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

I’m not sure if this is going to help you, but it sure helped me.

I’m good at the first two chapters of an story I write, typically I can give you a couple of mouth watering (or stomach churning) chapters within a day or two.

Sadly it’s all down hill from there.

I get lost in the dark, dangerous, deathly boring swamp that is the middle of my story. It took me awhile to realise this, but it’s usually because I’m unsure of the ending I’m writing towards. Initially I tried writing the last chapter first, but I found that I didn’t know any of the characters involved in the finale, and it was hard to care about what was happening to them. Some people get around this by frenetically planning their books down to the last detail, but that was never really my way of writing (although I do a lot more planning now than I have ever done before).

So, what to do?

I now write the first two or three chapters of a given story, then I write the final conflict. I don’t necessarily write the last chapter, just the last conflict.  That way I already know my protagonist enough to care about how that last scene goes down. The final battle also reveals things about my antagonists that I can use when I go back and write from the end of chapter two.

Once you have your final conflict chapter, go back over it and make notes about the ways the characters have changed  since you started. Of course  all of this is for your first draft, but it’s a useful tool to give your story better structure  without restricting yourself to a rigid plan.

JC Hutchins’ book 7th Son: Descent is out.

This makes me happy.

Not just because it’s good (it’s superb), not just because he’s got a damn snazzy website (although it is pretty damn snazzy), but because any new author trying to make it in the business should take a look at JC Hutchins’ way of doing things.

Hutchin’s has taken the “give it away free first” model and run with it. On his website you can literally try the novel before you buy it, listen to a prequel written just for 7th Son (which is awesome in its own right) and fill yourself up on all the juicy details your infovorous* minds can handle.

You can do all of that at his site jchutchins.net.

This means you (and by you I mean “me too”) can whip yourself up into a state of frenzy for the story before the book even reaches the shelves. 7th Son: Descent is so good that I think it would have done well even without all of the online attention that JC Hutchins’ media savvy/general awesomeness has generated, but combining its quality** with a genuinely inspired approach to new media and internet marketing will push this book through the roof. It’s not a novel for the faint of heart, but Hutchins’ writing grabs hold of your eyeballs from the very first sentence.

You can try this novel without spending any money. You can avail yourself of delicious details on JC Hutchins’s website, and you can check out Hutchins’ other (spooky) novel Personal Effects: Dark Art while you’re at it.

What are you still doing here?***

* I have Tycho Brahe of Penny Arcade Comics to thank for the word infovore, which I’ve twisted into infovorous. Making up words is fun, even if you’re not the first to think of it…

** Yes, no matter how great your marketing/website/interview style is your book still has to be good. JC Hutchins is a very very good writer and he’s platformed the rest of his stuff from that. Bear that in mind.

*** I would consider it a personal favor if you purchased 7th Son: Descent because novels like this should be encouraged and nothing encourages writers more than being paid for their good work.

Tags: 7th Son, advice, JC Hutchins, learn something, Required Reading

I’m running it close to the wire here. Four days to go and I’ve still got 10,000 words to hit my target of 50,000 in one month.

Even to reach this I’ve had to count everything I;ve written this month, including the words I’ve deleted.

It still counts.

Quick Tip:

Stuck for story idas? Look through the Google search terms people used to find your blog. My favorite so far is “freaky mace games.” If that was you, why?

You also inspired a short story, thanks.

But really, mace games?

Tags: advice, silly posts, updates

I’d like you to fast forward yourselves to the end of November.

You, sweaty and stained as if you’ve just emerged from a coal mine, are stared at a pile of printed paper. You choke back some tears and wonder about having another coffee. You silently curse and praise NanoWrimo at the same time.

You’re looking at your novel.

50,000 words in just one month, it’s an incredible achievement, one that you can brag about for months. Your future self reaches out to stuff the first three chapters and a query letter into an envelope. Printed on the front of this envelope is the address of your favorite literary agent*.

I want you step out of the time stream and punch your future self in the back of the head. As your unsuspecting, caffiene ravaged clone falls to the floor for the first rest they’ve had in ages I want you to take all of the envelopes addressed to agents and burn them.

Of course all this flitting about the time stream may bring about the end of the world, but it’ll be worth it to stop your future self from sending those chapters, or worse, whole novels out to agents they respect. Why is that?

You can’t write a saleable novel in thirty days.

You can get a first draft. You might even get a full length first draft but there is no way that you’re going to be able to get a proffesional standard, agent ready draft in thirty days. I know there are rumours of super ninja authors that can do it, but that’s not us. I think  you should do NanoWriMo, but you must keep in mind that if you think, even for  second, that you’re going to be able to get out a full sized novel (80,000 plus words) and make it professionally acceptable in a month you’re kidding yourself.

This goes double if you have any kind of a life outside writing.

So save the universe our potentially damaging trip to the future. Set the idea in your head that your NanoWriMo novel is a first draft, and when you’ve recovered from November’s insanity you’ll keep working to make it good…

Not just finished.

*You researched your agents and have found a favorite that fits with your novel and genre…right?

Tags: advice, nanowrimo