What Is Kindle Scout?

Over the last few months, I've been posting about my Kindle Scout experience at Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. This post originally appeared on their blog in May. This version is slightly edited from the original and discusses my decision to enter the book for a Scout campaign.

Call Me Zhenya is a full-length paranormal romance novel about spies who’ve been genetically altered to have special powers. The hero is a Russian werewolf; the heroine is an American super-brain. Together, they fight crime!

I wrote this book quite some time ago, then spent a lot of time editing and fine-tuning, but mostly ignoring it while I worked on other things that were already contracted. In the back of my mind, I always thought maybe I’d send it to the Amazon contest, or find some other semi-unconventional place for it.

Then Kindle Scout came along. This is a crowdsourced publishing platform—you put your book up, cover and all, and people vote you up or down for a publishing contract. Amazon’s editors then evaluate the books and pick the ones they want for publication. Publication is not entirely based on how many votes you get—KS is looking for well-written work that doesn’t require massive editing.

So KS ended up in the back of my mind, too. But when I finally decided it was time to do something with the book, I submitted it to a lot of traditional places first. I really felt it was one of the more mainstream-type books I’d written in a long time (HA HA HA HA I used “I” and “mainstream” in the same sentence pardon me), and might just have a chance with agents/publishers.

Apparently not. The responses I got were either, “This doesn’t suit our needs at this time,” or “Wow, I liked this a lot, but it doesn’t fit our line/paranormal isn’t selling right now.”

So, after numerous rejections, I decided to move on, and now I’m preparing the manuscript for Kindle Scout. I have some misgivings, but then I always have misgivings (“Do you really have sufficient justification to eat lunch right now?” “Are you sure you really need to stop what you’re doing and go to the bathroom?”). Aren’t you glad you don’t live in my head?

On to some meaty stuff:

Kindle Scout offers a good many pros and not many cons that I could see. The manuscript has to be unpublished—not even on a blog or Wattpad, for example. You also have to be sure you’ve done all the heavy lifting editing-wise, and you have to supply your own cover. Then, during the voting process, you have to run some marketing to get votes. If you’re chosen, you get an advance of $1500 plus Amazon’s marketing machine working for you. The contract is very straightforward, and outlines exactly what the conditions are for you to ask for your rights back.

If you don’t win—here’s where I was a bit surprised. To prepare for this, I started scouting books (4 out of 9 of my choices have gotten contracts—pauses to buff nails and look smug). If the book is NOT chosen for publication, a couple of things happen that I thought were actually pretty neat and author-friendly. First, if you subsequently publish the book through Kindle, Amazon sends out an email to everybody who voted for your book. So if you get, say, 300 votes but no contract, you can then Kindle-fy the book and all 300 of those people will be notified that your book is available. In addition, if you vote for books, those books stay on your Kindle Scout page. The ones that have been published on Amazon will now have a link to their buy page even if the book was not chosen for publication by Amazon. Now that’s a perk.

If a book you voted for is chosen for publication, you receive a free copy and are encouraged to read and review the book to further assist the author you voted for.

My assessment, then, is that this is a positive thing pretty much all the way around. I also read several articles online where industry watchdogs and the like analyzed the contract, just to be sure I wasn’t missing anything. Overall, I feel pretty good about that aspect of it.

Getting Ready to Go Scoutin’

My first step to prepare my book was to sign up for Kindle Scout and start scouting books to find out how the process works and also to check out what kinds of books are being submitted (gotta scope out the competition, natch). The KS page presents the cover, the first chapter or so of each book, a blurb and an interview with the author. I usually check the blurb, then read the first chapter until I nope out of it. If I don’t nope out before the end of the excerpt, I give it a vote. That’s my full process. I am lazy. And I’m still scoring almost 50%. (I actually have no idea how that fact is relevant to anything, but I’m still bragging about it. Because I can.)

The next step is marketing. Not for the specific book, but for everything else I’ve ever published. (Okay, maybe not EVERYTHING.) The goal here is just to get some additional people’s eyes on me. I’m focusing on my mailing list and my Facebook page. I also revamped my website (actually both websites, but the Elizabeth Jewell site isn’t as relevant to this effort). I’ve read several books and articles about marketing as a self-publisher. From those books, I’ve pulled out all the advice that’s common to all or most of them, figuring those are probably the most efficient and effective approaches (they’re also the ones that make the most sense to me). In the mean time, I’m also preparing the manuscript and the cover art.

I see I’ve run on quite a bit, so I’ll stop here. Next time, I’ll talk about the nitty gritty of getting a cover prepared and cleaning up the manuscript. In the mean time, go check out Kindle Scout on your own and vote for some books! It’s fun! I promise!

How "Call Me Zhenya" Came to Be

This week, I'm going to spend some time talking about my Kindle Scout book, Call Me Zhenya, and how I came to write it. Next week, I'll be encore-posting some blog posts I did over at Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers about Kindle Scout and the Scouting process. I hope you'll enjoy a peek inside my creative process (aka--KK's brain is freakin' weird).

You might get tired of seeing this cover.
I won't. It's pretty. *pets*

The seed idea for this book hit me several years ago. I was watching an episode of Angel (first-run--I told you it's been a while...), during the Season Four arc when Angelus was unleashed. There's a scene where Wesley Wyndham-Pryce (STILL BITTER, JOSS WHEDON) breaks Faith out of prison so she can go do her vampire-slaying thang. She was in prison voluntarily, atoning for her sins from way back in Season One (and Season Four of Buffy the Vampire Slayer), but they needed her, so she took a fancy dive through a glass window and high-tailed it out with Wes. (Which, frankly, any lady in her right mind would do, because, hello, Wesley Wyndham-Pryce.)

That scene got me thinking. What if a spy were in prison voluntarily, taking a hit for something that happened in an operation that wasn't her fault? That evolved into having her there for protective custody. Then another spy comes to let her out. And what if that spy were the man who betrayed her? Or the man who killed her lover?

The idea sat in my ideas folder for a long time, just called "Spy Girl." I'd thought about writing it to submit to a specific publisher, but then the line at that publisher was discontinued before I got the manuscript underway. So it continued to incubate.

Evgeni Malkin, Russian Werewolf Spy

A few years later, my BFF and I were talking about story ideas, hockey player fic, and specifically Evgeni Malkin. (This was the same type of conversation that led to me writing Blood on the Ice, which started with "Vampire hockey. Go.") At some point, one of us said, "Evgeni Malkin, Russian Werewolf Spy." Maybe she said it, maybe I did--I don't actually remember. But that made me start thinking about "Spy Girl" again, and suddenly the whole story fell into place. The Spy Girl, inspired by Faith, became Anna, who's been sitting in a prison in Barrow, Alaska for two years under what she was told would be temporary protective custody. Then along comes Evgeni Belyakov, Russian Werewolf Spy, an assassin who's been having second thoughts about an assignment he was involved in two years ago. Poking around in places he wasn't supposed to, he found out things he shouldn't have. And now he's going to atone by breaking Anna out of prison. Because if she stays there, the Agency that promised to protect her is going to kill her to prevent the information inside her genetically enhanced superbrain from falling into enemy hands.

So that's the story of the story. I hope you'll take a minute to drop by and vote. I had a hell of a lot of fun writing this book, and I think you'll have a hell of a lot of fun reading it.

Bunnies Hop and So Do Blogs

Several authors in the blogosphere are posting about their writing process, so I decided to jump on the bandwagon. I know you’re supposed to tag four other people on your post, but I kind of forgot I was supposed to do that, so I’ll probably have people tagged in the next day or so with some linkage. I don’t follow directions well…

Anyway, thanks to Meredith Daniels for tagging me. Here are my answers to the questions provided. I hope they don’t lead any budding authors down the primrose path of corruption.

*1) What are you working on?

I’m currently working on a few things, but the main thing is a sequel to Necromancing Nim, from Samhain Publishing. I left our heroes and heroine in a bit of a bind at the end of that book, so I’m trying to get them back out of it. I’m also poking around at a paranormal romantic suspense and a follow-up to Blood on the Ice, my new book coming out in June from Samhain.

*2) How does your work differ from others in the genre?

I like to try to subvert tropes I see in other writing. For example, Necromancing Nim has a love triangle with none of that angsting about which man is the “right” one. Nim just goes for both of them. I also like to throw weird stuff together and see what falls out. Blood on the Ice features a professional hockey league where the players are all vampires. The story kicks off with a human NHL player being turned right before the Stanley Cup Finals, and takes him through his journey to get his life back. Mostly I’m just a little off-kilter, and so are most of my books.

*3) Why do you write what you write?

I write what entertains me. Or I write what my best friend tells me to write. One of those. Sometimes both. Mostly, I’m not going to waste my time laboring over a story that I don’t enjoy. This business is too stressful, difficult, and bizarre to make it even harder by forcing yourself to write what’s “in,” or what’s supposedly the next big thing. Unless the “next big thing” really turns your crank—then go for it.

*4) How does your writing process work?

It doesn’t. Well, okay, it does, but just when I think I have a workable process down, I start a new book and end up doing something completely different. In general, I start at the beginning and write until I get to the end. I usually have an outline. I don’t always follow it. My characters often do whatever the hell they want no matter what I have written down that they’re supposed to do. Most of my first drafts are a mix of handwritten and computer written. Sometimes I write on the computer, sometimes on the iPad, most frequently in a notebook with a pen. I’m not one of those people who gets up at the same time every day, sits down in front of the computer or other writing apparatus, and cranks out X number of words in X amount of time. Sometimes I do that. Most of the time I write whenever I can grab the chance, then hope all the pieces fit together when I stick them all in Scrivener.

Next Tagged Authors:

TO BE ANNOUNCED WITH GREAT POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE!!!

*drum roll*  Marteeka Karland

Beware the Candy

I'm here today to talk about the horrors of addiction. Not to drugs or alcohol or even Nutella--that would be far too serious for this blog. No, I'm talking about the soul-crushing, life-ruining horror that is Candy Crush.

If you've never played Candy Crush--and if you haven't, for the love of God don't start now--it's a member of the Bejeweled family of Horribly Addictive Games where you swap pairs of pieces to create matches of at least three in a row to eliminate those pieces from the board. Four or five in a row will create one-up pieces that explode larger portions of your board. In Candy Crush, the pieces are shaped like--you guessed it--candy. As you progress, the game presents new challenges like weird bottlenecks, portal squares, bits of chocolate that creep across the board like some kind of brown gelatinous ooze, and licorice strings that introduce your bits of candy to the joys of bondage. Cut scenes feature frightening little girls, whales, bunnies, and other creatures that appear to be constructed of cut paper fastened together with brass brads. I don't even want to know what kind of post-apocalyptic world this is, where everything has transformed to permutations of sugar.

I don't know why this type of game is so damn addictive. I went through a thankfully short but intense relationship with Bejeweled a few years ago that I was able to end fairly gracefully after spending hours swapping jewels while watching original series Star Trek. But Candy Crush? Man, I wish I could quit you. Instead I fritter away hours swapping bits of candy that look like Chiclets and Good n Plentys and smacking myself on the head when I accidentally waste one of those cupcake things with the sprinkles. If you do play--and PLEASE don't, I beg you--you'll know you've hit rock bottom when you're up at midnight paging through the app store looking for a game that's similar to Candy Crush that you can play while you're waiting for your allotment of lives to replenish. My not-Candy-Crush game of choice is Jewel Mania.

I've done my time in addiction and recovery with Farmville, Words With Friends, and even Angry Birds. I've justified time spent with these games because often I work out plot tangles while I'm feeding my bunnies or crushing pigs under complex architectural constructions. But Candy Crush is well on its way to becoming my undoing. I can't warn you strongly enough to stay away from it. And if you succumb to the allure of the bright candies--well, that's between you and your god.

Why I "Failed" at the Poetry Challenge and Why it Doesn't Matter

I started the April Poem a Day challenge and shared some of my work here, but as you noticed I quit after a few poems. This tends to happen to me a lot when I try this kind of challenge. I toodle along pretty well at first, then I find other things demanding my attention and I move on to those things. It happens with NaNoWriMo too. But in the long run, it doesn't really matter.

Why doesn't it matter? I mean, I set a goal and I didn't meet that goal. So I should berate myself and feel bad, right? Yeah, I'm thinking no. Because what did I accomplish? I wrote some poems. I probably wouldn't have written them at all if I hadn't started the challenge. So I have some bits of work that wouldn't have otherwise existed. That's not a bad thing at all.

Also, who's to say I won't finish the challenge eventually? I did last year, though I didn't write the last poem until some time in May or June if I remember correctly. I like the challenges and I'll probably go ahead and tackle the rest on my own timeframe. So, in my mind, rather than failing the challenge, I've produced some new work, challenged myself, and now I have some new pieces I can market later, with more likely to come.

In fact, the thing I'm most worried about regarding this challenge isn't that I didn't write all the poems in the time allotted, but that I can't seem to find the notebook I wrote them in. Now that's a catastrophe...

Next Big Thing Blog Hop

So I got tagged for this thing by Cindi Myers, so I'm posting my post today which is the posting day I was supposed to post my post. So here's my post:

1. What is the title of your latest release? Necromancing Nim. The question also asked about WIPs, so I'll just add that I have several WIPs on the front burners, one of which is the follow-up to Nim. The tentative title is Sorcelling Sebastian. (Should that be one "l" or 2? I keep waffling...)

2. Where did the idea come from for the book? I wanted to write an urban fantasy-style story with a kickass heroine, but I wanted to avoid or subvert some of the clichés that have begun to develop around the genre. Like kickass but whiny heroines and annoying love triangles that never resolve. Also that whole thing where everyone the heroine meets falls for her, and where she eventually becomes some kind of supernatural being. (Nim does experience some side effects, but I didn't want her to be supernaturally powerful in any significant way. She's just a kickass chick with a water gun full of holy water.)

3. What genre does your book fall under? Urban fantasy with erotic romance elements.

4. What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie version? Sebastian is Alexis Denisof, no doubt about it. Colin is sort of David Boreanaz from his Angel days, but he drifted quite a bit. Mostly because I got mad at Boreanaz for cheating on his wife. And for being a Flyers fan. (I can forgive him for the former if his wife can, but the latter? Sorry, DBor.) I didn't "cast" Nim when I was writing. When I put together the cover art form I settled on a picture of Zooey Deschanel, mostly because she has the big anime eyes. But Nim has short, shaggy black hair. The cover art captured her pretty well, I think.

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? One domineering vampire was enough—can Nim handle two and still avert the vampire-zombie apocalypse? (I totally cheated on that cause it was originally two sentences. But I'm an editor. I can do that.)

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? Um.. neither? This is a weird question to my overly literal mind. It’s published by Samhain Books, and it came out on October 23.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? LOL. Four years? More or less? That was writing sporadically, setting it aside and coming back to it. A lot of that was struggling with the voice and getting the plot to work. I’d never written a full-length novel in first person before, and a lot of the challenges of that approach, well, challenged me. I promise the next one won’t take as long…

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? Maybe Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake books and/or Charlain Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse series. My ménage in the book is almost a direct reaction to Anita Blake’s constant back-and-forth between Richard and Jean-Claude, which I found ridiculous. Quit whining, girl! Two hot guys? Do 'em both? Which of course is what Nim does. And they do each other, cause that's hot. But there’s a lot of screwed-up, quirky humor, which begs for a comparison to Sookie and maybe to Maryjanice Davidson’s Queen Betsy.

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book. I think I kinda answered that question already. Although another tidbit is that Nim's name came first. I had run across a fanfic writer named Nimuë Tucker (I think it's a pseud--I'm not sure). I loved the name, so I wrote it down. When it came time to write the book, I checked online and discovered she was still writing under that name, so I figured it'd be better to change it a bit. So I stole my best friend's last name and called her Nimuë Taylor instead. At which point I decided I was really glad I decided to write it in first person cause that umlaut is a PITA.

10. What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest? It’s funny. I even laughed at it myself when I was doing edits. (Maybe that’s not the best recommendation?) But even when there are vampires exploding and shit hitting the fan, Nim has a sarcastic voice that keeps things grounded

I tagged Angela Parson Myers for this, as well, but I don't see her post up yet. Go visit her site anyway. (Hi, Mom!)

And yeah, I know I was supposed to tag five people, but it looks like everybody in the WORLD has already been tagged for this hop, so I didn't. Also:

More November Word Count

When last we spoke, I was failing at NaNoWriMo. I'm still failing at NaNoWriMo, but this morning I finished the first draft of a new novella. So I win at life. Or something.

NaNo Totals for 11-13-12

Well, my word count totals are kind of pitiful compared to what they're supposed to be and compared to what others are doing. But I'm kind of happy with them, and this is why.

I've only written 7,000 words, but those words were on a few different projects. (No, I didn't even follow my own rules. This surprises you why?) One of these projects, thanks to me deciding I was going to work on SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY is now almost done.

So my brain is lame but at least I'm finishing things. That's good, right?

Oh, Good Grief, It's November Again

In case anybody's been living under a rock for the last few years, November is NaNoWriMo month. This phenomenon seems to be getting more popular every year. (Yes, you damn kids, get the hell offa my NaNoWriMo lawn!)

I've participated in NNWM several times, and have yet to make the 50,000 word goal. I tend to hit about 30-35K, although I think I might have flirted with 40K last year. Formal participation kind of makes me sad because of this inability to "win," so I've been doing it informally the last couple of years.

I'm going to do the same this year. I have a WIP that's about 2/3 done. I think I have 25-30,000 words left on it, so my goal for this month will be to get to that place where I write "THE END" on the last page. (Actually I don't write THE END on the last page. I usually write some kind of weird squiggly thing. But you get what I mean.)

I'll start today with my initial wordcount graphic. I snarfed this over at Writertopia, and I think it's cool so I'm using it, so there. I'll update it whenever I feel like it and maybe post a short excerpt or two here and there. The book I'll be working on is represented on its own Pinterest board here. I'll probably be adding stuff there, too--I still have a lot of research to do on this book, and God forbid I should do the research before I start writing. That would be too easy.

Anyway, best of luck to everyone else who's NaNo-ing. I hope we all crank out many words, and that some of them are even good!

Why I'm Learning Russian and Why You Should Learn Urdu or Maybe Tagalog

I’ll be one of the first to admit that I can go overboard when it comes to research. I like to follow trails wherever they lead and can spend months just reading when I should probably be writing the story.

One thing I’ve done under the umbrella of book research is learn languages. Languages have always fascinated me. When I was a kid, I remember spending hours poring over my mom’s college Spanish texts and even dipping into her text of Beowulf in the original old English (I guess it runs in the family). So when I decided to write about a Russian spy, it seemed natural to come home with a stack of Russian language books from the library, including the entire CD set of Pimsleur’s Russian courses, one of the best ways to get pronunciation and syntax drilled into your brain.

So why would I need to learn a whole new language just because my hero is from another country? I gave this a lot of thought because, let’s face it, learning a language is time-consuming, and there are all kinds of ways to handwave that kind of thing in fiction.

But I decided to pursue the venture, as much as it seemed like overkill. And I discovered that, yes, learning the language made me feel more comfortable with the characters.

My heroine is American but knows Russian, so knowing how the language feels in the mouth helps me add verisimilitude when she exercises her bilingual skills. That might sound weird but give it a try. My college Spanish teachers said to smile when you speak Spanish—it helps keep the words at the front of the mouth. Irish Gaelic seems to depend a lot more on the tongue. And Russian seems to be either way in the back of the throat or about to fall right out on your chin, depending on the word.

Another issue is syntax and word choice. Without knowing something about the language, I wouldn’t have known why Russians tend to drop articles (there are no articles in Russian). I also wouldn’t know what English words are difficult for Russians to pronounce. (As far as what Russian words are difficult for English speakers to pronounce, the answer is all of them.)

Of course I could figure out a lot of this listening to Russians speaking English on YouTube. (Which, by the way, is a great reason to watch hours and hours of Evgeni Malkin and Alexander Ovechkin interviews and call it work.) But knowing the reasons why they speak like they do makes it easier to remember what my personal Evgeni will sound like when he speaks English.

There are also scenes when both characters are speaking Russian. In these cases, it’s easy to fall into a pattern where they talk as if they were both speaking English, idioms and all. But it’s more realistic to reflect some of the natural syntax and idiomatic usages of Russian. I want there to be a distinct “feel” to the dialogue based on what language is being spoken and who’s speaking it. I think it’ll add something to the story.

So I’ll keep plugging away with my Russian lessons. Maybe down the road I’ll know it well enough to follow the KHL. In the meantime, here’s a challenge—if one or more of your characters speak something other than English, see if a bit of study of their native language gives you different insights into how you write them.

Organizing Ideas—The Door

We’ve already talked about generating and capturing ideas. Now I’d like to chat a bit about organizing those ideas.

For a long time—like all the way back into my teen years—I kept my story ideas in loose-leaf notebooks. I put dividers in them and put any and all information into the appropriate section. I still have all those notebooks, and every once in a while I go digging through them for nuggets of inspiration. This isn’t a bad method of organization. It keeps things together in one spot, and you can keep adding bits and pieces to the individual sections until you get the urge to break the idea out and write it. (When you get enough collected that an idea needs its own notebook, it might be time to seriously consider writing an actual book.)

Karen Wiesner, in her book First Draft in 30 Days , outlines a method similar to this. She uses a file cabinet and folders instead of loose-leaf notebooks. I’ve used an expandable file folder as well, to keep track of quickie ideas or articles I find online that I print and toss in the file. (Evernote is great for this too, and I’m using it more and more instead of printing things out.)

One problem I had with this method, though, was that it doesn’t keep the story ideas right in front of my face. I’ll have a perfectly viable idea, or a sequel to something I’ve already written, worked out in the notebook, and I’ll forget all about it to go chase after some other crazy notion. (Squirrel! No, vampire squirrel!) I ended up writing lists, to-do’s, “what I’m going to write this year,” etc. But even that doesn’t seem to keep my crazy brain on point.

Then one day I was sitting in my office staring into space. It’s a relatively new office in an addition to my house that the previous owner used as a walk-in closet. (She had a lot of clothes.) Anyway. I was staring at the door and had a sudden urge to write all my WIPs, gestating ideas, bits of thoughts and wayward titles on sticky notes and stick them all over the door.

Why? my brain asked. What possible use could that be? So I didn’t do it right away.

Later that day when I was on IM with my best friend, I told her about this insane urge.

“Do it,” she said.

Thus enabled, I whipped out a pile of sticky notes and covered the entire freaking door. There’s a method to the madness—some color coding and a flow that takes ideas from germination to partial manuscript to full manuscript being actively submitted to published work. When a piece has been published, on the day it comes out I take the sticky note off the door, tear it into pieces and throw it away. (Some people might prefer to take them off the door and put them into a commemorative notebook or something, but I get a wacky tactile satisfaction out of ripping up sticky notes. 3 x 5 cards too. I’m weird. Deal with it.)

It’s fun to track the ideas around the door, watching them move from the middle of the door (idea) to the top left corner (complete) to the top right corner (accepted) and then come off the door. I try to keep that top row full—that’s stuff that’s contracted and will soon be seeing the light of day (it's much fuller now than it was when I took this picture). I also keep possible sequels grouped by publisher, or shuffle notes around as I start thinking about where to market them.

I also stick new notes on the door whenever an idea pops into my head, or when my best friend comes up with something. She’s great for generating plot ideas. We had a conversation one night that resulted in a yellow note with “Headbump Hieroglyphics” on it being slapped onto the door. Yeah, I know what it means. Other times she’ll say something like, “Evgeni Malkin, Persian Sheikh. Put it on the door.” I’ll put it on the door and let it work itself out later.

Evgeni Malkin, Persian Sheikh

This method may or may not work for you. Maybe you don’t have a convenient door. But for me, walking past all those sticky notes on a daily basis gets me fired up. I want to write them all, clear that door right off. Now if I could just stop adding so many new ones…

The Rhythm Of The Words

For me, there is a certain rhythm to writing a book. It’s not something I can just sit down and do, word after word, sentence after sentence, progressing through a logical sequence until the story has spun itself out on my page. There are, instead, phases to the process. Some of these phases look like active artistry. Others look like pre-work or preparation. Still others look like failure.

It’s taken me a long time to learn to trust this process, and in many ways I still don’t. I look at it askance, wondering if the pieces that feel like failure really are, if this is the time that the sequence will fall apart, like a zipper that has suddenly lost a vital tooth.

Because it feels that way sometimes—no, every time—when that spot comes in the writing when all the pieces are there, but they’re scattered, some here, some there, some ends tied off neatly, others frayed and broken. They couldn’t possibly all come together to form that final, tight weave that fashions story.

But they do. Eventually, they do.

I can’t make them do this. Sometimes sitting down to write, putting pen to paper, is enough to coax the flow and bring the various bits into alignment. But other times putting pen to paper is an exercise in futility. Nothing comes, or if it does come, it’s forced and twisted, broken, or it’s like trying to weave a stick into fine linen. It just doesn’t fit.

It’s then that I have to wait. It takes such patience, such trust, to just wait. I want to dive into the story again, to find all those loose bits and make them no longer loose, but on the days that require waiting, they simply won’t fold into each other. They’re ragged and sharp and stubborn. They don’t want to be.

Waiting, though. Waiting with the words, with the pieces. Hiding from them. Letting them hide from you. Lifting them into the light and examining them, like jewels under a loupe, looking for the flaws and the perfections. Ignoring them, then examining them far too closely.

It’s this constant handling, dropping, picking up and examining that finally lets me find the pieces where a story line has gone astray, or the place where I planted a clue I didn’t even know I’d written. When I find the flaws and the ways to smooth them out, or the underlying themes I didn’t know were there. Only then, after this careful and constant, trusting search, can I finally pull all those pieces together into a unified whole.

Only with the constant, steady practice can you learn to trust those silences. Only when you’ve let the process happen time after time, watching it, exploring it, can you truly believe that the story will find its way, with you or without you.

Constancy. Practice. Diligence. Trust. When these all come together, the result is the miracle that is a completed work of written art.

Idea Growth--Ring of Darkness

Ring of Darkness was another book that took a very long time to arrive in its current form. I think I had the basic idea, of an arranged marriage and a magical threat, cooked up some time in Jr. High (yeah, they call it middle school now—whatever). In fact, I have another partial manuscript lying around somewhere with a similar plot seed.

The story itself, though, didn’t come to fruition until about 1993. I remember writing big chunks of it while I was at home on maternity leave with my now 18-year-old son. I would type with one hand while he was nursing in the bend of the other arm. I had set a goal at that time of writing at least one page in my steno notebook (about 220 words) every day, but even a paragraph or two felt like a major accomplishment. (I was obsessed with steno notebooks back then. I wrote everything in them, because they fit in my purse and I could carry them anywhere. I gravitate to Moleskines now for the same reason.)

The very first version of this book I shared with an online group I belonged to at the time (still belong to, actually). The read it chapter by chapter and provided feedback. When I finished and had done my editing pass, I sent it out to a few publishers, with no luck. It went into the drawer for a while after that.

I know I fiddled with the book off and on for a while, but the revision I really remember occurred in the winter of 2001. Ring of Darkness was the first book I dove back into after 9/11, and served as part of my emotional recovery. I don’t recall what changes I made, but I remember being profoundly relieved that I could write at all. It had been hard to put words together for a while.

I submitted the book a few other places over the years, but it finally found a home at Noble Romance last year.

Idea Growth: Hunters of the Moon

The growth of Hunters of the Moon was about as different from that of Darkness as it's possible to get. I had been collecting info on a variety of anthology submission calls. One asked for werewolves in an urban fantasy setting. I pulled it out and mulled the idea for a couple of days.

The seed of plot I started with involved Sara, the Hunters, and the tattoos used in the story to control the shift from human to werewolf. I also scribbled the last line of the story in one of my notebooks. That line remains almost intact--I think I changed a word or two. There wasn't much else to it when I sat down to write.

When I wrote this story, I just took a pen and a notebook to Starbucks and scribbled the entire first draft in a couple of hours. The other plot elements fell into place as I was writing, and by the time I was halfway through, I knew exactly how the plot was going to wrap up.

Until I got there. I reached a spot in the story where we discover something important about the werewolf Sara has been pursuing. I started to write the sentence that would reveal the secret--and then I stopped.

I stopped because my brain was screaming a completely different sentence at me, one I'd never considered. I sat there for a minute just staring at the paper. Inside my head, things went something like this:

"Wait, what?"
"Yes! JUST WRITE IT!"
"Seriously? But I thought it was--"
"IT ISN'T! LISTEN TO ME FERPETESAKE!"
"Seriously?"

In the end, my brain got its way. I figured I'd go ahead and write the ending that way and then change it later if it didn't work. But it did work. So I didn't change it.

I submitted the story to the anthology, and it was rejected. Instead, it's found a home at Etopia.

Have you ever had a story that surprised you like that? If so, please share. I'd hate to think I'm the only one who sits at Starbucks while weird conversations go on in my head.

Idea Growth: Darkness

My short story, Darkness, arrived from Etopia Press on December 16th. This story has a long history, and for me an odd one.

I can't remember when the idea for Darkness first came to me. It's been a long time ago. When I found the story on my hard drive a few months ago, it looked like it might have originated with a writing prompt back when I was an active participant in the writing community on CompuServe. (Yes, I used CompuServe. I'm old. Get over it.)

However, there were two different versions of the story. One is the version that's coming out from Etopia. The other has much the same backstory and the characters have the same names, but the story has a much lighter tone and a very different plot.

At one point in its development, though, Darkness was a screenplay. I can't even remember now if the screenplay came before the short stories or vice versa. There are a couple of version of the that approach floating around, as well.

The thought that hit me the hardest when I started sorting through these old files was how much I'd allowed myself to play with these ideas. Now I tend to focus on a story and push it through to the end, rather than putting it into different molds to see how it fits. In away, this could be seen as a sign of growth in my writing. In another way, though, it seems sad that I spend so little time now indulging in that sense of play. Maybe I should try that approach again and see what falls out.

Darkness is available on Kindle
and Nook

How Ideas Grow

"Hail in the Flower Garden" by pcaputo

Hail has always fascinated me. Instead of falling straight from the clouds like rain, snow, or sleet, hail goes through a  growth process. It's carried back up into the atmosphere multiple times, where it collects extra layers of ice. Each time it ascends, it comes back down with another layer. Eventually, it becomes heavy enough that it falls to the ground. If you slice open a hailstone, you can see all the layers of ice, like rings in a tree trunk, chronicling the stone's journey.

The journey of a story idea, for me, is similar. Ideas come to me in a fairly simplistic form--a character or a basic plot, for example. Then they go away for a while to knock around my subconscious. When they come back, they've collected a few more layers--more characters, or relationships, or subplots. A scene. A few lines of dialogue. At some point, these are enough layers that the idea accumulates the weight it needs to become a full-fledged story.

The amount of time it takes for this process to complete varies from project to project. But there's always a point where I just know the story is ready to go.

For the next couple of weeks, I'm going to discuss the origins and growth of some new releases I either have out or that are coming up. The stories I'd like to discuss had different incubation periods, and grew in very different ways.

What process do your stories usually go through before you commit them to paper? Please share in the comments.

Thoughts on writing—where do ideas come from?

photo from sxc.hu by christgr

One of the first questions people tend to ask when you revealed the terrible secret that you’re a writer is, Where do you get your ideas. (After, What do you write, at which point you have to decide whether to say you’re working on the great American novel or books about vampires.) it’s an interesting question, and one I’m never sure how to answer.

I get ideas everywhere. I carry little notebooks in my purse so I can jot ideas down when they drop by. I have notebooks, folders, filing cabinets, binders full of ideas. I wake up in the middle of the night with ideas. My best friend feeds me ideas, usually as part of a nefarious plan to get me hooked on hockey.

I think most writers suffer not from a lack of ideas, but from idea overload. When I’m starting a new project, sometimes I look at the pile of ideas and have no idea where to start. Which one is the most marketable? Which one can I sell right away? Which one is most likely to land me an agent? It’s enough to paralyze the creative mind.

Capturing ideas can be tricky, too. Thus the notebooks. But how do you jot down an idea that comes as an image, or a feeling? Sometimes you can’t. Then you have to let the idea move where it will, in and out of consciousness, until it appears in a form you can easily add to your idea pool.

Or what about that idea that just gets away from you? The one that came to you at 2 a.m and you couldn’t wake up enough to write it down? If you’d written it down, it definitely would have been a bestseller, right?

Maybe, maybe not. My theory is that if it really was a good idea, and one I was meant to have, then it’ll come back. It’s like that old saying: If you love something, set it free. Some people aren’t comfortable with that idea. It used to bug me, too. Now I’m on medication.

Ideas come from everywhere, but the best ones can be elusive, or hard-won. These are the ideas that come back again and again, demanding to be written, each time with a few more layers, a bit more guidance about how the story should take shape. These are the ideas that are worth gold. When you find those, you’ll know. Capture them and let them grow.

Thoughts On Writing—Longhand Girl in a Techno World

I’m sitting at Wendy’s writing this blog post in a notebook and my son just said to me, “Why would you write a blog post in a notebook? That’s sacrilegious.”

Whatever the opposite of a Luddite is, that’s my son. If he needs to do homework and there’s no computer available, it doesn’t even occur to him to work on the essay longhand.

I often hear writers bemoaning the fact that their electricity is out so they can’t get any work done. I look at my pen and notebook and can’t figure out how electricity outage is keeping them from working. During the daytime, at least. At night, candles don’t quite cut it, and they can set your notebooks on fire.

The truth is, I’ve always composed longhand. Of course, back in the day, I didn’t have much choice. It was either longhand or a manual typewriter that made my wrists ache. Later my parents bought me an electric typewriter, which was easier on my wrists, but I still wrote my first drafts by hand.

I like specific pens. I like certain kinds of paper. In high school I liked rolling ball ink pens and looseleaf paper. In my twenties I preferred Bic sticks and steno pads. In the last few years I’ve switched to Moleskine notebooks, composition tablets, and Sharpie pens—the kind that don’t soak through the paper—and Sharpie liquid graphite erasable pencils that turn permanent after day or two, because they’re the coolest things ever.

I like the flexibility of writing by hand. I can stick a notebook in my purse and write anywhere. I also like the way it feels. There’s just something about the feel of a pen sliding over paper that makes writing feel more real to me.

There are disadvantages, of course. I have a tendency to misplace notebooks. A lost notebook can undermine my productivity for days at a time. (Or months. I’m great at losing things.) And then there’s transcription.

When I mention to my editors or other writers that I’ve got a story finished except for transcription, I’m often met with a O.o (an O.o? Who knows…). And looking at a full notebook that needs to be transcribed is kind of like looking at a sink full of dirty dishes. It takes time. And until recently, it was uncomfortable.

I recently made the leap to dictating software, though, which has made it a lot easier. My decision came largely because of carpal tunnel syndrome. I was waking up in the middle of the night unable to feel my hands. I’d try to pet the dog and end up pummeling her with big, numb clubs. She didn't appreciate it very much.

With dictation software—I use Dragon Dictate for Mac—I can just read the story into my computer. It’s actually faster than typing—and I type 100+ words per minute—and the dictation mistakes can be really entertaining.

I’ve written books on the computer, but I don’t think I’ve ever written an entire story on the computer. At some point I always end up with pen and paper, especially if I’m having trouble getting the words to flow. When I was spending more time drafting on the computer, before my wrists got worse, many, many stories started with several scenes written by hand before I started lining everything up in Scrivener (or Word, back in the Bad Old PC days). So when it comes to my current most efficient method of writing, longhand it is, no matter how many O.o’s I get.

If you’re a longhand girl (or boy) too, stick to your guns. Some days it seems there aren’t many of us left.

Guest Posting today at Romance with SASS

I'm guest posting today over at Romance with SASS, talking about the Writing Life. Drop by and say hi!

Why I Save Everything...

I've been working on tweaking a manuscript for submission, one I wrote quite some time ago that I've rewritten a couple of times since. When I hit a very important scene near the beginning of the story (the hero and heroine's "first time"), I realized it really wasn't working. The dynamic of the scene was totally wrong, and didn't fit the message I was trying to get across.

Faced with having to rewrite the whole scene, I started dithering. Then it occurred to me that, in an earlier draft, I had taken a completely different approach, one that I thought would fit much better with my new ideas of the story. Lo and behold, there was my earlier draft, saved from a desktop that's no longer with us, transferred to a laptop that I'm not using too much anymore, in a folder sitting on my external server where I'd backed everything up. One quick FTP from the server to my Mac, and I've got that old draft in Scrivener where I can cannibalize it.

Sometimes it's good to be a packrat...