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Posts Tagged ‘Writing Process’

The Quest for Productivity

I’m lazy like an old cat on a blanket in the sun.  I’d far rather sit on the beanbag and read ALL the books than do anything that resembles work.  Even work I enjoy doing like writing.  I am also very insecure.  I have a lot of negative talk going in my head all the time and writing doesn’t get a pass there, either.

In fact, if ideas didn’t boil over in my head and basically frog-march me to the computer, I’d probably never get anything done.  Being poor doesn’t hurt, either, as my father loves to say “poor is a good motivator”.  Between the stories in my head writing themselves and begging me to start typing and the fact that my husband and cat like to have the heat on in winter, I manage to get work done despite my nature.

But I’d like to get more work done and I’d like to get it done more quickly so that I can get back to that whole reading thing (or playing videogames, that will do in a pinch).

Stress and depression are my biggest hurdles.  This last year has been a roller-coaster for me between my husband having a little cancer, my grandfather dying, my husband losing his job, Clarion, medical bills, etc.  I try to console myself that I’ve written over 400,000 words and still got a lot done, but it doesn’t ever seem like enough because I can’t manage to do the one thing I really want to do which is write more consistently on a schedule of some sort.  And I know that I’m capable of more than I’ve done, so that bugs me, too.

And I think I might have found a way to do more.  I met another writer at Orycon who insisted that I come hang out at a coffee shop and write-in for NaNoWriMo.  I almost didn’t go.  I don’t like writing in busy spaces, I don’t really enjoy being around strangers and find socializing draining, and I wasn’t sure it would be a useful experience.

I went anyway because, on the other hand, it sounded fun.

Boy am I glad I did.

I wrote 4500 words, the first chapter of a brand new novel.  In 3 hours of actual writing time. Around people.  And thus I discovered an amazing new way to work.

The structure of the write-in was this: 45 minutes of quiet where we all wrote, followed by 15 minutes of break time where we chatted, got more coffee, etc.  Rinse, repeat.

It worked so well for me that I came home and decided to try it here.  I didn’t have an hourglass (I do now!) so I used an online egg timer for my 45 minutes.  Apparently being timed helps me focus, because I write as much in 45 minutes as I used to in an hour to an hour and a half.   That’s right, 1000 to 1500 words in 45 minutes.  Something about knowing that I have to work now but I get a break soon lets me put off the little things I used to let creep into writing time. Want to check my email? It can wait 20 minutes until my time is up.  Want more tea? It can wait until my timer is up. 45 minutes is such a short time, just about anything can wait while I get the work done.  Plus I can use the timer to mentally trick myself into doing more in the same way I use the timer on the treadmill at the gym to get myself moving longer.  Want to finish this chapter? Well, okay, I’ll just set another45 minutes.  It’s less than an hour, I can manage one more session.

And I’m starting to work in little bits of extra writing time.  Before, if I didn’t have a large chunk of time free, I didn’t even bother to start.  Now? All I need is 45 minutes.

It seems so simple, but without the NaNo write-in, I’d never have thought to try this. I probably would have shoved it off as “I can’t get enough done in 45 minutes” or something.

So that’s my new method for getting things done. 45 minute chunks.  It’s almost 7:15pm now, so I’d better go flip the hourglass over and get a little work done.  After all, what’s 45 more minutes?

My Idea System

In the comments on the last post (about 2011 goals), one of the comments asked about my system for keeping track of ideas.  I do, in fact, have a system, though like most systems that have organically grown over the course of time, it doesn’t necessarily make a ton of sense.  I figured I could do a post on it, but I’ll add some visual aids just for fun and try to describe how the parts I couldn’t figure out how to get visuals for work.

So let’s follow an idea from inception to finished product/submission through my recording system.  The first thing that usually happens is a character or bit of story or a line or two pops into my head.  From there I let it sit.  If, after a couple days (or when the idea is super insistent), I still have it in my head, then I write it down in a notebook.  Yes, a good old paper notebook.  I use Moleskine Cahier notebooks because I love the way they feel and how well they hold up.  This is probably a hold-over from when I used to write every story by hand (something I did up until a few years ago when I tried to write a novel by hand and pretty much said fuck that).

If the idea has a title, I use the title to list it (each idea gets a fresh page).  If it doesn’t yet I just pick out a couple key words.  This is the beginning for both short stories and novels.  If I know that the idea is probably going to be a novel idea, I make a note of that on the page.  I have multiple notebooks for ideas.  In the past I was just sort of filling them up as I had the ideas, but for next year I’ve actually gone and separated out a notebook for novellas, one for short fiction, and one for novel ideas.  I’m not sure how long that level of organization will last since sometimes I don’t know if an idea is a novel or just a short one at the start (they tend to seem like they’ll be short, but then grow and get more complex).

From there the ideas sit until I’m ready to start on them.  At that point they have different fates.  Novel ideas get their own sections of a different notebook.  I give you exhibit A:

These are a few of my novel project notebooks.  Some of these novels have been written or are in various stages of writing (There’s actually a notebook without tabs in there, but it’s dedicated to a trilogy, so I didn’t tab it yet since I know which one it is, so this picture represents 11 novels and 4 short novels).  Inside these notebooks I outline, keep track of character descriptions and place names, and do all the little nitty note taking that I feel is necessary to keep track of the world for each of my novels.  I imagine that when I start actually writing multiple series books that I’ll gravitate toward having a single notebook for each series with my handy tabs dividing by book, but for now this system allows me to easily flip to whichever project I want to work on and to see which notebooks hold which novel at a glance.  I find this simpler than trying to use electronic notes, though I appreciate that if anything ever happened to my home (fire, flood, really bored thieves), that this system could fall apart.  At least I back up all the actual writing electronically in multiple places.

So that’s what the novel notebooks look like.  For short stories I just find the title/tag line of the story I want to work on (if I’m in a short story writing mood I generally flip through until I find something I want to write), and then I just continue with story notes and character descriptions and all the things I need to keep track there.  Which, once a story is done, generally leaves me with a couple of pages that look like this:

If you can read my handwriting at the top of the right page there, you’ll see that this story was originally tagged as “Race to Pluto” but then got its actual title “The Light of the Earth, as Seen from Tartarus” once I’d started working on it more.  (This story has already been through Writers of the Future, so I’m using it since I don’t have to worry about anonymity anymore).  I generally write short stories over the course of a single day, sometimes two (this one took two, but it’s 13,300 words long).  I don’t often outline short stories, but as you can see from the left page above, I did a rough time line because the timing in this story was important (And yes, I do have the crazy handwriting of a serial killer, but *I* can read it, usually).  Sometimes though I’ll be adding notes and ideas to a page for weeks before I get working on a story.  It all depends how long the story needs to percolate in my brain.

The next step is once I’ve decided to work on a story or novel.  I go into my writing folder and then into the relevant folder (Short Stories or Novels or Novellas).  Then I make a folder with the title of the story or novel.  Then I open a word document and label it as a rough draft (usually titleRD.doc) and go to work.    Recently I’ve expanded this system a little.  I don’t normally start short stories and then not finish them, but back in October I was working on hooks and beginnings, so I picked out a bunch of short story ideas from my notebooks and went to the next step without finishing.  So in my short stories folder I have a folder called AAAbeginnings (the three a’s are so it will sit at the top of my alphabetized sorted list).  In there I keep the folders of stories that aren’t done (I have quite a few at the moment thanks to that exercise). Once I finish a story out of that folder, it gets moved to the regular section.

I also have a few pages in one of my notebooks that is all titles.  Pages and pages of titles that don’t have an idea attached.  Last year I decided I was pretty terrible with titles and wanted to practice coming up with them.  So I tried a few different methods (ranging from putting random words together to using random title generators on the internet) and wrote down all the ones I liked.  So sometimes if I have a story idea I’ll scan those pages of titles and see if any fit or can be altered to fit.

Anyway, that’s how my system, such as it is, works.  I have tons and tons of ideas, more than I will ever likely be able to complete.   And more come in each day (I think I have about 15 notebooks in various stages of full at this point).  It’s one of the main reasons I’d like to be faster and more consistent, because then I’d get a lot more of these ideas developed and out to markets.  So hopefully this post helps show how the hell I keep track of all this.  I imagine my system will keep evolving to suit my needs and career, but for now it works for me.

Lists and Motivation

Spent all afternoon not writing because I was scrubbing my hard drive of a nasty virus.  Very frustrating.  Fortunately, I seem to have obliterated it.  Whew.  Nothing is scary like thinking about trying to type five novels on a netbook screen. Seriously.

Spent another chunk of today brainstorming titles (I like to have a working title for any project, it helps gel it in my head) and looking around at what is out there already.  I also secured three website domains for my pen names after making sure the names weren’t anything famous already.  Don’t have a YA pen name yet, but not actually sure I can write YA type stuff, so screw it.  I’ll cross the bridge when I get there.

I did some maths.  Cause I like maths.  I find doing simple math like finance spreadsheets and word count goals relaxing.  (I also find watching friends shoot zombies relaxing, I’m weird.)  In order to complete things on a schedule I feel comfortable with, I need to be writing about 105ppw (pages per week).  That’s an average of six hours of typing each weekday, five if I’m really on a role.  Over 5k words a day.  Possible.  I think I might add a weekend day to this though, just a couple of hours.  And I’m allowing in this page goal 25-30ppw for a short story, because if all I work on is novels I will go crazy from lack of completion.  Especially working on five novels.  I’m not structuring it beyond this.  Whichever novel is dominating my thoughts when I sit down to write will get the pages for that day.

My goal is to have all the novels done by September, along with at least 17 short stories.  I say 17 and not 25 because I’m giving myself room to take days and weeks off if needed.  105ppw puts me at completion of novels by about 17 and a half weeks in.  So I’m leaving wiggle room.  It would be stupid not to. Life happens.

But I’m poor.  Poor is a great motivator to write and submit things.  My dad always used to say he liked it when his kids were broke, because it meant we’d be practically begging to do farm work for cash.  And every time I’m tempted to throw my hands in the air and not write cause I don’t feel like it, well, I’ll keep in mind that this sure as hell beats 70 hour weeks and having to deal with stupid people or drunk people or dead people or things on fire.  Just in case that wasn’t enough motivation, Final Fantasy XIII comes out tomorrow.  And I’m not allowing myself to have it until these five novels are all done and in the mail.  I’ve been waiting for that game for years now. YEARS.  Sooner I get this stuff done, sooner I get to disappear for two months into video game heaven.  Yesh. Will…be…Mine! (I’m 4 years old inside, seriously).

Oh, I promised lists!

What’s out:

20 short stories.

1 novel (to five editors and an agent).

To be done list:

The City is Still Hungry, 90-100k words

Hunting Delilah, 90-100k words

To Honor and Obey, 60-80k words

The Weapons Master, 60-75k words

Menagerie, 30-50k words

Write 17 new short stories and get them out to markets.

Continue to keep existing stories out to markets.

~350,000 words stand between me and Final Fantasy XIII.  I will be … victorious.

Strangely Stuck

I don’t generally start short stories and not finish them in one or maybe two sittings.  Usually by the time I’m sitting at the computer and writing I’ve spent weeks or months working on the story in my head and it is ready to hit the page.

I currently have four short stories and one novella sitting between 200-1000 words on each.  1-4 pages, basically, on each one.  I can’t seem to finish them.  It isn’t that I don’t know exactly what happens (in fact, if we count scribbled notes and scenes, the novella has a few thousand more words on it).  I know all of these stories beginning to end.  Which is maybe the problem.  I already know what is going on, so somehow the urgency to ‘tell’ the story is gone.  My brain has moved on.  I’m in novel mode (specifically Sindra’s Storm), and I really need to finish up the other bits before I spring into that.  And on top of it all, I have to write a story this week for the workshop I’m attending.  I have that story figured out too, though a few details came to me today while I was walking that will help refine the plot.

I know I just need to buckle down and get it all done.  Not just the writing, but the reading and other parts too.  But the writing is foremost.  If I get these stories done by the time I’m out of town for a week, I’ll have five more things in the submission launcher to fire and forget.  Five more things that can start collecting rejections.  That would put me at 16 stories out on submission, which is halfway towards my goal of at least 30.

But mostly, at the moment, my brain wants to be writing “Sindra’s Storm” and doing pretty much nothing else.  Maybe I’ll just stop fighting it (after I fulfill my workshop obligations) and go with that.  Though I truly hate leaving a short story sitting in a file unfinished.  Grr.  Welcome to my crazy process, heh.  There’s the insane part of me that wonders if I could finish all five in a giant push this week, which would mean finishing about two a day.  Also, of course, wondering if the stories would end up any good that way.  Can I jump through five totally different voices and worlds that fast?  One is first person from a macro-biologist’s POV and is sort of survival/thriller sci/fi, one is about an aging militia facing its final battle, one is about a  damaged bounty-hunter set in a re-imagined Ukraine,  another deals with Munchhausen’s by Proxy and sort of a Cinderella myth, and the final one has a man dealing with an unwanted gift.  Five stories.  One a novella, so it’s sort of like two stories length-wise.  But to have them done, that would be nice.  We’ll see how crazy I feel.

Guess it is time to stop blogging and start writing.  I think I can get a couple thousand words in tonight.  Must. Get. Unstuck.

A Bit More About Process

I’m not a seat of the pants kind of writer, even when it comes to short stories.  Now, mind you, I don’t outline for short stories (though I might jot down notes or lines that come to me).  I definitely know where something is going when I sit down to write it.  I do change my mind and write something else to make things make more sense when I have to.  I imagine, however, that anyone watching my short story writing process would think I’m doing it on the fly.

This is because I write short stories in one or two sittings and hardly ever have notes (I usually do research as it comes up, thank you Google).

My short stories don’t start on the page.  They start in my head and sometimes have a very long gestation period.  Novels are the same way, though I tend to write up more notes when thinking about novels due to the sheer amount of stuff going on in my head when it comes to bigger projects.

First, there’s the spark.  Whatever set off my mind with a “hey, this could be a good story”.  From the spark I start to think about what it needs to fill it out, to bring it from cool character/idea/image/line of dialog etc… into being a full story/populated world.  From there I decide if the idea is going to need a novel length to fill it out (ignoring here, for the moment, that one of the most common coments I get on my short stories is “hey, this would make an awesome novel” sigh) or if I can turn it into something shorter.  Frankly, I prefer short stories because I like to just sit down and finish things.  Also, rewriting fifteen pages is far easier than rewriting 300.

But my point is that I spend a great deal of time thinking about everything before it ever sees the page.  I run through potential scenes, characters, what would or would not work in the particular world I’m inventing and why, and other useful questions like that.  I sometimes even start composing in my head and run through different POVs and tenses to feel where I want to start a story.

And then there are the times that I call my version of Writer’s Block.  I never run out of ideas, ever.  However, I occasionally get stalled out because my brain won’t stop with the thinking and focus on something long enough for me to just write something.  It’s why I haven’t been sleeping lately, and why I’ve done nothing but revise things for a few weeks now.  Too many bloody ideas.

So I’m going to have to force-march my brain for now, I think.  No starting or thinking about anything new before I’ve finished the following:

Sparks (fantasy short story), Prince Called Courage (fantasy novella), final edit of Monsters (fantasy short story), two thesis short stories (prewriting for my thesis novel), Chwedl draft (fantasy novel) and the rewrite of Casimir Hypogean (science fiction thriller novel).  The ambitious part of me says I can totally do this by September.  Suuure.

I’m going to do the short stories first, mainly becaues that means I’ll have eight or nine short stories out making the submission rounds while I hunker down to finish the novels.  I want to be done with this all by September since starting my thesis novel early wouldn’t be a bad idea.  Fortunately, ideas are imploding my brains but good when it comes to that novel, so at least it won’t be stalled due to lack of my head working on it.  Which is different from Casimir Hypogean, the bane of my existence.  I’m going to look at it as a learning experience and force myself to finish the rewrite.  If I never touch it again after that, so be it, but I’ve come too far to give up now.  It’ll take about 6-7 weeks of hard work to complete at this point.  I can do it.

Another Tiny Update

Rejection number 10 (form letter) came in yesterday.  Time to send that story out somewhere else.

On the “dancing, not quite from rooftops” level of awesome, I queried about another story that had been in the ether fora  couple months and found that they’re holding it for consideration/second opinions.  I’m going to interpret this is a win, even if they don’t take the story.  It means I’m getting past the first glance, which is a mark of improvement.  Go me.

I have an edit of that story also, so I responded thanking them for letting me know where I stood and offered up the edit if they’d like to see it.  I like both versions (one is cleaner since more eyes went over it) but who knows what they’ll want? Anyway, I’m psyched that I’m at least being considered.

Meanwhile, I’m working on the novella which will never sell.  Seriously, who buys fantasy novellas?  I’m going to try to keep it under 17k words so I can at least enter it in the ‘Writers of the Future’ contest.  I just finished Ken Rand’s (may he RIP) “Ten Percent Solution” and intend to put his ideas into practice to reduce the draft of the novella to as short as I can get it without hurting the story.

Then I need to type up Sparks and finish it.  I know where the story is going now, and the logistics of the fort.  All that I need to do is add some kick ass fighting and I’ll have story.  I really like the concept, but I’m not too sure I can write good fights.  I think I’ll enlist my husband to help me keep things realistic while still awesome.  There’s always a balance in fight scenes between cinematic kick-ass and “he did what with that sword?”

After Sparks and A Prince Called Courage are finished, I swear I’m going back to Chwedl.  I haven’t added a single new word to the novel in months (though I did do a bit of editing of the first 60k words).  Time to finish that baby so I can move on to finishing my Albetross (ie Casimir Hypogean).

All right.  Back to work on Novella that Won’t Sell.

Submission Frenzy

I did some editing on Delilah (alas, not before I sent my class the wrong version, whoops) and on Blade Bearer.

Being impatient about Space Bones’ fate, I decided to submit the other two stories out into the world.  That way I can hang out and be impatient about multiple things which is far superior from awaiting the fate of one thing, no?

I guess once I’d popped my rejection cherry, so to speak, it is easier the second time.  I think I sent the stories to markets that will like them, but there’s no real way to know until and unless I get a response.

I did get a nice personal note from the editor of my college lit zine rejecting the two poems I sent them.  Apparently they almost decided to publish one of them but couldn’t get a consensus on it.  At least it was a personal rejection note and not a form letter (or the vast nothing I got last time I submitted to a college lit mag).

I’m somewhat disturbed by the hugely posititve response to my work that my workshop is giving me.  I mean, I’m glad they’re liking spec fic, don’t get me wrong.  However, I’m plagued as always by fears that I’ll never be good enough and the dischord between what people say about my writing and what I think about it is annoying.  I did, however, sell a copy of “Snow Crash”, in a way since one guy went out and immediately bought it due to liking my work.  I’m pretty happy about that.  (I am not, in any way, comparing my work to that book, just so ya’ll know).

I think it’s just going to be double hard for me not to take rejection personally and clam all up inside and stop submitting anywhere.  I know I need to be in the mindset of “sweet! 402 left to go”, but it’s easier thought than felt.

I think the cure for this is writing more stuff.  I think that’s likely the cure for a lot of things.  I should bring back short story Monday.

NaNo Update Week 1

I’ve written just over 19,000 words and have six chapters done.

This novel, for whatever reason, is proving hella easy to write.  The characters are talking to me, the setting is coming together, the plot is all there.

I think this is due in part because compared to the setting and many-layered plot of Casimir Hypogean, Chwedl is a simple creature when it comes down to it.  Instead of having to bring together a city-wide conspiracy and a hodgepodge group of misfits and criminals in a quasi-scientific setting that also has some magic with very subtle rules, I only have three main protagonists and bringing them together and figuring out the motivations is blissfully simple.  There is no villain to build up and motivate, no betrayals to figure out how to realistically manufacture, no complex setting built from whole cloth.

Chwedl starts at point A and goes to point B.  The villain, such as she is, isn’t really evil or much of a villain.  She’s selfish, sure, and just kind of cruel in a way that is Other.  The struggles are mostly between personalities.  No gunfights, no highrise escapes, no twisted sex or weird drug addiction.  Just good old Welsh-esque fairytale fun.  (Okay, it is one of my stories, so there is of course blood, death, and some very implied sex).  I don’t think anyone gets murdered in this story, however.  That’s probably a first for me.

I’ve already added to and moved away from my original outline.  I see outlines as being much like the Pirate Code.  They’re more like guidelines really, not set in stone “this is how the story will unfold no matter what damnit” sort of things.  I add and destroy and fix as needed, though I try to keep some version of an outline current so that if I have the rare brilliant idea about where the later story bits are going I can refer to it later.

Stay tuned for week 2 in which I’ll probably ramble about the challenges of the great swampy middle and writing a plausible romantic thread into a story.

Thoughts on Rewriting

I’m one chapter into the rewrite of my first novel.  I’m glad I decided to start anew rather than continue trying to fix what came before.  I doubt I’ll use much of the old material beyond the plot, characters, and some ideas.  There are particular challenges, however.  In rewriting I’m essentially constructing another novel from scratch.  This means I have to do most of the work over again.  It would be very easy to overwhelm myself with the concept of “Too Much Work.”

To combat this, I’ve decided on the major large changes and then have narrowed my focus.  I outlined with the major changes.  For this rewrite, however, I’m mainly working on getting the characters motivated.  Looking at the first draft I don’t really feel connected to anyone in the novel.  I feel like I could, maybe, like a couple of the characters, but they aren’t quite there yet for me.  They feel flat.   This is not acceptable.  I read novels 70-80% for the people in them.  I want to write novels that have the same draw.

To do this, I’m plunging in and going (perhaps) a bit overboard.  I’ve done a lot of hand written background brainstorming for everyone.  I’ve made RPG character profiles for a couple of them.  I’ve given them disorders, quirks, interests.  Essentially, I’ve thrown the kitchen sink of character building at my people.  I was in the bath when I realized that I needed to do this.  Before a day or two ago, they weren’t talking to me.  I couldn’t really see the characters as more than wooden dolls in a nice set I’d created.  I don’t want to play with dolls (dolls are creepy. Seriously creepy).

With this focus, now I can continue the rewrite.  Plot and setting can be tweaked.  If I can manage a few compelling, interesting, dare I say memorable characters, the rest can follow.  The rest will follow.

Here’s a list of the changes between drafts one and two.  (In no particular order).

The Dude is now named Ryg.  He’s also agoraphobic and OCD.

Sif talks less.  In fact, she pretty much only talks to Hex.  She’s also far more psychotic and less moral than before.

Sif and Hex are already in a relationship.

Hex is not the jealous type anymore.  He’s now the type to hide his insecurities with sarcasm.  He’s also more accepting of Sif and her issues.

Kadin is a more major character who contributes to a twist.

The setting is quite a bit different.  There are no cars now, just small electric vehicles  and personal transportation.  Stuff is transported on the electric rail system under the city or via carts hooked to the personal vehicles.  I’ve refined and altered the food system as well as government.  The city only has one main street now, the whole thing is a spiral.  The districts are more defined (and in fact can be closed off from each other if necessary).  The setting is much more complex, but also I hope more unique and interesting.  Since I’m focusing on character, not setting as much, I will definitely have to flesh some things out later I think.  That’s what the next bit of editing is for.

The plot is essentially the same, but with some more challenges and complexities tossed in.  I’ve removed the secret society and am working on making everyone motivated due to character desires rather than using the GM Stick.

On another note: sometimes I think I definitely bit off more than I really should have for this first novel.  I’m writing what boils down to a Political Cyberpunk Adventure/Thriller with medical and fantastical elements.  Couldn’t I have just started out with a nice straightforward quest fantasy or something?  It feels like learning to walk by running a marathon.

Note To Self

Self,

I give you permission to screw up this draft.  I give you permission to write 100,000 words and realize that in the end product you will wind up using only 10.

Self, you also have permission to hate the first few pages.  Or even the first few chapters.  I will understand that sometimes it takes time to get warmed up, time to sink into a world entirely of our own creation.  I give you permission to stumble in your first steps as long as you are able to dust off your skinned sentences, your twisted phrasing, and keep going.  Keep going, Self.

The fact that if you fail entirely, no one will ever see this is not a curse.  This is a gift.  Right now you possess the complete freedom of having nothing to lose.  Self, you have permission to lose the battles you must in order to win your wars.  Today there are no deadlines, no dark clouds, no bad grades.

Scream. Pound your fists on the keyboard.  Break pencils.  Break rules of grammar.  Break the English language if it helps you feel better.  If it keeps you going.  (Caveat: please try not to break the computer…).

Use bribery without shame.

You have my permission to fail, Self.  Use it. Fail it.

Fail epically.

Just, you know, write the damn draft first.

Thank you for your consideration,

Nobu

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