Amanda Linehan's Blog, page 7

When You Just Feel Like Writing…(August 2019)

Two days ago on August 19 I saw that my last blog post was July 19.

Okay, time to get writing again!

I hadn’t consciously decided to take a break from the blog–I just did. I’ve been doing a pretty good job of showing up week after week though. I guess it just felt like a pretty good time for a little fallow period.

I’ve been reading things lately about work styles and creativity/productivity rhythms and just how different they can be for different people. Like some people’s work process will look completely disorganized and random to someone else, but it’s how they get things done best.

Meanwhile, someone else’s work process looks way too rigid and controlled to another person, even though for that first person it helps them feel organized and successful.

I write about my own work style on this blog quite a bit–I think, partly to come to understand it myself and partly to connect with other people who are similar.

Going back to my fallow period I mentioned earlier, I find it really helpful to aim for one blog post a week on this blog. It keeps me moving forward. But that’s just the thing too–it’s just a target to try and hit. I know that I’m not actually going to hit it. So when I miss a week here or there, or take a month off it’s okay. Because those breaks feel necessary to me too.

I will return to writing my novel next month–a YA fantasy thriller–after taking a couple months off to work on other things. This was actually a planned break, but more and more I find myself taking long breaks while writing novels rather than going straight through.

I used to never do that. Uncover, The Test and North were all written straight through, with North being written in a November to February period (I started it during NaNoWriMo). But both Lakeside and Bored to Death were written with substantial breaks in the writing, sometimes multiple. Maybe that’s just the way it’s going to go from now on. It’s fine. It just stretches things out longer.

However I actually have a plan for the novel I’m currently writing, and a projected publication date of sometime in June 2020. I left plenty of space in the schedule, but I’ve never really planned out the writing and publishing of a novel. Generally, it was done when it was done. So I’ll see how this goes. It’s just something to experiment with.

By the way, any of you INFPs and INFJs out there, check out The INF Club–“Riffs, reflections & inspiration for INFPs & INFJs.”

Amanda Linehan is the author of North , about a young woman on the run from her past, the law and an old adversary out to get her. Her newest release is Bored To Death: A Vampire Thriller , about a 300-year-old vampire trying to restore the balance between life and death. She has published five novels . Get a free short story every month when you sign up for her newsletter .

In Through The Exit

I was just taking a walk and thinking about how fun it is to write a character who has an impulsive reaction to something.

Fun, because they usually do something dumb and then have to deal with the consequences of it. It also typically makes no logical sense, but in the character’s mind it’s the only option in the moment.

For instance, in The Test, Silver decides that she needs to create a distraction after something goes wrong in her plan to steal the final exam answer key for her English class. I won’t say exactly what happens because I don’t want to spoil it but to the reader it should seem like a pretty ridiculous thing to do that won’t solve anything. But, in her mind, it’s absolutely the right thing–the only thing–to do at that moment.

Okay, that was a little cryptic, but I can give you an example from my own life too.

Several years ago I was headed to the library on a weekend afternoon to meet with one of my writing groups (I’m pretty sure). I pulled up to the parking garage nearby and saw that cars ahead of me weren’t able to get into the garage for some reason.

Whether it was full or whether the ticket machine was broken or something like that I don’t quite remember, but what I do remember is seeing the car in front of me simply drive in through the exit lane.

For whatever reason, the exit bar was up so it was possible to drive in that way. I was irritated that I couldn’t get into the garage and had only a few minutes before the meeting was about to start and so what did I do?

I drove in through the exit.

As soon as I did this I realized my mistake. I did not have a ticket for that garage, which meant that if the exit bar was down when I was leaving I would not be able to exit, although I thought that I might just be able to put a credit card into the machine when leaving, even if I didn’t’ have a ticket.

You know, I could have just circled around and driven back out and gone to find an appropriate parking space and been a few minutes late to my meeting. But that’s not what I did.

I parked my car, went to the meeting and upon leaving the garage, guess what? The bar was down. So I tried just using my credit card to exit. And the bar did in fact lift.

And the machine also ate my card.

So now, I was out of the garage but down a credit card and would need to report it lost and all that.

All in all, the consequences weren’t too harsh, but still, I would have hung on to my credit card if I hadn’t driven in through the exit.

Amanda Linehan is the author of North , about a young woman on the run from her past, the law and an old adversary out to get her. Her newest release is Bored To Death: A Vampire Thriller , about a 300-year-old vampire trying to restore the balance between life and death. She has published five novels . Get a free short story every month when you sign up for her newsletter .

Writers’ Open House

This Sunday–July 14, 2019–I will be participating in a Writers’ Open House at the C. Burr Artz Library in Frederick, MD from 2-3pm. There will be 15 local authors, either independently published (like myself!) or who have been published by a small press, in attendance and books will be for sale and signing.

The open house is hosted by Curious Iguana bookstore and Frederick County Public Libraries and I’m really looking forward to being there! I will have copies of The Test, Lakeside and North with me.

Live events are fun and a nice change from sitting in front of my laptop and selling books online. I recently did a reading of one of my short stories at a local “literary night” and last summer when my writing group was promoting our short story anthology, Intersections, we had a table at a local event where people could flip through the book.

So if you’re local, hope to see you there!

Getting Off Track

So it’s July. Funny how that happens.

Back in March I wrote this post–Video–about my goal to do some short videos connected to blog posts. And I did. For a while…

Catching A Story

I have a specific experience of getting a story idea and then committing that story to tangible form.

And it’s just my experience. For as many different writers as there are, there are just as many experiences of writing and the process of writing.

But, for me, when I get an inspired idea and begin to write that inspired idea, it’s like “catching a story.” Like catching it out of the air.

Lately, I’ve used writing prompts to start all my stories. So first there’s the experience of finding, or being lead, to a story prompt.

For instance, I write a story (free) every month for my newsletter. This month when I sat down to write my story, I considered my favorite prompt sources and used my intuition to be pulled toward one of the sources.

I first checked out my Twitter Prompts list, which has been a good source for me lately, but wasn’t really feeling anything there. But I was feeling drawn to a list of Erotic Story Word Prompts, even though I wasn’t going to write anything erotic (this is for my newsletter after all). I figured I could pick a few off the list and write a PG-13 or below short romance story, which is what I did.

So now that I had my words/phrases for the story, I let an idea start coming to me. I didn’t force this idea or try to have any kind of an agenda with it. It feels very much like receiving to me, rather than a more active crafting.

I tend to think of it like this: The story exists somewhere in the story realm (wherever that is) and I simply spot it and allow it to tell itself to me. Or, in other words, I catch it.

Sticking To The Plan vs. Going With The Flow

There are two opposing forces at work when I write, in terms of productivity.

One, I want to keep moving forward in a timely manner with my projects, and, two, I want to follow my creative/energetic rhythms.

If I’m too goal oriented, I may miss out on something great that I only would have found going with the flow. But, if I’m not goal oriented enough, projects may drag out unnecessarily, taking way too long to finish them.

By nature I’m more of a go-with-the-flow kind of person. I’d prefer to simply follow my intuition on how and what to work on. But I’ve found that doing a little planning and scheduling helps me move things forward. Gives me a little balance.

So I was thinking this morning–I had planned for the month of June to mostly be time to work on my novel, which means that I would work on it during my peak creative/energetic time which happens to be in the morning. So right now, for instance, according to my plan, I should be working on my novel. But I just didn’t feel like it this morning.

When I get like this I try to discern if this means I should really work on something else outside the plan or do I just sit down, open up whatever it is I’m supposed to be working on, and get to it even though I don’t totally feel like it.

In the case of this morning, I REALLY didn’t feel like working on the novel. The energy was telling me it just wasn’t there. And there were some other things I felt pulled to work on (like this blog post). However, sometimes the opposite happens.

Like, I’m generally feeling a little unenthusiastic and unexcited about my scheduled activity but I feel the best course of action is just to sit down and get started and after a little while I’ll probably get into it. I just need to push myself a little to get started.

So there you have it. My little push/pull drama that plays out on a regular basis. What about you? Stick to the plan? Go with the flow? Or, a little bit of both?

Amanda Linehan is the author of North , about a young woman on the run from her past, the law and an old adversary out to get her. Her newest release is Bored To Death: A Vampire Thriller , about a 300-year-old vampire trying to restore the balance between life and death. She has published five novels . Get a free short story every month when you sign up for her newsletter .

When You Just Feel Like Writing…(June 2019)

I’ve missed a couple of weeks on the blog.

Partly that was due to taking some time off and partly due to just being busy with other things. But I had a pretty good streak going before that. But anyway here I am back again.

There was another topic that I was considering writing about, but this “feel like writing post” won out. Maybe because it’s Friday, maybe because I didn’t feel like being structured or maybe because I’m lazy. Or maybe all three. But the important thing is that I showed up.

So, one of the things I’ve been working on the past few weeks is a re-release of my novel Dragon, which is now called The Test. It also has a new cover which you can see in the sidebar if you’re on a laptop or by clicking the menu button if you’re on mobile.

The Test is the story of teenager Silver, a raging perfectionist, who is desperate to get an A in Advanced English so she gets a group of classmates together to steal the final exam answer key from her teacher’s house. Images of dragons feature throughout this story in various ways, which is why I originally titled it that. But wouldn’t you know, when you call a story Dragon people tend to expect a fantasy and I’ve been well-aware for a while that I needed to put a new title on it. That was a good mistake. Won’t need to make that one again.

What I’m Reading, Watching and Listening To: May 2019

Reading

So I’m still making my way through Coyote America by Dan Flores. I’m about half way through and there’s some interesting stuff in there. There’s plenty I don’t know about coyotes and their place in American history so almost all of this is new to me.

One thing that’s really interested me are the various ways that coyotes have been perceived. On the one hand, you have Coyote the deity, who is the subject of some of the oldest stories from North America. He is a comically flawed figure, but a deity nonetheless. And on the other hand, you have Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries attributing all kinds of negative qualities to coyotes, “cowardly” being the one that comes to mind right now.

It makes me think about our perceptions of people, animals, events and things around us. How much do our perceptions really match the true nature of the thing we’re observing? Or do they more accurately match something within us, the observer? Questions, questions, questions…

Watching

I’m in season 6 now of Game of Thrones, and doing my best to dodge spoilers everywhere. So last weekend when I went to HBO to turn on an episode, I was surprised to find something else grab my attention instead, the documentary Leaving Neverland.

Leaving Neverland is a documentary featuring two men who tell their stories about being sexually abused by Michael Jackson as children. It was a very good documentary but it is very intense to watch.

I came away with a lot of different thoughts, one of which being about the line between The Artist and The Art. That an artist can undeniably create great art while as a human being have a host of qualities and behaviors that are dark, flawed and damaging to other people, and those two things can exist at the same time. Confusing to say the least.

And on a brighter note, I’ve been re-watching some episodes of Schitt’s Creek, while waiting for its latest season to show up on Netflix.

Schitt’s Creek is a comedy about a very wealthy family, The Roses, who lose everything, and have to go live in a rundown motel in the small town of Schitt’s Creek. It’s one of the funniest shows I’ve watched in the last several years and the characters are fantastic. David is my favorite and I love Stevie too.

One thing that’s really cool about this show is how the characters grow while still remaining themselves. The Roses are very out of place in Schitt’s Creek and their quirks and flaws are very pronounced–that’s what makes it funny. But as time goes on and they settle in to their new life, they grow as people, but they also don’t totally lose their quirks and flaws. It’s great to watch this growth while not feeling like the characters have been given personality transplants.

Listening

I just recently finished the audiobook version of The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin, which is a non-fiction book about how we deal with expectations. People can be divided into four tendencies depending on how they relate to both external and internal expectations.

I’m interested in psychology, personality and personal development so this was right up my alley. I use my Myers-Briggs personality type, INFP, in my bios because it’s an interest I have and it tells people something about me. Also helps me connect with like people. The Four Tendencies is kinda the same deal.

You learn about the four tendencies and how people of each tendency tend to interact with the world, and of course, there is a quiz you can take to determine your own tendency. I am a Questioner, which means that I resist external expectations and comply with internal expectations. This book was a really good addition to my knowledge of myself and other people. I spent some time thinking about the people in my life and what tendency they might be. Could also be good for developing characters for all you storytellers out there.

So, what are you reading, watching and listening to?

Amanda Linehan is the author of North , about a young woman on the run from her past, the law and an old adversary out to get her. Her newest release is Bored To Death: A Vampire Thriller , about a 300-year-old vampire trying to restore the balance between life and death. She has published five novels . Get a free short story every month when you sign up for her newsletter .

Some Signs You May Be Suited To Being An Indie Author

There is a lot of discussion out there on whether or not you should pursue self-publishing or traditional publishing. Much of it comes from the perspective of checking in with what your goals are and then going from there.

But what about thinking about it from the perspective of personality? I was thinking recently about what I love about being an indie author and I realized that much of it lined up with personality characteristics that I have.

So, here are some signs you may be suited to being an indie author:

You Love Variety

Oh my goodness is there a never-ending list of things that need to get done as an indie author. And the thing is, you get to do it all! Well, you’re probably hiring things out, but you still get to manage it all!

But this is actually one of things I like best about being self published–the variety of activities I get to perform.

It’s not uncommon to hear writers say that they wish they could just write and give everything else (especially marketing) over to someone else. I’m the opposite. I don’t want to just write. I would get bored just writing. That’s why I also design book covers, format files, keep up a website, do marketing, advertise, create graphics, write product descriptions, keep records for my author business, and on and on and on.

I like doing all this stuff. There is always something new to learn and I get to switch tasks a lot, which keeps me interested. As I write this, I’m realizing this is also probably why I write in multiple genres.

Writers, It’s OK To Throw Yourself A Pity Party