Reviewing September's Goals

Here's what I wrote then:
Write at least 250 words each day.
Finish and submit a short story.
Critique at least 6 stories.
Write NaNoWriMo newsletter articles.
Revise 1 short story for critique.
1: Done.  In fact, I think I made it through the month with at least 400 words each day, but that all still counts.

2: Done.  This was a close one, because I got some more insightful feedback on the story I had been working on, and almost didn't submit it.  However, I got a round of revisions in, and out it went.  I can only do so much, and now it's time to move on to the next one.

3: I didn't count to be sure, but I'm counting this as done.  I can recall off the top of my head at least three, and given the way things have been in my life lately, if I can even remember last week that's pretty good.

4: Done, mostly.  I have to revise them slightly, but they are indeed written.  I'll transition the next part into next month's goals.

5: Done. I have revised a story two times, once for more critique and once for submission after that critique.  I also revised another story to prep for critique, one that I've been enjoying lately.

So, overall, mission accomplished on my September goals.  I think keeping the shorter list helped, though I nearly didn't submit my newly revised piece after the gut-check of a really useful critique.  I'll try to keep October's goals similarly constrained.

Writing and Tiredness and Pain

I continuously find myself surprised by how much being tired saps my desire to write -- or to do anything, really.  If I didn't sleep well, I may be able to fake things for a few hours, but by the end of the day I'm ready to crawl into a corner and cover myself, not make myself spend some of my extra time writing.

Not to my surprise, I've also discovered that pain makes me tired.  Certain types of pain, especially so, like those sore backs or aching shoulder muscles.  I've done a number of things to try and keep myself healthy (which occasionally cause those aching muscles), but sometimes the pain just comes in and wears on me.

Key in that is wearing on me... wearing the body down.  Pain can wear someone's physical energy down as the body fights to right what's wrong, but it can also wear someone's mental energy away as they fight to ignore the pain, to struggle on with what they feel they should be doing rather than just concentrating on the pain and how to manage it.

I've not made the direct connection like this before, but this means if I want to do well at writing, or at least if I want to continue to consider it a hobby and not a chore, I should try to make sure I'm as well-rested and pain-free as I can be.  Some of this might involve changing when I do my writing -- mornings perhaps instead of evenings -- but a lot of it has to do with two things.

First, I need to pay more attention to those small pains when they are small, and at a minimum do something to keep them from growing if I can't eliminate them entirely.

Second, I need to stop my bad spiral where I stay up too late to write, so I'm tired the next day, which  means it's hard to get the energy to write, which means I stay up too late in order to get the writing in.  That's just not good.

Writing, Editing, and Critiques

Two stories, both related, about me having a story critiqued, and critiquing another.  Similar outcomes.

First, a friend sent me a short story she had sold, and was settling in to revise.  I read it over and had a generally good reaction, and sent her some of my comments.  Soon after, I got an email that primarily read "THESE COMMENTS ARE AWESOME".  (That's a nice feeling, by the way, when your efforts are so appreciated.)

So as a follow-up, I took the short story I thought was in the best, most sellable state, cleaned it up a bit more, and sent it to her for comments.  She... well, she didn't tear it apart, but she pulled it into many pieces, and explained how those pieces kept the story from being as effective as it could be.  In particular, I had extra exposition at the beginning that was probably unnecessary, I could introduce more conflict and handle the exposition by having an oppositional character (rather than just the circumstances), and the ending could be more life-altering, maybe.  I'm really not sure about the last one yet, but the others are advice gold.

Of course, that means the story I thought was in good enough shape to submit for potential sales, I have serious doubts about.  On one hand, I need to wrap it up as best I can sometime, and send it along.  On the other hand, I don't want to send less than my best work, or at least work that I feel fully realizes the story... and I now know how much better the story could be.  I don't think I can send it like that.  I will be missing my goal to submit a story, unless I somehow both revise that story and get another round of critique in somehow, but after some other discussions about how magazines can now easily track a submitters previous submissions and how they improve (or not), I'm pretty sure I don't want to put anything too terrible out there.

Not that this is, but still.  Goal officially abandoned, for another month.

On the other hand, I also recently did a critique where I didn't see much of a story in the short story.  Others disagreed, which is their right.  It's good to remember that some critiques aren't just what the story needs either.  Writing them out may help me figure out my own stuff, but that doesn't mean they will always be helpful to the recipient.  It's when it is helpful to neither that I should really be careful about even posting the critique.

September Goals

Let's keep this short and sweet for the goals.

1. Write at least 250 words each day.
2. Finish and submit a short story.
3. Critique at least 6 stories.
4. Write NaNoWriMo newsletter articles.
5. Revise 1 short story for critique.

I'm going to write about about why, in the hopes that writing my thoughts down will help keep me on track to accomplishing the goals.

The first one is pretty obvious.  I've got a good streak going so far (approaching 100 days), and I'd like to keep it going.  I've been using the Magic Spreadsheet, which has been good, but I may need to cut back on the whole level-up idea due to the number of extra words it adds to my "should do" list.  I'm not sure I need that pressure.

The second is because, while I've been "finishing" short stories for a while, they sit in various states of editing, and I never mark it as done enough to send it off for submission (recently, anyway; at one point in my college career I was submitting some stuff that should never have left my computer, as well as one piece I'm still proud of).  I need to get on the ball for submissions, or decide that I'm not really in it for publication, which is entirely wrong.  I'm just scared of negative feedback at this point, which is a phase I'm pretty sure every author goes through.  In fact, according to some, they never get over it.

The third is to keep up the goodwill I think I've developed among some critiquing communities.  I hope this goodwill allows me to get good critiques of my own stories when I submit them.

The NaNoWriMo newsletters is a task I took on very early this year.  I've got some of it in hand, but I need to write my own articles for the newsletters to help out.  In fact, I need to poke a few others who might write as well.

Finally, I want to keep the critique pipeline going.  In fact, I think that should be one of my big goals this weekend: start editing my next short story for critique.

Hugo Results and Thoughts

So, the Hugo awards were announced this past weekend, and I thought it would be amusing to look back at how I ranked things, and how they ended up in the voting.

First up, short stories:

	My Choice	Award Order
1	Mono no Aware	Mono no Aware
2	Immersion	Immersion
3	Mantis Wives	Mantis Wives

Interestingly, I pegged this category. I have a feeling Mantis Wives struck others the same way it struck me, and hten that leaves a 50/50 chance for the order.


Novellettes:

	My Choice	Award Order
1	The Girl Thing Who Went Out for Sushi	The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi
2	Fade to White	In Sea-Salt Tears
3	In Sea-Salt Tears	Fade To White
4	The Boy Who Cast No Shadow	Rat-Catcher
5	Rat-Catcher	The Boy Who Cast No Shadow

This one was pretty good as well, with me getting the correct winner, but flipping around a couple of places below it.


Novellas:

	My Choice	Award Order
1	After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall	The Emperor's Soul
2	San Diego 2014	After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall
3	The Emperor's Soul	The Stars Do Not Lie
4	On a Red Station, Drifting	On a Red Station, Drifting
5	The Stars Do Not Lie	San Diego 2014

I would talk about getting it completely wrong, here, except that I correctly placed the #4 story. Not much of an accomplishment, that. Interestingly, except for Stars, I personally enjoyed all of these and don't feel like the voting is out of line as much as reflecting a different overall enjoyment factor for the stories. I know I'm supposed to gripe about politics or the poor taste of the voters, but I can't bring up the bile right now.


Novels:

	My Choice	Award Order
1	Redshirts	Redshirts
2	Blackout	Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance
3	Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance	2312
4	Throne of the Crescent Moon	Throne of the Crescent Moon
5	2312	Blackout

Again, I somehow managed to call 4th place (and first). I've talked to enough people to figure out that apparently Redshirts can be polarizing -- some love it, and some don't. Some people, of course, gripe about it winning (or blame it on political factions and the fix being in). But my review stated my reasons for the vote; I won't repeat all of them here.

I will say that it is interesting how different the rest of the order was. I'd truly like to know what those who loved 2312 and voted for it to be first place saw in the novel, as I apparently missed it.


Graphic Novels:

	My Choice	Award Order
1	Grandville	Saga
2	Schlock Mercenary	Locke & Key
3	Locke & Key	Schlock Mercenary
4	Saga	Saucer Country
5	Saucer Country	Grandville

Does this count as completely wrong? I think so. I share no special insights into the category.

I'm skipping my rankings of pro and fan artists, since there is little I can learn from them to apply to writing... at least at this point in time, for me. Also, I think the overall point has been proven that I don't necessarily align with the general fandom's rankings when it comes to these stories. This is something I've known, but it then reinforces the point made in Million Dollar Outlines that I should be studying the other, well-ranked stories to look for things I might want to include in my own.

August Goals Retrospective

At the beginning of last month, I said my goals were:

1. Read at least one book on writing.
2. Continue to write every day (at least 250 words)
3. Summarize my notes from a writing book (this month's or last)
4. Critique at least 6 submissions
5. Apply lessons from a writing book to at least 2 stories
6. Get at least 2 submissions critiqued
7. Revise two stories
8. Do a title exercise on at least 1 short story

How did I do?

1. I read Story Engineering by Larry Brooks and loved it.  I'll have a review written sometime (cue goal for this month).
   
2. I wrote every day, using the Magic Spreadsheet, which continues to be magic and full of spreadsheet-y goodness.
   
3. Half marks here.  I did do a review of Million Dollar Outlines, and I finished my notes from the book, but I didn't summarize it yet.  Soon!
   
4. I easily beat this one out of the water.  This was one of the things I ended up emphasizing this month, and I believe I critiqued 3 a week, on average.  Many was the day I felt like I didn't have the mental energy to write (or edit *shudder*), but finding the problems in other people's works... that doesn't seem to be so hard.  Now if only I'd be able to translate that to my own works more easily.
   
5. I've applied some of the lessons to 1 story.  In this case, I'm going to give myself a fail.  I'm sure I'm internalizing some of the lessons, but not as many as I'd like.
   
6. Oh, look, another fail.  I might give myself half-credit for 1 story critiqued 2 times, but I'm not sure.  The good news is that I'm starting to feel pretty good about the story again.  (This probably means it's time for somebody to tear it apart again, but I'm enjoying the feeling while I can.)
   
7. There is a theme here, and that theme is that I've been working on one story.  I need to improve that, and soon.
   
8. Complete fail.

So how did I do?  3 succeeds, 2 halfsies, and 3 fails.  That's not the way to get my goals met, is it?

My take-away from this is actually to dial back on the goals for a bit.  I felt kind of pushed for this past month (the daily writing is part of that, I know, and I shouldn't be leaving it for so late at night, but I'm not ready to give that up yet).  I also don't like seeing the halves and the fails.  So, I'm going to trim the list and really focus on meeting those goals.

Million Dollar Outlines Review

Million Dollar Outlines, by David Farland.  In short, I'm very glad I bought it.

In more detail, then.  David Farland starts off with what might appear to be a digression -- why do people read?  In reality, he gets to the heart of why people read in order to figure out what authors need to do in order to deliver to people what they are looking for when they read.  His conclusion?  Without nuance, to be put through an artificially stressful time for a good emotional payoff.

Emotional payoff is a theme that recurs.

He then covers audience research, including a lot of information from his days as a movie consultant.  This includes the emotions different audiences want to experience (statistically, at least), and how to look at what is selling well now in order to try and figure out what audiences are looking for.  This can be done with movies, TV shows, and books, though caveats apply to all of the analysis.

Also included are some ideas and tips on characters and plotting.  I thought the tips sections were well done in general, though of course they weren't the primary point of the book.

Then the outlining sections start.  Farland walks you though why outlines might be needed and the benefits they bring.  He continues with developing the outlines, including working on them over multiple passes and rearranging them at times in order to make them work better.  Near the end, he takes you step-by-step through the process he uses to develop an outline.

He then finishes with an appendix containing tips on moving from the outline to the completed novel, and a few items of note -- including some analysis of Lucas and Speilberg's discussions when trying to develop the concept and plans for the first Indiana Jones movie.

The book has me excited to try out some of the techniques, and also to try and combine them with another book I recently read, Story Engineering.  I have little doubt that my stories would be better with some more pre-planning and a little less seat-of-the-pants writing.

Some minor critiques I have would include the fact that the story plot graphs aren't very well explained (or perhaps I missed the reference to the book that would explain them).  I have a feeling I've been missing something with these, as I've seen them referenced more than once.  Then again, I might be able to pick up the idea from the book itself.  Also, reading the book on my b&w kindle made some of the graphics included for the plot graphs be less than illuminating, though the main points were easy enough to follow.