Writers in the Storm

 

We're officially in the holiday season, a time that sends many writers into a tizzy of stress and deadlines and too many sweets. Many of my friends are past the NaNo-Mania and looking forward to their holidays, but I'm on the fence.

You see, I missed a lot of the November Frenzy that I love.

Along with the usual crap that sucks up a writer's time: Work. . .Family. . .Holidays. . .Traveling. . .this year I also turned 50 (*OMG*) and had a car accident in the same 24 hour period.

Yes, I'm mostly fine, but my car is totaled. And now I'm buried in paperwork and phone calls and chiropractor visits. Plus, I have to look for a new car I had no plans to buy. *whining*

But I'm no quitter. 

Do you remember my pep talk from the Bikini Wax Theory of Writing?

We're writers. Writers persevere. Even if it's only one page at a time--hell, one sentence at a time--we keep going. We are mighty beings formed of stubbornness, creativity and caffeine.

Don't let a crazy November steal your Writing Mojo!

Join me in observing National Novelist Slack-Ass Month in December, lovingly dubbed NaNoSlackMo.  There's no rule that says all the words must happen in November. 

Perhaps we need a #NaNoSlackMo hashtag, to really help people get in the mood. Who's with me??? 

Who else still needs their community? Their writing sprints? Their progress reports? I've heard worried rumbles amongst my peeps about living without the cool tools available at www.nanowrimo.org.

The short answer is: you don't have to!

Did you know that you can use cool tools from NaNo all year long? 

• The Word Sprints tracker has individual and group sprint trackers. Those group sprints were how Julie Glover and I won NaNo in 2016. Group sprints are my crack.
• Also available all year long are the NaNo Pep Talks. Love 'em!
• Ditto on the NaNo Prep Resource Library. Coolest. Thing. Ever.

Other good tools for word count tracking:

• This site lists 6 app-based options. I like Loop-Habit Tracker because (a) the cool name, (b) it's on my Android and (c) it exports to a spreadsheet file if I want it too. Oh, and there are settings that have your phone nag remind you to write. HabitBull is another one I have my eye on.
• Scrivener also has great tools to track those word goals. Scrivener's word count targets can easily be set. Here's a video.
• Also, Gwen Hernandez did a post here at WITS that shows how to export your writing history. Holy cowbell, people, that is awesome stuff!
• Finally, if you've never explored Jamie Raintree's Writing and Revision Tracker, now might be the time. It's a groovy Excel tool for tracking up to 10 projects! She's working on the 2019 version right now. Woo!

During December, in addition to my holiday baking, I’ll be working to complete the 25,000 words I missed in November. While I loved seeing my pals crossing the NaNo finish line, I still want to see more progress for myself.

If you missed out on your November words, or you just want to keep riding the glorious NaNo train (but at a slower holiday pace), you are welcome to join me. I’m all fired up about it…how about you? 

Now, who will be joining me for word sprints during NaNoSlackMo?? We can track progress and engage in shenanigans at #NaNoSlackMo on social media. Jokes, cat videos and pictures of crazy undergarments are always welcome.

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About Jenny Hansen

By day, Jenny provides training and social media marketing for an accounting firm. By night she writes humor, memoir, women’s fiction and short stories. After 18 years as a corporate software trainer, she’s delighted to sit down while she works.

When she’s not at her personal blog, More Cowbell, Jenny can be found on Twitter at JennyHansenCA or here at Writers In The Storm.

Steena Holmes

 

Hey. Hi. Yes, hi. To you, the one who is hiding behind the screen, playing with a manuscript you’ve worked for years on. You, the one who joins every group she can find on publishing and writing and being an author. You, the one who really wants to write but is too scared to.

The transition from writer to author seems daunting, doesn’t it? Maybe even a little overwhelming? That dream has always been there for you, to call yourself a published author but the fear of actually doing it, it holds you back. Why?

No seriously, why? Have you thought about that – why you’re allowing your fear, your anxiety, your worries stop you from pursuing a dream that is possible?

Maybe you’ve heard that publishing is hard. It’s true, it is.

Maybe you’ve heard that more authors tend to fail than succeed. Okay…that’s true as well, but it depends on what you consider failure and success.

Maybe you’ve heard that the likelihood of getting picked up by a big publisher is next to nil. That’s true…in a sense. It’s always been difficult to get noticed, to land an agent and a publisher. That’s nothing new.

So why are you allowing your fear to stop you?

Would you mind if I gave you a little bit of encouragement along with a whole lotta honesty?

If you are serious about being a published author – whether you are venturing into self publishing or wanting to pursue traditional publishing – the road you are about to embark on is hard.

Like mud pitted, deep grooved, better-get-out-and-walk-the-rest-of-the-way Hawaiian roads I just drove on.

Every step of your journey is going to be tough. But, if you can finish that first draft of yours, and if have learned to embrace the edit process and worked hard to craft the best story you can…everything else is going to be a walk in the park. (Well…not really, but…it’ll be a walk that’s no worse than anything else).

If you are serious about being an author, if you are serious about spending the hours, days, months and maybe years on writing a novel, then you’ve got this. Finding an agent or leaning how to become a self-published author is just one more step on this journey you’re on.

Stop letting fear overwhelm you. Stop letting fear cement your steps until you decide not to go further.

Stop allowing fear to dictate your life and your dreams.

You’ve got this. Find those who have been on this journey, surround yourself with those who are one, two or ten steps ahead of you. Ask questions. Find answers. Challenge yourself to always step forward. You can do it.

How do I know?

Because I was once a scared author like you. Success for me didn’t happen overnight. I hesitated often, made plenty of mistakes, and even thought about throwing in the towel. I had over 200 rejections on a book that eventually became my ‘break-out’ novel.

I almost allowed fear to stop me from pursing my dream. Almost. I was in that place of having to make a decision – do I give up or do I continue? I wasn’t sure I could continue. I’d already sacrificed so much to follow my dream. How much more could I give to a passion when the well was dry?

So why didn’t I stop? Why did I continue?

I wasn’t a quitter. I refused to be a victim.

Let me rephrase that. I’m not a quitter and I refuse to be a victim. No matter where you are on your journey, the fear is always there, taunting, tempting, twisting everything until you have tunnel vision.

Today, the publishing journey is hard. A lot harder than it was in 2013 when my whole life changed because I decided to believe in myself when no one else would.

Being an indie author back then was fun, ambition, exhilarating, life changing. 

Being a hybrid author now is stressful, exhausting, life changing.

Just because things have changed, just because the landscape of publishing and finding readers and making a living isn’t as familiar as it once was, doesn’t give me an excuse to quit.

Dear scared writer…I’m scared too. But if we stand together, if we stop being so solitary and reach out for help, the fear that holds us back loses its power over us.

What do you say?

 

Here’s me, holding my hand out to you. How can I help?

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Steena Holmes is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author with over 2 million copies of her titles sold world wide, including The Forgotten Ones, Saving Abby  and The Memory Child. Named in the Top 20 Women Author to read in 2015 by Good Housekeeping, she won the National Indie Excellence Award in 2012 for Finding Emma as well as the USA Book News Award for The Word Game in 2015. Steena has been featured in various newspapers and magazines, websites such as Goodreads, BookBub, RedBook, Glamour, Coastal Living and Goodhousekeeping. To find out more about her books and her love for traveling, you can visit her website at http://www.steenaholmes.com.

Steena also offers courses through her Branding with Intent program. If you are an author struggling to find your brand or aren’t sure how to find your readers, check out her course. https://www.steenaholmes.com/branding-with-intent/

 

Thank you, brave soul, for trusting me with your work. I hope you find this helpful.

I chose this month's submission to explain the difference between 'good questions' you can leave readers with, and 'not good questions', and how to use emotion effectively in your writing.

A friend had a suggestion for me on these — to show the original in its entirety, then show my edits. Because he looks at the original first, does what edits he sees, then looks at my analysis to see how much he picked up (and what I missed). That seems a brilliant learning tool!

Here we go:

My edits:

Black = original

Red = my thoughts/comments

Purple = text I added/altered

ORIGINAL:

Heather Holbrook cried softly as she sat hidden in a dark corner of the Denver bar sipping a beer. The doctor’s unexpected words echoed through her brain triggering feelings of hopelessness and reminding her that life was not always fair. Listening to the details of her own medical problem was tougher than she’d imagined. The timing of this depressing news was off. Way off.

Staring down into her drink, she observed one of her tears drop into the golden liquid. The idiom Crying in your beer was no longer an idle saying, but rather her new reality.  Still, she wanted no part of the pitiful sensation overtaking her body. That was not her style.

She tried like hell to snap out of it, though lecturing herself had little effect. Action. She needed to take some action, do something, anything. Heather knew from experience that if a funk saturated with negativity lingered at her feet long enough, she’d sink downward and become one with that funk.

She’d been there once before and vowed never to return. How would she cope with this devastating, life altering situation? This was far more personal, and, as her friends had said, she wasn’t getting any younger. Could she find happiness knowing what she knows? Saving others came naturally; saving herself, not so much.

The sound of multiple sirens zooming by outside caught her attention. Instinctively, her adrenalin flowed. She stood, ready. Then remembered. She was off-duty.

Waving the waitress over and ordering another beer was the only action she’d come up with. For the moment, it beat going home to an empty apartment.

There's some great stuff here - some great lines. But to me, the whole thing is awash in emotion, and we don't know why. What was her diagnosis? If you tell us, we can share her funk, worry and despair. But by not telling us, the author is saying, "trust me, this is really bad." Readers won't trust you. They want to experience the heroine's journey, and they can't without knowing what's wrong with her. It's an example of a 'bad question' a reader can have. There are tons of 'good questions' — for example, we can guess she's involved in the medical or emergency profession somehow — maybe a paramedic? Or perhaps a cop? I'm okay not knowing that right up front — it makes me want to read on, to discover the answer. But you've laid out the character's problem, but been coy about not telling us what it is. Readers get angry when they feel toyed with. 

How much better would it be if you told us what the diagnosis is — if it's terminal, you have instant empathy. If it's debilitating, especially if she has a very active job, it could be even worse! The reader wants to feel, but in the absence of knowledge, the emotion seems overdone.

I think it needs tightening as well. Telling us over and over won't convince a reader.

I'm going to try to rewrite — and I'm making an assumption about her diagnosis that may not be right. But roll with me here:

In a dark corner of a Denver bar, Heather Holbrook sipped her beer, trying to hold hopelessness at bay. The doctor's horrific acronym echoed through her brain. How could two innocent letters combine to such cruelty? MS.  

As if that wasn't bad enough, the timing of this news was off. Way off.

A tear dropped into the golden liquid in her glass, proving that crying in your beer wasn't an old saying; it was her new reality.

Saving others came naturally; saving herself? Not so much.

Action. She needed to do something, anything. She knew from experience that if this mood lingered long enough, she’d become one with the funk.

A siren's wail outside jerked her to her feet, heart speeding, spreading an overload of adrenaline. Then remembered. She was off-duty. 

She waved the waitress over and ordered another beer she didn't really want. But it beat going home to an empty apartment.

I've pulled out a bunch of the emotion, because if we know what the diagnosis is, you don't need to tell us, you've shown us. We get it.

What do you think? Do you relate more, empathize more with the character? Any other tips for this writer?

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Like Laura's books/posts? There are two ways to get more!  Sign up for her quarterly newsletter, or her Write Stuff short podcasts on the craft of writing, and have them delivered to your inbox. What's easier than that? Would you like her to come speak or teach online to your group? You can do that here.  Oh and did she mention she has a December release?