Category: Composition & Progress

Finding It Or Making It

Either way, time is always the issue.

For us, it appears to come down to a choice between writing simultaneously and having evenings off. And, for now at least, we’re going to keep our evenings.

“Writing together” doesn’t have to mean “sitting in the same room at the same time, engaged in the same activity.” In order to regain a modicum of productivity while our grandkid is on-site a lot, we’ve opted to take turns sneaking off to the Writing Cave. It feels weird because we’re so accustomed to being able to kibbitz instantly whenever a question pops up, and now we have to go track down whoever’s on baby-minding duty, or else save up our kibbitzing for lunchtime or some other moment when we’re both available.

What we remind ourselves is that it was weird not doing our writing in the evening, which we’d been very accustomed to back when Kent was still dayjobbing. We adapted then, and we’ll get adapted this time too.

The one part of the ritual that has often ended up becoming an evening event is the reading aloud of the day’s output. It typically doesn’t take very long, and if it ate into our evening to any meaningful degree that would probably be a good problem to have.

A writing partner is someone who lets you be in two places at once.

WIP Read-Thru Results

The read-thru on Ghosts Book 2 went about like we expected. We really like what we’ve got so far, and we didn’t uncover anything drastic. There were a couple of minor things that we flagged, which mainly have to do with continuity.

In particular, there’s a location that gets described a bit differently in different scenes. This is not just the color of an armchair or which way the window faces. It’s an elaborate locale, which it must be in order to play host to weird and supernatural events that will come up later. We went out of our way to get this place on the page ahead of time, and to give the characters a chance to explore it. This also gave us a chance to invent the fiddly details that will come into play eventually, which we unfortunately seem to have reinvented when we described the spot the second time. This is most likely a case where Kent did one of the affected scenes and Jen did the other, and each of us approached it as if we were introducing the location.

But that’s okay! It just gives us a surfeit of good stuff to draw from when we deal with continuity bobbles during revision.

A writing partner can see things from another angle.

Reading is Writing, Sometimes

Our WIP has hit that point, roughly 100 pages in, where it’s time to go back and read over what we’ve done so far. Take it for a test drive and see how it handles at cruising speed.

During the writing process, we have of course been continually reading and rereading as we added to it, but with a very narrow focus. Looking at the current scene, the current paragraph, the current word. Now, by taking it all in as a whole we are reminded of where the characters came from, how the current scenes came to be.

It also recharges us by reminding us how far we’ve come. Reviewing your progress is a healthy thing, and can be fantastic for morale. We find it renews our desire to see how it turns out. (Even though we already know — there are always still surprises!)

What this read-thru is not: a revision pass. Sure, we’ll clean up whatever easy stuff we happen to spot, and make some notes for later about any larger considerations. But it’s important to keep in mind that this is a WIP, and we have to keep moving forward.

A writing partner is your first reader, your sharpest critic, and your biggest fan.

Seeing Patterns

While we type away on As-Yet Untitled Ghost Novel #2 the feedback has stared coming in on As-Yet Untitled Ghost Novel #1, and we have detected a potential pattern. Well, a couple of patterns. For one, our readers are saying a lot of the same nice things about the writing. For two, and more important, they appear to be in agreement about some opportunities for improvement.

Getting feedback is essential, but it takes a little practice to learn how to apply it. The temptation can be to try to “fix” everything that each critiquer pointed out, but you’ll end up running in circles that way when they all bring up different, often contradictory things. So, don’t let the trees block your view of the forest.

What’s important is patterns. If more than one person mentions the same thing, it’s probably significant. During the critique group meeting, did anyone go, “Oh yeah, same here,” when someone else raised a point? Then that point’s probably important. Sometimes you’ll have to analyze the aggregate notes to find the pattern. And sometimes you’ll have just make your own decisions about which suggestions make sense to you. You’re allowed to disregard anything anyone says. Better to leave your own mistakes in the story than to swap them for someone else’s.

Going over the feedback with a partner is extremely helpful. They bring another set of eyes and ears to catch those patterns, plus they’re a sounding board for figuring out which ideas help the story and which ones don’t. Working with a partner gives you a backup gut-check about which notes to disregard.

A writing partner helps you detect patterns in the data, and helps you understand what they mean.

Our Wide-Ranging Interests

Research is an important part of writing, even when you’re writing novels about ghosts. And it’s fun to absorb new knowledge. Beware, though: in this age of instant access, falling down a rabbit-hole and spending the whole day on “research” is a constant risk. That’s why it’s important that you develop the discipline to stay focused and only devote time to topics with legitimate relevance to your project.

It’s hard to imagine our list getting much zanier if we gave up all pretense of discipline. Believe it or not, legitimate research topics for the Ghost Series include all of the following:

  • blue roses
  • ice cream shops in Copenhagen
  • Jonestown

That’s not output from our prompt generator. That’s an actual sampling of what we’ve looked up so far.

A writing partner will be there for you, sometimes to pull you out of the rabbit-hole and sometimes to join you in taking the plunge.

Specter-Vision

Our WIP is a ghost story (perhaps we’ve mentioned that) and as it happens some of the scenes are ghost-character POV. Our take on being a ghost is that it has a definite effect on one’s outlook, and indeed upon the physical reality of one’s surroundings. Dying changes a person’s entire take on life.

Of course we always remember that when we’re doing their scenes. (Eye-roll)

Okay, there’ve only been a couple of times that we actually had to go back into the text and account for that. It tends to happen when the locale has been previous rendered in ordinary human terms, which would make another detailed description feel redundant (if the current POV character had ordinary human perceptions). It’s just one more aspect of “wearing the right head” to tackle a given character. Likewise if one member of the cast were a dog, meaning they can’t see what’s on the kitchen counters but they can smell and hear lots of stuff that the human characters can’t. So even though it’s the same house everyone’s living in, it can feel like a whole different world for certain characters. (Spoiler: the ghost POV character is not a dog.)

We don’t do real spoilers around here, so we can’t say anything too specific about what it’s like to be a ghost in our story. We asked one of the specters to sum it up for us, and here’s what we got back: “There’s some interesting scenery, but overall it’s kind of a hassle.”

A writing partner is someone whose point of view helps you express your characters’ POV.

A Small Leap In Productivity

It was fortuitous to get an extra day last month in which to do some writing, because it at least partially offset the multiple days when stuff came up and we got no writing done at all.

Let us take this moment to pause and wish a Happy Leap Day to all who celebrate.

Leap Day William

We’re making headway on As-Yet Untitled Ghost Novel #2 once again. Not as rapidly as we were hoping (it never is) but tangible, empirical progress all the same. Kent just wrapped up a scene and got a nice start on the next one, and Jen shipped another couple of stubs.

To help us keep up this momentum — hopefully even build on it — we’re instituting a revolutionary positive-reinforcement technology: sticker charts! Henceforth, our access to ice cream will be regulated by how many stickers we earn. That’ll definitely keep us motivated (at least until we find a black market for frozen dairy treats). So we look forward to cranking up our output!

One thing that we need to remind ourselves about is how much work we get done that’s not reflected in metrics like word count. We talk things out, which is real work but has no measurable substance. Recently, Jen detected a possible issue with repetition across several stubs, and now because of some productive conversations we no longer have that issue. The affected stubs haven’t all been completed, but what would have been the point of plowing through them only to end up scrapping and redoing half those scenes later? It’s unclear how the new stickers-and-ice-cream economy of the Writing Cave will take such scenarios into account.

A writing partner is someone who sticks by you 366 days of the year.

We’re Up!

Our critique group’s most recent meeting (which we hosted at our house) took us up to the finale of the other member’s manuscript that we’ve been discussing. So, now it’s our turn in the hot seat once again.

Critique sessions are a whole separate animal from having beta readers (which we do, also). There are lots of different ways to run a group, but here’s what works well for us.

  1. choose one manuscript to focus on
  2. the author provides a chunk of pages in advance, and whatever guidance they wish regarding the kind of feedback they’re looking for
  3. at the meeting, each member shares input and suggestions, asks questions, etc. about those pages
  4. avoid spending a lot of time on typos and other picky things

Note that this means no one can read ahead, so the author can gauge how well the clues are working, how readers feel about the protagonist at each stage, etc. It’s up to the author how much to reveal, which questions to answer, and so on. Rune Skelley tends to be very tight-lipped. We enjoy getting the rest of the group trying to guess what we’re up to.

Another thing that’s up to each author is whether to bring stuff in before the whole book is written. We’ve done it both ways, and found reasons not to share works-in-progress for critique anymore. For us, the feedback only muddied things at that stage. But some folks thrive on it, and use the requirement of handing out pages by the next meeting as a motivational tool. Do what works for you.

The best part of any critique group meeting is when members start debating what the pages mean and basically forget that the author is there. As the author, that provides a ton of insight into what’s working and why. It’s also nice when your fellow writers come right out and tell you what they thought was effective, or where they felt something needed more work. Just be sure not to settle for “it was good” — these are your colleagues, so they should be able to articulate their reasons for responding a certain way.

A writing partner is someone who kicks Kent under the table when he’s about to blurt out a major spoiler.

The Land-Speed Record Is Safe

Our recent output has been nil.

We got off a roaring start on Ghost Book 2, making good headway because we were doing a good job of sticking to our schedule. And then, well, stuff came up. Life intruded, which it does all the time, but for a couple of weeks now it’s been downright pushy. We’re fine, in fact it was mostly good news! It’s just a lot.

Not that we can claim that we were straining in the traces to put in more of those solid multi-hour work sessions that keep a project on track. Nah, we got a little lazy and took advantage of having some legitimate excuses.

This week we’re recommitting to the schedule, the lifestyle, the dream. Well, that first one mainly. That’s the key: having a schedule. We’re also dabbling with some ideas about carrots and sticks, and maybe shifting back to composing on the laptops for a change of scene. We have humongous desktop monitors, which can be a tremendous boon to productivity in a lot of ways but can also backfire. It’s too easy to leave scads of distractions open all the time.

A bit of archeology in the files for the previous manuscript suggests that these ups and downs are pretty normal for us, and that our net progress is basically right on track. Which is… good to know. Bit disappointing, though. Now that Kent’s retired, our pace was supposed to increase substantially. That hasn’t happened so far. But we’ll figure it out.

A writing partner is still your partner even when you’re not doing a lot of writing.