August 11th to 15th, 2015

And that's my first day of missed log updates. *throws confetti* *blows gazoo*

Bad night on the 10th. Up too late, again, then up around 3 to change and feed my daughter, then up again around 4 or 4:30 because my son woke up screaming at... I don't know. I could guess, but my wife wouldn't appreciate me populating the space under my son's bed with monsters.

The 11th was busy and the 12th was the day of my son's surgery, so no writing got done while I was taking care of him. He's fine, already back to normal a day later, but he has a nasty habit of snatching pen and pad out of my hand if I try to use them in his presence. Today (the 13th) is being another busy day back at work, but not quite so bad as the 11th.

...And I wrote that two days ago. A series of bad nights and busy days between now and then. Hopefully Sunday is quiet.

Today I Wrote: 

The first entry in the Vault 867 archives, which is up here. I've also pulled images for the first week or so of game, but the more I progress the more I'm running into two problems:

1. I'm having to write from screencaps I take in-game because of the difficulty of playing a phone game with a pen and notepad in the other hand. This is actually a reasonable challenge to take on, though, so we'll see how it goes.

2. I may have reached the limits of "interesting things that happen in Fallout Shelter". This is not Dwarf Fortress, and apparently I can't count on a drunken Dweller flooding my elevator shafts with magma. (Would be a nice update though, Bethesda.) If my Vault ends up being a stable society I'm going to get tired of writing this log real fast. Fortunately it looks like Deathclaws will spice things up a bit.

Aside from those, I'm enjoying playing a game my wife enjoys as well. She just got access on her own phone and I'm only slightly worried it'll turn into another Candy Crush. Well, more than slightly. She may have had to recharge her phone in the middle of the day.

Today I Read:

This Storify log of some tweets by Chuck Wendig and others, on the subject of whether you actually need to write every day or not. A subject near and dear to my heart! I recommend giving it a look if you worry you're not writing frequently enough.

Time To Write

If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that. - Stephen King

State of the Author, 2015:

I barely have time to read. I very barely have time to write.

I am starting to suspect that only barely having time to write, is worse than having no time to write.

("Oh God", says the reader, "he's going to whine that he doesn't have enough writing time." Bear with me, there are some good links coming up.)

I went into this year with no real resolutions, authorly or otherwise. But after doing my taxes I developed one, which is that this year I would finally make some money with my writing. Because I could really use some extra money.

(Technically I've already achieved my resolution: Black Library sent me my latest royalty statement for The Assassin's Dilemma, and with two sales this quarter I made a handy twenty-two cents. It doesn't matter that the company doesn't pay royalties until you hit twenty-five dollars or more, I celebrated.)

I've read some great motivational books on self-publishing, like Let's Get Digital: How To Self-Publish, And Why You Should and Write Short Kindle Books: A Self-Publishing Manifesto for Non-Fiction Authors; and I've read some not-so-motivational articles on self-publishing, like Confessions of a Failed Romance Novelist (which you can find through the somewhat better Confessions of an Irritable Romance Novelist). I've been seduced by royalty numbers and sales figures and the apparent success of even dinosaur erotica on Amazon.

And I like writing short fiction, damn it. I enjoy writing good twists and fast pacing. So, I figured, I would write some short works, put them up for sale, and see what happened. I certainly wasn't short on ideas. Even total failure would be a good learning experience, and maybe I could beat Beverly Bush at her own game.

And...

Nothing. Total mode lock. Not writer's block - this is coming out just fine - but I can't seem to even start anything.

When I get stuck I tend to read books on writing to un-stick myself. This time I sprung for 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love by Rachel Aaron, which is only a freaking dollar and you have no excuse not to pick it up. No matter what your writing habits are, there are some solid tips there and I'm looking forward to trying them out.

I enjoyed the book, but I'm still not writing, still freezing up at the blank page, which pisses me off to no end because I know I'm better than this and I don't understand what the problem is. But I think I might be getting a handle on it.

I came across a post by Kameron Hurley, Life on 10,000 Words a Day: How I’m Hacking My Writing Process, which after "2k to 10k" seemed like a natural read. (And it's name-checked in the blog post!) And it was thought-provoking and interesting, but there was one passage that stuck out to me:

I heard author Catherynne Valente once compare falling into this immersive state while writing with falling asleep, and the metaphor was so apt that a little bell went off in my head, and I realized that I’d been trying to fit the act of writing into a work week designed to produce widgets, not prose. When you only have 90 minutes to lie down and take a nap, and the dog is barking, and people are opening and closing the doors, and the TV is on, and cars are driving by… you’re constantly popping in and out of that glorious place where you’re drifting off to sleep, and you really never reach the deep sleep you need to feel rested. Sure, you might get some “rest” but you haven’t really slept the way you would if you have five hours, eight hours, ten hours to nod off.

This is what trying to write in 90 minute chunks of time feels like for me. I know I have 90 minutes. I know it’s not going to be enough time to really get into what I’m doing. I know there will be distractions, and my brain won’t have the time it needs to slip into the sleepy-dream-hallucinating-I’m-in-another-world state that I need to crack out some effortless writing.

My writing time has been limited for awhile, but lately it's gotten significantly worse. I'm at work for nearly eleven hours a day, and when I get home my son demands most of my time until he goes to bed. (And he does whatever Daddy does, so if I open a notebook? He's scribbling in it five seconds later. Pull up a keyboard? dkla;ahgdls;a.) After that there's dishes, walking the dog, actually spending time alone with my wife... basically if I want a block of writing time during the week, it's going to start at 11 p.m. And my weekends and days off have been taken up by personal and family crises that obliterate any notion of writing.

I know about that dream-state Kameron and Catherynne are talking about. I've been there, I love it. And I know I'm not going to get there with the time I have available. And knowing that - knowing that any time I start to write, I could be forcibly and irrecoverably interrupted at any time - is turning into a crippling block for me.

For example: I tried to draft this post at 6:00 p.m., and my son scribbled all over himself with my pen, sat on my lap ripping Boogie Wipes out of their bag, demanded I read him the book with the shark puppet, and picked a fight with the dog, all within ten minutes. And then it was his bath time. I am writing this at 11:29 p.m. I am sitting in my office, scared that the clatter of my keyboard is going to wake my son up. He sleeps right above my office, and I've got superstitions about him. He'll wake up if I type too fast. He'll wake up if the dog barks. He'll wake up if I'm up after midnight. And he's stuffy and coughy tonight, which has me even more worried, because if he does wake up that's two hours of rocking and shushing him back to sleep.

Did I mention I have a second child arriving soon?

I'm going to keep writing, that's not in question. But doing it well, and doing it in a way that makes me happy... that's trickier. And I'm not sure how I'm going to work it anytime soon.

So. How are you all doing with time/space management? Any good reads on the subject you'd recommend? Here's one I enjoyed, to send you off with: A Shed Of One's Own, by Chuck Wendig. Who has a writing shed that isn't filled with lawn mower.

I'm not jealous.

Not one bit.

Links of Interest, Kameron Hurley Edition

Shameless plugging follows. Kameron Hurley is the Hugo-winning author of Mirror Empire, which I read last month and quite enjoyed, once I got my head screwed around one of the most alien fantasy settings I've ever come across. (Alien as in non-Tolkien, non-Moorcock, not alien as in actual aliens running about. But then again who knows.) She's also been turning up in my newsfeed a lot so the next two links are to her blog.

First up we have So You Think You Finished A Novel..., where Ms. Hurley shows us first draft of Empire Ascendant complete with revision tags and makes me feel like maybe my editing process isn't as crappy as I thought. (Still not as good as hers, but better than I feared.)

Next is What I Get Paid For My Novels: Or, Why I’m Not Quitting My Day Job, where Ms. Hurley posts honest-to-God figures of what she's been paid for her books. If you want to know more about what a novelist makes this is the link to follow. (And I'll be trawling her blog to see if she writes more about writing with a day job, particularly how she handles the quarterly bookkeeping alongside her employer's W-2s. The only advice I've ever seen on this comes from Chuck Wendig, and that was "Get an accountant. No, seriously.")

I found that link through io9, and in the comments section user DocSupreme talks about self-publishing erotica on Amazon. It sounds like a get-rich-quick scheme, except Doc's sincere, up-front and helpful about it. Plus with daycare bills to pay I might not be above catering to the post-Singularity smut market.

Then there's 750words.com, which one of my college friends is using. I haven't tried it yet, but the concept of starting my day with 750 words on paper, come hell or high water, is an appealing one. And Lifehacker links to a post by the founder of 750words.com, which talks about using writing as a meditation technique. Based on the first link I posted I feel I'd need a meditation technique to cope with editing, but it's an interesting thought. (The Lifehacker thing also mentions journaling. I wouldn't recommend it. Mark Twain talked about journals in The Innocents Abroad and approved of them... but only if they're done. Because done journals are fucking rare.)

And last but not least is a guest post by Delilah S. Dawson at Terribleminds, titled 25 WRITING HACKS FROM A HACK WRITER. Much wisdom there, especially regarding getting rid of extraneous bullshit. Do it. And go read.

I'll leave off there because my son's waking up and there's some sort of sporting event this evening. Happy reading!

How to Take Writing Advice

IT LIVES

Young Ben has gone to bed remarkably early, the dishes are done, the dog is walked, and I have half an hour before I should be in bed and an hour and a half before I usually go to bed. So I feel comfortable blogging again.

Boy, it's been awhile. How am I doing? Tired, mostly. I'm operating under a self-imposed requirement to write 100 words or more per day and have been for the past month. That's netted me 2,600 words, which sounds good, but I'm supposed to be at 3,200, which means in the race between the tortoise and the hare I'd be the snail that fell off the turtle's shell twenty feet back.

Which is all irrelevant because I'm here to talk writing advice.

I consume a lot of it. I've read On Writing by Stephen King, How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead by Ariel Gore, and How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy by Orson Scott Card before he went publicly loopy. I subscribe to Chuck Wendig's terribleminds, I listen to Writing Excuses every week - basically I could write a convincing book of writing advice without having published a book beforehand. *stares suspiciously at past blog posts until they shuffle away*

So is all this stuff helpful? Well it's no substitute for practice. Stephen King can tell you that he plots by letting his characters figure out what to do next and following them, but understanding what he's doing doesn't mean you can do it. You have to try it, suck at it, and try it again until you reach an acceptable level of suck; or try it, suck at it, and try something else until you find something you feel comfortable sucking at, and then polish that skill to an acceptable level of suck.

Either way, just reading or listening to some advice won't improve your writing. What it can do is point you in the right direction, or give you an idea of what you need to work on, or put you on the right brain frequency to come up with an idea you need. For example, The Kick-Ass Writer at one point discusses mind maps as a plotting technique. I read that, decided to give it a try (hello XMind), and generated a few maps based on The Novel. Not only did that solidify a few character details for me, it set off a few plot ideas and thoughts on new characters that have opened up huge story possibilities. The actual advice didn't much help - the technique doesn't quite fit me - but giving it a try was a huge benefit.

It doesn't have to be advice from a King Hell Published Author Persona, either. Awhile back Wendig threw down the gauntlet and demanded elevator pitches. The responses to mine were brilliant, reminding me to refocus on the core premise ("a boy and his demon") and helping me work out quite a few plot snarls I'd been staring down for weeks. So consider this a thumbs up to writer's forums, if you can find a good one; and I'm always taking recommendations, hint hint.

What else does writing advice do? 99% of the time it validates that writing is a good thing, and encourages you to keep doing it. The benefits of that really can't be understated, especially when you're trapped under the Writer's Block and you keep getting interrupted from chiseling out of it by your son launching projectile vomit across your living room. Even if you can self-motivate yourself to keep writing 24/7 forever, having someone tell you that it's right and true can give you a little extra "oomph."

So use writing advice when you need it. If you're feeling unmotivated, read a favorite passage from a good advice book to help get back on the ball. If you're stuck, try out an exercise or a new technique and see what shakes loose. Never feel obligated to follow the letter of whatever advice you get; if you lock yourself into outlining everything because someone else told you you have to, you're fucked, even if you like outlining. But try a bit of this and a bit of that and form your own crazy mish-mash process. Then write down what you did and sell it to Writer's Digest so you can poison the minds of future generations. For money. Muahahaha.

And if you have any good advice, or know of good advice, toss it in the comments. Spambots will be summarily executed as soon as I get Blogger to let me do that.