Make Your Process Work for You

I wrote a little bit on Twitter last week about how I’d used my writing process, and more specifically my awareness of it, to troubleshoot a problem with drafting Tea Princess Chronicles, and it occurred to me that might be worth expounding on. So! Here we go.

The most fundamental thing to understand is that your writing process is whatever enables you to meet your writing goals.

For me, my primary goal is completing books. My process is the structure I build into my life to enable me to do that.

Your goal can be pushing your craft limitations, writing consistently, writing at all–whatever you want, provided you have some ability to control it.

(By which I mean, your goal should not be, say, getting published traditionally, or getting fancy movie deals, because notice the passive voice there? Those decisions are reliant on other people; you’re not the agent ultimately in control of them. But setting attainable goals is a blog post for another day.)

If you have a process, yet you’re not meeting your goals? Maybe it’s worked before but isn’t anymore? You can change it. Process isn’t sacred; it evolves with you, your needs, and your stories.

So how do you figure out a process that actually works for you? How do you make it reliable? How do you figure out what’s extraneous?

The summer before I started high school, I decided I was going to actually write a book for the first time. I’d read David and Leigh Eddings’ The Rivan Codex, and I used the process outlined in it for my first attempt. I had a lot of fun but ultimately produced way more world-building documentation than actual story. A learning experience! Happily, the Eddings had the foresight to specify that this was just the process they used and that it should not be taken as gospel, so I didn’t. Instead I started looking up the writers I admired, researching how they worked, and experimenting.

That’s the answer, essentially: experimentation, plus time and work.

The good news is most writers I know are huge process nerds and are happy to share how they work. Their processes almost certainly won’t map 100% to what you need, because writers are different, and books are different. But pieces of their processes can be useful as jumping-off points of what to try, especially if you know whatever you’re doing demonstrably is not getting you closer to your goal.

It may not work! Sometimes you’ll know in advance that something definitely will not work for you–and sometimes you won’t.

Any process that requires me to get up earlier in the morning is definitely never happening, writing out of order is also never happening, and I can explain the reasons for both at length. But outlining, it turns out, is a skill I was able to acquire, though there was a time I couldn’t have imagined that working.

Writing every day seemed like the sort of thing I ought to be able to do, but it turns out that extremely doesn’t work for me–I can only do it for a few days at a time and then I burn out for way longer than I wrote. On the other hand, I’ve learned I don’t have to write every day, because instead I can arrange my schedule such that I can get the same number of words done in a few shifts each week as it takes colleagues consistent daily shifts to accomplish.

Here are some purely logistical questions about writing process to consider:

• Do you write best with a lot of hours all at once, or do you run out of steam? Do you write best with momentum, a little every day, or in bursts?
• Can your schedule be shifted at all? Does its structure already mimic your priorities?
• Is it easiest to start writing if you’ve left off in the middle of a chapter, or if you can start fresh?
• Do you write better typing or writing longhand with your favorite fountain pen?
• Do you focus better alone in your room, or at a coffee shop where there’s nothing to do but work?
• Is drinking tea while you work soothing, or is the excitement caffeine jitters?
• Do you write best with an outline?
• Have you tried?

If you don’t know the answer to questions like those and you’re not satisfied with your process (remember, in context this means whether what you’re doing is enabling you to meet your goals), try something different. It doesn’t have to be a complete overhaul, but if you’re not meeting your goals as-is, something has to change.

Process is more than just logistics, of course. But logistics are a concrete thing you can control a lot more easily than other aspects of story creation, so they’re a useful place to start if you’re looking to make a change.

Writing is art, but it is also craft. What I can control I will, and being actively aware and working on my process is one of the most fundamental and simplest (not easy, necessarily, but basic) parts of writing that is within my control. I want to complete books, which means I don’t just wait for a muse to strike with inspiration; I figure out how to make my words and stories happen.

I’ve written eleven books in the last decade. (That’s not counting shorter works or projects I didn’t finish; that’s just novels.) That didn’t happen accidentally or by magic; those manuscripts exist because I took steps to make them. I doubt I’m done learning my process–I’m not sure such a thing is possible, especially as I expect it to change as my life and books do–but being aware of it consciously helps me not just plan my life sustainably but to finish books reliably–which, again, is the goal.

In the case of Tea Princess Chronicles, I was able to figure out there was a story problem because my process wasn’t working. I knew how the story should be coming along–namely, faster and with greater ease–but it wasn’t. The logistics of my process were all in place, but the story wasn’t flowing. That’s how I knew I actually had a craft problem.

Because I know how I work, I knew to go back and check the character fundamentals, since that’s my entry point into stories. (I believe the writing advice “POV fixes everything” is attributed to Emma Bull, and I have found it to be true in my work.) And sure enough, that’s where my problem was. It required a little shifting but ultimately wasn’t difficult to address at that stage. Which is fortunate, because Tea Princess Chronicles posts weekly! There’s not much space to backtrack, which also makes it super important for me to have a reliable process.

It also means that, say, when I have a rush deadline for creative writing, I know what I need to do to meet it. That also happened this year on a different writing project, and I knew what I needed to do with my schedule, and how it was going to affect other deadlines, and made it work. Specifically, I made my process work for me, in the service of my goals.

The important thing is process shouldn’t feel limiting. When it’s working, it should enable you to meet your goals, not something that makes them harder. Process is a means of empowerment, helping you accomplish what matters to you.

So experiment, build the structures you need, and tell your stories.

 

the process of a territory takeover in action:

August 20, 2018 by Casey Tags: art, choices, craft, deadlines, discipline, empowerment, getting shit done, goals, learning experience, life changes, life structure, process, reaching goals, time and effort, time management, writing, writing life Leave a comment

Measuring Writing Progress: Beyond NaNo

National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo, and its offshoots are wonderful. Many novelists have gotten their starts with NaNo or have made use of it to great effect later in their development, and it’s that second part I want to talk a little more about.

NaNo is designed to target one particular writing problem that afflicts a huge percentage of people, particularly beginning writers, and it targets it very effectively: that challenge is actually writing.

NaNo is built with tools to give you access to a community of fellow writers to help you through or keep you on track. It gives pep talks to keep you going. It gives you a deadline that isn’t fungible. What it’s especially known for is keeping track of your word count, how many words you’ve written that day, how many you have left, and how many you need to write each day on average to hit that mark.

In essence, it provides a support system to teach people how to write novels in the sense of literally sitting down and producing words.

Here’s an incomplete list of what NaNo doesn’t teach:

• Writing craft.
• Finishing.
• Editing.
• Pacing (yourself, as a writer).
• Adaptability.

This is not a flaw with NaNo–it’s not trying to teach these things, and targeting a particular and wide audience is smart! But it’s worth noting that the tools it teaches for writers who need help just finally getting the story in their heads out are not always still useful to that same writer as they evolve.

Which is to say, if you’re serious about writing, NaNo’s tools probably will not continue working for you forever, at least not without some changes. This is good–it means you’re growing. So if you’re not meeting a NaNo goal, or if you’re struggling to meet it, don’t beat yourself up about it. The set of tools it’s teaching may not be what you need to learn, and you’re the only one who can judge that.

Let me give some specifics, because one of the things NaNo has been great at is undercutting all the excuses people make for all the reasons they can’t write a novel. (In particular, being busy. Everyone is busy. But I digress.)

Traditional NaNo sets the goal of writing 50,000 words in a month. Plenty of people can figure out how to manage this for one month by putting a lot of other life to the side. Learning how to prioritize writing is useful, but if the things you’re putting aside are your share of chores, doctor’s appointments, or things you do for fun and your emotional well-being? They can’t be put off indefinitely. Ultimately that hurts the writing by hurting the writer. So people who want to make writing a consistent part of their lives often benefit by not setting a goal this high–not because it’s unattainable, but because it’s unsustainable.

Camp NaNo is an iteration of traditional NaNoWriMo in spring and summer that has more flexibility. You can set whatever word count goal you like, or you can set a goal in terms of hours worked on the project, the latter of which is very useful if you’re primarily editing.

(Because editing typically does not produce consistent increases in word count, it can be harder to measure and track productivity. This isn’t how I personally measure editing progress, but it’s a great adaptation for NaNo.)

Unfortunately, you can’t select both hours and words, so this doesn’t work well if you’re writing one project and editing another. This April I’d set a writing goal, but even knowing I’d been editing for a week, looking at the flat section of the bar graph made me feel like I hadn’t been working.

NaNo also doesn’t teach writers how to manage multiple deadlines. If you have more than one ongoing project, and one becomes a rush job, everything else in your schedule has to shift to accommodate. I had to change my word count goal in April for a similar reason, and it was hard not to feel like that wasn’t a kind of failure. Not because NaNo’s word count tracking system didn’t allow me to change my ultimate goal, but because it couldn’t account for the context involved.

The same is true if you’re collaborating, or an editor’s schedule changes, or you have publicity commitments. It’s not just life that affects your writing schedule: it’s other realities of writing.

And, like with editing, often writers aren’t trying to get just any words on the page. They’re trying to get the right ones. NaNo teaches people to produce, and that is very useful, but only to a point. People who are serious about writing will at some point need to move beyond this one way of measuring progress, because it’s designed to measure a particular kind of progress. I already know I can produce lots of words quickly, so a system designed to encourage that locks me into a pattern that makes me feel like I’m making progress rather than helping me grow in different ways.

Exactly when you need to learn other tools to keep yourself on track, and what tools those should be, varies for every individual person and sometimes for different projects. I still use elements of NaNo word count tracking in my own projects, because it’s a great jumping-off point–deadline motivation works particularly well for me. But it’s elements, adapted to my needs. NaNo is a great template for a starter system; it’s not the be all and end all.

If you’ve found NaNo restrictive or unhelpful–or even easy–consider what you’re trying to use it for, and consider if it’s serving your interests. It’s great for specific uses–namely, again, actually writing–but context matters. If you already know how to reliably get words written, NaNo metrics alone probably aren’t what you need. Don’t set yourself up to fail by forcing yourself to use a system designed to solve problems that aren’t your primary concern.

It’s not failure if you can’t reach a system’s goals when the system isn’t designed to work for you. As with any writing advice: take what helps you and discard the rest. And know that as you evolve as a writer, your process will too.

The greatest challenge to my writing process is these two cats being unreasonably adorable in my office.

May 15, 2018 by Casey Tags: campnano, deadlines, leveling up, life structure, metrics, nanowrimo, organization, priorities, process, progress, project management, self care, time management, tracking progress, word count, writer health, writing, writing life Leave a comment

on pushing

This one goes out especially to my fellow overachievers.

If you’ve noticed I haven’t been around on the interwebs much recently, it’s because I’ve been neck-deep in revision. “Neck-deep in” is an understatement; “breathing” is more accurate. I have always (A L W A Y S) been revising this book. This year’s been hard, not just for *gestures at trashfire political landscape*, but a variety of reasons I’m not talking about publicly.

But I’ve buckled down for the final push on this revision to make my deadline, and I cannot tell you how ready I am to be DONE. Not that I don’t still love the book, or working on it. Not that I think this will revision will be perfect and not need more work. I’m still ready to be done with this revision, and revision in general, for at least a little while. And there’s the shining deadline beacon to reach for. THE END IS WITHIN SIGHT.

But.

It was getting harder to pull ideas out. Not that I couldn’t, but that’s not the part of writing that’s normally a fight for me. I wasn’t totally burned out, just. Tired. I could push if I had to. But I had been pushing, and I had a long stretch of pushing left to look forward to. So even though I had an evening free, and a deadline, I dropped everything to read a book instead.

I finished the book and could practically feel the sensation of my replenished creative well. I considered going back to revising right then—and instead picked up another book.

I slept better that night than I had in weeks. I slept for something like eleven hours. The next day, the threads of a character arc I’d been struggling with stitched together neatly without any fuss. (You know that feeling when you KNOW you’ve done good work in your art? I’m not usually so confident in revisions, but it was that.)

Then my dayjob asked if I could switch from the morning to the evening shift the following day, and even though I knew it would interfere with my revision schedule, for once I decided to do it anyway. Because if I’d slept for eleven hours, I figured maybe I could use another day of extra sleeping. And the next edit on my schedule was going to take even more brain than the last.

That morning came around, and I didn’t expect to get good revision work in. I didn’t have much time, was barely caffeinated. I gave myself permission not to push, picked up my book, sat down… and started having Ideas. I spent the next hour noting down connections as fast as they came to me, as the biggest plot problem I had left just solved itself.

One night off. One book read. Two good sleeps. Back in action.

Because sometimes you need to work smarter, not harder. Or at least I do. If thinking in terms of “self care” doesn’t work for you, consider that, just because you can push through a project, even if you do good work, doesn’t mean the work hasn’t suffered.

Did I lose a day or two of work time? Yes.

Did I sacrifice my ability to meet my deadline? Possibly.

Does that bother me? EXTREMELY.

(I have high standards. I am competitive. I dislike failing. DID I MENTION HOW VERY READY I AM TO BE DONE WITH THIS REVISION.)

But.

Ultimately, it’s still more efficient for me to do it right (right-er) the first time than to have to fix it later. It’s worth it to do better work rather than faster work. (insert caveats about circumstances varying, etc. here)

Because, yes, I care about timeliness, and professionalism. Writing is a business. But writing is also an art, and I can spare a couple days for the sake of the story.

Obviously there is such a thing as avoiding work because it’s hard. It can be hard to tell. In my case, right now, that wasn’t it. But sometimes, if everything is hard, it’s not just because writing is hard. Sometimes you need to step back and breathe. To let yourself breathe.

And sometimes you can’t! Missing this deadline isn’t going to cause me dire consequences. Yours may be less fungible. You’re the only one who can judge for yourself.

But, friends, if you can. Read a book. Eat good food, exercise, pet a cat. Sleep.

For the love of everything, SLEEEEEEEEEP.

The work will still be there. You’ll just be more ready to meet it.

tl;dr If you’re pushing yourself through creative work, make sure it’s because you really have to, not because you think you should/can.

Happy Holidays, friends. Wishing you coziness and good reads. ❤

SLEEEEEEEEEEEP.

December 23, 2017 by Casey Tags: deadlines, editing, self care, time management, writer health, writing, writing life Leave a comment

Third Annual Flying Birthday Report

It’s now been two years since I took a leap (well, more of a roll out of the plane) and really committed to putting myself and my writing first. Continuing the flying tradition, for my 27^th birthday I decided to try out a wind tunnel, which I highly recommend.

Throughout various adventuring, I have learned that it behooves me to warn guides about two things in advance:

a) My skull, while unusually hard, is tinier than they really think it is.

Here I am wearing an actually child-sized helmet.

 

b) My back is unreasonably bendy.

When I ran out of momentum while ziplining and had to pull myself the rest of the way, I ended up alarming my poor guides.

 

In the wind tunnel, it didn’t matter how well I held position or how straight I kept my legs; because I was essentially doing an upside down backbend, I was constantly drifting backwards.

Good times, good times.

And thus I finished out my second year of putting my writing first in my life.

I haven’t been good about blogging this year, so I thought I’d recap how this has been going.

The first year after quitting my fulltime job was largely about figuring out how to best arrange my life to support my writing, as opposed to finding a job that allowed me to write on the side. That’s a subtle distinction, but for me it’s been an important one.

I will probably always be adjusting. I changed part-time jobs again for various reasons, and the one I currently have — working at a root beer store and doing way more than is technically in my job description — is so far working the best of anything I’ve tried, so I am hopeful.

Last year was a learning year, and I knew it would be. I went into year two with such grand plans for implementing all the things I’d learned, but of course life, right?

First, I attended four weddings (plus related events) that included five out-of-town trips.

I am delighted for all of my newly married friends, but there were So. Many. Weddings.

I only went to three cons this year, but with Christmas that brings my total of out-of-town trips to nine. Each trip required varying degrees of work, from researching and writing presentations to herding bridesmaids and coordinating travel plans. Not only did this create some logistical and financial stress, it also cut into writing time. The problem wasn’t just the trips themselves, but the fact that a lot of them happened back-to-back (for instance, June included back-to-back trips to Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Minneapolis). Catching up on all the things I had to push while I wasn’t physically present to deal with them impacted my schedule more than I’d anticipated.

Second, I moved. And not only did I move, I plan to move again. There has been a lot of time spent physically moving things, picking out design items (be it duvet covers for the bed I have now or countertops for the place I will have), and all of the usual hassle.

In my defense, I basically knew about these events in advance and blocked out three months in my writing schedule on the assumption that life would happen. In practice, it’s ended up encroaching a little more than that, but I’m basically on track.

By “on track,” I mean that my current goal is to complete two novels every year.

For me, completing a novel now includes the initial drafting of the manuscript, time for at least two full rounds of beta readers to have a crack at it, thorough rounds of edits after I collect all the feedback, assembling the submission packet, and getting the final draft out the proverbial door.

I can draft a novel in about two months once I get going. Each round of edits takes me about a month. Even leaving some time for when life causes my schedule to go awry, that puts me at a pretty good noveling pace.

In theory, while I wait for beta readers’ feedback, I work on writing or editing a different novel. In practice this year instead I was usually at weddings while waiting for feedback, which skewed my schedule and left me with a lot of months of back-to-back editing.

But I’ve just about gotten myself on the schedule I want to be on: I’ve just finished the first post-beta round of edits on one novel; I’ll draft a new novel next; then I’ll do the second round of edits on the previous novel; then the first round of edits on the new novel; then I draft another new novel. And so on.

Of course, if I do get a publishing contract that will probably blow the Master Plan out of the water, but that is still to be hoped for and I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

At the moment I have a YA space opera novel (teenagers piloting mechas in space battles) out on submission that has been getting positive responses from industry professionals so far. And if that novel doesn’t get me an agent, well, I’ll have another novel ready to go in a few more months.

I’m really excited about the latest novel (which is unusual given that I just finished editing the thing, which normally leaves me feeling =/): it’s a secondary world urban fantasy starring a woman who is a professional mage and adventurer and also the single mother of a teenage daughter.

Overall, my writing grows increasingly tight with every novel, I’m better organized all around, be it in terms of story structure or work schedule, and I’ve gotten hugely better at editing. I’ve learned how to better set schedules for myself — they have to be mildly unreasonable to give me something to reach for, but not too unreasonable or the whole thing collapses. So far I haven’t blown a single editing deadline, though, so my current methods of organization and motivation are working as they should be.

Basically, everything is going well! There have obviously been bumps, but I have this writing/paying-work/spending-time-with-other-humans/recharging-in-cave-time stuff reasonably well-balanced at the moment.

And now I get to start working on a new novel =D. Onward to further adventures!

November 17, 2015 by Casey Tags: adult-ing, adventures, birthday, deadlines, getting shit done, life changes, life structure, organization, time management, writing life 2 Comments

Draft! New Draft Complete, New Draft Beginning

I finished the first draft of a new novel! It’s a secondary world urban fantasy, clocking in at about 75k. So I promise I’ve been silent around these parts for a good cause. I’ll have to refine my pitch once I’m closer to querying, but this is the basic idea:

To protect her daughter and friends, a mage and professional adventurer has to stop the sorcerous storms tearing a city apart. But to save their lives she’ll have to sacrifice a piece of herself and become what she’s always feared — and even if she survives, she can never go back.

I’m really excited about this one, and I’m teeming with side novella and short story ideas for these characters. I mean, I’m always excited about my stories, but usually when I finish a draft I’m overcome with the feeling of OH GOD EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE I’VE DONE ALL THE THINGS WRONG PEOPLE WILL HATE ME. This time, I’m worried because I still feel good about where it is at the moment. I don’t know what I’ve done wrong.

Fortunately, this is exactly what alpha readers are for. And I’m especially fortunate, because a lot of very smart, skilled writers volunteered to help me out with this. I’m honestly blown away by how supportive this community can be and has been for me.

Lest I fret myself silly over the likelihood of one of them coming back and saying, “Nope, everything’s wrong, you’d better burn the whole thing” (no one has ever done this, but there’s a part of my brain that is always ready), I’ll be pressing right along into other projects.

Beyond the general catching up on life tasks that I’ve been pushing for the last couple months in my haste to get this underway, first on the agenda is to put together proposals for  Sirens programming. If you want to collaborate on something, let me know!

I’m also going to get moving on edits to the last novel I drafted, the YA space opera, since reader feedback has been waiting for me for longer than I’d meant it to. Unfortunately, although I’d meant to be done with the draft of Afterstorms by March, I lost most of February to moving. It ended up taking about two and a half months to draft, which in the scheme of things is not too shabby: I was averaging about 1000 words per day.

I am pleased to report that for the first time, I have successfully drafted a novel continuously — by which I mean, no break at the 20-30k point where I go, “HMM, quite a predicament you’ve got there, characters! I wonder how you’ll get out of it? …hmm.” And then I work on another project for a few months while I ponder, fail to magically arrive at a solution, and come back and outline my way out of the wall.

Anyway, I think the YA space opera will need another round of beta readers, so I’m hoping to have that ready to go out by the beginning of June, before I spend basically the entire month traveling. After that, I’ll be back to editing Afterstorms, possibly neck-deep in a novel collaboration, and probably figuring out what my next novel project will be. The fun never ends!

April 14, 2015April 14, 2015 by Casey Tags: deadlines, editing, getting shit done, process, wip, writing Leave a comment

Editing Month: Defeated!

I HAVE DEFEATED EDITING MONTH.

I have two new novels edited and out in the world. I fell off the submission bandwagon for a while, so it’s both past time and also extremely satisfying. (With some accompanying panicflail, naturally.)

This is probably the best editing experience I’ve had, actually. On one hand, I did more extensive edits in a relatively short timeframe; on the other, working closely with these manuscripts again reminded me why I love these stories so much, and that made the whole process less grueling. I’m also organizing my editing, which has the advantages of making the process more logical and giving me tasks to cross off of lists. That helps me budget time and also track progress.

In the midst of all this I started a new part-time job as a tutor, and it’s been great to get back to teaching. It also means that I now know far more about standardized testing than I did when I was actually taking them. The fact that the SAT is relevant to my life is some sort of cosmic joke, but I’m loving getting to work with students again.

I have another novel to review and get back out on submission, but since I’ve been exclusively editing for the last month, I decree I’m allowed to switch back to drafting. Because shiny project!

(And because my writer brain is clearly feeling neglected: it has sent me a steady stream of dystopian action dreams for the last month, and since I refuse to go there I need to write something else.)

Now I get to pick up my YA mecha novel, because space battles with giant pilotable robots justify themselves, right? Right. SO EXCITED.

September 1, 2014 by Casey Tags: day job, deadlines, editing, getting shit done, life changes, organization, submission, wip, writing life Leave a comment

All The Deadlines

I know I’ve been quiet around these parts lately. A number of deadlines just converged on me suddenly. It’s strangely fortuitous I’m unemployed for the moment or this would be madness. (It’s already kind of madness.)

My drama project is on hold indefinitely, for those who’ve been asking: its main job was to help me re-learn how to have fun writing, because the Novel of Doom left me in a not-great place. That purpose accomplished, it can wait while I focus on other projects. So here’s what I’m up to now:

 

1. Editing and Submission Packet Prep

I’m starting to get beta feedback for SHADOWCAST back, and it’s been pretty positive (so far, anyway). Obviously there’s work to do, but the comments are not in the vein of “BURN EVERYTHING IT’S THE ONLY WAY,” so. I’m trying out a complete rewrite of the first chapter for Cascade Writers (First submission deadline: met!), and I’ll tackle the rest of the edits in July. I’d like to have the bulk of the editing, the query letter, and the synopsis done before Cascade, but realistically it’ll probably take much of August, too. I’m also going to take a look at SOUL HARVESTER again now that it’s been out for a while and see if there are any tweaks to make. I want to be actively submitting both of these novels in September.

 

2. The Rising Wall

My friend Katie from Sirens is putting together this really cool thing. If you’ve read Mira Grant’s Newsflesh series, you may be aware that the zombie apocalypse has begun. With Seanan McGuire’s blessing, Katie is building the Wall from the series, which means she’s collecting from fans and friends fictional posts from bloggers during the early weeks of the Rising. I haven’t actually read this series of hers, but Katie’s put together an introduction and cheat sheet, so if you want to play too let me know! The deadline for the blogs isn’t flexible, since we have to match timing with what’s canon in the books. This is such a fun idea, and I’m really excited.

 

3. Drafting a Short Novel

Here’s the real kicker. Let’s rewind about a year and a half.

I’ve just finished Viable Paradise and my brain is melting out of my ears. I go deep into edits for SOUL HARVESTER for a couple weeks, attend my first World Fantasy, and then think I’m going to do NaNoWriMo when I’m already starting a week late, I have no plan, and my brain is still reeling from the last few weeks. Haha! Oh, past Casey.

So I write about 8k, decide I need to switch from close third to first person, rewrite the whole thing, get up to about 20k, and promptly run out of gas. Hitting a wall at 20-30k is part of my process; I take a break at that point to work on another project for a while and then pound out the rest of the first draft in one go a few months later. For this one, deciding to abandon it was easy. It had been a post-VP experiment and NaNo novel, and I could already tell even if finished it would clock in around 50-60k max. For adult high fantasy, that’s a hard length to sell. I still liked it, but I had no pressing need to finish, so I put it aside.

Back in the present day, some of you may have seen the announcement for the Tor.com Imprint toward the end of May. They’re going to be publishing short novels, novellas (yes those are two different lengths), and serials. I read this and went, Hey hold on. I had a thing…

I took a look at that partial draft. Some problems, unsurprising given a) it was a NaNo rough draft and b) my brain was in a puddle when I wrote it, but overall I liked what I was seeing. So I looked at the announcement again: they’re taking unsolicited submissions through August.

And I thought, Do I have time to do the thing…? I WILL DO THE THING.

I figure if I can draft and get it cleaned up by the end of June, that gives me all of July to get feedback, and then in August I can edit like the wind and submit before the window closes. I spent a couple days doing some light editing to refamiliarize myself with the story, outlined myself out of the hole, and leapt into the word mines.

 

SO. Deadlines. A lot of editing. Once I have it under control, I’m picking up the YA mecha space opera novel draft again (where I reached the 30k point and switched projects), because robot battles in space. That’s my light at the end of the tunnel, but I have to make it there first — bearing in mind I have two cons in the next month and also need to acquire a new part-time job.

EVERYTHING WILL BE GREAT. REALLY GREAT. *__*

June 18, 2014 by Casey Tags: Back In The Day, conventions, deadlines, getting shit done, life changes, time management, wip, writing life Leave a comment

Semi-coherent Reflections on Rainforest

Last week I attended the second session of Rainforest Writers Village Retreat in Lake Quinault, Washington. Going in, I was kind of worried.

A lot of that has to do with a recent flare of imposter syndrome. I’ve been struggling a lot to get this story out at all, let alone at the speed I would prefer. I was nervous everyone would already know each other and no one would talk to me and I would sit quietly in my introvert corner staring blankly at a screen unable to write more than a thousand or two words the whole time. I was worried I’d disappoint myself.

Happily, that’s not at all what happened.

As with Viable Paradise, I came away from this week with the feeling that I’ve found another branch of my tribe. Even when I awkwardly introverted, people were consistently welcoming, supportive, and wonderful. I went in nervous and left sad to part, empowered to go forward, and hopeful for the future. The best possible outcome.

And as for the time there, well. There is something very focusing about communal writing, and there is something about writing communities that almost promises music.

Afternoon Invasion of the Lodge

Much ukulele. Very singing. Such Jonathan Coulton. Many antimaths. Wow.

Photo credit to Andrew, who took some truly incredible photos over the course of the retreat. I also feel compelled to say that Rainforest is held in an absolutely gorgeous location, which was more relevant than I’d anticipated. This (just about the only photo in this post not taken by Andrew) was the view from the sitting room attached to the room I stayed in:

In the days leading up to Rainforest, my worries drove me to outline next few chapters pretty extensively. By Friday night, I’d written so much that I ran out of outline. Saturday morning I hiked through the forest over waterfalls until I had enough to move forward again, and I actually got through all the chapters I’d wanted to write there.

In the course of the retreat, there were some excellent talks, but Fran Wilde’s about the care and keeping of deadlines was exactly the one I needed to hear. I really like deadlines and find them motivating, but when I’m overwhelmed, missing deadlines then becomes THE WORST THING. Because what I consider one of my strengths becomes the thing that is causing me to let people down in a cascading way. And I hate that.

My father has always been fond of saying that the first rule of holes is to stop digging. I’m working on it. Removing myself (literally and electronically — there was pretty much no connection of any kind functioning there) from dealing with other aspects of life at Rainforest helped me get a grip on one of my biggest stressors right now: the belief that I can write this book at all, and that it matters.

That probably sounds ridiculous — both that particular fear and that it’s been stressing me out to such a degree. In all seriousness, I love this story so much, but I feel like I’ve been slogging through this book on and off forever. It is gnawing at my brain. I’ve written and edited whole other novels in the time I haven’t finished this monster. It’s been the deadline I have pushed and pushed and pushed until I’ve driven myself crazy with my failure to actually finish the damn thing, because it feels like as long as I can’t finish this, this story that matters to me so much, I can’t finish, or do, anything.

And, come to think of it, I think maybe this is part of the reason I’ve been so anxious about writing this story. A major part of my protagonist’s character arc is coinciding perfectly with my life right now. Not in the fun way. Writing it is both cathartic and excruciating, but at least at Rainforest I made some serious headway.

So, um, yes. My fear about utter word count fail? Unfounded. Over four days, I wrote about 25,000 words. And they aren’t crap words, either. We had a bit of a competition going, and in the end I actually got first pick of prizes for writing the most of anyone in our session (though I’m reasonably convinced the Marks let me win).

My prize — don’t think I’m going to forget, Patrick =).

I read the prologue of this novel aloud — a first for me — and got some very positive feedback, though I’m not terribly shocked to learn I need to speak more slowly.

I’m getting the next section organized now. I’ll keep pushing through. And best of all, I’m back at a mental place where that prospect excites me.

March 4, 2014March 4, 2014 by Casey Tags: community, conventions, deadlines, empowerment, getting shit done, hiking, holes, imposter syndrome, introvertflail, retreat, singing, stories, wip, writer health, writing, writing life Leave a comment