Public Reading

Life has been a veritable whirlwind of challenges and new experiences, many a result of starting a Masters degree in Creative Writing this September, others, just life. Hopefully I’ll get the time to write about these in more detail, but I wanted* to come on and write about my first experience with reading my work in public, which I did on Monday.

I have read in public once before, at a small, informal event organised at my writing group leader, held at her house with drinks and a party like vibe. Monday was not a much larger gathering, organised by a local author, for other local writers to showcase their work (and for the self-published authors, make some sales!). It was far more terrifying than I had anticipated, and I did burst into tears as soon as I got home***, but overall, I believe that it went well (at least, that’s what I’ve been told!).

These are some of the lessons I’ll be taking from it:

1. Practice your piece (aloud!) in advance.

   Due to last minute tweaking, university commitments family interruptions and traffic, I was unable to do a final read-through  on the day of the reading. I’d read it aloud in advance, but sat at my computer a few days before. I lip read it on the train home to check timings, I did not stand in front of a mirror in the privacy of my own home doing a dry run. Doing so would definitely have left me more confident when it came to the public event.

2. Keep it simple.

   The best pieces read (in my mind) were linear and from a single viewpoint. First person worked well. My piece was fairly complex, and took a lot of cutting to get it within the time allocation (more on this in a minute!). It switched between two locations, indicated by scene breaks on the page, but less clear to listeners (it’s not good writing practice in general, but a few insertions of “meanwhile, over in…” may have helped). The story was located in Zambia, and I had meant to use a few gentle accents, but as I’m terrible at accents in general****, in the sheer panic of the night I forwent most of them and just ploughed through the piece. Maybe a few extra dialogue tags would have helped clarify the character interactions. I had also included a lot of medical/scientific terminology. My Science background took over, so I was fine with pronunciation, but it’s definitely an issue to bear in mind if inserting technobabble!

3. Stay within the time frame.

   One of the positives of the night was knowing my piece finished just within the allocated time-slot. I kept the introduction short (I had pre-planned what to say), but I didn’t have to worry about evil looks from the organiser***** or pointed tapping of watches.

4. Wear layers.

   I was fine in the café, until I stood up to read. Then my blood pressure soared and I was very aware of beetroot cheeks and sweating! Having something I could take off might have helped me feel less self-conscious. (removing my wool dress would not have helped me feel less conspicuous!!). On a similar note, staying comfortable in general removes pressures, so pop to the loo before and make sure you have a glass of water to hand.

5. Look up!

   Even if you’re nervous, looking up at the audience makes for a much better connection and helps people enjoy the pieces better. It also projects a calmer image than may be the case.I glanced up about 3 times in the piece, even though I knew I should have been doing so more. A writer friend who was there recommended marking points in the text to look up, which is something I’ll definitely be doing next time.

So overall…terrifying, but definitely a good learning experience! Plus it can’t have gone that badly, because I’ve volunteered to do it again, and the organiser didn’t run away screaming. All positive! 😀

 

*aka. use some gained time from a cancelled lecture**

**Or really, procrastinate on the reading I should be doing.

***I think it took that long for the adrenaline to wear off!

**** My husband had mocked me earlier that everyone might think it was set in Romania. He had a fair point!

*****She’s a very lovely lady, so these would probably have been mostly in my head.

A Brief Update…

I’m torn. Part of me feels guilty that it’s been so long, but the other part of me is trying to be a realist and remember exactly how hectic life has been recently. That I’ve passed out before 9pm every night this week (often before the kids have) is tribute to how exhausting things have been.

I forget exactly where I was the last time I blogged*, but this is where I am now:

• The first draft of my second novel is complete, rested (a little) and now being worked on. I burned out a bit at the end, so spend a couple of much needed weeks off playing Fallout (3…sadly I’m not flush enough with cash or time to justify updating our PS3 yet). I was reluctant to get back into it, but made myself tart up a chapter to take to my writing group, and not only was it well received but seeing the prose tidied up gave me hope again for the story as a hole, so I grabbed at the momentum and have been working on it since.

 

• I’m going against the advice to print and read the whole thing in one go. I tried it last time, and found I got overwhelmed by the pages of scrawl and notes everywhere. Because I know a lot of the issues that are in the first draft I’m doing a brief read-edit to get the whole a bit tidier before I do the Big Read. Hopefully it will help me get a better overview with fewer things to niggle over.

 

• I’ve mentioned before that I like to use a spreadsheet to log my wordcount. I’ve found that logging my editing days and notes is just as motivational. It lets me see how well I’ve actually done when I’m on a good run. I’m focusing on time spent, change in wordcount (goes up and down depending on what scenes I’m working on need), notes on revision tasks undertaken, and general notes (usually along the lines of “Urrrgh, so tired…”).

 

• I’ve been working on a couple of short stories-one horror, one children’s picture book (diversifying much?!). Both started well then stalled for different reasons. I’m hoping to dip back into them when I get a bit of inspiration or I need a break from novel revisions.

 

• I’ve been reading more. Largely because I got to actually have some holiday during my recent holiday, and I remembered how lovely it is to read a book properly instead of in 1-2 line chunks before someone interrupts me, so I’ve been making more of an effort to get those longer lengths of time (although that’s largely come at the expense of writing time, so I’m not sure how sustainable it will be. Hopefully as the kids get bigger and life gets a little calmer…hahaha!)

 

• I’ve been outlining(!!!) my next novel. This was partly something I’d intended to do, then used to procrastinate starting revisions! As it is I’m enjoying dipping in, partly because it’s my Big One that I devised the concept for before I’d even started writing my first novel (it was initially going to be a board game, but it turns out board game design is HARD! Who’d have thought it, huh?!), so it’s already been stewing a while, and I’m happy to let it grow. The most productive parts have been writing short character pieces and scenes in the world, rather than trying to force a plot (I tried this and have scrapped most of what I came up with because it felt so…forced!)

So that’s pretty much me for now. I’ll try to make more effort to update, and who knows, even talk about non-writing things!

 

*I could (and maybe should) check, but I promised myself this would be quick else I would have argued myself out of logging on!

I’m at THAT point in the manuscript…

…It happened last time, too.

There I was, past the muddly start, past the “I should go back to re-write the start” convictions, skipping through the words with the happy knowledge that that end is in sight. It’s so easy, I just need to…

Wait. What do I need to do?

I’m not mad-keen on outlining. I see the benefits, I made a hearty attempt this time round, but honestly, once I get a grip on the story, I want to just write it. So I plan ahead, but the further I plan, the more I want to just see how I get there. Which is fine…

Until now.

My outline for the last chunk of my story runs something like this:

“[protagonist] breaks into building. Gets captured. Manipulates powers*. Burns the place down. Everyone escapes.”

Easy.

Except, ummmm… *this.

I’ve been brushing over it, using the square brackets I’ve been so pleased with, but finally crunch time has arrived. I have to fix the mechanics on which my story is based, because otherwise I have no idea how to bring the ending together. I could (and probably will) fudge it to some extent, but the carefree sense at the start of the story has worn off. I’m committed to this one now that I’m so many thousands of words in, and which I know that I’ll have to go through and redo large chunks of it, I’m reluctant to do that here, because I keep telling myself that I need to know the ending to really know the start.

So I’m going to give myself a day or two to recover and research. Then it’s time to sit down with a notebook** and get working again.

 

**I bought a notebook! It’s pretty colours.

 

The Joy of Completed Works

No, sadly not the novel. I’m having a couple of days to mull over a sticky point before I whip myself back onto that one…

But I was skimming through some upcoming deadlines and competitions on the Word Factory site, and realised when I clicked on some that I actually have some things I could submit!

These are little short stories that I’d finished some months back but hadn’t found places to submit them, partly because they’re slightly outside of what I usually read, so researching was going to be more effort than just pulling up a website or two and checking the submission guidelines.

Whilst there’s obviously no guarantee that anything will come from it, it was incredibly satisfying to be able to send off an enquiry knowing that I’ve got something all ready to dust off, rather than the blind panic of trying to fit a story in to meet both a deadline and a criteria, which my rather unstructured writing approach (just blurting onto the page whatever the story seems to want) makes rather stressful!

So the lesson is…unless you have a looming deadline, write what you fancy, smarten it up, and keep hold of it…you never know when you might stumble into an oppertunity!

 

The Mid-Section Slog

I’m in that funny place, where the end is hovering tantalising ahead like a mirage, but I’m still slogging through the middle of the desert, hoping that it all makes sense and I’m not going to have to rewrite the whole lot. I suspect that even if I do, I’ll have to write my way into realising how!

I’m finding the use of [square brackets] a blessing, though it doesn’t always feel like it when I think about just how much there is to go back an fix once I’ve finished this write through, and a large part of me wants to go back through and sort it all out now.

But since that put my last project back into the perpetual re-write stage, I’m holding off until I’ve at least got my ending down so I can see the whole before trying to slot in new parts.

So right now it feels like an uphill slog probably not helped that I’m doing a dialogue heavy scene that’s fighting very hard to become an infodump rather than charismatic and purposeful banter!], but hopefully it’s not too long before I can slide down into the ending! [and mahoosive revisions I have waiting!]

Re-Routing Mid-Story Tedium

With allowances for the festive season, I’ve been happily chugging through my novel. I hit a wall about four days ago, but thought I’d solved the issue by creating a map*, which helped me sort out the muddle of road names and locations of key events/clues for my protagonist to follow.

After a couple of days something niggled and I put in this square brackets prompt** for when I start the revisions process: [check this isn’t too boring with lists of road names etc!].

Last night I read this article on avoiding the mushy middle by Chuck Wendig.

This morning I realised that although my protagonist is progressing through the story, all he’s really done of late is buy a jumper, navigate some map issues, and develop some poor spatial awareness skills (interesting sidenote, the word “map” now appears 28 times in the last 8000 words of my manuscript).

It’s about time to deviate from talk of the weather and the state of the roads*** and insert some action!

New revisions note: [Iron gates twisted: melted and reformed. Claw marks up the brickwork. Possibly a sinkhole.]

It’s a start…

 

*Dithered over whether to post a picture or not, it is pretty bad and slightly embarrassing, so I’ve only put up a small section above. There’s a reason I teach Science and not Art!

**I mentioned before how helpful these have been in getting me through my first draft without looking back.

***I can see Jane Austen peering smugly over my shoulder at my deterioration into a British stereotype.

 

Writing. Waiting.

I have a short piece out on submission to one of the big SF names. They have a looong turnaround, which I knew when I submitted it, but I also knew that waiting is a core part of writing.

So I told myself I could look in January if I hadn’t heard anything.

About a month ago I started checking my spam folder every few days. You know. Just in case.

Then about 2 weeks ago I began checking my inbox just that little bit more obsessively.

A few days ago I caved and logged on to the website to check the status.

Turns out I’m only two months into an expected 4 month turnaround (it was 3 when I submitted, hence the January “permission to look” deadline.)

So I’m back to waiting. End of February I’ll look again.

Unless I get itchy fingers before then.

I’d better get back to writing. At least it takes my mind of these things!

 

 

 

Round 2: Lessons Learnt and Starting My Second Novel

It’s been a while since I updated and a lot has happened, though not so newsworthy to actually write about. Kids are growing (if still refusing to sleep), work is stressful, and all the usual stuff. The writing has been going well, however, although the time pressures have meant blogging has had to take a backseat to writing.

In the spirit of moving forwards, I finally trunked my first novel. I still like the story and hope to use elements of it in the future, but it’s morphed drastically a couple of times since its first inception, and whilst it’s taught me a lot, the amount of work still needed is more than I’m willing to put in. It’s a little disappointing as I was hoping to refine my editing skills by getting this story as honed as possible, but a few things made me realise that I’ll be better investing my time elsewhere.

So here’s what’s been going on:

1. I’ve been working on my short fiction. It started as a bit of light relief from the momentus editing albatross hung around my neck, and also some last minute panics when I needed something to read to my writing group. But it’s actually taught me a lot about structuring a story, filling in details that keep the story flowing (I tend to underwrite, so this is a biggy for me), and giving me practice at the sentence level restructuring I’ve been desperate to get to practice but was no where near ready to do with the novel.
2. I got my first set of feedback at the absolutewrite.com water cooler. Priceless. Absolutely bloody brilliant for critiques (at least the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section)! My writing group is lovely, but much more a supportive, cheerleading group, than the thorough critiques that really push ones writing forward. and this site got that corner.
3. I’ve made my first submission. Only for a short (as mentioned, novel #1 is not going to see the light of day any time soon!)It’s still in the pipeline, but it’s for a major, paying market who publish some really quality stuff. Whilst I’m not so delusional as to expect it to be accepted, the piece has had almost universally good feedback, and it means a lot to me to feel like I stand a chance at that level. So, excited, but realistic about my chances!
4. I’ve started Novel Number 2. It’s different from Novel Number 1, but still has some elements of style that I’ve discovered I like. I’ve also used it as an opportunity to embrace my Science/Biology background that seemed to work well in the short stuff I’ve done, and that’s got me even more interested!
5. Further to point 4, I’ve been a-planning! After initially deciding I was a pantser, then getting exhausted with the rambling, ever changing mess of my first novel, I decided to put a bit more effort into structuring this one. Doing so has made me realise I’m not such a hard and fast discovery writer as I thought-even with my first WIP I had to stop to plot out the next chunk of story to get it clear in my mind. So I’ve embraced that amalgamated method, kicked things off with KM Weiland’s Outlining Your Novel Workbook, and dotted to and fro between writing and planning ahead. The proof will be in the writing, but so far it’s working well.

So, that’s a brief update on the big things in my writing. I will try to update more regularly, just…time!

Still, forging on for now! 🙂

Baby Burnout, Writing Fatigue, and Dabbling With New Forms…

It’s getting old now, but I am EXHAUSTED. With work pressures, a boisterous 3 year old and our youngest fully enjoying the new world of walking, talking and playing day and night, amongst other things, I’m well ready for the summer holidays (I’ve been off a week and it really doesn’t feel like it.)

But it’s not just physical tiredness. After a pretty good patch, I’ve lost momentum with my writing, too. The second draft I’ve been slogging at was getting me so down that I decided to just give up on it, and for about a month I’ve been pretty lax on the writing front (not helped by losing most of my evenings to bedtime battles or passing out even before the kids from exhaustion.)

Even at my most knackered I’ve kept up the podcasts etc (I do love Writing Excuses for a 15 minute or so hit whilst cooking or doing laundry) so hopefully I’m still learning by osmosis, but I also stumbled across a couple of competitions via Twitter that got my brain whirring and tempted me to try some different forms.

So I’ve written the first short story that I actually rather like,* and am hoping to do a final edit and send it off next week for this competition (my first! Eeek!). I doubt anything will come of it**, but it’s been refreshing to find out that I can do it, as well as a satisfying learning activity, going from first concepts to line edits within a few weeks (as a opposed to years for novel length work.)

I’m also contemplating a pop at playwriting for another competition that’s sparked my interest***. Again, no real expectations of getting anywhere, but it’s as good excuse as any to have a try and see if I can do it. Worst case, I’ll waste a bit of time, discount a form from my “to try” list, but still get some much needed practice with dialogue and endings.

So that’s my plan for the next few weeks, as well as trying to revive (and hopefully finish not too far off schedule) my novel.**** And sleep. (Someone tell the kids that, please!!)

*My last few attempts were highly derivative and I lost interest pretty quickly.

**Not least because I missed the part saying they want an inspiring fable. My husband was in stitches when I read the guidelines as he got to the bit where society is wiped out. Ooops.

***I do love Brave New World but was never quite convinced by the ending.

**** I got some much needed critique back a few days ago that made me realise the story’s not quite as dead as I’d thought. I’d been milling around at the wrong starting point and getting bogged down in details that needed to be more subtle.

Stephen King: On Writing

Whilst I enjoy it from time to time, non-fiction is rarely top of my reading list. Add that life and work have (rudely!) sapped my energy and free time to virtually nil of late, and you can see why I’ve not got very far through the long list of craft books I’ve bookmarked to look at.

Blogs, yes.

Podcasts, yes.

Writing books…

soon…

Honest!

However after finishing Stephen King: On Writing*, I think I need to put a higher priority on craft books.

Whilst a (self-acclaimed) short book, I enjoyed the gentle warm up with his personal history and route into his writing career. The guy can tell a story** and it’s always reassuring to hear how other people have slogged through the early days, refining their craft and getting exposure in between work and family life, before getting those breaks that build up to a successful career.

His section on writing advice is quite compact, which I liked, though will probably need to go back through to refresh , because the narrative on them is so stark.***

Some of my favourite parts/top lessons:

• The image of his “muse” as a grumpy old man in the basement. Fab!
• The importance of support from family (his wife in particular) and the freedom to disassociate with those that don’t.
• A licence to spend time reading and writing, and to see oneself as a serious writer, rather than having to make excuses for it.

Some things I disagree***** with:

• Writing groups are not always bad. I’ve found contact with other writers gives me confidence to treat my writing seriously. It gives me a time to focus solely on writing, without children, laundry, etc nagging in the back (or front!) of my mind. I can see how they can be misused, but with care I think they can be invaluable.
• Plot can still be important. Yes, character and situation should come first, but a good plot that evolves from those things can draw me through a book. If people start with plot and work backwards to fill in the characters I think it can still work well, as long as the plot isn’t too rigid that it makes the characters flat or unbelievable.
• A basic sense of grammar is important, but telling a good story still comes first. Now I have been put off reading indie pieces because of poor grammar, but getting every who vs. whom etc is going to annoy fewer people than unbelievable characters or bland story.

Hopefully I’m doing the book justice with these short points (we’re back on mad sleep patterns and my brain has given up on me recently), but they are just a few of the things that have stuck with me.

I may be slightly biased with how much resonated with me. I’m more of a discovery writer than outliner (he discards plans as sucking the life out of stories****, although I feel that’s a bit harsh and often wish I could plan, but I just end up writing instead), so his methods ring truer to me than they may to a hard-core planner. Even so, I think there’s something to be taken for everyone, so would highly recommend it.

If nothing else, it’s a quick, compelling read!

*Not that the sample quite does justice to the rest of the book, imo.

**Well, duh! I have really enjoyed some of his fiction, although have to be in the right mood for it when it gets scary! Any hard-core fans would probably love it, because there are lots of references to the writing of specific books.

***Kicking myself a bit for getting the e-book, as print copies are so much easier to skim through for this.

****Paraphrasing, btw.

*****Please let me know if I’ve misinterpreted/misrepresented any of these ideas-as I’ve said I’m not quite on top par at the moment!