Trudy Myers's Blog, page 51

Stuck in Rewrite

There are several steps to writing, but one of the first steps (not necessarily THE first step) is to scratch out a rough draft. It can be great fun, to let my imaginary imagination wings take flight and show me a new world filled with new people. Occasionally, the rough draft can also be a real headache, as words simply refuse to come to describe what my mind sees, or – even worse – my mind isn’t focused and therefore doesn’t see anything.But the fun outweighs the headache (or I wouldn’t continue writing). It’s easy to see your progress with a rough draft, because your word count goes UP. Even if you have a bad day, by the end of a week, your word count will most likely be greater than what you started the week with. You feel like you’ve accomplished something.For me, the 2nd draft is where I add in every piece of description, explanation, background and all the modifiers I can think of, just to make sure everything is understandable to the reader. My word count can double from rough and 2nd drafts, so obviously, I’m doing something.Then come the further rewrites. I generally do a 3rdand 4th rewrite, and then a polish. Occasionally, I do a few more rewrites. I have one story in its 9th or 10th rewrite, and I’m still not happy with it.Rewrite is not as much fun as roughing, but it seldom drags badly, either. It’s during these rewrites that I check for redundancies, passive verbs, -ing verbs, adverbs and that my pronouns refer to the correct antecedents. I might lengthen or shorten sentences, rearrange paragraphs. I might delete words, phrases, sentences, or change a 6-word phrase to a 2-word phrase.It’s harder to keep track of your progress when your word count is going down. If you try to judge your progress by the difference in word count, it might take you days to cut a thousand words. That always made me feel stuck. So I started counting the number of words in the section I rewrote that day. I probably went through a section of 1200 words or more to wind up with 1000 words by the end, but each one of those words were carefully considered, so I have done a bit of work.As you can see, 1 rough draft needs several rewrites. Most of my time as a writer is spent re-writing. I try to balance this out by working on 3 projects at a time; 1 short story rewrite, 1 novel rewrite, and 1 rough draft. Somehow, this past week, I have found myself doing 3 re-write projects, with no time left in my day for the rough draft. I suppose it was bound to happen, but it still leaves me feeling kind of ‘stuck’. Re-writing doesn’t set my imagination completely free. But it does still use it, so I do get some pleasure from re-writing. And since my short stories generally range around 5000 words, I should soon be done with that project, and can then return to that rough I was working on.I won’t be ‘stuck’ in re-write much longer.

The Many Hats of a Writer

I’ve been writing stories since the fourth grade, maybe even before that. I read a bunch even as a kid, so I knew that spelling and punctuation were important. It did take me a few years to figure out that rewriting what I first put on the paper was a good idea. All in all, it was fairly easy for me to include the ideas of editor, copy editor and proofreader under the hat of writer.Then I started trying to get my stuff published, and that brought new hats. I had to research agents and markets. Research and submitting wasn’t a difficult job – portions were similar to my day job – but it did take time away from actually writing, and I had to periodically squash the resentment that cropped up. Still, it needed to be done, so I did it.Then MoonPhaze started publishing my stories, and I suddenly needed to add a new hat to my wardrobe – marketer.They tell me there was a time when writers didn’t need to market their own stuff. It’s just another hat for authors to wear these days, and I think a new writer’s success depends a great deal on how good a marketer they are, not how good a writer they are.I have no background in marketing. I don’t have any idea how to get started in this field. I have read books and blogs by other authors, watched youtube videos on marketing. The youtube videos I’ve watched so far all seem to be ads for companies who want to sell you their services. The books seem to be out of date. The blogs seem to be internet-centric, and want me to spend all my time doing internet things; tweaking my blog site, my website, my pinterest boards, doing the social network thing, tweeting … a whole long list.Be on my social networks several times a day? I’m not great at small talk, so what do you suggest I say? Especially since this is supposed to be part of my marketing plan. I can’t go on Facebook 3 times a day and just say, “Have you read my latest story yet?” People would quickly unfriend me, and I wouldn’t blame them.Also, the more time I spend trying to get my name in front of potential readers by tweaking my presence on the internet, the less time I have to write. It seems a vicious circle; if I don’t write, I have nothing to market. If I follow this advice on marketing, I have no time to write, and soon would have nothing to market.Marketing may be just one more hat for authors to wear these days, but it’s not a hat I care for. Maybe I’ll get used to it, in time.

Science Fiction Soap Opera Serial

I’ve been getting encouragement to serialize one of my stories on the internet. This is a use of the internet that I’ve been watching with interest, but uncertain if I should try my hand at it. With the encouragement I mentioned, I have decided to dive in.In the last few years, I’ve heard of authors who wrote each installment of their serial moments before they were due to post that installment. That was part of what scared me about this process; I know perfectly well my first draft is NOT ready to be read by anybody. I expect At Least 3 rewrites before it might be suitable to be seen.Once I realized that, I looked through what stories I had, either ‘done’ or nearly done, to decide which one I would serialize: No, those are all shorts; that’s a long short, but not long enough; this one is long enough, and done, but is currently out looking for a home. Hmmmm.It’s surprising how few novel length works I have finished (1). I have 2 or 3 others ‘in the works’, meaning about half of the rough draft is done. And then I remembered Mac.I have said I would probably never publish Mac. I have also said that when I work on Mac’s story, I get sucked in so deeply, I can’t get any work done on anything else. But the truth is that “Mac, Book 1” is mostly done, except for a few highly emotional scenes at the end that I simply didn’t feel capable of writing a decade ago when I last worked on it. Since then, I have roughed the first 100 pages of “Mac, Book 2” and the first 25 pages of “Mac, Book 3”. So, I know where Mac is headed, and apparently, I don’t HAVE to spend months and months at a time enmeshed in Mac’s problems.For the last couple weeks, I have been working on preparing the story into ‘bite-sized’ sections. I have also continued to rewrite some shorts and work on another novel. It seems Mac has learned to share my attention.So, “Mac, Book 1” will start being serialized on Tuesday, 1January2013. I am setting it up on Blogspot, and will make a Grand Announcement on New Year’s Day, so watch for it. I am trying for installments of about 1,000 to 1,200 words, and I will post one each Tuesday. If people get engrossed in Mac’s antics and don’t want to wait an entire week for the next section, I will post a price for the next section to be posted early, probably about $10. I am not proposing that 1 person must send me the full amount; the readers could use the comments section to alert each other to how much they are chipping in. As soon as I receive the payment, I will post the next section.I think you’ll like Mac. She’s a lot of fun. Or a constant irritant. And sometimes both.

One Planet With Four Suns

SF authors are not adverse to exploring alien planets. I remember a story that took place on a planet that had a severely elliptical orbit around its sun. I don’t remember details of the orbit, but let’s say it took this planet 100 Earth years to go around its sun once. For about 75 of those years, the planet was too cold to sustain life. Everything hibernated. As the planet finally approached the sun, things thawed out; people, plants and animals woke up and went about their business. They would have about 8 (of our years) of an ever-warming spring, an equally long hot, hot summer and then a gradually cooling autumn before they all hibernated again. Weird, huh?A lot of planets these authors explore have multiple moons. Sometimes a colony would be on a world orbiting a binary star. I was as fascinated by reading about these unusual planets as the authors were in their exploration of them.At that time, the existence of planets outside our own solar system was an unknown. These days, scientists seem to be finding them all over the place, and the assumption is that they’ve only seen the glint shining off the iceberg.I was thumbing through the latest Discover magazine, which goes through the top 100 discoveries made in 2012. It states over 100 planets were discovered in 2012, and it had brief descriptions of 3 of them. The one that really caught my attention was PH1, which orbits a binary star. That was enough to make me remember the unusual planets I read about as a kid, but PH1 doesn’t stop there. PH1’s binary stars are also orbited by another binary star!Try and imagine what days and nights would be like on PH1. I’ve tried, but my brain circuits tend to start sizzling after a while. To get you started, remember that 2 suns would be in the sky each day, although twice a year, one of those stars would be behind the other. The other two suns would be even further away, I assume, and I’m not sure how close they would need to be in order to be seen from the planet as ‘small suns’ and not just a pretty light. If they are seen as little suns, they would spend most of their time also in the daylight sky, perhaps disappearing behind the big suns, or being faded out by the light of the big suns. At regular intervals, however, the little suns would emerge from behind the big suns and move around to the night time sky for several years until they slipped back into the daytime again.And that brings us to nomenclature and religion of any people living on PH1. Would they call it First and Second sunrise, First and Second sunset, with a special term for when the main suns appear to be merged? Would they have special terms for the ‘night suns’? Would the small suns be seen as ‘enemies’, sneaking behind the planet for nefarious means? What do you think?I’m going to put this in a pot on the back burner and see if a story grows.

A Fistful of Ideas

I had many reasons to start going to science fiction conventions. They had interesting and informative panels. It was a way to meet authors whose work I had read (and agents and editors, I later learned). The dealer’s room had stuff to buy that I’d probably never glimpse in my mundane life. The art show had fantastic art that I could appreciate and drool over. The costumes (cosplay) filled me with awe and desire. When I wrote as a ‘hobby’, I frequently came home from an sf convention with lots of ideas for stories.These days, sf conventions can offer even more to the fledgling author. Necronomicon (Tampa area) was just full of ideas. I did not see any representatives of big publishers or magazines at that con, but there were plenty of small publishers and self publishers. They were eager to share what they had learned without the help of ‘the big boys’.At one panel, a small press handed out copies of a boiler-plate contract that an author might be asked to sign. Then they spent 2 hours going through that contract, pointing out the ‘not good’ sections, what made them troublesome and what to ask for instead. We could take notes on our copies and take them with us. Contract Negotiation 001 at a convention!A self-published author gave a panel on how to do a successful kickstarter project. This was something that I’d been trying to find the courage to try, so I bought her book on the subject, inhaled it in a couple hours, and found a couple aspects of a kickstarter project that I had not considered before. I am planning to start my kickstarter project early in 2013. That will give me time to be sure I’ve ironed all the wrinkles out my plan.Another author encouraged us to incorporate. According to her, it can be done for $0, if you slog through the forms yourself, instead of hiring someone to do it for you. Perhaps that’s true in Florida, but in Nebraska, you must pay filing fees. Still, the cost is less than I expected, and raising that money will be the MoonPhaze’s first gofundme project.An independent film-maker got his start on utube, using screenplays written by his wife.One author puts ‘episodes’ of a book on her website every week. These were sections of about 1000 words. A new one went up on a particular day, and she had several readers. If those readers wanted to read more before the scheduled posting of the next section, they could send in money for the next section. She posts an extra section for each $15 she receives in a week, and the readers discuss who could pay how much, so that they can pool their money. Some weeks, she is paid to post 2 or even 3 extra sections.A whole fistful of ideas, obtained from one sf convention. Yeah, well worth the few dollars of membership.

When Life Skips a Beat

What happened to November? When November started, I was in Florida, attending conventions and theme parks and fighting a sore throat. I came home, got through the sore throat and on Thanksgiving Day, we headed for a con in Indianapolis. (Note to self – pack sandwiches for the day when traveling on a major holiday – we could not find any restaurants open during the drive nor when we got there.) Got home from that and had to start Christmas shopping. On November 30th, I fell on a frozen patch of sidewalk that looked bone dry. After a week of aching and hobbling around the house, I woke up realizing that I’d been so busy with other things all this time, I’d forgotten … my blog!Sometimes life is like that. You get so busy, juggling so many things, that it’s easy for something to slip out of the mix and you don’t notice it for some time. It’s a real pain when it happens in your life.It should be a real pain to a fictional character, too, if the author chooses to use it as a device to move the plot forward. If the heroine is too busy to remember to hire a handyman to clean out her gutters, a hard rain could overflow those gutters and flood her basement. The new neighbor who’s been trying to meet her might come to her rescue when he sees her out in the downpour, trying to wrestle a ladder into position. After he cleans out her gutter so it isn’t overflowing, she pulls him inside to dry off, and … nature takes over. (Thanks, Linda, for that suggestion.) But hot neighbor aside, she still needs to dry out and clean up her basement. If she forgets to do that, she’ll have a mold problem to deal with!This kind of thing happens to everybody. Or at least, it happens to enough people that people say it happens to everybody. So it wouldn’t be out of line for it to happen in a story … as long as ‘fallen balls’ don’t run rampant throughout the story. And now I have to try not to let it happen again in my story.

Necronomicon

This post was actually written on Oct 28, 2012, but I didn't have access to the internet to get it posted.My husband and I have been exploring some Florida conventions these last few years, and particularly this year. This weekend, we have been at Necronomicon, a 31-year-old sf convention held in Tampa/St Petersburg.I like this con! Even though there are apparently no ‘big publishers’ in attendance, or even any big book sellers, this con is strongly centered on books. There are a number of small presses and self-published authors here, eager to share whatever knowledge they have gleaned with others. So there are plenty of panels that concentrate on writing, contracts and so on. Even though these panels might be touching on subjects that I may have heard about at many other conventions over the years, I am hearing them discussed by authors I haven’t already heard a dozen times. And publishing is in such flux right now, it is good to get information from as many sources as you can.Many of the panelists here also have some sort of science background, so there are panels on science subjects also. I have always like science, but I seldom seem to see science panels at the midwest conventions I usually attend. These are not ‘classes’ like one would take in school, but discussions on a specific topic that sometimes wander off topic, sometimes get a bit silly, but they are entertaining and also a call to a person’s curiosity. Certainly they have called to mine.Now, I don’t mean to imply that this is all that is happening at Necronomicon. Absolutely not. There are several rooms devoted to gaming, both tabletop and computer, a video room, dealer’s room and art show... . A concert on Saturday night preceded the costume call. And the costumes run the gamut from D&D characters to anime, Dr Who, Joker & Harlequin, Poison Ivy, steampunk, space armor, Chathulu - a wonderful pantheon of imagination and craftsmanship!I’m going to give some serious thought to coming back next year.

Reading to Escape

I recently heard an interview with Nora Roberts, aired on PBS. Ms Roberts writes romance. Yeah, I think I heard half of you gasp that I would even mention THAT genre. Why? What is your objection to romance novels?It’s written for women? I suspect that – like most novels – it’s written for whoever enjoys reading it. There are some men who read romances, and some women who wouldn’t be caught dead with one in their hands.It’s written by women? Not exclusively. Anyway, can you name a genre that doesn’t have women writing it? Fantasy, science fiction, mystery, horror, paranormal, thriller … they all have women writing them. The most likely genre I can think of that might not have any women writing it is western. Since I’ve dabbled in that genre myself, I’m not sure there are no women-written westerns.It’s pure escapism? What genre isn’t? I read fantasies about witches and dragons to escape the drudgery and stresses of my real life. The truth is that any novel I pick up and read offers an opportunity to set aside my life for a few hours and escape into somebody else’s life. It helps me put my mundane problems in perspective.Women who read romance are missing something at home? Where does that come from? It’s true that when I read about witches and dragons, I don’t have any of those at home. When I read a western, I don’t have gun fights at home. But love, romance and a loving relationship are different. I have a husband, and we’ve been together about three decades. We have our ups and downs, like every couple, but the current state of our relationship has no bearing on whether or not I choose to read a romance next. When I do read a romance, it’s nice to have the literary confirmation that relationships require work.Ms Roberts has over 200 romance novels out. She has sold so many copies, I understand that she is one of the most popular authors in the world. And romance, as a genre, comprises more than half the paperback fiction sales. That means less than half the fiction paperbacks sold are the other genres, including mainstream and literary. Evidently, there’s a lot of people out there who like to read about love, romance and relationships.

Writer's Block

What should I do when I find myself unable to figure out what comes next in a story? How do other writers handle this kind of situation?1. Some writers figure they’ve taken a wrong turn, and back up a few pages, turn the story in a different direction. 2. Others bang out their word count each day, no matter how bad it is, until some kind of answer comes to them. At that point, they may throw out everything they’ve written since the ‘block’ first occurred, but at least they’ve been working. 3. Still others shove that project into a back corner of their mind and work on something else until their subconscious figures out what went wrong.I don’t do #2. I don’t like to sit in front of my computer without actually doing something. And sitting here banging out c**p I’m pretty sure I’ll wind up throwing away strikes me as just as big a time-waster. I have done #3 a few times. Some of those projects are still shoved into a back corner, and others have resulted in my doing #1.But I have a step I do before I do anything else, to see if I really am stuck. I examine the current scene and situation of my characters, not from the point of view of being the author, but from the point of view of the characters involved. What got them to this point? How would they react in this situation? I look at ‘my’ stories as tales told me by the characters. So if we get to a point that I don’t understand, perhaps I just need more information from those characters. Maybe they’ve been embarrassed to explain themselves more fully and I need to converse with them, understand what they’ve been through. In that case, I may need to make a few changes to help explain things better to the reader (shades of #1), but I can go on.If the characters are confused and don’t have answers, then I truly have my work cut out for me. That’s when I move to #3 – put the project aside until my characters and I can figure out what’s what.Goodness, there’s plenty of characters and stories out there for me to work on in the meantime.

Over and Over and Over Again

Every time I go to a science fiction convention, I try to attend some panels on writing. It might concern a new idea on how to write a rough draft, or tips on writing a query letter … There are lots of subjects dealing with writing that can be explored.I have noticed, over the years, that some things get repeated and repeated, like submission guidelines. The speaker(s) start with the basics; the manuscript should be on normal white paper, double-spaced, normal paragraph indentations, the font should be 12 point, probably in a serif-type font like Times New Roman, and your manuscript should be absolutely error-free. Well, as close to error-free as you can possibly get it.That was pretty much the gist of it 40 years ago, when I first started looking at the possibility of submitting something. Things were done on typewriters back then, so an occasional typo neatly corrected by pen was acceptable.These days, the editors assume you are working on a computer, and they expect that between your rewrites, spell-checker and self-editing, there won’t be any typos. Many editors also expect you will send your manuscript via email.For that reason, today’s speakers on how to make submissions go on to say that you should always consult that market’s submissions guidelines, and look for their particular desires in a submission’s formatting. Maybe this editor prefers Helvatica rather than Times New Roman, or wants the entire manuscript submitted in the body of your email, rather than as an attachment.For many years, I wondered why they kept repeating the same stuff all the time. I had heard it all before, I followed their suggestions, and I always followed the instructions of the market’s guidelines. Why were they pounding on me like this?Now that I’ve been helping Tommee work through her slush pile, I understand that those speakers were not necessarily speaking to me. The MoonPhaze Publishing submission guidelines (www.MoonPhazePub.wix.com/MoonPhaze) state that manuscripts should be sent as a .doc file (NOT .docx) attached to their email. One day, she got 2 submissions, and neither one was sent as a .doc file! One came as a pdf, the other as a .docx. So much for following the guidelines!I’ve seen one ‘submission’ that didn’t even follow the basic guidelines for formatting. Instead, it was sent as if it were already a book; single-spaced lines, no contact info, title page and dedication.So, I’ll still go to these ‘basic submission’ panels, in case changes are introduced. But I will no longer feel they are nagging at me . They harp on these things for the benefit of newer writers, or those writers who think they don’t need to follow a few simple guidelines.