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Almost there, folks

By Suzan on September 6, 2010

I’ve been trying to catch up with all my school stuff, and my online stuff for weeks. Today, I saw the far, distant end. I’m not there yet, but I’m getting there. I spent most of yesterday working on a piece for my color class, and I started on the piece for my drawing class. I still have 2D Design to do (I have two assignments there to do) but at least I’m getting things in order.

And in the last three days, I actually wrote about 12k total in addition to all the school work I’ve been doing. THis whole new time management thing has been doing wonders for me. Seriously, I’m actually ALMOST organized, here.

I’m still playing catchup, and that’s alright, because I’m actually getting somewhere. I have 3 school blogs to do still, but I didn’t want you guys to think I forgot about you, especially since I missed the Blogging Circle post on Friday, and I really wanted to do the cliche post. I’ll have to save that topic for another week, I suppose.

I really miss blogging regularly here, but sometimes, you just have to do what you can. Power through the crap and hope it gets better on the other side.

And now, it is time for me to go to bed.  See you guys soon!

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Igniting my writing fuel

By Suzan on August 26, 2010

I’ve talked about books as my writing fuel in the past. I’ve talked about how certain books spark the creative urge in me. But I always forget how it feels when I actually read a book that fills up my writing gas tank.

I recently finished Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins. By recently, I mean last night. By the end of the book, I had no less than two ideas for stories in my head begging to be written. Why is that? Why Mockingjay and not, say, Magic in the Blood by Devon Monk, which was the book I read before Mockingjay? What makes Mockingjay so special? I loved both books. But I write more along the lines of Devon Monk’s books. I’m a fantasy writer, more specifically, I’m an urban fantasy writer. Have I written others in the past? Yep. I’ve written science fiction, young adult, traditional fantasy, contemporary romances, historical romances… All kinds. But I’ve focused in on urban fantasy. It’s what I love.

Now, that being said, why does a dystopian YA spark that creativeness when the urban fantasies do not?

I have no idea. All I know, is some books send me into a writing whirlwind, while others do not. It’s something in the way the story is weaved together or the way a character interacts with another.  These little things spark the imagination, give the Muse some food to chew over to create brilliant stories in my head, and allow me to make those stories flow through my fingertips to the laptop I’m typing on, right now.

I got the idea for my YA fantasy, Full Circle, while reading Chill Factor by Rachel Caine. I got the idea for my dragon story (which is currently in the trunk) from reading Undone by Rachel Caine. Yeah, I love Rachel Caine. And in fact, when I do need a kick in the pants, I do go back to her books and I’ll reread them. Her books are a major source of my writing fuel. Lynn Viehl’s Darkyn series was another one that sparked ideas, as well as J.R. Ward‘s Black Dagger Brotherhood series. The thing of it is, it’s not necessarily the story’s parts and pieces that do it for me. I don’t care if it’s a vampire novel or a historical romance if it sparks my writing engine.

I have yet to figure out any rhyme or reason for this. I don’t get why I get a science fiction idea from a traditional fantasy. But I’m also not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. On the contrary, I’ll cut off its legs and look there, too. I’m perfectly willing to let these books force push guide me into writing these stories.

So, what about you? What books have you read that started your writing engine? Especially if you’ve had a long stall out and the gas in there is stale and not as potent. How do you flush your system and get your engine up to speed again?

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Mommy/Daddy Writer Time

By Suzan on August 25, 2010

We all have that moment. We sit down to write. The house is quiet. Your fingers touch the keyboard and suddenly…

“MOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!”

The world must be ending by the sound of that yell.

It’s hard to find time to write if you’re a parent. I know I’ve almost pulled out my hair when I can’t find time to write. The kids need to eat breakfast, they can’t find their clothes, they’re fighting over who gets the last hot pocket for lunch. You need to take them to day care, school, after school activities. You need to get them ready for bed and make sure they’re actually brushing their teeth as opposed to chewing on the toothbrush or jacking around in the bathroom.

I manage a fairly high word count compared to a lot of people. It’s one of my strengths. I get in a groove and I go. I get a lot of questions about it too.

“You got 4k in one day? How do you do that with kids?”

“How do you go to school and take care of your kids without slitting your throat?”

Well, slitting my throat never actually came to mind. I can be very focused when I want to. I don’t let things in the story stop me either. I sit my butt in the chair, minimize Tweetdeck (and turn off the notifications) and run with the story. but finding that solid block of time to get into the groove is hard. But things have become remarkably easier lately since I began playing with this time management stuff. It tickles my OCD bone. There’s one question I ask myself now, before I do anything:

Can I do this when the kids are around?

Basically, I’m separating out my time into two separate categories.

A) Things I can do with my kids underfoot. (Translation: Things that Require Long, Uninterrupted Concentration)

B) Things I cannot do with my kids underfoot. (Translation: Things that Only Require Short Bursts of Attention)

Simple, but it’s been effective the last two weeks. I’ve gotten more writing time in and more wordage on my writing during the last two weeks than in the last two months. Crazy, huh? Try it this week. Leave me a comment telling me how it worked for you. I’d be interested to know.

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Time Management Part 4: Conclusion

By Suzan on August 20, 2010

So, you’ve got your schedule all made out, all bright and shiny, and color coded. What happens now? This is the most difficult part. Here is where you actually stick to the schedule.

Willpower. You must haz it.

I’m the world’s best procrastinator. If it can be put off, I’ll put it off. That’s the main reason I gave myself Sundays. Because I know I’ll end up playing catch up. I’m hoping once I get into the routine of things, it won’t be necessary to work on Sundays. I can simply relax, or hang out with friends.

Both calendars hang by my computer now. Each has their own purpose. The weekly calendar provides me with a To-Do List every day. I made copies of the weekly calendar, and when I finish an item, I cross it off. I stick as close to those times I specified as possible. The monthly one I use to make appointments, schedule time with friends, or whatever sudden Thing That I Must Do comes up. That one doesn’t come down. It’s there for reference.

I use a kitchen timer for the writing hours so I know I’m not cheating myself. Of course, I’ve eased myself in. I skipped last week’s blog posts to catch up on other things. Don’t worry. You’ll see more of me soon. I’m liking the results I’m getting using this method.

So, that’s my extremely long method of taking the first step into time management. What do you think? What could be better? What did you like? What did you not like? And could you please send me $20 million dollars in small, unmarked bills? ;)

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What are your favorite character quirks?

By Suzan on August 20, 2010

The thing about people in general is that we all have things that identify us as a person. Like the way a person shakes their head when they’re frustrated, or how a person chews their food. These are things that set us apart from everyone else. And in fiction, we need these things to identify with the book’s characters.

Let’s start with some examples.

  • In Devon Monk’s Allie Beckstrom series, Allie notices the way magic spells are cast. The way glyphs are written. She can tell who made those glyphs by the way they are drawn. She’s ambidextrous.
  • In the Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files, Harry has this insane need to be chivalrous. He’s a smartass. He has a very strict sense of right and wrong.
  • In Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series, Lord Macon loses his temper and yells a lot. His Scottish brogue comes through when he’s pissed off.  Alexia’s gay vampire friend, Lord Akeldama, is flamboyant.
  • In Jaye Wells’ Sabina Kane series, we’ve got a demon with a forked penis. But who couldn’t love Giguhl? It’s more of a trait than a quirk, but his home shopping attention is a quirk. Maybe the forked penis doesn’t impress you because demons aren’t the only ones with a forked penis.

I’ve read books in which the characters didn’t have quirks. The books were flat, and boring. I couldn’t identify with them. Very often, I put them down and never picked them up again. I think it’s the point of view character’s analysis of the secondary character’s quirks that makes me fall in love with the secondary ones. I loved Akeldama because of his flamboyancy, because of how he loved to touch Alexia even though it turned him mortal. Lord Macon grew on you because his Scottish accent was more pronounced when he was pissed off. The characters were human…so to speak. They had individuality.

In the end, I think that is what matters. Quirks that make you individual. I know I have some. I bite my lip when I’m nervous. I push angry people with jokes because it’s funny. Okay, that might just be annoying and not so much a quirk. But it’s still funny.

But the question was what are my favorite character quirks. How does one choose a character quirk as a favorite? There are so many great ones.

I think I’ll have to go with Giguhl’s forked penis for the win. I mean, I know, it’s more of a trait… but come on. Seriously. It’s a forked penis.

What’s your favorite quirk in a character?

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Time Management Part 3: Scheduling The List

By Suzan on August 19, 2010

Okay, by now, you’ve got your list, all nice and ordered.

Now it’s time to schedule them all in. I started with my once-a-week-ers. For me, this was all my blog posts, because I wanted to schedule them all out and not have to worry about them. I decided to put these early Monday, just to get them done. Pretty much every thing else on my list was an every day thing, so that’s where I stared at the schedule and wondered what the hell was I thinking getting myself into so much crap.

Once I got over that, I managed to schedule two hours of new writing time a day, and one hour for revisions. I changed my reading time to twice a week instead of every day because I realized I could read while sitting at Monster Younger’s karate class.  Early mornings for two hours everyday became  my social media time, with which I combined blog reading and email time, because they sort of go together.  Note here: I avoid FB games with a passion, because honestly, I won’t get anything done if I get sucked into those. I also changed homework time to Tues and Thurs nights. Once I had the school schedule sorted out, I realized I could get everything done on those nights instead of sprinkling it out over every day. Oh, look. Time saved. Amazing. Friday afternoons I reserved two hours for reading and critiquing work. Like my writers’ group stuff, and my CPs’ work.

Okay, so remember those monthly things?

I printed out a second calendar, this time a monthly (undated) one. I added my military time, my monthly book club meeting, and a couple other things that happen only once a month. Then I used my weekly schedule to note times when I’m actually available for appointments, like doctors and dentists and such. I X’ed out the days I have ZERO time.

Keep playing with the schedule until you’ve got it to where you like it. I crammed all my stuff into six days, so I can take Sundays off and relax, maybe read a book, or watch a movie. I’ll probably still write a little, or I can just take the day and meet my family again. Plus, if I got behind on the week, it gives me a little leeway to catch up as well.

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Time Management Part 2: Organize your To-Do List

By Suzan on August 18, 2010

Organize your To-Do List.

Lists are awesome. Seriously. I love lists. Mainly because I can cross things off and feel accomplished when I do. It’s an ego booster for me. Okay, I might be weird. But the good thing about lists is you can see exactly what you’ve got going on. It may be long. It might be short and you never knew. The important part is that the list be as complete as you can get it.

What you’re going to do, if you’re playing at home, is write every single activity and responsibility you’ve got going on. I skipped what I already had on my schedule, like work, school, and family routines.

Here’s my list:

  • blogging
  • fiction writing,
  • revisions
  • homework (for both UNT and Art Institute),
  • reading,
  • social media time,
  • military services,
  • blog reading,
  • emails.
  • critiques for others’ work.

Now, prioritize them, from most important to least important. Yeah, I know. They’re all important. Just humor me.

As you prioritize them, note the frequency in which you will do these (i.e. every day, every other day, once a week, ect., ect.). Notice I stuck some of my monthly things in there? That wasn’t an accident. These won’t go on your weekly schedule, but keep them floating around on the list for now.

In tomorrow’s post, we’ll get to work scheduling these things into those blocks of time in which you’ve got nothing.

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Time Management Part 1: Where is your time wasted?

By Suzan on August 17, 2010

We all have that time where we can be doing something more productive, but instead, we’re vegging out on the couch watching Glee or wasting away on the Internet reading blogs.

To get started, I realized I needed more structure. This haphazard way of doing things when I felt like it was making me overwhelmed. This week’s posts will be geared toward creating a schedule to follow and organizing that pesky never-ending To-Do List.

The first thing I did was print out a calendar. I used Microsoft Works Calendar for this, because it was on my computer. I don’t usually keep a calendar. (This has changed now, too, but bear with me right now.) I created an undated weekly calendar, because my routine isn’t really that different from week to week, with a couple of exceptions but I’ll get to that later. The calendar I set from 6 am to 11:59pm. Honestly, that will vary from person to person, because we all have different bedtimes and wakeup times. During the school year, these are mine and that’s what I’m planning for.

So, now I had weekly calendar with hourly spaces from 6am to midnight.

Now, I had to put stuff on the calendar. I wrote down my entire class schedule on it. Then I added drive time, because one of my schools takes 35 min to get to, and 45 in the rush hour mornings. These, I highlighted in yellow. (Which color isn’t important. Using different ones are.)

Then I went through and added all my family obligations, like Monster Younger’s karate class, mealtimes, ect., and with another highlighter (in my case, it was pink) highlighted all those occurrences. I did the same with my writing groups only I did those in blue. To all these, I added enough time before and after for drive time, and getting dressed, as needed.

If I had a day job other than school, I would have repeated the process for that as well.

When I was finished, I had all my weekly obligations, like school, work, ect on the calendar. I could clearly see where I had large blocks of time, and where I didn’t. I was actually surprised at the amount of time I did have that I hadn’t been using wisely. It didn’t feel like I had that much time, but that’s why I was doing this, right? Of course, I also didn’t have my weekly activities that weren’t scheduled on there.

That’s what we’ll work on tomorrow.

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Managing your time wisely

By Suzan on August 16, 2010

Time management is something I struggle with, because I have an attention span the size of an ant. If that much. So, I decided to try to help out others struggling with the same issues, and make a series of posts on different time management techniques. Why? Because I need to learn it. And what better way for me to learn it than to talk about it with you guys?

What sparked this?

Recently, I was in class, and a couple of my friends had to do an assignment for their College Orientation class, which ironically, I’m not required to take because I’ve spent so much time in college before attending this school. The assignment was to make a schedule of their classes, work, and anything else they have going on, and color code accordingly. I heard most of them moaning and groaning about it, but something about their assignment sparked my interest. Now, I’ve been struggling  a lot with finding time to do homework, take care of my kids, sleep, eat, and write. Not to mention the half dozen other things that crop up, like my military time, and writing groups, so I decided to take the idea and run with it.

What is time management?

Time management refers to a range of skills, tools, and techniques used to manage time when accomplishing specific tasks, projects and goals. Personal time management skills are essential skills for effective people, especially writers, and others who operate under constant deadlines. For these posts, I’m going to concentrate on writers, because that’s what I know, and let me tell you, I think we’re one of the worst bunch of people at stuff like this. Or maybe that’s just me.

For a really cool quiz, check out this article on time management from Mindtools.com. It even has a scoring key.

So, for this week, what I want to concentrate on is the scheduling aspect of time management. I’m going to post something every day this week on time management. It’s sort of like, christening my own venture into time management by sharing it with you guys. See how productive I am?

If you have any suggestions or questions for future time management posts, let me know in the comments. After this week, if you guys like the posts, I might make them a weekly thing.

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Indie bookstore goes bye-bye

By Suzan on August 5, 2010

I was very sad to learn that the biggest independent bookstore in the country is closing Aug 14th.

I attend the Cover Girls book club there, which is a monthly romance shindig, and they didn’t say a word about it. In fact, they were talking about the next two months’ reading lists. So imagine my surprise when I get home and the next day there is an email from Linda telling me the store is closing.

My heart…. It breaks.

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