Many stories, from mystery to science fiction and fantasy have inspired and awed me. But my road to writing has been a tough and painful one. It wasn’t so much inspiration I needed as the courage to overcome an environment that discouraged reading, let alone writing for a living. One author gave me that courage.

Imagine growing up in a family where reading was never encouraged and was viewed as being lazy. Where farm chores and homework were the priorities. My father occasionally read westerns and Archie comics and then only after we were in bed. My mother just read recipes. Now, imagine the frustrations of a child whose imagination is so taken by the rich worlds in books that she wants to write but must suppress that desire and limit it only to school assignments.

What did I love to read? I still remember Dick and Jane’s antics in the grade one picture books –  ‘See Dick run. Run Dick run!’ – those first words excited my tiny heart and showed me the power of words on paper. Then came rhyming and Dr. Seuss filled my world – ‘One fish two fish, red fish blue fish’. By grades five and six, I was sneak reading the mysteries of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys on the bus ride home – a book a day. Somewhere in junior high school, I discovered science fiction, fell in love with it and then got into trouble with teachers because my imagination and verbosity were greater than assignments demanded. When I took a degree in English and drama, I had relatives who shunned me for years.

Perhaps I should have quit then and for a few years life took over and I almost did. But I always dabbled and always loved reading. So, what changed? What gave me the courage to write and to overcome all the discouraging influences? Where did I find the confidence to achieve my goal of mastering and communicating in my second language? Oh yes, English isn’t my first language and throughout my life, I’ve had a desire to master it and rarely feel I have. Yet, one book, one writer gave me the courage to pursue my dream wholly – to throw myself into it with a modicum of hope to succeed. I owe my courage to J.K. Rowling.

When I read Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, I thought that if she could do it, so could I!”. Her life story, her courage to write and  her perseverance to find a publisher were the inspiration I needed. Since then, I’ve written many wild tales. I can write! My childhood desire to engage in worlds so far removed from reality, to master their voices and breathe life into them in words not my own has blossomed!

Which authors inspire me today? They all do as do the readers who buy their books. Everyone who has the courage to pen their imaginations, to give life to new worlds and voices, and to all our readers who encourage us, I give you my heartfelt thanks.

Cheers and happy writing (and reading too)!

Share on Facebook

The last post of 2012. Oh, the pressure!

This makes me think of endings… and beginnings. These ideas fortuitously play into the topic at hand – when should a writer abandon a scene/plot/character/work that just isn’t working rather than rewriting for the fiftieth time?

My story, A Guardian’s Destiny, was a work in process for sixteen months, give or take.  I wrote, rewrote, edited, revised, rewrote and on and on for what was longer than was good for me or it. I was halfway through rewrites that added a major character when I couldn’t take it any more.  I knew it needed fixed, but  I couldn’t figure out what the fix might be.  Frustration didn’t begin to cover how I felt.  When I stepped back and looked at it with some small measure of objectivity, I could see it had “Edit Face.”  Not pretty. So, I put it in a virtual drawer and began something else.

When do you make that call?  End one thing, begin another?

That is a personal decision, but here are some things to consider.

• Time – How long have you worked on your scene/plot/character/work?  Think about Return on Investment or Lost Opportunity Costs.  Yes, we want our writing to be its best, but it will never be perfect and we need to recognize the tipping point where we have gone beyond productive effort.  If you could have written a multitude of other scenes/plots/characters/works in the time you’ve spent on this particular one, then maybe it’s time to let it go and move on.
• Sanity – Is it making you crazy?  My story was.  That’s not constructive and it’s stressful.
• Distance – Sometimes, it isn’t that you need to completely abandon your scene/plot/character/work, it’s that you need some distance from it.  Your muse may need time to gel. Time to work out exactly what the problem is and how to fix it.  It may be weeks, months, years or never.  You just never know.
• Perspective – It’s just a story.  We’re not curing cancer. Don’t marry your scene/plot/character/work.  You need to have some perspective.  Sometimes, things just aren’t working and you need to stop.  If it helps, save all the drafts or put any deleted text into a different document.  Then it isn’t really gone, just not where it isn’t working.

A Guardian’s Destiny has been tucked away for six to ten months.  My critique partner asked to read it anyway despite my protestations that it seemed hopeless.  After all this time and with her help, I think it may be time to take it back out and finish it. With a second set of eyes and ideas, it may yet be salvageable, but I know now that if it isn’t complete in a reasonable amount of time (not months on end), then back in the drawer it goes.

Here are some sayings that I keep in mind to help me.

A certain amount of opposition is a great help to man.  Kites rise against, not with, the wind……  John Neal

It’s only a book.  If nothing is happening – hit delete and start over. …..  I don’t remember where I heard this, sorry.

When your moment of truth comes, remind yourself: They told me it would be hard. This is what hard feels like. I can do this. …..  Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent

What do y’all think?  I’d love more great quotes and/or tales of death, birth and maybe rebirth of your scene/plot/character/work.

Share on Facebook

You’re tired of writing the short story before you’ve even finished it. You’re 40,000 words into the novel and are falling asleep at the keyboard. You’ve worked hard on your world building, done the research done your character profiles and have the main elements of your plot chart, the writing should come easily but it doesn’t.

Don’t panic! The inability to write because your work doesn’t feel interesting at this moment doesn’t mean that you’re a bad writer. It means that you’re stuck and that you need to answer one simple question to get through this:

Are you bored or are you burned out?

Burn out happens when we’ve been at it too long – our brains need a rest from processing information and creating a work of art. Writing takes lots of energy – physical, creative and emotional.  That’s when you need to give yourself a break But sometimes when you’re feeling bored it’s   your brain’s way of telling you that information is missing.  I had that experience when I was doing the world building and background work for my new series. I had had so much fun world building and I wanted to write the novel so I could share it. No matter how hard I tried, it wouldn’t happen. Three times I started the beginning and each time I set it aside. It wasn’t fun anymore. I grew bored. So, I let it rest and when I reviewed my research, I realized that I hadn’t thought through a critical element. My brain, in the form of boredom and frustration, was telling me that I was missing something.

Sometimes I write three to ten pages of background material (important but boring stuff) because I need to get grounded in the setting and characters. Once I’ve done that, then the story begins. So, write, write and write some more. It’s not boredom per se that you’re experiencing, it’s simply that you’re going through the first step of needing to become part of that world, to unclutter your brain by getting information and relationships out of your head.

What happens when you’re genuinely bored with what you’re writing? When you’re sick of the plot and the characters? When it’s not exciting anymore and it feels like work and not fun?

Sometimes, it’s not fun and when that’s the case we need to simply write our way through it until it becomes fun. There may be technical reasons why this is so but many times those aren’t apparent until we’ve finished the novel and are revising it. So don’t stop writing. Write through the scene or section and get to the fun part!

Feeling bored may be the result of not getting to the interesting parts of the story. You’re missing mood, emotion, action and reaction because there’s too much inconsequential description, the reader isn’t an idiot and doesn’t need that level of detail, it reads like a technical manual, and yes, it’s simply boring writing! So in this case, the problem may not be with you but with what you’re writing.  Again, get it out of your system, then write the real story.

But what if you’re bored because you’re derailed and don’t even know it? Check your plot chart. Write out chapter summaries or summarize your scenes in point form. Ask yourself: where does the story begin and what is the disaster in the opening quarter that compels my charter to act? What is the story goal? What is the climax? What is happening to the protagonist between the middle and the end which makes it challenging for him to achieve his goals? It may be that somewhere in the swampy middle that you need to increase action and tension, up the stakes in order to make things dicier for your character and more exciting for yourself. This solution also works if you’re bored because your characters and plot feel boring.

Boredom may mean that you need a break. We get tired – it happens. Do something different for a bit: write a short story or a poem; paint the fence; go to a movie; bake something – give your brain a break and do something fun! Beware though that you aren’t using boredom as an excuse to procrastinate – that it’s an excuse to do the fun things and not write! If that’s the case, the surest way to quell boredom is by applying the BICFOK cure – Butt in Chair, Fingers on Keyboard.

Yawn! I’m not bored – I simply need a nap!

Share on Facebook

What do you do when you’re sitting there – ready to write or edit or meet that deadline – and you just aren’t inspired or motivated to do so?  Any distraction is a good distraction, right?  Sigh.

This is how I’ve been feeling recently, so I said to my friend, “I need some methods to keep me motivated when I feel blue and unmotivated.” And I sighed.  And then I remembered I needed to write this post.  Perfect timing to go find some methods to combat this melancholy or apathy or <insert your own feeling>.

After reading several articles… here is what I found.

Have One Goal – when we take on too much in our lives, it’s difficult to find energy and focus to accomplish our one goal.  Clear your plate, that other stuff isn’t going anywhere.  Make writing your one goal for a set amount of time and get to it.  I am notoriously guilty of over-loading my plate.  Must learn to say no.

Be Excited – Don’t write the scenes that you’re struggling with at this time, save them for when you’re on a roll.  Talk about, think about, find inspiration in the fun scenes, the scenes that you can’t wait to write.  That yummy sex scene or that juicy action scene.  We don’t actually have to write in a linear fashion. Yes… I’m guilty of this one, too.

Be Accountable – Post your goals for pubic viewing or be accountable to someone. I always get more excited about writing when I discuss it with my critique partner.  And, it always helps to have goals and accountability(see this post).

Be Positive – Be aware of negative self-talk or that all-too-critical self-editor we have in our heads and hush it up with some positive talk about how great it’s going to be when this scene is done and how we can always edit later.  Harder than it sounds, but practice helps.

Baby Steps – My mom is a great proponent of ‘people can do anything for fifteen minutes’.  So, write for fifteen minutes.  It may be crap and might get deleted later, but so what.  Write for fifteen minutes.  It may turn into two hours or two chapters.  If after the fifteen minutes, you still got nothing, then repeat the next day and the next… at some point the cobwebs will clear and your inner genius will come out to play.

Stick With It – NaNo is all about this!  Just stick with it, even a page a day results in a novel in year.   Focus on the baby steps and do it daily.  This also helps with creating a habit.

Make Writing a Habit – If you create a routine, you can create a habit and that can get you into your writing ‘head-space’ really fast.  Sit in the same place, play the same music, turn off your phone, get your drink, settle in… whatever you need to do to write.  Do it the same way, day in and day out and make it a habit. Then when you’re struggling, this can often get you into the zone because your body and mind know what they are supposed to do next… write.

Use Your Subconscious – If you have a scene you don’t know how to fix or a problem to solve or a plot line to repair, think on it just before you go to sleep.  Seriously, think about what you have already and what you need to continue as you are falling asleep and let your subconscious work it out.  I’m pretty sure mine is smarter than I am.  I always get what I need when I do this. 

So, I’m feeling better already and hey… I wrote this post when I didn’t want to write anything.

Any other suggestions?

Share on Facebook

In case you missed it, this month is National Write a Novel Month or NaNoWrMo (NaNo) for short.  Yea, I know. If you’re reading thos post, you know all about NaNo since we’ve been talking about it all month.

By this point, you should have written 31,654 words. I’ve written about 20,000. I’m almost 12,000 words “behind”. In the picture, can you see the black dog who’s looking up over the pack in front of him? Yea, that’s me. With only eleven days left in the month, I’d need to write almost 2,800 words a day to make it to the magic 50,000 word count. My chances of doing this are slim given my trial schedule for the rest of the month. Now, I’ve done it. I usually lag behind and spent most of Thanksgiving weekend writing. But that’s not likely to happen this year for lots of reason.

So, why push on? Why keep trying to hit that goal. Shouldn’t I just take my squeaky toy and head home?

NO. And neither should you.

“But why not?” you ask.

You can’t be a professional writer if you give up. The number one mandate of any writer is to FINISH the story. Keep slogging through it. Taking your toys and hiding out in your doghouse is not an option.

If you are struggling to meet your goal, whether its this month as part of NaNo or at any other phase of writing, redefine it. My husband, a criminal defense attorney, does this all the time. Most criminal cases that go to trial will end in a conviction. If your definition of “win” as a criminal defense attorney is an acquittal, you are going to have a short and frustrating career. Similarly, if your goal is a writer is to have all your stories make a billion dollars, get ready for disappointment. The husband defines “win” as any time he can get hisb client less than a full sentence.  As a writer, I define the writing portion of winning as getting to “the end.”  Every word I put on the page for NaNo is a win.  As long as you keep writing, you are winning.

I did a post a while back on my blog about writing when the world conspires against you or   inching toward success.  I find that when life conspires against me, I need to write to escape into another world and regain my balance. Use NaNo as a tool to help you inch toward success. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with aiming for 50,000 words and writing 30,000 or 20,000. The point is to write.

As Jonathan Coulter said in A Talk With George:

Enjoy yourself, do the things that matter

Cause there isn’t time and space to do it all

Love the things you try, drink a cocktail wear a tie

Show a little grace if you should fall

Don’t live another day unless you make it count

There’s someone else that you’re supposed to be

There’s something deep inside of you that still wants out

And shame on you if you don’t set it free.

To buy this fabulous song you can go to JoCo’s website or Itunes. It’s one that’s helped me over some real tough roads.

If you’re discouraged about your word count, there’s only one cure. Sit down in front of your keyboard and make the words appear. You can do it. And sometimes, there’s a cocktail waiting. Whether you write 500,  10,000 or 50,000 words, you can only succeed if you show up.  If you’re at the point that you need to redefine “winning” do it. There’s no shame in that. In fact, it’s a tried and true technique. You can find the time to write, even if it’s only 15 minutes a day. You can do this.

Inch by inch and word by word, you’ll cross that finish line. I’ll see you there.

Share on Facebook

Back over the summer I wrote a post on my blog about how I’d never run out of inspiration because I had children. You can find the post >here<.  The summer had my children (and I include my husband in this designation) building a boat in our pool (see, the photo). It also had the children playing putt-putt golf in a thunderstorm. Needless to say, at the first sign of lightning, my boys abandoned my husband, holding all the golf clubs, and bolted for our room. For more details, please check out my post on my blog.  Anyway, I have a somewhat colorful life. But sometimes even that’s not enough to get the words on the page.

Hopefully, you’ve read James A Owen’s fabulous post on this site. He might call it inspiration, but what he’s done in his life takes a whole heck of a lot of courage. He awes me.

A deep dark secret is I tend to lean toward the depressive side. It’s often hard to find the reason to get out of bed, or not crawl back into it, pull up the covers and hide in the dark once I’ve gotten out the first time. How strong the urge to hide is depends on what’s going on. My last three months have been chaotic. The law firm I was part of split up months before it was projected to and left me scrambling in the busiest month I had to make agreement for a new practice, whether it was solo, with most of the original partners but as an employee rather than a partner myself, or a new firm where I would likely be a partner by the end of the year. The woman I consider my second mother is dying of cancer. It was caught late, and  she opted not to undergo chemo. She’s getting hospice care now. My father has Lewey Body Dementia. It’s a nasty disease where, essentially your brain forgets how to talk to your body. He’s having more bad days than good.  My folks are trying to take a Disney cruise for their 51st anniversary this week, but now there’s a hurricane threatening. Thanks Sandy.  I have a crazy neighbor, and that’s a whole ‘nother story.  And that’s just a list of the big issues. There were, of course, other challenges. As a result, earlier this month, I learned what it took to break me. Not an experience I recommend to anyone or wish to repeat. So, lately,  my reason to get out of bed was solely that I had no choice.

Well, not solely. There were those pesky kids again. And the peskier husband. And James and his Superman ring.

Those pesky kids that spent all summer sailing that boat from one side of our very small pool to another. If we’d actually had a breeze, the boat probably would have broken the pool. But they loved it. My husband and I kept promising we’d get the boat out of the pool and into the nearby lake. Didn’t happen.  And the kids didn’t care.

We have fabulous kids even if they have no common sense. Even as I write this they are fighting over who has to change the “input’ for the TV so they get cable rather than snow. This fight become more ridiculous when you consider that the TV has to be turned on manually – we’ve lost the original remote and no universal one works with this TV- so my oldest was next to the button he needed to push to fix the problem had he waited 5 second instead of walking back to the sofa. Instead. I had to get up, go down stairs, yell/laugh at them for the lack of common sense and hit the input button. Sadly, this wasn’t their most asinine fight.

Here’s the thing, for me at least.  I’ve lived through some terrible things, and I’ll live through more as long as I keep seeing the sun rise. Although this last thought is a good argument for becoming a creature of the night. There are always going to be terrible things happening in life. Sometimes all those terrible things will happen at once.

And then there’s the Superman ring. For a very sick child, Superman became a symbol of hope. We still have James A. Owen because of it. Because of hope, James has found the strength to say “no” and the strength to go on through some really terrible things.

What’s my Superman?

My family.

My husband does fairly outrageous things to make me laugh. I can’t tell you what he just did without losing our “clean” rating, but I laughed so much I had tears streaming down my cheeks.  Where was I again?

Oh, yes, finding the strength to chase the life you want. Not the dream. Staying something is a dream means it’s not, and can’t be, real. You fight toward The Goal, the straight line James talks about. Life’s about finding the will to keep walking that thin line, even when you stumble, even whn you have to resist the urge to lie down and give up, it’s about moving forward when you have to crawl and your knees and hands are bloody from the effort.

You have to believe.

I believe in my sons’ laughs. I believe in fighting through one more day that brings me closer to The Goal. I believe that standing for what I want most makes me a better person for my family, makes me a better writer, makes me a better lawyer. Time in the crucible stinks, but it reforges us stronger.

What do I want most?

I want to spend more time with my family,  continue as a professional writer (to put the right words for the story on the page), and have the freedom to take the law cases I want, not that I have to to pay the bills.  I want to see my epic fantasy in print, to hold that book in my hands regardless of how long that takes. If I keep The Goal in mind, the choices I need to make are obvious, even though they are often not easy.  So, I get out of bed, throw the curtains open wide and get down to the job of life.

What do you want? What inspires you to keep pressing forward to that goal?

Share on Facebook

Everyone loves those moments of inspiration, when we get that light bulb flashing in our brains like a cop car in a high-speed chase. There’s nothing like those electric moments when it seems like the heavens open for us and the words write themselves. They are epiphanies that make life as a writer so magical.  They make us feel gifted and help us believe that we might actually have a shot at this crazy creative enterprise of writing fiction.

But, they don’t happen every day, do they? And you’ve got pages to fill and transitions to make to tie those multiple moments of inspired text come together into a cohesive whole. It’s hard when the muse has taken a coffee break and the fires of inspiration go cold. And to wait for that next inspired spark doesn’t get the words on the page, does it? Call it writer’s block, or a lack of motivation, those dry spells can really put the brakes on our egos and make us wonder if we really have what it takes to make it in the publishing world.

I’ll confess, I’ve been going through that second phase a lot lately. I suffer from periodic bouts of depression, and if you don’t know, that can make it really hard to be creative. Of course, my primary defense mechanism for fighting my depression is to wander off into flights of fancy that, when the bout passes, can make for some pretty cool story ideas. But most of this summer, I didn’t write a single word. Even getting a post up for this blog, at times, was a struggle. I started to wonder if maybe I should just put a cap on the idea of chasing that publishing dream.

But struggle doesn’t always have to be a bad thing. I don’t know about you, but there have been times when writing felt like pulling teeth. It felt forced and flat because the words just didn’t flow the way I thought they should. The prose fought me because I wasn’t in one of those inspired moments, but I had to soldier on to get the work done. The crazy thing is that, on re-reading those difficult patches later on, they tend to be far better than the stuff that flew out of my fingers.

So, here’s what I’ve learned. Maybe those moments of inspiration are just as fantabulous as they seem, and maybe the uninspired ones are hard, but we should never let our writing be guided only by inspiration. Love the gifts when they happen, but never let a reliance on those moments hamper our productivity, or make us doubt that we can or can’t do the thing we love—write a darned good story.

Share on Facebook

 I have a commitment issue.

Okay, maybe it’s better to say I have an overcommitment issue.

I describe myself as a mommy, writer, lawyer. Needless to say, each of those things is a full-time job. So, necessarily there are instances when the time required by each of them add up to more than 24 hours in a day. I’m in one of those periods right now.  But I’ll end up waking up at midnight, carving four hour of work out of the night, and then napping for a few hours before I have to get up to feed the horses. In other words, I make it work until I fall down. Not the best strategy but it’s who I am.

There are a number of downsides to this very A-type personality trait. One of which is when other people fail to meet their commitments to me, it is a source of annoyance. But, that’s a different post. Balance is the issue.

Most of us haven’t reached the point in our writing careers when we can give up the day job and write full-time. Those who do write full-time often work on more than one project at a time. Oh, the luxury of only having one thing to work on at a time. But, reality is that life rarely is that simple. We juggle. Animals need to be fed. Kids need to be reminded to shower. They need to be taken to school, or sports, or a friend’s house. We need to meet work deadlines, and get new work.  We need to write, and edit, and market our writing. And somewhere between managing our life, we need to live it.

There’s all sort of advise out there about how to fit writing into the rest of your life. You’ll often be told that we have to write every day. And that’s great. For when you can. I have a post on my blog about inching toward sucess – having low daily writing goals so I feel motivated to start every day. I was recently listening to Get-It-Done Guy’s podcast “How to Juggle Multiple Projects,” and realized his advise, as it often does, applied to many areas of my life.

So, how do I juggle? Sometimes very poorly. I do try to stay on top of my commitments so I can spent time with my family and honor all my other obligations.  The following is what (mostly) works for me:

First, I follow the Get-It-Done Guy’s advise.: prioritize my “to-do” list.

Second, I focus on one task at a time. Have you ever walked around in a circle because your attention is being pulled in too many directions? I have. My kids think it’s funny. My husband knows to get out of my way because a melt-down is coming. We’ve been sold this idea of multi-tasking, but we really can’t work on more than one thing at a time. Multi-tasking is really serial attention focusing. Focus on one item and work on it until done, or until you reach its time allocation, see #3 below.  I turn my e-mail alerts off and my phone to “do not disturb.” Because I’m not starting and stopping tasks, I generally can accomplish my goal for that session. Minimize distractions.

Third, I schedule my tasks by Time. I’ve been a lawyer long enough that I know that most routine matters will take a certain amount of time. If I need to write a memorandum that’s going to take 30 hours, I can break that time commitment up to 3 hours a day for ten business days.  Because I’ve broken down my time allocation, I can start without feeling overwhelmed. It’s only three hours after all. The Get-It-Done Guy takes this one further and suggests putting the time blocks on your calender. For me, this doesn’t work because I see all the working “appointments” and die just a little. The blocks of time on my calendar become a wall I have to overcome and create more stress for me as I run “late” between tasks. But it might work for you.

My writing time is 9 pm to 11 pm. I’ll write when I can steal minutes (the Get-It Done Guy also has a great post on maximizing and using down time), but those two hours a night are my time. I write blog posts, edit, review other people’s stories and write in that window.

Fourth, I try to set realistic goals. My daily word count goal is only 250 words and amounts to about 15 minutes of time. Remember my two hour window? The 250 word goal means that on any day I can write, I’ll met the word-count goal. Because the goal is so easy to reach, I can beat back the need to sleep to get it done. After all, it’s only 15 minutes. The nights I write I average 750 words? What does this mean, it means I generally meet my weekly word goal (1,750 words per week). Writing isn’t a chore for me when I think about it in these terms and get to mark a check in my “goal completed” column. If you are the kind of person who needs the tangible reminder, go ahead and make a chart to show when you’ve met your goals. I use a word-count comment in my WIP so I can see I’ve met that day’s goal.

Fifth, deadlines are your friends, but unlike real friends you should manipulate them. There are some deadlines you must meet, and others that are aspirational. Use aspirational deadlines in advance of any hard one. If I’m writing for a November 1 submission deadline, I’ll have a September 15 completion deadline. Why? I’m very deadline motivated. I will push off matters with later deadlines to get to priority items. The aspirational deadline builds in a “catch-up” window. It also ensures I meet the ”real” deadline without pulling an all nighter whenever possible.

Finally, I give myself a break. Not too long ago, I was in trial or other hearings nearly every day. Because my lawyer-ly matters were back-to-back my preparation time spilled out of normal office hours (7 am – 7pm – yea, I know – not so normal working times).  I was at the office trying to get exhibits ready until 2am the morning before a trial. Needless to say, I didn’t write that night or any night that week. I forgave myself for missing and started in fresh with the new week.

For me balancing my family’s, writing’s and day job’s obligations is a constant dance. With some planning, I manage to limit the times I stumble. I hope a look at how I work to keep a balance between the important pieces of my life will help you do the same. For me, it’s time to have dinner with the kids.

Check out my newest release from Musa Publishing: Jack Gorman Got Cut By A Girl. Karma is a bitch, and Jack Gorman is about to find out how much.

Share on Facebook

Recently I gave a presentation to a local writers’ group on the art of giving critique. To fully understand and engage in the critique process we need to first understand why we write, what a critique is, how an author can help the process and how to give a critique. In this blog, we’ll talk about why we write and why receiving a critique can be so difficult.

Why do we write?

When we understand why and what makes us so sensitive to feedback, it actually becomes easier to absorb the information we receive in an impartial way.

I, like many of you, write because I’m miserable when I don’t. As others need to breathe, so I need to write. We all write because we are story tellers – we have something to say, we see worlds and creatures and characters the average person does not, we give commentary about the human condition, our politics, our society, our values, our relationships – we are observers with a unique way of expressing ourselves – BUT most important, for us, writing is fun and it is who we are.

We have an idea – that is personal. We think. We sweat, we write and rewrite hoping that the story we tell is understood by others. The crux is that we, the writers become so intimate with the process and the material that it feels personal – and it is because every fabric of our being has been poured into the story.

So when someone doesn’t like what we’ve done and how we’ve done it, it feels personal even when it isn’t. But, when we focus on the need to express the characters and world we see, it becomes much easier to accept feedback.

This is not dissimilar to mining for gems. We find the diamond. It is rough. It is uncut. We cut. We polish. We wanting to reveal the heart of the stone – the heart we know is there. We work with experts who can help us get the angle just right on every facet. Then we polish until it sparkles.

Writing is no different. We have a gem stone of an idea. We hone our tools. We dig. We scrape. Sometimes we cut and reshape, making every facet as stellar as it can be. And then we must ask if others see what we do.

The critique process should help us polish our gems, to make the story stronger, to make its heart shine brighter. And, if you have a good critique group, they’ll help you do just that.

When we understand that our goal is to express an idea, to create a story which is both entertaining and enlightening, the feedback feels less personal, more constructive because we know that everything we do makes our gem shine brighter.

There are two other things to remember:

1) learning that the gem we polished isn’t as bright as it can be, hurts. And it can hurt a lot. That’s part of being human. Part of being a writer is understanding that and gracefully going forward by thoughtfully considering the comments.

2) the person giving the critique can get it wrong. As the writer you must also figure that out. But generally, most don’t get it wrong if there are problems with grammar, structure, story arc and character development. And let’s face it, if we don’t solve these problems before submitting, no editor will read the story, let alone help you polish your gem.

The next time we meet, we’ll talk about what a critique is and how to give a good critique.

Share on Facebook

I used to see getting published as something similar to a game of roulette. If I learned to write well and finished a short story or novel, I’d place a token on the table. With each rejection, I had to remove my token and place it on a different number. Of course, as I put more tokens on the table, my chances of winning went up. It would take a long time and a lot of tokens before the odds would be worth measuring, let alone in my favor.

Having recently published a short story in an anthology, the odds should be going up, right? I’m not so sure. And here’s the rub: New York is still the respected place to publish, and they’re still the people with the money and the resources…when they choose to spend them on their authors. So here are the options, as I see it, with their pros and cons:

The increasingly difficult option of getting an agent and publishing with a big New York publishing house doesn’t appeal as much as it once did, but they still have their plusses. They don’t seem to have more promotional power in the e-world as anybody else, not in terms of e-world shelf space, but they have more money for promotion. The likelihood they’ll put out that money for a new author? Slim to none. So what’s the point of going there? Some of the brick and mortars are still the place people go to find books, word spreads from there, and sells go up. They’re also one of the best places for book-signings and personal promotions. Only NY is truly effective in that field. But the big wigs are all about business. The author’s share of profits is low—understandable when you consider all the costs they cover, but still low. There has been talk of interesting accounting practices among the NY groups; I don’t know if it’s true, but it makes one wary. And their distributing efficacy is starting to waver.

So, let’s go through small publishers, right? Maybe. My anthology is through a small publisher, it’s available in hardcopy and through Amazon, but it’s not being distributed in bookstores. At least, not last time I checked. I’m still waiting to see how this model plays out. One very important point to note, some small publishers are giving a much larger portion of their sales to their authors. The downturn in sales numbers may very well be offset by that percentage of writer profit. But there are a million small publishers, and while most of them are good, some exist to rip you off, and others are incompetent. Makes me think of trying to find my way through a swamp.

So, let’s all self-publish. The author makes all the profit, has complete control over his/her property, and doesn’t have to worry about bossy people. Sounds great, right? Not so much. If you self-publish, the stigma still exists that your book must be crap. For a reason. Have you looked at the mountain of self-published works out there? Much of it wouldn’t make it past the slush-pile warehouse let alone into the possible considerations pile. How does anyone sift through all of that to find your gem of a story…or is it? A writer’s group is great, but without professional critique, acceptance, and editing, how do you really know if your story is truly good enough? It’s like throwing your time, money, and reputation at a wall so you can see if it sticks. Unfortunately, if it falls flat enough times, you’d better find another name.

So, is the conclusion to give up hope? Absolutely not. I think we’ve entered a wonderful new era where any model can work if we’re aware of the pitfalls.

New York can do a lot for a beginning author, but you’d better read the fine print, have your wits about you, and be prepared in case they stick you on the back burner and you’ve got to super-manage your own publicity. They have a lot of power; they can hurt you, or make you a star. You have to be prepared for the gamble.

Small publishers give you the critique and the gatekeeper, but find one with a good track record or at least a business model you believe in. That will take research, and you’ll still have to manage most of your own publicity. They don’t have tremendous distribution power or the funds to do a lot of publicizing, but a good independent company will back you up and give you the personal help you need to kick off your career.

And self-publishing can work, but you’ve got to make a reputation for yourself. From the very beginning you’ve got to be the promotion guru. If you have the guts to throw yourself out there, garner publicity, and spend a lot of time on the publishing process, go for it. One thing, though…make absolutely sure that what you’re selling is of comparable quality with your New York competition. Not in your opinion, but in MULTIPLE, reliable peoples’ opinions.

So pick your venue, keep writing, and do your best to succeed. The chips will fall where they may.

Share on Facebook

Creative people—for example, musicians, actors, artists, and yes, writers—are often considered a bit odd or ‘funny’ by the rest of humanity.  That’s okay, because the truth is we are different.  The drive to create a work that perhaps has no permanent utility yet still stands outside the creator can sometimes cause the creator to do things that are perhaps a bit daft, as our British friends might put it.

This can even be seen in the things we do to put ourselves in a space where we can create.  For example, I once read of a well-known cartoonist who literally could not work if he did not have one foot in a pan of hot water and the other foot in a pan of cold water.  (Unfortunately, the book in which I read that account seems to have not survived my most recent relocation, so I can’t give you a cite.)

At a slightly more mundane level, I can tell you of at least two or three pretty well-known science fiction authors who write best with metal-death music pouring from their stereo speakers at high decibel levels.  I know of at least two very successful authors whose work regimen is to write from about 10 p.m. to about 6 a.m, sleep in the early part of the day, then spend the afternoon and early evening with the spouse and kids before sitting down at the keyboard again at 10 p.m.  And there are always stories about someone’s writing for the day getting totally derailed because his/her coffee/tea/drink of choice was just not available and it blew his/her routine off the tracks.

So writers are often considered to be a species of odd ducks, and sometimes for valid reasons.

I never considered myself to be an odd duck, but the one thing I secretly took pride in was I could pretty much write anywhere.  Airport, coffee bar, hotels, airplanes; if I could get my laptop there and open, I could put words down regardless of the distractions around me.  The day job had me doing the road warrior gig several times over the years, so I had plenty of experience in working in places that were not home.  In fact, my personal best getting-lots-of-words-down-in-a-short-time record happened in a hotel room in Grimsby, England—6000 + words in five hours.  Truth.  Cross my heart.

So for a long time, I kind of felt like I was invulnerable as a writer.

Then came March of 2009.  Remember?  The housing bubble had burst, all the mortgage rocks had been flipped over and we were gagging at the putrefaction we found underneath, and the economy was on a greased slide to nowhere and it was getting there fast.

Skipping a lot of the details, the bottom line is that the day job laid off about 400 people, and one of them was me.  I found out in March 2009 I was going to be laid off, and at that moment my fiction writing dried up.  Withered.  Croaked.  I wasn’t actually laid off until December 31, 2009, but I knew it was coming.  And yeah, at first I was in shock, and angry, and all the typical emotions, but this wasn’t the first time I’d been out on the street, so my head straightened out pretty quickly—except for the creative voice.  I could write text for work without any problems at all.  I was serving as a Bible study teacher, and I could write study materials without a glitch.  Words just flowed.  But try to write fiction?  Wasn’t happening.

Fast forward.  I spent January through October 2010 in school picking up some education credits to help the job search.  Writing for the classes, no problem.  Fiction?  Uh-uh.  Oh, maybe a paragraph here and there, but nothing good, and no comfort at it.  I put that down to just the uncertainty of my situation

In November 2010 I got a new job with a great company.  Only problem with it was I had to move about 160 miles to take it.  And selling a house in 2010 wasn’t much easier than selling a house in 2009 would have been.  So it was back to the road warrior gig:  leave town on Sunday afternoon with a car full of clean clothes and food, come home on Friday night with a car full of dirty laundry, spend the week in a small hole-in-the-wall apartment.  (Not unlike being in college.)

I figured that with the new job, the uncertainty would be gone.  I had lots of experience at living in road warrior mode, and lots of experience at really producing words while doing it.  I thought, “Great!  Five nights a week in the apartment with nothing else to do.  I’ll get tons of writing done.”

Yeah, that’s how it should have been.  But the next ten months proved to be one of the most frustrating times of my life as a writer.  I was used to writing up to 2500-3000 words in an evening.  A night in which I only put down 1000 words was substandard for me.  Yet during those ten months, I would sit down night after night, spend two to three hours at the keyboard, and if I was very lucky I’d have 150 words.  A lot of nights I only had 50.  More nights than I care to think about I had 20, or 10, or none.  Truth.  And if I did get some words down, the next night I’d probably delete most of them as dreck.  But I kept trying.

It drove me batty.  I knew I could do better than that; a lot better.  But no matter what I tried, nothing primed the pump; nothing got the words flowing again.  You could have used me for a picture of frustration in the dictionary.  I was dying of thirst in a writing desert.  Still, I kept trying.

Fast forward again to August, 2011.  We sold our old house in the city we moved from and bought our new house in the city we moved to.  We moved in September.

After the move, I kept trying to write.  And to my surprise (and joy), slowly, bit by bit, it became easier to write.  The words starting to flow again—a trickle at first, but soon in a stream.  The volume of words produced each day started to grow.  At the beginning of December, 2011, I was consistently producing an average of 1000 words every time I sat down, which, while it’s not where I was pre-2009, was so much better than what I’d done in the last 2 ½ years I was ecstatic.  And then around December 15, it was like the muse opened the flood gate.  I wrote 40,000 words in a little over two weeks.  Joy, relief, happiness; oh, yeah, did I feel that.

So what made the difference?  What opened the door to my creative voice again?  I think it’s having a home.  When I was laid off, I knew that I would most likely have to move to get a good job.  I think that something about not having a home even in prospect just really shriveled my creativity, and it wasn’t until I got the new home and actually settled into it that it started to revive.  Makes sense to me.  So perhaps I am an odd duck after all.

What’s your bedrock?  What’s the one thing in your life that if it was removed, you wouldn’t be able to write?

I hope none of you ever land in that writing desert.  But if you do, the best advice I can give you is keep writing.  Persevere, even if you only get 30 or 50 words done in a day.  From my experience, when you get out of the desert you’ll still have the patterns and habits of writing, which means you’ll get back in the flow that much quicker.

Meanwhile, enjoy paddling around with the rest of us odd ducks.    Quack, quack.

Share on Facebook

You are a writer – whether you write something every day or not doesn’t change what’s in your soul. Deny it all you want. Procrastinate, make excuses, let life control your agenda, but deep down inside you know you’re driven to write because for you every written word is oxygen. Denying yourself oxygen is silly, even stupid, because to do so kills you. So here are eight things to do to keep you writing:

1) expect to rewrite

Perfect prose isn’t achieved with the first tapping of the keys. Good writing is complicated and may take a few tries to get all the aspects right and that includes things like grammar, the plot, character motivation, character interaction, voice, point of view and the hook. Writing is a creative process and creativity evolves and grows. Nothing is ever perfect the first time so get over it and write!

2) don’t get frustrated by your responsibilities

Family and work are responsibilities we all must honour. On that ride to work dictate your thoughts to a recorder. Go to work a half hour earlier and spend that extra time writing – every word counts! Don’t watch TV to relax after the kids have gone to bed – read a book (that’s research), work on your story or write a blog. And when the kids are doing their homework, do yours! There are days and months when demands are high and you can’t write but that’s not a reason to totally abandon your passion!

3) set goals and celebrate

Set realistic goals. 50 words a day, a week? Research and brainstorming for a month? Meet the deadline for a workshop or submission. Goals can be a moving target and that can be frustrating. But no goal means nothing to strive for and nothing will be achieved. Always celebrate when you reach a goal be it small or large. You’ve done something no one else has and that’s worth celebrating!

4) write what moves you

Don’t put off writing the novel because you’ve heard there are more markets for short stories. Don’t limit yourself to a novel when it’s a trilogy you want to write. And, write what moves you. If it’s the current popular fiction which sparks you, write that. If it’s something way out there, write it. If you’re not passionate about your story, the reader won’t be either.

5) don’t worry about the publishing industry

If you have a finished product, research the options for selling your work. BUT, if you’re still working on the first draft, don’t worry about it. The industry is changing and what you figure out today may not apply tomorrow. So write now. Worry later.

6) conquer your fears

Fear of failure, fear of sounding stupid, fear of being criticized because you’ve put your heart and soul into your creation and someone may not like it. Everyone has an opinion (including you) and it’s valid. For whatever reason, a publisher may not want your first book but that doesn’t mean it’s not publishable. Sometimes it’s the second or third book which gets published first and then the rest follow.

7) keep learning your craft

Expressing our creativity is a lifelong learning skill – that’s what makes it so exciting! Every time we learn another trick to hook and keep the reader, we’re closer to achieving our goal. Every new piece of information on craft, background research, on the publishing industry keeps our grey cells spinning and the oxygen flowing.

 8) love the kid in yourself

Sounds corny, I know. But remember, we’re just grown up kids with responsibilities. Using our magnified lenses called imagination and twisting our heads this way and that, we writers explore our world with wonder and excitement – just like kids do. And we have a fantastic tool, the written word, to relay that wonder to the rest of the world. So cherish that kid inside and let your imagination build those new and wonderful worlds.

And most importantly, have fun! Creating new worlds and sharing them with readers is the greatest fun any of us can ever have!

Keep writing!

Share on Facebook

I’ve always been big on goals. But evaluating them can get discouraging, especially as I rarely accomplish my goals. One of my kids asked me once, “Why set goals if you’re not going to accomplish them anyway?” I responded, “So I accomplish something.” There is more to life than destinations. There’s the journey.   Setting goals gives us direction.

Each year, as I evaluate my goals, it’s more than a checklist. It’s a compass reading. How much of my plan did I implement? What can I change so I can do the things required to reach my goal? Why and when did I lose sight of the plan? How can I approach the goal in a better way? How can I enlist support from friends/family? How should I change the goal so I can be more successful next year? If I achieved my goal, what else would I like to work on? This kind of self-evaluation corresponds with our writing goals as well as our personal ones.

We should never set goals for things outside of our control, like landing an agent or publisher, but there is so much within our grasp. When we evaluate our productivity goals– how much time was spent writing, the number of pages, chapters, or stories finished–we have an opportunity to see what worked and what didn’t. We can look at our habits and writing patterns and decide how best to get our BICFOK (Butt in Chair, Fingers on Keyboard) at our optimum writing times. We can evaluate what got in the way, why, and how to change it.

As for that agent/publisher, we can set goals to meet people, to submit our work, and to do anything and everything we are capable of making happen in order to encourage their acceptance of our work. In the end, though, it’s their decision.

Now, I’m coming to the end of the most unproductive month I’ve ever had. There are a few reasons for that: started planning for the holidays later than I should have, overextended myself to family and friends, didn’t take the time to write during the days like I usually would, and spent too much time in the evenings watching TV because I was too tired. In evaluating the way my goal progress tanked, I can make some decisions. I’ll set a date to start the holiday shopping, I’ll set time parameters for holiday projects instead of committing myself to unreasonable time-consuming activities, I’ll reduce the shows I follow and schedule when I’ll watch them instead of staying up late or letting it eat into my writing time.

Will I slip-up or forget some of these goals through the course of the year? Sure. Looking over them on a regular basis will help, but I’ve never yet achieved even half the goals I set for myself. But I usually get a few. There’s no reason to give up on goal-setting just because we fall short. The purpose is to give direction, not perfection.

So, good luck on setting your goals. Remember to keep them specific, attainable, and limit your focus to a few of the things most important to you. And if you don’t reach them all, that’s what assessment is all about; we always have the opportunity to keep trying.  As writers, that should be a concept with which we’re painfully familiar. Happy Writing in 2012!

Share on Facebook

I have found in my writing and in my life, that if I make a list, take notes, outline, plan – I will get whatever it is needs done just that much easier and quicker.

I’m talking about making a six month, one year, five year plan for your writing and for your life.  They aren’t the same, although sometimes it may feel that way.  As a sidebar – life is what feeds our writing, so don’t ignore it or you may find your writing drying up and getting stale from lack of fresh inspiration.

Family, friends, classes, the bowling league, hobbies, reading and the latest movie are not only food for your soul but food for your writing.  Do you know how high a priority they are?  Will you have that on your list in a year or five?  Think about it…

My friends know my schedule is hectic, so if they want to have time with me, it has to be scheduled.  I make time for my friends because they are important to me, but I also have to literally make time for them or they get lost in the craziness of my schedule.  They are a high priority and on my master plan, so that is covered. 

I recently had to turn down helping on an event in 2012 I really wanted to do because I didn’t have the time to commit to it.  Is it now on my plan for 2013? You bet it is.  I have a plan for it and other things will have to get sacrificed so I can participate, but that’s ok.  I’m planning ahead so I know what’s coming up, what needs done, and when.

What about your writing?  Will you have one book done a year, two a year, one epic and one novella?  What’s your goal?  What’s the plan to get there?  How are you going to accomplish it?  Do you write intently one weekend a month, a page a day, an hour a day?  All this planning helps you accomplish your goals. It really does. 

This is Clancy Lost

If you spend a little time planning ahead, you don’t have to think about it, you can just get on with what needs done.  An hour of planning on Monday for the week can save you several hours wasted while you figure out what you needed to do each day.

In my writing, I’m a plotter not a pantser, but I recently tried pantsing a novel.  I got a good start on it, about 30K and then I had no idea where I was going.  I knew how it ended but I had no idea the route to get there.  I was completely lost.  Now, I’m having to map my course so I can finish my story’s journey. 

I may be a little over-zealous on this planning issue, as I am the person who had a 47-page itinerary for a ten-day road trip from coast to coast, but maybe that’s just how I need to operate in order to get to my destination.  Some of you may be able to jump in the car and drive with no plan, but I suspect most will fall in between the two extremes. 

I’m just suggesting that you consider planning.  See if it doesn’t make things run smoother.  If you aren’t already a planner, try it as an experiment.  Figure out the goal for the week, day by day, and follow it.  Let me know if it helps. 

My goals for the next year?

Writing – Do my regularly schedule blog posts on all three of my sites, write at least 4 hours a day/4 times a week with a goal of finishing two books during the year, and actively submitting.

Life – Do not take on any more commitments, schedule time at least once a month with my “best-y”, schedule my days so they are more productive, and ensure my writing time is held sacred.

 Go forth and plan…Be ‘Fictorious!’

Share on Facebook

One of the things that the contributors to this blog do, as part of a larger community of writers, is to set goals for the coming week that we broadcast to each other. The things that we need to do, or aspire to do, written there and stated plainly to the others in our writing group. The following week, we not only make new goals, but we account for our progress on the old ones. It’s been a way that we can keep in touch with the goals of others, and act as encouragement for those who need it, or to celebrate in each other’s accomplishments. Sometimes we’ve cheered as someone gets a publication, and sometimes it’s been something as simple as praising someone meeting their quota of words for the week. It’s been a great way to keep in touch with what people are doing, and what people are hoping to achieve.

In another sense, it’s a way to keep each other accountable to our goals, even if the only sanction is a sense of shame at not having lived up to the standard you’ve set for yourself. There have been times where I have cheerfully and earnestly placed a goal – say something modest, like writing a few thousand words – only to fail at it, and then have to face up to writing that accounting the following week.

Sometimes I write my rationalizations – oh, what the hell, excuses. I was busy. I did this instead. I did that instead. Et cetera. Sometimes – the times when I really didn’t have an excuse – I just didn’t say anything. A flat, inflectionless statement of the coming week’s goals, as though last week’s mark had been completely forgotten.

Inevitably that leads to a sense of frustration and failure. Wracking up week after week of missed bars is not a good feeling, and there have been times when I have felt that keen frustration that comes achingly close to just calling the whole thing off, taking a hiatus, not bothering to keep up with the accounting.

This is the wrong way to go about it. If you’re at all like me – someone who has a desire to write, but has a whole lot of life in the way of it – it’s important to keep those goals, and those reckonings. But maybe they have to be shifted. Maybe this won’t be the year that the blockbuster gets written or the screenplay gets done. But maybe, if you can block off some time, hit your small achievable goals, well, that well keep the whole thing from turning into an inescapable morass of shame and failure.

For me, I have my final licensing exam for my medical boards in May. I will not have time to do much writing in these last five months – I just wont. Afterward, we’ll see. In the meantime, what goals can I achieve? How can I do enough to justify to myself that I am a writer, as opposed to some hobbyist with an unused laptop in the corner? Maybe for the next five months it will be blog posts, and small submissions to journals that carry prose and poetry in the medical humanities field. Maybe token goals – a scene a week, or a couple of hundred words. Something that won’t detract from the very real need to study for this exam, but will make me feel as though I’m still actively engaged in this equally important passion. A managed expectation, if realistic and still aimed toward the future, can still be an important one, and one that keeps you on the path forward until you can raise the bar higher once again.

Share on Facebook