When I did the IC Publishing blog tour a couple of weeks back one of the people I tagged in was fellow fantasy writer and resident of the Greater Manchester sprawl R. A. Smith. He’s a busy man, and didn’t have time to write his post then, but he’s done it now and it’s worth a read.
R. A. Smith prepares to board the Writing-Plane on a mission of adventure
One of the most useful points he makes is the importance of networking. As writers it’s never just enough to put your words down on the page or screen. You have to get out there and let people know about them, or else how will you have readers?
Plus R., like me, enjoys the London Underground. I know lots of people, my wife Laura included, hate that place, but I find it endlessly fascinating.
This blog tour has been pretty fascinating for me – learning about other writers’ processes and how easily we can make connections with just a little extra effort. It’s a nice reminder of the benefits of our beautifully interconnected world.
Having put up my own post for IC Publishing‘s blog tour last Wednesday, I enjoyed reading follow-on posts from other bloggers yesterday.
Josh Stanton talks about fitting writing around a busy work life. I really admire his dedication to fitting it into every spare moment – while walking, commuting, on lunch breaks… Success in writing takes hard work, and Josh is really putting in the effort. I also really like his idea of having a word bank of descriptive words he wants to use in the chapter – will have to try that one out.
Russell Phillips also talks about fitting writing around the rest of life. His suggestion of using text-to-speech software to help with proofreading is new to me and very smart – shows what happens when someone more tech-literate turns their hand to writing.
What top writing tips have you learned from other writers and bloggers? Feel free to share a few in the comments.
Fellow writer J H Mae recently invited me to take part in IC Publishing‘s writing path blog tour – an opportunity for authors to connect up with each other while talking about their craft. That seemed like an interesting thing to do, so here I am, touring from the comfort of my living room. Thanks for the invite!
Seriously, it’s really comfortable here. I’m sitting in Laura’s big armchair, set up perfectly to face the flat screen TV. For her, this is the Skyrim setup. For me, it’s how I write.
Speaking of which…
1. How do you start your writing projects?
Brainstorming. Whether the project’s a short story or a novel, whether it comes to me in a flash of inspiration or comes after trawling my notebooks for hours looking for the right idea, I go from there to brainstorming. I note down ideas relating to the central concept, looking for inspiration for characters, setting, plot and thematic elements that relate to it. Sometimes ideas connect back in with each other, which is great. Sometimes not so much.
Then I develop the main characters, often using Victoria Lynn Schmidt’s 45 Master Characters, because I find templates helpful. I think about background, motives, desires, conflicts. Based on the conflicts I plan out a plot, usually using Dan Wells’s seven point story structure because, again, I like templates – they remind me to put important things in. Somewhere in all of this I’ll do some research, usually at the brainstorming stage, to give me interesting and authentic details to bring my setting alive. If it’s about an alternate history Baghdad I want the history convincing. If it’s about an alien race then I might want tribe formations to seem anthropologically convincing. A few good details will provide a lot of inspiration and a lot of grounding for a story.
Then it’s time to write.
What passes for my office
2. How do you continue your writing project?
I’m lucky. Because I work at home as a freelance writer I can mix my schedule up to try to create a balanced life. So writing six hundred words of fiction a day is just part of my routine, to be slotted in wherever it’s convenient between other writing, household chores, a bit of mindfulness and maybe a trip to the gym. Sometimes I do a lot more than 600 words, but having that routine is what keeps me going. If I get stuck I use the Write Or Die word processor to force myself to put words on the page, but these days that’s seldom a problem.
I’m usually thinking about my projects between writing them. Many of my most vivid ideas have sprung to mind while driving over the Pennines to visit family.
And no, getting distracted by plot isn’t why I crashed my car, though it was on that route.
3. How do you finish your project?
For most short stories I get a first draft written pretty quickly, then do one or two editing passes (one with input from a friendly reader) and then send them out into the world. But that’s seldom actually the finish. I have about a 5% acceptance rate, so my average story gets rejected nineteen times before it gets accepted. And a few of those rejections come with useful feedback, which I use for further re-writes. So really, a short story is finished when someone accepts it (or I do the edits they request after acceptance) or when I decide that it’s never going to see the light of day and stick it in my ‘abandoned’ folder.
It’s a big folder.
That means that by the time one story’s done with I’ll have written a dozen more, so I don’t really struggle to let go – I’m writing so many things, I get to endings all the time.
4. Include one challenge or additional tip that our collective communities could help with or benefit from.
The best inspiration comes from other creative fields, different disciplines sparking new ways of thinking. So go take ten photos of different sorts of boundaries, or dance around the room like your character, or watch a video about how computer games are structured and see what you can learn.
Next up…
Now I get to pass the tour on to some other fine writers, who will answer these same questions in a week’s time.
First up is Russell Phillips. Russell is an award-winning author of books about military technology and history. His articles have been published in Miniature Wargames,Wargames Illustrated, and the Society of Twentieth Century Wargamers‘ Journal. He has been interviewed for the American edition of The Voice of Russia. And you can read my previous tribute to the awesomeness of Russell here.
Next is another fantasy author from my neck of the woods. Manchester-based R. A. Smith is an occasional time travelling historian, a keen gamer and a wannabe petrolhead. He counts war gaming armies and several bears amongst his extended family. Authors the Grenshall Manor Chronicles, Oblivion Storm and Primal Storm out now, book 3: WIP 🙂
Last and by no means least comes the blogger whose beard and enthusiasm I most envy. Josh Stanton is crazy about steampunk. When he’s not reading and blogging about it, he’s writing it. He is currently working on a steampunk horror, called Choke City.
Go check out their blogs, and look out for their blog tour posts in a week’s time.
