Category: Writing

The right time for writing

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Thoughts, Writing

I’m quickly discovering, regardless of all good intention, mornings are not the best time for creativity inside this brain of mine. I can do endless research, gather information, type out blog post after blog post, noodle around on other people’s blogs and social networks, but to crack open a WIP shuts the productivity down.

Plenty of people say the direct opposite. They write first thing in the morning, before all the “static” of the day gets in their head and muddles up their creativity. Not so, for me. Not for these past many years.

When I first began writing, over a decade ago, it was an all day adventure. I could fire up the computer at dawn and get right into it. But then, when I was really new to all of this, I didn’t have any sort of direction and I seriously had no idea what I was doing. I can admit that. No harm in accepting that it took all these years of practice to be any good at my craft.

As I adapted and learnt more about writing, so too did I learn about plotting and exploring characters. To do that most effectively, I think about them. A lot. A real lot.

This means the morning and throughout the day is usually reserved for contemplating my work and building up to a point where I will let the words come out. Even if I force myself to write creatively in the morning, it doesn’t have the same cohesive flow as what I put down in the afternoon-evening sessions. I need to get warmed up, or as I always say, the ideas need to percolate. If I try and pour them out in the morning, they’re weak and under-done. Later in the day, they’ve been stewing and building flavour and end up that much easier to release onto the page.

So I will adapt and embrace my limitations. My other duties can be tended in the mornings, leaving me free of obligation in the evening, when writing becomes priority number one!

~A

Jumpy

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Thoughts, Writing

You’ve submitted some writing to an agent or publisher. Now you wait. When will they respond? How many other pieces are they reading? How long will it take for them to decide your story’s fate, one way or another? At least a month. Breathe. Remember, at least a month.

Having the luxury of emailing submissions is an amazing thing. The savings in cost and resources (and effort)! But you’ll also get an email response. That can come with all kinds of neuroses, particularly in the “obsessive checking of said email” flavour.

If your email provider has a live update feature, you can leave the screen open and just wait. Watching. You will try and do other things, productive things, and that screen will hover in the background. Your eyes will stray toward it, checking for the little number which indicates an unread message.

Since I have a number of email addresses associated with different projects and for business, I have notices of new mail forwarded to a single account, simply so I don’t have to sign into several different emails just to check for messages. In this instance, the service is the opposite of helpful. I get a pretty steady flow of email; newsletters, advertisements from suppliers, letters from friends, orders and invoices, etc. Just imagine what it’s like, pointlessly waiting for one specific email, and having the tab displaying (1), one new message – cue Count von Count laughter, Ah-ha-ha.

So I might be a bit jumpy anytime I’ve just sent off a submission. Chances are, by the time they actually respond, I will be over the obsessive email checking stage. Or worse, I’ll have submitted more writing and be awaiting multiple replies.

Oh, look! Another message. Be calm. It hasn’t been a month.

~A

I had a moment

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Blogging, Other Writers, Thoughts, Writing

Sometimes it’s the most obvious things which make a sudden, weird impact on me.

People will be reading my work.

Like I said, obvious. That’s kind of the point to writing and publishing and releasing stories out into the world. So they will be read, and hopefully enjoyed. I had a chance to check in with my publisher for the Surviving the End post-apocalyptic horror anthology, Dark Prints Press. They’re full speed ahead for the release of the crime anthology, The One That Got Away, later this month, and they have some great novellas coming out in the near future which I am really looking forward to reading. We talked preorders a little, which was the point where my odd revelation happened.

People have ordered the book which my story is in. People will, in all likelihood, read that story. People I don’t know! Ooh.

Of course, how is any of that different than this blog? Anyone, any person at all with an internet connection, could come here and read the text I am typing right now. Months of my rambling is a available. Ah, but of course, this isn’t my fiction. I give blog posts a quick look-over before I add them. I don’t spend months or years crafting them.

It’s a nervous situation for no legitimate reason. I want you all to read my stories, I really do! I wonder if experienced novelists still feel things like this, or if they get used to the oddities of being an author. Just wait until I have fiction living entirely in its own book. At least with an anthology, I can sooth myself with, “Other, much bigger name writers are in this.” There’s no hiding if it’s all me.

~A

Sometimes I wonder

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Blogging, Thoughts, Writing

I read a lot online. Blogs, articles, forums, humour sites, random research. I spend a lot of time on my computer, and have for most of my life. Wouldn’t trade that for the world, either, because the kinds of opportunities which come from being on the internet are incomparable.

But sometimes, I’ll be reading something. Often of the writing/publishing nature, since we all tend to get a little obsessive over that at times. And I will think to myself, “Why am I reading this instead of doing something productive?”

I love learning. Acquiring knowledge. The reason I spend so much time online is because there is so much available. I’ve been known to spend days straight consuming a good blog, or disappear a six hour block following links around Wikipedia. Funny enough, while I do check on things like Facebook regularly, I don’t spend a whole lot of time there (unless someone catches me on the chat function while I’m not looking).

But there are little triggers. I’ll read something, and for a myriad of reasons, it will make me wonder why I’m not doing something else. It’s not a guilt complex; everything I do has its reasons, and I’m okay with that for the most part. It might be partly an avoidance technique; I’m in the middle of a lot of things, and what I should work on isn’t necessarily what I’m most drawn to. But really, I suppose I just want to have something tangible for my time and brainpower. Knowledge can’t be tallied like words or stitches added to a project, so even while I value what I’m reading and experiencing, I feel I will have nothing to show at the end of it.

Which is ridiculous. If I didn’t have all this knowledge accumulated, these observations of humans and their thoughts and behavioural patterns, I wouldn’t be able to apply that to my stories. Which is pretty integral.

All the same, I’m going to draw a line this weekend. Get some serious work done and knock out a few of the smaller projects I’ve been dragging my feet over. I will say I have enough information to cover me for those two days, cut off my reading of things until Monday.

~A

A little healthy comparison

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Writing

As artists, there are a lot of reasons why we should never compare our work to everyone else’s. Every person has a unique take, and every creation we bring forth will reflect what is ultimately incomparable.

But I feel like some writers take that notion too far. Instead of holding up their work beside another and seeing where they could strive for improvement, many of them declare their piece finished with no greater judgement. They don’t assess what makes a story good, so they can’t apply that knowledge to their own creation.

We’ve all heard the stories. A writer who’s rejected by every agent and publishing house turns around and says they all missed out on something great. They drop a pile of money on self-publishing, only to prove they had been submitting an unpolished draft. No wonder it wasn’t picked up; the story wasn’t ready for publication.

Instead of being really honest and hard on themselves, these people abandoned reason in a glorious spray of egotism. They might’ve had a real chance at traditional publishing if they’d only been willing to compare and see why their story wasn’t up to snuff.

Criticisms of certain popular teen romance novels are only damaging this mentality more. “If that crap got published, I can too!” Simple fact is, most big books have a specific audience and appeal, and had a professional, experienced editor make it into a very readable piece. The writing is intentionally simpler for the younger market. Hate it all you like, there are no outrageous, book-breaking errors in the vast majority of traditionally published works in the YA range.

As with all “rules”, there needs clarification. Don’t compare yourself to others; they will have a different output, a different situation, a different career. They will sell more than you, or less than you. They will have a bigger fanbase than you, or a much smaller, yet more dedicated one than your own. They will have a larger marketing budget, or a smaller one. There will be differences, and you cannot compare yourself to those; they are outside of your control.

But you can compare your technical skill. What makes other books good? What makes you read your favourites? What stands out, what do they do, what don’t they do? Learn. Learn as much as you possibly can about the technical side, and compare your work in the most vicious, heartless way you can. Tear it down. See what emerges from the rubble. Start again, do it right.

There are also stories of people who were rejected by everyone, self-published a very good book, and are now international best sellers. Because they made sure their work could stand up against the other greats.

~A

Integral ending

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Other Writers, Thoughts, Writing

I recently read a book. I loved it; a cynical, jaded, altogether unsympathetic main character made through sharp dialogue and subtlety in action into the anti-hero you want to cheer on, even if he’s doing all the wrong things.

Then the ending happened.

I won’t say it was a bad ending. It tidied everything up neatly, took care of all the problems, and set the (remaining) characters off on their way with the right degree of this is completed, but there’s more for these people in life. Still, the ending. It niggles at me as too quick, too wrapped up. It rushed through a somewhat surprising turn and almost seemed to state, “There. All the loose ends have been taken care of. Are you satisfied?”

The answer to my imagined question is, unfortunately, no. Not really. The ended could have, and from my perspective, should have been drawn out further. The final chapter lacked the same wry interaction (largely because most of the characters died), and I felt like the protagonist began acting outside of his normal bounds, without a proper reason. Oh, sure, I know what part of the story was meant to act as the turning point, his trigger to behaving a little more compassionate. But I didn’t believe it.

Just because I can identify the when and why of this character’s motivation doesn’t mean I buy it.

Maybe that’s me being weird. Maybe it’s my background in psychology making the developments ring false. I would probably need to re-read the book, perhaps even several times, before I could pin down exactly what throws me about the ending.

Nevertheless, I’ve learnt something from this story, which I still think is pretty awesome. The ending is actually the most important part of your story. It’s the last taste we get of your characters, and the world they are in. It’s the part which will linger, because it’s the freshest in our memory. A weak ending could very easily ruin an otherwise good book.

Cue writer’s paranoia! Does my ending measure up? Have I made it too obvious and forced that all the pieces are coming together and being taken care of? Does it finish at the right pace?

It’s a wonder I’ve survived being an author as long as I have. Egad.

~A