April Davila's Blog, page 23

Free Copies of 142 OSTRICHES

Exciting news, everyone. Until I can get back out into the world to continue my book tour, I’ve decided to run a promotion of 142 OSTRICHES wherein anyone who buys (or has bought) a copy of the book can have a copy sent FOR FREE to the person of their choosing.

Special Promotion: Get A Free Copy of 142 OSTRICHES

The first reason for this is obvious – promoting a debut novel during a pandemic is tough and I just want to get my book into the hands of as many people as I can. But coming in as a close second is that I desperately wanted to start a blog post with the words “exciting news,” because frankly, every time I open an email that begins with the phrase “in these tough times…” my anxiety ticks up another notch.

We all need some good new, and what could be better news than a free book? Okay, actually, I can think of a lot of things, given the state of the world, but hey, this is what I have to offer, and a little good news is better than none.

So the rules are simple: prove to me that you’ve bought the book and tell me who to send a copy to. You can find all the official details here.

I hope you are all staying safe and healthy, and that you’re plowing through that TBR (to be read) pile on your bedside table.

Scrivener Dictation

Yes, you read correctly. This week on the #52WeeksOfScrivener series, we’re diving into dictation. Guys, this is week 36 and I’ll be honest, I’m having to dig deep here to keep it fresh. But as I had hoped, I’m actually learning a few new tricks myself. Here’s what I’ve discovered about Scrivener dictation.

Getting Started

First, some technicalities. To start using dictation, go to Edit -> Start Dictation (it’s WAY down at the bottom of the drop down menu). Or you can push the fn key on your keyboard twice.

The first time you do, you’ll get a little pop-up like this:

Using Enhanced Dictation has some perks, the biggest one being that the program will do the actual dictation which means you can do it offline, but you do have to download the extra software.

If you’re feeling like you don’t want to download the extra 1.2 Gigs of material and unclick that little box, you’ll get this pop-up when you click OK:

Personally, I like to be able to work off line AND I’m not wild about the names of all my contacts being shared with Apple. So I went ahead and canceled out of this, checked the box to use Enhanced Dictation and waited for my computer to download the 1.2 Gigs.

Your call.

The Verdict

It’s actually pretty awesome. When you hit the fn button twice, this little microphone icon pops up.

I played around with it a little and I could see how it could be super useful for first drafts, especially if you have a solid outline and know where you’re going.

A few things I’ve noticed:

Like any dictation software, you have to say punctuation and “new paragraph” when you want it. It doesn’t seem to recognize when I say “quote” or “comma” so I will definitely have to do a careful edit of anything I dictate.It’s not perfect, but if it gets a word wrong I can just hit (or say) delete and it allows me to back up easily. You can stop dictating by hitting the fn button twice again. But it also automatically stops if you click to another application, for instance your web browser.



As A Research Tool

For me, the idea of having to go back through my manuscript and do the kind of edit that would be required after dictating a few thousand words just sounds exhausting. However, I am really excited about using it for research purposes.

I often read something in a book and decide I want to save it somehow to reference later. My solution so far has been to take a photo of the page and import that photo, but it’s kind of tedious, and the files are huge unless I take the time to shrink them, and sometimes it’s just a sentence or two that I want to grab.

I could totally see opening a new file in a research folder and just dictating the material right into that file. Punctation isn’t important, and I could collect many snippets like this without having to import a bunch of cumbersome photos. Then I just name that file with the book’s title so I can easily find the material again.

Kind of brilliant actually. I highly suggest you give it a whirl.

Next Week

Next Monday we will… I don’t know yet. But never fear. I’ll find more interesting things to say about Scrivener. I will. Stay tuned, follow on Twitter with #52WeeksOfScrivener, or sign up for my newsletter to get a weekly digest of all my posts.

Obsidian Arrowheads

This post is part of an extended series I’m writing about California.
You can find out more on my Why California page.

Before humans inhabited the area that is now Northern California, volcanic activity in the eastern part of the state created vast stores of obsidian. When broken, this hard and brittle volcanic glass bares perfectly sharp edges that have been coveted by humans since we entered the scene some 10,000 years ago.

Obsidian is thought to be one of the first targets of organized “mining.” It was as valuable to the native Paiute tribes as gold would later be to San Francisco’s 49ers.

Harvested from the area around Mono Lake, the smooth black fragments were eventually shaped with stone tools into blades, spear tips, and arrowheads. As the artistry evolved, arrowheads developed serrated edges, needle-sharp tips, and double-barbed bases that were designed to tie into the tip of an arrow.

Trading distributed these prized pieces throughout the northwest, and arrowheads with Mono Lake’s specific chemical signature have been found up to 600 miles away. To this day it’s not uncommon to find obsidian arrowheads while hiking in the undisturbed parks of the region.

10 Ways to Support Your Writing Career, Even When You’re Not Writing

These are weird times, to say the least. If you are having trouble writing, take my word for it, you are not alone. It’s just difficult to focus on writing when it feels like the world is falling to pieces, miright?

But take heart. There are actually a lot of things we can do to support ourselves as writers, even if we’re not actually writing. Because there’s a lot of work that goes on around writing that doesn’t require nearly as much concentration as actually writing.

Ready? Here’s my list:

1. Submit

A writer’s favorite word… Submit. Submit to literary journals, contest, residencies. You know they’re out there, and you know you’ve been meaning to send you work out, but you just haven’t gotten around to it. If you’ve got a few minutes (hahahah) click on over to Submittable and send out a story.

2. Plan to Submit

Okay, so we don’t all have a file of short stories that are ready to go out. If you’re not ready to actually start submitting, make a list of journals/contest/residencies you will submit to when you’re ready. Check out my Submission Spreadsheet if you need help getting organized.

3. Research Your Dream Agent(s)

Much like planning to submit, this is a step toward querying agents when your novel is ready. With just a few minutes of free time, you can grab a book you loved, check the acknowledgements for the part where the author thanks their awesome agent, then take the name of that agent online and do a little cyber-stalking.

Check out the agent’s website, see what they’re looking for, determine if they’re a good fit for your work. If so, add them to your list. I had a list of thirty agents ready by the time I sent out my first letter.

4. Beautify Your Writing Space

This is one of those things that is kind of always needing to be done, but I can never justify doing when I could be writing. But with the kids home from school and doing what they do (read: bickering, making messes), I started puttering around the office.

I filed that giant stack of papers in the corner. I collected all the things that are in my office but shouldn’t be (legos and dog toys and hot sauce) and moved them back to the kitchen where clutter belongs. I dusted the book shelf. Now, when things do quiet down and I actually try to write, my space will feel so nice and clean. It’s important to have a designated writing space that you love.

5. Read Blog Posts by Your Favorite Writers

I keep a little file of bookmarks in my browser window of all the writerly blogs I like to read when I have a few minutes. I always learn something. You can also check out Feedly, and app that allows you to search blog posts by topic and select the bloggers you want to read regularly.

6. Encourage a Fellow Writer Online

You know you’re on social media. So next time you’re scrolling through, take a moment and share a few words of encouragement with another writer. Try the hashtags #amwriting, #writers, #writingtips, and things like that to find the other writers out there. I just consider this good karma.

7. Read, Read, Read

Writers read. Adjust accordingly. Use all this time at home to dig into that TBR pile. It is critical for us as writers. Just because it doesn’t feel like work, doesn’t mean it isn’t part of the job. Read, read, read.

8. Do A Character Study

We can think about our characters no matter what our hands are doing. Consider each of yours and ask yourself if they feel like real people. Do you know where they went to school? What they wanted for breakfast? What they actually had for breakfast?

If you have the luxury of sitting down with a pen and paper go ahead and write it down, but you can do this just as easily in your mind. Do a little mental interview with your villain, for instance, and see if you know him as well as you think you do.

9. Do Research

One of the things I love about being a writer is that anything can be considered research. Eat a food your character eats in your story. Browse the home decor section of Amazon and consider your character’s life: does she sleep on Egyptian Cotton or scratchy discount poly-blend? Does he have a matching plate set? Who gave her the sliver frames for her wedding photos? Go outside after a hard rain and take note of the smells. Read a non-fiction book that relates to your story.

10. Make a Dream Board

Okay, I know there will be haters out there, but I LOVE my dream board. I’m a big believer in the idea that if you don’t know what you’re after you won’t recognize it if it falls in your lap. So I maintain a dream board. I update it from time to time when I realize I can be more specific about something.

For instance, I recently taped a bunch of Monopoly money to mine, because – oh yeah – I actually want to make money as a writer. I pulled the “10 Titles to Pick Up Now” page from a recent O magazine and taped the cover of my book onto it. Silly, I know, but it helps me to stay focused on my goals. It’s also a fun one to do with the kids, since they can make their own, and it involves cutting and pasting and stuff.

So there you have it. 10 ways to keep working on your writing career, even when the apocolypse mess up your plans to write.

What did I miss? What little things do you do in support of your writing when time is short and stress levels are high?

Scrivener Text-To-Speech

This week on the #52WeeksOfScrivener series we’re talking about talking. That is, we’re going to take a look at how Scrivener handles Text-To-Speech.

I borrowed this image from a review of AfterShokz Trekz Titanium Bluetooth Headphones . They look like pretty awesome headphones.



An Argument In Favor

I don’t use Text-To-Speech in my writing, and so I was actually kind of planning to ignore this little bit of Scrivener functionality. But then, while I was sitting here trying to figure out what to write about for this week’s post (week 39!), my husband popped his head into my office to tell me he needed to do some reading, so he was going out for a bike ride.

My husband uses Text-To-Speech ALL THE TIME. Of course, he works with screenplay, but I think we can use his example here. See, he’s been working on revisions of his current project with the original writer. They pass drafts back and forth.

Whenever he gets a new draft, he pops in his headphones and listens to it while he’s out biking around the hills near our house. He loves it. He doesn’t mind that the reading can sometimes be a little stilted. In fact, he has reported being super impressed with how well the computer reads the script.

You’ll have to decide for yourself on this one.

Engage Text-To-Speech

To get started, simply click your cursor to the point in your story where you want the computer to start reading to you. Make sure your speaker (or headphones) is on, then go to Edit -> Speech -> Start Speaking.

Going Mobile

It’s worth noting that if you want to take your story out on the road with you using Scrivener, you will need to invest in the iOS version ($19.99 – but you can take 20% off if you use the code APRILDAVILA).

With a DropBox account, you can set up your iOS to synch your Scrivener files to your laptop or desktop, which can be super handy if you’re one of those writers who works on the train or bus or in line at the post office.

If you do use text-to-speech, drop a note in the comments here and give us some details. What do you like best about it? Do you synch up your iOS to go roaming, or do you just listen in the comfort of your own home?

Hangtown Fry

This post is part of an extended series I’m writing about California.
You can find out more on my Why California page.

In 1849 three men were hung from an old oak tree in a gold mining supply camp that was thereafter known as Hangtown.

Across the street from the hanging tree was the El Dorado Hotel, where women, cards, food and drink easily parted men from their gold. Legend has it that, shortly after the town earned its name, a miner who had been eating nothing but canned beans for months struck it rich. He sauntered into the El Dorado with a leather pouch full of gold and requested the most expensive plate of food available.

At the time, three foods were most difficult to come by (and were therefore the most expensive): eggs which had to be carefully transported, bacon brought in from the east coast, and oysters that were carried in barrels of cold sea water over 100 miles from San Francisco. The cook tossed them all in a skillet and named it the Hangtown Fry.

At a whopping $6 a pop (about $200 today), it quickly became a symbol of wealth among miners. Over time Hangtown became Placerville, and the El Dorado Hotel burned to the ground, but the Hangtown Fry lives on as a signature Northern California dish. 

Making Time To Write While The Kids Are Home

This is day 13 of social distancing for me and my family. 13 days that both kids have been home from school and we’ve all been in the house together.

My daughter (seventh grade) is logging in to school and is expected to do so at regular times to join her “classes,” but my son’s schedule is much less structured. His teacher (he’s in third grade) sends assignments, but with no set schedule. And what we realized pretty quickly is that we all do better with a schedule.

Making Time to Write

Last Monday we sat down as a family and made a weekday schedule we could agree on. The number one thing I needed was time to work. So, from 8-9:30 every morning is quiet time for momma, time when my office door stays shut. And so far the kids have been great about respecting that.

It’s all I need, really, that hour and a half. Last week I finally finished up a draft of my second novel. I knew I was close, but it wasn’t until I finally got some quiet time that I realized how close. I printed out the 414 pages and stuck them in my desk drawer to rest for a while, and am on to working on novel number three (titles are hard, so I’m just using numbers for the time being).

Novel Three

Of course, when I say I’m “working” on novel three, what I really mean is that I’m typing up the pages I wrote long hand during NaNoWriMo last November.

I feel super lucky on this front. I’m not actually having to do much creative thinking. Mostly I’m just typing and organizing the material into the structure I’ve devised for the project, using Scrivener to get it all laid out.

Because in truth, I’m finding this a really difficult time to be creative. It’s not just that the kids are home and I’m used to having the day to myself to work. It’s also just the general anxiety that’s everywhere. Anxiety is a creativity killer.

What’s more, I get anxious when I’m not writing. If I hadn’t done all this writing back in November, I don’t know what I would be working on, or if I’d be writing at all. I know I’d be anxious AF. As is, I may actually have a draft of novel three done by the time all this coronavirus business blows over.

Moving Forward

My plan is to type up the draft, organizing as best I can, then print the whole thing out. I will take novel two out of the drawer at that point, and put novel three in. From then on I’ll be working on novel two until I send it off for my agent to read, at which point I’ll pull out novel three so I can keep working (I’ve found this to be the only way to alleviate the anxiety of waiting for notes).

All in all, I guess I can’t complain.

How are you handling this unique time in history? Are you finding any time to write? If not, I would advise cutting yourself as much slack as possible. We’re all dealing as best we can. If you’re finding it difficult to make time to write, just hang in there. This will pass.

Stay safe out there.

Backing Up In Scrivener

Today in the #52WeeksOfScrivener series we’re talking about a topic nobody really wants to think about: backing up your work. I know, I know, but trust me, it’s important. In fact, it’s essential. If you’re not backing up your work, you’re asking for a world of pain.

Scrivener’s Working For You

The great news is that Scrivener is, by default, backing up your work every time you stop typing. Go ahead and type something and while you do, notice that the little red dot at the top left of your screen gets a tiny black dot in the center of it. (Note: In Windows, an asterisk appears next to the project title on the upper left-hand corner of that window.)

This indicates that there is something new in your document that has not been saved. When the dot (or asterisk) goes away, Scrivener has back up the document. Pretty cool, right?

And Scrivener stores those backups in a location you’re probably not even aware of (if you’re curious, or want to change where backups are stored, go to Scrivener -> Preferences -> Backup). It’s there at the bottom.

Note: in Windows, go to Tools->Options->Backup to find this info.

You can also see in this image that the most recent 5 backups are saved. Scrivener saves so many backups (I mean, really – every time you stop typing) and it doesn’t want to fill up your hard drive with backups, so it deletes the oldest one of five every time it backs up a new version.

It is important that you NEVER work in one of these backup files. Likewise, NEVER store your master draft in the same folder as the backups. It will mess up the whole system and could very well result in your master draft being deleted. Don’t do it. Just know that these backups are here, and leave them alone.

Get An External Backup

I know, it’s an expense, but really, imagine your manuscript is almost done, and you’ve spent years of your life on it, and one day you sit down to work and your computer is dead. Or it’s been stolen. Or your dog peed on it. What would you pay, at that point, to have your story back? Right.

Personally, I use a cloud backup system. It automatically backs up every file on my computer, via the Internet, and saves it to the cloud, every day, so that if the worst should happen, I can get a new computer, reboot it with all those files from the cloud and it will be like nothing ever happened.

External drives are also handy. You just have to remember to plug them in from time to time (ideally every evening to save the day’s work). But I live in California, and we get a lot of fires, and I know that if a wildfire is threatening my home and family, I’m never going to remember to grab a stupid external drive. So… cloud.

At the VERY LEAST, you should email yourself your manuscript every few days. This is old-school, super easy back up. If you do nothing else, please, please, do this.

California’s Wild Mustangs

This post is part of an extended series I’m writing about California.
You can find out more on my Why California page.

The Conquistadors brought horses from the Iberian Peninsula to North America in the 1500s. Centuries later, the descendants of those Spanish horses bred with the stock introduced by Northern Europeans, and the American Mustangs were born.

Mustang, as a term, simply refers to a horse of mixed breeding, but over the years they have become iconic symbols of the American West. As pioneers put down roots, the Mustangs where caught, tamed and trained to do the heavy lifting of homesteading from Washington to Texas.

Eventually tractors and trucks took over the dirty work and Mustangs faded back into the wilderness. The Federal Government estimates that there are as many as 30,000 wild horses roaming the western public lands and with no natural predators, herds can double in as little as four years.

To keep their numbers under control, the Bureau of Land Management regularly holds round ups, transferring the wild animals to federal holding pastures. Some are trained and later adopted, while a lucky few find their way to the 5,000 acre Wild Horse Sanctuary in Modoc County in Northern California. There they roam free on the foothills of Mount Lassen, visited only occasionally by human tourists on sightseeing expeditions. 

Wasted Time On The Road To Publication

A few weeks back, just before pub day for “142 Ostriches,” I wrote a post about all of the things I felt I had done well on the long road to publication. I’ve been really lucky, and worked really hard, to build up a community of readers and writers with whom to celebrate my debut. But I also wasted time on things that helped me not at all.

It occurs to me that sharing what didn’t work is probably just as helpful (if not more so) as talking about what didn’t work. So here it goes:

Short Stories

When I was starting out, I had this notion that you had to publish a few short stories before anyone would take you seriously as a writer. This is ABSOLUTELY TRUE – if you want to be a short story writer. But if, like me, you want to write novels, don’t even stress about short stories.

For one thing, they are totally different beasts and being good at one does not make you good at the other. For another thing, the couple of short stories I’ve published did not attract agents, nor did they help when it came time to query agents.

Write short stories if you feel compelled to do so, but don’t psych yourself out thinking that you have to as part of the path to being a novelist.

Guest Blog Posts

I did a lot of these when I was trying to boost traffic to my blog. I knew the blog was a good way to connect with readers, and for a while I got super obsessed with numbers (hit counts, bounce rates, blah, blah, blah). One of the things I heard all the time was: write guest posts for other blogs.

Well, I did. I spent a lot of time and effort finding blogs I thought would have similar readers, reaching out with personalized letters, pitching a little cross-promotion. A few said yes, and I took time away from my novel to craft the best possible posts I could for those sites, but for all the effort I saw no significant increase in traffic to my own website.

What has seemed to build readership for me is to just share, in the most authentic way possible, on my own blog, the journey I’m going through.

Facebook

My frustration with Facebook began when I was encouraged to start a separate page to promote my writing. The message was that business should be kept separate from personal, and that made sense to me, but I quickly realized that nobody saw the posts I put up on my professional page – unless I paid.

Okay, fine, so I paid, but I didn’t like the idea of advertising. I just wanted to share. My blog is free to read and I don’t post advertising on it, so having to pay advertising fees to promote it created a significant imbalance. And then to have no body see my posts, even when they had opted in to see them… well, it was frustrating.

I tried SO hard to make it work for me. I read all the geek blogs and behind the scenes trade secrets. But after years of wasted time, I had collected all of 300 followers. That same amount of time and effort on Twitter got me almost 20,000 followers (for free). So… Eff Facebook.

Onward

Those are the three biggies, the things I wouldn’t waste time on if I had the last ten years to do again. All in all, it’s a short list compared to all of the things I’m glad I did.

How about you? What things have you tried to build your writing career that didn’t work out as you’d hoped?