Lea Carter's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing"
Amateur ;-)
Writing Silver #3 (can't pin down a title yet) is turning out to be a challenging new experience for me. Silver Princess essentially wrote itself, and the challenge was to type fast enough to keep up with it. Silver Majesty was a bit more of a struggle but the plot twists still managed to take me by surprise.
Now that I'm working on Silver #3, I'm not completely sure what's going to happen. By that I mean that I don't have a vivid image of the ending in mind. I usually write, mentally at least, from both ends of a story. A character leaps to mind and I know him/her instantly. The setting builds around them, with a crisis of some sort to overcome. I have a strong concept of the ending in mind and just have to keep things from derailing (too much backstory on an unimportant character; stalling in general; etc.).
Silver #3, well, I know three things for sure about the ending and what has to happen before we get there. But I guess I'm still an amateur, because the best descriptions for what I'm doing are procrastinating and writer's block. Now that that's said, I'd better get to work! ;-)
Now that I'm working on Silver #3, I'm not completely sure what's going to happen. By that I mean that I don't have a vivid image of the ending in mind. I usually write, mentally at least, from both ends of a story. A character leaps to mind and I know him/her instantly. The setting builds around them, with a crisis of some sort to overcome. I have a strong concept of the ending in mind and just have to keep things from derailing (too much backstory on an unimportant character; stalling in general; etc.).
Silver #3, well, I know three things for sure about the ending and what has to happen before we get there. But I guess I'm still an amateur, because the best descriptions for what I'm doing are procrastinating and writer's block. Now that that's said, I'd better get to work! ;-)
Writing vs. Free Writing
I can see this both ways, really. Wait, let me start back at the beginning. I'm thinking about the difference between writing a story that's brand new and continuing a story that's already begun to be told.
Take Silver Sagas for example. Unlike many series with which I am familiar (the Sacketts, Anne of Green Gables, etc.) the fairy tribes have some very fixed attributes that are easy to mix up. It can throw me right out of a creative spurt, for example, if I realize that I've been describing a Plant Fairy with blue eyes. Far worse is what happened when I suddenly understood that I was about to attribute a basic Sky Fairy function to another tribe in Troubled Skies. That threw the whole book off! (I'm still determined to finish it, but it's a perfect example of it being far easier to do something correctly the first time.)
Now, if I'm writing a brand new story, certain aspects of it are much simpler. Had Troubled Skies not been set in Fairydom, I could have finished it by now. Cambrian, our understated hero, would have made huge strides in his personal life, and the mystery of the missing windship The Talon would have been solved about two months ago.
And now to make my argument the other way 'round. If it's a brand new story, there are no points of reference. (I write fantasy, primarily.) So and so is youngish (which boils down to what number, pray tell?), with clear gray eyes and an anti-gravity belt. I don't know where s/he's from, or going, why, when...whew. That can be fun, but it can also be as exhausting as trying to keep all the details of an already constructed world straight.
And there we have it. In some ways one is easier than the other. And vice versa. ;-)
Take Silver Sagas for example. Unlike many series with which I am familiar (the Sacketts, Anne of Green Gables, etc.) the fairy tribes have some very fixed attributes that are easy to mix up. It can throw me right out of a creative spurt, for example, if I realize that I've been describing a Plant Fairy with blue eyes. Far worse is what happened when I suddenly understood that I was about to attribute a basic Sky Fairy function to another tribe in Troubled Skies. That threw the whole book off! (I'm still determined to finish it, but it's a perfect example of it being far easier to do something correctly the first time.)
Now, if I'm writing a brand new story, certain aspects of it are much simpler. Had Troubled Skies not been set in Fairydom, I could have finished it by now. Cambrian, our understated hero, would have made huge strides in his personal life, and the mystery of the missing windship The Talon would have been solved about two months ago.
And now to make my argument the other way 'round. If it's a brand new story, there are no points of reference. (I write fantasy, primarily.) So and so is youngish (which boils down to what number, pray tell?), with clear gray eyes and an anti-gravity belt. I don't know where s/he's from, or going, why, when...whew. That can be fun, but it can also be as exhausting as trying to keep all the details of an already constructed world straight.
And there we have it. In some ways one is easier than the other. And vice versa. ;-)
New books require a lot of work
I was telling a friend of mine the other day that I needed to make a detailed list of how to do each step of taking a book from my brain to publication. I still need to do that. ;) But , as Troubled Skies approaches the completion of yet another phase, I thought I'd start things off with a blog post.
So much of writing a book seems obvious (ex. have an idea, type it up, edit it). And so much of it lurks on the edges of my awareness (ex. advance marketing). I can honestly say I do as much research on how to market and sell books as I do to clarify things for myself while writing.
Back to the "list." I had the idea; I struggled to get it typed up; and it's 3/5ths of the way edited (it's not enough to have someone else look at it and suggest corrections, the author also has to review the suggestions and accept them or work around them). It's still at least a week from being ready for publication, probably two weeks, but that means I need to start thinking about copyrighting it, registering it to an ISBN with Bowkers, and formatting it (manuscript and cover) for Amazon Kindle. Not to mention trying to locate five or ten pre-launch readers who are willing to wait to post their reviews on Amazon.com and Goodreads.
So the short version of the list so far:
1) Decide to write a book/Have an idea
2) Type it up
3) Have it edited/Review edits
4) Begin marketing/Contacting reviewers
5) Register book to an ISBN with Bowkers
6) Submit manuscript and cover to copyright office
7) Format manuscript and cover for submission to publishing company
8) Don't go crazy trying to juggle everything
I hope you've enjoyed this post; there will be more to come. Questions? Comments? Concerns? Jokes? Post 'em below, please! :D
So much of writing a book seems obvious (ex. have an idea, type it up, edit it). And so much of it lurks on the edges of my awareness (ex. advance marketing). I can honestly say I do as much research on how to market and sell books as I do to clarify things for myself while writing.
Back to the "list." I had the idea; I struggled to get it typed up; and it's 3/5ths of the way edited (it's not enough to have someone else look at it and suggest corrections, the author also has to review the suggestions and accept them or work around them). It's still at least a week from being ready for publication, probably two weeks, but that means I need to start thinking about copyrighting it, registering it to an ISBN with Bowkers, and formatting it (manuscript and cover) for Amazon Kindle. Not to mention trying to locate five or ten pre-launch readers who are willing to wait to post their reviews on Amazon.com and Goodreads.
So the short version of the list so far:
1) Decide to write a book/Have an idea
2) Type it up
3) Have it edited/Review edits
4) Begin marketing/Contacting reviewers
5) Register book to an ISBN with Bowkers
6) Submit manuscript and cover to copyright office
7) Format manuscript and cover for submission to publishing company
8) Don't go crazy trying to juggle everything
I hope you've enjoyed this post; there will be more to come. Questions? Comments? Concerns? Jokes? Post 'em below, please! :D
No batteries necessary…
One problem with being an author is the way one’s mind begins to work. I can be standing in the grocery section, trying to decide between the hundred and one flavors of chips, when suddenly I’m knee-deep in a mental story. It’s still about picking a bag of chips—but the character is a single woman in a much larger city, an ordinary person to whom something extraordinary is happening. Or about to happen. And that is how my mind works, all of the time.
In fact, it’s not unlike Danny Kaye’s original The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. In one instance, Kaye’s character, Mitty, was waiting for a light to turn green when a “cowboy” rode up next to his car. Yep, on a horse. It took only moments for Mitty to be mentally transported to a fictional world where he was a tough cowboy defending a woman (not his fiancé) against the unwanted advances of another cowboy.
Imagine that happening almost anywhere, anytime. I’m never bored. But it takes some willpower to control these story ideas, to put them to work instead of just indulging in them. Any scrap of paper, my cell phone’s voice recorder, or frequently a blank notepad on my computer is hastily located and I try to record the bare bones of the story. Who, what, where, why, and when has to be translated from the vivid mental image into words. It’s almost like trying to write a book based on a movie.
I discard some story ideas, of course. If every author recorded every story idea s/he ever had, the world wouldn’t be big enough to hold it all. Every author has their own, distinct set of criteria that they (probably subconsciously) compare a story idea to. Here are some of my criteria.
1) Has the story been told and retold until I’m tired of hearing from others, let alone myself?
2) If it doesn’t fall under the first category, is it still too similar to something I can recall having read or seen?
3) Do I really want my name associated with this story? (This is for when a story takes a bad or immoral twist and no matter how hard I try the characters refuse to change. The story exits my head in File 13 fashion.)
4) Would I even read this story?
If a story idea passes my subconscious checklist and gets recorded, there’s still the matter of using it. As a self-published author, I have occasionally blended partial story ideas while writing my books, which is one way to use them. I also compete in a yearly contest hosted by Crowder, a local college. That way approximately four story ideas become short stories every year. Unfortunately, however, I will probably never bring every story idea to light. Just like some Goodreads users have “to read” shelves with hundreds or thousands of titles, many (if not most) authors have notebooks and computer folders crammed with ideas they just don’t have time to get to.
Meanwhile, life goes on. Story ideas keep zapping me like a bolt from the blue (or the yellow or the green*). If I’m in a position to pursue the story, sometimes I’ll just let it play out in my mind. I toss it a conflict or two, perhaps rewrite a character’s lines or adjust their motivation, but mostly I just enjoy it. So the next time you see someone standing in a long waiting line without an electronic device and just smiling, ask yourself, “Is that an author?”
*Quoted from “Scuppers, the Sailor Dog”.
In fact, it’s not unlike Danny Kaye’s original The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. In one instance, Kaye’s character, Mitty, was waiting for a light to turn green when a “cowboy” rode up next to his car. Yep, on a horse. It took only moments for Mitty to be mentally transported to a fictional world where he was a tough cowboy defending a woman (not his fiancé) against the unwanted advances of another cowboy.
Imagine that happening almost anywhere, anytime. I’m never bored. But it takes some willpower to control these story ideas, to put them to work instead of just indulging in them. Any scrap of paper, my cell phone’s voice recorder, or frequently a blank notepad on my computer is hastily located and I try to record the bare bones of the story. Who, what, where, why, and when has to be translated from the vivid mental image into words. It’s almost like trying to write a book based on a movie.
I discard some story ideas, of course. If every author recorded every story idea s/he ever had, the world wouldn’t be big enough to hold it all. Every author has their own, distinct set of criteria that they (probably subconsciously) compare a story idea to. Here are some of my criteria.
1) Has the story been told and retold until I’m tired of hearing from others, let alone myself?
2) If it doesn’t fall under the first category, is it still too similar to something I can recall having read or seen?
3) Do I really want my name associated with this story? (This is for when a story takes a bad or immoral twist and no matter how hard I try the characters refuse to change. The story exits my head in File 13 fashion.)
4) Would I even read this story?
If a story idea passes my subconscious checklist and gets recorded, there’s still the matter of using it. As a self-published author, I have occasionally blended partial story ideas while writing my books, which is one way to use them. I also compete in a yearly contest hosted by Crowder, a local college. That way approximately four story ideas become short stories every year. Unfortunately, however, I will probably never bring every story idea to light. Just like some Goodreads users have “to read” shelves with hundreds or thousands of titles, many (if not most) authors have notebooks and computer folders crammed with ideas they just don’t have time to get to.
Meanwhile, life goes on. Story ideas keep zapping me like a bolt from the blue (or the yellow or the green*). If I’m in a position to pursue the story, sometimes I’ll just let it play out in my mind. I toss it a conflict or two, perhaps rewrite a character’s lines or adjust their motivation, but mostly I just enjoy it. So the next time you see someone standing in a long waiting line without an electronic device and just smiling, ask yourself, “Is that an author?”
*Quoted from “Scuppers, the Sailor Dog”.
