Writerly goodness

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz June 8-14, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila

Another fine crop of lovely stuff to share. I’m even curating the curators this week 😉

Ten ways to tell a story – all about point of view from Writers Write out of South Africa. Solid article with good examples.

Are shifts in point of view and head-hopping always bad? Roz Morris answers.

How to ‘stay lit’ from The New York Times. An article Roz brought to my attention.

Finishing the novel: the daily task of “getting it done.” Elissa Field shares her process.

Elissa’s also a fellow curator. Here’s her Friday links for writers.

Writing the flat character arc, part 1: the first act. K.M. Weiland’s next character arc series begins!

What kindergarten got (and still gets) really, really wrong. The continuation of Lisa Cron’s standardized testing adventure on Writer Unboxed.

Robin Lafevers discusses what writing as therapy means to her. Also from Writer Unboxed.

Agent Noah Lukeman shares fifteen tips to help sell your ebook series.

The Atlantic: No, The Fault in Our Stars is not young adult fiction’s saviour. A few weeks back, I posted an article that posited Greenlit (for John Green, author of the above named YA novel) was a thing. Is this article the other side of that coin? Read and find out.

Guy Bergstom’s Red Pen of Doom: The six horsemen of the writepocalypse.

Enjoy, my writerly peeps.

I’m heading down to CanWrite! tomorrow. While I’ll keep the blog fires burning, I might be a little scarce around the interwebz otherwise. Good news, though: I’ll have more panels and sessions to blog!

Whee!

Tipsday

The end of my season of sorrow

/ Melanie Marttila

Fathers’ Day.

Last year I wrote at the beginning of my season of sorrow about the landmark moments marking my father’s decline and eventual death.

He was still very much on my mind, it only being the second year following his death.

This year, it’s been a little different.

His birthday, date of his admission into the hospital, final, precipitous decline due to congestive heart failure, death, funeral, and Fathers’ Day, all spanning the time between March 14 and the third Sunday in June, did not have the same impact as in previous years.

In fact, this year, though I was conscious of each date, I did not mark them in any way. I didn’t even discuss any of them with my mom.

This year, Dad’s been more or less continually on my mind. The dates meant less, the overall absence, more.

I’ve kept these things to myself, though. This remains my grieving process.

Phil’s father died recently, too, but that’s not my story to tell.

Fathers’ Day, however, is not just about my dad, or Phil’s. It’s about all dads, everywhere.

So, to commemorate the end of my so-called season of sorrow, I’m going to wish all dads a HAPPY FATHERS’ DAY with these two, lovely links:

Five dads who made us laugh and/or cry from People Magazine.

50 funny and/or inspiring quotes about dads from Parade.

Fathers-Day-2014

Sins of a prodigal gardener

/ Melanie Marttila / 5 Comments

I did something terrible today. I didn’t mean to, but by the time I realized what I’d done, it was, really, too late.

 

I kind of gave up gardening last year, because it took too much time away from my writing. All I did was weed, and things didn’t look too bad, honestly.

This year, I got even lazier. Blame it on our long winter and late spring. Blame it on the fact that Phil had to rip up one of my trellises because he had to reroute the tube from the sump pump. Blame it on the road destruction construction going on right outside our door.

More than anything, you can blame it on me, because it’s my fault.

I started weeding, finally, a couple of weeks ago, taking a couple minutes here and there when Nuala wanted to sit in the driveway and watch the world. I’ve cleared out about half of the front bed.

Today, I decided to replace the trellis and reorder the Clematis vine and Engleman’s Ivy. I hadn’t even cleaned up last year’s dead vines and the new growth was all tangled up with the corpses.

I was careful to trace the one Engleman’s Ivy vine that had already grown up the side of the house and started to cut away all the old vines. It’s a weed-like plant and will take over your plot if you’re not careful, so I was uprooting the old growth as well.

Of course, in my fervour, I cut the one vine I thought I had specifically identified and set aside. I now have a jar of water to try and root the vine. I’ll have to replace it with a pot of soil if the vine survives. The cut was several inches above the ground.

Doh!

Next, I set to trying to clear out the dead Clematis. I broke a few of those new shoots in that process as well.

Then I was what I thought was an old bird’s nest in the mess. I reached in and was about to remove it, but—

It wasn’t an old nest.

I discovered that fact (to my utter horror) when a small, downy body within it moved. There were five or six, each about the size of my fingertip.

Oh. My. God. I’m EVIL.

Mama and Papa Chipping Sparrow had been flying about and peeping at me the whole time.

The nest was almost completely exposed now. What could I do, but grab handfuls of cut vines and pile them up around the nest? It’s so close to the ground, though, I’m still worried that one of the neighbourhood feral cats is going to get them.

Fortunately, Mama and Papa returned to their fluffy family as soon as I cleared out.

It’s my hope that the babes will mature fairly quickly, and the cats will keep away long enough for that to happen.

The victims

The victims

Here’s a picture of the crime scene. The nest now perches precariously at a 45 degree angle, but Mama is curled up on top of the chicks. You can hardly see the nest. I’m hoping my camouflage is sufficient to protect them.

I feel so guilty, I can barely stand myself.

Nobody else seems to be upset about it, but I feel like I’ve committed avian infanticide, inadvertent as it may be.

Pray for the peeps. I know I am.

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz June 1-7, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila / 4 Comments

Not tonnes to share this week. A thought-provoking photo essay, a little psychology, and a couple of funnee animal videos. Educational and entertaining, what more could you ask for? Well, maybe more of one or the other, if not both. What can you do? Some weeks are thoughtier than others.

The recent commemoration of D-Day brought this interesting photographic essay to my attention. The Huffington Post.

Ever wonder what motivates a psychopath? This article in the Psychiatric Times could be interesting research for your next thriller or mystery.

Another tasty article on the mind of a mass murderer.

A wee Ted.ed video on sleep paralysis. Parasomnias rock.

The world’s first wingsuit base jumping dog. That’s quite a claim, but I think it must be true 🙂

 

A guy interviews his guinea pig. Serious LOLs. Now gimme some toilet paper!

 

Enjoy! Tomorrow is Friday! Whee!

Thoughty Thursday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz June 1-7, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

Here’s the loot from the last week.

Ellen’s 12 rules for novelists from the Girlfriends Book Club.

How to make the most of your writing time from Aliventures.

The right way to layer desire in your story from MJ Bush of Writingeekery.

Vaughn Roycroft wrote a wonderful post on death and the writer for Writer Unboxed.

Roz Morris answers the question, “How do you keep motivated when your books aren’t selling well?”

K.M. Weiland takes a break from character arcs and returns to her most common mistakes series with this post and podcast about describing character movements.

TED talk on how Sting got his groove back. It’s all about storytelling.

 

Further insight from Carly Watters on why your query and/or sample pages aren’t generating interest.

A Rewording Life. A worthy, and wordy, project from Sheryl Gordon, in honour of her mother, and all those who have lost their words to Alzheimer’s Disease.

Famous authors and their favourite writing tools, a fun infographic from Bookbaby.

Clarkesworld Magazine interviews Chuck Wendig.

And for more Wendig-ishness, here’s the SFsignal podcast with Chuck and Gail Carriger.

Interesting news: Oryx and Crake series in development.

It’s all Writerly Goodness 🙂

Tipsday

Muse-inks

/ Melanie Marttila

Muse-inks

One of the comments I received on my monthly writing update, The Next Chapter, has prompted me to write this post.

The comment was:

I’m learning a lesson from this, have seen it happen to many others, how the blogging/social media/screen time eats up the creative writing time. Writing must come first, thanks for this warning.

I’m glad when anyone takes anything useful away from my blog and so in one sense, this is great.

But…

That’s not what I intended in writing the post. At all.

I had to go back and check. Was I inadvertently whiny? I strive for a factual reporting. Things are always open to interpretation, but I don’t think I was complaining about anything.

It’s true, every one of my 7503 “new” words I counted last month was written on this blog, but that wasn’t all the writing I did.

I edited a short story for publication, which ended up reducing the number of words in the story, so I couldn’t properly count those. I went through Initiate of Stone and made notes for my next revision, fairly extensive notes, as they involved the elimination of a character from the story. I have flags, and notes in different colours of ink in the ms, and pages of handwritten notes, which I inserted into the binder after.

I did a reverse structural analysis of IoS as well, also by hand, and I had to go through about three attempts before I actually had something that both satisfied me and made sense.

Though I wasn’t successful, I attempted to write a piece of creative non-fiction. This was done by hand, and I’ve decided not to count those words, because, frankly, it’s a pain to keep track of anything I don’t write on a computer.

So it was a productive month, it just wasn’t productive in the usual way.

Plus, I wrote about A Rewording Life, a wonderful project I have been privileged to become involved in, and my opportunity to review an ARC for K.M. Weiland. I forgot to mention my continuing involvement in @M2the5th’s monthly Twitter chats with Roz Morris focusing on her Nail Your Novel books.

When I’m not at my day job, I’m writing, or thinking about writing, or learning about writing. It’s the way I roll.

Since I began these monthly updates, the preponderance of words has always been on the blog.

And I don’t begrudge a single one.

Back in February, I attended WANAcon, and one of the sessions that has stayed with me was Kristen Lamb’s Blogging for Authors. In that session, she said that blogging teaches discipline. It teaches the writer to produce quality content on a schedule. It teaches you to ship.

I don’t begrudge the time I spend on social media either.

I read articles by fabulous writers every day and share and curate what I think are the best of the best. I’m not telling people about the last meal I ate, or playing endless games. I use SoMe with purpose, and I’m happy to say I have developed some legitimate relationships with some truly talented authors.

My SoMe activity is as much about my development as a writer as attending conferences and workshops, reading writing craft books, and, yes, writing.

I’m addicted to learning and SoMe is just one manifestation of that.

I don’t want this post to sound defensive, but sometimes, I assume things when I blog (and you know what happens then). I just want to be clear, and completely factual about why I do what I do.

Nor am I saying that everyone has to do what I’ve chosen to do. SoMe is not for everyone. Blogging is not for everyone. We all find our own ways to get the words on the page. It’s just been something I’ve taken to. And it works. For me.

My commenter took my post as a warning, and maybe that’s what she needed. While I’m happy my post spoke to her, I’m also a little sad that the rest of my message was not received.

The rest of my message?

I’m doing well, and, yes, I’m writing. Writing is a lifestyle for me. It’s a spiritual practice. It’s a kind of therapy. Everything I do, even my day job, funnels into my writing. The word count is only the tip of the iceberg. That’s why I write a post to go with it, to share all the writerly goodness of the past month.

Thank you to all of my readers and commenters. YOU. ARE. ALL. FABULOUS!

Be well.

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz May 25-31, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila

First, a little titter (get your minds out of the gutter–or don’t, if you like it there–I just didn’t mean it that way).

The acronym S.H.I.T. applies to those Thursdays when you get up joyfully, thinking it’s actually Friday. Then, your spouse turns to you and says, Sorry Honey, It’s Thursday. SHIT. So, Phil and I have taken to calling Thursday, turd’s day.

Second, a little edumacation.

SHIT, in the example above is, in fact, an acronym. It forms a pronounceable word. CBC, on the other hand, which stands for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, is an initialism, because you can’t make a word out of it. This is the difference between an acronym and an initialism. Which to you use more of every day? The latter, I’ll bet.

It’s funny. Spell check doesn’t recognize the word ‘initialism.’

So on to the thoughty, already!

__________________________________________________________________

In the wake of last week’s shooting, Chuck Wendig was moved to write this post.

Pachamama invites you to explore how mindfulness helps you deal with negative thoughts.

This tiny potato might help too. Emily’s Diary. Do all the things.

Meteorology unveils archaeology near Galway, Ireland. Irish Central.

And again, from Irish Central, a 5000 year old monument is vandalized.

The Icarus is a worldship currently in research and development. It’s darned cool science, too.

Jake Dunsbridge does a spot on imitation of Matt Smith in his last moments as the Doctor.

 

What can I say? It wasn’t a terribly thoughty week, I guess.

It’s all writerly goodness, though.

Here’s hoping something twigs, inspires, or simply entertains.

Thoughty Thursday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz May 25-31, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila

Tipsday

It’s a short one this week.

So a note to begin with about how I organize these things. I generally start off chronologically, but if thematic groups emerge, I tend to put them together. This is why you’ll generally see some familiar names on my list, like K.M. Weiland. Katie always posts on Sundays, so she generally appears first, followed by Anne. R. Allen and Roz Morris, who also post on Sunday.

Everything else is just organized the way my brain sees fit, which may not always make sense to anyone but me … but there you have it: my mad method.

So it should be no surprise that I’m starting off with K.M. Weiland and the final post in her Creating Stunning Character Arcs series: The Resolution.

Later in the week, she announced her forthcoming book, The Writer’s Digest Annotated Jane Eyre. Guess who’s got an ARC to review? Got it in one, my friends 🙂

Roz Morris posted about drafting her scenes out of order and revealed the title of the work in progress (WIP) hitherto known as The Mountains Novel.

52 terrific tips on how to write well from Psychology Today. Includes lots of links to other resources.

Carly Watters offers advice on writing secondary characters.

N.K. Jemisin’s Wiscon 38 guest of honour keynote.

 

And now, a moment of silence for the passing of the bright light that was Maya Angelou.

 

“A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.”

The next chapter: May 2014 update

/ Melanie Marttila / 4 Comments

This is going to be a short update.

May's Word Count

All of the new words I produced this month were from blogging (7503), even though I didn’t blog for a whole week because of chaos. It was good chaos, but nonetheless.

I worked on revisions for the short story I submitted to Bastion Science Fiction Magazine, “The Broken Places,” at the beginning of the month, but that was actually trimming and, just for sanity’s sake, I’m not counting negative words.

By the way, the story is now in the June issue, available online here: Bastion Science Fiction Magazine. You can also get a single issue through Amazon, a subscription through Weightless Books, or just donate to a cool publication.

*Hint, hint. Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink.* Bastion is also a great place to submit if you’re into that speculative fiction stuff 🙂

Needless to say, there is much happy dancing on Marttila Drive.

The biggest part of the non-blogging writing work I did was on Initiate of Stone. I executed my plan of going through and eliminating the one character, giving all her important bits and pieces to other characters, and making notes for the revisions. I also went through my novel in reverse order, using Victoria Mixon’s holographic structure.

This is a technique she recommends in her Art and Craft of Story, and after Roz Morris posted that she’s had to draft her scenes out of order for her latest WIP, Ever Rest, even working backwards, I had to give it a try.

It’s a very interesting technique, and allows you to make sure that plot events and foreshadowing are in their proper places. It’s great for consistency too. I caught a few things that I hadn’t taken into account writing forward.

In other news, my adjustable desk is working out great. If you haven’t been following, the arrival of the desk and the necessity of reorganizing my office to suit it was one of the reasons for my blogging vacation. I can stand for an hour and a bit before I have to sit down for a rest. I’m training myself up.

I’ve also purchase a summer membership for the yoga studio I’ve joined, and I’m hoping that the desk and the yoga will help me stave off future back issues.

Totally unrelated to writing, Phil and I had to purchase a new clothes washer this past week. Our’s was pooched. While at the store, Phil decided he also wanted an upright freezer. He was getting tired of losing stuff at the bottom of the chest freezer we had.

So that’s a chunk of change down the drain.

I tried to write a couple of non-speculative pieces this month, and my interest just wasn’t there. I had ideas, certainly, but the one contest required me to write from a prompt, which I’m not overly keen on. I couldn’t find one that really helped me get anywhere. The other would have been a non-fiction piece, or perhaps creative non-fiction, but again, the idea just couldn’t sustain me.

Sad but true. I guess I’m way beyond the SF/F pale. There are worse places to be. Trust me 🙂

Two opportunities came my way this month that I have to share.

The first kind of blew me away. K.M. Weiland emailed me and asked me to read and review her new book, The Writers Digest Annotated Jane Eyre. Of course I said yes! I love Jane Eyre and have read the book a couple of times. Plus, I’m really attracted to the way Katie analyzes a piece of fiction. It didn’t hurt that she said she respected my opinion (head inflating, unattractively).

So far, it’s great, and I’m learning a lot about how to read as a writer.

It’ll be out July 19th. Watch for it.

The second opportunity came in another email, this one from someone I’d recently started following on Twitter. A Rewording Life, is Sheryl Gordon’s project in honour of her mother, and all those afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease.

She’s recruiting logophiles and creative, wordy people of all stripes to contribute a sentence to her book. I did, and my word was psychopomp 🙂 A portion of the proceeds will be donated to Alzheimer’s research. Check out her site. Follow her on Twitter @ARewordingLife.

And here I thought this was going to be a short post 😛 I am a wordy girl!

This month, I’m moving on to work on my other two completed (more or less) drafts as I did with IoS this month. The Canadian Authors Association’s CanWrite! Conference will be June 18-22, 2014. I hope to bring back lots of Writerly Goodness from that event.

I’m going to try to get back into the fiction writing swing of things. Most of my ideas these days are trending novel length, though. Maybe I’ll just finish the draft of Gerod and the Lions before starting another new project. That sounds like a plan.

How are your projects going, my writerly friends?

The Next Chapter

Caturday quickies: Springtime in Sudz

/ Melanie Marttila

Just dropping y’all a quick note today. I’ll be doing my month-end writing roll-up (the next chapter) tomorrow.

Usually, the pin cherry trees are in bloom for the Victoria Day long weekend (weekend before last), followed within a week by the lilacs. The tree blooming is, for me, the true sign of spring here in Northern Ontario.

This year, due to our long, cold, and snowy winter, the ground frost has been slow to leave (hence our flood issues). So everything was delayed , just a bit.

The pin cherries came in to bloom just this past week. This picture, on such a bright and sunny day, does not do them justice, but here they are …

pin cherry trees

And just below are the hostas, bleeding hearts, ferns, and scads of forget-me-nots.

The wild garden

Finally, by the house, the monster rhubarb is growing like mad. We’ve already had to cut off three “flowers.”

the monster rhubarb

Everything’s dusty, as you may be able to see, because of the road construction in the area. Can’t be helped.

This week has been wonderful weather.

Everybody up here is hoping for it to continue.

TTFN! Off to a bridal shower. ‘Tis that time of year 😉

Caturday Quickies