Writability

Ch-Ch-Changes!

Photo credit: freestocks.org on Flickr

Writability has been going strong with three posts a week since 2011, which I'm pretty damn proud of. We're nearing the 1,200 post mark, which is more blog posts than I ever expect any one person to read, which means a pretty extensive archive of topics covered, often more than once.

Unsurprisingly, though, a lot has changed in six years.

When I started this blog, I was 19-year-old community college student reaching out on the internet, trying to connect with other writers, become more knowledgeable about publishing, and continue to improve my writing skills. I was a year away from being diagnosed with a degenerative autoimmune disease, studying film, unagented, and hadn't yet written the book that would be my debut.

I started Writability, not really sure anything would come of it, and definitely not imagining I would be here six years later with over 2,000,000 lifetime page views, a growing YouTube channel with nearly 15,000 subscribers, and imminent plans to move to a city to start grad school and get my MFA.

Yeah, a lot has changed in six years. And honestly, what I've listed here barely begins to cover it.

My life looks pretty different now from what it used to, and that divide from what was to what is is only going to widen in the fall. I'm now a published writer with deadlines to meet and projects to write, while juggling freelancing and a part time job to pay the bills, and I'll soon be adding school back into the mix. Which is a long way of saying my limited time is becoming more limited as the months pass.

So I've finally reached a point where I've realized something has to give. I need to be monetizing my time as much as I can—that means spending most of my time on things that will help me pay the bills. But I don't want to give up this wonderful blog, which I know has become such a big resource for so many, either.

As much as I hate to say it though, I do need to cut back. Because to be super transparent, this blog is quickly burning me out, and as I spend sometimes hours trying to figure out what to write about that I haven't already written about, it's increasingly cutting into time I need to be spending on my deadlines.

So starting today, I'm changing Writability's posting schedule. Instead of four days a week (including the vlogs), I'll be posting twice a week: vlogs on Tuesdays and blog posts on Fridays. There will be some exceptions to that—giveaway posts won't be a Friday post and guest posts may or may not be a Friday post depending on what I have going on that week. But for the most part, Tuesdays and Fridays will become Writability's new schedule.

But that's not the only change. I'll soon be announcing a new facet of Writability, on a new platform, that I'm very excited about. I hope you guise like it too. :)

Thank you all for your support over the years—it has, and continues to mean, so, so much. Here's to many more years of awesomeness all over the internet.

Vlog: Are Online Pitch Contests Worth It?

Another great question from another great viewer: are online pitch contests worth entering? Today I share my experience and thoughts.

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Twitter-sized bite:

Are online pitch contests worth it? Author @Ava_Jae shares their thoughts and experience. #vlog (Click to tweet)

Cleaning House

Photo credit: distelfliege on Flickr

As I prepare for a pretty huge life change, I've been taking stock of a lot of things—from the books on my shelves, to the stuff that's been sitting in boxes for years, to papers I held on to for no discernible reason, to how I make use of my time.

This morning, for example, I spent two hours I could have been writing or editing staring at a blank screen trying to figure out what the hell to blog about.

I've gone through my read bookshelves and pulled books I won't re-read, books that I didn't really like that much, books that I mostly had just because I'd read them. I've gone through my to be read owned bookshelf and pulled books I lost interest in before I got around to reading them, books that are taking up space that—if I'm really being honest—I don't actually want to read anymore.

Yesterday I cleaned out my office and bedroom and tossed papers I had piling up that I didn't need, and boxes I'd never gotten around to tossing, and started digging through boxes full of stuff from prior moves—a project that still isn't finished. I also went through my closet and wardrobe and pulled clothes I'm not going to wear anymore to either toss or donate.

I've been thinking a lot about how I can adjust my weekly commitments to make more time for things with deadlines, things that pay my bills. I've been taking note of what I'm getting out of certain things I put time into and weighing what I want to change. And while I don't have any concrete answers yet, I do think there will be some changes in the near future.

It's a time of transition for me, which is exciting, and a little scary, but I'm moving toward positive things.

When's the last time you've taken stock of your things and commitments?

Twitter-sized bite:

When's the last time you've taken stock of your things and commitments? Join the discussion on @Ava_Jae's blog. (Click to tweet)

Discussion: Manuscript Challenges

Photo credit: Nico Kaiser

Every manuscript has it's own challenges. That's a writing truthism that has remained true for me, even now, too many manuscripts later.

In Beyond the Red, my main challenge was getting Kora, one of my POV characters, to open up, and to set a strong world building foundation. In Into the Black it was balancing the plot arcs of my two POV characters. Now in The Rising Gold, with 45k words written and two-thirds of the plot left to go, I strongly suspect word count is going to be my biggest challenge especially given I usually add 10-20k in revisions, which is a new problem I haven't faced before.

It's a strange thing, to face completely new challenges after having written so many manuscripts. You'd be tempted to think that at a certain point, the challenges you'd face would be similar manuscript to manuscript, but thus far, at least, that largely hasn't been the case. Sure, I almost always have to add a bunch of world building to revisions because I don't usually cover nearly enough of it while first drafting, but even beyond that every manuscript tends to arrive with its own host of problems.

In a way, it's refreshing—the process of writing a book never gets old, because every book you write has a new set of challenges to face. And it's also a reminder of how we're continuously learning—or at least, should be.

So I'm curious: what manuscript challenges have you faced?

Twitter-sized bite:

What manuscript challenges have you faced? Join the discussion on @Ava_Jae's blog. (Click to tweet)

On Trusting Your Story Ideas

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I used to toss a lot of my story ideas.

Sometimes, they never made it past infancy, just a scribbled note I'd look at later, grimace, and say nah before moving on to something else. Sometimes I'd experiment and write a chapter or two before losing interest, or I'd plot the entire thing and write a chapter or two before realizing this wasn't going to work.

Because of that, I didn't trust my ideas, not really. I knew chances were more likely than not that they wouldn't work out, that I'd lose interest or the idea would fall flat on its face. It's why, to this day, I consider a WIP just an "experiment" until I've hit 10,000 words.

But it occurred to me recently, though I wrote three manuscripts last year, and I'm in the middle of one now and have another I want to write before the year is out, I haven't tossed an idea out in a while.

Part of that, surely, comes from the fact that three of those—one I wrote last year, the one I'm working on now, and the one I want to work on next—were born from proposals, one to my publisher and one to something else. Writing the proposal for Into the Black and The Rising Gold last year, I was pretty scared of what would happen if I began writing and things fell apart—but the proposal, and the commitment to the proposal when my publisher accepted the sequels, has forced me to trust those ideas from the onset in a way I never had before.

Luckily—or maybe because of this forced trust—Into the Black's first draft went off without a hitch. I had a blast writing that book and it was equally enjoyable revising it. I can honestly say it's probably my favorite thing I've ever written. And now as I draft The Rising Gold with that same sort of confidence, I haven't once doubted whether the story would hold up as I wrote, and while I have some other insecurities with that book, there's no question in my mind that I'll finish it (which is good, since not finishing it isn't really an option at this point).

Similarly, the other manuscript I wrote a proposal for went much the same way. Though I've only drafted a chapter of it, that chapter came so easily—it flowed beautifully and the voice just clicked and I know when I finally get back to it, I won't have a problem picking up where I left off. I'm confident in that toddler of an idea in a way I hadn't been before.

I think part of this may be that I know what I like to write now. The Rising Gold is my seventeenth manuscript, and at this point in my writing journey, I'm very clear about the things I want to be writing about, even if how those things fit into a story-shaped thing isn't always immediately obvious. But I know the things that excite me, and the types of characters I want to populate my worlds with. So maybe having that foundation clear, of knowing what I enjoy writing and what I want to do more of, has allowed me to avoid the ideas that I'll get bored with and mosey away from.

I'm not 100% sure when the shift happened, but I am, slowly, learning to trust my ideas more than I have in the past. And it's a journey I look forward to continuing, one step at a time.

Do you trust your story ideas?

Twitter-sized bite:

Do you trust your story ideas? Join the discussion on @Ava_Jae's blog. (Click to tweet)

Vlog: Would You Try to Publish Old MSs?

Here's a question I get a lot: would I try to publish my old, trunked manuscripts? Today I answer.

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Would you go back to a manuscript you've trunked?

Twitter-sized bites:

Author @Ava_Jae has many trunked manuscripts—but would they try to publish one? Ava answers and more. (Click to tweet)

Have to trunk a manuscript? That's okay—author @Ava_Jae explains why writing is never a waste. (Click to tweet)

On Judging by the First Few Pages

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I recently got a comment on my YouTube channel complaining about how unfair it was that literary agents don't read the full manuscript of every query they receive. The commenter felt agents were missing out on loads of great manuscripts that had a lackluster query or opening and thought it was up to the agent to read the whole manuscript before judging.

I schooled said commenter on an agent's role, but it did get me thinking about all the things you learn from just the first couple pages of a manuscript.

Oops, a YouTube comment made me mad again.

Pro tip: don't disrespect literary agents on my channel. pic.twitter.com/A1GoGsThoI
— Ava Jae (@Ava_Jae) June 29, 2017

When I dive into a manuscript as a freelance editor, I find that more times than not, I can note what universal writing issues are present within the first five to ten pages. Voice, wordiness, dialogue issues, telling instead of showing, filtering, over reliance on backstory, etc. are all pretty easy to spot early in a manuscript. And whatever writing problems are present on page one or five 99.9% of the time are present throughout the entire manuscript.

Figuring out most story issues—that is, plot, character, or world building problems—often require digging a little deeper and reading more, but it's pretty easy to tell, based off the quality of someone's writing in the first few pages, whether the manuscript is written by a brand new writer who still needs honing, or whether it's written by someone skilled enough to move on to the next step.

In other words, no, agents really don't need to read that much to determine whether a manuscript isn't going to be a good fit for them.

Granted, if the writing is good but the story has problems, that's going to take a longer sample to figure out, more times than not. But the truth is, a lot of manuscripts can be easily eliminated off the first couple pages simply because the writer's skill level isn't there yet, which is easy to determine based off a short sample.

And think about it: when debating whether or not to read a book, readers often open the book up and sample the first couple pages. This tells them whether the voice works for them or whether the initial plot is intriguing enough to catch their eye. Readers don't read an entire book in the bookstore while deciding whether or not to get it—that would take too long and make it impossible to sample multiple books in one day.

Judging a book by the first few pages may sound a little harsh, but the truth is, there's so much you can glean from the first couple pages. Which is why writers often emphasize the importance of making those first couple pages really shine—after all, you don't want to give your reader a reason to say no.

Do you judge books by the first couple pages?

Twitter-sized bite:

Author & freelance editor @Ava_Jae talks why judging a book by the first few pages works. (Click to tweet)