M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 01/17/15

Posted on January 18, 2015 by M. B. Weston

Aka: Facebook is a huge time-suck, info dumps are hard to avoid, and other things I learned today…

I’ve been off of Facebook for a while. Most of it stems from getting out of the habit when I was sick, and the rest of it stems from not having time. Well today, I started scrolling through my newsfeed, and I must have entered a time vortex or something because an hour went by without me noticing. (Okay, you caught me. It was probably more than an hour.) I have only one thing to say:

Nasty, stupid little Facebookses with its quizes and silly memeses! We hates it, Precious!

Sigh. An hour of writing I will never get back, and all I got out of it was learning that I am most like Kailey from Firefly, democrats and republicans still hate each other, and cat pictures seem to be more popular than dog pictures.

I have also confirmed that it is impossible to try to write a story when Myth Busters is running a show on whether or not Indiana Jones’ whip can really do all those things.

And… Oh yeah, this just in. It’s really hard to write while on vacation. I’m writing every day, but not like I wanted to.

That all being said, I’m in a difficult part of my story right now. It’s called “the info dump without being an I for dump.” If you aren’t familiar with the terminology, in writing it’s considered bad form to put all of the information about your story/world/backstory into one big huge scene of either prose or boring dialogue. We writers try to scatter our information throughout the story to 1) keep the reader wondering and 2) keep the reader from getting bored.

Info dumps can become a huge problem when writing an urban fantasy where the backstory is everything. I can’t bore the reader with a long drawn out conversation–especially in pulp, but I’ve got to get the information in somehow. Right now, I’m focusing on getting the information written down. Then I can scatter it across the book for smoother reading. I just have to suffer through wincing while reading what I’m writing now and promise myself I will make it wonderful eventually–preferably before April 15…

How about you? How do you solve your info dump problems?

Toodles!

Posted in M. B. Weston's Writing Diary, The World of Writing | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 01/16/15

Posted on January 17, 2015 by M. B. Weston

Some days, I embody the word, irony, and I do it in such humorous ways. For instance, you might recall that in yesterday’s diary post, I included “Always have a notebook and favorite writing implement” as one of my tips for writing on vacation. Today, I found myself with a few hours of free time and no pen or paper.

:::hanging head in shame:::

And my phone was low on battery, which meant I couldn’t use it for note-taking. That and I have to hand write in order to brainstorm. Typing or texting just doesn’t cut it. (It’s a weird spacial thing. I don’t get it, but I’ve stopped fighting it.) So yeah, that was a total writing fail. I would so love to be cliched and talk about having to eat my words, but that actually sounds like some kind of campy 80’s horror movie….

Anyway, pen and paper–very important. And if you don’t have a pen and paper, be a good flirt or a good schmoozer in order to get yourself some. I am neither, and therefore, I had to hope everything I though up stayed in my memory banks.

Tomorrow I’m bringing one of the hotel notepads in my pocket for backup. (And that’s when the muse will give me the silent treatment, of course. I’m sure she is an expert in Murphy’s law because she wields it like an axe of doom.)

Anywho, today’s writing. Not as productive as I had hoped. Made some amazing discoveries, but I have to start keeping them secret to protect everyone from spoilers. I also got a bit of a scene started.

A note on the storytelling front: today I discovered that the villain is actually the driving force behind so many stories. The villain brings the action. The hero reacts to it. While I’m sure that point can be argued, the bigger point to be made is that you have to know your villain just as much as your hero. His or her driving forces are just as–if not more–important.

So guess where my mind will be tomorrow?

Have any of you ever been filled with ideas and had no way of getting them jotted down?

Toodles!

Posted in M. B. Weston's Writing Diary | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary – Tips for Writing on Vacation: 01/15/15

Posted on January 16, 2015 by M. B. Weston

Vacation, in theory, should be a wonderful chance to sit back, relax, and let the creative juices flow. In reality, it never works out that way. I took an impromptu getaway this weekend, and I knew I didn’t want to miss a day of writing and break not only my New Year’s resolution but also this chain of great ideas in my story. (I’ve also got a looming deadline. This urban-fantasy pulp story is due April 15, which is closer than it sounds.)

Anyway, I brought a couple tools with me and planned ahead a bit. Here are a few tips I’m hoping will help me write everyday even while on vacation:

Ditch the laptop and use your cell phone or tablet. I’m in love with the new Microsoft Word app. I was able to write about 1,000 words in the car today while waiting for my husband to get out of a meeting. I used my iPhone and accessed my manuscript directly from my dropbox. I also brought my iPad mini and a full-size Bluetooth Apple keyboard (which is tinier than it sounds). So, technically, I can actually ditch the iPad and just use my phone and the keyboard if I wanted to. (However, I can see better with the iPad while using the keyboard, and sight is a wonderful thing.) Packing a smartphone or tablet is much easier than packing a large computer, and you won’t have email, banking, and all those other distractions on your computer begging for your time. (I already deleted all my iPhone games, and I don’t get email on my iPhone.) The other great thing about using a smart phone or tablet: you don’t have to wait 10 minutes for the rackin frackin thing to boot up. (Stop laughing at those of us chained to a PC, Mac users!)

Always have a notebook and favorite writing implement. If your technology fails, you can always gut it out and be old-fashioned. My first novel was started over Christmas vacation with three families in one house. I had 40 college-ruled pages handwritten in a week.

Make an announcement of your plans to write every day. Strike first. Get it out there before you get the annoying “what are you doing?” questions from the family or friends group. Communication can stop conflict before it starts.

Scout out quiet places to escape. I’ve toured the resort, and I’ve found a few spots. I’ve also found coffee and ice cream so I’m set. 😉

If all else fails, you always have the bathroom. I have roomed with 8 people in a hotel room before. (Here’s looking at you, Rachel, Damian, Gilkey Clan & Co., and Shannon!) What none of them knew: I practiced a major speech I had to give in the bathroom that weekend.

Finally, lower your standards for yourself. You are going to break your diet. You aren’t going to exercise like you should. And you aren’t going to write 2000 words a day unless you are traveling alone. Give yourself some slack and have a good time.

So, a sum up of my writing today while on vacation: I got about an hour’s worth done while waiting for my husband’s meeting to end. I also discovered that my character, Michael, is really stubborn. I was working on a scene where he was supposed to follow a cop into an interrogation room, and he just kind of said, “I don’t think so,” and walked out. That’s my boy! I’ve got one more scene to write from when the muse info dumped a bunch of ideas on me (out of order because she doesn’t make things easy), and that will be tomorrow’s task–more daunting than it sounds because it’s the scene with a lot of information and its pulp so I have to have a lot of action while I deliver the information.

What about the rest of you? Do you have any advice on how to write on vacation?

Toodles!

Posted in M. B. Weston's Writing Diary, The World of Writing | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 01/14/15

Posted on January 15, 2015 by M. B. Weston

The muse is finally getting on board with the new writing schedule. Of course, the little trickster is still throwing ideas at me when I’m in places without access to a pen and paper. Well, she tries. I have gotten the best of her, however.

My friend, author Andrea Judy, put me on to Aqua Notes: a little notebook you can keep in the shower. I bought one off Amazon, and for last night’s writing session (posting this blog a day late as I’m walking to work), I took advantage. Here are a few notes I took, and yes, you can stick the paper on the shower tile:

2015/01/img_4400.jpg

Anyway, I managed to get everything down, and now I have at least three days of ideas to flesh out.

From the writing/work standpoint, it’s still hard. I work at a job that requires mental concentration, and then I have to come home and again concentrate. I think that forcing myself into the habit of writing every day has helped. The brain is like muscles. It will get used to your schedule.

I can honestly say that I don’t know where I would be had I not purposed myself to write every day. For the past few days, I would have come home and crashed. I would not have spent time thinking about scenes. I would have lost the zone that we writers keep trying to get into. This weekend I going out of town. Now, I am planning my writing sessions; before I would have left everything at home.

If you are a writer and you are wondering how important it is to write every day, I can definitely say it has helped me.

What about all of you? What do you think?

Toodles!

Posted in M. B. Weston's Writing Diary | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 01/13/15

Posted on January 14, 2015 by M. B. Weston

The first fourth of the very rough draft of my urban-fantasy pulp novella is done! I got a good hour-and -a-half of writing in last night and got to my inciting incident! It’s two days later than I wanted to finish but it’s done. (Now I gotta start threatening the muse with a good throttle if I don’t get some new ideas for the next fourth.)

Bear in mind that I use the words “first draft” and “rough draft” loosely. I use brackets to show things I need to add in later, and I actually do things like this:

[they both exchange several punches until Michael got the upper hand]

I just covered a full page of pulp battle with a bracketed sentence. Yes it’s cheating, but I like to get the skeleton of the story complete before I go back in and add the details lest my entire plot change and I eliminate the scene.

If anyone missed my “rough draft math,” here is a quick explanation. My rough drafts tend to be about two-thirds the length of my final drafts. My inciting incident should take place one-fourth of the way in. This novella is supposed to be 30,000 words, so that’s a little over 7,000 words per fourth. Since my rough drafts are two-thirds shorter than my finals, I need around 5,000 per fourth.

My inciting incident hit around word 4,500, but I will wait until everything gets fleshed out before I work on timing and pacing and such. Seriously, it I’m going to sum up a full page of fighting with “[they both exchange several punches until Michael got the upper hand],” I had better plan to be flexible.

Anyway, I reached a waypoint last night, and I’m quite excited. Although my writing sessions haven’t always been what I wanted them to be, I honestly believe writing every day in 2015 is going to change my writing career, and I recommend it to everyone!

Toodles!

Posted in M. B. Weston's Writing Diary | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

My ChattaCon Panel Schedule

Posted on January 14, 2015 by M. B. Weston

I just received my ChattaCon panel schedule today. Here it is! (Hopefully I won’t get deathly ill in the middle of the convention this time.) If you are going to ChattaCon, be sure to stop by the Dark Oak Table where I will be signing books all day!

SATURDAY

  •  12:00pm, Gallery A – Author’s Panel- Out of Nowhere: The Explosion of Young Adult Speculative Fiction.
  • 01:00pm, Gallery A – Writer’s Workshop- World Building
  • 04:00pm, Gallery B – Author’s Panel- Independent Author Marketing and the Future of Publishing.

SUNDAY

  • 12:00pm, Classroom B – Writers Panel- The Concept is Awesome! (but I can’t understand what you’re saying)**

**Please note that I have a 12 hour drive home to Naples, Florida, so I might have to skip my Sunday panel.

Fantasy, steampunk, and paranormal novelist M. B. Weston is the author of The Elysian Chronicles, a fantasy series about guardian angel warfare and treason. Weston is also the hose of The Final Cut In Movies radio show that airs on TMV Cafe Monday nights at 8:00 EST. For more information on M. B. Weston, visit www.mbweston.com. To receive notification of M. B. Weston’s book releases click here to subscribe to Dark Oak Press & Media’s e-newsletter.

Click here for a full listing of M. B. Weston’s published books, and be sure to check out her ever-growing list of published short stories here.

Posted in Appearances & Signings | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 01/12/15

Posted on January 13, 2015 by M. B. Weston

Today has been the hardest day so far in terms of keeping my New Year’s resolution to write every day. Worked an hour-and-a-half overtime. I’m an accountant, so that involves staring at a computer for that extra time. Left work with my eyes watering, probably because I was concentrating so hard I didn’t blink as much as normal.

Also, I invited my family over to watch the Ohio State/Oregon National Title game. Long story short, everyone left at halftime. (We live on the East Coast and halftime is when we all go to bed.) I walked the dog. Bear in mind that the little fuzz ball has this microfiber fur that works like Velcro and picks up every bit of dirt imaginable.

Did I mention it rained?

Got the dog back to the house and gave him a bath. Then watched the final few minutes of the game. (Go Buckeyes!) Finally got myself in the shower and sat down to write at 1:30am…

My body is totally not in sync with my mind regarding the validity of this little New Year’s resolution. Everything wants to shut down, but I’m doing this.

(Ina side note, I honestly cannot see how people with full time jobs and children can find time to write. I salute all of you. You are amazing!)

Of course, you know the muse is sitting over in the corner playing chess with herself, muttering, “Don’t even think about blaming me for this one. You did this to yourself, Miss Hospitality.”

All righty… Let’s see if my mind can beat my body. I’ve got my dude in a fire fight, and he needs some weapons of he wants to get out alive. (If he doesn’t get out alive, this is going to be a really short novella–and don’t tempt me!)

Results: got enough words writing to fulfill New Year’s resolution. Fell asleep a few times. Woke up about an hour later…

Toodles!

Posted in M. B. Weston's Writing Diary | Tagged | Leave a comment

M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 01/11/15

Posted on January 12, 2015 by M. B. Weston

“It’s not what you see in the mirror that matters. It’s what sees you.”

That is the working first line of this novella. :::proud smile::: I just figured it out today!

Today basically embodied one of the things I love the most about writing: the discovery process. I made two major discoveries while wading through the muck of the first draft:

The first line: I’ve been nervous about coming up with a good beginning for this thing. It’s pulp, so it needs action, but I wanted a good first line to really draw people in. This one came to me when my hero, Michael, was trying to explain to someone (in cryptic terms) why he avoided mirrors. Personally, I think it’s the 2nd best first line I’ve written.

(Coincidentally, the best ever takes place in a short story in this series that happens 12 full moons after the end of this one. It’s called “The Witch Hunter,” and it should be published two to three weeks from now in an anthology called The Big Bad 2. “I would have buried the axe in the girl’s neck if my walker hadn’t gotten in the way” is hard to top…)

My hero needs some weapons: If this is your first time reading my writing diary, I’m writing a pulp novella about a witch hunter named Michael, who is hunting between 6 and 9 witches and wizards who made themselves immortal hundreds of years ago and have been stirring up evil ever since. Michael was one of them, but realized how evil they all were, changed is ways, and is now hunting them down before they destroy the world. The catch: he’s not allowed to use magic if he wants to destroy their immortality. It’s going to be a pulp series, and the first 30,000 word manuscript is due April 15th.

Anyhow, I put poor Michael in the middle of a room against a powerful wizard currently named Gregorio. Gregorio can shoot magic balls of fire and other fun things from his hands. He can cast spells that melt non-iron guns. (In the novella’s world, iron is anti-magical…) He has a lot of spells up his sleeves and isn’t someone you want to cross.

Michael has an iron dagger.

So technically, my hero really did bring a knife to a gun fight.

I didn’t even realize my mistake until Gregorio starts teasing Michael about the female detective with him being the only one with weapons.

I stopped mid-paragraph and thought, “Holy crap. I forgot to arm the guy.”

I spent the rest of the evening googling martial arts weapons and consulting with one of the martial arts experts I know.

:::eagerly rubbing hands together:::

Michael is going to love all the presents I’m giving him when I start typing tomorrow. 🙂

Anyone else out there ever do something silly–like forgetting to arm your hero?

Toodles!

Posted in M. B. Weston's Writing Diary | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 01/10/15

Posted on January 10, 2015 by M. B. Weston

Writing can occur while you’re cleaning the bathroom.

Well, not the actual writing part, but you know what I mean…

I’ve found that throughout many of my novels and short stories, a good housecleaning session can often spark the brainstorm I need to figure out what to do when I’m stuck. (Dusting is probably responsible for the deaths of far too many of my characters…) I think the mundane task of wiping down bathroom walls with foul smelling chemicals stimulates the the brain and helps release ideas.

So this morning, I spent a few hours cleaning, and came up with some background information on my villain and villainess. (Yes, it has a lot to do with the Russian monarchy, but now I know how to tie it all together.)

But I’ve still found as I’ve tried to write this first part of the novella, that I’ve been missing that “aha” moment when I can figure out the glue that binds the story together. I know that’s partially why I’ve been struggling.

I guess a clean shower has to do with “aha” moments because let me tell you, the moment I took my shower, it all came together. I know what my main villainess is trying to do, and I’ve got more than the first part of the story outlined out. (In quite sloppy chicken scratch that might resemble letters of you stare at it for five minutes, but it’s written down.) Now I’m going to be itching to wake up tomorrow morning and get it all written out before I don’t remember it any more.

To sum it up: it was a great day, and I even got two clean showers out of it…

Oh, and I might as well leave you with this question: what if Tsarina Alexandra Romanov never actually died? (I’ve already figured out how to write around the 2007 DNA samples…)

Toodles!

Posted in M. B. Weston's Writing Diary | Tagged | Leave a comment

M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 01/09/15

Posted on January 10, 2015 by M. B. Weston

My muse has a bit of an attitude. Sometimes she floods me with information, where I can’t type fast enough to get it down. (She especially likes to do that when I don’t have access to a computer, pen, or paper…) Other times, she runs around like a bratty child, singing, “I know something you don’t know; I know something you don’t know.”

Today’s writing (well, yesterday’s writing because I fell asleep on the couch around 11:00) was the latter.

Me: Okay, I’ve got to figure out main villainess’s motivation. Well, I know it’s power, but how is it expressed? What’s the main witch’s goal.

Muse: I’m tired of your demands. You and your “writing every day now” thing is really putting a cramp in my style. You want to know her motivation, you have to do something for me for a change.

Me: I just gave you four shots of espresso in four hours. :::batting eyes:::

Muse: (ignoring me) I want you to dance for me.

Me: Seriously? No. I don’t think so. I’m no good at dancing. Just tell me her motivation so I can get on with it…

Muse: DANCE!

Me: Oh for crying out loud. Here’s the Happy Dance for you… (Performs the elusive Happy Dance that only a few people have seen.)

Muse: You’re right. That was a tad horrific. So I’m only going to give you a little glimpse. (Opens the Magic Book of Ideas I Desperately Need, and slams it shut before I can read much.)

Me: Okay, posing as Russian royalty. Not bad, but what…?

Muse: If you want to see anything else today, I’m breaking out my fiddle and making you dance an Irish jig for an hour. That or you can leave me alone. I didn’t agree to your new schedule.

Me: Fine; have it your way. (Goes into the office to research Russian royalty…)

Muse: (laughing) My work is complete. She’ll never get past all those links in Wikipedia….

Me: (yelling from the office) Hey, did you know the Russian secret service back in Lenin’s time was called the Cheka…?

Okay, I didn’t really do any dancing. (I do have a happy dance, however.) But that’s what writing today felt like. I’m right on the cusp of getting all the ideas and the story lines to start flowing, but right now it’s like… Well, see above…

On the writing side of things, I had today off so I did a few errands in the morning. One of my errands was getting the oil changed in my car, which is right next to our town’s new Greenway, so I took my dog, Chewie, for a little walk through the woods. (It’s, um, really a swamp, and we were on a boardwalk the whole time.) Nature usually clears my head, but this time it didn’t. I finished around 12:00, and the struggled a bit over plot issues. I’m getting there. Tomorrow’s goal is to write to the inciting incident of this novella. I think I can do it. 🙂

Have you ever had trouble getting the ideas to flow? What did you do about it?

Toodles!

Posted in M. B. Weston's Writing Diary | Tagged , | Leave a comment