Work In Progress Report

I realized the other day that it had been a while since I'd done a work in progress update, and thought it was probably time. So, here goes:

The King's Falcon (fantasy) -I finished editing in the wake of Dave Farland/ Wolverton's suggestions from his Novel ReWriting Workshop. One of my challenges on this one was that I needed to pull a plot line that hadn't started until after page 100 into the first fifty pages and blend it into the story structure better. Fingers crossed that I did this well since this story is currently out with an editor for review.

New Bohemia: Just One Night (Romance). The first draft is saved. I had a heart attack moment a while ago when I was posting this story in 1,000 word chunks to one of my writing groups. I hadn't realized that Word was pulling up the file from the remote backup device. So, when it opened on the screen the story only had 50,000 words rather than the 105,000 it should have had. Panic set in. About 20 minutes later I realized my mistake. Hands shaking, I saved a backup of the file and closed the computer for the night.  I haven't looked at this one in six weeks so it's about time to start edits.

Schrodinger Effect (Urban Fantasy Thriller). A wise friend, Lisa Scottoline, once said the difference between a murder mystery a thriller is in murder mystery someone is dead when the story starts, and in a thriller, someone dies after the narrative starts. By that definition, this WIP qualifies as a thriller. I tried picking at this story without the color wheel done, but kept having to stop to figure out the emotional resonance of what Vonna was seeing. So, I've finally finished my emotion color wheel, and outline. Now if I can keep the cat off my magnetic white board (although she's done some interesting things rearranging my outline), I should be able to get this one written. I'm about 5,000 words into it and so far so good.

Thanks for stopping by.

Resonance in Star Trek: Into Darkness

This weekend I went to see Star Trek: Into Darkness for the second time. The first time was part of an unofficial Superstars post-conference field trip. Let me tell you, seeing this kind of movie with a group of predominantly science fiction and fantasy writers was a blast. Unfortunately, exhaustion and a 6:00 am flight the next morning curtailed my ability to discuss the movie with them as much as  I would have liked.

The second viewing was with my husband and two boys. One of the great things about seeing a movie more than once is I tend to notice things I didn't the first time around. Star Trek: Into the Darkness didn't disappoint.

For all of you who are yelling at your computer - "WAIT. DON'T! I HAVEN'T SEEN IT YET." I'm going to stay fairly general so I don't give anything away.

Regardless of what you feel about the re-boot, one of the reasons the new movies work for me is the casting. All of the actors wear their characters well. There's enough of the original versions of them that I don't have to completely reset my thinking to follow along (unlike a female Starbuck).

At it's heart, Into Darkness is an action adventure in space movie. Each challenge is bigger than the one before. The movie starts with a moment that could have come from the Indian Jones franchise. That scenario builds to a peak and resolves. Just when you start to catch your breath, another crisis brews, bubbles over and explodes. By the end, you've been on such an adrenaline rollercoaster, you think that the final conflict CAN'T possibly build to a higher point. But it does.

The new movie is less Kirk dominated than the original series or movies. Spock, Uhura, Chekhov, and Scotty all have their own character arcs. In fact, I'd go so far to say that Spock is the protagonist. There are some charming moments with realistic dialog that have as much to do with character development as they do with moving the plot forward. This movie definitely has an ensemble feel to it. And it's stronger for it.

What struck me most on this second viewing though wasn't the story arc or character development. Rather it's the number of "call backs" or references to the original  series, original movies, other science fiction and fantasy movies, and other action adventure movies that struck me on the second go through. Some of them are so subtle that I missed them the first time around. Some sledgehammer you. Certain time line elements are consistent with the original and others aren't - with events had hadn't yet happened in the original already occurring before this movie started. One moment made me groan and giggle even though I'm sure that's not the emotion the writer was hoping to evoke. There's paraphrasing of a quote from The Princess Bride. And a tribble.

What takes a story from "good" to "memorable"/ "fantastic?" It has to captivate us, has to have characters we want to root for, and a few we want to fail.  It also needs to hook into our collective unconscious - our shared experiences. My sons, who didn't catch most of the references, loved it. My husband who sort of watched the original series and liked it, but didn't love it (I know. And I still married him, go figure) enjoyed the movie, and caught a lot of the references. I completely geeked out, and spent the closing credits (with the other twenty people still in the theatre - not my husband or sons) talking about the call back moments.

The ability to appeal to a multi-generational audience makes for big sales. It's also the hallmark of good story telling. Dave Farland/ Wolverton talks about building resonance into your stories in his seminars and Million Dollar Outlines and Drawing on the Power of Resonance in Writing.  Into Darkness \excels at resonance. It's well worth learning from. If you're the kind who doesn't want to take a notepad into the movie, wait until it comes out in electronic format or video. It's well worth the effort of analyzing it for the references to other works or events it makes. Also, if you haven't checked out Dave's books, I highly recommend that since he does a much better job at explaining resonance than I do.

Ben Wolverton Accident and the Kindness of Strangers

It's humbling to know that we're all just a breath away from disaster, and needing to rely on the kindness of strangers. Sadly, for one of my friends and his family, that breath came on Wednesday.

David Farland/ David Wolverton's 16 year old son, Ben, was in a longboarding accident on Wednesday, April 3, 2013.  After falling off his board, Ben suffered from severe brain trauma as well as a cracked skull, broken pelvis, broken tail bone, burnt knees, bruised lungs, broken ear drum, as well as road rash and many scars. He is currently stable, but in a coma.

When he was taken into the emergency room, Ben had a 10-15% chance of survival. On Thursday, surgeons removed his skull cap to reduce the pressure on his brain. Today they started planning for the surgery to repair his pelvis and knees. It's a good sign, and the fact that Ben is stable is nothing short of a miracle.

Like many of the self-employed in America, they have no insurance. Dave's a New York Times best-selling author, but medical expenses like the ones they are incurring are catastrophic. The bills for the hospital and treatment in this instance can exceed a million dollars.

I met Ben at the first Superstars Writing Seminar where he was drafted for  (I mean, helping with) the book store, and generally helping where he could. I doubt Dave has ever refused a request for help.

If you can, please help out, even if all you can do is share this link. Please Donate

We're also putting together a Book Bomb for the family with Dave's books Nightingale and Million Dollar Outlines to help out. The Bomb is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, but I'll post when we confirm everything.

Thank you.

My Toolbox Part II

I talked about having a Writer's Toolbox on Monday. A Writer's Toolbox contains, well, everything we know and learn about the people and world around us as well as the books and other reference materials we can consult. It's where we go when we're stuck. When you dig deep, it's these tools you are relying on. So, on Monday I gave you a list of my top 10-6th items in it., and today I round out my top ten.

5. The Three Hs – humor, humility, and hope.

Writing challenges on many levels. You can hit a wall and fight with your characters. You can become despondent waiting for and receiving rejections. Just the opposite happens when you get an acceptance or someone leaves a positive review. You have to take the positive and negative in stride otherwise you’ll give up.

4. On Writing by Stephen King, Million Dollar Outlines by David Wolverton, and Save the Cat by Blake Snyder

Of the writing books I’ve read, these three were the ones that spoke to me the most. On Writing is less about how to write than the writing life, but it should be a must read for everyone that wants to be a writer.

Million Dollar Outlinesand Save the Cat both focus on outlining to the “Hollywood Formula”. Between these two, I’m making the slow transition from discovery writer to outliner. Applying the structure to Falcon, one of my works in progress, during rewrite/ revision has made it a stronger story. I’m using the method to outline Nocebo Effect, an urban fantasy, and I’ll let you know how that process goes.

3. The Smithsonian Institute and the Library of Congress.

This is a resource I need to take better advantage of. I live a short distance outside Washington, DC. If I want to learn more about ancient Egyptian culture, I can take a trip to the museum. If I’m willing to put the time in, I could probably arrange to interview an Egyptologist.

2. My camera and photo albums.

I’m pretty visual and often have trouble making up features without a template to work from – see tool # 7 from Monday's post. One of the things I’ve done in the past is flip through my photos of people I know, and don’t know and assemble a new character from bits of many real ones. I’ve taken candid shots of strangers with interesting faces. By having this photo library, I’ve been able to add depth and detail to my characters.

1. My friends and family.

I couldn’t do half of what I do without the support of my family and friends. They’ve been sounding boards, alpha or beta readers, and my cheer leading team. Contrary to popular belief, not all of writing is a solitary exercise. To quote the Beatles, “I get by with a little help from my friends.”

So, that’s some of the items in my writer’s toolbox. What’s in yours?

Why writing is like farming.

Recently, I've heard writers lamenting about their sales and royalty checks. Some of them have gone as far as saying that the cost of writing a story so outweighed the financial benefit that they have received from that story that they will no longer write.

When I was talking to my husband about this, he said that it seemed to him that "writing was like farming."  I asked him to explain what he meant. It struck me that his analogy was a lot like Kevin J. Anderson's popcorn theory, and like Kevin's also particularly apt. The analogy that follows is Matt's:

Writing is like farming. First, when you start you have to work very hard to clear the land, prepare the soil, and plant the seeds. You work to weed and fertilize the crops. The first harvest is never what you want it to be. But it's a start. Once you've harvested that first crop, you have to work the land and reseed it for your next one. Then the weeding and fertilizing starts again. You have to move sites every once and a while so you don't use up the land and make it useless. And you have to do it year after year never knowing what the sun, rain and pests will do to your harvest.

When you have your very first harvest and take it to market, no one knows you or what you're selling. They don't come and buy that harvest in droves. If your lucky you have a few brave souls willing to take a risk on you. And you spend hours at farmers' markets and other venues trying to get those few precious sales.

After a couple of years, people begin to learn about you and come by to see if they like what you are growing. And if you have a bad year, some of your customers will go away and not come back. But you have to keep putting your harvest out there for sale, and tell people about it at the grocery store, gas station and every other place and time you can.

Then, years and years after you start, people will be coming by regularly for your crops. You will know them, and want to grow better crops for them.

And then a bunny will come and eat your lettuce, but you won't mind so much.

Nancy again -

Our neighbors across the street are farmers. They grow hay, corn and about half a dozen other crops, as well as, hogs, goats, chickens and cows. He and his family perform massive and exhausting labor every day. After Leighton's heart attack, his first question wasn't "should I give up farming" but "how long before I can get on a tractor again?" If I suggested he should stop farming just because his hogs aren't selling well this year, he'd look at me like I was insane. And he'd be right. You don't give up when one crop fails. You have other crops in the works because at some point every crop will perform poorly.

It seems to me that you can substitute the word "book" for harvest, and crops, and the word "writing" for growing fairly easily. Breaking out in the writing industry is hard work.  First, when you start you have to work very hard to come up with the idea and write the first draft. Then, you have to work at editing (weeding and fertilizing) the story. When you have your very first novel and take it to market, no one knows you or what you're selling. They don't come and buy that book in droves. You spend hours in promotions, blog hops and doing everything you can think of to sell that book. The first book is never what you want it to be. But, you keep writing.

Most writers who have "broken out" didn't do it with their first book, or the second. If I recall right, Kevin J. Anderson quit his day job after his tenth published book, and with a year of savings in the bank. A recent Daily Kick from David Wolverton advocated having no back-up plan for writing. If writing is what you want to do, you need to sink your heart and soul into it.

Leighton, Dave and my husband are all right. (Yes, Matt, I said that on the Internet so now you have proof).  If a story isn't performing as well as you'd like, and all your marketing isn't helping, work on your next one. Get more product to the market. Eventually, all your time, effort and energy will pay off.

Novel Rewriting Workshop Roundup

I've been attending David Farland/ Wolverton's Novel Rewriting Workshop in St. George, Utah this week. According to Dave, "[i]n this intensive five-day workshop, you'll learn how to revise your plot, rewrite and strengthen the prose in your chapters, and how to pitch your novel to agents and editors." It's all that and more.

A bit about how the workshop is set up. Before you can attend the seminar, you need to send Dave the first 100 pages and an outline of your novel. If you are accepted, you are then sent the first 20 pages and the outlines from the attendees' novels, and a list of writing books you need to have read before the seminar to get the most out of it. You need to read and comment on ways the other stories and outlines can improve from good to excellent. Daily sessions starts at 9am and run until 3pm. During the time, we share our comments on the stories, and Dave talks about an aspect of editing, rewriting or the business. He gives us homework which was designed to make us use the concepts discussed in that day's session.

You can't have a thin skin. While no one is mean, they do give their opinions about what worked or didn't work for them in your story.

I brought the manuscript for The King's Falcon. It's a fantasy story I've been irregularly working on for a long time. I knew I had what I called a "pacing" problem, but couldn't figure out how to resolve it. What do I mean by a pacing problem? The first third of the novel is very character driven. This means that while things happen, there isn't a giant battle scene in the first half of the novel. I wasn't meeting my audience's expectation of what and when action occurs. The threat of war doesn't appear until page 100.

In addition to feedback from the 10 other attendees, Dave gave me detailed suggestions on how to improve the story generally, and editing notes on the 100 pages and outline. While it wasn't surprising how insightful many of the comments (made equally by attendees and Dave) were, the suggested fixes were often not all that complex. We all have weaknesses in out writing. It hurts to have them pointed out, but once they are, we can being to heal and improve our writing. One suggested change will take a lot of time to implement because it added a new level to the story. The rest of them were as simple (and complex) as set the scene up better, and provide more detail when describing a character.

The nightly writing exercises allowed me to immediately implement the suggestions and get feedback on the revised sections. One exercises was to describe a static item like a building in active terms. Now, we've all heard about the writing exercise where aspiring writers are told to spend 5 pages describing a brick wall. We did none of that. Dave had several ways of bringing life to an immobile object. Once these techniques were pointed out to me, I knew what to do to enrich my storytelling, and how to find these weak spots in my manuscript.

On Wednesday, we had movie night. We watched a popular movie and dissected the story-telling elements. Again, it was amazing to see the complexity layered onto a story that, at first blush, didn't appear to reference other movies. Yet, over the course of the fantasy genre film, we found references to Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the Roman Circus and Colosseum, the Bible, reality TV shows, the fay and other fairy legends, and politics. So much for the movie telling a "simple" story.

Attending the workshop will turn out to be one of the turning points in my writing career. The sections I've already rewritten are much stronger. The friends I've made are already dear. If you're looking to take your writing to the next level, I whole-heartedly recommend Dave's Novel Rewritng Workshop.

Now it's time to get back to revising.

Dave Wolverton/ Farland's Novel Rewriting Workshop

This week I'm attending David Farland/ Wolverton's Novel Writing Workshop in St. George, Utah. During the week, I'll take my WIP - The King's Falcon - and try to iron out the last bugs. King's Falcon features an older version of Falcon from Lightning Strikes  in  Paths Less Traveled. Now working as Queen Sabryna's agent, Falcon's latest mission runs her afoul of a mage king, and thrusts Falcon ever closer to her own unwanted and abandoned throne. 

The workshop is intensive, and even had homework. The ten of us had certain books on editing, story craft and outlining to read before we arrived. We also had to review the first 20 pages and 10 page outline of the other writer's books. We'll spend the morning in "class" and discussing the stories, and the afternoon working on our homework assignments. This week is likely to be exhausting, fun, and hugely helpful. 

I also turned in the edits for Apollo's Rising, which releases from Musa on September 10, and I'll post a bit more on that later this week.

That's it for now. I'm off to class.

Work in Progress - July 2012 update

So, it's that time of the month again; time to reflect on the month passed and set goals for the present month.

Last month was one of the greatest periods of upheaval I've had in my life. Not only was I changing law firms but I was in court 2-3 times a week during that same time. All my stuff, other than critical case files, are still at the old firm. We're scheduled to move them on Wednesday.

Work demands limited my family and writing time. My July goals were:

(1) revamp my law practice;
(2) get feedback to another writer;
(3) edit New Bohemia; and
(4) write another 30K words on Flashes of Life.

How did I do? Fair.

I'm still working on integration at the new firm. A large part of this traces back to my limited time in the office. I think I already have more working hours in the office this month than I did all last month. Law firm transition is still a work in progress.

I have my notes typed up and should be sending out the e-mail to the other writer tonight. A few days late, but still - done.

New Bohemia needed a revamp because I realized my main character isn't who I thought it was. I have a love/hate relationship with characters who rebel. Anyway, the revised story is back up to 35,000 words, and still likely to be a novella. My goal is 750 words a day, 5 days a week, which should let me finish it before the writing seminar this month (more on this in a second).

I didn't touch Flashes other than to have a few more scenes play out in my head. I need to get them down, but I have to finish NB first.
At the end of August, I'll be attending David Farland's novel rewriting workshop. The novel I'm taking with me, The King's Falcon, which features Falcon from Paths Less Traveled. I have something off on the pacing and for the life of me, I can't quite nail it down., so instead of making changes that  might actually harm the story, I'm seeking professional help, ah, I mean, workshopping it. I'm planning to submit the novel to Musa Publishing after the seminar. Anyway, the workshop has "homework." I need to  read the synopsis and first 20 pages of novels of the other attendees. We'll spend part of the seminar discussing the material so I need to comment on the materials. The seminar is limited to 12 students, as of right now, there are 8 of us. I've read through the material from 3 writers. Four more to go. My plan is to read two sets per week. If you click on the link you can see that the workshop is fairly intense, but I'm hoping to blog from it at least once that week.

Apollo Rising, releases on September 10, 2012 from Musa Publishing. I'm waiting for comments back from my editor so I can start the final editing process. Since my due date is August 10, I expect to spend most of this week in edits.

So, that's how I plan to spend the dog days of summer. How about you?

Drawing Out The Dragons - Superstars 2012

There are dragons out there if we just believe and search for them.

Yet again, this year's Superstars Writing Seminar (http://superstarswritingseminar.com)  exceeded expectations. Presenters included: Kevin J. Anderson, Rebecca Moesta, Eric Flint, Brandon Sanderson, David Farland/ Wolverton, Dean Wesley Smith, and James Owen. James Owen drew the dragon pictured above as part of his presentation - Drawing Out The Dragons. Each year, one presentation inspires awe. The first year, 2010, for me the title went to Brandon and how he was chosen to complete the Wheel of Time series for Robert Jordon. There was no doubt that last year's title went to Tracy Hickman's story about how our writing touches our readers. You can hear that story on the Superstars website. James Owen stole the title this year.

A little about James for those of you who don't know him. He started his writing career as a comic book artist in middle school. His life has been punctuated by moments where most people would give up. He never did. At eleven he was diagnosed with a rare blood disease (read this as "the doctors didn't know what was wrong with him but he was dying.") and not expected to survive. He found the will to do so. As an adult, when it looked like success had finally found him, he was in a car accident. The doctors told him that he was lucky because he'd only injured his right hand (you know, the one he drew with), and that even though that hand would never be 100%, he'd be fine unless he needed his hand for his job. James said that he did because he was a comic book artist. In response, the doctor replied, "Not anymore."

James is a comic book artist.

He has more courage than anyone I know. I hope that if I'm ever faced with some of the choices the was I will have the internal strength to make the choices he did to stay true to what he wanted and not compromise them for the thing he needed at that moment.

Here's the thing: writing is tough. It's easy to give up or compromise.

Indie publishing (whether e-publishing or self-publishing) changed the writing market. Writers can directly interact with readers without the Big 6 traditional publishers. Whether this is a good thing or not is a different issue. What was true before the e-pub world continues to be true - No one can make you an international best seller. Only you can do that.

People will help me open the doors, but I still need to decide to walk through them. I need to live with purpose and make the tough choices. I need to ask for help and be willing to accept it. I have to make things happen for me. I will make things happen for me.

I will draw out the dragons even when everyone else can't see that's what I'm doing.

James Owen can be found at http://www.coppervaleinternational.com and http://coppervale.livejournal.com