Still here

I know I haven't updated in a while. I haven't had much to talk about lately. I got diverted this summer finishing up a Harry Potter fanfic I started shortly after the release of the final book. Not exactly productive for my career, but good practice at character development. I went to Tanzania this summer and got a ton of ideas for a story I've been working on. I think I'm going to try to do NaNoWriMo because I'm not actively working on anything original at the moment. I currently have two books I could work on. I kind of want to try my hand at the sci-fi idea but I think the fantasy novel might be a little easier since I have more experience at it. So anyway, I am still writing, but school is in full swing now so time is tighter.

Notes to friends and relatives of writers.

So today my mom informed me that I should be writing 8 hours a day. Of course, she works at her clinic 8 hours a day, so I should write that much. It annoyed the heck out of me, but I know this is a common problem about writers. For some reason, everybody is an expert. If you say 'I'm a writer' or 'I want to be a writer' people will go off onto some spiel about how you should write THIS type of story because it will make more money, or self-publish, or do this and that, and the thing is, these people have no knowledge of the business. At all! My mom is a doctor. I would never presume to go to her office and say 'well, did you check for this?' or 'why don't you treat with this instead of this?' You know why? I'm not a doctor! I didn't go to medical school, and even though I grew up around medicine, I am not qualified to make a diagnosis. Now, I understand that writing is 'different' (anybody can do it, right?) in that it's a creative field, so there's more wiggle room than tried and true scientific methods, but people think that because they wrote one short story in high school (20 years ago) or because they read a lot, that qualifies them to tell you how to write, how much to write, how to get published. Here's a secret: IT DOESN'T.

So here are the following questions I think all friends, relatives, and acquaintances of writers should ask themselves before giving writing advice?

1.) Have I ever studied the craft of writing?
2.) Have I ever been published?
3.) Is there any reason I should know more than this person?
4.) Do they look like they want my advice?

Probably, the answers to all of the above are no. Writing a short story is not the same as writing a novel. Trust me, I can write a mean novel, but my short stories are woeful. They take different skills. I read agent blogs, editor blogs, writer blogs, Writer's Market, as well as read and watch fiction voraciously. Do they? Do they watch a tv show and evaluate the character development, the dialogue, and the timing of action in the scenes? Probably not. I get flack for wasting my time watching anime, but you know what? Watching anime and writing fan fiction about it is how I learned to write! I watch for how the plot unfolds, I look at the character development, and I do it in a way that I guarantee is different from non-writers. Telling a writer how to write a novel is just as bad as telling a doctor how to treat a patient. I don't have the education necessary for that, and likewise, they don't have the education necessary to tell me I should write 8 hours a day, not watch tv, not read books, do this, do that, don't do this, don't do that and I would most certainly appreciate it if people would stop doing it.

The Exchange: Round 1

So round one of the tournament is underway. I have my entry written, which is good. Unfortunately, I just realized that if I win in the first round, I'm more than likely going to be facing a fabulous writer in round two. And if he doesn't win, I should probably just pack my bags because anybody better than him is probably better than me. I'd say we're probably on about the same level, but it seems that the judges are familiar with him and his characters, and every little bit helps. I am going to have to really step up my game if I want to continue past round 2!

Edit

I got a paragraph in Prophet's Bequest (book 2) edited by Alicia over at edittorrent, so I'm posting the link here so I can keep track of it. I'm really pleased, because even though my prose obviously needs a lot of debugging, there was some good encouragement in there too. Thanks, Alicia!

http://edittorrent.blogspot.com/2009/06/gwen-editing.html

Rejection

I got my first rejection today--form rejection. I sent out two queries yesterday, so at least I got speedy turnaround. I'm a little disappointed, but not crushed. I guess that proves my 10th grade writing teacher wrong, huh? I hope I find somebody, but if the agent isn't excited about my work, they're not the best person to represent it, so the search will continue. I need to go back through my Writer's Market book and find some more agents to query.

The Exchange

I entered in a writing contest a few weeks ago. The premise is that death hasn't met his quota so he is collecting souls and decides to hold a tournament. Teams of 1-3 can enter to rescue one soul, and only one team wins. All the losers remain in Hell, thus increasing the number of souls in hell. I entered Jaana, James, and a new character named Maarc, competing for the soul of Jaana and James' daughter Audreia. We had to write up profiles for the characters on the team, and then write an audition piece that met certain guidelines. About 130 people auditioned and 64 made it. I was one of them! I know it's not a huge deal, but it is cool that I competed against some people and was selected. The contest works like a tournament, where everybody is paired up and given a prompt, and the best result moves to the next round until the end. My friends Fiona (LadyRiverLark) and Sharayah (Xelona) are also in the tournament.

If you want to look at the profiles and auditions (mine is under evilnel, close to the top), check it out here.

Writing, again.

Classes are finished, all the finals are graded, grades are in (although I am still getting students e-mailing me asking if they can turn in late assignments--really, kids, do your work when it's due!), and life is generally as it should be. Because I'm a grad student on a stipend, and because I'm living at home for the summer in a minuscule town in BFE and nobody is hiring (and I'm going to be gone for 2 weeks in Africa), I am unemployed. So all these things combining, that means lots of time for writing. I was in Ohio for a week and didn't write, but finally managed to unstick my brain and not only write a couple thousand words this week, but my plot is quickly moving again. I'd been somewhat stuck, not really sure if I wanted my characters to do this or that, but I'm going again. It feels so good to write. I realized that when I don't write for a few days I get really chatty and annoy my family and friends.

So the game plan for the summer is to finish the trilogy up, edit book two and three, and query like crazy. My query is written, and a couple reliable sources (avid reader and retired editor friend) have told me it's good, so I need to gird my loins and start sending it out. But I'm nervous. A writing teacher I had once told me he thought I was a great writer but didn't have the balls to handle the rejection. After getting rejected from a dozen graduate schools, or better yet not receiving a rejection at all ("You are not worth the paper used to send a rejection."), I think I can handle it, but I'm still not looking forward to it. Ah well, I need to just suck it up and do it.

Dead week + finals

Since this is the last stretch of the semester I haven't been writing (I've actually been, like, paying attention in class!). But rest assured, I will be back May 18th, because I will be DONE, and I have new stuff to type up, and once the stress of finals dies down I'm sure the creativity will return. Onward to summer!

Today's writing inspiration

http://www.murderati.com/blog/2009/4/19/how-do-you-know-when-to-quit.html

My promise to myself:

To keep learning and improving my writing
To never give up on a dream I first had on Lake Michigan at 15 years old
To understand that 'not right for me' isn't 'not right' period.
To write with meaning and purpose
To grow as a person through the experience

I love snark

So I have been reading Janet Reid, Nathan Bransford, etc etc. Janet posted a link that was basically somebody bellyaching about getting rejected 60 times and how agents have failed and the system doesn't work. Well, the author of said rant found Janet's post and commented, and one of the other readers replied (and this is why I love writers):

Whiner: "(*I'll be brief. Probably not, but one can only hope.*)"

Janet-reader: Of course you won't. I doubt you could be brief on a true or false question.

HAHAHAHA. What a great insult. It's even better because the whiner's rant is like 40 pages long and it's so badly written and boring that I stopped after about three paragraphs. As others have pointed out, no wonder he wasn't published! The bottom line is that hard work pays off. If you write a good story, polish it up, and write a great query you will probably do okay in the business. But it does require learning to write, editing, editing again, and then going back and editing some more. So far I've read Deceiver's Will about 5 times and every time I read it I make tweaks and changes. I've just done my first read through of Prophet's Bequest and made small changes, and will doubtlessly be making many more. That's the business. If you submit crap, you're going to be rejected.

Here's the link to the post: http://jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/2009/04/sorry-i-havent-gotten-back-to-you.html