Monthly Archives: March 2018

Post #14 – When Do I Write?

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3/29/18

I feel like I’m having a hard time finding opportunities to write. My productivity numbers for the first quarter of 2018, which I’ll review next week, say otherwise.

Before I get to when I typically write, let’s look at the writing habits of a couple profession authors. Stephen King states in On Writing that he starts writing each day at 9am and continues until he reaches his goal for the day, breaking of course for biological necessities. He appears to treat it like a job, which makes sense because it is his job.

Mike Resnick in The Science Fiction Professional states he is a night owl and does his writing from 10pm–2am. Last year after the birth of my second daughter, I saw those hours more than I cared too. Now I avoid being awake during that time at all costs.

King further relates the story of Anthony Trollope (an English Victorian writer) whose day job was as a clerk in the British Postal Department. He got up early each morning and wrote for 2.5 hours before leaving for work. It didn’t matter if he was in the middle of a sentence. He stopped and didn’t pick up writing again until the next day.

My ideal would be similar to King’s.  Get the kids off to daycare and start writing by 9am. In other words, treat it like a job. The problem is I have a day job, a good one that pays the bills, so my writing time is more like Trollope’s. I used to get about an hour or less each night. Then my oldest daughter started fighting bedtime, hard. My wife and I are early risers. This shortens the night, so my daughter’s late bedtime in conjunction with my early bedtime means writing in the evenings now is difficult.

I also used to have an opportunity to write during the girls’ nap time on the weekends.  Now that my oldest doesn’t take naps most days, my wife and I take turns entertaining her one afternoon each weekend. So my weekend writing time has been cut in half.

I typically get up early to exercise, before the kids awake. It’s the only time I have for that. If I wanted, I could sacrifice the work outs and use that time to write. However, those workouts are important to me. It’s also when I catch up on my Hulu and Netflix watching.

I’m trying a new approach. Two mornings a week I try to get up at the same time and write. I’ve followed this approach for several weeks, and it has worked well so far. I’m sacrificing my few sleep-in days, but it’s worth it. I enjoy the feeling of accomplishment when I’m able to get 1000 words to start the day.

The only issue I’ve encountered is when a rejection comes in over night. When I see that, I end up spending my morning writing time submitting the rejected story to the next market instead of putting new words on the screen. But there’s a simple fix. I stop checking my email when I get up.

Let me know in the comments when you write.

Post #13 – Am I Procrastinating?

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3/22/18

I realized I titled several recent and forthcoming posts as questions.  But unlike an author writing a character, my audience does not have any insight into my thinking to answer.  Also, unlike many of those posts, I’m not sure I know the answer to this one.

Long time readers (those of you who’ve been with me for all of 2-3 months) may recall that I have an idea for a sci-fi novel.  I’ve jotted down notes about this novel — characters, major plots points, settings — but haven’t written anything yet.  In the interim, I’ve written 12 short stories and children’s picture book manuscripts, all of which are out for submission.  I also have three more short stories in various draft form.  Long time readers also will know my first writing goal is qualifying as an Active Member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.  There are a couple ways to qualify.  I selected publishing three short stories in a SFWA-qualifying market, but another way to qualify is by selling a novel to a SWFA-qualifying publisher.

Am I pursuing SFWA membership through short story sales, and writing those stories, as a way to procrastinate from writing my novel?  Good question.  I’m glad you asked.  I don’t think so because I’m not certain I know how to write a novel, though that may be procrastination-inducing self doubt right there.  I’ve long believed I needed to start with short stories to learn how to write.  Don’t forget, before last year, I’d never done this before.  I don’t have an MFA, and I never took creative writing at any level.  Overall, I think I’ve succeeded.  I believe my writing has come a long way in less than a year.  I attribute that not only to the amount of writing I’ve done in that time but also to the books about writing I’ve read in that time.  I couldn’t imagine having focused on my novel, written half of it, and then realizing I needed to go back a fix so many rookie writing mistakes.  Actually, I can, and it involves crying.  But that’s essentially what I’ve had to do with several short stories.  However, revising a 1000-6000 word short story is way less depressing than fixing a 100,000 word novel.  So I plan to keep plugging away at short stories (and children’s books, which are more for my kids) until I feel comfortable tacking the novel.  I’ll get there, but I believe I still have plenty to learn.

BUT (I bet you thought this blog post was over) am I procrastinating finishing one of my short stories?  In Post #10 – Inspiration, I mentioned reading two different calls for submissions and being inspired to write new stories for each.  Well that’s happened two more times since then.  I’ve written one of those subsequent stories already and am in the process of finishing the other.  The submission deadline for that last story is one week away.  Not my best idea—to decide to meet this deadline.  The idea for the story is awesome—and funny.

Before and while writing these other stories, I’ve worked on a sequel to an early story.  I’ve had the idea for this story since last year, even before I’d finished writing the story to which it’s a sequel.  At some point this year, I opened the file containing the first couple of lines I wrote back when sometime and realized since then I’d jotted down numerous notes.  It’s eerily similar to how the file with my novel’s notes looks.  That realization motivated me to finally tackle the sequel, and I made great progress.  In fact, I’m maybe a scene or two from completion; I estimate another 1000 words at most.  I could knock that out in one or two sittings.  So why haven’t I?

Another fine question.  Thank you again for asking.  This is the part I don’t know.  Ostensibly, it was to write these other stories matching calls for submissions with approaching deadlines.  This sequel has no deadline.  Maybe, I’m afraid I don’t know where the story is going.  That was true for a long time before I got past those first couple of lines.  Since then, though, I’ve pretty much had the story mapped out.  Indeed, the missing one or two scenes are in the middle of story, and I intend them to plug a couple of information holes.  I already know what info to plug in, so it can’t be that.

I think it’s a combination of two things.  First, it’s true these newer stories have approaching deadlines, but I think it’s more that they are shiny and new.  Usually, a story loses that shiny, newness once I complete the first draft.  Somehow, I think my sequel story lost that shiny, newness even before then.  Part of that I attribute to reason two.

When it was time to go back to writing the sequel after each interruption, I couldn’t just pick up where I left off.  I’d need to reread the entire story and get back in that mindset.  Unlike a story I’ve completed multiple drafts of, meaning I’ve edited it who knows how many times, I don’t know my sequel story well enough to jump into the middle and start writing.  I need to re-immerse myself in that world.  I need to get back into my characters’ heads.  All of that takes time, probably more time than I have to devote in a single sitting.  Anything more than a single sitting, I risk being distracted by life—or another call for submissions.

I do have a cross country flight coming up, where I’ll have a chunk of time on the airplane to devote to knocking the rest of the sequel out.  That is if I’m not working on my shiny, new story with the deadline one week away.

Post #12 – Where Do I Write?

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3/15/18

Supposedly, every writer needs their own sanctuary for writing. I’m not sure I entirely agree with that, at least not all the time. Before I get to where I write, let’s look at where some other writers write.

In On Writing, Stephen King says he writes in a spacious, skylighted study that’s a converted stable loft at the rear of his house in Maine. He once had a giant oak desk in the middle of the room. After sobering up, he got rid of that desk and replaced it with a desk half the size. It sits in one corner of the room under an eave. King prefers to write with no outside stimuli, not even a window with a view. He does listen to rock music, though, such as AC/DC.  Seems like outside stimuli to me.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch states in The Freelancer’s Survival Guide she has two offices.  The one where she writes is devoid of all external communication. No internet, no phone, no TV. She even has a separate laptop to write on in there with no internet browser or games installed. Her second office is where she communicates with the outside work, i.e. email, twitter, phone, etc. She likes to listen to classical music while writing.

Kevin J. Anderson lives in Colorado and is an avid hiker. He takes a handheld recorder with him on hikes and dictates chapters that he later has transcribed. I assume he then sits somewhere at a computer to edit.

Ironically, I didn’t start writing until after the birth of my youngest daughter. Guess whose room formerly was the office? The office desk is now downstairs in the family room where it’s cold and dark. And the back of the chair isn’t comfortable, though that hasn’t changed.

I’ve done most of my writing at the kitchen table or the bar top separating the kitchen and dining room. This is less than ideal. I can’t leave my laptop there because it’s also where I eat. If I write in the mornings before the family awakes, I’m afraid the light will hasten their getting up, which would result in zero productivity. If I write in the evenings, my wife probably feels she can’t watch Hulu or listen to music without disturbing me because of the open floor plan of our dining room and living room. If I write during nap times on the weekends, productivity again is an issue unless my wife takes our oldest daughter out somewhere since she rarely naps any more.  Still, I’ve managed to be fairly productive.

I’ve also written a bunch while traveling for work. Though I only have 3-4 business trips a year, I use the travel time to write.  Some of my most productive periods are while on a plane or train. I enjoy writing then so much I get annoyed (unreasonably so) when I must take a red-eye because I need to sleep instead of write.

I even began my first stories while on a business trip. On a Sunday before the start of a conference, I sat poolside that afternoon finally putting words on the screen, though I had to sit in the shade to see my screen. Regardless, it wasn’t a terrible way to start this adventure.

Like Rusch, I too enjoy listening to classical music, though usually only when I need to drown out external noise. My preference is more for movie soundtracks. Anything with words distracts me.

Let me know in the comments where you write.

Post # 11 – Editing

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3/8/18

Is there anything worse than editing? Okay, there is nuclear holocaust. And genocide. And famine. And cancer. But besides those and likely thousands more, is there anything worse than editing?

Editing usually means I’m not working on a shiny, new story. Instead, I’m probably reviewing a story I’m sick of because it’s the fifth, or tenth, time I’m reading it.

I think I’ve pared my editing down to four drafts. The first draft is the hot off the press rough draft. The second draft is after I’ve reviewed it once to plug any glaring holes and clean up spelling and grammar. Then I send it to my critique group. The third draft is when I incorporate their feedback. By that time, the story has sat long enough I can review it fairly objectively and really see what’s missing or needs to be cut. Hopefully, my critique group has seen that too. The fourth draft is for copy edits. And if I’m not completely sick of it, I’ll read through one more time.

Then the rejections come in, and I feel the need to edit again before sending the story back out. Heinlein’s Rule Three says to avoid that trap, and I agree to a certain extent. However, as a new writer, my stories contain many rookie mistakes. I didn’t even know they were mistakes until reading Sam Knight’s Blood From Your Own Pen and K.M. Weiland’s blog Helping Writers Become Authors. So I edit out those mistakes as best I can when a story I already have out comes back rejected. I don’t know if those mistakes were why an editor rejected a particular story, but I want to eliminate the easy reasons for editors to reject my work.

What I didn’t realize at the start of my writing adventure was how long this process took. Professionals seem to do this all in a matter of days, if not hours. Of course, they probably aren’t sending short stories to a critique group or beta readers. And my guess is the magazine editors will forgive if their story has a few spelling/grammatical errors. As an unpublished author, I don’t have that luxury. My submissions need to be near perfect to have a fighting chance.

Professional authors also know what they’re doing from the start, so I imagine their first drafts are considerably better than my own. They know to avoid passive voice, whereas I have to constantly remind myself. They know how to avoid the info dump whereas I’m still learning to subtly work in backstory.  I’ll get there… with years of practice.

So I keep editing. And editing. But it’s always more fun to work on a shiny, new story.

Post # 10 – Inspiration

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3/1/18

I’ve read several professional authors (Mike Resnick, for example) state they often are asked at conventions and other forums, where do you get your ideas? Indeed, these authors say it’s a tiresome question because someone in the audience asks it every time. I’ve never been asked that, so I don’t find it tiresome, yet. Maybe in a few years after I’m a famous author.

Sources of inspiration for my stories never cease to amaze me. The first story I ever started was inspired by, what I believe is, a great first line: “The naked man ran screaming from the room.”

Years ago I read a column by the then editor of either Analog Science Fiction and Fact or Asimov’s Science Fiction (I can’t remember which) about catching an editor’s (and reader’s) attention with a great first line. Shortly after, I came up with the above line. I kicked that line around in my head for years until I finally figured out why the man ran screaming from the room and just as importantly, why he was naked. Figuring that out really was the start of my writing adventure.

Since then, I’ve taken inspiration from such unlikely sources as a handwritten sign on an out of order elevator and the nickname some friends use for their daughter. Also, a couple time now while writing a story, I’ve developed sequel ideas. That seems to happen frequently.  Between that and understanding it’s always easier to sell a product with an existing audience, I finally understand why there are so many series out there.

Twice now after reading the submission guidelines for a publication, inspiration hit me for a story matching those guidelines. Oddly, both were calls for humorous speculative fiction. When I read the first set of guidelines, I decided to take on the challenge. I’d never tried writing a funny story before. I had a title for a story in my To Be Written list but no plot yet. And then inspiration hit for how I could turn this random title into a humorous story.

Then it happened again. The second set of submission guidelines requested sword and sorceress fantasy works, meaning fantasy with a strong woman protagonist. While I enjoy reading some fantasy (Lord of the Rings and The Song of Ice and Fire), I lean more towards science fiction. I’ve never written it and didn’t intend to any time soon. But at the very end of these guidelines, the editor said they end the anthology with a short, funny story. For some reason that’s when inspiration hit. I had an idea for a short, funny fantasy story starring a female character. I was so inspired I stopped writing the story I was working on then and finished this new story in about three sittings.

I haven’t even discussed the inspiration for my novel. In a prior post, I mentioned one of my critique group members is working on her first novel. I had the privilege to read the first chapter. I thought the premise of the story was excellent, and I wanted to read more. Alas, that literally was all she wrote at that time. In addition to compiling a few notes for her, I also wrote down a couple directions I thought the story could go to see if I could guess what she had in mind. None of my guesses were correct. She knows where it’s going, and I can’t wait for her to take it there. Later, I realized I liked one of my guesses. I liked it so much I decided to use it as the plot of my own novel. Of course, the plot of my novel is nothing like my friend’s, but I’m fascinated by how simply trying to guess her novel’s plot lead to finding my own.