Is it just me, or is it rather dusty in here?
Obviously I have not been keeping this blog alive, and at the moment I have no plans to resuscitate it. I am, however, keeping a different site up to date - www.branchingroot.com – so feel free to head over that way if you’re interested.
I finally got the web site to a point that I’m pretty happy with. (Click on the “Magic Bound” link to the right and you’ll see it.) I’ve had fun playing with the graphics and the layout on this one. I’ve also had fun coming up with some of the background information I put on it. Having to write it all out made me think up new details, some of which I’ll be putting in the book, and a few which gave me some story ideas.
What I’m not having fun with is plotting the sequel. I made the mistake of letting myself think about ideas for another series for a couple days and, unfortunately, I thought of something. Now it won’t leave me alone.
This is why I very deliberately did not allow myself to pursue other ideas while I was working on this book. Ideas are jealous. They want you to spend time with only them and leave all the other ideas alone. Then they start fighting with each other and squandering brain power that you could be using to finish a project.
Research is beckoning me like a Siren (mythological, not police) but I’m doing my best to tune it out. I really don’t want to start that story yet. I want to get the sequel nailed down first. I want to finish this book first. Then I’ll indulge in all the research I want, but it has to wait.
Maybe the sequel ideas are just sulking because I don’t like them as much. I wonder what it would take to convince them otherwise. What’s the equivalent of chocolates and flowers for creative personifications?
I haven’t had to plot out a new story for a long time. I’d forgotten how hard it can be. I’m in the brainstorming stage: writing down lists of ideas, no matter how good or bad they seem to be. Soon, hopefully, those ideas will coalesce into something that resembles a feasible plot. Going by experience, it will be quite different than the finished product, but it still has to look good as it is.
There are people out there who can sit down with a blank page, start writing, and see where it takes them as they go. Not me. I need to have that framework of an outlined plot, even if I end up warping it into something completely different. I need to know something about where I’m going before I can go there.
It may be hard to come up with a new story, but it’s still exciting. So many possibilities. So many different ways it could go. Thinking up a story is a little like starting a new relationship. You see all the good things that you could fall in love with but none of the annoying little flaws. There’s still the possibility that this one could be the best ever. Reality will set in eventually, of course. But there’s no harm in enjoying the rose-colored glasses while they last.
I’m afraid I don’t have any amazingly useful plotting techniques to share. Not even any halfway decent ones. If you’re the sort of person who thrives on index cards and outlines I highly recommend Alexandra Sokoloff’s blog. She has a huge amount of wonderful information and tools. Unfortunately, I’m the sort of person where trying to follow most of her advice just makes my head hurt. So I muddle along intuitively until I get something that feels right.
I suppose that’s the best advice I could give. Do what feels right. Whether it’s index cards and charts or a few scribbled notes or nothing at all, try a few things and find the type of plotting that works best for you. Just don’t spend too long on it. You can plot the soul out of a book if you keep working at it. Don’t be afraid to start writing before you know all the details.
So what does one do when taking a month away from one’s current book? (Which not only gives beta readers a stab at it but also gives you relatively fresh eyes when returning to it. Very important, in my opinion.)
“Take a break” sounds nice. But it has problems. For one thing, at least for me, the more writing I do the easier it is. Not writing for a month would mean a very hard time getting started again. I have a routine down now that I don’t want to lose. I’m not too crazy, though – I did give myself a nice few days off. I was working pretty hard on the revisions at the end and my brain needed a break before it broke.
There’s taking some time for supplemental projects: writing up background information for the web site, polishing the web site, stacking up some reserve blog posts, and so on. I haven’t let myself tinker with the web site I started last year until the draft was done. Now it’s tinkering time. (Yay!)
What I decided to do with most of the month, work on another project, is a choice that comes with a lot more choices. What sort of project? Sequel or second series? Focus on planning or start a draft?
I went back and forth on the sequel-or-completely-different question. For a while I planned on using this month to think up another series: then I’d have something in the bag if this book didn’t sell. Which isn’t a bad plan. But now I’ve decided to spend the time planning out the sequel to this book and probably writing a few chapters. Instead of looking at what if the book doesn’t get me an agent or get picked up by an editor, what if it does? In that case having a sequel figured out would be a good thing. I don’t plan to write the whole thing without knowing if it would be needed, but I’ll spend a few weeks on it. Then, when this book is completely finished and I’m sending queries to agents, I’ll start working on that second series.
Which raises a whole stack of questions of its own. Those, however, I’ll worry about later.
I have finished the second draft of the book, finished revisions on it, and begun sending it out to the people who have agreed to read it.
Eeek!
I’m feeling an interesting mix of relief and excitement from finishing, nervousness from people reading it, and dread from the next cycle of revisions coming up. Not much excitement, which is odd, when I think about it. I just finished a book to the point that I need other people’s perspectives to make it better. Yes, I’m not finished with it. But shouldn’t I be happier that I got this far?
Writers are strange people.
Since the subject is obviously very much on my mind I thought I’d talk about feedback: other people’s opinions, expressed nicely or otherwise, and the acceptance thereof. It’s a big topic. I’m going to save listening to and dealing with feedback for a little later when I’m getting my own input back from my beta readers. I suspect I’ll have a few more insights then. Or agonies to share. Whichever. For now I’ll stick with the pre-handing-over-work phase.
To start with, friends and family. Especially family. The common counsel is to never ever ask family or close friends (especially anyone you’ve ever slept with) to critique your work. Whether they’re too close to you and won’t want to hurt your feelings, or don’t think you’ll ever make it and will be too harsh, or whatever their reason is, they simply can’t be objective enough to give you good feedback.
I’m sure in most cases this is true. However, it doesn’t have to always be true. Take me, for example. I’m lucky enough to have a few friends and family who understand the value of good feedback and know that I won’t blow up on them if they say my book isn’t perfect. My mom and brother are writers themselves, and their insights have always been helpful. You do have to be careful asking for feedback from people that are close to you. They have to be the right kind of people and you have to have the right kind of relationship. But don’t discount them just because someone said you can never ask family to give you opinions on your work.
No matter who you’re asking you should be careful how you ask. Try not to make anyone feel like they’re cornered or that you expect them to say yes. Also, try to make sure they understand that critiquing a manuscript is different from breezing through a novel. It’s helpful to be up front about a timeline: I requested that people get their feedback to me within a month. This way you’re not sitting around chewing your fingernails waiting for people to get back to you, and they know that they’re making a commitment to do this in a certain amount of time. I also sent out a letter with my manuscript with some examples of the types of feedback that would be most useful to me. This helps make sure that what you get back is something you can actually use.
Lastly, on the value of feedback in general. It’s crucial. I know that I simply cannot see the big picture very well on my book any more. I don’t know when I’m not explaining something well enough, because I already know all the answers. I don’t know which scenes resonate well with readers and which ones fall flat. I don’t know if my characters come across right. So the more opinions I get, the more I can understand the book’s strengths and weaknesses, and the more tools I’ll have for making it better.
This is too good not to share. Agent Jennifer Jackson’s take on how query letters are similar to various Halloween-appropriate creatures: http://arcaedia.livejournal.com/214600.html
I’m still learning when and how I can push myself into writing. I seem to have cycles, times when it’s easy to write and times when it’s very hard. (Hm. I just realized that I should be tracking this, to see if it matches up with anything else.) One difficulty – and I think I’ve talked about this before – is that a simple reluctance to write feels very similar to this-scene-isn’t-right reluctance.
I was hit with a combination of the two this week. I had a hard time writing over the weekend, decided the scene wasn’t right, and early this week came up with an idea that I think will work better. But it took until today for me to get started again.
Now, that probably has something to do with the fact that I’ve been tired, fighting off a cold, and mildly depressed. But does giving myself a break for a few days and not pushing it help? Or should I have been making myself sit at the keyboard anyway?
If I’m going to do this as a career I know I need to be able to get words on the page whether I feel like it or not. Most of the time I do. On the other hand, I do believe that creativity has natural ups and downs. Is it really a good thing to ignore the lows? Even if I can’t answer that yet, one thing I know I should do is pay more attention to taking full advantage of the ups while I have them.
At least now I’m back at work. After deleting over 1800 words. Sigh.
It’s been an interesting week in publishing. I feel like I ought to say something about ebooks or discounted book prices. (For reference, three new ebook readers were announced this week, and big box stores have been in a low-price war over a few bestselling books.) But, really, there’s not much for me to say. I don’t feel, as a publishing outsider, that I have anything particularly relevant to contribute.
What I can talk about with a little more authority is being an aspiring author as the publishing world is turned inside out.
It’s very easy to pay too much attention to the State of Publishing. Every day someone is talking about huge changes, arguing that the changes aren’t so huge, saying things will stay the same, or proclaiming the End of Publishing As We Know It. It’s easy to latch onto every bit of news and try to figure out how it will affect your chances of getting published, or your experience once you are published.
And there certainly are some big changes. From ebooks to recessions to restructurings, there has been a lot going on. The problem is that no one has a fully functional crystal ball. The same bit of news can be (and usually is) analyzed by two people into two opposite conclusions. As easy as it is to watch publishing news obsessively, it’s also very easy to become completely confused.
And let’s not forget discouraged. After all, if book publishing is falling apart, why even bother trying to get your novel published? Editors are picking up fewer debut authors. They’re dropping midlist authors. Agents are pickier. Ebooks will make the big publishing houses fall apart. No one will be able to make any money. And so on.
All that might be true. But it’s not going to change what I’m doing. I’ve always known having a career as a published author would be a hell of a lot of hard work, and would probably take a long time. Now it might be harder? Okay, I can deal with that. And who knows, all the doom-and-gloom might be completely wrong. It’s certainly an exciting time to be part of, however it turns out. Yes, things like promotion might be a bigger job for authors now. There are also a lot more opportunities to find and connect with readers than there used to be. I won’t say that there’s a silver lining to every cloud. There isn’t. But your attitude can make a big difference in taking advantage of what’s there instead of being weighed down by it.
My plan? Write the best damn book I can. It might get picked up by an editor and do awesome. Or it might not. Same old crap shoot as always. If it falls flat I go on to Plan B: write a better damn book. Rinse, repeat, continue as above. I keep an eye on publishing news so I stay informed, but I don’t obsess over what might happen in the future.
The biggest thing that successful authors have in common? Perseverence. That’s not going to change. So the best thing an aspiring author can do is to keep on writing, submitting, and not worrying about crossing bridges until they’re underfoot.
Writing is like practicing an instrument. I remember as a kid I always hated practicing, but when I actually sat down and did it, it was kind of fun. (I have no issues with practicing now. Nope. None at all.) And sitting down to write, getting my hands on the keyboard, is sometimes the hardest part. Especially if I skip a few days. The less I write, the harder it is to write.
Guess what I’ve been having a problem with lately?
I think the same goes for writing blog entries. I’m tempted to start posting daily, just so it becomes more of a habit. Hm, I’ve had the same experience with exercising, actually. Small amounts daily works better than trying to do a lot every few days.
You’d think that I’d learn something from this.
Of course, the problem with writing blog posts more frequently is that I very rarely have something to say. Something that I think is interesting, at least. But the problem with that problem is that I have to learn how to write a few hundred words even if I don’t know what it’s going to be.
More writing = easier writing.
In theory.
(I want to live in theory. Everything works in theory.)
More writing should also equal better writing. Practice makes perfect and all that. So, hey, easy solution to all my problems: write more! Now, if I could just do something about that wet-noodly thing that calls itself my willpower…
In other news, egg nog lattes are finally available, which makes me happy.
I’ve seen a couple blog posts lately on the subject of dreams and writing. I’ve never written down what little I remember from my dreams, but I probably should, because I’ve woken up from a few thinking that they’d make a really good story. Or maybe a story idea. Dreams – at least my dreams – wouldn’t translate directly into a story very well. But I’ve dreamed some pretty powerful scenes that could fit into a framework of one type or another.
I tried basing a story on a dream I’d had once. I think I was about twelve. That particular story was, of course, pretty awful, but the characters and their world stuck with me through several major changes, and someday I may go back and finish that particular book. I had the story working pretty good at the end, I’m just not sure I want to go back to straight fantasy. We’ll see what happens when I’m done with this one.
Someone suggested using dreams to solve story problems. Think about it really hard before you go to sleep, and see if your subconscious comes up with an answer. I’d say it’s worth a shot.
On a totally unrelated note, I re-read this today, and couldn’t resist sharing.
Ever wondered what a writer’s life is like? Want to experience it for yourself? Read through the Writer’s Quest text adventure!
(Not only is the author who wrote that post one of my favorites, it is absolutely hilarious.)