Tag: writing advice

General · writing

A new brand of writer’s block

annmarieswaimLeave a comment

Recently, I discovered that I have absolutely no idea how to share my writing journey.

My husband says my posts are great. No one else has complained about them, but I’m not happy with them. For example, my monthly updates are copy, paste, replace old info with new info, repeat. I think the structure of the post is good, but I’m not happy with the content. With how limited my expression of my journey is.

The problem is, I can’t say too much about what I’m working on, because, in the past, telling too much about something I haven’t finished writing has killed those projects. I’m scared to death to lose the passion for what I’m writing, that when I sit down to share my progress, I freeze up.

Now, I know I don’t need to share my writing progress on my blog. I could just write in a journal or something that no one sees, but making it public keeps me honest. For example, if I’m in a writing slump or have been too busy or just haven’t written in awhile, because I’d rather be doing other things, I can easily ignore a my private journal. It can sit on my desk, gathering dust and be forgotten without consequence. That isn’t true when I start making public statements of my goals and progress. Doing this motivates me.

Also, I crave conversation. I can’t wait until this process becomes a dialogue. I want to have a back and forth in the comments so badly. xD I don’t only want to share what I’m doing, I want to hear how your writing is going. How what you read inspired your writing. What you’re struggling with and how you’re getting through it. Celebrate your accomplishments. I think that will be so much fun!

So, how do I do this? How do I talk about my writing progress without killing it?

I don’t know, honestly.

You know, I told myself I wasn’t going to make this post and just write a writing update post in an effort to fix this issue. Yet, here I am. Avoiding the issue by talking about it. *le sigh*

Oh, well. I’m going to post this. Get it out of my head. Then, maybe I can move on.

This is a strange kind of writer’s block.

How about you? Do you have trouble sharing about your writing? Are there certain things you leave out when you do share? Why do you leave out some things and not others? Let me know in the comments!

And take care!

Ann Marie Swaim icon

General · writing

Writing and Goals: An even minier update?

annmarieswaimLeave a comment

Well, I thought things would get back to normal after my son got over Influenza A, but nothing is ever that easy, is it?

Poor kid had one good day last week, then came down with the stomach flu. 😦

Fortunately, he’s come out on the other side a little tired, but functional. Ready for life to be normal again. And so am I!

It was not at all a normal week for anyone in our house, and sickness wasn’t the only reason, but I digress. And because of the abnormalities, I didn’t get any new writing done for the second week in a row.

BUT…

I did get my revision of FROM STARS, COME DRAGONS done and turned into my content editor last night. ON SCHEDULE!

Now that I’m waiting for new feedback, I can start writing again. Our lives are still a bit uprooted and we’re trying to find new footing, but I’m shooting for the moon with my goal this week to try to get myself back on track!

My word count goal this week (always available in the What’s the buzz? widget in the sidebar) is 8K words.

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And writing isn’t the only goal I have this week. I would also like to read more. And not just books. I’d really like to read more blogs. I follow so many now and I haven’t had the time to read any. And, to be honest, reading them kind of intimidates me. I can’t tell you why. I know it’s weird, but it’s true.

So, this week, I’m going to set another goal. I’m going to try to read one blog post everyday. And when I finish reading one, I’ll tweet about it! Keep me honest 😉

What are your goals this week?

General · writing

Raising the Stakes has me like hmm…

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Just had sort of an ah-ha moment listening to the the Writing Excuses podcast. For those of you not familiar with this cast, it’s a group of published writer, from different genres, discussing different aspects of the writing process. The episode I was listening to, that made me go hmm… was 12.41: Raising the Stakes.

So, this cast was all about what a writer should and shouldn’t do to raise the stakes in their novel to keep the reader engaged without wearing them out. It was all well and good. I was hearing a lot of things I had heard before, then Mary Anne, I believe (it’s very hard for me to put a name to a voice. Not to mention another author on this cast is named Mary) said this about a book called Hild by Nicola Griffiths…

“Mostly it’s very domestic. It’s about a little girl learning how to navigate her world,[…] but you can feel the looming disaster.”

This immediately made me examine my own work (specifically From Stars, Come Dragons,) because I have often worried it focuses too much on the domestic and not enough on the fantastic, at least at first. I raise the stakes for my main character, Henry, very slowly and I worry I will lose people looking for blood.

Then Mary chimes in after her and starts speaking to the plight of new authors and how they feel the need to throw everything at the reader right away to keep them engaged. And how that isn’t the best way to get the reader engaged either because, where do you go from there? How do you raise the stakes, when they’re already so high? But then, this is what most people who read fantasy expect. Or so it seems.

Not me. Not always, anyway.

I love fantasy. But my favorite fantasy books are the ones that burn the slowest. The most recent example I have of this is Cybele’s Secret by Juliette Marillier. Everything in this novel burns slowly. The romance, the plot, the magic, the character development, all of it. It’s now one of my favorite books. This is probably why I tend to write this way. Where the fantasy, and sometimes the plot, takes somewhat of a backseat to the characters and what they’re going through and how what they’re going through affects them achieving or not achieving their goals. But if this isn’t what fantasy readers expect, what do you do?

My answer is, do it anyway. Write what you love. Write the story that begs to be written, in the way it demands to be written. But be mindful of the consequences. Know you’re story will not appeal to everyone’s taste and hope it reaches the audience who will love it for what it is.

I’m happy with my writing. I love my book. I just worry, like I’m sure most writers do, how readers will react to the story that wouldn’t leave me alone.

Anyway, this probably wasn’t super coherent or sensible, but that podcast hit really close to home and I felt the need to spew my thoughts.

I Would love to know what you all think of this and how you handle keeping the reader engaged to the end. Or more to the point, how you deal with the worry of not being able to keep them engaged. And what keeps you engaged as a reader? Is all about the action?

So, yeah… Hit me up with a reply. I’d love to discuss!

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General · writing

Don’t discount cliche advice!

annmarieswaimLeave a comment

The last month, I’ve been having a blast chatting with a lovely lady on Twitter, Lindsay Newton, (visit her website too!) about our adventures in writing. We met through #Pitmad in December and have kept up sharing our ups and downs with submitting our work to agents and publishers. Today, I was in need of a blog post idea and Lindsay, I think unintentionally, gave me the inspiration for this beast of a post, through a Twitter DM, after asking me a simple question…

[Have you] been down this book road before?

This was my answer (revised and expanded after further reflection.) I hope you find it helpful. 🙂

From Stars, Come Dragons was my first submission of any kind.

I got to the point, after the beta reading phase and MANY more revisions, where I couldn’t work on it anymore without hiring an editor. Since I couldn’t afford to do that, I said, screw it, and started submitting.

The rejections trickled in over the first round of submissions. Then the second. Then the third. And when I couldn’t take anymore, I stopped submitting and tried reworking the plot, the POV, the tense, everything. However, I never finished a rewrite, because as I tried “fixing” it, I kept setting it aside for other WIPs (For a reference point to just how distracted I was, I wrote 3 first drafts and 2 partial first drafts, of different ideas, over the last year.)

Anyway, I was convinced FSCD was broken or bad, because of all the rejections. So, I shelved it for a few months while I finished, revised, and had another WIP beta read. And during that process, one of the beta readers broke me. They gave me the worst feedback ever. Rather than telling me what they thought of my MS, they told me how they would “fix” it. I haven’t touched that manuscript since. BUT… After working on other things and stewing over their feedback for awhile, the subjective nature of the industry hit me. Not long after that, #Pitmad came up and I said, screw it. I’m going for it!

I threw out the rewrite attempts and submitted the original final draft of FSCD and got a like (thanks Tiffany!)

The cliche advice is true. Keep writing, don’t give up, and have confidence in your work and others will, too.

And don’t overlook opportunity just because it doesn’t come with a sign on bonus or a contract with one of the big 5 publishers. I’m extremely grateful for the chance FaB took on me. I’m getting the full publishing experience, editing and all, without having to pay a dime (it still stands that you should do your research. Make sure you know the difference between a small publisher and a vanity press. The money should always flow to the author, not away. If a “publisher” demands payment, RUN AWAY.)

I set several goals for myself when I started taking writing seriously just over two years ago. Publish something, was on that list. I wanted that tangible object to show for all the hard work I was doing. Of course, I could have self-published, but it didn’t interest me, at all. And so I had settled in for the long haul, because Brandon Sanderson, a huge inspiration to me, said it would be about 10 years before I learned enough and honed my craft to the point it was industry ready. And that was on average!

I still have a lot to learn, and room for improvement, but I’m so grateful for Tiffany and Jen at FaB for saying yes to me. Having my novel published is a dream come true. And I can’t wait for the day I hold my book in my hands, crack the spine, and smell the fruits of our labor in the pages and ink.

AMS