What's wrong with my writing/my plot/my novel/my scene/my characters/me?

 Hi!

Today's post will be about writing what suits you and what to do when writing (which you love and are sure you want to do for the rest of your life - otherwise you wouldn't bother reading this) feels like a drag? Warning: loooong.

Let's start with 1.
Unbusting the myth of 'just write'. There will be a point in your career when you feel sucked dry, worn out, and you'll want to quit writing, but some stubborn part of yourself refuses to quit. You try to write still, short stories, novels, you start a couple of them, or twenty, but they don't work out. You're frustrated, you cry, you might rant to your friends/family about it, but nothing works.

Why not?

a) You're not doing what you love.
Oh but hold up.
You're wrong! I love writing.
If you're reading this you probably do. You want a solution to the perceived writer's block.

I'm going to tell you a secret.
Writer's Block is real.

It happens when you're not doing what you love. It happens when you're trying to do something you're not THAT into... just because it sounds cool/you've heard it sells well/you're trying to make the coolest story possible.

b) I've recently discovered a simple truth: when you're working on something you love, there's no time to agonize or be afraid. The project simply takes over... and the moment you feel frustrated/angry with it (even after taking a two day/two week/two month/two year break) something about the material you're writing is wrong. And then you should take a break until the rest of the story comes to you without you even having to think about it. (I'm not sure intense thinking works in this case instead. It doesn't work for me. It mostly does the opposite by simply ruining the whole book. And then you have to go back to the first draft... after you've already done another three or four. :D Yey!)

Taking the above into account... what (else) could be wrong? The same thing that was wrong with the ten plus projects I wrote 30-50k words on and then quit.
1. you're not writing what you love any more
2. you're (pretentiously) trying to write something that sounds cool... but your heart doesn't beat for
3. you're bored of the project (because of 1. or 2.)
4. the idea only engaged you the first hour you had it... then you started finding faults... started trying to fix them... found it too hard/boring/whatever and gave up on it.

Does this sound like I'm advocating quitting? Well. I am. Here's a single rule you should always apply: if you're tired of a project (or worse, bored), and you really don't want to do it any more, quit. With a caveat: Don't quit immediately. Sometimes there's a gem somewhere in the mess you're getting allergic to. Sometimes your brain just needs to... develop before you can finish a certain story. You'll have to practice a lot to understand this.

I'll give you some examples. I have a novella at 36k... unfinished. It's not something I can ever finish, even though I know the outcome. I just can't do it. It's too depressing. The main character grabbed me and told me her story in three days but then she told me the ending and I said 'No. This is not the sort of thing I write or want to write.' It would break people's hearts and make them cry. It made me cry... and I didn't even know the ending at the time. I don't want to finish it. I don't want to be crushed by my stories any more than I want to crush my readers. There's too much depressing stuff out there already. I don't need to add to it. After all, I'm trying to make the world a better, happier place with my stories.

This is one instance in which you quit. I likely won't ever finish the story, though it'd take 5k words (an afternoon's worth of words) max to do it. Instead I decided to put it away.

Then there's the beginnings... lots of them. I must have about twenty to thirty started and not finished stories by now.

Why? I love ideas and I like writing beginnings a lot. But I have no patience to see something through when my heart isn't into it. I'll find out something about a character, the plot, the setting... and I just go 'nope' mode. For me to finish a book, it has to be something I really love, plot, setting, characters, et al. Otherwise it won't hold my attention... and how do I expect the reader's attention to be held if I'm so bored I can't even think about it without groaning (out loud. Trust me... I've gotten weird looks.)? I'm not too worried about these though. Remember what I said about practice? You have to do it a lot. 10k hours as the common conception goes. This is all practice (and hey, my beginnings are getting great! ...). 30k words are easily written and discarded. Some turn into short stories instead of novels, but the point is, you need to keep at it. I don't believe in outlining or plotting or whatever before you sit down to write. Because, especially as a panster, you simply cannot know whether a story is going to be a short story or a novel or a novella when you start to write. You can't even know the genre... or the word count (you sit down to write a novel... and suddenly it's over at 4k words. That's ok! You can sell it to magazines as a short story and keep all the other ideas you had for it for another novel/short story/novella!) Don't worry. A lot of this will be less hazy with experience... which you get through practice!

Ok. Practice Propaganda done. Let's get on with the post.

Then there's the actual finished projects and their edits. These are tricky. There will be parts that work and parts that don't. And sometimes you won't know what works and what doesn't. :D Oh joy! Unfortunately I can't tell you what works and what doesn't. Each book is too subjective to make a general rule about how you should edit. (Yes this is not what you wanted to hear. Oh well. It's the practice thing again... it'll become easier in time to tell what's wrong... and how to fix it! I'll talk more about this in another post.) I could give you advice... but I'd have to charge for consultation. But don't worry, once it's done, you can put it aside, for a year or two, and then you take them out again, and if you're still scared to ruthlessly cut, you need to put it aside again, and again, and again, until the solutions come to you like mosquitos during the night (in a swampy area... ok.)!

Did this help you decide whether you're a sloth or not doing what you should be? I hope it did and that you have a great week no matter the outcome.
Cheers

Bonus Post! The Editing Process

Hi

This is a bonus post!

I've been keeping track of my wordcount and goals on twitter (@jimneyauthor) and I'd like to give an overview of what I'm doing at the moment. I have this project I've tentatively called 'The Descendant of Ra'. It's a MG (not YA as I long believed) about a junior archaeologist who gets transported back in time to ancient Egypt where he has to help a Pharaoh regain her throne. It involves magic and gods and all sorts of mystery (especially surrounding the MC).

Here's a quick overview of drafts:

The first draft was complete at 70k words. The second draft (adding some scenes, description, et cetera) at 117k. I spent the last week cutting it down and carving out the heart of the story. TDOR currently has 83k words (draft 3) and I'm editing it down to 75k at the moment. This entails cutting out superfluous words and scenes and characters (and fluffy gimmicks) and focusing on making the plot coherent. This is the most difficult part of the project. It is still not always clear what must stay and what must be cut. It still takes a loooot of getting-over-it (courage) to trust my instincts and take things out. But don't worry. It's also getting easier with every draft... :)

Update: I've actually done 75k (yesterday and today) and went beyond it. The current draft (draft 4) is as of today at 72k. No doubt there'll be things to add later as it looks a bit skeletal/basic now.

Here's a view of my editing: (errr... coming soon. Hint: lots of red)

My primary editing tools are a red pen (taking things out/changing things) and a yellow marker (important details that need to be kept/transfered to the new draft while the rest of the sentence/paragraph might be crossed out to be cut). The white parts (unmarked) are what I'll keep - at least until the next draft. I sometimes use a blue/black pen to make other notes... but mostly it's just red/yellow.

Like this? Follow me on twitter (@jimneyauthor) to get (sorta) live updates! And don't forget: tomorrow's Wednesday's regular post! Cheers

Why do you write?

Hi!

This post will deal with 'why do you write?' and the 'writing mission statement'. Let's go!

Why do you write? What's your mission statement as a writer? You don't have one? Well... you should. It's important to know why you do what you do and what you want to achieve with it. It'll keep you on track if you don't know what to do next (such as if you have no more ideas or writer's block or any other excuse you can think of).

You can easily do this by completing this sentence:
When people are done with my book/story/film/etc I want them to...

What should they have learned? What should they feel? What do you hope you'll make them experience throughout your book and after they're done with it? I don't have any pretentious ambitions such as 'when people read this they will be kinder to their parents'... and it took me three years to be able to condense mine into a single sentence.

I want people to think.

It doesn't even matter too much about what (although I'll try to think of some good topics to start with in the coming weeks).

Let me explain.

Why think? What's so special about thinking? Everyone does it! But do they think deeply enough? Do they (to use a fancy word) contemplate? I suppose some of us do and some don't. Then why is this abstract concept of thinking important enough to me to make it my writing goal?

It's simple.

I enjoy helping people. I like making their lives better in any way I can (Life Pro Tip: often all it takes is a smile! I'm always happy if people smile at me on the train or the bus or... you know... randomly!).

My utopia is a world in which difference is understood and not fought or feared. Any kind of difference. Difference of opinion and emotion and skin colour and religion... et cetera. It doesn't matter whether there is difference or not. There always will be. No two people are alike, even if they're the same skin colour, or if they support the same presidential candidate, and in order for there to be peace, this has to be understood. I'm still trying to explain this concept clearly.

I do believe there's a simple formula for this.

Empathy.

Empathy is key. Empathy leads to understanding and understanding to change.

The only person who can change someone's life is that person herself. I want people to understand how all the world's differences don't really matter. At the core, people are the same, everywhere. We all want to be loved, we all want to be appreciated. We want to be cherished. And at the heart of it, all we want is to be happy, to be loved, to live a life in peace, without struggle.

This is why there's been a change to my mission statement over these three years. It's become more detailed. I want to help people... and you know the why... so the question is: How? How do you achieve this? How do you make people think? What should you do? Well... Have you heard of preaching to the choir? This isn't my goal. It doesn't change anyone's point of view. It's been my experience people only really learn and remember - and really believe - through experience they make themselves.

It doesn't matter if I tell you the grass is green. You'll only believe me once you've seen it for yourself. Because then you'll know what the green-ness of grass is, how it looks like, how it smells, how it feels like under your fingertips, and you'll never forget.

This is why my mission is to make people think. It is all I want to have achieved when readers are done with my stories. They should think. They should think about what they've read, and if not consciously, then sub-consciously.

Here's a way to tell whether an author was working with a mission statement. Does the imagery come back to you after months? What does it make you feel/think? Do you still think about 'what happened next in a year'?

Want to know more? I'll recommend Catching Fireflies and Iana as a start. They're great stories to illustrate my mission statement. They're the core of it. They're the two stories about which readers most frequently ask me 'what happens after?'. Well... you tell me! You can read them for free on Kindle Unlimited.

I hope you're having a good week (it's so incredibly hot here!) and comments are appreciated! J.M.

Exposure. Experience. The Enemy.

Hi

I said this week I'm going to talk about how to write diversity/about diverse characters. So I am.

We've all heard there are too many straight/white/male protagonists in (especially) sci fi and fantasy. We've also been told this is because most authors are straight, white, and male, and most readers as well. This is a) not true and b) not the problem.

It doesn't matter whether the author is straight/white/male. The problem is that those s/w/m authors (mostly) can't slip into the shoes of characters who are not straight, white, and male.

Let's be realistic.

A lot of the people who write can afford it. They aren't about to lose the house and go completely broke if they spend hours on end at their desks and do nothing but dream on paper/the screen (with the exception of pre-success Steven King, perhaps). They aren't in danger of starving or drowning (in bills). They have a quite comfortable life as middle to upper class income citizens. They're normal. They're mediocre. They're (beyond the writing) normal people with normal friends and a normal daily routine/life. They have little hardship in their lives beyond what happens to everyone once in a while.

Their experience has (probably) not brought them very close to different kinds of people. They'll have a standard day-job (Accountant? Programmer? Teacher?), where they meet the same people every day, talk in the same fashion, and generally don't educate themselves on lives that are different. They go on holiday once a year (or twice if they're a bit better off) and have little contact with anyone but their family and the hotel consierge/campsite supervisor during those two weeks.

This doesn't nurture diversity. It advocates same-ness - of which a lot more can be found in books than characters. The plots tend to mold together after a while and the settings are dull. I find it difficult to discover books that don't work by some kind of standard formula.

Then what's needed? How do you actually diversify your writing? You need EXP. Experience with capital letters. You need to expose yourself to different cultures (even if you just listen to rap instead of metal one afternoon) and you need to talk to as many people as possible. It's impossible to write a diverse book without thinking diversely on auto-pilot. Diversity has to be ingrained in you so it'll come naturally. You hear about a 'man getting caught stealing book covers'? What race is he in your mind? Does it come with a negative connotation (such as 'oh those Mexicans')? This is the kind of automatically diverse thinking needed... except it shouldn't be as racist and should come automatically when you hear something positive as well. 'Woman saves kid from shark'. What colour is her skin? White? Why didn't your mind come up with another ethnicity instead? It's because you lack exposure and experience. You lack life.

I've said 'diverse characters come to me instead of me having to make them diverse'. I've said this despite being a prime example of straight and white. Do you know why? I spent most of my childhood and teenage years in a poor environment. I wasn't always able to afford the books and tools we needed at school. Holidays were once every three years tops - and then only half a week in a cheap room at most.

Does this make me different or special? Does it make me better? Does it make it easier to write diversely because of this?

I think it does ( - even if the margin likely isn't high). I spent a lot of time on the internet in those days... and especially in MMOS. I got to know lots of different people from all over the world. And I loved it. I knew people from Mexico to Canada to Australia to all over Europe and the Asian Islands. I learned chunks of different languages and dismantled many a person's mind about their beliefs and religions and sexuality. I got to know a gay high priest (I'll use MMO classes to obscure identity! Yey!) who'd be killed by his boyfriend's dad if anyone knew. I got to know a sweet muslim archer who put his life on the line to protect his younger siblings over the years. I met a rich mage buying an apartment block to rent out to become even richer.

You know what I've found? It is simple. People are all the same. It doesn't matter what colour they are or what God they pray to (if any). When it comes down to it they all yearn. They all hurt. They all love and hate. The worst have vulnerable sides (like the elementary school bully who cried when his parents didn't show up for a piece we'd prepared) and the sweetest of them have vengeful sides (like the protecting archer who cried when one of his tormentors died in an accident).

This rant concluded (I'm not sorry. Injustice just riles me... even if I believe it gives people an advantage in other areas of life!) I still have questions that need answers.

I wonder whether all the trouble of going through a non-privileged childhood/life is worth it. I wonder whether being in a minority makes it easier to write diversely. Do straight white women have an easier time writing diversely than straight white men? Do people of obscure religions/upbringings see the world differently and thus more diversely? Do ethnic people and LGBT people find it easier to write about diversity because they can relate?

And most important of all...

What do you think about this? It's a theory. Does it miss anything? Post a comment!

I hope this post made you think (thinking is really the core of what this blog is about) and you'll have a great week! J.M.

Noise about Diversity

Hi people!

I want to talk about "diverse" characters in fantasy and sci-fi and I'm not going to try not to step on anyone's toes.

You know what turns me off about a book with 'diverse' characters? Here's an example. Let's say this character's diversity is he's LGBT. He's gay like a peacock. That's cool. I like it (understatement!). However... if I read a blurb and it goes something like: 'gay high orc lord Waldwächter...' or 'twenty-six year old Alex Nano is gay. He's also the superstar of the galactic space emporium battle fleet'... I'm not going to pick up the book.

Look.

I don't care Alex Nano is gay and I don't want to be told this as if it/he's some kind of novelty. At least not in that fist-to-eye way. It's like a warning sign.

'WARNING: THIS BOOK CONTAINS GAY CHARACTERS. READ AT YOUR OWN PERIL.'

Understand: I don't buy books because the main character in your sci-fi epic is gay. I buy it because it's a sci-fi epic and because your character sounds cool and I can't think of anyone who reads a book simply because the main character is in some kind of minority (say he's religious as opposed to the many atheists out there or he's not white). Diversity is a requirement if you want to write a good story. The only occasion in which advertising diversity is acceptable is if a character's race/gender/sexuality/religion/etc is in itself a major plot point or ties into the main plot (like a romance sub-plot in which the subtext of Alex drooling over Richard tells me oh! This is something new. This sci-fi hero has a male love interest? I'm intrigued. I'll immediately buy it and read it in one sitting if the rest of the blurb sounds great too.)

On the other hand if you have to advertise it very bluntly (like a fist to my eye) as if Alex Nano's gayness is his only defining characteristic then I'll Alt+F4 the tab and never look at your book/work again.

I want to read a story about a cool character doing cool things and I don't expect a straight-white-male character when I pick up a book. I expect to be entertained. I expect to meet a great protagonist. It doesn't matter whether she is straight or gay or white or brown or, I don't know, violet. Tell me something different that makes her special. Why is it worth reading about this character? Diversity in itself doesn't mean your character will be interesting - never mind sympathetic - and it doesn't need to be advertised. It should be standard and though I might drool if there's a male same sex romance in it I want to meet all kinds of worthwhile characters of different sexes, sexualities, religions, races, et cetera.

Here's an opposite example: Richard K. Morgan's A Land Fit For Heroes. It's good. Two of the three main characters are LGBT (and one of them is a POC) and yet I *strongly disliked* one of them. Why? Not because the character is LGBT. That didn't matter. I *strongly disliked* this character because they were a god-damned bitch... and my favourite character wasn't the other gay character either.

You see what I'm getting at? There is no need to advertise diversity. There is only a need to include it. I want to meet all kinds of people and live as many lives as possible in one life.


I've one more thing to talk about in this post.

Despite being a straight white woman most of my protagonists are LGBT and POC and all other kinds of people.

Why?

In the same way I'm not interested in reading about the same straight/white/male character in every book and I don't want to write about the same straight/white/male character in every story. I want to create as many experiences as possible and live as many lives as is possible in one life.

But! Haven't I been advocating not to put emphasis on the other-ness of characters because it would defeat the point? Indeed! But writing is a lot like reading (if you're a pantser like me). The story tells itself in many ways. My characters aren't deliberately made dark-skinned or LGTB or even 'different' or 'diverse'. I'm not thinking 'why not make this character gay?' I'm thinking 'who does this character check out at the pool? Men or women? The girl his age or the guy who's two decades older than him? And most of the time I don't think at all. I just write and let the characters tell me who they are at their pace instead of forcing a persona and a plot onto them.

Think you should as well? Give it a try. It doesn't need to be a whole book or a whole story. Just lure in a character and ask them who they are. And then listen.

This is it for today's post. Liked it? Want to know more/see how I do it? Check out my short stories! You can read them all for free if you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription (which is useful)! :) Next (Wednesday's!) post will focus more on the writing part of diversity and why most protagonists in sci-fi and fantasy are straight/white/male.

Thank you for reading and I hope you have a great week!
J.M.

Holiday and A Sale!

Hi guys and girls!


There's two things I'd like to talk about today.


1. I'm sorry about the lack of last week's post. I wasn't home (read: on a too-short holiday) and had no access to a computer. It is my aim to put up a post today... if the dust mites don't get me first... and there will of course be another on Wednesday.


2. Two things happened on KPD. 2115 was read on Kindle Unlimited (yey!) and I sold a copy of Catching Fireflies! This makes me incredibly happy and it made my day (twice!)! :D I hope there are more sales/reads ahead!


Thank you for reading and I'm again sorry the promised blog post wasn't there last week. It'll be up soon.