Tag: writing process

Whether to have a crisis of confidence, or just get on and write better…

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

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Last year I entered a writing contest. I didn’t win, but I placed pretty highly (top twenty). Yay for me. I entered again (this particular contest has four rounds a year), with a story I knew wouldn’t win – just to reassure myself that placing wasn’t easy. Sure enough that story didn’t even make the list of around 100 named as making it to the long list. So placing highly was some kind of achievement. Yay for me, again (not to sound too self-congratulatory…)

Good. So then I wrote my best damn story ever and entered that for the current round, feeling pretty smug and sure of myself that I would, if not win, at least get into that top 20 again. The results have just been posted, and guess what. Not a win. Not top 20. Not even on that freaking long list of around 100. Nada.

WTHeck? That was the best I could do. And it didn’t even place. Maybe I didn’t even send it right (nope, I got an acknowledgment). Maybe the reader was having a bad day. Maybe I really do suck as a writer. Maybe I should just pack it in and buy a PSVita and spend the rest of the year playing Uncharted.

Right. That would be a solution.

Actually, I’ve got a better solution. Write a better story. Yep. Gotta keep improving as a writer. If I want to win this competition then I need to write my even better best damn story ever. In fact, I’ve got the idea down already. And I’ll start writing it tomorrow.

And, on another note. I’ve got to remind myself that contests and submissions are all something of a lottery. You’ve got to buy a ticket to win. Sure, it’s important to write well, but it’s still a whole lot to do with what’s going through a particular editor’s or judge’s head on that particular day.

That story? I’ll be send it to a pro market soon. Actually – tomorrow. You’ve got to buy a ticket to win.

January

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 2 Comments

I’ve been fortunate through January, with several days with no other commitments – work, family, etc. – where I’ve been able to focus on writing, so my word count goal has been achieved. Actually, more than achieved. Turns out that I’ve written this year’s first novel. I started on January first (after writing the last few scenes from a novella started in late December), and finished the last two chapters and epilogue this morning before heading to work (this morning being February first). 63,000 words – a couple of thousand a day through January. That’s pretty good, but I’d say I’m unlikely to keep that pace up – still, it’s a good start towards the aim of 300,000 words this year.

Being a pulp fiction writer now (from reading Dean Wesley Smith’s blog), it’s now on to proof-reading before I decide what to do with it – publish right away as an ebook and POD, or submit to a publisher.

Given how impatient I’m feeling at the moment, self-publishing is looking more likely. At the moment I have just two novels available as ebooks and it feels like it would be useful to support those with a few more.

I don’t have a title for the novel yet, but I’m sure that will come in my first round of proofing before I get someone else to proof it. It’s an adventure story set on a jungle on a distant planet with a lead character with artificial eyes. It was fun to write, and I hope it will be fun to read. I’ve created a rough for the cover, but we’ll see what I end up doing with it in a couple of weeks anyway.

Now, on to writing a short story (an entry for a New Zealand literary competition), another sci-fi story (Writer’s of the Future entry) and another novella under a pen name. Then I’m going to write another literary novel for the New Zealand market. It’s good to feel the plan outlined and have a feel for the way ahead.

Why write pulp?

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment


Following yesterday’s post, I’ve thought about why I’m writing about writing so much so fast.

Believe me, I do enjoy literary works, well, mainstream literary. Richard Ford, John Irving, Richard Russo, Anne Tyler, Jane Smiley, Annie Proulx are among my favourite writers. I enjoy the nuances they are able to bring to their writing, their skill with language and narrative. I have written, and even published, numerous literary stories, where I’ve polished and honed the words, where I’ve edited out sections or rewritten entirely from scratch, and often I’m proud of those pieces.

That said I’m having fun just writing pulp. Now, I’m not saying my writing is especially good (the reader can judge that), but I’m focusing on the story and trusting that my writing will carry it. What I’m finding currently is that as I go I’m paying more attention to the words where before I would have thought, “Well, I can fix that later in revisions”. Part of this comes from finding over the last year that my stories seemed stronger on their first draft without too much tinkering, part comes from reading about other approaches. Dean Wesley Smith has a good post here about not revising until a story has become just white paste.

Not interested in white paste. Looking for story. That’s why I’ll be writing pulp fiction for a while yet.

Word counts, goals and publishing

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Around Christmas, following on from Jeff Ambrose I created a word count goal fro 2012. 300,000 words, from 300 available writing days. Just 1000 words a day. As I wrote rapidly for the first week, I realised that I needed to add a couple of things to keep myself going, focused and effective.

Firstly that 1000 words is a minimum. In the first couple of days – January 1st and 2nd – with no other commitments, family, work or otherwise, I wrote 5500 words each day. It would be simple to think that, well, that’s the first eleven days worth knocked off. Nah. Better to reset the counter each morning. So, it’s been a good first week (close to 20,000 words), but this week I’ll be shooting for 1000 words a day again. Each and every day. BTW, a writer friend did suggest I make sure I don’t burnout on that. Can’t see it, but I will monitor things, definitely.

Secondly (and this is for readers more than writers) that’s got to be 300,000 publishable words. Not just spouting, not just rushing to wear out a keyboard. I saw that writing volume is one thing, publishing is another. So that’s my promise. There will be good stuff coming out. Not to say that it’s going to be perfect and nuanced and highly literary – these days I’m more of a pulp writer (though I do tutor in literary craft, and have written and had published numerous literary stories) – but it will be entertaining and readable and compelling.

I have several stories scheduled for publication in various print and online journals, which amounts to arout 50,000 words (as well as several reprints, but I think I should do this without relying on reprints). I have another 60,000ish out on submission to publishers, with another big story heading out this week. If those get rejections all around then I will indie publish them. I feel in good shape.

I will also have to create time for editing, revision, proofreading, reading other writers, editing anthologies, etc.

Memory and notes in writing stories

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 1 Comment

I woke up twice during the night with story ideas. I scrawled them on the notepad I keep by my bed. I have loads of ideas for stories – far more than I will ever have time to write. Sometimes the ideas are lousy, sometimes a little better. Sometimes my choice of which idea to pursue is lousy too – chasing an idea that seemed to be one of the better ones, but turned out to be not so much. One thing I try to do is make a of note ideas when they come to me.

Stephen King seems to discourage this – suggesting that if an idea is good enough for a story, then he’ll be able to remember it. Good luck to him with that (said to the tune of “omigosh I envy his success daily”). Me, I’m able to forget someone’s name before I’ve even finished shaking their hand. Perhaps the story ideas I’ve forgotten were the really, really lousy ones, but I have built some stories I’m proud of from those kinds of scratched out 2am ideas. If you’re so inclined, you could read “Airpocket” (a 600 word flash story, so readable in the message from our sponsor breaks in your favorite sitcom) – that’s a story that started from a midnight waking and note.

Remember those dogs in the movie UP? So focused on their mission, but easily distracted: “Find Doug. Find Doug. Find Doug. Squirrel!” At least they get back to their mission. I’m more like: “That’s a good idea for a story. Oh, look that store’s having a sale. Where did this guy learn how to park? Huh, she’s attractive, pity about the dress-sense. Did I lock the front door? Oh what was that story idea I just had?” I’m glad I keep a notebook handy.

Will last night’s ideas produce viable stories? I don’t know about that, but at least they’re down on paper rather than stuffed and lost somewhere in my somewhat unreliable memory bank.

Sticky feet and merry christmas – more on word count goals

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1000 words a day, huh? This morning, 6am – my prime writing time (and Friday seems to be the only morning of the week where I can write in a guaranteed no-interruption space). Sleepy headed (really shouldn’t have stayed up to watch SGU last night, perhaps, though it is the only show I watch, even though it seems to be fading as the final season winds on), and distracted by trying to create a new cover for a YA novel (rendering in the background, tinkering in the foreground), I managed around 660 words. Fortunately I should have another block of time in the evening (coming up) to march through at least another 340 words. Today’s goal seems secure.

I’ll blog weekly (rather than daily) about the count goals now.

Momentum

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

A couple of days ago I posted about my word-count goals for 2012. Funny thing about going public with goals – it boosts your incentive. My goal is 300,000 words written next year. That’s about 1000 words a day for every writing day I have available. Yesterday: 2000. Today: 2000. How about that? I’m surprised. It’s a while since I’ve written so much without actually being on a writing retreat. Is that sustainable? I’d hope so, but I’m not going to burn myself out. I guess a revised plan is to still head for 300,000 next year, but revise in July. If I’ve hit 300,000 by then, I won’t be kicking back and playing on the beach for the rest of the year. I’ll be fixing on writing another… well who knows right now?

Meanwhile, I’m still putting up previously published and new stories with Triple V Publishing – I’ve just published Big Banger Rentals under the byline Michael Shone. Dieselpunk. Adventure. Action. Priced at 99cents.

2012 writing goals

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 1 Comment

Following Jeff Ambrose’s post on his word count goals, I’ve been looking at what I’m keen to achieve in 2012. Similar to Jeff, I can write around 1000 words an hour, though with a full-time job, and a part-time job (which I may or may not have again 2012), I’m pretty committed time-wise. Add in family time and so on I figure I can manage to write like this:

1000 words a day. Some days it will be 2000, some days – as when I get to take a retreat – it might be 8000), but say an average of 1000 words a day. That’s finished, polished, ready to publish words. I’ve been thinking about some of the things Dean Wesley Smith has to say about too much rewriting and revising, and realize that many of my stories are strongest in their first-draft version and that too much polishing might strengthen the writing, but weaken the story. I’m going with story and will trust my writing to be coherent. I will still have readers, do proof-reading and spell-checking. This does contradict what I said in an interview with Shells Walter, but I guess I’m coming from a new place now.

365 days in the year. Tutoring takes four blocks of three weeks. I write a little bit during these periods, but not enough to count on. So that leaves 280 writing days.

280,000 words then. Okay, I’m going to make that 300,000 – a bit more of an even number to shoot for. For twenty days I’m going to have to write 2000, rather than 1000 words. In some ways it sounds kind of low – 1000 words is easy, but I liked the thoughtful way that Jeff was very practical about his goals, figuring in a little bit of life as well.

300,000 words. How will I spend that?

If I write two novels at 75,000 words, that’s 150,000. A couple of short novels at 25,000 words – novellas, I guess – so that’s another 50,000. Say five long stories at 10,000 and ten short stories at 5,000. That’s 300,000. Some of the stories will be shorter, some perhaps longer. Maybe one of the full novels will be 60,000 words. I’ll keep at that target of 300,000, adding in some stories as I go.

I know some of the stories I want to write. Three for short story contests in New Zealand (actually all have word limits around 3,000 so there is a little space for more stories). Four stories for international competitions. Stories to sent to the pro mags, and some to put up with Triple V Publishing.

I have ideas for the novels, enough to write an outline and get underway. Once I have a start point, and an end in mind I’ll just go.

I guess I should do monthly progress reports too.

Anyway, thanks Jeff and Dean, for helping to point the way.

Drafts and drafts and drafts

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 2 Comments

Lately I’ve been following the blogs of Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith – if you’re a writer, you should be following them too: filled with wisdom and great ideas and, wonderfully, they do not suffer fools gladly. They are husband and wife, and run WMG publishing, and used to run Pulphouse publishing. They blog about the publishing industry, and sometimes seem to contradict each other (Smith says he can’t see a reason to hire a professional editor, Rusch says go ahead and get one), which is fine, I’m gleaning gold from both. My novel is getting professionally edited, but I’ll stick some stories up from having a single reader and a proofread.

Smith is doing a challenge this year to write and publish 100 stories. He writes them, proofs them and publishes them. I’ve bought and read the one of them (so far) – “On top of the dead” – and it was pretty good. Not perfect, not gemstone polished, but it was a story and, seriously, I enjoyed it and was engaged from start to finish. Isn’t that what counts? The study guide I teach from states that the fiction’s only rule is that it must compel the reader.

When I was interviewed by Shells Walter earlier this year, I was asked about my advice to beginning writers. I said that your first draft is not good enough, probably not your second draft either. Now I think I’m inclined to agree with Smith, though with a caveat – Smith is no beginner. He’s published around 90 novels, over a hundred short stories, teaches and has run publishing businesses and worked as an editor. I guess he knows his way around stories. Something he’s noted is that students don’t necessarily improve their stories on the second and third drafts, and often make them worse (I’m paraphrasing here, but I don’t think I’ve misunderstood – though don’t quote me as having quoted him). On occasion I’ve noticed that with my students, though that said, sometimes the final story for the year is a much improved version of the original.

So, should I edit this blog post, or just let it out with a simple proofread? What, you saw a typo?

From time to time my stories can be dreadful. I don’t need a reader to tell me that. I put them aside, come back and really they’re not working. I rewrite from scratch. Now, that usually works and I get something I’m happy with – Where there’s water took a couple of runs at before it was working. A current story – Sleeve Tattoo – is at a second draft stage and I know there will be wholesale deletions, some extra bits to write and so on to make it work. Other times I do write quickly and the first draft needs tightening, proofing and seems ready to go. Back from Vermont was like that. So was Deadstick. Both got published out in the real world. One of the keys is to know when it’s just not working, and I’m still learning that.

I’m not that much younger than Smith and Rusch, but certainly by comparison I’m a fledgling writer (though my first publication was more than 20 years ago, and I have published over 100 stories, I’m still earning a living from tutoring and librarianship). I’m learning lessons and growing as a writer. With my new publishing venture – Triple V Publishing – I’ll start electronically republishing some stories that have only been in print anthologies, and then, taking a lesson from Smith, perhaps start writing and publishing stories right away.

Deadstick – the first Triple V story, will be out soon. It was one that was written fast – over a couple of weeks – and came out pretty much how I wanted it, with a few changes (though in it was originally conceived as a fairy story, it became dieselpunk – more on that closer to release).

Switch off hiatus

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 2 Comments

My computer, may she rest in peace, is back at the shop. Her third visit. I am on a borrowed vessel here, a machine with exponentially more power than my own sweet baby. But it is not mine. I cannot keep it. My darling will return, I hope, soon, perhaps a little changed, but still close to how she was.

Perhaps this is timely – I am about to switch off and disconnect for twenty-four days and three hours (and some minutes, I’m sure, and seconds). No blog, no twitter, facebook or flickr. No email (not even a single one of the four email addresses who are my galley slaves: they can fish for all I care). No net. No phone, no work. Just eyes open to the world, siphoning in all she has to offer. I will write and travel, photograph and make field recordings of the birds and grasses and the sea slamming at crumbling shores. I will look around my home and garden, perhaps with a new appreciation, perhaps with despair at all that remains undone.

I will be back: I will not be able to stay so real for long, I’m sure. The moment that this cluster of journeys and returns is over I will matrix myself back aboard, let those digits stream down the glass as if hurled by some green raincloud and demolish these remaining years in the continued ranting about the collapse of civilisation, the environment, the economy and bad ice cream.