Documenting the writing life

At the time this gets published I'm making my way back from Worldcon in Spokane. I'll be tired and cranky and most likely half asleep from the past week's exertions. I'm writing this during the week before Worldcon so I don't know for certain. What I do know right now that I don't have the time or the brain capacity for another thoughtful Mad Max post, though at least one more of those is going to get made sometime soon. So instead I'm going to talk about documenting my writing life.

Query Tracker 

While querying, it's important to know who you've queried and when. Something that's also nice is being able to see the actual query letter. Query Tracker does all this for me as well as providing the option to search for possible agents using various criteria. Query Tracker provides some statistics based on people's reports but from where I'm sitting they don't seem very robust at the moment. None the less Query Tracker even as it is now is an invaluable part of my writing process.

Duotrope

I write short fiction as well as novels. To be perfectly frank, I've written many more short stories than novels. Possibly even more words in short stories than in novels. Duotrope is very similar to Query Tracker, only focused on short stories. Duotrope has wonderful statistics on all the short story markets I've come across so far. It also provides a calendar with upcoming themed and unthemed deadlines of magazine submissions.

Sink or Submit! 

Finally, with regard to submissions, we come to the gamification of submissions. Sink or Submit! is a super simple game created by another Mary Robinette Kowal alumn, Hilary Bisenieks Brenum and it was inspired by yet another MRK alumn, Sunil Patel. Basically, you get a point for every submission and rejection you get. For every acceptance your point count goes to zero. The point of the game is to reward for behavior that should, in the end lead to something positive but where the road to those positive results is sometimes very unpleasant. A sale is a reward all on its own.

The Magic Spreadsheet

The Magic spreadsheet is a way to gamify the amount of words you write every single day. You get more points for every day that you write at least the magic minimum (250 words). You get one point for 250 words (two points for 500 words, 3 for 1000 words and four for 2000 words) plus one point for every day in your chain. I'm currently on my 44th day of my latest chain which means that I'm getting 45 points for today's 300 words. As you accumulate points, you go up a level at intervals that last about a month if you write every day. As you go up a level, your level specific quota goes up by 50 words. Which is to say, on the second level you need to write 300 words every day to maintain your points. You can still maintain your chain even if you don't write to your level quota but that also drops your chain points back to the level highest level quota of those words. So, if today I wrote only 250 words, I would get only 31 points instead of 45. If tomorrow I wrote my 300 words, I would get only 32 points.

The spreadsheet also sports a leaderboard in which you can compete with people around the world on the number of words you've written total, this month and so on.

Trello

At all times I have at least three projects ongoing; one short story, one novel either in plotting or revision and one novel being written. On top of that I run two of my own blogs and regularly contribute to three others. If I didn't have some type of project management tool, my head would explode. Literally. Or maybe not. Mind meltdown doesn't seem like it would produce that much heat or expansion. Anyway, I'm digressing.  I use Trello to plan my time in advance because it allows me to see most of the moving parts in advance as well as giving me deadlines for upcoming things that I need to get done.

How do you document your writing life? Do you

Getting Unstuck

I’ve been kind of stuck lately. In a writerly rut. Not really writer’s block, per se. You see, writer’s block implies that you’re actually doing some kind of writing. I’ve been … dry. It’s in part due to major life/family events, but some also just due to inertia. I haven’t been writing, so it’s hard to write. Hard to start from a non-moving position.

So I thought I’d share with you some of the tricks and tips and workarounds I’m using to jump-start, restart, reignite my writing. Hope you enjoy them!

Book recommendation: Writing Magic by Gail Carson Levine.

While this book is geared toward a student writer, I really love the writing exercises she includes in most chapters. Plus she encourages the writer to save what they write. Everything. Even the cruddy first drafts and the times when the writer was just playing around. As it turns out, looking back through some of my notes about writing, story ideas jotted down on a thousand different sticky notes in every room of the house, and re-reading old stories is another method of getting back into the writing saddle.

The Snowflake Method – I have had many projects start well but fizzle later (usually at around the 2/3 point) and have concluded that lack of planning (being a total seat-of-the-pants writer) was hurting me. So I’ve vowed to do more planning. The snowflake method has always been a favorite of mine for doing the big-picture story planning, gradually getting deeper and deeper into the story as the snowflake evolves from a simple triangle into a fractaled wonder.

This list from the good folks at Galleycat was an excellent source of resources for me this week. I’ve tried trello (still tinkering), and of course the snowflake method appears again. And that excel gods-eye view? Absolutely earth-shattering for me. I need a fully formed idea before it will be useful, but I plan to use this method for outlining scenes for my November nanowrimo project this year. Highly recommend, particularly for any screenwriters out there.

The Blake Snyder Beat Sheet was recommended by a writer friend aware of my predicament. Blake Snyder wrote a writing book called Save the Cat that is well-regarded in writing circles. I haven’t spent much time with it yet, but I plan to use it as my next trick on the story idea I’m gestating at the moment. Yes, I finally have a reasonable story idea! These things have worked!

Another cheat-sheet style is the 7 point story structure,found here on Chandler Baker’s website. Can you tell I’ve been looking for the magic bullet? The reality is nothing short of putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard actually works to get me out of my slump, but playing with all these various organizational tools and story structure outlines has been invaluable to getting me reenergized and ready to write. Now it’s time to generate some fiction, who’s with me? Here’s a writing prompt if you want to play:

(using elements from Characters for an Epic Tale by TomGauld.)

The metal man faced the apparition, his faithful hound at his side, and said…