writing

A Guide to Publishing

/ Alex Whitehall / Leave a comment
I had a thought one day and then it became this. 
Note: These are just guidelines/things to think about in your life/publishing adventures. They are meant to be both serious and a little silly (the advice is serious but presented in an Alex way).
1. You will disagree with your editor/an edit at least once. Likely more.
That’s fine–as long as you and the editor can discuss it like civil human beings. If an edit/comment makes you upset, then just pass by it at first. Take some time to consider it, then re-evaluate. It keeps tempers calm when the trigger could just be a misunderstanding. The editor just wants to make this book the best it can be, but the editor is also human. It could be a misunderstanding, the editor could be seeing a different vision than you meant, the editor could have just misread something and just needs that pointed out. The editor could be stating it in a way that pushes your buttons, while the editor is completely unaware of how you’re reading it. 
But, also, this is your book. Stand up for what you want to keep, whether it’s for voice or flow or preference. However, keep in mind that editors have some experience, so listen to what they say and then decide. Don’t, for instance, decide that the serial comma needs to die in a fire and be unwilling to change no matter what.
2. No matter how many eyes see it, the book will be published with at least one error/typo.
I’m pretty sure this is a law of reality or something. The longer the work, the increased the likelihood one (or more) will show up. Don’t be angry. Just come to terms with this reality. Most readers will skip over it without even noticing it. If your publishers is amenable, feel free to let them know about the typo.
3. Writing is hard.
Not always, but sometimes. You probably already knew this.
4. Editing is hard.
You usually send to a publisher with a vague idea that this book is really good and finished and ready. Then they send back notes, whether in rejection or during revisions, and you realize your precious baby wasn’t perfect. And you get several rounds of this, to the point where it’s just wounds on top of wounds. (See back to point 1.)
This doesn’t happen every time of course, but if you go in with the mindset that it’s OK if your words are going to get poked at–sometimes hard–then it’ll make it an easier journey.
5. Publishing is hard.
In some ways that feels like it should be the end. But then there’s marketing and PR and unless you hire a publicity person for yourself, you have to take care of it. Even if the publisher has a marketing department, they aren’t your personal slaves and you have to be out there and working it. The great thing about social media is you get to be out there! The bad thing about social media is you have to be out there! Obviously you can choose not to, but you’ll be doing yourself (and your book) a disservice. 
6. Read your contract.
Every time you have to sign a new one, read it. Every publisher will be different and even the same publisher will make changes over time. Know what you’re getting into. Don’t be afraid to ask for changes–the publisher can always say no, and it won’t result in them pulling the contract. You then just have to decide if you still want to sign. Don’t be afraid to ask if you’re confused about something. If you don’t trust the publisher to tell you what it means (which should be a warning sign…), then google, ask friends, ask Twitter. It’s important, don’t feel (too) rushed.
There are lots of other points I haven’t covered here, and I didn’t cover any of them in depth, but this is just to get you thinking about your place in the process.

Keeping Focused

/ Alex Whitehall / Leave a comment

One of the hard things about writing, aside from all of it, is keeping focused on the current project. When the words (and ideas) are flowing, it’s fairly easy to keep on task. After all, the story wants to be told, so it seems natural to tell it.

Until you hit a block–either a lost desire to write or a tricky scene or you’re unclear where to go next. That’s when temptation strikes.
It might be to not write at all. After all, you have two seasons of Voltron: Legendary Defenders to catch up on (and so much knitting to do). Or you’ll suddenly get an idea for another story. And since that’s new and exciting, you are raring to go write that one! Trust me, your brain/muse/shoulder-devil says, this story is much more interesting.

This is where focusing comes in. Because as tempting as that shiny new story is, if you run off with it, you’ll be leaving the other story behind, likely to never get finished. Sometimes this might be a good thing–maybe you really aren’t feeling the story and it’s not something you want to finish. That’s a decision that needs to be made. But if you want to finish the story, then wandering off with the newest floozy story won’t help. 
I speak from experience. See, I have my current contemporary romance all plotted out (sorta) and I know where it needs to go. And I sorta knew how to get there. But there were a few scenes that were about to happen that were….not going to be incredibly exciting. And I didn’t want to write them, because I didn’t have the heaviest drama pulling me along, and I can’t have the guys arguing in every scene. 
Then, while working one day, I got this idea for a steampunk story inspired by The Glass Menagerie. At first I threw the idea on Twitter, because I totally wasn’t writing that story.
And then spent the rest of the day thinking about it, plotting it out, checking the original plot of The Glass Menagerie and now I have a fully fleshed-out plot.
The important part of this post, though, is that while I took notes, I didn’t start actually writing the story. I said, “Well that’s a fun idea, maybe later” and jotted everything down, and put it aside, and the next day I talked with the puppy and worked out the kinked section of my current story, and kept on writing.
Of course, I have a binder full of story ideas that are waiting to be written, so we’ll see how that goes. But the important part is that if you keep getting distracted by the next pretty story, you’ll have a bunch of unfinished ones littered around you that the world will never see. 
Keep on task! That’s the only way to submit to a publisher, finish a knitting project….or complete anything in life, I suppose.

Having Survived NaNoWriMo

/ Alex Whitehall / 1 Comment

We survived NaNoWriMo.

I mean, I hope we did. Hopefully we also hit our word count (or got to where we wanted to be).

I wrote 50,075 words, and aside from a few days where I fell behind, I kept up the pace of 1,667 words a day.

It taught me a few things, or maybe it reminded me of them.

1. I can write that much in a month. It’s not easy and I couldn’t do 50K every month (without dropping other things in my life) but it’s not impossible. So maybe I need to aim a little higher with my word counts (especially during the winter).

2. There’s more to writing than making words. Yes, I hit the word counts and finished the story, but is the story good? I’m not a strong judge of my own stories, so I can’t say, especially right now, so soon after finishing it. But it does make me want to write a bunch of short pieces (5K-ish) and use them to hone my writing skills (through feedback from my writing group). Then maybe compile them into a book and self-pub them? I dunno, just a thought.

3. I really don’t mind writing vampires. I wouldn’t do it all the time, but it wasn’t a bad experience. I liked being able to fiddle with the myth and add my own twist to things.

4. There is freedom in just writing and not judging. I tried really hard (and think I succeeded) in writing without thinking “Is this any good?” It let me tell the story. Now that it’s done, I guess I can go back and fix things. HOWEVER, as noted above, I do want to improve my craft so that the first draft is stronger and requires less line-level edits (phrasing, structure, language use).

5. I still like writing 🙂

That’s all. Hopefully this exercise will mean good things for my future writing!

Thoughts on Nanowrimo

/ Alex Whitehall / Leave a comment
As we pass the third-way mark and round toward halfway, I think about what I’ve written so far, what I have yet to write, and what I usually write. How I usually write.
Normally I write as the story wants to go. I’ll plan out the major actions, make sure things lead up to it properly, but generally I just write with the general scene in mind.
Which, yeah, is what I do with Nanowrimo too. BUT (and thats a big but) there is the lurking terror of getting to day 25 and realizing you’ve written a 45K story instead of a 50K story. Now you have to go back and worm 5K more into that story. In five days. GOOD LUCK.
Um, what I mean is that if you’re striving for that word count each day, you tend to not rush toward things. You tend to focus on getting as much out of the scene as you can so you can hit that word count (or maybe that’s just me). And while that can lead to a lot of fluff, my beta readers will tell you…that’s not a problem I have. Most beta readers say I need more details, more this, more that. So nano forces (?) me to really work on describing things. Feelings, actions, surroundings, people. I’m not saying I still do a lot of it, but I do MORE. Baby steps.
In the form of 1,667 words a day! 
Other benefits to Nano:
1. Writing every day. Yes, it’s murder and I couldn’t do it for more than a month, but it’s kind of cool to write every day, squeaking in words around work, friends, food, horses, and knitting.
2. Since I am writing every day, I’m more in tune with the story. There isn’t a month between what I wrote in the beginning and what I wrote at the end. I’ll likely remember the character doesn’t drink coffee and not have him drinking coffee later.
3. Challenges are fun, especially when losing really isn’t a big deal.
4. Permission to write absolute schlock. I’m not sure my current story will ever see the light of day, but it doesn’t matter. It’s just for fun, and that takes the pressure off. It’s like when I go for a run–if I run for exercise, it’s hard to motivate myself. If I run because it’s a gorgeous day and I feel like running, it’s fun.
5. Cheering on your other friends who are doing nano with you. And yeah, you can cheer when you’re not participating, but it really doesn’t feel the same.
Here’s to the next 18 days!

What a Week

/ Alex Whitehall / Leave a comment

Life is kind of funny in that when you have a deadline approaching, you will of course have more things to do. 

For instance. I had a deadline on Thursday for a manuscript and I’d gotten a later start on writing it than I’d planned, so I was cutting the submission close. Weekends are prime writing/revising time (when I can write a couple thousand words instead of a couple hundred).
So what did I have on Saturday? A horse show. Now, the shows take all day generally, plus preparation in the week before. And then it usually exhausts me, so I’m completely useless the next day.
No pressure.
Thankfully, while the day itself was exhausting, I was able to get up on Sunday and work on the story. I got enough done on Sunday that I wasn’t in a panic on Thursday trying to do One Last Edit before submitting it. The story went out the door!
It taught me two important things: I can hit a tight deadline, and I never want to do that again!
But the horse show (which is a fund-raiser for the 4-H club), went really well. The day was hot, my first horse was kind of a brat, but I still got a ribbon in every class and generally had a good time. There was a BIT of stress in the morning, since the horses at the barn didn’t want to come in, it was going to be too hot to leave them outside, and so we got a late start. Which mean we barely had time to warm up before our classes. I was a tad stressed. Just a tad. But I survived.
Sunday, aside from working on the manuscript, involved rewatching the anime Princess Tutu and knitting. I told you I was worthless after a show 😛
I’ve also started a new knitting project yesterday (because two projects at once just isn’t enough). I’ve had this yarn sitting around for a year or so, and I’ve never been sure what to do with it, but I decided to finally try making full mittens (instead of just fingerless mittens/wrist warmers). 
I’m not following a pattern, because I’m sort of just planning on knitting up like normal and then finding a pattern on how to end the mitt part. Should be fine. Right?
Well, if you want to see more of my knitting pictures, I’ll post them on Instagram, I’m trying to actually be active there: AlextheRate. Sorry for the quality. I’m currently using an older iDevice for Reasons. 

Excuses and Priorities: Finding the Time

/ Alex Whitehall / Leave a comment

While having a conversation with a fellow fledgling writer, he mentioned he “didn’t have time” to work on his current project. I mentioned that you make time for what’s important in your life, so if you’re not “making time” then it’s not as important as other things.

This is, of course, true within reason. If you’re exhausted after a long day of work, then even if you have time to write, it might not be a good idea to write–the words will probably feel as tired as you. There’s also times when you’re just not in the headspace to write–whether because the scene is dark and you’re too happy or the scene is happy and you’re too sad. But generally, if you make time to write, then you’re going to write more than if you didn’t make time. (Um, duh, right?)

He sheepishly agreed with me and said he deserved to hear that, since he applies that to so much else in his life/preaching. It’s a good thing to apply to life. Obviously having kids (which he does) complicates things, since their priorities might not match with your own, but the logic still applies (just slightly tweaked).

I think of myself as fairly busy. I work full-time, ride horses at least twice a week, write and edit my own stuff, am (sorta) active in a writers’ group, am a leader of a 4-H club, see my friends at least once a week, visit family (although not often enough), run my single-person household, and get 6-8 hours of sleep a night (which is mandatory for the happiness of the world). I’ve had people ask how I do it. Well, I follow some rules.

1. Schedule things. I joke with my mom, but I require most events to be scheduled at least a month in advance if you want my attendance. Anything less than that and I don’t feel bad for saying “Sorry, busy!” Scheduling let’s me know when I am going to have a busy weekend and need to reorganize other items. Say my Saturday is booked. Since my weekend mornings are prime writing time, then I need to either plan to write more on Sunday or else try to squeeze in more time during the week. Scheduling allows for optimal use of all of your time.

That said, don’t overschedule to the point where you don’t have any downtime built in. I tend to expect everything to take longer than it does, so I never feel rushed to do the next thing. I used to not be as good at that, and you burn out quick.

2. Prioritize. This gets back to what I was saying earlier. I used to (okay, we all know I still do) complain that I don’t have time to write. And then I realized I couldn’t write in the evenings after work because my head wasn’t in the right spaces. But writing more was something I wanted to do. So I started setting aside time in some mornings to get up and write. Does it mean I sometimes roll out of bed when I’d rather be curled up browsing tumblr? Yes. But for me it’s worth it.

Some mornings I may only write 200 words, but it’s 200 more words than I had the night before. And just doing it feels like an accomplishment. And starting the morning with an accomplishment is a good way to do it!

Obviously this can apply to anything. But if you ever find yourself saying “I don’t have time for X,” but you spend your whole night watching reality TV shows, then you need to ask yourself, “Is reality TV more important than X to me?” If you keep spending your time that way, then yes, it is.

I’m lucky enough to have a fairly flexible schedule, and kids throw a wrench (or a whole toolbox) into working schedules, but if you really want to do the thing, then you have to make time to DO THE THING. If you come to the time to do the thing and you don’t feel like it at that moment, then you can always do something else. But if you don’t make the time to do the thing, then you’ll never have time to do the thing.

3. Do the above to everything in your life. Now, I don’t mean rank “friend time” vs “family time.” But if you’ve seen your fiends a lot that week and you need some alone time, don’t be afraid to say no if they invite you to a movie you’re lukewarm on and you’d really rather be writing. Even if you can do thing X during when you’d usually slump on the couch watching TV, you might be able to do something else during that time, which would then open up a different slot for doing thing X.

And that’s…pretty much it. I realize not everyone can/wants to have a life as structured as I do, but I think the core ideas can help everyone. No, you might not have a Google Calendar for every week sketching out when you have writing time, but having the idea of “I’ll wake up twenty minutes earlier on Wednesdays to [do X] before I head to my job” is sometimes all we need.

Also, if you do all the above and find out you still “don’t have time,” then it just means that the thing you “want to do” isn’t actually that important to you. And that’s okay too. It might help to rephrase the thinking though: “I’d love to do X, but I have too many other awesome thing I’m busy doing.” There’s no shame in realizing that while something might be really cool and you’d like to do it, it just isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things. As long as you’re happy with the things you are making time for, then that’s all that matters.

Dogs, Heatwaves, and Writing

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If you follow my whining me on twitter, you’ll know that I’ve spent the past week dog sitting. Which isn’t a problem, generally. I mean, I always complain, but I’ve rather gotten used to sleeping in their bed and the lack of really hot water in the shower (it’s summer, it’s fine). The dog is always a stressor, because he’s more work for me than I have to tend in my daily life, but this year it’s rough.

As you can probably tell by his picture, Duke is a geriatric pup. He’s gotten more and more white as the years have gone by, and although I’m not sure of his age, I’m guessing it’s around ten or twelve, which is about peak for a Labrador, and he’s a Chocolate Lab. He was a handful as a puppy, but he’s also raised three kids to five years old, and taught them to respect dogs and how to behave around dogs, and not to be afraid of big dogs (even when they plow right over you when you’re just learning to stand).

He’s old. He has a breathing problem (he pants a lot, and I’m pretty sure it’s not just because it’s hot most of the time), is going blind and deaf, and has terrible hips. The hips especially have taken a swift downturn recently, where when he’s walking on the tile (seen here with him sleeping), his hind legs will just slip out from under him and plop him on the floor. He’s pretty chill about it. He just sort of sighs and says Well, I guess I’ll lie here then.

Of course, putting carpeting down would be a good solution to this problem. Except in his old age he also has some bathroom issues, which I’ve ranted about enough on Twitter that I’ll spare you the details. But it’s messy. And frustrating. And STINKS. And I can’t really be mad at him because he’s just an old dog doing his best.

Another problem with the hips is going up and down stairs. Thankfully he can pretty much live in the downstairs, but when he has to go out, he has to go down five porch steps. Which he usually does without completely collapsing (but every time he collapses it breaks my heart). But most times to get back up the steps, I have to grab him by the hips and walk his hind legs up the steps while he works the front end. We’ve actually gotten pretty good at it. (His owner made a ramp right before he left to try to avoid this problem, since the level of hip issue has turned suddenly for the worse, but the ramp seems to cause us more problems than solutions, so we’re doing it our way.)

So some mornings I get woken up by whining at 4 am because he’s fallen and he can’t get up (I’m serious), and I trudge downstairs and haul him to his feet and then let him out to pee (because why risk it) and then trudge back to bed. That’s better than the second morning when I woke up to…well, we won’t discuss that.

But he’s a lovely creature, and while I wish his owner would have given me a bit more warning about what I was stepping into, I can’t blame the dog. Even when I leave him out in the cool porch where he has food, water, and easy walking turf, plus access to potty space, and yet he LOOKS in the window like I’ve betrayed him. Okay, I may blame him a little for that.

The house itself is lovely. The owner has a fantastic sense of style, and has added a few touches that I appreciate.

Yes, those are tea kettles that say “Green Tea” “Ceylon Tea” and “Oolong Tea” in the kitchen. They also have a gas range stove, which I only really care about because it heats my tea water so quickly.

The reason I’m (over?)sharing this is because I came into this week with GRAND plans of productivity. That was, until I met my charge for the week and realized how much time and effort was going to go into caring for him. Which is partially an excuse (because I still have time to watch the entire second season of Daredevil), but also can be emotionally draining. Bargaining with a dog is futile. Bargaining with a partially deaf/blind dog is the beginnings of insanity. But there’s really not any other choice.

That said, I still outlined a Christmas novella(?) that was supposed to be 20K at max, but the outline seems to be sort of long for that. But who knows. I wrote it out by hand in a tiny notebook, so maybe it’s just the right length.

Being Busy and Playing Real Life Pokemon

/ Alex Whitehall / Leave a comment

The second-ish week of the month is always hard, as in addition to riding twice and getting together with friends on Friday, I have a 4-H meeting (horse club, go figure), and writers’ group. So it’s super busy, and my scheduled “I need to work on revisions” this week fell through hard. Ah well, there’s always next week, right (you know, the one with two barn trips, writers’ group, and two social nights…)?

I currently have my fantasy novella shipped off to another batch of beta readers (for another set of eyes), so now I’ve (hypothetically) begun edits on my trans cowboy story. Deep breath.

My current WIP is the same story I’ve been writing for the past forever (it feels like). I like the story, but it’s fighting me tooth and nail, and since I’m sticking to “write one story at a time” rule, I’m eagerly looking forward to finishing it. Both characters are sort of angst-muffins, and I love them dearly, but they are a heck of trouble to write!

In other news, all of my friends are playing Pokemon Go, so I started sharing pictures of all the real life pokemon I caught.

Ponyta (aka, my gray pony who rolls after I bathe him)
Meowth (aka black barn cat who is a love muffin)
Pidgey (aka, chicken at the barn)
Real-life Pokemon Go is fun 😛 I encourage everyone to participate.

Food and knitting is all I think about.

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Eating healthy and exercising is hard, guys. Just wanted you to know. Because you didn’t. Obviously. It’s absolutely a secret.

This is my current knitting project (one of three…*cough*). Because I have to count the stitches, it’s progressing a bit more slowly than I’d like. (Not at all because I’m working on three projects.) I imagine it’s going to be for the baby’s first birthday rather than when he’s born. Oops. I still think it’s coming along well, and I even screwed up the stitches and was able to fix the count so I’m back on track!

But seriously, it’s hard to count stitches and read subtitles at the same time. My brain just can’t do it anymore.

The “focus on one writing project at a time” thing is going fairly well. I’ve even been trying to sneak in a half hour or hour of writing in the morning some days during the week so my writing days aren’t limited to two. It won’t happen all the time, but I’m making better progress this month on my word count than I was! Every 500 words counts, right?

I’m going to go absolutely not think about cooking another grilled cheese sandwich…

Not going to think about food at all.

Nope.

On Writing and What’s Next

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I was talking to a writer friend and ze mentioned that ze only writes one story at a time and needs to finish that story before starting any others, and that keeps zir from having a string of unfinished stories.

I thought that sounded like a good–great–idea, so I started making a list of all the stories I’m working on. It’s, uh, a long list. I mean, I always had a spreadsheet (that should have been a sign), but I have a lot of stories started and never finished. So now I’m making a list. And I will go down that list as best I can. Obviously I’m going to have to work out some kinks from the system, because I have some stories I more recently started that may need to be finished before my big Scruples project, but we’ll see.

After the current thing I’m rewriting (for something else not related), I plan on moving on to my rehabilitating rockstar OR my super queer shifters. I’m going to poke and whichever one reacts is going to get priority.

But first I need to finish my mini-project, and also work on revisions for my fantasy bear shift novella.

While knitting a Spider Man blanket for my friends’ future baby. Because I didn’t have a knitting project on hand and my friend is having a baby and I’ve made blankets for all the other babies in my life, so I felt bad.

And then I did a search for geeky knitted things and found this (which was within my skill level…I hope) and couldn’t resist.

Hopefully it turns out okay. Or the baby immediately vomits on it and it can be burned and I don’t have to worry.

Here’s to multitasking!