Blog – Page 6 – Kit Campbell Books

Pondering the Writers’ Conference

Howdy, squiders. I didn’t forget you this week.

I was recently discussing my lack of in-person writing groups, and how I’d like to do some networking, and it was suggested I go to our local writers’ conference to see who I can find.

(I do have my in-person critique group, itself a spin-off of an in-person group I joined a little over ten years ago. When I joined the group was quite healthy, consisting of 15-20 people of varying levels of experience, from award-winning traditionally published authors to people who had never completed a draft, and we met every other week for a few hours to discuss storycraft. The guy running it left, and over time it dwindled away and is now essentially defunct. I had another in-person group that met once a month, made up of people who all were actively publishing or trying to, but it didn’t really survive COVID in the same capacity. Also the person leading that one moved away, in what is apparently a trend.)

While writing is mostly a solitary activity, having a writing community is almost essential, I would say. Even the great writers of older ages had friends or groups they met with. CS Lewis and Tolkien were infamously friends, after all. Writing communities can give you feedback, help you hone your craft, hold your hand as you try new or difficult things, and pick you back up after disappointments. They can also provide opportunities for publication that you might not have otherwise had. I can think of at least two anthologies that I have stories in because people from my writing network reached out to me.

So it always helps to do some networking and connect with other writers.

So the big writers’ conference ’round these parts is Pikes Peak Writers Conference, hosted yearly in Colorado Springs. I’ve gone three times previously, in 2011, 2012, and 2017. In general it has been a useful experience, with a wide variety of panels and opportunities to connect with editors and agents. It could be, in theory, a good place to make new writing friends, people who are focused on bettering their craft and getting their work out into the world.

But I find myself leery of the idea. The conference in 2017 was not a good experience for me. I found several of the panels repetitive, telling me information I already knew. I had several disappointments trying to connect with agents, and got so frustrated at one point I may or may not have laid on the floor of my hotel room and cried.

In retrospect, I have to wonder if my experience there led to some of my trepidation about working on my main project in the years that followed.

There are other considerations as well. The conference is not cheap, and in previous years I have gone with–and shared hotel costs–with friends. I took a look at the agents and editors on the conference’s website, and not a one is looking for speculative fiction. If the panels were repetitive seven years ago, will they be more useful now, because it has been seven years, or will it be more of the same?

And, perhaps the biggest consideration of all, do I trust myself to actually try and make friends? I have traditionally stayed pretty close to the people I came with, and perhaps other people I know from other groups or places, and I suspect most people do travel in groups. Will I talk to new people, or will I just sit in the corner and be useless?

I’m leaning towards no, this isn’t the right answer. I might look at the other local writers’ conference, Colorado Gold, in the fall, but it’s on a bad weekend so also may not be doable. I’ve never been to that one, so if nothing else, it would be something new.

I could also look farther afield, and consider writers’ conferences in other states, but that doesn’t help me network with other local authors. (I don’t think I’d do a virtual conference at this point–they rarely have ways for you to connect with other attendees.)

So, alas, I think it’s not the answer. I shall have to think of something else to do.

See you next week, squiders!

WriYe and Hacks

HaHA we have broken the romance cycle!

For this month’s WriYe blog prompt, we have: List of “writing hacks” you swear by (and some you wish would just go away).

Now, squiders, for the life of me, I can’t think of any writing hacks. So I did a search to see what I could find. This garnered me a mixture of grammatical things, productivity hacks (arguably not the same thing), and a lot of “show, don’t tell.”

Though I am reminded of the time (Nano 2019, maybe?) where I read something that said using Comic Sans made things flow easier, and so I typed my whole novel in said Comic Sans, not necessarily because it was working (though the first draft did flow great–but I suspect that had more to do with my outlining than anything else) but because I was worried that if I stopped it would break my mindset somehow.

(That’s an idea, though–maybe I should write different genres in different fonts. Or maybe the whole idea is silly.)

(Also, seriously, screw these writing hacks lists. This one honestly lists point of view as a hack. That’s not a hack, that’s an essential part of a story.)

(I also enjoy this one that has “Use metaphors” as a hack immediately after “eliminate unnecessary expressions.” Make up your mind.)

For the sake of argument, let’s say there’s not any writing hacks. Writing is hard. Every story has its own hurdles and something like “eliminate every other speech tag” isn’t going to do anyone any favors.

I can get behind the productivity hacks, though arguably those aren’t “hacks” either. It’s surprisingly hard to find the right definition of “hack” on ye olde Interwebs, but I did find “the act of attempting to manipulate outcomes based on orchestrated actions.” Basically, a way to force the outcome you want in a predictable manner.

Hahahaha none of this is predictable. Creativity is, alas, not predictable. You can take steps to improve your chances–practice, read widely, take classes, etc. But I wouldn’t consider those hacks.

But the productivity, sure. My brain has some neurodivergent shenanigans it gets up to occasionally, and so “tricking” it into doing what I want to do can be useful from time to time. I like making lists, because it gives me a way to remind myself what I’m supposed to be doing.

Other things, like Pomodoro, don’t really work for me. (I can usually get through one Pomodoro, but then I get distracted during the break and never come back to it.) Writing sprints can be helpful, but only if I’m in the right frame of mind, and then I either get into the flow (and so don’t come back at the end of the sprint) or lose my focus during the break between sprints.

So basically what I’ve learned is that if I stop, I’m not coming back, and so those techniques are no bueno for me.

With productivity hacks, they’re really personal. What works for me may not work for you, and vice versa. I do like to try new ones from time to time, to mix things up, in case I could be doing better than I am. Usually not, but hey, it doesn’t hurt to try.

What about you, squider? What are your feelings on “hacks”? Favorite writing and/or productivity ones?

Why Must We Ruin Everything with Drama?

Good afternoon, squiders! First things first, SkillShare finally got back to me about my class (a MONTH and two tickets after I emailed them that I had fixed it, so not wild about their support) and it is fixed and live. It’s here, if you’re interested. It’s about Genre.

So, a few weeks ago, the smaller, mobile one and I started watching The Traitors, which is a game show on NBC which is essentially Among Us in Real Life. (It, like many other shows, is the American version of the British show, which is in itself based off another show. Dutch, maybe?)

(And, of course, Among Us is based off other, older games like Werewolf and Mafia.)

It plays very much like Among Us. There’s three “traitors” hidden among the “faithful” (like the imposters and crew), everyone works together to complete missions (like the tasks), there’s a round table each night where everyone votes someone off (like the meetings in Among Us), and if a traitor is still in the running at the end of the game, they win no matter what (same as in Among Us).

We blew through Season 1, which I really enjoyed. There were 20 people, half of whom had been on other reality shows, and half of whom were just normal people. I got into the strategy and the game play and was invested in who was going to win.

It made me nostalgic for the depths of lockdown, when I could play Among Us for an hour or so every day with my friends. Now we never play at all because everyone’s busy, and they’ve changed the game anyway so it’s not quite as psychological as it used to be.

Season 2 is currently airing, so we gave ourselves a few days to revel in Season 1 and then started Season 2.

Oh, squiders. Oh no.

For Season 2 they decided they’d do only reality show people. And it is awful. I’m not a reality show person. I don’t see the appeal in watching loud people be mean to each other. The normal people in Season 1 tamped down the stupid drama from the reality people. There was still a bit, but it wasn’t bad and it wasn’t that annoying.

But with Season 2 it’s everywhere. I want to watch the game, not the drama. Did we need the drama? Arguably no. It’s stupid and it’s petty and it is annoying, and the game is getting lost. If I wanted to watch drama I’d watch the other shows, you know?

And the parts I liked–the strategizing and trying to guess what people were going to do, especially in response to the twists the show throws in–are also getting lost. And there’s been some neat twists in Season 2, like the traitors having to murder someone in plain sight! But I can’t even appreciate them around everything else.

Maybe it’ll get better. Maybe as we have less and less players the drama will die down a bit and we’ll focus more on the game. Or not.

I have to wonder–is this season doing better than the last? Did other people want more drama? Who decided this was a good thing?

Alas, squiders, alas.

Are you a reality TV person? Are you watching The Traitors, and if so, what is your opinion on this season versus the last? Feelings about drama in game shows in general?

Game On

Good evening, squiders!

If you recall, I added in a video game goal for the year, which is supposed to be about five hours a week, but life is uneven and nothing can be relied upon, so how it’s really manifesting is that I’ve been picking three Steam games per month to focus on, with the hopes of beating them.

This is actually working really well, because when my brain is too fried for writing, instead of binging YouTube or playing hours of Minesweeper, I’m turning to these games instead and actually making some progress.

I thought we’d look at the games I’ve played thus far and see how they’re going.

(As a bit of background, I have a lot of Steam games that I’ve never played or have only touched for a short time, because I tend to buy bundles and then get overwhelmed by choice and so play none of them. I’d like to make the list more manageable and, you know, play games that I paid money for. Otherwise it’s a lot like my notebook collection.)

January

I picked three games for January: Paperbark, Assemble with Care, and the Beasts of Maravilla Island. Paperbark is one of my oldest games, from a bundle that was raising money for the Australian wildfires, and Beasts was from a cozy game bundle I bought in 2023.

I got through all three games and then poked some of the older ones that I’d tried and never really gotten very far on, to see what the deal was.

Paperbark

In Paperback you play as a wombat. The graphics in the game frankly overwhelmed my last computer, which is why I’d never gotten very far, and even with my new computer it was still pretty laggy. Basically you wander through the undergrowth (everything is fogged and is revealed as you move) and attempt to find various things. I did end up getting through the whole game story-wise and decided I didn’t care enough about completion to try to fight with the graphics anymore. (5/10)

Beasts of Maravilla Island

Beasts reminds me a lot of Amazon Trail, actually, which was a favorite of mine as a kid. You travel through three different fantastical environments, taking pictures of the wildlife and learning about various species. There is a light storyline which is relatively interesting as well. (8/10)

Assemble with Care

Assemble with Care is a puzzle game where you repair various objects. The play is all in the repair puzzles, which get harder and more complex as the game goes on, though each object is accompanied by a long-ish story portion, and the game is ostensibly about repairing relationships as much as the objects that accompany them. This was one of my newest game, and I enjoyed the puzzles, which were just the right level of challenging. (8/10)

The Perfect Tower II

I don’t remember getting this game (and, indeed, it’s free because it’s early access) but I did poke it to see what it was. (I swear sometimes games just show up in my library. Or maybe I added it randomly because it was free and then forgot about it. I mean, I don’t normally do that, but anything is possible.) It’s a tower defense game with the added mechanic of having a little town you build on the side to help you upgrade things. Fairly fun but also addictive, so I categorized it and put it to the side. (7.5/10)

Evoland

Evoland, again, is one of my oldest games. You play through the evolution of games, so you start with black and white 2D graphics (and no music) and through a series of chests, unlock things like save files, sound, color, 3D graphics, etc. I am ridiculously bad at this game. I find it so, so frustrating, and I’ve never been able to make it terribly far. Nothing has changed. (3/10)

Race the Sun

I think I got this game in my very first Steam bundle, whatever the heck that was. Race the Sun reminds me a lot of some game from the ’80s that I only barely remember. You’re a solar craft, and you need to fly around obstacles and see how far you can go, and you unlock upgrades and so forth as you complete goals. Apparently it was supposed to update daily but has been abandoned by the developers at this point. Relatively fun, no story, bit of a time waster. Upgrades don’t come quickly. (4.5/10)

February

For this month I selected Strange Horticulture, Garden Story, and A Short Hike. I also poked at Townscaper which I bought on a whim because someone in the reviews said it was very relaxing, and I was stressed at the time (and the game was on sale).

I haven’t touched Strange Horticulture yet this month, but I was playing it on and off throughout the end of 2023 and I believe I’m about done with it. You run a horticulture shop and have to identify which plants are which and then use them to fix people’s problems (there’s also a storyline going about some sort of ancient evil in the forest). I really like it, I’m just bad at focusing. Fingers crossed that I get a good ending. I like puzzle games, but only some sorts of puzzles.

A Short Hike

This game may have come out of the cozy game bundle too. A Short Hike involves getting your little bird character to the top of the mountain on an island to get cell phone service (and doing little adventure game things along the way. I traded a turtle a trowel for a big shovel and now I can dig up treasure, woot.). I’ve only played it about 15 minutes thus far because I’m having some control issues.

Townscaper

Not really a game, more like a zen garden. With Townscaper you click various places and it grows pavement or buildings or what have you. It is relaxing. For about 10 minutes.

Garden Story

Garden Story is an adventure game where you play a grape named Concord and attempt to save the Grove from the rot that’s eating it. My first session I wasn’t convinced about the game, but it’s growing on me, har har. Google tells me it takes 20-40 hours to get through the game so we’re going to be at it for a while.

So that’s the year in games thus far! Definitely making some progress, though it feels like a drop in the bucket. I’ve got 77 games uncategorized, and my hope is to beat some and categorize at least a few more (I have a category for games that I’ve tried and given up on for whatever reason–no reason to waste time on games I’m not enjoying, right? I also have a category for online multiplayer games to play with friends and one for games I really like that I can come back to over and over.)

My categories are thus:

Beat the Game But Would Play Again (currently only Oxenfree, which I HIGHLY recommend, very creepy, and two “find the cats” games)
Beat the Game! (for games I have beaten and probably will not play again)
Fun! (the aforementioned category for games I really like)
Idle Games (idle miners and clickers)
Online Multiplayer (self-explanatory)
Tried but Eh (didn’t like or were frustrating for whatever reason)
Uncategorized

Oh well.

Are you a computer gamer, squider? Do you use Steam for your games? (I have Epic and Amazon too, but I primarily use Steam.) Favorite game you’ve played recently?

Hey, Did You Know if you Try to Do Everything at Once, it’s Overwhelming?

Good afternoon, squiders!

As you know, the winter critique marathon is going on right now at one of my online writing communities. Week 5 just started so we’ve done four weeks and I’ve had five chapters critiqued in that time frame.

So, Friday, I said to myself, okay, time to go back through said five chapters, make changes, and send chapters 15 and 16 (the third and fourth chapters through the marathon respectively) to my in-person critique group.

Friday, however, I had to run a ton of errands and was generally very productive, but the editing didn’t get done. Saturday my computer went on the fritz, so no editing got done. Sunday was Scouts all morning and a play in the afternoon (Misery, based off the Stephen King novel), so, you guessed it, the editing did not get done.

By the time Monday morning came around, I was a mess, mad at myself for not doing the work earlier and thoroughly overwhelmed by the amount I now needed to do in a single day (revisions on five chapters, a readthrough of a sixth to post for this week), and so, do you know what I did?

I spent three hours watching YouTube and eating chocolate.

I did eventually get going and am most of the way through the third chapter (just need to finish up the last person’s comments), but I definitely spiraled there for a bit. Which is stupid, because it just makes things worse, but I got so overwhelmed I couldn’t function.

So, clearly, the answer here is to NOT wait and do a whole month’s updates at once, which made me think about how I was doing the summer marathon. And it took me a minute to remember, because I have the brain of a goldfish.

So, once upon a time (probably the beginning of 2023, but maybe in 2022) I printed out the first half or so of the book with beta comments included from when I first finished that draft (so, like, 2017) and had had people read it. So I was doing my paper edits on that, editing, and then posting that chapter in the marathon. And then I wasn’t doing anything with that during the marathon, just making sure I could get the next chapter done in time to post.

And then after the marathon I was re-printing out the chapters, color-coding all the marathon people’s comments on that, and doing edits from there (so everyone’s stuff was in one spot and I could see if there were specific spots that were throwing people).

But the marathon ended and I kept going. I reached the end of my earlier printed out stuff and have, since then, been printing out chapters as I needed them and doing the paper edits. I was about five chapters ahead and am now two, because I do need to critique other people’s stuff and that takes time and brain power.

(I just now realized my in-person critique group is a week later than I thought, so I have freaked out for literally nothing. Oh my god.)

I’ve done these edits on the computer, putting my document and the critiquer’s document side by side, but now I’m wondering if I should do the double paper edit like I was over the summer. Except that seems like a waste of paper. I don’t know.

Long story short–spread out projects, and pay attention to when your critique meetings actually are.

See you later in the week, squiders!

Writing is Directly Responsible for My Coffee Addiction

Hey ho, squiders. February, amirite? Actually, January felt like it lasted a million years, so I don’t even know.

I drink a lot of coffee, my friends. A cup or two, almost every day. Sometimes three. (Never more than three. I have learned my lesson.) Sometimes a cup of decaf in the afternoons.

In fact, we got a new coffee maker for Christmas.

But it wasn’t always like this. Once upon a time, I disliked the taste of coffee and did not drink it at all. I’m immune to caffeine. It doesn’t wake or keep me up, which is both a blessing and a curse. (It will, eventually, make me jittery, though.) I didn’t drink it in either high school or college. The one time I did, in college, I got a latte at the airport after we’d left our college town at 3 am to make a 6 am flight in the hopes of staying awake. (Instead I passed out on the floor and one of my teammates had to wake me up so I didn’t miss the plane.)

My junior year of college is when I started writing again (after writing as a child and in high school). I met with other writers at diners or hung out with my best friend at a local tea shop. I’d get a milkshake or a pot of tea and a scone and write. This was often my favorite time of the week. Still no coffee.

After graduation, we moved to California and I joined a local writing group there, and they met at a coffee shop every Sunday. Of course, you can get non-coffee drinks at a coffee shop, but it’s not quite the same. I also started meeting with a friend one night a week to write, at another coffee shop.

And here is where I discovered mochas. A mocha is a mixture of coffee and chocolate and milk, and they are really bad for you, just fyi. Lots of calories. But for someone surrounded by coffee drinkers who did not like coffee, they were a good entry point. So I’d go meet with my friends two or three times a week, and I’d have a mocha.

And then I had to stop, because as I said, they’re high in calories, and I actually gained some weight.

When we moved back out here, my father in law gifted us the coffee maker we had up until Christmas, which was your basic single carafe Mr. Coffee machine. We used it exactly once a year, at Thanksgiving, so people could have some coffee to counteract the turkey. But once again I started meeting other writers for writing. One group met at an IHOP, so I could get a milkshake, but the rest were coffee shops.

One group met on, oh, Friday nights, I think. 10 pm to 2 am. I’d get a whole pot of coffee and drink it through the meeting.

And this was a terrible mistake. I fried my stomach lining. It got to the point where I had to give up coffee completely–even drinks that were mostly milk–because the smallest amount would cause severe abdominal pain. I think I went three years without any coffee at all.

Then I joined a workout class, and after class on Fridays everyone would go hang out at the Starbucks and socialize. There I found I could drink espresso drinks (but not coffee, which makes no sense whatsoever).

And over time I, I don’t know, built up my tolerance or something, and I could again return to my coffee drinks at my coffee shops with my writing people. My spouse and I also got a French press and had coffee on Sundays.

So that was my life, up until the pandemic. Coffee was something I associated with writing with friends, which was almost always a good time.

But with the pandemic, and being stuck at home–well, coffee was something I associated with Good. My spouse and I broke out the Mr. Coffee and started having coffee several days a week. For comfort. I did virtual coffee dates with my friends. I drank coffee around my inability to focus because the world was falling apart and the small, mobile ones were always home and needed help (a four year old cannot tell time enough to go to their own zoom meetings). I did virtual write-ins.

It was very much an attempt at peace and normalcy. Did it work? Not especially. But four years down the line, it’s an extremely hard habit to break. Part of me says I should wean myself off, that too much caffeine, even if it’s not affecting my sleep patterns (though it still hurts my stomach if I drink it too late in the day), is bad for you, and that once or twice a week is reasonable and should be a goal.

The other part of me says I like coffee, it is calming to some degree, and most studies say that a cup of day isn’t going to hurt you. Why should I take away something I find enjoyable?

A conundrum. The new coffee maker helps not at all, because the addition of the pod side means I can make myself a cup without making a pot, making the whole process even easier. (We’re trying to make sure we get the kind without plastic because oh boy.)

I suspect that, if I hadn’t started drinking coffee at my writing groups, I never would have started. It was definitely an acquired taste. Mostly I drink mine black with a splash of oatmilk, and my favorite drink at my favorite shop is kind of like a mocha, but more coffee and less milk to make it healthier.

How about you, squiders? Addicted to coffee, and how did you end up there? Thoughts on caffeine in general?

The Benefits of Paper Edits

Evening, squiders. I just need to get through this week and then things will calm down, fingers crossed.

I mentioned last week how my spouse was asking about my printing out the chapters to edit them, and then last night I saw the reasons in action.

Brains are weird. They work in strange ways, and sometimes the simple act of changing the way you’re looking at something reveals new issues, or provides a new solution, or any number of things.

I write primarily on the computer. I might handwrite sometimes, but in general I find it doesn’t flow as easily for me, and I do type up everything I handwrite anyway. I’ll re-read on the computer as well, and do lower level edits and revisions there.

I’d like to think I’m catching most of the issues there, but experience says I’m not. For some reason, printing a chapter (or a story) out onto paper resets something in your brain. Maybe it’s a visual thing. Maybe it’s a texture thing. I’m not sure and I’m too tired right now to go and look. But you see things on paper you miss on a screen.

Also, with a paper copy, you can more easily make bigger changes. I know someone who will physically cut the paper version apart if things need to be reordered. I like to underline or highlight problem words so I can see how often I’m using them, and I’ll use the margins to brainstorm solutions or ask myself questions, or point out something that’s not working and list possible fixes.

(Also there’s something very satisfying about scribbling out a section that is not working.)

As a final step, I will read the story out loud, because this again resets something in your brain and reveals new problems you didn’t know you were having. (Normally sentence-level flow issues, at least for me.)

Right now I’m working on the re-typing phase of Chapter 20.

(Revision steps go something like this:

Print out chapter
Read over notes I made about chapter
Do paper edit with red pen, highlighting overused words, noting things that need changing, writing myself notes
Re-type the chapter, making changes as I go, which includes fixing plot level issues or confusing areas, as well as fixing flow or voice as needed
Repeat with next chapter)

When I did the paper edit on Chapter 20, I was pretty impressed with myself. “This is a good chapter,” I said. “Interesting things happen, and this is a good plot development, and the characterization is also working really well. I think I only need to clean some things up and add in more explanation in a couple of places.”

Last night I spent about an hour on the retyping phase. And that’s where I found this particular issue.

There’s a bunch of looking, gazing, glancing, etc. The viewpoint character’s eyes are doing ALL the work.

THIS is why I revise in multiple mediums. AND why I retype. My initial readthrough didn’t catch this issue. I didn’t catch it in the paper edit. But by working back through the chapter again, rewriting the chapter, it was obvious. And now I know I need to do another sweep to catch and fix filtering issues.

Because, invariably, when I notice something, readers will notice it too. Without fail. Sometimes I’ll leave something in before I send a chapter out for critique, and if it is something I’ve noted, someone else will always bring it up.

After all, if something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right. And I really, really want this to be the last revision on this book.

Do you know why different mediums help your brain see different issues, squider? Favorite thing about working on paper versus the computer?

No guarantees about Thursday or Friday, but hopefully I’ll see you then!

Already the High is Wearing Off

First, before we get to anything else, can someone check and see if this last SkillShare class is actually live? I posted it, oh, last Friday, I think, and SkillShare wrote back that they’d hidden it because they felt the instructions for the project weren’t explicit enough, so I fixed that and wrote back on Tuesday, and, well, I’ve heard nothing. But I think you can find it in the search–though I don’t know if you can actually sign up for it.

The class is here: https://skl.sh/3ROgPhr

Thank you in advance.

Tuesday we talked about how perhaps some of the reason the beginning of the year contains such promise is because it’s kind of a weird, well, not liminal time, but a period where there’s a bunch of hope coupled with a weird lack of other things to do (due to the holidays being over and normal life not running at full speed yet).

I think we’re hitting that point where life gets back up to speed and everything goes back to normal, and everyone’s productivity falls off to standard levels.

(In fact, at my gym class yesterday, the teacher was like, we’ve made it past the two week drop-off!)

(Though I started going in mid-December so it’s unrelated to any resolutions anyway.)

Actually, when I sat down to write this post, I was like, oh, I haven’t done anything since Tuesday! Which isn’t true, in retrospect, because I did do some painting in my sketch journal and do my critiques for the critique marathon, but something does…feel different.

Which now that I’m typing it up, may just be my own brain getting in the way.

Or, it may be that Tuesday’s blog post was the last thing I did on a very successful Tuesday where I got a ton done, which was a snow day right after the MLK holiday (so two days in a row where I got a ton done, because the spouse was out of the house and the small, mobile ones spent a ton of time on a joint Minecraft project and I was left on my own) and that skewed my perceptions of everything ever.

Consciousness is both a blessing and a curse.

Life has been very life-y the past few days, which isn’t helping. Also, my laptop will NOT talk to the printer which is making it hard to print out chapters for paper editing.

(Also my spouse was like, why do you print them out anyway? And I tried to explain how your brain works differently editing on paper versus on a screen and I think he probably doesn’t believe me. But anyway.)

(Also I can scribble all over paper with a red pen which is very satisfying.)

(Anyway.)

How are you feeling, squider? Do you agree about the first few weeks of January? Is your momentum starting to slow, or is it still smooth sailing?

Oh, I just thought of something else. Maybe part of why the beginning of January is so productive is because you still remember all your goals. Like, invariably when I go over my goals at the end of the year, I find some things that I have completely forgotten about. Like last year, I was going to publish Deep and Blue and then I…didn’t. Just completely spaced it. I don’t know why, but I make goal documents and then I don’t check them periodically (though I have, hopefully, built in a monthly check for this year. Time will tell), and then at the end of the year I am eternally surprised.

(I brought this up on WriYe, where everyone has a thread with their goals at the very beginning, because someone else was mentioning the same thing. Checking goals is, in theory, as easy as looking at your very first post, and yet…)

So! Maybe part of the productivity is you remember all your projects and can make progress on all of them.

Or maybe I should stop worrying about the psychology of goal setting, and just work on my revision.

See you next week, squiders!

False Sense of Security

Hey-ho, squiders.

So far, January is going great! I’ve read three books (and have decent amounts read of 3 more), I beat three video games and moved two more into my “don’t bother” category (I tend to buy game bundles, so every now and then I find a game that I don’t like/is too frustrating/is not fun, etc. and instead of forcing myself to play it, I just move it into this category and move on), I made a cover for Deep and Blue (and had it critiqued), I finished Chapter 19 of my revision (though not sure I’m happy with it) and did the paper edit for Chapter 20, and have Chapter 14 up for this week of the critique marathon, I made example projects for all my SkillShare classes, and, fingers crossed, I’ve reposted the last of the ones that were taken down (just waiting for confirmation on that).

Oh, and I made significant progress in my sketch journal (finished the line art and notes from the Scotland trip, completed the trip after that, and did line art for the final trip that will fit in the book) and have been doing some other drawings as well.

Deep and Blue cover — *Deep and Blue* cover

This morning I was working on my blog post for Turtleduck Press, and I was pondering why my and other people’s Januarys tend to be so productive.

Sure, some of it could be the whole “yay new year, new possibilities” thing. Most people do give the whole resolution thing a try, and normally stick with it for at least a little bit.

But I think what it actually is is that, in general, people have more free time in January. October/November/December (Hallowthanksmas) is a crazy time. Christmas is especially time consuming, with presents, decorations, parties, activities, cards and all that jazz. I know by the time Christmas morning raised its head, I was exhausted.

January, on the other hand, has no holidays that take a lot of mental and physical time. New Year’s is over as soon as it starts, and aside from attending some events on MLK Day, or maybe reading an applicable book or watching a movie, most people don’t put a ton of effort into that either. The next holiday that might take some prep work is Valentine’s Day, and we still have a few more weeks before you need to worry about that.

Aside from that, there’s just not a lot going on in January anyway. Everyone’s burnt out from the holidays, it’s too cold to spend a ton of time outside, the kids have a whole week before they have to go back to school. It’s almost peaceful.

So. More free time. This tied in with the “I’m going to become a better person this year” mentality tends to allow most of us to make significant progress in the first few weeks of the year.

Here is where the false sense of security comes in. I’m doing it, we think. I am actually going to make meaningful progress this year.

And then everything picks up and life goes back to normal, and we feel like failures. We’re not, of course–but after making amazing progress, it can be hard to go back to the status quo.

Don’t beat yourselves up, squiders. Embrace what you got done, and be gentle with yourself moving forward.

January will come again.

See you Thursday!

Dealing with Critiques and Commentary

It’s been an interesting week, squiders.

(And a tiring one. I’ve got a cold and so I haven’t been able to sleep much. Part of me wants to go take a nap, but it’s not like I’m going to be able to breathe any better right now.)

Both my in-person critique group and the critique marathon got Chapter 13 this week, and to say there is a range of responses would be an understatement. At times like these, it’s good to remind myself how to deal with receiving critiques, especially ones that don’t agree with each other.

Betas and critique partners are great, and I try to always have at least one person read anything I write before I do something with it. But they are people, with their own likes and biases, and what one says isn’t necessarily the best thing for your story.

So I have a few basic rules. Or thought processes, I guess.

Rule 1: Did more than one person point this out?

If multiple people are pointing out the same thing, it’s probably a problem. (Unless they’re all saying “I really like this part!”) I always take an extra long look at something that multiple people bring up, and in almost all cases, something needs to be changed.

(Sometimes it just needs to be re-worded, though. Those are the best.)

Actually, this is my favorite sort of commentary. Consensus is good. Consensus is easy to fix (relatively).

It’s when everyone has differing opinions, sometimes even opposite problems, that you run into harder problems.

Rule 2: Consider all commentary equally

In cases where only one person has pointed something out, or where you only have one reader in general, I still feel like you have to give that person’s point full consideration. Sometimes there’s the inclination to discount something because, say, you had five people read this and only one pointed it out, so obviously the problem is with that person. They read something wrong, or they misunderstood, or something.

And sometimes that’s true! And certainly you can’t fix everything for everyone.

But sometimes that one person did find something that everyone else missed, or perhaps they’ve come up with a better way to do something, something that will be more coherent in the long run.

And I do try to minimize the amount of confusion.

So I do sit with each person’s commentary, and try to see the story how they saw it, and then I decide if I agree with their point or not. Or, in extreme cases, I go and find someone else to read that section and see what that person says, and if anything they say lines up with the commentary the first person had.

Or you can go directly to the person and ask for clarification, or bounce potential fixes off of them.

Right now, I have two spots brought up by one of my in-person people that I’m waiting to see if the critique marathon people bring up (I haven’t looked at the line by line commentary yet, only the overall commentary), and one of the critique marathon people has a problem that didn’t bother my in-person people at all.

(There’s also a spot that all my in-person people brought up, so I’m interested to see if the critique marathon people also find it. I did run through the chapter between the in-person and marathon and make some changes, but I left this one alone out of curiosity. I’ll give it a second look when I go back through the chapter with the marathon commentary.)

Rule 3: Don’t take anything personally

It can be tempting, especially if you get a heap of negative feedback, to mope around and feel sorry for oneself and bemoan your writing skills and all that. (Or I do, anyway.) This is silly and you mustn’t dwell on it for too long. Critique partners do tend to dwell on the negative; they want to help you find problems so you can fix them and make the story better. But it’s not a judgment on you or even your writing, really. So don’t let it get to you, even if you are sick and haven’t slept in three days.

I find sometimes getting to work fixing the comments (or making decisions about the comments) can help you move past this stage.

(Some people are just mean, though. Don’t work with those people anyway, they suck.)

Anyway, fixing is for tomorrow, unless I get sicker, and then Doctor Who binging is for tomorrow and fixing is for Saturday.

Thoughts on critique commentary, squiders? Tips or tricks you swear by?