May Day!!! Never Release Another Book…

Oh Crap!!!!   I was supposed to have my post up last night. I told myself I would the whole day and then pow! Life got in the way and I’m running around like a headless chicken. Believe me, I’ve seen a headless chicken run. I grew up in a farm. It is not a pretty site and that’s moi right now.

It’s literally May Day at my house right now and I swear before you, my fellow authors, bloggers, reviewers, fans, that I will never EVAH release another book in May.

1. I had a book out yesterday, Runes, which meant marketing blitz on my part and checking with my marketing guru that everything was going smoothly. When I say talking, I mean e-mailing back and forth, which sucks because she has a day job.  May Day!
2. My daughter had a play at six and since she was one of the leads, I had to take her by five, which meant getting her something to eat before that. Because of that, I missed my 4:15 zumba class and I’m a grouch when I don’t work out. That would not have been bad if I’d made my last Saturday class, which I missed because my other daughter had an out-of-town dance competition and so I was gone…*deep breath*. May Day… May Day!!
3. May is also the month everyone does everything in my family. High school daughter’s band performance, middle-school son’s band performance, end of year piano recital for my last two—that was last week and violin/viola recital is coming up.  May Day!!!
4. Then there are deadlines to fill out and mail paperwork for out-of-town, week-long camps… We live in Hickville and not much goes on around here for teens during summer, so we ship them off for 2 weeks to see the “real world” and meet with “real people” (hehehe, if you tell Utahns I said that I’ll deny it). My DH looks at me and goes, “you’re going to have a heart attack.” And I’m like that pregnant woman in the movie What to Expect when You’re Expecting and I want to punch…*clears throat*…kiss him and hug him and call him George. I abhor violence
5. Did I mention I’m also editing book 2 in the Runes series while working on my next Guardian Legacy book? Like I said, I will never ever release another book in May.

Happy reading. I’m actually outside my gym typing this. My zumba class starts in 1 minute. Sorry for the late post.

Mayday! Mayday! My Schedule Exploded!

The problem I had with this month’s topic is that there are so many places in writing where you hit obstacles, unseen dangers, etc. that it was hard to choose just one. So I grabbed the problem that’s attacking me right now…falling behind my schedule.

I’m generally pretty good about making my deadlines. I allow myself a generous amount of time, and I’m usually fairly disciplined about getting it done. But every now and then a revision will be particularly tricky, and/or LIFE will get in the way of writing. (Hate it when that happens.) And I used to beat myself up about it, but then I went to a workshop hosted by a professional project manager—her day job was helping companies plan out complex projects—and she knew that many of her professional techniques also applied to writing. There was a lot of it that was interesting, but a several things she said were particularly striking—and they’ve really helped me cope with “mayday” situations.

1) When scheduling any project, a professional project manager figures out how much time they think a project will realistically take…and then adds 30% to their estimate. Because life will intervene in your project. Some supplier will miss their delivery date, or your chief programmer will get pregnant and quit, or, or, or… She said the pros know that the unforeseen will happen, and they factor that into their planning. It’s OK for things to go wrong. It’s expected. And it’s not your fault when they do.

2) There are three factors that every project rests on, like the legs of a three-legged stool: Scope—what you want to accomplish. Budget—in business, this is the number of people you can hire to work on the project as well as material costs. For writers “budget” is the amount of your time you can put into the project. And finally, Time—which is the deadline when you want your project to be complete. These three factors are what anything that goes wrong is going to demolish. And when it does, when one of your “legs” breaks, you must adjust the other legs to compensate. If your scope is suddenly enlarged—say you have to do more rewrites than you thought you would—then you’ll either have to put in more working hours every day or extend your deadline. If your working hours budget suddenly contracts, because some family emergency keeps you from being able to put in the time you’d planned on, then you’ll either have to reduce the scope of your project or extend the deadline. And if for some reason your deadline gets shortened (what, that contest closes at the first of the month? I thought it was the 30th!) then you’ll have to either shrink the scope or increase the hours you’re putting in.

This rule about adjusting the other factors, to cope when any one of them changes, is inflexible. You can’t just say that you’ll work “smarter” or “harder” and somehow it will get done. Scope, for a writer, generally can’t be decreased. You can’t write three quarters of your novel, and call it good enough. You can’t skip revisions, because for a writer, quality is everything. So when things go haywire, you’ll probably have to adjust either the number of hours you put in, or extend the deadline. And most of us don’t have that many spare hours, either.

3) Which brings us to “Rebaselining.” There’s probably a technical definition of rebaselining, but the gist of it is that when your project plan blows up, for whatever reason, you step back and create a new plan, based on the new parameters you’re looking at. And that new plan now becomes the plan. The old plan should be jettisoned without guilt, remorse, or beating yourself up about being a bad, undisciplined writer. In business you’d have to fill out forms, describing what went wrong, how the parameters of the problem have changed, etc. For a writer it’s more a matter of getting over it, and then moving onward. And without giving yourself grief over it.

Needless to say, for most of us this is easier said than done—particularly if you’re the kind of person who prides herself on being fairly disciplined about writing. (Ahem.) But beating yourself up because LIFE happened is an unproductive wasted of time and energy. So I’m going to look at that rewrite which turned out to be trickier than I expected (expanded scope) and the family stuff that suddenly took a chunk out of my writing time (budget problems, too) and simply say that the new deadline for that revision is now late May to early June. (Late May, plus 30%.) Because realistically, that’s when it’s going to be done. And it will get done faster and easier if I’m not beating myself up about it.

Hilari writes SF and fantasy for kids and teens. And she’d post some covers here, if her schedule hadn’t exploded.

Road Blocks (and an apology)

Please not that this post was suppose to go up yesterday, and I have NO IDEA what sort of technical glitch caused it to be otherwise. Please make sure you scroll down to see our lovely post that was ACTUALLY scheduled for today.

That said, here WAS my post on roadblocks, though perhaps one on unexpected glitches would be more appropriate.

So, I get lost quite a lot. I mean this literally, as in I get lost walking, I get REALLY lost driving, and like everyone else, I get lost writing. Often I will run up against a dead end in my work. Sometimes, I can see what’s beyond it. Occasionally, I think I know where I need to go, even if I can’t quite see it yet. What often happens though, is that if I try to push on – to get around the road block and get un-lost in a hurry – I end up making things worse. I wind up in a bad neighborhood, metaphorically speaking.

When you hit those moments in your work that throw your for a loop – the unexpected plot hole, the bit of research that makes something you created impossible – the thing you most want to avoid is making it worse. If you know what needs to happen, great, press on! But by all means, if you can’t quite see the way, take the time you need to figure it out. Crappy first drafts are supposed to be crappy, but I, personally, don’t believe in writing yourself into a corner if you can avoid it. Take the rest of the day off writing when you’re faced with a road block. Take a walk. (Just don’t get lost.) And then, when your own personal GPS has a plan for getting around whatever snafu you’ve come across, then by all means, proceed!

Do I write about zombies…or am I one?

And there it goes down the road. A cheery yellow blob disappearing into the horizon, and with it, my carefully planned, but rarely kept, writing schedule. *Sigh*

It’s May and the end of the school year is here. And that means I can kiss my writing time buh-bye.  At least writing during the day. I’ll find time to write/edit. Usually between the hours of ten p.m. and three a.m. with a few hours of sleep before the twins plop in the middle of my bed at approximately seven a.m. demanding breakfast between sticking their faces so close to mine my eyes cross trying to focus. After I drag myself out of bed and plod downstairs to pour Trix for one girl and Fruity Pebbles for the other (I know, very healthy. I give them fruit, too. Don’t judge me! ha-ha), hand the wrong bowl to each girl, exchange the bowls, pop open a Red Bull (because that’s my coffee), walk by the rec. room and tell my son to turn down the Xbox, because surely there are parental abuse laws somewhere that state those things can’t be played at the volume he plays them that early, I’ll drop on the couch and wonder why I stayed up so late the night before and it’ll hit me.  Oh, yeah. I love writing.

So bring on the obstacles of summer vacation, because I actually love having my kids home. Larry and I tried to get pregnant for ten years before Evan was born and another four years before Aleigha and Alana were born. So, summer vacation isn’t an inconvenience, just a minor bump in my writing schedule that I need to work around. The endless trips to the pool, the park, the play dates, summer camps, day camps, sporting events, water parks, the beach, the zoo, Sea World, and the general taxi service I drive for my kids and my mother (who doesn’t drive), I’ll take it all and smile, enjoying every second of it, even if I’m a little (or a lot) bleary eyed and feeling like a member of the walking dead in one of my novels.

And later, when my family is dreaming in their beds, it’ll be my turn to dream…just me and my laptop.

Michelle
Author, PODs available June 4th
Milayna available March 11, 2014
The Infected, a PODs novel available November 2014

(photo: Alana on the left and Aleigha on the right)

Do Your Characters Say, “Mayday! Mayday!”?

The entire topic for this month is, “Mayday, mayday! Obstacles, unseen dangers and challenges.” We’re supposed to discuss writing-specific obstacles and challenges; however, I’d like to approach this topic from a different angle and apply it to characters, as that’s what popped into my mind as soon as I saw “Mayday!” It’s a call for help, and that makes me think of characters asking for help.

Although protagonists in science fiction and fantasy may have high-tech equipment or special powers, often that’s not enough for them to overcome the challenges they face. What makes them look for assistance? My science fiction Catalyst Chronicles series illustrates some situations where characters may seek help from others. These situations apply to characters in other genres too, but for discussion purposes I’ll use the ones I’m most familiar with.

In Lyon’s Legacy, Book One of the series, my heroine, Jo, starts off as the last person who’d ask anyone for help. She feels her family has abandoned her, particularly those on her father’s side–that is, except for her uncle, who wants her to become a musician like their famous ancestor, Sean Lyon, and that’s the last thing she wants. Consequently, she projects a tough shell to protect herself from other people. However, the events of the story crack that shell. When she realizes she can’t accomplish her goal on her own, she reaches out to someone she’s neglected for a long time and asks for help. This is a sign of emotional growth for her, especially since her goal is about helping someone else.

Twinned Universes features another character, a teenager named Paul, as the hero. He’s the alpha male of his group of friends, but he has to face some powerful, ruthless antagonists. At stake isn’t just Paul’s future or one person’s life (Sean Lyon’s), but Sean’s effect on history. Paul doesn’t mind asking other people for help. He’s an actor, and he knows it takes more than one person to produce a play. However, he does underestimate how much help his friends can give him, and he doesn’t always pick the right person to ask for help.

I’m currently working on Book Three of the Catalyst Chronicles, called Catalyst in the Crucible. The costs and stakes have gone up, while the main character has undergone a reversal of fortune. He needs support more than ever before, but the one person who can help him the most has reason to dislike him. (I’m being vague to avoid spoilers.) This book is going to stretch me as a writer, but I hope it’ll be a good read when it’s done.

Asking for help isn’t just an admission that the character is facing a touch challenge; it can be a sign of emotional growth that makes the character (and the story) stronger. Plus, if a character goes it alone, then there are no interesting sidekicks or partners to add spice to the story.

Do you think characters should stand on their own or seek aid from others? Do you have examples of either situation? If so, please share them in the comments.

The Zen of struggle: The path with no obstacles leads nowhere.

I’ve come to realise that to write, to spend all those hours strolling around inside your head, you need to be…different.  I would suggest that many of us on this blog realised this at an early age.  A disquieting, self-aware, maverick streak that set you apart from the herd mentality.

Quite a few of us, too,  need the distraction of shiny things, of cud-chewing conversation, of mindless TV, a little less than most. That’s because we have more exciting things going on in our heads.

And yet the world doesn’t go away. Lots of people want a piece of you. Family, work, friends. All part of the great plan, and all necessary to make you human. The writing process is a road full of speed bumps, too. Rejections, deadlines, edits, promotions. It makes you consider why we bother.

I know why I bother. Because I have no choice. If I didn’t, I’d be left with such a big hole, I’d probably fall in and never reach the bottom.

So, we’ve read already this month of how those obstacles need to be overcome. Of how some people have prioritised and juggled. How some people have stood up and confronted them. But my approach is a little bit more sanguine—maybe because I’ve been doing this for a long time. It’s been summed up by someone who puts it a lot better than I could.
To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labor.
- Robert Louis Stevenson

Avoid Shiny Things

Hi, P. J. Hoover here, and today I’m talking about obstacles, unseen dangers, and challenges. There are so many directions I could take this (from the publishing nitty gritty to revisions), but I’m going to keep it simple and go with shiny thing.

Right, shiny things.

Why, you might ask? Well, because, when writing, shiny things should be avoided at all costs.

Here’s what happens to me EVERY SINGLE TIME I am writing a book. I an head over heels in love with my book. It’s going to be the best, most amazing book in the entire world. It’s going to win tons of award and get all the praise, and I can’t wait to hit the words and write it. And so I start writing it and I’m excited and things are going great…until they aren’t.

Because something normally happens around page fifty. Maybe page one hundred. The writing gets hard. The story feels stale. I’m sure it’s all futile.

Enter the shiny new idea, because I’m sure to get one. And my shiny new idea is going to be the most amazing book in the world and is going to get all the fame and glory and I’m sure I should stop what I’m working on and work on my shiny new story idea.

Have you been there, too? Well, here’s my advice. Run away from the shiny. Stick with the story that’s gotten a little hard to write. Because if you don’t, you know what you’ll end up with? A bunch of fifty page stories on your computer and no finished novel. Jot down a couple quick notes and then get back to the word. You’ll find that love you once had for your original story. Push through that horrible middle, and when you come out on the other end, the sun will once again be shining.

*****

P. J. Hoover is the author of the upcoming dystopia/mythology YA book, SOLSTICE (Tor Teen, June 2013), the upcoming Egyptian mythology MG book, TUT (Tor Children’s, Winter 2014), and the middle-grade SFF series, THE FORGOTTEN WORLDS BOOKS (CBAY, 2008-2010). You can read more about her and her books on P. J.’s website or blog.