Writing is Like Riding a Bike

The first time you rode a bike you would’ve been a bit wobbly, unsure, and tentative. Or maybe you cruised for a brief second and then crashed. But if you stuck with it and after hours and hours of riding, you could go with the wind in your face and your hands out at your sides. 

Writing is like riding a bike. 

Do one thing over and over, and you’re going to become more efficient at it. You’ll innately find ways that make it easier for you. In short, the more you write, the better you’ll get. 

It may not feel like your writing is changing in the beginning, but give it a few years, look back, and be amazed at how far you’ve come. Sorry this is short this week, but my time is consumed with prepping for a non-profit gala I volunteer with. Like writing, I discovered after a few years of putting together flower center pieces, I’m faster at flower arranging! 

Happy Writing!

Old Skills and New Skills

We’ve reached the middle of January and the new year has yet to shed all of it’s glitter and shine. It’s a great time to pursue goals and think about trying new things…like new writing skills? This week we’re asking if we try new skills each year or with each book. 

To date, I’ve written four complete novels and roughly a dozen intros with synopses. Over the years I’ve found my writing groove: best time of day, chapter structure, outlining, and word count expectations. All of this was determined by use of a spreadsheet. I don’t sit down to work on any novel without first pulling up its spreadsheet. 

Yes, I’m a Virgo. I’ve got spreadsheet skills.

I’m not going to say I won’t learn new tricks or processes, because I fully expect to. I want to grow as an author, I don’t know how you can write multiple novels without growth, though I expect it to be a gradual thing. For now, I do feel comfortable with my writing skills and how I go about turning thought into book. At this time I’m not looking for new skills, I’m looking to strengthen the ones I’ve got. 

My spreadsheets—they’ll continue to be tweaked as I determine which parameters need to be tracked more closely. My plotting graph—that’ll stay the same handy form that it is. And Scrivener—it’s capable of gobs of options I don’t use, but the ones I do are irreplaceable. 

That’s the rundown on my writing skills. How about yours, do you try out anything new when you start a new manuscript?

Leveling Up - Whether We Want To or Not

This week at the SFF Seven we're asking each other: do you look for new skills to try each year? Or with each book?

My first reaction is that this isn't an annual process for me, but an ongoing one. Because it's absolutely something that happens with every book. And not because I plan it that way! Quite the reverse. With 65 published titles, I often go into new books thinking something along the lines of "This one will be a fast and easy write because x, y, z."

I am, inevitably, always always wrong.

That's not to say that some books don't write easier than others, but they all pose unique problems. It seems to be the nature of the beast, that the creative process goes to a new and more challenging place every time. 

I have two caveats to this:

1. I do kind of look at this on a yearly basis because of my agent, Sarah Younger at Nancy Yost Literary Agency, who sets up annual chats with all of her clients at the beginning of each year. (She jokes that she has to dig some clients out of their caves once a year for this. You know who you are.) I really love this about Sarah because it's part of what she brings to the table: long-term career strategy. She says she keeps a goal book for each of her clients and we revisit those goals and set new ones each year. For me, a big part of this conversation is always how can I grow and expand? What do I need to do to level up?
2. The second caveat is that I save some ideas for when I have the chops to execute them. Writers often talk about (and are asked) where they get their ideas and how we choose what to write next. (See above for that.) For many of us, ideas arrive all the time, but that doesn't mean we're ready to write them. The second novel I ever wrote was like that - only I didn't know that I didn't have the chops to execute the concept. So, over the years, I've gradually been adding skills as the stories demand them. In Shadow Wizard, book one of the Renegades of Magic trilogy, I added extra points-of-view (POVs). That was the first time I wrote in more than two POVs. In book three of that trilogy, Twisted Magic, I had five POVs. Who knows where it will end??

Except that someday (maybe?), I'd like to go back and rewrite that second novel. I bet I could pull it off this time.