All at Once

My writing tasks are like finding books to read – I can’t find anything I like for ages, then suddenly it all happens at once. I currently have three books on the go, and am fighting the temptation to start a fourth.

As for writing projects – I had a plan. Finish the book I’m on. Continue sending the other ones out to publishers. Edit and arrange the short stories. It was a good plan, well thought out, with timescales and everything.

And it’s all fallen apart.

I’m still working on the book I’m on, but for some reason, ideas on how to improve the short stories have suddenly popped into my brain, and no amount of whispering ‘not now, I’m busy!’ won’t stop them (but will get me some odd looks on the bus). I’m coming up with the ideas for the book I swore was finished, and am sending out to publishers. On top of all that I had a brilliant idea that just won’t let go and that I have to write right now.

I’m exhausted. Also, I have writer’s cramp.

The creative part of my brain just won’t accept timescales. In fact, it just screws up my plans, laughs in their faces and kicks them down the stairs. (Yes, I mixed a metaphor!)

Writers, How Do You Fit It All In? by Christine Duncan)

Lately time has been getting away from me again. I am looking for work, working a forty hour week for one company while doing my husband’s books on the side, serving once every other week on a city board and trying to write. Guess what doesn’t get done?
I literally just turned down two writing opportunities–one to sell books, the other to join a critique group. (Yes I know I said I wanted this. That was before I tried to fit it in.)
I feel guilty even writing this, since I know Michelle, my blogmate is even busier than me. She’s moving! And she’s writing still.
So I guess I have a question for all of you out there. How do you do it? How do you fit all of it in?
I already eat breakfast standing up as I make my sandwich for lunch at work. I pray during my run, and try to fit in books on tape during the times I clean my house.
How can I do it? How do you do it?
All serious suggestions considered.

Listen to the Others.

It’s always useful to hear what other authors have to say. Whether it’s a group of as-yet-unpublished authors in a local writing group, or a world-famous author giving a talk, you will always take something away from it.

When I wrote alone, it was if I was in a vacuum. I was convinced that other authors knew all the tricks to getting published, or building tension, or overcoming writing blocks, and I was missing something.

I started going to ‘Author’s Talking’ groups at my local library, where authors came and basically, talked. I went to author events at local bookshops, I joined a writing group. And I discovered that every author does it differently.

Some talked about how they had to fight writer’s block, some said it did not exist. Some planned every paragraph of their book, some made it up as they went along. Some loved genre, some said genre was pointless.

All of them, every writer I have ever met, professional and amateur had a lot to share about writing. All of it was fascinating.

Some of what other writers say to you, however, you will feel is just plain wrong. You can’t plan a book like that, you say, you cannot write that way, you think.

The point is not to believe and follow everything they say and do. Some of what they think will not work for you. Some of it will. But everytime there will be at least one golden nugget of information to take away with you. Whether it’s practical information about publication, a guide to how to write day after day, or even encouragement, they will tell you something invaluable.

No-one else, not printers, not editors, not readers, understand how an author’s mind works except other authors. No-one else will really understand how they think, what worries them, what they need to know. At every opportunity you get, listen or read or watch what other authors have to say about writing. I promise you, you will learn something.

Logic in Fiction by Christine Duncan

I was reading a really cool mystery just yesterday.  It was set in an area I’ve never been to, the heroine was someone I truly liked and the mystery was intriguing.  And then it happened.  The heroine did something so stupid, so out of character, I couldn’t believe it was the same person I’d just spent 15 chapters reading about.  And I wanted to throw the book against the wall. 

  

  You hear about it all the time in real life, the mass murderer who neighbors talk about as such a nice, quiet fellow, the wonderful mother who abandons her children, the out of character real life events that we all know happen.  But when it happens in fiction, it better have a reason.  

  

And I’ll tell you my personal belief on why that is.  Writers go on and on about the suspension of belief in fiction and about how people will put their trust in a writer until they find they’ve been mislead.  I personally believe it is simpler than that.

 
    I think we read to make sense of the world around us.  If everyone is snarky at the large company you work for and you read a book about a character who works in a big corporation and is disgusted by the politics, you don’t feel so alone.  It is a vent.

  
But we identify with our heroes and heroines.  And we want to believe we would react the way they do.  So when a character reacts stupidly, out of character, and against all logic, we can’t identify.  We are back with not understanding, at least the world of that book.  Back to being alone.

   And that’s not why we read. 

 

   

Never the First Draft

I know what it feels right after you’ve finished the first draft. In the white heat of that final writing burst, you’ve frantically got down on paper what you’re convinced are the greatest words you’ve ever written. No metaphors can match them, your similes are sublime, your themes are subtle and triumphant, your characters so rounded and full of depth they practically walk off the page. You sit back, smile, and think, ‘well that’s pretty much perfect the way it is. I might as well just submit right now.’

Don’t. Whatever you do, don’t.

And don’t re-read it yet either. Leave it at least a week. A month if you can. Then re-read it.

The first thing you will spot is the immense amount of spelling mistakes. Then you will notice how you’ve got names and pro-nouns mixed up, so it’s not always clear who is speaking. You’ll find at least one major plot hole. Your characters will suddenly seem flat and unlikable. And you’ll have no idea what themes or ideas you wanted to express.

You’ll put your head in your hands and moan that you are an awful writer. BUT…

You’ll find at least three phrases or paragraphs that you think are pretty damn good. You will find one phrase that you think is brilliant. As you read, you’ll find a way to close that plot hole that is far better than the original idea you had. As you clear up those conversations, you’ll find a way to make your characters come alive.

The first draft may be good, but it always needs polish. It’s no good looking at it right away either – you will miss all the mistakes, still convinced what you just wrote was perfect. The second (and third too) draft will be the one that really is the perfect one.

And always get someone else to read your final draft. Because I guarantee there will be a huge glaring spelling mistake that somehow you just didn’t spot. Every single time.

Getting Published Doesn’t Just Happen Either by Christine Duncan

I want to piggy back on Michelle’s post and say something I have said before but I think people need to remember. Even when you do have talent, and the right timing and the training, even when you have luck and get published, life happens.

Editors move on. Publishers change their lines. And writers may have to find new agents, new publishers, new ways to be published. I am on my third or is it my fourth myself? And so I know.

I know plenty of writers who don’t keep keeping on. They aren’t less talented. They haven’t failed to learn the craft. They still turn up at critique even but they just don’t try any new publishers anymore.

If you remember that writing is a business and think about how many different jobs you have had since you got your first one flipping burgers, you can take changes in the industry or in your personal publishing route in stride. There is no person out there who can defeat you better than you can defeat yourself.

Brilliant Writing Doesn’t ‘Just Happen’

Genius does not just simply happen.

Shakespeare did not sit down one day, decide to write a play, and immediately scribble off Romeo and Juliet. Jane Eyre was not Charlotte Bronte’s first attempt at a book. Charles Dickens did not write Great Expectations out of the blue.

All these people were supremely talented, it’s true. But along with that talent came very hard work. Before they even put pen to paper they reading other people’s work, learning what worked and what didn’t, what they liked, what tricks other people used. They were assimilating plots and characters, probably without even reading them.

They all served their time as writing apprentices of a sort. Dickens was a journalist. Charlotte and Emily Bronte both wrote stories for their Belgian professor. Shakespeare probably started off writing fractions of plays, missing scenes for other playwrights, small scenes for the comedians. Hard, thankless work that taught them how to structure a story, how to use grammar and language, how to develop their voice.

Even when they did start writing, they weren’t immediately successful. Their stories went through rewrite after rewrite. There are several different versions of Shakespeare’s plays, changed to suit the actors and the theatres. The original manuscript of Jane Eyre is covered in corrections -and she had to send it to 5 different publishers before it was accepted. Dickens changed the ending of Great Expectations.

And they were lucky in their time. Shakespeare wrote at a time when playwrights were finally coming into their own, and allowed to write. 50 years earlier or 50 years later, and theatres and plays would have been banned. Jane Eyre appeared at a time when women wanted a strong passionate female character. Dickens wrote just when the fashion was to present stories month by month in periodicals, which exactly suited his style.

The point is, being talented isn’t enough. The author needs to learn from others, learn their craft. They need to work hard, write and rewrite and rewrite. They need to be persistent, and they need to be lucky.