Angela B. Macala-Guajardo's Blog, page 13

I’m an Artist, But I’m Not Rich or Starving

I dedicate this blog entry to all you writers, actors, artists, sculptors, dancers, musicians, etc.

I went to a party last week and the revelation that I’m a writer worked its way into it. And so did mention of my paying job. The kind gentleman made the usual quip about my paying job being my day job, thus inadvertently insulting my pursuit of writing as a career choice. My initial reaction was torn between a scream and cry. Both accurately expressed how I felt. Instead I calmly explained that my day job is actually writing, that I’m constantly brainstorming, building scenes, and generating lore while earning wages doing honest work. I don’t remember his response. I was too busy trying to contain my anguish at having someone make that starving artist joke yet again. I think he lapsed into silence and I wandered away.

I don’t hate him, or the others who’ve asked about my “real” day job. It just saddens me, yet hardens my resolve to succeed at my calling.

Being an artist means…

-combatting stigmas

-following your heart, your passion, even when others tell you it’s a waste of time

-being broke

-getting a thrill out of seeing your creativity grow

-wondering if you’ll ever stop living paycheck to paycheck

-making friends in unexpected places and at unforeseen times

-working in restaurants and just about any customer service job

-having steel fortitude and determination

-working hard with no guarantee of success

-constant rejection

-learning life lessons that make you stronger and wiser

-so much “not quite”, “close”, “not good enough”, “maybe another time”

-sacrificing sleep in the name of art and creativity

-having a mind that works differently than those around you, one that cannot fathom forbearing following one’s heart just to have a secure job

-admiring those who’ve made it and emulating their successful behaviors and choices

-being intimately familiar with hard work

-pursing a nebulous and subjective concept of success

-accepting and perhaps embracing the stigma that creative types are a bit nutty

-being put down for not having chosen a more practical career path, despite all the movies, music, sports, etc. that are idolized, worshipped and whatnot all over the globe

-knowing quite well where fantasy and reality ends (for the most part; assumptions and lack of information skew this)

-you’ve picked one of the greatest callings in life

There’s so many more things I could list pertaining to the wearying and eroding aspect of being an artist, but I don’t want this post to be a downer; just heartfelt.

I’m happiest and most at peace when I’m working on my writing. I can’t bring myself to live a life waking up dreading slogging through my day job five times a week or more. I have done that. I did it for years. But no more.

What does being an artist mean for you, whether you’re an artist or not? I’d love to hear both the positive and negative. I’ll give a pep talk to anyone in need of it.

“Life is about the journey, not the destination.” It’s so true. I hate this truth, yet I’m trying so hard to accept and embrace it. I’m not there yet, but I’m a lot closer than I was just this past summer. Success doesn’t happen instantly or overnight. Success is earned. I’m in the process of earning it, and I’m not starving.

Please Stop Assuming Artists Can Only Be Rich or Starving

I dedicate this blog entry to all you writers, actors, artists, sculptors, dancers, musicians, etc.

I went to a party last week and the revelation that I’m a writer worked its way into it. And so did mention of my paying job. The kind gentleman made the usual quip about my paying job being my day job, thus inadvertently insulting my pursuit of writing as a career choice. My initial reaction was torn between a scream and cry. Both accurately expressed how I felt. Instead I calmly explained that my day job is actually writing, that I’m constantly brainstorming, building scenes, and generating lore while earning wages doing honest work. I don’t remember his response. I was too busy trying to contain my anguish at having someone make that starving artist joke yet again. I think he lapsed into silence and I wandered away.

I don’t hate him, or the others who’ve asked about my “real” day job. It just saddens me, yet hardens my resolve to succeed at my calling.

Being an artist means…

-combatting stigmas

-following your heart, your passion, even when others tell you it’s a waste of time

-being broke

-getting a thrill out of seeing your creativity grow

-wondering if you’ll ever stop living paycheck to paycheck

-making friends in unexpected places and at unforeseen times

-working in restaurants and just about any customer service job

-having steel fortitude and determination

-working hard with no guarantee of success

-constant rejection

-learning life lessons that make you stronger and wiser

-so much “not quite”, “close”, “not good enough”, “maybe another time”

-sacrificing sleep in the name of art and creativity

-having a mind that works differently than those around you, one that cannot fathom forbearing following one’s heart just to have a secure job

-admiring those who’ve made it and emulating their successful behaviors and choices

-being intimately familiar with hard work

-pursing a nebulous and subjective concept of success

-accepting and perhaps embracing the stigma that creative types are a bit nutty

-being put down for not having chosen a more practical career path, despite all the movies, music, sports, etc. that are idolized, worshipped and whatnot all over the globe

-knowing quite well where fantasy and reality ends (for the most part; assumptions and lack of information skew this)

-you’ve picked one of the greatest callings in life

There’s so many more things I could list pertaining to the wearying and eroding aspect of being an artist, but I don’t want this post to be a downer; just heartfelt.

I’m happiest and most at peace when I’m working on my writing. I can’t bring myself to live a life waking up dreading slogging through my day job five times a week or more. I have done that. I did it for years. But no more.

What does being an artist mean for you, whether you’re an artist or not? I’d love to hear both the positive and negative. I’ll give a pep talk to anyone in need of it.

“Life is about the journey, not the destination.” It’s so true. I hate this truth, yet I’m trying so hard to accept and embrace it. I’m not there yet, but I’m a lot closer than I was just this past summer. Success doesn’t happen instantly or overnight. Success is earned. I’m in the process of earning it, and I’m not starving.

Pot That Plot and Watch it Grow

The picture you see captures some brainstorming going on. I addressed all my major characters, and a couple minor ones, and asked them two things: what do they want most, and how are they gonna get it? All those scribbles answer them, and from that a third book will be born. More pages are to come, but they will most like get stuck in a notebook, instead of taped to the wall. I’m running out of space and I have a kitten that would shred them off the wall. Those eight pages you see are hopefully out of the danger zone, the path to the window.

Anyway, I’ve never actually plotted a book this way before. Usually I outline. And usually the story doesn’t stick to my outline. But that’s not the point. The outlines help me stay focused and keep a sense of direction. If the story goes in a direction other that what’s been jotted down in my outline, I go with it. What I just about always keep are what I call “checkpoints”, moments in a story I know I’m working towards. I’ve had some checkpoints in my head for years now, but with book three finally at bat, I’ll finally be getting them on paper within the next year. Funny thing is, the end of Hesitation deviated from a checkpoint I’d held on to since the beginning of 2012. We’ll see what happens to book three’s checkpoints soon enough.

My new approach to plotting (I’m using that term loosely) spawned from all I’ve learned in the past few years. I completed a Master’s in Creative & Professional Writing, but all those lessons my writing mentors were trying to impart on me didn’t really sink in until I started revising my five-year-old draft of book two. The biggest lesson I had to learn, I think, was how to have the characters drive the plot, instead of the plot drive the characters. You actually don’t need plot to write a story (think of movies like The Shining and American Beauty). Story is all about what characters want and how they’re gonna get it. What made me skip outlining and go straight to brainstorming was my main antagonist. His want has been driving the plot for so long, but in book three he’s challenged to decide how bad he really wants what he wants, for he’s got a lot to lose if he keeps going in the direction he’s headed.

And while I was brainstorming, I reviewed this binder full of notes that have been tucked away for the past eight years, back when Aerigo used to be called Virago and all sorts of funny little things I had to change. Since I write fantasy, I try to make up names, but I keep finding out that what I made up has already been taken by someone else. The one name that gave me goosebumps is “Kismet.” I named a world Kismet, having no clue that it was a real word that means “fate”, until a cousin of mine pointed it out. May you get the same goosebumps when you read Hesitation.

In addition to throwaway names, roughly 90% of the ideas sitting in that binder are throwaway ones. I grimaced as I brainstormed on how to make the book longer, instead learning where the heart of the story lies. Man, that’s embarrassing to admit. Yes, I was only 19 and I hadn’t started reading ravenously until 16-ish, but still, excuses to lengthen a book?!

Book three/Determination daunts me. I want to do well, so I keep finding excuses to do anything but start tackling chapter one. I’ve promised myself that I’ll hop to it starting this weekend. I will. The tale gets really dark in this one. Hopefully not too dark. I want it to be gripping like the Mord’sith section of Terry Brook’s Wizard’s First Rule. That was one of the most gripping things I’ve read in all of fantasy. The hero was stuck in this dire situation with absolutely no clue how to get out. I couldn’t put the book down because I wanted Brook’s hero out of there so badly. I hope to emulate it. Wish me luck!

I feel like this blog entry deserves a poll. I’ve been to a few writers conferences and heard lots of bs regarding how an author should approach writing a book. The truth of the matter is that there’s no one universal right way. Us writers all think and write differently. But I’m curious…

Take Our Poll

The Third Tome Wakes

Yep. Done drafting Hesitation. The way is clear for beginning the third, along with one other book I’ve been eager to write for a year now. Book three of my “Aigis” trilogy is called Determination. I’ll be drawing up an outline that’ll look like someone splattered a bunch of ideas on it abstract painting style. I’ll be concurrently outlining and drafting a standalone fantasy novel tentatively titled  To Oceann’s End. It’s the story of a seafaring captain in a post-apocalyptic Earth who can never find a moment to eat a cheeseburger in peace. For the life of me, I can’t recall how that story came into being. I think it was another dream I had, but I could be totally wrong. My brain says it was spontaneously generated. My logic says my brain is full of crap.

Anyway…

I did attempt a drawing sketch. I’m rusty but I still have some skill. And I need real pencils to draw, not this fail piece of plastic containing “liquid lead.” Stupid thing did nothing but scratch up the paper, unless I held it at a ninety-degree angle.

Test reading will commence by Sunday. Right now I’m reading Hesitation beginning to end so I can get a feel for the arc of the whole book. If I’m satisfied, a bunch of people will be scrambling to check their inboxes. So far, so good on the read through. The sentence structuring in chapter one is a bit distracting, but that’s not what’s important at this stage. It’s all about content. There’s no point in line editing until I know the content is going to stay.

Oftentimes, being a fantasy writer, I wonder if I must be crazy. I’ve got these universes, alternate realities, people and their histories–all these made-up things in my head, and I swear there’s a sort of reality to them. I don’t just “make stuff up” and turn it into a book. I’ve sat down and interviewed characters and they’ve supplied me with information about themselves I did’t come up with myself. I admit I’ve tried to force a few characters to be a certain way. That works as well as it does in reality. I recognize when I do this when I spend more time staring at my screen than I do writing. Also, I feel frustration–perhaps not mine, but rather my characters’. Everything I type out feels wrong, like that gut feeling you get when you’re driving somewhere new and you inadvertently start heading in the wrong direction. You turn around and try again, until you feel out the correct path. I’m not sure how to explain this, so here’s (hopefully) a decent example free of spoilers:

In chapter 28 of Hesitation, Roxie, my main protagonist, did something I didn’t expect her to do. In fact, she didn’t even expect it, but now she has to live with the consequences of her actions. Still, she handled it better than both I and Aerigo (other main protagonist) expected. This example will become clearest once you read the book and learn what happens.

So how can my characters do things I don’t expect when I’m the one who made them up? Good question. Good. Frickin’. Question. The answer is simple, yet intricate. Writers attempt to reproduce reality through their writing. I let my characters have free reign of my imagination. In turn, they fascinate me to no end. It’s not the greatest answer by far, but perhaps this is one of those things where it’s better to not ask how it works, but simply trust that it does and enjoy the results.

Being a fantasy writer, not only do I have to emulate it, but I have to suspend your disbelief into believing these fantastical possibilities are real in these realities I’ve created. Tolkien called this quest/process “high fiction.” He had a deep respect for the effort put into world-building. You can read about it in The Liberation of the Imagination, written by Richard Mathews.

The title of this blog entry was inspired by the shift in my thoughts immediately after I finished drafting book two. Book three has been sitting quietly in the back of my mind for years, waiting patiently for its turn to be written down. As soon as my head hit my pillow, ideas and plot points began drifting along my fading conscious thoughts. The next morning they picked right up where they left off, and I spent the entire day wondering what was gonna happen next. I have plot points for Determination, but my characters will show me how we connect those dots, or they might even skip a few of them. We shall see.

Now, if you want a great example of how writing has a life of its own, I’d originally planned to have this entry focus entirely on plot and plotting. That didn’t go as planned now, did it?

Now That’s a Fight

I’m considering doing sketches for my posts, so you can have visuals to go with my entries. “Considering” is the operative word.

Being a fan of action-packed books and movies, being a gamer and martial artist, and having dabbled in stage combat for theatre, my writing is full of action and fight scenes. I love watching good fight choreography on stage and onscreen, along with scenes written blow-by-blow that have you reading as fast as you can. There’s something riveting about watching to see who’s gonna win the fight, and how.

I don’t understand where this love of mock-violence comes from. All the Jackie Chan movies contain creative choreography where Jackie’s characters implement what’s available around him, along with what his assailants throw at him, to defend and fight back. The choreography cracks me up. I never tire of it or the blooper reels. Other choreography that sticks out to me is that from the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie. I’d never seen anything like it before. It’s so witty and creative. It got me laughing and glued my attention to the screen. A third good example is the fight scenes with light sabers from Star Wars. Of course, there’s a full ensemble belting out “Duel of the Fates”, which makes all that action sing. Maybe one day eBooks will contain playlists so you can have music accompanying all the drama unfolding on the page. eReaders’ll have scanners that detect eye movement, and the appropriate music start playing once you hit the correct line. The music can loop if you read slow, or compensate if you speed through all them words. Just an idea.

Despite all the crippling and lethal moves I’m being taught via Kempo, I don’t like causing pain. I can’t stomach cage matches where blood is drawn, bones are broken, and fighters knock each other senseless (I doubt that’s obvious from some of the fight sequences I’ve written). However, I love to spar, which involves fighting for points, not knockouts. It’s a strategy game where two people see how fast they can anticipate the other’s moves and counter with blocks and attacks. It’s artful. Still, I have inadvertently caused pain while sparring. When my legs get tired, my kicks drift lower and lower, which every once in a while sends a man to the floor in a heap. Sorry about that.

Bearing all the above in mind, it’s inspired and motivated me to emulate their awesomeness as best I can. It takes three drafts on average to reach the results you see in Anticipation. They start out as sketches in my head–I rarely outline the fight on paper–and then I type out the fight I’ve been thinking about all day. Yes, I think out the fights, so I often drafts them several times over in my head before I get home and put my fingertips to my keyboard. I read through my typed draft, make inspirational changes, and then I let it sit for either hours, until the end of the day, or until the next day. The break lets me review the scene with fresh eyes, and I get a feel for the pace and flow of the scene so I know where to speed up, slow down, clarify or tighten descriptions, and maybe even beef up the action some more. That’s essentially it.

I didn’t start Kempo until after Anticipation was published. There might be a noticeable shift in fight creativity in future books. We’ll see. Whatever happens, one goal of mine is to make the fighting not seem like it comes from Earth, since my characters come from worlds scattered all over the universe. I try to have my choreography reflect my characters’ fight styles, personalities, and cultures. Aerigo’s fight style is the most challenging since he’s been so many places and learned so much. It’s like Kempo on crack with magic thrown in. I really have to sit and think about what he can do and what he’d choose to do. I’ll elaborate more in another post where I focus on Aerigo and where his personality and character comes from.

Progress on Hesitation: roughly 2/3 of the way through chapter 28 and 130.6k words in. Just two chapters left after this one. *bites on knuckles* Must keep quiet about content! I can’t wait to bring this one to bookshelves. You’ll all see a marked improvement in my writing skills and storytelling capacity. I will need test readers soon.

To Bookshelves

I’d like to give you all some control over what I blog. That way I’ll know I’m not boring anyone. What questions do you have for me? In the meantime…

The publishing process has been looming over my conscious thoughts lately. As I sit tight, waiting for the independent publisher to put together the new cover art, spine, back of the jacket, and internal formatting, along with my ePublisher to update the eBook version, I constantly remind myself to stop worrying, and that I must consider myself lucky.

The journey to bookshelves is merciless, full of rejection, empty of guarantee of success, and requires a strength of will that can self-motivate day after day without reward. It separates those who think they can imitate success like J.K. Rowling and make a quick buck from those who want to become authors, heart and soul. This isn’t universally true. The literary industry is a business, after all. If you’re famous and you want to write a book, you’ll find yourselves on bookshelves in no time.

Yes, it gives me the smallest twinges of jealousy; however, the harder I work for the success I hope to achieve, the more gratifying the journey and destination. That I believe.

The path to bookshelves:

It all starts with writing a book. Write it. Complete it. Revise and revise it. Then get it published. The traditional route involved hunting down the perfect agent, pitch your book in a query letter (a monumental pain in the ass to compose), the agent says yes, who then pitches your book to publishing houses, one of them says yes, a battle over the details of a contract ensues, everyone reaches an agreement, and then your book is put into production and, ultimately, in the hands of readers. This route still exists. It’s the sturdiest route, yet it’s become archaic.

I tried the traditional route for a couple of years before deciding there had to be a better way. I turned out to be both right and wrong.

Query letters are like cover letters, but the main problem is agents are looking for an excuse to reject you. One little typo or misspelling is their excuse to not spend any more of their precious time on you. On top of that, you’re almost always being screened by a college-age intern. It’s all subjective.

Back in August, I went to my grad school’s residency and listened to agents talk. They all agreed that they reject 99% of the queries that come their way. They get hundreds of them every week. Hundreds. I have a hunch the number is closer to 99.9%, but that’s pure guesswork. So, with that in mind, walk into a book store and take another gander at all the overflowing shelves. The books you see are but a tiny fraction of all the prose out there. Even with all the rejection letters agents dish out, publishers reject a large portion of what agents bring to them (publishers don’t work directly with authors anymore).

The odds of getting published often seem astronomical, yet here I sit with an eBook to my name and a physical version in the works. I have two independent publishers to thank for that, along with my grad school and the modest network I built there.

I want my writing to be successful, heart and soul. I struggle to explain what that means, since so many people don’t seem to understand that I must follow my heart, instead of just grabbing what I can to keep the bills paid. I can’t live my life feeling like a slave to all the bills that come my way. Instead, I do without what I don’t need and accept having to stay in employment to enjoy what I don’t want to live without, like internet, a computer, video games, and keeping my cats healthy.

Progress on Hesitation: in the middle of chapter 26 and roughly 122k words total.

Beginnings

Since this is the beginning of my blog and my writing career, I believe blogging about writing the beginning of the trilogy is appropriate.

One of my undergrad teachers told my class, “Beginnings and endings are the hardest parts of a book to write.” I agreed with him on endings (that’ll be a blog for another day), but beginnings? What was so hard about that? Just jump into the action and avoid starting with your main character waking up. Oh, how naive and novice I was…

It took me about seven years to peg page one of Anticipation. Seven years. I scrapped over fifty pages, one character, several scenes of back-and-forth between Aerigo and Daio I was rather fond of, and a prologue of another ten pages that used to be chapter 13–or was it 12? I don’t remember anymore, other than it was right between the cruise ship and Sconda. 

The prologue didn’t appear until last year and didn’t get removed until this year. So, technically you could say it took me nine years to get page one right. Long story short: adding the prologue was a mistake my thesis mentors and I made. I had a gut feeling ever since we did that, but I didn’t trust my gut until the literary agent I met this past August agreed with me that it indeed “sucks.” It more confuses reader than grounds them, and makes you wait ten agonizing pages to meet the main character of the story. Not good. On top of that, no one reads prologues these days. Heck, even I skipped them when I was a teenager.

After all that hacking, chopping, chiseling, and learning, page one finally began to take shape. 

Now, the first sentence of any book I write is fashioned after a very happenstance moment in my childhood. My dad likes Stephen King books. He had a bunch tucked away on some shelves in the basement. One day I went down there and started reading one. The first line went something like this: “Holy hell! What was that?” And then the character turns around his car to get a second, better look.

Just the way it sucked me in and got me moving right along with the characters so instantaneously, so effortlessly… there couldn’t be a better way to start a book. I love the feeling of being dropped in the middle of action and wanting to know/get what the character wanted. Hopefully I’ve achieved that with Roxie.

A draft of chapter 24 of book two, currently titled Hesitation, is done. Six chapters to go before massive edits and rewrites begin. 

Debut

Welcome to my blog. I’m S.M. Welles, author of Anticipation (book one of the Aigis trilogy). Call me S.M. or Miss Welles.

This blog is all about the books I write. I’ll be sharing my unique writing process, how I create and develop characters, and where their personalities and histories come from, etc., announcements for book signing events and whatnot as they come, and keep you informed on the progress of the book(s) I’m currently drafting. I will take the time to blog spoiler-free answers to any and all questions you post, and maybe even post preview writing samples, along with content that doesn’t make it into final drafts.

What’s happening right now:

This is actually a transformative stage in my writing. Life has been teaching me that I must fail many times before I learn how to succeed. What I’ve learned lately is that I need to change the title and the cover, nix the prologue, rethink my angle of approach when it comes to promoting my debut novel, and just plain get over my fear of failure. A second edition is underway, and with a really neat, simply cover. My ePublisher and I have drawn up a list of ideas to market Anticipation. Those ideas will be set into motion once the second edition is available. This means that the image under this blog’s title will change in the near future. I promise you’ll all like it.

A physical copy of the book is in the works as well, thanks to an independent house called Signalman Publishing. Their aid will open up so many doors (sorry for the cliche). Right now, I’ve been promoting my book one person at a time, be they friends, family, acquaintances I strike up random conversations with in publish, or people in the gaming universe I so much love being a part of. So terribly inefficient and insufficient, but I’ve learned from the experience.

Current writing/reading progress:

Hesitation (book two in the Aigis trilogy) has 23 chapters drafted at 111k words. Seven more chapters are slated to come. We’ll see if any go, or if more chapters crop up. I’ve learned much from completing a Master’s in Writing, and even more as I redraft book two, which is almost entire character-driven. Book one is more plot-driven, but hey, I was eighteen when I wrote it, and hadn’t discovered my love of reading until around age fifteen. I’m learning as fast as I can.

I am currently reading The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchette, and Vagina by Naomi Wolf.