A.J. Maguire

Tag: Authors

  • Gutter Space – Chili’s Edition

    My characters all met at Chili’s last night, crowding around booths in their respective groups, sometimes mingling with characters from books or series outside of their own, and generally causing mayhem to my REM cycle.

    At this point in my career I have 6 books out for sale, 6 books on my desktop in various states of incomplete, and several trunk novels that will never see the light of day. That made for a terribly large Chili’s reunion in my head and, since it amused me and I don’t mind sharing my crazy from time to time, I’ve opted to detail (and elaborate) on the dream.

    First off, I don’t know why Chili’s was chosen. I rarely go there. Sedition-WEB

    Trenna and Nelek (Sedition series) were at the bar, eyeing me with varying degrees of contempt since their third book is still being edited. I avoided them as much as possible since I’m fairly certain Trenna would have kicked my butt if I’d come close enough.

    Also at the bar stood Rachel, Jared, Cal and a gruesome witiko (Residual ajmaguire-ResidualHaunting-ARTONLYHaunting), which was awkward in its own right since the witiko is a nasty beast of a creature that should not have been allowed in the building. They seemed to be avoiding me since I’m pretty sure they’re all a little scared of how that story is going to end.

    I sat at a booth with Megan, Sam, and Gunter (Persona) since that’s the book I’m currently focused on at present. I won’t tell you how they were treating me since it might be a dead giveaway as to the ending of that novel, but the booth across from us was full of Jorry, Seach, and Devon (Tapped series) and they were mostlyAJMaguire-PersonaCover-1280h laughing amongst themselves.

    I think that’s because I have them written into my writing schedule to begin work on Dead Weight in January.

    Behind Jorry and Seach sat Alex Huntley (The Abolitionist) in all her Civil War Era glory. She had several people surrounding her but I couldn’t make them all out, which I attribute to the fact that I haven’t begun working on her story yet and don’t quite know who they are.

    Deviation-510On the peripheries of the restaurant were tables full of characters from my completed novels and stories; Deviation, Witch-Born Series, Medusa and the like. Most of them looked satisfied and amused with all the tension going on in the center of the room.

    There was one big table full of dead characters, which was sad and I thought about going over to visit with them but … I mean, if Trenna would have kicked my butt just for not being done with her third book yet, imagine what those guys would have done to me.

    And then there were the tables full of vague shapes, almost apparitions, and at first glance I thought they might be more of my casualty count but after a bit I realized that these were the stories my subconscious was still working on, stories I hadn’t even considered yet. Percy Pru and Ashton Bainbridge (Primal) were somewhere in there and I may feel guilty about that because I keep meaning to sit down and write that noire/dragon/mystery.

    Weirdly, the confusion of tables and characters actually made sense to me. I can see what’s coming deadmagic-510next on my writing schedule (or what needs to come next) standing at the bar. I imagine once I’ve set Persona aside and started shopping it around, Trenna and Nelek will come to my booth and someone will take their place at the bar.

    So … that’s my subconscious organizing my writing schedule in my sleep.

    Using Chili’s.

    I know I’m crazy, but hey … it works.

  • Round Robin Blog Posts – Social Issues in Fiction

    I’m so happy to be joining the Round Robin Blog Hop this month. This month’s topic discusses social/current event issues that are important to me and how, when, or if I allow them to seep into my fiction. 

    Deviation-510Let me start off with admitting that I definitely allow social issues to be addressed in my fiction. Anyone who has read my work, particularly my science fiction, will have noticed this for certain. Deviation, for example, has the very blatant conversation about women’s rights. Tapped is the start of a much larger conversation on religion that will be spanning several novels. The Abolitionist (which I’ll start later next year) is fairly self-explanatory.

    All of these issues are very important to me and I believe that every author has the responsibility to Scornedsay something with their fiction.

    However …

    I also believe that every author has the responsibility to thoroughly research, understand, and clearly provide counterpoints to any social issue they address in their writing.

    I shy away from making my personal opinions known here on the blog because honestly, I hate fueling the fire for these sorts of debates. They’re pointless and detract from the more important social issues that we should be spending our energy debating and attempting to fix … like homelessness, children living in poverty, the fact that some employment applications (or other legal forms) still ask for your “ethnicity” and therefore support a racist social structure, or the shameful amount of people going hungry everywhere …

    But all of those things I can and do address in my writing. I “address” them, but I do not answer them because honestly, if I’ve written it right then I won’t have to.

    Readers don’t need me to tell them poverty is bad, they already know it. My job as an author is to help somehow bridge the gap between the Reader and that poverty, to help them experience it so that they understand why poverty is bad.

    This is terribly idealistic of me but I truly believe that we can change the world. Books can change the world. Stories can change the world. Authors … can change the world. Not by telling the world what to think, but by exposing these issues for what they are and bringing them forward in a terribly intimate way.

    Have a look at what some of my fellow authors believe in and write about in today’s Round Robin Blog Hop …

    Skye Taylor  http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
    A.J. Maguire  https://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/ (YOU ARE HERE)
    Beverley Bateman  http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
    Margaret Fieland  http://www.margaretfieland.com/blog1/
    Marci Baun  http://www.marcibaun.com/
    Victoria Chatham  http://victoriachatham.webs.com/
    Connie Vines  http://connievines.blogspot.com/
    Bob Rich  http://wp.me/p3Xihq-vQ
    Rachael Kosinski  http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/
    Helena Fairfax  http://helenafairfax.com/
    Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/
    Rhobin Courtright  http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com/

  • Missed Deadlines and Fighting the Muse

    I know there are a lot of writers out there that just go with the flow, throwing out however many words a week at sporadic intervals, relying on their Muse to get them through.

    Wait, you actually thought you'd be writing today?
    Wait, you actually thought you’d be writing today?

    I envy these people. I imagine their Muse sitting right beside them, nagging them at all hours of the day to get their work done because there’s sooooo much more to be done.

    My Muse …

    My Muse is that fat, lazy cat licking herself in the corner. She really couldn’t be arsed to move herself, let alone nag me about anything. If I relied solely on her, I would never get anything done.

    So I have to make deadlines. Deadlines motivate me, force me to go to the corner and pick up the lackadaisical Muse and pester her until something resembling a plot starts to show up. This is why first drafts take me so long and why editing has become my favorite thing ever, because editing relies more on style and craft than it does on my capricious Muse.

    This is also why a missed deadline drives me to hiding in a make-shift couch fort, gorging myself on chocolate.

    Now then, I have missed several deadlines for Persona. At first this was because of the Great Avocado Incident of 2014 wherein I managed to stab myself through the hand.

    Yes, I really did that. Yes, I lost feeling in three of my fingers on my left hand and the Doctor’s weren’t sure if I’d ever get it back. It was awful, I tell you; awful.

    However, it is now nine months into 2015, I have full functionality with my left hand (hurray!) and I have still managed to miss nearly every deadline I’ve given myself with Persona.

    Why?

    Several reasons …

    1. Because I missed the first deadline.
    2. Because I MISSED THE FIRST DEADLINE.
    3. Because life happens sometimes and there were family issues I needed to attend to.
    4. BECAUSE I MISSED THE FIRST DEADLINE.
    5. Because this is the single hardest piece I have ever written.

    I think you get the point. While there were other elements that got involved here, the main problem is that I let that first deadline slip away from me. I lost my momentum, my drive, and it took forever to get it back.

    So if you’re like me and your Muse is a fat orange cat whose back is constantly turned to you, make deadlines.

    And then KEEP those deadlines. Your couch fort and chocolate will only sustain you for so long.

  • Owning Your Craft – Sedition Version

    I began reading Sedition to my son recently. He’s seven now and the whole Fantasy world of Dyngannon seems to appeal to him.

    Sedition-WEBThat or he just really likes the sword on the cover. I’m pretty sure much of the story is over his head but, he picked it and all. (Don’t worry, we read picture books before we settle in for a chapter of this one.)

    In any case, it’s been nearly six years since that book was first published and Trenna Silvanus remains one of my most popular characters. I get loads of commentary from people wanting to know when the next segment of her story is coming out (soon, I promise) and … yes, this does make my little writer’s ego fluff up in pleasure.

    That being said …

    If Sedition weren’t already published I would be doing a major overhaul on it.

    The dialogue is hard to get through in places. There are dozens and dozens of peripheral characters whose involvement in the story itself could be richer – sometimes shorter, but richer in content at least. The exposition is clunky. The narrator’s voice bounces (particularly in regards to Brenson and Nelek, which I’m going to blame on the fact that I wasn’t handling the male POV right).

    The one bright, shining light in the book so far (and we’re only in Chapter Seven) is that Trenna really is likable. She’s spunky, tough, and has a sense of humor that exerts itself in some of the oddest places.

    Why am I telling you all this?

    This book is out for sale. What sane writer points out the flaws of their own work in a public forum? Who’s gonna go out and buy this thing now?

    Honestly?

    Because any sane, professional writer also owns their craft.

    I own the fact that the book I wrote nearly ten years ago (NOTE: it did not get published as soon as it was finished, it took a long time to find a home) is not as strong as the books I’m writing now.

    I own that my personal style has changed with every book I’ve written.

    I own the mistakes that are in Sedition just as much as I own the things I did right.

    What did I do right?

    Trenna.

    In fact, the main cast of characters were done right; Nelek, Brenson, Faolan, Marsali, Brock. They have individual voices, concerns, arguments, and motivations. And while I remember it was complicated to the max trying to get all those individuals out into the open without making a 300,000 word book, it worked out in the end.

    So this is me owning my craft. Maybe I’ll start working on a 10 year anniversary edition of Sedition and clean up some of my mistakes.

    Maaaaybe.

    Probably not, though. Because after Usurper is done there’s at least one more book in this series. And the Tapped series has at least 4 main books with several novellas in the queue. And I have a Civil War/Western that has been simmering on the back burning for a while now. Annnnnd … my Dragon Noir.

    You get it. There’s lots going on in my head. But hey, if there’s enough interest maybe I will.

  • Hurting Your Characters – Persona Version

    Me: I really don’t want to kill Character A.

    Internal Editor: Then you really should.

    Me: But he’s so important to the main!

    Internal Editor: Then you really, really should.

    Me: Maybe he can just be seriously wounded?

    Internal Editor: You know better. The very fact that you want this character to survive so badly proves the impact that their death will have on the novel.

    Me: I hate you.

  • Writing While Unmotivated

    I know there are lots people out there who just plain won’t write if they do not have the proper inspiration. They follow their creative muse and lean heavily on the concept of being an artist, and those things are true. Writing is an art and yes, sometimes you just plain don’t want to write.

    I’m not talking about those moments when life steals your writing time. I’m talking about those moments when you sit down at the computer for your designated 2-3 hours of writing time and just don’t want to do it. The words feel stale in your mind, feel stale when you get them on paper, and you think that a thousand other authors could write this better than you are right now.

    How do you push through that?

    Well, I imagine it will be different for each person but I can tell you a couple of things I’ve learned about myself.

    1) These moments do not last for only a day.

    If I allow it, this feeling of drudgery can last for months at a time. So when I discover myself stuck in one, I have to take measures immediately. Sometimes this means going for a walk, cleaning the house, going to the gym or jumping in a pool. Anything where my brain can wander wherever it wants.

    2) Rely On Craft

    Yes, it does feel like I’m slogging through my work when I’m in this particular mindset. Yes, I groan and grump and get only a little bit of progress done on my manuscript. But the truth is, if I write anyway then I find myself looking at the work through the mindset of my craft, instead of the mindset of my muse.

    Yes, it’s hard.

    However, when I look at the work through the mindset of my craft I generally find a solution that would never have occurred to me any other way. It zooms the creative lens out and forces me to think outside of the character and onto the book as a whole, which produces a far stronger book.

    The awesome thing about relying on my Craft, is that eventually something sparks and the inspiration snaps back into place. It might take several weeks, but it’ll get there and I’ve learned to have faith in that.

    3) Read

    When I start feeling unmotivated, I start reading anything and everything I can get my hands on. Fiction, Nonfiction, News, Poetry, literally anything in my path I will read. This not only stores new concepts and story ideas somewhere in my subconscious, but it makes me a better writer when that motivation finally does return.

    4) … And this is going to sound terribly geeky … Play a Genre specific game

    If I’m writing a science fiction, I will play wither Star Wars or Star Trek. If I’m writing fantasy, I play Dungeon Siege. Historical Fiction … well, I haven’t found a game for that one but I do watch tons of WWII movies and documentaries. My creative mind soaks up the visuals of those games (and/or movies) and often bounces me right back into wanting to write again.

    And that’s it. Those are my four steps to getting back into the swing of things. Generally, I do all four. They aren’t a guarantee that my muse will start working again quickly, but I know that eventually it’ll come back. The main focus is that I keep writing regardless because I know that my Craft is capable of moving forward.

  • When Life Steals Writing Time

    Life happens.

    Loved ones get married, move home, move away, die. People get sick or injured or stab themselves in the hand whilst coring an avocado. Cars get towed and unexpected bills show up in the mailbox. While the average human being sees all of these things as hiccups to their days/months, the writer discovers them to be the greatest thief of all.

    Because they steal our writing time.

    In some cases, such as the injury or death of a loved one, they steal our very desire to write. The creative drives shut down and we avoid the work in progress in order to deal with the trauma in front of us. I’m not going to touch on those moments. Those … have to be lived through. There’s just no “one-size fits all” way to try and get back into the groove of writing after personal tragedy.

    But for everything else – weddings, moving, change of jobs, family things – I’ve learned a trick or two to keep my work in progress foremost in mind.

    1) 3×5 cards are your friend

    For the last little bit I’ve had to go back to my Army days and tote 3×5 cards around with me. One card a day had to be filled, whenever I could fill it throughout the day. Yes, you need a clear filing system for these, and generally by the end of the week I was transcribing them all to the computer.

    2) Let something go

    In this case, I had to let the blog go for a bit. For various reasons. (That is obviously changing now.)

    3) Forgive yourself

    Writers have this habit of beating themselves up when they can’t reach the desk for a day. There’s a rule out there that says you have to write every day and whatnot, and while that’s partially true – you really should write as often as you can – in a world of single parents, full time jobs, family crises and such it doesn’t always happen that way.

    So …

    Forgive yourself.

    Remember that even if you didn’t make it to the computer that day, the experiences you live in your day to day life are just as important as the time you spend writing. Because it gives you content.

    4) Scrivener is the best

    I only recently received Scrivener as a gift for Christmas and I have to admit I kinda love it. The virtual corkboard helps me keep track of the details I want to remember in future chapters and the physical descriptions of each character and … yes. Scrivener is awesome.

    5) Sleep is not an option

    At least for me it isn’t. I have to have enough rest to recharge my brain or I just can’t function. I end up staring at the computer screen until it blurs and I pass out. Not even coffee can manage to dent the fog of sleep deprivation for me.

    And that’s it … Those are the things I’ve managed to learn about my personal writing habits versus the world around me. Maybe something in there can help someone else.

    Hopefully.

    Happy writing!

  • Round Robin Blog Tour – Bucket Lists

    I’m still relatively young but I do have some things I’d like to do before I kick the proverbial bucket. And honestly, I’ve done a lot in my thirty-plus years that I’m really proud of.

    I’ve submerged in the ocean in both Alaska and Hawaii, visited the Caribbean twice, road-marched through South Carolina with the Army, starved on Virginia Beach hunting for fifty bucks a day to pay for my hotel room, traveled across the continental U.S. in the middle of winter and gotten snowed in for three days (in Colby, Kansas), graduated with honors from the school of my choice, and become the parent of one amazing little boy.

    Oh! And I saw Wicked on Broadway with a very dear friend who lives on the East Coast.

    So what would I like to do now?

    1) I want to go to DragonCon or some other science fiction and fantasy Convention. 

    Seriously. I think WorldCon might be the one I manage to get to. I don’t know. I keep watching. My son is getting old enough that he could come with me on this little adventure and I certainly wouldn’t want to deny him that. He’s as much of a geek as I am. (He is totally playing Lego Star Wars on the Wii as I am writing this.)

    2) I want to go on the Writing Excuses retreat. 

    Right now they’re putting it on a cruise ship, which is really cool. If they continue to do that I might actually manage to go next year. My son can come with me, they have stuff for him to do and safe places for him to be while I’m working with some of my all-time favorite authors.

    3) I want to go to a Supernatural convention. 

    If there is one show that I absolutely love, it’s Supernatural. I am enough of a fan to want to support them this way.

    I think that’s it. Generally speaking, I go out and find adventure on a week by week basis. I think perhaps the misadventures of my youth have spoiled me some. I mean, it’d be cool if I could visit Ireland one day, or travel through Germany, or knock on the door of my friend who lives in Britain, but I don’t consider those part of the bucket list.

    Find out what’s on the bucket lists of some of my fellow authors!

    Skye Taylor  http://www.skye-writer.com/
    Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/
    Marci Baun  http://www.marcibaun.com/
    Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
    Victoria Chatham http://victoriachatham.webs.com/
    Anne Stenhouse  http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
    Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
    A.J. Maguire  https://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/ (YOU ARE HERE)
    Rachael Kosnski http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com
    Geeta Kakade http://geetakakade.blogspot.com/
    Kay Sisk http://kaysisk.blogspot.com
    Connie Vines http://connievines.blogspot.com/
    Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/
    Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com/

  • Breaking the Outline

    My writing process is a little odd. I can’t start a story with an outline but I can’t finish without one either. Generally speaking I can write three quarters of the book before I have to sit down and map out the last few chapters. This allows my creative mind to build the story focused on the characters and what they’re after without feeling restrained by the outline.

    Residual Haunting, however, has broken every single outline I’ve made for it.

    I’m in the final leg of the journey for our intrepid heroes and I know where I want to end it, weird crap just keeps happening.

    Don’t get me wrong, I know the important bits. I know how and why the witiko escaped. I know it’s hungry and coming for them. And I know what the heroes need to do in order to kill it.

    It’s just that every chapter for the last several weeks has given me something to sit back and go; “Whoa …”

    It keeps breaking the outline.

    Part of me is alright with this. The other part of me keeps looking at my 3×5 cards and wondering how much smaller my handwriting is going to have to get in order to fit everything on there. It’s crazy. If it were any other book I’d set it aside for a month or two and come back to it, but I started serializing Residual back in October so it’s kinda … you know … important that I get stuff written every week.

    This experience is making it very clear to me that I am just not cut out to be a “pantser” … or someone who writes “by the seat of their pants.” At this point I really do prefer to have that outline in place. It helps me know the ending (once I reach it) is going to make sense.

    So … this is me to my WIP; “Knock it off. I’m trying to finish you.”

  • Historical Fiction and the Suspension of Disbelief

    When I first made the decision to try my hand at historical fiction I knew there would be a lot of research involved. But since I find WWII fascinating I imagined this would not be such a big issue for me. And it wasn’t. I enjoy hunting through history to find little tidbits that I can put in my fiction.

    That being said, I recognize that the opening chapters of Persona require the reader to suspend disbelief in a major way. While the SS Ceramic was a real ship that was sunk by a German U-Boat in December 1942, Megan Shepherd is a fake creation and her survival of said sinking is absolutely made up.

    That isn’t so much where the suspension of disbelief comes in, though. It’s when she’s picked up by the enemy and said enemy doesn’t immediately ship her off to a work camp somewhere that I know I’m walking a very, very tight line.

    There’s a part of me that keeps suggesting I scrap the first few chapters and have Megan already in Germany when war breaks out. That would take care of the belief problem. She was in Germany, the war began. Borders closed. She was stuck.

    But when push comes to shove, this book isn’t really about WWII. It’s about one woman having to decide who she is. WWII is just the vehicle by which she arrives at her decision making point and what better way to start her on that journey than by making the war very vivid and very real right up front?

    Historians and such might murder me for it, just like scientists would likely enjoy stringing me up for the space travel I created in Tapped and Deviation, but this is just one of those places where my instincts are telling me I need to bend the rules a bit.