Uncategorized
“Paranormalcy” ARC Giveaway Contest at LTWF
Jul 20, 2010
I rarely (i.e. never) pass along contests here, but given that most of you already read Let The Words Flow anyway, I don’t think it’ll be tooooo big an annoyance. 😉 And if you AREN’T reading LTWF, you should be!
Anyway, they’re having a giveaway of the ARC of PARANORMALCY, a book I’ve been dying to read ever since I heard
So without further ado, here’s the contest. Good luck!
Now I can die happy!
Jul 16, 2010
Today The Rejectionist passed along a seeeerious time-waster, but as it’s probably not quite as much of a time-waster as the Wordle thing, I figure it’s safe to pass it on to you guys. Basically, you paste in a chunk of text (as with Wordle) and the program analyzes it and compares it to a bunch of authors and figures out who you write like. It is the MOST ACCURATE thing I have EVER SEEN, because look:
Apparently, THE IRON WOOD could have been written by Margaret Atwood! And look at this, when I input text from this blog, I get:
(Note: Okay, so maybe my blog isn’t exactly H.P. Lovecraft. And maybe that means the first one is not exactly accurate either. No, scratch that. It is TOTALLY ACCURATE. *clings with deathgrip to comparison to Margaret Atwood.)
What sorts of writers do you guys get?
Correspondence from the Front: Revision update
Jul 15, 2010
I’ve gotten off to a rather rocky start with my revision process. I suppose it’s only fair, because when I started writing the first draft I got through the first 30,000 words of it almost without a hitch–it’s about time I hit some speed bumps. Part of the problem has come from outside the writing sphere–I got the mother of all migraines this past weekend, landing me in the ER for treatment and then unable to look at a computer screen for more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time for a couple days. Mostly I’ve been rewriting the first chapter over and over, until I got to the point where I started feeling a bit like a broken record just skipping through the same words over and over again, stuck in that one groove.
Everything is better when it’s in rainbow!
Jul 07, 2010
I spent my weekend (and my birthday… and the two days since my birthday…) outlining my first draft of THE IRON WOOD. Granted, I have had some other things to do, like go out to dinner with my friends on my birthday, and attempt to go see the Tim Burton exhibit downtown today only to be turned away by the huuuuge line, and console ourselves with hot chocolate (such a terrible fate!). But mostly I have been outlining.
This is something I do not really do much of. I’ve always been a write-by-the-seat-of-my-pants person, and tend to rebel against outlining on principle. That said, I recently learned the post-it technique from my writing group back in the U.S., which is made up of Odyssey workshop grads. It was so helpful for the people who used it that I had to try it myself.
On kangaroos, markets, and Tim Tams.
Jul 03, 2010
It occurred to me this morning that while I’ve been talking endlessly about writing, my WIP, the publishing world, etc., I haven’t actually blogged yet about living in Australia, which is probably one of the more interesting things I could talk about. So here goes.
One of the reasons I haven’t really talked much about it is because for me, right now, it’s not all that different from living in the U.S. except that my family can’t turn up unexpectedly (which is both good and bad), and when I wake up in the morning there’s about a thousand unread tweets because most of the people I know live while I’m asleep (which is both good and bad). It’s winter here, which doesn’t mean much to those of us who are used to needing kitty litter, a ski lift, and a lot of hoping to get up our driveways in the winter. It doesn’t get that cold here, but it does get chilly, rainy, and windy, a combination which makes it rather unpleasant to be outside most days. So the weather is pretty conducive to huddling up indoors, and because I’ve been voluntarily huddling to finish my book, it’s been a pretty good arrangement.
Team Players
Jun 30, 2010
The other day I posted a comment on a blog that was seriously misinterpreted. It had the unfortunate timing of showing up right after another comment, so close in fact that I didn’t see the other comment before I posted–but coincidence made it possible to read criticism into my comment, because of its placement. I was mortified when the first commenter wrote back defending herself against this perceived attack, so I tracked her down and sent her an email explaining things. She turned out to be really nice and understanding, and not at all the kind of super-aware, oversensitive type I had been expecting, which got me thinking: what is it that prompts normal, healthy people to be so on guard for perceived attacks from all quarters?
And with a week to spare…
Jun 28, 2010
…I’ve finished the first draft of The Iron Wood!
I have to say I’m pretty excited and happy and all of those things. Yes, I cried when I finished, as I was pretty sure I would, but then I had cake and a block of chocolate and a cup of tea and I was all smiles.
I’ll have a longer post tomorrow or the day after, once I’ve figured out what to do next. During the rewriting and revision process, it doesn’t really seem appropriate to have the same 500 word/day metric, just because words per day doesn’t reflect the work I’m doing. Not everything will need complete rewriting–so how do I score revision? Anyway, I may end up doing a certain amount of time per day, I’m not really sure. For now I am taking the teensiest of breaks, and tonight I don’t care in the slightest about what I will do in the morning.
SO THERE.
Twists and Surprises
Jun 25, 2010
Well, the book is coming along, and I’m anticipating finishing the first draft long before my self-imposed deadline. Yeah, it’s as much a shock to me as to anyone else, trust me. But for some reason, the act of setting myself a public deadline (and opening myself up to judgment should I fail to meet it) seems to have lit an even bigger fire under me. I expect this tactic wouldn’t keep working if I used it all the time, but clearly it’s a good tool to pull out on special occasions.
Just a quick update on that, for those keeping track. Mostly I have questions for you! And these are for writers and readers alike, because I think sometimes we as writers tend to get our perceptions of books muddled by the fact that we’re so interested in studying craft. We start looking for the complex answers when sometimes it’s the simple ones, the ones we’d have picked if we weren’t so obsessive, that are the most helpful.
So what I want to hear from you about is the subject of plot twists, secrets, shockers, and tricks. I’m getting to the end of my own book, and there are a few twists and reveals that (if I’ve done it correctly) should come as a surprise to the reader. I think, though, that twists are really hard to write. Something you’ll see a lot of in magazine’s requirements for short story submissions is that they don’t want stories with trick endings or big twists. I think this is because they’re often done so poorly, with a lot of handwaving and blatant prose that is the equivalent of the author popping out of a corner with a big sign saying “GOTCHA!” You want to be thrilled and excited and shocked–not prompted to roll your eyes and groan, like you’ve just been handed a bad pun.
One of the things I learned at the Odyssey Workshop, which falls under the category of Things I Knew Instinctively But Couldn’t Articulate, was that endings should be surprising but inevitable. Meaning, the ending should not be easily predicted through the book, and still surprise the reader, but in hindsight the reader should be able to look back and see that all the clues were there, making the ending inevitable. It’s like a good murder mystery–you don’t really want to get there long before the detective does, but you don’t want to feel like the solution came out of nowhere.
Think back over the books you’ve read, either recently or in the long distant past, that had twists in them–which ones worked? Which ones didn’t? (Try to avoid major spoilers, just in case they’re books that other people haven’t read and might some day!) Did you feel betrayed by the author, or did you get that rush of “Oh my god, this is the BEST THING EVER!” that a good twist can give you? And why?
Writing as Work–and Love
Jun 21, 2010
I have a friend who is, I think, a good writer. I haven’t actually read anything she’s written because she’s a bit shy about sharing it, but she’s a fantastic editor, a terribly creative person, and she reads about ten times as much as I do, and so I’d put money on the assumption that she’s probably not half bad. She always says, though, that she’s not sure she’s interested in seeking publication, for fear that writing would become work, and therefore not as much fun.
I must admit I’ve had this fear once or twice (okay, so that’s an understatement). I love music, and when I was in grade school I couldn’t wait to join orchestra and play the viola. A year into it I was like “Ugh, this sucks,” and switched to the flute. A couple years after that I switched to the oboe. And a couple of years after that I quit entirely, because frankly, practicing enough to actually be halfway decent (and I’m too competitive not to do that) made me hate the instrument. In college I picked up the guitar, taught myself, and just play for myself, not for anyone else, and certainly not for a music teacher or band. And six years or so later, I still love it.
So when I embarked on the whole 500-1000 words/day promise to myself, I worried that at some point along the way I’d grow to hate writing, if I was forcing myself to do it. What eventually convinced me that I had to try it, though, was that I knew I could never be a professional author if I couldn’t make writing my job and still love it enough to do it every day. On the one hand, if I tried it and killed my love of writing, I would have killed my dream of becoming a successful novelist, and that particular failure is one of my greatest fears. And if I never tried it, I’d at least always have that dream, the potential to get serious one day. On the other hand, though, if I never buckled down, even if doing it meant realizing it wasn’t for me, I’d never actually realize the dream either.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, especially now that my daily minimum has gone from 500 words a day to somewhere around 2500 words a day (although the technical minimum is still 500 words a day, I have to write a lot more than that on average to finish the book by my July 5th deadline). It’s quite definitely work now, forcing myself to sit down and write when I could be walking to the beach, going downtown to see the sights of Melbourne, hanging out with my friends here that I see so rarely when I’m living in the U.S.
So, just a little over three months from the day I started this 500 words/day commitment, has my love of writing changed?
Yes. Hands down. I don’t think it’s possible for it not to have changed. But at the risk of sounding like a total liar, I think my love of writing has actually grown stronger. It’s a different kind of love, though. It’s a much more complicated love. I think my love of writing used to be the daydreamy, crushy love you get in high school, or you get on characters in books or TV, where you sigh and fantasize about the day you’ll become an author (or marry Mr. Darcy as the case may be), and your ups and downs are all about whether your crush smiled at you or not (or if your mom/best friend/internet people liked your latest chapter). Now, if I’m allowed to sound completely pretentious, I think my love of writing is like the love of a long-term couple. Yeah, you fight now and then (and some days you have to cry and sweat just to get to 500 words), but mostly you work hard at the relationship, every day, and it becomes stronger for it. It’s not a fantasy, and it’s not always awesome, and in fact sometimes it’s downright horrendous. But it’s there, every day, and as long as you keep working on it, it’ll always be there.
So yeah, doing it every day has definitely changed my relationship with writing. But it’s been a change for the better. And now I know I can do it, which is better than the tenuous soap bubble of a high school crush any day.
Okay, no more metaphors for me. What about you guys? I know a couple of you have been doing daily writing goals too–has it changed the way you write, or feel about writing? And even if you haven’t, I’d love to hear about any forays into making writing a job, or the fear that keeps you from it, or the choices, good or bad, that you’ve made in relation to professional writing.
Commitment–and an excerpt.
Jun 17, 2010
I’m nearing the end of my book–I’m currently at approximately 75,000 words, and I forsee maybe another 30,000 words to go. It’s not quite close enough to make a mad, sprinting dash for the finish line, but that’s not really what I want to do anyway. Although I always was a sprinter rather than a distance runner, in this case I think consistency and a steady pace are going to be what sees me through.
That said, I’m close enough to set myself a deadline. So that’s what I’m doing, here in public so everyone can see, and therefore can hold me accountable if I don’t manage it.
So: By my birthday, July 5th, I’ll have this first draft completed. That’s a promise. Please judge me and hate me and all-of-my-irrational-fears-of-failure me if I don’t hold up my end.
To pass the time until then (even though it is no longer Teaser Tuesday) I’ll post another excerpt. I had so much fun with the last one, but it was such a brief, superficial moment in the book. It was really the first serious danger Lark encounters outside the Wall, and its purpose is mostly to show her just what she’s let herself in for, and that nothing–absolutely NOTHING–can be trusted in this new world.
This scene comes from a somewhat more character-driven part of the book. Lark has joined company with a young man named Oren, so far the only person she’s encountered who hasn’t been twisted into a monster by the magical vacuum and storms ravaging the wilderness. He’s unused to company and terse to the point of rudeness, but he knows how to find food and water, how stay ahead of the monsters, and when to seek shelter.
Lark has been struggling with fairly significant agoraphobia ever since setting foot outside the Wall. She grew up never having seen the sky, and now finds it overwhelming. Though she’s made significant progress over the past two weeks since her escape, the wilderness still has a few tricks up its sleeve.
We were maybe half an hour out from the start of the forest when the rain began.