When Failure Isn't

I sat an unrealistic goal for myself over the weekend. Shoot, I set an impossible goal for myself over the the weekend.

In other words, I set myself up to fail.

But did I?

I decided I would add 8000 words to my WIP (work-in-process) by Monday night. Under normal conditions, that would have been a stretch, but we had plans both Saturday and Sunday, and Monday there were a couple of domestic duties scheduled (clean underwear is a good thing).

I didn't come close to achieving my goal. But what I have now that I didn't have on Friday is a clear "what's next" for my scenes. That has always been a stumbling block for me. Which thread do I pull now?

So although I didn't make the 8000 (and we all know I didn't expect to make the 8000 from the get-go), I was propelled and compelled to figure out a plan.

A friend gave me a plaque that says, "Shoot for the moon . . . even if you miss you'll land among the stars."

So today, I'm off to play in the glitter of star dust—with just a trace of moon dust to keep me motivated.

Are you feeling glittery, or just dusty? What do you do to shake it up or shake it off?



CR: The Fourth Watcher by Timothy Hallinan in hardcover. An absolutely amazing series beginning with A Nail Through the Heart which I read on my Kindle.

It's all better with friends.

Next Scene, Anyone?

I've been talking off an on about how much I'm enjoying writing this new manuscript.

Preparation met creativity with this one.

I was attending a writer's conference late last year, and that strange combination of boredom and antsiness crawled under my skin. Know the one? I left the session I was attending, and wrote the gist of the idea by hand in my moleskine notebook in a quiet corner of the otherwise frantic main floor of the hotel. It was both calming and exciting. An altogether different combination that I loved.

It felt like destiny. Except that I had another manuscript I needed to finish. So, this one, a romantic suspense (my first) with some dogs as prime players (my heart) had to be shelved (until a couple of months ago).

I made myself pull the pieces together, because this one's a bit more layered and complicated than the first one I wrote. I did some research, and brainstorming with trusted friends. On my desk right now are 13 file folders ranging from Biological Threat Agents to NecroSearch to Prisons/Supermax to Timeline. Also on my desk are three reference books with sticky tags hanging out all over them, helping me get this thing done right. I hope.

So, I have notes and plot points and character studies . . . and the one thing that makes me stumble?

What will make the Best Next Scene?

I ended the last scene with one of the best hooks I've ever written. Seriously. I'm not sayin' it's the best hook anyone has ever written, it's just one of the best ones from moi. So, the following scene needs to be powerful.

I thought about jumping to the antagonist, but that would diminish that fabulous punch. And if I were a reader I might be ticked off. So, one more scene first. And it has to be amazing.

So, writers out there . . . how do you determine your next scene?



CR: Shadow Dance by Julie Garwood. (Have you checked out her website?)

It's all better with friends.

No Gorillas in the Mist

So far, the manuscript I'm working on is what I'd always dreamed writing would be like. Knock wood.

Yes, it's work, but it's incredibly gratifying. The story is there, I don't need to go hunting (much) for it. It's all in a wonderful refreshing mist hanging right in front of me. All I need to do is pull the molecules together and get the words down. This is the first time I've ever experienced an almost living organism with my writing, and hope this is the way things roll for me from now on.

What's the difference between this one and the others I've worked on?

1. The entire story began with a mystery. A tiny news story caught my eye, and my Intrigued Button was pushed. Pay attention to those little headlines that make you look twice.

2. I've worked hard at learning the craft of writing. The critiques and edits and courses I've taken are giving me confidence. Finally.

3. I began with some solid research into the story concept before I ever wrote a word. Research has a way of redirecting your story. It adds both credibility and depth because, with good research, you don't have to gloss over a story concept in hopes no one will look too close.

4. I found some amazing characters. Strong, flawed, passionate and unafraid. These characters came to me fully formed, even those who withheld their secrets. They've brought in sub-plots and issues I hadn't originally considered.

5. Brainstorming. Friends who are also writers are the greatest gifts I could have (aside from a puppy). From fleshing out plot ideas, to seeing the best motivation, to knowing what the first scene absolutely had to be.

6. A road map. Brainstorming early (alone and with another writer) led to notes and a rough synopsis. Not everything is spelled out (I'd be so bored) but the major plot points are there for me to know in which direction to aim.

7. The Story. And I'm back to the beginning. The initial concept had to be intriguing enough to mushroom into more. Without depth and color and mist-ery, a writer can only go so far. I just hope I can meet the challenge of the story.


Right now I'm in Writer Nirvana. Hoping that if there are any gorillas in the mist, they're there to bring tension to my characters, not to me.

Have you found an evolution with your writing?




CR: Rain Gods by James Lee Burke.

It's all better with friends.

Diana Gabaldon's Writing Process

What is easy and natural to one person is devilishly impossible to another.

I'm wondering if my writing process will change as I get more experience under my belt. I can't imagine ever plotting every single point (Jeffery Deaver). Any more than I can imagine coming up with a cohesive story allowing myself to just sit and write.

I can, however, identify with her concept of a kernel.

Enjoy.








CR: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. I'll want to read this one again at Halloween!

And I recently finished 212 by Alafair Burke. Read this. Between it and Angel's Tip, I have developed a Nutella habit. Thanks, Alafair.

It's all better with friends.

Jeffery Deaver's Writing Process

I've been trying for days, literally, to get this downloaded video on my blog. For someone who is kind of a Gadget Girl, I can be very technically challenged.

Anyway . . . I hope you enjoy it.

****

I'm moaning over what I thought was going to be a final read-through turning into an edit. But Jeffery Deaver's process has made me want to suck my moaning right back down my throat.

Granted, my little manuscript is a simple one, but still . . . this is amazing. Perspective, ya know?




CR: Under the Dome by Stephen King. Expect to see this one here for a while. Slow reader + thick book = epic read. Another thick one that has remained on my all time favorites list is not a mystery or a suspense. Tom Wolfe's A Man in Full is around 300 pages less then King's. I'm afraid to read it again because I'd hate not to still love it.

It's all better with friends.

I Solemnly Promise . . .

I had a meltdown yesterday.

Working on a particular section, I needed to confirm something (I can't remember what) and skimmed some upcoming scenes.

Suddenly, it appeared that the character I'd just written about, who was standing up and everything, was in the hospital with a concussion. What!? I panicked. I looked again. Yep. There he was. All banged up and not a doppelganger. Crud.

My rewrites screeched to a halt while I tried to figure out the best way to proceed. Forcing myself to take some kind of action aside from pacing and gibber-jabbing, I sat down to organize a plan. I read through the hard copy carefully and discovered I wasn't whacked, just wicked. My poor character. {evil smile}

The barest of outlines would've saved me so much time and frustration.

Thanks to my new Twitter friend (I cannot call them tweeps), Glynes O'Connell, I was reminded of something I should have paid attention to. I wrote about a wonderful method for putting a manuscript together, and then promptly buried it. Sheesh.

Next time? At the very least, there will be an outline. I swear.

CR: Prime Time by Hank Phillippi Ryan.

It's all better with friends.

So, A Little More on On Writing and Not Plotting

I'm beginning to think the really great writers are confident enough (insane/wonky/free enough) to just sit down, with as King says, a "situation", and let the story rumble.

I remember describing King years and years ago to others. I said that the amazing thing about his books is how he took a normal, everyday event/occurance/place and twisted it.

King talks about not plotting: "I'd suggest that what works for me may work equally well for you. If you are enslaved to (or intimidated by) the tiresome tyranny of the outline and the notebook filled with "Character Notes," it may liberate you. At the very least, it will turn your mind to something more interesting than Developing the Plot."

And: "Plot is, I think, the good writer's last resort and the dullard's first choice. The story which results from it is apt to feel artificial and labored."

And: "Story is honorable and trustworthy; plot is shifty, and best kept under house arrest."

My friend and critique partner, Susan Lohrer, sent this quote today from Dean Koontz: "I give my characters free will. The story is never outlined. They go where they want — and surprise me. When they speak, I don't force them to feed information to the reader and advance the story. If they want to digress, I let them. If each is a vivid individual, his or her dialogue will be unique. And often in the digressions, we learn about them and discover new dimensions in the story. When a character says something funny, I laugh out loud because it’s as if I'm hearing it, not writing it."

King's exhortations to be honest and truthful (and it seems Koontz would agree with him) are keys, I think, to allowing a situation to grow into a full-fledged, nail-biting story filled with people we can, on some level, identify with. I'm willing to give this situational writing a try and see what happens.

It's that basic "don't write for the Legion of Decency" hurdle that's a little scary to jump over. At least it is if you've always been the Good Girl.

I loved what he said about description: "Description begins in the writer's imagination, but should finish in the reader's."

Writers, readers and movie-goers were all saddened today to learn of the death of Michael Crichton. Our loss of his imagination and energy will leave a hole on earth.




Still plugging (albeit slowly) along in Nano. Trying to swing a little looser ala King and Koontz.

It's all better with friends.

Switchin' Things Up

Today is gonna be a big day. I'm crackin' the whip and not letting up.

I'm taking my VERY rough draft and playing with plot. I've promised myself that it's okay to let it go. It's okay to switch things up. The basic premise won't change, but a whole lot else is likely to. I may lose a lot, but because of my progress with craft, I hope to gain a lot more.

A lot of this comes from a course I'm taking online through ACFW. One of my mentors, Colleen Coble, is doing an awesome job taking us through things that in theory sound easy, but in practice . . . well, I have felt like a third grader trying to grasp the meaning of Einstein's Theory of Relativity—as taught in Mandarin.

The rest comes from my need to get back in the saddle and not look back. My characters are coming with me, because I need their support. I know them. I'm building them. They're building me.

The thing that will be weird? Brainstorming. I LOVE brainstorming, but there's usually more than just me involved. And I'm usually brainstorming someone else's project.

So, my stained glass plot window may be up for a re-do.


Still reading To the Power of Three.
And working on that Maass exercise. I may have had a breakthrough. If so, I'll let you know.

It's all better with friends.

Finding Your Process

Learning how I will put a book together is one of life's great mysteries.

I'm trusting it's one with a resolution.

The first two books I attempted to write were SOTP (Seat Of The Pants). I had a couple of ideas, but pretty much just sat my butt in the chair and typed. One has morphed into what I'm working on now, and the other I might pull out one day and take another stab at finishing. (My husband liked it and he's pretty miserly with high-praise.) But the lack of any kind of a road map left me freaked. I knew I'd be driving in wilderness without direction or pace. SOTP writing, when I got serious about finding My Process, wasn't gonna work.

I checked into the fine art of detailed outlining—if you're interested, check out the Snowflake Method—developed by Randy Ingermanson. Although a couple of the concepts intrigued me, I pretty much knew that was not going to be My Process either.

Over time, through trial and horrible error, I'm figuring out what works for me regarding the basic outline vs. pants question. It's a weird morph. It took me a while, and a little (no that's a lie—a LOT) of self-education, but that part of My Process, I'm putting into place. (I say "figuring out" because my next book might evolve the process even further. Writing, and how I make my little etchings, is fluid—not carved in stone).

But my plotting process, at least for now, is solved.

However, it doesn't stop there for me. Not by a long shot.

How do you handle re-writes? Or do you write such a clean first draft re-writes are unnecessary?

What do you do when your re-write (I'm assuming you're like me and less than perfect in your initial first draft) hints at altering things a bit?

How do you keep track of sub-plots? What about those little bits and pieces that deserve at least passing attention later on?

These are things I'm still feeling my way through. Today, I had moments of aha giggles followed by twisted consternation. Deleted scenes and one or two that sang.

It's a process. I love advice. Advice is pretty much what's gotten me as far as I am. But in the end, it's up to each one of us to figure out what works.

But through it all,

it's better with friends.

Seat-Of-The-Pants Plotting

Sounds kind of like an oxymoron, doesn't it? Actually, it's a pretty good description of the way I've learned to put a manuscript together.

This is how I stumbled onto something that works for me. You will find your own way. It could be very simple--you plot. Or it could be you'll develop your own blend of things that get your from Point A to Point Z in a logical and orderly way.

For what it's worth, here's my input.

I can think an idea to death. One will come into my head with so much promise and excitement and potential. But if I push it too much by planning and plotting, I kill it. I sit around with this dead thing stinking up my office and wonder why I can't pick up a fresh scent.

Other writers can plot like crazy from the very beginning and still love their projects--and it shows in their writing.

When I first started writing seriously, I had a story idea and a few characters brewing around in my head. I planted my behind in the chair, put my hands on the keyboard and began typing away. Thank goodness it wasn't suspense--which requires clear, concise direction. My initial effort didn't have much of any of those qualities. Thanks to some gentle coaching by my critique partners, my writing improved enough to win an award, but the story left me lifeless. Like cookie crumbs in the bottom of a glass of milk. Blick.

Now what?

I took my major characters, tweaked them a bit and threw them into a suspense story that energized me and kept me interested. Phew! What a relief to be excited again.

Now what?

I began with a general idea and coaxed it along. The slightest massaging without heavy-duty plotting. I knew a couple of plot points and a twist or two. Fun. But that's all I knew. What I ended up with, for my first draft, was not much more than a fat outline--mostly dialogue and scene titles. I had created an outline without knowing it. That works for me.

Now what?

I needed clarification. Tight pacing and focus. Some . . . er . . . suspense stuff. Creating a detailed, traditional outline didn't excite me. I figured I had one I could work with--why do two? But I needed to also keep things straight. I'd played a little with 3x5 cards in the past, and they were okay, but not visually stimulating. After all, I'm a product of television and movies. Tactile is good, visual would be better. I heard about using colored sticky notes to help the plotting process. My first attempt was a mess:

It was pretty, but a mess nonetheless. I felt productive and creative while I was putting the little pieces of colored paper up, but in the end I couldn't keep them straight. Or move them around very easily.

Susan Lohrer shared the idea with me to have a little more color-coded consistency in my approach. The top photo shows my timeline in blue, different scene POV's in their own character-colors, with the plot points for each scene listed on purple. You can see a couple of little "adds" (and now there are more of those), that represent things I need to make sure and incorporate because of changes I've made elsewhere.

By jove, I think I've found something I can work with.

It's all better with friends.

Delicious and Devious

Do any of you have motion sickness?

Before my husband and I took our first cruise, I got those little wrist bands with buttons in them that you place over the pulse-points in your wrists. People have always asked me whether or not they work. All I can say is, I didn't get seasick. (Well, not as much as my history has shown.) Whether that's based on physical science or psychological phenomena, I really don't care. I had a great cruise.

That leads me to brainwaves.

I ordered the CD from Writer's Mind on January 30th. It arrived in my mailbox on February 2nd. Talk about fast. I decided it was an omen.

Here's what happened on Sunday between our regular Sunday Brunch and heading out to watch the Super Bowl with friends. I played with my brainwaves.

. . . (and the raging question is, "Would this have happened anyway?")

Broken Bones's (my work in progress) next scene is an inserted one and not a re-write. My planning process called it "Bond and partner discuss deaths" a scene culminating in Bond deciding to investigate on her own.

I sat looking at a blank computer screen (save for my scene title) and feeling icky. Zonked. Incapable of moving forward and decidedly short of any imagination. I recognized a complete lack of conflict (my critique partners have trained me well), which would undoubtedly lead me to poor scene structure and forced results. I needed help. I needed a jolt of creativity.

Determined, or at least desparate, I plopped the headphones onto my head and put my new CD on Track 1. Track 1 is called "Inspiration" and is supposedly designed to use Alpha waves to kick both sides of my brain into "relaxed mental awareness, reflection, visualization, and creativity." I threw on a jacket and pulled on some gloves (winter in Colorado) and kicked myself out the door for a little walk with mental exercise as my goal.

I started trying to force myself down the planned route of a discussion between partners. I mean, it must be in my plot plan for a reason, right? I'd gone maybe a block when I finally allowed myself to look at other options.

Voíla.

Bond is gonna come upon her partner doing something suspicious (I haven't quite figured that out yet--but it will implicate her) which will spur her to look into what's going on, increasing her personal danger. No boring discussions. Just subterfuge, pure and simple.

Science or psychology? I really don't care.

Delicious and devious.

It's all better with friends.

Flexibility and Plotting

We woke up to a blanket of First Snow on Sunday morning. Before it stopped, we had about 7 1/2 inches. Golf courses will be packed tomorrow, and our temperatures will hit the mid-seventies by Wednesday. In the Colorado Rockies, spring teases us into summer, and fall teases us into winter.

You learn to be flexible.

As a reader, I'm flexible enough to read other genres--and enjoy them--but I tend to gravitate to suspense. Nothin' wrong with that. On the downside, I'm kind of a fickle fan. If an author disappoints me, it's hard to pick up another of their books--regardless of how many I've enjoyed in the past. KSF. (Kinda Sorta Flexible).

A new author, in any genre, is often one a friend has recommended. Even better is when I find an author new to me because of a review I agreed to write. I feel like I've mined a golden nugget. Flexibility. And let's face it, we can read a lot faster than our favorite authors can write. Flexibility means always having something in your TBR (To Be Read) pile. My private stash. {sigh}

But what about as a suspense novelist?

Do you stick to the plan or let the story take you somewhere different? How flexible are you? What about if it means trashing a lot of what you've written?

I confess--initially I go back to the KSF mode. I try to think of a way to keep at least some of what I have and incorporate the new direction.

Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Flexibility.

Suspense novelists need to plot--at least a little bit. You need to have a strong sense of the elements of your story, the plots points, and the ending. Some novelists plot in great detail (I think they would make fine engineers), and some not at all. (We'll talk more about the different "styles" of plotting later.)

But, once again--suspense novelists need to plot--at least a little bit. Colleen Coble plots three or four chapters ahead. She has the basics of her story in mind, but plotting more than that would ruin the fun.

Flexibility.

It's all better with friends.

Definition of Discipline . . . Aargh!

From Merriam-Webster's (emphasis mine) discipline 1: Punishment 2: Instruction 3: a field of study 4: training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character 5a: control gained by enforcing obedience or order b: orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior.

My keyword when I wrote my goals for this year? Discipline. I want a keyword for next year that means the same thing, but doesn't include punishment in its definition. Any suggestions?

Some things I've learned about writing every day: I get better; uncertainty doesn't have a chance to settle in; it's easier to see where my story needs to go; when people ask if I've been writing, my answer doesn't require justification.

One reason I've learned recently why I stop writing every day: I'm in the middle of some intense learning curve. Did I mention I have a mentor? Colleen Coble. A little bit of learning doesn't seem to phase me. But an intense amount? It needs to flow into me and coalesce. Get that skimmy stuff on top that real hot chocolate gets. Then, I need to stir it up a bit, sip it slow, and digest it. And finally, it needs to seep out my pores and into real life application. I guess that's how you teach this old dog new tricks, but as long as chocolate is involved . . . love it!

I heard a business coach say one time that if he scheduled something on his daily calendar, it didn't guarantee it would get done, but odds were against it ever happening if he didn't. Whether you're an SOTP (seat-of-the-pants) writer, a detailed plotter--or something in between--plotting your day can at least make you feel you've accomplished something when it's over.

Today I found myself behind before I started. I'll have to rely on that old stand-by skill called prioritization if I'm to get to those rewrites. And I will.

After I find some chocolate.

It's all better with friends.