Anna DeStefano's Blog, page 20

How We Write: Drafting and Revising, Heaven or Hell?

I’m a geeky, analysis-loving writer. I live to plan and revise. Drafting–NOT so much my happy place. While I’m drafting, I must continually slap my hand and let go of the overly organized stuff my brain prefers. So nix on clinging to the forms and charts that I’ve filled out and used to rough out my characters and plot. It’s the only way I ever get a draft done–I have to trust my instincts and my planning and let myself go–to PLAY.  Writing is improvisation. It’s playing. I’ve being asked a lot about my process as I do the blog tour for my latest release–here’s some of the high points about my drafting process.

Drafting is hell for me…until that ugly first draft is done. Then it becomes heaven, because now I have some place to start to REALLY craft a story I’ll love. Believe me, this is a dynamic that won’t change for my process. I just sent the first draft of my Christmas on Mimosa Lane to my Montlake editor after working on it FOREVER and much longer than I was supposed to have to write it (BLESS my editor and agent for being so patient while I tackled such a complex story), and only now do I really see the potential and beauty of what I’ll ge to work with through the editorial revision process.

And I’ve revised the entire thing myself something like 15 or 20 times already. The ending chapters–I must have rewritten them at least 10 times in the last few weeks. Character arcs–each one has been obsessed over. Subplots–do they reflect the main? Secondary characters–do they have their own story to tell, as well as playing into the central plot’s overall themes? Setting–how well have I show the reader what I need to, so hopefully she’ll feel what my characters are feeling within their world? And on and on… All because of the momentum I allow to build as I draft freely, and the notes I keep so I can come back and rip everything apart once I have a big picture of the entire story.

I draft (from a proposal synopsis and around three chapters) forward without stopping. No going back. No letting myself fix things or revise. Not until I reach the end. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be an end. Forward momentum and building on the creativity of the exercise of creating and discovering what will REALLY happen next for my characters is everything–and terrifying–in my drafting stage. Then I sit back and take stock and dive into the ugly draft I’ve created and have a blast deconstructing and reworking every last bit of it. A lot. Anywhere from

Keeping track of changes I see coming and new things the story reveals as I draft becomes key–so those revisions I crave can happen. So I find a way to keep that wouldn’t break the delicate flow of my drafting…

So, what do I do, while I write without letting myself tinker?

Here are some of the basics I didn’t have time to share in a recent workshop I taught, but folks seemed rabid to know for their own process.

Using Word’s “Notes” toolbar/feature, which enables you to leave searchable notes you can easily track and keep up with:

 Whenever I recognize a change that needs to be made in something I’ve already written, I leave a note where the change first needs to be implemented. I DON’T make the change, just the note.

 

When I introduce something completely new into the story (a new character, unexpected scene, different detail or symbol or mannerism, etc.),I note where it first begins and from where it needs to be worked into the story, then move on.

When I’m writing something I know is key but can’t get my head around exactly how to use it most effectively, I note that, too. Almost like leaving myself a marker–”Don’t forget to come back and explore this more. Work on this as you write forward, then come back and clean the cr**p up here!”

 

I even use these notes to indicate where I’ve dramatically changed turning points and so forth that I’d planned to hit but as I draft have realized don’t work the way I’d thought they wold. These are road signs showing where I chose to take a new path and why, while I write forward in the new direction I’ve discovered. That way, when it’s time to rewrite and I go back to my planning documents to see how best to focus my rewriting efforts, I have a history of what I was thinking while I drafted and why I chose to write in the new directions I have.

I don’t mean to make this kind of analysis, “while I’m not allowed to be analytical,” seem overly simplistic. The complexity of what I do, I think, comes from compartmentalizing the notes/makers I  leave in my wake while I plug into the unrestrained creative part of me from which stories bloom. And you’ll have to find your own method, if you try drafting forward without looking back the way I do..

You might need the analytical stuff to feel comfortable enough to draft free.We’re all different. But maybe some of this will help you, regardless, as you figure out your own process and how best to improve how YOU write.

Draft better and more productively, even if it’s hell for you. Rewrite something brilliant from those rough first words, so you can get to that heaven we all want when we create. THE END is only the beginning, my friends.

Find your own way…

Saturday: Bad Boy Talkin’ at the Naked Hero Blog!

Melissa Bourbon Ramirez and I are talking smack about “bad” good boys at the Naked Hero Blog.

Come meet our latest leading men and talk all things rough and tumble for your chance to win a free digital copy of our Dead Sexy launch books!

Dream Theories–Emotional Touchstones…

The emotion in your dreams is the key. Not what you see, or even the specifics you remember after waking, but what you feel. Emotions are the common thread between the waking and the sleeping worlds. When I write about dreams, even in HFB which is for a contemporary romance audience, I keep the dream theory as real life as possible. Which means crafting a story that shows how powerful the mind can be as it leads us through the work we need to do.

Unlike my heroine, your dreams likely won’t safe your life–or possibly get you killed. But they can show you a path you’ve been avoiding, or another you might otherwise stay consciously unaware of until it’s too late. Our dreaming minds are always talking to us about things we need to see. LISTEN to your dreams, folks. Here’s a little bit more about how…

Dreams are emotion come to life. Longing and disappointments and fear and hope and anxiety and excitement…and all of that is all of who we are, in our waking an sleeping worlds. 

Think about it–what’s the one dream you can remember most? Why is that dream so easy for you to recall, when others have slipped away?  Was it frightening? Special and supremely happy? Were you seeing someone again for the first time in a long time, or travelling somewhere meaningful, or facing your sworn enemy or struggling through your worst nightmare come true, etc.?

All of that is about the emotion still lingering, and bout how it was  still scaring or thrilling you when you woke.

It’s been largely accepted by scientists that dreams are a method for us to process emotional information (among other things).  Some go so far as to suggest you write a dream report immediately upon waking–and that you focus on feelings and emotions first, before getting to the lingering visible sights and symbols that remain.

The most common emotion experienced during a dream?

Fear.

Does this mean we’re being threatened by either the sleeping or the waking world. Not at all. Most likely, we’re facing something challenging that we’re not fully processing or dealing with while awake, and our dreams are taking us through that unwanted emotional territory. Naturally, there will be some resistance and anxiety.

Regardless of the symbols and threats in a scary dream, the basis for the vision is likely something quite simple and innocuous from your life.So trust what you’re seeing and feeling, instead of suppressing or trying as quickly as possible to forget what your dreams reflect back to you.

What does that picture have to do with any of this? Nothing. But it’s a cute kitty and a GREAT poster, I’m on vaca and miss my babies,  and that’s just how I role…

Now, where were we…

Are you dreaming of falling to your death? This startling scenerio (much like one depicting a less-threatening open doorway) can represent that there’s an opportunity waiting, through which you might begin an exhilarating and new part of your life. But you need to let go of an “old” part you to get you where you need to go–and you’re resisting. You must be willing to give up (let die) what is familiar before you emerge into what’s new. And your dream knows it, so it’s replaying a symbolic representation of that journey for you while you sleep.

Another common but disturbing dream–your teeth falling out or breaking off or being broken in the midst of a seemingly normal dream sequence.  The panic and fear after waking from something like this can lead you to believe something’s physically wrong with your or your  mouth or whatever. Instead, teeth in dreams tend to represent the barriers you’ve put up between what you need to say and those you need to speak with. So, when your teeth break off or are damaged in a dream, what this most typically means is that you have something important to communicate and it’s time for you to speak the truth. It’s time to share you wisdom and knowledge. Time to stop blocking yourself from sharing what needs to be said (often with whomever was depicted in that very dream, however they’re often symbolized in your sleeping world).

All of this, remember, is about drilling down to the emotions of what you’re dreaming and what they’re telling you about what you’re avoiding or fearing or feeling challenged by. THEN, I would encourage you to face that dynamic and conquer the emotion and let it drive you to move successfully forward in your waking life in whatever direction the dreams are leading you.

This is the central “decoding” method I use in Dark Legacy and Secret Legacy, by the way. This basic principle of dream science becomes a crucial method in both books for understanding the strange symbols and misfiring visions and obscure/dangerous clues my psychic twins must puzzle through in order to save their legacy, a lost little girl whose powerful mind is being manipulated far worse than theirs ever had been, and the Psychic Realm that is more at risk each day that they cannot control their gifts.

Yes, what I do is make believe. Yes, most of what you dream isn’t real, either. But there’s a key to that other place that is very personal and very true to you. Your emotions.

Dont’ be afraid of either them or what your sleeping mind does with them. Get to know yourself and the fantastical places your dreams take you to. It’s an enlightening and powerful journey, I assure you–even if you’re not Shaw Cassidy, whose dreams are screaming at her about the stalker from her past who’s come back to haunt her in the here and now. Bwahahahahaha ;o)

Interview and Excerpt with the Bandits!

Don’t miss Her Forgotten Betrayal’s Romance Bandits Interviewand killer (heh) Excerpt. My sexy, spooky suspense is off and running… Can’t wait to hear what you think!

How We Write: Don’t Overwork Your Muse…

What do you do when your muse deserts you? What keeps you going when today’s tight market seems to be saying you should give it up? I’m on vacataion this week. And, yes, working a bit while I’m here. But first and foremost, I’m taking some much-needed downtime to recharge and prepare for the next big push in my job–which is waiting for me a soon as I step off the plane in Atlanta. I better be ready to go when I get back, but how exactly do I make that happen, and how do I keep from getting even more burned out?

Well, for me butteflies work…

But maybe not so much for everyone else ;o)

The midlist is dying, we’re told. The task of getting the right manuscript on the right desk at the right time and selling a book has never seemed more Herculean. The average writer watches seven to ten years go by before she publishes her first manuscript. With odds like that, is it any real shock that from time to time the excitement that once inspired you to keep going just up and vanishes? We’ve all been there.

 

And let’s face it, nothing feels worse than to find yourself stuck in the quagmire you affectionately call your *%#$! work-in-progress, meanwhile everyone around you is effortlessly producing at Mach 3. You used to be producing, too. But now, plucking a fresh description or an unforgettable character out of what was once your boundless creativity is about as effortless as pulling a splinter from your hysterical six-year-old’s fingernail. There’s lots of screaming and tears involved, lots of wasted time trying to pin the little bugger down, only to have him scoot away just as you’re starting to make real progress. Finally at the end of your rope, you give up wrestling and wonder if you’ll ever be able to get the darn thing out.

 

So how do you recapture your muse?Adjust your writing environment, a friend suggests. Change the lighting. Natural lighting is more organic. Use music or candles to set the mood. Tape inspirational affirmations prominently about your writing space. That’s the ticket. Watch an old movie, read a book by your favorite author, paint your child’s bedroom or weed the flower garden. Wash the dog, the car, the windows, the grass. Anything but sitting in front of your computer and facing the head-banging-against-the-desk nothingness that awaits you. You could force yourself to BICHOK (keeping your Butt In the Chair, your Hands On the Keyboard) until your eyes resemble a metro-Atlanta roadmap. But chances are, whatever you salvage from your efforts won’t be good enough for your cat to read, let alone your critique group. 

 

“Just where the heck did my muse go?” you ask the blank page before you.

 

But what if that’s the wrong question? Perhaps the question you should be asking yourself is, “Why the heck did you let your muse slip away in the first place?” Did it really just up and vanish, or did it wilt away slowly from neglect and lack of nourishment? In the midst of the hectic, non-stop compromise you call your life, did you put all your creative energy into the actual act of writing, or did you spend some of that treasure on the things that inspire your gift of imagination?

 

Let’s face it. As writers, our lives are a study in conflict. Many of us have families or day jobs or both. Writing will never be our only priority. So we dutifully steal time away for our writing, often at the expense of other activities that once brought us joy. What choice do we have? 

 

But what if the key to keeping your muse from sprinting for the hills and staying there is something as basic as balance? You have to balance your expectations of your writing schedule with an understanding of what you need to be a happy, energized human being. You’re not a writing machine. You need exercise, friendship, and basic interaction with a world outside your kids, your job, your significant other, and the exploits of your latest hero and heroine, Bert and Bubbles. 

 

Single-minded devotion to writing, admirable though it may be, can strangle the life out of your muse. You can’t pour all your creativity into your work without stopping to refuel. You can’t crawl off into a cave to write day after day and not eventually burn out. But isn’t that what you often expect yourself to do? Write, write, write. There’s never enough time for writing, and every spare minute must go to your work. In order to sell or make your deadline, writing has to be the number one focus of your free time, right?

 

Absolutely not. Without balance, you’ll one day find yourself staring at a blank screen with no clue how the heck you’re going to keep going. It’s a precarious balance, I’ll grant you. There’s still your family and your day job to keep up with. You need to meet deadlines. You have to keep producing. But it’s essential that you make time for other things, too. Lunch with friends, exercise, volunteering at a favorite charity, or even just goofing off for an afternoon. Taking a daily walk, painting, or teaching a child and watching his self-confidence blossom. Find what feeds your writer’s soul and do it! 

 

I’m talking about scheduling these activities into your life every week–that’s right, every week. Make them as much a priority as writing. Then when you return to your work-in-progress, your mind will be full of the people, places, and things that travel back with you. These are the seeds of your next great inspiration. These are the things that keep you going. In no time, you will find yourself turning out more quality work, quicker, than ever before. 

 

The reality of what we face in our writing careers has never been clearer. We’ve chosen a tough, unforgiving, often disappointing business as our passion. Protect your muse. Nourish it. Keep your “other” life in balance with your craft, and the next disappointment that will inevitably come your way won’t stop you in your tracks.

Make a life outside of your writing, and your muse will still be waiting for you when another long day comes to a close and you need to keep going.

Pre-Release Guest Blog Winners–more to come!

Everyone loves free books, right? And I love giving stories away, especially to readers who dig what I’m writing. Isn’t that why we do this crazy thing called publishing, to get our words and ideas and characters out there so they can flourish in someone else’s imagination?

My pre-release blog tour is wrapping up (though you can still win a free digital copy of Her Forgotten Betrayal if you hurry and enter at Close Encounters of the Night Kind). Entangled has amazing plans for all the Dead Sexy launch titles, so starting next week look for even more chances to win not just books, but gift certificates and even a Nook!

In the mean time, here are the lucky ladies so far who’ve participated in my guest blogs and won a digital copy of HFB;o) Take a spin around each fun post to see what you might have missed and why my gothic thriller’s getting rave 5 Star Reviews…

 

From Close Encountes of the Night Kind: A killer look inside the making of Her Forgoten Betrayal–CONTEST STILL RUNNING!

Don’t forget to enter–maybe you’ll win!

From the lovely Ginger Calem’s blog: What’s at the heart of your fear?

Pamela Mason

From Romance Bandits: A KILLER HFB interview!

Ireanne Chambers

From The Writing Playground: A Dark and stormy night. Happily ever after. What’s your favorite part of a thrilling story?

Laura G.

From Stacy Green’s Twisted Minds and Dark Places: Embrace the things that go bump in your night.

Robena Grant

From the Romance Author Hotspot: A genre-bending interview  ;o)

Natalie Damschroder

The Soul of The Matter: Islands in the stream…

Sometimes you just need to go away. In your mind, in your world, and sometimes to a totally different place than you’ve never been. Going away and coming back are recurring themes in my writing, whether I use amnesia to symbolize it or physically send a character on a journey or bring the change into my book’s world, tossing and twisting everything about until things look and feel totally different. Because shaking things up is a what life’s about, whether we like change or not.

Me, I’ve never been so keen on the changes. I’d like life to be a placid sea of calm. Guess how often that’s been my reality… Yeah. Not so much. And I’m not really sure how I’d handle the reality if life were ever to become that predictable. I mean, I DO write new people and new worlds and new realities into existence for a living. But that’s more going away into my mind, right? It’ s not like I’m messing with my own sense of stability, just to keep myself on my toes. Or am I?

I’m actually a firm believer that we can too often avoid the things and people that we want most. It can be easier that way–no risk, no commitment, no disappointment if it doesn’t work out. Life gets its own ideas though, and it tends to have a good sense of what we need as well, and those things we’re avoiding come to us whether we’re ready or not, floating by like perfect chances for happiness, if we’re brave enough to reach out and grab them.

I feel that way about the books and characters and stories I write, and about the opportunities I sieze, even when they don’t always seem like the wisest or safest ideas at the time. My career in publishing (ever writer’s publishing career these days), is one risky venture after another. And I’ve been risking a lot the first six months of this year–me on my island, telling myself to reach out and grab what feels right, even if it means going away from feeling safe and maybe not coming back for a long, long time.

So here’s to risk-taking, even if risk terrifies you. Here’s to racing into the “new” even though the “old” feels safer. Here’s to putting it all on the line, when something juicy and exciting floats by, only it would be safer to let it go rather than make it your own…

I’ve “gone fishing” this week to finish revising the second novel I’ve agreed to write this year–both of which were due by the first of June… The pictures I’ve thrown in above are from my morning and evening walks by the sea that I almost didn’t get to take–because I almost backed out of coming, I had so much work to do.

But sometimes, you need to step off your island, into the stream that’s feeding you and inspiring you and showing you the way to your dreams.

Take that risk yourself this week, my friends. Dream big, live large, risk it all, leave nothing untried or untested. Say yes, more than you say no. Reach your hand into the stream bringing your next opportunity to you. Go away and grab something amazing, so you can bring it back and make it part of your world forever…

Dream Theories: What do your killer dreams mean?

“Are you ever going to stop writing stories about dreams?” my agent asked when I sold my spooky thriller, Her Forgotten Betrayalto Entangled’s Dead Sexy books.

“Um… Not anytime soon,” was my honest response. I just can’t seem to stop buying research books and thinking of new ways to make the inner workings of our sleeping minds part of the stories and lives I create for my characters.

I’m ridiculously fascinated with dreams. They’ve been my constant companions since I was a child–long before I knew about lucid dreaming or parapsychology or dream interpretation. I’ve always remembered my dreams. More than a few times, my “night life” has given me premonitions of what would be coming in the day. And, yes, for those of you who’ve asked in comments or emails–I DO dream in color…

But what do spooky or even sweet dreams mean? I tend to put the characters in my books into dangerous situations, through some intense dreams or nightmares at them, and force them to connect more intentionally to their subconscious by paying attention to what their minds are telling them through their dreams. In Her Forgotten Betrayal, Shaw Cassidy’s stalker/killer/villain’s identity (along with everything else amnesia’s stolen from her) is right there in her dreams–if she’ll stop running from the truth and face her greatest fears… And her reward for all her hard dream work is the reclaiming the love of her life. Oh, and staying alive ;o)

But that’s fiction. What do dreams mean to you and me in our every day? I talk all the time in my Dream Theories series that dreams are almost never to be taken literally, and I try to back that up in all my novels by using symbol and theme to represent reality, and often by showing my characters being wrong over and over about what their dreams/nightmares mean–until they finally start looking closer and begin to connect the dots on a deeper level. So, even if your dreams are scary, don’t always believe exactly what you see. Most of what goes bump in our spooky dreams reflect perfectly harmless pieces of our waking world. Our minds are simply trying to get our attention and using images and emotions and colors that will trigger whatever thoughts we haven’t gotten around to dealing with consciously throughout the day.

So, check out Her Forgotten Betrayalif you’d like a taste of how all this plays out in my novels. Entangled’s listed all their launch Dead Sexy titles for just $2.99 and and we have GREAT line up!

And for those of you who love this stuff as much as I do, here’s some of the basics for figuring out what your nighttime wandering might be telling you…

Modern dream interpreters base the work they do on techniques developed by others before them. They’re not inventing anything new, and they all agree that dreams are personal–they should be analyzed in terms of the dreamer’s life, not science alone. There are no universal meanings, in absense of the dreamer’s presence and reality. That said, let’s talk some turkey, then start getting busy with the nuts and bolts of the dream interpretation specifics so many of you have been clamoring for.

There are some dreams, initiated by traumatic incidents in you life, that you should work through with professionals. They can cause to replay an event over and over, and feel threatening to yourself or others. “Playing” around with dream interpretation isn’t a fun game in these situations. Talk to someone about your fears, in and out of your dreams, and get whatever help you need to feel more in control of whatever you’re dealing with.
Drugs (especially sleep aids) and alcohol affect both natural sleep and your dreams. They (or stopping consuming either)  can cause you to sleep more deeply and dream more vividly, disrupt sleep, inspire more frightening dreams, and result in you more easily remembering/forgetting what you’ve dreamed. They can skew your emotions while you dream (too often toward self-hate or self-harm). Overall, the boundary between your sleeping and waking realities can blur entirely. DON’T “play” with either, or your dreams, while indulging.

Beyond these two caveats, looking deeper into your dream patterns and symbols and themes can be an amazing journey of self-discovery and growing understanding of what you find within. So, let’s discover together ;o)

I’m dreaming more vividly than I have in quite a while, I suspect because I’m actively drafting a new novel. I’m bringing imagination to life in my waking reality. My sleeping mind’s not one to play second fiddle ;o) I love this place in my creative life, when I feel story moving through me, both consciously and subconsciously. It’s a lovely sign that the “gift” is flowing again. But what is it all trying to tell me? Or you, when you find sleeping images flowing just as freely?

Let’s begin with a common dream focus–being tested or challenged.

Feeling late for an exam, unprepared, or humiliated while taking a test beause you’ve studied the wrong thing, is about feeling anxious. And remember, the feeling of what you’re dreaming is the key to interpreting it’s reflection of your waking reality.

Being on a stage without practice, feeling embarrassed or that you have nothing to say, tends to be about your ego being challenged in some way, or you waiting for someone’s judgement over something important to you. Freud would say it’s about your parents watching, and what they’re thinking about whatever you’re conflicted about and whether or not they approve of your actions, but for me that’s a little simplistic. Though, isn’t most of the emotional conflict in our adult lives about our parents, in some way ;o)
Sometimes these dreams can be about wish fulfillment and whether or not  we ourselves think we’re capable of achieving what we want most.
Leaving Freud behind (and his theories that it’s all about sex, and I mean ALL of it), dreams about passing an exam or test might reflect that you’re nearing a significant passage in your life that you may or may not feel equipped for. These can be your mind’s way of preparing you for what you need to do next.
Jungian psychology sees these types of dreams as reflecting our internal examiner, and the pressure we put on ourselves to do the right thing, regardless of the challenge. They can be about confidence and character and our subconscious awareness that we need more of either to better deal with life in the way we wish we could.
And, finally, feeling the anxiety of not having answers we know we should during a dream exam can reflect a sense that we’re out of our element in our waking world. In fact, we may not even be aware of our unease, we’re so good at bluffing our way through tough emotions in the “real” world. But our sleeping, subconscious minds will know what’s building inside, and might take the extra step of helping us work through feelings of inadequacy before the significantly impact our lives.

Having fun yet? Come back next week for more interpretation quick tips ;o)

Her Forgotten Betrayal is Live! A “Dead Sexy” Gothic Thriller…

I’m leaving on a jet plane in the morning to teach this weekend, but I wanted to shout it to the rafters before I go…

Her Forotten Betrayal, my launch title for Entangled Publishing’s Dead Sexy Books is LIVE! Check it out. And just look at the beautiful cover these amazing folks created for lovely new baby.

 

Two more AMAZING titles are on their way any minute now (uploading gods willing): NO Hero from Mallory Kane and Sacrifice of Passion from Melissa Bourbon Ramirez. And don’t miss May’s Deadly Secrets, Loving Lies from Cynthia Cooke! All four Dead Sexy launch titles will knock our socks off (and I’m not just saying that because I wrote one of the books and edited two of the remaining three ;o)

It’s been a mind-numbing few months–working hard with amazing editors and publishing professions to get all these books ready. I particularly want to thank Nina Bruhns, Liz Pelletier, and Vicki Wilkerson for all their vision, hard work, dedication and patience. I couldn’t be prouder to be part of your team, ladies ;o)

Keep checking back for all the promotional details. Entangled’s going all out with this launch, so there will be tons of chances to win free books, a Nook and other great giveaways.

Have a GREAT weekend, everyone!

Her Forgotten Betrayal Pre-Launch Interview/Contest!

A Her Forgotten Betrayal pre-launch interview is up with Close Encounters of the Night Kind. Link over to read, catch up, and WIN a free digital copy of HFB.

Dead Sexy Books goes live tomorrow, so stay tuned ;o) Entangled Publishing’s promo plans for their new romantic suspense imprint are off the hook–including a FREE Nook give away!

Sign up for email notices of my blog updates, so you don’t miss a single chance to win ;o) Or follow me on Facebook and Twitter, and I’ll keep you up-to-date there… This is starting to get exciting, folks…