Archive for the ‘Writing Life’ Category

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Goodbye for now…


05 May

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Posted in Writing, Writing Craft, Writing Goals, Writing Life, Writing Motivation, Writing with Kids | No Comments »


Well this is the time to say goodbye to this blog for an undetermined time, maybe for good. I haven’t been very active in the last few months mostly because I am concentrating on my writing. I am working on some great projects and want to give them my full attention both time and creativity wise.

Blogging regularly takes a lot of one’s mental energy and as writers I think we have to decide where to put all that creativity. For me, it’s at the page, in my manuscripts. This is where lies my “happy writing place.”


So I have decided to blog a lot less and only at Musetracks, a popular blog for writers that I am very proud of. We started it as unpublished authors with big dreams and now we are still great friends and writing partners and the blog has grown bigger than we ever imagined.

So you can find me there on Mondays, but I do hope you will stick around on other days because we offer a lot of inspiration and companionship to fellow writers, along with the chance to pitch to agents and editors once a month.

Much love,
Marie-Claude xoxox

p.s. if you like social media, you can also add me as a friend on Facebook or on Twitter, or Instagram as marieclaudewrites

Location:Seattle

And what if the manuscript doesn’t sell?


16 Feb

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Posted in Writing, Writing Blues, Writing Craft, Writing Goals, Writing Life, Writing Motivation | 1 Comment »


And by that I mean sell to a publisher or catch the eye of an agent.

I’ve spend my not so long writing career with a plan that had back-ups, if this doesn’t sell, I’ll have another series to submit and so on. And I’ve written a few first-of-series manuscripts now (which still need tons of editing) and had always thought that they were back-ups.

But as my whole writing approach change, to a more habit-driven, kinder, soul-stirring, organic approach, I am starting to also change my idea of what I should write next.

I started thinking about what my writing plan would be if I had total control. Not because I want to do that, in fact I’m not really interested in putting all the effort and money it takes to self-pub (if I did, I’d hire an editor, a copy editor and a cover designer and I just can’t afford that).

But I was asking myself what if I was guaranteed a sale, at my own conditions. What would I be writing now? It’s obvious to me now that I would continue with the series I am currently working on. I am totally in love with it. And once this series in well started, I would continue to write the occasional gothic paranormal trilogy.

I would writing my sword and sorcery theme, because I might as well be honest, this is what I am really into.

So why have been derailed? The more I am away from the buzzing of the “business” and listen to my inner writing voice, the more I know what I truly want to do.

And I know that an unsold manuscript is more than a failure. It’s time spent with loved characters, a lesson in patience and huge practice at the writing craft, which I love just for the sake of it.

Would I still write it without the money? Yeah probably.

Much love,
Marie-Claude xoxox

Location:Seattle

Writing in a saturated market


07 Feb

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Posted in Writing, Writing Goals, Writing Life, Writing Motivation | No Comments »


I haven’t read much in the genre I am currently writing in. Mostly because I don’t want to be influenced to write a certain way by osmosis and also because it makes me a little nervous when I do.

I have read in the periphery of my genre, classics, darker and more complex stories than what I write, but I stay away from what I specifically write. In fact, I don’t know much about what’s out there.

Not a very good business plan – but do I write for business or just because I must?

Last night I stumbled upon a series of novels recently published in the genre I write. I had no idea they even existed. Suddenly, everything I though was fresh in my own story felt stale. What am I really bringing to this?

There is nothing new in my writing, I thought. I’m still a little in shock from my findings and frankly I found it hard to motivate myself to work this morning. Will an agent ever thing that what I have will sell? Is my market saturated?

I bet I’m not the only one, in fact I can think of a few people who wrote vampire books who thought the same thing.

What saved me (just a little – I’m still panicking) is to stick with the habit. I won’t know until I finish this book and send it out. The worst to happen would be that it won’t sell, even to a small press. I will still have finished the whole story and have gain experience in the process.

Forward is the only way.

Much love,
Marie-Claude xoxox

Location:Seattle

I’m probably doing this wrong!


15 Jan

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Posted in Writing, Writing Life | No Comments »


(1) My mind is crammed with so many story ideas. Do you ever feel that way? It’s rich with plots for series, spin-off of series, new series and stand alone novels. Ideas make me happy, make me feel like I have even more lives into my one life. The sad thing is, I don’t think I will live long enough to write them all.

(2) I almost feel like a real writer again. I’m waiting for feedback from my writing partner (the very talented Candi Wall) and I love the feeling of not knowing. It’s crazy, kind of like loving the pain of a really hard workout.

(3) I reread parts of an editing book I like last night. And I realized that I tend to have 3 stages to writing a manuscript: first the rough first draft which I love, then the excruciating second draft when I have to fix everything and add tons of things like settings and dialog tags. Then finally, the last draft when I get to fix the actual style sentence by sentence.The first and last part makes me feel more creative, more like an artist. The middle part, it’s more like writing yet another graduate thesis. I’m probably doing this wrong! There’s got to be artistic way to edit a manuscript.

Much love,
Marie-Claude xoxox

Location:Seattle

Writing challenge: 50 min a day!


02 Dec

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Posted in 7 weeks challenge (2nd), Writing Goals, Writing Life, Writing Motivation, Writing Steampunk | Comments Off


I just completed week 5 of my writing challenge #2 (which means I have now been working on my manuscript solid straight for 12 weeks) and have been working for 50 minutes every day last week except Saturday. I’m amazed at how much can be done in 50 minutes a day. I am now on scene 71 of my work in progress and plan to have the whole thing done before Dec 21 when I fly out to Scotland for my christmas holidays.

I’m pretty excited to be so close to a 350 pages (90K words) readable manuscript. Then will come the final polish and submission.

Next week, I’m increasing my writing time to 55 minutes (30 in the morning and 25 at night) and hope this will see me through the finish.

Much love,
Marie-Claude xoxox

p.s. readers who may wish to comment can do so on my Facebook page or on Twitter. My life needs a little simplifying right now :)

Location:Seattle

Shiny new writing things


21 Nov

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Posted in Writing, Writing Goals, Writing Life, Writing Motivation | Comments Off


I had a little time to spare the other morning before leaving for work and I started googling for publishing opportunities.

I saw a call for short stories series and my mind started to play with that information.

What if I submit that short story I have? It’s almost ready! I might have another book out there soon if it get accepted then! Those stories are only 13K words!!!

Oh so attractive! And what a wonderful distraction from the monster beast that is my work in progress.

But I got to finish that first!!!

I get so distracted. I tend to jump on new things so easily in a “Oh, I can write THAT” fervor. Hence the paranormal short, the steampunk novel, the small town romance, the YA fantasy, all waiting to be edited.

Live and learn.

I MUST edit, polish and submit my current project BEFORE I do anything else!

Much love,
M-C xoxox

Location:Seattle

The lure of publishing


11 Nov

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Posted in 7 weeks challenge (2nd), Writing Goals, Writing Life, Writing Motivation | Comments Off


As I start week 3 of my second 7 week challenge (night writing), I can’t help but feeling a little low.

You see I did what I told myself I wouldn’t do. I started to think about selling instead of focusing only on the process.

If I focus solely on the process, I’m a winner. I succeeded. I am writing now every morning for 30 minutes and steadily increasing my time in the evening, At this rate, I’ll have my solid edited draft done by Christmas.

But… I started to look at agents this week and boy, do I feel like a loser. I have published in a long while. And really who’d want my steampunk novel? Isn’t steampunk overrated now? And don’t agents and editors want romance not just fantasy story? It’s slippy slope thinking… Really not good for me.

I’m starting to doubt my writing, thinking maybe I should make my hero more likable, thinking of tweaking my story to make it more marketable. All the things I said I would not do.

So today I pulled away from the web. Stopped perusing agents and authors pages. Did my writing, then enjoyed my day off. I can’t change my writing past, worry about where it will go. All I can do is focus on the habit. Today I did 55 minutes of editing and doing so made me happy.

Much love,
Marie-Claude xoxox

p.s. readers who may wish to comment can do so on my Facebook page or on Twitter. My life needs a little simplifying right now :)

Location:Seattle

Evening writing through lack of support


07 Nov

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Posted in 7 weeks challenge (2nd), Writing Goals, Writing Life, Writing Motivation, Writing Steampunk | Comments Off


So far so good and I’m going strong with the evening writing challenge (week 2 – day 4). Evening is the hardest time for me because not only am I really tired at the end of the day but also because my family is not very supportive of my writing. So I have to force myself to ignore that little fact and just do it.

With the habit method (increasing my writing time a little every week) I’m hoping that not only will I grow into this habit but also that my family will slowly just get used to the idea that I take 30 minutes every evening to work on my novel.

A win all around.

Much love,
Marie-Claude xoxox

p.s. readers who may wish to comment can do so on my Facebook page or on Twitter. My life needs a little simplifying right now :)

Location:Seattle

Nanowrimo? No way! 5 Reasons Why.


03 Nov

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Posted in 7 weeks challenge (2nd), Time to write, Writing Goals, Writing Life, Writing Motivation | Comments Off


I have participated in Nanowrimo twice so far. And I will definitely not do it again.
Here are a few reason why:

1) It usually occur at a time when I’m into editing a project and should really NOT start another book (that’s why I still have 3 more manuscripts to edit after I finish the one I’m working on – 2 of those are Nanowrimo books)

2) It distracts me from what I don’t want to do. Starting a new novel is really fun. The excitement gathered by all the other writers doing it is really fun. There is nothing wrong with fun but for me, it translates into jumping onto the new exciting idea and not ever seeing completion of anything.

3) The social aspect of it is, as I said in 2, a lot of fun. So much fun that I end up talking about the Nanowrimo, adding friends on my Nano profile, reading all the blogs about it, joining all the special email loops, and so on. All that leaves me with very little time to actually write.

4) I’m doing the writing habit thing (challenge 2 – week 1 successfully completed) to teach me to write/edit slow and steady until polished completion and submission. To see how many books a year I can produce (if it’s only one – fine, so be it! ) and keep the pace all year. Short burst like Nanowrimo are terrible for me because I think I have more time than I really do have when I chose to do it all in a short time.

5) and then we get to quality. Now this is very personal. Some people can produce high quality work by writing 10,000 words a day. I am not one of those people. I can produce about 2,000 words a day at my best, by writing two scenes a day, separated by big chunk of time where I basically write in my head while doing household chores, riding the bus, exercising, or falling asleep at night. I need to live in the book and 7 weeks in the minimum amount of time I can realistically write a decent first draft of a 85,000 words novel.

Much love,
Marie-Claude xoxox

p.s. readers who may wish to comment can do so on my Facebook page or on Twitter. My life needs a little simplifying right now :)

Location:Seattle

7 week writing challenge completed!


27 Oct

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Posted in 7 weeks challenge (1st), Writing Goals, Writing Life, Writing Motivation | Comments Off


Yes, I did it! I completed my personal writing challenge to rebuild my habit of writing every morning at 5 am. It took a lot longer than if I had tried to jump into a 30 minutes right away, but by doing this for almost 2 month now, I have built the habit of heading to my laptop as soon as I have my morning coffee in hand. I trick myself into making this part of my daily life and making me crave the action daily.

It works.

And it works because each time, the task didn’t feel overwhelming. I started with the simple act of opening the file of the writing project, read a page, then close it. 2 minutes a day. So easy that I could not not do it.

How much work do I procure with a very intense 30 min editing session? I can edit about 2 scenes a week, and write the first draft of 6 scenes.

So… can I build a small side writing career out of 30 minutes a day with days off on Saturdays. Well, technically I can. It would take me about 13 weeks to write the first draft of a 350 page novel and about 36 weeks to revise it. That’s about 49 weeks. So roughly a book a year.

Do I want more? Maybe. So far I am working on the process. I’m slowly changing my writing outlook focus to be less worried about sales and more focused on completion, quality and writing what I really want to. I want to be more worried about being a good writer than playing author with promotion, networking, social media and “look at me” attitude (and I’m pointing the finger at myself here – learning from my own mistakes).

And so far it is working. I spend much of my free daydreaming time with my story these days.

Hence, the new 7 week writing challenge! Starting Sunday I am building a new habit of writing for 30 min in the evening as well.

And I’ll blog more about that when I start day one tomorrow.

Much love,
Marie-Claude xoxox

p.s. readers who may wish to comment can do so on my Facebook page or on Twitter. My life needs a little simplifying right now :)

Location:Seattle

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