Author Archives: Guy Anthony De Marco

You’re Halfway There!

First Drafts Guy Anthony De Marco The Writing Process No Comments

It’s the midpoint of NaNoWriMo. How are you doing so far? Are you way ahead of the curve? Have you fallen behind? Fear not, fellow writer, because there is plenty of time to get that 50,000-word first draft completed on time!

Remember to tie your editor muse up and stuff him into a cupboard under the stairs. Let your writing muse work her magic on you. Don’t worry about typos or if you want to change the name of a character from X’lat’on to Nhylat. There’s plenty of time and space after NaNoWriMo is over. Focus on getting words on the virtual page.

Make sure you enjoy yourself. Why not get a giant bucket of cappuccino, or maybe a delicious chai tea? If you work well with caffeine, keep a cup at your elbow filled with your favorite version. Light a nice scented candle. If you’re The Funky Werepig, light up one of your trademark underwear-scented candles. Put a drop of essential oil where you can breath it in.

In the end, no matter how many words you’ve written, you ARE a winner because you’re X number of words closer to your finished manuscript.

Are you stuck? Have a character do something unexpected. Have someone betray the fellowship. Set a python on your annoying cousin Dudley. Do that in real life, it’s fun and you can stream it to YouTube. No, wait, don’t do that in real life, it will take you away from writing.

Have someone important to the quest get lost and write a short separate arc that gives the reader more insight into the character’s character.

Keep at it, because in the end, this is what you may discover on your desk in the not-too-distant future:

 

 

About the Author:DeMarco_Web-5963

Guy Anthony De Marco is a disabled US Navy veteran speculative fiction author; a Graphic Novel Bram Stoker Award® nominee; winner of the HWA Silver Hammer Award; a prolific short story and flash fiction crafter; a novelist; an invisible man with superhero powers; a game writer (Sojourner Tales modules, Interface Zero 2.0 core team, third-party D&D modules); and a coffee addict. One of these is false.
A writer since 1977, Guy is a member of the following organizations: SFWA, WWA, SFPA, IAMTW, ASCAP, RMFW, NCW, HWA. He hopes to collect the rest of the letters of the alphabet one day. Additional information can be found at Wikipedia and GuyAnthonyDeMarco.com.

Defense Against the Dark Arts – Writer’s Block Edition

Guy Anthony De Marco Storyline The Writing Process 1 Comment

Help! I’m Stuck at 10K Words!

First of all, don’t panic. Ten thousand words is nothing to sneeze at and you’re well on your way towards a complete novel. In fact, congratulations are in order.

Normally when my brain stops sending typing instructions to my fingertips it’s because there is something it’s still working on. Some piece of information is missing like what comes next or what should the main character do now that she’s up to her neck in quicksand.

Here are some techniques I use to get through “writer’s block”:

Time Travel

Pick a different chapter of your novel and start writing. If your protagonist is in quicksand now, you know she’ll get out somehow and get to the town of Quadloon because she has to confront Prince Evilson. Feel free to leave her hanging (don’t worry, she won’t mind) and just jump to where she walks into Quadloon. Continue the story from that point. Eventually your brain will come up with some fantastic bridge between the two points and you can go back and fill that section in.

Dimension Travel

Can’t figure out anything that is supposed to happen to your hapless characters without getting her out of that quicksand? Are you a dedicated pantser and have to let the characters dictate what happens next? That’s certainly one of the perils of not planning anything out at all.

There’s nothing in the rules that says you have to work on one novel at a time. If you had another idea for a novel in your head, go ahead and start writing that one. It would be best if it was a different genre, but work with what your brain hands you. Even if you get stuck at ten thousand words with the second novel, you can start three more and hit your 50K goal. Perfectly legal and valid to do so! The idea is to get you in the habit of writing.

Form Travel

You can always switch out to writing short stories during NaNoWriMo. Indeed, ending up with ten 5K stories should up your odds to getting one or more published after a bit of polish. Even getting half a novel and five or six short stories should add up to your goal.

If you’re a student and you’re going to have a research paper due in December, get to work on it now and kill two birds with one stone. Turn something in early and shock your instructor and have it count for your output. That’s a win-win!

 

 

About the Author:DeMarco_Web-5963

Guy Anthony De Marco is a disabled US Navy veteran speculative fiction author; a Graphic Novel Bram Stoker Award® nominee; winner of the HWA Silver Hammer Award; a prolific short story and flash fiction crafter; a novelist; an invisible man with superhero powers; a game writer (Sojourner Tales modules, Interface Zero 2.0 core team, third-party D&D modules); and a coffee addict. One of these is false.
A writer since 1977, Guy is a member of the following organizations: SFWA, WWA, SFPA, IAMTW, ASCAP, RMFW, NCW, HWA. He hopes to collect the rest of the letters of the alphabet one day. Additional information can be found at Wikipedia and GuyAnthonyDeMarco.com.

Writing Short Articles for NaNoWriMo

Guy Anthony De Marco Self-Motivation Write Whenever You Can No Comments

NaNoWriMo is a great time to build up a collection of short articles that you can schedule during the next year. It’s a reasonable method to build up your word count while simultaneously getting more blog posts.

Since my blog is about writing in general, I like to include how-to articles and other subjects useful to authors. My target for each post is around 500 words.

The first thing I have to come up with is a subject I haven’t written about. Lucky for me, I have a lot of folks who ask interesting questions. Many times I can get an entire blog post out of a single question. I also glean ideas from industry news and the regular mainstream media. The secret is to get an idea that you can cover in a short article without glossing over things or beating a dead horse.

Once I have an idea, I try to come up with two or three major points about that subject. For example:

NaNoWriMo for Beginners

1. Sign up on the website.
2. How to come up with an idea for a book or novella.
3. Writing until the cows come home (on November 30th.)

Conclusion

That took me all of two minutes. If it looks a bit familiar, it’s the method most US grade schools teach their English students when it comes to writing a paper. You can come up with ideas on subjects that you’re familiar with. If you like flowers, teach us what the colors of roses represent. If you like trucks, tell us why the 7.3 liter diesel engine was the best ever made. Start out with what you know, then begin to explore areas that you need to research. That will help you with worldbuilding and give your readers some variety.

 

About the Author:DeMarco_Web-5963

Guy Anthony De Marco is a disabled US Navy veteran speculative fiction author; a Graphic Novel Bram Stoker Award® nominee; winner of the HWA Silver Hammer Award; a prolific short story and flash fiction crafter; a novelist; an invisible man with superhero powers; a game writer (Sojourner Tales modules, Interface Zero 2.0 core team, third-party D&D modules); and a coffee addict. One of these is false.
A writer since 1977, Guy is a member of the following organizations: SFWA, WWA, SFPA, IAMTW, ASCAP, RMFW, NCW, HWA. He hopes to collect the rest of the letters of the alphabet one day. Additional information can be found at Wikipedia and GuyAnthonyDeMarco.com.

Road Writing

Conventions Guy Anthony De Marco Professional Behavior No Comments

 

There are times during NaNoWriMo where one has to become mobile. This does not mean you’re off the hook for your daily goal! It means you need to adapt, improvise, and overcome. Here’s a couple of suggestions to help you.

Phone Apps and Thingies

  • There are several apps that you can use to translate voice to text. On my iPhone, I use Nuance’s Dragon Dictate, the free version. It works great and the price is right.
  • You can use Siri or the Android assistant to text or email yourself.
  • There are plenty of third party apps you can discover, both free and paid. Make sure you read the reviews and watch when it was last updated.
  • You can always record your voice and play it back to transcribe when you’re done driving for the day.
  • Make sure you bring along your headphones with a microphone. They tend to record better than the built-in microphone.
  • I would recommend you get a foldable keyboard that allows you to type normally with your cell phone. It plugs in like a piece of paper in a typewriter, and the bonus is some of them allow you to charge the phone as you write your NaNo story.

Laptop(s)

I normally bring along a Samsung Chromebook when I go to conventions. Chromebooks are lightweight and have excellent battery life. While it would seriously suck if someone were to walk off with your hardware, I’d rather lose a Chromebook that synced to the cloud (my cost was $160 a few years ago) versus losing my writing laptop (HP G650, $400 + $100 in maxing out the memory) or, heavens forbid, my main graphics laptop (Toshiba gaming beast, $1200 with RAID drives). You can also use an inexpensive Android tablet. I have a couple that cost me less than fifty bucks each.

The McDonald’s Mantra

I worked at a McDonalds back when I was 18 years old. I was more interested in dating the manager than doing actual work, but the folks who were there for a long while had a saying: “Time enough to lean, time enough to clean.”

Considering I was a lazy lout, that stuck with me over the years. Now I adapt it to writing, where if you have more than fifteen minutes of spare time you can get some words down. Use your laptop, Chromebook, tablet, phone, or a handy pen and paper. As Depeche Mode says, everything counts in large amounts.

If I’m waiting for a panel to start, I’m usually actively puzzling out a section of one of my in-work projects. If I have an hour until the next panel, I whip out my Chromebook and start typing. I learned this from author Kevin J. Anderson at a convention in Colorado. Whenever he had some downtime, he was quietly tucked away in some corner working on a novel. It was a good lesson — writers should be writing.

I’m scheduled to appear at Windycon 44 in the Chicago area tomorrow through the 12th of November. You can rest assured that I’ll be working on my projects, but please make sure to stop and say hello. Writing is important, but so is life and interaction. Tonya L. De Marco will be there with me, so you’ll probably be more interested in meeting her.

On November 17th and 18th, Tonya L. De Marco and I will be appearing at The Cosplay Convention and Anime Experience in Little Rock, Arkansas. We hope to see you there!

What are your suggestions for writing while traveling?


About the Author:DeMarco_Web-5963

Guy Anthony De Marco is a disabled US Navy veteran speculative fiction author; a Graphic Novel Bram Stoker Award® nominee; winner of the HWA Silver Hammer Award; a prolific short story and flash fiction crafter; a novelist and poet; an invisible man with superhero powers; a game writer (Interface Zero 2.0 core team, third-party D&D modules); and a coffee addict. One of these is false.
A writer since 1977, Guy is a member of the following organizations: SFWA, WWA, SFPA, IAMTW, ASCAP, RMFW, MWG, HWA. He hopes to collect the rest of the letters of the alphabet one day.  Additional information can be found at Wikipedia and GuyAnthonyDeMarco.com.