Thomas McAuley: A Writing Blog By and About The San Antonio Fiction Author

My novel has another new title: The Tree of Rise and Ruin

Nice, eh? I love it. I met with my writing/critique partner, Beckie Ugolini, over the weekend. I had submitted The Tree of Ruination and Rise to her and she suggested Ruination and Rise were not parallel. Drop the "ation." Better.

In that same meeting, I had voiced concerns about how the whole of the novel should be handled. There are three parts that take place in three different times from the PsOV of three different men. I expressed my worry that I didn't have enough reading experience to choose between one of three directions I saw the story being told.

Beckie laid down some basic rules and shared her own experience blocking out one of her stories. She swears the system works.

The jury is still out as to whether it will work. I've been so busy and tired lately I haven't been able to complete even this seemingly easy blocking step, but it shows a lot of promise. Already, I can see one huge benefit, though. I have been forced to make final decisions on the flow of two of the three parts. Eventually, I'll have to nail down all aspects of the story. Until I started this, I hadn't realized how up in the air much of the story actually was. Knowing the story basically is far from knowing the story well enough to write it down without punching holes that may not be sealable later (without a great deal of work, that is).

Not long ago, I was certain my outline -- a traditional college-style outline -- was up to the task. Though I can see that step was necessary for fleshing out the broad strokes, breaking down the story's action in chapters defines the action to an altogether higher level. This must happen now, before this and after that. This character will be here while this other character, in a different part of the story, is suspended over there.

I can't wait to get to it again soon. I believe that once this blocking out business is all done, I'll be many times more confident in the actual writing. I've already made a number of changes to how I thought the stories would interact and I've taken a number of opportunities to elaborate on items I had only touched on briefly before.

This is the 100th Thomas McAuley's Writing Blog Posting!!!

(And, being such, it deserves a special font treatment.)

Since this is the 100th blog posting, I thought it would be a good time to look back at the writing blog as well as the current state of my writing in general, since that has been the central focus of the blog since January of 2008.

Two Years of the Blog

First off, I've enjoyed creating -- for the most part -- thoughtful postings about the craft of writing from my perspective, my take on the writing life and hints and techniques and items of interest in relation to writing. Throughout, I've tried to add in a few items that show the non-writing side of myself as no writer is (or should be, at least) 100% a writer 100% of the time.

If I compare those earliest posts to the more recent ones, I find a certain innocence to them. Most notably, my comfort level has grown. In the beginning, it's obvious I wasn't sure what sorts of things to start talking about since nothing I talked about had been covered already. This indecision and newness probably lead to short posts as well as odd topics. Another factor in how the posts have changed over time is the type of tool I have used to create them. In the beginning, I used typical website software. That sucked. Now I use ICG Link's Build111 site building tool and posting is easier and, therefore, more frequent and usually much longer.

Two Years of Writing

When I started blogging, I had already been seriously writing for about a year and a half. I remember my eagerness in sharing everything about my experience. I started by posting about what I listened to while I wrote. I talked about what I was writing and thinking about. I pondered whether I could even call myself a writer at that time since I hadn't been published yet.

I began fit, telling anyone who would listen how important exercise is to a writing, who spends so much time in a seated position. Since then, I got fat(ish) and then fit again.

I also started in the midst of writing my head-on-a-stump novel. Since then I pretty much abandoned it and picked it up again.

Along the way, I've had spans of high energy and low, those of hope and hopelessness and times of focus and aimlessness. I have succeeded in being published but I fail to submit with great enough frequency despite Wednesdays now dedicated to the task. My writing has improved in many ways since 2006 but there's always more to learn and the obstacles, I find, rise up in a rotation. That is, as soon as I conquer one pitfall, another rises up, then another and anther until I make my way back around to the first one I thought I had conquered. Spinning plates, indeed. Still, looking back at my work from those beginning stages, even remembering some of the things I'd been told in critiques, there's little doubt I've improved. And, with few exceptions, I continue to produce words every day. Sometimes, what I write ends up getting replaced wholesale, but I'm writing and I have faith that gets me somewhere in the bigger picture.

From what I hear, this pile of good and bad alone makes me a writer. One of the first quotes that assured me I could do this thing called writing is "A professional is an amateur who didn't quit."

Amen. Here's to 100 more entries.

I'm now blogging into my third year and I find it odd I've never once mentioned my crack-whore-esque addiction to English Premier League Footbal -- that's soccer to most of us here in the States, of course. Almost from the first year it could be viewed here, I was on board like a rat. 

Some complain that soccer is a slow game. Trust me I've seen slow soccer and it IS a wrist-slashing venture; however, anyone who would say that the sport is slow across the board hasn't a clue at what level the English game is played.

A high school game in America can be slow. College, the same. Men's National Team is a step better. The MLS -- United States' Major League Soccer -- is another. The interest continues to improve with the Women's National Team, believe it or not.

Beyond these, the game -- that's now called Futbol or Football, depending upon where you're talking about -- gets truly interesting with the various second-teir international professional leagues, like Australia, Asia, Scotland or Turkey.

Then, once you get to the big boy leagues: Germany, Italy, Span, France, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, etc. With these, you're hard-pressed not to find something astounding in each and every game. Commonly, even games announcers label as "disappointing" or "slow" is anything but. They're just spoiled because their expectations are so ridiculously high.

But the grand poobah of all Football in the world, again, is the English Premier League. On average, the teams are stronger than any others in the world. Tournaments that pit all top clubs in Europe find English teams consistently at the very top. Only a small handful of club teams -- and only those from the very strong leagues -- can compete with those from England.

Simply stated, the league's management "got it" before any others did. Back in '92, they found the formula that worked. I don't pretend to know what exactly that formula is or was but from that date, English soccer left the world in its rear view mirror. As a result, the league, now in its 18th season (as of this posting) boasts the highest payrolls, the best players and, if I'm not mistaken, the highest consistent ticket sales.

You may not understood any of that so here it is in a nutshell. Let's use the NFL as an example. Pretend for a moment that at the end of the Football season, the bottom 3 teams don't get rewarded by earning first pick in next year's draft. Instead, they get kicked out of the NFL entirely because they suck. That gap is filled by the BEST three teams from the next league down.

What this accomplishes is two-fold. Not only do the bottom teams fight viciously to "stay up" in the NFL, making even the games between the crappiest teams interesting to watch, the teams in the next league down also are fighting with equal ardour to be "promoted" into the NFL. 

Now that might all sound like the interesting games are only at the bottom where the crappy teams reside. It would be true if that's where the planning stopped. 

Now imagine that the rest of the world gave a crap for American style football. (They don't, by the way) At the end of the season, not only is the Champion crowned in the Super Bowl, the top FOUR teams in the season win the right to compete against the top three or four teams from all the rest of the world's best league teams.

So the seasons for these excellent teams are filled not only with inter-leage games, but international games as well. It's a terrific system that works well to add interest to an already amazing game.

The next major argument against soccer is that there are ties. I can understand that, from the outside, it sounds like a tie would be a let down. In a sense it is a let down in exactly the way its thought to be but that disappointment is countered by the points system.

The Premier League champion is decided by points over the whole season. A team earns 3 points for a win but BOTH teams are awarded 1 point for a tie. So, feasibility, a team that ties in every game could do quite well by the end of the season. A tie is worth fighting for. Even a scoreless tie is worth fighting for because a singe goal means the difference between 1 and 3 points and that's huge.

The points system nearly guarantees the best team is the champion. In the NFL, one slip-up in the playoffs and a  lesser team is crowned.

So, bottom line: My hope is that if you don't have Fox Soccer Channel or can't find a game on Pay-Per-View, you'll head to your local Lion & Rose or check out the highlights on YouTube. Give "The Beautiful Game" a chance in whatever form you can, but try your damnedest to watch the English Premier League.

My novel-in-the-works has undergone plot, character and title changes so many times I would be hard pressed to piece together a remotely accurate history. Now, too late, do I understand the use of a writing diary.

I can't say I truly embrace the necessity of it as others have written but see how it could track the odd process of a novel's creation. In one way, it's similar to the behind-the-scenes video so much a necessity in creating a film. What I don't fully get is the way a writing diary  is supposed to keep a writer on track or to get difficulties with a work out in the open. I tried it for the better part of a year and, for all the good it did for me now and then, it proved more just another thing to do in my already over-busy schedule.

I stopped keeping up with it when I realized everything I was supposed to be gaining from a writing diary I was getting from this blog. Blogging is public, so I'm confident I'm less candid in my journaling than if I knew no one would ever see my notes. That's a huge difference. But I also find that -- and maybe it's because I'm Irish -- when I journal, I go on and on and dwell in the negative. In this public forum, I steer away from those doldrums.

So, if I'm journaling, I should get to the story.

Here's the basic idea of my head-on-a-stump story
An Ojibwe man in the Great Lakes area before contact with white men kills off his lifelong rival. His punishment is years of penance spent as a disembodied head on the stump of a mystical tree. Escape from his imprisonment, if it is at all possible, must come from inside himself, all that remains. 

Obviously, I suppose, by referring to my story as "The head-on-a-stump story" whenever it's mentioned, it's clear I am having difficulty titling the work.

It's been called "The Letter From William Waiklin." That fell by the wayside when I decided not to include William Waiklin in the story. In fact I cut out the letter. That's for a second story. There's an outside chance he and the letter will be included as a second part too. Whether or not they do will hinge on the length of the section I'm working on now. Day to day, my estimation of the novel's length changes. One day, i see it going to 250 pages; the next I see it barely reaching novella length.

It's been called "Felled." I liked the feel of it. It was direct and looked good on a mock cover I created. But the more I tested the title, the more it sounded like bad grammar. Maybe I'm succumbing to the idea that Americans are less literate than they once were. I go back to this title more often than any other, though, so I suppose there's something to it.

It's been called something like "Fraxus cryptica." I thought that title -- which means Mysterious Oak in scientific speak -- would be totally lost on people. It was short-lived.

It's been called "The Beating Heart Tree." That was what the old Ojibwe I had relate the mythology of the tree called it. I scrapped that one pretty quickly too. I read an article in the November - December issue of Writers Weekly which mentioned men won't buy anything with "Heart" in the title. 

Right now it's called "Hatred Oak." I think, like Felled, it has some directness. Like Fraxus cryptica, it refers to a fictional type of tree without mystifying the reader. It's not clear whether the title refers to a tree or a place, though, but I'm not sure how much, if at all, that matters.

This is probably all a waste of time anyway. I've read that authors, even experienced, published authors, don't choose the names of their novels. Before it's all said and done, it'll probably end up titled "The Head On a Stump."

The first stage of the NYC Midnight 2010 Short Story Challenge came to an end at 11:59 pm edt on Saturday. I turned in my story well early and am more than half pleased with it. I decided to go humorously blue with it. My wife urged me not to, but I figured what better way to test where the edges are than to push, right?

The story dealt with a lead character who went by a shortened version of his last name Cochran and who boasted a "inordinately large" male presence. The action ensues when he is out at a bar and the first of the English impressment gangs enter to forcibly recruit (press) drunks and the homeless into service in the Royal Navy. Press gangs were a real and unwelcome entity from 1665 to the day Napoleon was defeated in the early 19th century. The gangs most commonly consisted of sailors themselves, so that's the route I went in telling the story.

Cochran has built up a reputation for bedding nearly all the women in town. In so doing, he has become a skilled escape artist, able to extract himself from the stickiest escapes from the townswomen's husbands, brothers and fathers. So when the press gang comes knocking, he's the only one to make it out of the bar.

He's nearly caught when the townswomen themselves, pleased with his presence (see above) in town, join together to insure Cochran's escape is successful.

In the spirit of the time and subject matter, I've added the highly disturbing video you see below. It is a forced animation on a vintage still photo of a woman. She is reciting an old Irish poem about the threat of the press gangs. Enjoy if that's possible:

For the writing contest, entrants had eight days to complete the first stage and will have only one for the second leg in March. I'm looking forward to getting the feedback on this first story than I am in engaging in the second phase, to be honest.

For those who have not attempted a short-term contest like those held regularly by NYC Midnight, I'd suggest trying it. For me, entering the occasional contest is good for keeping my writing fresh. I dedicate some small or large time to writing every day and I find that trudging through the same long work day after day can get a little old. I can afford to take 24 hours out every now and then to visit characters and setting far removed from those with whom I spend so much time. 

I thought it might be a good idea to blog in the middle of a contest, especially given the first stage is a full week. That is unusual. Most of the time contests are single story events and most of the time in that type of event writers are given either weeks to develop their story or 24 hours. Having no more and no less than a week is a strange luxury for me. I'm not sure how to proceed without a ticking bomb in my ear.

This is another NYC Midnight event (the 2010 Short Story Challenge) so the way it works is similar to other contests of theirs I've entered. Entrants are divided into smaller, more manageable groups. Each group is given a genre and a "thing" to revolve the plot around. My group was given Comedy as the genre and A Gang as its thing. There are about 660 of us starting out in 30 groups so there's no lack of competition.

With each contest, my confidence grows and my nervousness diminishes. After last year's 4-stage contest, a two-stager with a soft first stage seems like child's play. That is not to say I'm not taking it seriously, only I know better what the judges are looking for a little better and I"m familiar with their preferred formatting and submission process.

So what about the story itself? Comedy. A Gang.

As soon as I saw Comedy, I breathed a sigh of relief. Comedy is a genre I have to intentionally avoid if I'm working on a serious piece so being allowed to run with it in this case should be a real relief. A Gang being the thing we're plotting around was not as satisfying.

As I saw it, I had two pretty obvious choices:

• An urban gang, something we white folks probably think we know a lot more about than we actually do. Going in that direction felt like an easy trap to fall into;
• Other criminal organizations; or, 

But I didn't want to go with the obvious, so I dug into the deepest recesses of my memory to pull out less-than-obvious ways I could comply with A Gang.

I came up with:

• Gang of Four, the leftist Chinese faction during the Cultural Revolution, which I knew too little about to choose; 
• A chain gang, which could really have some hilarious potential.
• Various takes on gang bangs, which for reasons of taste and propriety, I chose to avoid; 
• Our Gang (aka The Little Rascals) which I counted out as already comedic fiction; or, 
• the one I decided to choose, a Press Gang.

A Press Gang, for those unfamiliar with the phenomenon, was a group of government officials or sailors or others authorized to do so, who forceably recruited able-bodied men between the ages of 15 and 45 into service in the Royal Navy from 1664, begun during the reign of Elizabeth I, to 1812 following the defeat of Napoleon. The gangs were a hated lot that, at the time, were a humorless lot. Now, however, thinking about their trickery, fooling or abducting drunkards and the homeless into service, there is only stuff to laugh at.

And two days into the stage, I've written some and have a good idea of where the story is going, but I'll wait until I've fleshed out more of if before sharing. Let it suffice to say, even after I've written the whole story, there will only be some that I'll be able to share here. There is a definite off-color element to it that might not be appropriate -- okay, will undoubtedly be  inappropriate -- for younger or more sensitive eyes.

I'll keep you posted.

Toward the end of 2009, I resolved to make Wednesdays my submission days. I had done little submission throughout the year and that needed to change if I wanted to move forward. Wednesday, January 6th was my first opportunity of the new year to put my plan in motion.

As a first step I decided to reevaluate my submission process to-date and straighten out what was not working. Here were the previous shortcomings. 

The problem: Discipline
Submission is no fun. It is akin to preparing resumes, a job in itself. Each employer (publication or agent) asks for different formatting (guidelines). They have specific contact people (submission emails). And each is looking for the just the right employee to fit their needs (story). Its a lot of thankless work. One may not find out the result of his work for months. In some cases he may never find out. Wouldn't one rather write?

The solution: Just do it.
Simply put, submission is a necessary evil. It's an unavoidable task if one wants to get published. No sense having my finished works lying around collecting dust. There are no other options.

Despite there being a good deal of transferring info into the new format, what I ended up with was something far more useful to me given the way I think.

And I addressed the process I had found so frustrating last year. Instead of finding one publication then putting together all my materials for it, I took the advice of other writers. They suggested I take one submission day and either only gather publisher/agent info or only submit to publications/agents for which I had info. Don't try to combine the two tasks on the same day. They're different tasks and are best separated. Shifting gears over and over slows progress.

By the end of my Jan 6th session, I gave into temptation and submitted to a publication instead of only gathering company info. But the publication seemed perfect for a certain story I had been sitting on, so I made an exception. In this case, the publication's submission guidelines were particularly lax and that translated into a submission that didn't require much outside of sending the short story. If the same situation arises again, I'll probably do the same thing since there was little shifting gears necessary.

I'm already confident my new approach is the correct one because, unlike every moment I thought about it in 2009, I am not dreading my next submission date in four days.

I've already covered my Wednesday commitment to submit. Doing so feels good. Doing so also leaves me wondering what else I can do to make 2010 a better writing year. The first question is what improvements need to be made in my writing career.

1. Write faster.
   Run through the first draft. Make changes to subsequent drafts more efficiently.
2. Improve my writing-related organization.
   Set aside a time for writing. Presently, I write a good bit but the time is scattered throughout the day.
3. Submit more.
   I basically don't submit so the bar is low. My goal is to improve on the amount of submission I was supposed to be doing. I suppose, in large part, that goes back to #2: organization.
4. Read more quality fiction that will improve my own work.
   To be clear, I'm not talking about reading something and ripping it off substantively or stylistically. I'm talking about allowing the influence of well-crafted words to change my writing for the better.
5. Read more about the craft of writing and the writing lifestyle.
   One can never hear the same good advice too many times. And in the course of reading that same advice, one regularly stumbles onto one of three things:
   1. The same advice is phrased in such a way you haven't heard before, allowing it to hit home
   2. The same advice finally hits you at the right time in your writing evolution
   3. You might actually pick up something new, unlikely as that may seem to more seasoned writers.
6. Attend more writing-related events.
   There are appearances, conferences, seminars, etc., all of which reinvigorate a writer's occasionally-flagging flame. There are handshakes to be shared and opportunities to be jumped on. There are new lessons to be learned. I have done little of this in my career so far and that must be improved upon.
7. Improve my writing space.
   I nearly wrote a posting on this one alone, but decided to include all the above items because my current inefficiency doesn't come down to my work space alone. That said, this could be my biggest obstacle. I need comfort and quiet without distraction. I am committed to read more about how to make that happen then...make that happen.

So here is my plan. Do all those things.

Okay, it's not a plan, but there is something to be said for getting it all out there in black and white. Admitting we have a problem is the first step to making change, right?

So, do the same! Make a list of all the ways you can improve upon your writing in 2010. Even if you improve in one category (and don't fall back in another) that's an improvement.

Ring image courtesy of CrazyAboutCrafting

I have had a particularly difficult time writing since starting my detailed outline of my current novel in the works. This current difficulty is surprising in that the story itself is pretty much laid out for me. All that is left is the writing. I've pondered this for days, wondering what is the slow-down.

I considered if I've run out of passion for writing. While not wanting to write can sound like "not wanting to write," I knew in my soul writing is here to stay, that it is something deep within my genes. There's no getting rid of it.

I considered my ADD or my crippling lack of organizational skill was too severe to overcome, that I would be doomed never to complete a long or in any way complicated work. I looked at my detailed outline and knew that couldn't be the case. It was/is not perfect, but it's perfect enough to allow me to write without a significant risk of cornering myself with a plot hole.

I considered I may lack the maturity to sit my butt down and do the hard work. This is probably a contributing factor, something which needs to be addressed sooner than later. But as the main reason, it lacked legs. I sit for hours and work on websites, a task that, over time, has given me less satisfaction but that I do well. I also recdntly completed P90X, that maniacal exercise challenge/program from the infomercials, on my first attempt. So I have discipline. Something else is at work.

Ashamedly possessing what I've described as a "mystical bone," I took something akin to a spirit walk to look at how I was thinking about the story itself. I often wake up in the middle of the night and think or work for an hour. In this time, my creativity seems closer to the surface. Sometimes I'll come up with a solution to a design problem or I'll be "given" the solution to a POV issue that's been bugging me for days. I might realize how to handle a parenting issue. Anything. But just as often, I'll be able to see a problem that I didn't realize was there in the first place. The answer to my writing difficulty was "revealed" to me in this way.

Days and days have gone by with my writing at a constipated pace. I've written the beginning of the story five or six times, doubting the direction of these first steps each time, hearing the voices of my critique partners in my ears. Beckie would say this or Joe would ask that. Sanford would urge me to start more aggressively.

Then it hit me. I was no longer writing the story of my heart from my heart. I was auditioning every word for the people who would see it in a couple weeks. Like asking permission to take each step, it was taking me forever to get across the room or, in this case, get the story written.

One can't write effectively with eyes over his shoulder or with the voices of his audience in his head. Doing so is not joyful writing and if one writes without joy he may as well take out the trash or wash the dog.

An article in the most recent issue of Writers Digest mentioned that critique groups can sometimes stifle a writer's creativity by building in him the urge to write for those people, knowing what each of his peers picks up on.

Guilty. 

(Footnote: The fact that there is a downside to critique groups -- or anything related to writing, for that matter -- doesn't mean that one should exclude them from one's consideration, only that one should know and avoid that specific downside. One wouldn't stay home just because there is a potentially car-ruining pothole on the way to work; one would drive around it.)

As soon as I realized that was what I was doing, the desire to write returned as if it were Granola and I just got found starving in the forest. 

So my advice at this point is this. Write for yourself. You guessed it. That means keep your critique group out of it. Keep your spouse and your kids out of it. Keep your mom out of it. Keep your 5th grade English teacher out of it. Keep the invisible eyes of your present or potential audience out of it.

Writing for yourself doesn't mean you need to be selfish or stupid. You still need to integrate your writing schedule with family and work. And you still need to avoid overtly stupid writing errors if you have an eye on getting published. What writing for yourself means to me is keep the child in you who always loved writing interested in the writing.

When you sat in your room as a teen, writing the story you HAD to write, you never thought about how women's groups in Pennsylvania might accept your lead character's misogynistic tendencies, right? Well, don't set out to intentionally offend anyone, but also don't set out to appease anyone for the sake of safety or sales. I'd bet you didn't try to write the story perfectly; it was the story that mattered most, not the perfection of every line. If you're reading this, you probably want to get published and that's fine, but you can't afford to let that slow or soften your work, especially in the early drafts.

Write the story you had in mind the way you envisioned it. If you're involved in a good critique situation, you'll be able to take what you need and won't offend anyone by leaving what you don't need behind. They'll let you know if you've gone unmarketably too far. They'll also let you know if something doesn't make sense. Hopefully, they'll let you know when you're probably worrying about nothing too.

But, at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter who says what. If you knew today you'd never get published, would you really stop writing? Probably not. So you must embrace writing for yourself and trust the craft will improve on its own.

A stand-out occurrence of 2009 was discovering Local Coffee, a terrific coffee shop in the Stone Oak area of San Antonio. It is a simply-designed, quiet space that, in the first 6 weeks of its opening, became THE go-to spot for writing, conducting business and just relaxing. 

The secret is unrivaled coffee. The quality of the beans and the impeccable knowledge and care with which they are prepared results in a cup of coffee like none I've tasted before. I've spoken to the owner, Robbie Grubbs, on a number of occasions about various aspects of the coffee's preparation and there seems to be no end to the amount of small details that go into the path from plantation to enjoyment.

To illustrate, a number of employees did not make the cut the first couple weeks. I asked Robbie how this was possible: it's just coffee, right? The ones who did not make it did not understand Robbie's vision and standard of excellence. Eventually, he brought in a couple of folks with a huge amount of experience in one of the few coffee houses that share Robbie's high standards. One of the baristas was basically imported from Washington, DC. Unreasonable? Before you taste the coffee, you may think so. Afterwards, there is no question his close attention to detail is what is behind Local Coffee's quick success.

Local Coffee, as the name might suggest, is dedicated to "local made/local paid," healthy and eco-responsible. Nearly all of the interior build-out was done with reclaimed materials. All the lighting is environmentally friendly. The travelers -- the to-go coffee pitchers for businesses, etc. -- are made from recycled cardboard.  All their baked goods are from local businesses

They display art from local artists on an approximately one-month turnover. They also hosts quiet, tasteful acoustic sets from local musicians on Saturdays (as of this blogging, of course). 

So if you haven't tried Local Coffee, stop in. It's located at the southwest corner of Sonterra and Sigma. Look for the orange and black sign (also shown here).

With the new year only days away, it is time for us to consider resolutions. Though my sense of humor is well intact, I'm not one of those who finds breaking one's resolutions humorous.

For around a decade, I've given myself a limit of three resolutions as a way of better insuring I can keep my word. I begin one thing, end one and improve one. This system has not let me down. It is efficient and manageable.

This year I thought I'd go one step further, considering I have not been a perfect writer in 2009. This year, in addition to the "real" resolutions, I'll also include some sub-resolutions that are specific to writing.

What to begin
One day -- Wednesdays, I think -- will be submission days. I probably submitted 12 times in 2009. No excuses, that was not enough. The winner of this year's San Antonio Writers Guild Judy Award, Sanford Allen, had over 60 rejections in 2009. Rejections. Not total submissions. Only rejections. And, needless to say, he got his fair share of acceptances. As the founder of the Judy Award says at each of our once-a-month meetings, "You can't get published if you don't submit." Thus the cash prize she offers.

What to end
This one was a bit harder because everything I wanted to end really sounded like another "begin." So what did I do in 2009 (and before) that I needed to stop doing? Again, I'll make another reference to Sanford Allen who, in 2008, shared a list of practices he found in some publication or other that gave suggestions for how to keep distractions out of one's writing space. Near the top, if not the top itself, on the list was -- and I paraphrase -- "Turn off your browser BEFORE you write." Man is that me in a nutshell. For whatever reason, before I write, I have the nasty habit of checking my trash email -- my Yahoo! account -- for anything of interest. Sometimes doing so can take me a minute and sometimes it can erase a whole writing session. Somewhere deep in my psyche, the fear of failure/success/work/whatever is allowing this distraction in. In 2010, I am allowing it out.

What to change
This may not be totally fair but, in all honesty, I haven't given this idea all the room to breath it needs in order to be fairly judged successful or not. Detailed outlining for anything I write over 1k words. In 2009, I was so impressed with the outlining process, I am wanting to implement it with more seriousness going forward. Though it may end up not working out, or only working out for a time, I have found enough beneficial in creating detailed plot outlines that upping the practice, in my opinion, counts as a change.

So, my suggestion to you is this: in the last days of 2009, take careful inventory of your own writing habits and isolate those three things that will improve you as a writer. Decide, commit and reap the benefits. 

Have a great holiday season.

As I have mentioned before, I am writing my long-time-bubbling-in-the-background novel by using an in-depth plot outline before beginning the real writing. The process has been surprising in a few ways. Below, I describe a what a detailed outline is for me and how it can benefit one's writing as well as ways in which it is not a perfect tool. 

So what is a detailed outline?
When I began outlining, I wasn't sure to what degree of detail I needed to go but after working on it a while I hit on a decent analogy. Write in the same way you would describe the story to someone if you were sitting on a couch with them. Don't leave out any important details but instead of telling the story, you're interested in telling them about the story with an aim to keep their interest. This way, you've got a good gauge of how long to linger at different points in the story and when you need to step up the pace.  

Detailed outlining is -- or maybe can be -- a slow process.
When I began outlining, I would say I had a decent idea of how the story was going to go; however, once I got in to the outlining, I realized there were -- or would have been -- many sections that would have stopped me in my tracks. Little logic errors here and there or places where I needed to decide which of two characters should die first or, in fact, whether one of the characters in question should die at all. Solving these problems in the outline proved to require no less time that they would have during the writing, but solving them at this early stage did not require stopping my writing momentum.

Detailed outlining helps someone like me.
I've made no secret about my easy distractibility. Whereas the seat-of-you-pantsers -- which always sounds a little too Nazi tank squadron for my liking -- seems somehow to avoid or correct plot holes as they occur, I am glaringly unable to do so. In the beginning when I first began serious writing, I tried many different ways of approaching the craft in an attempt to find the process that worked for me. I found the most successful work environment: coffee house that isn't freezing or McDonald's-ish or with sub-par coffee (are you listening Starbucks?). I found the writing tools that work best for me: MacBook Pro using Pages, noise canceling earbuds, Monroe Products' "So" Chord or other non-vocal ambient music. I found that, for whatever reason, I write better when dressed for work rather than sweats and tee. I work better in the ridiculously early morning or immediately following a nap. It turns out I MUST have an outline of the entire story (or at least for an entire major section) in order to keep everything in line or I'll chase a great idea into an unworkable corner every time. 

Detailed outlining has most of the qualities of writing the actual story.
I find that, as I work through the outline, the characters come alive in nearly the same way as the do in the actual writing. That came as the biggest surprise of all. I would have guessed the outline to be cold and distant, but i caught myself thinking "my character wouldn't do/say that" many times and, in those instances, it was comforting to know the fix could not only be quick but I could just note a suggestion as to the change. I didn't need to take time to nail down the exact wording. I found this part of outlining similar to a playwrite's staging notes: "Chetan backs away, stumbling back in his terror at..." And in the event a whole section does go off track, it's way easier to redirect/correct an entire chapter than the long-form story.

Detailed outlining keeps the story moving.
Somewhat akin to guiding oneself away from tempting tangents, outlining in this way moves the story from one gripping moment to the next. When all one has are the basic events and the important items to remember, one tends not to ruminate unnecessarily in any one place for too long.

Detailed writing -- I've been assured -- makes the actual writing easier. 
Chris Roberson (who can be see here doing childish cartwheels) encouraged me to consider detailed outlining when he spoke to the San Antonio Writers Guild in mid-2009. In that talk, he said the main benefit of outlining, past the reasons I've already mentioned above, was that once the actual writing begins, one cruises. He said that it is not unusual to pop out 20 pages -- good pages -- in a day because all the questions are answered. The path is cleared, so all one has to do is walk it, or in this case, run it. And to confuse things with another layer, the benefit of writing at that pace is the voice remains more consistent throughout the work, something which which a beginning writer may struggle. Too often, I have taken too long on a story. When I've finished and read it back, the writer at the beginning of the work is clearly in one state of mind or skill level and in a different place by the end. Readers enjoy experiencing change in a character through a story, but I'm pretty sure they don't look for or appreciate that same change in the writer.

Possible pitfalls of detailed outlining.
It's difficult to do more than guess at the possible pitfalls of working this way since I haven't done much actual writing based on the outline work, but I know one element that doesn't fit well into the outline is setting and sensation. Since the outline works exclusively with gripping events and the bridges between them, only the parts of setting that are key to those events being possible are included. A good idea may be to note at the top of each outline "Don't forget to paint a picture," and "Remember the five senses;" otherwise, the writing may stick too literally to the events, making the story sound cold and distant. I'll have to remember to turn the heat on when I start writing.

The verdict.
I wouldn't want to work any other way when it comes to longer works. I can certainly see a place for seat-of-my-pants at some point. Maybe detailed outlining will teach me enough about what does and doesn't work in plots so that someday I can just wing it. That just isn't possible now. I almost wrote that for shorter works, a detailed outline may be unnecessary, but I think one may be even more necessary given the less forgiving nature of short works compared to long. So let me say, for works under 1000 words one probably doesn't need an outline. For anything else, please give it a shot.

Detailed patterns in line drawings by Pedro Lucena courtesty of Gentle Pure Space: Graphic design, art, and other creative inspiration.

My mentee -- and let me say once again how much I truly hate the word -- finally got on her page and spoke to the world, so I'd like everyone to stop by and give her a quick read or her efforts will have been in vain and, well, you'll all be to blame, won't you now.

Click here to visit Rebecca's sparse page »

What do you get when you squeeze a pod?
Peas out.

The San Antonio Writers Guild, as I've mentioned before, has "The Judy Award" for the member who has received the most rejections in a calendar year, the logic being, "If you don't submit, you can't get published." Simple logic. I believe it, too. But when it comes to making a choice between submitting/researching markets, or writing, I have so far been able to work up the discipline to submit.

The act of submitting my work can't be as bad as I've made it out to be. And I've made it out to be a horrible, grueling task.

1. Only once I've worked up the courage -- the conceited nerve -- to think I have a piece that is ready for submission -- not an easy point to reach since I am a compulsive editor -- can I even begin the process of submission.
2. Then I have to decide what genre it falls into. This step is stressful since. I've already sacrificed a writing session, so misstepping during the submission process compounds that feeling of waste. I used to be in a band and, as anyone in a band that plays original music will tell you, the question he hates most is "So what kind of music do you play?" It can't be answered accurately without an encyclopedia-length explanation. Unless one is intentionally writing genre fiction, finding just the right genre and sub-genre can be tricky. Once I've made a choice, I'm seldom confident it is the right one. I find myself thinking back to the other options I could have chosen instead.
3. If I've bitten the bullet and committed to a genre and have found a list of publications that accepts works of my piece's length, I then move on to the unfun sifting through each site's submission guidelines and getting the work ready for submission.
   1. Find the submission guidelines. I'm a web designer and try to make all my navigation through a site clear to the user. Many of the publications' sites do not realize how difficult their submission guidelines are to locate. My thinking is, if the guidelines are hard to find, am I dealing with a publication that is worth my time? If only that could be answered easily. The truth is, even known publications, at times, have this problem. More sand falls. I want to turn back.
   2. Once they are found, the newbie realizes that every publication has different guidelines for submission. Keeping track of all the details for each publisher, necessitates use of a spreadsheet, a hardcore left-brained activity for a person who seldom uses his left brain.
      1. The materials requested varies: Some want a query letter only. Some want the first few pages. Some want the whole thing. Some want both. Some want the physical copy as opposed to the digital file.
      2. The formatting varies: Some want this font; others want that one. Some want 10- and other was 12-point type. Some want the author's info in a title page only; some want it on the first page with the beginning of the story; still others want it in both places with a bio.
      3. There are timeframes in which  publications do and don't accept submissions. Oy.
         
         Keep in mind, we're only gathering facts. We haven't submitted anything yet.
         
          
   3. Note carefully the email (or physical) address to send it to. Invoke paranoia. It's an easy step that I find myself triple- and quadruple-checking, probably unnecessarily.
   4. Once we have all of our data saved into the spreadsheet, we now have to modify the piece to each publications odd specifications. This is the most frustrating step as there's all sorts of room for confusion, it can take longer than I want it to, and the multiple formats clutter my computer folders like nobody's business. By this point, I have little confidence I've dotted and crossed all my Ts and Is.
4. I finally have it ready and I click Send.  Yay! More to record on the spreadsheet my body has already been wanting to reject.
5. Here's another fun part. Wait. Maybe an hour. Maybe six months. Maybe...forever. You just can't say. And each publication has their own preference for how they will accept taps on the shoulder to ask, "Hey, um, what's going on with my piece?" They've got you over a stump, too, because the last thing a writer wants to do is piss off the very publication they've waited months to hear from. We don't want to make rejection any easier for them. I don't like being in a position where I should be able to ask a reasonable question but, for whatever trip, I would be hurting myself to ask.

The process is not broken. There is no process.

I always want to be effective. I find that, with the way things are set up in the industry, I can't do more than to minimize the amount of wasted time. And too much of my submission effort goes toward appeasing editors' preferences instead of getting good work into their hands. I see the need for work to be submitted in a clean fashion. I know I prefer files and such to be sent to me in a certain way. But there really should be an agreed-to standard.

Unless there is a formal "Submit-in" organized, I don't submit. I think about it daily, but nada.

I've resolved to set aside Wednesday's for submission work. That way, I'm not facing a choice whether or not to submit. It's Wednesday; I submit. I submit to submitting.

I think that'll begin with the new year, though. I have writing to do.

Over the last couple weeks, my small critique group has taken a look at the first chapters of my novel-in-the-works that has gone by various titles: The Letter from William Waiklin, Felled, William Waiklin, The Beating Heart Tree. What stands out about their reviews is that a] I suffered from having taken time away from solid, careful writing every day and b] that the parts that I needed to work did, in fact, work.

The first chapter is told from the perspective of a biind, aging Ojibwe man who has all but completely been Westernized since living his early years in "the old ways." He and William Waiklin have a tense conversation under false pretenses. Eventually the important truth about why William is there is revealed. This sets up the frame into which other stories, which constitute the bulk of the story, are told.

I mistakenly called this chapter a prologue, but as I should have known, a prologue is never 20 pages long. There is a place for a prologue, but I'll need to reorder the content of the chapter some to make it work the way I want it to. The important part is, again, that the parts of the chapter worked, so reordering is possible. I would have found proceeding in the direction I had intended had my groupf deemed the parts themselves unworkable.

I decided to leave the reordering work for later when I can revisit that section with a fresh eye.

The second looks at a young love triangle in the pre-Western-trade years in an Ojibwe village. Through back and forth flashback from one of the three characters' POV, we see the parallel between the tension building between him and a competing male and his actions on a very violent day, actions which lead to his very peculiar downfall.

The critiques were consistent. I had clumsy POV issues. I hadn't set up the backstory well.  I hadn't tied the second section to the first in any way. To compound the issue, i had mistakenly sent two or three pages that I had not even attempted to perfect. Notes, basically. Members of my group were left, understandably befuddled at the beginning and at the end.

The silver lining was that, if one disregarded the beginning and end, the flashbacks themselves did seem to work. These flashbacks, again, being told from a 16th (maybe) century Indian's POV could have gone terribly wrong; however, his voice worked, all members agreed. This was key. The Indian voice in this and the first section needed to work of it was back to research.

Overall, I'm excited about the direction I'm taking. I realize the structure of the finished piece will be a difficult puzzle and possibly a hard-sell, but at my age, I'm pretty sure I'm headed in the right direction even if the course ahead is foggy.

I've already made enough changes to the first part -- notes, really -- to address the large stroke problems my group pointed out. Next, I'm working on the "evil deed" part of the second section, the killing, the mortal judgment, the supernatural penance. 

But I've already said too much.

Photo: Frank Montano (Anakwad), Ojibwe musician

After an interminable number of days unable to dedicate substantial time to writing each day due to free web work for my beloved cousin, Daphne, and free graphical work designing my son's cycling team's full kit, I found the transition back to my regular writing pace a mixed bag.

On the positive side, the energy to write released like a flood. I'm typically neither a speedy nor particularly focused writer. But driven by so many unrealized ideas that had gathered at the door, the words came fast and furious, like releasing puppies from a basket. 

On the negative side, who wants to read the disorder a basket of puppies can produce. The result was similar to that well-known Cheech and Chong moment when they have to follow around the dog who ate their stash. There was a great volume of words and little in the way of quality to sift out.

I guess that is arguably a good thing. Still, I noticed a general dulling of my writing, a lack of stamina and ability to focus singly on the desired story path.

Regardless of the confusion, I'm confident I'll normalize soon. Writing may not be one of those impossible-to-forget activities but the curve back to full fitness should be a short one. Setting is everything. Providing oneself with the proper setting and ample time to allow true writing to begin, typically 20 minutes after beginning, is essential to growing as a writer. I may have written every day during my semi-hiatus, but I may have been better off not writing at all rather than forcing myself forward out of pride through asphyxiating conditions.

I am proud to announce, thanks to a kind heads-up from my friend and fellow author Sanford Allen, that my first published work is up at Tales from the Moonlit Path. Tales is a terrific online magazine specializing in odd, frightening tales, so I'm doubly honored to have my work included in their November/Halloween issue.

Tales introduces my story wonderfully:

Thomas McAuley's, "Spirit into Speck" is a delightful Halloween-ish tale about a senile witch who ultimately gets her comeuppance.

This publishing game is one of patience to be sure. Four months ago, I received confirmation that Tales From the Moonlit Path wanted to publish my short story. That's a painful long time to wait, but I hear from my fellow writers that is not at all out of the ordinary.

Please take a moment out of your day and enjoy my little witchy tale »

And an early Happy Hallloween to everyone!!!

I'm not normally a sci-fi buff but a copy of Phillip K. Dick's Blade Runner (Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep) had been calling out to me for years, so I finally opened it up. To be honest, I can't recall why I had the book in the first place. I loved the movie; it's one of my favorites of all time, but it wasn't the sci-fi or steam punk that hooked me. It was the desolation and quiet that I loved.

Being a bit of a mystic, I respected and listened to the fact that this book just fell in front of me recently.

It was an amazing read, possibly because it fits a particular tone I need for my current work. There is a sadness and drone-like quality to the lead character, a bounty hunter. He must also face the possibility of there being nothing greater than himself in the Universe, an abysmal prospect for most. All of this was handled well though surprisingly not with perfection which, in an odd way, comforted me, possibly because it heartens me I can achieve the stillness and emptiness I need for parts of my novel.

Despite the imperfection of the writing, I feel I may be entering a Phillip K. Dick stage. There's something intangible about his writing that I'm driven to learn, something that I haven't felt since reading Camus and Suskind in the 80s. Reading Dick's work has been a coming home of sorts.

However long ago, nearly two years I'd guess without looking, I put aside my story titled "Felled" at one point and "The Letter From William Waklin" later on. At the time I had reservations about a few things related to the story. As I worked through my original story arc, I continued to read about and learn what made for successful and unsuccessful stories: pacing, characterization, consistency in POV, etc. Very early on, I found I was not ready for this story. I had much more to learn, more stories to write, more hours in front of the keyboard.

In the last two(ish) years, I wrote a number of short stories, a very nearly complete adult novella and a complete youth novella. Also in that time, I entered at least ten flash fiction contests. From the time I abandoned what I often call my "head-on-a-stump" story to now, I have evolved into a much more proficient writer (if, admittedly, not more prolific).

So I have taken the time since Chris Roberson's presentation to the San Antonio Writers Guild to work on a very detailed outline of the events in this newest iteration. I very much like the direction I'm headed now.

Due to the shortcomings of the first three drafts, I kept a keen eye out for solutions to any problems that killed each of them. I feel safe that I won't fall into the same holes as before. I'm confident there are more, new holes out there to fall into though, so I'm not going into this sleepwalking (or "somnambulating" as Joe McKinney wrote in Dead City).

This morning I sat at Starbucks and made terrific progress on an opening passage I had been massaging for a week. I had originally written the passage from one character's perspective. Last night, unable to sleep due to the idea bugs swarming around in my head, I realized I could solve two shortcomings of the section by telling it from the perspective of other person involved. So far, the novel-length work will have three main sections, each with a different POV and this new beginning, ending/section from yet another, forth POV.

Handling the story in this way will be a challenge, but I'm looking forward to it to be sure.

My wife, Nadine is turning...well, turning tomorrow. It's her birthday! And she's pretty awesome. We've been married for more than 20 years now and I'd say she's half responsible for that rare feat in these decadent modern times.

As with any couple, we've had our rough and smooth times, but she's always been there. She's largely made me who I am today, a moral, somewhat centered person whereas, before, I was strongly not so. She continues to be a source of centering and pragmatic support when I tend to drift into my world of dreams. She's always non-judgmental when I am anything but toward her. And, as shallow as it probably is, she's never stopped caring about her appearance, has never embarrassed me in public or been anything but impressive to me and everyone she meets. A trophy wife of the perfect sort for my personal needs. Thank you and woo-hoo!

So, Happy Birthday Nadine. You smell like a bean! You are my sunshine.