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Kids as Critique Partners

Monday, May 31st, 2010
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I’m attempting to break into a new genre. Well, it isn’t new to me, but it is to my pen name. I’ve written a series of Young Adult (YA) books that I’ve absolutely fallen in love with.

My daughter, who will be 14 this summer, and 1 of her closest friends have spent endless hours plotting out the series with me. It’s different plotting with 14-year-olds. They see things in an entirely different light. I wanted the hero of the book to be this perfect gentlemen who truly loves the heroine. They said, “No way!! He needs to be mean sometimes, because real guys are.” I wanted the villain (well the heroine’s nemesis) to have redeeming qualities. They said, “Girls like her don’t.”

Every time we go to lunch together, we end up talking about the books. Should they battle this bad guy or should this good guy get hurt, and yada yada yada. We have so much fun together that I forget we are actually “working.”

Recently I found out that both girls are writing their own books and I couldn’t be more thrilled. They both agree it has everything to do with us plotting out stories together. They got so excited working on my stories that they wanted to do their own. My daughter’s friend even said she now knows what she wants to be when she grows up–AN EDITOR!!!

So ladies, if ever you wonder if you kids hear you when you talk with them. The answer from me is a resounding Y-E-S!!! I love that I’ve been able to, in an indirect way, help the girls by activating their own muses and even helping one with direction in her career life.

I encourage you to work out plot holes with your kids (if the genre is appropriate). It’s the best decision I’ve made about my writing and it’s brought me closer with the girls.

Happy writing!~!

~Allie K. Adams
www.alliekadams.com

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When you are the one who does it all…

Friday, February 19th, 2010
Comments (8)

When do we stand up and say enough is enough? Perhaps I should back up and give you a little background as to why I’m on the ledge…

I work full time, mostly from home, and the hours are demanding. It is rare for me to work less than 60 hours per week. No joke. On top of that, it’s tax season, so I’m doing taxes for friends and family (I was a tax accountant in a former life). But wait, there’s more. My 17-year-old son is doing Close-Up this year, where they send the kids to DC for a week. The kids and their parents have to work concessions at all the high school games in order to earn money for the trip, so I’m doing that, too. I’m also contracted to write about a frillion (that’s totally a word) books this year. Oh, yes, and let’s not forget that I’m a mom with 2 teenagers! I should add that I have an elderly, ailing mother living next door who needs me.

I’m stressed beyond stressed right now. I love everything I do, but I just don’t love it when it all comes down on me like this.

What do you do when you are ready to call it quits? When you are on the ledge, who is that person who talks you down? Is it yourself? Your husband? Who?

I have a husband who is equally as stressed. He’s a firefighter (just promoted to captain!) and is outfitting a honkin huge truck for wildfire response and protection. Because we’ve had such a pathetic snow pack this year, we are expecting a record fire season in Montana. He has until March 1st to get everything done on the truck, so he is scrambling to finish.

Last night was my breaking point, my friends. After working from 7am – 5pm without a break, I raced down to the school to work Close-Up until 9pm. I stopped by the pub to say hi to my sister, who works there, and she informed me that my hubby had been down there pretty much all day. I walked over to him, but he was in such a heated conversation with someone he didn’t even see me. All our friends saw me, but he didn’t. I sat there and watched some of the Olympics, but after a while, I just turned and left. I don’t know what time he got in last night, only that when I woke up this morning, he was on the couch. I’m still livid about the whole thing. I’m working until I collapse from exhaustion, and he goes to the pub to hang with his friends. I’m seeing an unequal balance here.

Why am I telling you all this? Because I need your help. What do you do when you feel like you are the only one doing everything? When you’ve reached your breaking point, what do you do? Do you break? Do you take a step back? Do you go get a pedicure? What? I’d like to know so I can step back from the ledge.

Thanks for letting me vent.

~Allie K. Adams / Eve Adams
www.alliekadams.com
alliekadams@blackfoot.net

Categories : Uncategorized
Comments (8)

Going Back to High School

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
Comments (3)

My son is a junior in high school this year and there are several schools around the nation that participate in sending their juniors to Washington DC in the spring. This is called “Close Up” and this year, I get to experience it.

This is such a great opportunity for the kids. Some may never leave their town, let alone the state, so for them to participate in Close Up may be their only chance to see something great like our nation’s capitol. And, although this is a fabulous thing they are doing, let me tell you, it don’t come easy!

All summer long, mom, dad, and kid spent every weekend in a concession stand, feeding various attendees of whatever event we held. They all blur together after a while, so I can’t remember which weekend we served the bikers, which weekend we served the accordion festival, or which weekend we served the art and jazz festival. All I remember is I didn’t get a chance to see any of it because I stuck in the booth.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s all for a great cause, I get that. But holy cow! I worked, on average, about 16 hours a week inside a concession booth, all to earn money for my son to go to DC. Add that to my day job, which already demanded 50-60 hours per week, and then my writing, which demands my attention all the time, and I’m exhausted!

We still don’t have enough money in his account for him to go, so even though I’ve been busting my hump earning money for him, I’ll still have to fork out some dough. Oh, goodie.

Why am I telling you all of this? I’m hoping another parent out there has gone through this and can offer me words of advice. Do I stop busting my butt at the concessions and just pay the difference? We’ve put in, between the three of us, hundreds if not thousands of hours, and we have just now hit the halfway point on the money we need. I’m frustrated. Not only have I neglected my writing this year to work in a concession stand, but all of that time I spent away from my characters still didn’t give me enough money to send my boy.

Has anyone else done Close Up? What did you do for fund raisers? Does anyone else have any ideas on what we can do fast to make money? We need to have everything paid by April.

Thanks so much and happy days!

~Allie K. Adams, also w/a Eve Adams
www.alliekadams.com
alliekadams@blackfoot.net

Categories : Uncategorized
Comments (3)

When to let your baby go

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009
Comments (3)

As a mama, we all have that instinct to fiercely protect our child from the evils of the world. As a mamawriter, we have more than our kids to protect–we also have our creations.

I’m talking about our writing. We start with an idea, coddle it into a story, polish it into a pristine work of art, and then… what? We sit there, staring at the computer screen, a sense of satisfaction coursing through our creative veins, but deep down we are scared to death. It’s time, and we know it.

Time for what, you may ask? Just like the first day of kindergarten for our kids, or sending them off to college, or anything in between, we now have to say goodbye to our baby. We must find the strength to send our story out for judgment.

For those of you under contract, you know your work will go to your editor, that he or she will chew it up and give it back to you, making it a better book in the end, and one that will hopefully bring many sales. For those still looking for a home for your work, you have an additional step involved. You have the dreaded query letter and synopsis to create.

But I digress. When you send out your work for publication, previously published or not, contracted on the work or not, it is a very stressful event, let me tell you. I’m under contract for several books with my publisher and each one I send them, my finger hovers over the ‘Send’ button as I mull over whether to change this or that. Just like I hovered over my kids when I sent them to their first day of school, not wanting to let them go, I’m the same way with my writing. I don’t want to let it go. When I do, that means it is now in someone else’s hands.

It’s enough to make a mama a nervous wreck.

So this is what I do: I immediately jump into another story. It keeps me preoccupied so I don’t sit and fret over the work already out there. Keep yourself busy, peeps! It helps.

That’s what I do. What about you?

~Allie K. Adams
www.alliekadams.com

Categories : Uncategorized
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NaNoWriMo – Are you in?

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
Comments (3)

I love a challenge, don’t you?

As a challenge to myself, I joined the ranks of hundreds of thousands of people who all pledge to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. It’s called the NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month.

I started wicked fast, right out of the gate, reaching the 50,000 word goal in 7 days. I’m still going and am at 67,000 words and counting. I’m hoping to hit 100,000 for the month.

I think the key to NaNo is the support. I belong to a great group created just for NaNo. We email our totals everyday, share quirky little stories, and give each other virtual pats on the back. If it weren’t for the support of these fine writers, I would have given up on NaNo by now.

If you are in NaNo, or even if you aren’t, and feel like you just can’t write another word, I challenge you to push yourself by not only writing that word, but add friends to it. Even if what you write is riddled with grammar errors, spelling errors, write it anyway. Even if you use the same word 17 times on the same page, write it anyway. Let the *was* bug out and go to town. Was. Were. Whatever! Just write.

I’d love to see how everyone else is doing for their word counts this month. Where are you now? Where do you want to be by the end of the week? How about by Thanksgiving? Please share your story! Oh, and if you have any words of inspiration for those of us struggling to find that one word we need to really kick off the muse, please share!

~Allie K. Adams
At Any Cost – 5 stars
Seek and Destroy – 5 stars
www.alliekadams.com
alliekadams@blackfoot.net

Categories : Uncategorized
Comments (3)
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