Ideas! Ideas! Which Becomes the Next WiP?

 This Week's Topic: Picking and Choosing -- How Do I Decide Which Idea to Write?

I'm feeling a little feisty this morning (no reason for it, just feelin' it), so the smart-ass answer is "the next idea is the next book in the series."

But what if I've finished the series and am pondering what trilogy to begin next? Oooh. Ah. I, uh, um, hmmm... Usually, I pick the story that I can clearly envision from start to finish. I know the main characters; we've had long, intimate discussions in my dreams. The major and minor plot points have arranged themselves in linear escalations of failure and success. The nature of magic and its rules are suitably different from my other works. The only things missing from The Next WiP are the details. 

Hahahaha. {slaps knee} Bought that did you? 

Yeah. I wish. That kind of clarity only happens when I'm in the throes of working on another book. Ya know, at the most inconvenient time. The time when I can't afford to deviate from the current WiP lest I lose the vision and multiple threads I'm weaving to the final climactic moment. When that future book intrudes on a WiP, I jot down as little as I can to assuage my imagination's OOOH SHINY moment, then get back to the project underway. Whiiiiich means that by the time I'm ready to take on a new series, the urge that once accompanied the intrusive idea has faded. 

Unless it hasn't. 

Maybe it's merely mellowed, ripened, and matured. Maybe now, that simmering idea has developed more intriguing aspects, a better magic system, clearer challenges, and more unique characters. Maybe that once intrusive idea has spawned two more robust major plots that then comprise a complete trilogy. Maybe now, I can see the story not as one novel, but as three. Maybe now it really is ready to become the Work In Progress.

Yaaassss. Come to me my precious. Let us jot down the skeletal plots for all three books in the trilogy, then begin the beguine.

I've notebooks filled with OOOH SHINY brain dumps. Before I choose the next series, I flip through my scribbles until one of them jumps up, calling Mr. Kotter! Mr. Kotter! (if you don't know that reference, get off my lawn!) No, I don't write to trend. I'm far too slow a writer to catch a wave. For me, the next WiP is the one that is fleshed out in my head, the one that has clear plots whose salient points can be bulleted in a short outline, the one that is actually three so I can properly seed and foreshadow as the series arc builds, the one that still makes me curious about the minor twists and the enticing details, the one that still makes me eager to sit down and put the words on the page.

Writer's Business

Most of the time, we writers labor in isolation whether writing or working the business side of publishing. Taxes, contracts, negotiations (if you don't have an agent doing that for you), covers, marketing copy, and hiring subcontractors - it can be a lot. But there are times where one lonely writer's business is every writers' business. The WGA strike is the perfect example. An entire class of writers aren't being compensated fairly for their work and that matters to all of us. If it doesn't, it should. What impacts one part of the publishing world eventually escapes containment to infect the entire industry. Writers who stick together to fight for fair wages and workers rights continue writing into the future without having to sell a kidney to keep food on the table.

Another way one writer's business becomes every writers business is via tell-all blogs and databases that call out the so called 'professionals' who take advantage of writers. Witness the SFWA Writers Beware website. This is a resource that exists solely to call out bad actors in the industry - those who prey upon writers with less than ethical practices. Other authors offer in-depth blogs, classes, communities, or mentorships around the best business practices for writers. Some focus on traditional publishing, others on indie publishing. There's information out there for just about every writer and, in some cases, the Writer Beware website can help route out those of dubious value.

While you don't want to be glued incessantly to the dramas engulfing the publishing business, you do want to remain aware. Supporting a writers' strike in one sector of the business has a net positive ripple effect on your own business. If nothing else, it teaches us to never work without a contract or complete control of our intellectual property. Writing and the business of writing can be isolating pursuits. Keeping a finger on the pulse of the industry, however, pulls you out of isolation a little bit. It gives us the opportunity to engage in the larger body of writers, leaning on each others' business experience and expertise.

Understand Your Brain

If you’re new to the writing game you may think that all you’ll be doing is writing. And while the writing part is the most essential—no words means no no business side—a major chunk of your time will be spent on the non-writing tasks.

That sounds strange, doesn’t it? 

As Jeffe mentioned yesterday, we’re creatives and not many of us are business majors. The marketing, the profit loss spreadsheets, and the inbox are things that we need to do. Let’s call them the necessary evils…and they don’t count as writing. 

I do enjoy spreadsheets because I love data. But I’ve never tracked writing time vs. business times. It would be interesting to have a real percentage. What I can tell you without plugging anything in is—and here is where my advice related to the business side of writing comes in—my business hours take place in the afternoon and occasionally the evening. 

Designating what hours I devote to the craft of writing and what hours are slotted for everything else, those necessary evils, is important. Once up on a time I tracked my productivity and from that data it was clear that my brain is most creative and productive mid-morning. 

Understanding how your brain works gives you another tool to level up your writing. If you're a night owl who gets visions of sugar plums dancing around your head in the middle of the night, that's when you should write. If your day job ends late afternoon and your brain turns on its fun zone, that's when you should write. Maybe you're one of those rare people who bounce right out of bed, ready to face the day and a blank page, that's when you should write. 

If you haven't taken the time to break down how you're wired, I hope you will. It could be one of the keys to your maximum productivity. 

The Business of Writing

This week at the SFF Seven, we're talking the business side of being a writer. 

In our fantasies of being famous and beloved authors, we envision many things: bucolic writing sessions, romantic candlelit garrets with wine- and quill-strewn desks, celebrations with adoring fans, bookstore windows filled with our bestseller. (What's yours? I'd love to know!) We (or, at least, I didn't) don't picture ourselves slaving at the computer, going cross-eyed over royalty statements or struggling to ramp up on the newest social media trend.

Many of us creatives don't love the business side of being a writer. I mean, there's a reason we took literature, theater, and art classes in college instead of Economics, and that we only knew where the business school was because we occasionally had to meet one of our friends there. With a few exceptions, as creatives, business is not our favorite learn.

But we have to learn to do it and we have to learn to do it WELL.

If we don't, people will take advantage of us and, believe me, there are plenty lined up to do just that. There are ample cautionary tales of authors handing over the business aspects of their careers to someone else and losing everything. Even if it doesn't go that badly, we run the risk of making foolish choices out of ignorance. 

How much time do I spend on the business aspect of my writing life? A lot. At least as much time as I spend actually writing, possibly even twice as much, or even three times. Because I'm a hybrid author, self-publishing my books counts as me running a small, highly exclusive publishing company. It takes hours every day. On the trad publishing side, even though I have an agent who is amazing and efficient, I still have to spend a fair amount of time on back and forth with her - all business. And then there's conventions and conferences, which are basically all business. Chatting with my author friends is fun and social, but also? Business.

The way I see it, since I write full-time and have no other job, anything I spend my time on that isn't drafting or editing words counts as business. I take it very seriously.

 

The Business Side: Taking Time to Reward Yourself

 This Week's Topic: The Business Side -- Time Devoted, etc.

How much time do I devote to the business side of being an author? Depends on where I am in the cycle of production. Could be as little as an hour or as much as a whole damn day.

Promotions, sales planning and analysis, data tracking and analysis, advertising revisions and analysis, graphics design and analysis, website design and maintenance, social media, budgeting, continuing education, backmatter updates, and more are all part of the business side of writing. Were I in a cycle of pitching to traditional publishing, then the querying, synopses, submissions, and tracking would fall under this massive umbrella too. Heck, even penning this blog post falls under the business category.

So, how much time do I spend working on the business side? Normally, 1-2 hours a day. Yes, that includes social media time too. Haha, no I'm not particularly active on the socials, and I've gotten more reticent as the years march on. It's because I have nothing particularly interesting to share with the world. Instead, I'm all up in my head, playing in the fantasy I'm building. 

Naturally, if I'm putting out a new product (aka releasing a book), then I spend more time getting all the ducks in a row for the release, but that rarely takes more than a week. A day for ARCs (list cleanup, file distribution, etc). A day to handle any crises that came up during production. A day for all the uploads. A day to update the website. A day to build and schedule the promotions. A day for the newsletter (content creation and list cleanup). For anything that involves playing with technology, I automatically add an extra 25% in estimated time to complete the requirements because technology is great when it works and an expensive frisbee when it doesn't. Also, while I set aside the day for certain tasks, if the poltergeists don't attack, then once I'm done, I have free time. Ya know, the rarity of having no other obligations or responsibilities while still having the reward of completing the day's assignment?

Y'all do that for yourselves, right? 

Give yourselves breathing room? 

Celebrate the routine and minor accomplishments?

For those of you gasping over me taking a whole day to devote to business stuff, thus inferring that I do not work on the WiP on those days...you're correct. I don't. It's a micro-holiday. A mind refresher. A chance for my subconscious to fribble around with whatever plot point or impending sticky wicket in the story. Letting your analytical brain dominate while your creative mind cogitates belly button lint is a good thing. If your WiP is always on your mind--if it's a slave driver whipping you with guilt--then burnout is on its way. We don't want that. That's no fun. That takes forever to get past. 

Micro-holidays. Tiny rewards. Breathing room. Embrace them. Think of them as team building, if you must. You and your awesome team of one. Any decent business manager knows the importance of rewarding their employees. So, don't be a dick, especially to yourself. 

Embrace the Boredom

I am visiting the PNW this week. We're in Port Townsend for a day or two before moving on to our next spot so you get a glimpse of the Victorian history that makes the town famous before we talk about staving off boredom while writing long books.

Some people naturally write short books - this can be anywhere from 55k words up to 75k. These people are good at getting to the point and at diving right into conflict. Then there are those of us who revel in complication. Our books are long, usually 100k. Possibly more. Possibly much, much more. We wouldn't know simple if it started chewing on our faces. I feel it's important to acknowledge that neither is superior to the other. Stories are still the result and there is no perfect length for a book. So before we dive into how not to bore yourself to tears whilst writing a longer book, let's acknowledge that not everyone is cut out to write long books. Just like I am not cut out to write short. No. That's wrong. I can write short. I have done. What I cannot do is write simple. I'm allergic to straightforward plots without dozens of other threads woven through. The one time I forced myself to do so the plot was - well - weak. So don't feel badly if you start a long book and it just doesn't work. It may not be your strength. Don't volunteer to be the fish who tries to climb a tree. With that painful metaphor etched in your brain, let's talk long books.

Long books need a lot of plot. They need extra conflict. They need bigger stakes and bigger problems to be solved. You probably won't find many stories about saving the world or all life on earth that run about 55k words long. It just usually takes a little longer to get to there. Longer books are where you bring in secondary story lines involving secondary and tertiary characters - so long as it all contrasts or reinforces the main story. In longer books, complications breed complications, raising tensions and obstacles for characters to overcome. This also means that your characters have a lot to conquer in themselves. Whatever their flaws or weaknesses that keep them from solving all the problems right now, they need to be either deep seated enough or the character obstinate enough to need extra time (and extra pain) to bring about real change in the character. It's a lot to juggle and it's what you'll need to keep yourself tuned into the rise and fall of conflict across the long expanse of words you have to write. So how do you keep from getting bored? You don't. Sorry to break it to you but when you write longer books, you get bored. It's just part of the process. You've been in the story for so long, mucking around in the workings, solving problems, working out the bumps and stops, there's simply no human way to not get sick to death of it. You will. So your only hope is to plan for it and to push through it. Unless. Unless you can take a pause and look for a twist even you didn't see coming until you go to this 'wow, I hate this story' spot. Sometimes it works and you'll plow on with renewed energy and a mental note to rewrite your synopsis. The rest of the time, you just have to embrace the pain of 'story doesn't care how you feel, hush up and put the words in'. The good news is that your boredom will rarely last past the ramp to the 3/4 crisis. The other good news is that just because you're bored, it doesn't necessarily follow that readers will be. You're bored because familiarity breeds contempt. You're too close. Knowing that won't dispel boredom, but it might be enough assurance to get a few thousand more words out of you. The only other advice I can offer is to remember to turn into conflict. Your characters might not like pain, but you need to love it for them. Think of a long book as your villain origin story - learn to enjoy torturing your characters (and thereby your readers) for fun and profit. That makes the long slog a bit more entertaining.

Advice for Writers: Combatting Boredom

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is somewhat cryptic, at least how it's noted on our calendar: Long books - how not to get bored.

It's not entirely clear to me who's attempting to avoid boredom here. The writer? The reader? 

Hopefully not the reader! Most of us readers who love to read long books are totally in it for the long, for the full immersion into another world, living other lives. I suspect the principles for writing a long book that won't bore readers are the same as writing *anything* at all. We never want to bore readers.

So, I'm going to assume we're asking about getting bored writing long books. How to avoid that?

You can't.

Sorry, but... sometimes writing is boring. Sometimes it's fun. Sometimes it's agonizing. Writing novels, especially very long ones, requires a particular skill set of paying attention to, and working incrementally on, a work that takes a very long time to complete. 

The whole point is not to try to avoid boredom with the process. The point is to revise your expectations. 

Writing is work. This is why there are so many people who SAY they always wanted to write a novel and such a vanishingly smaller percentage who have. An even smaller percentage of that subset ever write more than six books. It's hard work and there's a reason we distinguish work from fun. Writing may be occasionally fun, but it's always work.

What's important to keep in mind is that the experience of writing is not the experience of reading. Don't conflate the two. One of my least favorite pieces of "writing advice" is the saw that "if the writer is bored writing it, the reader will be bored reading it."

NOT TRUE.

Writing takes vastly longer than reading. Every one of us who has spent months writing a book that releases at midnight and then wakes up to comments from readers who read it overnight understands this truth viscerally. Writing a novel, especially a long novel, requires patience and attention over a long span of time. 

So: don't worry about finding ways to not get bored while writing long works. Accept that boredom is part of the process. It's part of the price we pay. 

 

The Long Yawn, Erm, Yarn (Push)

 This Week's Topic: Long Books -- How Not To Get Bored

Push.

Push the reader.

Push the reader into the next chapter.

Push the reader into the next chapter by making them hungry.

Push the reader into the next chapter by making them hungry for the answer.

Push the reader into the next chapter by making them hungry for the answer to What happens next?

Push.

Push your characters.

Push your characters into the next chapter.

Push your characters into the next chapter by making them hungry.

Push your characters into the next chapter by making them hungry for the answer.

Push your characters into the next chapter by making them hungry for the answer to What happens next?