Revisionist Memory, #ROW80 and Operation G.I.T.

I’m actually going to take these out of order.

Operation Goddess In Training

So a few weeks ago, I bought a set of adjustable dumbbells.  They go from 5-60 pounds and ought to be as much as we’ll need for a long while.  I have separate little dumbbells anywhere from 1-10 pounds, just because I’ve been doing this for a long time and haven’t gotten rid of them.  Plus it’s easier for exercises that use a smaller weight to use a less bulky one.  I’ve been operating with 15 pounds and it wasn’t until I was showing hubs how to change the weights on them the other night that I realized…um, I haven’t been using 15 pounds.  I’ve been using 20.  I misread the little arrow system for the levers because, hey, I workout at 6 AM.  Which explains why it felt like such a monumental jump from 10!

The jogging has been going well.  2.25 miles in increasing jogging increments (1.8 miles total jogged so far).  Three days a week, weather permitting (which, so far, it has).  It’s getting slightly easier.  In another month, I think I’ll make it up to a full 2 miles and might start adding a little more overall distance.  And otherwise, on my weight lifting days, I’m doing 20-30 minutes of HIIT on the exercise bike.

Was reading a new exercise book (Tone Every Inch) last night and it was talking about the value of tracking and mentioned some study where people who tracked their exercise worked out 174 minutes a week compared to like 90.  I looked at my log.  Um…yeah I average 315 minutes plus–not counting the weight lifting.  Spread it out throughout the day, every day, and it adds up.

Revisionist Memory

So a couple of things led to this.  The last three books I’ve read have been contemporary romance–not my normal genre these days.  The first of them was something of a disappointment and spawned me to ponder why a lot of contemporary romance doesn’t work for me.  The second was the latest Nora (The Next Always) from her Inn Boonsboro series, which I loved.  While I was reading it, two things happened.  I started purposely trying to map the story structure, a la Larry Brooks on to the story (and managed it), as well as identifying the antagonist/conflict and actually defining it (something I have never done with CR before).  And I started thinking about all my Mississippi based fiction (yeah that thing that doesn’t actually exist because I’ve been all paranormal the last four years?).  Several folks responded to that post, urging me to at least start a notebook to remember all of those characters and such.  So the other day, I did that.  I opened up a new Series Bible in scrivener and started listing out characters.

As I was digging back through my files, looking to see who all I’d forgotten, I discovered something that was (but shouldn’t have been) a shock to me.  I used to write contemporary romance.  I used to read it all the time (okay, so I read Nora all the time, but the woman is so prolific, that took a long time).  I have a platoon of semi-sketched, partially written stories that were never finished because back then I was a total pantser and I had no grasp of story structure, particularly as pertains to contemporary romance.  If it wasn’t beat you over the head obvious (as in serial killer or demon), I couldn’t identify the conflicts (which in CR are often subtle) or the stakes.

I can’t believe I forgot all this.  But I guess I did because it is PS (Pre Susan) and in many ways I kind of mark my writing career by things that were PS or AS (After Susan), since finding my crit partner was the single greatest thing to ever happen to me as a writer.  And at that time I was solidly into romantic suspense.  So much that I’d forgotten about what came before.  Anyway, she and I’ve had some really interesting discussions the last few days about what makes up a GOOD contemporary romance.  We keep coming back to the fact that the good ones are character driven, set in a location that people want to hang out in and/or come back to, and that the conflicts created are not superficial or could be solved with a single conversation.

ROW80 Progress Report

So on that front, I did a lot of work on my Cadence Creek (that’s my Mississippi town–well, one of them–originally there were two that I’ve combined to the one) series bible, and pulled all the characters I’d created from files dating all the way back to 2003.  By the time I was done, I had 25 characters, 10 intended pairings, and 9 fleshed out locations in town (businesses and such).  I made up a worksheet for Contemporary Romance details, generated a generic list of possible antagonist/conflicts that often arise in CR.  Just something I can jot things in as they occur to me before I’m ready for a full on blueprint.  Yesterday I made up a doc talking about various families and friendships, talking about how people knew people, as well as another chart listing out the folks who are locals and the ones who are transplants.  Over time, I want to pull all the snippets of stuff into the series bible and organize it according to characters, and story kernel, just so I have it all in one place.  No idea when I’ll actually write something for this world (because, God knows, I do not need to be splitting my genres AGAIN right now), but for now, I’m enjoying the hell out of rediscovering it.

On the actual writing front, not a lot going on.  As I reported Sunday, I had over 900 words.  Monday I managed 556, and that was a stretch because I was super frazzled after work.  And yesterday was Valentine’s Day so I wound up giving myself a break, finishing The Next Always and hanging out with my honey when he got off work.  Never underestimate the awesome of a man who totally understands that the ENTIRE PURPOSE of sending flowers is to send them to work where you can show them off and brag on him.  Also he got me a T-shirt that says “As You Wish” with the “I” made up of that classic silhouette shot of Buttercup and Westley.  Because, yeah, he’s that awesome.

8 thoughts on “Revisionist Memory, #ROW80 and Operation G.I.T.

  1. Great job on the exercise, Kait.. and I am so glad you figured out a few things relating to your writing.. but the biggest reason I wanted to comment was to say, “AWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!” 😀 getting flowers AT work is the ONLY way to get flowers.
    And the “as you wish” shirt seals it. <3
    Have a spectacular rest of your day!

  2. You rock with the exercise! Go Kait! 🙂

    I’m glad you’re thinking about those other characters. I think you’ll eventually get to them. I know you just have too much on your plate right now to do yet one more thing. Now if you could quit your full time job….

    Every time someone mentions Scrivener, I keep thinking I need to download the free trial and see how I like it. I’m such a procrastinator.

  3. Your exercise routine is really impressive. Way to go! It makes me feel like a total wuss. I hope I never meet you in a dark alley. 😉

    That sounds like a great start on the contemporary romance. I don’t read much in that genre either. It does seem a bit boring. Plus, the typical voice of “chick-lit” starts to grate on my nerves after a while.

  4. How exciting to have found all those characters again! I hope you find time to hang out with them at some point – Cadence Creek sounds like it could be interesting. Fantastic job on your fitness goals. You put us all to shame 😀 Tracking your progress works like that in pretty much any situation. You can’t really do better if you don’t know how you’re doing to begin with. But you are the queen of tracking, so I bet you already knew that! Have a great rest of the week.

  5. Hi Kait, I’m with you on the appeal of paranormal vs. contemporary romance. 🙂

    And you mentioned Larry Brooks’s structure, so you might like to know that I just made a spreadsheet with his plot/pinch points and what page number those should fall on/near based on the word count percentage. I made it for myself this past weekend to check my structure on a pantsed novel, and I decided to share it with everyone here: http://jamigold.com/2012/02/how-to-revise-for-structure-part-two/

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