M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 04/17/15

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

I’m sitting in the airport at Houston, waiting for my connecting flight to Lake Charles where I am the Author Guest of Honor at Cyphacon. You have probably noticed that I have been offline for a while. I haven’t updated this website or Facebook in about 3  to 4 weeks. I have been writing every day, but not in large doses. I’ve been trying to decide whether I should share what is going on. I figure that since I’m trying to be authentic in these writing diary series of blogs, I may as well be honest about why I’m having a hard time writing.

I’m going to be nine weeks pregnant on Sunday. I’ve been falling asleep almost the moment I’ve been getting home and all of that first trimester stuff that no one warns you about. The exhaustion is a killer.

The bigger issue is that this pregnancy has some rare…issues, and we aren’t sure how it will end. I won’t get into details, but there is a lot going on health-wise right now.

Fortunately, I got an extension from the publisher for the Lodestone story. I have to admit that was hard. I don’t like having to admit defeat.

I’m hoping that this will encourage some of you who are having a hard time finding time to be creative. Finding time to write while working and just getting through life is a real balancing act. I am amazed at what types of things can throw off that balance. I’m struggling right now, simply because of biology. You might be struggling for other reasons. Don’t judge yourself. Keep going. It’s supposed to be hard. If it was easy, everyone would do it. 

Right now, I’m having to do it without the aid of caffeine…

Toodles!

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Today’s Cyphacon Panel Schedule: Friday, 04/17/15

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

Here is today’s panel schedule for CyphaCon in Lake Charles, LA:

Friday:

  • 6:00 PM World Building (Main Panel) 
  • 9:00 PM How to Enjoy a Scary Story (Room 2) 
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M. B. Weston’s Cyphacon Panel Schedule

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

Here is my panel schedule for CyphaCon in Lake Charles, LA this weekend:

Friday:

  • 6:00 PM World Building (Main Panel) 
  • 9:00 PM How to Enjoy a Scary Story (Room 2) 

Saturday:

  • 1:00 PM Making the Make-Believe Believable (Room 7)
  • 3:00 PM The Art of Story Telling
  • 5:00 PM Paranormal Ghost Hunting Shows: Behind the Scenes (Room 7)
  • 7:00 PM Retro radio (Room 7)
  • 8:00 PM Where do Authors get Their Ideas? (Main Panel) 

Sunday:

  • 10:00 AM The Great Debate Good vs. Evil (Room 2)
  • 12:00 PM Breaking into the Writing Business (room 2)
  • 2:00 PM Creating Villains and Monsters (Main Panel)

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M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 03/24/15

Posted on March 25, 2015 by M. B. Weston

The problem with conventions: the older you get, the longer it takes to get over them. Last night’s thirty minute nap after work turned into four hours. To put it mildly, that “power nap” severely cut into my writing time.

Still got some time in, however, and the exciting part: I figured out how my dear Michael opens a magic door without magic! Gotta admit that was pretty sweet because I had no idea how he was going to open the door.

Every so often, I write my characters into a difficult situation, and instead of going back and rewriting, I decide to make keep writing to see if I can make it work.

A few things that helped me this time:

  • Know your hero’s strengths. Michael Lodestone can’t use magic. However, he was once one of the most powerful wizards ever, so he has extensive knowledge of what magic looks like and how it works.
  • Know your villain’s strengths. As the author, I need to know my lead witch’s strengths, how she will react, and what spells and such she would use, the spells she will default to, etc. While I don’t know all of those things right now, I still have to learn as I go using her base personality as a good reference.
  • Know your hero’s relationship to your villain. In this case, Michael knows this witch–intimately. They were part of the original group of nine who became imortal. It was Michael who let Snow White flee to the forest and returned to this woman with a pig’s heart instead of Snow White’s. He knows this woman. He has seen her work. This gives him an edge. Especially since he can’t use magic and has therefore developed a means of fighting without it.

How about you? Any tips on getting out of a hole?

Toodles!

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M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 03/20/15 to 03/23/15

Posted on March 24, 2015 by M. B. Weston

I’m back from MidSouth Con! I had a wonderful time, and yes, I managed to write everyday–especially on the plane flights.

I think the most important writing session happened on the flight home. I spent the time really brainstorming about how my urban fantasy pulp hero, Michael Lodestone, would actually fight witches and wizards without using magic. Long story short: he would be much more agressive than I have been writing him–at least once he has been discovered. I don’t want to get into too many details yet, but that extremely powerful session will power the rest of this week.

Has something like this ever happened to any of you?

Toodles!

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M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary 03/18/15 to 03/19/15

Posted on March 20, 2015 by M. B. Weston

Sorry for missing a post yesterday. Things are going a mile a minute around here. I’ve made some interesting discoveries about writing: 

  • It’s hard to write when you work two hours of overtime two days in a row. Between leaving work around 7 and doing errands, I got home around 8:45 last night. That was before dinner. So yeah, I went to bed at twelve and that was with forcing myself to write a paragraph or two in the paranormal thriller short story before falling asleep. (Having to wake up at 3:30am this morning to make a flight didn’t help…) 
  • It’s hard to write when you have to pack for a convention. Forgot to mention that… So got home at 8:45, had to eat and pack… Went light in the packing this time. Just clothes and toiletries… 
  • On days like yesterday, you just have to lower the standards. I have incredibly high standards for how much I want to accomplish. Normally I beat myself up over missing goals, but some days I just have to take life as it is and write a paragraph and be happy about it. Life is to short. 

I know so many of you are working hard trying to meet your goals and balance that with life. You are doing awesome! Keep at it and don’t give up!    

I’m in Memphis today at Midsouthcon, so come on by and stop by the Dark Oak Table! 

 Toodles!

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M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 03/17/15

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

Took a break from the Michael Lodestone story last night. Instead I worked on a paranormal thriller/horror short story. :::big grin:::

Sometimes little breaks are a great way to clear the head. I have a problem with seeing all the leaves instead of the forest, especially when I’m in the middle of editing. Hopefully tonight’s writing session will be a bit more productive after a day concentrating on something else. (Like a very cool paranormal beast…)

How about you? Have do you clear your head when you’re concentrating too much on a story?

Toodles!

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M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 03/16/15

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

I’ve been trying to do more of my edits without actually printing the page out and writing on it. Part of me thinks this most save time because I’m not writing down the changes and then typing be them into the computer. Each time I try this, I keep being wrong, however. Somtimes you just have to print the thing out and write out your changes first.

I don’t know why this is. I think it has to do with how my brain classifies what I’m reading. On a computer screen I can’t accurately judge where I am, how far I’ve gone, etc. The physical paper helpse get a better feel for the manuscript. I can page back and forth, redo edits, make sure what I thought sounded good at the beginning still sounds good when I reach the end…

Last night, I had to divide a chapter of dialogue across four chapters. (Yes I’m still on chapter four.) I spent all Sunday trying to do it in my head and on the computer screen, and it just wasn’t working. I printed the chapters in question out, figuratively ripped them to shreds with a pen, and saw exactly what needed to be moved and where. It probably took twenty minutes. Tonight I’ll put everything in the computer.

The point: old school works for very good reasons.

How about you? Do you print out and write or do you edit straight on the screen?

Toodles!

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M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 03/15/15

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

“What is the purpose of this scene?” That is the most important question an author can ask while editing. Why is the scene there? Does it add any value to the work as a whole? 

Rambling and getting too involved in things that seem fun but have no purpose to the story are good signs that the scene needs to be cut or given more importance.

In this last writing session, I had to take a good hard look at chapter 4 of my urban fantasy pulp novella. Basically it is 5000 words of indie dump. The information delivered is important but it presents a few problems:

  • It slows the story down
  • It doesn’t show character development.
  • It tells instead of shows
  • Chapter 4 is supposed to be the the hook.

So not only do I have an info dump problem with a scene that goes nowhere, but I so have to deal with keeping my story structure tight. 

I solved the problem by dividing the dialogue across 3 chapters and adding a little cliffhanger at the end of chapter 4.

How about you? How have you solved your info dump issues?

Toodles!

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M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 03/14/15

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

Ah the joys of the second draft. During yesterday’s writing sessions, I discovered that Chapter 4 was 20 pages long and 5,000 words. A lot of it was dialogue.

Yeah, that’s not going to work in a pulp novel…

The good news: I still need a few chapters, so dividing this in two will help out. A lot.

The other good news: I now get to employ a lovely writing trick that most of us (especially myself) should use more often.

Writing trick #37: Weave dialogue into scenes where they characters are actually doing something important to the story.

Words are precious, and word count limits are important if not mandatory. Why have your characters sit in a coffee shop and talk about something when they could talk about the same thing while investigating a problem and moving the plot along? Double dipping is a perfectly acceptable behavior in writing.

Now I have to go back in and structure the dialogue around needed action in two chapters. At least I know what I will be doing tonight. 🙂

How about you? Have you ever spiced up a dialogue scene by weaving it in with action?

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