books | C. L. Parson

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Every End is a New Beginning

On December 12th 2012, 13 days before Christmas, I found out the baby I was carrying had died. I was one day shy of being 13 weeks pregnant, but the miracle inside me had stopped growing at 9 weeks and the tiny heart was no longer beating. I could almost hear my own heart shatter. It was the hardest day of my life.

To help ward off depression, I threw myself into my book. I had finished the first draft, but the last 70 pages or so were all handwritten so I spent most of my time transcribing it on the computer. When I wasn’t writing, I was reading. Anything to take my mind off of what had happened. I wasn’t happy with my life at the moment, so I spent as much time as I could living the lives of the characters I was writing or reading about.

Now it is time to start living my life again. With the New Year comes new beginnings. We have all heard it before. Usually I would just roll my eyes. However, this year, I feel the saying is appropriate.

I finished transcribing the handwritten manuscript. I am now revising my book, which is much like writing a whole new book all together. But now I have a chance to make it a better book. I am not starting over, I am just making it better. I am better prepared for what I want the overall outcome to be and how to get there. It may not be the most fun. I don’t think anyone really enjoys the rewriting process. But the headaches and the frustration will all be worth it when I am finally able to hold my new, perfected book in my hands.

The same goes with my family and our hopes to add one more member to it. We are waiting a couple of months, but we have decided to try again after our loss. We are definitely not trying to replace our loss with a new baby. We are not starting over. Nothing will erase the pain we felt after hearing the news that our baby had died, but I know I will see my angel baby again one day in a place where there is no pain. After our tragedy, we are now better prepared for all the possibilities, and when we conceive again, we will more than likely be paranoid and worry the whole 9 months. In the end, the worrying and the paranoia will all be worth it when I can finally hold my new, perfect baby in my arms.

C. L. Parson

Tags: beginning, birth, blog, books, butterfly, death, end, miscarriage, writing

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Categories Life, Writing

And We’re Off… Kinda

1 Nov

It is that time of year again folks. It is that wonderful, magical month filled with caffeine-fueled dreams and wastebaskets stuffed like cornucopias with pages and pages of trashed ideas and dangling plot threads. Yes, it is officially time for National Novel Writing Month aka NaNoWriMo.

If you are not familiar with NaNoWriMo, it occurs every year in November. You have 30 days to write a 50,000 word novel. That means you must write at least 1,667 words each day to reach the goal. What do you get if you win? The ultimate in prizes: bragging rights. Sounds easy enough, right? 1,667 words a day doesn’t seem too bad. You might have the will power and discipline to complete your daily word count goal. (I know at least one Wrimo who can write all 50,000 words in 24 hours.) For the rest of us mere mortals, it can be a little difficult finding time for NaNoWriMo somewhere between work and family life. But as Mom used to say, it isn’t whether you win or lose.

The point of NaNoWriMo is to have a blast while writing alongside your fellow writers. The forums are awesome plot fodder in and of themselves. This will be the fourth year I am participating in NaNoWriMo and I have not won once. Why do I keep coming back year after year? It is just good clean fun. How am I doing so far this year? Not so hot. I have not written a single word as of yet. However, I did create an awesome book cover for my novel.

So give it a go. Everyone’s doing it. You know you want to.Visit their website http://www.nanowrimo.org to sign up and join in the shenanigans.

C. L. Parson

Tags: books, nanowrimo, novel, writing

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Categories Writing

Numbers Game

2 Oct

This post goes hand in hand with my post “Making Time”. Once I made the time for my writing, an amazing thing happened. My writing actually got somewhere. Color me surprised. And I actually was!

For each hour I wrote, my word count went up. A word count goal to a writer is like heroine to a junkie. Picture me, disheveled, sitting in my car and eagerly scratching at a note pad. Every five minutes, I pick up the note pad and begin to count the words I wrote. Shy of my goal, I grab my pen and feverishly scratch at the pad once more. Finally, I reach my goal. I throw my arms in the air, “Success!” I am sated until the next day when my fix is due.

Word count goals can also be my downfall. If I set them too high, I am doomed to fail every time. I have to be realistic. It is much more satisfying to set a modest goal and succeed than to set a ridiculous goal and fail.

Another risk I face is the temptation to stop and count my words every other minute. This can halt any real progress I am making, and my poor muse ends up with a serious case of whiplash. Instead, I try to guesstimate as I write. I know I write somewhere around 250-300 words per page. It is a lot easier to keep a page count straight in my head without having to stop writing. At the end of my session, I know about how much I wrote.

That doesn’t mean I don’t count each word after my session. Hell yeah, I do! But, at least I have the willpower and the grits to wait until my writing session is finished to count. Most of the time, I find myself within 20-50 words of the figure I ball-parked.

But the ultimate ecstasy is reserved for when I add a day’s word count to the word count total for my novel. At that point, angels sing from the heavens, the lion lays down with the lamb, and everything is right with the world. I go about my day, a stupid grin on my face. If I glowed any more, I would be radioactive. I may get strange looks from passersby, but it doesn’t matter. On these days, I’m the victor fit to wear the title “Writer”.