The Relentless Muse

Starting a New Year

2012-01-01T18:20:00.000-07:00

There are many things a new year entails, depending on where you are, what religion you subscribe to, who your social circle is, etc. In America, where I am, it seems to be the tradition to stay up obnoxiously late, drinking, sharing stories off all the stuff which went terribly wrong the last year, and then wake up obnoxiously late the next day, swearing never to do something so stupid again. Rinse and repeat.

Another of the wonderful traditions here is making "New Years Resolutions." Now, I have always been very cynical about these resolutions, and because of that, have never made any myself. It seems like people always put crazy expectations on the New Year, as though flipping to a new calendar will somehow miraculously cure all of their bad habits without any effort whatsoever. And, because of this, those resolutions, almost 100% of the time, fail.

However, being a very goal oriented person, I thought why not? Why not try to set some "resolutions" of my own, to try to start the year out the right way: productively.

I've built up some bad habits over the last year, one of which is not actually writing every day, and instead getting distracted by things such as video games and constant rolling parties. This needs to be tapered back a bit.

So, without further ado, here are some of my "resolutions," for lack of a better word.

Write, at a minimum, 500 words per day. Even if the day is hectic, I'm tired or irritable, I need to find at least a small bit of time to try and get 500 words knocked out. Who knows? Maybe I'll get really into it and write a lot more.
Read 50 books during the year, at least half of which are in my chosen genre of writing, which is fantasy. This will not only give me insights into what is happening in the genre, but hopefully teach me some useful techniques in the meanwhile. A constantly reading writer is generally a constantly improving writer.
Research at least 50 agents and publishers who accept fantasy as one of their genres. In this, I would be looking at the types of books these agents have sold, the styles of the books these companies have published, their rate of new authors, and any other information which may aid in my quest for publication. This information will be kept in a spreadsheet.
Work, at least part time (20+ hours a week) as a writer. This time can be divided between actual writing, researching agents and publishers, reading books on writing, revision and editing, and other things which constitute being an actual, working writer. These exploits would be logged, like clocking in and out of work, to make sure I'm hitting my quota.
Post on this blog at least twice a month, with actually useful blogs. These posts would either be my usual topic discussion, a review of a writing book (since I am reading so many this year), or part of my constantly delayed Crash Course to Creative Writing series, which I really need to get on.
Improve my querying technique. My goal for this one is to at least get a request for more material from an agent before the end of the year. It would be an extremely unrealistic of me to make a resolution of getting my work to an agent, and having said agent sell it to a big publisher by the end of the year, allowing me to fall into the cesspit of resolution-breakers, so I'm making this one a bit more realistic. It would be wonderful if the other scenario would happen, and I'm going to work my ass off to get as close as I can, but in this industry, hard work isn't the only factor, sadly.

These are my main resolutions. Yes, I'd like to quit smoking. Yes, I'd like to start doing yoga again. Yes, I'd love to fit in size 5 pants again. However, I'm not going to put those here, or on my list in general, because failing on one will lead to a domino effect of demoralization which would then cause me to fail them all.

So, how about all of you out there? Do you have an resolutions for this new year?

Happy New Year,

~Tiffany "Kysis" Tackett

Clocking In to Work

2011-12-21T18:27:00.000-07:00

When I go in to my day job, I have to trek back to the employee locker room and hunch over an old, barely working computer to punch in for the day, and when I finally am off shift, I have to trudge back there again to clock out. Through that computer system, they track my hours. Furthermore, to get various certifications, I have to track my tutoring, so when I'm done with every student, I also log what times I worked with them, what class it was for, and what the main subjects I tutored were.

First gut reaction to this? "But that's your job. They do it to pay you. Why does that matter?"

Writing is a job too.

People generally don't treat writing like a job. They treat it like a hobby or a time-consuming and often annoying pass-time. They don't acknowledge that many writers have gone through years of training, have had years of practice, and years of reading, in order to improve their craft. Heck, most people don't even notice that there is craft involved in writing!

How many times have you, as a writer, been told by someone else, a non-writer, that they want to write a book one day? Or, how many times has that same person, or any number of others like them, commented that that's nice, what's your real job? Or that they are trying to write a bestseller in their spare time, without any past practice or training, or real want to be an actual author? The last time this happened, I asked the person what they did for a living, and when she said she was a lawyer, I said that my favorite hobby was to *insert x kind of court case stuff here* in my spare time.

That shut her up real quick.

But, all in all, that was rude. I'll be the first to admit it. The comments which brush off writing as an actual profession were really starting to drive me batty, I was at the boiling point, and BOOM. Explosion. I'm sure if that woman sees me in the future, she'll quickly run the other direction. That's not exactly what I wanted.

As much as I want to, I'm not going to be able to change the entire world's perception of writers. I wish. Maybe I will change a few here and there, people I know, who know me, and realize just how much hard work and dedication it has taken me to get where I am now.

So, what's the solution?

I am changing things on my end. No, I'm not acting like writing is a hobby, I'm not going to only novel in my spare time without putting any attention to the improvement of my craft. Far from it!

I'm going to clock in to work.

In a past blog, I mentioned that I had started a productivity spreadsheet, which was much like my accountability book... on steroids. Here is the breakdown of everything I list, and why:

Date: Well, it's good to know what day the writing was done on!
Project Name: Being that I have a few different projects and different levels of completion, I list this. However, if you want to keep separate sheets for separate projects, that's fine too!
Location of Writing: This is where I list my writing environment, which can be very important! Some places are naturally noisy, some have no wireless internet, and yet others are entirely too quiet! It's good to know where I did my writing, so I can see any trends in my output.
Time I'm Writing: This is an actually x:xx p.m - x:xx pm list. I only clock time where I am actually grinding my fingers against the keyboard. If I have to go refill my coffee cup, I'll clock out. If I get distracted by lolcats, I'll clock out. This is working time only!
Starting/Ending Wordcount: This is not necessary for all lists, but I have it, because I am clocking editing time as well as writing time, and with editing, my wordcount might go down a little.
Total Word Gain: When I finish a stint of writing, I take the ending wordcount and subtract the starting wordcount from it to see what my total gain was. This is necessary, as there is generally a correlation between this number, the location, the time of day, and the other factors I have yet to list.
Average Words Per Hour: Okay, again, this one isn't absolutely necessary, but I do it anyway, so I can look at averages for different locations. Certain locations and writing conditions yield a higher average, which is one of the things I look at.
Music: I'm one of those writers who listens to music, though I don't always have that luxury while writing. This section is where I note if I am listening to music, if it is an abnormal music situation (i.e. listening to music in only one ear, because I am at work), and what song or playlist I am listening to. I've noticed that while some songs set a mood really well, they are distracting, and should be used at a bare minimum.
Noise Level: Some places are noisy. Some are too quiet. This is where I note it. It really does matter for my writing, I've found. Super noisy areas, even with headphones, will generally only yield 100 to 250 words in a fifteen minute stint. Moderately quiet areas will yield anywhere from 300 to 800 words in fifteen. In a strange twist, silent areas, even with me listening to music, only yield between 200 and 400 words.

By using this spreadsheet, I am not only tracking my productivity and collecting useful data regarding my writing habits, but clocking in to work. This is my punch card. Sadly, I don't get paid for my efforts (yet), but it makes writing as a career feel all the more real. It helps me keep my head in the game. And when people say "oh, I write in my spare time, too," I can just smile, nod, and keep my cool, because I know this is more than a hobby.

Happy writing,

~Tiffany "Kysis" Tackett

Desperately Seeking: Productivity

2011-12-12T22:58:00.003-07:00

December has always been a very quiet month for me... when it comes to writing, at least. There are too many things going on in December. My parents celebrate the commercialized version of Christmas, meaning that a great deal of last minute shopping always goes on, and Christmas day is spent inside, with family, playing with whatever came under the tree. On top of that, the dreaded thing called "finals" always happens in early December, which leads to frantic paper writing and all night study sessions; I never seem to finish everything I have to during the day, meaning that I get no time for anything pleasurable until AFTER finals are over, and at that point, I don't even want to look at my word processor, much less use it. Another disadvantage of December is that it falls right after November-- also known as National Novel Writing Month; I just wrote a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, meaning I DEFINITELY do not want to even look at my word processor anymore, much less use it.

This leads to a very unproductive month of socializing, overeating, and general slacking. Yes, it is nice to get a break now and then, but at the same time, that break makes it extremely difficult to get back into the swing of writing in January. My writing gears rust over with disuse, the forward momentum I had on my novel has ground to a halt, and it becomes harder and harder to find motivation, much less the drive, to finish anything.

I'm currently trying to make it so that my month is not such a flop, that my writing does not grind to a halt, and that my book gets the time and attention it deserves.

Switching from writing at a first draft level, by the seat of the pants, during NaNoWriMo, back to writing at a polished, sixth draft level, which I am preparing for submission, has been extremely difficult. I cannot just sit down and pound out 1667 words a day of whatever comes to mind anymore, so I've had to do a few things to get me pumping out words again, but with more direction and focus.

Sometimes, I do not always have time to sit down, get into the zone, and write. I lead a busy life, like many other writers, so I had to find a way around this. What I do, in these moments, is try to plan ahead a bit. This can be as simple as just thinking about what my next scene is going to be about, figuring out what song inspires me for the next scene, or writing out the basics of the next scene, point by point. I always keep sticky notes in my purse just in case I have a moment to jot down scene notes.

This is really nice, because the next time I sit down to write, I know exactly what I'm going to be working on. I have no need to sit around, staring at my computer screen, wasting all my writing time just trying to figure out what I'm going to write. Because of this, in a little fifteen minute window, I can generally write between 250 words to 650 words.

Another thing I am doing to maximize my productivity is by keeping track of my writing. Yes, it may seem like it is only making more work for me, but wait! I'm gathering information! On my productivity spreadsheet, I list the date, where I am writing, what project I am working on, what times I am working from, my staring wordcount, ending wordcount, the total word gain, my average words per hour, what music I am listening to, and how noisy my environment is.

I've only been keeping this spreadsheet for a week now, but I can already see some serious trends. The noisier my environment, the less work I get done. I tend to do the best when I have no wifi. Having music only playing in one ear, or having distractions around, tends to also effect my wordcount production.

The last thing this spreadsheet tells me is how much I've written in a day. While this is good on its own, its secondary effect is what has proven the most useful. Whenever I look at my spreadsheet, and see that I haven't written in a day, I feel guilty, horribly, horribly guilty. This makes me want to write more. This makes me actually set aside time just to knock out some writing, even if it is only fifteen minutes worth.

So far, these new tools have helped me get back on the writing pony after a very productive but very taxing NaNoWriMo. My writing is switched back into sixth draft mode and I'm producing much bigger numbers than I had been.

Wishing you all lots of productivity and good writing,
~Tiffany "Kysis" Tackett

Brain Matter (for #SampleSunday)

2011-09-18T12:13:00.003-06:00

Here is the very first part of the first section of Brain Matter, a psychological crime thriller I am brewing up right now. Hopefully, it will serve as awesome filler until my next blog post (this upcoming week)!

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Brain Matter

The smell of burnt garbage clungheavily in the air, the end of it tainted with the sour stench of decay. Mark cringed. He was down the alley from the crime scene and he could already smellit. This was going to be rough.

With a nod, the blue shirt officerlifted up the yellow tape, waving for them to go under.

The crumbling asphalt was wet, butnot muddy like he expected. It lookedlike it had been cleaned. Mark steppedcarefully, passing an open dumpster and a mound of black trash bags. The crime scene techs were going to have toprocess all of it.

A photographer made slow circlesaround an old metal drum, camera flash almost blinding in the dim light of thealley. The barrel was obviously used forfires—and often. Its red paint waseither peeled away or mostly blackened, a few rust holes showing in thebottom. The reek of decay rolled off thedrum in waves. Mark plucked a cloth outof his coat pocket, holding it over his nose and mouth. It only gave him a small measure of relief.

Slowly, Mark peered into thecanister.

The First Draft

2011-09-07T19:54:00.003-06:00

In some ways, the first draft is the hardest one. It is a place where characters you have just met take over the page and force you to travel with them to unfamiliar locations boasting societies completely foreign to you. Somehow, you are expected to forge forward, despite the inevitable culture shock and vertigo.

Does this sound familiar to you? Well, I have some good and bad news.

The bad news is: the first draft never gets any easier. It is always going to be a dazzling whirl-wind, a frightening and exhilarating roller coaster ride where you see the next turn too late to brace for it. For me, that's really half the fun.

The good news is: there are ways to manage your first draft, and different ways to go about it.

Every writer has specific techniques, a tool-box, which at the base parts is shared between all writers, and yet when compiled, is uniquely their own. That is part of what makes writing-- and reading-- so great. Every writer is different in their own way. Because of that, no one way of tackling the first draft will work for everyone. I do, however, recommend trying out different methods, because you never know what will fit like a personally tailored glove until you try them on.

The usual debate I always see is between pantsers and plotters, or as I usually dub them, the discovery writer and the outline writer. There is nothing wrong with either school, except for when people refuse to mix and match. I am sure there is someone out there who can never plot a word, or they will suddenly lose momentum, and as the other side of the coin, someone who must plot out the scope of every scene, every character, and every sub-plot before setting a single word to paper (or keyboard).

However, those are just two people. I think everyone else falls somewhere in the middle, and it is up to you to put on your mad writer lab coat (or whatever else you like writing in) and get to the experimentation. First, however, we need some definitions.

The Plotter: a writer who brainstorms, often times extensively, before beginning to write on a new project. This brainstorming can be done in many different ways. Some plotters will write out character sheets, as though they are characters in a D&D campaign or in a favorite game. Others will draw countless maps of the locations their characters will travel to. Yet others write outlines with the main plot points and themes touched upon in every chapter. It is a safety net, in a way, knowing where the story is going, and being able to write up to that final goal. This method allows you to see the finish line, you just have to make the long run uphill to reach it.

The Adventurer: a writer who sits down with a blank page, either digital or physical, and begins writing without any earthly clue where they, or the story, is going. The discovery writer often starts with a single idea which sparked their inspiration, or a single character, or a very base idea they want to explore, and start running with it. Often times, they won't know the ending of their book until they have written it. This is the seat of the pants, balls-to-the-wall way to go about writing, but at the same time, the writing grows organically from itself.

Most people fall somewhere between these two definitions. I used to be a full out adventurer. I would take a character and a ground situation and start writing. And maybe, three drafts down the line, I might know what my story is, or at least have uncovered part of it.

Both schools have their cons to go with each pro. The plotter, for instance, may run into scenes which seem forced, or feel like they have not truly been earned, because they follow their outline like it is the ten commandments and refuse to add or subtract from it. The adventurer, on the other hand, might go off on tons of little side adventures, wandering around on miscellaneous tangents because they aren't really sure where they are going.

Once you know how you want to go about tackling your first draft, you then have to actually don your gear and run out on the battle field, into the heat of things. It's daunting. Starting a novel is a monumental task. Novels can take years to come to full fruition, and after that, it could be years more before an editor actually looks at it, much less makes an offer.

Thankfully, we're just talking about a first draft here-- a rough draft, most specifically-- so we don't have quite so many issues to hunt down and fry.

There are many ways people use to motivate themselves to get the writing done, once they've made the pledge and begun. One such option is National Novel Writing Month (better known as NaNoWriMo), where literally thousands of authors from all over the world set aside the month of November, holidays and all, to tackle that daunting first draft, with the goal of writing 50,000 words in a mere 30 days (that's almost 1700 words a day!). It is extremely difficult, but I have successfully taken it down three years in a row, and will be returning to the fray in the upcoming year.

Another option is the Fantasy-Faction 500 Club (lovingly hash-tagged on Twitter as #ff500) which is made up of mostly fantasy writers (some sci-fi as well, and maybe a historical fiction or two). Just like NaNoWriMo, the FF500 survives off the peer pressure, as all members are expected to write 500 words a day, which is a good number to start with if 1700 seems like too much. The group is friendly, has daily check ins, and really helps with productivity.

These are two online writing "groups", but you could always set up a writing group with friends if collective pressure is your cup of tea. Being as competitive as I am, knowing that other people have written more than me really gets me going, and some of my best wordcounts come from sitting across the table from a fellow writer, declaring a word-sprint, and going.

Despite the fact that the rough draft can be excruciatingly painful at times, and like a full out root-canal at others, there is nothing quite as satisfying (bar getting something positive from an editor) as finishing a rough draft. Once those final words are penned, everything gets easier. You have the hard part, discovering your story, out of the way.

I suggest printing out that bad-boy when you're done with it, and dancing with it. Or throwing it like confetti. Or something else that shows just how excited you are about completing that first, massive leap towards becoming a writer.

Good luck, and happy writing,
~Tiffany "Kysis" Tackett

An Update of the Writerly Sort

2011-09-05T09:54:00.001-06:00

As many of you have noticed (or maybe not), I have not updated in a while. This is not a place for me to make excuses about how busy I've been or talk about work or anything like that. No, I'm here to make a promise and let you guys in on what I've been working on lately.

So, first, to the promise.

I promise to complete at least two blog posts per month for the rest of the year, at which time I will amp it up to one a week, if I haven't already gotten there. Yes, that's right, two a month! I'm taking baby steps, yes, but feel free to poke me if you see me slipping up any.

These posts will happen in the first full week and the third full week of each month. I'm not setting an exact schedule yet, but I probably will during the next month, just to make sure I keep on task.

Some of the topics you can be looking forward to are.... (drum-roll please!)

My crash course to creative writing! I want to use one of my blog posts a month towards this, and will be covering a very broad range of topics in these posts. So far, I have only done posts about how to keep morale and productivity up. Now, I really want to start delving into craft (and actually use my English degree towards something).
A chat about how useful beta-readers can be! I have sadly lost my beta-reader (he didn't die, he just moved away... and other stuff), but I still believe in how amazing they can be when you have them!
Book reviews! And not just book reviews, reviews on books about writing. When I do these, they will be in addition to the two posts I have already promised you. I am thinking that these will happen in the second full week of the month. I'm still drawing up a schedule, so this is subject to change.
And some other stuff too. Yeah, that was vague. Feel free to request a topic! If I don't know about it, I can certainly research (and boy do I love research! Not sarcastic, really).

So, now that I have the business half of this out of the way, here's the other part of my update. Yes, I've been working here and there (movie sets are awesome, by the way), but I have also been writing. And since this blog is all about helping your writing, I figured some of you might be interested in seeing what I'm working on (especially since I use all the tips listed here to help my own writing)!

Hope of the Mirra is an epic fantasy with a strong philosophical undercurrent, told from the point of view of two different characters, the first a young knight, the second the last Mirra. My logline for the book is: "Faith and hatred have one thing in common: they can both be blind." Right now HotM is 65,000 words long, and I am shooting for somewhere between 100,000-120,000 words in the end. It may end up being longer, however, I highly doubt it will end up shorter, with how it's going at this point. This book started in 2004 as "Knights of Mikara", became "Mikara Falling" in 2005, and then was completely overhauled at the beginning of this year when it became Hope of the Mirra. I have submitted it to Tor once and DAW twice, in previous drafts, and it was rejected all three times. I'm still working on it though!
Brain Matter is a psychological thriller with three POV characters, one a detective who is investigating a string of serial killings, one is a prestigious neurosurgeon during the day and a serial killer at night, and the third is a defense attorney who gets dragged into the twisted web of attorney-client confidentiality and blackmail. Right now, it is in the very early planning stages. I've written the first two scenes of it, and realized that I have a TON of work to do before I can really set off on this one. This project is brand new, as I first started mulling over it on August 20th of this year.
First Flight is another epic fantasy, only it has a larger focus on the adventure and war than it does on philosophical issues. It is my longest standing project by far, as I started it in 2001 (under the horrible name "A Knight of Fire and the Lord of the Sky"), and worked on it for years, before I went back and tried to completely overhaul it under a new name in 2003 (the equally as horrible "War of the Dragons"), and then HotM took over my brain in 2004 and I didn't touch this book until 2010 when I decided to scrap all the old and write it anew for NaNoWriMo (under a slightly better, but still not right name "Flight of the Phoenix"). At that time I realized I was focusing on the wrong aspects of the story and it is currently waiting to be revived from the ashes again, now under a new name.
Mikara Falling has become the name for what used to be chapter 10 and chapter 11 in the old "Mikara Falling", now pulled out and made into a book of its own. It's another epic fantasy with a heavy sci-fi twist, and it's divided into three "books", the first from the point of view of a genetic scientist, the second from his creation, and the third alternating back and forth between them. It's a dark, DARK book, and it will be written (the first draft, at least) for this year's NaNoWriMo.

Those are my current projects, though in all truth, Hope of the Mirra is the only one getting any love right now. I'll be posting more on Twitter now that I have time again, and updating when I'm writing. I will also be participating in #wordmongering and #writingsprints again. Yay!

So, what sort of topics would you like to see from me in the future?

Happy writing!

~Tiffany "Kysis" Tackett

Fear Itself

2011-06-16T11:56:00.001-06:00

Of every emotion a writer can feel, fear can perhaps be the worst. One look at the best sellers list can send knees wobbling. One look at the publishing industry, the requirements, the authors recently acquired, can make our hearts rise to the top of our throats, an insidious knot refusing to go away, thundering away at the thought of reaching that level.

Or it could be worse. It is good to have some insecurities when it comes to publishing, when it comes to meeting expectations of others; without that, we as writers would have no drive to get better and improve our craft, which there is always room for.

What is this worse fear?

It is the fear concerning ourselves, and whether or not we really have it in us to write.

Anyone who has sent out work only to get a form rejection letter knows this, and if they kept writing, they survived. It hurts to hear rejection of something you worked so hard on, but there is something else, deeper, that happens. The fear of failure sets in, crawling through our skin and settling in our heart. Our self esteem has taken a blow, and we start to doubt our abilities.

You don’t have to get a rejection letter to doubt yourself. In fact, it is natural, unless you are a narcissus or overly arrogant. No offense, by the way. I have my moments as well.

Sometimes a story hits you so hard and so fast, sometimes your muses grab you by the collar and scream in your face, and suddenly, you feel overwhelmed. You feel like the story is too big for you to handle, for you to wrestle down and pound into the page.

There are times, when writing Hope of the Mirra, when I just freeze up entirely, my breath catches, and my fingers lock in the air, trembling above my keyboard. At these times, all I can think is: this is too much for me to handle. I have bitten off more than I can chew. How could I ever think I could even manage to channel this story, much less set it properly on the page?

It is frightening, when I get to that point, but every time I take a few deep breaths, calm my mind, and dive in, giving it everything I have, even if it feels like I am ripping apart every fiber of my brain trying to control this muse as it dances too close to the flame of inspiration. I have to write it all down, I have to capture it, dance with it, and let the story sing.

Why? Because, while there are millions of other writers out there, this story has come to ME. It has sought me out for the writing, and won’t leave me alone until it is told, on the page, and out there for others to live it as well.

Fear could have stopped me. It is difficult, when a story feels overwhelming, when it feels like it touches too close to home or when it torments your brain, without relenting, until everything is out and you feel utterly drained and half-dead. The rational side of my brain tells me to walk away, yet these stories, the ones that grab you by the heart and yank, that steal your every breath, are the ones worth telling.

If a story stays with you, if it won’t leave you alone, revel in the excitement that this story chose you, no matter how scared you are, no matter how under-talented you feel, no matter how overwhelming the project seems. Write it. As you write, you will learn, falling into the rhythms of your own special muse, letting the words fall from you, as everything settles into place.

Without actually writing, you’ll never know just what is in store for you in this tale. You will never know your personal limits, if they even exist, and you will never reach them, because you were too scared to reach.

As T. S. Eliot said: “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

It isn’t easy to conquer fear, but each time you say no to it, each time you plow on through anyway, it will get easier.

Just keep writing.

~Tiffany “Kysis” Tackett

A (Summer) Month of Literary Abandon

2011-06-01T11:17:00.001-06:00

So, a few of my friends and I had talked about having something like NaNoWriMo (completely unofficial obviously) in the middle of the summer, ie June, and guess what, it's June! I'm doing it!

Here's the deal:

--The goal is to write as much as possible in the month of June. Yup, in 30 days, try to write as much as possible.

--Write on what? Anything you want! It can be a book you've already started, you just have to list what your starting wordcount as of today was, so that we can know how much you've written during this month. Example: My ending wordcount for my project, as of last night, was 19,031 words, so I'll be subtracting that from my total at the end to see how much I've knocked out this month.

--Who can participate? Anyone. If you are local, we can meet for write-ins, but if you aren't, go ahead and join in! Give us updates on facebook or twitter. Recruit friends to join you, whatever you want. The collective pressure of doing this with other writers will really push us to get more done.

--Tricks? Yes, there are some deadly tricks you can use in order to blow us out of the water with your wordcount, and none of them count as cheating. Participating in writing sprints is one way. I'll be leading sprints all month on twitter (from @RelentlessMuse), most likely every day, using the hashtags #amwriting and #writingsprints to announce them. They will be fifteen minutes long, where we all compete to write as much as possible in that span of time. Another tool is Write or Die, a program you can get for 10$ (or use for free online) that acts like a writing sprint, only you can do it on your own, set your own time frame, and get an angry, blinking, red, screaming computer screen to remind you that you should be typing.

Let me know if you plan on participating! If you're local and want to do a beginning of the month meet-up, I can print out a calendar for you. I plan on writing in my daily wordcount in the squares, to remind myself to hurry the hell up. Post here to declare participation and to announce your month goal!

Me: I'm participating and my goal is 80,000 words in the month of June.

Returning Home: When You Know a Project is Right

2011-05-17T07:41:00.001-06:00

Life, at times, has a tendency of growing into a massive giant which cannot be ignored, stomping around in the garden of our creativity, trying to make sure every single flower planted within is squashed. Or at least, that’s how it feels at times.

I just came out of a period like that. This entire last semester of my university career was filled with one life giant after another, tracking through the garden of my inspiration, and each one quite effectively killed my ability to do anything I wanted to. Between the pounds of school papers I had to do, job hunting, parental relations, and everything else life could possibly throw at me, I had no time for personal writing.

As a proponent of writing every day, I then had to make sure that I could turn my assignments for my classes into something creative, which was easier for some classes. My Screenwriting course was my biggest outlet of creativity, which was great, but at the same time, I knew I wanted to be writing something else.

No matter how many pages I got into my projects for Screenwriting, it always felt as though something was missing. From my writing, it was passion. I could tell as I read that from a technical standpoint, I was doing great. The plot was well designed, the characters were believable, and there was enough suspense to keep the film going. However, there was no LIFE in it.

I wanted to be somewhere else.

The semester has officially ended now, and I graduated with my BA in English: Creative Writing and minor in Cinema Arts. While I am considering graduate studies, and do have an application out, schoolwork is done for now. I have no more term papers to write, no more tests to rush to.

My creative energy is my own now.

So, I put on my headphones, flipped over to the soundtrack I’ve made for my book, Hope of the Mirra (formerly known as Mikara Falling), and started reading in order to get back into the headspace for writing, and I felt a great weight lift up off my shoulders.

It felt like returning home.

I have never felt more comfortable picking up a piece of writing before, even though it has been sitting, practically untouched, since this past February. It feels as though the words are there, just waiting to be put down. They have no hard feelings; in fact, these words are welcoming me back with open arms. I know, for a fact, that this is the right book for me to be writing right now.

The big question now, is, how do you know when a piece of writing is the right one for you. The feeling I described is one indicator, but that was after a long stint of not being able to work on that project. I have missed Hope of the Mirra dearly, and don’t want to be separated from it again—until, of course, I send it out.

Along with this feeling of absolute elation, this feeling of finally being home, there are many other indicators that a project is right for you. Also keep in mind, one project might not be right now, but it may be right later.

Does your project occupy your mind a lot? Do your characters invade your dreams (or daydreams) and do plot points nag at your brain late at night? When your project is unforgettable to you, when you can’t seem to escape it, that could be a clear sign that it is time for the words to be written.

Does writer’s block not seem to effect this project? Do the words just spill on the page as though they are already written, just waiting for you to find them in your head? Yes, there are times when my brain is just not willing to write due to exhaustion, but at any other times, I can just sit down and start spilling on my current project, at times writing over three-thousand words a day, when I don’t have distractions. This willingness to be written could also be a sign that this project needs to be your focus for now.

Does the world fascinate you? Do you find yourself thinking about the way your story world works, the culture, etc, at what would be deemed inappropriate times by the general populace? I get ideas everywhere, which is why I have at least one notebook stashed everywhere I am, from my purse, to my car, to the bathroom, I am ready for when some new revelation hits. I am also musing about the world Hope of the Mirra is set in all the time, which has led to new revelations about the environment, both from a physical and sociological standpoint.

Do you find yourself wanting to work on this project while you are trying to get other things accomplished? This is another big flashing flag. I have a hard time reading books on writing because as I am going along, the tips remind me of my current project, which triggers my need to write on it. This also happens while reading other books, actual fiction books, and cooking, which I always have music and a notebook accompanying me when I actually do it, and many other things. I would even write during my break from working at Staples last summer, in little fifteen minute stints. I actually got a lot done that way.

I am sure there are many other signs that a project is the right one for you at this time. If the project is screaming at your brain, just do it. Hope of the Mirra is actually screaming at my brain right now, so I am going to get back to it.

Happy Writing!

~Tiffany “Kysis” Tackett

Creative Change of Venue

2011-04-06T09:05:00.001-06:00

Sitting in the same chair every day, facing the same desk, with the same discord sprayed across it and the same wall behind it can grow to be very boring. And when bored, I tend to search for things to un-bore me, which usually does not involve writing, which is what I should have been doing in the first place.

While rearranging your desk or moving its position every so often is good, and often helps dispel any illusions of static creative energy, you can’t do it all the time, or in my case, there isn’t any room to rearrange my desk area, because of cramped living quarters. Constantly rearranging every time you feel distracted will lead to lots of rearranging and not all that much writing.

Why not just take your writing somewhere else?

I like fresh air, I like being out in the world, and so long hauls at the desk in a cramped office does more harm than good to my writing. I’ll sit for hours staring at that blinking cursor, clicking through my music library, and fiddling with stuff on my desk before the cabin fever gets to be too much and I call a friend and go out somewhere—somewhere without writing.

The first time I participated in National Novel Writing Month, I wasn’t sure how I felt about taking my writing away from the safety of my desk. Going to a crowded restaurant with other writers sounded like a terrible idea. I’d be so distracted, right?

Thankfully, my first conceptions about it where wrong.

Sitting at a table, a plain table at that, with my laptop in front of me and my headphones in, I found that there was nothing to distract me (other than tidbits of conversation here and there, which were more often than not refreshing, and helped clear my mind for more writing), and I wrote more there than I had been for the previous bits of the month. From then on, I went to every write-in I could attend.

When the month of November ended, I was floundering. My novel was finished for that month, but I wanted to get working on my other WIP. Sitting at my desk, I found distraction after distraction. That’s when I took matters into my own hands, packing up my writing bag, and heading out to a coffee shop.

Once again, with a clean table in front of me, my laptop plugged in, and my headphones on, I got to writing, and made surprising progress through my manuscript. I was shocked, relieved, and extremely happy when I left. Productivity feels AMAZING.

Coffee shop writing, however, can get expensive, so I have a few pointers here.

You don’t always have to go to a coffee shop. While they tend to have a pleasant mood and delicious drinks, plus a few outlets, they are not the only places you can go to get those creative juices flowing. Libraries work great, plus they are free. If you have good battery life, or like writing by hand, parks are a lovely alternative as well, with fresh air and pleasant weather (sadly only certain times of year), and are also free. Luckily for university students, like me, we can just walk anywhere on campus, plop down, and start writing.

If you still want the delicious drinks and mellow vibes of a coffee shop, I do, however, have a rule which I always abide by. If I am going to spend five dollars on a coffee, I want the stay to be worth it. I always scout out an outlet before I order, and claim it immediately. I also always go out of their rush hours, so that the café is generally quiet. And, once I have that five dollar coffee, I make sure that I stay long enough, and write enough, that it was worth the money. If I haven’t written at least 1,000 words, I need to crack down and get it done, or I don’t deserve the coffee.

For those of you (like me) who get distracted by things on the internet, pick a place that does not have wifi. They are hard to find around here, but there are still some places left without wireless internet, or that require you buy a special pass, so hunt them down and use them. Disconnecting from the internet for a while might help you. Sadly, I like updating my Twitter about my writing progress, so a lack of internet frustrates me more than helps, and adds more distraction.

Creative Change of Venue may be the golden ticket you need to kick-start your productivity. Try it some time. The lack of the usual culprits of distraction can really help.

~Tiffany “Kysis” Tackett.

Writing in Packs

2011-03-24T21:47:00.001-06:00

When I’m writing alone, locked in my room at my very own desk, it is just me and my computer… and the vast expanse of a mostly unexplored internet. As much as I would love to claim complete and utter productivity all the time in my writing life, I can’t.

Sadly, when I’m alone, my mind wanders more often than naught. There is nothing in the room to keep me writing, rather than my own force of will, and oftentimes, that will would rather be watching Mystery Science Theater or perusing what drama is going down on Facebook. This means I am getting absolutely nothing done, except a few good chuckles (chuckles are good, but not when I am getting no writing done!).

I am sure there have been whole books about solving this—someone has had to tackle this cashcow already, and if not, I better get to it! However, as a writer seeking desperately to get something done, I know how you feel. No big book which will take more of your precious writing time, just a short little blog to help out.

In the past I have turned off my wireless card, locked myself in without any way to watch DVDs and turned off my cell phone, but this only works for so long. Cabin fever begins to set in, and BAM, I am staring at a blank screen with a condescending blinking cursor giving me stinkeye.

No fun.

My solution is simple. Write in packs.

Now wait a moment, don’t just say that social company will be even more distracting! Hear me out!

I learned about this technique originally while participating in National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo, a great event put on by the Office of Letters and Light every November). On the regional forums I learned of a thing called write-ins, and was incredulous at first as well. A group of writers in a noisy university area restaurant all getting together to write? Yeah right.

But I was wrong! When I went, there was some chatter, yes, but after a short while we all had our headphones in and the back room of the restaurant was filled with the glorious sound of clicking keys! Everyone had their favorite word processor open, and it was being fed plot points and characters and all sorts of other novel goodies!

Sitting among these writers, I felt a collective pressure on my shoulders to write. They were producing new material, they were making headway, and I was just sitting there. I had to write! And write I did. In fact, my most productive days during the month of November were all sitting there at the write-ins, once a week, with my fellow writers.

NaNoWriMo only takes place once a year, alas, and being a productive writer once a year is not a very good career plan, so something else has to be done. After this past NaNoWriMo was over, my friends and I formed a formal writing day, dedicated to—you guessed it—writing.

Every Sunday we would meet at an early hour (early for college students, at least) and hunker down to a day of writing, with bad snack foods and copious amounts of coffee. Normally, we would just write. Headphones in, we would pound out chapter after chapter, with the pressure of the person sitting across from us writing as well. Whenever we were stuck, we would bounce ideas, talk about plot devices, and go into craft issues we happened across. Through these once a week writing sessions, we gained a lot, improved as writers, and managed to get good chunks into our current novels. Having them once a week also gave us incentive to get writing done during the rest of the week, so we would have pages to go over.

Having a second set of eyes for your writing project is a blessing in and of itself—but that’s an entirely different blog!

Though I try to sit down and write at least a little every day, whether it be on a short story, my novel, or a script, these writing sessions are always my most productive times.

So, writers, I implore you once more to get out there! If you have writer friends, great! I am sure with a little convincing, they will give this a shot and there you go, your very own writing group, with all the nagging and harassing about productivity you could possibly ask for—and probably a lot more.

~Tiffany “Kysis” Tackett

The Hermit Writer Paradox

2011-02-07T18:29:00.001-07:00

The writer’s life is often a lonely life, with hours upon hours locked away with a notebook, a typewriter, a laptop, away from human contact, shunning friends and family alike, until that masterpiece is finally finished. A writer’s social life often consists of their characters— and whoever restocks their microwavable meals in the freezer, does the dishes, and brings the coffee.

I know that as a writer, I wouldn’t love more than to be able to flick a switch, and for all of the outside distractions to just melt away, leaving me alone so I can actually get some writing done. It would be nice to have some peace and quiet, without anyone asking for me to do anything, or any phone calls to return. It would be nice, right?

There is a problem in all of this, of course. It’s not that I’m a total cynic, but most things in life are a touch too good to be true. Being a hermit writer is one of these things.

Days, weeks, or even months of isolation can lead not only to a lot of writing getting done, but it can also lead to stilted dialogue and paper-cut-out characters who have personalities to rival a plain concrete wall. That is DEFINITELY a problem.

As a writer, I have discovered that not only do I have to understand the English language on a level beyond what most people would subject themselves to, but I also have to know people on the level of a psychologist, and society on the level of a sociologist, etc, etc.

Writing is not a lonely business.

Yes, there are long stints where I lock myself away with my computer, turn off my wireless card, crank the music and spew words on the page. But there are also times where I’ll wander around the mall or other places where people tend to gather, walk around, and people watch. I take note of their body language, the way they splice sentences together (not necessarily the topics and often bizarre stories, since I write fantasy and sci-fi, not contemporary literature), the way groups form, and everything else I can possibly take in.

This is a great exercise for any writer. As writers, we generally write about people, trying to capture something about the human experience, even if we are not writing about humans, per se (I reference elves and the like here, not dogs and cats and other furry animals). The more we as writers know how people interact with one another, the better we can—theoretically—make well rounded, realistic characters.

The same goes for society building. As a writer of fantasy, I create whole worlds to set my books in, and then create cultures on that world, building whole societies from the ground up. This is necessary for original work. However, if I knew nothing about societies and how they worked, how would my created culture show up on the page? It wouldn’t.

Over the years, I have read about various cultures, their mythologies, they structure of their religions, how it effects everyday life, and just about every other book I could get my hands on about societies in general. While I am not researching a specific society, I am learning about what makes a culture, about the structure, the key elements required, and it has greatly enriched my writing—and hopefully the experience of reading my work.

Once upon the time, I was a hermit writer, locking myself in an office, never going out because I could never possibly be done writing all the books I really want to. That has definitely changed, and because of it, my writing has changed as well. I don’t produce less material, either, since I go out into the world. Far from it. I am writing more, and writing truer, and for that I am thankful.

So get out there, writers! A little bit of time away from the desk can be a good thing (in increments), and who knows, maybe you'll find a bit of inspiration.

As far as I am concerned, the hermit writer exists, but the hermit AUTHOR is a paradox.

~Tiffany “Kysis” Tackett

Hope of the Mirra - Prologue (for #SampleSunday)

2011-02-06T13:15:00.003-07:00

So, on Twitter today I discovered a thing called #SampleSunday where writers put up a sample of their work, in promotion and getting feedback. For this, I am posting the prologue of my current work in progress Hope of the Mirra, here on my blog. This manuscript was, once upon a time, known as Mikara Falling, which has been mentioned here quite a bit.

Let me know what you think! I hope you enjoy.

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Hope of the Mirra

Prologue: The Great Seal

“Your name, V’ran… in old Mirranese, it meant hope.”

V’ran took a deep breath, closing his eyes. Ter’sinna—no, all of Mikara—was still. His people were dead. V’ran swallowed the lump in his throat, looking up the main path to the ever shifting mountain cathedral. The summit’s altar was sheathed in dark, tumultuous clouds. There was nowhere else to go.

Splashes erupted behind him. V’ran barely turned to look; he already knew. The ynkedra emerged from the vibrant green forest surrounding Ter’sinna, colliding with the water between the island and the cathedral itself. There was no time. He had waited too long.

Picking up the hem of his frayed and charred robes—no longer pure and white— V’ran began his ascent, climbing the granite stairs as quickly as he could. Debris littered the path, metal columns melted into bizarre shapes across the stairs, statues toppled and covered in ash. It had been a bloody fight on Ter’sinna, but V’ran did what he had to do. Perhaps it was best if the Mirra were gone.

V’ran started to run, rushing up the stairs, leaping over columns, ducking under broken arches, and weaving around piles of rubble. He tripped on the final step, stumbling, falling. His knees crashed into the smooth glass of the altar. Pain seared his nerves. Grating his teeth, V’ran stood, turning. He faced the stairs.

From there, he could see over the thick plane of clouds to the distant horizon, still dark, though not for much longer. It was almost dawn.

Reaching down, V’ran grabbed for his belt, untangling a shirah chain from it. He put it around his neck. The amulet at its end, the Seal of the Ether, dropped against his chest with a thud, his heart fluttering.

An ynkedra fiend emerged from over the ridge. It stopped between the soaring columns ringing the altar, fangs glistening in the faint light as it let out a deafening shriek. V’ran crouched, not taking his eyes off the ynkedra as he reached for the glass. His fingers found the hilt of a dagger, hand wrapping quickly around it. He stood again, straightening his shoulders, lifting his chin.

The first light of the sun surged over the horizon, a bright golden flash igniting the sky. V’ran raised the dagger. It was time to end this, once and for all.

Revision: Not So Scary Anymore

2010-09-27T11:38:00.002-06:00

In the writing classes I've taken and the years I've participated in NaNoWriMo, I have heard many, MANY people bemoaning the trials, tribulations, and horrors of revision. It was hard enough to write the piece in the first place, so why should they have to revisit it and tear apart all of their hard work? Right?

Wrong.

Revision is an extremely important—crucial even—part of the writing process! And not only that, but it does not have to be painful! Imagine that. Actually, you don't have to try, as I'm going to spell out just how great revision can actually be.

A lot of people think that revision is just going through a piece of writing, looking for typos and random grammar issues, and fixing them. I used to think this was revision as well, and it was tedious, annoying, and often never got done. I hate the polishing process, but it has to be done, especially for submissions to publishing companies, so I grudgingly do it.

However, I have found a way to enjoy revision—the nitty-gritty of breaking down a piece of work and making it really soar from the ashes of its former life on the page. There are many ways to do it, and I’m going to give a few examples, which I actually use.

So, you’ve finished writing the draft of a book. Or a novella, or an essay, it doesn’t matter, this one works for any of them. The task of fully revising a piece can seem insurmountable. How can you go through a whole book, finding what works, what doesn’t, what characters are strong and sound, and which need more work?

It seems like a lot, all together, but that’s why I break it down. I reread the work, not for editing, nor for seeing what is going on with the specific characters, etc, but just to read it, and enjoy it, and refresh my memory of all the different plot points therein. After going through something as long as a full book, you kind of have to (at least I do).

At that point, I’ll outline it. To start it is a small outline, somewhat vague, that deals with the major themes and point of the piece as a whole. It helps when you work up from smaller tasks to larger ones, so you can get used to revising, and looking at your work from a different point of view than when you first wrote it.

With that outline, I will make a list of the named characters, including what they look like (briefly) and what their purpose is in the story.

When I write, I tend to name every character. I like it in books when even minor characters are named, and random background people have descriptions, because it feels like a living, breathing world. Everyone on Earth has a name—so should everyone in a fictional world. However, it can be tedious trying to remember all of those names and physical features when they don’t matter at all to the plot, so while doing my character outline, I mark which characters should just be left with a description and not named. This way, the main characters really shine, and there are less distractions from the plot and important happenings in the storyline.

This can be fun, too. I love making character profiles. I make mini-biographies for my main characters, with their full life history, their hobbies, favorite colors and foods, and after I have all of that background information, I pick and choose what bits are important for characterizing them on the page, what bits will give them a life of their own. The rest is just for my personal reference, and really helps when writing from that character’s point of view.

For reference, I usually write in a close third-person, everything filtered through that one character’s point of view, and I generally have two POV characters in the books I write, who often have completely different perspectives as to the major events in the books. While these revision methods work for any POV (except maybe omniscient), I may make specific references. Just so you know.

Once I have the characters—their motivations, what is important to them—really straightened out, I can start breaking down the plot in a more detailed, focused manner.

From here, I break down the action chapter by chapter. I find out what the purpose of the chapter is, and outline the major plot points of each chapter. Chapters should have the same plot arc as the story as a whole, only on a micro-scale. Each chapter should have a distinct purpose, and if in your outlining you find it doesn’t, you need to find a purpose for it, or cut it out all together.

Revision is not all about removing parts of your work, either. In my major revision of Mikara Falling, I took out a lot of extra stuff which was random pandering to useless character information, but I also added whole sections which gave stronger characterization, and helped propel the plot forward, as well as helped justify later decisions by the characters.

And, through all of this, I had a blast.

Another way I went through major revision on Mikara Falling was in a desperate attempt to rework the manuscript after the two rejections I received from DAW and Tor respectively. I knew something needed to happen, but I did not know where to start, nor was I as excited about revision, nor did I know that much about deep revision like I do now.

As a screenwriter, I decided to adapt Mikara Falling into a script. In scripts, you can only see what can be seen through the lens, the action drives the story, and dialogue needs to be short, to the point, and also essential to the plot.

I figured that was the best way to find what was really important in the story, and it worked. My characterizations became stronger, the story was no longer bogged down with long scenes that did nothing for plot progression, and I had a great visualization for how I wanted everything to look on the page.

It was a great exercise, and I highly recommend it.

Don’t fear revision anymore. There is a way to do it—interestingly—for everyone, and in the end, you’ll have a better understanding of your story, and a greater appreciation for the story world, all in all.

~Tiffany “Kysis” Tackett

The Music of the Story

2010-08-13T10:07:00.000-06:00

All great movies have a great soundtrack to back them up, with quiet, unsettling moments and epic crescendos all at the right points. Without the tense orchestral and digital mix soundtrack, Requiem for a Dream might not have seemed so hard hitting, but rather just been another film about drug addiction. The moving, emotional notes from The Fountain’s soundtrack took it from visually amazing to unforgettable.

There are too many examples to list here, but the point remains the same across the board: a good song always heightens what is happening on the screen.

Books don’t have soundtracks, they are not played out on the screen, and readers don’t get to see and hear everything the director (or rather the author in this case) intended. They have to imagine it.

That does not mean the author cannot use music to his/her advantage.

I am one of those people who writes to music. Silence is terrible. I cannot concentrate in absolute silence, nor can I concentrate when there is a television crackling in the background, or people chattering, or even someone else is clacking on their keyboard across the room. Headphones and music are my salvation.

However, I cannot write to just any music. My books have their own soundtracks, much like movies. Perhaps it is my love of cinema and soundtracks which compels me to put something together for each writing project, or perhaps it was growing up with music on whenever I was working around the house, but either way, I need it now to get anything done.

Music is not just a crutch, though. Much like the score made for a movie, I choose songs which correspond to the action of the scene, the mood, the level of tension, melancholy, mania. Each scene has its own flow, its own set of emotions, and each song must be handpicked to fit this, while at the same time, the body of music needs to flow together like it is one cohesive piece, just as all scenes in a book must fit in to the whole chapter, into the manuscript as a whole.

For me, lyrics do not work. Someone has already written something to that music, flavored it with their own messages, which should not be changing my work from its original destination. I use instrumental pieces, often taken from original film scores. They have instruments, but are blank canvases when it comes to the exact details.

Clint Mansell is my favorite composer of all time, and someone I often use at least one song from for each writing piece. There is an urgency to his music which is undeniable, something perfect for raising the stakes in my prose, and making my protagonist take that leap into action. He did the music for the aforementioned Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain, as well as many others which are just as amazing.

In a way, music is one of my muses. I draw inspiration from it, get in character using it, and keep the momentum going at its discretion. Those who already write to music probably know what I mean, and those who don’t, I know everyone has different ways of going about the craft of it. That’s what makes reading books so interesting: not one of them is exactly the same.

Happy Writing,

Tiffany “Kysis” Tackett

Know Your Genre

2010-07-15T22:32:00.001-06:00

I am sure all of you have heard “write what you know” enough times to make you want to pull your hair, or bang your head on the desk, or any other number of frustrated gestures known to mankind. Don’t worry. I feel the same exact way, and would love people to stop saying it, because the horse is dead, buried six feet under, and should never be touched again lest the zombie apocalypse rise and take over the world.

There is a difference between knowing your genre and writing what you know. This may sound odd at first, but please, hear me out!

Ponder with me for a moment how Frank Herbert, author of Dune, wrote what he knew when he put space travel, the spice, Fremen, and Arakis into his book. How many Fremen do you think Frank Herbert knew personally?

Exactly.

How about J.R.R. Tolkien? Do you think he ran through the forest singing songs with elves, delved into the depths with dwarven lords, and sat in on long winded, drab councils with tree ents? In his head, in his heart, perhaps, but not on good ol’ Earth.

However, both of these authors, and innumerable others published across all the different categories in a bookstore, managed to write about these things. They either knew their genre, or were part of the group of founding fathers, who we have to thank for these genres.

If you write horror novels, it is most likely that you read horror novels, and if you don’t, you should be! The same goes with science fiction, fantasy, mystery, romance, etc, etc. Name a genre, and if you write it, you probably enjoy reading it as well.

This is how we learn what is acceptable in a genre, what the invisible laws that all the published authors seem to already know are, and how we know what kind of work a publishing company is putting out.

My personal poison is fantasy, though I tend to enjoy sci-fi as well. Now and then I will pick up a true crime novel, or a crime thriller, though I am more likely to watch movies on those subjects. I have read a wide variety in fantasy, and am always trying to read more, from a broad range of authors, as well as from a broad range of publishing companies.

As I am in the stage where I want to send my work out, I am using my reading habit to help me research into where my own manuscript will fit in. I have bought books from various companies that publish premier authors, who take unagented, unsolicited submissions, and am reading away.

My best advice to aspiring writers who would one day like to graduate to author status: read. Go to bookstores, go to libraries, get a Nook even (that really hurt to type), and READ.

~Tiffany “Kysis” Tackett

Of Love, Frustration, and Adventure: Mikara Falling

2010-07-10T11:48:00.000-06:00

Every author has a project they cannot get out of their head, that they keep returning back to over the years, and feel a special sort of drive to finish. Sometimes there is a magnetic sort of inspiration driving your fingers to speed across your keyboard, word processor unable to keep up with your muse (or maybe that is just my slow netbook). Sometimes there is a drought, a dustbowl, a great depression, and nothing comes out but frustration.

I definitely know the feeling.

Mikara Falling was a book I started in the Fall of 2004, while I was too bored to concentrate on balancing chemical equations and the safety hazards of white phosphorus. It started with a few sheets of lined paper and a pen that was dodgy with its ink expenditure.

Originally, it was called “Knights of Mikara” and centered around the knighthood based on the mostly water planet of Mikara. There were four orders of the knighthood, and none of them got along too well, nor did the three races of Mikara. At that point, I had no idea what it was going to be about.

I started writing about the leaders of each order, how they interacted with each other, etc, and suddenly a religion, known only as the Church, appeared.

Almost immediately I scrapped that first draft and started a new one.

The next draft started with storms raging across Mikara, worrisome, frightening, and the leaders of the orders of the knighthood had to investigate them, and find out what was wrong. Boring, but a start, I suppose. I introduced a man who was Mirra, a race no longer on Mikara, and suddenly I was discovering long abandoned technology on the jungle islands of Mikara, as well as an ancient evil which was hunting down the last Mirra.

I scrapped that draft before finishing it, too.

The same happened with the next one, though more and more was emerging each time. I was getting further into the story each time.

The fourth draft was where the story soared, literally. It was peppered with the old metal cities of the Mirra, now floating on the dark waters of Mikara thought they once soared the skies. There were dark, foreboding island forests, ancient cathedrals, and the lone Mirra was part of the mysterious Church. Slowly, everything was taking shape.

After one major revision on that draft, I decided it was time to submit it to a publishing company or two.

First I sent Mikara Falling to DAW Books. They are still family owned, though they are part of Penguin now, and encourage non-agented authors to submit. They also gladly publish new authors every year. I was excited. One month after submitting to them, I received a long letter back detailing that the economy was bad, it was hard to break out a new author, and that my writing was good, but needed a little work, so try try again.

Next, I sent it to Tor. Tor has changed hands a few times in the recent past. They are a bigger company, and really do love those agented authors, though they do accept authors without agents. They do not publish as many premier authors, either.

Despite that, I had my hopes up, until four months later when I received a four line letter, unsigned, stating that they did not want my piece, nor would they respond personally, bye.

It was disheartening, I will admit.

At that point, I put Mikara Falling down. It was already spring of 2009. I was starting to do more and more screenwriting, looking more to cinema for my inspiration and canvas than the novel.

Sometime, when talking about National Novel Writing Month (put on every November by the amazing Office of Letters and Light; and I don’t just say that because I am a Script Frenzy ML) in early 2010, Mikara Falling came up. I had not really thought about the project at all since I received that letter back from Tor Forge Books. I had stopped drawing artwork about the book, stopped talking about the book, stopped listening to the music I associated with writing the book itself.

For all intensive purposes, Mikara Falling was dead to me.

And yet, when I started talking about it, I felt a clenching in my heart, a tightening of my throat, and I knew, then and there, that I was still in love with the world of Mikara, the story of Mikara Falling, the characters, everything about it. This was a story that I needed to tell.

That was when I picked my proverbial pen back up and started writing again. That was in late May, early June, of 2010, just a few short months ago.

When I fly through the clouds with Bierrez and his fellow knights, I find myself smiling with delight. When I return to the cathedral of Mit’riku, I am filled with awe and wonder. And that is what I want the reader to feel as well.

I am not just writing a book about a place that has events and people. I am bringing the reader on a breathtaking adventure through a tale of duty, honor, sacrifice, and what happens when none of those are fulfilled.

Today, I broke the 50,000 word mark. The last draft was 107,000 words, approximately, but I have done a ton of work on my sentence structures, on flow and mood and tone, and weeded out the scenes that do not matter versus the ones which propel the storyline forward.

Hopefully, I will have this fifth draft of Mikara Falling polished and in a box, on its way to New York City to visit the slush pile readers at DAW Books again. And, hopefully, they will fall in love with Mikara just as I have all over again.

~Tiffany “Kysis” Tackett

The Accountability Book, Part 2

2010-07-06T20:04:00.000-06:00

In my last blog, I mentioned starting a book to track my writing habits. The results so far are really surprising!

I am logging my weeks Sunday-Saturday, one page per week, and at the end of each week, I tally the totals from every day for my week total. I note the location I am writing at, as well as the time I am there writing. The pages themselves are pretty neatly organized, though my handwriting is anything but neat.

So long as I can read it, there is nothing wrong with it.

The first week was only a partial one, with a Thursday, Friday, and Saturday on it. The last two weeks, however, had included all seven days. Here are my results:

Week 1: 8 hours and 10 minutes

Week 2: 22 hours and 55 minutes

Week 3: 27 hours and 45 minutes

I have noticed over the past few weeks, that with this accountability book is making me a lot more conscious of how much writing I am doing during the week. It is also making me realize when I am slacking off and not writing as much as I need to be to meet the deadline I set for myself.

Here are some other ideas for what to log in your own accountability book (I may implement these as well in the near future):

-Wordcount. If logging how long you are writing is still not seeming to jumpstart your productivity, adding a number of just how many words you are writing in that time may help. With this data, you can also see how many words you are typing per minute!

-Goals. Set a goal at the beginning of each week for how much writing you want to get done. For those of you who get your work schedule at the beginning of the week, this will give you time to figure out how much time you really have, and how much you are willing to set aside for writing. You’d be surprised by how many hours are actually hiding in there!

-Inspirational Pictures. Some people draw their inspiration from images, or use pictures as prompts. If that fits your bill, you can clip pictures that inspire you inside the book, or plaster the outside of it in said pictures, so that whenever you are logging writing and get stuck, you can just flip back and get instant inspiration.

-Music. I personally always write to music and have playlists dedicated to my different writing projects. Another bit of info you can log is what music you wrote to during your logged periods, so that if you are having trouble finding the same beat, you can just go back, see what you listened to during that big writing session earlier, and turn on the wordcount.

Let me know if you guys have anything else you put in your own logbooks!

Happy writing!

~Tiffany “Kysis” Tackett

Accountability: The Line Between Productivity and Procrastination

2010-06-19T15:10:00.000-06:00

There are many days—too many to count, really—where productivity is extremely difficult to come by. Often times lollygagging on the internet is more interesting than slogging through yet another revision, or that twitter update feels so much easier to write than the next chapter. Other times, my mind is just not there, be it from work, school, or a lack of caffeine.

I have always loved writing, but in all honesty, writing is not always easy.

For those of you who have participated in National Novel Writing Month, or have at least heard of it, you know that it brings a certain amount of accountability to the board. There are hundreds—even thousands—of other writers in the world racing to the 50,000 word finish line right beside you, as well as friends and family cheering you on (or criticizing you for undertaking such an insane goal). What would they think if you did not manage to do the 50k words in those fleeting 30 days?

Thousands of people do it every year, for the official NaNoWriMo event in November, and the various unauthorized spin-offs which happen during other months. Either way, it helps having a physical wordcount goal to keep up with every day, and it helps having other writers struggling alongside you, checking in on you, and sometimes leaving you in literary dust.

With my own writing slowing down, I decided that I needed some form of solid accountability, some way to show myself exactly how much I was writing in a week, and some way to see if it would be possible to meet my self-set deadline of early August for Mikara Falling.

Just a few days ago, I went and bought a notebook. It is not for ideas, brainstorming, doodling, or prose, but for keeping track of how much I write per day, when I write it, and where I write it.

This way, I can know for sure whether or not I can call myself a “full time writer” while being entirely honest.

So far, it has made me more conscious of the times when I should be writing my book, and I’m playing on the internet instead, or phoning a friend, or writing for this blog. It has also made me conscious of the fact that with my current work schedule (two jobs and classes at the local university), I really need to plan out when I am going to sit down to write, and more importantly, actually use that time for writing.

I’ve yet to log an entire week, but my way of thinking about the day’s structure, and my own (lack of) productivity has completely changed. My drive to complete this is not accompanied by time to actually do it, if I portion it out right.

Give it a try. You don’t have to buy a notebook, any old piece of paper or sticky note will do, just put it at your desk, or take it with you if you write outside the house, and really keep track of when you are writing. If you stop writing for any period more than five minutes (for a bathroom break, or to get a beverage, etc), clock yourself out until you start working again. It’s as simple as that.

You might be surprised by how much—or how little—you actually write in the day.

~Tiffany “Kysis” Tackett

PS: No, I did not log this as part of my writing time today, as much as I really wanted to.

Welcome and Hello!

2010-06-17T10:32:00.001-06:00

Rather than jumping straight into the thick of discourse about writing, publication, and all the steps in between-- as much as I want to-- I figured first I should introduce myself. If you don't know who I am, where I come from, what would drive you to read this? Take it at all seriously?

Exactly.

I signed up for the English: Creative Writing program at my local university four years ago when I decided, once and for all, that writing was what I wanted to do with my life, rather than going to other schools for criminology or pre-med, like I had original considered. More importantly, I decided that I could not survive without writing.

Around 10 was when I started writing seriously. I loved telling stories, especially around the pseudo-fire at camp. After much insistence, I started writing them down, reading them aloud in class, and then was requested to stop reading them in class, because they were too scary for some of my classmates.

Yes, horror was my first genre. I still love that genre, but do not immerse myself in it quite so often anymore.

From short stories I went to novellas, to full length books with 60,000+ words by the time I was 14. I loved writing. I wanted to do it every day. Days just were not right unless I had gotten some writing done. This got me in trouble at school more than once, and I was branded as a loner by fellow classmates, but I stuck with it and kept writing because I could not imagine not writing-- excuse the double negative.

I've actually finished a half-decent draft of my book Mikara Falling, which was submitted to two publication companies and rejected both times. Currently I am working on a new draft of the book, which is proving much stronger, more polished, and faster moving than the last. This I am proud of, since I have not been in any creative writing classes lately and my craft is still improving.

Last year, after that second rejection, I decided to add on a second degree at my university of choice: Cinema Arts. The film industry is booming here, more and more companies deciding to shoot their films here, so it sounded like a solid decision, seeing as my writing had yet to take me anywhere and I was nearing graduation.

Well, now I am not near graduation, have a ton of extra filler classes that I have to take, and am once again a full time student, wishing my writing would be as strong-- and as constant-- as I know it can be, and wishing as well that somehow, somewhere, someone would actually notice my writing, whether it be a novel, a short story, my screenwriting, anything.

Now that you know something about me-- probably far more than you ever cared to hear-- how about I introduce this blog, and its purpose?

This blog, if it turns out how I plan, is to be about aspiring writers, as well as what those writers have to go through. There will also be advice, lessons learned, reviews on books about writing, and other things which would really fit on this kind of blog.

This is for aspiring writers, by an aspiring writer.

I hope you enjoy!

~Tiffany "Kysis" Tackett