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Something amazing happened this week.  I sought out experts and asked them for short interviews.  This is the amazing part – out of the six I emailed, four responded with “yes, I’d love to talk to you about this.”  (Or words to that effect).

I can’t believe it!  I know this makes me sound gauche, but I’m stoked that it worked.  Aye, but here’s the rub:  I am fundamentally a shy person.  I’ve never outgrown this, however I have learned how to deal with it in my professional life.  Still, when I received responses to my request this week, I felt myself start to freeze.  I began to experience the numbness that shy people feel as they try to disassociate from what is uncomfortable to them.  I felt fear.  I felt the need to flee.  What do I do now, I thought, I have to follow through.

So, I picked up the one thing that has always helped quell my fears and resolve my life’s dilemmas:  my pen.  I wrote my interview questions as well as the follow up questions I thought I might want to ask.  Then I started to write this blog post.  Writing has seen me through the toughest times in my life, so it’s natural for me to sort this all out by writing it down.  It helped calm me, and I felt in control of the situation when it was all down on paper.  I felt my comfort level start to return to normal.

Yesterday, I conducted my first interview, and I thought it went well.  My interview subject was very gracious (especially when I had difficulties with my recording equipment), and she gave me great information.  Later, when I checked my email I found responses from the rest of the experts I requested interviews from – all in the affirmative.

I’ve followed up with everyone – just waiting to hear back as to scheduling.  Now, I’m jumping over to my next article and compiling a list of experts to contact.  I’m actually looking forward to my next round of interviews.

It’s amazing how a little success can boost a girl’s confidence!

Interviewing, What I've Learned & From Whom I Learned It fear, freelance writing, interviews, research, writing

Congratulations to all of you who made it to 50,000 words (and beyond)!  What an accomplishment – you did it.  And congratulations to all of you who tried, but didn’t quite reach the 50K goal.  I hope, at least, that you met your personal goal.

That is what I did.  My goal was to establish a writing habit, and I have.  I get up early, and I write.  What is amazing is that I write fiction.  At this point I don’t care if it is good or bad care that I’ve written something I can work with in the revision stage, but I don’t stress over it being beautiful prose.  I want to tell a story.  I want the story to be entertaining.  I want my writing to have meaning.  But to have it do all this, I have to at least get something I can work with out of my head and onto the page.

National Novel Writing Month gave me the tools (and confidence) to do just that.  So while I did not reach 50,000 words, I have a writing habit (or some would call it a schedule) and something down on the page.

Hooray, me!

NaNoWriMo, What I've Learned & From Whom I Learned It fiction, NaNoWriMo, national novel writing month, writing, writing habit

To the left of all my posts, I link to the writers (who have blogs) from which I draw inspiration.  This is not an all inclusive list, and I add to it when I come across a post that resonates with what is going on in my writing life at the moment.

I have been following Johanna Harness, who writes the Claire Morgane series for YA readers, on Twitter for the past month or so.  She is the one who checks in with everyone at the top of the morning via the #amwriting hash tag, has pithy Twitter posts on her progress throughout the day, and blogs about her process.  In a recent post, It’s been one year, she memorializes her first year of establishing a writing habit.

For National Novel Writing Month, this is what I am trying to accomplish, and it hasn’t been easy.  You see, the word count goal is just the “ends” of the “means.”  As we begin the fourth week, I realize there is no way I’m ever going to meet the 50,000 word count.  I’m okay with that.  What bothers me is that I fell off the wagon.

Yes, there were family obligations, work to finish, and chocolate to eat.  But there were also characters who needed their story told. I failed them, or at least that’s what it feels like.  Worse – I’ve failed myself.  This was very important to me, but it didn’t seem to make a difference when faced with my laundry list of stuff to do, errands to run and family who needed my attention.  I know I’m not the only writer who faces this.

Now I have to decide what I’m going to do moving forward.  I still want to establish a writing habit.  I want to write a novel length work of fiction.  I actually want to finish this particular novel.  So, I’m picking up where I left off and pledge to write one scene every day this week, including Thanksgiving.  Then, in December I will participate in SuNoWriMo – Susannah’s Novel Writing Month – and see what happens.

Hopefully it will be habit forming.

NaNoWriMo, What I've Learned & From Whom I Learned It fiction, NaNoWriMo, national novel writing month, novel, writing, writing habit

I’m behind.  It’s just that simple.  No excuses, plenty of reasons, but the fact is that I’m behind in my word count.  I should have approximately 13,000 words down, and I have around 3,000.  I can’t blame writer’s block, because I don’t actually believe there is such a thing.  It’s me, all me.

However, I had a major writing revelation this week.  I can write fiction.  You see, while I am a writer, I have never actually considered myself a fiction writer.  I write what is essentially promotional copy in many forms (grant proposals, white papers, fundraising materials, etc.).  It has it’s creative moments, and I enjoy “talking up” my clients in print, but it’s not storytelling.

At the end of this week, I told part of a story in approximately 3,000 words, and, boy, am I proud! This is fuel for me to go on.  I’m not going to worry that I’m behind, because there is still time to catch up, just as I’m not going to worry about quality right now, because there will be time to edit and revise in December. 

My plans for Week 2 are to continue to get the bones of my narrative down on paper – to continue building the story.  I’ll get there by November 30, but whether I’ll have 50,000 words or not is too soon to tell.  And I’m not going to worry about that!

Thank you to Debbie Ohi of Inkygirl.com for the use of the above cartoon.

NaNoWriMo, What I've Learned & From Whom I Learned It fiction, NaNoWriMo, national novel writing month, novel, writing, writing habit

I have been thinking for a long time about mining my experience as a career grant writer/fundraising professional to write a series of articles targeted to the creative class (artists, musicians, and writers) to teach them to research funding opportunities, write proposals, and win grant money.  And I need your input.

 

My idea is to write a very detailed series of articles covering everything relevant that goes into winning grant money (people, it takes more than just writing the proposal) with a very clear how-to slant that even the novice grant seeking artist could use successfully.  My goal is to provide specific information – I’ve seen too many articles in the past 5 years that do not come from people with experiences in the trenches.  I’ve been there. I have knowledge that would be useful, and most importantly I have direct access to the people who read the proposals and make the funding decisions.

 

So, here is what I’m asking from you, dear interested reader.  What questions specifically would you want answered?  What are your concerns?  What information would you require for such a series to be helpful and relevant to you?  Where would you expect to read such an article, what publications?

 

I’m looking forward to hearing from you.  Please reply in the comments section or email me at grantart –at- susannahfisher.com.

 

Thanks!

Queries articles, grant seeking, grant writing, how-to, writing

I wasn’t expecting today to be intimidating, because I’ve been preparing (fleshing out concepts, working on my story idea, outlining plot, developing characters) for the entire month of October.  But it was.  Last night I had a last minute panic attack and saved several Word documents with scene prompts as a contingency. Still, I experienced a bit of the dreaded “blank screen syndrome.” 

What surprised me most was that I seem unable to write my novel chronologically. (I’m curious if this is common – please tell me in the comments). I wrote a sad goodbye that happens later in my novel, and then moved backward in the story to when those two characters meet for the first time.  Eventually I wrote the scene I had in my outline as the opening, but now I think it may actually come right after the “real” opening.  Since I won’t be editing until December 1, I’m letting it stand as is.

Also, today’s quota of 1700 words was not accomplished in one sitting.  I started, stopped, took a break, did something totally unrelated to writing, started again and then repeated that sequence a few more times.  I have scheduled time to work on my novel before I start my day, so this does not bode well for the week day when I have paying work that I must accomplish. 

I’ll let you know later in the week how I handle that hurdle.  At least for today, I’m pretty pleased with my progress.

Thank you to Debbie Ohi of Inkygirl.com for the use of the above cartoon.

NaNoWriMo, What I've Learned & From Whom I Learned It fiction, NaNoWriMo, national novel writing month, novel, writing, writing habit