Category: Lessons Learned About Writing

Fun little Interview….

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 1 Comment

I did a quick interview with Dan Alatorre as part of the promotional for his Word Weaver contest. Check it out….

your humble host Occasionally on the blog we will talk with one of our author friends, gaining valuable insights into their behind the scene world. Today we meet again with the AMAZING T. A. Henry, a terrific writer with sinister deep, dark secrets we, the writing world, simple need to know. Probably. (T. A. has braved […]

via Author Interview: 10 Questions With T.A. Henry — Dan Alatorre – AUTHOR

Wednesday Words

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 11 Comments

Norwescon was last weekend. It stirred up a lot of thoughts and emotions for me this year. I’ll go into that in a moment but I also decided I was ready to talk about writing again on a regular basis. So Wednesday Words, this is your (re)birthday.

With the editing of others: Working on a book for a young woman in my writing class. 90K plus words of pure fantasy. You may have noticed, I don’t read fantasy, that’s because I don’t like fantasy. LOL. But she’s my student so I slog on. And yes before you ask I am being careful not to suggest she should remove things that are appropriate to fantasy while not appropriate in other genres.

With my own writing: Still rewriting the first chapter of my spy novel. I don’t have a lot of writing time, but I am working towards increasing that. I have been steadily moving the time I wake up back in 15 minutes increments. So the time available is actively growing. LOL

Side note: This is my 500th post to WordPress. Get on with me productive self.

Emotionally: Super conflicted about my writing right now. I feel like last year was such a let down. To publish a good solid book and have it go completely unnoticed by the world at large was painful. I was depressed a good chunk of the year (help along by some other personal issues). I don’t want to publish my spy novel, which is 4.5 years in the making, and feel the same. Which makes me wonder if I am emotionally cut out for the life of an author.

Topic for debate on my writing: To sex or not to sex. 

Most thrillers, which a spy novel is considered one, don’t have sex scenes. They have fade to black of various levels. Mine currently has two scenes and a fade to black. I tend to get one of two responses to this. Either A) MORE SEX! or B) Why is there sex in this book?

Should I buck the no overt sex in thrillers trend or change my scenes to a sooner fade to black option?

Another Positive Review

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I knew my book was not your typical romance, which is why I went the self publishing route. Check out this great review from Kelly to see why….

4 STARS Historical Fiction Copy provided for an honest review. Goodreads Blurb: “At loose end in post World War II London, Lady Margaret Leighton chances upon a movie poster showcasing the young soldier she gave her heart to while serving as a military nurse. Desperate to reconnect with him, she uses her wits and newly […]

via Scripting The Truth by T. A. Henry (Book Review) — Kelly’s Book Blog

Critiquing and a Contest

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From the world of Dan Alatorre, author and writing advice humorist, comes a bit about giving good critique. He’s also running a contest in April. Check it out!

My job as your mentor and/or guide… …and/or critique partner and/or editor and/or sounding board… is to figure out the things you’ve done that make your story less perfect, point them out, and try to help you figure out ways to correct them. It’s also my job when I review my own writing. I consider […]

via 3 Tips To Be An Awesome Critique Partner — Dan Alatorre – AUTHOR

Fiendish Friday: That was my time you wasted

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 8 Comments

I just want to growl. I have a friend who sent me a story for help. Line editing and some developmental advice. Ok. No problem. I like to help my friends and really I love to edit the written word. I made tons of suggestions and sent the document back.

Flash forward 18 months. Same friend asks if I will take another look. Sure.

You have got to be fucking kidding me. It is clear NOT a single change was made from the first set of editing suggestions I made. And I’m not talking about I suggested the plot needed x, y, z, and the friend declined to make those changes, I mean…

There used repeatedly instead of their.

Also were instead of we’re.

Running all the lines of dialogue into a single paragraph so you don’t actually know who is speaking.

Please shoot me now. To me that just says, you can’t be bothered to fix your shit but you want me to waste hours of my time. I didn’t go to yoga this morning to do this editing. I am not with my family on a Sunday, to do this editing. Because I gave a deadline, when I would have it back to you. And it means something to me to keep my commitments.

Sigh.

I have turned on my NO sign.

No one ask me for anything today, my answer will be no. It is Noday, all day. Nope. Nada. Nothing for you. No.

The best of 2016

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 5 Comments

I know year end round ups are the thing to do. Feel free to skip reading mine. I almost skipped writing it. LOL

I tripled my views this year, tripled my visitors, average views per visitor remained the same, I doubled my likes (hrm, that’s disconcerting, more of you come but you like less), and double my comments. All in all I doubled my followers. Thanks for coming to check it out, thanks for staying to see what I do next.

I read 80 books this year. Reviewed all of them here except for the ones I beta’d. Those I will review when the authors are ready.

I failed to publish my sophomore novel.

You all were most amused by my post complaining about my child lying to me.

But that was closely followed by my post explaining what a bitch I am when forced to fill a power vacuum.

Of course T is for Twitter, Happy Birthday Me, and O is for Oops were all a solid third place showing.

My Goals, which I flung out there at the start of the year and then tattled on myself all year long about:

– Participate in one flash fiction challenge per month.

√ ROFLMAO – Not so much. Maybe half the year. Shrug. things got crazy this year and my writing took the brunt of it. More on that later.

– Prepare and teach “Nano to Publish”.

√ I did it. And two people in my seminar published this year. I am continuing the series next year.

– Any time I am not actively working on my 2015 Nano Novel…

I dumped my 2015 novel. I plan to revamp it as a pseudo sequel to my Scripting the Truth, set in post WWII London in a film noir style detective work. The main character in the new novel will be the detective from my 2015 nano novel who happens to be war buddies with Molly’s brother. See the tangential bit. wink wink nudge nudge.

– write 2500 words per week on my spy novel until it is done. (After four years, it’s time to put this mess to bed.)

Done. Went through critique round one, fixed it. Out to beta right now. Planning for early March publication.

Non writing goals

– Prepare and teach two classes at the coop for the 2016-2017 school year.

√ Yes and oh mi god are these kids awesome. 3 of my five Nano students wrote more than 50K in November. And I finally managed to motivate my geography kids into doing their homework. Candy, candy is the answer.

– Take better care of my body, ie. stop compulsively painting, crocheting, and writing until my back or shoulder is so tore I can barely use either.

√ I finally got the hang of this by rotating my compulsions. LOL

– yoga daily.

√ Closest I have ever come in my life. I can say with out a doubt, five days a week on average all year.

Things I did not plan on but survived:

The pool board from hell. (Not to be confused with the condo board of the apocalypse. That is an awesome book.) The pool board from hell was, well, hellish. And not just the members are never grateful and snotty bad. But like fist fights, embezzlement, audits by the state, losing friends bad.

A relapse of Epstein Barr. Considering the above entry I will just say better EB that a stay in the pysche ward.

Health crisis for the hubs.

Inability to read for my seven year old. Which led to testing, therapy, testing and finally an actual diagnosis and solution which is WORKING!

And finally my FIL rerouting Christmas from my house to my SILs. The SIL who doesn’t speak to my hubs or me for that matter. Yeah.

2016 can end now please. I am ready for a new year. I hope your holidays are bright, your family warm, your heart full of love, and your mind ready for the adventure that comes next. Cheers!

 

Wednesday Writer’s Update 11/16

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Greetings and Salutations my dear readers. I have been busy. Busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest. Moving faster than a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

Saturday was Bard and Starlet. People say it went well. I nod. It was pure torture. And then when it was all over I got to see the video of me. Fat video of me. Bleh.

Sunday was writing on the road. I am half astounded at how many words I am pouring into my spy novel. And on the other hand, I knew it needed some help in the back half. I guess I am astounded that I am finding so many words to add. But I am.

Monday was a day of chaos at the coop. Half the school was out sick, leaving to few of us to do a lot of jobs. But Monday’s over and I think I have some good classes lined up for next session.

I am painting all the trim in all the rooms now that the painters are finally done with their part of the job. I am trying to get it all arranged before the Sinterklaas party we have every year. That’s the first weekend in December for those of you who aren’t Dutch.

I think that about covers my life. How are you? Drowning in Nano? The second week slump should be about up now right? Tell me all about it.

Fiendish Friday: Nanowrimo

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I’m sad. To be honest, I’m not sad. I’m pissed off and jealous. I want to be a willy nilly writer again. I really want to do Nano this year.

I have two great ideas on bat too. Just waiting for 30 days of insane pressure to hone them into a rough diamond.

But the grown up writer in me. The mature one that talks about my career and all that jazz, says, you need to finish editing and publish your sophomore novel or you don’t have a career.

But I wanna play…..

Because that’s what Nano is, play. It’s fun, and exciting, and obsessively insane.

Sigh. I need to keep my eye on the line now, because I let that whole drama over the summer, cough cough pool board cough cough, screw up my time line.

Thank you for entertaining my two year old tantrum. Stomps feet, spins round in a circle, jumps up and down once or twice.

The grown up is back in charge. But if you have a moment…tell me, how is Nano treating you this year?

Wednesday Writer’s Update 10/5

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Greetings and Salutations most fabulous readers. I have done a 180. From the depths of despair to contented productivity. And to ice that cake I just read an article that explained so much to me about me lately. I love this article. It just, perfectly explained me to me. And since it did it better than I could, I’ll link to it here so it can explain me to you.

Moving on: writing. I started edited my spy novel again. Some of my beta feedback is very clear and definitely moving my novel in the direction I want it to go. And that’s really what matters, where I want this novel to go. I still have some on the fence questions. Is the sex too much? Do the spies really have to kill every bad guy they encounter and if they do, does that make them unlikable? Does two G starting names really cause that much of an issue? And what the heck do I rename Gareth if two G names really is a problem? But aside from that, I need to fatten up the second half of my novel. It isn’t even a walking skeleton because it has no tendons or muscles. It’s just a barely articulated skeleton. LOL. I rushed it. I set a hard goal for myself and made it by cutting corners. Gotta fix that.

Taught my first Nano to Publish class at the coop. Got an email from a parent, who was sitting in on the class, the next day. “I don’t know how good a writer you are but you are one hell of a speaker.” Laughing. If I just combine that with the people who say I write just like a talk…that’s one hell of a compliment.

I’ve decided to report on my stated 2016 goals each Wednesday for a little prod of accountability.

– Participate in one flash fiction challenge per month.

√ October just started, I have time still, don’t get all pushy on me now.  LOL

– Prepare and teach “Nano to Publish”.

√ Yep, almost done now. The October meeting will be a wrap up and an intro to Nano for new folks. We are continuing on next year with less emphasis on a time line. The workshops will be more, come as you are and we’ll help you get to the next place. First Saturday of the month, 1130AM-1PM, North Bend Library.

– Any time I am not actively working on my 2015 Nano Novel, write 2500 words per week on my spy novel until it is done. (After four years, it’s time to put this mess to bed.)

√ Rockin and Rollin. Next goal: Ready for readers in 6 weeks. If you want in, let me know.

Non writing goals

– Prepare and teach two classes at the coop for the 2016-2017 school year.

√ This is going pretty well. Had a student drop my Geo class, but three others turned up to add it. LOL. Nano is a blast. I made my students write a description of a setting in 30 words or less. They were wigging hard. “30 words!! But that’s so little.” Yep. Mwahahahah.

– Take better care of my body, ie. stop compulsively painting, crocheting, and writing until my back or shoulder is so tore I can barely use either.

√ Doing ok on this but my shoulder is still tweaked from all the house painting.

– yoga daily.

√ 5 days this week.

Fiendish Friday: Esoteric

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I don’t talk about religion. My views on religion and God and personal responsibility tend to confuse people and someone ends up with hurt feelings. But I noticed something lately that made me willing to post this.

I was in a very depressed, stressed out, creatively empty place for the last four months. It was not good. I was not me. I was a shell that used to be me but the inner beauty that is me had moved out. I can’t really blame that inner me, my life had become a very inhospitable place.

I stopped writing. I lost the desire to write as well. The two are different and the lack of desire is by far the sadder one. I had to really work at it to even be funny in my blogs anymore. Oh the horror…

But slowly over the last few weeks, I’ve come back. And my muse has returned. I penned some new words on a new novel. I’m happy again. I feel whole. If a bit pressed for time. But several times recently, God, yes I said the G word, has demonstrated he’s clearing the decks for me to focus on what really matters.

A new treasurer for the board popped up out of the blue and I am going to be able to resign at the end of the year. Little happy dance!

A writing teacher I have been filling in for, emailed to say she is ready to take back over the SnoValley Writes classes at the library, allowing me the choice to continue Nano to Publish or not as I WANT. Choices are so awesome.

Things keep popping up for the coop, which I am devoting more time to, and each time they do, people step up to help. I almost need to say it twice. People step up to help out and make it work. And that leaves me feeling energized and like I am spending my time for that board wisely and on a population that appreciates it.

And I found myself giving advice that I needed to hear. And I could actually process that I needed to hear that advice and take it myself.

To me, these are gifts from a power higher than myself. They are things I could not have produced on my own, no matter how hard I tried.

Let’s not have a discussion of religion. Please. But I would love to hear any gifts you’ve gotten recently.