Ron Toland
About Canadian Adventures Keeping Score Archive Photos Replies Also on Micro.blog
  • Keeping Score: 17 February 2023

    Started the new job this week! Which means I’m suddenly wondering how in the world I ever had time to write while working full-time 😅

    I’ve made it about halfway through the first editing pass on the novel. Well, I made it halfway as of Monday, but the rest of the week I’ve wrapped work feeling simultaneously too drained to be creative and too stuffed full of facts and process (from the company onboarding) to get anything done.

    It doesn’t help that said onboarding consists of four hours of back-to-back meetings, which is hard on this introvert. I’ve not had the Zoomies in a while, and this is definitely it 😬

    I’m telling myself to be patient, though, rather than beating myself up about not making daily progress. The onboarding will finish, the meetings will drop away, and I’ll eventually work those extrovert muscles enough to handle a 9-to-5 again (and be able to write after the work day is done). Plus, there’s always the weekend. And there’s a long one coming up, so I can carve out some time (and spoons) to play catch-up.

    Wish me luck!

    → 6:55 PM, Feb 17
  • Keeping Score: 10 February 2023

    As you can imagine from my last post (and lack of posting through Nov, Dec, or Jan), absolutely nothing went as planned, writing-wise, over the last three months.

    NaNoWriMo? Sure, I got 16,000 words into it before crashing and burning. Now I have two incomplete novels sitting on my laptop, waiting for me to pick them back up 😬

    The TCF? Dropped it. Okay, I delayed it first, then dropped it. There was simply too much else going on, between racing to get to the PR finish line and interviewing for a new job. And the holidays. I’m still studying French, mind, but I’ve had to let go of the idea of getting tested on it, for now.

    Ditto the Clarion West classes. I attended a few sessions of the mystery-writing one, but the homework (a new story every week) overwhelmed me, and the lectures + feedback turned out to be less valuable than I thought. So I backed out of the other classes, too, freeing up time in my schedule to deal with everything else that was happening.

    I did get two new stories out of the class, though. True, one of them I didn’t finish until January, and then only by ignoring the parameters of the original assignment. But still. One of them I think might be a trunk story, but the other (the January one) I’m really rather fond of, and plan to polish up for submission…later 😅

    On the good news front, I did keep up with my critique group (bless them for putting up with me), and we’re almost to the end of the prison-break-in-space novel I wrote a few years ago (fourth novel completed, second sci-fi book, prior to the two unfinished novels were started). So I’ve gone back through their feedback up to this point, distilled it to a set of edits to make, and have started in on actually making those edits.

    I know, this is what you’re supposed to do with novels, yes? Write a first draft for yourself, do a second draft for others to read, and then edit, edit, edit based on feedback and your own reads before sending it out to agents.

    Well, I’ve got the first part down — four novels in first draft stage — and I’ve done the second (for this book, anyway), but I’ve never gone past that point. Always started a new book rather than revise the last one.

    But not this time! I’m going through the thing, chapter by chapter, editing as I go. Most of the feedback I received concerned physical descriptions and layout, so that’s what I’m working on first. Which means, oddly enough, adding material instead of chipping things away. So the book’s getting longer, not shorter, as I work on this revision.

    If all goes well 🤞I think I’ll have the edits wrapped by May. Which is not that far away, all things considered! Then it’ll be time to compile a list of possible agents, and start shipping out query letters.

    What about you? If you did NaNoWriMo, how did it go? If you didn’t, have you made any writing goals for 2023, and how are they coming along so far?

    → 10:31 AM, Feb 10
  • Keeping Score: 4 November 2022

    So I signed up for NaNoWriMo this year.

    “But,” I hear you say, “you’re already studying for the TCF in December, trying to put together the last pieces for your permanent residence application, taking three classes from Clarion West online, and supposed to be finishing those short stories you started over the summer. How are you going to also write 50,000 words in a new novel?”

    And, well…I have no idea.

    But! I want to try, for three reasons:

    1. I’ve noticed lately my writing output has slowed. A lot. Used to be I could crank out 500 words a day, no problem. Now I’m struggling to get even a hundred words down. I need something to kick me back into gear. NaNoWriMo can act as that something.
    2. The short story I’ve been working on — the sci-fi story that started as flash and then grew to 8,000 words in a second draft — has grown even more. I don’t know what the word count is, because I’ve been writing it out by hand. But when I stepped back and wrote up an outline, it looked very much like one of my novels. Not a short story. And if I’m going to be writing a new book anyway to finish this out, what better way to get it started than during NaNoWriMo?
    3. Failure is an option. All of this is voluntary, with the exception of the PR application (fingers crossed I get invited soon, and can get my paperwork together in time). I can drop out of the Clarion West classes without any hassle. And if I don’t hit 50,000 words this month on the novel, so what? So long as I push towards it, spend more time writing, and make progress on a new book, that’s enough.

    Number 3 there is really important to me. I don’t want this to become a source of stress. I want it to be motivating; a challenge, not a directive. So I’m letting myself be okay with flubbing the first two days, when I only cranked out 400 or so words. Last night I put in over a thousand, and it felt great (I rewarded myself with some leftover Halloween candy). If I can keep that pace up, and do a little extra on the weekends, I’ll make the goal. And if not? Well, at least I’ll have a solid start to the next book.

    If you want to follow along with my stumbling progress, my username is mindbat and my project is here. Hit me up, and let’s be writing buddies!

    → 9:05 AM, Nov 4
  • Keeping Score: 10 June 2022

    Started the first draft of the new horror story this week, but just barely. Managed to bang out a single scene before my brain came to a screeching halt.

    At first I was scared, thinking my writer's block had come back. But after a day to calm down, I figured it out: I still needed to edit the flash pieces I banged out last month. My writing brain -- who commutes between my subconscious and Tír na nÓg, I call them Fred -- wasn't ready to move on to a new story just yet. Outline, sure, but draft? No way. Edits first.

    So I've mostly been editing. Two of the flash pieces I wrote are ready to go. A third is on its second draft, but I think it needs a third major one before any fine-tuning passes. I had an idea for gender-flipping one of the characters that I think will make the dialog more interesting (because it'll bring out more of each character's personality) and easier to follow (because the dialog tags will be different).

    I've also been (kind of) editing my prison break novel. As I mentioned before, I've joined a writing group, so I'm using it as my submission -- 2,500 words at a time -- for each session. We're using Google Docs for sharing, which I thought would be annoying (ok, it is annoying) but has given me a chance to edit each section before I copy/paste it into the shared doc. It's mostly cleanup edits: Fixing a typo here, reworking a bit of dialog there. But it's making the draft stronger, and they're giving me some very useful feedback on it (like catching that a character didn't bother to put on a pressure suit before heading out an airlock!).

    It'll take us (as a group) a while to get through it all, but I'm hoping at the end of it I'll have a firm sense of what needs to be updated in one more editing pass before I can start sending it out to agents. Then maybe I'll start (finally) editing the novel previous to that one, and so on and so forth, till they're all edited and all out on sub. Meanwhile, I can keep churning out short stories, and work to find each of them a publishing home.

    Wish me luck!

    → 9:51 AM, Jun 10
  • Keeping Score: October 22, 2021

    I've finally made it to the other side of my writer's block. I'm back to working on the novel, hitting my word count every day.

    Thank goodness.

    It wasn't any one thing that got me through it, either.

    i started reading again, sprinting through two novels that'd been sitting on the To Be Read pile for a good while. They were both excellent, they were both slightly outside my normal genre, and they were both kindling to re-light the writing fire inside me.

    I leaned into my schedule disruption, which meant calling a halt to my exercise routine for a week. I know, you're not supposed to do that; it's the exact opposite of the advice most folks give about writer's block ("take a walk", "clear your head", etc). But it helped me to relax, to feel like I had all the time in the world to write, which made it that much easier to find my flow.

    And I read a few chapters in the new Pocket Workshop book by the Clarion West Writer's Workshop. Specifically, Eileen Gunn's chapter on writer's block calmed me down significantly. It reminded me that blockages happen, and pushed me to interrogate it, rather than ignore it.

    By forcing me to really look at why I was blocked, to listen to what the block was trying to tell me, I found my way forward. I realized that the novel section I was working on wasn't working, really, and that's why I was blocked on it. It was too passive, for one. Where the previous flashback section was very much driven entirely by the narrator's actions, the current section was one where a lot just happened to her. Or where she stumbled across things, and reacted to them. It wasn't compelling, and my subconscious knew it, but my conscious mind wanted to carry on like nothing was wrong.

    So my subconscious went on strike. Writer's block.

    I spent a few days brainstorming ways to change the section, to make it driven by the narrator. And suddenly my writing brain kicked back into gear, generating conversations and visualizing scenes again. Not all of them lined up, but that's ok, that's part of the process.

    In the end, I decided to trash the 5,000 words I'd written for the current section of the book. Goodbye, gone.

    And started over.

    But now, this time, the words are coming much more easily. I can sit down in the morning and get my word count in, without worrying about being blocked, or not knowing where I'm going. The narrator -- the protagonist of this section -- is back firmly in control of things, and that's how it should be.

    Instead of somehow wandering from Central Asia to Europe, she's fleeing there, from the consequences of her own actions. Instead of stumbling on a town with a dragon problem, she's seeking it out, because it's the only way she can keep a powerful curse at bay.

    She still faces constraints, of course. But the way she overcomes her challenges within those constraints is her choice, no one else's. And that...that makes it a lot easier to write down her story.

    What about you? Have you had a period of serious writer's block, that you then worked through? How did you overcome it?

    → 8:00 AM, Oct 22
  • Keeping Score: October 8, 2021

    I'm...well, I'm blocked.

    Written perhaps 300 words on the novel in the last two weeks. No work on any short stories, no editing...nothing else.

    I did finish the outline of the section I'm working on. It's just when I sat down to start writing it, I just...didn't. Couldn't find my way back into the story.

    Part of it is time; my morning schedule's been chopped to bits, lately, and my afternoon schedule is gone because I've been working later (and as soon as I get off work it's time to start making supper). And at lunch, well...at lunch I just want to turn my brain off for a while.

    Part of it, too, is I'm just tired all the time. I wake up tired, I exercise tired, I sleepwalk through making dinner and fall into bed at the end of the day. My jammed finger from August still hasn't healed -- I have to pop it back into place every morning so I can bend it -- my right thigh is sore every time I stand, and that foot will just give out without warning, sending me flailing for the nearest chair or counter to grab hold of for support.

    Mentally, too, I'm worn out. It's like the part of me that makes decisions is just done, completely finished, and refuses to make a single new one. Decide what to wear? Nope, grab whatever's on top of the pile. Decide what to eat? Nope, get the same thing every day. Decide how this scene is going to play out? Nuh-uh, try again. Decide what other writing project to work on to get around the block? Hahaha, not a chance.

    What's really frustrating is that I want to work on the novel. I want to finish editing my short stories, and send them out, and then write the exciting scenes I've planned out for the book, and maybe start a new short story, and...so much. But I reach the end of each day, and nope, nothing.

    I'm...not used to feeling this way. Used to feeling lost in the book, sure, given my tendency to write my way through it rather than outline. But not used to knowing where I want to go, and how to get there, but not having any fuel in my mental tank to get there.

    Not sure how to get that fuel back. Maybe read more? I took a break after reading the last two books, and maybe that was a mistake. Maybe my horror movie binge for October needs to be a horror novel binge? Or something completely different, maybe I need to read nothing but cozy mysteries for a while.

    What I fear is that this means I need to put the novel away for a while. I've heard of other writers doing that, hitting a blockage and setting the work aside for a year or two, before picking it back up again. I've also heard of writers that set something aside and never pick it up. The latter's what I'm afraid of. I want to finish this book. Finishing things...it's part of my identity. Letting that go would be very, very hard.

    Which is maybe why I'm blocked? Too afraid to let go, but too tired to go on? sighs We'll see.

    → 9:30 AM, Oct 8
  • Keeping Score: September 24, 2021

    Zero words written on the novel this week.

    The little parts I was writing last week, based on the outlining I did, ran out of steam. Turns out a single day of outlining isn't enough for a section that's probably going to end up being 30,000 words!

    So this week I hit pause on drafting. Instead, I've spent each day's writing time on outlining and research, trying to build a path forward.

    Eh, that's not quite right, either...More like, I started out the week with an idea of the beats this part needs to hit. Character X needs to meet Character Y in Town Z. There's a Guild-sponsored dragon hunt, which both compete in. Something something something, they become friends.

    Which is not a lot to go on! So this week I've been drilling into the "why" and "how" of things: Why is Character Y in Town Z? Why does anyone in the Town care about dragons? Why this Guild in particular? How does Character X find out about the competition? How do they meet Character Y?

    That, in turn, has pushed me to do some more research into the history of the region, looking for answers about government structure, merchant shipping, relations between nobles and peasants, etc etc etc.

    And it's working! I stumbled upon an historic event that fits exactly with my generational timeline, and explains why Character Y is in town (and why they might join in a dragon hunt). It's settled a lot of other questions I've had about the book -- like when precisely in history everything is taking place -- and even adds extra depth and drama to some later events.

    So, am I ready to get back to drafting? Not yet. I've only got the first third or so of this section outlined so far. I need to work through the hunt itself, and its consequences, before I'll feel comfortable putting fingers to keys again.

    Hopefully that'll be sometime next week. Wish me luck!

    → 12:00 PM, Sep 24
  • Keeping Score: September 17, 2021

    Did I say I'd spend time outlining last weekend? How naive I was! No, last weekend was all house chores, with a single break -- a fantastic break -- to celebrate a friend's new job.

    So I did the outlining on Monday, and wrote Tuesday, and Wednesday was...a lost day...and went back to writing yesterday. And now it's Friday, and I've only hit half my word count for the week. I've got some catching up to do.

    And editing -- that second flash piece I wrote last month needs another draft -- and story submitting. It's a lot to juggle!

    But I've got today off, thank goodness, so there's a good chance I'll get some of it done before the weekend. And who knows? I might sneak some work in on Saturday or Sunday as well.

    Meanwhile, the approach of fall has me feeling the need to be in a class again, leveling up my craft. I recently discovered Cat Rambo's Academy for Wayward Writers, and its set of self-paced classes looks like just the ticket. I think I'll start with the one on editing (since knowing when to stop editing is something I struggle with) and go from there.

    → 8:00 AM, Sep 17
  • Keeping Score: September 10, 2021

    Steady progress on the novel this week, even though the plot of this section is getting away from me.

    I had an outline for this part, I swear. But that outline’s nearly a year old now. The characters have shifted, both in my head and on the page.

    As a result, they’re doing and saying things that are blowing holes in my outline large enough for the Ever Given to sail through. A single representative of a merchant guild has become an entire squabbling panel. An orderly interview morphed into an impromptu witch trial. Three characters that were supposed to be at cross-purposes are now joining up to hunt dragons on the sea (!).

    I’ve managed to wing it, so far this week. But I’d like to have some time this weekend to rework my outline, and plot out the new sequence of events, given how much has changed.

    I could keep winging it, I suppose. But experience has taught me that without an outline, or some kind of guide, this first draft will end up being even rougher than normal. And it's already going to be intimidating enough to revise a novel this long. I don't want to be creating more work for myself down the line.

    So: an outline there will be, if not this weekend, then first thing next week. After all, you don't want to go sailing in search of Baltic dragons without a map!

    → 8:00 AM, Sep 10
  • Keeping Score: September 3, 2021

    Novel broke through 60,000 words this week!

    I'm back to working on it every day, so far. Picked up my brush, so to speak, and went back to filling in different pieces of the section I'm on. I'm still jumping around a lot, as different things occur to me (and as mental blocks come up for any one piece), but that's just how this book is going, I suppose.

    I am starting to get tugs to go work on other stories, though. Had solutions to two big problems with my first novel just drop into my head the other day, which made me want to pick that back up and edit it. Also there's a short story I've been noodling on for several months, that I figured out how to tell just last week.

    But I'm trying to hold to the novel for now, at least till this section of it is done. I know if I pull away for too long -- longer than two weeks, say -- the chances are I won't come back and finish.

    Which doesn't sound like me, but...it's just so dang big, this book, both in scope and in final word count, that I'm still intimidated by it. Some days I wonder if it's worth it to finish, if I have it in me to pull something like this off. Not to mention concerns with getting all these different cultures and time periods right, in terms of representation. I'm far outside my comfort zone, here, and it's hard not to look back at the cozy interiors of a smaller story and wonder if I should just go back inside.

    But not yet. I want -- I need -- to get this draft done first. I think taking breaks, to work on shorter stuff, is good, and I'll keep doing it. Work that into my mental schedule, so to speak, so that I let myself work on something else after each big chunk of the book is done.

    But I'm going to finish, even if it takes me another year to do it. After all, I've got no deadlines, no publisher waiting on this. When am I ever going to get the chance to do something this risky again?

    → 8:00 AM, Sep 3
  • Keeping Score: August 20, 2021

    Not much to update this week. I've taken the week off from writing altogether, in order to make our staycation feel more like a real vacation 😎

    Hope your own writing is going well, and that you also give yourself a break every now and then, to recharge and regroup ❤️

    → 8:00 AM, Aug 20
  • Keeping Score: August 13, 2021

    Wife and I are doing a bit of stay-cation now that she's back from Arkansas, and thank goodness. It's a chance for us to re-connect, but also relax after having to each carry a (separate) household on our own.

    And it's also a chance for me to spend a little more time writing than usual 😀

    As a result, I've drafted a new short story, gotten mid-way through a first draft of a second, and still written over 600 words on the novel. Both the stories are very short; one's 800 words -- so would qualify as flash in most markets -- and the other's currently at 1,300 words, so will likely finish around 3k. They're both a little darker than usual (maybe too dark), so I'm not certain they'd be sellable, but they've been fun to write, so 🤷‍♂️

    They've also been a nice break from the novel, which has let my brain go from "I have no idea how to write this section" to "Ok, here's the map, I'll make up the rest." I've taken the outline I wrote up last week and started filling it out, using the "dabs of paint" method that has become my go-to for this book.

    I've always heard from other authors that you have to learn to write each book anew, and in this case it's true; my only way forward has been to completely change my technique, from one where I write the whole thing through front-to-back, to one where I write little pieces as they come to me, and then slowly fill in all the gaps till everything meets up and the section is done. I end up doing more editing of the draft early on, in order to make everything line up, but doing it this way frees me from worrying too much about getting everything "right" in this first draft (which would be impossible).

    What about you? Do you find yourself radically altering your writing process for each book? Or is it more of a slow refinement over time?

    → 8:00 AM, Aug 13
  • Keeping Score: August 6, 2021

    I've not written a single word for the novel, this week.

    It's been a mad scramble to get everything lined up at work before I go on vacation for the next two weeks. Plus my wife's coming home after a month away tomorrow, so I've been getting the house back into presentable shape 😅

    So this week has been a bad one for words on the page. I haven't been entirely idle on the writing front, though. Two of the four short stories I wanted to edit are done, and I've sent them both out to different markets (one got rejected 48 hours later, so I need to send that one back out, but still). I've also stolen some time to plot out the current flashback sequence in the novel, discovering some things along the way about the main character and her experiences.

    And I've been putting together my short book reviews post for last month. Slowly. But steadily.

    I'm hoping to catch up on my actual word count today, as the first day of my PTO. If I can get my chores done first, of course 😬

    → 8:00 AM, Aug 6
  • Keeping Score: July 30, 2021

    One short story down, three to go.

    I managed to get the final edits done last weekend for one of the four short stories I'm working on. Submitted it to a market, too, who promptly rejected it three days later 😅

    So I need to send it on to the next market. And use this weekend to edit the next short story, so I can start sending it out, too.

    My goal is to get at least one done every weekend, so by the end of August I’ll have all four circulating to different markets.

    Meanwhile, I’ve been pushing the novel forward. Wrapped up the bridging chapter I’ve been working on these past few weeks, and finally started on the second of the three big flashbacks.

    The sequence of events for this flashback's still a little vague in my head. May take some time this weekend to outline it out, try to make it all clearer. Always a bit easier to get through each day’s writing when I know where I’m going!

    → 8:00 AM, Jul 30
  • Keeping Score: July 23, 2021

    Novel's hit 57,665 words!

    I've finally had a week where I've hit my word goal every day (so far). I've had to trick myself into doing it -- thinking "just write 50 words, and if that's it, that's fine" to start -- but it's worked.

    I'm wrapping up the "bridging" chapter I've been working on, one that advances the main plot while setting up the second of three flashbacks. This chapter started out as just a scattering of dialog, much of it out of order (as it turned out). Over the past few weeks I've been layering in blocking, then descriptions, then thoughts, as well as stitching the different pieces together (via more dialog, blocking, etc). I confess I wasn't sure until yesterday that I could actually get the beginning and the middle conversations to link up, but somehow it's all come together.

    At least, in a first draft sense. This whole thing might have to be trashed and re-done for the second draft, who knows? But I can't get to that second draft without finishing the first one.

    It's good that I've been hitting my word count for the novel already this week, because I need to spend the weekend working on my short stories. I did a count recently and discovered I have four that are just one more draft away from being ready to submit to magazines. Considering I currently I have nothing on submission, it's time to polish those stories up and start sending them out. Maybe rename one or two (like everything else, my first passes at titles are...terrible). And there's that previous novel sitting in the corner, waiting for its third draft.

    Too much to do. But thank goodness I don't have any hard deadlines. I'll get to the stories, and the third novel draft, and finish this current book. All in good time (but seriously I need to wrap these up so I can get to some of the new ideas I've been having...)

    → 8:00 AM, Jul 23
  • Keeping Score: July 16, 2021

    I'm back to something of a normal writing schedule, finally. I'm not always getting my writing done in the morning, like I'd prefer. Often having to squeeze it in over my lunch break, or between getting off work and cooking dinner. But I am getting it done, thank goodness.

    Weekends are still my best option, though. Having a long block of unbroken time lets me tackle things that require more focus, like editing a short story (which I got done this weekend, and started sending out to beta readers). If only weekends were longer, eh?

    The best thing that's started happening recently, though, is that I'm getting ideas again.

    Before the pandemic, I'd stumble across an idea for a story (short or novel) multiple times a week, sometimes multiple times a day. i'd capture it in whatever notes software I was using at the time (I've been through several, don't judge me). Starting a new project was a matter of rifling through those ideas to find the one that resonated with me the most, while telling myself I'd get to the others "someday."

    That all dried up in 2020. It's like that part of my brain went to sleep, waiting for a time when I wasn't worried about surviving the week.

    It makes sense that it would, but I missed it. Even though I thought I knew why it was gone, I wondered if it would ever come back. If I would ever be an idea-generator again.

    But thankfully, it has! Over the last week or so, I've been coming up with story ideas -- most of them novels -- every other day. Bits of dialog come to me, or a scenario that I'd thought about before suddenly clicks with something I read, and the seed of a story is made.

    Some of them are about novels I've already written. I may have mentioned the four novels I have in draft form (3 first, 1 second), a, um, embarrassing habit of mine that I intend to correct soon. I'd thought that all but the last would end up trunk novels, but lately I've been getting ideas on how to tighten up the others, things to trim and change to make them better. And you know what? I might just pull them out of the trunk after all.

    I mean, in the end it's my body of work, and I can do with it what I please, right? Maybe they won't sell, even if I edit them all, but editing them will be good practice. Especially if I do it deliberately, getting better each time. So eventually I will draft and edit a novel that'll sell.

    ...you know, if I can just find the time for all of that 😅

    Anyway, I'm happy to be generating ideas again, even if they sometimes distract me from the novel I'm currently drafting. Welcome back, formerly missing part of my brain!

    → 8:00 AM, Jul 16
  • Keeping Score: July 9, 2021

    This week has been a bad one for writing.

    It started out well enough, mind you. Got a blog post written and some plotting done on Monday, and actual words down on Tuesday.

    But the rest of the week has been a wash. Wednesday was a blur, between work, getting the dogs to the boarding people, and prepping the house for having the power shut off on Thursday. Yesterday I got up early, packed, drove out to the hotel I was going to work from, and rushed right back home as soon as the power was off.

    And no, spending all day working in a hotel where no one else was masking was not conducive to being creative 😬

    So here I am, end of the week arriving and only 271 words written. I've got a lot of catch-up to do this weekend.

    Wish me luck.

    → 8:00 AM, Jul 9
  • Keeping Score: July 2, 2021

    Novel’s crossed 54,000 words!

    I’m back to writing it in a scatter-shot way. Skipping up and down a chapter, scribbling down dialog or blocking or scene descriptions as they come to me.

    The current chapter's proving particularly difficult to write in anything like a linear fashion. There's just so much for me to cover, to bridge the time between one lengthy flashback and the next. I've got to deepen the two main character's relationship, continue to express one character's coming to terms with their recent debilitating injuries, and set things up for the next bridge after the second flashback.

    It's a lot, and as a result, the draft of this chapter is a jumbled mess. I've got dialog for one line of conversation scattered across three different scenes, and none of it ties together. Yet.

    I keep telling myself the first draft is supposed to be messy, but this is just...the most confused thing I've ever written, so far. How am I going to pull together a coherent chapter from this?

    Speaking of coherence, I'm also trying to edit the short story I drafted last month. And at some point I do need to start in on a third draft of the novel I was working on most of last year. I've not yet gotten a novel through enough drafts to be ready to send it out to agents, and it's high time I finally did.

    But time...time is the problem. If I'm working on the new novel, I'm not editing the short story. If I'm editing the short story, I'm not editing the novel. And if I'm editing the previous novel, I'm not making progress on the current one.

    How can I square this circle? How can I find the time to not just work on, but finish, all these projects?

    → 8:00 AM, Jul 2
  • Keeping Score: June 25, 2021

    Screw it, I'm putting more magic in my fantasy novel.

    Up to this point I've been careful to keep it magic-lite. I wanted to make things as close to historical as possible. Did -- and continue to do -- my research, mixed in my own experiences with the locations involved, and restrained myself to just the one change (dragons!) and nothing else.

    But now, 50,000 words in, that's boring me. So I'm letting it go.

    Mind you, I’m not going all-out. I’m not suddenly dropping in some fireball-throwing wizards or wisecracking elves (though fireball-throwing, wisecracking elves does sound like my cup of tea 🤔)

    I’m taking the fantastical elements of the book, and strengthening them. Taking what had been a vague psychic connection, and making it both stronger and more specific. Like turning up a dial in the sound mix.

    That’ll give it a more prominent role in the story, and provide another tool I can use to complicate things for my characters. rubs hands together It’s going to be fun.

    What about you? Have you ever gone into a story with a set of self-imposed constraints, only to shatter them later?

    → 8:00 AM, Jun 25
  • Keeping Score: June 4, 2021

    I finished the eternal section!

    Finally laid down all the connective text it needed. Final word count: 34,089 words, for just that one part of the book (!).

    It's a huge milestone. Means not only that I can move on to the next part of the book, a shorter interlude before the next large chunk, but I'm about 1/3 of the way through the book as a whole: 49,594 words. I said this was going to be a door-stopper, right?

    I feel like I need to take a moment and look back at where I started. Not to brag, but just to survey the view from this part of the summit, so to speak. Because otherwise the moment's going to be lost, mixed in with all the others spent putting one word in front of the others, trudging up the slope.

    When I started out on this book, last November, I had a plan in a very loose sense of the word. I knew the beats I wanted to hit, and the general shape of the story, but that was it. I didn't really know who these characters were, or what could motivate them through these events. I also didn't know if I could even write this kind of historical novel, where I leap from the shores of the Baltic Sea to the Central Asian steppe and back again.

    But I have. I can. It might be junk, but the first draft of the steppe sequence is done. I conjured up a whole family from scratch! I worked out how to track a dragon across the plains. And discovered how a pre-teen could summon her inner strength to strike back at that dragon for her father's death.

    That's not nothing! Again, it's just the first draft, and I can already see that it'll need a lot of edits. But after months of grinding away at it, wondering if I'd ever see real progress, wondering if I should just stop and spend my time doing something else, I can take heart in knowing that this piece, at least, is done. And if I can finish one section, I can finish the others. One word at a time.

    So take heart, if you've been feeling like me! Like the work is never-ending. Afraid that none of it will be worthwhile.

    Because eventually you'll summit that mountain. And you'll look back at where you started, and wonder how the hell you've come so far.

    → 8:00 AM, Jun 4
  • Keeping Score: May 28, 2021

    So I didn't quit. Not this week, at least :)

    Only 686 words written so far, though, so I'll need to play catch-up today and tomorrow, once again. I seem to end up skipping my writing for the day at least once a week, so a Friday writing marathon might end up being a regular habit. Which is fine with me, actually...wrapping up my writing in a final burst feels like a good way to roll into the weekend.

    And I've finally got enough distance from the horror story I drafted -- about two weeks -- that I can go back and start revising it now. Which'll be a nice break from the novel (again), because ye gods I'm tired of the section I've been working on. Writing in skip-around mode works for getting me past blockages, but makes sewing up all those missing parts kind of a drag. And it makes that connecting process a skip-around of its own, but an involuntary one, so just as I get in the flow for one area, I hit the words I've already written, and need to skip ahead to the next missing piece.

    It's tedious, and tedium makes it hard to push myself to get the writing done. Because it needs to be done, those missing pieces need to be filled in, lest I end up with something of a half-told story.

    But it's not very fun. The fun parts I've already written! That was the good thing about skipping around. Now I'm in the bad part, which is...well, something I've got to grit my teeth and get through.

    On the other side of the tunnel of tedium is the next chapter though, where I've got to write about bodily trauma and some inner psychological horror as changes take hold in the point-of-view character. That'll be fun...so long as I can convince myself I know what I'm doing when writing about this kind of physical trauma 😬 I might want to set aside a day or two for some research...

    → 8:00 AM, May 28
  • Keeping Score: May 14, 2021

    I finished the rough draft of the short story!

    It topped out at 5,157 words, which is a little longer than I'd like. Most of the markets I want to try to sell into have a cap of around 5k. But I should be able to trim it down enough during editing that it'll squeeze under the limit.

    So I'm setting that aside for a couple of weeks, to get some distance on the story before I try to revise it. I'm picking the novel back up, meanwhile, trying to finish the same interminable section i was working on when I pivoted to the short story.

    I say interminable because it seems I keep finding gaps in the story that I have to fill in now. I'll be scrolling along, watching a continuous flow of words, when there's a break in the narrative. And I have to stop, scroll back up, get back into the "mood" of the particular scene, and then spin a bridge across to the next one.

    It's a little tedious, but only in the sense that I can't believe I left so many holes in the story. I'm filling them just fine, the words are flowing, thank goodness. But I'm already judging past me: Why didn't you just keep writing the story? Did you really need to skip over writing these three paragraphs that I just put down?

    The answer, of course, is that yes, I did need to skip them. At the time, I needed to leap over them in order to discover my destination. But that still means poor present-day me has to trundle along behind, paving over the potholes in the semi-paved story road.

    What about you? Ever make a judgement call during drafting that you later regret, either in the same draft or later?

    → 8:00 AM, May 14
  • Keeping Score: April 23, 2021

    Found this article in the New York Times (I know) that rather perfectly captures where I've been, these past few weeks, and where I still am: Not depressed, exactly, but languishing.

    I link to the article not because it's got a pop-culture ready mental diagnosis, but because it also talks about practical ways to cope with it. Small goals, like finishing another level in Duolingo. And any task that takes you out of yourself and into a mental state of flow, whether it's bingeing Netflix or playing a game with friends.

    Sounds a bit like writing, eh? At least, writing in small chunks, giving myself enough time to enter a flow mental state.

    I think it's that last part that I've been missing, in terms of my daily writing. I've been trying to squeeze it in, sometimes just in 15 minutes at the end of the day. Which is one day to make sure I always hit my 250 words, but is no way to let myself fall into the story, to lose myself in the writing.

    So I'm going to try altering my routine a bit. Give myself at least an hour to write. No distractions, no time limits. And no pressure to increase my word count, either. If I give myself time to really focus on the story, that'll be enough.

    I'm also going to start rewarding myself, again, for hitting that daily work goal. Not sure what to use as a reward (I'm already eating plenty of chocolate). Maybe money put into a savings account, like Jonathan Maberry does? Or maybe a new game at the end of the week, if I've written my total words?

    What do you use, if you reward yourself for getting your writing done?

    → 8:00 AM, Apr 23
  • Keeping Score: April 16, 2021

    I got my second shot!

    Wasn't quite as easy as getting my first. Yesterday was the first day of general vaccine eligibility in California, so even though I got there around 30 minutes early, I spent most of that time waiting in a socially-distanced line. But the folks there were all still friendly and efficient, and I made it through and out without incident.

    I could feel a difference in this shot; felt like more material getting pushed into my shoulder. And about ten minutes after I started feeling light-headed. Had to put my head between my knees and breathe till it passed.

    It did pass, though, and I went back to work that day. My left arm (where I got the shot) was -- and continues to be -- basically useless, too sore to raise up higher than mid-line. Other than that, I had the same wave of fatigue hit me as last time, shortly after I wrapped up work yesterday. Which is why I missed my daily word count for the first time in two months 😬

    I might be able to make it up today; we'll see. I feel mostly fine, though I've got some of the symptoms of my asthma being triggered: stuffy nose, lungs can't quite get a full deep breath (it doesn't hurt exactly, but it definitely feels like something I shouldn't do too often). I don't think I have a fever, which is good.

    Will probably still spend most of the day in bed, just in case. Better to take it easy, I think. That doesn't stop my from having my laptop in bed with me, though (as you can see). Hopefully I can get some writing done in-between doses of tea and naps.

    I hope that wherever you are, the vaccine rollout continues, and if you haven't yet been able to get it, that you soon will be. We need to kick this virus, so we can spend more of our time and energy building a better world than the one we lost in the pandemic.

    → 8:00 AM, Apr 16
  • Keeping Score: April 9, 2021

    Writing this past week has been...well, difficult is too small a word for it. When my motivation for even getting out of bed has been snuffed out, it's impossible to convince myself that the words I'm setting down are worth anything.

    And yet they must be written. Because who knows how long this funk will last, and in the meantime the novel needs to be completed. Need to get this draft done, this junk draft, so that I'll have something to edit later. Not that I'm looking forward to later, exactly, but I know it's coming.

    Thank goodness I stopped being an inspiration writer -- that is, someone who writes only when inspired to -- a good while ago. Because at the moment, inspiration isn't just hard to summon for me, it's completely gone. I'm writing like someone re-learning how to walk: laying down one word at a time, till a sentence is formed, and then moving on to the next. Word by word, line by line. Till my daily word count is reached, and I close the laptop.

    I'm not blocked. I'm not afraid of the scene I'm working on. I'm just depressed.

    I'm trying different things to lighten my mood, of course. I started walking in the mornings again, and I can now vouch for the runner's high as a way to trick my body's chemistry into lifting the sadness for a bit. It's doesn't last, but for a little while I feel...not normal, but I stop feeling like crying all the time.

    Crying is a constant danger at the moment. Anytime I'm left with my thoughts for too long, I start to tear up. Which makes writing dangerous, in a way; I've got to think to put these words together, but every time I start to imagine the scene before me, my thoughts will veer into taking an inventory of all the reasons I'm worthless and unneeded, and I break down again. I know it's my brain inventing reasons for my sadness, but still. It's surprisingly good at it!

    And trying to do the opposite -- take inventory of all the things I have to be happy about -- doesn't help, either, because it just gives me a list of reasons I'm an ungrateful wretch for daring to be sad.

    There's no winning here. There's just endurance, and a hope that it will pass. I've had dark moods before -- never this bad, but still -- and they've all come and gone like clouds in a thunderstorm. This one will, too, given time. I hope.

    → 8:00 AM, Apr 9
  • Keeping Score: March 26, 2021

    Novel's at 38,160 words. The snippets I'm working on are starting to spill over into the next chapter; I'm already scoping out the reactions of the characters to the events of the section I'm working on.

    Meanwhile, this section is winding down. And I'm getting the feeling that much of it -- most of it, even -- might be cut in the next draft. I mean, do I really need to describe how a character makes their camp dinner in such detail? And yet, if I don't do it, I won't know that they keep flour in this jar over there, and that they constantly gather firewood as they travel, so they have a stock of it ready to go when needed. Details like that would be completely lost, if I didn't make a hash out of describing every little action right now. So I keep doing it, knowing that what I'm writing now will likely be cut, but that doesn't mean it won't be used.

    I'm also...well, I'm debating whether to let one of my characters give A Speech at the end of this chapter. They have the words for it -- I've already written the points they want to hammer home -- they have the audience, they have the space and the time. But does the book have the tone for it?

    I usually shy away from having characters make big speeches, or monologues. Blame part of it on a Gen-X thing: I treat displays of sincere emotion with suspicion. Blame another part on my preacher of a father, whose pompous, hypocritical sermons turned me off to religion altogether.

    So I'm always pushing my characters to speak more naturally, to take any Great Wisdom they want to lay down and either show it through their actions or weave it into their dialog some other way.

    But this time...this time I might let them just say what they want to say. Certainly the situation calls for it: a young girl is about to be pushed into an apprenticeship that will change her life, take her away from the family and the place she's always known and send her criss-crossing the world with her mentor. And all because of a decision she made to pursue vengeance for her father's death, that led to a near-deadly encounter with a dragon, and now this. Such sweeping changes, they call for a little more weight to the dialog, yes?

    Oof, I'm uncertain. I'll write the speech, I think, and see how it plays. I can always change it later, right?

    → 8:00 AM, Mar 26
  • Keeping Score: March 19, 2021

    Ye gods, the Daylight Savings Time switch walloped me this week. It's like I was finally adapting to 2021 -- working on the novel, editing short stories, plotting out a new story -- and then DST yanks an hour out from under me, robbing me of just enough energy that I've been struggling just to hit my daily word count.

    I've basically been slow-motion jet-lagged all week. I really wish we would stop doing this to ourselves.

    The good news is that (thanks to beta readers) I now have not one, but two stories under submission. Just waiting for their little pink slips of rejection to come back 😅

    I kid, but really, it feels good to have them out there. Statistically, they will get rejected from each magazine I send them to, which is how I steel myself for it. But I like these stories. I believe in these stories. There's a market for them, somewhere, and the only way I can find it is by sending them out.

    Meanwhile, the novel's climbed to 36,789 words. I'm starting to connect up the snippets of dialog I've written for the ending scenes of this section, which means I'm having to actually worry about things like "How would they have treated this wound in this time period?" and "How badly injured is the protagonist, anyway?"

    I am definitely getting some of these details wrong. I do not know enough about wounds, or medical care on the Central Asian steppe in the 18th century, or early modern firearms, or...really, so much. But I know enough to write something down, something I can come back and fix later, so that's what I'm doing.

    It helps for me to think of this not as the first draft, but as the trash draft. The draft I know I'm going to mess up on, and revise extensively later. No one's going to see this draft but me. I'm going to finish it, and then do the research needed to get each section right. Hell, some of these scenes I'm flubbing might not even be needed, and so they'll get cut. Which would make taking the time to get them exactly right now a waste.

    So it's onward! Screwing up as I go, laying down the raw material I'll shape into something better via editing.

    → 8:00 AM, Mar 19
  • Keeping Score: March 12, 2021

    I don't think I'm good at coming up with story titles. Mine tend to end up either very much on the nose -- my first published story, "Wishr," is named for the company at which it takes place -- or become horrible puns, like "There Will Be Bugs" (I know).

    So in trying to come up with a new title for the story I've been editing, I wanted to branch out from my usual process. Started brainstorming, just listing out things as they came into my head.

    At first, most of them were more of the same (I really am fond of puns). But then I thought back to short stories I've read and liked recently, and their titles, and realized: The ones I liked the best (titles, not stories) were ones that fit the story, but where I didn't understand how they fit until after I finished reading the piece.

    So I shifted my brainstorm, away from trying to convince a reader to read the story (by telling them what's inside it) and towards giving readers a new insight into the story after it's been read. And voilà! I found my new title.

    I've got some beta reader feedback to process (on the story as a whole) this weekend, and then the story will be ready for submission, shiny title and all.

    Meanwhile, I keep moving ahead with the novel, which is sitting at 35,380 words. I'm past the big climactic scene, and into the aftermath, where the consequences of the protagonist's actions come due, and her life changes forever.

    This part introduces a new character who becomes a major part of the protag's life. So after filling in the rest of the climactic scene, I'm back to sketching what comes next, setting down fragments of conversation and description as they come to me.

    I'm trying to consciously develop a different voice for this character, a distinct way of looking at the world, so it's obvious she comes from a different part of it than the protagonist. Which means I'm focusing on dialog first, nailing down the back-and-forth between her and the protag before handling any action.

    I'm also getting close to the end of this section of the book. 21,000 words and counting to cover just a few days in the protagonist's life. Important days, to be sure: You only get one first encounter with a dragon! Even once I read the end of this section, though, I've still got some gaps left in the earlier parts of it that I'll need to close, stitching everything together.

    And once that's done? On to the next big section, which will leap years ahead in time, and thousands of miles across the Earth's surface. Let's hope I don't get lost along the way!

    → 9:00 AM, Mar 12
  • Keeping Score: March 5, 2021

    Novel's still chugging along, currently at 33,884 words. I've pushed through the first big scene, and am well into the second.

    There's...well, there's individual pieces of the sequence that are still missing, some connective tissue that I have yet to write. The technique I've been using, of skipping around to write those scenes (or sometimes fragments of scenes) that I feel like adding, has a that cost. Eventually I have to go back and write in everything I skipped.

    But for now, it's all big scene all the time, and no connective tissue...yet.

    However, the big news this week is that I've finally cracked open a story I've been working on for nearly four years now. That one started out as just a character and a situation, a piece of backstory for the novel I wanted to write. But it never worked quite as well as I wanted it to, so I've kept tinkering with it (and submitting it while tinkering with it, which is a habit I need to break).

    Tim Waggoner, during his 15-minute (!) workshop back in January, pointed me to the central problem that was holding up everything else: the motivation for my main character wasn't strong enough. So on weekends I've been brainstorming different ways to go, different versions of the character that would have a stronger push for their actions.

    I finally hit on one this weekend that I liked, and in the process of editing the story to match, everything fell into place. I ended up cutting away about half of the story's word-count, focusing in on just three scenes. But in those scenes I not only lay out the main character's motivation, I fill in the secondary characters, giving them more life and depth. And I shifted the ending, so it's now both more complete (in the sense that the current narrative arc ends) and more open-ended (in that the world's evolution past the story is implied).

    I'm going to do one more editing pass this weekend, to clean up language and make sure it all fits together properly. I'd like to have it ready to submit in time for Nightmare Magazine re-opening to submissions later this month.

    I need a new title, though; the old one doesn't fit anymore. Anyone have any tips or tricks for choosing a title you can share in the comments?

    → 9:00 AM, Mar 5
  • Keeping Score: February 26, 2021

    Novel's up to 32,300 words!

    It's been easier to write this week. My wife's recovered from her vaccine ordeal, and is well on her way to hitting her two-week full-strength-protection mark. Neither of us have picked up anything in the meantime, so -- touches wood -- we should be ok to ride out the rest of the pandemic.

    I also got back in the habit of writing in the mornings, which seems to help. Something about trying to switch gears one more time, at the end of the day, makes it that much harder to focus on the story. Harder to think about where it's going, and what I want to describe along the way.

    Finally, I think it helps that I'm facing down the two scenes in this sequence that scare me the most to write. They're both action scenes, which I consider a weakness of mine. And they're both emotionally fraught for the main character. In one of them, she winds up losing an animal companion she's had since she was a little girl. In the second, she's seeking -- but not necessarily finding -- vengeance for her father's death.

    These are big, tentpole scenes. I need them to move quickly, to feel realistic, and also to hit readers right in the feels. Which means on top of my normal first-draft anxiety, I'm worried about building up to scenes that fall completely flat. Or scenes that are laughably implausible. Or scenes that make it all seem too easy on the protagonist.

    Even success, in a sense, is rough. Writing scenes like these -- where the emotional stakes are high for the characters, and it can end in a broken heart -- are hard on me, too. Because I live through everything they experience; I have to, in order to put it down on the page. So I feel the knot in my chest when their father dies. My own tears well up when they have to put down one of their closest friends.

    So I've been putting them off. Writing around the scenes, so to speak. And there's been plenty of other things to cover! But now I've got to write them, so I can move ahead with the story.

    And somehow, once I'm in the scene, writing it, it becomes easier. Easier to picture what's happening, and easier to describe it. Easier to say what the impact of it all is. So I end up writing more, and more quickly, than before.

    It's almost like my fear of the thing is worse than the thing itself?

    Of course, this is still just the first draft. It might feel easier to write it once I'm in it, but it could still all be terrible writing. I won't know till it's done.

    How about you? Are there particular types of scenes that you put off writing, for whatever reason? How do you overcome your hesitation?

    → 9:00 AM, Feb 26
  • Keeping Score: February 19, 2021

    Writing each day's words this week has been like extracting teeth using a slippy pair of old tweezers.

    I had a...let's say rough...ending to last week. Several things came together at once to make work stressful, which bled into the early part of this week.

    Also my wife got her second vaccine shot, which on the one hand is awesome, but on the other required her to suffer through being harassed by a cop and yelled at (in close proximity) by the staff working there. And a few hours after she got the shot, she came down with alternating chills and sweats, shaking uncontrollably. She didn't leave the bedroom for three days.

    The icing on the stress cake was some maintenance that we needed done on the house, that could only be done by people entering the house. Which meant shutting off the heat, opening all the windows, and locking myself in my office while they were here.

    My body, being slightly over four decades old now, doesn't react well to such compounding stresses. And it's gotten creative, so the manifestation of the stress differs every time, by type of stress and how much I'm going through.

    Big speech coming up? Probably going to break out in fever blisters.

    Mother-in-law had a pulmonary embolism requiring you to give up all your pets, sell your car and your house, and move back to Arkansas to take care of her? Prepare for root canal failure.

    This time, I started clenching my jaw so tight that I woke myself up with muscle cramps. Felt like someone was reaching from my neck through my jaw to tug at a tooth. I got maybe four hours of sleep over two days.

    So...yeah, focusing on the novel's been difficult.

    It's during times like these that I'm glad I set my writing goal so low. 250 words is something I can hit in about 20 minutes, on a good day. So on days that are not good, I try to give myself an hour to hit it, dropping other housework to carve out the time. And it's working, so far.

    All the same, I hope next week is more relaxing.

    → 9:00 AM, Feb 19
  • Keeping Score: February 12, 2021

    This book may end up being much longer than I thought.

    It's currently at 29,122 words, which is almost half of the 70K or so I thought it would end up being. The trouble is, I'm not even close to being halfway done.

    The section I'm working on now, just by itself, is 16,000 words long. And it's not near done, either. I'm maybe....halfway? through the story I want to tell in this part of the book. And this section is only meant to be about one-fourth of the whole, so that would put the final word count at around 120,000 words (!)

    That would make it a third longer than the longest thing I've ever written in my life.

    I swear, I'm not eating up word count spinning needless metaphors or having characters do a lot of navel-gazing. It just turns out that yes, when writing a novel that moves from the lakes and forests of northern Sweden to the neverending sky of the Central Asian steppe, there's a lot of, um, ground to cover. Who knew? (Narrator: He did. Or should have).

    Granted, a lot of what I'm writing now might be cut out. Some of it is no doubt redundant, or can be compacted so that the events of a few pages get covered in a few paragraphs. But even lopping off 20,000 words of filler would make this a 100K book.

    100K is about 400 pages, which...well, that's a commitment, isn't it? For reader and writer alike.

    So much for being done with the first draft before April. This might end up taking me the rest of the year.

    Maybe it's time to look at bumping my daily word count? Trying to squeeze in a second writing session in each day? Or I could start writing on the weekends again. Just two extra days of my regular word count would be an extra 500 words a week.

    Or perhaps it's best to be patient. Work on this draft during the week, like I have been, and use the weekend to edit other stories (and that previous novel, which needs a tune-up before going out).

    What about you? What do you do, when a story you're working on starts to look like it'll be much longer than you anticipated?

    → 9:00 AM, Feb 12
  • Keeping Score: January 29, 2021

    'Tis the season of the writer's conference.

    Had the Apex Magazine 15-minute workshop on Monday, which may have permanently changed the way I approach my writing. I'm on the alert now for some of my bad writing habits, and am currently going through two different stories to eliminate them.

    Today, I'm attending Clarion West's workshop on How to Write Science Fiction in a Post-Colonial World, part of their series of single-day online workshops. Similar to the Apex one, I'm not sure what to expect. I hope it'll help me with the novel I'm writing right now (and future works), where one of my main characters is from the steppes of Central Asia. I don't want to appropriate anyone's culture, but I do want to showcase the diversity of the world, particularly in the time period I'm setting this story (the 18th century), which American writers tend to whitewash.

    And I'm considering signing up for the Southern California Writers Conference, which is in two weeks (and also online). It was the first writers conference I attended, back when we could safely congregate inside. I got a lot out of it: I wrote two stories, got tips on plot structure, and met some great people. And now one of my fellow Writers Coffeehouse alumni (Dennis K Crosby) is one of the special guest speakers! I could use that kind of shot in the arm again (vaccine connotation very much intended).

    Not that I'm currently having trouble producing, thank goodness. Novel's at 26,099 words. I've patched up the seams in the scenes I've written so far, and moved on to the "meat" of the chapter: the POV character's close encounter with a dragon.

    I'm still writing it in bits and pieces, moving up and down the page as ideas come to me and I figure things out. It keeps me from getting hung up on any one part of the book, or worry too much about how I'm going to get from Point A to Point B. I can always make something up :)

    And after the Apex workshop, and re-examining some of my past short stories, I'm starting to think about the connective tissue between scenes differently. As in, maybe I don't need it, after all.

    That's not quite right. I think I, the writer, need it. I need to have written it, in order to fully understand my story. But I don't necessarily need to show that to the reader.

    Same thing with exposition. I need to know everything about my world. I need to know what the sunlight looks like in springtime. I need to know how the birds sound in the morning. I need to know which cars are driving by at the end of the day (if this world has cars). So these are all things I need to set down, to fix in my mind by fixing them in text. But I don't need to relay those details to the reader, unless something stands out to the POV character, and affects their decisions.

    It's advice I've heard before, but not really felt in my bones until now. I'd always assumed my readers were lost unless I held their hand, and relied on my brevity to make the explanations palatable.

    I think now I can trust the reader more. I still plan to write all the exposition, so I have it straight in my own head. But when editing I'm going to start taking it all out, and only putting things back in if a beta reader complains of being lost. Otherwise, I'm going to lean on actions and dialog to convey everything.

    What about you? Is there a piece of classic writing advice that took you a while to fully understand?

    → 9:00 AM, Jan 29
  • Keeping Score: January 22, 2021

    It feels good to have a competent President again. A President with some dignity, who doesn't spend his time tweeting out misinformation. Whose Press Secretary thanked reporters after her first press briefing, who doesn't see journalists as the enemy. A President who made news this week because of the raft of actions he took to kick off a national response to the coronavirus pandemic, not the lies he told.

    The day after the inauguration, I sat down to write after a long day at work, and when I looked up I'd written twice my daily word count, smooth as butter.

    I could get used to this. I want to get used to this. Not in the sense of taking it for granted, but in the sense of it happening, over and over and over again.

    There's much to be done, politically. Too many Americans are locked up in prisons. Too many Americans fear the loss of their job so much they're willing to endure urinating into bottles and absurdly low wages, while their bosses complain about not knowing how to spend all the money they're making.

    But it'll be easier, collectively, to tackle such things, if we don't all have to worry about the President, too, coming after us. If we have the headspace to write, and call, and paint, and march, and sing, and petition, without wondering, every day, which shoe the executive is going to drop on us that day. What painstaking progress the administration rolled back with callous ease this morning.

    It'll be good to feel like we have an ally in the White House. Not perfect, by any means. But not actively trying to set us back.

    Novel's at 24,580 words. More by the end of the day, since I haven't yet done my daily words. Back to the rhythm of 2,000 words per week.

    I'm at the point where I'm stitching together the pieces I've written for the current sequence, before pressing on. I'm having to shift some paragraphs around, moving them either earlier in the chapter or later, so I can keep them without interrupting the flow of things.

    I can already see parts I'm going to have to revise. Conversations that don't go anywhere (currently), descriptions of daily life that will need to be rewritten according to the research I'm doing.

    I'm...uncertain, whether to fix those, or just press on. The advice I've gotten from the Writer's Coffeehouse says to move on, to just make a note of it, so it'll be easy to come back to, but to keep forward momentum going. Finish the draft, then go back and patch things up.

    And it's good advice! Only...if I already know how things need to change, shouldn't I change them? Or worse, if I know things need to change, but I'm not sure exactly how, isn't it better to find out the more stable form for them now, so I can keep writing the book with that in mind?

    I suppose the advice is meant to keep me from getting bogged down in revisions, instead of finishing out the draft. And I definitely do not want to do that. And it'll probably be easier to make the changes I need once the book's done, and I can see the whole story, rather than now, when I'm still mapping it out.

    So I suppose I will press on. Still going to make notes about revisions to the scenes, though, so I don't forget them when it's time to edit.

    But to have something to edit, I've got to finish this draft.
    Onward!

    → 9:00 AM, Jan 22
  • Keeping Score: January 15, 2021

    What a week, eh?

    Trump's been impeached for a second time (finally). The insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol are being rounded up (thank goodness). And tech platforms are waking up to their complicity in the planning of the attack, and as a result, dropping right wing extremists so fast it reveals how much they were dragging their feet about it before.

    Not that my family back home believes any of that, of course. I mean that quite literally: they don't think Trump has been impeached, they think "antifa" (insert eyeroll here) caused the riot, they think the First Amendment requires their favorite BBS to let them post anything they want.

    It's...amazing, to me, to see the people that wrap themselves in the flag and "Blue Lives Matter" defend folks that invaded the Capitol with the intent of halting a Constitutional process (and perhaps grabbing a hostage or two) and beat the cops that tried to stop them.

    What happened to the party of law and order? The party of civics, of wear-your-tie-to-school and don't-you-know-how-the-government-works, hippie? Was it always a smokescreen?

    So...yeah, I've been a little distracted. Writing-wise.

    But I'm still hitting my 250-words-a-day target! Not always when I'm supposed to (in the morning), and not always in a single session (10 minutes at lunch, 20 minutes after work, 15 minutes before bed...), but I am getting them done, every day.

    Not much more than the minimum, I'm afraid. Which is why the novel's only at 22,894 words. But it's progress, all the same.

    Taking weekends off is still helping. Relives the pressure for a bit. Lets me do some of the research I need to do to properly write the section I'm on, which can soak up a lot of time (can you believe it's hard to find an English-language book on 17th-century Central Asian history and culture?). Also gives me a chance to reflect on where things stand so far, and where I'd like to novel to go next.

    What about you? How is your writing going, two weeks into the new year?

    → 9:00 AM, Jan 15
  • Keeping Score: January 8, 2021

    Oof, 2021 started out well, didn't it?

    I mean even with the spike in Covid-19 patients, and the continued lies spread by the President and his allies about the election, I had a feeling on New Year's Day that we'd escaped the awfulness of 2020. That we'd turned a corner, the case numbers would be coming down soon, President Biden would be in office in just a few weeks, and we could start the work of rebuilding everything the Republican Party has destroyed over the last four years.

    Even the Georgia elections (!) gave me hope. My fellow citizens in GA turned out in such numbers that they put the two Dems over the top, putting an end to the use of the Senate as just a roadblock to legislation. Exciting times!

    And then came the coup.

    I know, I know. Attempted coup. Or riot. Maybe insurrection, if you're a journalist and you're feeling spicy.

    And suddenly all of the mental habits I'd tried to shed from 2020 were back. Reflexively checking the news every five minutes. Doomscrolling on Twitter. Cognitive dissonance from looking out my window, seeing a bright January day in SoCal, and then hearing reports of shots fired in the Capitol building.

    Texting friends living in DC, to see if they're okay during the madness.

    I called my brand-new freshman-clean House Rep yesterday, not just to urge her to impeach Trump, but also to check in and see if they were safe.

    What a country.

    Difficult to think in such times. Difficult to write.

    But so far, I've managed to do it. Each day, closed out Twitter, stared at the screen, reading over the previous days' work until I sink back into the story.

    And it is sinking. It is an escape, for me. A needed one, in this case.

    So I've pushed the novel up to 21,348 words. I'm almost done with the scenes I've been working on, patch-work-style. I move up and down the page, writing sections as they come to me, completely out of order. I leave visual gaps in-between them, extra newlines, to show that these are fragments. Then go back in and fill the gaps later, stitching together all the pieces until they read like a continuous whole.

    It's not how I've written other novels. Not even how I usually write stories, either. But it's the only thing that's working for me, right now. So I'm using it.

    Hope wherever you are, that you're safe, that you can still put yourself in the headspace to write, even if it's just a few words.

    Hang in there.

    → 9:00 AM, Jan 8
  • Keeping Score: January 1, 2021

    We made it to a new year!

    In the past, I've taken that for granted. One year rolled into the next, I got older, and the world kept turning.

    Not this year. This year, reaching January feels like an escape, like ducking under a closing door just before it seals itself shut.

    So a sincere Happy New Year to us all!

    Novel's at 19,864 words. I'm still butt in chair every morning, forcing myself to stay there until I hit my word count goal. Some mornings it's easier, some it's harder, but...I'm always making progress.

    I'm actually starting to run out of runway on the research I've already done about the setting. Which means I'm having to make more things up out of thin air, and thus getting more things wrong. I've already had to revise a few scenes based on new reading I've done. That'll happen more and more, I expect, until I can catch up.

    I know that ultimately, I'll need to do some heavy editing of this draft, once it's complete. Not just to fix some inconsistencies, but also to ensure the things that are consistent are historically accurate. Or at least, as accurate as a non-specialist like me can get them in a fictional tale.

    But since I know I'll need to do it, it doesn't scare me to get things wrong now. What's important now, I think, is to get the emotional beats of the story right. If I can nail down the characters, and how they react to the things that happen to them, I can fix the details later. Even if those details mean I need changes to the events of the plot, that's fine. So long as the emotional arc of things is right.

    That's my theory, at least.

    I want to thank those of those you who've been reading me regularly through this hell year. You give me hope that someday, these novels I grind away at will see the light of publication.

    And for my fellow writers, I offer a hope and a blessing: May your writing be a joy and comfort to you. May your inner editor take a vacation when you're drafting. And may all your tales be true.

    Onward to 2021!

    → 9:00 AM, Jan 1
  • Keeping Score: December 25, 2020

    Happy Holidays!

    I'm finally back in my office. All the house work we've had done for the last three months -- while we lived, worked, ate, and slept sealed-off in the guest room -- is over. Taking down the barrier between the guest room and the rest of the house was like opening a huge present; we were grinning like kids the whole time.

    And the work all looks fantastic, and a little unreal. Like we've stumbled into someone else's house. But no, it's ours! And we can once again use it all.

    So I'm back to watching the sun come up over the mountains just east of the city, hammering out words before the work of the day begins.

    Speaking of which, the novel's up to 18,000 words. So I'm putting out about 2,000 words a week, which is not bad, but does mean this draft won't be done until looks away, does mental math sometime in June (?!).

    Which is...fine, I suppose. That's still a novel draft in less than a year. But if I only work on one project at a time, that means it'll be six months before I get back to editing my last novel. I've gotten some excellent feedback from my beta readers, and I'd like to incorporate it all before sending it out to agents.

    Maybe I can keep working on the new draft during the week, and edit the other novel on the weekends? That's technically not taking the weekend off, but it is taking a break from the current draft. And editing's the kind of work that's hard for me to track, in the sense of how many words I've covered. These editing passes I'll need to jump around in the narrative, adding a bit of dialog here, changing a description there. It's not linear work.

    What about you? Do you work only one project at a time, even if that delays things? Or do you find a way to juggle multiple pieces at once?

    Anyway, as we wind down 2020, I hope you and yours are coming through the pandemic safe. I hope the vaccine gets rolled out to where-ever you are soon, and that enough folks get it for the danger to pass.

    Good riddance to 2020. I'll see you all in 2021!

    → 9:00 AM, Dec 25
  • Keeping Score: December 18, 2020

    Novel's at around 16,400 words. I haven't done today's writing session, though, so I should finish out the week closer to 17K.

    The deal is working, so far. Holding myself hostage, unable to go for my morning job or take a shower or have breakfast or anything until my writing's done for the day, has been rather effective.

    And I'm looking forward to the weekend again, when I can daydream and doodle and research and not have to worry about hitting a word count. That recharge time is proving important, for my mental health and for my writing.

    Funny, I think I started this year by throwing away word count goals and the idea of penalizing myself for not meeting them. Here I am at the end of the year, once again setting daily word count goals and forcing myself to meet them. It seems not only do different techniques work for different people, different things can work for the same person at different times.

    What about you? What previous writing habit have you brought back this year, if any? Or maybe there's an old trick you've dropped?

    → 9:00 AM, Dec 18
  • Keeping Score: December 11, 2020

    Novel crossed 15,000 words today!

    My pace has slowed since NaNoWriMo, but I'm still managing about 2,000 words a week, which is pretty good for me. Puts me on track to finish this draft sometime early next year.

    I've changed up my writing routine a bit, both to give myself more time to write, and to have a chance to recharge.

    So I've made a deal with myself: I have to write in the morning, first thing, as soon as I get up. No news, no twitter, no email. Just writing, until the day's words (at least 250) are done. I can take however long I want to set those 250 words down, but I can't do anything else until I do.

    Most days, I end up going beyond those 250. Once the pump is primed, the words keep flowing.

    In exchange for this early-morning discipline, I only have to write on week days. Monday through Friday. Saturday and Sunday are days off, now, just like they would be (I hope) if I were a full-time writer. If I did write full-time, I'd still need vacations. Still need days off. But I'd have no one to tell me when to take them, and I'd probably feel guilty if I did.

    So I've made this deal. Treat writing like job, get it done first thing in the morning, and in return, I can take the weekends off.

    Sunday was the first day I've deliberately taken off (from writing) in...months. I still did some research for the current book, digging up images and articles on Swedish manors built or renovated in the 18th century. I sketched some notes for future scenes. But I didn't write anything, didn't have to produce any words.

    It was...incredibly relaxing. It was glorious.

    And I came into Monday's writing session recharged. Ready and eager to go.

    This is the first full week I've been working under this self-made bargain. I'm looking forward to the weekend, having met my word count goal every day this week, first thing upon waking.

    What about you? Do you ever take days off from writing? Do you feel guilty when you do, and if so, how do you handle it?

    → 9:00 AM, Dec 11
  • Keeping Score: December 4, 2020

    So I didn't win NaNoWriMo this year. It wasn't even close.

    But I'm not quitting on the novel. I've come too far not to see it through.

    And NaNoWriMo has got me flexing my writing muscles again. After today's writing session, I'll have churned out almost 2,000 words in a single week. That's not novel in a month pace, sure, but it's a novel-in-a-few-months-pace, which is better than I've been able to achieve since the pandemic began.

    Even so, I still feel pressed for writing time. I want to brainstorm for a bit, every day, before working on a scene. Or after finishing a scene, reflect on what might be missing from it, what I'll need to add the next day. And that's hard to do, when I've only got thirty minutes or so free to spend on the novel.

    It's good that I've got some vacation coming up at the end of the month, then. That'll certainly give me more time in which to work.

    But I want -- I need -- to carve out more time during a regular work day. Which might mean dropping some of my other hobbies (I've been brushing up my French, and learning Swedish) in order to make that time. Or maybe I'll get up even earlier, so I can make that time at the start of the day.

    Not sure what's best. Gotta figure something out, though.

    What about you? What do you do, when you feel like you're not getting enough writing time?

    → 9:00 AM, Dec 4
  • Keeping Score: November 27, 2020

    Did I say I could write at least half a day this week, free from distraction?

    turns to self from last week: Oh my sweet summer child.

    I've been able to put in a full day of writing just once. Once

    Every other day, I've had my water shut off and construction going on in both the room right next to my temporary office (I'm currently working in the dining room) and above it. They're grinding, sawing, singing, at random intervals, throughout the day.

    It's...impossible to concentrate.

    Still, I've managed to squeeze some words out. Crossed the 11,000 word mark on the novel yesterday, which felt good.

    But I'm nowhere near close to hitting 50K by the end of the month. According to NaNoWriMo, at my current pace, I'll be lucky to finish by end of February 2021 (!).

    So while I'm bummed about not "winning" NaNoWriMo this year, I'm still glad I did it, for two reasons.

    First, because I was doing it, I was able to convince a friend to take the plunge, and try his hand at his first novel. And he's won! He's well past 50K at this point, and is on track to wrap up the first draft of his first novel. I'm jealous of his word-count, true, but I'm also overjoyed that he got it done. Can't wait to read it, when (if) he's ready for beta readers.

    Second, because the time pressure for word count did push me to stop using outlining as an excuse, and just start writing. I was terrified of getting lost, of not being able to write it if I didn't know where I was going.

    I forgot that I've written all of my other novels without an outline. All of them. Short stories, as well.

    I'm not a full-on pantser, but I do discover things while I'm writing that I don't seem to think of when simply outlining. I need a plan to get started -- characters, situation, possible ending -- but once I'm in it, the plan gets altered so much that a detailed outline would be pretty much trashed by the time I'm 5,000 words in.

    Outlining, for me, comes later. Once the first draft is done, and I've mapped out all the place I want to go, all the things about the world I want to see. Then I can pull together a detailed outline, find the weaknesses in the story, and use an updated outline to produce the second draft.

    So I've learned a bit about my own process. It takes longer, this way, I feel, but at least it happens. Better to charge ahead and produce a draft that can be edited, then to spin my wheels creating an outline that's going to get thrown out once ink hits the page.

    And what about you? If you did NaNoWriMo this year, what did it teach you about your own writing process? Do you write better in the morning or evening? Do you need to outline it, or do you need to wing it? Can you write through distractions, or do you need a calm place in which to work?

    → 9:00 AM, Nov 27
  • Keeping Score: November 20, 2020

    Slow but steady.

    I'm at a little more than 7,000 words on the new novel so far this month. Behind where I need to be to finish NaNoWriMo, but further than I was a few weeks ago. That's got to count for something, right?

    Writing during the week has been difficult. Work has been...stressful, and I've needed to come in early and stay late, just to keep up. That's obviously cut into my writing time, but it's also drained my batteries before I even have a chance to sit down at the keyboard for the day's words.

    As a result, while on the weekend I built up to around a thousand words a day, during the week I've fallen back to a few hundred. Sometimes. If I'm lucky.

    There's light at the end of this tunnel, though. I've got a week of vacation coming up. A full week, when I can write at least half the day, before house and family obligations pull me away.

    It might not be enough time, even then, for me to catch up to where I need to be to reach 50K by November 30th.

    But I'm going to try for it, nevertheless.

    Hope your own writing is going well, and if you're trying NaNoWriMo, that you're slaying each day's word count, day by day.

    Onward!

    → 5:00 PM, Nov 20
  • Keeping Score: November 13, 2020

    Work on the novel has been slow but steady this week.

    I’m not getting down more than a few hundred words a day. But I am getting them down.

    The slow pace feels like a lack of time, for me. As in, I don’t seem to have enough time to gather together my thoughts about where the story should go, and then set them down. Like I have just enough time to do one, but not the other.

    And for NaNoWriMo, I need to do both.

    Hoping to be able to make up some lost time this weekend. Wish me luck!

    → 9:01 AM, Nov 13
  • Keeping Score: November 6, 2020

    I thought writing during a pandemic was hard.

    Turns out, writing during a tight election where one of the candidates has spent the last several months shouting "Fraud!" at the top of his lungs whenever someone mentions mail-in voting (while casting his own votes via mail) is even harder.

    So I did start working on a new novel this week, for NaNoWriMo. And I have worked on it each day.

    But I've made very little progress. Only 1,424 words to date.

    I'm trying not to stress about it. I have enough to worry about already, from work happening on the house to day-job deadlines looming next week to the pandemic getting worse in my city to trying to help my wife convince her mother that no, in fact, Biden will not come personally to her house to confiscate the guns she doesn't have and disband the police department.

    It's a lot.

    But I want to tell this story. I've been thinking over these characters for a few months now, and I want to see where they go. I want to show you their world.

    I just have to build it first.

    What about you? If you're doing NaNoWriMo, how is it going?

    → 9:00 AM, Nov 6
  • Keeping Score: October 30, 2020

    So I found a cure for the distractions last week: Stop reading the news.

    I'm serious. Before last week, I'd check three different news sites in the morning, first thing, before sitting down to write. I felt informed, sure, but I also used up time in the morning that I could have spent writing.

    So now I'm...not doing that anymore. I wake up and write, for about an hour, before doing anything else.

    I still read the news, of course. I just do it after my writing is done, not before.

    And so far, it's working! I've been able to churn out anywhere from 800 to 1,200 words a day, doing things this way.

    Which is good, because NaNoWriMo starts on Sunday, and I've signed up for it again.

    I know, I know. There's too much going on. I've already got a novel I need to doing additional editing passes on. And what about that series of short stories that I wanted to do, based on those horror writing prompts?

    The thing is, I logged into my NaNoWriMo account last week, just to blow the dust off it, and I realized that every novel I've ever written started out as a NaNoWriMo project.

    Even if I didn't finish the novel during that November, I got enough of a start that I eventually finished that draft.

    So I signed up. I think the previous short story idea I had, about a woman in the eighteenth century who fights to protect an endangered species -- dragons -- has enough there to be longer than a short story. I already put off starting it once, because the more I worked on it, the longer it grew.

    Well, if I just call it a novel off the bat, the length's fine, isn't it?

    As training, I'm working through Lisa Cron's Story Genius. It's got a series of exercises for drilling into the bedrock of your story and figuring out what really makes it tick, so (presumably) writing the novel itself becomes easier. For example, writing a full scene from your main character's past that shows the origin of the internal issue they're going to work through (in the course of the novel).

    I'm doing it for the horror short story, for now, not the novel (not yet). First because, well, doing it on the novel would be cheating. Second because I've not used this book before, so I wanted to try it out on something small to see if it works for me. And third, because I was kind of flailing on the short story. I hoped some structure would push me forward.

    And it has, so far. As I mentioned, I've been churning out backstory scenes, working through my main character's personal issues so I know just what situation will push them out of their comfort zone (and into the plot).

    I'm hoping to have enough worked through before Sunday that I can at least write a first draft of the story, and get it out of the way before I need to focus on the novel.

    But if not...Oof. I'm not sure what I'll do. Start the novel, I suppose, in order to keep up with the NaNoWriMo pace? And pick up the short story on the other side, in December.

    If any of you are doing NaNoWriMo this year, look me up! My user name's mindbat , let's be writing buddies, and help keep each other's spirits up!

    → 8:00 AM, Oct 30
  • Keeping Score: October 16, 2020

    Did I say five new flash stories last week?

    At my current pace, I'll be lucky to finish one.

    Apparently, I forgot how hard a first draft can be.

    I am working on one, though. It's a sweet little story about a group of kids who turn cannibal.

    ...did I not mention it was horror?

    I'm sketching it out, 100 words at a time. I say sketching because I'm writing it in patches, jumping from place to place in the narrative instead of writing it straight through. It's a way for me to get past any block I have writing a certain section. I can skip ahead, or go back to a previous scene, and come back to the part that's giving me trouble later.

    It's working, because I'm already eight hundred words in. That also means this is likely not going to be a flash piece, unless I trim it way down after. Which is fine, but once again shows I'm not a great judge of how big the story will be based on the idea I have. Maybe that's something that will develop over time, as I write more pieces of various sizes?

    Meanwhile, the novel's heading out to beta readers. And I've got some time now to pay attention to where my short stories are going, and start submitting them again.

    Which means I'll start getting rejections rolling in again. Each one still stings, but...really, there's no other choice. Write, Finish, Submit: The last step there is as crucial as the others.

    Hope where-ever you are, you're able to keep writing, eight months into this pandemic. Using whatever tricks you can to keep your creativity alive.

    → 8:00 AM, Oct 16
  • Keeping Score: October 9, 2020

    It’s done! The edits are done!

    Well, this round of edits, anyway...There’ll be more, down the line.

    But the third draft of the novel is finished!

    This is the first draft that I feel can be seen, so I’m sending it out to beta readers, hoping to get some good (meaning: useful and thorough, not merely positive) feedback.

    I’ll also need to send it to sensitivity readers, because some of the characters are from ethnic groups outside my own. I think I’ve done them justice, but I know I’m not the best judge of that. So I’ll ask some friends of mine to be additional readers, letting me know if I’ve messed anything up.

    While I wait (and lean into my reading, to unwind a bit), I'm going to work on a short story or three.

    Or five.

    I found a horror anthology that’s accepting flash fiction on five different subjects through December. The topics are broad enough that I’ve brainstormed a few different story ideas for each.

    Since they’re flash pieces, I thought I’d write one up for each topic, and submit them all (which they allow). Five little stories for my brain to chew on while I take a break between editing passes.

    What about you? What do you do, between revisions of a longer work? Or do you take any sort of breathing room between them, at all?

    → 8:00 AM, Oct 9
  • Keeping Score: October 2, 2020

    I've been having incredibly vivid dreams.

    Dreams that fade from memory when I wake up.

    Parts of them linger, though. An accusation that was hurled at me. A song someone else was singing.

    I think it means my unconscious mind is...bored? I haven't worked on anything new in a while, since I decided to focus on the novel edits. And as I near the end of the novel, those edits are becoming more re-phrasing and less re-writing. Less work for my imagination to do.

    So I wonder if that's why my dreams have suddenly become full-color 3D rousing soundtrack level productions. It's my unconscious saying "give me something new to work on!" while I keep saying "not yet."

    Because I do lean on my unconscious mind a lot when writing. Drafting or outlining, I'll often hit a wall, a place in the story where I'm not sure where to go, and I'll stop there for the day. Literally sleep on the problem, and come back the next day.

    Usually, by the time I return to the work, I've got a solution. My unconscious has chewed on the problem all night, and delivers it up to me when I need it.

    After...well, years...of working together like that, I'm wondering if my unconscious misses it. Even in the midst of a pandemic, even when I think (consciously) that I can't work on two things at once, it's saying "let's give it a shot."

    So I guess I will! I'll pick up the new story again, wrap up its outline, and start drafting.

    Or maybe even just dive into the drafting part, who knows? The outline's mostly done, and it's the writing itself that works out my unconscious the most.

    What about you? Do you rely on your unconscious mind for help in your writing? Has it ever sent you a message, like it seems to be doing to me?

    → 8:00 AM, Oct 2
  • Keeping Score: September 25, 2020

    I can't believe Breonna Taylor's killers are going to walk free.

    I mean, I can believe it, in the sense that racism is real and cops are killers and they're killers because they kill and get away with it in this country.

    But it's just...hard to grasp that after all we've been through, these United States, in 2020, a group of people could decide it's just fine to charge into the home of one of their fellow citizens and murder them, so long as the murderers are wearing badges.

    It's also hard for me to wrap my head around the President of the United States saying for months that the only election he could lose is a fraudulent one, and there's no howls of indignation from his side of the aisle. No Senators lining up to condemn his words and ask that the House open a new impeachment investigation.

    Nothing. Not a fucking peep.

    Meanwhile in my state, in supposedly progressive California, we still use inmates as firefighters, paying them perhaps a dollar a day, which is slave labor by any other name. And once they've served their time, if they happened to have been born somewhere else, we hand them over to ICE for deportation.

    Oh, and there's still a pandemic on, so walking around outside to enjoy the air newly-cleared of smoke and ash means constantly dodging people who aren't wearing masks.

    So it's all I can do right now, when I'm not doomscrolling, to keep editing the novel. One chapter at a time.

    I feel like I should be making more progress. Editing more than one chapter a day. Maybe even racing to the finish line.

    Or picking up the story I was outlining a few months ago, and starting to actually put words to paper.

    But I can't.

    I just...can't.

    The writing spirit is very willing, but the writing flesh, the meaty brain and hands that would summon words from the void, are quite busy right now.

    So I press on, one chapter at a time. I'm not stopping, but I'm not able to move any faster right now.

    Because this book's become even more important to me, lately.

    It's about prisons. It's about all the different kinds of people that get locked up, and why. It's about exploitation, and greed, and how it's all kept going by the people that look the other way. The ones that hold their noses so they can benefit.

    It's also about forgiveness, and change. About making yourself vulnerable again, after holding onto a hurt for so long.

    I want to finish it. I need to finish, to have this story told. To share it.

    There's not much else I can do, so I'm doing this.

    Voting. Donating. Speaking up.

    And writing.

    → 8:00 AM, Sep 25
  • Keeping Score: September 18, 2020

    I'm turning the editing corner, into the final third of the book.

    I'm a little nervous about this section. The middle edits were smooth sailing, but the closer I get to the end, the more things need to line up perfectly. I need to make sure threads are getting wrapped up, that I haven't skipped any scenes, that everything makes sense.

    I need to keep the whole novel in my head at this point, basically, in order to keep it all consistent through the end.

    And the end, of course, is the most complicated part of the book. It's where the main conflict gets resolved, via multiple timelines and a perspective shift.

    I hope it works. I hope I can hold it all together.

    Because if I can, if I do, then this round of edits will be finished. And I can start sending it out to beta readers, to finally get feedback from another pair of eyeballs than mine.

    And maybe, just maybe, have their reviews back in time to make final adjustments, and have it ready to send to agents by the end of the year.

    It is...a tight deadline. But we live in hope, don't we?

    → 8:00 AM, Sep 18
  • Keeping Score: September 11, 2020

    It struck me this morning that the pace at which I come up with new story ideas has slowed down.

    Time was I couldn't go a day without being struck by some story idea, and having to write it down.

    These days, I feel like all of my ideas are about the book or the story I'm currently working on. Nothing new, no bolts of lightning, just new ways of looking at the characters or the situation I'm already creating.

    And that made me nervous. Like, what if the well's run dry? What if once I finish these stories, that's it? Nothing else comes?

    To banish those thoughts, I remind myself of two things.

    First, it's a pandemic. Not to mention my state is currently on fire (the evidence of which is clearly visible in the sky outside my window). I'm allowed to feel a bit more stressed, and that means my brain isn't functioning at 100%.

    Second, it's okay to not be constantly throwing out new ideas. In fact, it's a good thing. Plowing my creative energy into what I'm working on, rather than dreaming up new work to take on, is exactly what I should be doing. The fact that my brain doesn't feel the need to go wandering for a new story to work on means this story's interesting and deep enough to keep it occupied.

    It's a positive sign, not a negative one. And it should be embraced.

    As for the novel itself, work continues. I'm still going through a chapter a day, giving myself the time to really look at each scene and fix the things that need fixing. A line of dialog that doesn't work. Some blocking that no longer makes sense.

    Okay, not everything. Some things I'm leaving for another pass.

    Like in the last chapter I edited, there's a shift in one character's dialog. They go from speaking somewhat formal English to a less-formal syntax. It's subtle, and it still sounds like the character, but it's there.

    I like the shift, and I think it's appropriate for the situation in that chapter. But in order to keep it, I need to go through and make sure that shift happens every time that situation comes up, so it feels deliberate, and not like a mistake.

    Alternatively, I could go through and make the character's dialog pattern the same everywhere. That might be easier, but I think there's something that will be lost if I do that. There's information encoded in the way they shift their speech according to who they're speaking to, and I'd hate to lose that.

    So yes, even as I go through this pass, I know I'm going to need to do another. But that next pass will be more focused, and thus faster, than this one. At least, that's the intent.

    What about you? When you do your editing, do you tackle everything in each pass? Or do you break it up into different read-throughs?

    → 8:00 AM, Sep 11
  • The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant

    I'm ashamed to say I'm not sure I knew Dinah's name, before reading this.

    I knew parts of her story, from my youth, when I heard the Bible tale. How the sons of Jacob tricked every adult male in a town to become circumcised, just so their king's son could be granted the privilege of marrying Jacob's daughter.

    How they then slaughtered the town while the men were laid up healing.

    In church, the story's presented as a righteous thing, a sign of their cleverness. How they could outsmart their enemies.

    No one said anything about Dinah. How she might have felt about things. Or about the wives and daughters of the murdered men. They were background characters, unimportant to the morality of the tale.

    So how amazing, then, that Diamant has put Dinah front and center. Breathed life into her, filling in her story and giving us a complete account of her journey. Of her mistakes and triumphs. Of her hopes and fears.

    It's an incredible feat to pull off. And Diamant covers not just Dinah's life, but her mothers' lives, too, starting from the moment they met Jacob, so we get the fullest picture possible of Dinah's situation, of her time and place.

    She gives us a sense of the rhythms of their existence, both day-to-day and year to year, without ever getting bogged down in too many details (or leaving things so vague as to be unhelpful).

    And what rhythms! Diamant invokes the feel of the ancient world, the sounds and the smells, the hassles and the joys. And it's a woman's world that she brings to life, the rituals of childbirth and the red tent, the offerings to multiple gods, the hard work of cooking and farming and making, well, everything. T

    he men are present, but it's not their story. It's not their world.

    Diamant's succeeded so well in showing us this world, in fact, that it's her story, Dinah's story, that I remember more vividly now, not the ones about her brothers. Which feels...proper. The way it should be.

    Better to remember the healer and midwife, perhaps, than the tricksters and killers.

    → 8:00 AM, Sep 7
  • Keeping Score: September 4, 2020

    Is it bad to enjoy reading your own book?

    I'm still working on the novel, still plugging away at editing one chapter a day. It's about all I can do, given my schedule constraints.

    And so far, it's...not that bad?

    I mean, I'm probably filling in gaps that are there because I know the characters, I know the setting. But I was trying to write the equivalent of an action movie, and while I think I failed at that (there's not nearly enough stunts or fights in it to qualify), I think I did manage to produce a fast-paced, sci-fi, thriller.

    Each of the chapters are short -- the longest is maybe ten pages -- which makes them easier to edit, but also easier to read.

    And I've kept the language pretty tight, as well. Not always tight enough, hence the need for edits. And sometimes I wander off into describing a character's thoughts from the outside, inside of rendering them from the inside (it's a shift in point of view that I'm still learning how to handle properly). But overall, each scene starts, flows, and then ends without a lot of fat to trim.

    Which worries me, of course. What am I missing? What am I not seeing, that I need to fix?

    It reminds me of something the write C Robert Cargill tweets about a lot: That when you look at your work, and hate it, part of it is because of the difference between your skills and your taste. Your taste is likely far more sophisticated than your skills, starting out. You enjoy reading writers far better than you. And that's good! Your sophisticated taste is what lets you see the problems in your own work, which you can then fix.

    So I have to wonder: Has my taste declined? Have I been slacking in feeding it new works, so I can be critical of my own?

    Or am I just still too close to this book?

    Either way, I'm not upset at these chapters. They're not so horrible that I wouldn't want to show them to someone else.

    Which perhaps is good? And maybe the point of doing all these editing passes and rewrites. To get the book to a point where I think it's ready to be seen by other people.

    Flawed still, probably, yes. But good enough to go out to beta readers, and eventually (after more edits) agents. That should be the goal, right?

    And if I'm getting there, I should feel good about it. Not dread.

    Note to self: Stop feeling dread.

    → 8:00 AM, Sep 4
  • Keeping Score: August 28, 2020

    Made it through the intro chapters of the novel!

    I'm past the inciting event now, and heading into the chapters of the long middle.

    Most of the edits for these chapters, so far, have been small things. Removing some extra words here, adjusting the blocking of some characters there. I'm editing more to make things consistent than anything else. Haven't had to knocks wood do any major re-working of these.

    And thank goodness, because just as I turned the corner of the inciting event, I started to only have fifteen minutes a day to work on it.

    It's stress, more than anything else, but I've had some schedule shifts as well that have thrown me off. Made it hard to concentrate, to sink into the novel and see what's missing with what I've written.

    But the only way out is through, right? So I'm chugging along, working on it when I can, and trying to be patient. The work stress will pass, my schedule will get sorted, and I'll get back to spending more time on it each day.

    That's the hope, anyway.

    → 8:00 AM, Aug 28
  • Keeping Score: August 21, 2020

    I seem to always discover new things about the story while I'm writing it.

    It shouldn't surprise me anymore, but it does. Somehow, no matter how much time I spend thinking about and planning a scene, simply by writing it out, my brain will come up with new ideas and connections to other parts of the story.

    It's all good stuff, and I'm grateful, but it'd be a touch more convenient if I could think of these things while I'm outlining. That way, I wouldn't have to go back and revise other parts of the book to match the new things I've come up with while writing a scene.

    Don't get me wrong: the fact that I can come up with anything at all, instead of just staring at the screen like a deer caught in a truck's headlights, is fantastic.

    It's also just a tad bit annoying, sometimes.

    Which is to say: I’m making progress on the novel edits.

    Looping, patchwork, scattered progress, but progress all the same.

    Right now I’m trying to nail down the intro chapters, the first five or so. I want them to do quite a lot: Introduce the main character, and their (normal-day) problems, lay the ground work for a mystery that pops up later, orient the reader in the setting, introduce some antagonists, and make all that interesting enough so the inciting incident is worth sticking around for.

    Oh, and they’ve also got to setup the stakes for the inciting incident, have the incident itself, and then pave the way for those consequences to play out.

    It’s a heavy responsibility for those first chapters to carry. And before I started making these changes, they weren't quite up to it.

    But I think they can be! So long as I make the right changes.

    So that's what I've been working on this week, and will likely keep working on into next week.

    I feel a bit like a director on a movie, making changes to the set design between each take (and also changing the script. and the blocking. the actors hate me). I go in and add a machine there, change the readout on a display there, redirect the lighting over there, and then let the scene play out again. Or scratch a scene entirely and replace it with something new, in a new location.

    It's slow going, but it's fun! Kind of. Makes me grateful no one's had to read the earlier drafts. This one's going to be bad enough.

    → 8:30 AM, Aug 21
  • Keeping Score: August 14, 2020

    I'm rather upset with past me.

    Finally dove into editing the novel this week. Stopped procrastinating and worrying about the right way to do it, and just started doing it. Figured I'd look for inconsistencies, and touch up language or dialog along the way.

    And at first it worked! I chugged along, making small changes, trimming sentences here and there, for four whole chapters.

    But then I noticed something: The chapters I'd written (and edited, now for the third time) were all too short.

    I'd left out physical descriptions of the characters, so the reader had no guidance on what they looked like.

    I'd left out descriptions of the locations they were moving through, so the reader had no way to orient themselves in space.

    And I'd left out any discussion of how the characters should react to a crisis, so the reader had no idea of the alternatives, or how bad the crisis really was.

    I could tell all this, for the first time, because the reader was me.

    I don't mean that I was literally lost in my own novel. Thank goodness, no, I still knew where everything was, and what everything looks like.

    But I'd had enough time off from the book to approach it like a reader. And I've recently read some books that had a quick pace and an interesting plot but never gave me enough time to get oriented in the world, so I always felt a little confused.

    Both things that let me recognize it when it started happening in my own book.

    So this editing pass -- draft number three, for those keeping score at home -- is turning out to be a "filling in the gaps" pass. Expanding conversations so each character's whole train of thought is present (or at least enough for the reader to make the tiny leaps required). Spending more time in a space before the plot pushes us out of it, so I can give the reader something to visualize.

    Thankfully I've been thinking about all of these things for two years now (or three? is it three years?) so I can fill in the gaps when I spot them. But even as I fill in the gaps, I know I'm creating more work for myself. Because each of those filled gaps is now a first draft, and will need to be revised again (and again) before it's ready to go out.

    So thanks, past me. You keep the plot humming along, but you forgot to lay down all the sign posts along the way.

    → 8:00 AM, Aug 14
  • Keeping Score: August 7, 2020

    I need to get back to working on the novel.

    I've let it sit these past few weeks, untouched, while I finished getting one short story into shape and started plotting a new one.

    But if I'm going to meet my personal deadline of having the novel ready to submit to agents by December 1st, I'm going to need to edit this second draft.

    To be honest, I'm intimidated. I've never edited anything this long before.

    How do I even do it? Read it all through, and then go back and edit passages? That sounds...like it'll take forever.

    Or do I work chapter by chapter, editing each one until it's done, and then moving on? That sounds like an easy way to lose sight of inconsistencies (or to having to go back and edit previous chapters anyway, as inconsistencies show up).

    I think what I'm going to do is a series of editing passes. Pick one thing to look for -- like the consistency of a single character's dialog -- and edit all instances of that. Then pick something else -- the descriptions of a ship, say -- and edit all of those.

    I'm hoping this will give me a structure in which to do multiple reads over the book, without getting lost in the weeds of any individual chapter. And it should broaden my perspective so I can stitch the book together, so to speak, with these edits. Make it more coherent, more whole.

    But what do I do with the short story I've been outlining? I don't want to lose momentum on that. And I worry that the novel, once I start editing it, will take up all the room in my brain for narrative.

    I want to work on both. Use the story as a break from the novel, and use the novel as a break from the story. They're different enough -- one's near-future sci-fi, the other is early modern period fantasy -- that I should be able to keep them separate in my head. And editing is different enough from drafting that I'll be exercising different writing muscles with each.

    What about you? What do you do, when you've got a longer piece to edit and a shorter one to draft? Do you alternate working days? Finish the shorter piece before editing the longer? How do you handle two stories that both need your attention?

    → 8:00 AM, Aug 7
  • Keeping Score: July 10, 2020

    Missed last week's Keeping Score, but for a good reason: I was wrapping up the second draft of the novel!

    I set down the final words in the last chapter later that weekend. It's done!

    Or rather, the current draft is done. I've still got some editing passes to do: for consistency, for character dialog, for general polish.

    But this draft, which started out as minor edits and grew to become pretty much a rewrite, is finished. As part of that rewrite, it's grown, from 70K to 80K.

    Ditto the rewrite I was doing for the short story, which I also wrapped up last week. The story's grown from a 3,000-word piece to something north of 8,000 words! Some of those might get cut away in editing, but it'll still end up more than twice as long as it was before. I had no idea there was so much story left to tell with that one, until I tried to tell it.

    With two project drafts done, I've mostly taken this week off. I need the space for the novel to cool off so I can approach the edits with an objective eye. I might leave that one untouched for a month or so, just to get some distance.

    For the short story, I think I'll start editing it this week. At least an initial pass for consistency and word choice, before sending it off to beta readers. Once I get their feedback, I'll make further edits, to get it into shape for submission.

    Meanwhile, I've started brainstorming a short story idea I had a while back. Everything's still vague now, but it's about dragons, and mentors, and loss. I'm excited to see how it shapes up!

    → 8:00 AM, Jul 10
  • Keeping Score: June 26, 2020

    It's been a struggle to write this week.

    My uncle -- who because of age and circumstances was more like my grandfather, so I called him Pop -- died on Father's Day. And I've been living and working under a shadow ever since.

    Hard enough to lose him. Harder still, because I couldn't make the trip out to Texas for his funeral, because of the pandemic.

    He's gone, but I didn't get to say goodbye.

    So I've been soldiering on. Writing a paragraph or two, at least, every day.

    But each word is a struggle. And if I stop and think about anything for too long, my mind drifts back to losing Pop, and I come undone for a while.

    Stay safe out there, folks. Wear your masks. Wash your hands.

    Write what you can, when you can.

    → 8:00 AM, Jun 26
  • Keeping Score: June 5, 2020

    How does one write, in times like these?

    I feel guilty for not being at the protests (my wife and I are both at high-risk for covid-19). For not being and doing more, both now and in the past.

    I can make changes going forward. Donate to Black Lives Matter and to Bailout Funds. Push locally for police reform. Vote for candidates that will hold our police accountable.

    But where does writing fit into that? How can I justify spending time...just, writing stories?

    Because I have kept writing, even as the police have tear-gassed my old neighborhood. As helicopters fly overhead, towards the next showdown between the people and the "heroes" that are supposed to keep them safe.

    On the one hand, I write because writing is my escape. A way for me to tune out the world for a bit, and come back to it ready to rejoin the struggle.

    On the other hand, I write because writing is a form of activism.

    When we read, we can enter the mind of a character completely. See the world entirely through their lives. Cry with them, when the world throws them down. Shout with joy when they triumph over those who would hold them back.

    We can build empathy with people and situations we never thought we could. We can also see the dark sides of our own selves, when thoughts and habits of our own are cast in a different light, or shown to us from someone else's perspective.

    So I write to escape, yes. But also to create something that can change someone's mind.

    It's not as fast as signing a petition, true. Or joining a protest. Or calling a government official pressuring them to be better. Which is why I will continue to do all those other things.

    But I will also write.

    → 8:00 AM, Jun 5
  • Keeping Score: May 29, 2020

    Earlier this week, I was on a Zoom call with some fellow writers. We were discussing how our writing output was doing during the pandemic: whether it was fine or (for most of us) had gone down.

    And I realized: I've basically retooled my entire process during these last few months.

    I used to write mostly on evenings and weekends, but now I do it in the morning, before the day even starts.

    I used to write in blocks of a few hours at a time.

    Now I do it in short thirty-minute bites.

    I used to write a scene or a story straight through, from start to finish.

    Now I jump around, filling in sections a little bit at a time, and then join them up later.

    And the biggest change of all: I used to mostly pants my stories, but now I'm doing a lot of plotting and outlining before I set anything down.

    Will it last once we're able to leave our homes safely? Who knows?

    I might go back to the old way of writing. I might never be able to write that way again.

    But it amazes me all the same, that little by little, my process has changed so much, in so short a time.

    What about you? Has your process stayed the same through the pandemic? Or have you had to re-learn how to make your art, in order to keep working?

    → 8:00 AM, May 29
  • Keeping Score: May 22, 2020

    After two good weeks in a row, it was time for a rough one.

    Had to shift my schedule up by three hours this week, for work. Well, I say shift my schedule, but...there's no way I'm going through my normal morning routine (writing, walking) at 4:30 in the morning.

    So it's more like I abandoned my schedule, and then jet-lagged myself (while staying at home!).

    As you can imagine, my writing output has suffered.

    But it hasn't ground to a halt! I've managed to keep the writing streak alive, carving out time after work (thank the gods for afternoon naps) to make progress on both the novel and the short story, again on altering days.

    Not always much progress, mind you. Several days "just get one sentence down" wasn't just a trick to get me to write, it was all I could get down.

    But I did it, and I'm through to the other side, and can catch-up on sleep and (writing) work this weekend.

    And reading. Surprisingly hard to read when your body is in the wrong timezone.

    What about you? Have you settled into a new routine, and managed to keep with it? Or have the re-openings, patchwork as they are, disrupted the schedule you built during lockdown?

    → 8:00 AM, May 22
  • Keeping Score: May 15, 2020

    Current writing streak: 64 days.

    Finally reached the part of the novel where I'm back to editing, instead of writing new chapters. It's made things easier going, on that front. Less intimidating to sit down with words already on the page, and know I've just got to make them consistent with everything else.

    There's a few chapters at the very end where I'll need to be drafting from scratch again, but for now, at least, it's smoother sailing.

    Of course, this won't be the end of my editing passes. I'll need to do at least one more of what I'm thinking of as "consistency passes" to check all the new material against what's already there. Then I'm planning on doing a dialog pass for each main character, to ensure they speak consistently throughout. Finally I'll do a phrase and copy-editing pass, looking for awkward wording or cliché description.

    So still plenty to do.

    I've also continued to work on the short story on alternate days this week. I wasn't sure I was ready to start writing the new section of that work, to be honest, but by focusing on just one little detail at a time -- Anne Lamott's one-inch frame technique -- I've managed to add ~1,000 words to the draft. If I keep this up, I might actually have the draft done (and ready to set aside, for later editing) next week.

    Which would be...amazing. I wasn't sure I could ever get back to some sort of functioning writing schedule during the pandemic. Or get back to writing more than just a sentence or two a day. But something's happened recently, like a mental fog has lifted. I'm able to brainstorm again, and hold both of these storylines (the story and the novel) in my head again, and write a page a day again.

    It may not last. I'm going to appreciate it while it does, though. I know not everyone has been as relatively fortunate as I have through this pandemic.

    So I'm grateful, for the work I can do, while I can do it.

    How about you? Have you felt like you've turned a corner lately? Or are things still too much in the air for your writing brain to settle into some kind of routine?

    → 8:00 AM, May 15
  • Keeping Score: May 8, 2020

    The streak's alive! I've managed at least 30 minutes of writing for 57 days straight now.

    Alternating the days I work on the novel with the days I work on the short story seems to help, too.

    I've even started tracking my daily word count again, when working on the novel. I don't let myself stop writing until I hit 250 words.

    As a result, I've made notable progress on it. Finished three new chapters, and I'm ready to start editing down the next few.

    And for the short story, I'm gathering notes on my research and getting plot points nailed down. This weekend (or early next week) I think I'll be ready to start writing some dialog, and then gradually fill in the rest.

    Oh, and I have three other pieces submitted to paying markets. Keeping in the habit of sending them right back out a few days after a rejection comes in.

    So this week has been good, relatively speaking. Still not operating at 100%, creatively, but I'm finding a new normal, a new pace of working to make a habit.

    What about you?

    → 8:00 AM, May 8
  • Keeping Score: May 1, 2020

    Current writing streak: 50 days.

    50 days! That's 50 consecutive days of working, bit by bit, on the novel, several short stories, and essays for the blog.

    50 days of laying bricks, one at a time. Of sending out stories and getting rejections. Of wrestling with file formats, and Scrivener settings, all to conform to the particular submission guidelines of each market (sometimes "always follow the directions" is hard advice to hold to).

    50 days of shoving the pandemic out of my mind for at least thirty minutes, each day, to go visit somewhere else in my imagination. A dearly needed mental vacation.

    So, what's new this week?

    I've taken up the habit of alternating days in which I'm working on the novel with days where I work on something else. It's a way of giving me a break from the general slog of the book without going too long without thinking about it. And it lets me make progress on some other projects.

    Like the short story I started submitting to markets...two weeks ago? One of the rejections I got resonated with me. It took a while, but eventually that resonation joined up with some things my beta readers said, and crystallized this week into me thinking up a different ending for it.

    The new ending changes the meaning of the piece. Shifts its emphasis. But I think it's stronger, and more cohesive with the rest of the story. And it adds a little bit of just desserts for one of the characters.

    So I'm going to give it a shot.

    I say "give it a shot" quite deliberately. It might flop. It might make the story worse, not better. I might fail to execute properly. Any of which would mean I'd go back to sending it out with the original ending.

    But I'd like to try, so I've been using my alternate days this week to brainstorm and outline the new ending. Sketch out scenes, decide sticky plot points, nail down questions that arise as I think it through.

    It's a different way of working for me -- usually I just throw down the short story, outline be damned -- and it's slower, but I'd like to be more deliberate in the way I craft things. I feel like the more plot holes I can fill during the outlining, the smoother the actual writing process will go. It should let me focus on the writing itself, because I've thought through the action and character beats already.

    We'll see. Wish me luck.

    → 8:00 AM, May 1
  • Spotlight on Local Author: Henry Herz

    Intro

    Henry Herz intimidates me.

    He's written and sold ten children's books, along with numerous short stories, and he's one of the few writers Jonathan Maberry trusts to run the Writers Coffeehouse when he can't host it himself.

    Did I mention he frequently runs panels for Comic-Con and WonderCon? And that he edited an anthology that includes stories from Peter S Beagle, Jane Yolen, and Jim Butcher?

    Thankfully, he's as friendly and approachable as he is super-organized (more on that later). He recently spent some time with me over Zoom to talk about his writing process, children's book publishing, and his dive into the world of middle-grade novels.

    Writing Process

    What is your writing process like for a picture book? With something that short, does pantsing vs plotting come into play?

    I'm a plotter by nature, and because of my background in industrial engineering, I don't like wasting time. For me, being a plotter is more efficient than being a pantser because I don't write myself into corners.

    But it's an artistic endeavor, and it may be that someone who loves to be a pantser can't plot. They would actually be slower, so every writer must discover what works best for them.

    For a picture book, there's usually 13 to 14 two-page spreads, so I'll just do an outline to show what I want to have on each of these spreads. Then I can look at everything and go, "Okay, do I have rising tension? Do I establish the problem in the first one or two spreads? Do I have a resolution about three-quarters of the way through?" And that's easy to check. Then I can draft each of the pages and go from there.

    With a picture book, you could easily get away with pantsing, because the word count is so low. And picture books typically go through a lot more revisions than a novel.

    Really?

    Well, how many passes are you going to make through a novel, realistically?

    Three or four. Maybe.

    Yeah, exactly. I have picture books that have gone through 25 revisions, but that just means me making a pass and making changes and tightening things up, or me soliciting feedback from critique group members and integrating the feedback that I think is constructive.

    How does your writing process change for a short story or novel vs a picture book?

    So I'm organized in both cases, but I'm a lot more organized for the novel or the short story, because it's a bigger word count. I just feel like I'd be flailing if I pantsed a novel. I would be very likely to write myself into corners or spend too much time in one area.

    I found a resource that I really like. It's called Save the Cat! Writes a Novel, by Jess Brody. There was originally a book by Blake Snyder, Save the Cat!, which analyzed how movies are structured, and Jessica Brody took the same idea and applied it to novels.

    So her book gives you a template, a starting point, which was invaluable to me, since I've only written one novel. I used her structure for that novel and about half-a-dozen short stories in the 3,000 to 6,000 word range.

    It guarantees you have the arc that you want. The character development is still obviously up to you, but it helps with the pacing and the arcs.

    There's also a great resource for character development, the book that Jonathan Maberry always touts, which is the Writing the Breakout Novel Handbook, by Donald Maass. There's a bunch of questions in there that help you understand your own characters.

    In my idealized process for writing a novel, I start with a rough idea of the story just in my head through inspiration, but then I flesh out the characters using the Donald Maass workbook, and then I come up with an overview and story beats from Save the Cat! Writes a Novel.

    And that helps chunk it down, because I'm a picture book writer used to writing 500-word books. The first novel, the first and only novel I've written, is a 30,000-word middle-grade novel. 30,000 words is intimidating to somebody who's only written 500. If you're an adult novelist, you're like, "Pfft. I do 100,000 words all the time. It's no big deal." But for me, it was a lot.

    So staring at a blank document that I know will have to contain 30,000 words is pretty intimidating. But if I use the Save the Cat template, then the writing is broken down into anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand word chunks, and that makes it much easier. "Okay, I know how to write that. I don't know how to write the whole thing, but I know how to write this little piece."

    Like the parable about how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

    What does your novel outline look like?

    Jess Brody breaks the novel up into about 15 beats.

    Beats like "The Opening Image", "The Theme Stated", "The Set Up", and then there's "The Catalyst". Then you break into Act II.

    So having a couple of sentences about each of these beats, it gets me far enough to start writing.

    So you had all the beats mapped out first? Or did you map out a beat, write it up, then map out the next beat, etc?

    I map out all the beats up front, before I start writing.

    Only somebody as ridiculously organized as me would pay attention to this, but Save the Cat Writes a Novel suggests roughly what percentage of the word count should be in each beat. Obviously, you fiddle with it. But that really helps me.

    For example, The Opening Image, I think, is 1%. It's just an opening image, right? So if I have a 30,000-word novel, then I know, "Okay, I have about 300 words to play with." Now, they're not strict limits, but it tells me what I'm aiming at. There is a big difference between writing 300 and 3,000 words.

    I find it helps with the pacing, to make sure that things are happening at the right times, and that there are head-fakes, that you're moving in a direction and something shifts. You're building tension, and then you ramp it up even more. It's just helpful. I know Jonathan [Maberry] has done this so many times that it's instinct for him, but since this is my first novel, it was really helpful to have a tool.

    How do you go about building a scene in your head? Do you think cinematically, or...?

    Let's take Stephen King's novel, Carrie.

    So if I was writing Carrie, and I'm doing the opening scene, how do I want to set the stage? Would I want to have Carrie in her room levitating something, or would I want to have Carrie in the high school locker room getting picked on by the other girls?

    But once I made that decision, then I would envision the scene in my head. "Okay, what's going on? Who's going to say what?" Make sure that the dialogue and the action is consistent with what the characters want.

    In the end, these are stories about characters, so you always have to make sure that you're being true to those characters.

    I probably pants that more in that I have a general idea of what the character's like, but I let the character's voice emerge as I'm writing as opposed to having it all worked out ahead of time.

    I can think, "Okay, this character is smart but a little self-centered, has a good sense of humor, mouths off in class when they shouldn't." And then having those rough guidelines, then I can let the character's personality take shape, let it flesh out as I'm writing.

    Do you use beta readers? Or maybe a critique group?

    I'm a member of a group here locally that I like. It's some experienced writers, and we do 3,500 words a week that we share and critique. I got through my novel in nine sessions, nine weeks, which feels slow to me as a picture book writer, but I know as a novelist that's pretty fast to get detailed feedback from multiple people on your novel.

    Do you all email out your selection to each other?

    So this group uses Dropbox to pass out the pieces and then to give feedback. But then we were meeting face-to-face on a weekly basis until coronavirus, and now we're doing it all through Dropbox. Just sharing marked up versions of the manuscripts.

    No Zoom meetings where you read aloud something and critique it?

    No, that would take too long also to read aloud. 3,500 words times five people, that'd be a long meeting.

    Oh, it's 3,500 each for each person, so each week you're reading 15,000 words or more?

    Yeah, but it's a lot easier to read and critique somebody else's stuff than to write 15,000 words.

    Fair enough. To get back to the critiquing real quick, how hard is it for you to switch between the draft brain and the editing brain?

    Oh, for my own stuff? Very easy, very easy, because I draft until I have a complete draft, so I'm not context-switching on a daily basis. I'm drafting, drafting, drafting, drafting until I have a draft completed, and then I switch to revision mode.

    Some people edit as they draft. I'm guilty of that too. But I try to discourage myself because it is important to get that first draft out.

    But with short stories, I allow myself to edit as I go. That also means that when I'm done, the first draft is tight.

    The last three I short stories I wrote, I was ready to submit after version two. One revision pass, and I was ready to go, because I had been editing them as I typed them in. So they were close to finished in the first draft. Then it's just a matter of polishing.

    When you get feedback from your critique group, do you always make the changes they suggest?

    It's a good question, and the answer depends on context. Sometimes I just get, "Hey, this isn't working," and sometimes I get, "Hey, this isn't working. Have you thought about this?"

    And I will consider what they say, but I'm not feeling bound to do it. My choices are reject it completely, do nothing, accept it as is, or accept that there's a problem, but fix it a different way. Any of those are possible. It just depends on the situation.

    I don't feel constrained by a critiquer's proposed solution, but I'm happy to hear it. The suggestion might be really good, or it might prompt me to go, "That's a good point, although that won't work because of something the reader isn't aware of," but it gets my brain spinning. "Okay, yeah. I do need to address that, and I know how to do that. I've got to go back a couple of chapters and plant something so that I foreshadow that."

    Publishing

    Have all your picture books earned out?

    No. Some of them have, some of them haven't.

    Oh. Is that hard to do for a picture book? I guess it depends on the level of advance.

    Yes, it depends on the level of advance, and it also depends on how much effort the publisher puts in.

    Because there's an 80/20 rule that applies to a lot of things, and I think it also applies to how publishers market their books. I think 80% of their marketing budget gets focused on 20% of their books that they have a really good feeling about. These are their top authors, proven authors with good track records, who get the lion's share of the marketing budget.

    I've sold 10 picture books, but I am nowhere near the top of the field, not even close. I get a modest amount of help marketing-wise. They solicit professional reviews, and they put it on their website, and they do the things they do for everybody, but it's not like they're paying for me to go on a tour around the country.

    I'd say the most critical thing is can they get your book in Barnes & Noble, because that's the biggest chain.

    And they can't always do that. Just because a traditional publisher produces a book, it doesn't mean Barnes & Noble will take it. They have finite space, and they're going to pick the books they think will sell the best. It's perfectly logical from a business perspective, but it sucks if you're not a well-known author.

    Do you have an agent?

    I don't have an agent currently, and I think the novel is a good opportunity for me to approach agents, because there's a lot more picture book manuscripts floating around than novel manuscripts floating around in children's literature, I think.

    And if an agent likes my middle grade novel, then I can say, "By the way, I also have a number of picture book manuscripts."

    Some agents specialize in picture books. A lot of them skip them, because unless you're at the top of the field, the advances for picture books are small, and the agency gets 15%. The agent gets less than that if they're not the owner of the agency.

    So imagine seven-and-a-half percent of a $4,000 dollar advance. That's not a lot of money for a picture book agent. $300 isn't going to pay the rent.

    I'm hoping that this will increase my appeal because now I'm a dual threat, I can write picture books and I can write novels.

    Do you have a list of agents already in mind for the middle-grade?

    I have a list of agents who I like for picture books, and what I'll probably do is go through that, because I want somebody who works for a reputable agency and somebody who's interested in the same genres.

    You have to align with what the agent is interested in reading, and I tend to write a lot of science fiction and fantasy.

    So I will start with my list of picture book agents and go through them again, and go, "Okay, does this agent also represent middle-grade," and if they do, then "do they like fantasy and sci-fi?"

    How do you feel your background in process improvement engineering helps you with your writing?

    It doesn't help me with writing, but it helps me with my career in terms of being organized and being efficient about all the non-writing things that I have to do: submitting, soliciting an agent, and tracking when markets are open that you can submit to. And what you sent and whether you've heard back or not.

    If you're being active, you could easily just drown in all the data. If you don't use a spreadsheet or something to manage it, you'll just completely lose track of what you're doing. I'm a pretty prolific writer, so I have to do that.

    How do you keep track of it all?

    For my picture books I have a spreadsheet. The columns represent the different manuscripts, and the rows are for the different publishers.

    For each cell, there's really two dates, when I submitted it and when I heard back, either a rejection or an acceptance.

    So that's a helpful thing to have, because then you know who've you sent to. I can put notes in there too, like if they rejected but they gave me some feedback, then I can stuff that in there as well.

    And then I do something similar for my short stories, which are submitted to online magazines, print magazines, and anthologies.

    Has your system evolved over time?

    I didn't used to have that spreadsheet. I used to just have the Evernote list, organized by market.

    For example, I scroll down past Amazing Stories, Apex, Beneath Ceaseless Skies to Clarkesworld. I can see that I submitted ABC to Clarkesworld on this date. It was declined or accepted on that date. So under each market, I list every one of the stories I've submitted. I may also list stories I'm planning to submit.

    But many of these markets don't accept multiple or simultaneous submissions. That makes it really hard to know at a glance "Can I submit there? Where else have I submitted that story?"

    That's when I built a short story spreadsheet, where each row is a story and each column is a market. That format makes it easy to see at a glance where I've submitted it, and where I might submit it. You can use color-coding to show which markets allow simultaneous submissions and which ones don't.

    I want to push my writing out into the world. There are some markets that will give you a fast response, within a few days. But most of them, it's weeks or months. I think, "Okay, which one do I want to send to in what order, and if I send there, that means I can't send it over to these other markets until I hear back."

    So it's like a three-dimensional chess match. I've found that I needed the spreadsheet just to retain my sanity and get these stories out in as expeditious a manner as possible, get responses, and then if it's a no, move on to the next market.

    Field Trip to Earth

    Why go for a middle-grade novel after having written and successfully published so many picture books?

    I've been published more than once in the picture book market, but writing a middle-grade novel makes sense for a couple of reasons. First is career-wise, it's better to be able to write in more than one market. But also, when you're writing picture books, your vocabulary is tied behind your back. You're writing for young readers, and are constrained by what words you can use and what concepts you can cover.

    You also have to very carefully leave room for the illustrator, because picture books, at roughly 500 words, don't give you word count to describe the scenes. You have to leave room for the illustrator to do a lot of the scene description.

    Writing middle grade lets me use my full vocabulary and describe scenes and incorporate motivations that are too mature for a picture book. So writing for older markets supports both self-expression and career growth.

    I chose middle-grade as opposed to young adult or adult, because I'm also being practical. I've written a number of picture books of anywhere from 500 to 1,000 words. I sold an early chapter book, which was 6,500 words, so that was a step up. But nothing longer than that.

    I thought, "I don't want to jump to a 100,000-word epic fantasy. That's just a bridge too far. Middle-grade novels can be as short as 30,000 words.

    I figured I would hone my novel writing chops by writing a shorter novel.

    It's also closer in tone to picture books than an adult novel would be.

    So, what's the novel about? What genre is it in?

    The middle-grade novel is science fiction with a good dose of humor.

    It's called Field Trip to Earth, and it's basically an alien middle school student finds herself in academic trouble, and she needs to take an unauthorized field trip to Earth to collect data for her school report.

    Some of her friends go with her, and hijinks ensue.

    That sounds great.

    It's been fun to write. Soon I expect to be done with my second full pass, and then at that point, I'm going to throw it out there and see if an agent wants it.

    Have you gotten any feedback that made you completely rewrite part of it?

    Partially. So in my sci-fi novel, the main character is a middle-school kid from Proxima Centauri.

    And she realizes she needs to go to Earth. Now, she has attended driver's ed, so she knows how to fly a spaceship, but she doesn't own one.

    In my original version, after school ends, she basically hijacks a school vehicle and flies it to Earth.

    I got feedback from more than one person saying, "That's a little too dark. It offers a behavior that's not one parents would want to encourage in their kids." I can't pull off what Eoin Colfer did with Artemis Fowl.

    So instead, she has a nemesis at school. Now, the nemesis is wealthy and has his own ship, so she enlists his cooperation into doing the trip.

    Oh, that's a neat solution

    Another piece of feedback: In my early version, the two of them would have verbal sparring, and the nemesis was a different species and chubby.

    I had my protagonist teasing him about his size and his eating habits. The feedback I got was, "Your protagonist is being kind of a bully there."

    Even though it was in reaction to the nemesis' actions, my protagonist's responses felt too mean and bullying. So I toned that down.

    Those weren't complete rewrites, but they definitely were significant changes to the character and for one plot element. But that's the idea, right? I'm making it better.

    Definitely. When making those changes, did you revise the outline first, and then the text?

    No, because the structure is still solid. I don't need to change the structure. The beats are the beats.

    In the way that I am operating, following the Save the Cat! Writes a Novel structure, the beats come in a specific order, and the relative size of those beats is unchanged. I just go into the individual chapters and tweak what I need to tweak to make the desired changes.

    I don't have to rewrite the whole thing. I may have to insert pieces that I needed to set the stage in an earlier scene, but that's it.

    → 8:00 AM, Apr 27
  • Keeping Score: April 17, 2020

    Another week. I've kept the writing streak going; currently at 36 straight days.

    Managed to pick up work on the novel again. I worried I might not be able to get back in the headspace that easily. But it turns out if you've worked on something for two years, you can dive back into it without too many issues :)

    Had to think back through the chapter I was working on, though. The plot I'd had when I last put it down didn't fit with the setting I'd established, and -- to be perfectly honest -- wasn't that interesting.

    This new version I'm writing is harder, emotionally, but it's better.

    Which seems to be true about a lot of the rewrites I do. The ones that are harder for me to write, to push my characters through, are the ones that make the story shine.

    I'm keeping my daily goals modest, though. Sketch out a conversation here, set down a turning point over there, and that's it. Slowly stitch it all together over the course of the week. Review it -- but don't edit it yet! -- and mark the progress made.

    It's these little steps, little victories, that keep me going.

    What about you?

    → 8:00 AM, Apr 17
  • Keeping Score: April 10, 2020

    Current writing streak: 29 days.

    Another week of forcing myself into the chair, every morning, for at least 30 minutes. Am I writing new words all 30 minutes? No. But I'm working all the same: planning, outlining, brainstorming, and finally putting fingers to keyboard.

    When I feel the usual terror setting in, I tell myself: Write one sentence. Just one. One sentence is a victory. One sentence is enough.

    It turns out that once I have one sentence down, I can usually write another. And another. And before I know it, I've written a few hundred words.

    Sometimes. Sometimes it really is just one sentence. And I have to treat that like the achievement it is; because that sentence didn't exist before, and now it does. It might be terrible, it might be great, but I can edit it later. It exists to be edited later, only because I've written it.

    So while forcing myself into the chair, I've finished a few projects:

    • Finished editing the short story I worked on last week
    • Sent that story out to beta readers for feedback
    • Submitted two more short stories to markets, one for the very first time

    Next up: Back to the novel. I really, really, really want to finish the current draft; I feel like I've been working on it forever. It'd feel so good to have it done to the point where I could send it to beta readers, or at least have enough raw draft material down that I can whip it into shape via another editing pass.

    → 8:00 AM, Apr 10
  • Keeping Score: April 3, 2020

    Current writing streak: 22 days.

    Switching from tracking words written to time spent writing seems to be working. So far this week I've:

    • Finished the script for an 8-page comic as part of Gail Simone's Comics School
    • Finished writing up an interview with a local author
    • Finished revising 3 of 5 scenes in a short story
    • Submitted a flash fiction piece to a new market

    I'm trying to use one of the tools Gail Simone said we need in our toolbox to make it as professional writers: Focus.

    For Comics School, it meant keeping the overall goal modest (an 8-pg story) and working each day on just one piece of it, till it was done.

    For me, I'm thinking of it in terms of goals per piece. This week, my goal is to finish editing the short story I mentioned above. Then I can submit it to beta readers, and move onto the next thing while I wait for their feedback.

    Next week, I think I'll finally return to working on the novel. I'd like to take it chapter by chapter, with the goal of finishing one per week. We'll see how it goes.

    How about you? How are you measuring success, during the pandemic?

    → 8:00 AM, Apr 3
  • Spotlight on Local Author: J Dianne Dotson

    I won't be shy about admitting this: Dianne's one of my personal heroes.

    A trained scientist, turned science writer, and now indie publisher, Dianne's one of those people that makes me wonder how they find the time for it all.

    Did I mention she also has two kids, did a cross-country tour to promote her books, and was on a panel with Cory Doctorow at Wondercon last year?

    Dianne was kind enough to take some time -- over Skype, given current circumstances -- to talk with me about her writing process, going indie, and what's it like to work on one long story for thirty years.

    The first two books -- Heliopause and Ephemeris -- in her Questrison Saga are out now, and the third's on its way soon.

    Writing Process

    Let's start with your writing process. Are you a pantser or a plotter?

    I would say that everything is in my head. I already know what's happening. I basically just sit down and write it out. I don't really follow an incredibly structured situation, I just write it. Things can come up as I write that influence where I think things might go and the characters have minds of their own. They might do things I didn't expect.

    But I don't do outlines.

    What about editing? Do you do multiple editing passes or do you do everything in one big push?

    For the most part, I will go through the book and I will do my first pass, and then I'll go back and do it again.

    Then I hand it off to beta readers.

    Then the beta reader feedback, I get back. If there need to be edits or anything expanded upon, then I incorporate that. I read through it again.

    Then at that point, I need to hand it off to the editor.

    Do you mind going into a little more detail about your editing passes? I know some writers will break it up, so first they do a dialogue pass, then a consistency pass, etc

    No, I just go through it all. It's just in literal order, line by line, chapter by chapter to the end, and I fix things as I go.

    Do you take any time between writing a draft and then doing the edit?

    I don't like to, because I feel the fire. I feel like I want to get this done. That's very much a "me" thing. I'm very much like that. Once I finish something, I want to make sure it's really, really done. I can't stand waiting on stuff like that. I tend to just jump right in.

    Do you give any guidance to your beta readers?

    Well, I don't like to frame things for them in advance. I do it more after they read. I do ask them, I say, "Hey, if you see anything blatant, let me know. If you have any questions, let me know." I keep it simple.

    After they're done, that's when I really ask them the questions, because then they read it. That's what I want to know about, as a reader, what worked for you, what didn't work? I'll ask things like, "Who is your favorite character? What made you laugh? What made you cry?" Different things like that. "Do you think that this particular passage worked?"

    Do you do an editing pass per beta reader?

    No, because they're finishing at varying times. I thought, well, I want to ask my questions now that it's fresh on their mind, they just read it. Then because of that, then I'll go ahead and incorporate right after that, their feedback, if I felt that it merited changing.

    Not everything does. In some cases, I've had to say, no, this is the way it is supposed to be.

    You have a lot of really strong characters in your books. Are those based on real people?

    Some of them are.

    Sumond, the alien chef in Ephemeris, I based on this chef that I knew from San Francisco from when my brother lived there in the early '90s. This guy, this chef was hilarious. He had been an opera singer. That's where Sumond comes from.

    Or take Troy in Heliopause. We all know Troy. He's a lounge lizard kind of a guy. He's loosely based off some people I know and he's named after my dad's cousin, Troy, who was more like an uncle to me than a cousin. It's a little bit of family nod there.

    Then who else? Let's see. Even Veronica is influenced a little bit by people I know. I won't say who.

    Everybody's got a little bit of influence from here and there, but nobody's an outright translation now.

    Aeriod, though, is full-clothed from a dream that I had as a young teen.

    Wait, what?

    I dreamed that this alien Brit rocker had taken me up in basically a boat with some friends of mine up to this island in the sky, this land that he had with palaces. He showed me around and he talked to me.

    There are some direct lines in Ephemeris from that dream, when Galla is dreaming about Aeriod showing her around. That dream was my dream.

    Aeriod was just straight out of my head like somebody I knew. He seems very real to me. That's one reason I guess people say he's complex. It's because he's been in my head this whole time.

    Does that happen often? You dream of characters for your stories?

    I have very vivid dreams, and sometimes they do lend themselves to stories.

    In fact, the first little scenes of Forster in Heliopause, where he's walking along the soft floors with the dim lights, that's from a dream.

    I had already made his descendant, Kein, but Forster himself I dreamed separately later. It's funny.

    Indie Publishing

    You're publishing the Questrison Saga yourself, rather than go through a traditional publisher. Why go indie?

    When I had worked on this for so long and then didn't really know what to do after that, I knew I should submit to a publisher. I realized that, oh, you can't really do that anymore, that there's a gateway to publication and it's called a literary agent.

    That was about 2017, around the time that I started going regularly to the Writers Coffeehouse at Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore. I was going to get an idea of what I needed to do.

    I started there and I queried quite a few agents. I got some bites.

    At the end of it, there were four that I came very close to using.

    One of them turned out to be a shyster.

    The other one was just really sitting on it, and sitting on it, and not getting back to me.

    The third one had a very strange reaction to it. She's like, "I think it has too many characters," but then she kept going back to read it. I'm like, "Just make a decision." What's the decision? She couldn't make one.

    Then the fourth one, I really hit it off with, and she had loved the samples that I had sent her. She read the whole book. But she actually wanted me to kill more people than I was ready to kill at that time.

    That was when I decided: I don't want to do this anymore. It's my story. I'm going to tell it the way I want it. I've had it in my head for years.

    I can write other stories and submit to this process all over again, they won't matter as much to me. This particular one, I'm doing myself.

    Plus, I was uniquely positioned in a time in which you could make a really good quality independently published book by having professionals do the covers and having professionals edit it.

    When you set it side by side with a traditionally published book you can't tell, that was the goal. That was accomplished.

    Would you do it again?

    I will not do this again, because it is a lot of work. It is expensive. You are the publisher, the agent, the promoter, and all these other things when you're still a writer.

    If you're taking a lot of time to promote this book yourself, that's time taken away from your writing. Even though I'm a very fast writer, it can be exhausting to keep on top of it.

    I still feel that it was the right decision for this series.

    But for everything else I'm doing, I will submit to traditional publishing.

    How much did it cost you to produce Book One? Was it any cheaper to finish Book Two?

    About the same. It is actually a little bit more expensive for Book Two because the editing, it was bigger book.

    Do you mind talking about those costs?

    I don't remember exactly all the costs. For the first editor of Book One I think was $1,200 and then the copy, the final proof was mostly $600, the art was $600, and then I actually had to buy the books myself from IngramSpark to be able to supply to bookstores and to conventions. That's a significant expense.

    Advertising, promotional materials, posters, everything ranging from postcards to business cards to just all kinds of stuff, it was a few thousand at the end of the day.

    Have you made that back?

    I have made it back for Book One.

    I have not made it back for Book Two, I don't think. Not yet.

    I think what was interesting was that the minute Book Two came out, more people bought Book One. I think people just like a series.

    How did you find all the people that you've ended up working with: the editors, the artists, the graphics people, and the web designers?

    Well, everything about this process has been throw something at the wall and see if it sticks, literally. Because I didn't know what the heck I was getting myself into, piecemealing it, but I figured it out.

    I got the website going first. For that, I had gone through a couple of web design people and logo designers.

    I ended up asking a food and lifestyle blogger, Michael Wurm Jr., who runs "Inspired By Charm", because he had a really sleek website. He gave me the contact information for Dash Creative. That's who I've used the last couple of years.

    In terms of the editing, I had gone to San Diego Writers Ink. They had a class on book publishing.

    The woman who hosted the class, Laurie Gibson, said she was also an editor and so I contacted her after I'd finished the draft of Heliopause. That's how I met my main editor.

    Then through her, I met Lisa Wolf who did the proof edit who is actually the editor for Book Three.

    It's a chain of contacts, basically. My cover designer was a parent at my kids' school and he knew the artist, Leon Tukker. That's how that happened.

    Can you talk about distribution? I think you mentioned you use IngramSpark?

    IngramSpark prints and distributes most of the books that you see.

    When I upload a book and it's ready to go and I purchase the option for both paperback and eBook, they upload it to everywhere: Kobo, Amazon, Google Books.

    They do all that and they also put the links up all across the world on various international bookseller websites.

    I chose Ingram because of its reputation, it's worldwide distribution, and the fact that it would not be limited to Amazon. I wanted independent bookstores to have my books and not feel competition from an Amazon published book.

    Did you have to form your own publishing company to own the copyrights or deal with IngramSpark?

    I filed copyright. I immediately copyrighted it through the U.S. government.

    If you're an indie author, I highly recommend that you get an entertainment lawyer to help you with policies because we don't have big publishing companies behind us.

    We need legal help. We need contract help. That's what an entertainment lawyer is for. I secured one of those.

    He recommended that given the uniqueness of the name Questrison, that I trademark the Saga. I did that. That was extremely expensive, but I feel good about it.

    Because now I can put the circle R, it's a registered trademark. The Questrison Saga. You can't use it. It's my baby.

    Questrison Saga

    You've mentioned before that you've been working on these books for thirty years. Can you talk about why you decided to finish these books when you did?

    All through college, even though I was overwhelmed with schoolwork, the stories were always in the back of my head. I had also drawn a lot of the characters in them. I sometimes would still sketch those while I also learned how to do actual watercolor art from classes.

    After I had graduated college, it was a nightmare just entering the workforce. I ended up moving to the West Coast from Tennessee in 2000, and did work for Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle for a number of years.

    Then after that, I briefly lived in San Francisco. That's when I thought "I have to get back to these stories." They're been in my head all this time.

    That's when I started working on what is now Ephemeris. I even made a brief little comic of it with my own sketches, outlining the story a little bit. That was the closest thing I've ever come to an outline, was this storyboard.

    After that, I had children. And I was very busy with them. laughs I worked as a science writer for four years. I felt that I was preoccupied by writing nonfiction.

    After the recession, I was laid off. I decided to apply to graduate school and I chose epidemiology, which is very topical at the moment.

    I came to San Diego to start a Master's Degree in epidemiology. I would have finished it, but I never saw my family and my younger child, who at the time was two, did not cope well. I chose to withdraw from the program. I have no regrets about doing that, because it was the right thing for the family.

    Then I meet another parent at my kid's school, who was an editor. He edited scientific papers, not fiction. I mentioned I had these stories, and I showed him the first few chapters of what become Heliopause.

    Not being a fiction editor, it wasn't really something he could work on, but he did encourage me to finish the story. I hadn't had that kind of encouragement. It was a kick in the pants. For that, I'll always be grateful to him.

    I call him the man that saved Heliopause.

    It's funny how encouragement or discouragement at just the right times can make a huge difference.

    Yes, and I definitely had been discouraged a few times.

    Some people would say, "Maybe it's time you just let that story go and work on something else."

    I hated hearing that. I thought, no, I want to finish the story. It's been in my head for most of my life.

    Positive encouragement is more powerful than discouragement. Because when somebody believes in you at the right time, and I hope that everyone has that person, it makes all the difference.

    Having worked on these for so long, how many drafts do you think you've been through for Ephemeris in particular?

    Well, it's funny because what is now Book Four was actually the first book.

    I started with what is Book Four now and then morphed it around, and what is now Ephemeris then came after that.

    Ephemeris is an interesting book because it takes place before, during, and after Heliopause. It's giving you a preview of things to come as well as things that happened in the past, and tying everything together later in the book with people from Heliopause.

    I've had so many drafts of these stories over the years. In my closet here in the office, there are binders full of handwritten drafts from over 30 years ago, including maps that I made, travel guides, glossaries, everything.

    My handwriting is just garbage, and that never got better.

    There were some typed versions too. I had a terrible typewriter, but a lot of it was handwritten.

    There's so many drafts. It's ridiculous. I kept a lot of them. I threw out a lot of them too. I don't even know how many there were to be honest with you.

    Basically, we have to talk in terms of the Questrison Saga instead of just one of the books, the whole saga. I knew the endgame from the beginning when I was a young teen. Just the journey to get there changed along with me as a writer in developing the craft as well as maturing as a person in experiencing life.

    When reading Ephemeris, it felt like I could point to certain locations and go, I think this is such and such a place that I know Dianne has lived. Like reading about Perpetua, is that Seattle?

    Heliopause, I've often said, is a love story to Oregon. Because Forster keeps remembering Oregon, and the time he was with Auna in Oregon.

    That's why when Aeriod presents him with the possibility of such a place as a planet [Perpetua], basically an untouched Oregon, he's delighted.

    Aeriod sets him up that way. He's thought it out. He knows what Forster cannot say "no" to. He's already thought through all the scenarios. "How can I get Forster to do what I need him to do? Let's throw out everything that he could just never say no to." And that's what he did.

    When I write about Galla on Perpetua, that's her first experience on a forested planet, near an ocean or anything like that. It's very instantly different than anything else she's experienced. That is similar to when I moved to Pacific Northwest in 2000.

    Not Seattle per se, which I don't have a lot of love for, but Oregon I absolutely adored.

    Are there other planets in the books that are also drawn from places that you've lived before?

    Well, I've driven a lot of roads.

    There's definitely some influence from my road trips because I have gone across the country several times in the past several years by car.

    Now there's a world in Book Four that is heavily influenced by my time in both Tennessee and San Francisco. Because I know that planet the longest, it feels very real. I feel like I'm there when I'm reading it.

    You'll see connections to a lot of the places I've lived in that book. It will seem very intimate. It will seem very real, I think.

    Books One and Two are already out. When is Book Three due?

    Early April for pre-order, with an intended release the end of May.

    → 8:00 AM, Mar 30
  • Keeping Score: March 20, 2020

    What a difference a week makes.

    Last Friday, I still felt okay going out to my local coffeeshop for coffee in the morning. I thought this week would be much like any other week, that we'd have to take extra care to make sure people that felt sick stayed home, and not congregate in large groups, but that's it.

    But then they closed the schools where my wife works.

    And people started posting pictures of empty grocery store shelves.

    Now everything is closing down: pubs, restaurants, coffee shops, the zoo, bookstores, publishers, everything is either shutting down or going remote-only.

    It's a frightening time, and I'd be lying if I didn't confess that it's made it hard for me to focus.

    So I'm not sure how many words I've written this week.

    I've worked on something, every day. I've gathered statistics that I'm going to use in a blog post for next week. I've been working through Gail Simone's ComicsSchool, which has been fantastic, and should result in my first complete comics script by the end.

    But I haven't come back to the short story I was editing. Or made any progress on the novel.

    I will do both, though, and soon. But for now, I've just...gotta work on something a little more low-key, to leave room in my head for processing everything that's happening.

    I hope you find the head space to keep working, whatever your project is, and that give yourself the time to feel the cocktail of emotions this thing is putting us all through.

    → 8:00 AM, Mar 20
  • Keeping Score: March 13, 2020

    Got 1,224 words written so far this week.

    Those are spread out over different projects. I added a little to the novel, started drafting several new essays, and decided to go back and edit a short story from last year.

    The story was easy for me to write, but it's been hard to edit. It's quite personal, pulling something from my childhood and turning it into a horror story. It's the first story I've written about where I grew up, and as such is hard for me to see any other way than how I've written it.

    So it's taken me counts on fingers about six months to digest some beta reader feedback I got on it, and figure out what the story needs.

    And I think I do, now. I can see a hole in the story, a gap in the POV character's motivations that I tried to paper over with his personal flaws.

    That might work for me, or for someone who also grew up in the kind of town I did, but it doesn't work for communicating that character's perspective to everyone else. That's a failure on my part, a failure of craft, and -- hopefully -- it's one I can fix.

    What about you? Have you ever had a story -- or a novel -- that you simply couldn't edit into shape until after a lot of time (and maybe some leveling up in your writing skills) had passed?

    → 8:00 AM, Mar 13
  • Keeping Score: March 6, 2020

    Got back to exercising this week. Back to holding to a schedule in the mornings. Back to allowing myself time to outline, when I wanted it. Time away from the novel.

    And it's working! I've written 1,540 words so far this week :)

    The new scenes in the book are coming together. I've finally got things mapped out in my head enough that I can sit and write them out again.

    Still might end up throwing them away, or heavily editing them. But at least I can get the raw material out now, to work with later.

    I'm even allowing myself to start thinking about revising some short stories that I've had sitting on a shelf since the move. Time to get back in the habit of submitting.

    So March is off to a good start. Here's hoping it continues.

    → 8:13 AM, Mar 6
  • Keeping Score: February 28, 2020

    Sometimes what feels like a really good week is followed by a bad one.

    For example, this week, in which I've only written 329 words.

    It's frustrating. Just when I felt like I was getting back in the groove of jogging, writing, and work, two things brought progress to a shuddering halt: I got injured, and I switched from editing back to writing new scenes.

    The injury was relatively minor. I had a planter's wart on the underside of my big toe that my dermatologist finally had enough of and burned off. Worth it, for sure, but that put a crimp in my jogging schedule.

    And the new scenes are...maybe a mistake. There's a sequence towards the end of the book where the POV character travels from one of the station to the other, witnessing the disaster that's just befallen it.

    She's mostly on her own, in the original sequence, which made it easier to write, but didn't feel as realistic to me. I mean, the chance she's going to go from one end to the other without seeing anyone are small.

    Plus, I think it drains the whole stretch of a bit of tension. If most of the danger has passed, including the danger of discovery, then what's going to pull the reader through the passage?

    So I'm trying out a version where she does get discovered, and has to talk (or trick) her way out of it.

    I think it'll be better, but it means I've got to invent three new characters, their personalities, and enough of their backstories to make them believable. Oh, and also make up what they were doing when they discovered the POV character, and how they go about it.

    Not to mention getting the POV character to tell me how she escapes from the mess she's now in.

    I'm telling myself that it'll all be worth it once I've got the new version done...But until then, it's slow progress each day, as I spend more time outlining now than setting words on the page.

    → 9:00 AM, Feb 28
  • Spotlight on Local Author: Tone Milazzo

    Intro

    I met Tone Milazzo through the San Diego Writers Coffeehouse group hosted by Jonathan Maberry. I've known him for a couple of years now, and I still don't know how he has time for all of his projects.

    When not running the podcast for a local publisher or play-testing his own Fate Core modules, Tone's preparing for grad school, scripting comics, and writing novels.

    His first book, Picking Up the Ghost, came out in 2011 from Chizine. A follow-up, The Faith Machine, will be out in May, from Running Wild Press.

    Tone took some time out of his incredibly busy schedule to talk with me about his process, writing diverse characters, and how "Done is Beautiful."

    Writing Process

    To start, can you talk a bit about your writing process? When you're designing a novel or a short story, are you a pantser? Are you a plotter?

    Definitely a plotter. And the outline for Picking up the Ghost, was something like 12 pages long, which I thought was a full outline. But I definitely, as I got to the middle, I needed to stop and do some more outlining. The story was coming to an end too soon.

    When I outlined my second novel, The Faith Machine, it was 77 pages long. That's a page per scene. Now that's an outline.

    77 pages, wow! What do you actually have in your outline?

    It's a bullet point list: plot points, foreshadowing, and payoffs. Sometimes there's dialogue snippets in there, if something occurs to me at the time. It's mostly about where the characters are coming in, what changes, and where the characters are coming out at the end of the scene. Kind of like a method or function in computer programming.

    Kurt Vonnegut said every scene should either move the plot forward or move the character forward. So it'll be either one of those two.

    Ideally it's nice if you can do both in the scene, without jamming too much in there.

    When I first started writing, I would put way too much stuff into a scene. Now I'm trying to keep it to one or two changes or insights per scene.

    Other things in the outline...Sometimes it's pop-cultural references, like I've put something in the scene that's supposed to evoke something from another book, classic literature or something like that. In Picking up the Ghost there was a lot of occult symbolism. A lot of tarot card stuff. There are some scenes that are supposed to evoke the Major Arcana.

    Do you ever get feedback on the outline?

    It's mostly for me.

    Though if there's an idea that I'm not sure will work, I'll try to compartmentalize that idea and pitch it to people. Ask them: "Do you think this thing is going to be okay?"

    That's about it. I don't want anyone to look at my outline or my first draft. It's too messy.

    Nobody?

    Yeah, it's terrible. Especially the first draft for sure. The first draft of Picking up the Ghost, there was a sentence in there, "He stuck a stick in the spot. The stick was stuck."

    Oh God.

    Yeah. I think I wrote the first half and got distracted and then wrote the second half, forgetting that I wrote the first half.

    When outlining, is there any particular technique you use for building your plots?

    So Picking up the Ghost was definitely me trying to invert as much of the hero's journey as possible.

    The typical interpretation of the hero's journey in fantasy is an orphan with a destiny, who finds a magic sword, and has a magical mentor. It's basically King Arthur, right? People are cop-opting King Arthur.

    So I decided to take that list and make it a manifesto for the book. Instead of an orphan, the protagonist is dealing with family issues. Instead of being some sort of knight, he's a shaman. And he has mentors, but they're not trustworthy mentors.

    I also wanted to make it American instead of European. So that's where his ethnicity comes in. Being biracial: African-American and white.

    The African-American culture, my attitude is, that's the most American culture. Even like what most books think of as American, which would be like a rural white culture, that's traceable in a straight line right back to Europe.

    Whereas African-Americans had their culture stripped from them by the slave trade. They had to rebuild themselves from the ground up on this soil.

    The Faith Machine isn't YA. How did you build that one?

    So for the second book, I wanted it to be Hollywood friendly. I looked at something called the Save the Cat outline for screenwriting. It's a 15-point plot, and that's the spine of that story.

    It's the first time I used that, and I discovered that it's probably a little short to fill an entire novel. A movie is about a novella in length. Fortunately, because I had an ensemble cast, I had a bunch of b-plots that I could use to fill out the page count.

    With all this time spent on the outline, what's your editing process like?

    Go over it again and again until my eyes bleed, and it's never enough.

    For The Faith Machine, because the outline has such a deep understanding of what the story is supposed to be, I didn't have to do quite the extensive rewriting that I used to, like I did on the Picking up the Ghost.

    When I wrote out the first draft of a scene, it was a scene I'd been thinking about for over a year, so I knew how it is going to play out.

    And even when it got to editorial, I had two editors, one that I paid for and then one from the publisher. And the one that I paid for, it was mostly grammar and little details.

    The one from the publisher, he lived on the East coast, and he had some thoughts about the opening scene. On The Faith Machine there's two characters who are in charge of the team traveling around the East coast, activating all the agents in person. But the order that they activated in was not a good commute. So stuff moved around just because I didn't realize that this place and that are more than a day's drive away. Minor stuff like that.

    Picking Up the Ghost

    In the acknowledgements of Picking Up the Ghost, you mentioned that it was a five year process to get the book together. Can you talk a bit about that?

    I think for that one I found a publisher fairly quickly. I think the process of finding a publisher was under a year. Which was stellar compared to The Faith Machine.

    The biggest chunk of time came when I had the book finished, and I workshopped it with three of my friends. None of them liked the second half of the book. So I had to rewrite the entire second half.

    I had taken Cinque (the main character - ed.) into what I call the Halfway World. So it still looked like St. Jude (Cinque's home town - ed.), but there was nobody else there with him.

    And what I'd done was, I didn't realize that they liked the supporting cast so much, and I took all them away.

    How long did that take you to rewrite?

    That was about probably about another year.

    A lot of revising by myself. Some moments where I just wasn't writing for a few months at a time. Distractions, like World of Warcraft.

    Most people's first book usually takes a few years though, from what I hear. Even Jonathan Maberry says he took three years to write his first book.

    Working on the same book for five years, how do you keep yourself going?

    It's the opposite of the sunk cost fallacy.

    How's that?

    The sunk cost fallacy is the attitude of, we've put this much time and effort and money into a project, so we have to see it through. That's a fallacy, because maybe this isn't worth finishing and to throw more money and time and effort into that pit is not worthwhile.

    Whereas in a novel, if you've written 70,000 words, then you only need 20,000 to finish. If you don't finish it, then you literally have wasted all that time.

    And I think that's where the sunk cost fallacy is not a fallacy. Because books take so long to write. And nobody's going to read a book that's 95% done.

    An artist I knew said something they taught in art school is: Done is beautiful.

    I take that as a mantra. Think about all your favorite pieces of art, what do they have in common?

    They're all finished.

    Exactly.

    Why set Picking Up the Ghost in a town along the Mississippi?

    So, I knew I wanted the protagonist to be African-American. And then I picked a location. I wanted it to be a living ghost town.

    It was going to be Detroit. We all hear these stories about urban decay in Detroit, right? Which would have been a good choice, except a friend of mine turned me on to East St. Louis.

    He showed me a book about East St. Louis's history. And it's like the Detroit situation, but far, far worse. It was literally a company town and the local government was in service of either the metallurgy companies or the mining companies, I forget which.

    And then when the industry was done with it, it abandoned the place. Everybody who had money left. And there were people left who didn't have money, didn't have the resources to leave.

    Consequently, it was the descendants of the African-American workers who had come to work the low-end jobs in the factories and production that are still there.

    So did you actually go to East St. Louis? What sort of research did you do?

    When I was in the Marine Corps I got to meet people from that part of the country, so I got some perspective there. I also found a great urban decay exploration website where the guy spent a lot of time in East St Louis.

    The main place where all the magic happens, the meat packing plant, it's based on an Armour Meatpacking Plant on a hill outside of East St Louis. And it's still there. You can see pictures of it. So I was able to lift all that.

    I read a few books about the education system in Middle America, its decline, and stuff like that. They had a lot of stuff about that city.

    And that's also part of the reason I fictionalized it. I called it St. Jude instead of East St. Louis. That gave me a little bit of freedom to make up stuff. Whereas if I use a city from the real world, I'll never stop doing research on that city.

    Why St Jude?

    St. Jude is the Patriot Saint of lost causes. Good name for a dying town.

    Did you have any concerns, as a person who presents as white, writing not just a protagonist who's African-American, but a novel where most of your characters are African or African-American?

    When I started writing it, it was before this sort of increased awareness of appropriation. So I wasn't aware it was even a thing. I knew who Vanilla Ice was, but I didn't connect that to writing fiction.

    And as I said before, I wanted to write an American story, and I think of African-Americans as having the most American culture. Then there's the fact that the town St Jude is based on (East St. Louis - ed) is something like 98% African-American. To put white people in that book would just be weird.

    When I write about any kind of marginalized group, I'm not making a statement, other than I'm presenting people with these traits in roles that they've normally not had.

    For example, in both books (Picking Up the Ghost and The Faith Machine), all my protagonists have mental disorders.

    Cinque is schizophrenic, and then all the characters in The Faith Machine, except for Park, have mental disorders too.

    So I'm not making a statement about mental disorder at all. I am taking this trait, which is normally relegated to villains or antiheroes or supporting characters, and assigning them to the protagonists. That's it.

    So you, along with a lot of authors, recently went through getting the rights to your book back from ChiZine. Are you going to put Picking Up the Ghost yourself, or focus on The Faith Machine for now?

    The eBook is up. I've already written a short story that bridges the two novels. I'm going to put that at the end of an ebook edition of Picking up the Ghost, and sell it for a buck.

    And then if somebody gets to the end and they like it, there's a link to where they can buy The Faith Machine.

    It's going to be a loss-leader. I figure that's the best use I have for it right now.

    Did you get anything back from ChiZine, like the final manuscript or --?

    No, they hold onto the formatting and stuff like that. And they also hold onto the cover. So I've had to make my own cover.

    And I have to get my own ISBN number if I want to return to print, even print-on-demand.

    When do you think you'll have that ready?

    The Faith Machine comes out in May, so hopefully before that. A friend of mine volunteered to do the cover for it, so whenever he finishes.

    For now, you can find Picking Up the Ghost on Kindle

    → 9:00 AM, Feb 24
  • Keeping Score: February 21, 2020

    976 words written so far this week.

    I'm slowly getting back into my old habits: Walking/jogging in the morning, writing during my lunch break, getting in a language lesson at the end of the day (I've decided to take up Swedish. Don't judge me).

    And it shows. It's getting easier to slip back into the novel every day, easier to make the edits I need.

    I'm still daydreaming about a couple of short stories I've got floating around in my head, but I'm trying to keep my actual write-and-edit focus on the novel. Because I'd like to be done, or at least done enough that I can send it out to beta readers.

    Which will need to include sensitivity readers, I'm realizing. Several of my POV characters are African-American, and I want to be sure I do their perspectives justice.

    Depending on their feedback, that could mean I end up doing a lot more rewrites. Or having to scrap the book altogether, if doing right by those characters turns out to be beyond my reach. I hope not, but...I'm not exactly in the best place to judge that.

    So I'm going to ask for help. And listen, when that help is given.

    Till then, all I can do is write the book as best I can, and hope.

    → 9:00 AM, Feb 21
  • Keeping Score: February 7, 2020

    So the move was...rougher than I expected.

    As you can see above, I sliced my head open while unloading stuff into our new garage. It's better now, but at the time we thought I'd need stitches, because it just wouldn't stop bleeding.

    (And yes, I went to Urgent Care, but they couldn't see me, because -- and I'm not making this up -- they were overwhelmed with patients coming in prior to the Super Bowl).

    We had help moving, but even so it took us all weekend, plus Monday and Tuesday evening, to get everything out of the old place and into the new one. I swear I had no idea how much stuff was crammed into that townhouse.

    And now we're unpacking. Or, as I've come to think of it, the "Where the hell are my socks?" phase. Every day is a new hunt for things I used to be able to pinpoint without thinking about.

    Oh, and I didn't take any time off after the move. Which in hindsight was maybe a mistake? Given how much we've had to do every night, after work.

    As a result of all that, I'm tired, I'm frazzled, and I only got 250 words written this week.

    But there's a weekend coming up, and while it'll be full-on unpacking and organizing, all day each day, it'll bring some sense of order to this place. Reduce my cognitive load enough to where I can get back to (writing) work.

    I hope.

    → 9:00 AM, Feb 7
  • Keeping Score: January 31, 2020

    As I'd hoped, I was able to write some more over the weekend last week, and boost my total word count to 1,724.

    So the fact that I've only got 1,121 words written so far this week is ok.

    Especially now that I'm at the point where I'm mostly editing chapters again, instead of drafting new ones to fill in gaps. Easier to comb through a chapter for continuity errors than write the first draft containing said errors.

    So I'm 13 chapters from being done! And 10 of those are already first drafts, so they just need editing passes to bring them in line with the rest of the book: a continuity pass, a blocking pass (to check that the setting, and the characters' movements within it, is consistent), and a dialog pass (to make sure each character speaks like themselves).

    Let's say I'm able to finish 3 chapters a week. That might be ambitious given my schedule, but it means I could be basically done by March.

    Done. As in, "let's send this out to beta readers" done. As in, "you can work on something else now," done.

    That would feel...fantastic. I hope I can pull it off.

    What about you? How far along are you in your current work? Can you see the light at the end, or are you still in the long dark of the tunnel? And how do you persuade yourself to keep going, when in that dark?

    → 9:00 AM, Jan 31
  • Keeping Score: January 24, 2020

    Only 947 words written so far this week.

    I'm not worried though; first because I've got the weekend coming, and I should be able to crank out another 600 words, either tonight or tomorrow.

    But also because I've been working every day, even if that hasn't produced any words. I've been outlining, and drawing up maps, and planning out blocking for scenes that need it.

    So I've been making progress every day, at least. Keeping the story fresh in my mind, so when it is time to spin out the words, it's not so intimidating.

    What about you? Do you give yourself credit for all the work that happens around the writing, and if so, how?

    → 9:00 AM, Jan 24
  • Keeping Score, January 17, 2020

    Only 500 words written this week.

    The impending move (and sale + purchase) has absorbed most of my available head space. Every day there's been more paperwork to fill out, more historical information I need to sift through, more obstacles to clear.

    I've been able to work on a new short story, outlining and sketching out dialog, but that's all. No progress on the novel, no revisions to other short stories...Nothing.

    But today I should, finally, knock out the last few forms until closing day. And for closing, all I have to do is show up :)

    So I'm hoping to do some catch-up writing this weekend, and have a head clear enough to get back on my regular schedule next week.

    What about you? How do you manage to keep your writing going in the middle of a stressful event like a move?

    → 9:00 AM, Jan 17
  • Writing Goals for 2020

    As we roll into the second week of 2020, I'm taking some time to look at where I am, writing-career-wise, and where I want to be at the end of this year.

    2019 in the Rear View

    In 2019, I did finally achieve one goal of mine: I got a short story accepted for publication.

    Not published, yet, but accepted, at least. And that's something I couldn't say before.

    I didn't finish the edits to the current novel, though, like I wanted. My internal deadline slipped from October 31st, to November 31st, to Dec 31st, and still I didn't make it.

    So one win and one miss? Or one win and one delayed victory?

    I'm going to work to make it the latter.

    To that end, I'm adopting the following three writing goals for this year:

    Four Short Stories

    Maberry proposed this one at the last Writers Coffeehouse, and I think I'm going to adopt it.

    It means one short story every three months, which seems doable. One month to draft, one month to solicit feedback, another to edit it into shape.

    To that end, I've already started noodling on a new story. It's an idea I've been chewing on for a few months, looking for the right angle. I've decided to just go ahead and write it, dammit, because sometimes the best way to know what a story's about is to write it down.

    Finish the Current Novel

    And when I say finish, I mean finish. Edited, reviewed by beta readers, edited again, and polished as much as possible.

    I want to be realistic, and not pick a date mid-year for finishing, this time. Progress on the book has been slow, so far. I'd rather be finished early, and not have stressed about it, then worry myself about a deadline that's only in my head.

    So I'll aim to be done by December 1st. I'm again stealing the date from Maberry, whose reasoning is that if you finish by December 1st, you can spend all of December partying (instead of working your way through the holidays). Sounds like a good plan to me :)

    Post More

    Beyond writing fiction, I'd like to post more on this blog and on Twitter. Both to interact more with you, dear readers, and also to work on my essay skills.

    Looking ahead a year or two, I'd like to be writing essays at a level I could sell. To get there, I'll need to practice.

    So, more blog posts: movie reviews, book reviews, and the occasional counter-point to articles I come across.

    → 9:00 AM, Jan 13
  • Keeping Score: January 10, 2020

    1,774 words written this week. Managed to hit my writing goal most days, and surpass it once or twice.

    I'm trying out a new schedule, where I sit down to write for 30 minutes each day, between walking the pups and doing my morning jog. It's earlier than before, and pre-shower (thinking in the shower being my traditional way of resolving tricky plot problems).

    But somehow, doing it before anything else is helping me. Like I can go on my jog and let my mind wander again, instead of trying to force it to think about the novel.

    The words come a bit easier too, because I know I'm going to sit for a given block of time, and there's not going to be any interruptions.

    Granted, I'm still using tricks to get things done, like focusing on just one tiny part of the story at a time, or doing scenes piecemeal (first dialog, then blocking and description, then thoughts/reactions). But it seems to be working, for now, at least.

    What about you? Have you tried changing when you set aside time to write, to see if different times of the day (or night) make it easier to put words to page?

    → 9:00 AM, Jan 10
  • Keeping Score: January 3, 2020

    Happy New Year! I hope you achieved your writing goals in 2019, and work your way to new heights of craft in 2020.

    For myself, I feel like there were several highs: getting my first short story accepted for publication, attending my first writers conference, and discovering the score-keeping method I've been using to push my writing forward.

    But also several lows. In fact, 2019 ended on a low for me, with me dreading each writing session, and my 300-word daily goal frequently out of reach. Writing has felt more like drawing blood, recently, than making art or even normal work. I've not been blocked, so much as completely demotivated.

    I'm trying to push through, though. Forcing myself to write the 300 words, each day. Even when they feel pointless, when it seems I'll never finish this novel. I fear I'll still be working on it next year, grinding away at something that I might not be able to sell, in the end.

    Not a heartening way to start the year, maybe. But I wrote 2,148 words this week, step by step. I'm using Anne Lamott's one-inch-frame technique, to narrow my focus down to the point where I can write something. It's working, so far. I am, slowly, making progress.

    What about you? What are your writing goals for 2020? And when your inspiration is running low, what do you do to fill it back up?

    → 9:00 AM, Jan 3
  • Keeping Score: December 6, 2019

    Only a measly 300 words written this week.

    I can blame the time change (from East Coast back to West Coast hours). I can blame the stress of getting back into the day job after a week off.

    But really, it's just been hard pushing the words out this week.

    Hard even to carve out time in the day to do it. I know, I know, that's a perennial excuse, but it's true: some days, it's damn hard to find even thirty minutes where my brain isn't mush and I'm not rushing off to do something else.

    So I'm hoping to find some time today, and each day this weekend, so I can at least finish out the week with 1,500 words done.

    I feel like I'm going to have to reconsider my schedule soon, though, and drop something from it to make room for writing. Only, I don't what I could possibly let go of.

    How about you? What do you do, when you feel your writing time slipping away? How do you claw it back?

    → 9:09 AM, Dec 6
  • Keeping Score: November 29, 2019

    Happy Thanksgiving!

    We're on the East Coast this year, doing what's become a bit of a tradition for us: Crashing someone else's Thanksgiving :)

    We stay with friends of ours in Maryland that we've known for the better part of two decades, and spend the week hanging out with them. I usually make a detour up to Boston to see some other good friends of mine, but I make sure I'm back time for turkey.

    Thankfully, travel this time doesn't mean a loss of writing time. Though I've fallen off the wagon a bit these past few weeks, this week, at least, I've managed to keep up. So: 2,112 words written towards the new novel.

    ...which is a little less than I'd like, given how much time I've spent on trains these past few days, with nothing else to do but type. But I'm finding this last third of the book tricky to navigate. I'm having to pause more and think things through, making notes on different possibilities before picking one and writing it out.

    It's not a bad thing, per se, but it does mean progress feels slow. I'm telling myself that I'll make up for it later, when I'm able to drop in whole chapters from the first draft, instead of rewriting them from scratch.

    If you did NaNoWriMo this month, I hope you're close to the finish line. If you didn't, I hope your current work-in-progress is going well.

    For everyone, I hope you're going into the final month of 2019 doing the one thing that is necessary for progress in this craft: writing!

    → 7:19 AM, Nov 29
  • Keeping Score: October 25, 2019

    I think I've written myself into a corner this week.

    I'm working on a scene where I want to have one character drop a particularly important piece of information. It's something that changes the dynamic of the scene -- from fight to negotiation -- and sets the stage for a partnership that runs through the rest of the novel.

    The trouble is, I've gone out of my way earlier in the book to insist she doesn't remember anything related to this dramatic, juicy, bit of info.

    So I'm in a bit of a bind. Do I try to find some awkward way to shoehorn in why she might remember this bit but not anything else?

    Or should I go back and rewrite the parts where she doesn't remember, and change it so that she does? And deal with the ripple effects that'll cause?

    I'm hoping my subconscious is working on the problem, and will present me with a solution soon. I really don't want to have to rewrite those other scenes, here when I'm so close to finishing this draft.

    What do you do, when you realize the needs of the story -- the drama, or the tension -- are pushing you to change parts of the plot?

    → 8:48 AM, Oct 25
  • Keeping Score: October 18, 2019

    2,477 words written this week.

    I'm going full-steam-ahead on the novel, closing in on the last dozen scenes or so I need to write to finish it out.

    Each new scene, I still think to myself "I don't know if I can do this." But if I just sit there long enough, staring at the screen, and refuse to budge, or to look away, the words will come.

    They may not be the right words, or good ones. But they're progress, the raw material I can use later to shape the story.

    Pushing ahead on the novel means I'm not going back and revising the short stories I wrote over the Writers Conference weekend. That bothers me, but I'm honestly not sure how to do both. Perhaps once I finish this novel draft, I can pause and revise the short stories before plunging back into the book for another editing pass?

    What about you? How do you balance multiple projects? Or, like me, do you find it hard to switch between different works?

    → 8:33 AM, Oct 18
  • Keeping Score: October 11, 2019

    Thank goodness for the Writers Coffeehouse.

    Went this Sunday, after skipping for a few months. Jonathan Maberry again led a fantastic discussion, plus Q&A. He gave us a rundown on options vs production deals, persistence in the face of discouragement, and told us some new markets opening up that we might not have considered before.

    And he also gave me great advice about my nervousness with the magazine that I hadn't heard from since acceptance: Send them an email.

    Yeah, it seems simple in hindsight. But what would I say? How would I ask the question on my mind?

    He gave me a few examples of things to say, and insisted it was not too early (or too late!) to want to hear from them.

    So I followed his advice. Sent the email, after rewriting it three different times, trying to avoid coming off too flippant or too formal or too needy.

    And I got a response within an hour that cleared everything up.

    I feel silly for not writing earlier. It was such a non-deal, and I felt so much better afterwards.

    So much so, that I've already written 2,208 words this week, and I've still got the weekend :)

    What about you? Has there been something you've been nervous about doing as part of your writing -- whether sending it off for review, or reading it to a critique group, or emailing an agent -- that turned out to be nowhere near as big a deal as you thought it'd be?

    → 8:43 AM, Oct 11
  • Keeping Score: October 4, 2019

    I’d heard that the bubble of elation you feel when you first have something accepted for publication doesn’t last long.

    I only half-believed it, of course. Surely I would be different, my expectations set better, my heart both more and less trusting.

    Because if one acceptance happened, couldn’t another? And another? And even if rejection came, wouldn’t that one acceptance be enough to keep me going?

    Turns out the answer is no, no, and nope.

    I’d had a story out to one magazine for a good while – close to three months – and as the time stretched out without getting a rejection notice, I began to hope. The acceptance of another story just made that hope bigger, and my dreams with it: What if all the stories I had out currently got accepted? What if I was able to join SFWA this year, all in a rush, with three stories that I’ve spent years working on all getting accepted in a short window of time?

    But the rejection came yesterday, and my little bubble of hope popped with it.

    Now I feel like half a success, half a failure. It doesn’t help that I’ve heard nothing from the magazine that’s accepted a story since that acceptance; no signed contract, no payment, nothing. So even that success feels ghostly, as if one strong wind could blow it away, and I’d be back where I started. Unpublished. Always-rejected.

    I’m telling myself to be patient. That the only thing I can control is the writing, so I’d better damn well do that part.

    And it does comfort me, a little, that I wrote 2,223 words this week. I’m back to making good progress on the novel, and I’ve got two stories to edit into shape before sending them out into the world.

    Chances are they’ll probably be rejected, too. But I can’t control that. What I can do is write another story, then another, and keep writing. Keep improving. And keep submitting.

    One story got through. I can keep writing until another one does, too.

    → 8:50 AM, Oct 4
  • Keeping Score: September 27, 2019

    Wrote 2,559 words this week!

    I’m trying to get back in the habit of writing daily, or nearly-daily, and it’s paying off. Even though I only wrote 1,400 words at the Tuesday write-in, I put in some time after work Monday and Thursday to push over the 2,500 mark.

    Most of that work’s been on the short story I started last Friday, at the Writers Conference. It was supposed to be a flash piece, in and out quick, but it’s turned into a full 3,000-word story.

    And it might get longer. I compressed a lot of time towards the end, fitting years of change into a few paragraphs. Those might have to be uncompressed in order to feel like a more natural ending. So it might grow another one- to two-thousand words.

    But that’s a problem for later, after I’ve let the story sit for a week or two. Then I can be a bit more objective.

    For now, it’s back to the novel. I’m in the middle third of the book, when characters start colliding against each other on their way to the blowout before the third act.

    And I’m still getting ideas for things that might need to change. Not minor things, like how a character speaks. Major things, like entire plot points and character motivations.

    I’m unsure whether they’re good ideas, though, so I’m just taking notes on them for now. Once this draft is done, I’ll have another look at them and pick and choose which changes to make.

    Until then, it’s forward. Ever forward.

    → 8:11 AM, Sep 27
  • Keeping Score: September 20, 2019

    Only 750 words written this week.

    But they’re good words, because I got ‘em rewriting the scene from last week.

    The first draft of that scene turned out to be closer to what I needed than I thought. I was worried I’d have to throw the whole thing away and start over, but just changing the timing of some of the events, and adding in a hazard here and there, was enough to up the tension.

    Now instead of being a step-by-step account of someone looking around in the aftermath of a disaster, it’s a POV character dodging debris as they try to figure out just what kind of disaster they find themselves a part of.

    Have you ever had an editing task turn out to be easier than you thought? Where a small change to a scene makes a huge difference in how it reads?

    → 9:51 AM, Sep 20
  • Keeping Score: September 13, 2019

    Have you ever written a scene, and almost as soon as it’s done, you realize you have to rewrite it?

    That happened to me this week, while getting my 1,133 words in.

    The scene I plotted out last week started well, but about a third of the way through I started hitting writer’s block. Like I was bored with the scene already, and wanted to move on.

    I pushed myself to finish the draft out, just to have the scene done. So I could say I accomplished something that night.

    But as soon as I woke up the next morning, I knew I needed to start over from scratch.

    If writing the scene was boring for me, it’s going to be boring to read, too. And I could see exactly where I went wrong: I had the scene start after most of the danger was over, and the scene was the character piecing together what had happened after the fact.

    Better to start with the character in danger, and worried for their safety. So they have to scramble to keep themselves alive, and figure out what’s going on.

    It’ll have higher tension, be easier to write, and be a lot more fun to read.

    I don’t want to rewrite the scene. But I’ll need to, if I’m going to keep some narrative momentum going.

    What about you? Do problems with your scenes ever manifest as writer’s block?

    → 8:48 AM, Sep 13
  • Keeping Score: September 6, 2019

    Only 156 words written this week.

    I skipped out on the weekly Write In, and it shows. While I did get a few extra scenes plotted out, and connected some dangling plot threads while I was at it, I only started one scene.

    I’m trying not to be too hard on myself. The pups have been sick, the heat wave means that even with the a/c going I still feel lethargic in the afternoon, and there’s been some ripples in our finances.

    But I can’t help but think I should have gone to the Write In anyway, and that if I did, I’d have made more progress this week.

    So I’m definitely going next week. And maybe I need to start writing more on a daily basis, even if it’s just a hundred words, rather than cramming everything into one night?

    → 8:21 AM, Sep 6
  • Keeping Score: August 30, 2019

    1,679 words written this week, all on the novel. That means two more scenes done – well, drafts of the new scenes done – and I’m two steps closer to being finished with this draft.

    I missed last week’s entry, because I was at a work-related conference, but I did write that week, somewhere north of 1,400 words, again all in a single night at the Write In.

    I’m tempted to add a second Write In night, just to see if I can do it. If I can write as much the second night as the first, I’ll basically double my output in a few hours. I’d get through this draft a lot faster.

    And since just yesterday I noticed I had a reminder to send out this draft to beta readers by October 31, I’m thinking I can use the extra speed.

    What do you do, when you need to write a little faster? Do you add extra writing sessions, or lengthen the ones you have? Or maybe you drop everything else for a while, and sprint towards the finish?

    → 8:03 AM, Aug 30
  • Keeping Score: August 9, 2019

    Only wrote 1,263 words this week (so far). But I feel like I accomplished a lot.

    I went back to the write-in event this week, and again, having two hours of unbroken writing time is simply fantastic. I finished an editing pass on a short story, helped one of the other writers brainstorm ideas for her story, and wrote two pages on a new scene in the novel I’ve been revising.

    I’ve also noticed printing out the text I’m editing seems to help. There’s something about being able to cross things out and scribble notes in the margins that lets me treat what I’ve written as more of a work-in-progress, instead of a delicate glass bird I might shatter if I alter it too much. It’s liberating, and I think I’m going to do that with all my work from now on.

    Who knew that buying a home printer (for a totally different purpose) would have such an impact on my writing process?

    What about you? What helps you get into editing mode? Is it just time away from the work, or do you do something to force you to see it differently?

    → 8:04 AM, Aug 9
  • Keeping Score: August 2, 2019

    (aka Getting Back in the Saddle)

    So it turns out what I thought would just be a small writing break while we were on vacation in early July turned into me taking the whole of July off. I wrote a few hundred words here and there, but didn’t make any real progress on the novel.

    Which felt great, on the one hand. I got back into learning French, I had a lot more time to read, and my mornings had less time pressure (because I wasn’t trying to squeeze in my writing time on top of everything else). Very relaxing.

    But as two weeks became three, then four, I started to worry. Was I ever going to go back to the book? Was I really going to leave it unfinished?

    Or worse: was I done writing prose at all? Was four weeks going to become four months, or four years?

    I’ve taken a years-long break from writing before. I worried it was happening again.

    Thankfully, that doesn’t seem to be the case: I wrote 1,833 words this week. All in one night.

    I went to a Write In event for the first time this week, joining a group that meets at a coffee shop nearby every Tuesday and Thursday. Over two hours, they use the Pomodoro method: write sprint for 25 minutes, then break for 5, then write for 25, rinse, repeat.

    I was skeptical going in, but it really worked for me. Being there with other writers, knowing the clock was ticking, forced me to push through the resistance I always feel when starting to write. And even though by the fourth sprint I was tired, and wanted to quit, I didn’t. I pushed through, and as a result I finished two scenes and added 1,800+ words to the book.

    I’ve also started working on a comic book pitch, using an online class to get some guidance on what a comic pitch needs to include. I’m using the idea I had for my next novel; I think it’ll make a better comic than a book, since it’s set in the ancient Mediterranean. Showing the world via comic will be a lot more powerful than just me describing it, I think.

    Working on both at once makes me feel like I’m making progress again. Like I’m not going to be stuck editing the novel forever. It’s allowed me to relax a bit, and that coupled with the (good) pressure of the Write In makes me feel like I can still do this, even after a break.

    Have any of you ever tried a Write In? Did it work for you?

    → 8:32 AM, Aug 2
  • Keeping Score: June 21, 2019

    785 words written this week (so far). I’ve got some catch-up work to do over the weekend.

    I’m still bouncing around between scenes. If my word count’s lighter than last week, it’s because I’ve been writing more new scenes, and doing less editing of existing ones.

    I still feel non-linear is working for me, though. I finally broke through the blockage on the original scene that made me go non-linear, this week, and knocked out a basic version of it. I’m going back now and adding texture, additional insights into the character’s thoughts and motivations.

    I had a slight mini-blockage toward the end of the scene when I couldn’t decide how to properly weave in a bunch of backstory and explanation, so the character’s actions would make sense. In re-reading the scene, to get my bearings, I realized a good chunk of that explanation actually belonged earlier in the scene. And in moving it up there, I freed up the narrative load of the scene’s end, so I can say what I need to say without bringing things to a screeching halt.

    I also started thinking about changing the gender of one of the antagonists…But I’m holding off an acting on that, just yet. One set of edits at a time.

    How are your projects going? Steady progress, or stuck in a plot swamp?

    → 8:37 AM, Jun 21
  • Keeping Score: June 14, 2019

    1,285 words written this week.

    The new “just get something done every day” rules are really helping me. I’ve actually spent more time outlining and plotting this week than anything else. That’s allowed me to see the shape of the remaining story better, and that has let me take pieces of my previous draft and slot them in, then edit them into shape, letting me make good progress.

    I’ve also been able to see which scenes were missing from my previous outline, and start keeping notes on those.

    Which means I’ve also abandoned linearity this week. Instead of working through each scene in order, I’m jumping around, adding a few words here, then editing a chapter from a previous draft to fit the new storyline, then jotting down some notes on a post-climax scene.

    I didn’t think I could work this way, but the proof is in the word count: I can. It’s gotten me out of the slump I felt I was falling into, staring at the same scene every day, unable to make progress.

    There’s a part of me that’s starting to whisper “you could finish by the end of June after all,” but I’m shushing that part as much as possible. I need to make progress, and I’ll not go pell-mell just to hit a self-imposed deadline (and likely make myself sick again in the process).

    What about you? When editing, do you find it easier to go scene-by-scene through the book, or do you hop around?

    → 8:20 AM, Jun 14
  • Keeping Score: June 7, 2019

    980 words written so far this week. If I can steal an extra hour or so for writing this weekend, I’m on track to hit 1,500 words, which I’ve decided to keep as my weekly goal, for the novel at least.

    Why? Two things: First, I’ve been sick for…it feels like a month now. And I’m still not well. Without going into details, I’ve developed this wonderful case of burning, stinging pain everytime I move my head. But I’ve got to keep making progress on this book, or I’ll never finish it. Sick or not.

    Second, this piece by Chuck Wendig made me re-think my approach to my writing goal. I recommend reading the whole thing, but for me it boiled down to this passage:

    It is a kindness to yourself. Don’t expect to run a mile out of the gate. Don’t demand you write the next bestseller. See the increments. Break it up. Find safe, sane, kind limits for yourself — and then you will find it increasingly easy to exceed them. To embrace a little and relish the success instead of always trying to conquer the whole damn lot — and falling short every damn time.
    In other words, it's ok to set your goal at the bare minimum. When you meet it, you feel good because you made progress. When you exceed it, you feel great.

    Given everything else that’s going on, I definitely don’t want to make my writing into a chore. I don’t want to set my word count goal so high that I’m going to feel like a failure every day.

    But I do want to make progress. So here’s the deal I’m making with myself: 300 words of progress on the novel, every week-day, adding up to 1,500 words a week total. If I go past that, great! But if I just hit it, that’s ok too.

    And once I’ve hit my goal for the day, or the week, I’m free to work on other things: outline a new novel, edit a short story, etc. My thinking is this will make me feel less trapped in the current book, like I can’t work on anything else until it’s done.

    We’ll see if that turns out to be the case. Wish me luck.

    → 8:14 AM, Jun 7
  • Keeping Score: May 31, 2019

    This week has been a total bust, writing-wise.

    I started getting sick Sunday evening. By Monday, I had a fever and chills, coupled with an incredible rate of snot generation. That’s morphed into a lovely cough with a bonus sinus headache.

    So instead of using Memorial Day to sprint through my word count for the week, I spent it trying not to move from underneath the covers. And every day since, I’ve spent what little energy I have at the day job, leaving me nothing for the novel.

    And I’m still not well. Dammit.

    I’m angry and I’m frustrated. I feel like a week of work has been stolen from me.

    But I’m trying not to be angry at myself. I tell myself that illness is going to happen. And I can either rail at myself for taking it easy, or accept that there are times when I’m not going to be able to do everything.

    It feels like an excuse, to be honest. But I also know that after a day of coughing and sneezing and headaches and working to keep the roof over my head, my brain is mush.

    So I have to give it time. For now.

    → 8:25 AM, May 31
  • Keeping Score: May 24, 2019

    So I messed up.

    I’ve been hitting my 1,500 word goal each week, like clockwork. But it’s not enough.

    Based on where I am now, I’d need to write (or edit) something like 8,000 words a week in order to hit my self-imposed deadline of the end of June.

    That kind of pace is…unlikely, to say the least. Possible, sure, but unlikely, given my schedule.

    Earlier this week, I thought about going for it. Staying up later, getting up earlier, pushing to finish on time.

    But the more I thought about it, the more stressed I became. It was harder to get started writing in the morning, because I knew I’d need to write four times my usual word count just to keep up.

    I actually thought about quitting the novel altogether. Just dropping it and going back to working on some short story ideas. I’ve got plenty of them; I could keep busy with shorter fiction for the rest of the year.

    Instead, I’ve decided to get rid of the source of my stress and doubts: I’m scrapping the deadline.

    I’m definitely going to up my weekly word count, though, starting next week. 1,500 words is just not cutting it, in terms of finishing in a timely fashion. I don’t want to be still working on this draft next year. And I do have short stories I want to work on, stories that will take time to get right. Time I’ll have to earn by finishing this novel draft.

    Wish me luck.

    → 8:00 AM, May 24
  • Keeping Score: May 3, 2019

    Only 1,147 words so far this week.

    I seem to be perpetually hovering around 1/3 of the final word count of the novel, between 15,000 and 18,000 words. My total word count will start to climb, as I add new scenes, but then plunge when I delete old ones that no longer fit.

    And I’ve still got that deadline of the end of June to hit.

    I shouldn’t be worried, I suppose. If I finish another third this month, and then the final third in June, I’ll hit my target.

    But what if I’m only halfway through by the end of May? What am I going to give up in order to get back on track?

    Because I need to hit my June deadline. I’m already looking at writing conferences in the fall, ones where you can get pitch sessions with agents and editors. Spending all that money to go will be a waste if I don’t have a finished book to pitch.

    So I need to finish this editing pass by the end of June, so I can send it off to beta readers for feedback, and have time to do some polishing passes before October.

    October. Damn, I don’t want to still be working on this book by then.

    I’d better get back to writing.

    → 8:00 AM, May 3
  • Keeping Score: April 26, 2019

    1,594 words written this week.

    Those words have been pulled out of me, letter by letter. I have to open Scrivener and start reading the previous days' work as soon as I sit down to breakfast. If I wait till after I’ve finished, and let myself sink into Twitter or reading blog posts or magazines, I never get started.

    Even once I’ve started, I keep checking my word count. “Am I done yet? No? How about now? Now? This time?”

    I both can’t wait to be done with this rewrite, so I can move onto to the next project, and I don’t want to do the work necessary to finish it. It’s grinding, boring work, and – because I know even this draft is going to be imperfect – terrifying at the same time.

    Why am I doing this, again?

    Oh, yeah: because this story can’t be told without me. If I don’t write it, no one will know about Marcus, or Julia, or Franklin. No one will feel their pain, their fear, as I have. No one will rejoice at their triumphs.

    I owe it to them to finish. So that’s what I’ll do.

    → 8:16 AM, Apr 26
  • Keeping Score: April 19, 2019

    1,086 words this week, all for the novel edit, this time.

    Though I suppose calling what I’m doing a second draft would be more accurate. I’m not just reading through chapters, tweaking phrases and dialog. I’m rewriting some chapters wholesale, others I’m stitching together from bits and pieces of the previous draft like a linguistic version of Frankenstein’s monster.

    It’s hard to ignore that previous draft, sometimes, even when I know it’s wrong. Not just bad – though the writing certainly deserves the name vomit draft – but wrong. Wrong for the story, wrong for the characters, wrong for the book. And yet, the fact that its words are done, written there on the page, makes it tempting to use them. Even when I know I shouldn’t.

    So it’s easier to delete them, get them out of the way. Of course, then I’m staring at a blank page, that intimidating spotless thing. Who am I to rubbish it up, especially when I know this won’t be the last draft? These revisions will need revisions, and those will need tweaks, and those will need a polish.

    I resort to tricks, at that point. Lie to myself. “Just 50 words,” I’ll say, “and then you can go back to Twitter.” Or: “Just describe what this character feels right now. You’ll cut it later, but get it done now, just in case some of it’s good.”

    And once I’m going, it’s hard to stop. Even when the clock reminds me that it’s time to close up shop and head to the day job, to earn the money I use to keep my hobby – my art – going.

    Every day a new trick. A new lie. But every day the word count grows. The work takes shape. The story comes alive.

    → 8:19 AM, Apr 19
  • Keeping Score: April 12, 2019

    1,134 words written so far this week. So I’ve got some catchup work to do this weekend.

    About half of those words are from revising the flash fiction story I wrote at WonderCon. I tried to do it right this time: I put it aside for a week, sent it out to some very kind friends who were willing to read it, and then started working on it after I’d had a few days to digest their feedback.

    I feel like this second draft is orders of magnitude better than the first. Though even calling it a second draft is somewhat disingenuous; I’ve written three other drafts of the same idea (different characters) before, neither of which really worked. So in some ways I’ve been working on this story for just two weeks. In other ways, I’ve been working on it for (checks date on Scrivener) almost a year.

    Ye gods.

    Found another gem on Twitter this week, from writer A Lee Martinez, that I’d like to share. It pushed me to re-examine my own dialog tags, and tighten things up a bit in that short story I’m working on.

    The whole thread is good, but this is the bit that resonated with me:

    It's like this:
    "I don't know." He turned to her. "I don't."
    VS.
    He turned to her. "I don't know."
    Even something as minor as that can turn a sentence, turning a scene, turning a chapter, turning a whole book. It's not that every word matters, but the ones that do, really do
    I realized I tend to do the former a lot, particularly when I'm trying to mimic the cadence of real speech. But his tweet made me realize my writing would be stronger if I stopped using dialog tags and other interruptions as crutches, and just let the dialog speak for itself. True, that might mean changing the dialog. But the writing will be better for it.

    What about you? What piece of writing advice has made you change something, however minor, in your own writing?

    → 8:26 AM, Apr 12
  • Keeping Score: April 5, 2019

    Written 1,014 words so far this week. That’s a little short of my 1,500-word goal, but given I ended up with 3,805 words for last week, I’m going to give myself a bit of a break.

    I hit that awesome word count last week because of WorldCon. Partly because it was so inspiring. Partly because I had more time alone in which to write.

    But it was more than that. WonderCon made me feel like a writer.

    For maybe the first time, my imposter syndrome was flipped. I started seeing myself the way one of the panelists said we should see ourselves: that like superheroes, the day job is our secret identity, but in truth we’re writers.

    And I finally felt that way. Not only did I feel like a writer, I felt like myself. That it isn’t shameful to not be published yet, because everyone starts out unpublished. That it isn’t bad or a barrier to have a day job, because everyone needs a way to pay the bills.

    I even got to share this feeling. In the last panel, on “Writing the First Draft,” Jonathan Butler gave us all homework: to turn to the person sitting next to us, introduce ourselves, and build our support network of fellow writers.

    But when I turned to the woman sitting next to me and said “So, you’re a writer?”, she looked down and said, “What makes someone a writer?”

    I told her what Jonathan Maberry has told us at every Writers Coffeehouse, something I’m not sure I really believed until that moment: “Writers write. If you write, you’re a writer.”

    She smiled, and started telling me about the screenplay she’s working on.

    I might never see her again, but for that moment, I felt like we were friends, peers, fellow writers making our way along the path.

    It was an incredible moment, and for that feeling alone, that feeling of being at the same time an authentic writer and my real self, it was worth it to go to WonderCon.

    What about you? What moments have inspired you as a writer, or made you feel comfortable calling yourself a writer?

    → 8:28 AM, Apr 5
  • Keeping Score: March 29, 2019

    Something V. E. Schwab tweeted earlier this week really struck me:

    It's often hard to start, but wow, I always forget how much BETTER I feel after writing/editing/working. It's like a pressure valve. My chest feels looser. My head feels quiet.
    Could not agree more. Particularly this week, when I put off working on the novel for...well...most of the week, only to finally sit down on Thursday and bang out most of my word count.

    And it was like a spring uncoiled inside me. My shoulders relaxed. I realized I hadn’t listened to music all week, either, but after writing I finally felt like listening again. I felt like singing.

    I hope I don’t forget that feeling, today, tomorrow, or next week.

    Particularly today, when I’ve only got 1,034 words in towards my 1,500-word goal. The number’s a bit of a jumbled mess; I’ve hit the point where I’m leaving most scenes intact, but still need to rewrite whole sections to make it work. So I’m taking the total word count for each scene, dividing it by two, and moving on.

    That means I need to go through 1,000 words this weekend in order to hit my goal. Note to self: remember how good it feels to be done writing? Hold onto that.

    What about you? Do you find you’re more relaxed after writing? Or is it like taking a bite of your favorite pie, and once you get going you never want to stop?

    → 8:24 AM, Mar 29
  • Keeping Score: March 22, 2019

    Only 751 words written so far this week. Seems I’ll be playing catch-up again this weekend.

    I’ve had some trouble writing the new scenes, particularly dialog. I want to be sure to capture each character’s unique way of speaking, along with their thoughts and feelings in the moment, all the while maintaining the right intensity level for the scene.

    It leads to doubt, which leads to feeling blocked. Which means no words.

    To unblock me, I’m trying something new: let them swing for the fences. As in, instead of internalizing something like:

    I wanted to tell him to go to hell. But I knew I shouldn't, because that might set him off again. Get me in trouble with the Warden.
    I go ahead and let the characters say what they want to say:
    "Go to hell," I blurted. "You've wanted my job for years, and you're just looking for an excuse to take it. But I'll be damned if you'll get it without a fight."
    ...and then, sure, they get in trouble. But it's more interesting to write, it's easier to write, actually, and hopefully it's more interesting to read.

    What about you? How do you get over the fear and doubt that come from staring at a blank page?

    → 8:00 AM, Mar 22
  • Keeping Score: March 15, 2019

    Wrote 971 words this week towards the second draft.

    That’s short of the 1,500 words I’d like to produce by the end of the week, so I’ll have to do some catch-up work this weekend.

    I’m not too worried though. Even though I’m terrified of sucking every time I sit down to write, once I get over my fears and actually do it, everything flows. It’s like I know who these characters are, I know where and when everything is taking place. I finally have a solid grasp of what their story is and where it’s going.

    I’m hoping this won’t turn into a complete rewrite. Not that I can’t do it – I feel like I actually could, no question – but I don’t know that I could do it in time to meet my self-imposed June deadline.

    I don’t think that’ll have to happen, though. I’m writing new scenes now, but later on I should be able to take scenes I’ve got and just tweak them a bit to make them match the new story beats.

    How do you choose which parts to keep and which parts to re-work completely when editing something? Do you lean more towards keeping what’s there, or are you more inclined to tear it up and start over?

    → 8:03 AM, Mar 15
  • Keeping Score: March 8, 2019

    Finally getting back to the good part: the writing.

    Or rather, the re-writing.

    Finished off the sequential outline earlier this week, after going back through the workbook outline and my manuscript to slot in missing scenes.

    Then I took all the scenes from the first draft and shoved them into a single folder, marked “Original.” That way I can keep them around for reference, and pull what I need from them, without them being in the way of the scenes I need to completely rewrite.

    Starting with the opening sequence.

    Early feedback on those scenes said they lacked tension, and they were right. Thankfully, after going through the workbook, I’ve got much better ideas for them. I’m going to introduce some antagonists earlier than before, and tie the bigger conflict arc to their early conflicts with the protagonist.

    I will, most likely, eff up these scene drafts, too. But they’ll be better than before. And hopefully, if I get the story beats at least down correctly, I can work more on language and dialog later.

    → 9:03 AM, Mar 8
  • Keeping Score: March 1, 2019

    Finished the workbook’s version of the outline. Finally.

    Now I’ve just got to take that outline, plus my other notes from the workbook, plus the existing novel, and hash it all together into a regular, scene-by-scene, linear outline.

    Easy, right?

    Maybe it would be, if I didn’t feel so demotivated all of a sudden. Every time I reach for the outline to work on it, I can feel my shoulders sag. I feel like reading, or doing laundry, or scrolling through Twitter, or even working on one of the short stories I’ve got waiting in the queue. Anything but keep working on that outline.

    I’m tempted to skip it, and just dive back into writing. No notes, no plan, just go.

    But that’ll end up with me making another messy draft, won’t it? I’ll just have to go back through it and do the same exercises, all over again.

    So I plod on. Maybe I’ll give myself some time off next week, reduce my writing days to 2 or 3 instead of 5. Allow myself to work on something else, try to recharge the batteries.

    Wish me luck.

    → 9:00 AM, Mar 1
  • Keeping Score: February 22, 2019

    I’m two-thirds of the way through the workbook’s version of the outline.

    I say workbook’s version, because it’s not linear. It doesn’t go scene by scene by scene. Instead, it groups scenes by their impact on the story: the five most important beats on the way to the resolution of the protagonists' main problem, etc.

    So even once I’m done with it, I’ll need to draw up a second outline, one with everything in order, so I know where and when to drop each of the elements from the workbook’s outline.

    This is becoming more work than I thought.

    I’m starting to worry if it’s all necessary. If I’m hiding behind the outline, instead of diving in to get the edits done. Certainly outlining feels like work, like good work, brainstorming different ways scenes could go. But it’s not writing the actual book, it’s just prep.

    And I must confess I have some trepidation about writing the new scenes. They’re all going to be first drafts, which means they’ll be bad, and need revision later. But those revisions will mean changes to other areas, probably, which’ll mean more edits for the altered scenes.

    I worry that I’m looking at a chain of revisions, extending through the rest of the year and beyond.

    In some ways, it might be nice to have a deadline, and someone to send it to. Then I could see an end to the chain of editing, or at least a point where I’m forced to hang up my keyboard and say “no more.”

    Perhaps I should choose one, then. According to my notes, I started working on the ideas and characters for this book in June of 2017. Two years isn’t too bad a time to spend working on a novel.

    So I’ll target being done with these revisions by June 30, and thus having the book ready to go out to beta readers at the very least, if not agents.

    There. Now I have to get past the outline stage and get cracking on writing new scenes. I’ve got a deadline to meet.

    → 9:03 AM, Feb 22
  • Keeping Score: February 15, 2019

    The novel keeps changing.

    I’m trying to pull all the threads from the workbook together, so I know what edits I need to make. I’ve been using the outline template from the workbook, which has been surprisingly helpful.

    But as I do so, I keep having more ideas, better ideas, that ripple out and change the book. One of my characters has gone from being a Senator, to a corporate auditor, to a DOJ Investigator. The key scene between my protagonist and one of the secondary characters that makes him switch sides, which was weakly motivated before, now has the solid footing of a quid pro quo exchange (tied to one of the protagonists' plot layers).

    Once again, I’m glad I’m taking the time to do this work. I was skeptical of the workbook’s outline at first, but in going through the process, I’m learning a lot about my story and my characters. Some of its seeing how much I really do know about the world, and some of its seeing those connections that I didn’t before.

    So it looks like I’ll be lucky to finish the outline by the end of this month. But it’ll be a damn good outline, once it’s done.

    → 9:00 AM, Feb 15
  • Keeping Score: February 8, 2019

    I’ve finished the workbook!

    Well, finished as much of it as I can. There’s a few exercises that I’ll need to come back to.

    One says to take every scene in the book and choose one detail to heighten, which is something I’ll want to do after I’ve written the new scenes and re-arranged the ones I have.

    Another had me write a pitch, and then follow-up by coming back to the pitch in a week and winnowing it down some more. That’ll obviously have to wait.

    But I’m done with the bulk of the exercises. Now all I have to do is put them into practice.

    So next week I’ll be combing through the workbook, pulling notes and scene ideas out and combining them with the notes I have from own first read-through.

    There’s going to be a lot of changes, so I’ll need some way to keep track of them all. I think I’ll start by writing out a new outline, sketching out the scenes (new, changed, and existing) in order. That’ll give me something to compare to the novel as it exists now, a guide to what needs to change.

    I might also work up a timeline, just to be sure everything’s in place, and maybe even a map of the setting, to fix everything in my mind.

    Hopefully I can get all that done in a week, and then start on the edits the following week.

    I have no idea how long those’ll take. This is my first time doing this – editing a novel top-to-bottom using more than just my own gut instincts – and I want to do it well, or at least as well as I’m capable of doing it.

    If it takes me all year, that’s fine. So long as keep at it, and finish it.

    → 9:15 AM, Feb 8
  • Keeping Score: February 1, 2019

    I’m almost done with the Breakout Novel Workbook. Only seven exercises left to go, which I might be able to knock out by the end of next week, assuming I double-up some days.

    Even as I enter the last part of the book, the novel keeps changing. One of the last exercises was on marking changes in how the characters see each other, which pushed me to ask why Character X comes to see Character Y favorably, which led me to alter a scene so those two characters were in it (instead of the original two), which opened up new connections I hadn’t seen before between events very early in the book and the arrival of Character X, which led to…a whole cascade of changes.

    All good changes, I think. The workbook emphasizes connections – between characters, between actions, between subplots – and each change is making the parts of the book more connected. With each change, it’s almost like I can feel the various plot threads pulling together, tightening up.

    And I need that tautness, that tension. I want this story to be so tight it hums.

    I’m even starting to see where the lessons of the workbook can be applied to the short stories I’ve been shopping around. Ways to make their stories more personal, more powerful. Once I finish the workbook, I might practice some of those techniques on the short stories before tackling the novel. None of the stories have sold, so it can’t hurt, right?

    → 9:00 AM, Feb 1
  • Keeping Score: January 25, 2019

    I’m almost two-thirds of the way through the Breakout Novel workbook, now.

    The exercises seem to be getting easier. I’m not sure if that’s because I’m resisting them less, or because I’m just getting used to the idea of needing to punch up the book. Definitely not because they’re any less work; most of the exercises end with a variation of “all that work you did? great. now repeat it ten times, for other parts of your novel.”

    Things are starting to fall together, though. Changes inspired by one exercise are rippling through the others, presenting new opportunities for making the book better.

    For example, one exercise had me work through the story from the perspective of my antagonists. Thinking about what would make their lives harder pushed me to change the occupation of one of my protagonists, and that opened up new ways to make her story intersect with the other characters in interesting ways.

    I know that each change I contemplate is creating more work for myself down the line, when I start to actually implement these changes in the novel. But I’m excited about the work, actually, not intimidated. I feel these changes really will make my novel better.

    I might not succeed in pulling them off, true. But if I don’t push myself, if I don’t try to make them, I’ll never get any better at this. And that would be worse than failing.

    → 9:02 AM, Jan 25
  • Keeping Score: January 18, 2019

    Ever had a week where you feel like a failure? When even the things that go right don’t go right enough to balance out the things that go wrong?

    That’s what this week was for me.

    Not on the writing front, thank goodness. But in my day job, in the work that keeps me fed and clothed and housed. This week it felt like nothing I did there was good enough, for anyone, and it’s had me looking forward to the weekend like nothing else.

    Thank goodness for my writing. Even as I work through the Breakout Novel Workbook, finding flaws in my novel, I don’t feel defeated. I feel energized, like I finally have full control over something. There’s no committee going to tell me to leave a scene as-is to meet an arbitrary deadline. No coworker to stomp on my dialog choices because they think things should be phrased differently.

    No, this novel is mine, like nothing else is. I can do what I want with it, fix it the way I want to fix it, polish it until it gleams.

    It’s a powerful feeling, and a solace during such a hard week. Editing this novel is going to be a lot of work, but it’s work no one can stop me from doing.

    → 8:53 AM, Jan 18
  • Keeping Score: January 11, 2019

    Again, no words written this week. Staying focused on editing the novel, and submitting existing short stories.

    One of the stories I submitted last week has already been rejected by the market I sent it to; I need to pick another market and send it back out, hopefully by the end of today.

    Otherwise, I’m still plowing through the Breakout Novel workbook. I’m still managing to get through about one exercise a day, though some of them are longer (and thus harder) than others.

    Each time I feel like skipping one, I push myself to work through it. And I feel like skipping them a lot; this is adding up to a lot of work. But I tell myself I’m in no rush, I’ve got no deadlines. And I’m the only one who can fix my story. If I don’t put in the work to make it better, no one else will.

    And the exercises are paying off, so far. Even the frustrating ones end up generating some good ideas. Sometimes it takes a few hours for things to shuffle around in my head and then suddenly click into place, but that’s ok. Those sorts of lightning-strike insights I wouldn’t have otherwise are exactly why I’m doing this.

    → 8:54 AM, Jan 11
  • Keeping Score: January 4, 2019

    Absolutely 0 words written this week.

    But! I’ve not been idle. I submitted two short stories (to different markets), and I’ve been making progress on editing my most recent novel.

    The week of Christmas I was able to do a first read-through, making notes as I went. I ignored things like word choice or sentence structure, and looked for higher-level problems: scenes where the characters' actions were inconsistent, or the physics of the place didn’t match up, or where the timeline didn’t make sense.

    I found a lot of problems that I’ll have to fix. But I was happy to find that I still like the characters, and their story, and want to make it the best version I can.

    So this week I cracked open my copy of Writing the Breakout Novel: Workbook, by Donald Maas. Jonathan Maberry recommended it at one of the last Writers' Coffeehouses; he told us that he buys a new one for each novel he writes, and works through it as part of his editing process. So I’m giving it a shot.

    The book is basically a writing workshop in written form. Each chapter describes a writing technique, a way to improve your manuscript, and ends with exercises to push you to use that technique in your own novel.

    I’ve gotten through 6 chapters so far, and while I balked at first (“don’t you tell me my protagonist isn’t heroic enough,” my internal rebel snarled), when I forced myself to work through them, the exercises generated a lot of new ideas for the book. Nothing too radical, as yet, but definite ways to make what I’ve got better, to make my characters' personalities clearer and my scenes more interesting.

    So I plan to keep going, working through one chapter a day. That’ll put me on track to have it completed by the end of the month, at which point I can start collating all these ideas and plan out the editing passes I’m going to make on the book.

    The goal is to have all the editing passes finished and it ready to submit to agents by the end of the year.

    Wish me luck.

    → 8:55 AM, Jan 4
  • Rebooting My Writing Brain

    When I finished the first draft of the latest novel two weeks ago, I told myself I could take the rest of the year off. Maybe do some editing of a few short stories, but no real work till the first of the year, when I planned to dive into editing the novel.

    So, of course, I’m already outlining my next book.

    It surprised me. For a good week there it felt weird to not be writing, but also rather good. I had more time to exercise, to study French, to simply read again.

    But then I read Cicero, followed by Legion vs Phalanx, and that connected up with an idea for a YA novel I’ve had bouncing around in my head, and suddenly I’m writing down characters and plot points and trying to work this story into shape.

    It’s like a damned addiction, this writing thing.

    I’m not keeping score, though; not yet. I want time to think things over, to brainstorm and throw ideas away, before committing to daily, serious work.

    For now, it’s time to play.

    → 9:00 AM, Dec 7
  • Keeping Score: November 21, 2018

    At 67,010 words, the novel’s done!

    Been writing at a good clip while on vacation this week; almost 7,000 just since last Wednesday (!)

    And of course, I already have a list of things I need to go back and fix. Characters that need to be combined. Personalities that need to be made consistent throughout the book. Even events that need to be reworked, because I changed my mind part-way through, so the latter consequences of the event doesn’t match the thing itself anymore.

    But those can come later. For now, the first draft is done, and just in time for Turkey Day :)

    Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving (in the US), and a successful NaNoWriMo, if you’re participating!

    → 8:11 AM, Nov 21
  • Keeping Score: November 12, 2018

    Another week down: 2,295 words written!

    Not all of those were for the novel, though. I’ve decided I want to try my hand at posting more here: more essays, more organized notes, etc. I know I won’t do it if it means taking time away from hitting my word count goals, so I’m making a change to the way I keep score: from now on, I’m counting words written for a blog essay as half.

    So, for example, writing up a 900-word essay would count 450 words towards my weekly goal.

    At the same time, I’m raising my weekly word count goal, to 2,500 words. I’ve been hitting the 2,250-word goal for eight weeks now. It’s time to stretch a bit further, and adding in essays to the word count should make 2,500 achievable. And even if I don’t write any essays in a week, it’s only 50 words extra per day.

    Wish me luck!

    → 9:00 AM, Nov 12
  • Keeping Score: November 5, 2018

    Still on target, if just barely: 2,256 words written last week.

    I’ve reached the “ye gods, when will it be over” stage of writing this book. I know I’m close to the end, and I know basically where I’m going, but it feels like a slog to get there. Doesn’t help that I changed how to get to the ending a while back, adding another 10-20,000 words to the story.

    Thanks, past me.

    So I’m blowing things up. Shoving obstacles in front of my characters left and right. Tweaking personalities of minor characters to make them more interesting (with notes to go back and make them consistent later). In general, just merrily running a drill through the story until I get to the ending.

    Who knows? Maybe all these changes will end up being cut. Or maybe I’ll end up twisting the rest of the story so they fit.

    I’ll only know once it’s done.

    → 9:00 AM, Nov 5
  • Keeping Score: October 29, 2018

    Last week was my first week back to a regular writing schedule, after traveling in Ireland for almost two weeks.

    I worried I wouldn’t be able to jump right in to writing at my previous pace, but I hit a writing streak on Friday, and blew past my writing goal: 2,400 words written!

    And thank goodness, because next month I’ll have been working on the book for a year. I’m ready to finish it off, and move on to the next project. (Well, until I come back and edit this one).

    Very much hoping to be done with it before the end of the year. Would be nice to head into the holidays with the work complete, and have earned a little break from the daily word mines.

    → 8:14 AM, Oct 29
  • Keeping Score: October 1, 2018

    Scraped by this week’s word goal: 2,258 words.

    The next week or two are going to be spotty, writing-wise. I’ll be in Ireland starting Thursday, partly for work and partly for fun, so between prepping for the trip and going on the trip and then recovering from the trip, there might not be much time for writing.

    I will have a rather long plane-ride there (and one on the return), so I’ll try to get what I can done then. Other than that, my schedule will probably be so screwy I won’t be able to carve out any regular writing time.

    I’m going to give myself a pass on this time, though. I’ve been working on the book almost a year now; hobbling along for a week or two while I’m traveling seems like a small delay, in the scheme of things.

    → 7:50 AM, Oct 1
  • Keeping Score: September 24, 2018

    Wrote 2,404 words last week! That makes three weeks in a row I’ve managed to hit my new, higher target.

    And I hit another milestone, as well: the novel passed 50,000 words!

    I worried several times that maybe I didn’t have enough “story” there to hit 50K, and make it a proper novel. But I’m already there, and I haven’t yet hit the climax.

    I should top out at around 60K, which’d be a nice size for trimming later on. A short novel, true, but a novel nevertheless.

    Onward!

    → 8:03 AM, Sep 24
  • Keeping Score: September 17, 2018

    2,306 words written this week!

    I’m trying to let go a little more this week. As in, stop worrying so much about what would be realistic and worry more about what’d be interesting. To approach the new scenes and descriptions thinking “what would be cool?” rather than “what would be expected?”

    Again, I don’t know if this approach will make the book any better. No way to tell until it’s done. But it is making it both more challenging (I have to think things through a bit more) and more fun (anything goes! so long as I can describe whatever it is).

    I’m heading into the final stretch of the novel, so I’m giving myself more liberty to experiment. Since I know where I’m going now, and who’s taking me there, I guess I feel more free to play around.

    I’ll probably just end up making more problems for myself down the line, but for now, I’m just enjoying flexing my wings a little bit.

    → 8:09 AM, Sep 17
  • Keeping Score: September 10, 2018

    I did it! Hit the new word count goal: 2,285 words written last week!

    Again, I wrote most of them on the weekend. Mornings last week were consumed with vacation planning, as the trip we’re taking to Ireland in October is coming up fast. Had to get everything booked before it sells out, so that took priority over my writing during the week.

    But I still got it done!

    Pushing closer to the climax. Even this close to being done, though, I’m still finding things that I wrote earlier that I’ll need to change.

    For example, while writing one scene, I realized the character I’d planned to have in it to do a certain thing couldn’t be there, because he wouldn’t do that thing; it just wouldn’t make sense for his character. So I had to change the scene mid-stream, as it were, and finish it out with a different character in mind (and even a different action, so the plot’s changing, too).

    I suppose I should expect this by now, though. The book isn’t going to be right the first time, and I’m going to have to go back over it multiple times until it is right. I suppose I should be grateful I’m able to see any mistakes now, instead of having to wait for them to be pointed out to me by beta readers later (though I’m sure they’ll find more when they go through it).

    So I’m keeping the higher weekly word count for now. Not sure what I’ll do when it comes time for the Ireland trip. Either take some time off, or maybe, just maybe, I’ll be done before then?

    → 7:51 AM, Sep 10
  • Keeping Score: September 3, 2018

    2,050 words written this week!

    That’s five weeks in a row of hitting my goal of 2,000 words. I’m consistently churning out 400 - 500 words a day, 5 days a week.

    Hard to believe I was having trouble with just 250 words a day only a few months back.

    So it’s time to up my goal once again. I’m targeting 2,250 words this week. Just an extra 50 words a day, but it’ll get me to the end of this first draft that much faster.

    Speaking of which, I’m closing in on the tentpole event that will set off the last act of the book. I got the idea from Jim Butcher’s excellent post on how to handle the mushy middle, and it’s really helped me focus on something other than the climax to keep the book on track.

    I’m also trying to embrace Peter Clines' advice to accept that the first draft will suck. It’s still hard for me to turn off me inner editor, but I’m trying to give myself more freedom to play in this draft.

    If I’ll have to go back and fix it anyway, why not have some fun with it first?

    → 8:34 AM, Sep 3
  • Keeping Score: August 27, 2018

    Wrote 2,023 words this week!

    This means I not only met my goal, but the book’s crossed over 40K words!

    It’s an arbitrary number, but since I’m estimating the final count’s going to be somewhere between 50K and 60K, it feels like I’m in the home stretch.

    Of course, I keep noticing mistakes I’ve made, earlier in the draft. This week I realized I’d gotten the geometry of the setting completely wrong. I’ll need to do an editing pass (once this draft is done) just to fix the blocking, movement, and descriptions of the place.

    But I’m sticking to the advice I got from the Writers' Coffeehouse: to keep writing as if I’ve fixed the issues, and just keep notes for what I should rewrite later. It’s helped me keep moving forward, and kept me from getting discouraged.

    → 8:10 AM, Aug 27
  • Keeping Score: August 20, 2018

    Blew past the word count goal this week: 2,133 words written!

    I realized yesterday that I’m almost at 40,000 words. Since I expect this novel to be brief (about 50K or so), at my current pace I’ll be done in about five weeks.

    Five weeks!

    Who knows if I’ll actually be finished at 50K, but it’s exciting to think about putting this first draft to rest. Feels like I’ve been working on this novel forever. It’s only been nine months, though, and it’ll be close to a year before I’m done.

    Ok, not done exactly, but at least done with the first draft of it.

    I’d like to get into a pace where I can finish (as in, draft, revise, stick a fork in it, ship it finished) a novel a year. I’m not quite there yet; if I finish this one by October, I’d only have a month to do all the edits it needs, which likely won’t be enough time.

    It’d be better if I could revise one book while writing another. I haven’t been able to master that trick yet; the one book takes up so much head space for me that it’s all I can do to occasionally spit out a short story or two while I’m in the middle of the draft.

    Maybe I could find a way to edit on weekends, and work on the new draft during the week? Or vice-versa?

    Not sure what’s best. I just know once this draft is done I’ll have four novels that are finished drafts, but not finished pieces. And that’s starting to bug me. I need to be sending these out, trying to land an agent. But that’s hard to do when they’re not in any shape I want a professional to see them in.

    Do you revise one book while writing another? How do you do it?

    → 7:50 AM, Aug 20
  • Keeping Score: August 13, 2018

    Hit the new goal again this week: 2,016 words written.

    Wrote almost 900 of those in a single day: Saturday. Not great to be writing on a weekend, I suppose, but better than having to write both days.

    I’ve noticed I seem to need two days off writing, no matter what. Whether that’s Saturday and Sunday, or Monday and Tuesday, there’s always a gap somewhere in the week where I have to accept I won’t get any writing done.

    I’m also apparently fairly sensitive to work stress when writing. If the week starts out hard, I’m likely as not going to be playing catch up on my writing over the weekend. Stress at work seems to soak up all the free space in my head, making me feel like I can’t think about anything else.

    Not sure if that’s an unhealthy reaction or not. From one perspective: shouldn’t my writing be an escape from what’s going on around me? From another: how can I possibly devote energy and time to being creative when I’m worried about my livelihood?

    → 3:14 PM, Aug 13
  • Keeping Score: August 6, 2018

    So: I didn’t make it to this month’s Writers Coffeehouse. Missed seeing everyone, and checking in on how their own writing is going.

    But I did hit my new writing goal: 2,033 words this week!

    Granted, I wrote most of them on the weekend, writing ~600 words each on Saturday and Sunday. But I tell myself that what matters is that the draft gets written, not when it happens. Progress is progress.

    For the novel itself, I seem to have turned a corner in the writing. I’m framing each scene now as a contest between two more characters, and letting the thing spill out from them battling it out (not always with fists).

    I don’t know if the writing is better necessarily (this is a first draft, after all), but it’s easier, which means I can relax a bit and have more fun with it.

    I also keep getting ideas on how to improve the first novel I wrote, years ago. Once this draft is done, I might have to go back and re-work that older book, just to scratch that itch.

    → 7:35 AM, Aug 6
  • Keeping Score: July 30, 2018

    Managed to write 1,784 words last week. I thought I’d get more done, with my wife out of town, and all those empty nights ahead of me, waiting to be filled with words.

    But it turned out that with the construction still going on in our house, at the end of the work day I felt like nothing more than curling up on the couch with the pups and binging the last season of Portlandia.

    Thankfully my wife’s coming home Tuesday (yay!) and with her here I should be able to get back to a regular writing schedule.

    I also noticed I’ve hit my word goal for 6 weeks running now. Time to up the count again.

    So I’ve upped it another page, to 2,000 words per week. That means I need to write 400 words a day during the week to hit the goal. Either that, or play catch-up every weekend, which…no thanks. I’d rather have my weekends free :)

    We’ll see how it goes. I’ve still got that penalty hanging over me if I don’t make it, to push me along when I slow down. I haven’t had to face it yet; I hope I never do.

    → 8:13 AM, Jul 30
  • Alive by Scott Sigler

    Intense.

    The prose is stripped clean of excess, going down so smooth it injects the story right into your bloodstream. And hot damn, it’s a good one.

    I haven’t read a lot of YA, but this is the first one I enjoyed, start to finish.

    Three things I learned about writing:

    • First-person, step-by-step, can be brutal: by sitting right inside the character’s head, it’s easy to get sucked in, and then when the shit goes down, you feel every victory and defeat like they’re happening to you.
    • Every group has a jerk. Every group in fiction needs a jerk.
    • One way to handle writing a large group, where each person needs their own personality, is to write scenes in which the group rotates through different configurations. The numbers stay manageable, but the composition of the group in the scene changes, giving each member a chance to shine.
    → 8:30 AM, Jul 9
  • Keeping Score: July 6, 2018

    1,761 words written this week.

    Whew.

    Really glad I went to the Writers Coffeehouse last Sunday. Between the holiday, my wife and I closing on our new house (!), and the struggles I was having with the current novel, I might not have gotten anything done this week. But the group gave me a great solution to my problem (to keep writing as if I’d made the changes to earlier scenes that I’m planning, but without stopping to make those changes right now), and inspired me to keep pushing through.

    I feel a little freer to experiment with this draft, now. Like I can try something out to make things more interesting or dramatic, without worrying that it matches up exactly to what came before. I know it’ll create a mess of a draft for me to clean up in later edits, but at least I’ll finish it. Easier to see the shape of the story once I’ve written it.

    → 4:01 PM, Jul 6
  • Keeping Score: June 15, 2018

    First week of the new word-count target. Final score? 2,698 words (!)

    I feel ambiguous about that number, though.

    I should be very proud of myself. But most of those words aren’t new ones written towards the current novel, they’re revisions of old ones during editing. Specifically, three different short stories. Even giving myself 1/6th credit for each word, I went through enough of them to blow through my word-count goal.

    So I feel like I cheated, in a sense. And yet, I do now have three short stories that I feel are ready to submit, which is something I didn’t have at the start of the week. Maybe that’s enough to be proud of?

    It might also be that these stories were close enough to submittable already (I’d gone through five drafts of one of them) that the editing process felt easier than it could have.

    Next week I’ll be editing one more short story, with the same goal: polish it up for submission. That’ll give me four stories to send out, in the hopes that one of them finds a home.

    Then it’ll be back to pushing on the current novel.

    → 7:33 AM, Jun 15
  • Keeping Score: June 8, 2018

    Hit my word count again this week. This makes 12 weeks in a row. 12 weeks where I’ve written 1,500 words, whether I was at home, or on vacation, or sick, or hungover, or working overtime.

    It’s time to up the ante.

    I’m going up a page, and setting next week’s goal at 1,750 words.

    It looks like a small raise, but it feels like a stretch. There’s been several weeks where I cleared 1,500 words by just a single word or two. Weeks where I had to write Saturday and Sunday to make my count.

    But I’d like to do more. I’d like to start sending short stories out again. That means taking time to edit them, and upping my word count is one way to force me to do that.

    I’ve also got three novels in draft form that I need to revise. If I’m going to clear that backlog, I’m going to have to knuckle down and start plowing through it.

    So wish me luck! Or better yet, wish me energy and willpower. I’m going to need all three :)

    → 8:05 AM, Jun 8
  • Keeping Score: May 21, 2018

    Haven’t posted in a bit. We’ve been ramping up the search for a house this month, and between looking and inspecting and filling out paperwork, I haven’t had much room in my head for anything else.

    I have kept up my writing, though. Having that deadline hanging over my head, and the punishment that would come with missing it, has pushed me to get things done. I’ve just made my word count every week, even if that meant writing half of them on Saturday in a mad rush to keep from missing the target.

    Most of those words have been for the novel, though I’ve not dropped the short story. After getting some harsh (but accurate) feedback from a beta reader, I realized it needed a full rewrite. That’s almost complete, and I think the new version is much stronger. There may even be a novel lurking in there, in the background of that world.

    Thankfully, that novel’s not too distracting…yet. What has been distracting is how my ideas for how best to write the novel keep changing, right in the middle of this first draft. I’m now curious to try my hand at writing more from a third-person omniscient point of view, which would be a complete change from the novel’s current POV. I’m also re-thinking character histories and motivations, which would be an abrupt change this far through.

    I’m telling myself to write these ideas down, and come back to them later. Get the first draft done, get the story out there, and then use these ideas during the editing process, if they’re needed. Otherwise, I worry that if I keep changing course, I’ll never finish the book.

    → 8:13 AM, May 21
  • Writers Coffeehouse, May 2018

    Another solid Coffeehouse. Scott Sigler returned for hosting duties, and he ran a tight ship, taking us from topic to topic while still giving everyone a chance to speak up.

    Last hour or so of the Coffeehouse was just rapid-fire “what are your current issues?” questions for Scott, which he handled with honesty and poise.

    Got some really good advice out of this one. Here are my notes:

    invizium.com: writer trying to break into book trailers

    J Dianne Dotson: BOOK OUT MAY 29th; worldwide distribution via ingram spark; book trailer is up; signing at Mysterious Galaxy in june

    art vs business: are we artists or business people?

    • think in terms of ratings: numbers that are too small for big pubs are great for smaller ones
    • don't chase trends
    • if you do what you like, consistently, you can find your audience
    any place you can go where you can meet editors and agents is worth it

    check twitter, #mswl, manuscript wish list, agents and editors tweet what they’re looking for

    when is it ok to promote? don’t be afraid to ask, but be polite

    polite persistence is the cornerstone of becoming a published author with a publishing house

    how to follow up with editor or agent you meet in person? wait a week, email them, say how you met and what you talked about, short pitch, then wait a month and email again, repeat till you hear back

    editing aids? dianne really likes the hemingway app, can just put your text in there and it’ll catch sentences that are too long, stuff like that, and it’s free; best to do scene by scene, look for trends you didn’t know were there

    self pubbing is now the minor leagues; if you sell 5,000 or 10,000 copies, your next query letter is much much stronger

    don’t wait; if you’ve written a book and no one wants to pick it up, self-publish it and move on to the next book

    for your website, social media: pick your writing name, and grab that domain now, use it everywhere

    also: grab every free email account with that handle, so no one else can

    scott recommends the book “save the cat”, it’s about screenwriting, but has a few chapters about pitching that applies just as well to books

    don’t shut down social media as political statement; just go fallow; online real estate is just as valuable as physical real estate

    beta-readers: can be good for picking up basic reader questions (plot holes, likable characters, etc), but beware when they start commenting on your style

    suggestion: test out beta readers with one chapter, before sending them the whole book

    you all have your own writing style, you just have to get better at it

    aln: local writer’s meetup group; totally free, they pick a subject out of a hat, 30 min writing, then critique

    scott’s advice: if you’re in a slump, go write some fan fiction, get the brain turning and then come back

    one writer recommends: rachel arron: 2k to 10k, she rereads that book whenever she gets into a slump, good advice on structure, etc

    aon timeline syncs with scrivener now; can use it as timeline app and push to scrivener

    scott color-codes the index cards for scenes in scrivener by pov character, lets him easily see who needs a scene

    other writer: pantser, she writes an outline after the fact, uses it to guide her second draft

    if you put up trailers on youtube, watch their viewing stats to see where people fall off watching to learn what to do better on the next one

    try to keep trailer to 30 seconds, minute at the most

    → 8:18 AM, May 8
  • Keeping Score: April 20, 2018

    Another blow out week! Wrote 2,519 words (whew!).

    Most of them were for the new novel, but, like last week, one of the writing exercises I did turned into a short story I’m going to polish and try to sell. I also did a second draft of the short story from last week, which even though it only counted for half, still added ~400 words to my total.

    I didn’t think I could work on multiple pieces at once, but so far it’s not been an issue. If anything, I find I come to the novel work with a more playful attitude, a willingness to experiment, that I didn’t have before. I don’t know if that’s translating into better writing, but I’m enjoying it more, so that’s something :)

    If I can sustain this pace, and I hope I can, I’ll need to up my weekly goal again. I don’t think I’ll leap all the way up to 2,000 words, though. Going up to 1,750 should be fine.

    But let’s see if I can keep up this pace for another week, first.

    → 8:26 AM, Apr 20
  • Keeping Score: April 13, 2018

    Blew through my writing goal this week: 2,431 words written.

    Not all of them were for the new novel, though. I’ve been working my way through Ursula K LeGuin’s Steering the Craft, which has a set of writing exercises for each chapter. Yesterday’s exercise was supposed to be a 200-word snippet to play with different points of view. I was having so much fun writing it, though, that it’s become an 800-word (very) short story. I’m going to polish it up, and try to sell it. So I decided to count it in this week’s word count.

    Novel itself has crept up to 16,000 words. I took some time earlier in the week to do some more outlining, which has helped, and also read Jim Butcher’s great piece on Writing the Middle, which was fantastic. It made me realize I was working toward his “Big Middle” technique, so I’ve decided to embrace it, and write with that in mind.

    I also have to give thanks to the writers at the San Diego Writers Coffeehouse. Seeing everyone on Sunday recharged my batteries, and made me feel that I could finish what I’ve started. I’m not alone, and that’s a very, very, very good thing.

    → 8:15 AM, Apr 13
  • Keeping Score: April 6, 2018

    Scraped by my word goal this week: 1,554 words, most of which were written in just two days (yesterday and today).

    Had a hard time getting myself to write each day, and didn’t make it most days. I think it’s because I’m closing out the early chapters of the book, where I had things mapped out pretty well in advance. From here, I can see the ending I want to get to – the various plotlines I want to wrap up, the character arcs I need to complete – but I’m not sure how to get there. Large chunks of my current outline are just scene titles with TBD for description.

    I need to spend some time outlining, getting the next steps mapped out. But I also need to keep pushing out my word count every day. I’m not sure how to reconcile that, other than to maybe take one day next week and just spend my writing time outlining, then catch up on the other days of the week.

    We’ll see.

    → 5:16 PM, Apr 6
  • Keeping Score: March 30, 2018

    Whew. Managed to scrape by my goal this week: 1,511 words.

    Definitely not raising my weekly word count for a while.

    It’s still helpful, though. Even when I’m taking time off from the day job, I make sure to sit down and get my daily word count out. Don’t want to be playing catch-up on the weekends :)

    Might shift my reward a bit this week. Instead of getting an album, I’m thinking of picking up a game. Discovered they ported Heroes of Might and Magic III (one of my favorite games from college, and now I’m dating myself) to iOS, and I’d like to check it out.

    Till next week: good luck with your own writing! May we see each other on the shelves someday :)

    → 9:44 AM, Mar 30
  • Keeping Score: March 23, 2018

    I did it! Wrote 1,586 words this week, just enough to make my new goal :)

    Novel’s passed 10,000 words, and is still chugging along. So far, so good.

    And this kind of pace feels good, too. Not too intense, but not so slow that I don’t feel like I’m making progress. And each week, I get a reward, a visible reminder of how much work I’ve done.

    Many thanks once again to Scott Sigler, for hosting that Writers' Coffeehouse weeks ago, and sharing his scoring system with us. It’s really helped me, and I’m grateful.

    And now, to pick out some new music! Last week I grabbed Monster Magnet’s Powertrip, an old trippy-rock-meets-cthulhu album that I missed owning. This week I’m considering picking up something from The Stooges, another classic band I haven’t heard a full record from.

    → 8:12 AM, Mar 23
  • Keeping Score: March 16, 2018

    Another week, another push. 1,265 words written this week, again just over goal.

    I think it’s time to boost my numbers. Next week, I’ll shoot for one extra page, making it 1,500 words for the week. That’s still only 300 words a day, Mon-Fri. Should be doable.

    Gotta earn my weekly music :)

    And if it’s not doable, well, then I’ve got my penalty waiting for me. Not that I ever want to experience it.

    I did end up picking the Black Panther soundtrack last week. I think it’s a little uneven, but still solid (unlike the movie, which I thought was great).

    This week…who knows? Maybe time to pick up something I missed from last year.

    → 7:47 AM, Mar 16
  • Keeping Score: March 9, 2018

    I did it again! 1,488 words written this week. The streak continues!

    The iPad continues to earn its keep, letting me write on my last day in Tahoe and while on the road back to San Diego. Even discovered Scrivener for iOS' hidden word-count tracking feature (hint: tap the displayed word count for a scene while having it open for editing) and used it to make sure I hit my daily targets.

    New novel’s at ~8,500 words total, most of those written under the new scoring system. I think I’ll keep it :)

    As for music, last week I ended up snagging Ladytron’s Light + Magic, another older album from a band that I’d never listened to before (yes, I rely on the AVClub for a lot of my music recommendations. don’t judge me). This week I’m thinking of picking up the Black Panther soundtrack, since I just saw – and thoroughly enjoyed – the movie.

    → 9:00 AM, Mar 9
  • Keeping Score: March 5, 2018

    Still on the road. Got back from the cruise last Sunday, unpacked, did laundry, then re-packed everything to fly to San Francisco on Monday.

    Whew.

    I was in SF for a work conference till Friday, when they packed us all in buses and shipped us up to Lake Tahoe.

    Sounds glamorous, but it wasn’t. We got caught in a snowstorm, and they shut down the main road into Tahoe. Our bus was lucky: it only took us 7.5 hours. Others took 12.

    So I went from Baja sunshine to SF gloom and rain to Tahoe’s freezing heights. Oh, and I got food poisoning the next day.

    But I got my writing done, dammit: 1,265 words written, the last few hundred pounded out between trips to the bathroom to throw up.

    I’ve effing earned this week’s music, dammit.

    → 10:46 AM, Mar 5
  • Keeping Score: Feb 22, 2018

    I’m on a boat!

    I don’t have internet access while at sea, so I’m posting this on Thursday, while we’re in port at La Paz, Mexico.

    I’ve still managed to hit my weekly writing goal, though, thanks to my (rapidly becoming trusty) iPad :)

    Total words: 1,276

    No idea what album I’m going to buy as my reward. Last week I ended up grabbing another blast from the past, Orchestral Movement in the Dark’s Dazzle Ships.

    I hear the Black Panther soundtrack’s really good…I might pick up that (once we get home).

    → 3:39 PM, Feb 22
  • Keeping Score: Feb 16, 2018

    Second week of using my new writing score system. Managed to turn out 1,489 words for the new book, so I exceeded my goal (again)!

    I rewarded myself last week by buying Bauhaus' Burning From the Inside. I’d heard of Bauhaus for decades, but never bought one of their albums before, and this article from the AV Club got “She’s in Parties” playing an infinite loop in my brain. So I took the plunge (and the album’s great, btw).

    This week I’m thinking of buying something more recent. Not sure what yet, though.

    I’m writing over 300 words most days, so I’m thinking of upping my goal, to 6 pages a week, or 1,500 words. I’m about to do a lot of travel over the next few weeks, though – one week on a cruise for vacation, ten days in Northern California for work – so I think it’d be best to wait until after that’s over. 1,250 words a week is going to be hard enough to hit when I’m on the road.

     

    → 9:00 AM, Feb 16
  • Keeping Score

    After attending Sunday’s Writers Coffeehouse, I decided to adopt Scott Sigler’s suggestion of a scoring system. Thought it’d be a good way to push me to get back in the writing habit, after the fiasco that was the last few months.

    I decided on the following:

    • A goal of 1,250 words a week. That's five pages total, or one page a day if I write every weekday.
    • Words on the new novel count full. Words for professional or marketing writing (query letters, etc) count half. So a page of query letter writing equals half a page toward my goal.
    • I can't check the news, or do chores, or pay bills, or anything I usually do in the morning, until after my word count for the day is met.
    • If I hit my weekly word count total, I get a reward: buying a new music album. I love getting new music, and albums are cheap enough now that I can buy one once a week and not break the bank.
    • If I don't hit my weekly goal, I get a punishment: no beer or wine for a week. I'm a big craft beer guy, so this hurts: no more pairing a nice IPA with some fish tacos, or a tiramisu with a coffee stout.
    One week in, I'm pretty happy with the system. The ban on morning news means I stay focused on my writing when I get up, and can plan out the day's work.

    As a result, I’m writing about 300 - 400 words a day, not 250, so I hit 1,554 words yesterday. If I sustain that pace, I’ll need to up my weekly goal.

    So hooray for me! I’ll be getting some new music this week :)

    → 8:56 AM, Feb 9
  • It Begins!

    Today’s the first day of NaNoWriMo!

    I’ve got a rough outline, written short stories about three of my main characters, and filled in most of the setting.

    Time to get cracking.

    → 5:00 AM, Nov 1
  • Rejected

    Got multiple rejections this week.

    One was from an agent I’d queried about representing my novel. That was the fastest rejection I think I’ve ever gotten. I emailed in the query, and 24 hours later I had a rejection in my inbox.

    Second one was for a short story I’ve been shopping around. The editor included feedback on what they liked and what they feel the story needs to improve, though, so I’m taking that as a good sign.

    Meanwhile, I’m trying to fight off a cold, edit my third short story from this summer, and start editing my second novel. Oh, and now I need to find a new market to send that newly-rejected short story to.

    Sometimes I wish I could take a week off the day job just to catch up on everything. Sometimes I feel like I’d need a month.

    → 8:03 AM, Sep 22
  • First Novel Done!

    It’s done!

    Finished the final editing pass for the last few chapters of my first novel early this week.

    So now it’s time to build a list of agents to look at, and start querying.

    I’ve been going to Publisher’s Marketplace every morning, researching another agent to add to the list. This weekend I’ll pick one, get my query letter in order for them, and send it off.

    It’ll feel good to get the book out there. Even if every agent rejects it. True, the rejections will hurt…but there’s no way to get published without getting some.

    And, now that the first book’s done, I can turn my attention to the second novel I wrote, and start putting together an editing plan for it. There’s also the short stories I wrote over the last month to edit (one may need a complete rewrite).

    So much to do, and thank goodness!

    → 8:30 AM, Aug 4
  • Beyond the Editing Wall

    Only four chapters left in the final editing pass for the novel.

    Four chapters.

    I’ll be done early next week. Thank the gods.

    Then it’ll be time to gather a list of agents to send it out to, polish up my query letter, and start emailing the thing out.

    It’s been…two years? almost three?…since I started work on it. And soon, very soon, I’ll finally have a finished version to send.

    So, what have I learned? What lessons will I apply to the next book?

    • Definitely break up your editing passes. Trying to fix every problem you see as you see it will only lead to a mess.
    • Don't be afraid to edit the story. Your first take on the story -- not just the words, but what happens and why -- doesn't have to be the last one.
    • You've got time to get it right. Take as many editing passes as you need. No one has to see it until it's ready.
    → 7:07 AM, Jul 28
  • A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

    Another classic that I just never got around to reading before.

    And it’s deservedly a classic. Dickens absolutely skewers the ruling classes of three societies: his native England, pre-Revolutionary France, and the post-Revolutionary Terror. The snarky political commentary makes his dips into melodrama excusable.

    Three things I learned about writing:

    • You can write in the third-person POV without insight into any characters' thoughts or feelings at all, only their actions and words.
    • Admitting that there is a narrator telling the story (while standing outside of it) gives you a chance to comment on the action, not just tell it.
    • Even if readers can anticipate a turn in the story, if the characters don't know it's on its way, you can generate tension just in putting off the moment that that event happens.
    → 6:00 AM, Jul 17
  • Scorecard: Third Week

    Third and final week. How’d I do?

    • Edit one chapter a day: Check. Whew.
    • Write a new short story: Check! Last week's story is up on litreactor for feedback. Newest story will be going up as soon as I have the points.
    • Critique two stories: Check and check.
    • Find a new potential agent for querying: Dropped.
    • Polish and submit a new story each month: Still on track. Got some good feedback on "Wednesday" from the fine folks at litreactor. I'll revise it this weekend, and should have it ready for submitting by the end of the month.
    → 7:55 AM, Jul 14
  • Ironskin by Tina Connolly

    Fantastically well-done. Weaves together magic, fairies, Great War trauma, romance, sisterly rivalry, and the treatment of special-needs children into one cracking good story.

    So very happy to discover there are sequels.

    Three things I learned about writing:

    • Dribble out your backstory. At the start, offer just enough to explain the choices that brought the character to that point. Introduce the rest later, as needed for the story.
    • You can get away with a romance between two characters that have little in common if you make their raw attraction clear and compelling.
    • Sometimes the greatest climaxes (or turns in the story) happen when the protagonist realizes something about themselves that they didn't know before.
    → 6:00 AM, Jul 3
  • Scorecard: First Week

    Last week I set some goals to keep me on track for a productive summer.

    So, how am I doing?

    • Edit one chapter a day: Check. I'm working through the novel backwards this time, to keep it fresh for my editing eyes.
    • Write a new short story each week: Not complete, but new story (working title: Wednesday) is halfway done, and I'll wrap it up this weekend.
    • Critique two stories each week: Check. By the time the new story's done, I should have enough points to post it to the litreactor workshop for feedback.
    • Find a new agent to query each week: Nope. Need to set aside some time next week to do this.
    • Polish and submit a new story each month: Check. I've currently got three short stories making the submission rounds, one of which I submitted for the first time this month.
    → 7:58 AM, Jun 30
  • Crooked by Austin Grossman

    Another strong portrayal of a villain from Grossman.

    Avoids the trap of completely rehabilitating Nixon. He’s sympathetic without being likable, and interesting to follow without the reader always cheering them on.

    Loses steam in the second half. There’s plot lines that go nowhere, scenes that could have been cut without changing anything, and the climax happens completely off-screen, with no buildup or release of tension.

    Still, I learned a few things about writing:

    • Delivering most of your plot via dialog -- so long as you're not data dumping -- can be a great way to keep the story moving.
    • The best villains think they're the hero.
    • Restricting your book to one POV can be too confining. Multiple POV can let you explore other aspects of your world, which you might need if your story takes place somewhere very different.
    → 6:00 AM, Jun 26
  • Going for the Goal

    My wife’s in Arkansas for the next few weeks, visiting her mother for her annual pay-off-the-guilt-from-moving-to-California visit.

    Normally, this is a time I tell myself I’m going to get a lot of writing done, hermit-in-the-woods style, but instead end up staring at the keyboard, trying to dig up inspiration.

    So this time, I’m setting goals. Daily, weekly, and monthly goals:

    • Final-pass edit one chapter in the first novel every day.
    • Write a draft of a new short story every week.
    • Critique two stories submitted to litreactor (the online writer's workshop) every week.
    • Find a new agent to query every week.
    • Polish and submit a new story to a new market every month.
    I've decided to go with submitting the first novel to agents. However, I've also joined Publisher's Marketplace, so I can be selective about which agents I query. Less of a shotgun approach, and more of a laser.

    I’m hoping the explicit, bite-sized goals will keep me focused. Who knows? They might become new habits.

    → 7:59 AM, Jun 23
  • Altered Carbon by Richard K Morgan

    A 1990s trenchcoats-and-mirrorshades action film published in the 21st century with 1950s gender roles. An odd, frustrating, throwback of a book.

    Three things it taught me about writing:

    • Be careful when porting an old genre to a new skin. Bringing along the social mores along with the other elements will make your book feel dated from the start.
    • Taking an otherwise-competent character and pushing them out of their element is a great way to both explore a new world and make it challenging for them.
    • In sci-fi, it's not enough that the names of things -- computers, cars, etc -- change. Our relationship with them needs to change, too, or it's just window dressing.
    → 6:00 AM, Jun 19
  • The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

    Basically perfect. It’s low-key, character-driven sci-fi, stuffed with cool ideas and diverse cultures. Completely scratched my Firefly itch, in a good way :)

    Three things it taught me about writing:

    • Can think of chapters as episodes of a TV series, with cuts between multiple points of view, similar beats, and cliffhanger endings.
    • Having the Shit Go Down at the end of the book rather than the beginning gives the reader time to know and care for the characters, making it more tense.
    • You can get away with an infinite amount of info-dumping if it's a knowledgeable character explaining things to a clueless character.
    → 6:00 AM, May 29
  • Best Book Forward?

    At the Writer’s Coffeehouse this weekend, another writer asked what they should do when they have four novels, all finished, each in a different genre, that they want to pitch to agents. Should they target each book’s query to a different agent? Should they mention they have other novels when querying one of them?

    The answer – which surprised me – was no to both.

    Don’t mention the other novels when first querying. Save that for later, if they want to talk more.

    And instead of sending out queries based on the book, pick the agents you’d like to represent you, and send them the book you think has the greatest commercial potential.

    Agents will want to represent everything you have. But by querying with the book that will likely sell the best, it’ll be easier for them to imagine selling your book to a publisher, which will increase your chances of convincing them to represent you.

    So now I’m confronted with the question: have I been editing the wrong book?

    A frustrating question to have, when I’m only one editing pass away from being totally done. And I’ve already written the synopsis. And the query letter. And have agents picked out.

    But maybe I’d be querying the wrong book? Of the three, I think my most recent one’s the strongest draft. The second one’s the best story, though, and my beta readers' favorite. The first one is, of course, the only one that’s actually done, in the sense of being a final draft.

    So which one do I query with?

    → 7:37 AM, May 19
  • Persona by Genevieve Valentine

    Disappointing.

    Starts out well, action pumping and character backstories fleshed out just enough to make you care, but not enough to stop the flow of the story.

    But the world around them never congeals for me, and the atmosphere of threat and double-cross the story needs can’t happen without it.

    Three things I learned about writing:

    • Switching perspective characters early on is a great opportunity to give more context to what's happening, since it's another angle on the world
    • In a modern setting, you really can cut descriptions down to the bone, to put the focus on dialog and action
    • Can do character backstory in a single chapter, covering years of someone's life, with breaks in-between
    → 6:00 AM, May 15
  • The End is Near

    Novel edits are coming along faster than I thought. Might actually get them all done by the end of the month :)

    It’s weird to see the novel being reshaped under my editing scalpel. I can feel the book getting better, little by little: its characters more consistent, the world more fully realized, the pacing tighter.

    I’m remembering my plans for a follow-on book, and looking forward to writing it. Can editing a novel make you excited to write the sequel?

    → 8:07 AM, Apr 21
  • The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

    Masterful. Incredibly well-crafted series of nested narratives that simultaneously did a deep dive into Dracula lore and sucked me into a single family’s generations-long saga. Just…wow. So well done.

    Three things I learned about writing:

    • You can use flashbacks to cover over narrative time that would otherwise be boring, like train (or plane) travel
    • To make an old myth feel fresh, look for the side that's not usually given a starring role (like the Turkish side of the Dracula legend), and explore it.
    • Journals and letters are a great way to both nest stories, and keep each story personal, told by the person that lived it
    → 6:00 AM, Apr 17
  • Strangely Beautiful, Vol 1 by Leanna Renee Hieber

    “Gothic” in the overwrought, melodramatic sense.

    There’s some fantastic ideas in here, but it was tough one for me to finish.

    Three things I learned about writing:

    • People falling love notice everything about their beloved. If writing from the POV of a character falling in love, their thoughts will dwell on even insignificant details about their beloved.
    • Constant repetition of unexplained magical elements makes them annoying and boring. Conserve the magic, to make it interesting.
    • Use a deep dive into a character's thoughts during conversation sparingly. Dialog should speed the story along, interrupting the flow with paragraphs of thought undercuts momentum and frustrates readers.
    → 6:00 AM, Apr 10
  • Cranking Through

    Managed to whittle the list of editing passes from twelve to twenty and now back to thirteen.

    Which means I didn’t finish them by the end of March, like I wanted.

    I did finish the biggest of the changes, though: giving each chapter to either the male or the female protagonist, swapping evenly between the two, and filling out her narrative arc so that her storyline has equal weight.

    The changes I have left are much smaller: revising character appearances, adding touches to scene descriptions, and making sure everything is consistent.

    Still, I’m setting weekly goals, aiming for three editing passes done each week. At that rate, I’ll be finished with the edits in early May :/

    Much later than I’d like, but I tell myself that’s better than not doing them, or worse yet, continuing to tweak and edit for a year or more.

    → 7:11 AM, Apr 7
  • White Horse by Alex Adams

    Frustrating and disappointing. Adams' writing is stuffed with metaphors, giving everything a dreamy quality that makes it hard to take anything seriously.

    Didn’t help that I just came off reading Octavia Butler’s Earthseed books, which do a much better job of narrating a woman’s journey through a post-apocalyptic world.

    Three things it taught me about writing:

    • If readers already know the narrator survives a scene in a flashback, don't try to wring tension out of their survival.
    • Readers need to know not only what your characters are doing, but why, if they're going to care.
    • When writing a character from a different country, do several editing passes to be certain their dialog, analogies, and expressions all match where they're supposed to be from.
    → 6:00 AM, Mar 13
  • Everyone Gets a Pass

    My original plan for editing the first novel turned out to be…rather naive.

    I thought it would be enough to fix the female protagonist’s plotline, then make a few description tweaks, and be done.

    Instead, I’m looking at making a dozen or more editing passes over the novel, each one picking out a thing to fix and make consistent through the book.

    I’ve had to change character appearances, character names, city names, backstory, world history…nearly every element needs to be tweaked one way or another to line up better with what I think the novel should be.

    So I’m keeping a running list of things to fix as I go, jotting them down as I find them. That way I can focus on just one editing task at a time, getting one thing right all the way through the book before going back to the beginning and starting on the next fix.

    My goal was to have these edits done by the end of the month (for a total of three months of editing), so I could spend the next three months editing my second novel. But we’re a third of the way through March, and, well…my list keeps growing.

    Still, I’ll push on. I’m finding I still like this novel, still like the characters. I want to do them justice, give them the best book I can. So I’ll keep working through the list, till the list is done.

    → 9:00 AM, Mar 10
  • Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

    Prescient, gripping, and intimidatingly good. Definitely going to read more of Butler’s books.

    I’m rather sad that she wasn’t able to complete a new Earthseed series, like she planned, before her death.

    Three more things she taught me about writing:

    • Perfectly acceptable to have the sequel start out as more "and then this happened".
    • First act turn is a great place to upend what the characters have built previously, have the outside world come in with the force of a storm.
    • Editors and compilers of biographies can have agendas just like other characters, and become more interesting when they reveal them
    → 7:00 AM, Mar 6
  • Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel

    Oddly compelling. Told any other way, it’d be just one more story about giant robots and the people piloting them. But by telling it through interviews, to make it feel like you’re reading a classified dossier, makes it feel fresh and compelling.

    Three things I learned about writing:

    • Even old ideas can feel new again when told in a different way.
    • Interviews can let you do first-person narration without having to actually narrate. No need for detailed descriptions, etc. Can take a lot of shortcuts and still feel real.
    • Don't forget the interviewer! They have their own agenda, and that should come through in their questions and reactions.
    → 7:00 AM, Feb 22
  • The Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

    Eerily prescient. Takes place in a California where water is scarce, most government has been privatized, and the President uses racial politics to push through reforms that weaken protections for workers and the poor.

    Felt all too familiar. And she predicted all this over twenty years ago.

    I usually don’t like post-apocalyptic books, especially ones that go in for the “slow apocalypse” where everything just collapses over time as people stop taking care of the things that keep civilization going. It’s depressing reading, but Butler’s writing is so compelling, I had to see it through.

    Three things I learned about writing:

    • Scarcities in society will be reflected in the social order. If food is scarce, being fat is a sign of wealth. If water is scarce, being clean (taking baths) will be seen luxurious. In both cases, being poor and engaging in "rich" behavior will be seen as uppity.
    • There's life in the hero's journey yet, if explored from different angles. Here the young protagonist grows up in a small town, yet feels called to greatness, then compelled to become a leader when driven out of their home.
    • Adopting a diary structure can let you skip past boring parts of the story will zooming in on the important ones. A well-written diary will do that, and still give you a chance to convey the rhythms of life, since it's the story the person is telling themselves, as they live it.
    → 7:00 AM, Feb 15
  • The Just City by Jo Walton

    Inspiring. I could not imagine daring to try to write dialog for Greek gods and long-dead philosophers, but she did, and does it brilliantly.

    Made me miss my days as a philosophy major, and that’s a good thing.

    Three things I learned about writing:

    • Long explanations of things are ok, but only after the reader has come to know the characters, and care about them.
    • Switching first-person narrators is fine, so long as you keep the number of them down and clearly label each chapter so we know which character is speaking.
    • Sense of place can come through not just by food and clothing, but architecture and leisure activities as well.
    → 7:00 AM, Jan 25
  • Editing as Worldbuilding

    We’re here! Made it into San Diego last week, despite freezing rain (Flagstaff), gusty winds (most of New Mexico), and fog (Cuyamaca Mountains).

    No, we’re not unpacked yet. Yes, I unpacked the books first :)

    So, back to work. And also back to writing.

    I’ve decided to do another editing pass on the first novel. I feel like I’ve learned a lot about writing in just the last few months, and I’d like to apply what I’ve learned to it, see if it makes it better.

    I’d also like to go back and fill in a lot of the worldbuilding details I left vague in the first two drafts. Flesh out character backgrounds, city histories, etc. I don’t want to add a huge info-dump to the book, but I do want to make sure everything holds together better, the various pieces of book matching up to make a more powerful whole.

    And after thinking through the plot more, I’m really not satisfied with the way I’ve handled the female protagonist. That’s part of why I need to flesh out the character backgrounds, specifically hers. I realized her character arc is muted, a victim of me being unsure who I wanted to be the protagonist in the first draft.

    She deserves better, so I’m going to pull out her conflicts and struggles into its own storyline, an independent path to follow while she also contributes to the central plot. I think it’ll make the book stronger, and the ending more compelling.

    Some of these changes will be dialog or description tweaks. Some of this will probably end up being major surgery. But I’ve got to try.

    Wish me luck.

    → 8:16 AM, Jan 20
  • Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

    Easily worthy of the awards it won. Fantastic ideas, presented through conflicts with interesting characters, and writing that describes just enough and no more.

    And I almost stopped halfway through.

    There’s a point where the protagonist does something so amazingly dumb, that I wanted to put the book down in frustration. But I kept going, and I’m glad I did. Because it only got better from there.

    Three things I learned about writing:

    • Beware delaying explanations for too long. A character that says "I don't know why I did X" too often, before their inability to explain is outlined to the reader, can lead to frustration.
    • Don't have to wait for the character to say "and then I told them my story" to tell that story to the reader. Can layer it in, piece by piece, via flashback chapters.
    • Small touches, like bare hands being considered vulgar, when followed-through, can do a lot of work to make a culture feel real.
    → 7:00 AM, Jan 11
  • Idle Hands

    No writing this week. The novel’s done (for now), so I’ve been focused on the upcoming move, getting everything boxed and labeled and loaded. 

    It’s like having our lives flash frozen, to be thawed on arrival in California.

    Not having a writing project to work on is, as ever, weird. It’s as if school exams have been canceled, but just for me: I feel like I should be studying, but I’m not. Because I don’t have to.

    Not that my brain has noticed. Woke up in the middle of the night with an idea for another story. I think it’s a flash fiction piece, but there might be more there. Have to write it and find out.

    It’ll have to wait its turn, though. Behind the move, and the novel edits, and the short story edits, and querying agents, and the…ye gods, I’ve got a lot of work to do.

    Excuse me, I need to go write.

    → 7:56 AM, Jan 6
  • Done!

    Novel’s complete at 50,122 words!

    At least, I think it’s complete. Last time I thought it was done, there turned out to be another 45,000 words of story to tell in there.

    The cut-off point this time felt more natural, but could seem just as arbitrary to a reader.

    Only way to find out for sure is to hand it off to those brave friends willing to read and offer feedback on something so rough and ragged (bless you all).

    Till then, it’s back to editing my other projects. I’ve had some ideas for how to trim my first novel into a better shape. cracks knuckles

    Hope you have a Happy New Year! May your words sparkle, your stories captivate, and your edits be painless :)

    → 7:21 AM, Dec 30
  • Outline as Compass

    Novel’s at 39,412 words.

    Decided to brainstorm my way out of being lost. I took the climax I’m working toward, and mapped out short, medium, and long ways to get there.

    They all had scenes in common, but only the long path gave me the chance to wrap up all of the plotlines I’ve got going.

    So I’m taking the long path.

    It’s still likely to end up a short novel. I’m definitely in the final third of the book, so I know I need to pile on the pressure to build things toward my climax.

    With luck (and a lot of work), I’ll be finished somewhere around the first of the year.

    Then I can turn back to editing my second novel, and maybe doing another pass on my first novel, and another edit on this short story I wrote in September…

    sighs Maybe best to ignore that for now. One story at a time.

    → 7:00 AM, Dec 16
  • Where Am I?

    Novel’s at 33,986 words.

    I’m at a point where I’m not sure how much story is left to tell.

    I could be two-thirds of the way through, and so on my way to the end. If so, I should be quickening the pace in each scene, pushing the narrative forward faster and faster to reach the climax.

    Or I could just be halfway through. In which case, I should be steadily building toward the next major turning point in the story, pacing things so that the reader’s not exhausted by the end of the book.

    I feel like this is something I should know.

    I’ve got the rest of the book outlined (even if it’s in my head). I know the scene for the story’s climax. I know the characters that are there, and what happens afterward. But damned if I don’t know how they got there, or how much time there is between the scene I’m currently writing and the last one.

    It mystifies me that the only way to find out is for me to write it. As if I weren’t writing a story, but reporting on events. And until those events happen, I’ve got nothing to report.

    → 7:00 AM, Dec 9
  • From Sprint to Marathon

    NaNoWriMo’s over. Final word count: 30,836.

    So, I didn’t make it to 50,000 this year. But I don’t want to dwell on that.

    Here’s what I did do:

    • I started a new novel, which is still not easy for me.
    • I proved I could still write 4,000 words in a single day, like I did last Saturday.
    • I learned that starting with a short story set in the world does help when it comes time to write the novel. I've written more each day, and more easily, for this novel than the previous one.
    But the novel's not done, and neither am I. To keep me on track, I'm setting a new goal: to reach 50,000 words by the end of the year.

    More modest than NaNoWriMo, true, but I think it’ll keep me focused, keep me pushing forward on the book. I’d like to have this first draft done in three months instead of twelve, so I can spend more time revising it.

    Wish me luck.

    → 7:00 AM, Dec 2
  • Wanted: More Time

    Novel’s at 19,170 words.

    Limped along with 500 words a day through the week, then managed to crank out 2,000 words yesterday. Hoping to do the same today, and tomorrow, and Sunday.

    I need to be writing about 5,000 words a day, to make the NaNoWriMo deadline. That’s…probably not going to happen.

    I have to try, though. Even if I don’t get to 50,000 words this month, I’m still going to finish the novel. So every word still counts.

    → 7:00 AM, Nov 25
  • Behind

    Novel’s at 12,104 words.

    I’m seriously behind. About 18,000 words behind, to be more specific.

    Trying to tell myself that every word written is a victory, and it’s enough to just have the novel started. That works. Sometimes.

    And sometimes I just want to take the day off work, so I can write.

    Because I’m also looking at the short story I’m supposed to revise, the previous novel I should be editing, and the one before that that I should be sending round to more agents.

    I put all that on hold so I “focus” on NaNoWriMo. But if I’m already slipping behind on this month’s writing, maybe I shouldn’t have?

    How far behind am I going to get on those projects, while I struggle through this one?

    → 7:00 AM, Nov 18
  • Getting Back to Work

    Haven’t been able to write since Tuesday. I’ve been too hurt, too confused, too angry to spin up my imagination and write about what’s happening in that other world.

    It doesn’t help that it’s supposed to be a light book, full of whimsy and humor.

    I don’t feel very funny anymore.

    But I’ve got to get back to it.

    Maybe the book will turn out a little darker than I’d intended, now. Or maybe I’ll find a way to recapture the fun spirit I started with, and use the book to remind myself of the good things that are still out there: the wife that loves me, the friends that support me, the peers that understand what’s happening, and forgive.

    But most of all I need to finish it because this book has suddenly become more explicitly political than I intended.

    My main character is a lesbian, which when I started out was just the way the character came into my head. Now it feels like writing her is an act of defiance, a way of pushing back against Trump and his ilk.

    No one else may ever read this book, and it may never be good enough to be published. But damned if I won’t finish it, and make it as good as I can make it.

    Because the importance of minority representation in fiction has just hit home to me, and I want to do my part.

    → 7:00 AM, Nov 11
  • There's More, Thank Goodness

    Went back to finish the short story, as prep for converting it into a novel for NaNoWriMo…and found I couldn’t finish it, because there was too much more to tell.

    Which is a relief, actually, because it means I don’t have to throw the short story away and start over, or worry about having enough depth in the setting and the characters for a novel. The short story is the intro to the novel, the opening scene(s), setting the stage for everything that follows.

    This has never happened to me before. But then, it’s only my third novel, so what do I know?

    Now I’m working up the outline of the book, discovering plots and subplots I didn’t know were waiting inside the short story.

    It’s a process that’s both fun and terrifying, like doing improv sketches in front of a video camera instead of an audience: you have to hope the jokes land, because you won’t know until long after you’re done performing.

    → 6:00 AM, Nov 4
  • Geronimo!

    It’s 50,000 words to win NaNoWriMo. I’ve got a head full of ideas, a half-finished short-story, no outline, and no plot.

    Hit it!

    → 6:00 AM, Nov 1
  • Three Fronts

    Made good progress on three different projects this week.

    First, the finished fantasy novel. I’ve pushed my first query letter out to my first choice of agent!

    I don’t know how hitting Send on an email could make me so tense, but it felt like I was walking on stage in front of a crowd of thousands. But now it’s done, and I can use the synopsis from that letter to build other queries for other agents.

    Second, I started workshopping a short story for the first time.

    A fellow writer recommended LitReactor to me last year; this week I finally worked up the courage to join and post something for review. It’s a story I wrote on the plane home from New York last month. I’ve already gotten some good feedback on it, and will probably post a second story there soon.

    Which brings to me to the third project: NaNoWriMo prep. I finished the short story (!) that I wanted to use to test out the concept. I think there’s definitely more to tell, there, though I’m not sure if I have enough for a full novel. Maybe just a series of stories.

    Guess there’s only one way to find out, and that’s to dive in and see how far I can get.

    → 6:00 AM, Oct 21
  • NaNoWriMo is Coming

    I really want to do NaNoWriMo again this year. Last time, it helped me finally dig in and start a novel, pushing me to get 50,000 words in before the end of November, and then finish it over the following months.

    That same novel is now edited and ready for querying. I’ve spent this week drafting a query letter, one I’ll be editing this next week before starting to send out.

    At the same time, I need to prep for NaNoWriMo, so I’ve also begun writing a new short story. It’s from an idea that’s been kicking around in my head for a few years. I think there may be a novel’s worth of story in there, but I don’t want to dive in to one without some prep work.

    So I’m writing a short story set in that world first, to see if it has legs. It’s something I did (without knowing it) for my first novel, and skipped – because I didn’t know it was something you could deliberately do – for the second.

    Since I found the first novel much easier to write, and I’ve heard other writers mention using the short story as a way to explore a novel idea, I’m going to try it out.

    If it works, I’ll have something solid to work with as I build my outline for NaNoWriMo. If it doesn’t, then at least I’ve only invested a week or two (instead of months).

    → 6:00 AM, Oct 14
  • Query Time

    Opened the novel this week to continue my edits. Flipped open my notes, looked for the next thing that needed to be fixed.

    There wasn’t one.

    Which means: the edits are done, hooray!

    But also means: it’s time to query agents. And suddenly I have the urge to hold onto the manuscript just a bit longer, to do just one more editing pass, before letting anyone in the publishing world see it.

    That won’t do. So I’ve been researching agents open to submissions in my genre, compiling a list of five to start with. I’ll find more once I’ve heard back from these five.

    I’m already steeling myself for the rejections, but there’s really no choice here: it’s either face rejection, or never have a chance of it getting picked up by a publishing house.

    → 6:00 AM, Oct 7
  • Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella

    Surprisingly deep and engrossing. Reads like total fluff, but wrestles with real issues: debt, addiction, and substituting daydreams for working toward a goal.

    Three things I learned about writing:

    • Tension can come from a character's inner dialog, instead of from events. With the right narration, a night of watching tv can become high drama.
    • Obstacles don't have to come from outside the main character; it's just as satisfying to watch them overcome situations they've created for themselves.
    • Don't always need to hear both sides of a conversation. Sometimes it's more fun to imagine the other side for ourselves.
    → 6:00 AM, Oct 5
  • Last Cull

    Working through the last chapter that needs to be trimmed down. So far, I’ve cut about 12,000 words off the novel, close to my target of 14,000 (10% of the original length).

    So this weekend I’ll be able to start fixing the multitude of other errors I’ve found in the cutting.

    Thankfully my previous fixes – the patching over of the plot hole, making certain things explicit earlier in the book – have held up on this second read-through. In fact, I think trimming off the fat of the book has made the fixes better, bringing the stitched parts of the narrative closer together, in a way, so they reinforce each other.

    Strange to think that deleting words not only improves the pacing, but makes the other parts stronger.

    → 6:00 AM, Sep 23
  • The Best Word is a Deleted Word

    Trimmed another 3,000 words off the draft this week.

    Only three chapters left to truncate. Then I can start in on the growing list of problems I’m seeing as I go: personality quirks that got dropped from later chapters, items whose properties changed without reason, place names that got swapped.

    At this point, I’m starting to look forward to doing the final copyediting run-through, because it’ll mean all these other issues have been dealt with.

    Till then, I’ll keep cutting.

    → 6:00 AM, Sep 16
  • 11/22/63 by Stephen King

    Compelling. Read the last half of this 900+ page monster in a single day.

    Still amazes me how King’s writing style is so slight as to be non-existent, but with it he creates these incredibly long, involved, gripping stories. Truly a master of the craft.

    Three things I learned about writing:

    • Horror stories lean on senses other than sight: smell and taste, in particular. These senses are more intimately connected with our bodies, making the texture of the story more physical.
    • A simple task can have tension if the reader is kept guessing as to what might happen, and if the character thinks things could go horribly wrong; if the character has a goal-threatening freak-out, that's even better.
    • Horror needs a temptation: an invitation to follow a compulsion the character normally wouldn't, with promises (usually false) given that make it seem ok.
    → 6:00 AM, Sep 12
  • We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

    Labor Day weekend was awesome. I spent most of each day editing: reading through the novel and hacking away at anything that didn’t need to be there. I’ve trimmed a few thousand words off the draft already, and it feels great.

    Except that every time I read it, I find more things wrong.

    On my way to cut down a stray paragraph, I noticed one of the characters' dialog sounded like a really bad imitation of an accent. Had to stop and fix that.

    Trimming a different chapter, another character had somehow developed a verbal tick, repeating the same phrase with every sentence, like some sort of crazed parrot. I had to stop and fix that, too.

    Each round of edits is revealing more edits that are needed. I’ve had to stop changing things as I notice them, because it ends up derailing the edits I originally went in to make. Instead I’m jotting each one down in a notebook, so I can go back through later and fix them.

    What I thought would be a series of nice, orderly editing rounds has become a game of whack-a-mole, where three more problems rear up with every one I knock down. At this rate, my internal deadline (Oct 1) for finishing the edits won’t be a deadline so much as the day I put down the mallet in defeat.

    Until then, I’ll keep hammering away.

    → 6:00 AM, Sep 9
  • Editing Day

    Today is Editing Day.

    I’ve patched the holes in the plot. I’ve gone through and made the language more consistent. I’ve checked the character’s backstory to make sure it all hangs together.

    Now it’s time to do the cutting. Time to trim away the fat from my descriptions, to cut the unnecessary dialog, to skip over any boring action sequences.

    It’s good I have the day off. I’ll be spending it making the first cuts, and planning the word culling to come.

    → 6:04 AM, Sep 2
  • Patching

    Biggest three flaws in the novel are fixed!

    Or, at least, I think they are? Hard to tell without getting another round of beta reader feedback.

    In any case, I’ve made edits to fix the largest plot holes. 

    Moving on to problems with world-building. Those range from big things like: does the background for the two main characters make sense? Is it treated consistently? Does the behavior of the villain at the start of the book hold with what we learn about them by the end? To smaller pieces, like making sure the monetary system used holds up and the curses the characters utter fit the world.

    It’s a little more scattershot than the first editing pass. Almost wish I’d made notes as I wrote the first draft, breadcrumbs for me to follow back so I’d know exactly which sections of the text would need to be checked later. Maybe something to try with my next novel?

    → 6:00 AM, Aug 12
  • Chugging Along the Editing Rails

    The major flaw in the novel is almost fixed. I’ve been editing around it, working my way from the scenes where the initial cracks in the story start showing through, down to where the plot hole opens up a mile wide.

    I’ve started building a bridge across that chasm, a way to connect what happens on both sides so that it’s no longer an abrupt fall.

    Today I made it up to the turning point itself, the central event at the heart of the flaw. I’ve finished editing that scene, and will continue on past it, smoothing things over until I feel the problem is fixed.

    Once that’s done, it’ll be on to the next issue, and the next. Those are much smaller, so I’m hoping their edits go faster.

    Onward!

    → 6:00 AM, Aug 5
  • Don't Worry, Be Editing

    With the first draft of the children’s book done, I can at last turn to editing my first novel, the one I started as part of NaNoWriMo 2014.

    The problem, of course, is that I have no idea how to edit a novel.

    A short story, sure. A blog post, definitely. Those are small things, though, easy to hold in my head and thus easy to find contradictions in, easy to re-read and catch typos, easy to control.

    I read in The Kick-Ass Writer that you shouldn’t go into editing without a plan, and that you should make several passes: a pass for grammar, a pass for plot, a pass for descriptions.

    So I made one plan, and threw it away, because it was too detailed and intimidating.

    I made a second plan, and then threw it away, because it was too vague.

    I made a third plan, and then decided I needed to stop being afraid of diving in and fixing things. So I re-read all the alpha-reader feedback I had, picked the most glaring flaw they all mentioned, and decided to start there.

    Granted, it’s two-thirds of the way through the book. But it’s something that worried me when I wrote it, and if they also had issues with it, it’s something I should take care of.

    Once that’s fixed, I’ll move onto the next biggest issue, and then the next, and the next. Along the way, I’ll tweak wording here and there, fix typos, etc, so that hopefully I’ll have caught them all before I do my “official” re-read for those kinds of mistakes.

    → 5:59 AM, Jul 29
  • Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson

    Moving. Robinson conveys both the triumphs and the horrors of interstellar colonization, covering hundreds of years in a single book. Almost cried at the end of the penultimate chapter.

    Three things I learned about writing:

    • The experience of agoraphobia (possibly all phobias) is something the written word is much more suited to portray than film, allowing us to think what the sufferer thinks, feel what they feel, better than other media.
    • In a longer work, you can structure chapters as stories of their own, with a cold open, development, slow crisis, resolution, and a reveal
    • When narrating long periods of time, zoom out to establish rhythms or patterns, zoom in on unusual or unique happenings (or things that have an impact on the larger patterns)
    → 6:00 AM, Jul 6
  • Looking Back

    I’ve been thinking about how I wrote this last novel, and what I might need to change about my writing process.

    It felt a lot harder to write this one than the last one, and took longer, too. Maybe there are sone things I need to beware of, danger signs I should watch out for, when starting my third?

    I think my first mistake was not writing a short story set in the world of the novel. I did this – accidentally – for my first book. Didn’t know it was an actual technique until I saw an interview with N K Jemisin (an amazing writer whose most recent book is up for a Hugo!)  where she mentioned that she always – deliberately – writes a short story in a new world before starting a novel set there. Her reasons lined up exactly with my experience: writing the story gave her a sense of the world and the kinds of characters and conflicts that might happen there. Even if she doesn’t use the characters from the short story in the novel, all the world-building she’s done helps.

    My second problem was trying my hand at science fiction. My degree is in physics, so my Inner Editor gets all fired up when I’m writing something set in “the real world,” rejecting ideas left and right because “it doesn’t work that way.” It’s something I’m working on, because it blocks my writing flow, constricting my choices and making me doubt that I can write anything that maintains consistency.

    Third mistake: writing through trauma. I mentioned this at the time, but trying to write through the events of the latter half of last year was almost impossible. I was distracted, I was angry and frustrated and scared, I was in no way ready to push through a novel like this. I’m glad I did, in the end, but without my wife and my friends to lean on, I don’t think I would have.

    So, lessons learned:

    • Write a short story version first.
    • Don't worry about matching current scientific understanding in the first draft. Save consistency for the edits.
    • Don't force myself to write through a traumatic event. No extra pressure needed.
    → 6:38 AM, Jun 17
  • Next!

    Taken the last few days off from writing. That’ll likely extend into the weekend, when my wife and I go out to celebrate completing the draft.

    But I’m feeling a little listless, like I don’t know what to do with myself. So I’m already thinking of what to work on next, what project to use to keep the writing part of my brain busy.

    There’s a children’s book idea I’ve had recently that I’d like to take a swing at. Should be very different from writing a novel, and something I can hopefully complete a draft of fairly quickly.

    I’ve also got a draft of my first novel (working title: The Hungry Cold. don’t judge me) that needs editing. Gotten lots of feedback from first readers about it, including several spots that need fixing.

    Those two projects should keep me pretty busy for a few months (at least). I’m thinking of starting the children’s book next week, as way to clear my head before starting in on some edits. I’ll be traveling, though, so probably won’t be able to do much more than outline.

    → 6:00 AM, Jun 10
  • Finally

    New novel’s done!

    Topped out at 111,733 words yesterday morning.

    I feel proud, relieved, and confused all at the same time. Proud for getting it done, relieved that I can move on to the next project, confused that I might actually be done with the first draft. There’s a part of my brain that’s circling the last few chapters, going “are you sure we’re finished?”

    But I am, thank goodness.

    Next it’ll be on to editing the draft of my previous novel, whipping that into a shape I can send out to agents.

    But that’s later. For now, the order of the day (of the week?) is to relax, recharge, and regroup.

    → 6:00 AM, Jun 8
  • Nope

    Novel’s at 103,532 words…and it’s still not finished.

    Wrote about 10,000 words in the last five days, pushing to uncover the ending. But there’s more story left to tell than I thought. Blew right past 90,000 words, then 100,000, and it’s not done.

    My revised outline – yes, I’m still revising it, thank you – points to five more chapters, and then I’ll be finished. That means somewhere between 15,000 and 30,000 words to go.

    So I’m pushing my deadline to July 1st, and setting a target of 1,000 words per day until it’s done.

    One way or another, I will finish this draft.

    → 6:00 AM, Jun 3
  • Can't Talk Now, Writing!

    No real blog post today (or likely on Friday or Monday), as I’m focused on wrapping up the novel before June 1st.

    Wish me luck!

    → 6:01 AM, May 25
  • No Time Off

    Novel’s at 88,796 words.

    I’m pushing myself to write at least 400 words a day, stretching to 500, instead of my usual 250. I’m writing every day now, instead of taking weekends off. I’ve even shifted my work schedule – heck, shifted the dog’s feed schedule – so I can put in more writing time in the morning.

    All so I can hit my deadline.

    Don’t know if I’ll hit it. It’s looking like the book will blow past the 90K word target I’d set for myself, back in the heady days when I thought 50,000 words was more than halfway through.

    But how far past 90,000 words? 2,000? 5,000? 20,000? No idea. (Note to self: please try to get it done before 120,000 words).

    So: 12 days left. All I can do is keep pushing, and see where it ends up.

    → 5:59 AM, May 20
  • Closing In

    Managed to quiet my inner editor long enough to push the novel to 86,126 words this week.

    The puzzle pieces are starting to come together for my protagonist, which is making things a little easier. Each part of the solution they come across leads them on to additional questions, which reveals more of the solution.

    All I have to do – I tell myself – is write down what they’re doing, what they’re thinking, and let the events I set in motion earlier play out.

    It’s not that easy – it’s never that easy – but the lie helps, somehow.

    I also keep reminding myself that: a) if it turns out that what I’m writing is crap, I can fix it in the next draft, and b) the only way to get better for the next novel is to finish this one.

    → 6:00 AM, May 13
  • Not Blocked, Afraid

    Novel’s at 83,370 words.

    So I turned out to be wrong about sustaining the faster pace. Only managed 700 words this week.

    I could say it’s because I’m doing more planning and outlining, and less writing. I could say it’s because I’ve started jogging in the mornings again, so I have less time to write.

    But in truth I’m distracted, conflicted, and afraid.

    I’m afraid I won’t have the book done by the end of the month. I’m afraid I won’t be able to edit it into something worth reading later this year. I’m afraid I’m wasting my time, that I should be spending more of what free time I have working on side programming projects, investing in my skills there instead of here.

    In short, I’m afraid I’m making a mistake.

    And of course, the lack of writing progress only makes the fear worse. It’s evidence, you see, that I’m not up to snuff, that I need to just move on to something that will pay more, something that’s more in line with my day job, anything other than this.

    Right now, I’m just hoping the fear will pass. Till then, all I can do is force myself to sit down, stare at the screen, and push the words out. Even if they’re terrible.

    We’ll see who quits first.

    → 6:00 AM, May 6
  • Speeding Up

    Novel’s at 82,649 words.

    Deadline seems to be working. I’ve been writing about 400 words a day since setting it, pushing myself to write more than just my 250-word minimum so I can hit the goal.

    It also helps that I seem to have turned a corner in the narrative. My protagonist has gotten past the major stumbling block in her path, and is starting down the trail of the villain.

    The book itself is picking up pace as she goes, heading toward the climax, and my writing is as well.

    Let’s hope I can sustain it through the month.

    → 6:00 AM, Apr 29
  • Footsteps in the Sky by Greg Keyes

    Fantastic.

    Keyes juggles plot threads involving first contact, corporate espionage, traditionalists versus progressive technologists, power struggles, abusive families and grieving for recently-passed relatives, all without dropping a single one. Grounds everything, even the novel’s villains, in sympathetic characters that you may not agree with, but still don’t want to see harmed.

    It’s an incredible feat. I’m awestruck by it, and more than a little jealous.

    Three things it taught me about writing:

    • Sometimes just listening to a character's thoughts as they worry about their present and plan for their future is enough to tell us what we need to know about the world the story's taking place in.
    • Spending time with villains, and sympathizing with them, raises the stakes of the climax for everyone.
    • Always handy to have a newcomer to the world as an audience surrogate. As they learn and explore the world, so does the reader, without any info-dumping being necessary.
    → 6:00 AM, Apr 25
  • On a Deadline

    Novel’s at 80,577 words.

    I’m closing in on my original 90,000 word target. I have a feeling the final draft will end up longer than that, possibly close to 100,000 words, given the ground I have left to cover.

    I’ve set a deadline for myself, though. I want to have this draft done by June 1st.

    It’s just a little over a month away, but I think I can make it. Partially because I’m in the final scenes of the book, and partially because I want to. I started the book last July, so wrapping up the draft in June would mean I’ve spent just shy of a year writing it.

    I think having a target to hit will push me to write more each day, and finish it out. With this draft done in June, I can take some time off before diving into the editing of my first novel. And I want to get that done before the year is out so I can start submitting it to agents.

    → 6:00 AM, Apr 22
  • There's a Theme?

    Novel’s at 78,941 words. Which is an odd time to have finally figured out its theme.

    Or rather, one of its themes. You’d think I’d have known this going in, the kind of weighty things I would be trying to deal with in the story.

    Nope. I had a hook, a starting scene, and an idea of how I wanted to portray the characters. That was it.

    Actually stumbled across the theme this week, while reading a different book. Something in what the author was talking about meshed with the upcoming events of the story my subconscious was chewing on, and that was it: I knew my theme.

    It’s a little late to alter the draft much to accommodate it, but I’ll be writing the last third with the theme in mind. It’ll really come into play when I go back through for the second draft, and start making edits to bring it out more or eliminate passages that conflict with it.

    → 6:00 AM, Apr 15
  • Steady as Ink Flows

    Novel’s at 77,376 words.

    Writing’s been chugging along this week. My last major decision – read: stop and outline – point was a few weeks back, so I’ve been mostly writing out the consequences of that.

    There’s another I-have-no-idea-what-happens-next point coming up, where the other shoe is finally going to drop, and right on top of my main character’s head. Not quite sure how they’ll react.

    I don’t think I’ll reach it till next week, though.

    Hopefully I’ll have it figured out by then?

    (Probably not)

    → 6:00 AM, Apr 8
  • No Sick Days

    Came back from Boston with a lovely head cold that made me want to crawl into bed and sleep for a week.

    I didn’t though, thank goodness. Instead I pushed myself to hit my word count every day this week, bringing the novel to 75,638 words.

    And counting. I still feel like I’m on the tail end of the book, but I have no idea how close to the end I am. I could be another 30,000 words away, I could write through next week and suddenly discover I’m only 10K from the finish.

    There’s only one way to know. So, if you’ll excuse me, sets hard hat on head picks up shovel it’s back to the word mines for me.

    → 6:00 AM, Apr 1
  • A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

    Absolutely fantastic from start to finish. Nominated it for a Hugo as soon as I read the last page.

    Three things it taught me about writing:

    • Keeping chapters short not only gives you an excuse to read "just one more," it also lets you do abrupt transitions between place and mood.
    • Characters grumbling to each other (or in their heads) can give you a very compact and fun way to explain aspects of the world that are unfamiliar to the reader.
    • By shifting the metaphors used to describe a scene, you can sustain a difference of mood between locations. For instance, in a place of death and white, describing a series of building supports as "arched ribs" echoes the feeling you want to convey.
    → 6:00 AM, Mar 30
  • Work Delays

    Not much progress on the novel this week.

    I’ve been in Boston for a company meetup, which has messed with my normal schedule and kept me away from my desk.

    Intending to get some writing done on the flight home tonight, though, and try to catch up on it this weekend. Can’t leave my main character struggling to escape from a trap for too long, can I?

    → 6:00 AM, Mar 25
  • Too Much Information

    Novel’s at 73,653 words.

    Still pushing forward, thought the last few scenes have been hard for me to write. Usually that’s because I don’t know enough about something in the scene – how a bail hearing would be conducted, or the cooking techniques of feudal Japan – to feel comfortable writing it. This time, it’s because I know too much about what’s happening in the scene.

    Specifically, I know things that, if my characters knew them, would make accomplishing their goals much easier. But they don’t work in the field, like I do, and so their knowledge is limited.

    But how limited? How much should they know, and how much are they ignorant of? How much would just be common sense?

    And even for the things they do know, or that they stumble on that work, how much detail should I go into as to what’s happening? How much info do I dare dump on the poor reader?

    It’s striking that balance – between showing too much detail and not enough, between thinking the characters know more than they should versus not giving them enough credit – that’s been difficult for me.

    → 6:06 AM, Mar 18
  • Forward, Ho!

    Novel’s at 72,337 words.

    I’ve managed to fix last week’s mistake, and gotten back to making forward progress through the novel. There’s some small dangly bits of plot that are poking out around my patch, but I’ve decided to note them for now, so I can come back to fix them in the second draft.

    Instead, I’m plowing forward.

    → 7:00 AM, Mar 11
  • The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

    Frustrating. Moving, often brilliant, but feels incomplete in many ways. Magical bits aren’t fully baked, as if he thought it was cool but didn’t want to flesh it out too much (because it doesn’t make sense). Ditto his portrayal of the future, which was scary as hell in the moment but on reflection is just another doomsday scenario from the 1970s.

    The overall storyline of following a character from the 1980s to the 2040s feels better, but gets sidelined so often that the final chapters have less emotional impact than they could. There’s also numerous threads that get introduced just for plot’s sake and then dropped, with not even their emotional impact explored, let alone their practical consequences.

    All in all, the whole is less than the sum of its parts.

    Three things I learned about writing:

    • Using the present tense for the main narrative means that when you do a flashback, you can reach for the past tense as an easy way to distinguish the two.
    • Stream of consciousness writing can help make a normally unsympathetic character more likable.
    • Stronger to use vocabulary to give a sense of dialect speech, instead of punctuation. It's also easier to read.
    → 7:00 AM, Mar 7
  • The End is Visible

    Novel’s at 70,684 words.

    Final third of the novel is starting to take shape.

    The plot’s taken two sharp left turns in as many weeks, but it’s ended up on a path where I can actually see where things are going now, and how they’ll wrap up.

    It’s an odd feeling. Here I was trudging along with no end in sight, just a vague idea of how I wanted things to turn out. The plot – and my original outline – suffer two sharp shocks, and now I know where I’m going.

    Let’s hope it lasts for the next 20,000 words.

    → 7:00 AM, Feb 19
  • Slapped in the Face with the Answer

    Novel’s at 68,869 words.

    My characters are smarter than me.

    Throughout writing this book, there’s been a couple of weak links in the chain of my original outline. Places where various plot threads didn’t quite meet up. I’ve been debating – and discarding – different ways to resolve them, but never quite hit on the right way.

    That is, until not one, but two of my characters told me the solution.

    One of them did it quite early on, but I dismissed it as too easy a way out.

    But this week, another character told me the same thing. This time, I listened.

    It creeped me out a little, because they handed me both the solution and the justification for it. It ties all the plot threads together, makes sense of the entire chain of events, and deepens the conflict at the same time.

    It’s beautiful, but even though it came from one of my characters, it doesn’t feel like my idea.

    I’m using it anyway, though.

    → 7:00 AM, Feb 12
  • Star Wars: Aftermath by Chuck Wendig

    Fantastic. And I’m not just saying that because I’ve been a Chuck Wendig fan ever since Blackbirds (you have read Blackbirds, haven’t you?). Nor am I saying that because his blog is a fountain of NSFW writing inspiration (though it is).

    I’m saying that because it’s a Star Wars book that tells a great story, fills in some of the time between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, and manages to feel like a Star Wars movie in novel form. That’s a tough balancing act, and kudos to Wendig for pulling it off.

    Here’s what I learned about writing from it:

    • Don't be afraid to be opinionated in giving description. It can help keep things brief while still being vivid.
    • Part of what makes a hero feel scrappy is not things going right, but things going wrong, all the time. Little blunders and bad luck that they just manage to survive make them feel more real and keep the reader rooting for them.
    • You can frame the start of scenes just like framing a shot in a movie. Think of a character's head popping through a hatch, or opening on a lightsaber glowing in the darkness. Can be a visual hook into the rest of the chapter.
    → 7:00 AM, Feb 10
  • Emerging from the Shadows

    Novel’s at 66,694 words.

    This week’s events have thrown more light onto the villain of the novel: what he wants, how far he’s willing to go to get it, and just how long he’s been planning to take it.

    One of my protagonists is gone. The other has to carry on mostly alone now, and I don’t know if she can survive. She’s out of her depth, and she’ll need all the allies she can find – or cajole – to win this one.

    Here’s hoping.

    → 7:00 AM, Feb 5
  • Running Off the Rails Holding Scissors

    Novel’s at 64,623 words.

    My entire plot’s taken a huge left turn.

    I’ve been off outline for a while, but not in a scary way. Most of what’s happening has followed on from what’s happened before, a nice logical progression of “this has happened, so the character would do that” kind of writing.

    It let me forget that this novel has a villain. And they’re not sitting idle.

    On Wednesday morning, they insisted on doing something so terrible, it’s thrown all my plans out the door. One of the characters might be dead. Another might be about to turn criminal.

    And the villain? Well, they’ve taken a huge leap forward towards winning.

    There’s no telling where the story’s going. It’s terrifying, but thrilling as well. I have to write it, now, if only to find out what happens next.

    → 10:00 AM, Jan 29
  • Steady On

    Pushed the novel to 62,769 words this week.

    I’m trying to worry less and less about picking the right words, about using the right sentences to get my meaning across. As I drift further from my original outline, I’m trying to focus on discovering what happens next, on keeping things consistent, rather than the particular phrasing I’m using.

    That’s rough for me, since I’ve always been careful about the words I use when talking or writing, always worried about saying the wrong thing, about failing.

    But in this case, failure means not speaking, not writing. So long as I can get something down, I can move forward, and discover more of the book. I try to remind myself of that, and to remember that only once the book is done can I go back and make it right.

    → 10:00 AM, Jan 22
  • Grinding Ahead

    Novel’s reached 61,085 words.

    New routine is still working. I’ve managed to hit or exceed my word count goal each day, by writing for thirty minutes each day, first thing in the morning.

    Such a small thing, a small amount of time, and yet it’s made a big difference. I’m starting to see progress again on the book, scenes wrapping up and new ones getting started, new plot lines opening up ahead of me.

    I’ve even allowed myself to take the weekends off from writing, so I can work on other projects. I think of it as both a reward and an incentive: reward for getting the writing done during the week, incentive to hit my word goal each day for the next one.

    We’ll see how long it holds, especially as I head into the uncharted (unoutlined) territory ahead of me. But for now, it feels good to be making steady, if slow, progress.

    → 10:00 AM, Jan 15
  • Constellation Games by Leonard Richardson

    Surprising, strange, and very well done. Manages to weave alien contact, game development, and anarchist politics into a story so good and smoothly written that I finished all 300+ pages in just two days.

    Can’t believe I didn’t hear about this one until just a few months ago.

    Learned several things about writing from this book, including:

    • Little touches can go a long way to building both humor and character. For example, the narrator of the book is Jewish, so whenever a character says 'God', it's written out as "G-d"
    • Using blog posts as the main form of narrative lets you cut out a lot of scene-setting description, get to the meat of each scene faster.
    • Be careful mixing blog posts, real life narrative, and other written forms in one novel. If they all adopt the same casual, conversational tone (as this book does), they start to bleed together, and you lose the advantage of keeping them separate.
    → 10:00 AM, Jan 13
  • New Year, New Start

    Novel’s at 59,195 words.

    Didn’t get much writing done over Christmas break at all. Had all these great plans for cranking out mounds of text while I was off work, plans that got thrown out when my wife and I both came back from seeing my family in Texas with the flu.

    Oddly enough, it seems the break was good for me. I’ve been getting up an hour earlier since the start of the new year, taking time to both exercise (nothing makes me worry about my physical fitness more than when my body breaks down on me) and write.

    So far it’s working. I’m still sick, and now sore to boot, but I’ve hit my word goal every day this week. I feel like I’ve discovered an extra hour that was hiding from me.

    I’ll also admit a small part of me likes writing despite my lingering cough, as if each word is me spitting in the eye of disease.

    So here’s to the New Year. May we all use it to write more, to write better, to write, write, write.

    → 10:00 AM, Jan 8
  • The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

    Reads like a nineteenth-century fairy tale. Manages to weave these mythical characters into a bigger story about the immigrant experience in 19th century New York. Wonderfully well-done.

    Taught me a few new things about writing:

    • You can use multiple perspectives to build tension into the narrative, by giving the reader access to thoughts and feelings that impact the main characters later on.
    • It's okay to give opinionated descriptions. In fact, letting your character's perspective color the way they describe the world around them is a great way to make both feel more real.
    • Even an absurd premise, if taken seriously enough, can become drama.
    → 10:00 AM, Jan 4
  • Writing in Batches

    Novel’s at 56,441 words.

    Got most of my writing for the week done on Sunday, in one go.

    I’m glad I did. Between the new dog, a root canal retreat, and pushing to get everything done at work before the holiday break, it’s been harder to slip into writing mode during the small breaks I have to get some done.

    Hopefully I’ll be able to carve out some more time this weekend to write another chunk of the book, and once the holidays hit, make a concerted push to write more every day.

    → 10:00 AM, Dec 11
  • A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan

    Fantastic. Not the drawing-room novel I feared it would be, nor the swashbuckling “strong woman” archetype book it could have been. Instead, it’s a wonderful travelogue for a nineteenth century populated by fantastical creatures.

    This was a quick read, but I still managed to learn some things about writing:

    • It's possible to convey a lot about the historical treatment of women without depicting brutality (I'm looking at you, Game of Thrones). It's enough to hear the narrator rail against the constraints she's placed under, or feel her frustration at having to pretend to not be an intelligent, scientifically curious person.
    • You can invoke a time period's writing without indulging in that period's techniques. The book is written with a modern style -- short sentences built into short paragraphs that live in short chapters -- but still feels like it came out of an alternate Victorian period.
    • A memoir can lose tension because we know the narrator makes it through. One way to push tension back into the story is to take advantage of the fact that the narrator knows more than the reader, and have them drop in sentences that foreshadow future tragedy or triumph.
    → 10:00 AM, Dec 7
  • Shifting the Outline

    Novel’s at 55,647 words.

    I’ve been able to hit my 250 word goal most days, thank goodness.

    Not every day; I’ll confess that when the brand-new tub started leaking again and one of the house’s walls started wobbling and my wife and I stayed up half the night talking about giving up and moving out, my brain was too distracted to do much writing.

    But we’re pushing through that, and I’m continuing to push through the book.

    I’ve had to shift to doing more outlining, though. I’m about halfway in, and I’ve introduced enough new characters and plot threads that I needed to spend some time adjusting my plan for the latter half of the book.

    Granted, that’s time I’m not putting words on the page, but it’s helped me feel more focused when I do start writing again. By taking a step back, I get a better sense of what things are worth keeping going forward, and which characters need a little more fleshing out if they’re going to stay. I can also see what threads I’ve been dropping, and plan a way to bring them back in before it’s too late.

    → 10:00 AM, Dec 4
  • Reverse Pomodoro

    Still no working bathroom, no walls on the house, no ceiling in one room, and no fix for my failed root canal.

    But I’ve managed to get the novel to 53,225 words.

    I’ve hit my word count every day this week, by writing in the cracks: while my wife is getting ready in the morning before work, on my lunch break, while I’m waiting to be picked up after work. It’s only 5, 10 minutes at a time, sometimes less, but it’s somehow enough.

    I’m pushing myself to write, even on my phone, even if I don’t remember the exact line I left off on in the book. It’s forcing me to keep more of the story in my head, sure, but it’s allowing me to move forward despite not having a solid block of time to work in.

    I keep telling myself that the only way to fail here is to quit. So I’m not going to quit, even if it takes me another six months to get to the end of the novel. I’m going to finish it.

    → 10:00 AM, Nov 20
  • No Time to Wait on a Sinking Ship

    I’ve had to compromise on my daily word count multiple times. First I slipped from 500 words a day to 500 words per weekday, taking weekends off. Then it was 500 words three days a week. Then 250 words.

    Now if I get any words down at all during a day, I have to pat myself on the back.

    Somehow I’ve managed to push the novel to 50,898 words.

    Meanwhile, the house we bought is being completely rewired, most of the walls have had to come down and be replaced, the living room’s missing a ceiling, and I haven’t had a fully functioning bathroom for five days (we discovered a leak in the walls of the shower that meant we had to replace the whole thing: tub, surround and all).

    Oh, and one of my root canals decided to fail after humming along quietly for ten years.

    I’ve tried to tell myself that this’ll all pass soon, and I can tread water until things get back to normal.

    But what if they don’t? What if this cascading series of crises is the normal? What if it lasts 3 months? 6? A year? Am I going to wait to finish till then? Am I going to hold back and make do when I don’t know what will happen next?

    I don’t want to tread water. I want to take what I’m going through and pour it into the book, to turn these failures into something successful.

    I don’t have any control of what part of the house – or me – falls apart next. I can’t even control my schedule enough to have a regular writing time anymore. But I can push myself to write every chance I get, to use marlapaige’s suggestion and write on my phone, write in my notebook, write anywhere and everywhere. I can finish what I’ve started, and I don’t have to wait.

    → 10:00 AM, Nov 13
  • Is This Progress?

    Novel’s at 49,793 words.

    I’m having to steal writing time from other things. Not set aside time, but literally steal, like jotting down a few dozen words while waiting for my wife to pick me up from work, or hovering outside the bedroom/office in the morning with my laptop so I don’t wake her.

    It’s frustrating. I feel like I’m not making any progress, that I can’t build up any momentum. It helps that I’m trying to pants things a little more – easier to snatch time from other things for writing that way – but it also hurts, since without a larger plan of where I’m going I don’t have a way to track how far I’ve come.

    I’m trying to be patient, to eek out what words I can until the house is in better shape. But we keep coming across problems in the house that need to be fixed – like the bathtub leak we found two days ago – that keep sucking up all my time.

    I’m afraid; afraid that if I don’t get some sort of rhythm going again that I won’t finish the book. And I don’t want that kind of failure hanging around my neck.

    → 10:00 AM, Nov 6
  • Writing on the Run

    Greetings from Arkansas!

    No writing post last week, because on Thursday I finished packing up the house, got on a plane, and flew into Fort Smith.

    Got a lot of work done on the flight, but since then writing time has been hard to come by. The house we bought turns out to have bad wiring, bad plumbing, mice, and walls so shot through with mold we’re having to strip them down to the studs.

    Oh, and our stuff hasn’t arrived, so I’m still living out of a suitcase.

    Thankfully there’s a coffee shop nearby (ok, it’s ten minutes away by car, which is really damn close by Arkansas standards) with comfy chairs and semi-reliable wifi. It’s been my office all week, for both the day job and the writing job.

    I’ve managed to push the novel’s word count to 46,417 words, though it feels like I’m writing while on some sort of weird business trip. One where I don’t go anywhere, but I also don’t know where anything is or have any space to call my own.

    Thank goodness the same techniques that work on planes have been working here: put the headphones on, re-read the last day’s work, and write what comes next.

    → 9:00 AM, Oct 9
  • Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

    The second of the set of classics I’ve decided to finally go back and read.

    As with Heart of Darkness, this book deserves its status. It’s oddly written from a modern perspective, violating rules left and right – telling instead of showing, switching from third to first person narration at the end of the book, having significant action happen off-screen – but is an absolute delight to read. The characters are all distinct and interesting, the dialog often made me laugh out loud, and despite the gulf of two hundred years – and a good deal of class status – made me relate to and care about the happiness of the Bennets.

    Three things I learned about writing:

    • Verbal tags (e.g., he shouted, she sighed) aren't as necessary as I thought. Austen uses almost none, yet since we know so much about each character's personality, we can infer the tone and intent.
    • Description can be dropped for a book set in the same time period as the audience. Austen didn't need to describe a drawing room, or a coach, or any of the characters' clothes. Cutting all that description gave her more room for dialog and inner thoughts, which was more time for us to spend getting to know and care about her characters.
    • Don't feel constrained by time. Austen zooms in and out of events as she pleases, summarizing a ball but giving a single conversation blow-by-blow. Skipping over events let her cover a lot of ground in a single novel.
    → 9:00 AM, Sep 28
  • Dropping Threads

    Novel’s made it to 43,593 words.

    Starting to worry that pantsing it means I’m dropping plot threads. I’ve already noticed a major one that just completely fell of my radar, and two more that are smaller but also haven’t been addressed in a while.

    Not sure if I should slow down and try to fill them in, work the missing threads back into the book, or keep moving forward, and worry about fixing it later.

    This might even be a good thing, a sign that these plot elements don’t belong, and should be cut, not reinforced.

    It’s hard to tell which is right. I think it’s too late for the major plot point, that’ll have to wait for the second draft. The minor ones, though, I think I can fill in as I go, and take care not to leave them behind. I guess if I get stuck somewhere further in to the book, and it’s because of these missing threads, I’ll know to be more careful in the future.

    → 9:00 AM, Sep 25
  • Writing Through It

    Novel’s grown to 41,169 words.

    This week’s writing has been done not in spite of stress, or without it, but because of it.

    A lot of things I thought were settled suddenly popped back up again: my mother-in-law has been in and out of the hospital, the buyers for our house seem to be having second thoughts, and my day job turned into slamming my head into a brick wall over and over again, for eight hours.

    On top of that, the time for me to pack up the house and move is getting closer, so I’ve got that prep to deal with: going through years of accumulated memories in an empty house and sorting through which ones get to come with us and which ones get left behind.

    I thought it would prove too much, and that I’d have to stop writing again. I did take off an extra day this week, spent it watching movies instead of working on the book.

    But the next day I got back into it, and was surprised to find that writing the novel – at this point, at least – is the easiest way to take my mind off of all the stress. It’s hard to feel lonely when I’m writing dialog, or worry about my house selling when I’m trying to work through a character’s alibi.

    I’m not sure why it’s so different now than back in July. Perhaps it’s because I’ve loosened my grip on my outline, so I don’t have to think so far ahead?

    Whatever the cause, I’m grateful for it.

    → 9:00 AM, Sep 18
  • Ex-Heroes by Peter Clines

    Fantastic, pulpy action. I mean, it’s zombies vs superheroes, how could I not read this?

    The writing is sharp and moves along at a good clip, with a cinematic feel. Clines' use of flashbacks lets him bounce back and forth across the zombie apocalypse divide, deepening the characters and the world without slowing the action.

    Three things about writing I learned from this one:

    • Even in an ensemble book, focus on no more than half a dozen characters. I couldn't tell the non-superheroes apart in this one, and gave up trying to keep track of them all. The heroes were all well-fleshed out, but the regular humans were extras, and who watches a movie for the extras?
    • Using flashbacks in short, quick bursts can let you jump in to the interesting part of the story immediately, building and keeping momentum behind the main storyline. Clines could have used the first third of the book to work through each heroes' timeline before the zombie apocalypse happened, but it would have resulted in a much slower book.
    • Don't be afraid of writing what you want to write. I'm sure there are plenty of people that would look down on the zombies + superheroes concept, but I'm glad Clines ignored all of them and wrote something this fun and entertaining.
    → 9:00 AM, Sep 16
  • The Only Thing Blocking Me is My Fear of Being Blocked

    Novel’s reached 37,510 words.

    My semi-pantsing of the thing is still working. The characters are starting to do and say things on their own now, which I’m taking as a good sign. It means I can relax my grip a little more, give them leeway to go through the story in their own way.

    I still get a sense of physical terror when I sit down at the keyboard, though. It’s been getting stronger every day the past week, as if each day’s success means I’m that much more likely to fail the next day. I know it’s not true, that the words will come if I just sit down and push them out.

    But fear isn’t rational. Sure, I’m not as worried anymore about making the first draft as perfect as it can be. Now I’m just worried about being able to write each day’s part of the draft at all.

    Only way I’ve found so far to defeat the anxiety is, of course, to write. Writing the day’s words pushes the fear back a little, proves once again that I can do this, that I can create something on the page.

    → 9:00 AM, Sep 11
  • Maybe I'm a Pantser

    Novel’s at 32,277 words.

    Most days I’ve managed to write more than my 250 word goal, hitting somewhere north of 500 words before stopping for the day. Those words are flowing more easily now, the scene building itself out as I keep asking myself “what the characters would do?” without regard for the rest of the plot I’ve outlined.

    I even found a way to make my inconsistencies consistent within the scope of the story, which was not only a pleasant surprise, but has helped me loosen the grip of my inner editor and just set words down on the page.

    We’ll see how long it lasts, but for now I’m going to ride the wave this technique is giving me.

    → 9:00 AM, Sep 4
  • Back to Work

    Novel’s at 29,068 words: I’m back to working on it, and it feels great.

    The week off really helped me relax, as did spending time with my friends, getting out of the house and forgetting about the stress of moving for a while. I was only able to write a few hundred words on Saturday, but it felt like a victory.

    I’ve kept up a moderate pace since then, carving out enough time to write at least 250 words each day. I’m keeping the word goal low for now, letting myself go over it but also giving myself permission to stop when I hit 250. It’s a small number, but it’s more than zero, and a target I can hit.

    → 9:00 AM, Aug 28
  • Time to Breathe

    I haven’t written anything for the novel in a week.

    More importantly, I haven’t let myself work on the novel in a week. I’ve been following Vivien Reis' advice, giving myself time to step away from writing and focus on what’s happening right now with my family.

    It’s turned out to be exactly what I needed. I’ve been able to focus better at work, I’ve been more relaxed about all the house showings and paperwork and myriad other little things I’ve had to deal with as we prepare to up sticks and move.

    I still feel guilty, though. Like I’m shirking my homework, which is fine for a little while, but eventually you sit down for the final exam and you haven’t a clue what’s going on.

    So I’m going to try writing again this weekend. Not much, just an hour or two at most, and with no word count in mind.

    Perhaps this way I can use the novel to keep me busy, to keep my mind off things, on days when I’m not at work. And assuage some of the guilt I’m feeling.

    → 8:00 AM, Aug 21
  • Treading Water

    Novel stands at 26,750 words.

    Haven’t posted here in a while because my life is being turned upside-down.

    My wife’s currently in Arkansas, tending her mother, who was admitted to the hospital a few weeks ago with a serious heart-and-lung condition. My wife flew out just three days after she heard, and has been there ever since.

    Her mom has been discharged, and is recovering, but will need near-constant care for the next year or so. My wife’s currently providing that care, and intends to keep providing it. That means we’re looking at moving, at leaving the house and city and friends we’ve come to love here in California, and going back to Arkansas.

    So my past few weeks have been a blur of getting my wife to Arkansas, supporting her through the early days of her mom’s discharge, and now putting our house on the market and preparing to move.

    Needless to say, I didn’t hit my target word count for NaNoWriMo.

    I’m finding it hard to write in general, not just finding the time but finding the mental space to build up the novel in my head and then set it down on paper. It’s like I have room in my head for my job and my wife and my move, and nothing else.

    If I manage to squeak out just 150 words in a day, I have to call it a victory, because many days I don’t manage any.

    But I haven’t given up, and I won’t stop writing during this new phase of my life. I’ll grind out what I can for now, and look to pick up the pace once we settle in to our new digs.

    → 8:00 AM, Aug 14
  • Feeling My Way Forward

    Novel’s currently at 7,787 words.

    I’ve only written the first couple of scenes, and I’m already at a point where I’m a little undecided about which way to go.

    I have the words ready to go to start toward the next scene, but I’m not sure what to do once I get there.

    So do I pause here and outline out what happens next? Wait to write more till I know what’s going to happen? Or just let the words flow, and find out what happens as I write it?

    The latter instinct terrifies me. The former path makes me worry I’ll spend too much time plotting, and not enough time writing.

    I guess I can always go forward now, and fix any mistakes later. It just feels like a wrong turn this early could force a lot of extra rewriting later.

    → 8:02 AM, Jul 17
  • Slowed, Not Blocked

    Not much progress this week: only at 4,180 words.

    I’d like to say that I didn’t get to write much this week, as if writing time were something that were doled out to me by a woman with a hairnet and an ice-cream scoop.

    But that’s not the case. The truth is I didn’t take as much time to write this week as I needed to. I chose other things – morning exercise, staying a little longer at work, going out with my family – and that’s ok, but I need to remember that it’s a choice.

    That means I’m on the hook for not getting as far as I should have this week. It also means it’s in my control to change that, to make different choices and get more writing done.

    So my writing slowed this week, but I haven’t stopped, and I’m not blocked altogether, thank goodness. It’s just a reminder that I have to carve out the time I know I need to make the progress I want.

    → 8:00 AM, Jul 10
  • It's Begun!

    Started writing the new novel July 1st, as scheduled. Already 1,600 words in.

    It was an incredible relief to write those first 250 words. I had such a hard time outlining the book that I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to put anything down, that the magic would fail me this time.

    But it hasn’t yet. I’m already adding things to the world, color and details I didn’t think of before, just by writing about it.

    I forgot how much fun this can be, making things up and seeing where they lead. It’s addictive.

    I don’t want it to end.

    → 8:00 AM, Jul 3
  • Off to Camp

    I’ve joined Camp NaNoWriMo this year.

    NaNoWriMo gave me the motivation I needed to start – and then finish – my first novel last year. The target word count for the month, the daily emails from professionals about their writing process, even the simple bar chart showing my daily progress, all pushed me to see it through.

    I’m hoping to get the same kind of kick in the pants from Camp NaNoWriMo. It starts July first, but there’s no set word count goal, no restrictions on what you can work on, like for regular NaNoWriMo. I’ve set a personal goal of 30,000 words for the month, enough to challenge me but not enough to feel like a mad dash toward the finish line.

    They’ve also got the idea of cabins, where they group you up with other writers for the month. I think the idea is that we band together to reach our writing goals, by maybe sharing snippets of what we’re working on, or just talking about our own writing experiences. In any case, I’m looking forward to finding out who my cabin-mates will be.

    As for the outline, it should be ready to go July 1st. I’ve got the flow and basic challenges set, nailed down the start and finish, and am getting the characters personalities and voices set in my mind.

    I’m still nervous about starting the actual writing of it, but I tell myself that’s normal, and that I have permission to suck on the first draft. But there won’t be a second draft unless I finish the first one, and I won’t finish unless I start, so there’s no getting out of it.

    → 8:00 AM, Jun 26
  • Working Forwards and Backwards

    Outline’s not quite done. I keep bouncing back and forth between the plot and the characters, each change rippling out and making me re-arrange chapters and scenes.

    It feels harder this time, and I can’t tell if that’s because it’s such a different book, or because I’m simply afraid of not being able to write a second novel, or because the idea’s not as good as I think it is.

    The only thing I can do is keep plugging away at it, pushing the outline around until I have enough of a plot shape to start writing. I tell myself that all it takes is time, and I should be patient, but that doesn’t change the fact that my last outline took me two weeks while this one is a month and counting.

    Maybe I should just dive in and start writing, outline be damned? Maybe what worked for the last book isn’t going to work for this one.

    It might come to that. In any case, I’m setting a deadline for myself of July 1st. Outline or no, I’m going to start writing the first scene on or before then.

    → 8:33 AM, Jun 19
  • Laying Down the Path

    Thanks to the good advice from L.D. Parker in the comments, I resolved last week’s plotting dilemma by deciding to interweave the narrative from the trigger character and protagonist’s point of views. I’ll start with the initial “hook” scene I have in mind for the first chapter, then do an intro chapter with the protag, then alternate back and forth throughout the book.

    I tell myself that even if it doesn’t work the way I want it to, I can go back and do whatever I need to fix it (probably drop the trigger character and focus solely on the protag), so long as I make it through the first draft.

    With that problem solved, I finally started writing up the outline, character sketches, etc for the new book in Scrivener. This means taking all the notes I’ve jotted down – some handwritten, some typed up in Evernote, some dictated into my phone – and bringing them together in one place, and imposing some sort of order on them.

    It’s the last step before I actually start writing, and it gives me a visual indication of holes in the plot, of weak points in the story that’s developing. For example, I can already see that I’m going to need a lot more background for my protag than I have worked out so far, simply because the number of their scenes aren’t balanced against the trigger character.

    With luck, I’ll have the initial plan written up and into Scrivener by the end of next week, and then I’ll be ready to plunge back into the blank page and start swimming toward the finish line.

    → 8:00 AM, Jun 12
  • Forks in the Road

    Had a minor hiccup in outlining the new book while I was traveling: I decided to change the main character. Thought for a few days there I’d have to split the books off, and use the previous set of characters for the plot I had been working on while thinking up a different plot for the new protagonist.

    Thankfully my split-brain didn’t last long; I realized I could rework the old plot for the new characters, and keep everything I liked about both.

    So now I’m laying out the narrative for the new book. I’ve got the antagonist’s motives and moves down, and the same for what I’m thinking of as the “trigger character,” the one that starts things moving.

    Having some trouble deciding when and how to bring in my protagonist though. I’ve got several different routes to take, some of which use the initial scene I want to have and some that don’t. The problem (at the moment) is that the routes that don’t use that scene make more sense than the ones that do.

    So do I let go of this little darling scene of mine? Or do I brainstorm until I can find a way to keep it and have a protag intro that makes sense?

    → 8:02 AM, Jun 5
  • Crawling Toward the Start Line

    I’ve decided to stick with the plan of working on the new novel first, and then going back to edit the last one.

    That means I need to get cracking on a serious outline for the new book. Got some travel coming up next week, which should give me some dedicated time to start hashing that out. I’ve got the three main characters already and the basic plot, so it’ll be a matter of working out the beats of the story as well as taking a first stab at how it will end. That ending will probably be completely different by the time its written, but I need a star to steer by if I’m going to get in the boat.

    With luck — and work, let’s not forget time-in-chair — I’ll have the outline done in two weeks, so I can start writing in earnest by June 1st. That’ll give me six months of runway to be finished before the end of the year.

    Let’s hope it’s enough.

    → 7:00 AM, May 15
  • The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

    Medieval-level fantasy with goblins and elves, airships and intrigue, and race relations and gender politics and multiple sexual orientations. In a word, awesome.

    Vivid and rich and alive in unexpected ways. The plot is rather basic — outsider unexpectedly inherits the throne, has to learn to rule people that look down on him — but the characters are so interesting, so well fleshed-out, that it held me all the way through. I might just read it again.

    The big writing lesson for me from this book is exactly that: well-written characters that you want to spend time with will compensate for a lot of other shortcomings. For The Goblin Emperor, those shortcomings would normally compel me to stop reading.

    I gave up trying to pronounce many of the fantasy words and names it introduces. The glossary of terms, which I found while desperately searching for some sort of help in keeping terms and titles and characters straight, proved to be worthless. Many of its definitions are either self-referential or refer to other terms which are. There’s also no map, so I had no idea of the relative size or placement of any of the cities and nations mentioned in the book. As some of the intrigue involves trade relations among neighboring realms, this was frustrating.

    But I ultimately didn’t care. I cared about the main character from the first chapter, and cared about the others almost as quickly. I skipped over names, I couldn’t keep any of the titles straight, I had no idea where anything was, and I didn’t care. The main challenges of the book were people, and I wanted the main character to succeed with all of them. Everything else faded away.

    → 7:00 AM, May 11
  • Pulled

    Even while outlining the new novel, I keep wanting to go back to the old.

    Especially now that I’ve gotten some reader feedback. Makes me think maybe my time would be better spent editing and polishing the novel I’ve got, rather than writing a new one.

    Or perhaps I should switch to outlining and writing the sequel to the last novel? That’d be easier: I’ve already got the characters and the world in place, and some history established. I should be able to get off and running on that book faster than the first, right?

    It’s hard for me to tell whether this is my normal flightiness or a sensible course correction.

    For now, I’m going to stick with the plan: outline and write a new book with completely different characters, then come back to the first novel and edit it into shape. With that done, I’ll be able to alternate periods of new writing with periods of editing, and hopefully get into a rhythm that’ll sustain me all the way to publication.

    → 7:12 AM, May 8
  • Encouraging News

    First reader review of the novel draft is in! And it’s generally positive!

    True, it’s from a good friend of mine, who’s definitely biased. And yes, he had a list of suggested edits for me, from grammar mistakes to confusing descriptions to scenes that dragged on too long (all of which he’s right about). But overall he liked it, and he wants to read more.

    Maybe it’s not as bad as I feared, after all.

    Or perhaps it is, and he’s seeing past the mistakes to how good the novel could be, if edited into shape.

    Either way, it’s encouraging for me to hear. If I can entertain one person with the first draft, I can entertain more with the second, and even more with the third. It’ll take work to get there, but this kind of validation, however biased it may be, makes me feel like it’ll be worth it.

    → 7:16 AM, May 1
  • Back to the Outline of the Future

    The presentation’s done, the conference is over. I can start turning my attention back to writing.

    But writing what? The book I’m outlining now is near-future science fiction, something that’s usually difficult to pin down. It’ll almost certainly be thought of as a prediction of what’s to come, instead of what it really is: an excuse to indulge some of my programming daydreams without moving too far away from the known and familiar.

    So how do I balance the whimsy I want to put in there and the reality-grounding I know it’ll need? How do I gel a coherent story out of all the ideas bubbling around in my head for such a setting?

    There’s no way to know except to write it, to set something down and then work with it until it reaches the shape I want. So I’m outlining, sketching characters and situations out, building up the scaffolding I’ll need before starting to write in earnest.

    Here we go again.

    → 7:06 AM, Apr 24
  • Feeling the Itch

    Not writing is starting to get under my skin.

    The two weeks I was going to take off has turned into a month.

    At first it was so I could catch up on all the house work I’ve been putting off: hardscaping the front yard in response to the drought, cleaning up the back yard, fixing both fences.

    More recently I’ve held off writing because of a talk I’m giving at a conference for work next week. I knew starting on any novel would quickly occupy whatever spare head space I have, and I wanted to keep that free to work on the presentation.

    Both good reasons. But it doesn’t stop me from missing it. When I was working on the novel, I felt like I had a purpose, a mission to fulfill. Without another novel to work on, I feel more relaxed, true, but also a little empty, a little directionless, a little smaller now that I don’t have any characters spouting dialogue into my head.

    I’m trying to be patient, to keep notes on the books I’m debating working on, to stay focused on the other goals I’ve set for myself for this month. But I miss the work, and need to get back to it.

    → 7:05 AM, Apr 17
  • But who will read it?

    First draft of novel’s done, writing vacation is winding down.

    I’ve got an urge to start editing the novel now, to go back and fix the mistakes I know are there, and find the ones I don’t yet know about.

    But I’m holding off. I’m not ready to treat it objectively yet. While printing it off for my wife to read I read a few pages, and liked it a little too much.

    I need fresh eyes on it, eyes that haven’t seen anything but the words on the page, and so will notice if something’s missing or inconsistent or out of tune. Thus the printing run for my wife, so she can read it while soaking in the tub. And thus my new search for beta readers, for those willing to slog through the mess that is the first draft.

    Wish me luck.

    → 8:00 AM, Apr 10
  • Achievement Unlocked

    The novel’s done! It’s done it’s done it’s done it’s done!

    Wrote the last 8,000 words or so in a white heat. Actually cried and shook at some of the things I was writing, at some of the pain the characters had to go through to get to the end.

    But they made it, and so did I.

    Going to take some time off writing and let my brain decompress…

    Final word count: 139,528

    → 7:00 AM, Mar 20
  • You by Austin Grossman

    Another novel that makes staring at a computer screen, thinking, seem more exciting than physical combat. But where Egan took me deep inside the protagonists' heads to generate that excitement, Grossman goes one level deeper, using second-person narration from the perspective of video game characters to take me down past the narrator playing the game and into the game itself. It’s a genius trick, and the fact that Grossman manages the transition between first and second person without jilting me out of the story is impressive.

    To me, it’s an example of second-person done right. It contrasts with novels – such as Charles Stross' Halting State – that start out in second person, creating immediate dissonance between me and the story. I’ve never been able to get past the first few pages of Stross' novel, but devoured Grossman’s in a few days.

    It also made me miss working in video games. Which is strange, considering how much time it spends describing game developers as ill-fed slobs that don’t have lives outside of work. But that feeling of belonging that the narrator talks about, of discovering where he was meant to be after years spent away from gaming, really hit home for me. The narrator’s descriptions of his childhood in the 80s, even though the character is 10 years older than me, still resonated.

    That sense of something important happening when he first sat down in front of a computer, of being on the threshold of the future, didn’t happen to me at the time (I was 6, and not very self-aware), but it could have: I used our Commodore-128 to teach myself how to program, and spent many hours typing in machine language instructions from the back of Compute! magazine in the hopes of being able to play a new game. It didn’t feel like something that was only mine, and not for the adults, but it did feel natural, more so than almost anything else I’ve done, and it still does.

    Despite everything it does right, You’s ending is unsatisfying for me. The climax of the book happens off-screen, and in the final few pages – that I tore through the rest of the book in desperation to reach – don’t resolve anything. Perhaps that makes the ending more realistic, but the lesson for me is twofold: first, show your climax. The reader’s earned it. Second, tie up most of the plot threads you weave into the novel by the end. Leave some of them, sure, but after so much time invested, the reader’s going to want to have some of the tension you’ve built up released. Ideally, showing your climax also releases the tension and resolves multiple conflicts – internal or external – at the same time.

    → 8:00 AM, Feb 23
  • Still Surprising

    You’d think that after 97,867 words I’d have things pretty well plotted out by now, that I’d know everything the characters are going to say and what they’re going to do.

    Far from it. Instead, this far in I find myself knowing what my characters want, and what situations they’re going to have to deal with next. But I don’t know how they’re going to deal with it, or how things will play out, until after it’s written.

    Early on, this terrified me. What if what I write is terrible? What if I contradict myself? What if I set them free and they totally derail my plot and everything ends up in shambles?

    This past week, though, it’s actually helped me relax and just write. How will they get out of this problem? I dunno, let them solve it. How will they convince this character to help them out? No idea, let’s see if they find a way.

    It sounds creepy and weird to say it, like I’ve got multiple personalities crawling around in my brain. But I swear to you, earlier this week one of the characters turned to the other and said the solution to a problem that I’d been wrestling with since November, and it was better than anything I’d come up with. Gave me chills to write it out.

    I hope it keeps happening, all the way to the end. It makes the act of writing a little more like an act of discovery, something akin to an improv performance, with me both on the stage saying lines and standing on the sidelines watching.

    It’s fun, and I don’t know how long this feeling will last, but I’m going to enjoy it while it does.

    → 8:30 AM, Feb 13
  • Turning the Corner

    That’s what it feels like. The novel’s at 91,183 words, and I feel like things are clicking into place. All of the main characters are on the stage, and most of the minor ones as well, pursuing their goals, chasing each other toward the climax of the book. All I have to do is write them into place.

    That makes it sound a little too easy. I still have doubts. I keep writing scenes that I think I’ll need to come back and fix in the next draft. I see plot threads that I might be dropping on the way to the finish line.

    But I’m at the point where the momentum I’ve built up is finally pushing me forward, where even if I don’t know the exact path things will take from here to the end, I can see the end coming, taking shape out of the gloom.

    → 8:00 AM, Feb 6
  • Permutation City by Greg Egan

    I’ve refrained from reviewing fiction on the blog for two reasons: first, I don’t want to have to issue spoiler alerts for the books I want to talk about, and second out of a (possibly misplaced) sense of professional curtesy; as a writer who wants to be published professionally, I don’t want to be seen as being overly critical of those whose ranks I wish to join.

    I’m breaking my self-imposed rule now because I realized there’s a way to talk about the fiction I read without indulging in spoilers or going too negative. Instead of discussing the overall quality of the book, like a normal reviewer, I’m going to talk about what I’ve learned from it about the art of writing. Like studying Frank Lloyd Wright buildings for architects, or replicating how Van Gogh made his own colors for painters, I think each book, each short story I read can teach me about the writing craft.

    Take Permutation City, a book I finished recently. It’s an older science fiction work - published in 1994 - recommended by Jo Walton in her What Makes This Book So Great? compendium of fantasy and sci-fi reviews. What did it teach me?

    It supports the idea that the real strength of the novel (as opposed to film or tv) is the ability to completely describe a character’s thoughts and dreams in addition to their actions. Novels can take you deep inside someone else’s head, something that tv and film can’t really do. It’s something Egan proves a master at, using it to make what on film would be just a character staring at some shapes moving on a screen into some of the most compelling parts of the story. In contrast, the more traditional “action” parts of the story aren’t as interesting or exciting.

    It offers a rebuttal to my (recent) idea that often the details of something don’t matter, that character and plot can carry you through even when you’ve got the science (or the law, or the traditions) wrong. I’ve been using this idea to explain why I still enjoy shows that have dodgy physics or loose legal systems (Arrow, Forever).

    But Permutation City has a huge crack running through the middle of the narrative, a place where it gets the details so wrong that the only way the plot can proceed is if you take a leap of faith along with the author, disregarding a lot of what we know about the physical world and how computers work. It’s a leap of faith I couldn’t make, and it divides the book into a well-detailed, well-thought-through portrait of the mid-21st century and a second half that, for me, might as well have been a discussion of angels dancing on the head of a pin.

    Perhaps if the novel had built that leap of faith in from the beginning, I might not have felt the fracture? In any case, I’m taking it as a warning, a sign that sometimes getting the details wrong (or perhaps poor timing of certain details?) robs well-drawn characters and intricate plots of their power.

    → 8:00 AM, Jan 28
  • Novel Update

    When I finished NaNoWriMo, I was 50,000 words deep into the novel, but it wasn’t done. I decided to keep setting word goals for December and January, in the spirit of NaNoWriMo: 1,000 words per day, excluding weekends, or 20,000 words per month.

    I managed to hit that target for December, crossing 70,000 words on New Year’s Eve.

    Work on the novel has suffered since then. I came down with the flu on Sunday, wiping out my chance of making progress for most of this week. I’m hoping to make up some words this weekend, but I’ll still need to crank up my average if I’m going to hit 90K by the end of this month.

    Fortunately, I feel like I’ve turned a corner in terms of the writing itself. The end of the novel is close, close enough for me to start seeing it pretty clearly.

    My main problem at the moment - other than the daily battle at starting to write, which always seems harder than it should be - is wanting to rushing toward the conclusion, skipping details and plotlines just to reach the end.

    To help combat this tendency, I’ve been using the day’s word count as both motivator - get those words down, or else - and forced breather, a way to trick myself into writing a lot more than I want about scenes that I’m itching to skip over, scenes that often turn out to be very important.

    My hope - my goal, rather - is that this month’s 20,000 words are the novel’s last, and that I’ll be able to write THE END by Jan 31st. that way I can use February to work on something else, and gain enough distance from this novel to come back to it in March and edit it into something worth reading.

    → 8:00 AM, Jan 9
  • RSS
  • JSON Feed
  • Surprise me!