Muse-inks

June 8, 2014 / Melanie Marttila

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

June 5, 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!

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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.

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

June 3, 2014 / Melanie Marttila

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

June 1, 2014 / Melanie Marttila / 4 Comments

This is going to be a short update.

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?

Caturday quickies: Springtime in Sudz

May 31, 2014August 4, 2014 / 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 …

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

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

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 😉

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz May 18-24, 2014

May 29, 2014May 31, 2014 / Melanie Marttila / 4 Comments

A fascinating article from The Smithsonian Magazine on the microscopic structure of dried human tears.

This article on and video of the fungus cordyceps in action creeped me out. I fucking love science.

Discovery presents the top ten species of 2014.

Part of me cringed at the wanton destruction. The other part drooled a little. Book art by Brian Dettmer.

Web Urbanist presents 15 of the world’s most magical lodgings. Bucket list!

I love dogs. LOVE. So, of course, I could resist sharing these pups with gorgeous coats.

Here are two videos from a crazy Finnish magician, who figured it would be fun to make dogs’ treats disappear. It’s funny. Also a little mean. Dogs NEED their treats. Mind you, the dogs take it well. A testament to their species and a confusing commentary on ours. (I’m including myself in this indictment – I laughed.)

The Pentatonix, Love Again:

I just can’t get enough of their lovely harmonies 🙂

Images of Earth captured from the International Space Station. The Atlantic.

National Geographic contributing photographer Peter Essick pays homage to Ansel Adams.

Worried about using unlicensed images on your blog? Here are some alternatives to stock imagery.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has just made images of their collection and archives free to access (!) Talk about an alternative to stock imagery 🙂

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And … this deserves a category all its own. Thanks to Jenny Hansen for this.

A hilarious guide to pooping at work:

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz May 18-24, 2014

May 27, 2014 / Melanie Marttila / 3 Comments

Roz Morris responded to a writer in a bind. The result was this post.

If you’ve read Lifeform Three, you’ll find this Roz Morris post on the inspiration of the Surrey landscape interesting. If you haven’t read the novel, you’d better get cracking!

The Geeks’ Guide to the Galaxy interviews Mary Robinette Kowal. Listen to the podcast.

Speaking of podcasts, listen to K.M. Weiland’s fourteenth instalment in the Creating Stunning Character Arcs series. Or read the post. As you wish, dear reader.

The draws and drawbacks of success as an author from The New York Times.

Jan O’Hara tells us why our characters need to make tough choices. Writer Unboxed.

And yes! Now WU has its web issues sorted, here’s Lisa Cron’s wonderful post: What kindergarten got (and still gets) really, really wrong.

Three more things you need to know about exposition and telling by Victoria A. Mixon.

Agent Carly Watters has some advice for when you start comparing yourself to other writers.

Maggie Stiefvater writes about how her characters are not based on her experiences, but they answer the questions she asks in her head.

Tech Crunch interviews Hugh Howey.

The Paris Review resurrects their interview with John Steinbeck.

Anne Lamott on how to handle the haters. Brainpickings.

Two of my favourite Neils talk about genius. More Brainpickings brilliance.

Writers’ Relief offers five techniques to help turn short stories into novels.

The Bookbaby blog presents this interesting infographic about 24 books that predicted the future.

Enjoy, my writerly peeps 🙂

A poetic road trip to Rutherglen

May 25, 2014 / Melanie Marttila / 8 Comments

Yesterday, those of you who follow me on Facebook may have noticed that I was out of town again for a bit. This time, it wasn’t for work, though!

My gifted, poet friend, Kim Fahner (who is likely cringing as she reads this—stop that—you are gifted), was invited to a reading, irreverently called Fools on Stools at the La-Tea-Da Cafe in Rutherglen (about 20 minutes outside North Bay, ON).

She asked me to go with her and we decided to turn the reading into an opportunity for a poetic road trip—my FAVOURITE kind!

At the reading was fellow Sudbury author Ric deMeulles, and North Bay area authors Steve Pitt, Barry Grilles, and Ken Stange. We saw several poets and writers from the Conspiracy of Three reading series, and the host, Carin, who owned the La-Tea-Da Cafe, was gracious and welcoming.

Ken Stange, Kim Fahner, Barry Grilles (behind Kim–sorry Barry), Carin, Ric deMeulles, and Steve Pitt

The group rotated through three sets of readings with breaks for refreshments. At the end, the readers were invited to make Fools on Stools a regular event.

It was a lovely and creative afternoon.

Kim sold several copies of The Narcoleptic Madonna, and received some publishing advice from the other readers.

Then we returned to North Bay, checked into a hotel for the night, and set off in search of supper. The parking lot of Average Joe’s, to which we were referred by the helpful young man at the front desk, was full, so we turned into the downtown area to find sustenance.

Since neither of us had had much by way of lunch, we were ravenous by this time.

Fortunately, we saw My Thai Palace, a restaurant that we were both familiar with from Sudbury, parked, and dined.

After a delicious supper and a half litre of wine, we moseyed down to the lakeshore for a walk.

There was a beautiful ray of sun shining down on the water, but by the time I got my phone out for a picture, this was all that was left. Still, Lake Nipissing is wonderful.

Back at the hotel, we settled into our lovely suite, watched Orphan Black, read, and chatted until we fell asleep. It was an adult sleepover 🙂

This morning, after a tasty breakfast at the hotel, we returned to town briefly to capture a daylight picture of the most amazing house.

The house Kim had to go back to see.

Turns out, the Canadian Pickers (the Canadian edition of the US franchise) had visited. I’m sure they found a lot of interesting stuff. As we drove away, we had to turn and drive around the block. The entire property, yard, and garage were similarly festooned with collectibles.

The drive back was uneventful and we continued our discussion of the world’s troubles and how to solve them.

Sometimes you just have to get away and have some fun. Though I’ll admit, our fun may be tame in the eyes of others, but we had a blast.

Poetic road trips ROCK!

Have you gotten away for a fun weekend with friends lately?

Ad Astra 2014: It’s a wrap!

May 24, 2014 / Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

The TARDIS and a Dalek formed the welcoming committee

I’ve been blogging this puppy for a month and a half now (!)

There was so much more to Ad Astra than the awesome sessions, though. There was so much that I couldn’t take part in.

I mentioned waaaaay back in my first post that there was Klingon Karaoke (not karaoke in Klingon, though that might be cool …). There was an anime lounge with various series and movies running all three days of the convention, an art room, a Lego room, the book store, author readings, and signings.

Also, for every session I attended, there were, like six others. There was astronomy in the parking lot at night, the masquerade, gaming sessions, Consuite events, and book launches by various SF/F publishers.

And there was the Guest of Honour brunch, which I foolishly chose not to purchase a ticket for (hey, it was my first time, I didn’t know it would be so awesome).

If I thought it was possible, I could have stayed up for the entire three days and done something different every hour.