Category: Writing

Writing 101 - Get Help For the First Book

10/19/2024

It's possible today to publish a first book on Amazon without anyone else reading it. What's possible isn't the same as a good plan.

Get an editor for your first book before you do online publishing. A good one. It needs to be someone who has published a book or who has been in the industry a long time.

Talk to some other people you trust who've self-published a book. Ask them privately about the pitfalls and rewards. If you don't know any people who've done that, start trying to find online groups.

Think back to the past. Have you ever seen a friend wearing something you thought wasn't right, but you kept your mouth shut? Have you ever agreed that something was lovely but inside you didn't think it was as awesome as the person who owned it.

It is possible that your dear friends who read your work and say they can't wait to see it in print....can wait.

Getting published isn't the dream now. Writing the best book you can have is the dream.

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The Maybe Do Someday List

6/21/2024

If you have a Maybe Do Someday list, then it can always seem like a road beckoning you that other people get to drive on while you are stuck in the same routine.

The list can be a simple as reading a book you've thought about reading.

Don't let the need for a little sacrifice and discipline keep you from attempting that list.

It's your journey.

Or what if writing a book is on the list? How would you approach it?

If you write every evening after your day job in order to craft that story, you're sacrificing time that you could use in other ways, and it takes discipline. But it can be temporary sacrifice and discipline.

If you write 300 words a day for six months you'll have enough words for a book manuscript. That's about a page and a half if you use a computer, even with good-sized margins. (Tip: Start at the point where the plot starts. Have something happen, and it leads to something else which leads to something else...)

So if you've always thought about writing a book, and you discipline yourself for six months, you can check it off your Maybe Do Someday list, and you can think about another thing on the Maybe Do Someday and spend six months preparing for it. It might take a temporary job to save the money or an agreement with the other people in your life.

Consider the event, and how much closer you would get if you just spent a little bit of time preparing for it or working toward it every day for six months.

Adding a few journeys in your life might lead you somewhere interesting that you can't even see right now. You might be creating a A Fun and Finished! list or even an Ain't Never Going To Do That Again list.

We don't generally hear about other peoples' failed lists, but having a few of those in your memory might mean you're on the right journey.

How To Write A Book - Unabridged

11/25/2023

Start with an idea you love.

Get stuck at Chapter 2.

Change the original idea because you believe you have an even better premise.

Remain focused. Stare at the Keyboard. Stumble and grumble through a first draft, keeping an eye on the calendar. Working regularly. Determined. Going at an injured snail's pace.

Start a different story but put it aside because there's no time.

Get another an idea for a different book but put it aside because...you have to finish that other book.

Write until your back hurts. Stare at the computer between writing moments.

Avoid making plans because you want to be ready if the muse strikes. The muse is only amused. Not visiting you. You're on your own.

Finish rough draft. Start revising.

Get to the end on schedule. Finish first final draft Sunday night before book is due on Monday morning.

Time passes. Forget everything you wrote.

Receive a revision request. Spend the first day thinking about it and mumbling to yourself.

Dig in. Revise. Quickly. Accidentally discover a new command on your computer than you didn't know existed and try to undo the command without having to go back to find the last version on the story you emailed yourself.

Check Facebook and see if you missed anything.

Get back to work. There's not enough time to even read the story twice after you've finished. Send on schedule.

Receive a second revision request... Plan on a few more late nights.

Sunday night before manuscript is done for the final time, decide to change the ending slightly. Discover what the story is really about. Fall in love with the characters. Wonder why you didn't write it that way the first time. Wish you could just spend a little more time involved in this book because you like it so much.

Planting Crops and Planning Manuscripts

6/3/2022

The photo is of potatoes that ended up on my table.

Writing is a lot like planning and planting a crop. You have to begin, and you have to see the story through until the end. Editing equals weeding. Nurturing the ideas is the same as getting the rain and sunshine. You can have a drought.

It may be a bit of a gamble—and include some knowledge—to get the garden grown and the potatoes ready to be stored for winter.

Before the first word is on the page, you can already taste the flavor of the story, imagine a bit of the characters. See the lushness. Imagine the harvest.

Then the endeavor truly starts. The first word is written, and the book begins. A lot of hours are in front of the author, just as a lot of effort is in front of the gardener.

For me, I usually give up on the garden. But I can't give up on my characters.

Photo credit: Liz Tyner
Garden credit: Definitely not Liz Tyner

Modern Art Style

2/19/2021

I think I first saw a picture of the car before I was old enough to drive, and was fascinated but not impressed with the sight as modern art.

After forgetting about it, I discovered the actual car in front of one of the Smithsonian art museums.

Again, I spent some time perusing it.

Later, I showed the picture to someone else and he took a moment to look at it. To study it.

Now it sticks in my memory.

That's the secret, I believe, that artists are striving for. To create something that another person will take an extra moment with. That will linger in their mind.

Art is subjective. People can disagree about it. And it's even subjective within me. What I don't think is art on one day, may speak to me on another day.

How Much Does An Author Read?

2/5/2021

Reading….

Sadly, as a writer, I’ve been keeping the deep secret that I don’t read much anymore. The time, you know. As soon as I finish writing one book, I’m anxious to start another one.

So as I sit here—now a non-reader—and I look around my room.

I see the 900 page reference book I purchased a few months ago. One of the new romance novels I bought. Plus, on my nightstand, there’s an out-of- print book on writing that I was lucky to find online. And I just finished Dean Koontz’s book, Trixie, A Big Little Life, a non-fiction audio book...but I stopped reading at Chapter 20, right before the end because it’s mainly a biography about a dog, and we know what happens at the end if the book was written after the main character’s death. So, it ended happily for me as Trixie will live on.

As for e-books, I downloaded The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and am planning to read it at night. Some of the other books on my e-reader have been read recently. I started one a second time.

It dawned on me that a writer who says they don’t read much may be comparing themselves to the person they used to be who would leave the library with a big bundle of books every two weeks. Or every week.

It’s kinda like thinking you didn’t have that many calories on a day until you walk by the trash and see the candy wrappers. By the evidence around me, I read a lot more than I realized.

Explaining Enough or Not Enough

1/18/2021

Worried about describing too much in a book? Well, if you're worried about it, chances are you might be explaining too much.

You're writing a mental video...as well as a book.

The reader needs to see what is going on.

Sure you need to add a little explanation here and there. Usually, it's called backstory. With that, and character's thoughts and actions, depth is created.

But, would you rather have someone tell you about the movie they saw, or would your rather see it yourself?

The reader is the same way. Create the videos for them with your words.

How much is too much and how much is too little?

It's hard to say without reading the story. I was in a writing class once and the teacher said everyone needed to cut the extra explanations they were using in their stories. Except one person needed to add more. That was me.

But the difference in my writing and the others' stories could have been because I'd written poetry and non-fiction pieces for publication. I'd already learned to pare my writing way back, but not how to bring it into book length.

Writing 101: Overwhelmed By a Lily

1/25/2020

Writing a manuscript can seem a bit daunting. This bug is inspecting a flower and seems overwhelmed. But it's just a lily. And while it truly is a magnificent flower, from his perspective, he could get trapped inside.

Sometimes people writing a book get trapped inside the first three chapters.

The beginning of the book is setting the stage for the reader. The story needs to take off, and the characters need their own world.

Just jump in, and don't get lost inside. Turn the page. Step back.

I didn't stick around to see what happened to the little bug. But I hope—instead of being overwhelmed, he took it all in perspective and found what he was looking for.

Writing: How Do I Get Past Chapter One?

1/4/2020

If your New Year's Resolution is to write a book, go for it. Four tips for getting started:

Dive in.
Don't worry about getting it perfect the first time.
Chain yourself to the chair. Set three appointment times on your phone, and have three dates a week to be in the chair until you're finished. Or...five dates.
Get positive reinforcement from your characters. You've left them hanging. The poor little ones won't have a life—a happy ending—or another breath until you get back in there and wrestle with them. Can you do that to your little ones? (I hope not!)

Writing 101: Procrastination

12/21/2019

Procrastination is to writing what Scrooge is to Christmas.

Charles Dickens said that procrastination is the thief of time.

While I was looking that up, I saw a bunch of other things online about procrastination which pulled me their direction.

You can't write a book when "more important" things are pulling you away.

Just make sure they are more important to you. Is it really how you want to spend your time?

If it is...go for it. You can always, always write that book next year. Well, not that book. You'll have a different idea for a different book eventually. But you can always write that the year after.

Those little characters inside your head might give up on you, and wander off into another person's head.

The answer to procrastination?

Prioritize.

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