Archive for the ‘Contests’ Category
Night 3 Writing Tip
Today’s post is from Shari Maurer, fab author of CHANGE OF HEART. Debuting Spring 2010 from WestSide Books, CHANGE OF HEART, tells the story of a 16-year-old soccer player who needs a heart transplant and learns about life, love and friendship in the process. To find out more, visit Shari’s website www.sharimaurer.com
8 Chanukah Pieces of Wisdom (9 if you count the Shamash): Back to Basics
In honor of Chanukah, I thought it would be fun to talk about 8 things (one for each night) I’ve learned in my path to publication. And then I had to add an extra one for the Shamash or helper candle. (Actually, I came up with 9 and the Shamash was just an excuse to put it in!) Happy reading!
1. Write about things you love. No sense spending a year of your life working on something you don’t enjoy.
2. Research often helps with plotting. The more research you do, you’ll find that many times plot points will fall into place. (I wound up changing a girl character to a guy after speaking to one heart transplant recipient and hearing her experiences). Readers aren’t stupid—they can spot an inconsistency or false fact a mile away.
3. There’s no such thing as a bad first draft. Or rather, all first drafts are probably bad, but you just need to get them out and then you can make them shine.
4. Revisions, revisions, revisions. Nothing is perfect on the first shot and rarely on the second (or the third or the fourth).
5. Find critiquers who aren’t your mother or your best friend. They should be people you trust and people who aren’t afraid to show you where something is weak. Encourage them to tell you the truth.
6. Don’t cry when they tell you the truth. They’ll feel bad and never tell you the truth again.
7. Publishing is all about patience. You can write as quickly as you want, but then you wait for your critiques, you wait for answers to agent queries, you wait as they read (if you are lucky enough for them to ask to see your manuscript). Then when you have an agent, you wait for answers on subs. And if you are getting published, you are waiting for revision letters, covers, etc. I used to not have enough patience to chop veggies for a salad, but now I’m much calmer.
8. Don’t underestimate the power of a good cup of coffee in the creative process! I’ve written some of my best chapters with the help of a wicked caffeine buzz.
9. (the Shamash piece of wisdom) When you’re not writing, make sure you are reading. Read everything in genres you love and genres you are not as comfortable in. Read for pleasure and read to analyze. If you see the woman in the carpool line or in the bank line or in the stands waiting for her son’s basketball game to start with her face in a book, that’s me (I’d never read during the game, but why lose precious reading time watching them warm up).
Happy Chanukah everyone!
Night Two Writing Tip
Steve Brezenoff, author of THE ABSOLUTE VALUE OF -1–debuting September 1, 2010 by Carolrhoda Books–blogs below. To find out more about Steve and his books visit him at http://www.stevebrezenoff.com
I’ve heard a lot of advice about how to write in my life. There’s the old yarn about writing every day: I think when I was in college, as a Creative Writing major in my freshman year (I switched to Literature in my sophomore year), I told someone I was a writer. The person–no doubt an upperclassman–replied with a question: “Do you write every day?” I had to reply honestly and that I did not in fact write every day. I think my admitting that made his day. “Then you’re not really a writer,” he said, smugly. “A real writer writes every day. He can’t help it, in fact. It’s not a question of discipline. It’s a question of compulsion.”
I believed that for years. Literally, years. It probably contributed to my changing majors, although I can mostly blame that on my freshman Writing Poetry class, which I loathed. But I digress.
Over the years, it occurred to me–and was probably explained to me–that writing every day was in fact a matter of discipline. Some days, even “real” writers aren’t driven to the pen/typewriter/computer. On those days, we need the discipline to sit down and bang out a few hundred or thousand words. We hear BIC plenty–butt in chair, that is–and there’s more than a grain of truth to it. Sometimes a clogged writing pipe needs to be forced open, and then, after a hundred or five hundred of two thousand words, it starts to flow a little easier. Sometimes it doesn’t, of course; sometimes it’s futile. But you have to try.
Recently–perhaps because I’ve sold a novel and done loads of work-for-hire writing such that I can comfortably call myself a writer–I’ve come to understand that a writer, no matter his or her stature in the field, need not write every day. A writer writes. When, where, why, how often–these are all tremendous variables. If you can count on a free three-hour block every Tuesday after lunch, and you use it to write, then you’re a writer. If you can count on one full day every third Saturday, or fifteen minutes before breakfast every odd day, or forty-five minutes on days that begin with “T,” and you use that time to write, then you’re a writer. It’s that simple. Writing takes a lot of commitment, certainly, but it’s not a faith–there’s no dogma.
But listen. You’ve heard all this before, in some shape or form, so I’ll share one of my particular, um, techniques when I write. Here’s how I do it.
I start. It doesn’t matter if it’s the beginning or some scene in the middle or the very last paragraph or a scene before the beginning that I’ll no doubt decide is to expository and get rid of (this happens all the time!). Once the first scene I want to write is written, I’ll keep going, if I can, getting to know these characters. There’s a pretty good chance that at this point I have no idea what this story is even about. Doesn’t matter. The characters will typically let me know what they need out of life, and that’s your story.
Once I hit a wall, I stop that flow and take the protagonist to another place. Is there a character I know this protagonist needs to meet down the road? Is there a conflict I know needs to arise or an argument or fist fight that needs to go down? Then I write that scene. I keep doing that until I can think of no other scenes that need writing. Now I’ve got chunks of book lying around, like a jigsaw puzzle, so I do my damnedest to put them together. Now I have a very unfinished jigsaw puzzle.
This is where the work starts, for me. This is where readers and crit partners come in. They can tell you what you’ve taken for granted, lost sight of, forgotten about. They will see the plot flaws you missed, the characters you have no closure with, the subplots that aren’t featured enough, or featured too strongly. They’ll see the hook you missed. Listen to them. Then implement the ideas you think will make the book stronger. (Yeah, being honest with yourself about this takes practice.)
How to implement? Well, write more scenes. You might think that this will lead to a lot of disjointed scenes, and this does happen. But frankly connecting scenes is often a matter of a sentence or two to establish time and scene. It’s no great hurdle.
Okay, that’s all I’ve got. Happy Hanukkah!
Night 1 Writing Tip
Today’s post is from Jennifer Cervantes, author of TORTILLA SUN, coming in May 2010. Learn more at www.jennifercervantes.com Enjoy and don’t forget to comment!
In honor of “showing not telling”, I offer some visual inspiration.
To Be A Better Writer.
To Be a Better Person.
Eight Words to Live By
 |
Love |
 |
Imagination |
 |
Hope |
 |
Joy |
 |
Inspiration |
 |
Dream |
 |
Passion |
 |
Peace |
8 Nights of Writing Tips
Chanukah starts tonight, and following the leads of Oprah and Ellen, I’m having a giveaway too! This one is a little different because I won’t be giving away DVD players or vacations, but what you will get is its own kind of awesome.
Every night you will get a writing tip from a guest blogger. I am super lucky to have 8 fantastic Tenners and 1 terrific Deb posting! Wait, you still want a tangible gift? Tips from super writers not enough? Ok, ok, I hear you. So this is what I’ll do. Starting tomorrow, each time you post a comment on an entry (but one post per night please), your name will be entered into a drawing. At the end of the week (the last tip will appear next Saturday), I will pick a name at random. That person will receive–drumroll please–a dreidel with chocolate candies AND–oh yeah there is more–my own copy of one of my fave writing books, dog-eared pages and all. I’ll even sign it! Ok..so it’s no car, but I think the authors’ entries more than make up for that.
Be sure to check back tomorrow night for the first tip from….Jennifer Cervantes, author of the soon-to-be-published TORTILLA SUN!
Contests
Stay tuned for upcoming contests!