Nathan Hale's Calendar

If you're not reading Nathan Hale's blog you should be. He's a wonderful artist and all around creative guy. His posts aren't long and they usually involve a picture he's drawn.

He's also been known to publish whole stories on his blog. Lately, he hasn't done that as much because he's just so busy putting out books.

I'd like to have that problem.

Earlier this week, he shared his calendar. He uses it to track his work. It's simple, useful, and really cool to look at. Here's a quick explanation.

A line coming in from the bottom of a day means he started drawing a page. A line going out the top of a day, means he finished the page. Seriously, look at all those lines. For more details, you need to read and comment on his post.

Not only is it easy to see the work he got done, this feels like a sup'd up version of the Don't Break the Chain method. I love it.

In fact, I've been trying to think how I could adapt it for writing. I was thinking about tracking scenes.

I define a scene as a series of chronological events that happen in one location. This is how I write my stories--scene by scene. I don't put them together into chapters until later in the editing process.

So scenes might work. Of course, they vary in length quite a bit, some of my scenes are just 500 words while others are 5000 words. Still, I don't think that matters. What matters is moving the story forward, not how many words are in the story.

I'm also considering making writing and editing scenes look different somehow. I don't want to complicate things, so I was thinking about writing a "D" or "E" when a line comes in the bottom. In the end, it also doesn't matter if I'm writing or editing as long as the book is progressing, so I'm not sure if I'll need to do this.

The goal is to have a cool visual representation of my progress. Cool enough that the pattern I'm creating will provide motivation to continue the pattern.

So, I'm looking for other people's ideas. What do you think would make for a good calendar tracking system? Also, don't forget to check out Nathan's blog.

* Nathan's calendar image posted with permission.

Winning Nanowrimo

I won Nanowrimo. Hurray! (And there was much rejoicing . . . and ice cream.)

This is the second year I've participated, and it was both easier and harder than last year.

For those of your not familiar with Nano, it's a challenge to write 50K words in the month of November. If you do, you win. And there are tens of thousands of winners each year.

Like I was saying, this year was easier in some ways. For one, I already knew I could do it.

The second time you do something, your confidence is higher and you doubt yourself less. Of course, it's not all happiness and roses. Doing a difficult thing a second time, is still difficult--you just know more about what you're getting yourself into.

This year was also harder. On the 3rd day of the month, my writing ground to a halt. A problem at work required a lot of my attention. My team didn't cause the problem, but we had to help solve it. I ended up working over 90 hours that week, much of it in the middle of the night.

Playing catch up was hard. I constantly felt the pressure to crank out words, and I think it made me a little grumpy. Thank goodness I have a supportive family.

It took until the 24th to finally get caught up and pull ahead.

The story isn't finished yet. I think there is at least another 30-40K more words to go, but I have a solid start thanks to Nanowrimo.

True Colors

I've spent a prodigious amount of time on hold today.

You may be wondering why, but I'm not going to tell you. Neener-neener.

A-hem.

I got to hear a lot of so-so jazz and a fair amount of instrumental pop songs.

Funny enough, I heard "True Colors" three different times, with three different companies, and three different arrangements.

I wonder why that song?

* Can you guess what's in the picture? It's a long-exposure image of a fountain taken by epSos.de. Cool, huh?

Story Tug of War

As I'm preparing for Nanowrimo, I'm in the story planning and creation phase. It feels a lot like a big game of tug-of-war except with more than one team. Don't try to imagine how that would actually work, just go with me on this.

All stories have the big elements: Characters, Setting, Ideas and Progression. And they each pull against the others.

For example, When I come up with a great way to strengthen a character, that new strength tugs on the Setting, Ideas and Progression. Sometimes everything holds, but sometimes it pulls the Setting too hard and I have to give it some attention. Adding strength to the Setting dominoes into changing an Idea. You get the picture.

When I'm done, what I want is to see is 4 strong teams all pulling as hard as they can--putting as much tension as possible on the ropes.

Here's a real example. This is the story I'm working on right now. (Thank to everyone who voted.)

The Cepio is an advanced armor and weapons system designed to augment the most powerful soldiers in the galaxy. When a Cepio shipment is attacked by bandits, one accidentally crashes onto Earth and binds to seventeen-year old, Isaac Thomas. Isaac must learn to control the Cepio before it takes over his mind, all while keeping it out of the hands of the bandits and the galactic corporation that wants it back. Because once the Cepio binds to someone, the only way to repossess it is to kill the host.

And the breakdown:

• Characters: bandits, Isaac, galactic corporation
• Setting: Earth
• Ideas: Cepio weapons system, most powerful soldiers, Cepio tries to take over Isaac's mind, bandits and corporation want it, unbinding causes death
• Progression: Not a lot of progression details here. Isaac gets the Cepio and a lot of trouble too. We don't know what he does with it, how he uses it, how it changes him, or even the outcome of the story.

As with many of my story embryos, this one is heavy on Ideas. If I'm not careful the Ideas will overshadow everything else and my Characters will seem flat, the Setting will appear blank, and the Progression will feel haphazard and forced.

So, I spend a lot of time fleshing out Characters, planning how things could Progress, and filling out the Setting. What this often means is that my Ideas have to change.

In one of my previous stories, the embryonic Idea that started the whole thing ended up being dropped from the final story altogether. It just didn't work with everything else. But that's okay. I've already got another story that's building around that Idea, and I'll write it someday.

*This picture says to me, "Tug of war is hard, hard work." My muscles tighten just looking at it. And I can almost hear the fibers of the rope grinding and popping from the tension. You can check out other works by Scott Anderson on Flickr.

A Class by Brandon Sanderson

Hidden away at in the middle of a blog post by Brandon Sanderson, he said that the lectures from his creative writing class were all online.

Say what?

So, I went to check them out. And sure enough, there they were. Each lecture is broken into multiple videos separated more-or-less by topic. Many of the videos also have the notes for the class. In a word, it's awesome! (Thanks to WriteAboutDragons for doing all the hard work.)

Want to know how Brandon plots his books? Go here.

How about advice on participating in a writers group? Got that.

Creating sympathetic characters. Meeting agents. World building. Fight scenes. And more and more. In fact, there are over 15 hours of lectures all online for your learning pleasure.

And if you're like me and don't want to click the next lecture each time, I've got you covered.

I created one, massive playlist that will start at the beginning and play all the way through to the end. Of course, you can start anywhere in the playlist and it will happily load the next video and the next. So you can  sit back and enjoy for as long as you want.

You can find the playlist here.

Personally, I'm going through the lectures as I prepare for Nano next month. I'm just past the class where he talks about creating characters and I'm going through the exercises. If your a video learner, and like Brandon's style of writing, you might like his classes, too.

Go ahead and give them a try. It's free.

* They say a picture is worth a thousand words--this picture surely is. It's titled Secrets by Sarah Horrigan. I got sucked into all the wonderful images on her photo stream, it's well worth your time. In fact, I may contact her and see if she'll let me do a whole blog post on her work. It's great.

Decisions, Decisions

Nanowrimo is just around the corner! Time to start planning.

Last year I tried something new. I wrote in a new genre. I even had you guys pick which one.

It was so fun that I'm doing the same thing this year.

This time I have three, count 'em three, story ideas all in genres I've never written in. Let me know in the comments which one you prefer.

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First up, murder mystery. This one intimidates me the most.

The working title is Re: Murder (Solved). Here's the pitch:

@ChicStauff: My boss's wife was killed today! #omg I think she was murdered.

The wife of Jerry McCormick, CEO of Grayson Security, is accidentally killed in a robbery attempt. At least that's what the police say. Anya Stauffer knows different, and is going to prove it. She turns to her friends for help: a lawyer in California, a pre-med student in Utah, and a reporter in South Carolina. Using texts, picture mail, video chat, GPS and a little hacking the group puts the pieces together. When someone else dies, Anya must work fast before the killer strikes again. This time, it might be Anya who's the target.

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Next up, SciFi. I've written a lot of fantasy, so I'm excited to try some SciFi. They share a lot, but there are differences as well.

The working title is Cepio. Here's the pitch:

The Cepio is an advanced armor and weapons system designed to augment the most powerful soldiers in the galaxy. When a Cepio shipment is attacked by bandits, one accidentally crashes onto Earth and binds to seventeen-year old, Isaac Thomas. Isaac must learn to control the Cepio before it takes over his mind, all while keeping it out of the hands of the bandits and the galactic corporation that wants it back. Because once the Cepio binds to someone, the only way to repossess it is to kill the host.

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And last but not least, Romance. You might think this would intimidate me the most, but it doesn't. See, I don't have any delusions that I'll be good at it, but being able to write a romantic subplot is a very important skill to have. I did cheat a little and decided to write Romantic Suspense.

The working title is Deputized Heart. Here's the pitch:

Sheriff Rosalynn Banks has everything under control in the small town of Larson until ex-Marine, Garrett Browning, moves in, and his surprisingly sweet advances make her doubt how much control she really has. When a routine domestic dispute call goes terribly wrong, Ros finds herself out-manned, out-gunned, and the target of a well-funded drug cartel. She deputizes Garrett and together they must figure out who's behind the attacks and bring them to justice before anyone else dies and before Ros loses the thing most dear to her--her heart.

Those are your choices.

Let me know which story sounds the most interesting to you in the comments. You are welcome to vote for more than one if you want. I'm not picky.

But you can't vote for all three. As it turns out, I am picky.

Book Review: Case File 13 - Zombie Kid by J. Scott Savage

It's been awhile since I've reviewed a middle-grade book, so I was excited when an ARC of Case File 13 Zombie Kid by J. Scott Savage arrived in the mail.

The awesome cover stared at me for days, tempting me to ignore the writers conference. You'll be happy to know I didn't succumb to the temptation, but it was hard.

The summer is over and there's a chill in the morning air. Halloween is just around the corner. It's a perfect time to read a monster book, so when I sat down to read I had high expectations.

I enjoyed Zombie Kid. And I'm not just saying that because I have mashed potatoes on my head.

The book is full of hair raising situations, sandwich loving ghosts, talking cats, arch-enemy girls, evil curses, alligators, voodoo queens, zombies . . . and fart jokes. Yep, it has it all.

The story starts off with three monster-obsessed boys who quickly find themselves in the middle of a voodoo war, and one of them is turned into a zombie. Cool, huh? It's not all fun and games though as they struggle to reverse the curse.

I especially like how Jeff brings zombies back to their roots. These aren't some mamby-pamby-virus-zombies or glowing-radiation-zombies or high-tech-genetically-modified zombies. These are true voodoo zombies controlled by an evil Bokor. Oh, yeah!

Case File 13 Zombie Kid is creepy, quirky, and cool. It's scary enough to keep your attention, but not so much to give you nightmares. Oh, and try not to get too grossed out.

I've known Jeff for many years. He's written so many different things from a fantasy series and a mystery series to technological thriller and more and more, so I was especially curious what made this book so special to him. Here's what he said:

This is probably the closest story I’ve ever written to what I was like as a kid. I never turned into a zombie (although I might have seemed like it in my early teen years), but I loved monsters, explored all kinds of creepy places, and Halloween really was my favorite holiday. I attended Pleasant Hill Elementary and played on Dinosaur Hill. So writing Zombie Kid was a lot like recapturing my youth.

I never thought anyone would want to publish the Case File 13 series. It was too much my own twisted sense of humor, my own loves, my own story. Even when I sent it to my agent, I did so with lots of disclaimers. When he told me how much he loved it, I was still apologizing for even sending it to him. And then, when Harper snatched it up in a three book deal, I was floored. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one who experienced those kinds of things as a kid, and still enjoys these types of stories.

Don't worry Jeff. If it turns out that you're crazy, then I'm right there with you. Bring on more monster books.

Case File 13 Zombie Kid comes out in December 2012, so you don't have long to wait to get yourself a copy.