A Last Look at 2017

(I wrote this yesterday but didn't have a chance to post until today.  Welcome to 2018!  Let us hope it is a good year!  One note:  It is no warmer.  This is not a picture from this year, though!)

Welcome to New Year's Eve, 2017.  First off, it is COLD. Seriously cold.   The temp right now is -9f with a -32f wind chill, and that's in the middle of the day.  It is going to drop to -21f temp and who knows what the wind chill will be.  No, not a pleasant New Year's Eve.  I hope people are wise enough to stay home.

My computer is so cold that it's making odd noises.  The office isn't that bad, but right up against the wall -- yeah, it is feeling the cold!

But let's talk about how 2017 went and what I want from 2018.

I started my writing year with Journey of a Thousand Truths on 1/1 and ended it on 4/23.  It's probably the best new novel I wrote this year.  It is novel #103 in my total count and came in at 126,752 words.

On 1/1 I also started the rewrite of Devlin 4 -- Missing Persons.  I'm glad to say that one went well and I finished on 3/19.  This was a shorter work at about 69,780.  I was going to do the next Devlin novel, but I actually need to get another novel in the story universe (but not a Devlin tale) done first because Devlin's team interact with those people in book 5.

On my birthday, 3/8, I began novel #104, Amusing Grace.  This is the sequel of Muse.  It went well for a few hundred words and then died out for some reason.  I restarted it from scratch for the second NaNo novel in November and it went fine that time.  I was done on 11/30 at 50,152.  I like it, but I see some basic things that need to be changed and added. That's fine -- that's the way my first drafts work.

On 3/22 I began the rewrite of the second Raventower and Merriweather novel, War.  This went very well and was done on 5/7.  This one is 135,520 words -- and so much fun!  I really like working with those characters and I do have a third novel getting ready in my little brain for 2018.

On 4/24 I started the rewrite of Circe's Gifts and started posting chapters on Wattpad as well.  That one is 84,880.  It's an older story, but I thought it came out very well.  It is a YA Fantasy with some lovely changeling characters.

And then the rewrite of Tales from Grey Station 9: Season One, a wonderfully fun science fiction project.  That one is one of my longest works at 181,260.  The rewrite went very well.

On 6/20 I began Dusty and Friends, a Flash Fiction serial novella that I posted on my Joyously Prolific blog and on Wattpad.  That one came in at about 28,000 words and is a nice little Young Adult, maybe Pre-teen (though the MC is  teen) story.  Anyway, it was fun to write.

The next one is another rewrite and one that did not work out right.  I began it on 8/1 and finished on 9/4.   Singer & St. Jude 1: The Lost Cause is already published by Double Dragon.  I have the rights back and I wanted to move it up in the overall time line with the rest of the Inner Worlds Council books so it could fit into the overall storyline.  When I was done, though, I realized I hadn't given it enough of a 'future' feel from the original, so I have to go back and redo the world building for that one and try it again, maybe in 2018.

I started the rewrite of Written in the Sand on 9/9 and finished on 12/10 (with a NaNo break in there).  This one went much better!  It's going to be my first publication of 2018, probably on New Years Day.  91,022 words of a desert fantasy story with a really fun set of characters.  I hope people will enjoy it.

Aegyptica Magicae was my first NaNo novel, started 11/1 and ended it on 11/15.  It is #105 of the total novels I've written and a true experiment as a steampunk/fantasy/Egyptian tale.  I have not reread it yet, so I'm not certain which parts of it I got right.  I know it will need more work, but all first drafts do, so that's fine.  I know that at 65,556 it is far too short for what I want.  (I was in the hospital for the three days prior to NaNo and that really threw me off this year. The second NaNo novel was Amusing Grace and my NaNo total was 115,708.)

And finally we have the rewrite of Differential Equations, a contemporary (well, late 1980's) YA mystery that I started on 12/1 and finished on 12/28.  It has formatting still to go through, but after that it will be ready to publish in early 2018.

There were other things I wrote as well like outlines, world building notes for larger universes, and flash fiction for Friday posts (those come to about 52k, including Dusty and Friends).  Also rewriting the 2YN class stuff.  I am also starting to republish updated versions of the 2YN books.  The first one went up last night, replacing the previous version.  I'll get the first five done and the last three as I rewrite the material for posts on Facebook.

My total word count for 2017 is about 1,006,000.  I'm still finishing off a few small things like world building notes and such, but I'll be done soon.

Publications for 2017 were:

3/20 -- Devlin 4 -- Missing Persons
5/7 -- Raventower and Merriweather 2: War
5/22 -- Circe's Gifts
9/8 -- Tales from Grey Station 9

This brings my total number of published novels to 45.  That does not include any of the writing-related stuff like 2YN books, Writing Short, etc.

You can find my publications here:

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/zetteG

https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004RS45YS

Personally, not a great year with illness, hospitalization, and all that fun stuff along with everything else.  I am still fighting with that but I've made it to New Years so there is that good news.  There is a lot about 2017 that was just bad for many reasons, some of which I just refuse to face and deal with, but even so ... here we are.

We are having a very cold New Years Eve (low of -21f and that is not the wind chill) so we will stay home, watch shows, enjoy stuff, and hope the weather gets warmer soon.  I plan on this little post being pretty much my last writing of any length for the year.  2018 is seven hours away.  Can I not write that long?  LOL!

I also took 14,581 pictures this year, including about 800 on the trip to the mountains. What a wonderful vacation!



What about 2018?

I have no outlines. This is rare for me, but I planned it this way.  I want to take at least some time to write without anything but the words flowing from me.  My first novel (or at least one of them) is going to be a brand new Devlin novel.  I also have a superhero story (something very new for me!) bouncing around in my brain.  I'll probably start them both on 1/1 and maybe a rewrite of something as well.

My other big plan is to write sequels to many of the works that need them.  I am looking forward to that part as well.  I mentioned the Devlin novel (which will be #10 or #11 in her series, I think), but I also want to write the sequel to Glory (Dreams), Kat Among the Pigeons (Kat Among the Penguins), Raventower and Merriweather #3 (Untitled), Summerfield # 4 (Spring Break) and Tales from Grey Station 9 (Season 2).  I don't know how many I'll get to.  That's a lot of new material for one year.

I spent too much of 2017 worried about sales.  I've decided not to do that this year.  I will write, publish, and hope people enjoy the books and say so to others and post reviews.  That's the only hope an indie writer really has for making sales.  I'm eclectic in my writing so I should have a chance of catching various types of readers.  If not?  Well, I'm still going to be writing and publishing.

I intend to have a good year.  I hope the rest of you do as well.

Happy New Year!

Missed a week!

 

I have been both busy and not feeling well.  I'm trying to get back into doing all these little things like the weekly blog post, but it keeps getting lost in the piles of other things.

Though writing wise, still doing okay.  On Sunday I crossed the 500,000 word mark for the year.  My major project is still Tales of Grey Station 9 and I'm a bit over half way on it.  The final version is going to end up close to or over 200,000 words.

Dusty & Friends is up to the third 1k entry.  Writing those little pieces takes an entirely different approach from a sprawling novel.  That reminds me of something one person once said (and she claimed to be an expert):  Writing novels is easier than writing short stories because you can make mistakes and it doesn't matter.

I remember reading that line several times and shaking my head.  Make mistakes -- and just leave them.  Don't worry.  The story is so long that no one will notice, unlike with her short stories which had to be perfect.

I am amazed, sometimes, at the things people say about writing.

I have one huge non-writing project right now.  The ezine I published for 15 years stopped publication two years ago.  (Honestly, it seems a lot longer.)  A good part of it has been sitting on an out of date Joomla! site.  Since there will no longer be any updates, I don't need anything that fancy and I really don't want to have to keep updating it, so I am copying off articles and preparing for a simple html site.  Nothing fancy at all, but with easy links to the categories and such.

Shouldn't be hard, right?

660 articles on the Joomla! site.  At least that many, and maybe more, that have to be moved from an even older site and added in to the newer articles. 

I've copied over 200 articles so far.  And this is where I sing the praises of Scrivener.  I have copied files over (both html and text, depending on the article -- but I'll probably stick with text after this) and used the little synopsis card on the right to list the title, category, author, and Vision Issue.  This will make it very easy to sort everything out into whatever group I want later.

But yeah, it is a lot of work.  Non-writing work, which is hard for me.  I do some of it, take a break to write, and then do more.

Over the next two weeks I hope to get most of the Joomla! material copied. Then I'll copy all the others into Scrivener as well -- though I wonder if it has a limit on word count/file size/whatever?  I'll have to watch that and divide it into more than one set if that happens.

This isn't what I had been planning to do.  I think fondly of the outlines I should be writing -- but the site had developed some problems and my provider would like some changes.  I'm doing the change that should mean I won't have to do it again.

Sometimes you just can't write.  Real life (or something like it for me) steps in and other stuff has to be done. 

But still -- half a million words so far this year.  I can't complain!

More of the same

I had hoped to go to the mountains this last weekend, but things did not work out.  I had expected that to happen, but I always kind of hope for some little surprise at the end.   I haven't been to Rocky Mountain National Park for fourteen years now.  The mountains, the desert, the ocean -- those are three things I love, but here I am in Nebraska pretty much far from any of them.  Nebraska is not a bad place to be.  I love the seasons and the storms -- but I still miss the other things.  I haven't seen the ocean in a long, long time.  The desert?  Maybe 1997?  The mountains were at least this century. 

I hope that year fifteen will be the one when we get a chance to go.  You never know -- it could happen.  I might even make a few sales and be able to afford something as extravagant as one night away from home!  LOL.  Two nights?  Nah.  My books won't ever sell that well!

So what did I do this weekend instead?  Well, we had an interesting storm on Friday.  Lots and lots of pictures.  Great clouds.  Saturday was much cooler and quieter, which was nice.  Didn't do much at all since Russ had company.  Sunday we had a nice ride out to a local state park, and I got a few pictures, and then we took some dirt roads and headed towards home.  I also spent some time cleaning up some shelves in the living room and hoping that I can get the area cleaned up enough to sometimes set up my photo studio equipment.  I can't even say what I really want to do for pictures, but it would be fun to have the opportunity.

Oh yes, I did write.  I am closing in on the last of part four for Tales of Grey Station 9.  This one should be the final really major rewrite out of the group of ten parts.  I might have everything done by mid-July, which would be nice.  This will be my next Wattpad entry -- though I think I might drop a couple shorter pieces in there as well.  I just thought of a fun new cover art project for Author Vs. Character.  People enjoy that story, and since it's free on Smashwords (and part of NaNo for the New and the Insane), I might as well put it up on Wattpad as well.  Oh, and do a quick edit, too.

So there are my projects.  Must keep moving.  Something might come of it yet!

This is what prolific looks like

It is almost half way through the year.  I keep thinking that I need to pick up my writing pace now, but the truth is that I really don't.  I'm not certain why I think I've dropped way behind on anything.   I'm sitting at 443,810 words for the year so far.  I might manage to write another 56,190 words and reach the 500k mark before July 1, but I'm not actively pushing for it.  I've published three novels and almost completed one WattPad novel (I should post the last of it before the end of the week). I rewrote and edited four older novels, wrote one new first draft with the start of a second, wrote and posted about 25 flash fiction pieces, and worked on four outlines for the upcoming November NaNo.  Those last have a long ways to go.

I've taken several more courses from the Great Courses group: History of Ancient Egypt, The Night Sky, Decoding the Secrets of Egyptian Hieroglyphs, and I am part way through Oceanography.  The hieroglyphs one has lead to more books and more study, too.

I am perpetually busy. 

And I am never bored.  Sitting somewhere outside my house with nothing to do?  It doesn't happen often I keep notepads in my purse and I write notes about the current story or practice hieroglyphs.  Often I have my Nook and I'll read and sometimes write on it as well.  I've only read 18 books so far, so not quite one a week.  Still, with everything else ... not bad.

I never leave the house without at least one of the cameras.  Going for a short ride can net me a hundred pictures.  I bring them home, load them into my computer, tag them, sort out the bad ones and work with one or two to post, and generally have a good time.  I put one up every day for the picture of the day blog.  I taken 6365 pictures, all nicely tagged in Lightroom, and did at least 152 pieces of art, mostly based on the photos.

What don't you see on this list?

Television.

Games.

There has to be a trade off somewhere, because there simply isn't enough time to do everything.  I find writing more entertaining than most shows.  I do on occasion binge on some series or movie I have on DVD, but those times are rare. 

Except for some time on line, I am not a sociable person, either.  Most of the time, I would rather be writing.

I worked out the problem for myself years ago:   If I wanted to write, I had to make the time.  If I wanted to write a lot, I needed to make a lot of time.  No matter how fast you write, and how well you edit, creating a story takes time.  Creating several a year takes as much determination as it does time.    It also takes mental flexibility to easily move from one story to another.  That takes practice.  I am able to write something new in a first draft and switch over to editing something else.  The stories are not the same and the process for each of those steps is entirely different.

Focus, too.  Oh yes, if you can't ignore the outside world (and many of you don't have a choice -- you have to listen), then creating writing time becomes more difficult.  At worst, my distractions are a group of cats all of whom seem to want to learn how to type.  Zaphod is the most persistent.  I sometimes leave his 'messages' in my first drafts and mark them with his name.  Other times, I kick everyone out of the office and close the door.

And then I write some more.

Circe's Gifts is done!

I surprised myself with Circe's Gifts.  It barely took a month to do the rewrite and double edit.  I am posting on Wattpad at a couple chapters a day, but I'm also going to release the story in ebook.  I will continue posting on Wattpad, but I hope a few people pick up the finished work.  You know -- support the author sort of thing!

Next up might be A Plague of Rats, which I think people will like. That one seems to have the strongest call for me right now.  I might as well take advantage of that and leap in.

Russ is going to be gone for most of the week.  I'm not really sure what I'll do with myself.  I feel like I ought to have a big project.  Maybe a (gasp) house cleaning project would work.  I tend to drive Russ nuts with those because I move everything, get part way through, let it sit for a day or two, and then go back to it.  That might be something to think about, especially if it is going to be warm enough to not freeze in the rest of the house.

Okay, I just published Circe's Gifts on Amazon and Smashwords.  Smashwords will spread it out to all the other outlets.  I'll post links in a couple days when everything is cleared.  Here is the blurb:

Circe's sacred forest is a place where wounded and hunted animals can find sanctuary.  She and her long-time companions -- a one-eyed wolf, a cat with a limp, and a tailless mouse -- have lived quietly until a wounded young man wanders into her woods, followed by those who are hunting him.  When the All-Mother lets Circe know that she must help Tiernan, the best she can do is to send her friends to protect him, though they cannot go in their animal forms.

And that's it for me this week!  Still playing around with a lot of graphics stuff and having fun. The cats are still cats.  All is good in the world!

Another (manic) Monday

Welcome to another Monday in my crazed life.  Circe's Gifts is moving along so well that I will be putting up more than two chapters a week soon.  Raventower 2 is published.  I am starting to look at future works for Wattpad, and realizing I will be publishing Circe's Gifts as an ebook before too long.

Really, not too bad at all.  But I am in bouncy mode, mostly.  Lots of stuff going on and I want to do it all. And then I get headachy and annoyed and have to fight to do anything.  And then bouncy again.  I like bouncy.

I'm also working with the Topaz Studio beta graphics program.  So far I'm really impressed, though it does take a lot of my time because I want to play with it.  I can't do everything that Photoshop can do, but it does have a wonderful array of adjustments and additional add ins that make this one fun to play with if you like this sort of thing.  I do, and I've always been impressed with Topaz Labs programs.

I see interesting book covers in the future.

What I don't see much of at the moment is new story stuff.  I have four ideas for NaNo in November, but I haven't been able to get anything moving there.  I think that's simply because I've been focusing on getting other things done and out of the way.  Well, they're done, mostly.  Hello?  Ideas?  Are you out there?

Yes, actually, they are.  I just need to focus on them again.  It's not as though the stories have disappeared. These are the ones that have stayed in my brain for quite a while already, so I'm pretty certain they're going to last all the way through the outline phase and on into writing stuff.  I'll likely get to at least one of them before NaNo unless I spend the rest of the year rewriting older material.  That might happen.  I'm enjoying Wattpad as an easy step toward publication with the hope of finding people interested enough to read the book and maybe buy a couple others.  Oh and it would be nice if they pointed out problems they saw in the text.  I'd be very happy with that happening.

I am working a bit today at getting my photo studio set up again.  It's not a permanent set up, but I've been doing a little at a time clearing out the space where I want to work.  I hope to get it all ready by mid-week.  I won't be able to leave it up because of the cats, but I hope to have a place where I can quickly put things together whenever I have the urge -- and the time.

Oh, and another story idea just hit.  Maybe I can work it into one of the others?  Yes, actually, I think I can.  In fact, I think this might be a missing piece of the Lost City story.  It also has a great opening.

Okay, need to think this through and start working up notes and stuff.  On a lot of stuff.

Yeah. Time to get my brain bouncing around again!

Goals for the New Month

First, in the news this week -- I finally got my Twitter account back! @LazetteG there, but it is going to take me awhile to get used to checking it and posting things again.  Still, after nearly a year, it's nice to have it back!

That will be one of my May goals: Start remembering to post on Twitter, Forward Motion, and maybe do a bit more on FB that is targeted toward my work, and not just random posts now and then.  Also, there is still the WattPad stuff.  I believe I have the novel I'm going to place there.  It is a YA fantasy called Circe's Gifts.  I have a good start on the final edits and I can start posting as soon as I figure out all the extra little things that need done before it goes up.

I had hoped to have Raventower & Merriweather 2: War published before the end of the month, but I had a week of miserable illness where I spent most of my time curled up in bed under the heated blanket and wondering if the apocalypse might not be better.  I am still not well, but my brain has started to put words together and get them into something like a proper order again.   It's not quite up to things like formatting and publishing books, but I'm getting there.  The book will be out soon.  The last of the Surviving Elsewhere flash fictions will go up this Friday.  I hope to post the first of Circe's Gifts at Wattpad this week.  Busy stuff.  Lots of busy stuff.

I've had more than one person ask me this week if I always have multiple projects going.

Yes.  The only time I do not is in those hours after I finish the last writing on the last day of the year (yes, I plan it that way) and before I start the first project of the new year.  Which, by the way, I generally start a couple minutes after midnight.  It's fun.  It's my way of saying 'this is me, and welcome to the New Year!'.  Later in the day I often start my first rewrite and/or edit of the year as well.  After that, work just grows and lessens and grows for the entire year.

And I love it.  I really do.  I have written every day for decades.  Why not?  It's what I love most to do.  Apparently according to some people this is a sin when it comes to writing.  Oh, don't write so much!  Slow Down!  It's evil to write more!

It's a joy.  It's fun.  It is not for everyone.  I think I've mentioned this a few times already, right?  Writing a lot and writing fast does not mean you can't edit afterwards, and honestly, I edit slowly.  I edit multiple times.  I edit until I drive myself, my husband, my cats -- and probably the stuffed plot bunnies around my desk -- insane.  There is the 'it is never quite right' problem. 

Unfortunately, it never will be.

At some point you have to let go.  Maybe someone else will find something for you to fix.  Maybe others will hate it.  Maybe you could have written the novel an entirely different way -- change the POV, go with a different main character, change the setting....

And maybe you would be writing an entirely different book if you did any of those things.  At some point you need to stop changing things just to change them.  I know.  I've been there.  I've written over 100 novels and hundreds of shorter works.  They may not be the best stuff ever written, but I do understand how the process goes and what problems you can make for yourself.

One of the worst is not letting go and moving on.  So that's part of why I have multiple projects.  (See, this comes back to the point!)  If all I have is one story and I can't step away from it when I need to and work on something else, I am just going to nudge and jab at it forever.  So when I'm done, I close it down and work on something else that's already in progress, whether that is something new or an edit.  Just move away.

And sometimes I even get something to the point that I'll publish.  I hope to do so this week.  Wish me luck with the second Raventower & Merriweather book!

Make Art

Only one day left of the first month of the year!  That went quickly.  It was helped along by several very nice weather days.  Now we have snow and pretty stuff, but also colder than it was.  Not horrible, but still unpleasant whenever the door to my office opens, and the cold from the unheated part of the house rushes in.  My cats don't quite understand 'close the door behind you!' so I'm stuck with getting up constantly and either shoving it closed or opening it again.  Hey, it's exercise.  I should probably have about six more cats so that I had to do it more often.

On the other hand ... no, not such a good idea.  I've had that many house cats (and more) before.  I'll stick with my three and our small but entirely useless dog. 

I've had one bout of illness, which I am just recovering from now.  It's been a rough day, but I think I can get back to working again.  I also need to pull back from the political world.  The daily anxiety of 'what has gone wrong now' is not helping me.  It's not helping anyone, but I fear we are stuck with it.

Hold on. I meant to talk about the novels, not the real world.  Journey of a Thousand Truths is flying along, even if we don't have a pilot or a map.  I've really enjoyed the work, with only a few days where I mumbled and grumbled and couldn't get more than 1k.  The novel is now over 55k, and I still have several big adventure points coming up.  Yay!

My secondary work for the month has been a rewrite/edit of the 4th Devlin novel, Missing Persons.  Here I hit a BIG problem.  I have rewritten the start three times now, and it is still boring!  Just dull.  Nothing seems to fit together.

Or at least that's how I felt until tonight when I realized two big things -- in my haste to get to the main storyline, I'd not set things up very well.  I did a lot of 'show, don't tell' spots and didn't even realize it.  Well, that makes a difference.  I also realized I had an excellent chance to start the trouble with one group long before Devlin's Team gets to the world where the current assignment is taking them.  The story finally seems to be picking up.  Once I get past the opening, I shouldn't have so much trouble.  I will not have the novel done this month as I had hoped (not even close since I am still back at page 15), but I finally see why I thought it was boring.  Nothing was really happening.  I recited events and did not let my characters live them. This is never the better choice when you have such great characters to work with as Devlin, Cha, and Dancer.  I needed to turn them loose.

Now the problem is that I have two really fun stories vying for my attention.  I'm not sure that's the best answer.

Oh. That reminds me of one more big change I made.

I restarted my Writing Comes First Campaign.  For too long, I was getting up, messing around on the Internet, getting distracted, and writing later.  I always write, so there was always going to be some words, but I was not doing as well as I used to.  I decided to make sure I had my writing done before I went over to FaceBook or any other site, especially with the current climate on the Internet.  (Ah, but how long will we even have the Internet?)  I thought this change was going to be difficult.

It was not.  I don't miss scrolling through FB first thing and filling myself with the kind of useless distress that doesn't help writing.  I also learned that if I simply sit down and start writing, the words will come to me.  I am having no trouble getting 3k first thing where I was having a horrible time getting 1k some days just because of the wasted time and energy.

You are not going to find me online before 6 pm or so central time.  Probably later on many days.  I am reapplying myself to my craft, and it's working.  I am going to take more time for other forms of art as well.

We all need to find things we enjoy, no matter how much we might dislike other things in the world.  If we give in to despair and cast aside all that we enjoy, isn't that a form of defeat?

In the words of Neil Gaiman -- Go Make Art.

Distractions

Last week I injured my left wrist.  I have no idea what I did, but it suddenly began to hurt enough to keep me awake at night.  After a couple days it cleared up, but those were difficult days for writing.  I managed to get a little over 1k a day done each day, though.  That's my minimum writing count.

The wrist mostly cleared up by the third day and things began to look better.

Then Russ took me to a wildlife refuge which knocked that day's word count back down -- oh, but it was a lovely distraction.  Eagles, geese, owl!  I have been trying to get a picture of an owl for YEARS.  You cannot imagine how much fun that was, to spot him just as we were leaving!

And then the ice storm....

Actually, we got off easy on the storm.  Just a light bit of ice and rain most of today (Monday), but it is cooling off and turning icy out there now.  I was enthralled, though, watching the storm progress up towards us and seeing the videos of various places as it hit.  I find storms and storm news fascinating. 

So all of that cut into my writing time or just drew my full attention.  From last Monday through Sunday, I wrote 10,808 words.  Not a bad total, but not even half of what I would normally get.

And you know what?  It doesn't matter.  If you start making word count numbers more important than things like storms and wildlife refuges, you are going to have very dull writing.  Seeing the wild world helps reconnect with times and places where civilization doesn't always hold sway.  Weather brings you closer to the unpredictable nature of the world.  Even inexplicable pains can bring you closer to your suffering characters.

You have to learn and experience things.  I've pursued life-long learning long before that term came into general use.  Too many see it as a pastime for retired people with nothing to do with their time.  Get over that concept, especially if you are a writer.  Learn things.  Read nonfiction books.  Take courses.  If you can spare the $20 a month, I suggest you sign up for this:

https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/home

I love these courses.  So far I've taken four history courses, four science courses (and found I have a true love for geology), one art appreciation class, and right now I'm learning about the Analects of Confucius, which is a far more fascinating book than I ever realized back when I read it years and years and years ago.

For people who don't like to read nonfiction, these are a fantastic second choice.  The classes are generally right around 30 minutes, and many of them are 24 or 32 total classes per course, so you can easily do one a night and have the entire course done in about one month.   Some of them are just as good as an audio class as a video one -- you can generally tell which ones after the first class, and you might choose just to listen to them while you do something else. There are courses in math, science, cooking, yoga, religion -- and more added so often that it is daunting to try and figure out how to watch all the ones you really want to see and still have time for things like writing.

Take time to learn something new.  Even take time away from your writing sometimes.  Embrace learning rather than thinking it's only suitable for school and retirees.  You deserve a better, richer life -- and this is an easy way to find one.

Photography

On October 1, I was part of a book release party for Patricia Loofbourrow's Queen of Diamonds novel, which is the second book in the Red Dog Conspiracy series.  I wrote up a lot of material before hand. I used the section on teas last week, and this week I thought I'd do the one on photography!

Photography is my second obsession.  I take pictures every day, and much like writing every day, it's all about finding inspiration and being willing to try something different.  I started a Picture of the Day Blog on January 1, 2007, and I haven't missed posting a picture for each day.  The pictures are taken on the day they're posted.

http://zettepicaday.blogspot.com/

Some pictures are better than others.  I feel it is important to practice every day and see where it will take you.  I started photography back in the film days.  For many years, I even had my own darkroom and I still have my enlarger and many of the other pieces of equipment.  Creating black and white photos was wonderfully fun.  I also did some color print and some color slide work.  I miss some of it, but I have to say that the new world of photography does give a lot more room for expression.

I have a fascination with glass plate negatives, though I've never worked with them.  However, if you are writing anything that requires truly old-fashioned photography, this is the process you want.  Here is a very short explanation of the two types of glass plates:

http://www.somersetphotography.com/glass_negatives.htm

Photographers traveling through the old west would have used glass negatives.  The pictures they created are iconic and the only true glance we have into the past. 

http://blogs.princeton.edu/westernamericana/tag/glass-plate-negatives/

Let's talk about one huge mistake often seen in shows and books when it comes to the intrepid reporter who has shot a photograph with his trusty camera and hurries back to his home or office and the dark room where he works.  He sets things up, turns on the red light to see by, and develops the film and makes a print.  The red light goes off and the regular light goes on.  There he has a lovely color print that shows the bad guy in the midst of doing something ... bad.

It doesn't work that way.  Color film and printing must be done in total darkness.  Film and paper are developed in closed systems where you pour the material in one end, close that, and then open an inner door to let it inside.  After the allotted time and a lot of sloshing around, you drain that back out, making certain everything is closed, and then do the next step.  I had a wonderful tube system for color prints that was fun, but expensive to work.

Oh, and let me tell you, there is nothing quite so annoying as trying to get film out of the original case and onto a spool to be developed -- and doing it in total darkness.

Red light can be used when developing black and white film and pictures, though.  The film and paper is purposely created not to interact with red light.  Color materials, though, interact with all types of light which is why you get colors.



As much as I loved working with film, I was an early adapter for digital photography.  The reason was that it cost a great deal less and that allowed me to do far more experimentation.  I had my first digital camera, a Sony FD7, back in 1998.  No, the pictures were not great, but the digital photography revolution was fast to move ahead.  I currently use two different Canon cameras, a T4i DSLR and an SX50HS.  The first uses multiple lenses which makes it closer to a professional model.  Picture taking itself is mostly the same as the old days, though, with most of the work being done with aperture and/or shutter speed.  Most cameras include a lot of bells and whistles, but those are the two bottom-line controls that a person needs to understand.

Probably the most confusing aspect of photography is understanding the numbers for aperture and how they work.  First, the wider open the aperture, the less depth there will be to what is in focus.  This is because it is letting in more light and that fuzzes out more of the picture (for a very non-technical description).  So, if you want a picture that has a large depth of field -- say a landscape with flowers in the foreground and mountains in the background, then you want a very small aperture.  Here is the second thing to remember:  the numbers related to aperture are like pieces of pie.  1/2 of a pie is far more than 1/22 of a pie.  So, the larger the number, the smaller the aperture.  For really good depth of field, you will likely need a tripod.

Digital cameras let you experiment and erase pictures without worry.  You don't need any fancy equipment to go from camera to sharing the pictures.  It's instant gratification, which is kind of nice for writers who often have to work years before they can share their written art.

There are programs that can help you go beyond digital photography to digital art.  Adobe's Lightroom is a wonderful tool for both cataloging pictures and for doing basic changes with things like contrast, color, and exposure -- plus a lot more if you want to play with it.  The program also allows you to catalog and tag your pictures so that you can easily call them up.  I have over 180,000 pictures in the database right now.  It's handy.

I also use Adobe Photoshop for some work, but that's usually my program for making cover art.   You can get Lightroom and Photoshop for $9.99 a month.  If you have the money and really want to work with your digital photography, consider it. http://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography.html

I would also like to suggest the Topaz Labs collection.  This is a wonderful set of tools that you can buy singly or as a group.  I love playing with them!  http://www.topazlabs.com/

Oh and how about 2 Lil Owls Studio's gorgeous textures to add to pictures?  http://2lilowls.com/

Yes, there are far too many fun toys for those of us who enjoy playing with pictures.  Those of you who are interested in doing cover art might want to look into these additions to help make your work unique.

Teas and Tisanes

On October 1, I was part of a book release party for Patricia Loofbourrow's Queen of Diamonds novel, which is the second book in the Red Dog Conspiracy series.  I wrote up a lot of material before hand.  One of my sections was on teas, so I thought I would reprint it here!

As you can tell from the picture, I have a large collection of over 250 teas and tisanes.  What is the difference between the two?  Technically, tea is only those infusions made with the leaves of the tea bush (Camellia sinensis).  These are naturally caffeinated and where they are grown, harvested, and treated is how the different types of teas are made.  White, green, oolong, black and pu'erh teas all come from the same plants.

So what are tisanes?  Those are infusions of things other than tea leaves.  Peppermint leaves make a wonderful tisane.  Herbal teas are tisanes, from the lovely combinations like Cinnamon Apple Chamomile to the rooibos blends.  Rooibos is an African bush that (at least to me) has a less bitter taste than tea leaves and makes an excellent base for additions. Both teas and tisanes can be flavored and have added ingredients.  Both can be in tea bags or loose leaf.

Not many people use the term 'tisane' but it is a useful one to know.  Understanding the difference between a tea and a tisane might help if you are writing a story, for instance.  Tea came rather late to the Western World, but tisanes were always present.  That doesn't mean you can't call everything tea.  I do.  However, there is one point of difference between the two that can make a huge difference in your life.  Most teas are caffeinated and most tisanes are not.  When you want something warm to drink before bed, a nice strong cup of Lapsang Souchong is probably not a good choice.  On the other hand, Ti Kuan Yin Goddess of Mercy Oolong might be the perfect start to a day.

The Republic of Tea's Peppermint Chocolate tea -- there are a lot of chocolate flavored teas out there -- is a wonderful blend using a rooibos base.  Their Caramel Apple is probably my favorite go-to drink, both hot and cold.

Stash Tea's Maple Apple Cider is a great autumn tea.  So is Adagio's Masala Chai.  Oh and Celestial's Bengal Spice.  And... and... and...

I could easily list a hundred teas to try, just from my four favorite companies.  One of the truly fun parts of being a tea drinker is the variety of choices in flavors.  I order teas directly from the companies on line.  This is because many of them simply are not available in my area of the world.  Celestial Teas are the most common in this area, and they do have some wonderful blends.  In fact, for those of you who crave the pumpkin spice flavors, I suggest you try Celestial Tea's Sweet Harvest Pumpkin which is a black tea blend that not only contains the usual pumpkin spices, but also pumpkin flavoring.  Most 'pumpkin spice' products are the spices only.

There are, of course, elitists in the tea world just like in everything else.  They'll sniff disdainfully if you don't drink 'true' teas or if you use bags instead of loose tea.  Don't listen to them.  Make your cup of tea of the type that suits you and in a way that works best for you.  Don't get into the cup versus mugs debate -- it simply will not add to the taste of your choice of drink.  (I recently learned that cups only come with saucers and mugs are all the rest.  I still call them all cups.)  Sweeten the tea or not.

Do try various types, though.

Here is are links to my four favorite tea sites.  There are others who are good, too -- but I limit myself to these:

https://www.stashtea.com/ (Stash Tea is a wonderful place to shop for cups, mugs, teapots and more as well as some great teas!)

http://www.republicoftea.com (Republic of Tea has wonderful teas of all sorts.  They also put a free sample in each catalog, which is a wonderful way to try new ones.  Some of my favorite teas come from here.)

http://www.adagio.com/index.html (Adagio is primarily a loose leaf tea company and they have some exquisite teas.  They also have, under the Blends tab, a section called Fandom Blends, where anyone can put together their own combinations and give it a fandom name.  You can also do combinations without the fandom link.)

http://shop.celestialseasonings.com (Celestial Tea is one people in the US are most likely to be familiar with, but you might be surprised by the huge selection that never makes it to the store shelves.  Buy direct from them and the tea is fresher as well!)

Why not the easy path?

 

      Setting a character's course of action is rarely a simple act of pointing the MC in one direction and pushing him along. Quite often a far more important part is to cut off the paths he might have gone instead and making certain your readers know why he didn't take the easier way.

Easier, of course, is rarely the better choice for a story. However, harder can look manipulated unless block off other directions. If your character decides to cut through the woods on the way to the castle, rather than take the path that leads straight there, give a good reason that will make the other path not the best one. Here are several I can think of for this simple set up:

1. There is someone who lives along the path whom he doesn't want to see.

2. There is someone in the woods he hopes to meet.

3. It's the short cut (a usual reason, but good if he's running late).

4. He's not going where he says he's going, so takes a route that keeps him out of sight of others.

5. He wants to get to the castle before a wagon reaches there, so racing through the woods while it goes up the main path will work for him.

There are five reasons he didn't take the path. Now, what happens to him in the woods is another matter. You know something is going to happen, but why then and there? That's another case where you have to close off other paths to make certain this one is viable. Yes, there is chance in real life. Unfortunately, we rarely accept it as readers.

So just make certain once someone heads one way, it is because it makes sense, not just because that's how you want him to go as the author. The great part is that we, as authors, can do anything in our world to make it reasonable.

Information for the Two Year Novel Course

If you find you are interested in the class simply join Forward Motion for Writers, which is a free site, and then sign up for the class, which is also free. Below is both the overview and the introduction to the class so you can get an idea of what is going on:

Overview

I began the first Two Year Novel Course at Forward Motion in January, 2004. The course covered writing a novel from the very first idea all the way through submission (or later, for Indie Authors -- all the way to publication). I filled the course with information to help people at every step, and while new writers often found it useful, even those who had written a few novels discovered things of benefit as they shifted their thinking for newer projects.

There are eight sections in all:

Basics: Weeks 1-5

Characters: Weeks 6-13

World building: Weeks 14-25

Outlines: Weeks 26-33

Writing the First Draft: Weeks 34-65

Editing -Second Draft: Weeks 66 -77

Editing - Final Draft: Weeks 78 - 88

Submission and Publication: Weeks 89 - 104

Whether you are looking at Indie (self) Publishing or pursuing traditional publication, the path through the artistic aspects of creating a novel are virtually identical, as is the editing work (which is still an act of creativity in its own way). I have tried to indicate where there might be aspects to consider differently, but these classes are aimed at anyone writing.

There are a total of 104 classes. Each class includes a 'lecture' plus an assignment and examples. Some lectures are short and others are quite long. Not everything will help you, and certainly not everything will help with every book you write. However, the more authors are willing to look outside their usual patterns, the more likely they are to find the spark to write something new and different.

Introduction to the 2YN Course

I can't teach you to be a great writer.

I can, however, show you the one thing I'm very good at, which is moving through a story from start to finish. I can point out things which might help you in your goal to be a successful writer. However, in the end, you have to do the work.

I can show you how to take hold of your imagination and let it help you write the book that is there in your head, ready to be told. I can show you some tricks to writing a good book which might have a better chance of drawing the attention of an editor or -- essential for Indie Authors -- those crucial first readers who will spread the word about your new release.

Nothing, of course, is guaranteed. You have to do the work. You have to be willing to learn and to experiment.

Starting in 2015, I am presenting the class in a different way.  Prior to this, the classes were posted one at a time over the weekend.  This year I have posted all 104 classes ahead of time so that you can go through them at your own speed. However I strongly suggest you read all the classes in order and do the exercises, no matter if you think something applies to you or not.   You will still be posting your material in the same way as previous classes.  You may want to join up with others (especially in your own genre) to comment on each other's work.  With small groups, you have a better chance of nudging each other forward.  You can form these groups by putting up a notice on the General Discussion board.

For the next two years, if you follow the course the way I originally planned it, you will work your way through the process of writing of a novel. Depending on the genre you work in, by the end you will have written between 80,000 and 150,000 words. If you dedicate yourself to doing the work, you will have also edited the work and either begun the process of submitting the material to send to agents or publishers, or will be preparing it for publication.

This is not going to be a fast romp through the work of writing a book. The 2YN course will be easy for some of you and more difficult for others, but I hope you will all learn something helpful -- if nothing more than knowing some of the suggestions don't work for you.

This is, by the way, an important aspect to learn about your own writing. Sometimes forcing yourself to try to write to someone else's perfect method is a good way to kill even the most inspired story. Here is the most important thing we all have to remember in this class:

No two writers are alike.

So why should I teach this class? I'm not the best novelist in the world, but I do know how to start, continue and complete a novel, as well as how to move on to rewrites and editing. The act of writing is one of my strong points, and I believe I can help others refine the way they work, look at new ways to approach novel writing, and find the best pattern to help them continue writing to the end of a project.

This set of classes is as much about dedication, direction and exploration as it about writing. By joining in, you are committing to follow through from the first idea to the end of the novel.

You're about to start an adventure. Good luck, and remember to have fun.

What you need for this course

What you need for this course is a love of writing, an idea you want to explore, and the determination to see it all the way through to a finished novel.

I suggest you get a three ring binder and tab inserts to show the different sections (Basics, Characters, etc.). You can print or hand write your assignments and keep them in the notebook. Having the notebook will be an easy way to reference the material throughout the class. You can also keep the material in files, of course, but just make certain that the pieces you create are easy to access.

Do not skip classes

I also strongly suggest you do all the classes, even if you're not sure how it might work into your current novel -- and especially if it's something you haven't tried before. Writers should always be open to experimentation!

Most of all, remember to have fun. Don't let this course become 'work' that destroys the joy of creativity.

Here is what some people have said about the classes:

"When my urban fantasy novel Quarter Square was published by Carina Press, the first person I thanked on my acknowledgements page was Lazette Gifford, for it was on one of Zette's excellent Two Year Novel courses that the book was conceived, born and nurtured." David Bridger

"The Two Year Novel Course got me thinking about my story in ways I'd never considered before - ways that deepened and enriched my story. I even gained a main character who is vital to the story from one week's exercise." Wandering Author (Member of Forward Motion)

"Without Lazette Gifford's 2YN course I wouldn't have discovered my ideal writing process. Having taken the course, the first drafts of my novels now come out with a lot less struggle." Alex Fayle

"From world building to curse words to the food your characters eat, Lazette Gifford's 2YN courses take the monumental task of creating a believable world and breaks it down into bite-sized chunks. For anyone who thinks they don't have the time to write, this course can show you a manageable way to get words onto paper." AJ Maguire