With Nanowrimo in full swing, I thought it was time to break out a few helpful links for those few, those brave few, those band of frumious bandersnatches who were fighting their way through this tulgy wood.

This is a blog post from 2011, from Literary Lab, and you should read it. Regardless of whether you're doing Nanowrimo, really, because it has some very helpful things to say.

You can read my original fifty thoughts on writing here. I still need to finish the essay series that goes with it, but the thoughts are solid, and I continue to stand by them.

There are a lot of resources out there to help you, and I hope you have the best November ever. I hope every one of you hits the finish line with a glorious and resounding "gong." I also hope that if you don't make your final goal, that you won't give up on your new project (or the old one you dusted off for this exercise). I don't often finish books in a single month, and I am essentially a word Olympian right now, constantly in training, constantly trying to beat my best time. So however far you get in this sprint, it is amazing and you are amazing, and you should feel good about yourself.

Happy Nanowrimo, and happy November to all of you.

Every year around this time, someone says to me "Gosh, I've never been to the San Diego International Comic Convention before. I don't see what the big deal is. I really don't believe it's as big as everybody tries to make me think it is." And every year, I smack myself in the head and update this guide and pray for their survival.

Since I've been posting these obsessively-detailed Guides to Comic-con on a yearly basis for some time now, I strongly suspect these people are being aimed at me. But since I love you all (those of you I know, anyway; I am well-inclined by amiably indifferent toward those of you who just came in out of the cold), and want you to have the best convention experience you possibly can, I have once again updated my Handy-Dandy Survival Guide to the San Diego International Comic Convention. See? It's handy and dandy, and that means it must be good! This guide includes tips on:

* Reaching the convention alive.
* Getting a hotel room.
* Enjoying/surviving the con.
* Things to do at the con.
* Eating food.
* Staying healthy and sane.
* Not getting killed by your friends.
* Budgeting.
* Bathing.

It is also heavily biased toward my own opinions on all these things, because hello, totally me. But I'm honest about my biases, and I'll be factual whenever it's fact, rather than opinion. (In short, don't expect me to falsify hotel room rates to suit my own ideas of "fair," but don't expect me to recommend a good Thai place, either.)

Ready? Okay!

( Click here for Seanan's handy-dandy Comic-con survival guide! Read and be enlightened in all the ways that matter, which is to say, all the ways that Seanan actually thought of. Freshly updated for 2014.Collapse )

Welcome to the forty-seventh essay in my fifty-essay series on the art, craft, business, and occasional insanity that is writing. All fifty of the essays in this series are based around my original fifty thoughts on writing, which means I only have three essays to go. Hooray! Our thought for today:

Thoughts on Writing #47: Different Strokes.

And now, because context is king, our expanded thought:

It's okay to be silly. It's okay to be serious, too. If a serious writer sniffs at you for writing comedy, or a comic writer tries to call you a stick in the mud, laugh. You're the one who's doing the writing.

There's this amazing tendency among humans to go "what I'm doing is awesome, what you're doing is not." We apply it to everything, from flavors of ice cream to professional callings. The thing is, it's very rarely fair. We're almost never comparing two roller coasters, one of which has a triple inversion and a great storyline, the other of which has gone three days without killing a park guest. Instead, we're comparing kittens and puppies, apples and oranges, and sometimes, kittens and oranges. So how do we handle things with grace?

Today we're going to be talking about apples and oranges, why both are awesome, and why no one gets to tell you which one to put in your lunch box.

Ready? Good. Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on doing the hard stuff.Collapse )

So several people have said, basically, "self-promotion is hard." They are not wrong. And one person has said, "you should really give helpful hints." Also not wrong, although given my "90% of all advice is bullshit" stance on anything not self-explanatory, like "don't lick toads" and "don't go spelunking in the whale carcass," possibly just a way to get me to bullshit for a little while. Regardless, here are ten things to keep in mind about self-promotion.

1. There is no "one size fits all" solution; there is no magic bullet. What works for me will not necessarily work for you. What works for you will not necessarily work for Jim. You need to really look at both the logistics and the potential impact of any promotion efforts before you commit to them, because you only get so many shots. Which leads us to...

2. You only get so many shots. You have how many opportunities to make a first impression? Right. One. Assume that the average reader who is interested in your genre and could possibly be convinced to give you a second glance is willing to give you as many as four opportunities to be impressive. This is a very, very generous estimate; most readers will give you one shot, maybe two, because there is a lot of stuff out there to read. So if you run three unsolicited BUY MY BOOK BUY MY BOOK BUY MY BOOK Twitter campaigns, you only have one more chance to reach that reader. That unimpressed reader.

3. Most people don't like junk mail. Don't be junk mail. I can literally count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've received something in the mail that I didn't ask for, looked at it, and gone "oooo, yes, I want this thing." Well, if you send me a bulk email without my having asked for it, you're in that mailbox. Does it work sometimes? Yeah. Send 1,000 emails, sell three books. But you've potentially just associated yourself, however wrongly, with the word "spammer" in 997 readers' heads.

4. Be appropriate to the venue. Let's say Olga wrote a book. And let's say she's been thinking a lot about promotion. She sees this article. She sees people talking about promotion, and books, and hey, that Seanan girl's a writer, right? All her commenters must be readers! So Olga goes around and replies to every single comment with "let me tell you about my book." Olga has now been inappropriate to the venue, and odds are she's gathered very few sales.

5. Building a brand is more vital than flogging a single book. I love the cover to Discount Armageddon, almost as much as I love the book itself. It's exactly what I wanted. Some others were not so impressed, since it was the first portrayal of a sexualized character on one of my books (and so PINK!). Many of them bought the book anyway. Why? Because I have built my brand, and they knew they could trust me. Sometimes the sales of book one will not rock your world. But they'll increase awareness for book two, and that can be vital.

6. Do not put yourself in a box. There are a thousand ways to promote yourself without resorting to junk mail and thread-jacking. Buy ad space on popular web comics. Do guest blogs. Send review copies to book bloggers you trust. Sign up for things like Scalzi's Big Idea. Don't just go "oh, I found the one way, I'm good." That way lies madness.

7. You will never have all the readers. It is not possible, barring your becoming the next Stephen King or Stephanie Meyer, for you to have name-recognition with all the readers, much less be read by all the readers. Even King and Meyer don't have all the readers. Maybe people don't read them. It's just that many more people do. Don't freak out about the ones who won't read you, they were never going to read you anyway.

8. It does not end. Yesterday, I emailed a reviewer that I know isn't on any of my lists and asked if she wanted a copy of Ashes of Honor. Today, I will give away two ARCs. Tomorrow, I will go to a convention. Promo never ends, and if you think it does, you're going to be very sad.

9. Choose sincerity. You can't just do things with the photo op in mind; you have to do them because you want to, because they're the right thing, because they're fun or awesome or somehow make you happy. That's promo, too. The ripple effect works.

10. Once someone says stop, you need to stop. The number of times I've seen an author permanently alienate a reader or group of readers by continuing a) to barrage them with promo, and b) explain their brilliant idea is...bad. It's definitely not good. Now, I am not saying "do not blog about your book." Your blog is YOUR SPACE, and anyone who's going to get pissed at you for talking about something that is a huge chunk of your life in YOUR SPACE is a jerk and you don't need them. But if you follow me around Facebook trying to explain your genius, we're not going to be besties.

There. Those are my helpful hints. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go spelunking in a whale carcass.

Every year around this time, someone says to me "Gosh, I've never been to the San Diego International Comic Convention before. I don't see what the big deal is. I really don't believe it's as big as everybody tries to make me think it is." And every year, I smack myself in the head and update this guide and pray for their survival.

Since I've been posting these obsessively-detailed Guides to Comicon on a yearly basis for some time now, I strongly suspect these people are being aimed at me. But since I love you all (those of you I know, anyway; I am well-inclined by amiably indifferent toward those of you who just came in out of the cold), and want you to have the best convention experience you possibly can, I have once again updated my Handy-Dandy Survival Guide to the San Diego International Comic Convention. See? It's handy and dandy, and that means it must be good! This guide includes tips on:

* Reaching the convention alive.
* Getting a hotel room.
* Enjoying/surviving the con.
* Things to do at the con.
* Eating food.
* Staying healthy and sane.
* Not getting killed by your friends.
* Budgeting.
* Bathing.

It is also heavily biased toward my own opinions on all these things, because hello, totally me. But I'm honest about my biases, and I'll be factual whenever it's fact, rather than opinion. (In short, don't expect me to falsify hotel room rates to suit my own ideas of "fair," but don't expect me to recommend a good Thai place, either.)

Ready? Okay!

( Click here for Seanan's handy-dandy Comicon survival guide! Read and be enlightened in all the ways that matter, which is to say, all the ways that Seanan actually thought of. Freshly updated for 2012.Collapse )

The time has come for the forty-sixth essay in my fifty-essay series on the art, craft, and barely controlled interpretive mosh pit that is writing. I know, it's been a little while. Blame my deadlines. All fifty of the essays in this series are based around my original fifty thoughts on writing, meaning that I'm nearly done. Yay!

Now, to the essay itself. Our thought for today:

Thoughts on Writing #46: "Easy" Is For Other People.

That's a little hard to follow. Here's today's expanded thought:

Not everything you write is going to be easy, and not everything you write is going to be fun, and if you think "easy" and "fun" are your rights as a writer, please go find something else to do. Every book has a chapter you don't want to finish. Every story has a connective segment you just want to be done with already. It's going to happen. Acknowledge it now, and when it hits, you won't be so surprised. But you'll still be a little surprised. The painful parts of a project are like ninjas, and they sneak up on you.

Writing a book is a lot like cleaning a house. For every counter you de-clutter or deliciously sweet-smelling sheet you tuck into place, there's a toilet to be cleaned, a stove to be scrubbed, and a distressing stain to be attacked with baking soda and prayer. If you only take care of the easy, fun parts, you're going to wind up with a house that's one part showroom, one part disaster...and the disaster will spread. The hard parts are often the important ones, even if they're the parts that no one appreciates but you.

Today we're going to be talking about the hard parts, why they matter, the forms that they take, and why you can't avoid them, no matter how hard you may try.

Ready? Good. Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on doing the hard stuff.Collapse )

Every year around this time, someone says to me "Gosh, I've never been to the San Diego International Comic Convention before. I don't see what the big deal is. I really don't believe it's as big as everybody tries to make me think it is." And every year, I smack myself in the head and update this guide and pray for their survival.

Since I've been posting these obsessively-detailed Guides to Comicon on a yearly basis for some time now, I strongly suspect that these people are being aimed at me. But since I love you all (those of you I know, anyway; I am well-inclined by amiably indifferent toward those of you who just came in out of the cold), and want you to have the best convention experience you can possibly have, I have once again updated my Handy-Dandy Survival Guide to the San Diego International Comic Convention. See? It's both handy and dandy, and that means it must be good! This guide includes tips on:

* Reaching the convention alive.
* Getting a hotel room.
* Enjoying/surviving the con.
* Things to do at the con.
* Eating food.
* Staying healthy and sane.
* Not getting killed by your friends.
* Budgeting.
* Bathing.

It is also heavily biased toward my own opinions on all these things, because hello, so totally me. But I'm honest about my biases, and I'll be factual whenever it's fact, rather than opinion. (In short, don't expect me to falsify hotel room rates to suit my own ideas of "fair," but don't expect me to recommend a good Thai place, either.)

Ready? Okay!

( Click here for Seanan's handy-dandy Comicon survival guide! Read and be enlightened in all the ways that matter, which is to say, all the ways that Seanan actually thought of. Freshly updated for 2011.Collapse )

At last we have reached the forty-fifth essay in my series of fifty essays on the artistic masochism that is the act of writing. Considering this whole thing was an accident, I think I'm going rather well. All fifty of these essays are based around my original fifty thoughts on writing, which means I am blessedly, mercifully, almost done. And there was much rejoicing.

Now, to the essay itself. Our thought for today:

Thoughts on Writing #45: You Brilliant Hack You.

Exposition is part of both these roles, so here's today's expanded thought:

You are brilliant and you are a hack. Sometimes you're going to be both in the same day. Embrace these two sides of your soul. Then bash their heads together until they start playing nice with each other, because nobody likes the golden goddess whose every word is a honeyed pearl, and nobody likes that other girl, either.

One truly of the fascinating things about the writing process is the self-contradictory nature of it all. You have to have enough faith in your skills and your ideas to sit down and put them on paper, where anyone can see them. And then, if you want to be a professional writer—if you want to actually do this for a living, rather than as a form of private catharsis—you have to find a way to let people see them. Critique groups. First readers. Eventually, if you're lucky and determined, an agent or an editor. All those people are going to poke holes in your work. And this is going to suck.

So how do you balance the ego needed to write with the humility needed to take critique? How do you walk the line between ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR and "screw it, rocks fall, everybody dies is a valid plot choice"? It's time to talk about the angel and the ape, and how we are supposed to balance ourselves between the two. Also, about why being a hack isn't always a bad thing.

Ready? Good. Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on being a brilliant hack.Collapse )

Welcome to the forty-fourth essay in my fifty-essay series on the art, craft, and occasional mild psychosis that is writing. For a series that started entirely by accident, it sure has lasted a long way. All fifty of these essays are based around my original fifty thoughts on writing, which were written in no particular order.

This explains a lot. Thanks for sticking it out this far. Our thought for today:

Thoughts on Writing #44: I Don't Gotta Like You To Love You.

Context is also love. Bearing that in mind, here's today's expanded thought:

You don't have to like your characters. You just have to stay true to your characters. I may not appreciate the fact that Shaun insults Mahir's wife on a daily basis, but it's what the character would do, and I'm not going to change him just because I don't approve of his behavior. Some people will assume you approve of everything your characters do. Try to learn tolerance. Also, don't punch them.

In the course of writing a story or book, authors will very often need to write about people they don't particularly like. Sometimes those people will be the heroes, sometimes they'll be the villains, and sometimes they'll just be spear-carriers, but they're going to exist. So how do we handle it? More, how do we handle the real people who assume that, just because we wrote about something, we must believe it/agree with it/support it in real life? It's time to talk about the times we clash with the people in our heads, and how we deal with all the consequences that come after.

Ready? Good. Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on fighting with your imaginary friends.Collapse )

Ladies and Gentlemen of the speculative fiction world, if I could offer you only one tip for the future, research would be it. The long-term benefits of research have been proved by scholars and scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.

I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the freedom and insanity of your youth. Scratch that: you won't understand the freedom and insanity of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in twenty years you'll look back at your fanfic and your first drafts and recall in a way you can't grasp right now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really were.

You're not bad at this as you imagine. You're not as good at it, either.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to correct your spelling through interpretive dance. The real troubles in your career are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you on the Monday after a five-day convention.

Write one thing every month that scares you.

Doodle.

Don't be nasty when critiquing others, don't put up with people who are nasty when critiquing you. Revise. Don't waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind, but the race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself. Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how. Keep your old fan mail, throw away your old reviews.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to spend your life writing. The most interesting writers I know didn't know at twenty-two what they wanted to write. Some of the most interesting forty-year-olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of sleep. Be kind to your wrists, you'll miss them they're gone.

Maybe you'll publish, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll write novels, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll wind up remaindered, maybe you'll make the New York Times Best-Seller List six books in a row. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much. Don't berate yourself, either. Your choices are half chance, and so are everybody else's.

Enjoy your mind. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, because it's the greatest instrument you'll ever own. Dream, even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room. Read directions on how to write, even if you don't follow them. Do not read Amazon reviews, they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your readers, you never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your fellow writers; they are the best link to your sanity and the people most likely to stick with you in the future. Understand that friends come and go, but there are a precious few you should hold onto. You'll know them when you see them. Apologize, even when you think you might be right. Take apologies gracefully. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Go to the San Diego International Comic Convention once, but leave before it makes you insecure. Go to a small, intimate literary convention once, but leave before it makes you egotistical. Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: prices will rise, reviewers will pan you, you too will get old, and when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young royalties were plentiful, editors were accessible, and writers respected their readers. Respect your readers. Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a movie deal, maybe you have a successful series, but you never know for sure when either one will run out.

Don't mess too much with your early drafts, or by the time you're finished, they will look artificial.

Be careful whose advice you take, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past out of the wastepaper bin, wiping it off, rewriting the ugly parts, and recycling it for more than it's actually worth.

But trust me on the research.

—with apologies to Mary Schmich, of "Wear Sunscreen" fame.

Every year, as July approaches, someone says to me "Gosh, I've never been to the San Diego International Comic Convention before. I really don't believe it's as big as everybody tries to make me think it is." So every year, I smack myself in the head and update this guide and pray for their survival. Since I've been known to post obsessively-detailed Guides to Comicon on a yearly basis for some time now, I strongly suspect that these people are being aimed at me. But since I love you all (those of you I know, anyway; I am well-inclined by mildly indifferent towards those of you who just came in out of the cold), and want you to have the best convention experience that you possibly can, I've prepared an update to my Handy-Dandy Comicon Survival Guide. See? It's both handy and dandy, and that means it must be good! This guide includes tips on:

* Reaching the convention alive.
* Getting a hotel room.
* Enjoying/surviving the con.
* Things to do at the con.
* Eating food.
* Staying healthy and sane.
* Not getting killed by your friends.
* Budgeting.
* Bathing.

It is also heavily biased toward my own opinions on all these things, because hello, so totally me. But I'm honest about my biases, and I'll be factual whenever it's fact, rather than opinion. (In short, don't expect me to falsify hotel room rates to suit my own ideas of "fair," but don't expect me to recommend a good Thai place, either.)

Ready? Okay!

( Click here for Seanan's handy-dandy Comicon survival guide! Read and be enlightened in all the ways that matter, which is to say, all the ways that Seanan actually thought of. Freshly updated for 2010.Collapse )

I'm in the home stretch now, because this is the forty-third essay in my fifty-essay series on the business, craft, and never-ending cookie party that is the wonderful world of writing. If I seem to be getting a little bit punchy, it's because I've given up sleep until my deadlines are met. These essays are all based around my original fifty thoughts on writing, which were written in no particular order. This explains a lot. Thanks for sticking it out this far. Our thought for today:

Thoughts on Writing #43: Research Is Love.

Context is also love. Bearing that in mind, here's today's expanded thought:

Your ass is for sitting on, not for talking out of. If your characters are supposed to be gun experts, talk to some people who shoot guns. Read some books about guns. If the books don't make sense to you, hand your manuscript pages to someone who knows guns and say "please fix." My original draft of Feed literally included "INSERT VIROLOGY HERE," because when I wrote that chapter, I hadn't finished designing my virus. I finished my virus, double-checked my epidemiology, went back, and finished that scene. If you don't know what you're talking about, learn enough to fake it.

Authors very rarely write about characters that are exactly like them, down to the classes they took in college and the things they know how to cook for dinner. In almost all cases, even when writing "realistic fiction," we're going to be writing about characters who know things that we, as authors, don't necessarily know. Sure, we'll probably stick them in our areas of interest, because those areas interest us, but how do we deal with the fact that our characters actually know things we don't? How do we make it work?

It's time to talk about research, faking it, and when it's acceptable to bluff. Ready? Good. Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on getting the facts right.Collapse )

Hello! It's been a little while, but at last, I can welcome you to the forty-second essay in my fifty-essay series on the business, craft, and insanity that we like to refer to as "writing." This essay series stems from my original fifty thoughts on writing, which were written in no particular order, resulting in an essay series that has wandered drunkenly around the topic, usually stepping in something useful along the way. We're almost done, and here's our thought for today:

Thoughts on Writing #42: The Very First You.

To provide a little bit more context, here's today's expansion:

You are not the next Stephen King. You are not the next Emma Bull. You are not the next anyone. You are the very first you. Comparisons are wonderful things, because they tell people whether you're working in a style or genre that they enjoy ("If you like Warren Ellis, try..."). But don't let comparisons turn into a prison. You are always allowed to bust out with something new and amazing and blow the roof right off the goddamn nightclub.

It's common to hear a new author described as "the next (insert latest hot thing here)." The next Stephanie Meyer. The next J.K. Rowling. The next Tom Clancy. Even our fictional characters get it. They're the next Harry Potter, the next Harry Dresden, the next Harry Houdini if he were secretly a teenage werewolf with telekinetic super-powers, the next new versions of the last big thing. So how do you deal with the pressure having everyone tell you that you're the next somebody else? Is that even possible?

I don't think anybody is the next anybody, and it's time to look at that in detail. Ready? Good. Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on updating familiar themes and stories.Collapse )

Hello, and welcome to the forty-first essay in my fifty-essay series about the process, art, and business of writing. This set of essays started almost as an accident, and has provided me with lots of interesting discussion and contemplation, so thanks to everyone who's been participating. I've learned a lot, and I hope you have too. All the essays have been based around my original fifty thoughts on writing, which were written in no particular order. That's why they weave around like a drunken centipede. Here's our thought for today:

Thoughts on Writing #41: Something Old, Something New.

To provide a little bit more context, here's today's expansion:

Just because somebody else did it first doesn't mean that somebody else did it better. At the same time, just because you think you're going to do it better doesn't mean you necessarily will. Be just as objective with reworkings of old stories as you'd try to be with totally new ones. You actually need to work harder when you're dealing with the familiar.

Some people say that there are no new stories under the sun, just new ways of telling old ones. To look at the books and movies that hit it big in the mainstream, well, there's reason to believe it; Alice in Wonderland gets re-imagined again and again, the same fairy tale princesses show up everywhere from Disney to DAW, and Shakespeare has now been retold in just about every format imaginable. So how do you make an old story fresh and new again, and how much can you rest on what came before? When does "too similar" become a killing blow?

There are a lot of factors at work here, but we can at least start looking at what they are. Ready? Good. Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on updating familiar themes and stories.Collapse )

It's time for the fortieth essay in my ongoing series about the art, craft, business, and mild insanity known as "writing." We're in the home stretch now; ten more essays and I'm done with the series. Kate and Amy are watching me like hawks to be sure I don't start something else insane. All the essays in this series are based around my original fifty thoughts on writing, which were written in no particular order. That explains a lot. Here's today's thought:

Thoughts on Writing #40: Starting the Discussion.

As always, context is our friend, and the thought needs to be expanded on. So here's today's expansion:

Talk to other writers about what works for them. Half the things on this list may be pure crap from your perspective; that's okay, because in order to decide that they were crap, you had to think about them. You have put thought into what kind of writer you want to be, and how you want to work. That's fantastic. Listen to everyone, and decide for yourself what you want to take to heart.

The thing about writing is that it's a weird combination of "learn by doing" and "learn by discussing." You have to understand certain things before they can be done; you have to do certain things before you'll understand why the way you're trying to do them is completely wrong. I learned to write a novel by writing a novel. I learned a lot of the things I needed to be watching for by discussing writing with other writers. But how do you filter the good from the bad? How do you justify rejecting advice from someone more successful than you are, or learn to take it from someone who seems to be less successful?

The lines are different for everyone, but let's talk about where to find them, and what they really mean. Ready? Good. Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on conversation.Collapse )

Hello, and welcome to my thirty-ninth essay in my accidental series of essays about the wacky little thing that we call "writing." It's a little daunting to realize that not only do I have an accidental essay series, but that accidental essay series is well on the way to being finished. Soon, I'll have to find something else to do with my spare time. Anyway, this series of essays will soon be fifty essays long, all of them based around my original set of fifty thoughts on writing. The original fifty thoughts covered a lot of aspects of the writing life; the essay series is doing the same. Here's today's thought:

Thoughts on Writing #39: Getting Jealous.

There are lots of reasons for getting jealous, so it's probably important that we expand today's thought, and give it a little bit more context. Without context, after all, we're essentially lost in the woods. So here's today's expansion:

Envy is useful; it motivates you to work harder. Envy is toxic; the world is not innately fair. Acknowledge your envy, take a deep breath, and let it go. You're going to find yourself with a lot more room to work if you can do that, and you're going to be a much happier person.

Envy is a fascinating emotion. It's natural: everybody has it to one degree or another. It's normal: it really does happen to pretty much everyone. It's no more automatically a "bad" emotion than anger or sadness or fear, all of which happen naturally and normally and to everybody. But we're taught that envy is bad; that it has no positive sides; that if we're envious, we're somehow in the wrong, and will be punished if we're caught. So how do we deal with something that's natural and normal—and yes, unavoidable—and how do we harness its powers for good? Let's take a look at envy, why it's a good thing, why it's a bad thing, and how to use it. Ready? Good. Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on envy.Collapse )

I am a total comic geek, and I'm not ashamed. I'm also a Marvel girl, and—as seems to be increasingly unusual in some circles—I'm a superhero fan. I like my flying men in tights and my women in impractical shoes. No matter how insane the storylines become, at the end of the day, it's pretty easy to make me happy.

We start, of course, with comics. For the X-geek in your life, or for the geek who just wants people to understand your love of all things X-Man, the Grant Morrison run on New X-Men is a fantastic place to start. It has enough backstory to "fill in the gaps" for people just joining, while being an incredible, world-spanning story that it's hard as heck not to love. The Grant Morrison run has been collected into three massive volumes. New X-Men: Collection I [Amazon] kicks things off with the bombing of Genosha, the world's only all-mutant country. New X-Men: Collection II [Amazon] ups the ante in a dozen different ways, and New X-Men: Collection III [Amazon] brings things to a screaming, ass-kicking conclusion. I highly recommend these books, and not just because Emma Frost features heavily.

If you're looking for something a little outside the mainstream of the superhero world, Robert Kirkman's Invincible is an amazing title from Image, one that dares to show superheroes as a little more human than most publishers will dare. It's a painful, beautiful story, and since it's relatively new (IE, "this century"), catching up isn't all that hard. Invincible: The Ultimate Collection, Volume I [Amazon] is a big, beautifully sturdy hardback introduction to Mark Grayson and his world. If that's a bit too big for your budget, Invincible book one: Family Matters [Amazon] and Invincible book two: Eight Is Enough [Amazon] include the first issues of the series, and are more than awesome enough to get you hooked.

My current favorite superhero title is a lot darker. Garth Ennis—the man who brought us Preacher, which really tells you something about how dark we're talking here—has turned his attention the superhero world, and the resulting title is...disturbing, to say the least. Start with The Boys, volume one: The Name of the Game [Amazon]. Proceed from there to The Boys volume two: Get Some [Amazon]. With fantastic art, a gritty storyline, and an all-too-plausible superhero community, The Boys is a great antidote to all that four-color brightness. (If you need still more dark-but-awesome superheroics, look up Incognito [Amazon] and Wanted [Amazon], which really has nothing to do with the movie. But don't say I didn't warn you about the dark.)

Important note: All of the above are graphic novels, and can be obtained from your local comic book store. The Amazon links are for reference, and for people who don't have a local comic book store. Buy local. It's awesome.

Soon I Will Be Invincible [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] by Austin Grossman is a brilliant piece of superhero fiction that looks at the heroic and the villainous at the same time. I can't recommend it highly enough. I also can't say much about it without spoiling the surprise. Check it out, it's awesome.

If you enjoy the "Velveteen vs." series, you absolutely have to take a look at Black and White [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] by Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge. This is the start of a bad-ass series about a world where superheroes are under corporate control, and stepping outside the lines costs you more than you could possibly imagine. It's an awesome treatment of a superhero world, and the contrast between good and evil has never been more blurred.

Sometimes you want your superheroes to be fluffy and fun, and those are the times when you should reach for the Bigtime books by Jennifer Estep. Karma Girl [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], Hot Mama [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], and Jinx [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] are superhero romance cotton candy with a sharply sweet bite, like cocktails that look completely innocent until they knock you on your ass. They're more fun than a barrel of radioactive monkeys, and I hugely recommend them.

I've tried to avoid movies in today's gift suggestions, but I can't resist slipping one in here: Krrish [Amazon]. It's sort of the Bollywood answer to the big-budget Hollywood superhero movie, with a dash of Tarzan and several large dance numbers. It's incredibly fun, and incredibly weird, and really, really worthwhile. For seriously.

Got any heroes or villains to recommend? Tell me about it!

Hello, and welcome to the thirty-seventh essay in my accidental series of essays on the art, craft, and process of writing. We're almost done; the series will eventually be fifty essays long, all of them based around my original set of fifty thoughts on writing. Because the list of thoughts was written in no particular order, the essays are addressing the various components of the writing life in no particular order, and will eventually cover just about everything. Spooky. Here's today's thought:

Thoughts on Writing #38: It Isn't Good Just Because It's Bad.

You may remember that the previous essay, number thirty-seven, was all about hype, and not believing everything that you hear. Now, I'm going to contradict myself a bit, because I said in that essay that there was no such thing as bad hype. Which I still hold that to be technically correct, I'm going to use the word "hype" to describe the flip-side of the "believing too much good press" problem, because it's easier. Today's thought expands to:

At the same time, don't sit around telling yourself how horrible you are, and don't let a few bad reviews shatter your sense of self. Look at the negative feedback as critically as you can, and if everyone is saying the same things, try to figure out whether that's something you can fix—and whether it's something you're willing to fix. I'm not going to stop writing horror just because there will always be people who hate horror. At the same time, if multiple horror reviewers are going "zombies, you're doin' it wrong," I should probably reassess. Don't buy the bad hype any more unreservedly than you buy the good.

It is human nature to believe the bad more than we believe the good. It is hammered into us, practically from birth, that listening to the bad makes us "responsive to criticism" and "realistic," while listening to the good makes us "vain" and "self-absorbed." So how do we find the balance between the two without losing our minds or sinking into the mire? Where is the line between buying our own press and becoming lost in the negativity? You're going to need to remember everything you know about balance and not believing everything you hear, and the sooner you start, the better. Let's take a good look at bad press, what purpose it serves, and how to keep yourself from falling under its sway. Ready? Good. Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on negative feedback, and why it's so hard to get past.Collapse )

So in case you've managed to miss the news (I sometimes wish I'd managed to miss the news), Harlequin Romance has formed a new self-publishing imprint, Harlequin Horizons, and people are ticked off about it. By "people," I mean "the Romance Writers of America, the Science Fiction Writers of America, and writers here, there, and everywhere." The basic deal is this: you give Harlequin Horizons a substantial chunk of cash, and they will print your book. Oh, and if it's drop-dead awesome enough, they may allow you to sell it to them later (although they won't give you back your money at that point). In the meanwhile, you, too, can be a Harlequin author. Whee!

Watching reactions to this around the Internet has been fascinating, because there are a substantial number of people who don't understand why the community of authors is generally so upset. Unless, of course, we're just trying to keep ordinary people from discovering how easy and fun it is to write novels, and how quick you can get famous once you get past The Man who's been guarding the front gate. What they're overlooking is a set of rather nasty complexities attendant on the idea of this model.

With self-publishing, you must be able to pay to play. Being a first-time author is highly unlikely to make anyone wealthy unless they're already a celebrity. I don't know how much Stephanie Meyer got paid for Twilight, but I'll bet you she wasn't quitting her day job until the royalty statements started coming in. Under the normal model, your publisher pays you. That means that it cost me nothing but time to write Rosemary and Rue. Under the self-publishing model, it would have started off by costing me about six thousand dollars, and that doesn't include any sort of promotion, publicity, or advertising.

Writing is not an unskilled profession. Before you assume I'm saying that if you aren't published, you can't write, please hear me out. Like any creative profession, being a writer takes certain learned tools (a functional grasp of a language, for starters), combined with talent and lots and lots of practice. It's a weird cocktail, and the most intrinsically talented writers in the world still need all three components. How do you get practice? By writing, and by being forced to be critical with your own work. When I first wrote Rosemary and Rue, it was the best thing I'd ever written. By the time I finished rewriting it for publication, it was ten times better, and the first draft had become actively embarrassing. Does using publication as the gold ring work for everyone? No. There are some truly amazing authors who have never been published, either because they're writing things viewed as non-commercial, or because they just don't feel like taking the time. But for most of us, the need to improve in order to achieve publication is a lot of what actually drives our improvement. Taking that away is like saying "okay, you've read a bunch of anatomy books, now take out this woman's spleen."

It takes a village to raise a child. People involved with getting Rosemary and Rue to a bookstore near you: me. My agent. My editor. My publicist. My line-editor. My layout and graphic designers. My cover artist. The entire marketing team at Penguin. The guy who sold all of the above their coffee. People I had to pay for their help: the guy who sold us the coffee. People who knew more about what it takes to make a book successful than I do: everyone but the guy who sold us the coffee (and that's a guess; he may be a former publishing mastermind who just likes the smell of java). It takes an army of people to get a book from manuscript to market, and while you can potentially fill all those roles yourself, if you're not independently wealthy, it's going to be really, really hard. I thought I was pretty savvy about how publishing works; then I published a book. It turns out that what I knew was vague and superficial—now we're at "okay, you've watched a bunch of medical shows, now take out this woman's spleen."

We cannot be our own quality control with absolute accuracy. "But wait," you may cry, "it works in the fanfic mines." "Yes, that's true," I would reply, "but in the fanfic mines, you can edit your work for free." Once you expand to novel-length, the chance for errors expands exponentially, and once you've paid someone to put your book in print, your ability to fix them drops like a rock. Consider the number of errors in the average full-length published novel. Now consider the village that played whack-a-mole with the book before you ever saw it. Being expected to be so perfect that you don't need editing isn't just unfair; it borders on actively mean.

Now, all of these points may seem like they're anti-self-publishing, and the thing is, they both are and aren't. There are totally legitimate reasons to self-publish. Maybe you have six thousand dollars to spare, and you just don't like Disneyworld that much. Maybe you're printing a book of short stories written twenty years ago by your high school writer's group. Maybe you have a huge pre-existing Internet following (Monster Island and John Dies at the End, for example, although these were both small press, not self-published). Maybe you just want a printed edition of your grandmother's cookbook. Whatever makes you happy! Most comic books are self-published, and it works out fine for them (although most self-publishing comic creators also form their own imprints).

At the same time, taking aspiring authors and effectively telling them "you don't need to work to improve and learn, you don't have to deal with rejection and unwanted critique, you don't need to do anything but sign the check" is just...it's mean. It's preying on the vulnerability of young authors who don't want anything but to see their works in print. Sadly, most self-published books will never reach a wide audience; they aren't on the shelves in brick-and-mortar stores, they aren't in print advertising (unless you're really independently wealthy), they won't be sending advance copies out for review. They'll just appear in a catalog somewhere, and on the author's website, where the number of copies sold will depend on just how fast the author can tap-dance for the amusement of the masses. By adding the name of a big house to a self-publishing imprint, and the seductive offer of "maybe we'll buy it after all," Harlequin is effectively monetizing their slush pile, and potentially taking the opportunity to grow away from a great many of the aspiring authors involved.

If I had self-published ten years ago, I would never have improved enough as an author to write Feed, or Late Eclipses, or Discount Armageddon, or Lycanthropy and Other Personal Issues. Now, your mileage may vary. But these are my concerns, and these are the reasons that I really think that this sort of "business venture" is just another way of preying on the vulnerable.

Hello, and welcome to the thirty-seventh essay in my accidental series of essays on the art, craft, and process of writing. We're almost done; the series will eventually be fifty essays long, all of them based around my original set of fifty thoughts on writing. Because the list of thoughts was written in no particular order, the essays are addressing the various components of the writing life in no particular order, and will eventually cover just about everything. Spooky. Here's today's thought:

Thoughts on Writing #37: Hype.

We live in a world of hype. We swim in hype, we breathe hype, we eat and drink and sweat hype. But what does it mean? To expand on today's thought:

Don't buy into your own hype. There will always be people ready to tell you that you're so awesome you should be elected President on the basis of sheer badass. There will always be people ready to tell you that you're brilliant, that your books are the best things ever written, that they can't imagine why you aren't winning every award in the industry. That's okay. Those are not bad people. They're good for your career, and frankly, they're probably telling the truth; everybody has the one author that can do (almost) no wrong, or the one book that's absolutely perfect as it is. Still, those six, or sixty, or six hundred people? Are just six, or sixty, or six hundred people. If you let yourself believe them, you're going to hurt yourself in ways that I can't even begin to describe.

Hype is natural, normal, and entirely unavoidable. Some of us react to it positively—"Wow, everybody loves this, it must be awesome!" Some of us react to it negatively—"Wow, everybody loves this, it must be horrible!" Some of us just learn to ignore it, and trust our own judgment about the things we do or do not enjoy. No matter what our reactions to hype, at the end of the day, it's going to exist, and it's going to be a part of your writing life. You're going to need to deal with the good parts, the bad parts, and most importantly of all, with the parts that involve not believing everything you hear. Let's take a good look at hype, what it means, and how to keep yourself from falling under its sway. Ready? Good. Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on hype, and why it's not always good for you.Collapse )

It's time for the thirty-sixth essay in my ongoing series of essays on the art, craft, and process of writing. There will eventually be fifty essays in all, all of them based around my original set of fifty thoughts on writing. No, I didn't set out to write an essay series, but I figure it's too late to object now. These fifty essays touch on a lot of different topics, and are all aimed at helping you stay sane as a writer, sometimes through process, sometimes through perspective. Here's today's thought:

Thoughts on Writing #36: Plotting Against You.

I don't actually mean that there's some sort of vast global conspiracy against you, although I can't promise that there isn't. To expand on today's thought:

You're going to get ideas from wherever it is you get ideas. There's no magic well. There's no "proper source." They'll come when they come, and you can't force them to show up if you're not ready to have them. The "what if..." moment is one of the most amazing things there is, and when it happens, you'll be the king of all creation, you'll be so fucking cool that nobody can stop you from conquering the planet...but you can't make it come. Just expose yourself to the world, and wait, and see what happens.

The question "where do you get your ideas?" is one that haunts writers, from the high school creative writing prodigy to the grizzled old lion who's published seventy novels, all of them still in print. People always want to know where the ideas come from, like there's some secret well or magical wardrobe that we're just not willing to share. I wish this were true, but it's not. So how to do we handle the fact that we're working with a resource that is at once limitless and severely limited, and how do we keep from bludgeoning our friends? Let's take a look at ideas, where they come from, how to attract them, and why we'll never be able to schedule their arrival. Ready? Good. Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on ideas, and where they come from.Collapse )

So people have been asking—because people are awesome—what they can do to help Rosemary and Rue be a success. So I've made a handy little list of do's and don't's, just to get you off on the right foot.

DO ask your local bookstore if they have it on order. If your local store is part of a large chain, such as Borders or Barnes and Noble, the odds are very good that the answer will be "yes," and that they'll be more than happy to hold one for you. If your local store is small, and does not focus specifically on science fiction/fantasy, they may have been waiting to see signs of interest before placing an order. Get interested! Interest is awesome!

DON'T berate your local bookseller if they say "no." Telling people they're overlooking something awesome doesn't make them go "gosh, I see the error of my ways." It makes them go "well, I guess it can be awesome without me." Suggest. Ask if you can special-order a copy. But don't be nasty to people just because their shelves can't hold every book ever written.

DO post reviews on your blog or on Amazon.com. Reviews are fantastic! Reviews make everything better! Please, write and post a review, even if it's just "I liked it." Honestly, even if it's just "this wasn't really my thing." As long as you're being fair and reasoned in your commentary, I'm thrilled. (I like to think you won't all race right out to post one-star reviews, but if that's what you really think, I promise that I won't be mad.)

DON'T get nasty at people who post negative reviews. You are all people. You all have a right to the ball. That includes people who don't like my work. Please don't argue with negative reviewers on my behalf. It just makes everybody sad. If you really think someone's being unfair, why don't you post your own review, to present an alternate perspective?

DO feel free to get multiple copies. No, you probably don't need eight copies of Rosemary and Rue for your permanent collection, but remember that libraries, school libraries, and shelters are always in need of books. I'm donating a few of my author's copies to a local women's shelter, because they get a lot of women there who really need the escape. There are also people who just can't afford their own copies, and would be delighted. I wouldn't have had half the library I did as a teenager if it weren't for the kindness of the people around me.

DON'T feel obligated to get multiple copies, or nag other people to do so. Seriously, we're all on budgets, and too much aggressive press can actually turn people off on a good thing. Let people make their own choices. Have faith.

DO suggest the book to bookstore employees who like urban fantasy. Nothing boosts sales like having people in the stores who really like a project. If your Cousin Danny (or Dani) works at a bookstore, say "Hey, why don't you give this a try?" It just might help.

DON'T rearrange bookstore displays. If the staff of my local bookstore is constantly being forced to deal with fixing the shelves after someone "helpfully" rearranged things to give their chosen favorites a better position, they're unlikely to feel well inclined toward that book—or author. It's not a good thing to piss off the bookstores. Let's just not.

So those are some do's and don't's. I'm sure there are lots of other things to consider; this is, at least, a start.

Hello, and welcome to the thirty-fifth essay in my current series of essays on the art and process of writing. All fifty of the essays in the series are based around my original set of fifty thoughts on writing. These fifty essays touch on every aspect of the writing life that I could think of; some apply directly to the process, while others apply more to maintaining your sanity while being a writer. If you ask me, they're of equal importance. Here's today's thought:

Thoughts on Writing #35: Gimme a Break.

No, I'm not suggesting that you break me off a piece of that Kit-Kat bar; I'm talking about down time. To expand on today's thought a little:

There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking a break from time to time. I pretty much write every day of my life—I'm a junkie, and I admit it—but there are days where the writing takes an hour in the morning, and is then set aside completely, in favor of seeing Flogging Molly perform. Sometimes, my "writing" for the day consists of jotting notes in my planner (also known as "Seanan's second brain"). I need those pauses to reset myself, and sometimes, to find new books in the world around me. Don't hate yourself for needing to breathe.

This is one of those thoughts that seems so logical that it shouldn't need expressing—of course it's okay to take breaks! Dude, we're allowed our leisure time!—but oddly, it's also one of the things I've found personally most challenging. Writing is both a job and a leisure activity for me, and, it seems, for many of us. So how do we keep those functions of our lives split, and how do we keep from becoming so wrapped up in our work that we forget to play? Let's take a look at leisure, and how to have some without losing all our hard work. Ready? Good. Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on taking the occasional break.Collapse )

Hello, and welcome to the thirty-fourth essay in my currently ongoing series of essays on the crazy little thing we call "writing." All fifty essays are based around my original set of fifty thoughts on writing. The fifty thoughts were written in a single sitting, and thus wander aimlessly through a wide variety of aspects of the writing life. The essays were not written in a single sitting, because I am nowhere near that crazy. Here's our thought for the day:

Thoughts on Writing #34: Obligations 'R' Us.

I tend to enjoy the process of not being hit, but it might help to have a little context to go with that summation:

The only people you owe your work to are your agent, your editor, and your publishing house. Don't let anyone pressure you.

This is one of our simpler thoughts, on the face of things, but once we start digging into it, it rapidly expands in complexity. Don't we, as writers, have an obligation to our readers? More, don't I keep saying that we need to be gracious? Well, what's so gracious about saying "I'm sorry, I don't owe you anything"? It's a difficult line to draw, and it's an even more difficult line to hold, especially now that we're here in the Internet age of instant gratification. So how do we cope with the pressure when we've been praying for that pressure all our lives? Let's discuss obligation, pressure, and why they matter. Ready? Good. Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on your obligations as a writer.Collapse )

A year ago, I posted my fifty thoughts on writing, which has since managed to turn into an essay series (don't ask me how that keeps happening to me). Naturally, my thinking about writing didn't stop with those initial fifty thoughts, and working on the essays has just made me think about writing even more. It's a little disturbing. I've spent the last year a) writing at a pace that makes me wonder what the hell I've been doing with myself for most of my life (oh, yeah—having a life), b) revising at a similar pace, and c) thinking about writing enough that it's a miracle that I haven't managed to set myself on fire. Just give me a little more time.

I've also spent the past year really digging myself into the reality of what it means to be a professional writer, even if I am not yet full-time. So today, because I still believe firmly in the art of over-sharing, I've decided to write down some more of my conclusions about writing...and my conclusions about what it means to be a working writer, which means that some of these may be less universally applicable, but may still be helpful for relating to the writers in your life. You may look at my list and go "wow, she's totally out of her tiny little blonde mind." You may look at this list and go "wow, I never thought of it that way." And either way is totally fine. My method of writing is not yours. Your method of writing is not mine. And we should all be very grateful for that, because if we cloned my muse, the world would rapidly run out of absinthe and cherry pie.

( Click here to be subjected to a variety of disconnected thoughts on the wonderful world of writing. Fifty new thoughts for 2009! You must be at least this tall to ride this ride.Collapse )

Hello, and welcome to the thirty-third essay in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing. All these essays are based around my original set of fifty thoughts on writing, and are moving rapidly through a variety of aspects of the art, craft, and primary reason for insomnia that is the life of the writer. Many of these thoughts are not exclusive to the professional; if you write at all, they can apply to you. Here's our thought for the day:

Thoughts on Writing #33: Not Making People Hit You.

I tend to enjoy the process of not being hit, but it might help to have a little context to go with that summation:

Learn to be gracious to everyone who helps you. Thank your proofers. Thank your editors. Thank your agent. Thank your readers. They're doing you a favor. You're also doing them a favor—you're letting them play with your kids—so don't be servile, but do be gracious.

It may seem a little odd to you that I feel the need to say this, but honestly, after watching my own behavior under pressure, and the behavior of others, I feel that it's an important statement to make. Not just for writers, either. No matter who you are or what you do, you need to be gracious, and appreciative of the things that people do for you when you don't need them to. Our culture tells us it's better to give than to receive. How do you react to the good things without seeming entitled, arrogant, or just plain snotty? Let's discuss graciousness, what it means, and how we all sometimes fall a little short. Ready? Good. Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on being properly gracious.Collapse )

We're now solidly into convention season—hooray!—and it has come to my attention that there are quite a few people reading this journal and planning to attend the San Diego International Comic Convention for the first time this year. There are also quite a few people who don't regularly read this journal, but have been pointed in my direction, since I have been known to post obsessively-detailed Guides to Comicon in the past. Hello, and welcome, one and all. Since I love you all (those of you I know, anyway; I am well-inclined by mildly indifferent towards those of you who just came in out of the cold), and want you to have the best convention experience that you possibly can, I've prepared this handy-dandy Comicon survival guide. See? It's both handy and dandy, and that means it must be good! This guide will include tips on:

• Reaching the convention alive.


• Getting a hotel room.


• Enjoying/surviving the con.


• Things to do at the con.


• Eating food.


• Staying healthy and sane.


• Not getting killed by your friends.


• Budgeting.


• Bathing.

It will also be heavily biased towards my own opinions on all these things, because hello, so totally me. But I'm honest about my biases, and I'll be factual whenever it's fact, rather than opinion. (In short, don't expect me to falsify hotel room rates to suit my own ideas of "fair," but don't expect me to recommend a good Thai place, either.)

Ready? Okay!

( Click here for Seanan's handy-dandy Comicon survival guide! Read and be enlightened in all the ways that matter, which is to say, all the ways that Seanan actually thought of. Freshly updated for 2009.Collapse )

Welcome to the thirty-second essay in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing. All these essays are based around my original fifty thoughts on writing, and are working their way in a disorganized manner through a variety of aspects of the art, craft, and excuse for antisocial behavior that is the life of the writer. Not necessarily the professional writer; just the writer, period. Here's our thought for the day:

Thoughts on Writing #32: Deadlines.

That's even less helpful than our normal short-form thoughts, so here's our expanded thought for the day:

Deadlines are your friends. Learn how to work to them. If you ever start publishing, you're going to be getting a lot of deadlines, and you won't necessarily have any real say in the matter. It's best if it's not a shock to the system.

Love 'em or hate 'em, the world is full of deadlines, and the world of the writer is doubly full of deadlines. There are deadlines dictating when you need to get the words onto the page, when you need to finish processing editorial changes, when you need to correct any typos, and when you turn in your manuscript. So how do you maintain your sanity in the face of a seemingly endless list due dates? How do you meet your deadlines, how do you handle it when you miss a deadline, and how do you cope? Let's talk setting deadlines, meeting deadlines, and living with deadlines. Ready? Good. Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on deadlines.Collapse )

It's time for the thirty-first essay in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing. Thirty-one essays, and I still haven't run out of things to say. All these essays are based around my original fifty thoughts on writing, and are touching on just about every aspect of the art, craft, and marginal insanity that is this particular profession. Here's our thought for the day:

Thoughts on Writing #31: This Is Not A Race.

As always, and because it's good to explain yourself, here's our expanded thought for the day:

Measuring your output against someone else's output is a game with no winners at all. Maybe you write fast. Maybe you write slow. Maybe you're somewhere in the middle. I can write an obscene number of pages on a good day, and finish it off with a song and maybe a sonnet or two. Another friend of mine considers herself to be doing amazingly well if she finishes three pages in eight hours. Neither of us is doing anything wrong. Some of the best books ever written took years to finish; so did some of the worst. Write at your own pace, and know what that pace is.

Everyone naturally moves at their own speed. Some of us are fast, some of us are slow. Some of us are somewhere in the middle. Our quality will often be determined by our natural comfort zone. Is it something we can push out of? Is it something we should push out of? Let's talk speed, why it matters, and why yours is no better than mine. Ready? Good. Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on output.Collapse )

Hello, and welcome to the thirtieth essay in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing. Thirty! That's a pretty big number, and it's just set to get bigger, since all these essays are based around my original fifty thoughts on writing. (On the plus side, this also means we're sixty percent of the way there.) Here's our thought for today:

Thoughts on Writing #30: Continuity Trapper Keeper.

This is definitely one of those that needs a little expansion before it starts making sense. Here you go:

If you're writing any sort of series, whether it be a series of short stories or a series of novels, you need a continuity guide. The format is up to you. The level of detail is up to you. But believe me, even if you somehow manage to forget that your hero has green eyes and turn them hazel, your readers won't, and they will eat your soul.

When I was a kid, I found continuity errors unbelievably offensive. If I could always remember your main character's favorite sandwich, childhood pet, and preferred route to the spooky old house on the top of the hill, why couldn't you, the author, remember the same things? You created them!

Ah, the innocence of youth. Let's talk continuity, why it matters, and how to maintain it. Ready? Good. Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on continuity tracking.Collapse )

Welcome to the twenty-ninth essay in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing, all of which are based around my original fifty thoughts on writing. We're starting to get into somewhat more specialized concepts; surprisingly, I still find that I have things to say, which is good. Here's our thought for today:

Thoughts on Writing #29: Outlines.

Since every outline needs a bit more than a single word, here's today's expanded topic:

Outline as much as you need to. I have books where I've written incredibly detailed outlines, including locations and characters involved in every scene. I have books where I pretty much just plunged in blind and started hacking around with my machete, praying that nothing in my new-found jungle was going to give me Ebola. Even those books eventually got "event chains" written on Post-It notes and stuck to my computer, because I needed to keep track of who was where. Neither style is superior to the other.

Outlines are scary, I think because most people's experience with them is limited to academic papers and the idea that there's some secret "ideal outline" that will turn the simplest of ideas into a New York Times best-selling novel. If that ideal is out there, shouldn't it be pursued? Yes. And also no, because the truth behind the ideal is that the ideal is different not only from person to person, but from project to project.

Now that we've established that outlines exist to confuse us, are you ready? Good. Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on outlines.Collapse )

Today brings us to the twenty-eighth essay in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing, all of which are based around my fifty thoughts on writing. We're not quite on what I'd call "the home stretch" yet, but we're definitely more than halfway there. That's nice to think about. Anyway, here's our other thought for today:

Thoughts on Writing #28: For the Critics.

In case that's too boiled-down to make sense, here's today's expanded topic:

Kevin Smith said "this isn't for the critics" when he was talking about Jersey Girl, and the critics savaged it anyway. There's a lesson here. You can't write to some imagined critical ideal, but if all eleven of the people you trust to review your first drafts say "wow, this makes no sense at all, what the hell is going on here?", you should maybe consider taking another look. Pandering is bad. Being accessible is not.

"Not for the critics" is an interesting concept to me, because it implies that anyone who's going to be in the least critical of a thing doesn't have the right to enjoy it—and more, that I don't get to have an opinion about a thing I love if it isn't entirely positive. Slither is possibly my favorite movie in the world, but the zombie deer looks damn fake. Hairspray would have been even more fun if they'd kept "Cooties," since taking it out renders Amber toothless. Stephen King has written some stuff I didn't like. Does that mean these things weren't for me?

Pandering and accessibility are two different things, and none of us are ever above critique. Honestly, that's a good thing. With me so far? Good. Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on what it means to be for the critics.Collapse )

Welcome to the twenty-seventh essay in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing, all of which are based around my fifty thoughts on writing. I was asked recently why this paragraph goes on every essay, since it's essentially filler, and beyond the innate "because I can," the answer is simple: people are still coming in shiny and new with each essay in the series, and I like to make sure everyone understands the premise. Remember that the thoughts are being addressed in order, and that I respond well to bribery with candy corn and pumpkin products.

Thoughts on Writing #27: A Matter of Perspective.

Everyone in the world has their own point of view, on just about everything. I sleep in a room that's painted to look like the inside of a big pumpkin, and my pillowcases glow in the dark; I find it soothing, while other people complain that they'd be able to see the walls even after they closed their eyes. Neither of us is wrong. We just have a different perspective on things. Here's today's expanded topic:

People are going to act like writing is easy, because that's all they know; they're not writers. People are going to say you're being a snob when you say "I'm sorry, I have to work," because they can't understand why you'd choose reworking chapter three over going to the roller derby. Try not to take it personally. I'm sure they do shit that seems crazy to you, too.

Things that make sense to us are baffling to others; things that make sense to others are baffling to us. That's human nature. That's the way we're basically programmed, as a species, to operate. I don't get you, you don't get me, and neither of us quite gets that guy sitting over there. The trouble arises when one of us has a trait or tendency—like, say, the desire to work a second job in your free time, for which it is unlikely you will ever receive above minimum wage—that the majority just doesn't understand.

What's the answer? Well, unfortunately, if there were an easy answer, I'd be making millions as an advice columnist, and I wouldn't have time to write this essay. But there may be some coping strategies. Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on tolerance...on both sides of the equation.Collapse )

It's time for the twenty-sixth essay in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing. We're more than halfway to the end of the series now, since all these essays are based around my fifty thoughts on writing. Thanks to everyone who's been reading, discussing, and generally making this a fascinating process. I've learned a great deal, both from sitting here scratching my head as I look for things to say and from reading the things that people say to me in return. The remaining essays will be touching on a great many more aspects of the art of writing, and will probably double back on themselves more than a few times. That's the business.

Thoughts on Writing #26: Hermitage.

It sounds like a simple notion, doesn't it? But the fact of the matter is, hermitage is a big, complicated thing that we often fail to give sufficient attention or consideration. Bearing that in mind, here's today's expanded topic:

Learn to be a hermit. Learn to say 'I'm sorry, but I can't come to your party, I booked that night for revisions and I don't have any other time to do it this week.' Learn to tell people no. Learn to treat writing as a job -- one that may well be both unpaid and in addition to whatever job pays the bills for a long, long time. If you make excuses to let yourself skip writing, if you choose a social life over that second job, you're not addicted enough. If you want to get better, you'll learn.

As anyone who's ever tried to sit down for a block of scheduled writing -- from the wealthiest novelist to the kid who just needs to finish that book report -- can tell you, most people don't view 'writing' as being the same as 'real work.' Even the people who've heard me explain exactly how many hours I need to complete a novel frequently have trouble understanding that those necessary hours will sometimes conflict with their proposed dinner plans. And here's the thing: nobody tells a doctor not to practice medicine, or tries to talk him out of reading that book on brain surgery because they'd rather be playing checkers. But as a writer, you'll get it all the time.

So how do you cope? How do you strike a balance, and how do you do it without losing all your friends? Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on writers and the need to sometimes crawl into your cave.Collapse )

Hello, and welcome to the twenty-fifth essay in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing. This particular essay is something of a milestone, because it means that we are now officially halfway through the original set of fifty thoughts on writing. Given that I didn't exactly set out to write a set of fifty essays -- it was an accident, I swear -- the fact that I've finished half of the damn things is a bit unnerving. Anyway, these essays will eventually touch on as many aspects of the art of writing as I can think of, and may occasionally seem to be self-contradictory. Writing is like that.

Here's our thought for the day:

Thoughts on Writing #25: Bibliophile Heroin.

That's a bit of a brick to the head, isn't it? It probably makes a bit more sense in context -- at least I hope it makes a bit more sense in context, or this week's essay is going to be a lot like Seanan Does Hunter S. Thompson. Here's today's expanded topic:

If you're going to be a writer, you'll be a writer, because if you're going to be a writer, you'll write. This is not a glamorous profession. This is not something people do because they want to be rich and famous and sleep with Hollywood stars. This is something people do because, at the end of the day, they can't not do it. People decide to be writers for a lot of reasons. People continue to be writers because they can't figure out how the hell to quit. Writing is bibliophile heroin, and we're all addicts over here.

What I find a bit interesting about today's thought is that it's the first thought where I've actually had someone argue with me. Not in a bad way, just in a way that made me stop and go 'huh.' Paul -- who frequently plays guitar for me, and is one of the most tolerant, reasonable men I know -- said that I don't get to claim that writing isn't a glamorous profession, because everyone thinks of writing as glamorous. The children of writers are second only to the children of firemen and policemen when it comes to looking cool on Career Day. Teenagers dream of growing up to write. Some of us even manage it. We don't get paparazzi and cereal endorsements, but we're seen as glamorous all the same.

That disconnect between vision and reality is a lot of why this thought exists. Ready to ponder? Fantastic. Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on writers and the addiction that we all share.Collapse )

Hello, and welcome to the twenty-fourth essay in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing. We're almost halfway through the original set of fifty thoughts on writing, which is a slightly awe-inspiring thought if I think about it too hard. These essays will eventually touch on as many aspects of the art of writing as I can think of, and may occasionally seem to be self-contradictory. Writing is like that.

Here's our thought for the day:

Thoughts on Writing #24: Revise or Die.

Now, those of you who have been following this series may look at today's topic and find yourselves scratching your heads. 'But wait,' you might say, 'wasn't essay twenty-three about revision?' You'd be right. Because here's the thing: we're going to be circling back to editing, revision, and critique quite a bit as this essay series goes on. It's that important. Which brings us to today's expanded topic:

Anyone who tells you that your first draft is brilliant, perfect poetry and deserves to be published just as it is and you shouldn't change a word and oh, you're going to be famous and make enough money to buy a desert island is either a) lying, b) delusional, or c) your mother.

Does it seem like I'm harping on this? That's because I am, a bit. We all have cheerleaders. We all have people who believe, truly and deeply, that we are the perfect special snowflakes to end all perfect special snowflakes, and that because we are perfect special snowflakes, we need a constant stream of validation, love, and affirmation, because otherwise we might melt. Those are wonderful people. Those are important people. And sometimes, those are the people we need to listen to the least.

We're all special snowflakes. We all need to turn on the heat. Ready? Excellent. Now let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on the art of revision, take two.Collapse )

Welcome back! It's time to call class back into session for the twenty-third essay in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing. (Really, it's all just an excuse for me to eat a lot of apples and claim to be spelunking for worms, but don't mind me.) We are now almost halfway through what will eventually be a series of fifty essays, all of them based on my fifty thoughts on writing. If you missed an earlier essay, never fear; they're all linked from the 'fifty thoughts' post as they're finished.

Here's our thought for the day:

Thoughts on Writing #23: Embrace Revision.

I think we've all been tempted to say 'the first draft is good enough' and move on to something new, rather than going through the often-painful process of trying to edit our way down to the heart of the matter. Many of us may have managed to get away with it a time or two...or even twenty, in the case of high school and college-level creative writing classes. Which brings us to today's expanded topic:

For the sweet love of all that is holy, edit, proofread, revise, and practice the art of self-critique. I mean it. There is no one on this planet so good at this game that they can just throw a fistful of words at the page and declare it brilliant. Needing to revise does not make you a failure, and becoming a better writer isn't going to take that need away. Embrace the revision process as a chance to dig down into the heart of your text and make it everything that it deserves to be.

Revision is a huge and tangled topic, as is revision's sister, editing. Some people will argue that a really good writer doesn't actually need to edit or revise; a really good writer will always get it right the very first time. While it's true that writers will get better with practice -- writing is a skill like any other, and even those who start out with more raw talent than others will improve or decline according to how much they work at it -- you're never going to meet a writer who has improved to the point that they no longer need to review their work.

So there it is; that's what we're going to be talking about today. Ready? Excellent. Now let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on the art of revision.Collapse )

Because we like progress around here, it's time to take a step forward and present the twenty-second essay in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing. Here's the precis, in case you're new around here: there will eventually be fifty essays, all of them based on my fifty thoughts on writing. (Past essays are linked from the list of thoughts as they're finished, thus allowing people to tell me when I contradict myself.) The essays are being written in the order of the original thoughts, to keep me from becoming completely lost in the twists of my own logic. It works. Mostly.

Here's our thought for the day:

Thoughts on Writing #22: Changing Time, Tone, and Type.

People will talk about 'authorial voice' and 'developing your own way of writing,' but the truth of the matter is that each of us will develop multiple styles of writing. They're going to be very different, and they're all going to be uniquely ours. The trouble is finding a way to force them all to get along with one another. That takes us to today's expanded topic:

Your writing style will actually change over the course of a single day, not just over the course of your lifetime. I write very crisp, sharp prose in the morning, and very purple, rambling prose at midnight. My sentences start turning into spaghetti around ten o'clock at night. A finished work is going to need to stick to one of these styles of prose, and I need to be aware of that when I'm editing, because otherwise, the transition can be so organic that it isn't visible until someone else gets a look and starts screaming at me for blinding them with adjectives.

A lot of people fail to account for what state of mind can do for their writing styles. They also fail to account for what state of exhaustion can do for their writing styles. This is, I believe, a mistake, because if you don't understand your own quirks, you're not going to know how to compensate for them. (As one of the quirkiest people on the planet, I get a lot of practice compensating.) So how do you identify your cycles? How do you compensate for the changes in tone -- and how do you learn to catch them?

That's today's topic. Ready? Excellent. Now let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on what it means to learn the cycles in your own writing.Collapse )

It has recently come to my attention that a great many people aren't really sure what this whole 'convention scene' is all about. Because I am a helpful blonde, I thought it might be a good idea to offer a few tips on the nature of the beast, including methods of keeping it from eating you. I may be relatively new to the world of being a professional author, but I'm like the Steve Irwin of science fiction fandom. Only female and not actually dead.

Please note that this guide is limited by my own experiences, and may not apply in all circumstances. Please also note that I'm talking specifically about conventions, and not conferences, which have different standards, traditions, and expectations. (Also, I've never been to a literary conference, and somehow I doubt that my experiences with herpitological conferences will translate over one-to-one. As an example, I have never heard of a romance writer's conference being forced to evacuate a meeting hall because somebody's taipan managed to get out of its enclosure.) This guide is geared towards attending conventions as a professional and/or participant, although large swaths of it will apply to everybody. This guide will include information on:

* What a convention is, exactly.
* Finding the convention that's right for you.
* Reaching the convention alive.
* Getting a hotel room.
* Enjoying/surviving the con.
* Packing.
* Not looking like a total tool.
* Panels.
* Things to do.
* Eating food.
* Staying healthy and sane.

It will also be heavily biased towards my own opinions on all these things, because hello, so totally me. But I'm honest about my biases, and I'll be factual whenever it's fact, rather than opinion. (In short, don't expect me to falsify hotel room rates to suit my own ideas of 'fair,' but don't expect me to suggest a good anime con, either.) Ready? Let's rock.

( Click here for Seanan's handy-dandy convention survival guide, 2009 edition! Read and be enlightened in all the ways that matter, which is to say, all the ways that Seanan actually thought of.Collapse )

It's time to return to the modern day for the twenty-first essay in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing. Just in case you're new to the party, there will eventually be fifty essays, all of them based on my fifty thoughts on writing. (Past essays are linked from the list of thoughts as they're finished, thus allowing people to tell me when I contradict myself.) The essays tend to focus on a single aspect of the writing life, whether personal or professional, and then beat it into the ground until it shatters. Fun for the whole family!

Here's our thought for the day:

Thoughts on Writing #21: Magpie Moments.

Look around the room you're in. If you're at work, look around your desk. If you're reading this on the road, look in your purse or backpack. First thing you're going to see is 'my stuff.' That's often what we see when we look around us. 'Well, yes; that's my stuff.' But where did that stuff come from? Where did you acquire the fondness for this, that, and the other thing? We magpie our way through the world -- and yes, I'm aware that verbing weirds language, but I think this is legitimate -- and that leads us to today's expanded topic:

We are all magpies. We are all going to pick up bits of flotsam and jetsam from the cultural void around us. Part of the value of having people edit you is the outside perspective they provide. If I tried to write a book that was a climactic clash of good versus evil following a slatewiper pandemic, there are people who would point out its similarity to The Stand before I managed to hurt myself, and that's gooooooooooood.

The human race -- the portion that I know, anyway; I can't speak for the entire human race, and that's actually a good thing -- is made up entirely of magpies. Some fascinating psychological studies have been done on the matter, but most of them don't apply today. We're going to be looking at influences vs. homage vs. plagiarism, and we're going to start from the position of 'everyone's a magpie.' Because that's what's important here.

Ready? Excellent. Now let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on what it means to be a magpie.Collapse )

It's time to return to the modern day for the twentieth essay in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing. Just in case you're new to the party, there will eventually be fifty essays, all of them based on my fifty thoughts on writing. (Past essays are linked from the list of thoughts as they're finished, thus allowing people to tell me when I contradict myself.) The essays tend to focus on a single aspect of the writing life, whether personal or professional, and then beat it into the ground until it shatters. Fun for the whole family!

Here's our thought for the day:

Thoughts on Writing #20: Boundaries.

All of us set boundaries every day, with everyone around us. They start when we wake up, and they continue from there. Even going to sleep involves setting boundaries, unless you regularly sleep with your house entirely unlocked and a big sign on the door saying 'why yes, you can totally come inside, touch all my stuff, and stare at me while I'm unconscious.' And if you do, please tell me, because I am never spending the night at your place. So let's talk about those boundaries. Our topic for today:

You are absolutely allowed to say 'this is new, I don't want opinions until it's ready.' You are absolutely allowed to refuse to discuss something until you feel you're prepared. You get to set the boundaries on your own work. That said, you do need to tell people where the boundaries are, especially if they're used to reading something of yours where the boundaries are different.

Boundaries can be tricky things, and almost all of us get upset when we feel that they're not being respected. The thing is, we also get upset when we feel that they're being unclear. So how do we get them straight, and how do we make sure that everybody knows where the lines are? That's what we're going to be talking about today.

Ready? Excellent. Let's get started.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on boundaries.Collapse )

Since we've already traveled back in time to talk about the mighty thesaurus, let's stay in the Jurassic period a little bit longer for essay nineteen in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing. I like the Jurassic period. Things were simpler there: eat or be eaten. In case you somehow missed it in my happy discussion of dinosaurs, this is the nineteenth essay in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing. There will eventually be fifty essays, all of them based on my fifty thoughts on writing. Any excuse to talk about dinosaurs around here.

Here's our thought for the day:

Thoughts on Writing #19: Brontosaurus Bones.

I realize that the title isn't entirely helpful, which is why we always have an expanded topic for discussion. (My personal shorthand for a lot of things is very, very strange. This is only one of those things.) Here's today's expanded, hopefully less-confusing topic:

Talk about writing exactly as much as you, personally, need to talk about writing. I suggest finding tolerant friends. When I talk about writing, I'm like a velociraptor gnawing on a brontosaurus bone -- it's going to take me a while to get my head all the way around things, and there's a whole lot to swallow. If I tried to work everything out in the privacy of my own head, I would explode, and nothing would ever get done. You may be on the opposite side of the spectrum. There is no wrong answer.

So that's where the dinosaurs come into things. (Also, yes, I'm aware that the paleontologists of the world have decided that there was never such a thing as the brontosaurus. Since I'm not actually a velociraptor, I really don't care.) This week, we're talking about talking about writing. A lot of people have said a lot of things about talking about writing, and now I'm going to say several more.

Ready? Excellent. Let's get started.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on talking about writing.Collapse )

Let's take a trip back in time with number eighteen in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing, aka 'the first essay where Seanan has really had an excuse to use dinosaurs as a metaphor for life.' There will eventually be fifty essays in this series, all of them based on my fifty thoughts on writing. Naturally, this means that some essays will be more useful than others, while some essays will contain a lot of references to extinction events and the need for electric fences around your velociraptor pens.

Here's our thought for the day:

Thoughts on Writing #18: Thesaurus vs. Velociraptor.

I realize that the title isn't entirely helpful, which is why we always have an expanded topic for discussion. (My personal shorthand for a lot of things is very, very strange. This is only one of those things.) Here's today's expanded, hopefully less-confusing topic:

Using big words doesn't make you a better writer, it makes you somebody who figured out how to use a thesaurus. Every word has a purpose and a meaning, but there's no reason to clutter up what you're trying to say with a bunch of words that will leave most readers diving for their dictionaries. That doesn't mean you need to dumb yourself down. It just means you need to really stop and ask yourself whether you want to use the word 'expectorate' when what you mean is 'spit.' Even Shakespeare used small words sometimes, and even the trashiest popular novelist in the world is allowed to use big ones. Suit your words to the task at hand.

That's right: this week we're going to be talking about word choices, what those word choices actually say about us as writers, and how to use the Thesaurus without inspiring people to beat you with it. The velociraptors are a metaphor for using the appropriate word in the appropriate situation. Also, I just really, really like velociraptors.

Ready? Excellent. Let's get started.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on word choices, thesaurus abuse, and why some nervous habits need to become extinct.Collapse )

It's time for number seventeen in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing. There will eventually be fifty essays in this series, all of them based on my fifty thoughts on writing; once number fifty has been written, I'll need to find something to do with my time. Maybe I'll, I don't know, write a book or something. Not all the essays will be of use to everyone, but I'll at least attempt to make them entertaining.

Here's our thought for the day:

Thoughts on Writing #17: Have Faith In Your Editor.

This is actually a thought that applies to everyone who writes, whether you're doing essays for a class or trying to craft the Great American/European/Australian/Martian/Whatever Novel. It's publishing-oriented in the sense that I do believe that work intended for publication requires more extensive editing, and we'll be talking about that. It's also writing-for-fun-oriented, in the sense that we want our readers not to bludgeon us to death with trout. Here's today's expanded topic of discussion:

A good editor looks good when you look good. They're trying to help you. Listen to them. Not everyone is a good editor. After a few experiences with the bad ones, you'll learn how to recognize the difference.

It's impossible to provide the experience necessary to tell a good editor from a bad one, at least in part because that definition will vary from person to person. Sometimes the variation will be slight; other times, the variation will be large enough to become incomprehensible. So we're going to try to cover the generalities today, and more importantly, we're going to be discussing the reasons that we need to be edited at all.

Ready? Excellent. Let's get started.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on editors, being edited, and why these things are necessary.Collapse )

Welcome to number sixteen in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing. I'm planning for fifty essays in this series, all of them based on my fifty thoughts on writing. Not all the essays will be of use to everyone. Some of them may not be of use to anyone but me (and since they're my thoughts, I definitely find them useful). Some will be more practical than others. Some will be more theoretical than others. None will be filled with tasty candy, although I really wish they would be.

Here's our thought for the day:

Thoughts on Writing #16: Be Realistic About the Market.

Yes, this is another of the more publishing-oriented essays in the series, and provides the opposite side to essay #15's 'love your work and write what you love' coin. If you're looking for more specific writing tips, you may want to check back later. We will be discussing writing today, obviously, but we're mostly going to be looking at the parts of the business that relate to market trends, taking advice from agents or editors, and making hard decisions about the future of your work. Here's today's expanded topic of discussion:

Understand that what you want to write may not be something that the market can currently support. There will be books no one wants to buy because they can't figure out what genre they fit into. There will be books you can't sell to anyone, period. And then there will be the books where your editor says 'look, we can only take this if you're willing to make the evil scientist a werewolf.' The decision is ultimately yours -- I can't tell you what to do -- but you're going to need to embrace the fact, right out of the gate, that your best-behaved, most beautiful baby may be the one that no one wants to invite to their birthday party.

Yes: after talking about 'write what you love,' today we're going to talk about 'write what will sell.' They're not quite the polar opposites that they seem to be on the surface. After all, you might argue, one of them's the cute but bookish girl who organizes the school literary magazine, writes romantic poetry, and never goes out without a notebook, while the other is the high school beauty queen punk-rock cheerleader movie star who has all the boys wrapped around her little finger. There's no way that they have anything in common, is there?

On the contrary. Much like Hannah Montana and her secret pop star routine, the two have more in common than you'd think. Bearing that firmly in mind, let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on writing to the market, and making the hard decisions about how to handle your work.Collapse )

It's time for number fifteen in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing. There will eventually be fifty essays in this series, all of them based on my fifty thoughts on writing. Some of the essays will be more practical than others; some of them will be theoretical, and most of them will be based around really weird metaphors, because that's just the way we roll around here. Please feel free to poke at me if you have any questions about the things that I discuss, and remember, I am very easily bribed.

Here's our thought for the day:

Thoughts on Writing #15: Follow Your Bliss.

While the thought at the core of today's essay is a bit more publishing-oriented than many of them have been (or will be), it can still apply to writers of all stripes, whether you're writing for fun or writing with the goal of eventually becoming the next big best-selling author. This is another essay that's just as much about being a reader as it is about being a writer; hopefully, if I write enough of these, people will realize that I genuinely mean it when I say that without reading, writing starts going a little bit stale. Here's today's expanded topic of discussion:

Write what you want to write. I don't care if it's a total cliche, if that's honestly what you want to do, do it. You may never get it published. You may strike it big and wind up in a position to publish all your trunk novels. Either way, refusing to write what you love just because it's not commercial enough is going to do nothing but turn you bitter and angry at the whole industry, and that's no good for anyone.

'Write what you love' may seem like an odd piece of advice on the surface, but considering how often people hear 'write what will sell,' I think it's important to say it. The pressure to write what's hot and popular is always present, no matter what sort of an audience you happen to be writing for. How many fanfic authors get notes that say things like 'wow, this story was great, but you know what would have been better? If it had my favorite characters instead'? Most of them, that's how many. And that's what we're going to talk about today.

All set? Excellent. Let’s begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on writing what you love, rather than writing what people tell you to.Collapse )

We're back! Welcome to number fourteen in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing. There will eventually be fifty essays in this series, all of them based on my fifty thoughts on writing. This proves that I have no hobbies. All fifty thoughts were composed in a single heated, Diet Dr Pepper-powered session, which probably goes a long way towards explaining the number of seriously weird metaphors involved. I'm reasonably easy to bribe and distract, so if there's something you've been hoping I will -- or won't -- discuss, remember, if it's orange, I probably adore it.

Here's our thought for the day:

Thoughts on Writing #14: Know Your Territory.

While the thought at the core of today's essay is a bit more publishing-oriented than many of them have been (or will be), it can still apply to writers of all stripes, whether you're writing for fun or writing with the goal of eventually becoming the next big best-selling author. This is another essay that's just as much about being a reader as it is about being a writer; hopefully, if I write enough of these, people will realize that I genuinely mean it when I say that without reading, writing starts going a little bit stale. Here's today's expanded topic of discussion:

Even if you're not publishing right now -- even if you're just hoping to publish someday -- make sure you're reading as much as you can of the genres where you're writing or planning to write. The line between 'new and hot' and 'played-out and cliche' is a thin one, and while I'm not saying 'throw away your baby because somebody else got there first,' you need to know where that line is at any given moment, because you need to be able to defend your work from an informed perspective.

Now, you will hopefully remember that we discussed genre and what it means in essay thirteen, 'Reading Outside the Box,' and I can thus continue without going over old ground. If you don't remember that essay, or if you want a refresher on its contents, that's okay. We can wait right here while you get caught up. Once you're ready, we can continue.

All set? Excellent. Let’s begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on reading inside the genre, why this is an important thing to do, and why we sometimes have to defend our work.Collapse )

Hello, and welcome to number thirteen in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing. There will eventually be fifty essays in this series, all of them based on my fifty thoughts on writing. The fifty thoughts comprise everything I could think of to say on the topic in a single afternoon. I could probably come up with more -- I'm useful that way -- but I really think that fifty essays is more than enough for now. I respond well to bribery, so if there's anything you've really been hoping I'd go into, remember that candy corn and dead things are an excellent channel to my affections.

Here's our thought for the day:

Thoughts on Writing #13: Reading Outside the Box.

Today’s essay is going to be a little bit different, because today’s essay is going to be just as much about being a reader as it is about being a writer. Reading is an enormously important part of writing. The temptation to say ‘oh, I can’t take the time to read that, I’m a writer, I have to be writing’ is always going to be there. Most writers are essentially junkies; our drug of choice is putting words on paper. Cheaper than most of the things you can buy on the street, but very time-consuming, and like all junkies, we can get resistant to things that might get between us and our fix. Even when we do make the time to read, the temptation to say ‘I’m just going to stick with what I know I like’ is intensely high. It’s also intensely bad for us. So here’s what we’re going to discuss today:

Read outside your preferred genres. I'm an old-school horror girl. I love fantasy and funny genre fiction. I read more books on epidemics than anyone outside the CDC really needs to. But that won't make me grow, so I also read trashy crime thrillers and westerns, hard science fiction and romances, and pretty much anything with a plot that looks like it might hold my interest. Seeing what they're doing outside your comfort zone will help you understand what's inside your comfort zone much, much better.

Because our topic is a little less cut-and-dried than some of them, we’re going to be taking a slightly different format today, defining genres and discussing things that may qualify as ways to step outside of them. I’m also going to try to offer alternatives, in those cases where the genre is one that tends to alienate those it doesn’t embrace. Hopefully, you’ll be able to look at the options I offer and come up with a few options of your own.

Make sense? Excellent. Let’s begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on reading outside the genre, ways to find books outside your comfort zone, and a few possible places to start.Collapse )

Hello, and welcome to number twelve in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing. There will eventually be fifty essays in this series, all of them based on my fifty thoughts on writing. I wrote all fifty of the initial thoughts in one hot, caffeine-fueled session. That may explain why the metaphors are occasionally so bizarre. (The English language as Frankenstein's monster was really just the beginning.) I'm averaging about one essay a week, of varying lengths, and will thus be able to avoid figuring out something else to do with myself for the better part of a year. That's awesome.

Here's our thought for the day:

Thoughts on Writing #12: Good Critique, Bad Critique.

Now, it was brought up in the discussion on one of the earlier essays that it read less like an essay about how to write, and more like an essay on how to be someone who writes. I think that's an important distinction. There will be several essays in this series that are less about how to do and more about how to be. In a weird way, it's like trying to explain Weight Watchers to people. I can tell you 'what you do is you eat this much food and drink this much water and you're fine,' but that doesn't tell you how to handle the various hurdles and complications that will arise if you want to actually succeed at doing the program. I also need to tell you how to be on some levels. This essay, like some of those before it and several of those after it, is more about being than doing. And here is what we're being about today:

Good critique targets the text, not the author. Good critique says 'this is sloppy and needs tightening,' or 'I don't think this word works here,' or 'I really don't understand the pacing in this scene.' Bad critique says 'wow, you really turned the suck knob to eleven on this one' or 'why don't you do something you're good at?'. Learn to tell the difference. Don't reject critique because it's harsh on the text; don't seek out critique that's going to make you lose the will to improve. It's a hard balance to strike. It can take a long time. It's absolutely worth it.

Please note that I can't really teach you how to give good critique, although I can give you some examples of things not to do because you'd hate it if people did them to you. What I can do is talk about the way to tell good critique from bad critique, determine your comfort zones, and respond to critique without placing value judgments on anything other than the text. Critique is vital. Learning to take it well is just as essential.

Good? Good. Let's go.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on good critique, bad critique, and the way to tell the difference.Collapse )

Hello, and welcome to number eleven in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing. All the essays in this series are based on my fifty thoughts on writing, all of which were composed in one hot, caffeine-fueled session. That may explain why the metaphors are occasionally so bizarre. This week's essay is a little different, because it depends rather heavily on having read essay number ten, which was on the topic of validation. If you've been skipping in and out of the series (totally understandable), please take a moment to go back and skim number ten before proceeding. It's okay. I can wait.

Back yet? All right, excellent. Here's our thought for the day:

Thoughts on Writing #11: Suffer For Your Art.

This is continuing to touch on the topic of validation, which, as we all know, really doesn't like to be touched. More importantly, it doesn't like to be disputed, and that's what we're about today. Where is the line between seeking validation and refusing to grow? How do we deal with the human desire to hear nice things, and the author's need for critique? It's hard, and that's why our thought for the day is:

Look: if you just want validation and sugar and sweetness, that's okay. But you need to admit it to yourself, and you need to admit that you don't actually want to sell anything. Thanks to the Internet, you can have a wide audience by opening a website, and that can be wonderful and fulfilling, and you won't ever have to listen to a single harsh word. There is nothing wrong with that. I post a lot of stuff online that I don't necessarily feel like being critiqued on. Those pieces say 'be gentle,' and their safe word is 'no.' If what you want is to improve as a writer, however, and if you're looking to publish someday, change 'be gentle' to 'bring it on,' and get ready to suffer for your art.

As a writer, you're going to hear a lot of things about validation. Some of those things will be good. Some of those things will be bad. None of those things will change the fact that, as human creatures, we will occasionally require positive feedback to encourage and motivate us, and to keep us moving forward. So when is it okay to go fishing for approval? What makes validation a good thing, and not a handicap?

Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my continuing thoughts on the touchy topic of validation.Collapse )