Category Archives: Finish It!

The Mighty Mo – How to Keep on Keeping On

Day Jobs Finish It! Making Progress as a Writer Rewriting Sean Golden Self-Motivation The Writing Process Work-Life Balance Write Whenever You Can No Comments

I hear a lot of people talk about writer’s block. I also see a lot of commentary about loss of motivation and life interfering with writing.

While I can’t honestly say I’ve ever experienced anything that feels to me like “writer’s block” I will admit to periods of motivational doldrums, and life most certainly can get in the way of writing. But to be a writer is to write. So, when motivation is low, or even non-existent, how can you get it back?

My lowest point as a writer came over a year ago, when I was trying to complete the final book in my War Chronicles trilogy. At the same time I was trying to get my new home built, and had just started a new job, which meant spending a good bit of my “free” time learning new skills and techniques so that I could do my day job well enough to keep my day job.

In the middle of that stress and uncertainty, I was forced to admit that my ending was not working out as I wanted, and that I was going to miss several self-imposed deadlines for completing the series. I began to dread the prospect of even returning to the story and ripping apart what I had spent months working on, just to have to rebuild it again.

So, how did I get my momentum back?

If you are looking for some sort of magic bullet, or some “weird trick” that will turn your creative juices back on, I’m sorry to say that you won’t find it in this article. For me the solution was the oldest maxim in writing. “Apply butt to chair, and pen to paper.” Or more accurately in today’s world, “fingers to keyboard.”

Or to put it plainly, I sat at my desk and wrote. Even when I knew what I was writing was terrible, I wrote. I told myself that even if only five percent of my writing was worth keeping, that was still five percent more than I did by moping and trolling social media sites.

So, I wrote. And wrote. At a friend’s suggestion, I wrote a short story set in my fantasy world with entirely different characters, set hundreds of years in the past, and let that story flow. Doing so gave me some insights into the history of my world, and helped me work out the motivations and goals of the main antagonist, which got me interested in my unfinished trilogy again.

Then I sat down and reread the first two books, and all the third up to where it began to lose steam, and by the time I got to that point, a new and better ending had emerged, like Athena from Zeus’s forehead, fully formed and ready to be put onto paper.

And that finally restored my enthusiasm for the story, and I was able to get back into the groove of writing until I finished and published the final book.

It may be that the lull in motivation I encountered is what others call “writer’s block”. I never felt blocked, I just felt out of steam, stuck in neutral, all fueled up, but with no roadmap to follow. Once I finally got that roadmap into my head, writing was easy and fun again.

And that’s what it’s all supposed to be about, isn’t it? Writing should be fun. When it isn’t fun, it’s hard work, and when it’s hard work, it’s easy to find reasons to avoid it. So, when I have lost the fun, I try to find a way to get the fun back, because then writing is easy.

Back it Up

Finish It! Jace Killan Rewriting Software The Writing Process 1 Comment

gibberishA 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:

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

Jace KillanI 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.

Write Like the Wind

Day Jobs Finish It! Gama Martinez Professional Behavior Publishing Starting a Career The Writing Life Work-Life Balance Write Whenever You Can 2 Comments

A Guest Post by Gama Martinez

I have a rather ambitious release schedule this year. This Tuesday, March 29, Beastwalker, the third book in my Pharim War series gets released. After that, I’m releasing, on average, one project a month until the end of the year. Seven of those will be novels, and three will be short story collections. When I tell people this, the look at me like I’m crazy, but there are a couple of things I’m doing that make this much more bearable.

One of the most wonderful things the internet age has given me is the ability to write from anywhere. I save my manuscripts on my dropbox, which I can access from my computer, my tablet, or my phone. If I have thirty minutes in which I’m not doing something, it’s a simple matter to pull out my phone and add a hundred words or so to my latest project. It’s not the easiest thing to do on my phone without a keyboard, but a hundred words is a hundred words. They add up. I generally set aside at least three hours a day to write, usually at night, and during that time, I tend to write about twice what I did during the little chunks, but think about that for a second. A full third of my writing is done outside of my “writing time.” Doing this, I end up with a first draft in roughly a month.

That brings up an important point. I’ve learned to write in small time chunks. This took me a long time to learn how to do. Some people need time to make the mental transition into writing mode. It can be difficult to learn. There is one thing that really helped me overcome that, and that was realizing that it’s okay if my first drafts are terrible. They are full of plot holes. I frequently go five pages with nothing but dialog. I have major reveals that weren’t foreshadowed at all. I might have as many as thirty problems like that in a manuscript, though it’s rarely been that many. It’s the first draft so it’s fine. None of those things, by themselves, are that big of a deal. That’s the key point. Once I get to my revision phase, each of these problems might take me a day to fix. Most won’t actually be that long, but for the sake of argument, we’ll say each takes me a day. That means if I have my hypothetical first draft written in a month with thirty day long items to fix, I can have a viable draft in two months. It’s still not ready for submission, but 85% of the work is done. After that, its proofreading, beta readers, and editors. Each of those take time, but if you’ve made it this far, you probably won’t have a problem with that.

You also need to find what time works best for you. There have been cognitive studies that suggest the two halves of your brain fall asleep at different times. It varies from person to person. Some people write best early in the morning. I do late at night. Frank Herbert wrote part Dune in one hour chunks, sitting in his car during his lunch break. Multiple other have done similar things. Find when works for you.

Regarding writer’s block: I’ve already partially addressed it. Like I said earlier, it’s okay if your first draft is bad. That’s what the second draft is for. There is another school of thought on this that I don’t follow but that may be of use to you. Orson Scott Card says that when you have writer’s block, it means you’re subconsciously detecting something fundamentally wrong with what you’ve already written, and that you need to go back and fix it. I can understand that view. If there is something fundamentally wrong, your story could go off in a completely random direction, however, I am an outliner, and I always know where my story is going, that keeps me from getting too far off track. If you don’t outline, and you find yourself with writer’s block, you may want to go back and see if there’s something wrong you can fix.

There is one more thing I would like to point out. My process, the habits I’ve outlined above, work for me. It’s taken me a long time to reach this point. I started writing seriously nearly eight years ago. You probably won’t be able to read this post and churn out half a dozen books in the next year. It will take time to find your process, and that’s okay.

Gama Martinez:

Gama Martinez lives in the Salt Lake City area and collects weapons in case he ever needs to supply a medieval battalion. He greatly resents when work or other real life things get in the way of writing. He secretly dreams of one day slaying a dragon in single combat and doesn’t believe in letting pesky little things like reality stand in the way of dreams. He is currently working on the Pharim War, a series about angels as well as The Nylean Chronicles, a new series about unicorns.

Managing the Attention Deficit Thingy

Craft & Skills Finish It! Jace Killan Making Progress as a Writer Motivation Rewriting Self-Awareness Self-Motivation The Writing Life No Comments

a-d-d-attention-deficit-disorder-funny-retro-posterI find little in life more enjoyable than discovering something new, a character, a world, a scene. I love watching how things develop as I discover write them. I’m what they call a Pantser. I wrote of my writing disorder a couple months ago in A Pantser’s Plight.

In one of David Farland‘s workshops he said something to the effect that discovery writing was to him the most enjoyable and the least productive. I have found that to be true. So I’ve worked hard to develop a plot, outline the direction, but I still discovery write the scenes. I’m finding that the story develops and takes life.

Just this past month I wrote a scene that I had loosely outlined for my protagonist who started a new job on Wall Street. As the scene unfolded, a cute red-headed receptionist entered the mix. And suddenly my protagonist took interest and next thing I know they’re digging on each other. I did not see that coming in my outline but it works nicely.

I developed two other characters who, according to my outline, were scheduled to be killed later on in the story. These characters have grown and become significant in the story. I’ve used them to bridge plot gaps and deepen side plots. Now I’m not sure I want to kill them off. I probably still will, but I could see some spin off stories developing, so I’m going to keep discovering where it goes.

This last month I’ve written about 30,000 words on the same book. I haven’t touched anything else. Not the two short stories, brewing in the back of my brain. Not the other three novels half finished. This is pretty significant for me and I wanted to share my newly acquired trick to stay focused.

The Problems

First, as I mention earlier, I get really excited about discovering something new and tend to lose interest in something that I’ve already figured out in my mind though I haven’t written it yet. This usually leads me to ping-ponging from project to project but never finishing anything.

Second, squirrel. I get easily pulled onto something else more exciting and I have a hard time focusing my mind on what it doesn’t want to focus on.

Third,  sometimes I discover write my characters into a situation that just doesn’t work with the rest of the story and I get stumped. And sometimes my characters get into a situation they just can’t get out of.

The Solutions

First, I do a light outline to give myself direction. And I try not to over develop. When I do, it usually becomes cliche or boring.

Second, I noticed awhile ago that whatever book or movie or television show I was into would effect which of my projects my brain thought important at the moment. So, as I’m writing a financial thriller, I’ve tricked my brain to staying focused on this book by reading two John Grisham books, watching shows like Better Call Saul and movies like Wall Street. And more importantly I won’t let myself read or watch anything science fiction or fantasy related. It’s working quite well.

Third, I used to revere what my brain discovered as sacred. I credited inspiration. But I’m learning now that sometimes it’s crap and I need to chuck it out the window. I hated rewriting a scene that I had already thought out a different way and I still don’t enjoy it, but the end result makes it worth it. Sometimes I’ve got to suck it up and push through.

Funny thing, writing this post has gotten me excited to discover more on this particular project. It’s called Unknown Soldier and if I can keep it up, I’ll finish it in a couple more months.

 

jace 1I 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’ve got 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 visit my author website at www.jacekillan.com, and you can read some of my works by visiting my Wattpad page.