Category: Musings

Happy New Year, again! So it’s January 10^th and I’m a bit late in waxing poetic about reflections and resolutions. As an overly analytical introvert I needed the extra time.

Overall in 2014 I believe my writing continued to get stronger and I learned a lot about my overall writing process. I had some more successes which always is good to keep myself motivated. Being around a group of highly motivated and successful writers also does wonder for motivation. Below are just a few of the highlights for me in 2014.

Number of Stories Accepted for Publication: In 2013, I was fortunate enough to be published for not only the first time but a second time, too. I didn’t have a set goal for 2014 other than I hoped to have at least one story accepted for publication. It was quite a delight to have three stories, one of which is actually coming out in an anthology on February 1^st, be accepted. It helped that I submitted to more places both print and online so in theory that upped my chances someone, somewhere would find one of my stories worthy.

Writing Process: Late in the year I realized something quite monumental. It was in regards to my writing process. Instead of trying to write a novel the same way I write a short story, from point A to point B in a linear fashion, it works better for me, and makes more sense, to write it out of order. When a story enters my mind I don’t think of it in order; sometimes it’s the end I think of first, or loads of scenes for the beginning and middle dance around in my brain. Why shouldn’t I write the rough draft like that? If I feel like working on the ending for a day or two or however long it takes me, then I should do that. If tomorrow I want to work on the beginning, then I should.

Another component of my writing process I’ve worked on is utilizing index cards. For my current WIP (work in progress), I brainstormed scene ideas, anything that came to mind. I then put those onto index cards, and as noted in the previous paragraph, whatever I feel like working on a particular day I use those index cards to guide that process. This prevents me from getting stuck as I have those quick reminders of what plans I had for the story. This doesn’t mean I always follow what’s on the index card. There have been quite a few instances where I’ve deviated quite a bit from the so-called plan. The index cards also give me a flexibility to chuck ideas or to add ideas.

During 2014 I discovered that it is the rough draft part of writing that I enjoy the least. Trying to get that jumbled rubber band ball of ideas down onto paper is what frustrates me the most. I can see it all so clearly in my head but when I try to translate that onto paper, it comes out like crap. It’s this stage where the evil writing gremlins come out and cause me to second guess everything. If I can get pass that stage, I feel much, much better. I truly enjoy revising as it gives me an opportunity to clean the crap up.

Getting to Know Scrivener: I took advantage of the discount offered for ‘winning’ 2013 NaNoWriMo to purchase Scrivener which is software that allows a writer of anything to keep track of their projects. You can store virtually anything using the software: your manuscript, research, notes, pictures, videos, audio, whatever. At first I didn’t like it. It is more robust then I had anticipated and their tutorial, which they said would take about two to three hours to go through, just overwhelmed me.

Then I found a link to a free webinar which went over in an hour a lot of the basics I struggled with. I became excited to use the software and began transferring all the various files I had stored in multiple areas into Scrivener which made it easier for me to access. I’ve also started creating folders for future projects and any research or pictures that seem appropriate.

One thing I haven’t quite used Scrivener for is its word processing capabilities. I’m still using Word but one of my goals for 2015 is to use Scrivener’s work processing function for my novel.

Overall Quality of Work: While I find myself not as productive as I think I should be, most likely a highly unrealistic expectation, at this stage I nevertheless have seen a real improvement in quality of my work. That doesn’t mean everything I wrote or tried to write worked, some pieces just flat out failed, but that I believe I’m getting more comfortable with my writing.

I’m still not sure what my author’s voice is but it’s not something I’m actively working on trying to figure out. I truly believe it is way more important to be honest to the voice of the characters and story rather than determining my style. I’m also still struggling with figuring out what the right balance is. By that I mean the balance between descriptions of setting, showing not telling (although at times telling is acceptable), and feeling like I hold back at time. Being in a critique group has helped because as I read other writer’s pieces to determine what works or doesn’t work for me as a reader, it draws awareness to what I’d like to do or steer clear of in my own work.

Now for a few of my writing goals I want to work on in 2015. I refuse to use the term resolution just because that to me just always has such a temporary feel. Each year it is always my goal to continue to educate myself in all aspects of writing to the craft portion to the business side. I try to achieve this through a variety of avenues including articles, attending conferences and workshops, talking with other writers informally, and watching videos. Below are the goals I have in addition to the standard goal of keep improving and learning.

Work in Progress: I want to finish the rough draft of my WIP that I started in November. I’m targeting the end of January then letting it sit for about three months before starting the first revision process. I don’t have a target set yet for when I wish to complete that first revision process but it wouldn’t surprise me if it took me at least six months or more.

Increasing Efficiency: For Christmas I asked for and received an electronic pen. It is my hope that with this specially designed pen, which writes in ink on special paper, I’ll be able to save myself a step in my writing process. Instead of me typing up my handwritten work, this pen and special software are designed to automatically convert my handwriting into text. This would save me several hours each week and I’m gleefully keeping my fingers cross it is just what I need.

Submitting Work: It is my hope for 2015 that I will have four or more stories accepted for publication. This means I need to continue to seek out more opportunities as well as compose new short stories. I’ve been feverishly searching the internet for the most appropriate avenues for my work. Hopefully I’ll be able to get paid a bit more often for my work as well.

Increase Focus on Historical Fiction: I want to focus more on this since it is the genre I love the most yet it seems to almost be the red-headed stepchild or something of publishing. It’s not one talked a lot about in writing circles. It’s difficult to find places that publish historical fiction short stories which is why I haven’t written too many. It’s hard to find writing advice geared specifically toward some of the unique challenges in historical fiction. It’s also a genre that doesn’t get much love eBook wise. Maybe because quite a few historical fiction novels tend to be quite lengthy and longer tends to not translate too well to people’s e-readers, tablets, and phones.

I’m going to read more historical fiction novels, gotta get over that jealousy and fear of not being good enough to write in it someday, and really focus in on what is going within the genre.

Conferences, workshops, and book festivals: One of the most pleasant revelations to me this past year was learning about, after the fact of course, all the different book festivals close to where I live. I want to attend at least a couple of these this year as well as keeping my eyes out for conferences and workshops, hopefully local, which will help further my education.

 

In conclusion, I hope 2015 is as good year for me professionally as the previous couple of years. And I hope that everyone has a wonderful 2015 and you achieve as many of your goals as you can.

Last week I picked my least favorite books read in 2014. In an effort to end the year on a positive note this week I list the books I thoroughly enjoyed reading. These books tickled me as a reader, but as a writer they made me envious (in a good way) as well as showed me what is possible with the written word.

In no particular order, here at the books which were absolute joys to read this year.

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank: Shockingly enough I had never read this book before. It was never assigned reading and I wish it had been. I’m glad I finally made time to read it because it is a book everyone really should read at least once in their life.

What struck me most about the story was just how somewhat normal her life was before and during her time hiding in an attic. Anne was a normal girl expressing how much she didn’t get along with her mother and sister, how much she adored her father although a gulf eventually developed between them as Anne got older, and boys she liked or boys who liked her but she wasn’t interested in.

Another thing I found interesting was her optimism and philosophy regarding life. Yes, times were incredibly rough, scary, and worrisome but even when the writing was on the wall, she was still optimistic. She still dreamed of what she would be when she became an adult. Anne Frank talked about not wanting to have the kind of life typically expected of females back then. She aspired to be a writer (I daresay she probably would have been a great one) and travel. It also floored me how mature she was yet still discussed moments of pure childish behavior. I certainly wasn’t anywhere near that level of thinking when I was her age.

I’m glad her father allowed it to be published with very few passages excised. He very well could have censored Anne Frank’s thoughts about her mother and sister, her thoughts about her own changing body, the crushes she had, etc. but he left those in to show the world how normal his daughter was.

Whistling Past the Graveyard by Susan Crandall: I don’t know how she did this but Ms. Crandall managed to make a story told in first person by nine-year-old girl living in Mississippi in the ’60s incredibly powerful. The author very well could have made her main character, Starla, very precocious and wise beyond her years but she doesn’t. She can be annoying which is fine because that’s how a stubborn nine-year-old would legitimately act. She doesn’t understand a lot about the world but she recognizes injustice when she sees it. It frustrates her that her solutions to problems won’t work as she struggles to understand why.

Most of the year Starla is by her grandmother while her father works on oil rigs down in the Gulf of Mexico. Her grandmother makes no secret about her resentment and hatred of Starla’s mother and takes it out on her granddaughter. Eventually Starla runs away, hoping to get to Nashville to live with her mother who went there trying to break into the music industry. Very soon, though, a rural black woman, Eula, who has taken a white child she saw abandoned on the church’s door step, picks up Starla. Through a series of very harrowing circumstances, Eula, Starla, and the baby have to flee.

This book was very difficult to read because throughout I was really hoping things would get better. Just as it seemed Starla and Eula had found kind people, something would happen which forced them to run again. The character of Eula broke my heart. She’s one of those people in life who is so sweet and good but, for whatever reason, life literally beats her down constantly. You really root for her to have a happy ending because she so richly deserves it. If she were a real person I’d like to give her a hug. Far and away she was my favorite character in the book.

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut: My spouse is a big Vonnegut fan, especially of this book. The book bounces back and forth in time between the ’60s and early portions of Billy Pilgrim’s life, mainly focusing on Billy’s experience in WWII. Billy comes to believe he’s been abducted throughout his life by aliens and for some reason relives certain moments. It’s really difficult to explain the book other than it is both an anti-war novel (rare to read one against WWII) with humor and a sci-fi novel.

It is a quick read yet the structure and style of the book requires the reader to pay attention. Definitely a novel that needs to be read more than once as it is very easy to miss things. Honestly, the best way I can explain the book is just pick it up and read it.

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole: Apparently this was the year I wound up reading a few absurdist books. Set in 1960s New Orleans the book is a riot.

The main character, Ignatius J. Reilly, is utterly unlikeable yet that doesn’t prevent the book from being unlikeable. Reilly, who has a Master’s degree, is lazy and pretentious slob who complains about living with his mother yet has no desire to actually move out despite numerous threats to. He is forced to find a job to pay off legal fees incurred during an incident involving a car accident. Naturally he hates his job and causes all kinds of destruction whenever he goes. He really is a hurricane.

I couldn’t help but think had Reilly applied his intellect, and he is legitimately smart and well-spoken, to the real world, he could have been a success in life. And his mother wouldn’t have to hide wine bottles in the oven. And a bird wouldn’t have attacked Ignatius.

The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson: Incredibly imaginative and magical, the book is a very quick read. It’s a fantasy novel revolving Shai, a thief with an incredible magical ability to be able to rewrite the history, or soul, of any object using stamps she creates.

The Emperor has been murdered by a rival group and is being kept alive until Shai can create a set of soul stamps. With the soul stamps, it is hoped the Emperor can be brought back to life to continue to rule. However, Shai doesn’t have much time to create these soul stamps. In order to create a soul stamp, something which is very much illegal, she must learn absolutely everything about the Emperor’s life in order to produce a perfect replica so she’s under a huge amount of pressure to learn every minute detail of a stranger while at the same time making sure the stamps she does produce of his soul will work.

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon: I have not seen the Starz series based on the books and have only read the first book in the series. It combines elements that in theory, shouldn’t work but they do. It’s an epic time-travel, historical fiction, and romance novel. Again, on paper that sounds like the ingredients for a hot mess of a story but it is far from it because Gabaldon has such well-developed characters, a great understanding of the setting (it’s set in Scotland yet the author is an American living in Arizona), and wonderful dialogue that you can’t help but fall into this world.

Claire is our main character. The story opens up with her and her husband enjoying a second honeymoon in Scotland shortly after the end of WWII. Throughout most of their marriage they have been a part as her husband was fighting and she worked as a nurse. With the end of the war, they are finally able to focus their attention on their marriage. But, one day Claire is out gathering plants, she love botany, steps through a circle of stones and is thrown back to 1743 Scotland. It’s the same place she was in but a different time period which happens to coincide with when her husband Frank’s look alike relative was terrorizing the Scottish countryside.

Claire is kidnapped by a Scottish clan and has to convince them she’s not an English spy. Eventually she falls in love with a local man, whom she is told she has to marry if she wants to stay protected.

Throughout most of the book she patiently waits for her moment to find the circle of stones she passed through in order to hopefully get back to the correct time. The whole time no one knows because who would believe her?

Again, this sounds utterly ludicrous but honestly, you just have to read the book to realize it works. I can’t wait to read the other books in the series because I’d love to know how Gabaldon has stretched this out to 8 large books.

The Martian by Andy Weir: This was a book club selection and one I was disappointed I couldn’t attend the meeting for because this book was just awesome. I don’t read hard sci-fi because my brain isn’t meant to handle hardcore physics, chemistry, math, and biology discussions. This book, though, is written in such a way it makes it very accessible to even us Liberal Arts majors.

Mark Watney is stranded on Mars due to an accident in which the crew he was a part of had to evacuate the planet thus leaving him behind. This isn’t man’s first trip to Mars and in fact Mark was part of the third group to explore and briefly live on Mars. It’s an incredible survival story as Mark has to figure out how to stay alive until the next group of astronauts can come get him. Unfortunately, that would be several years so everyone at NASA feverishly works for over a year to find a way to get Mark back.

The story is mostly told through Mark’s Sol (journal) entries as he catalogs his survival journey. He is sarcastic and funny which is his way of dealing with the stress of the situation. Life on Mars isn’t easy for him as he suffers a number of setbacks, a couple of harrowing ones, but always gets himself out of a jam using his enormous resolve.

I loved how Mark interacted with other people when he was able to devise a communications system. I loved how he grumbled about how much he hates potatoes, the 1970s TV shows and disco music his commander brought with her for the trip, and the overthinking NASA was doing on the ground. He does express fear and loneliness which further fuels his enormous drive to get off of Mars or die a glorious death trying.

That’s it. My favorite books I read in 2014. I’m glad the list was longer than the stinkers were. Shows I have good taste in books. As you can see, it didn’t matter much to me what genre these books come from; they all shared the things I look for most in a good read. Great, relatable characters, exceptional dialogue, and a wonderful ability to take the reader anywhere in the world. Inspiration for my own writing.