More learning

Last night I turned in my second short story assignment for the anthology workshop I’m taking – yay!!! It was a lot easier than the first assignment (no surfing in this one!), but it still was an awful lot of work.

I came up with an idea right away, and I felt that it would technically fit the assignment but probably wouldn’t be what the editor for this particular anthology would be looking for. This workshop is structured so a different editor is buying stories for each of the six anthologies. There’s no guarantee that I’ll sell any of my stories, but part of the goal of this class is to learn how to make it more likely to get a story accepted. So when I was thinking about my first idea (a Western) and then started to ponder the second (a ghost story), I felt that the ghost story was probably a better fit. As an added bonus, the Western story I wanted to write was going to eventually be a chapter in a planned novel, and in thinking through how to write it for this anthology I figured out a few things that will make it work much better for the novel. (Assuming I remember to write them down after I finish this post…)

I titled this story “Haunted” – it was originally “Hunted” but, as often happens, the story changed a little as I wrote it. After the last story, I decided I should have a really good handle on what I was going to write before I started because I have so little time to write – especially this past week. By the weekend I’d put together a complete outline and had researched the one thing I didn’t know enough about. The outline really helped, and it turned out the actual writing took a lot longer than I’d expected. Obviously writing time will vary from story to story, but this was a really good learning experience because I usually either don’t have a deadline, or I have a deadline for a class where the story can be more of a first draft, so it’s okay to hand in a first draft because I know I’ll be able to polish the story later. I learned that to get to a final draft of a brand new story takes quite a bit of time.

Coming up with a new plot, new setting, and new characters takes a lot of energy as well as time. I’m looking forward to going back to editing the novel because that feels easy in comparison. Those characters are known, and even though I need to rewrite one major scene I’ll be using characters I’m already familiar with. I knew all of this stuff going in to the latest assignment, but at this point it’s all much more obvious. For the next four assignments (which won’t be given until January…whew!) I’m going to see if I can leave work early one or two days during the week so that I can get the first drafts written sooner. (Each assignment is given on a Monday and is due the following Sunday.)

I’m glad to have had this lesson. Not only will this help me schedule time and (hopefully) create better stories for the remaining assignments, this gives me information I can use for any story I write. I’m trying to pay attention to how long things take so that I can get more efficient and make what little writing time I have be as productive as possible.

And now…back to the novel! 🙂

2015-12-15 Wonderland Lake

Unfamiliarity

Last night I finished one of the hardest stories I’ve written to date. It’s a really simple story, but it involves things I’m not familiar with, and this proved to be a real challenge. Normally I look at this type of situation as an opportunity to do research and learn new things, and it certainly was that, but because of the nature of the story – it involves surfing – it was really hard for me.

I can swim, but it’s never been one of my favorite things to do. I’d rather sit on a beach and watch the ocean instead of swim. I do like floating around on a raft, at least as long as the water isn’t too deep. So it’s highly unlikely that I’m ever going to try surfing. I did a fair amount of research, and looked at photos that made me wish I didn’t mind getting my face wet (but I still do), so I think I did reasonably well on the facts. But writing about something where I feel I know very little, and then adding in the fact that I wanted to set this in a real place that I haven’t been to, turned this story into something very challenging for me to write.

I found myself questioning descriptions in a way that I never do because I was worried I was describing the location inaccurately. I originally had the story set in a very specific place, then removed all but one reference to the location. The only thing that remains is a reference in the opening to Oahu, so you know you’re in Hawaii, but the exact surfing spot is unclear. I’d like to think I described it in a way that makes it clear, but who knows … maybe it’s better if no one figures it out. 🙂 I also found I was so fretful about the whole thing that I procrastinated like crazy. I finished the first draft yesterday morning, and had to turn the final version in by midnight.

I wrote this story for an assignment for an anthology writing workshop I’m taking in Oregon in a few months. For this workshop you get six assignments ahead of time, write all six stories and turn them in, then before the workshop the other students and a group of about 7 editors reads every story. The editors are actually buying stories for six different anthologies, and in the workshop they’ll go through all of the stories and discuss why they do/don’t want to buy each – and they’ll really buy and publish the ones they want. I have several friends who have been to this class (this is the third year) and they all say it’s a fabulous learning experience because you get to see what the editors think about so many different works. You get the assignment on a Monday and have to turn in your story by Sunday. I got today’s assignment this morning and have to turn that story in by next Sunday. Then we get a few weeks off for the holidays before receiving the next assignment. Each “assignment” is a call for an anthology, like any other you’d see.

The only negative for me personally is that in the past they started giving the short story assignments in January, so I had set aside December to wrap up the novel … and this year they started giving out the assignments in December. Ack!!!

I did get my story finished and turned in, and I feel that it was a really good learning experience. At one point I thought about switching topics, but decided it would be good to write outside my comfort zone. And it was, but I’m looking forward to writing about something more familiar for the next assignment. 🙂

2015-12-12 Sanitas

Novels are big

I’ve written one before so you’d think this wouldn’t be a surprise, but wow. Writing a novel is way more work than a short story, or even a novella. It’s not just that it’s a longer work. You have to keep track of tons of details, like suppose you mention that your character is wearing a jacket in one scene, then the next time you’re in their point of view they’re wearing a T-shirt. Where did the jacket go? And in case you’re wondering, in my current novel one of the characters is wearing a jacket because she’s chilly, and now I’m stuck with either having her lose it somewhere, or lugging it along for the next two days because in most of the rest of the scenes it’s too warm to wear the jacket.

The novel is coming along well, in spite of still being unnamed, but it’s been slower going than I expected. On the one hand this is good – it is only my second novel, and it’s helpful to get a handle on how much work each stage is. Work on the first book was spread out over so long that in retrospect it’s hard to remember how long the various phases took. (And these are my phases – I know many other writers, and we all do things differently.) On the other hand, the pace is immensely frustrating. I took the past week off, and have worked on the manuscript for seven days in a row. I’ve made great progress, and am very happy with how things are going, but I expected to be much further along. So … next time I’ll remember this and plan accordingly. I also think my new approach to outlining will help as well. This novel had a very rough outline, and in going through the manuscript it’s been quite clear which sections I’d thought through and which sections I left to deal with later. I hadn’t touched this story for two years, and in comparison to my more recent work, this has many more holes, and the holes are much larger than what I’d be willing to leave now. Hopefully I’m right, and I’m significantly more efficient than I was two years ago. But we’ll see once I start to polish the novel that’s lined up after this one. 🙂

Jasper and Rosie were actually happy, they just wanted to play in the snow instead of pose.
Jasper and Rosie were actually happy, they just wanted to play in the snow instead of pose.