The Writings and Musings of B.A. Matthews

Update on Revisions

Time for a much delayed blog post from me. I’ve been keeping myself so busy (either sick or editing) that I keep forgetting to post. However, I was reminded forcibly by a friend who recently wrote on her blog post about blogging is part of the “building a platform” job of being an author in today’s digital age. Plus, I actually have stuff to talk about.

 Years ago, I heard about Lani Diane Rich, who also goes by the pen name of Lucy March. I first heard about her because she has published Nanowrimo novels and because nearly every year, she offers a spot in her revision class to one lucky Nano-er. Now, of course, I know a lot more about her, mostly because she and her husband, Alastair, have one of the best writing podcasts out there, Storywonk (Seriously, it’s on daily, monday – Friday. If you’re looking for a writing podcast, listen to theirs). I have been hoping for years to take her revision course though and this year, I am pleased to be able to say that I was able to enroll.

 Lani is a great teacher and I will probably end up doing a full post on Sunday about what I have learned so far in this class, since that will place me squarely at the midpoint. As a quick explanation, I can say that I have learned more in the first two classes than I have been taught about structure and editing during my twelve years of Canadian schooling. Due to her class, I was able to go back over my manuscript and discover what my seven key scenes are. I also learned that at least one of my key scenes needed to be rewritten, since it wasn’t doing what it needed to. I’m also going to be spending a bit of time this week trying to reorganize about 25% of my manuscript. I have learned that Act II of my manuscript was about 15% longer than it needed to be. This means I either need to re-identify my key scene there or that I’ll need to play around with that particular scene and see if it can’t come earlier than it currently is. Once again, if you’re interested, come back on Sunday for the full write up on how I’m applying her class to my book.  If you’re looking for a class yourself, keep an eye on her main site and sign up whenever she next offers it. Unless you’ve studied Structure and Editing individually, I can pretty much guarantee that you’ll learn something from this class, even if you don’t always agree with Lani’s personal opinion about how to fix up your novel.

 One of the other things I’ve been looking at lately is rebooting my Dual Melodies. I put up a message saying that until I figured out where it was going that it was on a hiatus. It technically still is, but I’ve been looking at structure and how I’ll be applying it to this story. It will end up being just a novella and I’ll still be offering it here when I finish writing more of it. Then I’ll take it for a few runs of edits and perhaps sell it as an e-book if it is good enough. Like I said, it’s technically still on hiatus but I wanted to let you know that I haven’t forgotten about it. The main problem I ran into was that when I started fleshing out the novel and I wasn’t focusing on characters, the story changed signifigantly enough that I felt I couldn’t keep putting it up in its current form. Hindsight though is 20/20 and I’ve now realized that the story it became, isn’t the story it was and that those characters still wanted their story told. Now that I know I’m working on two different stories, I can promise that planning and writing on it will be starting up again.

 And that is where my update stops. I’ll try to have a nice post about the class up for all of you on Sunday. Till then, keep writing and let me know how you’ve been, what you’ve been working on and if you have any tips on how to survive the editing/revision phase.

Posted in Blogs on January 25th, 2012 by B.A. Matthews | | No Comments »

Happy New Year!!!

It’s 2012 and I must admit, I enjoy starting every year with making resolutions. I have a confession to make though. I don’t usually end up keeping them. No matter how well I have planned those resolutions or how easy those resolutions are or even how much I want to accomplish those resolutions, I seem to not do it if I phrase it in a resolution way.

 So this year, I’m not going to make resolutions. This year I am simply going to have fluid goals and plans and keep myself on track with those.

 My first goal is to compete in the Year of the Epic Query, otherwise (or more commonly) known as the Epic Year of Querying.  Basically, my friends are I are challenging each other to finally get our work out there. My friend Danni is going to be score keeper and if you check out her blog you’ll see on the side of the page The Epic Year of Querying and all of our names with a number below them. Currently that number is 0 for all (I believe) but as we begin sending out our work, it will rise. I’m not sure if we’re going for the first to 100 queries or the first to 100 rejections, but either way, it’s going to get very heated towards the end of the year.

Personally, my first thing to query is going to be my Falling through the Threshold, a novel I have written about a woman who discovers she isn’t human when she is kidnapped by vampires. It is fully written and I am in the process of editing it right now. I just got back critique information on part one of Chapter six and I’m hoping to hand in the second half of this chapter as well as all of Chapter six next week.

 My critique group, A Bitch of Writers, is going quite well. The group has gotten large enough that we separated them into two groups. We now have six members  and while we didn’t have to separate the group, we all find it quicker to only have to keep track of two critiques instead of five. Four to a group is our maximum number for now. We found that four kept us very busy but any more tended to take too much time to do.

 What about you? Do you make resolutions every year? What are they if you do?

Posted in Blogs on January 3rd, 2012 by B.A. Matthews | | No Comments »

We wish you a merry little Yuletide…

Okay, so I missed my post on my birthday. Sorry about that. It was an awesome birthday though! I hung out with my friends and watched the first two Underworld movies, in preparation for the next movie coming out in January. I also got the best gift ever from my husband. I am now the proud owner of the 2012 Writer’s Market, Deluxe Edition. It looks like it’s going to be insanely useful this upcoming year.

 Otherwise, I’ve been cleaning, reading, exchanging gifts with my family and even getting some editing done. Basically, it’s been a darned good holiday season and I intend to keep it that way for all of you as well, by keeping this short and sweet.

 Yule Blessings, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah or whatever blessings are most important to you, from my family to yours. Enjoy the holidays and I should be back with another post on Wednesday.

 Until then, keep writing, keep learning and always make time to play with your favourite toys. (My new favourite toy that isn’t a book or DVD? This toy below, which I have ordered from ThinkGeek.Yep, I’m strictly a Windows/Blackberry/Android girl. Basically, Anti-Mac.)

Posted in Blogs on December 25th, 2011 by B.A. Matthews | | No Comments »

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays! This is my favourite time of year. Not only is my birthday in 4 days’ time but Solstice is also in 4 days’ time. This year will be particularly fun. I’m going to have dinner with friends and then we’re going to watch the first and second movies of Underworld, in preparation of seeing the third in January when it comes out.

 I’ve also been cleaning my house (a little), preparing for Solstice, buying gifts for both Solstice and X-mas (I buy the gifts for what people celebrate, whether I follow the religion or not) and reading quite a bit more than I’ve been able to lately.

 I have even managed to get in some writing work, though not too much since work was killing my hand this week.  I did manage to finish my critiques for tomorrow… the last critique of the year.

 Speaking of  the last of anything of the year, I must admit that I always approach this time of year with just a hint of sadness. It is a case of out with the old and in with the new, but I feel like I’ve wasted chances and opportunities this year. The main one that is eating me up inside is the query letter.

 I must admit that writing a synopsis and query have really been taxing my skills. It takes a completely different type of skill to write either of those and make them sound good.

 That’s all I have to say for today though. What have you been working on since Nanowrimo ended? Also, what do you celebrate this time of year? Just as importantly, tell me how you celebrate.

Posted in Blogs on December 18th, 2011 by B.A. Matthews | | No Comments »

It’s always hard…

…to get moving again in December. 

Or at least, it seems that way every year to me. In prior years, I have ignored my writing, well into January in most cases. This year, I haven’t gotten a change to do much writing since Nanowrimo and, of course, this is the unofficial busy season at work (until late January when it dies). As much as I would like to discount my job as an issue, I can’t quite yet. I have gotten some editing done but little to nothing done on my query submission yet. I do have a short ½ chapter ready for submission and I’m going to see if I can do more editing tomorrow without compromising my hand further.

 If I may be blunt, I am starting to worry about my hand more. I’m starting to think that it may be something a bit more serious than I’ve been considering it. I’ll be arranging a trip to the doctors to see if a specialist may be needed. It looks as though I may now have scar tissue up to my elbow if the areas of pain when my husband massages my arm are any indication.  At any rate, I’m going to try to not get too worried until we see what the doctor says. All in all though, this means that I’ll be getting a bit more reading done this season than I was originally hoping to. My to-read list will thank me if nothing else does.

What have you been doing this December? Writing, editing or are you not paying any attention to writing at all?

Posted in Blogs on December 11th, 2011 by B.A. Matthews | | No Comments »

Life After Nanowrimo

Today is going to be the third or forth day in a row that I haven’t written, mainly because my hands have been killing me.  Work has been really busy since the end of Nanowrimo and finishing, as always, has left my hand hurting. However, this doesn’t mean that I haven’t been doing writing work. I’ve had a meeting with my fellow A Bitch of Writers members, met up with new members and have worked a bit, starting a new scene in my Dual Melodies story. Since my Dual Melodies story seems to have evolved from one story into two, I have decided to write the original story of Dual Melodies, still posting it here.

 It’ll be a little bit slow for me to get up stuff since I will be working on a few other stories as well, but I promise I will be posting them.

 I am really excited about starting my editing again though. Our first critique needs to be turned in on Monday night. I can’t wait!

 How have you been since Nanowrimo? Have you finished any writing in the last few days?

Posted in Blogs on December 8th, 2011 by B.A. Matthews | | No Comments »

TGIO

It only took 4 days for the Nano-Squishy brains to recede; at least, enough to me to write a blog post. While I must admit I’m thankful that it’s over, I also have to admit that I’m already missing it. It’s really nice to stay within the house and know that all I have to do is write. My hand doesn’t hurt as much when I’m spending all my time writing, as strange as that may sound. It’s the monotonous typing at work that is the worst for it. 

 Now of course, it’s December and I have to split my time between family, commitments, shopping, work, writing and editing. Fortunately, as much as that all sounds like work, a lot of it is stuff I enjoy doing. Which is really what December is all about for me.  We’re starting our critique group up again on Monday evening, I still have a query to send in, and a book to edit along with everything else. Fortunately, I love the idea of doing that work.

 Yesterday was our city’s TGIO party. And, I must admit that of all the TGIO’s I’ve attended this one has been my favourite. Not only because I had great people to sit with or even because I won a brilliant prize of a hat with kitsune ears and a scarf that had a chainsaw on it;  No, it was awesome because we had a visitor from Toronto join us.

 He had apparently missed his own TGIO party and decided to join ours. It’s awesome and we encourage such. We are always willing to have other Nano’ers join us.  In particular, I was ecstatic because though I’ve never met our guest, I’ve been a bit fan of his for years.

 Our guest was Errol, of Nano-video fame. You may remember, I had a video of his that I put up for the last day of Nanowrimo.

 Here’s a picture of us together, along with my awesome new hat and scarf that was donated by Paper Street Cosplay.  Kitsune ears are my favourite.

 What are you doing this December? Still writing?

Posted in Blogs on December 4th, 2011 by B.A. Matthews | | 2 Comments »

Nanowrimo, I Sleep Now

Today is November 30. A sad day for all of us Nano-ers. Today marks the end of Nanowrimo. Collectively, Wrimo’s worldwide have written over 3 billion words this year. That’s not even counting the words written by the YWP writers.

Though I finished my 50k last Saturday, I kept writing and managed to finish all of the rewrites for my novel. Now to finish the query and synopsis, so that I can send that out in a day or so.

My final word count through Squishy-Brain and Tendinitis was 55,698 words. I’ll say I’ve done my fair share this Nanowrimo.

I’m going to leave full updates for when I’m not desperately exhausted anymore but I will say that I will be posting more in months to come. I’m going to try again for a twice weekly schedule but the posts will likely be shorter… closer to the 500+ words instead of the 1000+ words I used to try for.  I don’t know exactly what days I’ll be trying to post those up for but right now, I’m thinking Wednesday’s and Sunday’s.

I will keep you guys up to date on my query and where it is, of course, and I will start trying to post shorter writings again on a bi-monthly basis, though I’m not sure exactly where that will fit in.

To end off the month, watch this video from my favourite Nano who does YouTube stuff, Errol!

This… to a point, is exactly how I feel right now.

Good night and Congratulations to everyone who did this Crazy event with us, whether you wrote 100k or 1k!

Also this… (And if you haven’t seen the “Lost Skeleton of Cadavra” shame on you. Go watch it.)

Posted in Blogs on December 1st, 2011 by B.A. Matthews | | No Comments »

Nanowrimo, Day Twenty-Eight

Today, it finally happened. The flu that has been going around the city has finally caught up with me. It hit my husband fully on Sunday when we got home from the write-in just after midnight and he was just starting to feel better today. I stayed home today to take care of him, but now I’m starting to feel it too. It’s going to kill my words for the rest of Nanowrimo, but fortunately, I only need another 4k to meet my goal. I’ll probably end the month near 56k.

 That’s only about 2k the next two days, plus however many words I get today. I have 1300+ already so I’m hoping to get my total up to the 1667 word goal before I stop tonight.

 Also, I backed up my book and most of my other writing onto a USB tonight. All of my writing came to a measly 19MB… It really reminds you of how little this work that you’ve done amounts to, when compared to the space on my hard drives. It also served to remind me that sometimes big things come in small packages.

 In other news, I spent most of the day playing a new video game of mine called Terraria. It’s sort of like a 2D version of Minecraft. It’s strangely addictive and really fun. I expect most of December will be spent randomly building stuff in the world while I get my wits back. I’ll keep you updated on it if it continues to keep me entertained.

Posted in Blogs on November 29th, 2011 by B.A. Matthews | | No Comments »

Nanowrimo, Day Twenty Seven

For those who were waiting for an update yesterday, I offer my apologies. I had thought that I would be not only home prior to midnight, but that I would also be conscious enough to write a blog post at that time. As you can tell, from my lack of a post yesterday, neither proved true.

 So what was I doing all yesterday, you may ask? It’s a good question. Yesterday was Calgary’s longest write-in that happens every year… The Twelve Hour. From 1 pm – 1 am the Calgary writers get together and do a little bit of socializing, a little bit of eating and a lot of writing and word wars.

 So, I went there, arriving just prior to the ML’s at 12:45pm. Me, Epic Robot Danni, Tim of the Awesome and a few others set up shop, taking over the back room of a restaurant. We talked, we socialized, we cavorted. And, of course, we wrote. Some lucky people even got a chance to hit their 50k goal during the write in and ring the large bell that the ML’s bought to let everyone know that somebody has won (and if you are like me and wonder what the heck ringing a bell would do to make you feel better about completing such an epic thing, I suggest getting together 10-15 people and that you buy a bell. When one of you makes your word count, go and ring it. Tell me if you don’t smile… Trust me, you will).

 Anyways, to make a long story short, I was also one of the lucky ones to ring the bell last night. I won near 10 pm crossing it during a word war in which I reached 50,368 words.  I won, I rang the bell and I then proceeded to smile, pack up my stuff and return home. I must admit that when I got home, I didn’t open my laptop. This morning I opened my computer, but I didn’t do any writing on it. It has now been 24 hrs since I last wrote a word on my novel.

 And you know what?

 I’m fine with that. It’s the end of Nanowrimo, I’m getting quite tired and my squishy-brains are starting to feel like a permanent addition. And tomorrow, I’m going to get back on the horse and write another 2,000 words. Why?

 Because I’m a writer. And that means that I write. Perhaps not every day, but I try to do a little each day and so should you.

 Don’t keep to an unreasonable goal in non-Nanowrimo times. Taking a day off here and there is fine. Also, I promise that once December rolls around I’m going to lowering my word count goal down to 500 words/day. I know that I’m not the sort of writer who can do that 2k every day (especially while working a full time job as well).

 I am a writer, not because I sell books, not because I meet and beat an arbitrary word count goal and not because other people say that I am.

 We are writers because we WRITE; Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.   

Posted in Blogs on November 28th, 2011 by B.A. Matthews | | No Comments »

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