Megan Lentz - Page 4

May 09

I love my work-in-progress, but sometimes, we need to take a little time out. Sometimes, I get an idea for something else and it just won’t leave my mind. It consumes the creative parts of my brain, distracting me from my project and making writing time difficult. When this happens, I’ve found it to be more beneficial to take an hour or half a day or even a day off of my work-in-progress to write the scene or character sketch or plot outline that is distracting me. Then, when I return to my work-in-progress, I’m more focused.

What do you do when a competing interest jumps into the spotlight? Do you take a time-out or do you try to push through, ignore the urge and force yourself to focus on your current project?

May 07

I just joined a Book Blog list. Basically, anyone who reviews books and blogs about it was invited to join. Since I love reading book reviewer blogs and love blogging about books, I figured this was a good way to reach out and meet some more bloggers. I encourage everyone to visit these blogs. If you want more information, check out The Masquerade Crew.

Also, if you are a book blogger, you can add your site to the list below. If you do add your site, please also include this list on your site. There is a link below the list to add the list to your site.

Happy Reading!

Get the InLinkz code

May 07

Photo by: Stephen Coles, http://www.flickr.com/photos/stewf/

Research is important for a successful novel regardless of your genre. When I first started writing, I figured research was only necessary for historical fiction or Michael Crichton-type thrillers. I was certain that fantasy and futuristic writers didn’t need to bother with research. I mean, they build their own worlds. What’s there to research?

But boy was I wrong.

Research, Research, Research: Examples from the Real World

Think about the last novel you read. Now think about the details. As an example, I will use one of the last novel I read, Wondrous Strange. In this urban fantasy, the main character, Kelley, is an actress in a Shakespeare play and fairy lure is laced throughout the book. There are also other fantastical characters. To write this book, Lesley Livingston needed to be familiar with fairy tales from different cultures. She also needed to be familiar with a variety of Shakespeare plays and other fantasy creatures and the folktales that accompanied them.

My current WIP is set in the future. Like it or not, writing a book set in the future also requires research. While it is not a hard sci-fi book, readers will expect some sci-fi elements. What does the future look like? What new, amazing technology have they developed? To figure this out, I have to spend time looking at trends in technology and science and, based off of these things, make educated guesses about what these things will look like in the future.

Where do I go to Research?

Two of my main sources of research are TechCrunch and Mashable. TechCrunch blogs about technology startups and Web 2.0. Mashable is a news blog that explores web technology, news, new websites/social networks, etc. I also skim the technology and science sections in several online newspapers and follow NASA and Astronomy Magazine on Twitter. A lot of days, I don’t see anything that sparks my creativity. But sometimes, I get a little nugget that grows into an amazing idea.

Take my current WIP. The main premise came from a news story. I occasionally listen to a podcast called Mysterious Universe. I was listening to it one day and they were talking about solar flares and underground homes that are being built to protect people from these flares. So I went to the internet and started researching these things and the idea took off. What if there was a solar flare that destroyed earth and the wealthy escaped in a space ship and return years later, thinking Earth was uninhabited only to discover that people had been living in underground safety pods. Cue conflict.

No matter what genre you are writing in, you will always need to do your homework.

How do you research? Do you use research for inspiration?

May 04

The Children of Men, by P.D. James

Rating: 3 out of 5

Summary: The year is 2021 and mankind is on the brink of extinction. The last generation has reached adulthood and despite fertility testing and years of scientific research, mankind remains infertile. Mass suicides are on the rise as the citizens of England begin to lose hope. Theodore Faron, an Oxford historian, is stuck in the past. He would rather remember his unhappy past then think about the future-less future. Until he is approached by Julian, an attractive, smart woman who wants him to help her and her group of revolutionaries, the Five Fish, convince Theo’s cousin, the Warden of England, to step down and let someone else rule the country. As Theo becomes more involved with the group, he begins to realize that his future may not be so hopeless as he discovers that the Five Fish have a secret that could mean the survival of the human race.

While this is not really a YA novel, I’ve noticed that a lot of people on GoodReads who enjoy YA dystopians have added this book to their to-read lists. Personally, I have wanted to read this book for a long time because I loved the 2006 movie adaptation. Unfortunately, very quickly into the book I realized that the movie adaptation was a very loose adaptation. About the only similarities are the main concept and the character names. Otherwise, they may as well be two completely different stories with more or less different plot lines and characters.

The Good

James’ writing is, without a doubt, beautiful. She uses interesting words in interesting ways and her use of description is quite good. The characters, for the most part, are interesting with a healthy dose of weaknesses. Theo has an interesting story and he grows throughout in ways that seem believable. Miriam and Julian were also interesting and I found myself wanting to know more about their backgrounds. I wish Luke and Rolf, the other members of the Five Fish, had been equally as developed. Xan, the Warden of England, was also well portrayed. Despite his weaknesses, I did not find him to be completely bad and, even though I knew his success would mean the failure of the hero, I was conflicted about wanting him to fail. I kept hoping that a compromise could be found. I think this shows that James successfully created her characters because you should always feel something for both the hero and the villan.

The plot, while slow at times, kept me guessing. James moved the plot in interesting ways and made good use of surprises. Even when things seemed predictable, I still found myself engaged in seeing how the predictable parts would come to pass.

Finally, the general concept is intriguing. I loved seeing how James painted a world on the brink of destruction, seeing the different responses and how different people dealt with the inevitable end and the failure of mankind to reproduce, something so innate and something that other, seemingly more inferior beings like cats, are still able to do.

The Not so Good

The book is written in third person with pages from Theo’s diary added in to provide his background. It was an interesting convention, but I was not overly fond of it. It almost seemed like an easy way to give us the background into Theo’s life. I would have preferred learning about his life throughout the flow of the novel. His diary entries bordered on boring and, were it not for the fact that I enjoyed the movie so much, I probably would not have been able to make it through this book.

The book did not really get interesting for me until about 200 pages in. The book only has about 250 pages. I’m not sure if seeing the movie, which was so very different, made me enjoy the book less than I would have otherwise or if it made me enjoy it more.

While I didn’t love the book, I am happy that I read it. P.D. James is a lovely writer and she made an interesting exploration into mankind’s nature and how we would deal with such an inevitable end.

May 02

What's your kryptonite?

Every writer has her weaknesses. I recently read a post on Writer Unboxed, What I’ve Learned About Writing a Novel, where author Sarah Pekkanen discusses her struggles with writing a novel that was more than just a character novel. To achieve this, she had to learn about plot and how to make a story really flow. By overcoming her weakness, she has become a successful author. But to get to the point where you can write books that people want to read, you have to accept that no writer is perfect. Everyone has a weakness. But if you can figure out what your writing weakness is, you just might succeed in selling your novel.

It’s all in the Details

I figured out what my weakness was at a young age. I stink at description. And it’s no wonder since I usually skim through the descriptions in books, racing ahead to get to the good stuff, the plot. But, sadly, description is pretty important in books. You need it to set the scene. While I don’t like overly descriptive books, I also don’t enjoy books that are poorly described. And, truth-be-told, I probably read a lot more description than I mean to read.

In high school I came up with what I thought was a brilliant solution to this problem. I would just write plays. Then I could use barebones description and focus on fast-paced plot and dialogue and character building. There were two problems with this approach. 1 – this was the lazy way out. 2 – I’m not overly fond of actors. In fact, I only lasted about a year as a theater major.

Once I came back around to novel-writing, I realized that I wasted a lot of time taking the easy route. I could have been honing my description writing skills. Instead, I spent hours learning how to properly format a script. Useful if I decide to write a book with a playwright as the main character, but not so useful if I want that book to have any shred of description.

Practice, practice, practice – Exercising your creativity

How do you overcome your weaknesses? In writing, sadly, the only real way to do this is through practice. You have to exercise your creative mind. In the past I often skipped exercises in writing books that focused on description. Now I am forcing myself to work through them. And it is not always pretty. I am also forcing myself to read every word in the books I consume, description and all. I’ve learned to plot by being a voracious reader and seeing first hand what does and does not work. By focusing on description in published books, I am also starting to pick up on things that work and do not work.

I’m pretty sure I will always have to work on my description writing skills. Maybe it will become second nature to me one day. I hope it does, but I’m not going to count on it. Instead, I’m going to keep on exercising my creativity with the hopes that I can at least manage to fool readers into believing that I’m an expert writer with zero flaws

What’s your kryptonite? How do you confront your weaknesses?

Apr 30

Now that I’ve been writing for 6 weeks (crazy, I know), I’ve managed to hammer down my schedule. So I thought I would have a follow-up to my typical day.

8:00 – wake up; make coffee; tidy the house; read a couple of chapters from whatever book I’m reading

9:00 – sit down in front of the computer; read blogs and email; respond to email/comment on blogs; add a tweet or two

10:00 – start writing

12:00 – lunch

12:45 – reread what I’ve written and write some more

3:00 – write a blog post; check twitter; search for new blogs to follow; brainstorm for future ideas

4:30 – do some more writing

6:00 – work out

7:00 – make dinner

8:00 – watch tv

10:00 – read a few more chapters; go to bed.

So you can see that writing is only part of the job. In fact, only about 4-6 hours of my day are spent writing. The rest of my time is spent networking and following the industry. Sometimes this includes reading books, checking out predictions for where the market is headed, watching teenager-aimed television shows to better understand my target audience (if you haven’t checked out Dance Academy, do it. It’s been my favorite find), reading news articles to give me inspiration for future ideas, etc. And I know that when I get to the proper editing stage, my schedule will change even more and it will include fewer hours of actual writing.

What this also shows is that if you cannot write full-time, you can still write a novel. You just have to be more selective about which aspects of the job you focus on. When I was working full-time, I cut most of the non-writing tasks from my writing life. With my limited time, they just didn’t make sense. Now that I have the time to really make writing my proper job, I can more easily justify all of the extras that go into a writing career.

How much time do you spend writing a day or a week?

Apr 27

The Scorpio Races, by Maggie Stiefvater

Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary (taken from GoodReads): It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die.

At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them.

Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn’t given her much of a chance. So she enters the competition — the first girl ever to do so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen.

I know I’ve been writing a lot of reviews for dystopian/apocalyptic books of late. I’ve been trying to focus more on them since that’s more in the genre I’m writing. But I recently read The Scorpio Races and I loved it so much I could not resist sharing this book with you all.

Two Person Narration

I overlooked this book for a long time because, try as I might, I have not been able to get through Stiefvater’s Shiver. I just couldn’t get into the writing style (though I’m now planning on giving it another go). One thing that Stiefvater does in her books is that she tells it from the point of view of two narrators. I’ve reviewed other books on this blog that have used this technique. Sometimes I love them (see my review of Leviathan for an example). But usually, I would prefer one narrator. In The Scorpio Races, though, I think the double narrator was essential for the plot. Sean and Puck are such dynamic characters that to have not seen inside either of their minds would have been a shame. So if you usually do not like the 2-narrator approach, please, give this one a shot. I think you may be pleasantly surprised.

When Learning is Good

I felt like I learned something from this book. Often when I read these days, I no longer feel like that, or I feel like the underlying messages are not underlying at all, but rather slapping me in the face. Stiefvater has a way of weaving a plot that makes you really think without feeling stressed and like you are being tricked into thinking. Think reading Where the Red Fern Grows for pleasure vs. in an english class. I felt like The Scorpio Races could be picked apart and presented in a literary class in a way that would make the most diehard classicist proud. But, unlike some books I read in school that shall remain nameless, I did not feel like you needed to dissect this book to get the book.

So what did this book teach me? It helped me think about the inner workings of mankind, how people are more than they seem. It also portrayed a strong message about fighting for what you believe and not giving up, no matter what. And then there was the be true to yourself message, which I think is always an important message in YA books.

Another theme of the book was learning how to know what it is you want. Some people are satisfied with who they are and what they have, but others need more. The struggle to find who you are and what you really, truly want in life can be a beautiful thing, and Stiefvater did a lovely job portraying this.

And Horses!

I cannot forget the horses. I loved that these were not the sweet cuddly horses of fairy tales. They were sinister but still had a primal beauty to them, a thing few of the characters in the book could see. So many of the characters saw them as monsters or as toys or as an adventure, and, more often than not, things ended poorly for those shortsighted characters.

A bit of Grit

OK, you know I like my gritty settings sometimes, as long as they don’t get too gritty. And I thought this book had just the right amount.

YA even Adults can get behind

Finally, I think this is a YA book that adults can read and love. It doesn’t have the sappy love triangles so many YA books have these days (which I enjoy, but I know not everyone can get behind) and the characters have depth and real problems and fight against very real, honest obstacles. So what are you waiting for? Go find yourself a copy.

Apr 25

People always ask me if I was an English major. Actually, I was an Anthropology major. And I then got my Master’s in Archaeology. In fact, I despised this boy in college who was an English major so I tried to avoid any English classes I thought he might be taking. Mature, I know, but hey, I was 18. It seemed like a really good idea at the time.

I’ve always felt a little leery about my chosen career path. What if by not taking a million lit classes, I missed out on my opportunity to be a better writer? Now that I am writing full-time, I can actually take the time to read the writing technique books I never had time for when I was writing in between my full-time job, dinner, house work, life, etc. And you know what reading technique books is teaching me? That you don’t need a class to be a good writer, but it won’t hurt you if you take one.

I just finished James Scott Bell’s Write Great Fiction – Plot & Structure, and what I got from it were not ways to write better, but rather ways for me to express the things I already know. Any prolific reader knows what does and does not work in a plot, but can you verbalize why a plot is or is not working? When I write, I pull from my experiences as a reader to make sure my plot is moving at the right pace, my characters are likable and exhibiting growth, and that the first chapter grabs you from the get-go. But now that I’ve read this book, I can analyze why I’m doing these things. Often when I write I can tell that something is wrong. As I said, I’ve read enough books to know how a book should flow. But I can’t always explain why it isn’t working. I just know that it’s not.

Now that I have time to read books on technique, I feel less inferior about my degrees. But you know what else I have gotten from reading technique books? A new set of vocabulary for talking about books and analyzing the good and the bad. And maybe, just maybe, having read this and other technique books will allow me to better critique my own work and help me produce something people want to read.

Apr 23

Photo by Andreas Levers, http://www.flickr.com/people/96dpi/

There are a lot of opinions about word counts. Some people feel that you shouldn’t rely on them – they lead to sloppy writing if all you care about it making your number. But other people find that word counts give them the extra push they need to keep writing.

Daily word counts as motivation

I tend to go back and forth on the subject. But I will say that one of the things that helps get me through NaNoWriMo is the word count graph. Seeing my word count growing is a real morality booster. Especially because when I’m writing, I don’t often remember what the word count was when I sat down to start writing for the day. Entering it into a graph shows me just how much I achieved. And this gives me the mental boost I need to keep going.

I don’t think writers should rely only on word counts. After all, editing usually leads to less word counts and brainstorming sessions don’t exactly add to the word count either. But not relying solely on them doesn’t mean they are a bad thing.

I’ve decided to start keeping track of my daily word count using a simple spreadsheet and graph. If nothing else, it will serve as a way to show the fiance (a.k.a. my financial backer) the progress I’m making. But I think it will also help push me to write more each day.

Writing out-of-order to keep me moving forward

In addition to keeping track of my word counts, I’ve also decided to break my cardinal rule by writing out-of-order. I’ve had this problem lately where I have scenes in my head that come much later in the book. I don’t write them because I want to write in order but then I find myself rushing through the connecting bits because I want to get to the scene I’m seeing. So, to save myself the extra editing that will result from rushed writing, I’ve decided to just get the scenes out on paper. I know that they may not flow into the rest of the story, but by extracting them, I will be able to move on to more writing.

What methods do you use to motivate yourself to write? Do you even need to motivate yourself? Do you write in order? Or do you sometimes like to mix things up?

Apr 20

I know, it’s late Friday night and there is no book review in sight. I read a book this week that I had every intention of reviewing, but once I finished it, I decided that it was so bad there was no way I could review it in good conscious. I know writers are supposed to have a thick skin and be used to negative criticism, but I don’t want to be the one throwing out the negative comments. So I decided to hold off on my review this week.

There is another extremely good book I read this week as well, but I wasn’t ready to review it yet. So stay tuned next Friday for my review of Maggie Stiefvater’s The Scorpio Races.

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Sometimes you need a time out

Book Blogger Hop

Researching the Novel

Research, Research, Research: Examples from the Real World

Where do I go to Research?

Book Review Friday: The Children of Men

The Good

The Not so Good

Understanding Your Weaknesses and Writing Past Them

It’s all in the Details

Practice, practice, practice – Exercising your creativity

My Life as a Full-time Writer: Week 6

Book Review Friday: The Scorpio Races