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Well, it's of note to me, maybe not to many other peoples.
Writing is FUN. It is multo happy making.
That is all.
Go about your business!
Posted by Justine at 23:53, January 30th, 2010 under Writing life, Writing process |
Irish writer,
Sarah Rees Brennan, and I spend a lot of time IMing each other. We talk about many, many different things---including the superiority of Ireland and Australia to all other nations ((Just kidding.))---but mostly about writing. Recently when I was unwell SRB cheered me up by telling me the story of two of her not-yet-written novels. It was better than chicken soup! As any of you who have read her novel,
Demon’s Lexicon, or
her blog know, SRB is a wonderful storyteller.
It was not the first time SRB had told me the complete detailed plot of an as-yet-unwritten novel but this time I started wondering about how she does that. When I write a novel I ...
Posted by Justine at 17:42, January 26th, 2010 under Writing life, Writing process, Young Adult literature |
Thank you so much for all the
wonderful, moving, scary, funny stories about hair.
I wanted to highlight this comment from
Wonders of Maybe because it underlines how hair and fashion and politics and identity (self and imposed from the outside) co-exist:
Hmm --- I'm multiracial (Black/Native American/White) and very, very light-skinned with extremely thick, curly hair. I'm talking spirals on "good" days and fluffy frizz on "bad" days! When I was young I wanted to straighten my hair because of how much I got hassled but once I turned 12, I was intent upon my hair staying natural. With such light skin, I feel it's an honest indicator of what I am and who I am since ...
Posted by Justine at 21:45, January 5th, 2010 under Fashion, State of the World, Writing process |
Searching for something else entirely, I stumbled across
this old post from March 2007 where I asked my faithful readers to help me choose what to write next. I decided it would be fun to do an update. Fun for me, anyways. ((Hey, it's the holidays no one's reading this right now.))
First on the list of possibilities is this one:
The compulsive liar book narrated by a—you guessed it—compulsive liar. Downside: will involve lots of outlining. I hates outlining. Plus it’s going to be so hard! Upside: whenever I mention this one folks get very excited.
Sound familiar? Why, yes, it's the book I wrote next: Liar which published in September this year. As it happens it involved no outlining at ...
Posted by Justine at 19:59, December 26th, 2009 under 1930s NYC novel, Liar, Love is Hell, Writing goals & milestones, Writing life, Writing process |
Micah, the first person narrator of Liar, is very explicit about music not being her thing:
I hate music. It hurts my ears, my brain. Even the membranes in my nose. Any music. All music. I can’t distinguish between hip hop and hillbilly ramblings, between symphonies and traffic noise. All of it hurts.
So it's a bit weird given that I listened to so much music while writing Liar. I know that she would hate very single one of these, but they were essential for me to get in the right state to be able to write Micah's voice. I needed short cuts to sadness, anger and confusion. Hence the following songs proving to be just the ticket:...
Posted by Justine at 4:14, December 19th, 2009 under Liar, Writing process |
This is it the very last tip of NaNoWriMo 2009! At the end of this day you will be done! Woohoo!
Of course, you're not really done. Not even if you managed to finish a whole novel in one month. Though if you did, congrats! I've never managed that. My hat is off to you. As it is to everyone who took part this month no matter how many words you wrote or how close you got to
completion.
But what to do with your finished
zero draft? How do you turn it into a first draft? Or better yet a finished draft?
Well that, my friends, requires a great deal of rewriting. Lucky for you I have written the essential ...
Posted by Justine at 0:42, November 30th, 2009 under Writing process |
It's my second last NaNoWriMo post! Wow, that went fast. You've all been at it for 28 days now. ((Unless you haven't started today's writing.)) Which leads me to suspect that some of you may be feeling quite sore about now.
Writing, like any job that involves spending hours in front of a computer, has a high injury rate. Almost every pro writer I know has some kind of neck/back/wrist problem. Carpal tunnel syndrome and other repetitive strain injury are very common.
At the end of almost every first draft deadline, when I've been writing every day for weeks and weeks on end, and my writing days have stretched out from four hours to twelve or longer, my upper back ...
Posted by Justine at 16:47, November 28th, 2009 under Writing process |
Only four more days of
NaNoWriMo to go, and I'm noticing that a lot of people are beating up on themselves. They haven't met their deadlines. They haven't got enough words. Their words aren't good enough. The muse is missing! Etc, etc.
Welcome to the wonderful world of being a writer.
At every level, writers beat up on themselves. If they're not published yet, then that's their source of grief. If they are published, then they aren't selling enough, well reviewed enough, or haven't won enough awards. If they are award-winning bestsellers, their publisher makes them tour all the time. And because they're touring all the time, they're too tired and sick to write.
Oh, the woe that it is to be ...
Posted by Justine at 13:39, November 26th, 2009 under Writing process |
Lately many white writers have been asking me about writing characters who aren't white. Quite a few are doing NaNoWriMo, so I decided I'd put my responses into the NaNo tips.
I've been asked the following questions: Why should I have non-white characters in my books? How do I write about non-white people if I've never known any? Should I write about non-white people at all?
I've already
addressed some of
these questions a
number of times. I'm not sure if any of my responses are adequate. These are complicated questions that I wrestle with myself.
And, of course, I feel very weird being put in the position of giving people permission to write. No one can do that ...
Posted by Justine at 13:58, November 24th, 2009 under State of the World, Writing process, Young Adult literature |
Yesterday Scott talked about the importance of
rereading books you love to figure out how the writer made you react the way you did. He advised rereading good books. Today I'm going to recommend reading and examining bad books.
This may sound like strange advice but often you learn more from examining a broken thing than something that's in perfect working order. It's actually easier to do this than it is to figure out how a good book achieves its effects. This is because it's much harder to get sucked into the narrative of a book that's broken. Every time I reread Pride and Prejudice I have to work crazy hard to look closely at the writing and avoid getting ...
Posted by Justine at 11:32, November 22nd, 2009 under Writing process |
It's day twenty and I've seen some talk on NaNoNoWriMo blogs of muses showing up or, more often, not. I'm sure for some of you muses are a very useful metaphor for your creative process. However, sitting on your arse waiting for them to show up? Frequently not a good approach to actual writing.
"Oh noes! My muse is not here! I cannot write! Instead I will play Left 4 Dead 2 until muse shows up."
This method will leave you with kickarse zombie killing skills but will not be much chop when it comes to, you know, writing.
Now, I'm not a very spiritual or mystical person, so feel free to ignore me. But I can tell you that even my most ...
Posted by Justine at 13:25, November 20th, 2009 under Writing process |
Yesterday's post led to
Kilks suggesting that I base a NaNo tip on it, which I am now doing.
One of the biggest flaws in beginner writing is a reliance on stereotypes and cliches which produces characters who never come to life because they lack verisimilitude. The female protag faints and is afraid of spiders. The male one is brave and strong. Or vice versa. And that's all there is to them. They're thinner than paper.
What do I mean by a stereotype? Let's look at one that frequently shows up in US teen movies and books: the dumb jock.
Now am I saying that you can't write about a dumb jock? No, absolutely not. I'm saying that if you're writing a ...
Posted by Justine at 15:42, November 18th, 2009 under Writing process |
I know I wrote a whole tip telling you to ease up on yourself and
expect badness in your first draft. I encouraged you to just pound it out and leave the editing till later.
Sadly, that doesn't work for every writer. Nor does it work for every book. Although I bashed out a crappy zero draft for the majority of my books, I wrote Liar editing as I went. I don't think it would have worked to have written it any other way.
I wrote Liar scene by scene. Working on each one until it was polished and gleaming and then, and only then, moving on to the next one. The scenes in Liar are pretty short so it ...
Posted by Justine at 13:51, November 16th, 2009 under Liar, Writing process |
Yes, it's time for some more vaguely contradictory advice. So first a word on that. Here's why this tip is not contradictory. No one technique or strategy works for every writer. They don't even work for one writer all the time. There are times when the only way I can get any writing done is to cut off from all external stimuli, most especially the internet. Sometimes I can't write if there's music on. But other times I need music and I need the internet.
Sometimes my procrastination feeds my writing.
That's right, sometimes procrastination is your friend.
Yes, I know I just told you to
turn the internet off. Well, now I'm telling you to turn it back on again. Or ...
Posted by Justine at 13:30, November 14th, 2009 under Writing process |
It's day 12 and on the NaNoWriMo blogs there's much talk of word counts missed, scenes not written, and of generally falling behind. Now that is to be expected. As previously mentioned I do not think you should be freaking out about
word counts. NaNoWriMo is chance to stretch and grow. However, I can't help noticing that those same blog bemoaning lack of progress are also full of talk of excellent blogs with great NaNoWriMo advice and sundry other things discovered on these wonderous intramanets. Could it be that the one is getting in the way of the other?
Perhaps now is the time to rip the DSL from the wall, switch your cable off, hide your modem. Maybe you ...
Posted by Justine at 12:23, November 12th, 2009 under Writing process |
The event at
Books of Wonder with
Libba Bray,
Kristin Cashore,
Suzanne Collins, me and
Scott last night was astonishing. Several people said they thought there were around 200 people there. I could not possibly guess from where I was sitting, but it did indeed appear to be many.
Here's my bad fuzzy photo of the many:
It was pretty overwhelming to be on the bill with such popular writers, especially Suzanne Collins. For those who don't know, her two most recent novels, Hunger Games and Catching Fire are currently, and have been for some time, numbers one and two on The New York Times bestsellers list, selling bajillions of copies a week. The Books ...
Posted by Justine at 17:03, November 11th, 2009 under Book tour, New York City/USA, Writing life, Writing process, Young Adult literature |
I hope you all saw
Scott's tip yesterday, the first of a series on meta-documents. Though now that I use
Scrivener, I no longer use meta-documents. Or, rather, I do but they're all incorporated into the one Scrivener document so it doesn't feel like lots of different documents.
But I digress: on to today's tip which has nothing to do with meta-documents and also kind of contradicts my previous tip about using
square brackets. It emerges from a conversation I had with the marvellous
Sarah Rees Brennan. It turns out that she does not skip the boring or tricky bits but instead bribes herself into writing them. Her reward is to write the fun scene on the other side of the tricky bit. So if she doesn't write the scene she's been avoiding then she's not allowed to write the scene she really wants to write.
There are many reasons for doing this but the most frequently cited one is that if you skip all the hard bits---as I advised you to do in the square bracket post---you may never finish the book. As
Zeborah puts it:
It means I write all the easy parts of the book first, meaning I have to write all the hard parts later in a single chunk, meaning I probably won’t finish the book. Whereas if I force myself to write entirely in order, I can use a future easy-and-fun scene as a reward for getting through a hard scene.
Another reason not to skip tricky scenes is that sometimes you don't know whether a scene is going to be hard until you've written it. I can't tell you how many times a scene I was dreading has turned out to be easy and vice versa. A slightly spoilery Liar example after the cut:
Posted by Justine at 13:42, November 10th, 2009 under Writing process |
From various sources, I see that a few people are a little freaked when the tips Scott and me have been sharing don't work for you. Please to relax. No writing tip works for everyone. And even if it does work for you now, it might not always. For instance, I no longer use
square brackets though once I found them extremely useful. My last novel had no
zero draft. Some novels I write without paying attention to
daily word counts, some novels I do. I've not used a
time line for most of my books. I've never
dialogue spined an entire novel.
I recently learned that in certain fandoms OTP stands for One True Pairing. ...
Posted by Justine at 21:57, November 9th, 2009 under Viewing, Writing process |
By now I'm sure you're all racing along in the land of NaNoWriMo: tap tap tappety tap tap. Your little fingers tripping across your keyboard. What a blessed sound that is!
But, wait, you've stopped? Why?
Is it because the bit you have to write next is a tad too complicated (how does a nuclear reactor work?) and/or requires research (when a car explodes do the windows go flying out? how far? what does it sound like exactly?) or is too squishy (you got to the love scene, didn't you?) or you're not in the mood (writing journeys is boring).
Rather than come to a grinding halt why not square bracket it?
By which I mean do this:
Janice Lardano got out of ...
Posted by Justine at 16:46, November 8th, 2009 under Writing process |
One of the most frequent complaints I'm hearing from those down the NaNoWriMo word mines is that they keep getting stuck.
As it happens I have already written a post on
how to get unstuck. It is rather lengthy, however, so here's a quick and dirty version of what you should do when you get stuck:
Dance. That's right, get up from the computer, turn whatever music you like up loud, and shake it! Dance! Dance! Dance! Do it till you're sweating. Then dance some more.
Run around the block. For some of us dancing is just not our thing. But we can run. Or shoots some hoops. Or some other physical activity away from the computer.
Read newspapers. This ...
Posted by Justine at 16:27, November 6th, 2009 under Writing process |
Today (yesterday) I had my last school events of the Liar tour at Joliet West High School and Glenbard South High School in the outer suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. The students at both schools were amazing and asked many smart, engaged, funny questions. It was a total pleasure to meet you all. Thank you.
In other news
Cristina Hernadez posted her midterm project for her painting class on her blog and I was so impressed I asked if I could share it with you here. Remember, Cristina? She's the one who photoshopped a very
disturbing version of Maureen Johnson's Suite Scarlett.
Here's her midterm painting:
Wow, huh? Cristina also had to write an essay about the painting and I ...
Posted by Justine at 3:10, November 5th, 2009 under Book tour, Ideas, Liar, Love is Hell, Praising, Writing process |
I know that NaNoWriMo is set up with a specific word count in mind. And word counts are, indeed, a useful way to keep track of you progress. However, do not get obsessed with them. The world will not end if you don't meet your daily word count. Nor will it end if you don't have 50,000 words at the end of November.
I'm seeing too many people stressing out about word counts and beating up on themselves when they fall short of them. Cut yourself some slack!
Here's why:
NaNoWriMo is meant to be a fun, companionable way to try your hand at novel writing. That means that over the month you're going to start to learn what kind of writer you ...
Posted by Justine at 1:49, November 4th, 2009 under Writing process |
This is the most important tip of all: It's only a first draft, it doesn't have to be perfect.
You know what that means? You can relax. A first draft can be bad. In fact, it will be bad. Don't worry about it. Plow on. Don't even think of it as a first draft. That's too much pressure, not to mention insulting to first drafts, think of it as your zero draft.
That's what I do.
I get a lot of people asking for tips for dealing with writer's block. I don't get writer's block. But only because I've learned not to be bothered by writing utter, utter rubbish. ((Also I don't get paid if I don't write.)) I expect my zero draft ...
Posted by Justine at 12:24, November 2nd, 2009 under Writing process |
Tomorrow is the first day of
National Novel Writing Month. Although I've never taken part in it and probably never will, ((November is almost always a travelling month for me.)) I think it's an awesome way for beginning writers to learn the art of the first draft. I know many pro writers who also use the month to help them slay their deadlines. Nothing like knowing you have comrades-in-arms in your writing struggles.
Scott and me decided that we'll spend the month offering tips. Scott's tips will be over on
his blog and will appear on the odd numbered days of November, mine will be here on the even days. Though as I'm still deep in Liar promotion, I ...
Posted by Justine at 15:14, October 31st, 2009 under Liar, Writing process |
When I first got the idea for Liar I thought it would be a comedy. I thought it would be a goofy, screwball comedy with a protag who was lying about herself out of boredom and insecurity and that as the layers of her lies were peeled away chapter by chapter---"Actually, I'm fourteen, not seventeen, but that's only three years diff. Not that big of a lie, right?"---through a series of misunderstandings and misadventures she would learn to like herself and lose the need to lie so much. It would be heartwarming, they'd all hug it out, and everyone would learn and grow. You know only funny. Really funny.
The finished Liar turned out somewhat differently. Less with the funny.
This happens ...
Posted by Justine at 12:01, October 30th, 2009 under Ideas, Liar, Writing process |
Today I blogged
over here. Those of you who've been wondering about the process of writing Liar might find it interesting.
Today I prepare for my appearance in
Larchmont tonight and the many appearances I'm doing next week in
Seattle and Portland. Then I'll be at the
Teen Lit Festival in Austin next Saturday. That's quite a temperature range. Packing's going to be fun!
For those of you who only read the posts and not the comments, you really need to check out the comments on the
White Writer Advantages thread and the
Hating Female Characters one. People are being astonishingly smart.
Posted by Justine at 13:23, October 16th, 2009 under Bloggery, Liar, New York City/USA, Praising, Writing process |
This is a little bit weird. I had no idea it existed and stumbled upon it while, yes, I confess, googling myself. ((What? I wanted to check out some more Liar reviews. That's not a crime, is it?)) So here is my husband talking with the Romantic Times about my latest book and what it's like writing in the same room:
Here's my response:
Firstly, those who've heard me talk about writing may remember that I, too, use that high diving metaphor. Yup, stole that one from Scott. Hey, he steals heaps of my stories and metaphors too. We're an equal opportunity story-stealing household.
It's also true that we ...
Posted by Justine at 10:17, October 11th, 2009 under Liar, Scott's books, Writing process |
Disclaimer: I am writing about YA publishing in the USA. Although I'm Australian I know much more about the publishing industry in the US than I do about Australia. Or anywhere else for that matter.
I know that the title of this post is going to lead to some comments insisting that it's not true that white writers have any advantages and that many white people are just as oppressed as people of colour. I don't want to have that conversation. So I'm going to oppress the white people who make those comments by deleting them. I don't do it with any malice. I do it because I want to have a conversation about white privilege in publishing. We can have ...
Posted by Justine at 13:13, October 1st, 2009 under Publishing business, Ranting, State of the World, Whingeing, Writing life, Writing process |
Lately, I have heard several published white writers express their trepidation about the idea of writing non-white characters. Some of them have mentioned that they feel they'll get in trouble if they continue to write only white characters, but that they also feel they'll get into trouble if they write characters who aren't white cause they'll bugger it up.
Damned if you do, they say, damned if you don't.
To which I can only say, and I mean this nicely, "Please!"
What exactly are you risking? Who exactly is damning you? Which of your previously published novels have attracted no criticisms and no damnation? Cause that's amazing. You wrote a book no one critcised? Awesome. Please teach me that trick!
Every single book I've ...
Posted by Justine at 16:46, September 26th, 2009 under New York City/USA, Ranting, State of the World, Whingeing, Writing life, Writing process |
Currently I am at the
Melbourne Writers Festival and thus I am fielding many questions about writing and publishing. I noticed again that many of the questions unpublished writers ask are coming at it from the wrong end of the stick. Ally Carter calls this
asking the wrong questions.
For instance, after yesterday's event an adult came up to me and explained that they are an aspiring writer working on their first novel. They said they wanted my advice but the questions they asked really confused me:
What's the best way to get started writing fan fiction?
How do you build up a following?
Should I be using wordpress, livejournal or blogger?
It took me awhile to realise what was going on. ...
Posted by Justine at 3:48, August 25th, 2009 under Publishing business, Writing life, Writing process |
Because I'm in transit, ((These two guest posts are timed to post while I'm travelling. If your comments get stuck in moderation you'll have to be patient. Sorry.)) I asked
Ari if she would step in for me, and she kindly said yes. Thanks, Ari!
I'm back! So yesterday I gave you a list of books about poc that I think you should read, although I'm sure I left off some great books by accident. If you want some more lists check out Susan's at
Color Online for specifically sci-fi check this out the
Happy Nappy Bookseller's list and for bi-racial, multi-racial poc
go here.
Also I want to share some information with you ...
Posted by Justine at 7:47, July 28th, 2009 under Guest post, Reading, State of the World, Writing process, Young Adult literature |
I've been asked a few times why none of my protags are white given that I am white. (So far that question has only come from white people.) I thought I'd answer the question at length so next time I get that particular email I can direct them here.
I don't remember deciding that Reason, the protagonist of the Magic or Madness trilogy, would have
a white Australian mother and an Indigenous Australian father. I don't remember deciding that Tom would be white Australian or Jay-Tee Hispanic USian. But I made a conscious decision that none of the characters in How To Ditch Your Fairy would be white and that Liar would have a mixed race cast. Why?
Because a young ...
Posted by Justine at 0:14, July 22nd, 2009 under State of the World, Writing life, Writing process |
Posted by Justine at 12:48, July 10th, 2009 under Whingeing, Writing process |
I have been promising for some time that I would write about how most love songs are actually about stalking. However that time is not now on account of I am behind with everything. So far behind that I can't continue any feuds with other YA writers or---much much worse---follow the Tour de France. Yes, it's that bad. Again.
In the meantime tell me what your favourite/most appalling stalker song is in the comments below. I will send a signed (by me and Scott) copy of the anthology
Love is Hell to the commenter whose stalker song selections most amuses me. Or at random if the busy-ness makes my brain not function enough to decide. You can find the first ...
Posted by Justine at 13:32, July 4th, 2009 under Listening, Love is Hell, Writing process |
The
discussion in the fanfic post got me thinking about the differences between writing to make a living, as I do, and writing solely for fun.
Many people in that thread talked about how writing fanfic was a learning experience that prepared them for becoming a professional writer. And there's no doubt that that's how fanfic has worked for many pros. However, the vast majority of writers of fanfic not only don't become pros, they have no desire to do so. They write fanfic for a variety of reasons: fun, community, because writing is something they can't not do and so on---they don't do it as some kind of apprenticeship for becoming a "real" writer.
I know professional writers who ...
Posted by Justine at 0:00, June 23rd, 2009 under Publishing business, Writing goals & milestones, Writing life, Writing process |
Posted by Justine at 0:00, June 21st, 2009 under Writing process |
Posted by Justine at 11:25, June 16th, 2009 under Reading, State of the World, Words & Language, Writing process |
Posted by Justine at 14:45, June 14th, 2009 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, Ideas, Liar, Vainglory, Writing life, Writing process |
By
TheChrisKnight: a musical take on
segregated proms in the south:
Posted by Justine at 9:22, May 30th, 2009 under New York City/USA, State of the World, Writing process |
Posted by Justine at 10:45, May 17th, 2009 under Ranting, Words & Language, Writing process |
Posted by Justine at 8:37, May 14th, 2009 under 1930s NYC novel, Liar, Research, Writing process |
There's a very fine line between promoting your books and writing tickets on yourself. It's a moving line. What one person finds overly self promotery other people think is fine.
For instance, I was once told I had crossed the line because my Livejournal icons were of the front covers of my books. I thought that was nuts. I like the covers of my books. Why can't I make icons out of them? Too pushy, I was told. It's like you're only on Livejournal to get people to buy your books. Someone else told me I shouldn't mention my books on my blog because it sounds like I just want people to buy them and that's the only reason I ...
Posted by Justine at 13:39, April 24th, 2009 under Publishing business, Writing life, Writing process |
I've been writing stories since I first learned how to write a sentence. But I did not become a full-time writer until 1 April 2003. ((Wow, this is my sixth anniversary. How bizarre.)) In those many many years before I became a full-time writer I wrote in between doing other things. In between going to primary school, high school, university, and my various jobs. I'd always have at least two documents open when I was at uni. One was the essay I was supposed to be writing and the other was the story or novel I was writing on the sly. When the going got tough with one I'd switch to the other. Writing was something that I snatched time ...
Posted by Justine at 0:12, April 1st, 2009 under Publishing business, Writing goals & milestones, Writing life, Writing process |
Several people have asked me about my research for the 1930s novel. Specifically, they're interested in writing a novel set in ye olden days and they want to know if there are any particularly useful tools/techniques I'd recommend. Something that applies to more than just the 1930s.
Why, yes, there is one single research tool I would recommend: the
Oxford English Dictionary. It's the best value for money of all my online subscriptions. I could not write without the OED. I'm not even sure I could live without it. I hug its bits and bytes to my chest.
I probably spend just a tad too much time looking up words to see if they were in use in the 1930s and ...
Posted by Justine at 0:00, March 24th, 2009 under 1930s NYC novel, Research, Writing process |
Posted by Justine at 0:26, March 22nd, 2009 under New York City/USA, Writing life, Writing process |
Posted by Justine at 1:47, March 17th, 2009 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, Liar, Magic or Madness trilogy, Publishing business, Ranting, Writing process |
Posted by Justine at 15:39, March 14th, 2009 under Cons & Other Gatherings, New York City/USA, Writing process |
Because a good writing day is better than all the mangosteens in the world. Because a good writing day wipes the memory of all those bad writing days entirely. Because I love it.
Posted by Justine at 1:23, March 7th, 2009 under Mangosteens, Writing life, Writing process |
Posted by Justine at 0:14, February 17th, 2009 under Writing goals & milestones, Writing life, Writing process |
Posted by Justine at 16:56, February 16th, 2009 under 1930s NYC novel, Whingeing, Writing life, Writing process |
