Anonymous asked:

How do you know when an idea for a book is "The One"? How can you tell it's worth pursuing, that you won't tire of it halfway through?

My reply on Tumblr

Now that Book One of YetToBeNamedTrilogy (though I have a strong preference!) is off for copyedits, I have spent the last few weeks:
1. Resting
2. Nesting
3. And just this past week, actually digging in and writing.

But first things first.  The Resting.  I went on a week long road trip through central California with my hubby.  Get away from it all! But when you carry this whole book world you've created in your head you kind of don't want to forget it--the world just keeps whispering ideas to you.  And sometimes your book makes you braver. 

Yep.  On mile 700 down this one lane country road that seemed to go no where but my husband kept insisting had to lead somewhere and I watched our gas tank get lower and our cell phones die, I thought of my character and the far scarier unknown I put her through and tried to see this endless, nameless road as almost sweet in comparison. Ahem. Good wife that I am. It WAS lovely once I resigned myself to the possibility of running out of gas and spending the night in the middle of nowhere.  And hey, we at least had food--nearly a whole bag of goldfish and six bottles of wine we had picked up at a winery.  We wouldn't starve.  Quite. If the local beasts didn't get us first.

Ah, but at last we did reach civilization. I love chickens.  Something about their attitude. 
"Hey!  Yeah, you!  What do you think you're doing here?" 
"You think she's got any food, Gladys?"
"Nah, just a worthless lookie-loo."

(Admit it.  You can see little thought bubbles over their heads too.)

Later, we came upon another very lovely sight:

The very awesome indie store, The Book Loft in Solvang, CA.  They have a wonderful YA section and I bought one of my faves I had already read as an ebook but wanted the hardcopy too.

And they had The Jenna Fox Chronicles, so I signed those too. They didn't even ask for my ID : )

On our little getaway I also got some reading done.  That is part of
My Nesting:

Whenever I start a new book, there is research and "stuff" to get in order before I actually dig in.

My reading included both fiction and nonfiction on ***** (can't tell you subject yet--don't want to spoil it) to see how it might play out in my character's world--or the new one she is heading into.

But another book I can tell you about--not too spoilery.  A History of Weapons by John Bryan.  Yeah, this is the "gore" part.  It is amazing the weapons we have created over the centuries to hurt our fellow humans.  This one on the right is particularly gruesome.  It's called a Mancatcher.  If you don't want to kill the person you're trying to subdue, you just push this around their neck.  If they struggle against you, it ain't very pretty.  Can you imagine? No, you don't want to go there.

Okay, on to less gruesome nesting.  There is the necessary "cleaning."  Yes, take a look now at this clear desk because it won't look this way again for a LONG while.  Though I hate clutter in my life, when I am in the throes of a book it somehow seems a necessity.  Papers on papers and files all over my desk and multiple computers, books, and coffee cups, and somehow, I know where everything is.   But when I start a new book I like everything to at least start with a clean slate.

Part of my nesting is drawing maps, floorplans, cities, lanes, roads, etc. so I have a firm grasp on my character's world.  Of course as the story progresses, these maps are revised to accommodate new twists and turns.  I need a new road?  City? Country?  Voila, it is there! I also look for pictures of characters and setting and pin them to a bulletin board behind my desk.  I love Pinterest for this! Lots of great stuff there.

And finally there is the Digging In. 
Butt in Chair.  Just Write.  Routine.  Get the words down.
That's what I am doing now.  Slow going at first, but writing begets writing and I know I will pick up speed.

Oh, and my nice clean desk is already a mess. But that's okay. Bring it on.

PS  The first and last pictures in this post are ones I took in France a few years ago that are among my writing inspirations for the setting.

    The last several months have been crazy.  I've spent much of it tucked back in this corner of my yard--yes, even in winter with a blanket wrapped around me--writing on my laptop. 

    Being out there gave me an "away" spot where phones, doorbells, and the internet weren't distractions, but I was still near my research and notes in my upstairs office if I needed to get to it.  I had a tight deadline which meant that I had to write every day and all day.  I not only had to finish the first book in a new trilogy, I had so many details to work out for how this whole new world worked. Details!

    The surprising thing was, I found I loved writing even more when I wrote this way--non stop. There was less agonizing over what came next.  The juices were always churning. Except for a few days around Christmas, I never missed a single day of writing from November through April.  That was almost 6 months of non-stop writing!  And pretty much all day long.

    For me this was a huge leap.  But I definitely had to make some changes in how I approached my writing.  For one thing I increased my daily word count goals to 1200-1500. I know for some writers that is nothing, but for me that is a lot.

    Another thing I did was NOT incessantly revise as I wrote.  I had a habit of spending as much or more time revising each day as I did writing.  That was a hard habit to break.  I like to see things pretty and perfect and my words to sparkle and they definitely weren't doing that.  Also, revising is so much more fun than heading into uncharted territory. But this time, I was writing a true ROUGH draft.  This actually made more sense because why spend hours making something perfect if it might get cut in the revision or totally overhauled?  Still, I love playing with words and getting only the most essential ones down, and getting the emotional tone fine-tuned, so I had to get tough and turn a blind eye to the crappiness.  The carrot I held out to myself was that when I was finished I could revise to my heart's delight--my favorite part of the process. (But my poor editor and beta-readers had to deal with abundant yards of burlap, purple, and knotted prose.)

    As I wrote I looked for writing inspiration from time to time, perusing again my writing library, or looking for new tidbits, and I came across this from Laini Taylor: "Be an unstoppable force.  Write with an imaginary machete strapped to your thigh."  All of her writing advice was great but this really hit me because I already had this sort image lurking in my brain along with the order, "Be fearless!"  If I expected my characters to forge ahead, I could expect nothing less from myself. That became my daily motto--along with a scary me waving a machete.

    I also came across this from Rachel Aaron.  I especially found the "Knowledge" advice so completely helpful.  The thing was, I was already doing something similar but in a less effective way.  Each day when I finished writing, I used to jot down a few words or sentences of where I thought I wanted to go the next day.  I reversed that and started keeping a notebook, a daily log where I spent 10-20 minutes writing out scenes, interactions, key points I thought should happen, all in much more thoughtful detail than I used to, each day just before I began writing. It set the tone and my writing goals.  Did it all happen or go the way I thought?  Never.  At least not exactly, but it gave me something to work with, or diverge from--not just empty white space to get lost in. And if I did feel lost, I would look back at this log and revise my plan!

I've always kept daily word counts for my books--it helps me "see" in a concrete way the progress I have made. (I'm also a list maker because I love to cross things off!) but this time my emphasis was on the DAILY part.  This is a picture of my log for my newest book which will be out next year. I loved seeing the words add up and be able to go back and see a week's worth of progress. It also helped me predict how much I was capable of writing in a month, because I really wasn't sure before.  I'm just about ready to dig into Book 2 which means it's time to print out a fresh sheet and start filling in those rectangles.

With each book I've written, I've tackled it a little differently, but this time I tackled it a lot differently.  I think it's good for a writer (well, at least for me) to shake it up now and then and get out of their comfort zone.  You learn new things about yourself and maybe add a new tool to your writing chest.

In the midst of all this writing, I did have other things going on, including the publication of the last book (!) in The Jenna Fox Chronicles, Fox Forever--and all that went along with that, including some fun travels (Thank you Houston, Rochester, and Fort Worth!)  These travels included a first for me--presenting in a church on the altar no less--with stained glass saints looking on!  It somehow felt scandalous. (Jessica Brody, Marissa Meyer, and Lauren DeStefano, I'm looking at you.)

Other book news is simmering that I hope I can share soon.  In the meantime, I'm getting ready to revise the above mentioned book (3rd round) which is still untitled and I'm quite eager to jump into Book 2.  I've fallen in love with my characters over these past months.  I want to see what happens next!  I'm sure more months of craziness lie ahead.

But if you're in the middle of it now . . .

I was recently asked for advice on writing for young adults, a question I’ve been asked many times, and I usually try to offer some nuts and bolts advice on writing and publishing, but this time this question hit me differently.  It didn't seem to come from a place of drive or desire, so I tried to think about what drives me to write for teens way down deep on a gut level because I think that is far more important than the nuts and bolts. I brainstormed quick snips about what I believe about writing for teens and these snips are pasted below.  I think this needs to be the starting place:

Find the humanity in your writing
The essence of what matters to all of us
Believe in the teen that you are writing about
Believe in teens period
Not that they have lessons to learn
Not that they need to be taught in just such a way
Believe that their stories are important enough
Life-changing enough
Heart-wrenching enough
That their story needs to be read by everyone
Be a teen yourself
Be an idealist
Believe in justice
Those are some of the best traits of being a teen that I hope never to give up
Reach deep and care
Care like it’s the first time you’ve cared about anything
Care so much that it matters not just to you but to others as well
Believe in the wisdom of teens
Believe in their faults
Believe in everything in between
Don’t give them a mass label of “teenager” and think that is enough
Teens are no more alike than adults are
Each one has their own story
A story that will change the world
Because someone will recognize it as their own
And realize they are not alone
That is the power of your story
Believe in it
And I will too.

In my last post on tools of the trade, I mentioned that I was trying out Blake Snyder's Beat Sheet for the new book I was working on.  The beats of course, are all the elements of story, beginning, middle, and ending, and obviously several more beyond that.  So by the fact that I'm using it, it might imply that I know all these things about my story already.  Um. No.  In truth, the story I'm working on has already turned in directions that have nothing to do with the prescribed "beats."  And that's okay.  Writing out the beats certainly wasn't wasted time.  It gave me a chance to ponder my characters and the world they live in.

In terms of writing, I've always been more of a plunger than a plotter.  I find my way through a story, but that doesn't mean I don't do some planning too.  Usually after my initial plunge, I step back, regroup, and plan, at least loosely.  Then a bit more plunging.  Rinse and repeat.  Even though I try to plan, I know that Serendipity and the Muse could gang up on me at any moment and hijack the story in a way I hadn't expected.  Actually, I'm kind of counting on them to do just that.  The unexpected turn or revelation, even for the author--is one of the delights of writing.

And of course, since I've only planned "loosely" I'm hoping these wispy writing partners will also step up and fill in those gaps I couldn't quite figure out.  Usually they do by the time I reach the end.  I know it's only my subconscious working and trusting the process, but sometimes it does feel like some other being made all those unwieldy threads align.

It's funny because I sometimes hear authors firmly say they're in one camp or the other, plotter or plunger, but very often when they start describing the details of their process, they seem to be a bit of both: Trusting the characters and story to lead them where the story needs to go, but not afraid to wield a tool from their writing tool chest when the story requires it. What kind of writer are you?

Off to plunge and plot . . .

“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”
--Ernest Hemingway

I'm starting to write a brand new book and I’m at that giddy stage, the in-love stage.  Everything is possible! The pages ahead of me are an endless open territory.  My characters will do great things!  Hideous things!  Gut-wrenching things!  There are no limits to what I can do with setting!  It will be a character in itself. And the plot?  It will weave into complicated rivulets that will test the limits of my character!  That’s what beginnings are, open territory where everything and anything is possible. Inspiration abounds.

But I’ve written enough books to know that after the “everything is possible” stage comes the “oh crap, this isn't going exactly as I planned” stage.  Inspiration alone doesn't get a book get written. And that fact makes me mindful of craft, using all the tools at my disposal to help me tell the story in the best possible way I can.  At this early stage I begin revisiting and polishing up the tools I have, and always, always, begin looking for new ones. In terms of craft, I am forever an apprentice and I'm grateful for that.

I have to admit, I love reading about craft.  There’s hardly a book on writing that I don’t own.  Stephen King, Robert Mckee,  Anne LeMott, Madeline L’Engle, Donald Maass, Betsy Lerner, Linda Seger, and many, many more--I’ve learned something from them all. I love hearing their insights, their highs and lows of the process, and their own unique approaches which could never be mine, but make me examine my own process more closely. Yes, I guess this is a time of self-examination too.

This last year when I was on tour with Alyson Noel and Jessica Brody, they both told me about the Beat Sheet from Save the Cat, a book on screenwriting by Blake Snyder.  It helps you break your story down into fifteen essential beats. Much of what is covered can apply to novels too.  It intrigued me. So I’m using a modified version of that to organize my thoughts.

Why don’t I just use the same methods I’ve used on all my other books?  To a certain extent I do, but alas, no two books are ever alike, so they all have to be approached slightly differently.  And maybe I just like mixing things up a bit to help me think in fresh ways. I love the challenge of new stories and new approaches. Maybe that’s what I love the most about the writing process, is it keeps you on your toes.

And this new book is certainly doing that.  New territory.  Magical. But when the walls and detours start coming, I’m grateful for the tools too.