First, a quick update. If you look at the counter on the right of this page you can see that over $20,000 has been raised for Tee Morris and Sonic Boom. I’m still going to be giving away a book of Tee’s each month until April, so if you’ve made a donation and want to get in on the draw, leave a comment on this post and I’ll add your name to the hat.

You guys are pimps.

Anyway, on to the main post.

I’m not a huge proponent of chronofetishism (that’s my big word for today) but I do love New Years resolutions. At 1am on the 1st of January anything seems possible. The problem of course is at 6am on the 21st of January nothing seems possible. Getting out of bed has become a herculean task that you would write an eipc tale about… except you can’t get out of bed.

My goals this year, once I took out the odd tweak are actually the same as last year:

Write stuff.

Get it published.

Keep writing blog posts.

Be less lazy/apathetic.

These aren’t the most specific of goals I know, and perhaps they fall down a bit there, but they are the real goals I have for 2010 once the fanfare has died off and I actually consider my year ahead. If I was forced to be more specific I would have to say that the number one goal this year is to finish my book and get it out to an agent or publisher by the end of the year.

I can’t force them to accept it of course, but it wouldn’t hurt to finish the story and make it as good as it can be. So that’s what I’m doing  at the moment, writing The Downside of Being Dead. I hope to be doing more blogging/podcasting too, but the book has to come first instead of last or I’m never going to be finished. Putting the book first is going to mean making some sacrifices with my time.

I don’t agree with the idea that you have to sacrifice everything you love to be a writer. That’s a load of bollocks. You can have a family, keep fit, have a life and write. The things you need to look at cutting out of your life are the things that are actually very hard to give up.

I for one, watch far too much television.

I’m prepared to give that up to get my book done, but it has been harder than I thought. I used TV to wind down at the end of the day, to relax with my partner and to try and quiet my overactive brain. In the last month I have cut down my viewing to a few hours a week and I’m spending the time writing instead.

It’s working. I’m as happy with Downside as I’ve been with anything I’ve ever written and it’s chugging along slowly into something I think I can be proud of and all I had to do was give up blobbing out for ten to fifteen hours a week and write. I’m not saying I don’t watch anything (The Daily Show is still required viewing) but just by giving up the things I was watching out of habit I’m making more progress than I ever have before.

So the next time you think you have to sacrifice something big to be a writer, have a look at the small things you do first. Even freeing up two hours a week will give you a written book at the end of a year. Keep the big stuff in your life. Family, friends, things you love doing. All of these things will make you a better writer.

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.

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.

This was going to be my first podcast for the site, now that I finally have the audio thing working, however I appear to have acquired Murphy’s Cold*.

I want to talk about writing your ending. This has been a problem for me for a long time. I can think of cool ways to dispatch the villain at any given second, but an actual well rounded ending…that was elusive.

So, on a whim, I looked back through my favourite novels had a look to see what my favourite writers were doing. From this extensive research (and sleep deprivation) I came up with the 60% rule.

The 60% Rule

I need to say that 60% is just an estimate**. You can use any proportion you like. The rule works something like this:

At the end of your book, your protagonist gets 60% of the things that they want.

A 60% victory could mean that they defeated the bad guy, but lost a friend in the process. Or, as happens in some of my stories, the love interest realises the protagonist is a vicious murderous bastard and moves away. This stops you from making endings that bring everything back to baseline or are too much of a victory for the hero.

You need to avoid there being to much going right at the end of any given book. The reason being that any totally happy ending finishes the series right then and there. There’s no more drama to be gotten from the ongoing situation that you imagine them to be in. However if the love interest is gone, or the best friend is dead, then it leaves the story some place else to go in the readers imagination. It also gives you scope for a second or even third book if you want one.

If you need a really happy ending, shoot for 70% of what the protagonist wants. This actually makes for a very happy ending. Just about everyone the protagonist knew is still alive, the bad guy is gone forever, just some serious real estate damage and a few minor characters lost.

If you consider any protagonist in a thriller/horror/fantasy type novel their list of needs goes something like this:

1. Survive

2. Make sure (x) character survives

3. Stop the bad guy

4. Stop anyone else from being killed

5. Make all this not be happening

6. Win the heart of the love interest

7. Get acknowledged for the good deeds

8. Don’t get injured

9. Make sure the bad guy is gone forever

10. Try to recover from the traumatic events.

Wiping out four of those goals is easy. Kill of a couple of major characters, give the protagonist an injury (a serious injury, no flesh wounds), make sure they’re blamed rather than praised for their killing spree and make sure there is no way the protagonist can go back to their old lives.

They still win, the book can still have satisfying closure, but you don’t get that “everything’s tied up with a nice bow” feeling at the end.

Winning has to cost the protagonist something, otherwise the win is meaningless.

* The cold you get when everything seems to be going well.

** Estimate = A number I made up

We all get our work critiqued, and it can be tough to take poor feedback from a stranger, but when your nearest and dearest don’t like or don’t “get” your work, then it can be downright soul destroying.

Recently I showed my partner a cartoon for a webcomic. I’d written what I thought was a pretty good joke, and the cartoonist had done a stellar job on the artwork.  She tried to be nice, but after a small prompt, she admitted that she thought the art was great, but the joke just didn’t work for her.

She tried to be nice, but it still sucked.

I’m actually fortunate to be with someone who gives me honest feedback; although I’ve learned that we have wildly different taste in humor and writing in general. My temptation for a long time was simply not to show her anything I did, but in the end knowing in advance she almost certainly won’t like anything I’ve written means she is actually able to give extremely good grammar and spelling critiques. It still hurts when she doesn’t like something, but not too much.

There are three types of  criticism that come from friends and family, and dealing with them takes a bit of planning.

Proximity Bias:

This can work either way. Fundamentally the person critiquing your work is so close to you they can’t separate their emotions from what they are reading. This can lead them to being too nice (“it was great, I loved every word”) or, sometimes, really horrible (“why do you even bother?”).

Neither is all that useful. It feels really good to be praised, but anyone who says everything you do is golden is probably lying. The thought of hurting you scares them, and they avoid it all costs. It’s a nice thought, but I’m sure you’d rather put up with a little pain now if it means being published later.  If someone’s being too nice you can try coaching them to be meaner, but be prepared to leave them off your beta readers list.

Those friends and family (although really, only family will do this to you) that get down on your work because they have a problem with you can have a terrible effect on your confidence. The only way to know if this is happening is to show your work to multiple people, if ten people love it but your sister thinks you should give up writing forever it’s a safe bet it’s her that problem and not yours. It can be really hard to show your work to a second or third person after someone has rubbished it, but if you think it’s good, get a second opinion.

The Accidental Critic:

This person doesn’t mean to over criticize your work, they’re just on a different wavelength to you and your work. Like the person who’s too close to you to be objective, The Accidental Critic doesn’t want to hurt you, but they also try not be dishonest either. You’ll hear a lot of “I’m not sure I understand this” and “maybe someone who’s into your stuff will get it”. All the while you’ll see a look in their eyes that says quite clearly they don’t like it, but they’re trying to soften the blow.

Of course, your work could just be bad.

The solution for The Accidental Critic first requires you to take a look at your own work with a critical eye. It may not be they’re on a different wave length, it might be that you’ve produced something terrible and need to re do your work. If you think it’s good, then you need to bite the bullet and try a few other readers.

The Genuine Critic:

As rare as hen’s teeth and as precious as a new release Barbie on Christmas Eve, the genuine critic wants to help you. Not praise you, or damn you, but help you. This critic is able to be properly objective about your work, they’ll tell you if it stinks, but without telling you to quit. They’ll also tell you what works without trying to flatter you.

If this person tells you to change something you need to at least think about it. You can say no of course, but you must consider it.

The only way to deal with this kind of critic is to find out what they like to drink and send them a case full.

It’s a little early for New Year’s resolutions, so instead, I thought I’d ask you what you’re planning for 2010?

I know, so far this decade hasn’t been a good one for most people. For humanity as a whole the last nine years have downright sucked. There’s nothing that can turn back the clock and make those bad things go away, but I think we can at least put our efforts into pulling back 2010 as one good year.

Of course if your life has been golden for the last nine years, or even just this year, then keep doing what you’re doing. It’s working.

My plans for 2010 are some lofty, ambitious goals. Not resolutions, I always break those, but actual goals, which I tend to hit at least half the time. I’m only going to do three big ones, I’m sure other stuff will come up, but three seems like a good number of big goals.

Goal One: Finish The Downside of Being Dead

I’ve wasted a lot of time writing without a plan. At least 100,000 words down the drain. I learned a lot from those 100,000 words (that number looks ridiculously huge, but that’s how much I wrote this year if you take out the short stories.

Now I have the plan (subject to change).

So all that’s left to do is turn that plan into an 80-90,000 word book. I’m hoping it won’t take me all of 2010 to finish it, but I’m giving myself that much time to make it good. If I finish before then, I’ll start another book (or maybe cry).

Goal Two: Be consistent

In 2010 my goal isn’t so much making huge leaps, but maintaining consistency. In the past I’ve always been able to make huge, sometimes even improbable leaps along any goal path I’ve set.

But I have no follow through.*

So, in 2010 I intend to work more evenly throughout the year. That means writing a little every day instead of making 5000 word bursts on weekends. **

I also want to do some podcasting, but that’s going to be dependant on me getting my head around some particularly reticent audio software.

Goal Three: Don’t get so tied up with writing that I forget everything else

I get a little over involved with projects. One year I got it into my head I wanted to be a film maker and proceeded to learn everything I could about making films. Shortly after that I bored everyone around me to tears talking about it. I got so involved in my pet project that just about everything else in my life suffered for it.

This intensity of focus can be useful, but it’s not always good for me. In a way this comes back to being more consistent with what I’m doing. If I can maintain a consistent writing schedule, then I wonlt have to become so involved with it that I fail at everything else.

So what are you doing in 2010? Let me know in the comments about the big three goals you have for the year. They can be writing related, but they don’t have to be.

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.

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.

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.