So you want to be a writer? Well, my biggest advice is this: fire up Google 'cause you're going to be doing some research! And I'm not talking about research in the sense of boning up on the Tudor period in England for your work of historical fiction, I'm talking about everyday things that come up when you're writing about completely imaginary worlds and people.
One of the biggest challenges I face as a writer is writing about careers about which I know nothing. I try to stick to stuff that I'm at least somewhat familiar with, but I think it might get boring if all of my main characters were teachers and writers. I found this aspect of writing very complicated when it came to Contributor, and I don't anticipate it getting much easier with the next two installments. I don't know anything about engineering, but my main character is an engineer, so I needed to make things at least sound feasible when she was in her work environment. This is something I never considered before I sat down and started writing.
Next up is inventing products. Yep, inventing products. Now, this isn't something that every writer will have to do, but there may come a time when you need to figure out something for your main character or one of your secondary characters to invent. In my case, as I work on Committed, I decided I wanted to come up with a product for Masato, the groom-to-be, to create. The series notes that he and his friend are partners trying to start up their own tech company, and it occurred to me last night that I should come up with something specific for him to be working on, in order to flesh out some aspects of the story related to his job. I looked at my husband and asked him what kind of app he thought would be useful for a smart phone, and with his help, I came up with something for Masato to invent. Or did I invent it? It's complicated. You can read all about his product in episode four.
Names are another area I've found surprisingly difficult. For instance, when I wrote Contributor, Dara's name was not originally Dara Morrow. Her first name was the same, but her last name was different, and I thought it sounded too close to the name of a character in a popular YA series. I didn't want to look like I was ripping the name off--even though I came up with it long before the other book was published--so I changed her name.
Company names can be even trickier. The company Melinda works for in Phoning It In was originally named something else. When the novel was complete, I pulled up my trusty friend, Google, and found there already was a business with that name, so that was a no go. I then spent probably a good forty-five minutes typing various business names into Google until I managed to search for one without results.
Place names aren't always a piece of cake either, especially if you're creating a big, expansive world. No joke, parts of my manuscript sometimes look something like this: "Are you talking about the king of DESERTCOUNTRY?" I did this with Asleep, as I worked on it during NaNo '12. It looked ridiculous but, as anyone who has done NaNo knows, time is at a premium, and I just didn't have time to name all the characters and places I was using in the story. Names would sometimes pop into my head as I was writing and I'd go back and replace the placeholder names with the names I'd thought up, but I'm pretty sure there's still a placeholder or two in the manuscript.
This can all be frustrating, and I sometimes feel like I ought to sit down for hours making up lists of character names, place names, etc. But I always have to weigh things like this: do I want to spend time making up names of countries, or do I want to write? Usually the answer is that I want to write. That's not to say that coming up with names, doing research, etc. isn't important because it goes without saying that it is. It's just that, when I get a story in my head, I have to get the story out onto my computer screen because I'm terrified I'll forget it. And sometimes I do forget things. I'll have a scene all plotted out in my head and then, when I sit down to write it, it's gone. Zip, zilch, zero. Maybe it means the ideas aren't as good as I thought they were, I don't know. But it's not a good feeling, I can assure you of that.
Then again, there are times when it's fun to just let my imagination run wild and think of character names, what a city on the coast in my fantasy WIP would look like, etc. I spent plenty of time drawing up a map of the kingdoms for Asleep, proving to myself that I had a good vision in my head of what my world looked like--and that my cartography skills are tragically poor. It is imperative for world building to be well done in a spec fic novel, but sometimes that world building comes after the story because the story shapes what the world looks like. Or vice versa. It's a chicken and egg question, really.
Still, I'm grateful to be a writer in this day and age. I can't imagine what a pain it must have been to do this kind of research without the Internet waiting to fetch you all the info you need. I remember what it was like to have to go to the library and thumb through book after book trying to find helpful info, and I'm grateful I now only have to do that when I need in-depth knowledge about something. The digital age, she is a glorious thing.
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Monday, February 11, 2013
Monday, February 4, 2013
Monday Musings: Writing when you don't feel like it
I'm finding the title of this blog post kind of ironic because I've already started and deleted at least two posts since settling on this topic. So, yeah, I guess it just goes to show you that even writers don't feel like writing at times, doesn't it?
The hardest thing about writing, for me, is pushing through even when I feel like whatever I'm working on isn't working. You see, it's not even external critics that really get to me, it's my own internal critic who doesn't seem to like what I'm writing as my fingers are tapping on the keys. However, when I go back and read, I feel better. I can see the threads of the story, and I know it's there, no matter how much I might have suspected it wasn't. There are times when I have to tear away a lot of the fabric so that I can get at those nice, neat stitches, but that's okay--or, at least, I'm learning to accept that it is. For a long time, I felt like the words had to come out fully formed and, if they weren't perfect they weren't worth saving and I should just get rid of them. Now, I go with the flow because I'm learning that I can always go back and fix what needs fixing.
Writing has long been a hobby of mine, and the way I used to write goes exactly with what the word "hobby" implies. I would go months or years without writing because I would wait for the fever to overtake me, until the need to write was so powerful that I could no longer ignore it. I don't do that anymore. Instead, I write at least five days a week. I sit in a chair, I put my hands over the keyboard, and I make myself type. I'm not sure I ever appreciated before just how much discipline it takes to be a writer. It's hard to fall into the trap of "Oh, I'm just not inspired today. I think I'll go fool around and play The Sims instead." Like most things that we find difficult, it's easy to come up with reasons why we can't do that thing, and writing is no exception.
What I'm coming to understand is this: writing is work. It isn't physically intense work. Why else would so many writers have treadmill desks if not because we writers tend to spend a lot of our time just sitting? But writing is a lot of mental work, and that mental work can be very exhausting. Some days I feel completely drained, like there isn't one drop of creativity left in my body. I find myself wondering if my head is a bottomless pit of ideas, or if it's more like a well that will one day run dry. But then I start writing, the story takes shape, and I have hope that I have at least one more in me, and that, in a nutshell, is why I make myself write when I don't feel like it.
The hardest thing about writing, for me, is pushing through even when I feel like whatever I'm working on isn't working. You see, it's not even external critics that really get to me, it's my own internal critic who doesn't seem to like what I'm writing as my fingers are tapping on the keys. However, when I go back and read, I feel better. I can see the threads of the story, and I know it's there, no matter how much I might have suspected it wasn't. There are times when I have to tear away a lot of the fabric so that I can get at those nice, neat stitches, but that's okay--or, at least, I'm learning to accept that it is. For a long time, I felt like the words had to come out fully formed and, if they weren't perfect they weren't worth saving and I should just get rid of them. Now, I go with the flow because I'm learning that I can always go back and fix what needs fixing.
Writing has long been a hobby of mine, and the way I used to write goes exactly with what the word "hobby" implies. I would go months or years without writing because I would wait for the fever to overtake me, until the need to write was so powerful that I could no longer ignore it. I don't do that anymore. Instead, I write at least five days a week. I sit in a chair, I put my hands over the keyboard, and I make myself type. I'm not sure I ever appreciated before just how much discipline it takes to be a writer. It's hard to fall into the trap of "Oh, I'm just not inspired today. I think I'll go fool around and play The Sims instead." Like most things that we find difficult, it's easy to come up with reasons why we can't do that thing, and writing is no exception.
What I'm coming to understand is this: writing is work. It isn't physically intense work. Why else would so many writers have treadmill desks if not because we writers tend to spend a lot of our time just sitting? But writing is a lot of mental work, and that mental work can be very exhausting. Some days I feel completely drained, like there isn't one drop of creativity left in my body. I find myself wondering if my head is a bottomless pit of ideas, or if it's more like a well that will one day run dry. But then I start writing, the story takes shape, and I have hope that I have at least one more in me, and that, in a nutshell, is why I make myself write when I don't feel like it.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Monday Musings: The importance of routine
It's everyone's favorite day of the week again! While I don't hate Mondays like I did back in the days when I wasn't fulfilled by my job, I am sorry to see my husband go back to work. The truth is, I kinda like to have that guy around. But what I do like about Mondays now is they mean it's time for me to focus on my passion: writing.
However, there's not much writing going on here at the moment. This is partially because I just published Contributor and, friends, I need a bit of a break once a book comes out. It's hard to describe how completely it takes over my life, but suffice it to say that my brain needs a bit of a rest before I put my nose to the grindstone and start working on the next book.
What I have come to realize throughout this endeavor, though, is how important routine is. Since I started staying at home with my kids, I admit that I pretty much hate routine. I want to roll out of bed when I feel like it, drink some coffee, and ease into my day. Granted, that's tough to do when you have kids, but I do get a chance to indulge in some of that during the summer and on the weekends. But the fact of the matter is, when I do have a routine, I get more done. Without routine, my attention is fragmented all over the place and, half the time, I can't even remember what I did all day long.
My intent for next week is to start settling into my routine. I want to establish a regular schedule for when I write, when I blog, when I do social networking, etc. My biggest challenge over the summer was finding the time for all of these things and, now that school is in session and I have someone coming to clean my house, I don't really have any valid excuses for not being more organized and productive. Unfortunately for me. I may be a perfectionist, but I'm also a procrastinator. It's like the two sides of me are constantly battling, and it ain't pretty.
I want to take a second to thank everyone who downloaded a copy of Creators during its free run on the 7th. At one point, it reached #69 on the top 100 list of free books in its subcategory, which frankly shocked me. I felt like I was in one of those dumb movie scenes where the unattainable boy points at me, and I do that thing where I turn around to see if he's pointing at someone behind me, but find he's actually pointing at me. OMG! *squee* Seriously. Forgive me for being a super nerd here, but it really shocks me in a fantastically awesome way when I realize that people are buying my books. Hopefully you're liking them too, because that's even more important to me.
I also want to give a big thanks to everyone who has purchased my books. It's 100% the truth that I couldn't do this writing thing without your support. So thank you very, very much for giving me a reason to sit in front of my PC all day angsting over each and every word I type.
Starting on Friday, I'm planning to post some tidbits from my latest work in progress, Infiltrator. It's the second book in the Contributor trilogy, so there may well be some spoilerific moments if you read the excerpt without having read Contributor. For that, I sincerely apologize, as I'm one of those people who really hates it when the surprises are spoiled for me. I'll try to keep the giant revelations under wraps. Happy Monday!
However, there's not much writing going on here at the moment. This is partially because I just published Contributor and, friends, I need a bit of a break once a book comes out. It's hard to describe how completely it takes over my life, but suffice it to say that my brain needs a bit of a rest before I put my nose to the grindstone and start working on the next book.
What I have come to realize throughout this endeavor, though, is how important routine is. Since I started staying at home with my kids, I admit that I pretty much hate routine. I want to roll out of bed when I feel like it, drink some coffee, and ease into my day. Granted, that's tough to do when you have kids, but I do get a chance to indulge in some of that during the summer and on the weekends. But the fact of the matter is, when I do have a routine, I get more done. Without routine, my attention is fragmented all over the place and, half the time, I can't even remember what I did all day long.
My intent for next week is to start settling into my routine. I want to establish a regular schedule for when I write, when I blog, when I do social networking, etc. My biggest challenge over the summer was finding the time for all of these things and, now that school is in session and I have someone coming to clean my house, I don't really have any valid excuses for not being more organized and productive. Unfortunately for me. I may be a perfectionist, but I'm also a procrastinator. It's like the two sides of me are constantly battling, and it ain't pretty.
I want to take a second to thank everyone who downloaded a copy of Creators during its free run on the 7th. At one point, it reached #69 on the top 100 list of free books in its subcategory, which frankly shocked me. I felt like I was in one of those dumb movie scenes where the unattainable boy points at me, and I do that thing where I turn around to see if he's pointing at someone behind me, but find he's actually pointing at me. OMG! *squee* Seriously. Forgive me for being a super nerd here, but it really shocks me in a fantastically awesome way when I realize that people are buying my books. Hopefully you're liking them too, because that's even more important to me.
I also want to give a big thanks to everyone who has purchased my books. It's 100% the truth that I couldn't do this writing thing without your support. So thank you very, very much for giving me a reason to sit in front of my PC all day angsting over each and every word I type.
Starting on Friday, I'm planning to post some tidbits from my latest work in progress, Infiltrator. It's the second book in the Contributor trilogy, so there may well be some spoilerific moments if you read the excerpt without having read Contributor. For that, I sincerely apologize, as I'm one of those people who really hates it when the surprises are spoiled for me. I'll try to keep the giant revelations under wraps. Happy Monday!
Monday, August 20, 2012
Monday Musings: Writing is my business
I've been an aspiring writer pretty much ever since I learned how to write. I've always had stories in my head, a notebook in hand, and have spent countless hours scribbling and typing away. However, I also suffered from crippling insecurity that made me really loath to share anything other than papers I wrote for high school and college. I poured so much of myself into my writing that I was terrified of someone criticizing it.
It took me a long time to get over that fear. Along with that, I constantly reminded myself that writing wasn't practical, so I had a series of more practical jobs. Of those, teaching was the only one that was fulfilling for me, because I loved working with students. Still, there was something missing from the equation. I felt like I wasn't really getting out of life what I wanted to get out of it.
After much research and agonizing, my husband finally helped convince me to self-publish. I won't lie: a really strong voice in my head told me not to do it, to instead query agents and to try to find a publisher. I wanted the sense of validation that I thought a publishing contract would bring, and I also wanted to realize my childhood dream of standing in a bookstore next to a copy of my book. However, I had reached a point in my life where I knew I was going to need to start looking for another career, and I was tired of taking meaningless jobs just to pay the bills. I didn't have years to devote to trying to get a publishing deal, so I decided to take the plunge and self-publish. I wanted to see if I could make a go of writing as a career.
So far, the results of my self-publishing endeavor have exceeded my hopes and expectations. I thought maybe I might be able to sell 100 copies of The Eye of the Beholder in a year, so imagine my surprise when I reached that goal less than three months after publishing. Every time I see the book on someone's "to-read" shelf on Goodreads, or I look at my sales figures on Amazon, I have this sense of unreality. People are actually reading my book. They are actually spending their hard-earned cash on something I wrote, they are reading it, and they are taking the time to write reviews and/or rate it. That truly blows my mind. What's more, I wouldn't even have tried to shop The Eye because I'm pretty sure no publisher would have chosen to take a chance on it. If it wasn't for self-publishing, The Eye would have remained a book that only a few people had ever seen. Since it took me more than seven years to finish it (between the actual writing and the editing), it makes me really sad to think of it languishing on my hard drive.
The other thing I've realized about self-publishing is that I love having control over the process. I love that I don't have to completely redo a manuscript with which I am happy. I don't doubt that many editors can and do take works and make them better, but it hurts to think of being compelled to make changes to my story that I wouldn't really want to make.
Another huge plus for me is having complete control over my cover art. I can say quite confidently that I am the world's worst artist, so I've reached out to talented people to design my covers, and I love working with them and watching the cover take shape. I love being able to pick which elements I want on the cover. Had I been traditionally published, I would have had absolutely zero say in this part of the book's production.
But the real icing on the cake is my ability to write whatever I want. I don't have to be confined to any one genre, and that's a good thing for me. There's nothing wrong with being devoted to a single genre, but I want to dabble in several different ones. I love that I can write some fantasy, then some science fiction, and then maybe a mystery, all without being under a contractual obligation to deliver one type of book and one type only.
I'm not trying to say that self-publishing is all fun and games. It's also very stressful, and a ton of work. I hate promoting my work but, then again, even if I'd been published by a traditional publisher, I'd likely have been responsible for doing a lot of my own promotion. Still, I'd love to have experienced marketers on my side since I am seriously lacking in that area.
At the end of the day, though, hitting that "publish" button on Amazon was one of the best things I've ever done. Who knows if I'll ever reach a point where my writing provides a living wage. I hope it does, but what really matters is that I am finally able to share my stories with others, which is what I've wanted all along. Even if I do have to go out and get a practical job, I won't stop writing--and I won't have to. I have my readers to thank for that. There really aren't enough words to say how much I appreciate you. With every sale I get on Amazon, I'm more and more inspired to sit down and write, write, write. Thanks to you, I'm now a more productive writer than I've ever been in my life--and I'm also happier than I've ever been. So thank you for giving me the chance to truly live my dream.
It took me a long time to get over that fear. Along with that, I constantly reminded myself that writing wasn't practical, so I had a series of more practical jobs. Of those, teaching was the only one that was fulfilling for me, because I loved working with students. Still, there was something missing from the equation. I felt like I wasn't really getting out of life what I wanted to get out of it.
After much research and agonizing, my husband finally helped convince me to self-publish. I won't lie: a really strong voice in my head told me not to do it, to instead query agents and to try to find a publisher. I wanted the sense of validation that I thought a publishing contract would bring, and I also wanted to realize my childhood dream of standing in a bookstore next to a copy of my book. However, I had reached a point in my life where I knew I was going to need to start looking for another career, and I was tired of taking meaningless jobs just to pay the bills. I didn't have years to devote to trying to get a publishing deal, so I decided to take the plunge and self-publish. I wanted to see if I could make a go of writing as a career.
So far, the results of my self-publishing endeavor have exceeded my hopes and expectations. I thought maybe I might be able to sell 100 copies of The Eye of the Beholder in a year, so imagine my surprise when I reached that goal less than three months after publishing. Every time I see the book on someone's "to-read" shelf on Goodreads, or I look at my sales figures on Amazon, I have this sense of unreality. People are actually reading my book. They are actually spending their hard-earned cash on something I wrote, they are reading it, and they are taking the time to write reviews and/or rate it. That truly blows my mind. What's more, I wouldn't even have tried to shop The Eye because I'm pretty sure no publisher would have chosen to take a chance on it. If it wasn't for self-publishing, The Eye would have remained a book that only a few people had ever seen. Since it took me more than seven years to finish it (between the actual writing and the editing), it makes me really sad to think of it languishing on my hard drive.
The other thing I've realized about self-publishing is that I love having control over the process. I love that I don't have to completely redo a manuscript with which I am happy. I don't doubt that many editors can and do take works and make them better, but it hurts to think of being compelled to make changes to my story that I wouldn't really want to make.
Another huge plus for me is having complete control over my cover art. I can say quite confidently that I am the world's worst artist, so I've reached out to talented people to design my covers, and I love working with them and watching the cover take shape. I love being able to pick which elements I want on the cover. Had I been traditionally published, I would have had absolutely zero say in this part of the book's production.
But the real icing on the cake is my ability to write whatever I want. I don't have to be confined to any one genre, and that's a good thing for me. There's nothing wrong with being devoted to a single genre, but I want to dabble in several different ones. I love that I can write some fantasy, then some science fiction, and then maybe a mystery, all without being under a contractual obligation to deliver one type of book and one type only.
I'm not trying to say that self-publishing is all fun and games. It's also very stressful, and a ton of work. I hate promoting my work but, then again, even if I'd been published by a traditional publisher, I'd likely have been responsible for doing a lot of my own promotion. Still, I'd love to have experienced marketers on my side since I am seriously lacking in that area.
At the end of the day, though, hitting that "publish" button on Amazon was one of the best things I've ever done. Who knows if I'll ever reach a point where my writing provides a living wage. I hope it does, but what really matters is that I am finally able to share my stories with others, which is what I've wanted all along. Even if I do have to go out and get a practical job, I won't stop writing--and I won't have to. I have my readers to thank for that. There really aren't enough words to say how much I appreciate you. With every sale I get on Amazon, I'm more and more inspired to sit down and write, write, write. Thanks to you, I'm now a more productive writer than I've ever been in my life--and I'm also happier than I've ever been. So thank you for giving me the chance to truly live my dream.
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