Writers in the Storm

Some brilliant authors I know began a blog some time ago, called Book Pregnant, to document their travels (and travails) as their first books were born into the world. They’ve moved on to other things, but if you’ve just made your first sale (or published on your own for the first time), the wisdom is still lying there for you to pick up.

It occurred to me in the shower this morning that we all go through being ‘book pregnant’, with every book we write.

Think about it. First, there's -

Conception

You are friggin' brilliant. You came up with a plot that is so fresh, so clever and unique, you cannot WAIT to get your hands on a keyboard. Depending on your process, you may actually run to a keyboard. Or start outlining. Or take notes longhand. Or... You get the idea. The concept is bright an shiny in your head, and you can picture the book, complete and perfect, in your hand.

I call this phase the, 'It's perfect because I haven't had a chance to screw it up yet.'

You are giddy. You're smug. And like a couple who have waited to conceive, you're relieved. And totally unrealistic about the journey. Oh yes, you may have written six books, so you know your process, but this time, it's going to be different. Easier. PERFECT.

Then comes -

The First Trimester

You've written an amazing beginning. The setup is engrossing. The first line is so good, it made you cry. Now you're going to dig into the meat. You are filling out the character's personalities, flaws and backstories.  You're playing. Like an expectant mom, you're in love with all the changes taking place. Linger here as long as you can, because next is:

 

The Second Trimester (aka: dreaded middle)

Oh yeah, it looks all happy and cuddly, right? And it is - in the beginning. But then that cute little blue elephant above starts stomping on your head, during the day, and in your nightmares. Mothers-to-be start worrying about defective genes, birth defects, nightmare birth stories . . . and so do you, the author. What sounded brilliant in the beginning now is revealed as folly. You're bogged down in detail and impossible blind alleys. 

Oh, and you're starting the hate this friggin' book. You have nightmares of your editor's (or crit group's) maniacal laughter.  You consider giving up the writing gig to become an airport bathroom attendant.  By the end of this trimester, you're wishing for those toilets.

If you survive this phase, next is:

 

The Third Trimester

You've pulled yourself out of the mucky middle. You're not sure if that part holds together, and at this point you don't really care. Because you detest this damned book. The deadline is bearing down on you like a crazed bull, and you're not even sure it wouldn't be better to be trampled under his hooves. Because then you wouldn't have to worry about this flying-monkey-of-a-book anymore. 

But then, a miracle happens. You stop angsting about the plot holes, the character issues, and fall into the book again. Because that kick-a$$ ending you pictured from the very beginning is coming. You can feel it. By the last couple of chapters you and your characters are doing an intricate forest faerie dance, and bluebirds are twining all the loose threads together in a magical beautiful bows that you hadn't even seen coming!

As the expectant couple, you're looking forward to that amazing day:

 

The Birth (aka: The End)

You did it! You typed THE END, and your book was born! (except for the 14 edits and rewrites).  Yeah, you have all that baby weight to lose (put on due thanks to stress, spoonfuls of peanut butter and remaining plopped in a chair for months).

You're now in love with the hero yourself and are a little jealous that the heroine ends up with him. But you're willing to let bygones be bygones, because your characters are walking hand in hand, into the sunset.

*Sigh*

Damn, I love this book.

Or is this just MY process? They say every pregnancy is different. How is it for you?

 

Sweet on You, Laura's August 26 release, was completed long ago so it's now her favorite book. But don't trust a proud mom, because Romantic Times liked it too!

4 ½ Stars TOP PICK!

Drake does it again, with a terrific contemporary western. She takes this time-honored format and injects such fully formed characters and realistic scenarios that you might think it is nonfiction dealing with everything from PTSD to the aging athlete, all while giving us a wonderful romance. Just top notch. While this is part of a series, the Sweet on a Cowboy books are completely independent of each other.

‘*******************

SUMMARY: Army medic Katya Smith is unable to get past the experience of losing a fellow soldier. She can’t go back to her unit until she can keep from melting down, so she takes a job as a medic for the pro bull riding circuit in an effort to recover her mojo. She doesn’t expect to become attached to the sport or the riders, especially the king rider of them all, Cam Cahill. Cam is a two-time world champion, but those years have taken a toll. It is time to retire, but he can’t imagine himself off the circuit. Katya does wonderful things for his body, but he is not certain he is ready for the things she does for his heart. She has made it plain this is a temp job, but if he could get her to stay, he can see a whole new future.

 

 

Marsha West

I’m searching for a non-cliché way to say how happy I am to be guest posting here at WITS, but Margie Lawson would pass out at everything that has popped into my mind. :) Thanks so much for asking me, y’all.

 *  *  *  *  *  *

Several years ago, my friend Jerrie Alexander and I took Rose’s Plotting Bootcamp as a free on-line course because we signed up early to attend the NOLA Conference in Louisiana. The conference was excellent, but this course was awesome.

I’ve modified one of the tools Elle James and her sister, Delilah Devlin, presented in that Bootcamp class to use in my pre-writing work.

This is what they presented:

Picture a table about 6 sections across and 8 down. You can make them whatever size works for you. Across the top is Scene 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 etc.

Down the left side of the Bootcamp example were these words: Use a row for each

• External Plot
• Romantic Plot
• Heroine’s Character Arc
• Hero’s Character Arc
• Hero’s Character Arc
• Subplot 1
• Subplot 2
• Subplot 3
• Subplot 4
• Hook
• POV
• Setting
• Calendar

Well, after a couple of attempts, I still couldn’t get the hang of it. But it did seem like a tool that might help me keep up with my story -- a way that allowed for fact checks so I didn’t spend hours scanning backwards through the text. Have you ever done that?

Pantsers, hang with me a bit more and you’ll see how this tool is good for you, too.

I used to call myself a plotter, but somewhere I ran across the term “plotser,” which I think describes my process better. Yes, I make character charts figuring out all their backstory, why they do what they do, what they want, that whole GMC thing. (And thank you Clover Autrey for your GMC questions!) I use a Bootcamp chart for Internal and External Conflict. This chart gives me the flow of the action. I work through about half the story that way before I ever start writing.

Let me just show you an example. This is an abbreviated table for chapter one from VERMONT ESCAPE, which in July celebrated its first Birthday and will come out in print version in September!

Vermont Escape Chapters & Scenes

Chap 1 p. 1-19	S1 p 1-3 Wed 4/24 evening. Woodstock Inn Suite	S2 p 3-10 Thurs 4/25morning Inn Dining room	S 3 p 10-18 4/25 J’s office, street, his Mother’s	S 4 p.18-19 4/25 Evening Anne’s home
	POV Jill. Discovers note and flashdrive from her deceased father.	POV Jill Meet Karen, stash Flash drive in bank box. Dog saving scene. Goes to Anne’s store, meets Jerrod. Karen suggests Jill buy store. Anne invites to supper.	POV Jerrod Works on contract, vists with Sheriff. J. wants Mom to sell to Vermonter, goes to house to take her out to apologize for behavior in store. He stays for supper, is attracted to Jill	POV Jill at dinner, she’s upset to be attracted to him, agrees to go to store next morning. Asks Karen/Tim not to talk about murders of her husband and father.

I use landscape for these tables rather than this portrait layout.

The date, time, and location of the scene are super helpful to me so I don’t have something happening before it can have happened. Because I had a POV problem early on, I note the POV character to make sure I don’t head hop and that I stay in one character’s head a decent length.

The basic action shows up this way, too. I can check to see when character knew a fact or did something at a particular time. When did the sheriff arrive? It’s all there.

Now, Pantsers, I hope you’ve stayed with me. Here’s my confession:

I don’t write this until I’ve finished writing the scene or chapter.

Do you see how this can be a useful tool for you without messing with your creativity? You don’t have to fill it out after every chapter if you’re on a roll and those words are pouring out. But every couple of chapters for sure you should do this the purposes of fact checking later.

If you’re a really good plotter and can write it out before hand, which is what Rose’s Plotting Bootcamp suggests with all the other categories I listed above, good for you. I tried, but had to keep changing it as I wrote the story, which became time consuming. Humm. Maybe I pants more than I think?

So how about you?

Plotter?

Pantser?

Some combination of the two?

What do you call yourself? If you don’t use this kind of visual to keep up with the story, what do you use? I’m always looking for a good tool to make this writing job easier. Thanks so much for letting me visit.

Marsha R. West’s first published book, VERMONT ESCAPE, was e-released by MuseItUp Publishing in July 2013. TRUTH BE TOLD e-released by MIU May 2014. She’s sold a third book to MIU scheduled for e-release Winter 2014/15. That book SECOND CHANCES is the first of a planned series about four women who met when they were kids at summer camp. In SECOND CHANCES, the hero, Mike Riley, played a supporting role in VERMONT ESCAPE, which releases in PRINT in September.

Visit Marsha at her website for more info. She’d love to hear from you.

 

Kathryn Craft

Turning Whine into Gold

 

I had just turned in my second novel after an intense ten months of 15-hour days. Since most of that time was spent sitting, my first celebratory act was taking a walk with my husband to brainstorm ideas for this blog post, the fourth and last installment adapting Don Miguel Ruiz’s Four Agreements for writers.

And I couldn’t think of the fourth agreement.

I ramped up for momentum:

1. Be impeccable with your word.
2. Don’t take anything personally.
3. Don’t make assumptions.
4. and…still drew a blank.

Dave pulled out his smartphone and looked up the fourth agreement—and started laughing.

He finally paused to take a breath. “The fourth is, Always do your best,” he said. “That one’s so ingrained in you it’s no wonder you couldn’t remember it.”

Dave was referring to my tendency toward perfectionism (But I am not a perfectionist! I am a “recovering” perfectionist!), a condition that can, over time, destroy one’s soul and relationships.

Read what Don Miguel Ruiz has to say on doing your best, and you will see the difference between that and perfectionism:

 Always do your best

Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

If you’re a perfectionist, your life is all about self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

My circumstances

Seventeen years ago I butted up against the toughest circumstances of my life when my first husband killed himself after a daylong standoff at our idyllic little farm. He was an alcoholic, and even though he had plunged our family into financial jeopardy, and I was going to divorce him, I still went to the wall again and again to get him the help he needed, making the standoff’s violent conclusion all the more shocking.

I learned a tough truth: there are forces in this world that are more powerful than any one high-achiever’s means to combat them. But my actions absolved me of what could have been a horrific load of guilt and regret after his suicide. I knew I had done my best.

I also knew I would one day write this story, and when my agent presented The Far End of Happy as my option book, Sourcebooks gave me the opportunity to publish its novelization.

Ruiz cautions us to do our best “under any circumstance.” Writing this novel, which as anyone could imagine was emotionally wrenching, came with its own set of extreme circumstances:

• After writing The Art of Falling over the course of eight years, I had ten months to write The Far End of Happy—under contract.

• Those rights my agent sold? She did so with a sketchy 2-1/2 page synopsis and an author’s note. No sample pages. Meaning I had very few approved guiderails for the writing of it.

• In the midst of that ten-month period I had to suspend writing on it altogether for six weeks so I could complete my blog tour and launch for The Art of Falling.

• I had to wed fact and fiction and come up with something that felt true.

• I experimented with backstory and failed. I had integrated prior events in reverse order, which seemed the best way to get the story down on paper—but I hadn’t done my best at meeting my readers’ needs for an emotionally relatable journey. After my first delivery date I had three weeks to rip out all the backstory, re-order, and re-insert, revising to make all that work.

• At the moment of my second developmental deadline—when it seemed all was coming together—I discovered the manuscript had corrupted, garbling three days worth of changes, which demanded a 21-1/2–hour marathon to correct.

Despite all that I refused to exhibit the dreaded yet well-known sophomore slump, and wanted to meet or exceed the bar I’d set with The Art of Falling. Now that the book has been delivered, I must rest knowing I did my best given these circumstances.

Will it be perfect? No. There was nothing perfect about that goddawful day anyway. It was very human, and the book and the way it’s written will reflect that.

Was it simply “good enough?" Hell no. I have not, and will never, aspire to mediocrity. In a tough competitive industry, I do not believe that this is how one stays published.

I fretted a bit—but only a bit, because the fretting happens when you are NOT doing the work, and I didn’t have much time off! But I never panicked. I just wrote every day, enjoying the process as always, pushing into the sleeping hours when need be so I had the time to do my best. As it turned out, this past week I had a chance to polish it to my usual standards—and turned it in a day early.

I am simply a writer, doing my best. I encourage you to do the same. Don Miguel Ruiz promises, “If you do your best always, transformation will happen as a matter of course.”

To that I say, "Amen."

Do you have perfectionist tendencies? Have they injured your self-esteem? How do you work around it when it comes to your writing?

About Kathryn

Kathryn Craft is the author of two novels from Sourcebooks: The Art of Falling, and The Far End of Happy, due May 2015.

Her work as a developmental editor at Writing-Partner.com, specializing in storytelling structure and writing craft, follows a nineteen-year career as a dance critic. Long a leader in the southeastern Pennsylvania writing scene, she now serves as book club liaison for the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. She hosts lakeside writing retreats for women in northern New York State, leads workshops, and speaks often about writing.

Kathryn lives with her husband in Bucks County, PA. Although a member of The Liars Club, she swears that everything in this bio is true.

Website: http://www.kathryncraft.com/