I Hear You and Understand, writers write for different reasons

Yesterday, I was a little bit rash. I posted a gut-response to a blog post over on The Passive Voice about why I write, just before I dashed out to lunch. I worried about my post as I ate lunch would people take it the wrong way? Fortunately, people were pretty much fine with what I wrote. But I worried nonetheless. My comment could be construed in lots of different ways, many of them bad. My fingers itched to type a response, I refrained.

This morning as I was reading the comment thread once more, I found myself again wanting to clarify my thoughts, so I sat down and started to type up a paragraph or two. Unfortunately, I was posting directly on the blog, and because of the way comment boxes scroll, it’s easy to miss how much you’re writing. Especially when the words just begin to flow.

By the end, I had a nice hefty blog post so I’m re-posting here.

Here are some of the reasons I write:

While in high school, a good friend of mine was ALWAYS writing down stories, she couldn't not do it. She gave me a couple of ARCs for stories that she'd written. To my shame, I never read them.  But she was like many of you, the words  came and she HAD to write them down.

She's a playwrite now, and is enjoying modest success.  :)

I'm saying that I'm different. Not in a monetary, mercenary way--which has been implied, [writing like a shill, chasing the latest fad/$$]--but I'm different in that I'm fine keeping my stories in my head. I do not feel the compulsion to write them down.

Perhaps if I shared where my journey as a writer began, you might understand. It was one year after my little sister died from cancer, I found myself at the B&N on 86th & Broadway, looking for a book. I was depressed from my sister's passing, I was tired--working a mind-numbing job that I really didn't like--and I'd just realized that I was never going to get ahead. That for the rest of my life, I would be on this rat-race treadmill. Always scurrying to catch up, but never getting ahead. I'd work until the day I died, more than likely living paycheck to paycheck. It was more than depressing. 

But hey, I was in NYC.  So I walked the streets taking photos, going to movies and free events in the parks, and then spending all of my disposable income on books. (I'm an escapist reader, a Fantasy & Romance junkie.) I walked out of bookstores--the B&N down at Lincoln Square and the Borders at Columbus Circle that are no longer there, and the B&N on the UWS next to Zabar's--with stacks of books on a regular basis.

So there I was at B&N, depressed, walking up and down the racks on the second floor, looking for the next book to read when I thought of one of my favorite authors. Mercedes Lackey, she's always coming out with something new. At the time, she had several rows of books on the shelves. So I meandered over to browse titles to see if there was anything I'd missed.

I don't remember how this realization hit me, but it did. Suddenly, instead of seeing titles and book series, I saw dollar signs.  Compounding, residual income. Each of those titles, labored over for a time and then set aside. Over the years making a tidy little income stream that would add up to make a nice living. Dean Wesley Smith would call it his magic bakery.

Things clicked together in my head, and I thought to myself, "I can do this."

Right away, I turned and walked over to the how-to section and pulled about eight writing books off the shelf and bought them.  A week later, I bought myself a thesaurus and a rhyming dictionary. A short while after that I started writing. My first draft of my first book was done in a month. The first draft to the sequel (due to release this coming week or the next) was finished two months after that.

I scoured writing blogs, learning craft and style. I listened to Writing Excuses religiously for what became years. I wrote and re-wrote, and re-wrote, polishing what I knew in my heart was not a pile of crap--despite writing advice you find online about polishing crap and first books--but a great story.

I have to say that I've been surprised. My stories are better written down than they are in my head. It's been a delightful discovery. And I can say that I've begun to have that compulsion for writing stories down. But it is driven by realizing that I have a voice, a message, and a slant that I want to share with others and is coupled with the fact that as I write those stories and publish them that my audience will build and we'll have a mutually beneficial relationship. I'll write stories that we both like and in turn I am compensated financially when my readers buy those stories. My readers (the few that have sent me messages or posted reviews online) like my work, they want more. I'm happy to write more.

So yes, I write for the money. I'm busy, time is fleeting, I have many other things I could be doing. Like sleeping, or going out to dinner with friends, or going to the movies, or curling up with a good book, watching favorite tv shows, etc.  But instead I've chosen to sacrifice that time to write, and I've only done so because I'm looking at it as a career with a payoff somewhere in the distant future. Like saving money in a bank for retirement.

When I write, am I thinking about what will sell best? To be honest, sometimes I am. But only in the vein that I'm a romance junkie, I know the genre, I love the genre, and I have dozens of story ideas in that genre.

But I also love fantasy. And even though I have many other stories/trilogies partially written, I still come back to those first two books that I wrote when I was living in NYC. They're my darlings. (I know, I know, I'm supposed to kill them.)  But deep down, I know they are beautifully constructed, neatly ordered stacks of polished un-crap. So I'm leading with them, publishing them first, even though they won't sell as well as the contemporary or historical romances that I have dancing through my head.

So there you are. I hope you understand. I write for the money; it's the only reason I write. But it doesn't exclude me from finding joy, surprise, and delight in crafting a story. In fact, I find putting stories on paper to be extremely satisfying in a way different from other artistic endeavors I have tried. And believe me, I've tried quite a few.

I hope you understand now and won't judge me too harshly. But if not, that's okay. I'm content and happy with my plans for writing. And as Indies so often say, the only thing that matters is if your readers like what you're writing. So far, my readers do.

-Melissa

Discovery Writing and Outlining

I’m a discovery writer, of sorts.  Actually, I suppose I’m more of a hybrid writer.  A writer who has ideas of what needs to happen, and then discovery writes to get there.  I wasn't always this way, for the most part, I used to be a pure discovery writer.  However, when you're working with an epically long book series, you just can't write fast enough.  I have plot points coming out of my ears for books I haven't even started to pull together.  But I know what's going to happen, and it's exciting.

So I guess this makes me an outliner.  But I don't want to be an outliner.  I like to discovery write, so I think I'll call myself hybrid discovery writer.  Now, that sounds nice.

But I digress, let me back up.  When I first wrote Book II (it’s now at around 90k words), I was firmly in the discovery writing phase.  Oh, I had ideas of where the book needed to go, but I had no idea how I was going to get there.  Anyway, because of this, Book II is full of holes.  When you're writing a series in discovery writing mode, it's incredibly difficult to just write and get it down in the first pass.  As a matter of fact, it's downright impossible.

There are subplots and themes that need to be fully supported, ideas that you come up with later but need to go back and put in earlier.  And so I make an outline after the first draft is written.  This way I can find the holes, places that need to be fleshed out, and plot points that need to be built up to better.  It's kind of fun, but it also can be a painfully long process.

Doing this for Analindë (Book I), was tedious.  I'm hoping the process for Book II will go a lot more smoothly. 

Almost one year ago I was in Beijing, visiting a friend.  While she was at work, I stayed in her apartment and outlined Analindë, then at night we went out and explored the city together.  I also did a rough outline of Book II in the series, but my focus at the time was to get Book I going again.

Analindë will soon go to print, and just last night I finished redoing the outline for Book II. It's exciting, I'm looking forward to reworking the story, but I'm a little discouraged at the same time.  It's almost been a year since I last worked on Book II, and I realize yet again how fleeting time really is.

Thankfully I'm still on leave at the moment, and have time to charge forward with my revisions.  The goal is to work quickly and then move on to Book III.  We'll see how I fare.

In other news, I've almost finished tweaking the design of my website.  I hope you like the changes.  The cover art for Analindë is coming along nicely. My illustrator (Bryan Beus) and I have just reviewed the photos from the shoot held last Saturday and he’s moving forward to start the final sketches for the cover.  I'm really pleased with the model that we used, she makes a great Analindë.

- Melissa

Call Me Crazy, yes actually - you should

As you may have noticed, I'm doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this year. But I also just signed up to do 70 Days of Sweat as well. (You may remember 70 days of sweat from last year.)

So yeah, call me crazy. I'll be attempting to juggle two books at the same time. Do you think I'll be able to do it?

I guess only time will tell.

WIP Report:
Chronicles of Loresse, Book I - Final Draft stages
Chronicles of Loresse, Book II - NaNoWriMo, outline finished, starts Nov. 1st.
Historical Paranormal Romance - 70 Days, partial outline, starts Nov. 10th.

Wish me luck,
-Bitter

NaNoWriMo, you know you want to do it

Calling all writers, NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) starts in three days. It's not too late to sign up. Come on, you know you want to do it.

10 Reasons To Sign Up.

1. I am.
2. You can add me as your writing buddy.
3. I know you secretly want to.
4. It'll be fun, except for the parts where you have to force yourself to KYBICAHOK (Keep your but in chair & hands on keyboard.)
5. We can be writing buddies.
6. You can kick my rear end when I don't post my word counts, and I can do the same to you.
7. It'll be cool.
8. It's definitely doable.
9. It's free. (But donations are welcome.)
10. Um, and you'll hopefully actually finish writing a story.

-Bitter

p.s. here's my NaNoWriMo profile, just in case you decide that you absolutely need to add me as your, ahem, writing buddy.

Harry Potter, orson scott card and patrick rothfuss

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows discussion between Orson Scott Card and Patrick Rothfuss. (You remember Patrick don’t you.)

For those of you out there who aren’t boycotting all words about the last Potter book, here’s a link to an ongoing discussion of the ending of the series. (Not the ending of the book silly, but the entire series as a whole.) And for those of you who are avoiding possible Potter spoilers, read it after you’ve finished the book.

So far, the posts are very interesting.

-Bitter

Mass Transit, how I got my word count in for the day

I actually got to sweat today while attempting to reach my goal of writing 1250 words for the today. Yes, I said the word sweat.

The great thing about writing today, was that I accomplished 90% of it while riding around on mass transit. I wrote during my 40 minute commute to work, then during the 20 minute ride out to the Wal-Mart in Jersey (where I bought a blowup mattress), during the 25 minute wait for the bus in the Wal-Mart parking lot in 90° weather (this is where the sweating happened), and during the 45 minute commute back home.

While in the parking lot, I couldn't help but laugh as sweat rolled down my back and formed on my face. One would say I glistened, but when you get right down to it, it's sweat. I could only think of Sven, and hoped one day of sweating would be enough. I think I'd prefer to keep my writing locations air-conditioned.

The last bit of writing was the trickiest, the ride home on the A-Train with all my loot. You see, I picked up just a little bit more than a Coleman queen-size blowup mattress. I routinely seem to forget how much I'm capable of carrying home on trips like this. Each time I swear that next time I'm gunna bring a grandma cart, but I never do because every time I go out shopping "I know" I'm only going to buy one or two things.

I piled and stacked my bulky purchases in front of me and on my lap, the tower threatened to topple over many times while sacks slid off my lap, and I worried about the cheap plastic sacks ripping. Somehow, I managed to pull out a notebook and write nonetheless.

I made it home this time, but just barely. I had to stop every 25 feet or so while in the subway and out on the street, to let my hands and forearms rest. (Wal-Mart didn't have big enough bags to hold the storage containers I'd purchased.) Suffice it to say, that the compulsory wide grip I maintained in order to carry the container and miscellaneous goodies home gave my hands a workout that rivaled any workout session using one of these little beauties.

Much to my relief, I made it home with bags intact.

Word count for the day, 1401. Turned out quite well, if I do say so myself. (1796 if you count this post, well it was 1796 until I started editing this post in blogger.)

-Bitter

Update: It's 1:00 in the morning and 85°'s outside. How sad it that?

Seventy Days of Sweat, or whatever it is that writers do when they write

You're probably wondering what this photo has to do with 70 days and sweat. Why absolutely nothing of course! Except that biker blurring across the bottom right-hand corner, he's probably sweating up a storm. (I just remembered you can't see the biker. Until I tweak my blog layout, my photos will continue to get chopped off. . . if you really want to see him, just double click on the photo.)

Moving on, yesterday I happened to surf past Diana Peterfreund's blog and became very excited when I read that there was a writing challenge going on. I liked the terms of the challenge, and the thought of working together as a group and being accountable to the other writers sounded perfect.

Of course, that was yesterday. Today, I'm still glad I signed up, but my wheels in my mind are still spinning.

Last fall when I wrote Book 1, I finished the first rough draft--all 60,000 words of it--in a month and a half. I wrote every day, and though uncomfortable, I kept on typing. All the things I'd read in Stephen King's book On Writing, and online--mostly at Holly Lisle's site--reinforced the impression that writing is hard work and you just have to buckle down and do it, so I did it. Each time my rear end started to ache from sitting on a hard plastic chair too long, or I became uncomfortable from sitting at my makeshift desk, I'd just adjust my posture and keep on going. (I straddled a rectangular cardboard box in front of a credenza, with my iMac on the credenza and my keyboard on the box, I'd type until I couldn't sit there any longer, or my arms began to ache.)

So, it's been a little crazy for me since I started Book 2 a month and a half ago. Sometimes I write, but most the time I don't. Today, like many days that have come before, I sat here in front of my laptop for three hours, document open and cursor blinking unable to put words to page.

It's not a matter of not knowing what to write. Beyond the story arc, I have a few paragraphs ready to transcribe, written during a commute to work last week. I know what comes next.

For me, I think it's just a matter of delving in and getting started. Once the words begin to flow, it becomes easier, and time slips by more quickly. The trick is getting started.

So here I go, wish me luck. If all turns out well, I'll have at least six new pages written by the time I close up shop for the night.

-Bitter

p.s. If you're interested in either joining or learning more details about the challenge that Alison Kent, Larissa Ione, Stephanie Tyler, Jo Leigh and HelenKay Dimon have issued, you can read about it here.

p.p.s. During the next several weeks, feel free to prod, poke, and spur me along if you don't see any writing progress showing in the sidebar on the right. If I'm keeping it up and doing well, congratulations and words of encouragement will be accepted just as readily.

Update 7/8/07, 4:22: Okay, I'm a wimp! After reading this, I'm done complaining. I've written consistently before, I can do it again. I just needed to realize, again, how much I want it. (To write that is.)

Writer's itch, what to do about it?

The Cherry Blossom Festival was CROWDED! The flowers were gorgeous though, wouldn’t you agree?


A few days ago a new story began to brew in my head, and I got writer's itch. You know where you just need to reach out and start putting ideas down on paper. Oh dear, I’m supposed to be on break. Now what do I do?

The problem is that if I don’t write it down, I lose it. I’m talking about those brief moments of exhilaration, when the sun breaks over the mountains, light spills across the valley, and you understand in clear vivid detail how it all fits together. So, what’s a wanna-be writer to do?

Of course I should crack open a notebook and jot it all down, but then I’m not letting the story rest. If I push it away for later, I doubt it’ll come back. It’s definitely a catch-22. Maybe I'll write some fragments down, but maybe, just maybe, I’ll start on Book Two in the series.

I’ll let you know how it turns out. Maybe I just need to get the ideas on paper. We’ll see. Advice, comments, suggestions anyone?

Hope you have a great weekend! Looks like the weather here in NYC will be nice, If I’m able to break free from the ‘ol pen and paper, I plan to go to the NY Botanical Garden. If I do, I’ll post some pics next week.

Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day - coming soon to a web page near you

So . . . how does one start one of these things anyway?

Ready. Set. Go! *insert long silence here*

Nothing?

Maybe . . . Go, go gadg-

What? That won't work either?

Oh.

I guess I’ll have to do this the old fashioned way.

I’ve been thinking about starting a blog for a little while, and about a week ago when I read John Scalzi’s reply to Dr. Hendrix’s webscabs rant about publishing professional quality work for free online, I thought, ‘What the heck.’ I might as well create my blog in time to post something.

It's official, as proclaimed by Jo Walton the first International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day is on April 23, 2007.

So here it goes. Blog Started.

If all goes well, by the 23rd I’ll have talked my brother-in-law, The Professor, into contributing. I would post something myself, but at the moment I’ve written nothing that would qualify as 'professional quality work'. And no, the 1st Draft of my 96,000 word fantasy novel doesn’t count. (Thanks for asking anyway.)

M. Bitter