January 26th, 2012
What challenges us emotionally in life, challenges our novel writing. What we’re best at in life, becomes what we look forward to most in our writing process. I teach this dynamic all the time–and I live it. If you’re a seat-of-the-pants writer, it wouldn’t be a coincidence if you’re not a list maker or a planner in the “real” world.” If you LOVE to revise (like me), it’s likely that analyzing things and breaking them into their orderly parts is you everyday zen (at least it’s something that doesnt’ drive you nuts the way it seems to for everybody else).
Flip that around. If the unknown scares you, and you tend to plan for likely outcomes before you embark on a journey, drafting a new novel won’t make you warm and fuzzy (I tend to call the feeling a blank Page 1 invokes in me abject terror, but that might be a bit extreme for the rest of you.)
But if you’re the wanderer, dreaming of a backpacking trip through Europe where you merely have a start point and a destination and you’ll figure out pesky details like lodging and food and transpo along the way, well…you’re nuts! Eh-hem. What I meant to say is that I suspect writing blind into a new story is a mighty lovely place for you. Until you hit The End, and have to go back and break things down into their parts, rework your rough draft pieces into a better whole, then knit everything back together (which anal retentive, geeky analytical girls like me tend to think of as Nirvana ;o).
My point to my students is never that either one or the other of these approahces is bad, in either life or writing. But that it’s best to know your strengths and weaknesses and to play one up, while compensating for the other. If it takes you forever to write a draft (to the point that you revise and revise and revise your first 100 pages while never writing the rest of the novel), take a look at why. If you can’t “make” yourself go back and revise a first draft because all the fun’s gone out of the story for you now that you know how it ends, and the idea of working with it anymore makes you nauseous, take a look at why.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Anna DeStefano, publishing, writer, writer resource, writing, writing articles, writing coach, writing craft, writing workshops
Posted in How We Write | 2 Comments »
January 24th, 2012
Welcome back guest blogger “Dr. C” to Drem Theories. She’s sharing her in-house know how about the sleeping mind. Today, let’s spook our way through the confused and abnormal disruption (and potential trauma) parasomniacs endure.This is the kind of science I LOVE to play with in my contemporary psychic fantasies. Understanding more about how our brains work in sleep and out, makes me a happy geeky girl ;o) And it opens worlds of plotting happiness for even bigger and more exciting stories about worlds that play out in our minds alone. Bwahahahaha!!!
So read on, then come back to Dream Theories often to hear more of my meanderings about my personal dream research–and more from Dr. C., as she feeds my (and your) imagination about the physiology behind oursleeping brains’ most intriguing, if disturbing, patterns. If you look closely enough, even in today’s post, you’ll see the bones of the “fringe” science on which I crafted the parapsychology of my first two Legacy books. No, NOT Exploding Head Syndrome (though I don’t know HOW I missed that one!).
Don’t forget to ask Dr. C. your strange dream/sleep questions in the comments… She’s SO much fun to talk to ;o)
***
Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives. ~William Dement
Lady Macbeth: Out, damn’d spot! out, I say!—One; two: why, then ’tis time to do’t.—Hell is murky.—Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our pow’r to accompt?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? ~William Shakespeare, Macbeth
What do these two quotes have in common other than being by men named William who like to ponder the weird things people do in their sleep? It is often assumed that parasomnias, or “…unpleasant or undesirable behavioral or experiential phenomena that occur predominantly or exclusively during the sleep period,” (Mahowald & Bornemann, Principles & Practices of Sleep Medicine, 4th ed.) have their roots in some sort of psychological distress, including guilty consciences. However, the cause is more physiological than psychological.
If you’ve learned to drive a stick-shift car or been in a car with a failing transmission, you know how it stalls out or moves jerkily from one gear to another if something is off, either with the driver’s clutch timing or in the transmission itself. Remember that hypnogram from last week showing the different sleep stages? Sometimes the brain doesn’t shift smoothly from one stage to another, or it gets interrupted, and that’s when parasomnias can occur.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: dream emotion, Dream Theories, dreams, fantasy, fantasy author, Legacy Series, parapsychology, psychic
Posted in Dream Theories | 1 Comment »
January 19th, 2012
My husband and I recently snuck a weekend away from every day life. The hotel on the beach we stayed in, when asked about an upgrade to a ocean view room, said none were available, but we could pay for a “Horizon View.”
Huh?
I have to upgrade to look at the sky from this place?
Where is this amazing room? Are we talking the penthouse? ‘Cause that would be worth throwing some extra dollars at.
Nope. This would be an ocean-facing room that you can’t quite see the water from. But the beautiful clouds and such that hang over the ocean could be ours to stare at for just a little more per night. Then, I suppose, we could use our imagination to conjure all that watery stuff that would be swirling about just beneath our visage.
So, we’d be paying for a top-floor room, only the angle wouldn’t be quite right to see the water?
Nope. This would be a ground floor room. And we’d have to settle for two double beds (did I mention this was a getaway for my HUSBAND and me, you know, sans intrusive teenager forever breaking up our cuddle time with one demanding need after another, like food and transpo and clean clothes and all that nonsense!).
So, there we were, expected to be excited about about paying more for a ground floor, tree-obstructed, water-facing (sort of) room, from which if you looked out at just the right angel from the corner of the window, you might be able to catch a glimpse of the blue, blue ocean sky above the sea we’d never see. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Anna DeStefano, anna's world, creativity & inspiration
Posted in I Hear The Craziest Things | 1 Comment »
January 19th, 2012
“Being practical, yet innovative…” A friend and freelance client emailed that sentiment to me during an exchange about the beautiful novel I’m helping her take apart and revise. I’m pushing her to dig deep. She’s wanting to keep as much as possible of the beautiful inspiration that drove her to write in the first place. And she should–as long as the reader feels equally inspired to devour her beautiful words. Which is what revision is all about, and what makes it so hard and time consuming, and why the majority of those who attempt to publish never make it to a book contract–it’s VERY hard to craft a story that readers will love half as much as you did when you first envisioned it.
Let me repeat. Rewriting a manuscript until it’s reader-ready is hard. Brutal. Seldom pretty, at least at first. And it takes time.To analyze. Re-evaluate. Re-focus. And only then, to revise what you’ve already painstakingly completed. The process takes a creative artist out of her comfort zone and dumps her into the hell of picking apart word and character and theme and plot choices, drilling deeper until the true meaning and purpose of each piece is (effortlessly) crystal clear to a reader.
This isn’t a post on the method and technique of revision. I’ve done that already, so scroll back through How We Write, or attend one of the half-dozen workshops I’m already scheduled to give this year, the majority of which will include a discussion of rewriting. This is a blog about attitude. Fortitude. Determination to maintain your unique writer’s voice, while doing the writer’s day-to-day job of reaching others through story.
If you can’t commit to doing that, once it’s made very clear to you how hard and uncomfortable and unpleasant that part of your job can be, then that successfully published novel of your dreams won’t become a reality, no matter how wonderful your original idea might have been. I fact, it’s that very commitment to making your story everything it should be that protects that innovation bursting to live through your imagination.
By successful, I mean a story that reaches into readers hearts and souls and pulls out the best and worst of who they are, all while you’re transporting them to a fictional place that existed only in your mind before they began reading your words. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Anna DeStefano, critiquing, digital publishing, editing, fantasy, freelance editor, narrative structure, publishing, revision, writer, writer resource, writing, writing articles, writing coach, writing craft, writing resources
Posted in How We Write | 2 Comments »
January 17th, 2012
Dr. C. will be back in our Dream Theories series next week, giving us more inside skinny on cool sleep know-how. But first–let’s dip into The Psychic Realm and talk about the power of the subconscious in day dreams!Wonder what the Doc will think about my wacky take?…
This grey area of dreaming became the premise for the fringe science in Dark Legacy for a reason–many believe the “alpha” brain activity we enter during states like meditation, biofeedback and daydreaming is where our subconscious mind is at its most accessible and potentially powerful. Hence, in my first psychic thriller this was the “active” state dream scientists were attempting to trigger behavior in, using a persons “programmed” subconscious connection to what had already happened while they dreamed. In my books, the unconscious/unaware mind was programmed by psychics, so that the sub-conscious mind could be triggered when the brain is at it’s peak “concentration efficiency”–that is, during walking, waking daydreams.
But what does this mean for you and me? A lot of really cool stuff, if you’re looking for ways to plug into your creativity and awareness and the power of the mind-body connection. Our minds move through natural cycles, or at least they try to. Alpha, Beta (full consciousness), Theta/Delta (sleep) rhythms. We need all of them to function well, and factors like stress, nutrition, chemicals, and fitness/exercise can contribute or disrupt the way our minds function in each state. How balanced our brain function is as our thoughts move through these states determines how in touch we are with the worlds both outside and within our own thoughts. And some would say, the reality within our minds is the key to being fully aware and fully engaged in our existence.
75% of our waking minds (in Beta state) are wrapped up in keeping our bodies functioning and moving. That leaves only 25% to deal with conscious thoughts. But in Alpha, when we let our minds wander (even in focused ways such as meditation), the efficiency of our subconscious thoughts peaks at 95 to 100%.Mystics and psychics would say this is the brain rhythm to tap into, to be at your most aware to messages and signs. Parents would say this is when they see the true potential of their children shine through. Writers and other artists would say that this is the world they must “dissociate” into, in order to create. What do they see, these “seers,” when they let their undirected minds wander? What would you see, if you set aside time daily to do the same? Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Anna DeStefano, contemporary fantasy, creativity & inspiration, Dream Theories, dreams, Legacy Series, lucid dreaming, parapsychology, psychic
Posted in The Psychic Realm | No Comments »
January 12th, 2012
Without conflict, your story has no forward momentum. Your characters have no motivation to act. There’s no goal they can’t achieve. So, in commercial fiction at least, there’s no reader engagement, no matter how well what you’ve written is, well, written. For lack of a better analogy, you need combustion that will lead the reader to expect some future explosion that’ll keep them on the hook through the rest of the wonderful things you plan to do.
And I’m not just talking about suspense plots.In addition to writing (and now editing) romantic suspense as well as crafting sci-fi/fantasies that are full-on thrillers, I also write home and family dramas (straight contemporary romance) where the same level of escalating conflict and tension must still exist, in order for the reader to care enough to turn the page.
Conflict is how readers identify with your characters. It’s how the story transports the reader through a purely fictional journey. How deeply do the dilemmas you put the protagonist through resonate? How carefully do you craft the internal motivation and goals and tension the character must resolve, and are there external factors (anchors and stumbling blocks) that drive that person to do and behave and learn and grow and fail and, ultimately, succeed?
Conflict IS NOT petty arguments and bickering between the leads. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Anna DeStefano, Bob Mayer, conflict lock, Dead Sexy Books, Entangled Publishing, publishing, story conflict, writer, writer resource, writing, writing articles, writing challenge, writing coach, writing craft, writing resources
Posted in How We Write | 5 Comments »
January 10th, 2012
Change is an exciting thing. Some days. When you’re embracing the new. Other days, it can bite. BUT–change is always better, once you’ve found your place in it. I’ve found mine in publishing.After taking over a year off for personal reasons, I’m writing again. I’m submitting to excited publishers (none of whom who have said YES, yet, but the excitement is wonderful for me, as they welcome me back into the flow). And I’m making the freelance editing and teaching and travel to present workshops I’ve been doing for years official–I LOVE working with writers, I love exercising the more technical skills of editing that were once my whole job as a senior tech writer, and I love romantic suspense. Now I’m a romantic suspense editor.
What a way to spin into a new year!
It wasn’t long ago that 2010 was, for me, about fear (health scares and such) and the publishing industry crumbling around all of us. 2011 was rebuilding and fulfilling the last of my ‘10 obligations and nervously promoting an exciting novel in a new digital media world I really didn’t understand when I first started. And now, 2012. More change. For all of us.
For me, I’ll be embracing it. I’m putting all I have into these new opportunities and finding my place in them. New novels I will find publishers and an audience for, however that makes sense now, rather than how it worked a few years ago. Teaching six different groups (by today’s count), after having to spend most of ‘11 off the road, and I can’t wait to connect with other creatives who love to do what I do, and maybe help them on their own journeys just a little bit. And now I’m part of an exciting team of women, writers all of us, who are taking our passion for storytelling and working with authors and turning it into something really amazing at Dead Sexy Books.
How many writers will I get to help at Entangled? How many books will find excited readers, because of what we’ll do in 2012.
It makes my soul smile, in all parts of my life, to be so optimistic about what’s ahead. It’s taken me a few years to get healthy and caught up and ready for this new plunge. But it’s a very good day. No matter whatever stumbling blocks come my way, and there will be more than a few if I have my guess, it’s going to be a VERY good year!
How will 2012 change your life? How will you partner with the stream of “new” flowing through your life, and make this year everything you’ve dreamed it could be?
Make this year your home. Find your place, your soul, in the decisions you make!
Tags: Anna DeStefano, anna's world, creativity & inspiration, Dead Sexy Books, ebooks, editor, Entangled Publishing, ePublishing, freelance editor, writer, writing, writing articles, writing coach, writing resources
Posted in Anna's "Soul of the Matter" | 1 Comment »
January 9th, 2012
“When my dad says ‘The other day…’ he could be talking about last night or when I was five,” my son snickers to his friend, both of them riding like kings in the back seat while I chauffeur them home from school.
“I know,” friend snides back, “adults have no sense of time. They can’t let ANYTHING go.”
“Mostly because their teens are so sarcastic,” I toss into their parent shredding, ”adults suffer brain bleeds that impede our memory.”
I get away with talking to my son’s friends, more than just him, these days. I’ve become part of the daily entertainment during their taxi rides. Whatever it takes to stay part of the dialogue, I always say.
“MOM, he was talking about cleaning my room, saying he’d told me to clean out my bookcase the other day. It was last year when he said that!”
“Did you do it?”
Pause for impact.
“No. But it’s all he cares about one minute. Then he’s forgotten it the next. Then he brings it up again, like a YEAR later.”
I don’t point out that a year to a teen is more like a month to the rest of us mortals. Actually, I think the books were a bone of contention only last week. Then again last night.
“My dad bought me a TV for my room because I made straight As last year,” his friend chimes in. “Now he yells at me every time I turn it on.”
“Parents are nuts,” my teenager agrees, laughing in that best way he has of pulling your smile up from your tones and making you glad you’re there to see him embrace life so completely.
“Multiple personalities are hereditary,” I caution. “You should probably book a good therapist now.” Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Anna DeStefano, anna's world, creativity & inspiration
Posted in Things My Teenager Says | No Comments »
January 9th, 2012
Yes, I have five different book proposals in the works (four of them with my agent or with publishers, waiting for acquisition, finger’s crossed), but I’m also stretching my more technical/editorial muscles in new, exciting directions–I’ve been hired as an Acquiring Editor for the NEW Dead Sexy romantic suspense line at Entangled Publishing.
Officially, the new imprint is:
Dead Sexy: The Nina Bruhns Collection.
And today’s the launch/announcement of our new baby!
If you know Nina, as I do, you’ll be as excited as I am by this announcement. She and I and our other newly hired editor Susan Meier are already working with authors and thrilling stories you’re going to love, come the May launch of Dead Sexy. What a great team, including our managing editor, Vicki Wilkerson!
The Dead Sexy editors were successful, award-winning, best selling authors first. All of us. Now we’re following our passion for teaching and nurturing and helping other writers fulfill their publishing dreams.
We at Dead Sexy strive to be the exciting home every successful romantic suspense author is dying to have. And Entangled is a digital-first publisher that puts authors first. An amazing partnership from the get-go!
Check back often in 2012 for weekly Publishing Isn’t for Sissies and How We Write posts that are taking on even greater meaning and purpose for me, as well as more updates from my popular Dream Theories and Psychic Realm and Soul of the Matter and Things my Teenager Says series.
Now that you know what’s kept me away from regular blog posts these last few months, let me say it’s great to be back. I couldn’t be happier about the horizon before me ;o)
Join me.
It’s going to be an exciting ride!
Tags: Anna DeStefano, anna's world, creativity & inspiration, Dead Sexy Books, digital publishing, Entangled Publishing, Nina Bruhns, publishing, Susan Meier, Vicki Wilkerson, writer resource, writing, writing articles, writing coach
Posted in Publishing Isn't for Sissies | 7 Comments »
January 5th, 2012
What new facet of the publishing business will you conquer this year? With all the changes rushing at us, what’s your greatest fear? How can you turn that perceived weakness into an asset? Small press or indie digital publishing has long been my wishy-washy place.
Yes, I can publishing solo, but do I want to? Yes, there are small indie digital presses out there, but do I trust their ever-evolving business models. In the end, I realized the real question was: Do I trust myself, without the umbrella of a large, established publisher propping up both me and my work?
I love my traditional publishers and hope to always have a home in print. I respect most of the inroads these huge corporations are making into digital media, too, though the changes they’re enacting have been slow to come and even slower to implement. Which has left a huge opportunity open for me to make a digital impact with my writing without them… But until lately I’ve been too hesitant to investigate those options on my own.
- Where will I be without a major press behind me?
- Will anyone notice if I go out on my own?
- Will my publisher/agent be less enthusiastic about my work, if I’m also self/indie publishing in the digital market?
- Will I be wasting a lot of time I should be spending writing, by taking on even more “other” business beyond the hours I need to focus each day on my creative pursuits?
Hard questions, all of them. And each question sprung from a core fear of the change happening all around me. Because the reality is, the playing field of publshing that I thought I’d conquered when I signed my first traditional book contract is gone. A new world with exciting new opportunities and scary pitfalls has arrived. I can’t fly beneath the radar and expect folks to find me, because I have THIS publisher or THAT one backing me.
In this publishing world, a writer is either a brand/entity unto herself, or she won’t be found, period.
Tags: Anna DeStefano, digital promotion, digital publishing, indie publishing, promotion, writer resource, writing, writing articles, writing coach, writing workshops
Posted in Publishing Isn't for Sissies | 4 Comments »
