M.B. Weston's Blog, page 13

M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 01/21/15

Today’s writing session was all about the villain.

All too often, especially in the urban fantasy pulp novella I’m working on, the villain drives the story line. If all the villains in New York City decided to take a week off, Spider Man wouldn’t have anything to do (and he would probably enjoy it). Batman exists specifically because the villains were managing mischief first. In order for me to get this story line together, I need to get to know my villain a bit better. (No the first guy wasn’t the real villain. He was just the front for the villain. It’s one of my stories, so you know there’s more beyond what I give you at first. Besides, I already killed him off. )

Today, I finished up a conversation between my heroes about said villain, and I really sat down and started thinking through a few things. Without giving away too many spoilers…

I had to refer to a specific Grimm’s fairy tale–a lot.
I also had to analyze the magical powers of a certain item in said fairy tale.
I had to figure out the basic personality type of the villain in the tale based on the limited information given. I’m seeing 1) a lust for power and 2) vanity. The main problem I’m still working through deals with the vanity. Was said vanity simply a knowledge that beauty brings power and actually part of the quest for power, or was it an actual vanity problem? This becomes extremely important because vanity is a weaknesses that can be exploited, and my hero isn’t allowed to use magic when he hunts and fights these witches. He needs all the help he can get.
Based on the personality type and on the fact this person is a witch from fairy tales who has been around for quite a while, I had to figure out what on earth she is doing in modern-day New Orleans and what her goals are. At first, I thought I would go with the power idea, so I researched “the world’s most powerful women.” Basically all of them were CEOs, which sounds like far too much work for this character, so I had to figure out something different. She doesn’t want to work; she’s not used to it. I kind of turned it around when I realized she would be like the devil–really evil and manipulative. I thought of Al Pacino in The Devil’s Advocate , and that definitely got things rolling in a better direction. This lady gathers secrets about people for use later. She feeds off the weak. She gives people what they want or need and earns their loyalty. She won’t waste her time becoming a CEO because they are coming to her. I’m not quite sure of her outward face, but I’m sure she’s behind a false charity of some sort.

Now, I’ve got to figure out her next plan of action. That, and she probably needs a name, but that can wait. I don’t know her country of origin yet. I think she was actually around a while before the fairy tales were developed, so that might require research.

:::looking around:::  Muse? Oh muse?

:::shaking my head::: Where is she when you need her? (And she’d better show up because I need to get about 13,000 words done in 9 days and I need a more concrete story line.)

How about you. How much time do you spend on your villain?

Toodles!

M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 01/20/15

Good writing requires a good night of sleep–at least once a week.

Writing–especially on deadline–requires not sleeping.

When these two laws of natures collide, the results can be either hilarious or tragic depending on your sense of humor.

I need sleep, but I need to write. Sometimes i feel like these two truths shouldn’t be allowed to exist in the same universe.

Yes, I wrote today. But I fell asleep twice doing it. There has to be a better way. Well, on that doesn’t include hijacking Dr. Who’s Tardis.

Really what it means is sacrifice. That, and I’m going to have to start being more aware of how I’m spending my time.

Hmmm… I must ponder this more–after coffee. I will make this work.

How about you? Have you ever just felt like you don’t have enough time to make good writing happen?

Toodles!

M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 01/19/15

On of the hard parts of writing is balancing writing time with getting all those little administrative things done, such as answering emails and Facebook messages or doing bills and balancing bank recs. I mean, seriously, if I have a choice between escaping into a fantasy world of good verses evil that I get to create myself or entering my new purchases into Quickbooks (or worse yet, fold clothes), what do you think I’m going to choose?

Today I chose to do an hour of bank stuff. This sounds easy, but remember that every debit card purchase has to be recorded in the check register. That, and I’m in charge of the whole household’s bank accounts plus my writing account. I also had to unpack from this weekend away. I will answer emails tomorrow. Possibly. I’m putting my phone’s timer on a hour and whatever I get done I get done.

Long story short, between getting bank stuff done and doing house work to catch up from vacation, I didn’t get much writing done. I did write, but not as much as I wanted to, and this came mostly in that little part between sleep and awake…

While I’m glad I am writing everyday (you’ve heard me talk about the benefits of this), I am starting to think I need to add either a fixed period of time or a word count to this. (Probably time more than word count because once I start editing, word count goes out the window.)

I can see myself getting lazy and cheating a bit by giving my writing spot the smallest time available and then blaming it on life. While there are just down days where that kind of thing is necessary, a whole week of them might fall under the heading of “excuse.” I’ve got a deadline to meet, and I need to finish the rough draft of this 30,000 word urban fantasy, pulp novella by January 31st. All of my weekends are take up in between now and then, so I have to get cracking during the week.

I’m going to ponder this problem more at work today and see what kind of solution I can come up with.

How about you? Do you have any writing goals you try to meet each day?

Toodles!

M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 01/18/15

I am so glad that the rough draft is supposed to be rough and that Microsoft Word comes equipped with both the undo button and the cut and paste function. Last night’s writing session was all about getting down the important parts of backstory through dialog (which has been in my head for a good week). I know that most of this dialog will be interspersed throughout the book, but since it’s in my head, I need to get it out. I can cut and paste later.

I often wonder, based on my writing process and how stories unfold in my brain, if I ever could have written before computers… (I probably would use a lot of paper.)

How about you? Do you have to write the story in order, or do you mind skipping around a bit of you need to write down a scene before it vanishes?

Next session, it looks as though I will be spending some time with my villain, figuring out the extent of her powers and goals and developing rules for magic within this urban fantasy pulp series…

Toodles!

M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 01/17/15

Aka: Facebook is a huge time-suck, info dumps are hard to avoid, and other things I learned today…

I’ve been off of Facebook for a while. Most of it stems from getting out of the habit when I was sick, and the rest of it stems from not having time. Well today, I started scrolling through my newsfeed, and I must have entered a time vortex or something because an hour went by without me noticing. (Okay, you caught me. It was probably more than an hour.) I have only one thing to say:

Nasty, stupid little Facebookses with its quizes and silly memeses! We hates it, Precious!

Sigh. An hour of writing I will never get back, and all I got out of it was learning that I am most like Kailey from Firefly, democrats and republicans still hate each other, and cat pictures seem to be more popular than dog pictures.

I have also confirmed that it is impossible to try to write a story when Myth Busters is running a show on whether or not Indiana Jones’ whip can really do all those things.

And… Oh yeah, this just in. It’s really hard to write while on vacation. I’m writing every day, but not like I wanted to.

That all being said, I’m in a difficult part of my story right now. It’s called “the info dump without being an I for dump.” If you aren’t familiar with the terminology, in writing it’s considered bad form to put all of the information about your story/world/backstory into one big huge scene of either prose or boring dialogue. We writers try to scatter our information throughout the story to 1) keep the reader wondering and 2) keep the reader from getting bored.

Info dumps can become a huge problem when writing an urban fantasy where the backstory is everything. I can’t bore the reader with a long drawn out conversation–especially in pulp, but I’ve got to get the information in somehow. Right now, I’m focusing on getting the information written down. Then I can scatter it across the book for smoother reading. I just have to suffer through wincing while reading what I’m writing now and promise myself I will make it wonderful eventually–preferably before April 15…

How about you? How do you solve your info dump problems?

Toodles!

M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 01/16/15

Some days, I embody the word, irony, and I do it in such humorous ways. For instance, you might recall that in yesterday’s diary post, I included “Always have a notebook and favorite writing implement” as one of my tips for writing on vacation. Today, I found myself with a few hours of free time and no pen or paper.

:::hanging head in shame:::

And my phone was low on battery, which meant I couldn’t use it for note-taking. That and I have to hand write in order to brainstorm. Typing or texting just doesn’t cut it. (It’s a weird spacial thing. I don’t get it, but I’ve stopped fighting it.) So yeah, that was a total writing fail. I would so love to be cliched and talk about having to eat my words, but that actually sounds like some kind of campy 80’s horror movie….

Anyway, pen and paper–very important. And if you don’t have a pen and paper, be a good flirt or a good schmoozer in order to get yourself some. I am neither, and therefore, I had to hope everything I though up stayed in my memory banks.

Tomorrow I’m bringing one of the hotel notepads in my pocket for backup. (And that’s when the muse will give me the silent treatment, of course. I’m sure she is an expert in Murphy’s law because she wields it like an axe of doom.)

Anywho, today’s writing. Not as productive as I had hoped. Made some amazing discoveries, but I have to start keeping them secret to protect everyone from spoilers. I also got a bit of a scene started.

A note on the storytelling front: today I discovered that the villain is actually the driving force behind so many stories. The villain brings the action. The hero reacts to it. While I’m sure that point can be argued, the bigger point to be made is that you have to know your villain just as much as your hero. His or her driving forces are just as–if not more–important.

So guess where my mind will be tomorrow?

Have any of you ever been filled with ideas and had no way of getting them jotted down?

Toodles!

M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary – Tips for Writing on Vacation: 01/15/15

Vacation, in theory, should be a wonderful chance to sit back, relax, and let the creative juices flow. In reality, it never works out that way. I took an impromptu getaway this weekend, and I knew I didn’t want to miss a day of writing and break not only my New Year’s resolution but also this chain of great ideas in my story. (I’ve also got a looming deadline. This urban-fantasy pulp story is due April 15, which is closer than it sounds.)

Anyway, I brought a couple tools with me and planned ahead a bit. Here are a few tips I’m hoping will help me write everyday even while on vacation:

Ditch the laptop and use your cell phone or tablet. I’m in love with the new Microsoft Word app. I was able to write about 1,000 words in the car today while waiting for my husband to get out of a meeting. I used my iPhone and accessed my manuscript directly from my dropbox. I also brought my iPad mini and a full-size Bluetooth Apple keyboard (which is tinier than it sounds). So, technically, I can actually ditch the iPad and just use my phone and the keyboard if I wanted to. (However, I can see better with the iPad while using the keyboard, and sight is a wonderful thing.) Packing a smartphone or tablet is much easier than packing a large computer, and you won’t have email, banking, and all those other distractions on your computer begging for your time. (I already deleted all my iPhone games, and I don’t get email on my iPhone.) The other great thing about using a smart phone or tablet: you don’t have to wait 10 minutes for the rackin frackin thing to boot up. (Stop laughing at those of us chained to a PC, Mac users!)

Always have a notebook and favorite writing implement. If your technology fails, you can always gut it out and be old-fashioned. My first novel was started over Christmas vacation with three families in one house. I had 40 college-ruled pages handwritten in a week.

Make an announcement of your plans to write every day. Strike first. Get it out there before you get the annoying “what are you doing?” questions from the family or friends group. Communication can stop conflict before it starts.

Scout out quiet places to escape. I’ve toured the resort, and I’ve found a few spots. I’ve also found coffee and ice cream so I’m set. ;)

If all else fails, you always have the bathroom. I have roomed with 8 people in a hotel room before. (Here’s looking at you, Rachel, Damian, Gilkey Clan & Co., and Shannon!) What none of them knew: I practiced a major speech I had to give in the bathroom that weekend.

Finally, lower your standards for yourself. You are going to break your diet. You aren’t going to exercise like you should. And you aren’t going to write 2000 words a day unless you are traveling alone. Give yourself some slack and have a good time.

So, a sum up of my writing today while on vacation: I got about an hour’s worth done while waiting for my husband’s meeting to end. I also discovered that my character, Michael, is really stubborn. I was working on a scene where he was supposed to follow a cop into an interrogation room, and he just kind of said, “I don’t think so,” and walked out. That’s my boy! I’ve got one more scene to write from when the muse info dumped a bunch of ideas on me (out of order because she doesn’t make things easy), and that will be tomorrow’s task–more daunting than it sounds because it’s the scene with a lot of information and its pulp so I have to have a lot of action while I deliver the information.

What about the rest of you? Do you have any advice on how to write on vacation?

Toodles!

M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 01/14/15

The muse is finally getting on board with the new writing schedule. Of course, the little trickster is still throwing ideas at me when I’m in places without access to a pen and paper. Well, she tries. I have gotten the best of her, however.

My friend, author Andrea Judy, put me on to Aqua Notes: a little notebook you can keep in the shower. I bought one off Amazon, and for last night’s writing session (posting this blog a day late as I’m walking to work), I took advantage. Here are a few notes I took, and yes, you can stick the paper on the shower tile:

Anyway, I managed to get everything down, and now I have at least three days of ideas to flesh out.

From the writing/work standpoint, it’s still hard. I work at a job that requires mental concentration, and then I have to come home and again concentrate. I think that forcing myself into the habit of writing every day has helped. The brain is like muscles. It will get used to your schedule.

I can honestly say that I don’t know where I would be had I not purposed myself to write every day. For the past few days, I would have come home and crashed. I would not have spent time thinking about scenes. I would have lost the zone that we writers keep trying to get into. This weekend I going out of town. Now, I am planning my writing sessions; before I would have left everything at home.

If you are a writer and you are wondering how important it is to write every day, I can definitely say it has helped me.

What about all of you? What do you think?

Toodles!

M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 01/13/15

The first fourth of the very rough draft of my urban-fantasy pulp novella is done! I got a good hour-and -a-half of writing in last night and got to my inciting incident! It’s two days later than I wanted to finish but it’s done. (Now I gotta start threatening the muse with a good throttle if I don’t get some new ideas for the next fourth.)

Bear in mind that I use the words “first draft” and “rough draft” loosely. I use brackets to show things I need to add in later, and I actually do things like this:

[they both exchange several punches until Michael got the upper hand]

I just covered a full page of pulp battle with a bracketed sentence. Yes it’s cheating, but I like to get the skeleton of the story complete before I go back in and add the details lest my entire plot change and I eliminate the scene.

If anyone missed my “rough draft math,” here is a quick explanation. My rough drafts tend to be about two-thirds the length of my final drafts. My inciting incident should take place one-fourth of the way in. This novella is supposed to be 30,000 words, so that’s a little over 7,000 words per fourth. Since my rough drafts are two-thirds shorter than my finals, I need around 5,000 per fourth.

My inciting incident hit around word 4,500, but I will wait until everything gets fleshed out before I work on timing and pacing and such. Seriously, it I’m going to sum up a full page of fighting with “[they both exchange several punches until Michael got the upper hand],” I had better plan to be flexible.

Anyway, I reached a waypoint last night, and I’m quite excited. Although my writing sessions haven’t always been what I wanted them to be, I honestly believe writing every day in 2015 is going to change my writing career, and I recommend it to everyone!

Toodles!

My ChattaCon Panel Schedule

I just received my ChattaCon panel schedule today. Here it is! (Hopefully I won’t get deathly ill in the middle of the convention this time.) If you are going to ChattaCon, be sure to stop by the Dark Oak Table where I will be signing books all day!

SATURDAY

 12:00pm, Gallery A – Author’s Panel- Out of Nowhere: The Explosion of Young Adult Speculative Fiction.
01:00pm, Gallery A – Writer’s Workshop- World Building
04:00pm, Gallery B – Author’s Panel- Independent Author Marketing and the Future of Publishing.

SUNDAY

12:00pm, Classroom B – Writers Panel- The Concept is Awesome! (but I can’t understand what you’re saying)**

**Please note that I have a 12 hour drive home to Naples, Florida, so I might have to skip my Sunday panel.

Fantasy, steampunk, and paranormal novelist M. B. Weston is the author of The Elysian Chronicles, a fantasy series about guardian angel warfare and treason. Weston is also the hose of The Final Cut In Movies radio show that airs on TMV Cafe Monday nights at 8:00 EST. For more information on M. B. Weston, visit www.mbweston.com. To receive notification of M. B. Weston’s book releases click here to subscribe to Dark Oak Press & Media’s e-newsletter.

Click here for a full listing of M. B. Weston’s published books, and be sure to check out her ever-growing list of published short stories here.