When your characters change your ending

As I've mentioned before on my travel blog, I spend part of my time in Oxford. Well, I'm back up there again and working hard on a novel partially set in the city. It's been a backburner project for a year now as I've finished a horror novel, lost a writing contest, and traveled to Africa. Now I'm back at it.

Unfortunately, the first thing I realized when I set back to work was that the ending was impossible. Not bad, not trite (although it was a bit of that) but impossible. The characters as they have developed in my mind and through the course of the story would not have the interaction that would lead to the ending I had planned.

Oh crap, it was one of the best scenes in the book! But as Stephen King says, "You got to kill your babies" and this is one baby I have to kill.

So how does my novel end? I have no clear idea. I think I'll leave it up to my characters. They got me into this mess, so it's their responsibility to get me out of it.

There's a new editor in town

I'm obviously not doing my job.

I spend a lot of time on this blog talking about the agonies of the freelance life and yet in the past week two friends have asked me to read their novels, and now another friend has started a freelance editing business. Have I taught you people nothing?

The new editor in town is Missouri poet Shawn Douglas, known in Madrid as Shawn Numero Dos because he arrived there after me. Well, having spent two years teaching English and surviving snarky comments from inferior poets, he's back in St. Louis writing and setting up his own editing business. It's called Write-Edit-Teach and besides editing he's offering writing services, including technical writing (he's a computer whizz who's saved my Luddite ass on several occasions), and teaching everything from English to SAT preparation. So if you're in the St. Louis area, or willing to work via email (and as a writer you better be) then check him out. He's easy going, his rates are competitive, and he knows his stuff.

New Year's resolutions: seven months on

At the beginning of the year I posted my New Year’s writing resolutions in order to pressure myself to keep on track. Let's see how I did in July.

Write 7,000 words per week minimum, 10,000 preferred.
I've been keeping up the word count this month, helped by my job at Gadling. Having to write a minimum of five posts a week keeps me busy, plus I'm in crunch time with my next book for Osprey. I want to get the rough draft done before heading to Missouri in mid-September.


Get through that huge list of magazine article ideas I'm going to pitch. As I send them out, the list will be added to, so this is a perpetual goal. Same goes for several book proposals I have.
I sent out a couple of magazine pitches this month, and got one no and one yes.

Search for another paid blogging job.

This is no longer a goal now that I'm blogging for Gadling.

Finish a how-to book on writing that a publisher is interested in.
This project has been put on the back burner while I get up to speed with Gadling and take advantage of the research opportunities while I'm here in Oxford.


Try to get an agent for my fiction and nonfiction.
Working on it. Still no luck.


Do another round of edits on all three of my novels.
I've already done this, and while I want to do another pass of my latest novel before year's end, I'm working more on my next one.


Write my next novel, set in London and Oxford.
I did a fair amount of writing this month, although not as much as I like. It's in a different genre and a very different voice, so I've been struggling.


Finish two short stories and two novellas I've been fiddling with.
I haven't done anything with these.


Write and send out "Willoughby: England's First Great Explorer", a book proposal I was supposed to write last year (whoops!).
Still haven't done anything with this proposal.


Increase my online presence.
I've been slacking off on my personal and writing blogs, in case anyone noticed, but my work with Gadling is gaining ground. Several of my posts have made it to the front page of AOL, which gets me lots of hits. I quit writing for Charge of the Write Brigade, however, because I need to focus on my paid blogging.


In general, it's been an OK month dominated by my current nonfiction work. I'd love to get more fiction done, but that will have to wait until crunch time is over.

New Year's Resolutions: Four Months On

At the beginning of the year I posted my New Year’s writing resolutions in order to pressure myself to keep on track. Let's see how I did in April. Like last month, I’m posting this late. Maybe I should have added “post on time” as one of my New Year’s resolutions!

Write 7,000 words per week minimum, 10,000 preferred.
I've been keeping up the word count this past month. Quality is more important than quantity, but a writer needs to maintain a certain level of productivity to keep the money coming in. Much of my time has been spent working on my latest novel and my next book for Osprey.

Get through that huge list of magazine article ideas I'm going to pitch. As I send them out, the list will be added to, so this is a perpetual goal. Same goes for several book proposals I have.
I’ve been doing a lot of pitching this month and have landed a couple of good magazine gigs.

Search for another paid blogging job.
A breakthrough! After four months without a paying blogging job (after my last job decided to go to a crappy “pay per click” payscale) I finally landed a job at Gadling, the single most popular travel blog on the web. I’ll be doing a variety of travel news and features, including a series of articles on my upcoming hike along Hadrian’s Wall and trip to The Gambia. I’ll post on this blog when I start to work.

Finish a how-to book on writing that a publisher is interested in.
I haven't done much work on that this month. Sorry Ms. Editor, I know you read this!

Try to get an agent for my fiction and nonfiction.
I've been keeping my novels and nonfiction book proposals on agent’s desks, but so far no luck. I’ve gotten a few rejections this month, and immediately sent the books out to the next agent on my list. This is my coping mechanism. :-)

Do another round of edits on all three of my novels.
I did another light edit of my second novel, a fantasy, and am continuing with a major edit of my Civil War horror novel.

Write my next novel, set in London and Oxford.
I did a fair amount of writing this month.

Finish two short stories and two novellas I've been fiddling with.
I did a lot of research for one novella and started with the writing, but haven’t done anything with the other pieces.

Write and send out "Willoughby: England's First Great Explorer", a book proposal I was supposed to write last year (whoops!).
Nope.

Increase my online presence.
I'm continuing with these blogs, and started work on a new blog with eight other writers. Gadling will also increase my online presence.

So all in all, not a bad month. I only wish one of those agents would finally say yes to a novel!

New Year's Writing Resolutions: Three Months On

At the beginning of the year I posted my New Year's writing resolutions in order to pressure myself to keep on track. Let's see how I did in March. Yeah, I'm posting this late, but I just started two books so give me a break!

Write 7,000 words per week minimum, 10,000 preferred.
I've been keeping up the word count this past month. Quality is more important than quantity, but a writer needs to maintain a certain level of productivity to keep the money coming in. Much of my time has been spent working on a nonfiction book proposal and my next book for Osprey.

Get through that huge list of magazine article ideas I'm going to pitch. As I send them out, the list will be added to, so this is a perpetual goal. Same goes for several book proposals I have.
I've sent out two pitches for articles, and prepared five more that I'll give in London/Oxford when I get to meet editors face to face.

Search for another paid blogging job.
I applied for two blogging jobs. One turned out not to pay enough to be worth my time, and the other I'm still waiting to hear about.

Finish a how-to book on writing that a publisher is interested in.
I haven't done much work on that this month.

Try to get an agent for my my fiction and nonfiction.
I've been keeping my novels and nonfiction book proposals on agent's desks, but so far no luck.

Do another round of edits on all three of my novels.
I'm continuing with a major edit of my Civil War horror novel.

Write my next novel, set in London and Oxford.
I did a fair amount of outlining this month.

Finish two short stories and two novellas I've been fiddling with.
I haven't done those yet.

Write and send out "Willoughby: England's First Great Explorer", a book proposal I was supposed to write last year (whoops!).
I plan to do that now that I'm able to research at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. I also have access to London's Maritime museum.

Increase my online presence.
I'm continuing with these blogs, and plan to share a blog about fiction writing starting in April (more soon!. Facebook is turning out to be a good networking tool as well.

New Year's Writing Resolutions: Two Months On

At the beginning of the year I posted my New Year's writing resolutions in order to pressure myself to keep on track. Let's see how I did in February.

Write 7,000 words per week minimum, 10,000 preferred.
I've been keeping up the word count this past month. Quality is more important than quantity, but a writer needs to maintain a certain level of productivity to keep the money coming in.

Get through that huge list of magazine article ideas I'm going to pitch. As I send them out, the list will be added to, so this is a perpetual goal. Same goes for several book proposals I have.
I sent out a nonfiction query in January to a publisher and they asked for a full proposal, so a lot of my work this month has been dedicated to that. I haven't had the time to send out any new proposals. I plan to in March.

Search for another paid blogging job.
I applied for a paid blogging gig and got the job, and then they turned around and decided that the position would be for "exposure only". Sorry folks, but I have bills to pay, and leading me on is not a good way to start a working relationship. I'm applying for another job tomorrow.

Finish a how-to book on writing that a publisher is interested in.
I haven't done much work on that this month.

Try to get an agent for my my fiction and nonfiction.
I've been keeping my novels and nonfiction book proposals on agent's desks, but so far no luck.

Do another round of edits on all three of my novels.
I've been doing another major reedit of my Civil War horror novel and it's going well. I just finished chapter four today and hope to be done by the end of March so I can start my new novel once I'm up in Oxford. I also did a pass through another of my novels, a fantasy that's sitting on an editor's desk. I found very little I wanted to change, just a few tangled sentences and the inevitable typos. You can never catch all of those. I'm glad I took the time, though, because it proved to me that I'm done with that book.

Write my next novel, set in London and Oxford.
I've been writing it in my head already, but I'm not going ot put pen to paper until I'm up in England starting in April.

Finish two short stories and two novellas I've been fiddling with.
I haven't done those yet.

Write and send out "Willoughby: England's First Great Explorer", a book proposal I was supposed to write last year (whoops!).
I plan to do that when I'm able to research at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. I'll also have access to London's Maritime museum.

Increase my online presence.
I've been networking with a lot of writers on Facebook, one of the more useful timewasters on the web. I've also been keeping up with my two blogs.

I've also had other work to do from existing jobs from last year. This month I had to write up a battle map and description for a Civil War book I'm doing, and right now I'm working on an update for a Madrid guidebook. I also wrote an article for British Heritage.

So all in all a pretty good month. I'd have liked to have done more, but there are only so many hours in a day and I need to be a husband, father, and friend too. Perhaps I should hire a personal secretary. Perhaps I should get a good enough book contract that I can afford a personal secretary!

How have your writing goals been this past month? Leave a note in the comments section or post it on your own blog and leave a link.

Place Names in Fiction

As I was saying yesterday, I've been editing my horror novel set in Civil War Missouri. One of the people in my writer's group had an interesting comment that made me realize that as a writer you have to be careful with every aspect of your story.

One of my main characters comes from Springfield, a city in southwest Missouri. I chose to have him from there because it was an important Union military base, sort of a last outpost in a wilderness of rebel guerrillas.

My critique partner, who is English, asked me, "Are a lot of towns named Springfield in America?"

"Sure," I said. "In fact I can't think of a state that doesn't have a Springfield."

"Well then that might work for your American readers, but when I hear Springfield I think of The Simpsons."

Doh!

My character is now from Republic. Same county, much more neutral name. Actually, it makes for a nice irony. I like having a Confederate character from a town named Republic!

Toward/Towards

I've been editing my Civil War horror novel today and had to dive for the Chicago Manual of Style to find out if toward or towards is the preferred usage in American English. I use towards, but I'm Canadian. On the other hand, I've lived in the U.S. a long time and I hear a lot of Americans say towards. So basically I had no clue which one was correct.

It turns out toward is the preferred use in the U.S., and towards in the U.K. That meant I had to use Find And Replace to change it in my manuscript.

Which led to an interesting discovery. I use that word way too much. I came across about forty uses in a 383 page book. I would have never noticed if I hadn't had to change it. It's such a common word, a throwaway word almost, not one a writer generally agonizes over. But if you use any word too much the prose starts to sound repetitious.

I managed to replace about a third of them with other constructions, but now I'm wondering--what other landmines are waiting for me as a make another pass through my manuscript?

Revisiting An Old Manuscript

I'm in an in-between period with my fiction. My last novel is sitting in an editor's inbox, I'm waiting for my critique partners to finish with my work in progress, and my next book is percolating through my head until I move to Oxford next month. I've decided to hold off on it until I get there because it's set in England. Also, my last novel taught me the benefits of letting a story develop for a while before setting it down on paper.

Anyway, I haven't had much to do with my fiction other than think. Most of my workday has been dedicated to my nonfiction, but this week I decided to have a change of pace and gave my last novel another read. Just because it's sitting in the submissions pile doesn't mean I can't still fiddle with it!

I hadn't looked at it for six months and thought I would have a lot of changes to make, but it turns out I'm generally happy with it. I only had minor changes--a few typos and some poorly written sentences that needed untangling. I realized that I'm pretty much done with that book. If it gets accepted, I'm sure the editor will have changes, but until then I'm done with that book. Sometimes it helps to look at older work that's still bugging you just to put it to rest.

Different Readers, Different Critiques

The writers' group here in Madrid is still going strong. I now have three different people reading my Civil War horror novel. All of them are good writers, and all of them are coming at my text from very different angles.

One is an avid reader of military history and many of his critiques are about tactics, military procedure, etc. Another is an experienced science fiction writer who is making me look more closely at the motivation of my characters. The third has just started my book, and I've just started hers. She's very talented even though she hasn't been published yet, and because she has a background in writing advertising copy she really picks apart the building blocks of my sentences.

Together they make a well-rounded critique of my book, each one bringing their own interests and point of view to the text. While it's important to get several people to read your work, it's also important to find people with widely different backgrounds and viewpoints who will look at your work in different ways.

Who Is Writing What In 2009?

A few posts ago I talked about my writing goals for 2009 and invited other writers to share their goals.

Tracey Baptiste has a long list of goals, which she has posted on her wall as a constant reminder. She's recently broken into novel publishing, which as we all know is a very hard thing to do, and she's working on a biography of Madeleine L'Engle, whose Wrinkle in Time series seriously tripped me out when I was a kid. I'm intrigued to find out what L'Engle's life was like, as well as finding out where Baptiste is headed.

Anna Mittower has a variety of goals, but her main one is writing and publishing her novel. She's broken this task up into monthly goals. Mittower has only recently entered the wild world of publishing, but she's already figured out that big jobs are best broken up into manageable chunks. Best of luck with the book!

Rob Crompton is another aspiring novelist, and he's working on two at a time. One is further ahead than the other, and he'll be pitching that to publishers this year. Oh, and his blog has some great photos of South Wales.

If you've blogged about your writing goals and want to share them here, feel free to drop me a line. Check out my earlier post for other types of blog posts I'd like to feature here too.

Writing Goals for 2008

Yesterday I took a look at my writing goals for this past year. It was interesting to read through what I thought I'd be doing in 2008. I made some goals, missed others, and had some unexpected work come my way. How did you do on your writing goals for 2008? Drop me a line in the comments section or post on your blog and send me a link.


GOALS FOR 2008


"7,000 words per week minimum, 10,000 preferred."

To succeed at writing you have to write and write and write. I made this goal nearly every week, but it was more like 7,000 words. Ten thousand is just too much for me unless I'm really inspired.


"Write A Fine Likeness (80,000+ words) and submit it to agents/publishers"

I started this Civil War horror novel on Jan. 2. It ended up being 94,000 words and went through several revisions. It just received its first rejection by an agent last week. I'll be doing another revision and sending it out again after the holidays.


"Continue to pitch Hard Winter."

This is my first fantasy novel. It's been making the rounds for a few years now. Currently it's in an agent's inbox.


"Edit Roots Run Deep and submit it to agents/publishers."

This is my second fantasy novel. I did a couple of revisions early this year and it's sitting in an editor's inbox.


"Break into four major magazines"

Here's where I fell down, mostly for lack of trying. Early in the year I got discouraged after sending out several well-crafted pitches tailored to specific magazines, on subjects they hadn't published. Most of the time the editors never even replied, even to my followup queries. One editor strung me along for most of the year, saying he'd give me two features, before lapsing into unresponsive silence.


"Continue to pitch to The Writer, British Heritage, and Missouri Life."

These are my regular magazine markets. I landed two or three articles in each of these in 2008.


"Continue to submit existing short stories."

Been doing that. One fantasy novella, "The Quintessence of Absence" was accepted by Black Gate magazine. The rest gathered rejections. I finished no new short stories in 2008. I prefer novels, both to read and to write.


"Resell old articles."

A mixed level of success. It's way easier with my writing articles than with my history articles. Anyone know of history markets that take reprints?


"Finish proposal for To Take St. Louis: The Confederacy’s Last Gamble in the West, and submit it."

This is a Civil War nonfiction book. It's making the rounds, having gathered a couple of rejections on the way.


"Finish proposal for Willoughby: England’s First Great Explorer, and submit it.
Finish proposal for The Last Emperors of Rome, and submit it."

I didn't get these done.


On the other hand, I got some unanticipated work. Osprey accepted my Guerrilla Tactics of the American Civil War proposal, so I spent a good chunk of the year writing that book. I finished last week. I also wrote up three more proposals for them. Two look like they're going to be accepted and the third was rejected.


I also wrote another Civil War nonfiction proposal, They Faltered Not: How A Few Runaway Slaves on the Frontier Changed the Course of the Civil War. It's making the rounds. I started two blogs, finished up Outlaw Tales of Missouri (started in 2007) and got hired by Pulse Guides to update their guidebook to Madrid.

All in all, a pretty good year. More income than last year, but I'd still be making better money as an office drone. I'd also be going not-so-quietly insane. I wonder what 2009 holds for me?

What Book Reviewers Think About Self-Publishing

I've come across a couple of great articles about self-publishing, the temptation every struggling writer faces. They confirm my earlier argument that most writers should avoid it. Paul Krupin at Direct Contact PR interviewed a long list of book reviewers about their feelings when they receive a self-published book for review. The article is here.

It isn't pretty. There were comments such as,

"They go to the bottom of the pile."

"Do not send them, I will not read them."

"So far I have not found one that I would recommend to any reader."

"Rarely do I examine such a book, the quality is likely unappealing to readers."

Ouch. The thing is, book reviewers cover books their readers are likely to read. Since self-published books rarely make it into bookstore shelves, and are usually ranked so low on Amazon that nobody sees them, readers aren't going to find them. A common theme among the responses was an aversion to the poor editing, self-indulgent plotlines, and amateurish cover art found on so many self-published books. There was also a distressing confusion between POD (a method for making books) and self-publishing (which often uses POD)

On the other hand, several reviewers said they occasionally found good ones, and that they're far more likely to review a self-published work if it has a local angle. Check out Paul's excellent article for more information.

Kel Munger, book reviewer for the Sacramento News & Review has an informative rant on the subject here. The skinny: if you're a worthy writer, you'll put in the time and effort and eventually you'll be rewarded.

It worked for me. Well, with my nonfiction. Apparantly I have more time to put in before my novels are up to snuff. I guess I could self-publish them, but then what? Sell a dozen copies?

What Novel Should I Write Next (Part 2)

A couple of weeks ago, I posted the question of what novel I should start in the New Year. I also posted it on several of my online writing lists. Thanks to the many of you who responded. The answers were split about evenly between people who said I should do the Civil War sequel and those who said I should do the London/Oxford book. Oh well!

I'm leaning more towards the London/Oxford book since I'll be there starting in April, and I don't want to get really into the Civil War book and then have to set it aside. If I'm feeling really stuck at the beginning of the year with the London/Oxford book, I could always play hookey until April by working on two short stories and a novella I have outlined. One short is almost done, and the novella is about a fifth done. I guess I'll just have to wait and see how things strike me on January first. In the meantime, back to my nonfiction deadlines!

Another thing I'll be doing before I head to England is revise my Civil War novel. A rejection from an agent and a couple of good critiques have shown me where I need to firm up the characterization and flow. I already know what I want to do, and I just edited chapter one over the past two days. A book isn't finished until it's published!

New Writer's Handbook Offers Inspiration, Advice

Back in March I did a post on Embracing the Term Midlister, which has been quoted by a couple of sites as sort of a statement of purpose for this blog. Now it has been published in a slightly altered form in The New Writer's Handbook, Volume 2, published by Scarletta Press.

I just got my author's copy in the mail and I have to say I'm very proud to be sharing its pages with the likes of U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser, Newbery Award winners Shannon Hale and Kirby Larson, and dozens of other successful writers.

The chapters are loosely organized by themes such as Creativity & Motivation, The Craft of Writing, Pitching Your Work, Internet Marketing Skills, Business Savvy, and Last Words & Literary Thoughts. I'm in the final category. I'm not sure how literary my thoughts were, but I always like to get the last word. Most of the contributions are only two to four pages, making them easy, bite-sized bits to read before, during, or after your writing day.

I haven't read all the contributions yet, but I've already learned many things, especially from the Internet Marketing and Business Savvy sections, which I'm weak on. I'd prefer to write all day and leave the business and marketing sides of my career to someone else, but who would that be?

Several key themes run through this book, and they repeat what I've said many times on this blog: you have to put a lot of time and thought into your writing, you have to be a clear-headed critic of your own work, and you have to keep at it. If you only buy one writing book this year (besides the indispensable Writer's Market) you'd have a hard time finding a better book than this one.

The Guardian Guide to Writing

This Saturday´s Guardian had an insert on How to Write Fiction, the first of a series of seven booklets on writing. It´s interesting that the editors think enough of their readers are aspiring writers to warrant publishing these. Are there really that many out there?

The booklet itself is pretty basic for anyone who has been at this game for any length of time, but it´s all solid advice and worth reading again. There are sections on genre, style, characters, setting, and more. Most importantly, the various contributors dispel many myths about writing and tell you what you need to succeed: hard work, honest self-appraisal, and persistence, persistence, persistence. My favorite quote is "inspiration is just a posh word for ideas." Very true. The public tends to romanticize the act of writing , and many writers feed into this because it makes them look cool, but generally we just sit in front of a computer all day like millions of office workers.

I´m not sure if this booklet is still available, but if you´re just starting down this crazy road, try to find it, and be sure not to miss the later installments on poetry, comedy, plays & screenplays, memoir & biography, journalism, and books for children.

Finished My Latest Novel!

That Civil War horror novel set in Missouri I've been nattering about these past few months is finally done. I finished it at about 9 this morning. It came out to 91,962 words. I started it on January 2 of this year, so it took me slightly less than six months.

This is the quickest I've ever finished a novel. My previous novel, weighing in at 125,000 words, took three years. My second novel, much shorter at 85,000 words, took two years, but with nine months off while I wrote my guidebook to London.

The reason this went so quickly is that I didn't write a word for several months. I let the idea germinate in my head, filling out plot lines and characters, so that when I finally put fingers to keyboard, it went very smoothly.

Of course, I've only done the first draft, and the second draft of some early chapters. I have a long way to go before it's ready to send to an agent, but it's nice finally look at an approximation of the completed piece.

I'm going to take next week off for personal reasons, but I'll see you back here the week after!

Heinlein on Writing

Science Fiction writer Robert Heinlein had a few simple rules on writing:

1. Write
2. Finish what you write
3. Send it out
4. Keep it out there until it is accepted
5. Only edit thereafter according to editorial direction

There's no mystery to being a successful author, just a lot of hard work, some talent, and a few lucky breaks, but mostly hard work.

Taking Stock of my Novel-in-Progress

I'm now halfway through my novel-in-progress, a horror story set in Civil War Missouri. With 170 pages (42,000 words) done, it's time to take a breather and do a serious edit on what I already have before I continue.

I'm very happy with the project's forward momentum. I started on Jan. 2, after writing it in my head for a couple of months. Not starting to write immediately after I got the concept really helped me get a coherent idea of the story, and helped get a lot down on paper in a short time.

But now that I'm halfway through, I have an even better idea of what my story is about and where it should be going. So now I'm going back and filling in some details, adding a few more plot elements, and enriching some of the description. While I'm tempted to keep shooting along to the end, my gut feeling tells me I need to tighten the first half before forging ahead with the second. And as an author I've learned to trust my gut feelings.

Making Readers Cry

I've been busy editing my second fantasy novel these past few weeks. My first novel got rejected by an editor at a major publishing house, but she wants to see my second one. I sent out a panicked email to a couple of my writing newsgroups asking for critiques. It was kind of a tall order--read and critique a 87,000 word novel in less than a month. Nonetheless, seven people replied.

That's one of the great things about the writing community, most writers support one another. Oh, I've met some notable exceptions, usually writers who have recently become successful and have gotten a swelled head, but all in all we're a pretty supportive bunch.

The critiques were quite helpful. Besides catching some typos (you can never catch them all yourself) they had some good suggestions for fleshing out the supporting characters, and clearing up a few scenes. They were also very complimentary. One even said the nicest thing anyone has ever said about my writing--that one scene made her cry.

Wow. I've never been happy about making someone cry since breaking up with a certain deserving ex-girlfriend in college. The scene was designed to make the reader cry, but I didn't think it actually would.

I can only hope it will make the editor cry.