Where Personal and Professional Life Collide...

http://www.lauraannegilman.net/a-reminder-for-you-and-for-them-and-for-me/

"How do I do this? How do YOU do this? How does it get done, this book-writing, storytelling thing? I keep starting and stopping, getting distracted, getting bored, getting broken.... what's the secret?"

The following paragraph has long resided in the sidebar of my Livejournal blog. Some days (weeks, months, years) it's useful to shake it out and look at it again.

You sit down. You tell a story. You do it any damn way it comes out that works consistently for you. You hope people like it. You hope people pay you for it. You do it again. And again. That's all I got. Zen and the Art of Writer Maintenance. You can cheer me on and I can cheer you on, but in the end? In the end it's down to how you get your getting done, done. So get it done.

You still need specifics? Ass in chair (or feet planted on the ground). Fingers on the letters (or wrapped around a pen). Small goals over and over again until you're done. Everything else is personal, and subject to change as the writer changes. Stop looking at me. Write.

Book Publisher Goes To Court To Recoup Hefty Advances From Prominent Writers

A New York publisher this week filed lawsuits against several prominent writers who failed to deliver books for which they received hefty contractual advances, records show.

I made the mistake of reading the comments in this, and was astounded (and yet not all that surprised) by the level of clueless entitlement in many of the responses, including a few people who should know better.

Folks, a contract is a legal document. It is binding on both parties. So before bitching about a publisher's behavior, read your contract. If you agreed to terms, and don't deliver your end of the deal (either by not-delivering or delivering something that does not match the terms of the deal, ex: was a fake) then in most every contract ever written, they have every legal right to ask for their end of the bargain (the advance) back.

This is not astounding. It is not unfair. It is business.

Traditionally, publishers have written off "bad" advances as the cost of doing business. They consider it the price of maintaining good-will, and weigh it against the cost of fighting to reclaim said advances. Tradition should not be taken for terms. If we're going to demand that publishers act like fiscally responsible businesses when it benefits us, we also need to accept that this may occasionally bite us on the (delinquent) ass. Especially when the economy is crap.

Don't like it? Don't sign the contract. Or, better yet, live up to your end of the deal. Get your book in. Within a reasonable timeframe of the deadline (where reasonable is defined by how much they want to keep you and what you can work out with your editor ahead of time).

We bitch about publishers, and rightfully so. But that does not make the author always the angel.

BookView Cafe is having our "Dog Days of Summer" sale, which means that there are bargains all over the site.

Including, yes, "Practical Meerkat's 52 Bit of Useful info for New (and Old) Writers)!


Regularly $2.99, use the coupon code DOGDAYLAG2012 when you check-out to get $1 off.



[and remember, all royalties I get from this book through the end of the year will go to the Food Bank of New York.]

Just take a look around the BookView Cafe store anytime up from RIGHT NOW! until midnight, June 7, and choose the book you'd like—all the books that are eligible for the giveaway are plainly marked with a gold star. Then come back here (before 11:59PM on June 7th) and leave a comment with the name and author of the book and why you want it (we reserve the right to use that comment for publicity purposes).  This contest is open to everyone - worldwide.

At the end of the promotion, one winner will be selected at each participating site*. If you're a winner, we'll send you a coupon for the e-book of your choice.

On June 8th I will number all of the responses left here, and then have the Oracular Cat choose a winner by the time-honored method (involving paper slips, and catnip.)  You need to reply to my you've-won! post w/ your email, or the Oracular Cat will chose another.








*Here are BVC author sites where you can enter for additional chances to win:

Maya Kaathryn Bonhoff 
Chaz Brenchley 
Patricia Burroughs 
Jeffrey Carver 
Amy Sterling Casil 
Laura Anne Gilman 
Lois Gresh 
Kit Kerr 
Katharine Eliska Kimbriel
Kelly McClymer 
Vonda N. McIntyre 
Nancy Jane Moore 
Linda Nagata 
Pati Nagle 
Steven Harper
Phyllis Irene Radford 
Patricia Rice 
Madeleine Robins 
Deborah J. Ross 
Sherwood Smith 
Jennifer Stevenson 
Judith Tarr
Dave Trowbridge

First: the ObPromotionalBit: A half-faun PI. A girl who sees Death. Magic that runs on electricity. NYC. You know it's gonna be a party... http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/980297055/miles-to-go-promises-to-keep-a-cosa-nostradamus-pr

Ahem. And now, onward to the writing neep.

So, today I started working on the second mystery project. And The first thing I did was take out the proposal (the thing my editor saw) and start breaking it down into an actual Plot.

I know a lot of damn fine writers who freak out when asked to sit down and figure out where the plot's going. If they think about it too much, the story dries up on them. I can empathize to a certain degree: I try not to think about the final (or the penultimate) chapter until I actually get there, and then I see how the changes along the way have altered the closing scenes. But the first three-quarters of the book? That, I plot out. And I especially plot it out when I'm working on a mystery (no matter the genre).

(Yes, I'm a Virgo. What was your first clue? Not that I believe in any of that stuff, mind you. Except when I do.)

For me, though, plotting is like packing. Yeah, you CAN just throw stuff in your kit & go, but then you run the risk of getting there and realizing that you need That Thing you left at home. And yes, sometimes you can run out and buy what you need, but then there's cost (in money - or, in this analogy, of time in rewriting everything up to that point), and what happens if what you need changes everything you've done? It's like packing for the tropics and ending up in Nepal.

- mind you, I've done that. I mean, thrown a toothbrush, a random change of clothes, and my meds in a bag and headed for the airport. But what you can do for a two-day trip (or a short story) isn't the same as traveling for a week, or a month, or a hundred thousand words.-

Right now, I feel like I'm pre-packing - lining up all the plot-things I need, & seeing how best to fit them all in... It's fun. But then you realize something needs to go BOOM earlier, and you have to haul everything out and resort...

I can see where some people say screw it, and dive into telling the story. But for these books? A packing list is essential.

Now. Where does that first BOOM fit....?


EtA: Hah! Found the first BOOM. And it was hiding later in the outline, of course...

talking about the care & restraint of a healthy writer-ego.






(and lo, I have made another deadline! 33 down, 19 to go. If you have any specific questions or requests for PM to cover, let me know….)
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originally published at Practical Meerkat: A Blog

If this is relevant to your interests: Practical Meerkat’s 52 Bits of Useful Info for Young (and Old) Writers, week 31. In which Practical Meerkat discusses the idea of the long game, for writers.
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I’m informed Mercury has gone retrograde, FUBARing our ability to communicate. I don’t believe in astrology, & yet after the past 24 hours…. yeah. I believe. Might be a good time to pull up the drawbridge and get some serious writing done. Of course, is there ever a BAD time for that?

This has been a week of moderate ups and significant downs, both work-wise and in the world around us. If I were less a jaded pro/practical meerkat, I’d probably be in a corner, whimpering. As it is…. All I can say is what I told fellow writers last night – you roll with it, and hope you don’t get rolled over.

And if you’ve got access to high-quality chocolate, now would be a good time to indulge.

Of course, there’s never a bad time for THAT, either.




originally published at Practical Meerkat: A Blog