A.J. Maguire

Tag: AJMaguire

  • Dreaming Word Choices

    Well, I was have a great time editing Tapped before school got in the way.  I’ve got an Environmental Science final next week and a MASSIVE reading list for two other classes as well.  I’m going to call this a mixed blessing because I was starting to see words in my sleep.

    Yes, dreaming word choices is sometimes a problem for me.  As crazy as it sounds, I always know when I’ve been staring at the same manuscript for too long when I start arguing with my internal editor during the REM cycle.  It normally goes something like this —

    Me: “He reached for the small …”

    Enter Editor’s voice: “You mean half-inch.”

    Me: “Fine … He reached for the half-inch computer drive …”

    Editor: “Are you sure you want to say ‘computer drive’?  I thought it was a hacking device.  You should keep it standard and just call it a hacking device.”

    Me: All right, all right.  “He reached for the half-inch hacking device …”

    Editor: Well, that sounds funny.  Too many “H’s” right next to each other.

    Me: (with a growl of frustration) “He reached for the half-inch device …”

    Editor: Now that’s too ambiguous  you need to tell us what kind of device it is.

    Me: I hate you.

    Editor: Oh, and isn’t the character sore and beat up at this point?  So wouldn’t he really be straining, or stretching, or fighting past his injuries to try and get the hacking device?

    …..

    Yeah, that’s about how those dreams go.  As funny as that sounds, it’s really not very restful.  I normally wake up feeling like I’ve been working all night … and in some respects I have.  In any case, that’s why I’m thinking this whole school issue is a good thing, because I might be overwhelmed by homework, but at least I’m getting sleep.

  • The Importance of Positive Reinforcement

    Dead Magic is officially in the hands of my publisher.  (Woo!  Happy confetti is getting tossed about my apartment right now!)  I’ve also started poking around review sites to see about getting the book out there … and there will probably be Giveaways and all that jazz when it’s time for the release.

    But as a special treat for myself for finishing the edits and meeting the deadline, I totally got my hair done.  First time getting it professionally highlighted and all that jazz.  It was definitely an experience.

    Is it morbid that the first thing I thought about when they put me under the dryer thing was that episode of Supernatural where the lady totally got fried under one?  (Relax, those machines can’t really do that to you.  The Winchester boy’s were hunting a witch at that point.)

    Anyway, that was my positive reinforcement for meeting the deadline.  Rewards are so very important for writers.  Yes, we love good reviews (and by that I mean our hearts flutter) and finishing a book in itself can be a reward, but physical rewards are important too.

    Let’s face it, the act of writing is a solitary event.  It requires that we agonize over verbs and nouns and fighting between active versus passive voice, and it’s really frigging hard.  And most of us never really think what we’ve written is worth the paper to print it out, even if the marketing people insist that we pretend it’s incredible.

    So after weeks and months of self-imposed solitary confinement, staring at words until they burn into our retinas, struggling to make a clear statement out of messy plot complications, and fighting tooth and nail to make a believable character arc appear on the page … we writers really do deserve a reward.

    It’s all about the positive reinforcement, people!

  • The Editing Domain

    The single greatest lesson I’ve learned as a writer is how to eat humble pie.  Editing, even self-editing, forces me to look at my own silly nonsense and try to make it something readable.  I mean, there are honest mistakes like the one I ran across this morning …

    “Staring at hew as though …”

    Which should have read like this — “Staring at him as though …”

    (By the way, thank you Word Program for assuming I meant “hew” there.  Go team failure!)

    Typo’s happen.  I know that.  I write everything by hand first so when I’m actually typing things I’m not really looking at the screen.  So I can forgive myself — and often laugh — at such mistakes.

    But there are other mistakes that make me blush.  Mistakes dealing with a very broken mythology that require an Alpha/Beta Reader to come along and tell me the harsh truth in the nicest way they know how.  And really, my Alpha’s and Beta’s are awesome.  They know me well enough to know how to crush my soul without making me cry.

    Or … well … I cry on the inside.  But normally it’s a frustrated — “Why would I write that in there?” cry and not a “They all hate me and I want to go eat worms” cry.

    The editing domain for me comes in two parts.  The first part is the most extensive and it requires absolute focus.  I sometimes loathe myself for the fact that I have to print out the pages so that I can mark on them, but I try to make up for that by recycling.  (What can I say?  I have a Go-Green spirit and a ruthless work ethic warring each other.)

    Anyway, during that first editing pass I can’t split my attention between projects.  Which is frustrating because I like to have multiple projects going on at the same time.  But when I hit the second editing pass things go really quickly.  Generally, all the work is already done and all I have to do is transcribe it onto the computer.

    Which, in turn, frees up my brain power.  And since I’m on the second pass of Dead Magic right now I was able to finish the rough draft for Tapped this week.   I have to admit that I surprised myself with Tapped.  I wasn’t expecting to have it done until the middle of the summer.

    But hey!  It’s done!  That leaves me with Usurper to finish before the end of the year and a couple of mountains to climb.  I’m starting to think I didn’t challenge myself enough with my New Year’s Goals or something.

    All I can say is … I own 2013.

  • Deadlines

    If you’ve been following my Blog then you know I have a deadline of March 1st for my book Dead Magic to be edited and in the (virtual) hands of my publisher.  Dead Magic is the sequel to Witch-Born and, I think, the last book in the world of Magnellum.

    Probably.  More than likely it’s the last one.  We’ll see.  I said Sedition would be a stand-alone and I’m working on its third book now.

    In any case, I am right on target for my March 1st deadline.  So don’t worry!  (Trust me, if I were worried about it I wouldn’t be pausing to write a blog, I don’t care what the Marketing people have to say.)  But the whole deadline thing got me to thinking about how deadlines have really altered my writing habits.

    Honestly, if you’re one of those writers who just writes whenever and shrugs about when they might get their manuscripts finished, then you need to start making some deadlines.  I used to be that way, too.  Until I learned that a deadline — even a self-imposed deadline — means that I really do get more done.

    Some people might groan and say that stress can stifle their creativity, but it really does work.  Sometimes we need to stress ourselves out.

    It’s almost as good as the best advice I ever read about writing.  I can’t remember who wrote the book, but the advice was to write yourself into a corner.  By that I mean, write your characters into an impossible situation.  People don’t care about run-of-the-mill situations after all, they want to see what these characters will do when they are faced with impossible situations, terrible choices, and the like.

    Best.  Advice.  Ever.

    But next up is writing with deadlines.  Contracts are fun and they make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside when you can say; “Oh, this one is on contract so I have to get it done.”  However, even inside a contract you have to make deadlines.

    Rough draft done by December.  Edits done by March 1st.

    Those are really vague deadlines, but they work.

    So!  I highly recommend deadlines.

    And, of course, writing yourself into a corner.

  • “Swan Song”

    As with all the shows I watch, I had to pick out my favorite episode of Supernatural.  For Doctor Who it was Midnight.  For Quantum Leap it was the last episode — though I haven’t watched that show in ages so I might change my mind after a re-watch.  And for Supernatural it has to be “Swan Song.”

    I’m not going to give any spoilers — I hate spoilers — but I might hint at some things.  If you catch on because of my hinting I sincerely apologize and give you permission to revoke all my Netflix rights for a month.

    Now then, let me tell you why I loved “Swan Song” the best.  If you’ve already seen the show then you know all about the whole Apocalypse problem Sam and Dean (our two intrepid heroes) were struggling with.  The writers of the show managed to take a global threat — the end of the world — and turn it into the most intimate of problems by pitting Sam and Dean against each other.  (Kind of.  Watch the show and you’ll understand.)

    But the reason I love that episode the most is because of one line delivered by Dean.  One simple, heartbreaking line:

    “It’s OK, Sammy.  I’m here.”

    No, Sam’s not dying at that moment.  You’d expect that line to be delivered by someone holding their brother’s guts in with a towel or something, but that’s not what happened.  Not remotely.  In fact — mild spoiler alert — the line is delivered while Dean is getting the snot beat out of him.

    It was beautiful.  Everyone told me I’d start to cringe at the show when Angels showed up, but they were wrong.  The path the writers put these two characters on sort of required the other end of the spectrum to come into play (i.e. Angels and the God question) so it made perfect sense.

    (By the way, we can thank that nasty flu bug for me getting through all 7 seasons of Supernatural in the past three weeks.  I couldn’t concentrate to get any writing done and I barely managed to keep up on my homework, so that left a lot of hours to kill whilst bedridden.  I’m better now, so don’t worry.  Edits on Dead Magic are progressing at a steady rate.)

    So!  Swan Song is my favorite Supernatural episode ever.  It’s not one you can watch without seeing the road leading up to it, though.  If you’ve never seen the show, you should.  Start at the beginning and plow right through.  (It’ll help if you’re sick or something and can’t do much else.)  I promise, it’s worth it just to get to that moment with Sam and Dean.

  • Supernatural — The TV Show

    All right, so it seems I’m really late in coming to the scene with Supernatural.  It’s been running since 2005 and, if you’re not familiar, follows two brothers as they fight … well … supernatural forces.  Now, if you’re a critic or a fan of the show then I’m asking you not spoil anything for me.  I think I’m still in the first season and I’m enjoying it.

    As with everything I enjoy, I zeroed in on what could help me as an author.  And in this case, it’s the relationships on the screen.  Both Sam and Dean are very strong characters and engaging on their own, but when you put them together … Yeah, that’s when the really fun stuff happens.

    Yeah, they run around fighting ghosts and demons, and that’s interesting — if not creepy every once in a while — but watching them interact as brothers is what really keeps me glued to the screen.  I like them.  Not just Sam and not just Dean, but Sam and Dean together.

    Now, as an author this might pose a problem.  Because every book tends to require at least one “MAIN” character that we follow and root for.  One of the first questions that I have whenever I start reading a book is; “Whose story is this?”

    And then; “Why do I care?”

    But really, let’s just focus on that first question.  Or rather, I’m going to propose that we throw that rule out the window.  Because sometimes the more compelling story isn’t given by the “main” character, but a couple of characters and their relationship with each other.

    Supernatural could very well have gone and followed the father figure in the story, who runs off on his own hunting a particularly nasty demon.  Then we’d be focused on the one character and the fights he has.  But because they chose to focus on the brothers the show has an emotional depth that wouldn’t be there otherwise.

    We see Sam and Dean as vulnerable people with real issues.  Issues that are expounded by the fact that they are hunting the supernatural, but in the end they always get back in the car together.  Their relationship as brothers pushes them forward.

    So, as an author I’m happy to have finally started watching this show.   Seriously, no spoilers.

  • Bring it on 2013 …

    As my last post talked about the goals I made through 2012 you can probably guess that this post is going to be full of goals for 2013.  And you’re right.  As I said, a friend of mine got me hooked on this and it has been remarkably helpful in my writing life.

    So!  In 2013 I want to …

    1) Submit my edited copy of Dead Magic to DDP on my deadline of March 1st. — This shouldn’t be a problem.  Honest.

    2) Finish Usurper. — This might be a problem.  Could take me the whole year to do with school and all that.

    3) World Build and (hopefully) complete Tapped. — This shouldn’t be that much of a problem.  There are only 6 or 7 chapters left … though the plot sorta exploded in my face last week and I have to revamp the ending.

    4) Climb 2 Mountains.  — I lowered it from three because, let’s face it, I never make it up three no matter how much I want to.  Plus, I have an internship that starts June 1st and runs through the summer, so my time will be limited.

    That’s it.  Those are my goals for 2013.  Anything else that happens will be icing on the cake.

  • End of Week 3

    Is it really week 3?  Well, I suppose the first week was only two or three days long, so I won’t feel bad that I’m only sitting at 19762 words.  And I really, really won’t feel bad about that number since it is finals week and I have 1.5 projects left to do and a lovely multiple choice test waiting for me.  (The .5 project is mostly just gathering some pictures and the other one is an essay, so I should be able to finish relatively quickly.)

    I am seriously excited for the next two weeks, though.  Because after TODAY my summer classes will be done and I can play with my Camp NaNoWriMo project with more intensity.  And I do mean intensity because I just found out that one of the passengers currently on board Jorry’s ship the Zephyr was actually hired by Devon’s real mother to track him down.

    Sweet holy conflict, batman!

    In Jo’s defense, she sorta thought Devon’s real mother was dead.  And the lady did leave her three month old baby behind when she got arrested, so … yeah … Jorry feels fairly justified in her choice to keep him.  (Fairly justified.  She does have the moral capacity to see how murky the situation really is.)

    But, let me tell you, the scene where she gets confronted with this information was super fun to write.  Here, I’ll cheat and leave a snippet on this board as well:

    “That boy’s name is Devon Barlow and he is my son,” she said very quietly. “He is more a part of me than my own skin.  If I ever hear you even whisper such a story on this ship again I will disembowel you.  Are we clear?”

    Well, alright, so that’s more of a quote than a snippet.  If you want the actual snippet you have to go over to the Camp NaNoWriMo page.  At any rate, I need to run off and finish my finals so that I can breathe again.

     

  • Top 5 Heroes (Literature Version)

    Let me start off  by saying that this is not an exhaustive list.  I read every day — to some extent anyway — and therefore my choice of who makes the best hero is likely going to change over time.

    Hero – a man of distinguished courage and ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.  (Author’s addition — someone with the oomph to carry a story for 300 pages or more.)

    Coming in first place is James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser (AKA Jamie) from the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon.  Taking away the swoon factor of a giant red-headed, sword-and-musket-wielding Highlander, Jamie has this vulnerable quality that just makes me want to give him a big hug.  He’s got bravado and gumption, and I’m pretty sure he’s just as bad at strategy as I am because he sort of just does things.  (Like march into an angry mob and try to save an accused witch from being killed.)

    Second place goes to Kelsier from Brandon Sanderson’s Mistorborn – The Final Empire.  No, I didn’t pick Vin or Elund (the two you might expect me to pick from that book) because they irritated me at some point or another.  Vin because she got a little whiny about where she came from and Elund because … yeah … he didn’t get all that much page-time in the book.  But Kelsier … Kelsier was my favorite.  And my coworkers can attest to the fact that I fairly squealed and spun in my chair a few times during the battle moments there at the end.  (I don’t want to spoil it, but I’m a girl and even I was impressed with the magic fight.)

    The number 3 position goes to Nathaniel Bonner from Sara Donati’s Into the Wild.  Sweet, holy bananas!  What I wouldn’t give for that man to comment about my boots.  There’s nothing particularly extraordinary about Nathaniel, he can’t use magic and he doesn’t use a sword, but he is super smart and I’m pretty sure he makes up for the no-sword thing with the tomahawk.

    Coming in at the fourth position is William Harindale.  I know, I know, he’s 17 or so, but the boy has “hero” written all over him.  He stars in Cassandra Clare’s Infernal Devices series and he’s the first character to make me cry in a long time.  (No, I’m not going to tell you which part made me weepy. )

    I had a hard time coming up with a fifth hero.  I almost bent the rules and dove into film and TV heroes, which would have given me people like James T. Kirk and Han Solo to pick from, but I’ve decided that film heroes deserve their own segment.  Heck, Star Trek deserves its own segment of Captains to fight between.  So!  I chose for the final hero … Harry Potter.

    Yes, yes, good old Harry Potter.  But there’s a reason why everyone loved him enough to stick with him for 7 books.  Young, fresh, tragic, lost, and pit up against insurmountable odds … Yeah.  Harry counts as one of my top 5.

    That’s it!  That’s my top 5.  Who are yours?