Writing Through the Holidays

My most recent posts here at Novel Spaces have highlighted my first ever participation in National Novel Writing Month. On November 1^st, I blogged about my excitement over writing a 50,000 word novel in one month’s time. Back on the 17^th, at just about the halfway point, I was well on my way to reaching my goal.

Little did I know my NaNoWriMo writing journey would hit a huge snag that segues quite nicely into the topic of today’s post. Instead of celebrating the near-completion of my month-long writing project and enjoying a nice turkey meal at the dinner table, I spent my Thanksgiving sitting on the sofa cradling my laptop (I paused for the Saints/Cowboys game, of course). A killer deadline popped up out of nowhere (umm…not really nowhere I just happened to get a few dates confused), and I was forced to spend my holiday writing. Unfortunately, that NaNoWriMo book still sits at 44,700 words.

Writers, especially those under deadlines, don’t always have the luxury of taking the holidays off. For those who find themselves having to write during the holidays, here are a few tips:

1. Think about giving yourself some time off. Writing through the holidays is not easy. If you can afford to give yourself a break, this is the perfect time to do it.

2. Write during non-traditional times. If you're used to writing from 9pm - 11pm every night, you may have to consider changing things up. If your family is going caroling or there's a swinging holiday party going on, you may have to sacrifice watching the 7pm showing of Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer in order to get your pages in.

3. Practice writing sprints. I know of a few writers who do all of their writing in short sprints, but for those who don’t, give it a try. Carve out two to three 15-minute chunks of time throughout the day and write as much as you can. At the end of each sprint, leave a hint of what the next scene will be about so you can quickly refresh your memory when you start the next sprint. You’ll be amazed at how much you can get done in such little time.

4. Take a lesson from Scrouge. It may be considered rude or not in the spirit to turn down invitations to holiday parties, but if you cannot afford the time away from your writing you need to learn to say no. Bah humbug!

I’d love for the writers out there to share some of their tips for writing through the holidays.

Name Hopping

I really can’t imagine writing “regular” stories. Since my young reader days with Mio My Son, I’ve had my mind fixed on fantasy. I love suspending disbelief and offering alternate universes, prophetic dreams, and mythical creatures. You know; magic, supernatural stuff.

And, while I consider that my personal reality, I can’t help but ogle those writers who switch from one author persona to the next writing this genre and that one. Living like that in the real world would probably get them labeled as having multiple personality disorder. But in fiction we just call it using pseudonyms.

I confess that I’m toying with a name change of my own. Not so much for change of genre, but for differing content. I write under my real name and can’t help but feel occasional twinges of guilt at the thought of my kids reading those romantic scenes (even when they’re of age) or worse, their teachers or schoolmates’ parents snickering or shaking their heads at me during PTA meetings.

Comedian Eddie Murphy said some years ago that he began to make different kinds of movies once his kids were older. He wanted them to be able to enjoy his performances. So, he’s evolved from Raw to Shrek’s donkey, still acting, still funny, but changed. Yet, he managed this transition under his same name.

Can we do this as authors? Or does LA Banks really have to write vampires under that name and romance as Leslie Esdaile so that readers don’t get confused? For me, I’m liking the beginnings of my new WIP as a new persona. The writing is darker and will be sexier, too. Yet, the people on my job will have no clue that the woman in the next cubicle is churning out this stuff when she leaves the office every day. I find it freeing.

To my fellow authors: Have you tried this? You know, writing sweet romance as Suzy Strawberry and horror as Anthony Mayhem? Is it a tough switch or more like a seventh-inning stretch for the mind? Do you think it dilutes your audience or broadens your reach? And, as readers, do you care if your favorite author is a genre switcher who throws you a mystery today and a thriller tomorrow? Does it work for some writers but not for others?

My nosy little pseudonym wants to know.

Stefanie
http://www.stefanieworth.com/

For The Love Of Writing

I have to admit that though like most professional writers, I enjoy being paid for my efforts, the better part of me writes because I love writing...

Ever since grade school, I have been fascinated by the written word and the power within storytelling. I started out writing poetry and short stories. By college, this had evolved into novel length writing, to go with short material.

I love the creative juices that seems to bring me to life when delving into a writing project. I embrace the challenge of developing plots, characters, conflict, and resolutions in my tales. It is like connecting the dots so every word counts in the scheme of things and you watch your own creation come to fruition, whether in weeks, months, or even years. The end nearly always justify the means if one is serious about the craft of writing and a finished product to be proud of.

The love of writing, of course, extends beyond sitting at my desk typing words on a computer, per se. It is pouring my heart and soul into each and every project with the goal of sharing the fruits of my labor with readers who can wholly appreciate and wish for more.

I have often wondered if I would feel the same had I lived in another time without the safety net of remuneration for my writing efforts that life affords me in the 21st century. Without being able to put it to the test, I feel confident that in whatever time I happened to live, I would happily write for the pure joy it brings me in putting my vivid imagination to work and lending that inner voice to others for their reading pleasure.

How about you--do you write primarily for the love of writing? Or are you motivated more by making money as a writer?

Would you be content if no one wanted to pay you to write, but many wanted to enjoy your writings nonetheless?

Writing Heals

There are books out there for every kind of ailment, disorder and difficult experience you can imagine. Books can bring us together by reminding us that we are not alone in our problems. Recently I attended an event that brought home the point that writing heals the writer, often even more than it helps the readers.

It was last Friday. A woman was reading excerpts from her soon-to-be-published book entitled "A Widow Should Not Talk". In this book, the author, a British citizen, discusses the rituals that she was expected to endure after her Ghanaian husband died. The rituals vary from tribe to tribe and in many parts of Ghana none are practiced at all. Where there are rituals, some are helpful, some just annoying and many are downright cruel. This woman was lucky enough to have the support of one of her in-laws and so she was able to avoid having her head shaved and her loins bound (to prevent her dead husband from returning to have his way with her) among other things.

One ritual that she could not avoid was that of confinement. She was required to remain at home 24-7 from the time of she was told of her husband's death until 40 days AFTER the burial. Keep in mind that in Ghana, the burial could be anywhere from a few weeks to several months even a year after the person's death. Before the burial, she spent many days from sun up to 6pm greeting well-wishers. She had to hear the story of her husband's horrible accident recounted to each new visitor. At 6pm, she was finally able to retire to her room.

When she retired to her room each night, she wrote about her experiences. This helped her to analyse, to understand and to heal. Remarkably, this was never her intention. She began writing because she felt that her words could help others in a similar situation. This act of looking outwards and forwards was possibly the most therapeutic of all.

Where Words Get Their Power

I’ve finally finished Peter Elbow’s Writing With Power, and I have to admit to being fairly disappointed. Elbow is almost a mythic figure among academics who write about writing, but I found much of the book to be rather vague and, often, contradictory. I also found, almost to an example, that Elbow’s selections of good and bad writing seemed exactly the opposite to me. However, there were some things I liked quite a lot and one of those was Elbow’s discussion about where words get their power. It was something I’d not really thought of before but it made perfect sense to me.

First, in writing, words get their power from the readers, not the writers. Elbow didn’t really stress this point but I believe that’s what he was saying. The word “tiger,” for example, only has power if the reader invests that power in it. But where exactly does the power that the reader invests come from? Here’s where Elbow made me think.

Basically, for Elbow, a word only has power in as much as it is able to evoke an image, experience, or thought about the thing the word represents. If the word “tiger” makes you see a tiger, hear its growl, and fear its hunger, then the word has power. I found myself agreeing absolutely, and this is actually what I’ve been trying to say on my own blog in my posts about “lushness” without being quite able to capture it.

But Elbow goes further, and he took me with him. He suggested that, for children, pretty much all words come imbued with power because of how they learn them.The child acquires the word “dog” from being shown a dog and playing with it. For the child, the “word” dog comes to evoke an image and experience of that particular animal every time it is used. The word itself has something of “dogness” about it. It’s as if the symbol has siphoned off some of the power of the real object. As we get older and more sophisticated, though, the word dog becomes a common rather than a unique experience, and the symbols of “d o g” become less and less about a particular dog and more about a general concept. Eventually, the word stops evoking images and experiences when we hear it, and it loses its power.

Elbow uses the example of curse words and taboo words to illustrate his concept. The word “shit” has power because many people still hear that word and react emotionally to it. It still represents, at least a little bit and for some of us, the material that it names. In a similar way, the word “God” has power for those who are believers. For such folks, the word is treated as if it has some element of “godness” within itself.

I remember very clearly as a child how I decided one day to say a particular curse word. I’d heard others curse and wanted to do it too. It took an intense effort of will to make myself say that word. I actually had to fight with myself to get it out, and once I’d said it I felt absolutely awful. What incredible power that word had for me at that moment. And yet, today, I use the word far too frequently and barely even notice when I do. It’s lost its power, at least for me. That word was “damn.”

I’ve known this truth of Elbow’s for a long time but I never knew how to put it into language. I remember perhaps 30 years ago hearing a rap song that seemed to consist almost entirely of the “F” word. I was angry, not so much at the use of the word, which I’d heard plenty of times, but at its “overuse.” My comment at the time was that songs like this were destroying the power of the word,that once the word came to serve as little more than punctuation it would become useless to writers. I was mad because they were taking away one more word of power from us writers and were just wasting it, like pumping gasoline on the ground or burning money.

The worst offenders these days are in politics, where it seems every minor disagreement between Democrats and Republicans has to be magnified to the point of “Warfare,” and where every opponent is a Nazi, or a Socialist, or an Atheist, or a Jesus Freak, or something else along those lines . All of us who use language, and that means all of us, have a vested interest in maintaining the effectiveness of the words we use. I, for one, am getting tired of the idiots trying to steal the power of my words. I’m rising up against them. I’m saying, right here and right now, leave my words the **** alone.

I am thankful for thanksgiving

It is Thanksgiving today. Not a holiday I imagined celebrating before arriving at the US shores. But since then I have embraced the holiday. Why? Besides the food and the drink, the party atmosphere (which of course I enjoy), I have a lot to be thankful for.

1. Family:

Every Thanksgiving my entire family gather at my oldest sister's house. My family does not only consist of my mother and her eight children and their kids and grandkids. There are cousins, and friends and yes, even acquaintances, and they are all family. It is a great time for me and my children. Being the seventh of eight kids, I have neices and nephews with children older than my kids. The gathering is noisy but happy and my kids are ecstatic. We play a noisy round of Taboo, Gestures, and Piggy (a weird noisy game with lots of table banging that I still don't understand). A year ago Piggy broke a table. It is also a time to reconnect with all my relatives.

2. Health

Inspite of everything, God has blessed me with relatively good health, and I am thankful for it. Even if I was sick, I would still be thankful for life. My mother is 80 years old, has every possible chronic ailment, but she is alive and is happy. That I'm thankful for. My two year old has multiple food allergies to anything I can possible feed her to help her gain weight and other feeding issues. Her doctors are worried because she is so underweight. Yet she is progressing like any normal two year old. For that I am thankful.

3. Occupation

I have two jobs that I really love. My day job for which I spent a whole lot of years preparing brings me joy and a sense of fulfillment. My second job, writing, which is my hobby and passion, has yielded two published novels with good reviews. And though Dorchester had originally stopped selling the paper backs, they are now making copies available. Even if I didn't sell one novel, I am still thankful to be a writer.

4. Yes the food

Even though the turkey hardly gets eaten, when my family gathers, the food is to die for. Dinner is done potluck style and finger licking good.

There are many more things that I am thankful for. Last night we drove four hours to my sister's house. We expected bumper to bumper traffic and endless tolls. Instead we got a straight shot with hardly any delays. Even sweeter, one of the toll bridges decided to suspend the toll to alleviate traffic congestion. Yes free tolls and clear traffic, what more can I ask for?

So we celebrate thanksgiving to give thanks to God for every blessing in life.

How do you celebrate thanksgiving? What are you thankful for?

More Darned Publishing Myths

One month ago I wrote about Those Darned Publishing Myths - the misconceptions with which most of us start out. Today we'll examine four more of what I call the publishing version of midwives' tales that can mislead writers in their quest for publishing success.

1. Publishers know best
Publishers may have better access to information about trends, but may not necessarily know more about your book and market than you do. They do not normally consult authors on marketing issues such as cover design, but that doesn't mean authors should refrain from speaking up and asserting themselves when they feel strongly about editorial and marketing decisions. Remember, you are the expert on your book, the person who's most passionately committed to it.
My experience: The editor and I discussed the changes she requested. Where I put forth a convincing case for leaving something as it was, she went along, and in other places she convinced me that the changes would make the book better. In some instances we arrived at compromises which satisfied us both.

2. I don’t need a literary agent
No matter how good a marketer you are, you need a literary agent to protect your interests when entering into a contract with a publisher. Many authors are so happy to sign a book contract that they don't realize until it's too late that, for example, they've signed away rights they should or could have kept. Agents know which clauses to look for in order to avoid pitfalls like having to submit future book proposals to the publisher of their original book without a specified time frame for acceptance or refusal, among other things.
My experience: Authors acting on their own tend to accept the publisher's first offer, whereas an agent can almost invariably negotiate a better deal for you. Mine did. I was also able to retain rights the publisher initially wanted included in the sale.

3. My book will sell itself
The chances of your book being 'discovered' in the bookstore and becoming a resounding success are slim to none. It's not the publisher's job to promote your book; it's yours. Research all the methods of marketing your book and work at it. Luckily, in these Internet times you can promote your book on a limited or nonexistent budget. Embrace the search engine: more and more readers turn to Google before going anywhere near their favourite bookstores. Blogs, websites, review exchanges, contests, interviews, social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, newsletters and cybertours are your friends.
My experience: The editor requested my marketing plan long before the book's publication date. I had already done the research and so I was ready. I'd started a writing blog one year ahead of the publication date in order to establish an Internet presence and to network with other writers, and had entered info about myself and the book in as many Internet directories as I could, among other things.

4. All my friends, family and acquaintances will buy the book.
Prepare to be shocked: total strangers are far more likely to buy your book than friends and family (who generally think they're entitled to free copies). And on the topic of free copies, yours should be given away freely for promotional purposes only. Friends and family (with the possible exception of parents) should buy theirs.
My experience: I gave away most of the author copies of my first book to family and friends then had to buy promo copies out of pocket. Now I know better.

I've been researching this industry for years and I continue to learn all the time. Knowledge is power in every sphere, and especially so in the world of publishing where so many potentially damaging assumptions abound.

—Liane Spicer