writing

A Writer’s View: A May Roundup

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

I figure with all the writing I do and have planned, it’d be fun, educational, and good experience to reguarly share my findings on writing.  So . . . I am.  Probably about once a week or so I’ll spew forth the latest seltzer water of wisdom I happen to have handy.

Right now most of these insights come from my first public fiction project, “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet.”  I’ve written fiction a lot before, have edited, have consulted, but figured it was time to return to fiction in style – with a novel.  Short summary: science fiction/fantasy fusion combination of road-trip and religious pilgrimage goes dreadfully wrong.

So the insights to share for May – any one of these might become a later column.

  • Agile works really well for writing – the mindset and the methods.
  • Writing is about loops, finding cycles and patterns in your story.  Because of this plotting one idea may lead to changes, expansions, or new ideas.
  • Never assume anything in your story is “true” until it’s written – discovery is part of the process.
  • Look for Congruence – when things “feel” right.  You want this on all levels of your work, and before you move on from one thing (say from a character idea to a character outline) make sure things “feel” right.
  • Your inner voice is probably right.  The voice that comes after that voice and points out all its flaws is probably less reliable.
  • When plotting, your story may become “timey-wimey” – ideas later on may influence earlier sections.  That’s fine.
  • Characters are the true measure of your world and writing – knowing them means you know your world and story.
  • Characters are a great way to discover your world – designing them makes you ask specific questions you may have missed.
  • Think of your audience – keep them in mind in your writing, what you say, what you deliver.
  • Enthusiasm beats self-loathing for a writer every time. Better to succeed by creating better than tearing down.
  • Beware “Big Rock” ideas that you’re so committed too they drag the story and other ideas down.
  • Don’t “commit” too early to ideas, concepts, or scenes.
  • A small change may quickly scale up and affect your story.
  • Give yourself a place to record ideas without commuting to them.
  • Start over as early as possible so you don’t have to later.  My restarting the plotting cost me 4-6 weeks, but I can’t imagine what’d have cost me if I’d rammed through with my lame initial plot.

Hope these give you something to think about!
– Steve

Steve’s Update 5/28

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)

It’s my weekly Scrum style standup for the audience.  Which is you.

This week saw a lot of stuff with fanime, so let’s get to what’s up?

So what have I done the last week?

  • Way With Worlds Minibook #5:  As usual, writing.
  • Social: Fanime has gone great, seeing people, having fun.  And yes, I budgeted time for it – to make sure I relaxed.
  • Speaking: Spoke at Fanime, it went great!  Think the self-publishing panel needs to be broken up into several panels there’s so much to cover.
  • Cosplay: I was Doctor Oobleck, and it was a lot of fun!
  • Her Eternal Moonlight: The sale is on of course!  Which you probably saw in my announcements!
  • “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet:” Still a bit behind on this I’m afraid, mostly because I have to keep “extracting” myself from ideas I locked myself into during that failed first plotting.  Imagine it like building the foundation of a house and finding you still had some stones you laid while redesigning it.

What am I going to do this week:

  • Plan New Sprint for June: That gets done Wednesday or so.  Targets for June are releasing the first Minibook, speaking at Hydra-Con, finishing the “Bridge To The Quiet Planet” plot outline and writing the first chapter (again, hopefully).
  • Way With Worlds Minibook #5:  Well, uh . . . writing.  So as you guessed I’m doing a few bits each week or so.
  • “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet:” I’m going to at least get the character designs fully fleshed out and get the plot outline further along – at least to a few paragraphs if not a few pages.
  • Writing: I’m going to keep doing my Agile blog posts, but I think I’m going to start posting on my findings in writing – that experience of doing a major fiction project again is pretty informative.
  • Newsletter: A new newsletter comes out this Wednesday!  I also have to get all the new signups for my newsletter into the database!

Challenges and blockers:

  • Mostly challenges to do fiction writing again, I don’t quite have a sense of how long things take restored.  But hey live and learn.  This will improve in time – and I get to post my lessons.
  • There may be some challenges with training at work and some changes taking up time, so fair warning things might get delayed.

– Steve

Steve’s Agile Life: Writing Time

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)

As I write about my “Agile Life” experiment (where I use the Agile techniques in  Scrum) I hope to get others to think about time management.  Looks like my friend Serdar over at Genji press got himself a thinking about time management.

He gets into his own blogging, how he has to carve out time, and how his cadence for projects differs based on the kind of said projects.  It’s a great insight into what he as a blogger does – but also he talks about his way of blocking out work.

As a great deal of his work is writing, he blocks out a time to write each day, setting a minimum time.  If he’s not up for one thing, he’s up for another.  That’s a smart writing technique, and I wanted to note where something like this can fit into the Agile mindset.

  • First of all, he notes that he sets aside time to write, but doesn’t necessarily choose what he writes until he sits down.  This is a great idea on two counts – he has a block of time, and can make the call as to what’s needed at the time.
  • Secondly, if you use this technique, why not consider breaking your writing work down into hour increments and tasks?  That way if you set aside an hour, you can use it to measure progress on projects.  Also, great practice for work breakdowns.
  • Third, this gets you into the habit of practice.  With writing and certain other creative skills, many people respond well to regularity to both accomplish work and hone skills.  Why not make that Agile, with regular writing, broken down so you can slot it into your writing time?
  • Fourth, this removes roadblocks, which is a big part of why we use Agile techniques (as I heard it put once, the prime focus of any Agile method is to find what’s blocking you).  By having this general time you can go around other writing blockages – but by having a set time to write you keep up the regular work you need.

What’s funny for me is I’ve tried both techniques and tend to lean towards not writing each day.  I tend to like task-based writing, to accomplish “x” goal, be it 30 minutes or 2 hours of writing.  But it’s all about finding what works for you.

(Then there’s people asking if they need a definition of “Ready.  Let’s not get into that.)

– Steve