Tag: Writing fiction

I write fiction—it’s how I earn my living—and I like to ramble. Just so you know. Nearly everything I do these days relates in some way to writing and publishing, so most of my posts are here.

Book Published; Writing Next Book; Dining Room Chair

Lynn

I got my book published last week. I’ve been trying to get started again on my next book, which is already 55% written as long as I come in close to my word count goal on it.

I haven’t had much success so far, having only written about 930 words on this next one since I finished the other book. But I’m giving it a stronger push today. I did, however, have to push aside my nice cushy chair and put the spindle-back dining room chair at my desk again. It makes me sad to know that if I get too comfortable, I can’t write, but it appears to be a demonstrable fact these days. Cushy chair is good for lots of stuff, but not serious writing.

I also am revisiting my thoughts on the 5 minute sessions. I definitely think it works for me, and even though I had trouble with the last book, as I’ve re-read parts of this one (huge amounts of it written with those 5 minute sessions, and alongside other stories while I wrote on as many as 4 books in one day some days), I’m finding that it doesn’t have any of the same issues I experienced with the other book. So, I don’t think either of those methods is to blame for my feelings on the last book, or even my troubles with tying up my loose ends and my ending. And since both methods work so well for me, I’m not abandoning either strategy. (Also, this book has actually gotten me my highest average rating on one of my books on Goodreads to date, so what do those feelings actually mean?)

For the foreseeable future, I’ll be using 5 minute sessions, and I’ll work on more than one story a day if I start to slow down too much on any one story.

And now, I need to get back to writing. I’m going to do several hours of 5 minute sessions so I can up that word count. I have a deadline to meet for this new book. :D

I’m also still pushing for the elusive 200 words in 5 minutes goal. I’ve done it exactly 1 time out of 623 attempts. I know, because I’ve got a spreadsheet. ;)

Editing Still

Lynn

Ouch. I had hoped to be done by now. I’m at 71% done. The good news is that the last 20% or so should be in much better shape than the other 80%, the bad news is that I don’t actually know that.

I’m feeling more apathetic about this story than I should and that scares me. :o There are sections I wrote where I had a lot of fun and sections I wrote where I was excited, etc, and now those sections are doing nothing for me as a reader. :O I write for me so I can enjoy my own stories later and as you can imagine, I’m very concerned about my own reaction to what I’ve written. I’m not usually one of those people who gets sick of their stories. And maybe I’m not sick of it now, maybe I just need some distance. Maybe I’m still in the critical space in my head I’ve been trying to climb out of over the last few months, because I admit, I’m having trouble reading and enjoying any fiction at the moment—and even my favorite television shows feel distant as I watch them. So maybe it really is just me.*

So, does this mean it’s time to panic? You’d think so, but I am taking this moment to remind myself that I’ve done the best I can at this moment in time and that’s all I can do. It’s either okay or it’s not, but agonizing over it isn’t going to help. Working over the story more isn’t going to help either. I did that with the novella that never ended and all it got me was a novella that never ended. :o

I’ll be putting the finishing touches on this thing, formatting it, and releasing it into the wild and then moving on to finish the next book.

And now, it’s time to get back to it. :)

I love all my books. But maybe it’s true that I love some more than others.

*Update: This book has gotten me my highest average rating on Goodreads to date for any of my books. So, yeah, I can’t trust my feelings on these issues—at least not at the moment. 

Editing Day Do Over Do Over ;)

Lynn

So, yesterday I totally blew off the editing because I made a book cover instead. It started out innocently enough, with me working over possible titles as I had breakfast. Then I decided I needed a bit more time before I sat down to read, so I hit the stock photo shop and spent an hour of the hour and a half I allotted for that looking at photographs. I found something tempting and decided to very quickly pull up the template I was going to use for my book cover, and try out the photo and my title on it.

I changed the title. I bought the photo license. ;)

At that point, I decided to go ahead with the cover design and save the editing for the evening.

I finished the cover in 5 hours and 42 minutes, plus an hour searching images, so probably a record time for me on a novel cover! And I’m quite pleased with it. I’m not saying a pro couldn’t have done better, and I’m not a pro by any stretch of the imagination, but I finally made layer masks work for me and was able to do a few other interesting things I don’t usually do. That learning curve is finally leveling off a bit. Whew! It’s only taken how many books? :)

Anyway, I’m getting to the editing now, though, so time to get busy today. I have a book to edit, files to make, an ebook to proof, and uploading to do (probably not all today, but ASAP, nonetheless).

Oh, and I finished my 50 words last night after almost forgetting to do them for the first time since starting my daily writing habit. I’ll have to remember to be on my guard about that while publishing stuff, but I wrote them in Evernote on my phone just before I went to sleep. Just checked this morning, and it was 97 words. Close call, that. ;)

Editing Day Do Over

Lynn

So, yesterday didn’t work well as an editing day. Sick kid and all that. Other reasons too, but why bore you? So, today, it’s an editing day do over. :)

This morning I think I finally have a title for my book. I’m also working on cover copy. The house is cool, but I’m sweating, so I might be on my way to a cold to match the one my kids had. Yuck. I must get this book ready to go before I actually get sick though, so headache, be gone!

I’m going to have a long day, because now I not only have to finish editing the book, I have to do a cover (something that often takes me two days because I hate doing it and I’m not that proficient with the software) and cover copy, and if I have time (I won’t, but I’m trying to be an optimist) format the epub with Jutoh. :D

I always plan to have a lot more time between finishing a book and releasing it, but alas, it never seems to work out that way.

Editing Day

Lynn

I’m probably going to keep my daily writing streak alive today with the bare minimum word count, because for the moment, I have lots to do.

I didn’t start editing yesterday as I had planned. Night before last, I tossed and turned and woke up absolutely certain that my ending wasn’t right. I tried to ignore that feeling, but I never could get more than a page in on the editing, and I finally gave up and read a few pages from a few different writers’ books I enjoy (Spider, Spin Me A Web; Bird by Bird; The Courage to Write; Self-editing for Fiction Writers) just to loosen my mind. Then I sat down and fixed my ending. It took me just over 6 hours and I was finished at 1:06 AM.

But I love it! This was exactly what I needed to do and I’m so glad I did it. I don’t have even one tenth of the anxiety left that was plaguing me about the book. Yay! :)

Sometimes, it’s just hard work, but it pays off in the end.

Maybe the book’s good, maybe it isn’t, but I like it and that’s all that matters to me right now. :D

I sent the book to my Kindle last night and now I’m just about (yikes!) as soon as I pick up my sick kid I’m going to get started reading it.

Finished Book Woes

Lynn

I am totally and completely freaking out about this book I just finished. It’s the first novel I’ve completed since January and … it feels like my writing abilities took a huge step backward in the intervening time.

I’m going to read this thing today and hope my insecurities are a product of my imagination.

Hmm.  That was a bit of an unintentional pun.  Ah well. :D

Time to get to work!

Finish the Book—Day 2 after the Deadline

Lynn

The good night’s sleep has helped immensely. Writing is going well this morning, and the ending is back on track! Yay! :D

UPDATE: I’ve deleted over 2,400 words (bye bye gunfight! but this ending is moving right along now! Love it. Whew! I might actually make it today. :D

I can feel the book coming to a close. I actually had to go back and find my ending (that’s why all the deleted words), because I overshot it. I don’t know if that makes sense, but I had a scene that probably should have been the end but I was treating it as just another thing… I fixed that and voila! 

UPDATE: Done!

Finish the Book—Deadline

Lynn

Okay, so I didn’t finish last night. I wrote a lot, and ended the day with a net word count of 2,419. That put me 304 words over my goal for the book. There was plenty of working over of the last few scenes as I worked stuff out, but I ended up with some really good stuff. ;)

I still have to write the climax and ending. Ah, the beauty of deadlines. I’ve done much better on this book than my last few, which all went way over the goal word counts, by tens of thousands of words. My very last book, in fact, went 27,000+ words over.

I feel like a total success with this one even though I know I’m going to end just a bit high! :D

My goal today is to end the book in 3,000 words and to write all those 3,000 by 1 PM. It’s possible I’m being optimistic here about how few words I need for a good climax and validation, but we’ll see. I’ve already managed to get a bunch of my threads tied up in the last couple of chapters and set everything up to go boom in the very next scene. :D

UPDATE: Gunfight! :)

UPDATE 2: I wrote 1,265 before I broke for lunch. I came up quite short of my goal. Now I’ve swapped out my spindle-back dining room chair and settled into my new seat because it’s more comfortable and my plan is to write straight through for 4 hours with as few breaks as I can manage.  Can’t do that in the hard chair. I do 5 minute sessions in that chair and yeah, maybe that’s 60 sessions but that’s also 60 breaks! I don’t want to be taking breaks for the next few hours. I want to fall into my story and just write toward that ending I need to get done tonight. :) Wish me luck!

Good luck, me! :D

Finish the Book Challenge—Day 3

Lynn

Still working on finishing the book. Today I’m going to push hard to get to the end.

I’ll be over my word count goal in less than 2,000 more words, but I’m hoping I don’t go too long! ;) I need to be done today because tomorrow is the deadline and I’d like to finish early. :D

UPDATE: I’m over my word count goal for this book at this point, although not by much (216 words). I took a quick break to have supper and watch a favorite show, and now I’m getting back to work. I have a bit to delete as I go, so I doubt I’ll increase the count by too much at the moment, although later tonight, as I really get into the climax, I expect to grow the story by another few thousand words.  But I’m so happy the ending is finally coming together. I had a strange twist happen, but it fits so perfectly, it’s like I set it up intentionally, and I love it when that happens!

Finish the Book Challenge—Day 2

Lynn

I did not finish my book yesterday, so I’m trying again today. :) I have 3 days until my self-imposed deadline that is not as self-imposed as it sounds. If the book isn’t done on Thursday, my publishing schedule will be completely messed up and I will in all likelihood not publish by the date I promised the book, something to be avoided at all costs.

I’m excited because I think this book is winding up for a finale and that gives me hope that I’ll be done on time.

I’m planning to get started early today, so off for breakfast and I’ll be back to start writing very shortly. :D

Finish the Book Challenge

Lynn

I’m hoping to finish a book today! :D I supposedly need about 5,240 words to finish. Supposedly, because that’s how many words it will take to reach my goal word count for this novel. I actually have no idea if that’s going to be the end of the book, but I’m hoping to find out today!

I’ve set aside 7 one-hour blocks of time today to work on finding out and to reach 5,240 words.

I need a decent climax for the book and it hasn’t come to me yet. In fact, I’ll be completely honest here, I don’t have a clue if this book is even going to hold together. I’m trying to wrap up a plot that I don’t have figured out and I’m also trying to find something in what I’ve written that I can bring together into a satisfying ending for this story.

It feels kind of like a collection of events with no true—and ah ha! I might have just had a realization. The plot is secondary to the relationships in this one and I think I need to have one of my characters have some kind of realization about this relationship, then I can wing it with the plot and end that and the book might be done.

I’m really hoping I don’t do another book like this one for a while. The plot just never has come together for it. I’m not even sure what promise the beginning makes—seems like it has to do with the relationship much more so than anything else now that I’ve had that thought, so we’ll see!

Oh, and there is one other element that absolutely must be addressed and now that I think about that—that could definitely be part of the promise and should be part of the climax as well … which will create an issue for the relationship and will hopefully all fit together nicely.

Time to get to work!

I Must Stop Visiting Most Writers’ Forums and Blogs

Lynn

It’s time I started to avoid the self-sabotaging habits of visiting certain writers’ forums and blogs.

There are a few blogs I read that I find helpful and inspirational, even motivational, but there are also a number of blogs I’ve had to quit reading altogether. One makes me mad every time I read it, one disappoints me, a few more just leave me feeling disheartened when I read them—I face reality every day and I completely agree that writing is hard work and you have to be willing to put in so much more than you’re going to get back to start with, but the constant refrain of “if you don’t do this, you have no chance of success” annoys me when I clearly don’t do “this” and yet am not a failure.

I guess what I’m saying is that I didn’t realize so many writers were assholes. :D I’m not sure I like having found that out, and I definitely don’t feel like reminding myself of that every time I open a web browser.

Several forums make me feel the same.

Maybe a better way to explain it is that reading these forums and blogs on a regular basis sucks the creative energy right out of me. I lose my enthusiasm for my stories, for writing, for creating. These places make me feel all tangled up inside. I want to spend time with other writers, but I really don’t want to spend time with people I don’t like. That makes it sound like I don’t like most of the people I’ve met on forums and through blogs, but that’s not true. Not true at all. But I find being around people I don’t like so destructive that it completely overwhelms the joy I get from being around people I do like.

I don’t know why. I’m sure there are lots of writers who enjoy these places and receive more energy from these places than they lose, but that’s not me. Interacting even with people I like takes a lot of energy from me. Putting myself in the position of interacting with people I don’t like? It’s starting to feel a bit self-destructive, tbh.

I’ve become a conflict junkie. I don’t create it or participate, but I find myself drawn to those threads and those blog posts, reading about how horrible all writers are for not caring about this or that—or readers. Good Lord, am I tired of that one! I am a reader. I care about readers. I just chose to care mostly about the things that I as a reader would care about and that’s not the things that some of these other people care about—obviously—but my reader concerns (and therefore writer concerns) are apparently wrong.

Anyway, didn’t mean to go there, but maybe you’re getting the point here. I need to get away from that stuff.

I need contact with other writers, and I’m not sure how I’m going to get it, but I’ll have to figure something else out.

I need to spend more time reading good fiction (without discovering how much I just don’t like some of the authors of some of that good stuff because it completely ruins the reading experience for me). I need to spend more time reading and re-reading good craft and writing life books. I need to spend more time learning new things because this inspires my creativity like almost nothing else.

Now, this has made me almost an hour late getting started on my writing today so I’ve got to wrap it up.

Finally, here are some blogs that I still love.

  • J.A. Konrath’s blog (lots of conflict but his stuff is different because he’s so inspiring)
  • Hugh Howey’s blog (such a positive person that his posts are easy to read and enjoy)
  • Dean Wesley Smith’s blog (sometimes abrasive but inspiring and very helpful and friendly when you have real questions)
  • I’m sure there are more but I can’t think of them—the pressure! I’m in a hurry to get writing before this post starts eating into my second hour of writing time! :D

 

Are the five minute sessions changing the way I write?

Lynn

Well, I have to say this book started out with a lot more promise. :D At the moment, I’m feeling iffy about the through-plot—not sure I have one—and I’m also very worried about what the five minute sessions are going to do to my writing as a whole.

I’ve done several experiments lately where I’ve tried setting the timer for longer periods of time (forty minutes and fifty minutes specifically, because they match the amount of time I usually end up with when I do the five minute sessions for an hour) but I can’t reach the same speeds, not even close. The best I’ve done was 477 words in fifty minutes. That’s about half the speed I often reach when I’m writing in the five minute sessions.

I think it comes down to focus and how I’m able to stay better focused with a five minute timer versus a longer timer. I just can’t seem to hold my attention to one specific task for much longer than the five minutes. And if that isn’t the reason, then I’m stumped. I have no idea what else could make such a difference.

This all matters because I haven’t had a chance to just sit down and read what I’ve written lately and I have no idea how the pacing of this book is going. My scenes have shortened. I didn’t mean for that to happen, and it might not be a difference in my writing but a difference in this specific story, so I’m not going to judge that just yet. Still worrying about it though.

I need a title for this book; I need to figure out where I’m going; and I need to figure out if there’s a decent story here.

Yikes!

One thing I’ve absolutely learned with all this is that even five minutes is more than enough time to sit down and write something.

Whether or not that something is any good is yet to be determined. :D

Making It up as I Go along Today (Success!)

Lynn

So I made some detailed plans this morning to try again for that 6,000 word day I’ve never had.

Then I kind of gave up early. So here I am editing this post to fit my revised plan to reach 3,000 today and save the try for 6,000 words for another day this week, because today just isn’t that day.

The Plan

8:20–9:20 (finished at 9:38, did 10 sessions, reached 751 words) (must have started late without realizing it)
9:30–10:30 (finished at 11:05, did 10 sessions, reached 733 words) (getting behind on time and word counts, not sure why tbh)
11:30–12:30 (finished at 12:53, did 6 sessions, reached 303 words) (crashed and burned this session! Had to read ch 1,2, & 3 to see if something made sense and poof, my time was gone and I’d done only 6 sessions and it was way past time to stop for exercise and lunch)
7:30–8:30 (479 words)
8:40–9:40 (775 words)

Success! I wrote 3,041 words today. :D

For each hour I have a goal of reaching 750 words. To start with I’m going to do ten 5 minute sessions per hour, with a goal of maintaining an average of 75 words for those 5 minute sessions.

I think I’m going to try harder to visualize what I want to write before each 5 minute sprint and see if that helps me reach higher numbers. (So far this hasn’t helped at all. I’m not having any luck today visualizing the scene before I start typing. I don’t know, it’s kind of like I freeze up when I sit down and can only get into the scene as the words start coming together.)

The one thing I’ve definitely noticed is how much more doable a 3,000 word goal feels after having done 4,000 and 5,000 words more than usual these last few weeks. :D

 

Today’s Plan

Lynn

I had a plan. I deleted it. I also deleted 2,891 words this morning. So even if I had reached a respectable 3,000 words today, I would’ve only been a little over 100 words ahead of yesterday. That kind of disillusioned me this morning and I had a terrible time getting started today as a result.

I was able to write enough to get back on track, but not enough to actually make any progress with my word count. So I’m ending the day with -2,721 words.

The bad news is that puts me way behind in the great word count I wanted for this week. The good news is that at least I wrote 170 words there at the end. Better than nothing and I do believe I’ll be able to more forward tomorrow—no more deleting for the moment!

Today’s Plan

Lynn

Today’s plan is to reach a record smashing 6,000 words.

I’ve set aside 8 hours for my 5 minute sessions, and I’m trying for 750 each hour in ten 5 minute sessions of approximately 75 words each.

9:20–10:20 (8 sessions, 574 words)
10:30–12:00 (10 sessions, 741 words) (interrupted in the middle of the hour)
12:10–1:10 (10 sessions, 840 words) (switching stories when I come back after a break)
3:10–4:10 (10 sessions, 614 words)
5:00–6:00 (7 sessions, 424 words)
6:20–7:20 (10 sessions, 752 words)
8:30–9:20 (5 sessions, 422 words) (cut the session short)
Hour 8 (cancelled)

But … I’m off to a terribly slow start in the first hour. I have 20 minutes left, and as I write, I’m barely cracking 50 words in 5 minutes. Sometimes I’m not even doing that. I stopped to write this because I feel like the book is screaming out to me that something’s not right and I’m totally ignoring it. And it’s slowed my writing to a crawl.

I should just put everyone in bed together and say to heck with it all. Surely that’ll perk things up! :D

For real, though, I’m having difficulty with something that’s going on. I’m just not sure how to explain it. I’ve set up this really great thing and the payoff is taking too long. But stuff is happening that is forcing that delay. Yet I know I need to do something about that and I have no idea what that something should or could be. Sigh. What a mess!

Ah, well, back to writing. My brain feels foggy and if I don’t get a move on, I’m not going to come in anywhere close to the word count I planned for today.

Also, although I hadn’t planned to bother with a list of the specific timing of my hours, I remembered that I’m planning to revisit all these posts in the future to see if I can identify any patterns of better/worse times to write. So, I’m appending the time as I add the counts. :)

I’m at the beginning of hour 7 and right now, I’m looking at my numbers and thinking it’s going to take a miracle (or one heck of a breakthrough in the writing) to make it in two hours. The sad part is that I’ll be close enough for one more hour to do it, all things staying about the same. The really sad news is that I don’t know if I have that extra hour to give tonight because I have somewhere to be tomorrow! My brother’s wife will be delivering a baby. :D

On that note, I’m going to get started even though I’m really close to cancelling my last sessions after I reach 4,000 and saving the run at 6,000 for another day. We’ll see.

Well, I did end up cutting the next to the last session short and cancelling the last. The numbers just aren’t there and I don’t want to drag this out too late since 6,000 is off the table. :D

Partial success! I reached 4,367 words today. That’s way over my minimum of 2,464 and an excellent day’s writing for me. :)

Amazon’s Six-month Cliff

Lynn

It exists. Very much so. However, it does appear it’s possible to climb out of that abyss. For no apparent reason, sales in the month since the nose dive off the cliff are on an easily identified upward trend (sales dashboard graph) so apparently all is not lost when one dives off that cliff. It’s been interesting to watch. On the other hand, it’s time to publish another book. Good thing I’ve been working on a couple. :D

This is actually the most cliff-like drop in sales I’ve ever noticed. Probably because I don’t do typical promotions so all my sales tend to be spread out instead of in clumps that might trigger an algo adjustment. It’s possible I don’t know what I’m talking about here, fyi. This is also the longest I’ve gone without publishing a new novel, so I haven’t had a chance to see a six-month cliff before.

I have read about others who experience 30 day and 90 day cliffs but I haven’t noticed those before. My reports show fairly steady increases, and then declines, between releases. Spikes are unusual.

This started me digging into my numbers a little more, and lo and behold I discovered an interesting thing. My not-as-popular novel series has barely earned more than my short story series in the last 90 days. Makes me think I should write more short stories instead of novels, unless they’re novels in my popular series, because … ouch. Those novels are 6x as long (and probably take more than 6x as long to write!) and that hurts my ego just thinking about it.

Day 47–51 of No More Zero Word Days

Lynn

Day 47: 3,055
Day 48: 2,610
Day 49: 2,692
Day 50: 95
Day 51: 766

I’m at 51 consecutive days of writing at least 50 words of fiction. As you can see, my numbers have finally definitely started trending upward, so I’m calling this experiment a complete success. 51 days. Boggles my mind. :) I can’t wait to see how long I can keep this going.

That said, I was more right about yesterday than I expected. I got almost nothing written. I barely crossed my minimum, coming in at 95 words for the day after I sat down at 11 PM and did my best to get something done. I had told myself I would start writing once I got home but that didn’t come to pass. Instead, I watched the entire season 2 of Hemlock Grove. I have no idea why. :o

Today’s been tough going, especially considering what I set as my goal. I’ve already spent 3 hours writing with nothing to show for it. I haven’t really got going yet so I hope I can pull out a miracle and end the night strong. I’ll update today’s number when I’m done. (It’s final now.)

I made a change to my workspace that I hope is going to help with tonight’s numbers, and it’s time to get to it.

New Chair Woes

Lynn

I love my new chair. You know, this one:

New Chair

But…

The new chair’s interfering with my ability to focus while I write, and I’m sure of it. A new chair means comfort. Apparently comfort means less writing.

This breaks my heart. I thought I was going to increase my productivity if I made my stints at my workspace more comfortable, but it’s had the opposite effect.

The problem could be anything from an incorrect height adjustment (I’ve tried many, many adjustments over the last week seeking the perfect height—if there is one, it eludes me), to a wholly psychological issue. Don’t know and don’t care at this point. I just need to feel right when I’m sitting at my desk so I can write. And I haven’t felt right since I moved that chair in here.

So, back to the spindle-back dining room chair, like the one you see here:

Desk

Ah well. I can still use the new chair when I’m not working, so all’s not lost.

Remember This: Don’t Rewrite!

Lynn

So I’m staring at a passage in one of my books that I need to get right so I can figure out where the hell to go next with this thing and I’ve just realized that I’ve spent about 3 hours on it.

It’s a passage of only about 1,600 words and I’ve cycled through it, rewriting, more times than I want to think about.

I keep reworking it, mainly I think to give myself a jumping off spot for what happens next, but I still don’t know what that might be.

I’m now trying to decide if anything I’ve done has made any difference whatsoever to the passage, but I can’t tell. There’s a part of me that’s very afraid I’ve screwed this up. But there’s a part of me that knew last night that I needed to soften one of my characters and the only other choice was to scrap what I had and just rewrite the scene from scratch.

Which is exactly what I should have done, and I don’t know why I keep forgetting that. Rewriting is time consuming and rarely does more than make me crazy. The story needs to be written fresh, not pieced together from scraps already on the page. And yet that’s exactly what I’ve just done. And I can tell you now, those 3 hours of writing would have gotten me at least the 1,600 words I have now, so chopping the 1,600 wouldn’t have been a big deal in the end. In fact, I would probably have more done now than I have if I’d just chopped the passage and started fresh.

I need to remember this. I NEED TO REMEMBER THIS.

Maybe that’ll help. ;)