Author: Elizabeth Spann Craig

Writing a novel is often compared to running a marathon – the necessary training, tenacity, endurance, passion, and sheer will to finish are shared by both endeavors.  I trained for a marathon but never ran the race.  It took a long time for me to look at it not as a failure, but as an opportunity to learn a lesson or two and apply those to a fresh challenge.  I also worked on my first novel for four years and finally put it aside, incomplete.  For that, too, it was difficult to move past the failure mentality but I have and I’m hard at work applying lessons learned to my second novel.

The biggest challenge of my marathon training involved adequate fueling. It seemed like I got the concept of carb loading but I’d lose the energy mid-way through my runs and it was torturous to make it through the next mile.  Unsurprisingly, I had the same challenge with my novel.  There were moments of excitement and bursts of creativity but I found it difficult to carry that inspired, fueled-up feeling when I got into the thick of things.

The lesson learned in both instances is clear – understand the options and use them.  There are a lot of ways to fuel for a run just as there are ways to remain inspired and plow forward during the writing process:

• Be prepared.  Come armed with an outline if you’re a plotter or dig into your character motivations if you’re a pantser.  Inspiration is less likely to run away from you if you you have the necessary energy shot in your back pocket.
• Nurture your creativity.  There are ways to be creative as it relates to your novel be it from collaging, charting, or making soundtracks. Some writers use these techniques during the pre-writing process but why not use them to get over a writing hurdle?
• Keep writing.  Just like there may be an unexpected water fountain around the corner on your run, there may be a burst of inspiration that comes to you as you plug along to the next chapter.  The quickest way to become uninspired is to stop writing.  Skip to a scene you’ve been dying to write or experiment with a new plot twist but keep that butt in the chair and those fingers moving.
• Surround yourself with friends.  There’s nothing like a running partner to cheer you on and there’s nothing like a friend who writes and understands the every challenge you’re facing.  They can often dispense that one tidbit of feedback that’s enough to get your fingers typing out that next scene that was giving you problems.

Despite your every preparation, and every fuel available to you, it’s still possible to hit the wall.  And when that happens?  Dig down deep. And cross that finish line.

What is your favorite way to nurture your inspiration during the novel process?

Bio:

A hard-working, shoe-loving insurance executive by day, Stephanie Janulis moonlights as a historical romance writer. She’s currently working on her second novel and blogging at Write Chic, a website that helps writers cope with the literary lifestyle. She also enjoys training for half-marathons, watching Texas A&M football, and eating her weight in Twinkies.

http://www.writechic.com/

@WriteChicBlog

Thanks so much for your post today, Stephanie!  I hope everyone has a chance to pop over to the Write Chic blog which has helpful tips and interesting articles for writers. 

Sometimes I read books and the protagonists just leave me completely cold.

The books frequently have plenty of conflict. Bad things happen to these characters and we’re supposed, as readers, to care about that.

But…I don’t. And when I get to that point in a book, I might as well just scrap it, and usually do.

This doesn’t mean the protagonist has to be a really good person. In fact, I can read books like the Dexter series by Jeff Lindsay or The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith and pull for the bad guys. That’s only because the authors are really good at what they do—they’ve made these guys likable in a very odd way. They’re smart and funny and unique.

In general, though, I’m looking for protagonists I can relate to or have some sympathy for.

Problems I’ve noticed with books where I don’t care if the protagonist lives or dies:

The author doesn’t get into the protagonist’s head or POV enough. I’m just watching from a distance and not really understanding what motivates their actions.

The character doesn’t seem proactive, only reactive.

The protagonist has no apparent sense of humor.

The character is selfish and only seems to think about how the conflict affects them and their life. This gets a little boring to me after a while.

The protagonist seems whiny.

The emotional range for the character is limited.

The protagonist has no ideas for getting out of the situation they’re in and relies too heavily on other characters for help.

They do dumb things and I lose respect for them.

They do dangerous things and I lose respect for them.

They’re not brave. Even if you’re scared, you can still show a glimmer of courage. Especially if you’re a protagonist and carrying a whole book on your shoulders!

Although these types of books frustrate me as a reader, I think they help me develop stronger protagonists. Have you got any character dislikes that you avoid?

An author, or aspiring author, website or blog plays a lot of important roles.

We can entice new readers, sell books, and generally offer a professional image of ourselves to people in the industry or readers.

Also—we can give people a way to contact us. These people could be agents, editors, journalists, book bloggers…or other people who would like to get in touch with us.

Over the last week, I’ve noticed that while many people have Facebook pages and Twitter feeds linked in their sidebar, they don’t have a “contact me” with an email address.

And sometimes, you just don’t want to get in touch with someone on a Facebook wall where their 1200 friends can read your message. Or maybe you don’t want to sign into your Facebook account and go through several steps to email the person’s Facebook inbox (if they’re even on Facebook.) And you don’t want to tweet your message to them, where you have to think in terms of 140 characters.

You want to send an email (says Elizabeth, with some degree of frustration.)

Believe me, I know that if you post an email address that you can get spammed like crazy. I’d be a rich, rich woman right now if all those Nigerian lottery spams were telling me the truth.

But still, y’all—an email address. You can get one for free if you’d like a separate one from your family account. I’m using Gmail, which I’ve been happy with so far. Yahoo and Hotmail both offer free emails.

You can download free “contact me” widgets (which offer a form service) for both Blogger and WordPress. Just Google “contact me widget.”

Or, if you like, you can type this into your sidebar: “Contact Me at elizabethspanncraig (at) gmail.com.” People know that they’ll put an @ symbol in the place of the “at”.” Or they should know that, anyway. And the spammer spiders won’t pick up on it as an email address.

What other things should go on our blogs or websites?

The Book Publicity blog recommends (for published authors) your publishing house, agent and publicist info, contact info, and press kit.

The Hey, There’s a Dead Guy in the Living Room blog recommends that we have a domain name that makes sense, buy links, buzz words, clear headers, and organized pages.

I’d say book covers, bio, interviews, headshots, list of appearances, news on upcoming releases, and review snippets.

And an email address. :)

Yesterday I was cooking and opened a cabinet for a Corningware dish.

It wasn’t there.

After a lot of looking, I found it in a completely different location of the kitchen in a cabinet I rarely use.

Did I have a mild stroke before putting it away? Was I under the influence of allergy medication?

Oh. No, my husband had unloaded the dishwasher for me. I reminded myself that that was nice of him. Although he doesn’t seem to know where anything goes.

Then I looked at the location he’d chosen for the dish. He’s the rational side of my brain—which I completely outsourced to him since I’m not very rational. The storage location made very good sense—it was closer to the food preparation area of the kitchen. It was in an uncluttered cabinet, meaning there was less chance of the bowl being broken. It was actually a better location.

Sometimes I get so focused on the way my manuscript is, that I don’t see the possibilities for what it could be.

This seems to happen a lot with a story’s timeline. One of the last books I wrote seemed weak at the beginning, but I couldn’t pinpoint why. The character introduction had gone well, and I’d brought in a little conflict.

I decided to take the discovery of the murdered body and move it up fifteen pages.

This completely changed the beginning of the book. The characters needed to be introduced in a totally different way—one that revolved around the victim more. Because the murder victim wasn’t the most popular person (they rarely are in mysteries), this meant more tension and conflict at the beginning of the book.

Obviously, this is time-consuming—not something you’re going to want to take on unless you notice a weakness in your novel. It’s like reorganizing the kitchen—do you really want to take that kind of task on unless you can see a possible real benefit?

If you do want to rearrange some storylines or events in your book, here are some ways to approach it:

Have a first reader take a look at the manuscript. At the very least, they can point out places where your story dragged. Those are the very spots that might benefit from either adding conflict or reordering the storyline to bring conflict forward and increase the pace.

Take a break from the manuscript and come back later with fresh eyes. It doesn’t have to be a really long break…even a couple of days can help.

I’ve now heard several writers rave over the shrunken manuscript method. Basically, you remove the chapter breaks, single space the whole thing, and reduce the font until the story takes up about 30 pages. Using a highlighter, mark your strongest chapters. You put the manuscript down on the floor in 3 rows of 10 sheets and take a look at the big picture. This is a post from A.B.Fenner who used this method to find and fix problem areas.

Timelines can also be useful to pinpoint problems. Having trouble summing up what’s going on for a particular place in your timeline? That’s an indication there’s an issue, right there.

Have you done any major reorganizing of storylines lately? How did you approach it?

This past weekend I ran into a couple of different artists selling their work.

The first time I was at (of all places) Walmart. There was a man in the parking lot, approaching different people with: “Hi there! Do you like hip-hop? You do? I’ve got something for you to listen to that I think you’re going to love.”

Yes, he was hawking his CDs in the parking lot of Walmart. I actually stopped what I was doing and watched him for a few minutes because he was so good at selling his work and so passionate about his music.

He knew his target audience. The people he approached were folks he’d sized up as they got out of their cars. He was smiling and enthusiastic and everyone looked like they were smiling back at him. (No, he didn’t approach me—I think he probably pegged me as someone who listens to lots of old ABBA songs.) :)

Then I ran into the second musician Saturday afternoon when I escaped to a coffee shop to get some writing done. I was surprised to see that a musician was setting up for a performance…it was only 4:00 in the afternoon and I think of coffeehouse music as a nighttime gig.

After I’d worked for a while on my laptop, he started playing some really interesting New Age music.

But, because his listeners were people who just happened to be getting coffee while he played, they weren’t exactly his ideal audience.

One guy actually kept his earbuds in and listened to his Ipod. There was an older man who looked irritated because he was trying to focus on his newspaper.

One member of his audience was a middle aged woman, completely absorbed in a pile of papers she’d brought in. And me. And, naturally, I was just in an agony for him because I’ve been at signings before and had similar turnout.

But he was fine. Oh, he appreciated the smattering of applause that I’d give him at the end of his songs (before I turned back to my writing…the whole point of why I was in the coffee shop to begin with), but he’d played those songs for himself. And if it was background music for the people who were there, then so be it.

To me, these two guys approached their music from two completely different places.

The first guy, in the Walmart parking lot, was just as enthusiastic as the second…just as passionate. But he was determined to get his music into listener’s hands so they could share his enthusiasm.

The second guy wanted to share his music, but in a very laid-back way. Really, he was doing it all for himself and if he could pull someone else in to enjoy it with him, then so be it.

I’m aiming for the middle of the road between the two.

I know who my target audience is. I read what they’re reading, based on bookstore sales. I write what I hope they’ll enjoy reading, based on what I know of the genre. To me this isn’t calculated…it’s my plan for sharing my writing with as many people as I can, and to continue working as a writer in the industry.

But the publishing world is a tough one. There are some quiet book signings. There are some mixed reviews and rough days. During those times, I’m—ultimately—pleasing myself with my writing. Have I tried my hardest? Done a good job? Have I told a good story? Am I proud of myself? That’s what gets you through rejections or hard reviews.

For me it’s a balancing act. I have to come up with a story that I’m excited about that I think will please people who read my genre.

Where is your focus when you write? How do you balance pleasing yourself and pleasing others (and, ultimately, producing marketable books)?