My current WIP–The Shiny Book Where People Die a Lot–isn’t going well. I hit a speed bump (one that’s about 20k big) and didn’t know how to fix it. Since I’m a little short on time at the moment, that made me nervous–would I still finish this draft before my self-imposed deadline? Would I have to abandon it midway through? I knew I’d run into the exact problems I did–so why on Earth did I start drafting before solving them fully in the outlining stage? NO ONE WILL LIKE THIS BOOK! I AM SUCH A HAAACK.

You know, the usual.

I told myself to chill the hell out and ended up looking at some of the ranting and wailing I did when I was drafting and editing Otherbound. The funny thing: I ran into a lot of the same problems back then, like characters not being developed enough, and relevations/turning points following each other too quickly, too early in the book. I also noticed just how early in the process I managed to pinpoint problems that would end up haunting me months later (mostly using the voices of my critique partners).

Several couple of times during Otherbound, I was on the verge of panicking. Every time, I calmed myself down; I told myself these speed bumps were normal, I went through it with every book, and I had plenty of time and help to fix it.

It really helps to look through all those frustrations of late 2011 and early 2012 now that I’m working on a new book. Because it’s true: I’ve been here before, I’ll be here again, and I end up okay every time. So does the book. Immediately, all the problems I’m running into now look much more doable. I acknowledge them, and then I move past them, knowing that if I can’t do anything about it now, there’s no point in worrying about it. At some point down the road, I’ll figure it out.

So when N.K. Jemisin linked to this article about happiness, I found myself nodding along with this bit:

[Happy people] have an optimistic thinking style. Happy people reign in their pessimistic thinking in three ways. First, they focus their time and energy on where they have control. They know when to move on if certain strategies aren’t working or if they don’t have control in a specific area. Second, they know that “this too shall pass.” Happy people “embrace the suck” and understand that while the ride might be bumpy at times, it won’t last forever. Finally, happy people are good at compartmentalizing. They don’t let an adversity in one area of their life seep over into other areas of their life.

Sounds pretty spot-on, to me!

This is the second definition for fanwanking in the Urban Dictionary:

To fill in plot holes or explain away lapses in continuity in fictional works by coming up with (often convoluted) explanations of how it could have happened.

“But David used Sarah’s real name even though he never knew her before she changed her identity.”

“He could have read her file. He had access to it in episode seventeen and there were a few minutes when he could have flicked through it.”

As someone who spent much of her adolescence in fandom, I’ve spent a whole lot of time fanwanking. I still do it. Take the Avengers movie for example: You know when Banner Hulks out and chases Black Widow, clearly without any control? Can’t distinguish friend from enemy? And you know how he’s totally chill at the end of the movie?

Yeeeaahh. My excuse was, “Maybe he can control it when he consciously chooses to Hulk out?”

That’s all fine and dandy, but here’s the thing: I don’t think audiences should have to flail around for missing information or pain-stakingly plug plot holes. As a writer, I think that’s my job. My mantra: Put it on the page.

I don’t mean subtext or reading between the lines. I mean obvious things. When my CPs lovingly shred my work, I can’t say, “The climax wasn’t anti-climactic at all. The secondary characters were off having dramatic show-downs of their own. Off-page. It was very exciting.”

Or: “What do you mean, ‘convenient’ breakthrough? Lucy actually Googled that info between chapters seven and eight. Yes, those chapters lead directly into each other. She… took a quick Internet break…?”

All this seems obvious, but it’s astounding how much we have in our heads that never makes it onto the page.

Sometimes, that’s intentional; I may want to save explanations for a sequel. I can still hint at the missing parts, though. Make my character wonder what’s up. Mention the dangling plot point or odd mood swing.

I’ll simply have to make it clear, in whatever way I choose, that I’m consciously omitting X or Y. It’s not an oversight. I’m just being a puppet master.

Cackling goes [here.]

This goes for details, too: How did the character get back home when her car broke down last chapter? Is she exhausted from walking for hours? Did she call a taxi? Is her car in the shop?

Nobody wants to know every aspect of a character’s life, but if I make a big deal out of something, I try to follow through. An off-hand mention may keep the reader from wondering about unimportant consequences. Instead, I want them invested in my sparkling plot.

So let’s extend this “put it in writing!” mantra to problems beyond plot holes.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen people criticize authors or directors for writing about entirely straight/white worlds, only to hear, “Jeez, of course they exist, it just wasn’t relevant to the story! My world isn’t all-white at all!”

In one memorable case, the reaction was, “What are you talking about? My show has three queer characters. YOU’RE the homophobe for assuming everyone is straight.”

I don’t think it’s fair to whip out information that’s only in the author’s head and claim it’s just as canon as what’s in the books/show. It seems like a cop-out: “I’m not sure how to write a convincing gay character/it might cut down on my audience. I’ll just not mention it in the book and appease those who complain in online interviews. Win-win!”

It’s rarely intended that way, but the effect is the same: no visible representation.

Besides, what about people who never read creator interviews? Would they have an incomplete understanding of the material? For example, I’m convinced that people who watched the original The Amazing Spider-Man trailers and read interviews and articles have a different view of the story than those who only saw the movie.

“It exists in my head!” doesn’t–shouldn’t–work as a defense against criticism, be it regarding plot holes or minority representation.

The book is all most readers have. And if it’s not on those pages, it doesn’t exist.

Most of you will probably already have seen Rachel Aaron’s post “How I Went From Writing 2,000 Words a Day to 10,000 Words a Day”; if you haven’t, I recommend checking it out, because what she says is spot-on.

I’m a big believer in “as long as the job gets done”; fast writer, slow writer, pantser, outliner, scheduler, slacker. There is no right way to write.

That said, if you want to try writing faster to see if that works for you, I’d definitely give her method a try.

I do have a tiny addition of my own. See, for the most part, I subconsciously used Rachel’s exact approach during my first NaNoWriMo, leading to my famous (ahem) five-day win/ten-day novel/the book that got me my agent. I had lots of time available, I got super excited, and I planned like the wind.

The one thing I did differently was that I didn’t plan everything at the start of the day, necessarily. I never wrote for several hours straight. I’d write for one hour, using NaNo chatroom word wars (but Twitter or Gchat would work just as well), then spend the next hour doing chores around the house, tinkering with the scene I’d just written, and think about my next scene in-depth.

During the one-hour word wars, I’d write about 2000-3000 words. During the hours in-between, I’d write maybe 200 words, but mostly I was hashing out the details and fueling the enthusiasm for my next scene. And for me, it worked. In future revision rounds, I added major subplots, cut scenes, took out over thirty thousand words, changed the book to YA, but the overall structure of the book remained pretty much identical to that first draft.

I love writing fast. I’ve never been able to match my FAE PRINT speeds, sticking to 2000-6000 words a day, but there’s nothing like being so caught up in your story that you don’t even have the time to start doubting yourself. Writing begets writing. You get caught up in this whirl-wind of creation and by the time insecurities should be creeping in you’ve long passed The End and it’s time to take a step back and plot out edits. All of a sudden, in the time it might normally take to finish a video game (at a normal-ish pace) or work your way through a TV series, you’ve added another novel to your name and you get to show your CPs something shiny.

Yeah, I’m totally in the mood to write another novel now. Hah! Rachel’s post reminded me that I really need to try another two-week novel sometime.

There’s one particular trick in that post I look forward to using: spicing up even the less interesting scenes to make them exciting. Of course you try to avoid boring scenes at all costs, but I’ve rarely actually sat down to brainstorm ways to rack up the tension on a scene-by-scene basis.

And man, do I look forward to giving that a try now.

I’m knee-deep in messy, messy edits right now, but I figure y’all don’t want to hear about that.

Instead, I was curious to hear what you guys thought about the plot device of side characters withholding information from the narrator. I’ve been on a reading binge this past month, and that situation came up more than once, and it bothered me a lot more than I expected.

Not always, of course. When done right, there’s a lot of narrative tension in a situation like this. People around your character have information they’re trying to find out — heck, that happens in almost

No, when it bothers me is when I can't figure out why those people are being so secretive. I need to know and understand their motives. Otherwise this just seems like a cheap plot device. Sometimes it’s easy: They’re the villain! Other times, it’s never explained in the book and no reason I can come up with fits.

Another common trope is when the character is ostensibly on the main character’s side, but they’re being weirdly cryptic — and sometimes the MC won’t even press further! If the person sitting across from you has information that could save people’s lives, it’s really not the time for politeness. And again, explain why the character is so cryptic.

Basically, your character needs to be asking the same questions the reader is. And if they’re not getting answers? There had better be a good reason for it. Otherwise, the tension feels fake.

Am I the only one bothered by this plot device? Do share!

I’d post a bigger update, but it’s a couple of minutes until midnight and I’m still over 600 words away from reaching today’s word count goal.

Here’s my current count:

17330 / 75000 words. 23% done!

One thing I’m realizing is that writing quickly is a lot easier when you’re completely immersed in the book at all hours of the day. Right now, I’m not — I allow myself to watch TV, play the occasional game, socialize, read books.

Not much of the above, mind you, but enough.

On one hand, I think it’s a good thing: It keeps you from getting worn out, it keeps you in touch with the rest of the world, it keeps you healthy. Having less time available also makes it easier to allocate the hours you can dedicate to writing to, er, writing.

On the other hand, I find that it’s making me run into a lot more mental blocks when it comes to the actual getting-words-on-paper part. When I wrote books without (most of) the above distractions, I’d spend every waking minute thinking about the book. About the current scene, about the next scene, about how this plot thread would work out. It meant that when I actually sat down at the computer, I knew exactly what to write.

Now, I find myself going, “Er… what happens next?”

For example, I know my main character has to do X in location Y next, but I don’t have the faintest idea of what location Y looks like, nor have I really considered how the transition between the current scene and that one. So while I had no problem getting through the first 1300 words of my 2000-a-day goal and was very optimistic about hitting the rest early, I screeched to a halt when I realized how clueless I was about the next scene. I know what happens and why it’s necessary for the plot — both of these things are in my outline — but all those tiny details, the exact course of events…

I should’ve brainstormed those in the shower. Or during groceries. Or instead of watching My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic just now. (Tiny ponies! They are the cutest!)

Otherwise, it’s too easy to write, come to a halt, and get distracted again. It pulls you out of the flow.

I think I’m slowly — sloooowly — getting a hang of my process. Given that this is my fifth book, it’s about time, right?

Now, while I’m off to actually go and apply this knowledge, here’s a track from this book’s soundtrack — Weak, by Skunk Anansie:

That may be the worst subject on this blog yet. You’re welcome.

So the other day Failure to Launch was on TV. As you might expect, it’s not a particularly good film. I have nothing against romantic comedies per se, but I tend to dislike contrived situations, characters failing to communicate, predictable humor… basically the very things most romantic comedies hinge on.

However horrific a film or book, though, there’s usually something to be learned. (Even if it’s about what to avoid.) In this case, there were some subtle characterization bits that I liked.

(Spoilers ahead!)

Basically, the lead woman is someone who is hired to motivate men to move out, usually by their parents. That’s what the whole plot hinges on: Sarah Jessica Parker needs to get 35-year-old Matthew McConaughey out of the house. His mother still does his laundry, cleans, and cooks luxurious meals.

At this point, the audience is thinking two things. One: No wonder the dude sticks around. Two: If his mother wants him out of the house, shouldn’t she stop doing those things before she starts hiring complete strangers?

Both these things are handled surprisingly well later on in the film. As it turns out, the reason that he’s still living at home is that his fiancée died a few years ago, and he’s struggled to adjust. When he later finds out that his new girlfriend was hired by his parents, he’s genuinely hurt. He tells his parents that they could’ve just asked him to move out. They never did.

Good point. However much of a lazy slob the guy is, both these things create some amount of sympathy for someone we could only roll our eyes at in the beginning.

Other motivations are also cleared up: his parents never asked him to move out because they didn’t want to pressure him after his fiancée’s death. His mother never even wanted him to move out: she’s worried what life alone with her husband would be like. It’s much easier to have a son around as a buffer.

As another example, in one scene, Sarah Jessica Parker is meeting a different client at a small café. He’s your stereotypical nerd, short and chubby and into Star Wars, presumably living in his mother’s basement. She’s talking about what a wonderful guy he is, smart and imaginative, all those good things, and he excuses himself to go to the bathroom. He says, “Please don’t leave.”

Again – instant sympathy for a character who only shows up in a single scene. The audience can’t help but wonder how many women did just up and walk off.

None of these things are particularly deep or well-handled… but it does work. With only a few lines – sometimes only a few words – you have a full understanding of someone’s situation and motivations.

As someone who has a tendency to let her characters divulge backstory and motivations over pages and pages, I could probably take a few lessons from that.*

* This is hugely embarrassing. Did I mention yet that it’s a really bad film? Yeah? Okay then.

As most of you know, I’ve been doing krav maga for a few years now. What I like about this martial art versus many others is its focus on effectiveness and versatility. Most of the times, krav maga techniques can be used by people of whatever age and body type. Given that I’m very much on the slim side, this is useful for me. There’s no real point in learning intricate wrestling techniques when people I’m busy choking can just get up and walk off with a bounce in their step.

Which has happened. Ahem. Moving on.

So anyway, one of the techniques we’re learning in preparation for the orange belt exams (exciting!) is how to defend yourself when you’re shoved against a wall and choked from behind.

(This is how I spend my Sunday mornings, people. It’s inhuman.)

Here’s what you have to do in a situation like that: you lift one arm up high, while your other arm reaches for your knee. Since that shoulder is now lowered, you have the opportunity to turn enough to smash your opponent in the face with the elbow of the arm you lifted up.

Well, you have that opportunity when you’re over 100lbs. Cue me standing up against the wall and trying – and failing – with all my might to turn around.

I went to the instructor for help, and after convincing him with some demonstrations that, yes, I really was that pathetic, he gave a very simple tip: kick the jerk. Just reach back and slam my heel into his foot/shin. That’d jolt him enough that I could get loose and turn around.

The dude was right. It worked like a charm – up until yesterday, at least, when I reached back and slammed my heel into the floor. The guy stood too far away from me to do anything. I did the next logical thing: I let my leg snap up and slammed my heel into his groin.

Is this in the official guidebook? Nope. Will it get me through my belt exams? You bet. Because the end goal of krav maga is not to learn all the techniques to a T, it’s to get out of a situation alive and – ideally – in one piece. If you need to adapt those techniques to work for you, so be it. For the same reason, when we were going over ground-fighting techniques after, I focused on all the nasty tricks instead of the main chokes and holds. A lot of those require pure strength: I don’t have that. I do have reflexes and flexibility. I adapt accordingly.

The same applies to writing. The end goal is not to write 50,000 words in a month. The end goal is not to have one editing round to focus on plot, and one editing round to focus on characters, and one to focus on line edits. The end goal is not to learn to edit as you write, or to lock up your inner editor, or to write an even 1000 words per day or an entire book in a week, or to ignore TV while you draft.

I say, watch all the TV in the world. Write as fast or as slow as you want. Forget about everyone else’s writing rules, because the end goal is to write a damned book.

Advice can be helpful sometimes, but in the end, you’re the only one who gets to decide how you write. If it works, it works.

Another contest to win Across the Universe, this time on Beth Revis’s own blog!

I absolutely adored Jennifer Walkup’s write-up of Show vs. Tell; it’s one of the best I’ve seen, with wonderful examples and explanations of why said examples do and don’t work. Even if you know all about showing versus telling, it’s great to have the occasional reminder.

Adam Heine discusses The Problem With The Gun On The Mantle; how to avoid predictability without making something come out of left field completely?

Putting on my feminist hat for a few moments… kattahj on LJ talks about owning books by male authors vs. female authors, and how the results are often surprising.

Have you seen the Female Character Flowchart? As much as I love the idea of it, I’m not fond of the execution. A few wonderful rebuttals can be found here, here and here. Like elle_white over at LJ says: “Can we please stop putting down female characters in the name of feminism?”

The comments are also very much worth reading.

I always enjoy the Feminists With Disabilities/Forward blog; their latest post, however, I enjoyed from a writing standpoint, as well. In discussing a letter sent to the Ask Amy column, s.e. smith says the following:

Many people seem to believe that there is a specific ‘right’ way to study and that if you don’t study that way, you’re doing it wrong. Staying up all night to study is wrong, even if your sleep schedule is actually better suited to studying at night. Studying with music on is wrong. Moving while studying is wrong. There’s a whole long list of things touted as ‘good study habits,’ like ‘don’t leave your work until the end of the weekend.’

To me, what makes a good study habit is what works for a given student.

I almost feel lazy by relating this to writing. It’s just too easy. Ha! Anyway, to avoid repeating my rant from a few months ago, I’ll just say: CO-SIGNED.

Beth Revis reminded me on Twitter of my love for Dropbox. Basically, this program creates a folder on every computer you download it to, linked by your account. Every change you make to this folder – adding or deleting files, editing them, whatever – is uploaded to the Dropbox server, which subsequently updates all other folders on all your other computer. As a writer, this is marvelous; I no longer have to lug around USB drives or mail files to myself. I simply keep the file I’m working on in the Dropbox folder. The moment I press ‘Save’ it’s automatically uploaded (immediate back-up!); the moment I start up a different computer, the file automatically updates to the newest version.

Dropbox also has a ‘Public’ folder; everything you drag in there gets a URL of its own to link other people to. Which means no more manual uploading to Photobucket or needing to get people’s e-mail addresses to mail them a photo. You just move the file and send them the link.

I know I’m sounding like some dorky commercial, but it really is lovely. And free. And well, I’m Dutch. I’m a fan of free.

Since I’m one of those people who needs to be rewarded for her progress, I also really dig word meters like this one:

56400 / 75000 words. 75% done!

I get to feel good about seeing the percentage climb up, and it gives me something tangible to do after I complete a few words.

I mean, there’s Twitter. But I guess people might not always be interested in being updated on your word count every few minutes. Whatever.

And yeah, I’m a notebook kinda girl. I’m a really fast typist (119 WPM according to a test I did the other day), so needing to write a novel longhand would kill me… but somehow plotting long-hand really works for me. I think it’s a combination of factors: being slowed down gives my mind the chance to wander into different directions, which helps in coming up with plot solutions; I don’t get the chance to delete what I’ve already written, which means I can read my old thoughts for inspiration later – I’ve reused more than a few discarded plot ideas this way; and it’s small, meaning I can take it anywhere and write whenever ideas strike. (Pages with wiggly handwriting often mean I was in the bus at the time, or just woke up and took the notebook from my nightstand.) It’s good to get away from the computer every now and again.

Various websites are also really useful – QueryTracker.com most of all. I could seriously fill a whole month’s worth of posts on how amazing this site is for querying writers, but there’s no point. Use it, love it, have its babies. K?

As you might’ve gathered from previous posts, I love creating soundtracks for my books because they really help me get into the mood of the book. When drafting or editing, I rarely listen to anything but the soundtrack. It spurs on ideas, stops me from getting too distracted, all that good stuff.

One warning, though: it can have adverse effects. Remember this? Yeah. The morning previous, I listened to the Heirs soundtrack. I cast 100% of the blame on that.

Most importantly: WORD RACES. During August, I grabbed lovely folk like Jodi Meadows, Beth Revis, Christine Nguyen, Authoress Anonymous, and Helen Corcoran on GChat and doing word races with them: we share our word counts, focus on writing for a good half hour, then compare word counts again. It’s incredibly effective, and has helped me get a lot done in a very short amount of time – even on days when I’d already given up on productivity.

Without FreeCell, I could not survive as a writer. As you can see by my stats, I’m, er, slightly obsessed. It’s a great way to let your mind wander without getting too caught up in something else; I mean, sure, you’ve got errands to run and dishes to wash and floors to vacuum and kids to feed, but all those things take time and you won’t be able to run back to the computer the moment inspiration hits again.

Do not underestimate the power of the dorky card game.

And also I just really wanted to show off my stats.

Another silly-but-fun thing: Wordle. Stick in your manuscript and see which words occur the most. If you’re at all like me, it’ll be really embarrassing

Then there’s pretty bookmarks, like those you get from The Book Depository or Ms. Magdala Twistleton… (I guess these help with reading more than writing, but hush. It’s book-related, I love it, and it totally counts.

… but I suppose tea and ice cream really do conquer all. Jodi Meadows and I have scientifically proven that ice cream increases writer productivity. True facts, guys.