It’s been a while since I’ve been on here. I was reminded of that on Tuesday, but this was the first time I’ve been able to get back on. Some of that has been pure procrastination, some of it was pure ire (I wrote a brilliant blog post and then my new system deleted it. My fault, but still annoying), and some of it was out of a need to decompress. Now, I’m back, I’m relaxed and I’m more certain than ever of what I want to do with my life.
Now that may make it sound like I was waffling a bit over my chosen path and I can assure you, that I wasn’t considering leaving writing. I hadn’t even gone to the point of wondering if I could make a living out of it. Those, in my mind, were foregone conclusions. One day, I will be good enough and I will begin making a living off of it. The thing that was starting to halt me was the first part of that sentence.
One Day
It’s a tiny phrase to have caused the amount of damage it was. I had started thinking of One Day as being far away, too far for me to worry about. In the meantime, I certainly had other goals. I began a critique group (Called the best name ever… A Bitch of Writers), I started showing my work to others, I’ve been learning how to edit (Painstakingly slow, it seems), and I had to get ready for my trip to SIWC (Surrey International Writers Conference).
The critique group has been so helpful. It’s really shown me the areas that I obviously need more work on. Mostly, these come down to description issues. I’m great at tension, but I have to really work to make any characters imaginable. Learning to edit has been really difficult, mainly because I realized that my teaching of this in school was not what I would consider adequate. As a student, my idea of editing was to write a rough draft, clear up a few of the spelling mistakes, and maybe a word choice before handing it in. Editing a novel, I’ve found, is just a wee bit more intense than that.
It was the trip to Surrey that really changed me though. This year I took my writing (and ask me in person sometime about the “life-changing-field-trip-with-Zuko”) hoping for the same glee I received last year when CC Humphrey’s reviewed my work (Mr. Humphrey’s, if you ever find yourself reading this, ask me about my first chapter now! It’s awesome now that it’s written). Instead I found the classes containing a lot of the information that I learned last year and felt myself ahead of the game.
Nervously so, of course. One Day doesn’t leave room for me to be suddenly understanding what the instructors are teaching. In fact, thinking myself ahead of the game felt downright wrong. The sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as I handed Wendy Roberts my work this year was horrible. When she asked if this was my first book, my heart sank. Still, I continued on bravely, simply answering “Yes” instead of the Is it that obvious comment that I was thinking to myself.
Imagine my shock when she told me that my work was much better than most first books she’s seen. She then asked me point blank if I was querying. I was stunned and when I said, no, she told me to get on with it. Ivan Coyote reinforced the knowledge later that day when I heard her tell a story about an old student of hers who wasn’t published and was terrified of being rejected. She had to tell her, “I know this is going to hurt, but you’re already not published.”
I decided that day that perhaps One Day had come. Still, I was stunned when I spoke with my Brian Hades (of Edge Publishing) for my pitch appointment, and he nodded, asking for a partial. Once again, it was reinforced at lunch, when I spoke with Donald Maass (Of Donald Maass Literary Agency) and he took my name and told me that he would tell one of his agents to keep an eye out for a partial from me. Serendipity, Coincidence, Whatever you want to call it, I was hit with it this conference.
It floored me when I realized just how much these two words, One Day, had been holding me back. Now, just as before, I know what I want to do but for the first time, I think I see a light at the end the of the tunnel. I need to finish crafting a synopsis and a query (any good suggestions for books on How To would be appreciated) and then I’ll begin the next stage of my journey. I think, I may finally be ready for that next step.
What about you? What did you learn about yourself in the last year?
I know I’ve been gone for a while… a mix of not sure what to write/busy/family from out of town visiting. On the other hand, I do have some interesting news. Which is an actual surprise, I know; I usually talk about the craft of writing. I will continue on to that for my next blog post, I promise.
First bit of awesome news is that there is now more to do on Friday Nights than wish you hadn’t broken up with your ex! That’s right, me and @DanniM86 created(mostly on a lark), the #FNTWP. It stands for Friday Night Twitter Writers Party. It was originally supposed to only be a one night thing, a night where writers on twitter could get together, write, chat and know that other writers would be there. Well, it was enough of a hit that me and Danni got talked into doing it every week. Sometimes it’s only Danni or me who’s running it, but most of the time you’ll be able to find the both of us there. We allow any writerly activity to go on during the #FNTWP… Reading, Writing, Editing, Playing Video Games I mean, looking for tips on Dialog (in the i-tunes store). Pretty much, if you’re a writer and you think it helps you, do it and then tell us about it. With so many writers in one place, it’s also an excellent place to find advice on writing, worldbuilding or re-finding your magic. Look me up there from 7pm to 12 pm Mountain Time on Friday nights!
Second bit of Awesome news is that I have finally found a critique group. This is the first one I’ve ever been in and I must say, so far I love it. I started the group with a few of the writers here in Calgary (@violettedream, @TimOfTheAwesome, @DanniM86-follow them on Twitter, they’re great) and we’ve only had one official writing meeting. I got the first chapter for my Falling Through the Threshold-WIP critiqued and I was very pleased. They told me about what I had done that could be changed, what they liked, where they thought the story was going, and helped me identify issues. They complimented me on it, which made the whole experience a lot less terrifying. I’ll be turning in the second chapter at the beginning of next week and I’m excited to do so, as odd as that may sound. Also, we’ve got the best name for the group ever, “A Bitch of Writers”.
The third Awesome thing is, of course, the biggest. I had to save the best for last! Are you ready?
I HAVE FINALLY FINISHED MY NOVEL!!!
That is right, I have finally finished the rough draft of the elephant that’s been hanging around in the closet! It is a finished manuscript at 101,187 words. A reasonable first draft length and it give me a bit of leeway while editing for rising and falling word counts. The story isn’t ready to be sent out to agents or editors yet (yes, if any of you read this blog, you can let out that breath you’ve been holding, expecting to see a first draft travesty end up on your desk any minute) but I am hoping that I will have the first ¼ of the book edited and ready to present to Brian Hades (owner of Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy/Tesseract Books, the biggest publisher or Science Fiction and Fantasy in Canada) during SiWC this year. Hopefully, he’ll like the idea and he’ll ask me to send in a copy of a few chapters to him (I can dream right?). If not, perhaps he can help me figure out where I’m presenting my idea in the wrong way and he can help me improve my pitch. Either way, I want as much of my editing as I can to be finished before I send it in
Well, that’s about it for right now! I’ll be back to my twice weekly posts next week(promise), with a good post on craft again.
Posted in Blogs on September 2nd, 2011 by B.A. Matthews | | Comments Off
Sometimes, I enjoy taking some time off from writing. Usually these weeks come when I’m not feeling well, everyone and their kids need my spare time and my cats require an extra 3-4 hours of attention a day. Last week was one of those weeks. I still feel guilty for not writing, but looking back; I can understand why I didn’t. Even the blog post I wrote was inane. One thing I never miss though, are my writing podcasts. I am constantly reminded every time I turn on one of them that even if I can’t write every day, I can learn something about the craft of writing.
This week, for instance, I learned that I need to stop apologizing for things that simply aren’t my fault. Last week, I learned that reading outside my preferred genre helps me to understand how to write in different genres and how to improve my writing in my own genre. The week before that I learned that I have no clue how to write a short story anymore.
I could continue, but I think you get the picture. The reason I’m discussing this topic is because of a friend of mine. I was looking over classes for SiWC and I asked him for his opinion on which of the master’s classes I should take, given the chance. He looked over the ones I’d selected and suggested that I do the one that was on social media and using it appropriately, both for marketing and for relationship reasons. This friend of mine, is a good writer, in fact, he’s been doing this longer than I have and I respect him, both as a friend and as someone that I always consider ahead of me in the writing game.
I asked why and he said, “Well, you’ve got most of the craft aspects down. You just need to publish.”
I try to tell myself every day that I’m a Great Writer, that I am still learning and that I am getting vastly better. Still, I haven’t completely convinced myself yet, since his response still floored me. One of the things that I’ve taught myself is that I always consider me the lowest one on the totem pole. Offhand, if you haven’t tried it yet, re-teaching yourself something is the hardest thing in the world to do.
Because the most important thing I’ve learned from all of my studies is that if I want to be a writer, then I have to learn how to write, every day. I need to learn how to write when I’m sick, when I’ve had a hard day at work, when I want to play that new videogame I just downloaded or when I want to read. Nothing else will help me reach my goal of being a professional writer faster, than writing.
So, where does this leave me… just wishing I could just do some writing? No, because I’m not a “I wish…” person. I am somebody who can get this done. My total is at almost 82,000 words now. So, you know what? No more putting it off. No more excuses. I’m setting myself down to write so that I can finish my 13,000 – 18,000 words that I have left to write.
Well, summer comes finally to my dreary city of Calgary. It seems like the cold stuck around longer than it normally does, though only by a few weeks. We’re moving into the truly warm months here (Calgary is notorious for its odd weather patterns… our summers only last from June to August, generally), but my mind isn’t thinking of the beach or even summer vacations. First because Calgary, for those who don’t know, is landlocked and though we have a good river, it’s not the same. As for the summer vacations, I’ve never really taken any. Most of my trips happen in the fall or winter months. So, what do I look forward to every June instead of the usual favourites? The Surrey International Writing Conference Registration, of course!
The SiWC registration went up earlier this week and let me tell you, if you haven’t already gone to the site, you will want to take a visit. This conference is one of Canada’s best conferences and it’s looking like they have arranged a spectacular line up of authors and industry professionals for us this year. For a full list follow the link. I can almost guarantee that you’ll have heard of a few of the authors, even if like me, you don’t who many of the agents and publishers/editors are yet. They have an incredible selection of Master Classes this year. I only wish I had enough cash saved up to attend one in each of the time slots! As is, I’m glad that I’ll have a few weeks to decide before the decision needs to have been made. I will let you all know once I’ve decided on one. The workshops are looking great as well, though they are still putting up descriptions of everything. Just the names have me choosing which ones I’ll want to go to already!
I wish I could tell you all that I’ve registered already, but I haven’t had a chance to yet. I will have before the end of the month. They are offering a great deal for those who sign up in June. By registering early, you can lock in the price for last year’s classes. Be aware, if you’re planning on going! The prices go up to early bird and eventually the final price beginning July 1st!
I’ll be looking forward to seeing a lot of old friends that I met last year and making plenty of new ones. If you’re going to be there, drop me a line and perhaps we can try to meet while we’re there! Of some importance, this year I won’t be going alone. A writer friend of mine in town will be coming with me. Unfortunately, he says he’s not much for taking notes so if you would like to be share notes on classes, let me know! It’s great to have other friends going to workshops that you aren’t going to be in and that way you can find out what you missed, since we don’t yet have a cloning technology that we can safely use to be in two places at once yet (and become just one person again later).
Will you be attending the conference this year? If so, what workshops or master classes are you looking forward to? If you’re not attending, what conferences do you attend? Think you know of a better one? Let me know that as well! Hopefully, I can start attending more of these as time goes on!
I have a confession for all of my readers out there. I am afraid of quite a few things… and I think one of them might be writing. Or more precisely, I’m not afraid of writing; I’m afraid of being a writer. The idea that I can do this has been a dream of mine, and one that I’ve been trying to attain.
I write, almost every day and I study the craft of writing. I have written one full novel, wrote a second one, which I didn’t finish (I realized it was broken) and now I’m about 65% done the first draft of my third novel. I have to admit, each work has been heads and tails above what came before it. I am improving quite a bit each year. I’m hoping that I’ll have the book I’m currently working on finished in time to take to this year’s SiWC with me. I have defeated my inner editor and gotten him to work with me (I write, he edits as we go, which means I do delete a lot of words, but he only gets a few moments to make corrections. Once I’m past that line, I’m not going back until the editing phase begins). I am well on my way to being able to say that I am a professional author, someone who writes for a living.
Yet somewhere in the back of my mind, hiding further than my inner editor and past even that part of me that loves a good supernatural romance, something sinister is hiding. I suppose it could be the sacrificed soul of the inner editor or perhaps it is a completely separate part of my personality. Regardless of what it is I know what it does. It makes me think that I can’t do this. It makes me look at the paragraph above and want to rip those accomplishments to shreds.
‘Yes, you wrote one book,’ it says, ‘but it was hideous and didn’t even have a villain or a plot.’ ‘You never finished that second book, so it doesn’t count at all’, it reminds me. ‘You don’t write everyday… You can’t even blog correctly and that’s only on a twice a week schedule.’ It continues and finishes with, ‘Your hands always hurt, you’re always playing stupid games on your computer, wasting time and pissing around on the internet. Come on, you know it, even if you don’t want to admit it.’
Then I was listening to the Storywonk podcast and it said something that took my breath away in terror. “You need to say it out loud every day,” Lani Diane Rich implored, “I am a Great Writer.” I tried to think the words and though I agreed with them, the words caught in my mind. “Say them out loud, even if there are people around you.” she continued. I looked around. I was alone in a stairwell. I attempted to say the words out loud and they got caught in my throat.
I told my husband about this and he laughed, at me I’m annoyed to say. “I’m a bad writer” he told me, “You are a great writer, if you could just accept the fact that you’re allowed to be good at something.”
It fit, though as they say the truth hurts. Also, I think it may not be writing that I’m afraid of, but I may be afraid that success will be forever beyond my grasp. Somehow hearing it from my husband helped to remind me that bravery (or is it stupidity) is my middle name. That means that even if I’m afraid I go on. I will say those words and I will say them every day if I must to convince that voice that I am a great writer.
And while I finish my book, and begin editing and working on writing the new book, I’m going to remind myself, that what sells more than anything else, is good writing. And I am a Great Writer.
It’s now been a month into the new year, so this blog I’m going to do something a bit different. Or at least something I find different. I’m going to speak about my New Years resolutions and discuss how I’m doing with those goals… which ones I’m failing, which ones I haven’t changed and which ones I’m succeeding at.
1. “To be a writer, I must write”… every day. This goal was ambitious in that I wanted a full year where I wrote every day. Ambitious? Yes, but at the same time I knew that I wasn’t going to succeed every day. Most of the time, though, I think I can. Still, I must be honest, with myself and therefore, by extension, all of you. This month I had 4 days where I did not write. One of those days, I did write, but it wasn’t fiction and so I don’t count it. The other three days though, I admit, I did not write at all. While three days is reasonably good, I think that is still too high a “not writing” rate. I will try next month to lower that to less than three days. So, a reasonable success here.
2. “I want to be a published author…” My goal for this was to finish my novel so that I can start submitting it publishers after I finish editing it. Unfortunately, I ran into a bit a block. When I finished writing at the end of November (in addition to being burned out), I had hit a very bad time in my novel. I hadn’t realized it prior to trying to write again but I had essentially written ‘Training Montage Here’ on my outline. This never helps me in the writing process. I was able to figure out what to put there, but it took most of this month. Update, not as successful as I could have been, but successful nonetheless. I will keep working on it as the year moves past.
3. “I need to stop being afraid to show people my work.” No work on this one… since most of what I wrote was flash fiction and I refused to show anyone anything more than one or two pieces of it. No success on this one, but I’m going to continue to try.
4. “I want to lose weight, get into exercising more regularly and start eating healthier.” This was also a failed endeavor. I’m trying to eat healthier but we’ve had nothing but opportunity after opportunity to eat out this month. I’ve gained somewhere on the order of 5 lbs, although since it’s only 5 lbs, it could be relegated to not enough water and a killer cold making me take on weight. I have used our weight room a few times… Not incredible, but I was able to use them to help me work out a bit. Fail, but not a complete failure. This is the one that I need to work on.
5. “I will continue to network and try to meet other writers.” Success. I have met many new writers from Twitter. Most of these people I have met via twitter and I am making friends with them. Very … cool? So what do you think of this one guys. I’m going to count this one as a success, at least until the rest of the year comes down with a more complete answer.
“I will continue to improve on my craft of writing.” Partial Success. I believe that I am getting better and improving my craft, but I’m afraid that I don’t have very much to show to prove it. However, I will be posting up some of my writing on here for the two new novels I’m going to be working on when I’m not working on my other writing things so you can keep an eye out on this one.
And that’s how the world looks from my chair 26,370 words into my year. What do you think? How are you doing on your resolutions?
Today is one of those days when I wouldn’t mind using #FML as a hashtag on Twitter. Not that its even been that bad of a day. All in all, it’s been a good day actually. I finished Nanowrimo with 56,331 words, an awesome total. In addition, I came in twelveth overall in the city for those that hang out on the Nanowrimo forums, and probably the top 20 of writers in Calgary if we count those who don’t. I had a friend visit today, last night was a TGIO party… all in all, it’s been excellent. The main problem stems from me. I have made a deal with my body; If it works harder for me in November, I’ll let it rest in December. So I still feel like I’m running on fumes, 7 days later… though it is getting better.
As if to make it worse, I’ve also been hit by a light bout of insomnia. It means that if I don’t head to sleep the moment I feel tired, I wake back up immediately. Normally this would be counted as extra writing time, but in December, it starts weighing on me, since I actually need to work. On the other hand, at least insomnia never lasts more than three to five days for me so I do know that simply waiting it out is a viable plan.
I do have more vacation coming up at the end of the month (Yes more… I take all my vacation late in the year) which will give me some good time to catch up on all the writing I’m not doing right now. This is why I’m not feeling too guilty about taking 15 – 20 days off to recover from the work of Nanowrimo. And what was that? Writing?
Yes, I have completely stopped writing… I need to get myself back into it, and this blog is a vital step towards that. I find that one of the hardest parts of Nano is to start writing again after December rolls around. However, I am going to make some promises to you guys.
1. I will be writing this year, and much more this month than in November.
2. I will have my novel rough draft finished for the end of February.
3. My music reviews will hence forth be finished within two weeks of receiving them.
4. This novel will be edited and I will start sending it out to publishers before the end of next year. In fact, if I’m lucky, I’ll have it done pre-SiWC 2011.
As for my story? Well, it’s actually been a roaring success this year. I am working on Chapter 14, of a probable 30 Chapter book, so I’m almost half way there. I have a complete story so far. Not much in the way of subplots… more a mention of such here and there. My story has thus far been written in order and the chapters are coming out mostly of a reasonable length (about 4K worth of words). The plot is making sense, I have good explanations for my world building that is fitting in. The only thing I’m somewhat disappointed in is that thus far, I’ve alluded to the war that the vampires are in but I haven’t actually come out and said it. This will need to rectified and will probably include me writing in a new character, a commander in the war on the side of the vampires.
I feel that my writing is definitely improving this year and with every book I write, it gets easier and easier to put together a cohesive story that works.
On a non-nanowrimo front, I have finished reading the High King of Montival now and while I can say that it is one of the best books I’ve ever read, I am quite annoyed with SM Stirling. This was originally going to be the end of the series… apparently now there are another two books coming out. While I love reading more of his books, which makes this somewhat a good thing, it is also a bit of an annoyance, since I was thought I was going to read the incredible and satisfying conclusion. Ah well, I can’t be really annoyed… it was too good a book for me to be actually annoyed! For those of you who asked, I have now started reading Geist and its almost as good as High King of Montival. I’ll review it as soon as I’m finished it and have just a bit of time.
In closing, How was nano for you? Did you get anything written? What have you learned about your noveling over the last nano? What books are you reading and what books do you think I need to review for you?
This is just a quick little hello, from my corner of cyberspace to all of my readers and for once, it’s not from my little home in Calgary, AB. That’s right, everybody, I am in Surrey, BC attending the SiWC!
The classes have been great so far (mostly), I won a book by KC Dyer (her book launch for it is this weekend) and the people have been worth talking to.
I even have some big news (for me) about my novel… nothing so big as an agent or editor/publisher interested, but lets just say my Blue Pencil meeting went well, but more on that later since I could gush for hours.
As for everything else, the flight was perfect and I got through customs on both sides quickly, visiting the family was awesome (Hi Mom!) and seeing my friends that I haven’t seen in years was great (I never got to show you Dragon! I’m sooo sorry!).
I miss my husband immensely and while I can’t wait to see him again, I also have to admit that this has been a really great experience so far. Given the chance, I think that I would come next year, though of course, it all depends on the situations at the time.
I also cannot wait for Nanowrimo to begin, though I am going to be changing my challenge slightly. Since my tendinitis is really bad right now, I think I’m going to back off my 100K words and try for a similarly difficult goal. 50K using mostly Dragon NaturallySpeaking instead of typing. So, who’s up for joining me in a slightly off challenge for Nano? Anyone else talking instead of typing?
That’s it for me though. There’s a fun little play going on here called Shock Theatre and I think that I’m awake enough to attend, so I’ll be heading downstairs to partake in the “Experience”! Until next time, keep writing everyone!
It’s been a while since I last posted, so let’s get started. Today I’m going to break the first rule and show not tell.
First off is a video today. As I’m certain you’ve all heard if you’ve been paying attention to my site is that Philippa Ballantines book, Geist is coming out, with a Canadian release date of October 26, 2010. I cannot wait to see it come out and in fact, I think that I’ll be making it my “nano-treat”. I do have a great little treat for all of you though. Philippa Ballantine and Tee Morris have gotten together and made a book trailer and if you haven’t seen it before it’s great.
Personally I’m not really sure how to look at these “book trailers” . On the outside it appears to be a really good idea, but I’m not sure if it is. On one hand I have always felt that’s really interesting to see what the author envisioned but on the other some people may be disappointed with a given book simply because the promise made in the video is different than the promise made in the book. While it doesn’t happen often with book covers when it does it can make a really good book come off as a cheap hack. On the other hand when this is done right it can make the book seem even better knowing not only have the author saw the book but how you saw it as well.
So basically I’m on the fence about this one and I’ll keep you updated as to when I make a permanent decision on whether these are good or bad. In the meantime though watch Philippa‘s video that I’ve put up on here. I guarantee that you won’t be disappointed. A friend at my work is going to be picking up the book as well, based solely on how interesting the cover picture is. I’m very impressed.
A lot of people are coming up with very interesting ways to show how much they love nanowrimo, and with the boards back up they have ample opportunity to share their creations with the world. One of my friends, whom I will refer to here as “Tim of the Awesome” has been put in novels around the world in a nano challenge the last couple of years. As he puts it nowadays “put me in your novel, add a couple thousand words and let the awesome flow.” While I heartily suggest putting Tim in your novel that’s not actually why I’m mentioning him today.
Tim (known as Hero on the nano forums) wrote a parody of that old spice commercial. Here it is for your viewing pleasure.
Hello Wrimos.
Look at your novel, now back to mine, now back at your novel, now back to MINE.
Sadly, it isn’t mine, but if you started writing 1667 words a day it could be as long as mine.
Look down, back up, where are you? You’re at your computer WITH THE NOVEL YOUR NOVEL COULD LOOK LIKE.
What’s in your hand? Back at me. It’s the remains of your silenced inner editor.
Look again.
THE EDITOR IS NOW DIAMONDS!
Anything is possible with NaNoWriMo.
I’m on a forum.
Definitely awesome is it not? I’ve heard that Tim may be planning on doing a live commercial version of this… if he does I will definitely have the video linked if not posted here. If you like this though go over to the nano forums and show Hero some love.
Another gentleman is making waves is one of the Toronto-Wrimo’s who uses the handle Errol. His new video, “good’Ol nanowrimo” is another brilliant example of people supporting things they love, doing it in creative ways and getting the word out there. Here’s the link for it.
I’ll be making my own video to go along with these “showing the love” examples later this week.
In other news, I finally finished reading Brandon Sanderson’s “the way of Kings”. All I can say on this is that the book is brilliant, well written, intelligent and thought-provoking. The only part that I wonder if it could’ve been done better is how he told Kaladin’s story. He did a present scene followed by a past scene for most of it. While it did work it didn’t seem to come off quite as smoothly as it could have, although I definitely don’t know how or if it could’ve been done better in this particular medium. Definitely a good read and I suggest you read it.
Finally I just want to quickly mention once more SIWC. I will be heading out next week on Tuesday for the beautiful lands of Abbotsford, Canada. I’ll be staying with a variety of friends and family for Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday I will be on-site signing in for my hotel room and preparing for my class on revision in the rewrite. I contacted the teacher last night and got homework help me prepare for the class. While it was a little overwhelming, it did raise my expectations of the class. I look forward to learning quite a bit and improving my novel in brilliant ways. If any of you are taking that course or will be over at the SIWC for the weekend look me up. I’d love to meet some of you in person.
I have been looking at my own work recently, and trying to decide how best to prepare for Nanowrimo while finishing up my current WIP. Of course, the new project is shinier… It’s new, I haven’t thought about it for months or years, and I haven’t seen ¾ of the book and decided that its crap. The fact that 4 months ago I thought this work was good and now I’m looking at it and worrying that its unsalvageable means that I’ve probably reached that area of the book where all authors suddenly think their work is bad and horrible. On the other hand, I also know (unfortunately) that I’m not yet skilled enough to be able to decide on my own. Of course, my husband says that the story is engaging and interesting but I know that he has a vested interest in it. I wish that I was part of a writing group so that I could pass around a chapter or so and find out what it looks like.
I’m really hoping that I can finish it before SiWC. One of the classes I’m really looking forward to is the one Master Class that I sighed up for. It’s taught by Robert J. Ray. It’s called “Welcome to Your Novel Rewrite”. Since this is really the area I feel I need help in, I’m very excited. I say that I’m rewriting my novel now, but I know that what I’m actually doing right now is perhaps the smallest part of the rewrite… filling in scenes that I didn’t write during November. A small amount of this will be at the beginning, and I’m doing it now. I also know that I condensed an entire scene into the words “romance montage… write when you have inspiration”. I now know what’s supposed to go there (and it’s not really a romance montage, but a scene detailing characters getting to know each other/teaching of the magic system mix) and so I should finally be able to write it down. I know I also need to rewrite the ending. The end of last nano was a bit of insanity for me and I was desperately trying to get 10k words in three days. Not that I required it to win… but I wanted to get more words than a young girl who writes here in Calgary (she routinely hits 100K during the month).
Even so, the main problem with my ending isn’t actually that it’s bad, but that it doesn’t follow the storyline anymore. What had happened is that about 4 days before the end of Nanowrimo, I realized that the story was no longer going where I thought it needed to at the beginning of the month. Instead of writing organically and seeing where the ending needed to go, I ran straight back to my outline trying to write those scenes. Since they no longer fit the story it was hard going, and even harder to fix, since I didn’t realize what had happened when I tried to start editing it.
This is all part of the very painful process know as Improvement. It can also be a very painful process. What it teaches you is that the good work you were doing before isn’t good… in fact it may be painfully bad. For most of us though, the hardest part of this is proving to ourselves that we can get better.
On that note, one of the things that are going to help me prepare to write is the beautiful inspiring Miyazaki film, Whispers of the Heart. This movie is about a girl who falls in love with a boy who seems to know exactly where he wants his life to go. She is amazed at his dedication when he travels to Italy to study for two months towards his dream. Though he also likes her, she is unsure if she is good enough to be with him since she doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life at all. She decides to try writing a novel while he is gone. When she is finished she invariably says it’s horrible, but a friend tells her that what it and she needs is polishing. Like a gemstone, it’s dirty and flawed when you pull it out of the ground. Only through work and knowledge can you make it into a thing of true beauty. I now keep a geode on my desk to remind of the fact that even when my writing looks like stupid ordinary rock that it can still be polished to a thing of beauty and something worth publishing.
Other things that I need to finish before Nanowrimo are:
1. Cleaning up my office so that all the garbage is gone and it’s organized. Even if I don’t have my bookshelves by that time, I would like the room to be clean. When it’s a mess, I don’t want to go in and remember that I need to clean it, especially during Nano.
2. Reading a few pages of writing into my computer about my characters for this months novel… I want Dragon to recognize what I’m saying when I talk about Xiam and Zack (the main characters in the novel). Corrections and changes only slow you down during Nanowrimo and I’d rather have as few of those as possible.
3. My novel, nicknamed “Seirei” and called “Memories Written in Moonlight” finished, or at least finished enough that I don’t mind other people seeing it.
4. I would like to have cards done before I attend the conference, even if they only have my name, website address and “Writer of Dark Fantasy” on them.
Everything else can wait if they need to. On a more personal front, I still do not have “The High King of Montival”… The store was out of them. “Mr. Monster” is out now as well for purchase, so I’ll grab both when I head into the bookstore around October 15. This weekend I am gaming, playing my little Whore Queen, Demona… hopefully, I’ll have some wonderful little tidbit to mention in my next blog about that.
Also, coming up mid to end of October… Pictures of my Writing Space! Keep an ear out and I’ll keep you updated on my progress until I put out the pics!
It’s been a while since I’ve been on here. I was reminded of that on Tuesday, but this was the first time I’ve been able to get back on. Some of that has been pure procrastination, some of it was pure ire (I wrote a brilliant blog post and then my new system deleted it. My fault, but still annoying), and some of it was out of a need to decompress. Now, I’m back, I’m relaxed and I’m more certain than ever of what I want to do with my life.
Now that may make it sound like I was waffling a bit over my chosen path and I can assure you, that I wasn’t considering leaving writing. I hadn’t even gone to the point of wondering if I could make a living out of it. Those, in my mind, were foregone conclusions. One day, I will be good enough and I will begin making a living off of it. The thing that was starting to halt me was the first part of that sentence.
One Day
It’s a tiny phrase to have caused the amount of damage it was. I had started thinking of One Day as being far away, too far for me to worry about. In the meantime, I certainly had other goals. I began a critique group (Called the best name ever… A Bitch of Writers), I started showing my work to others, I’ve been learning how to edit (Painstakingly slow, it seems), and I had to get ready for my trip to SIWC (Surrey International Writers Conference).
The critique group has been so helpful. It’s really shown me the areas that I obviously need more work on. Mostly, these come down to description issues. I’m great at tension, but I have to really work to make any characters imaginable. Learning to edit has been really difficult, mainly because I realized that my teaching of this in school was not what I would consider adequate. As a student, my idea of editing was to write a rough draft, clear up a few of the spelling mistakes, and maybe a word choice before handing it in. Editing a novel, I’ve found, is just a wee bit more intense than that.
It was the trip to Surrey that really changed me though. This year I took my writing (and ask me in person sometime about the “life-changing-field-trip-with-Zuko”) hoping for the same glee I received last year when CC Humphrey’s reviewed my work (Mr. Humphrey’s, if you ever find yourself reading this, ask me about my first chapter now! It’s awesome now that it’s written). Instead I found the classes containing a lot of the information that I learned last year and felt myself ahead of the game.
Nervously so, of course. One Day doesn’t leave room for me to be suddenly understanding what the instructors are teaching. In fact, thinking myself ahead of the game felt downright wrong. The sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as I handed Wendy Roberts my work this year was horrible. When she asked if this was my first book, my heart sank. Still, I continued on bravely, simply answering “Yes” instead of the Is it that obvious comment that I was thinking to myself.
Imagine my shock when she told me that my work was much better than most first books she’s seen. She then asked me point blank if I was querying. I was stunned and when I said, no, she told me to get on with it. Ivan Coyote reinforced the knowledge later that day when I heard her tell a story about an old student of hers who wasn’t published and was terrified of being rejected. She had to tell her, “I know this is going to hurt, but you’re already not published.”
I decided that day that perhaps One Day had come. Still, I was stunned when I spoke with my Brian Hades (of Edge Publishing) for my pitch appointment, and he nodded, asking for a partial. Once again, it was reinforced at lunch, when I spoke with Donald Maass (Of Donald Maass Literary Agency) and he took my name and told me that he would tell one of his agents to keep an eye out for a partial from me. Serendipity, Coincidence, Whatever you want to call it, I was hit with it this conference.
It floored me when I realized just how much these two words, One Day, had been holding me back. Now, just as before, I know what I want to do but for the first time, I think I see a light at the end the of the tunnel. I need to finish crafting a synopsis and a query (any good suggestions for books on How To would be appreciated) and then I’ll begin the next stage of my journey. I think, I may finally be ready for that next step.
What about you? What did you learn about yourself in the last year?
I know I’ve been gone for a while… a mix of not sure what to write/busy/family from out of town visiting. On the other hand, I do have some interesting news. Which is an actual surprise, I know; I usually talk about the craft of writing. I will continue on to that for my next blog post, I promise.
First bit of awesome news is that there is now more to do on Friday Nights than wish you hadn’t broken up with your ex! That’s right, me and @DanniM86 created(mostly on a lark), the #FNTWP. It stands for Friday Night Twitter Writers Party. It was originally supposed to only be a one night thing, a night where writers on twitter could get together, write, chat and know that other writers would be there. Well, it was enough of a hit that me and Danni got talked into doing it every week. Sometimes it’s only Danni or me who’s running it, but most of the time you’ll be able to find the both of us there. We allow any writerly activity to go on during the #FNTWP… Reading, Writing, Editing, Playing Video Games I mean, looking for tips on Dialog (in the i-tunes store). Pretty much, if you’re a writer and you think it helps you, do it and then tell us about it. With so many writers in one place, it’s also an excellent place to find advice on writing, worldbuilding or re-finding your magic. Look me up there from 7pm to 12 pm Mountain Time on Friday nights!
Second bit of Awesome news is that I have finally found a critique group. This is the first one I’ve ever been in and I must say, so far I love it. I started the group with a few of the writers here in Calgary (@violettedream, @TimOfTheAwesome, @DanniM86-follow them on Twitter, they’re great) and we’ve only had one official writing meeting. I got the first chapter for my Falling Through the Threshold-WIP critiqued and I was very pleased. They told me about what I had done that could be changed, what they liked, where they thought the story was going, and helped me identify issues. They complimented me on it, which made the whole experience a lot less terrifying. I’ll be turning in the second chapter at the beginning of next week and I’m excited to do so, as odd as that may sound. Also, we’ve got the best name for the group ever, “A Bitch of Writers”.
The third Awesome thing is, of course, the biggest. I had to save the best for last! Are you ready?
I HAVE FINALLY FINISHED MY NOVEL!!!
That is right, I have finally finished the rough draft of the elephant that’s been hanging around in the closet! It is a finished manuscript at 101,187 words. A reasonable first draft length and it give me a bit of leeway while editing for rising and falling word counts. The story isn’t ready to be sent out to agents or editors yet (yes, if any of you read this blog, you can let out that breath you’ve been holding, expecting to see a first draft travesty end up on your desk any minute) but I am hoping that I will have the first ¼ of the book edited and ready to present to Brian Hades (owner of Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy/Tesseract Books, the biggest publisher or Science Fiction and Fantasy in Canada) during SiWC this year. Hopefully, he’ll like the idea and he’ll ask me to send in a copy of a few chapters to him (I can dream right?). If not, perhaps he can help me figure out where I’m presenting my idea in the wrong way and he can help me improve my pitch. Either way, I want as much of my editing as I can to be finished before I send it in
Well, that’s about it for right now! I’ll be back to my twice weekly posts next week(promise), with a good post on craft again.
Sometimes, I enjoy taking some time off from writing. Usually these weeks come when I’m not feeling well, everyone and their kids need my spare time and my cats require an extra 3-4 hours of attention a day. Last week was one of those weeks. I still feel guilty for not writing, but looking back; I can understand why I didn’t. Even the blog post I wrote was inane. One thing I never miss though, are my writing podcasts. I am constantly reminded every time I turn on one of them that even if I can’t write every day, I can learn something about the craft of writing.
This week, for instance, I learned that I need to stop apologizing for things that simply aren’t my fault. Last week, I learned that reading outside my preferred genre helps me to understand how to write in different genres and how to improve my writing in my own genre. The week before that I learned that I have no clue how to write a short story anymore.
I could continue, but I think you get the picture. The reason I’m discussing this topic is because of a friend of mine. I was looking over classes for SiWC and I asked him for his opinion on which of the master’s classes I should take, given the chance. He looked over the ones I’d selected and suggested that I do the one that was on social media and using it appropriately, both for marketing and for relationship reasons. This friend of mine, is a good writer, in fact, he’s been doing this longer than I have and I respect him, both as a friend and as someone that I always consider ahead of me in the writing game.
I asked why and he said, “Well, you’ve got most of the craft aspects down. You just need to publish.”
I try to tell myself every day that I’m a Great Writer, that I am still learning and that I am getting vastly better. Still, I haven’t completely convinced myself yet, since his response still floored me. One of the things that I’ve taught myself is that I always consider me the lowest one on the totem pole. Offhand, if you haven’t tried it yet, re-teaching yourself something is the hardest thing in the world to do.
Because the most important thing I’ve learned from all of my studies is that if I want to be a writer, then I have to learn how to write, every day. I need to learn how to write when I’m sick, when I’ve had a hard day at work, when I want to play that new videogame I just downloaded or when I want to read. Nothing else will help me reach my goal of being a professional writer faster, than writing.
So, where does this leave me… just wishing I could just do some writing? No, because I’m not a “I wish…” person. I am somebody who can get this done. My total is at almost 82,000 words now. So, you know what? No more putting it off. No more excuses. I’m setting myself down to write so that I can finish my 13,000 – 18,000 words that I have left to write.
Well, summer comes finally to my dreary city of Calgary. It seems like the cold stuck around longer than it normally does, though only by a few weeks. We’re moving into the truly warm months here (Calgary is notorious for its odd weather patterns… our summers only last from June to August, generally), but my mind isn’t thinking of the beach or even summer vacations. First because Calgary, for those who don’t know, is landlocked and though we have a good river, it’s not the same. As for the summer vacations, I’ve never really taken any. Most of my trips happen in the fall or winter months. So, what do I look forward to every June instead of the usual favourites? The Surrey International Writing Conference Registration, of course!
The SiWC registration went up earlier this week and let me tell you, if you haven’t already gone to the site, you will want to take a visit. This conference is one of Canada’s best conferences and it’s looking like they have arranged a spectacular line up of authors and industry professionals for us this year. For a full list follow the link. I can almost guarantee that you’ll have heard of a few of the authors, even if like me, you don’t who many of the agents and publishers/editors are yet. They have an incredible selection of Master Classes this year. I only wish I had enough cash saved up to attend one in each of the time slots! As is, I’m glad that I’ll have a few weeks to decide before the decision needs to have been made. I will let you all know once I’ve decided on one. The workshops are looking great as well, though they are still putting up descriptions of everything. Just the names have me choosing which ones I’ll want to go to already!
I wish I could tell you all that I’ve registered already, but I haven’t had a chance to yet. I will have before the end of the month. They are offering a great deal for those who sign up in June. By registering early, you can lock in the price for last year’s classes. Be aware, if you’re planning on going! The prices go up to early bird and eventually the final price beginning July 1st!
I’ll be looking forward to seeing a lot of old friends that I met last year and making plenty of new ones. If you’re going to be there, drop me a line and perhaps we can try to meet while we’re there! Of some importance, this year I won’t be going alone. A writer friend of mine in town will be coming with me. Unfortunately, he says he’s not much for taking notes so if you would like to be share notes on classes, let me know! It’s great to have other friends going to workshops that you aren’t going to be in and that way you can find out what you missed, since we don’t yet have a cloning technology that we can safely use to be in two places at once yet (and become just one person again later).
Will you be attending the conference this year? If so, what workshops or master classes are you looking forward to? If you’re not attending, what conferences do you attend? Think you know of a better one? Let me know that as well! Hopefully, I can start attending more of these as time goes on!
I have a confession for all of my readers out there. I am afraid of quite a few things… and I think one of them might be writing. Or more precisely, I’m not afraid of writing; I’m afraid of being a writer. The idea that I can do this has been a dream of mine, and one that I’ve been trying to attain.
I write, almost every day and I study the craft of writing. I have written one full novel, wrote a second one, which I didn’t finish (I realized it was broken) and now I’m about 65% done the first draft of my third novel. I have to admit, each work has been heads and tails above what came before it. I am improving quite a bit each year. I’m hoping that I’ll have the book I’m currently working on finished in time to take to this year’s SiWC with me. I have defeated my inner editor and gotten him to work with me (I write, he edits as we go, which means I do delete a lot of words, but he only gets a few moments to make corrections. Once I’m past that line, I’m not going back until the editing phase begins). I am well on my way to being able to say that I am a professional author, someone who writes for a living.
Yet somewhere in the back of my mind, hiding further than my inner editor and past even that part of me that loves a good supernatural romance, something sinister is hiding. I suppose it could be the sacrificed soul of the inner editor or perhaps it is a completely separate part of my personality. Regardless of what it is I know what it does. It makes me think that I can’t do this. It makes me look at the paragraph above and want to rip those accomplishments to shreds.
‘Yes, you wrote one book,’ it says, ‘but it was hideous and didn’t even have a villain or a plot.’ ‘You never finished that second book, so it doesn’t count at all’, it reminds me. ‘You don’t write everyday… You can’t even blog correctly and that’s only on a twice a week schedule.’ It continues and finishes with, ‘Your hands always hurt, you’re always playing stupid games on your computer, wasting time and pissing around on the internet. Come on, you know it, even if you don’t want to admit it.’
Then I was listening to the Storywonk podcast and it said something that took my breath away in terror. “You need to say it out loud every day,” Lani Diane Rich implored, “I am a Great Writer.” I tried to think the words and though I agreed with them, the words caught in my mind. “Say them out loud, even if there are people around you.” she continued. I looked around. I was alone in a stairwell. I attempted to say the words out loud and they got caught in my throat.
I told my husband about this and he laughed, at me I’m annoyed to say. “I’m a bad writer” he told me, “You are a great writer, if you could just accept the fact that you’re allowed to be good at something.”
It fit, though as they say the truth hurts. Also, I think it may not be writing that I’m afraid of, but I may be afraid that success will be forever beyond my grasp. Somehow hearing it from my husband helped to remind me that bravery (or is it stupidity) is my middle name. That means that even if I’m afraid I go on. I will say those words and I will say them every day if I must to convince that voice that I am a great writer.
And while I finish my book, and begin editing and working on writing the new book, I’m going to remind myself, that what sells more than anything else, is good writing. And I am a Great Writer.
It’s now been a month into the new year, so this blog I’m going to do something a bit different. Or at least something I find different. I’m going to speak about my New Years resolutions and discuss how I’m doing with those goals… which ones I’m failing, which ones I haven’t changed and which ones I’m succeeding at.
1. “To be a writer, I must write”… every day. This goal was ambitious in that I wanted a full year where I wrote every day. Ambitious? Yes, but at the same time I knew that I wasn’t going to succeed every day. Most of the time, though, I think I can. Still, I must be honest, with myself and therefore, by extension, all of you. This month I had 4 days where I did not write. One of those days, I did write, but it wasn’t fiction and so I don’t count it. The other three days though, I admit, I did not write at all. While three days is reasonably good, I think that is still too high a “not writing” rate. I will try next month to lower that to less than three days. So, a reasonable success here.
2. “I want to be a published author…” My goal for this was to finish my novel so that I can start submitting it publishers after I finish editing it. Unfortunately, I ran into a bit a block. When I finished writing at the end of November (in addition to being burned out), I had hit a very bad time in my novel. I hadn’t realized it prior to trying to write again but I had essentially written ‘Training Montage Here’ on my outline. This never helps me in the writing process. I was able to figure out what to put there, but it took most of this month. Update, not as successful as I could have been, but successful nonetheless. I will keep working on it as the year moves past.
3. “I need to stop being afraid to show people my work.” No work on this one… since most of what I wrote was flash fiction and I refused to show anyone anything more than one or two pieces of it. No success on this one, but I’m going to continue to try.
4. “I want to lose weight, get into exercising more regularly and start eating healthier.” This was also a failed endeavor. I’m trying to eat healthier but we’ve had nothing but opportunity after opportunity to eat out this month. I’ve gained somewhere on the order of 5 lbs, although since it’s only 5 lbs, it could be relegated to not enough water and a killer cold making me take on weight. I have used our weight room a few times… Not incredible, but I was able to use them to help me work out a bit. Fail, but not a complete failure. This is the one that I need to work on.
5. “I will continue to network and try to meet other writers.” Success. I have met many new writers from Twitter. Most of these people I have met via twitter and I am making friends with them. Very … cool? So what do you think of this one guys. I’m going to count this one as a success, at least until the rest of the year comes down with a more complete answer.
“I will continue to improve on my craft of writing.” Partial Success. I believe that I am getting better and improving my craft, but I’m afraid that I don’t have very much to show to prove it. However, I will be posting up some of my writing on here for the two new novels I’m going to be working on when I’m not working on my other writing things so you can keep an eye out on this one.
And that’s how the world looks from my chair 26,370 words into my year. What do you think? How are you doing on your resolutions?
Today is one of those days when I wouldn’t mind using #FML as a hashtag on Twitter. Not that its even been that bad of a day. All in all, it’s been a good day actually. I finished Nanowrimo with 56,331 words, an awesome total. In addition, I came in twelveth overall in the city for those that hang out on the Nanowrimo forums, and probably the top 20 of writers in Calgary if we count those who don’t. I had a friend visit today, last night was a TGIO party… all in all, it’s been excellent. The main problem stems from me. I have made a deal with my body; If it works harder for me in November, I’ll let it rest in December. So I still feel like I’m running on fumes, 7 days later… though it is getting better.
As if to make it worse, I’ve also been hit by a light bout of insomnia. It means that if I don’t head to sleep the moment I feel tired, I wake back up immediately. Normally this would be counted as extra writing time, but in December, it starts weighing on me, since I actually need to work. On the other hand, at least insomnia never lasts more than three to five days for me so I do know that simply waiting it out is a viable plan.
I do have more vacation coming up at the end of the month (Yes more… I take all my vacation late in the year) which will give me some good time to catch up on all the writing I’m not doing right now. This is why I’m not feeling too guilty about taking 15 – 20 days off to recover from the work of Nanowrimo. And what was that? Writing?
Yes, I have completely stopped writing… I need to get myself back into it, and this blog is a vital step towards that. I find that one of the hardest parts of Nano is to start writing again after December rolls around. However, I am going to make some promises to you guys.
1. I will be writing this year, and much more this month than in November.
2. I will have my novel rough draft finished for the end of February.
3. My music reviews will hence forth be finished within two weeks of receiving them.
4. This novel will be edited and I will start sending it out to publishers before the end of next year. In fact, if I’m lucky, I’ll have it done pre-SiWC 2011.
As for my story? Well, it’s actually been a roaring success this year. I am working on Chapter 14, of a probable 30 Chapter book, so I’m almost half way there. I have a complete story so far. Not much in the way of subplots… more a mention of such here and there. My story has thus far been written in order and the chapters are coming out mostly of a reasonable length (about 4K worth of words). The plot is making sense, I have good explanations for my world building that is fitting in. The only thing I’m somewhat disappointed in is that thus far, I’ve alluded to the war that the vampires are in but I haven’t actually come out and said it. This will need to rectified and will probably include me writing in a new character, a commander in the war on the side of the vampires.
I feel that my writing is definitely improving this year and with every book I write, it gets easier and easier to put together a cohesive story that works.
On a non-nanowrimo front, I have finished reading the High King of Montival now and while I can say that it is one of the best books I’ve ever read, I am quite annoyed with SM Stirling. This was originally going to be the end of the series… apparently now there are another two books coming out. While I love reading more of his books, which makes this somewhat a good thing, it is also a bit of an annoyance, since I was thought I was going to read the incredible and satisfying conclusion. Ah well, I can’t be really annoyed… it was too good a book for me to be actually annoyed! For those of you who asked, I have now started reading Geist and its almost as good as High King of Montival. I’ll review it as soon as I’m finished it and have just a bit of time.
In closing, How was nano for you? Did you get anything written? What have you learned about your noveling over the last nano? What books are you reading and what books do you think I need to review for you?
This is just a quick little hello, from my corner of cyberspace to all of my readers and for once, it’s not from my little home in Calgary, AB. That’s right, everybody, I am in Surrey, BC attending the SiWC!
The classes have been great so far (mostly), I won a book by KC Dyer (her book launch for it is this weekend) and the people have been worth talking to.
I even have some big news (for me) about my novel… nothing so big as an agent or editor/publisher interested, but lets just say my Blue Pencil meeting went well, but more on that later since I could gush for hours.
As for everything else, the flight was perfect and I got through customs on both sides quickly, visiting the family was awesome (Hi Mom!) and seeing my friends that I haven’t seen in years was great (I never got to show you Dragon! I’m sooo sorry!).
I miss my husband immensely and while I can’t wait to see him again, I also have to admit that this has been a really great experience so far. Given the chance, I think that I would come next year, though of course, it all depends on the situations at the time.
I also cannot wait for Nanowrimo to begin, though I am going to be changing my challenge slightly. Since my tendinitis is really bad right now, I think I’m going to back off my 100K words and try for a similarly difficult goal. 50K using mostly Dragon NaturallySpeaking instead of typing. So, who’s up for joining me in a slightly off challenge for Nano? Anyone else talking instead of typing?
That’s it for me though. There’s a fun little play going on here called Shock Theatre and I think that I’m awake enough to attend, so I’ll be heading downstairs to partake in the “Experience”! Until next time, keep writing everyone!
It’s been a while since I last posted, so let’s get started. Today I’m going to break the first rule and show not tell.
First off is a video today. As I’m certain you’ve all heard if you’ve been paying attention to my site is that Philippa Ballantines book, Geist is coming out, with a Canadian release date of October 26, 2010. I cannot wait to see it come out and in fact, I think that I’ll be making it my “nano-treat”. I do have a great little treat for all of you though. Philippa Ballantine and Tee Morris have gotten together and made a book trailer and if you haven’t seen it before it’s great.
Personally I’m not really sure how to look at these “book trailers” . On the outside it appears to be a really good idea, but I’m not sure if it is. On one hand I have always felt that’s really interesting to see what the author envisioned but on the other some people may be disappointed with a given book simply because the promise made in the video is different than the promise made in the book. While it doesn’t happen often with book covers when it does it can make a really good book come off as a cheap hack. On the other hand when this is done right it can make the book seem even better knowing not only have the author saw the book but how you saw it as well.
So basically I’m on the fence about this one and I’ll keep you updated as to when I make a permanent decision on whether these are good or bad. In the meantime though watch Philippa‘s video that I’ve put up on here. I guarantee that you won’t be disappointed. A friend at my work is going to be picking up the book as well, based solely on how interesting the cover picture is. I’m very impressed.
A lot of people are coming up with very interesting ways to show how much they love nanowrimo, and with the boards back up they have ample opportunity to share their creations with the world. One of my friends, whom I will refer to here as “Tim of the Awesome” has been put in novels around the world in a nano challenge the last couple of years. As he puts it nowadays “put me in your novel, add a couple thousand words and let the awesome flow.” While I heartily suggest putting Tim in your novel that’s not actually why I’m mentioning him today.
Tim (known as Hero on the nano forums) wrote a parody of that old spice commercial. Here it is for your viewing pleasure.
Hello Wrimos.
Look at your novel, now back to mine, now back at your novel, now back to MINE.
Sadly, it isn’t mine, but if you started writing 1667 words a day it could be as long as mine.
Look down, back up, where are you? You’re at your computer WITH THE NOVEL YOUR NOVEL COULD LOOK LIKE.
What’s in your hand? Back at me. It’s the remains of your silenced inner editor.
Look again.
THE EDITOR IS NOW DIAMONDS!
Anything is possible with NaNoWriMo.
I’m on a forum.
Definitely awesome is it not? I’ve heard that Tim may be planning on doing a live commercial version of this… if he does I will definitely have the video linked if not posted here. If you like this though go over to the nano forums and show Hero some love.
Another gentleman is making waves is one of the Toronto-Wrimo’s who uses the handle Errol. His new video, “good’Ol nanowrimo” is another brilliant example of people supporting things they love, doing it in creative ways and getting the word out there. Here’s the link for it.
I’ll be making my own video to go along with these “showing the love” examples later this week.
In other news, I finally finished reading Brandon Sanderson’s “the way of Kings”. All I can say on this is that the book is brilliant, well written, intelligent and thought-provoking. The only part that I wonder if it could’ve been done better is how he told Kaladin’s story. He did a present scene followed by a past scene for most of it. While it did work it didn’t seem to come off quite as smoothly as it could have, although I definitely don’t know how or if it could’ve been done better in this particular medium. Definitely a good read and I suggest you read it.
Finally I just want to quickly mention once more SIWC. I will be heading out next week on Tuesday for the beautiful lands of Abbotsford, Canada. I’ll be staying with a variety of friends and family for Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday I will be on-site signing in for my hotel room and preparing for my class on revision in the rewrite. I contacted the teacher last night and got homework help me prepare for the class. While it was a little overwhelming, it did raise my expectations of the class. I look forward to learning quite a bit and improving my novel in brilliant ways. If any of you are taking that course or will be over at the SIWC for the weekend look me up. I’d love to meet some of you in person.
I have been looking at my own work recently, and trying to decide how best to prepare for Nanowrimo while finishing up my current WIP. Of course, the new project is shinier… It’s new, I haven’t thought about it for months or years, and I haven’t seen ¾ of the book and decided that its crap. The fact that 4 months ago I thought this work was good and now I’m looking at it and worrying that its unsalvageable means that I’ve probably reached that area of the book where all authors suddenly think their work is bad and horrible. On the other hand, I also know (unfortunately) that I’m not yet skilled enough to be able to decide on my own. Of course, my husband says that the story is engaging and interesting but I know that he has a vested interest in it. I wish that I was part of a writing group so that I could pass around a chapter or so and find out what it looks like.
I’m really hoping that I can finish it before SiWC. One of the classes I’m really looking forward to is the one Master Class that I sighed up for. It’s taught by Robert J. Ray. It’s called “Welcome to Your Novel Rewrite”. Since this is really the area I feel I need help in, I’m very excited. I say that I’m rewriting my novel now, but I know that what I’m actually doing right now is perhaps the smallest part of the rewrite… filling in scenes that I didn’t write during November. A small amount of this will be at the beginning, and I’m doing it now. I also know that I condensed an entire scene into the words “romance montage… write when you have inspiration”. I now know what’s supposed to go there (and it’s not really a romance montage, but a scene detailing characters getting to know each other/teaching of the magic system mix) and so I should finally be able to write it down. I know I also need to rewrite the ending. The end of last nano was a bit of insanity for me and I was desperately trying to get 10k words in three days. Not that I required it to win… but I wanted to get more words than a young girl who writes here in Calgary (she routinely hits 100K during the month).
Even so, the main problem with my ending isn’t actually that it’s bad, but that it doesn’t follow the storyline anymore. What had happened is that about 4 days before the end of Nanowrimo, I realized that the story was no longer going where I thought it needed to at the beginning of the month. Instead of writing organically and seeing where the ending needed to go, I ran straight back to my outline trying to write those scenes. Since they no longer fit the story it was hard going, and even harder to fix, since I didn’t realize what had happened when I tried to start editing it.
This is all part of the very painful process know as Improvement. It can also be a very painful process. What it teaches you is that the good work you were doing before isn’t good… in fact it may be painfully bad. For most of us though, the hardest part of this is proving to ourselves that we can get better.
On that note, one of the things that are going to help me prepare to write is the beautiful inspiring Miyazaki film, Whispers of the Heart. This movie is about a girl who falls in love with a boy who seems to know exactly where he wants his life to go. She is amazed at his dedication when he travels to Italy to study for two months towards his dream. Though he also likes her, she is unsure if she is good enough to be with him since she doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life at all. She decides to try writing a novel while he is gone. When she is finished she invariably says it’s horrible, but a friend tells her that what it and she needs is polishing. Like a gemstone, it’s dirty and flawed when you pull it out of the ground. Only through work and knowledge can you make it into a thing of true beauty. I now keep a geode on my desk to remind of the fact that even when my writing looks like stupid ordinary rock that it can still be polished to a thing of beauty and something worth publishing.
Other things that I need to finish before Nanowrimo are:
1. Cleaning up my office so that all the garbage is gone and it’s organized. Even if I don’t have my bookshelves by that time, I would like the room to be clean. When it’s a mess, I don’t want to go in and remember that I need to clean it, especially during Nano.
2. Reading a few pages of writing into my computer about my characters for this months novel… I want Dragon to recognize what I’m saying when I talk about Xiam and Zack (the main characters in the novel). Corrections and changes only slow you down during Nanowrimo and I’d rather have as few of those as possible.
3. My novel, nicknamed “Seirei” and called “Memories Written in Moonlight” finished, or at least finished enough that I don’t mind other people seeing it.
4. I would like to have cards done before I attend the conference, even if they only have my name, website address and “Writer of Dark Fantasy” on them.
Everything else can wait if they need to. On a more personal front, I still do not have “The High King of Montival”… The store was out of them. “Mr. Monster” is out now as well for purchase, so I’ll grab both when I head into the bookstore around October 15. This weekend I am gaming, playing my little Whore Queen, Demona… hopefully, I’ll have some wonderful little tidbit to mention in my next blog about that.
Also, coming up mid to end of October… Pictures of my Writing Space! Keep an ear out and I’ll keep you updated on my progress until I put out the pics!
B.A. Matthews is an amateur author hoping to make her way into the world of published works. Her novels and short stories tend to be Fantasy, slipping into Dark Fantasy often as not. She also used to write music reviews over at Pagan Radio Network (www.paganradio.net).
I am currently working on two novels, Falling through the Threshold and a book tentatively titled Dual Melodies.
B.A. Matthews tries to update her blogs once a week and her various writings under the Pages section twice a month.
