Meredith Bond's Blog, page 27

Vacation Anyone?

So when you're on your holiday vacation, do you work? It's always a fight with my conscience — to work or not to work. It is truly a question because I can work anywhere. For example, right now I'm in my brother-in-law's lovely apartment in Manhattan many miles from my home.

I brought my computer with me and my husband cleverly built down- time into the busy schedule he planned out for us — always open for changing if we want to do something other than what he planned. So, I've got time to work and I can escape into the bedroom if I don't feel like sitting in the living room with the rest of the family. But do I?

Hell, I'm on vacation. Shouldn't I just be sitting back with a good book (brought Sherrilyn Kenyon's fabulous new book Retribution with me and I am loving it) and just relaxing? And yet my mind does, every so often, wander back to the story I'm writing. I'm getting near what should be the 50% mark and yet, my word count isn't where I want it to be. It's going to be very exciting when I get back to writing because I've got a big fight scene coming up and the heroine's brother (with whom she's very close) is about to get kidnapped by the villain. You know that that's going to be traumatic because, naturally, she can't go after him right away, there are too many other lives at stake for her to just stop what she's doing and go after him. All really good, fun stuff to write. And yet, here I am in New York, enjoying the sights and the amazing food options (my husband is a gourmand and has found the most delicious and yet inexpensive places for us to eat — Korean fried chicken anyone? Puts a new spin on KFC!)

I have the time, do I have the inclination? I'm on vacation, but I could take an hour or so to work. What do you do? Do you work through the holidays? Do you get story ideas from interactions with friends and family? Or do you just sit back and let someone else's hard work entertain you through this week of holiday happiness?

Ready?

I spent all day yesterday baking cookies. Now that they're done, I am officially ready for this year's holiday season. I've got all my shopping done. The wreath is on the front door. And now the cookies are baked and being distributed to (hopefully) grateful teachers even as I write this.

As always, I baked some old favorites — chocolate mint cookies (recipe below), although this year I didn't make my rugelah (it's a lot of work and I just didn't feel like it this year). And I tried some new ones — one worked, one sort of did and one was a complete fail.

The one that worked was a recipe from Mary Lenaburg who always has the most sinful, delicious recipes on her blog, Passionate Perseverance. This one was for homemade oreos (that's Mary's picture I stole) and these are just, well, amazing would be understating how good these are. Click the link and it'll take you to that recipe, then, after you've copied it, look around at all of the other wonderful things she has there — you won't be sorry!

The cookie that didn't quite work and the one that didn't at all were healthier cookies. Yes, I know, it's silly of me to try to make healthier cookies at this time of year, but my conscience always makes me try. One was a healthier short bread cookie — they turned out dry and bland. And the other one which was a complete fail I knew from the minute I looked at the recipe that it wouldn't work, but, you know, I just had to try it anyway, didn't I? It was for chocolate meringues with nothing in them but egg whites, sugar and melted chocolate chips. It sounded so simple and so good, but don't you usually have to put cream of tartar into meringues? I think you do and I think that whoever wrote this recipe (I can't even remember where I found it, or if I did, I wouldn't be mean and say so) just forgot to put it in. I blended up the egg whites, added the sugar, blended, added the chocolate, blended, then dropped teaspoons of the liquid onto my lined baking sheet. It just didn't seem right. It was liquid! And that's just what I got, nothing but dried up puddles of this sweetened egg white. You need that cream of tartar to bind them together.

And here is where I will give a nod to my husband who sees a metaphor for writing in Everything! Yes, you need more than sweetness and light in your novel for it to rise, be fun and yummy — for it to work. You need that binder, that conflict, that something to bind everything together to make your novel, or your cookie, work.

Luckily, I had some frozen cookie dough I had made a few months ago in my freezer to make up for the loss of the meringues. I always have a back-up plan, just in case. Now, let's see how we can apply that to writing?

I hope everyone has a very happy holiday season!

Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

(taken from the Washington Post, December 2008)

Note: dough must refrigerate at least 2 hours before rolling and baking.

1 1/2 cups flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

Mix these together in a medium sized bowl.

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter (at room temperature)

Mix with hand-mixer until smooth. Add

3/4 tsp peppermint oil (it says not to use extract, but I always do and it works fine)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup sugar (added a little at a time).

1 large egg

When this is all blended well. Add the flour/cocoa mixture. Dough will be sticky. Divide it in half. Form each half into a ball and wrap with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for a few hours.

They say to make logs with the dough then cut circles and bake. I like to roll out the dough and cut out pretty little stars.

Bake in 350 degree oven for 14 minutes.  Cool on wire rack.

Optional — combine powdered sugar with a little (very, very little) water and a drop of peppermint extract to make a drizzling icing. Dip a fork into the icing and drizzle decoratively over the cookies.  Enjoy or make someone else very happy by giving them as a pretty gift.

Sluuurpop!

Did anyone else hear it, or is it only me? It's kind of like the sound of a cork slowly being pulled from a bottle of wine. Sluuuuurpop!

It's the sound of my head slowly being pulled from the bed of sand it's been stuck in. Every so slowly I'm discovering more and more websites, blogs and boards to help me self-publish. Perhaps when that pop finally comes it will be the sound of success. But right now, I'm still pulling out my head and discovering new things.

First it was blogs on how to code and format (see my earlier blog on defeating the HTML Monster), then it was the wonderful self-publishing advice blogs of Joe Konrath, Bob Mayer among others, then I discovered Goodreads and now Kindleboards. Sluuuuurp.

I'm also a member of the RWA self-publishing loop and another on Facebook, not to mention Twitter and Facebook, naturally. I still have to make proper use of Twitter — I've never actually had a conversation with anyone there — but I'm still hoping for some meaningful interaction there. And, of course, I figured out that I need to blog. (I do have to admit, the blogging's been the most fun any Anything!)

But what else is out there? There must be hundreds more blogs I could be reading. And plenty more websites — oh! I remember someone told me once about the Savvy Authors website, but I've yet to get involved there. The point is that there are so many way to get involved, learn about self-publishing as well as promote your books.

What have you discovered that I haven't? Anything really stand out to you as a place where it's worth the time away from your writing?

Duh! Branding!

It was another one of those chance comments at the holiday party I told you about on Monday: "Oh, my God, I know, branding is so important!"

Branding? As in my name? The name I write under? It's important to keep using that same name, huh? Well, yeah, I guess it is.

All the time I'm bombarded with people offering marketing advice and inevitably the word "branding" gets tossed in there, and I, stupidly, toss it right back out, not even thinking about it.

And then there was that comment. And I thought, oh crap, I've done it. I've destroyed my brand with the silliest and stupidest thing — my new writing book. I published it under my real name. Why? Because I tell my students my real name, although, for some reason, my classes are listed under my pen name (the administrator found it easier to type Bond rather than Banerji, go figure). And I, for some unknown, idiotic reason published my writing book under Banerji. Why? Why destroy my brand like that? Hell, it won't make a difference, I thought to myself at the time. It's non-fiction. It's not associated with my romances. No, but duh, people who pick up a writing book want to know that the person who wrote it knows what they're talking about. They want to know what fiction books this author has published, right? And what are they going to find under my real name, the name on the cover of my writing book? Nada.

So here I am, resubmitting all of the e-book files and applying for a new ISBN on CreateSpace just so that I can change the author's name on all of versions of my writing book. And with every change, I pause to bang my head against my desk twelve times. Branding! It's important!

Holiday Party Outcomes

As any professional will tell you, the opportunity to "talk shop" in a relaxed atmosphere is vital to professional growth and stimulation of creativity. Businesses and government organizations alike schedule numerous retreats to allow for and encourage this sort of discussion and networking. Oddly enough, writers are exactly the same way.

Yes, writing is a very lonely occupation. We do it, for the most part, sitting at home or in a coffee shop, slogging away at our laptops. We are physically alone, yet mentally over-crowded with characters and all of the action and emotion of our work. But every once in a while we get together and, just like with any other professional, I both enjoy and come away from such encounters brimming with excitement. Ideas positively drip from my brain and if I don't write them down fast, I just know that they'll fall into space and be lost forever.

Yesterday, a number of members of the Washington Romance Writers got together at one very generous member's home for our annual holiday party and my mind has been churning with lightly parted comments turned into amazing revelations ever since.

I love hearing about the work of other writers. They have amazing ideas, fantastic imaginations, and, I'm sorry to say it's always a relief for me to hear, also suffer from similar problems as me. How terribly, wonderful it is to hear that another writer also had "and something important happens here" in their outline for the novel they're just starting to write. And I'm amazed when I hear that one person doesn't write their novel sequentially, when I couldn't do it any other way. I heard about writing software that makes writing out of order  possible. And another said that for the first time she wrote a novel in order and was amazed at how easy the words flowed from fingers.

Future programs for the group were discussed and the benefits of one writing teacher over another. Writing books were talked about giving me a mental list of books I've got to look up and will probably add to my ever-growing wish-list.

But best of all was the amazing idea that came from a friend who I was telling about my adventures in self-publishing. As if it were the most obvious thing in the world, he said, "I'd pay you to format my book for me, if I had one finished and ready to go. It sounds like you really know what you're doing." And just like that, I've got a business model in mind. Bam!

Why shouldn't I format and code into HTML other people's work? Or help people who are trying to do it on their own for a modest consulting fee? I loved formatting my own books. I found it immensely fulfilling to look through every line of code checking to be sure I had everything just right, testing it out and going back to fix anything that wasn't the way it should be. I had so much fun making my book look professionally published, why shouldn't I do that for others? And I can approach this from a point of view your ordinary computer techie can't — from a writer's perspective. I know what I'm working with — your baby — and I know what it should look like.

The question is, will someone pay me to do this for them? What do you think? Is this a viable business plan? I'm looking for honest answers here, people. Tell me what you think.

Deepest Apologies

Further update: Got them all in — and let that be a lesson to anyone who has a blog — save all your posts to your computer!  Thank goodness I did (except for one, which wasn't that important). It was an easy matter to upload them all again. Phew!

Update as of nearly noon on Tuesday: Yay! So far it's working! Major sigh of relief here! Now I'm going to add in all my old posts.

My blog is having major problems which I'm trying to sort out. I appreciate your patience.

How Do You Cook?

What kind of cook are you? Do you follow a recipe to the letter, leveling off your measuring spoon to make sure you have precisely the right amount of each ingredient? Or do you wing it — you know what the end product should be like so you add a bit of this, a splash of that and it turns out however it turns out, sometimes right, sometimes not, but always good?

What about when you write? Do you plot out your book, develop your characters, create your recipe, so to speak, and then follow it to the letter? Or do you fly by the seat of your pants, just sitting down with a general idea of what you want your story to be about and just write it?

Of course, there is no right or wrong way to cook or to write. You can end up with as delicious a dish by following a recipe or by making it up as you go. Of course, you don't have to follow one way entirely, you can be a blending of the two.

That's me. I blend. When I want to cook something, I'll look up three of four recipes for the same thing (I LOVE the internet for this — years ago I used to skim through four or five cookbooks looking for recipes) and then make an amalgamation of them all picking out the parts that sound the best or most logical to me, and then I'll add a dash more of this and maybe a little less of that to get the taste I'm looking for.

When I write, I'll carefully plot out my book, spending a few weeks creating my characters and plotting out their arcs. Then I'll sit down and write and what comes out, comes out. Yes, I'll refer back to my recipe, my carefully plotting out story structure, every few days to make sure I'm on the right track, but for the most part I engage in method writing (another blog to come, promise!) and what happens, happens. I will go back when I edit to make sure I've got enough conflict in there, and I'll beef up my descriptions — adding a little more of this, taking away a little of that. And at the end of the book, I've got a very close approximation of my original plot, even though it's not exact.

So, how do you plot? Or don't you?

Over the next few weeks, off and on, I'm going to be posting summaries of the chapters in my new writing book, Chapter One. In it, I talk about all the different aspects of writing — yes, it's a beginning writing book, but  you may find my take on things a little different from yours. In my book, and on this blog, I will also include a number of worksheets with which I plot out my books. If you're a plotter, you'll love them! If you're a pantser, you might want to look them over to know what you want to keep in mind as you're writing or editing. So look out for these blogs, and you can always find the entire book on Amazon, Nook and Smashwords (Kobo, iBooks, etc, through Smashwords' premium catalogue). And just to be different, it's not only available as an ebook, but POD as well, if you need it (as many of my writing students do) in your hand so you can flip back and forth through it — something not easy to do with an ebook.

Happy cooking!

Follow @merrybond

The POS

Nora Roberts calls hers the POS — pile of shit. Jennifer Crusie calls her own the "Don't Look Down" draft. I'm trying to decide what to call my first draft.

I edit as I write — yes, yes, I know, some people say that stifles their creativity, but I'm already a left-brained writer.  I plan out every scene and all of the major characters and their arcs meticulously before I even start writing the first page. And I need to read what I wrote the day before, fix it and only then can I move on. Sometimes I even edit the same day — for example, the other day I spent my morning writing, took a break for lunch and came back and read what I'd written. Damn good thing I did too — it was horrible. No, really, I mean just God-awful. A quick delete and I started again from scratch, this time doing it right — really getting in to my character's head and putting myself there in the situation before I even started writing. I call this my pre-writing.

So if I'm doing all this pre-writing, writing and then my initial editing, it means that when I'm finally finished that first draft, it's in pretty good shape. Oh no, that does not mean that I don't have to then reread the whole thing, making drastic changes as I go through. Too often my work is too short and I've got to find another subplot or figure out how I'm going to expand what I've already written. And there is always plenty to be fixed, from word choice to grammar to backloading my sentences and paragraphs.

But what do I call this first draft? It's more than a POS and I do look down as I write. Maybe it's a tiptoe draft — I'm tiptoeing through my story. Living it, editing it, working on it, and creating it all as I write that first draft.

So, what do you call your first draft and how do you look at it? Is it a work in progress that needs a lot of fixing once it's done? Or is it pretty close to what the final manuscript will look like?

The "POS"

Nora Roberts calls hers the POS — pile of shit. Jennifer Crusie calls her own the "Don'tLook Down" draft. Whatever you call your first draft, you know that it is not going to be your final draft, and quite possibly, not even remotely similar to it.

That's what I'm working on right now. That very first, very beginning, very rough first draft. For some it's the easiest thing to write. Some even claim that it nearly writes itself. And, yeah, I've experienced first drafts that have come quickly and easily. Not this one, though.

No, this one is like pulling teeth. And I can't even dump it and start something else. It's the third book of a series. It's the conclusion to all the excitement I've been building up for two books. This is IT.

So I'm slogging. I'm trying. I'm pulling every trick in the book to get this book off the ground. So far, it's dropping like a lead cannon ball.

But, there is a silver lining here — after writing for fifteen years and teaching writing for five, I am now capable of recognizing my own horrible writing and acknowledging it. Yes. The other day I spent the entire morning writing, took a break for lunch, and then reread what I'd written and knew that those pages would never, ever, ever seen the light of day. They needed to be deleted, fast. They were awful!

It used to be that all of my writing was fabulous. I would amaze myself at how wonderfully I could write — until I gave my work to my husband to read and he would say, "Huh?", or even better, "I can't believe you wrote this. It's horrible!" (always loving, always honest, that's why I had hubby read my work before anyone else). I would then go back to my computer, tinker with a word here and there, and proudly hand it back to him. He would skim it and say, "No. Start again." And I would, reluctantly deleting my beautiful words, knowing deep down in the pit of my stomach that he was right and I was not happy about it.

Now, luckily, I can recognize my own horrible writing for what it is. Before I even show it anyone else, I know that what I've written is terrible. Before anyone else has a chance to tell me to do so, I can delete and start all over, just as I did yesterday. Whew.

Follow @merrybond

CSI Miami

Cannot Summon Inspiration — in Miami.[image error]

Usually by Sunday evening, or at latest Monday morning, I have my blog written for the week, or at the very least, have a good idea what I am going to write about. This week? Nope. Nada. Nothing.

Here it is Tuesday morning and I'm just putting up my posting. Why? I was on vacation.

Yes, I am a little embarrassed to admit, I took the weekend off and went on a complete holiday. Ok, it wasn't a complete holiday, there was a medical reason for trip (an doctor's appointment), but that was just for an hour or so Monday morning. The rest of the weekend was pure, utter bliss.

Miami! Biscayne Bay! Miami Beach! We spent most of Sunday wandering around the incredibly beautiful tropical botanic gardens and the lovely arts & crafts show they had. The afternoon was spent in the jacuzzi getting massaged by a waterfall. The evening was a delicious Brazilian drink followed by a lovely Cuban dinner. Monday, after the doctor's appointment was spent walking along the beach, digging toes into the sand and slowly getting used to the freezing cold water lapping around our ankles.  Work? What's that?

[image error]What I did is something that everyone should do every now and then. Relax. Wow, is it amazing. Try it sometime and you'll see what I mean.  And I highly recommend Lulu's outdoor cafe in Coconut Grove.

On a side note — that doctor's appointment was with a breast specialist. Thirty one years ago, when my mother was exactly my age, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Ten horrendous (for the operations, chemo and[image error] pain she went through), wonderful (for the time we spent together — eight years longer than the doctors expected when she was diagnosed) years later the disease took her from us. Breast cancer is hereditary, so I went to be sure that I was in good health. Happily, I am. If you are over the age of 40, please don't forget to get checked regularly!

[image error]

Follow @merrybond