A NEW YEAR...OF CHALLENGES

First, I want to thank Kell for her awesome advice in her 5 January post. She is a pro and it shows! I thought I'd chime in on a few things I've learned the hard way. 

The idea of New Years is daunting. It's fresh, unsullied, massive, and anything is possible. Unlike simply saying we will start tomorrow, the New Year is a big empty space. The first thing we want to do is make big promises to fill it. It’s the New Year, ready for us to tackle whole. Um…let’s take a step back. I know, for me, when I start making the mental stack of things that I want to do, the stack turns into a giant mountain that seems to represent the impossible. And a mountain of things IS impossible. But it is made up of individual things that are not. There are lessons to be learned from mountains. Here are three things to remember as you head into your new year promises:

1.     THE DEADLINE: LET IT BE YOUR FRIEND

Ah, deadlines. The bane of existence for many. For me, I take them as a welcome gift. I can appreciate them as a guide towards accomplishment. Instead of seeing deadlines as looming, consider them as something to beat. As a once-editor, I have a deep-seated fear of tardiness. Having to edit and place late articles is a miserable task. There is always the question- will the writer/photographer/reviewer/artist come through? As an author, I find that I tend to beat the deadlines given to me by my publishers. This year was tricky. I have had two manuscripts due to two different publishers, both books coming out this year. Straddling deadlines is a challenge, but I quickly realized that one of the demands, a book with a co-author, was simply unrealistic. Normally, there is about 18 months from manuscript to release. This book was a quick query and contract thing and is slated for release in December, 2017. This means very little time to write. The timing was terrible. I was grading and finishing final edits on the third Young Inventors Guild book. My co-author, Salima Ikram, Egyptologist extraordinaire, needed to spend most of the fall semester on digs and at Yale and traveling to amazing places. No way were we getting the text, let alone the artwork in by October. In addition, we are working with Steve Parke (the artist who did the covers of all three YIG books) who had his book on Prince (he was Prince’s art director for many years) released over this Christmas holiday. I took a deep breath and told my publisher that we could not do it. We’d need more time. Salima, from the caves of somewhere, concurred. Holding my breath, a let out a sigh of relief when they said they’d give us until March. Hurray! There was no reprieve for the YIG3 manuscript so I enlisted my daughter as reader/editor/moral support and we read through the manuscript together and turned it in. This was intense and emotional (both because it is the third in a trilogy and I had to cut out 250 pages I originally thought were important but now see that the team at Bancroft was right and the book will be better for it) but we got it done. The ARC is out. The book shall come.

In addition to books being prepped for publishing, I have a book series I really, really want to write. I know a publisher interested, but I am trying to be smart and not make promises that will kill me. That said, keeping in mind that a deadline can be my friend, I have built into my schedule a deadline. I will not even look at the manuscript (I am chomping at the bit to write) until after March. Then, I will give myself a deadline. I know I will work better, and more often, if I have a goal.

So lesson here:

-       Be realistic. Deadlines can sometimes be adjusted. Don’t be afraid to ask for more time. Be prepared to be denied or for a possible change in release date, but there is no harm in asking your editor if it is possible.

-       Be ready. If a deadline cannot be adjusted, do not feel the looming, but feel the goal.

-       Be committed. If you do not yet have a publisher and you have a book you want to write, give yourself a realistic deadline and honor it. This will get that collection of ideas into a manuscript.

2.     THE DETERMINATION: MOUNTAIN CLIMBING IS NOT THE ANALOGY

If you have made a list of the seventeen books you want to write and now feel paralyzed, take a step back from that mountain. I know this feeling. It is miserable. If you feel there are so many things you want to do but cannot ever finish them all, don’t. Once again, take things into smaller bits you can swallow.

So, the lesson here is:

-       Make a list. Look at all of your project ideas and make a list. Once you have these down, by title/working title or idea, each one is a separate thing.

-       Make an order. This is a way to prioritize you work. Do not feel bound by what is already partially written or in order of when you started, make the order of what you are most excited to write and start there.

-       Make time. Once you know where you want to start, give yourself some time to work. Maybe consider a deadline. It works for me.

3.     THE DRAFT: FOR YOUR EYES ONLY?

Once you begin writing, decide who you are writing for. I do not believe we can create books in a vacuum. Books are for readers and you will need readers either to read a draft or to read as you work. For me, I read my work aloud to my sleeping husband, beg my children to look at chapters, ask friends to read ARCs, and I feel this gives life to what I write. Do not be afraid to have people make comments counter to what you think is what you want. Sometimes, it makes you all the more determined to stick with the plan. Sometimes it gives you ideas for a better plan.

So the lesson here is:

-       Draft it. As you write, mistakes happen. Changes will happen. Edits and alterations and your direction may shift. Do not be concerned with making the first draft perfect. Just get it down on paper or onto the virtual page.

-       Don’t be afraid. Now that you can look at the one idea, play with it. Enjoy writing bits of it as it slowly (or quickly) turns into your manuscript.

-       Do it! You will be surprised how much pleasure you will get out of writing if it doesn’t feel like part of an insurmountable task. It is not a task. It is writing.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Eden

This counts as "writing", right?, by: Marissa Burt

http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2014/07/27

I can end this post right here, yes? I think all writers have to resonate with this on some level, because writing requires self-motivation from a group of people who are often easily distracted by imaginary worlds, let alone all the interesting things right there in front of us.  While there is something to be said for sitting down and eking the words out through sheer force of will, I'm beginning to let go of the drivenness that says every writing-moment must equal words on a page.

Matt's earlier post about being okay with not writing every day was spot on, and I'm going to springboard off that and say that sometimes things that have absolutely nothing to do with writing are useful for building creativity. No, this is not a weak attempt to justify my ridiculous fondness for Candy Crush, but I do think mindless indulgences - whether it's frittering away a few minutes online or daydreaming out the window - do something for our creativity.

It's like how I stop to do a few stretches after I've been hunched over my laptop for an hour. My body needs a break and a reset. Why do I begrudge my mind the same?

So I'm learning to factor wasting time into my writing time. If I have a whole four hours to write, I've come to accept that about 30% of that will evaporate into research rabbit-trails and a quick visit to facebook and another trip to the pantry.

All that being said the ability to focus in and really get lost in the world varies with the stage of the manuscript. I squander writing time frivolously during the first draft, but as I reach the end of the manuscript, I find it difficult to even stop for lunch, and if a brilliant plot twist strikes, all bets are off.

What about you? What do you do to reset your creativity? And 'fess up, Mayhemers, what are your secret time-wasting indulgences?

Writing a Middle Grade Series by Dianne K. Salerni

There are a lot of things nobody told me about writing a middle grade series. NOT that I would have passed on the opportunity if I’d known, but sometimes, it’s good to know what you’re getting into!

At first, things moved at the normal pace of publishing. (Think: glacier.) Shortly after the contract, the editor who acquired my book and two sequels retired. It took several months for the publisher to assign me a new editor, and I had plenty of time to write the second book and even revise it a couple times – all while working the day job.

When my new editor sent me her revise letter last spring, we had several intense weeks, but still managed to turn the book in for copy-editing on time at the end of June. Since I’d already written the second book, I had the opportunity to tweak details in the first book to set things up for #2. Summer vacation arrived; I was off school and spent my time leisurely revising Book 2 and pondering Book 3. I turned in the second book in August and started working on the third, naively believing I would get it done before I needed to look at #2 again.

That didn’t happen. I went back to work in September and was almost immediately hit with: a) the galleys of Book 1 for review and b) an edit letter for Book 2. I’d only made it halfway through Book 3 – and was struggling with it – when suddenly I had to find time to work on three books simultaneously, while still keeping up with my full time teaching job.

There may have been a small panic attack at this point. Unlike Jax, my main character, I did NOT have an extra, secret day of the week to get this done!

I had to parcel out my time selectively. Book 3, which isn’t due to my editor until next April, was the first thing I cut from my schedule. I wasn’t going to have the luxury of completing it before revising Book 2. I closed that document on my desk top.

That was a big thing for me.

Then I took on the proof-reading. Reading your own work printed up all pretty is a lot more fun than revising. I read the galleys, beginning to end, and laid them aside.

Next, I accepted that Book 2 needed a new first chapter based on my editor’s excellent notes. I wrote it and revised/polished/revised/polished until it looked halfway decent.

Then I returned to the galleys of Book 1, read completely through them a second time and MAILED THEM BACK. That’s it. My work on the first book is done.

Now I’m digging into the other revisions for Book 2, having cleared my slate of everything else but the day job. (Let’s not even talk about the mental gear switching that takes place when I go to work every day and have to think about teaching instead of these books!) I’m trying not to worry about next spring, when I’ll need to finish writing Book 3 while gearing up for promotions on Book 1.

If my publisher picks up their option for two more books, this super-fast treadmill of multiple, overlapping projects will continue into the foreseeable future. (To quote George Jetson: “Jane, stop this crazy thing!”)

If they pass, the treadmill will come to a grinding halt. Of course, I’m hoping for the George Jetson thing. Crazy or not!