Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 186
April 12, 2011
Learn From My Fail
I have the rights back to my first four books and novella. Because this publisher had me do a lot of work on hard copy, my electronic files don't match the finished version. I thought about adding in my revisions--I have them in separate files--but there were still changes made at the galley stage and hunting those up would be time consuming and difficult.
On Friday, I priced out scanning the work and balked a little at the cost. I thought about heading to a pirate site and downloading my work from there, and I did search one title, but I literally became physically sick to my stomach just looking at my book being stolen. I knew I couldn't do this just because of the emotional price.
Saturday I came up with a scathingly brilliant idea, though. I have Dragon speech recognition software, and while it's not perfect, it can't be worse than OCR scanning. I'll just read my books aloud and get the final version that way.
At least I was smart enough to start with the novella.
I started out at first correcting Dragon paragraph by paragraph, but that was slow, so I did it every few paragraphs. Still slow. After expanding a few more times, I finally decided to just go through it at the end.
Some issues I expected. Like the hero's name is Nic so I expected to see Nick from Dragon. I wasn't disappointed. What did surprise me was when I said Nic's, I got Knicks. Um, some basketball fan programmed this? I also had Dragon continually putting my sentences in present tense. I would say was and Dragon would type is. I'd say had, Dragon would change it to have. And on and on. Sigh.
Other things were unexpected and I'll be going through the hard copy, book in hand, a few times to find all the errors.
I was still reading aloud on Sunday, late into the afternoon. As I wrapped up the novella, I realized there was no way I was doing this for a full-length book. I bought the scanning package for my four books.
Now, I need to get covers made, write some back cover copy, and when I get my scans back, proofread and format for Kindle, Nook, and other ereaders. Watch this space for release information.
On Friday, I priced out scanning the work and balked a little at the cost. I thought about heading to a pirate site and downloading my work from there, and I did search one title, but I literally became physically sick to my stomach just looking at my book being stolen. I knew I couldn't do this just because of the emotional price.
Saturday I came up with a scathingly brilliant idea, though. I have Dragon speech recognition software, and while it's not perfect, it can't be worse than OCR scanning. I'll just read my books aloud and get the final version that way.
At least I was smart enough to start with the novella.
I started out at first correcting Dragon paragraph by paragraph, but that was slow, so I did it every few paragraphs. Still slow. After expanding a few more times, I finally decided to just go through it at the end.
Some issues I expected. Like the hero's name is Nic so I expected to see Nick from Dragon. I wasn't disappointed. What did surprise me was when I said Nic's, I got Knicks. Um, some basketball fan programmed this? I also had Dragon continually putting my sentences in present tense. I would say was and Dragon would type is. I'd say had, Dragon would change it to have. And on and on. Sigh.
Other things were unexpected and I'll be going through the hard copy, book in hand, a few times to find all the errors.
I was still reading aloud on Sunday, late into the afternoon. As I wrapped up the novella, I realized there was no way I was doing this for a full-length book. I bought the scanning package for my four books.
Now, I need to get covers made, write some back cover copy, and when I get my scans back, proofread and format for Kindle, Nook, and other ereaders. Watch this space for release information.
April 10, 2011
Evil Plot Bunnies
The plot bunny is evil. Seriously. I say it like there's only one of them, but that's not true. Like real bunnies, they multiply like crazy and leave authors going, oooh, shiny. Yes, we are your poster children for short attention spans.
It's not like we want to be distracted from our current Work In Progress (WIP), truly, but well, um, shiny!
And let's face it, the WIP is work--that's why it's called the WORK in progress. New plot bunny is shiny. There's that word again, but it's the most accurate. Writing is hard. Really hard. Ideas are fun. Ideas aren't work. Yet. Ideas can be gazed upon in their shiny magnificence and make a writer orgasmic.
For these reasons, the new plot bunny is always more appealing than the WIP.
Years of hopping around (no pun intended) and never actually finishing a book (add anal perfectionist in there, too) taught me a few things about tuning out the new shiny.
Some writers can work on multiple ideas/projects and do just fine, but I'm not one of them. I sink so deeply into my characters that switching around leaves me making little progress on any story. I had that problem on the project I sent to my agent a few weeks ago. I had so many ideas I was in various stages on (some just planning) that I was unable to write the WIP.
Finally, I realized I hadn't changed enough to be able to multitask stories. I had to focus on one, the WIP, if I wanted to write it. I did. It took weeks of forcibly dragging my mind away from other ideas and forcing it back to the job at hand, but it worked.
And just as I was finishing revisions to the proposal in preparation for sending it to my agent, a new plot bunny arrived. Ooooh, shiny!
It's not like we want to be distracted from our current Work In Progress (WIP), truly, but well, um, shiny!
And let's face it, the WIP is work--that's why it's called the WORK in progress. New plot bunny is shiny. There's that word again, but it's the most accurate. Writing is hard. Really hard. Ideas are fun. Ideas aren't work. Yet. Ideas can be gazed upon in their shiny magnificence and make a writer orgasmic.
For these reasons, the new plot bunny is always more appealing than the WIP.
Years of hopping around (no pun intended) and never actually finishing a book (add anal perfectionist in there, too) taught me a few things about tuning out the new shiny.
Some writers can work on multiple ideas/projects and do just fine, but I'm not one of them. I sink so deeply into my characters that switching around leaves me making little progress on any story. I had that problem on the project I sent to my agent a few weeks ago. I had so many ideas I was in various stages on (some just planning) that I was unable to write the WIP.
Finally, I realized I hadn't changed enough to be able to multitask stories. I had to focus on one, the WIP, if I wanted to write it. I did. It took weeks of forcibly dragging my mind away from other ideas and forcing it back to the job at hand, but it worked.
And just as I was finishing revisions to the proposal in preparation for sending it to my agent, a new plot bunny arrived. Ooooh, shiny!
April 8, 2011
Blood Feud
Blood Feud is available now in multiple formats at Smashwords! And is still available at Amazon for Kindle and Barnes & Noble for Nook. I hope to have the story in the Sony Store, Kobo, and Apple among others. I'll update when it's up. Now on to Troll Bridge!
April 7, 2011
Pubbing My Short Stories
When I sold my two short stories to Mammoth Book collections, I retained the ebook rights. The offer I received for them was far too low and I held on to them. Thus began the great self-publishing experiment.
I knew I wanted to make these stories available to readers who simply wanted my stories, not the entire collection. It took me longer than I planned, but I found step by step instructions for Kindle that were clear and easy to follow. Amazon also made the process of uploading painless and it didn't take long for me to get the stories up in that format.
Around the same time, Barnes & Noble came out with their PubIt program for self-publishing on their Nook. I dragged my feet on this one because so many other authors were having trouble, but when I was nudged and finally sat down and did it, this was painless as well. A mere one click in Calibre to convert the Kindle version to the Nook EPUB version.
I thought I was done since other readers do EPUB and I didn't select DRM, so it should all be good. Only I found out it wasn't. BN Nookifies their files. I promised I'd get the stories up so everyone could read them.
So last night I tackled Smashwords.
I'd read their instructions at the same time I was working on the Kindle version, but what they said for formatting made my head hurt. That was why I was hoping to stop at Amazon and BN, but someone posted clear directions that were clear on a loop I'm on and I decided now was the time to give it another shot.
I decided to start with one story and see how it went. Since Blood Feud is shorter than Troll Bridge, I started with that one. I formatted and uploaded relatively quickly. And found myself 700 and something in queue. Gak! It was already after 9pm, so I went to bed.
This morning, I expected to have an error report on why my upload couldn't be processed. I didn't. Apparently it went through the meat grinder okay and is up for sale at Smashwords. I haven't had time to review the file yet, but I will after I post this blog. I hope it looks as good after conversion here as it looks on Kindle and Nook.
If it does, I will work on Troll Bridge next. If it doesn't, I'll be reformatting and trying again. I'm also waiting approval to go in the premium catalog which would put my book up at Sony, Diesel, Kobo, and Apple among others. This is where my formatting will really be put to the test. Keep your fingers crossed.
BTW, I'll share the links in a later post. I want to verify everything looks good before anyone buys a copy. Call me an anal perfectionist, but well, I am. This isn't always a bad thing because as a reader, I hate poorly formatted ebooks. I don't want to inflict them on any of you.
I knew I wanted to make these stories available to readers who simply wanted my stories, not the entire collection. It took me longer than I planned, but I found step by step instructions for Kindle that were clear and easy to follow. Amazon also made the process of uploading painless and it didn't take long for me to get the stories up in that format.
Around the same time, Barnes & Noble came out with their PubIt program for self-publishing on their Nook. I dragged my feet on this one because so many other authors were having trouble, but when I was nudged and finally sat down and did it, this was painless as well. A mere one click in Calibre to convert the Kindle version to the Nook EPUB version.
I thought I was done since other readers do EPUB and I didn't select DRM, so it should all be good. Only I found out it wasn't. BN Nookifies their files. I promised I'd get the stories up so everyone could read them.
So last night I tackled Smashwords.
I'd read their instructions at the same time I was working on the Kindle version, but what they said for formatting made my head hurt. That was why I was hoping to stop at Amazon and BN, but someone posted clear directions that were clear on a loop I'm on and I decided now was the time to give it another shot.
I decided to start with one story and see how it went. Since Blood Feud is shorter than Troll Bridge, I started with that one. I formatted and uploaded relatively quickly. And found myself 700 and something in queue. Gak! It was already after 9pm, so I went to bed.
This morning, I expected to have an error report on why my upload couldn't be processed. I didn't. Apparently it went through the meat grinder okay and is up for sale at Smashwords. I haven't had time to review the file yet, but I will after I post this blog. I hope it looks as good after conversion here as it looks on Kindle and Nook.
If it does, I will work on Troll Bridge next. If it doesn't, I'll be reformatting and trying again. I'm also waiting approval to go in the premium catalog which would put my book up at Sony, Diesel, Kobo, and Apple among others. This is where my formatting will really be put to the test. Keep your fingers crossed.
BTW, I'll share the links in a later post. I want to verify everything looks good before anyone buys a copy. Call me an anal perfectionist, but well, I am. This isn't always a bad thing because as a reader, I hate poorly formatted ebooks. I don't want to inflict them on any of you.
April 5, 2011
Regionalisms
One of the things I try to keep in mind when I write is regionalisms. This is word choice/slang that is common in one area of the country and unfamiliar to other people. This isn't something that I'm always thinking of, but I do try to have it in the back of my mind. Authors have leeway, but only to a degree IMO.
As an example, writers who do the Fargo movie speech for someone from Minneapolis make me insane. I'm from Minneapolis and it's not something I hear often. The people who do talk that way in the Cities tend to be older and tend to have grown up in outstate Minnesota. (Outstate is anything other than the Twin Cities or its suburbs.) So if I read a book and the author has their 20-something secondary character who grew up in Minneapolis talk like Fargo, it takes me out of the book.
You betcha. Uff-da, uff da. Yeah, right. If someone is talking like that, they're parodying how others think we speak.
That's not to say Minneapolis doesn't have regionalisms. The biggest one is how we tend not to finish sentences. What you'll hear is something like: Do you want to go with? To me, this makes complete sense. To a friend of mine that grew up in North Dakota and moved to the cities, it makes her nuts. Go with? Go with who? Go where? To her, she needs to hear Do you want to go with us to the mall this afternoon? for it to make sense. To someone who grew up in Minneapolis, we infer the rest of the sentence because we're talking about going to the mall after work, what else/who else could we mean? :-)
Traveling a lot helps with regional differences, but so does hanging around online with people from different areas of the country. I try to pay attention to how someone from the west coast words something versus someone from Texas versus someone from Alabama.
When I wrote Eternal Nights with my hero who grew up in Ft. Worth, Texas, I had a friend who grew up in the South correct my southern. :-) Not that I did too badly on that. I pick up the speech of others pretty easily and I even pick up words my characters use all the time even if I didn't use them before I wrote a particular story. Anyway, my biggest mess up that she corrected was how I used the word fixin'. I used it as in the future some time, she told me that fixin' is the immediate, like in minutes, future.
In Edge of Dawn, my hero, Logan, grew up in the Chicago area and my heroine, Shona, in Seattle. So when Logan refers to the freeway, he calls it the expressway. Nearly all my cousins grew up in Chicago or the surrounding area and they always call it the expressway. I'm guessing since there are so many tolls, that you can't really use the word free in relation to their interstates. :-) But Shona calls it the freeway. And I did ask on Twitter because I wasn't 100% sure on Seattle. I've only been there twice.
I also think there's differences in speech between city/suburban people and people who grew up in rural areas or small towns. I picked up some of that when I was in college out in Morris, MN with a lot of small town/rural kids.
So IMO I believe that writers should be aware of where their characters grew up and how people from that area tend to speak. Not that it should be copied exactly because heaven knows it gets extremely annoying to read authors who feel the need to write "dialect" in their dialogue, but using words those characters would use like calling the freeway an expressway is important to writing real people. Again, JMO.
As an example, writers who do the Fargo movie speech for someone from Minneapolis make me insane. I'm from Minneapolis and it's not something I hear often. The people who do talk that way in the Cities tend to be older and tend to have grown up in outstate Minnesota. (Outstate is anything other than the Twin Cities or its suburbs.) So if I read a book and the author has their 20-something secondary character who grew up in Minneapolis talk like Fargo, it takes me out of the book.
You betcha. Uff-da, uff da. Yeah, right. If someone is talking like that, they're parodying how others think we speak.
That's not to say Minneapolis doesn't have regionalisms. The biggest one is how we tend not to finish sentences. What you'll hear is something like: Do you want to go with? To me, this makes complete sense. To a friend of mine that grew up in North Dakota and moved to the cities, it makes her nuts. Go with? Go with who? Go where? To her, she needs to hear Do you want to go with us to the mall this afternoon? for it to make sense. To someone who grew up in Minneapolis, we infer the rest of the sentence because we're talking about going to the mall after work, what else/who else could we mean? :-)
Traveling a lot helps with regional differences, but so does hanging around online with people from different areas of the country. I try to pay attention to how someone from the west coast words something versus someone from Texas versus someone from Alabama.
When I wrote Eternal Nights with my hero who grew up in Ft. Worth, Texas, I had a friend who grew up in the South correct my southern. :-) Not that I did too badly on that. I pick up the speech of others pretty easily and I even pick up words my characters use all the time even if I didn't use them before I wrote a particular story. Anyway, my biggest mess up that she corrected was how I used the word fixin'. I used it as in the future some time, she told me that fixin' is the immediate, like in minutes, future.
In Edge of Dawn, my hero, Logan, grew up in the Chicago area and my heroine, Shona, in Seattle. So when Logan refers to the freeway, he calls it the expressway. Nearly all my cousins grew up in Chicago or the surrounding area and they always call it the expressway. I'm guessing since there are so many tolls, that you can't really use the word free in relation to their interstates. :-) But Shona calls it the freeway. And I did ask on Twitter because I wasn't 100% sure on Seattle. I've only been there twice.
I also think there's differences in speech between city/suburban people and people who grew up in rural areas or small towns. I picked up some of that when I was in college out in Morris, MN with a lot of small town/rural kids.
So IMO I believe that writers should be aware of where their characters grew up and how people from that area tend to speak. Not that it should be copied exactly because heaven knows it gets extremely annoying to read authors who feel the need to write "dialect" in their dialogue, but using words those characters would use like calling the freeway an expressway is important to writing real people. Again, JMO.
April 3, 2011
How Dark Is Too Dark?
How dark is too dark? That's a question I've been mulling over a bit lately.
I have a story set post apocalypse and the world is very grim. The heroine was born and raised and has lived her entire life in this time and place. Her actions and lack of remorse make complete sense in her world, but I wonder if her actions will make her unsympathetic to readers.
It seems as if heroes can get away with being darker more easily than heroines. But this hero grew up in a considerably better place than his heroine did and he's not as edgy as she is.
Maybe this is one of the struggles I'm having as I write this idea. If I stay true to Point of View (POV), there's a very real chance that the reader won't like her, but if I try to soften her, I'm doing my character a disservice. She is as tough and as emotionally insulated as she's needed to be to survive. Her life is a hard one, her decisions and actions fostered from a totally different reality than what we face today.
Despite this, I like her. She's tough and smart and she's fiercely loyal to those she loved--even after their deaths. She knows she'll die young since average life expectancy is around 25, with people like her who are loners dying earlier than that, but instead of bemoaning this, she survives.
That's the bottom line--she's a survivor.
Meeting the hero will rock her out of her rut and change everything for her. She'll have to learn to go beyond survival to living.
The only way I can think to temper her edge is to write a lot of the story in her POV and hope that if the reader sees how she thinks that they'll be more accepting of her actions. I guess I'll have to see how that goes after I write more, but I'm hoping it works.
I have a story set post apocalypse and the world is very grim. The heroine was born and raised and has lived her entire life in this time and place. Her actions and lack of remorse make complete sense in her world, but I wonder if her actions will make her unsympathetic to readers.
It seems as if heroes can get away with being darker more easily than heroines. But this hero grew up in a considerably better place than his heroine did and he's not as edgy as she is.
Maybe this is one of the struggles I'm having as I write this idea. If I stay true to Point of View (POV), there's a very real chance that the reader won't like her, but if I try to soften her, I'm doing my character a disservice. She is as tough and as emotionally insulated as she's needed to be to survive. Her life is a hard one, her decisions and actions fostered from a totally different reality than what we face today.
Despite this, I like her. She's tough and smart and she's fiercely loyal to those she loved--even after their deaths. She knows she'll die young since average life expectancy is around 25, with people like her who are loners dying earlier than that, but instead of bemoaning this, she survives.
That's the bottom line--she's a survivor.
Meeting the hero will rock her out of her rut and change everything for her. She'll have to learn to go beyond survival to living.
The only way I can think to temper her edge is to write a lot of the story in her POV and hope that if the reader sees how she thinks that they'll be more accepting of her actions. I guess I'll have to see how that goes after I write more, but I'm hoping it works.
March 31, 2011
I Need A Tinfoil Cap!
I want a tinfoil cap. Seriously. It might be the only way to thwart the collective unconscious.
The collective unconscious theory is that all humans are kind of plugged into each other in the ether and so a number of people will have the same ideas at the same time completely independently of each other. Been there, done that, and it's like a punch in the gut every time.
A few years ago, I had this really cutting edge idea that was dark and edgy. Too dark and edgy for what was being published then. I opted instead to work on some other projects and--you guessed it--while I was working on these other projects, other authors sold similar ideas.
This hurt and I even had an editor mention that other authors are doing something similar. I think I whimpered.
Compared to my next blow from the collective unconscious, this is small potatoes. You see, I had this awesome, cool beyond belief idea that no one had done yet! It was so incredibly unique that I emailed my writing buddies telling them about my brainstorm. Everyone agreed it was awesome and unique and had never been done.
Then a few months later, one of my writing buddies emailed me to let me know another author had sold a series with my totally cool idea.
To be completely, totally clear, there was no way either of us could have known the other's idea so there was absolutely no chance of anything deliberate happening. It was just one of those collective unconscious things that occur to me too often.
This premise, BTW, is unique enough that if I try to do my idea now, everyone will say I copied her and I didn't! This is where the fact that I have to work a full-time job and that I'm a slower writer really, really hurt me. In a different world, I could have sold this idea first. Instead, I'm left probably not writing it at all.
Someone please send me a tinfoil cap ASAP.
The collective unconscious theory is that all humans are kind of plugged into each other in the ether and so a number of people will have the same ideas at the same time completely independently of each other. Been there, done that, and it's like a punch in the gut every time.
A few years ago, I had this really cutting edge idea that was dark and edgy. Too dark and edgy for what was being published then. I opted instead to work on some other projects and--you guessed it--while I was working on these other projects, other authors sold similar ideas.
This hurt and I even had an editor mention that other authors are doing something similar. I think I whimpered.
Compared to my next blow from the collective unconscious, this is small potatoes. You see, I had this awesome, cool beyond belief idea that no one had done yet! It was so incredibly unique that I emailed my writing buddies telling them about my brainstorm. Everyone agreed it was awesome and unique and had never been done.
Then a few months later, one of my writing buddies emailed me to let me know another author had sold a series with my totally cool idea.
To be completely, totally clear, there was no way either of us could have known the other's idea so there was absolutely no chance of anything deliberate happening. It was just one of those collective unconscious things that occur to me too often.
This premise, BTW, is unique enough that if I try to do my idea now, everyone will say I copied her and I didn't! This is where the fact that I have to work a full-time job and that I'm a slower writer really, really hurt me. In a different world, I could have sold this idea first. Instead, I'm left probably not writing it at all.
Someone please send me a tinfoil cap ASAP.
March 29, 2011
Stories Are About Change
I figured out my heroine's growth arc for the Work In Progress (WIP). I say that as if I had a choice in this. It might be more accurate to say that my heroine allowed me to see her growth arc.
Characters need to grow and change. If they don't, the story seems pointless to me. I've run into this in a few movies I've watched and books I needed to read for university Lit classes. It's why I've quit reading a couple of popular series that I used to enjoy. The change doesn't have to be huge, but to me, the point of storytelling is to give the reader a peek into a life-altering event of the main character(s). Without this, it's just a day in the life.
To use an example from the movies, I watched Crossing Delancey starring Amy Irving. I was completely engrossed in the main character's life and waited for her to learn and grow. It never happened. The movie just ended and I was like, What?!? That's it?!? That ruined the entire film for me.
I've written stories before without really knowing the growth arc when I started. Like with the last project that I sent to my agent a couple of weeks ago. I thought the arc belonged to the hero, but it turned out to be the heroine. This required two revision runs through the book that were larger than I like, so it's always better to know before I start writing.
The heroine in the current WIP lives for revenge. Given the world she inhabits, the society that sprang up in this world, and the events that happened in the past, her need is understandable, but she's going to have to learn that there's more to life than hate. That obsessing over vengeance has hurt her more than anyone else.
It's getting her from where she is now to this place of epiphany that I'm still struggling with, but then I have another story and world vying for my attention. Focusing on the WIP is difficult when the New Shiny is whispering alluringly.
Characters need to grow and change. If they don't, the story seems pointless to me. I've run into this in a few movies I've watched and books I needed to read for university Lit classes. It's why I've quit reading a couple of popular series that I used to enjoy. The change doesn't have to be huge, but to me, the point of storytelling is to give the reader a peek into a life-altering event of the main character(s). Without this, it's just a day in the life.
To use an example from the movies, I watched Crossing Delancey starring Amy Irving. I was completely engrossed in the main character's life and waited for her to learn and grow. It never happened. The movie just ended and I was like, What?!? That's it?!? That ruined the entire film for me.
I've written stories before without really knowing the growth arc when I started. Like with the last project that I sent to my agent a couple of weeks ago. I thought the arc belonged to the hero, but it turned out to be the heroine. This required two revision runs through the book that were larger than I like, so it's always better to know before I start writing.
The heroine in the current WIP lives for revenge. Given the world she inhabits, the society that sprang up in this world, and the events that happened in the past, her need is understandable, but she's going to have to learn that there's more to life than hate. That obsessing over vengeance has hurt her more than anyone else.
It's getting her from where she is now to this place of epiphany that I'm still struggling with, but then I have another story and world vying for my attention. Focusing on the WIP is difficult when the New Shiny is whispering alluringly.
March 27, 2011
Twice the Fun?
Lat week at work I got dual monitors for the computer. Because of the programs I work in and what my job entails, this is something I really needed and it will make everything so much easier. Once I get used to it.
I'm a tech/gadget person and my computer equipment at home is impressive. I tell people that if we can run a major airline on the computers we have at work that I can launch the space shuttle from my house. But the one thing I don't have at home is dual monitors. In all honesty, I don't need them. I have an iMac for my desktop computer and the screen is enormous and the laptop screen is fine as is.
So far, I'm having a hell of a time remembering where to click. I've typed in the wrong document many times and I never did get the cool Maldives dual screen wallpaper to load correctly. I gave up on that and just have my Tahiti wallpaper up on each screen.
It is very nice, though, to be able to see my spreadsheet without having to click between windows. I can reference the data I need and enter it in one step instead of many. If I could just remember that just because I'm looking at one screen doesn't mean that's the active window. Yeah, I look from the left screen to the right one and start typing, only to discover my left program is still the active one. Sigh.
I'm sure I'll get used to this, too. Eventually.
I'm a tech/gadget person and my computer equipment at home is impressive. I tell people that if we can run a major airline on the computers we have at work that I can launch the space shuttle from my house. But the one thing I don't have at home is dual monitors. In all honesty, I don't need them. I have an iMac for my desktop computer and the screen is enormous and the laptop screen is fine as is.
So far, I'm having a hell of a time remembering where to click. I've typed in the wrong document many times and I never did get the cool Maldives dual screen wallpaper to load correctly. I gave up on that and just have my Tahiti wallpaper up on each screen.
It is very nice, though, to be able to see my spreadsheet without having to click between windows. I can reference the data I need and enter it in one step instead of many. If I could just remember that just because I'm looking at one screen doesn't mean that's the active window. Yeah, I look from the left screen to the right one and start typing, only to discover my left program is still the active one. Sigh.
I'm sure I'll get used to this, too. Eventually.
March 24, 2011
From the Start
The one thing that's interesting every time I start a new project is finding the right place to begin. And by interesting I mean why the hell does it have to be so hard to find the right place to open the story?
This has always been an issue for me, something I've only gotten right about half the time in all my work, but for some reason, I forget this between projects--even if the projects are started close in time to each other. It's not something I think is a lot of fun and it's what I'm going through right now--I started a new project this week.
Usually, my characters talk a lot in my head before I start writing, but this hero and heroine haven't said much to me. Probably because the h/h from the previous proposal I was working on have dominated my thoughts for months and they still don't want to relinquish me. Believe me, I'm not complaining about this (not too much, anyway) because I love this h/h. Of course, I love them all--I couldn't write them if I didn't--but this pair are just beyond awesome.
Um, I'm on the verge of digressing. Veering back on topic. So not only do I have my usual how and where to begin the book issues, but I'm also dealing with learning my heroine's voice as I write the first scene in her Point Of View (POV). This isn't usual and has only happened once before. I definitely prefer them chatting a blue streak before I write.
Today, I trashed everything I had and started over and I'll probably do it a few more times before I'm finally happy. It's as if each attempt brings me a little closer to where I need to be.
It's actually kind of amazing how long it takes me to get the beginning of a story down. If I have a 6 month deadline, I'll probably spend four of those months on the first third of the book. Once I get to about chapter seven or so, the rest seems to write much, much more quickly. I love getting to that point. Until then, it's excruciatingly slow and totally not fun.
This has always been an issue for me, something I've only gotten right about half the time in all my work, but for some reason, I forget this between projects--even if the projects are started close in time to each other. It's not something I think is a lot of fun and it's what I'm going through right now--I started a new project this week.
Usually, my characters talk a lot in my head before I start writing, but this hero and heroine haven't said much to me. Probably because the h/h from the previous proposal I was working on have dominated my thoughts for months and they still don't want to relinquish me. Believe me, I'm not complaining about this (not too much, anyway) because I love this h/h. Of course, I love them all--I couldn't write them if I didn't--but this pair are just beyond awesome.
Um, I'm on the verge of digressing. Veering back on topic. So not only do I have my usual how and where to begin the book issues, but I'm also dealing with learning my heroine's voice as I write the first scene in her Point Of View (POV). This isn't usual and has only happened once before. I definitely prefer them chatting a blue streak before I write.
Today, I trashed everything I had and started over and I'll probably do it a few more times before I'm finally happy. It's as if each attempt brings me a little closer to where I need to be.
It's actually kind of amazing how long it takes me to get the beginning of a story down. If I have a 6 month deadline, I'll probably spend four of those months on the first third of the book. Once I get to about chapter seven or so, the rest seems to write much, much more quickly. I love getting to that point. Until then, it's excruciatingly slow and totally not fun.
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