Last Jobs... For Now

After several days of scouring QueryTracker, the acknowledgements sections of my favorite romance authors's novels, and online lists of successful agents, I have compiled a list of ten agents/agencies to query right away, selected six agents as "replacements" to query as the rejections roll in, and found six dream agencies that are currently closed to queries to keep my eye on in case they open up. 

It's a start. 

But there is still so much to be done before I send those letters and fill out those query manager forms...

1. I need to polish my query letter, short and long synopses, and one sentence pitch (which is actually two sentences...). To this end, I have hired Nathan Bransford to do a critique.

2. I have consolidated two years of post-it notes, notepad notes, and iPhone notes onto one master list of clever ideas and bits to check. There are 143 notes. This will take a few days.

3. I need to finalize comps. I have discovered three excellent comps for the celebrity/common person + Hollywood/small town tropes and one brilliant novel that's set at Christmas featuring forced proximity with a celebrity, but I could still find a nice British/American couple comp. It doesn't bother me to keep reading!

4. I need to get back into the regular blogging habit. I know Insta/Substack/Discord is now standard. What can I say? I love this little blogspot.

5. I need to reread the beginning of my story so I can confidently send the requested samples (5 pages, 10 pages, 3 chapters, 50 pages). Although to be honest, the opening has been revised the most. It's pretty clean and shiny. I probably need to stop fiddling around with it.

Additionally, I need to print and do a final edit on the last 10K of the novel, which is relatively new after all the cuts. But this will only take a few days and can wait until after the queries are sent. I have a two week window of time before the first day of the last year of my day job. 

Funny thing... My mom mentioned recently that she'd love to see me have a week off before school starts. But I'm having more fun working on Dash Away than I'd have being bored around the house doing nothing. 

This calls to mind something Sandra Tayler said last summer at the Writing Excuses ReGenerative Retreat. Here's my note:

That's the plan. 

A Delightful Task

I have a few weeks to dedicate to gathering my comps, which are books in my genre that overlap Dash Away in setting (Christmas time, small town, a holiday trip to England),  plot (celebrity/common person romance, forced proximity, British/American couples), theme (accepting one's struggles, being confident in who you are), or style (commercial, closed-door spice, HEA). 

To that end, here are some of the books I am reading:

My judging criteria:

    * Romance, preferably celebrity/ordinary person, although I'll also read holiday, small town/Hollywood, librarian, and British/American tropes, with closed door spice and a HEA ending.

    * Published in recent years

    * Rated highly and sold well

    * Enjoyable read (in my opinion)

Katherine Center's The Bodyguard, published in 2022 will make the cut. It'll also be on my favorite novels of the year list. So will Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan and Abby Jimenez's The Happy Ever After Playlist. I'm in love with these authors and their work! It is taking a lot of willpower to not keep reading their other novels immediately. 

One great part about finding my comps AFTER finishing my novel is that when similar details pop up in the comp novels, I know for sure I didn't subconsciously lift them from other writers' texts. But it sure is daunting to read so many fun stories and imagine my own book in their company.

Cutting Dash Away

My first writing task of summer 2026 was to cut Dash Away down to a pitchable size. When I finished the draft in 2024, it was over 130K words. Industry standard for a contemporary romance novel is 80-90K. I figured I could at least pitch it if I could get it under 100K. So that was the goal. 

I began by thinning each chapter, removing adverbs, double descriptions, and details not related to the plot. I worked on paper first, circling and revising sentences to make the prose lean and smooth. Then I moved to my sunny kitchen nook and firmed up the changes on my laptop. My goal was to cut a minimum of 20 words per page, but cutting 50+ was ideal. 

Even though some world-building color had to go, and I had to kill many "darling" sentences, the process was more fun than I expected. I kept track of my progress, marking an X on a whiteboard for each 1000 words that I successfully lopped off. 

After finishing the Minnesota-set portion of the story, I had cut the full text to 114K and was at the 92K mark, meaning that I could keep about 8K of the remaining 22K words. Drastic, right?

Luckily, I wrote those last chapters two summers ago, and my editor's eye was smart enough to cut with objectivity. 

At first I thought I would just summarize Charlie's day trip to Austen locations around England. But it was quickly evident that two full days of London sightseeing had to go as well. And that forced me to rearrange her entire holiday schedule. 

Although I need to reread the final result, I like the ending better now. I'm a little above 102K, and that is pitchable. 

Wish me luck!

Dash Away is complete!

News from the past:

The final chapters need revision, but Dash Away is a complete draft! Yay!

This means I have successfully written six novels, with my definition of success being the completion of the final chapter. 

Here's a recap:

SPOTD

Most of this blog has been dedicated to my journey writing my middle grade series, Super Power of the Day. Books and digital versions of the three volumes are still available, although changes in publishing are raising prices and making access (for readers) a little tricky. Someday I'd love to republish the series with a traditional publisher. The dream, of course, is to see Chase Cooper's month of superpowers as a three season televised series. I think that format would be a fantastic fit.

Super Power of the Day: Origins of a Sixth Grade Superhero

Super Power of the Day: The Hero Chronicle Continues

Super Power of the Day: The Final Faceoff

LIO & LAMB

Imagine if when the Kents discovered baby Kal El in their cornfield, Jonathan wanted to turn the baby over to the government/scientists, so Martha took the baby and ran. But high fantasy. The first book in my created world series is a pursuit (first draft complete; needs editing now that I know what it wants to be). The second book is the developing powers/coming of age bit with the beginnings of a quest (unwritten). It's possible that section is two books. I won't know until I write it. The current "third" book is a murder mystery in a castle, where the quest is fulfilled (first draft complete; needs editing now that I know what it wants to be). 

DASH AWAY

When a blizzard interrupts Charlie's Christmas plans, she settles in for a cozy weekend in her nearly-perfect house. But the stranded remnants of a film crew crash into those plans, bringing shy Charlie face-to-face with her romance series crush. A weekend of fun and games slowly turns into something more serious, begging the question: Can a small town girl and a big city celebrity find their happily ever after?

Letting Go of the Old Story

Two springs ago my district moved graduation to the Friday before the last week of classes, which meant that my seniors were done early, leaving me a few "free" hours during the last week of school. I used the bonus time to clean out 32 years of files, a job I'd been meaning to do for at least a decade. 

I learned a lot. 

I found my first evaluation, when my first principal observed a class 22-year-old me was teaching. It was hilarious to read his description of my lesson (it sounded awesome) and my teaching style (ah, to be young).

I discovered instructions and student samples from curriculum I developed in the 1990's based on OBE and cooperative, project learning. I was amazed at the ambitiousness of the projects. 

Mostly, I sorted through reams and reams of ephemera, lesson plans, and worksheets I created for SO MANY pieces of literature over the years. Many documents were thrown away with fingers crossed that I wouldn't need them ever again. Of course, docs I created in the past two decades are available online, but it was still hard to toss them into the recycling bin.

Note: A few docs were typed on a typewriter and copied via mimeograph. I saved those just to laugh at.

Ultimately, I went from 11 file drawers to 5, which means I really let go of a lot. It wasn't just the physical paper. It was all the accumulated work of a career. The time, the grind that makes up a life. 

By the time I closed the final file drawer, I was feeling some feels.

It was a valuable lesson in letting go. 

I have taught 30+ years of English 12 at my high school, years during which I refined and perfected lessons until I mostly defeated imposter syndrome to the point of pride. Also during this time period our district skipped the curriculum review process several times; as a result, the anthologies out of which we had been teach poetry, short stories, etc. were over 35 years old. 

The books were literally falling apart, and we couldn't even order used copies online, because there were none to be had. Finally our district purchased new curriculum (anthologies), and this past year it was "out with the old and in with the new."

One thing that helped me with the transition to the new curriculum was that experience of cleaning out the files the spring before.

I had let go of the story in my head that told me who I was as a teacher. I invented a new teacher from the ashes. 

The next new story?

The end of my teaching career is in sight, begging several questions: 

* As I transition away from the daily grind of teaching, how will my identity as a writer unfold?

* Is there a path to a full time career as a writer in my future?

* Moving forward, who will the new Ann be?

Dash Away Progress Summary

Let's just jump right in and have a catch up, shall we?

My current writing project is a romance novel titled Dash Away. It's basically a reverse Notting Hill, which is to say a Cinderella story. The MCs are a small town (Minnesota) high school librarian and a famous British actor who meet during a Christmas blizzard. 

January, 2021

The novel began at the tail end of the pandemic, a time during which I was mentally incapable of holding Aelland in my head. Who can remember an entire created world when every single day saps 100% of your mental capacity? Not this girl. 

And so, using a straightforward, formulaic structural framework (thank you Jessica Brody and the Save the Cat series), I began putting ideas together for a romance novel. For about six weeks at the start of 2021, character names were picked and a plot began to take shape. My favorite part of this birthing period was creating an IMDb page for the actor.

And then a thing happened, and there was no more time for writing. I gathered my notes into a folder and left them as a sort of "happy summer!" present to myself.

Summer, 2021:

After weeks and weeks of sorting notes and creating the most extensive outline of my writing life, I wrote three chapters in July. I spent as much time revising as writing, to be honest. Maybe more. Openings are so important. Luckily, Writing Excuses tackled some opening page traps and tips, so I had good ideas rattling around in my head.

The Save the Cat outline worked well for me. To start a chapter, I opened a new doc and did a short meta analysis of what needed to happen in the chapter by filling out this thing:

Credit: Save the Cat story cards

Then I pasted the notes from my massive outline below that and started writing. Although my word count ranged from 200-1700, I generally wrote about 800-900 words a day, which is a short chapter or half of a longer one. The next day, I revised before continuing on. I worked anywhere from one to five hours a day.

In the past, I used a different sort of "What needs to happen in a chapter?" reference page. There had been a computer shuffle in the previous year and a half, however, during which I lost track of that doc. I decided to stick with the new outline.

I was more productive at the start of August. In the first nine days, I wrote nine chapters. An out of town trip interrupted the flow, and it took a few days to get back into the swing. But I did write another nine chapters. 

I ended the summer with around 26,000 words, knowing progress on the novel would not resume until summer 2022. 

Summer 2022

Over the course of the summer, I wrote another 50,000 words. I'd describe those chapters as the MC's courtship. I left the couple just before their New Year's Eve. They stayed there until this summer. 

Winter 2023

I learned three things about my writing and myself at a writing retreat hosted by Pam Houston in February. 

Lesson #1: I have my 10,000 hours in. When we were given writing assignments, I had the facility and skill to pump out decent work. Our goal was process, not product, so I don't know if anything I wrote will ever become more than writing practice. But it will be nice to reflect on the confidence I felt that week when imposter syndrome rears its head in the future. 

Lesson #2: I can write poetry! The only poems I had written before the workshop were Shakespearean sonnets created to demonstrate that form for my students. But most of what came out of me during the retreat was in poem form. It was a surprise, and I enjoyed it.

Lesson #3: I am funnier (on paper) than I realized.

These revelations led to a resolution to trust myself and to lean into the funny. Dash Away may be exactly as predictable as any Hallmark romance, but at least it will (fingers crossed) make people smile.

Summer, 2023:

Back at it! 

I learned that I start writing in 1st gear (day one), move into 3rd gear (the next day), and then can sustain cruising speed indefinitely until I am interrupted. Even one day off derails my flow and forces me to drop back into 1st gear. So the key is a schedule with as many back-to-back writing days as possible.

And that has worked. My summer started with a full week of reading the incomplete novel on paper. I marked issues but didn't fix them as I read. 

After a short vacation to see theater in New York, I continued the draft. I had planned to do my edits on the first 74,000 words, but it was much more fun to pick up where the story left off. 

This pattern repeated a few times. Write. Short vacation. Write. Short vacation. Write. Write. Write.

During the writing weeks, I revised and wrote between three and five total hours a day, which was more than last summer, drafting about 8000 words per week. Today is my last free day of the summer to indulge in this project, and I am on chapter 59 out of 63 (probably). I really want to have a full draft before school starts, but we'll see.

So, that's where I am. 

On Inspiration

A few weeks ago, I attended a delightful morning coffee with ladies from my neighborhood. I wasn't expecting to chat about my writing process, but someone asked where I get ideas for a novel.

Given my audience was a room full of people casually chatting and not a master class, I kept my answer short: I get ideas while driving. Specifically, while driving to see my out-of-town family. And it's true, if the radio's off and I turn my thoughts toward my current writing project, I always get great ideas. My mother must wonder what's happening every Saturday morning as I pull into her driveway and then sit for ten minutes dictating ideas into a gmail message to myself. 

Later, I open the message and copy/paste the ideas into a Word doc. I bet if I searched my computer for "Car Notes" I'd see a list of 30-40 docs spanning the past seven or eight years, mostly ideas for Lio and Lamb. I don't use all the ideas, maybe just 20%, so this process functions like brainstorming. 

That's the short answer.

The long answer is, well, longer.

I get ideas while reading books, watching movies and television shows, talking to friends, scrolling through Facebook, cleaning and cooking, listening to podcasts like Writing Excuses, weeding, having conversations with random strangers, listening to music, and mowing the yard. Well, not this year. It's so dry that I'm barely mowing. Anyway... 

Here's an example of an inspirational image I saw on Facebook a few weeks ago.

Source:  sweatpantsandcoffee.com 

I relate to many "tiny happy things" on this list, and it made me want my new main character to love some of them as well. I copied the image and pasted it into a Google doc. Then yesterday my main character started reading a novel... and realized she loved that feeling of realizing she loved the book.

This "collection of ideas" is constant. But it is heightened when I'm actively writing a project. My house fills with scraps of paper on which I've jotted random ideas. They accumulate on the kitchen counter until I move them to the chair by my desktop Mac's desk. 

Here's a quick pic of the little notes on the chair today.

The mess on the pink-bordered note is strawberry juice. Apparently I think of ideas while snacking as well.

What I find, and probably all writers find, is that when I'm actively writing a project, I'm in "writer mode." I watch the world more closely. I listen more carefully. And I pay closer attention to the random thoughts that flitter at the edge of my mind.

A Letter to Mary Robinette Kowal

Dear Ms. Kowal, 

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

After architecting my newest novel by cramming 50 pages of notes into a 30 page outline, I was ready to start writing the manuscript this week. I don’t usually write the first page first, but the opening image was so clear in my mind. I sat myself down, started typing, and produced two solid pages.

Then I listened to Writing  Excuses episode 16.29. The idea that the opening pages should deliberately raise questions, several of which are answered right away to gain a reader’s trust, was intriguing. I decided to test the practice by doing the final assignment from 16.27. I scanned Amazon’s best selling books, picked four popular novels in my genre, and started reading opening pages. Three of the four novelists demonstrated your “mini-mysteries” advice perfectly. 

Thanks to your tips, I plan to revise my pages a bit before continuing on, adding more solved and unsolved puzzles. 

With gratitude,

Ann

PS We actually met once -- in line for the a bathroom stall at the Minneapolis Convention Center during Nerdcon: Stories. We chatted a little. It was delightful. Sadly, I looked you up in the program afterwards and thought, "Well, I'll never see her doing puppetry after this weekend, so I guess my 'famous person' encounter won't be a great story to tell later." And then I discovered Writing Excuses and you became one of my writing mentors. Life is great; sometimes it's even better than a perfectly crafted plot.

Toni Morrison

I love this, from Toni Morrison: 

In June and the first half of July, I did the following for my newest novel, Dash Away:

* Reread my notes from last winter

* Settled on names and personality traits for most characters

* Made a progression outline following the Blake Snyder model

* Collected more notes

* Rewatched Notting Hill 

* Sorted all my notes into chapters

That work feels like the thinking and discovering and selecting and ordering and beginning to find meaning part of the writing process. I think it has gone well, though I'm sure much will be trimmed and much added. 

As I make a turn this week toward actually typing the manuscript, I anticipate feeling the "awe and reverence and mystery and magic" of storytelling. 

Okay, muse. Let's go!

2020: Part 2

After a productive summer, wherein I did complete the Haven draft (yay!), we started the new school year with plans for hybrid learning instead of full distance teaching. Determined to avoid the mistakes of spring, 2020, I vowed to finish my school work each day by 5:00 pm in order to give myself a break each night. That meant giving up 10-14 hours of my weekend (on Sundays) to prepare for the week. It was a sacrifice I was prepared to make to restore balance to my weekdays. Friday nights and Saturdays became a sacred recovery time with no thoughts of work allowed. My own private sabbath.

Despite fluctuating between hybrid and distance learning seven times during semester 1, teaching did go better. If spring of 2020 earned a D-, fall of 2020 earned a C-. Progress through curriculum was slow and some students were still entirely disengaged despite my and my colleagues' best efforts. But I learned to let go of former expectations and to allow students to make poor choices without blaming myself. 

My new schedule worked, but it once again allowed no time for writing. Or, to be more accurate, I didn't prioritize writing. So I didn't write. Finishing the Haven draft over the summer felt like coming to a natural stopping point. And picking a draft to revise? It felt like too big a job to do piecemeal. 

Still, by the holiday break, I was itching to start something new. 

I had been reading the latest Beth O'Leary novels, modern British romances, after falling in love with her cover art. 

That's what I wanted to try.

So I did.

2020: Part 1

 

A recap: I started 2020 flush with writing plans and goals, primarily to finish a draft of Haven and then circle back to Aco and fix my pace and character arc problems in both drafts. I made some progress, but my writing was (predictably) derailed when the spring musical started up... and then both the musical and my writing met their premature end due to COVID. 

Across America, schools were closed and teachers and students alike were sent home. And so it was in my small district. For about a week. And then, because we are fortunate to have a supportive community that funded a technology referendum to supply laptops in a 1:1 initiative, we began full time distance learning. 

For me, DL meant sleeping in until 7:30 (no alarm clock needed), shlepping to the shower and making coffee in time to check that my Google Classroom lessons had posted (automatically set for 8:00), and then sitting down in front of a screen for the next 14 hours. Seriously. My routine typically included a short break for lunch from 2:30-3:00 and supper with a TV show from 7:00-8:00. And then back at it until all emails had been answered, online work had been graded, and new lessons were ready for the next day. On an "early" day I was finished by 10:00 pm. Sometimes I worked past midnight.

It was physically grueling, and sitting so long in front of the mac messed up my back. 

But the emotional impact was far worse. As a teacher, you strive to meet each student where they are and inspire them to achieve as much as they can. I was able to continue being that sort of teacher for a few amazing students. But too many of my seniors decided their MO for the rest of the year would be doing the minimal needed in order to pass and graduate. And that meant disengagement and rampant cheating. Let me give an example.

Let's say, during the study of Macbeth, I create a lesson on Lady Macbeth in act 1, scene 5. I am thrilled when I find a wonderful (short) video of Niamh Cusack rehearsing the scene for the RSC and create a lesson with a recorded introduction by me (with a funny personal story from a time I saw Niamh on stage), a link to myshakespeare.com so they can read the scene with vocab and explanatory help, and an interactive Google Doc where they can watch the actress dissect and perform the scene and react to her performance choices in writing. It takes me a little over two hours to put together (typical). I guess that it will take the students maybe 20 minutes to work through. That's only half of a class period, but I don't have another two hours to make more content and frankly, within days I realized that students were unwilling to do any assignment that lasted longer than 20 minutes anyway. I have two other preps to address before crawling into bed... It'll have to do. 

I post the assignment. When I start grading assignments a day later, I realize most of the students have skipped the reading entirely and watched maybe 3 minutes of the 11 minute video before composing their reactions. Some of the reactions make no sense as they are copied straight from the internet, probably after they took my prompt question and pasted it into the search bar at Google. And 5-6 students have the exact same personal response, down to the type-o's and grammar errors. 

From a distance, I could not have made the scene more simple and engaging. I was overly proud, in fact, of how clever I had been. They didn't care. And now I faced another 4 acts worth of lessons to create knowing that no matter how I addressed the lack of effort and outright cheating, no matter how clever I was in creating technology-forward, learner-friendly lessons, I would face similar choices by the students. What more could I do? It was emotionally crushing. 

This led to my realization and DL mantra: You can stay up until midnight creating beautiful, detailed maps leading straight to the freshest water, but you can't stop a horse from using Google Maps to find a short cut that leads to a brackish swamp. 

By the end of each week, I was so physically and emotionally drained that I collapsed for the weekend. Teaching, which is usually fun, became drudgery. I was ready to quit education entirely. I spent more than one moment dreaming of early retirement and looking at the help wanted ads in the local paper . And through it all, there was literally NO time to write. 

Until summer.

That's when the pandemic's restrictions became convenient excuses to indulge myself in days of gardening, quiet time recovering from the soul-devouring atrocity of DL, and finishing my Haven draft. 

So that's what I did.

My New Project (2021)

One of my guilty pleasures is reading romance novels. I have favorite authors and series, but I'll read passably edited self-published digital work as well. Admittedly, this is a waste of time. But maybe... maybe it's research?

An idea came to me mid-winter. An idea for a romance novel. A reverse Notting Hill, where the famous movie star is British and is rescued and enchanted by a book-loving American gal. During a Minnesota snowstorm. I ran with it and spent Christmas vacation of 2020 and January-February of 2021 collecting ideas, creating my protagonists and their world, and digging into the characters' psyches with a goal of actually having character arcs from the get-go. It was distracting, indulgent, energizing work. 

And then the defunct spring musical sprang back to life. I had to choose a direction; with the time-consuming demands of teaching both face-to-face and distance learning simultaneously (a fresh hell), there was room for just one creative endeavor in my life. I couldn't imagine not being a part of the musical, so I chose that direction. By the time it ended, my focus was on graduation activities and the romance was pushed so far to the back of my head I had literally forgotten the characters' names. 

But now it is June. Summer. My time.

First, I printed all my notes from last winter. Aha! Elly Calder. That's your name! Or Charlie. I was thinking about changing it. And Eddie Ashton-Clarke. Plus all your cohorts and family. There you are.

After reacquainting myself with the world of Hartley, Minnesota, I reread Jessica Brody's Blake Snyder-inspired Save the Cat! Writes a Novel to reacquaint myself with his beat system of outlining a plot. 

Next comes the actual outlining. I had solid progress working off a well built outline for SPOTD, so that's the plan. Lio and Lamb probably suffered a bit because I outlined less, unsure of exactly where the story was going. I had a double column day progression excel sheet at one point, but it was more reactive than pre-organized and mostly built to help me follow separated characters over time.

Then it'll be off to the races! For the first time, I'll be using Microsoft 365 instead of installed software. The dynamism of Word + the device sharing of Google Docs? Yes, please. 

I have two favorite bits in the new series. The first is where the female protagonist lives. Instead of a row-house with a striking blue door, Elly (for now) lives in a white farmhouse in Minnesota's rural lake country. It's based on a farmhouse I visited last summer when I was considering a premature end to my teaching career and a move closer to family. I fell in love with the house, but I realized the timing for such a drastic move was wrong. Using it as my character's home was a way to own it without buying it. 

There are very few parallels between my first series (middle grade modern fantasy), my second series (YA traditional fantasy in a created world), and this piece (contemporary romance). And yet, one major inspiration for each was a physical space. For SPOTD, it was the barn at the end of the street where Chase lived. For Lio and Lamb, it was castles. And for Dash Away, it is the farmhouse. 

My second delight is Eddie's imdb.com filmography list. It was delightful imagining a sort of Downton Abbey meets Bridgewater series that has made Eddie famous, although that fame was disrupted by the pandemic. I based the series off actual historical figures from a precise time and place, bringing together people who may or may not have actually met in the 1800's England. 

And nearly as fun to work out was Eddie's next move, which involves one of my favorite London performance spaces, the outdoor theater in Regent's Park. Even though I won't be visiting London again until travel is less fraught and shows have returned to the West End, at least I can visit in my mind. 

Renaming

I think I have stumbled upon a half decent comp for the first novel in my new series: It’s my Martha Kent story. Imagine Martha Kent if Jonathan had wanted to turn over the alien baby to the authorities, and she went on the lam to keep Kal El/Clark safe. In a medieval fantasy world.

This brings me to my topic:

CHARACTER NAMES (symbolic)

When I teach archetypal criticism, we discuss character names quite a bit. I have the students take notes on various ways that authors use names on a deeper level. Then we check for them when we meet new characters. Here's my list, with a few examples.

# 1

Names that are words, with denotative and connotative meanings. "Sweetie Pie" is adorably lovable and loves Opal instantly in DiCamillo's "Because of Winn Dixie". Porter's "Granny Weatherall" is old (and dying) after "weathering all" of life's hardships. In The Lord of the Rings series by Tolkein, "Grima Wormtongue" uses his tongue (language) to worm (burrow) Saruman's messages into King Theoden's ears, with quite grim consequences. "Cinderella" cleans her stepmother's hearth, getting "little cinders/ashes" all over herself. Disney's "Scar" has psychological scars from not being the king, and literal scars on his left eye.

It helps to know some foreign words (or to look them up). Two quick Shakespeare examples: "Benvolio" wishes good things for his cousin Romeo, while "Malvolio" wishes bad things for Toby Belch.  The legendary "Tristan" is destined to be "sad." I could go on all day...

Sometimes, a character is so indelible, his very name becomes a word with connotative meanings. Case in point: The miser, Ebenezer Scrooge. 

So, class, you don't know why Alice Walker picked "Myop" for the name of her young heroine in "The Flowers?" Look it up! Does the naive character see the world in a nearsighted way? Does that change? Because...

# 2 

Irony.

As Thomas Foster is keen to repeat, irony is an author's trump card. It's delicious!

# 3 

As are, of course, allusive names. You know quickly what a character is like (or not like: IRONY) or have been given a heads-up about what kind of journey she is about to go on when names recall other characters or historical people. I like to play a little game with my students. Who is referenced?

Scrooge McDuck? (We start easy!)

Anyone named Juliet, Sherlock, Pollyanna, Jack, Gretel, Alice, Alexander, Diana, Jesus, Mary, Samson, Delilah, Abraham (double dose of reference!), Noah, Adam, Eve... You get the idea. Knowing Shakespeare, Greek myths, fairy tales, and one's Bible really helps.

So when Jafar's hench-parrot is named Iago, it's not an accident. (I usually have to explain that one, which is easy because I have an 8' mural of Othello and Iago on my classroom wall.)

Just for fun, we usually spend a moment considering the name Harry, which now alludes to a certain boy wizard. But for Rowling and all the British kids reading about Harry's adventures for the first time, his name must have evoked Prince Hal (eventually Henry V) from history class and Shakespeare's version of the Hundred Years' War. Even if Rowling picked the name just because she liked it, that resonance is there. And it couldn't be more perfect.

#4

The lack of a name may have deeper meaning. Nameless characters are often generalized, anonymous representations of struggles that all of us endure. Or characters without names are being dehumanized... When one character refuses to learn another character's name, or refuses to call them the correct name, or uses a belittling nickname rather than a given one, that character is demeaned. It can also dehumanize a character to refer to him by his title alone. He becomes his job, not a full person. This extends to women who are referred to only as Mrs. [surname of her husband]. 

Finally,

#5

When a character's name changes, it marks a change in character. 

That seems too simple, too obvious. And a good author will handle this name change business subtly. We read several short stories where the main female characters are defined first in reference to their husbands: Mrs. Marroner. Mrs. Mallard. Mrs. Hale. They do not "earn" their own names (Marion, Louise, Martha) until they gain control of their personhood and are no longer purely defined in relation to someone else/their husbands.

Digging deeper, why do two of these three random characters' names start with MAR?

It's right there in #3: allusion to Mother Mary, the spotlessly perfect mother. The chosen one.

BACK TO LIO AND LAMB...

When I started writing Lio and Lamb's backstory (Haven), I needed a name for their mother. For several important plot reasons, I didn't want her to be too lovely, and I picked a name that I didn't like much to reflect her physical plainness: Thora. It's not a bad name. Thora Birch is a lovely actress. And there's some irony in naming a fairly powerless, southern islander after the Norse god Thor.

But the more I got to know her, the more I realized that she wasn't an ugly girl, or even plain. She had just been isolated too much as a child, so no one had told her she was beautiful. No one was there to say it.

The name I've been using for almost two years started to grate on me. I would type the letters, knowing that they were bound to disappear one day in the twelve seconds it takes to do a Find>Replace all.

When I realized my comp, that this is my Martha Kent story, it hit me. I had been using the name Marjaana for Thora's mother, a minor character who doesn't even appear in the story. I could steal that more lovely, resonant name for my main character.

I love that her name holds the traditional MAR, as her key role in the overall story is being my main characters' mother.

In twelve seconds, it was done.

  

Feeling Capable

As a writer, there are days I feel so clever and legit. Those are the days I allow myself to imagine an end to the day job (and all the correcting of others’ writing that being a full time  language arts teacher entails) and the beginning of a full time writing career that takes me into my retirement years.

I see myself sitting on panels and playing goofy games on stages at cons. I picture myself wearing “Presenter” badges all across America (instead of "Attendee" badges). I picture my agent and a publishing deal and seeing my books on the end shelves at Target.

Then there are days I feel like a dense sham. I suspect my work is okay, even good. But all of those pie-in-the-sky dreams feel out of reach. Silly, even.

Alas.

For the third year, I am keeping track of my writing life in this journal: 

It starts with several pages of reflection and goal setting, which I like. I have to admit, my pattern is to overestimate the amount of work I'll do in a year. By the end of the year, I will have finished my January-February writing goals. But the outline of the story I've made each year has worked as a roadmap. I'm on the path, moving in the right direction, and I know where I'm headed. I just don't make the progress my optimistic January self thinks is possible. 

This year, my main writing goals are:

* To finish draft 1 of Lio and Lamb: Haven

I had hoped to accomplish this in January and February, as March and April will be filled with the spring musical. But January is almost done and the musical has already started. It might be my summer goal.

* To refine my character arcs

"Refine" actually means "make them happen." Thanks to a class I took at The Loft last November/December, I have some good ideas jotted down. Right now, my characters are too similar. Probably too much like me, to be honest. I need to complicate and gunk and weird them up. 

* Deep revision on Aco

I need to use the advice  Matt Bialer offered in his critique to do more than surface level revision. I'll concentrate on making decisions about POV characters, examining chapter length, and introducing the main plot more clearly/earlier. He also voiced an interest in a small, throwaway detail that I've decided to amp up in the earlier volumes so it will resonate later.

With hope, I will move along the path toward my goals and feel even more capable when I fill out my goals for 2020-2021. 

A New Website

Sometimes I feel competent when it comes to technology. Sometimes I don't.

For many years, I had a simple website at snowmoonpublishing.com to share SPOTD with the world. I built the site on iWeb, bought my domain name from GoDaddy, and had it hosted through iPage. More than once I had problems getting GoDaddy and iPage to work together, but with a little patience and grit, I figured it out.

Somehow, at some point, everything stopped working. And I no longer had the patience to fix it.

Over this Christmas break, I finally decided to do something about my lack of professional web presence. The least "banging-my-head-against-the-wall" solution seemed to be starting from scratch. So I bought my name as a URL and set up web hosting -- both products from the same company this time.

There was a definite learning curve as I built the site using WordPress. But an afternoon's work was all it took to get a basic site live.

Ta-da!

Click here to visit annwachtler.com!

Thanksgiving

What???!?! It's not Thanksgiving, it's New Year's Eve.

Yeah, but the end of the year is a great time to be thankful. Besides, I wrote this post a month ago but never posted it. Out with the old, as they say.

Jump on the metaphorical TARDIS with me, and let's visit November, 2019...

NOVEMBER, 2019

Nanowrimo. It was fantastic. I admit, it wasn't my most successful as far as writing new words or writing every day. As usual, book club did me in. But I did (mostly) revise and (minimally) draft 45,000 words.

The reason it was so great is this: I found my ending!

During a Writing Excuses podcast, I have no idea which one, Mary Robinette Kowal advocated for the writing of short stories, if only because it forces a writer to write endings. And the panelists agreed.

Additionally, they said that it is better to finish works, even poor ones, than to leave them undone, because that is how you learn how to write endings. And I completely agree.

I felt great after finishing Aco this summer. In fact, it was a high from which I did not recover well. After I found and drafted that ending, I revised (minimally) for the rest of the summer. I wrote very little new material. I sent it off to my alpha reader and shifted attention to my day job. Until November and Nanowrimo.

So today was Thanksgiving. I was stuffed and bored with watching television. Most of the extended family had gone home many hours before. Knowing that there were only three days left in the month (and in Nanowrimo 2019), I decided to at least work on my outline for the final chapters of Haven…

And VOILA! Several important plot twists practically wrote themselves. Each event led to the next, inexorably and inevitably. The direction I thought it would go? Wasn’t how it went. And I’m pretty happy with how it went. Still a little jiggling and chapter POV manipulating to do. But it’s there.

I remember getting to this point last July and feeling capable. Not brilliant, just capable. It’s a good feeling. I am thankful for it.

DECEMBER 31, 2019

Now I'm in the throes of making that ending happen. Christmas break was lovely, with lots of time for writing. I added around 7000 words to the draft and have roughly outlined the final chapters. If I can keep going in January, I'll have complete drafts of two volumes in the new series. They'll both need work, especially character work, but the stories will be there.

Looking back, I am pleased with my progress this year.
Looking forward, I am excited to continue the Lio and Lamb series.

Full of thanks, I sign off for 2019.

Writing Books

One shelf in my library is devoted to books on the craft of writing. As an instructor, it's easy to justify their purchase. As an author, it's easy to justify their purchase. As a fan of so many writers, who eventually share their writing wisdom with the world, it's easy to justify their purchase.

But the truth is, I haven't read most of them.

These are my two most recent additions:

I bought the Warren because of (digital) cookies. After perusing it at Amazon, it kept popping up on my entry page. I had looked "inside the book" and copied from it a short list of character questions that I wanted to answer for my own characters, and I felt beholden. Also, that subtitle is brilliant. What's the "one powerful question"? I simply must know.

But I've had the book for three weeks now, and I haven't opened it to find out. 

I bought the Nanowrimo young writer's guidebook because I have an enthusiastic student interested in writing his first novel. It is VERY geared toward the novice, young writer, which fits him well. During class, I have to ask him to put it away and rejoin our classwork. So, yeah. He's thirsty. 

I know this: Even though (most days) I feel accomplished as a purveyor of words, there is much to be learned. 

Maybe I'll dive in this weekend.

The Season's Harvest

Tomatoes have been picked, sunlight hours are growing noticeably shorter, and my day job has resumed. It's already past Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer. Seems like a good time to consider the "labor" that occurred this past season.

I had a decent summer of writing. Better than most. Spending my fun money on house repairs rather than travel and feeling the internal pressure to have more to show an agent kept me focused.

June was my most productive, with 18,600 words written and the first draft of a novel (Aco) revised and finished. I wrote for 4+ hours each day, which added up nicely.

July was okay, with another draft (Haven) mostly revised, though left without an ending (for now).

August FLEW by, and I didn't make as much progress as I planned or hoped. It doesn't help that my day job recommenced exactly halfway through the month. My most satisfying accomplishment was listing out my chapters, with POV and summaries, in an effort to see the chronologies of Queenswood and Storm side by side. After fixing some of the timing, it does look like I will be able to switch back and forth between storylines without too much confusion for the reader.

Goals for this fall:

I am hoping in September and October to finish revising Haven. As I work, I'll weave Queenswood and Storm together to see if they gel. Then in November, when my students are finished with their writing workshop, I can make a final push to write the ending. It may be a Nanowrimo year.

The middle volume will probably have to wait for 2020. But we'll see. It doesn't have a name yet, though there are various large concepts that define parts of it... Overall, I still call it "the middle book," "the quest section," or "the coming of age part." Wolf, Burn, and Crossing are potential section titles.

I'd also like to watch more Masterclass videos, as I'm a full member right now but not taking advantage of the masters' expertise. I've watched all of Aaron Sorkin's brilliant videos but only dabbled in Baldacci, Patterson, and Gaiman.

Personally, I am working on more restful sleep (a new mattress is helping immensely) and daily exercise (I've made my step goal ten days in a row, which is a record). I should also have a goal of eating less bread, but the BLTs are too tempting of late.

It's important to enjoy the fall harvest, however lean or fattening.

Abstract Thinking vs. Knowing

This summer I read, back to back, two books that made me rethink my writing practice and how I teach writing.

The first is Tara Westover's brilliant Educated. She is a thoughtful, wonderful writer.

The second is Range, David Epstein. I can't stop thinking and talking about this book.

One of Epstein's propositions is that we too often teach and test concrete, knowledge-based skills (well) to the detriment of abstract thinking skills that would be more useful throughout one's life. Not new, as an idea. I remember particularly the "Dimensions of Learning" trend that pushed for teaching HOTS: Higher Order Thinking Skills. That was one education trend I really liked and continue to consider as I plan lessons. I especially like the author's insistence that better learning is SLOW and looks like poor learning (in the immediate). Which leads me back to Tara Westover.

Tara's elementary and secondary education experiences were extremely limited. She mostly learned what she was curious enough about to explore on her own, which led to a narrow understanding of what most Americans would deem "general knowledge". But she was a reader, and her mind is able to make fascinating, imaginative leaps. She learned the skills that Range's author deemed essential. She is able to transfer knowledge and make connections.

In the long run, teachers who lead students toward the right answers and reward them are less effective than teachers who allow students to be wrong and struggle toward true understanding. As I start a new school year, I plan to keep these truths in mind.

Facebook Revelations

What does my personal Facebook page say about me?

I recently did a quick data analysis on the types of posts and topics posted on my Facebook page so far (2019). Here's what I found:

Topics*:

0% Political
2% each: Current events, Weather, Local interest, Travel, and College
6.5% Shakespeare related
6.5% Movies/Television
9% Events
11% Poems/Poetry 
13% Humorous
13% Education
17% Books

35% Family

Genre:
2% each: Announcements, Advertising, Graphic, Invitation
4% Shopping related
9% Memes
11% Text
13% Articles
17% Videos
37% Photos

Posters:

35% Shared by someone else

65% Posted by me

My most common post is family photos posted by me. In my opinion, that's Facebook's most convenient use.

If someone were trying to figure out my interests, they would have a pretty good snapshot based on these results.

Though I do hit the like button on others' partisan political posts, I consciously refuse to post political content (articles/memes). I acknowledge this is a matter of privilege. It's a choice I make to safeguard my mental health. Still, would someone be able to guess my political affiliation based on Facebook posts? Probably. My focus on public education and intellectual pursuits probably give it away. It's not that I'm a Democrat, so I have certain interests. It's the other way around. I care about all Americans doing well, not just myself, and actively work to raise the "least" to their best lives, rather than focusing on what's merely best or most profitable for me. A focus on the group over the individual often marks the difference between Democrat and Republican. I think it's particularly sad that the highly educated in our nation are now considered "elite" to be trashed rather than exemplars to be revered.

The same is true for religion. I don't post my religious beliefs or link to articles that are particularly religious, though my faith is an important part of who I am. Again, I think it's sad that one party considers itself the "religious" one, assuming that all members of the opposite party are Godless heathens. It is my Christian faith, above all, that leads me most of my political beliefs. Especially Jesus' call to live humbly, love my neighbor, and be a servant to others.

What surprised me? I think movies and television take up more of my daily life than this shows, as does travel. I had no idea that a third of the content on my page was posted by friends and relatives, although that doesn't surprise me.

I have posted 15 times to this blog in 2019. Had I linked to each blog, about a quarter of my posts would have been about writing. That's more than my percentages for books or education. I sometimes flirt with the idea of transitioning to a full-time writing career. This data analysis is a bit of an eye-opener. Retiring from teaching is not just a fleeting thought. It's born out by the numbers.


* Some topics comprised more than one topic