Back in action, pen in hand
I lost access to this blog three years back, and finally found the path back this very morning.
During my three years' absence, I finally bought a very ordinary house (at a massive price and with a massive mortgage of course,) completed my registration as a psychologist, and set up a thriving vegetable garden. I also did all the groundwork on my non-fiction book "Soulmothering: the Antidote for Depression, Anxiety and other Emotional Pain."
In the meantime my fiction-writing has been on hold, without focus or direction.
But now, as The Book nears completion and allows me to visualise a time when I will not writing a psychological recovery book, life has casually cast two treasures up onto the beach for me to discover as I wander the tideline.
The first is a small but talented and enjoyable novel-writing group. I have yet to meet the third member, but the other two were at the Writers Festival. One has written most of a trilogy of murder mysteries, and the other has completed an ambitious psychological novel that explores writing possibilities while it explores its unpredictable plot. Both writers are interesting and pleasant people, unassuming and unpublished (in fiction at least,) but with clear ability and skill as writers. They seem to be at a similar stage of writing to me or slightly ahead, and very welcoming. As a writer, I believe deeply in the importance of having a writing "family" to write from, a place of mutual support and encouragement. I found this in Sydney, at the Infinitas Writers' Group, where I had the pleasure of working with Cat Sparks, Rob Hood, Karen Miller, Kyla Ward, and a number of other very capable and generous writers, and the main writing group in Christchurch was also helpful and inspiring. But since I came to Perth, although I have met some lovely fellow writers, the writer's groups I have tried have been too fraught with internal politics for my comfort. So this is a godsend for me.
The other gem I found was a programme for writing a non-fiction book with the help and guidance of the wonderful author's coach, Ann McIndoo. Ann's method works like magic. The three biggest problems I have had writing "Soulmothering" is how to hold the whole book in my head to shape it, how to develop it all in one piece ie the whole and the parts at the same time, and how to write with a friendly but informative tone that is neither academic nor fluffy and unprofessional. Ann's method gets around all three problems in a quick and simple way, and pre-empts many other possible writers' problems too. For example, she sets in place some very effective processes that keep your energy and enthusiasm high, and your engagement with your writing then comes easily.
As I start back into fiction writing again, I have been adapting Ann's method to work for short-story and novel writing. This means blending it with Sue Woolfe's wonderful "Wild Writing" course, and what I learnt at Clarion, plus my own understanding of how to write. My new method moves back and forth between formal planning and structured exercises on one hand, and brainstorming, "wild writing," and exercises to tap the unconscious and sensory awareness on the other. I will be test-driving it for the novel by writing a 120,000 word novel in November with Nanowrimo. And between June and October, I will use it to throw together a number of shortstories set in the same world.
If it is as successful as I hope, December/January/Feb will be the Quarter of the Edit, and then I will be submitting this novel to publishers in March of next year. And also offering my programme to other writers through UWA Continuing Education course and/or an online course somewhere.
The Jessica Vivien Fiction-Writing Programme
Here is a brief summary of what will eventually become a course available via this blog:
Step One: for a novel or a short story, the planning begins with creating a brief synopsis of the story and some exercises to help energise you and give you the focus and momentum you need to write your book.
Step Two: identify your genre, check the length such a book/story needs to be and number of characters and their relationship to each other, the conventions of that genre. Identify who you are writing for eg children, YA, adults, men, women, everyone.
For a novel, check publishers submission guidelines and their latest publications in this genre,for this gender and age-range. Rethink if necessary. Learn a bit about plot structures common in this genre, and the cliches to avoid. Find the blogs of the successful authors you plan to join, and start your own blog.
For a shortstory, I send you off to read the stories currently being published at the level you aspire to in that genre.
Step Three: using a mix of formal exercises and brainstorming, sketch in an appropriate cast of characters, world/environment, plot, theme, areas of conflict and possible obstacles and the other obstacles these might lead to, the inner and outer development your main character will experience as they travel from the beginning to the end of the story, etc.
Step Four: brainstorm-type exercises that will let you develop a massive list of some of the sorts of things might possibly happen in this story including some totally off the wall alternatives that are still vaguely appropriate to genre, environment, readership, and the way you write. You don't have to use them, you just need to stretch your limits to the max.
Step Five: Out of these, choose a dozen pivotal plot points that effectively and surprisingly get the main characters and their plot from beginning to end of the core storyline.This needs to fit your theme and genre, and allow appropriate character development, and be ultimately satisfying. Ideally this should have a number of twists at appropriate places, enough of a challenge for the protagonist, and create a story that appeals to you.
Step Six: At this point you will need to totally revise your cast of characters, world/environment, plot, theme, areas of conflict and key obstacles , and of character development to fit the story you are now writing.
Step Seven:For a novel, I then have put together exercises that help you create the dozen key scenes that develop each plotpoint and connect it to the next one, or at least to the overall plot. Don't worry too much about this, just do it and let the whole thing start to fall into place. Some scenes will end up very large, or to actually be a cluster of scenes, some will prove irrelevant. Some will suggest other scenes that need to be added to the overall story to make it work.
For a short story, each of your twelve plotpoints need to be visualised as a scene or cluster of scenes.
Step Eight: The next set of exercises create key sentences that contain the essence of each scene.
Step Nine: To build each of these key sentences into amazing scenes, I then send you off do do research that will allow you to create inspirational images, symbolic actions, and heart-touching and heart-stopping moments that are vivid and alive.
Step Ten: From this beginning, you write your book.
Step Eleven: the editing, rewriting, redrafting process
Step Twelve: Writing your proposal, finding an agent/editor/publisher.
If you have any comments about this method, or want to do the course, please get in touch.
During my three years' absence, I finally bought a very ordinary house (at a massive price and with a massive mortgage of course,) completed my registration as a psychologist, and set up a thriving vegetable garden. I also did all the groundwork on my non-fiction book "Soulmothering: the Antidote for Depression, Anxiety and other Emotional Pain."
In the meantime my fiction-writing has been on hold, without focus or direction.
But now, as The Book nears completion and allows me to visualise a time when I will not writing a psychological recovery book, life has casually cast two treasures up onto the beach for me to discover as I wander the tideline.
The first is a small but talented and enjoyable novel-writing group. I have yet to meet the third member, but the other two were at the Writers Festival. One has written most of a trilogy of murder mysteries, and the other has completed an ambitious psychological novel that explores writing possibilities while it explores its unpredictable plot. Both writers are interesting and pleasant people, unassuming and unpublished (in fiction at least,) but with clear ability and skill as writers. They seem to be at a similar stage of writing to me or slightly ahead, and very welcoming. As a writer, I believe deeply in the importance of having a writing "family" to write from, a place of mutual support and encouragement. I found this in Sydney, at the Infinitas Writers' Group, where I had the pleasure of working with Cat Sparks, Rob Hood, Karen Miller, Kyla Ward, and a number of other very capable and generous writers, and the main writing group in Christchurch was also helpful and inspiring. But since I came to Perth, although I have met some lovely fellow writers, the writer's groups I have tried have been too fraught with internal politics for my comfort. So this is a godsend for me.
The other gem I found was a programme for writing a non-fiction book with the help and guidance of the wonderful author's coach, Ann McIndoo. Ann's method works like magic. The three biggest problems I have had writing "Soulmothering" is how to hold the whole book in my head to shape it, how to develop it all in one piece ie the whole and the parts at the same time, and how to write with a friendly but informative tone that is neither academic nor fluffy and unprofessional. Ann's method gets around all three problems in a quick and simple way, and pre-empts many other possible writers' problems too. For example, she sets in place some very effective processes that keep your energy and enthusiasm high, and your engagement with your writing then comes easily.
As I start back into fiction writing again, I have been adapting Ann's method to work for short-story and novel writing. This means blending it with Sue Woolfe's wonderful "Wild Writing" course, and what I learnt at Clarion, plus my own understanding of how to write. My new method moves back and forth between formal planning and structured exercises on one hand, and brainstorming, "wild writing," and exercises to tap the unconscious and sensory awareness on the other. I will be test-driving it for the novel by writing a 120,000 word novel in November with Nanowrimo. And between June and October, I will use it to throw together a number of shortstories set in the same world.
If it is as successful as I hope, December/January/Feb will be the Quarter of the Edit, and then I will be submitting this novel to publishers in March of next year. And also offering my programme to other writers through UWA Continuing Education course and/or an online course somewhere.
The Jessica Vivien Fiction-Writing Programme
Here is a brief summary of what will eventually become a course available via this blog:
Step One: for a novel or a short story, the planning begins with creating a brief synopsis of the story and some exercises to help energise you and give you the focus and momentum you need to write your book.
Step Two: identify your genre, check the length such a book/story needs to be and number of characters and their relationship to each other, the conventions of that genre. Identify who you are writing for eg children, YA, adults, men, women, everyone.
For a novel, check publishers submission guidelines and their latest publications in this genre,for this gender and age-range. Rethink if necessary. Learn a bit about plot structures common in this genre, and the cliches to avoid. Find the blogs of the successful authors you plan to join, and start your own blog.
For a shortstory, I send you off to read the stories currently being published at the level you aspire to in that genre.
Step Three: using a mix of formal exercises and brainstorming, sketch in an appropriate cast of characters, world/environment, plot, theme, areas of conflict and possible obstacles and the other obstacles these might lead to, the inner and outer development your main character will experience as they travel from the beginning to the end of the story, etc.
Step Four: brainstorm-type exercises that will let you develop a massive list of some of the sorts of things might possibly happen in this story including some totally off the wall alternatives that are still vaguely appropriate to genre, environment, readership, and the way you write. You don't have to use them, you just need to stretch your limits to the max.
Step Five: Out of these, choose a dozen pivotal plot points that effectively and surprisingly get the main characters and their plot from beginning to end of the core storyline.This needs to fit your theme and genre, and allow appropriate character development, and be ultimately satisfying. Ideally this should have a number of twists at appropriate places, enough of a challenge for the protagonist, and create a story that appeals to you.
Step Six: At this point you will need to totally revise your cast of characters, world/environment, plot, theme, areas of conflict and key obstacles , and of character development to fit the story you are now writing.
Step Seven:For a novel, I then have put together exercises that help you create the dozen key scenes that develop each plotpoint and connect it to the next one, or at least to the overall plot. Don't worry too much about this, just do it and let the whole thing start to fall into place. Some scenes will end up very large, or to actually be a cluster of scenes, some will prove irrelevant. Some will suggest other scenes that need to be added to the overall story to make it work.
For a short story, each of your twelve plotpoints need to be visualised as a scene or cluster of scenes.
Step Eight: The next set of exercises create key sentences that contain the essence of each scene.
Step Nine: To build each of these key sentences into amazing scenes, I then send you off do do research that will allow you to create inspirational images, symbolic actions, and heart-touching and heart-stopping moments that are vivid and alive.
Step Ten: From this beginning, you write your book.
Step Eleven: the editing, rewriting, redrafting process
Step Twelve: Writing your proposal, finding an agent/editor/publisher.
If you have any comments about this method, or want to do the course, please get in touch.
posted by Jessica Vivien | 4:20 PM
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