Lion Dragon Shinto Shrine by Sara F Fujimura
Kristen Lamb’s Blog is fast becoming my favourite place to get writing tips.
Kristen’s latest post is essential reading for anyone contemplating writing a sci-fi/fantasy/YA Paranormal novel.
Or any novel for that matter.
There is no point me re-hashing her post as it is all relevant. You can read her great advice here:
I’m off to revise Dragon Wraiths right now…
Artwork by Amber Martin
I don’t write plot plans or outlines and this blog explains why.
If you follow regularly you’ll know I’m rubbish at planning what I write, preferring instead to let the story develop as the words (hopefully) flow from subconscious to computer screen.
However after writing my post about the Chicken House / Times children’s book competition, I decided to write a plot plan for my young adult novel, Dragon Wraiths. I had an idea where the story was going, haven written half of it, so it seemed a safe, logical thing to do, particularly as I haven’t got long to draft and redraft before submission in September / October. I hoped that a plan would help me get all the continuity right first time and save some long-term pain. All good.
Except the pesky characters won’t do what they’re told.
I’m two chapters into my ‘plan’ and already I’ve added a whole new section to the novel, extending it from 3 parts to 4. I’ve changed a good character into a barrier and rewritten the whole ending. Twice.
So far my adherence to the plan resembles my children’s colouring: The lines are there only to be scribbled over. As a parent I have tried to let my kids colour how they like, seeing it as too controlling to tell them to colour inside the lines. Am I giving a free-rein to my own creativity by scribbling all over my own plot plan, or am I just scatty?
I have also discovered that, while I find it almost impossible to summarise a chapter into one line, it is easy for one line of planned plot to become two or three chapters.
I have written 7,000 words today and covered only two lines of plot plan.
They find the missing girl and she agrees to help takes no account of how hard it turned out to be to find the girl or the fact that she was rude and uncooperative when they did find her. My whole story depends on the girl being helpful: I didn’t expect her to have a mind of her own. In twenty words of dialogue, written while walking the dog, she has destroyed my whole plot outline with her rudeness. Grrr.
So I am ploughing ahead without worrying too much about the plan. It is still useful as a guide for key plot developments, particularly for the sciency bits that are not my strong point. As for the rest, even I don’t know if the darn woman will help out in the end, or finish up being written out of the book entirely.
That’ll show her.
I reached 60,000 words on Dragon Wraiths, my WIP, today.
Looking for other significant numbers I realised I have exceeded 30 blog posts here since I started. Many more than I thought I would manage. I even have 20 followers.
It might seem like tiny steps to other people, but I didn’t expect any of it and at last I feel like the hard work is slowly paying off.
All I need to do now is suss out Twitter, where I currently have one follower (my husband) and Facebook where my WriterMummy page has 7 likes and my Amanda Martin page has 6. Onwards ever onwards.
It seems appropriate, given that the fabulous Olympic Opening Ceremony spent a lot of time on literature and music, that I rediscovered two truisms this week; Reading makes you a better writer and music can be powerfully motivating.
Both activities – reading my own choice of novels and listening to my own choice of music – have become rare events since the children were born.
There are many reasons for this.
So I stopped reading anything but blogs and my life was poorer for it.
With music it’s the same thing. When I worked as an artist I had Classic FM on all day as background burble and when the adverts became too annoying, I switched to Radio 2, where I’ve stayed, (except between 12 and 2 as I can’t stand Jeremy Vine.)
The novelty of Radio 2 has long since worn off but I only had a radio in my old car and, besides, the kids don’t like me singing unless it’s Wheels on the Bus or Old McDonald had a farm.
Anyway, this week that all changed.
I re-read Philip Pulman’s His Dark Materials to try and banish my writer’s block on my young adult novel Dragon Wraiths. The quality of the writing is such that it automatically raised my game. Reading nothing but books for very young children, (think Gruffalo and The Hungry Caterpillar), combined with permanent sleep deprivation, has resulted in my vocabulary shrinking to that of a five-year-old. Not something Philip Pulman can be accused of. When I finally found some time to write on Thursday I found myself using words that wouldn’t have occurred to me the week before.
I also got a new car this week, with cd player AND iPod jack. Even better, I had the chance to listen to my music in the car, on the two hour trip back from the beach yesterday (kids were asleep – we had children’s songs all the way there). Not only were some of the big numbers stirring, motivating, uplifting, I also found the same vocabulary-enhancing effect happening.
Some amazing one-liners leapt out and smothered me with goosebumps and envy.
Lines like, “On winter trees the fruit of rain is hanging trembling in the branches like a thousand diamond buds,” or “Regrets and mistakes. They are memories made,”
Mini stories in a few words, the ultimate flash fiction.
I used to use Country Music songs as examples of story arc when I was teaching Creative Writing. There’s a great Garth Brooks song, Papa Loved Mama, which is another well-executed example of flash fiction, including my favourite example of showing rather than telling rage:
“The picture in the paper showed the scene real well
Papa’s rig was buried in the local motel
The desk clerk said he saw it all real clear
He never hit the brakes and he was shifting gears.”
It doesn’t have to be literary to be effective.
What songs and books stand out in your mind as excellent inspiration or great examples of flash fiction?
While I wait (im)patiently for feedback from my beta readers I have been worrying about Marketing.
[As an aside, I have had one comment so far, from my mum, and her feedback was – it’s not as good as your last book (the one that was rejected from Mills & Boon). That’s filled me with confidence.]
I find the marketing of my book far more daunting than anything else I’ve done so far. I’ve talked before about how rubbish I am at selling myself and this includes trying to engage on social media. I am self-conscious even writing on other people’s blogs or twitter feeds (twitter still baffles me) and when I browse around people’s sites, whether on Facebook or Pinterest, I get distracted and forget why I am there.
I have searched around on the internet for advice, but it has been difficult to find a cohesive plan for things you can and should do to help market your book. Until I recently found this great post on the Lulu blog, with a timeline of things to do before you publish.
It starts 12 weeks before launch, so I’m way behind if I want to do all these things before publishing Pictures of Love in August. That said, as I haven’t had any beta reader feedback yet, I don’t know if August is still feasible. If I have a complete re-write to do, on top of finishing Dragon Wraiths by September, it is likely I will have to push back the release date.
I was going to summarise the Lulu post and include the best bits here, but as it is all very useful, I have posted the complete text below. I’m off to work out what I can do in the couple of hours a week I find time to do marketing!
Please let me know how you get on and any other ideas you have to get your book noticed.
The Post:
On Lulu’s blog there’s been a lot of talk about the “how” of marketing (Pinterest, Blogging, Twitter, writing a press release, video chat, etc.) but little focus on the “when,” which is an equally important component of a successful book marketing campaign.
Here are some general guidelines you can follow compiled in a simple marketing timeline to help you plan:
10–12 weeks out: Do your research. Find appropriate blogs and media outlets that might want to review your book and compile a list of media contacts. Come up with a list of friends who can help spread the announcement of your publication and ask each one personally for support. When you reach out to contacts, offer them a free copy of your book and ask for pre-publication quotes to be used in your book’s detail page at various online retailers.
*Expert tip: Make the first chapter of your book available for free for anyone who might want to review your book or include it in a news article. You can do this by creating a free eBook on Lulu.com that includes just the first chapter of your book as well as contact details for press inquiries.
8–10 weeks out: Draft your press release and any announcement emails you’re planning on sending out. Make sure to re-read them numerous times and get friends or family to proof them for you. Ensure that if you’ve not already done so, your Facebook page, Twitter and Pinterest account, and blog include up-to-date info on your upcoming book. Be sure that every update, post, announcement and release includes a direct link to where readers can pre-order your book. (You can use a URL shortener like bit.ly if you like). Now’s a great time to do a cover reveal on social media — unless, that is, you’re planning to work with a blogger for an exclusive reveal on someone else’s site.
6–8 weeks out: Send your press release and start pitching bloggers. This is also a good time to formally announce the release of your book online. When doing so, consider including a question on Twitter and Facebook to encourage engagement and make sure to provide a link where readers can pre-order your book. We know you already know, but double-check that landing page to make sure that your cover image, title, description and reviews are all up-to-date and grammatically correct.
4–6 weeks out: Start thinking about adding “flair” to your social media. Launch week-by-week book giveaways and poll your fans or create extra content (a book playlist, an author interview, etc.) to generate excitement. If you’ve created a video trailer, announce its premiere date on your blog and then post it about four weeks out. As the one-month mark approaches, follow-up with bloggers and other media outlets if you’ve not yet heard back from them.
2–4 weeks out: Post a teaser chapter to your blog — either all at once or split it up to tease out future buyers even longer. Announce winners of any giveaways or contests you’ve run and launch a final giveaway extravaganza (a book plus swag that relates to your book) to coincide with your book’s release date. Continue to make sure that that any good reviews and/or awards you receive are featured on your Lulu, Amazon, BN.com, etc. pages.
0–2 weeks out: You’re in the homestretch! Be prepared, if you’ve done your research right, to be doing blog interviews, updating social media frequently about not only the book, but your excitement, and featuring content and giveaways to celebrate! However, on the day your book goes on sale, give yourself a break. Leave the computer behind and enjoy a breakfast/lunch/dinner out. You deserve it.
Remember, just because your book is out doesn’t mean your marketing efforts end. Continue to look for larger news opportunities to tie your book to, update your social media outlets and blog on a regular basis so your community grows, and keep on top of awards you can submit your book for. More than anything, be creative, take risks, and, later on, hopefully reap the rewards.
Ok so now I have a dilemma. The lovely Helen Yendall over on her Blog About Writing posted a link to another children’s novel competition running this autumn, this time with The Times and the publisher Chicken House.
If you follow my blog, you may know that I am writing a Young-Adult book – Dragon Wraiths – to enter in the Mslexia Children’s Novel competition.
Now I have to decide whether to continue to aim for the Mslexia competition, or to change direction and enter this one with The Times and Chicken House instead. They each have their pros and cons.
The deadline for the Chicken House is later than the Mslexia one (26th October vs. 10th September) but the entry is a full printed manuscript, up to 80,000 words (suggested minimum 30,000 words, which is the same as Mslexia). In the first instance, Mslexia are asking for the first chapter, up to 3000 words, with the full manuscript and synopsis to be sent later, if you are shortlisted. Now this is where the comparison gets tricky.
As well as the wanting the full manuscript, Chicken House state:
Each entry must be accompanied by a brief synopsis, plot plan and a letter of submission explaining the book’s appeal to children. (A plot plan is a chapter-by-chapter breakdown, with a couple of sentences on each, paying attention to the roles of the main characters, dramatic high points, and the most important strands of the plot. The synopsis should be no more than a page, and should give an overview of the complete story, including key characters, events and settings.)
So, how confident am I about my writing? Do I feel my opening chapter has enough impact for me to take the easier (more lazy) route, or will my story come across better will a full synopsis?
The latter, of course.
I’ve already discussed how I’m worried my first chapter alone isn’t enough without a synopsis, because the dragons don’t come until a third of the way into the book. On the other hand, writing the synopsis is going to be hellish, because the novel skips between two worlds and two timelines, using different fonts (at the moment) to keep it all separate. Also the plot-plan is going to highlight my weaknesses when it comes to planning, as I’m not sure every chapter has a dramatic high point and so on.
There are other differences between the two competitions: the terms and conditions for the Times competition are much more thorough, including lots about the paper having rights forever to publish excerpts of any entry for free. That kind of stuff worries me, but I’ve convinced myself it’s just free publicity, assuming all excerpts are accredited to me as author.
Getting down to the nitty gritty of money, entry into Mslexia is £25 whereas the Times / Chicken House is £15. The minimum winner’s pot, as I read it, is £5,000 and £10,000 respectively. That’s pretty irrelevant: I don’t expect to win, really, although there’s no harm in hope.
The Times/Chicken House Ts & Cs have an interesting one-liner on what they are looking for:
The winner will be the entrant whose story, in the opinion of the judges, demonstrates the greatest entertainment value, quality, originality and suitability for children aged 7-18.
That’s a tall order for any author, but something we should all aspire to. I have no idea whether my idea is original and I don’t know any young-adults to try it out for entertainment or suitability. I guess these are things outside my control in a way. I find the story entertaining, and I like Young-Adult fiction (I’m re-reading Philip Pulman’s His Dark Materials at the moment, and finding it hard to put down, even though I’ve read it before)
Despite the entry cost I am extremely tempted to submit to both competitions. I can’t find anything in the rules expressly forbidding it. I would love to double my chances of at least getting some great feedback and the Times/Chicken House competition offers editorial feedback to the 20 shortlisted entries. That is something I can aim for.
Of course, there might be a problem if I won both competitions, but wouldn’t that be a nice problem to have? 😉
Other Links:
Competition Rules:
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/competitions/article3375938.ece
The garden after much levelling and grass-sowing
Last Thursday afternoon I took some time off to tame our feral garden. The sun made an unexpected appearance and I couldn’t miss the opportunity.
We’ve been faffing around inexcusably regarding what to do with bits of our lawn. One large section is a mess, after we had a boat standing there for years (a long story). We sold the boat a few months ago and since then the whole area has been an eye-sore and child-trap: full of bits of rubbish, holes the dog dug under the boat and many vicious weeds.
Husband wanted to fill the holes with top-soil, roller it flat, make it as gorgeous as a cricket pitch. I want somewhere the kids can play without getting stung or covered in mud or breaking their ankle.
In our family, husband is responsible for all things outside and DIY, while I do all things indoors and domestic. I have recently taken over lawn mowing while husband has been away with work, much to my 3-year-old daughter’s bewilderment.
The first time I dragged the lawnmower out of the shed she looked at me as if I’d grown horns.
“Mummy, that’s daddy’s job.”
I couldn’t figure out how to get the mower started and after twenty minutes I was sweating and cursing. Her response was:
“Better leave it to daddy.”
Needless to say she had a quick lesson in woman’s lib and not giving up and I was given the motivation required to approach the task more calmly and find the dead-switch.
As well as mowing this Thursday I decided to tackle the ugly-eye-sore spot. First thing was to shift a giant tarpaulin and wood pile, trying not to scream too loudly when I uncovered a nest of tiny mice. (I covered them with a plant pot and they were later relocated by their mummy.)
As I was moving planks, filling holes, scattering grass seed and generally trying to reclaim half my lawn for the kids, I got to thinking about writing (as I often do when my hands are busy but my mind is not.)
I see metaphors everywhere; it was easy to get distracted by what it symbolised to leave baby mice safely hidden, only to trap them later when they venture into our house, or the futility of planting grass seed for the birds to eat. Maybe the wasted effort of reclaiming lawn when it hasn’t stopped raining for three months and the long-term forecast isn’t much better.
In the end what stuck in my mind the most was the conflicting lures of planning versus getting stuck in. When I write, I generally just get stuck in, and the ideas follow (hopefully) one upon another as I type. I’ve often thought I should plan more. One writer I know sketches every scene before writing anything and has a prescribed number of chapters in a book and so on.
That fills me with awe and terror.
Awe because I can’t write like that and terror because I feel I probably should. How can I call myself a writer when I stumble along hoping a story comes to me as I type? Except I recently read that even well-known published authors occasionally have the same approach.
Looking at our garden my conclusion was it’s okay to just get stuck in, although a little planning doesn’t hurt. If I had got stuck in at the beginning of summer, without worrying about a plan, we’d have lawn by now. A lumpy lawn, full of weeds and holes, but a lawn nonetheless. In this case planning equalled procrastination (to be fair, mostly it was due to my husband being just too busy). However I did lose an hour of gardening time on Thursday having to go buy grass seed, so some planning might have helped. The main thing is, when I look at the flat seeded area now (see photo) I am filled with a huge sense of satisfaction and progress, no matter how uneven the end result.
I have reached deadlock with my Young Adult novel, Dragon Wraiths, because I have to create a new world and a history. I am dealing with two planets and two timelines, and planning really is essential to keep it all straight.
But I hate planning.
I don’t like reaching the end of a day with no increase in word-count. There is no sense of satisfaction, just a growing confusion, and sense that I could probably plan forever and never be fully satisfied. My creativity doesn’t function unless I am actually writing. I may as well be doing school essays.
Reading what I’ve written so far I realise that lack of planning hasn’t held me back from writing some good stuff. I mostly know where the story is going, in my mind, I just don’t always know how it is going to get there until I start writing it down.
So, I could fart about worrying about the details of my world and have no story to enter in the Mslexia competition in September. Or I could break a dozen rules, just keep writing, and add the history in the second draft.
Maybe sometimes you just have to get stuck in and not worry if it’s lumpy and full of holes. After all you can’t edit a blank page any more than you can mow dirt.
Me and my son holding the torch (we borrowed it!)
I’ve got behind on everything recently. I blame the weather. I have to, I’m British!
Actually, the weather isn’t helping much at the moment, random as it seems. For those reading across the pond, it has been raining in Britain since the water companies imposed a hose-pipe ban back in April. Seriously, I don’t know the statistics, but I would guess it has rained nearly every day since then. Not great when you have kids. There are only so many things to do indoors when you’re three and 21 months. I’ve taken to letting the kids take off their clothes and run around in the rain, or dressing them in their all-in-ones and wellies and heading out to find muddy puddles.
Anything to wear them out and help them sleep.
Child #2 is waking every few hours at the moment, largely I think because he isn’t tired. He’s a boy, he needs to run. Husband is snoring like a steam-train, because his hayfever seems to have gone off the scale with the rain. So, yes, I can blame the weather!
On the other hand, the sport distraction I can live with. My kids have had a hard lesson in “sometimes Mummy needs to watch her own TV programmes, rather than endless Peppa Pig,” as I have been following Bradley Wiggins in the Tour de France (fabulous rant, Bradley, well said) and Andy Murray at Wimbledon (great match, moving speech, thanks for making me cry!)
Watching the tennis final, my daughter decided to support the man in the bandage (Federer) and was very pleased that “her man won”. I am trying to be a good Mummy, and let her support whomever she wants to, rather than educating her in national pride at the tender age of three!
At the torch relay last week, my children inadvertently became part of the entertainment, as they ran around in the rain, jumping in huge puddles, while we stood in Burghley Park waiting for the torch. That is, until a steward asked my friend and I to stop our kids, as they were splashing bystanders, including a woman in white jeans. I ran over to apologise, but she couldn’t have been nicer about it, thankfully. I am always touched by how lovely complete strangers can be.
The kids and I also got to hold the torch afterwards, which hopefully Child #1 will at least remember when she is older. I certainly will!
All of this means I haven’t done much writing. I am trying to finish my Young Adult book Dragon Wraiths in time to enter it in the Mslexia Children’s Novel competition in September. However it is the first time I have had to create a World for a novel (my romances are all based in the UK or New Zealand), and it is proving a challenge, particularly on 2-3 hours’ sleep.
I spent today drinking gallons of tea, making notes on the history of my new World, and tying my brain in knots. It is more my husband’s sort of thing. I like reading fantasy and science fiction, and have always loved the worlds created, but I have never aspired to create my own. Well, until I woke one morning with this novel in my head. On the plus side, I re-read the 45,000 words already written and, apart from some inconsistencies in the history (due to lack of planning, ahem) I am pleasantly surprised at how well it reads. It’s always nice when it turns out you’ve exceeded your own expectations.
Anyway, husband is away tonight, so I’m looking forward to some snore-free sleep.
Time for bed.
Wimbledon 2007 – photo by Kol Tregaskes on Flickr
Pictures of Love, my WIP, is out with beta readers. I’ve never had anyone but family or agents read my work before. The former have always loved it, the latter rejected it. So I wait with more than a small amount of trepidation.
To use the time well (hopefully) I have gone back to my Young Adult book, Dragon Wraiths, which I hope to enter in the Mslexia Children’s Novel competition in September. I had put the idea on hold, because the rules state: Women who have had a novel published commercially, for any age group, in any country, are not eligible.
As I hope to self-publish Pictures of Love in August, I figured that meant I couldn’t enter. But I read the rules again, more closely, and it says Self-published manuscripts are eligible, so it’s game on.
Only now I’ve read the rules again I’ve spotted that the entry is 3000 words with no synopsis.
Eek.
The dragons don’t come in until Part Two, a third of the way through the book, and the weighty stuff about global warming etc comes in Part Three, (assuming I can research enough by the September deadline; it’s a new addition to the story).
How can I get enough plot into 3000 words to hook a reader, and still have character development, voice, YA themes and all that jazz, without a synopsis? I guess I have to finish the first draft and see how much time I have left before I worry about it.
That’s if I can stay awake.
Youngest child has had an ear infection, together with a lovely temperature of 39.2 for days, so sleep has been a rare commodity all round. Husband and I have been staggering about sighing I’m so tired; so much so that it’s my eldest child’s favourite excuse every time she has the screaming heebie-jeebies (by the way, I love that Word has that in its dictionary!).
“But mummy I’m just so tired, that’s why I lashed out and threw something at you.”
I have to bite my tongue on snapping back, “You slept for ten hours last night, I’ve barely had that this whole week!”
One of the by-products of sleep deprivation is that I, too, become a tiresome three-year-old.
As a result, my return to writing today, after two weeks without penning a word, as I wrestled with Lulu printing and e-book formatting (posts to come), only lasted until lunchtime. Then I had to admit defeat, close the laptop and turn on the tennis. I saw about three shots before I fell asleep.
Now I’m walking the dog, hoping the rain and soggy trousers will wake me up enough to finish my chapter before I collect the kids.
Or I might go nap in front of Murray.
This is WriterMummy saying night night.
P.S. Can’t sleep. Murray is making me too nervous. Come on Murray, hold your serve!
writermummy 