On Writing: More About Submission

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[Note: I’ll state here and now that I’m still at that point where I have not yet been accepted by a publisher or an agent.  These are merely thoughts and ideas that have come to me over the years via the submission process and the numerous articles, con panels and books that I’ve encountered.  These entries are not about how to win at submitting; they’re more about giving you things to think about.]

After I posted last week’s entry about submitting to an agent, I had a few more thoughts about it that I’d like to share.  These aren’t exactly how-to-query thoughts, but more along the lines of FYIs; stuff to think about when you’re at this stage.

Multiple Submissions. This one’s confusing to a lot of people, especially new authors, and that’s totally understandable, because it can be a very vague phrase and misintepreted easily.  You’ll see submission guidelines that say “no multiple submissions.”  What does that mean, really?  Does it mean “you can only submit to us and no one else until you hear back from us (whenever that turnaround time is)”?  Or does it mean “don’t submit everything you’ve ever done to us all at once”?  Or does it mean “don’t submit the same novel query to my co-agent Bob that you’re also sending to me”?  For those like me, this could mean just about anything.  I need a bit more to go with.

Thankfully, most agencies and publishers have more detailed submission guidelines nowadays, which they have on their websites.  One agency I submitted to last week said “If submitting to me, please do not also send it to the other agents on my team.”  To put it another way, it’s a bit like getting one of those “Reply All” emails you sometimes get at work.  Should you work on this issue, or should James?  Or do you both ignore it and thus nothing gets done?  Pick one agent you’d like to work with at that agency and stay with them until they say yes or no.

I’ve also seen agents where they want exclusivity; if you’re sending to them, do them a favor and don’t send to another agency, because that’s just bad business.  [Granted, there are some writers and agents who take umbrage to exclusivity, and I have my own opinions about it which I won’t go into here.  How you want to handle your manuscript is completely up to you, not me.]

On the other hand…

Do you really want to send to one agent at a time?  Do you want to send your Awesomesauce Novel to an agent, hope for the best, and have no idea what your answer may be in the next six to eight weeks or however long it takes?  Maybe so, but what if you don’t get any bites until, say, the twentieth agent that says yes?  Do a bit of quick math, and that’s a good year or so between the first submission and the final successful one.  Do you really want to wait that long to maybe achieve your goal of being published?

This is why some agents and publishers state off the record that they accept that you’re more likely submitting to multiple places at once, to cut down on the time.  Remember, you’re not entirely at their mercy…they want to do business with you, if your novel is what they want to work with.  If you get a yes in the meantime and you’ve made your informed decision that you want to work with that particular agent or publisher, at least be courteous and tell them you’ve withdrawn your submission.

As always, if in doubt, check out their submission guidelines. They usually have their own linked page on the company’s website, and many of them are totally fine with you asking for clarification if need be.

What Agency and/or Publisher to Choose.  This one can be as easy or as difficult as you want it to be.  When I was growing up I had dreams of getting published at a Big Name Publishing House.  I took these dreams a bit less seriously in the 90s, though at the same time I started paying attention to who was publishing most of the books I enjoyed.  It’s a little like noticing how a lot of my favorite late 80s albums were released on 4AD, or how many great bands I liked were distributed by Warner.  Take a look at what you’re reading and why you enjoy it so much, and think about whether or not your novel would fit in their roster.  I have a small list of genre publishers in my head that I think would like the Bridgetown Trilogy, and am aiming to submit to them.  I also have a list of agents I’ve been researching over the years and have been submitting to them as well.

At the same time, I’m keeping an open mind.  I could just as easily check out a few small presses who could suit my needs as well.  And I could even try my hand at indie publishing (read: going the self-pub route — I like the “indie-pub” moniker better, as it makes more sense logically).  Don’t be afraid to have backup plans.  I’m reasonably sure that agents and publishers are also well aware of these alternate routes. Keep in mind, they’re also looking for new work, so they’re not about to say “oh–well, he might be skiving off and using BookBaby instead, screw him.”  That ain’t good business sense.  If you can get picked up by them, both you and they will be happy for it.

I buy Writer’s Digest’s Writer’s Market every other year or so, just as a reference guide to see which agents and publishers are out there and doing business, and I also subscribe to various magazines: The Writer, Poets & Writers, Writer’s Digest, and Publishers Weekly.  [That last one can be pretty expensive for those on a budget, but it’s extremely worth it for the news coverage, book reviews, and other business-side issues.  Ask your library if you can’t afford it.]  Keep an open mind about it, and use these reference tools to come up with a good solid idea of how you want to sell your novel.

Social Media.  There are so many things being said about this right now, many of it contradictory.  On the one side, you’ve got pros suggesting you have some kind of social media platform: a blog, a Twitter account, and so on, and reminding you to be visible as much as you can.  On the other, you’ve got people howling in frustration that so-and-so spends way to much time tweeting that their new book is out.  There are others out there suggesting you must have an extremely professional website if you want to make it…and George RR Martin only shows up in person on LiveJournal.

There are no hard and fast rules, no matter what anyone says, save one: all in moderation.  You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on a pro website when you can get a free one via WordPress (or drop an annual Benjamin for an upgraded version, which I do).  Your social media visibility should be at your own pace, design, and comfort level.  I post a lot of unique blog entries over different platforms, depending on the subject, maybe once or twice a week.  I’m on Twitter a lot, though I don’t always actively tweet.  I balance all this with a lot of offline activity as well, which I don’t always make public.

You may need to sell yourself to some extent, especially if you’ve got a book coming out or you’ve got an appearance at a con or a local book store, and that’s totally fine.  You may even want to occasionally remind people that your book can be nominated for a Hugo or whatever award.  [I know there’s a lot of guff about this subject, but again–all in moderation.  A sticky note on your website or an occasional reminder on Twitter is fine; hourly announcements probably less so.]  If you feel you can get away with livetweeting your life, by all means go for it.  If you’re more an analog person like me and enjoy not being plugged in 24/7, that’s fine too.

Do you have any other thoughts about submission you’d like to share?

A Division of Souls: More Character Sketches

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image

A two-fer this time, featuring Sheila and Nick. They’re Caren and Alec’s team two on the ARU.  Admittedly rough (eyes and eye symmetry seem to be the hardest for me), but I like how they came out.  These two are my favorite secondary characters in the Bridgetown trilogy, as they seem to have that “we’re from a different book but somehow we got dropped here” aura about them.  They do have very important roles, however.

Sheila Kennedy is Caren’s former ARU partner; they split up while Caren was on LOA due to her parents’ deaths.  They have an extremely close friendship that transcends some boundaries — they were lovers for a very brief time as well — and though they are on separate teams now, they remain very close friends.  She’s that girl you knew in college who was loud and silly and friends with everyone, and you’d better be far away if you piss her off.  Her extrasensory abilities aren’t as strong as, say, Caren’s or Alec’s, but she has a knack for using them in unconventional ways to get the job done when need be.

Nick Slater on the other hand comes from the darker edge of Bridgetown; he was both part of the B-town Metro Police and a bodyguard for various government visitors.  He left the BMPD because he felt he could do more working for the Alien Relations Unit.  This is an interesting decision, considering unlike most of ARU agents, he shows no outward signs of having any extrasensory abilities.  He is, however, extremely observant and stronger than he looks.

Edit: I’ve gone back and done a bit of similar description for the Caren and Denni drawings, if you’re so interested.  It’s two entries below!

On Writing: The Submission Process

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From past experience, I would say that manuscript submission is both the most exhilarating and most frustrating process a writer has to contend with.  On the one hand, we’re absolutely thrilled that we’re sending our finest work off into the great big world like we’re sending our five year-old child off to kindergarten.  It’s an immensely proud and exciting moment, and we can’t wait for the point where our handiwork will be seen by many on the shelves of bookstores.  Yet at the same time…

At the same time, we have absolutely no idea if the agent and/or the publisher will think our book is the best thing they’ve ever read, or if it’s absolute drivel and all our beta readers were just being nice to us out of pity.

Okay, maybe it’s not that bad…it’s not always a bad manuscript that gets the rejection, and a writer needs to remember that more than anything else during the submission process.  I know I certainly do.  There are a lot of reasons for rejection, and “because it’s drivel” is actually pretty low on the list, from what I’ve seen and heard from the professionals.

Here’s a short overview of issues one might face when submitting your novel:

You’re not paying attention to the guidelines.  A lot of newbies run into this.  It’s understandable, but it’s really something you should be vigilant about.  I just recently sent out two agent submissions for A Division of Souls, and I made sure I followed directions. Both agencies request e-queries only; they even went out of their way say snail mail queries will be recycled unopened.  Frustrating for some, yes, especially if you’re not wired…but this can be easily rectified by a trip to the local library or anywhere that has a connection.  Most agencies actually request the first few pages within the body of the email, which makes it even better for those unable to attach files.

Many agencies and publishers request a specific page amount; one agency I submitted to requested the first chapter, whereas the other asked for the first twenty pages.  When I submitted to Angry Robot’s Open Door last year, they asked for the first fifty pages.  They all requested a short synopsis (one agent had no length limit, the other requested one paragraph), maybe a short personal bio, and contact information.  Point being: what you put in your query really does depend on who you’re sending it to.

They’re just not interested.  Well…this doesn’t necessarily mean your novel bored them, nor is it proof that your novel is in fact drivel.  This merely could actually mean that you’re trying to sell Noel Gallagher’s latest High Flying Birds album to someone who can’t stand Oasis.  You could be trying to sell your zombie novel to someone who thinks zombies are the stupidest trope ever, and would be doing both you and their agency a disservice trying to sell something they don’t like.  Or on the other hand, it might not be their personal taste but the agency’s or publisher’s tastes; sometimes they state they’re looking specifically for hard science fiction but no swords and sorcery books.  Again…it’s all about the guidelines.  Instead of trying to shoehorn your book into a spot where it doesn’t quite fit, look for a place where they would fawn over it like adorable fluffy kittens.  [Or puppies.  Your choice there.]

You can write it, but you just can’t sell it.  This is the problem I run into the most; I consider myself a pretty decent writer, but I can’t sell you sliced bread to save my life.  I’m no salesman.  I hate the process of trying to sell something to someone.  [The only exception to that was my job at HMV.  I can upsell you music like no tomorrow.]  But how the hell do I distill a novel that’s around 150,000 words down to one paragraph?  I don’t mean the one sentence elevator pitch, which I can kind of get away with.  I’m talking about explaining the entire book’s plot in about ten sentences.  What do I keep in?  What to I leave out?  How do I best describe what goes on without rambling incoherently, as well as explaining the entire arc?  It’s pretty damned hard, I tell you.

I spent the other night forfeiting a writing session just so I could focus on explaining A Division of Souls with just enough detail to spark the agent’s interest.  Here’s what I came up with:

In A Division of Souls, the delicate supernatural balance between two spiritual factions is threatened when a renegade leader sets off a powerful ritual that escalates a mass psychic and spiritual ascension well before the alien Meraladhza and the human race are ready for it.  In the process, he’s also awakened their deity, the One of All Sacred, much earlier than anyone expected.  Alien Relations Unit agents Caren Johnson and Alec Poe are assigned to find and stop this man, but as they learn more about his ritual and its aftereffects it becomes a bigger race to keep this enlightenment from spiraling dangerously out of control.  They must not only come to terms with a changed city, but the change within themselves, and what it means to be a part of a new conscience.  And Caren must face her worst fear: her lone surviving family member, her young sister Denni, is in fact the resurrected One…and a spiritual war has just been declared in her name.

I’d like to think this covers most of the bases: the main plot of the spiritual war between the Shenaihu and the Mendaihu (names taken out here to avoid too much confusion…just mentioning the imbalance is enough); the introduction of two of the major characters who have to fix the conflict (Alec and Caren); the other main arc of the awakening of the One of All Sacred (and the fact that she’s a lead character’s little sister, thus showing further conflict); the fact that the awakening ritual had affected more than just Denni.  [Note: as a follow-up paragraph, I gave very brief one-sentence descriptions of Books 2 and 3 to show that the trilogy was in fact already complete, and what they would entail.]

So did I sell it?  Again, I have no idea…I’m a horrible salesman when it comes to selling my own work, and I thought I did, but I could be totally wrong.  I do know that I can talk convincingly about my trilogy because I’m so familiar with it from the many versions and revisions.  If any questions come up, given a few moments I can probably give a detailed and reasonably concise answer.  But the hardest part of this query was not the writing of it…it was trying to see my book from the perspective of someone who hasn’t yet read it.  I had to back away from all that Mendaihu Universe knowledge just enough so I could give the novel the leanest yet most informative description I could.

All told, it’s one of the toughest pieces of writing I’ve ever had to do, but I’m proud and relieved that I forced myself to do it despite the odds.

 

Of course, at this point I’ve been hitting the refresh button at my GMail account in hopes that a response will have arrived.  And I’m sure I’m not the first or last writer who’s done that after they send their book off into the wild.

A Division of Souls: Character Sketches

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Something I’ve been doing lately as part of my whiteboard schedule is doing some kind of drawing at least once a week.  I’m trying to break out of my doodly comic style (I call it my “Murph” style after the character I used to draw in college) and attempt something a little more realistic.  The last few weeks I’ve been trying out characters from the Bridgetown Trilogy.

Here’s a perky looking Denni:

022415 Denni

Denni is an extremely intelligent girl for her age and nearly all of her classes are Advanced status.  She’s amiable with everyone, but she saves her real emotions for her closest friends, of which there are few.  Her closest friend is a boisterous and diminutive girl named Amna Ehramanis, a half-blood human (she has both Earther and Meraladian blood from both sides of the family and damn proud of it).  She seems to have taken the deaths of her parents (also ARU agents) a bit better than Caren; she still mourns for them but instinctively feels that their spirits have remained close by to watch over them, and that has helped her heal.

And here’s her older sister Caren, wearing her Alien Relations Unit uniform:

030315 Caren

Caren Johnson doesn’t look too happy here, and it’s because she hasn’t been truly happy for a long time, not since their parents died under questionable circumstances.  She herself did not know how they’d died while on a case until nearly six months later.  She’s healed somewhat, but she now feels frustrated and directionless, and feels she needs to do more to make everything right, especially now that she’s taking care of Denni.  Despite all that, she still cares deeply about her fellow ARU partners and everyone else close to her, and will go out of her way to do what is right for them.

This is actually kind of a fun exercise!  I know these characters so well, and yet all this time I never really got around to visualizing them in this manner.  [There’s also the fact that this is a half-serious attempt at drawing the characters for a possible webcomic version down the line, but that’ll be some time in the future.  For now I’m just trying to get them onto paper!]

I will of course add more sketches as they pop up!

On Reading: Be Not Afraid

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I just finished reading AM Dellamonica’s Child of a Hidden Sea last night, and absolutely loved it.  It’s one of those books where you end up staying up past your bedtime so you can finish it up.  Fast-paced and fun, it straddles between YA and adult fantasy, following a girl named Sophie Hansa as she travels — first accidentally then purposely — to an alternate world full of magic, seafaring piracy, and family intrigue.

I mention this because I think it ties in nicely with a recent blog post by writer Shannon Hale called “No Boys Allowed: School visits as a woman writer”.  She talks of her tours of schools to talk about her Princess Academy books, specifically the problems she has at some schools where her audience is all (or nearly all) girls, with nary a boy in sight.  More to the point: the fact that the boys weren’t invited, or needing permission to join in.  It wasn’t just expected that boys would have no interest in a writer who writes about princesses…even if it was unintentional, they’ve also reinforced the idea that boys shouldn’t have an interest in stories about princesses.  It’s just not a manly thing to read, even if you’re 10.

This reminded me of an event in seventh grade, between myself and the school librarian.  [I mention it briefly in the comments section of Hale’s entry.]  They had this special event every month or so where kids could buy cheap paperbacks from a bookseller; they were your typical MG and YA novels, maybe some comic collections and kids magazines, that sort of thing.

I took an interest in that partly because my dad and I had started taking road trips on weekends to Northampton or elsewhere to stop at bookstores, and I’d pick up something to read every now and then.  This book club was an easy way for me to find more things to check out.

At the time, I was interested in a lot of YA novels from Apple Paperbacks and other publishers; the covers may have been kind of dorky and the stories somewhat simple (strangers following you, problems with your friends, having weird yet really cool magical abilities), but they were fun reads.  I knew pretty early on that I wasn’t that interested in stories about sports, or men of action, or any of those other typical boy-centric stories.  The reason was simple: I like a good story, regardless of the gender of the main character…but the subject has to interest me.  I wasn’t going to waste time reading about a kid trying to make the baseball team when I had no interest in baseball and sucked at it anyway.

Mind you, this was also the time where I’d started becoming interested in writing fiction.  The Infamous War Novel I started in 1984 was the first one I completed, but I’d had at least a dozen or so incomplete ideas dating back at least a few years earlier than that.  This had little to do with passive reading.  I was gravitating to what I knew I enjoyed and wanted to write.

So when I’d ordered a few of these Apple Paperbacks (including Willo Davis Roberts’ The Girl with the Silver Eyes — one of my first forays into the SF genre, come to think of it!), I was excited to start reading these things.  However…

However, the school librarian had side-eyed my choice in reading.  In fact, if I remember correctly she actually pulled me aside.  “Are you sure you want to read books like this?” she’d asked.  “Don’t you want to read about sports or spy novels?”  I stood my ground and kept reading these things, but there was something in the back of my mind that nagged at me: was I reading the wrong things?  Was it wrong for me to like books with female leads?  I shrugged that off just as quickly as it came, but that was probably the moment where I realized I would not be able to confide in this particular librarian.  After all, she was also the one who had seen me pick up a copy of James Fenimore Cooper’s The Deerslayer in the school’s library and asked if I would really ever get around to finishing it, considering it’s over five hundred pages long.  And now I had it in my head:  Would other boys think I was a fag (and I mean that in that wonderful 80s teen way) because I liked books about girls?  Did I have to keep these books to myself now, for fear that others would side-eye me as well?

She apparently had my number well before I had it myself.

The sad thing is, this was also right about the time where my attention span had started to wane.  Not out of any emotional or mental deficiency, but because I was starting to get bored.  I didn’t figure it out until many years later that my grades really started slipping right around that time because I’d lost interest.  I’d rather be listening to music or writing (yes, even then at 13…especially then) than reading some assigned book that I just didn’t want to deal with.  The end result was that I would end up with my first failing grade in my entire school career.  I got an F.  In English, of all things!  I wanted to be a writer and I loved reading!  What had happened?

Thankfully, I turned it around and managed to squeak by with a C- by the end of the semester and didn’t have to stay behind or take summer school. I knew I wasn’t dumb, I just needed to make a concerted effort to get the work done.  It was a slog and I did a half-assed job most of the time, but I did well enough to graduate with the rest of my class.

But the damage really had been done in junior high.  I don’t blame that librarian…she was of an older generation and was safe in her Boys Are Boys and Girls Are Girls world.  My bad grades were my own damn fault.  But if it wasn’t for my 7th grade English teacher assigning us Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine (one of my all-time favorite novels), my mission to write and finish a novel, and a stubborn will to read what I wanted, I’d probably have done worse.  I remained a B- student pretty much all the way until I graduated college.  And I barely picked up a book for pure entertainment purposes, even though I was still attempting to be a writer…that wouldn’t happen until around 1995.

I know it sounds petty, but this is what happens when you throw preconceived expectations on kids of that age.  Let me explain — I know you mean well, and I can see where you’re coming from (even when the gender segregation is a dumbass thing to do).  You’re giving them anchors and guidelines, something for them to base their life experiences on.  You’re trying to train them to see potential roads they should follow for future education, and that’s a good thing.  But at the same time, you’re not paying attention to how the kids are processing it.  A. and I have similar tastes in some things, but wildly different tastes in others.  I don’t even have the same path of logic as she does half the time.  We should learn how to think critically, but we also have to remember that each person thinks, lives and reacts differently.

I like what I like, and I choose not to be afraid of admitting that.

This is also partly why I chose to put Denni and Caren Johnson as the most important characters of the Bridgetown Trilogy — I remembered those Apple Paperbacks (and I was reading Kate Elliott’s Jaran series at the time) and enjoyed reading female lead characters.  I had no other reason, political or feminist or what have you, for centering the story around them.  They. Are. Important. Characters.  And they were not extensions of me.  That’s all.

I know this is kind of a long diatribe, but I felt it was important to share.  I’d like to believe that the boundaries we should teach kids are not external such as gender roles or conformity, but internal, such as respect and awareness.  Read what you want to read.  Write what you want to write.  Learn what needs learning.  And don’t edit your reading preferences because of someone else’s opinions.

Be not afraid.

On Inspiration: Looking Forward to Life

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image from Little Dorrit, (c)BBC
image from Little Dorrit, (c)BBC

I think it’s time I readjusted my attitude about my day-to-day.  It needs it.

I know many writers who write part-time — that is, they balance their writing time with their current day job and/or parenting duties.  It can be a frustrating attempt at balance, especially when your Day Job Brain functions much differently from your Writing Brain.  I play with numbers and emails all day, and I’m extremely well versed in business-speak.  That job entails a lot of logical, linear thinking.  Nine times out of ten, point A and point B should lead to point C.  [That tenth time is the exception setup, what I often refer to as “it goes like this…except when it doesn’t.”]  It’s not exactly a tough job — okay, it is in its own way, but I’ve been at it for seven-plus years and I’ve gotten used to it.  I don’t let it stress me out all that much anymore.

My writing, on the other hand, includes a lot of nonlinear plotting, multiple points of view (not just in narration but in character personality), and a lot of leaps of faith, in hopes that it’ll all make sense at the end.  It’s the dreamland I always look forward to, where I can play with words and images, make up fantastical things, and tell fun stories.

Just as logical, but completely different frames of mind.  I’ve been doing both for so long I can easily switch between the two when need be.

 

Cary Grant from His Girl Friday
Cary Grant from His Girl Friday

Lately I’ve been in a rut, however.  By the time 4pm rolls around and I log off, I just want the day to be done already.

Okay, maybe the situation’s not quite that dire…but after eight hours of the Day Job, sometimes the last thing I want to do is work on something else.  I want to be lazy and goof off!  I don’t even want to go out at night…I just want to sit around and whittle the time away.  Thankfully my ingrained guilt receptors kick in soon enough and I get to slog away for a few more hours doing whatever it is I need to do creatively.

How did I get this way?  And don’t tell me “you’re getting old.”  I may have just recently turned 44, but I’ll be damned if age is going to be an excuse for being a lazy bum.

I started thinking…what was it that got me excited about writing previously, anyway?  Or excited about going out to do something?

As always, I thought back to a time where I was truly excited about my writing time.  I thought about my Yankee Candle days — I had a half-hour commute each way, I moved hundreds of boxes all day long, and yet I still managed to make a weekly habit out of doing a comic book and new cd run in Amherst.  I was also able to spend two solid hours writing at least a thousand words every night.  My personal best in terms of word count that I’ve been trying to reach for ever since.*  Or my days at HMV, where I’d drive 50 miles to the mall I work at, slog through the day, drive 50 miles back home (or the 70 miles to Amherst for the occasional comic book run, then an additional 30 back home!)…but still balance that with the hour before work writing longhand, and the hour or so at home, transcribing to the computer.

Point being:  I know I can do it.  There’s no doubt about that.

So why am I complaining that I can’t, or don’t want to?  It’s not as if I’m particularly exhausted, mentally or physically, or can’t stand the project I’m currently working on.

I mean, I’ll be heading over to Amoeba over on Haight tonight to see The Church, one of my favorite bands, play an in-store show.  The store is only a few miles away, and I’ll probably be home before 8pm anyway.  And yet, why do I feel lazy enough to want to come up with an excuse for not going?  I mean, come on.  It’s the freakin’ CHURCH, for pete’s sake!  They only sing my favorite song ever!  Why the hell am I feeling so damned lazy??

Finally it dawned on me, just today:  I was looking at this current schedule from the wrong angle.

I work at home, so it’s not as if I have to deal with a commute; I wake up at 6am, have breakfast, read some webcomics and catch up on the Twitter feed, and log on at 7:30.  I take two fifteen minute breaks and a half hour lunch.  I log off at 4pm and we head over to the YMCA soon after to get our exercise.  Dinner is usually around 5:30-ish and I’m writing by 6:30pm, all the way to about 8pm.  I get my daily words and my project words done at that time…and if the work day is particularly slow, I sneak in some personal writing, such as this particular blog entry.  The day’s packed to a reasonable degree, but I’m not draining myself in the process.

All the same, I’ve been suffering from a terrible case of the Don’t Wanna’s.

And that’s the issue right there!  It’s not the schedule or the work/writing balance that needs fixing:  it’s my attitude.

So I submit this:  let’s return to my YC-era work mindset — my day job is my paycheck, but my writing is my career.  But don’t forget to have fun as well.

I’ll still dedicate the same time and brain power to the day job, of course.  But let’s also look forward to logging off at the end of the day.

Let’s remind ourselves throughout the work day that, once I’m off the clock, it’s time to go and have some fun!  Let’s look forward to walking around the neighborhood after work.  Let’s look forward to playing in that imagined world for a few hours.  Let’s look forward to having fun with what I love doing the most.

It’s not about trying to do everything at once.  It’s simply a change of attitude.  Look forward to life.  Look forward to that bit of entertainment.  Look forward to that writing time at the end of the day, because you know and I know it’s a hell of a lot of fun, even when it does get frustrating.

Chances are, the payoff will be worth it.

 

Matthew Broderick in Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Matthew Broderick in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

 

*  Mind you, I’m not trying to force a thousand words on a nightly basis, because it depends on the project.  I’m working on Walk in Silence but not logging any new words because most of the work has been what I call ‘framing’ the flow of the book.  My sort-of daily 750 Words have been consistently over 750 and flowing quickly, so I can safely say I’m counting the words where they really do count.

On Writing: Where Do I Begin?

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Begin at the beginning.

Select an idea, any old idea, and riff on it.

Let the idea sit there and marinate for a while; let it solidify into something worth writing about.

Outline, outline, outline!

Let it bleed out of you; don’t stop to fix it, revise it later.

I’ve heard all kinds of suggestions on how and where to begin a new project, and in the back of my mind I’ve been thinking about how and where I’ll be starting up the next Mendaihu Universe story.  I’m still working Walk in Silence as my main project right now.  I’m also creating a story out of my daily words (currently called The Lidwells Story), so it’s not as if I’m hemming and hawing and not getting any work done.  The new MU story isn’t exactly top priority at the moment, but it’s in the back of my mind, poking me like a five year old every now and again, begging for a scrap of attention.

The trouble is that I’m really not sure where to start with it.  I have a few very vague ideas of characters and plot points, but nothing solid.  It’s not severe trouble, though…I have to remember that The Phoenix Effect started out almost completely from scratch as well, and I had maybe five or six scenes tops in my head.  I have to remember that I had two plans when I began it: 1) write a new novel, and 2) use the idea of human spirits coming from somewhere else.  That’s it.  Nearly all of the scenes, plots and subplots, and character evolution I wrote in that book I came up with while writing it.

So really–the trouble is not where to start the story, but where (and when) to begin writing it.  That is: prioritize projects. Don’t worry about the new MU story just yet–don’t worry about the plot or the characters, or even the theme at this point.  Finish WiS and the Blogging the Beatles projects, and continue submitting the Bridgetown trilogy.

It’ll come in time.  I’ll know when I’m ready for it.

Yes, They’ve Been Done, But They’re Still Fun

Jon Chaisson2 Comments

I’ll admit I haven’t been up on movie watching over the last few years for one reason or another.  It could be my tastes have morphed somewhat, being that we’ve mainly been hitting documentaries, Studio Ghibli movies, and imports.  I haven’t gone to see a good throwaway popcorn movie in ages.

That said, I’ve been hearing reviews on the Wachowskis’ Jupiter Ascending, and the takeaway so far has been “oh god it’s a hot mess but go see it!”  Here’s the trailer:

I finally got around to watching said trailer about a half hour ago, and found myself both concerned and amused that I saw a parallel between it and my Bridgetown Trilogy.  Both contain an alien Origin Story (i.e., where did humans come from?), a female Chosen One character (some kind of savior to keep Earth from going kaboom), and a War for World Control.

When you’re a writer who’s trying to sell a novel you’ve carefully crafted for years that you’re currently trying to sell, and you see a Hollywood movie with parallels like that, you tend to have a moment of oh crap, someone beat me to it!

And then I realize–those three points are everywhere.  I’m not the first, nor the last, to use the alien Origin Story, a Chosen One and/or a World Control plot.  Time to calm down a bit.

I mean, much of the Mendaihu Universe in its early days was influenced by 80s and 90s SF movies and anime anyway: the Gall Force series, Until the End of the World, Strange Days, The Fifth Element, Johnny Mnemonic, The Matrix and its sequels, Akira, and so on.  They might not be for everyone–some people see these kinds of stories as over the top and ridiculous.  Sure, there’s an element of the fantastical in the Mendaihu Universe, but that’s often what these kinds of stories are about.  And besides–Jupiter Ascending might be over the top, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not entertaining.  Pacific Rim is ridiculous, but it’s also a hell of a lot of fun.

So that’s why I’m not exactly worried that Jupiter Ascending is getting sort-of-panned by the critics and the public.  I’m not going to pretend my Mendaihu Universe stories are superior or better executed…I’m pretty sure parts of my universe are a hot mess as well.  But my aim wasn’t to write a perfect story–it was to write an entertaining and thoughtful one.  That aim is more important to me.

Of course, now that I’ve seen the trailer for this movie, I definitely want to go see it. 🙂

On Writing Again: Getting Back On the Horse

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I’m my own worst critic when it comes to writing, and especially when it involves failure to keep to a writing schedule.  I made a joke of it late last year by calling it “Best Laid Plans”…mainly for the reason that whenever I went online to excitedly reveal what I’m currently working on, those plans would crash and burn spectacularly.  More to the point though, I’m constantly putting guilt on myself when I’m not writing.  I get that nagging itch that feels very much like Sunday night at 8pm, when I’ve realized I’ve left three classes’ worth of major homework undone until that point.  I yell at myself for being an idiot for not doing it earlier.  I gripe and moan and do half-assed work because I’m rushing it at the last minute.  And worst of all, there’s that one tiny voice in there, almost inaudible, that says you know, if you keep this up, you ain’t gonna get shit-all published in your lifetime.  Gods how I LOATHE that one voice…because it speaks a very bitter truth.

So after I get over the guilt and the shame and the irritation, I shut myself up and get back on the horse.

I haven’t exactly been lazy this past week, when it comes to writing.  One of my coworkers was out the latter half of the week and ended up with double-duty for those three days, so I realized I probably would not be running on full power.  I decided to let myself slack on the daily words, as they weren’t time-sensitive or the main project, and skipped on a few whiteboard points as well.  This left me with just enough brainpower to kick out some new words for Walk in Silence as well as decide how I was going to integrate them into the manuscript.  All told, I averaged about 500 words daily, and I’m happy with that result.

So now that everything’s back to normal, what am I going to do now?  Get back on the horse, of course of course.  I’m already doing so now by writing this entry, and starting tomorrow I’ll be hitting the daily words again.  I’ll even be able to hit the whiteboard points again.  Yes, I know, Best Laid Plans…but I’ll take it a day at a time, get done what needs being done, and be happy that I’d made forward progress.  Sometimes that’s the only thing you can do.

Now, if only I’d been this proactive with my homework back in high school…

Writing Stats: January

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I’ll keep this short, but here’s the tally I got from my writing stats notebook:

— Daily words at 750 Words:   22,149 words over the course of 27 days; most being 1022, least being 750

— Daily journal: 19 total entries (word count not taken)

–Writing & Music Blogs: 11 total entries (word count not taken)

–Main Project Work: missed counting a few days, but on average about 4 out of 5 weekdays.  It’s been a mix of rereading, some revision, and new words.

Summary Comments:

The daily words are okay, but I’m a bit frustrated with the main project work output.  That’s to be expected, though, as I was doing a lot of refreshing: rereading what I had so far, making mental notes of things to be changed, and planning on where to go next.  At the same time the daily words haven’t been exactly throwaway; I’ve been working on a slightly different and much lighter project there.  The first half of the month started out strong, but petered out near the end.  This was partly due to social engagements, however.

Suggested Adjustment:

Stronger focus on the main project work output from here on in.  I’m well aware of a few problem sections that can either be rewritten or deleted altogether, as well as a second run-through for the ‘second side’ of the book.  Focus more on getting those daily words earlier in the day.  Continue with the habit of ‘getting it done early’ in regards to scheduled projects and whatnot; continue backing away from distractions.

Score:

Meets expectations, but could be better.