Recently author/podcaster Tee Morris’s wife Natalie died unexpectedly, leaveing Tee struggling with the personal and financial burden that comes with the sudden death of a loved one. I don’t know Tee well enough to give you any more details, but I can tell you all that Tee Morris started this whole podcasting fiction thing. He was the first. He has been a pioneer in making the internet one of the greatest tools at the disposal of writers everywhere.

I’ve mentioned The Survival Guide to Writing Fantasy on my blog before and I can again recommend it for Tee’s interview skills, insights and slightly strange sense of humour. Tee gives all of this stuff away for free, and now he’s in need of some help from the community he was a big part of starting.

That’s us.

So here’s what I want you to do. Go to the widget at the bottom of this post (when I do another post I’ll repost it there) that says Chip In or go to the Chip In page to help Tee out with the immediate costs he’s going to have to deal with. I say immediate costs because there is also going to be a trust fund set up for his daughter, but he will need help now.

Once you’ve donated, post a comment for me so I know when and how much you’ve chipped in and at the end of each month (Up until April) I’ll select someone at random and buy them one of Tee’s books from Book Depository. They ship free anywhere in the world, so feel free to enter no matter where you are.

You get an entry no matter how small an amount you donate.

It sucks when bad things like this happen, but we can all help out a little, and as a community, help out a lot.

Go to it.

****UPDATE**** If you want to keep the amount to yourself, I don’t mind at all. Just let me know you donated and I’ll put your name in the hat!

Tags: Call to Arms, Help Out, Tee Morris

Some of us hate outlining. I learned to do it after literally wasting an entire novel because I didn’t know where I was going with it, but until I finished my latest outline I was still vaguely uncomfortable with the process of laying out my story before I actually started writing.

There is an interim measure though.

Instead of an outline, write a 2 – 5 page short story. It doesn’t have to be of any quality, just imagine you had to compress your entire book down to 5 pages (at the most) and go nuts.

I need to stress that this short story really doesn’t need to be good. Throw in plot points and pure descriptions. Describe your epic multi chapter final battle sequence as ‘a little scrap’ and your love scenes as ‘got it on’. The important thing is that you know where you’re going if you get stuck.

The main objection most people have to outlining is that they feel restricted by them, that somehow the outline interferes with the creative process. If you feel like this then you certainly don’t have to use an outline, or the short story method. However if you’re like me, and never finish anything, having a plan really does help.

Tags: advice

I’ve been asking myself in the last few days if I should hire a writing coach. Not because I can’t write, but because I think I can probably write even better.

The other reason I’m thinking about it is that I think I’ve got a really good story cooking and I don’t want to waste it. I’m still on the fence, but I thought I’d do a pre New Years resolution post on what to look for in a coach.

1. Are they a published author/editor/agent or someone who is qualified to advise you?

A coach isn’t a beta reader, or a helpful friend, or even a fellow writer you found as part of a writing group. A writing coach is someone you are paying to help you achieve results. A writing coach has one goal. Help you get published.

Not help you get better, a writing teacher/beta reader can help with that. If you’re going to go so far as to hire a coach, then you need someone who has either been there themselves, or is so involved in the industry that they know what they’re doing.

2. Are they successful?

A lot of writers and the like make extra money by selling training services and seminars. That’s a great way for any writer to make ends meet, but you can and should expect your coach to have achieved some degree of success in writing fiction themselves. Obviously you want to do more than be an author who sold four books and bankrupted a small press. Of course not many best selling authors offer coaching (although some do), but you should check a teacher’s references and achievements.

3. Are they a good teacher?

This is one of the most important questions you can ask about a coach; can they teach? Not every great writer is a great teacher of writing. The same is true in sport. A lot of great athletes can’t teach others how to do what they do, they just do it. The best martial arts coach I ever had wasn’t the most successful fighter in the gym, he just knew exactly how to teach me what I needed to know. He could tell me, without judgement, when I was getting things wrong, and he told me without hyperbole when I was getting it right. He also cracked a lot of jokes, that’s not a necessity, but it does make any criticism easier to take.

A writing coach should be able to do all of these things for you. If your story is really, really bad, a coach is being paid to tell you why it’s bad and how to fix it. If they can’t do that, what are you paying them for?

Things to remember:

• A coach doesn’t necessarily look at your whole manuscript. They may just look at an outline and pitch for your story. Obviously it’s better if they can look at the whole thing, but it’s not vital.
• A coach can’t write your story for you. The normal rules about having an original, well written story still apply.
• Try and fix all typos and make your story as good as it can get before your coach sees it. The better your story is when they see it, the more they can help you.
• If your coach gives you advice, and you don’t take that advice, that’s your choice… but if you then subsequently fail to be published, it’s not your coach’s responsibility, it’s yours.
• If you take your coach’s advice, and you still don’t get published, it may not be your coach’s fault; however you should reassess their advice. If it was good advice, and your book still didn’t get picked up, then it may just be a matter of pitching more agents and publishers until you get a hit.

A good example:

Larry Brooks, over at www.storyfix.com meets all of my criteria (and more). I haven’t actually used the coaching service, but I know from reviewing his other work that he knows how to teach, has achieved a high degree of success writing fiction and is qualified to teach you how to write.

I know I pimp Larry’s stuff a lot, but that’s because he’s really good, and he’s the person I’ll probably go with if I get myself a coach. With that said there other coaches out there, do your research, talk to the coaches involved and make your decision from there.

Happy New Year everyone, thanks for visiting me and listening to me ramble. Here’s looking forward to an epic 2010.

Tags: advice, coaching, writing