Patricia Hamill's Blog: I read too much! - Posts Tagged "writing"

Welcome to my blog.
I decided to start this blog to celebrate my favorite pastime, reading, and more recently, writing.

This year has been an uncommon one for me in that I've managed to totally immerse myself in the art, starting in January when I finally wrapped up my first writing project, The Golden Ship, and first considered the prospect of getting it published.

Getting published: a daunting task. What do publishers want? They want you to have an agent. Yikes, an agent? Yes, I researched it for months on Writers Digest and on various publishers' webpages. All signs pointed to an agent. Statements like, we no longer accept direct submissions, were common. So, I started researching ways to attract an agent.

What do agents want? To find out, I joined Writers Digest and started collecting notes on the new agents they advertise. New agents are an excellent opportunity for new writers, so they said. I also visited and devoted countless hours to reading the blogs of a few well established agents. My favorite was Getting past the gatekeeper. It revealed valuable insight into what agents like and things to avoid. Plus, I learned about query letters, bios, and submissions for the first time.

This was getting complicated.

So this week, I just wrapped up The First Swords, by Fred Saberhagen, fun stories I haven't read in over 10 years. Did I mention they are also huge? That's a big plus for me, because I usually devour books in a day or two.

This year I've been reading 2-3 books at a time, on average, plus writing 1-2 at a time. If it sounds exhausting, you're right, but it's worth it. I've had a lot of fun and now I have two books out there for people to enjoy.

I'm working on my third now, another completely unrelated story told from the perspective of a survivor in the zombie apocalypse, but don't worry, the sequel to Shadows of Valor is still in the works, about 25% done and I'm anticipating rolling it out in April 2013.

So, just to solidify that I do, in fact, read too much, in December and early January when I was wrapping up The Golden Ship , I was finishing up Terry Goodkind's awesome epic fantasy The Sword of Truth series for the 3rd or 4th time, starting up the Inheritance Cycle (Eragon is the first in that series) by Christopher Paolini, and starting up Robert Jordan's and Brandon Sanderson's Wheel of Time series for the 5th or 6th time (or maybe more, I re-read the whole thing every time a new one comes out).

In January, I also started writing Shadows of Valor (This of course was part of my quest to attract an agent by becoming a prolific writer).

By the time I was wrapping up The Wheel of Time again around March, I started on the Death's Gate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (probably also about the 5th or 6th time) and I finished up that 7 book series right about when I hit a stopping point on Shadows of Valor (including the first few chapters of the next volume) and began the process of final edits for The Golden Ship.

That's also about the time I got my first tablet and started the downward spiral into the reading frenzy it enabled. Let's see, since August, I've read the following:
The Morcyth Saga by Brian S. Pratt (7 books), The Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, The Black Magician Trilogy by Trudi Canavan, Shadows of the Sun, Soul Stalker and Abyss by Laura Kreitzer, Storm Front (Dresden Files #1) by Jim Butcher, Running with the Demon by Terry Brooks, and Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. That's 17 books from August to mid October, assuming I didn't forget to include any.

So, as you can see, I read too much. But that hasn't stopped me from writing, playing, working, and getting published.

More on that last one later...

Last time I detoured into a quick tally of all the books I devoured this year. This time, let's go back to where I left off.

I had come up with a few easy (read short cut) steps and worked up the courage to send a query letter to an agent. The response was swift and decisive. Either my book or my pitch was lacking. So, back to the drawing board I went.

First off, I needed to come up with some more realistic steps for attracting an agent, steps based on actual research. So here is the revised plan I came up with:

1. Write another book (or books).

2. Get published, somehow.

3. Earn a following.

4. Start a blog.

This list wasn't quite as simple as the first one, but each goal, simple or not, was a worthy accomplishment in its own right.

Maybe I wouldn't attract an agent or write the next big best seller, but what I would gain would be worth the effort. Now, all I had to do was get started.

First up, new book...

Sometimes inspiration is fickle and not even a good mind map can save the day.

This year was my first NaNoWriMo and all I knew going in was that I wanted it to be about Zombies and that it would be a journal. That's it.

These are a couple of things that worked for me:

1. Just write whatever comes to mind. That's the key to writing without a plan.

2. Free yourself to write the story that 'wants' to be told. The characters will appear when they need to appear. The plot will make itself known. The twists will shape themselves.

3. Don't resist the urge to burn down the stronghold, kill off the main love interest or otherwise foul up the lives of your characters.

4. If your story manages to define or put limitations upon some aspect of the story, such as your zombies behave in certain ways, you might want to consider keeping in those limits. If the story decides that the zombies swarm in fall and you hit fall again, by all means swarm those zombies!

5. Finally, since you didn't plan any of it, you are very likely to forget what you were up to last time you dropped your pencil or shut off the computer. So, read what you wrote (don't edit, the story might need that crazy thing you wrote last time for a surprise or two later on). Always read through the last bit and then return to number one: just write.

It's a lot of fun writing without a plan and a great way to keep going if you can't think of any details up front. However, just like any project you want to share with others, edit, rewrite and revise for the win!

Oh, and I won the NaNoWriMo challenge! I reached 50371 words on November 24, 2012. Perhaps you'll see The Zombie Logs hit the shelves in a few months once I've had a chance to tame the craziness that writing 50k words in 20 days tends to generate (started late, finished early).

Last time I visited this topic, I shared some of my tips for writing without a plan. This time, I'll discuss one of the most celebrated and tricky sources of inspiration: dreams.

Dreams. A bit cliche? Maybe, but dreams are the playground of the creative mind. All things imaginable and unimaginable are possible in dreams. The trick is remembering them when you wake up.

I don't write down my dreams, although that is one frequently recommended method. Instead, I purposefully think about the dream, what happened in it, how it made me feel, the colors, tastes and sensations it generated. What I'm doing is creating a mental roadmap to the realm of my own imaginings, one that I can revisit at a later date, perhaps even years later.

Shadows of Valor was spawned by a particularly exciting dream, the kind you want to sleep in to finish and can't help but mourn when reality crashes in. The dream was a few years old before I decided to map it out in a notebook and take a shot at writing a story about it, but even now I can picture it in my mind: the wild freedom of flight, the fear of being discovered in hostile territory, the heartache of falling for the enemy, and the life and death struggle for survival when everything falls apart.

There's nothing like waking, your heart racing, and realizing you've just experienced something truly epic. Don't let that moment escape your grasp. Write it down, map it out in your mind, draw a picture, or wake up your partner and tell them about it (even if they grumble a bit).  

And, keep this little tidbit in mind. A dream doesn't have to be yours to provide inspiration. The next time a friend or family member volunteers their latest foray into the strange and wonderful, listen carefully lest you miss out on something extraordinary.

My plans for attracting an author include: 1) writing more books, 2) getting those books published, 3) gaining followers, and 4) writing a blog.

I can say I have made quite a bit of progress since I first thought up my plan to attract an agent.

I've completed one book, drafted another and am working on the draft for a third. All these in addition to The Golden Ship, the book that first made me consider getting an agent. Shadows of Valor is, of course, already published and I've mentioned it in a few posts already. The Zombie Logs is a draft ready for editing and revision. Finally, the as of yet unnamed Shadows of Valor #2 is in progress, perhaps about 80% complete (give or take depending on where the story takes me). So, that's one.

Two, I finally went with self-publishing on Amazon, to which I will probably devote more time in future posts. You can find my books there and read the first few chapters or pages of each. My next foray into self-publishing will be to look into other distribution paths for The Golden Ship. We'll see how that goes.

Three, gaining followers is a work in progress as well. So far I've got about five fans on Facebook (look for Patricia Hamill (author) to join their ranks) and two on Goodreads. I've also managed to earn at least one fan at work and another through her. I don't know whether I should name names, but I want to say that it is absolutely awesome when someone reads your work and tells you how much they enjoy it. It's also a great feeling as a writer when they describe how the story made them feel and what they hoped would happen as they progress through the story. I'm incredibly thankful to everyone who takes the time to give my stories a chance.

Four, writing a blog, well, that's what this is isn't it? I'm enjoying posting my thoughts and am hoping those of you who find this are enjoying them as well. I'm trying to post every four to five days with reviews sprinkled in here and there for good measure. Blogging may also help with number three, but even if it doesn't, it is worth it.

As I work towards completing all four of my goals, I realize that I'll probably never really be done with any of them. Another story will always be waiting to be written. Those that turn out good, I'll get published. As I get better at writing, publishing, and marketing, more people will discover my work (and hopefully become fans), and as that happens more of those may discover my blog.

So here's to progress. Hey, I might even send out a few more query letters.

Although I don't usually write New Years Resolutions, I will make an exception this year. So, here they are:

1. Finish editing The Zombie Logs (whatever title it ends up having).
2. Finish Shadows of Valor #2 (draft).
3. Approach at least four bookstores to ask them to carry one or both of my books.
4. Send at least four query letters to agents for my self-published and/or unpublished books.
5. Review at least two independently published books per month.
6. Post to my blog at least once per week (including review posts, but with at least one per month being a non-review post).
7. Remain an active participant in the message boards on CreateSpace and KDP.
8. Remain an active participant in at least one Group on Goodreads.
9. Draft notes for a sequel to The Golden Ship.
10. Write a sequel to The Golden Ship (draft) for NaNoWriMo 2013.

Well, there you go. I think that'll keep me busy for some time. Wish me luck!

Today I hit the 70% complete mark for editing my third novel, a story about surviving the end of the world (via zombies) told through a young woman’s diary entries. So, I thought I'd take a break from editing to write about editing. Say that fast three times in a row.

Yes, I edit my own stories. And, yes, it is challenging to do that. Here's why.

First of all, I know what's coming. That can be a good thing when you’re writing a story but not always so good when you’re trying to edit one, because your mind will subconsciously fill in the blanks, leaving holes in your story that will trip up your readers. That's why I usually put my work aside for at least a few weeks before I attempt to edit it.

Second, I tend to think the way that I write, leaving eerily similar phrases with sometimes nearly identical word choices sprinkled throughout my stories, like little landmines waiting to annoy my readers. And guess what, I sometimes find myself unintentionally updating something that was originally unique into one of these landmines. Yikes. The only way I’ve found to counteract this is to edit with a pencil before making changes to my document. This ensures I’ll look at each passage at least twice before I make a final call on how something’s worded.

Third, you can do a lot of damage to your work if you’re tired or if you’ve been at it too long. I only work on edits and rewrites when I’m fresh. As soon as my eyes cross (and preferably before then) I put away the paper and pencil and do something else.

Fourth, the enemy of any self-editor is impatience. Editing is tedious work, time-consuming and at times mind-numbing. At times, I find myself saying, ‘eh, that’s good enough,’ but usually, that’s just before my eyes start crossing. Other times, I’ll switch to prompts like ‘look at this again’, ‘rewrite’ or the vague circled phrase. And in some cases, those last few pages or passages will be suspiciously bereft of comments and corrections. Whenever I see any of these signs, I make a point to go over those sections again with a fresh eye.

Finally, it’s easy to forget that your writing must not only be correct, but also entertaining. I find it incredibly important to read my stories from beginning to end in the same way my readers will: on an e-reader and as a paperback. After all, if my stories can’t keep my attention, they certainly won’t capture anyone else’s.

On that note, I’m off to work on my other project, a loom knitted sock that’s turning into a loom knitted boot. Ah well, maybe I’ll turn it into a Christmas stocking.

Yes, I've been hit, and hit hard, with the dreaded writer's block. This isn't the first time and probably won't be the last time I've managed to write myself into a corner, where every new word seems to drag the story in a direction I don't want to go. It's like hitting a brick wall.

So, what do I do when I hit a wall? Here are a few things I'm doing this round:

1. I'm flipping back to the last thing I wrote that I really liked and ignoring the stuff that came after that. Right now, I have three branches going off from 2 chapters back in the story and a fourth one I'm starting about 10 chapters back.

2. I'm listing, brainstorming and freewriting like crazy. Whatever comes to mind, that's going on paper. Mindmaps for the win (but of course, most of it's nonsense and I'm still somewhat blocked).

3. I'm reverting to my tried and true notebook paper and pencil. There's something about putting pencil to paper that inspires me to go in interesting directions. Plus, it keeps me from falling into the "it's all typed up, must be done" mentality that can get me into trouble.

4. I'm making time to write, whether I feel like it or not. It doesn't have to be about the story I'm working on. Some of the best inspiration I've ever had has been sparked by something totally different. That and writing other stuff keeps your writing muscles strong.

5. I'm making time for exercise and my other hobbies. Sometimes I come up with awesome ideas when I'm doing something else, like practicing karate or knitting something.

6. And finally, I'm making time for silent reflection, just running scenarios and ideas through my mind. No radio, no TV, nothing to distract me from the imaginary world that fuels my words.

Already I feel the juices moving, the ideas flowing. I better go grab that pencil...

I've come to the conclusion that I need a new computer chair. The reason is I think the old one is blocking me.

I do most of my writing on my couch in the living room, just chilling while my husband watches shows that I can ignore. But editing requires a real computer, not the little Asus Transformer tablet or the good old paper notebook I use for writing my drafts. And, to use the computer, I have to sit in the computer room on the old chair.

It still looks good, but looks aren't everything. One, I don't think the back can be adjusted to sit upright anymore. I like to sit with my feet up on an ottoman, and that tends to mess up my chairs. Two, it feels like I'm sitting on a two by four. It also doesn't help that my legs (one or both of them) seem to go numb if I sit on it for more than half an hour. Not the best sensation when you're trying to be creative.

I wonder what my husband would say if I moved our 'actual' recliner into the computer room and called it my new computer chair.

Now that would be awesome!