Writing is, generally speaking, a lonely endeavor. When I open up Scrivener, I don’t need a committee to tell me what to write; it’s just me and the blank page. This works well for me. I’m an introvert, so spending time alone, lost in an imaginary world is about as close to perfect as I can imagine.

However, writing is also hard. Daily writing is a habit, and it’s oh-so-easy to fail. Habits need accountability, reinforcement, and encouragement. This is where a writing group becomes invaluable. My group consists of five women, including myself. We’re all interconnected, through work, existing friendships, or both. No one in the group is published, and though we’d like that to change, we write because we enjoy it.

Because all five of us have dark hair and Apple laptops, we have been humorously dubbed the “Brunettes With Macs Write Better” group. We get together for a couple hours once or twice a week to eat dinner and then write. It gives us a chance to commiserate about the tough times, rejoice in the good times, and be sociable while also increasing our word count.

Even though the group is highly informal, just knowing I am going is often enough to get me to put words on paper. We don’t guilt each other for not writing (well, except for the occasional good-natured ribbing). We meet in order to be lonely together, which is a whole lot more fun than being lonely alone.

If you’re a writer who is tired of being cooped up in your house, I highly recommend joining or starting a writing group. It doesn’t have to be formal or rigid, a group of like-minded friends is good enough. Just make sure that social time has a set time limit, such as while you’re eating dinner, and writing time actually happens, or you’ve created a social group instead of a writing group. Which is fine, but it’s not going to help you write your novel any faster.

So what do Patricia Briggs, Patrick Rothfuss, and Kim Harrison have in common? Give up?

Well, they all had the high honor of meeting me this past weekend. I know they must have been pretty excited, but they managed to play it cool and professional. I even let each of them scribble in some of my books. I’m awesome like that. :)

Dustin and I spent last weekend in Houston, or more specifically, at book signings at Murder By the Book, an independent Houston bookstore. We originally saw that Patrick Rothfuss was going to be there on Sunday, so we figured we’d pop over for the weekend and get our books signed. In a stroke of luck, both Patricia and Kim (am I the only one who feels weird calling famous people I’ve met once by their first names, like we’re pals now?) were signing on Saturday night, so we went over a little earlier and spent Saturday at Murder By the Book, too.

The turnout was crazy. The bookstore is fairly small, so if you go to any of their signings (and they have a ton!) make sure to get there early. We barely got a seat for Patricia and Kim and we arrived two hours early. For Patrick we arrived before the store opened on Sunday and there was already a line. They were expecting over six hundred people for his signing.

Overall, the bookstore was very nice. The staff was super awesome, even though I know they must have put in some crazy hours. If you’re in Houston, you should definitely check it out.

Here are a couple pics we took.

Patricia Briggs and Jessie

Patrick Rothfuss and Jessie

Jessie and Kim Harrison

Patrick Rothfuss and Dustin

I finally finished the first two chapters of the book I’m working on.  Counting the time I wasn’t writing but should have been, the time I was procrastinating, the time I had writer’s block, and the time I have actually written, I believe it’s taken me about six months to write two chapters.  At this rate, I’ll finish the novel sometime in 2025.  Maybe.

The good news is that unlike NaNo, I’m editing as I go.  This means I have two fairly quality chapters.  I’m sure they’ll still change, but I’m pretty happy with them.  The novel is based on the short story I wrote for ArmadilloCon.  I received some positive feedback about it, and I really like the world I’m building.  Of course, I’d like it a whole lot more if the plot would fall nicely into place.

Here’s a little snippet from chapter two:

Ethan didn’t move.  I could move him, but that would very likely start a war, and I already had enough drama in my life.  Maybe just a little push.  Magic welled up inside me, drawn by my thoughts, eager to please.

“Fae!” Gabe barked at me.  He appeared behind Ethan.  I shrugged a shoulder at him and tried to look innocent.

“Ethan, are you going to stand there all night?” Gabe asked.

As sovereign, Ethan could deny me entrance.  As a witch, I could make him very sorry for that decision.  My smile was full of teeth.  Bring it.

As I mentioned in my previous post, this past weekend was ArmadilloCon here in Austin.  After three days of hanging out with published authors, not-yet-published authors, and fans, I can definitely say this:  These are my people and my people are weird.  Falling into both the software engineering and writing worlds myself, I am somewhat of an authority on weird, so take my word for it.  :)

Friday was the Writers’ Workshop.  Before the workshop started, I sat and talked to Rachel Caine for probably ten minutes before I introduced myself.  When she said her name was Rachel, it finally clicked on why she looked familiar–she was the guest of honor.  I then had that “I’m sitting next to someone famous” moment, but she was very cool when I turned all fangirl on her for a couple minutes.  I’ve read the first two books in her YA Morganville Vampire series and they were fun, fast reads.

The writers’ workshop was awesome.  There were four other aspiring authors in my group, and the group was led by Gordon and Ilona Andrews.  Gordon and Ilona are very nice, very cool people.  They gave me great feedback on the story I submitted.  Some of it was critical, but it’s what I needed to hear to be able to see the story through their eyes.  They also said some very, very nice things about my ability, so that was awesome.  I even got a mini shout-out on their blog.  The Jessie in the second paragraph… totally me.  ::dies::

Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday were mostly panels.  I took a bunch of notes but haven’t even started to process everything yet.  All I know is that my To Be Read list just got a whole lot longer.  The con was smallish, but it was a nice size because it felt intimate, like a group of friends getting together to talk books.  I guess I was basing my perspective on A-Kon, which is freaking huge, but I was expecting more people.

Sunday afternoon, thanks to the urging of the greatest husband on the planet, we got to hang out and have a drink with Gordon, Ilona, their friend Reece, and Stina Leicht (who also organized the workshop).  I totally wouldn’t have went over to talk to Gordon without Dustin’s urging, because I never want to be “that girl” that bothers people.  That fear coupled with my seriously introverted nature almost guarantees I avoid talking to strangers, almost-strangers, and especially almost-strangers-that-I-really-admire.   However, Dustin talked me into it, and I compromised by saying I’d just go say thank you and then leave.  A couple hours of chatting later, I realized it was getting late and we really should leave this time.  It was amazing!

After several stops and starts, rewrites and revisions, I think I’ve finally hit on the true beginning of my book.  Here it is, in all of its rough draft glory:

I ducked under the police tape, Isa right behind me.  The moon provided enough light to barely see the empty yard stretching to the house.  We hadn’t seen any policemen patrolling the area, but we weren’t taking any chances.  We’d left the car at Mark and Emma’s and hiked over.

Isa touched my shoulder.  I turned and she tapped her nose and pointed to a piece of darkness off to the left.  As a werewolf, her senses were better than mine.  She had smelled someone lurking in the shadows.

We circled to the right and crept up to the patio door that led to my parents’ bedroom.  I pulled the key from my pocket and slipped it into the lock.  The door swung open silently and we stepped inside, glad to be out of sight.

Isa took a deep breath and barely suppressed the coughing fit that followed.

“What do you smell?” I whispered.

“Blood, old, but lots of it.  Your family and other humans, probably the police, but the scent is old so I don’t think anyone is inside.  And…”  She paused and took another sniff.

“What?”

“Vampires.”  She spat the world with a slight curl of her lip, as if it tasted bitter on her tongue.

“Vampires?  Like ‘I vant to suck your blood’?” I asked in my best fake Dracula accent.  I scoffed.  “Vampires don’t exist.”

She raised an eyebrow.  “Neither do werewolves.”

She had a point.