Coleen Kwan

I was tagged by my writing friend Jennifer Brassel for this blog hop. Jen is a history buff whose reincarnation story The Curse will be released later this year. Thanks Jen!

As you can guess, this blog hop is all about an author's writing process. Here are the questions and my answers:

Question 1: What am I working on?
Answer: I have just finished the first draft of a category-length contemporary romance, and I'm letting the manuscript marinade a bit before embarking on the second draft.

Question 2: How does my work differ from others of its genre?
Answer: Hmm, that's a question I don't dwell on much. My work is constantly evolving, but I like to think I write emotional, character-driven romances.

Question 3: Why do I write what I do?
Answer: Because that's what I like to read, and those are the story ideas that pop into my head. Seems I don't have much control over that.

Question 4: How does your writing process work?
Answer: I don't follow any hard and fast rules. I tend to plan out my book with short chapter summaries outlining the major plot points. Then I write a fast first draft which inevitably throws up lots of plot holes and deviations which need to be resolved in the second draft. The third draft is more to do with polishing and copy-editing.

My latest release:

Bittersweet Rescue

She rescued him, and saved herself.

When Ellie Sherwood rescues her boss from drowning, she never anticipates the consequences. For three years she’s existed in an emotional limbo after a catastrophic family tragedy, but now she’s awake and ready to seize life with both hands. And that includes the sexy boss she’s been secretly infatuated with for some time.

Drake Crawford is about to achieve his lifelong goal when a car accident plays havoc with his life. Not only is his plan for revenge delayed, but his once demure personal assistant is now shockingly, irresistibly forward. Drake is against office affairs, and Ellie is vital to his success, but he can’t get her out of his mind, and besides, he does owe her...

His solution—a two-week break with Ellie at his wilderness hideout. They’ll indulge in a scorching, private affair, and when it’s over they’ll return to their normal lives. But as Drake discovers more about Ellie, he realises her quiet exterior hides a backbone of steel. When she asks him to walk away from his ultimate goal, he knows it’s time to let her go.

I always enjoy visiting this Aboriginal cave shelter. It lies in the slope of a hill overlooking a grassy meadow. The stencils along the back wall depict hands and weapons. The roof of the shelter bears the smoke of many fires, while the floor is soft ashy sand. The people who used this cave would have hunted game in the surrounding eucalyptus woodland - wallabies, possums, wombats, goannas, and snakes. For water there's a nearby gully which only fills with water during storms, but a permanent river runs further down the valley.



It’s a peaceful, meditative spot. When I’m here it’s easy to imagine people gathering together in the shelter and lighting a fire to cook their hunt. Afterward, as the night draws in, I can see them sitting around the fire and exchanging stories, perhaps about the day’s hunt or myths about the Dreamtime. From these early beginnings storytelling evolved to become an intrinsic part of our culture. The people who sat around those fires passed their tales on through oral means, while my stories exist as a series of magnetised dots on a hard drive, but I like to think I share a connection with these early story tellers.

Some writers love nothing better than to pop on the earphones and crank up the music while they write. It energises them, gives them inspiration. I’m the opposite. I can’t write with distractions like music or TV on. But sometimes listening to the right piece of music can help set the tone for a particular scene.

 I needed some mood-setting music when I was writing a pivotal scene in my first contemporary romance WHEN HARRIET CAME HOME. In my scene it’s night time and my hero and heroine, Adam and Harriet, are at a quiet lookout, dancing together under the stars. Music plays from Adam’s car. But what song were they dancing to? I wanted something emotional to match the scene and eventually found an evocative song by Melody Gardot called ‘Our Love Is Easy’.


I have to confess straight up that I’m not a fan of jazz, but I happened to catch a TV interview with singer-songwriter Melody Gardot and was intrigued by her story. An horrific accident put her in hospital for a year and left her with serious injuries, one of them making her hyper-sensitive to both light and sound. During her recovery she learned to play the guitar and began writing music. Her music has been described as ‘a blend of cocktail jazz and torch song’, and her singing is rich and soulful.

After I listened to ‘Our Love Is Easy’ several times, it made writing the scene in my book much easier and hopefully improved the emotional punch too. If you like smooth, cool jazz, or even if you don't, take a listen!

Does your character like risotto or paella?

Before I start writing a new book, I like to do a lot of planning. I write a lot of description of my main characters—what they look like, what their childhood was like, what their hopes and dreams are. But it’s only when I start writing the story that I start to find out more about them. Do they like reading? What kind of books do they enjoy? Would they be the kind of person who owns an ereader, or is it dead trees all the way?

The other day I was writing a scene in which the heroine cooked dinner for the hero. In my initial draft I had her cooking risotto, simply because I couldn’t see her cooking a roast lamb, for instance. But when I reread the scene, risotto didn’t seem right, so I changed it to paella. Paella suited her much better, I thought. Paella was spicy, messy, robust. It was her. Now it made no difference to the scene whether she cooked risotto or paella, and the hero would have enjoyed whatever she made, but it made a difference to me. It’s this level of detail I wouldn’t have thought of in my initial planning. Only when I came to write the scene did I realise that she was a paella girl.

By writing the first draft I discover so much more about my characters, their motivations, and their conflicts. The characters, who before were just a list of words in my plan, become real people. My first draft is messy, laden with clichés and mistakes, missing important scenes, lacking the right pace, but it’s also where my characters start to breathe and (hopefully) behave like real people, even to the point of preferring paella over risotto.

VRoig

Whenever I receive a revision letter from an editor, I experience a moment of panic. The revisions seem so drastic, so difficult. I can't possibly see how I'll manage them or get them done on time. I think part of the problem is I'm too attached to the manuscript I submitted. I've laboured over it to the point that in my mind this is the final product, not to be tampered with.

But I've learned that the panic is only momentary. My manuscript should be dissected. And words are just words. I'll survive if I cut out a few thousand. I can write a few thousand new ones. And once I jump in and start shoving things around, I see how right my editor is, how spot on her comments are, and I begin to breathe easier. I can do this. It's only words.

I've been tagged for 'Lucky Seven' by my writing friend Whitney E-K! Lucky Seven involves going to page 77 of your current manuscript, counting down 7 lines, and then posting the next 7 sentences on your blog.

My 7 lines come from a Victorian historical (with steampunk elements) which I recently completed.


But now she’d transformed into something else, some shameless creature with primitive, insistent urges. Or perhaps it was Julian who was the cause. Perhaps she’d always carried these latent feelings buried deep within, and it was only Julian who could bring them to the surface.

The idea perturbed her. She screwed her eyes shut, but still Julian’s image floated in her mind. His bronzed body was a thing of beauty, the sculpted lines of muscle, bone and sinew a hymn of virility.

She must get away from him.

Another great post on line editing from editor Gina Bernal at Romance University. She does a great job of dissecting the first two pages of a manuscript and explaining what doesn't work and how it could be fixed. I find it much harder to spot the flaws in my own work. Wish I had Gina looking over my shoulder as I do my editing!

Fellow Carina author Rachael Johns tagged me for the Lucky 7 meme game. I've been away for a few days but better late than never.

The Lucky 7 rules are:

• Go to page 77 of your current WIP
• Go to line 7
• Copy the next 7 lines (sentences or paragraphs) and post them
• Tag 7 authors and let them know.

Here's what I got from the latest category romance I'm working on:

Jacinta stared at Holly. “Kirk’s wife was Lex’s ex-girlfriend?”

“Yes...” Holly squinted at her, the scowl evaporating. “You didn’t know?”

She didn’t know about any of Lex’s past girlfriends. She hadn’t wanted to know because it hadn’t been important, but now...now she couldn’t help wondering. Had Lex been in love with this girlfriend? Was that why he resented Kirk? The idea of Lex being in love with someone else brought a cramping pain to her sides.

Conscious of Holly’s curious stare, she quickly tried to compose herself. “Er, no. Lex doesn’t really talk about that kind of thing.”

As I'm late to the party, I'll skip the tagging.

Show, don't tell. I'm constantly struggling with this one, but movies can often provide good examples of how to show without telling.

Recently I watched Crazy, Stupid, Love, and right near the beginning of the film is a scene of a teenager babysitting a girl. The teenager mucks about with the girl, chasing her around the living room, where the girl accidently knocks over a framed photo. There's the sound of glass breaking. The teenager tells the girl never mind, she'll look after it, and the girl bounces off. Alone, the teenager picks up the photo. It's a picture of the married couple she's babysitting for, and the glass has splintered down the middle. Slowly, the teenager slides her hand across the glass to cover up the wife's image.

It's a really short scene, but it shows so much:

• The  teenager isn't too grown up; she's still just a big kid
• She has a crush on the dad
• She's rather sweet and naive

And of course the splintering of the glass down the middle of the photo echoes the previous scene where the married couple are having one of those awful 'date night' dinners where they have absolutely nothing to talk about.

In fact during this dinner the wife (Julianne Moore) tells her husband (Steve Carell) she wants a divorce. The audience doesn't see this bombshell being dropped. All we see is the couple driving home after the dinner and the husband choosing to roll out of a moving car rather than talk to his wife about their marital problems.

Those opening scenes are so cleverly done. I loved the movie (though I have no idea why there's an extra comma in the title).

Generally I enjoy the editing part of writing. It’s a chance to correct mistakes, to flesh out characters, to add the missing nuances. Editing allows the critical, analytical left brain to take over and fashion something solid and meaningful out of the messy first draft that the creative right brain has produced. I like editing, but it feels as if I’ve been mired in editing for weeks now, and it’s a bit like eating your favourite meal five nights in a row. After a while you just want a change.

I’ve been working on edits for my steampunk novella coming out in June, Asher’s Invention. They’ve been relatively straightforward. But I’ve also been editing the sequel to Asher’s Invention and trying to make it as near to perfect as I can before I submit it. As well, I’m working on a third manuscript after a revise and resubmit. So I’ve been in editing mode for many weeks and feeling the pinch. What can I do to stop it feeling like a chore?

1. Don’t put pressure on myself. Unless my editor needs work returned by a certain date, don’t put a deadline on finishing my editing.

2. Do something else writing-related. I’ve started planning a new book. I don’t know if that’s what I’ll write next, but it’s giving my right brain a workout. I’ve also written a book review and a guest blog post. And I’m currently halfway through a great writing course which is giving me lots of food for thought about my edits.

3. Do editing in small blocks of time. Work on the edits for 2 hours then step away from the computer and don’t even think about writing.

Looking at the points above, I think No 1 is the most important. I’m constantly reading about how authors should be putting out a new title every 4 to 6 months for maximum exposure. I read about prolific writers like Maya Banks who last year wrote 8 to 10 books and professes to be a one draft writer who hates doing detailed plotting, and Rachel Aaron who increased her daily word count from 2K to 10K, and it's easy to feel I'm not pulling my weight.

On the other hand this post at The Creative Penn suggests writing fast is overrated. The comments on this post prove that every writer is different, and so am I. I’d like to write faster, and I’m still going to aim to improve my daily word count, but not at the expense of enjoying the whole experience.

A year ago on 2nd Feb, I received an email from Angela James of Carina Press which began "I'm sorry I'm unable..." As soon as I scanned those first few words I screwed up my eyes and tried to stop reading. A couple of months ago I'd submitted a contemporary romance to Carina Press, and I was so sure this was another rejection. But then as I skimmed through the rest of the email, I began to read strange phrases like "offer to publish" and "deal sheet", and it dawned on me that it wasn't a rejection but an acceptance!

In the year since I received that wonderful email, I've learned a lot about writing and about publishing. The thing that strikes me the most is that there's not such a big difference between being published and unpublished as I used to think. Before I was published I used to think writers were basically in two separate camps - one for published, one for unpublished. Now I realise that everyone has their own ladder to climb and getting your first book published is just another step along the learning curve. One year on, I'm still suffering from self-doubt, wondering if my writing sucks. I'm still getting rejections, and they hurt just as bad. And I'm still getting to grips with marketing, promotion, and social media. But most importantly my writing has also improved, and not least because of my editor's efforts. Here's hoping my improvements bear fruit this year!

When I first started writing seriously, I could just about write a complete 50K story, but every chapter was a struggle. The thought of writing 80K or 100K was as daunting as Mount Everest, but slowly I managed to edge up my upper limit. The last story I finished was over 70K, and it didn’t feel too strenuous. At last, I thought I was achieving writing fitness.

 But now I’m working on a short novella. It’s to be part of an anthology, so I don’t want it to be more than 10-12K. And now I’m finding it’s a lot harder to write less. I’ve written the beginning about four times and it’s still not right. With only 10K to play with, every sentence becomes important. It’s like putting together a very complicated jigsaw. I’m finding I need to cut out some of the action because the external conflict threatens to overwhelm the internal conflict, and without internal conflict there’s no meat to the story.

This is my second steampunk story, and when the writing isn’t flowing, it’s easy to get distracted by all the cool steampunk things on the internet, like this:

Artist and X-Men fan, Daniel Valdez of Smeeon, created a steampunk wheelchair for the character Professor Charles Xavier.

The smokestack even emits steam!


A steampunk wheelchair worthy of any dastardly villain.

Photos courtesy of Smeeon.

Flickr

“A dry-stone wall is a lovely thing when you see it bordering a field in the middle of nowhere but becomes more impressive when you realise that it was built without mortar, that the builder needed to choose each interlocking stone and fit it in. Writing is like building a wall. It's a continual search for the word that will fit in the text, in your mind, on the page. Plot and character and metaphor and style, all these become secondary to the words. The wall-builder erects her wall one rock at a time until she reaches the far end of the field. If she doesn't build it it won't be there. So she looks down at her pile of rocks, picks the one that looks like it will best suit her purpose, and puts it in.

The search for the word gets no easier but nobody else is going to write your novel for you.”

For the past few weeks I’ve been deep in revisions, and sometimes it feels like it’s never going to end. When I’m writing a first draft I’m in love with my story, my characters, everything. But when I start revising it, suddenly there are so many things to hate. Revision requires putting on that critical pair of spectacles, and sometimes it’s hard to take them off and re-discover the things I loved about my story in the first place.

I’ve been reading James Scott Bell’s Revision & Self-Editing book, and it has some useful tips. One of these was to emulate the prolific writer Isaac Asimov who had several typewriters in his writing space and would jump from one project to another. I find this fascinating as I’m one of those stick-in-the-mud plodders who has to finish one task before starting another no matter how grim it makes me. Maybe I should take Bell’s advice and swap between revising one story, drafting a second, and brainstorming a third. At least I’d be able to take off those critic specs off now and then.

I went for a long walk this morning just to avoid writing a synopsis. Now I’m writing this blog and still putting it off. I don’t know what it is about writing a synopsis that makes just about any other task seem more urgent. Maybe it’s because it reminds me of school and writing those dreaded book reports. Maybe it’s because my synopses seem to turn out rather stodgy and indigestible because I tend to do a lot of ‘telling’ and not much ‘showing’.

Photo by Petit Brun

July has been a month of procrastinating. First, there were the school holidays to distract me. Then I lost a good few days staying up late watching Cadel Evans win the Tour de France. Now there’s someone to inspire me. I don’t know the first thing about cycling, but the sight of him hauling himself up those Alps, every mile of his struggle etched into his grimacing face, was riveting. I don't see myself taking up cycling, but perhaps Cadel will inspire me to tackle my own alp — my dreaded synopsis.

Photo by rayced

When is the right time to send your manuscript out into the world? After I’ve spent months slogging over initial drafts, nit-picking over editing rounds, checking every use of the word “gaze”, I find myself itching to submit the story.

This month I’ve been using the RWA’s 50Kin30Days event to do a little experimenting. Up to now I’ve only concentrated on contemporary romance, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to flex my writing muscles and decided I’d try writing a steampunk novella. This has thrown up some interesting new challenges for me.

•  Novella. I’ve never written a novella before. I initially aimed for between 20K and 30K, and I think I’ll end up with about 28K. Best-selling author Angela Knight has some good tips on how to write a novella.

• History. My story is set in Victorian England, and I’ve never written a historical romance before. I enjoy reading historical, but I’m not so confident about writing them, especially when it comes to dialogue. I don’t want the characters to sound too modern, but neither do I want them sounding like stuffed shirts.

• World building. A good steampunk story involves building a world filled with airships, aether, ray guns, and all sorts of inventions. The world building has to sound plausible, but it can’t occupy huge blocks of narrative (especially in a novella).

• Steampunkery. To me steampunk has always been very visual, and it can be hard to get those visuals down in writing. It’s far easier to show steampunk in pictures than in words. I’ve read a few steampunk novels, and the best I’ve come across recently is Phil and Kaja Foglio’s Aagatha H and the Airship City. It’s actually based on their Girl Genius webcomic, so it’s also coming from a visual medium. Some book reviewers lament the book isn’t as good as the graphic novels, but I enjoyed the book even though I’d never heard of the webcomic.

I recently watched two Iraq war movies. Green Zone follows a US army officer on the hunt for WMD in the weeks just after the American invasion. The movie follows the classic three-act structure, with setbacks, rising conflict, and set-piece action at the climax. The main character is your classic hero. He’s brave, honest, persistent, and determined to do the right thing by the Iraqi people and the army.

The Hurt Locker follows the exploits of an army bomb disposal team. At first glance, this movie doesn’t seem to adhere to any kind of writing structure. The action moves from one situation to another without any noticeable plot. The main character isn’t that heroic. Yes, he risks his life every time he investigates a suspected bomb, but he’s a war-junkie, addicted to the adrenalin. He doesn’t follow orders, doesn’t seem to care about the rest of his team and puts them at risk through his recklessness. He doesn’t question why he’s there. In fact, in the end civilian life is just too boring for him.

Both movies are good, but THL resonated with me in a way GZ didn’t, and I think it’s all down to character. GZ takes an expansive view, focusing on the political and moral twists of the war, whereas THL zeroes in on one character and how he’s affected by the war. He’s a flawed character, but still a sympathetic one. Comparing these two films, I realised a viewer (or reader) will forgive a lot of things if the character gets to them. I’m not saying that’s the only ingredient in good writing, but I’m beginning to think it’s the most important.