Category Archives: Craft & Skills

Last month we explored the many reasons we love being writers and some of the things that help keep us motivated. Now that we’re filled with optimism and eager to get back to work, hopefully we can find ways to work smarter. The reality of writing every day can be tough, but we’re ready to face the truth.

Truth Number 1: Becoming a professional author takes a long time.

Writing is a process, an evolution of skill and craft and voice and a hundred other components all merging together to become something brilliant. It’s one of the few jobs that usually requires years of investment with no real promise of a profitable return to show at the end. Most people who follow the Muse and begin writing a novel never even finish. Those of use who do then learn that the writing of the novel was just the beginning. Still we slog ahead, motivated by those moments of excellence that remind us why we love what we do, and encouraged by the second universal truth of writing.

Truth Number 2: Determination and consistency matter more than simple brilliance.

Every established author repeats the same mantra: keep writing. Those authors who keep trying, keep learning, keep producing will eventually find some measure of success. This is a truth that is easy to lose sight of when we get discouraged by yet another rejection or by those debilitating second thoughts and self doubt. Just keep going and we’ll get there.

Of course some of us take longer than others. Writing is a learning curve, but some writers seem to enjoy a gentler slope. The rest of us make mistakes that delay our progress or we just take a while to learn important foundational principles. Could we have shortened our up-front investment time by learning things sooner, by seeing clearer?

Probably.

So this month we are going to share advice we wished we had received earlier in the process. Imagine finding a way to go back in time to visit yourself as a brand new writer, just starting out. Imagine we handle that time paradox well. Assume that we don’t just decide to focus our energies on making a quick fortune investing in all the things our older selves could predict would be winners. In fact, we focus the brief message only on writing.

What would we say?

What advice or encouragement would we give ourselves? What could we do to help ourselves find a better way to success, a greater mastery of craft? Would we even try?

This month, we’ll find out.

My Writing Journey

July 29, 2014

fictorians

Doing Good in the World First Drafts Motivation Networking Starting a Career The Writing Life No Comments

A guest post by Monique Bucheger.

The journey of becoming a writer and/or a published author is different for everyone who does it. My journey began in high school when my creative writing teacher, Mrs. Johnson, encouraged me to transfer the stories in my head to paper. This endeavor started out as multiple class assignments and quickly turned into a love of storytelling. I wrote a lot of short stories in high school and then branched out into larger works.

Shortly before I turned 18, my husband proposed and I agreed to marry him. Everyone wished us well, except my creative writing teacher. She shook her head and said, “You are too smart to get married so young.” When I asked her what that meant, she sighed and said, “If you get married now, you’ll have a bunch of kids, but you won’t write the books that you need to write.”I assured her that I could do both.

Twenty-two years later, I had twelve kids (and am very grateful to have them) and no books, and was (and am) still married to the same man. Then one day, Mrs. Johnson’s son went up in the Space Shuttle Endeavour, and I started thinking about her more. In return, she began haunting me (she had died a couple years before). After I kept hearing her ask, “So, when are you going to write those books, Monique?” I decided it was time to keep my promise to her.

I remembered a fun, spirited twelve-year-old half-orphan I had created as a tween. Before long, I started writing her story. Then I wrote more of her story. And I kept right on writing. My “story” took on a life of its own until I had a book the size of four novels—which I broke into three.

Then the real work began. I exchanged chapter critiques with other writers and realized that simply writing 300 pages of a story didn’t make it readable and publishable. I met amazing people who took the time to explain what I was doing wrong—and right—with my storytelling and I learned the value of both editing your book until it shines and hiring a good editor to make it even better.

I found people like David Farland, an internationally best-selling author, who is also a wonderful teacher. His love of story and his knowledge on how to craft a great story is inspiring. Dave is open and approachable and willing to help those who ask. He has several online classes as well as weeklong workshops.

Life experience, interests, passions, and hobbies also have great bearing on how and what an author chooses to write. The years I didn’t write, I devoted to my family and became a foster mother to over 100 kids.

Now I write realistic fiction—think Judy Blume or Beverly Cleary—two of my literary heroes. The four published books in my “Ginnie West Adventure ” middle-grade series deal with tough subjects like child abuse, abandonment, being orphaned, and alcoholism in uplifting and empowering ways. It also deals with other subjects important to kids: friends, family, fitting in, figuring out how the world works, horses, finding acceptance, and other assorted adventures. I like to think the series does so with a bit of humor and grace.

I want abused kids—and the people who care about them—to make sense of a world they’d rather not live in and to realize certain things are not their fault. Most importantly, I want kids to know they have power to change things. Choosing how you react to an event—good or bad—is powerful. And whether you let it defeat you or strengthen you can be life-changing.

The truth is, real life can be messy and it can be hard. It can also be fun, invigorating, exciting, and full of wonder. I try to embrace each of these elements—and more—in each book I write. Recently—I have met several readers who have told me that my series has influenced them in a positive way.

Formerly abused kids (who are now adults) have found comfort in my series. Mothers have shared with me that they have read my series with their kids and had meaningful conversations about how child abuse happens and what it means to be a good friend—both subjects I deal with in my series in an age appropriate way.

Last month three different tween girls told me they love the relationship between my main characters, Ginnie and Tillie—fun-loving BFFs who are trying to figure out this thing called life—together, in spite of being tossed some pretty crazy plot twists. The girls really care about Ginnie and Tillie and want to know what will happen to them.

Not long ago, a friend devoured my first three books in two days and informed me, “You know the Wests are family now, don’t you? I love them.” It is during these moments I find validation and strength in my decision to become a published author … and these moments are why I keep writing.

Guest Writer Bio: When Monique Bucheger isn’t writing, you can find her playing taxi driver to one or more of her 12 children, plotting her next novel, scrapbooking, or being the “Mamarazzi” at any number of child-oriented events. Even though she realizes there will never be enough hours in any given day, Monique tries very hard to enjoy the journey that is her life. She shares it with a terrific husband, her dozen children, a son-in-law, an adorable granddaughter, two cats, and many real and imaginary friends. She is the author of several books and plans to write many more. Monique’s Musings can be found at: http://moniquebucheger.blogspot.com/

Outside, in the Office

July 20, 2014

fictorians

Business First Drafts Guest Posts Reflection Superstars Writing Seminars The Writing Life Work-Life Balance 1 Comment

A guest post by Kevin J Anderson.

I write and publish four or more novels a year, and my creative office doesn’t have either a computer or a desk. It also doesn’t have the distraction of a constantly ringing phone, an endless succession of emails that need to be responded to (or marked as spam), doorbells to be answered with the latest UPS package of cat food from amazon prime (and the related distraction of cats who want me to feed them that food), or employees or family members who lie by assuring me “this will only take a minute.”

No, my real creative office is outside on the trail.

After outlining a novel, I take my notes, my digital recorder, my hiking boots, and my imagination and I hit the trail. After a few minutes, surrounded by trees, rocks, or streams, I can sink into the zone, immerse myself into my world, my story, my characters. As I walk, I think up the sentences that I would normally type out… but instead of moving my fingers around on a keyboard, I just speak the words out loud.

I have so programmed myself to write this way that now I find it very frustrating to sit my butt in a chair and stare at a screen for hours on end. When I’m walking, I am inspired by the landscapes in my beautiful Colorado. It may not be a genuine alien world, but I can imagine that—and all without the constant real-world distractions that harass a writer cooped up in a home office.

The only distractions I encounter are the occasional rattlesnake or hailstorm, but I can deal with that better than tedious phone conversations.

When I’m out walking, especially on long hikes, I can sink into a fugue state, entirely into what I’m writing, and when I dictate, the words go straight from my mind and out of my mouth, recorded directly without any intermediary step. I can just reel out what’s in my imagination.

The scenery itself is often inspirational, and when possible I try to be in a place that reminds me of what I’m writing. I’ve spent a lot of time in the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado or Death Valley in California as I write my Dune novels with Brian Herbert; I’ve been in a snowstorm in the Sierra Nevada mountains while writing about Han Solo and Princess Leia on the polar icecap of a planet, and I spent time hiking around the Anasazi cliff ruins of Mesa Verde while writing about derelict alien cliff ruins in my Saga of Seven Suns.

Obviously, my hiking trips are work-related.

I have a typist (several, actually, because I tend to overload them!) who transcribes my digital file and sends me a Word document back, so that I can polish it…and there’s the tedious butt-in-chair keyboard time I am forced to endure.

But sometimes I extend the getaway into a camping trip, so that I can really move my working office onto a picnic table out in a beautiful National Forest site. That’s where I’m writing this, sitting at a table under a lodgepole pine tree at a perfect campsite next to a river 85 miles up the Cache la Poudre canyon in northern Colorado. An extra battery for the laptop, and no internet connection, a growler of my favorite microbrew beer: It’s the perfect office, alone in the forest (except for a moose visitor who just walked through the campground), away from it all where I can concentrate on being in the worlds inside my head. It’s like taking a vacation in an exotic place with my imaginary friends.

It’s the best office in the world.

Guest Writer Bio: Kevin J. Anderson was born March 27, 1962, and raised in small town Oregon, Wisconsin, south of Madison—an environment that was a cross between a Ray Bradbury short story and a Norman Rockwell painting. He first knew he wanted to create fiction when he was five years old, before he even knew how to write: he was so moved by the film of War of the Worlds on TV that he took a notepad the next day and drew pictures of scenes from the film, spread them out on the floor, and told the story out loud (maybe this is what led him into writing comics nearly three decades later!). At eight years old, Kevin wrote his first “novel” (three pages long on pink scrappaper) on the typewriter in his father’s den: “The Injection,” a story about a mad scientist who invents a formula that can bring anything to life . . . and when his colleagues scoff, he proceeds to bring a bunch of wax museum monsters and dinosaur skeletons to life so they can go on the rampage. At the age of ten, he had saved up enough money from mowing lawns and doing odd jobs that he could either buy his own bicycle or his own typewriter. Kevin chose the typewriter . . . and has been writing ever since.

Find Kevin and his new releases on his Facebook page, the Word Fire Press page, or his blog.

Growing Pains and Progress

July 18, 2014

Kristin Luna

Business Craft & Skills Editing Goals Kristin Luna Motivation Reflection Rewriting The Writing Life No Comments

You may hear authors reminisce from time to time about their awful earlier work. While I can agree that some of my oldest short stories are not as interesting or polished, I relish looking through them. Why? Because I can see how far I’ve come.

Growth in one’s craft is only sexy in movie montages. Definitely in Rocky III, amiright?

For everyone who isn’t Sylvester Stallone, growth looks like hard work, tears, inevitably a day of not showering here and there, and a hefty dose of self-loathing. Sometimes, it seems like you aren’t getting anywhere. You’re running in a constant hamster wheel, praying for something to break your plateau. You care too much to give up, even after seeing rejection after rejection.

When I hit one of these plateaus a few years ago, I spent time in serious reflection. I received a few rejections, and knew that my writing wasn’t quite up to par. I desperately wanted to improve and get better, but how? I had a BA in English with an emphasis in creative writing. I have read many books about the craft. But I needed someone to dive deep into my writing and give some personal advice.

I hired Joshua Essoe, a friend and freelance editor, to line and content edit my YA fantasy novel, The Bond. While it was a bit scary to have my book picked apart, I couldn’t believe how much I had learned from the first few edited pages alone. Joshua Essoe pointed out things I do stylistically that no one else had before. Those observations helped me make my story more compelling and clear, and streamline sentences by taking out unnecessary or implied text.

Paying a professional to edit my work has been some of the best money I’ve ever spent. Working on the second book in The Bond series, I can see how much my work has grown, and how much tighter and precise my prose are.

Let’s face it. Editing is not fun. But editing your book in order to make it better is worth it. Looking back at your previous works need not make you groan. Instead, it should be a celebration of just how far you’ve come.

Personal note: If you’re in the market for a professional, detailed freelance editor, I highly recommend Joshua Essoe. He’s edited books for many well-known people including fantasy author David Farland, and Dean Lorey, the writer and producer of the television show Arrested Development. http://www.joshuaessoe.com/