interview – Page 3

Finish Your Book In Three Drafts — An Interview With Stuart Horwitz

Finish Your Novel In Three Drafts: How To Write A Book, Revise A Book, and Complete A Book While You Still Love It

Every word of that title is important, so go back and read it again.

Doesn’t that sound appealing?

The first time I came across Stuart Horwitz, I was struck by the way his writing instruction bridges the gap between Pantsers and Plotters, and how he provides actual processes and methods for getting from ‘wannabe writer’ to ‘someone who can polish and finish their work’.

His latest book comes out today and provides a powerful, user-friendly guide to getting work done, while LOVING what you do.

It takes you through the process of writing a book in three drafts and includes extras like PDFs and stop-motion animated videos that illustrate the lessons in the book. It’s really delightful and powerful stuff.

I had a chance to interview Stuart Horwitz about his books, his editing work and his own writing this week, and he had some great advice for us, as we work on short stories and perhaps move on to our longer, book-length projects.

Finish Your Novel In Three Drafts. Really?

JD: Why did you want to write this particular book? What problem are you trying to help writers solve?

SH: We only have a limited number of books in us — mostly because our time here is limited — and so it becomes a matter of figuring out what are the best books for us to work on, and how we can bring the most excitement to that work and then, how we can get through it, while we still have that energy and affection for it. (Like I say in the subtitle “while you still love it”.) And then move on to the next thing.

Time’s ticking.

And I know this very well because, little-known fact: I trained as a mortician. I walked out of there knowing for a fact that I was going to die. We all are.

Before that time comes, how about we accomplish some shit, you know? That’s all I’m saying.

JD: So how do we do that?

SH: Having a ritual while you write is crucial. There are times when it’s not possible [to fit in everything from your ritual]. We have to recognize that its value doesn’t lie within the ritual itself, it lies in its ability to bring you to a joyful state. It helps us penetrate beyond appearances and figure out why we’re doing this…what we’re doing.

And every writer has to have a process. It doesn’t have to be my process. You can get some from me, four from this other person, and make up 2 of your own and there’s your process. But if you stick to it, it will help you on the less-excited days.

PANTSER OR PLOTTER?

JD: You take a very moderate approach to the whole ‘Write by the seat of your pants’ vs ‘Outline everything’ debate. You sound terribly reasonable.

SH: We like to call it The Middle Way in Buddhism.

There’s always a reason to bend the rule and there’s always a reason to practice discipline.

KNOW WHAT DRAFT YOU’RE IN

JD: The thing that helped me immensely, every time I read your books, is the concept of “Knowing What Draft You’re In”. Can you explain that a bit?

SH: The first draft is just getting it down – The Messy Draft. The second draft is the Method Draft which is about making it make sense. The Third Draft is the Polish Draft which is about making it good.

So, when you sit down to start, it’s all First Draft.

And when you do action steps to figure out what you’re actually working with and then take the best parts up a level, it becomes the Second Draft.

And then you go through your beta-reading process, bring in outside input, and use that to get to your third draft, which is your polish draft.

And I’m talking about a real draft. I’m not talking about tweaking. Like: these five scenes are all going in trash. And: I need scenes that aren’t here yet. Adding three commas? That’s not a draft. That’s just ornamentation. That’s chasing perfection.

The secret to the three drafts is that when, during the second draft, you uncover holes and start writing that scene, remember that new scene is in its first draft. If you stare at that new piece and say, “Why aren’t you as good as everything else already?” it’s going to be madness.

Keep in mind, every time you encounter new material it’s first draft.

JD: How do you know what to work on next, in revisions?

SH: There are action steps [in his books – JD] that you can take between drafts which will reveal to you what you are working on, more clearly.

Mapping the journey we’re on at the same time that we’re on it, gets kind of dizzying/confusing.

We need a separation between the viewer and the subject matter.
I’m a big fan of grids [Here, I refer you to Stuart’s books and his website because this is a big, meaty and really useful subject – JD]

AVOIDING OVERWHELM

JD: How can a short story writer avoid overwhelm at the thought of writing a novel?

SH: I like to break it down in to writing sessions. The question is “how many writing sessions does it take”? From my own experience: I have a short story that is probably one session away from nailed and that is Number 5.

So it’s the same concept. My second book, Book Architecture Method, took 60 writing sessions.

You show up to one of those 60 sessions, you necessarily have to reduce the scope of your expectations. What am I doing today? I’m not writing a novel today. I’m writing a part of a chapter in a draft today.

I’m going to take the rest of that junk out of my mind and I’m going to sit down and write, and I’m gonna write what I was thought I was writing, and I’m going to discover new stuff, and I’m going t write stuff that isn’t good, and I’m going write stuff that is good, and I’m going to keep going, and I’m going to get to the end of this session.

When I get to the end of the session, if I’ve made progress, that’s a win.

ON WRITING WITH CONFIDENCE

JD: It’s easy as writers to judge ourselves as having failed. You idea of grids and process and ritual take the emotion out of the revision process.

SH: Self judgement is a very complex phenomenon and has many many faces. There may be a reason why that never really goes away: a tension exists where our need to constantly slay that dragon helps us bring forth our best work, or brings us to our edge. But the nagging, griping voices in our heads are, for the most part, not contributing to the forward motion.

You have to believe in yourself first. That is probably the hardest thing about writing. It’s probably one of the harder things about living, so practice in one helps with the other.

ON FINISHING

JD: I stress finishing stories during StoryADay. Your books are all about helping writers finish books. Why do you think so many writers never finish their projects?

SH: There are a lot of reasons why people don’t finish. [Sometimes] there’s some pretty deep psychological stuff going on. Somewhere there was a message that was encoded that ‘you are not good enough’.

Then the people who didn’t get that message, and who actually suck a lot worse with you, are filling up the airwaves with what they did. And now we’re having to read ten books by them before we get one book by you.

The fact is if you have 10 people who are reading what you have to say you can write something great. you can even write something great if one person is listening to you.

———————————————————

Finish Your Novel In Three Drafts: How To Write A Book, Revise A Book, and Complete A Book While You Still Love It

This book is a fabulous introduction to Stuart Horwitz’s method for writing and revising works of any length, and I can’t recommend it enough. Pick up a copy today.

How Reading Short Stories Made Jacob Tomsky A Better Writer

Are you familiar with the Short Story Thursdays emails?

Every week for almost five years, Jacob Tomsky has been researching and sending a short story to an email list of rabid readers. He doesn’t write the stories (he’s a best-selling memoir writer and budding novelist), but he does curate them.

Driven by his mood, he plucks a story that speaks to him from the vast slush pile of Public Domain works, and sends it to thousands of his Internet friends. Not only that, but Tomsky writes a passionate (and often expletive-laden) exhortation to readers as to why they should read this week’s story. If Tomsky’s ‘dispatches’ are the amuse-bouche of Short Story Thursdays, the stories are the meat.

Since he’s been doing this for four years, he must always really loved short stories, right?

“I actually hated short stories for a really, really long time. Maybe I still kind of do,” he laughs. “I don’t buy short story books, I never did. I was never a fan. I love novels. That’s what I like to read and that’s what I like to write.”

How It All Started

So here’s how it all started: Tomsky had a full time job he hated, in a hotel.

Bored, he began printing out short stories from the web – using company paper and company toner– because it “would look like I was working, like I was just reviewing documents or something.”

When a similarly-bored bellman asked him what he was reading, Tomsky stumbled onto something that has kept him sending out his dispatches weekly, years after breaking free of the job he hated.

“This was not a man that you would consider being a lover of literature at all and he read it and said ‘what’s next?’” Tomksy said. “I really got joy not only out of the minor escape it gives you from work, but also the fact that I was exposing people to short stories that had never even considered it before.

“People were talking about literature and that was very exciting for me as a long time lover and a writer of literature. I was able to get people to read these short stories, [people] that had never read before.”

Why short stories? Well, apart from their utility as a good cover at work, Tomsky points out,

“Everything’s shortening, our attention spans are dropping. I don’t think it’s even a bad thing. Twitter’s 140 characters, Vine videos are 6 seconds. Everything is so short and people’s attention spans are rapid fire.”

Short stories seem like the perfect way to get people reading, “…and I pick really short ones. Really short. So it’s just something people can read on the train and not feel like they’re having to trudge through it.”

The Beauty of the Short Story

Because he’s posting stories mostly from public domain, Tomsky is rediscovering some older writers, some who have been largely forgotten.

“This week’s story,” he says, about a recent Dispatch, “is making people cry. I’ve had six people email me already and say this story made them cry… I couldn’t even find out any information abou this author. The fact that I get to breathe life into these forgotten authors is wonderful.”

Another advantage of reading older works is, “some of this langauge is just amazing. It’s not even antiquated, we just don’t speak like this. Some of these words have fallen out of favor. Phrases and just the tone of language has changed so much. To get to read something …that’s so different from any other sentence you’ll read in the rest of the week, has been wonderful.”

Of course, the short story form has evolved a lot since its invention, and many of the stories Tomsky finds irritate readers because they aren’t subtle or don’t have the emotional impact of modern stories. And, a frustration for Tomsky is that the public domain collection is ‘a sea of white males’.

Still, Tomsky sees a a benefit to reading these stories week after week. “There’s been some great writing…and it’s kind of great to see what we expected from short stories in the past. Those were pure entertainment in the past. It wasn’t entertainment that was vying for attention with any other form of entertainment, you were just happy to be reading anything.”

He adds, “There have been some stories I’ve read on public domain that I think are better than anything I’ve read publishing now.”

Benefits As A Writer

Although the New York Times called Tomsky’s whose memoir is titled “Heads In Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles and So-Called Hospitality” ‘an effervescent writer’, he wasn’t writing humor before SST.

“I had three novels pior to that and none of them had a joke in it,” he says. “It wasn’t until I started ShortStoryThursdays that I started with the humor. I think that really primed me for when I had to write a funny book about the hotel world. I was totally ready because I had been practising.”

Another, unexpected benefit of writing to a group of strangers every week was a surge of confidence in himself as a writer, that came simply from turning up week after week.

“It took out the whole ‘bullshit inspiration’ crap. You just have to sit down and write no matter what. You kind of trust that…there’ll be quality in there.”

Even In The Middle of An Ocean

No-one’s better at coming up with excuses than writers (it stands to reason: we’re creative!). But Tomsky even kept up his weekly dispatches during a four-month stay in South Africa AND during a ten-day crossing of the Atlantic on a freighter from Liverpool to Philadelphia.

“So I told [everyone] I’d be missing a week,” but in reality he queued up a post and had a friend hit ‘send’. “Then, when I was in the middle of the ocean, it just dropped on them,” he laughs.

Track Your Progress

Another tip for boosting your confidence as a writer is to keep track of how much work you’re doing.

While working that hotel job that he hated, Tomsky started tracking his progress.

“I was like, I’m putting 50 hours a week into a job that I hate, that’s going nowhere. How much time am I putting into my art? So I used to clock myself and tape the papers up on my wall. That was very helpful.”

“It’s such a weird, ‘spooky art’. Any way that you can normalize it and bring it into some kind of standard reality, it’s helpful. And if that’s clocking it—like you would yoru time at work—that at least gives you a feeling of progress. Feelings of progress are extremely rare in this art.”

Just Write

So is he cured of the writer’s enemy: doubt? Tomsky gives a qualified ‘no’.

“It still happens every week. Every Thursday I’m like, f*ck I don’t know if I can write anything good, but I do it consistently, and somewhere in my head that helps me …Looking back on a rather successful string of SST dispatches really does give me the courage just to sit down.

“Definitely more writers should do that,” he says, equating writing practise with the benefits of going to the gym. “I always tell people tha—and not just to bring up the fact that I’m going to the gym! The more you do it, the easier it becomes and the better you get at it. It’s not even magic it’s just straight up practice.”

Two of Jacob Tomsky’s favorite short stories in the public domain:

Arabesque The Mouse by A. E. Coppard

The Inconsiderate Waiter by J.M. Barrie

Thanks, Jacob!

To sign up for a new short story in your inbox every week email: shutyourlazymouthandread@shortstorythursdays.com

And check back here during May 2015 for Jacob Tomsk’s Guest Writing Prompt!

Conquering A Creative Slump – An Interview with Author Sarah Cain

Today we’re taking tips from Sarah Cain, a repeat-StoryADay-participant, whose debut novel The Eighth Circle will be published by Crooked Lane Books in January 2016.

StADa: When did you first participate in StoryADay?

SC: My first StoryADay was in May 2013. I wasn’t really much of a short fiction writer, but I thought it seemed like a great creative challenge.

StADa: How did StoryADay affect your writing?

SC: I had written a novel and had queried agents to a chorus of rejections and was feeling in a real creative slump. I was working on another novel, but wasn’t happy with the progress. So when the StoryADay challenge came up I thought I could manage to write short pieces for a month, and it would be a change. Give me a chance to get some creative energy flowing, which it did. I had great fun with it, and now write quite a lot of flash fiction.

StADa: What advice do you have for writers thinking about jumping in to StoryADay May?

SC: I think writers should just approach it with the spirit of adventure. It’s a challenge, but great fun. Plus you always have wonderful prompts which writers can follow or not. There’s something very satisfying about finishing a piece of fiction and saying, “Ta da! I did it.” And once you get through the month, you’ll have thirty-one (or however many) stories that you can polish up and submit. Or just put them out on your blog. That’s amazing.

StADa: How’s your writing going now?

SC: Happily, I did find an agent and my novel, The Eighth Circle, a noir thriller, did find a home. It will be published in January 2016 by Crooked Lane Books. Sometimes you just need a spark to get everything moving. I’m now working on a sequel to that novel, and I will be doing StoryADay May this year.

Sarah Cain wrote her first story as a precocious five-year old. She graduated from Smith College with a degree in English and went on to write speeches, ad copy, and videos. Her short fiction has appeared in Unclaimed Baggage, Voices of the Main Line Writers and FlashDogs, An Anthology, and she’s a regular at Flash!Friday where she’s won two first place awards, and her debut novel, The Eighth Circle, will be published by Crooked Lane Books in January 2016. You can find her on Twitter @SarahCain78 and in the StoryADay community @sarahc.

Thanks, Sarah! Looking forward to seeing The Eighth Circle on bookstore shelves next year!!

A Springboard for Short Story Success – Interview with Alexis A. Hunter

StoryADay regular Alexis A. Hunter stopped by the blog to chat about her writing journey over the past few years, and how she’s used StoryADay to help push her beyond her fears. Over the past few years more than 50 of her stories have been published!

StADa: When did you first participate in StoryADay May?

AAH: 2011 was the first year I participated in StoryADay May. I heard about this awesome challenge about three or four days into the month and so wrote extra stories to catch up. I have since then participated in the challenge for a total of four years. It’s been so eye-opening and rewarding!

StADa: Tell us a little about your successes in the past few years.

AAH: The writing journey works differently for different people; my journey has been a bit slow, but always steady. I’ve made some good headway, breaking into markets I’ve always wanted to be published in. This year I’ve had stories published in Shimmer, Flash Fiction Online, and Fantastic Stories of the Imagination. I’ll have a story out in Apex this fall. It’s really exciting and I don’t think I’d be here (or at least it would have taken me longer to get here) if it weren’t for the StoryADay challenge.

StADa: How have you used StoryADay to help fuel your writing?

AAH: StoryADay taught me things I might not have learned otherwise. When I first sat down to start writing seriously about five years ago, I was perpetually full of dread about writer’s block. I had suffered extreme bouts of it before. Every time I finished a story, I questioned and worried and fretted over whether or not I’d be able to finish another one.

StoryADay taught me that I could do so and that I could do so consistently if I only tried hard enough. It showed me that if I thought long enough on any given prompt, my mind would rise to the challenge. It was so…liberating!

I’ve since then used the challenge to fuel my writing by providing a large stock of stories to edit and submit throughout the year. Of course, there are a lot of duds throughout the month of May, but there are also a handful of pretty good stories that I wouldn’t have come up with otherwise.

StADa: What advice do you have for someone thinking about embarking on the challenge or longing to boost their creativity?

AAH: To those thinking about embarking on the StoryADay challenge, I recommend a bit of prep before May 1st hits. I like to do two things in particular to get ready: 1.) Gather prompts.

I love using the prompts provided by storyaday.org, but I also love combining them with picture prompts. I keep a Pinterest board of photo prompts, which I add to all year long. 2.) Pick some specific target markets.

Last year, I collected a list of (mostly) themed deadlines for magazines I wanted to get into. Stuff like an anthology about pirates or magical cats. The themed nature of those deadlines helped spark stories and having a set market to send the stories to, in turn, kept me on the ball in June and July–editing the stories and getting them sent out instead of letting them languish in an abandoned file.

To those longing to boost their creativity–get into writing prompts! Especially photo prompts, if your mind works well with them. There is so much amazing art out there that I find especially inspiring. Prompts are a good way to push you out of your comfort zone. Try writing a genre you’ve never written before–even if it’s scary.

The result might not be so good, but it will stretch you in a way that writing in your normal groove won’t. Oh, and try StoryADay if you can!

StADa: What’s next for you?

AAH: Well, May is nearing, so I’m staring down the barrel of another StoryADay challenge. I hope to participate again this year, even if I don’t hit the 31 story goal like I normally do. I’m also knee-deep in editing a YA Science-Fantasy novel, which I hope to one day do something with. But in the meantime, I just keep focusing on writing better and better short stories. That’s where my heart is really at.

Thanks, Alexis and all the best for your future success!

Alexis A. Hunter revels in the endless possibilities of speculative fiction. Over fifty of her short stories have appeared recently in Shimmer, Cricket Magazine, Flash Fiction Online, and more. To learn more, visit www.alexisahunter.com.

Turning Off That Pesky Editor – An Interview with Marian Allen

Marian Allen

Today we’re taking tips from Marian Allen, author, publisher and repeat-StoryADay-participant.

StADa: When did you first participate in StoryADay May?

MA: I heard about StoryADayMay in 2013. I did 2013 and 2014 and I’m looking forward to 2015. ~cracks knuckles~

StADa: Tell us a little about your successes in the past few years.

MA: The first year, I posted this:

People sometimes ask where writers get their ideas. Listen: Getting the ideas is the easy part. Ideas fall like the gentle rain from heav’n upon the place beneath. It’s hooking an idea up with plot, theme, characters, setting, dialog, point of view, language, length, tone, and all the other things that turn an idea into a story that writing is all about.

So I have a big fat folder filled with false starts, snippets remembered from dreams, overheard conversations, random thoughts, and all sorts of “bits”. I plan to reach into that folder and grab a handful of “seeds” and make stories out of them.

That worked. The next year, I went around the house and took pictures of random things, like a globe, a box with a scene on the top, a bowl of rocks, a statue of two giraffes – really random. Those were my prompts.

I always do posts about cats on Caturday – I mean Saturday, or my cats post for me, so my Saturday stories always featured cats. On Sample Sunday, my stories were always about Holly Jahangiri because. Just because. Holly is a real person [A Matter of Perspective ], but twice she won contests I ran to have her name in a story, so now I write stories about her all the time.

StADa: How have you used StoryADay to help fuel your writing?

MA: I tend to write slllllllowwwwwwwwlllllyyyyyyyy, hammering out each word and sentence of a scene. StoryADay is even better than NaNoWriMo at making me turn off that pesky editor. I have to grab an idea and run with it. Knowing that I can do that keeps me from getting too bogged down in polishing when I ought to be knocking together a rough framework. Besides, it’s invigorating to just haul off and write a little story. Telling stories is fun!

StADa: What advice do you have for someone thinking about embarking on the challenge or longing to boost their creativity?

MA: Don’t pre-write. Don’t overthink. Don’t feel bad if it doesn’t work for you. Nothing is for everyone. Give it a try, though; turn off the editor and just let those inventive juices flow. Have fun with it. Think of the StoryADay stories as word doodles.

StADa: What’s next for you?

MA: I have a couple of novels I need to revise for reissue and many novels roughed out or unfinished. I’m putting together a couple more short story collections (including some from past Mays). I’m one of three partners in Per Bastet Publications, so there’s that to keep up with. Book signings. Family. Cats. Much to do!

But first – fun with StoryADay May!

Marian Allen writes science fiction, fantasy, mystery, humor, horror, mainstream, and anything else she can wrestle into fixed form. Her latest books are the SAGE fantasy trilogy, her science fiction comedy of bad manners SIDESHOW IN THE CENTER RING, and her YA/NA paranormal suspense A DEAD GUY AT THE SUMMERHOUSE, all from Per Bastet Publications. She blogs daily at Marian Allen, Author Lady. Every. Single. Day.

Finding Fuel And Focus – An Interview with Cecilia Clark

StADa: When did you first participate in StoryADay?
I don’t remember exactly when I joined a Story A Day but it was likely close to the start of 2014. In 2013 I had begun exploring what was available in the wide world to support and encourage my new career direction as a writer and when I gave notice at my day job in December 2013 StoryADay was one of the important tools I used to keep me focussed as I took the scary, exciting, long overdue and challenging path.

StADa: Tell us a little about your success.
I had put aside my youthful dreams of being a published writer and paid artist when my first child came along and then life kind of got in the way and my dreams slipped way back into the dust covered depths of the internal storage of my mind.

When a life changing pivotal moment arose I finally embraced my inner creative and launched myself whole heartedly into becoming my dream.

I completed my first NaNoWriMo in November 2013, working a full time job, raising teens and participating in three other challenges as well, I managed to produce 104000 words, 36 pieces of art (SkaSaMo) and 41 picture book ideas (PiBoIsMo).

Then I joined social media groups for writing and art, paid subscriptions to organisations dedicated to supporting writers and artists and I looked for opportunities to challenge myself to write stories and then find homes for my stories.

Since my first camp Nano in April 2013 I have written and had published more than fifty pieces of fiction ranging from 500 word competition pieces and ezine contributions to 30k short stories and novellas. I have completed two novels 60k and 80k+ and begun five more novels. I have produced several hundred pieces of art and actually have a growing body of dedicated followers to my blog.

StADa: How have you used StoryADay to help fuel your writing?
At first I was lucky if I wrote 200 words a day so I needed fuel for story ideas and some form of prod to keep me focussed. StoryADay provided me with a lot of good ideas for generating flash fiction. StoryADay has a great deal to offer in terms of prompts and advice and I found this to be terrific for churning up the creative juices, especially when I have been stuck.

StADa: What advice do you have for someone thinking about embarking on the challenge or longing to boost their creativity?

There are so many opportunities and I have found the creative community is a generous and supportive one world wide.

Use what you find out there and make it fit in your life. Whatever time you can dedicate to your dream there is bound to be someone out there with just the right bit of advice for you at a price you can afford. There is a lot of free information- find it and share it.

Set aside fifteen minutes a day and write.

Thinking about your story counts as writing but at some point you need to transfer the words from your head to the page or you will lose them.

Keep a note book handy and jot down ideas, snippets of conversations you overhear, interesting thoughts.

Don’t give yourself a hard time if you don’t write. When you decide the time is right to write you will dedicate the time and effort to it that you give your other day job (that includes parenting). Remember that some of the best writers in the world did not start their writing careers until they had raised their kids and filled their memories with incredible experiences to draw on.

It takes a long time to become an overnight success and the money doesn’t roll in quickly but don’t give up because your story could change the world or even just one persons life so write it. Oh and writing 104000 words in a month while doing all those other things is stupid crazy and caused me to strain my eyes to the point of needing reading glasses, plus swollen ankles, a sore back and no housework done for a month.

It was worth it and I learned to be a little less obsessed and a bit more level headed. The most I have written in a month since then is 56k.

StADa: What’s next for you?
I have been working on prioritising my online time and increasing my actual writing time. It is way too easy to spend too much time in social media groups to the detriment of the word count. I joined a class to learn how to plan my novels more efficiently. I am attending conferences this year for Romance writers, SCBWI(kids books) and finding writers festivals to attend.

After having 30 anthology pieces published I am no longer submitting to small press as most small press pay nothing and I want to be paid for my work. I intend finishing at least two novels this year.

I have had a brief break from my art due to moving house and intend making art daily once we settle in again. My goal is to have my first full length novel under contract this year.

Cecilia A. Clark is a writer and an artist. She has been a chef, disability carer, teacher, farm worker, foster parent and props master plus so much more. She has volunteered for dozens of organisations, had children, coached public speaking and lived. She is curious. Shecan be found online at her blog, Goodreads, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter.

I’m exhausted just reading all that. Good luck, Cecilia! I expect to see your novel under contract soon! – Julie