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My apologies for things being a bit quiet on this front lately. I’ve been overwhelmed by general life things when I’d much rather have the time to post here and write more. But that’s ever the way. The life of the writer is a combination of rejection, poverty and distraction, in varying quantities.

[Editor’s Note: strong language after the jump]

But we soldier on, burdened as we are with the un-fucking-shakeable need to tell stories. Because every once in a while we reap the rewards.

It’s all justified when we get that acceptance letter from a publisher, that incredible high when someone with no bias, no knife pressed against their fragile carotid artery, actually wants to buy something we’ve written. There really is no feeling like it and we all dream of the day when that kind of acceptance is enough to pay the bills and put food on the table. It doesn’t happen for many, but it does happen. And we’re all bloody-minded sons(and daughters)-of-bitches, refusing to give up on the dream. I firmly believe that equally important with talent is determination.

The successful people in the world are the ones who never give up. They have the dreams, but everyone has those. They have the talent, but anyone can learn that. Of course, there will always be those people with a natural gift. They’re the writers other successful writers envy. Some people are just too damned talented for their own good, but anyone can get good. With practice, with a desire to learn and a determination to succeed, people get talented. But the really successful people also have that old donkey stubborness. That “fuck you if you think I’ll quit” attitude. Dreams, talent and determination – that’s almost the formula for success. Almost.

You need to liberally add the essential spices of help from friends and luck. None of us get anywhere without those things too. It’s all very well to say that you only have to believe hard enough and anyone can reach their dreams. That’s bollocks. You need luck. But I’m also a fan of that other great proverb: The harder I work, the luckier I get.

Dreams, talent, determination, friends and luck. Put all that in a cauldron and stir it up with a heady stew of hard fucking work. That’s all there is to it.

But life does get in the way. During the process, other shit happens. You all know life, you’re living it with me. Shit’s hard, people die, nothing is fair. That’s life in a nutshell. It needs to be dealt with, decisions have to be made, money needs to be earned to pay bills and buy groceries. We’re often distracted from the real stuff by life. Because life isn’t the real stuff – it’s the essential stuff. The unavoidable, no choice stuff. The real is the dream. Make your dreams real, remember that? What’s it all for, the struggle to survive, if you’re not chasing something? Whatever it is you feel the burning need to do, whatever moves you like writing moves me, has to be the real thing for you. The thing you’re living for. The rest is existence. The dreams are living.

So life gets in the way. I’ve been a bit burdened by it myself lately. But will I give in? Hell, no. Old donkey stubborn, that’s me. Still working hard. So if things go a bit quiet around here from time to time, don’t worry about it. I’m too determined to quit.

The Formula:

Dreams, Talent, Determination, Friends, Luck
____________________________________
Hard Fucking Work

Never give up. Go on, you can do it!

This is a reprint from Alan Baxter‘s The Word.

This article originally appeared on the Missouri News-Leader site on 7/26/11. [Publetariat Editor’s Note: sadly, censorship is alive and well in American schools.]

REPUBLIC — Two of the three Republic High books singled out in a public complaint last year will now be removed from the school curriculum and library.

Shortly before 9 p.m. Monday, the school board voted 4-0 — three members were absent — to keep Laurie Halse Anderson’s "Speak," an award-winning book about date rape, and remove Kurt Vonnegut’s "Slaughterhouse Five" and Sarah Ockler’s "Twenty Boy Summer."

Wesley Scroggins, a Republic resident, challenged the use of the books and lesson plans in Republic schools, arguing they teach principles contrary to the Bible.

"I congratulate them for doing what’s right and removing the two books," said Scroggins, who didn’t attend the board meeting. "It’s unfortunate they chose to keep the other book."

Superintendent Vern Minor said the vote brings a conclusion to the complaint filed a year ago. Scroggins told the News-Leader he has yet to give any thought to pursuing this further.

In making a recommendation to remove the two, Minor explained that "numerous individuals have read the three novels and provided their feedback." He conceded there wasn’t always consensus about what step to take.

"We had some differences of opinion, I’ll be honest with you," he said.

Read the rest of the article on the Missouri News-Leader site.

This post, by Roni Loren, originally appeared on her Fiction Groupie blog on 6/17/11.

So this year I’ve been diligently working on the draft of the second book in my series, MELT INTO YOU. This one is tentatively scheduled to release sometime next summer, but the manuscript is due to my editor at the end of this month.

Well, I finished the draft a couple of weeks ago and sent it to Sara to get her feedback and to make sure I hadn’t suffered from the dreaded second book syndrome. *shudders* Luckily, Sara liked the book and only had a few changes she suggested.

A few. But one was a biggie. She suggested I cut the murder mystery subplot and replace it with something different. Not a huge change in word count, but a very significant change with regards to the story’s plot. Hence began my journey through the Stages of Revision Emotions. 

Okay, so in the list of revisions, there is usually one, maybe two, shockers. Your favorite scene needs to be cut or something you thought was vital gets the ax. But most of the time with Sara, her suggestions resonate with me in that "Damn, why didn’t I see that?" way. Or she picks out things that were niggling at me but that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. That’s the gift of having someone with an editorial eye. They can see things you can’t because you’re too close to it.

This is when you get excited. Things don’t look so hard or too bad. You just need to change A B and C and you’re golden. La dee da, I’m the kickass writer girl.

You actually sit down to make those seemingly innocuous changes and WHAM! you’ve just blasted your manuscript to swiss cheese. Plot holes are bleeding on your pages, threads with loose ends are flapping in the breeze, your characters have been flattened to road kill.

You’ve hit the denial phase. This can’t be done. If I make this change, I’ll have to rewrite the whole book from scratch. My agent/editor must be crazy to think I could change this. It’s impossible. I’m just going to leave it the way it is and turn it in. I am the writer, so I get the ultimate call on revisions anyway, right?

Read the rest of the post on Roni Loren‘s Fiction Groupie blog.

This post, by author Courtney Milan, originally appeared on her site on 7/26/11.

I wrote a very long blog post last night. In fact, I’m not done writing it. It was so long, I’ve split it into two. This half is still pretty darned long. This is the less technical half, the shorter half (gnn, yes, really, sorry!) and it’s the half that I’m going to address to agents.

I want to be clear about one thing–while this is an open letter to agents in general, the agent I’m not addressing this to is mine. She and I have had several conversations about this new world, and I know we’ll have more. What has impressed me about her response is that when I’ve gone to her with a concern, she has thought about it, talked about it with others, and come back to me with a response that tells me that she gets where I’m coming from, that she respects me as an author. This shouldn’t be taken as a passive-aggressive dig at her; everything here I’ve already told her, and then some. If I ever need to tell her something, I’ll send her an e-mail or give her a call, and I know she’ll respect and listen to what I have to say. 

{Edited to add the next morning: Please see my mea culpa here.}

So, to every agent in the world who is worried about the new world in publishing, except Kristin Nelson:

You want to know the number one question that authors are asking me about my self-publishing venture? Bar none, it’s this: “How are you dealing with your agent?” I can’t think of a single published author who wanted to ask me questions about self-publishing who has not asked that question, and wanted to talk about it at length. The ratio of questions about my agent to questions about everything else that I’m doing has been about 15:1. I’ve talked to other agented authors who have self-published, and they are also fielding questions about their agents, I suspect at approximately the same ratio.

Agents, I don’t think you have any idea how much your writers are talking about you right now. Seriously. I don’t think you have any idea. I am getting multiple e-mails every day from writers who are worried about what their agents are doing, and who are worried about how to handle agents, and who want to be fair to their agents but also don’t want to pay them a percentage when there’s little to no work involved, and/or the agent handles little of the risk.

Read the rest of the post on Courtney Milan‘s site, and also see this follow-up post about why the author feels it’s unethical for literary agents to act as their clients’ publishers.

Jane Friedman, friend of Publetariat and authors everywhere, indie and mainstream-published alike, has launched her own, dedicated website, http://www.janefriedman.com. Among other things, this is where you can access her Writing Advice Archive. From Jane, on her site:

I’ve been offering writing and publishing advice for a long time.

So I thought it might be time to create a handy archive of what’s available online, especially for those who haven’t been following me since the very beginning.

Click here to browse.

If you know of something wonderful I’ve written that isn’t included here—or if you’re looking for something you can’t find—let me know. I’ll try to remedy!

Thanks so much for providing (and being!) such an invaluable resource, Jane!

We went to see the latest and last film installment in the Harry Potter series yesterday, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2. The film is pretty good, even if it is pretty much one long action scene. With a story there are normally three acts. There’s a setup, with questions asked and situations created, then there’s some kind of action and usually some extra problems thrown in, and finally there’s resolution. I recently saw something that sums this up beautifully:

I found this via Chuck Wendig’s Tumblr, and I love it so much I want to punch it in the face.

So, the problem, if you can call it that, with the last Harry Potter film is that it’s all the last cup. It’s all resolution, action-packed climax. But that’s okay. Because seven previous films have done all the work of the first two acts.

Say what you will about J K Rowling and the Harry Potter stories, there’s something truly amazing about the achievement. Sure, the stories may be derivative, distillations of so much fantasy that’s gone before. But everything is informed by something. Sure, Rowling may not be the greatest writer on the planet, but she does spin a yarn that keeps you reading, and what more do we really want than that? These aren’t wanky literary explorations of language and word form. They’re rollicking yarns, aimed mainly at young people. And Rowling does have a dab hand at naming things. She comes up with the best names.

I was a bit of a critic at first, especially of the first couple of books. Poorly written, derivative stories that insult the genre, blah, blah, blah. Yes, I’m blah, blah, blahing myself. It’s true to some extent, but Rowling kept going, she created a remarkable world and truly interesting characters. Well, mostly. Ginny Weasley, for example, was always a bit of a glyph. But Rowling got young people excited about books again, and for that she deserves a knighthood or a statue or something. We can forgive the small things in the face of the big achievement.

And that achievement is seven books that sell better than the Bible. A merchandising empire that makes nation states weep. Rowling is worth an estimated £500 million. That’s pounds sterling. That’s a mental amount of money from writing about a boy wizard. On top of that, we’ve got the films.

Never has a film franchise like this happened before. Sure, there have been film series’, though none with a single story that runs to eight full-length episodes. There have been characters who have cropped up way more than seven times, like James Bond. But each of those is a seperate story, and there have been many actors playing Bond. To have a story like Harry Potter extend over eight films, over ten years, with the same cast literally growing up as their characters is something we may never see again.

It would be fantastic if some other great book series’ received the same kind of treatment, but it’s unlikely. Not often does a prospect like Potter come along. Very few stories will guarantee a return on investment like Harry Potter does. It’s beyond mainstream; it’s ubiquitous. Producers and financers knew they could pretty much spend carte blanche on Harry Potter films and guarantee getting their money back several times over. Nothing is a safe bet like that in this world. Rowling created that – a guaranteed massive return investment. And you thought her magic was all fiction. This last installment shattered box office records worldwide, with US$169.2 million in US and Canadian ticket sales over the opening weekend. The opening weekend! And they’ve yet to truly milk it, with the rest of its cinema run, then DVDs, then special edition DVDs, then 8 film boxed sets. Not to mention all the associated merchandising.

Then there’s Pottermore to keep the whole thing monetised. Then there’s always the possibility of more books. The whole 19 Years Later thing at the end of the story is there as some kind of cap, but there are loads of ways around that if Rowling chooses to write more.

Of course, the real test of Rowling’s skill will be to write something else. Amazing as the Potter success is, she’ll always be measured against it and may not be able to write any other stories. I hope not. I hope she comes up with something all new, completely unrelated to Harry Potter and his world of wizards and witches, though I doubt she will.

So, for now at least, it’s over. It really is the end of an era. Children started reading books with the success of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. They grew up alongside their favourite characters while film stars grew up playing those characters. I’m glad to have seen it through. There’s a good sense of closure now and the books and films will stand as one of the greatest storytelling achievements of all time.

I’m still left with one question unanswered. Why does Harry Potter, or any other witch or wizard, wear glasses? They can regrow bones, for goodness sake. Surely they can fix a spot of myopia. Then again, perhaps it’s good to be left with some questions. Well done J K Rowling, and well done Harry, Hermione and Ron. You all did good.

This is a cross-posting from Alan Baxter‘s The Word.

Writer’s groups can be quite difficult because sometimes there is more talking than writing. Maybe that’s what you want, but I have been struggling to find a place to write for a while now. When I talked to Dan Sawyer a while back on prolific writing, he mentioned his writing partner Gail, and I felt the need to find something similar. Last week I found the perfect writer’s group and I talk about it below.

The writing group I went to has rules: No talking, just writing, for 2 hours. Then you’re free to socialize. I arrived at the Battersea pub at 6.30pm after work, ready to write, but also jaded from a full day’s work. I was knackered and if I had gone home, it would have been dinner, reading and bed. But there were 4 other writers there and they were diligently at it, so I opened my netbook and started to write. Two hours later I had 2000 words and a new scene for Prophecy, my next novel. Brilliant!I will be going back next week, ready to write again. The positive peer pressure was just what I needed.

So to find the right writer’s group for you – decide what you want to get out of it, and what you are willing to put in. I don’t want to talk at the moment, I want to write. I’m sure I will need a critique group for the next phase of the edits, but right now, it’s first draft which means writing.

Are you in a writer’s group? What does it provide for you?
What do you recommend for others?

PS. This is the first video from my garden in London. It’s under a flight path so it is a little noisy – and I got the camera angle wrong – I do have a body! Let me know what you think. Do you like my videos?

This is a reprint from Joanna Penn‘s The Creative Penn.

I was recently interviewed about tax tips for freelance writers and others by boomerandthebabe.com, a Web site that broadcasts via Blog Radio. Interview of 60 minutes mostly on ways to save taxes for 2011 and gain a head start for 2012. Topics include home-office deductions, how the IRS decides which returns to audit,  amending returns, and whether to do returns yourself or use paid preparers.

Click here to go to the podcast on Boomer and the Babe’s page, and note: the the podcast will automatically load and start playing immediately, so you may want to put some headphones on or wait till you’re alone to follow the link.

Nationally recognized tax expert Julian Block is a syndicated columnist, former IRS special agent (criminal investigator) and attorney, and a member and former officer of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the preeminent organization of nonfiction writers.

As I continue wrestling with my WIP, Apprentice Cat, using Larry Brooks‘ Story Engineering strategies, I’ve suddenly realized it’s not just the writing I’ll need to edit.

Pantsers know (or should know) that they’ll be writing draft after draft in order to get the story just right. Plotters, on the other hand, use different methods to plan out what they’ll write before setting fingers to keyboard. For me, it’s several excel worksheets that include characterization, concepts and, of course, the actual plot.

What plotters may not realize…
As I’ve developed my scenes and placed them in their slots on the plotting worksheet, I’ve done my best to make things move smoothly from one idea to the next. I’m over 2/3rds finished and it just dawned on me: once I’ve filled in every slot, I’ll need to go over it again to make sure it all makes sense.

You would think I could do that as I go along, but sometimes I come up with brilliant scenes and slot them in without considering all the scenes that came before. Therefore, sometimes there are missing pieces. If I want readers to enjoy the story without being jarred out of it, I have to include the information they need when they need it. I can’t just throw a surprise into the work without foreshadowing it.

Enter the pre-writing, post-plotting editing phase…
Now that I know I’m going to have to go back over my plotting worksheet looking for missing details, it makes coming up with good scenes both easier and more difficult.

I’m a perfectionist, so I want to get it right the first time. This makes plotting difficult because, as Roz Morris reminds us in her book Nail Your Novel, the initial phase of plotting is to use broad strokes. These are just the basic ideas and shouldn’t be too detailed.

However, knowing I’ll be going back to put those details in before I write another word, also makes plotting easier. If I don’t get those details in right away, I know I’ll be able to do it before I get half-way through writing the book (unlike what I’ve done thus far ).

I know I’m not the only one who has gone through multiple stages to develop a good book, so I’m very curious what you do? How do you plan your story?

***

On another note…
If you’ve been following The Road to Writing long, you probably know I have another blog called One Servant’s Heart on my web site. After giving it a lot of thought, I’ve decided to begin merging the two blogs. I’ll be posting snippets to TRTW with a link to the full post on my web site for a while longer (probably the rest of 2011) before letting this blog go entirely. If you’ve subscribed to this feed, please go ahead and subscribe to One Servant’s Heart so you won’t miss anything.

This is a reprint from Virginia Ripple‘s The Road to Writing.

Publetariat’s staff will be off from Sunday, 7/3 through to the morning of Tuesday, 7/5 in observance of Independence Day here in the United States. No new content will be posted to the site until the evening of Tuesday, 7/5, but members will still be able to post to their blogs on the site and use the member forum. [No need to click through – this is the end of the post]