Becoming A Fiction Writer
One girl, one dream … and a whole lot of procrastination
October 15, 2008 by amanda

Where do my ideas come from? A mind mapping experiment and contest

Over at a blog I often read called The Writer’s Technology Companion they’re running a contest on mind-mapping -a technique my visual-learning brain rather likes – and the theme was “where do you get ideas”. That’s where this colourful mind map sprung from. In fact my ideas come from so many different sources that I ran out of room to represent them all, but you get the idea. It’s no grand amazing news or anything, but it was fun for me to flick through my lil’ green notebook of ideas and remember how each one came to be.

Permalink | Posted in Fiction Comps, Inspiration for Writers, Writing Contests | 3 Comments »

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October 14, 2008 by amanda

Adding to my reading list with the 2008 Man Booker Prize winner

I’ve been curiously anticipating the announcement of the 2008 Man Booker Prize winner since I heard a Book Show podcast a week or two ago – an interview with an academic who’s headed to the UK to research the judges’ notes and behind-the-scenes documentation of the Booker. During this podcast there was much discussion of what kind of book wins the Booker, especially in recent years – for example, an ethnic writer from a place like India is seeming to have more chance these days than a white, resident Brit.

(Incidentally, I’m not sure how well-known the Booker Prize is to any of my US readers – but it’s given to novelists from the Commonwealth, which of course includes Australia, and is why we always hear a lot about it here.)

I’d always imagined the judging panel for the Booker would consist of the best literary minds of the Commonwealth. It doesn’t. Not to detract from this year’s, or any year’s, judging panel, but it strikes me that they are a bunch of near-normal people, including some who may not know a whole lot about books. This year Louise Doughty is on the list, a novelist I heard speak a couple of times at this year’s Perth Writers Festival, so of course she does know something about books, but since she’s still intensely involved in creating them herself, seems almost a bit “young” for this kind of panel. And it’s led by Michael Portillo, an ex-politician; perhaps it’s just a British thing, but there are very few Aussie politicians I’d feel happy with being on this kind of panel.

As I write this, the Booker Prize hasn’t quite been decided – it’s being awarded tonight, British time, and I’ve learnt that the judges don’t even know the winner yet – apparently they meet just a couple of hours before to make the final decision. I already went through the shortlist a while ago and placed reservations for those novels at my local library (sorry, I can’t afford to buy them all) so I hope to be reading the Booker winner within the next few weeks.  And when I find out who the winner is I’ll add a small note in here so you can all rush out to read him (or her, but there’s only one female writer on the shortlist so the odds are low!).

Next day edit:

Well, lo and behold, an Indian writer won again! Although Aravind Adiga, whose novel The White Tiger has won the 2008 Booker, was apparently partly raised in Australia so thumbs up to that. Oh, and I don’t have anything at all against Indian writers, it was just interesting after hearing the podcast that mentioned it as a trend, along with going to early-career novelists – this is Adiga’s first. Last week, without realising it was a shortlisted Booker novel, I saw a guy reading it on the train and was intrigued by the cover. But annoyingly it’s the only title from the Booker shortlist that my local library doesn’t have – I’m sure it’ll be on the way soon though.

Permalink | Posted in Fiction World News | No Comments »

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October 14, 2008 by amanda

Surprising myself with a short story for the Christmas season

With my teaching load finally reduced (I’ve been doing extra work at that job for the past three months or so – there’s a massive shortage of ESL teachers in Perth!), this week I have actually had two days at home to get my writing work done. Of course, I actually need about three or four, but two days is certainly better than one. And it was great timing because I’ve been trying to write a Christmas-themed short story for a contest which closes tomorrow.

The idea for the story has been sitting in my head for ages – well years, actually, since I visited “the real Santa” in Finnish Lapland a few Christmases back. But I had almost given up hope of having time to get the story out and looking good in time for this contest deadline, until I woke up early this morning and realised that I had enough time to give it a go and still make the rest of my regular writing deadlines today.

The story is half fun and half serious, but I had a lot of fun writing it. And the best surprise of all was the ending, because it changed. About half way through I suddenly remembered the advice I’d used in the last 24-hour short story contest: to lead the plot towards a twist, and then suddenly twist again in the other direction! And I managed to do that with this story (successfully, I hope) and I really rather like it. And it’s quite rare that I say that about a short story I’ve written – I often despise them later.

Anyway, the result of the morning’s work is that after having no more than an outline, I now have a 2,500 word short story sitting on the dinner table to edit later. (And take at least 250 words out, using Stephen King’s 10% rule!). Of course, I may already despise it by the time I read it again later on, but I hope not, and in any case it’ll definitely be heading in to the contest tomorrow.

Permalink | Posted in Fiction Comps, Short Stories, Writing Contests | 2 Comments »

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October 13, 2008 by amanda

Enjoying editing my novel with someone else’s eyes

Pat me on the back, please, because I have finally got past my read-it-in-one-sitting procrastination problem and am now editing, bit by bit, my first novel manuscript.

If you’ve been paying attention over the past year or so you will know that this poor novel has already seen quite a few incarnations. It began as the scrappy product of a frantic NaNoWriMo experience in November 2007 and then got brushed up and rewritten with a few additions (at one stage, five extra chapters) for submission to a couple of contests. Each time I felt like I was cheating myself a little bit, because by writing to a strict contest deadline I wasn’t rewriting as much as I felt the novel deserved.

So now I’m really going for it. I’ve had a couple of sessions with a cup of fruit tea and a pen, sitting on the couch with my printed manuscript open in a ring binder on my lap. Editing away from the computer is really a lovely thing and I’m enjoying it so much.

As I edit, I’m scribbling all kinds of notes all over the place. Enough time has passed that I feel quite detached from this manuscript and am seeing it with really quite fresh eyes, and am able to cheerfully add question marks and notes to reconsider various parts of the text, as though I’m telling a friend rather than myself. Curiously (for me) I’m often not solving these problems on this first read-through, just marking them as questions – “Is this OK or …?” kind of questions – to think about again later.

Thanks to Stephen King I am also ferociously deleting adverbs. Well, except for ferociously. But seriously, in my manuscript I am taking out nearly every adverb I see (and I’m happy there are less than I would have expected) and either using a stronger verb or just letting the rest of the sentence stand for itself. It makes sense. I’m also remembering his rule of deleting 10% of a manuscript between drafts. I am cutting ruthlessly. (Damn, there’s another adverb). And I don’t feel so bad about it.

It’s early days in this extensive edit – I’m only into the second chapter – but it is really a lot of fun. Fixing up everything after I’ve finished the edit might not be quite as fun, but I know that the end product will be a novel that’s eminently (!) more readable and is something I think I’ll be able to start shipping round to agents.

Permalink | Posted in Fiction Writing Tips, Writing Novels | No Comments »

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October 12, 2008 by amanda

Maybe Comotivate will motivate me

While I’m still working on revising my first manuscript (more on that later – it’s going well!), I’m trying to get going with novel #2 as well. I was about to write “trying to get disciplined” about writing novel #2, but I remembered a recent Zen Habits post with the enticing (if sensationalist) title The Only Two Secrets to Motivating Yourself You’ll Ever Need. Leo made a very valid point that sticking to your goals is not a matter of discipline, but a matter of motivation: if you make your goals motivating enough for you, then you will achieve them without the military-style push of “discipline”. That makes sense to me.

So anyhow, speaking of motivation, the owner of the Comotivate website contacted me recently because he’d (rightly) heard that I’m interested in achieving goals. Comotivate is a quite new website (actually it’s still in beta) that aims to connect up like-minded people who are trying to achieve similar goals. For example, my goal is listed in the Write a book goal list although I’ve yet to find a buddy or a team to join. By far the biggest number of people have joined up with health-related goals like getting fit or losing weight.

But I really like the idea and encourage you to check Comotivate out if you’re like me and need a bit of support to reach one of your goals … and especially if you’re trying to write a book too then search for me and “buddy up”! It’s easy to find me on Comotivate because my username is amandak and my picture is of my cat Lucy.

Permalink | Posted in Anti-Procrastination, Goals and Motivation | 5 Comments »

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October 5, 2008 by amanda

“Read it in one sitting” = another procrastination excuse

It’s quite incredible, really, just how many different ways there are for a budding writer to procrastinate. Well, especially when that budding writer is someone like me.

You may remember I got quite enthusiastic about revisiting my first novel draft after I re-read Stephen King’s On Writing. I’ve got a brand new draft printed off in a ring binder (a pretty ring binder of course, because this particular procrastinating writer loves cool stationery). I’ve got a list of everything I want to look for when I re-read it, including mechanical kind of stuff like too many adverbs, and deeper stuff like enhancing the theme and symbolism.

So, this attractive ring binder has now been sitting on the floor next to my bed for over a week. I’m enthusiastic and tempted to pick it up often, but I’ve been stopping myself with one bit of King’s advice: I should re-read it all in one sitting.

And it took me until today to realise that this is just my subconscious procrastinator at work.

Of course, in an ideal world re-reading a novel draft in one sitting makes a lot of sense. You’ll clearly remember the details of the story so you’ll pick up any contradictions or changes along the way that don’t fit. You’ll have a mental picture of the characters nicely fresh in your mind so you can check that their motivations work throughout the story, and that they’re developing as they should. And so on.

But it is probably only writers like King who have the hours available to re-read an entire novel (even a short-ish one like mine) in one sitting. I can’t imagine when the time would come that I have six or seven hours to sit down and slowly and lovingly read this novel, making copious notes along the way and really sinking myself inside it.

Now that I’ve finally figured out the error of my ways, I’ll pick that ring binder up tonight and start reading and notetaking before I go to bed. I promise.

Permalink | Posted in Anti-Procrastination, Writing Novels | 3 Comments »

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