The October 2014 ask away thread

I'll reply to the first ten questions on anything to do with writing After this I'll call a halt. If it works out we can do this again at a later date.

Anyway, the first ten people to ask questions get replies and free copies of a book of their choice:

LINKS TO BOOKS EDITED OUT

All three books first appeared as drafts on this very website a few years back.

Here's Joe Scalora of Del Rey books reading my first "mature" story, one of the last I first drafted here LINK TO STORY EDITED OUT

What do you have to do in order to be able to produce good writing? Like, do you have any rituals or such before you can start writing, or something you have to have going on while writing?

Pamplemousse wrote:What do you have to do in order to be able to produce good writing? Like, do you have any rituals or such before you can start writing, or something you have to have going on while writing?

Answer to question 1:

Anxiety: many writers have to conquer anxiety, self-doubt, and terror of failure every single time they sit down to write, even if by now they are a household name (But what if I’m depleted? But what if I’m a phony and people are starting to realize this?), not to mention the ones starting out. This is one of the reasons writers (and others in the artistic professions) get hooked on things like speed and booze and anti-depressants—it helps them suppress the anxiety and maintain instead an artificial state of confidence.

A pilot fish in other people’s slipstream: some writers who have managed to evade the pitfalls of addiction’s “helping hand”, use the so-called “tuning forks” to get the ball rolling—they open up a favorite writer in the same or similar subgenre, and read a bit, and then submerge into their own project while the borrowed momentum lasts. Dean Koontz has been known to do this with John D Macdonald. I have been known to do this with Dean Koontz.

Yet other people take walks, or listen to music, or dance, or meditate, or work out to get the adrenaline flowing, or fondle themselves while hunched over the computer, ready to switch to another website at a seconds notice.

I personally used to need to down a beer in like ten seconds, in order to produce a brain shock that muffles the anxiety and enables to switch to confident writing mode and just start the damn writing already, but lately have moved to the more difficult but less ultimately destructive tuning fork method.

That's about writing as such. Specific scenes sometimes need specific inspiration which I find in music. Without this inspiration the scene would be written in a "dead" manner, whereas if it is written in an "alive" manner--then it becomes one of the pivotal scenes of the book. I grope around for a while, and when I find the musical piece which enables me to "feel" the scene--then I can make it come alive and move on.

Thank you for the question, Pamplemousse, choose a book and PM me.

No offense, but how can you write after drinking alcohol? That stuff is nasty.

Although I have a bad past with alcohol, so it disgusts me in general.

However, Buttershots are good.

I can already tell that this is not something I'll be doing again; this is a once only 'giving back' thing from me; after this onward I fly, concentrating on life, family, and career.

I will pop over on Friday, October 24th, and then on Friday, October 31st. If, on these dates, I find any questions concerning writing--I'll be happy to answer.

What do you do when you get writer's block? For example, you intended to write something for the day but it just doesn't work out, even if you tried. Do you continue typing, hoping the drive would still produce even just a hint of what you wanted, or do you stop writing then just come back when you feel refreshed?

How did you handle the jump from "not published" to "published"?

What would be your advices on writing a cover letter and a synopsis when an agent/publisher requests them?
I don't only what to do in general (because the format of the letter and what a synopsis is isn't hard to find on publishers'/agents' sites), but how to distance yourself from your own novel enough to make a not-too-detailed synopsis or write about it with just the right amount of pride when contacting an agent/publisher, and things like that.

If you never did any of those things for some reason, I have a different question xD How long do you think is the best to let a finished first draft stand before you start editing and polishing it up? Should a writer work on a different project for a while, or do nothing for a while, or start editing at once? In any case, why so?

Great job on being published, by the way c:

All right, here I am, swinging by a day early, because schedule.

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EscaSkye wrote:What do you do when you get writer's block? For example, you intended to write something for the day but it just doesn't work out, even if you tried. Do you continue typing, hoping the drive would still produce even just a hint of what you wanted, or do you stop writing then just come back when you feel refreshed?

Answer to question 2
There are at least half a dozen variables concerning the “writer’s block”. Is it a) at the very start of the MS; b) after a bunch has been written; c) concerning a plotted out story; d) concerning an improvised story; e) concerning the style of the book which the author suddenly hates; f) because there really is no time left from other engagements; g) because there are problems at school, at work, in the family; h) the amateur’s block “I can never get this right”; i) the pro’s block “they all expect me to maintain a level I can never maintain”, etc.

Broadly speaking, if you are in a heavy period where bad stuff is happening to you or around you—concentrate on riding out the bad stuff (or simply the super-busy period), and then, when time and energy can be diverted to writing again—write.
If the problems are not objective but subjective—“I hate my style”, or “this story is not going where I want it to”—then keep writing anyway.
When people say you have to have written a million words before you get good at writing, they are not joking. And not just any million words—they have to be words structured in stories with beginnings, middles, and ends. Push forward and finish everything, otherwise you’ll never learn to structure.

Note: do not stop writing on a longer project for more than a day or two, or the psychological link is severed, and it’s hell trying to get back the feel. Some writers find it impossible to return to a book after a break of a week, and abandon the project. Others struggle for a few months and then manage to find their way back into the book. Do not take a step back from the manuscript before the drafting is done, or you’ll break the connection.

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Rosey Unicorn wrote:How did you handle the jump from "not published" to "published"?

Answer to question 3

When I wrote the draft of my first book I still mixed up then and than and didn’t put commas in front of names. I pressed on, wrote book 2 and book 3 and two more novellas and an enormous pile of short fiction. And it’s only by the time I was half through the draft of yet another novel, that I suddenly started “seeing the matrix” and everything fell into place.

I put the new novel on ‘pause’, returned to my pile of older stuff, fixed it with my newfound self-editor goggles, and sent it all out. It all got published more or less instantly—in the course of one year—by seven different publishers and a bunch of magazines and webzines.

So, during this one year, in which I kept getting acceptance emails and worked with a crowd of editors and cover artists, I felt ten feet tall. Fifteen, in fact.

Everything I had ever written was now publishable with my new superpowers of editing.

However.

These were all small indie presses. The big fish continued not biting.

It’s one thing to be a connoisseur of obscure musicians and authors who are appreciated by an elite of five and a half people, quite another thing altogether to realize you’re becoming one of those obscure chaps. Especially if you don’t like self-promotion which could at least help you become ‘a cult favorite’.

So during the whole next year after the fifteen-feet-tall one, I was about ten inches tall. Fifteen on a good day.

Then I decided to raise my level if it kills me, wrote an awesome sci-fi thriller (which, this time took two damn years of relentless focus, not a few months of playful storytelling like the earlier projects), sent it out, got contacted by an enthusiastic agent, chose a different pen-name to begin anew, and lived happily ever after.

Note: a great many people not in the 'overnight star' category, who start small and manage to evade vanity outfits and scammers, do reach the legitimate small indie publishers...and stop there. Nothing wrong with that. It would be a bleak world indeed if only big corporate products were available on the marketplace.

But if you, the author, want to push onward and upward—to mid-level indies, to upper level indies, to the corporate midgets and corporate giants—be strong enough to see your weaknesses so that you may work on compensating them. Less excuses, more work—if you're going for a full-time career, that is. Some of my favorite writers had a day job to the end, and unconstrained by the rules of the 'bestseller' marker, they created awesome stuff. Clifford Simak, for example.

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AriaAdams wrote:What would be your advices on writing a cover letter and a synopsis when an agent/publisher requests them?
I don't only what to do in general (because the format of the letter and what a synopsis is isn't hard to find on publishers'/agents' sites), but how to distance yourself from your own novel enough to make a not-too-detailed synopsis or write about it with just the right amount of pride when contacting an agent/publisher, and things like that.

If you never did any of those things for some reason, I have a different question xD How long do you think is the best to let a finished first draft stand before you start editing and polishing it up? Should a writer work on a different project for a while, or do nothing for a while, or start editing at once? In any case, why so?

Great job on being published, by the way c:

Answer to question 4

Getting the tone of the letter right is super difficult, as is to do a coherent blurb, when starting out. Practice makes perfect and less is more and always do what they ask you to in their guidelines. Always. Format. Letter. By. Their. Guidelines. Show no respect—get no respect.

Simple approach template:

“Dear (name of editor/agent),
You will find attached to this email/pasted into this email the whole manuscript/the first X words of my book Perry Hotter and the Gay Wizard Werewolves: (two-three sentence blurb).
This project is a standalone/the beginning of a projected series of 10 books
A synopsis is attached/pasted in as well.
I am a new author/ have a short story published by Gay Werewolf Quarterly.
Thank you for your time,
Best regards
Ben Drown”

You can also include, if you so wish, some sort of comparison (the book is X meets Y with a hint of Z). Some agents and editors frown on that, others don't mind--research them and listen to your intuition.

A longer synopsis is easier—divide mentally the book into 3 or 5 or 10 mini-sections and describe each with a short paragraph—and now you have a synopsis. Introduce the cast/time/place at the start, if you have to, before the actual plot summary. Some publishers/agents are OK with a chapter-by-chapter summary—this is the easiest one.

Note: always research the publishers/agents, and send them WHAT THEY ARE LOOKING FOR. If they do not want horror and sword and sorcery—do not send them horror or sword and sorcery. There are more than enough publishers and agents for any genre. Find them, not the ones who are working in other fields. Also, use the genre-names on their website. If, by their categorization system, your book would fall into “space adventure” or “suspense fantasy” then call it this. Yes, this means a separate letter for every agent and editor. Show respect—get respect.

Note 2: People in the business decide on the basis of the first sentences of the query letter if they are dealing with a crank, or a psycho, or an illiterate psycho. Do not be flippant, do not try to stun with offbeat humor and stuff. The job of your introductory sentences is to say “This person is not a moron nor a nut. Give him a chance. Keep reading until you reach the description of his project”.

b) I say leave the finished MS between a week and half a year; if the text is an early effort—keep writing for a few more months and then revisit it with a fresh eye and a higher level of prose-mastery (the implication being that if it’s still early days in your writing hobby/career—always keep writing and writing and writing some more—the level does not raise itself while you watch Dr. Who). But if you’ve written a number of things, and your writing style has, in fact, stabilized, and you’re willing to stay in your level plateau for now—then a week or two of other things is enough—and back to the project you go to edit it.

Summary: I suggest longer waiting periods for people just starting out, and shorter waiting periods for people who have hit their stride. The longer period should be filled with more writing, so that at the end of this period the writer’s level is definitely higher than when the draft was drafted; the shorter period can either be used for working on something else, or on vegetating—depending on the personality.

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...OK, thank you for the thoughtful questions, choose a book to have and PM me. I'll be back around this time next week for a final session:

Swinging by again, one last time.
I see no new questions have been posted, so I guess my work here is done
I'll just edit out the links to my books--because you never know what you want to admit to or deny ten years from now--and move on.
Good luck to everyone here, especially to the guys who asked questions and got answers.
Signing off,
Petty Bage