Category Archives: The Fictorians

A few months ago, the fam had gone out of town, which meant I could get some serious writing done. I was zipping along when all of the sudden my words turned to what you see to the left.

I closed it down, opened it back up and nothing changed. Frantic, I called my IT guy and he walked me through a few things to try—still no good. I sent it to a couple other folks, tried a slew of suggested remedies, but nothing worked—It was gone.

Turns out the last time I had saved the file was about a month earlier. Also turns out I’d been really rocking on this project for the last month and so my previous version looked about 150 pages shy.

“Jesus Saves. You Should Too.”

I received this advice from a friend. He was right. It would have taken just a couple seconds to save the file—essentially sparing me a month’s worth of rework. I write on a laptop, so I never really shut down the computer. I did save it. I saved it often. But I never made a backup copy. I just saved on top of the old version making a new one.

I’m told that the file had grown so large (to about 4MB) that Word couldn’t handle it and wigged out and this had something to do with RAM.

Word sucks by the way, but it is part of my writing process. I haven’t been able to make Scrivener part of my process yet.

So now I save. I save everyday. Multiple times a day. In multiple versions. I saved a file today with 916 at the end, indicating to me that it is the version done in September 2016. I put a letter after 916 so I can go right on through the alphabet with different versions.

Now while this was extremely painful, and many of you probably winced at the thought, let me assure you that I got through it. After a night of depression, I awoke, determined to redo it. I spent the next two days writing. In the end, I caught up to where I was before my misfortune.

The new version was shorter by about 20 pages. And it was better. Only by the time I finished, I was spent on the project and my pantser mind went on to other things. I have yet to circle back to finish the dang thing.

Moral of the story:

Safe often. Save in different names and locations. Email it. Flash drive it. Google Drive it.
A rewrite can be a good thing.

I live in Arizona with my family, wife and five kids and a little dog. I write fiction, thrillers and soft sci-fi with a little short horror on the side. I hold an MBA and work in finance for a biotechnology firm.

I volunteer with the Boy Scouts, play and write music, and enjoy everything outdoors. I’m also a novice photographer.

You can read some of my works by visiting my Wattpad page and learn more at www.jacekillan.com.

What “Rejection” Really Means

September 27, 2016

fictorians

Being Gentle With Yourself Damage Control David Farland Dealing With Personal Calamities Making Progress as a Writer Motivation Publishing Rejection Superstars Writing Seminars Teaching The Writing Life Writers/Illustrators of the Future No Comments

A Guest Post by David Farland

For the last few weeks I’ve been scurrying to finish up judging on a large contest. I’ve had to “reject” thousands of stories. I hate the word “reject,” because it doesn’t really express what I want to say.

Very often I will read the opening to a story and it is obviously the first work of a very young writer. It may have a multitude of problems—from simple typos, to a lack of understanding as to how to set a scene, to clunky dialog. I know that I can’t accept the story for publication, but at the same time, I wish that I could shout some encouragement to the budding writer, much the way that my mentor Algis Budrys did to a young Stephen King.

I think that people need encouragement. It may be the only thing that will spur a young writer to greater effort.

So what does the word “rejection” mean to you as a writer? I think it’s simply: “Try harder.”

A lot of fine works get rejected. The bestselling works in nearly every genre experienced rejection. Lord of the Rings was rejected by several American publishers. Dune was rejected by all of them. Gone with the Wind made its rounds through every major publisher. Harry Potter was rejected by all of the biggest houses, and Twilight was rejected by a dozen agents before it got picked up—yet all of these novels became the bestsellers in their fields.

So does that mean that these were all bad novels? Of course not. It means that the author didn’t find an editor with a matching taste, a matching vision, right at the first.

Very often when I read a manuscript that is close to being publishable, I think, It’s a shame that the author didn’t try a little harder to . . . That’s what “rejected” means to me.

I was talking to international bestselling author Laurell K. Hamilton last week, and asked her to confirm a rumor that I’d heard. With her first novel, she received over 200 rejections before she made a sale. She said, “When people tell me that they’ve been rejected five or ten or twenty times, I just tell them that ‘I don’t want to hear about it.’”

Laurell has the perfect attitude toward rejection. Try harder.

Avoid the Pointy End of the Sword

September 23, 2016

Jo Schneider

Damage Control Jo Schneider Motivation Self-Awareness The Writing Life No Comments

Anyone ever read Terry Pratchett and his Silver Horde? A sketchy band of octogenarian fighters who, despite their advancing years, still get out for the occasional job. Just to keep the blood flowing. A young man asks one of their members how they can still fight. His response boils down to this, “Be somewhere else when the sword gets there.”

These guys have enough fighting experience that they know exactly what they’re opponents are going to do. Ever.y Single. Time. So it’s easy for their arthritic bodies to be out of the way just in time to avoid being stabbed.

Think about your life. Aren’t there things that always happen? Every. Single. Time?

For instance, it never fails that just as soon as I get my writing grove on, and I’m either busting out a rough draft, or plotting a series or editing a final manuscript, my day job decides to get greedy and they slap extra hours on me. This happens exactly two days after I’ve made a grand plan for finishing my latest book and am ready to jump in with both feet.

Of course there are the holidays. Sure, it’s conceivable that I could get some writing done in the seven weeks between Thanksgiving and New Years. I have days off, after all. My family couldn’t possibly fill all of that time, could they?

Uh, yes, they can. And then some. It’s all great—the food, the fun, the family and friends, the running about and admiring the snow as I tell my husband to go shovel. It’s a beautiful time of the year. Beautiful, but completely unproductive.

Oh, and July…don’t even get me started about July. Wait, too late. Between trips to the local Shakespeare Festival, one of the largest parades in the nation, rodeos, sprinklers, the fourth of July, the local holidays, fireworks, swimming, hiking, family reunions and then recovering from all of that, nothing gets done. Somehow I end up farther behind than when I started. Gotta love the summer.

These are just a few of my life’s tells. If these things are coming up, then I should know that I’m screwed. I should, but more often than not, I forget. My inner optimist overpowers my ornery realist and decides that I can make it work this time. I can write the rest of my novel in July. I can sneak it in between the reunion and the Shakespeare Festival. Or between plays at the Festival. Or on the fourth, when surly no one will want to do anything.

What I need to do—and have done on occasion—is change my tactics. Forget making novel progress. Instead, I’ve found that these are good times to branch out, or finish little projects I’ve been putting off in the name of getting my next novel out.

Projects like researching a new marketing scheme, or reading a couple of books in my genre so I can give my opinion on them to my newsletter victims, or picking up my disaster, er, office, read a book on craft, or browse that non-fiction research book I’ve been ignoring, or plan a random presentation for a conference…

So instead of getting sliced and diced, depending on the severity of the interruption, be ready to move. Be prepared with as many contingency plans as you can. If your July blows up, like mine does, don’t plan to have a book finished in August. Go with either June or September. If your kids tend to break out in the stomach flu every November, be ready to juggle things so that you’re not losing ground. Just change ground and start digging there. Because life doesn’t stand still so you can write. It never has and it never will, and if it does, you’ve probably consumed too much of something.

Damage Control

September 22, 2016

fictorians

Agents Guest Posts The Writing Life 1 Comment

Guest Post by Aubrie L. Nixon

Damage Control is such an odd concept to me. How can you really control damage? By the time something is labeled as “damage is is far past the point of being able to control. Damage is essentially uncontrollable. Yet, as human beings we still feel the need to give everything purpose to make things matter, even damage. As a writer, who is working on getting published, I have made my fair share of mistakes. One that stands out the most is rushing into sending out Query letters.

Being the creator of my fictional world, I hold it very dear to my heart. There can’t possibly be anything wrong with my baby, I would know! I created it. How very, very wrong that attitude is. My current work-in-progress, while awesome, is far from perfect. It took multiple rejections from agents for me to realize that. Now, I like to think I got overly excited in finishing my precious book, and sent it out too early. And that very well may be the case. But, I should have never had it sent out without proper revisions and edits to begin with.

I should have realized that while I see my baby as perfect, I would need an outside perspective to love my book enough to help me make the rest of the world see it as perfect. Thankfully, I have awesome friends and beta readers who helped me see that my book can be so much more than it is right now–perfectly imperfect.

I have been hard at work revising and adding the changes that my world needs. The thing about edits and critiques is that you need people who aren’t afraid to tell you what they think. Though, it might be painful to hear, those extra set of eyes are needed in order for you to become a better writer. You owe it to yourself and those characters that you have created to give them the best possible chance to succeed. You need to find people you trust and respect to help keep you motivated when you’re at the end of your rope.

People who will continue to love your world and the characters in it, even if they have to help you tear them apart first. Revising is one of my least favorite things. But, it is essential to do it. In order to get better, you need to revise. I have never in my life heard of someone who had a perfect first draft. It is called a first draft for a reason.

While I like to think I am all that and a bag of chips, and my writing is the tops, it’s not. I need my friends and beta readers to knock me down a few pegs and pull me back into reality sometimes. Looking at where my manuscript was, to where it is now, and where it is headed… phew, I could have never done that on my own.

I shudder to think if I had sent my baby into the world unprepared. It would have been torn to shreds, my career and potential as an author would be ruined by my own ego. So, to say the least, my people saved me from myself and utter humiliation. I have since learned from my mistake, and laugh at how terrible my first draft was.

So fellow humans and lizard people, don’t pull an Aubrie. Learn from the mistakes I made, that could have very well ruined me. Get yourself a few critique partners, take the advice you agree with, even if it hurts. Scrap the advice you don’t like, and revise, revise revise. You owe it to yourself and the world you have created to make sure you have done your very best. Trust me on this.

Aubrie is 24 years young. She plays mom to a cutest demon topside, and is married to the hottest man in the Air Force. When she isn’t writing she is daydreaming about hot brooding anti-heroes and sassy heroines. She loves Dragon Age, rewatching Game of Thrones and reading all things fantasy. She runs a local YA/NA bookclub with 3 chapters, and over 200 members. Her favorite thing to do is eat, and her thighs thank her graciously for it. If she could have dinner with anyone living or dead it would be Alan Rickman because his voice is the sexiest sound on earth. He could read the dictionary and she would be enthralled. Her current mission in life is to collect creepy taxidermy animals because she finds them cute and hilarious. She resides just outside of Washington DC.