Category: Learning Page 2 of 3

Adding to my Shelf

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On September 6, 2012

In Learning, Organizing, Planning for the Future, Revision

I guess I’m going back on my no-advice-books rule again. I’ve seen Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print mentioned on three blogs in as many days, so I thought I’d take a look at it. While I’ve got many great tips on editing after the first draft is complete, this looks like it might be useful as well. For $13, it’s worth a try, I figure (I also bought yet another canning book – sshh, I’m just going to hide it on the shelf with the others and hope no one notices).

I’m not going to read it until I’m done my story though. I don’t like the spectre of revision hanging over my head while I write. Even now I sometimes look at my freshly-typed-out work and wonder if I’m just going to cut it in the end, and that’s depressing.

I’m also thinking about trying out Scrivener. It’s another thing I see praised often by writers for its ability to organize everything. Thoughts, anyone? It sure looks pretty. Makes me wonder why I spent so much on coloured index cards and post-its when I could have had them all on my screen. Right now I use Open Office, which works fine, but because I have everything in one massive doc, I do find myself scrolling through my 180-ish pages of single-spaced text looking for a specific reference in a chapter I can’t remember. This happens at least two or three times a day. So getting organized might be nice. I hear it also helps with outlining, my new favourite thing. Did you know, I’m through 1.5 bullet points since the other day? So great.

I guess what I want to know is, is there any point in getting it this late in the game, three-quarters of the way through this book? Will transfering everything over be a giant pain in the ass? Or should I keep it in mind for when I start Book Two and stay the course for now?

I’m buying roughly 200lbs of tomatoes to can tomorrow. I imagine one of two things will happen with respect to writing in the next week: either I don’t do any at all, or my keyboard will be stained red and speckled with seeds while I cram in a few paragraphs in between canner loads.

You Would Think…

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On September 5, 2012

In Learning, My Failings As A Proper Novelist, Research, Writer's Low

…that a person who worked as a researcher for years would look something up for accuracy ahead of time before making it an important plot point. Right? That would be the sensible thing to do.

Yeah, not so much, if you’re me. And it was one of those stupid little takes-five-seconds-to-verify things. Two words to type into Google Translate. I’ve been meaning to do it for months. Turns out my knowledge of foreign languages isn’t quite as good as I thought it was and I made a mistake that puts me in a bit of a quandry. Shitfuckdamn. Time to dig myself out of another hole.

I Don’t Believe in Destiny, But…

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On August 3, 2012

In Big Ideas, Learning, Things That Are Awesome

A friend just brought up the Myers-Briggs test in a conversation online, and, while I’ve done the test before, it’s been awhile since I’ve read the definition of my type. I’m an INFP – Introversion, iNtuition, Feeling, Perception. I’ve always tested fairly extreme in each of those categories. Looking at the Wikipedia page and its definition of INFPs, one description stands out to me:

INFPs are creative types and often have a gift for language. As introverts, they may prefer to express themselves through writing. Their dominant Feeling drives their desire to communicate, while their auxiliary intuition supplies the imagination. Having a talent for symbolism, they enjoy metaphors and similes.

So there you go. I’m hard-wired to be a writer or something. And it looks like I’m in very good company too. (seriously, Orwell, Poe, Lee, Rowling, Lovecraft, Shakespeare?) (Ignore Nicolas Cage and the sparkly vampire guy).

I still believe it’s something I work hard at. I certainly wasn’t born great, or even good, and I’ve put in hundreds and hundreds of hours over the years to learn and improve. But it’s cool to know that my aptitude for writing seems to be personality-based, and that there’s a reason why I spend half my waking hours building castles in the sky, and the other half trying to record them.

Bookish

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On July 19, 2012

In Big Ideas, Excitement, Learning, Things That Are Awesome

As a rule, I try to avoid reading how-to or theory books, because I prefer to follow my own instincts and find my own way in life. Too much reading on a subject – let’s say parenting, which my life mostly revolves around these days – only leads to eventual conflicting information and viewpoints, and a whole hell of a lot of confusion and second-guessing oneself. At least it does for me. The authors of these types of books don’t know me or my family and our specific circumstances, so I feel they aren’t qualified to dictate how we do things. If I’m looking for advice I’d much rather turn to friends who do know me, and may have been in similar circumstances. In this respect I am wealthy indeed, because I have a wonderful community of supportive friends.

Same goes for writing. I figure I can muddle my way through better on my own because I’m the one who’s most familiar with the particular mechanisms of my brain and how it likes to develop a process for writing. I did buy one book to help me outline and flesh out the basics, Ready, Set, Novel, which I started with the best of intentions, and is now gathering dust on the shelf. I’m the sort of person who doesn’t get to know what her characters are all about until she starts writing them, and I found it impossible to fill out before I’d begun my story. Someday, I may get back to it and finish filling it out now that I know more about these people.

Other than that and my copy of CP Style which I’ve had since the early 2000s and my j-school days, that’s it for writing assistance. In this instance I’m not against it, but I don’t want to fill my head with all kinds of how-to information and have that drown out my own creative process. When I find all the things wrong with the manuscript when I’m done – and I know there are many at this point – that’s where I can turn to experts to help me solve those problems.

I suppose I can do that with my kids as well – when they’re in therapy three times a week I can read all kinds of child psychology and development books and find out where I went off the rails. However I imagine kids are a lot harder to edit than first drafts. Oh well.

Anyway, I read this interview on Terribleminds and immediately thought, this is the sort of book I could find useful, here and now. And today my copy of Wired for Story by Lisa Cron came in the mail.

Blowing.

My.

Mind.

I’m only a few chapters in and I’m already seeing so much that I could stand to improve, but also what I’m really nailing (admittedly a lot of the latter I wasn’t even aware I was doing, which either makes me unconsciously awesome or one lucky biotch). I want to make notes, highlight things, create charts, maybe even (gasp!) an outline (don’t hold your breath there, it still wigs me out a lot).

Anyway, I’m really into this book. I like how it’s based in science instead of opinion, because I can get behind science. Science makes sense. And the rest of the chapters, based on my totally superficial evaluation of their titles, look like they’re going to be awesome too. So while I probably won’t be writing any new material for the next couple of days, my time spent reading will (hopefully) help me to reach a point where when I do start up again, it will be with a clearer focus on my goals and what I need to include in order to make the story the best it can be.

Can’t wait!

Chapter Breaks

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On July 9, 2012

In Learning, Musical Interlude, My Failings As A Proper Novelist, Organizing

Something that I’m not so great at is where to end one chapter and start a new one. I like to cut them off at a point where there’s a little bit of suspense, to create a bit of incentive to turn the page – the best books for me are the ones that I can’t just stop reading and put down when I reach the end of the chapter, as I so often promise to do when it’s very late at night, because that chapter ending totally leaves me hanging and wondering what the hell is going to happen. So then I just read one more page… and the next thing I know it’s 4 a.m. and I’ve just read an entire book in a day.

But I’m off track now.

A lot of times I have a preconceived notion of where a chapter should end before I’ve actually written it. I don’t know if that’s a good idea when it comes to plotting or not, but that’s the direction my thoughts usually go when I’m thinking about structure (which is seldom). But then I’ll check my word count and realize my one chapter is actually about 12,000 words, which is just way too long any way you look at it. A 40 page chapter is just not reasonable in my mind. So then I have to split it into two smaller ones. My orginal ‘chapter 3’ was actually close to 24,000 words. True story. It ended up splitting into four. But then it’s kind of cool, because it’s way better to be able to say “I’ve finished six chapters so far” instead of a fairly measly three, and you feel like you’ve accomplished so much more. Anyway, I’ve been looking forward to getting to be able to write “Chapter 10” because, hey, double-digits, that’s kind of a neat milestone, right? And then when I checked my word count for chapter 9 I saw it was around 11,000 words, because once again I had this idea stuck in my head of where it had to end. Oops. I bisected it rather successfully, I think, and got to write both “Chapter 10” and “Chapter 11” tonight. See? I didn’t even know I was that far along.

I wonder if it would be better to just write the whole thing without worrying about where the chapters end, and add that all in afterwards, when it’s done?

And now for a musical interlude. The overly large section of the book formerly known as Chapter 9 was brought to you by the following songs, which have given me some inspiration and/or insight into a few of my characters’ motivations and emotions. One’s newer, and one’s an oldie but a goodie:

Thanks, iPod. Once again you have served me well.

Chapter 11 is going to be SO MUCH FUN to write.

It’s A Start

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On June 18, 2012

In Distractions, Learning, Organizing

In a tiny, tiny first step towards some sort of future organization, I made a doc called “Things for Later” that I put a couple of minor ideas I didn’t want to forget – snippets of dialogue, actually – that I hope will grow to be a more comprehensive list of plot points for this series. I’m not sure how to organize it, and I may not even try, just write them down as they come to me with some sort of note at the beginning indicating where it might fall in the timeline.

It’s kind of a big deal for me, she-who-does-not-outline. And after my tremendous efforts yesterday, it’s a good way for me to take a bit of a break from the book without being entirely unproductive. I think I’ve got the next week’s worth of writing set up nicely in my head anyway, so might as well focus on something different tonight.

***

Or I could just play Bejeweled all night instead. Whatever.

Why Didn’t I Think Of This Four Months Ago?

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On June 10, 2012

In Big Ideas, Distractions, Learning, My Failings As A Proper Novelist

Fact: When I write, I’m often distracted by other things online, switching back and forth between my doc and various browser tabs that have nothing to do with research.

Fact: My usual output is anywhere from 300 to 700 words an hour.

Fact: This week I’ve had very limited internet access because I’ve been away from home, out in the sticks, but I’ve still managed to snag the rocket stick when I wanted to write.

Fact: This afternoon I couldn’t get the rocket stick but I decided to write without it anyway, figuring I’d give up quickly after I couldn’t research some tiny point.

Fact: I actually wrote 1,300 words in an hour. That’s probably a speed record for me.

Fact: From now on when it’s time to write I’m going to turn off the wifi capability on my laptop and only turn it on in cases when I actually need to. Facebook doesn’t count as a need.

Fact: It took me about 100,000 words over two novels to discover this about my writing routine.

Fact: I’m a little slow on the uptake sometimes.

I Got The Blues

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On June 8, 2012

In Just Keep Writing, Learning, My Failings As A Proper Novelist, Revision

I’m developing a serious hate-on for my first chapter. Even when I was writing it I thought it was a bit weak, but now the further I progress – and the more I read about proper first-chapter development – the more I want to rip it up (or since it’s entirely digital, select-all-delete, I guess) and start fresh. There’s way too much back story and not enough dialogue, and a lot of it comes off a bit smug, I think. Chapter two is on similarly shaky ground, although it has some elements of mystery and foreshadowing that are important to the rest of the story. Both deal with character development, I suppose – it’s not like the first 12,000 words are a recitation of the periodic table of elements or anything similiarly pointless – but when I read it back to myself, I think “boring, boring, boring” or maybe TL;DR. Which is the kiss of death for any novel, as I’ve been told over and over. I care about Callie because she lives in my head, and I’ll listen to pretty much anything she tells me, but I’m not sure, having just read the first chapter, that anyone else would. By the time you get to the end of chapter two, I think there’s definitely incentive to keep reading, but the fickle reader, short on time, might decide to move on to something else if the first ten pages don’t capture their interest.

But I have a problem, and that problem is revision.

I’ll tell you a secret – I’ve never revised anything I’ve written. Ever. I don’t do drafts. I do final products. This is how I would write papers in university: I would do all my research, get all my supporting arguments and quotes in order, then sit on it for a week or two and plan the whole thing out in my head, going over and over it until I liked the way it fit together. Then, usually a day or two before it was due, I would sit down and write the entire thing in one sitting, from beginning to end. I’d usually check it over once for spelling and grammar – I often mis-type ‘from’ as ‘form,’ for instance – and then print it and submit. The end. I graduated with a GPA of 3.78 so obviously the system works well for me – when it comes to 5,000-word papers, that is. Obviously this project is a bit bigger than that, which is why, without all the mulling and stewing and planning in my head beforehand that’s occurred with the major scenes but not the connecting ones, I’m sometimes only able to produce 500 words an hour.

So I find myself in unchartered territory here. I need to revise. I need to strip and chop and rebuild and strengthen. It’s not what I’m used to. It’s not something I imagine I’m all that proficient at – I need to find some good ‘how to revise your writing’ blog posts – but sooner or later, I need to head down that road. And with all my unfamiliarity with the process, I have no idea if I should be doing that now, while it’s especially bothering me, or just keep moving forward, and make that the first agenda on the revision task sheet. I have a feeling if I don’t deal with it soon, my feelings about chapter one are going to get worse and worse until I start to question the entire project’s worth, which won’t be good for my future as a novelist. But it seems like such a step backwards, a giving-in to the inner editor who really needs to just shut up and let me work, dammit. I am open to suggestion and wisdom and experience from all sources.

Next up in the series I may start calling My Failings As A Proper Novelist: Why I Also Don’t Write Outlines (But Should Get Over That, Already)

Crisis Averted

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On May 24, 2012

In Learning, Research, Writer's Low

Let this be a lesson to everyone who uses more than one device. Last week my iPad suffered an unfortunate meeting with a glass of juice and has been a little out of sorts ever since – completely unusable, actually (Lesson within the lesson – don’t leave glasses of juice around your iPad when you have a two-year-old). I realized today that all my research bookmarks for my book were on the iPad, and not only was it not working, it had also been reset and wiped clean of all its apps and data at the Apple store when I took it in to see if it could be saved. Dozens of links to much-needed information gone, I thought, and I’d neglected to check the box to keep bookmarks synced in iTunes when I’d backed it up beforehand. Honestly, the thought that I should back them up too had never occurred to me.

Thankfully, after an hour of frantic forum and help topic reading, as well as many curse words both typed and uttered aloud, I recovered all the bookmarks directly from the iPad and now have them safely synced in Firefox.

Giant sigh of relief.

The lesson: it’s not enough to back up the document you write in. Save EVERYTHING you need to do your work, and save yourself some heartache.

Goals and deadlines

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On May 5, 2012

In Distractions, Just Keep Writing, Learning

I’m kind of a goal-oriented person. I was talking with someone the other day about leaving things until the last minute because I work better under pressure – case in point, my taxes filed less than 24 hours before deadline, and my post-secondary habit of beginning essays the night before they were due. That sort of pressure just seems to work better for me. And it’s a positive motivator, because I always did well on those papers, and my taxes were error-free.

I told one of my early readers that I would try to have chapter four finished for her for the weekend so she could have something to read. I think I’m close and I’m hoping to have it done tomorrow, if all goes well (I consider ‘the weekend’ to be a pretty loose deadline – that could mean 11:59pm on Sunday night). Unfortunately (for her) it’s going to be a cliffhanger ending and it might be another eight weeks before I’ve finished five and six. Anyway, having even a vague deadline looming over me has kicked me into high gear, which I appreciate.

I read a lot about gargoyles today, which was cool. And I’m slowly filling up my characters’ pinterest boards, which is always a fun break if I need to give my mind a few minutes to mull something over.

I feel like May is going to be a really positive month for me, creatively. 🙂

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