Tag: process

Removing a Character

Laura Highcove

So after two more weeks of tracking how much time I spend on my writing, I am much happier with my productivity during the week. I am better able to stay on track and I spent more hours working on writing. However, weekends gave me trouble. I don’t have a particular block carved out on weekends because they can be so variable. What this means is while I get writing done, I have dropped the ball on more than one occasion on actually writing down the hours spent and on what.

Added to that the change in schedule caused by some news I got on Tuesday (more details about that in my newsletter this month.) and the Roanoke Regional Writer’s Conference I went to this past Saturday, meaning I’m taking today off, my spreadsheet is nowhere near as beautiful as I would like.

However, I have been feeling productive. (And I think I have been, despite not having all of the cold hard data to back it up.) Being able to look back and see: “Oh yeah, I actually spent an hour and a half smoothing the Huntsman.” Does wonders for dispelling my mind trying to tell me I’m slacking off too much.

I’ll likely keep trying with the spreadsheets and see if I can’t get writing down my time to be more habitual, since it’s something I would like to keep up with.

The “event on Tuesday” also lead to a change in priorities that means I got very little done with the Huntsman. That in itself wouldn’t be horrible except that that morning I had finally decided to pull the plug and yank a (fairly) main character out. So not only did I get less done, I had just given myself more work.

So this journal entry is my reset point for my goals. I need to remove the character from the manuscript, and finish smoothing it out by the end of the month, which is only a week and a half. Looks like that’s most of what I’m going to be doing during this time.

“Best Practices” That Didn’t Work for Me

Laura Highcove 2 Comments

DIY MFA Book Club, Prompt #5: What’s one “best practice” that didn’t work for you?

I have a number of these “best practices” that just don’t work for me. I’ve learned to take any and all advice with a grain of salt, even the ones that seem so ubiquitous that there’s no way it isn’t true, like: “Write every day.” So let’s start there.

“Write every day.” – or, you know, on a schedule that works for you

I don’t write every day. I take Fridays off and other days when things are busy. For me, it was just important to set up a schedule and put aside time to write. When holidays roll around, or other “disruptive events”, I honor my reality and take off the days I need to.

I also don’t necessarily write new words every day. Much of my process involves rewriting over and over (I call this ‘smoothing’.). Some days I *have to* reorganize what I’ve already written before I can move forward with the story. That means sometimes I end up with far fewer words than I started the day with, and yet what I have is better.

“Stop writing when you’re on a roll.” – unless that means you lose momentum

The idea here is supposed to be if you stop in the middle of the action, when you sit down to write the next time, you’ll be able to pick up where you left off more easily. This one got me into trouble a few times because when I tried it, I found that the way my mind works is that once I lose an idea, it’s often gone completely. So I would be writing toward a goal, stop in the middle, and when I sat down the next day I would have literally no idea where I was headed. (Occupational hazard for discovery writers more than plotters.)

I have learned that I need to stop and write ideas, even in the middle of an ongoing scene, or else I will often forget it by the time I get done. And I always finish a scene, or at least a thought before I stop writing for the day. I’m learning to identify my natural lulls, which normally means it’s a good time to stop if I need a stopping point.

“Ignore your inner critic.” – when it’s a good idea

This is a tough one. Because a lot of times you do need to ignore the critic in order to move forward, and not get bogged down. But as you develop more skill writing, sometimes it is important to listen to this critic.

An example: I’ve been struggling with my most recent novel, a book two. I have a character in it that I absolutely love, but my inner critic kept telling me she was superfluous. I kept convincing myself that everything would come together with her eventually.

I finally had to admit that I needed to listen to my inner critic and get rid of this character completely. Her being gone left the main character more time to interact with the other characters, strengthening their relationships and tightening the plot. And truthfully, it’s better that I got rid of her now before I wove her throughout the entire story and made her even harder to take out.

“The only best practice is the one that works best for you.” – period

Luckily I had DIY MFA around to remind me of this one. And truthfully, now I roll my eyes whenever I heard an author say the best advice they have is to ‘write every day’. I would encourage you, as you grow more skilled at writing, to practice saying, “Something that has worked for me is …” Because there really is no advice that works for everyone, but there are people out there who will gain benefit from what you’ve learned works for you.

Storytelling Superpower

Laura Highcove

DIY MFA Book Club, Prompt #3: What’s Your Storytelling Superpower?

Result: The Protector

Your superpower is writing superheroes! Your favorite characters see their world in danger and will do whatever it takes to protect it and those they love in it. These characters may not wear spandex and capes, but they show almost superhuman fortitude in their quest to prevent disaster, whatever the cost to themselves. From Scarlett O’Hara to James Bond to Iron Man, you’re drawn to characters who stand up to the forces of evil and protect what they believe in.

Yeah, it fits pretty well for me, the Protector, as well as what I like to write about. My current book series is about a prince charming, who is a girl, and she is always doing whatever she can to protect the people around her. (If you’re interested in reading more about her, you can get a free chapter here.) The theme has come up often in past book attempts as well.

I (the author) like other people and so my characters and themes in my story usually revolve around people all wanting to protect each other in some way. I don’t usually like stories where people betray each other a lot (not that my characters won’t ever do that) or tend to mistrust persistently. I love to see the interactions among people who love and/or trust each other.

The other results for the Storytelling Superpower (I keep trying to type storyteller, because my book has storytellers in it. :p), in case you’re curious are: The Instigator, the Underdog, and the Survivor. You can probably sort of guess as to their meanings from the names, but if you’re interested scroll down on this page and they’re all listed out.

I am also a survivor. Which comes in handy for being an author. 🙂

Honoring My Reality

Laura Highcove 2 Comments

A prompt from the DIY MFA Book Club: Tell a story about a time when you had to honor your reality. Has there ever been a moment when writing felt completely incompatible with your real life–when it felt like there was just no way you could make the two exist together?

The problem I have with honoring my reality doesn’t come from a feeling of being unable to make my life and my writing coexist. Writing has always been a natural part of my life, completely intertwined. If life gets too busy, I stop writing and take care of it, and then I drift back to my writing naturally.

My problem comes from trying to determine the balance between my life and my writing now that I have a goal of being professionally published. I have a hard time figuring out how much time I “need” to spend writing vs how much time I “need” to spend relaxing.

When you have a boss who is not yourself, the appropriate amount of hours/effort is determined by someone else. You know that you work from 9 to 5, with a break for lunch, or that you have certain tasks that need to be done before you leave. You know (if your boss is any good) what is expected and how much of it.

My own hours/goals are defined by …whatever I think is manageable, or what I think I should be doing. Sometimes it’s reasonable, and sometimes I overestimate what I’m able to do. The variability and the fact that I’m the one that sets my schedule makes it very hard to be able to define the amount of work I do as ‘enough’.

There are certainly days where I convince myself that I’ve done enough when I really just want to read a new book, or play another level in a video game. There are other days that no matter how much I write, my mind tells me: ‘well I could be writing right now’ or ‘did I really get enough writing done today?’.

And at those times I try and remind myself to honor my reality. That I need time to write, and I need time to relax. It doesn’t always work. While I’ve never worried that I won’t have time for writing, finding the happy balance between work and rest is an ongoing struggle.

New Challenge for December

Laura Highcove 1 Comment

The last two weeks have gone well. I finished up the revision pass of The Law of the Prince Charming, adding in the new plot lines I decided I needed after receiving feedback from an editor. That ended up going a lot more smoothly than I thought it would, and I’m happy with the way it ended up.

A side effect of this, however, sent the first 13k words of the Huntsman into the trash. This was both good and bad. It was good because it highlighted that a certain plot-line was superfluous and probably would’ve just confused things. I was also really having trouble with the end of that section and I’d just as rather not have to fix it. Losing the beginning of the Huntsman was bad because …well throwing away 13k words, and I actually really liked how it started the story. It gave legit reasons to explain what had happened in the last book without it just being the narrator telling the reader. I also loved a lot of the characterization I did with my main characters that, as a discovery writer, I’ll have to see if I can finesse into the new beginning.

And speaking of the new beginning, I was inspired by the DIY MFA Radio podcast to start trying to write every day. Not that I don’t, but I mean to actually write new prose every day. For some reason I assumed that if I was going to write new prose, it had to be as much as I possibly could manage in a day. And that would mean revising and working on my website would be left as daunting side projects. It was pointed out that even 100 words a day is 36.5k a year, nothing mind blowing, but I realized that it would be child’s play for me to write 500 words a day. That’s 30 min, 45 on a bad day. So I just make that a daily thing and that’s over 180k words a year.

As of right now I’m using that to rewrite the beginning of the Huntsman (the rest of the story was not much effected by the beginning being changed, which was part of the problem.) and I’ve also been throwing the occasional 500 words at a new story idea that’s been burning a hole in my brain. So for the most part, December is an experiment of whether I can polish a novel, write prose into a second novel that is on the edge of stepping out of rough draft status, and write prose toward a different project’s rough draft all that the same time. Sounds like a lot of fun doesn’t it? I know right!? So far I’m not having any trouble switching among them. My plan now is to see what happens and reevaluate at the end of the month.

Making it Fun Again

Laura Highcove 2 Comments

I’m starting to think that two weeks between journal entries might be too long. A lot happens in two weeks, a lot of things can change. I’m not going to make my deadline. I’ve been moving forward pretty steadily, I just seriously misjudged where I was with the Huntsman when I made my goal.

I spent much of last week beating myself up the fact that I’m failing to meet my deadlines and that I’m not working on my story 24/7. But at a certain point I just had to stop and realize I wasn’t having fun anymore. It was a chore and I can’t write like that. I reminded myself that whether or not this story ever gets published isn’t what matters. It’s writing a story that I enjoy and that I want to read over and over, just like The Law of the Prince Charming. I’m still having a little trouble letting go of my attachment to my deadlines, but at least now I’m focusing more on writing something I enjoy. But this is only the second book I’ve worked on this seriously, so I can only be so surprised when I wildly misjudge how long things will take. I’m sure it’s something I will learn with time, just like everything else.

That being said, I went back and smoothed out the beginning of the story and am pushing my way through Wildrose’s arc. It’s been difficult and it’s been fun. My plan now is to push through to the middle of the book in the next two weeks, both Wildrose and Tabitha’s arcs. The only way to go is forward after all.

However, it’s also time for me to admit that I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year. Now I’m obviously still going to write, I’m just not throwing my hat in the NaNoWriMo ring. I love NaNoWriMo and I have learned so much about myself as a writer from it, but I keep reaching the point where I feel like NaNoWriMo is getting in the way rather than helping. This year, in particular, for several reasons. I’ll be going into more detail about those reasons in this month’s newsletter, so go ahead and sign up so you can stay in the loop.

See you in two weeks.

Smoothing Pass (Aug 7 – 13, 2017)

Laura Highcove

So I managed to get this done even with Otakon this weekend. I finished creating the summary/loose outline before I left, and this morning (which is technically the 14th, but I’ll count it) I went through and moved the pieces around a bit. Now I’m feeling better about how things are coming together.

This is the reason that I sit down and just do overall organization passes. It’s pretty much like creating an outline, only I don’t think I refer back to my outline as much as writers who outline do. The process of creating the outline helps me fit everything together in my head, and then I only refer to it if I get lost.

This time I plan to try something new and create an outline with the notecards in Scrivener. Not sure how well it will work, but I am going to put together the middle of the story where things are really rough right now as just an outline in order to shoehorn everything in. Shouldn’t take me more than a day. Then I can get to work on Gabir’s arc which, while it is the most important, it is also the most solid right now. So even with Writer’s Digest this weekend, I should be able to get that done.

I think the Wildrose arc will give me the most trouble, but starting in September I’m back to working at the barn only half days and so I will have more time in the afternoon to work on his arc as needed.

Of course with Writer’s Digest this weekend, I may attend a panel that completely changes my writing life and give me some sort of amazing insight, but barring that I think my plan is pretty solid.

Work while on Vacation

Laura Highcove

So I was able to smooth out a lot of The Huntsman in the week of May 3rd. Had to rejigger some things, but that’s just part of the process. I’m actually fairly happy with how things are turning out.

Had a little more trouble working on Tabitha’s character arc, as I spent the latter part of last week depressed and decided I needed to take care of myself rather than try and power through it. I was still able to create an outline of what I want Tabitha’s scenes to be, so now I simply need to write them, and I have to get that done before Emelia can step into place.

But I am on vacation this week so I’m only spending a bit of my morning actually working. This is a short update for that very reason, and though I’m behind, I’m not yet worried about not finishing on time. It’s a rough draft, so the important thing is just getting it all out.

A Challenge Overcome

Laura Highcove

I’ve overcome a number of challenges as a writer. One would be the act of completing a novel, which is impressive, but was my answer for the ‘a dream achieved’ post, so it would be cheating to use it again.

I have lots of little challenges that I have overcome and even more that I have to keep overcoming, like doubt and a lack of time. But I think the most important thing is to acknowledge the challenges as I conquer them (big and small) and then look forward to the next one.

The challenge I am involved in right now is writing The Huntsman, the sequel to The Storyteller, and it has been difficult. I’ve read from some authors how each book can be a completely different type of beast to tackle, but somehow I had assumed that my process would be at least similar. The Storyteller, I wrote pretty linearly in two months, revised for a year, rewrote the second half of the book, revised for another year and I had a novel.

The Huntsman I have been jumping around all over the place since November of last year. I have rewritten scenes from scratch three or four times, and I still don’t have my ending written out yet. (I have an idea what it is at least.)

Now I can at least look at The Storyteller and remind myself that yes, I really can do this, so that helps with the doubt. At the same time I was hoping to be one of those efficient writers who doesn’t take years to put out each book. And maybe one day I will be. Right now, I’m still focusing on overcoming my current challenge.

Researching

Laura Highcove

I really don’t like research. I wouldn’t say that I write fantasy because I dislike researching the real world, but I don’t doubt that it’s a bit of a factor. The amount of time and effort that can go into minute details that may only come up once, but to which people will latch because of human’s intense desire to be right and/or prove other people wrong. The more stuff I just make up, the less things people can point at and tell me I’m wrong.

However, technically the Storyteller came about because I was doing “research” into fairy tales. And by research I mean I was reading obscure fairy tales. I landed on The Little Wildrose and realized the eagle could be a gryffin, and that was the last spark I needed in order to jump start that book.

I have found some other things that I enjoyed researching. I love reading about Norse Mythology, whether or not the novel I did that research for becomes more than a trunk novel. I have also looked into sociopaths because I find that particular mental affliction interesting as someone who is entirely too sensitive of the emotions of others. And recently I have become interested in mushrooms for a world I’m playing around with that has no sun. Not super deep into that one yet.

There have been story ideas that I’ve ignored because the research I would need to do in order to write the book seems too tedious. I think the big thing is finding something I’m interested in enough to be willing to put in the time.