Id of a Writer

The Blood of Queens Cover Reveal and Release Date

2024-04-22T14:33:00.000-04:00

Editing... Done.

Formatting... Done.

All the ancillary prep work... Done

Cover... AMAZING!!!!

Thea Magerand has outdone herself AGAIN. Not only did she create the stunning artwork above, she put up with me while doing it!

What happens when you take a thief and a con-man, that everyone thinks is a monster that should be locked away, and make him captain of the Queen's personal bodyguard?

Gossip, treachery, and paperwork... So much paperwork.

Ren's appointment as Warden, the Queen's personal bodyguard and head of her security has created something of a stir in the walled realm of Lenmar. Opposition to his mere presence within the Crystal Palace is high, and old schemes and rivalries are kindled anew as the tension builds between the nobility and the factions pushing for change.

Ren just wants to keep the Queen safe, solve the mystery of his mentor's disappearance, and figure out why, Haim, who'd saved his life and been his accomplice on more than one occassion, was avoiding him.

An attack on the eve of the Moon Festival, when the Council of Nobles is set to convene, provides the spark to ignite a chain of events that threatens the very foundations that have kept the people of Lenmar safe, and puts everyone Ren cares about in danger.

The Blood of Queens, Book 2 of The Crow's Gambit, is officially set to release on May 3rd 2024 in Print, eBook, and Audio formats.

Where to buy: https://mybook.to/TheBloodofQueens

And... Here... We... Go...

2023-09-16T15:40:00.004-04:00

Today (technically yesterday, but I hadn't sent the file) marks the start of editing on The Blood of Queens, Book 2 in The Crow's Gambit!

I'm super excited to be working with the wonderful Fiona McLaren, who was the editor for The Blood of Crows. I've attempted to take as much of her feedback from the first book into account before sending it to her, but I'm most definitely not perfect (that's where she comes in).

The biggest difference this time around being that no one other than me has even seen the full manuscript yet. I've shared bits and pieces with others, but up until now I've been the only one who knows the how this one ends.

Needless to say, I'm mildly terrified, more than a little bit anxious, and definitely excited to see someone else's thoughts on what Ren, Molly, Haim, and the rest of the gang get up to in Book 2.

The schedule with Fiona runs through December, and I'll try to keep everyone posted. TBoQ is currently on target for an early-ish 2024 release.

The Blood of Queens - The End

2023-08-30T18:04:00.000-04:00

I've been on vacation from my day job for the past week and a half. And what does a writer do when they're on vacation? That's correct, I've been writing and revising, with a little bit of going to a big nerdy fan convention in the middle.

Late last week I typed those important words "The End" on the penultimate chapter of The Blood of Queens, Book 2 of The Crow's Gambit and sequel to The Blood of Crows. The revision I just finished is the last "major" revision prior to getting it in the hands of my editor. I'm very much hoping to work with the same editor as book 1 (Fiona, check your inbox, we need to talk schedules).

The revision itself was pretty extensive. Chapters were chucked, created, burned to the ground and rebuilt, plots were rewritten, characters were renamed (leading to me learning far more about the ins-and-outs of Tiddlywiki than I ever wanted to know), and copious cups of coffee were poured onto my brain. But in the end, it all seems to work. The heist at the climax of the book works and feels pretty exciting, and the characters all end up at a place that's very different from where they began.

While I sort things with Fiona I'm doing a polishing pass and fixing all the small issues that I can see, eliminating echoes and crutch words where I can find them. I'm essentially doing that thing that people do before the cleaner comes over, where they pick up all the odds and ends and wash the dishes etc. Then I'll be reaching out to my Beta readers to see who's interested in giving me some tough love.

All told, The Blood of Queens sits comfortably around ~107,000 words, which works out to somewhere between 340-360 pages. So it's fairly in line with the length of the first book so far.

I'm finding that I thoroughly enjoy this little stint of being a full-time writer. Perhaps someday I'll make enough for it to be a reality, instead of what I do with my vacation from the place that makes it so I can pay the bills.

The Blood of Queens

2022-06-25T17:29:00.005-04:00

Book 2 in The Crows Gambit has an actual title now! The Blood of Queens.

You know that feeling when you know you have a mountain of work ahead of you, and you're all set and prepared for it, then you do something that blows it up and piles a whole lot more work on top of it?

Yeah... that.

I just did that today while revising/rewriting!

There's a lot of good groundwork already done for book 2, with 68K words (as of today) written out. I'm at about the 30K word area of this rewrite, and those last 38K words that already exist? They're a mess for where this rewrite is going, and I'm making them worse, not better. Whatever, I'll roll with it. I'm sure it'll be fine.

Either way, the end result will be better. At least that's the plan. I'm picking up steam as I continue to work on it too, which is nice.

And now some housekeeping!

This graphic will be so much cooler for The Blood of Queens, because people will know

some of the characters and I can just put things like "More Molly!" and "More Haim!" etc.

There's a sale on the ebook of The Blood of Crows from June 26th to 30th for 99¢ as a coordinated effort on the part of the SPFBO8 authors. There will be over 40+ indie books (almost 50 as I write this) in the sale from a bunch of great authors.

The Full list of Books on Sale and co-ordination of the sale is all being handled by the wonderful E. G. Radcliff.

No matter how far I get (or don't get) in this competition, the other authors that I'm meeting, and getting to know, really are the best part.

Nah. Buy my book ;P

I Broke Blogger! (MY BOOK IS OUT!!!!!!!!)

2022-05-31T17:39:00.002-04:00

I broke blogger... You see, I had a big celebration post scheduled to go last Thursday when The Blood of Crows launched. And... it's still there... scheduled to go at 9am... last Thursday. Every time I go into it I get an error. Every time I try to delete it... it tells me it's not there.

I've opened a ticket. I might need an exorcist.

So, uh, you get some of that fanfare here!

My book is out!!! Like, actually out, and in people's hands. And people are reading it!

I have a cool dashboard that I'm absolutely not obsessng over and refreshing multiple times a day when I should be doing other, important things, like blogging...

It gives me sales breakdowns by territory and format. Right now, it looks a bit like this:

Which I'm certain looks like garbage if you're viewing this on mobile, but the breakdown is cool. I can see how many individual copies are sold, and even how many Kindle Unlimited page reads there are (and multiple someone's are blazing through it in that format).

On the front-end of things, I'm getting reviews! 2 so far, and they're both 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

I've also entered my novel in Mark Lawrence's Self Published Fantasy Blog Off contest, which takes 300 entries, puts them in front of 10 judges, and whittles them down to a final champion. I don't know how far I'll get, but it has a great community around it that I'm happy to be a part of.

The Blood of Crows has been assigned to Lynn's Books + The Critiquing Chemist, and looking over their likes and dislikes, and reading through a bunch of their reviews, I think I'm in a good spot.

I was going to give a writing update (there's stuff happening there too), but there's a lot going on in this post already. Tomorrow is a chemo day for Mal, so I'll be spending a good portion of the day in a coffee shop or in my car. I'll likely get some more writing done and post an update on that end of things.

Tomorrow is the Day and I'm Not Celebrating (Yet!)

2022-05-25T16:07:00.001-04:00

Tomorrow is book launch day (sort of, the paperback appears to have launched early in some territories? Congrats Japan, Italy, and Estonia)... and I think I have everything sorted?

Needless to say, there won't be much in the way of fanfare or celebration in this post, because I'm saving that for tomorrow, and because I think it's valuable to hash out these last few steps. Mostly for my sake, but others might appreciate it a little.

Amazon says it needs up to 72 hours on a paperback push, so I was arguably a bit late hitting the "Publish" button yesterday afternoon, and it's still early in some territories, and completely or partially missing in others.

Speaking with some other authors an early paperback launch isn't necessarily a bad thing, as Amazon treats both editions separately for the purposes of rankings, but allows their reviews to be combined. That could translate to a big boost for day 1 of the e-book if there are already reviews in place.

With that in mind, book 2 will likely have it's paperback published a week in advance, so my ARC reviewers have an opportunity to weigh in.

I've set up a mailing list. It's over there on the right, and currently has 3 subscribers: me, myself, and I, with different email addresses as I sorted it out. I hear that's a good way to build a community and keep people interested in future books informed (that's also the purpose of this blog).

There's a short story featuring characters from The Blood of Crows that I'm cleaning up as a nice little give-away for signing up to an email list that will likely hit people 1-2 times a year. Will it help? I dunno, but I've got the story already.

Then there's the advertising side of things, which is 100% experimental for me. I've watched videos (by both the ad platforms and by external users). I've consulted with other writers. I've even played with a simulation campaign for the past six weeks. I can only hope the real thing is 1/100th as fruitful (narrator: it won't be).

The best advertising I think I can do is getting book 2 done and out there, so I'll be shifting into a higher gear there, though it would be a nice little bonus for The Blood of Crows proceeds to fund the editing and cover artwork if at all possible.

Book 2 is slowly fleshing out and cleaning up. I've written a few new scenes this past week, and hammered a few pointy bits off some of the existing scenes so they fit where The Blood of Crows ended up. I'll be putting in some time with it tonight in a likely fruitless attempt to not think about tomorrow being launch day and all of this becoming that much more real and tangible.

7 Days

2022-05-20T20:41:00.001-04:00

The Blood of Crows launches into the world for anyone to read in seven days. That's terrifying!

A lot can happen in 7 days. There's tonnes of lore and mythology around the number to back up that assumption.

The Ring (the 2002 horror movie adaptation of another movie I've never seen and likely never will) was filmed in seven days.

The Beatles, The Ramones, The Velvet Underground, The Stooges, and Black Sabbath all recorded entire albums in less than seven days.

The fastest speed-runner of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild could do their speedrun of the game that took me three-hundred plus hours to finish, an impressive four-hundred fifteen times and still have enough time to make and eat a really good sandwich.

I mean, from what I gather, in just seven days, Frankenfurter can make you a ma-ahaha-han. Or... something.

We even built our week around the number seven. Well, the Babylonians did, based on the number of celestial objects they could observe, and the rest of us just inherited it (and our sixty minute hour) from them.

Either way, it seems like a lot can be accomplished in that time.

Publishing a book is the best I can manage, and really, only if you don't count the months and years of work beforehand. It's all scheduled to go, I just have to not break it.

All I have to do at this point is keep working on book 2, try to make some noise about it here and there, and do everything in my power to not freak out.

And convince people to buy it... without being too obnoxious.

The Value of Alpha/Beta/Gamma, and Proof Readers for the Indie Author

2022-05-02T18:07:00.016-04:00

Your mom!

My youngest should appreciate me starting a blog post like that. For everyone else, I'm sorry, but your mom shouldn't be your only reader before you hit "Publish".

The Blood of Crows releases this month (I'm low-key freaking out), and since the initial draft it's had what I call Alpha Readers (friends and family), Beta Readers (in my case, other writers), and a Professional Editor (the wonderful Fiona McLaren). Every step has been invaluable. They helped with the story, the characters, and the clarity of my writing. Mistakes have been caught, loop holes closed, and pacing improved.

I cast the net wider and wider for each round of people (except my Editor, that was laser focused). And I did that with intent. It's profoundly important to get as varied and diverse a pool of readers as you can. Each reader brings their own perspective, reading style, and likes and dislikes. And having conversations with them during and after they finish reading your book can help hone in on parts of your story that work, and parts that don't.

I don't think I'm saying anything new or revelatory here: They're even more important if your work covers any characters that aren't "you".

I'm a firm believer in the #OwnVoices movement. I also believe imagined worlds should have room and representation for all kinds of people, and writers shouldn't completely avoid writing the "other" from themselves. But if they are writing someone of a different backround, gender orientation, sexual preference, or a character that's neurodivergent, it's imperative that they try to include representatives in kind in their reader pools.

I've seen it referred to as "sensitivity readers", and I'm certain there are places to find them if you don't know someone who is representative of what you're writing, that's also willing to be a reader for you. Though, I feel it should be noted (and this is purely my opinion) if you don't even know someone representative of what you're trying to represent, maybe you shouldn't write something that far outside your wheelhouse until you've made some more connections.

From a purely business/writerly perspective, the last thing you should want is to make a charicature instead of a character. Bad representation is arguably worse than no representation. And if you're one of those people who wants to denigrate (it means belittle, or attack) marginalized groups? Well, there's the... digital representation of a door... or something... I guess... just... go.

In the run up to the release date, I've been sending Digital ARC's (Advance Reader Copies), to a number of people in the writing circles I frequent who wanted to give it a read, and I ordered print proofs to make sure I hadn't bungled the formatting, and to catch any last-minute issues.

Those people... nay... those saintly beneficent beings of light and glory...

They...

Found...

Errors...

And not just new errors brought on by formatting in different reading apps on different devices, or introduced in that last round of edits... No... those I could live through without withering into a tiny stress-ball sized anxiety person. They found errors that have persisted in the text through all the above edits and passes. One error... in the first paragraph of the first page, has been around since 2015!!!

They're the little errors... "though" instead of "through", or little extra or missing instances of "the" or "to". The annoying little "nothing" words that our brain fills in on its own and Word's spelling and grammar checker seems to ignore (Hey Microsoft, I'm not even mad. Just... disappointed.).

Thankfully, there's still time to correct these ginormously, massive, apocalyptic disasters before they're inflicted on the people paying for a book by an author they've never met.

In the meantime, I'll be over there... trying to remember what sleeping soundly feels like...

Back From the Dead, by Popular Demand!

2022-04-24T17:25:00.000-04:00

6 Years...

As in exactly 6 years since the last time I updated this thing... to the day. Weird how that worked out.

So, how have you been?

Uh-huh... That's great. Enough about you, let's talk about me.

Where have I been? Well, let's start with that title. It's a lie. I'm lying to you with that title. I was neither dead, nor is there any sort of popular demand for me to revitalize my blog. But here we are.

A lot can happen in 6 years. The latter half of 2016 was... rough, mentally speaking, and the world as a whole has been a fair bit colder, crueler, and darker as a place to live, and that's without taking an entire globe sweeping pandemic into account (and that's still here).

My literary agent left the business to chase what he wanted, that's good for him. I quit writing for a time, that's not so good for me. I didn't think I had it in me to go through the whole query and submission process again, and without a submission list, I would have had to do it all with a different book.

I didn't want to go there. So, I tinkered on and off with different stories. Poured myself into a new role at my day-job. And helped out my writer friends as much as possible with critiques, brainstorming, and in some cases just listening.

Then, the pandemic happened.

There I was looking at Crow's Blood again and wanting to get it out there. And if that was the goal, then I might as well do it myself.

I strapped in, did a full revision pass, hired a wonderful editor (Fiona McLaren), who helped me get "The Blood of Crows" into a polished state, and an amazing cover artist (Thea Magerand), who produced a truly beautiful cover.

Now, I'm back at work on book 2, and trying to not freak out as May 26th draws nearer.

Movie Review - Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

2016-04-23T16:43:00.000-04:00

I've done a few movie reviews in the past, and I think I'll pick them up again. They won't be pretty, and they won't be professional. But they WILL be honest.

Before I spew a giant wall of text, I'll come clean, I'm primarily a Marvel Comics and Independent comics guy. But!!!!! I DO love Batman (most of the comics runs have been fantastic and I've been reading them for years), and some of the Superman runs hold a place close to my heart.

Now, onto the wall of text...

There were parts of the movie that I LOVED, standing on their own, apart from the rest of the movie, because the movie as a whole is BROKEN. I'll give some specific thoughts without going into spoilers (because people can read this before seeing the movie, though I really suggest they don't... see the movie).

Ben Affleck was phenomenal as Batman, and frankly, I had my doubts going in. I believed. He WAS Bruce Wayne, he WAS the Dark Knight. Boy got RIPPED for the role too. And Jeremy Irons was a sassy MF Alfred.

The BvS fight was AWESOME, even if the story that led to there rang false because there wasn't enough of it to make it matter.

Gal Godot IS Wonder Woman, and there simply wasn't enough of her. I can't wait for her stand alone movie.

The reveals of C, F, and A were just right (though I do have issues with some of the hand wavy around some of it). I can't wait to see A's movie right along with Wonder Woman's.

And that's the entirety of what I loved about the movie.

Middle-ground?
Zack Snyder gets a rainbow sticker, because he seems to have learned how to break up long-ass fight scenes so I don't get too bored, which is an improvement. But then I'm going to light that sticker on fire because he can't tell a coherent story.

And then there's the stuff that just blew bloody little goat chunks.

Henry Cavill is a pretty damned good actor, but we're not allowed to actually give a damn about him in this movie (or the last). There was so much potential for the whole story around "do we need Superman" and what that says about us, but it seems like Snyder got bored with it partway through and just started smashing his toys around. The explosion, you know the one I'm talking about, was a great opportunity, and the story started to ask the right questions, and then seems to have dropped them.

The dreams... WTF is up with them? Completely unnecessary and so BADLY done. Were these just Zack Snyder spending all the money they could throw at him?

There's the unnecessary "origin story" one at the beginning of the movie? Remember how it ends? With a certain physics defying act? There's no lead in that it's a dream and not a memory, that gets revealed in a voice over.... yay?

The post-apocalypse one from the trailer? Why? If the supposed purpose was to show how Bruce was tortured by a dystopian vision of what unchecked power can do? So he has a reason to go down a dark path? Meanwhile he's running around unchecked himself? Ben Affleck can act. Let him. The little discussion Bruce had with Alfred did fine on its own.

Then there's the illogical car chase stuff, and the over-equipping of bad guys. Who uses a heavily armed convoy of private contractors to covertly transport/smuggle something into a city? Way to fly under the radar... and there's a part near the beginning of that chase where the hero,
A) stands somewhere really stupid to do something really simple, (because it's dramatic?), and
B) does something no one would do if they were trying to move fast. Do you drop anchor on a ship and drag it behind you if you're trying to catch something? Oh, but look, it magically came in handy... good thing our hero has some sort of bat-precognition.

The final fight scene, how nice that they gave us time to breathe and a few lighter moments that were robbed of their levity by the trailers (haha, is she with you?). It's nice that Snyder watched the Avengers movies, isn't it?

Also... kudos to Perry White, the most powerful journalistic (illuminati) editor in the world. Despite the fact that "no one reads the newspaper any more" he can fly his ONE reporter all over the world, AND serve up a helicopter "ON THE ROOF" at a moment's notice... damn that man's got power.

And last, the part of the movie that drove me batty (pun intended) was Eisenberg's Luthor. Who would let that man do ANYTHING? Oh, wait... maybe it's an allegory, where Lex Luthor is a stand in for Zach Snyder, and the authorities in the world around him are stand ins for DC/WB?

I give it 3 stars, out of 10. There were some absolutely awesome elements to the movie (see what I loved above), but there's just too much crap and garbage packed around it.

It earns the distinction of being the first movie below the threshold of suck on my Movie List

Needs doing.

2016-04-11T12:04:00.004-04:00

Wow... I had a bit of a crisis with writing my blog back in... ... ahem, July of last year.

I need to get things sorted and cleaned up around here, and maybe change up the way I'm (not) blogging.

Outlining vs Pantsing: Why choose just one?

2015-07-03T22:48:00.000-04:00

Note: This post is late. I mean waaaaaay late. But it's also not the first time I've written it. I can only hope I'm half as coherent this time around as I was last time, because you can't see last time.

First, some quick definitions:

Outlining
The process where a writer builds a framework for their story before they start writing. This can be done at the plot level, where the major points in the start, middle, and end (including a twist or two here and there) are predetermined. It can be done at the arc level, where major character and story elements are planned. And even at the scene level, where every scene is planned out from start to finish with it's own plot and arc covered.

Most outliners work at several points along that scale and at varying detail with each work. Some go heavy into their outline for specific scenes or characters, and leave side characters or less key scenes at a very high level.

There is a lot of preparation and pre-work with outlining before you even start writing the actual story. Some writers feel that outlining kills the story for them and makes them lose interest.

Pantsing
Writing by "the seat of your pants". This is the process where a writer has a vague but awesome story idea, character, setting, or theme they want to explore and they just go with it, discovering the story along with their characters.

Now, in the case of many pantsers that I've talked to, they often do have an idea of where the story will end before they start. But they don't always end up there.

I'm also told that pantsing often involves a fair bit of rewriting and editing, often to the point where more words are cut out of a work than are left in the finished product.

Well, now that that's out of the way.

There are plenty of blog posts, and articles, and books on the subject of Outlining/Plotting/Architecting and Pantsing/Discovery Writing/Growing stories and why one is better than the other. Or different systems for implementing each. And there are famous (and prolific) writers on each side.

With all the people I've talked to I've seen few things more fetishized in genre fiction writing circles than Plotting vs Pantsing (except maybe choice of writing software, alcohol, and the ever-present Mac vs PC).

Some people get downright tribal about it.

Which I find surprising, because a lot of the writers I spoke to seem to fall somewhere in the middle. Plotting and outlining very loosely, and discovering their way between points.

I mean, yes, that sounds like a high level outliner. But they're not rigid in what they've outlined. Instead of points on their outline being anchors to write between, they see them more as guideposts along the trail, and sometimes they'll go for a wander.

So where do I sit?

Ok, confession time: I'm all over the place with this one. If there's one point of my process that's a hot, gooey, moist, mess, this is it. This is the biggest pain point in my writing process.

I can't write without an outline. Not anything complex anyway. Vignettes and short stories for ideas, certainly, but not much more than that. So I definitely fall on the Outline side of the spectrum. I need my waypoints. When it comes to writing, I'm like one of those drivers who can't leave their driveway to go to the corner shop without putting it in their GPS first, even if they can see it from their driveway.

But on the same token, I'm not married to my outline. My finished story is never the same one that was in the original outline. It changes and mutates often, as I explore the characters, or spot problems, or get inspired by something that explodes the little synapses in my brain. I may need to turn my GPS on to go to the corner shop, but I don't necessarily have to follow it to get there. Sometimes my trip to the corner shop for a carton of milk ends up at the dairy halfway across town because they have ice cream!

I call this: Agile Outlining.

Now if only I was better at it.

If it's a problem that puts the brakes on, that can take hours, days, and sometimes even weeks of agonizing and brainstorming to sort out, and I'm paralyzed from pushing further on that story until I sort it out... because it may have ramifications.

You see, every time I run into one of those things that make my synapses go BANG, I have to see what it does. Start to finish I have to look at the setup and impacts, the foreshadowing and payoff. I'm not so bad that I have to go back and rewrite the things that beg, nay, the things that need to be rewritten. No! That way madness lies! I go back and make notes. Wonderfully detailed notes in the handy spot Scrivener gives me for them.

And all is write with the world. (Sorry, couldn't help myself there.)

Except that it isn't. These little (nuclear) blasting caps of story don't just happen once in the writing of a book. No. They're not that decent to me. They happen all the time, leaving me with more word count in notes than I often have in my finished manuscript.

Editing is its own kind of torture.

If you know of any way to help me along in this process, or can throw any tips or suggestions my way, please feel free to do so in the comments. Sadly, I'm a teetotaler, so, while I hear it does the trick for an alarming percentage of the writing community, alcohol won't be of much use.

-Alex

This is the sixth entry in a series of posts about my evolving writing process.

A Glitch in the System

2015-06-12T11:29:00.005-04:00

Note to self: Don't trust Blogger.

In an effort to be more consistent and reliable in updating my blog I wrote a "series of posts" about my writing process, where it's been, and where it's going. I had 3 more posts written up and scheduled to drop, but instead of posting them on their scheduled Fridays, Blogger appears to have eaten them instead.

Blogger... This is why we can't have nice things. And I hope my words tasted good... and give you indigestion... you monster!

So... I'm going to have to rewrite them. Which means there's a great big ugly gap in time in the middle of the series. For that I apologize, because regardless of Blogger eating them, I still should have been checking that they actually, you know, posted. Instead, I was getting into the groove and learning to (not) enjoy getting up at 5am every morning to write.

I'll try to have the next post, about Outlining vs Pantsing (which was, and likely will be, a doozy) up sometime soon, if my paying day job doesn't intercede on the Internet's behalf.

-Grumble

Plot: Where are we going and why are we in this hand-basket?

2015-03-20T10:32:00.001-04:00

Now. I know some of you are pantsers and you're not interested in what I'm selling. But hold on! This isn't about outlining. This is about plot. It's not the same thing. I promise!

And please stop leaning on the door, you're breaking my foot!

Thank you.

A little bit of definition and context for how I'm using the word plot.

Plot vs Story
Look at the term "Plot Twist".

plot twist (noun)
An unexpected event or development in a book or movie.

...event or development... keep that in mind.

The Story is what you want to tell: A janitor on an interstellar cargo ship saves the galaxy from nefarious space hippos! The Plot is how you tell it. It's the details. The series of choices that allow our intrepid spaceship janitor to overcome those space hippos.

Woah! Stop right there. Put that down... Now step away from it...

I know "series of choices" makes it sound like an outline, and it can be part of an outline, but it's not the outline. Plots run through every story, and it doesn't matter whether you figure them out beforehand or afterward. I find defining the plots of my stories key in making them flow and keeping them (hopefully) entertaining.

Choices
You'll note that I keep saying choice instead of events. That's intentional. The character's choices should drive the events of the plot, not the other way around. It makes the story more compelling and raises tension.

Whether you're plotting through an outline process or you've just finished your first draft and you're sketching out the plot for the first revision, try to define each point as a choice. Every event doesn't have to be a choice, but you'll find the most gripping moments in any story come as a result of a character's choice.

The harder the choice, the better the tension. Choices with no good options are best. The character needs stakes, therefore the character's choices need stakes, therefore the plot needs stakes. If you don't have stakes, you are screwed when the vampires come around. Oh, and your story will be boring.

With that in mind, it's time for me to wind up some of the outliners.

A personal hard and fast rule: Never let the plot dictate the character's actions. I don't care if I've plotted something within the outline with a really cool payoff, if the character wouldn't make that choice, that plot point is broken. I've re-outlined my current book twice already to fix broken plot points.

The plot (and in this case the outline), can be changed without changing the story. Don't shoehorn the character's choices and actions to fit it. You'll blow readers out of the story and ruin a perfectly good character's credibility.

Consequences
So, beyond framing plot points as choices, how do I keep them interesting? By having consequences. There's a pretty cool new technology standard coming out that's based on a very old concept. If This Then That. Basically, you set up a series of conditions, and when met, something else is done.

It's a great concept to build consequences around for the choices that make up your plot. Always know the consequences to any choice, even if it's a small one. Whether you call them out in the story or not, it's key that you know they're there. Those unseen consequences can potentially lead to other choices/plot points.

They're one of the coolest toys in the writer's toolbox.

From something as little as a space janitor double-knotting his shoe laces: He may need to take his shoes off in a hurry later to get into an EV suit. Does he cut them or untie them? If he cuts them, what does that mean for when he needs to put his shoes back on later?

To something as large as the major story resolution: Does our space janitor turned impromptu hero release an untested genetically engineered pacifying agent for the space hippos that could save the galaxy? What if it doesn't work? What if it does? What are the side effects?

The consequences of both of those choices can lead to all sorts of further plot elements if you examine them far enough.

But...
Oh. And the choices don't always have to work out. In fact, some of the best choices are the ones that fail spectacularly with the word "but". "But" always adds conflict, and conflict is good. And you can still have your character's deal with the consequences of having made a choice, and the resulting outcome, whether it's from their choice or not.

Our hero space janitor orders a secret release of the engineered pacifying virus, but it doesn't work as intended. Instead of pacifying all of the space hippos, it only has any effect on 3% of their population, and instead of making them docile and non-combative, it enrages them against their own kind sparking a small civil war.

Being the heroic sort, our space janitor sees an opportunity to help the warring space hippos with their incredibly aggressive minority and in doing so he negotiates peace. He's averted a war between his own people and the space hippos, but he's ultimately directly responsible for the death of 3% of the space hippo population. Even if they don't know it (yet), he does, and he has to live with that knowledge. So do his crew-mates, who will never look at him the same again.

See. A simple "but" put in there unleashed a whole LOT of potential plot and conflict.

Trimming the Cruft
Unfortunately, plot can be where a lot of unnecessary stuff and scenes get introduced to the story. This where "Kill your darlings." can readily apply. I know it does for me.

If a scene is there to further the plot, either highlighting a choice or a consequence, but it doesn't actually have anything directly related to the story or growth of a character, odds are, it can go. Figuring out which plot points those are, and whether they're key to your primary or secondary plots is one of the hardest things for me to do.

I've found a good exercise is to write out the "synopsis lines" for each scene. As much as I hate writing a synopsis, those 1 or 2 lines describing what happens in the scene with relation to the story are pure cruft killing gold.

If it's not advancing the story or integral to a character's development, it can go. No matter how cool it is, it can go. Even if it's the scene that triggered the entire concept of the story, if it's not moving the story or characters forward... it... can... go.

Let me know what tips you have for plotting, or your thoughts on any of my definitions or methods in the comments.

-Alex

This is the fifth entry in a series of posts about my evolving writing process.

Characters and Characterization: Who are these people?

2015-03-14T10:45:00.002-04:00

Characters are the heart and soul of any well crafted story.

There are many people who will disagree with that statement, and they're welcome to... But they're wrong.

Now wait a moment! Don't go away! Let me pile a few more logs on that pyre being built at my feet by explaining where I'm coming from. I mean, I put it pretty definitively up there. How could I possibly make things worse, right?

Trust me. I'm a writer. I can always make things worse.

What about "idea" stories? What about Sci-Fi or Literature stories about a place, or a technology, or some other thing? Those don't have people at their heart! They're about the idea/place/technology/other thing!

GET THE TORCHES!!!!

Wait! You see, characters aren't always people. They're the subjects in the story that the reader relates to. And if the story is well crafted (and sometimes even if it isn't), the characters are what the reader cares about. Whether that character is a cat, a tree, a car, or an asteroid, if the writer has done their job, you'll care about it and it will help immerse you in the story.

But that's an overly complicated way of looking at things, so let's get back to people (if you want, you can consider anthropomorphized things as people from here on out).

Where you fit on the spectrum between plotter or pantser will likely shape how you grow your characters. I fall somewhere in the middle, so my process might be a little muddled. But from one writer to another: You don't have to colour inside the lines. Do whatever works for you.

Some writers like to figure out their characters as they go along, then fix inconsistencies in revision. Some writers like to know every detail about their characters before the first word hits the page, creating detailed character sheets (I use the one in Scrivener to get started).

Whatever your method, I've found it's best to keep track of any changes or major decisions about the character as you go. It stops you from contradicting yourself or giving a character rainbow-coloured eyes (unless they're supposed to have rainbow-coloured eyes...).

Aside from physical description, you should have a number of other important factors sorted out for your characters. How are they going to grow and change through the story?

It's completely fine if you don't have a character all figured out before you write your first draft. But you had best have them nailed down by the time you finish that draft, or revisions aren't going to help.

Motivation
Your character needs goals. Big ones. Small ones. Ones with polka-dots. Every character needs motivations of their own. And not just one. At no point should a character's sole motivation be "help the protagonist". That, my friends, is a cardboard cut-out, not a character.

Ask yourself: What makes your character tick? What do they want? In a revenge plot it can seem pretty simple... Revenge! In a horror plot... Survival! In a murder mystery... To Catch the Killer! In a bee-keeper memoir... Honey!

But is that all? I hope not. It shouldn't be. That isn't enough. See that cardboard cut-out I mentioned before? It's waving. No... don't wave back. It's cardboard...

Let's look at our revenge plot for a brief moment.
Bruce Lonerman's a solitary road warrior. His one true love, Hilda, his 1984 Ford Tempo, was crushed by the villains at BadEvilCorp™ who were jealous of his cherry ride, and he'll stop at nothing until he gets his REVENGE!

Great! We have a primary motivation: Protagonist's true love snatched away and destroyed by the antagonist!

But wait! There's more!
Our hero Bruce has to get to BadEvilCorp™ and it's all the way across town... and he doesn't have Hilda to do it. He needs a ride... Perhaps he can borrow his best friend Beth's Vespa GTS 300?

Ding! That's more motivation. Granted, it's short term, but it's there.

If you want a compelling character, always look for more layers of motivation. What do they want immediately? What do they want generally? What do they want after? What are the little things? What are their ideals that seem too big?

What's stopping them? Conflict is key. Resolution of conflict builds character.

Internal Contradictions
Have you ever met another human being? Ever been one yourself? If not, then this next bit may not make much sense to you.

People contradict themselves. I don't just mean hypocrites, they're just better at doing it more noticeably. We're all FULL of contradictions. They're what make us unpredictable and oh-so-hard to model artificially. Thankfully we writers aren't trying to build a positronic brain (not a real one anyway).

All of your character's internal contradictions don't need to be on the page or highlighted in some way. But you should know that they exist. What should be on the page are the contradictions that define your character.

Back to Bruce.

He's a solitary sort, but he has a best friend named Beth.
He also has a cat.
He hates the rising price of gas, which is something he wouldn't have had to deal with without his love for Hilda. He mildly resented Hilda for her reliance on fossil fuels.
He feels guilty for his resentment of Hilda.
His guilt and regret help fuel his thirst for revenge.
He really enjoys the open air and low cost of Beth's Vespa

And so on (and that's just from what I've written so far). Contradictions are what make a character not be a caricature. No real person is a set of absolutes, your fictional people shouldn't be either.

Something to Hide
We all have secrets. Whether it's something in our past or present. Something about the way we think and deal with the world. A desire we can't express. A conviction we outwardly hold and espouse and inwardly question. The secrets we keep from ourselves because we don't like what they say about us.

We all have something we hide that we think (rightfully or wrongfully) would change where we stand in society were it ever to be known.

Those are the big secrets. We all have them. We're all afraid of them. Your characters should have them too. They can add a layer of motivation and internal contradiction (oooh, more layers).

Then there's the little secrets. The casual lie. The false smile. The discomfort. The small self-contradictions that we're painfully aware of and don't let others see.

Every secret about your characters doesn't need to be earth-shattering (how does one shatter earth? Do you have to flash-freeze it first? Otherwise it sort of just... crumbles...). You don't have to include your own secrets within your characters (that'd be silly). But they do need to have secrets.

The best place you can dig in for a greater understanding of how secrets have an effect on behaviour is within you. Careful and thoughtful self-examination of your secrets and how you react to anything even slightly related, or even unrelated to them is a great place to start.

Our dear character Bruce has secrets.

He's in love with Beth's Vespa, they've had an on-again off-again thing going for months
He never took a driver's test
His real name isn't Bruce Lonerman, it's Bob Smith, but that didn't seem "actiony" enough
He doesn't own a cat. He's cat-sitting.
He's really an alien writing an entry on Earth for an interstellar travel guide

Nobody is Perfect
Ok. Except you. No... not you, the person beside you. Yes.

Perfect characters are boring. That's where the terms Mary Sue, and Wish Fulfillment come from. Characters written so perfect or flawless that they can't be real.

Flaws can range from emotional to physical. They can be as little as nail chewing, or as big as being a psychopath who works as a blood spatter expert by day and a vigilante by night. They can be out in the open for the world to see, or a tightly held secret. They can feed ego or insecurity. Flaws add nuance and depth.

Your character could be ambidextrous, but unable to tie their shoes or button their shirt without getting them misaligned at least twice. They could suck at metaphors (or similes). They could be a kleptomaniac, or a compulsive liar, or painfully blunt.

Flaws are what make a character an individual. The best flaws are the ones that run against your character's goals and motivations. Over the course of the story your character can grow and overcome some flaws, but they shouldn't overcome them all, especially if they're a defining flaw.

I won't add any flaws to Bruce at the moment, but you can see how some of the above would shape him into a different person and make him seem less wooden and contrived (OK, maybe dear Bruce isn't the greatest example).

All of the above will add depth to your characters and work together in layers. And if you want to do it right, you have to apply them to all your characters, not just your protagonist. Secondary characters (ones you don't get inside the head of that the protagonist interacts with regularly), and tertiary characters (ones who are big enough to warrant a name and a few lines of speech), all need at least a high pass for motivation.

And all characters, regardless of age, gender, or which side of the story they're on (protagonist vs. antagonist) deserve the same level of effort at adding depth.

Beyond that, your characters should never bend to the plot. Bad books and movies are full of characters who do incredibly stupid an unlikely things in service of the plot. If a character wouldn't do something, don't make them. Fix the story and find another way. It's a painful process, I know, I've been going through it myself with my current project, but it's a necessary exercise.

No one said this writing thing was easy.

Let me know what you think down in the comments!

-Alex

This is the fourth entry in a series of posts about my evolving writing process.

Brainstorming: Building on The Idea

2015-03-06T15:27:00.000-05:00

Let's pretend you have an idea. Don't be alarmed! It happens to the best of us.

Walk it off.

As I've pointed out before, sometimes you can't shake the idea off. It sticks to you. It won't go away. It keeps you up at night, like a dryer that squeals because it's lost that little felt ring that stops the metal drum from rubbing against the housing as it goes around and around and around squeaking and squealing intermittently until you jUSt cAn'T TAkE iT aNy mO.... ahem.

So. There's that. What do you do with the idea once you have it and it won't go away? What if, and this is a big if, What if you like the idea? As in, cute little kitten or puppy "like" the idea? I've found one of the best things to do in that case is to hide around a corner until it sticks out it's little head and then BASH IT IN with a crowbar!

The idea!!!! Not the puppy or kitten!!! NEVER the puppy or kitten!!!! You MONSTER!!!!

Now that you've subdued the idea, it's time to shape it into what you want it to be. Whether that's a soul-stretching, heart-wrenching, teary-eyed horror novel, or a pulse-pounding, hair-raising, can't-sleep-without-the-lights-on romance comedy, or any other sort of compound-modifying hyphenated-verbing, run-on-sentencing goodness... is entirely up to you. It's your idea to inflict upon the world.

Let's dig into the meat on how you could go about the exercise of expanding and improving on that idea.

To be fair, some of these processes will work better for Outliners than they will for Pantsers. Others should work just as well for anyone. I'm not covering how to build your entire story, only how to go about brainstorming a single idea. Of course, that idea could be a character, plot point, scene, world, what have you.

The key to story brainstorming is to ask questions, and then keep on asking questions. The same principle questions we were all taught in Primary School. Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. Take your idea and expand it by asking those questions. As for where you get the answers, there are a few avenues you can take. In all cases though, you should always consider looking past the first and obvious answer for a deeper, less expected answer.

And make notes (while you brainstorm, not while you read this post... unless you want to)! This is where I usually break out Scapple if I have my MacBook, or Google Keep if all I have is my phone.

Research
I used to think research was boring. Ok. In so many cases it still is. However! I've found that researching a topic that I'm genuinely interested in can be exciting. So much so that I've lost entire weeks worth of writing time digging into actual, real-live history research! I passed history in high-school with a 51%, exactly what I needed to never do it again!

That said, history isn't the only subject you can research. There's plenty of science, psychology, economics, and so many other things. I urge you to find reputable sources of information for any research you do. It's great to dig into something on the black hole that is Wikipedia, but make sure you source anything you intend to use. I'm not saying you need to put a bibliography at the end of your work (ugh). Just be warned that if you do put something that is both real and inaccurate into your story, people will call you on it.

Remember to take whatever you find and expand upon it even further by asking the principle questions, not only for how they fit the subject of the research, but for how it fits into your story.

Discussion
It never hurts to talk it out. I use this one all the time. My wife and kids hear about sticking points and ideas in my stories constantly. Often they don't even have to respond. Simply throwing it at them seems to help. That said, no one will find gaps or flaws you need to fix in an idea faster than someone who doesn't have a whole lot of context.

Try it. If they're paying attention, I guarantee no matter how much you explain it, they'll have some of those principle questions at the end. Those questions can be the grease that keeps your wheels turning.

A small caveat: One experiment I've tried that you may, or may not, want to avoid is picking a subject of debate and choosing a fixed and intentionally contrary point of view to present to people. Without proper framing and context, this can lead to some very heated arguments (which can still be good). Chances are you want the person you're discussing your idea with to still talk to you afterward.

Theft
Last week I covered some methods of kick-starting your idea engine (oooh, idea engines... sounds cool! I'm going to write that down). One of those methods involved theft. Theft is a fantastic way to expand upon an idea, but here you have to be careful, especially if you stole the idea in the first place. But as I always say: A little larceny is good for the soul. So let's work with theft.

You've got your idea. Find things that have something similar to that idea in it. If you stole the idea and you aren't intending to write fan fiction (and there's NOTHING wrong with writing fan fiction, it's a great way to exercise your writerly muscles), you should really look for similarities in something unrelated to your original source.

That doesn't mean you can't use the same source, but you're only making your work harder on yourself than it has to be. Oh! And comic books or adaptations/sources count as the SAME source, so no you can't claim that the Serenity comics are a different source than Firefly or the Serenity movie.

So, once you've found your source, dig in. Ingest a bunch of it, just like you did for finding the idea. Unlike that searching process, take notes on the ideas and tropes that flow through it. But try to stick to the points that directly relate to your idea, you don't want to steal more than you have to, or you're going to let someone else build your playground for you. You don't want that for an original work.

Then walk away from it and try to think of everything you loved and hated about it and write it down, but in this try to be non-specific.

For example: I've been watching a lot of Buffy and Angel on Netflix lately (I'm not justifying that here, Whedon is a master!). Taking the idea of "My main character is a monster hunter." my following lists could work for one or both.

Loved:
Tight-knit group of friends
Witty banter
Kick-ass fights (yes, they're cheesy, but fun)
Protagonist who just wants to be normal fighting against insurmountable odds
Real-life complications

Hated:
Chosen one
Destiny/Fate overtones
Whiny protagonist
Dumb predictable villains
Same old monsters

From that I get some pretty nice launching points that come back to the principle questions.

Who are their friends?

Where did they meet?
Do their friends know what they do?
What sort of conflict do these friendships create for the protagonist?
What do they talk about?

How do they fight?

Where did they learn to fight?
Are they good at fighting?

What do they want to do with their life if it's not fighting monsters?

What sort of hobbies do they have?

If they're not a "chosen one" how did they end up a monster hunter?

Why do they do it?
Why don't they stop?

What kind of monsters are they fighting?

What special methods are needed to fight those monsters?
Are they killing the monsters or trapping them?
What do they do with them once they're killed/caught?

And so on.

Last but not least...

Blending
This is one of my personal favourites. Take two ideas from wherever it is you hide them, and mash them together to see how they taste. Without such a genius method of creation we wouldn't have the wonders of Dark Chocolate covered Pretzels, Dinobots, Firefly, Star Wars, or Jim Butcher's Codex Alera.

The ideas don't even need to be similar to be made into something fantastic. The total can absolutely be greater than the sum of its parts. It may take some work to get two (or more) things to fit together, and all things likely won't fit together without getting a little bit creative. But you're a writer. That's what you do.

I use some or all of the above methods to build on things before I start writing, while I'm writing, and sometimes just for fun. Whatever methods you use, always chase the answers deeper. That's how you make a unique and compelling story.

Let me know what methods you use to expand upon your ideas down in the comments.

-Alex

This is the third entry in a series of posts about my evolving writing process.

The Idea: Something from nothing.

2015-02-27T21:26:00.002-05:00

It all starts with an idea. For me that means it can be a character, a scene, a theme, a line of dialog. You name it. That idea can be just about anything and can occur at any time. Which means it's usually in the shower, or while I'm driving, or in the wee hours of the morning when I'm supposed to be sleeping.

That idea is like a piece of sand caught by a clam... except I don't want to be a clam... how about the piece of grit at the heart of a raindrop... no, again, starting with dirt. It's like a random beautiful word, found in the heart of a dictionary, or one of those "word of the day" calendars... wow... NERD ALERT!

Anyway, it nags at me and needs me to do SOMETHING about it. So I'll turn it over in my head until I can write it down (where or how I write it down is very dependant on where I am and what I have available, see The tools I (mis)use).

Ok, so not all ideas are like that, but after it's written down I have one of two choices, dig into it now, or shelve it for later. The deciding factor is supposed to be whether or not I'm in the middle of writing something else. What it often ends up actually being is whether or not I can find some way to fit it into what I'm writing.

That's a key thing for me with "the idea". It doesn't wait for a decent time to show up. It doesn't wait for me to be sitting idly, daydreaming and wondering "What should I do next?". No. The idea is the drunken friend that calls me in the middle of the night, or shows up wearing nothing but a bathrobe and 3 days of unshaven, unwashed growth on their face smelling of stale beer and old cheese. The idea is inconsiderate of what I'm doing. It doesn't care whether or not now is a good time.

Basically, ideas are bastards. But they're my bastards, and I'll take them whenever and wherever they show up. Which is to say, often. I'll take them often. Because they never stop coming.

I'm never one to want for ideas. Writers block as it's depicted in movies and TV will likely never be my problem. Staying on track and moving forward with a single project to completion is... and not getting too caught up on my own insecurities is... but those are other stories.

However, if you're someone who struggles with finding an idea, there are a number of solutions. Want some suggestions?

Boredom!
You'd be amazed what going unplugged or simply letting your mind wander can do. Go primitive for a bit. No Twitter. No Facebook. No Wikipedia/Youtube/Tumblr black holes. Walk away from whatever is on those screens and get BORED. Let your mind wander. You'd be amazed what you can come up with.

Another option?
Theft!
It worked for Shakespeare! Even Star Wars (the original trilogy) is largely stolen from The Seven Samurai (which itself is based loosely on Japanese folklore), which of course also spawned The Magnificent Seven and about a bajillion other stories. Retellings are EVERYWHERE, and how obvious they are all depends on how good of a job the writer performing the retelling does at filing off the serial numbers and making it their own.

Chuck Palahniuk claims that Fight Club (the book) is a retelling of The Great Gatsby, and as someone who's read both, I certainly couldn't tell.

The key point to stealing an idea is to make it your own. Steal just the idea, not the entire plot, or cast of characters, or setting. You can steal the nuances of all of them to one degree or another, but the more you twist the original into your own thing, the better it will be for both you as a writer, and for your audience. But that's getting into brainstorming.

The last suggestion?
What if?
Simply put, take a situation, or technology, or existing story and ask the question What if...? I LOVED Marvel's What If? comics growing up. They took my favourite superheroes and asked often ridiculous questions. What if Spider-Man was more spider than man? What if certain heroes had been villains? etc. Many of their "What if?" scenarios intrigued them so much that they eventually became Marvel canon (Bruce Banner's brain in the Hulk's body...).

There are a few ways to go about this yourself. A technique I'd recommend, is to ingest a lot of information about something. Whether it's by reading a bunch of books (fiction or non-fiction), digging into some articles about new tech, binge watching a TV series, or reading an entire comic book run.

Whatever you do, just pack in a bunch of something if you can. Then ask the question: What if?
What if the heroes lost?
What if this technology was exploited for the best possible reasons?
What if this technology was exploited for the worst possible reasons?
What if this technology/product/cure was extremely effective/ineffective cheap/expensive safe/dangerous?
What if the government had made this ruling?
What if Indiana Jones had been a woman?
What if the radioactive spider had bitten Gwen Stacey instead of Peter Parker?
What if the apes/spiders/cats/tree frogs tried to rise up and take over the world?

Some of the BEST stories come out of that simple question. And it's a question you should continue to ask throughout the writing and revision process.

These are by no means the ONLY methods of generating ideas. They're just a starting point. But, you get the idea...

What are your techniques for generating ideas? Let me know in the comments.

- Alex

This is the second entry in a series of posts about my evolving writing process.

The Tools I (mis-)Use

2015-02-20T21:33:00.000-05:00

I'm kicking things off by laying the groundwork. These are the tools that I currently (mis-)use to go from idea nugget to final draft (well, as final as I've made it so far). I may come back and update this post in the future, if/when I do I'll be sure to highlight any changes and why they've occurred.

Software:
Scrivener 2
I first started using Scrivener for NaNoWriMo. I'd seen a web demo of it as part of the NaNo prep and instantly fell in love with ONE feature, the full-screen "Compose" view that I still use to this day. Literature and Latte often (if not always) provide a free NaNo demo version and a hefty discount on the full version as one of the NaNo rewards.

What "Compose" does is put you one on one with your words. It clears away all the other parts of the UI (except any floating Scrivener windows you pull up such as Project Targets). It was exactly what I needed to be able to concentrate on getting words down.

Since that fateful November I've come to use more of Scrivener's features such as labels, notes, synopsis cards, the binder, text statistics (including a handy word frequency chart), and its more than robust compiler that lets me turn my MS into various other formats (epub, mobi, docx, rtf, etc.).

There's so much more to this software that I haven't even begun to experiment with, but working without the tools that I use already would seriously hamper how quickly I write (which still isn't fast enough).

Scapple
Another Literature and Latte product, I've replaced my previous mind-mapping/whiteboard software with Scapple because of some of its integration with Scrivener 2.

Scapple, while simpler than other mind-mapping software, provides me with all the features I need, which is a very basic free-form mind-mapping software that I can drop text, documents, and images into.

I use it for outlining, detailing scenes, and connecting plot-points and characters during my brainstorming sessions. It also does a great job of making confusing and busy-looking spider-webs of text that scare people away when I'm working on them... but that has more to do with my (dis)organizational methods than the software itself.

Google Keep
I'm an Android user, plain and simple. I prefer Android phones and tablets to iOS. In that vein, when I went looking for a light-weight note-taking app that allowed me to fire off quick cloud-based notes from a browser or app, using a keyboard or voice dictation (with both an audio recording and passable speech-to-text), Google Keep was exactly what I needed.

Instead of carrying a trendy little Moleskin notebook in an oversized pocket or an equally trendy satchel carrier bag, I can simply carry my phone. Which I can shout at in the car. It doesn't look that crazy.

Google Keep also syncs it across all my various devices (yay cloud) so I don't have to go searching for whatever device I made the notes on.

Apple Pages
Like Microsoft Word, Apple Pages is a fairly full-featured word processor that's available on my iPad Air 2 and MacBook Pro.

With the addition of Handoff, a Mac OSX 10.10/iOS8 real-time file-in-progress push between the two, and I can start writing on one device and immediately pick it up on another. Throw in that Apple made it free on both platforms (with the latest OS updates) and I was sold.

Microsoft Word
Word is what I grew up on and use on a daily basis in the day job. When it comes to revising and reviewing feedback and markup Word is still where I'm comfortable and I know the formatting won't be screwed up when I send the files to other Word users. Someday Word may fall off this list, but for now it has a pretty comfortable and safe spot.

Dropbox
A life-saver. Combining Dropbox, which is a cloud-storage service, with Scrivener and almost all the rest of these tools, means I can work practically anywhere with any device. It also gives me the peace of mind I need, knowing that not only is my data backed up, but if I somehow corrupt or otherwise blow up my MS I can restore a previous version.

On top of those benefits, unlike certain other cloud storage services, Dropbox leaves and updates local copies to my various machines, so in the event that the internet isn't accessible I can still get my work done.

TiddlyWiki
This is the latest addition to this list. TiddlyWiki is a local (or online) light weight personal wiki. I picked it up when I started working on the sequel to Crow's Blood, and it's a far superior method of tracking semi-important details consistent (character descriptions, magic systems, fictional history, place descriptions, etc.). Because keeping all your details straight is important for some reason.

As with any wiki language, there's a bit of a learning curve to get going, but TiddlyWiki keeps it easier than some of the other ones I tried, while offering a robust enough base to do what I need.

Twitter
Twitter gets an honourable mention because it's an integral part of what stops me from losing my mind or running in circles of self-doubt. Writing is, by nature, a solitary craft. Twitter lets me find and chat with a community of writers at all stages of the process for support and conversation.

Hardware:
MacBook Pro
My MacBook Pro is my workhorse! I love the keyboard because typing on it is effortless. There's no "clack" (which I know some people love) and the resistance is just right. Then there's the trackpad, which is something you'd think one of the myriad of OEM's in the laptop space would have come close to, but they haven't. It's true what they say once you go Mac you never go back...

Unless it's for games, but even then you can't find better laptop hardware to run Windows...

Moto X
As I said earlier, I'm an Android user, and this is my phone (one of them anyway). The dedicated voice processing unit built into this phone does WONDERS for taking dictation in my overly noisy commute.

iPad Air 2 with my Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard
Wait... what? Didn't I say I was an Android user? Well... I am. My "play" tablet is, and always will be an Android tablet (currently an Asus Transformer).

But my iPad makes for better productivity. It's lightweight and mobile in ways that even my MacBook Pro isn't. And unlike my Android tablet, it has everything I need for writing, even its limitations play into making me more productive (here's looking at you frustrating one-task-at-a-time UI). It also has Pages which I mention above, and very few games that I want to sink a lot of time into (which means less distraction).

It makes for interesting trips through airport security. I have to explain why I carry 2 tablets, a laptop, and 2 phones (personal and business). Every. Single. Time.

Other:
Coffee
Because staying awake is important.

These are the tools I currently use in all aspects of my writing. Looking at them I'm sure there are plenty of more efficient ways to do what needs to be done. Maybe someday I'll find them.

Let me know what tools you use, or think I could put to better use, in the comments.

- Alex

This is the first entry in a series of posts about my evolving writing process.

Warning: Incoming Blog Posts

2015-02-19T11:51:00.001-05:00

So. Here's the deal:
I've been mulling and tumbling ideas for a series of blog posts around in my noggin for a LONG time about how my writing process itself is developing and changing. Both as an insight into how I do things now and how much work goes into my writing, and as a possible source of feedback.

That's right, comments and feedback on this upcoming series of posts will be greatly appreciated. I'm looking to as much to learn and improve my craft and processes as I am to tell others about them. As much as I may play at being awesome and perfect, the truth is that I'm not.

No, no! Stop weeping and tearing at your hair. It's true.

You see, I've been having a bit of performance anxiety. Before Crow's Blood I'd never written a novel before. I was an infrequent short story writer. And people that have seen CB seem to like it. It even got me an awesome agent! I'm terrified to my bones that CB2 won't live up to it. That it'll be my sophomore slump. And I don't want that (who would?).

What that all means is that I don't have a solid process to work from. I have pieces here and there, tools that I use and have found immensely helpful, and very specific ways that I do certain things. I'm looking to improve on it all, and the best way to do that is to write it all out and (hopefully) get feedback.

Topics I intend to cover (and this is by no means a static list, things may be moved around, added, or combined as I go along):

The Tools I (mis)Use
The Idea: Something from nothing.
Brainstorming: Expanding the idea.
Characters and Characterization: Who are these people?
Plot: Where are we going and why are we in this hand-basket?
Outlining vs Pantsing: Why choose just one?
Worldbuilding: It's in the details.
Revising

New Year! New Look!

2015-01-08T23:58:00.000-05:00

I've been running this blog (poorly and inconsistently) for 4.5 years now. And it has had the same theme and layout from the time of that first post.

Sure there have been little tweaks here and there, mostly with the gadgets you see to the right, and the addition of my beloved Movie List and About pages. But let's be honest with each other. I think we've earned that at this point in our relationship (unless you're someone visiting my blog for the first time... Then: AWKWARD). My old theme was stale, and it really wasn't the easiest to read.

I hope I've improved on both the look and feel, and functionality of the page. I trimmed a lot of the fat, and spent a ridiculous amount of time and effort building that little "Follow Me" gadget on the right (mostly spent in image manipulation).

The key thing to remember is that my list of qualifications does not include "Graphic Designer", and I don't even have to pull up my resume to check. It's one of those things I just know deep down in my bones. So your feedback is more than welcome.

How did I do? Does it look alright (especially the colours, I'm chromatically challenged)? Is it usable? Is something missing/broken/doing something completely unexpected (such as opening a cavernous maw beneath your basement stairs? Go check. I'll wait...).

Let me know in the comments.

P.S. I'll give you all a writing update tomorrow.

That does it! NaNoWriMo 2014 is a Wrap!

2014-11-30T22:52:00.002-05:00

This year I cut it closer than any other year. Instead of finishing a few days early, with bursts of productivity throughout the month and gaps where I fell behind, I kept a fairly steady pace. Plodding along (Ha! As if I just described 1,667 words a day as plodding!), until I crossed the line a few short minutes ago.

That's right I've done it! I won NaNoWriMo (and I got this nice little banner to prove it, because we all know miscellaneous images from the internet proves things! Oh, and the banner is a link.)

Now. That said, there are likely some of you that didn't participate in NaNoWriMo, or perhaps some that did participate and didn't cross the 50,000 word threshold. Well. You want to know the truth?

It doesn't matter.

That's right. I said it right here, and my word is law (on this blog anyway).

NaNoWriMo isn't really about writing 50,000 words in 30 days. Ok, well it is. Sort of. But not really. Nay! The point of NaNoWriMo is to (follow along with me here) build good writing habits.

Whether those habits are:

250 words a day, 7 days a week

500 words a day, 5 days a week

1,667 words a day, 7 days a week

or Eleventy-bajillion words a day, 3 days a week

What matters is consistency and habit, and learning deep down, that if you chip away at something a little each day you can do it.

Let's look at what a novel is at face value, and for the sake of argument I'll throw away my usual target of ~100,000 words and go with NaNo's 50,000 words.

50,000 is still a BIG number. There are roughly 250 words per printed page in a paperback novel. That means there are roughly 200 pages in a 50,000 word book. It's not a door stop, but we're not talking about a flimsy pamphlet either.

Starting at 0 words, putting together 50,000 of them seems nigh impossible. But, 1,667 (the daily goal of NaNoWriMo)? That's not TOO bad. I can write that in a few hours (or less if I have a really good outline and no interruptions).

After day 2? I've got a little over 3,000 words. After day 9? I've got 15,000 words. That's a BIG number right there, in a little over a week.

I likely never would have finished Crow's Blood (the idea for which came out of a NaNo novel) were it not for NaNoWriMo teaching me that chipping away at the big number with a pile of little numbers would actually get me there. I learned that I could write a full length novel.

Now, that's not to say that this year's story is done (not by a long shot), or that the 50,000 words I've written are any good. It's a Zero-draft, chances are a lot of those words are due to be scrapped and replaced with better ones in the first revision pass (and I'll do MANY revision passes). But I find it a LOT easier to revise something that exists on the page, and it's good writing habits that get them there in the first place.

Even if you don't cross that 50,000 word line to "win" NaNoWriMo, as long as you worked consistently toward the goal of writing your novel, and learned some of those good writing habits, you're still a winner.

So for everyone who partook in this month of writing dangerously and developed those good writing habits along the way.

Here. Have a Wordasaurus! You earned it.

Did you participate in NaNoWriMo? How did you do?

A Few Quick Thoughts on NaNoWriMo

2014-11-05T23:38:00.001-05:00

First, in case you've been living under a rock (or you're someone who follows, or is visiting this blog, not because you want to mine it for amazing little golden wisdom and insight nuggets about writing, but because you know ME personally):
NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. It's a bit of a misnomer, but InNoWriMo (International Novel Writing Month) and GloNoWriMo (Global Novel Writing Month) don't roll off the tongue as nicely... scratch that, GloNoWriMo is still kind of awesome! It takes place in the month of November every year and the goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days, or ~1,667 words/~6.67 manuscript pages a day.

You don't have to be some sort of mythical "writer" beast to be able to participate. Writing isn't magical. Stories don't burst forth from our heads fully formed and flapping their leathery wings. Writing is work. It starts with a cool idea, or a character, or a setting, or even as little as a really awesome one-liner. From there it's a building process, one keystroke at a time.

This is my 4th year participating, and I've reached the 50,000 word goal every year. It takes me anywhere from an hour and a bit to three hours to write 1,667 words, mostly because I have a hard time shutting my internal editor out entirely.

I've had varied reactions to doing NaNo this year. Writer folks have all cheered me on and talked about doing it themselves (which is cool), or why they're not doing it (which is also cool). Non-Writer folks have been split. Those who don't know me as well as they should simply ask "why?", especially when they see my recent announcement. Those who know me well know that I LOVE the challenge and dabbling in the community that shared pressure and experience brings.

NaNoWriMo isn't about writing the next Harry Potter. It's about building good habits and reaching the stunning realization that YES, you can write a novel. 50,000 words is a big number. And NaNo is all about showing that it is possible to write that many words in a reasonable amount of time. It's a few hours a day, tops, for a month.

And if you don't reach 50,000 words? Big deal! The real key, the point behind this whole exercise, is to form good writing habits. Sit your ass down in front of a keyboard, find your head-space, shut down Twitter and Facebook, close your web browser, and write. If you can do that consistently for 30 days then word count be damned, you win!

A few caveats for you, my fellow writers:
Crossing that 50,000 word finish line on, or before, or even after the 30th feels fantastic. It's a rush! But even if you've written "The End" you are not done your novel. DO NOT QUERY! DO NOT SELF-PUBLISH! That way lies ruination and heartache!

You see, 50,000 words used to be a novel. These days it's a Novella, with the actual word count of a novel falling somewhere between 60,000 words (literary works, cozy mysteries, contemporary YA, romance, etc.) to 110,000 words, which is roughly the maximum you can get away with for a debut Epic Fantasy or Science Fiction novel.

For the sake of argument, let's say you've typed "The End", be it at the close of your 50,000 word Novella, or your 110,000 word Epic Fantasy. BOOM! That's awesome. Now, before you send it off:

Step away from the keyboard!

Go get a drink, or take your family/friends/self out for dinner. You deserve it! You wrote a NOVEL(LA)!!!! Don't worry, I'll be here when you get back.

*****

Back? Fantastic! Now that you've had time to blow off some of the endorphins that had you rocketing to the moon it's time to get real. What you have on your hands is (almost definitely) not ready to go out. It needs a good revision or two (or 5) to whip it into that sort of shape.

Provided your dinner break earlier wasn't on the scale of days or weeks, you're likely going to need some distance to do it right. Not every writer does, but most of us need to get away from a story and come back to it as a bit of a stranger to be able to sort the gold from the muck. Go work on a different story, or write vignettes, or character studies. Whatever you do though:

KEEP WRITING!

I'll see you later, I have to go register GloNoWriMo.org and get some words written.

A Matter of Queries and Representation

2014-10-17T12:38:00.000-04:00

What a week and a half it's been!

I apologize in advance for any meandering, poor spelling, punctuation, or grammatical errors you may find in this post. I don't sleep well on a normal day (what is a normal day anyway?). The past 10 days my abilities to ward off restful sleep have been exceptional. This is a superpower you do NOT want.

Before I get into my big news (and it's big, let me tell you, it's BIG), let me give you a bit of background.

I don't query randomly. Every single agent that I've ever queried is someone that I genuinely think would be a great fit for both my writing and, more importantly, me. That's of course all based on the limited information I can gather by Googling, reading interviews, stalking on Twitter, and chatting them up.

There are a LOT of fantastic agents out there, of all stripes (and spots, and paisley, and I suppose houndstooth...).

That said, everything has to click in both directions. I have enough rejections from those same agents citing "wonderful writing/world building/characters/other words describing stories" but they just didn't "make the connection" (or some variant thereof) to wallpaper my office and some surrounding surfaces.

They came fast and fairly consistently at first. I'd query, and then receive a rejection the next day or week.

I went back and rewrote my base query letter (I tweaked it a little for every agent). Responses went from generic forms to personalized responses (not all of them, but some). I even had a few requests for partial submissions.

Following that path I continue to tweak and tinker my query, all the while continuing to get further input on CROW'S BLOOD from my awesome Alpha/Beta Readers (including my wonderful wife, who put up with so MANY drafts) and Critique Partners (Colten,
Rachel, and Clare) and worked to make it better.

I entered CROW'S BLOOD in contests. You know the best part about contests? The community and support that comes out of them. They're a fixed point. Everyone entering is (in theory) at the same point of their writing process and/or career as you are. They know what you're going through, they're doing it too.

Renee Ahdieh chose to mentor me in Brenda Drake's Pitch Wars. With her helpful pokes and prods I polished CROW'S BLOOD even further. Trimming out a few scenes that were so necessary in my head (I'd done so much world building to support them!) that weren't actually needed in the book. She's also a master at spotting my Shatner Commas and teaching me to identify them as well (I've removed 3 from this paragraph alone).

Last week I got wind of an agent I really liked reading my full... MY FULL!!! Excitement warred with dread. What if he didn't like it? What if I didn't stick the landing? I wanted to scream (politely) "If you find anything drastic, I'll fix it!". But I didn't. Because I am a professional! (stop laughing!)

I waited, and slept poorly, and waited.

Thursday was a normal day (there's that "normal" word again). Things teetered on the edge of going oh-so-perfectly and/or blowing up spectacularly at my day job. I was packing up to go home when my phone sounded the "email in the writing mailbox" notification (it doesn't say that, but it is distinctive).

It was an Offer of Representation! He wanted to have "The Call".

I hyperventilated for the first (and hopefully last) time in my life. I had an offer! From an agent!!! I remember thinking "Ok I need to get my head on straight before I reply so I don't come off as a complete idiot..." I barely remember the drive home.

After dinner (I have no idea what, or if, I ate) I painstakingly crafted my reply. It took me 35 minutes to write and edit that email.

"I'd love to chat." (I'm paraphrasing, but that was about the level of awesome I was functioning at). We scheduled for the next morning.

The call was awesome. I acted like a complete noob while trying to be all professional and cool. The agent in question handled the situation like I was a sane and perfectly functioning adult.

He answered all of my questions and asked a few of his own (which I think/hope I answered). I let him know I had some other Fulls out and needed a week to get those settled before I signed (because it's the right thing to do), which he was completely cool with. We ended the call, and I sat there, stunned, for a good 30 minutes before reaching out to the other agents with my full.

Here we are, a week after that call. I've badgered several agents with questions and clarifications, and I've communicated and settled everything with each and every agent that had my full, a partial, or even a query. I won't go into details on all of that here, they're not the point.

Today, I'm proud/pleased/excited to say:

I am now represented by Leon Husock of the L. Perkins Agency!

P.S. Leon said to save some of my celebratory antics for when we sell CROW'S BLOOD.
To which I say:
Leon, this is nothing. When that happens, the world won't know what hit it!

I'm going to sleep now.

The 777 Blog Hop

2014-10-08T22:07:00.000-04:00

In what can only be described as cold-brewed wanton and impish revenge for calling him out in my ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, Colten Hibbs has tagged me in the 777 Blog Hop.

Those who have been tagged have to open their current work-in-progress (WIP), and go to the 7th line of the 7th page and post the next 7 lines.

My current work in progress is a Sci-Fi Noir Detective story I'm affectionately giving the working title "Sci-Fi Noir Detective Story". It's on it's Zero-Draft.

If you're unfamiliar with that term Zero-Draft, it's the very first, very rough draft that's written at the beginning of any project. It'll be full of holes, notes, dead ends, incomplete arcs, crappy repetitive language, eye-bleedingly-bad punctuation and prose, and worst of all... stilted dialog!

After spinning my wheels on some of the characterization and motivation (which will all change by the end of the Zero-Draft), I'm about ~6,500 words ( ~26 pages) into actual writing, and about 1/10th of the way through my outline.

I'm a sparse writer, beginning with a skeletal framework and layering description on top of it, so my manuscripts tend to remain relatively spare through several revisions. Luckily, the 7 lines that this Blog Hop highlights aren't affected much.

Without further ado:

The speaker, Kats wasn’t sure whether she was Cross or Cork, let out a long breath. “Out of the ordinary? That’s Incidental territory. Those bastards wouldn’t know ordinary if it landed on their dinner table.

The Nature’s Path, or Incidentals as their detractors called them, were a decades old movement that denied the benefits of genetic enhancement and error correction. They’d swelled in numbers for the first twenty years or so, then levelled off at around four percent of the population. Very few Incidentals ever held jobs higher than bottom rung maintenance positions.

Despite their relatively similar social status, Tankers like Kats were as far removed from the Nature’s Path as it was possible to be.

Anything in that passage is subject to change, in whole or in part. I may even remove it from my manuscript with fire and brimstone at any time of my choosing.

I Refuse to Aspire Any Longer

2014-09-01T20:50:00.001-04:00

Time for an untimely blog post (because that's what I do lately when I'm in the throes of writing). This will hopefully be a short one (or not, depends on whether or not I get wind-baggy. The fact that this is the second parentheses in as many sentences does not bode well for that).

I've unceremoniously obliterated the word "Aspiring" from this blog's title. I've had enough. I refuse to "aspire" to be a writer any more. I've spent the better part of 4 years... that's right...
FOUR...
YEARS...
..."aspiring" to be a writer.

I've written a longer-than-novel length work. Re-written it from the ground up with a new main character and a tighter plot. Revised that 6 times and pared it down. Polished it. Had it Critiqued. Re-polished it. Queried it. Received a mountain of rejections. Received more than a few requests for more pages. I've even sent out a few full manuscripts when they were requested. I've received rejections on those.

More than that, I've written other stuff. I have outlines and "voice/character" vignettes written for four more books. I've written 45,000 words on one of them and 16,000 words on another. All while "aspiring" to be a writer.

Well, I quit. I'm done. No more. This "aspiring writer" thing is for chumps and I'm not going to play that game. I'm taking that ball and going home.

I have better things to do with my time.

Like being an actual writer. Lets get down to the point of the matter. I haven't been "aspiring" to be a writer since that first time I wrote "the end" (all in lower case, just like that) at the end of a ~140,000 word manuscript. It didn't have to be that long (it's now ~91,000 words), but it was. And I made it start to finish (not necessarily in that order).

So it's time I got honest, not just with you, fair readers (few as you are, you're important enough to be honest with), but also to myself. I'm not "aspiring" to be a writer any more. That's not a label I can hide behind whenever someone doesn't take my writing seriously. Playing off it as some sort of self-effacing joke.

It doesn't matter that I'm not published (yet!). It doesn't matter that I don't have an agent (yet!).

I take my writing very seriously. This is not a hobby for me (and it's fine if it is for other people). I will continue down this path, working to improve my craft.

I am a writer. I don't have time to aspire.

- Alex