Posts Tagged ‘novels’
It’s been about a month since I’ve worked on my own creative projects (not including blogging). I’m stuck and I know it and I kind of know why. I’m rewriting my NaNoWriMo draft (a mystery) and have been happily buzzing along until I came to a section that I have to write completely fresh. It was great when it felt like I was just revising and had a template in front of me to follow. Also, my writing group loved the last chapter and told me they can’t wait to read the next one. For some reason, I internalized their excitement as SUPER DUPER PRESSURE TO BE GOOD. All the while I have been telling myself, ‘Oh, you’re just taking this inchoate baby NaNoWriMo draft to the toddler level.’ I was having fun with it, not needing it to be GOOD. And, then I felt that pressure and did it tighten up the creative juices.
Isn’t it funny how something wonderful (like readers wanting more) can create inner turmoil? OK, problem diagnosed! Now I just need to start somewhere and remind myself, it doesn’t need to be good on the first or even second round. I’m just putting words on the page. In the famous words of Anne Lamott, it’s OK to produce a “shitty first draft”.
I’m just going to start putting one sentence in front of the other until I get to the end of the scene and then I’m going to write the next scene and so on.
I found this article a few days ago and it has some wonderful tips on how to come back to writing when you’ve been away for awhile.
And you? How is your writing going? Do you have some favorite ways to get unstuck?
As many of you who consistently read this blog know, I have been teaching a variety of workshops about the submission process. I started teaching this kind of work because becoming more savvy about submission (and doing it more often), has made such a tremendous difference in my writing life.
My interest and desire in upping my submissions game began with my teacher’s suggestion that emerging writers should actively (and quickly) strive for 99 rejections. And, they should think of those rejections as part of their apprenticeship. As I note in this post, at the time my writing teacher shared this, I thought surely I had racked up 99 rejections. Boy was I wrong! The other reason why I have begun teaching on this subject is that while there are a number of writing books, few discuss the submission process and all that it entails.
Recently, I realized that since December, I haven’t devoted much time to my own submission process. And, time is passing—it’s already the second quarter of the year!
Last Saturday, I sat down and dived in. Wow, was I out of practice with a process that I know well! I was reminded of many of the things that my participants tell me they struggle with regarding submitting their work
It takes time to research new markets (ideally, you’re reading a few issues of the journal or magazine before you submit), it also takes time to adapt cover letters and reformat your materials (there is, unfortunately, no uniform submission standard and every venue wants the materials formatted slightly different—from no contact information in the manuscript to contact information in the manuscript, etc.).
What I thought would only take me an hour or two (as I had several pieces ready to go), took almost four hours from start to finish. This submission thing isn’t easy or speedy.
I wound up submitting work to 5 new markets and 1 market that I already knew. To the majority of these markets, I submitted both prose and poetry. Last year, I had little time to get my poems circulating and I wanted to correct that oversight.
One strategy, however, that I came up with after my four hour adventure was to schedule a reminder in my calendar for the 5th and 25th of each month. Instead of trying to do everything in one sitting, it makes much more sense to spread the work out over the month. I can’t believe I haven’t thought of this before! I also like the fact that on the 5th, I can scan everything I find for the month, bookmark it and make a decision to submit then (depending on the deadline) or later. If you schedule in twice a month submission adventures then you’re more likely to find great opportunities and follow through on them.
The reality is, if I don’t start scheduling this kind of stuff, I’ll wind up binge submitting and feel exhausted afterward.
I have become a fan of Todoist, a scheduling app. I’ve already added my reminder for the 25th.
Submitting one’s work shouldn’t feel tedious! I’m excited about my new plan.
Do you have tips for managing the submission process? If so, I’d love to hear them.
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This isn’t a book review. It’s an appetizer. You know when you start reading a book and you feel like it’s about to reshape everything you’ve thought about a subject? And, you can’t wait to tell everyone about it? That’s me, right now. I’m obsessed with the new book, Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living.
It’s an amazing book exploring raw vulnerable truths, myths and contradictions about writing and making a living. The collection includes essays and interviews. Every piece moves me.
Last fall, I heard an interview with the editor, Manjula Martin, on the wonderful DIY MFA podcast, hosted by Gabriela Pereira. I bought it and have been devouring it this past week. I’m sure I’ll be writing more about it soon. Right now, please excuse me as I curl up with Scratch until the wee hours of the morning.
3 Tips for Being Savvy at Submitting Your Writing + Upcoming Charting Your Path to Publication Workshop
Posted on: March 19, 2018
Last Saturday, I had the pleasure of conducting a compressed version of the ‘Charting Your Path to Publication’ workshop for the Triangle Sisters in Crime organization. A wonderful crowd of newbie and established writers turned out on a warm afternoon. The audience came eager to engage with me and each other.
This is the third time I’ve taught a version of this workshop and every time it’s gone supremely well. On Saturday, I focused a lot on strengthening one’s submitting skills. The reason why I created this workshop is because a vacuum exists in helping writers understand and manage one of the key components of creating a writing career–submitting one’s work. There’s not much about the submission process in writing craft books, except to “just do it”. But this declaration leaves out so much about submitting one’s work including 1) how to build relationships with editors 2) how to find appropriate venues for one’s work 3) how to track one’s submissions and 4)how to cultivate a resilient author mindset, especially in dealing with rejection.
As I say in the opening to the workshop, charting one’s path to publication is not like shooting an arrow and hitting a target.
Getting published really isn’t like shooting an arrow and hitting a target perfectly the first time.
This is the perception I had when I first started writing. It’s more like a series of knocking on doors and hopefully building relationships with editors, publishers and readers behind many of them.
Understanding the nuances in publishing is more like being very curious and knocking on a wide array of many doors.
It can be a long and rewarding process when one is armed with knowledge and support. I wish someone had explained this to me much earlier in my writing career.
Here are three tips for increasing your submission savvy:
- Always be on the lookout for new venues for your work
You want to create a readership? You want to get paid for your writing? If the answer is yes, you’ll need to find markets where you can submit your work. Make seeking out new venues a playful process and think of yourself as a type of treasure hunter.
There are some tried and true submission market databases. These include Duotrope and Submission Grinder. You can also find a number of groups on Facebook representing various genres that post submissions (i.e. ‘women of color writers’ community’, ‘science fiction and fantasy authors’, etc.)
One fantastic venue is poet, Tricia Hopkinson’s ‘Where to Submit’ website. She updates monthly and includes submission markets for all kinds of genres; her site is also good for finding paying poetry markets.
- Create a great bio
As a working writer, you’ll need different bio lengths including a 50 word, 100 word and 300 word length bio for various publications (or queries to agents and editors). I spent a lot of time on Saturday making a case for a bio that engages the reader, conveys something compelling about the writer and is more than a laundry list of publications. The bio is not only for your forthcoming publications, but is an important component of your website and other social media sites, etc. Start collecting examples of author bios that you love and study what makes them work. I used author, Jake Bible’s longer bio on his website as a fun example and perfect for the genre he writes in.
- Create a rejection ritual
It’s going to happen to you, if it hasn’t happened already. You’re going to submit something and it gets rejected. You’re minding your own business, thinking of yourself as a writer, keeping to deadlines and then a rejection letter arrives in an email. Sometimes we forget a piece of writing is out floating around in the literary universe. When a rejection arrives out of the blue it often feels like your head has been plunged in cold water.
As writers, many of us have great rituals for getting ourselves to the page or celebrating when we finish a piece. Most of us don’t have any rituals for dealing with rejection.
I started thumbing through my writing books-all of which talk about the inevitability of rejection-and was surprised to find that few gave concrete advice or guidance about how to take care of yourself when you get a rejection letter. Most just say that you should immediately write a new query letter and send the manuscript back out–very perfunctory.
I asked the audience if they have a rejection ritual. Someone said, “A glass of chardonnay and popcorn and then the next day I get back to work.” Another person said, “I think I need a rejection ritual.”
You can create your rejection ritual around what kind of feedback you receive from the venue. Is it a form letter or is it personalized? What will you need to tell yourself to get the piece back into submission (assuming that the piece is as strong as you can make it)? It can be as simple as having a phrase that you tell yourself. A ritual can help ease the sting of getting rejected. Consider crafting one.
If you’d like to deeply explore your publication path, I’m teaching a longer workshop through the wonderful Creative Writing Program at Central Carolina Community College in Pittsboro this coming Saturday, March 24th 10am-4pm. I was scheduled to teach this workshop in January, but didn’t because of the snowstorm. I’d love to see you there!
Charting Your Path to Publication teaches strategies to beat the odds of rejection. You’ll learn how to select markets for your work, track submissions, and find great resources.
We’ll also spend time exploring the role of author mindset as vital to publishing success. There is no one path to publication, but we can follow and replicate the strategies of accomplished writers. You will leave with an action plan with concrete steps toward publication (or, if already published with a plan about how to become more widely so).
Writers at all levels welcomed.
Door prizes, too!
Register here
Hi all,
We’re already into the first three months of the year. How are you feeling about the work you’ve submitted for publication? Are you submitting as much as you had hoped? You are submitting, right?
Most writers delay doing the one thing that concretely helps move them toward their goal of publication—submitting their work consistently.
No one knows about your work until you take that step of sending it out into the world.
Sometimes writers delay because they find the process of submission difficult, confusing and intimidating. They have trouble finding time to submit their work, finding venues for their work, and keeping track of submissions. Many writers don’t submit their work consistently, going through binge and bust cycles. They often don’t know how to build relationships with editors.
Many writers feel daunted navigating the submission process and often find themselves stymied by periods of rejection.
If you’re interested in supercharging your submission rate this year and learning new strategies for taking consistent action to publication, you might like the following:
I’m giving a FREE workshop: Charting Your Path to Publication: Strengthening Submission Skills and Honing Author Mindset
for the Triangle Sisters in Crime meeting this Saturday
March 10, 1:30 PM, at the Durham South Regional Library, 4505 Alston Ave., Durham. The meeting is open to the public.
Charting Your Path to Publication teaches strategies to beat the odds of rejection. You’ll learn how to select markets for your work, track submissions, and find great resources.
We’ll also spend time exploring the role of author mindset as vital to publishing success. There is no one path to publication, but we can follow and replicate the strategies of accomplished writers. You will leave with an action plan with concrete steps toward publication (or, if already published with a plan about how to become more widely so).
Writers at all levels welcomed.
Workshop will be about 1 hour & 30 minutes plus Q&A
Door prizes, too!
I’d love to see you there!
Weaving Together Horror, Time Travel and Female Serial Killers: Author Interview with Ashleigh Gauch
Posted on: February 19, 2018
I got to know Ashleigh Gauch last year through our connection being published in the ‘UnCommon’ anthologies by Fighting Monkey Press. In the summer, I invited Ashleigh to write a guest post sharing her insights about being an indigenous speculative fiction writer writing across communities. Ashleigh is passionate about writing and we quickly found ourselves having spirited late night conversations about speculative fiction, trends in publishing, our favorite authors, etc. via Facebook Messenger. That’s how I found out about her intriguing new novel, Covenant of the Hollow. [check out her pre-order special at the end of the post!]
Ashleigh Gauch is a Haida author living just south of her hometown of Seattle, Washington. She went to college for nutrition but found her passions lay not in science, but in the genesis of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.
Her aquatic friend Odin and feline companion Luna love to watch her work!
Her work has been featured in the online periodical Bewildering Stories, the Fighting Monkey Press collections UnCommon Minds and UnCommon Lands, the Manawaker Press collections Starward Tales and Starward Tales 2, and the online periodical Teaching Tolerance.
Blurb for Covenant of the Hollow:
Would you give up your ability to fear in exchange for your deepest desire?
Across centuries, the lives of two young women with vastly dissimilar ambitions collide.
Annalise Silva is a 21st-century nineteen-year- old mayoral hopeful in her small city. Between dealing with abusive parents and not being taken seriously as a candidate, she has a lot on her plate. When she investigates mysterious prophetic dreams, she discovers an extradimensional alien who offers her the office in a swap for her fears.
Elizabeth Bathory’s noble birth in 1500s Hungary did not guarantee her happiness. Needing help to catch a husband to secure her family’s position, she accepts the alien creature’s whispered promise of her place in history if she will gift him her inhibitions. She didn’t know she’d be branded as the most prolific serial killer in history.
With lives running in reverse and time running out, will their attempts to stop each other’s descent into madness via shared dreams succeed—before the creature destroys the world?
I’m delighted to welcome Ashleigh Gauch back to The Practice of Creativity!
– Tell us about your recent novel, Covenant of the Hollow. What are you hoping readers will connect to in this story?
Covenant of the Hollow was both a challenge and a joy to write. It follows the twin stories of Annalise Silva, a nineteen-year-old Puerto Rican girl living in the fictional town of Qualicum, WA, and Elizabeth Bathory, the most prolific female serial killer in history. They encounter an extra-dimensional creature who promises them their greatest desires (consequence free) in exchange for their ability to feel fear. Given the constant state of anxiety in which many (dare I say most) women live their lives, such an offer would seem like the easiest decision to make in the world.
One of the things I really tried to capture in both story lines was the omnipresent feeling of powerlessness women feel even as they take steps to seize power over their own lives.
Annalise’s story was based in large part on interviews with a good friend of mine about her uncle and aunt and some of the problems their daughter faced after the family moved from Puerto Rico to the mainland U.S.
Although the cousin in question didn’t run for political office, they did face several of the situations in the book, including pressure from their mother to stay in the household as a caretaker rather than starting a life of their own and having to deal with their father being extradited back to Puerto Rico, leaving the family without a steady income.
Elizabeth’s story was inspired by the article in the collection Rejected Princesses on the historical figure. In it, the author suggested that Elizabeth may have committed atrocities, but not on the scale she was convicted for and not entirely without reason. Sadism or not, she was a widow from the highest-ranking family in all of Hungary who had to hold onto her lands, and the man entrusted with care of her family had his eye on her power. Taking on a familiar horror story from that point of view brought questions to my mind about what that would be like, and what it would be like to be told that the only value you had as a person, from birth, was what you could give to the court.
She has to face many hard choices, including dealing with post-partum depression and vulnerability following an abortion, dealing with her husband’s death and a near-immediate proposal from the man he had assigned their care to, and fears that her barony will fall to Ottoman invaders before she even gets a chance to see if she’s taught her son enough to succeed his father.
That claustrophobic there-is-no-way-out-of-this feeling is one MANY women face on a daily basis, and I’m hoping that my readers find a bit of themselves both protagonists.
-Your story moves back and forth in time between two main characters. Were there any challenges in plotting or characterization that you grappled with as you worked on the book?
Well, I can tell you this book converted me from a pantser to a plotter pretty quickly!
One of the big challenges came from having to change the historical events to fit part of the story I wanted to tell. For example, Elizabeth was 10 years old when she married Ferenc and had her first child at 12, possibly with a lover from the peasantry. Understandably uncomfortable with this, I aged her up to 14 during the opening scenes of the book when she woos Ferenc (a fact contested in various references) and has her abortion (also contested, some sources say she gave a daughter up for adoption).
As far as lining up the story went, I tried to allow the dream sequences they connected with and some of the base events happening in each of their story lines carry similar themes, so the transitions between chapters and points of view felt smooth.
One of the biggest challenges was making Elizabeth relatable. Most people have only encountered her story as the “Blood Countess,” hammed up for horror purposes with her bathing in blood and ripping pieces of flesh off her victims. Although some of those things were alleged in her trial, the historical accuracy was dubious for many of the claims listed. And beyond that, making a sadist relatable at all is a challenge, especially a feminine one.
Trying to showcase her struggles, her reasoning and internal debate for each choice she made, solved some of those issues, but the fact remains that many people struggle to have empathy with flawed female characters. I hope that my book can be another plank on that bridge.
-What was the most interesting tidbit that you came across while researching Hungary in the 1500s for your character, Elizabeth Bathory?
The first was that she and her husband most likely tortured girls together at first, and that he tempered her during his visits home from the war. That was a pretty big shock for me!
The second was that (again, changed in the book for story purposes) he was actually illiterate, while Elizabeth spoke over 4 languages, could read and write, and had a knack for governance. She really was a more educated and prepared ruler than he, and handled much of the court work in his absence. Her son ultimately failed as a successor because she was so afraid of having her power stripped she didn’t adequately prepare him to take over, which ended her bloodline as rulers.
-How did you get bitten by the ‘writing bug’? Did you always wish to become an author?
My first poem was published at 10 years old. It was about 9/11, and my teacher was so concerned about the contents she ended up calling my parents in for a conference. When she determined they hadn’t helped me write it (and didn’t even know about it), she sent it in to a youth writing contest and it ended up in an anthology.
From then on I wrote obsessively growing up, about anything and everything I could get my hands on. I even used the templates in the old version of Word to create a pseudo-newspaper I sent to my grandmother every month. The Storypaper. It had some running stories in parts and some complete ones, and she saved all of them before she died.
I wanted to be an author when I grew up from 10 onward, by my parents were the opposite of supportive. My stepdad thought that I’d be a starving artist if I went to college for creative writing, so I ended up majoring in nutrition when I got to school despite the fact they never ended up helping me pay for it. It wasn’t until some complications happened in school and I ended up bedridden for 2 years following a severe back injury that I picked up the pen again.
I will never put it back down as long as I live.
-What’s on your bookshelf, next to your bed (or in your e-reader)? What are you reading right now?
J.G. Follansbee gave me an advance release copy of the third book in his Tales of a Warming Planet series, City of Ice and Dreams. I’m reading it for fiction, and a book called Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence by Daniel Goleman for nonfiction. I tend to read one of each at any given time.
– What’s your best writing tip that you’d like to share?
Every project hits a stagnation period. A place where you’re stuck in the mud despite your best planning, where the idea of sitting down to write brings more pain than joy in your mind. Where you no longer know if the idea you’re working on is worth it, if any of it is worth it, and something shinier and prettier looks easier and beckons you away from everything you’ve done up until that point.
For Covenant, it was when a couple of people in my writing group told me that the concept couldn’t work and that I needed to completely change the way I approached the book. That horror readers wouldn’t dig it and it wasn’t sci-fi enough for the science fiction crowd, either.
Don’t listen to any of those voices, human or internal. Because the new shiny pretty thing will have the same swamp waiting for you, and another newer, shinier, prettier thing will beckon, and you’ll leave a stream of unfinished projects in your wake. Give yourself the gift of done, and even after the first draft is finished, the gift of time and perspective. It’s worth it, the work is worth it, and as an author, you’re worth it, too.
No matter what any of the voices say.
Ashleigh Gauch is a writer. Her first novel is Covenant of the Hollow.
Pre-order/Buy Link ($0.99 for the e-book until 2/22): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079NNYRJZ/
Buy Link for Prequel (Diary of the Hollow): https://www.amazon.com/Diary-Hollow-Chronicles-Drowsy-Book-ebook/dp/B078RFBYW5/
Speed Dating With Authors: 10 Tables+10 Minutes+26 Authors=A Movable Feast
Posted on: February 11, 2018
Hi folks,
Wish me luck today as I am participating in the ‘Movable Feast’ event, in Winston-Salem, held by Bookmarks! Bookmarks is a literary arts nonprofit whose mission is to connect readers with authors. The Movable Feast event is one of their newer programs.
The event is basically like “speed dating with authors”! As an invited author, I will visit a table for 10 minutes, talk about my book/myself/my writing, then rotate to a new table for another 10 minutes and repeat. I’ll meet 10 tables in total and also will have a chance to socialize with folks before and after the event.
I’m 1 of 26 authors invited to this event! The audience has paid to be there (per table) and will be composed of book club members, their friends and the reading public.
I think this is going to be a very fun and very active event!
I’m very excited to talk about Reenu-You and to represent my wonderful press, Book Smugglers. I’ve got my pitch down and will make sure to leave time for questions. And, I’m looking forward to meeting the other authors in the lineup (some have been on the New York Times Bestsellers List!). Many of us will be attending dinner together after the event.
Bookmarks hosts the largest annual book festival in the Carolinas drawing 20,000 from 20 states in 2017; they host a Bookmarks in Schools program that reached 9000+ students in 2017; and they opened a nonprofit independent bookstore and gathering space in July 2017.
Fingers crossed, I will entice many tables to buy Reenu-You for their book club!
