5 Ways to Be a More Productive Writer

Short preamble: There is much more that can be said about each of these tips but, to save on the tl;dr posts, I summarized to the best of my ability. If anyone would like a more thorough look at any of these feel free to let me know and I will attempt to expend on them in a later blog entry.

Set a Schedule

It is so easy to find an excuse not to write every day. Jobs, kids, wives, husbands, chores, pets, and errands all seem to crash in on us and leave little time left in our increasingly busy schedules to breathe let alone sit down and write a 2,000 daily word goal. If you want to make a career out of writing then you have to treat it like a career. You have to treat it like a second job. This means setting goals and deadlines for yourself and sticking to them. Write at whatever time of day you are most comfortable writing. If you are an early riser, take some time before school or work or before you get the kids up. If you’re a stay-at-home parent, take the time to write when you put your kids down for a nap. Or after dinner. Or before bed. It doesn’t matter when you find the time, just find the time. Find an hour or two somewhere in your day to dedicate to you and your characters and stick to that schedule. If your quietest time is in the evening between 8pm and 10pm, make sure you are at your computer with an open word document typing between those hours every single day.

 

I put well over 40 hours a week for a year into my writing while I was working on my first novel on top of my 40-hour-a-week day job, busy social calendar, and planning my wedding. The stress paid off in the end.

Unplug

I know it’s hard. It’s like a chocolate addict working next to the Hersey factory who keeps staring out the window telling themselves, “Just one little trip.” Unfortunately that one little trip will usually engulf your very existence and you spend the next four hours weighing the pros and cons of almonds and crisped rice and whether or not it ultimately robs you of chocolate. The internet is tempting. You have various messaging programs, daily blogs, email, social networks, news, games, and this sort of thing right here which all contribute to distracting you from getting writing done. 

Make it all go away. Don’t even allow temptation to get the best of you. It’s an excuse. If you are the sort of person who likes to write early in the morning, unplug your internet when you go to bed the night before and don’t allow yourself to plug it back in the morning until you hit your daily writing goal, whether that be in word, page or time count. Do the same thing in the evenings or nights if you like to write before bed or when you get home from work. Okay, you don’t actually have to go to the extreme of unplugging your Ethernet cable the night before you write, but you get my point. It’s amazing what one little trip to check your Gmail Inbox (which you already know is empty since you checked it thirty seconds earlier) will do when you find yourself drifting off to tumblr, YouTube, Reddit, or Facebook. Just say no.

Battle Buddy

Find a fellow writer (or writers) local to you and get together once or twice a month (or weekly if you can swing it) for a day/evening/night of writing. Spur each other on. Set time limits and mini challenges. Set a timer for 5 or 10 minutes and see who can get the highest word count. Then do it again. Writing is intimidating enough; you don’t have to go it alone. Good support networks of friends who write are almost crucial. Share ideas, spur one another on, give constructive critiques and listen to feedback. Someone is bound to share a little nugget of inspiration that triggers the onslaught of gusto from your muse.

Perks!

Reward yourself. Give yourself little gifts for finishing your goal for the night, give yourself a slightly bigger gift for every 10,000 words, give yourself something even better at your half way point, and so on. Positive reinforcement, even from little old you, goes a long way. 

Ideas for Perks:

• Special coffee or sweet treat that you love from your local coffee shop or bakery.
• Rum.
• Half an hour of reading/watching TV/surfing the net/playing a video game.
• Buy a new journal/notebook/sketchbook.
• Go to your favorite sporting event.
• Rum.
• Go see a movie in theatres.
• Candy.
• Buy yourself a new outfit.
• Rum.
• Buy a new eReader (This would fall under the category of “Oh my God I just finished the whole manuscript!!”)
• A really big bottle of rum. (I said that already, didn’t I?)

Just Make the Bed, A.K.A Man Eats Car

There is this amazingly awesome article which breaks down the daunting task of writing a novel in terms of cleaning up a very messy apartment. I highly recommend said article as it is more in-depth and motivational than I feel I have the ability to summarize. I will be as succinct as I can and say that writing a novel may prove to be a difficult, long and treacherous road, but it doesn’t have to be done all at once. A blank page is all sorts of intimidating, but just do it one word at a time and pretty soon you will go from a sentence to a paragraph to your first chapter. Pretty soon you will have the whole thing complete.

 

Natalie Goldberg writes about this concept in Writing Down the Bones. The Chapter titled Man Eats Car is more about metaphors, and it always struck me that the perfect metaphor for writing is that chapter title. The man who would eat the car wouldn’t do it all at once. He would start small with nuts and bolts. He would move to spark plugs and radio knobs, gradually moving up to bigger fare. When all was said and done the man would have been successful because he did it piece by piece.

Treat your writing in that manner. You are only one person. Don’t expect to have everything written all at once. Take the time to allow your thoughts to flow. Don’t let your inner editor get the best of you, don’t let the internet distract you, don’t let your family come in and disrupt your process. Just go with it. Piece by piece you will be able to eat the car.

Until next time.

Cheers!

~Hoshi

I Return Victorious! (And Some Cool Reads of 2011)

Hello Blog-O-Sphere, fancy meeting you here!  I’m so sorry that I have been away for such a long while. Since I last blogged life has been a series of ups and downs, of joys and pain.

For starters: That 91,000 word manuscript for Gestalt evolved into a 107,000 word novel which has been published by Twisted Library Press’ Sci-fi & Fantasy department. Shameless self promotion: Buy it here!

I won’t go into detail about the craptasticness (yes, it’s a word now) that has been my personal life, but suffice to say that this year hasn’t been the best personally.  At least I set out to accomplish my goal of completing GESTALT and beginning work on NOSTRUM while in the new apartment. That said; we are getting ready for yet another move to a new location. It’s a larger apartment which will be beneficial for the new addition to our family:

 

Meet Kieva! He’s a daddy’s boy.

Onward!

I’d like to wrap up 2011 and bring in 2012 with the following:

Hoshi’s Top Reads of 2011

These are not necessarily books which have been published this year, but instead books that I have read this year which I enjoyed tremendously.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Everyone has at least heard of this book by now. But if you haven’t read this book series yet then drop what you are doing immediately, head to your local book store and get it. 

Now. 

I mean it. 

I’ll wait.

Back? Good.

This dystopian series is gritty, vibrant and soul twisting all at the same time. Very few novels allow characters to just sort of pop off the page. This was one of those series. When I heard that it was being filmed I was super excited and cannot wait until the cast (Which seems to be pretty much on the nose) can finally bring these characters to life for real. Please, for the love of everything holy, read the books before you go see the film. Have your own vision of this world in your mind before you allow a random director do it for you.

The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card has always been a favorite of mine, and in the vein of Ender’s game, he doesn’t disappoint with this promising new series which revolves around the incarnations and families of the gods of old. This is such a unique take on the system of magick and different abilities. It jumps from Danny’s story to the world of the gods and does a great job of intertwining the two. Without getting the reader too terribly lost or distracted. I was glad to hear that it was indeed going to be a series and not just a standalone piece because there is so much more characterization that can be explored which a single novel just couldn’t do.  Danny’s adventures are just beginning and it is clear at the end of this book that Orson Scott Card knows this all too well.

Dragon Soul by Jaida Jones & Danielle Bennett

This is the third book in the Havemercy series. Like its predecessors, it is told in first person from the perspective of four different characters. This style is very difficult to write with quality, but somehow Jones and Bennett have made this their own style and it works out so well. It is set in a semi-steampunk fantasy realm and revolves around the Volstov and Ke-Han empires attempt to recover a downed dragon from the recent war. Spoilers could be abound if I say anything further, but this is another great addition to the Havemercy series and I highly recommend it. I adore this series and can’t wait until I have the time to dive into the next book.

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

Completely steampunk, completely fantasy and completely awesome. It was hard to pull myself away from it. I wish that the world was more developed in this one because she’s got a great concept but it just doesn’t seem like it’s as fleshed out as it could have been. At the same time, it’s only the first of what is currently four novels so she may be able to get into the nitty gritty of the world more with the follow-ups. All in all I dug the hell out of this book.

Oh, speaking of flesh: There are also zombies. You can’t ever go wrong with zombies.

I just realized that all of the above listed were in a series. How the hell did I find time to write this year?

Until next time,

Cheers!

~Hoshi

. . .

*walks up and blows the dust off of this blog. Grins. Walks away . . . . for now.*

I Win

There are a couple of different ways I was thinking about opening this entry, not the least of which consisted of a lot of “oh my god oh my god oh my gods” and “Holy crap. Holy crap holycrap holycrapholycrapholycrap!” .  . . and since my brain is currently jello I will leave it at that for now.
I did it. A month ahead of my self-imposed deadline, I freaking did it. Gestalt is now officially the second full manuscript that I have ever completed.

One second . . . .

OH MY GOD! YES!!! *does a victory lap around the house* I DID IT!! YES!

*ahem* . . . . *catches breath*

I’m good now.

The past year has been a learning experience, to say the very least. While, with Ethereal Heart, I had the assistance of a very talented friend, I am more proud of myself with the completion of the first draft of Gestalt because it’s mine. All mine. I did it by myself, at all hours of the day and night, with nothing but caffeine, cigarettes and the encouragement of the people who love me pushing me ever forward. I fought with the muse, tortured the muse, the muse tortured me—let’s just say the Geneva Convention was thrown out the window around chapter five—and I came out on top. I won the battle, and now my muse gets a brief (and much needed) break while I run edits before I dive into book two.
This was my first real step to fulfilling my dream of being published. The easy stuff is over, and the hard stuff is just beginning. All I can say is: Bring it on. There’s nothing I can’t do. I just proved that to myself.
355 pages, 91,491 words. And I’m ready for more.

Cheers!
~Hoshi

P.S. Also, a very happy birthday to my brother, Ben! Love you, Aniki!

New Starts? Yes, Please!

Have you ever been so tired that . . . *five minutes later* . . . I can’t think of a single logical or riveting simile or metaphor. That’s how far gone I am.

We’ve been at it since I got off work Thursday morning and haven’t stopped. We are officially moved with the exception of a few minor details and I have never been happier. I will say, however that roughly eight hours of sleep in three days does not make for a productive atmosphere. Not to mention my EVERYTHING hurts. Three flights of stairs to the new place may have been a bad idea for the move itself, but we just couldn’t resist the vaulted ceilings (and hey, at least we weren’t making our friends lug a pool table up those stairs)!

I am so excited for the move not only to be getting away from the shithole of a location that we had but also because it will be quieter. And I have my own writing space. We may have moved from a three bedroom to a one bedroom, but because of our previous situation I feel that I will have more privacy in the long run. We’re putting up a partition in the dining room so I can have my space for writing. My new little desk is set up in the corner beside the back door which leads to the substantial porch and I even have space enough for my printer and bookshelf. It won’t be grandiose, but it doesn’t have to be. Once it gets cooler outside and I have the patio furniture I’m hoping to be able to sit out there and smoke hooka and write, as well.

This is it. This is where Gestalt and Nostrum (book 2) will be finished. I can feel it. This is where I will finally finish edits on Ethereal Heart, and hopefully not hate it as much as I do right now. This is where I will host my Round Tables with my friends with copious amounts of coffee and all-nighters with the hopes of landing an agent and hopefully later publication.

And this is where I slink off to decide if I should catch up on sleep, soak my tattered muscles in my new garden tub with a good book, or pull out the old manuscripts and get to work on the future.

Right now . . . that Garden Tub is looking pretty inviting.

Cheers!
~Hoshi

The Reason

No, not the Hoobastank song. This is my reason.

A few nights ago, while at my ‘normal’ job, a co-worker watched me as I lugged my industrial Laser Jet printer into the office and set up the fifteen pound machine in my little corner of the call center. There were only three of us in the building so late at night, and thus I honestly didn’t give a shit if one of the other two took issue with my plans. To be fair, I warned him ahead of time, and he took my insanity with a smile and a chuckle, like he always does. This co-worker, by the way, is the epitome of awesome. I could not ask for a better person to sit diagonally from on those long, annoying, painful, terrible nights where all I would like to do is reach through the phone and strangle the people on the other end of the line. This co-worker is also not a stranger to my eccentricities. He knows I’m a writer. We’ve talked about it. He supports me every night that we work together and is always asking how the ‘scripts are coming. He always asks me in a genuine manner, too. Never forced conversation or out of politeness. To put it bluntly: this man rocks.

By the time I was finished with my set up, my little niche of a desk looked like the worst example of your father’s idea of his best idea ever of hanging Christmas lights and jamming the plugs into one outlet. Cables were re-arranged, slung across my three-foot wide steely gray desk, down behind the translucent black plastic that served as a sound buffer between what I can only think to call the cubicles. My laptop and its seventeen inch screen shared the desk with the sleek twenty two inches of the flat-screen monitors provided by my employer, and, of course, the phone.  The headset attached to said phone, which I use for my actual job to talk to actual customers with somewhat actual problems, stretched from its jack in the back that I then twisted from a hole in the partition of the metal between the cubicles and laced through my belt loop before fitting it comfortably on my head. This I did to give me enough slack to move around.

Now, at 1 o’clock in the morning there’s a lot of idle time where I work. It was because of that I decided to drag my monster of a printer into work. I could kill two birds with one stone. My goal was to begin edits on a different (and complete) manuscript to get my mind off of Gestalt for a little while and refresh my brain with something slightly different. In order to facilitate not fucking this process up I want a physical copy to edit. After all was said and done there was barely enough room for my chair. I decided to kick it out into the aisle. Standing was a better option at that point.

My co-worker listened to the whirring the printer made as I proceeded to dish out chapter after chapter of the current draft of the manuscript. Section by section the pages slowly built up, were hole-punched roughly twenty at a time and filed into the two and a half inch red three ring binder. Three hundred and eighty pages, five remote desktop sessions with customers, two hours and three paper jams later I clicked off the power to the printer, pulled my chair back over, and slumped down into as if I’d just run the March of Dimes 5k on Auditorium Shores and won.

Upon hearing my exasperated sigh, my co-worker looked up from his computer screen and asked me, “Why do you write?”

My answer was immediate. Unrehearsed. Raw. Ask any writer, published or not, why they write and the answer will always be the same.

“Because I have to,” they will tell you. And tell him that I did.

Then I thought on it for a moment. The reasons for this knee-jerk reaction vary from writer to writer. Some think they have the next Great American Novel on their hands. They are egotistical enough to throw themselves into the same ranks as Mark Twain, Steinbeck, Faulkner. They are Hell-bent on being published for such a credit and a footnote in history as one of “The Greats”. Others feel they have something they have to say. They have honed and crafted their skills for their writing careers to make a commentary on life, on politics, on religion or society or some fault in the system. Some just do it for the money, thinking that there is a grandiose paycheck waiting for them around the corner if someone would just take the hint that they are the next J.K Rowling or Dan Brown.

I actually laughed at my own absurdity as I mustered all of the sanity within me to add, “Because my characters won’t shut up until I tell their story. It doesn’t matter if anyone else ever reads these things that I have spent years of my life developing, molding, twisting; the stories simply must exist or my characters will drive me to lunacy.”

Only after I said that did it, ironically, fortify my own understanding of myself. I know the odds of being a successful author are stacked against me. Would the money be nice? Fuck yes, but I don’t realistically anticipate living like Stephen King anytime soon, if ever. Would I like to get published? Of course. That’s the secondary reason I write. I don’t care about the money so much as I do about telling a good story. I want to be able to have my novels plucked off of a Half Price Books store bookshelf by someone, the same way I do now, to take home and curl up next to by the window with a rum and coke on a stormy evening, or prop open on the porch to enjoy with a tall glass of lemonade on a summer day. I want my stories to be companions that won’t judge you, but will draw the audience in, make them forget what time it is and say “Sit a while and listen to my story.”

Maybe, if I’m lucky, that one action will pull someone through a dark spot in their life. Maybe, if I’m really lucky, that person will see a piece of themselves in my characters and recommend the book to their best friend.

My stories are not laced with layers upon layers of meaning and secret codes and commentary on the world around us. I’m not looking to change the world with my stories. I know I won’t bring about revolution. I know I won’t stem the tide between good and evil. I’m not so naive to think that I single-handedly have that influence. But perhaps, if the powers-that-be decree it, I can make a modest living off of my passion while simultaneously allowing you to forget about real life. Of lost jobs, road rage, strained relationships and broken hearts for a little while by diving into another world.

Cheers,
~Hoshi

Ten Things An Unpublished Writer Can’t Afford NOT To Do

I can’t sleep (surprise, surprise) so I was doing research online and stumbled across this little gem. I decided to share it in hopes of inspiring my fellow aspiring authors, as well. Many of the tips here are no-brainers, but they sort of drive the point home that at least I appear to be doing the majority of things correctly in my pursuit of publishing.

Via http://www.jtellison.com/top-10-list-for-unpublished-au/

Top Ten Things An Unpublished Writer Can’t Afford NOT To Do:

1. The Organizations
The list of writer’s organizations is long and varied. Start here. Sisters in Crime (SinC), Mystery Writers of America (MWA) and Romance Writers of America (RWA) take unpublished members. Yes, it costs money to join. (SinC $40, MWA $95, RWA $95). Just do it. Scrounge for pennies in the couch, give up the lattes. It must be done.

2. The Subgroups
For minimal fees, you can join subgroups of these organizations. When I fist started out, I belonged to Guppies, the SinC Chapter expressly for the Great Unpublished Writers out there. I also belonged to the SinC Internet Chapter and my Middle Tennessee SinC Chapter. This takes it up another $40. Now I belong to SEMWA, the Southeast Chapter of MWA, Mid-TN Sinc, and MCRW - Music City Romance Writers. The value-add of local groups is invaluable.

3. The Web Threads
This too is free. It’s earned media, plain and simple. There is a thread for every genre, every idea, every group. The ones I belong to I joined because I know I can learn from the members. Some are public (DorothyL, Rara-Avis, Short Mystery, Murder Must Advertise.) Some are offshoots of the organizations above. A word to the wise – lurk for at least two weeks to get a general sense of what the thread is really about. You don’t want to pop up the first day, shoot off your mouth and embarrass yourself. Some lists are a little clubby, and they’ll appreciate a gentler introduction. And now there's Twitter and Facebook and a billion other online resources.

4. The Magazines (Print and Online)
For hard copy, I recommend Writer's Digest. (If you’re an MWA member, you get a discount) There's Publishers Weekly, but it's pricey.Once you get going in your career, there are many, many magazines to choose from. Crimespree, The Strand, Mystery Scene, all are great resources.
Online – Publisher's Marketplace is the place to be. You can set up a website (See Mine), research agents and publishers, stay on top of the deals being made, read book reviews, really, is there anything PM can’t do? Yes, it’s another chunk -- $20 a month. But that’s how I got my agent...

5. Critique Groups
I am blessed to belong to the BMW’s, otherwise known as the Bodacious Music City Wordsmiths. There are 8 of us, published and unpublished. We meet the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month. Those who are producing bring 10 pages of their WIP (or a short story) to be read ALOUD to the group. We then proceed to the critique portion of the program. Sometimes it’s ugly. Sometimes it’s just too damn funny for words. I’ve never left a BMW meeting without learning.
CG’s are a bitch to find. They’re worth their weight in gold when you do. If you don’t have a local MWA or SinC chapter to plumb, Guppies has a wonderful online critique group.
Just a little advice. NEVER let anyone make you feel like your work isn’t worth their time. If that’s the case, they aren’t worth yours.

6. The Conferences
All I can say is ouch. When you don’t have advance money to offset the registration fees, the hotel and the airfare, it’s going to take a bite out of your wallet. I attended ThrillerFest on my own dime the first year, and it’s pretty painful. But you can’t make money without spending money. I keep repeating that one.
Conferences are invaluable. You meet like-minded individuals, make friends, learn tons, and come away with the Holy Grail of Writing – contacts.
Bouchercon, ThrillerFest and Malice Domestic are the Holy Trinity of Conferences. But there are others. My first was Murder in the Magic City, this February, in Birmingham. Cost me $40 and a tank of gas. I met a lot of people, including some of the Boys of Noir there (Duane Swierczynski, Victor Gischler, Harry Hunsicker, Jim Born and Sean Doolittle.) I was inspired to try some short stories and noir flash. So it’s a good thing to go and meet people. You broaden your mind. (And yes, everyone who knows me knows I got the worst case of professionally shys and wasted the whole morning being too reticent to approach the authors, so shame on me. I could have learned more.) Networking is 9/10th of the law. We’ll cover that more in a later post, because it’s so important. Networking online works just as well as in person, but it’s not nearly as fun.
Do your research. There are plenty of regional conferences in your backyard if you look for them. There are some fun ones listed in Upcoming Events, too.

7. Independent Readers
This one can be a little tricky. Your Mom doesn’t count. Neither does your next door neighbor. I classify an independent reader as someone you’ve never met, so they can be objective. Like a therapist. Someone who will tell you the truth and not worry about hurting your feelings. And trust me, you’ll need an IR. I met one of mine on a web threads after we realized we shared the same taste in material. She’s a star. Caught the spot where I gave it all away in my first book, ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS. I rewrote it because of her.
Readers, period. Yes, your mom counts for this. Ignore her comments about sentence structure, but get her opinion. You’re looking for story flow here, realistic characters, setting. Things that make a book. I know so many people who don’t let anyone read their work before they submit. Personally, I think that’s a mistake. And don’t worry about copyright infringement or plagiarism. Really, if they could do it, wouldn’t they have done it already?
Dutch Uncles. Some people call them mentors. There should be people in your life who always have your back, who put you on their shoulders, cheer loudly, and are there when you need to vent. I met mine at a book signing for the wonderful NYT best-selling author John Connolly. (If you haven’t read his Charlie Parker series, get thee to a bookstore now. You won’t regret it.) Connolly’s media escort was a local woman. She’s a brash, in your face type with a heart of gold. We started chatting and I told her that I was a writer. She says, “Aren’t you a member of Sisters in Crime? Don’t you belong to a critique group? Don’t you know any of the people here?” She was incredulous. I was entranced. I took her advice, and it was worth taking. Now she counsels me, in life and in writing, and I don’t know where I’d be without her.

8. Read
Read everything you can get your hands on. In the genre, out of the genre, non-fiction, bathroom walls if you have to. The top selling books are selling for a reason. If you write regional knitting cozies, you need to know the work of every regional knitting cozy writer that’s out there. Find out what works for you and what doesn’t. Emulate the voice and style of your favorite writers. After a while, once you’ve read enough, your own voice will poke through, and you’ll catch yourself saying “I would have written that differently.” Or “If he had just used the word kerfuffle there, it would have had more impact.” Once you catch yourself correcting the work of your masters, you’re ready for number 9.

9. Write
Write Every Day. Let me repeat this. WRITE EVERY DAY. Sit in the chair and write. If you can’t work on your WIP, edit it. If that’s not working for you, pretend you’re taking my place on Fridays and write a blog entry. Start a blog of your own and talk about your writing. Write a short story. Write down the dream you had last night. Write your grocery list from your character’s perspective. Pretend you are being besieged by crows and you must write a good-bye note to Aunt Wanda. I don’t care if it’s 40 emails. Write, write, write. Gear all of your writing to your work, and you’ll get comfortable writing every day.
Submit too. Yes, you’ll get rejections. What’s good for the goose isn’t always good for the gander. Perseverance should be every writer’s middle name. If your novel isn’t selling, write some short stories. Do flash fiction. Write an article about the pains of becoming a world class writer. There are so many ways to get your name in lights, you should never be at a loss for places to submit.

10. Balls
As in you’ve gotta have ‘em if you want to make it in this industry. Publishing is a harsh world. When world-class writers with dozens of books to their name can lose their publishers, it tells you something. A couple of months ago, a gentleman mused, rhetorically, I think, about why we do it. Why do we write and set ourselves up for rejection? It’s an excellent question. I do it because I feel compelled to share. I chose this road three years ago, and I haven’t regretted it once. Money would be nice, but the satisfaction I get out of creating something from nothing, breathing life into fictional characters and making my readers care about them, is priceless. And seeing your words in someone else’s font is pretty special too.
This is the part where I tell you that you have to believe in yourself, because if you don’t, no one else will. And I mean it.

Cheers!

~Hoshi

Life is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back

They say that if a million monkeys were put into a room with a million type-writers for a ridiculous number of hours that at some point during that time one of them could write a best-selling novel. Maybe if I beat my head against the keyboard for long enough the images that are in my head will quickly spread onto the word processor.

Or, you know, maybe it’ll spray my brains all over the laptop screen.

Either way, this is getting stupid. In about a month I have only written 15,000 words. That’s beyond unacceptable to me. NaNoWriMo guys can write 50k in a month, so why can’t I hit half of that? The sad part is that I really have been busting ass at it. I’ve been writing before I go to work and I have been writing at work (sometimes 2,000 words a night) religiously, because it is my second (un-paying for now) job, for the past 30 days. So, what gives, Oh Writing Gods on High?! Are all of my words being sucked into a black hole to pay thee homage as a finders’ fee? You guys suck up there and in the words of Meat Loaf: I want my money back!

Somehow, despite all of the AWOL words, I have managed to complete Aimee’s second section and have started with Kay’s. I was talking with a fellow (published) writer who had advised me that because of the subject matter and the fact that it is my first novel, the publishers will probably frown upon anything as long as I plan on making this thing. That being the case . . . once I am finished with my drafts and am ready to send it out, if it is long enough (or too long as the case may be), I may splice it into two books and make my planned second book a third book.

I really don’t want to do a trilogy. Really. No, I mean it. People who are first starting off in writing always go for that first. As if, in order to be a great writer you must have a best-selling trilogy under your belt! (See JRR Tolkien, Brent Weeks, Margaret Weis, Douglas Adams, etc.). As if, somehow, their created world is the next best thing to godliness and all hail their lore and legend! I don’t want to fall into the category of “Pretentious hack who thinks she can write a best-selling trilogy but falls flat on her face because she’s too proud of her shit”. This is exactly the way I picture every single editor and agent thinking while they roll their eyes and chunk my manuscript into their trash bin to burn at their weekly bon-fires.

Two book series, fine. Trilogy: not my first choice.

Official Word count: 77,511. Three and a half sections down, three and a half more to go!

Cheers,

~Hoshi

“Like anything worth writing it came inexplicably and without method”

I’m just over half way through this draft of Gestalt, and for the past 100 pages or so I have been mulling over my most hated aspect of this process. It’s an aspect that I loathe more than editing, more than nit-picking, more than trimming and re-arranging and testing and re-writing COMBINED. I have to start seriously thinking about . . . the dreaded query letter.

F%&*!!

I’ve been preparing. Slowly but surely my long list of a blog-roll has been skimmed and sifted through and linked and linked back and traced and dotted and highlighted, circled and underlined a gazillion times while I prepare in the back of my mind exactly how I am going to sell myself to an agent.

Nathan Bransford is my first choice as a literary agent. He also seemed to have a hard time talking about query letters and the basic synopsis. In fact, in his blog post about the synopsis he tries to hold off as long as possible without delving into detail. The problem with them is that there is no method to them. There is not script. There is not a single line that anyone can tell you about how to write the perfect synopsis. Just like with writing a novel: It has to come from you.

It’s so difficult to write the novel to begin with, but then to chop it all down into less than a page (ok, two paragraphs) worth of “Look at me! I can SELL!” is where things are going to be obnoxiously difficult. I’m not a sales person, so finding a streamline way of summarizing Gestalt that is tailored to my prospective agents without it seeming like “just another query letter” may drive me to drink . . .

Oh, wait, too late.

For now I suppose I will focus on the novel itself, and let the process mill a little more in the back of my mind until the fire is hot enough, the ingredients just right, to start formulating an epic pitch for this novel.

May the Gods guide my path.

Cheers!

~Hoshi

More Cow Bell, Less Migraine

This was going to be a Vblog post, but I’m too lazy right now.

A lot of fun stuff happening. My truck is finally fixed. This comes after it’s been sitting in Ben’s drive for close to a year now, I finally updated my website with character profiles and a whole new look (of which I am seriously considering doing more character sketches for), my birthday is next week, and I don’t go back to TNI until the night of the 16th, hurray for weeks off. Note how I didn’t say from work. No. I’ll still be working. I’ll just be working on what I love. I think I can get about 10,000 words done over the next ten days. A thousand words a day, if not more. That’s feasible, right? I think it is. I hope it is.

Remember how I said “On the 50k word mark note: I think it’s all down-hill from here.”? Yeah, well, I lied. I was trying to think positively and failed miserably. It’s still grueling even though I have a massive amount of notes and even more massive amount of plot embedded into my gray matter. Kay’s first section is complete. I’m about five chapters into Aimee’s second section and I have just over five months to finish this thing to meet my self-imposed deadline. After about ten years of planning you would think a full year to get it all down on paper is enough time. Despite busting my ass night after night, for some reason it still doesn’t seem like enough time. The fantastic thing is that I am actually doing it. It’s not like how I used to be where I would say “Oh yeah my new year’s resolution is to finish my novel.” and then I write all of twelve pages and stop. It’s up to two hundred and forty some-odd pages now.

I think I may go mad before it’s all done.

So, 10,000 words. Ten days. It’s a mini NaNoWriMo. I dunno, though, I’m thinking of just printing out what I have thus far and editing like a mad woman. I know that everyone, including myself, says don’t edit as you write, and I know I have to move forward with it before I should worry about the little crap details. But it’s there. And it’s tempting. Very tempting.

It’s also been over two weeks. I think we need another writing round table. Maybe either the end of next week or the week after.

Cheers!

~Hoshi

And Now For Something Completely Different (Video Blog)

It’s late . . . or early . . or, whatever. Thought I’d try this new thing. I say “Uhm” way too much and probably should have had a more thorough outline of what I was going to say about the book I am reviewing here, among other things. Yes I DID know the Author's name before I started the video, but I've been up for nearly 24 hours and had a brain fart. hence the pause. I’ll try to get a better camera and microphone soon. But for now, hurray for randomness.

Cheers!

~Hoshi