My name is Blaise and I refuse to call myself a failure.
Even though I sometimes seriously feel like one.
Especially in the writing game.
Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
You know, it’s frustrating – I have this terrible habit of thinking I’ll be consistent, mentioning it, and then failing utterly.
Welcome back to the Book Boulevard. How’ve you been? Thanks for stopping by – I know it’s been a while. But everyone needs a break every now and then, and I’m here to explain why I needed one. As you may have guessed from the title, my life has seen a lot of changes as of late.
Thou Shalt Not: The Commandments of the Book Boulevard
Today is a day of changes. Sort. The following are five commandments of the Book Boulevard that I’ve sort of been following already, but that I wished to share with you as well. Part of my goal with this blog is to be transparent. I want to share with where I can and where I deem appropriate.
When Writing Starts to Feel Like Groundhog Day
Even if you haven’t seen Groundhog Day, you’re probably familiar with the premise: a guy goes to a town. He has a day. And the next morning, he wakes up, and it’s the same day. He ends up living the same day—with variations—over and over until the end of the movie.
What do you do when writing starts to feel like that?
#writechain: The Benefits
Hey travelers~
So, I’ve explained to you gems what #writechain is and I’ve addressed some of the concerns with possible solutions, but what are the good parts of it?
That’s what we’re chatting about today.
#writechain: Problems and Solutions
After 30 days of writing every day, I broke my #writechain. In my defense, the day was otherwise very productive: I had a long job interview, and then spent the night with my mom (whom I don’t get to see very often). I didn’t even realize until the following morning that I hadn’t written.
Today, I’m starting over.
A couple of weeks ago, I did a post on what #writechain is and my experience with it. Today, I want to talk about three concerns and challenges one might face in attempting to write every day (if one were to try).
BUT WAIT, there’s more! I’ll even be offering a potential solution to each of them! | end bad car salesperson persona.
Beautiful People #4 — Random
Good day, travelers! Today, I’ll be chatting a little bit about one of my characters. Every month, Cait @ Paper Fury and Sky @ Further Up and Further In host Beautiful People, which is a creative writing link-up intended to help writers develop their characters by asking a series of 10 questions. I put up a poll on Twitter to see whom you guys wanted to learn more about, and you voted for Mateo from Kadabra Way.
#writechain
Welcome travelers! It’s time for another metaphor.
#writechain is a hashtag spearheaded by creator Faye of Writerology (if you’re into psychology, check out her blog, where she takes a psychological approach to writing!). The idea is to write every day—the word count or other amount being whatever you set it as—and to build your chain through that. Each day is one link. If you miss a day, you break the chain, and have to start over. Simple enough, right?
So what’s the point?
Quantity of quality, surprisingly enough. Some of you may rebel at the mere idea, but remember that anonymous quote that talks about the impossibility of editing a blank page?
For now, I wanted to talk a little bit about my personal experience with #writechain and the “rules” that I’ve set for myself.
The Trouble with Writers
The piece below is a brainchild of musings that isn’t intended to be totally serious. While I think there are kernels of truth in it, I don’t think that this applies to all writers, by any means, though I hope that you’ll be able to see some of yourself in it.
Beautiful Books — 2017
Beautiful Books, here we are again. It’s been a solid year since I participated in this link-up, but I figured… why not? Beautiful Books is hosted by Cait of Paper Fury and Sky of Further Up, Further In, and you can check out other posters there as well~ The idea behind the link-up is to share a little bit about our WIPs based on the questions that Cait and Sky pose to us. It’s also a great way to find other writers in the blogging community. Usually, the link-up is “Beautiful People,” so we can explore our characters, so this might look a bit different in future posts.
01. What were your writing achievements last year?
Good question. You know, I’m not sure. I did manage to write 10 chapters of a WIP (about 26k words). Although it isn’t the most I’ve ever written on a WIP, it’s the most coherent bit that I’ve written, as far as I can tell. I also had a brain blast as to how to rekindle my spark for said WIP and get going on a second one. So I’m pretty excited to get back into writing (although plotting holds me at bay).
02. What’s on your writerly “to-do list” for 2017?
The biggest goal is to finally finish a WIP. This will be on my goal list until I complete it. I need to get better at that. Hence I am also limiting myself to two WIPs I’ve already started, but allowing myself to switch between them. I need to get better at the worldbuilding for that world, and I need to re-plot both WIPs at least a little bit (one requires far more re-plotting than the other). And then I will get back into writing 😀 I also want to continue to perfect my skill of typing while I make awkward eye contact with my eyebrow-raising dog.
03. Tell us about your top-priority writing projects for this year!
WIP #1 is about corporate superheroes discovering the masquerade—and realizing that they are not the only supernatural types out there. This story has had the most plotting of any I’ve attempted to write…. And it needs to be reworked so much. It also happens to be the one that I mentioned in my 2016 Beautiful Books. Oops?
WIP #2 is a dual-POV about a supernatural halfway house. One POV concerns the story of the vampire who wants to run said halfway house, and her attempts to gain her license by dealing with a troublesome witch. The other POV is a sound elemental who very unfortunately gets stuck in said house when said troublesome witch messes up a protective ward she tried to create for him.
04. How do you hope to improve as a writer? Where do you see yourself at the end of 2017?
My main hope of improvement is completion. I have a terrible record of getting side-tracked by non-writerly life and then… not coming back to whatever I was working on. The other thing I’m attempting to do is to improve my consistency with writing. I had a 13-day streak until Thursday, when I got home from work so exhausted I went to bed at 7pm and slept through until about 10:30 the following morning. Oops. I’m starting my streak over today, and hopefully I’ll be able to hit the 21 days it takes to reach a habit!
05. Describe your general editing process.
Read thing. Be disgusted with thing. Rewrite thing. Take a long break. Repeat.
Ehem.
More seriously, it does involve a lot of rewriting and replanning. I’m still improving at my ability to see flaws in my own work, but I can pick out language issues for the most part. I’ve gotten better at other things, but my general plan of attack for edits tends to be large-scale problems first, and slowly work to smaller problems as the bigger ones are fixed. There’s no point in making a scene beautiful if the scene will be deleted.
06. On a scale of 1-10, how do you think this draft turned out?
So far, I think both of these WIPs are okay. I wouldn’t say they’re entirely shit like some of the other stuff I’ve written, but they still need so much work. Hence completely re-plotting one of them. I guess I’ve give them somewhere in the 4-6 range, depending on how I’m feeling that day (right now, I’m feeling a 6, because I’m deliriously sleepy :D).
07. What aspect of your draft needs the most work?
The missing 60 percent part. Yeah. That. Also worldbuilding. And plot. Sensing a theme, are we?
08. What do you like the most about your draft?
The characters, I think. They’re by no means perfectly developed, but I’m getting to know them and search their depths and I love it. They feel kind of real to me. I could imagine them walking down the street. And that’s really, really cool.
09. What are your plans for this novel once you finish editing? More edits? Finding beta readers? Querying? Self-publishing? Hiding it in a dark hole forever?
Write first, then edit. Then let it cool off for a while and work on another project in the meantime. Go back for another edit. CP, if I have one by then. Edit. Hide in a hole while it goes out to beta readers. Read comments. Cry. Edit. See how I’m feeling about the project and consider querying (but I imagine that’s a long way off).
10. What’s your top piece of advice for those just finished writing a first draft?
Give it time.
Don’t jump straight into edits. Don’t jump straight into passing it to everyone. Let the iron cool and work on something else. You’ll be better able to read critically, with a clear head, when you go back to the draft—if you go back to it—if you’ve taken a break first.
It even helps with blog posts 😉
Safe Travels,
The Book Boulevard 