Here at The Fictorian Era, we have something of a motley crew, a bunch of writers at all stages of their careers.  Some of us have been writing for only a couple of years, others for many years.  Some are published in a variety of formats, others are still trying to get a foot in the door.  Some are pursuing the traditional route, others are more interested in the indie path.

Not all that many years ago, the traditional path was the only legitimate publishing option.  Within traditional, the options were to go with a major publishing house – the New York Big 6 – or a small publishing house.  Self-publishing wasn’t an option if a writer wanted respect, readers, or an income.  Epublishing changed all that.  Self-publishing – or indie as it tends to be referred to – is becoming more and more of a real option.  We’ve heard the success stories.  We’ve seen writers who originally self-published go on to sign contracts with traditional publishing houses.  And we’re seeing the stigma of self-publishing fade away.

During June, we’re exploring publishing options.  We have guest posts lined up from writers Brandon Sanderson, David Dalglish, Stephen Nelson, Gini Koch, and Jordan Ellinger, literary agent Laurie McLean, and publisher Celina Summers.  We’ll also be hearing from some of the Fictorians, some who you’re familiar with and a couple you don’t hear from often.

June is going to be an exciting month.  We look forward to sharing it with you.

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I recently passed a milestone in my professional career as a writer.  I collaborated on a novel with Eric Flint, and the manuscript (well, the Word file) was just turned in to the publisher (Baen).  Unless the publisher changes the title, it should see print as 1636: The Devil’s Opera.  I’ve made professional level sales of several shorter works, but that’s the first full length novel (165,000 + words) that will come out with my name on it, second billing though it will be.  To say I’m somewhat exhilarated about this event would be a serious understatement.

When will it come out?  I don’t know for sure; possibly in late 2013, more likely in 2014.  There will be both a hard copy edition and an e-book edition from Baen.

What’s it about?  Well, there isn’t a short answer to that.  It’s a new alternate history story in the series that began with 1632, the first novel in the Ring of Fire series.  There are over five million words in print in that series right now, between the novels and the anthologies and the Grantville Gazette e-magazine issues, all dealing with how approximately 3000 residents of a blue-collar West Virginia town survive and thrive when they somehow get dumped back in 1631 Germany in the middle of the Thirty Years War.  This is just another episode in that extended story.  Most of the novels in the series roam all over Western and Central Europe:  large canvases, in other words, with correspondingly large time frames.  1636: The Devil’s Opera will be somewhat unique, in that it’s focused in a single location—the German city of Magdeburg—and it only covers a time frame of maybe four months.  And there’s something in it for everyone:  murder, music, boxing, financial irregularities, taverns and dives, tragedy, guns, humor, skullduggery and skullthumpery, more music, police procedural, a dog . . . oh, and a little romance as well.  If you like video allusions, there are resonances with Rocky, On the Waterfront, Wall Street, The Sound of Music, and NCIS.  Stay tuned; as soon as I find out, I’ll tell you when it’s going to be published so you can check it out.

Okay, enough about the book.  I want to spend a little time talking about what I learned during this collaboration.

Why authors collaborate should be a separate post, I think.  I will note that there are a number of different methods for collaboration in writing.  Almost all of them start out with the collaborating authors doing any requisite world building, outlining the story to be told, agreeing on major characters, etc.  Once all that preparatory work is done, the writing can progress in several different ways.

1. For example, if sections of the novel require certain knowledge or expertise, one author may write certain parts while the other writes the remainder.  This approach seems to be most commonly used when both authors are of similar levels of skill.
2. More commonly, one author will write the first draft, while the other author will do the second pass.  If one author is newer to the craft (like me), he will usually write the first draft while the more experienced/skilled writer (Eric) will do the final polish/draft.
3. And sometimes one author will look at another and say, “You start,” and the story is built somewhat like a tennis match, with no prior planning to speak of and the authors volleying responses back and forth.  A lot of “letter” stories are actually written that way.

And all of those approaches require that one of the authors then do a second pass to tighten up the prose and smooth out any cracks or joints or bumps in the text.

So, yeah, I’m not ashamed to admit I was the junior author in this collaboration.  I’ll play second fiddle to Eric Flint any day.  And yeah, we used option 2.  I wrote the first draft.  I had a small group of alpha readers who I asked to give me feedback as I wrote it during a really rough spell in my life.  It took over a year to write a book that should have taken me no more than four months.  But I finally drove it to a conclusion, and gave the results to Eric.  There was some back and forth between us—he fixed some issues, I fixed some others— plus a final polish pass by Eric, and a round of beta readers in there somewhere.  I think it was the fourth draft that went to the publisher.

Now I definitely learned some things during the writing of the first draft.  I learned a lot more from Eric in the weeks that followed; watching over his shoulder as he worked and reworked the subsequent drafts.  I have a tendency to overwrite, so I expected him to throw away whole scenes and passages, but he really pitched very little, comparatively speaking.  Eric did add some new material, as well, but what he did a lot of was rearranging of the text:  moving blocks of text around, changing scene progressions and chapter structure and sequences.  For example, theoretically I knew that chapters don’t all have to be about the same length.  Eric made it real to me when he carved out single scenes from some of my existing chapters and made them chapters on their own.  Five hundred word scenes became chapters.  A single telegram became a chapter.  And along the way, I discovered this was a technique that would make a particular scene or elements in that scene stand out and be more memorable than they would have been had they been buried in longer chapters.  Just watching that exercise was worth the price of admission.

Paraphrased observations from Eric along the way:

1. “If you’re going to write a murder mystery, it’s best to have the body on the first page if you can manage it.  It makes a great hook.”
2. “For a modern mystery, if you want a gritty tone, the city needs to be one of the characters.”
3. “For modern mysteries, tone down the melodramatic descriptions.  Modern mysteries work better if the descriptions and the speech tags are a little flatter than, say, fantasies.”  (I mentioned I tend to overwrite.)
4. “You’ve crossed the line with this hero—he’s getting way too hard.  You’ll lose reader sympathy with him.”  (That one was about balance of characterization.)

Eric once told me that a novel collaboration requires almost as much work from him as if he had written the entire novel himself.  Because he’s the senior partner in most of the collaborations I’ve seen him do, that’s probably true.  However, I suspect the nature of his work in a collaboration is very different than when he is working a solo project.  From what I could tell in this collaboration, Eric spent much less time and energy in the creative part of the process and much more in the editing and revising part of the process.  And I suspect that, overall, he spends less personal time in arriving at the final product.

Setting aside polite modesty, my first draft was good.  Eric made it noticeably better.

1636: The Devil’s Opera by Eric Flint and David Carrico.  A novel that is different than either one of us would have written alone.  I’m proud of it.

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We’re looking forward to June during which we will be exploring publishing options.  With guest posts from writers Brandon Sanderson, David Dalglish, Stephen Nelson and Gini Koch, literary agent Laurie McLean, and publisher Celina Summers, it’s going to be a big month.  We look forward to exploring publishing options with you.

In the meantime, here’s 10 reads worth your time:

The Undiscovered Author talks Amazon, Apple, Antitrust and You.

Speaking of Amazon, Carl Franzen discusses Amazon Ready to Lower E-book Prices In Wake of Publisher Settlement.

The New York Times explores Writer’s Cramp: In the E-reader Era, a Book a Year Is Slacking.

Heroes and Heartbreakers.com explores the issue of race in romance novels with Choosing Between White, Off-White, and Beige.

Warriot Poet discusses 5 Undying Myths About Published Writers and their Eerie Powers.

Kristan Hoffman talks about Learning To Embrace My Limits.

Courtney Carpenter discusses how to Discover The Basic Elements of Setting In A Story.

Writing about an animal?  Kaitlin Ward looks at some essential elements of Animal Behaviour.

Janice Hardy discusses Fixing A Stalled Scene.

For inspiration, check out The Scale of the Universe.

Missed any Fictorians articles this week?

Guest post from Marsheila Rockwell – Tie-in Fiction

KD Alexander – Life Block

Mary Pletsch – Filing Off the Serial Numbers: Part 1 – Fan Fiction

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Filing Off the Serial Numbers:  Part One

Fan Fiction

There’s a lot of buzz surrounding E.L. James’ “Fifty Shades” trilogy, an erotic romance series that originated as a “Twilight” fan fiction.  Beyond the discussion of the series’ spiciness (too much for some and not enough for others) are the raised eyebrows over the trilogy’s leap from a derivative of a popular series into a popular series in its own right.

I’m not a copyright lawyer, and therefore not an expert in “how much change is enough” to turn a fan fiction into a marketable story.  But if you’ve got a hard drive full of fan fiction epics, and are debating following in the footsteps of “Fifty Shades,” here are some things to consider:

Can I create an original setting and still have the story work?  Your lead character is a witch?  Fine.  Your lead character is a teenage witch attending witch school?  Okay.  Your lead character is a teenage witch attending witch boarding school and wins fame by participating in a witches-only sport played while riding on brooms…  If your story falls apart without Quidditch—or any other signature elements of the franchise that inspired it—it’s not going to work outside of fan fiction.

How much can I change the characters and still have the story work?  I suspect “Fifty Shades” would have been a harder sell if the romantic lead had remained a vampire—but the central themes could still be conveyed with a human character.  This is nothing against vampires and everything about the amount of flexibility a writer would need to change her lead from a direct import of someone else’s character into a unique character in his own right—particularly a character who would logically fit into the new setting.  If your tale of star-crossed lovers absolutely demands that the beleaguered couple be giant shape-shifting robots, or if your story is an in depth character study of Captain Kirk and therefore dependent on the personality remaining exactly the same, it might not be possible to make it work outside of fan fiction.

Wait, isn’t this going to involve an insane amount of editing?  Yes, yes it is, more than just swapping out every “Mal Reynolds” for  a new name of your choice.  At this point, you might be asking yourself if it’s worth it, and if you couldn’t write something new in the amount of time it takes you to do that editing.

I can’t answer that.  I can’t answer how much passion you feel for the story you’ve written or how much confidence you have in the quality of the end result.  I can say that I’ve seen a writer (Christine Morgan) build an excellent novel (“Black Roses”) out of what was originally a fanfiction short story; the novel took the central plot from the fanfiction (a woman gets a supernatural stalker in the form of an incubus, which begins to murder her past lovers and now threatens her current love) and retold it with original characters and expanded details in an original setting.  In this case the author’s passion for a plot concept—an idea that was not irrevocably tied to someone else’s characters or world—spawned a strong original story.

Part 2:  What if I’m not borrowing from fan fiction, but from real life?

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You’ve heard it before. One of the wisest experts on craft first said it to me two years ago…

“There’s no such thing as writer’s block.”

He’s right. There’s not. It’s a little thing called life block. You know what it is, we’ve all been there. It’s that day where you wake up and you just don’t want to go to work. The alarm clock mocks you with modulated laughter, you glance toward your phone and groan.

And call in sick.

Sure, you feel fine. Your eyes aren’t watering, you’re not hacking up a lung or bleeding profusely. You’ve been running about a hundred miles an hour 24/7 for the past six months, your boss is overbearing, the bills are piling up…and you’re just… There.

Everyone has off days, it’s human nature, mood swings, and everything in between.

But it’s how you deal with those off days that really bears importance.

I’ve had one giant life block probably for the past four months. And I haven’t been dealing very well.

If you take an unscheduled vacation at work there’s a good chance that your boss is going to come calling. Or wondering why you’ve been sick for the past four months.  What do you do when you’re your own boss though? Do you yell at yourself? Do you fire yourself?

You just might have to.

There was a time when I was as serious about my craft as my career. They were supposed to eventually become one and the same. I would write for hours on end and spent every off day locked in my office happily chugging along. NaNoWrImO wasn’t a challenge anymore and I enjoyed every moment of overwhelming productivity. I was happy at work, making decent money and living two dreams. I felt like a rock star.

Then the market crashed. And misery loves company, so I watched as one-by-one everything tumbled over and out of control. My employer had to tighten its belt, people were freaking and a happy productive place transformed overnight into a roiling swamp of discontent. When I wasn’t miserable at work, I was spending my off days being miserable about going back to work. Every time I sat down to try and find a spark of creativity, I couldn’t get the fire started. My off days just turned into a countdown of time I have until I get to go back to reality.

It was bad. I had spent so much time thinking at work and then thinking about work on my off days that I just shriveled up. I found solace in mindless television and video games. I forgot what books were, I forgot what everything I used to enjoy was.

And then it clicked. Literally, just last night. Turns out I figured personal time was a luxury that I just couldn’t afford anymore. So just like a bad habit, I quit.

But that’s the wrong way to think. Don’t ever forget who you are or what makes you happy. If you take pleasure in the craft, then don’t think guiltily of it. Be proud. There’s dozens of other bad habits out there and addictions that are ten times worse.

If life blocks you, don’t give up like I did. Take the next shot. And the next. Hell, take the one after that too. Who cares if you shoot .00010% or you’ve got the lowest batting average on your team. Because in the end, every shot you don’t take is another shot that you missed.

I exist in a world where every shot counts. Don’t do what Dave did.

Take your shot.

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A Guest Interview with Marsheila Rockwell

Marsheila (Marcy) Rockwell joins us today to talk about writing tie-in fiction. She is the author of three novels for Wizards of the Coast, all of which tie into the Eberron D&D Campaign Setting and/or the popular MMORPG, Dungeons & Dragons Online. They are: Legacy of Wolves (2007, rereleased as an ebook on 5/15), The Shard Axe (2011), and Skein of Shadows (releases 7/3).

Colette: What, exactly, is tie-in fiction?

Marcy: In technical terms, it’s fiction that “ties in” to some other media property, like a television show, movie, video game, or role-playing game. It’s also known as “work-for-hire,” because you can’t just decide to write a novel that ties into one of these properties on your own (unless you want to get sued) – you have to be hired by the property owner to do so.

Colette: How did you decide you wanted to write tie-in fiction?

Marcy: I started reading fantasy when I was three, began playing Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) in the third grade, and penned my first fantasy story at the age of twelve. When TSR (later acquired by Wizards of the Coast, aka WotC) started publishing novels set in the various D&D campaign worlds, I knew that’s what I wanted to write. Of course wanting to do it and getting hired to do it are two very different things.

Colette: So how did you get hired by WotC?

Marcy: Back in 2003, WotC put out an open call for one of the books in the Forgotten Realms “Priests” series, called Maiden of Pain. While I didn’t win that open call, my writing did bring me to the attention of the WotC editors, and I continued to submit to them over the next several years until one of my Eberron proposals caught their eye (the book that later became Legacy of Wolves), and they offered me a contract. So, basically, they let me write a book just so I’d stop bugging them. And I just finished up my third book for them, so I guess it worked out pretty well for both of us. ;)

Colette: What has writing tie-in fiction taught you that has helped your overall writing career?

Marcy: The first and most important thing tie-in work has taught me is how to write to a deadline. When you are doing creator-owned fiction, you write your story, sometimes taking years to complete a book. Then you submit it, and maybe you get lucky and sell it right away. Then, all of the sudden, your new publisher wants another book in 9 months. And then you panic, because you’re used to writing whenever the inspiration strikes, and with a deadline looming, it’s nowhere to be found.

There’s a reason a lot of authors’ sophomore efforts don’t live up to their debut novels, and it’s largely because they’ve never had to write on deadline before. I’ve written 30,000 words in one week to meet a deadline (because of the tight schedules associated with virtually all tie-in writing), so I’ve learned that inspiration comes when butt is applied to seat, and there’s no such thing as writer’s block when the mortgage is due.

Colette: Would you suggest writing tie-in fiction to other authors, or only those that have a passion for a particular property?

Marcy: Writing tie-in fiction isn’t for people who think writing is an art, it’s for the folks who know it’s a business. You have to be able to work under pressure, absorb a lot of information quickly, change gears on a dime, and abide by strict rules, like non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). If that doesn’t sound like fun to you, chances are good that writing tie-in fiction would just leave you frustrated and with only half a head of hair. If, on the other hand, it does sound like fun, I’d suggest a visit to your doctor – they have medication for that now, heh.

Seriously, though – it can be very satisfying to contribute to a property you love, but, generally speaking, it’s a lot of work and it’s not for the faint of heart. If it still sounds interesting to you, you also need to know that it’s largely an invitation-only business. Watch for open calls (Warhammer has one every year), and get some publishing credits out there, in the same genre as the tie-in work you want to do. Go to conventions where tie-in properties are featured, listen to what the editors are saying, and do what they tell you to do. And, if you get the chance to submit something, get it in early. Editors love good writers, but being good isn’t enough. They hire – and keep hiring – the ones who consistently meet their deadlines.

And actually, that advice is sound regardless of whether you’re doing tie-in work or writing creator-owned fiction. Be focused, be flexible, be professional, and never, ever miss a deadline if it’s within your power to meet it. Good luck!

BIO:

Marsheila (Marcy) Rockwell is an author, poet, editor, engineer, Navy wife and cancer mom. In addition to her tie-in work, she has a new (creator-owned) series of Arabian-flavored, female-centric sword & sorcery stories coming out from Musa Publishing, Tales of Sand and Sorcery. The latest installment, “Both,” released on 5/18. She’s also penned dozens of short stories and poems, and several articles on writing tie-in fiction. You can find out more here:http://www.marsheilarockwell.com/.

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June is going to be a big month here at The Fictorian Era with a special focus on publishing.  We have guest posts from a publisher, an agent, and writers who are at a variety of stages of their careers, as well as posts by some of our regular Fictorians.  We’ll be spending the month exploring publishing options, looking at both traditional and independent publishing.  More info in a few days.

In the meantime, here’s 10 reads worth your time:

Jane Friedman has 3 Possibilities For Defeating Writer’s Block.

Tonya Kappes talks about how to boost your creativity in Creative Flow: Scene by Scene.

DiYMFA identifies 5 Pockets Of Time You Never Knew You Had.

The Millions discusses The Appeals and Perils of the One-Word Book Title.

Over at The Bluestocking Blog, they’re talking about The Chasm Between Intentions and Execution.

John A A Logan talks epublishing in Fending Off The Next Dark Age.

Interested in writing contests? Writers’ Village has an ebook on How To Win Writing Contests for Profit.

For some motivation, check out Writers Digest’s 23 Timeless Quotes For Writers.

Listen to screenwriter Michael Arndt talk about writing Little Miss Sunshine.

And head over to Musa Publishing to check out Fictorian Nancy DiMauro’s new release, Paths Less Traveled.

Missed any Fictorians articles this week?

Ann Cooney – The Great Spring Migration

Matt Jones – Motivations

Leigh Galbreath – How To Be A Better Tease

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We’ve all spent months doing that bio for our protagonists, outlining every event, every trauma, every banana, and dang it, we’re gonna use it. The problem comes when we shove it down our readers throats in the first few pages. I’m talking about the dreaded info-dump, my friends, and it’s death to any good novel.

Let’s face it, nobody cares about why the protagonist now hates banana’s when he used to love them so well. At least, not when we’re first getting to know him. Even if it’s the crux of the climax, until we care about the character, all it does is bore the reader into a stupor.

So, how do we get the reader to care about bananas? Well, that’s easy—we become really good teases.

My current favorite in this technique is Harry Connolly’s Child of Fire, the first novel in the Twenty Palaces series. Connolly successfully uses the protagonist’s backstory to help us empathize with the characters without slowing the story down one iota.

On the first page, he starts to show us how he’s going to handle backstory by first introducing the two characters we’ll be spending the most time with, the protagonist Ray Lilly and his boss, Annalise. Connolly tells us in the fourth paragraph that Annalise wants to kill Ray, but has been forbidden not to.

And then, what does Connolly do?

He changes the subject.

No waxing rhapsodic on how Ray, the viewpoint character, feels about Annalise’s desire to see him dead. No explanation on why she wants him dead, or who forbade her to kill him. Instead of explanations, Connolly shows us how bad Ray’s relationship with Annalise is. She’s openly hostile. Connolly purposefully hits us with something interesting, and then backs off.

Such a tease. But a good one. It’s subtle enough to keep us interested without taking our complete focus because we’re very quickly ushered into a scene of Ray and Annalise in action.

What Connolly does here is let us get to know Ray in the best way possible, by putting him in the hot seat. On the road, Ray tries to save a child from a nasty spell and fails. Ray’s reaction gets us on his side pretty fast. He’s sickened and angry. Honestly, if there’s anything that gets a to reader empathize with a character, it’s having the character feel bad about something horrible happening to children and pets.

Suddenly, we’re like, “What’s wrong with Annalise that she hates this guy? He likes kids, so he must be a good guy.”

But, in the second chapter that Connolly starts giving us the skinny. Ray’s a career criminal.

Again, Connolly doesn’t give us much beyond a short trip through Ray’s criminal history. We get only a hint that something happened last year that made Annalise his enemy. Then, we’re back to the present moment, breaking into the house of the family they just encountered. Before we can start wondering about Ray, we’re sucked into the mystery of what happened to the dead child. Again, Ray’s empathy keeps us firmly on Ray’s side so that when we learn the truth—that Annalise has a very good reason for hating Ray—we’re not totally lost to him.

Connolly fantastically teases out the backstory, never stoping the action. The technique he sets up at the beginning, of giving us a little information and then going on to a scene of the protagonist in action, continues to the very end of the novel. We’re never bored by long explanations or confused by flashbacks that put so much emphasis on the backstory that it crowds the present story out. Every time he brings it up, we learn something small but new. And better yet, Connolly manages to link each bit of backstory to what’s happening in the present, so that we’re never popped out of the moment, which is a huge problem when you’re trying to get in important backstory.

Sure, it would be easier to just plop down that backstory and get it out of the way, and when handled poorly, the tease can get terribly irritating. The key, I think, is to always give an answer. Never the whole answer, but an answer none-the-less, so that the reader feels as if he or she is getting somewhere rather than being led off to nowhere in confusion.

So, when you’ve got that juicy bit of backstory that is so terribly important that it absolutely has to be in your novel, don’t forget that you’ve got an entire book to fill. Think about how you can become a better tease.

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You’ve heard it before.  I’ve said it.  Every author you’ve ever heard repeats it as if it was a mantra to the writing gods.  “Keep Writing.”  It really is the best advice you could take.  We all know this, but how many people sit down and write every day for as long as they planned the night before?  Planning is easy, doing is hard.  (Great example: This blog post is due in three days.  I’ve been meaning to write it for weeks now.) The mantra is true, but you need to look beyond that.  Don’t just say you’re going to write, determine why you’re going to write.  What is your motivation to finish that manuscript?

At Superstars, author James A. Owen did a panel on “Drawing out the Dragons.”  It was a story of his motivations and how they fueled his career through a world that was decisively against him.  The talk was powerful and left the room roaring with energy.  I could feel it pulse with the story he told, and in turn, it latched onto my own dreams and motivators and brought them to the front of my mind.  I was ready to write and take over the world!  I would be the next household name!  James said he believed in us, and I believed.

Since the talk, the blaze has died down to the quiet flame that is always burning in my chest.  When I sit down, I let that heat flow again and use it to power my writing.  When I don’t feel like writing, I have to think back toward these moments that brought on the blaze, and remind myself why I’m doing it.  I think of the friends I have that believe in me.  I think of friends and family reading my stories.  I think of fame and fortune!  (I do write fantasy, so it’s pretty easy to imagine this.)

So, keep writing.  When you don’t want to write, think back to why you started writing in the first place and what motivates you.  Let this ignite your spirit and push you to write, because in the end, no matter how many times someone tells you to keep writing, it’s up to you to actually do so.

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The spring migration is late this year but I only learned that because someone died.

A close friend’s death pulled me from my concrete world, forcing me to travel across endless prairie, to see spring repaint winter’s stark world with the tender greens waving away the north wind’s last cold breaths. And in my journey to mourn, I see the spring migration – gathering energy to fly to thawing northern nesting grounds by fervently feeding on the last crop’s stubble, not one stray seed left behind. A friend had died and with her, part of my heart died yet here was nature, hopeful, fervent, telling me the cycle must continue, that despite all that happens, life stops for no one.

This journey takes me back to the farmstead home where I grew up – right in the middle of the great spring migration. Flocks of Greater and Lesser Canada geese, cranes and Snow geese formed feathery swarms. Circling gracefully down to water, then like arrows shot into the sky they circle yet again searching for perfect feeding fields.

The choruses of honks and krooos carried by cool spring winds are a music once familiar, now alien, to my ears.  These choruses are the excitement of spring, the energy of rebirth and creativity and somehow, through my tears of grieving, I am stilled to peace.

A walk across stubble fields, still too wet for seeding, floods me with memories, once known in my youth but now seem otherworldly. Who was that person who remembers where the trees once grew, where cattle grazed in pastures, where weeds were pulled from garden rows at a nickel a pail? Who is this person who now deigns to wear sandals through straw stubble, ankles scratched – a child of the city now – alien worlds converging, lifetimes past and present merging.

Walking along a windrow, a prairie chicken is spooked from the grass. My partner is now lost in his memories of times hunting before pesticides and farming diminished this delicacy. As we share the past I realize that few words can bring to life the images, the memories, the smells, the aching muscles, the laughter accompanying sliding down haystacks in winter … time has made  the once familiar foreign. The migration darkens the sky above us as birds swarm debating if this field will yield enough scattered grain. I feel the noisy migration sweep my old ghosts away for their focus is on today  - it is all that matters and all that ever will matter.

At 4 a.m., the winds change and I know, lying in the dark, protected from the diamond sky and sun’s first yawning, that it is time – that this is the last night of honking and krooing wakefulness and that silence will ensue. I leap from my bed to watch the geese and cranes, their last grazing of  grain speckled stubble fields completed, rise to the skies, circling, a choir in flight, summoning all to follow, their v-shaped lines flapping arrows aimed at northern nesting grounds.

Then, the earth gasps at the timeless glory of the final migration before relaxing with a sigh. But, the silence I expect never comes.

Instead, I hear the almost quiet – the earth’s soft belches and burps of spring moving to summer. Frogs croaking bass melody day and night, the percussion of duck calls, crows cawing oblivious to the frog’s melody, the crescendo and decrescendo of wind whispering then whistling through budding trees – the new, softer melodies of insects crawling over warming ground, farmers preparing the land for seeding, hoes working gardens. The south wind, carrying the frenzied migration northward now blends these spring choruses to new compositions.

Ah yes, the rhythm, the balance of the earth, timeless beyond man – these things I now ponder. And I also wonder about the worlds I create as I now sit in my walled home, in my city of concrete and asphalt and unearthly noise. Do my characters wander through worlds which gasp, belch and burp? Are they  aware of the subtle things which affect their lives? Am I aware of these things? Maybe. Maybe not. But I now know that sometimes we and our characters need to take the time to breathe – to feel the change, to feel the sorrow and the timelessness of life.

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10 reads worth your time:

Liza Palmer has 5 Tips For Starting and Finishing Your Novel.

Janice Hardy has Four Tips On Adding A New Twist To An Old Plot.

Carly Watters talks about How Writers Build Successful Online Communities.

Rachelle Gardner has advice for a writer’s family in This Post Is For The Ones You Love.

Jonathan Gotschall explores Why Fiction Is Good For You.

Jason Boog recounts an Ohio State University study on how Fictional Characters Can Influence Real Life Actions.

Looking for a place to connect with both readers and writers?  Check out the World Literary Cafe.

And for another place to connect with readers, check out Book Blogs.

Deadman’s Tome has a horror writing contest open until the end of June.

Finally, for images and inspiration, check out Retronaut.

Missed any Fictorians articles this week?

Guest post by Dean Wesley Smith – Stop Being In A Hurry

Frank Morin – Burst Writing – Case Study

Colette Vernon – Brandon Sanderson’s Rules of Writing & Other Notes

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I recently returned from the 2012 Superstars Writing Seminar. The seminar in 2010 went well and I loved it, but to my surprise, I enjoyed this year’s seminar even more. They have this thing down to a well-oiled machine. Brandon Sanderson gave one of the first presentations, talking about his Ten Rules of Writing Success. He asked me to qualify this list by saying, these are his current rules, but they change regularly.

1) Start thinking like a business person.

2) There is no substitution for practice. (Write!)

3) Network (i.e. the seminar)

4) Be proactive.

5) Work harder.

6) The result is what matters.

7) Don’t waste time with writer’s block.

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Last week, I completed an extremely successful Burst Writing retreat.  I wrote 50,000 words in five days, even though I lost almost 8 hours to travel each on Days 1 and 5.

I’ve spoken of Burst Writing before.  I define it as an intensely focused period of time in which to write significantly higher word count than normal.  This is not free-writing time with throw-away word count.  A successful Burst Writing session takes a lot of preparation and produces well-crafted, effective scenes.

Most important is to know what you’re going to write before you sit down to pound away at the keyboard.  There’s little time for blank staring out the window.   For me, that meant scheduling the retreat only after several weeks of focused effort to develop the story fundamentals and outline the scenes I would be writing.

Last year, the first time I tried Burst Writing, I managed 50,000 words in 7 days, and finished half of that book.  I’m now currently planning the third revision of that novel.

My goal is to eventually prepare well enough to where I can crank out huge sections of a clearly defined story that won’t need multiple major revisions afterward.

Last week, I wrote about 35% of a new novel.  I believe I did a better job defining exactly what each scene needed to include from a plot and characterization perspective.  We’ll see how that holds up once I complete the book.

I get a kick out of tracking stats.  So, here are the stats for last week’s trip:

Day 1:  8 hours travel time.  1.5 hours writing time.  New word count:  2700

Day 2:  10 hours writing time.  New word count:  13,500

(Day 2, evening, couldn’t sleep.  Wrote another 1800 words in the middle of the night)

Day 3:  6 hours writing time.  New word count:  12,000

Day 4:  10 hours writing time.  New word count:  15,000

Day 5:  3 hours writing time.  New word count:  5,000.  Travel time:  7 hours

As you can see, I started slow, but once I got in ‘the zone’, I cranked out far more words each day, as high as about 2,000 words per hour, which is twice what I can normally produce.

So, what did I do to prepare?

1. Outline.  I spent a great deal of time working out the characters and plot of the novel.  I had some advantages in this book over the last one because this is a sequel to another novel, so the world and many of the characters are already very well defined.  Even so, I had to wrestle with some difficult plot issues in the second half of the novel that required changes to the first half to resolve.  If I’d started writing chapters before I had the plan complete, my productivity would have screeched to a halt, and I would have been forced to throw away a lot of good work.

2. Find the right writing retreat.  This year, I found the Colonyhouse, owned by the Oregon Writer’s Colony.  Signing up to be a member was inexpensive, and the house was exactly what I needed.  It was comfortable, located within driving distance, with a beautiful location (about 100 yards from the ocean).  I experimented with several different locations in the house and settled on a layout that was comfortable for writing long periods of time.

3.  Set lofty goals.  I honestly did not believe I would hit 50,000 words.  I wrote 12,000 words on my best day in last year’s retreat, so this year’s goal was a stretch.  I hadn’t really factored in the travel time correctly, so when I arrived I realized I was way behind right on day 1.  By staying focused on the goal, and motivated to reach it, I produced far more than I would have otherwise.

4.  Set the right duration.  Five days turned out to be an excellent length.  Last year I took seven, which was honestly a little too long.  I found that the four days in the middle of the trip were the most productive.  This year, I had been planning a three day trip, and managed to squeeze in the other two at the last minute.  I’m glad I did.

5.  Reduce distractions.  I did walk the beach a few times when I needed a break, but other than that, I did very little but write.  On the drive out to the house I stopped and purchased all the food I would need for the week so I could pretty much lock myself away and not get distracted shopping or running errands.  Once I got in ‘the zone’, I was able to stay there for a long time, which is so much more productive.

And, as always, I learned a few lessons about what to do better next time:

1.  Bring spare batteries.  I learned last year that having a full size, comfortable keyboard is key to cranking out high word counts for me.  This year, I brought my cordless keyboard and mouse.  And of course, on Day 2, the batteries died.  I did not have spares, so I wasted an hour running out to the store to get some (the only excursion I took other than walking to the beach).

2. Sleep.  One of the biggest challenges for me when I’m away from home is sleeping.  I just don’t sleep well.  I know I have this problem, but I forgot to bring any kind of sleep aid.  As a result, I did not sleep well most of the week, and returned home very tired.  I did bring some movies to watch in the evenings when I needed to unwind, and that did help.

3.  Have the first chapter or two already complete.  I started the retreat on chapter 1 of a new book.  The first chapter is always the hardest, and I wasted a bunch of time trying to set the tone, description, and locking in the characters in the setting.  Luckily, I spent a lot of time on the drive up the coast working some of this out in my head so the writing time wasn’t an entire waste.  However, by the time I hit chapter 3, I had things flowing well, and I could just roll forward at full speed.  Next time, I’ll try to get the first couple chapters complete ahead of time.

I’ll be writing a series of blog posts on my web site www.frankmorin.org, discussing each day in more detail, for those who want to know more specifics.

What have you found helps boost your productivity at home or during a writing retreat?

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A guest post by Dean Wesley Smith

I’ve talked about this on my blog a few times in different ways, but I noticed a few of you have mentioned this “got to hurry” problem, so I figured it was time again.

And no doubt, as I did last week on my first visit to the Superstars Writing Seminar, I may ruffle a few feathers.

What do I mean by being in a hurry?

For some reason, almost all new professional writers have no sense of time in publishing. And no sense of the amount of time it takes to learn the craft and the business. I hear over and over again how fresh writers need to find a way to cut through the “noise” out there, how they need to “promote” their first or second novel, and how they don’t understand why they don’t sell more.

And I hear all the time how writers like me or Kris or Kevin Anderson or Dave Farland or Eric Flint have this huge advantage over beginning writers. But don’t think our advantage is because our names are known. Nope. In fact, often being known hurts us more than it helps. My bestselling novels are not under “Dean Wesley Smith” because of all the media work I did under that name. My bestselling novels are hidden pen names in both the thriller and mystery genres. Names that started fresh. Names that nobody knew.

But we do have an advantage over beginning writers.

Yes, I said it. We experienced old-timers have a huge advantage. We have taken the years and decades to learn how to write better stories and we are all still working to learn. (Do you think the only reason we teach is to help young writers? That’s a big part, sure, but mostly it’s so we can keep learning as well.)

That’s right. Shocking as it may seem, writing better novels and stories–stories that fans want to read–makes us better known. It is not promotion or some silly trick. We sell more because we write better stories.

It really is that simple.

Learning the craft of fiction writing comes from listening to others talk about their ways of doing things, or reading how-to-write books, or studying what other writers do, then putting that information out of your front brain.

In other words, learn it and then forget it. Just go back to writing, and trust that the knowledge will come out of your fingers when you need it.

Sometimes it doesn’t happen for a novel or two. And then suddenly your writing is better and you don’t even know why–but your readers will see it.

Sounds kind of silly, huh? But it’s the way it works. And that method of writing and learning how to write better stories TAKES TIME.

My first published novel was my third written novel, and by the time I had written it, I had already sold over fifty professional-level short stories. Now understand, I sold my first short story in 1975 and didn’t sell my first novel until 1987. A long twelve years, and a thousand-plus rejections.

But with indie publishing, writers today think they can put up their debut novel and sell thousands of copies in the first month. And when they don’t, they either stop writing, or get upset, or blame it on the fact that they have no name recognition. Many new writers never blame poor sales on the fact that maybe they just don’t know how to tell a good story yet.

These same new writers don’t realize that it takes years to learn how to tell a good story, a story that thousands of fans want to read.

Focus on learning how to tell a better story while at the same time learning the business. If you keep writing and learning, eventually you will be a big name writer with a lot of books out and will have to give this same advice to the next generation of writers.So my suggestion is to stop whining about how big names have all the advantages, and start focusing on learning how to write better stories. Stop spending time on promotion and spend the time on the next short story or the next novel. Your best promotion is always your next book.

Remember, every time you say to a professional writer, “The only reason you can do that is because you are . . .” then you have insulted them and all the years and years of typing and work it took them to get to where they are.

We are only better known than you because we spent years learning how to tell a better story. Nothing more. And certainly nothing less.

Focus on learning how to tell a better story. Make each story the best one you can do. Practice something new in every story. Get it on the market, then move to the next story.

And keep having fun.

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10 reads worth your time:

At Writer Unboxed, Barbara O’Neal discusses the need to figure out what you’re really writing about.

At Editor Devil, read about how to Delinate Characters Through Dialogue.

Over at Romance University, Theresa Stevens talks line editing.

Marcy Kennedy discusses the use of smell in How to Make Your Novel Scratch and Sniff.

Over at YA Highway, Veronica Roth talks about the Strictly Objective Critique Partner.

Julie Butcher-Fedynich has A Ten-Step Program For More Writing Time.

Nathan Bransford lists The Top 5 Social Media Blunders You Shouldn’t Make.

Andrew Jack has some no-nonsense advice in It Doesn’t Matter How You’re Published – We’re All Self-Promoted.

Over at Genreality, Bob Mayer talks about the necessity to Have A Career Plan As A Writer.

And, just for fun, check out the The Terrible Crossover Fantiction Idea Generator for wacky creative writing prompts.

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