Nikki Loftin

Archive for February, 2010

Revisions For Lent

Okay, so I’m not really one of those people who gives stuff up for Lent. I think one year I tried to give up chocolate and lasted for about three days. Since I’m not certain it’s the thought that counts when it comes to Lenten Promises, and I never want to tick off the Big Guy any more than I already do with my continual existence and foul mouth, I stopped making those promises long ago.

But this Lent, I’m planning to do something that makes giving up chocolate look… well, if not easy, at least not insane. But I’m not giving up anything.

I’m taking it on. My goal is to take on two sets of novel revisions, AND finish the first draft of my newest gorgeous manuscript baby by Easter. (She’s so cute. Dark, moody, and only 9,000 words old!)

Can I do it? We’ll see. I have a funny feeling it could be a lot easier to give up chocolate than to do the amount of work I’m planning.

I’ll check back in next Monday and let you know how it’s going! Anybody out there tackling an impossible writing goal for Lent, or am I the only crazy one? ;-P

Literary Salon Chez Moi

Well, I have a thousand things to do — revisions to plan, manuscripts to finish, lunches to pack, and many, many glasses of wine to drink — so it must be time for a blog post.

I promised a post on writing groups, but I’m mostly planning on telling you what I’ve got going on right now. This morning, a small group of women I call my Literary Salon (because it SOUNDS cool) arrived at my house for a few hours of fabulous food (why, yes, I *did *cook), industry gossip, and chatting about our manuscript-babies. No critiquing allowed, just support, advice, loans of some resources/books, homemade soup and chocolate-dipped strawberries. (Thanks, Erin!)

I don’t know why, but having a group that comes together in person to chat is important to me. Maybe it’s because I am such a terrible typist, so the online thing doesn’t work as well s it does for the typing-unimpaired. It jut takes too darn long to type all those comments. I end up leaving the funny stuff out. Bleah. Of course, this group’s members have to be geographically-linked, and it helps if they write the same genre, which we do (mostly) — MG and YA. Some of these gals are my Trusted Betas, Whom I Love Above All Others. (I privately refer to them as my personal Belles Dames Sans Merci, but don’t tell them.)

I also connived my way into an established online critique group with mostly published authors, some quite well-known. They are invaluable to me for working on picture books and short pieces, but I still feel too new to send great chunks of work their way. Don’t want to make a nuisance of myself. Yet.

I’m the newest member of a group of writers that meets in San Marcos every other Friday for fabulous coffee, some critique, conversation about our lives/health/anything else, and the VERY latest in markets/editors/agents for the various types of things we write. One of these authors writes Western romance, one writes contemporary thrillers, one writes Christian fic/non-fic. And then there’s me, the children’s writer/poet/literary fiction/puppet play/anthology/essayist. These gals are all amazingly supportive. It always feels like they have my back, no matter what I aim for. I love them. They are also all grandmas. I want to be them when I grow up.

Then there’s Suzie, L’Agent Extraordinaire, and her team of underpaid, underfed Minion-Interns, who live to revise my deathless prose. Bwa ha ha ha ha! Kidding, of course. I only send my most gorgeously polished and perfected exampled of Craft to them. Also, fart jokes.

BTW, I’ve only been actively writing novels and networking for a year. (It’s been almost one year to the day since I finished my first MG manuscript! Yes, that one, the Story That Must Not Be Named.) And I also have writer friends on Twitter, Facebook, Verla Kay’s, SCBWI, and the Austin SCBWI group. Even one or two from contest wins like Backspace. (Hi, Lori!)  So, where will I be in a year?
At this rate, probably in a critique/support/lunch group with YOU!

So, share already. Who keeps you honest, writing-wise?

Write Well, Friends.

Colonel Mustard… in the Kitchen… with a Candlestick

I can’t help it. I must post this for all my procrastinating writer friends who might have, in a very dark period of their lives, read a few thousand Regency romances. (Unlike me, Heavens forfend! I only ever read the classics in their original languages, no matter how much angst or ennui I suffered as a teen. Okay, maybe even as a thirty-something.)

So, go to It Happened One Season, make up your mad lib-style Regency romance plot points, and let me know if you entered so I can vote for yours if it makes the finals.

Or post your idea here, so the teeming hordes of romance writers who visit this blog can steal your ideas and make millions from them. Whatever.

(You DO know that I’m working on a never-to-be-finished-or-shown-to-anyone shapeshifter romance between ACTUAL WIPs, don’t you? Email me, and I will send you scenes from “a love too dangerous to be published”…)

Have fun writing, Peeps! I’m finishing one of the WIPs this week. Woo Hoo! And then the Betas will feast.

A Very Cool Thing

Hiya, Peeps! Not much to report this week, besides writing like my life depends on it. (Does it? A good question.) So, instead of coming up with something witty and fabulous to say, I will help you blow a couple of hours at a writerly site. Check this out. Authors tell you how to pronounce their names. * Some give it to you straight up, some give you all sorts of cool little tidbits about the meaning of their name, why their parents picked it, and funny family anecdotes. Very cool and fun. Make sure you have written your daily quota before clicking on the link, of course!

I think my next post will be about writer’s groups. I have quite a few, and they all serve very different functions in my writing life. I’ve got support groups where we chat about our lives/kids/pets/health issues, online groups, in-person groups, professional groups, one-person emergency beta reading pods … and of course, my Literary Salon members, who are all the very coolest.

I’m making the soup and nibbles today for our Salon meeting tomorrow, where I will read from the poetry chapbooks that arrived in the mail yesterday — my prizes from the online poetry contest I won last week! (Okay, third place. But still: PRIZES! Presents for ME! In the MAIL!)

Write well, Friends, and start thinking about what YOU will say when they ask you, Newly Famous and Celebrated Author,  about your name. You can even leave a comment about it, if you like!

*Thanks to Shelli Cornelison for the link.

Post-Conference Buzz

For a writer, there’s nothing like that feeling you get when you’ve been to a really great conference, and you come home fizzy and full of ideas, encouragement from your peers, and potential writerly awesomeness.

I just got home from the Best Conference Ever. (Um, the conference was Austin SCBWI, driving distance from my house, so I guess I never technically left home.) I’ve spent the past two days going over my notes, thinking about how best to blog post about all the amazing speakers. And you know what? I’m too late. A whole bunch of other conference attendees have already done it better than I would have. (Call me lazy, I don’t care. I admit it. This was also my strategy when I was it was my turn to do the dishes/clean/whatever when I was a kid. If I just went to the bathroom — yeah, usually I was reading in there — and waited long enough, my sister would do the job. And so much better than I would have!) So, in my sloth, I have decided to direct you to my friend Shelli Cornelison’s series of blog posts (Overachiever! Stop making us all look bad), and Emily Kristin Anderson’s, and then this one and this one and this one. All very good reads.

This week? I’m waiting for a bunch of good news this week (how do you like THAT attitude;-) and enjoying reading my contributor’s copy of the Ultimate Christian Living anthology that just came out with my essay in it. This one won’t be available in stores until March, so wait for it.  Also, I’m hoping to wrap up the first draft of my MG WIP, and make some headway on another one I started last week in a fit of insanity and awesomeness… whilst including the strategies the inestimable Cheryl Klein spoke about at the conference.

Write well, Writer Friends! (And don’t blame me when I post links to your well-written sites.)