A.J. Maguire

Tag: Writers

  • Arguments with my Internal Editor

    (A brief peek into this odd-ball brain of mine since the beginning of the current work in progress.)

    Me: Alright! It’s an urban fantasy about a marital counselor to the supernatural. Werewolves, vampires, and all those magical creatures! It’ll be great.

    Internal Editor: You can’t be serious. Urban Fantasy is full of women in tight leather pants running around killing things.

    Me: Well, Nora is a counselor so she won’t wear tight leather pants unless she wants to.

    Internal Editor: You need more romance. Romance sells.

    Me: It’s all about romance! She’s a marital counselor so she’s helping people reconnect.

    Internal Editor: Readers want to see her happy too, not just the people she’s helping.

    Me: I’ve got that covered. Derrick King is the romantic interest for her.

    **Several weeks into the project**

    Me: I should change this to alternate history steampunk.

    Internal Editor: That doesn’t sell.

    Me: I don’t care. I like the premise, I like the 1890’s…

    Internal Editor: They didn’t have marital counseling in the 1890’s.

    Me:….

    Internal Editor: Research if you like. I’m not even sure women could vote back then. The clothes are weird too.

    Me: (after some research) Maybe she’s just an empath and a counselor and the rules for Fairy are vastly different than the mundane?

    Internal Editor: Still doesn’t sell. Even if you manage to make this believable.

    Me: If I cared about what sells better I’d be writing straight romance novels with all the steamy scenes that make standing in the same room as my mother difficult.

    **Makes the change from Urban Fantasy to Steampunk Alternate History**

    The Orange Beast

    Internal Editor: We’re nearly done!

    Me: Maybe I was wrong. I can’t feel this setting. Maybe I forced this steampunk business and broke the whole story.

    Internal Editor: The outline looks fantastic. You can worry about that on the next pass.

    Me: But if I stop and go back, alter it all to be urban fantasy again…

    Internal Editor: Tempting, but you’re so close to the end, you should finish first and then go back.

    Me: And every time I read the blurb it feels like Urban Fantasy.

    Internal Editor: Probably because you wrote the blurb when you still thought it was urban fantasy. Finish the book. Tell the story.

    Me: Steampunk alternate history doesn’t sell. If I want to sell this, I should make it young adult. And I can’t have a marital counselor as the main character in a young adult novel.

    Internal Editor: … Just tell the story you want to tell, the way you want to tell it.

    Me: How would this even be marketed? Did I just waste the last four months of my life on a novel that has nowhere to go?

    Internal Editor: It’s only a waste if you quit.

    Me: I should just tell the story.

    Internal Editor: The way you want to tell it.

    Me: Alright then, 1890’s Boston alternate history steampunk. Adult. Because even when I was a young adult, I absolutely did not understand young adults.

    Internal Editor: Back to work, lady!

    Me: Deep breaths. Just tell the story the way I want to tell it.

  • Wrapping up Camp Nano 2021

    Why yes, I did technically win Camp Nano this year. But the novel is not quite done.

    I do have a few scenes left to write, so the forward motion continues. However, the breakneck speed to reach 50k is going to taper off.

    There are obvious pros and cons to participating in NaNoWriMo, and as someone who has done this multiple times a year for many years now, I feel comfortable admitting them.

    #1 – Pro – Nano offers a great deal of encouragement to writers. They are an undeniable cheerleader that helps keep you focused and moving forward.

    #2 – Con – Writing for the sake of getting words on the page is not the same as writing to tell a good story. It does require massive editing after the book is done. (At least for me it does.)

    #3 – Pro – Even if you miss the deadline and you don’t make those 50k words, you showed up to the screen/notebook/typewriter and that is ALWAYS a win.

    #4 – Pro/Con – Most books are more than 50k words and therefore most books require writing beyond the given 30 days. However, given that the lovely people at the National Novel Writing Month’s headquarters grant multiple “camps” like this one in addition to the normal November WriMo, you have multiple opportunities to get it done.

    I listed this last one as both a Pro and a Con because it can be extremely difficult to find the drive to finish a novel if you have put it away for a couple months while waiting for the next WriMo. I do recommend finishing the work to completion, then using the next WriMo for a full rewrite/edit if you need to.

    I’m sure there are more I could list, but those are the mains and you can see that the pro’s definitely outweigh the con’s in here. I have enjoyed using Writing Months since the first year I found them (2007 or 2008, I’m not sure) and I will continue to use them as long as I have tales to tell.

    For now, however, I have a book to get back to.

  • Week 3 – Camp Nano 2021

    The joy of Pinterest, and the pitfalls!

    Whenever I’ve gotten stuck in the past few days regarding the WIP, I have flown to my Pinterest page where I have selected certain faces to help “cast” or represent the characters in the novel. This has been great fun.

    So much fun.

    Probably too much fun.

    I have a ten-minute sandglass timer that I regularly blow through whilst I am Pinteresting. (Is that a word? Let’s make that a word.)

    However, I can say that the garments, the settings, and the faces I have chosen all help me delve just a little bit deeper into the novel, which makes the scenes clearer in my mind as I try to write them. Which, regardless of how many times I’ve blown through that timer, has added productivity to the point that I am now ahead of schedule.

    So my little experiment this year has been a success so far.

    I admit that I have never cast faces for my novels before. I have, in retrospect, seen an actor on the screen and gone — Oh, that’s totally Nelek! (Tom Hiddleston, if anyone’s wondering.)

    But that was long after the novel was finished. And it made me love the movie Thor so terribly much I re-watched it a dozen times. I’ll re-watch it again this summer whilst my son and I do a Marvel Extravaganza too, because we’re nerds like that.

    In any case, having the faces has been remarkably helpful for the rough draft. I will likely refine the character in the next draft, divert from their chosen faces just a little to make them their own people, but having the “place marker” helps me visualize their reactions on the page.

    If you’re interested, you can visit that Pinterest page here.

    If you’re not, it’s no skin off my nose. The page is for creative brainstorming anyway. It’s just one of those weird “peek behind the curtain” things.

    And with that, I’m off to write some more! To those of you Nano-ing this month, happy writing! To those of you just writing your regular schedule, happy writing!

    To everyone else, have a lovely day!

  • Looking Back

    Looking back at the works I’ve written, I see stories that missed the mark because I did not have a handle on my craft. I see characters who were not fleshed out well enough, and scenes that never grounded the reader inside them, allowing them to experience it. I see fragments that make more sense to me because I have all the backstory whereas readers do not.

    I see a lot of embarrassing things.

    And while I may cringe at these, there is a part of me that rejoices in the fact that I do see them now. Seeing the mistakes for what they are means that I have grown in my craft.

    In ten years, when I look back on works I am writing now, I hope I see new mistakes instead of old ones. I hope that I am writing better then than I am now. And I truly hope that is always the case.

    To my fellow authors out there, I hope that is always the case for you too.

    To the dear readers out there who don’t see what I mean, bless you. May you only be delighted over and over by the tales brought to you.

  • Kicking of NaNo 2020

    I ended the first day of Nano 2020 at 3244 words. Which is excellent. I do admit that I am not doing a straight-laced Nano this year. Instead of starting from scratch on a brand new manuscript, I have unearthed the thing I started earlier this year that COVID derailed.

    Remember when I was doing that whole serial novel of Castle of Three Kings?

    You know, the one where I had to just kind of stop because suddenly I was a teacher, a parent, an employee, and all my writing time was sucked dry?

    Yeah, that thing!

    I am going to finish it. That’s my Nano Goal.

    But I am also going through it and updating it with the things I have been learning in the Apex Writers classes. Because writing is a craft that constantly grows as we improve. (Brief shout out to David Farland for his excellent classes. He’s an amazing author as well, so if you haven’t read his work, I have to highly suggest Rune Lords.)

    SO!

    For those of you who were following along and became disgruntled when I had to duck out of updating, guess what? I’ll be shoving them back up chapter by chapter until I’m all caught up and the whole thing is available. I will mention that this will be for a limited time only, so the novel will only be available for FREE at Wattpad (because I like Wattpad better than the other formats out there) through the end of the year as I complete this draft.

    Here’s the link, if you’re interested.

    Now excuse me, I have more work to do. Happy Writing, everyone!

  • Exploring New England – Martha’s Vineyard

    A while back, my husband and I took a trip to Martha’s Vineyard and stayed at the Dockside Inn. With COVID restrictions slowly being lifted, we were anxious to get out of the house and stretch our legs, and what better way to do that than to go somewhere we’d never been before?

    I should give a small disclaimer that as a relatively new resident to New England, it isn’t hard to find a place I’ve never been. And with family stretched across the United States, I have decided to share my discoveries on this platform both because it delights me to do so, and because it might help members of my family when they opt to make a trip this direction.

    For you dear readers who visit my site for conversations on writing, I do promise to give a small writer’s insight to each place I go as well. Because I am a writer and my viewpoint is tinted through the lens of fiction 100% of the time.

    First off, the trip to Martha’s Vineyard was amazingly fun. My husband does the freeway/highway driving in our partnership at the moment. I imagine one day he’ll grow tired of it and ask me to take a leg of the journey, but I’m content to let him keep that task for as long as he wants it. And really, the freeway/highway drive wasn’t the fun part.

    The ferry was the fun part.

    We opted to park our car on the mainland rather than cross in the belly of the ferry, seated in our car. COVID restrictions required you to remain in your car for the duration of the ferry ride, and that didn’t appeal to us.

    I’ll admit to a small amount of claustrophobia dictating that decision. (Writerly Brain Moment #1 for the trip – I couldn’t help imagining catastrophe and the last place I wanted to be stuck if the ship went down was in its belly, squashed in my car, while seawater and sharks gushed in.)

    We started the trip on deck, but ended in one of the cozy booths inside. We did have to wear masks (COVID and all) but we dealt with it just fine. There were relatively few people when we went because the restrictions had only just lifted and we were braving the new COVID world of travel, so there wasn’t a crowd to deal with.

    There also weren’t refreshments unless you brought it on board with you.

    Once on the island, we hailed an Uber – Yes! They have Uber people – and went straight to the Dockside Inn located in Oak Bluffs. Upon arrival, the owner of the establishment met us at the door and, after delivering our key and explaining where our room was, proceeded to take us on a tour of the Inn.

    I cannot express how friendly this gentleman was. The little Inn had several rooms, a shed with complimentary beach supplies (umbrella’s and such) and a breakfast nook where you could snag some of the usual snacks. It also had a complimentary gumball machine thing, but it was full of malt-balls instead, which was fantastic.

    Our host suggested several spots to go that were in walking distance and we did follow his guidance. Being fairly reserved people ourselves, it was refreshing to be greeted with such casual friendliness, and I recommend letting your host direct you to the best eats nearby.

    The room was comfortable, our view on the second floor overlooked the harbor, and we were in walking distance of the beach. Which, I will add, the beach was not nearly as crowded as I anticipated, but again this was shortly after restrictions had been lifted so that might not be the experience now.

    We rented a vehicle so that we could circle the whole island, but you wouldn’t have to do that if you brought your own car via the ferry. (AKA – risk a shark infested ferry belly.) We missed the Mytoi Japanese Garden in Edgartown but intend on going back to visit again. Instead, we made our way to Aquinnah, which houses a beautiful lighthouse and bluffs.

    I am a sucker for lighthouses.

    Fight me on it if you want, but if I see one, you’re going to see a picture of it.

    Aquinnah is, according to some research, considered the center of culture, tradition, and pride for the Wampanoag tribe. Writerly Brain Moment #2 – I love history, so my writer’s brain is often hungry for knowing what happened in a place, who it happened to, and the stories the people who live there tell. Naturally, this means I had to research them.

    Sadly, this often means I am cringing during that research as well. Suffice, the Wampanoag were the various tribes who first encountered pilgrims/colonists when they sailed to America. I would like to note that they were here for a good 10,000 years prior to those first settlers.

    SO!

    Back to Martha’s Vineyard and the trip. We had a lot of fun. We didn’t bring the kid, but we plan to next time so we can highlight some of the family friendly things to be done, and so we can visit the Japanese Garden there. But if you want a quiet, relaxing time as a couple, I highly recommend the Dockside Inn at Oak Bluffs and wandering the island for history and beautiful scenery.

  • Chagrin – Tempering the Writer

    A while back I finished my 3rd and I’d hoped final revision of Song of Bones/Melody of Bones/that dragon story I always wanted to write but kept putting off. My stubborn brain insisted it was complete, that I had told the story the best way I knew how, and that it was time to set it free. Since I’d written the synopsis in the middle of the process, I waited a scant two weeks before I started submitting to agents and editors.

    Without, you know, re-reading more than the first pages required for the submission process.

    I can hear the rest of you writers out there cringing.

    And you’re right.

    After thirteen unsuccessful submissions I fell into that funk we all get at rejection. Because, you know, rejection is painful. I know editors and agents hate to do it, too. I think most of what makes the whole process bearable is knowing that they are in that socially awkward position where they must say; “No, thank you.”

    Unless, you know, you get that editor/agent who enjoys tossing rejections like snarky confetti, but those are few and far between.

    Mercifully, I stopped submitting after thirteen. And I know some of you are going to point to James Patterson’s 42 rejections before he sold that first novel, but I promise you this was the right move. Because six months after I sent that first submission I opened up the manuscript again and realized how much I’d gotten wrong.

    My dragon culture was not fully fleshed out. The first chapter was trying to cram too much information without enough characterization. And I was struck with the fact that I needed to keep the novel centralized in one setting rather than trying to fly between continents.

    My Muse seemed to be snickering at me from the corners of my writing space.

    I had broken that cardinal rule of writing – Thou shalt wait at least three months before picking up the work in progress.

    If I’d given myself the time and space, I could have saved myself and the agents/editors who I submitted to a lot of awkwardness. I could have saved myself from a little of that funk of rejection.

    I say a little because I know in its completed form that Melody of Bones/Song of Bones will still be rejected by those agents/editors who do not feel it is a good fit for them.

    I am so grateful that I gave myself the time I needed with Enemy Souls. (That novel hit shelves on September 8th and is doing quite well! I am supremely pleased by the reception it has had and should be working on the third installment of the Tapped series during National Novel Writing Month this year.)

    Dear writers, learn from my mistake. Put that manuscript away. Give it fermentation time. And, of course, read the thing before you start submitting it.

    Trust me, you’ll thank yourself later.

  • A Brave New COVID World

    You would think with COVID sending people into quarantine all over the world that it would be a writer’s dream come true.

    No commute to eat up writing time?

    Maybe I can carve out writing time in between all the going’s on for “working at home” and whatnot?

    Look at all that TIME!

    Sadly, this has not been my experience with COVID.

    For those of you writers who have managed to knock out a novel or two in the last months, I salute you. I also envy you.

    I am not among those who found themselves quarantined at home. My day job rescuing animals and finding them new homes with a local no-kill shelter is considered essential. Remarkably, our shelter has managed to keep trucking along with new policies that limit the number of adopters allowed in the building, which means that I have been employed this entire time.

    I might have been able to eek a few extra words in here or there when we were short on adoptable pets, but I’m afraid there has been one other time-eater on my plate; my son.

    Don’t get me wrong, I love my kid.

    Love him to the moon and back again.

    But I am not a teacher.

    In fact, if COVID has taught me anything, it’s that I made the right decision when I shied away from an education major in college. I get impatient with the poor boy when he doesn’t understand what’s on the page, and then impatient with myself when I can’t figure out a clearer way to explain it to him.

    Teachers, you are lovely and wonderful people. I don’t know how you do it. It must be a kind of passion to keep working at such an under-appreciated job. For all of you who have worked tirelessly to adapt with COVID, creating lesson plans that can be done online and maintaining remote learning meetings, you’re heroes.

    Thank you for what you do.

    Now that school is officially out, where does that leave me writing-wise? Many of my deadlines for the year drifted by in the COVID haze, and my unfinished works seem to mock me every time I glance at my laptop.

    Still, I suppose it is the habit of every writer to brush off such mocking, roll up their sleeves, and get back to work.

    So here’s me, rolling up my sleeves.

    Stay safe out there.

  • Marketing and Me

    Recently I met with another local author and had one of those Zen moments where I had to decide exactly why I write. This author was very well put together, had her spiel (aka, pitch) memorized and gave every outward appearance of success. She looked, in a word, classy.

    Flash to me … in my jeans and nondescript shirt, sporting a pair of Nike’s that are starting to get a hole in the toe. In my defense, this was a social function I’d taken my son to and a friend of mine decided I needed to make this acquaintance right then and there, so it wasn’t like I knew I was going to be meeting anyone in a professional capacity.

    That being said … this other author had a much better handle on the business of writing than I think I’ve ever had, which is what brought about the Zen moment.

    Driving home from the function, feeling not a little discouraged, I began to wonder exactly what set me apart from her and was not surprised when I came to the conclusion that she just plain knows how to market herself better than I do. She’s confident in herself and her writing.

    I’m confident that I can get through anything the world throws at me but when it comes to my writing I know that I am constantly improving, so the confidence isn’t quite there. Sedition was fun to write but Saboteur was a more solid book because I had learned a lot about style and craft between the two books. (Even though fans seem to like Sedition more, which I find curious.)

    Enter the Zen moment …

    I made the decision a long time ago that I write because I have to write, because if I don’t write my brain will explode, because there are a zillion stories floating through my mind that need to come out.

    I write because I love it.

    It’s the process that I find fulfillment in, not the sales.

    This doesn’t mean I don’t hope to sell a whole gob of books one day and secure a much brighter future for myself and my son, it just means that I will continue to do the minimum amount of marketing. Things like this blog and light conversations with interested readers, and memberships with organizations that don’t require too much money (Hello, single parent here) are all things that I can do without cutting too much into the writing time.

    At some point I imagine I’m going to have to change this decision but for right now this is what fits for me.

  • 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/