JA Marlow

It’s hard to develop the thick skin necessary to accept crits. But then, writing is a difficult business to be in and a tough skin is essential. That said, when you receive a long and detailed crit that also includes negative responses, let yourself go through the steps of ‘mourning’ that your work isn’t perfect. Even though your mind might acknowledge that it isn’t perfect (and that’s why you solicited for crits) your heart is another matter. You have to train yourself how to deal with it, and each writer will be different on that.

And as someone who just received a big long crit with many bad points in a story pointed out, here is what I did, in hopes it helps:

First, realize this is YOUR story. You know what you wanted it to be, the story you wanted to tell. Remind yourself of that first before looking at the crits. If you happened to write down your theme or your ‘hook’, take the time to read it. (I did this, and it was a very good thing. See below)

Then go at that crit in one massive read-through, but do it with a pen and paper next to you. If you don’t agree with something, keep moving. Put it out of your mind. It doesn’t matter anymore.

However, if you find something that you think might have a little bit or a lot of merit, write it down on that piece of paper in your own words. When you write it down make a note of the area in the story to find the problem to help you track it down later.

Remember to compare the crits with the theme and story you want to write. If the suggestions take the story in a different direction, ignore them, even if the suggestions are good. Filling the work with a bunch of themes and unconnected ideas will only make it worse, not better.

Do the above until you are done with what was said in the crit. Then put the crit away. Don’t look at it for a while.

What you will have left is the piece of paper where you wrote down your notes. Because it’s in your handwriting and in your own words, your mind and heart view it as if another strange person is trying to infiltrating your writing. The notes are now YOURS.

This is a little bit of a mind-game. By doing this you won’t be opening up the crit continually, and possibly getting yourself upset with too much negativity or constantly seeing things you don’t agree with. You are giving yourself distance from the crit while still moving forward with advice that could possibly make your work stronger.

But, it also has a practical purpose. You’ve now condensed out of the crit only the things that you agree (or somewhat agree) with. You can focus only on them. You don’t have the work of looking through a long crit to find the little bit you need out of all the things mentioned there. You have a condensed to-do list that you can condense down further or cross out as you finish the points or decide you don’t agree after all.

As I mentioned previously, I received a difficult crit. The above steps made it much easier to deal with, especially reviewing the theme and story hook. Going through the crit all at once made me realize the critter was giving suggestions to turn the story into a novel. The story wasn’t a novel, and I didn’t want it to be. With that realization, I was better able to sort through the advice and use details here and there to help improve the story without allowing the short story to become more than I wanted it to be.

Every critiquer comes to the story with their own slant, their own preferences, likes and dislikes, wants and needs. Those wants and needs may not coincide with you or the story you want to tell.

Be flexible while reading the critique and see it objectively. But also be strong enough to say ‘no’ if it conflicts with what you want the story to be. Just because the advice is given doesn’t mean it must be followed.

Never forget this is your work, your words. Only you know where you want it to go, what it should be when it is polished and finished.

Current Mood:  okay

The spreadsheet tracks hours for “National Novel Editing Month”, where the goal is to revise/edit for 50 hours in 31 days. It can be adapted and used for other months, as well, for anyone who wants to use it. I used as a base the spreadsheet that was offered last year, I rearranged and added a few things. It’s a GoogleDoc spreadsheet, however, you do not have to have a Google account to access it.

If you have GoogleDoc yourself, you can “Save As” to save a copy into your own account.

For anyone else, you can “Download As” (Export) this out into Excel or an Open Office document (as well as others).

Nanoedmo Time Tracking 2010

Enjoy!

Current Mood:  excited

J.A. Konrath has posted his to-date Kindle E-book sales figures for the month of February 2010. Wow, interesting numbers.

Keeping in mind that he has a series (and other books) ‘traditionally’ published and has generated a following with those, the numbers are still very interesting. Kudos to an author for sharing numbers in this time when hardly anyone has been sharing much of anything concrete. It’s hard to find good numbers out there, and J.A. Konrath has been very forth-coming with them.

Take a hop over and take a look. Then roll your eyes when any established author says they can’t make money at e-books. Instead of being afraid of the technology, perhaps those same authors should dust off all the projects that the ‘traditional’ route rejected and start an e-book following. And in the meantime, start negotiating for higher royalties on electronic rights. Some of the percentages out there with the big houses are border-line criminal.

Meanwhile, this writer is going to keep pounding away at the keys despite ‘life’ trying to get in the way. Hoping to follow a similar path: ‘traditionally’ published and then expand from there. We’ll see how it goes!

Current Mood:  curious

Jim C. Hines is doing a “First (Professional) Novel Survey”. If you have a novel that has provided at least a $2000 advance, he would love to have you fill out the survey. He’s already had quite the response, but he’s hoping for more genre variety. He’s looking for brand new authors and grizzled veterans alike, so long as you were the sole author. How long ago it happened doesn’t matter. The survey will remain open through March 15, after which he’ll pull together the data and present it (after purging any identifying information).

I’m looking forward to seeing the results! Too bad I, so far, don’t have a novel that would qualify.

A few weeks ago another writer asked me how many projects I’m currently working on. I had to stop and think. It was way past three, and at that point I can’t remember. Get out the lists!

So, I spent a little time making out a list. Wow, what an eye-opener.

As one of my short stories just made the leap from “Revising” status to “Finished” status, I thought I would put the numbers into here.

Finished
1 novel
3 short stories

Revising
1 novel
2 short stories
1 Non-fiction Article

First Draft Finished
4 novels

First Draft in Progress
None

Outlined
1 novel

Planning Stage
6 novels

Not including the “Finished” category, that makes 15 projects actively being worked on. Yeow, no wonder I couldn’t remember them all! We won’t even mention how long the ‘idea file’ is becoming. The Muse has been hyped up on sugar, throwing out ideas right and left. My head is hurting from being bonked by one too many of them!

I just realized I never said what the second book I wrote for Nano 2009 was. In my defense, November was a really hard month. The answer is: Hyperspace Encounters: (Science Fiction Romance) After her freighter crashed into a sentient ship of an unknown species, a clever widow finds herself neck-deep in the delicate balance between peace and war, and her dead husband’s fate might hold the key.

It came out to a finished rough draft of 84k and turned out better than I expected. The outline for this particular novel was rather skimpy, and some interesting things happened while writing it. As a result, it’s going to need massive revision to carry all the new ideas throughout the book. But it will be a fun revision, too. The characters really came alive, and the universe took a few interesting turns. Plus I got to write a space adventure! In spaceships! So totally cool!

I’ve put it away to rest for a bit while I work on the revision of two other novels.

Current Mood:  tired

New words are not all there is to writing. A finished first draft is only a first (big) step. And it’s the stuff that comes after and before a first draft that has been occupying my time.

Revision of “Into the Forest Shadows,” the SF Little Red Riding Hood adaptation, is progressing at a good clip (no pun intended – see below). I’m aiming to have most of the revision finished by May, and I’m on-track to do that. I’m planning out the big type-in revision right now. Which means a lot of study of the first draft to see what went right and what went wrong, what stands out and what is mediocre (or even bad). I’m coming up with a lot of great stuff to clarify or to add to make it better. Not so much *add*, but more like finding some brilliant Muse Bombs scattered about (named by Holly Lisle for those wonderful little unexpected things your subconscious mind drops into the story as you are writing). The good part is that I see only a handful of problem scenes with only two critically flawed. That is so fixable!

I’ve also started the planning on a new novel idea that I’m hoping to have the planning done in time for NaNoWriMo in November. The new novel is currently called “Lost Garden of Dreams.” It’s science fiction (as usual) with a sub-genre of Young Adult Adventure. However, it could turn into Young Adult Science Fiction depending on how the writing comes out. I’m content to see where the planning and writing takes me on that.

Last, but not least, today was haircut day! And I lost about 5 inches, possibly a little more. We didn’t measure it this time. Wow, my head feels lighter! Tis a great way to start out the new year.

I’ve been writing ever since I could string letters together to form words, and it’s never stopped since. However, the big goal of some day making a living off my fiction writing has remained elusive.

For a long time, the problem was the quality of writing. I know that isn’t the problem any longer but instead a variety of other reasons. Reasons I refuse to let stop me any longer. So, with that in mind, this is the year to start treating writing like a business.

And when a business wants to get somewhere at some point down the line, what do they do? They build a business plan.

And that’s what I’ve done this year. Created a business plan for writing.

So, the big lifelong dream (here-forth referred to as the “Big Dream”) has always been to “Make a living off my fiction writing.” Might as well make it a great big dream if I’m going to be dreaming, anyway!

However, that’s too big of a goal to work towards. Too overwhelming, too big, too easy to give up on, too easy to go astray, too easy to ignore and hope it goes away. It is the mountain that we are hurting our neck to crane up to see. Nope, we can’t look at something that huge on a daily basis.

There needs to be little steps leading up to it.

5 Year Plan

Which brings us to a 5 year plan. This is an amount of time that is a bit long but also a bit short. But definitely viewable. One of the foothills instead of the mountain.

So, in 5 years, where would I like to be on the road to the Big Dream? I decided to be a bit ambitious with this, as well.

The 5 year plan is to sell 3 books.

Now, selling a book is pretty much out of an author’s control once they are finished with the writing, editing and revision. But, I can submit book after book in hopes that one hits the right person in the right publishing climate in the right mood at the right time. Let’s face it, a lot about publishing is pure dumb luck.

But, I can maximize my odds.

To do that I need to widen my options. Have a variety of work in various sub-genres to send out into the publishing arena. So, I’m going to take “3 books” and double that to come up with the number of 6 books to be written and revised within the space of 5 years. (Actually 4 years, as that 5th year should be heavy in the submitting, and any books written that year will be sent out in the 6th year.)

So, I need to write and revise 6 books in four year’s time.

That still sounds like a lot. At first, I thought I was being a little too ambitious.

However, once I did the math, it really wasn’t. Based on four writing/revising years that is 1.5 books a year which equals, on average, 120,000 new words a year (based on an average of 80,000 words a book).

Here is what I have already proven I can do (based on 2009):
July Nano: 100,000 words
November Nano: 150,000 words
Total: 250,000 words (about 3 books a year)

That means with only two Nano months a year I have MORE than my required number of new words.

Or, another way of looking at it: I want to take half the year for revision only. That would mean I would only need to write 667 words a day for 180 days to write 1.5 books a year.

This is so doable that it’s ridiculous.

So, next step down is that I need to write, revise and polish at least 1.5 books a year.

For revision, I am doing two things. First is working up a process for myself that works efficiently and effectively for how I work and write. The second is actively learning all I can by taking Holly Lisle’s intensive “How to Revise Your Novel” class (the sign-up for the 2010 class ends January 9) as well as studying the revision section of Zette’s free “2 Year Novel” course (the sign-up for the 2010 class ends January 8), plus miscellaneous books and internet information. Even without these I’ve managed to revise one book in 5-6 months. After learning more, this should grow in efficiency.

The One Year Plan

Now I’m taking this down even further down from 5 years. We’re moving to the yearly level. Unlike 5 years, this is a much more manageable time-frame that isn’t quite so overwhelming.

From the math above, I know that to reach the 5 Year Goal, I need to write and revise at least 1.5 books a year. Well, to help increase my odds just a bit, I’m taking that to 2 whole books a year. If I don’t get two books a year finished, that’s no problem. Just so long as it’s above 1.5.

And I am taking this down even further to the monthly level. With how I write using the various Nano’s, here is a basic month-to month plan. Notice how it wraps around the beginning of the year, basically starting on the July of each year for the first draft of Book 1. Book 1 then ‘rests’ while other revision and outlining is done, not to be touched until the end of November when book 2 is written:

Jan – Revising Book 1
Feb – Revising Book 1 – Outlining
Mar – Revising Book 1 (National Novel Editing Month)
Apr – Revising Book 1 & 2
May – Revising Book 2 – Submission Starts
Jun – Revising Book 2 – Outlining
Jul – JulNoWriMo – First Draft of Book 1
Aug – Revising Book 2 – Outlining
Sep – Revising Book 2 – Outlining
Oct – Nano Preparation – Outlining – Submission Starts
Nov – NaNoWriMo – First Draft of Book 2
Dec – Revising Book 1

The above calendar gives each book a time to have the first draft written as well as giving it time to ‘rest’ before it is taken up for revision. Each book gets 4 1/2 to 5 months of revision time.

Then comes the nail-biting phase. Pushing the little darlings out of their comfy home to find a place out in the publishing world!

Submitting is a daunting project all on its own. To help it feel a little bit more fun and not so agonizing, I’ve joined the “2010 Great Acceptance/Rejection Contest” at Forward Motion Writers. You get points for novels and short story rejections, acceptances, queries, and the like. The whole goal is to see how high of a number you can get. And with earning points whether there is an accept or reject, you can’t lose! Well, except if you never submit in the first place.

Personally I’m hoping for more than 2 points the very first year.

The past two years have been a huge learning curve for me. But, the above is all based on what I have proven to already be within my capabilities. That’s why I did the writing math. To prove this isn’t beyond myself. I’m already writing more books each year than I would need in order to reach the 5 year goal (3-4 books now compared to the 1.5 required by the 5 Year Plan). That thrilled me to pieces when I figured that out!

And there it is. A solid plan from the big to the small to work my way to the Big Dream while not getting overwhelmed with it. Taking the Big dream and slicing it down into smaller and smaller pieces. Finding the resources and training to help me along the way. It will take work and dedication, but breaking it down makes all of it so much more accessible.

Onwards towards the Big Dream!

Anyone else have a writing business plan thought out?

Current Mood:  thoughtful

Over at Forward Motion Writers, Zette, the owner of the site, is offering a class called “Two Year Novel” (2YN). This is a class that takes place over two years that go from the first germ of an idea all the way through the planning to the writing of the first draft, into revision, and then to the point of submitting.

It’s a great class with a lot of great information. There is also a lot of support from the other students. If anyone has an idea lurking around in your head, you might consider taking it. It looks like this may be the last year she will offer it for free.

Create an account at the Forward Motion Writers website and then go to this post and respond to it to be signed up. The first week’s class should start up around January 8th.

Sign-ups close around the second week in January, so hurry!

Current Mood:  excited