Local arts centres and readings

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away (from  most of you) there is a small town.

In the small town, there is a cinema.

This is where you go to watch films. Duuhh!

It’s also where you go, apparently, to read your works in progress. They have open-mic nights and writers’ workshops.

This Sunday, I’m going to read something of mine to an audience. It might be one, it may be hundreds.  This is a new experience for me. I’m used to public speaking, but I’m not used to reading my stuff. Will it do anything for anyone?

I’m not used to writers’ workshops either, but there is one at the tail end of July. Any use? I don’t know.

I have my doubts about both these events (little sceptic me) but I’ll give them a go.

If I survive maddened throngs, I’ll report back on the experience.

Enjoy!

New Routines

This is the start of my last era. It is to be hoped I’ll have a quarter of a century of writing, leisure and enjoyment.

To refresh your memories, I retired from employment at the end of 2012, vowing never to work for anyone else again. Over thirty years with a variety of employers, I found I always ended up working for a bunch of assholes.

So, I’ve become self-employed, because, as my wife says, I’m a complete asshole. So now, I’m working for the best.

It has taken us about six weeks to get a phone line and Broadband. We’ve had the wiring and electrics sorted out. All that remains is double glazing and some small bits of building work. Oh, and an ambitious water garden project that I can probably stretch out over the next decade. Well, proper planning is vitally important, don’t you think?

We have now developed (perhaps fallen into is a better description) a nice routine that allows for all facets of life to be enjoyed to the full.

I get up about half-six, do the usual—mugs of tea, cigarettes, shuffle round looking for my spectacles (I have three pairs now, and none of the pairs is ever to hand when I need them. They’re always in that mythical place ‘Elsewhere’.) Then wash, dress and breakfast. I start writing at eight o’clock (-ish) and carry on till eleven when the post arrives.

An hour of dealing with bills and incompetence, answering emails and so on, is followed by an afternoon that can involve reading, walking, fishing, gardening, household repairs or pub lunches (or any combination of those elements). Next Sunday, it will involve taking part in a beach clear-up, disposing of litter and plastic waste.

Then it’s time for supper, followed by a couple of hours writing and a couple of hours reading. Sometimes we go to the cinema instead. Recently we’ve seen Die Hard with a Vengeance, Welcome to the Punch, Oblivion and a remastered version of Lawrence of Arabia. Next week it’ll be Star Trek. I’ve been out with my wife more often in the last six weeks than in the previous six years.

To bed at pumpkin time and repeat the following day. I tend to lose track of what day it is, since they’re all the same and all so good.

The cinema also doubles as an arts venue, but more on that in the next post.

I’ve finished compiling an anthology of short stories called Darkstone Tales, Volume One, to be produced on the Internet (POD or download). Sadly, it’s about forty thousand words too short, so I’m writing a couple of novellas to round it out. More on that later as well.

So, a full and oddly satisfying life. It’s strange how contentment grows in inverse ratio to debts and in direct ratio to free time. Being in control of your life, able to decide what you do every hour; choosing how little or how much to do every day—these are the things that lead to true fulfilment. I think the psychological term (Maslow and his hierarchy of needs) is ‘self-actualization’.

Until the next time—enjoy!

Another year...

Let me wish all my readers a happy new year. I hope 2012 brings you all you would wish for. I even hope it brings all you wish for other people. I'm guessing that's mainly good things...

Me? Well, I've been busy planning. Ask me what I should be doing on, for example, October 17th at 20:30. Go on, ask!

I'm glad you asked. I should be about 70% through writing a query letter and crafting a synopsis for a novel entitled "Innocent Error".

You see, this is the year I get rid of the backlog.

A less anal person might look at some items in their backlog and delete them. Chalk it up to experience and move on. Fragments (oh, yes, I have many fragments) might, rarely, be slated for completion. More likely, they will be ditched. That first book they wrote will garner a fond smile before being burned. It served its purpose as a training exercise. Now it can be forgotten. This sensible, efficient writer will be focused on the future. They are going to produce one novel and twelve short stories this year, all of which will be rewritten, edited, sent out to beta readers, tweaked, honed and given a final polish before being submitted. All of them. A work, once started, will be completed and sent off.

I salute this efficient, unsentimental, effective writer. I wish them well.

I'm not doing that. Oh, no. I'm going through the entire backlog: rewriting, editing, gaining critiques, honing, polishing...

All of them.

I will start 2013 with no backlog. All my works to date will be out there, fighting for attention and sales. That's five novels, four screenplays and three anthologies of short stories. I can just about finish them all, go through the entire production process, submit them to carefully chosen agents - having regard for location, genre, other clientele and general suitability - and maintain a database of submissions. I should submit the last novel on December 30th, just short of midnight. I can look at the database on 31st December 2012 with a degree of smugness.

A sceptical reader might think - oh, poor dear. He's got writer's block. No new ideas, can't face the blank page anymore.

Not at all. I have plots for two more novels, two screenplays and ideas for about 130 other works stored away. I like to say they're maturing nicely. If past experience is anything to go by (and let's face it, at my age, past experience is frequently all I have to go by) I will generate another twenty or thirty good ideas this year.

Talking of past experience, all my hard-earned knowledge of plans and schedules tells me this plan will last perhaps one week before something happens to throw everything off track. Timetables will go awry, word counts will be hopelessly lacking, I'll have to face change of job, bereavement, moving house and the complete demise of Western society as we know it. Ah well, no change there.

Which is why I've restricted my New Year's resolutions to these three:

• I will submit two different novels to agents this year
• I will submit two different screenplays to agents this year
• I will self-publish one anthology of linked short stories

I like the ambiguity. About fifty percent of theoretical maximum output, and I don't specify which novels, screenplays and anthology. Because I know in one year's time, I'll be writing:
  
"I will start 2014 with no backlog. All my works to date will be out there..."

Until the next time - enjoy!

Think small

Traditionally, motivational gurus and self-help enthusiasts encourage us to think big. 'Dream on a grand scale' they advise us, and 'reach for the stars'. They pour scorn on the old advice not to set your sights too high.

But are they right? If you set high standards and challenging targets, do you risk overwhelming yourself before you even get started?

I think so. Let's consider a typical person developing a new daily schedule to fit in all the things they want to do, in addition to all the things they need to do. Let's even assume they have the luxury that all these things actually fit into a standard twenty-four hour day. The alternative involves emigration to a planet with a slower rotational period.

Wow! I have an entire four hours a day free. Well, I've long been meaning to start an exercise programme that'll convert me from a couch potato to an Olympic athlete in two years, so that's two hours a day. That leaves two hours per day for writing.

Two hours? That's not very much, is it? You won't be producing two books, two screenplays and twelve short stories a year just by writing two hours a day, will you?  

You're right. OK, let's see if we can't economise a bit. I can cycle to work, which is as quick as using the car and takes care of the exercise as well. And no-one really needs to sleep for eight hours; six would be fine.That gives us six hours a day free to write.

That's more like it. Six hours a day is about 6000 words. Assume we take Christmas day, New Year's day, two birthdays and the summer solstice off, that's 360 days a year times 6000 equals 2.1 million words. Also assume that you have to write about 360,000 words to produce a finished standard novel, 100,000 for a finished screenplay and about half a million for the short stories, blogs and everything else: that means we can produce our two books, two screenplays, twelve short stories, our weekly blog and still have time for our new mammoth epic fantasy series, one giant volume per year!  Sorted!

Great. I'll just produce the daily schedule now...

Yeah, right. I'm sure many of us have devised schedules like that. I know I have.

Guess what?

It won't work. Ever. Oh, you might be able to stick to it for a few days, with a Herculean effort of willpower, but it's unsustainable for medium or long periods. Worse, it will leave you with a learned aversion to cycling and writing which may last for the rest of your life.

So what's the matter with the schedule? 

Let's take a typical day. It's winter. You really want to leap out of bed at five to write for a couple of hours, don't you? It's cold and dark and wet outside, and it's not too sparkling inside. But no, you do it. Well done you! Except it won't be two hours writing, because it takes a small but measurable length of time to get up, get dressed and switch on the PC. So, it's about 1 hour 50 minutes. Already you are ten minutes adrift.

You can wash, dress, cook and eat your breakfast in an hour, so that's OK. You pull on the wet weather gear and cycle off to work. In the rain, into the headwind; with the lorries throwing icy, muddy spray in your face as they thunder past with an inch to spare.

You get to work. It's chaos. Network systems have failed and major new orders have to be filled. You have to work through your lunch break and stay until six in the evening to get things done. Cycle home, picking up a puncture on the way.

Now it's official. You're knackered. You need to eat, your wife is getting dressed up, there's a bill to pay and already it's way past seven. The upstairs tap is dripping, your better half expects you to go out with her to that party you were told about a month ago and you're getting a stinking cold.

Looks like there'll be no writing tonight, unless you stay up till three in the morning. If you do that, you'll have two hours sleep before it starts all over again. Your wife wants to snuggle in bed and if you refuse yet again, you'll end up with pneumonia, divorced and sacked because you keep falling asleep at work.

I know, because I've been down that route, if not all the way.

Next time, I'll share how I now produce a schedule that has a good chance of working, but for now, remember this: shit happens. In fact, shit happens daily.

You need to have periods of time that are actually left free to accomodate these unexpected little crises. You need to allow time for snuggling with your nearest and dearest. You need time to read and watch films and TV dramas to analyse how other writers handle things well (or badly). You need to get enough sleep.

Oh, and two hours writing a day? That's what Stephen King does, and he seems to have produced a fair amount over the years.

Back after NaNoWriMo

Hi all, I'm back! After the unmitigated hell that was the National Novel Writing Month.

OK, I did the requisite 50,000 words and a bit more, so I was proclaimed a winner. However, the book isn't finished, and I actually wanted to do 100,000 words, so I only feel partially successful.

Back in July, I wrote 100K in a month, but I was on holiday from one job and one course then. It's not so easy to chisel out three or four hours a day when many of those days are twelve hour work days as well. Even forgoing wimpish things like food and sleep, it's not easy.

So although I made the 50K with a couple of days to spare, I'd already given up on the idea of 100K.

It was also difficult at times to find the motivation to do anything after a day's work and/or a teacher training course. Doing stuff before going to work might be considered an option: until you've heard my wife complain about being woken early, that is.

I still have about 10,000 words to go to finish the book, and in general I'm happy about the structure, shape, content, language, tone and pace. When done, I'm going to set it to one side and start producing second drafts from the three other completed books I have stacked up.

But that's editing, not writing. So I've developed the ideas for several short stories to keep my hand in while I'd doing the editing and patching and cutting and moving and rewriting and adding and subtracting...

And I'll have slightly more time for this blog as well. The next post will be about editing.

Plot structure - expanded

This post focuses on the classic Aristotelian three act structure.

Broadly speaking, any work of fiction, whether a novel, novella, short story, play or film script, will fit into the three act structure. I'm going to generalise here, but the structure goes something like this.

Act one:
About one quarter of the length of the work. Starts off with the main characters going about their daily business. A little scene-setting, as it were.

A short way in (3-7 minutes for a film, somewhere in the first chapter for a novel) comes the

Inciting incident (also called the complication.)
This is the thing that forces the protagonist into motion. It doesn't even need to be in the work. It can have happened way back in the back story. In Lord of the Rings for example, you could argue that the inciting incident happened in the Hobbit, when Bilbo found the ring. Or a thousand years ago, when Gollum found it. Or three thousand years ago, when Isildur didn't destroy it. But generally, it happens in the work you're creating.

The II is the thing that propels (or perhaps compels) the protagonist to become involved in the action of the story, often reluctantly.

Also in Act one, all other significant characters are introduced, especially the nemesis. The threads of the main plot are laid. Some of the major sub-plots are introduced.

Act one ends with

Plot point one, a critical incident. Our hero(ine) discovers a crucial fact, gains a significant ally (buddy, rival, mentor or similar) or develops a talent he or she will need to defeat the nemesis.

All the significant features of the story have now been exposed to the audience. From this point on, all that occurs is inevitable because of the groundwork you have done.

Act two:
This is where the majority of the character development, the other sub-plots and a lot of the action takes place. Generally about half the length of the work. If Act one was about laying the foundations, Act two is about building the house. About halfway through this act comes the

Midpoint. This is the first significant trial of strength against the nemesis. Our hero may retire, defeated but alive. He may defeat the chief lieutenant of the enemy. The point is, it is inconclusive. The threat remains, and from here on to the end, intensifies.

Act two concludes with

Plot point two (also called the Crisis.) Our protagonist is at his lowest ebb. His wife has been kidnapped, his dog shot, his son proves to be the spawn of the Devil, and he's hanging head down over a vat of boiling sulphuric acid.

This point is perhaps the most important of the whole story. This is why our protagonist is a hero. Remember the classic themes mentioned in the last post.

Now, any reasonable being would give up at this point. Heroes don't. They're too stubborn, or stupid, to recognise that they're beaten. Instead of dying quietly, they get mad. They stiffen themselves for one final attempt.

They take full responsibility for their life and their actions, taking charge of events. If they have been reacting so far, now, in a titanic expenditure of will and courage, they take charge of events, driving on to the end. Their entire life has narrowed down to one focus; victory or death.

Act three:
This occupies the final quarter of the work. If Act one was laying the foundations, and Act two was building the house, then Act three is defeating the neighbour who objects on planning grounds, stopping a horde of crazed bikers from trashing the place, throwing up a wall of dirt to stop the flood from washing the house away and finally moving in with your loved one.

Almost immediately, we are plunged into the

Climax. The final trial of strength. Our hero generally overcomes his fears, his limitations, masters that crucial flaw and defeats his nemesis, who cannot do the same.

OK, our hero may die in the process. In many ways, it is deeply satsfying if he does. After all, who would actually want to know or live with a genuine hero? They can't be easy people to get along with.

Of course, if you're writing from the 1st person POV, it is not a good idea to have your hero die here. That's the end, fini, right there. If you've used third person, shifting POV, fine. Film scripts, you have written omnisciently anyway, so no problem.

The climax was presaged in Act one, developed in Act two, and is now fully realized in all its violent, terrible beauty.

Act three finishes with the

Resolution. All the loose ends are tied up. Unless you want to leave room for a sequel. Boy gets girl, music swells, they walk hand-in-hand into a beautiful sunset. The audience sighs in appreciation, gets gently returned to reality and walks out happy, having shared time with someone who took charge of their destiny, albeit briefly.

Something most of us can never, will never do.

That's why they're called heroes.

Plot - theme or structure?

First, yet another apology. It seems that whenever I'm presumptuous enough to post that I'm going to write about something 'tomorrow', fate intervenes, and I get buried in extra work. Yet again it's taken me three weeks to dig myself out far enough to see daylight. In future, I'm going to simply say 'next time I'm going to...'.

So, not tomorrow, but three weeks later...

There are two ways of creating a plot - with almost any sort of story.

You can focus on the structure - that is, what happens in the story?

Or you can focus on the theme - what is the story about?

As a concrete example, consider the clasic Western 'High Noon'.

Structurally it's about a man who is systematically abandoned by all those on whose loyalty he has a right to depend, prior to his impending battle with a band of vengeful killers.

Thematically it's about a man's struggle to maintain his integrity and honour when surrounded by cowardice, hypocrisy and overwhelming temptation. He is an archetypal reluctant hero.

I suppose you can say that structure focuses on the events; theme focuses on how the participants feel about those events; or perhaps the actions they choose when faced with those events.

Now, you might say that the two are very much interdependent. You'd be absolutely right. A person can't be a hero, reluctant or otherwise, unless there is an occasion where heroism is called for.

There are only a limited number of themes available - such as:

• Vengeance - (Gladiator)
• The reluctant hero (High Noon)
• Overcoming inner demons (My Beautiful Mind)
• The tragic hero (Troy)
• The family protector (The River Wild)
• The coward transformed (Deliverance)
• The tortoise and the hare (Die Hard)

When designing a story thematically, I suppose you would have to start by creating a protagonist with a flaw, and an antagonist, also with a flaw.

You can already tell that this story would be about the protagonist being able to accept help and advice, overcome his weakness and so defeat the antagonist - who of course, because of hubris was not able to overcome his, and so failed.

Structurally, you would start with an exciting idea - a protagonist who has a mortal falling out with his former best friend. They fight on a high, swaying bridge above a bottomless pit.

Synthesis of the two gives you the protagonist afraid of heights, who falls in love with his beautiful psychoanalyst and rescues her from his former best friend turned nemesis. She is of course at the far end of the bridge on which the two are fighting. The nemesis was in love with her till she fell for our hero. He spurned her offer of help overcoming his fear of hamsters.

At the height of the battle, our hero presses forward despite his profound acrophobia to rescue the woman he loves. He hurls his pet hamster at his nemesis, who recoils in horror, slips and plunges to his death. Boy and girl reunite, hero risks all to rescue beloved hamster from the lip of the abyss, and hand in hand in paw they walk into the sunset as the music swells...

OK, it's a silly example, but it illustrates my point. Theme and structure are different ways of looking at the same small, isolated sequence of events that makes up a piece of fiction. Both are still, and always will be, subordinate to the story.

Avoiding hubris myself, I'm simply going to say that next time, I'm going to examine plot structure in more detail.

Till then, enjoy!

Plot structure - Introduction

For as long as people have been telling stories, there has been a structure that works well. One that captivates the audience, hooks them, draws them into the world of the storyteller.

As far as I'm aware, that structure was first analysed and codified by Aristotle in his work 'The Poetics.' Of course, he was talking about epic oral poetry and Greek theatre, complete with chorus. Nonetheless, what worked for 100,000 years huddled round fires at night, worked for Ancient Greece, was followed by the Romans, the writers of Northern European epics such as as Beowulf, the Prose Edda and the Nibelungenlied and was obeyed by great writers of the Medieval and Elizabethan periods (Chretien de Troyes, Mallory, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Jonson and others) is as relevant and important today as ever it was.

Don't forget, people have told stories as long as there have been people. The idea of reading stories has only been around for some 500 years. Watching them at the talkies or on the telescreen has only been around for a century.

What I'm saying is that what worked for millennia worked for a reason. It satisfied some basic human need. Technology may have evolved, but the human brain has not kept pace. What worked when the sabre-toothed tiger roared outside and mammoths roamed the plains still works.

We call this the Aristotelian structure.

Aristotle's six most important elements of any drama were:

1. Plot
2. Character
3. Theme
4. Dialogue
5. Music
6. Spectacle

This list still works marvellously for films, though sadly, Hollywood seems to have reversed the order in recent decades. Special effects do not make a great movie no matter what the movie moguls think.

You might also notice that music is on the list - important for Greek drama, crucial in films.

OK, if we're talking about writing books, you can ignore music.

Spectacle for books is what the reader envisions as he or she reads your prose.

Tomorrow, I'm going to write about the two ways of creating (or analysing) any decent plot. In later posts, I'll go through every other element on the list with the exception of music.

Enjoy!

Ideas - where do they come from?

OK, after a slightly longer than expected absence, due to family stuff, I'm back with the next installment. By the way, I do apologise most humbly for the delay.

Ideas and where do they come from?

I suppose that's the one question that we all face if ever we mention that we write.

"Where do you get your ideas from?"

So where do they come from?

A few concrete examples. My first film script (it's available if anyone wants to buy it for the going rate - hint, hint) was about eco-terrorism masking corporate greed, and it came about from reading an article on dams in Idaho and the potato farming that had been made possible by these dams. This was an article in National Geographic, and I was reading it in the dentist's waiting room. The rest of the plot was elaborated in thirty minutes of semi-inebriated conversation with a script-writing friend of mine, Dr. Roger Cottrell, a few days later. Just a few concrete (no pun intended) facts and then the 'what if' moment.

My third novel (no, it's not finished yet, just the first draft) was loosely based on the premise - 'what if man-made global warming is a reality? What if Governments and corporations were aware what they were doing? What if they were doing it deliberately? Who would benefit? What if the beneficiaries weren't human?'

Add a few facts and figures, and a degree of inventiveness and you have the idea from which the plot develops.

My second film script was based on an article in one of the broadsheet newspapers, commenting on the increasing divide between urban and rural communities. I thought 'what if you take this to its logical conclusion?'

You would have totally separated communities living entirely dissimilar lives, with the chattering urbanites being blissfully unaware of their complete dependence on the rural society. Throw in a few other semi-related facts and stir. Voila! You have a plot.

You can see from the examples I've given, that my ideas come from events or facts in the real world, twisted by my warped imagination into some sort of demonised offspring. Add in a few other facts, similarly distorted, and you have an idea.

The 'what if?' bit is crucial. Take Event A, as reported by e.g. the BBC. What if it were totally false? What would be the consequences? OK, what if someone stood to gain from a widespread belief in this event? How would they organise it? Who would notice what they were doing? Who would try to stop them? Then stick the story thirty years in the future when - unrelated fact - all cars apart from emergency services were electric, state owned and driven by computer. Add in an elevated concern for health and safety, risk avoidance and litigation, exaggerated to extreme levels. (I know, that bit is already true, but bear with me.) What sort of society would we have? What would be the likely outcomes? And you have the basis for a story.

So, today's homework: choose your own event of interest, extrapolate thirty (or fifty or a hundred) years, add in two unrelated facts of your choice, and then (this is the fun bit) open a bottle of your favourite tipple, sit back, kick off the shoes, loosen the tie, ignore the dog and just ... speculate.

When it comes to facts, related or otherwise, I'm lucky. I have the sort of memory that stores immense quantities of information. OK, 95% of it is completely useless, but the remaining 5% - oh yes.

Paydirt!

I've read other writers who say their ideas come from watching people in the street, or a chance conversation overheard on a bus or ...

Fine, whatever works for them. I store up observations and snippets of conversation to give authenticity to dialogue or description, but my ideas are always generated by events or facts.

Or at least, by articles that claim to relate events and facts. I don't actually believe much I read in newspapers or hear on TV, but if it's interesting, the authenticity quotient doesn't matter.

Finally, I would like to quote an answer that Stephen King gave when asked, on a chat show, where his ideas came from. He said the usual things we always say, but was then asked, 'But why do you always write horror and darkness?'

To which he replied, 'What makes you think I have a choice?'

Tomorrow I'm going to start a series of articles on plot structure - typical Aristotelian plot structure that is. A technique that has worked well for story tellers for the last 10,000 years.

Enjoy!

Conveyor belt writing - 2

Yesterday, I showed you how to estimate the time it will take to produce a finished first draft for a novel. In the model, it took us 12 weeks to plot, research, write and edit the first draft. Today, we'll go through the next stages.

Assume, for the sake of argument, you started writing it on the 1st September. By the end of November, your manuscript is finished. Now what?

1st December, you send it out to your panel of readers. Ideally you want a mix of readers - some writers, some who like reading the genre. The 'reading readers' will tell you if it works as a piece of fiction. The 'writing readers' will tear the structure apart, savage the language, and in general cover the manuscript in red. To save costs and a few acres of tropical rainforest, I suggest you email the readers an electronic version of the manuscript, and, assuming they're using MS Word, ask them to 'Track Changes' - so all their revisions will show up highlighted. If they want to comment on any particular part, ask them to add notes.

How long will the readers take?

It doesn't matter!

Because on the 1st December, you're starting work on your next project. This is a conveyor belt, remember? You are totally dismissing novel A from your thoughts and working on novel B. For the next 12 weeks, you're producing another semi-polished first draft.

When the readers respond, and surely they will within three months - if not, send them a polite reminder. Do be polite because they're doing you a favour - thank them and promise to get back to them. Then carry on with novel B.

According to our model, you'll have finished that at the end of February.

Then what?

Send it off to your faithful readers. And begin the second draft and edit of novel A.

If you recall, we assumed that the first draft would take about 100 hours, writing at 1,000 words per hour. (Obviously plug your own figures in there.) Allowing a margin for error produced a figure of 120 hours.

How long will the second draft take?

You've been away from the story for three months. In that time, you've come up with some more and better ideas for parts of the plot. Your readers will have come up with suggestions. So, take some time, re-read what you've done, familiarise yourself with the concept. Immerse yourself in the action once more. Then consider your new ideas and the ones your readers have dreamed up. Choose the best, ignore the rest. Tighten up the plot, cut out redundant characters, correct factual errors. Let's say 30 hours for this + the surplus = 40 hours.

There isn't as much typing in a second draft. You will be re-using large chunks of the first draft, although perhaps moved around. You will be rewriting perhaps 30% of the story completely. You'll also be correcting all the errors your readers spotted.

If the first draft took 120 hours, shall we say this takes 60 hours?

The final edit - like the first, but with even more scupulous proofreading and formatting. I'm going to say 60 hours. Some might say it takes longer.

Then the final bit. You have to summarize your marvellous, genre-blurring, profound work of fiction in 500 words or less - the synopsis. You also have to produce a query letter, where the task gets harder - you have to describe theme and concept and give an overview in two paragraphs - the query letter. This letter you send off, perhaps with the synopsis and a couple of sample chapters, to as many agents simultaneously as you can.

The first time you do this, it will take quite a while - after all, you have to identify the agents who deal with your main genre, weed out those who are not accepting clients, or who do not accept email submissions.

Only do this once - record the details (email address, submission guidelines, contact name and phone number) in a database or a spreadsheet. Why do it each time you submit something?

I'm going to average out the time it takes to do this. Let's say 20 hours for the query, synopsis and submissions.

Voila!

You're done. Time for a novel = 400 hours.

According to our figures, this second, post reader, bit took 180 hours (9 weeks).

Then immediately begin working on the second draft for novel B.

When you've finished and submitted that, write a couple of short stories. Alternatively, go lie on a beach, or sit in a bar, or climb Mount Everest.

Or, let's hope, work on yet another round of editing according to the diktat of the agent who agreed to represent novel A. Or talk to the director about the film version.

Using this conveyor belt system, you can easily produce 2 novels per year.

Tomorrow I'm going to ramble on about ideas and how there is no end to them.

Have fun!

Conveyor belt writing

Yesterday I told you how I managed to convince my spouse that writing was more than a hobby - by using deadlines and third party involvement. Today I'm going to explain how I arrive at those deadlines. Of course, if I had agents, publishers and producers clamouring for my output, the deadlines would be externally imposed, but since that isn't happening (yet) I set my own.

The first thing to do is work out how long any particular piece of work is going to be.

A full length novel is typically 100,000 words; a novella - 40,000; film script about 30,000; short stories can be immensely variable, but let's say 8,000.

I know that something that starts out as a novella can turn into a trilogy of full-sized books. I also know from personal experience something that was meant to be a novel can come to an end after 50,000 words - it's shrunk to a novella. Maybe the writing was too hot? But let's assume for the sake of argument, that any given piece of work is going to be around the predicted length.

OK, so you're going to write a novel. What are the stages involved?

1. Research and development Well, actually, it's the other way around. Work on the plot, sketch out skeleton scenes or chapters, identify your plot points - then work out what research you need to do. Go away and do it.


2. First draft - pretty obvious, that one.


3. First edit - by which I mean: adding the bits you forgot, or that are obviously needed by unexpected changes in the plot; removing bits that have become redundant for the same reason; and going through the actual writing to correct typos, remove waste words, change passive to active and so on.


4. First reading - it goes off to a panel of readers to critique, do some editing, make suggestions, and proofread.


5. Second draft - this is when you incorporate those readers' suggestions you want to accept and tighten up the plot, focusing more on structure. You will be re-using large chunks of the first draft, so far less typing is involved.
   


6. Second edit - Either done by you or someone else - a final proofread, tightening language, formatting the manuscript correctly.


7. Create query letter and synopsis, and submit.

Ok, that's it. All done. Those are the stages involved (at least for me) in writing a novel. Other writers may go through another cycle of third party reading and critiquing, followed by another draft and edit, but I don't. For the sake of this post, let's assume that you follow my model.

How long is it all going to take?

An impossible question to answer, you might think. Waiting for inspiration, struggling with stubborn plot issues, recalcitrant characters - I mean, how long is it going to take?

Remember, we're talking about production line techniques here. Never mind losing your Muse's number. Never mind the creative juices are suffering an unprecedented drought. We're treating this like any other business.

So, what do we know?

We know the first draft is going to be about 100K words.

How fast do you write? Work it out. Set aside one hour and write something fast and furious. Never mind the typos, the spelling mistakes, the inconsistent names. Ignore all of that. How fast can you physically write?

For me it's about 1,000 words per hour. It doesn't matter that half of them are going to be discarded. That's what the editing is for. We are going to steam through the first draft at 1000 words per hour. It's going to take 100 hours to complete the first draft.

Well, no it's not, because stuff happens. Allow some margin for error, unexpected interruptions, the odd natural disaster or two. Let's say 120 hours.

The R & D? Remember, this is a business. Assign a figure and make sure you stick to it. Let's say 30 hours. Add on the margin for error. Be generous. Give yourself 40 hours. That's equivalent to a full working week, Monday to Friday, 9 till 5. And don't forget, you're always advised to write what you know, so the actual research should be a few hours with Google and Wikipedia.

First edit - tricky. There's a lot to do, but remember, you still have another edit to come afterwards, so let's say it takes half as long as it did to write the entire thing - so 50 hours plus our margin = 60 hours.

From the very start - sketching the outline, to the end - an edited first draft ready to send to readers, has taken 220 hours.

How many hours can you definitely chisel out of the week to write? Why don't we pretend that you can absolutely free up 20 hours a week. Producing the intermediate product is going to take you 11 weeks. Add on one more week to cater for nervous breakdowns, plumbing leaks and swine flu.

Twelve weeks from the day you start, you have a finished first draft. Put it in the calendar. Time is money, the tide waits for no man ... the date on your calendar is the date you have to finish. Tell yourself your job depends on it. Sack yourself if you miss the deadline. Inform your readers now that you'll be emailing them the Word document twelve weeks from today.

Tomorrow, we'll go through the next stages - the second draft, the second edit and the submission.

(Ab)normal service is resumed

Hello again, faithful followers! (If I were Hannibal Lecter, I could count you all on the fingers of one hand. Am I complaining about the small number? No, I'm not, and I'll explain why in a minute.)

There has been a long gap since my last post here. That gap can be explained in one word.

Infrastructure.

For the past four months, I've been refining and industrializing the process of writing. Well, to be more precise, the process of writing fiction as a part-time job, relying on something else (a job) to pay the bills.

It seems, from the many people I've chatted to on Goodreads and from reading other writers' blogs, that writers seem to fall into three distinct groups.

One group is made up of those select few who are good enough and persistent enough to be able to write full time. Like the upper class, this is the group the rest of us want to join.

Another group is made up of the stay-at-homes. Although burdened with children, dogs, household chores etc., they can fit in a fair amount of writing time per day, in an unpredictable pattern.

The final group is made up of those (like me) who have to go out and work to pay the bills. Our writing is fitted in during the time we manage to chisel loose from our non-work hours.

I would have used the term 'free time' but free time seems to be a very malleable concept. To me it means any time when I'm not doing paid work, eating, washing or sleeping. To my wife, it means any time I'm not being co-opted to take out the trash, wash dishes, shift heavy objects, redecorate rooms or joining her for theatre/cinema/friends/dinners/TV/social events (weddings, funerals, christenings, birthdays etc).

I think this partly stems from her perception of my writing. To her, it's a hobby, on a par with angling or trainspotting. To me, it's work. Alright, it's work that doesn't yet pay, but one day it will.

It's the lack of a guaranteed return that makes it a pastime rather than a profession.

You might point out, quite reasonably, that any self-employed person, or anyone who owns their own company, spends perhaps a third of their working time doing stuff that may produce a return but isn't guaranteed to - things like product development, research and training to position the company ahead of future trends.

Well, yes. I have been self-employed. I do own a company. I have never managed to convince my wife that producing e.g. a software product, which may or may not sell in bulk, is anything other than 'messing around on a computer'. Writing is similar 'messing'.

Which brings me back to infrastructure. To the industrialization of the writing process - the establishment of a set of processes that take a certain amount of time to produce a defined end-product. Third parties are involved with this end product. It is tangible. It has weight.

Explaining it in this way to my wife has finally managed to lift writing out of the hobby category into an alternative niche - not quite paid work, but of higher status than stamp collecting. Involving third parties has been a definite plus.

Consider yesterday's conversation.

"Darling, I have to finish version 1.0 of this book. I have readers booked to critique it at the start of September."

"Well, how long is it going to take to finish?" she asks, quite sensibly.

"Thirty hours."

A quick glance at the calendar establishes that I need to be doing four hours a day, minimum, in order to meet this deadline. Free time becomes more organized immediately. Anyway, I really didn't want to go and see a performamce of the Soweto Gum-boot Dancers, so it's a double victory.

Tomorrow, I'll explain how I have regularized the writing process so it's just another evening in the office. How I have set up the conveyor belt of writing. And bits about time management and writer's block.

Oh, and why aren't I complaining about lack of followers?

Because writing each post takes time. Reading each post takes time. Answering each reply takes time. If I didn't have anything worthwhile to write, why should I waste my time and yours by doing it anyway?

But, thanks to the marvels of the conveyor belt system, I now have some extra time available each day to write useful stuff about writing, books and the creative process. I now have time to be abe to respond on a daily basis to each and every comment or query.

So by all means network this blog, tweet it, recommend it to your followers, mention it on MySpace, Facebook, Goodreads, Smashwords and anywhere else you have influence.
Be sure to mention that in the future, I shall be blogging every day, although many posts may be shorter than this one.

Enjoy the rest of the day!