Kate Larking's Blog: Anxiety Ink, page 14

Novel in 90: Can I Do It?

Two weeks ago, Kate shared her plan with the world: Write a Novel in 90 Days. The last time we met for coffee we were racking our brains trying to inspire each other with blog post ideas. This one came up and I committed. Why? One, I like a challenge. Two, I need to write more. Three, I’m a masochist.

The next course that gets me closer to earning my writing certificate started this week and it already looks like it’s going to be much more reading and writing intensive than the first. I’m excited because it’s covering a topic I like, and I am hoping to walk away with some significant editing skills. But it’s going to be time consuming.

Why not write a book while I’m at it? I might be laughing hysterically to myself right now.

I have 3 days before the challenge starts. I have no plan or project in mind. Hopefully I can change that. Kate made a Facebook group and the positive feedback and conversation is heartwarming–and I’m not going to have any time to participate in it. Such is my life. So if you’re in the group and wondering at my silence, it’s not you, it’s me. All me.

I have more than too much on my plate right now, but I’m ready to give it a go. Can I do it? I have absolutely no bloody idea. Do I want to try? Heck, yes.

My motto: no pain, no gain. I’m going to go laugh a bit more and attempt to plan.

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Leaving Work Mode…

Yesterday, I worked my last day at the bookstore for the next three months. Until October 31, I will be not working full time as a book buyer. I am leaving work mode…

…and entering Writer-Mom mode. Mornings with baby, afternoons with my words.

Source

First up: family vacation. Going to BC for some time away from the city.

Second: Novel in 90. August 1st to October 30th, I will be writing. the goal is to start and finish either a novel or two novellas. I’m not sure what it will be yet–it should come together during my vacation.

Third: Sirens! My cherry-on-top of my writer-mom sabbatical will be not just Sirens Conference, but Sirens Studio as well. A full week of mountains, reading, and writing.

At this very moment? I’m exhausted. I’ve worked so hard to compensate for not having a replacement for three months at work. I supplied work for TRIPLE the number of assistants I had last summer. On top of everything.

So a short post today because I am going to rest for now. Once Novel in 90 kicks in, just wait for it: I’m going to let you all know how well I’m doing!

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Ink Links Roundup

It’s sometimes hard to define what constitutes good writing and sets it apart from bad writing. Most of it is purely subjective, but the more said with the fewest words tends to get me applauding. Apparently, I’m not alone, if this analysis by Nick Mamatas is any indication.

This article by Marie Brennan about doing karate in Victorian dress made the rounds a while back, but is always worth a revisit.

Kushiel’s Dart has been on Elisa’s to-read shelf for AGES. After reading this article—which starts off quoting one of her favourite writing books, The Tough Guide to Fantasyland—she’s reading it sooner rather than later.

http://www.tor.com/2017/07/19/kushiels-dart-is-the-sex-positive-fantasy-we-need/

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Diversity Is More Than A Checklist

“Diversity” is one of those leading terms in the writing world right now. Issues related to the call for diversity are complex and many-layered and come into play on every level of the publishing industry. Today, I’m only focusing on the layer of characters within a story.

White is the default setting.

Maybe you read differently. That’s fine, but you have to understand that the vast majority of your audience will believe your characters white, heterosexual, and cisgendered until you prove them otherwise. Sometimes that proof requires reiteration.

Diversity is not a checklist.

The call to check all the boxes can be a siren song when you want to make sure your story reflects a varied and complex world. I get it! Representation matters, which means that including characters from various ethnicities, religions, sexualities, and gender representations matters.

But throwing in everything and the kitchen sink? Please don’t do it for the sake of doing it.

Representation matters.

I can’t stress this enough. But how do you portray these characters? Is the black woman always angry or the gay character only every in abusive relationships? Some stereotypes have become so ingrained that we use them without realizing it. After all, problematic portrayals can be worse than no portrayal.

Going back to that whole ‘diversity is not a checklist’ thing…

I have subjected far too many people to my current novel project at varying draft stages. My most recent round of feedback included a note that I only had heterosexual romances. I had already known this and wanted to change it, but couldn’t see how without altering other dynamics, messages, or themes important to me.

An absolutely amazing note called out the gendered balance of power, and this I hadn’t seen at all. While my characters overall have decent gender parity, and despite a female protagonist, I’d given the majority of the power to male characters.

This bothered me. A lot.

I sat with it and struggled with it and couldn’t find a good solution. None of the potential changes I concocted worked for the story.

Then last month I was down in Portland, Maine for my nephew’s high school graduation. At the hotel, I stayed up late each night we were there. My niece fell asleep and I attempted to speed-read my way through the novel.

It hit me like a sledgehammer: what if I make this one character female? The character was currently a slightly effeminate old man, so I wouldn’t even have to change much beyond pronouns.

Follow the bunny trails.

Following the ‘what-if’ bunny trails, I realized that I would then have a trifecta of women in power (loosely following maiden/mother/crone archetypes) to offset a trifecta of men in power. See the symmetry? It makes the story stronger.

But as I read and the what-if’s kept flowing, I discovered one key difference in the gender swapped versions: the effeminate old man presented as asexual (which often happens to older characters to the point of being problematic – asexual characters are vastly underrepresented, but older characters have sexuality stripped away). My old-lady general, on the other hand, would have a female lover. Her partner came in the form of a side character who had been necessary and problematic plot-wise from the very beginning. In each of the many, many drafts, this side character fizzled and vanished by the end.

This romance allows me to tie her plot-thread back into the resolution. It becomes a cleaner, more satisfying story.

I didn’t add these layers to check off boxes. But once I saw how the story needed these elements, it became stronger, richer. The added diversity also adds depth and cohesion.

That’s how I know my story needed it.

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Building a Writing Habit

I’ve been whining enough lately about writing and motivation that everyone should know I am doing everything I can to create a proper writing habit. It’s much harder than I anticipated, mostly because I had no clue where to begin. This post piqued my curiosity and turned into an excellent source. Nerd that I am, I turned to additional research and checked out the writing routines of some of the biggest names out there. Here are the pick of the crop:

Anita Desai: Reads poetry by Rainer Maria Rilke, C.P. Cavafy, Osip Mandelstam, and Joseph Brodsky each morning before she starts writing. (Thanks, Goodreads.)

John Grisham: wakes up at 5 a.m. every day and writes one page. “Write your one page each day at the same place and time. Early morning, lunch break, on the train, late at night – it doesn’t matter. Find the extra hour, go to the same place, shut the door. No exceptions, no excuses.” (Source.)

Virginia Woolf: “In her twenties, she spent two and a half hours every morning writing, on a three-and-half-foot tall [standing] desk with an angled top that allowed her to look at her work both up-close and from afar.” (Source.)

Jack London, William Golding, Norman Mailer, Arthur Conan Doyle, Raymond Chandler, Anthony Trollope, Stephen King and Thomas Wolfe: maintain(ed) daily writing quotas of between 1000 and 5000 words. They went to great lengths to always hit those quotas. (Source.)

Victor Hugo: While writing the Hunchback of Notre Dame, he placed himself under house arrest, “[locking] away his clothes to avoid any temptation of going outside and was left with nothing to wear except a large gray shawl. He had purchased the knitted outfit, which reached right down to his toes, just for the occasion. It served as his uniform for many months.” (Source.)

Ernest Hemmingway: “When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write. You read what you have written and, as you always stop when you know what is going to happen next, you go on from there. You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again.” (Source.)

Haruki Murakami: “When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at 4:00 am and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for 10km or swim for 1500m (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at 9:00 pm. I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind.” (Source.)

Here are the commonalities that stand out:

Rise early and write before anyone/thing can interrupt
Exercise, or do something, after writing to shake it off
Write at the same time, and for the same duration, every day

Personally, I am not an early riser. I see the merit in it, but getting up super early usually leaves me feeling gross and listless for the remainder of the day. Usually I exercise to at the start of my day otherwise I don’t leave myself enough time to do it. I tried to switch that up and was successful once. I should try harder. I love the same time, same place, roughly same output idea. Shaking off the act of writing seems very important. I hadn’t realized how necessary it is to have an activity to help you re-enter the real world.

I have to underscore here that each person noted above, and all the others I read about but didn’t include, are full-time, professional writers. I am not. At least not yet. Right now, I have to figure out my writing routine around my day job, which can be taxing on top of life’s other things. That’s where the John Grisham routine comes in. I refuse to get up at 5 in the morning, but consistency has always helped me be productive, I’ve just let it slip. I will take a look at my day to day activities and will locate some good chunks of time in which I will write.

From a creative standpoint, I love Anita Desai’s routine. I have a book of poetry I’ve been itching to crack and starting my writing with it sounds like an inspired idea. Also, I’ve worked with parts of Hemingway’s routine, specifically ending your writing session when you know exactly what’s going to happen next. This ensures you’ll come out of the gate with words the next time you sit down.

It’s funny, nothing of what I read is new to me. But to see consistency as such an integral factor was almost necessary. I’ve said it before that I am not a writer who can write every single day—even if I have every day to write—but I am a person who can set myself tasks and get them done. That’s almost what I need to do now to get myself into the right kind of habit.

I’m going to check back in on this in a few months to see how I’ve managed. How do you feel about taking on the challenge of creating a writing routine for yourself?

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Precious Reading Time

I’ve come to a few realizations about my precious reading time. This realizations comes as I am surrounded by books. I’m drowning in them. I’m pretty sure that some day, I will be gravely injured by falling towers of books–that I haven’t read yet!

I have been acquiring and collecting books since I was a child.

When I was a teenager and into my early twenties, I was a book reviewer. I received around 40 ARCs/samples a month. And I would generally love to read about 5-10 of them. So I’d save them.

The format of my reviews was 3 capsule reviews a month. So out of those 5-10, I would read 3 or so. They would either stay in my bookshelf or move onto a better home. And those remaining 2-7? On my to-be-read shelves.

Please note, this didn’t stop me from buying books I was interested in, either.

Seriously, my to be read shelves have about 30-50 books per shelf. And there are THREE bookcases. And then I started using my desk. And then I started using my floor. Then, to my wife’s chagrin, I expanded outside of my office.

Now that I have a kid critter about to crawl (she is sooooo close), I realize I need to get rid of a lot of books I don’t have an intention of reading. When I am on leave, I really hope to reduce some of my library so that traditional self capacity is respected.

And, to do that, I will need to change my reading habits.

I am usually a read-to-the-end reader. I would take a book and try not to come up for air until I was finished (or forced to take a break because I was an emotional wreck and couldn’t read through the tears).

But this reading style wasn’t going to hold me for much longer. First of all, I HATE interruptions. And, as a result, most people around me hate me when I’m reading XD Now that my life is all interruptions, I have to change this.

I am reading with stolen time. A few minutes here and there. I hope I can at least do a chapter-size (or at least a scene-size) chunk of reading done. It is difficult when one reads genre fiction as writers are generally conditioned to leave chapters on cliffhanger-y notes.

But sometimes, the book I have with me, I just don’t want to dive back in. And now I

So I’ve added a Did-Not-Finish shelf to my Goodreads. Some have ratings, some won’t. I may try to include comments on most as to what happened, but I simply can’t finish everything I start to read anymore. After all, my time is precious. And within that time, my precious reading time needs a system of its own.

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Ink Links Roundup

Histories written by the peoples to whom that history belongs are my favorite. They have lived context and I strongly believe they should have the voice and the platform to tell their stories. That’s why I adore this History of Africa project. It looks amazing!

And bad reviews are hard to take, but a reasoned, well thought out, insightful critique – even, or especially, when it’s not what you want to hear – can become a game changer. As long as you listen. This writer listened.

Elisa isn’t a fan of audiobooks but she understands the appeal since she too leads a busy life. Have you thought of reading your writing and turning it into a podcast? http://www.authorspublish.com/podcasting-your-writing-a-great-promotional-tool/

If there’s an odd book fact out there, you can bet Elisa will eventually find it. Did you know a book took the Grand Prize at the 1889 world’s fair in Paris? Yes, a book. No, it’s really not an ordinary book. https://www.abebooks.com/books/livre-tisse-paris-1889-exposition/index.shtml?cm_mmc=nl-_-nl-_-C170715-MRC-parisfAHTRADE-_-b2cta&abersp=1

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Convention Time: ReaderCon Musings

What makes a good writers’ convention?

I’ve thought about this a lot lately. Last weekend I attended my fourth ReaderCon in five years. Thanks to demands of the day job, I couldn’t leave until Friday night. But everything starts Thursday evening and really gets underway Friday morning. In many ways, it felt like I missed half the convention. (And it was my first year of attending that I missed the Meet the Prose party Friday night. I love that event.)

I didn’t even know if I could go until a couple weeks out because no way could I make the five-hour drive myself after a full day of work. Not with the energy drain of growing a tiny human. It turned out one of my friends – a total con-newbie – could go with me so the drive turned out fine!

But still. I was missing half the con and my favorite event. Would this really be worth the investment in time, and energy, and money for hotel and food and gas?

I came to the conclusion that it depended on what I wanted out of the con and the weekend.

If my con goal were to pitch to an agent or editor, every con I’ve attended would fail. And that was my hope with the first couple I attended. I came away from those with a creative high and a vague feeling of disappointment that I was doing something wrong.

Now, cons are an awesome place to meet friends and immerse myself in my writerly community. A panel that makes a story nudge me is the best I can ask for. If I find a couple of those at a single con? I am a happy woman.

Of the three panels I attended, two gave me story-nudges and the third gave me a list of questions to ask myself and my characters for the sake of worldbuilding. Awesome.

I saw two brilliant writers read. Also awesome.

I met and gushed at Nnedi Okorafor, who might possibly be my favorite author, and which may have involved some slight fangirling on my part. So: awesome.

And to top it all off, the friend who volunteered as tribute came with me loved it and wants to go back next year!

So was it successful? Yes. Undoubtedly yes.

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6 Month Writing Plan Update

Back in the beginning of the year, I realized I needed to shake things up as far as organizing and tracking my creative output. This was all in conjunction with my goal of writing fiction at least three days a week. I decided my big blue handcrafted calendar was the answer because it keeps writing on my mind since it’s directly in my face. Big X’s, big checkmarks, and word totals also helped.

I gave myself 6 months to see if this form of tracking it would work for me. So, does counting my output on the wall work? Yes! But only if I stay on top of it.

As is usually the case, I was diligent about writing on the tracker daily for the first couple of months, which meant I knew exactly where I was goal-wise during the week. Then life happened and I’d fall behind; then playing catch up meant I missed a day here and there because I didn’t know where I was creatively. I’m proud to say that out of 26 weeks I only missed 4. That’s 4 more than I wanted to miss, but what can you do?

I love that my less than 3 symbols look like broken(ish) hearts.

For me, having a tracker on the wall is worthwhile enough that I put another hour into creating Part II of the 6 Month Plan. I learned from Part I and made the months 5 weeks long (d’uh, right?). I’m also going to continue to track the books I finish as a spur since I’m super behind on my goal.

I also need to do some ahead of time research as far as story submitting goes. I have been a complete slacker in that department. I’m going to research, add to the tracker, and then submit. Then repeat.

Finally, I need to make a plan as far as editing my manuscript goes—the Plan is the ideal place to do so. And balance this with my next two courses. Long story short, if I actively use the tracker, it is amazing as far as my accountability goes. When I start to fall behind, I get lost. The answer: don’t fall behind.

Now I really have a lot to do. So I better get to it.

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Novel in 90 Days. Join me?

Are you ready to hear what I have planned for my sabbatical from work? I’m planning to write a novel in 90 days.

Where did the idea come from?

Way back when, I used to take part in a livejournal community called Novel in 90. This community was like a 3-month counterpart to NaNoWriMo. Instead of 50K words, the goal was 67.5K words. And instead of 30 days, you had a much more reasonable 90 days. It was fun and the 750 words a day goal (or 3 pages) was a much better pace for me as a writer.

So I decided to give it a go!

I’m not following a specific program. There are a few 90 day novel books available though?

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The plan!

I have August, September, and October available to me. The goal is to start and finish a project. I don’t know what the word count will be. I have one plan for a novella at present (or a short novel?) but I want to aim for a novel. I have been trying to plan out the storyline in advance so that when the three months get here, I can get to work right away and feel confident that I am not going to be wasting time or words.

I plan to aim for between 800 to 1000 words per day.

800 words X 90 days = 72,000 words

1000 words X 90 day = 90,000 words

If you’re planning to join me in this venture, set your own end-length for this project. Divide it by 90 days. And that’s your goal per day!

Good news: There is technically 92 days. So you have a tiny bit of a buffer built into the project.

Who is joining?

I have so far recruited two friends to this cause. One is fellow Inkette Elisa! The other is my friend Ellie.

Another could be…you? What do you think? You could front-load the writing to get it done in August NaNo-style, or you could bring up the October with a pre-NaNo run. But do let me know if you want to join