Monday, October 29, 2012

NaNoWriMo Prep and Fun with Scrivener

Since breaking 50K words a few nights ago I haven't made incredible progress on my writing itself.  I'm sitting at 50,763 on this Revision and I'm OK with that.

I spent the last day and a half grabbing and learning Scrivener (I grabbed the demo), which I think I'm in love with.  I work in a field that deals with media content and metadata management every day, it's kinda my thing professionally speaking. Scrivener, besides its really awesome formatting gizmos, and organizational whiz-bangs, has a completely amazing metadata system.

So while I've only pushed another ~700 or so words into the draft itself, I've probably entered about 3-4K words worth of metadata into this thing.  To top it all, I've already learned how to use that metadata in Scrivener to bounce around and assist with keeping consistency.

I'm not saying my draft is going to be perfect, there's still going to be a LOT of revision after finishing this writing pass.  But all this metadata and tool set is certainly going to make it better than it would be without.

I'll be taking Wednesday off of writing (officially, it's Hallowe'en, I'll still probably write).  You see, NaNoWriMo is 2 days away.  Starting Thursday and on through the entire month of November I have to write ~1,667 words a day to meet a quota that will put me at 50,000 words written in the month.  That's the goal of NaNo, I won it last year, I intend to do so again this year.

I generally write every day, even if it's just for half an hour.  In November, thanks to NaNo, everyone around me that knows me well enough is pretty good about giving me my peace and quiet in the evening so I can write. 50K words is definitely achievable this year, especially since my outline is more mature and ready to rock.

I do have one caveat about NaNo, the quality of my writing does suffer.  Last year I wrote 50K words in 29 days and it felt awesome.  It was on the same book that I'm working on now and from that 50K of prose a grand total of ~5,000 words have survived to this draft.  That's 10% folks.  Considerably less than I would have written if I hadn't done NaNo and had just continued at my normal pace of ~8-9K a week.

Now, having said that, NaNo also gave me my first real win as an aspiring writer. It helped convince me I could actually do this. Last year's NaNo was the first time I had ever "written a book" from "Chapter 1" to "The End".  Granted, the words "Chapter 1" and "The End" haven't even survived into this draft, and the "book" had almost nothing worth salvaging for this revision, but that's OK. It was the kick in the pants and the wind in my sails that I needed to move forward with this.

I'm a firm believer that in order to become a better writer I need to do two things consistently:

  1. Write, every day, consistently and well.  NaNo helped me do the first 2.
  2. Read, with a critical eye, and not just within my genre comfort zones.
Since I love to do both I should keep improving, and even if NaNo doesn't produce gold for me, it does make me better at the craft just by making me do more of it.

I'm looking forward to it.  If you're participating and want to buddy me my profile is right here.

- Grimm

P.S. And now for something completely different.  Jean M. Malone on Twitter pointed me in the direction of the Scrivener demo (Thank you!) and separately asked for the recipe to my Homemade Protein Bars.  I'm putting that in after a page break.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

And then some.

It's the Saturday before Hallowe'en, time for parties and costumes and mistakenly bedding the wrong kangaroo costume clad spouse at drunken parties.  Good thing I don't drink or go to parties, and my wife doesn't dress as a kangaroo (most of the time).

What did I do on the Saturday evening before Hallowe'en?  I bashed out enough words to put this draft of BookB at 50,000 words.  That's right, I sat in a chair at my kitchen table and played pretend in my head with my fingers flying across the well worn keyboard of my MacBook.

I did it to music of course.  Not the music you'd traditionally get at a Hallowe'en party, tonight it was Radiohead's In Rainbows, which I bought during their blitz "pay what you want" sale for $8.  It did roll over into Kid A at some point, but I was too engrossed in my own little world to notice.

Speaking of Hallowe'en, or better still All Hallow's Read, check out yesterday's blog post for links and information on getting a free audiobook written and narrated by Neil Gaiman while supporting charity.

I've been thinking a lot about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), and religiously following Kevin J Anderson's blog for great tips for any writer, even if they aren't participating in NaNo.  The goal for NaNo is to write 50,000 words in the month of November, a worthy goal for any writer who holds down a day job.

They classify 50K words as a novel, and at ~200 manuscript pages (205 with my style setup) I suppose it is.  But having hit that mark a few times now I'm not sure I could fit this novel into such a tight constraint.  Granted, the outline sits around 19,000 words, but I'm a heavy outliner.  I'm shooting for just shy of 100,000 words, and looking at my outline versus what I've written, that's about spot on.

For those of you who follow my blog, or who have randomly jumped around and read that I've just entered the Third Act of the draft, you might wonder how I could possibly only be at 50K words.  Well, fear not my friends (and potential enemies looking for weaknesses via my blog), I have a fair number of chapters that still need to be written further back in the draft, and a good number of small re-writes to do.

If you recall (or care to search), I re-jigged the entire outline and dropped a number of viewpoint characters to rein in the story to something a little more manageable and character focused.  I'm still on track to finish the draft by the end of the year, and if I succeed for the second straight year in NaNoWriMo, possibly by the end of November.  Tack on a few months for edits and polish and I could be submitting by February.

Then again, I could be working on the next revision to clean up any major holes I leave this time :)

We'll see soon enough.  Either way, I intend to enjoy the ride more than any possible accidental and mistaken pseudo-marsupial encounters I could be having.

- Grimm

P.S. Kat Ellis retweeted my Blog update announcement on Twitter (cause that's where you retweet things) and my readership for last night's blog post tripled!  For any of you who stick around, it's good to have you.  There will be free explosions for words for all.

All Hallow's Read and The End of a Different Story

For those of you not following along, All Hallow's Read is a tradition started by the amazing Neil Gaiman.  The premise is quite simple: The week of Hallowe'en or the night itself, you give someone a scary story.  It can be a book, a short story, or even just a story you tell them.  I think it's a wonderful idea, and I intend to celebrate this tradition, not only this year, but every year going forward.

Now, having only learned about it this year, I don't have a story of my own to give.  I have every intention of writing something in time for next year, you'll see it here on my blog when it's time.  This year however, I'm jumping right on Neil Gaiman's bandwagon and sharing his story.

You see, he's set up a charity fundraiser with Audible.com.  He's written and narrated a story called Click-Clack the Rattlebag which you can download for FREE by going to http://www.audible.com/ScareUs (or http://www.audible.co.uk/ScareUs if you're on the other side of the pond) and for every download money get's donated to a charity.

I've downloaded the story and it's fantastic.  It's only 10 minutes long, but in his magical way, Mr. Gaiman (can I call him Mr. Gaiman? It seems so presumptuous) has crafted something that actually gave me chills.  Simply put: Go get it!

As for my own writing, aside from going off on a tangent today and tracking down the Scrivener free trial, which I haven't yet started to use, I did actually get some writing done.

I put together a fairly strong chapter, and dropped a short bit of exposition, about three paragraphs, into an earlier chapter. I needed to fill in a small piece of mythology where it made sense to do so.  I may find somewhere better to put it, or a less expository method of weaving it into the story when I do my next editing pass, or the one after that, but it's good where it is for now.

I'm trying harder and harder to stop myself from going back and editing my previous chapters while I'm still not finished this revision.  Now that I'm onto the completely new rewrite of the Third Act I have to keep my writing hat on and leave the editing hat on its peg.  It's even more critical that I keep my forward momentum as I head into November and NaNoWriMo.

If you want to add me as a writing buddy, I'm using the username RedAntisocial, go right ahead put me on your list :)

On the personal side, I took another big step today.  The World of Warcraft account I've mentioned a few times was completely and officially cancelled today.  I haven't played since around March, only logging in once in a blue moon.  So today I logged in, handed off guild leadership to a trusted guild member who actually plays, and passed a bunch of gold and materials to my wife and the guild bank.  Then I signed out of the characters that I've spent so much time playing and closed the account.

I'm proud of doing that.  At the same time, I'm humbled a bit that such a simple and straightforward action made me proud.  I don't regret the time I spent playing the game.  I could have been writing, but at the same time, the people I played with are fantastic people.

We went through not only in-game stuff together, and the ups and downs of guild drama, but we went through real life stuff together too.  People getting together, getting married, having kids or people breaking up.  People going through the ups and downs of life, getting promotions and losing jobs.  Changing lifestyles and getting healthier, and in the case of one friend, losing a long battle with illness and passing away.

You can't go through all that with people, even if it is only their voice, or text, or photographs, and not feel connected to them.  It's a chapter of my life that's over, and I'm happy to have moved on, but I certainly don't regret it.  I hope I can keep in touch with as many of them as possible.  I've met very few of them in person, but I still consider many of them good friends.

If anyone reading my blog was in Dreamers on Alleria, thank you for the wonderful time.

- Grimm

P.S.  I definitely have a bad habit of double spacing after a period.  It's come to my attention multiple times that it IS a bad habit and I keep meaning to break it, but I haven't managed to yet.  Someday maybe.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

7 words (more or less)

No, not those words.  Besides, Carlin's list is outdated. Now you can say most of them on television.

NaNoWriMo is on the horizon, and I'm getting in good shape for it. 1910 words written tonight.

I finished off a chapter I left off on last night, leaving me a scant 7 words short of 45K.  Oh sure, I could have pushed out 7 more words, but that would have given me a perfectly even number, and that always looks fishy.

All my writing tonight was from a new viewpoint.  It was interesting to get into the head space of a character unlike any of the others I've written in this book.

I suppose that doesn't say much, but seeing as I have a single viewpoint except for the odd vignette chapter it was a good exercise.  I can't give away much more without big massive spoilers.  I've come to understand that you don't spoil best selling books on your blog, it makes people cranky and they let you know in the comments. :P

Exploring new characters is one of the reasons I started writing when I was a kid.   They let me be something, someone that I wasn't, and to go places that were too fantastic or simply too far away to visit for real as a child.  Basically the same reason most people read, watch TV, and play video games.

I was also the geeky know-it-all in school. That bespectacled kid that annoyed other students and eventually teachers once it wasn't "cute" any more (I know, shocking right?).

It's a bit of "chicken vs. egg" when it comes to whether I read a lot and became an ostracized know-it-all from what I'd read, or whether I read so much because I'd been ostracized for being a know-it-all.  Either way, I've loved to read and have been a voracious reader for as long as I can recall.  When I'd read through everything we had as a child and couldn't get my hands on something new to read fast enough I'd write.

I needed to write tonight with some of the car/people trouble I've had this past week coming to a head.  Needless to say I've learned that doing the right thing and being a decent human being doesn't guarantee that you will receive the same in return.  Of course, I'll likely just continue right on doing the right thing and being decent.  It's a fault I suppose, a lapse in my ability to adapt and adjust.

Actually, I'm finding that writing is one of my best escapes of late, it's my peace and quiet (with loud music), and I think it's a healthy hobby.

See, I used to play video games pretty heavily.  MMOs. Primarily World of Warcraft, which I played excessively from Beta (early 2004) to last November (almost 8 years!).

That's when NaNoWriMo and my strong desire to get off my butt and actually DO this writing thing instead of just talking about it and throwing around "big plot ideas" helped me kick the habit.

I still game, I've played through Mass Effect 3 most recently, and Diablo 3 and I'm looking forward to Assassin's Creed 3 (which I will have to wait to play).  I don't think gaming is evil or reprehensible, or unhealthy (when done in moderation, like all things).  I simply don't let it take my writing time.  I'm less grumpy when I write, and tonight that's exactly what I needed.

I want to be a professional, published writer.  Like many other aspiring writers I want to see my name on the jacket of a book in a bookstore, and to know that someone out there actually READS these stories I want to tell.  That takes a lot of work, which I'm more than prepared to put in.

So I leave you, my faithful readers with the best piece of writing advice I've ever heard:

"Don't talk about it; write" - Ray Bradbury

I'm doing my best Ray. Though I am guilty of blogging about it, which technically isn't talking about it, I hope he'll forgive me.

- Grimm

P.S. #HLandS is rocking Round 3 over at Kat Ellis' Blog (YA), Dee's Blog (MG), and Fizzygrrl's Blog (Adult) where some of the submissions have already received Agent Requests!  I'm absolutely loving it and wishing my Draft was in a ready state to participate.

Monday, October 22, 2012

A nice day for writing.

Ah, I got to sleep in today, which was nice.

We dropped the kids off at my in-laws last night and went to see Seven Psychopaths. It was a fantastic movie and made #2 on my Movie List for the year.  If you saw and liked In Bruges (and you really really should), then you'll love Seven Psychopaths.  Conversely, if you've seen Seven Psychopaths and liked it, check out In Bruges.  Colin Ferrel plays a screenwriter suffering from writers block, and the character is written and acted superbly.

After the kids got home we went to hockey practice, where I backed my car into someone's van and left a note.  They seemed reasonably pleasant when they called me, hopefully it doesn't cost a small fortune to repaint a bumper.  Still, there was no screaming or swearing on the phone.

I spent my first hour of writing time helping my oldest daughter with homework (computer problems were slowing her down), then sent her off to bed.

Needless to say, when I sat down to write with my cup of tea it was nice and relaxing and exactly what I needed.  I've written just over 3000 words in 2 hours.

Tonight I pushed this draft into the Third Act, crossing that barrier in the space of roughly a chapter and a half where my protagonist goes from constantly reacting to the world around him to being proactive.  It'll need some cleaning for sure, but I think I've pulled it off convincingly where character motivation is concerned.

Hook Line and Sinker enters into its Third Round tomorrow morning, I can't wait to see how the YA section goes.  I've been following it closely and it's getting down to the most thrilling part (for me anyway).  I hope to see some fantastic "I found an Agent through #HLandS" stories in the coming weeks.  I always love to read those.  It gives me hope.

Well, it's past midnight here, and I have to commute to work in the morning, so I should trundle off to bed. Yes, I trundle when I'm tired.

- Grimm

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Draft Progress and... Destilting?

I'm going to keep this blog entry short, as I'm completely bagged and need to get to bed.

I mentioned in my last blog entry that I was moving to a single Main Viewpoint Character, and that I was going to have to drop a few sub-plots.

There was one particular subplot that I really wanted to keep, as it punches up the story and really adds a level of individual conflict for a particular important character.  I think I've found a way to bring that back in and hopefully make it fantastic.  We'll see.

I know one area I'm going to have to do extensive work on after this draft is polishing my dialog.  The chapter I'm working on currently is pretty dialog heavy and I'm trying to keep it tight, but I know some of it is going to look like a train wreck in a day or two.  I don't think it's horrible, but it could certainly use sprucing up and "destilting" (despite spellcheck that is a real word, Google it).  I intend to finish this pass on the draft and use the age-old method of reading it aloud to see where it goes off the rails.

I'm nearly back up to 40K words after reworking my outline and slashing and burning a few chapters worth of material.  I still have a LOT of editing to do to the chapters that are there to clean up the story and get it all on the new track.  It'll be worth every silent little scream.

I'm setting a deadline for this draft to be done in late December or (paying job workload dependant) early January.  Then I'll do some cleanup and get it out to my Alpha Readers as a more complete book.

That's all for tonight.

- Grimm

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Full Steam Ahead (and Sideways)

I slept poorly last night and it's my own damned fault.

I can't get over how much anxiety I've felt over my word count being so out of line with my goal.  I kept trying to think of solutions and items I could edit out to make the story cleaner and stronger.  Those of you who follow me on Twitter might have seen a tweet by me earlier stating that I'd found a solution and so far it's working.

I'm cutting my book to a single Viewpoint Character.  Not altogether mind you, there will still be a few short stints in other viewpoints, and it's still going to be Third Person Limited.  My target for this book is Young Adult, a category of books where a single viewpoint isn't only a regular occurrence, it's actually the norm.  So that's a big load off my chest.  Of course, it means I have a lot of work to do on this revision as I have a number of scenes where I've switched viewpoints.

What I've done to start is go back to my outline and give myself a budget.  My average chapter length is ~2000 words, some are as much as 3000, a few (the rare exception) are as short as 1000, so that gives me about 50 chapters to work with.

I took the major beats of the story and set them out, then I placed important plot points in between, trying to keep things relatively evenly spaced for pacing and progression.  A few plot points are being juggled, one of the sub-plots is being dropped altogether, and I'm still trying to find ways to work in an important plot thread that primarily followed one of my other characters.  It's not integral to this particular book, so it may get shifted to a second book.

All that said, my word count tonight actually slips back about 3K words, even though I wrote somewhere close to 3000 tonight filling some of the earlier gaps.

The next few nights I'm going to divide my focus, editing one of the earlier chapters to fit the new single viewpoint and tightened plot, and writing out one new chapter to keep the story moving forward.

This approach should help make the next revision pass a little faster, and help bring more depth and clarity to my main viewpoint character and their relationships with those around them as I can no longer rely on those characters to pull their weight.  It should also help me sleep better at night (I hope).

I'll keep you all posted.

- Grimm

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Viewpoint Characters and Word Count Worries

First, 40K words on this Revision!  Not bad, 2K words tonight (2093 actually), not a bad little writing stint once my littlest was bathed and in bed.

On the subject of Viewpoint Characters:
First, for those of you not familiar with the term (i.e. the few people who follow this blog because they have the good fortune to know me and bask in my presence regularly, but aren't necessarily writers or of "the craft") a Viewpoint Character is someone inside the story the writer uses to tell the story directly.  They're generally the only people in the story you get inside the head of, the people who give a story its voice and feel.

In the first person perspective, it's the narrator.  In third person limited (which I'm writing this book in) it's a select group of characters.  The VCs are generally the characters you get to know best (if the writer is doing their job), and you either love them or hate them.  If a writer really does their job, you name your children after them.

My book currently has 3 main viewpoint characters, and yesterday, while preparing to have my family over for a late Thanksgiving (for Canada), I had the crazy idea to pare it down to 2 VCs, turning one of them into a secondary character (mostly for Word Count worries).  Looking at my Outline today, that doesn't seem overly feasible at present, there's too much story that's reliant on each of them to get told.

Once I've started fleshing out my second VC by writing out their strand of the plot, maybe I'll revisit it. Or perhaps when I get my first rejection letter that suggests the idea of dropping a VC to strengthen the other two (shouldn't happen!).  We'll see, when the time comes.

My other concern, which is what led me to the thought of possibly cutting out a Viewpoint Character is word count.  Word on the street (and in just about every submission guideline I see) is that first time writers should shoot for their book to be under 100K words.  It's a matter of publishing costs vs. risk on an unknown author and audience.  I get that completely, and it worries me.

As you can see from the word count and the first line of this post, I've just broken 40K words, and I'm not even done my first viewpoint...  If I already had an Agent or an Editor they'd probably point me in the direction of slashing and burning a healthy portion of the story to get in under (or just over) the wire.  Of course, they'd have a good idea of WHAT to cut, and simply put, at the moment I haven't a clue.

So, I'm going to stay the course, finish this Revision/Re-Write and go from there.  Once this draft is done I'll do what I hope is a lighter editing pass and do my own cutting and cleaning.  Then I'll hand it to my Alpha Readers and see what they say, and possibly cut some more (please don't make me add more!).  Then we'll see.

You always hear about writers getting writers block, what about writers that have the opposite problem?

- Grimm

P.S. Hook Line and Sinker's submission windows may be closed, but it's still making for some fascinating reading.  I'm learning a great deal from other people's pitches and the comments that are coming out of them.  You should check it all out on the respective blogs that are involved: Kat Ellis (@el_kat) is covering YA, Fizzygrrl (@fizzygrrl) is covering Adult, and Dee (@writeforapples) is covering MG.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

A Crisis of Faith (In Myself)

I'm having a minor crisis of faith, in myself, and my ability to write and see this through.  I'm still going strong on the writing front (1,750 words today, just over 1,000 yesterday) and enjoying nearly every minute of putting words on the page, but I have doubts.

Every so often, these little black beasties of doubt in myself and my writing (and consequently everything I do, at work, with my family, and with my friends) sneak up on me.  It effects my writing by making me question literally everything I write, whether my word choice is good enough, whether my plot is full of holes, and whether or not I should just scrap my drafts and go back to playing video games and reading twice as much as I do now.

I've learned that these heebie jeebies are normal for me, and they usually pass after a day or two.  I'm not sure what triggers them, but for a couple days I have to work to not second and third guess every word I put to paper.  Outside of writing it only effects me when I have to make a decision on something or present something to someone else.

These little bouts are completely contrary to my regular self, just ask my wife or anyone who knows me, confidence is most definitely NOT something I lack.  I don't feel morose, or sad, or any of that stuff, my mood is the same as always, relatively happy (compared to the general populace), sarcastic, with frequent bouts of juvenile humour.

I've found I can still get a lot done in these little bouts of self doubt in my writing and still enjoy the process a great deal by simply avoiding reading anything that I've written or thinking about anything too far outside the scene I'm working on.

Even that sentence that I just finished, it can wait until tomorrow, or the next day to get cleaned up.  This would be a bad time to edit, and if I find myself doing it during these periods I'll get up and walk away, leaving the document open until I can come back and dig into writing again.

I think every writer must go through these phases until they get read and validated by others, and likely for some time after that (fear of a sophomore slump is second only to fear of never getting read for me).

Well, I suppose some writers could potentially have enough Ego to prop up the insecurities of their Id enough to never have this problem, but I'd put money on them being the exception to the rule.

Anyway, I'm still writing, and still enjoying writing, and still dying to get my story out there and read, I just have to push my way through the next day or two.  Wish me luck.  And if you see me editing or slashing and burning large swathes of my latest revision, drub me about the ears with something of a medium density.

And have no fear, I still have every intention of continuing to write, whether I get read or not.  It's just part of who I am, and as my wife and daughters will tell you, I'm much less of a grumpy-pants when I'm writing.

- Grimm

Monday, October 8, 2012

What's in it for me?

I only wrote about half what I'd hoped to tonight.  Then again, at least I had some time to write.  You see, my oldest daughter plays hockey, and we've just received the schedule for the year.  I've just spent the better part of 2 hours entering practice after practice after game after practice after tournament etc. into what may be one of the clunkiest web forms ever created.  Then double and triple checking it against the excel spreadsheet I received.

All in all it was a worthwhile use of my time, at least I'm not in charge of fundraising this year (ugh!).

I had a great day with my family today.  Instead of the regular tradition of Canadian Thanksgiving, which we did with my wife's family on Saturday, and we're doing with my family next Saturday, we went to the Science Centre and played with Sciencey stuff all day.  And when I say all day, I mean for 3 or 4 hours out of our planned 5 to 6 hour planned time there, traffic on the way down was awful.

There's something about seeing your children not only play with science, but enjoy and understand science that makes a geek's heart beat louder.  Buying the family pass this year was definitely worth every penny, we've gone six or seven times now and have learned and had fun every time.  Everyone should support their local Science Centre.

Now as for the writing that I've done.  I spent an hour and a half writing this evening and only added about 900 words to the draft.  It's not that bad when you consider that I spent a few minutes of that time playing with the dogs and making tea.  I guess it just wasn't a full-on night for me, still, as long as I spend SOME time writing every day things will continue to go in the right direction.

Someone asked me today why I write if I'm not getting paid for it. I wasn't prepared to answer at the time so I just responded that I'd get back to them on my blog. It's such a massive question that strikes right to the core of me, my blog, and how I identify myself.

Simply put, I have a lot of fun writing, even if I never get published or face a hail of rejection letters when I'm done this book I'll still do it.  I love it and it's part of who I am, a storyteller.  As long as I can remember I've taken a special joy in telling and experiencing stories, whether they're mine or someone else's.  Whether a story is written, acted on a stage, in a movie, or passed on by word of mouth, I savour them all, looking for that little kernel of knowledge each one imparts.

I've loved to read and write as long as I can remember, writing my first book, about a bear in a cave, in one of those primary writing books with the bottom half page of lines alternating with hashed lines (presumably so you would know how big to make the bubble on a b, etc.).  I don't remember how it ended, but I do remember being immensely proud of the fact that I had written (and illustrated, everything I knew up to that point had pictures) a book!

So I write because I have stories I want to tell, and this is how I can best do that.  Every word that struggles or eases its way onto the page is a word that I needed to put there, otherwise it will just bang and rattle about corners of my head getting forever louder.

Odd, when I put it like that it almost seems like a compulsion.  Either way, I love it and how it makes me feel once it's done (yeah, way to go champ, not exactly selling the whole 'sanity' package are we?).

Would I like to get paid for my writing? Absolutely!  It would mean I could devote even more time than I already do, which would just be fantastic for me.

Besides, as a young child I had two careers I wanted when I grew up.  I wanted to be a writer, or a high-end thief.  Both of which I can do as a second job to something considered more traditional and steady work.  And hey, they're not exactly mutually exclusive, I'm just working on being a writer first, it has a lower cost of entry.

- Grimm

P.S. Kat Ellis has a series of Pitches critiqued (including mine) over at her blog in advance of Hook Line and Sinker over on Dee's Blog, which is an amazing opportunity for YA and MG authors to have a chance to get their finished manuscripts in the hands of real Agents.  If you fit any or all of that criteria, go check it out, you have until this Friday to get your pitch in. #HLandS

Lessons worth learning, and Looper.

There's a blog post on another blog that I've started to follow recently, and it says some things I've taken to heart on this revision perfectly.  I won't repeat them fully here, just go read them there.

Hook Line and Sinker is kicking off, and it looks like a fantastic opportunity for some new writers.  I'm not eligible currently because I don't have a complete manuscript, but I applaud the efforts of Kat Ellis and Dee to get new writers and agents looking for writers pointed squarely at each other in such an entertaining manner.  I intend to follow the full proceedings.

My work on BookB is coming along quite well, put a full chapter to bed tonight, despite a later start (of course, that means I've got a late finish too).  This blog post isn't putting me to bed any earlier either, and it's my morning to get up and make breakfast on this fine long weekend.  Besides, I think my wife is catching this nasty sinus cold that's just starting to go away on me, and since I gave it to her, I might let her sleep in tomorrow.

One thing that keeps nagging at me is that I don't know if my chapters are standard chapter length, if such a thing exists, or a little on the short side.  Granted, Douglas Adams had a single sentence chapter in HHGTTG, but the man was a genius and could get away with damned near anything by making you laugh about it.  Never having taken any actual writing courses or spoken with an editor on the subject, I don't know what the unspoken "chapter length" rules are.  I guess I'll look into it.

Looper.

So after a misfire in trying to see it last week, we got out to see it last night.  I enjoyed it a great deal in the theatre, I'm a fan of Rian Johnson's other movie Brick, and though I've yet to see The Brothers Bloom it is on my "must watch" list.

I came out of it with some confusing issues with some of its use of time travel (spoiler it's a time travel movie...).  I think it stands as a testament to the movie, its cast, cinematography, and overall plot that my brain simply won't let go of those issues and keeps trying to argue and find solutions for them.  I've almost convinced myself that all of the "issues" I had with the time travel, were in fact not issues at all and perhaps I was just too thick to catch onto the "why" of things at the time. Perhaps I have only begun to work it all out in hindsight.

Yeah, that must be it.

Regardless, critics are raving about it, my friends are raving about it, I'm raving about it and I'm arguing with my wife and myself about it.  Go see it, it's a fantastic movie!

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

External Validation!

This is something really important, and whether it's ego, or lack of ego (no one will accuse me of that), external validation is something I (and I'm sure other writers) crave.

It's a small part of the driving force that makes me (us?) write, and continue to write.  Recently, well, earlier this week, I sent my pitch to Kat Ellis for her to critique in advance of #HLandS (Hook Line and Sinker).  What I received as a response has pretty much made my week.  Here's an actual writer validating my pitch!  Despite the fact that I may, or may not, have alluded to her being either a crazy cat lady, or one of the crazy cat lady's cats in a previous blog post.

Again, as I said on Twitter, Thank you Kat!

The rest of the motivation for writing, at least in my case, is to have my stories read.  As much as I enjoy writing them, I don't think they really live until someone puts fresh eyes on them and breathes life into them in their imagination.  Well, that and money, I'd love to get paid to write.

As for my writing tonight, even though I feel like I've been hit by a mid-sized truck (got a nice head/chest cold going on) I pushed out just over 1200 words in about an hour and a half this evening.  That puts me on good pace for NaNoWriMo next month if I can keep it up.  Now that I have my Outline "complete" that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

If you're unfamiliar with NaNoWriMo  it stands for National Novel Writing Month, and it's the month of November every year.  The goal of NaNo is to write 50,000 words of Fiction in the 30 days that constitute November.  I participated in my first NaNo last year and won with just over 24 hours left.

Out of that NaNo came the basic skeleton of BookB, which has been slowly getting a full rewrite in the year since.  In fact, all that I can really say remains is a few key plot points, some of the characters, and the comforting sense that I can actually do this.  Which is really the best part of it all.

Anyway, taking my sick butt to bed.

G'night!

- Grimm

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Elevator Pitch and Outline Complete! (again)

Interesting things are afoot!

You may have noticed a new big button at the right hand side of the blog for HLandS, which is a competition for writers and their "Hook".  What I've heard some people refer to as an "Elevator Pitch". In other words, you need to pitch your story in thirty seconds (or sixty words) or less, i.e. the time it takes to ride a few floors on an elevator with that agent or editor you've just stalked for months... er, I mean, that you've run into by some miraculous coincidence!

Well, I've submitted my pitch to be critiqued over at Kat Ellis' Blog, and to be quite frank, I'm nervous as a doormouse under the couch of a crazy cat lady.  It's the first time I've let even a sniff of the actual content of my story past a very small circle of friends and family.  What if it's boring?  What if it's been done before?  What if...

Wait a damnable minute, I'm aspiring to be a writer, and I can't afford to back myself into a corner like that or I'll never get any work done!  Of course it's not boring! I'm writing it! So what if it's been done before?  I'm doing it better, with cooler, more lifelike characters!  And I'll use as many exclamation points in a single paragraph as I please!!!!

Right, got that off my chest.  I'll keep you posted on how it goes.  Oh, right, I guess I should put the pitch here too.  Keep in mind, this is a work in progress (not just the pitch, but the book too). 

Some one's killing Lenmar's most powerful noblewomen.  Flynn, a young and talented thief, is the prime suspect.  He's also the best chance Asher, the Captain of the Queen's guard, has to find the killer.  He just has to convince her. To do that, he needs to pull one last high-stakes job.

It likely needs a lot of work, but seeing as I just threw it together in about twenty minutes after seeing Kat Ellis put the call out on Twitter, it'll give me a good idea of how I'm doing in the sales department of my brain.

I've just wrapped up the Revision 2 Outline changes and finished rebuilding the Third Act.  I'm quite pleased with the results, though we'll see what holes crop up as I actually go about actually writing the book.  I'll be filling those in as I go and cleaning the whole thing up with a third Revision before I'm even remotely satisfied.  Then we'll see.


I should be able to "finish" with the Character arc I'm on now in the next few weeks, then it's on to the next Character and building out their voice.  That should be interesting, seeing as my other two viewpoint characters are women.

Once I start filling in the other Characters things will pick up for the Alpha Readers, as I'll have something a little more cohesive to pass out.

I don't have a word count update for the page at the moment, since that's words written on the book, but I've added another ~3000 words to the outline tonight.  Tomorrow I'll push that word count as much as I can, but I may head out to catch Looper earlier in the evening so it might not be as high as a full-on writing evening, which I admittedly don't get many of.

- Grimm