Gecko, Spider, & Writerly Things

Updates, and advice on blocking out creative projects on your calendar

Last week I finally got together with some friends after a long while of “being busy” with responsibilities and… reading. But not the fun reading. The kind where you read the thing YOU wrote for what feels like the billionth time. Looking for mistakes, holes, errors. Places where characters don’t act quite like themselves. Where motivations could be sharpened, or dialog tightened. Or maybe you still had your head in the sexy scenes and chose not to give someone underwear when they would absolutely wear underwear in this scene. (Writing is weird, mkay?)

I printed out THE DARK WELL and went through it with a red pen over the course of a week and a half, reading just a few chapters each day, sometimes several times. Then, after taking a weekend off, I applied the edits over a full 8hr day—and YES, read the thing again. Needless to say, getting together with some of my dearest friends to play Magic: the Gathering? It was awesome. I needed to put my head somewhere else for a spell.

My friend Bill, who I hadn’t seen in far too long, won the game—and as a new-to-magic player! We drafted decks from a “cube” I built—which is just fancy nerd-speak for a brick-ass-load of cards that simulates drafting decks from booster packs like folks do at store events and such. Between the four of us, Bill (not pictured but Master Taker of Pictures), Zach, seated beside me, and Kris, seated across from me—the cube drafted fairly well. Zach was in the lead and far more dangerous than any of us, until Bill had some surprises to play out from his quietly built board.

Not long after Magic night, Graggon Keep announced something BIG publicly! Our family will be growing by one this November!!! Ali and I are thrilled, and (thanks to the magic of SCIENCE) have known since (6 weeks?) that Delaney would be getting a little sister. STOKED! I’ve already put the crib back together and we’ve rearranged Delaney’s room. She got a “big kid bed”.

My partner, Ali has been feeling much better now that we’re out of the first trimester. I felt horrible because there’s so few ways to help during that time and, well, I’m to blame, frankly. She was at least twice as nauseated and uncomfortable as she was the first time around—so we’re glad that’s behind us. Ali is truly amazing. She’s so active at work and still has all the energy for Delaney and listening to me talk—superhuman, she is.

Let’s see… what else is going on? Hmm. Well, I found out my gecko can be YELLOW if he wants to. It was a very WHO THE FUCK TOOK MY GECKO AND GAVE ME ANOTHER, in the moment. I’ve always known he changes color and “powers up” or “down” through shades of red and brown, but a few nights ago I took him out of his vivarium and found he was as bright as a browning lemon. Which is to say, very yellow. Not SUPER YELLOW, but FAR from his usual browns and reds. Too cool! Also, he was WILD while he was yellow. Cresties are very active at night, and I think this was the first time I’d handled him while he was that pumped up.

Lastly? I saved a cutie and took him back outside. This isn’t news. I do this everywhere I go, with most spiders and bugs. This guy was no house spider—which, taking house spiders outside, if you didn’t know, more often than not kills them—(which makes me freeze up for a few seconds in indecision when I see one lol). This lil guy is a jumping spider—specifically the “bold” jumping spider or Phidippus audax. He’s just a lil man who likes to eat bitty boys smaller than him. And he’s TOO FUCKN’ CUTE. LOOK AT HIS LITTLE DALMATION DOTSSSSS AAHAHHHHH

Anyway… I hope you and yours are well! We’ll have this novel out on submission soon-ish, I do think what I gave my agent is on the brink of ready, if not there—and while there’s no guarantee we sell it—I’m practicing what I once heard Dan Wells say to Brandon Sanderson while Sanderson nodded in agreement, which is (paraphrased): use this time wisely, because the time between going on submission and getting a deal will be the most time you’ll have to write for a very long time. Meaning that working with an editor, and on all the things related to a book deal, often puts a wrench in writers’ schedules.  So, I’m planning to stay focused, keep working on the next book, and hopefully nurture a home-life and writing schedule which allows me to keeping writing at a book/year pace.

I’ve been working with the incredible Jason Denzel through the SFWA mentorship (which I am so grateful to have gotten into). Jason created Dragonmount (the place for all things Wheel of Time) back in the day, and is the author of the Mystic trilogy (TOR). I just finished the first book and can’t wait to read the next! If you like epic fantasy, I highly recommend it. It was exactly what I needed as an epic fantasy lover who was burned out and needed a gateway drug back into the wonderous genre. Jason has been awesome in this mentorship—his encouragement, industry insights, stories, and help in crafting an outline for my first “big(ger)” book has all been fantastic—and I feel like our pairing was a cool “universe moment” because we’ve ended up having a lot in common. I’m sad this next month is the last of the mentorship, but I have a feeling we’ll keep in touch. It has been so rewarding to have a friend who “gets it” when it comes to writing.

But all that’s to awkwardly transition to this little bit for artists: How to block-out a project on your calendar. No advice from me this time, just an excellent resource—that’s what we librarian-types are best at anyhow—finding excellent resources.

This article HERE from the SFWA blog is a gem of a piece which talks about how one might outline their year of writing work for a novel. I’m sticking to a formula similar to what the amazing Cat Rambo suggests and find that it’s working very well for me. This isn’t, however, advice I would give to someone who hasn’t finished a book before. Take your time there. Or even maybe two books. Learn how you work. Focus on craft and drilling yourself to perform reliably, THEN take something like this article and use it for the length of a project across a wider space of time. I think Rambo outlines a very reasonable book-per-year method here, and many writers I know follow something like this. (Do note exceptions. If you’re writing epic fantasy, for example, the “year” here might be longer—unless you’re Brando Sando). But for me, planning to write books which will mostly stay between 80-120k words, it’s a great place to start.

Lastly, I’ll say to the creatives out there: the SFWA blog is a GREAT place for talk that is applicable to not only writing, but many creative disciplines. And the folks who give back to create this resource really know what they’re talking about.