Tag: drafting

The Aspiring Author’s “To Do” List


Hi All,

Long time no blog.

This post goes out to those of you that are in the drafting stages of your first book. Right now you’re probably experiencing some Frankensteinesque tunnel vision along the lines of “Must finish book, must finish book…” It’s an involuntary mantra that never seems to turn off, even in sleep. I used to dream of finishing my manuscript only to wake up and find that I was still at a meager 20,000 words.

The point of this post is to drive home a very important message: The work doesn’t end once you’ve written your last word. Once you’ve decided your manuscript is ready to be seen by the eyes of agents and publishers you’re opening an entirely new can of worms and those worms need tending to.

So to give you an idea of the work involved in pushing a completed manuscript through publishing, I decided to share the things on my current writing “To Do” list:

  1. Research agents that are interested in my genre
  2. Send query letters to said agents (this can be pretty involved as most agents want query letters, synopses, and partial manuscript requests in varying formats)
  3. Attend writing functions/network (SCBWI is a great organization to be a part of if you want to get involved in your local writing community)
  4. Read books within my genre to see what’s currently hot on the market
  5. Find other writers (beta readers) to read my manuscript and provide feedback
  6. Beta read for other writers.
  7. Work on a second/third book (agents will be more interested in you if you have multiple books to publish)
  8. Make business cards
  9. BLOG (the more followers you have, the more marketable you look to agents and publishers)

Those are just the things I could think of off the top of my head. It’s safe to say that I’ve got quite enough to keep me busy for a while.

For those of you that are in the same stage, what’s on your writing “To Do” list? Is it the same as mine? Shorter? Longer? Did I miss anything?

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Much love, and keep writing. 

 

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Jumping Write In: Skipping the Outline

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Laini Taylor gets me.

I decided before drafting the second novel in my series that I would first create a thorough outline of the plot. I embarked on my first book with nothing more than half a page of very disjointed notes scribbled on a napkin scrounged from a paper bag lunch. I decided that this time around I was going to do it “right.”

So instead of just jumping into the opening scene I began outlining…and outlining…and outlining. For three days I sat in front of a single page word document pulling my hair out as I attempted to claw ideas out of my head. What did I come up with you ask? Interestingly enough, mostly questions. Littered here and there in the white sea of a mostly empty document lay questions such as “What’s happening in her world when the book starts?” and “What is the conflict?”

Helpful? Not so much.

On the fourth day I said screw it, exited out of the document and opened a new one. I didn’t think. I didn’t wonder how what I was writing now would effect the end of the book. I just wrote. And a wonderful thing started to happen. The more I wrote the more the plot began to take form in my mind. As I filled the page with words the questions started to answer themselves. It’s a bizarre experience, really. Sometimes it feels as though the story is already in me and I just have to give myself the time to organize all the bits and pieces into a coherent whole.

That’s just how it works for some of us I guess. Some people spend weeks, even months planning out every little detail before they begin to write. But for some of us planning isn’t what breathes life into our books. Writing is.

Laini Taylor, author of The Daughter of Smoke and Bone series is an excellent example of someone who can write an incredibly compelling book with no plan at all. She’s also a goddess. If you haven’t read her trilogy, check it out.

Creating from Something: Taking Time for Creative Input

So it’s been a while since I was last at the begining stage of the writing process. About a year and a half has passed since that fateful day when I first started building the worlds and developing the characters within The Maker’s Table. I had forgotten how much energy goes into the initial planning of a novel. The truth is that a potter cannot throw a pot without first centering the clay on the wheel. You have to lay the foundation before you can jump into the story. It’s in this foundation that I’m finding myself a bit stuck. Right now I face the task of dreaming up an entirely new world while also continuing to develop the world in which Misha, my protagonist, lives. Creating from nothing. That’s the way I’ve been looking at it over the past few days at least. But this morning, as I woke up with a frustration hangover from my lack of productivity the day before, my bookshelf caught my eye.

I traced the spines of the books I have read over the past few years. Their characters, sentence structures, tones, and settings played through my head. I thought about how little pieces of each of them had found their way into the themes, and philosophies, and dialogues of my first book. And I reminded myself that any art form, writing included, is never a process of creating from nothing. All of our lives we absorb the sights, and smells, and sounds around us. We take in inspiration from the places we see, the music we listen to, the books we read. And in turn those experiences influence our own creative output. There is no avoiding it.

I thought about all the times in the last year and a half that I had justified spending my time writing rather than reading. After all, writing is far more productive an act. But is that so true? Is it productive to focus solely on output without creating the time to absorb input? How many inspirational ideas or quotes or plot lines have I passed up since leaving my “To Read” list to gather dust?

So, as I find myself going mad from attempting to claw new ideas for my novel out of my brain, I’ve decided to search for inspiration in the initial source of my love for writing: reading.

 

 

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Current undertaking: Dune by Frank Herbert

Drafting Procrastination: Beginning the Writing Process

World,

As you’ve been informed, book number one is complete. I’ve probably read the damn thing through a hundred times. My family has read it. My friends have read it. Other writers have read it. I’ve edited/revised it after each person sent it back to me with comments. And then I edited it again just for the hell of it.

 

What I’m getting at here is: It’s time to write another book.

Let me rephrase that: It’s been time to write another book.

 

I’ve actually been meaning to start it for the last week. It’s funny what can come up when you mean to start drafting a book. Suddenly, you notice how dirty your floor is. You’d better sweep and mop it. Maybe it needs a vacuum too? You definitely don’t have enough groceries for the next two weeks so you might as well stock up your fridge like you’re preparing for the apocolypse. Now is HANDS DOWN the perfect time to clean out the toaster and reorganize your underwear drawer. Your roller blades need new wheels? Better make the hour-long journey to the best skate shop on Yelp to get them replaced. Oh, and while you’re at it, maybe you should write a blog post about how difficult it is to start writing a book.

What I’m trying to say here, people, is that starting a book is a daunting task and I’ve been doing everything possible to distract myself from it. Time to get it together. Writers all over the world are frantically pounding out the beginning of their 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo and I’m cleaning out my toaster?

Since starting my book a few of my friends who also wish to be novelists have asked me for advice. I always find myself saying the same thing: JUST DO IT. Just sit down and do it. It’s scary, I know, sitting down with a computer or notebook and embarking on a journey whose end is so very far from sight. I sat on the concept behind my first book for four years before putting anything on paper. But once the first draft is done all that hemming and hawing just seems like a waste of what could have been time spent typing or brainstorming or outlining character arcs.

The point is, I need to take my own advice.

Novel number two, here I come.

Wish me luck.