A.J. Maguire

Tag: Books

  • Good Lord, is 2013 almost over?

    Looking at my blog schedule I realized that I have all of 3 weeks left in the year. 3 weeks and 2013 is over!

    Well, three weeks and a few days if we want to be technical. But since the end of this year is actually going to be supremely crazy for me (5-year-old + Christmas = Mayhem) I thought I’d better write my year-in-review now. Because honestly, apart from making New Years goals this happens to be one of my absolute favorite posts to make. (Uber loves and thanks go out to Lisa Cohen for getting me hooked on this.)

    So! What did I say I wanted to do in the year 2013?

    1) Submit my edited copy of Dead Magic to DDP on my deadline of March 1st.

    There’s a big check mark in that particular box. Dead Magic was sent in, edited twice over by the fine people at DDP, and will be released in 2014.

    2) Finish Usurper.

    To be totally honest, I’m still working on this one. But if I follow my schedule I will have it done on December 3oth. Which is cutting it a little close but … eh … at least it’ll have a completed draft.

    3) World Build and (hopefully) complete Tapped.

    Another big check mark. Tapped has a completed draft AND went through the hands of an editor. I’ll be editing Tapped using the editor’s notes starting January 2nd.

    4) Climb 2 Mountains.

    …….. Well, you see, my car broke. I couldn’t drive up to the mountains in a car that kept breaking, so I couldn’t climb any mountains. But I totally made up for this, I swear!

    Those are the 4 goals I planned out for 2013. Here’s what I did in addition to all of that;

    1) Re-wrote and serialized my first historical fiction — Hurray Persona!

    2) Participated (and lost) NaNoWriMo, leaving me with 37 thousand words of a truly entertaining ghost/science fiction story.

    3) Edited Deviation per DDP notes — subsequently Deviation will also be released in 2014.

    4) Wrote a short story for a new DDP anthology — which I imagine will come out soon. (The Nano-Fisherman’s Wife)

    5) Wrote another short story for a completely different anthology which will hopefully come out around Christmastime. (Countdown to Goodbye)

    6) Started lifting weights. (This is not a joke. I totally have started lifted weights and my arms look incredible. If I weren’t allergic to the whole “selfie” picture thing I would totally post one just of my biceps.)

    7) Started researching the Civil War era for a prospective historical novel.

    And that’s all on top of the whole school work thing. Which, by the way, I will graduate in the Spring. But I’ll post next week about all the fun things I get to do in 2014. For now, I’m just happy to see what I managed to accomplish in 2013. It was truly a year of hard work, but it was work I enjoyed doing so that made it worth all the hours in front of an empty page.

    I hope everyone else had a wonderful year and I’m looking forward to a fruitful 2014.

  • New Computer Fun

    Well, it’s actually been a couple weeks since I got this computer but I wanted to wait a while to discuss it since it has Windows 8 and a ton of bells and whistles that I’ve been playing with. And I should probably note that I don’t buy computers for fun, my old Acer was having fan issues so I needed a new laptop.

    I shall miss the Acer. I shall miss all the Star Trek I played on its 13″ screen.

    I shall now enjoy Star Trek on a 17″ screen. (A screen that makes it look like I’m really right there with the Borg trying to assimilate me. My geek-self might have squeed.)

    I like Windows 8. I like all the pretty tabs — I think they’re called jewels — on the start screen. (I didn’t like that I had to get an Audible technician on the phone to figure out how to get my downloads delivered straight to my iTunes again, but I think that has more to do with me being clueless than the system itself.)

    And I love the calendar.

    In fact, I love that calendar so much I went through and mapped out almost all of 2014 for my writing goals. (Hey, I’ve just about finished all of my 2013 goals so I’m allowed to look ahead.)

    I’ll be graduating in May so the last 7 months of 2014 are going to free up a crap ton of time for me. Which means more time for writing, editing and even the dreaded marketing that everyone whimpers about. (I’ll probably whimper about it too when I finally sink my teeth into it.)

    By the end of this month I’ll have finished the first draft of Usurper. And yes, I was nerdy enough to map out December on the calendar too.

    I can’t help it! It’s pretty and easy to use and I really don’t know what all the fuss was about when Windows 8 first showed up. I heard several people complain about it when they first got it but now that I’ve used this computer for a while I’m going to have to assume that those who complained are mostly people who “know what they like” instead of “liking what they know.”

    In short, I have a shiny new toy. It’s pretty and I love using it. Hopefully it spur me into writing faster and with more quality. (But more than likely it will just tempt me into hours and hours of Star Trek.)

  • Congratulations to all NaNoWriMo Participants

    I hope you all had as much fun as I did writing during the month of November. I do so love National Novel Writing Month and I was so happy to have the chance to participate this year … even though I lost.

    I was short by about 14,000 words which if I hadn’t gone to visit family for the last week of November I would have managed to surpass. But in the end I really, really, really needed four days away from the computer screen. (Remember, I work in front of a computer, do homework in front a computer, and transcribe my novels onto a computer, I think I deserve a little down time every now and then.)

    As much as I would love to continue working on Residual/Print (I can’t decide on a title yet) I have to set the book aside to finish up work on Usurper. I know Trenna fans will be happy to hear that her third novel will come out late next year. I promise she’s just as sassy as ever and has a riot in this third installment.

    For Residual/Print/I’ll-figure-out-the-title-someday I have to admit that I had a blast writing it. This would be my first try at a semi-horror type novel. I did scare myself once while I was in the middle of writing it, and not because I had forgotten to save the manuscript to my USB device.

    In fact, it was late at night and I was in the middle of a particularly creepy scene when my cat leapt onto the back of my chair and scared the skittles out of me. It took a good minute for my heart to calm down and I decided I’d better finish that scene before I went to bed.

    To everyone who participated this year — Congratulations!

    Even if you didn’t win, you sat down and got words on paper and that is just plain amazing. We all know it’s a crappy first draft — everything starts as a crappy first draft — but now there’s something to work with.

    Well done! And I hope you had as much fun as I did. (Without having your cat scare the skittles out of you.)

  • NaNoWriMo Week 2 Roundup

    Woot! My NaNo project — tentatively titled Residual Haunting — is just shy of 25k, which means I’m halfway there. I think I might actually win this year.

    I deserve more chocolate.

    I’ll admit that I keep having to shove my internal editor away. There are lots of things I’m going to have to change when I go to edit the story. But I am having a blast.

    The man I thought was my main character turned out to be a secondary character. The man I thought was the secondary character turned out to be the main. And there’s a woman named Rachel who reminds me of a modern Trenna.

    (Trenna fans — Yes, I am still writing on Usurper. She’s currently breaking into a military outpost. You’ll see next year, I promise.)

    I had a eureka moment yesterday for Residual Haunting’s plot, too.

    I love eureka moments. It’s when I discover where the story is going. I don’t know how it all ends yet, but knowing where it is going and knowing what the characters want will help me with that.

    Oh! And I found my monster.

    I knew there was a monster coming to eat people but I didn’t know what it was going to be. I have a friend to thank for directing me to the witiko (thanks, Jared!) and I’m excited to see how I can get it to play out on the page.

    And that’s my NaNo Week 2 Roundup. If I want to stay on task I need to run off and do some writing. Luckily it snowed last night so I’ve got the perfect excuse to stay inside all day.

    To everyone else participating in NaNoWriMo this year … Good luck and keep going!

    And don’t forget to have fun! If you’re not having fun then you’re not doing it right.

  • The End & Thoughts on Serializing Novels

    Well, Persona is finished.

    Or at least a draft of Persona is finished. Here in the next couple of weeks I’ll be searching for an appropriate editor to go through it, and then I’ll edit and edit and … edit some more.

    Until then, I’m in celebratory mode. I’ve got Nantucket Dark Chocolate cookies (from Pepperidge Farm) and I intend to go see Thor 2 at some point over the weekend. I highly encourage everyone to do the same … If not go see the movie, then at least get some cookies.

    It has been quite a journey since June. For those of you who remember or were following along, I started serializing Persona on Wattpad and its own story blog back in June and I posted one chapter per week until … well … until this week.

    So for a little over five months I was committed to drafting a chapter, revising a chapter, and posting a chapter every week. This was, as you can imagine, quite a hectic schedule for someone who already works full time, goes to school full time, and is a single parent.

    Still, it was fun.

    I enjoyed the interaction with readers and I liked the challenge of the schedule (at least at first.) When school starting taking over the bulk of my time I found myself having to be far more lax with the revision portion of the week than I wanted.

    The original plan was to have a blog post once a week with the research information I’d had to look up, but eventually I had to let that go in favor of just getting the next chapter written. I do intend to fix that.

    In fact, after Persona has been properly edited and I can release it as a full book, I thought I’d go ahead and make a “Fact vs. Fiction” edition that will take the chapter by chapter research I’ve done and put it down as a sort of weird appendix thingy.

    So! In reviewing the last five months I can say that I truly enjoyed this process. I’ll probably do it again in the future — after I graduate and preferably with an already completed novel. (Persona was a re-write, and I ended up only using 2 of the original chapters I had written.)

    Also, as a reader myself I can admit that I prefer to have my books all at once. And I know I’m not the only one because there were many people who let me know they wanted to wait until the whole thing was up before they read it. There are even more who want to wait for the physical copy to be available.

    Which, I think, just goes to show you that readers come in all shapes and sizes. Some like the chapter a week approach because it fits into their schedule better. Some like to race through a book over their weekend. Some like to use their Kindles, Nooks, and iPad’s, while others want the feel of paper in their hands.

    I know there are lots of debates about the publishing industry and what books are going to look like in the future, but I think many of these marketers and such are forgetting something very important; there is no one-size-fits-all box for readers to fit in. We are as varied and unique in our reading habits as we are in our personalities.

    For everyone who read Persona on a weekly basis — I uber loves you all! Thank you for sticking with the story for so long!

    For everyone who is now reading it on their digital devices — I uber loves you all! I hope you enjoy Megan’s story and hope to hear from you. (Here is the link, just in case you need it — Persona.)

    For everyone who is waiting for the physical copies — I uber loves you all! I promise I’ll work hard to polish the manuscript and get it to you soon.

    Now, I’m going to run off and keep plugging away at my NaNoWriMo project. With any luck, I’ll actually win this year!

     

  • Happy NaNoWriMo! (And stuff about juggling life)

    I know I’m a day late here but I’ll be honest … I was actually working on my NaNoWriMo project last night so I didn’t get around to the blog. For those who don’t understand a word that I’m saying, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month and it’s where a whole slew of sleep-deprived, crazy authors attempt to write 50,000 words in thirty days.

    Here’s the website because you really ought to check it out : NaNoWriMo.  

    This year is tricky for me because I am not only attempting NaNoWriMo, I am also finishing up Usurper. The rule is that I have to finish a scene in Usurper before I can work on the NaNo project. (Don’t tell my mother, she already thinks I’m too busy.)

    So how does this work exactly? I mean, how can I write on two projects at the same time?

    Well, Usurper is a clear Fantasy written in an established world – Trenna’s world. I’ve already written two books in that setting so I’m pretty grounded on the rules and what happens there. I don’t have to do so much world building and things like that.

    Residual Haunting, which some of you might recognize, has been on the back burner for a long time now. I think I started outlining for that story back in 2009 or something. It may even have been my 2009 attempt at NaNoWriMo, now that I think about it.

    But anyway, Residual Haunting is a near-future science fiction/horror thing. It’s completely different. I’ll admit I wasn’t sure if the stark differences would be a hindrance or a help here. I ended up having to do some housework in order to switch gears before I could sit down and start work on Residual.

    It seems to be working quite well. I had a dismal word count of 1109 words for Day 1, but I got a clearer picture of the technology and a better understanding of the world.

    That said, I have no idea who Cal is and he’s my main character. Hopefully by the end of the day today I’ll have a firmer grasp on him so that I can write more effectively.

    In the spirit of NaNo, I’m going to open a special NaNo snippet page and post my (unedited) bits for each day. I don’t know why, but posting truly awful prose that hasn’t seen the right side of a red pen yet makes NaNo more fun for me. So beware if you click on that section of the site, the grammatical mistakes could be torture.

    Also! Persona’s first draft is officially done. Next week I will post chapter 23 on Tuesday, chapter 24 on Wednesday, and the epilogue on Thursday, thus completing the serialization of the novel. I’m doing this because nobody wants to hit the climax and wait a week to read what’s happening next. (I know I certainly wouldn’t.)

    Friday I’ll have a little party or something to celebrate surviving my first serialized novel experience. You’re all invited. I’ll have virtual cupcakes (chocolate, of course) and talk about editors, editors and more editors. Because editors are awesome and nobody in this business could survive without them.

    Now excuse me … I’ve got a NaNo project I should be writing on.

  • I am Doctor Who

    I’m finally on a bit of a break from school so I had the pleasure of writing a quick short story in the science fiction realm several days ago. Then when I was done with that story I pulled up my document for a Civil War based novel, prepared to delve into all things blue and grey when it hit me …

    I am Doctor Who.

    All of time and space is my playground.

    As an author I’ve already visited Mars (in Deviation) and walked through a medieval world (Sedition/Saboteur/Witch-Born). I visited ancient Greece in The Man Who Loved Medusa and have been dodging bullets in Nazi Germany with Persona. In Tapped — a novel that I will be editing very, very soon — I even got to stand on Pluto.

    I may not have a blue box that’s larger on the inside than it is on the outside, but I’m 5’9″ and trust me … I’m way bigger on the inside.

    Considering how close we are to NaNoWriMo — Nation Novel Writing Month, for those not aware — I felt it was necessary to shout this wonderful fact out to every author getting ready for the 50,000 word sprint.

    You’re all Doctor Who too.

    Embrace your playground — remember, that’s all of time and space. The only limits here are the ones you bring to the table.

    For those of you who don’t know who Doctor Who is … look him up. He’s frigging fantastic. For those of you who know the good Doctor, prepare your own personal T.A.R.D.I.S. (pen, paper, computer, napkins, or whatever else you might write on) and get ready for an adventure.

    You’re all awesome. You win the moment you start the journey.

  • Writing the Unpopular

    Persona is almost finished. In fact, I’ve got approximately two chapters left to write. This is three chapters more than I had outlined, but something happened near the end that surprised me and, now that I look at it, really makes sense for the story. 

    It’s always fun when things work out this way. It means my subconscious brain probably knew this was coming and it took a while for my conscious self to recognize it.

    Anyway, I’ve mentioned before that Autumn tends to spur me into creative-mode. I get new ideas for different stories, or better ideas for current projects, and I start to have a crap-ton of fun. September through December tend to be my happiest months because I am in the middle of this surge of creativity.

    I don’t know why, I don’t know how, I just know it works.

    And this year, having tackled my first historical fiction with Persona (heavy on the emphasis with fiction) I have come up with a new project dealing with the Civil War.

    Well, the Civil War and the frontier. The two tend to go hand in hand since soldiers who fought in the war and survived would head West out of some instinct to get as far away from the battlefield as possible.

    This will be challenging on several fronts. First of all, I really don’t know much about the Civil War. I’ve picked up some documentaries to help remember what I was taught in history class and, funnily enough, have been enjoying them whenever I have a minute between homework and housework and the kiddo.

    Secondly, Dan Wells joked about the fact that nobody reads Westerns anymore. (He’s one of the authors on Writing Excuses, a podcast I sincerely hope every author listens to.) Given that this project would eventually find its way into the West I had to cringe a bit. But, I’d rather write a book that I would love to read than write a book based on trends.

    Even if that trend is several years long.

    No, really. I checked out the Western shelf in Hastings to discover it was drastically smaller than every other section and had all of five prominent authors on it — including Louis L’Amour.

    And I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by this since I’ve never actually read a Western myself. I watched Lonesome Dove when I was a kid, and High Noon in school, but I can’t say I’ve actually picked up a book that followed gunslingers and the like.

    I did read a truly terrible romance novel based in the Old West. I won’t name the author or anything, but I will say that I scoffed through the first fifty pages and then stopped reading.

    So I am faced with a new challenge here. I love the story concept and the character — I always start with a character and this one is named Alex Huntly — and I’ve wanted to write something that dealt with the West and pioneers since I was in High  School. But the truth is that it probably won’t find a home with a publisher.

    My gut instinct is to write it anyway. I imagine a lot of people would tell me it is a waste of time, but then I have to examine why I write in the first place. And the truth is, I don’t write to please other people. I write the story in front of me because it’s the story that inspires me; be it fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction or, Heaven help me, a Western.

    So! As soon as Persona is done I’ll start the groundwork on this new novel. If only three people in the world read it then that’s fine.

    On a side note, I’ll be using NaNoWriMo to complete the last 15,000 words of Usurper. Trenna fans will be happy to know that this third book in the Sedition series should be out next year, barring any complications with the publisher.

     

  • Endings and Hate Therapy

    Carver Edlund said it best in Supernatural; “Endings are impossible.”

    You have to tie everything up, bring all of the characters into a place of resolution and no matter what you do it will always feel like you missed something. In fact, on the next few edits it’s very likely that you’ll find one or two subplots that never got resolved.

    Don’t panic. It happens. That’s what editing is for, after all.

    My first published book Sedition went through four different endings. Witch-Born had three and Deviation (due to release in 2014) had five. That’s a lot of re-writing and re-plotting. It was frustrating and I went through weeks of what I like to call my “hate therapy.”

    Basically, “hate therapy” is when I become disgusted with everything I’ve written. From what I understand every writer has this problem at some point. We all come to a place where we stare at our work and can find nothing salvageable about it.

    The inner critic comes out in full force, identifying poorly worded sentences, cliché’s we hadn’t noticed before, and weak characters that suddenly remind us of tin soldiers. You know, identical soldiers made of tin with no inner workings, no motivation, and no reason to exist.

    By now you’re wondering why I call this “therapy.” There doesn’t seem to be anything therapeutic about loathing your own work.

    I learned a couple years ago to embrace this natural period of a writer’s life. When I’m in the middle of “hate therapy” I know I am being too hard on myself and, at the same time, am able to identify some very important things.

    Like tin soldiers running rampant on the page.

    But instead of dwelling on how bad it is I embrace it as a challenge to fix those things I’ve done wrong.  That’s when it becomes therapy. When I turn all that angst into a productive outlet I almost always find myself enjoying the work again.

    Persona is coming near to its ending. For those following it online you’re still in chapter fourteen, but I am in the middle of chapter eighteen. (By the way, I dislike chapter fourteen and will be editing it.)

    I’ve always had a particular place in mind for Persona’s ending. In fact, I have stubbornly re-worked and worked again and altered my outline in order to preserve this ending. Timelines are crazy hard to keep in check when writing fiction, especially if you’re dealing with something as well documented as World War II.

    But about a week ago I had a eureka moment and figured out how my characters get from point A to point B (the ending) without screwing anything up. The timeline is mostly preserved. The actions make sense. More importantly, this ending leaves a profound impact on the characters and, hopefully, the reader.

    Persona and Saboteur are the only two books I’ve written where I knew the ending before I got there. To be honest, I don’t know if this is a good or bad thing. Knowing the ending still gives me a struggle because I find myself working harder to make sure the entire book deserves the ending that I’ve planned.

    I still have to go through “hate therapy”, it just happens earlier on in the book. But at least I don’t have to re-write several scenes like I did with Sedition, Witch-Born and Deviation.

    So … Yes. Endings are impossible. They’re heartbreaking, irritating, and hard work but if we do it right then it’s all worth it.

     

     

  • Making Time to Write

    Between work, school and being a single parent I’m told that it is impossible for me to have the time to write as well.  And I suppose for a lot of people that might be true, but the sad fact of the matter is that I just can’t function properly without some story going on inside my head.

    I call it my “back reel” — that weird, unidentifiable space in my brain that is constantly collecting story ideas, running through plot fragments, snagging hold of a stranger’s face for use in a description and … well … pretty much always driving me insane.  The point is, it’s always running and if I don’t get it out on paper I think I could explode or something.

    So how do I write while attending school, working full-time and being a parent?

    Well, the first thing I do is listen to music at work.  Right now I’m rocking the Pacific Rim soundtrack because it totally revs me up for the edit on Tapped I’m going to be doing here in a few weeks.  I haven’t actually started on those edits, but I do keep some paper nearby for any instant inspirations that hit me.

    Now, I’m lucky enough to have a job that allows me to put my headphones in and pretty much ignore everyone else while I get my work done.  This gives my muse plenty of space to run in and by the time I get home and the kiddo in bed I’m ready to start writing.

    Yes, I do the writing thing before I do my homework.  I have to.

    If I didn’t do it this way I’d be distracted from my homework.  Plus, it gives my brain a chance to acclimate from the work scene to the home scene.  So by the time I’m done with my writing hour I’m ready to do my homework.

    After I’ve gotten up and done some dishes, swapped out the laundry and checked on the kiddo, of course.  And at the very end of the night, when the homework is done and the writing is carefully tucked away, I watch something.  That’s what gets my brain to stop thinking so hard so that I can get a good night’s sleep.

    It amuses me when someone says they really want to write but don’t have the time for it.  To be really harsh about it, they’ll never have the time to write if they continue to think like that.  You have to make it a priority.  Once you do that, you’ll find a way.