I’m approaching the revision process for the last two books of The Steam and Steel Chronicles, and thought I might share my revision process, as it stands now. It’s based on Holly Lisle’s One-Pass Manuscript Revision process (I highly recommend reading that post before you finish this one—go ahead, I’ll wait), though I’ve made a number of tweaks to it that fit my own way of writing and revising.

A couple of points before I begin, though:

1. One-pass revision is probably not going to work well for first-time novelists or first-time revisers. If you’ve never revised a novel or if this is your first novel, you’re almost certainly going to need to do more than one pass. That’s okay.
2. You need to figure out what method works best for you. If you prefer to go over your manuscript ten times, then that’s fine. Personally, I don’t. My goal is to continue writing new things, and get the old things as perfect as is reasonable in as little time as is possible. That means 1-2 revision cycles, tops.

So, without further ado, here is my method: Read the rest of this entry »

I spend a lot of time on writer’s forums (probably more than I should). Absolute Write is one of my favorites, as are the NaNoWriMo forums until they die out sometime around the holidays (they don’t actually die out, but they do become a lot less active). I’ve been active on various others at times, too.

I enjoy writing forums, and I enjoy interacting with other writers. Especially since I work at home and have very little interaction with the outside world on a daily basis. But there are some questions that get asked on a recurring basis, with slight variations each time, that kind of bug me (maybe it’s just because I’ve spent way too much time on these forums, and so it all seems a bit repetitive to me). Read the rest of this entry »

After reading this post over on John August’s blog, about what his writing routine is, I thought I might write the same kind of post to detail my own writing habits. I write for a living, both blog articles and copywriting, as well as do some blog editing. On the side, I write novels, novellas, and screenplays. I’ve also written two non-fiction books.

When and Where Do You Write?

I start my writing day sometime between 7:30 and 9:00 every morning. I’m most productive when I get to my desk before 8:00, but that doesn’t always happen. The bulk of my work writing is done at my desk. It’s a giant wooden desk I salvaged from the magazine where I used to work, and was used by my late editor. I like to think that it has good vibes left over from him.

I start with email and checking social media. Then I usually get down to researching whatever it is I need to write for the day. I usually start out with some kind of outline, even if it’s just a handful of bullet points, and then I get down to actually writing. Many posts I can finish in a single day, though some take longer. Books are a different story entirely.

I break for a quick lunch sometime between 11:00 and noon. I’m usually back at my desk within about 20 minutes, and sometimes I even eat at my desk. Then it’s usually back to work until 2:00 or 3:00 at least. At that time, I usually take a break. Sometimes I have errands to run, while other times I just watch a little TV or take a walk. Depends on the day. I’ll work for another hour or two before dinner (we usually eat between 4:00 and 5:00), and then, depending on whether I finished my work for the day or not, I’ll either go back to my office for a couple more hours or I’ll bring my laptop into the living room, and either do more work or spend time doing other things online.

My fiction writing is mostly done either first thing in the morning, on breaks during the day, or just before bed. Read the rest of this entry »

This is one of those things I keep hearing from writers, all over the internet. And I have to say that it drives me crazy. Fucking crazy.

There is a time and a place for swearing in writing (and in real life, I might add). Not every character you have is going to swear like a trucker. But some of them might. And if that’s what they would say in real life, then that’s what they should say in your book. Doesn’t matter if what they’d say is “fudge” or “motherfucker”. If they’d say it, it’s your responsibility as a writer to write it. Read the rest of this entry »

NaNoWriMo officially starts in less than three weeks! I’ll be participating again, this time hopefully finishing up the third and fourth books of The Steam and Steel Chronicles. I feel like I’ve finally got some plot issues tied up in my head, so I can move forward with it. The thing is, when I wrote the first two books last year (for NaNoWriMo), I didn’t really have an overall story arc in mind. I just sort of threw everything in there and waited to see what stuck.

So now I’ve got all these potential plot threads that need to be tied up in the third and fourth books (I’m thinking those will finish the story, though I’m also planning a short story or two that will take place between books one and two). I’m not one to just let things go unanswered, and I want to make sure that things people liked in the first two books are featured again in the third and fourth books, without being shoehorned in. I’ve got them all figured out now, though, so I’m eager to get writing again!

But I wanted to put together a guide for surviving (and even winning) NaNoWriMo. I’m hoping it will be useful whether you’re a NaNo veteran or a first-timer. Read the rest of this entry »

New and old writers alike are often stopped in their tracks at the mention of The Demon Writer’s Block™. Every time they have a hard time writing, they fear it’s the beginning of The Demon Writer’s Block™ and that their writing career is effectively over.

I once claimed that I had The Demon Writer’s Block™ for six years. SIX YEARS! And it’s true that for roughly six years I didn’t really write anything. But that wasn’t The Demon Writer’s Block™. It was due to other factors, including that I just wasn’t putting in the effort. It’s that whole BIC (Butt In Chair) strategy that I just didn’t get at that time.

Now, just because there’s no such thing as The Demon Writer’s Block™ doesn’t mean that there aren’t reasons why you’re having a hard time writing (or why you can’t write at all). But we’ve built The Demon Writer’s Block™ up into this mythical being, a metaphorical demon binding our hands, preventing us from getting anything done at all. And that’s not the case. In fact, there are two relatively mundane things that contribute to so-called “writer’s block”. Both are, more or less, manageable once you’re aware that they exist.

So, what are these two all-powerful things that can control our writing productivity (if we let them)? Read the rest of this entry »

I have to vent for a minute. I’m going to call it venting rather than ranting, because it’s not something I’m really upset about, just something that annoys me. Here goes:

I’m a somewhat-active member of a handful of writing forums. Most of these places are great sources of advice and encouragement. But there’s one piece of advice I see over and over again that just annoys the crap out of me. It annoys me because it’s no longer a valid answer. What is this incredibly-annoying bit of wisdom that is imparted so often as to reach the status of annoying, you might ask?

“Don’t worry, your agent/publisher will probably change it,” (or can advise you about changing it, or will do it for you) or even worse: “Don’t worry, your agent/publisher will fix it.”

Most often, these little gems are offered to people concerned with their book’s title. Or with pen names. Occasionally it’s said about other things relating to your book (often on the marketing end of things).

Ladies and gentlemen, that advice just doesn’t apply anymore. There are a few reasons for this:

1. The legacy publishing world is more and more competitive every day. That means if there’s anything that needs to be fixed or even changed in some cases, you’ve already lost the battle.
2. NOT EVERYONE WANTS A LEGACY PUBLISHER OR AN AGENT.

Ten years ago, it would have been a pretty safe bet to say that 99% of people on writing forums and in writing groups were looking for a legacy publisher or a literary agent and wouldn’t consider self-publishing. Now, I’d say that number is a lot lower. I’d say 50% or more are considering both, and a smaller percentage don’t want anything to do with legacy publishing.

So please, when you’re giving advice to people on writing forums (or elsewhere), don’t offer that as real advice. Just because you’re looking for a legacy publisher doesn’t mean everyone else is. Consider that a lot of people are voluntarily striking out on their own, without the help or guidance of a publisher or agent, and that they’re happy about this (and often successful at it).

Okay, vent over. Hope everyone has a great 4th of July (in the US, or a great week if you’re not in the States)!

So I’m finishing up the edits on The Smashing Idea Book this weekend. I’ve got two chapters left to finish, and I decided to do what I thought was going to be a major revision on part of one of those chapters, basically combining two sections and cutting part of each. It’s been intimidating just thinking about this bit of revision, because it felt like such a huge change. I’ve sat here in front of my MacBook for hours just staring at the chapter, trying to figure out how to combine these two parts and make it all make sense and sound like it was meant to be that way all along.

I was getting nowhere. My deadline is tomorrow. I do not miss deadlines unless there’s something horribly, horribly wrong. I’m not about to start now.

Finally, I copied and pasted the two offending sections into a new document and printed them out. It’s only about nine paragraphs total, and it fit on a single page.

It took me ten minutes to do the necessary edits on paper. Ten. Minutes. After I’d spent hours looking at a screen and feeling very, very discouraged. What felt like a HUGE edit turned out to be rephrasing five sentences, adding one sentence, and moving three paragraphs. That’s it. That’s all it took.

I couldn’t see that when it was on my screen. I couldn’t get a glimpse of the big picture, and instead kept trying to focus on each individual part. Once it was on paper, in front of me, it immediately became apparent that the content wasn’t as disjointed between the two sections as I’d feared.

The moral of all this is that if you’re stuck on something during the editing process, try changing formats. Print it out. Upload it to your e-reader. Change the font. It will give you a new perspective and sometimes make what seemed like a daunting challenge a whole lot easier.

I’m going to share a dirty little secret here: I love gossip. There. I said it. Do I feel better? Probably not. I feel like I need to explain my love of gossip.

First of all, I’m not talking about celebrity gossip. Of that I couldn’t care less. What I’m talking about is gossip about real people, sometimes even people I know. But here’s where my motivations for loving gossip differs from that of 99% of gossip-lovers.

I love gossip because of the insight it gives into the human condition (I hate that term, but it’s the closest I could come to what I mean). As a writer, I study people. I study how they act, how they think, how the react, and how they interact with one another. I study how things make them feel. I study the things they do, rational or not. And because of that, gossip is a wealth of anthropological information. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m working on a new novel (not one of The Steam and Steel Chronicles novellas—don’t worry, I’m still working on the series and still plan on keeping with the original publishing schedule), and am trying some slightly different writing methods. In the past, I’ve always been a very linear writer: I start at the beginning and I end up at the end. Only once have I written out of order, but even then I just wrote the last two scenes, and then started at the beginning and wrote straight through.

This time I’m trying something different. I’ve got the first three chapters done, but beyond that I’ve just been writing scenes as I think of them. I have a rough outline for what should be the first half of the book (which may or may not be a two- or three-book series, I haven’t gotten that far yet), and I’m just kind of writing scenes as I feel like writing them. The plan is to get all the scenes in the first 1/2 to 2/3 of the book written, and then revise them into the correct order and write straight through to the end of the book from there. Read the rest of this entry »