Category: writing life

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Lowering the Scalpel

  By current projects, publishing, writer development, writing life


The past number of weeks I’ve been busy with revisions to a novel manuscript. A publisher requested them, and I have a deadline, and it’s been an interesting and challenging task. My first thought when I got the email requesting them, of course, was, I don’t know how to do this!

But I soon found out that, also of course, I did. It turned out to be a pretty logical process, once I took a few minutes to think about it. Re-read the manuscript, because it had been some time since I’d actually looked at it. Make copious notes about what to change and how to change it and how best to address the concerns. And then—do it.

The reading and note-making took the bulk of the time, because I wanted to be thorough. It’s also sometimes a precarious undertaking, to start tinkering with the innards of a novel manuscript, because if you’ve done it right, it all stands up, nicely stacked and interdependent like a house of cards. Switching out and adding in new cards after the fact can cause the entire thing to come tumbling down, so it takes a lot of care and a steady hand.

I got to a point eventually, though, where I knew it was time to turn on the change-tracking feature and start making those changes. Beginning that part of the process was something I had to push myself into a bit. To switch analogies from cards to medicine, starting to mark up the manuscript felt like the start of a surgical procedure. The scalpel is in hand, you know it’s time, but you haven’t cut into the skin yet, and there’s a moment of hesitation. You have a plan, but you don’t really know how much blood there’s going to be once you start to cut. Any number of things could go wrong. Once you make that initial incision, there’s no going back—you’re committed to seeing the whole thing through to the end.

However, the surgery is the only treatment option, and you know it. And I knew it. So I pushed past that moment of hesitation, and so far the surgery is going well. It has a ways to go yet, but I think the patient is going to survive, and emerge stronger than ever. I’ll report on the prognosis as it becomes available.

Photo credit: chrisgan

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Happenings

  By current projects, publishing, writer development, writing life

I’m putting this lucky ladybug I drew as my illustration for this post, because I am feeling very fortunate right now. A number of good things have happened lately, not all of which I can talk about in detail, but I can throw out some hints. :)

Well, as to the first one, I can talk about it freely–I have a short story collection scheduled to come out later this year. It will consist of many of my previously-published short stories and probably one new one. My editors and I are working on the TOC now, and cover art is pretty much done. It’s exciting! It’ll be available in print and ebook formats.

I also have a publisher interested in one of my novels–provided I can make satisfactory revisions. That’s a somewhat nerve-wracking proposition, but I do have some ideas and will be diving into the project in the next day or so, once I clear a few more items off my list. I have a couple of months to make the changes, which should be do-able. We have a vacation in there but I’ll work around it. This is also, of course, hugely exciting, but I am trying not to get too worked up over it since nothing’s certain until those revisions are done and meet with approval. Of course I can let myself enjoy the fact that they liked the story enough to ask for revisions. :)

The third item was an invitation that I should really keep quiet about for now. But it’s very nice.

Will share more details on all of this as I can. For now–feeling lucky indeed!

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Fourth Time’s the Charm?

  By current projects, writing life, writing log

I’ve been trying to write a new story for an anthology for months now. In fact, I’ve tried three stories–bouncing back and forth between ideas without really settling in to any one of them. Well, that’s not really true. I tried to make two half-written stories fit the theme I was looking for, ditched both of those ideas, thought about a new idea but didn’t start it, got a fourth idea and wrote a few pages before getting stuck…and now I’m back to the other idea.

This time, I think it’s going to stick. I’m still not sure exactly where the story is going–or rather, I know where it’s going, but not precisely how it’s going to get there. However, I’m over 2k into it now in just a couple of writing sessions, so I feel hopeful that this will be the one.

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Famous Authors and Their Typewriters

  By just for fun, writing life

Earlier today I browsed through this photo collection of famous authors and their typewriters. If you haven’t seen it, take a moment to do so. Go ahead, I’ll wait until you get back.

straightens up desk for a few moments

Oh, you’re back? Cool photos, aren’t they? But you know what struck me most about them, apart from their coolness? The almost total lack of clutter around these authors as they wrote.

Yes, there were a few exceptions, but if you go back you’ll notice that these were, of the bunch, more recent photos. In most of them, it was just the author, the typewriter, and one or two other items like paper, a book or two, or maybe an ashtray.

Now, yes, it’s entirely possible that in the brief time before the photo was taken, there was a mad rush of tidying, of sweeping half-empty gin bottles and wineglasses out of sight, of doctoring up the scene to look more professional and “author-ish.” But still, as I look around my desk, I notice all the things that would not have to be tidied away: computer mouse, gadget dock, portable phone, USB drives, CDs, lists of website references, etc. I have approximately 30 pens on my desk, a stack of sticky notes (used and blank), notepads, file folders, timesheets, a mug warmer, and a handful of writing “totems.” In the computer background I’m running Twitter, a browser with a research or dictionary site, and an IM/chat client. Maybe I’m just messier and more cluttered than most people–but somehow I don’t think so.

Not that I want to trade my computer and go back to using a typewriter. Been there, done that, no thanks. Not that I want my writing space to be necessarily as sterile and empty as that in many of the photos. But still–is there something to be said for fewer distractions, fewer projects, fewer deadlines? Would less visual clutter lead to less mental clutter, and a clearer vision of the work in progress?

It’s ironic that many writers probably have made something of a return to the days pictured in this photo collection, as their workspace becomes whatever spot they plunk down their laptop, tablet, or gadget-of-the-week. However, in this connected world, I think it’s probably a rare moment when it’s really stripped down to the writer, the device, and the words. I wonder which group, the ones in the photos, or those of us working today, are really working smarter?

Photo by clarita

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Motivation

  By current projects, personal & miscellaneous, writer development, writing life

Well, I think I’ve finally figured out what keeps me motivated, stops me from procrastinating, and makes me more productive on a daily basis.

Timekeeping.

Yep, maybe it hearkens back to my lawyering days, when you lived or died by your billable hours, but if I keep a timesheet of how I’m spending my day, I seem to get a lot more productive work done.

Earlier this year I made up a schedule for myself, intended to keep me organized and on track by allotting a certain amount of time each week for the various committments I have. That lasted maybe a week before I wasn’t even really looking at it anymore. However, I decided to keep a timesheet for a week or so, because I really felt that I was falling prey to a lot of time demands that were interfering with my writing. I wanted to see what was sucking away all my time.

The discovery that timekeeping keeps me on track was only a happy coincidence. However, since I’ve made it, I’ve seen a big difference.

I’m not using anything fancy–printed sheets with a simple table I made in OpenOffice, to keep track of time blocks and what I’m doing in them. That’s it. It’s early days yet, but so far it’s working better than anything else I’ve tried. If you have difficulty keeping on task and on track, something similar might work for you.

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The Writing Room

  By current projects, personal & miscellaneous, writing life

Yesterday I happened upon this video, wherein writer Laurie Halse Anderson chronicles the building of her writing cottage. Wow, it’s beautiful. And she quotes Viriginia Woolf, who said:

“…a woman must have…a room of her own to write fiction.”

Note that I don’t think it’s only women who need a dedicated writing space. I think all writers deserve that spot where they can go and feel that they are in “writing mode”. It needn’t be a room, if space constraints don’t allow it–but it should be a place where you can get away from distractions and know that it’s time to write. (If you Google “writing room” and choose images you’ll find some lovely inspirational rooms to look at.)

I’m lucky enough to have had a “writing room” since we moved into our house fifteen years ago…it was a different room at first than it is now, but I’ve always had the space. I’m grateful for that.

But as I look around it now, I’m not sure that I’m being the best caretaker of that space. It’s pretty cluttered and messy and probably dirtier in the nooks and crannies than I would like to think about. So I’ve decided to overhaul it, clean it up and make some changes that I’ve wanted to make for a while.

Now, this decision makes me nervous, because I know my brain. I have a lot of writing and writing-related projects on the go, and my brain often chooses these times to cunningly push me into some big project that isn’t writing, because it doesn’t want to work that hard. So rest assured, I am not going to drop everything and start my office overhaul. I’m going to use it as a reward motivator instead. For every hour spent on writing, I will spend half an hour on the office. It will take longer to get it done, but I think it’s the only smart way to do it.

So now I’m going to go and take some pictures of it in its current pathetic state. These “before” pictures will not be revealed until I have the “after” pictures to go with them. By that time, you’ll all have forgotten about this project, I’m sure. But don’t worry, I’ll remind you.

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BICHOK

  By current projects, writer development, writing life

The main way to get started as a writer is to write: apply the seat of the pants firmly to the seat of the chair and just get down to it. Having a thousand “good ideas” in your head is no good; you have to get them on paper. Just sit down and do it.
~ Marion Zimmer Bradley, “Advice to Young Writers”

You know, my first story sale was to Marion Zimmer Bradley. My first encouragement as a writer was a postcard from her FANTASY magazine, telling me that my story was “on hold.” As some of you might know, I have a very unreliable memory, but the moment I held and read that postcard is indelibly inked in my mind. I immediately went and read every bit of her writing advice that I could find, and the quote above was part of that.

I don’t know that she was the first to impart that advice, but over time it’s been distilled down to the title of this post: “Butt In Chair, Hands On Keyboard.” The distillation makes a handy acronym, sure, and makes non-writers look at you askance when you use it, but every once in a while I like to go back and read MZB’s full quote. There’s a certain simple resonance in her words that you don’t get from the combination of six letters into an unlikely “word.”

I have a good writing friend, Chuck Heintzelman, who is living that advice right now. He has challenged himself to write fifty (50!) new stories this year. (We are not going to talk here about my sad little goal to write five new stories this year. No, we’re not.) And he’s on a roll–as he completes a story he posts it on his website where you can read it for free until the next one goes up. They’re definitely worth checking out and I advise you to click on over and enjoy some while you can.

I’m inspired by Chuck’s project. I absolutely do not have his courage to post new work before it’s been thoroughly vetted by my first readers. I don’t seem to be able to find his drive to write so consistently every day. (Why I can do it for NaNoWriMo but not the rest of the year remains a mystery.) However, his project is making me want to resolve to write more, and more consistently. I need to get my BICHOK.

To make a start, today I did an exercise from my 2011 Working Writer’s Daily Planner. The exercise is to write fifty first sentences without stopping. (Dovetails nicely with Chuck’s fifty stories, no?) I set a timer to see how long it would take me, sat down, opened a numbered list, and started writing.

Thirty-three minutes later I had them. Almost a thousand words. Sometimes I wrote the first two sentences instead of just one. My rebellious side showing there, I guess.

The second part of the exercise is to choose twenty of those sentences that you think have promise, and write a first paragraph to go with them.

I’ll let you know how that goes.

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Organization Quest 2011 (Part 2)

  By current projects, personal & miscellaneous, software, writer development, writing life, writing log

After getting my submissions in order, I decided that the next thing I had to organize better was my time. This is a big issue for me as I have a lot of family demands on my time that I don’t really have complete control over, and I need to be flexible. However, I also need a sort of guide to come back to, so that I know what I’m supposed to be doing when time presents itself.

I started looking for organizer programs, then realized that I already had one on my computer that I use every day, just not to its fullest capacity. My mail program, Outlook, which also has a built-in calendar, with the ability to schedule repeating tasks and appointments, reminders, etc. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. It was right in front of me the whole time.

So I spent an afternoon deciding how much time I had in the run of a week, and how I should apportion it. Other writers dealing with the same time issues might find this useful, so here’s what I did. First, I made a list of all the things, writing and writing-career-related, that require some of my time. Then I thought about how much time each one of them requires if I were addressing it on a weekly basis. For instance, publishing The Scriptorium. If I worked on it a bit at a time, instead of frantically trying to put together an issue in a day when the deadline hits, how much time would it take per week? How much time should I spend on the business aspects of writing? How much on Third Person Press? And so on.

Then I filled in a weekly calendar with all my non-negotiable time committments, and looked at what was left. Working back and forth this way, changing things around, and thinking about what times of day are better for me to do what sorts of tasks, I filled in the time slots. This gave me a baseline calender or schedule. It may change as I apply it to the real world, but it’s a starting point. Color-coding the chunks of time also lets me get an overview of how I’m spending the time.

I also made a second calendar, on which I can add one-time events or appointments. I can overlay this calender with my baseline calender to see a week at a glance and know what’s coming up that will interfere with my baseline schedule, and decide if I need to move things around just for the coming week.

I am just beginning to put it into practice, but so far it’s working well. If you’re having trouble fitting writing into your schedule, you may want to try this kind of strategy and see if it helps you apportion your time more productively. Although I’m using Outlook, find a calendar program that suits the way you like to work, and whose appearance and functionality you like. You’ll be a lot more likely to use it consistently if you do.

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Organization Quest 2011

  By reviews, software, writer development, writing life

If you read my previous post, you might have noted that one of my short-term goals was “Organize submission history/tracking.” I’ve been thinking that organization, not only of this submission data, but of many other aspects of my writing life, is a really key thing that I have to tackle this year. Without a certain amount of organization, I can make as many other goals as I want, but I will have little chance of meeting them.

In the latter months of 2010, I spent quite a while scouring the internet for the “perfect” submission and manuscript tracking program. I wasn’t entirely successful, as I think the only way I’ll find the perfect program is to write it myself or bully my husband into writing it for me to my exact specifications. However, I did find one that came darn close, and after evaluating it, I ended up buying The Writer’s Scribe from Swatski Enterprises.

I’ve think it’s safe to say that I’ve given the program a complete workout since acquiring it. I did run into a few small hiccups along the way, learning the program’s ins and outs, but the support from Doug Swatski was quick, thorough, and altogether wonderful. I’m very happy with the program now and expect that I’ll be using it for the forseeable future.

The image I’ve included (from the program website) is the Submissions Overview screen, and as you can see, it does provide a very nice overview. You can see at a glance what subs you have out, how long since you sent them, and the results of the last submission for any given piece of work, as well as picking up on stories that are due to be sent out to a new market. It also provides a running total of acceptances, rejections, and subs that are pending.

On the other tabs, you can view the details of a story, publisher, or submission. Depending on the level of detail you choose to include on publishers, the program can also suggest publishers for a particular story. It will provide alerts on a time scale you set, to let you know when the date of an expected reply is past. It also tracks sales and expenses, and allows the generation of many different types of reports.

When I said I’ve given the program a thorough workout, here’s what I meant: I input the data for 72 works, 114 markets, and 193 submissions. I went all the way back to when I first started submitting stories, and although it’s quite possible I missed a few, it’s a pretty good record. All my various scraps and folders of paper data are gathered together to give me a nice overview of my submission habits and history, and I can easily see what I should now prioritize.

I did send the developer a few suggestions for features that might be useful to add to future versions of the program, to which he responded very positively.

I’d definitely recommend this program (especially at its very reasonable price of $25 US) for any writer who wants to get serious about tracking submissions. It’s available for both Windows-based and Mac machines.

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Hello, 2011

  By personal & miscellaneous, writer development, writing life, writing log

This is the promised “writing goals” post. I’ve sorted my plans for the year into short-term, medium-term, and long-term. I think I will also print them out and put them up on my bulletin board, because the fact that I habitually have to hunt around at the end of the year to find the last year’s goals makes me think I’m not using them to the greatest advantage.

Short-term (within the next one to two months)
1. Finish anthology story
2. Organize submission history/tracking
3. Submit Murder Prophet to second market

Medium-term (within the next six months)
1. Get short story submissions moving again (and keep them moving)
2. Revise and complete last year’s NaNo novel

Long-Term (by the end of the year)
1. Write five new short stories
2. Get another novel ms into submission

Besides all these things, I will be doing more school visits, regular critiquing for my SL writer’s group, and in the first part of the year, acting as a first reader for a writing competition, so I don’t think there’s any worry that I won’t have enough to do.

*Photo courtesy of rdragan79