Time After Time: Avoiding Timewasters

I find it apropos that I'm writing this post on a Tuesday to schedule on a Monday that I'm flying back from a book festival I attended over the weekend.

Because today, it's about time.

Finding the time to write can be hard. Even if you have a lot of free time.There are things that distract us and things that take priority and then the day is gone and we haven't written a single word. I've written before about finding time, but I'd like to take the opposite side today.

The things that steal our time.

I'm pretty lucky. I work at home, and I have a lot of free time to write. I have large chunks of my morning I can set aside every day. But even then, I still have days where nothing gets written. Sometimes it boggles my mind how that can happen.

But in reality, it's because I know I can always do it "later." Clients will need something, so instead of writing during those hours I set aside, I jump on the computer to do "just a few things" first. And then more stuff comes in, and something else happens, and then my day is gone.

Those quick little "I'll just check X" are killers. E-mail, Facebook, blogging (oh yes, this has kept me from the page more than once), all seem so innocent, but the time adds up. Well, actually it's more like it slips away.

So, if you have time you set aside to write, don't talk yourself out of using it. Even when you have good intentions, like if you hit the dry cleaners first thing, you'll have all afternoon to write. Because life will happen and you'll remember six other things you need to do while you're out.

My best writing days are when I take advantage of those hours I set aside each morning and get my words written. Whatever time you manage to carve out for yourself, don't take it for granted.

Use it.

Do You Know What's Coming?

I realized something interesting this week while working on Shifter 3. When I know what's going to happen, I tend to rush to get through it so I can get to the new, unknown, and thus more interesting stuff. This makes it far more likely for me to summarize and tell instead of show.

It made me wonder why this happens.

I love putting my characters in dire straights. Getting them into as much trouble as possible, and then watching them struggle to get out of it. I paint my characters (and myself) into a corner all the time. This keeps things exciting for me, and hopefully, for the reader. Never knowing how it'll turn out helps keep things unpredictable.

But when I know exactly how a scene is going to unfold, it becomes predictable and thus boring to me. I want it over. It's work, not fun, and I force myself to chug through the scene.

This is when I realized that the scenes that made me feel this way were probably scenes that would be predictable to the reader. Without my personal uncertainty coloring the text, there wasn't any "wonder" in it, if that makes sense. It was just description of an event that happened, not a story unfolding. Even if it was essentially a well-written scene. It just had no heart. No "why should I care?" factor.

So I went back and looked at that scene again, thinking about all the things that could go wrong or could happen that wasn't so predictable. I thought of interesting situations I didn't know the answer to. And suddenly the scene was way cooler and I was excited to write it. That finished scene took the story to a place I wasn't expecting.

I think this is what people refer to when they bash outlining. The "stagnant" feeling that comes from knowing every detail about your story. I also think it can happen whether you outline or not, and it's more about what you personally feel during the scene than how you create it. You can know every detail, but be excited about seeing it hit the page same as you can be excited about not knowing how it will hit the page.

The next time you find yourself bored in a scene, or rushing to get to the end of it so you can "move on" to something more fun, take a step back and think about why you're bored. Maybe this is your writer's instinct telling you there's more you can do to make that scene really sing.

Get Your Story Straight

A commenter asked... (about my recent post on inserting scenes and info bits after the fact)

How do you hold it all in your head? Do you have certain techniques? Do you use the writing software that I hear helps organize somehow?

For me, I really do keep most of it in my head. I think because I do so much outlining and structural work before I write, the general story and "parts" stay with me a lot easier. And I have a brain that just naturally remembers plots and dialog. (I'm usually killer at movie trivia) I wish I could say, "I do this and that" and give you great tips, but it's just how my thought process works. However, I still forget stuff all the time, so I also keep notes on things I know I want to do.

I use my "scene and structure outline" file for that. This is my master notes file. It starts with my test query blurb, followed by a notes on what I need to remember for later or ideas I have for the overall story, then goes on to my chapter by chapter summary outline. In the case of The Shifter, I also have a section at the front called "What happened between books" where I summarize the time between books and what happens with Nya and the gang, just so I have some context when I start the next book. (They all follow pretty closely after each book, but there are some time gaps). This lets me think out the back story and get it straight in my head before I start writing so I'm not trying to sum up the missing time in my opening.

I update this file when my plot changes. It's not something I write once and then ignore, it's part of my working manuscript. I read a chapter summary before I start work on that chapter, check my notes and add them in where I think they might go. If ideas come to me as I'm checking the summary, I add those, kinda like doing a quick rough draft of the highlights before I start writing. I move stuff around when I discover that one scene took the whole chapter and not part of it like I first thought. My outline is very fluid and changes almost every day. I think this also helps me remember things better.

I've never used writing software. In theory, it sounds like it would be helpful to have something created to help writers, but I'd be a little worried that there would be a "set" way and that might try to force me to do what the software wants, not what I want. Or it would be so cool that I'd do stuff I didn't need because it was fun. Creating my own system lets me customize it to what I need. But if a software package does what you need and works for you, go for it. I might have to try one someday just to know more about them. I'm not the most organized person even though I love organizational gunk and want to be more organized.

And this is also probably why I can never remember what I had for breakfast or that I needed to stop and pick up dry cleaning.

Just the Facts, Ma'am

So the hubby and I watched a cheesy disaster movie last night. Impact.

Now, I love end-of-the-world disaster movies. I really love cheesy end-of-the-world disaster movies. Part of the fun is heckling the screen at the ridiculous plots and asking if a real scientist was anywhere near the script past idea stage. I can't get enough of these. (You'd cringe if you saw my Blu-Ray edition of 10.5, but hey, it was only three dollars!) Bad movies can be sooo good.

Impact is no exception to this. Good premise: An asteroid hits the moon, and a chunk of the moon hits the Earth. Hilarity...um...disaster...ensues. For a TV miniseries, it was well done.

But the science. Oh my stars, the science.

I've stopped reading novels because they blew the science out of the water and there's no way what they claim in the book is plausible. But I'll watch three hours of the now-twice-the-mass-of-Earth moon winging around Earth and not one single tide is affected. I won't even mention the other laws of physics broken here. Waves of anti-gravity? Seriously?

Why is that?

I think because movies are visual, and we don't expect much of them. If they entertain us for two hours, provide some eye candy, we're happy. But a book is more of an investment. It takes time to read, we have to give ourselves over to the story and we expect our authors to get the facts right. When they don't, we lose all faith and can no longer trust them.

Plausibility is a big thing for books. It doesn't matter how wild the idea is, as long as the author approaches it plausibly. We want to believe what they tell us, but as soon as they trigger our "wrong" flags, it's all over.

Think about that as you write your stories. Don't take the easy way out and say "well, it's that way because I said so," make us believe it. Because if you make us believe, you can tell us anything you want.

Here We Go, Rewrites, Here We Go

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

This morning, I finished the first draft of the second book in my YA fantasy trilogy, The Healing Wars. (whoohoo, go me). This is cause for celebration, because writing 76,000 words of anything deserves a pat on the back. The dancing is short lived, however, because now it's time to revise.

Every writer has their own editing style, just like they have their own writing style. I like to throw down a rough draft of a chapter to see how the story shakes out. Then I go back and flesh it out, layering in details, providing internalization and adding the emotional layers that give that narrative oompf. Then I move on to the next chapter. Because of this, my first drafts tend to be fairly solid. They're far from ready though, and there's still a lot to be done before they can be sent to my editor (or sent to agents if you're querying).