Posts by Ann Aguirre
Every year around this time, I hear all about national novel writing month. People are jazzed about writing and that’s a good thing. People will try to give you advice about how to meet your goals, how to complete a novel, but the truth is, there are no magic beans. There’s no ONE TRUE PATH that will permit you to write and sell a beautiful book.
Like everyone else, you’ll learn through trial and error. You’ll figure out what works best for you as you go — and you’ll improve your craft in that fashion too. I know some people swear by reading tons of how-to books, but I have never read one in my life. Like Nora Roberts, it would just irritate me to learn I’m doing it wrong. But actually I challenge that word. Wrong. If your method gets you a finished book that you feel proud of, then your system isn’t wrong. It works for you.
One of the FAQs I get most often is: “How do you discipline yourself?” This relates to meeting my word count goals. And the answer is pretty simple. I work until I’m done for the day, however long that takes. That’s the kind of commitment professional writing requires. I adhere to schedules. I work hard. My novels don’t appear through luck or muse or a fit of impassioned inspiration. Certainly, those things may occur, but I can’t count on a perfect storm through the whole draft. I have to want it enough to push for it.
With every new book, I start out passionate, excited and convinced this is an awesome idea. Around 30K, I hit the Swampy Middle of Doom™ and I lose that conviction. Instead, I become sure the whole book sucks, it’s a dreadful idea, and I shouldn’t even be permitted to own word processing software. This feeling continues until around 60K when I start getting jazzed again, because even if the book’s a steaming pile, I’m getting fairly close to finishing it.
When I hit the skids, my first instinct is to stop and tinker but that impulse is disastrous for my finish-the-book ratio. When I do that, I lose confidence and forward momentum. So it’s best for me to push through the SMoD™ even if I’m writing bits that I know are rubbish and will have to be fixed later. That said, only you can decide what’s best for this project and your productivity. If it helps, this trick soothes my offended inner perfectionist
Read MoreI’ve been asked, more than once, how I go about writing a book. Certain factors don’t change from project to project. Some writers do extensive outlining before they start writing. I read. For instance, before I wrote Endgame, the last Jax novel, I read a couple of nonfiction titles about guerrilla warfare. So that’s the first step–my research reading. Once that’s done, I decide how long I want it to take to write a book, and then I calculate how many words a day I must put down in order to stay on schedule. For instance, if I want a draft of 90K in six weeks, I must write 3K, five days a week, in order to make that happen. If I want to finish the draft faster, I must write more words in a day. That’s simple math.
I used to fall passionately in love with a new idea. I’d brush the new idea’s hair and make it breakfast. We’d take long walks together. I tinkered with the new idea for eight months, stroking it lovingly, rewriting obsessively, until a year passed, and I had only 40,000 words. Not a book. By then, the new idea wasn’t pretty anymore. It was misshapen, awful, monstrous, stupid, dreadful. I had no choice but to kill the thing and hide it beneath my bed. And then I’d start the vicious cycle over.
Clearly that wasn’t working.
So the one thing I don’t do anymore is tinker. I never edit my WIPs as I go. That permits me to shut off my internal editor until I need the bitch. I press on to the finish, even when I pass through the Swampy Middle of Doom, where I am always convinced the book I’m writing is the worst thing that anyone has ever conceived. My brain still tries to seduce me sometimes with a sexy new idea, but I don’t abandon the WIP. Instead, I write the concept in my idea notebook along with whatever brilliant specifics my mind is teasing me with and promise myself I’ll get to it in due time. Since I instituted this policy, my “finish the book” ratio has skyrocketed.
Read MoreThere is a school of thought that says you can’t write anything unless the stars are aligned and your muse is inspired. I don’t subscribe to it.
I say there is inspiration / motivation to be found in adversity, too. At the end of August, I took my husband to the ER. He stayed in the hospital for two weeks, and he was in ICU twice during that time. He had two surgeries. I was terrified I would lose him.
Nobody would call that ideal working conditions. I had finished the draft of ENDGAME on August 26, one day before my birthday. We went away for a weekend in the country. And on the following Monday, I took my husband to the emergency room.
It felt like my world had come to an end.
I had two deadlines while I was sitting in waiting rooms and living at the hospital. I could have asked for an extension; these are extenuating circumstances that publishers understand. Yet I was reluctant to do so. I did notify my editor that I had some things going on, but I didn’t ask for more time. I had a draft of ENDGAME; maybe I could still get it revised on time.
So I tried. Unfortunately, during the early days when we had no diagnosis, my brain was paralyzed with fear. So I did something I never do. I sent my draft to a colleague for a crit. I think this is the first time since I sold that anyone has read a book of mine that hasn’t been revised at least once. Suzanne McLeod was kind enough to read the manuscript right away, and within a week, she had sent me back a phenomenal revision letter along with notes in the Word file. While I couldn’t focus on my own, I was able to follow her instructions. So I took my Mac Air to the hospital. I worked in waiting rooms. I worked in Andres’s hospital room after he came out of ICU and he slept. I worked in the evenings after I came home. I worked every spare minute. Why? Because it kept me sane. If I could focus on anything else for a little while, it stopped the pain and fear of what would come next.
Read MoreWhen I read the words, “I can’t, because…” I feel sad. Because that is the reason you can’t. Because you believe you can’t, because you don’t try. And then failure is a given.
We can’t let fear of failure keep us from reaching for the biggest, reddest apple at the top of the tree. Does it mean we might fall as we climb? Absolutely. But that’s part of life: getting up, dusting yourself off, and trying again. Hopefully, you learned something and the next time, you’ll get closer.
Fear can be a paralyzing force. And it doesn’t just apply to writing. Sometimes we stick to safe, familiar roads. We only do the things we’re already sure we can do.
I have mild coulrophobia, and I’ve been a clown.
I have a fear of heights, and I have climbed Machu Picchu.
I’m a bit claustrophobic, but I’ve been to the top of the Empire State building.
I wasn’t sure I could do any of those things at first. I first said, “I’ll try,” and then I didn’t stop trying until I had attained the goal. Machu Picchu in particular was terrifying. It hasn’t changed, measurably, in a thousand years. There are no guard rails, only steep stone steps carved into the side of the mountain with people running up and down both ways. A single misstep can pitch you off the side. Several times, I thought I’d die of fear. My heart pounded until I couldn’t hear anything but the blood rushing in my ears. I had tears in my eyes as people who weren’t afraid ran nimbly down past me like mountain goats, and I could only see this incredible climb ahead of me. It was dire. And then I focused on putting one foot in front of the other, getting to the next step, and then the next. My husband came behind me, watching my back, even though I was slow, even though I sometimes had to stop and rest my face against the rock because I was that scared. And yet I kept climbing because I wanted to say I had conquered my fear, that I had seen the top of the ancient temple where Mayan feet once trod.
Read MoreWhat do you do if what you’re writing isn’t a genre?
In my case, I sell the book anyway. That’s certainly the situation for the book that came out yesterday. It’s called NIGHTFALL, and it has elements from fantasy and horror and apocalyptic zombie movies, but it is, unquestionably, a romance. Twenty years ago, there’s no way I could’ve gotten this project past the gatekeepers because they were far more unforgiving about genre bleed. Which is too bad for us, as readers. The cool thing about this novel is that it’s essentially a sub-genre of romance that we created. I’ve dubbed it apocalyptic paranormal, and I can’t think of any other author who has written a magical shifter apocalypse. It tickles me to be in the vanguard, starting something.
I love that writers have options now, and that there’s a place for whatever we want to write. Does that mean every book will sell to NY? No. But we have places we can take projects that didn’t exist twenty years ago. There’s a robust indie market that welcomes ideas that are niche or quirky or not readily marketable. Sometimes that’s really all that’s wrong with a book — the marketing people just can’t decide how they’d sell it to the chain reps. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea or that readers won’t eat it up.
I think it’s beyond awesome that people can write what they want, push the envelope. Some of my favorite books contain elements from various genres, bringing in what I love from each one. I’m delighted when I run across a story that has magic, monsters, and romance. The one thing I’d like to see more of is epic fantasy geared toward women, however. I want the big worldbuilding, the politics, the intrigue, the war, and combat scenes, as well as romance and sex. I’m going to write one myself next summer; I’ve had the partial for ages. And there’s certainly room for it, I think.
What’s the genre crossover you’d most like to see? Or alternately, what are you writing that’s different from the norm? In honor of NIGHTFALL’s release yesterday, I’ll give away a copy to a random commenter.
Read MoreHow many of you have vivid dreams?
I do. I’ve wondered if there’s any correlation between those who have really detailed, realistic dreams, remember them, and use them to inform their writing on some level. I didn’t always remember my dreams, but then I started keeping a notebook beside my bed, and as soon as I wake up, sometimes in the middle of the night, I jot down every fragment I can remember.
This is more valuable than it sounds. The Dark Age Dawning series, which is apocalyptic paranormal romances I wrote with Carrie Lofty, came from a single dream. Kind of crazy, but it was an incredibly intense, adrenaline filled dream. I made some notes on it. I posted on a blog about the dream, and readers were like, Oh my God, I would so read that. I let the idea stew for a while, and due to deadlines and time constraints, I just didn’t have time to finish the books all by myself.
So eventually I banged out the first chapter and emailed it to my pal and fellow writer, Carrie Lofty. She was like, what am I supposed to do with this?. I replied, “Write the next chapter.” And that was how our partnership was formed. Now we’ve got a sale, amazing cover art, and three fantastic books in a trilogy that I think is really dark, different, and delicious. Rock on, Ellen Connor.
And this is why I recommend people pay attention to their dreams. For me, it’s like an idea garden. You can weed it later, but not if you don’t remember what you’ve been dreaming. And it has been my experience that the more you make detailed notes, the more you’ll be able to remember and write down. You never know when your subconscious will have an amazing suggestion that it can’t make when you’re awake.
What was your last vivid dream?
Photo courtesy Flickr’s ::: M @ X :::
Read MoreA friend and reader pointed out to me that I have a tendency to fill my books with things that terrify me. And she is 100% correct. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, however. It’s way cheaper than therapy. My YA novel, ENCLAVE, which came out yesterday (yay!) has a lot of things that scare me in it. My childhood was full of the threat of nuclear annihilation at the hands of our enemies, and I’ve always worried about the fate of our world. Now, between over population, chemical weapons, biological agents, and pollution, I felt like I had to write a book that spoke to those fears, nursed since childhood. Consequently, the story is dark and gritty, etched with despair sometimes, but I always try to offer a tracery of hope, like luminescent lichens discovered unexpectedly in a deep cave.
Therefore, in the pages of anything written by me, you may find a fear of: clowns, heights, elevators, underground, closed spaces, failure, abandonment, and more. That sounds like I’m way more neurotic than the average writer, doesn’t it? My fears aren’t debilitating, mind you. Most of them are more unease-inducing, like when we’re in a restaurant on a sunny Sunday afternoon, and there’s a happy clown making balloon animals while I try desperately not to make eye contact. (No, seriously, don’t come over here–oh, CRAP.)
This is even funnier because I used to be a clown. As hinted above, I have light coulophobia myself, which means I was traumatized every time I looked in the mirror. If you can suggest anything less cool than a college student driving in a bright orange Plymouth Horizon to a gas station grand opening in full clown regalia, including red nose and frizzy yellow wig, I’d love to hear about it. Worst college job ever, and I say that, having worked in a nursing home, changing bed pans. That was better than being a clown. Seriously.
As photographic evidence, I submit to you exhibit A.
Read MoreSo I’m seeing tons of coverage of the digital phenomenon. There’s been a lot written about Amanda Hocking, obviously, and the new Kindle millionaires, many of whom have never been traditionally published. This is exciting for many reasons, but I want to address a few key points in the digi vs traditional publishing debate.
1. Craft is important.
No matter who you decide to write for, the quality of your work matters. It’s a bad idea to toss a book or story up on Amazon because it’s easy, convenient, and you figure even if it’s bad, it’s still worth $.99. The price may draw some readers in, but you won’t build a broad reader base this way. One sale, and then they’re gone. You’re looking to build a brand and create return traffic in terms of readership. It’s best to decide where your wheelhouse lies (paranormal, YA, SF, fantasy, urban fantasy, humor, women’s fiction, literary) and then do a number of stories or books in that same vein. That way, when you’re ready to branch out, you’ve built up trust from your readers that you can handle your commitments. Regardless of your venue, I recommend against writing five “book ones” for various series because that makes readers worry that you won’t follow through, and that makes them wary.
2. Writing is always hard work.
Read MoreI actually get this one pretty often. The answer is yes. I sleep, generally from midnight to eight a.m., unless I’m up later, giggling maniacally with Moira Rogers (Bree & Donna) in IM. This happens about once a week. I compensate by sleeping later. But since I suspect this question has its roots in speculation regarding my productivity, I will elaborate.
Yes, I’m prolific. I work a lot, I’d say forty to fifty hours a week. Sometimes it’s more if I’m on deadline. Here’s what my schedule looks like:
If I’m drafting a book, I write for three hours in the morning. I don’t check email or mess around online. Generally, that’s 3K words. To keep the writing moving that fast, I block the scene the night before in bed as I’m waiting to fall asleep. I know what I’m writing in the morning, so there’s no blank staring time. Once I’ve finished my words, that’s not the end of my work day. I spend the other five hours working on edits, revisions, galleys, or whatever else has come across my desk. I also do promo and networking. At five, I knock off work. I make dinner for my family, and we hang out with the kids until 8:30. I spend 1.5 hours alone with my husband. At ten, we split up so he can have some quiet time (to play video games and watch bad Japanese horror movies.) From ten to midnight, I will do one of three things: (1) read a book, (2) chat on IM to one of my friends, (3) work more. It really depends on my mood as to which. Sometimes I combine options two and three. This is my life, five days a week, and it allows me to accomplish a lot.
Read MoreA couple of months ago, this site got a bit heated over NaNo. I don’t intend to open that dialogue again. Instead, I’m offering a glimpse of how I work, year-round. I hope it will prove beneficial, as I’m super excited to share this story with y’all.
It involves three of my friends / colleagues, which makes it even better. As many of you know, in fall of 2009, I fast drafted my YA, ENCLAVE. (Fast drafting is writing 5,000 words or 20 pages a day, until you have a rough draft. This can be anywhere from two weeks to twenty days, depending on the desired length.) That experiment worked out so well for me that I decided to try and recreate the perfect storm by doing the same thing with my second YA, OUTPOST.
And yes, I did it in December. (Yes, I am a little bit crazy, doing this while trying to get ready for the holidays, but I think it helps when you write for a living. Normal people would give up, after the 100th rejection, no?) I started writing on December 6th, along with Jaye Wells, Candace Havens, and Louisa Edwards. We all had projects we wanted off our desks before the end of the year; we were all driven and excited. But first, let me back up. We connected a conference in Texas in November and we became really good friends. It seemed natural that we would try and continue that new friendship after we went home.
And did we ever. Candace proposed the December write-a-palooza (my name, not hers), and at first we were a bit reluctant. It’s a tough time of year to make that commitment, right?
Read MoreI had an email from Therese, advising me that we’re taking questions from blog readers for the month of December. That was actually a relief, as I’m fast drafting this month, and I’m using most of my brain for other things. Therefore, this saves me thinking up my own post, a blessing for which I am tremendously grateful.
Brooke asked: How do you create new & realistic characters- especially when you have just switched from one project to the other? (How does character development evolve?)
This is an excellent one for me to answer. I am prolific, so I write a fair number of projects in a year. Generally, however, I don’t write them at the same time, so I’m focused on one world, one set of characters. Concentration is key for me. So is immersion. I’ve found the deeper I fall into a book, the more intense the reader reaction. If what I’m writing feels real to me, then that commitment shows in the final product.
But the first part of this question is about creating characters after switching gears, so I’ll address that. I find it’s most helpful to cleanse my palate, so to speak. I never immediately start a new book, after wrapping up a project. I cherish my down time, where I don’t produce, where I refill the tank with music, movies, walks, my kids, other people’s books, TV shows, my cats, and whatever else I can find to occupy my mind that does not have to do with writing. One week is the shortest time I’d recommend to clean the old characters out of your brain. Two weeks to a month is better, but sometimes deadlines don’t permit it. For me, it’s important not to work during that time. It’s my time to recharge, so I can keep writing all year without long “blocked” periods.
During that time, I may be percolating the next book, thinking about the people and the world. Obviously, this process depends a great deal on whether these are new characters / new world, or if I’m writing a book in an ongoing series. Jax, for example, is pretty easy for me to write because we’ve been together for five books. Her world (and her mind) is familiar to me.
I pride myself in the realistic quality of the characters, but the path I take to their creation varies somewhat.
Read MoreKath here. Rarely do I preface a contributor post, but we’ve already had some upsets in the comments over Ann’s post. A reminder that as writers, we can leave comments of disagreement that are polite and reasoned, and not the equivalent of “you’re a doody head”. Thanks. Here’s a fluffy kitty for your trouble.
The first three syllables are delightful. National Novel Writing. Just reading that gives me a warm fuzzy. But the last one? It pisses me off.
Writers writing one month a year… for the love of God, why? If they mean to write, then they should do so all year long — on lunch breaks, before and after work, and be dreaming of the stories in between. I’ve seen others complaining about the speed at which people write during NaNo. That doesn’t bother me. As C.J. Cherryh said, “It is perfectly okay to write garbage–as long as you edit brilliantly.”
What bothers me is the idea that this is a hobby that one can pick up and put down. For many of us, this is a job, dream come true, and vocation, all rolled into one. I want people to take it seriously. Commit. Work on it all year long. To me, having one month for writing is as absurd as only caring about the environment one month a year.
Read MoreToday, I am feeling incredibly good. Why? Because at the start of the summer, I honestly didn’t know how I was going to balance my workload with my family life and emerge on the other side with my sanity intact. This summer, I was on the road in the US for three weeks, and four days after I got home, I went to Peru. During that time, I also wrote 1.5 novels, and a short story. I had deadlines that struck me as crazy — and that’s saying something.
Now maybe, in the abstract, that doesn’t sound like so much. Trust me, it was. To complicate matters, I write better at home. When I travel, I have a hard time focusing. Traveling, for me, is usually about networking and having fun, so I’m not in a work place in my head. But when you’re gone for three weeks, you have to try. So I did, and each word written was a personal victory.
So now, I’m out of the white water rapids and into the slow, smooth shallows, watching the world go by. On September 11, I turned in a novel. Last night, I turned in the second novel. Today, I turned in my short story. That means I’ve beat the odds and finished all my work on time, despite all the extracurricular stuff I had going on. I’m unspeakably elated because honestly, this time, I had my doubts. What if I’ve finally done it, overcommitted to the point that I’m not going to be able to finish all my work by deadline?
Read MoreSo last Tuesday, the fourth Jax book came out. I won’t be spoiling anyone by admitting this particular novel ends on a rather spectacular cliffhanger. Donning my reader hat for a moment, I have a love / hate relationship with cliffhangers.
Done right, they drive you mad with book lust, so you spend the interval for the next installment in the series. You have to find out what happens to the characters you love so much. Done wrong, they enrage the audience to the point that they refuse to buy the next work on principle. It can be a tough line to walk.
My husband says, “I don’t like them. When you the lagtime between sequels, cliffhangers can be very annoying.” My son and daughter both agree that books with cliffhangers are irksome. Which leaves me in an interesting position since, as I mentioned above, I just put out a book with one.
Why did I choose to do that? Well, Jax’s adventures run like a TV show in my head, and I divide them up that way. If it was a TV show, then each book would be one complete season. Often, such shows end on a hook or a cliffhanger to keep the viewer anticipating what comes next. So that was certainly a factor. But also, I have to stop the book somewhere. Otherwise, it would be one 600,000 word epic volume, and nobody, least of my publisher, wants that. So I look at the individual story arcs and decide where one ends and the next one begins.
Without giving away specific plot points, I can only say that everything that happens in Killbox leads up to that pivotal cliffhanger. As readers have noticed, the Jax of book one would not have done some of the things that occur in the fourth novel, but she’s grown and changed, which I think is important. I don’t enjoy stories where the protagonists don’t evolve in some fashion, either learn from their mistakes or become darker from their pain. I hope that the way I ended Killbox makes readers eager for the next book.
In your opinion(s), what are some of the trademarks of cliffhangers done right? What are some examples of those gone horribly wrong?
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