We Could Be (Anti)Heroes

I've been playing Grand Theft Auto V for the PS4. Like pretty much all the GTA games, you're playing a character who's basically a criminal and a scumbag. (You can switch between three characters in this one, but . . . well, let's just say all of them are lacking for virtue.)

They're the protagonists of the game. But they're definitely not heroes.

We also don't need them to be.

In terms of movies and pop culture (to include books), we live in a post-Matrix world. We've gotten used to the protagonists wearing black, scoffing at the law and establishment, and killing people. Take the FX TV show The Shield. The protagonist is a dirty cop who kills, lies, steals, philanders, and more along the way. Yet we kept watching. Vic Mackey was no hero; he was an antihero, with the emphasis on "anti." But he was a great character on a really good show.

Protagonists don't need to be white-hat-wearing Dudley Do-Right characters anymore. We've gotten used to rooting for people who live in the shades of grey. Maybe we've even come to expect it. Good characters--as in well-developed, not virtuous--drive a story. After all, isn't someone who's morally grey more interesting than someone who's as pure as the driven snow?

My protagonists tend to live in those shades of grey. I think it makes them more intriguing (they're aware of their grey-ness, for what it's worth) and opens up better opportunities for storytelling and conflict. Your mileage may vary, and that's OK. It takes all characters to make up a world.

What are your protagonists like?

Respecting the Process

Like many things, writing (that is, writing with the aim of publication) is a process. It's a pretty established one at this point, so I don't think you need me to rehash it for you.

I'm either patient or impatient, depending on what we're talking about. Working in IT for years has taught me patience with respect to technology. It's also taught me to respect (and use) the troubleshooting process.

The issue is, I want to jump the process with respect to writing.

I'm in a writing group. It's a good group. I've gotten some very useful feedback on my first mystery novel there. I'd like to get the book completely thru the group and have feedback on the whole thing. However, that takes time. Months, in fact. Here's where my impatience kicks in. Getting the book thru the group would make it better. Making it better would increase my odds of getting an agent if I go the traditional route. I understand that.

I'm just hoping I'm patient enough to see it through.

A compromise might be to get a couple of beta readers. The group is good, but we meet once every three or four weeks, and it will take a while to get the complete book thru in one or two-chapter chunks.

So, loyal readers: should I be patient or impatient? Or is the compromise choice the best one. Sound off.

Our Incredibly Shrinking World

Disney had it right: it IS a small world, after all.

Our ever-evolving communications technology has made that possible. We've gone from the telegraph and telephone to social media, FaceTime, and Skype. I have a couple of small-world success stories to share.

1) I have a writing group now. The search went on for a while but I've found one. I went to one meeting, got to participate and see how the group worked together, and am now a member. Of course, I won't be able to make their next meeting because I teach a class that evening. What's success without a few speed bumps? However, I'm going to use Word with comments and track changes to do the same critique I would do in person. All the members are local, but I've heard of geographically diverse writing groups who meet via technologies like Skype and FaceTime.

2) This one is not related to writing. My daughter's Girl Scout troop is in the "Bling Your Booth" contest, competing with 11 other troops. The winner of the most blinged booth gets a special Build-a-Bear for each girl in the troop. Several of our girls compete in Special Olympics as cheerleaders. My wife and I reached out via Twitter to some local celebrities who have supported Special Olympics and the special needs community in the past (a comedian and a Nationals player) to see if they would help us get the word out. They did. We're in a dogfight with another troop. Thanks to those two people, plus our Special Olympics coaches, hundreds of people who would otherwise not know about our girls have liked their booth. (Shameless plug: you can too, by liking the pic here (links to Facebook).) Technologies like Twitter and Facebook make the world feel a lot smaller. As writers, we like to use social media to promote our books and ourselves. In this case, social media is helping to promote some very special and hard-working girls. Whether our troop finishes with the most votes or not, we know that our girls have already won just by being supported and embraced so broadly.

Even if I never become a master of social media in the self-promoting sense, I'm glad that I (and my wife) have been able to use it to promote our deserving Girl Scouts. When the world feels smaller, it's pretty cool.

Writing Group: Swing and a Miss

My recent foray into joining a writing group didn't work out.

They liked me, and I think they liked what I wrote. Their issue was not wanting to make the group too genre-heavy. It's a shame. I liked the group and I think I would have been a good fit. Right now, I'm talking with another group and will be visiting them sometime this month.

Here's what I'm wondering, as a general query: is it bad for a writing group to favor genre authors, as opposed to those who just write mainstream fiction?

Obviously, some groups will devote themselves to a certain genre. You'll have romance writing groups, mystery groups, fantasy groups, etc. Those groups will immerse themselves in the ins and outs of a certain genre and work to get published (or keep getting published) within that genre.

For a more general group, however, is there a tipping point when you have too many genre authors? I don't know. I can see that each author has to know how their genre works, what the expectations are, what the market is, etc. The other writers in the group will probably not know that information. If I were in a writing group with a romance writer, I couldn't give her a very deep critique. I could talk about the style, word choices, and technical things like that, but I know nothing about the genre. My advice could be the opposite of what she really needs to know.

So, does this mean writers who write in a genre should only join a writing group that focuses on that genre? I don't think so. I think being exposed to different genres allows you to spread your wings as a writer and a reader. Let's use the romance critique from before: I don't read that genre, so my ability to critique it is limited. But reading it takes me outside of my comfort zone. What I should now be thinking is how I can apply something I saw in that submission to my own writing. Even if what I write is pretty far from romance (and it is), that doesn't mean the writer has nothing to show me. And it shouldn't mean I have nothing to say to her.

I'll meet with this next group later in the month. Hopefully it's a good fit all around.

Happy writing, and remember to step outside your comfort zone, and your genre, every now and then.

Challenge Yourself: Critique Groups

I had a try-out, of sorts, for a local critique group today.

That probably makes it sound weird. It wasn't. They invited me to their group to see how they work, then asked me some questions at the end (and I got to return the favor). Overall, I think it went well, and I hope they invite me to join. It seems like a good group. The process, of course, got me thinking about writing groups and critique groups.

How many writers out there are members of such a group? What benefits do you get from it? In turn (and more importantly, in my opinion), what do you bring to the group?

The group I might be joining comprises writers who write in a variety of genres. I think that's better than a group dedicated to one particular genre. (YMMV on this one; I acknowledge that it's personal preference.) I've mostly written mysteries for the last few years. In that time, I've also read a lot of them. However, the publishing world is populated by people who love all genres, and those who challenge genre conventions. Reading works that differ from what I would normally pick up exposes me to a wider variety of styles, word choices, scene structures, etc. Every genre has its conventions. If I read something for the group that takes my outside of my reader comfort zone, if you will, then I think that ultimately benefits me as a writer.

There should be something to learn in every book or story we read. That includes the ones that are outside our usual preferences. If we challenge ourselves as readers (and critiquers), then I think that expands our bags of tricks as writers.

Consider joining a critique group. You might find yourself challenged, and that's a good thing.

Happy writing.

Happy 2014

It's 2014. Do you know where your stories are?

Hopefully, they're on your pages, e-pages, or on a bookshelf somewhere. 

In my last post, I talked about setting realistic writing goals for yourself. It's common for people to come out with all manners of New Year's resolutions around this time of year. I'm only going to share two of my writing-related goals here (for now).

1. Update my blog more often. Ten posts in 2013 is not enough. I'd like to update this at least biweekly, and potentially more often depending on what I have to say.

2. Have something published. This would include the traditional route or self-publishing. I've written a lot. I've revised a lot. I need to get off my hindquarters and get something out into the marketplace. That's a goal, and a strongly-worded one. Feel free to word them as strongly as needed to motivate yourself. Curse at yourself if you have to. Whatever works.

We'll check in on these goals (and maybe some others--remember, you need to write your goals down or they're just ideas in your head) throughout the year. For now, I want to leave you with a quote I saw today.

"If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it." — Elmore Leonard

Formal writing is for college papers and nonfiction. People speak colloquially. Dialogue shouldn't be stilted. Your narrative should sound natural, not . . . well, not "like writing" as the great Elmore Leonard said. 

I hope everyone has a good 2014. What are your writing goals for this year?

I'm a Loser, Baby

When it comes to NaNoWriMo, at least. At the rest of life, I'm #winning like Charlie Sheen, just without the tabloid shenanigans and drug-aided psychoses.

I didn't get to 50,000 words this year. This marked the eighth year I've done NaNo. I've won four times (most recently, 2012). I suppose I should be happy with a .500 batting average.

On some level, I am. I realize that the stated goal of NaNo might be penning 50K words in 30 days. The real goal, however, is up to each person who attempts it. Some people just want to see if they have the discipline to sit down everyday (or almost everyday) for a month and bang out a bunch of words. Others might want to finish a novel for the first time, or use NaNo as a springboard to finish something they had started and put aside. Some writers may be even more ambitious and set a goal of 100K words, or more.

If you set a goal and hit it, you're a winner. It doesn't matter what the word-count bar on the site tells you.

If you set a goal and didn't hit it, then you need to come away with some lessons learned. Was your goal too ambitious? Do you need to improve your time management and find more time to write? Do you try to edit as you type and slow yourself down? These questions (and many more) are all things you can ask yourself if you didn't reach your writing goal. The next time you try to write a book, set a realistic goal and apply those lessons learned. See if your experience is different.

My boss told me that you have to write your goals down. Otherwise, they're just ideas in your head. I agree with him. I'll go one step further: you have to set deadlines for yourself. Want to finish that book you started on November 1? Give yourself a deadline. Maybe January 31 is realistic. Write it down. Set periodic reminders on your Google calendar (or online calendar or choice). Check your progress. Most importantly, stick to it.

This year, I learned a few things about my own goal setting and time management. What did you learn?

NaNoWriMo: Week 1

"Wait, wait," I can hear you say. "This is the 11th. Week one of National Novel Writing Month passed a few days ago."

Indeed it did, Dear Reader. You are as perceptive as ever.

However, your humble scrivener didn't start putting pen to pape... um, digital letters to screen until the 4th. So I've been at it a week. In that week, I've written 10,404 words, with about half of that total coming in the last two days. My productivity, you might say, is on the uptick.

You might also say I'm behind the curve (I should be over 16,000 by the end of day 10) and unlikely to finish. That would be uncharitable of you.

This is where NaNoWriMo shows its value, in my opinion: shaming me into writing more. I missed the first few days. Now I have to do a higher average per day to hit the goal of 50,000 words in 30 days. Despite the occasional hairy eyeball from my wife (happy anniversary, baby! <3), I'm determined to get this book finished. NaNoWriMo had compelled me to write, and write in volume, when I might have otherwise slacked off. That's valuable. That's worth something. It's one of the reasons I donate every year.

When finished, this will be the seventh mystery in my series. Yes, I need to look into publishing them, either thru a publisher or by myself. I resolve to do that when I've finished the first draft of this book. There's something else NaNoWriMo has pushed me to do.

If you're doing NaNo this year, for the first time or the tenth, good luck. If you're not, look into it. It's good for getting you on a routine.

"Tom, you just wrote a few hundred words here," you might be saying. "They could have gone toward your book's word count." You are correct again, Dear Reader.

This time, however, I won't reply. That would be uncharitable.

Happy writing.

Five Weekends in August IV

Let's talk about reading.

We're all writers, so it stands to reason that we're all readers, too.

Is it possible to be a good writer without being a voracious reader?

For 2012, I set a goal of reading 35 books. I stopped counting at 40 with two months to go. This year, I'm ahead of that pace, and that doesn't even count the dry IT books I've read for my job.

Maybe you don't need to devour books, but I think you need to be a reader to have a real future as a writer.

It's like getting better at baseball by watching other people play it. It sounds weird, doesn't it? But think about it. We have baseball games in HD now, with a zillion different slow-motion replays from every angle. Never before have we been able to see grown men spit and scratch themselves with such clarity! But in terms of useful skills, you can still pick up quite a bit by watching.

Say you're a baseball player who wants to work on your swing. You can go to the batting cage or hit off a tee. It'll probably help. You can also watch some professionals play. Watch how different hitters hold their hands at the plate -- high, low, loaded back, etc. Watch their strides as the ball leaves the pitcher's hand. Watch the hitter's hips turn, forcing his arms to zoom through the hitting zone.

At some point, you have to get out there and swing the bat yourself if you ever want to improve. But there's value in watching the pros do it. The same is true for writing. If you take your craft seriously and want to get better, you have to sit down and bang out the words. However, there's value in reading what others have written. What POV do they write in? How does the setting factor into the stories? What action verbs propel the story forward? These are things you can learn while curled up with a good book. Just make sure you get out there and practice them.

Happy writing.

Five Frida... uh, Weekends in August III

I'm close to finishing another first draft. There are probably two more chapters to go. This will make six books in my mystery series, and eight overall.

Yes, at some point, I'm going to have to get around to doing something with them.

I just wonder whether I should go with the mysteries (which I've written more recently) or the spy adventures (which are older). Part of me wants to lead off with the spy adventures. They were the first books I stuck it out and finished, after all, and dammit, I want to see them in print (or e-print) someday.

But then I think that the mysteries are probably better because I wrote them more recently. At least, I hope they're better. I'd like to think I've improved at this thing we call writing over the years.

The key is to do something with something. If that makes sense. I just hope the publishing landscape makes sense to me.

Five Fridays in August II

"Ripped from the Headlines~!"

While I everything with "2" or "II" in the title really should have the subtitle "Electric Boogaloo," I wanted to be (semi-)serious about this.

This post was going to be about writing while on vacation, then we ended up not going away for a long weekend. Instead, I'm going to make it a follow-up to last week's post about our visit to the superhero exhibit currently at the Baltimore Jewish Museum.

The exhibit was great. (One of these days, I'll get an Instagram account to share them. Until then, all you kids get off my lawn.) We saw a lot of old and cool comic covers, sketches of internal pages, bios of the creators, and even some interactive exhibits. 

One really caught my eye and inspired this post. It showed a newspaper from around the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. Comics had shown a desire for the US to enter World War II even before Pearl Harbor. The caption under the paper read, in part, "During the Golden Age, many comic book stories were ripped from the headlines."

"Ripped from the headlines." I think I heard that about several Law & Order episodes over the years. "Based on a true story" is similar. But what do they really mean? How closely based?

For ages, fiction writers have been inspired by true stories. We change the names, fudge the details a bit, tweak the setting to fit our particular genre and locale, and voila! We have a story. I've done it too. A currently unpublished novel of mine was based on a news report of gang killings in my hometown of Baltimore. Another was based on a news report of a man who confessed to a murder (spoiler alert!) he didn't commit.

Here's what I'm wondering. We don't read the paper anymore, in general. Newspaper circulation is declining faster than the number of people who don't know J.K. Rowling wrote The Cuckoo's Calling. (Brief aside: I really wish "Rowling" rhymed with "calling." That sentence would sound awesome if it did.) Today, we get our news from the Internet and cable TV. Local newspapers are online and many charge a subscription fee. How many of you read your local paper online? The thing is, websites and channels like CNN tend to have a national focus. If you're writing thrillers where the fate of the country is at stake, that can be a fertile ground for you. If your stories are more homespun, you have to search deeper.

With the decline of newspapers, is it harder to "rip things from the headlines" these days? Do the Big Three cable news channels and websites still stoke your creative fires?

Things to think about. Happy writing.

Five Fridays in August, Part I

Five Fridays in August I:

The Superhero Exhibit

This weekend, we're going to the superhero exhibit at the Baltimore Jewish Museum. It's a traveling exhibit that's in town thru August 18.

The exhibit celebrates the early comic creators, many of whom were Jewish. This concludes the unpaid advertising part of this blog post.

My daughter loves superheroes. Most girls love dolls and princesses. (She does, too. If Superman got the princess instead of Lois Lane, it would be much cooler for Isabel.) She loves the big splashy colors, the flying, the strength, the quips, and the action scenes that unfold in the movies.

How does all of this relate to a writing blog? Well, comic books are a creative medium. In addition to the artwork, they obviously require a lot of writing and editing. Not every author writes on pages devoid of illustration.

But more than that, old comics had a simplicity about them. The bad guys were bastards whose motives, while nefarious, were easy to understand. The heroes were colorful and virtuous. Sometimes, the entire story was an exercise just to get Captain America to sock Hitler in the jaw. And that's OK. Not every plot needs to be made for a two-and-a-half-hour Bond movie. In this post-Matrix world, we've come to expect our heroes to wear black and not have qualms about killing the bad guys. There's nothing wrong with a simpler hero of more old-fashioned principles. This is doubly true if you're writing a period piece.

I don't know if the superhero exhibit will inspire my creativity or not. I'll probably just think it's really cool. But you never know. Sometimes, a glimpse at the past can give you a spark for the future.

Happy writing.

Screen Print(ing)

Recently, I watched Jack Reacher on a plane. Up until that point, I had not ready any of Lee Child's novels.

A few days after watching the movie, I looked for and saw the first Reacher book (Killing Floor) at a bookstore. I picked it up. I'm currently reading the fifth one. My brother, whose reading pace would shame Evelyn Wood, started after I did and has bought and read them all.

It's a cliche (and a nearly universal truth) that the book is better than the movie. But can't the movie inspire us to read the book? Maybe I would have gotten around to the Reacher series eventually. However, I enjoyed the movie and sought out the books.

How many people who had never read Tolkien did so because they saw a Lord of the Rings movie (or The Hobbit)? What about the Harry Potter series? I saw all the movies before I read any of the books. Granted, Ms. Rowling doesn't need my money to buy her next vacation mansion, but a popular movie or TV show can ring more sales for the author. Stephen King has sold a zillion books (note: this is the actual number). A lot of them have also been made into movies and TV miniseries. While those have helped keep King's pockets lined with green, how many sales did he get because people experienced one of his stories on the big (or small) screen for the first time?

Stephen King and J.K. Rowling are already rich, to the point they probably won't notice if someone gets into their books because they saw a movie. For a lot of authors, though, the sales boost that can come from a movie or TV show could be huge.

My questions to you: do you write with an eye toward getting your stories turned into TV shows or movies? Do you see the scenes unfold as if you were watching them on a screen? Does this manifest itself in your word choices, action scenes, etc? How do you think that affects your writing?

When I finished my first novel, a friend told me it would make a good action movie. I didn't think that was a compliment at the time. It may not be. But it certainly couldn't hurt.

Happy writing.

'Cept on My Big Ten-Inch

How long is it?

No, not THAT. This is a (mostly) family blog.

What I mean is, how long is your novel?

It's a simple question but not necessarily a simple answer. Sure, you can use the word count feature in your favorite work processing program to tell you. I think that's just part of the answer, though. The other part is genre expectations.

Let's say you want to write a sweeping epic. That's probably going to be something in the fantasy genre. Think Robert Jordan, just with things actually happening on the pages. A book like this could be 150,000 to 200,000 words, and that's OK because readers have become conditioned to expect that. 

If you're writing a mystery novel, however, and your word count is encroaching on 200,000, you'll need to do some serious editing. I'm not saying you can't write a super-long mystery; it's just exceedingly rare to see. Readers expect to enjoy a book where the protagonist gets sucked into events that unfold at an appropriate pace. 

My own current work in progress got me thinking about this. My past mysteries have checked in around 72,000-75,000 words. That's not by design. I don't see the word count odometer roll over to 72,000 and think, "whoa, I'd better wrap this up!" It just works out that way. The current WIP just went over 72,000 and I still have three chapters (and a few important events) to go. My guess is the first draft will check in around 80,000, then get trimmed in editing.

It sounds like I'm obsessed with word counts. I'm not. I'm more concerned with pacing. The word count is a sign post, a mile marker. Keep your eyes on it as you write, and understand its significance, but don't be a slave to it. Don't shorten or lengthen your story just because you think it needs to be within a certain word count range. Genre expectations are one thing. Good pacing is another.

Happy writing. Smile at the mile markers as you zoom past them.

* The title of this post is a line from "Big Ten-Inch Record," originally recorded by Bull Moose Jackson, and most popularly covered by Aerosmith.

This Dream I Had II

I write mysteries. Sometimes, I write other things, but over the past few years, it's mostly been mysteries. Recently, I've been focusing on professional development, so I haven't been writing--or blogging, as a handful of you may have noticed--as much recently. A few days ago, I started reading over some things I wrote, and I've done some more writing. I guess that served as the backdrop for a long, involved, and rather strange dream.

The dream felt like it happened in several parts, yet I somehow knew all of them were related.

I was investigating a missing child. Pretty standard fare in the mystery genre, right? I ended up talking to someone in a hospital and figured out the person had a block of time they couldn't account for. I took that info to the police (whose precinct was either connected to or right next to the hospital) who didn't seem interested in it. When I hinted someone there might be involved and may have taken the missing kid to a safehouse, I got a reaction. Then I left.

When I left, I had to wait to cross the street. I remembered thinking of interesting phrases to describe the traffic, making this kind of a meta dream.

Next, I was in the Federal Hill neighborhood of Baltimore, presumably at my client's house. I went out for something and a random ruffian tried to hold me up as I walked back. I got his gun away from him, shot him in the foot, and tossed the gun down a sewer. Pretty hard-boiled of me, eh? Well, that served to remind me that a crime boss of some sort also lived in the area, and I discovered he was two doors up from my client.

After that, an older man came into the house with what I think was a broken phone. We had three computers on the table, crunching whatever info we needed crunched about the case. Someone in the house decided to help the man with his phone and ended up connecting it to the house line. I got suspicious and unplugged one of the computers from the network. Sure enough, the man with the "broken" phone worked for the crime boss and had uploaded a rootkit to the network. The other two computers were compromised (and helpfully told us that someone else had connected). We had to shut them down.

At some point after that, I narrowed down the suspects to two brothers who owned rival juice businesses. I read billboards of info about them to a friend from grade school who had no previous involvement with the dream or the dream-case.

That was the last thing that happened. I don't know which juice czar, if either, ended up as the guilty party.

Things that may have spurred aspects of this dream:

-I've gotten back to reading and writing my own mysteries more recently.
-Those stories are set in Baltimore and feature a protagonist based in Federal Hill.
-The stories also feature the local crime boss as a minor character.
-My wife and I were talking about going into Baltimore today and lunching at a place we like in Federal Hill.
-I've been reading about information security (the professional development I mentioned earlier). Yesterday, I read a lot about trojans and rootkits.
-For the brothers and rival juicers... yeah, I got nothin'.

Maybe this all means I need to work in a way to write regularly again. Professional development is great and all, but I love writing and have to find a way to take the time and do it. So thank you, strange and rambling dream, for helping me realize that.

Now I just need a strange and rambling dream to get me back to my regular gym routine...

The Enemy of the Good

There’s an old saying out there. “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” Basically, it means that you shouldn't vainly strive for perfection when you already have something good.

I think this is very important for writers, and especially for me.

I’m a perfectionist. I don’t like to half-ass anything. If I’m passionate about something, I dive headlong into it and immerse myself in it. The thought of churning out something less than perfect is anathema, even though I know perfection is unattainable. So I revise, work on something else, revise again, start something else, revise two things, etc. Do you see the vicious circle at work?

The perfect has become the enemy of the good for me. I want to put out a book that will not only leave my readers’ mouths agape, but also satisfy my own desire to produce the best work I can. The thing is, we all have to let go at some point. After you revise a few times, you get to the point where you've made something as good as you can make it. Maybe you bring in an outside editor when that happens. Maybe you send it to your publisher and let them take their knives to it. The key is to do something with it.

I need to get better at that, and I know it.

Other things at which I need to get better: updating this blog more regularly, and allowing myself to end introductory phrases with prepositions.

Happy writing. Happy good writing.

Where Did November Go?

Another November is in the books.

Did you remember, remember the fifth of November?

Did you remember to write a lot? I did! I hope you did, too. For those of you who push a rock off yourselves in the morning, November is National Novel Writing Month. Each November, trillions of writers write decadozillions of words, post about it on Facebook, and anguish over things their characters do and say.

Doesn't that sound like fun? Well, it is. I've done it for the last eight years. The goal is write 50,000 words in 30 days, which works out to about 1667 per day. This is the fourth year I've win but I count last November (2011) as an unofficial win. You see, I was getting married that month. My now-wife and I were planning our wedding (read: my wife was doing a lot of wedding planning), and between all the prep we did, the wedding itself, and the honeymoon... well, I ran a bit short of free time. In the days leading up to the wedding, I couldn't sit down and work on non-wedding-related things for more than a couple minutes without getting the hairy eyeball from my wife. To keep her from divorcing me the morning after we married, I set a modified goal of 30,000 words and managed to hit it.

This year, I went over 50K on the last day. A win is a win, right? The Ravens win ugly; I can too.

If you participated in NaNoWriMo, regardless whether you won, congratulations. You engaged in a creative exercise for 30 days. That's something good right there. If you didn't participate, what's stopping you? Write-ins are a great way to meet your fellow writers and get some quality time with your characters.

November is in the books. Don't let it pass without adding one of your books to the ledger.

Happy writing.

Good Problems?

The baseball playoffs are over for the Orioles, so I get to reclaim the evenings I spent in front of the TV. It was a great run, watching the team duke it out for AL East title, then lose a tough series to the Yankees. While I’m sure I’ll still put on some playoff games here and there, I’m getting a swath of time back.

November is around the corner. I’ll be putting that time to good use.

I’m still editing a previous work (baseball distracted me) and I need to figure out what I’m going to do for NaNoWriMo once November is here. I have a few ideas to kick around and flesh out. It’s always good to have choices, right?

Right?

Here’s the problem: I can (and almost always do) read multiple books at a time without a problem. I’m positive I can’t do that with writing. One of these ideas has to emerge as the best. Do I continue with the same character in the mystery series I favor? Do I go back to my world-traveling secret agent and chronicle his third grand adventure? Do I develop the YA idea that I had and try a genre I’ve never written and have only infrequently read? (Does the Harry Potter series count as YA?)

November looms, and a decision looms. But this is a good problem to have. Right?

(For the record, I think it is a good problem to have. And if the Orioles were still playing and complicating my writing schedule, that would be a good problem, too.)

Happy writing.

Writers' Muscle Confusion

Writers write. We know that. Hopefully, we all do it.

At some point, though, you can't keep writing. Your story comes to an end. At that point, you have to transition to another part of the process (usually editing or plotting/outlining).

I am here to admit that I don't always make that transition smoothly.

The writing part is easy enough. At the risk of sounding immodest, I think I'm pretty good at it. However, between the times I write "The End" for one story and "Chapter 1" for another, I think I use my time inefficiently.

Usually, when I finish writing a book, I put it aside for about a month. That way, when I come back to edit it, it's not fresh in my mind and I have a better perspective on what needs to be cut. During that month of downtime, however, I need to get better at doing more things that help me improve as a writer. I've come up with a list of things I could (should) be doing during that time:

• gathering ideas (including my rough version of outlining) for a future book
• writing a short story
• looking at an older story and seeing how I could update/revise it today
• editing something else I had consigned to the e-dustbin
• continuing work on a project I had put aside
•  reading a book (or books) on the craft of writing

I'm sure this isn't an exhaustive list. The key, I think, is to keep doing something that engages me as a writer so that those "muscles" stay strong. It's like a real workout routine in that you have to change it up every now and again so that your body keeps responding well. Trainers call it "muscle confusion." Maybe we as writers need our own version of that, and what better time than the downtime between projects?

Is there anything else I could add to my list? Do you have a writing downtime activity that works for you? Let me know.

Happy writing.

Walk That Walk

Maybe you'll do some more editing on that novel tomorrow.

Maybe you'll tackle e-reader formatting after a long weekend.

Maybe you'll sit down and finish your book outline after the Bond movie marathon.

Maybe you're just procrastinating.

There's a maxim out there that goes, "if you do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten." While it obviously applies to writing, this also applies to life. If you want to lose weight and/or get in better shape, for example, eat better and work out. Thinking and hoping don't get you anywhere. If you want to develop better social skills, go out and talk to people.

And if you want to be a writer, you have to write.

I'm not trying to pull off a Knute Rockne speech here. You don't need to win one for the Gipper; you just need to win one for yourself. In this age of global connectivity, instant gratification, and a zillion entertainment options, it's easy to get sidetracked and distracted. Carve out some time for writing, editing, plotting, or whatever it is you need to do. Use a calendar (or a day planner, if you're still living in the Jurassic Era) to mark it down and remind you. Your characters and your readers (current or future) will thank you for it.

Years ago, I came across another maxim: "Writers write. Everyone else just talks about it."

Let's not just talk about it.

Happy writing.