Tag: Writing

And so, it starts

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Writing

My husband brings me the envelope. It’s black, a non-standard size, somehow matte and shiny at the same time. The word “Typo” is embossed ever-so faintly on the little closure flap. I notice this as I carefully peel it open. I know what this is, but I won’t react until I’ve seen the words.

Inside are three sheets of paper, folded twice. I somehow unfold them, hands turning unresponsive as I see the publisher’s logo through the paper. Printed in the top left corner, dark black ink. Fitting.

There it is. My contract. My first writing contract. I read the top line three times, trying not to let my eyes blur with tears. There’s my name, and the name of my story. I’ve been accepted.

My first run through the contract details makes no sense. I don’t know what words are anymore. I cry a little, silently, trying to puzzle through the text on these few pieces of paper. I give up and hug my husband, and he is warm and very soft. I love polar fleece. It makes soft hugs softer, and warmer.

I can finally remember how to slow my brain down enough to read each word individually. One at a time, putting the sentences together. I read through the contract carefully, once, twice, making sure I definitely understand what it says. It’s straight-forward. It’s both what I expected a publication agreement to be, and yet so much simpler.

The third page is where I sign. I’m not shaking, so my signature looks exactly like the usual mess it is. I’ve never thought of it as a “real” signature. I’m going to have to practice something more suitable, for signing my books. Somehow, I’ve forgotten the date. I ask my husband, and he laughs gently. He was born in the US, and it’s the Fourth of July. Now we will add to our vague Independence Day celebrations, because it will also be my first publication acceptance anniversary.

I fill in the rest of the details on my contract. I’ve agreed. I’m accepted. As long as everything goes according to plan, I’ll be able to hold a real book in my hands, containing my story, in under a year. Wow.

My short story is called “Harvest”, and will be published in the Dark Prints Press “Surviving the End” post-apocalyptic horror anthology. I’ll keep you all informed with pre-orders and release dates as soon as I know specifics!

I want to thank Dark Prints Press for accepting my submission. I’m looking forward to working with you now, and again down the road.

With even greater thanks to my beta readers/editors. M, T and L. You three made me realise the absolute fullest potential of my story. I’ll be coming to you again soon enough.

And of course, thank you to all my friends, family and new-found internet buddies, who have all shaped me in some way. You are ALL special to me. Thank you for joining me, no matter which part of my journey you hop in on.

~A

I didn’t write, because I was writing!

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Blogging, Writing

Yesterday is a haze of words and writing and tapping away merrily. Obviously that doesn’t include creating a blog post, but I’ve declared my efforts yesterday a rousing success!

I don’t like the idea of measuring things too much. If I wrote this amount of words, or kept at it for that amount of time. We all know there are days when you slave away for hours, and your pour out thousands of words, then find out that they are part of a scene you scrap entirely. That’s okay! Those hours and those thousands of words were just part of the practice that turns us into better writers. They aren’t a waste! They aren’t really lost! But it puts the achievement scale into a different perspective to me.

Other days, you might jot out a handful of lines, and that be your only writing work for the day. Or the whole week! But those words might be a pivotal point in your story, and the enormity of it all has to stew for a while before you can really put it together.

So instead of making measurements (don’t worry, I still glance at the “words added today” bar when I’ve saving and closing down for the night!), I just celebrate the effort. I’ve been thinking and thinking and thinking about these stories. I tried to plan them a little more thoroughly, but it got to the point where I just needed to get them out from sheer excitement. So I’m back to my usual, “I know where this is going, but how we get there is a bit murky for now”. I guess this is just how I write!

I also happened upon the relieving success of finding the right name for a character. It had been evading me since the beginning, but I have something going here that seems to be pretty awesome. Now I can just charge through the rest of the story with a carefree demeanour, and see how we arrive at our destination!

~A

Never write on an empty stomach

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Thoughts, Writing

Okay, I don’t know about everyone else, but I get seriously cranky if I haven’t eaten in a while. My mood takes a really sharp decline when my stomach is empty, and considering how much I love food, it’s not surprising that eating has a way of improving my outlook immediately.

Being hungry is super distracting. Not just because I’m thinking about how much I’d like to chow down, but I get vague and even more forgetful than usual (which is a very bad thing). Then there’s the criticism. I get horrendously irritable and critical of everything when I’m hungry. I might not show it outwardly, but I end up kind of resenting things until I’ve had my next meal.

Trying to write when I’m that grumpy is a seriously awful idea. It’s better to just grab a snack and get back to the work later, when I’m riding the food-high.

I won’t turn this into a massive spiel, but I do stop to think about how my situation is so blessed: my food is easy to come by. There are people out there who never know when they will eat next. I like giving to charities, so let me just say, if you can afford to give a dollar, or drop a can of soup into an organisation’s donation box, know that you did make a difference to someone. If everyone who has “enough” can donate just a little, we’ll change the world for the better.

Anyway, I’m heading back to my story now. Here’s to hoping for another 800+ word flash of writing.

~A

Fitting the pieces together

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Writing

Since I had the mad idea that I should write a novella series, I’ve been thinking about plot points a lot. The style I want to write in means there is an over-arcing story generally, but each book will have its own major, semi-disconnected event.

That sounds pretty simple. Decide on the end point to the series, and just throw other exciting ideas at the individual stories. But I realised that each event in the novellas will need to lead to the character development. If I want Character A fall in love with Character B, can that happen in book 1, or will that cut off all the possibilities through the other books?

So I need to map out a general idea for the WHOLE series before I even really start writing. I mean, I can always hold over scenes and put them in later, but it needs to flow together smoothly, from start to finish.

There are few things worse than reading a series and seeing exactly where the author decided half-way through “HEY THIS IS A GREAT IDEA”, and ret-conned everything just to fit in the new plans. You know when they did it, and you know they scrapped their original ideas to implement the new ones, and now there will be unresolved issues, because all the loose ends can’t be wrapped up nicely in the new scenario.

The enormity of this kind of planning is both frightening and invigorating. I’m kind of excited at taking on a big challenge like this. I already have so many interesting sub-plots I want to work in. Now it’s just a matter of figuring out where they go chronologically!

~A

Of blueberry muffins and lateness

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Thoughts, Writing

Yesterday, I forgot it was Thursday. Forgetting what day of the week it is happens frequently; I just don’t seem to follow the same standard of time as the rest of the world. Every morning, I usually wake up and ask myself, “What day is it?”.

Today, I got blueberry muffins. They are both delicious, and the perfect writing snack! Enough cakey goodness that they are worth eating, without the added difficulty of forks and icing/frosting. I mention this only because I am enjoying one right now, and I’m writing this post, and they go together flawlessly.

I actually heard some very promising news about one of my writing projects this week! I won’t reveal anything specific yet, since it will only be a week or so until I know concrete details. Needless to say, it is still ridiculously encouraging to hear positive feedback.

I managed to play it cool at the time. All very, “Awesome, I’m so glad you liked it”, when I probably would have liked to run around giving everyone high-fives. I’ve never been a scream-in-delight kind of person, and good things take a little while to really sink in before I get super excited about them. Of course, that means by now I’m practically dancing in my chair waiting for next week to roll around and award me the final verdict.

And funny enough, having possibilities like this dangled so close, I’m ready to launch into my next major project with a trademark over-enthusiasm for my own abilities (“I only need to write 1,500 words a day to get a novel draft finished in two months? I can so totally do that!”). It won’t happen, but a girl can dream.

~A

When one scene won’t go away

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Writing

I’ve been getting to know my newest characters. We need time to understand each other, and find out what direction their story will go. But it hasn’t been a simple process, because one single scene has gotten all stuck in the tubes of my mind. It’s causing a blockage with all the other ideas backing up behind it, inaccessible until I’ve cleared this scene out.

The problem is, I don’t know where the scene goes. I don’t know when it happens in the plot, and I don’t know how they get there. I don’t even know the entire reason these two people are in this situation together. How can I write a scene if it’s floating around by itself? How can I create a disconnected piece of an overall work?

My solution will be to just write the damned scene and be done with it. Later, when I’ve sorted my ideas through, I can either adapt whatever comes pouring out to fit with the overall established story, or I can scrap it and re-write the scene in a way that works. Because right now, all I’m doing is circling this one moment over and over, and it’s not going anywhere.

I can only imagine other writers suffer from similar issues as this. Where something outside of the canon needs to be written right now, without you even getting a chance to think it all the way through. Not in a good way, where your words are in a state of flow and everything is happening effortlessly, but in the way that you are completely preoccupied with something that isn’t helpful at this point in time.

~A