Tips for Writers

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Order in the Chaos

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Misc., Tips for Writers
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Even Arthur is excited about the new iMac!

Today I have done something liberating. I sat down and I organized all of my writing.

Writers are hoarders

We tend to hoard our work, or at least I do as do several writers I know. You don’t want to trash something that could develop into something later. Sadly, though, my folders are so disorganized I spend valuable writing time trying to find my documents. It’s all just this giant mess of files, some stuck in my writing folder, some lying around my documents folder, and even more just hanging out on my desktop.

Laptop vs. Desktop

This weekend the boyfriend brought home a shiny, brand new iMac. I definitely prefer writing on a desktop. While the idea of taking my laptop to other places to get a change of scenery seems great, in truth it is just a huge distraction. It means I have no order. You go to work and you have a desk you are forced to sit at. With my laptop, I can easily move to other areas, look at other things, and next thing you know, the day is done and I have barely done any writing. Now I can say that the desk is for writing and if I want to be on Twitter or Facebook, I have to do that on my laptop, in another room. Separating the distractions keeps you focused.

Now that the weekend is over, I finally get to play with the new computer, and I will be able to use it every evening after work. On the weekends I will still have to switch back to the laptop, but hopefully the discipline of writing on the desktop will help me become a more disciplined writer.

A Folder for Everyone

In trying to set up the most organized, clean writing environment possible, I have organized my writing. Every document I deem worthy of being a good idea, which, let’s face it, is pretty much everything, gets copied from Word into Pages (Apple has made it really easy to convert Pages documents into iBook format) and then saved into a sub-folder of writing. The sub-folders are:

  • Chick Lit
  • Young Adult
  • Children
  • Middle Grade
  • Short Stories
  • Writing Exercises
  • Ideas
  • Essays

For works-in-progress, I have assigned a sub-folder to their category. For example, my Max book is organized Writing–>Middle Grades–>Max. All the files for this project live in the Max folder.

Now when I am searching for a document, I can easily locate it, saving me time and keeping me from getting distracted. And, since I have converted everything into Pages, it means there will be one less step if I decide to turn anything into an ebook.

How do you organize your writing? Do you prefer a desktop or a laptop? What do you think of Pages vs. Word? Is there another program you prefer to use?

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Change of Plans

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Yesterday I finally picked up a copy of The Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market, 2011 and I am inspired. I wish I had picked up a copy sooner. If you haven’t picked your copy up yet, I highly recommend you do.

Bitter Sweet Endings and New Beginnings

I have decided to put my WIP on hold. It is a total mess and, while I still like the basic idea behind it, it’s not what I really want to be writing. This book started as something completely different. By the time I reworked everything to make the plot work, I just didn’t love it anymore. Even though I am so close to the end of the 1st draft, that last couple chapters are killing me. I need a break. I need to quit rushing to finish it out of my desire to have something to get published. If it’s not good, no one will buy it. Of course, I’m not trashing the book, just putting it on hold and starting something new.

In reading the articles in the Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market, an idea began to form, and that idea turned into a nice, concise plot summary complete with a beginning, middle and end. There are tough decisions, identity issues, and betrayal. There is a solid setting, character flaws, and suspense. And the best part about it is that the idea came along without forcing it. The same cannot be said about my now on hold WIP.

While I love NaNoWriMo, it did cause me to force an idea. I remember 3 years ago on November 1, sitting in my home office trying to will a plot into my head. Maybe veteran writers are capable of doing that, but for someone writing their first full length book, that kind of thinking can be disastrous. No wonder I have never succeeded in completing a NaNoWriMo.

What next?

This time around, I’m doing it right. I so badly want to dive in and start turning my concept into a book. But I learned my lesson last time. I’m going to sit down and write an outline. I’m going to develop my characters before I even put them to paper. I know that my outline will change and my characters may pick up new traits or abandon other ones, but to write a book without a blueprint can be suicide for a writing career, or at least it can be or me.

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The Social Media Maze

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I received a shock the other day. The boyfriend actually asked me how I come up with blog posts. Now, this may not seem shocking to the general reader since I have a blog and have been pretty good about adding content, but it was a shock to me for two reasons.

  1. The boyfriend’s job involves finding ways to integrate his company’s product with social media.
  2. He was the one who insisted I start a blog and, in the early days, I asked him how to find things to blog about. I guess the tables have turned.

If you saw my post from 9/27/10, you will recall that one of my responsibilities at work is to find ways to use social media in my office. This is easier said then done. My office more or less acts as a consultant for national parks. Our client base is internal and we don’t get clients in the traditional sense. Figuring out where we fit in the social media world is no easy feat. Much as figuring out how an unpublished author can find a place in that world was quite the struggle.

Making the Most of Social Media

I know there are tons of blog posts by people far more experienced on this matter than I am, but to be honest, I didn’t find a lot of them to be that helpful. I am not a published author. I am not a non-fiction author trying to build my reputation. I am a fiction writer, and I write for middle grade and young adults. What in the world am I supposed to tweet, blog, Facebook, etc about?

Finding a Blog Topic

Before finding a blog topic, you first need to know what you are going to blog about. I decided to blog about writing, books I enjoy, publishing news, and the occasional blog about my writing progress (I didn’t want it to be all about my progress). By choosing these areas to focus on, I am killing two birds with one stone. I am forcing myself to stay apprised of things in the industry I am hoping to break into, while also creating and maintaining a blog.

To get ideas, I read a lot, and not just mg/ya books. I use Google Reader to have blog feeds sent to me so I don’t have to keep accessing things online. I also find new articles and blogs through Twitter. When I have time, I conduct Google searches on topics that I think might be interesting to my readers. If I find something interesting, I do more research and then write about it. If applicable, I link to the source that inspired me.

Of course, sometimes I get inspired from things around me. If I just had a breakthrough about character development, I may write about it. If I read something in a book and can’t decide how I feel about it, I may blog about that. The options are endless. Once you get started blogging, the inspiration starts to come to you more naturally. Just like any kind of writing.

Scheduling in Blogging Time

I try to blog every other day, but this can become quite time consuming. To get around the unpredictability of the work week, I set aside several hours every weekend to create my weekly blog posts. During the week I save interesting stories/articles or send myself short emails with the beginning of an idea. One easy way I keep track of links is through delicious.com. This is a network that allows you to save links and attach tags/notes to them. You can sign on from any computer, so it doesn’t matter where you are. If you have Internet, you have access to your links.

By tracking what I read during the week, I have some options for my upcoming posts come the weekend. All I have to do is a little research and a little writing. Then I schedule them to go out. Easy peasy.

Do you have any special tricks for blogging? Do you ever worry you will run out of ideas? Are there other subjects an unpublished writer can/should focus on in their blog?

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Eavesdropping-the secret to great writing…or so I hear

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Finding Inspiration, Tips for Writers
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I recently learned about this great website/newsletter – WriteSpa, part of Winslow Eliot’s website. You can either subscribe to the newsletter or view past newsletters online. The premise is to provide writers with a weekly writing exercise. In perusing some of the past exercises, I came to one from last week: Great Dialog (part 1/3). The exercise encouraged eavesdropping to improve dialog in your writing.

So why does this excite me?

I LOVE to eavesdrop. I can’t help it. Out at dinner, on the T (subway for you non-Bostonians out there), walking down the street, in a dressing room. If there are people conversing, I’m probably eavesdropping. I think my favorite type of conversations to eavesdrop on are phone conversations. There is a sense of mystery and intrigue. You have no clue who is on the other end. It’s always fun trying to figure out what is going on, creating the other end of the conversation in my head, imagining who the mystery person is in relation to the one in front of me. Of course, first dates are also fun to eavesdrop on.

Wait, doesn’t this make me a creep?

And now we come to the crux of the matter. If eavesdropping helps me to better experience the world and see how others interact, then there’s nothing creepy about it at all. It’s research. I mean, how boring would it be if all of my characters interacted in the same way? Super boring. So, to all you writers out there, I say give into your inner creep, the voyeur inside us all, and engage in some healthy eavesdropping.

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How Writing a Book is like Project Runway

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Tips for Writers
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So my secret is out. I’m a huge Project Runway junkie. I can’t get enough of it. While I was watching it the other day, I guess my subconscious was trying to tell me that I should be writing instead of watching t.v. because I could not stop comparing participating in the show to writing a novel.

Here are my comparisons:

  1. Start with a plan. The designers that don’t have at least some idea of where they’re going before heading off to Mood to buy fabrics usually waste valuable time trying to figure out what to do with what they’ve got. Writing is much the same way. You dive in to an idea or a character without knowing where you want to go and then you spend a significant amount of time backtracking.
  2. Edit, edit, edit. Having too much bling on your garment will generate a lot of negative criticism from the judges. Having too many useless words, characters, scenes, subplots, etc will generate negative criticism from agents and publishing houses.
  3. Don’t over-think it. 9 out of 10 times, the designer who over-thinks his/her design gets the boot, or at least ends up in the bottom 3. If you over-think your writing, chances are you won’t end up in the bottom or anywhere else for that matter because you will not have a finished product. Over-thinking something can be the death of creativity. Of course, putting zero thought into something is equally as bad, if not worse. See my first point in the list.
  4. And, most importantly, to directly quote Tim Gunn, “Make it work.” If you love your idea and you believe in it, then do whatever it takes to make it work.
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The ficklest of the fickle

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Misc., Tips for Writers
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I’m fickle. There, I’ve admitted it. I’ve come clean. Of course, I am sure readers of this blog have already surmised this by the simple fact that I cannot seem to stick to a theme. For those of you not up to speed with the technology lingo, that means the background and overall design of my blog. But my fickleness translates itself into other aspects of my life as well. Most importantly, into my writing.

I’m a fickle writer. I can’t make up my mind about anything. It’s really a big problem. I can’t even make up my mind about which concepts to follow, let alone which paths to take once I’ve started working on something.

This is probably also the time to mention that, with the exception of undergrad and grad school, I’ve never finished anything. I mean, ANYTHING. I’ve never even beaten a video game. I stopped doing TaeKwonDo 1 stripe away from reaching black belt. I only made it through 3 chapters of a self-taught web design course. You name it, I haven’t finished it.

You may be asking yourself, as the boyfriend has been asking me for 3 years now, how I think I’m going to finish writing a book. Simple. Writing means more to me than anything else in my life. It always has. And, in my defense, I did write a 100 page thesis to get my master’s degree and I have stuck with the same overall concept for my WIP for 3 years. Certainly that must count for something, right?

So how is the fickle writer supposed to commit to an idea, commit to the various paths that evolve out of a book and finish the darn thing? The simple answer: sheer willpower.

I’m sure this isn’t the answer you were hoping for. I’m sure you were looking for some grand scheme. Sadly, there is no grand scheme that will get one over the hurdle of being fickle other than pushing through it and forcing yourself to make a decision. Another way is to try not to over-analyze, to go with your gut. I’ve more or less mastered the first solution by reminding myself that the only way to finish a book is to suck it up and make a decision. The second solution is something I work on everyday, and I think once I’ve mastered that, I will be a much more efficient writer.

Of course, I could just blame my fickleness on being a perfectionist and pretend I don’t have a problem.

How do you overcome fickle tendencies?

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Dreaming of NaNoWriMo…Literally

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Misc., Tips for Writers
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I had a crazy dream last night. I blame it on my obsession with finishing my current book and the fact that I am still being haunted by The Hunger Games every time I close my eyes. So in the dream, you won NaNoWriMo by racing up these twisty, windy stairs. There could only be three winners. The winners would finish their books. The only challenge was that the person behind you could throw a knife in your back so they could move up in the ranks. At the beginning of the stairwell, I joined ranks with 3 other contestants. Only problem was, I was in 4th place. But in my dream, that was fine. I didn’t mind helping them get to the top. As we ran, I heard people dropping dead all around me, until finally I was almost at the top and someone came up behind me. The 3 winners had already made it. I convinced the person behind me not to stab me in the back. What was the point? Then I turned and left. The game was over. I did not win, but my teammates had.

I woke up at 3 in the morning and thought this was a pretty interesting dream. At 3 am, I ignored its connection to life in general and only saw the connection in regards to writing. There will always be people looking to stab you in the back to take what you potentially have. The struggle to the top will be long and exhausting. Getting to the top is not something you can do on your own. You need help. A support group goes a long way.

I guess my sub-conscious is trying to tell me its time to find a support group. To all you writers out there, how did you find your support group? Are you still looking for one? Do you think a support group is essential to success?

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Spunky Female Main Characters

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The other day I was having drinks with a friend and discussing writing and books (I’m a dork, I know). The journey my book has taken from day one to now came up and we got into a discussion about female MCs. My MC was originally a female. This changed about 1.5 years into the project. In discussing my reasons for making this change, we hit upon something common to female MCs. They all have a bit of spunk.

Think about a female MC from almost any book you loved, from any genre. We used Matilda as our initial example, but think about older literary characters, like Anna Karenina or Scarlett O’Hara. Think about more recent ones, like Katniss Everdeen or Lisbeth Salander. Now think about what all these characters have in common. They all reject societies conventions for what a woman should be; they all have spunk.

Now think about books you didn’t love that had a female MC. To be kind, I will refrain from giving examples, but I can think of several. And I can think of one thing all these MCs had in common. They whined. They moaned about lack of love and misfortune. They didn’t create their own destiny, at least not willingly. They lacked true spunk. Some of these tried to have spunk, but there was so much whining and too many fits of self-pity, it just didn’t work.

Now think of some books with great male MCs. Would they have worked as well with a female MC? The example my friend and I used was Harry Potter, but Frodo from Lord of the Rings works just as well, if not better. Had Harry or Frodo been a female, would we have loved them? Or would we have told them to suck it up and quit complaining (in all fairness, I did say that a few times to Frodo, but I kept it to a minimum)? Why is it that a male MC can get away with more moments of emotional weakness than a woman?

So what was the main reason I switched my MC to a male? As a female, she was just too whiny. She seemed to be suffering from too much self-pity. And so I made the switch, and suddenly it worked.

I read a post the other day by Justine Musk, Why You Need to Write Like a Bad Girl, and it got me thinking. If our writing is more honest by throwing away convention and writing honestly, and, as Justine puts it, like a bad girl, are our readers looking to embrace the bad girl in our characters and, by extension, themselves? Is this the appeal of the spunky female MC?

What do you think about this? Are you more likely to read a book with a male MC who has moments of weakness than you are a female? Are we more forgiving of male MCs? Are there any great books out there that give leniency to weaker female characters?

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Skype: Connecting Authors with Readers

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Book News & Reviews, Tips for Writers
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As a follow-up to my post earlier this week, Calling all 9-12 year Olds, I found out about this great resource for authors and teachers called Skype an Author Network. The service allows authors to connect with teachers/readers to arrange author visits via Skype. Low income schools can use this service to bring authors into their classrooms without having to pay huge fees (and, depending on the duration of the chat and the author’s policy, the presentations are often free). Authors also benefit because they can make lots of visits without worrying about travel time or the limited budgets publishing houses have for book tours.

To learn more about this program, check out Kate Messner’s article from the School Library Journal, An author in Every Classroom: Kids Connecting with Authors via Skype. It’s the next best thing to being there.

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