Madeline Smoot's Blog, page 6

Writing Through Cycles

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For the past decade, I have struggled with all sorts of health issues. Disparate things like a buildup of neurotoxins during a mold exposure to a hormonal imbalance most likely caused by stress (and age) mean that I often have periods (sometimes extended ones) where I can’t get much done.

I’m not alone in this. People with chronic illnesses face this sort of thing all the time. There are the good day and the bad days, and as anyone with something permanent will tell you, the good days are never taken for granted. And good days are not just about catching up. Sometimes they are about recovering from the bad.

Let’s face it. Good and bad days aren’t limited to people who are ill. We all have them whether they are caused by circumstances, emotional responses, or other things we can’t control.

All of this affects our writing. If writing isn’t your full-time career, then possibly, it affects your writing the most. When having to prioritize, writing is often the thing that has to go. And that’s okay.

That’s why when I read or hear an author admonishing aspiring authors for not writing every day, I want to roll my eyes. For some of us, it’s not possible. Yes, I try to write 100 words a day, but as you can see, that often does not happen. Again, that’s okay. I modify my goals as I see fit.

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Writing so far in 2018

So, this month, I challenge you to look at your goals and see if they need modifying. Then, continually adjust them as needed as life occurs. It’s great to want to finish a novel a month, but that may not be realistic with life. On Monday I set my goals for the week. An hour ago, I started running a fever. Obviously, I’m re-adjusting now.

Writing, like life, has cycles. Figure out yours so you might take advantage of the peaks. Then don’t worry about the valleys. Ten to one there will be other worries during those times. Your words will wait. Life will not. When you are ready, the words will come. And that is the most important thing of all.

The 2018 Writing Olympics

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Sadly, the 2018 Winter Olympics have ended—and some how I managed to not see a single moment. Not the historic triple axel or the Norwegian Curling team’s pants during play. Nothing.

But just because Olympic glory is over for the athletes, doesn’t mean it has to be over. Introducing the 2018 Writing Olympics.

Join me as we all compete against ourselves for medals in 5 writing categories: the Writing Biathlon, Synchronized Writing, Outlining, One Page Synopsis, and the Querying/Self-Publishing events.

Below, I’ll describe each event, when they’ll happen, and the way to medal in each:

Event: Writing Biathlon

Like all Biathlons, this event has two components: daily word counts and daily consistency. The goal is to write at least 1000 words a day for five days in a row. Medals will be awarded for the following:

Gold: At least 5000 words total with words being written for 5 consecutive days
Silver: At least 4000 words total with words being written for 4 out of 5 days
Bronze: At least 3000 words total with words being written for 3 out of 5 days
Life Got in the Way: At least 1000 words total at some point in the 5 days

We’ll kick off today and go through the end of March. Pick any 5 days during that time for this event.

Event: Synchronized Writing

This is inspired by both Synchronized Swimming (which is in the Olympics) and Synchronized Ice Dancing (which as far as I know isn’t an Olympic sport). The idea behind this is that we are all stronger as a team—even solitary writers. So, I’m going to host 3 virtual writing times on my Facebook page during the Writing Biathlon. The links to the Facebook Invites are below. Show up to write for forty-five minutes, and then we’ll chat about our WIPs, writing, and whatever else you all want. And since these are really mini-Facebook parties, there will be giveaways. Medals will be awarded for the following:

Gold: Attend one full party
Silver: Attend for at least one half hour to one party
Bronze: Attend for at least fifteen minutes to one party
Life Got in the Way: Consider going, but not actually be able to make it

Facebook Party Dates are 2/27/18, 2/28/28, and 3/1/18. Click on each date for more information. Each writing event will take place on my Facebook Page.

Event: Outlining

Now we get into the nitty gritty of writing. For this you need to create an outline of either your WIP or a manuscript you are ready to query. Of course, I recommend my Story Slices outline, but any type of outline will do. Medals will be awarded for the following:

Gold: Full outline by 2/28/18
Silver: Half outline by 2/28/18
Bronze: Quarter outline by 2/28/18
Life Got in the Way: Blank outline, but you at least printed one out

 

Event: One Page Synopsis

Taking that outline you created for the previous event, use it write a one page synopsis. This will later be instrumental in the next event.

Gold: Complete synopsis by 3/7/18
Silver: Half synopsis by 3/7/18
Bronze: Quarter synopsis by 3/7/18
Life Got in the Way: You started the document but didn’t get very far.

 

Event: Querying/Self-Publishing

This is the culminating event, and I realize that people working on their very first WIP won’t be ready for it yet. That’s fine. You can catch this event in our next Olympic challenge. In this event, there are two tracks: the query track and the self-publishing track. Medals will be awarded accordingly:

Querying:

Gold: Research and send 5 queries to agents/editors by the end of March
Silver: Research and send 3 queries to agents/editors by the end of March
Bronze: Research 10 agents or editors to query your WIP during 2018
Life Got in the Way: Make a list of 20 agents or editors/publishing houses to research later

Self-Publishing:

Gold: Set a release date for your book and schedule your editor and graphics person so you’ll be ready in time, start formulating your marketing strategy
Silver: Set a release date for your book and schedule your editor and graphics person so you’ll be ready in time
Bronze: Set a release date for your book and schedule your editor so you’ll be ready in time
Life Got in the Way: Decide on the format for your book and set your release date

 

Medals will be awarded on an honor system. I’ll be making them in early March and posting them on Facebook. Grab the image for the one you’ve earned, and proudly display it on your site, Facebook, or wherever. Personally, I’m aiming for a five medal gold sweep, but the realistic side of me says to aim for a more silver/gold mix.

Throughout the challenge I’m going to try to remember to tweet about my progress using the #writingolympics2018 tag. Join me so we can cheer each other on.

Harassment in Children’s Publishing

I won’t lie. I have started and restarted this post too many times to count. It’s also really long. Approaching 1000 words really long.

Ever since kidlit started imploding this weekend with the reveal of names of sexual harassers, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do. Not say, do. Because this is not the time for idle talk or speculation. It’s a time for action, and I’ve been sitting by for too long.

If you don’t know what I’m referring to, then I’ll give you a moment to come up to speed. Start with Anne Ursu’s well-researched article, and then read the older SLJ article, and more importantly, the comments. I can wait.

Go on now. Click over. The articles should open in separate windows.

Everyone know what I’m talking about now? Good.

Like I said before, I’ve been trying to figure out what I can personally do.

Here are my thoughts:

Conferences

A lot of this stuff happens at conferences, book festivals, conventions, and other large scale gatherings where people in power meet with those seeking entrance into the industry. Also, harassers can be anyone, from someone in power like an agent to a fellow conference attendee whose continuing close presence makes someone uncomfortable. Most of the events I attend have some sort of harassment policy in place, and I’ve requested that the ones that don’t have them, get them. That being said, a policy can be cold comfort in the moment. So, in the moment, come find me. Here is a list of every event I have booked for 2018. Some I’m easier to find at than others, but a DM tweet will always reach me.

Texas Library Association Annual Conference (part of the IPG booth): April 3-6

American Library Association Annual Conference (part of the IPG booth): June 22-24

Chesapeake Writing Workshop (DC) (faculty): July 28

Leaky Con (booth): August 9-12

Writing Workshop of San Francisco (faculty) : August 25

Boston Writing Workshop (faculty) : September 29Come find me at one of these events, and I will help you get what you need. If you just need someone to vent at, I can do that. If you want help reporting, I can do that too. If you simply need a safe space away from your harasser, I’ll see that you get that—even if that means you hang out in the critique room with me where your harasser can’t reach you until we can take more concrete measures.One of the biggest concerns that people have in reporting is that making waves will have repercussions. And those concerns are founded in reality. So, come to me. I will believe you and not think you are attention seeking or the other things people sometimes think. And at the writing conferences, at least, I hold a small degree of power. I’m an acquiring editor, so the agents don’t want to burn me as a bridge. However, I don’t work with most (or pretty much any) of them (most of my authors are unagented), so I’m not beholden to them for access to their clients. My income is not derived from working the conference circuit, so it’s not as though I fear alienating the organizers. I can be your advocate if you need one, or a sympathetic ear if you don’t.
Other Spaces

This one is a bit harder since I won’t be physically present and usually don’t know the organizers. However, anyone is always welcome to contact me, and I’ll do what I can, again even if that’s be a sympathetic ear.
Periodic Blind Queries

Finally, one of the tweets I read around both the harassment/ALA media awards/“rockstar status” authors in kidlit floated the idea of blind submissions. I’ve long realized that the way I do submissions can lead to a very un-diverse author pool, and it is something I have worried over. However, I was stuck in the box of unsolicited and solicited submissions and not thinking creatively beyond that. I don’t have the man-power to do constant unsolicited submissions, so I had been limiting CBAY to solicited. The tweet broadened my thinking though. I was intrigued by the idea, and it’s something I’m going to start doing with CBAY. It took me a bit, but I figured out how. This post is already too long, but if you go to the CBAY submission page, you’ll see how it’s going to be done. The long and the short is that submissions will only be accepted during a specific period, the queries submitted through a form, and manuscript requests publicly announced and submitted the same way. Names and contact information (beyond an email) won’t be requested until after the manuscripts have been read. (And then it will be requested from everyone asked to submit so that everyone can be contacted with thoughts one way or another.) I’m going to try to make this process as transparent as possible while respecting the authors’ privacy.

These are the concrete things I’m going to do now, but I’m open to more ideas. What are you doing, or what more should I do? I would love to open a dialog on this in the comments below.

Thanks!

The Beauty of Graphs

If you’ve seen my Instagram at all in the last month or so, you will have noticed how fond I have become of graphs. I have graphs tracking my daily word counts. I have graphs for projects showing words left until completion. I have graphs of my graphs. (Not really, but I’m a little surprised I don’t.)

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Why have I gone so graph happy?

It was a natural outgrowth of my word count tracking.

You see, in an effort to motivate myself, I started keeping a written log of my daily word counts last year. It was in a page in my daily planner, and I just wrote down my overall project word count and the words I’d written for the day. It was easy enough, but other than being depressed on days with zeroes, the log didn’t really do much for me.

And then came NaNoWriMo. The site kept a word count log, but it also displayed it in a visual format. It had a single bar graph. And there was something about watching that bar get a little bigger each successive day that motivated me like nothing else had in a long time.

My Excel Word Count Log was born.

For almost three solid months now, I’ve been using my graphs, and my output is so much more than before. Even with a fifteen day break at the end of December where I wrote nothing for two weeks, I still wrote 70k words in November and December. I’ve written an additional 35k since the new year. That’s crazy productivity.

Word Count Logs and graphs aren’t for everybody, and if seeing this makes you stress out, then I suspect they aren’t for you. But if graphs make you want to write even more, go for it. The ones I made are line and bar charts in Excel.

What do you find motivating? Tell me in the comments or on Twitter.

Checking Off the Boxes

It’s a new year, and that means new organization. This year, though, I’m going to continue with a system that I started last year that worked well for me: Monthly and Daily To Do Lists.

After trying all sorts of planners, I eventually realized that I had to just make one form myself. I got a super cheap composition book with graph paper on the inside. (Less than $2. I’m not kidding about the super cheap.) I then decide it by months and weeks with the extra pages in the back available for general notes.

The result is a page for the overall month with all the tasks I need to accomplish that month. That’s followed by 4-5 pages of weeks where I designate those tasks to certain days. Everyday I look to see what I’ve assigned myself for the day, and then I look at the monthly overview to see if there’s anything else I can try to squeeze in.

Below are pictures of this month’s master page and the page for the first week of the year.

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January 2018 To Do Lists and December 31-January 6 daily planner

Having implemented this system, I found that not only did I get more done each day, I also forgot fewer key tasks. When something comes up (like reading a submission), it gets added to the master list. If it’s a task I want (or need) to tackle in the next few days, it goes on a daily To Do List as well.

Of course, everyone manages their tasks differently, and I would love to hear how others go about staying organized. Let me know in the comments or on Twitter if you have an even better way.

Middle of the Book Blues

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We’re coming upon the end of the year, and in my case, I’m coming upon the end of my WIP. I’m now 2/3 through the novel I started for NaNoWriMo, and I have hit the hump. You know, that slow, excruciating point in your writing where you already have ideas for revisions, but you’re still trying to slog through the initial draft. There are all sorts of names for it, but I call it the Middle of the Novel Blues.

Read Craft books for inspiration.

Sure, you could read any of mine (shameless plug), but there are other great books out there as well. I’m currently perusing The Bestseller Code by Jodie Archer & Matthew L. Jockers. Since it’s not exactly a prescriptive book like many craft books. It doesn’t distract me with revision ideas in quite the same way other books might.
Read unrelated genres.

Sometimes my brain needs a break from the YA fantasy I’m writing. That means I read something very different. Lately, I’ve been reading everything from nonfiction books on the social rules that from our society to adult romance thrillers. Besides being a break, they also offer a different writing perspective from my own.
Work on something else.

Sadly, I can’t spend my whole day writing or worrying over my novel. I have that whole publishing house and all, and those tasks still need to get done. On days when the words just will not come, I stop wasting time banging my head against the keyboard and instead, I get myself ahead of where I need to be on my other tasks. For example, I had a day where I sat down to write only to discover that the scene I had planned out was literally going to do the exact same thing as the scene before. Instead of wasting time on a redundancy that I already knew would be cut, I wanted to skip to the next scene. The only problem was I hadn’t visualized the next scene yet. Writing on the fly does not work for me. Instead, I spent the writing time drafting half of the book reviews I need to write in 2018. That will free up a good deal of writing time in the future.

Whatever you do to make it through the Middle of the Book Blues, don’t abandon your novel. It really is just a slump. It’s not a disaster, your novel isn’t the worst thing you’ve ever written, and it’s not worth giving up on at this point. You can plug through.

*Note a version of this post went out to my newsletter earlier this month. If you want to get stuff first, sign up for the newsletter here.

 

A Character’s Needs

Last month in my newsletter, I talked about the difference between a character’s wants vs their needs. I also mentioned that there are two types of needs: physical and emotional. I thought we could explore that a little more.

[image error]A character’s physical needs are just what they sound like: they physical needs that must be met in order to stay alive. These are obvious things like food, water, shelter, and the less obvious ones like medicine. Whatever your character’s physical need, the key to them is that they bring a sense of urgency to your story. These really are life and death struggles.

For example, take the book Life as We Knew It. The premise of this book is that the Moon is knocked by an asteroid and shifts its orbit a little closer to Earth. This destabilizes everything from climate to tides. The result is a world with food shortages and illnesses people no longer have medicine for. In short it’s a book filled with countless urgent physical needs. Even as one is met, another one becomes apparent. The result is a tense, urgent book that is hard to put down.

On the other hand, once those physical needs are being met, we all still have emotion needs. These are things like fears, friendship, love. We can function without those things, but we don’t function well. And since our emotions motivate many of our actions, our craving for them can affect our behaviors as well.

Most books use emotional rather than physical needs as the internal motivation for their characters. After all, most children’s books have characters that are not wondering where the next meal will come from. They are dealing with how to fit in with peers (whether those peers are school mates or fellow dragon riders) and their place in society (whether that’s here in the US or some horrible dystopia).

For example, consider the first Harry Potter book. In this one, he’s not running for his life. He’s starting a new school and trying to fit in. Yes, there are moments of physical danger (the troll, the forest, the entire third act), but his physical needs are met at all times. Instead, his need to find and build his own family (him major motivation for much of the series) is at the fore.

Whether your character has physical or emotional needs (or both), they will motivate and affect their actions. Be sure to spend some time  figuring out what those needs are.

Publishing Tips Short Reads

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been experimenting with Short Reads, one of the sections on Kindle. Taking classes and conference speeches and other material, I have been slowly, but surely converting them into articles to publish using KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). For now, I’ve been making them exclusive to Kindle to take advantage of the marketing tools they have as well as allowing them to be free through Kindle Unlimited.

I’m interested to see how they work out, but in the meantime, here are the short reads I’ve put out:

[image error] 3 Common Mistakes New Children’s Book Authors Make Before Submitting Their Middle Grade or Young Adult Novel for the First Time

Submitting your manuscript to an agent or editor that first time is a nail-biting experience. Will they like it? Will they even read it? This article is designed to help minimize some of the anxiety around submitting your children’s novel to an agent or traditional press by examining the three most common mistakes emerging authors make. Written by children’s book publisher Madeline Smoot of CBAY Books, this short read should provide you with some quick areas to examine before submitting your middle grade or young adult manuscript for publication.

[image error] 8 Minor Areas That Always Need to Be Examined During Your Novel’s Revision

There are two stages to every revision. First the author works through the big ideas like the plot and the character arc. Then the author focuses on the details of the work. Does the word choice flow? Is the pacing effective? This article provides a guide to help writers consider these smaller, but no less important, revision elements.

Prepping for NANOWRIMO

The NaNoWriMo Coat of Arms

It’s that time of year again! Time to get ready for that month of frantic writing and nail biting experience known as NANOWRIMO or National Novel Writing Month. For those who don’t know, the premise is pretty simple. On November 1, you start a brand new novel. On November 30, you finish said novel. Simple, right?

Okay, everybody get back up from where you’ve fallen off your chair from laughing so hard.

No, there is nothing simple about writing a novel in a month. There never has been, and there never will be. But that’s kind of the fun, right? Participating in the challenge?

I will be doing NaNoWriMo this month. If you want to join me, I’ll be posting on Twitter, and I’m madelinesmoot if you want to be my writingbuddy on the official NANOWRIMO site. Apparently, I’ve been a member of the site for 7 years, but I’ve never actually tried to do the challenge. This year that changes. And to maximize my success, I’m going to plan in advance.

There are two ways to go about this:

The pantsers just need to come up with a story idea sometime in the next few weeks, and then just start writing on Nov. 1. Yes, yes, it’s all so easy for you. Now go away.

(I kid. I love pantsers. I don’t understand them. I can’t relate to them, but I love them anyway.)

For all the rest of us, we need to create a plan for writing if we want to have any hope in succeeding come November. And that’s where my Story Slices come in.

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This is the project I’ve been working on ever since I quit teaching in the MLA program at a local university. It’s also what I personally use to write. Basically, I’ve taken the 6 main areas of a story and broken down into worksheets all the things I’ll need before starting a project. There’s everything from character sheets to scene outlines. The book, though, is more than just some worksheets. Every chapter has a succinct overview on all the parts you’ll need for your story. The ingredients for your recipe, if you will.

For now the book is only available as an ebook from Amazon, but I don’t plan on keeping it exclusive to the platform (or ebook only) forever. Until then, it’s a whole $2.99.

So, come join me in the great novel in a month writing adventure. We’ll see what we can produce!

Building Your Author Brand

Nowadays when we hear the word “branding” we tend to think in terms of marketing, but branding originally meant to mark something or claim it. Whether this was done to prove that a cow belonged to a rancher and not to the rustler that stole it or whether it was done to ostracize someone, the point was to notify the world.

As authors, it’s time for us to make our own marks on the world and claim our writing space as our own.

There are numerous resources on branding with amazing advice. You’ll find everything from making sure you keep a cohesive visual look (always a good idea) to step by step guides on how to increase your Snapchat followers (not a bad idea if you write YA). However, above anything else, there’s one golden rule in creating your author brand:

YOU HAVE TO BE YOURSELF.

You have to present yourself in your own authentic way. This means in many ways both the good and the bad. So, as a practical example, on Wednesdays, I’ve been showing my daily word counts for the week. That means I show off that week where I went to a retreat and wrote 13k words in 4 days. But it also means that I show last week where I sunk into an anxiety spiral over my kid starting school back up and wrote 0 words in 6 days. The good and the bad.

Who wouldn’t love stuff like this though?

You also can’t take on a persona that just isn’t you. For example, if you hate cats, you can’t become the cat expert who posts grooming tips and cat memes 14 times a day. It’s going to come off as faked and forced. Cats are kind of a silly example, but you don’t want to suddenly force yourself to become the darling of the literary event scene if you’d rather sit at home reading. For one thing, you’re going to burn out doing something you don’t ultimately love, and again, you’ll come off as insincere.

This of course doesn’t mean you must overshare. It’s no secret that I have an autistic kid, but I’m not posting daily updates or even his current diagnoses. For one thing, it’s not actually relevant to a website primarily dedicated to writing, editing, and marketing books for kids and teens. For another, that part of the blog (the Parenting is Overrated part) no longer serves the function it was started for. It was started when I felt alone and wanted others to know they weren’t alone too. I have a community now, and so no longer need to maintain that portion. At some point it will come down completely although I’m not quite ready to take that step yet. When it does, it won’t be because I’m trying to “hide” that portion of my life. It just won’t feel relevant to my particular brand anymore.

So how do you decide what is relevant to your author brand?

The short answer is: I don’t know.

[image error]Clearly, it’s something I’m still working on. However, I did find a resource (the one I mentioned in my newsletter) that I’m enjoying working through. At this year’s RWA, I attended the Author Platform workshop led by Damon Suede and Heidi Cullinan where I gleaned so much information. I also got their book, Your A Game, which I highly recommend. There are so many great ideas and suggestions and ways to help you think about your author brand and public persona.

In the end, how you present yourself (aka your brand) is a personal decision you’ll make on your own, but remember you aren’t alone. There’s a whole community of writers both here and on other platforms. You can also leave comments below or discuss this with me on Twitter or on my Facebook page. I’m always up for a good branding discussion.