I love character quirks.

In one of my early stories one of the characters was a one legged prostitute named Reverend Moon (it’s still in the short story section of the site if you want to read it). I’ve levered in other strange tics, everything from an obsession with numbers to a predilection for Greek literature.

It’s taken me until my current project to realise I might have been overdoing it a little.

Bizarre quirks can work, but it’s like salt. A little improves a dish, a lot makes you gag. I’ve tired to infuse my current protagonist with some more ordinary quirks. He loves cheeseburgers, especially cold ones from Big Gary’s Chip Shop (named after a burger bar I used to go to long ago). He stashes grab bags around town, because he’s in a dangerous line of work and some times needs to get out of dodge quickly.

The first quirk, cheeseburgers, doesn’t need an in story explanation. Lots of  people like cheeseburgers. That the main character likes them cold is a little odd, but not odd enough to warrant any kind of explanation.

The second quirk, the grab bags full of clothes and the odd fake ID, needs a little more in the way of set up. Without knowing that my main character frequently finds himself in peril, readers could easily come to the conclusion that he’s paranoid. Which he is, but with good reason.

The lesson here, and I wish I’d learned it before now, is that big quirks and ticks need to have a context within the story, or it looks like you’ve put them in just for the sake of having them. Smaller, more human and every day things can be sprinkled in just for interests sake.

In other news I drew Riznphnx’s name out of the hat to win January’s prize for helping out Tee Morris and Sonic Boom. I’m keeping the competition going for another two months, so if you’ve already donated, you’re already in the next two draws. If you’ve donated, just tell me and I’ll add your name to the list.

If you haven’t donated, the ChipIn widget is just to the right of this post. It’s very easy to help out in the initial rush of a tragedy. It’s harder to keep helping as time passes. I haven’t always been good at it myself, but Tee has done so much for our community I’d like to see some more donations rolling in. As with last month, if you donate and tell me you go in the draw to win one of Tee’s books from Book Depository

Tags: advice, Community, Tee Morris, writing

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.

Tags: resolutions, Tee Morris, time wasting, writing

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

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

Serial Agent Pimp Nathan Bransford (I love coming up with titles for people, it’s going to get me in trouble sooner or later) has finished the mammoth task of reading 2,500 plus entries and come up with a short list of ten finalists.

I’m not one of them.

I’m not bitter about this at all, for starters the ten finalists have some up with some excellent first paragraphs, I want to know what happens next in their stories. The other reason I’m not bitter is that if I couldn’t handle losing out in an online blog contest, I’d have no business at all being a writer.

Rejection and failure are all part of this writing business. You will be rejected, your masterpiece will go unappreciated and often unread, you will lose contests, you will be hunted down by pitchfork wielding peasants.

Actually that last one’s just me.

My propensity for attracting lynch mobs aside, every writer goes through both internal and external rejection. Luck plays a huge role in any creative endeavour, especially publishing. Even if you get an agent or a publishing deal, there is no guarantee your book will sell.

There are a few things that can get you through the down times:

Persistence:

Don’t quit. If you stop writing your chance of being published instantly drops to zero. The more you write, the better your writing will get and the better chance you will have of being the person who’s in the right place at the right time. We all know that J K Rowling got rejections before Harry Potter made her one of the richest women in the world.

Flexibility:

You might have to make some changes. None of us really like changing our stuff, after all we’ve written it, edited it (you did edit it didn’t you?*) and loved it, surely it’s golden?

No. Not even a maybe.

It could well be that your book just hasn’t found the right agent yet, but if you’ve hit up every agent that handles your genre and there are still no bites, there could be something that needs changing. You need to be open to the idea that you can change your book, even if it means a re write or even starting a whole new story. be stubborn about keeping writing, not about making changes.

That leads us to…

Objectivity:

Take a week off from your story, take two. The go back and read it like you just paid twenty dollars for it at Borders. You’ll see mistakes there that you never thought you could make. The key at this point is not to ignore those mistakes. You read books, lots of books**, so you know how a good book should feel. If your story doesn’t feel that way, you will need to be honest about that with yourself and make the changes.

Equally valuable is bringing in some outside objectivity. Recently Julie Butcher*** of Wordathon fame took some time out of her ridiculously busy schedule to give me some feedback on my writing. I took the notes she gave me and decided that my second chapter needed a complete re write. If Julie hadn’t been kind enough to give me that feedback I probably wouldn’t have changed it.

Enjoy Yourself Damn It

It’s really easy to get caught up in how hard writing is. It’s really hard, some days are a horrible mockery of a happy existence. It doesn’t matter. I love writing, I’m happiest when I’m tinkering with my stories, and like cold pizza and sex, even when it’s pretty bad, it’s still pretty good.

If writing does nothing but fill you with pain, why are you still doing it? There is no guarantee that you will get published, and even then no guarantee that you will sell enough books to make a decent living, or even a living at all. Obviously we all want to be published and have so much money that Dan brown turns green with envy, but we have to be able to enjoy the process of getting there as much as we dream of fame and fortune.

Fame and fortune may never arrive. I honestly believe that with enough work and a little talent, anyone can get published if they keep at it, but real success is often down to luck. If that fame and fortune never arrives I want you to be able to look back on every minute you spent writing and say “It was worth it anyway.”

* Didn’t you?!

** Your writing will be better for doing more reading.

*** Julie is the busiest person in the world and still cranks out excellent writing, helps with charity events, organises wordathons, raises six kids and plots daring cupcake escapades. If she can find the time to write so can you.

Tags: advice, failing, goal setting, writing

I get asked this a lot. 

I think any writer, published or unpublished, gets asked this at least once a week. To people who don’t write it’s the irresistible question…well, that and “why do you do this to yourself?”

Maybe that’s just me.

The truth for most of us is that we don’t know where we get our ideas, and we scramble for a answer that sounds good enough to make the asker go away. We then spend the rest of the day wondering “where do I get my ideas?”

Just a few weeks ago a friend of mine asked me a slightly different question, she didn’t care where I got my ideas from, she wanted to know what it felt like when an idea popped into my head. I gave her the only answer I had:

It’s like being mugged.

I can be walking around minding my own business and an idea will creep up on me and smack me over the head. I usually have about a minute to write it down before something else grabs my attention and its lost forever, but during that minute the idea holds my full attention. So far I’ve been lucky and haven’t had a book idea while defusing a bomb, but I figure it’s only a matter of time.

It’s actually a far better question than “where do you get your ideas?” because no matter where my ideas come from, its not going to be the same for anyone else, because my life experiences are different. Finding out how an idea feels means that you can imagine that feeling in your own mind and see if that helps you find your own ideas for a book*.

What does it feel like when you get an idea? Do it creep up on you with a cosh, or does it knock politely?

* This is a technique called modeling that I picked up from NLP

Tags: advice, ideas, NLP, writing

Please don’t answer that. My stupidity is already well documented.

So, after putting down The Shadow Library and getting geared up for the next novel, I’ve also been planning to do NanoWriMo. Initially my plan was to do the 50,000 words NanoWriMo asks of its authors and then write the second half of my story in December.

Utilizing the remaining memories of what December as like last year I deem the chance of writing 50,000 words in December to be minimal. I think I’d be more likely to win a large cash prize of some sort. Or be savaged by a rabid wild boar.

So instead of hitting 50,000 words in November and December, I’m going to start NanoWriMo a month early and start my new novel today. I’m going to try to get a post up every few days to let you all know how it’s going.

I’m fairly sure this means I won’t be eligible to claim a win under NanoWriMo rules, but at the end of two months I’ll have another first draft to play with.

I think it’s worth it.

Tags: idiot things, nanowrimo in October, writing

It’s been awhile.

Actually it’s only been a week, but I’m sorry I’ve left you hanging. My excuse (and it is just an excuse) is that my brain space has been invaded by other projects, work,martial arts training and the plethora of other things that everyone else has to deal with in their lives.

The reason I mention brain space is recently a friend of mine mentioned how much brain space looking after children takes. After a moments thought I decided I have no real frame of reference for looking after children, since I don’t have any.

I have an incontinent, adventurous kitten, but I’m sure that doesn’t count.

It hit me that as busy as I am, I’m fortunate to have some free time, a computer and some available brain space to throw at creative projects. I also have two arms, two legs and no major injuries or disabilities (unless you count a horrible cauliflower ear). This puts me (and I’m guessing, you) ahead of a huge chunk of the rest of the world.

If you have both the desire, and the ability to write, you don’t only owe it to yourself to be working towards your dream, you owe it to everyone who wants to write, but can’t.

Whether it’s due to circumstances beyond their control, disability or even a simple lack of resources, there are people who dream your dream who don’t even get the glimmer of hope we have.

You owe them.

Time to go back to writing.

Tags: advice, brain space, writing