Commas With Conjunctions

by J. Lea López

Are you one of those writers who agonizes over commas? Some writers sprinkle them through their paragraphs with abundance and weed them back out during editing; others use them sparingly and add more to taste later on. Regardless of which type of writer you may be, it never hurts to try to learn the rules of comma placement and hopefully get it right on the first try. Now, I know that in the world of fiction writing, there's little more we hate than "rules," even when it comes to grammar. But I firmly believe that to break any rules, you must first know them well enough to understand how and why you're breaking them in the first place. Today I'll talk about a comma mistake—it's sort of two commas wrapped into one—that I frequently see during editing and also make in my own writing.

In a nutshell, here's what you need to know: you only need a comma with a coordinating conjunction (and, but, so, etc.) if you're joining two independent clauses. An independent clause is one that can stand on its own as a sentence.

If you're allergic to grammar speak, I know what you're thinking right now. Commas, conjunctions, and clauses, oh my! But I promise, it's not that difficult, and once we go through this one tiny example, you'll wonder how you ever got it wrong to begin with. I'll be the guinea pig and use a sentence from my own WIP to demonstrate.

He backed me up against the car and rested his forehead against mine. 

You might be tempted to insert a comma after car, but you don't need one there. He backed me up against the car is an independent clause, but rested his forehead against mine is not. Therefore, no comma.

He backed me up against the car, and he rested his forehead against mine.

Now you need a comma, because both clauses are independent. When in doubt, split the sentence before/after the conjunction and see if each clause is a complete sentence. If so, you need the comma along with the conjunction. He backed me up against the car. He rested his forehead against mine. See, wasn't that easy?

You need that comma whenever you use a conjunction to join independent clauses, but I see a lot of people leave it out. If the two clauses are relatively short, you can leave it out, but otherwise, comma away! Here are a few more examples to reference:

I turned around to push the elevator call button, but Luke grabbed my waist and whipped me around again, his arms closing around me like a vise. Correct. But joins two independent clauses, so you need a comma.

The priest makes eye contact again, and holds it this time. Incorrect. "Holds it this time" is not an independent clause, so there shouldn't be a comma before the conjunction.

It’s one of the stranger things I’ve ever found myself doing, but strange seems to be my only constant right now. Correct.

He released me and stepped back. Correct.

He released me and I stepped back. Comma optional. The clauses are short, so you can leave it out. But if there are issues of clarity or consistency, you should keep the comma before the conjunction.

Do you struggle with comma placement? Let me know if I've confused you more than I've clarified this issue in the comments!

J. Lea López is an author who strives to make you laugh at, fall in love with, cry over, and lust after the characters she writes. She also provides freelance copyediting focused on romance and erotica as The Mistress With the Red Pen. She welcomes online stalkers as long as they're witty and/or adulatory. Kidding. Maybe. Check for yourself: Twitter, Facebook, Blog.

The Fear

by Riley Redgate

I am studying for a degree in Economics. I am the type of person that economists call, kindly, "risk-averse." This is a much more forgiving term than "a large wimp," but in my mind, they're synonyms. I admit it! I am a large wimp. This is objectively true. I hate roller-coasters because of the panic centers in my brain that helpfully supply scenarios in which I fly, screaming, off roller-coasters and to my doom. I hate walking home alone at night because of an overactive imagination, which plants serial killers behind every ominous-looking dumpster, and also because I am a human female. And I hate deep water because Jesus, have you guys seen The Perfect Storm?

I'm getting published next year, and it's surreal and wonderful, and part of me is still expecting to wake up from what is clearly a fever dream. People understand those emotions, those of disbelief and excitement, which I've been experiencing ever since the sale. I haven't spoken nearly as much about the fear.

It's kind of a mood-killer. What If, the fear helpfully supplies, every review for the book is filled with the most vitriolic hatred imaginable? What If the general reader response doesn't even merit hatred, and is a resounding 'meh'? What If you sell exactly two copies, and they are to your parents and your sister? What If your words are lost within this wash of human noise in a virtual instant, and ground down to nothingness by the inevitable progression of time? (That last one will certainly happen, which is rough.)

Most of my fears terrify me because they are unanswerable. What if I fall overboard in deep water? I don't know. I could get eaten by a shark (which would be sad, because I love sharks). I could do the boring thing and drown. The difference between that sort of fear and writing fears are twofold: 1) I'm not going to die from bad reviews. I'm just not. And more importantly, 2) with writing, I have an answer to all the horrible hypotheticals in my head.

So, What If every terrible thing I'm imagining does in fact come to fruition after I'm published? What if it's all exactly as horrible as my pessimist side imagines?

Well, too bad. I guess I'll keep writing, because it's a compulsion.

Whether you're just starting to draft that first novel or on the road to your eighth publication, if you're afraid, that's all right. The only question that matters is this one: do you need to write? If the answer's yes, then the fears don't matter. Which isn't to say they're not valid. Just that they can be beaten by sheer stubbornness.

I need to write. This is the only thing that calms my nerves, because nobody can stop me from continuing, no matter what happens. Unless, of course, we become subjected to an Orwellian dystopia, and an overreaching governmental hand snatches all writing materials from my grasp. In which case I will move to Canada.

Cheers!

Riley

Riley Redgate, enthusiast of all things YA, is a senior at Kenyon College represented by Caryn Wiseman. Her debut novel, Seven Ways We Lie, will be released by Abrams/Amulet in Spring 2016. Her site is here, and she Tweets here.

Pushing Past the Wall

by Charlee Vale


Writer's Block. There's a whole host of people who claim Writer's Block doesn't exist, others who swear there's a magical block keeping the words from pouring out onto the paper like Shakespeare. But no matter which school of Writer's Block you ascribe to, I don't think there's anyone that can deny that sometimes you're just stuck.

And being stuck? SUCKS.

I'll be perfectly honest, this has been me quite a lot lately. I can come up with a million different reasons for why my writing feels like wallowing in quicksand--and they'd all be right to some degree. I have a difficult job that sometimes saps any creativity I have before I get home. I'm writing a book that goes against my normal writing process. The book is far more complicated than anything I've ever tried. Sometimes I'm tired. Sometimes I just don't feel like it.

But in the end? None of those explanations and excuses matter. What matters is putting in the time. When I sit down and open the document--even the times when I don't write a lot of words--it's still progress. Who knows what kind of future breakthrough that time spent thinking unlocked. Who knows what kind of genius is brewing under the surface while you stew? And sometimes I manage to sit down and get into the groove. Before you know it you've got a couple new chapters under your belt and the world seems bright again.

My point to all this is to say that if you're feeling stuck or blocked or drained or defeated, push past it. This is a wall that can seem higher than we can reach, but we can make it through it when we are determined. I know it's hard, but few things that are good come easily.

Do whatever you need to do. Make a playlist, a Pinterest board, draw a sketch of a character, or write some backstory. But whatever you do, put in the time. The time is the only thing that puts cracks in the wall. Enough cracks and it will come crumbling down.

Charlee Vale is a Young Adult writer, agency intern, photographer, and tea lover living in New York City. You can also find her at her website, and on Twitter, and chipping away at cracks in her wall. 

Learning to Rewrite

by Jemi Fraser

For me learning to rewrite a draft was NOT an easy road.

Stage #1 - Complete Ignorance

• in my first rewrite, I had no idea what I was doing. I went through the draft, fixed all the typos, tweaked some sentences, and was daring enough to eliminate a couple of paragraphs here and there
• then I met some amazing folks over at Agent Query Connect and learned that a rewrite should be a slightly more intense process

Stage #2 - Gaining Confidence

• the next step in my journey was realizing that everything I'd written in my first drafts didn't have to be included in the final draft. I could take out entire scenes. I could move entire scenes. Change pov.
• these realizations actually shocked me, and took me a while to wrap my head around 
• at this point, I carefully saved each new 'draft' with a date indicating the changes

Stage #3 - Gaining Crit Buddies

• this changed my world and burst my naive little bubble. And I will be forever grateful.
• I learned that a rewrite involved more than the tweaking I'd been doing.
• reaching deep down into the story was pretty tough. I was faced with some big realizations. Probably the biggest one was that external conflict isn't enough. There needed to be internal conflict too. For both my MCs (I write romance).
• this involved re-reading and re-writing scene by scene, making changes, keeping track of changes, making notes, deleting favourite scenes & lines, adding conflict (lots and lots of adding conflict)
• I no longer saved drafts, only the main one, with a folder (I'd discovered Scrivener at this point) with the very few scenes I though I might want to reuse or rescue somehow

Stage #4 - A Real Rewrite

• I tried my Stage 3 version of rewriting for several of my novels, and found it very discouraging. Several stories I know have tons of potential were languishing. I also discovered Stage 3 is HARD. Very hard. For me, a million times more difficult than writing a first draft.
• brainwave!
• I decided to dump all my chapters and scenes into a new Scrivener folder titled Draft 1
• because I love (LOVE!!) writing first drafts, I decided to treat Draft 2 like a Draft 1
• I rewrote the draft from scratch. At first I found it tough to not peek at the first draft, but it definitely got easier. The changes I needed to make were core changes and because of that, the story changed dramatically, while keeping the same basic plot elements, and I already knew those plot elements, so I didn't peek.

Stage #5 - Unknown

• as I'm evolving as a writer, I know my style will change too
• I've got 5 or 6 stories begging for rewrites (I was stuck fast in Stages 2 & 3 for far too long) and at this point I'm nearly salivating wanting to do a Stage 4 rewrite for each of them
• I wonder if I'll have discovered Stage 5 by the time I get to them all?

Learning to write well (and to rewrite well) is a personal journey. My journey will probably look nothing like yours, but I hope by sharing mine, you might find some ideas to help you move along to the next step. Or suggestions as to what Stage 5 might look like for me!

Do you rewrite? Do your rewrites look anything like mine?

Jemi Fraser is an aspiring author of contemporary romance. She blogs  and tweets while searching for those HEAs.

Meaningful Connections: The Semicolon

by J. Lea López

I think semicolons get a bad rap. I've been asked on more than one occasion about the proper use of semicolons. I've also heard other people respond to such questions with snarky replies like, "I just don't use them at all. Solves that problem!" If you're someone who struggles with semicolons, hopefully today I can clear up some of your confusion. The following example sentences are taken from my current work in progress.

Semicolons and Lists

I'll get this one out of the way because it's the usage I am least often asked about, and it's probably not one that will come up as often in fiction as the main usage we'll be discussing. When you're listing something in a sentence and the individual list items contain commas, you can use semicolons to separate the items in the list so that you don't end up with a sentence that looks like William Shatner dropped all his extra commas in it. For example, if I'm naming places I've lived, I might tell someone, "I've lived in Towson, York, Pittsburgh, and Manchester." No need for a semicolon anywhere in there. But if I want to include the states along with the cities, that automatically adds four commas between each city and state. In that case, I'll separate each list item with a semicolon, and it'll look like this:

I've lived in Towson, Maryland; York, Pennsylvania; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Manchester, New Hampshire.

If I just list them as Towson, Maryland, York, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh... etc. it becomes unclear whether I'm saying that I've lived in Towson, and I've lived in Maryland, and I've lived in York, and I've lived in Pennsylvania, and so on.

Independent Clauses, Comma Splices, and Conjunctions

The most basic explanation you've probably heard is that you use a semicolon to join two independent clauses. An independent clause can stand on its own as a complete sentence.

Independent clause: Tears well up behind my eyelids.
Independent clause: I squeeze them tighter so I won't cry.
Correct semicolon use: Tears well up behind my eyelids; I squeeze them tighter so I won't cry.

It sounds easy enough, but I know that many people still falter when it comes to using semicolons. Have you had a critique partner or editor call you out on comma splices? Those occur when you use a comma alone to join two independent clauses, and they are incorrect. You don't want to end up with comma splices any more than you want to incorrectly use a semicolon.

Comma splice error: Tears well up behind my eyelids, I squeeze them tighter so I won't cry.

Another way to join two independent clauses is with a comma and a conjunction. However, you don't use conjunctions when you join clauses with a semicolon. (You can use a semicolon and conjunction with lists as shown above.)

Comma and conjunction (correct): Tears well up behind my eyelids, and I squeeze them tighter so I won't cry.
Semicolon and conjunction (incorrect): Tears well up behind my eyelids; and I squeeze them tighter so I won't cry.

A semicolon can replace a period between sentences, and it can also replace the comma and conjunction between independent clauses. It can replace those, but should it? This is where I think a lot of people falter in their use of semicolons.

Meaningful Connections

A semicolon isn't something you just go tossing into your manuscript between sentences for the sake of variation. There's more to it than that. A semicolon joins two clauses that are closely related; your intended meaning is a vital part of this punctuation choice. This is where the thrill and joy of writing, of crafting worlds and lives and stories practically from thin air, should push aside any disdain you may have for the banality of grammar rules. Personally, I think grammar is pretty rad, but I know most of the people asking me about how to use semicolons don't necessarily share my enthusiasm. It's not a matter of The "rules" say I "can't" use a comma here, because "rules" or whatever. (And I totally hear you using those scare quotes in your mind when you complain about grammar like it's some old curmudgeon yelling at you to get off his lawn. Don't deny it.) A semicolon is an option that allows you, the author, to better convey the meaning of and relationship between the words you've so carefully chosen. The relationship between clauses feels very different when separated with different punctuation. Let's take a look at another example.

Separate sentences: I can still smell him in our bed. I didn’t mind it for the first few days, but tonight it’s unbearable.

Comma and conjunction: I can still smell him in our bed, and I didn’t mind it for the first few days, but tonight it’s unbearable.


Semicolon: I can still smell him in our bed; I didn’t mind it for the first few days, but tonight it’s unbearable.

Using two separate sentences in this example would be perfectly acceptable. Each thought stands on  its own grammatically, and there's nothing wrong there. Joining them with a comma and conjunction results in a long, awkward sentence. It doesn't really work because it tries to force a closer relationship between the two sentences than there actually is. There isn't a strong enough correlation to warrant joining the sentences that way. (Compare that to the example in the previous section, where there was a strong enough relationship that using a comma and conjunction would've been a decent choice.)

But the semicolon! Be still, my grammar-loving heart! Because the two sentences are closely linked, a semicolon is a great way to express that connection. As the author, it's your prerogative to choose the punctuation based on what you want your words to convey. For me, in this instance, using a period and creating two separate sentences felt a bit too detached. This comes from a female narrator whose fiance has very recently died. There is emotion and meaning in that small space between sentences, and using a semicolon to bring them together subtly highlights that relationship.

Have I helped you clear up any questions you had about semicolon usage? If not, feel free to ask a question in the comments.

J. Lea López is an author who strives to make you laugh at, fall in love with, cry over, and lust after the characters she writes. She welcomes online stalkers as long as they're witty and/or adulatory. Kidding. Maybe. Check for yourself: Twitter, Facebook, Blog. She will also take her red pen to your words if you ask nicely enough.

Writing Rituals (Dangers and Benefits)

By Charlee Vale

The question comes up everywhere for writers: in interviews, at events, one-on-one. It can take different and varying forms. 'Do you have something you need to have while writing?' 'What does your daily process look like?' 'Do you listen to music while you write?'

These questions, while they have slightly different answers, are trying to get to a root question: Do you have an writing rituals?

We're fascinated by rituals. We want to know what works for other so that maybe we'll pick up a spark of genius that might work for us. We want to wonder and marvel at the peculiarities and the simplicities of the way others work. Perhaps we want validation for our own set of unique rituals. There's an entire book dedicated to the rituals and practices of famous writers and artists. (It's actually very cool) You can find it here.

But what drives writing rituals, and do they help us or harm us? I don't have a definitive answer. I only have my own experience to draw from, in which the answer was: both.

During the Summer of 2013, I had a book that poured out of me like no book I had written before. I was writing anywhere from 2-5,000 words a day. For me, that's crazy.

Now, I tend towards the disorganized in my personal space. 'A place for everything' has never been, and never will be my motto. However, as I've gotten older I've noticed that I focused and am far more productive when I do a several things: Sit upright at a desk or table, have a clean work environment, and have noise canceling headphones on with my music. I also love tea to no end, so I would always make tea when I wrote.

I don't know if it was a conscious or subconscious thing, but those things quickly arranged themselves into a ritual. I would go to the kitchen and put on water for tea. Then I would go back to my writing space/room and make the bed. Then I would clean up anything that happened to be on the floor, and then the desk. When that was finished I would go and make the tea, and then sit down to write.

By itself that seems pretty harmless. However, it quickly became clear to me that I was associating my productivity and creativity with this ritual. I had to do it. If I didn't, how would I write? How would I be able to continue putting out this amazing level of words if I didn't keep doing things the way I had been doing them?

That right there is the danger of ritual. When we rely on an outside source to make sure we have our creativity, it becomes a problem. I stopped doing those things in that order, and spoiler alert, I'm just fine. So is my writing.

That's not to say that I didn't learn anything. I now know that the act of making tea helps me clear my mind after a difficult day. I know that having a clean workspace helps me, and that motivates me to keep it clean all the time instead of rushing to do it before my productive hours. Those things are a healthy boost to my creativity, though my creativity doesn't depend on them.

Let me know in the comments if you have any rituals, and what things you think really help you!

Charlee Vale is a Young Adult writer, bookseller, photographer, and tea lover living in New York City. You can also find her at her website, on Novel Thoughts, on Twitter, resisting the urge to make her bed obsessively. 

Pomodoro and Procrastination

by +J. Lea Lopez 

If you've been hanging around our little slice of the Internet for a while, you may remember when I created and shared some slow writing memes last year. Including this one:

It's true that I tend to take longer to write a draft, and I favor a cleaner first draft that doesn't need as much rewriting and hair-pulling in the editing stage. It works for me as a writer, and maybe it works for you, too. But in addition to being a fun way to show solidarity with my fellow slow writers, this graphic I made hides a deep, dark, shameful secret...

I'm a world-class procrastinator.

Oh, the shame! The horror!  But it's true. When left completely to my own devices, my time management skills leave a little something (maybe a lot of something) to be desired. When I worked retail, time management wasn't really an issue. There were schedules and timelines to stick to, and there were only so many hours I could work in a day. And there were consequences. I obviously wanted to keep my job. But as a self-employed, self-published author, the only thing keeping me accountable for self-imposed deadlines is a Candy Crush-playing, dog-cuddling, daydreaming, deadline-shifting procrastinator who needs more coffee. AKA me. And to be honest, I don't really get mad at myself when I say this story is going to be finished by this date, and then that date comes and goes. I'm not going to fire me. Sure, you can argue that I'm losing sales or... something? But I'm too damn laid back for that. Those kinds of consequences just roll right off my back and I keep doing whatever I'm doing. Or not doing.

Obviously this is not the best long-term business strategy. I've been a hardcore procrastinator for literally as long as I can remember. Dr. Phil or some other (probably every other) pop psychologist on TV used to say that you wouldn't continue a bad behavior or habit if you weren't getting some kind of payoff from it. Perhaps if I had bombed even one major class project or assignment after leaving it until the last minute, I wouldn't be such a procrastinator. But the truth is, it has always worked for me. The looming deadline gave me the kick in the pants I needed to focus and get the work done. I do some of my best work at the very last minute, which I suppose is why I keep doing it, even when I drive myself nuts.

I'm getting to the tomato sauce part of this post title, honestly. As a way to (supposedly) increase my productivity and keep me accountable, several writing friends and I have an ongoing Facebook group chat going throughout the day to discuss word counts, daily and weekly goals, and to swap knowledge about various writing, publishing, and marketing things we have going on. It helped a little bit. Sometimes. At first. The act of saying to my friends, "I'm going to get some writing done" made me want to do it so I wouldn't look foolish. But that didn't last long, and now the shame factor isn't much of a factor at all. "Ha ha, just kidding, I've accomplished nothing/very little/only part of what I wanted to do," quickly became my battle cry. You might hypothesize that I don't place the same value in myself, my own time, and my work that I do in other people and other things and therefore don't feel that time spent writing is important... but let's not psychoanalyze, mmkay? *gets too close to truth, shifts focus to something else... dog picture time!*

Cuddling > writing, amirite??

Ahem, where was I? That's right, the pomodoro part. My group of friends introduced me to the Pomodoro Technique and a cell phone timer app. You may be used to pomodoro on your pasta, but this is a time management technique, named after a tomato-shaped kitchen timer. The basic gist of it is you set a timer and do 25 minutes of focused work, followed by a short break. Repeat. There's a bit more to it, and you can check out a short video here about mastering the technique, but so far I've only used it to help me focus and do some short writing sprints. I downloaded an app on my phone and made sure to tell it to disable my phone's Internet connection so that I wouldn't be distracted by the beeps and noises of emails syncing, or Twitter, or whatever. Twenty-five minutes felt like a much easier time limit than, say, an hour, if you're familiar with the 1k1hr sprinting method. I was skeptical, since very little seems to keep me focused on getting words down without one of those elusive sparks of inspiration. But after a few rounds, I discovered I liked it. And it worked! Some rounds are slower or faster than others, but I can get in a few hundred words in 25 minutes usually, which is still slow by many standards, but just right for me, considering I would sometimes struggle to get much more than that in an hour. I know that I need to keep going until I hear the timer go off. Maybe it's that clear goal of waiting for a timer combined with a more manageable time frame that makes it work for me. I'm not sure exactly what the psychological trick of it is, and as long as it keeps working for me, I don't care.

So if you too are a procrastinator looking to reform, or if you just need a better time management tool, grab yourself a kitchen timer, or download an app (the one I downloaded is called ClearFocus: Pomodoro), and try the Pomodoro Technique. And maybe make some pasta for dinner. Mmm... pomodoro sauce...

Do you struggle with procrastination and time management? Have you had success using this technique? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!

J. Lea López, also known as Jennifer, Jen, J, JLo, jello, and the Mistress with the Red Pen, is a romance and erotica author who strives to make you laugh at, fall in love with, cry over, and lust after the characters she writes. She also provides copyediting services with a special focus on the sexy stuff.

Challenges of Writing Diversely

by R.C. Lewis

2014 was, among other things, the year of the We Need Diverse Books movement. And we do need them—stories with diverse characters, diverse backgrounds, diverse perspectives, particularly those that are drastically underrepresented right now.

If we want such books, someone has to write them.

Sit up, fellow writers. This means us.

But wait! Is this really for me to do?

Hi there, voice-of-doubt. Thanks for joining us. Why wouldn't this be for you?

Because I'm white/straight/cis/able-bodied/by-the-book majority. Is it my place? What if I get it wrong?

Beyond the fact that yes, we need books from diverse authors, too, I think this is actually a good concern. It means we're being mindful of authenticity, of avoiding stereotypes, of "getting it right." We may not have experience being gay or deaf (or Deaf—there's a difference) or Cambodian ... but I don't have experience being male, either. Should that stop me from writing a male protagonist?

At the same time, it wouldn't be good to dive in with a carefree shout of, "It's fiction! I can just make it all up anyway!"

It comes back to my belief that we don't need to write what we know, but rather know what we write. We can diversify our knowledge base. Read books by and about the people in the branch of diversity you're working on. Research. Talk to members of that community—find those who are willing and able to educate. (But have respect. It's not an interrogation. Listen more than you talk.)

We probably won't get it completely "right" (and that's if everyone can agree what "right" is in that circumstance), but we won't get better unless we try.

But there are lots of kinds of diversity. Does every character need to have a "diversity tag"? Or more than one, maybe for the main character? How do you choose? Pick descriptors out of a hat?

Thanks for bringing that up, because that's my main worry. I accept and believe that we need more diversity in literature (especially kid-lit, the realm I inhabit), and I'm willing to try to do my part.

But how to I escape the Grab-Bag (random assignment of demographics) or Smorgasbord (including everything conceivable) Effects? If the book is ABOUT that aspect of diverseness, we're covered, but aren't we looking for more than that? For diverse characters in ALL the kinds of stories?

Some authors may approach it as just rolling with the character as they first pop into the author's head. That may work for some, but without more directed mindfulness, I'm afraid most of us will default to the same cis/straight/white/you-get-the-idea.

So how does an author, say, like me write diversely WITHOUT it seeming pandering ... or shoehorned ... or like jumping on a bandwagon?

(Maybe if the bandwagon is headed up the right road, it's not such a bad thing.)

I don't know the answer to that yet. Still working it out. Maybe it's my super-analytical nature, but I worry about finding myself in front of my blank screen with a story idea and freezing. "Should my main character be Latino? Black? Asian—wait, so many subsets to all these—Mexican or Chilean, Ethiopian or Jamaican or Haitian, Chinese or Japanese or Indian or AAAHHHHHHH! And that's just ethnicity!"

It's probably just me, but sometimes too many choices freak me out.

What if you just try one that feels right and see how it goes? There's always editing. And there are always more books to write later.

Looks like it's time to listen to that inner voice.

What are your thoughts on writing diversely? Challenges that worry you? Advice for my own worries? See you in the comments!

R.C. Lewis is the math-teaching, ASL-signing author of Stitching Snow and the forthcoming Spinning Starlight (Oct. 6, 2015), both from Hyperion. You can find more information at her website, or watch her overanalyze one thing or another on Twitter.

The Wit of the Staircase

by Matt Sinclair

There's a French term that appeals to me: L'esprit de l'escalier. Literally, it means "the wit of the staircase," and in practical language it means thinking of the perfect response too late. 

Let's face it, we've all done it, whether there was a staircase involved or not. In fact, the perfect response often hits me in the bathroom, which seems appropos.

I'm not sure, but such instances may in part be why I became a writer. I like having the perfect word to say, le mot juste to keep that little French thing going. But it doesn't always happen immediately.

As writers, we need to have an ear for what our characters are saying, even if they've already walked through the exit on a scene. The key: know your characters. Even when they don't know what to say, they're telling you something.

Good thing we can revise, huh?

5 Tips for Fleshing it Out

by Jemi Fraser

Last month, my post talked about 5 Tips to Trim Your Writing. This month, I'm tackling the opposite. With my current rewrite, I attempted to plot (kaboom!) and ended up with a shorter story than I expected (15k shorter).

So, now I'm focusing on how to flesh out a story without padding it. Some of the things I've discovered:

Fleshing it Out Tip #1 -- Emotions

This one I'm having a blast with. I write contemporary romance, so it's all about the emotion, but I think that's true for most stories. It's the emotions that pull me in and make me gobble up those pages, no matter what the genre is.

Delving into the character's emotions helps the reader connect and makes the writing much more interesting. For me, plot is obviously important, but it's how the characters respond to the plot that intrigues me. So, show that!

Fleshing it Out Tip #2 -- Show, Don't Tell

Another fun one, and very connected to #1. Telling removes the emotion. Wasn't it Mark Twain who said, "Don't tell me the old lady screamed, bring her on stage and let her scream"? Looking for those telling words/sentences in the draft helps me find places I can strengthen my story and make it longer/more compelling at the same time.

Fleshing it Out Tip #3 -- Dialogue

Connected to #2! I love dialogue and tend to include a lot of it in my writing naturally, but there are still places I find where I can have my characters really showing...by telling. Dialogue infuses the story with life and lets the readers hear your characters talking. It also gives the reader a visual--and mental--break from narration, thus increasing the pace of your story.

Fleshing it Out Tip #4 -- Description

Blech. I'm not an especially visual person or writer. My descriptions tend to be focused around the emotions of the characters. And I'm not a fan of reading paragraphs of description either, so I tread very, very carefully when I do this.

For people, I sprinkle in the description. A mention of hair colour by another character here, a comment about height there. Nothing obvious, certainly no looking in the mirror and offering up a self-evaluation. For example, rather than saying my character is short, I'll have her drag a chair over to reach something off a high shelf.

For places, I don't mind stringing a sentence or two together to anchor the reader in the setting, especially when it's a new place. I try to focus on what the character would notice, and only on what is relevant to the story.

I'd rather leave most description up to my readers, but I'm learning I need to include those anchors and let the readers fill in the rest.

Fleshing it Out Tip #5 -- Character Arcs

This one is more complex than the first four. Here, I'm looking for the pace of how my characters are growing. I want them to slowly learn to change, have strategically placed AHA! moments, and obstacles tossed in their paths to have them second guessing their realizations. This is another instance where I find Scrivener invaluable. I can colour code, or use the side bar, or make another file to put side by side in order to track the arcs. Then I can spot where the arc needs some help, tweak a scene here, add a scene there, throw in another obstacle, or three.

There are many more ways to flesh out a story (adding in a subplot and looking for plot holes to fill in come to mind), but these are the 5 I'm working with. Any tips to add? Do you like fleshing it out or do you prefer to trim?

Jemi Fraser is an aspiring author of contemporary romance. She blogs  and tweets while searching for those HEAs.

5 Tips to Trim your Writing

by Jemi Fraser

Many beginning writers end up with enormous word counts. (If you want to check out my story, it's over on my blog today).

Trimming Tip #1 -- Adjectives & Adverbs

Cut. Cut. Cut. Sure you need a few adjectives, and sometimes they enhance your prose, but be careful! I'm not an especially visual person or writer, but I was floored when I first learned this tip and realized how many adjectives I had in my draft. Nearly every sentence was sprinkled with writerly words that screamed AMATEUR!

Ditto the above advice for adverbs. It's a little easier to edit for these though. Use that handy-dandy Find tool (CTRL F) and search for 'ly'. We all know not all adverbs end in ly, but many do, and this tool makes it easy to spot them. It also takes you out of the flow of reading the story, which is very important when editing. Often replacing your verb/adverb combination with a stronger/more explicit verb makes your sentence stronger.

Trimming Tip #2 -- Cutting Scenes

Whole scenes. As you're editing, ask yourself about the purpose of the scene. If it's not moving the story along, not increasing the tension or the conflict or the stakes, bring out the sword and slash away. Painful, yes, but maybe you can keep some of them as bonus content for visitors to your website. (Make sure the quality is high, after all, there's a reason you're cutting in the first place!)

Trimming Tip #3 -- Filler Words

We all have them. Some of them are more obvious than others. Once I feel pretty good about a draft, I dump my story into Wordle and eliminate all the proper nouns (right click then delete). The bigger the word, the more times it appears. Then use that CTRL F tool to help you find and eliminate as many as you can.

Some words that often appear as fillers:

just, suddenly, again, eyes, look/looked/looks, seemed/seems, feels/felt, smiles/smiled, really, very, maybe, quite, started to...

Trimming Tip #4 -- Qualifiers

Eliminating words and phrases like 'a bit', 'a little', 'sort of', 'seemed to' 'felt like', can all make your writing stronger and, as an added bonus, make your characters less wishy-washy at the same time. If someone's mad, let him/her be all the way mad!

Trimming Tip #5 -- Echoes

This is my Achilles' heel. As the self-proclaimed Queen of Redundancies, I've literally cut thousands of words by eliminating phrases and sentences where I'm repeating information already provided. Trust your readers not to be idiots, they'll get it the first time. (<-- Which is a great example of a sentence including an echo!)

Trimming the fat out of that draft will do nothing but enhance your story. Don't be afraid of that delete key. If it helps, imagine Legolas or Aragorn at your side, sword in hand, as you slash your way to a stronger story!

Do you enjoy the Slash 'n' Burn rounds of editing?

Jemi Fraser is an aspiring author of contemporary romance. She blogs  and tweets while searching for those HEAs.

Writer’s Block: Is it all Just Crap?

by +Denise Drespling

I might be unique in the world of writers. I do not believe in the existence of writer’s block. Oh, I know the days when you don’t want to write, or feel like you can’t, or the idea just isn’t right, or you’re so frustrated with your novel that your finger itches toward the delete button. But there’s one solution to the myth of writer’s block: write.

Write anything. It can be bad. It can be horrible. It can be completely irrelevant to what you should be working on, but you know what? If you’re writing something--an.y.thing--you’re not blocked. Don’t give in to the myth. Don’t let your fear tangle you up. Take your blank page and stuff it (full of words).

On an ironic side note, the day after I wrote this post, guess what I found in my inbox? Two emails from two separate writing blogs, both about writer’s block. Okay, universe, what are you trying to tell me? At first, I actually considered changing my post. I thought, maybe I’ve just been lucky and haven’t suffered from writer’s block. Maybe I’m not being sensitive enough to the dilemmas of my wordly cohorts. Then I read the posts.

Nope. Not a believer.

The thing is, they talked about issues like not having ideas, not being inspired, not having the energy, even having too many ideas to focus (I might suffer from that occasionally). They talked about great solutions: get exercise, use writing prompts, unplug, free write. I’m sure they all work well.

But here’s the thing. That’s not the same as not being able to write. That’s not being able to write well. So, let’s call it what it is. Not writer’s block. It’s writer’s sludge. It’s when all that comes to your mind is crap and all that comes out is crap. Hot, stinky, crap. Like a pile in the corner that the kitten just left. Oh, wait. No, that’s my living room. (Anyone want a kitten?)

Writer’s block, as most people refer to it, is just an excuse. Trust me. I’ve used it. It sounds much more important and sympathy-inspiring than to just admit, I don’t feel like it. If you’re having issues writing, you’re not blocked, you’re sludgy, and you don’t have to be.

Being in an MFA program is a different type of deadline than a publisher or employer breathing down your neck to get it done. It’s the difference between being paid for your writing and knowing that you’re paying for it. I’ve been in the place where I had an assignment of 15 pages due and the last thing I wanted to do was to jump into that world with those characters. But, I had to write, so I wrote something I hated. It was awful. All 15 pages will likely be trashed. I could have claimed I was blocked, but in reality, I was being lazy and bored.

The point is. Those crappy pages led me somewhere. They led me where I knew I didn’t want to go, but they also pointed me in a better direction. Even if you have a deadline where you can’t turn in crap, you can still write the crap first, then make it shine later.

Nora Roberts said, “You can fix anything but a blank page.”

Yup.

Write something, then visit the land of what ifs (which is, btw, also the name of my blog because that's where I spend my time):

Suppose there’s a man crossing the street. What if he trips? What if he bumps into a woman who is/turns out to be the love of his life? Or his ex who broke his heart? What if he found something on the ground? What if he realized he was on the wrong street? What if he got hit by a car?

See. That took me two seconds, but gave me infinite directions to take a story in. Depending on how far you are in your story, you won’t have quite as many options, but there are always options. Go play with them. Before you know it, you’ll have something worth keeping. And if it’s not worth keeping, you’ll know that, too.

Your thoughts? Do you see this, or am I just full of crap? ;)

Denise Drespling is the author of short story, “Reflections,” in the Tales of Mystery, Suspense & Terror anthology (October 2014) and “10 Items or Less,” in 10: Carlow’s MFA Anniversary Anthology (April 2014).

Hang out with Denise at her blog, The Land of What Ifs, or on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Goodreads, or Instagram.

A Writer's Guide to Getting Your Sexy Back

by +J. Lea Lopez 

Source

To clarify, the sexy you're getting is for your writing. Sorry, I can’t help you with the real thing. Or maybe I can. But that's not a discussion for this space. Ahem. Focus, please.

Whether you’re writing hardcore erotica, sizzling romance, or just a single scene requiring some Tab A into Slot B action, I’m here to help you put your sexiest foot forward. We're going to focus on the language of the scene.

Let’s face it: it’s very easy to write a bad sex scene. You run the risk of clinically sterile language, or the opposite – coarsely pornographic language. There’s also the potential for unintended comedy. I don’t want that to happen to any of you, so I’ve compiled a few guidelines. Note that I didn’t say rules. It’s up to you to decide if/when to use each of these tips. And fergawdsakes, don’t overdo it with any of them!

More descriptors ≠ more sexy

Breasts are not made any more appealing when described as amazingly perky, round, brown sugar-colored globes of desire. Really? Would you say that to your partner, or want it said to you in a moment of passion? ‘Course not. You/they would likely burst into a fit of laughter. It's also important to find the right descriptions. For instance, wet is always preferable to moist. Stick to one, maybe two good descriptors, or let the image stand on its own. This also ties into my next point:

Euphemisms are your enemy

If everyone calls it a cock, there’s probably a good reason. Don’t go trudging through the thesaurus looking for other names for human anatomy. Abandon the aforementioned globes and just call them breasts. Or maybe your character would say tits. Titties and boobies are giggle-worthy and should be avoided at all times, in my opinion.

When in doubt, revert to the standard slang, or DON’T NAME BODY PARTS at all. Yeah, you heard me. She let go a breathy moan as he pushed into her. No need to say what pushed where – we already know.
Here are some tried-and-true anatomical words to use (try not to blush):

• cock
• tits
• ass
• breasts
• dick
• pussy
• clit
• nipples (not nips – please don't say nips)
• cunt

Cunt has become much more mainstream of late, but it's not my personal favorite and I don't think I've ever used it. I rarely even write it because it doesn't hold positive connotations for me. Pussy is weird for me too, but I'll take that over cunt. It takes a very skilled writer to use that word in an erotic context and not make me flinch. That doesn't mean you shouldn't use it, though, if you like it. It's just not for me. I think it even sounds awful. Go ahead, say it out loud (preferably when you’re alone – not on the bus or at work). It’s guttural – all hard consonant sounds. Doesn’t scream sexy to me. Which brings me to my last point for today:

Pay attention to sound

No, not those sounds. Yuck. I’ll leave that for another post. I mean, pay attention to how the words you choose for your scene sound to the ear. I don’t know about you, but even when reading silently to myself, I still hear the words in my head, and, to a lesser extent, feel them in my mouth (oh boy, you’re gonna have a field day with that phrase, I’m sure.)

Never underestimate the sexiness of well-placed alliteration. His thumb slid over the sliver of skin peeking out above the waistband of her jeans. That s sound is just sensual, both to hear and to say, isn’t it?
To me, open, round vowel sounds as well as softer consonant sounds like f, h, and l (to name a few) can be the sexiest. The heat of his breath sends a slow shiver from the nape of her neck to her toes. Mmm, sounds yummy, right?

To contrast, clipped vowels and hard consonant sounds often are less sexy. You’d do well to notice that most of your standard curse words have this characteristic – fuck, shit, bitch, etc. I’m not saying there’ll never be a place for an urgently whispered Fuck me! in your manuscript – there is certainly occasion for something like that. Short, hard-sounding words can convey urgency. But an entire scene, or even just a few sentences, full of those types of words can really kill the mood.

Especially use this guideline any time you’re thinking of some anatomical euphemism. As I mentioned, cunt sounds harsh to me. Words like rod and pole don’t sound particularly sexy either, and even invoke painful images at times. Unless you’re writing some sort of BDSM scene, these are not the images you want to paint in your reader’s mind.

Keep these tips in mind the next time you write a sex scene, and I promise you’ll have something that gets the heat level rising.

Do you have any favorite words that you find super sexy, or words that make you cringe?

J. Lea López is an author who strives to make you laugh at, fall in love with, cry over, and lust after the characters she writes. She welcomes online stalkers as long as they're witty and/or adulatory. Kidding. Maybe. Check for yourself: Twitter, Facebook, Blog. Get help with your sexy scene writing here.
 

Plotting Without Explosions

by Jemi Fraser

Have you heard any explosions lately? No? You must not live in Northern Ontario. My brain has been exploding randomly and quite loudly recently.

Why?

I'm attempting to plot out a rewrite of a story.

KaBoom!

Problems:

• I'm NOT a plotter
• I need more tension between characters
• the external tension needs some polishing to make it more realistic
• the characters are too sweet

 Solution:

• I came across a post by Rula Sinara over at Kelly Steel's blog the other day talking about the synopsis
• Hmmm. I could write a synopsis BEFORE I start the rewrite
• this worked out pretty well, and helped me add in some tension between the characters, BUT it also pointed out new...

Problems:

• saggy middle
• most of the conflict comes to me as I'm writing. How am I supposed to know the middle before I get there???

Solution:

• google 'visual plot outlines'
• find this post by Chuck Wendig
• celebrate a little because writing the synopsis first is there (proving I'm not completely losing it!)
• find new ideas (writing backwards sounds BRILLIANT!!! I always know my ending before I begin so this might work)
• feel better when I see story bibles (I've done those - maybe I can do this plotting thing after all!)

Problem:

• not sure if any of this will work

Solution:

• give them a whirl! I won't lose anything by trying (plus I LOVE trying out new things)
• if I can't deal with the explosions any more, maybe I'll just Pants out a new version and hope all this thinking helps me make that version stronger!

So how does any of this help you out?

• some new ideas on plotting
• a reminder to keep open to new ideas. You never know when something will send you scurrying in a new direction. For me, the best learning experiences have been when I learned something I'd never even considered before
• another reminder that none of us work the same way -- and that's okay. Writing is a creative exercise and we should approach it that way. There is no one tried and true method that works for everyone. Don't be afraid to be unique! And, conversely, don't be afraid to borrow from others.

How about you? Are you a plotter? What has sent you in a new direction lately? Any other non-linear plotting techniques that might help me out?

Jemi Fraser is an aspiring author of contemporary romance. In between cranial explosions, she blogs  and tweets while searching for those HEAs.

Book Serendipity

by Charlee Vale

Allow me to tell you a story.

One July evening in 2008, my family is participating in one of our favorite pastimes: hanging out at the bookstore. We are separate, but together. My mother is perusing craft and art magazines in the comfy chairs in the cafe, my father is in the music section with his head buried in a book about classical guitar technique, and I float. I drift from fiction to children's to teen and back again. I swing by science fiction and end up in drama.

Now, this was back when Border's was Border's, and at this local store I knew the sales people, the layout, even the music they would play. Some families had Sunday dinner, we had Sunday bookstore time. And Monday, and Tuesday, and whatever day of the week we felt like going and diving into what seemed like endless stacks of books.

After getting my father to but me a chai tea latte from Border's Cafe (which, to this day, is still the best chai I've ever had), I found myself perusing the stage plays. I had just completed my freshman year as a theatre major and wanted to consume as much theatrical literature as possible. I suddenly stop in my tracks as I see the cover of a play. A black and white photo of a woman. Just a woman, staring out at the camera with immeasurable sadness. I picked it up and turned it over and read these words:

     "This happened on December 30, 2003. 
           That may seem a while ago but it won't when it happens to you..."

Chills ran over my entire body.

I immediately took the play back over to the cafe and began reading. I read a good 30 pages before we left that night. I purchased it, and finished it that night, dumbstruck. That play was the one woman show The Year of Magical Thinking, adapted from Joan Didion's memoir of the same name.

Three years later, I performed that show as my capstone. My Senior Theatre Project. I went on an amazing journey with this play, and it's still something I am so proud of. But what would have happened if I hadn't been at Border's that one night in July?

Looking around, many people get their book recommendations from the internet, social media, friends, as they should. But my life has been so affected by books that I just stumbled upon, possibly more than the books I sought out, that I can't help but try to get other people to try it.

I discovered my all time favorite book--The Scent of Magic by Andre Norton--by running my fingers across the spines in a library. I tripped over Watermark by Joseph Brodsky in that same Border's, and he is now one of my favorite writers.

This will sound cheesy, but books have power. The ones that are meant to change your life will find you if you let them. So why not give it a try? Go to a bookstore, turn off your phone, and just look. Go to a section you normally don't visit. Maybe it will be something in the cover, maybe the first sentence will make you gasp, maybe there's nothing but a feeling, but it's worth a try.

So that's my story. I believe in book serendipity. Do you?

Charlee Vale is a Young Adult writer, bookseller, photographer, and tea lover living in New York City. You can also find her at her website, and on Twitter, and randomly picking up books of of shelves. 

Resiliency

by Jemi Fraser

Life is going to throw a lot of curve balls our way. That's part of life. It's how we handle those curve balls that defines us.

When that curve ball is heading our way, we've got some choices on how to handle it:

• duck
• close our eyes and swing
• keep our eye on the ball and swing
• jump out of the batter's box
• step into the pitch
• watch it go right on by

A writer's journey to publication is chock full of curve balls. 

• finding the right idea
• writing the first page
• finishing the draft
• finding a crit buddy
• sharing
• revising
• editing
• writing a query
• and synopsis
• sending out that query
• rejection
• more rejection
• marketing
• reviews
• contracts
• sales
• pressure of the next book
• ...

Resiliency is the key to survival in the industry. So how do we deal with those curve balls? A few suggestions:

• conversations and commiserations with writing buddies (this online writing community is incredible!!)
• always having the next idea ready to go - keep an idea bank
• critique the work of others - a great way to improve yourself & help out someone else!
• study your favourite stories to see what works in them to pull you in
• tears (but not for long!)
• time outs/times off (again, not for long!)
• chocolate (maybe that's just me)
• learn something new (this is my personal favourite. Not only is it productive, but it builds your skill set and your confidence)

There's nothing wrong with jumping out of the batter's box - as long as you're ready to learn something new and then jump right back in. 

How do you build your resiliency?

Jemi Fraser is an aspiring author of contemporary romance. She blogs  and tweets while searching for those HEAs.

Slow Writing Memes

by J. Lea López

Uh oh... Guess what day it is?

Okay, I won't go there. (But I bet you just said it in your head, didn't you?) Today's post is just a little something fun to get you over those mid-week blahs. Who doesn't like a good meme, right?

My writing process is a little different than some other people. Aside from writing by hand, I'm a slow writer. Quick and dirty drafts don't fly from these fingers. It simply doesn't happen. But there's so many tips, tricks, snippets of advice, etc. encouraging exactly that. I bet you can name a few.

It doesn't have to be right, it just has to be done.

Don't think, don't edit, just write.

Pretty much anything you'll read on a NaNoWriMo message board.

Don't get me wrong, this is a great approach for plenty of people. But it's also a dreadful approach for others. I think it's high time we slow writers have a few sayings or memes of our own to give other slow writers a bit of support.

A lot of effort goes into every word. And I'm okay with that.

We all have to find what works for us with writing. We judiciously apply the writing "rules" because we come to realize they're guidelines more than anything; we find ways to strike a balance between things like genre expectations and the story waiting to be told; we experiment and learn which word processing software works best for us based on what we want it to do. The same goes for pacing ourselves with our drafts.

I've been working with a friend as she works on her current WIP. She's used to the hard and fast word vomit sort method of drafting and can churn out 100,000 words or more in an insanely short amount of time. But she's had trouble editing that down later into something cohesive. With her new story, she expressed some frustration to me about taking longer than usual to get the first draft written. However, she felt more confident about what she had written so far and felt more confident that she was going to avoid the massive wordiness that had plagued her previously. She'd never really considered the possibility that slower could actually be better.

When it comes time to give advice about first drafts, we've all apparently forgotten Aesop's famous moral: Slow and steady wins the race.

I would rather think a little longer and get it mostly right the first time than spit out a bunch of words I'll end up cutting later. Sure, it takes me twice as long, maybe even three times as long, to pen a first draft than some other writers. But I tend to write very clean first drafts. I don't say that to brag. I say it to make the point that it's ultimately the end result--the book--that matters. How you get there is a journey all your own. My pace might not work for you. Yours might not work for me, or for someone else. There's nothing wrong with that. If you're a slow writer, don't feel pressured into adopting a fast draft style if it's going to drive you nuts (which it would for me). I felt awful the first time I attempted NaNo because I couldn't achieve the high word counts the way some other people did. The next year I stopped beating myself up over it because that will never be my process and trying to force myself to do work that way is counterproductive. And guess what? I wrote twice as much that year.

Are you a slow writer? If you are (or even if you're not) hop on over to a meme generator and make some funny, encouraging, or silly writing memes and share them with us! Tweet them to us or share them on our Facebook page.

J. Lea López is a published author of character-driven stories that focus on relationships, from the platonic to the romantic, and never shy away from the bedroom. Follow her on Twitter or Facebook.

Realistic vs. Logic

by Charlee Vale

"That's not realistic."

Have you ever heard this said about a book? I have. Honestly, it's one of those things people say that drive me crazy, in all it's many variations. "That wouldn't happen." "People don't talk like that." "That's not the way things work."

The reason this makes me go a little batty is that the last time I checked, I didn't go into a novel looking for reality.

When I go into a novel I go looking for a story. I want it to engage me and sweep me up and make me believe in fantastic things and feelings; shock me with unspeakable horrors and make me shiver. No matter what genre you apply this to it is the same. Books aren't reality, so why they should be bound by the same set of rules?

But sometimes when I hear these things, I know they're not saying what they mean. They say 'that's not realistic,' and what they mean is 'this doesn't make sense.' And when something doesn't make sense, that's a problem.

Even though fiction isn't bound by the rules of reality, it's bound by it's own set of rules: the ones you create. In the realms of your writing you always must construct how things work--a structure for the audience to rely on. If you don't create a strong enough framework, or break the rules of the world you created, your audience will become confused and disconnected.

A perfect example of this is Shakespeare. Shakespeare's plays cannot be considered 'realistic' by today's standards; after all, the people wear funny clothes, say funny words, and do funny things. But do the they make sense? Yes. Each Shakespearean play has an internal logic and structure that allows us to understand, follow, and empathize with the characters. We don't care that it's not realistic.

If you make sure your world works, no one will notice it's not real.

Charlee Vale is a Young Adult writer, bookseller, agency intern, photographer, and tea lover living in New York City. You can also find her at her website, and on Twitter, and trying to make sense of her worlds on paper.

Writing: Do It Because You Love It

Sounds easy, right? Of course you write because you love it. Or at least, that’s how you started.

Do you still?

Are you writing the book of your heart every time? Or are you chasing trends because you’re in love with the idea of selling a book – any book – to the highest bidder?

It’s surprisingly easy to slip into the latter situation, usually without even realizing it. And more often than not, it doesn’t result in our best work nor pan out as we hope.

So how do you know if you love that book? I don’t mean do you love drafting or revising or the many stages of building a book – I mean, do you love the story? Does it resonate with you? Do you have to write it?

There was point when I was deep in the seemingly endless query trenches that I stopped and started several possible books over the course of a few months. At first, I thought they were great ideas. Why wouldn’t they be? I’d recently read books just like them! Of course they’d get snapped up. But I couldn’t finish them.

They didn’t feel right. They didn’t feel like mine.

It took me a while, but I finally figured out (for me) which ideas are worth pursuing. It’s the ones that grab hold of me and shake until words come out my ears. It’s the ones with characters who wake me up in the middle of the night demanding I listen to them.  Or whose voices are so persistent I can’t follow a real conversation and end up so startled a human is speaking to me, I spit water out on the floor of a fancy restaurant (fun fact: this actually happened the night the idea for MONSTROUS landed in my head. Yes, I am the smoothest person you know.)

For me, it's the ones that I can't not write that I keep forging ahead on, even when drafting feels like pulling taffy from my brain, and revision like hacking my way through a jaguar-infested jungle. If I didn't love them, I'd never get through with all my gray matter and limbs intact.

How about you? Do you love the book you're writing now? How do you know?

MarcyKate Connolly writes middle grade and young adult fiction and becomes a superhero when sufficiently caffeinated. When earthbound, she blogs at her website and spends far too much time babbling on Twitter. Her debut upper MG fantasy novel, MONSTROUS, will be out from HarperCollins Children's Books in Winter 2015.

The Ongoing Debate: Art vs. Commerce

by Matt Sinclair

I recently found myself in an interesting conversation among other writers. The question posed by a novelist with a dozen books published through a small press was essentially this: If I don’t think my idea for my next novel will sell, should I still write it?

The vast majority of those who responded to this thread said things was along the lines of “don’t worry about whether it’ll sell or not. Write what you love.” Similar ideas along the lines of “don’t follow trends” emerged, too.

That’s all good advice. I politely disagreed.

Let me qualify that: I don’t disagree; I just think that if a writer believes her work won’t sell, then her idea of writing something else that has a better chance of selling is a better use of her time.

The debate basically became one of art versus commerce. I think we’ve all heard that before, and it’s possible for both to be the right approach, even for the same writer. I came at it as someone who has spent years working, shaping, loving, and ultimately trunking more than one novel. (And you thought the pachyderm in Elephant’s Bookshelf Press was just because I loved elephants?)

A writer who does not want much more than to see a work on an electronic shelf should write whatever he or she wants. It might even catch lightning and surprise everyone, especially if that writer has some other marketable skills like social media savvy and the gift of gab.

I love the art of writing. If I may say so myself, I have some beautifully written pieces … that will never garner an audience by themselves. Perhaps if I’m fortunate enough one day to become one of those writers whose readers want to know what groceries I bought at Costco or Shop Rite (hmm, see that – he’s very conscious of unit costs. I bet that’s why his most famous character is a spendthrift…), I might be able to share those pieces. But they’re essentially exercises. Writing I practiced and did well with, like a great workout at the gym or a run that left me feeling reinvigorated and ready to tackle the rest of the day.

Exercise is absolutely critical to becoming a marketable writer. Exercising the mental aspect of becoming a sellable writer is also critical. What is the return on your investment of time? If you spent a thousand hours writing and revising your opus, another thousand dollars having a professional edit it, and a few hundred on a cover artist, and sold two hundred copies, was that time and money well spent? Only you can answer that.

At this point, my ability to live in a house and feed my family is based entirely on my capacity for weaving words together. (Not the fiction, mind you. But I’m working on that.)

Indeed, the explosion in self-publishing is a wonderful way for writers of all genres to take a swing at becoming an artist. Many of those who are doing so will not sell more than a dozen copies to people other than their family and closest friends. They’re fine with that, and I’m genuinely happy for them. My goals are different.

Matt Sinclair, a New York City-based journalist and fiction writer, is also president and chief elephant officer of Elephant's Bookshelf Press, which is hours away from publishing Battery Brothers, a YA novel by Steven Carman about a pair of brothers playing high school baseball and about overcoming crippling adversity. Matt also blogs at the Elephant's Bookshelf and is on Twitter @elephantguy68.