Archive for the ‘writing’ Category

November 2, 2009 | The Bad Twin, writing

I’m at the point now, in my revisions, where I’m actually feeling really good about this book. I can understand what’s happening with it. I’m writing new scenes to fit in the gaps I had before, and I’m changing what I’ve already got so it’s stronger and more coherent.

I love my heroine, too. It’s funny to say that for most of the first draft, I wasn’t 100% sure of her. I liked her and she had a strong voice, I sort of knew what made her tick, but I wasn’t in love with her. Going back to the beginning and writing it again made me fall in love with her. Now I think she’s great. She’s ballsy, and a wiseass, and a risk-taker, and selfish. And yet she’s vulnerable and ambitious and frightened and caring.

What I can’t quite tell yet, because nobody else but me has read this, is whether it’s what I want it to be. I’m not really sure that I’ve shown what I want to, or made the world as rich as it could be. I need a reader to tell me that, and also distance.

What are you up to in your writing? NaNoing? Revising? Resting?

September 1, 2009 | writing

I’ve been writing in the library for the past few days and boy, does it make me more productive. No internet, no cleaning, no husband (bless him) to distract me. I’m up, dressed and out of the house, walking to the library, instead of staying inside in my chair, writing in my pajamas, making cups of tea every half hour. I’ve written my 2000 words in a much shorter time than it would take to write it at home.

It has some disadvantages, though. For one thing, the desks are the wrong height and using my laptop has been doing some strange things to my hands, including adding a twitch to my index finger. Not good. I’ve sat on thick books, but I feel a bit guilty leaving my bum imprint on things that people might want to read. I’m going to bring a pillow next time.

The other main disadvantage is money. Yes, the library is free, but coffee is not. (Not to mention taking a lunch break.) Also, with my writing done more quickly and since I’m in town anyway, I have some time to do a little bit of shopping. Since Friday I’ve bought a cardigan, a necklace and a guard for Fecklet’s bed. None of these are bad things, and I needed them (well not the necklace), but I could have saved some money by shopping online, probably when I was meant to be writing.

What’s the best productivity tip you’ve learned recently?

August 29, 2009 | crows, reading, writing

I’m reading a book called The Courage to Write by Ralph Keyes. I picked it up because, let’s face it, I have The Fear. There are crows permanently camped outside my window, telling ghost stories and making s’mores and having a grand old time. So I thought this book might have a little magic formula for making me more fearless.

It doesn’t. It talks about why writers are afraid to write—for example, fear of failure, fear of success, fear of exposure as a fraud, fear of exposing too much of their faults and inner feelings, fear of what writing can do to one’s family and life. It mentions why fear can be a good thing for your writing—how it’s a sign that you’re being truthful and challenging yourself, how you can use the intense emotion of fear and channel it into your writing. And it talks about how writers write despite their fear—by following rituals, by making a dirty draft, by having deadlines, by developing friendships with other writers.

None of it is particularly new stuff. In fact, I found myself nodding in recognition when I read a lot of it. But it’s one of the best books on writing I’ve ever read, and I’ll recommend it to others, precisely because it is familiar. Because it gives me this message:

Fear is normal. Keyes says, and in italics, too: “If you’re not scared, you’re not writing.”

To me, that’s liberating. In a sort of annoying way, of course, because fear is not something you want to voluntarily put yourself through, it’s actually pretty damn awful, and I am not a pleasant person to be with when my only thoughts, running over and over through my brain, are This book is crap, I can’t write, the story is the same as my last book, my editor will hate it, I suck, nobody’s going to buy it, what if I’ve got too much in there what if I haven’t got enough, it’s crap, how do I fix it… Ad infinitum.

Keyes’s message is that courage isn’t the absence of fear; it’s carrying on despite fear. Maybe even because of fear.

He teaches creative writing and he says, quite interestingly, that the main purpose of creative writing courses isn’t to teach skills, so much as to give the students courage. That’s something I’ll be thinking about when I lead the Cornerstones women’s fiction writing course next month.

He talks about how writers can be nightmares to live with—grouchy, surly, selfish, full of anxiety. When I was reading that chapter, I turned to my husband and said, “You should read this book—he says all writers are miserable like me, I’m normal!”

“It’s supposed to comfort me that there are more like you?” he grumbled.

I’ll try to find time to post some of the interesting examples from the book of how writers cope with fear. Meanwhile…are you a nightmare to live with, too? And have your crows actually started singing “Kumbya” outside that damn window yet?

August 27, 2009 | writing

I had an interesting day yesterday. For one thing, I was hungover because on Tuesday night my friend L., who failed to procure me The Edge for matrimonial purposes, instead went out for tapas and sangria with me and we accordingly returned to our respective homes at 11.45 pm, stinking of booze and garlic and with big happy smiles on our faces. And the next day I felt a bit rough. Sangria…the drink of the devil! Or perhaps it was the two large glasses of white wine in the pub, after. Hmm.

When Fecklet had been packed off to nursery, I sat down to write and realised I had no clue what I was doing. I knew what happened in the next scene, but not what had to be said, and considering it’s the scene where the heroine meets the hero after they’ve had a huge argument involving the entire town, I sort of needed to know what they were going to talk about. And it also occurred to me that I had no idea how to end this book, and the weight of all that knowing just made it impossible to lift hands to keyboard.

So instead, as a follow-up to my exploration in Wiltshire in the spring, I researched the proper methods of making a crop circle. Fab. And then I poured myself a bath. And I called poor Kathy and made her listen to my incoherent ideas for where the story was going, and she asked a few well-placed questions and told me her thoughts and ping! It all suddenly made sense. And best of all, I’ve realised that the end is actually a lot closer than I’d thought, which, y’know, is a good thing because this draft is standing right now at 113,000 words and my contract asks for 120,000. AND I have to add several scenes (and an exploding car) to the beginning and middle of the story, in revisions.

So now, according to the new plan, I have to forget about my big dramatic rescue scene that I’d been planning, because it’s irrelevant, and I can totally excise two characters and replace them with two others.

The only problem is, I’ve now got a collapsing ceiling that I no longer need. Anyone want it? It’s got fat cherubs on it.

(Actually I might keep it intact, it’s too ugly to waste.)

June 30, 2009 | writing

2009 is a big anniversary year for me, because it’s five years ago this spring and summer that my life changed forever.

I was working full time as a teacher. The spring of 2004 started off with a lot of excitement, because in March, I finalled in the Golden Heart with a book (then) called Deja Vu. Finalling in the Golden Heart was quite an amazing experience. For one thing, the book was already with the senior editor at Harlequin, and I was able to tell her about my final—which got the book brought closer to the top of the pile. For the first time in my life, editors and agents seemed interested in me. I got to put something quite impressive on my query letters, too.

Meanwhile, I’d been working on a book I was really quite enjoying, a single title stand-alone book rather than a category romance, and in May I thought I’d start querying agents with it. I hadn’t finished the book yet—I was about 10,000 words from the end, and not exactly sure what was going to happen. But I figured I’d start out querying my dream agents, who were bound to reject me anyway, and then I could finish the book and query some more agents.

So I sent out my queries to, I think, three agents. Within a few weeks, two had called to ask for the whole thing. I hadn’t finished, of course, so I had chats with them and thought long and hard about who would be best for my career, and in the end I finished the book and sent it off and the woman who would become MY agent rang to say she wanted to represent me.

This was June, 2004. I was utterly out of my mind with shock and joy. And worry.

It was a really scary decision to make, signing with an agent. For one thing, it was a risk on both of our parts—she thought my stuff was good enough to sell, and I hoped it was, but the actual selling part is more tricky. For me, it was a totally new experience. I’d been targeting Harlequin/Mills & Boon for three years, and I knew that model quite well from researching it, but the world of having an agent representing your work was completely different. I’d never really met an agent, not to chat with. In real life, most agents are extremely charming, but I didn’t know that yet. To me, they were distant, frightening, powerful people and I wasn’t sure how to work with them or what their day-to-day lives were like or what my new agent expected me to do, exactly.

Five years later, I know it was totally the best decision I could have made. My agent is my most powerful advocate for my work and for my career. Sometimes she tells me things I might not want to hear, but she is always honest and it’s always coming from her well-informed perspective. And when she tells me I’ve done something right, I know she is absolutely telling me the truth. She’s had faith in me, that I could develop and change my writing from producing short focused category romances to longer, more ambitious commercial women’s fiction—and she’s got me the book deals because of that faith. She gives me tips for dealing with my publisher and with the media, she’s a source of incredible advice, and, especially over the writing of my last two manuscripts where I’ve had some struggles, she’s been a constant encouragement.

The choice of an agent is an individual one for each author. Authors are always comparing and contrasting them, talking about different business relationships and how they work. Mine has always made sure I kept my eyes on what I wanted to achieve, on my dreams and ambitions—and for someone who tends to get caught up in daily struggles, that’s a great help. I didn’t know this when I signed with her. I was taking her on her reputation, and the few conversations we’d had; she was taking me for her belief that I had some promise.

I’ve been very fortunate. It’s been a great five years. I’m glad I took the plunge.

June 23, 2009 | writing

Well, there were nine, but I’ve been thinking, and I ended up adding one more.

To give a little background: I gave a talk at Wokingham library this weekend, to the creative writing group which they’re forming there. Not all of the writers there wanted to be published, and some of them were published already. But I brought along these commandments (except there were only nine of them, then), to give a structure for my talk, and they ended up sparking some really good discussion, questions and answers within the group.

So I’m posting them here, not because they’re anything new—they really aren’t, and you know this stuff already—but because sometimes restating the obvious is really useful, and might spark off something for you, too.

1. Write.
This really should go without saying, but I do meet so, so many people who say, “I’d like to write, but…” If you want to be a writer, the only “but” that exists is the one you’ve got to force to sit in your chair every day so you can write.

2. Read.
“The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or word processor.” —Stephen King

3. Get yourself a support network.
The professional organisations I belong to, the Romantic Novelists’ Association, the Romance Writers of America, undoubtably helped me to get published in so many ways. But so did my local writing group, and the eHarlequin community online, and my very, very dear writing friends. Only fellow writers can understand what it’s like to slave away at something that’s most likely to be rejected. Or to help you shoot down the crows (see 9).

4. Make writing a routine and a priority.
You don’t have to do it every day, but do it professionally. If you wait until inspiration strikes, you’ll never be able to meet a deadline one day when you have one. As far as you can, try to make sure your family knows how seriously you take your writing, and they know how they can support you. If you don’t have enough time in the day to write, you’ll have to give up something, I’m afraid—television, an hour or two of sleep, ironing.

5. Know the market, but don’t let it kill your creativity.
Easier said than done.

6. Finish a project whenever you can.
I think this is so important. Finish your novels. Even if you think they’re crap. Because you will think they’re crap. First drafts are supposed to be crap. It’s okay. Everyone feels this way. We all whine about it all the time. You can make it better. Anyway, you’ll never know unless you finish. And finishing a book changes it in your mind, so you can revise it better. Personally, I like to finish the first crap draft before I do any revision at all, if I can.

7. Revise ruthlessly, but without fear.
You need to do whatever it takes to make your book better, including killing your darlings—you know, all those lines and scenes and characters you love but which don’t really pull their weight. But you can’t be so frightened of failing that you revise the life out of it, or try to take every piece of conflicting critique you’ve received to heart.

8. Learn how to submit. And then do.
When you get a rejection (and you probably will), submit again. You can never get published unless you submit.

9. Prepare to do mighty battle with the crows of doubt.
In whatever way works for you. Me, I whine a lot. And ring up my friends. I have a post-it on my computer saying “You Have Sold 14 Books And Know What You Are Doing” and another that says “Write Crap!” (see 6) When all else fails, there is booze. And Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion. Those will always make you feel better.

10. Always go back to Commandment 1.
No matter what. The difference between writers and everyone else is simple: writers write. That’s it.

May 26, 2009 | writing

No, not these guys. Though I pretty much could talk about them all day.

What I mean by KISS is Keep It Simple, Stupid. It’s good advice. Brilliant advice, actually. And this small four-letter acronym is the biggest lesson I’ve learned in storytelling over the past few months.

See, I started my professional writing career writing books for Mills & Boon. And the one, big, major, vital thing you learn when you’re trying to write for Mills & Boon, is that your story is about your heroine, your hero, and their relationship. It’s not about the heroine’s dog, or the hero’s relationship with his mother, or the town bank foreclosing on everyone’s mortgages, or drug running off the Maine coast, or even a really cute pigeon. Those things can come into your story, but only if they’re 100% relevant to the heroine, the hero, and their relationship.

In other words: Keep It Simple, Stupid.

As I explained (ad nauseam) below, I’ve started writing different books, bigger books. I’ve got more time to research them and more time to plan. And of course (as I also explained below) I’ve been writing and planning from fear. I was thinking that a bigger book meant a more complicated book. That there should be vast secrets under the surface, that all the secondary characters should have their own secondary plots, that I needed twists and turns and all sorts of complexities.

I really think that’s a big reason why I’ve made so many false starts on these past two books. I just over-plotted, and over-planned. I looked at the preliminary notes I did for Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom the other day. They were gorgeous notes: I did them in the shape of this big Gothic house where most of the book’s action takes place, with the different characters in the different rooms and everything. But looking at them now, I can see that at least three of those characters and sub-plots I’d envisaged, never made it into the book. It’s not that they were bad characters or plots; it was just that they were unnecessary.

And why were they unnecessary? Because they had nothing to do with what the book was about, which was the heroine and her journey.

Instead of being focused on what the story’s really about, I veered off to all sorts of other things that were interesting but not needed. Nor were they simple.

On the other hand, I did develop a sub-plot and a character that wasn’t really on that original plan, because it became important to the heroine and her journey. It grew organically out of what I needed, and it illuminated the heroine’s past and the choices that she has made and goes on making.

To write a bigger book, I don’t need MORE of EVERYTHING. In fact, I don’t need much more of anything. What I need instead, is to go more deeply and with more complexity into what I already have.

KISS.

May 20, 2009 | crows, writing

On Saturday I had a whale of a time at Kingston University, giving my “Writing Sex Scenes” workshop to people doing MAs in creative writing and publishing. It was an absolutely brilliant group, sparky and intelligent and in all ways a joy to work with.

Anyway, one of the pieces of advice I gave to the participants is “You can’t write from a position of fear. You will make too-conservative choices, you’ll self-edit to death, you won’t give the work everything it deserves.”

I do truly believe that advice. And I do try to follow it.

So, with that in mind, let me clarify my previous post. I think it came out a little whiney, a little bit “Oh no, my career is going well and I can’t handle it!” A little bit like something I’d want to kick myself around in a gutter for awhile for writing.

The truth is, I’ve been having some trouble with my writing process. I think that’s a very common thing. And I was trying to explore some of my reasons for my trouble. First, to give myself a handle on how to overcome my fears. This blog has always been a really useful place for me to articulate my thoughts about my own writing process, and I’ve always tried to be honest about it, even though PR-wise, I should probably project an image of being wonderfully confident and competent and glamorous every single minute of the day. Well, I’m not. I spend an awful lot of time wandering around in porridge-covered sweatpants telling myself that I suck. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, and I hope it doesn’t poison your enjoyment of my fiction forever after, but it is true.

Second, I wanted share my feelings with other writers and enjoy a bit of a moan together, because really, lots of us are quite similar and sometimes it feels good to be reminded of that (I loved Cali’s post on her blog about The Godlike Neil Gaiman wallowing in crows of doubt).

Third, to pick up any useful advice anyone else might have. And there’s been some great stuff. Thank you.

If it sounded like it was also a plea for a bit of head-patting and “poor Julie”ing…well, doh! My fault. Please don’t pat my head. I’d rather you kicked my arse around in the gutter for awhile. I’m lucky. Believe me, I know it. I count my blessings every day that I’ve got the job I do, and I get to write the kind of stories I love.

Reading the comments in the post, though, did clarify some stuff for me. I mean, these people commenting on my blog (and my Facebook page too) are successful and talented and experienced writers. And they are also feeling fear. It’s so blatantly obvious to me that their fears are ill-founded. So then, therefore, my fears are…

…oh, yeah. Ahem.

The thing I wanted to get across, and I’m not sure if I did, is that there’s a pattern to these things. There are reasons for doubt. Sometimes they are even very positive reasons. And that as a writer, your job is to identify them, deal with them, and overcome them in any way that works for you.

And then do the best job you can, and let the work speak for itself.

Tomorrow I really will blog about some of the lessons I’ve learned about storytelling, from my recent difficulties.

May 19, 2009 | crows, writing

As I said, I had a major writing epiphany or two the other day.

I might have mentioned a few million times that I’ve had difficulty starting my last book and this book I’m writing now. I’ve got tangled up in plot and character and made several false starts. In both books I had to change my heroine’s job. In both I’ve got sidetracked into secondary characters’ stories which overly complicated the main story. I also started both books too late in the story, and had to go back and start several months earlier.

I was quite panicky about all these problems with Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom, because it was my twelfth book written for publication, and I’d never really had those issues before. It made me very cranky and very frightened and it meant that the first few months of writing were really a struggle. With this book (my thirteenth), I’m not so frightened about it (though I may be just as cranky). I know I got through it last time and that when I finally found my way, it became much easier. I’m also buoyed up by the knowledge that both my agent and my editor loved Nina Jones (yay!) and so I’m fairly confident that even though the writing may be painful, I can come through it to the other side. However, I’m having the same sorts of issues.

I know why I’ve had these problems. It’s totally psychological, and it all has to do with my signing my current contract, which is for bigger stand-alone women’s fiction novels with Headline Review. I had the contract offer this summer, which was when I was writing Nina Jones, and Nina Jones was a stepping-stone book for these bigger books—it’s nearly 110,000 words, which is pretty much as long as my contract stipulates for the Review books. And it has a different sort of storyline from my more romance-focused books, in that it concentrates much more on the heroine’s journey, her childhood and her family, and actually includes three (THREE!!!) love interests.

I know these beginning-something-new issues are common with writers. One of the writers’ loops I belong to has recently had a very interesting discussion about “second book syndrome”, which happens when an author has had her first book accepted for publication, and sits down to write the second book in the contract. You’d think, logically, that this would be a great time to write—for the first time maybe, she’s got validation that her writing is good, she’s got editorial support, she’s being paid to sit in that chair. But in reality, the second book is very scary to write. You have a standard to live up to now. You have more to lose if you fail. You just know that everyone is about to find out that the first book was a fluke, that you’re an imposter and that you don’t really deserve to be published.

I don’t think this syndrome is just for second books. I think it can come at any time in an author’s career, and for me, it’s coming at the career change moments. I’ve gone from writing 60,000 word category romances for M&B, to 90,000 word single title romances for Little Black Dress, to 120,000 word commercial women’s fiction for Review, in the space of about two years, and every step has been fraught with doubts. I struggled with writing All Work and No Play…, knowing it was my last book in my Mills & Boon contract. I didn’t struggle with One Night Stand, which was my first in my line of books written for Little Black Dress, but that was because I was hugely pregnant and then dealing with a newborn, and I wrote most of that book when I was quite literally insane with baby brain.

But Nina Jones is my last book for my Little Black Dress contract, and this current book is the first in my Review contract. They mark an ending, and a beginning. No wonder I’m frightened of writing them. And that fear, for me, has translated into making lots of false starts.

My editor and agent tell me that I don’t need to reinvent the wheel. I’m already doing what they want me to to do; that’s why I got the contract. I don’t suddenly need to become a different writer with different stories because I’m being printed with another imprint.

But The Fear (aka The Crows) tells me that’s not true, that Everything Is New, that I’m A Fraud, and that I Need To Do Everything Different.

I don’t know how to get rid of those crows, but I feel better having identified their names and where they’ve come from, and linked it to the normal crows that most every writer gets. Part of being a writer is learning how to ignore the cawing.

Anyway, tomorrow I’ll blog about the realisation I’ve come to about structure and plotting, and that if I want to move forward, I really need to go back to the beginning.

Have you hit stumbling blocks at significant career moments? What did you do to get past them?

May 8, 2009 | writing

Of course talking through my plot problems always helps and I’ve begun writing a new scene for the beginning of this book, which (hopefully) makes my heroine more sympathetic, and prepares the reader better for the frankly implausible things that happen later on in the book.

I don’t know why I worry about having frankly implausible plots. I always have them. This is nothing new. It’s practically my fricking trademark. But it has to be believably implausible, if that makes sense. It needs to be something the characters *would* do, even if nobody else in their right mind would. And this plot required a bit of reverse engineering to make it work.

This is, of course, the fourth time I’ve started this book, though I’m reasonably confident I’ve got it right this time, mostly because my heroine is shining through in a way she wasn’t quite before. I’ve called the new document EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that’s a good sign.

March 26, 2009 | writing

Okay, so according to that progress thingee over there I’ve written nearly 30,000 words on my latest wip, which works out at about 25%. Yippee, you may think? Nice going, Julie, you may feel tempted to say?

The problem is that on Tuesday, I was hit by a brainstorm and decided that actually, I’ve been writing two books at once this whole time. My conflict was far too complicated, and if I kept on going as I was, the story was going to become far too huge to deal with. Also, I was going to end up throwing away what was a really good idea, by merely using it as the catalyst that heads the heroine toward the real story.

What I really needed to do was separate off 20K words and funnel them towards another book about a different character, and then restart this story from scratch, giving the heroine a new career and a slightly different outlook on life.

I felt pretty good about this decision. In fact, it made me feel quite light. I could get rid of all the sneaking suspicions I had that I was doing the wrong thing, and concentrate on the premise/hook that I’d wanted this book to be about in the first place. Also, I’d have a big chunk of my next book already written. I sat down and wrote 2000 words of a new beginning.

But today, I’m wondering about it. Although the story was too complex and quite frankly pretty unbelievable, it fitted together really well. And now I have to think up two heroines, motivations, conflicts, etc, and make them different enough to be worth two books.

So now I’m in limbo. I’m really not sure what to do. A writer friend is coming round for dinner tonight and I’m going to force her to listen to the whole thing and tell me what she thinks. But I wish, how I wish, it could be an easy decision…

March 12, 2009 | the web, writing

I’m guest blogging on We Write Romance today, as part of their Women’s Fiction Authors’ Blogathon. My post is about moving from writing category romance to bigger women’s fiction books, and how for me, it feels like going from riding a roller coaster to journeying on a winding road through the mountains.

If you’ve got time, please pop over and say hi!

It would be interesting to hear your opinions about category romance vs. single title or women’s fiction novels, and whether you agree with me on the place of Klingons in both.