Writing Ups and Downs

I’ve been working on a short story the last couple of weeks. The guidelines said a minimum of 3,000 words, which is a little less than most shorts I write, but I thought I could do it in about that many words.

The first week, I thought I would never get to 3 thousand words! It seemed like I wrote and I wrote, and the word count barely moved.

Now I’ve reached 3k, and it seems like the story will never come to an end! I’m so close, and yet I’ve got to go through so many details before I finally end it. I rather dread working on it, but if I don’t, it won’t get done. It’s not going to write itself.

I just noticed the deadline is August 1^st, so I’ve got some time. But I can hardly wait until I can revise the rough draft into a 2^nd draft. I’ve already seen places where I’ve used too many words, scenes that could be shortened.

I think my problem is that I’m not sure of the subject matter. But they wanted stories where a zombie presence is the new normal. So I’m writing zombies. I’ve only ever read one book about zombies. I used to watch the Walking Dead, and that scared me half to death, some episodes. It’s a fine line that I’m walking to be writing about zombies.

Well, I’ll be that much happier when I get it done and can submit it. Then I can return to working on my longer Work in Progress, which is waiting impatiently.

PS. I finished the zombie rough draft Wednesday night. The word count is now 4,500 words. I’m taking a couple days off from it before I start revisions.

Advice For Writers

Writers are given lots of advice. Sometimes the advice is good, sometimes it’s not. And sometimes it can only be described as, ‘well-intentioned’.

The first piece of advice I ever got when I was first trying to spread my wings was that I should write every day. I admired my cousin Roy a great deal, and I really thought his writing style was great. But I never could manage to write the thousand words a day that he kept advising me to do.

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t have to labor long and hard to get a thousand words written. Most days the words just flowed out of my pen and onto my tablet, and I might get 2 or 3 thousand words written in a day. But then something would happen. A bout of flu kept me down for a few days. I somehow wound up with a multitude of chores to do one weekend, or a big amount of homework to get done. Possibly the family decided to drive up into the mountains on Saturday. I was afraid of heights, so I was allowed to take books to read, but not books to write. Of course, my notebooks never stayed in good shape long enough to finish them, and I certainly didn’t want to lose any pages, so I didn’t think that was a big problem. Except I never seemed to get my thousand words written that day. I had failed!

But in hindsight, I had bigger problems than that. I would start a story and work on it for a few dozens or even hundreds of pages. Then I would lose interest in that story, hide it in a drawer, and start a new one. It wasn’t until I was in my 30s that I actually finished a few stories. And shortly after that, it occurred to me that SOMEbody needed to go through those stories and edit them. I started working with other authors to get some critical feedback.

Eventually, I arrived at the point where I could retire, and I did, anticipating that I would take the 8 hours a day I had spent working and use them to work on my writing. Somehow, that hasn’t happened. I am at my computer daily, working for at least 8 hours, but I am not necessarily working on a story for 1000 words. I have too many other things to do. I am head of a small press, and I am editor, layout person and publisher for my husband. Ditto with my own writing, and editing is much tougher when it’s your own work.

So if you ever see me at a convention, conference, or transportation hub, and I’m pounding away on a laptop, it’s only me, trying to get 1000 words written that day.

The Dr Who Cruise Part 3

Tuesday, Oct 24 – a Day at Sea

This was a day at sea, and we were supposed to sleep in, because all the breakfast venues opened an hour later than usual. We got up at 7 and went to the Main Dining Room for breakfast, only to find they weren’t open yet. So we grabbed an elevator to the 15^th deck, where the buffet was open.

Half an hour later, we headed back to our cabin, and at 9:30, Hubby headed for the conference center for a 10 AM meeting with his writing team.

About an hour later, I went down to see how they were doing. D, the organizer of the cruise, was there and was listing the days and times that he had activities planned. Lo and behold, some of the actors who usually get cast as monsters in DW were giving a presentation at 4 PM THAT DAY on their work, complete with photos, videos and props. I made sure of the presentation time when the meeting broke up, and then Hubby and I went to the card room (there was no library aboard the Wonder) to do some writing.

Around noon we went to the Main Dining Room for lunch, then back to our cabin to relax. We considered going to the hot tub, but opted to stay in our room and write.

At 3:30, we started for the conference center, which should have been an elevator ride straight down 7 decks, but we decided to walk to the aft (back) of the ship to check out a venue on deck 12 we hadn’t seen yet. It turned out to be an expensive restaurant with ‘imaginative cuisine’. So now we knew.

While we were waiting for an elevator, we met up with D (our cruise organizer), who started telling us about some of the hassles of having such a large group. Then we realized we were aft, and the conference center was forward, so we had to beat feet to get there.

The ‘monster review’ was 2 hours long and great fun. Ross, Tim and Jon had photos and videos of various roles they had played, and not only in Dr Who. The photos included them in the make-up chair, usually getting lots of prosthetics put on. The videos included such things as a group of monster actors practicing walking in unison, in whatever strange style had been worked out for them. Tim even brought a mask that fit over his head, and the hands that went with it for one of his monsters.

Before we knew it, it was 6 PM, and since this was a formal night for dining, we needed to return to our cabins and change. I had brought a dress to wear for formal nights, and a pair of heels, two things I hardly ever wear. Halfway to the aft of the ship, I remembered why I hardly ever wear heels; my knees were complaining, my hips weren’t happy, my ankles felt weak and uncertain, and my feet were screaming in pain. I decided right then that on the walk back to our cabin, I would take off the heels and walk in my stocking feet. Unfortunately, when we headed back to our room, we walked through the Promenade deck, which was very crowded. I didn’t dare take off my shoes until we reached deck 10 and the relative emptiness of cabin area hallways.

Writing Is Like Sewing

I’ve been spending some time these last few days sewing on a new costume for myself. At first, I thought I had a deadline that it had to be wearable by Saturday, Oct 14. During the 2^nd day of working on it, my husband pointed out I didn’t need it until the middle of February. Whew! That was a big relief. Because, based on how much I was getting done each day, it was NOT going to be done by Oct 14. Not unless I started working on it every waking hour, and even then it would be iffy. Besides, concentrating on that and doing nothing else would lead to massive fatigue, lots of mistakes and TONS of frustration.

Today, I set the project away and worked on my husband’s costume, which needed some repairs. That he wants done by Oct 14, and I think I can get it done. If I don’t super-glue my fingers to it.

But I got to thinking about how much sewing is kind of like writing. Or vice versa.

The typical person who wants to sew a dress, for instance, starts with a pattern, a plan. Much like a person who puts together an outline to help them get from concept to a rough draft.

But I’m starting from scratch without a pattern. I know what I want it to look like, but I’m working on it much like I work on a story; by trying to figure out how the pieces go together as I go along. I don’t often sew by the seat of my pants, but I definitely write that way.

The first part of my story, er, costume, is to take strips of different materials and sew them together to make a striped body. Kind of like pulling together sentences and paragraphs to make a scene.

Once, I wasn’t paying much attention, and I sewed the seam on the wrong side. So I had to take time to rip that seam out and do it correctly. Rather as if I had written a scene that didn’t take the story where I wanted it to go, so I had to try again.

Later, I will have to decide where the neck and sleeves go and cut the striped material accordingly. Consider that the first couple passes of editing or re-writing: Cutting out words, paragraphs, even entire chapters that aren’t needed for the final product.

And finally, there’s all the hemming and doing the finishing touches of the costume. That, I figure, is like a final polish to a story.

Hey, don’t blame me if you think my muse has got a screw loose, comparing sewing and writing. Possibly she does (have a loose screw) but sewing and writing have both been on my mind this past week.

Marketing - the Bane of Writing

I decided to write about marketing this week. It's been on my mind quite a bit lately, and I'll tell you why.

A few days ago, I stumbled upon a blog about how authors could market themselves and their work globally. Nothing they suggested in their blog seemed too far out there or difficult to do. So I took their 10 suggestions, broke them into small chunks, and scattered them throughout my infamous To Do List to be tackled over the next couple of months.

Four days ago, I was cleaning out my email box when I found I had been sent Lesson 1 in a 7-part series of lessons on how an author can best and most easily market their goods. I was familiar with the teacher, so I went through that first lesson and took copious notes. Turns out those are DAILY lessons for a full week, so I have been going through each lesson every day, taking detailed notes. I have to take notes, because the lessons take up so much of my time, I can't actually act on what he wants me to do.

And I'm not very tech-savvy. When I set up my last website, following his instructions, it took me 3-4 months to get it ready to publish. He had at least twice as many books to include as I did, and got his done in an afternoon.

And unfortunately, I don't get a lot of support for my marketing efforts. Granted, they haven't done much good so far, but if you want to get anywhere, you have to persevere, right?

I have a good friend (who also writes books), who tells me to forget about marketing. "Just write your books, get 10 or 12 printed, hand them out to friends and family and be done with it." He has a different philosophy about writing than I do. I want to entertain people by telling them stories. And yeah, I'd like to make some money doing it, if I can.

This friend has no concept of what I'm telling him. Every time this subject comes up between us, he gets mad because I won't give in and live life the way he thinks I should. "But you hate marketing! Life is too short to make yourself miserable. Just do the writing, which you enjoy."

It's true, I haven't found any 'fun' in marketing. So far. Maybe because I haven't yet managed to find anything that works. But now I am gathering new steps to take, things to research, tweaks to make... I have a goal to reach for.

It's hard to make progress when you don't know where you're going.

 

What I Did This Week

What a relief to be Not Sick any more! I have been running errands as needed, calling people as needed, surfing the internet when needed... I even managed to get out and do some yardwork this week! Not nearly as much as I'll need to get done next week, but hey, I got started on it.

I started writing a new book. Always a favorite activity!

And, of course, I had projects to do for my big new publicity push I'm trying to get done.

I did find myself taking naps during the day, an hour here, another hour there. I sleep well at night, so I shouldn't need naps. Then I noticed that those naps always seemed to happen on days when I was concentrating on those projects. I mean, more than 2 hours at a time, because after 2 hours, I was ready for a nap.

I love writing. I truly don't mind editing. But formatting a manuscript is a mind-numbing, tedious, hellish activity to do for any length of time. After 2 hours, I am yawning continuously and can't keep my eyes open. So I stumble off and take a nap. Only to get up again and put in another 2 hours of formatting.

But it has to be done. I had started by adding new back matter to all of John's books. And in doing so, I realized that some of them had not been justified when I originally formatted them and published them. So, now that's what I'm doing, going through and justifying all the text.

It doesn't help when you start finding little mistakes that snuck through all the editing I'd done. A hyphen that doesn't belong there. An en dash that should be an em dash. A major character's name that changes its spelling (by one letter) halfway through the book and then starts switching back and forth during the last quarter of the book.

Ugh! How did I miss those things?

Well, because I'm only human.

And I'm still human, even when I'm Not Sick. 

This Week

I've had a relatively calm, work-on-your-projects type of week. Mainly, I've been editing, formatting, writing, and working on a new website for a new marketing campaign. I like writing and editing; I think they're fun. Formatting is... okay. It's not the pits, but it's not exhilarating, either.

The worst has been the building a new website. While it came pretty much pre-built, with the anticipation I would personalize it to suit myself, even that much has not been easy. I've been at it about 4 weeks now, and I'm still not done.

It's built using WordPress. I do not know WordPress. I have watched all the 'help' videos that came as part of the support package, and I have reached the point where what I'm trying to do isn't covered by those videos. I can flounder around for hours trying to find the secret location to insert a button's link, or place to upload an e-book file. And still not find it.

Don't get me wrong, the support people have been wonderful. All I have to do is tell them that I can't get a picture in the position I want it, or a link takes me to the wrong place, and they will fix it for me. I feel stupid writing them 2 emails a day listing the things I've managed to flub up that day, but they fix it cheerfully. Unless it's a weekend. They don't work on weekends. I'm so jealous of that.

I thought I would at least be nearing the end of building this website by now, and it sounds like I am. All I have left is to input the links to 2 buttons and upload the ebook files for 6 books. Oh, but that's 5 formats for each of those 6 books. It could take me another month to get it all done. {No, it won't, I just did one book, and it wasn't that hard.}

And that's just for the books by John Shoberg. He has the most books published, so we're concentrating on getting the website up and running for his books. Later, we'll add books by Trudy Myers and Linda Joy. And then, of course, every time we publish a new book, we'll have to update the website.

It really is a never-ending job.

Oh, we did take a couple evenings to tear apart a Darth Vader costume. The pleather we had used to make the body suit had begun to seriously deteriorate, so we tore out the seams of the body suit to use the pieces as a pattern. This is the 3rd time we've rebuilt this costume, I think. We're going to use real leather this time, see if it lasts longer.

Something Different

 And now we interrupt this series of blogs to bring you a commercial break.

I've often wondered what other writers talk about in their blogs, without it seeming like they are constantly pitching their wares. I solved that dilemma for myself by talking about the various research I've done, whether or not that research had anything to do with what novel I am currently writing or editing. I hope my efforts amuse my readers.

But I am an author, and a publisher, and so once in a while, I need to inform the world what I have been doing. Buckle up, this is a speedy re-hash of the past 6-8 months.

De-Evolution by John Lars Shoberg was published (MoonPhaze LLC) in November of 2020. It is a science fiction novel about humans who colonize a planet and cannibalize their ship to help build their colony. Then they find out that what they had thought was an example of native fauna was actually an intelligent species, although their culture had devolved in the past 100 years to that of cavemen. Will the humans be similarly effected? —It is available on Smashwords.com, Amazon, MoonPhaze.com, and possibly at your local book seller. It has been met with some success. You can find a review of it on https://jimsscifi.blogspot.com/, entry dated Saturday, June 19th, 2021.

The Stone Ship (The Stone Builders #2) by John Lars Shoberg was published in May of 2021. Although it is a sequel to The Stone Builders (Available from MoonPhaze.com), it stands on its own pretty well. It is a science fiction adventure. —The military found a large chunk of a spaceship made of stone while exploring a new star system. They assemble a group of scientists to study the artifact, and leave them there to their studies while the military ship goes off to finish exploring the system. Then an unknown ship is noticed approaching the scientists. Is it the Stone Builders, looking for their ship? Or even worse, the unknown species that managed to destroy a ship made of stone? —It is available on Smashwords.com, Amazon, MoonPhaze.com, and possibly at your local book seller. It has had the same amount of success as De-Evolution, in a shorter amount of time, although we haven't found any reviews of it at this time.

Meanwhile, I have written 2 romance novels and a short story. And I'm deep in the middle of getting them published.

Hank's Widow (Small Town Happiness #1) by Linda (NMI) Joy, my pen name for romances, will be published July 20, 2021, if I don't run into too many snags. I've already had a few, but right now I'm waiting for the cover to be finished before turning it over to the printer. —After her husband is killed in a winter traffic accident, Wanda finds in his papers a deed for a house in the middle of Nebraska. Unable to afford their Chicago apartment on her own, she decides to move to that house. In her husband's extended family, she finds 3 cousins who all look remarkably like him. Will she ever finish grieving when her husband's face is around every corner? —It is currently available for pre-order from Smashwords.com and MoonPhaze.com. I expect to get it uploaded to Amazon in the next few days, ready for that July 20th publication date.

"The Game" (Small Town Happiness #0.5) by Linda (NMI) Joy, will also be published July 20, 2021. It is a short prequel for Hank's Widow and my other romance, which is currently being edited. "The Game" is a short story happening about 6 years before Hank's Widow, which shows how the Four Cousins' close relationship fell apart. Because it is so short, (24 pages), it will only be in ebook formats, and will be bundled with Hank's Widow at no additional charge.

Waiting for Glori (Small Town Happiness #2) by Linda (NMI) Joy is hoping to be published in January 2022. I am currently doing a 2nd edit/rewrite, and I typically do 3 or 4 edits. —Gloria has finally escaped from her husband's abuse and neglect. Now she needs to figure out how to stand on her own, for her son's sake. Progress takes time, but she doesn't stop to wonder if her independence will allow her to find love.

And I have an artist working on the cover for And the Meek Shall Inherit, another science fiction novel by John Lars Shoberg. I need to go through it for one last edit, looking for pesky grammar mistakes that have managed to slip my attention before this. We are anticipating a November publication date.

AND I made a goal of publishing 4 books during 2021, so I need to find another... Perhaps one of ours that is no longer in print. There's 3 or 4 to choose from.

Wow. I tired myself out just going through the list and remembering all the stuff I still need to do. And on the other hand, I'm a little amazed at all I've accomplished. I'd like to remind all my readers, that if you've read a book—whether a MoonPhaze book or not—please help the author out by posting a blog. Goodreads is a good place to do it, if you belong, or maybe on your own blog.

Good reading!

Author Blogs

The worst part of being an indie author is that you are required to do all of your own marketing and promotion. You always wonder if you are missing something, some way of connecting to your audience. There’s lots of advice out there about having your own blog, so this week, I did some research of what other authors talk about in their blogs.

I was lucky enough to find a list of ‘well-crafted’ author blogs compiled by a well-known site for authors. So I checked out the first dozen or so.

The first thing I noticed was that all of the blogs I was connected to were over a decade old, even though these blogs got points for being ‘frequently updated’. In one or two cases, newer posts were easy to find; but in most of them, I was stuck with the post I landed on, looking for similarities, differences, anything that might tell me what made a successful author’s blog.

Two or three of them were down-right political in nature. I have my political views, of course, but I don’t like cramming my views down other people’s throats, nor do I like having other people’s views crammed down mine. I didn’t spend much time on those sites.

One blog page consisted of boxes with a headline in each box. The headlines did not make much sense to me, perhaps because I wasn’t familiar with that author’s work, and that’s what they pertained to.

One blog page was a guest blog by a friend of the author, who waxed poetic about how much better his life was, now that he had adopted just one of the attitudes suggested is the author’s non-fiction self-help book. Well, that was an interesting possibility... if I wrote non-fiction self-help books.

Several of them talked about their current Work In Progress, which was pretty much what I expected. But even now, I’m not sure how that can be done effectively, given a blog that gets a new post every week, which is the absolute minimum suggested by all the advice given to authors that I’ve seen.

Now, I don’t write 8 hours a day. I am an editor and publisher (and person) as well as an author, and so I spend 8 hours (and more) at my computer, I do not spend 8 hours a days working on my own stories. Not even 8 hours writing, re-writing and editing my own stories. But let’s look at some math:

Suppose an author writes 8,000 words a day ( that’s 1,000 words per hour, and boy, is that fast!) 5 days a week produces 40,000 words. To the best of my knowledge, a typical romance is about 80,000 words, so that’s 2 weeks of work, just for a rough draft. One romance writer complained that she had finished her rough draft, only to have her editor tell her it had problems, problems so bad that she (the author) was going to have to step back and rethink the entire story. And yet, that author still managed to include in her blog post an excerpt from that story.

I’m left wondering, does she include an excerpt with every blog post? Even if all she did was tell her audience about whatever she had written that week, she is basically telling them the story before it ever gets published.

And that’s during the rough draft stage. What does she do during the rewrites? More excerpts? Explanations of what she’s changed?

I don’t really understand, so I guess I’ll have to continue studying blogs by other authors, preferably more than one post by the same author. Do any of you know of an author whose blog you feel would be a good example for me to study?

In the meantime, I’ll return to writing about the science I’ve self-studied.

Closing 2019

As 2019 draws to a close, I’ve been looking back over my daily journals to see what I’ve been doing. Let me explain that a little. I have my daily ‘To Do’ list, where I list all the things I’d like to work on that day. And things I don’t really want to do, but need to, like take my pills and brush my teeth. Fact is, if it isn’t on my list, I probably won’t remember to do it.

At the end of the day, I transfer everything I’ve crossed off to my journal and add some comments. Depending on my mood, those comments might be brief (‘I got some stuff done today’), or they could be long and rambling, touching on all sorts of things that happened during the day and how I feel about them. It’s just a method of proving to myself what I’ve done, a way of reflecting on what I’ve accomplished and how I feel about things.

In looking back over the past couple weeks, I’ve noticed that I’ve been writing, writing, re-writing, editing and writing. Oh, yes, and writing.

What does that mean? I’ve been working on a lot of different writing projects. I write 2 blogs and try to post those weekly. Now, that usually means research for one of them, writing and re-writing for both of them, before I can post them. About an hour a day for each blog serves the purpose for that. Maybe a little less.

I’m also trying to write some shorts in order to produce an anthology of Atlan shorts in 2020. I keep running into walls where I’m not sure exactly how the next section of the scene goes, but I give myself an hour a day to work on that. Sometimes that only produces 500 words, others I’ll get 1000 words done. I haven’t gotten to the re-writing stage on that, because I have 3 or 4 more shorts to rough draft to get the number of words I need for a book.

I’m editing John’s next book for a spring release. This is a 2nd edit, so it goes faster, since I’m mostly looking for grammar and punctuation. Hopefully, I found all the places that didn’t quite make sense in the first edit, and John fixed them. On the other hand, I’ve read this book before (during the first edit), and I tend now to start losing my focus after a time, so I only work on it an hour a day.

I’m also writing a novel (a romance). This is a straight rough draft at this point, and I usually give it an hour a day, more or less. If I don’t feel like working on that one, I have 2 other novels (a near-future sf and a paranormal detective) that I can move over and work on for a day or two.

That’s a lot of writing projects. Could I get more done if I concentrated on one? I don’t know. I seem to be able to focus for an hour or slightly more at a time, and then I’m ready to move on to the next project. By splitting up my day in such small chunks, it looks like I’ve accomplished a lot, because I can say I’ve worked on a bunch of projects. And I have ‘naturally occurring’ breaks when I can get up and do other things, like let the dog out or throw supper in the crock pot or even go outside and work on the yard. Except for letting the dog out, those things are on my to do list and can be crossed off.

I don’t know if any other writers work on so many projects at the same time. Yes, it takes time to get anything ‘done’ done. It will be a month or three before I get the romance rough draft done. It could be another week before I get this short rough draft done and can start on the next. But in a year or two, I hope to be churning out books regularly.

Wish me luck! And perseverance.

Dealing With Characters

If you read my other blog (MacOnFireball.blogspot.com), you may have seen my facebook post a couple weeks ago that I couldn’t post that week’s episode because Bugalu was being a jerk, and I had to do a major rewrite. As I did the rewrite, Mac was hostile and everybody started explaining everything! (As you know, Bob, Earth’s moon orbits around Earth, and it takes about 28 days to do it.) The only thing worse than an info dump is a completely unnecessary info dump!

I used to say that I start with a character, and they tell me their story. Well, kinda sorta. Sometimes, I start with a scene (a battleground after the battle) or an experience (being tossed off a cliff like a piece of garbage). Then I start wondering, “Who would be in this situation? How did they get here? Or, if it’s more interesting, what will they do now?”

No matter how tight-lipped a character starts out, by the time I’ve written 3-4 thousand words about him/her, they have layers of likes, dislikes, memories, experiences, hang-ups and maybe even dreams. They are no longer 2-dimensional (an apprentice wizard), they are developing some depth (Her teacher has gotten frail during her apprenticeship, so she feels she should stay and take care of him).

I get to know my characters pretty well. You’d think that would be a good thing, but... it has its drawbacks.

When they start telling me their story, they might not give all the details. We don’t know each other very well, and they don’t think their life is that interesting, usually, so I can’t blame them for editing what they give me. And I don’t usually question much while I’m getting the rough draft down. But when I start going through the next draft, I start asking for details.

“Smitty, I’m not sure I understand. Mac just came on board, and you’re already out of sorts with her. Did she do something to irritate you?”

“She stared at me from the moment her transpod opened!”

That hadn’t been mentioned before. Obviously, that scene needed expanding so the reader would know he was not - normally - an old sour-puss.

“He’s passed over plenty of hopeful subordinates who would say he is.”

“He decided they wouldn’t fit his team. Part of being an officer. Hold your peace, Drake. She’s talking to Smitty.”

Okay. Maybe I should say here that I’ve been working on Mac’s adventures on the Fireball for about 40 years. That’s a long time to have the same people living in your head. Yes, we’ve taken breaks - some of them pretty long - and they’ve had to share my head with plenty of other characters during those decades. But I think it’s safe to say that I REALLY know Mac, and the rest of the crew.

How well do you know your siblings or spouse? If you’re having a bad day, do they know it? Or do you still hide that away?

When I confronted Bugalu about being a jerk in the soon-to-be-posted episode, he responded with, “I was trying to make Mac get her temper under control. It’s not like I haven’t talked to her about that before.”

Sure enough, Mac was verging on a rampage, until Bugalu had shocked her by being a jerk. I put on my ‘director’/counselor hats, and we worked to get their moods more... settled in the story.

Oh, and the un-necessary explaining? It happens from time to time, mostly in a rough draft. I just pull my editor hat on tight and remove the unnecessary bits. In this case, 2 pages of ‘splainin’ became 6 lines. 5.5 lines. Somewhere in there.

I don’t want my characters to edit their story. That’s part of my job.

Fighting between characters? Maybe, because siblings fight. Spouses fight. After 40 years, you have to expect an occasional disagreement. But if it becomes part of the story, it needs a reason. Something other than, “I was having a bad day.”

Learning From Others

Sometimes I edit for another publisher. These are manuscripts that they have already accepted, and it is my duty to make sure the grammar is correct, that there are no plot holes or inconsistencies.

I do it as an editor, but as an author, I have learned quite a bit.

For instance, one author – let’s call him Ace – usually writes historical (light) romance set during World War II. I have a few qualms about his writing style, but only one really made me impatient with the story line. I immediately recognized that Ace was telling the story of a couple - relatively minor characters he had introduced in his first book. The girl of this couple was raised in a different place from the others, and it was she he followed in this episode. What irritated me was that he didn’t introduce the male half of this couple until half-way through the manuscript!

Don’t get me wrong; Ace doesn’t write the usual, run-of-the-mill romance, and I don’t expect him to. Strongly interspersed among tidbits of romance are great explanations of the way life was during that time period, shown by what the characters do and expect. But I thought waiting that long to introduce the girl’s love – after spending so much time going through two earlier ‘boy friends’ – was a bit much. It may have me wondering about my own timing in my romances (which I write as Linda Joy).

And then there’s ‘Bill’, who writes contemporary romances. Or rather, one contemporary romance, which never seems to end. There have been five volumes so far, and he thinks the story line deserves at least another five. I find myself getting extremely irritated as I edit these manuscripts. Each one ends on what others would consider a ‘Happy Ever After’, and yet, during the next episode, the main characters immediately continue what they were doing before; jumping to conclusions, keeping secrets, not being truthful, and being super-jealous. They never seem to learn to not be stupid.

I can understand not wanting to set aside characters you’ve lovingly created and worked with for a long time. And many readers enjoy multiple volumes dealing with the ‘adventures’ of characters they’ve read about before. However, there is a reason why the typical romance novel is shorter than other fiction novels; there is usually only so much stupidity a person can tolerate in their love interest before they fall out of love, so to have an HEA ending, the couple needs to realize they are making mistakes and stop making them.

Is it possible to have too many volumes in a series of some other genre? Probably, although other genres offer a far greater variety of adventure types for the main characters to have to deal with and learn from. Still, when I decide to work on another volume for some series that I am writing, I will pause to consider whether the continuation makes sense, if it is significantly different in context from previous episodes, and if the main characters will be learning from it.

I thought I would be boning up on my grammar and punctuation. Sure, that’s happening, but I'm also learning so much more.

A Tell of Caution

It’s easy enough to do. But just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should do it. Especially when you are trying to establish yourself as an up-and-coming author.

I’m sure most working mothers know what I’m talking about: Spreading yourself too thin. Most working mothers are still expected to do (most, if not all of) the housework, get the groceries, do the cooking, take care of the kids, AND do their job. Even without adding any hobbies to help them stay sane, they are spread mighty thin. It gets to the point where you have to get sick, just to get some time to yourself.

Been there, done that.

When I took early retirement, I wanted my next ‘career’ to be ‘author’. I had been working at it for years. I had numerous short stories already written and polished, but none had found a home yet. I had a novel ready for submission, one in the polishing stage, and another drafted, besides several started, and many more ‘stewing’ in the back of my mind.

But suddenly finding yourself without a job to go to can leave you floundering. Without thinking about it, I dithered through my days watching tv, surfing the net, half-heartedly doing aspects of house cleaning I had never bothered to do before. (BTW, I hate housekeeping. It never gets done!) I signed up for six or a dozen newsletters on writing, and more on ‘promoting your book’. Anything to keep from actually writing, it seemed.

I even hired myself out as a free-lance editor. I told myself I needed to do that; I no longer belonged to a writing critique group, and editing would give me a chance to recognize ‘problems’ and try to solve them. Yeah, I can find other people’s problem areas, but I’m not sure I’m any better at finding my own.

I started new hobbies, took classes on leatherworking, theatrical makeup and making prosthetics, photoshop and illustrator… you get the idea. I volunteered for a position with Broad Universe (broaduniverse.org). And because I was frustrated with my pace in the writing world, I started my own publishing company. Why not? It seems like everybody else is doing it.

Somewhere in there, when I wasn’t paying attention, I got thin. Not physically, although I have lost a few pounds. But in terms of energy, I have none. In terms of organization, that’s pretty sketchy. I start each day with breakfast, doing my Broad Universe chore, and checking through my (main) email account. After that…

I have a loooong list of Things To Do. And unfortunately, ‘writing’ is not very high on that list.

How can I be an author if I don’t write? Why are all these other things coming before ‘writing’? I’m juggling a multitude of activities, but what I really want isn’t even in the mix.

I think it’s time to snap back and not be so thin.

Not Exactly Writing

If you follow me on Facebook, then you know our house has been under renovation for two months. They were supposed to be done this past Sunday, Aug 7. I decided I’d better get busy with the outside work that we didn’t contract for them to do.

 Our lawn has lots of deep shade, so we have large swaths where nothing grows. Oh, an occasional weed might stick its head up, but not many. All summer, my husband and I argued whether we could get any grass to grow in these places. One of the workers recently suggested we cover these naked spots with mulch, which we thought was a great idea.

 So I measured these bare spots to figure out how much mulch we need, including in the front yard. Putting mulch in the one bare spot in front would provide a more ‘uniform’ look as a whole. As I measured, I couldn’t help but notice the terraces where bushes had once lived. “I’ve got to pull these weeds, too! They make the place look so… sloppy.” And that led my eyes to the house foundation, where the paint was cracked and peeling.

 So the chore of putting down mulch suddenly became the chore of ‘pulling weeds, scraping the foundation, painting the foundation, and putting down mulch.’ And in some areas, I also get to ‘find’ the sidewalk because dirt and grass have grown over the edges.

 I know a writer who puts out a newsletter every week. And it seems like almost every week, whatever chore she’s done could be compared to writing; whether she weeded her garden, fed the chickens, adopted a dog or played Guitar Hero with her son, it always bore a striking resemblance to writing.

 So as I’ve been doing this yardwork, I’ve wondered how it would compare to writing, if I were to adopt her perspective. And actually, I think it bears more resemblance to RE-writing. Once I have my rough draft, and I’m ready to make it ‘the best it can be’, I follow similar steps to this yard work. Let me explain:

 Weeding – Weeds make your garden or lawn look jumbled and keep your eyes from understanding what you are looking at. For me, draft 2 is when I go back and put in every explanation, every adjective and adverb and description I think a reader might need or want. Adding in all these things is different than pulling out weeds, but pulling weeds allows the reader’s eyes and mind to see what you intended for them to envision, and that’s what I’m trying to do with draft 2.

 Scraping the foundation – Scraping off loose paint lets you get down to a solid surface so that the final result is pleasing to the eye. In draft 3, I look at every word, phrase, sentence and paragraph with one thought in my mind; ‘Do I really need this? If yes, is there any way to shorten it without warping what I’m trying to say?’ Kind of like scraping off the paint that doesn’t want to adhere any more. I’m getting my story down to the basic core – the foundation.

 Painting & mulching – A coat of paint on a house’s foundation and some mulch can make the whole yard look prettier, cared for and cohesive. I call my 4^th draft ‘making it pretty’. I check the grammar and punctuation, my use of pronouns, keep an eye out to make sure I haven’t overused some word or phrase.

 And finding the sidewalk? I prefer a clean, broad sidewalk, rather than one with dirt and grass covering half of it. In writing, this does not take yet another rewrite; it is incorporated into all my rewriting efforts. I try to find tired clichés (dirt & grass) and replace them with what I hope are new phrases that will get the thought across to the reader (more sidewalk.)

 No, I won’t say the 9 very hot hours I spent last week doing this yardwork was the same as if I’d spent those 9 hours writing. I will say that if you use some imagination, you can find similarities between them. And, since most of this yardwork is fairly mindless, I did get some thinking done about the next scene I needed to write.

No Words

So, here we are, in the middle of October, and I have not written anything this year.

Oh, I've re-written parts of one of my stories, edited part of another, and I've edited, copy-edited and proofed stories for others. But I haven't worked on any rough drafts. NO words have been added to any of the stories sharing camping space in my mind.

Believe me, it's getting crowded.

I spent last night wondering why. Today, I don't care why. Why doesn't really matter; all the whys I came up with really boiled down to; I didn't bother to make the time.

Starting today, I have resolved to MAKE the time. One isn't a writer if one doesn't write.

It's not that hard to find the time; the tv gets shut off at 8 or 9 pm, and I don't go to bed until at least midnight, so that's 3-4 hours when I need to be quiet. I'm already in my office, on my computer, but I've been spending those hours playing games. 'Relaxing', I told myself, but if you've ever been stuck on Level 27 of Fritz for weeks at a time, you know that playing games is not necessarily relaxing.

When I was employed, those hours used to be prime writing time. I see no reason why they can't be again. Those hours are much better (for me) for writing than the morning, when my brain is still trying to figure out what day it is. I have never been a morning person, I have always been a night owl.

So it's simple. Use those hours for rough drafts. Why didn't I think of that before?

No, don't get distracted by 'why'. Just write!

Right! Now, which story idea should I start with first? Telepathic horses? Cali 2? Reincarnation & the NeverEnding War? Or maybe-

Toss a pair of dice! It doesn't matter; they all want to get told. Just write!

Okay. Will do. Ummmm, right after I tell my Little Men in Tribez how to keep busy for the next few hours.

Sigh.

How Many Hats?

Long, long ago - they tell me - all an author needed to do was write. And maybe go on a speaking tour from time to time.

Now, an author wears many hats. How many hats can one person balance on their head before their neck snaps?

First, there's the Writing Hat. You have to get that rough draft done, or your writing career will go nowhere.

At some point, you will probably need the Research Hat, even if you write fiction. If your story involves some military, how is it organized? What ranks does it have? If it's science fiction involving humans, you might research militaries throughout history, and extrapolate from what you've learned. If you're writing a fantasy about dwarves, you might study the tales about dwarves, and try to figure out how they might organize an army. (Hint: A dwarf army is not likely to have cavalry. At least, not a cavalry on something as big as a horse.)

Next comes the Self-Critiquing Hat. You go through your rough draft and make it better by smoothing out rough spots and inconsistencies, adding description and explanation where it's needed, making sure you've said what you intended to say. Actually, you wear this hat more than you wear the Writing Hat.

Next comes the Listening Hat. You ask for feedback on what you've written, and you listen to what they say. Maybe your hero's eyes changed color mid-book, or you use the same phrase over and over, or 3 out of 4 readers didn't understand the first half of chapter eleven.

Back to the Self-Critiquing Hat as you go through your manuscript, considering the feedback, whether or not to change anything, and if so, what's the best way to do that?

Many authors are opting to self publish, these days. Once they've gotten their manuscript as good as they think they can get it, they probably hire an editor, maybe a copy editor, possibly a proofreader, and some will even hire someone to format the manuscript into e-book and print templates.

Or maybe they don't. In which case, those are all hats they should make sure fit their head; the Editor Hat, the Copy Editor Hat, the Proofreader Hat, and the Formatting Hat.

If they are making print copies, they must wear a Deciding Hat (What company will I hire to print this? Where do I get cover art, and who can do the cover layout?), the Receipts Payable Hat (How did the final printing bill get 30% higher than the quote they gave me?), and the Signing Hat (I only ordered *** copies, so why are there so many big, heavy boxes on my doorstep?).

Think they're done? Oh, no, not yet. This part is for all authors, even those with a publishing company, whatever that company's size. Very few authors don't have to wear the following hats:

The Marketing Hat (How do I let people know about my book?) often leads to The Social Media Hat (How many times can I announce something about my book on fb, twitter, linkedin, goodreads...?), the Webmaster Hat (How do I get this shopping cart to work?), the Personal Appearance Organizing Hat (Did that bookstore ever respond about the reading I wanted to do?), the Merchant Hat (Step right up! Get your brand new red hot sf book by that upcoming new author, me!), which, of course, leads to the dreaded Bookkeeper Hat (I gave away 5 books. There's no money involved, so how do I put those in the bookkeeping records?).

I will be wearing the Merchant Hat this weekend. I have rented a table in the Dealer's Room at a Dr Who convention in Wichita KS. Tomorrow, I will be madly trying to wear both the Publicity Hat and the Organizing Hat as I try to design some way to 'decorate' that table and decide how many copies of each book to take with me. A full box of John's book, because, you know, I still have 6 full boxes to sell, 15 of my first book, 12 of the anthology I'm in (plus 6 of the companion volume for that anthology), and 12 of my latest book. Wait, will all those fit in the car with John's suitcase, my suitcase, the costume suitcase and my full make-up case?

Too many hats!

Gardening Your Stories

I spent part of Saturday doing lawn work. I wanted to get grass seed down before it rained that night. I have seen other bloggers compare some aspect of their daily lives to writing, and it seemed terribly philosophical to me. But on Saturday, something clicked, and I could see a type of connection between lawn work and writing. Maybe you’ll see it, too.

Before I put down seed, some of the bald spots needed raking to get up the last leaves that we didn’t get rid of last fall. These were mostly the small locust leaves that got left behind when we were concerned with more visible oak leaves that lay atop them. So, that could be seen as cleaning up the leftovers (unused scenes, dialogue, phrases, sentences, paragraphs) from the last story so that I have a ‘clean slate’ to work with.

There were weeds I wanted to remove; dandelions, clover, crab grass, even thistles. I didn’t get many of them, because using the rake had irritated the pain in my right shoulder, so I decided I would poison them later in the season, once the new grass was established. (It took a couple years, but that’s how we finally got rid of our wild strawberries.) Weeds like this might be compared to those leftover scenes and phrases that you absolutely loved in your previous rough draft, but aren’t going to suit your next story at all. Take the biggest, toughest of these and place them in a file for future reference... you might use them someday. Ignore the rest, unless they actually show up again in a story and again don’t fit. Then you ruthlessly edit them out... again.

I spread the grass seed by hand. I know how to do it that way. A spreader is not a complicated piece of machinery, but I just didn’t want to bother with it. I enjoy writing rough drafts, scattering words across the paper. Editing is filling bald spots, pulling weeds, making the whole thing look better.

Now I’m faced with two to three weeks of daily watering to let the grass grow and get well established. Writing a story takes time. The pervading wisdom is that you write every day, watering those words you scattered across the page until they form a strong, beautiful story.

Everybody dreams of having a beautiful lawn. Personally, I find working with words more satisfying than lawnwork. How about you? Would you like to compare your hobby or vocation to washing the dishes or mopping the floor?

An Author's Mistakes

Authors are people. (All of them I know are, anyway.) People who spend a deal of their time in some world other than 'reality'. So you shouldn't be surprised if they are sometimes confused when trying to deal with the real world. They are bound to make a mistake here or there. Following are some of the more humorous mistakes I have made.

A few years ago, I sent a short story to a magazine for consideration. It was rejected. At that time, I was trying to follow the adage, "When a story is rejected, shove it in a new envelope and send it to the next market." So I shoved it in a new envelope... and sent it right back to THAT magazine. I was so embarrassed a couple days later when I realized what I'd done and had to draft an apology letter to that editor for wasting his time. Oh! Color me blushing! (You know, I'm not sure I've ever sent another story to that magazine for consideration. Maybe I should. You don't think they have my name on some 'Never accept a story by this person' list, do you?)

Later, I saw a call for submissions and thought I had a story that would fit what they wanted, so I went online and got all ready to submit it. But I had to open the file, because I didn't remember how many words it was, and when I opened it, it was all set up for a rewrite! (Draft F, orange 16-pt Franklin Gothic font.) Did it really need a rewrite? I read through it, and only found one word I deleted, so no, probably not. So I changed it into proper manuscript form and sent it off. Can you imagine how embarrassed I'd be if I'd sent it off in a big orange strange font?

And then there was the time my dog ate-- No, wait. That wasn't me. Was it?

I get so confused out here in the big real world!

Excuse me. I'm going back inside one of my universes. If I get confused there, the characters always set me straight.

Intensity

This past week, I learned something about writing I hadn't known before: How intense it can be.

I've been writing a short story to submit for an anthology for the last several weeks. I thought the deadline for submissions was January 15, and I started the story around December 15, so... not a lot of time. But I already had the story and characters in my head, so how hard could it be? I'd just whip that baby out and get it sent.

Have I ever told you I tend to run off at the keyboard? Words can just roll out of my head, down my fingers and onto the screen. And they do like crowds. For instance, this anthology wanted a maximum of 6,000 words. My rough draft was just shy of 15,000 words.

But I wasn't worried, even though I was already into January. I couldn't send it off without at least one re-write, and I always find 'unnecessaries' during re-writes; unnecessary words, phrases, paragraphs, heck, even unnecessary scenes! So, even though I needed to eliminate 3 out of every 5 words, I didn't let myself worry.

During that first re-write, I eliminated 6,000 words, leaving me with just under 3,000 words that still had to come out before I got that story small enough. At this point, a piece of me began to fret. Where could I possibly find that many words to remove and still have a story?

Now that I'm done, I have a theory: Once you eliminate the first layer of 'unnecessaries' (or layer of dirt in your house), your eyes can then see any remaining 'unnecessaries' (or clutter, trash, dirt) that you missed during the first run-through. If you've followed me on facebook these last 2-3 weeks, you'll know that I did get that story trimmed down to just under 6,000 words, and got it submitted on January 15th. (In the meantime, the deadline was pushed to February 15, but that's another story.)

Where does the intensity come in? Actually, it made itself known on the 16th. I got up, had breakfast and went to my computer as usual. As I was considering what chores and projects to tackle, a piece of my brain said, "Pull up that story, I bet we can pull a word or three from-" and I responded with, "No, we're done with that story. It's time to move on." It turned into quite an argument inside my head. I didn't get any work done that day. When I mentioned this internal argument to a friend, she said, "That shows how intense you became with your work on that story.

Intense? Me? Not an adjective I usually apply to myself. Then again, I don't usually have projects with such a tight deadline, either.

It's nice to know that, yes, I've got it in me.

Encouragement

Years and years (and years) ago, when I was a young girl, fascinated with the notion of writing my own stories, I received encouragement from a cousin a couple years older. He told me such things as I would need to rewrite my draft, possibly more than once. I didn't want to hear it, but he was right. I found his stories funny, silly and delightful, and I basked in the knowledge that he was willing to spare a few minutes to encourage me in my endeavors.

We recently started communicating via the internet, and he revealed he had started writing again. (Again? I did give it up after a particularly horribly comment made by my first husband, and that was the blackest two years of my life.) I don't know how long he went without writing, but I was happy to hear he was re-discovering it.

And I guess we've come full circle. Now I find myself encouraging him. Have you thought about doing this with your story? Would it make more sense if your character did this? Your rough draft doesn't have to be perfect; rewriting is part of the process, remember?

Encouragement and suggestions from other writers are why authors join writer's groups and go to critique sessions. Another example is last year's critique sessions at Worldcon in Austin. I had been shopping around a fantasy, and kept getting rejected, so what I wanted to know was, is there something wrong with this opening that I'm not seeing? The comments I received gave me some direction for my next rewrite of that opening. I was thrilled.

If a writer's group or critiquer gives you the impression your writing is crap, don't go to that group or person again. My husband and I quit one writer's group because one person in the group kept pointing out our 'mistakes' without saying anything kind or nice about our efforts. That's not encouragement, and it's not helpful.

So, way to go, cousin! I really like what you've written, even though I'm not sure I like any of your characters. Your description in that story is great, it really sets the tone. Oh, and by the way... Welcome back to writing.