Freaking Myself Out

So y’all know my philosophy toward writing a first draft—get the thing thrown on paper. Don’t stop to edit. Don’t stop to research. Don’t stop to think up last names for these characters, just mark them *** to make later. Just get the first draft done.

So five or six weeks into the process, I have a first draft.

And boy, does it need revising!

I’m now revising my first draft of the Memphis Barbeque series book two. And I’m reading along, thinking that actually, it’s pretty clean. Wow. Maybe, considering this is my 5th book, I’ve gotten this process more down-pat.

Then I read a scene from my WIP and I’m like, “Wait. Didn’t I have this scene ten pages back?”

And I did. Same scene, different words, same concept. Ten pages back.

Whups.

How could this happen? I’m guessing that when I picked up my writing one day (picking up from where I thought I’d left off), I thought I’d brainstormed the concept for the scene instead of actually writing it. But no, I’d already written it.

Just one of the hundred things you catch during the second draft.

I immediately turned on myself. I had been happy with this manuscript and suddenly I was feeling 180 degrees opposite.

Ways to Get Back on Track (and Forget the Screw-ups):

Treat our own writing with some emotional distance. This is hard, but I’ve made it work before. Pretend that what you’re reading is something you’re reviewing for a critique group. Don’t take the errors personally—just fix them.

Reading published books in our genre with a critical eye, highlighter, and red pen. Treat it like English class, keep an emotional distance from it.

Know when enough’s enough. Have you picked your manuscript to death? You’ll know it’s been picked to death if you read through a few passages you’ve just edited and the whole soul of the story is missing. The spark has been edited out. Maybe at this point it’s time to give the manuscript to someone else to look over for you.

Remind yourself that you’re your own worst critic. So many of us are hardest on ourselves than any editor or agent could ever be.

Remember we’re all in this boat together. Are there authors who don’t have a rigorous editing process? If there are any, I don’t know them! We all look at the first draft with some anxiety or disgust. The first draft is what it is…it’s the bones of the story. The most important thing is getting it down on paper.

I do my best revision writing when I’m not picking on myself for whatever mistake I’ve made. By keeping positive and keeping some distance from the manuscript, I’ll make the editing process go a lot smoother.

How do you keep your mistakes in perspective?

Links for Writers

I’ve gotten to the crazy point in my association with Twitter that I think everybody is on Twitter. It’s amazing how quickly the application messes with your mind.

I thought I’d post some writing links that I’ve come across lately that I thought were helpful or interesting. I’ve posted all of these on Twitter, so my apologies to my Twitter followers for the repost:

10 mistakes writers don't see (but can easily fix when they do): http://tinyurl.com/5e7apa

5 guaranteed ways to hate your own writing: http://tinyurl.com/y9o86ar

Chapter endings--when your cliffhanging moment comes too soon: http://tinyurl.com/y89vxfl

Continuity in our writing: http://tinyurl.com/ycg76ud

10 ways to become a better #writer (w/ links to resources): http://tinyurl.com/58vco6

9 tips to help you through writing burnout: http://tinyurl.com/yl4hrfw

Sidekicks...who is Robin to your character's Batman? http://tinyurl.com/y8qlrdt

What *not* to say during an author interview (Huff Post): http://tinyurl.com/ybvreav

The 3 Vs of distinctive voice in dialogue: http://tinyurl.com/yd8s4ep

5 ways to tell your story needs hijacking: http://tinyurl.com/ydlqb2j @glen_allison

Demystifying contracts--what every writer should know: http://tinyurl.com/yjp3xxd

9 ways to improve your author website: http://tinyurl.com/ykcfuey

Tips for naming characters: http://tinyurl.com/ylpphme

Tax deductions for writers: http://tinyurl.com/y9f2ja5

Too many characters in a scene? Mix and match: http://tinyurl.com/y949w6w

On writing beginnings: http://tinyurl.com/yeepuoh

All about ISBNs: http://tinyurl.com/yh4aa8b

Time and your protagonist: http://tinyurl.com/yzqblgw

Tips for developing character voice: http://tinyurl.com/yjr7hrr

Settling for a bad book deal: http://tinyurl.com/yzrzg67

An agent on 'how to title your book' : http://tinyurl.com/yjv5mjs

What's at stake in your story? http://tinyurl.com/yjmxgt6

5 tips on writing story connections to engage your readers: http://tinyurl.com/y8w6n4j

On writing endings: http://tinyurl.com/yby3kyo

An editor on how multiple book deal advances are divided: http://tinyurl.com/ydk7fod

Why do I find it so hard to summarize my novel?: http://tinyurl.com/ye7ks6h

5 types of emails you should automatically be filtering: http://tinyurl.com/yktc5y9

Top 10 newbie writer mistakes: http://tinyurl.com/yh6e9ux

Tips for synopsis writing: http://tinyurl.com/yjwmybn

10 writing rules you can't break--and how to break them: http://tinyurl.com/yl3wz5t

Sentence structure mistakes: http://tinyurl.com/ylyz9vs

8 reasons your blog isn't getting comments: http://tinyurl.com/ycda8v2

How writing your own review can help your novel: http://tinyurl.com/ylqzgyq

The curse of the fast writer: http://tinyurl.com/y8t7z95

6 time management tips for writers: http://kenncrawford.com/?p=15

How to start a novel: http://tinyurl.com/ykz3pvj

Can't make a deadline? Don't cover it up--tell your editor: http://tinyurl.com/yjv2a24

Writing a query letter with voice: http://tinyurl.com/yf2zvvj

Why editors use form rejection letters: http://tinyurl.com/yd4bd47

Establish goals when setting up a writing critique group: http://tinyurl.com/ya97oke

Why a writer needs confidence: http://tinyurl.com/yboeulo

Hope everyone can find an interesting article to read for their Sunday. :)

Bookless

Do you know how you have so much going on and there are small things that you mean to check on, but they slip through the cracks? Then you remember them again…then you forget them again…then you finally act on them.

I’m going to be vague here because I don’t want anyone losing their job over this.

My daughter goes to a particular activity that I drop her off for. At one point during this activity, she goes to a cafeteria for a snack. I do also pack a snack, but there are other things in the cafeteria that she’d like to eat from time to time.

This is the money-free 21st century, so she has a PIN code to punch in to pay for the snack in the cafeteria. I keep $25 in the account for her snacks.

About a month ago, she told me she’d forgotten her PIN. And, apparently, my house had eaten the piece of paper that the PIN was originally on. “Ask the cafeteria lady to look you up on her printout,” I said.

Several times during the last month I remembered to ask her if she’d gotten her PIN. “The lady says she can’t find me. I’m not in her book,” said my daughter with a The Grown-Up-Has-Spoken air.

I continued getting frustrated about this. I’ve put $25 in an account that no one can access?!

Finally, on Wednesday, after about a month of this, I decided to go to the cafeteria myself. I would help find the missing PIN.

I walked up, smiling, to the lady. I quickly explained the situation. “So let’s look up her number real quick,” I said briskly, nodding at the binder next to her.

She looked at me with a terrified face that froze me, although I didn’t understand why she was frightened. “Her last name?” she asked.

“Craig.”

“Starting with the letter….?”

“C.”

She opened the binder and flipped through the pages. She was in the Ps.

I was really puzzled now. “I’m sorry…it’s Craig. With a C.”

Again the scared look.

She carefully found the Cs and ran a finger down the page of CAs.

“It’s not here,” she said, looking at me.

If she’d turned a gun on me, I wouldn’t have been more shocked. She couldn’t read.

She wasn’t an English as a Second Language citizen. She was a native. And she was at least 45 years old. And she was functionally, if not completely, illiterate.

And I found that completely chilling.

“You know?” I said, “These printouts sometimes list folks all crazy and out of order. Could I…?” She handed me the binder, I found the CRs, and jotted down the PIN. As nice as I tried to be, we shared a look that meant that SHE knew that I knew that she couldn’t read. And that she’d been telling my daughter for a month that her name wasn’t in that binder to cover up for the fact.

I didn’t sleep well that night. I couldn’t imagine a world without books. My life revolves around books and writing. If I have any extra snippets of time, I’ve got my face in a book.

I know that Terry Odell is a literacy volunteer and my hat’s off to her. She’s opening up a new world to her students. One day, when I’m done volunteering for my children’s groups, I’d like to promote literacy and volunteer, too.

With all the talk and controversy of e-books versus printed books…what really matters is the reading. It’s the escape it provides and the worlds it opens up for us. Reading is the ultimate entertainment.

God help those of us who aren’t able to share in the pleasure.

Pre-Writing-Tart Style—by Hart Johnson

Today, I’m welcoming Hart Johnson to the blog. Hart is currently working on the third book of her Conspiracy trilogy and blogs at Confessions of a Watery Tart on writing, digressions, and her road to publication.

For those of you who don't know me, I go by the Watery Tart in several areas of my life, and it's true that I have trouble behaving myself, so why should my writing plans be any different? A few weeks ago when Elizabeth asked for volunteers to guest blog, though, I thought... well at least my approach is probably different than everyone else’s... and I do a few things right, so I thought I'd throw it out for your perusal.

The Ideas

Ideas are the precious resource of writing, and unlike certain creative types, I can't force them. I don't wander through my day noticing interesting things (I'm lucky if I notice my children) and the interesting things I think are more likely to get me arrested than published. I find that the big ideas most often come accidentally. I have to be COMPLETELY relaxed. That is one reason I do most of my writing in the bathtub. The fan drowns out my family and their incessant watching of The Office or Family Guy. The water calms me, a Sudoku puzzle releases my academic brain, and then I write, and often, just that will release some creative juices and something interesting will flow without me even being aware of the process. But the TRULY big ideas usually come in dreams, or in that lazy not quite asleep anymore space of early morning, or EVERY once in a while, in the midst of some silly conversation where the tart in my says, 'hey, you oughta write a book on that'.

Those ideas get written down and put in a notebook, which occasionally I'll thumb through, but more often I'll get the SAME really great idea a SECOND time and think HEY! I already had that idea, but I will build on it a little.

And even more often than THAT, I get a completely unrelated idea. *cough * (this isn't helpful, is it?), but here is the fun part...

The Power Walk

I try, four days a week, to exercise somewhat strenuously. I walk to and from work daily, but that's not a 'sweat-paced' walk, because I work with people, and they appreciate it if I don't stink. But four days a week I exercise before my shower, usually with an iPod, but if I don't take the iPod, when I am walking, brain relaxed but body exerting, there is some sort of magical synapse connection thing that often happens. It will occur to me how to connect two ideas that alone were not quite a starting point, but together, they are a skeleton of a story.

The power walk also works if I run up against a brick wall in my story and I can't figure out how to get from point A to point B, but that's writing, not pre-writing, so I'm not going to talk about that!

Stewing

This actually falls in the idea stage, but would have broken my (somewhat) cohesive train of what I do, had I put it in there. In spite of flying by the seat of my pantslessness in most parts of my life, I need my ideas to stew... they need to germinate. Last February I had a dream about sitting in a house typing, and realizing there were kids watching me, and I thought, 'what an interesting set-up...moving into a house that had kids hiding in the walls or attic for some reason... why would they do that?' A little more thought brought out parents that were spies who had disappeared and the kids had just hidden, and I tried and tried to force out a few scenes, but it wasn't happening, so I set it aside and started a different book.

In AUGUST, something I read sparked something else entirely and a power walk connected the two ideas, and I wrote the prequel to the above story in 6 short weeks. It had been in there the whole time, dancing around, promising to be a great story, but until that second idea and the connection, I just couldn't make it fly.

Maybe someday I'll get back to that OTHER story I was working on! That seems to be how it has to go for me, though—idea, work on something else while that stews, THEN I can work with the idea I'd been so in love with.

[A note on research because so many do it in prep—for me it is a rewrite thing. I find I am overly accommodating if I do it ahead, and just end up with a long mess. Better to get down my story and then tweak with the facts LATER].

That's my story and I'm sticking with it!

Thanks so much for guest blogging today, Hart! I’m thinking I might try your power walking method for pre-writing…I’ll just have to remember not to mutter to myself as I do it (a frequent plotting activity of mine. :) )

Thoughts on Blogging

Blogging is one of my favorite activities. Whether I’m reading blogs or writing them, or tweeting about them, I feel like I’m learning an incredible amount from the process.

I blogged daily from last May until late January (when I started opening up the blog to guest posts). So now I’m blogging on average about 6 days a week.

The good thing about blogging daily, if you can swing it, is:

It’s a good writing exercise. It’s a great way to establish a writing discipline. It’s excellent for developing a readership.

The bad thing about blogging daily:

It’s time-consuming. That’s really the only downside I see.

Blog Reading:

I’m completely addicted to blog reading. Yes, I do have a problem. And I would love to be able to read everyone’s blogs every day…because they’re that interesting! Even if you have nothing to say I think it’s interesting because it’s a window into another writer’s world.

But I don’t have the time I wish I had.

I subscribe to 700 blogs in my Google reader. I know…it’s a little crazy. I didn’t think I had that many, so I double and triple checked, but I do. I have them divided up in folders to help me keep track of them.

I have some that frequently feature really excellent resources for writers. I file those blogs under “Tweet Sites” because I’ll tweet the contents—but I frequently don’t comment on the blog…it’s a time-constraint thing, since I do send out a lot of tweets in a day on Twitter. But I tweet the link to the post and sometimes the poster’s Twitter tag, too, if I have it handy.

I divide up other blogs by days of the week to help handle some of the reading and commenting. And I tweet many of these posts, too. 98% of the time, if I’ve read a friend’s post, I comment. My comment may not add much to the discussion, but I want to be a part of it anyway.

If you start dividing the blogs you read by days of the week, you might want to make sure you haven’t put a blogger in a Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday folder when they only blog on Monday/Wednesday/Friday. There usually is some tweaking that has to happen until the method gets smoother.

Why blogging is fun:

There are so many benefits to reading blogs and blogging that it’s hard to know where to begin. The biggest for me is the support, friendship, and inspiration I get from the writing community. Next are the ideas and resources that are in such great supply online.

Promotional benefits of blogging:

Yes, they’re definitely there. First of all, you’re getting your name, and your book’s name out there on the internet daily. This really helps when someone is looking you up on Google.

It does help to introduce potential readers to your book, too. There are so many books out there. If you can help increase awareness of your own novel, then you’ve really helped your publisher out.

There is definitely some networking that goes on in the industry between writers, editors, and agents. And networking, in any career, isn’t a bad thing.

Blogging Tools:

I use Microsoft’s free Windows Live Writer application for writing and saving blogs. It’s easy to learn and is an organized way to write blog drafts, organize pictures and text, etc.

WordPress vs Blogger? Well, Blogger is free. :) Blogger completely infuriates me several days out of the week, but at this point I’m not planning a move. I’ve heard lots of good things about WordPress, though.

What do you love or hate about blogging? And do you have any tips to add for managing your blogging habit? :)

Please come by and visit tomorrow as Hart Johnson, AKA the Watery Tart, will be guest-posting on pre-writing!

What’s Unique about the Writer’s Lens

I’ve noticed that many people I know view life through a lens.

Some of them use a political lens—they look at everything in relation to politics.

Many use religious lenses.

There are some that use a financial lens: everything boils down in terms of money.

There are egocentric lenses…how everything in life affects them.

There’s even a motherhood lens—how life’s hardships and joys affect their children or the raising of them.

The big thing that seems to set writers apart, to me, is our lens—it’s an observational one.

It doesn’t seem to be a very analytical device… we’re not so much into the why people behave the way they do as watching it happen.

I do know many different kinds of writers and there are some extroverts in the bunch, but I’d say it’s probably 90% introvert to the 10% extrovert that I know.

Most of the writers I know are happy to sit on the edges of a group or gathering and watch the people. We’re less happy being the center of attention—you can’t observe life as well when all eyes are on you. We’re the perfect bystanders.

We don’t mind the quiet.

We can get so caught up in our writing that we don’t feel self-conscious about taking notes or writing in a public place.

This filter provides us with a little distance from other people. This can be a very welcome distance. I can come across a really annoying person, but through the writing lens they come through as complex and different.

And, yes, still a little annoying. But we need those kinds of people in our books, too.

But the biggest thing that stands out to me is the watching and recording that writers do. We’re listening and looking…jotting down names of people and places, unusual situations, people’s personal conflicts. We’re sorting through ideas.

And I think this note-taking is frequently done in a nonjudgmental way—we’re just relating these life observations to readers. We’re the middlemen…we polish up our notes to make them interesting or entertaining, but it’s truth, on paper.

Do you see yourself as an observer?