The Significance of 100,000 Words

by

Scott D. Parker

On Tuesday evening, as I finished my daily writing with 2,419 words for that day, I entered that figure in my spreadsheet. Once the formulas did their thing, I realized I crossed the 100,000-word mark in this renewed writing initiative.

For someone who has barely put together 10,000 words over a year, to see the numbers add up to 100, 919 on that was a great experience for me. For readers who have followed my progress since May, that’s still only 3 total stories: 2 shorter pieces and the 1 novel. As for the novel and it’s “new word” count (I had a few chapters already written when I picked it up again in June), Tuesday also marked the day I crossed 75,000 new words on the novel. And Sunday marked my highest one-day writing total: 6,108.

Why do I focus so much on numbers when I’m writing words? Because they feed on each other. They are daily reminders of Progress Being Made. The more I’ve focused on that spreadsheet each day, the more pride I have in my writing and in myself as a writer. I love seeing my May monthly total (13,017) stacked up to my June total (34,000) and my to-date July total (57,381). I love seeing, in numbers, what I am capable of doing after so many years of self doubt and self denial. It’s exhilarating and a little intoxicating.

In fact, I’ve been telling another writer friend of mine to keep a spreadsheet of his daily totals, too. He’s taking baby steps after a bunch of things got in his way, too. As much as I extol the virtues of keeping a spreadsheet, I got an assist by another source this week.Back in June, Nik Morton published Write a Western in 30 Days: With Plenty of Bullet-Points and I downloaded it and read through it. In there, he also tells prospective writers to keep a spreadsheet of daily writing. The only difference with his version is he does it by subtracting the daily word count from the total number of words for a typical western (45,000). Yes, you can get down to zero, but I love the addition version where you can go as high as you want. Like last Sunday. I knew I had written a lot, but I was very proud of myself for laying down 6,100 words. It’s like a last little gift at the end of the day.

So, after years--Years!--of not writing, I’ve managed to write more words in less time than ever before. I say that not to be immodest, but as encouragement to those of y’all out there who read this blog, see most of us getting published, and wished you could do it. I’m here to say that the writing part is doable.That's the significance of 100,000 words for me this week. A tangible, positive reminder that yes! I can do this. Here's how it's worked for me.

1. Decide to do it.  **The hardest part and the part that gave me the most trouble for YEARS!

2. Start.

3. Keep Track. 

Do any of you keep track of daily word counts?

Exit Stage Left, Pursued by a Reader

By Russel D McLean

One of the things I love most in this business is meeting readers.

I've talked about this time and again but its true. I love getting out in the trenches and seeing people in action, figuring out who buys the books. Sometimes they're insane. Sometimes they're wonderful. Sometimes they're determined to prove they're smarter than the author. Sometimes all they want is to be entertained.

Whatever, I love meeting them.

I was thinking about this again after doing a book and beer evening with Stuart MacBride in Crail. Its the third me and Stuart have worked together. The first time we did an event together, things were a little awkward awkward. Neither of us knew the other's rhythms too well and we both floundered a little (although thankfully we pulled it back in the end and everyone had a good time) but now we seem to be getting a handle on each other, working out how to come across well on stage.

And that's something you're never prepared for as a writer:

The Event.

You know, where people come out to meet the flesh behind the pages. Where they want to see in action the mind that created a whole fictional narrative.

The people who come out want to be informed. They want to be entertained. They want to feel like they've seen something behind the books.

And that's odd.

Because writers are naturally insular people. One of the reasons I have loved working with MacBride (God only knows how he feels working with me) is that he is a born entertainer. I can play the straight man to his Polish Swearing routine or field a serious answer to which he can then create a punchline (and then still tack on a serious answer that outflanks my own). But he knows when to pull it in, when the audience aren't reacting or when they need him to be the writer, not just the beardy Sex God.

But its strange being on that stage. Knowing that these people have come to see you.

I've seen it go wrong so many times. From the writer who talked for five minutes then announced that not enough people were here and walked off to the author who read from their book in a dull monotone for an hour straight. I've seen writers paired together who clearly had no common ground. I've seen panels collapse due to a overbearing host.

But the problem is that we're not trained how to speak in public. We're just expected to know how to do it naturally. We're also often expected just to show up with no advance contact and bounce off other writers we've never met... (I'm not going to mention the pay situation)

I've done a lot of events now. I'm starting to get a personality that I play up. Mostly its a befuddled one,  but then its just an extension of who I am naturally. I've learned how to project, how to vamp when I don't know what I'm talking about, but all the same I've had little in the way of formal training (in terms of talking about writing; I did some stage work in my younger days) and just had to make it up as I went along. I still envy writers like John Connolly who can talk so eloquently, or Christopher Brookmyre who can naturally make a room crack up with laughter. Or Megan Abbott who just seems to always know exactly what she's saying. Or James Ellroy who just puts on the greatest motherfucking show that any pervert with a brain will appreciate. Dig the demon dog, hep-cats, he's got the greatest show in history.

 The pressure of events on writers is fantastic. We're expected just to show up and be interesting, but unlike stand ups or actors, we got into our line of work so we wouldn't have to deal with people. Now, I've discovered I love doing events, and more importantly love meeting readers, but I know every time that I have to give them something whether its a few good punchlines or perhaps a few insights into something they didn't expect (I've started to talk more and more about the style and lives of writers who influenced me; my life revolves around books, so why shouldn't I talk about them?). It can't just be about plugging the new book or reading page after page (unless you're good at that). The audience are there to be entertained. Which means that any writer who agrees to do an event should be aware of what they are getting into. As I have seen (especially with the writer who talked for a few minutes before walking off due to low turnout) some are doing only because it is expected of them, not because they want to. A bad event can be worse than no event at all in a reader's eyes, especially if they are not entertained. Because we have to remember, its all about the readers. The audience. And its certainly not about feeding our own egos. I certainly hope that anyone who sees me comes away with some sense of value for money. Even if the event was free...

The Significance of 100,000 Words

by

Scott D. Parker

On Tuesday evening, as I finished my daily writing with 2,419 words for that day, I entered that figure in my spreadsheet. Once the formulas did their thing, I realized I crossed the 100,000-word mark in this renewed writing initiative.

For someone who has barely put together 10,000 words over a year, to see the numbers add up to 100, 919 on that was a great experience for me. For readers who have followed my progress since May, that’s still only 3 total stories: 2 shorter pieces and the 1 novel. As for the novel and it’s “new word” count (I had a few chapters already written when I picked it up again in June), Tuesday also marked the day I crossed 75,000 new words on the novel. And Sunday marked my highest one-day writing total: 6,108.

Why do I focus so much on numbers when I’m writing words? Because they feed on each other. They are daily reminders of Progress Being Made. The more I’ve focused on that spreadsheet each day, the more pride I have in my writing and in myself as a writer. I love seeing my May monthly total (13,017) stacked up to my June total (34,000) and my to-date July total (57,381). I love seeing, in numbers, what I am capable of doing after so many years of self doubt and self denial. It’s exhilarating and a little intoxicating.

In fact, I’ve been telling another writer friend of mine to keep a spreadsheet of his daily totals, too. He’s taking baby steps after a bunch of things got in his way, too. As much as I extol the virtues of keeping a spreadsheet, I got an assist by another source this week.Back in June, Nik Morton published Write a Western in 30 Days: With Plenty of Bullet-Points and I downloaded it and read through it. In there, he also tells prospective writers to keep a spreadsheet of daily writing. The only difference with his version is he does it by subtracting the daily word count from the total number of words for a typical western (45,000). Yes, you can get down to zero, but I love the addition version where you can go as high as you want. Like last Sunday. I knew I had written a lot, but I was very proud of myself for laying down 6,100 words. It’s like a last little gift at the end of the day.

So, after years--Years!--of not writing, I’ve managed to write more words in less time than ever before. I say that not to be immodest, but as encouragement to those of y’all out there who read this blog, see most of us getting published, and wished you could do it. I’m here to say that the writing part is doable.That's the significance of 100,000 words for me this week. A tangible, positive reminder that yes! I can do this. Here's how it's worked for me.

1. Decide to do it.  ←- The hardest part and the part that gave me the most trouble for YEARS!

2. Start.

3. Keep Track. 

Do any of you keep track of daily word counts? 

A Star is Born.

By Jay Stringer

On Monday, July 22nd, a baby was born in the UK.

An emotional, tired and hungry bundle of youth.

Born into a world full of possibilities and endless adventures, a world of riches and joy and wonder.

Unfortunately, this child was born into poverty. It will live in this poverty. Chances are high that it won't receive a full education, that it will be statistically more likely to die in poverty and to be more open to disease than 1333 other children born in that country on Monday.

That's just one story.

You can repeat it word-for-word 666 times before you can take away the mention of poverty.
You need repeat the story over 2000 times before you can narrow it down to one particular happy, healthy child who will never have to want for anything.

These are the stories we do and don't tell. These are the stories we choose and ignore.

1 in 3 children born in the UK right now is being born into poverty. Some amongst us might choose to look at the definition of modern "poverty" and score points by pointing out that many of those children are actually being born into perfectly livable financial conditions. But that doesn't matter. When the words "children" and "poverty" are in the same sentence anyone who wants to score points over semantics can take a running jump.

I don't have the stats to tell the even bigger picture. I don't have a figure for how many children were born on the planet on that day. I feel safe in assuming if we were to add those births onto the scale, the needle will only swing in one direction. We would be talking about children born with HIV, children born with no medical help, children born simply to die before they can even walk. Children who will never see clean water, or who will contract diseases for which there already exist cures, locked in medicine cabinets thousands of miles away. Children who will never know their parents. Children who will never learn to read or write, never hear music, never hear kind words.

Nine million children die every year before they reach the age of five. That's over twenty four thousand a day. In the time it's taken you to get this far into my post, over 17 children have died in confusion, fear or pain. That's regardless of which god or gods their parents have prayed to, of how good or bad they've been, or of what potential the child had for greatness.

It's pretty clear that we don't have to tell these stories if we don't want to. The media on both sides of the Atlantic seems to have already made that choice. There are shiny, happy and interesting people we can tell stories about, and some of them have bronzed bodies that look kinda nice on a TV screen or the front page of a newspaper. There are also serial killers and mentally unwell people that we can talk about, faces and names that we can manipulate and twist and make famous. There are politicians, movie stars, rock stars, bankers and royalty.

Who wants to read about all the people on the other side of the tracks? Who wants to write about them? Who wants to think about them?

Thinking about them might lead to us trying to, I don't know, do something.

I'm happy for that particular young couple, and their newborn son. I'm even more happy because that son has parents who will be able to give him everything, to provide and protect and give him every opportunity.

But how to we manage to focus so much energy on seeing the one and not the six hundred and sixty seven?

My book is not your map

By Steve Weddle

I tend to worry about things quite a bit, for quite a while, until I just don't care anymore. I get tired of worrying about them, so I just let them go.

What's that thing in the front yard? Is it a body? Should I go check? I really should. Days can pass like this. Eventually, I just get tired of thinking about it.

So it is with street names.

When I was writing COUNTRY HARDBALL, I'd try to keep going when the Doubt Dingo would start circling, asking whether I had the place right, the name right, the street right. The DD would tell me to stop and look it up. I'd need to get the name of the street correct. I couldn't say Highway 58 if it was really Highway 85, after all.

People would read this and tell me I was wrong. People would post on Amazon how I'd gotten the name of a restaurant wrong, the mascot for a team wrong. The Doubt Dingo continued to circle, barking at me to stop, to research while I was writing. Man, I hate that damn dog.

Most of the time, I'd just power through and figure I'd come back and track down the pesky bits later. And I would.

In re-reading the manuscript for the 37th time recently, I was again visited by the Dingo of Doubt. Science would suggest that substantial amounts of alcohol would be enough to drown him, but I haven't found the right balance. Or my own after enough of it.

Anyhoo, I realized that if you're using my book to drive through the backwoods of Arkansas, then you're probably a complete dumbass I don't need to worry about.

My novel isn't a damn Rand McNally Road Atlas. It isn't a wikipedia article on handguns.

Did I work on getting all the details right? You're damn right I did. And the folks who worked through each and every page over and over checked things, too. I got notes and questions back. And we fixed all kinds of things I'd screwed up. So, the roads are right, but that's what makes a good story, is it?

But my stories aren't about a building, they're not about a road. They're about the people in those buildings, the people who walk those roads when the sun starts to come up so that they can stand all day behind a damn cash register until it's time to come home at sundown and spend the night trying to figure out which three of the eleven bills they can pay that week. And it's about the other guy from another road who knocks on the door at midnight, saying he's got a $500 job if you don't mind getting your hands a little dirty.

In writing, sometimes I get caught up worrying that I've got the right gravel in the right place. Was that road paved a few years back? I need to check Google Street View.

I don't write for cartographers.

If you're reading my book thinking it will help you get to Miller's Laundromat, then you're looking for a journey I can't give you.

No. What I need to do is focus on the people, not the map. Focus on the details of the people, that's what matters. Not whether that gas station on Highway 58 closed in 1998 or 1997. The details about the people, about their struggles, those are the details that matter.

I have to work through the damned dingo barking at me, telling me to stop my momentum, get and and make sure I'm writing about the right highway.

I don't write for dingoes. Bunch of illiterate baby-eaters, anyway.

Immersion

 

When my father, who was born in 1920, grew up in Montreal the city was bilingual in that there were people who spoke English and people who spoke French. And very few who spoke both languages.

There was even a famous book written about the situation called, “Two Solitudes.”

 

 

The first line of the book is, “Northwest of Montreal, through a valley always in sight of the low mountains of the Laurentian Shield, the Ottawa River flows out of Protestant Ontario into Catholic Quebec,” so there’s some trouble right there as Ontario wasn’t entirely Protestant and Quebec wasn’t entirely Catholic, but, well, writers, you know...

 

Then, like everywhere else, the 60s hit and social change was in the air. In 1972 a new political party determined to make Quebec its own country (or, at least, to change the federal arrangement – I guess you could call it Canada’s, “states’ rights” movement)  received almost 30% of the  popular vote.

Panic set in. Well, okay, not really panic but a lot of people – English people – started to realize that maybe the way things were wasn’t great for everyone and change was coming. People started asking, what can we do to make this better?

The most obvious thing for a place where 80% of the population spoke French was for the other 20% to learn the language. And it was decided for us kids the best way to do that was through immersion programs. So, I started high school in French immersion.

For my generation the success rate wasn’t great but it would be very difficult today to find someone under thirty in Quebec who can’t speak French.

So, forty years later I finally figure out out – immersion works.

But at the time I resisted the idea and never really learned French well enough to be comfortable with it. I regret that and I’m working on it now.

And with my writing I resisted the idea of immersion for a long time, too. I’d get an idea and I’d follow it for a while and then like Eric said here yesterday, I’d realize it didn’t work and I’d put it down and start something else (Joelle addressed this quite well in the comments, I think).

Then sometimes I’d go back to that first idea and work on it some more. Sometimes I would have three or four things going at once. And that might work for some writers but it doesn’t work for me.

Now when I think I have an idea for a novel one of the first questions I ask myself is if it’s something I could spend the next two years thinking about every day. Could I read dozens of books and articles on that subject? Do I really have anything to say about it? Is it worth saying?

Could I really immerse myself in that subject for years?

When I finished writing Black Rock (looks like the pub date is set, May 1^st, 2014) I looked for another story that could follow it, something else set in the early 70s in Montreal. For most of us Canadians the biggest thing that happened in 1972 was the Canada-Russia hockey series. A big deal at the height of the Cold War, no doubt, but it didn’t seem like enough for a couple of years immersion. When I started to look into it more I discovered that the day before the first game in that series there was a nightclub fire in Montreal and 37 people were killed – and three men arrested for the arson. And then the night after the game the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts was robbed of two million dollars worth of paintings (that have never been recovered).

So now it’s starting to look a little like a book but what’s at the heart of it?

As I continued to research I started to come across articles about war resistors who had moved to Canada – draft dodgers. There are no accurate numbers but estimates run at over 500,000 – one of the biggest migrations of people in North America and probably the biggest for political reasons.

And still very contentious. Everyone seems to have an opinion about draft dodgers.

 

So now it feels like something I can immerse myself in for as long as it takes to write a book. I’m a little surprised that there hasn’t been more written about this movement.

One book that is definitely worth reading is a memoir by Montreal Gazette columnist, Jack Todd. It was published in Canada with the title, The Taste of Metal, and in the US with the title, Desertion: In the Time of Vietnam.

 

 

In Praise of Quitting

by Eric Beetner

Recently Joelle Charboneau gave us all a great lesson in perseverance and not giving up in the face of self doubt. Her words were welcome to any writer and she even offered a personal hand if we ever needed a boost of confidence. And this lady knows a thing or two about putting words on paper. Terrifically prolific, her books are good and please readers and reviewers alike. So know that I take nothing away from her wise words last week when I add my two cents by saying, yes, keep on working through the dark times . . . but maybe . . .

You see, I recently abandoned a book. I tried to save it. I tried to stick with it in the face of doubt and fear that it was no good. But here’s the thing I’ve found – sometimes those instincts are right.

I’ve always written with the notion that there are always more ideas. Ideas are free. And like anything free, sometimes you get what you pay for.

Not all my ideas are great. Sorry to say it, but neither are yours. I think it’s good to know when to walk away and move on down the road to the next idea.

I think we’ve all been in a relationship that went on a little too long past its expiration date, right? With the benefit of hindsight, we can see the point at which we really should have called it a day. But we didn’t want to give up!

With my book, I was fighting my own instincts. I knew what I was writing, or at least the characters, wasn’t mine. They just weren’t my kind of guys and girls. My fatal flaw, is that I was trying to write something more marketable. An easy sell.

Big mistake.

I switched it from first person to third person. I reworked my outline. I tried cutting the top and starting the action sooner. Bottom line was, I dreaded sitting down to work on this book. It was no fun, and I wasn’t doing my best work when it became a death march to sit at the keys.

The best thing for that book was a bullet in the head.

And that’s fine. There are always more ideas. I’m into my new book now and it’s going along great. My kind of characters in my kind of scenario. A guy just did target practice on a severed head in one scene. I’m having fun again.

So, by all means, first try everything on Joelle’s list. Get to the bottom and go back to the top and try them again. But if it’s just not working – kill it. It’s a zombie book and it needs to be decapitated before it eats your brain. If you know, you really know its not right, trust your instincts.

Don’t take it out and burn it. Don’t delete the file, reformat your hard drive and salt the earth behind you. Just walk away. You might find the fix for it later, even years from now. You might change and evolve as a writer and find yourself the right person to write that story.

But don’t be afraid to move on. Don’t fight with your own creativity. The solid advice of don’t doubt yourself I think also applies to knowing when to say when.

True, every writer goes through a phase of disliking their book, of trust issues, of doubt. But sometimes the truly courageous thing to do is write that Dear John letter and leave that abusive relationship in the past.

After all, there are always more ideas.

Young adult...not just for the young adults...or is it?

 by: Joelle Charbonneau

I have to admit that I never intended to write a young adult book.  I knew lots of authors who wrote for kids.  I thought their work was great, but I never thought I'd have a story idea that fell into the young adult category.  Since my first young adult thriller, The Testing, was published just over a month ago, I proved myself wrong. 

My mistaken assumptions about the young adult genre were part of the reason for this twist of writing fate.  First, I assumed that the young adult genre was the same as when I was a young adult.  (Which for those keeping score wasn’t all THAT long ago.)  Second, I assumed that the voice required for writing young adult books needed to be just that—young. 

Turns out I was wrong on both accounts.  No, the young adult genre isn’t merely comprised of Sweet Valley High books with a few Christopher Pike novels thrown in for good measure.  (Okay, maybe I’m older than I want to admit!)  Yes, some of the contemporary young adult books out there are filled with pop culture references and other teen slang that I’m not familiar with.  However, what I didn’t realize is unlike adult genre novels that have very specific categories and rules that govern them, young adult has only one rule:  a teen must be at the heart of the story.

It’s as simple as that. 

In adult fiction, the publisher is concerned about where a book is shelved.  Is it a mystery?  A thriller?  Is it science fiction or romance?  In young adult, they don’t separate books into categories the same way.  The books are young adult.  Period.  Which is why you find science fiction/thriller/romances or Fantasy/romance/mysteries topping the young adult charts. 

In my opinion, that mash-up of genres is the reason that so many authors have found joy in writing for the young adult marketplace.  Anything goes.  Young adult books (or books targeted for the ages of 12, 13, 14 and up) can have violence or strong, they can contain sex and provocative themes.  Anything that is allowed in the adult marketplace is allowed in teen books—as long as it is believable teen journey.

And teens aren’t the only ones reading these books.  Studies done have shown that adults are reading young adult books in droves.  Quite possibly this is because so many of the titles now available transcend the adult genre fiction rules.  Because the young adult marketplace reaches such a broad audience, it’s not a surprise that almost every publishing house has multiple imprints to accommodate their young adult titles.  Huge sections of bookstores are now devoted to “teen” literature and a great number of those bookstores have relocated their teen sections away from the children’s picture books in order to make them more adult friendly.

Which takes  me to the point of this little chat.  YA fiction isn't young.  It isn't simplistic.  In fact, the work I was doing this week on my new YA project involved a lot of math calculations to make sure I didn't screw up the world building.  The young adult fiction category doesn't mean that the story is uncomplicated or less violent--THE TESTING trilogy books are the most violent books I've ever written. Young adult fiction is a category that is growing every day because it appeals to readers of all ages.  At least, that is my guess.  And maybe you can help me prove that to be true.  I'd love to conduct a very unscientific survey.  Please let me know in the comments if you've read a book that features a teen protagonist sometime in the last year and whether you fall into the under 20 or over 20 crowd.  Let's see how wide the appeal of young adult fiction is with our DSD audience.  Most of you are crime fiction lovers...lets see how far your reading has taken you.