Category Archives: Works

Updates on works by Jordan McCollum

Technique, Works

Writing Wednesday III

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Welcome back to Writing Wednesday! Since so many of us are writers, I know we all must read lots of writing blogs. So let’s share some of the great things we learn about writing through a fun new linkup! It’s like a blogfest, only easier!Writing Wednesday

Last time, we had six great entries:

Share your best posts on writing today!

What are the rules?

  1. All articles must directly relate to writing. If you see something that makes you think of a writing principle, and you want to participate, I recommend you blog about your thoughts, and then submit your blog post.
  2. You should use a descriptive name so we all want to click on the article: Jordan McCollum wouldn’t be very enticing, but Doing Backstory Right would.
  3. Articles can come from your blog or someone else’s.
  4. If it’s your post, PLEASE link back to Writer Wednesday in the post so your visitors can join in the fun! (You can use the badge below—the code includes a link!)
  5. You can submit up to three articles total.
  6. Posts can be old or new.
  7. You have until Tuesday, 2 August 2011 to submit.
  8. If you’d like to follow me, I certainly wouldn’t object! It’s not required, though.

Why should you participate?

  • We can all benefit from this!
  • Find new blogs and great writing advice—without sifting through the ENTIRE INTERNET.
  • Share the articles you’ve worked so hard on with my 200+ RSS subscribers.
  • It’s a great way to grow a blog!

How can I get a cool badge?
Copy the code below and paste it into a blog post or a gadget/widget in your sidebar. (It’s in HTML, so be sure you’re adding an HTML gadget, or select the Edit HTML/HTML tab above the text window on the edit post page.)

<a href="http://jordanmccollum.com/tag/writing-wednesday/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z41/MamaBlogga/th_writingwed.png" border="0" alt="Writing Wednesday" ></a>

Where do we put our links?
Right here! Please remember to link directly to your post (i.e. ihaveablog.blogspot.com/2011/05/i-have-a-post.html and NOT ihaveablog.blogspot.com—this makes it easier to find the article!) and use a descriptive name (i.e. How to handle backstory and NOT Yippity Skippity Blog!).

Just fill in the boxes below to get started:

How about a prize for one contributor? One link author, chosen at random (only links entered by their authors are eligible), will receive Next time around, I’m thinking about offering a prize for one participant chosen at random. What would you like to see as a prize?

Thanks for participating!

Photo: writing with my new pen by Melanie Cook

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Works

Independence Day Blogfest!

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This entry to the blogfest is a bit late; I was traveling for the memorial service on the posting day and didn’t get the time to write like I’d hoped.

The prompt for a piece of flash fiction is: “It’s Independence Day and something unexpected happens . . .” So here we go!

You’d probably think dancing in the arms of Lord Edward Westing, Earl of Sussex (etc.) would be utterly thrilling. But you’d be wrong.

Bertie, as we all call him, is seventeen with bad teeth and worse acne. He’s a little obnoxious, but he’s a good dancer, he’s fun at parties, like tonight’s Carraresi Feast Day ball, and he’s family, if distantly.

He spins me into a dip and I glimpse the glass dance floor, and the orange sunset reflected in the sea below us. This year’s venue, an open-air gazebo over the gulf, is the best I can remember, and the evening’s just begun.

The music winds down and Bertie whips me into one more spin. “You’re getting rusty,” he says. “Hope you’re not planning to impress anyone.”

I look away. There’s someone I want to impress, but I doubt he’s here. I try to surreptitiously scan the crowd, but my eyes are drawn to the white wake cutting through the gold gulf not far away. Heading straight toward us, fast. My stomach plunges faster than it did when Bertie flipped me.

The boat speeds up. I realize my grip on Bertie’s hand is so tight he can’t even squeeze back—then the speed boat leaps out of the water onto the floating bridge, the only way on or off our little island. Two masked men clamber out of the boat, carrying assault rifles.

“Dove è la principessa?” one demands.

La principessa. The princess. Me.

They want me.

Rough and sketchy, but isn’t that always the way with flash fiction?

Photo by Alyson Hunt

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Works

Fiction and real life

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Another time I’ll probably talk about how fiction needs to be like real life, and yet not. It’s fascinating, really, but it’s not what’s on my mind right now.

Sometimes real life gets in the way of writing fiction—and by real life I mean my real life. I always think of the time my cousin broke up with the girl he’d wanted to marry. He came over to my house and we talked about it. At the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but feel a little guilty. Writing romantic suspense at the time, I spent so much time making up imaginary people with imaginary problems and imaginary heartache, and suddenly it almost felt like I was mocking the real pain that people endure in life and love.

Recently this has hit home again as a member of my extended family passed away very suddenly, leaving his wife and six children. It’s very hard to bring yourself to solve an imaginary murder when you’re dealing with the real death of a loved one—especially an accidental death that has left us with a lot of questions, and we won’t get a neat little tied-with-a-bow, with-justice-for-all ending.

Obviously, during difficult times, it’s definitely okay to give yourself a break from writing. I’m not one of those “1000 words every single day” types anyway. But despite all that, I sometimes feel guilty for not writing. I feel like writing would help me work through these things, but mostly the things I think about writing are waaay too close to reality, and I don’t think I’m ready for that.

Do you jump in and write the emotional while your feelings are still raw? Or do your own emotions and experiences get in the way too much?

Photo by Tobias Wolter

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Works

Lovin the Language blogfest

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The winner of the Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook giveaway is . . . Lisa! Contact me with your shipping info to get your prize!

Also, keep on gathering up your favorite posts for Writing Wednesday tomorrow!

I’m on a sharing roll… you know, sort of, so why not share more?

Jolene Perry of Been Writing is hosting the Lovin the Language blogfest today, and we can share five lines or five passages from our WIPs. I’ve been back to editing a little over the weekend, so I’m sharing the latest iteration of my opening paragraph (this is NOT in Frank‘s POV, btw).

In war, there are two enemies: the ones you’re fighting against and the ones you’re fighting alongside. The enemies on your side are always trickier. Although the war was over, I was still defending multiple fronts, as a Soviet diplomat, living in Paris, a woman. Despite my vigilance, the most devastating attack would come from a quarter I’d never anticipated. I would remember everything except the blast.

(This is five lines in my WIP, though it might be more or less as you’re reading it.)

Still agonizing over them, and probably will forever.

What lines would you share from your writing?

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Technique, Works

Three questions to ask your characters (MC blogfest)

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Keep collecting your favorite posts on writing for Writing Wednesday next week!

When I saw Jeannie’s guest post on author Elizabeth Mueller’s blog (another friend!), I knew I had to play along. Normally I’m reluctant to post much about my works (aside from excerpts that have done well in contests), but I’m making an exception today. It’s just three questions, right? And since I’m still working on falling back in love with my story, this seems like a fun opportunity. Plus it’s just three questions.

The character I’m playing with today is Frank Walters. He served in the Office of Strategic Services in World War II and when the story takes place, just after the war, he’s with the Central Intelligence Group (predecessor of the CIA). Physically, he’s based loosely on my husband’s grandfather Walter, who was in the Navy in WWII, pictured here. (Somehow we ended up with his WWII scrapbook. He traveled the whole world during the war, with pictures and postcards from Hawaii, Scotland, Iceland, Morocco, the South Pacific, and I know he served in Japan, too.)

And over to Frank:

What is your greatest fear?

Losing myself to the job. The peace might not be as assured as the general public would like to believe, but I’m here to keep things from falling apart again. At the same time, I need to prove something to myself—that we’ll prevail. That I’m on the right side. That we’re the right side because of our principles, and we don’t have to undermine those principles to do it.

What is your biggest accomplishment?

I don’t know. Standing up for someone who’s weak. Doing the right thing when it’s hard. It takes a lot of those little things like that to make it worth it—and just one failure to wipe it all out.

What is your biggest regret?

After the war, we had custody of a bunch of the Nazis’ POWs, including some Soviets. Some secret deal at one of the Big Three conferences included one little stipulation that we must’ve bowed to: all Soviets would be returned to the USSR.

Some of these men said they’d never even been to the Soviet Union. Some of them had come from there, and they couldn’t bear the thought of going back to the constant terror. After surviving a Nazi concentration camp, they’d be labeled as traitors and German spies. Maybe sent to Soviet labor camps. Maybe executed.

They begged us not to return them, to shoot them instead. Some of them even killed themselves before we handed them over.

But I followed orders. I sent grown men—and boys—begging, screaming and crying for mercy . . . to the slaughter.

Aaand back to me. Of these, question #3 was the only one I’d really worked on in depth before. #1 was there but this helped me refine and crystallize it a little. #2 was by far the most challenging. Isn’t that odd? Shouldn’t it be easier to think of something we’re proud of?

What do you think? What would your characters say? Which question would be hardest for you?

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Technique, Works

How to fall in love (with your story) again

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It’s no secret I’ve been flirting with burnout. I’m halfway through the very first revision (i.e. the major work of fixing the story problems, and the frustration of not always knowing how to do that and still working in a vacuum).

But I know what I most need to do: I need to fall in love with my story again.

Here are some ideas I’ve had to help me:

  • Read awesome (and awful!) books in your genre—but not too similar to your story.
  • Reread your favorite parts of your story, the “candy bar scenes” you waited and waited and waited to attack (or attacked first).
  • Make sure you’re not “renovating a condemned novel“
  • Rethink your story structure. These things that you think are written in stone—are they really? Do they have to happen this way? Is there a way that’s better for your story, your readers, your genre?
  • Read craft books directly related to the problem areas
  • Take a break and explore other creative outlets—or even menial tasks!
  • Remember your original inspiration. What made you devote months of your life to this in the first place?
  • Write something short and fun, or challenging. See how good it feels to finish something? Don’t you want to feel that way about your novel??

What do you think? How do you fall in love all over again with your story?

Photo by A Klar

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Works

S is for Show Not Tell Crusader Challenge

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This entry is part 13 of 14 in the series Emotion: it's tough

It’s the last challenge of the Crusade! Here are the rules for the Show Not Tell Crusader Challenge.

And here’s my entry, flash fiction in an urban fantasy setting:

The footsteps echoed in the empty canyon of a city street—more than just my footsteps. I stopped short. The footsteps behind me stuttered to a stop, too. The hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. The feeling of being watched was as palpable as the brick wall next to me. I caught hold of the rough bricks to steady myself as a current of ice shimmered down my spine.

Though I willed myself to stare at the sky blazing orange, not to give into the terror, I glanced back. It was hard to make out his features in the fading light, but his gaze clearly swung away from—and right back to—me in a sharp, saccadic shift. Tall and unnaturally gaunt, in a long black coat, he gave substance to the shadowy nightmares that had plagued me.

I licked my lips, the salt from my sweat a cruel joke to my empty stomach. The man stepped closer, his eyes still flicking back and away over and over. A sharp, acrid scent filled my senses, a mix of panic, sweat and decay.

I ran.

Hm. Wonder how it ends!

Photo by Kelly Teague

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Technique, Works

R is for Revision

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I’m gearing up to do the first round of revisions on my WIP. I totally don’t have a system for revision (yet?). I’d really like to do have a set of steps I follow for revisions—instead of still making plot-level cuts and additions two years after I should have!—but I think I just might not be that kind of person. I mean, I can be really faithful about using a datebook, but only for a couple months. The last two months of each of my children’s baby calendars are a major challenge. (Oh wait… Gotta update that!)

Here’s what I do/have done—and I use at least three of these methods at any given time:

  • Make running commentary notes as I’m writing in comments or square brackets.
  • Keep a list of changes I want to make in another document.
  • Keep a list of changes in a sticky-note.
  • Write down ideas on any available slip of paper.
  • Email myself ideas, notes and changes.
  • Reread the completed draft, where I’m only allowed to make notes/comments. (And fix typos.)
  • Complete the exercises in one or more of Donald Maass’s books.
  • Send to alpha/beta readers.
  • Read more craft books.
  • Take time off.
  • Write down character exercises on any available scrap of paper.
  • Talk over potential changes—mostly with myself, since it takes too long to explain everything to give someone else enough context to respond.
  • Lose and/or toss a good proportion of the notes.
  • Print off the entire book and read it aloud, chapter by chapter.
  • Margie Lawson’s EDITS system.
  • Start over at step 1.

Each of these methods can be effective. But still, if this looks like a mess, that’s because it is!

This time around, I’m trying to focus on the plot- and character-level fixes I need first. I went into this book not sure of my characters’ voices (apparently I did something right, though!), or even my characters themselves, and with a plot that was a lot less defined than I usually like. I know the big things I want to improve, but I’m trying to figure out if there are other things I need to fix now (before I get into the more wordy-level things).

I know some people are much better at going about this systematically, and I want to learn from people like Jami, Natalie, and Suzannah. It seems like they have such great “systems” for revising, attacking each problem in order, and they’ll never miss anything. Okay, so that last part is probably just wishful thinking on my part, but wouldn’t it be nice if we all had a single system we could work through with our first draft to make it into something we can really work with?

What do you think? How do you revise?

Edited to add more posts on systems of revision (partially for my own reference): Five types of edits from the QueryTracker blog.

Photo by Joanna Penn

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