Specific Motivation for Characters

You may be surprised at the changes...

While doing the outlining workshop, a few of the folks tried to pass off "to be happy" as a character motivation. Sorry, folks - no dice.

It's not that "to be happy" isn't a motivation, but it's sort of the quintessential motivation, and that's the problem. When you're setting up what your character wants, it needs to be as specific as possible, because that specificity will help your character seem unique.

"To be happy" is not unique. Just like we can trace all life back to the sun (well, as far as I know), everyone is motivated by the pursuit of happiness. Does your villain want to destroy the world? Why? Because on some level, world-destruction makes that character happy, or at least satisfied.

And satisfied is like happy. For sociopaths.

Anyway.

Motivation needs to be specific, and if it's not, all the cool shit they can do doesn't matter, because we don't know why it's important. A while back, I saw a youtube video about how Disney princesses always have their "motivation establishing song." I can't find that video now, but here are some of the relevant songs:

Belle: I want adventure in the great wide somewhere...

Ariel: I want to be where the people are...

Mulan: When will my reflection show who I am inside...

Snow White: Someday my prince will come...(barf.)

Ignoring the gag-inducing passivity of the Snow White motivation (If you haven't read the "YA Cover Trends" [aka, Dead Girls on Covers] essays over on Rachel Stark's blog, Trac Changes, I command thee go read.)  you can see that all four of these chicks at least know what they want, and we learn that before they have to start fighting to make it happen or, in Snow White's case, before she is rudely taken advantage of by her step mother, and then randomly sexually assaulted by some chump with a white horse and a crown, and then circumstances allow everyone else to make her dream happen.

But how does one go about figuring out a specific motivation for a character?

The way I've decided to define specific motivation is by breaking it down into two parts:

DESIRE + METHOD

Desire is whatever it is your character wants. This should be the thing that pulls them toward the ending, the thing that they want to fight for. For example, the two main characters of HELLHOUND:

Helena: to gain true freedom and peace for herself and her pack.

Jaesung: to take care of the people he cares about (the way his father didn't).

Method is the course of action your character plans, must, or eventually decides to take in order to achieve their goals. To know this, you must know first what is keeping them from achieving their desires. Again, I'm going to use the cast of HELLHOUND as an example.

What stands between desire and:

Helena: Gwydhain is hunting the Hellhounds, the Sorcerers Guild is hunting her, and Jaesung's attention/suspicion puts her in danger of revealing her secret. 

Jaesung: Helena won't tell him what's going on, so he can't protect her from it. He's still in school and doesn't make enough money yet to help resolve his father's debt.

So, what's their course of action, given these obstacles?

Helena: protect the book with the Hellhound creation spell, learn enough magic to defeat Gwydhain, keep her autonomy from the Sorcerers Guild, and keep her true nature hidden from her roommates. 

Jaesung: find out what's going on with Helena so he can support her...and to make sure she's not endangering anyone else he cares about; finish his degree in applied mathematics and get a good job so he can take care of his family financially.

From these pieces of information, we can decide what each character's specific motivation is. For now, I'm just going to pick the most important obstacle.

THIS IS WHAT IT SHOULD LOOK LIKE

Helena: wants to gain true freedom and peace for herself and her pack BY protecting the book with the Hellhound creation spell and learning enough Magic to defeat Gwydhain. 

Jaesung: wants to take care of the people he cares about (the way his father didn't) BY finding out what's going on with Helena so he can support her, or at least make sure she's not endangering anyone else.

CHARACTER wants to achieve DESIRE by taking a COURSE OF ACTION.

I don't think your characters' initial courses of action need to be successful - Helena fails both to protect the book and to learn enough Magic to defeat Gwydhain, and so must come up with an alternate solution. I'm not going to tell you if Jaesung is successful or not. You'll just have to wait and see...

What is your main character's specific motivation? Is their initial course of action successful? What's their next course of action?

Writing Romance - What About MY Needs!?

Writing Podcasts seem to have a certain synchronicity for me--when I'm struggling with something in my own writing, I hear it discussed in a podcast soon thereafter. It's not even that I seek out the episodes so much as I work my way though them, and the episode I need just happens to be there. That's happened to me with all three of my favorite writing podcasts: The Dead Robots Society, I Should Be Writing, and Writing Excuses. That's what I hope my own podcast, Pendragon Variety, can do for other aspiring writers.

 The other day, I was listening to the Writing Excuses podcast, and heard something that seemed like common sense, but which I sometimes lose track of when writing romance between two characters. I'm not talking about romance novels (not that there's anything wrong with them). I'm talking about every romance you write, and what keeps it from feeling forced--what draws your characters to each other, by proxy drawing your readers to the relationship: knowing the needs the two characters satisfy for each other.

 In "The Mark of Flight", Shiro and Arianna were pretty simple to figure out. Shiro fills Arianna's need to be seen, appreciated, and loved for who she is and not because she's a princess. Arianna fills Shiro's need to be believed in, and his need to be valued as a person. Funny enough, they satisfy a very similar needs for each other, though they come from completely different backgrounds. Their romance was never really an issue for me, so when I started writing HELLHOUND, I imagined everything would fall perfectly into place.

 Not so. Part of this was my fault in writing without any idea who my characters were, what motivated them, or what they even wanted. But I feel like I should have figured it out by the end of the first draft. Something wasn't quite working--it was totally unbalanced. They went from 0 to 40...then back to 10...then to 80...and then piddled along to the end. It's not because they're not both likable, interesting, developed characters. It's not because there wasn't plenty of attraction on both sides.

I knew that Jaesung was a good influence on Helena...but I couldn't quite figure out what it was about HER that made him stick around. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about when I say that, sometimes, I don't think one protagonist quite has as much to offer as the other. "Because he loves her" might be valid, but sometimes I still want a little more.

What does Bella have to offer Edward (besides the feeling that he's a horrible monster for wanting to eat her all the time)?

What does Ron give to Hermione (besides at least three reasons to cry in every book)?

What is it about Clary that makes Jace willing to brave even the possibility of incest for her? (*squick*)

 Jaesung gives me that problem. When you're a 23-year-old grad student juggling lots of goslings, what's going to draw you to a girl whose most likely background is "drug mule in witness protection"? Okay. Her hot legs. At first. But when shit starts going down, there's got to be something more.

Helena tries to do everything herself. She truly believes she has something that only she can do, and that she's got to do it alone. Unfortunately, her character flaw is in her inability to look past the moment and see consequences. Because she's too afraid to think about a future she thinks is hopeless, she gets herself into a lot of trouble for making decisions that don't seem to have any foresight.

Jaesung, on the other hand, has effectively killed his ability to live in the moment by always thinking about the past, and trying to figure out how to avoid making the same mistakes as his father. He works hard at something at which he's rather mediocre to make sure he can support his mother and his future family, while relegating his passions into the "hobby" box. Of course, he enjoys them...but he's not the type of person who can let himself disappoint people.

Helena never thinks about the future. Jaesung always does. This causes tension in their relationship, to be sure, but it also gives each of them something to contribute to the other. In a way, their flaws when it comes to life in general become their strengths for each other. Helena's lack of foresight gives Jaesung the opportunity to help her find her "light at the end of the tunnel" (Oh hai, theme). Her recklessness forces him to admit what he truly cares about, whether that lets people down or not.

Because I think flaws are so important, I have to make sure they grow, but don't fix each other, because the story isn't about overcoming flaws. Like many good stories, it's about overcoming adversity despite a thousand things that are in the way, including those flaws. Helena will probably never be able to plan ahead the way Jaesung does, and I know he will always feel duty-bound to take care of everyone around him.

She'll drag him out to play in the snow at 4AM. He'll remember anniversaries. She'll remind him to take a break from doing taxes. He'll make sure they get done later. She'll hunt demons for the safety of the world. He'll make sure she doesn't do it alone.

Yeah. They're a good match.

Pending Punishments and Goals for June

Just here to let you guys know that I have failed to complete the goals I set out for myself this month as well.

Now, I think I have some pretty good excuses for failing to meet them, but I'm not going to use those as a reason to get out of a punishment. My goals were thus:

1. Finish writing the new scene for "The Mark of Flight"   (90%)
2. Finish the first two lessons of "How to Revise Your Novel" with HELLHOUND  (60%)
3. Write at least three more blog-posts (100%)
4. Successfully move into new apartment (100%)--well, insofar as I now have a key and some boxes. I can't technically "move in" until the first anyway.

Also, the Twilight Punishment video is in the process of being edited. Yes, I completed the punishment, and it was painful, but not quite as painful as anticipated (team Jacob!). I actually ended up watching the Riff-Trax version of the third one with a friend while working on costumes for Animazement. I hated Windows Live Movie Maker so much I downloaded the far superior Windows Movie Maker of old to do all my editing. I'm going to make the completion of that video one of my goals for June.

SO THE PUNISHMENT.

I must do a cover of Rebecca Black's  Friday, complete with crappy music-video and choreography. I will probably need to recruit a few brave individuals to be my "homies". Corinna has generously offered to be my rapper, and Rachel will be her video-ho, so I'm looking forward to that.

OKAY, so my goals for June are as follows:

1. Finish at least 3 lessons of "How to Revise Your Novel" with HELLHOUND.
2. Write at least one blog post per week.
3. Attend two writing club meetings
4. Write at least ONE Flash Friday

I'm currently taking suggestions for punishments, so if you have any ideas, write them in the comments!


*Edit:


I just found this online. My suggestion for myself is that I have to do this makeup, including the mustache, and go somewhere public for one hour, and work on one of my failed goals. Vote on your favorite of the suggestions in the comments, or vote for the Old Age 
Makeup.

Traditional Publishing

A few weeks ago, I spoke with "a friend of a friend of a friend" who wanted to interview aspiring authors about publication needs and choices, and what authors might be looking for. He and a friend are planning to open a website that can act as a resource for writers looking to bypass the "gatekeepers" of the publishing industry by giving writers a link to other "indie" editors, artists, typesetters, etc. I think there's a great market for that, and I told him everything I thought would be helpful to those looking to do self/small/indie publishing.

Then the conversation got a little awkward. When I suggested resources and necessities, such as formatters for the various e-readers, cover-artists, and editors all willing to receive payment from revenue rather than up front, things were fine. Then he asked: "So, if you could take down all the barriers to breaking into publication, and have complete control of your work, and receive a huge portion of the revenue, would you do it?"

Clearly, he didn't expect me to answer, "No."

"But you would make a lot more money, and you'd have artistic freedom, and (blahblahblah)." He was scrambling, knocked off-kilter by the fact that I hadn't given him the answer he expected.

"I think your idea is awesome," I said. "A resource like that would make a significant difference to people who are looking to self-publish or for small-presses looking to find new talent. But it's not for me. I still want to do traditional publishing."

I explained that I wasn't interested in having 100% artistic control. As long as they don't make Jaesung, the Korean love-interest, blond and blue-eyed on the cover of HELLHOUND, I trust that the cover-artist will do a good job. I know for a fact that a professional editor will tear apart my story and find the nuggets of potential, probe the sore-spots in the text, and challenge me to make my story better. I explained that the marker of "success" I've got for my own career is to walk into a Barnes & Nobel and be able to buy my book off the shelf. Most self-published authors can't do that, nor can any small-press without a contract with the proper distributors. A Kindle version of my book isn't good enough for me to feel "I've made it" - I want to flip the pages, smell the ink and glue and paper of a physical book. My book. In print. Now, I don't hold other authors to this - there are plenty of indie press authors I consider extremely successful, but different people have different desires, expectations, and markers of success with their own writing. B&N is mine.

Still, he argued. I started to get irritated, but I maintained my ground. Being able to keep 70% of the profit from each sale doesn't make up for having to do all the marketing and advertising myself. If I can provide the raw, creative material and work (till I'm sweating marrow) with a team of professionals to make it into something awesome, THAT'S what I want to do. Because to me, in the end, "artistic integrity" isn't about having complete control over the end-product. It isn't about not "selling out". It's not about receiving 70-90% of the profit from my work. It's not even about B&N. It's about making these stories that I care about so much as fantastic as they can be, and about getting them in the hands of as many people as I can, and traditional publishing is unarguably the most effective way to do that.

And I'm not sure how many willing, pro-level resources there will be for translating THE MARK OF FLIGHT into Japanese.


Today, David B Coe of the Magical Words blog wrote a post on why he continues to choose traditional publishing over the e-pub/self-pub/small-press models chosen by a few of his fellow bloggers. Aside from the advance an author receives upon acceptance of their manuscript by a publisher, he gives us a list of ten things a traditional publisher will provide at no cost to the author:

1) A professional editor who will read through and critique the manuscript, suggesting changes that will, without a doubt, make the book better. They will also shepherd us through the revision process, providing free online and phone-access technical support for our writing. No extended warranty purchase necessary!
2) A professional copyeditor who will further refine the manuscript, taking care of typos, syntactical errors, inconsistencies in plot, character, setting, etc.
3) Professional proofreaders, who will finalize the editing of the manuscript.
4) Jacket art by a professional artist.
5) Jacket design and layout services, as well as jacket copy (those plot summaries that we see on the backs of books) to help lure readers to the book.
6) Formatting, typesetting, and printing and/or electronic generation of the book, again by professionals.
7) (and the importance of this one simply cannot by overstated) Review copies compiled, printed, and distributed to journals, magazines, professional reviewers, and other publications often of the author’s choice, in order to garner reviews in advance of the book’s official publication. In addition, earlier in the process, publishers will send out review copies, or even bound manuscripts, to established authors in order to get cover blurbs that can be helpful in drawing readers to the books.
8) Advertisements of our books in magazines, journals, newspapers, and other print and online venues.
9) Nationwide (and at times worldwide) distribution of our books to physical bookstores, online booksellers, and ebook vendors.
10) And finally, accounting of our sales, shipments, returns, etc.

(You can read David's full post here.) Just the first point - the professional editor - usually costs somewhere in the ballpark of $1,000, often more, and I don't believe in half-assing anything when it comes to beating my stories into shape. If I did, I would have given up after the first draft of MARK OF FLIGHT.

This is not to say that I don't think e-pub/self-pub/small-press are not viable options. In fact, Pendragon Variety is working on a new venture called "Pendragon Express" as a way to try circumventing the distribution problem for independent authors. I've also read several books by small-press or self-published authors that I thought were awesome, but which might have been a little too "niche" to appeal to the current market. Abigail Hilton's "The Guild of the Cowry Catchers" comes to mind. Seriously fun story, but I can see why fauns, foxlings, and other half-beast main-characters battling it out on the high seas amidst a web of intertwining conflicts might not appeal to everyone. And that's before we get to death, sex, slavery, and tongue-removal.

Hey, *I* sure enjoy the heck out of it. But is it mainstream? No. Could Abbie have remained true to her vision of the story and changed enough of it to make the book mainstream? Maybe if it were a manga, but as a novel it definitely feels a little left of the target. I think Abbie made the correct decision in self-publishing her work; otherwise a really awesome story might never have seen the light of day. Now I can listen to Norm Sherman deliver the deliciously cutting lines of Silveo in the free podcast version of the novel.

But let's be clear about something: Abbie pays a lot of money to get tons of artwork for her story. She pays the other podcast talents that read her characters. She's explained again and again that the money she makes from selling the illustrated e-books and short-stories and extras just about lets her break even. And this is a super-popular story.

It all seems to come down to love. Abbie tried to publish through traditional venues first, but her story was "too long" (bah). She loves her story enough to put in the time, effort, and money it takes to bring it to the audience that wants to consume it (read: me). I love my stories enough to do whatever it takes to make them the best they can be, and in my opinion, that is with as many of the services in David B Coe's list as possible. If I end up having to pay out of pocket for them, then I will. It will take me forever, but I will eventually do it.

Of course, I'm going to try to go through traditional publishers first, because that means the cash is flowing towards ME. I hope I don't have to explain why that's preferable.

INTERACT: What form of publishing do you feel is right for your work? Have you looked into various options for publication? Which ones strike you as the most appealing, and why? Do you think a resource for writers who want to self/e-pub is a good idea? Would you be willing to provide a service (such as editing or art) for a percentage of revenue on the back-end?

It's Gently-Wafting Curtains for me...

Well, it's the 26th and I'm not quite at the half-way point on revising "The Mark of Flight". There's no way I'm going to achieve the goals I set for myself in this post, so I'm going to have to bear the consequences.

Now, I could just skim through the rest of MoF, half-ass the first lesson on HELLHOUND, and send out a bunch of queries for a manuscript that isn't quite ready, but everyone knows I'm not going to do that. I've invested too much time in both of these stories to give them anything but my best.

With MoF, I realized there are two scenes that need a bit of rewriting now that I've changed the beginning. I'm also a little concerned with how the relationships of the three main characters appear by the half-way point, when they've all gotten split up. I don't know if they've spent enough time together to care about each other yet, or if they even need to care about each other. Duty and guilt is enough to fuel most of the forward action, and the relationships can develop later on.

I decided it was time to get some professional help. (For my manuscript, shut up!) I've contacted a freelance editor I found linked on another author's site and am waiting for a quote and sample. Apparently, her novel edits can be as low as $200, which is really reasonable considering some of her clients have recently been picked up by agents. So yes. As soon as I rewrite those little bits I need for continuity, I'm hoping to ship it off to someone who can take a look at it from an outsider's POV and give me some good advice.

I haven't started on HELLHOUND yet, but I've been brainstorming some great revisions for it, which involve playing laser-tag for the first time since high school. Anyway, I don't want to rush through either revision just to avoid my punishment, so I guess you guys will get to see me torturing myself with the New Moon movie. At least there will be booze involved.

I need a "Team Buffy" tee-shirt.

Research LOL

I may have done irreparable damage to my brother's emotional state.

As you may or may not know, my older brother (Bro-bot) is an upstanding member of law enforcement, and has provided me with ample fodder for stories were I ever to write a country crime comedy (which is tempting, despite my aversion to crime fiction in general). He's seen it all, and it's a good thing his sixth-sense for trouble comes with a seventh-sense of humor, because the list of what he's seen does not happen to come with a convenient censor-bar.

In the rough draft of HELLHOUND, I had to leave out a scene I'd planned due to both the constraints of word-count and the fact that I'd written another scene which accomplished similar things.Well, I couldn't get that planned scene out of my head, and I'm delighted to say that the revisions I've brainstormed include not only getting to write that scene, but picking my brother's brain for information.

Neeheehee. >:3

So last night I came home from work to find my brother and his roommate (let's call him Yankee Boy) drinking on the back porch. Yankee-boy had no idea I'm a writer, which left him confused for the duration of the conversation (poor Yankee-boy). I want you all to imagine dusk in the South, on a back deck looking out over trees and farmland recently redistributed by an F3 tornado. Bro-bot and Yankee-boy are drinking by a coal-fire, made in a three-legged iron grill.

The conversation was approximately as follows:

Scribe: So, Bro-bot, question for you.
Bro-bot: 'Kay.
Scribe: What's the procedure for picking up streakers?
Bro-bot: ...what?
Scribe: Like bored college-students.
Bro-bot: ...
Scribe: When you arrest them, do you slap handcuffs on them and stuff them in the back of your patrol car, or do you find them a towel or something?
Bro-bot: I cuff 'em, put them in the passenger's seat, and if it's a dude, I find something to cover up his junk so I don't have to look at it. If it's a chick, I take a real long time getting to the station. *shit-eating grin* Just kidding. I'd give her a towel or something.
Scribe: So, do you give them clothes at the station, or what?
Bro-bot: Uh, yeah. As soon as they get to the station, they get the orange jumpsuit and go in a cell.
Scribe: Do you finger-print them naked?
Bro-bot: No.
Scribe: Okay. So their bail is pretty low, then? For indecent exposure?
Bro-bot: Yeah. Well, women can't get charged with indecent exposure. North Carolina law only charges men.
Scribe: What the..? I mean, I guess most law-makers are men, so it makes sense, but really? That's not fair. But good to know.
Yankee-boy: So why do you want to know?
Scribe: Well, I don't have any plans this Saturday.
Yankee-boy: *LOL*
Bro-bot: *trauma-face*

God, I love research.

So, the scene I'm working in revolves around my heroine, Helena, being forced to shapeshift to get away from a pair of bounty-hunters who are attacking her. Upon arriving at her dormitory, she transforms back into a human, but her clothes are still at the scene of the crime. Just as she's trying to climb in through her window, she gets spotted by campus police and taken downtown for streaking. Oh, yes.

See why I wanted to write that scene? I'm so happy I can work it in. Truthfully, it was the introduction of bounty-hunters to the plot that allowed me to fit this scene in. I'm taking out the one I actually wrote, which was too melodramatic and not nearly as effective as this one. Plus, I wanted a shapeshifter to get in trouble over not being able to shift with her clothes.

Do you have a hilarious research story? What kinds of research-related questions have you asked friends/family/strangers that prompted great responses? Have you ever been picked up for streaking?


Photo by minifig

Character Starting Points - Going Back

Photo by kevindooly

Sometimes I start writing with a great idea of who my character is, sometimes I start with just a name and a purpose. One of the most valuable things the writing process has taught me is that characters don't have to be perfect the first time around. I've talked a bit about my two books, The Mark of Flight and Hellhound, and as I mentioned in my post last week on characters that cry, I had totally different experiences writing Helena and Arianna.

I created Arianna when I was fifteen, and role-played her with my friends Adryn and Merilee in what I suppose you could consider a very early version of the first book's plot--kidnapped princess who gets help from a slave and a mage, and who risks her own life to save the slave when he is recaptured. I think there were dragons, demonic wolves, and lots of convenient way-houses/caves in some of those early RPs. I'm relieved no longer to have the files.

We moved on to other worlds and characters, but something of Arianna's essence stuck with me, her stubbornness and pride, her kindness and idealism, brewing in my head with her sweet, stuttering ex-slave of a love-interest, who inadvertently learns to use Magic. One day in my senior year of High School (when I was eager to write anything that wasn't a college application essay), I started The Mark of Flight. By then, I had a pretty good idea who Arianna was.

Helena, on the other hand, was little more than a name and a goal. I didn't know what she looked like, I didn't know who her family was or her background, and I knew nothing about her personality. I wrote a version of the opening scene as a writing prompt for one of Holly Lisle's mini workshops, and couldn't get it out of my head. The day before NaNoWriMo, I wrote an outline--at that time I was unemployed and feeling a little worse than useless, so I figured if I was going to be a jobless moocher, I might as well be a jobless moocher with a word-count.

Picture by mrhayata

While writing Arianna, I found there was a disconnect between the girl in my head and the girl on the page. It wans't until I was half-way though the book that I figured out why--Arianna was reacting to the plot, not driving it. I had no outline for the story, and I was still too immature as a writer to think about each scene, and how my character could work in it. I hadn't yet learned that scenes should be a collection of character choices given circumstances, not character reactions to circumstances. That shift in perspective happened only when it had to--when I needed Arianna to make the choice of whether to continue home, or to save the boy who had risked his life for her. After that, she drove each scene and started to become the stubborn, proud, kind, strong girl in my head.

Helena was a more active character to write from the beginning, and easier in many ways because she was modern, and had clear priorities. The problem was, I didn't know her. She was gray matter, condensing into something more concrete as my idea for the story expanded, evolved, and delineated specific requirements. By the time I'd gotten to the end...ohh, boy. All the characters were different, but Helena more than anyone. That spiraling mass of gray matter had finally condensed into a star, but her side-winding trail through the first draft of my story left a detritus of obsolete character actions and scenes.

Arianna, on the other hand, had come into her story almost as wise as she left it--definitely not what you want from a fourteen-year-old princess out in the wilds of her own country for the first time.

For both of these characters, I first had to find their ending-points before I could really decide their beginnings. When I was in school, I always wrote my essays straight through, and then pasted my conclusion into the beginning, so that it looked like my meandering path to the point was intentional. Sometimes, I'd even go back and fix the rest of the essay to more concisely reflect that. Thankfully, I'm a more diligent writer than I was a student.

What I discovered for my characters was that, once I knew who they were when they exited the story, I could use that essence of character and take them backwards a few steps, logically, based on what happens in the story. I could decide for them a stage from which to grow, and change, and develop into that character I had finally come to know by the end. In short, I messed with the starting-point of their character-journey to make the road to their destination more poignant and noticeable.

What kind of things do you learn about your characters in a first-draft? How do your characters' personal journeys evolve and change as you write, and from draft-to-draft? Would you/have you made changes to a story because of a character's need to be dynamic?

Do Daily Word-Count Goals Hurt Your Writing?

Last year, a writer friend named Munsi wrote one story a day for an entire year.

Boy is mad as a gong farmer, if you ask me, but I was inspired, so here goes.

At the beginning of the year, I set myself a daily word-count goal of 500 words a day, six days a week, or the equivalent of 3,000 words per week. It's not much more than two pages a day, which I thought was fair enough, given that I was working 40 hours every week, with an additional 10 hours of driving on top of that. I didn't want to discourage myself with a goal I couldn't meet, so I set the bar lower than I thought I could achieve.

After two weeks, I had consistently hit the weekly goal, but there was a problem: I still wasn't writing every day, and what I was writing wasn't very good.

I came to the realization that my daily word-count goal was not too much for me to handle--it was actually too little.

The writing process is different for everyone, and it changes for me depending on the story. I can drop into just about any part of THE MARKMASTERS TRILOGY by reading the previous paragraph, but it takes me couple pages to warm up to HELLHOUND, which is still an infant story compared to the 9-year-toil that has been MM3. At the moment, I'm working on HELLHOUND, so getting back into the story takes me a good fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes during which I can have no interruptions, including those I make myself.

At first, I tried to write 500 words every day, even days when I was dead tired. I would sit down and scowl and bang out 543 words and call it a night. The next day, I would do the same thing. The result was a single scene in which the writing was disjointed and the characters' moods veered drastically.

It stopped being worth making myself write every day just to get 500 measly little words I'd probably end up erasing, especially when I could spend 15 minutes picking up the threads tomorrow and write 1000 instead. :D (<--The face I make when I can rationalize procrastinating.)

Then I realized something.

I hate spreading out work. If you read my post about pressure, you already know that I never started on papers until the deadline was imminent. Part of that is because I hate spreading the work out. I'm all for outlining. I'm all for portioning things out in chunks that make sense, but I need to really throw myself into it. I fail at organized spurts the same way I fail at naps (<--which is like failing at life, but on a first-grade level).

In short, I am a marathoner (<--like hot-stuff over here).

Why should I expend the energy it takes to get into a piece for a short spat of work, when I could work more, get better cohesion, and feel much less cranky about writing by doing more in a single sitting. I like knowing that, when I sit down to write, I'm going to accomplish something big.

I decided to kick the daily-word-count goal out like I was Jayne and word-count was tact and discretion and set a weekly goal that was higher than my current pace of 40,000 words.

So, in keeping with my pressure and accountability strategy, I told Raven that I would write 5,000 words by the following Sunday. She stipulated that, if I didn't, I had to buy her dinner.

Well, sorry, Raven. I was the early bird this time. No food for you, because I GOT THE WORd-count. <--FAIL (But also win.)

I wrote 5,500 words in a weekend. The following week, I wrote over 10,000. And this week?

I'm going to FINISH HELLHOUND (or there will be dire consequences).

So here's my suggestion. As my friend Shauna often says, it's only worth what you paid for (which is nothing):

Make sure your word-count goals reflect the kind of writer you are.

If you're a marathoner, like me, set your goals over the course of a week.

If you're a sprinter, set the word-count goal at shorter intervals.

So here's my question to you: Are you a marathoner or a sprinter? Have you ever found yourself in a slump because of low expectations? What kind of word-count goals do you set for yourself?

How Pressure and Accountability Help Me Write

I set out with a series of writing goals this year, and the three quantifiable ones are finishing the first draft of HELLHOUND, revising THE MARK OF FLIGHT, and writing 3,000 words per week. I want to talk a about how each of the goals is going, but a recent podcast by Mur Lafferty over at I Should Be Writing reminded me of a conversation my lovely Pendragon Variety cohost, Raven (right), and I had. I'll talk about my goals another day. Today, I want to address something that I think is a really difficult topic that a lot of budding writers struggle with:

HAVING ENOUGH TIME TO WRITE

Now, it’s pretty easy for any of us to say “if my main job was writing, I could churn out 4,000 words a day!” Saying something, however, is quite different from doing it. When it comes to writing, my two best friends are pressure and accountability. I’ll tell you a story to explain why:

Recessioooon; recession!

When I came back from Japan in September, I was unemployed. With nothing but an English degree and three years of TESL experience adorning my resume, I was fairly certain my quest for employment would take months. I start my new job on February 21^st, putting me at nearly SIX months of unemployment. Thank God for free rent, a credit card, and temp work.

I decided to utilize the time during my job search as a time to buckle down and do some writing. Okay, so I was going through re-entry culture shock, but beyond that, there wasn’t much keeping me from accomplishing that goal. The thing is, I don’t feel like I got any more work done than I would have had I been solidly employed. Okay, maybe being unemployed for NaNoWriMo did give me the advantage, but on a good day after work I can write three or four thousand words, especially if I don’t have work the next day. My point is this:

My writing productivity is not dependant on the amount of free time I have, It’s about my PERCEPTION of that amount.

(Now, a really mathy-type person could come up with a formula to explain this. Somehow, I don't think Math 112 covered that.)

Then I get a block of free time with no foreseeable end, and suddenly I feel like I have loads of time. It’s true! During my recent stretch of unemployment, I had so much free time that, if free time were gold coins, I’d have been backstroking through it like Scrooge McDuck. Knowing that I have so much time, however, had the unfortunate side-effect of taking away the pressure to use that time for writing. The necessity to go write right now was not as strong, so I dithered. I surfed the internet. I caught up on K/J-dramas. I spent time with my friends IRL. I told myself, “I’ll write this evening”, or “after one more episode”, or “when I get back home tomorrow”.I don’t have a problem making myself write. I believe people who are successful at balancing a day job and a writing career (or hobby) are successful because they make writing their priority. Not video-games. Not watching TV. Not surfing the net. Some days, writing isn’t my priority, but I find that the less time I have, the higher it gets on my list. I’m the kind of person that itches to get out of work, run to a coffee-shop, and dash off two-thousand words. I snatch spare moments at work to add another line or two to the middle of a scene. I make notes to myself in the car using my iPhone’s voice-memo app.

That isn’t to say I wasn’t productive during unemployment—quite the opposite, I: survived the holidays; wrote most of a novella; dreamed up, outlined, and wrote 3/4ths of a novel; planned and executed a wedding; started a writing club; worked as a temp; and finally found a real job. Looking back, though, I think about how much time I dithered away on things I usually dee

m “time-wasters”, and I can’t help but cringe. No, watching Dr. Who isn’t a waste of time—it’s actually inspired some really interesting though

ts that have changed my perception of one of the characters in my trilogy. Getting into K-dramas helped me to understand the culture one of the characters I’m currently writing is coming from (as well as providing the name for my new cat, Iljimae, and my newest celebrity crush, Li Jun Ki [below...*sigh*]).

But are these the kind of things I spend my time on when I’m going to school or working a regular job? No.

I guess my writing productivity is like a steam-engine. Anyone can boil water in a pan, but pressure is needed to turn that steam into productivity; to create pressure we need to give that steam parameters. I work much more efficiently if I have a cap on the amount of time in which to accomplish a goal, because the pressure to accomplish it is there. When I was in High School and University, I never started papers early (note: I do not advise this method) because I could always manage an A or B by starting the day before. Research papers? A week before. It was hard to force myself to start early without the pressure of a ticking clock.

Accountability is my friend.

November was the most productive writing month of my entire unemployment, even though my birthday, three family-members’ birthdays, Thanksgiving, and my Grandfather’s final wake were all in that month. The reason was simple: NaNoWriMo. I had a goal to reach. Not a personal goal, but a serious goal with a status bar and a deadline. Those parameters were in place, and I was at 65,000 words before December 1^st. This has happened to me before, with the rough draft of my first novel. I made a bet with my friend Skrybbi (of Doubleshotoflauren.com) that I could finish by the end of summer. I did it. Just barely, but I did.

WANT TO KNOW HOW MY FRIENDS HOLD ME ACCOUNTABLE? Watch This:

So what was it that got me to follow the “butt in chair, fingers on keys, words come out” doctrine? Accountability. Having someone who knows my goals and will see me meet or fail to meet them brings out the competitive drive in me.

Having some sort of structure imposed on my life is what keeps the days from meshing together into indistinguishable stretches of gray something-or-other when I couldn’t tell you what I’ve been up to. It’s what keeps the hours and the minutes ticking down where I can see them, what keeps me aware that I didn’t write 500 words on my story yesterday. It’s what will probably ensure I’ll write at least 1,000 words today. Having someone to hold me accountable for my goals helps me to keep that clock ticking, keep that steam engine going. So clearly, for me, having enough time to write isn’t the issue.

What kinds of things do you prioritize over writing? Do you think having more time would help or hurt your writing priority? Does anyone hold you accountable for your writing?

Answer in the comments!

HELLHOUND

HELLHOUND

Shapeshifting "Hellhound" Helena Martin isn't sure who she hates more, the sorcerers who fired the magic-laced bullet, or the cruel master who used her mother as a shield. She always figured they would finish each other off without her help, and if she just kept her head down she might survive them both. But when a battle with the Sorcerer's Guild destroys the spell binding the Hellhounds to their demon-summoning master, Helena risks using her secret aptitude for magic to aid her pack's escape. Finally free of the insidious spell, Helena believes she might actually have a chance to live without the violence and heartbreak she grew up with. But her pack has different ideas.

Not only do they ditch Miami for the winter wasteland of Minnesota, enroll her in University, and saddle her with a stolen book of spells, they also expect her somehow to cut off the source of Gwydhain’s power by closing the gate to the demon realm. It’s hard enough to act normal around her geeky-hot new housemate Jaesung without sprinkling salt around doors, blowing up her window, and getting arrested for streaking. With her stumbling, self-taught Magic drawing the attention of the local Sorcerer's Guild, keeping her Magic-wielding canine status on the down-low might just be impossible.

But as Helena refuses demands to hand over her book of spells, the Guild's methods of coercion become increasingly violent and she realizes the humans that were supposed to be her cover have slowly become a liability, for they give her the one thing she misses most of all--a home. Then her master's agents catch up with them and Helena--untrained, isolated, and with more to lose than ever--has only one chance to keep her pack and her human friends safe: make peace with the sorcerers who killed her mother.

(*Note: This is not the original summary for this post, but the one based on revisions.)


(Cleolinda) Time for a trip to the department of backstory. (/Cleolinda)

So, a couple days before NaNoWriMo started, I was going through Holly Lisle's "How To Write Page-Turning Scenes" book, and I did an exercise scene on interpersonal conflict, which produced a very intriguing scene. I didn't think much of it at the time besides, "Huh. It's not complete, but I wonder if I could use it on Pendragon Variety." Then I got to thinking. What is this character exactly, since she isn't entirely human? Why is this book so important? Why is her Godfather handing the book over to someone who wants to kill her? Who is this RA that has screwed everything up, and why does she like him?

Before I knew it, I had decided she was a Hellhound (which really meant nothing to me at the time) and I had a couple scene ideas in my head. I was willing to ignore it for a while, since I've never really been a huge fan of supernatural fantasy. I played VtM and WtA in High School, but it wasn't nearly as engaging as D&D for me - while it's intriguing to contemplate the definition of humanity and the struggle not to nom the face off someone you love, I'm not generally a huge fan of vampires or werewolves or shape-shifters, at least not as they've become in modern fiction. I heard horror stories of a once-respectable and interesting supernatural fantasy series turning into novel-length sex-scenes interrupted by the occasional criminal investigation. My feelings are best summed up by the following (un)smiley: (. _ . );;

Celtic Warriors becoming Demon-Fighting Hounds? HELL yes.

Don't get me wrong - I'm a fangirl about plenty of things. I cosplay; I surf the internet for macros of my favorite bands; I have been known to read (and write) fanfiction. But when my beloved fantasy section suddenly became saturated with a genre I wasn't into, leaving little room for anything else, my desire to wade through the wave of silvered jackets for something a little closer to "human girl accidentally bonds with a draconian enemy on the brink of inter-species war" collapsed.

Because of my relative distance from supernatural (romance) fantasy, I shuffled the idea aside, because I didn't really want to write just one more book in that wave.

I was planning to use NaNoWriMo to finish the second half of Book II in the Markmasters Trilogy, but as I continued with "How to Write Page-Turning Scenes" I ran across a reference to Holly Lisle's notecarding method. I gave it a shot using what little of the scenes I had come up with. Lo and behold, by the end of the day (Halloween, 2010, to be exact), I had an entire plot for a new novel. I was going to do NaNoWriMo.

No Vampires. No Werewolves. No Fallen Angels, and no Zombies. I am a bit guilty of having shapeshifters, but don't worry--there is no furry porn in my book. There is magic, though. And Celtic warriors. And spirals. And Starcraft. (Hey, the love interest is Korean. And a geek. You know he plays Starcraft.) There *might* be a girl in hound form shamelessly taking advantage of her crush's soft spot for dogs. Hey, if I could become a hound at will, I might shove my nose in a couple crotches too. Just for fun.