I have new review up, and if you’re an author looking to make a living getting published, you need to check it out here.

This is the first book I’ve given a 10/10 score to, because of the huge impact this one book can potentially have on your career.

I know writers who simply refuse to take criticism.

Any correction beyond basic grammar correction results in dummies being spat, toys thrown out of the cot and a general wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Normally I’d just write that kind of thing off as histrionics and figure these writers would grow out of it when they realised that getting published requires taking some criticism of your work to make it print worthy. However, I recently got barracked by one of these guys telling me that it violated their artistic integrity to take edits from anyone and they’d never do it.
I resisted the urge to leap through the internet and beat him to death with his own ego, but it was a close call.
My answer to the idea that criticism, from readers, agents and editors is somehow impinging on your artistic freedom is this:
Bollocks.
There are only two times when you can say no to critiques. The first is if you’re writing for your own entertainment and don’t care if you get published or not. If that’s the case then by all means, it’s your call. The other time you can refuse to take criticism is if you’re already a best selling author.
Of course if you’re a bestselling author, and you can’t take criticism, then you’re not going to be on the bestseller list for long (in fact, how did you get there at all?).
For the rest of us, no matter how much it sucks, we have to consider all criticism. You don’t have to take it as gospel, unless it’s from a publisher, but you must consider all suggestions made about your work. I know it hurts, especially when the person crushing your ego is right (this happens to me a lot), but your book will not get published if you can’t get over that.
It does get easier. When I first started writing I felt like every critique I received was an attack on me personally*. Now I can be more objective about the suggestions and take them as they are, suggestions as to how I can make my stuff better. If I couldn’t even consider their suggestions, I might as well burn my Work In Progress and take up crochet.
I know this post is s a rehash of one I did a while ago, but it seems like the message isn’t getting through.

* If, for any reason, someone attacks you personally instead of your writing then you can ignore that quite safely. There are plenty of people out there who just like hurting other people, you don’t need to give them any of your time.

Tags: advice, rants

Apathy.

That’s the only word of this post I’ve typed in the last hour. I managed to hit an all time low on the motivation scale*. I have so very many things to do and I’m so overwhelmed by it all that I haven’t done anything.

So, to get over it I’m trying something new; getting organized.

I am making a list (I won’t check it twice) of things I need to do, ranked in priority from one  to three. The stuff at the top of the list is the stuff that will endanger my health/sanity/personal hygiene if I don’t do it.

Things at this level include: sleeping, bathing, eating, going to work, keeping the house habitable and wearing pants.

Next up is the stuff I really want to do. I won’t actually die, but I might feel like it. There are a surprising number of things on this list that I haven’t been doing at all.

Things at level two include (but are not limited to): Writing, physical training, reading, spending time with my partner, writing the articles that I promised people ages ago, spending time with my family and friends and wearing pants.

Finally are the little things that I kind of want to do. I seem to spend a lot of time doing this stuff. Half the time I don’t even want to, I just do these things out of apathy, laziness or overtiredness.

Level three has all the crap in it: Watching TV, reading magazines I don’t even like, mindlessly surfing the net, watching TV, playing computer games.

Of course everyone needs a little level three mindlessness as downtime, and there’s nothing wrong with spending some of your spare time just playing on the internet. My problem is that the level three stuff is taking place instead of everything else.

My new plan** is to throw out as much of the level three stuff for the rest of the year that I can. I’m still going to be taking plenty of planned downtime, but the key to it will be setting myself  time to just do whatever and sticking to it, instead of wasting entire days doing nothing because I feel burned out.

The point of all this is this: If you’re feeling burned out, or you simply don’t want to do anything, try this list thing out, then throw out all the level three stuff you don’t need for a week. Plan downtime where you give yourself permission to let it all hang out, but try not to waste anytime on things that aren’t helping you in any way.

This has been a bit of a rant, but I’d be keen to know what you do when apathy takes over?

* 10 is where you will, in fact, take over the world. 1 is where only physical reflex keeps you breathing.

** The old plan involved an elaborate ruse.

Hi everyone, I have a new review up of J C Hutchin’s excellent book 7th Son: Descent. You can check out the full review right here.

I took a few days off writing.

I know this is one of the cardinal sins of NanoWrioMo, but it couldn’t be helped. It wasn’t personal tragedy, or even terrible work schedule that got me into trouble, it was lack of structure. As just about anyone who knows me can tell you, I’ve gotten pretty good at writing the first two to three chapters of any given book. I can also do you a decent short story.

Problems arise when it comes to the Big Swampy Middle*. As much as anything it’s that I have no idea where things are going, so I don’t know what to make my characters do. I’ve been doing seat of the pants writing for a while, and it’s not really working for me. My last effort, the Shadow Library, had a couple of really good chapters.

The rest was an abomination against all things.

It’s not the worst book I’ve ever read, but it was close. The problem was I had nothing to hang my story on, nowhere really to go. So I have recently been sent Larry Brooks guide to story structure and I’ve pent the last few days studying it properly. This will probably lead to me failing NanoWrioMo, but I don’t care because the plan is to get a better book out of it. There will be a review up of Larry Brook’s Story Structure – Demystified up in the next week or so, with a detailed look at how I applied it to the new project.

Which, you might have guessed, is called The Downside of Being Dead. I can’t tell you to much about it, except that I’m enjoying writing it, and that there are dead people walking around in it.

Right, I need to do some writing, because I’ve been a terrible slacker. If you need some better advice on writing than I’ve been able to give you in the last few weeks, I can’t recommend either Mur Lafferty or Carrie Heim Binas’s respective blogs enough. Listen to these ladies, your writing will be better for it. Mine is.

*With thanks to Jim Butcher for the term.

Tags: advice

I’m afraid last month, I was made of failure.

I got just over 28,000 words. If I hadn’t been aiming for 50,000 then I would have called that a good month, but I fell off the writing wagon. I spent exactly one minute on self pity, then I let that go, because despite the fact that I didn’t hit my goal I still got a lot out of that month.

What’s more, as a result November and NanoWriMo are going like you wouldn’t believe. I’ve averaged 2,022 words per day and I don’t think things would be going nearly as well. Of course not all of Novembers current happiness is down to my abject failure in October. I’ve also got a few other bloggers to thank for actually getting my act together.

First up, Carrie Heim Binas has an excellent writing advice blog. If you’re doing NanoWriMo, then you owe it to yourself to go and check out Heim Binas Fiction.

You probably all know Mur Lafferty of I Should Be Writing, but if you don’t and you need a kick in the pants to inspire you, an intelligent mind to advise you or some of the best interviews available online to keep you interested in writing then I Should Be Writing is the place to go.

Want to know just how good a podcasted novel can be, then go check out JC Hutchins’ website and join the clone army. His novel 7th Son: Descent has just gone into print, and it’s beyond good. If you go to the site, you can listen to the whole thing for free. While you’re there check out Project 777 for a good cause that gets you goodies while you’re at it.

I need to get back to work, but if you’re floundering on your novel, or you just want to see some damn good blogs, go check out the authors above, you won’t be sorry.

Tags: advice, fail, Idiot things I'm doing, nanowrimo, News, writing