted if you hold the right perspective for them, and you, in this crazy writing life.

PS: Nathan Brandsford had a blog post a decade plus back citing that you NEVER go with the first idea, because that’s likely been done, done to death, and done ad nauseum even after that. Instead, dig deep for an original story. Deeper. DEEPER! DEEPER, dammit! Go REAL deep! So deep you’ll get the bends coming back up for air. After that, let your best listed ideas marinate for twenty-four hours before picking one. It’s that story you’re living with, so better make it a doozy and make it really count for a reader to love what you do to make him smile.

And now . . . Slappy Squirrel’s got her date with two hot McG guys I’m being a NaNo Rebel for in Casebook #4, OWL ROCKA THE ROCKAWAYS. Go knock ’em dead, author! Readers, show us love, because it’s for you and for our imaginations we’re working our tails off for.