I Finished Writing My Book—Now What?

When I first started writing, I looked for any and every bit of advice I could find that would help me. Without a doubt, the best collection of advice I found came in Stephen King’s “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.” I first read it in 2006. It’s 2015 now and I’m still unpacking and learning to apply some of what he talks about in this book.

One of my favourite pieces of advice in the book (which was also very hard for me to follow) was about what to do when you had finally finished a draft. Stephen King recommends you put away your draft until you can look at it fresh and start working on something new in the meantime. It’s taken nearly ten years, but I think I finally figured out how to go about doing this. One of the steps I had to learn first was how to write every day. Not so long ago—it was taking me a super long time (years) to finish a draft. I had to learn how to build a habit of writing a little bit every day. Once I figured out how to do that—things went a bit easier.

I recently finished a novella called, The Skeleton Key. This book was a continuation of another novella I wrote last year called, The Vampire Skeleton—a book about what Haudenosaunee vampires might be like today and inspired by a popular story my people have been telling for over a hundred years. The Skeleton Key is just over 40,000 words long. I had a great time writing the first draft of it and I’ll be super excited to release it at some point over the next year.

Once I was finished the draft, I happily posted to Twitter and got some very nice congratulations and encouragement from fellow writers who also do the Monthly Writing Challenge. I have to say that encouragement has made such a huge difference in my writing output as well—giving and receiving it. It honestly feels so great to have a place to actively cheer others on. Before I joined the Monthly Writing Challenge—I didn’t really have that many people to talk to about writing. Now I feel like I have a lot of people to talk to and be inspired by and I’m amazed at how much more enjoyable that has made the writing process.

The next thing I did was think about which project I was going to work on next. I started it the very next day. In all my years of writing—that has never happened to me.

A few years ago, I might have done differently. I might have dove right in and started making changes. I might have started looking for places or people I could submit it to. But over the last year I think I’ve overcome something important. It isn’t self-doubt—I think that rascal will always be present to some degree. But it might have been a combination of fear and self-imposed pressures/expectations. It was like there used to be this tiny piece of me that believed the story I was writing was the only story idea I was ever going to be able to come up with and if I didn’t get it perfectly right—I was going to ruin my chances at being a writer forever. I’m not sure why I thought that or why my fear manifested itself in this way. I just know it made it extremely difficult for me to start working on something else. The only way to work past this was to show myself that it was not true—that I had plenty of stories to tell. And the only way to show myself that—was to keep writing.

I’d written three novels in the fifteen years before I started writing seriously a year and a half ago (and by seriously I mean a minimum of 500 words every day). Since that time I’ve written two novels, two novellas, a middle grade book, two children’s books and several short stories. It’s still kind of amazing to me that I’ve written that much just by doing a little bit every day. But even more amazing to me, is that somewhere along the way, the ideas for books and stories I wanted to write came gushing out, so that in addition to the 7 projects that are almost done, there are 5 new projects in the works and new ideas coming every day. This time around, the problem I had wasn’t finding something to write—but figuring out which project to work on first? And that was a super awesome problem to have.

Happy writing everyone!

S.

A Balancing Act: Returning to Work After Maternity Leave

My writing life has undergone many transitions. My twenties were probably the most turbulent. I was in university for most of them and struggling to make ends meet. Back then I would dream about the kind of stability I needed to be a writer. I had a very specific picture in my mind of what it would take and I planned to achieve it by my thirtieth birthday. I knew exactly where I needed to be when I turned thirty—on my own, in a small house or apartment, with a MacBook, surrounded by books. What I didn’t account for, was the fact that the job I had to help pay for the small house, the MacBook and the other bills that come along with life—would take up every waking hour of my time.

It was this commencement speech, given by Neil Gaiman that helped me to realize one important fact—I was writing more emails than I was writing stories. I would spend minutes, even hours poring over the words of emails, briefing notes and press releases. And even though I for the most part liked the work I was doing—I felt like my creativity had been stuffed in a bottle. I felt like my voice had been stripped away and all that was capable of coming out was branded, careful messaging. My projects were likewise impacted by this state of limbo—of wanting to say things but being uncertain whether or not I should. I hid meaning behind meaning and because I only wrote when I thought I had a full day to do it—there were days and even weeks between my writing sessions.

Looking back, I think this was an important thing for me to go through—this uncertainty, this questioning. It helped me to write a totally strange story that while totally strange—was 100% the story I wanted to be writing. It was filled with characters that practically leapt out of my imagination and even though I didn’t do a perfect job of capturing them the first time around—I’ve had four years to do better. I learned—very slowly—how to write a little bit at a time. Stephen King has written about this, but so has Neil Gaiman, in an article where he says that if you write just 300 words a day—by the end of the year, you have a novel. So last April, I decided to try it—to write as little as 300 words, every day. 

I was pregnant at the time and wondering what would happen with my writing once I became a mother. I knew I wouldn’t stop writing but I still didn’t know what my writing schedule would look like. How could I? I’d never really had one. Fortunately, it all turned out well—I stumbled upon the Monthly Writing Challenge community and for the last year I’ve felt more productive than at any other time in my life. Stories are pouring out of me. I developed a solid writing routine. But then my maternity leave came to an end. And I was to return to work—to a job I absolutely love. Would my writing routine crumble again? I was determined that it wouldn’t—that everything would work out fabulously.

And guess what? It did! I admit the first day was hard. Not the writing part—the part where I had to be away from my daughter. I didn’t want to be away from her and I suppose I still don’t. But I really do love and believe in the work that I’m doing. It makes me feel happy, excited and fulfilled. I’m also lucky that my baby is only five minutes away from my work with my partner and our mothers.

So for the last two weeks, I’ve been waking up at 6:30 and writing until I get my 500 words. My work in progress, which I started three weeks ago, has now grown to 17,000 words! I can go to work with a sense of calm—at least in the writing/creativity sense of the word. That calm means a great deal to me. It helps me to keep balanced between being a mommy and being a writer and being a wife and a sister and a friend and all of the other roles and relationships I maintain. And none of this would be possible if my partner wasn’t as awesome and supportive as he is. I am extremely blessed.

Editing remains something of a challenge. I’m working on an edit of my book The Vampire Skeleton right now and reading this book: Rivet Your Readers With Deep Point of View. I can usually only edit for half an hour or so on the weeknights. It takes me about two or three nights to make it through a chapter, if I’m focussed. It’s a touch slower than I’d like to be moving so my goal is to make up for that in 2-3 hour sessions on the weekends but I’ve yet to implement this structure. I know that I can make these adjustments and that it’s okay to take my time. I suppose in summary—I am feeling enormously grateful. Grateful that I’m still writing, still editing, still doing all of these things that I love and that make me happy. Being a parent. A Wife. An Artist. A Language Learner. And taking care not to become a professional email answerer/workaholic.

Happy writing & editing everyone!
S. 

Vampires and Second Drafts

A week ago, I started the second draft of a book I’ve tentatively titled, The Vampire Skeleton. This book sprang from an idea I had while I was researching my short story collection last year. Essentially, the idea was this: what would First Nation vampires be like?

The Vampire Skeleton is about a girl named Rowen who is apprenticing to become the healer in her community. The story takes place in a world where a group of Indigenous Peoples have decided to retreat to a tight-knit community in order to revitalize their languages and ceremonies, essentially eschewing all contact with mainstream culture. The community is separated from the rest of the world by a magical wall built hundreds of years ago. For the most part, Rowen is happy there, but when a vampire attacks her best friend, Rowen has to journey beyond the wall to try and save him. Along the way, her values and beliefs are challenged by the people and situations she encounters.

I had no idea the book was going to be about any of this when I started writing it back in April 2014. I was nine months pregnant with my daughter and had just started my maternity leave. I knew I was going to spend the majority of my time with my new baby once she arrived and I had no writing projects to work on so I thought it would be cool to try writing 300 words of something a day. I kept up with the story after she was born (May 11) and I finished a rough draft of The Vampire Skeleton in mid June.

The only idea I really had in my head was that in vampire genre movies and books, Indigenous Peoples were always shape shifters or werewolves. I had just read the Haudenosaunee legend of the vampire skeleton and thought it would be cool to try and write something where Indigenous Peoples were the vampires. Plus, I love vampires and I’ve always wanted to write a vampire story.

Here’s the thing. I know there are literally thousands of vampire stories in the world. This still didn’t stop me from writing my own, even if publishers and agents aren’t looking for any more stories of this nature. I didn’t write it for publishers or agents. I wrote it for me (that’s okay to do!), and somewhere along the line it became the book that I associate with those amazing first weeks we shared with our daughter, when we were filled with so much love and hope and fear. So I suppose I wrote it for her as well <3! 

I guess what I’m trying to say or what I learned from this experience is that it’s important to write the stories that you want to and that you love—whether they are going to be popular or not. I think I would have a super hard time finding representation for this piece but thats okay—I wrote something that I thought was fun and that I had passion for. That counts as a win to me.

The other reason I’m blogging about this book has to do with second drafts. I’m about nine chapters into The Vampire Skeleton and it’s a bit of a mess in that lovely way first drafts can be. But it’s interesting because even though I had no outline for this story (I pantsed it!), I can really see how the basic outline was created simply through the process of writing. It still needs a lot of work, though. Pantsing was a great experience but as I create the second draft I find myself struggling at the points where I must have been floundering in the initial writing. That’s okay too! That’s what editing is for. Writing. Cutting. Revising. Rewriting. After all, there is no one perfect way to write a novel. Even more important: no one will write a novel, of any genre, the same way you will. So write that story you are so passionate about! Get that first draft down and write ‘THE END’. Then go back and edit and fall in love with your story all over again.  

Happy writing!

S.

The Hardest Part of the Writing Process (For Me)

My favourite piece of writing advice, which I’ve also found the hardest to follow, comes from Neil Gaiman. I looked around and was unable to find the link where he originally gave said advice, but I have it pinned up on my Pinterest page in a fun info-graph someone made. You can view it here.

The advice is simple and it was recently echoed in a Writing Excuses podcast that I listened to over the weekend. The advice is simple: FINISH WHAT YOU START. Up until now, finishing has been the part of the process that I’ve struggled with the most.

In fact, I’ve never finished a story. I’ve typed ‘THE END’ maybe six or seven times (which feels awesome in its own right). But I’ve never truly finished a novel, packaged it and had it readied for publication—whether Traditional or Indie—although I recently shared a few of my stories on my website and on Wattpad. As a result, I have a lot of novels lying around on hard drives that have never been edited a second time, much less a fifth or a sixth.

On a recent Writing Excuses podcast, Mary Robinette Kowal explained that it’s important to finish things because when you finish them; you realize what parts of the writing process you struggle with. (This was in response to a question about when and why to abandon a project, the larger discussion of which was also fantastic and worth listening to).

I liked what Mary said here because in my case, it’s very true; although the parts of the process I struggle with have not always been the same. For example, as a younger writer (in my teens and early twenties), I had a fundamental lack of knowledge about what it took to produce a book of the same quality I was reading in the store. I didn’t realize the books I was reading had gone through multiple stages of editing and copy-editing and that if I wanted mine to look the same, I would have to employ similar things. In other words, I didn’t realize what it really meant to finish something.

Now, in this age of the Internet, it is much easier to find information about what the process of writing a novel looks like and how to put your best story forward. It’s also a great deal easier to connect with people and find critique partners, beta readers, editors, and book designers using online tools and forums.

Right now, the parts of the process that I find most challenging are: the ‘THIS SUCKS AND I’M A HORRIBLE WRITER’ syndrome (an ongoing struggle throughout the writing, editing and revision stages), and making enough time in my day to make meaningful progress on my work.

Knowing all of this is helpful because it helped me to develop a plan. And I need a plan because I have a lot of stories in draft stages and I return to work in two months. I really, really want to make sure that I finish those stories and that I keep writing new work. Here’s how I am going to make sure that I do. I am going to:

1.     Write a minimum of 500 new words on a new project per day OR edit for a minimum of 1 hour every day. This is essential. Of all of the things that help me the most with the “THIS SUCKS AND I’M A HORRIBLE WRITER” – this is the best. Making writing an every day thing. Morning, noon, night, in sprints, café’s or out of doors, this is the way to keep momentum going. And you need momentum. Momentum gets you over the Mountains of Self-Doubt.

2.     Create a publishing schedule for the next 3 years (which I had to do for my publishing company as well) and pen in the dates when revisions, copy edits, formatting needs to be done.

3.     Hire editors. I’ve been working with an editor for the last three weeks. I made changes based on their feedback that made my manuscript so much stronger. I’m way happier with it and their support has helped to bring my novel closer to completion. It’s also improved my writing on other projects.

4.     Read. This kind of goes without saying, but reading helps writing in all kinds of ways. I won’t list them all. I doubt I could list them all. Suffice it to say, reading helps when you get stuck or you don’t know what to write or you don’t know how to make something better. It’s pure inspiration. Revel in it.

5.     Slow down. The slower I go, the easier this will go. It’s hard to slow down when you’re excited, but I know that’s what I need to do.

6.     Learn when to let the project go out into the world. This is something I actually have no experience with. I’ve not yet edited to the point where I just have to stop tinkering with it and publish it already. This is also on the Neil Gaiman writing tips info-graph thing—letting things go and moving onto the next project. As I get through my next drafts, I’ll be looking to other writer’s experiences to help me gauge how I’ll know when to let go. I’ll be sure to blog about it when I do.  

In the end, I decided to work towards writing (and finishing) 1-2 novels per year because now that I understand the process a bit better, and have better habits, this is how many projects I think I can reasonably finish in that time. I know authors who are finishing way more books than this a year, but right now, I’m not sure that’s feasible for me. Even two might be too many! One I can definitely hold myself to.

What about you? What is your favourite writing advice and who gave it? What has been your experience with finishing work

Happy writing!

S.

How Will You Share Your Writing With The World?

I recently shared a story for free on Wattpad. It was a 6,000 word story. Previously, I’d seen other people sell stories of this length on Amazon for $0.99 and a part of me wondered whether or not I should be doing the same. In the end, I decided that what I wanted most was a place to share and so I decided to create a Wattpad page. But as more of my stories get closer and closer to being ready for the world, I find myself asking questions about where, how and why I want to make them available.

I write books inspired by themes and events in Haudenosaunee history. My Wattpad story was written for a science fiction contest called Imagining Indigenous Futurisms that I never wound up entering and was inspired in part by my people’s Creation Story, in which a pregnant woman falls to Earth from Skyworld.

As I write and read about other authors and Indigenous publishers, I realize that there may not be a lot of market yet for books like mine. I recently started reading Mindy Kaling’s book “Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?” and in the introduction she makes a joke about the target audience her publisher’s research determined her book would appeal to (Aunts of America).  She then thanks readers for choosing her book over the hundreds of teenage vampire stories that are out there. It’s both funny and true. There's a huge market for teenage vampire stories (I know I’ve read my fair share) and every once in awhile, it makes me wonder if maybe I needed to be writing something different, something in a genre people want to read right now and that an agent or publisher might be looking for. 

This usually only lasts a few seconds because then I remember I’m not writing because I have dreams of becoming rich. I just want be healthy, happy and safe and I want to spend my time doing things I love and am passionately interested in. And if, on top of all that great, good happiness,  I am fortunate enough to make money, I want to put it towards making more language resources (stories, plays, books, puppet shows, etc) because I love Haudenosaunee languages and culture. 

Where does that leave me with wanting to give books away for free? I'm not exactly sure yet. I like my Wattpad experience so far. I'm just so amazed and grateful that people actually read the story and I definitely want to put more writing there in the future. But I’m still trying to decide how to share the rest of my work. Looking at how other artists and writers are approaching this has been a great help. There are many artists giving their art away through a pay-what-you-want model. This lets people support them within their means. Here are some of the reasons why the idea of making stories free appeals to me: 

• I love reading. Reading has always been a huge escape for me and as a child, I pretty much read for free. I mean, my parents paid for my books but they couldn’t buy me every single book I wanted (which is why I learned to speed read at the age of seven).  I think I read most of the Babysitter’s Club series from the carpeted corner of the local bookstore and only bought the thickest books of the series as a rule.
• Another reason I want to give away books for free is because I really hear what Amanda Palmer has to say about art being as free and shareable as possible. And I know that money isn’t the only value you can place on a piece of art. Even though I haven’t shared them publically, my little sister has illustrated almost every single piece of writing I’ve ever written. I may never share those stories and will likely never receive a cent for them, but it doesn’t matter because I still have these amazing pieces of art.  
• I also understand what Ksenia Anske says in this post about giving books away for free so that people can sample your work before investing their hard earned money, especially if you are a new writer who no one has really read before.

Bottom line: there are some compelling arguments for giving away and sharing art. 

But there are also compelling reasons for selling art. I know that I couldn’t have survived growing up if people didn’t feel it was important to pay for art (my dad is a sculptor). So giving away art for free is a wonderful but not always feasible concept. People have basic needs to meet and in many cases—families to care for. To do so, they need to be able to earn a living somehow in a stable and predictable way. It’s probably why I actually love buying books and art now that I can. I want people to be able to make a living creating beautiful things that help and inspire others while being able to support themselves. Plus, I’ve been poor and in debt before—I know how stressful it can be to try and be creative when a little voice in your head is telling you that your art won’t pay the bills. 

I know the decision will be different for every writer and artist, and this isn't meant to sway anyone one way or the other - it's really just me thinking out loud. However I choose to tackle this from here on in, I know the first step is still to write the best story I possibly can. I’m learning a lot through the editing process. I’m almost finished the fourth draft of my book The Fortune Teller’s Daughter and I’ll be looking at ways to make it stronger through the next few drafts. Creating greater emotional impact. Killing darlings. Evaluating character voice. I may even change the title! My goal is simply to have a really exciting, page turning, engaging story by the end.

What about you? Do you have a plan for how you are going to distribute or market your books? Are you going to give away any of your books for free? Do you already?

Happy writing and editing everyone!

S.