by Christine | Uncategorized, Writing
I have a confession to make. My latest book has been intractable. Or maybe that’s just me? Anyway, words aren’t working, plots aren’t cohesive, characters keep slipping their reins and changing their spots. It’s enough to make even the sanest writer wiggy.
I did what I could. For instance, I went over everyone’s motivations and conflicts. I replotted everything from the Big Bad Troublemaker’s point of view. Which gave me all sorts of things to throw at the Hero and the Heroine. All good, right? And I came up with a long list of scenes to write.
I thought I was set until I got to the actual writing. Every action seemed to have to be written. He got into the car. She buckled her seat belt. They breathed. They looked at each other. He started the car. See what I mean? I bored myself to tears.
Two things came to my rescue. First off, Savvy Authors is having their May bootcamp challenge. I’m going to be writing 60k this month, or 2,000 words a day. Okay. I can handle that as I’m not currently working a day job and my children are old enough to take care of themselves. I’m with a fantastic group of authors and we’re all kicking ass on our manuscripts (I’m not about to let them down!).
But I still had that …and then they went to the office, and then they went to kill the demon, and then they… well, you get the idea. I had that problem. Which is where Twitter saved my ass.
Excuse me? Why did you giggle? Oh, you’re not on Twitter. That’s okay. I fought it for a long time, too. But you know what? Right now it’s the single most powerful tool I have for getting words on the page.
Behold – I present to you the power of #1k1hr. The first time I saw that flash by on Twitter, (I believe it was Skylar Kade that I first saw using it), I admit I was intrigued. They were usually talking about how many words they had gotten done during the past hour.
Oh. OH! One thousand words in one hour. I GET it! So when Zoe Archer put out a call last week or so for anyone up for #1k1hr, I hopped in. Why not? It wasn’t a marriage – it was simply someone to hold me accountable for my wordage. Heck, she’s a fabulous writer and I didn’t want to look stupid in front of her, so add that in to the equation, too.
We began at the :15 (since on Twitter, not everyone is in the same time zone, we leave the hour off…it’s either at the top of the hour, the :15, the :30, or – well, you understand) and I wrote like mad. Every time I wanted to stop, I’d look at my word count, check the clock, and keep going.
I’ll admit that first hour I didn’t make 1k. But you know what? I had more words than I would have if I’d been going it alone. And now after getting the hang of it I can usually pull more than 1k in 1hr.
Since then I’ve hooked up with Cid Tyer, Suzan Isik, and Kat Jameson for #1k1hr and of course, I’m still bumping into Zoe Archer and Skylar Kade. Is it working? Well – last week I almost wrote 3000 words.
This week? Sunday in two separate #1k1hr sprints I wrote 2454. Monday I did two and a half #1k1hr sprints and wrote 3297. Yesterday, I made it to 3662 words in another two and a half #1k1hr sprints. So you tell me. Is #1k1hr working, or not?
If you’re not already on Twitter, join up and find me at @CCAshworth. I’m almost always up for a #1k1hr – join me, won’t you?
By the way. These words I’m writing? They’re much more interesting than the “…and then they went to the office, and then they went to kill the demon, and then they…” words I got down last week. Are they perfect? Of course not – this is still a first draft. But they’re getting me closer to “the end” – and that, in the long run, is the only thing that matters.
60K in a month? Bring it on. I am SO there.
by Christine | Writing
Every writer’s first time with an editor attached to a publishing house is different, because every writer and every editor is different. However, I learned five really nifty things that I’d like to pass on.
#1. Crutch Words Every writer has them, some more than others. Mine varied. In the first iteration, my editor teased me about everyone mumbling, muttering, or murmuring – and always under their breath. A few painful hours and 101 m-words later, I realized that by ripping those words out I had to dig deeper, which made my writing stronger. (The second iteration involved nodding, nodded, nod; everyone became a bobble head. Another learning opportunity!)
#2 Clarity This is something we all hear and know, but never think it happens to us. We believe our manuscripts are easy to follow. Well, maybe in the first draft they were – but that was 8 or 9 drafts ago, and the thought process now doesn’t track. There were times when my beloved editor would ask a question about something, and I would pull my hair out – it was very clearly stated in chapter 12! This was chapter 13 – my readers would figure it out!
Um, no, they wouldn’t figure it out, because between chapter 12 and chapter 13, I’d eliminated a chapter that explained a lot of stuff. So much rewriting had to go on in some spots just to clarify the story and keep the ball rolling along.
#3 Sentence Structure I’m a pretty smart cookie. But after getting my first edits back, I wanted to hide in a huge book on grammar and not come out until I’d finished reading it. Except I hate grammar. So after I took a deep breath, I really studied what my editor was telling me. I learned that choppy sentences work really well in tense situations, but not so good in the slower moments.
Plus, at the beginning of the book all my guys sounded like chicks. They talked too much, apologized too fast, etcetera. Yeah, good to know! What an eye-opener. All these things that I’ve learned will go into an edit before any other project gets sent off to an agent or an editor, I assure you!
#4 Edits Take Time Getting the edits done took more time than I had imagined they would. The first pass I did took me two weeks – and I don’t have a day job, folks. Actually, it took me a whole week just to wrap my head around the changes needed (I had some unfortunate POV shifts and had to move them to another characters’ POV – and never the same character, lol!). Every day I’d look at the comments, and every day I stepped away from the computer, not sure how to begin. Six days after first receiving the edits I finally understood and started in on the revisions. Eight days later, they were done. Not only did I change the POV issues, but I added scenes, added a character, and did some continuity work.
#5 The Crit Partner You Can’t Say No To During my week of introspection on the first edits, I went through a lot of the same emotions that I’ve gone through in the past with critique partners. Except this time, I couldn’t just ignore the comments on sentence structure, plot holes, continuity, clarity, etcetera – this time I had to face my demons and get the work done. (Never ignore your critique partners’ words of wisdom. Never. Always give them serious consideration.)
I’m not saying you can never say no to an editor, because that’s not true. Yes, you can fight for the big stuff, but hopefully you’ll be able to keep your mind open enough to listen. Editors want to make your book the very best they can be and most of the time, they have WAY more experience than you do. Think of it this way; your editor is making sure you go to the Prom with your fanny decently covered, not hanging out in the wind and inviting evisceration of your character (book).
Thank you, Liz Pelletier, for making sure my fanny was covered!
DEMON SOUL comes out at the end of this month from Crescent Moon Press! Here’s the cover…
by Christine | Writing
So, now that I’ve recovered from camping up in Big Sur…the Workshop I attended was presented by the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, and it was a workshop, not a conference/convention. Including staff, we totaled 110; there was roughly 1 pro for every 5 attendees, not a bad ratio.
The weekend was for writers of picture books, chap books, middle grade books, and YA. It was not cheap – at $720 for two half-days and one full day, not cheap at all – but probably the most valuable weekend I’ve spent.
Unless you paid the single supplement, you were issued a roommate and I got lucky with Karen Akins. She’s a sweet Arkansas girl who writes both picture books and YA time travel books. We really hit it off and the second night, I kept her up way late chatting. But the roommate thing was fabulous!
The main thrust of the weekend were crit groups, two separate ones. We were to come prepared, with copies of our work, which I did. We read aloud, received feedback from the group plus the group leader (I got lucky and had two agents as group leaders), and had a chance to rewrite before taking it back to the group a second time. Two crit groups, four crit sessions total. Invaluable. Not to mention, a one on one for ten minutes with an industry professional…that alone totally made my trip.
Some may think they’re beyond it – not needing strangers to crit their work – but I welcome every opportunity to learn, especially from people who aren’t invested in me and could care less how well I do. The feedback I got has been the most valuable on this book so far. Lots of changes need to be made, but that’s okay – it gives me somewhere to take this book so I’m thrilled.
Surprisingly, the groups meshed quickly. Our leaders were firm, fair, and spot on when targeting trouble spots. All the staff were approachable – they wanted us to talk to them, to ask them questions, and considering these were agents and editors for the most part, it was a wonderful sense of camaraderie that they fostered, made possible by the intimate nature of the group.
If you write for the YA market or younger, if you’re stalled and don’t know which way to go, if you’ve got that book that just isn’t exciting interest and you don’t know why – do yourself a favor. Save your money and go to the Big Sur Writer’s workshop. They hold it twice a year – the first weekend in December, and the first weekend in March – and at $720, all-inclusive (lodgings, meals, workshop fee), it’s totally worth the price.
by Christine | Writing
You might not remember the Buffy episode where the evil bar guy made beer that turned college kids into cavemen, but I do. One of my favorite lines from that episode (in a series chock full of them) had Buffy saying, “Boys bad. Fire pretty.” It pointed up her extremely limited brain function due to the beer she’d consumed to drown her broken heart.
That’s how I feel right now, after turning in my last pass to my editor. Extremely limited brain function. When I finally stumbled out of bed this morning, my hair standing on end and my jammies awry, my showered, shaved, yummy-smelling and ready-for-the-office husband had the temerity to actually talk to me. This is how our conversation went.
Him: Sorry I didn’t get to the laundry over the weekend. Think you’ll have time today?Me: Laundry bad. Him: I’m running late. Make me a double espresso please? Me: Coffee good. Him: Oh, and sort the bills for me, I won’t have time to do it until Thursday. Me: Bills bad.
My eldest son had to play, too. Son: Can you pick me up from school, Mom? My bike has a flat tire. Me: Bike bad. Son: Oh, and can you pick me up a spare inner tube? Me: Son bad. Son: I love you, Mom. Me: Son pretty.
By the time everyone left the house, my head hurt from having to make such civilized conversation. It’s not just that editing takes a lot out of a writer. Making changes that you know need to be made, and finding every last variation on the word “nod” and changing it up so you don’t have a novel full of bobble-heads is wearying, after all.
But turning in last edits is also an emptying-out of your brain. Kind of like after giving birth – that alien in your body is gone and it’s just you again. Except for writers, there’s usually another alien in your head just waiting to be developed, and that’s where the writer’s brain goes into limited function mode.
The writer’s brain is scared. It’s not sure it has what it takes to write the next book. It’s not even sure it should be reading. The writer’s brain, at this point in the process, is pretty sure it should be relaxing on a tropical beach somewhere with an umbrella drink close by. Either that, or numbing itself in front of the TV, watching episode after episode of any of the “Desperate Housewives of” reality series. Enough hours of that inanity practically ensures your brain will spontaneously hit the refresh button and start spouting out story ideas and concepts, just to get away from the TV screen.
It’s not like I’m starting a new project right now, either. I’ve got a YA that I’ll be going into a workshop with (given by the Andrea Brown Agency – check it out here). I’ve got homework on that one.
I’ve also got a second book due to Crescent Moon Press and, since I’d like that second book to come out this year if possible, I really need to finish it, run it through a crit group, do a second draft and a third pass (to get rid of those nagging “nod”s) and get it to them soon.
But still, the brain stalls. For me, the tropical beach and the umbrella drink is out of the question. I can’t even sit in the sun – it’s too chilly for this girl out there today. The Housewives have no real appeal, either. I guess I’ll hunker down and dig my bedroom out from under the piles of laundry, clean the kitchen, and eventually drive off to pick up my son from college.
Wow, does that sound boring in contrast to dealing with a whip-wielding sorcerer, a tribred hero who just wants to be left alone, and a bunch of demons who look remarkably like badgers washing up dead on the beaches of Santa Monica.
Laundry bad…
by Christine | Observations, Thursday Thirteen
Every month has something special about it. Today I’m highlighting January’s gifts and chores…oh and remember, I’m in Southern California. There are things on this list that others in snowbound places can’t even contemplate until Spring.
- First hangover of the year on January 1st! (That’s if you drink. Or eat waaay too much at the party the night before.)
- If you haven’t yet, it’s time to prune the rosebushes. No pain, no roses.
- Clean out summer’s vegetable garden and prep the soil for this year’s garden.
- Enjoy the rain. Likewise, if it’s been raining and you get a cloud-free day, enjoy the sun!
- Chop up the Christmas tree for firewood. Place in big garden bags so the branches stay dry.
- Go hiking. Especially a couple of days after a rainstorm. The hills will be green, everything will be cool, and it’s a different hiking world than it is in summer.
- Hit up the beach. Wear your heavy duty sweats and watch the waves (wind depending, of course). Make sure you stop at one of those tiny roadside places and pick up some New England clam chowder to go. Enjoy while snuggling with loved one. Best part of the beach in winter? No one expects you to get into a bikini.
- If you must, plan out your yearly goals. Feel free to adjust them – remember, they’re more like guidelines for your year, rather than strict rules.
- Reach out to folks you didn’t get to talk to during the hustle and bustle of the Holiday season. Drop them a line or give them a call – you’ll be surprised at how relaxed people are at this time of year.
- Pare down your living space. Get rid of stuff you haven’t looked at properly in over a year. If you’re not seeing it anymore, it doesn’t belong in your life. Or maybe it just needs to be moved to a different room. This is aimed mostly at art, any and all collectibles gathering dust, and family photos.
- Have a portrait taken of yourself. Just you. No family. Either get a talented friend to take it, or go to the mall and get it done, but do invest. Everyone needs at least one good portrait taken each decade of their lives.
- Nurture yourself. Whether by regular meditation sessions, reading poetry or other thought-expanding literature, or purchasing a really good skin cream, take this time while the world has slowed down to be good to yourself. If you aren’t, who will be?
- Count your blessings. Keep an attitude of gratitude, and be open to the wonders that are sure to come your way.
I’m sure there are more gifts and chores available in January – what are the things that you do this month that you don’t tend to do in any other month? I’d love to know!
And if you’re interested in playing, go here to Thursday Thirteen and get the scoop! Let me know if you are, so I can track back to you.
Cheers!
