Jan Christensen's Blog, page 15

April 19, 2013

THE STORY BEHIND A STORY: Travels with Going Where the Wind Blows


More than a decade ago there was a wonderful on-line publication called Hardluck Stories published by Dave Zeltserman. I’d had one story published there already, and when he called for stories with a Western Noir theme, I decided to try my hand at one.


I had written maybe three noir stories, and no Western stories, so I took some time to decide on how I could write something that was different, but also publishable. I knew there were a lot of prostitutes back then. I thought that probably not a lot of other women were writing for this call for stories, and that if a male writer had a prostitute in his story, she probably was not the main character. I picked San Francisco as the setting because it’s a great city with a wonderful history and would be easy to research if I needed to.


After that, I’m not sure how I came up with the story—I never am. I did decide that something had to happen right away, so I chose to have the man Rita Mae arrived with in San Francisco get murdered and all their money lost. Once I began to write, the story just came to me, as it usually does, and I had fun with the characters, the setting, the details (I even researched a cocktail that Rita Mae drank), and of course, the plot.


Dave really liked the story, and so it was published in Hardluck Stories.


But there was more. Dave had been in contact with Ed Gorman, and Ed agreed to put an anthology together with the stories from that Hardluck issue plus ask for more submissions from some very popular writers he knew. And he got them. Here’s where to find a whole list of who was published in the anthology, On Dangerous Ground (unfortunately now out of print). Isn’t that a great cover?


http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/PROD/gorman07


But there’s more! Now, twelve years later, I was Googling around and put my name into search, plus the word “review.” And that’s when I found a wonderful review at Spinetingler, which I knew nothing about. So, I checked my contract with the anthology’s publisher, Cemetery Dance, and found that I have ebook rights. Of course, I immediately thought of the folks at Untreed Reads who have published all my Artie Crimes stories, and I sent it off to them. And they decided to publish the story as a stand-alone ebook. So, now it’s available again, and since On Dangerous Ground is out of print, I am, of course, ecstatic.


You can find “Going Where the Wind Blows” at just about any bookseller on-line you can think of, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, the Apple Store (iTunes), etc. But if you hurry and get it directly from the publisher, it will cost you just pennies:


http://store.untreedreads.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=80&products_id=919


I hope the story behind the story interested you. You just never know where the wind, or a spark for a story, will take you.

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Published on April 19, 2013 09:35

April 15, 2013

CAPTURING IDEAS


You are sitting around or working, and a sudden idea hits you. Could be something to add to your shopping list, or a note to call someone, or a brilliant idea for your next novel. What do you do with it?


1.     Continue working because you’re sure you’ll remember it later?


2.     Tell someone else, hoping they won’t steal it?


3.     Write it down?


That was a test, and of course #3 was the right answer.


I had an idea for this post as I was doing something else—answering an email, actually. But I stopped and quickly opened a new Word .doc and wrote down the title and a few lines. I will come back to it later to flesh it out, and that will be an easy column for me to have ready some time in the future. [image error]


And now I’m back. Before I got here, however, I thought of a couple more ideas and “captured” them as well.


Ways to save ideas:


1.     If I’m on the computer, I open a word processing doc, either a new one for something I plan to flesh out later as a document, an old one to add to I’ve already started about the same subject, or key it into a .doc I’ve labeled “Notes.”


2.     If I’m not on the computer, I always have a small notepad nearby, and I jot the idea down there.


3.     If you have a handheld device or smart phone you can make notes on and can do so as quickly as you could writing them down by hand, that’s another way to do it. I love my laptop, but I’ve never used any handheld device enough to be able to make a note easily and quickly, so I carry a small notebook in my purse instead.


Do you have other ways to capture your ideas? Please share in the comments.

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Published on April 15, 2013 08:29

April 8, 2013

WHEN ONE IS ENOUGH



Time management is tough. Picking the right tools can take some time because everyone is different. Some swear by paper and pen. Some won’t go anywhere or do anything without having and constantly checking their smart phones. Some use paper for some things and a personal digital assistant  (PDA) or smart phone for others.


The three essentials are a calendar, a to-do list, and a way to keep notes.


[image error]


 And most important of all is to only have one of each that you carry with you at all times. The only possible exception is the calendar—you might have one you carry, and one at the office and one at home for everyone to look at and add their own items. But you have to be very careful to update everything at least once or twice a day if you have extras. If you can get everyone onboard, you could also use Google Calendar in “the cloud.” And if only you need to use it, that’s a great option if you’re on-line line a lot and have a smart phone to access it.


Pick each tool with care. Then stay with it. Once you’re used to your system, it will probably take more time to switch to another than you’ll save. The plus side is you’ll both feel and be more organized with those three essential tools.

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Published on April 08, 2013 08:32

April 5, 2013

POSITIONING CHARACTERS IN YOUR STORIES



Getting your characters into position can be a royal pain. This hit home for me earlier this week when I had six characters and a dog all in front of a house and had to get them all into said house. In real life, some of them would naturally be talking to each other, so I had to work that in, as well.


I only know one good way to do this, and that is to visualize exactly where everyone is at all times, and write down exactly what you see in your mind’s eye.


Of course, it will then have to be fined-tuned. Probably several times. Nowhere else is clarity more important than letting the reader know where your characters are, except to let the readers know who is speaking. (A topic/rant for another post.) Have you ever seen a character teleport from a chair one minute to a bar stool the next? Or from one room to another, or even from one map location to another? Writers call that whiplash. [image error]Your readers need to visualize what’s going on as if watching a movie in their heads. So, it’s a good idea to get into the practice of writing it from what you see in yours.


But there’s also a major caution involved with this. Don’t describe every tiny detail. You may write every detail down in your rough draft. Character gets into car, fastens seat belt, turns on ignition, puts car in gear, adjusts sunglasses, tunes the radio, checks mirrors and pulls out of the garage and hits the remote to lower the garage door. Um, no. Character gets in car and drives to destination. The point is, your reader doesn’t see him in his house, and in the next sentence, he’s in the grocery store. You may decide to have him tune into his favorite radio station and get some astonishing news or listen to a favorite song. You may mention one or two interesting or pertinent things he sees along the way. But be careful. Use only details that add to the story itself or to characterization. The rest is filler, fluff.


I admit, it’s a fine line. Notice how your favorite writers move their characters from one place to another and see if you can do the same. And notice what annoys you about how other writers do it and avoid doing that yourself.

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Published on April 05, 2013 14:11

April 1, 2013

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

Today I’m not here. Well, I’m not here except to let you know I’m somewhere else.


I’m delighted to say I’ve done an interview over at The First 750 blog. Go here to read all about me. Well, not all, but a lot.


http://bit.ly/YZfDKQ

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Published on April 01, 2013 20:41

March 28, 2013

NOT ENOUGH SUSPECTS?

Re: plotting a mystery. I don’t plot ahead or outline.  I rarely know who done it until I’m at least two-thirds or three-quarters of the way through the manuscript.  But I do have a plan.


By the time I need to know who done it, every character has a secret or two to hide, everyone, just about, has a motive, and most of them the opportunity, and some of them the ability (strength, or marksmanship, and so on) to commit the crime.  And there are a few clues that could point to any of them.  Those clues that don’t finally point to the killer are the red herrings.


Easier than going back and putting stuff in.  It should almost all be right there.  Then you can pick the suspect you believe it will be hardest for the reader to guess.


Piece of cake.  Right?  Well, maybe not, but it’s a start.


Pink cake by Anonymous - Pink cake by Gabrielle Nowicki. From old OCAL site.


However, if you’ve already finished the book and discover you didn’t hide the villain well enough, I suggest going back and taking three or four other characters, give them each a motive and a clue or two that leads to them, and have your protag eliminate them one by one. Then go through the manuscript on screen, search for each character’s name, and read through each scene he or she is in to be sure it all holds together.


Then have another piece of cake.

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Published on March 28, 2013 22:11

March 25, 2013

BE LOOPY

Two great ways to increase your productivity. One is to arrange you work space so that work flows around you, if not in a loop, at least in a semi-circle. This works for desks, kitchens, organizing a bathroom and for whole rooms, especially offices.


We’ll use an office as an example since so many of us have one, or at least a workspace that with good organization can help you speed your way through your tasks. A good arrangement for an office is to have anything incoming near the door, preferably into your inbox. There should be an empty space by your inbox for you to take something out of the box and place it on your work surface. Then, in a line, have your set-up to deal with paper. If it needs to be filed, either file it right away, or place it in a folder to be filed later. If it needs to be answered, like a letter, either answer it right away, or put in in another file folder. If it’s a bill, either pay it right away, or put it in a place you look at often. A red folder would work for this really well. If you want to read it later, have a box to put reading material into. A standing file holder on your desk will help you sort your inbox, then handle like tasks all at one time. Getting up to file a stack of papers, for example, or getting out the checkbook, envelopes and stamps for several bills can be more efficient than doing one at a time in a mixture.


[image error]


Use this line-up for your bathroom. When you get up in the morning do you have to open five drawers and two cabinets to get everything out you need to deal with your face and hair? Put everything in a box and just pull it out every morning, then put it away. Simple. And easier to keep that one box clean inside than a bunch of drawers and cabinets. In your kitchen, put baking supplies and ingredients together, pots and pans near the stove, dishes close to the table where you eat, and so on. Remember the trick of creating a loop and see if it will help you arrange your workflow.


The second way to get loopy is to arrange your actual work into a mental loop. Get used to one thing following another. If you’re a writer, you write, then edit, then publish, then market. If you have written and published more than one book and plan to do more, it will help to get into a loop every day of doing each of those things. You might be writing a new book, editing an old one, getting yet another one ready to publish, including submitting, (either by yourself or with your publisher) and need to market everything you have going. So, when you’re fresh, you write new material. When you finish with that you always either edit, publish or market something else. Then pick the next thing and the next thing.


Most jobs can be broken down like this. Plan your days around the most important thing you have to do and work in the others in a special order that will work for you, mentally and physically. Do the hardest things when you are at your peak, and the easiest things when your energy lags.


Getting loopy gives your work and your day a sort of rhythm that eases stress (deciding what to do all the time and hunting for stuff or jumping from one thing to another is stressful) and helps you accomplish more.

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Published on March 25, 2013 08:58

March 22, 2013

WORD BY WORD

If you write 1,000 words a day it can equal a lot a year. Here’s how:


SIX DAYS A WEEK


If you write 1,000 words a day for six days a week for one year, you will have 313,000 words written by the end of the year.  Divide by four, and you will have four 78,250-word books in rough draft.


Your novel or nonfiction book may need to be a few thousand words more than that, but you can, no doubt, squeeze those words in before the end of the year.


Write a short story every month. = 12/year by writing 1,000/words or less one day a week.


Write an article every month. = 12/year when you have some extra time


At the end of one year you could have three novels, one non-fiction book, twelve short stories and twelve articles written.  This means that you have to do only two things:  Write 1,000 words a day, and edit 1,000 words a day, Monday through Friday, plus write and edit 1,000 words for your short story quota (could do 500 words in one story, and 500 in another, for example) every Saturday, and squeeze in that article when the mood strikes, but aim for one a month.


[image error]RADIATE


 FIVE DAYS A WEEK


If you write 1,000 words/day, five days a week, you will have 261,000 words at the end of one year.  Divide by four, and you have exactly enough for four 65,250-word books.  Make one or two a bit shorter, and you can squeeze in a two-week vacation.


If you get most everything you write published, each will help sell the others.  Someone may read your nonfiction book and find out you wrote a mystery, so will try that out, or vice versa.  Someone may read a couple of your short stories or articles, see your bio, and decide to try one or more of your books.


The trickiest part is to keep up the pace and to make sure that if you edit out a whole chuck of one of your pieces that you also write enough words in that day to make up the deleted words.


Make up a chart for tracking how much you actually accomplish every day in a spreadsheet, and you will be amazed at how much you have done in just half a year.


Excuse me while I work on my second 500 words for the day. (But no, although I wish I could meet this goal, I haven’t yet. But there’s still time.)


 


 

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Published on March 22, 2013 10:39

March 18, 2013

TO DO LISTS

Everyone knows it’s a great idea to keep a to do list. And many think that’s it. You just list everything you have to, need to, want to do, and cross off each item as you accomplish it.


And basically, that’s true. So, if you’re doing this and still not getting things done, what’s wrong?


[image error]


There are a few hints about using a list you should know.


First, only use one list and one system. Do not have pieces of your list scattered all over on notepads, sticky notes, napkins and on the back of other people’s business cards. Carry a notebook with you and “capture” stray thoughts about what you want to add to your list. Then add those items to the list when you next look at it. You have to have everything listed so you can prioritize what needs to be done.


Next, it doesn’t have to be an actual list. One nifty way to handle your to-dos is to use index cards. They are handy because they can fit into a small space like pocket or purse, and they are more durable than paper. I have just recently come to this system because I have many recurring to-dos each day.



I have a card all made up of routine tasks for each day of the week.
And I have two other cards made up for things I want to do every day. One for work (writing) and one for household.
Then I have a card where I list occasional things, like getting the tax stuff ready for the tax man, making a dental appointment, fun things like that. Those things I cross off as I do them. When the card is too full to add anything more, I transfer the undone things to another card and keep going.

All the other cards have the things I need to do daily in a semblance of the order I hope to do them in. So, I don’t cross off anything. I just look at them every so often to see how I’m doing.


If your routine isn’t so structured, then having a running to do list is probably the way to go. Just remember to keep it all on one list and look at it often during the day.


Using a to do list is the most basic and probably the most powerful thing, along with a calendar, you can use to organize your life. Do you have a to do list?

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Published on March 18, 2013 10:40

March 15, 2013

PAPER OR PLASTIC (WHERE THE COMPUTER IS THE PLASTIC)?

I’ve tried to put everything on the computer. Names and addresses of everyone I know. All the financial info. A calendar. Photographs. A map program that uses GPS. The family tree. And that’s just the personal stuff. For my writing, everything original I write, of course, now gets written on my laptop. But also the trackers and market lists, notes about each novel or story, writing advice, quotes, and so on.


When we lived in the small space of a forty-foot motorhome all the time, this is a great idea. Now that we’re back in a brick and stick house, I still think it’s a great idea.


But I write a lot of short stories, and submitting them is much work in itself.


I found out tables are my friends.

Wooden Table by Anonymous - A wooden table by Benji Park. From old OCAL site.


No, not that kind of table.


I used to have:


A notebook in which I put:



A table to track everything I submitted with title, where submitted, date submitted, date back, and a yes/no column for whether accepted or rejected. This was kept in the front of the notebook.
Behind that, a table for each publication and what I’d sent to them when, and how long it took to hear back.

A manila file folder for each story in which I had:



A table to track date, where sent and response for the front of the file.
Correspondence and contract(s) for the story.
A clean printed copy of the story.

All these trackers, the manuscript and notes for it were put onto my laptop after a awhile. And there they still sit. It took quite a long time for me to get used to using the ones on the computer.


Today I was checking out some markets. I have about twenty stories at any given time that need to be submitted. So of course I’m always looking for new places for my work. I have in mind one place to submit to this week (my goal is one sub a week), but when going through my list, I found two other places where a couple of stories might fit. How to keep track of those? Used to be I could just jot a note and stick it in the physical file. So, I made up a notes form (yes, another form) for each story. It now contains the submission table at the top, and other notes about the story, plus I can list possible markets I come across to submit to if it’s rejected. And I just stick any other info about the story into this notes file. Which is called [Title of Story] notes.docx. I use caps for the title of the story file and the notes file name in small letters.


Often, I find the submission guidelines on-line and need to keep them someplace. Easiest thing in the world is to bookmark them, right? Yes, except you wouldn’t believe how many bookmarks I have. I was putting these new ones at the top, and important ones got pushed farther and farther down, and I had a jumble.


I hate jumbles. So eventually I made yet another table to keep the names of all these wonderful publications with a direct URL link to their submission guidelines. I also have a column for word count so I don’t have to look that up each time. And to make it easier on myself, later I added a column to put in the title of my latest submission.


Another trick I tried was to have a document in my computer labeled Notes. This is where I type in random ideas and thoughts plus URLs to go to when I have time. I guess I should have one of these documents for writing, too. The trouble is, I tried this idea several years ago, stopped using it and have never gone back to see what’s there. So I ended up still using a small legal pad to jot down things that catch my attention.


Yes, paper can get lost on the a real desktop. But ideas and jottings can get lost on that virtual desktop, too. This is as close as I can come to a pretty good system.


Someday I’ll find the perfect system. You think?

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Published on March 15, 2013 09:38