Posts Tagged ‘writer resource’
Wednesday, November 28th, 2012
So, you’ve participated in NANOWRIMO. Now what? NOTE: I didn’t say you’d finishedNANO. I saw a tweet from someone yesterday saying she wasn’t going to finish her NANO project this year, and that she was likely never going to finish this book at all. And that’s just sad to me. It’s the worst of what can happen with an extreme challenge like this: demotivation. Or even harder to watch than that: any writer, no matter how new, deciding after a month of dedicated draft writing that she CAN’T do what she wants to with a book–to the point that she’s giving up before giving it a real chance. Don’t do that, my friends. DON’T!
Remember our revision discussions:
ANYONE can learn to deconstruct and rewrite story. It’s always better if you approach a draftingproject with as much planning as possible, at some point WE ALL feel lost while we draft, even multiple-published authors.
I just finished a 3-day writing retreat where I’ve drafted 150 pages. Which just about killed me. And not because of NANO. Because I have a book due–NOW. And sometimes in this business, no matter how much we’d like to for every book, faster has to take precedence over slow and thoughtful and story slowly evolving in its own organic way. It’s an unfortunate fact of our world that getting the next book out sooner rather than later is key to maintaining and escalating reader interest, particularly in a series like the one I’m writing in my Seasons of the Heart books for Montlake. Christmas on Mimosa Lane is selling well now, readers are asking for Sweet Summer Sunrise, and by God I’m going to finish this draft so I can promise them it’s coming on time next June.
The question became very quickly once I’d squirreled myself away from all distractions to create, “Could I? Would I?”
I’ve been drafting UGLY. Really ugly. But there’s also beauty in what I’ve created.
This dark but creative place that crashing a draft out becomes is what I teach students when we talk about Improvisation. The story and characters and community I’m dreaming up as I type like a mad woman (with purpose, because I have the bones of a story outline) have taken over at this point. (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, creativity & inspiration, draft writing, editing, freelance editor, improvisation, manuscript planning, NANOWRIMO, revision, writer, writer resource, writing, writing coach, writing craft, writing process, writing resources
Posted in How You Write, Publishing Isn't for Sissies | 7 Comments »
Wednesday, November 14th, 2012
So you’re in the middle of NANOWRIMO and typing words and pages every day until your fingers fall off and your brain short circuits. But what are you creating? Is it anything you’ll keep once December arrives? Drafting with creative freedom is key in this sort of challenge, but creating with purpose is the linchpin to your success.
Write without constraint, yes. As I said in last week’s How We Write post, draft without clinging too tightly to planning or expectation. BUT you have to revise every rough word you draft. And you don’t ant to have written yourself into so many dark corners and black holes that a finished novel that you can sell will be impossible to carve out of your draft.
How do you lay the groundwork for the “rework” you know needs to be done, while you’re giving your story the creative freedom it needs to come to life?
Me? Remember that I’m a geeky, techno-loving girl who while drafting must continually slap my hand and let go of the overly organized stuff that enables the more analytical side of my brain. So nix on the forms and charts for me. But keeping track of changes I see coming and new things I draft into the story on the fly is my thing. Being analytical while I create is crucial, without allowing the right side of my brain to interrupt the left’s mad dash toward a draft’s finish line.
I’m in the midst of writing Sweet Summer Sunrise, the next book in my Seasons of The Heart series for Montlake, and I’m crashing things as usual on a pretty tight deadline. Layered, emotional, complex things. Four points of view–one of them a child. Community. Romance. Psychological and relationship realism that’s more valuable to me than all the rest. At least three subplots going on at once, and that’s just the external stuff. Internal journeys are even more sensitive to overwriting and wandering, because you have to be subtle about how you share a character’s journey so the reader doesn’t feel beaten over the head with it.
Of course there will be mistakes in my rough draft. I have to learn to accept that and again, as I said in last week, allow myself to write crap for a while so the better stuff will flow, too. A mistake I can always do something about later. An empty page, not so much.
My reality is that the whole package of what I’m writing is too complicated a thing to come together in a single draft.
Yet I need that first draft, so I have something I can revise and refine and rework until the story I’m dying to tell takes shape. So how do I keep up with everything I want to do, but am not quite doing yet, as I draft–without break the delicate flow of my creativity of these first words on paper? (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, creativity & inspiration, draft writing, editing, freelance editor, improvisation, manuscript planning, NANOWRIMO, revision, writer, writer resource, writing, writing coach, writing craft, writing process, writing resources
Posted in How You Write | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, November 7th, 2012
NANOWRIMO… Write a book in a month… Easy, right? NOT.
How about we just talk about writing every day for a week, for those of us who have trouble with the grand scope of NANO. One day at a time for seven days, how will you draft every day–with PURPOSE–so that by the end of a week you’re motivated and enthusiastic and encouraged enough to go for another week. Screw the month-long pressure of being finished with a completed novel?
I teach draft writing, even though it’s my downfall. I’m currently drafting a new book and it’s driving me CRAZY because I don’t like not knowing what’s going to happen next. But I can’t know, not for certain no matter how much I plan what I’m going to do, until I draft the darn thing.
So why all the drama?
Frailty, they name is woman???
No, I’m just a perfectionist who doesn’t feel good when what’s coming out of my mind rough isn’t the golden, beautiful thing I want it to be yet. I have to give myself permission to write crap for a while, in order to have something that I can polish later. Shudder. Not my happy place, but this week I’m going to dive in and rough stuff out regardless.
Join me, won’t you?
Here’s the plan:
- Write into a new story or book every day. EVERY day. Not thinking about it every day. WRITING it every day.
- Don’t get up from your computer until your daily progress is done. Finished. DONE. No exceptions.
- Don’t buy into the excuse that you can’t, because it’s too hard. It’s supposed to be hard, especially when you’re distracted or afraid or worried or mired in some other details of your life.
- Don’t think you’re alone. I’m right there with you. If I can deal with it, you can. So, deal with it ;o)
And you know I wouldn’t leave you floundering without some, hopefully, helpful suggestions to keep you writing, right? (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, creativity & inspiration, draft writing, editing, freelance editor, improvisation, manuscript planning, NANOWRIMO, revision, writer, writer resource, writing, writing coach, writing craft, writing process, writing resources
Posted in How You Write | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, October 31st, 2012
Once you have a draft of your novel, WHAT do you do with it? How do you make it better? Last Wednesday, we talked about deconstructing your story so you could see its various parts and come up with a rewriting plan. Now let’s get down to it–what parts of your book should you consider pulling out of the tapestry, fine tuning (or overhauling), and then weaving back in?
Last weekwe left off with the protagonist, and you’d isolated the parts of the book that showed his/her character arc to the reader. With your POV scenes flagged, you have a visual road map to how your treating this important story element–the lens through which your reader sees and feels and experiences the story. Exactly what is someone who doesn’t live in your head getting out of how you’re handling your protagonist?
Let’s start with some things you can see just with the “flagging” technique I described last week:
- Look at how often that character is in point of view. Are there large stretches when we’re in the antagonist’s POV or a secondary characters’? Is there not enough variety, and you need to work in more alternative looks at the action in your story and show things more from the perspective outside your protagonist’s head?
- Look at how you open each POV scene. Is it always in dialogue? Always in narrative? Always in action? Always coming or going from somewhere? This may seem simple, but it’s the type of pattern we follow can get into in drafting and not even realize it. Mixing things up from a single character’s perspective at times can add a fresh look to a scene.
- Skim through the character’s POV scenes. Do you see a lot of dialogue with no external observations or internal thoughts? Too much internal dialogue and only sparse dialogue. This kind of review can give you an immediate feel for what might need work for a single character, no matter what you’re doing with the rest.
- Read each of the protagonist’s scenes in the first half of the draft. Can you clearly see his/her build up to and reaction to the inciting incident first turning point and midpoint of the story? Is he/she changing in each key place in the story, and is that clear in from his/her POV?
- Do the same for the key turning points in the second half of the story.
- THEN (this is more story structure detail than I usually summarize, but here goes), look at his/her emotional reality at the Inciting Incident. (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, creativity & inspiration, draft writing, editing, freelance editor, manuscript planning, revision, writer, writer resource, writing, writing coach, writing craft, writing process, writing resources
Posted in How You Write | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, October 24th, 2012
Anyone–ANYONE–can deconstruct and rewrite a manuscript. Anyone can learn to rework a story one scene at a time. And we’re talking rewriting–NOT copy editing a manuscript to catch punctuation or grammar mistakes, or line editing to make sure prose flows beautifully. These skills are important, too, but only after an author has dissected the first draft and rewoven it’s parts into the best story possible. These are the ideas I discuss with writers at conferences year around.
This week in HoWW, I’ll do my best to cover the high points of a deconstruction technique that, combined with rewriting, it takes me a two-day weekend workshop to teach properly. This is interactive stuff that I love to work with in person, while students apply what I’m showing them to a work in progress. In fact I’m already lining up several hands-on rewriting workshops for 2013. And the mindset of one of these weekend retreats that I hope you’ll also achieve, at least a little, after reading this post, is–
- No more excuses for not rewriting.
- No more hiding behind “not seeing” what needs to be changed in your story.
- No more big, scary book that’s too complicated to rework.
- No more feeling out of control of your creativity as you rewrite!
Next Wednesday, we’ll get more into what to do with your story once you can see its various pieces more clearly. Today, let’s zero in on the seeing part!
Once your draft is completed, the story can seem too complex to tackle, right?
You feel too close to your work to be able to analyze and re-craft it. There’s just too much there, and it’s impossible to see where each change will take the story. It’s easy to find yourself rewriting in circles, never really getting anywhere. And who has that kind of time?
So, let’s talk deconstruction technique. Not HOW to do the revisions themselves–that will be for next week. And, frankly, fully learning how to revise a scene or a chapter or an act or an entire novel is more about trial and error and learning from experience). This is a post about how to deconstruct what you have, so you can get to work on what needs to be done–THAT I can show you today ;o)
How can you challenge each story component in your draft? (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, creativity & inspiration, draft writing, editing, freelance editor, manuscript planning, novel deconstruction, plot, plotting, revision, writer, writer resource, writing, writing articles, writing coach, writing craft, writing process, writing resources
Posted in How You Write | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, October 17th, 2012
David Kaplan says in A Creative Approach to Writing and Rewriting Fiction, “The purpose of writing a story is to rewrite it.” I taught a brief intro to revision a couple of weekends ago. There wasn’t nearly enough time. I like to teach this part of the writing process hands-on, over several hours at the very least. An entire day as part of a retreat is best–that way writers can bring in their WIPs and dig into the techniques, fussing about until they figure out how some if it works best for them. But the response to our limited time at this conference was overwhelming positive, regardless, and I promised my students I’d get more specific out here in my How We Write blog category. So…here ’tis. More details to come in the following weeks. Then maybe we’ll tackle my approach to planning through character. But let’s start with my very favorite thing–rewriting!
Like the above quote says, no book’s done with just a single draft in your pocket. Not even two drafts, if you aks me. You’re not done, just because you have your first thoughts down on paper (or in the computer). Once you’ve got that good stuff behind you, it’s time to make it even better!
Feeling a little cranky yourself yet?
Yeah, this motivational post is going to be a little heavier on the tough love than most.
Finishing your first draft is just the beginning. It’s merely the end of your planning. For those of you who don’t outline your plot and character ahead of time (I’m shaking my head now. Can you hear the tense spots in my neck popping while I do it?), the draft is your only planning. But for even those of us who put serious thought into what we’re going to write before we actually do, we still don’t know for SURE what’s going to happen until that magical creative thing that is putting words onto paper happens, and the story itself takes over.
I’m a firm believer in the creative flow of drafting. The power of discovery. The synergy of planning and experience and momentum combining to create something magical. BUT… That something magical, that completed draft, is only the beginning. It’s not everything it could be. It’s not ready to leave your mind and your heart behind. It’s not all it can be. Which means, it’s time for the REAL work to begin…
Kaplan tells us that ”You need three things to be a good fiction writer…talent…a knowledge of craft…and just as necessary, a devotion to revision, to the merciless re-working of your writing until it is the best it can be.” And he (and Jenni and I) aren’t talking about looking for typos or grammar errors or tweaking your prose so it pops just so, though all that’s important eventually.
What I teach to craft students is re-writing, not copy editing or proof reading. (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, creativity & inspiration, draft writing, editing, freelance editor, manuscript planning, revision, writer, writer resource, writing, writing coach, writing craft, writing process, writing resources
Posted in How You Write | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012
Yes. THAT Franken Berry. I grew up in a magical world where sugary cereal wasn’t unhealthy and letting your kids eat an artificially colored cold breakfast wasn’t a call for DEFAX and strawberry goodness was a princess surprise every morning that my General Mills employed father could produce a box of this delicacy on our kitchen table…
So when writing my first mainstream women’s fiction/contemporary romance, when I needed a way for a wounded woman to reach out to and connect with a hurting little girl who doesn’t think anyone understands what it’s like to be her, Fraken Berry became the first pink, magical link between them. Sometimes it can be such a simple thing, a different kind of listening and understanding, that makes all the difference in the world. Christmas on Mimosa Lane is full of tiny windows like this. Connections where lives meet and deepen and share and maybe come undone just a bit more, so they can expand together and become more than they’ll ever be alone…
“Franken Berry?” Mallory blurted out, not above bribery. “When I was your age, it felt like Christmas morning every time I ate it. Strawberry flavoring and refined sugar and bleached corn flour…Crunch and sweetness that will make your back teeth smile.” And it could only be special-ordered from the manufacturer’s website a few months out of the year, since most stores no longer carried it. But for Polly, Mallory would break into her secret stash. “Ever had any?”
Polly shook her head. “My dad says healthy food only. I need to eat healthy to stay healthy.”
She stepped closer, and Mallory considered grabbing her. Except grabbing at kids who were hell-bent on running only made them more certain that they’d never be safe.
(more…)
Tags: Amazon, Anna DeStefano, anna's world, brainstorming, Christmas on Mimosa Lane, Contemporary Romance, creativity & inspiration, Excerpts, Montlake Romance, romance writer, writer, writer resource, writing
Posted in Anna's Novels | 90 Comments »
Monday, October 1st, 2012
Ever notice that the closer you draw to something you really want, the more inclined you can be to quit the race that’s gotten you there? I know I can’t be the only one who’s natural tendency is to dream big and fight hard to make that dream happen, only to begin doubting (or dreading failure) just as the moment of victory draws closest… It’s so easy to pursue something beyond your reach, if you’re the type of person who doesn’t intimidate or quit or back down. Not so easy, for many of those same people, to accept that the achievement of all that’s been fought for has really, truly arrived.
Precipitory anxiety is as natural an occurrence to my creative mind as craving the sound of water, feeling more inspired between midnight and 3 am than any other time of the day, and always looking for a different way to see and experience ordinary things others pass by without a second thought. I’m good in a fight. I’m the point person who believes any threat or challenge can not only be tackled but conquered. I’m a gamer. But…wait a minute…what do I do at game’s end? More often than not, I find my instincts screaming, “But…what do you mean it’s over?” Because, I think, it’s easier for me to be in love with the dream than to accept the scary proposition that I could actually bomb at the very thing I’m wanting so badly to happen. Sound familiar?
I don’t know about you, but I feel much more in control when I’m scrapping and slugging it out and no one really expects me to get where I’m going but me.But put me in the end zone with folks cheering me on (or flash me an early glimpse of what that moment’s going to be like as I draw ever nearer), and I’m at least for a moment or two a freaked out writer geek who is terrified that everyone’s going to be looking while I somehow find a way to f**k it all up. (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, anna's world, creativity & inspiration, writer, writer resource, writing, writing articles, writing coach, writing resources
Posted in Anna's Soul of the Matter | 9 Comments »
Tuesday, September 11th, 2012
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” we want to say some days. A lot of days lately. For so many people I know, this is a year of volatile change and redirection. “Enough is enough,” a lot of us have insisted, bending beneath the pressure but refusing to break. “I just want a little peace…” Understandable, unless what you’re saying is that you’d rather go back than forward. Reasonable, unless what you’re thinking is that the change is what’s crushing your sense of stability. It’s not. Life has gotten very real for a whole lot of my friends and family. It’s not at the moment something we can sit back and appreciate as we sip our coffee or toast with a glass of wine. It’s in our faces and demanding our attention and dragging us into its momentum as it shouts for us to wake up and LIVE!
Oh, come on. This is what we’re here for, right? To learn and grow and change and see what we’re meant to become next. It’s easy. To change jobs (or publishers) over and over until you find the right fit (hopefully…this time…), and somehow find a way to feel grateful that you have a job/publisher when so many others don’t. To pay all your bills as the teenager grows ever older and more of a money pit and to see your savings and retirement shrink because of the rising cost of living and the dwindling interest rates and volatile returns on stock market investments. To accept that retirement might be as far away a date for you now as it was when you first entered the workforce, but again, you’re working so keep you mind on the present and celebrate that joyous fact that the dollar you earn today is worth about a third of that first dollar you brought home straight out of college.
It’s easy to face all that and feel warm and fuzzy about your crumbling spot on the ledge overlooking the abyss, right? RIGHT?!
Yeah, I feel it too. That pinch. That pressure. That sense that everything’s spinning and spiralling and I’m clinging to my balance and putting everything I have into merely staying on my feet. But that’s reality, my friends. That’s what being alive feels like right now. That’s the world we’re living in, and we ARE lucky to be living it. To have choices and to have jobs and publishers and financial resources to compete for.
The world can look grim all it wants to, but I tell myself every morning that I don’t have to see things that way. (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, anna’s world, creativity & inspiration, writer, writer resource, writing, writing articles, writing coach, writing craft, writing resources
Posted in Anna's Soul of the Matter | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 5th, 2012
You have to be willing to take risks in this business of ours. Calculated risks that are nonetheless precarious for the careful thought you put into jumping off whatever cliff of opportunity looms before you. Sometimes a marvelous parachute glide awaits you, easing you into your next step forward. Sometimes there turn out to be holes in your plan and you land in the trees–if you’re lucky. Sometimes you crash and burn completely. My experience with Dorchester Publishing these last few years, like many authors, has been more the latter. But as of last week I can officially say it hasn’t been a crash and burn fiasco, and the trees that were grabbing at my chute are receding farther and farther away each time I look back. Perspective?One might call it that, this ah-ha sensation filling me. Hind sight gives us the illusion of finally seeing things as they were always meant to be. Maybe it’s just dumb luck… You be the judge.
Too often it feels as if I have absolutely NO idea how I got to this moment of deep sighing and appreciation for a journey well traveled and a fight bravely faced and won (Amazon, the publisher who also recently signed a three book deal with me to publish a women’s fiction/contemporary romance series has bought out Dorchester’s list at auction and will not only pay me royalties due from the last three years, but will re-list and potentially buy new titles into my sci-fi/fantasy series).
To be honest, I have some idea. But my mind’s still spinning as I process the twists and turns and decisions and retreats–stopping myself, ultimately, from making several end-game decisions that would have ended this wild ride before I achieved what I’d set out to. What follows is the CliffsNotes version of that adventure, because publishing can be a sucky journey for all of us and I’m happy to share my personal suckage if it might possibly help others finding themselves in their own potentially no-win situations, trying to choose the least objectionable of the unsatisfying options before them.
But first, let’s identify what exactly I wanted to achieve from the start. Because the best business decisions are potentially bad business decisions, regardless of the odds in your favor, if you don’t understand your goal. My best advice to anyone when they ask me my opinion of what they should do about a book, agent, publisher or contract is to figure out what you want and determine the best way to achieve that. Beyond that, I got nothing. Because as you’ll see below, the rules are always changing and what works for me or someone else now may be a no-win choice for you tomorrow. You have to be flexible in this business. You have to dodge and duck and know when to jump or stand still. None of which you can do effectively if you aren’t sure where you’re headed.
My goal with my sci-fi/fantasy series: To establish my mainstream fiction work and to build a series for a broader audience than my contemporary romance roots, into which I could continue to sell future novels. Simple right?
Let’s take a closer look, shall we?
- Round about the fall of 2008: Dorchester offers a 2-book deal for my Legacy Series. Dark Legacy to release nationwide in mass market paperback in the fall of 2009.
- I deliver the book on time, but the advance money isn’t coming from the publisher as quickly as it should. Agent pushes hard behind the scenes, but we don’t pull the book from the schedule. It’s more important to my goal to be established as a mainstream author with bigger stories to sell than my category romance roots, than it is to join in the shrieks of dissatisfaction with the publisher beginning to rumble all over the Internet.
- Fall, 2009: Dark Legacy in stores, positioned well, I’m signing in the B&N flagship store in New York’s Lincoln Center, and we’re off. Sales are good but nothing fabulous. We can do better, publisher says. My series is repositioned away from traditional romance and closer to the sci-fi/thriller market it’s better suited for.
- Secret Legacy due to editor in early 2010 for a rushed summer 2010 release because they want to break it out. They’re behind this very different, edgy thing I’m doing with my mainstream work 110%. They’ve also by now paid me the advance I’m owed to date. Agent and I see this as a good chance to shine within a smaller traditional press, so I keep working.
- Health issues and surgery prevent me from turning the second book in on time. Editor and publisher couldn’t have been more understanding. Deadline for delivering Secret Legacy is pushed to the spring of 2010, with a fall release. It’s the hardest writing period I’ve ever had, and I called my agent to quit more than once, but the book was finished and revised in a gruelingly short amount of time. If nothing else, this experience proved to me that I had to keep writing–if for no other reason than I couldn’t seem to make myself stop.
- Fall 2010: Serious money spent on my part and committed by publisher to promote the book that should break out, even though remaining advance for the second book on the contract hasn’t yet been paid. However, lots of publisher plans–print and digital promotion. Extensive online blog tour being set up. Again, agent and I are staying focused on the publishing possibilities and my investing in my mainstream future, which means I continue to do my job and play nice while she rattles their cages fighting to get me the money owed.
- Two weeks before Secret Legacy’s launch: it’s announced on the Internet (not to individual authors) that overnight Dorchester’s pulling their print publishing arm (meaning all my mass market print books are being yanked, never to be distributed retail) and beginning immediately to shift to a digital first/print on demand business. My break out release: not going to happen. My sizable investment in promoting to mass market retailers and readers: wasted. My remaining faith in publisher: destroyed.
(more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, Dark Legacy, digital promotion, digital publishing, Dorchester Publishing, ebooks, ePublishing, gallies, indie publishing, Legacy Series, PR, promotion, reviews, Secret Legacy, writer, writer resource, writing, writing articles
Posted in How You Write, Publishing Isn't for Sissies | 10 Comments »
