Writers in the Storm

Writing is a very imprecise process for me, which surprises no one who knows me well. I’ve tried a gajillion tools in my quest to get a book off the ground and finished. Fast Draft, W-Plot, Snowflake Method. They all helped me be a better writer, but none of them got me to "The End."

Those cool big picture methods aren't concrete enough to get me to the end. My busy brain says, "Ooooh...GLITTER!" And I'm off doing something else, instead of writing the 60 scenes that make up a book.

The only thing that gets me to "The End" is putting my butt in the chair and writing one scene at a time.

If I don't stay completely immersed in the moment and the scene, it's an open door for "Ooooh...GLITTER!" That's the way busy noggins like mine work.

Here's my process in a nutshell:

1. Like many writers, each book usually starts with an idea or a scene that comes into my head fully formed. I write that scene to get it out of my head and onto the page. I keep writing until all the scenes are out of my head.

2. Near the beginning of the process, I bat some ‘what if’s’ around with my writing peeps and decide on the overriding theme for the book and the internal and external conflicts for the main characters.

3. If I’m really lucky, the turning points get decided in advance too. At the very least, I take time with my critique group to discuss what I think the turning points are to see if I’m remotely on target and if it all sounds believable.

Note: For a great summary of turning points, read this breakdown of Jenny Crusie’s talk at the 2009 RWA conference.

4. I make a list of all the scenes I know and I write whatever I can see clearly that day, until they're all done.

5. I try to write at least five days a week as it keeps my brain open to receiving new scenes. When I let more than a week go by without visiting my story, I start to lose focus.

6. I use a timer. My deal with myself is I have to do at least 30 minutes of work on my fiction for those 5 days a week. While it doesn't sound like a lot, it really makes a difference. If I'm digging it that day, I go way longer than 30 minutes. If I'm not digging it that day, I know "I only have to do this crap for 30 minutes."

As an extrovert, online sprints help me a lot. Marcy Kennedy's post on Twitter hashtags will help you find all the Twitter sprinters.

[In case you missed them: here's Orly's Writing Process, Laura's and Fae's.]

I didn't know how to describe my writing process until one of my crafty relatives said, "Hey, you're a story quilter!" It turns out, she was right. I read an article about Diana Gabaldon and how she wrote the Outlander series. Like Fae and I, she sees the story as a movie.

For Outlander, Gabaldon re-constructed the movie in her head, scene by scene, until everything she saw was on paper. Then she shuffled them all together into the books we know and love. While I won’t pretend to be anywhere near Gabaldon’s league, we both do books in short little pieces. Perhaps it has to do with being a busy mom.

When I read that article a light went on in my head. I finally accepted the truth: I’m a scene writer. I stopped trying to write from beginning to end like all my friends. Some of us are "story quilters" and that's the way we're made.

What are the Must-Haves for the "story quilting" approach?

You don't have to have every one of these mastered, but it really, really helps if you at least have the first one. I use them all, especially in the editing process.

You must have a good grasp of 3-Act Structure.

Otherwise you end up with a pile of scenes, or "story blocks," you can’t use. It also helps to know the 12 steps of the Hero’s Journey. Here’s the most helpful link I’ve found, which combines the two (this downloads a Word doc). I work with 3-Act structure because I can keep track of it better in my head.

Two words – Conflict Lock.

If you don’t have a conflict lock, you don’t have a story. So says Bob Mayer, author of Warrior Writer and co-founder of Cool Gus Publishing. Here’s a blog to tell you more.

Scene-dissecting tools like Margie Lawson's EDITS system.

If you don't have tools like the ones Margie teaches you, it's difficult to figure out where you missed with a scene, especially if you're a pantser. Invest in yourself with Margie...you'll be glad you did.

Understand your story's DNA (theme) before you get too far.

This is why I think hard about theme pretty early in my process. If you have a strong visual of your story's underlying message, you automatically write to it. That DNA will inform every scene choice you make because it has to. John August, the screenwriter for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Big Fish, says it much better than I do in this post.

The advantages (and I know this is subjective):

1. I never get writer's block. There's always another scene to write or edit.
2. I'm able to write fast and stay immersed, because it's "only one scene."
3. Scrivener allows me to store scenes separately and move them around.
4. The story theme is naturally interwoven when you write this way.
5. I'm able to move between fiction and non-fiction pretty easily.

The disadvantages:

1. I need objective eyes to tell me when the story is "really done."
2. Continuity edits are a must for long works - I need to know that all the loose ends got tied up.
3. Scene transitions bug the crap out of me (and I'm terrible at them). I need to be double-checked on these.

As you read about all our writing processes here at WITS, I encourage you to think about your own. Like underpants, process is personal. You'll find out what fits you best by trying it on for size.

At the end of the day, it comes down to this: You must write your stories in a way that allows you to finish them. Period.

Where are you at in your "process journey?" Do any of our methods resonate with you?

~ Jenny
@JennyHansenCA

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About Jenny Hansen

By day, Jenny provides training and social media marketing for an accounting firm. By night she writes news articles, 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 at Writers In The Storm.

Kimberly Brock

You need a nest.

That’s the most important lesson I’ve learned this year about being a good writer, or a creative of any sort.

Up until this year, I thought I was an expert at nests. I am an introvert disguised as an extrovert and I want nothing so much as to curl up in a soft, safe place and reflect on the world around me and inside of me. I am an expert at settling and tucking and generally hunkering. I like this about myself. It is a sign of a content soul, in my opinion. And it has served me well. I was able to write a very nice little novel and see it published, face critics, build a platform and social media presence, arrange many appearances and speaking engagements, and remain relatively unscathed by the experience, all from my nest.

And then, I fell.

For me, I’d been one of the lucky ones who had somehow reached my forties with a sense of supreme security still intact, from which came a glorious nest that gave me the freedom to write without fear. Read that again. I had no fear. None. I mean, I had general fears like how something might happen to my children or I might become a widow before my time or my parents might die or I could get breast cancer or we could lose everything and have to move into a double-wide behind my parents’ house. That sort of thing.

But those were distant possibilities. I wasn’t really afraid in the present. I thought I’d already pulled through some pretty dodgy situations and I was sort of in the clear in my midlife. I’d fallen out of my first nest really early. I’d survived being born a preemie, the twin who lived. I’d survived alcoholism in my grandmother’s family. I’d survived abusive relationships. I’d survived an extensive spinal fusion. I’d had plenty of experience compared to Suzie Q. I had lots of true grit. I brought all of that to the page with an assurance in my breast that I was safe, high up off the dangerous ground I’d already covered, up in the clear, fluffed and feathered and ready to sharpen another quill and set to work on my next tale.

What no one ever told me was that birds instinctively know how to build nests because they’re going to need more than one to get through this life. People, too. Writers, especially.

Have you been there? Is it just me?

Do you know that place, that feeling that you can write about anything because you’re happy to let your imagination take you there? Any journey is one you’re willing to take, whether it’s one of extreme joy or challenge or misery? You’re willing and full of enthusiasm – not naivety. Naivety is sometimes what others will call this but it’s really something else. It’s your nest. You know that no matter how far you may fly, you can circle back. Nests, it turns out, are really a state of mind.

If you won’t or can’t take the journey that your writing demands, it’s not because you’re naïve. We write about all sorts of things we have no real experience with because we long to understand them, not because we are experts on the topic. No, if you won’t take the journey, it’s because you’re nestless.

So, there I sat on the ground. My life had taken a devastating blow and when I peered up at the damage and I was no longer certain the little wad of sticks I’d stuck together would hold my weight. I was without shelter, without comfort, without a home. And without all of those things, it happened that I could no longer follow the stories where they needed to go. I sat on the ground a long time.

On the ground, you learn there are plenty of folks who are just as happy to be there and you might try it out for yourself for a while. You’ll stop writing. You’ll wonder why you ever did to begin with and maybe decide it was really all a lot of trouble for nothing. But eventually, I promise you, you’ll miss the better view. Writers are just like that.

I read something this week and I wish I’d save the source. It was a piece of narrative from a new novel. It caught my attention because the character compared herself to a baby bird that has been knocked from the nest. Ah-ha! She gets it, I thought! And she did. She went on to say how she was returned to her nest by some benevolent hand but the experience wasn’t what she expected. Back in the nest, she was the odd bird. The other birds knew she’d been out because she smelled wrong. The character believed she smelled wrong. She was suddenly uncertain of herself.

Being knocked out of your nest will make you an odd bird even if you can get yourself back home. You won’t be the same and neither will your nest. The truth is, you might smell wrong. Your nest may smell wrong. It may not even hold the weight of you anymore. As a young writer, I’d always believed being an odd bird, an eccentric or a loner, was a requirement for literary greatness. You had to be weird to have anything original to say. I guess that could be true to some extent, but as weird as I felt, I also felt muted by self-doubt.

Nests, like stories, it seems, are made of courage.

Building a nest takes time. It’s a little familiar, actually. Stick by stick, rather than bird by bird. A little piece of ribbon here, a twist tie for good measure, maybe a bit of fishing line. Eventually, this new nest I’m creating will hold me and all the stories that will dare me to follow from my safe perch. Soon, I’ll have a safe place to roost again, a high place with a good view of things, where I can ponder and question and start to take stock of myself and my surroundings with a clear perspective.

And then, I’ll write.

Have you found yourself without a writing nest? How did you overcome it?

About Kimberly

Kimberly Brock is the award winning author of the #1 Amazon bestseller, THE RIVER WITCH (Bell Bridge Books, 2012). A former actor and special needs educator, Kimberly is the recipient of the Georgia Author of the Year 2013 Award. A literary work reminiscent of celebrated southern author Carson McCullers, THE RIVER WITCH has been chosen by two national book clubs. Kimberly’s writing has appeared in anthologies, blogs and magazines, including Writer Unboxed and Psychology Today. Kimberly served as the Blog Network Coordinator for She Reads, a national online book club from 2012 to 2014, actively spearheading several women’s literacy efforts. She lectures and leads workshops on the inherent power in telling our stories and is founder of Tinderbox Writer’s Workshop. She is also owner of Kimberly Brock Pilates. She lives in the foothills of north Atlanta with her husband and three children, where she is at work on her next novel. Visit her website at kimberlybrockbooks.com for more information and to find her blog. You can also find her Author page on Facebook at Kimberly Brock, or tweet her @kimberlydbrock.

Susan Spann

In addition to writing novels and practicing law, I have a marine aquarium filled with corals and seahorses. I started reef-keeping years ago, though I’ve loved aquariums (and seahorses, especially) all my life. I knew, from the outset, that seahorses rank very high on the aquarium difficulty scale, and that they require a lot of work.

What I didn’t expect was that my seahorse-keeping would teach me lessons that applied to writing also.

I love sharing pictures of my reef, and my seahorses, on my Facebook and Twitter feeds, but today I thought I’d also share some vital writing lessons I’ve learned from my seahorse reef:

1.  If You Want To Succeed, Do Some Research Before You Start. Seahorses require specific water conditions, environments, and tank mates. If you want to keep them alive, you have to establish a proper reef environment from the start. The more you know about their needs, the better the chances your seahorses will thrive.

Similarly, the more you know about yourself, the publishing industry, and the kind of story you want to write, the better your chances of success as a writer. “Doing the research” means educating yourself about publishing options, genres, and writing skills, and learning as much as you can up front. You don’t have to know everything—and, in fact, most writers will tell you we learn as much “on the job” as we do beforehand, but knowing some things in advance will boost your chances of success from the outset.

2. You Have to Feed the Beast Every Day. Unlike many creatures, seahorses lack a true “stomach.” Instead, they have an intestinal tract that moves food through without giving it time to hold and digest. Because of this, they require feeding at least two times a day (four times, when they’re as small as the babies shown here).

A writing career is no different. If you fail to “feed” it regularly—in many cases, daily—it withers and dies. It isn’t absolutely necessary to write two times a day—or even daily—to keep the writing dream alive, but like a seahorse, the more often you feed it the faster it will grow.

3.  Constantly Push Yourself to Learn and Improve. Successful seahorse keepers often start out clueless (or nearly so) and end up highly knowledgeable about seahorses, water chemistry, poop*, and other aspects of aquatic life. We learn which creatures help seahorses thrive, which will harm them, and which ones might-or-might not work, depending on circumstances.

In writing, also, it pays to continue learning every day. Pushing yourself to develop new skills and story structures makes you a better writer, and the more you write (and read!) the more you learn how to use the elements of character, plot, and grammar to your advantage. You learn which plot devices work in your genre, which phrases always turn your prose a lovely (but unprintable) shade of purple, and which elements work in certain stories but not so well in others. The more you push yourself to improve, the more successful you will become in your writing and your career.

* Observing seahorse poop is easiest way to make sure a seahorse is healthy. Four years in, I know far more about seahorse scatalogical habits than I’d like to admit.

4.  Sometimes, Tragedies Happen. And You’ll Survive Them. Last September, I lost my female seahorse, Ceti, after a prolonged illness. I tried my hardest to save her with medications, a hospital tank, and even help from seahorse experts (yep, there’s a website for that). In the end, she died—and I was very sad.

It took me ten years and five manuscripts to find an agent and a publishing deal, and I can tell you from experience, that hurt even more than losing a seahorse. Some days, I didn’t think I could take another round of “I didn’t fall in love with it enough to place it in this difficult market.”

I also “lost” more than one manuscript during those years. Each one, I queried to death and then forced myself to write a new one to take its place. None of them reached publication (and their future remains uncertain). Like losing a seahorse, it pained me deeply to “let them go.”

However, if I’d kept mourning Ceti, I wouldn’t have the new babies: Vega and Kirin. If I hadn’t set the older manuscripts aside and written new ones, I wouldn’t have written Claws of the Cat—the novel that launched my career as a published author.

Publishing, like keeping a reef, won’t always go your way. Bad things will happen—but good things happen too, and in the end the success is worth more than all the rough times put together.

5.  If You Love it, Never Give Up. Seahorse keeping never gets easy. Writing doesn’t either. Both require massive amounts of work for rewards that sometimes feel short-lived and seldom pay huge dividends. But if you love it…do it anyway.

Every morning, I drag myself out of bed and into the office to feed the seahorses. Usually, they’re already nosing around in the food bowls, reminding me I’m late. By noon, they’re ready to eat again—and I actually had to take a break while writing this post to feed them. My hands are often wet and wrinkled from caring for the reef. I care for my seahorses and my corals deeply; I love them, feed them, mourn them … and wouldn’t have it any other way.

Writing is an equally hungry, messy, tear-stained endeavor. Most people consider writers a little crazy—and we probably are. We pour our heart and soul and hours into putting words on the page, in the hope that someone, somewhere will want to read them. We rejoice when we have a happy day and mourn when the words don’t flow. And yet, we always return our hands to the keys and our minds to the worlds we spin from dreams and passion.

We do it because, at the end of the day, we love it. Creating worlds with words gives us joy and makes our spirits soar. It’s a difficult, heart-wrenching, magical thing—and if you love it as I do, it’s worth every bit of the trouble it causes along the way.

Exactly like a seahorse.

About Susan
Susan Spann writes the Shinobi Mysteries, featuring ninja detective Hiro Hattori and his Portuguese Jesuit sidekick, Father Mateo. Her debut novel, CLAWS OF THE CAT (Minotaur Books, 2013), was a Library Journal Mystery Debut of the Month. The second Shinobi Mystery, BLADE OF THE SAMURAI, released on July 15, 2014. Susan is also a transactional attorney whose practice focuses on publishing law and business. When not writing or practicing law, she raises seahorses and rare corals in her marine aquarium. You can find her online at her website, http://www.SusanSpann.com, on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/SusanSpannAuthor) and on Twitter (@SusanSpann), where she created and curates the #PubLaw hashtag.