The Craft, She is Huge!

I sent out four new submissions recently, and I'm looking at sending out my very first non-fiction proposals.  I also went to the Lucky Labs meeting yesterday (it seems like forever since I've been!) and had a pint.

I felt like the meeting went well, but then I didn't get my story piled on.  It can get tough when there's a consensus, and the consensus is, 'this didn't work for me,' followed by an explanation of everything that went wrong.

Which brings me to abandonment.  The thing about writing is, like every other skill, it requires practice.  That includes practice of every aspect of writing.  I'm sure I'll miss some, but these are basic areas of writing that need lots of practice:

* Spelling and grammar

* Starting a project effectively

* Finishing a first draft

* Managing a first edit

* Receiving/understanding feedback

* Employing feedback

* Deep revision (where no element is held sacred)

* Polishing (also known as line editing)

* Tightening, or loosening (most people need to tighten)

* Establishing voice for a piece

* Establishing authorial style

* Character development

* Enrichment of setting

* Developing a satisfactory middle (muddle)

* Creating a satisfying ending

* Creating scenes with character and plot archs

* Transitioning

* Research/life experience development

* Learning about tropes, cliche's, and norms for a given genre

* Developing a narrative flow or rhythm

* Nurturing a critical eye for your own prose

* Nurturing an analytical eye when reading in your genre

* Nurturing and honoring the creation process

These are all difficult skills.  None of them are straightforward.  For example, spelling and grammar.  You'd think that would be straightforward, but it's not.  The rules are made to be broken, but they have to be broken in a way that makes reading more, not less, of a pleasure.  What about nurturing and honoring the creation process?   That's just care and feeding of the muse, right?  Not really.  Honoring includes respecting your own writing time--daily writing.  Nurturing means you have to learn how to create, and then practice creating.  Learn about outlines, try different brainstorming techniques, take lots of baths or showers (there's something about hot water and creativity--I'm not the only one who's noticed this!)

Lots of people come out of high school thinking they can write.  On the one hand, yes they can.  On another ... there's a whole lot more to learn out there, way more than even four years of dedicated college can teach you.  The good news is that you can sell your experiments when you reach a certain stage of writing, and that certain stage might be right out of high school.  The other good news is, writing never gets boring if you're a writer at heart.  There's always something more to learn.  There's always another hill to climb.

Which wraps back around to abandonment.  You might think that a story that was (almost) universally tromped ought to just be put out of its misery.  That depends.  Has the author learned everything s/he can from the work?  In this case I think the answer is clearly no.  I felt that this author hadn't learned how to fix problem manuscripts yet.  He hadn't learned how to take and consolidate the feedback, use that to re-examine the manuscript with his own critical eye (the feedback is, after all, a set of observations and suggestions, not a job order) and, if he couldn't figure out how to fix it on his own, start reading and researching like crazy in an effort to find out how other authors have solved those problems.  

Think about it.  If a story doesn't work and you abandon it every time, yes, you might eventually learn what does work when you line up all the stories you've written that receive positive feedback and write stories just like that every time.  But there's a danger of pigeonholing yourself.  Maybe all your successful stories are about a young female abuse victim who gets the upper hand over her former abuser and is instrumental in sending him to jail forever.  Some writers make a good wage repeating the same sort of story over and over again.  I'm not going to denigrate that.  But if you can't find that niche and make a career out of that, you'll be a one hit wonder.  If that's your goal, great.  But if you really want to learn the craft, you have to learn as many items on this list as you can, and some things that are not on this list.

I invite INKers and Friends of INK to think, and even blog about, some of these elements of writing.  Each one deserves a post all by its lonely.  Or, just file it away, and get to writing.  We're wasting daylight, people!

[This article is also posted on the INK faq]

Work Around

Got stuck the other night. There is a chapter that I know needs to be in the book but unlike the rest I don't have any personal experience in it.  The rest of the book covers some relatively rare, relatively extreme experience but this...

So I was whining about it in an e-mail to a friend... and the whine included exactly how I need to write it.  What I have seen, what it can mean, how it occurs and how it can appear.

I think I just whined my way out of a problem. That's kind of cool.

Professional Editing

This seems obvious to me, but I haven't heard anyone talking about it at conventions or read it online from someone who is an authority until now at the Query Shark blog.  There are all manners of writers, agents and editors in the world, so the usual caveats apply, but this makes sense to me:

I really don't like to hear that your book has been professionally edited.  For me, it's not the persuasive piece of information you think it is.  You think it says "my book is polished and ready to go."

What I infer is "your book was polished by someone else and god help us when we get to the edit letter from the editor, and you don't know how to do this stuff"

Freelance editors tell you a book needs to be edited before agents will look at it.  What they are doing is selling their services.  Only one of my clients employed an editor and that was for non-fiction.

All my novelists write, revise, and edit their own books.

I've seen professional editing work out for people.  The way I've seen it work is via a teacher-student relationship with easy access to those services (aka not so many clients that the freelance editor doesn't have time for your project) and with money available to go over the work again if necessary.  

Ideally the freelance editor should include notes on (generally) what was done and why.  Even better is if there's an ongoing discussion so that the writer learns how to do the editing themselves.  Then, if there's a sale and a call for further editing (and I can almost guarantee there will be a call for more editing in the case of a novel!) the writer has access to this same freelance editor (for stylistic continuity since that style in part is what sold the book--see how this becomes really important to have and be able to afford an ongoing relationship?) and they can work together (the freelance editor continuing to teach as they go) to get those changes sent back promptly to the purchasing editor.  

Being on deadline in this situation would be incredibly stressful for me.  I would be at the mercy of the freelance editor's schedule.  Ack, I say, ack!

But wait, there's more.  This freelance editor/writer relationship isn't a trivial thing.  The freelance editor needs to have some sort of motivation to teach the writer to not need them anymore.  So in comes the deeper reason for why I feel it's ideal to hire a writing teacher who does editing on the side--because the reputation for the teaching services will help bring new clients in the form of students, counter-balancing the fact that eventually the freelance editor's services won't be needed anymore if s/he is doing their teaching job right.  If there's no motivation to teach clients to fly, there's every reason for a freelance editor to keep clients dependent.

I don't think it's wise to become dependent on a freelance editor unless you're the sort of person who relies on a kind of ghost-writer relationship in the first place: basically your primary marketing angle is that you're a celebrity or expert and the writing is just a means of delivering something of interest to an existing audience.  That's why the mention of the non-fiction sale makes so much sense to me.  If you're a novelist, it really is best to learn the craft.  If you have the money, get lots of quality instruction and make that the priority over freelance editing.  With high-quality instruction you can accelerate the learning process all writers go through, and maybe even avoid some classic writing errors in the process.  

Don't expect that if you get a freelance editor to do a once-over that suddenly your manuscript will be sellable, and even if it is, that the sale is followed by a happily ever after.  It can turn out to be just the opposite.  If you get a multi-book deal, only of which the first book has been written, and you leaned heavily on professional editing, you can expect that part of your advance will be spent on purchasing ongoing services.  Considering the cost per page of editing and the state of advances, this may eat your entire advance.

Not the way I would hope to spend an advance, should I be offered one.  But that just may be me.

State of the Writing

I got a form rejection today, so that means sending out a story today.  I also finished the first draft of a story a couple days ago.  Writing the first drafts has been easy for me lately.  Finding time to edit has been less easy.  I've also been feeling voice-poor lately.  Not sure if that's rational, but something to keep an eye on.  There's a lot of flat writing out there, mainly because people don't let the character emote naturally.  

Once again art and writing parallel.  Gotta relax and not be so tight with that narrative.  Controlling too much kills the kewl.

I'm looking forward to the INK meeting tonight!

Focus

Big thanks for Kami on the help last night. I've been toying with a character idea, a very strong, very unique (I think) individual.  I was driving myself nuts trying to figure out the right POV, because the meat of this was the slow reveal of what and how the character came to be.

Kami, in her writerly wisdom, pointed out that it depended on the story.  What was the plot? Bingo.  Character studies are not stories.  Vignettes are vignettes.  The POV is to tell a story, not to revel in the POV. And whining is not character development (inside joke).

So, I have the character cold and some details about the world.  Now I just need to choose a story to tell.

Thanks, K.

They Come Like Schools of Jellyfish

What is it with rejections?  They seem to come in clusters.

Two rejections drifted in today, both of them really neat with long, graceful tentacles and phosphorescent parts.  I got a lovely signed rejection from F&SF's assistant editor (who I will not name in case this might generate unwelcome mail disguised as rewrite requests) and a highly praising, makes-me-blush kind of rejection from one of Brain Harvest's editors.  I know, it would be far more interesting if I threw a tantrum instead of looking at these as something positive and noteworthy.  I guess I'll just have to be boring, because I feel like I'm doing well, and I'm not inspired to say anything bad about these rejections.  If anything, I want to thank the editors for taking the time to respond promptly and with encouragement.

I found a brief blog entry here with some fascinating comments.  Keep reading!  There are guest appearances in the comments that you won't want to miss.

First batch of first quarter Honorable Mentions for Writers of the Future are up:

http://wotfblog.galaxypress.com/

The FNG

Thanks, Kami, for arranging access.

The other INKers know me, so this is for the hordes of INK fans  (The Inklings, unofficial sex motto: "Come get an INKling"):

I'm the author of "Meditations on Violence", which has been getting pretty good reviews on Amazon and was in its second or third printing last I checked.  I've done a chapter in "The Way to Black Belt" two in "Fighter's Fact Book 2: Street Fighting Essentials" and wrote the sarcastic introduction (Marc "Animal" MacYoung wrote the sensitive introduction) to the soon to be released "Little Black Book of Violence".

So my publishing credits are all nonfiction, which is fine with me.  I actually have a problem reading most fiction because it sucks.  I have serious problems with plots that hinge on character stupidity to work; evil bad guys described by an author who wouldn't know evil (the extreme, like Saddam or Pol Pot who did things that would shock Steven King nor the mundane, like the local man who wouldn't let the neighbor molest his daughter because that was his right as the father and he didn't share); that don't understand anything about physical conflict...  I summed up genre fiction at a convention once, "It's like most of the authors have never been in a fight and only had sex- with a partner- once."  

The few fiction authors I do like have been there, done that and either write close to the bone or laugh about the unlaughable.

Non-writing stuff: Martial arts since 1981. Started working Corrections in 1991 and during that time taught officers, led a tactical team, was point man for mental health issues, worked and played with Search and Rescue and spent a lot of time with hard core criminals. Then I got bored and went to a certain dry and sandy country. Though in the mountains on the North, where I am, it has rained almost every day for two weeks.

INK blogs are more about the writing process than what I share on my personal blog. That sounds good.

Carole, Steve, Kami- thanks for the welcome. I'll try not to make anybody cry.

State of the Submissions

I have stuff out to the following places:  Wet Ink, Writers of the Future, Brain Harvest, F&SF, and Byzarium.   Oddly, four of the five are flash fiction subs, and the fifth is one of my shorter short stories, though not quite a flash.  Considering that flash is the form I find the most difficult to write, this is rather kewl and strange and funny.  It also means that I really need to work on those longer length short stories, and I really need to get some agent subs out there.  Right now I have no queries out.  None.  

After an edit I sent out a short, the one that INK looked at recently, to Lucky Labs.  Now C.S. can, if she likes, pick apart my editing style.  

I keep meaning to work on T.E.P. (aka the weird bird story) but it's a daunting project. I didn't mean for it to have parallel plots of equal weight that dovetail at the end into a (not quite there) uneasy ending.  It's so much easier to edit on Masks or one of the other novels.  That's telling to my level of (un)skill with short stories--I can dive into a novel and play for hours and the time seems to zip by, but when I approach a short story I feel like I'm handling a cactus and I don't have gloves on.  The minutes crawl by.  The only thing that's easy about editing a short story is that I can scan through the thing in just a few minutes and get a good sense of the overall pace.  That's a handy thing to be able to do.  I suppose it would be possible to do with a novel, skimming over the chapters almost as fast as a flip book, relying on intimate memory to get a sense of the overall feel.  It's something that would require practice, I think, and it wouldn't take a trivial amount of time.

I've mailed my deposit for Dean Smith's Master's Class coming up this fall.  Amazing how not that long ago it seemed that the class had been put off until the distant future, a future that now appears to be racing up on me.  I've started reading the required books for the class.  The first one is a pleasant surprise--definitely not one I would have picked up on my own.  I'm glad Dean recommended that we start with ones we're least likely to read.

So that's the state of Kami's writing.  I hope we'll meet this Friday on schedule.  See some or none of you then!

INK member update

INK congratulates past member Cheri on a recent rewrite of her first novel and wishes her good fortune in her writing and editing future.

Great work Cheri!

Welcome to Rory!

I'd like to welcome INK's newest member, Rory Miller, author of "Meditations on Violence."  He endured our application process and emerged victorious.  About now he's probably wondering what he's gotten himself into.

Congratulations, Rory!  And congratulations to INK for gaining such a valuable member.

Stay tuned; INK is on the move.

INK at RadCon 5A.

INK attended RadCon 5A in Pasco, Washington last weekend and it was a blast! I'm sure a picture exists somewhere that proves it but we're still looking. So much happened. So much to reflect upon. So much that could be forgotten, and may well want to be forgotten. Gosh but that convention is fun! Please visit Kami's blog for the very best of con activity. She can say it better than anyone.

RadCon debrief and regress will occur this coming Friday at the 6 p.m. INK meeting in Vancouver.

Projects update + vague stress stuff

Worked on Masks today.  I'm delving into the section that needs the most manipulation, so it's going to be scary going.  But fun.  I think there's something compelling about fresh writing.  That raw energy (if carefully harnessed) makes the situations more vibrant, especially if the changes being made aren't a noun here and a verb there, but more in the direction of plumping up the action or depth of emotion.  

It's particularly rewarding to start working on the islands section 'fresh.'  On previous edits I worked from beginning to end fairly non-stop.  So by the time I got to the island, I was already fatigued from the long editing sessions.  I'm not fatigued this time.  

I also sent off a short story to be critiqued by INK.  Depending on what they say, I'll make some changes, polish it up, and probably bounce it off of the Lucky Labs before shipping it out.  It may be one of those stories that either works or doesn't, though.  There are certainly going to be rough spots in the prose and I probably didn't go far enough with the environmental descriptions, and that's fine.  What won't be fine is if the story isn't effective.  It's short and a buttony kind of subject and if I didn't do a good job of addressing it, it may just have to be tossed.  There's no aspect of the story I can 'save' if the heart of it doesn't work.

That's a different kind of story for me.  I'm not sure if it's because I picked a controversial subject or the fact that it's very bare bones--two scenes, short on the word count, and a simple conflict.  I won't go into what I think is its main weak point.  I'll let my readers get back to me on it.  But I'm curious to see if we see the story the same way.

Radcon is coming up.  Are we ready?  I'm not sure I am.  Physically, yeah I am.  I'll have clothes, supplies, and sometime in the next three days I'm going to take the kids to shopping with me for party supplies and groceries to sustain them through the weekend.  Emotionally?  I'm a bit of a mess, and that's not going to go away.  I'm sure I can maintain, but actually enjoy the con?  That'll be a stretch.  I anticipate lots of phone calls home, and reaching out on Skype to my DH so that my family can reassure me that everything is going to be okay.

This is a good time for me to be writing on stuff that has nothing to do with my concerns for the immediate future.  If I could do something about my circumstances besides applying bandaids, I would totally focus on that, but all I can do besides first aid is to worry, and that does absolutely no good.  A little escapism into my writing may be just what I need right now.  Speaking of which, I should get back to that now.  Don't worry!  This too shall pass.  If anything I hope it passes slowly, so I can adapt and adjust and do whatever I can.  When things zip by, well, all you can do is hang on tight.  

Just a Quick Link

Jay Lake linked to an excellent blog post on writing, jealousy and the process of becoming an author.  A must-read for INKers and Friends of INK!

I'm in doubt mode with my novel right now, so I'm focusing on a couple of short stories.  I finished one last night.  I'm not sure it'll hold up in the light of day, but I'm excited about the concept.  The other one is still stuck in psychic car chase mode.  Not sure if I'll be editing the one I'm excited about or writing more first draft on the psychic car chase.  Maybe both.  And who knows?  I may break out of my sad kitty face and work on the novel after all.

Rejection Appreciation.

I just received a second rejection of the year. Another personalized one that I very much appreciated. Thank you editor!

Nope, still not considering this 'rejection.'

Gearing up for RadCon. Got all your ducks in a row yet?

INK meeting.

INK meeting tonight, the last one before RadCon5 A! Panel reviews, upcoming workshops, treasury audit, new name, info packet progress, perhaps even time for Writers Round Table. If not, Scrabble is always good for the wordiness of a writer's soul.

Year's Firsts.

WooHoo! First rejection of the year! But it was a nice, personalized one from F&SF. So wrong to call this 'rejection." Off to send that story elsewhere.

Are your stories out looking for a home? If so, congrats to you! If not, why not??

INK Makes John W. Campbell Pin donation.

We are proud to announce that an INK donation to the John W. Campbell Pin has been made. More information on the John W. Campbell Awards can be found here.

"As regular convention attendees will know, nominees for the Hugo Awards, World Fantasy Awards and Nebula Awards have long been given lapel pins to recognize their nominations. No such pin existed for the John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Jay Lake, a past winner for the award, has been working with Dell Magazines, the Campbell Award’s sponsor, to produce such a pin, and the design was unveiled today [editor note: August 8, 2008] at a panel at Worldcon (also attended by Stan Schmidt on behalf of Dell Magazines). The pin takes the form of a star made of five pen nibs pointing outwards. Pins are being presented to this year’s nominees, and to all past nominees and winners."

INK meeting a success

We had a lot of bureaucratic stuff to do, and we got most of it completed.  Yay!  Dues are back in force after a short hiatus, we have some updates, some goals, some definitions, and we're exploring a change in web presence.  We'll keep y'all posted.

We've decided to donate part of our funds to a literary charitable cause.  Hopefully we didn't miss some sort of deadline.  Even if we did, I like the idea of paying our dues back into the writing community, so we'll find another one we're excited about if the one we chose doesn't pan out.

I paid a penalty for not making one of my December goals.  D'oh!  I knew that skimping out on editing Masks would bite me on the butt.  That'll learn me.

Good observations at Flights of Fantasy on some of the strange attitudes that appear with the sense of entitlement some authors have in regard to being published.  It got me thinking, so I blogged about an additional thought on that subject.

Free Financial Book

Yay! It's free it's free it's free it's free it's free!  I've enjoyed Suze Orman's books and radio shows and all that over the years.  Don't miss this chance to get a free .pdf of Suze Orman's 2009 Action Plan, available on Oprah's website.  It won't be available forever, though.  I believe it's only going to be available there until the 15th.  Don't wait!

Because we don't want to be starving artists.  That's just so cliche'!

See some of you at the INK meeting tonight.  I hope the Friends of INK have gotten a great start to the writing year, and wish you the best luck, focus and skill for 2009.

INK meeting tomorrow!

There's an INK meeting tomorrow at the sekrit cat cave!  I can't wait!  There's lots to talk about.  Conventions, regress reports, dues, goals, events, and the ever-popular socializing and yammering about our projects.

Also, don't forget the Washougal writing meeting is on the 24rth, and Radcon is coming up fast.

See y'all soon!

And a writing goal in a pear tree

I am so looking forward to the New Year.  Yeah, yeah, live all year round, don't wait until January to make goals.  Gotcha.  Me and teh INKers have been making goals all year, thank you very much, and even meeting some.  But there is something special about January, besides it's ability to make me grind my teeth each time I write 2008, have to change it to 2009 and initial it.  Laugh if you want, but I do get caught up in the energy of all those resolutions being made at once, and it's fun to ride the energy wave, even if it washes out for most folks in February.

I was inspired enough even to make a deadline at the last minute, the WotF deadline Dec. 31st.  I made it extra hard for them to give me squat, since it was the wrong length, wrong voice, wrong everything for this particular contest, but you know, the dumbest thing that writers do is reject their own material.  It's genre.  It's within the listed word count.  It qualifies in every way.  I may not be playing the contest smart, but I'm playing, and I'll let the judges decide how ridiculous I was to try with this one.

In the meantime I'm working on yet another short, a non-fiction project, and a novel in a pear tree.  Oops, wrong season for that sort of thing.  Sorry!  My goal this year--let not my publishing credit be a fluke!  Into the breach once more, my friends!  A writing career awaits!

2009 - Bring It!

INK would like to wish all friends and family a very Happy and safe New Year. Make life fine in 2009.

Fantasy Writing Plunges

I haven't been writing much fantasy lately.  I get a few words in edgewise here and there, but my focus the past bit has been on non-fiction.  I've got about 18000 words in so far, and I'm hoping to do some email interviews soon.  

At least I'm still editing and marketing fiction.  I got two rejections, and sent out two manuscripts.  I'll be sending out a third manuscript soon.  

My to-be-edited pile is really deep right now, so the break from first draft fiction writing is probably a good thing.  I have lost momentum on my Nano, though, so that's going to be a pain to start back up again.  Hopefully experience and determination will bail me out, otherwise, getting to The End on my Nano this year will be unlikely.  Is the Nano worth working on?  I still think so.  Come January, I may change my mind, but I still grin when I think about what's happened so far and what's ahead.

The next convention in line is Radcon.  This interesting convention in Pasco, WA is very well attended and has a loyal following.  I had a blast with C.S. last year and I'm really looking forward to Radcon this year.  Heck, maybe I'll even get a fun phone call while I'm there.  It can become an INK tradition!

Nothing to Lament About - PW on Ken Scholes

Jay Lake has written a wonderful article for Publisher's Weekly about recent INK visitor and OryCon 30 speaker Ken Scholes.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6620242.html?nid=3332

The best money shot ever:

"Advance praise from renowned authors Orson Scott Card, Harry Turtledove and Jonathan Strahan has set the stage for Scholes to step into the shoes of the late James Rigney (1948–2007), aka Robert Jordan, whose blockbuster Wheel of Time series anchored Tor's fantasy line for most of two decades."

Lamentation, the first of five books in a series, is due out in February of 2009. Seriously, get your hands on one and hang on for the ride.