Image courtesy of Sharon Drummond.

The Easier you can Make Something…

Case in point – my spreadsheet I use to keep track of my writing. I have removed the time tracking on it, because I simply don’t feel that it’s relevant to me anymore – only word count is. Any extraneous fluff in my tracking will make it less easy to do. By trimming it, there is less chance that in a weak moment I think, “I can’t be bothered to write, because that means I’ll have to track it, and that means I have make note of the time or whatever”.

I know it sounds silly that such a small thing might put me off, and maybe it wouldn’t. But the easier something is to do, the more likely you are to do it. So why wouldn’t you make it easier?

Go Tweak Yourself

Another part of the spreadsheet I’ve resolved to tweak is my goals. Or at least, I’m going to review them regularly. I can’t tell for certain that I’m going to tweak them yet, but given how many of my goals became redundant by the end of last year, I imagine I will.

I lot can change over the course of a year. It might not feel like it, but when you stop and think (and I’ll be doing that regularly now!) you notice it. Events in your life can get in the way of your targets, or you may reach them earlier than expected. But as you go through your year’s journey your mindset may also change, and this has an effect on your outlook. You may realise you need to achieve something sooner than you originally thought; some goals may reveal themselves as unimportant after all; you may realise you work better under pressure or with a greater challenge, and ramp up the stakes.

It’s all part of the learning process, and with that in mind, I am actually hoping I feel the need to tweak my goals. It will be a good indication that I’m changing. That’s a key takeaway right there – we’re working on ourselves as much as our writing.

And that’s really the whole point. There are other aspects of your writing life you should not be afraid to tweak, especially in the early stages of your writing journey. Your routine, for example, can probably be improved a great deal. As you grow, you get to know your writing pattern, or you may find that certain environments help you to write better.

As with any system, little improvements here and there can have a big effect. The key here is to make sure you’re tweaking everything to suit you at that time. “You” in this case, is a moving target, so should you feel something can be made better, don’t be afraid to make that change!

Why would you want to do this? Well, there are a few reasons you might want to spend a day or week being a full time writer. For a start, you will get more writing done than you normally would, and really, you don’t need more reasons than that!

This is my Christmas tree! It's so priddy!

But more importantly I think, it enables you to fully understand what being a full time writer means. Because it’s not just about writing all day (from what I can gather ). Sure, there are plenty things that you won’t experience during this experiment – conversations with your agent, or editor; preparing your book for self-publication; counting up your fortune as a famous author (that one was a joke).

You will be thinking about it though, and you will be experiencing part of it, and you know what? This may be the experience that seals the deal for you. You may fall so in love with it that it changes your outlook. Suddenly you find yourself planning your exit strategy, so you can get out of the doldrums and into writing. This could be the holiday that starts it all!

Or you may discover you hate it. Even this limited foray into the deeper world of writing might put you off completely. But this is still incredibly useful information. Imagine if you’d waited until you’d quit your job to discover that!

There is a middle ground of course, which is perhaps more likely than the other outcomes. Writing (we may have established this already) is hard. You may love it, but that doesn’t necessarily make it easier.

But over the course of the holiday week (or whatever) you can develop strategies to get around these problems. You may discover that you can’t sit down all day – go for a walk, then work that into your routine for the next day. Maybe you write best if you do so in three hour blocks, or half hour sprints – the things you encounter will help you decide how to break up your writing day. This is all good preparation. When the time comes, you may be able to hit the ground jogging, if not running.

Why I haven’t done this so far

You’ve read this blog before, right? You know what’s coming.

I haven’t done this yet, although I think about it every time I take time off work. Then I berate myself for a missed opportunity.

There are a number of things that get in the way of executing this plan. The most obvious one is a lack of discipline, and yes, I am guilty of this. Frankly, as much as I enjoy the sense of achievement and satisfaction of getting writing done, a lot of the time it still feels like work. When I’m taking a break from work, I don’t want to do some more work, even if I would feel better for it afterwards. Sometimes I just want to veg out or play computer games.

Another problem is other people (aren’t they always?) I will often sync my holidays with other people, like, family and stuff. Obviously I can’t arrange this and then disappear for the entire day.

Finally, (and again this is to do with a lack of time), there are other things I need to be doing now that I have the opportunity. Like housework, and those annoying DIY jobs that stack up and never get completed.

In fact, I will often queue up a bunch of jobs to do on days off, and only complete about half of them – writing can quickly disappear off my schedule entirely!

What Might Make it Easier, Then?

So, I’ve been thinking about ways to make this a bit easier, and here are a few suggestions:

Make a plan of your day

Take a little time to think about the kind of things you would be doing as a full time writer. Now look at that list and decide which activities you can do now. You might also want to pick some subjects you can find out about now, if you don’t know about them already – this might form a research slot in the plan of your day.

Some example activities are

• writing new work
• editing a drafted piece
• submitting short work to magazines
• working on a blog, if you have one (if not, you might want to research about that. Then you can get into the whole debate about whether to write a personal blog, a blog about writing, or a blog around the kind of things you write about. Lots to think about.)
• reading – and this might be reading within your genre, reading non-fiction for research, or reading about the process of writing, for example.
• putting yourself out there. I’m being vague here, but the kind of activities I’m thinking about here are internet based, and are about getting involved in the writing community. This means going on social networks, reading other blogs or forums etc. Getting involved as much as possible with the people who are already out there and doing it. Make yourself known to them.

I suggest a good mindmapping session or similar to think up a few others. And they could well be different for everyone. I’ve already mentioned going for a walk for example, but that’s not something everyone will feel is helpful to them.

Once you’ve got your list, fit the activities into your day. I would start with fitting writing new material in your day, followed by editing, then fit everything else around those things. Be sure to think about what breaks you might need as well. You may not be able to do everything every day, so I recommend doing this experiment over several days if you can.

Make sure your working space is ready

You don’t want to be spending your first day/morning/hour even setting up your work space. Make sure you have some time set aside before your holiday to make your workspace writing ready.

prepare people

You probably have other people in your life who might want to spend some time with you, so make them aware of what you would like to do. If this is your significant other, you may have to negotiate and reach a compromise on how much time you spend or when. The important thing is to make clear what is going to happen so they are not demanding your time when you need it most.

And that is all for now, but of course, I’m curious as to what your writing day looks like. Let us all know how you divide your day to get things done. If you’re a full time writer, what does your day look like, and what are your hours like?

I think a big part of the problem is that it’s something done at the last minute, and not a great deal of thought goes into it. It’s like any promise to yourself. Say you had a dream to go bungee jumping. Every month you say to yourself, “I’d love to go bungee jumping – that is a thing I am resolved to do.” But you don’t and the end of the year comes along and you resolve to do it next year. So, what’s changed? Nothing. These things are only going to happen if you make them happen, and promising yourself is only the first step.

Pick it and Break it up!

Seeming as we're making our resolutions early, we can have a party early too, right? Image courtesy of Cedrick Ledesma.

So I would say, rather than making a New Years resolution, make a New Years plan. Start now, not on the first of January. Pick one thing you want to achieve next year, right now. Done it? Good. Now think about the steps you need to take in order to make that come true. Write them down.

I rushed through that a bit, but certainly it can be useful to pick the first thing that comes into your head – that may be the thing that is most important to you. Breaking that down into steps can take a bit longer – you may not know all the steps. All the more reason to start the process now rather than waiting. It will likely only take a small amount of research to discover what’s needed, so do it, and make your plan all the more relevant.

How Long?

Okay, now remember that we have a timeframe here – you have to complete all of these steps by the end of next year. Is there time for that? Estimate how long you think these things will take. Now double it. Don’t poo-poo that by the way. We often overestimate what we can get done in a short space of time (a year) and underestimate what we can do in a longer period of time (like, five years). So, double your estimate, because things almost always take longer than you think. If you complete it quicker than that, well, that’s still a good thing!

Now, is there anything else going on in the year that impacts this? Maybe there is something that directly impacts your deadline, meaning it absolutely has to be done by May, for example. What events might help you reach your goals (like NaNoWriMo). Now look for planned events that are likely to take your attention off this goal, like major birthdays that need planning (or births for that matter), or holidays.

Now, take your steps and slot them around these events as necessary. If possible, aim to complete everything a month or two before your deadline. That way, if you fall behind, you’ve got that extra slack built in to catch up. The alternative is seeing that it’s hopeless and giving up entirely.

At this point you may be looking at your plan and realising that you cannot possibly fit everything in. That may be disheartening, but it’s okay. At least now you know your original goals were unrealistic. Now you can pick somewhere achievable within that list of steps you made. Change getting your novel “completed”, to getting the first draft finished for example.

Finishing Touches

Look your plan over and tweak it if necessary – you may go through a couple of drafts of your New Years Plan before you’re happy with it. What you want to end up with is something that is clear and realistic, so you can look at it and see what stage you need to be at in March, for example.

When it’s finished, put it somewhere you can refer to it often. Write it on a single A4 sheet and pin it above your desk, or write it small so that it fits on a single sheet in your diary. Even better, start making use of an online calendar service like Google Calendar. Here you can add events throughout the year – your steps on the journey to resolution, and add reminders days or weeks in advance that can be emailed or even sent to you via text. Useful, eh!

And finally, don’t forget that your plan is not written in stone. Sometimes unavoidable things will happen to get in your way – none of us know what’s going to happen in that year. That’s why you built a buffer into your plan, so use it. Adjust your plan and see where that puts you. The same goes for when you’re doing particularly well, too.

Do you have any tips for making a New Years Plan? Are you one of those people (I’m assured they do exist) that can make a New Years resolution and simply stick to it? Discuss below!

Now it should be said that I have hardly mastered regular writing in my life as it stands now. This makes the prospect of saving time for it during dadhood all the more daunting.

And I’m not daft (all the time), I do realise that plenty of writers have been parents, and without being established authors before this transition. So there must be a way! Is there also a will? By jingo, yes! And you know how that goes.

So working on this theory that I’m not the first unheard of writer to ever become a parent (and make it big – I’m looking ahead here), I thought I’d look around for tips. And ask for them. That helps too.

"No writing for you, Daddy!" Image courtesy of Nina Matthews on Flickr

What’s out there

A quick Google reveals surprisingly little. But maybe this is a subject for which a quick Google is not sufficient. There are probably dedicated forums for this sort of thing if one were to look hard enough, but the handful of blog entries gave an impression of what I would be facing.

The gist is this: it is hard, but it can be done.

Vicki had this to say on The Six-Footer:

People warned me, “You won’t even have time to shower!” [...] But babies sleep. And when he’s asleep, I write first, shower second.

I don’t believe in not having time to write.

Vicki Wilson, The Six-Footer

Right then.

On The Writer’s Coin, Carlos says he’s writing as much now as he did before the baby, and puts it down to “No more ****ing around” [sic] My word!

Carlos says the short windows of time force you to really knuckle down and get something done, rather than procrastinating as writers are wont to do (really, the nerve! Who’d ever suggest such a thing!). Read his post for ideas on how babyless people (I count myself among you for only three more weeks), can replicate this.

More tips come from Kathy, at Time Management (it’s really much easier if people have a domain that’s similar to what they’ve named their blog, then I don’t have to choose!). One that might be useful for some is to hire home help to make sure you have a guaranteed window of time. I haven’t included it in my list below because it’s not practical for everyone. And it’s cheating.

Asking for it

As seems to be the trend with babies, a lot can be gained by asking about it. Maybe people love talking about their baby experiences; maybe they remember how worried they were. Either way, asking seems to be a better way than simply searching the interwebs.

Here’s something my mate Dave had to say (you remember Dave):

Juggling twenty four hours between work, baby, time with mum, own time and sleep. It’s not easy. However, you may find that the only way to squeeze some writing in is to learn to write at odd times.

David Simpson

Indeed! And that is what I’m worried about really. Life is demanding enough! Let’s hope for that focus people are talking about then.

Dave’s example of an “odd time” was in-between baby feeds at night, should you not be able to go back to sleep again.

So once you have settled her down, you have a window of two to four hours that is your time. You can either try and go back to sleep, catch up on the latest soap or whatever you have on the Sky+ box, or use this as an opportunity to write.

David Simpson

It’s not a bad idea. I’ve always thought of sleep as a waste of time anyway. Let’s see if I still feel the same when utterly deprived of it!

Reddit, I find, is also a good source of information. Even if you can’t find anything on there, you can always just ask the question. I’ve found Reddit to be a friendly community that is always willing to offer help. So I asked, and these are some of the responses I got.

Stephen King had a few kids before Carrie (his first book) got picked up. He was living in a trailer with his wife and at least two kids (maybe three) trying to get a job as a high school teacher.

ilovesandwiches on Reddit

The first couple of months when you bring the baby home, it will awake all the time in the night, so your sleeping will be thrown off, possibly making writing more difficult, but possibly doable if you need something to occupy your mind at night.

crazydave333 on Reddit

write on the baby. dry erase is best.

ryancows on Reddit

Well, there’s always one. More quotes down below, plus you can check out the full thread here (but watch out – not everyone is careful with their language).

The List

Lists are becoming something of a habit here at Getmewriting. Do you like lists? I sure hope so, because here comes another one!

So, this is a list of ways of coping and ways of preparing that will help keep you/me writing. It is the best kind of list! One that carries much information, in an easy-to-digest fashion! This is what I have gleaned from my internet scouring and questioning. I hope you find it useful.

• Manage expectations
  

  My wife knows about my terrible addiction to literature, and she’ll think nothing of letting me write or type for hours on end, uninterrupted.

  ilovesandwiches on Reddit

  One to do before the baby arrives. Your partner may be under the impression that everything else will stop once the baby comes. They may be right! But you don’t want to make things worse by springing two or three hours of writing on them in the middle of baby feeding/puking/wailing/nappy changing. Make sure he/she knows that you want to continue writing as much as possible. Discuss how you might acheive this together.

• Write when you can
  

  These days I write in 10-15 minute increments or whenever the Princess of Poop allows me to take leave, which isn’t often.

  Carlos (he has no last name. He is mysterious!), The Writer’s Coin

  I wrote when he napped, forcing myself to write as much as possible during those interludes. As he got older, I taught him that when I was writing, he could play quietly so I could focus on my work. I’d write in 15-minute bursts and then play with him or tend to his needs (milk, food, bath, diaper, etc.) By the time he was 2, if I didn’t write, he’d remind me to.

  GCSchmidt on Reddit

  It may be less structured than you’re used to, but when time is scarce, you just have to write when you can. This may be for only ten minutes at a time, and it may be in the middle of the night. Just try not to wake your partner with loud keyboard tapping!

• Make sure you know what’s next
  

  I planned at the weekly and daily level what I needed to do. By having a plan and breaking large tasks into smaller tasks I was able to tick things off…even when the baby napped for 15 minutes.

  Kathy (also last-nameless. An enigma!), Time Management

  And as you may only have 15 minutes at a time, you had better know what you’re going to be writing about next. Make sure that you are always prepared for those scant minutes writing. You could easily waste that time thinking about where you got up to or what’s next.

  There are several ways to do this:

  • Be mindful at all times about your writing. Make it part of your daily thought process, if it is not already. Make sure that idle brain-time is thinking about what comes next in your story, and remembering where you got up to.
  • Plan. Write out a plan of the project you’re working on. Make sure it is always on you so that you can make adjustments as you think of them.
  • Have a “whats next” note. This can go on your plan, or simply at the end of your last pice of writing. Just one sentence as a prompt about what is coming next in the story (or whatever), so you can leap straight in.

  These are not mutually exclusive, so you should probably do them all to give yourself a fighting chance!

• Be flexible
  This is implied by some of the other points in the list, but it is worth emphasizing. A set routine is out of the window. You might plan some things, but don’t expect to be able to stick to them. Even if some quiet time for your writing has been organised between yourself and your partner, they might suddenly need help in the middle of that. 

  The baby, it goes without saying, comes first, and you need to fit your writing around your new addition, not the other way around. So, be prepared, but also play it by ear. You may have loved your writing longer, but you’ll love your newborn more!

So there you have it. I wish you luck! Go forth, and multiply, and write a bit! And congratulations!

Useful links

• Having a baby – worried about writing
• mommit on Reddit
• daddit on Reddit
• Time management tips for writing a book when looking after a baby, by Kathy
• Writing with a Baby in the House, by Vicki Wilson
• Writing With a Baby: It Can Be Done, by Carlos

Now however, I face the second challenge when it comes to The Enemy. I have to write new stuff. From scratch. Gulp.

Out of Shape

So, as I mentioned in my last post, it has been a long time since I actually wrote anything. Even longer since I generated new material. There is something much safer about editing isn’t there?  The ‘hard work’ has already been done (though some may disagree)  Editing isn’t as stressful. Let me go back to my overused exercise analogy. Editing is like doing a familiar workout. It can still be tough, but you know the routine, you’re familiar with it. Generating new material is like starting an entirely new workout. You might have some rough idea of where it’s going to go (especially if you’re one of those planners, and not an improvisational writer) but it’s long, it’s tough, and it’s very daunting.

Well this is where I am right now. I’ve come to the end of what’s familiar, and I’m staring at this massive blank expanse before me.

Where do I go?

The man with this plan is Jez Nicholson. It's probably not a writing plan, but a writing plan could look like this! Click for original photo.

This is the major flaw in being an improvisational writer, isn’t it?  I do have some idea of where the story is headed, but there is that unfortunate gap between where I am now in my writing, and where I have more concrete ideas. And I need to fill the gap. How to do that though?

Easiest option would be to just put it to one side and hope it writes itself, right?

Well we can’t do that, can we?  Or should I say, I…

Options Options

I was going to make another list here but honestly, I couldn’t think of one. Making mental notes and brainstorming are my usual processes, but I’m not sure how well they’d work here.

So I guess I’ll have to plan, right?  It would have been so much easier if I’d done this in the first place. But how do you do this?  The planners amongst you will no doubt scoff, and mutter things like ‘I told you so’ and ‘this is what you get’, but even planners can’t (surely) plan out every beat that a story goes. Sometimes you’ll reach a point where you have point A, and then Point B, but no bridge to get you there. The simplest advice is probably just to go straight from point A to point B (especially in script writing). It’s that maxim again isn’t it?  Start a scene as late as you can, and end it as soon as you can. Short, snappy, to the point.

Which is very good advice, which I should probably follow more often. But sometimes, just sometimes, you can’t do that. Sometimes the void is too big.

Filler

I’ve never been a fan of filler, neither in content and especially not as a writer. If it isn’t interesting to write, then its not going to be interesting to read, is it?  But the filler needs to be written. The in-between bits. And the challenge is to make it interesting. And this is I think the problem I have with my piece. I know where I need to get to, but to get there, the characters have to make a rather uninteresting journey. ‘Make it interesting!  Throw some curveballs in there!’ you might scream. If you’re partial to sporting metaphors. Thing is, I have so many random curveballs in the narrative as it is, throwing in more will only complicate things further.

So, I am not so much offering half baked advice this week, more asking for it. How do I proceed, dear readers?

How to diet

First off – I have been fairly skinny all my life (my wrists are still skeletal, but if you threw a tennis ball at my belly it would now bounce off, rather than fall straight to the floor. True story (it isn’t)), so I have never been on a diet. However, I base the following on the current medical consensus, and stuff that I have heard. Which makes me right. And it’s my website, so there.

A salad. Salads depict dieting. Although this salad does look rather lovely. Image courtesy of stu_spivack over on Flickr.

Diets do not work. Or rather, diets are okay, but the vast majority of people find it impossible to take the diet they are on and make it part of an ongoing healthy lifestyle. Instead a diet is abandoned once it’s deemed a failure, or even a “success”. The dieter then returns to old habits, puts the weight back on and then takes up dieting again. This cycle persists.

So, what to do? And what has this got to do with writing? Don’t be so impatient.

I was listening to an episode of The Skeptics Guide To The Universe recently, as I regularly do. They will often talk about dieting in the context of the information available to the public, and how to approach that information(skeptically is usually the answer, as you may have guessed. But if you’ll allow me a little elaboration, the idea is to approach things with an open, yet thorough mind. Don’t take things at face value). On this particular occasion, they were talking with Jeff Ainslee about his project Fat 2 Fit Radio.

His advice matched what I have heard doctors saying to friends and family. Eat little but often – five small meals a day rather than three large ones. And eat food that is good for you, obviously. That way you’re getting the good stuff, but don’t get hungry (and therefore snacky), because you’re eating more frequently.

But here’s the interesting part (and well done for sticking with it thus far), he also said that dieters generally have their priorities all wrong. Don’t try to lose weight. No, that’s not the aim. Instead, try to live a healthy lifestyle, and the weight will take care of itself. Here’s an interesting quote:

… you look at your goal weight, and you look at that person, you figure out how that person eats and exercises, and then you start eating that right now, and then eventually you become that person [...] You start to live the lifestyle of that thinner person, and you will become that person.

Jeff Ainslee on The Skeptics Guide to the Universe, Feb 9 2011 episode

See. Interesting.

Wait, I thought this was a writing website

Right, so here’s the connection. Have you ever binge-written? Throughout my writing career (and I use the term as loosely as a term can be used here), I have had periods of must-write, must-write, must-write (usually when I’ve had a new idea), followed by periods of stopping altogether, for months at a time. Doesn’t that rather sound like the dieter – bouts of dieting, followed by bouts of, er, not-dieting, followed by dissatisfaction, followed by dieting?

Now, this might not be a problem for some people. They may finish a writing project, and be happy to leave writing for a few months or a year, until they really feel the need again. But I’m willing to bet that for most people, that writing sprint does not produce a finished project, but half a project. I would also bet that the reason behind frequent binge-writing is because deep down, that person wants to be a writer. They become dissatisfied with not being a writer, do a stint of writing to make themselves feel better, don’t sustain it, and start the cycle again when dissatisfaction returns.

Become the writer

So the solution might be similar to the dieting one. Instead of worrying about how many books you haven’t published, change your lifestyle. Picture the author you want to become (the equivalent of the healthy person above). How often does that author write? How much time do they spend on it a week? How many words do they write each day? Go further – how do they fit their writing routine around their day job (many writers have them)? If they don’t have a day job, what might they do instead (book-signings, public speaking events, teaching)? How do they fit their writing around their family?

Now, I’m not going to suggest becoming that person now. I think for a lot of us, that’s a bit of a stretch. But do visualise it, write it down if it helps (it does, so do). Then you can think about gradually becoming that writer. Set yourself some goals. By the end of the year, how many words/pages do you want to be writing per day? Work this out for a few of the aspects of the writer you have imagined. Think about what you have to do to achieve those goals. By the end of the year, you will be a lot closer to becoming that writer.

See – just like dieting. I wasn’t lying was I? Please discuss away in the comments. If anyone has any tips on achieving these things, please do share, as we all need inspiration!

Well, I’ve hit a bit of a snag with this.

Unfortunately, not all crossroads in life are clearly marked. That's deep that. Image courtesy of Mark Smallwood

There are dangers to this kind of writing.  Both Matt and I have discussed this before, but I’d like to take a direct look at the dangers myself here (since I have recommended freeform writing in the past) 

The Dangers

Danger One of course is ending up with a hulking great brick of a manuscript – a tangled mess of various ideas which don’t really gel together and require massive amounts of redrafting.  This is obviously where having a plan comes in really handy.  Even if you have just a most basic outline, then it can help.  I discovered this while thinking about my first book.  Now this I have completed, and have redrafted many times.  But I have fiercely kept some material which I liked almost from draft one, and since the project has evolved, it doesn’t really fit together.  Now, do I work some magic and smooth it over, or do I amputate the (admittedly less mature) material in another huge overhaul?  I can’t even bear thinking about that.  But I’ll go into that more in danger three.

Danger Two is that you may get to a certain point and not know how to progress.  This is the danger that has hampered me with my newest project.  It’s the new book I was writing, which inspired me to write about improvisational writing in the first place.  Yes, I had a vague idea of where the whole story was going to end up, but having completed part one, I’ve stalled.  I have to get the story from point A to point D, but I have no idea where points B and C are, or what happens there.

So how to remedy this?  Brainstorm?  Come up with a plan?  Some writers would suggest that you do the latter option even before you start the project.  But what if, like me, you have all this material already?  You have the start, and you have the destination, so take some time out and plot out the journey.  Yes, that is the sensible option. 

But how about something more radical?  More out there?  More… foolish?  This struck me while thinking about it.  How about scrapping the destination altogether?  Yes, I knew where this was going, but that was when the journey first started.  Since I started writing, and new plots and characters developed, this ultimate destination seemed to get further and further away (which results in Danger One of course).  So screw the original plan and pick a new destination. 

As I said, very very foolish. 

Danger Three is multi-booking.  How do you see this project working out?  Now, I’ve never been a fan of trilogies for trilogies’ sake.  That was of course until I dove into my first book and yes, I get it.  Spending so much time, effort, energy, blood, sweat, tears and other less mentionable bodily fluids mapping out characters and situations, you can get attached.  And obviously, once you’ve gotten attached it can be hard to let go.  ‘Hey, I don’t need to!’ You might say, ‘I’ll just write another book with these characters.’ 

Which of course can be a blessing and a curse.  Obviously, if your aim is to get published, then it’s good to have ideas for more books down the line.  And let’s face it, its easier to write a second or third book in a world you’ve already mapped out, with characters you already know.  Publishers like this too, because if the first book is a success, then there is a pre-built fan-base for the second and so one.  But the curse of it?  How much do you plan out for the series?  Now this depends on genre.  With crime fiction, I’m guessing it’s a little simpler.  Establish your detective/detectives, then throw new cases at them every book.  I don’t think like that though.  Unfortunately, I’m all about the bigger picture.  It’s the one area where I will plan out in advance. 

So you have an idea for a multi-book storyline.  How much of it do you throw in to that first book?  If I can briefly divert into film territory here, film trilogies can do this a lot.  The first film in a trilogy can essentially act as stand alone (Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, Back to the Future), while films two and three will often be one story split across two films, which you can’t really watch without having seen the others.  Can you do the same with books?  Well it’s a different medium isn’t it?  A film you digest in a few hours, a book can take anything from a few days to a few weeks.  So there is less room for (seemingly) extraneous material, especially in that all important first book. 

So how do you deal with this?  Personally, I have tended to map out the story for book two in a series (and even begun writing it) before the first book is even finished.  Yes, this is stupid, and pointless, and can definitely hinder you if you want to go mad and ditch the destination as I suggested in Danger Two.  But really, if you do have a multi-book idea, then you do definitely need to chart it out.  In detail.  Have an overarching plot that runs through all the books, and then introduce smaller plots that emerge in a book by book basis.  You cant just freeform a multi-book plot.  Trust me, I’ve tried in the past and it blows up in your face. 

Cul-de-sacs

Sometimes you just have to throw things out. Image courtesy of Sharon Drummond.

So this is where I am.  I am hitting dead ends everywhere, and am failing to see a way to progress.  Part of me deep down (a sick twisted part of me that I really shouldn’t listen to) is telling me that to take a time out and do some actual planning is dumb, because it’s time being wasted on planning, when I could be using that time writing.  But then, if I’m not doing the writing in the first place… 

Another part of me is telling me to just bin everything and start from scratch.  It’s all well and good moving chunks of text around to try and get them to all fit so you can open up a way forward, but it doesn’t help in really pushing me to progress.  Whereas if I got rid of all of those blocks, I might be able to see a path. 

A third part is telling me to take a step back, breathe, and next time I start a new project, make it something small and simple, two girls sitting on a beach or something.  No aliens, no government plots, and no multidimensional creatures intent on destroying the universe.

That’s right, because I’ve been going through my old files again.  Mainly this was to make me feel like I was actually doing something writerly, to get myself some motivation.  And I found another of my old projects.  And started reading through it. 

I know that last time I advised against this, but there was something about this project that just seemed… well, like its time had come.  There are I think, several factors involved with this project that didn’t make me want to delete it/never write again/throw myself off a building.

Image courtesy of Sparticus at Flickr

Collaboration

 
This is I think the first factor.  This project was originally a kind of collaboration.  Collaborating on a piece does have its pros and cons, Matt has also covered this previously.  While different writing styles can clash and ideas can lead to places that you might not want to go, it does give you some kind of motivation to get that next section done. 

This project I discovered was something like that.  At the time, it was something I was writing with, or rather on behalf of, a friend of mine, who isn’t a writer.  He had some ideas for a film, and I had some similar ideas and somehow we fleshed them out and I got them down on paper.  I do run my ideas by him occasionally, since he epitomizes the general demographic of moviegoers. 

So I guess part of it was at the time, I didn’t really take the project too seriously.  It was something fun that I didn’t have to worry too much about, just something to keep the motor running. 

Finding Its Time and Place

 
Sometimes you write something and it’s ahead of its time.  My last “new” project was like this.  I had the character mapped out but didn’t have the story for him, so I put him back in the ideas bank to gestate.  And sometimes ideas can be like this.  That’s why you should keep all your notes and older projects.  Granted, a lot of them will end up in the trash, as I said in my last post on this subject, as they may never find their time.  But sometimes a project will just click into place, it’s right for the mindset that you have at that time. 

And that’s what happened here.  I’d been to see The Last Airbender, and yes, it was truly appalling.  From a production standpoint.  The script was dire, truly amateurish, and there was no pacing, no momentum and it was very weakly structured.  It had just so happened that this was the same weekend when I’d been looking at this file and it prompted me to try and rework it. 

Slice and Dice

Yup.  The thing about old ideas is that there is a lot of stuff in there that will not be suitable.  Rather than try and work it in, just cut it.  I had two major plot lines and they were far too big for one story (yeah, because that never happens with my writing!)  And far from being reluctant to cut the crap, I actually felt liberated.  I didn’t have to have all this extra stuff in there.  This whole subplot about these other characters wasn’t needed.  So off it went.  This can be very useful, because developing this skill, this ability, to painlessly cut stuff that weighs a project down is essential. 

Keep a hold of that stuff though, put it in the ideas bank, because who knows, a few years down the line, it might fit in somewhere else. 

In Conclusion

 
I’m not saying this project is going to go anywhere.  I cant really decide on a format for it, but I’m sketching out the whole story outline, which is something I’ve never really done before (it’s the essential opposite of winging it, like I normally do), which I guess is another valuable skill to learn.  Winging it can be more exciting, not knowing exactly where a project is going, but unless you’re very good at it (I like to think that I am) then you can save yourself a lot of time by mapping out the story.  It’s fun, because this is the first project that I’ve written that I actually know definitively where it ends, and what happens there, and even how I get there. 

Just going to have to run it by my demographic to see how he likes it…

Such has been the problem for the last couple of weeks. I recently smashed my records for the most words written in a month and in a week. Woohoo! Unfortunately, rather than spur me on to even greater things, this has had the opposite effect. Something went click in my brain and suddenly I felt like I’d earned a break.

Well, no actually Matt, you didn’t.

This break was not a conscious decision. It was more like an attitude that seeped in. Of course, I should have confronted this head on when I felt this insidious seepage, but alas, I just carried on doing trickles of writing and feeling guilty. The result is that not a lot of writing gets done, and there is now a general lack of motivation. Bad! Bad! Bad! Two steps forward, one step back (at least).

So, what should I have done? I’ve prepared a short list that I think will help me in future:

• Set out your next goals. Let’s keep that motivation going. You (and I, too. Everybody!) should take a look at the stats and decide what you should be chasing next. What’s the next goal? Play about with it. If this goal is achieved, what does that mean, and what else might be achieved? These are the motivating questions that ensured the last milestone was reached, so they should not be ignored now.
• And if you must take it easy… Then decide to take it easy! Don’t leave it to chance, don’t lose control. Set the boundaries. Are you going to do nothing for a set amount of days, or have a smaller wordcount target this week? What are the exact numbers? Stick to it! And now that you’ve decided on the conditions of your rest, don’t forget to set some goals for afterwards so you’re not left languishing!
• Pay attention! Are you having an unscheduled break? Is your wordcount dipping below acceptable levels? Feeling demotivated? Don’t ignore it! Confront it! Set some new goals or schedule a break, but again, make the decision!

Hopefully I’ll be able to practice what I preach! Motivation is pretty much everything when you’re working on something alone, so it’s important to be aware and to take control! Now let’s get to it!

So, I have a potential problem here. But should I be bothered about the fact that I currently have no ending? My Mind argues with itself thus:

Yes! If you don’t know your ending, what are you going to work towards?
An interesting point. Presumably I’m going to want to foreshadow my ending with hints about how the story will be resolved. I will have to make sure my characters have all the right tools, and that everyone is at the right place at the right time.

No! That’s what other drafts are for! Besides, you want to give yourself enough freedom to make the story end naturally.
I see. Over the course of writing my story, I will likely form a more coherent set of characters. What I’ve planned for them in the end might not fit with the story and people that have evolved as part of the process. Then I’ll be shoehorning an ill-fitting climax to the finish of my story!

Yes! What if you get to the end and you still can’t think if an ending?
Oh, I didn’t think of that. I don’t want to stall at the last hurdle, do I.

No! But how long are you going to wait? And in the meantime, what, you don’t start writing?
Well yes, I have to start some time. Although not writing it at all has a certain appeal. It certainly seems easier…

Yes! No! What!?
You’re right. Forget I said anything.

Or something like that anyway.