Vlog: On Shiny New Idea Syndrome

So you're in the middle of a first draft, struggling to get words down, when suddenly you get this AWESOME idea for another book. Today I'm talking about Shiny New Idea Syndrome and how I generally handle it.

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• Writing When You Don't Want To
• How to Break Through Writer's Block
• The Secret to Writing

How do you handle Shiny New Idea Syndrome? 

Twitter-sized bites:

What do you do w/ a new MS idea while drafting another WIP? @Ava_Jae talks Shiny New Idea Syndrome in today's vlog. (Click to tweet)

Fixing the First Page Feature #39

Photo credit: WordRidden on Flickr

October is just days away! Which means all things Fall are upon us, the leaves are changing colors, the weather is cooling in the Northern hemisphere (hopefully), and, of course, it's time for the next Fixing the First Page feature.

As usual, I'll start by posting the full first 250 excerpt, after which I'll share my overall thoughts, then my redline critique. I encourage you guys to share your own thoughts and critiques in the comments (because I'm one person with one opinion!), as long as it's polite, thoughtful, and constructive. Any rude or mean comments will be unceremoniously deleted.

Let's do this. 

Title: SONG OF BLOOD

Genre/Category: Fantasy

"The tavern was filled with pirates of various fashion senses. A gaggle of them roared for refills, sporting offensively garish breeches and egos to match. The older ones slouched in corners, black trench coats pulled up around their grizzled faces, rapiers hanging like dead men from their belts. With her outlandishly feathered hat and high collared coat, Captain Scarlet Rogue was right at home. 

She sat in the corner, hands clasped around a mug of ale that, by the look of the tavern, was most certainly watered down. The amber liquid sloshed in her glass as she tipped it back and forth, listening to pirates shout for drinks and pretty barmaids. 

One such barmaid had approached her, asking in a reedy voice if that was all she’d be having. Scarlet ignored her until she flounced off to go sit on some drunkard’s lap. She’d been sitting in the same tavern all day, and her hands were clenched around the mug so tightly she didn’t think she could let go if she tried. 

Her crimson hair was tied up and shoved under her hat, her revolvers tucked away into her coat. She was no longer the feared Scarlet Rogue, captain of the Vespers, a name that had once struck terror into the hearts of every good-hearted merchant and dirty-mouthed sailor. She was just Scarlet, captain of a ship that hadn’t left port in months."

This is so interesting! I love the characterization of Scarlett and definitely have lots of questions, as a reader. There are also some really nice moments of imagery I enjoyed.

I do think it'd be helpful to condense a bit to get to the part about how her ship hasn't left port in months a little faster, though, because I felt like it went on just a tad too much in places where it'd be more effective to get to the point.But overall this was an enjoyable start.

Now for the line edits!

"The tavern was filled with pirates and Captain Scarlet Rouge was right at home of various fashion senses. I'm suggesting you move (part of) the last line to the start, for a few reasons. First, starting with the protagonist right away helps better ground readers, who in your original version are left to kind of float around aimlessly until you mention Scarlet. And secondly, the "various fashions senses" bit wasn't really carrying its own weight, meaning that it was vague and didn't really add enough to the sentence that I felt it was worth keeping. A gaggle of them privateers (or another word for pirates) roared for refills, sporting offensively garish breeches and egos to match. The older ones slouched in corners, black trench coats pulled up around their grizzled faces, rapiers hanging like dead men from their belts. I love this image so much! "rapiers hanging like dead men from their belts" like, what powerful imagery! Really, really nicely done. With her outlandishly feathered hat and high collared coat, Captain Scarlet Rogue was right at home. 

She Scarlet sat in the corner, hands clasped around a mug of ale that, by the look of the tavern, was most certainly watered down. Nice voice. The amber liquid sloshed in her glass as she tipped it back and forth, listening to pirates shout for drinks and pretty barmaids. 

One such barmaid had approached her, asking in a reedy voice if that was all she’d be having. Scarlet ignored her until she flounced off to go sit on some drunkard’s lap. I want to encourage you to be careful with the word choice here, because Scarlett is starting to come off as arrogant, like she thinks the barmaid is beneath her. It's not endearing. She’d been sitting in the same tavern all day, and her hands were clenched around the mug so tightly she didn’t think she could let go if she tried. 

Her crimson hair was tied up and shoved under her outlandishly feathered hat, her revolvers tucked away into her high-collared coat. Bringing back some of that description I cut earlier. She was no longer the feared Scarlet Rogue, captain of the Vespers, a name that'd had once struck terror into the hearts of every good-hearted merchant and dirty-mouthed sailor. She was just Scarlet, captain of a ship that hadn’t left port in months."

So there are my suggestions! Overall, they're mostly just tightening notes, to help move things a little more quickly and ground the reader right away. I think this was a really strong start to begin with and I'm totally interested—if I saw this in the slush I'd definitely keep reading. 

I hope that helps! Thanks for sharing your first 250 with us, Arden!

Twitter-sized bite:

.@Ava_Jae talks grounding the reader, imagery and more in the 39th Fixing the First Page Feature. (Click to tweet)

Vlog: How to Keep Track of WIP Timelines

Keeping track of timelines in a project as big as a novel can be confusing, harrowing—and sometimes painful. Today I talk about the lessons I've learned the hard way and how I avoid major timeline mess ups while first drafting.

RELATED VLOGS:

• On Consistency While First Drafting
• How I Plot

Do you keep track of your timeline while first drafting?

Twitter-sized bite:

How do you keep track of your WIP's timeline? @Ava_Jae vlogs some tips. (Click to tweet)

Fixing the First Page Winner #39!

Photo credit: rjsteih on Flickr

Another month, another off-schedule post to announce the winner of the thirty-ninth fixing the first page feature giveaway!

*drumroll*

And the thirty-ninth winner is…

ARDEN KING!

Yay! Congratulations, Arden!

Thanks again to all you wonderful entrants! If you didn't win, as always, there'll be another fixing the first page giveaway in October, so as always, keep an eye out!

On Reading Many Books at Once

Photo credit: Dvortygirl on Flickr

I used to be the kind of reader who could only read one book at a time. I'd often binge read and get through a book quickly—especially if I was enjoying it, especially especially if I was enjoying it and eager to read another book—but one book at a time was a firm rule for me.

Then I started doing literature programs in college and I didn't have the luxury of sticking to my one book at a time rule.

Granted, I suppose I could have added all the pages I needed to read in a week (adding together the page counts of the books I needed to read) and then gone through one book at a time that way, but for some reason I've found it's less daunting to read 50 pages of one book and 30 pages of another book and 35 pages of yet another book than it is to read 115 pages of a single book. Which is silly, I know, because I'm reading 115 pages a day either way, but it doesn't feel like it as much as it would if I was reading that amount from a single book.

After I broke that rule initially years ago now, I started occasionally pleasure-reading multiple books at once, oftentimes because I'd get a book I was really excited about and couldn't wait to read so I'd dive into that one while still reading another one. It's not something I did often but...#noregrets.

The other thing book hopping allows me to do is get through books I'm not enjoying as much (a necessity, in literature programs because invariably there will be books I have to read I'm not really into) in bite-sized pieces. I'll tell myself, okay, I'll read 50 pages of this book I don't love first, then I'll get to read 65 pages of those other books I do like. 

Granted, reading several books at once means it takes me longer to finish all of them—but it evens out because I end up finishing a bunch of them within a couple days as I near the end of every book around the same time.

Moving to reading a bunch of books at once has actually been easier than I anticipated, although it's quickly becoming clear to me that pleasure reading is a thing that's probably going to be rare as long as I have three (or more) books in a week to read for school. But that's okay—I'm reading lots of books I probably wouldn't have otherwise—or at least wouldn't have so soon. And that's certainly not a bad thing.

Do you read multiple books at once? 

Twitter-sized bites:

Do you read multiple books at once? Join the discussion on @Ava_Jae's blog. (Click to tweet)

Vlog: 3 Types of Editing

You asked, I answered: what are the different types of editing and what is each helpful for? Today I'm talking the stages of editing and why each are equally important.

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• Why I Revise in Passes
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• How to Handle Tough CP Feedback

Twitter-sized bite:

What are the 3 types of editing and why is each important? @Ava_Jae breaks it down in today's vlog. (Click to tweet)

How to Juggle Multiple Deadlines

Photo credit: The Lowry, Salford on Flickr

Writing deadlines are hard, and writing deadlines when you have more than one, and when writing deadlines aren't the only deadlines you have, and when writing isn't the only thing you do, is even harder.

I've been thinking a lot about that as I juggle my writing with my responsibilities, new and old.

Writing-wise, I currently have three projects I'm tossing around, two with deadlines (one self-imposed, one not), and a third that really wants my attention but has to sit and wait. On top of that are my freelance editing projects, my social media commitments, my part-time job, and grad school. And even before I've started doing all of those things at once—though I will have started by the time this publishes—I've already been thinking a lot about how to prioritize to make sure things get done.

For me, it starts with recognizing hard deadlines vs soft deadlines. Hard deadlines are deadlines I can't move—deadlines in contracts (both writing and freelance) or homework, for example. Hard deadlines I usually get plenty of advance notice on, so when I initially get them I sit down and do some math to figure out how much work I have to do every day in order to finish on time. And then I build in a few extra days, for days when things don't go as planned.

Conversely, soft deadlines are usually self-imposed deadlines. They're goalposts, rather than something someone else is waiting on—or, they're sometimes a hard deadline date with the wiggle room built in. So, if I've committed to finishing a project on the 31st, I'll usually math out so I finish on the 29th, so the 29th is my soft deadline that can be moved if needed, and the 31st is my hard deadline.

Once I've established all I need to do every day for each of my commitments, I prioritize within the day. My to-do list nowadays typically looks like this:

• errands
• writing/revision work
• freelance work
• grad school reading/work
• social media work

Within my grad school reading, I like it split it up between boring reading and fun reading. The boring reading I try to get out of the way first, and then the fun reading I know I can spread out throughout the day, even up until my bedtime reading. Social media work often gets priority unless I can push it off a day without consequence—but I try not to do that too much because I usually have plenty to do the next day too. Freelance work and writing work I generally prioritize the most, because the later in the day it gets, the less energy I have to do it—but those two categories frequently have the most hard deadlines, so I have to get them done. Then errands of course get prioritized and scheduled by how urgent they are.

By splitting up my tasks into bite-sized pieces and prioritizing them from most important to least, it allows me to get high-priority items done even when I have a lot going on while leaving some flexibility for overflow tasks that I can get done on a catch up day. 

It's not a perfect system, but it definitely helps. And it's very necessary, for me at least, to keep track of all I need to do. 

Do you prioritize your daily tasks? 

Twitter-sized bite: 

How do you juggle multiple responsibilities with writing? @Ava_Jae shares a few tips. (Click to tweet)