JuneMoWriMo, or something like that

Fifty thousand words in June. That is my target. That’s five followed by four zeroes. Hmm, four is quite a lot of zeroes.

Typically these Writing Months (or WriMo’s if you’re hipper than me) are for getting that damn manuscript finished. Fifty thousand is a decent chunk of words, and in a thirty-day month like June, comes to about seventeen hundred words per day.

Shouldn’t be too hard then.

I’ve already broken rule number one – use this WriMo to work on one manuscript. Yesterday I did that, but today I finished off a short story final draft instead. So now the word count is up there slightly ahead of schedule (4,037 since you ask) but only 1,100 of those are on the manuscript. Sigh.

Still writing being distracted by other writing is better than writing being distracted by anything else. Right?

If you find it hard to get started in writing, it’s because doing almost anything else is preferable. Writers write only when the urge to write overcomes the urge to do something, anything else. Some well-known writer said something along those lines.

Here’s Cory Doctorow on writing in an age seemingly built of distractions: http://www.locusmag.com/Features/2009/01/cory-doctorow-writing-in-age-of.html

It Will Come

I worked out the ending to a short story the other night. It came to my while I was washing the dishes. Who said housework was uncreative! Thing is, I wrote the story six years ago.

I was not happy with the ending, and neither was anyone who read it. I took all the other comments on the story, put them to one side, and mulled over the ending. It needed changing, no doubt about that. I mulled some more. But what to?

As of a few days ago, I know what to. But six years? Seems a bit extreme. When you’re having a problem with a piece of writing it’s a good idea to put it away, work on something else. It will come. It’s not important if you start a story and them stop writing it for a while. What is important is that you keep writing.

Actually, Writing is a Race

NaNoWriMO is over for another year. Who fell behind? I fell behind! Just call me Mister Eight Thousand. Sure I’ve been busy editing Blood Crossing all month, but surely I could have found a spare hour here or there to right? I looked here, I looked there, but no spare hour did I find.

I remain glad I entered the QWC Writing Race though. Held at their soon-to-be-old venue, there were twenty writers in a room, feverishly hammering away on their keyboards. I found this very motivating. All those keyboards being tapped away, I couldn’t resist adding my own tapping to the noise. Two hours and three and a half thousand words later and I had found a new hobby. Writing racing!

I didn’t come first (third overall in word count I think) but I had great fun, and started a whole new manuscript, ready to take over when Blood Crossing is doing the rounds. Which is nice.

Out of this experience I can only say – writing can be a solitary activity, but it doesn’t have to be. Give writing with others a go, not a collaborative work, just writing next to one another. You might find it motivating too.

First Sentence, First Impressions

The first sentence of your book is the first chance you have to engage your reader. You need to take that chance. If the first line doesn’t do a very good job of raising interest, will people read on to the second?

You don’t need to craft the best line ever seen in the English language, you just need to raise the reader’s interest. Get them early.

Four books plucked from my bookshelf yield the following first sentences:

“She had been running for four days now, a harum-scarum tumbling flight through passages and tunnels.” Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere.

“The Druid stood in the doorway, as still as a figure carven in dark stone, watching the riders come up the hill.” Juliet Marillier, The Dark Mirror.

“I had been making the rounds of the Sacrifice Poles the day we heard my brother had escaped.” Iain Banks, The Wasp Factory.

“The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed subcategory.” Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash.

At first glance, there’s not a lot in common there. However in all cases, these first sentences set a scene, and introduce either the main point-of-view character or prime mover of the story. In addition, each one sets a scene – a desperate chase, a druid’s house on a hill. Each poses a question, such as “escaped from where?” or “who is the Deliverator?” Each draws you into the story while also carrying you through to the next line.

All this in a few short words. Your first sentence doesn’t need to be a paragraph to get things started. Start with what is important to the story as it starts, and take it form there.

My current draft begins with “It was the last day of Danny Sangford’s life, but not the final day of his existence.” I think I still have some work to do.

Happy writing!

Of Many Colours and None

You may or may not have read yet about the storm surge of opinion concerning Harlequin. Essentially, one of the largest US book publishers has moved from publishing worthy books to extracting money from hopeful ‘authors’ through a so-called self-publishing scheme.

There’s a lot being said, so I’ll link to it here:

Ashley Grayson Literary Agency
Ripping Ozzie Reads
Jackie Kessler
John Scalzi

The rule is that money flows from a publisher to an author. If it’s the other way around, they are not a publisher and you are not an author.

Be an author, don’t be a sucker.

Good Advice

Karen Tyrrell has updated her blog with some good tips for writers.

My two favourites:
Conquer Procrastination …write EVERY day
Don’t ignore SCENE STRUCTURE … In each scene, state the Character’s motivation upfront, Show opposition through another Character … Develop Conflict/Struggle climaxing with a Disastrous/ climactic Ending.

Check out the full article here.

Post #3, Wherein I Pretend I Am Part of QWC’s Blog Tour

The awesome Queensland Writers Centre (did I mention they are awesome) undertook a blog tour recently, asking a number of Australian authors the same questions. I decided to take a crack at answering them myself. For some reason they missed me out, what with this blog not existing then.

Where do your words come from?
I have no idea, but I would like to take a holiday there.

Where did you grow up and where do you live now?
Ah. Well I grew up in the South of England, but went to school in Scotland. Boarding school. Military boarding school. Now I live about as far away from Scotland as you can get and still be on Earth (where are those Moon colonies?), in Brisbane, Queensland with my wife and 2.4 children. The .4 is the dog.

What’s the first sentence/line of your latest work?
London. The city I was born in, and the city where I became what I am today. I tremble as I enter this city for the first time in a century. This is the city of my failure. I will not fail again!

What piece of writing do you wish you had written?
It would have to be Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson. We should all have a character called Hiro Protagonist.

What are you currently working towards?
Finishing my novel, currently titled Blood Crossing, and seeking agency representation. Plus I have been sucked in to NaNoWriMo.

Complete this sentence: the future of the book is …
… irrelevant to the future of the story, and that’s where my true interest lies. I love my books, but only for the stories they contain, not for the bulky non-water-resistant objects they are. If I find a better storage medium for stories I write and stories I want to keep copies of, I’ll jump to it. Nothing’s come along yet, but I think we’re getting there.

More Help for Novel Writing

Third-hand information is still good information, right? This comes from Justine Larbalestier by way of Jason Nahrung. It’s important that you know this.

Now to the point. It can be difficult, when writing a novel, to keep track of characters, time passing, and other structural issues. No longer! Justine presents a nifty way of keeping track of such details. I’ve already applied it to my current novel in progress. It helped. Oh how it did help.

It Begins

I need a blog. So many interesting things to post about, so little time to post in.