Tag: writing

Wait, it’s April already?

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment
nichijou calendar
What the year feels like sometimes.  Source: Nichijou, of course.

I think I’ve trained myself to the point where I’m not looking at a calendar and going ‘Wait, it’s April already?  I haven’t done jack!  MY LIFE SUCKS’ anymore.  Well, not as often, anyway.  Right now I just look at every new month as a way to start off fresh with my whiteboard schedule and see how far I can go with it.  I don’t even feel bad when I miss a day for whatever reason (even if that reason is ‘laziness’).  I just do what I can in thirty-odd day increments.

Typing this made me think of something I’d said during a panel at FogCon a few weeks ago, when someone had asked about the ability to get anything done when one already has a full schedule.  I’d told them about my whiteboard calendar, telling them that it’s not a matter of getting everything completed in one go; it was a matter of doing doing a little bit at a time, and that would add up.  Don’t aim for the finish line every single time…sometimes all you need to do is aim for the end of the chapter, or maybe even a few hundred words.  It does indeed add up by the end of it.  That’s how I was able to write 80k words for Meet the Lidwells in such a short amount of time.

I will fall back into the occasional ‘I’m not even close to getting any shit done’ stress-out, of course.  I’ve been fighting it a lot lately, what with my multiple attempts at trying to write/rewrite/restart the Apartment Complex story.  It’s partly why I’m trying out a rough draft of In My Blue World using 750Words; I’m tricking my brain into thinking that I’m being twice as productive instead of spending all that time freaking out over a single project.  [I’m actually kind of surprised it’s working, to be honest.]

So yeah, I’m not too worried that it’s April already.  In fact, I’ve embraced it — it’s getting warmer here in the Bay Area to the point where I have the window open in Spare Oom to let some fresh air in.  It’s also given me the impetus to get my writing work done early so I can get back into the habit of going to the gym after the Day Job!

It’s just a matter of taking it a bit at a time, apparently.  Or in this case, a month at a time.

Getting back on the horse

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment
cat on horse
Yeah, I’m not sure, either.

After all the frustration of the last couple of weeks, I’m glad to say I’ve got my writing back under control.  I’m back to getting my daily practice words working on a rough draft of the next project, while spending my evening sessions working on attempt number four of the Apartment Complex story.  I’ve given that project a lot of thought over the last couple of days, figured out (I hope) what works and what didn’t, revised how I’m going to approach it, and I’m just going to go ahead and write the damn thing without any reservations.

This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered numerous false starts, and I know it won’t be the last.  That’s part and parcel of the writing biz, unfortunately.  All I can do is soldier on, one way or another.

Getting back on the horse can be frustrating in itself, especially when your brain wants you to be running full tilt from the beginning.  That rarely works out though.  Sometimes you just have to be patient and relearn the process to fit the kind of story you want to write.  Take it as it comes, and eventually you’ll suddenly notice you’re back up to your normal processing speed.

[Yeah, I know… I’m going a bit overboard with all the idioms in this post.  Sorry about that.]

ANYWAY!  The good thing about all of this is that I’m going in the right direction, and that’s the most important part.

Long Title: Do I Have to Do This All Over Again

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

One of the worst habits I have as a writer?

Trying to convince myself that my current project is going okay and just needs a bit of TLC and revision…when in reality it needs to be completely tossed and restarted.

I’ve been trying to convince myself — and you, the blog readers, when I mention my progress here — that the Apartment Complex story is just suffering from growing pains.  It was far from my best work, but I said that all my beginnings are crap, and I’ll eventually nail it a few chapters in.  I said that maybe I was just looking at it from the wrong angle, that maybe I was writing in one format when I should be writing another.  I said that I’ll fix it in rewrite.

Yeah, that’s all bullshit, and it’s about time I owned up to it.

I don’t hate this story, far from it.  I believe in it, and I’ve got some great things to say with it.  So I’m going to start over — AGAIN.

Which of course begs the question: am I trying to convince myself this is a story worth saving when it actually isn’t?  Well, no.  Most all of the outtakes I’ve written for this project using 750Words are of infinitely better quality, so I’ve already proved to myself that this story is worth writing.

I know exactly what’s wrong with it, and it’s what I call my ‘let’s go out for some hamburgers’ mistake.  [It’s named after an embarrassing story attempt I wrote in fifth grade.]  It’s a problem of static characters: I have great characters that I know I’ll have fun writing, but all they’re doing is standing around talking.  What little action there is, is forced and pointless.  I’m trying to steer this story in a direction it does not and should not go, and that’s a big problem indeed.

That’s not how fiction works, and it’s really not a fun way to write it, either.  When it happens, I’m hit with a feeling of disappointment almost immediately, that I’m just wasting my time and words.  It feels like there’s a big freaking gap in the plot between the opening and the second half.  I’m not doing my story justice, and to continue in this manner is folly.

So.

Time to start over.  Again.

Either that, or put this aside for a little longer and start writing a different project, like In My Blue World.

I’ll keep you posted.

*

Credit where credit’s due: Victoria Schwab’s recent tweet that she’d completely rewritten her latest project, Vengeful, was the impetus for this decision.  She’d originally written it last fall, only to come to the same conclusion I have about mine: this is not how I want the story to go.  She tossed that version and restarted it on January 10, and finished it 116k words later just the other day.  Kudos to her!

I’m not looking to hit that same insane goal in that short of a time, mind you.  I’m just looking to write this story the right way!

[Also: Yes, this is one of the reasons I took last week off from blogging.  I wanted to have a good long think about it first before I made my decision.]

Writing without a net

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

sw tfa jb

After three attempts at starting the Apartment Complex story, I think I finally have it under control.  I’ve nailed down the introduction of the characters, established the setting, and started them down Main Plot Line Boulevard.

That was a hell of a lot tougher than I expected.  Now for the fun part of writing the rest of it!

In retrospect, I don’t think I had as much of a problem when I was more of a pantser writer.  Probably because I didn’t really pay too much attention to such things as weak openings and so on.  I just riffed until I got the hang of it and fixed it later.  I’ve been trying to move away from that ever since, and let me tell you, it’s harder than it sounds.  I’m learning to trust my instincts more, instead of freaking out and getting nowhere.

The irony is that this is exactly what my characters are going through as well.  One of the biggest themes of this story is learning to trust someone completely and without any second-guessing.  In writing this story so far, I’ve been fighting the Writer Demon — you know the one, the ‘OH GOD THIS IS ALL CRAP’ Demon that wants you to purge all these words and take up golf or something.  But I’ve also been fighting it with self-trust.  I believe in the story, I know I’ve built up a strong plot and strong characters, so all I need to do is shut that demon down and forge ahead.

This is what I mean by writing without a net.  For me it used to mean writing in my old pantsing ways, but now it’s about moving forward despite all my doubts and worries.  It’s about trusting that I’ll pull this off, one way or another, and I’ll be proud of the result.

It’s stressful as hell sometimes, but the payoff is almost always worth it.

 

annette funicello
A NET.  I SAID ‘A NET’.  STOP THAT.

TFW You Suddenly Realize You’re Where You Want to Be as a Writer

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment
tom hanks
CAUTION: WRITER AT WORK

Earlier this week, just a day after I’d released Meet the Lidwells, I started thinking about a lot of different things related to the writing projects I had going on.  I was working out how to publicize the new book while also plugging my trilogy, reading over the chapters of the Apartment Complex story that I was going to read for FOGcon, playing around with my daily words (which are currently focused on In My Blue World), and the evening session words for AC.  All while hoping the Day Job wouldn’t cause any delays for everything else.  In other words, The Typical Day in the Life of a Writer.

What threw me was that I didn’t feel that moment of wondering if I would ever be a pro writer or if I was just going to continue faking it.

I actually had to stop and think about that for a moment.  I’ve been writing for over thirty years now.  Sure, most of that time was spent learning, hitting roadblocks and dead-ends, wasting time, getting stuck on the OK Plateau, and trying to figure out what the hell I had to do to make any of this work.  I’ve rarely had a crippling self-doubt about it, but I’ve certainly had my moments of wondering if this was as good as I was going to get, and that maybe I’d better focus more on a Day Job career.  I hated that feeling with a passion.

Self-publishing the trilogy turned that around; this proved I could achieve the goals I’d set for myself.  But what cemented it for me was the release of Meet the Lidwells; that’s when I’d proved to myself that the trilogy wasn’t a fluke or my One Shot at Greatness.  [The unexpected icing on the cake, I should add, was the multiple downloads of the Bridgetown Trilogy this past week, thanks to the Smashwords sale.  One or two downloads makes me happy; five or six a day all week long felt amazing.  I thank all of you new readers for that!!]

 

That feeling when you suddenly realize you’re exactly where you want to be as a writer, though?

That feels absolutely AMAZING.  It took forever to get here, but I’m glad I stayed with it.

Putting On a Show in the Barn, Or: Adventures in Figuring Out How to Self-Promote

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment
rooney garland
Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in Babes in Arms (1939)

How the hell do you self-promote your self-published book, anyway?  That’s a damn good question, because I’ve heard so many different and varying (and often conflicting) answers that I sometimes wonder if anyone knows at all.

So I’m doing a bit of everything, to be honest.  I’ve created flyers for the trilogy.  I’ve posted hither and yon on social media.  I’ve sent copies to various websites like BookLife, NoiseTrade, and so on.  I’ve posted to GoodReads.  I’ve submitted to legitimate novel writing contests.  I’ve created a mailing list.  I’ve promoted myself at cons.  I’ve read a lot of different blogs and listened to various podcasts.  I’ve done a lot of it in one way or another, to varying degrees of success.

This isn’t to say no one knows what they’re doing, far from it; it’s that there’s a hell of a lot of different ways to do it, and they’re doing what works for them.

When I uploaded A Division of Souls as a pay-what-you-want e-book on NoiseTrade a few years ago, I didn’t get much money out of it, but I certain got a hell of a lot of downloads, over 250 of them.  And even though I haven’t done any major promotion on the trilogy for quite some time, I’ll still get the occasional download hit either on Amazon or on Smashwords.  [Those might be few and far between, but they still put a smile on my face when I get an unexpected payment!]

Right now I’m planning out how to self-promote Meet the Lidwells!, and this time out I’m thinking of being a bit creative with it.  I’ll reach out to the websites I tried before, with a focus on music-related blogs and sites (such as NoiseTrade) as well as any other bloggers who might be interested in doing a review.  I’m also thinking of doing some minor advertising in some of the writing magazines I read as well — maybe a one-column thumbnail ad or something.  The book will drop later this month, so I’ve got to work on getting all this out pretty soon!

If I’ve learned anything over the past three years that I’ve been self-publishing, it’s that this field truly is all about the DIY, where the long-established rules don’t always apply.  Sometimes your attempts at self-promotion will fall flat, other times it’ll catch on and grow far beyond your expectations.  There’s a lot at play here:  the kind of book you’ve written, the people and businesses you interact with, the people you’ve hired for production work, right down to the price you decide to give it.  And you can do exactly what professional self-publishers (such as David Gaughran or Joel Friedlander) suggest, and it might work for you, or it might not.  It really is a bit of a gamble each and every time.

It’s a learning experience every time I release a book.  In a way, it’s like the classic Babes in Arms trope: ‘Let’s put on a show in the barn!’  You’re out to show that you can do it, and that you want your audience to enjoy it, but you’re really not sure if it’ll work unless you actually do it.  But regardless, the payoff is still worth it.

 

Take Three: On Rewriting (Again)

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

8-Winnie-the-Pooh-quotes

RIGHT.  Let’s try this one more time.

I’m committed to getting this novel down correctly before I venture too far and end up frustrated again.  I know exactly what’s been wrong with the Apartment Complex story: not enough action.  I do have future scenes with action in them, sure, but I’m just not nailing the landing at all yet.  I’m screwing up on the pacing; it’s far too slow.  I’m focusing too much on the mood and not enough on the plot.  So instead of deleting it all and throwing the outtakes into the compost bin, I gave it a good long think-over during vacation.

Specifically, I thought about what I needed to do during the five-hour flights to Honolulu and back.  And during the return flight, I pulled out my index cards and proceeded to do some heavy-duty additional outlining.  I added at least six more scenes to the start of Act I (to be interspersed between the scenes I already have) that will help me get back to where I need to be.  I realized this was the same outlining style I used for the trilogy, where I focused primarily on the handful of scenes I’d be working on in the immediate future.  It worked then, so I see no reason why it wouldn’t work again now.

I’m usually never this stubborn about nailing the beginning, I’ll admit.  But sometimes it’s gotta be done, especially if I already believe in the story as a whole.  It might take me a few tries to get it right, but once I do, the rest of it should flow just as I want it.

On the Run

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

anime music listening

Oops!  I seem to have forgotten to prepare a post for today!  Sorry about that, and thanks for waiting!

We’ll be on vacation next week, and I’ve been hemming and hawing over whether I should write posts or fly-bys.  I could easily write them tomorrow if need be, but at the same time I shouldn’t feel guilty if I post a fly-by instead.  Except that I do.  Writing can be like that.

As always, I spend a bit of vacation prep debating what writing-related things to bring with me.  Sometimes, like our recent Disney trip, I won’t touch it at all.  Other times, like our previous London trip, I’ll actually get work done.  So it’s a toss-up.  I’ve learned not to overpack like I used to.  I never bring my laptop anymore, though I might bring my tablet, especially when I want to do a bit of revision or reading of what I have so far.  For this trip, that’ll most likely be it, aside from the notebook and a few printouts for the Apartment Complex story.

In the meantime, I’m looking forward to this break.  It’s been an unexpectedly busy first quarter so far at the Day Job, which means continual and very annoying interruptions from my work by the client reps, asking when my work will be done.  Eesh.  I just want a week to not think about much of anything at all except the next time we head over to Rainbow for more loco moco or kalua pork.

Is it 4pm yet?

 

On Calling It

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment
cat throw away
Source: spoon-tamago.com

I’ve been frustrated with my work on the Apartment Complex story for the last few weeks.  Not the prose itself; that’s actually been pretty good.  What I am producing is stuff I can work with and revise.  I’m talking about the overall production.  It’s too scattershot.  There are too many gaping holes where I hung a cardboard sign saying ‘put something here later’.  I think I’ve proven to myself that I’m not good at writing out of order; I’m definitely more of a linear writer.

In short, I don’t think my longhand idea is quite panning out the way I wanted.  It feels like I’m wasting time.

I didn’t plan it out as well as I thought I did, and I’m paying the price for it.  I don’t necessarily think I need to revisit the outline; more that I need to be more immersed in the story.  It’s the writing style I’m used to and the style I’m good at.  By writing in a linear fashion and immersing myself into the story and the characters, I begin to understand what is needed and what I should avoid.  I’m also able to pay attention to minor details that I could use further down the line.

That’s not to say that I’ll never work this way again…I actually enjoy writing longhand.  It’s more relaxing, for starters.  I’m not focusing on a screen for hours at a time, for another.  Not to mention I get to write anytime and anywhere.  I just have to remember next time to start it when it needs starting, and not sooner.

That said… I’ve called it this past Wednesday.  I’m starting the Apartment Complex story over and trying again, this time straight to PC, as linearly as possible.  I haven’t gotten too far in the story, so I should probably be back up to speed by the end of the month if I keep up the same speed and dedication.

‘Calling it’ has to be one of the hardest things a writer has to do sometimes.  It’s definitely not a decision that comes lightly.  The biggest weight is the bitter truth that we’ve just wasted all that time on something that isn’t working for us.  Well, maybe not wasted per se, but it certainly feels that way.  There’s also the frustration of having to decide whether to continue or restart the project in what feels like the correct way, or to put it aside and start something else.  It causes us to take a good hard look at our project and make the decision whether it’s truly worth following through or trunking.

I’m already dedicated to the Apartment Complex story; I’ve been looking forward to writing it since I was in the middle of writing Lidwells. [I’m feeling the same exact way about In My Blue World, to be honest, and that one’s further down the road.]  I’ve decided I can salvage what I’ve done over the last month, and I can turn this around.

But it’s still one hell of a hard decision.

On Multi-Tasking

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

anime busy

One of the biggest changes to my writing schedule that I’d been looking forward to once I signed off on the trilogy was being able to multi-task.  I love working on a main project, but working on the same one for a long time (especially as long as that one) can definitely be detrimental.  I often find myself itching to work on something different now and again, and that certainly comes to the fore when I’m doing major revision work.

When I decided to write outtakes for Meet the Lidwells while working on the trilogy revision, it gave me a much-needed creative outlet to keep my Writer Brain going in a way that my blog entries and other outlets couldn’t.  If I hadn’t done that, it would have taken a lot longer for me to start a new project.  I’d have had to spend some time thinking about what to write, how to write it, and not really know if I have a viable story or a trunkable one until I’ve invested a lot of time on it.  Multi-tasking projects lets me cut out a lot of that possible wasted time.  The daily-words outtakes put the story idea to the test to see if I can graduate it to Main Project status.

This process worked so well for me that I’ve kept it going with the newer projects, and I’ll keep it going until it doesn’t work for me anymore.

Granted, it is a process that’s kind of tough to maintain if you’re juggling all this with a Day Job.  There are days when I’m amazed I can get anything done when the DJ kicks my ass.  The trick is to make it happen.  Find slow moments where you can write a few hundred quick words.  Use your work breaks and lunch if you can.  Worst case scenario, schedule out your writing days; one day for revision, another for new words, and so on.

It’s not a process you need to take if you don’t want to, but it works well if you have a lot of projects you’d like to work on, and you’d like a quick turnaround.  YMMV, of course!