Gwen Florio | Newsletter

Night owl to morning person. A horror story

August 12, 2016 Leave a Comment

I hate mornings. Scratch that. I like mornings. I like them for sleeping, preferably late. For long, slow emerging into consciousness, a cup of coffee and then another and maybe a third, the newspaper (OK, these days, a scan of the Times on my phone) and eventually—but slowly, slowly, dangerous to rush these things—the hard realities of shower, presentable clothes, work.

Night, now, that’s another matter. I love the night, the hush when everyone else is asleep and I sit undisturbed in the glow of my laptop, my brain alive, words magically appearing on the screen before me. Nighttime is—was—for writers. This writer, anyway.

Because, after three delicious years of full-time writing, I recently returned to the day job. A paycheck is a dandy thing, woo-hoo for benefits, and besides, I like the gig.

But it plays hell with my nights. Because by the time I get home from work, my writer brain is fried harder than an egg on a Philly sidewalk in August. The writing, it must be done, but the synapses, they do not fire.

I had two choices: stop writing, which is no choice at all, or … or … or …

Yeah. Mornings.

These days, my alarm goes off at 5:15. Minutes later, Scott, aka The World’s Best Man, sets a cup of coffee on the nightstand. That powers me through my shower and getting dressed, and then onto my bike to a coffeeshop where I write until it’s time to go to work across the street.

A pause, in homage to Glenda and the other saints at Clyde Coffee.

Here’s the thing. I haven’t quite achieved Poe’s appreciation of wakefulness, but still, I kind of like it. My route takes me along the river, whose routine beauty I’ve yet to take for granted. The combo of coffee and bike ride is just enough to kick-start me into creativity, and I make as much progress on the ms. in those couple of hours that I used to make in a whole day.

I’ve even started waking up before the alarm, once, so early that I brought coffee to Scott instead of the other way around.

“I don’t know who you are,” he said, edging away as I approached.

It’s a powerful, shape-shifty sort of thing, one that makes me wonder what’s next? Maybe I’ll turn plotter. Nah. Some lines should never be crossed.

The morning commute

Tales from the indie trenches – guest post by Craig Lancaster

August 5, 2016 Leave a Comment

Today I’m turning this space over to Craig Lancaster, a Billings, Montana, author whose Edward books – 600 HOURS OF EDWARD, EDWARD ADRIFT and now, EDWARD UNPSOOLED – introduced me to one of my favorite protagonists.

Sunday, March 16, 2014.Craig Lancaster
Photo by Casey Page

Although Craig – who also writes very fine standalone novels – has stuck with his main character through this particular series, the way I’m getting the books has changed. He’s gone from indie to traditionally published to back again, at least for this book. His reasons are intriguing and thought-provoking, and there’s a ton of good information in his post. Check it out. Me, I’m going to go back to reading EDWARD UNSPOOLED. FYI, the audiobook came out yesterday.

TALES FROM THE INDIE TRENCHES

By Craig Lancaster

On July 23, I launched my independently published sixth novel, EDWARD UNSPOOLED. I detailed the reason I chose to go indie in a piece with Last Best News and folded that decision into the larger context of independence in the creative arts in Billings, Montana, where I live. It’s a long piece but worth the time to read, I think. Cool things are happening.

Here, thanks to Gwen’s graciousness, I’d like to dig deeper into going indie: the costs of getting the title launched, the first-week results, options for distribution, and what I might choose to do with my next novel. (If there is a next novel, I should add. It took me too damned long to write one, let alone six, to blithely assume that I’ll write something publishable in the future.)

The decision

Deciding to go for it was the easy part. When the publisher of my first five novels passed on a third Edward Stanton novel on grounds that were not editorial in nature, I knew I wanted to find a way to bring the book out. Further, in many ways I’d been waiting for the opportunity. I self-published my first novel seven years ago, haphazardly and with no real strategy or expectations, before it was picked up by a publisher. I wanted to see what might happen if I approached an independent project in a more businesslike way.

[Read more…]

The Broke-Ass Book Tour

July 9, 2016 Leave a Comment

In Wyoming, Lena points the way

I’ve heard authors complain about book tours. The travel is exhausting, the publicists can be … strange, the succession of hotel room disorientating.

I’m proud to say that I’ve managed to bite my lip each and every time someone expresses these sentiments. I would kill, in the inventive fashion I hope I employ in some of my books, for such a book tour.

To be specific, the kind of book tour that somebody pays for. Somebody who’s not me.

Because, like most writers, the only way my book goes on the road is if I arrange the appearances and foot the bill myself. Until this year, I’ve referred to these trips as Couch-Surfing Book Tours—the kind where you seek out places where you have lovely friends (you know who you are, and thank you again, a million times over) who will put you up.

But this year was different. My previous books were released in the winter, but Disgraced came out in the spring, which meant that after my first few readings and book signings, the weather—even in Montana—turned balmy.

I like to camp. Camping is cheap. Ergo, the camping tour, or as I more accurately termed it, The Broke-Ass Book Tour.

Four-star tent

It was surprisingly fun. The key, given that I needed to look (and smell) presentable, was finding campgrounds with showers. So, none of the backcountry camping that I’d prefer.

Mmmm, ramen, the writer’s friend

Still, I enjoyed spending my before-appearance time working at a picnic table under shady cottonwoods and fragrant pines, and crawling into my tent afterward and reading myself to sleep by the light of my headlamp. A toy dinosaur turned up at one of my campsites. I named her Lena (think Ferrante) and – taking a cue from writer friends Luke Dani Blue and Migueltzinta Solis and their dino buddy, Velma – she became my traveling companion. Oatmeal for breakfast and ramen for dinner. Because, again, cheap. Oh, and a cooler full of microbrews. Because, reward.

That said, the minute a publisher offers to send me someplace on their dime, I’ll jump at the chance. And I swear I will never complain about a single thing.

Steven, Marlon and me – and the #$*& first draft

June 20, 2016 Leave a Comment

I just finished the worst first draft I’ve ever written. The worst first draft in the history of writing. The worst in the universe! Somewhere out there, Martians scribbling away with ET light-up fingers are writing better stuff than this dreck I’ve produced.

Except, if I remember correctly, I felt this way about the first draft for the previous book. And the one before that. Oh, hello, Despair. Don’t I know you from somewhere?

This kind of wallowing gets ugly fast. But help is out there, in the form of all the writers who’ve gone before me and who, thankfully, offer advice on how to get through it.

One of my favorite gurus is Steven Pressfield, of THE WAR OF ART, and its theory of Resistance. He puts it this way: “Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.”

I’d substitute “books” for the word “lives.” Resistance is what stands between the first draft I’ve written and the book I’m capable of turning it into, if only I’d stop all of this pissing and moaning.

Resistance “arises from within,” he writes. “It’s a repelling force. It’s negative. Its intention is to shove the creator away, distract him, sap his energy, incapacitate him. If Resistance wins, the work doesn’t get written.” Emphasis mine.

And I’ve got to write the work, and write it well. Not only because I have a deadline, but because I have a lovely editor who, inexplicably, believes in me, and I don’t want her ever to find out how I really write.

So. This steaming pile of first draft. The one where I figured out the whole point of the book when I was, oh, about three-quarters of the way through. (In my defense, I thought I knew where it was going when I started writing. Much like the half-wild pony of my childhood, it tossed me to the ground and galloped away in another direction.)

Pressfield to the rescue again. He writes a twice-weekly blog and some recent entries have focused on first drafts. He likens them to blitzkrieg, the “lightning war” employed so effectively by Germany at the start of World War II. “Start fast. Roll hard. Stop for nothing. Bypass strongpoints of the enemy. Get to the final objective — THE END — as quickly as we can, even if it means we’re ragged and exhausted and running on fumes.”

And I did that! Even though, once the point of the book slapped me upside the head around Page 250, I shoved away the temptation to immediately start rewriting with that in mind. Instead, I limped along to what the ending had clearly become, and typed those two delicious words. So there, Resistance.

Next up, the rewrites, the endless rewrites. Because this sucker needs a bunch of them. Despair sidles back up to me at the prospect. “You honestly don’t think you can fix this, do you? Because from where I sit, it looks hopeless. Hey, wanna grab a beer?”

Why, yes, I do. And cry into it, while I’m at it.

Time for another guru, this time Marlon James, whose A BRIEF HISTORY OF SEVEN KILLINGS won the Man Booker Prize last year, and who reminds us that the writing couldn’t care less about the writer.

He wrote a great post recently about people just like me, wrapped in self-pity, as well as with people with Real Problems. Manufactured or real, both conditions get in the way of the work.

“Get over your damn selves, he says: “My novel couldn’t give a shit if I hate the world and want to die.”

The novel just needs to get written. Thanks, Steven. Thanks, Marlon. It’s been great hanging out with you. Now I’ve got to go back to work.

(This post originally appeared in The Thrill Begins, International Thriller Writers‘ resource for aspiring and debut novelists)

The ten stages of a residency

May 27, 2016 Leave a Comment

Today I’m boo-hooing my way through my final day at the Willapa Bay Artist-in-Residence program on Washington’s Long Beach Peninsula. No more stimulating conversations with my fellow residents. No more falling asleep to the ocean’s muted roar. Above all, no more uninterrupted time and space for the writing, and only the writing. It’s the fourth residency I’ve done (also the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming; Brush Creek Arts, in Wyoming, too; and 360 Xochi Quetzal in Mexico) and each has been equally fabulous and equally tough to leave. I have, however, noticed a pattern. If I’m fortunate enough to get another residency somewhere, at least now I’ll know what I’m in for.

The Beginning

I’m in! I’m in! I’m in! The note that I’ve been accepted for a residency triggers a day where every sentence has an exclamation point. I’m generally obnoxious to be around.

Elation squared: Arrival. This beautiful space is my studio? With a desk and a coffeemaker and a sofa/futon for napping? Lunches that arrive on my doorstep, and dinners that are prepared for me? This must be a dream. Please don’t wake me.

Intention: I will leave this residency with a first draft. I will leave this residency with a first draft. I will leave this residency with a first draft. (Because I have a whole month before me, and 30,000 words already written. Piece of cake.)

Settling In:

Week 1 – Terror: What is this mess before me? This has no chance in hell of ever becoming a first draft, let alone a polished novel. I should just trash it and slink away to the Land of Trampled Dreams.

Week 2 – Glimmers of hope. Hey, this (word, sentence, paragraph, chapter) does not entirely suck. Maybe it can be salvaged. I won’t finish a first draft, but at least I’ll make some headway.

Week 3 – Wait. It’s time for lunch already? Because I’ve been writing since 8 a.m. and haven’t looked up. Yay, lunch. Now back to writing. Wow, the words are piling up.

Week 4 – Midnight. Still writing. Must sleep. But time is short. Typetypetype.

Wrapping up:

Disbelief – Just like that, no more words. The End. First draft – albeit the draftiest of first drafts, more holes than Swiss cheese and full of equally lousy metaphors – completed. As in “completed.” The real work awaits. But the worst is over.

Denial – It’s time to go? WTF? Consider chaining myself to desk. Tears.

Rally – Log into Alliance of Artists Communities to begin applications for next year.

Note: I’m fully aware of my good fortune in a) getting these residencies and b) being at a stage in my life where I can take advantage of them, something that was nearly impossible when I had young children or the day job. But if you can swing the time, please apply, even if it’s early in your writing career. I went to my first residency, at Ucross, with a single published short story under my belt. Receiving the residency was welcome affirmation that I was on the right path, and a good kick in the butt to work harder still. Go for it. And when you get one, be sure to lavish your benefactors with praise. Because these residencies are gifts from the gods.

Step Away from the Manuscript

April 24, 2016 Leave a Comment

Things got a little crazy on the writing front recently, what with the Tour of Disgrace(d), along with rewrites due on a short story, another short story to be written in the next couple of months, ditto for an anthology chapter and oh, yeah, I’m way behind on the first draft of Book 5.

My head felt like it was exploding. All. The. Time.

The logical thing to do was Make a List, Prioritize, One Thing at a Time, Manageable Bites, blah blah blah. Except I’ve always sucked at logic. So when a friend invited me to a branding (the Montana kind, not the marketing kind), I jumped at the chance, even though it meant taking a day away from the looming deadlines.

Here’s what I learned. If you want to remove your head decisively from your … problems, go to a branding. For about eight hours, I forgot about anything and everything to do with writing.

My part, such as it was, was minimal. My friend and I stood at the open gate to the corral and shooed back any escape-minded calves edging toward it. Oh, and after someone announced a 60-year-old branding virgin in their midst, I helped hold down a couple of the smaller calves while they were being branded. I figured that earned me a piece of huckleberry pie at the feast that followed.

I gained a new respect for the ropers’ skill and that of their hard-working horses, and even more admiration for the ranchers whose work is a thousand times harder than sitting at a laptop in a warm, dry house, making stuff up.

Best of all, when I went back to the laptop the next day, the work didn’t feel so overwhelming anymore. I had a fresh perspective and some new ideas for Book 5 that I couldn’t wait to get down. Turns out a break was just what I needed.

And now, back to work.

Happy Birthday, baby book!

March 8, 2016 Leave a Comment

Today’s the official release date for Disgraced, my third novel in the Lola Wicks series, even though it started hitting shelves a couple of weeks ago.

In this one, workaholic, vacation-averse Lola finds herself on vacation anyway, thanks to a money-saving furlough ordered by her newspaper. Let’s just say she finds a story, anyway, and promptly abandons the vacation (the point at which any resemblance between me and my protagonist ends).

In addition to the mystery at the heart of the story, in Disgraced I tried to take on the way big institutions—in this case, the military—sometimes betray the people they’re supposed to serve.

Reviewers have been kind enough to take note. Kirkus said Disgraced “explores prejudice and the incredible stress on soldiers in a seemingly unending war with no clear goals” and BOLO Books said “this one tackles important topics we as a society should be discussing.”

Lest that sound like a grind, The Big Thrill, the magazine of the International Thriller Writers, called it “engaging, riveting and authentic.”

And now I’ve tooted my own horn long enough. Good reviews are lovely, but readers’ opinions are the ones that truly matter. It’s time for Disgraced to make its own way out in the world while I work on the sequel, which I’m tempted to call Redeemed, although I’m pretty sure my editor has other, and better, ideas.

Finally, a word about the title, which clearly changes things up with the state-by-state model hinted at in my previous two books in the series, Montana and Dakota. A new publisher, Midnight Ink, is putting out Disgraced and the next two, and wisely felt that abandoning that model would give Lola more flexibility in her next adventures. I quite agree. Happy reading.

Bad writer. No Scotch for you.

February 1, 2016 Leave a Comment

I publicly (my first mistake) announced a lofty ambition last month, declaring January as JaNoWriMo, my own version of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month.

Every November, haggard writers attack their keyboards with the goal of writing 50,000 words, a respectable first draft—by the end of the month. I had a Dec. 1 deadline on one book and a Dec. 15 deadline on revisions to another, so November was no time for me to be fooling around with something new. But January, after a nice holiday break, seemed perfect. Because I’d already written 20,000 words toward Book 5, I thought 70,000 seemed like a reasonable goal.

It took almost no time at all for that to fall apart. When working on a first draft, I aim for 1,000 words a day. That’s worked fine for four published (or to-be-published) novels, and a couple that, please God, will never see the light of day. JaNoWriMo would push my daily goal close to 2,000 words.

Turns out, that was easily enough achieved. I just wrote really, really fast, zooming toward the moment when the Scrivener Dominatrix let me know I’d hit my goal. But the faster I wrote, the farther away from me the story seemed to get. I made all sorts of notes—”Go back and delete this.” “Go back and change that to conform with what I’m writing now”—but at some point, I felt as though I was making more notes to myself about needed revisions than actually writing. I’m a big fan of plowing through a first draft without fussing over details, but these were more than details. They were key plot points, character development, etc.

So I stopped. Deleted my word target from the Scrivener Dominatrix. Went back and shored things up so that when I proceeded, it was with a firm foundation. Now I have a new goal—to have a first draft in hand by May, when I’ll spend a month at the Willapa Bay Artist in Residence program on the Washington coast.

The up side of blowing JaNoWriMo? I learned that my own process works pretty well. That’s reassuring.

But there’s a deep, deep down side: I’d promised myself a bottle of Lagavulin if I met my goal. No Scotch for this girl. Maybe in May!

Ushering in JaNoWriMo

January 2, 2016 Leave a Comment

I’ve always been intrigued by NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month project that sees coffeeshops in Missoula and around the country filled with haggard writers, pounding away at their keyboards, trying to achieve the 50,000 words that will comprise the framework of a first draft.

Problem is, NaNoWriMo falls in November, and I had a novel deadline in December, way too quick a turnaround from first draft to polished work. But with another novel due next December, I decided to do my own NaNoWriMo, only in January. Hence, JaNo … you get the idea.

Then some friends got in on the act. (Not naming names, but you know who you are, you Badasses you.) Next thing you know, we were all setting goals like crazy. And rewards. Because work is way more fun with a big honkin’ treat at the end.

If I make it to my goal (70,000 words by Feb. 1; I’ve already written 20,000), I’m buying myself a bottle of Lagavulin, and probably crawling right into it.

Always before, I’ve set a first-draft goal of a thousand words a day, which in retrospect feels like a lovely, leisurely pace. My new goal works out to about 1,700 words a day, which results in serious panic when I hit 1,000 words and I don’t know where the story needs to go next [Plot? Schmot!] and the goddamn clock is ticking, ticking, ticking. Here’s the thing. Each time, I’ve come up with a move that feels like desperation, but that by the end of the day looks pretty good in retrospect.

Eek!

I got a pair of cross-country skis for Christmas, and this sort of writing is uncomfortably similar to my first outings on those slippery, sliding things. My reaction to each downhill, when I feel totally out of control as the skis carry me faster and faster, has been “Eek, eek, eek, oh, gosh, that was fun.”

That’s what these flights of forced creativity are like. Will all of them survive the revisions? Probably not. But oh, gosh, it’s fun to see these unexpected twists and turns.

Happy New Year, all, and happy–or, at least, productive–writing!

Finals week(s), writer style

November 9, 2015 1 Comment

I take a lot of pride in treating my writing like the job it is.

In a 2014 interview with fellow Montana novelist Craig Lancaster, I announced that “I have a rule about not writing in my jammies. I have to be showered and dressed, more or less presentably, before I start work.”

Um, Craig? I lied.

Not completely. That rule holds true for most of the writing. Until the very end, when all the rules go out the window. My lovely little schedule—writing in the mornings; beta-reading, blogging, marketing stuff—in the afternoons, flies away behind it. I’ve got proofs on Book 3 (Disgraced) due Dec. 1, and the manuscript for Book 4 due Dec. 15, so it’s fingers to the keyboard all day and into the night, and damn the unnecessary niceties of grooming, etc. It’s like finals week in college. Only longer.

See that photo? Note: Panicked expression. Uncombed hair. PJs hidden by shawl. It was taken at 4 p.m. Yes, even as the dinner hour (to hell with dinner. What about cocktail hour?) approached, I had yet to shower or get dressed. But I had clobbered another few chapters into presentable submission, littering the floor with dead darlings.

That feels good. So does the fact that, after another few weeks, this craziness will be behind me. I can get reacquainted with soap and shampoo, my hairbrush, clothing beyond flannel and sweats.

The end is near, the end is near plays in the back of my brain like a threat and a promise, a little mantra that (nearly) obliterates the fact that beyond the achievements of sending off these two projects lies the abyss of the blank page, aka Book 5.

But that’s a long way off. For now, it’s back to the keyboard.

Blog

Night owl to morning person. A horror story

Tales from the indie trenches – guest post by Craig Lancaster

The Broke-Ass Book Tour

Steven, Marlon and me – and the #$*& first draft

The ten stages of a residency

Step Away from the Manuscript

Happy Birthday, baby book!

Bad writer. No Scotch for you.

Ushering in JaNoWriMo

Finals week(s), writer style

Newsletter

The worst is over

A month of whiplash

Thankful for new adventures

The rewards of working without a net

Until next time, Seattle

Seattle, City of Books

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