About Mac

I want to talk about Mac. Colleen “Mac” MacDowell is a character I’ve been working with sporadically for the past 20 or 30 years. But the last couple of years, I’ve been working pretty intensely on getting her story written. I’ve still got a long way to go. (I’ve got about 9 volumes written in the series, but I’m thinking it will be at least 15 volumes long, maybe more.)

Colleen—

Nobody calls me that. It’s Mac.

(Sigh.) Mac is a girl. Or rather, by the time we meet her, she’s a woman. She was born and raised on a heavy-world planet, namely Gaelund, so she has more strength than it seems she would have. She’s also fairly short, about 5’2”. She has fire-engine red hair, typically only found on Gaelund, and emerald-green eyes.

She was raised the only daughter, with 7 older brothers. Their father instilled in those brothers that they would protect their sister’s ‘innocence’ no matter what the cost. She carries a lot of baggage with her.

I came here with 1 regulation duffel bag!

I meant psychological baggage.

Oh, that.

Anyway, after 4 years at the Fleet Academy, and roughly 5 years bouncing from one tug to another, she somehow finagled a promotion and a transfer to the FSS Fireball from her former captain. She’s the 4^th communications officer on the Fireball, and she’s assigned to the midnight shift.

Tell them about Bugsy.

Stop interrupting. She was happy to get to the Fireball because she knew the senior helmsman, Bugalu, who she considers an adopted brother. Bugalu was two years ahead of her at the Academy and was roommate for her youngest brother, Matthew. It took the 2 of them to keep Mac out of trouble, and to get her trained to get along in Fleet society.

Trained? You mean, like a pet?

You’re interrupting again.

You talk too slow.

I type even slower. Now, let me get along with this. When Mac arrived on the Fireball, along with 2 other beautiful women, the captain wondered which of the 3 would turn out to be trouble. Capt Jane Burke couldn’t tell from her first introduction to them, but they all seemed to have personality quirks that could mean trouble down the road. Still, she sent the ladies off to their assignments and hoped their supervisors could nip any potential problem before it got too big.

Mac had a tumultuous probation period on the Fireball. Between not being able to pass her probational test and arguing with men who want to date her, it seemed Mac was going to be the problem. Meanwhile, the Fireball had some adventures, and somehow, Mac always seemed to be in the middle of those adventures. And then Mac came up with a problem that she couldn’t solve.

You’re going to end it there?

I have to leave some mystery to it. I can’t give away all your secrets.

Now, all of that, I’m thinking, will be in the first 5 volumes. And I’m thinking that Volume 1 will get published on 9/16/2025. That should give me time to get it edited, formatted, a nice cover for it… all those things that go into publishing a book.

That’s over a year away, even on Gaelund.

We’ve been working on your story for decades, what’s another year?

I think that’s what my fiancée thought when he…

Secret of Morris Valley

The first of my works that Alban Lake accepted was a paranormal gothic novella called “Secret of Morris Valley.” A novella is too long to be a short story; too short to be a novel. In this case, that means 16,500 words, or roughly 66 pages, depending on type size, page size, ect.

Do you remember gothics? I remember reading some, 3 or 4 decades ago, but I haven’t noticed any on the shelves recently. So when I saw a call for submissions in 2006 or 2007 for gothic stories, I admit my interest was piqued.

Gothics were romance stories where the woman falls in love with a handsome stranger who lives in some out-of-the-way place - usually far from civilization. Once the woman arrives at his home, it becomes apparent that he, his family, and his servants are all keeping some deep dark secret from her. As the story progresses, she becomes suspicious, worried and frightened, doesn’t know who she can trust... Of course, in the end, the secret is revealed, the woman doesn’t care, and the happy couple fall into each other’s arms.

Yep, that describes “Morris Valley.”

Unfortunately, that anthology chose not to accept my attempt at a gothic, although they did say it had been between mine and another for the final selection. As the saying goes, “Close, but no cigar.”

So I found myself with this overlong gothic story in a market where gothics were no long appreciated, apparently. I had added some paranormal to it, because paranormal was/is hot, but that hadn’t landed me in the anthology. I kept my eyes open, but I could not find a market to submit a gothic novella that had werewolves in it. Until I decided to take a chance and send it to Alban Lake.

We are looking for a July or August release. Stay tuned, for I’ll keep you informed as the details are worked out!

Picking Up the Pace

A couple days ago, I was reading the first episode of a new newsletter when the author said some things that really made me stop and think. She was speaking, at first, of a new author who had made a name for himself by publishing something like 20 books in 3 years, plus one or two more he co-wrote with someone. She went on to say he apparently writes 2,000 words an hour, 10 hours a day, 5 days a week. She compared that to the 1,000 words an hour that she writes.

I was stunned.

I'm usually happy if I manage to get 1,000 words written in a DAY.

Well, it seems pretty obvious to me that I am not applying myself hard enough to this endeavor. My days have become chopped up into 15 minute increments as I try to get housework done as well as some writing.

I have spent today (Sunday), trying to figure out how to rearrange my days to let me get more done, and what might be a reasonable goal for any given week. I go through this process once or twice a year, so this is nothing new. Should I write in the morning or early afternoon? I'm not at my best in the mornings, but errands seem to get done in the afternoons. And no matter what time slot I choose for writing, the dog will still want some kind of attention every hour.

I have chosen a goal that will make me pick up the pace, but I think I can do it. Probably not right away, because I'm fighting a sinus infection - again. In a month or, when that goal has become 'normal', I'll set the bar a little higher, make myself kick it up another notch.

But I don't see myself ever writing 10 hours a day. That writer had a tread-mill desk. I have a gym membership, which I try very hard to use 3 times a week. It provides a change of scenery as well as some exercise.

My first goal is to aim for 15,000 words a week, by working 3 hours a day, 5 days out of the week. Wish me luck!

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.

Resolutions vs Goals

Have you made New Year's resolutions yet? If you read my blog last week, you know I've got lots of writing to work on in 2014. I didn't frame them as 'resolutions', because - let's face it - my resolutions last about one week.

Nearly all the blogs I've been reading talked about 'plans for the new year'. Those blogs are not calling them 'resolutions'. I think one called them 'hopes', but that seems nebulous and a source of pressure, so I prefer the term I saw more often: goals.

Resolutions tend to be vague; I'm going to diet, exercise, lose weight and get in shape this year! How do you succeed at that? If next Christmas, you have a piece of pecan pie, have you failed to diet? If you really can't find time to consistently work out, have you failed to exercise? If you only lose 40 of the 100 pounds you wanted to lose, have you failed? If on Jan 1, you can hardly walk from the bedroom to the kitchen, but by Dec 31, you can get all the way to the end of the block and back - even though you're still overweight and you still can't run a marathon - have you failed?

Goals need to be specific AND something that you can control. I'm going to get my first book published! is a resolution. I will continue to send my first manuscript to agents and editors this year sounds more like a goal.

With that in mind, I have started to look at my 'plans' for 2014, and turning them into goals:

·      >  I will lose an average of 1 pound a week through diet and exercise.

·       > Each time a manuscript is rejected, I will immediately send it to another market. (If suggestions were made on how it could be improved, I will take a week to go through and consider those suggestions before sending it out.)

·     >   I will compose 1,000 words per day and edit 1,000 words per day an average of 5 days a week.

·       > I will find opportunities to make personal appearances as an author an average of once a month.

Those are all things I have some control over. They are specific, but flexible. (If I have to arrange 12 appearances next December because I've been lazy and haven't done any all year, that averages to one a month, and I've succeeded.)

Believe it or not, I can do the 3rd one. I am currently writing 3 different projects and editing another. This past couple of weeks (yes, even in the confused haziness of impending Christmas), have been aiming at 1,000 words a day on the project with a short deadline, and about 500 words a day for the other two, then editing 1,000 words in the evening. And I try to work 7 days a week, so if I don't have a great day, I can make up for it.

Are you going to make resolutions? Or set goals? Let me know, and - if you don't mind - tell me just one of yours.

Story That Isn't a Story #2

Last week I told you about a story that hadn't satisfied me because the writing style was too old and it left far too many questions unanswered. The second story did not disappoint as far as writing style, but it still left too many questions unanswered.

Story 2 takes place in a world populated by various mythical creatures, some familiar to this reader, others not so much. On that world is a land populated by centaurs. The centaurs are of two types. The High Ones I see as the nobility of the country. Their strain is older and they have a touch of magic in their blood. But they mix freely with the commoners; the current king has married a commoner, and they have three children. Apparently, the High Ones' magic flows through the generations undiluted, which is just a little boggling to the science side of my mind, but I beat my disbelief into submission. I did the same for the question of if the High Ones are an older strain and magic flows through them undiluted through the generations, where did the commoners come from?

The country is about to be plunged into war. The king must lead his troops, which leaves his wife to take on the responsibility of supervising the protection of the palace. The queen is uncertain, having no background in strategy or warfare. This was something I could get into; a character who had to learn to use skills she didn't necessarily have. I settled in to see how she did at it.

The army marched off to the east. There were some troubling raids on the north edge, which kept the remaining troops busy. Then everything goes wrong, magic kills all the High Ones, the palace is overrun, and the queen barely gets away with a handful of followers to hide from their enemies until they can exact justice.

End of story.

I just about fell off my seat.

I felt somebody had just read me chapter one and then thrown the book away. I had prepared to watch the queen learn and work and become the new leader of her people, but instead, all I got was the circumstances that would put her on that path. She never actually followed the path.

To me, this is like telling the story of Sleeping Beauty, and ending it when SB succumbs to the spell that puts her to sleep. Incomplete!

Stories That Are Not Stories #1

A couple days ago, I went to bed early, but found myself too tired to go to sleep. I had enough time to read 2 stories I had recently purchased from a regional publisher.

After reading, I slept through the night and found myself thinking about those 2 stories all the next day. They had both left me disappointed. I felt I hadn't gotten any ending.

Today I will analyze why Story #1 disappointed me, and next week, I'll examine Story #2.

Story #1 was written in an old style, as something that might have been written in the 19th century. The scene was a dinner party, and the 'action' of the people attending this dinner consisted of taking bites and refusing to acknowledge the existence of a newly discovered tribe, even though one member of that tribe was seated at the table with them. The 'story' of the discovery of that tribe was told in flashback by the two anthropologists who had searched for them. The tribe had not wanted to be found, and had always - throughout the centuries - dealt with strangers coming to find them, as well as tribe members who wanted to leave. Before the entire story is told to the dinner party, there is a scream in another part of the house, which everybody rushes to investigate, and when they find ... apparently nothing, they discover the tribe member has disappeared without a trace. End of story.

No wonder I was disappointed by that one. I can drag myself through stories written in the 19th century, but it isn't easy. The style of writing has changed so dramatically. These days, authors are expected to "show, don't tell". But in Story #1, even the bits of information in the flashbacks were told to the reader, not shown. And since the scene was presented as a dinner party, it was just one big 'info dump', another thing that is frowned on these days. Finally, although the reader has a really strong suspicion what has happened to the tribal member, it is left undetermined. Like so many of today's horror movies, I was left wondering when the 'monster' would make its next appearance. To me, an unclear ending is not an ending.

Trudy's Universes, Part 4

I’m going to try and wrap up this list this time. We’re getting into Universes that I don’t seem to visit very often.

O is for Orange Witch. Another fantasy universe. The protagonist is a newly-graduated witch who likes to wear orange. I dreamed up this universe more than 3 decades ago, and haven’t done much with it since.

S is for Spooks. This is where I keep any paranormal projects I might be working on. For me, paranormal includes ghosts, witches, vampires, werewolves, zombies and the like. I don’t write horror, so there isn’t much in this universe. And if I start a project here, and it really grabs hold of me, that project tends to emerge and form its own universe.

T is for Tunad. Tunad is a planet that is secretly colonized by females from a sister planet, Danut. The society of Danut is male-centered, and the females are slaves. Some female individuals are taken off-world by enlightened aliens, taught to think for themselves, and to make use of their skills, and eventually, a number of these are deposited on Tunad to form their own colony. I haven’t written in this universe much, but I love playing with the background; the colonists, the layout of the colony…

W&V is for Wolfie & Vamps. Okay, I’ve already listed one universe centered around a werewolf and vampire team, but actually, this werewolf & vampire universe has been around longer than that other one. This team is female, and their history goes a lot further back in history.

X is for X-Files. Loved the TV show, didn’t find the books to have the same impact. I have a couple projects started here, but I’m just not sure I can do justice to this particular genre.

There you go, my universes. I didn’t used to have this many. Some of these are probably on the path to fading out of existence. There’s always the possibility I will add new ones. But that’s my list right now, early in 2013.

Stuck in Rewrite

There are several steps to writing, but one of the first steps (not necessarily THE first step) is to scratch out a rough draft. It can be great fun, to let my imaginary imagination wings take flight and show me a new world filled with new people. Occasionally, the rough draft can also be a real headache, as words simply refuse to come to describe what my mind sees, or – even worse – my mind isn’t focused and therefore doesn’t see anything.

But the fun outweighs the headache (or I wouldn’t continue writing). It’s easy to see your progress with a rough draft, because your word count goes UP. Even if you have a bad day, by the end of a week, your word count will most likely be greater than what you started the week with. You feel like you’ve accomplished something.

For me, the 2^nd draft is where I add in every piece of description, explanation, background and all the modifiers I can think of, just to make sure everything is understandable to the reader. My word count can double from rough and 2^nd drafts, so obviously, I’m doing something.

Then come the further rewrites. I generally do a 3^rd and 4^th rewrite, and then a polish. Occasionally, I do a few more rewrites. I have one story in its 9^th or 10^th rewrite, and I’m still not happy with it.

Rewrite is not as much fun as roughing, but it seldom drags badly, either. It’s during these rewrites that I check for redundancies, passive verbs, -ing verbs, adverbs and that my pronouns refer to the correct antecedents. I might lengthen or shorten sentences, rearrange paragraphs. I might delete words, phrases, sentences, or change a 6-word phrase to a 2-word phrase.

It’s harder to keep track of your progress when your word count is going down. If you try to judge your progress by the difference in word count, it might take you days to cut a thousand words. That always made me feel stuck. So I started counting the number of words in the section I rewrote that day. I probably went through a section of 1200 words or more to wind up with 1000 words by the end, but each one of those words were carefully considered, so I have done a bit of work.

As you can see, 1 rough draft needs several rewrites. Most of my time as a writer is spent re-writing. I try to balance this out by working on 3 projects at a time; 1 short story rewrite, 1 novel rewrite, and 1 rough draft. Somehow, this past week, I have found myself doing 3 re-write projects, with no time left in my day for the rough draft. I suppose it was bound to happen, but it still leaves me feeling kind of ‘stuck’. Re-writing doesn’t set my imagination completely free. But it does still use it, so I do get some pleasure from re-writing. And since my short stories generally range around 5000 words, I should soon be done with that project, and can then return to that rough I was working on.

I won’t be ‘stuck’ in re-write much longer.

Science Fiction Soap Opera Serial

I’ve been getting encouragement to serialize one of my stories on the internet. This is a use of the internet that I’ve been watching with interest, but uncertain if I should try my hand at it. With the encouragement I mentioned, I have decided to dive in.

In the last few years, I’ve heard of authors who wrote each installment of their serial moments before they were due to post that installment. That was part of what scared me about this process; I know perfectly well my first draft is NOT ready to be read by anybody. I expect At Least 3 rewrites before it might be suitable to be seen.

Once I realized that, I looked through what stories I had, either ‘done’ or nearly done, to decide which one I would serialize: No, those are all shorts; that’s a long short, but not long enough; this one is long enough, and done, but is currently out looking for a home. Hmmmm.

It’s surprising how few novel length works I have finished (1). I have 2 or 3 others ‘in the works’, meaning about half of the rough draft is done. And then I remembered Mac.

I have said I would probably never publish Mac. I have also said that when I work on Mac’s story, I get sucked in so deeply, I can’t get any work done on anything else. But the truth is that “Mac, Book 1” is mostly done, except for a few highly emotional scenes at the end that I simply didn’t feel capable of writing a decade ago when I last worked on it. Since then, I have roughed the first 100 pages of “Mac, Book 2” and the first 25 pages of “Mac, Book 3”. So, I know where Mac is headed, and apparently, I don’t HAVE to spend months and months at a time enmeshed in Mac’s problems.

For the last couple weeks, I have been working on preparing the story into ‘bite-sized’ sections. I have also continued to rewrite some shorts and work on another novel. It seems Mac has learned to share my attention.

So, “Mac, Book 1” will start being serialized on Tuesday, 1January2013. I am setting it up on Blogspot, and will make a Grand Announcement on New Year’s Day, so watch for it. I am trying for installments of about 1,000 to 1,200 words, and I will post one each Tuesday. If people get engrossed in Mac’s antics and don’t want to wait an entire week for the next section, I will post a price for the next section to be posted early, probably about $10. I am not proposing that 1 person must send me the full amount; the readers could use the comments section to alert each other to how much they are chipping in. As soon as I receive the payment, I will post the next section.

I think you’ll like Mac. She’s a lot of fun. Or a constant irritant. And sometimes both.

Reading to Escape

I recently heard an interview with Nora Roberts, aired on PBS. Ms Roberts writes romance. Yeah, I think I heard half of you gasp that I would even mention THAT genre. Why? What is your objection to romance novels?

It’s written for women? I suspect that – like most novels – it’s written for whoever enjoys reading it. There are some men who read romances, and some women who wouldn’t be caught dead with one in their hands.

It’s written by women? Not exclusively. Anyway, can you name a genre that doesn’t have women writing it? Fantasy, science fiction, mystery, horror, paranormal, thriller … they all have women writing them. The most likely genre I can think of that might not have any women writing it is western. Since I’ve dabbled in that genre myself, I’m not sure there are no women-written westerns.

It’s pure escapism? What genre isn’t? I read fantasies about witches and dragons to escape the drudgery and stresses of my real life. The truth is that any novel I pick up and read offers an opportunity to set aside my life for a few hours and escape into somebody else’s life. It helps me put my mundane problems in perspective.

Women who read romance are missing something at home? Where does that come from? It’s true that when I read about witches and dragons, I don’t have any of those at home. When I read a western, I don’t have gun fights at home. But love, romance and a loving relationship are different. I have a husband, and we’ve been together about three decades. We have our ups and downs, like every couple, but the current state of our relationship has no bearing on whether or not I choose to read a romance next. When I do read a romance, it’s nice to have the literary confirmation that relationships require work.

Ms Roberts has over 200 romance novels out. She has sold so many copies, I understand that she is one of the most popular authors in the world. And romance, as a genre, comprises more than half the paperback fiction sales. That means less than half the fiction paperbacks sold are the other genres, including mainstream and literary. Evidently, there’s a lot of people out there who like to read about love, romance and relationships.

Up, Down and Moving On

The last couple weeks have been like a roller coaster.

First, Tor asked for the full manuscript of my first fantasy novel. Wow, happy dance on the rooftop! /\

Second, a spot check revealed that sections of that manuscript had some weird formatting. Bummer. So I spent a couple days correcting it and wondering what had made portions to go all wonky. It wouldn’t have happened if I’d used a typewriter! Of course, a typewriter wouldn’t have spell-check or text wrap…. I suppose the occasional wonkiness that’s fairly easy to fix is better than all the draw-backs of a typewriter. Sent the manuscript off. -~_~

Third, we received word that my mother-in-law was in the hospital. Always a downer. \/

Fourth – or somewhere in there – the cover for my next e-story was finished and delivered! /\ Thank you, Mason!

Fifth, Tor decided my novel wasn’t quite right for them. \/ (Sniff.) But they did have nice things to say about my writing. ~

Sixth, MoonPhaze Publishing informed me they had uploaded my next e-story, The Cave, to smashwords.com. Hot Diggity! /\

Of course, this leaves me with plenty of ‘stuff to do’. Marketing, marketing, marketing leads the list, but I still have to deal with #5. Where do I submit this fantasy now? For the record, that makes Baen, Daw, and Tor who have passed on it, and I don’t know of any other ‘big’ publishers who still have an open slush pile. Before that, I spent 3-4 years looking for an agent, but nobody I was interested in working with fell in love with my concept. Do I go back to looking for an agent? No, probably not, because now I’ve made their job harder by submitting it myself.

Do I ask MoonPhaze Publishing to take it on? I could, and if they had more experience, I would definitely consider it. But they aren’t quite ready for a novel, and I’d like to work with a larger press. If not one of the big guys, then a company somewhat smaller. Anybody got any suggestions? In case you’re wondering, my fantasy novel is set on the Atlan world, the same world I’ve used for the stories that MoonPhaze Publishing has put out, but it doesn’t have the same characters.

Oh, yes. Seventh, I have been scheduled for a reading at 4 PM on Saturday, April 14, at Constellation in Lincoln NE. /\ Woohoo! Come and hear about the Atlans!

My 2011 NaNoWriMo Report

That was an ... interesting ... experiment.

The NaNoWriMo project is when authors try to write 50,000 words in 30 days – namely, the month of November. Once upon a time, when paper was expensive, 50,000 words would have been a novel, so they've started calling November "Write a Novel" month.

I managed to write a whole 4,424 words. Not even a short story, for me. Goodness, I think I've had one or two individual DAYS that were more productive than that.

I am reminded of back when I was a pre-teen, and I decided I was getting too heavy. No more ice cream, no more shakes, no more ... ! But as soon as I told myself that, all I could think of was how good a banana split would taste, how cooling a chocolate shake would be... I had no will power under that bombardment, and sure enough, I gained another pound or two before I weighed myself again. How depressing! So, since that tactic didn't work, I then decided that I could have all the ice cream and shakes I wanted. And suddenly, I didn't want them. (I doubt if I lost any weight, though. I was, after all, a growing girl.)

I think that tactic only works once. After that, your brain figures out you're just trying to trick it and doesn't respond the way you want it to.

And then there's the comment I've heard that as soon as my hobby (writing) becomes a job, it will no longer be fun. And certainly, this past month, I found myself distracted by the silliest things - fingernails that HAD to be filed down, papers that had to be sorted, dishes that had to be washed, and a job that I had to go to.... I will have to watch this particular tendency if I ever find myself facing actual deadlines.

What am I coming away with after this first dip into NaNoWriMo? The thought that NEXT November, it will be a lot easier to write MORE words than it would be to write FEWER!

Time Commitment

Have you ever taken a guess how long it would take you to finish a project, and then found that actually doing the project took a vastly different amount of time? I’m very good at that: If I guess a project will take an hour, it might actually take anywhere from 10 minutes to 4 ½ hours. I guess that why I call them a guess.

Practice helps. After years of commuting to the same job location from the same home, I knew it took me about 20 minutes to get there most mornings, a couple minutes more to take the same route home in the afternoon. But I still had this tendency to forget about the time needed to gather my stuff together, get it to the car, and then get it into the other building at the end of the ride. Some things are so routine, we tend to forget they take time, too.

What’s this got to do with writing? As an as-yet unpublished writer, I don’t have any publisher, editor or even agent breathing down my neck about when I’m going to get my next piece of work done. I could re-write my novel 47 times, if I wanted. Of course, if I did, I wouldn’t get anything new written, and my chances of getting published would plummet.

Writers need deadlines, in my opinion. And new writers like me need to set our own deadlines. Gay Haldeman often says, “If you write one page a day, every day, at the end of a year, you’ll have written 365 pages, and that’s a book.” That seems like an achievable deadline, even if you are working a ‘day job’. One page a day. And the second year, you could edit one page a day. It’s not prolific writing, but it is writing, and you will make progress.

But don’t ask me how long it takes to write a page.
See ya next week. Trudy

More on Story Length

Last week, I talked about story length. I've continued thinking about that during the week, especially since I've been kind of 'bom-barded' with new information on the subject of short-shorts.

I regularly receive a couple writing newsletters, but I don't necessarily get to read them as soon as they land in my mailbox. As I was trying to catch up this past week, I found several items that pertained to short short stories. There were two that pertained to something a little different than the normal 'flash'.

One announced a contest where a person was supposed to write an 'opening' sentence that hinted at and told an entire story in and by itself. I struggled with that concept, but the examples the author gave were wonderful, and I finally got the idea. It was an intriguing exercise that I might actually try … someday. As I've said, the shorter the format, the less comfortable I am with it. So the idea of writing only one sentence that hints at an entire story, while opening another story is more than a little daunting to me. I'd have to get used to the idea before I could dare to try it.

The other concerned a single sentence, too, but it was more along the lines of a sentence that stood on its own, telling the reader something unexpected about the writer. A memoir sentence, I guess you could say. The winner was thanking the newsletter for announcing the contest, since without that announcement, she would not have submitted her 1k-sentence.

Now, it's personal preference, of course, but I feel a 1000-word sentence is just too long. I have difficulty finding the nerve to try to write really short stories, but I am appalled by the thought of a sentence that contains 1000 words. In regular manuscript format, that one sentence would be four pages long! Faulkner always did drive me crazy. Halfway (or less) through one of his sentences, I have forgotten what he said at the beginning of the sentence, and therefore I am hopelessly lost. So, when it comes to sentences, I usually feel that brevity is better.

To recap, my comfortable style seems to be long stories with short-to-medium-length sentences. It's always a good thing to know your own style. Even then, sometimes a person can surprise him- or herself. For instance…

A couple months ago, I woke up with a micro-story completely written in my head. This was a surprise, because I had not been trying to write micro, or even flash. I jumped up and got it typed into the computer. It's exactly 100 words. I didn't know I had it in me.

So, on the theory that a person's skill grows when they try things outside their 'comfort zone', I will try to write shorter fiction from time to time. Maybe I'll even share some of it with you. It might be the way to go with this 'death by banana' mystery my son's got me trying to write. (That should teach me to ask a teen for ideas!)

See ya next week. Trudy

Long vs Short

I used to know what I wanted to do. I wanted to write books. With a hundred thousand words to play with, I had room to explore characters' personalities, time to develop sub-plots, bumps and twists – all those things I found so fascinating in the books I enjoyed. I would write books.

But a lot of the advice I got from people was that I needed to get some short stories published first, to give me some 'credit' in the industry. That would be a challenge. First of all, how short was short? I found the 'official' short story length was between 2,000 and 10,000 words. Gak. Obviously, there would be no room for sub-plots, and personalities would need to be hinted at, rather than explored. Definitely a challenge, to one who was used to 'running off at the keyboard'.

It took some work to get my mind wrapped around telling a story in less than 10K. Once I started to get the hang of it, I found that mine tended to hover right around 5 to 6K words. I discovered how to choose verbs, adjectives and adverbs to reveal my characters' personalities. This helped me write my novels more tightly, too. The sprawling first novel that had finally ended at 150,000 words had already been trimmed down to 120,000 words, but with my newly-learned habit of frugality, I got it down to 90,000 words. So that was a side benefit noone had told me about.

Then somebody told me about flash fiction, where the entire story is 1000 words or less. That was where things were at, they told me. Was I up for the challenge? The prospect was daunting. There could be no wasted words. In fact, it seemed to me, each word would need to do the work of at least three words. This was completely beyond my ability, I thought. I have tried. I've written two pieces of flash, actually, each 500 words. Whether or not they are any good, I can't tell, because it seems like I'm just getting started reading them, and they end. It's not a size I'm comfortable with. Yet. Maybe I could get used to it.

Like most writers, I have a lot of stories in my head, waiting to get written. How do I know how long to make them? I can't say, this will be a 7,000 word story, or this is an 85,000 word novel. I can only determine that there is enough complexity to the plot and sub-plots to make it a novel. If I don't have that, I'd better make it a short story.

I still enjoy writing novels more than shorts. See ya next week. Trudy