Kate Larking's Blog: Anxiety Ink, page 64

REPOST: Beta Readers: You Need Them, Especially When You Think Otherwise

This weekend Kate and I are covering the Calgary writer’s conference When Words Collide. We also happen to be presenting on a panel together Sunday morning. Our topic is Beta Readers, Critique Partners, and More; I signed up for one reason: I have a lot of experience with critique groups and beta readers. But I also have something else to bring to the table: my growth as a writer who has learned to cope with being critiqued.

I wrote about the importance of beta readers many months ago. I want to repost it (with only a couple of tweeks) and follow up on it down the road after our panel!

Repost:

So there I was a couple of months ago: I had just done my first read through of my fae story after letting it rest for over a month and it wasn’t that bad. I mean, I was satisfied with it and it didn’t seem like a washy pile of BS. Thinking that the deadline was Oct. 30, and it was only mid-October, I felt pretty good about myself. LOTS of time to fine-tune, I thought.

However, I had a step to go: one of my rules is to always run a piece by a beta reader. I chose Kate because she initiated the fae story challenge. Something was nagging me about the story and I just couldn’t figure out what. And Kate’s good at figuring that kind of thing out.

She tore my tale to shreds. Not literally, but the red ink everywhere might as well be shredded edges. If I didn’t need the edits she wrote down I think she would have stomped on the whole document in frustration. With a quivering lip –ok, my lip wasn’t really quivering but I was like WTF– I asked what was wrong. A lot of things. So many things I can’t believe I didn’t see myself. *cry*

But after our lengthy conversation she assured me that it was salvageable. My story needed to be overhauled to the extreme, but there was something there.

THIS IS WHY A WRITER NEEDS (GOOD) BETA READERS: First, they give your story zero quarter and kick it when it’s down. They beat the ever living snot out of it. Second, when the tear-down is over they pick it up, dust it off, and tell you where it needs improvement. Third, they reassure you your art doesn’t suck and motivate you to fix it instead of tossing it.

Then you get to start all over again! Yay! *cry*

Drafting is a bittersweet process but you can’t rely only on your set of eyes. When you come at your story for the 5th time and know it inside and out it’s really hard to see where the problems are, even after a long period of time. Beta readers are invaluable, and I urge every writer out there to assemble a team of people who won’t sugar coat their words and only give positive feedback. Good is nice, but negative lets you know where stuff is and isn’t working. I’ve learned to revel in the negative –I used to be one of those people that would get all wide-eyed in the face of constructive criticism and wonder, in my Di Nero voice, “you talkin’ to me?” You have to grow and learn to take it, it’s part of being a writer.

As always though, any feedback given can and should be taken with a grain of salt. They’re suggestions, but take them seriously. Constantly ask why? Why did they say that, hate that, love that, etc. At the end of the day if you really don’t want to change something –don’t. But if all of your readers are pointing out the same thing and you just love it to pieces, you might have to kill it. It’s tough but writing involves killing your babies, no matter how good you think they are.

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Publishing Anxiety – Novel Marketing

Right now, my heart is beating so quickly I can’t really distinguish between the beats.

Why?

My first eBook is written, edited, formatted, covered, and for sale.

Novel Marketing: Making Your Author Brand Work for You & Your Books

I am equal parts terrified as I am excited as well as proud. I have been pushing myself hard outside of my comfort zone and am really pleased to see that Novel Marketing is not just on the market–but is something I’m proud of.

I am a perfectionist. Usually, this terrifies me into stillness and I while I may begin something, I usually don’t finish.

And here is this eBook, all wrapped up and ready to go.

If you want to see what I have been up to, please feel free to get your very own copy today

Kobo

Kindle

Smashwords

 

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Habits, Quirks, And Quirky Habits

I pay attention to things. Not just to the people around me, but to myself. Because someday I’ll have to write that ache or pain, that love or grief, or any other emotion, and I don’t know how to do that if I haven’t lived some version of it.

But there are times when I’m not paying attention. Like when I’m deep in a scene, or trying to edit for specific effect. I’ll come out of my trance enough to realize my coffee is cold, I’m twisted up like a pretzel in my seat and rocking, and people are trying not to stare. And I’m generally also stimming – knotting my hands in my hair or running a fingertip over my lips again, and again, and again.

I don’t do this when I’m writing at home so much as when I’m out where there are other people and other distractions. Stimming blocks it out so I can focus. But it’s not done consciously, only noticed after the fact.

I don’t work in public much. Nothing that requires deep concentration, at any rate.

Years ago, I read about a study on brain activity during meditation. If I remember right, the Dalai Lama participated. I’d love to find out the results of a similar study using writers, or any artists, while creating. (I’m sure it’s been done, so if you know of one, please tell me about it in the comments!)

What do you think they’d find?

My husband might be the only one who can tell when my writer-brain is in full swing. Everyone else tends to ask me what’s wrong.

And nothing disrupts my writer-brain faster than suddenly needing to reassure others. I’m curious about what, exactly, they see.

What about your quirks and habits? Tell me some you’ve either noticed in yourself or had others notice!

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When Do You Do Your Best Thinking?

My topic for today is comparatively random to what I normally write about for Anxiety, but I felt I needed to ask. And I wanted to be a little random, throw a curve ball out there. Mostly because I came across this quote and it sparked something:

“The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes.” –Agatha Christie

Needless to say, Christie and I exist(ed) in vastly different eras. I don’t HAVE to do the dishes, which is good because I really don’t like to. Yes, I do them when required, don’t worry. And my days aren’t filled with an endless list of domestic duties. I have housework, everyone does, but I devote a minimal amount of time to it because life’s too short. Long story short: let’s not analyse that quote through a feminist lens. We can do that another day!

I want you to think about the repetitive tasks you do throughout the day/week/month while I ask: when do you do your best thinking? Even: when do you do your worst thinking?

This may sound a bit strange but I do my best novel thinking while I’m in the shower. Heck, I do my all around best introspective thinking in the shower and during my bedtime routine -I am an evening showerer, by the way. I’m able to let my mind wander from the moment I shut the bathroom door to the time I hit the sheets because every single task I do requires zero thought on my part. It’s muscle memory and automaton reaction. Literally, every single novel idea I’ve ever had has come to me at night. There’s been times where I’ve crawled out of bed and over to my desk to jot ideas down before they’re lost.

And people think I can just change into a morning person. I don’t think so.

The place I do my worst thinking is probably while I’m exercising. I am no Haruki Murakami. I do my best not to think about anything but the beat of the music while I work out, otherwise it feels like a series of endless tasks.

That’s my thinking process in a nutshell. Now I want to know how the rest of the writers and non-writers out there work!

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Comparing Yourself to Other Writers

Comparing yourself to other writers is a root-of-all-problems issue for authors, both pre-published and established. It’s horrifically easy to fall back into a groove where you think that others are doing it so much better than you are, saying what you want to say so much clearer, crafting description/dialogue/settings/worlds much better than your own.

My need to address this issue was inspired by this tumblr post by Diane Duane. Once I read her response, it really resonated with me and how I have grappled with this issue–and continue to grapple with it.

I often feel inferior to other people in response to any number of issues.  Perhaps it is a really conniving and devilish part of the human psyche that constantly works to depress us by shadowing ourselves in others’ skills and talents.

It takes a surprising amount of effort to not wallow. It’s easy to give up on developing our skills when we see how great others can be. It takes a lot of courage to stand up for yourself, against yourself.

But taking those first steps, pushing beyond that you view yourself as being “weak” in, developing your skills in areas where you don’t have innate talent, those are the most rewarding tasks. The reward when you overcome that negativity successfully for the first time overshadows all the effort it takes to fight off those negative feelings and gives you a high to push forward even more. Then, knowing that you have developed skills to offset your perceived weakness, gives way to self-pride, which makes it easier to maintain that new skill.

Comparing yourself to other writers, comparing your skills to theirs, your style to theirs, it can be helpful to see something you can work on–but you have to be willing to face that challenge, work on the issue, develop ways to move beyond it. Because comparing yourself to other writers just to halt yourself is ridiculous–but so simple if you don’t know how to take that first step to move forward.

Tell it like it is, de Lint!

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Cons Continued: More Than Fun

Writing is work.

I used to hate that sentiment. Then again, I was a kid and equated work with chores, homework, and anything I didn’t want to do but had to. Writing wasn’t any of those things.

And some of that definition carries over, even now. But I try to make sure that I call my day job just that.

Because in the adult world, “work” is more than how you pay the bills – it’s where you spent the greater part of your waking hours, and it’s how the world defines you. If I call the day job “work” but not my writing, it lends legitimacy to the former while taking it from the latter.

One of the common first questions I get asked (yet rarely do I ever think to ask in return) is, “What do you do?”

I used to answer with the day job and maybe follow up with writing. Now I try to always lead with writing. That is, after all, how I define myself. I am a writer. It’s what I do and who I am. Far less important is how I currently pay the bills.

We all know that writing is hard. Not always, but the difficult moments far outnumber the easy ones. But whatever the reason, many of us avoid labeling it as “work,” particularly if we’re not fortunate enough to be able to make writing our day jobs. It took me years to reach that point, with a great deal of feeling like a pompous ass.

Cons are an even harder sell for my brain, strange though that may seem. I started attending them, after all, because I’m a writer and to further my writing. I have not trouble whatsoever thinking of them as workplaces for other writers, but for myself? The child in me whispers that I’m having too much fun for it to be work.

But they are so much more than fun. Not only great for networking, I love the birthing and building and growing of ideas. Some amazing stories have been created at cons – they’re infectious that way. Like an STD. Only awesome.

No one perceived me as a writer until I began to think of myself that way. (Family doesn’t count. Family can think many things of you and be only occasionally right.) So I hope that as I come to think of cons as an extension of my writing – of my work – others will begin likewise to respect my investment in them.

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Authenticity: Can You Go Too Far?

I actually have an answer to provide for my question today: it’s a big old yes.

And no.

I love contradictions. And subjectivity. Both provide so much clarity.

I need to explain a few things before I go much further or I’m going to confuse everyone and myself. I’m going to be using “research” and “authenticity” interchangeably in my post because authenticity comes out of research and research leads to authenticity. And, by “authenticity,” I mean the feeling that a story doesn’t comes across like it’s standing on a foundation of poorly made up crap. I want my readers to feel a glow of satisfaction when/if they realize the legitimacy of my facts/the sturdiness of my world. I don’t want them to roll their eyes at me.

Now back to my point!

I have to answer my question with an emphatic yes right off the bat because it is far too easy to get so deep into your research that you literally get lost. I’ve talked about getting quagmired before; this authenticity idea is more the other side of the coin.

I’ll admit that I am officially drowning in research notes for my current project. Every time I’m convinced that I’ve looked up the very last thing I need to know, I sit in front of that blank page and it hits me that I need to know 10 more aspects of my world. Kate can attest to this, I had to look three things up before we could get to our first word war on July 1st (the start of Camp NaNo). I decided that day to leave three other items for later just so I could actually get some writing done.

I’m frustrated at my progress, but at the same time I KNOW I need to know what I’m spending so much time researching. Or my story is going to be terrible. There were will be epic craters in the plot and the stench of its inauthenticity will permeate every page. I just can’t do that. My story is set in an actual city that I’ve never visited and involves aspects of that city that a lot of people will know. Hence, my setting needs to be airtight, which means I need to know the culture, customs, laws, and everything else really really well. Oh, and my story is also greatly interwoven into the urban landscape. Why did I do this to myself? A question for another day…

I think authenticity is absolutely applicable no matter if you’re creating your own world or not. If you construct a totally alternate world by winging it people are going to notice. I’ve read books where characters contradict themselves or the narrator tells me something about the world that is noticeably different from what was said to start. I hate it. You don’t have to provide readers with your sheets of research notes –this goes back to the ice burg topic –but major details and explanations need to shine over the course of your story’s plot.

 

I’ve managed to talk myself in circles without coming to a real conclusion, haven’t I? I’ll try to wrap it up. At the end of the day, you’re going to be able to sense if you’ve gone too far. I’m standing on the edge of the precipice of too far with this project right now. I can feel it because every time I go to write I have to backtrack through too many notes to figure out where I was going. Yet at the same time, everything I’ve looked up is going to appear in my stories. Not in as much detail as I have jotted down, of course, but it’s going to be there. And anyone who knows my urban centre is going to know it and, I hope, appreciate it.

I’ve gone too far too many times to count. I think I have finally found a balance and I am so ready to write.

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Writing is a Misnomer – Writing is Rewriting

It’s taken me a long time to understand something very fundamental to writing. As I get more and more immersed in CampNaNoWriMo as well as facing a huge pile of editing that terrifies and invigorates me, I’m learning. I’m learning faster than I have before, evolving into a new writer, and facing a new set of opportunities open to me as I learn the truth about writing.

Writing is a misnomer.

Writing is not about writing. Fiction writing? That’s not about writing, either.

Writing is rewriting. Writing is about drafting, revising, editing. Or it might look like drafting, revising, redrafting, scrapping, drafting, revising, editing, revising, drafting bits, revising, editing…and shipping it out into the world.

That’s the pivotal work.

I kind of wish I had found this quote earlier in my writing process. But that doesn’t mean that earlier I was ready to learn what this quote really talks about.

The fact that writing is called writing puts so much pressure on the actual act of writing that first draft. Writing is getting ideas down that you can edit and draft from and revise later.

After the first draft, you pick out the elements and themes you want to emphasize and you redraft and revise to bring those out. And then you do that again. And again. And then you might find a flaw which takes you back to square one.

And that’s okay. So long as you are moving forward, putting words onto the page, learning about your story, your themes, and yourself, you are succeeding in the craft called “writing.”

 

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New Kid At The Con

Cons may be a recurring subject here on the Anxiety blog.

This is not to say that every writer should attend one. Yes, they’re amazing in the senses of community, learning, and connections (you will very likely find some new best friends), but they tend to be expensive if you don’t live near one. Can you afford to take the time off work? Can you afford the travel, hotel, and eating out, in addition to the cost of the con itself?

And some of us suffer panic attacks at the thought of that intensely social a situation.

Booklife by Jeff Vandermeer does a brilliant job discussing this sometimes precarious balance. If something will negatively affect your mental and emotional health, DON’T. DO. IT. As writers, we need to do things that feed and fuel our writing.

That said, there is enough extrovert in me that cons just so happen to provide feed and fuel.

I just got back from ReaderCon a week ago. I met up with some amazing friends and made a lot of new ones.

A K Tempest Bradford selfie! via Tempest’s Instagram

I’ve now attended three cons, with a fourth coming up this fall in the form of World Fantasy, so I’m not really ‘new’ to it any more. But it seems I may have a propensity for introducing those who are. At least, I’ve done that at both ReaderCons I’ve attended.

Watching the progression of I-don’t-know-what-I’m-doing-so-I’ll-stick-with-you to this-sounds-cool-so-I’ll-see-you-later is always awesome. It takes a little longer to work up to the joining of random conversations, though that part is sometimes easier when you don’t have a safety net of friends to fall back on.

If you’ve been, what was your first experience like? Did you go with a friend or alone? If you haven’t, do you want to? Or are cons maybe not so much for you?

Please share!

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Branding: A Marketing Term Translated

I was on an administrative kick a few weeks ago and decided to update my blog post flow chart. Yes, it’s a list of all the topics I’ve written about for Anxiety. Yes, I like charts. Why? Because I’m that anal retentive.

That, however, is a topic for another day.

While going through my list I started to think that some of my posts were missing. I mentioned months ago that I was reading Write. Publish. Repeat. Well, I finished it….and completely forgot to write any posts on it as I was intending. I tell you, this scatterbrain I’ve got going on right now drives me up the wall.

Kate’s current marketing project struck a chord in the recesses of my brain and reminded me about the single most important thing I took away from the book: author branding.

I’m going to back track for a moment and start with a quote pulled out of Write. Publish. Repeat.:

“Writing is about you. Publishing is about the book. Marketing is about the reader.”

These three sentences encapsulate the core of the book. And I don’t think they could be any more spot on. If you’re not writing for yourself than I don’t know what you’re doing. Ok, writing for yourself and writing what you want to write should be your two biggest priorities. The passion you feel when you’re doing what you love absolutely translates. But, again, this is a topic for another day.

Publishing is definitely about the book you’ve created versus being about yourself. I don’t have first-hand knowledge of this but any time I’ve submitted a story, a project, or a paper anywhere, I’ve sold the product in my hands, not myself. Yes, you take it personally if you fail or succeed, but at the end of the day that’s essentially irrelevant.

If I have no real experience publishing you can guess that I have absolutely no marketing chops. Honestly? I’m notoriously terrible at selling myself –how I have a job or friends is miraculous to me sometimes. Write. Publish. Repeat. truly opened my eyes on this front. Specifically, the idea of branding my writing.

At first pass I thought the authors were absolutely nutty. I remember my thoughts well, actually: “How in the hell do I brand my writing unless I turn into a formulaic hack? That’s the dumbest thing ever. Not interested, guys. Not. Interested.” Then I got to one of the author interviews in the back, and CJ Lyons explained her brand. A light bulb turned on in my head and I went, “ohhh.”

You see, the marketing term threw me. Reading about Lyons’s explanation allowed me to put the idea into my own words. Yes, I translated “branding” into English-speak: all writers have themes and messages we transmit in our stories no matter the topic/genre/characters we’re focusing on. We have ingrained beliefs so it’s somewhat inevitable. “Branding” in the author world is identifying the theme that transcends every piece you write and selling that theme.

Tada! Simplified and easy peasy.

Not.

I haven’t written enough, let alone published enough, to know what my engrained themes are. I know myself pretty well, but, again, I’m not selling myself. As far as my body of work goes, it’s small and all over the place. And I’ve never retrospectively identified similar elements in my stories. This is not to say it can’t be done but I’m going to have to put my thinking cap on and deliberately link my work without making crap up.

I look forward to the long, arduous process. I think it’ll be worth it.

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