Category Archives: writing

April 19, 2023 · 6:00 am

Life, Parkinson’s, and writing to an outline #amwriting

Writers live one life on paper and another in the real world. No matter what genre we write in, the real world can be more challenging to navigate, more confusing, and more important to enjoy to its fullest.

MyWritingLife2021We have gotten a grip on my husband’s battle with Parkinson’s Disease. We can mitigate his symptoms with the right diet, exercises, and medications, simple things that help no matter what your underlying health issues are.

While rough terrain and loose soil or sand are a problem, he can still go for long walks and enjoy the natural world. We choose our paths carefully and have found that bike trails and running paths are excellent places to walk.

Our small town has a large park built around an old flooded quarry. The trail through there follows an old railroad grade and is a beautiful place to walk year-round.

As I have mentioned, we are preparing to sell our house and move twenty miles north, back to the city where we were raised. We need to be where there is good public transportation and easy access to our health care providers.

We’ve been in this house since 2005, and if I had one wish, it would be to pick our house up and move it to where we need to be. We have made many memories in this house, and it’s what our grandchildren think of as home.

When we bought this house, it was the height of the housing bubble, and for many years we owed more on the house than we could have sold it for. Now is the right time to put the house on the market. It’s a good time to embark on our new adventure.

We will indulge ourselves with plays and concerts, going to parties at night – things we haven’t been able to do since the doctor banned my hubby from driving. I don’t drive at night because of my night blindness, so he always drove after dark.

In the town where we plan to move, the streets are well-lit by streetlamps, and I have no trouble seeing even in the rain. But out here in the country, the roads are pitch black. Right now, we need to be home before sunset.

This week we are making another foray, possibly getting on the list for the apartment we want. We have our eye on three places, each with different amenities. No matter where we go, we need two bedrooms, as one will be the office.

Parkinson’s Disease has made us more aware of what truly matters in life. I’m turning seventy this June, and I feel no different than when I was thirty. I don’t have as much crazy energy, but I’m still that woman. Just a little wiser.

And slower.

And Greg is still that man. His diagnosis has motivated us to make the most of life, and in our new town, we will have plenty of opportunities to do just that.

yoga04182023LIRFLSVT BIG therapy has taught my otherwise quiet and reserved husband to live large and loud. Actually, anyone can benefit from these exercises.

I have found that the more I accomplish on the packing up and sorting front, the better I write. I’m not the world’s best housekeeper. Dust is dealt with when it becomes a problem, but I cannot handle clutter. I need my space to be visually organized, or I can’t focus.

Unfortunately, clutter is the name of the game at this point. We take a carload of objects to donate and then pack a few things we don’t want to part with. Then we stack the boxes in this corner (if they are keepers) or that one (if they are going to charity).

Things that can go to the unheated storage unit will be taken there, but pictures and certain documents must be stored in a dry heated space.

On the good side, our daughter had her piano moved to her home sixty miles north of here, which gave us a place to stack those boxes that can’t go to the storage unit.

Right now, in my writing life, my work-in-progress is at a place where I am trying to push the story forward. Below is where I am at in my outline – the crossed-out scenes have been written, and I am working on the next one, which will be crossed out when I move on to the chapter that follows this section.

Second plot point in Lenn’s Story

  1. Lenn goes to the port first, then walks back up the High Street, past the Temple complex, and to the East gate.

  2. Nutter questions him about the Tax Man. Lenn explains that the man isn’t from the Temple but is a thief.

  3. Lenn, Mikel, and Callie go to the Portside Inn, get more info on the Tax Man. The local ale hound, Rahlie, is a little too interested in Callie.

  4. Lenn steps in before she can zap the idiot with her magic. Initially upset with Lenn, Callie relaxes when he tells her he doesn’t want anyone to know she is more than just a healer. He wants her other abilities to be a secret weapon.

  5. New chapter: The following day Salyan arrives with the recruits. His drama ensues.

  6. Lenn convinces Salyan to return to glassmaking despite his father’s wishes, and it ends well. Irina asks Salyan to walk to the Odensday market with her.

boxLIRF04182023Mornings usually find us wondering what we can get done that day, and evenings are often spent contemplating what could have gone better. I write whenever I can, and often end up rewriting something that seemed like a good idea at first, but which no longer works.

But no matter how the day goes, we laugh at the silliest things. And that is what life should be – full of laughter and plenty of reasons to wake up the next day.

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April 17, 2023 · 6:00 am

Creating drama by adding the unexpected #amwriting

As writers, our job is to take a one-dimensional idea and give it depth. Our goal is to make the reader believe our narrative unfolds in a real, three-dimensional world.

WritingCraft_dramatic_ironyWe add depth and dimension to our work layer by layer. Some layers are more abstract than others, but each layer adds an element that gives a sense of reality to the fictional world.

When you add a layer of the unexpected to a scene, the reader becomes interested in discovering more. They keep turning the pages.

One literary device I enjoy when it’s done well in a novel is irony. Irony can be unexpected. Adding irony or satire gives a scene an element of surprise and the reader experiences a moment of “ah hah!” The mundane becomes special.

Wikipedia says this about irony:

Irony can be categorized into different types, including verbal irony, dramatic irony, and situational irony. Verbal, dramatic, and situational irony are often used for emphasis in the assertion of a truth. The ironic form of simile, used in sarcasm, and some forms of litotes can emphasize one’s meaning by the deliberate use of language which states the opposite of the truth, denies the contrary of the truth, or drastically and obviously understates a factual connection.

I love authors who inject the different forms of irony and drama or both into their work without being heavy-handed.

Politics, even on a local level, offer plenty of opportunities for drama, which is why I don’t watch the evening news. But let’s plot the first quarter of a contemporary novel about a struggling marriage. We will make one spouse the mayor of their small town and the other a lawyer working for a large corporation. The corporation wants to establish more of a presence in the community, and it’s his job to lobby for that.

What_Is_a_Litote_LIRF04152023The mayor likes their community’s small-town feeling and ambiance and doesn’t want it to change. Her husband is trapped, as his job is to ensure his employer gets their foot in the door. He struggled for years to rise to his current position and can’t imagine giving it up.

This is the source of friction in their relationship.

Soon after we establish the domestic dynamics of the couple, let’s create a scene where the mayor is doing her job, overseeing a meeting involving a committee’s conversation about what to do with a plot of land.

A third group who has an interest in the property has been deliberately excluded from the discussion. They are demanding the land be turned into community gardens. Their aggressive dialogue and confrontational picketing have led to the meeting being closed to the public.

In itself, the topic of choosing whether to fund a senior center/boys and girls club or sell it to a corporation that will hire hundreds of local people would be boring.

But by closing the meeting to all but two parties, we imply that something shady may be going on.

In the scenes leading up to the meeting, we meet the other influential people in this town. Their private conversations before the meeting will offer snips of background information as they move the story toward the scene in the conference room.

Once the meeting has been called to order, arguments will ensue as both sides present their case. Outside, the picketers who want the community gardens make their voices heard.

These dynamics offer many opportunities for ratcheting up the tension. The conversations inside the meeting and outside will be full of information only those parties have but which the reader must know. Irony could be injected in the blatant ignorance of some characters on all three sides and the comments they naively (or arrogantly) make.

So let’s add some dramatic irony to this scene. This literary device gives the reader information that at least one of the characters in the narrative is unaware of. This puts the reader a step ahead but is also a hook because wanting to see how this plays out raises the tension.

In our scene, an unknown woman makes her first appearance. She enters the empty conference room ahead of the meeting and places a backpack under the table. She isn’t involved with any of the three concerned groups, so who is she? What is her agenda? She is a member of a hidden group of anarchists who intend to bring down the corporation, and this is their opening volley.

This is where dramatic irony comes into play: the reader watches as she adjusts the backpack’s contents, sets the timer to go off at 19:25 (7:25 pm), and then departs, careful to leave no fingerprints.

Dramatic irony – the reader knows a device has been planted in the room, but the players in the scene do not.

Now every second that the conversation drags on ratchets up the tension. Each time a committee member gets up to get a glass of water or make a phone call, and the clock on the wall ticks toward 7:25, you wonder: will they escape death or terrible injury?

MErcutio quoteAnd we, the readers, desperately want our protagonist, the mayor, to get up and go to the coffeemaker. We can’t rest until we know if she either gets up and steps away from the table or someone notices the abandoned backpack and clears the meeting room.

Drama works best when presented so the reader feels the emotion but hasn’t been told what to think. We want to experience the stories ourselves.

Satire, sarcasm, irony, and understatements in conversations can lend a lighter tone to a dark passage. These lighter moments make characters feel relatable, showing them as being self-aware.

Dramatic irony is knowing something the players don’t. We know the backpack is beneath the conference table and fear the outcome.

But will that outcome be what we expect? Another layer of dramatic irony is applied when the backpack is detonated by the bomb squad, spraying the room with glitter and red paint.

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April 14, 2023 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Rhetoricians at a Window by Jan Steen ca. 1666 (revisite

Artist: Jan Steen  (1625/1626–1679)

Title: Rhetoricians at a Window

Genre: genre art

Date: c. 1661-66

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: Height: 759.46 mm (29.90 in); Width: 586.23 mm (23.07 in)

Collection: Philadelphia Museum of Art

I regularly look to art for ideas. One of my favorite images is this one, Rhetoricians at a Window by the Dutch master, Jan Steen. It has appeared here several times, but no matter how often I see this painting, I find something new to appreciate about it.

What I love about this painting:

This is one of my all-time favorite Dutch genre paintings. The vivid characters who inhabit the scene inspired some the characters who pass through my Billy’s Revenge stories, people my protagonists meet along the way. These jolly rogues have such vivid personalities that the viewer immediately feels a kinship to them. Who were they? Did they keep their day jobs?

The reading of a poem or play was clearly the opportunity for the performers to have a good time. At left, the group’s orator reads a paper titled Lof Liet (Song of Praise), while the poet who composed the verse looks on over his shoulder. From the drinker in the shadows of the background, to the grapevines growing around the window, Steen tells us that wine and rhetoric are clearly entwined.

I love the inclusion of both “the critic” who leans his head on his hand and listens analytically, and the man behind him, who is clearly “a little over the limit,” and supports himself by grasping the window frame and heartily agreeing with some point.

The actor who reads is clearly enjoying himself, as are the others.

Symbolism: Some have said the characters in this painting represent the different emotions of the human condition:

  • Sanguine, (active, enthusiastic, and social)
  • Choleric, (fast, irritable, and short-tempered)
  • Melancholic, (analytical, quiet, and wise)
  • Phlegmatic, (peaceful and relaxed)

Thanks to Eelko Kappe’s wonderful article on this painting, Rhetoricians at the Window by Jan Steen, I now have four new words to broaden my vocabulary. I may never have a use for them, but now I know what they mean!

About the Artist (Via Wikipedia):

Jan Havickszoon Steen (c. 1626 – buried 3 February 1679) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, one of the leading genre painters of the 17th century. His works are known for their psychological insight, sense of humour and abundance of colour.

Daily life was Jan Steen’s main pictorial theme. Many of the genre scenes he portrayed, as in The Feast of Saint Nicholas, are lively to the point of chaos and lustfulness, even so much that “a Jan Steen household”, meaning a messy scene, became a Dutch proverb (een huishouden van Jan Steen). Subtle hints in his paintings seem to suggest that Steen meant to warn the viewer rather than invite him to copy this behaviour. Many of Steen’s paintings bear references to old Dutch proverbs or literature. He often used members of his family as models, and painted quite a few self-portraits in which he showed no tendency of vanity.

Steen did not shy from other themes: he painted historical, mythological and religious scenes, portraits, still lifes and natural scenes. His portraits of children are famous. He is also well known for his mastery of light and attention to detail, most notably in Persian rugs and other textiles.

Steen was prolific, producing about 800 paintings, of which roughly 350 survive. His work was valued much by contemporaries and as a result he was reasonably well paid for his work. He did not have many students—only Richard Brakenburgh is recorded—but his work proved a source of inspiration for many painters. [2]

About this painting, Via Wikipedia:

Chambers of rhetoric (Dutch: rederijkerskamers) were dramatic societies in the Low Countries. Their members were called Rederijkers (singular Rederijker), from the French word ‘rhétoricien’, and during the 15th and 16th centuries were mainly interested in dramas and lyrics. These societies were closely connected with local civic leaders and their public plays were a form of early public relations for the city. [1]

In 1945, Sturla Gudlaugsson, a specialist in Dutch seventeenth-century painting and iconography and Director of the Netherlands Institute for Art History and the Mauritshuis in The Hague, wrote The Comedians in the work of Jan Steen and his Contemporaries, which revealed that a major influence on Jan Steen’s work was the guild of the Rhetoricians or Rederijkers and their theatrical endeavors.

It is often suggested that Jan Steen’s paintings are a realistic portrayal of Dutch 17th-century life. However, not everything he did was a purely realistic representation of his day-to-day environment. Many of his scenes contain idyllic and bucolic fantasies and a declamatory emphasis redolent of theater.

Jan Steen’s connection to theater is easily verifiable through his connection to the Rederijkers. There are two kinds of evidence for this connection. First, Jan Steen Steen’s uncle belonged to the Rhetoricians in Leiden, where Steen was born and lived a substantial part of his life. Second, Jan Steen portrayed many scenes from the lives of the Rederijkers, an example being the painting Rhetoricians at a Window of 1658–65. The piece is currently held in the Philadelphia Museum of Art which was established in February 1876. The humanity, humor and optimism of the figures suggest that Jan Steen knew these men well and wanted to portray them positively.

With his lavish and moralising style, it is logical that Steen would employ the stratagems from theater for his purposes. There is conclusive evidence that the characters in Steen’s paintings are predominantly theatrical characters and not ones from reality. [2]

Credits and Attributions:

This post first appeared here on Life in the Realm of Fantasy  in September of 2020.

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Jan Steen,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jan_Steen&oldid=950709901 (accessed September 10, 2020).

[2] Wikipedia contributors, “Chamber of rhetoric,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chamber_of_rhetoric&oldid=975283829 (accessed September 10, 2020).

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Jan Steen, Dutch (active Leiden, Haarlem, and The Hague) – Rhetoricians at a Window – Google Art Project.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Jan_Steen,_Dutch_(active_Leiden,_Haarlem,_and_The_Hague)_-_Rhetoricians_at_a_Window_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg&oldid=355150081 (accessed September 10, 2020).

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April 12, 2023 · 6:00 am

The Mushy Midpoint #amwriting

I am not good at winging it when plotting a novel. I might begin with nothing but a few characters and a loose idea for a plot, but somewhere toward the middle, I will lose momentum.

F Scott Fitzgerald on Good Writing LIRF07252022I will have to spend a day or two thinking about the story as a whole and writing an outline as a framework to guide the story. The plot points I originally planned to occur at each of the four quarters of the story will be met, but how?

In my head, I know that character plus objective plus risk equals a story. In practice, it’s more complicated than it looks.

Every story begins with the opening act, introducing the characters and setting the scene. It then kicks into gear with the occurrence of the “inciting incident,” that first plot point that triggers the rest of the story.

I’m very good at getting this part on paper. But here is where my storytelling skills sometimes fail me.

At the midpoint of my outline, another serious incident is scheduled to occur, an event setting them back even further. They will be aware that they may not achieve their objectives after all.

While I  know that bad things have to happen at this place, I sometimes can’t figure out what those things are.

In my logical mind, I know that the protagonists must get creative and work hard to achieve their desired goals. I know they must overcome their doubts and make themselves stronger.

But what are those doubts?

We have arrived at the first pinch point. The characters are on the hunt for the MacGuffin. The antagonist makes an appearance, and the heroes survive the first roadblock and—

Nothing.

This sudden blank wall is where creating an outline comes into play. But since I know what the ending is that I must write to, I approach this part of the outline as if I were writing a murder mystery.

When I can’t figure out the middle, I start at the end of my story and work my way backward until I have joined the dots connecting the ending to the beginning.

Crime writers ask themselves several things when they begin plotting a mystery. We can all learn from their method:

  • What crime was committed?
  • Who committed the crime?
  • How did they pull it off?
  • Why did they do it?

So, I look at what I originally planned for the ending and ask, “What led us to this point?”

e.m. forster plot memeThe midpoint of the story arc is often where the protagonists lose their faith or have a crisis of conscience. Something terrible happens, and they must learn to live with it.

What was that terrible thing?

Maybe the protagonist has suffered a terrible personal loss or setback. Because of this, maybe she no longer believes in herself or the people she once looked up to.

How was her own personal weakness responsible for this turn of events?

How does this cause the protagonist to question everything she ever believed in?

What gives her the strength and the courage to pull herself together and finish the job?

How is she different after this personal death and rebirth event?

This midpoint crisis is where the protagonist makes the hard decisions and learns she truly has the courage to do the job. The antagonist has had their day in the sun and could possibly win.

What I sometimes forget is this: plot arcs hinge on our characters and their reasons for being there. No matter what genre we’re writing in, giving the individual players strong motivations makes the story easier to write.

If I haven’t made their motivations strong enough by the midpoint, I will lose track of the plot.

At the beginning of my story, I will know what “the crime” is, the incident that throws my characters into the action. I never lose track of that—it’s the middle that gets mushy for me.

I will know who the antagonist is and why they are acting against my main characters. I will even know why it is all happening.

The part I struggle with is the how.

WilliamBlakeImaginationLIRF05072022So, starting at the end, I look at my characters’ location when the story finishes. Then I ask myself what they were doing just before the final encounter.

And before they did that, what were they doing? What did they accomplish to move the story forward to that place? What location did they begin that part of the journey from, and why were they there?

I work my way backward through each step of the problem. It’s not a perfect method, and may not work for everyone. But by working in reverse from a known point, I can see what needs to happen and begin to write the story again.

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April 10, 2023 · 6:00 am

Character, Objective, and Risk #amwriting

Sometimes I lose the plot. I know that character plus objective plus risk equals a story, but sometimes I can’t figure out the risk part.

Or the objective.

StoryMemeLIRF10052021This happens even when I have an outline. I will get to a place where I don’t know what to write, and the characters stand around doing nothing. I repeat the same old crisis with slight variations, which is tedious.

It’s a medieval fantasy, and manticores are quite prominent in medieval heraldry.

Unfortunately, my imagination is stuck on manticores but even in fantasy they’re a rare beast. My hero just killed the last one so I’m unsure what to do now. Readers don’t like it when you milk a plot twist over and over, no matter how you change the scenery around it.

I hate this job.

So let’s look at the plot outline again. I’m all about giving your characters agency, but sometimes it takes divine intervention to get the plot moving again.

Sir Percival stands at my elbow, looking over my shoulder. “Ahem.” He stares at me. “You there. Are you the person plotting this book?”

My characters no longer surprise me when they intrude, but being polite when I am disturbed is impossible. “What do you want?” I prefer it when my heroes don’t feel compelled to harass me.

Bodleian_Library-MS_Bodl_764-fol_025r-manticoreHe says, “I rescued Lady Adeline, and the manticore is dead. Did you notice?”

“Yes. I wrote that scene, and if I do say so myself, you were magnificent.” One problem with heroes is their obsessive desire for obscene amounts of praise. Sir Percival is a prime example of that.

“Thank you,” he replies, attempting to appear modest and failing. “Well, the thing is, Lady Adeline has thrown herself into wedding preparations.”

“I know,” I reply. “I’m designing the dress.”

“Well, you’ve been doing that for the last twenty pages, but who’s counting. Anyway, I’ve been booted outside because no one needs the groom until the big day. I need something to do.”

I never noticed it before, but Percy isn’t handsome when he scowls. Is there some way I can make him look like an adult? I don’t like beards, but he needs something to disguise his serious lack of a chin.

Sir Percy taps his foot. “You know, you’re really good at telling folks how to plot a book, but you suck at it yourself. We’re 25,000 words into your novel, and you’ve already wasted the big scene.”

What? This man who owes his very existence to my creative genius is picking a fight with me? He’s in for it now. “What are you talking about? I have numerous quests just waiting to leap off the page and occupy your idle hands.” See? I can give a dirty look too, and I don’t whine about it.

He just stares. “Well?”

I despise sarcastic heroes.

He whines, “If you intend this to be a novel, you have at least 50,000 or so words left. I have nothing to do.'”

The idiot has a point. I mistimed the big finale, so now I need a new objective for him, something entailing risk.

Trolls?

No, I did that in Billy Ninefingers.

I know! Carnivorous fairies … but no. I did that in Billy Ninefingers too.

This could take a while. I gaze at Sir Percival the Prim, wondering what I was thinking when I made a whiney inbred nobleman like him the star of this charade. “I can’t work with you staring over my shoulder. Find something to do for a few minutes.”

Of course, he flounces off to the living room. I should have given him a few more social graces.

clicker“Look, why don’t you sit here and watch TV for a while?” I park him in front of the TV and give him the clicker.

He looks first at me and then at the clicker. “What is this?”

Sighing, I show him how to turn the TV on and help him find something he’ll enjoy.

That takes an hour. Nine hundred channels and nothing interests him. Eventually we settle on old Star Trek reruns.

Finally, I am back at the keyboard and scraping the bottom of the barrel for a few more terrifying plot twists, hoping to keep this bad boy busy. The trouble is, all I can think of is manticores, but he’s already killed the only one that was left in the world.

Besides, readers hate it when authors milk plot twists.

Of course, my knight in shiny armor has acquired a certain amount of skill in manticore murdering, but how can you build a career out of that?

“Ahem.”

I look up, only to see Duchess Letitia, his future stepmother-in-law standing at my elbow. “Yes?”

Book- onstruction-sign copy“I’m sorry to bother you, but we desperately need a certain magical ingredient for my special anti-aging cream.” She looks at me expectantly. “My stepdaughter’s wedding is a big deal. But the outline says Percival and Adeline will assume the throne upon their marriage. It’s canon now, so I’m done, kicked to the curb in the prime of my life.” She dabs the corner of her squinty eyes with a silken handkerchief. “You set this story in an era where women have few career options. I simply must have my beauty cream, or I won’t be able to snare a new hubby.”

She has a point. “And that ingredient is…?” I hope it’s not a complicated thing because now I have two bored characters nagging the hell out of me.

A sharklike smile crosses her features. “Manticore’s milk.”

How odd. Another thing I never realized until this moment is how evil Adeline’s stepmother looks when she smiles like that. I love this woman.

She says, “I’m sure Sir Percival can get some since he’s just sitting around watching a magic box filled with other people having adventures.”

Duchess Letitia’s malicious smirk offers me no end of possibilities. I consider this for a moment. I could rewrite the original battle scene and subtract the dead manticore part.

He could get killed milking the manticore.

Or perhaps only mutilated.

Lady Adeline would have to rescue herself and then him. But what the hell. He’s a hero, right? Bad days at the office come with the territory. I walk to the living room, finding him sitting with his dirty boots on my coffee table.

This means war. Oh, yes. I promise, there will be mutilation in his future. Rather than deleting his character from the story and starting anew, this jackass will live. Percy the Prim and Proper will beg me to kill him off.

You know, manticores are an endangered species.

Lady Adeline won’t approve of his attempting to murder the last one so there will be trouble in paradise. The noble idiot will have misadventure after misadventure until my new coffee table is paid for.

“Percy, I have a task for you! Take this bucket and get some manticore’s milk. It’s a matter of life and death.”

He looks up. “I will in a minute, but I must see how this story ends. Captain Kirk might die if Spock can’t get the medicine!”

That’s another good plot twist. Note to self: have Duchess Letitia supervise stocking the medical supplies in Percy’s kit.

The duchess was wrong about one crucial thing. Nothing is actually canon until the book is published. I think the duchess deserves a much larger role in this story.

Excalibur London_Film_Museum_ via Wikipedia

Excalibur London Film Museum via Wikipedia

So does my new hero, Lady Adeline.

A lady hero who needs armor and a sword.

And a horse.

A horse that’s a unicorn.

I love this job.

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April 5, 2023 · 6:00 am

The Business Side of the Business: book signing events, income, and expense #amwriting

In my previous post, we discussed the logistics and costs of in-person sales events, so today we are revisiting managing our expenses. I did cover this a few months ago, so if you already have seen this, thank you for stopping by!

If you intend to make personal appearances at local bookstores, fairs, or conventions, you should have an inventory of books to manage and account for at the end of the year. You will have expenses to report. This can be quite a headache if you have more than one or two books to track.

Its a BusinessThe good businessperson has a spreadsheet of some sort to account for this side of the business, as it will be part of your annual business tax report. An excellent method for assembling the information we generate for your tax report is discussed in a guest post by Ellen King Rice, The Business Sequence for Writers. Her article offers an excellent framework for keeping our business records straight, so filling out our annual tax forms will be easy.

As a former bookkeeper, I strongly suggest you keep an account of your costs for each book. This is for tax and insurance purposes if the stock of books is lost or damaged in a house fire or flood.

You can do this on notebook paper with a pencil, a ruler, and a calculator. However, a green or yellow ledger book with eight to twelve columns is already set up for you to begin using. These are available at Amazon and can be found at all office supply stores and some grocery stores.

I began working as a bookkeeper in 1982, using the industry-standard tools of the trade for the time. We noted each transaction with a red or black pencil in ledger books of varying sizes (2 to 32 columns). In those days, we used rulers or yardsticks to ensure we tracked a particular item on the correct line across all the columns. The handiest electronic device on my desk was the calculator with a printout tape.

The tools for this method of accounting are still available in the stationery section of any store and are quite affordable.

I use Excel for all my accounting purposes, but no matter how you create your spreadsheet, each title you have on hand to take to book fairs or shows has several associated costs.

The first column contains the heading Titles: under that heading, list the title of each book you take to shows. We will use my most recent book, Bleakbourne on Heath, as our example book.

On the same line as the word Titles, working to the right in column 2, write unit cost. This is the price you pay for each copy you must take to a show and varies from title to title by the book’s length and trim size. On the same line as the book’s title, write the cost you pay D2D, KDP, Ingram Sparks, or your publisher for that paper book. In this case, I pay Draft2Digital  $4.99.

Column 3 is the current stock-on-hand at the end of the taxing quarter: Quantity in stock: 15

calculatorColumn 4 is the sum of column three times column two: Inventory value: $89.11. That is what you would have to pay to replace those books. It is also what some Departments of Revenue may tax you on at the end of the year if the value of that stock is over a specific limit, say $5,000.00. The total value of stock-on-hand for all my books combined rarely exceeds $500.00.

Annual inventory taxes are why retail stores have end-of-the-year sales. They need to offload their inventory to keep their taxes low.

Column 5 is the retail price. This is what Draft2Digital charges for the book: $15.99. You set your retail price to cover the cost of replacing the book, with some revenue to cover table and vendor fees at shows and conventions (see my previous post, the Business Side of the Business: budgeting for in-person sales events,) and still allow for a small profit.

Column 6 is the special show price (if you discount your books at shows): $12.00.

Column 7 is the retail value of your stock on hand. It is the sum of column 3 times column 6: $228.00.

stock-on-hand-demo-LIRF04042023

Did you collect sales tax from your customers? When you apply for your business license, you will receive a pamphlet with all the taxing jurisdictions in your licensing area and their tax rates. These range between .08 and .11 here in Thurston County.

Washington State has no income tax, so all our revenues come from quarterly business and sales taxes collected at the time of purchase.

Note the tax jurisdiction where the books were sold, as you may be required to forward the taxes collected to your state or province’s Department of Revenue. If you are smart, you will make another page with these columns:

Income-statement-demoLIRF04042023

At the bottom of both spreadsheets, total each column. That will give you the stock expenses for all your titles. There will be no scrambling at the end of the quarter for Business and Occupation taxes if you live in a state like Washington State or at the end of the year if you live elsewhere. Be smart and set aside the money collected as sales tax because it is not yours and is not part of your income.

That way, you will have it at the end of the year if you only do a few shows a year like me, or quarterly if you do shows and signings every week.

Bookkeeping should take less than an hour after each show. If you have kept your spreadsheets updated, filling out annual business tax forms for your state and federal agencies will go quickly. You will have all the numbers you need to back up your reports if you are audited.

Also (and this is important), you will know the exact number of books you have on hand in each title. You will know when it’s time to reorder more stock. There is a two-to-three-week lag in printing and shipping time, so ordering books in advance is critical. You don’t want to waste money by purchasing stock you have plenty of, but you need to have a supply of your better sellers.

My personal spreadsheet is a little more detailed and is saved in the cloud, as are all my business and other records. I also back up my files to an external drive because it never hurts to be vigilant.

Something we rarely consider is the infrequent natural disaster. I live on the northwest coast of the US, so we must sometimes deal with forest fires, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, Pacific hurricanes, and, occasionally, tornadoes. They don’t happen often, but it can be devastating when they do.

water not a friend of booksDepending on where you live, the natural world can be hazardous. If something should happen to your stock of books due to theft, fire, or flood, you will be able to claim your business loss.

Many authors are far more prolific than I am. Replacing the stock of 1 to 30 titles is a burdensome expense to carve out of the family budget unless an author has sold enough to cover that cost.

Are you covering your costs? Keeping good records will ensure you can see where you stand and allow you to make good decisions regarding your expenses.

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April 3, 2023 · 6:00 am

The business side of the business: budgeting for in-person sales events #amwriting

Spring and summer are conference and convention seasons. Regardless of your publishing path, indie or traditional, you must budget for certain things. You can’t expect your royalties to pay for them early in your career. And just so you know, many award-winning authors must still work their day jobs to pay their bills long after becoming bestsellers.

Its a BusinessAt first, getting your books in front of readers is a challenge. The in-person sales event is one way to get eyes on your books. This could be at a venue as small as a local bookstore allowing you to set up a table on their premises.

Or it could be as large as a table at a regional conference or convention.

Signings at writers’ conferences are usually a bit pricy for the number of books you might sell, but they are great ways to network.

What are the minimum costs for working a table at a signing event?

The bare minimum expenses:

You must have a stock of books on hand. You can’t sell books that you haven’t ordered. I order well in advance, as it can take three weeks for an order to arrive via the least expensive shipping method. Paying for overnight shipping of fifteen to twenty books is well out of my price range.

coins

Coins, Microsoft content creators

We must consider the table fee. A bookstore might not charge you anything for the table, but they may take a small cut if they run your sales through their cash registers.

However, large conferences and conventions will charge table fees ranging from $70.00 to as high as $300.00 or more. This varies with the size and type of conference, the venue where the convention is being held, and the vendors you will be competing with.

Sci-fi and Fantasy fan conventions can be quite pricy. You will be in an immense, crowded room, competing with big-name RPG game franchises and movie franchises, plus all the vendors of memorabilia and collectibles that are available in the vendors’ alley.

If you are able to get a table at a major fan convention, you must pay for transportation, food, and lodging. These costs could be gas, parking, airfare, hotel, etc., if you don’t have friends or family in that area. If you are planning to stay in a hotel, take simple foods that can be prepared without a stove. Being vegan, I tend to be an accomplished hotel-room chef, as most coffee bars don’t offer many plant-based options. While that bias is changing, I still go prepared.

Bring at least one pen for signing your books. I bring four or five because sometimes the pens don’t work as advertised.

Square Card Reader 1The final thing you will need is a way of accepting money. I have a metal cash box, but you only need something to hold cash and some bills to make change with. A way to accept credit cards, something like Square, is a good option. You will find a lot of vendors use Square, but there are other options out there.

These things are the bare minimum you will need to provide. At many shows, you’ll be given a table with skirting and a sign attached to the front with your name in block letters. You can get by with this if you’re on a tight budget. New vendors manage with this minimal setup all the time. This option lets you squeak by on little more than the cost of your books. Your setup and teardown time will be short, and you’ll have little to transport—always a positive, in my opinion.

My good friend, Lee French, is a pro when it comes to selling at conventions. She co-wrote the book, Working the Table: An Indie Author’s Guide to Conventions with Jeffrey Cook. She tells us that to really succeed, you’ll need to invest a bit more.

It helps to have some kind of promotional handout. I find bookmarks and business cards are the most affordable option. I know a few authors who have all sorts of little buttons and promotional trinkets relating to their books made. They give them out to everyone who passes their table, buyers or not.

However, most of my friends agree that business cards and bookmarks are the best bang for the buck in promotional material. They are less expensive when purchased in bulk, so I get as many as my budget allows.

You will need a business license to sell books at most conventions. Each state in the US has different requirements for getting these, so do the research and get whatever business license your local government requires. This allows you to get a reseller’s permit, enabling you to buy copies of your own books without paying sales tax. If your state doesn’t assess sales tax, you don’t need this, but you’ll still need the business license.

If you live in a state like Washington State, be smart and set aside the money collected as sales tax. It is not yours and shouldn’t be considered part of your income.

Investing in some large promotional graphic, such as a retractable banner, is a good idea. A large banner is a great visual to put behind your chair. A second banner for the front of the table looks professional, but they do require some fiddling with pins.

Lee French suggests getting a custom-printed tablecloth that drops over the front of the table, acting as a banner. It looks more professional, and the books will hold it down, so you don’t have to mess with pins. You can find a wide variety of sizes and shapes of banners and graphic promotional props on the internet.

I have an inexpensive black tablecloth for under my books, but you can get one in the color of your choice. Venues will often provide a white tablecloth, so buying one isn’t necessary, but it makes your display look more professional. Most shows offer a 6×3 table.

steampunk had holding pen smallI suggest buying book stands of some sort. Recipe stands work, as do plate and picture stands. Whether they’re fancy or cheap, be sure you know how to use them properly so they aren’t falling over when someone bumps the table. I use folding plate stands as they store well in the rolling suitcase I use for my supplies.

This brings us to storage and shifting goods. We must move our gear between the table and our vehicle, and sometimes we’re forced to park in inconvenient places. Many people use wheeled bins or fold-up handcarts. Luggage carts are a great, lightweight option when you only have a few books. I use a large wheeled suitcase, as I travel pretty light.

I have a plastic container with a good lid for storing pens, bookmarks/cards, book stands, and other whatnot.

I suggest you keep it simple because the more you add to your display, the longer setup and teardown will take. The shows and conferences I have attended offered plenty of time for this, but I’ve heard that some require you to be in or out in two hours or less.

Aside from the table fee and transportation, Lee French says it will cost about $400 for your stock of books, banners, bookmarks, and odds & ends. The way inflation is going, it may take more than that.

Shop the internet for sales on banners and similar items. You will need to replace bookmarks, business cards, and book stock, but most larger promotional items won’t need to be repurchased for a year or two.

working the tableIf you plan to get a table at a large conference this year, I highly recommend Working the Table: An Indie Author’s Guide to Conventions by YA authors Lee French and Jeffrey Cook. This book has all the tips and tricks you will need to successfully navigate the wild seas of selling your books at conventions.

And if you choose to embark on the in-person event circuit, I wish you good luck and many happy sales.

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March 31, 2023 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Red hollyhocks in the garden of the Ancher family at Markvej in Skagen by Anna Ancher ca. 1916 (revisited)

Anna_Ancher_-_Røde_stokroser_i_haven_ved_Ancher-familiens_hus_på_Markvej_i_SkagenArtist: Anna Ancher  (1859–1935)

Title: English: Red hollyhocks in the garden of the Ancher family at Markvej in Skagen.

Date: circa 1916

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: Height: 63 cm (24.8 in); Width: 47 cm (18.5 in)

Collection: Unknown

Inscriptions: Signature bottom right: A. Ancher

What I love about this painting:

Winters tends to be dark and rainy here in the Pacific Northwest. Sunshine is brief and gloomy skies seem eternal. I need a summer day! I found us this gorgeous painting last year and loved it so much. One of my favorite artists, Anna Ancher gives us a perfect day in Skagen a century ago.

She is mostly known for her interiors, but Anna Ancher captured the essence of summer in this painting. Along with foxgloves, hollyhocks are my favorite summer flowers. Anna’s are beautiful, contrasted against the blue sky. Her eye for color was amazing. The yellow and red flowers perfectly complement the color of the building behind the garden.

I feel so much better for having had this glorious day in Anna’s serene garden.

About the Artist via Wikimedia: Anna Ancher preferred to paint interiors and simple themes from the everyday lives of the Skagen people, especially fishermen, women, and children. She was intensely preoccupied with exploring light and color, as in Interior with Clematis (1913). She also created more complex compositions such as A Funeral (1891). Anna Ancher’s works often represented Danish art abroad. Ancher has been known for portraying similar civilians from the Skagen art colony in her works, including an old blind woman.

While she studied drawing for three years at the Vilhelm Kyhn College of Painting in Copenhagen, she developed her own style and was a pioneer in observing the interplay of different colors in natural light. She also studied drawing in Paris at the atelier of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes along with Marie Triepcke, who would marry Peder Severin Krøyer, another Skagen painter.

In 1880 she married fellow painter Michael Ancher, whom she met in Skagen. They had one child, daughter Helga Ancher. Despite pressure from society that married women should devote themselves to household duties, she continued painting after marriage. [1]

Credits and Attributions:

Anna Ancher, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Anna Ancher – Røde stokroser i haven ved Ancher-familiens hus på Markvej i Skagen.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Anna_Ancher_-_R%C3%B8de_stokroser_i_haven_ved_Ancher-familiens_hus_p%C3%A5_Markvej_i_Skagen.jpg&oldid=616771666 (accessed January 14, 2022).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Anna Ancher,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anna_Ancher&oldid=1041257716 (accessed January 14, 2022).

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March 29, 2023 · 6:00 am

Scenes, pacing, and chapter length #amwriting

Chapter breaks are transitions. I have found that chapter breaks fall naturally at certain places as I write. I’ve discussed this before, but I’m always happy to repeat myself. In my opinion, chapters can be the length they need to be.

chapterLengthWhen we commit to writing daily, our writing style grows and changes. When I began writing, some chapters totaled over 4,000 words.

As my writing style evolved, chapters became shorter. Now they average between 1,500 to 2,250. Some will be much shorter and some might be longer if the story demands it.

I try to consider the comfort of my reader. Many readers are like me—they want to finish a chapter in one sitting. Several years ago, I attended a seminar by a well-known author who said he has a specific word-count limit for chapter length.

 I’ve read and enjoyed many books where the authors made each scene a chapter, even if it was only two or three hundred words long. They ended up with over 100 chapters in their books, but the chapter length went unnoticed by me when I read it. L.E. Modesitt Jr. sometimes has chapters of only five or six hundred words, which keeps each point-of-view character’s storyline separate and flows well.

So, chapter length is a personal choice. But it does affect how the pacing of the overall story is perceived by the reader.

pacing memeAs a reader, books work best for me when each chapter details the events of one large scene or several related events. I think of chapters as if they were paragraphs. Paragraphs are not just short blocks of randomly assembled sentences.

  • A paragraph is a group of sentences that fleshes out a single idea.
  • That means that only one thought or speaker is featured in each paragraph.

Chapters are hard breaks. They are like paragraphs and can affect the overall pacing of the narrative. Packing too many unrelated ideas into one place makes them feel erratic and disconnected and throws off the pacing. It’s only my opinion, and in the end, you must decide what your style is going to be.

The way an author handles transitions is the key to a smooth, seamless narrative. As discussed in my previous post, a transition is a connecting scene moving the story forward to the following incident.

Conversely, the transition can be a scene that opens or closes a chapter by offering a tidbit of information that compels the reader to turn the page—the hook:

Conversations should detail something one or more characters don’t know.  A conversation is an opportunity to close a scene or chapter with a hook.

Fade-to-black: I’m not too fond of fade-to-black transitions except as a finish to a chapter. Fading-to-black in the middle of a chapter makes the story feel mushy.

Hard scene breaks: Sometimes, we must indicate that a space of time has passed with nothing happening that’s important or worth wasting words on. When a length of time has passed between the end of one scene and the beginning of the next, it makes sense to use the old 1-2-3:

  1. Wind the scene up with a firm finish.
  2. Leave the reader with a hook that makes them want to turn the page.
  3. Start a new chapter.

Sometimes an event occurs where more than one character has a point of view that needs to be shown. How you navigate this will significantly affect the readability of the narrative.

Most readers find it easier to follow the story when they are only in one character’s mind for the majority of the narrative.

If you switch POV characters, I strongly suggest changing scenes with a hard, visual break such as a blank space between paragraphs or ending the chapter.

Some editors suggest you change chapters, no matter how short when you switch to a different character’s point of view. That is my choice also, as a hard transition between characters is the best way to avoid head-hopping.

Head-hopping: first, you’re in his head, then you’re in hers, then you’re back in his—it gives the reader “tennis neck” and makes following the storyline difficult.

Howl's_Moving_Castle_(Book_Cover)I’ve mentioned before that one of the complaints some readers have with Robert Jordan’s brilliant Wheel of Time Series is how he wandered around between storylines as if he couldn’t decide who the main character was.

Then there is Howl’s Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones. She consistently wrote two points of view into one paragraph. The story and characters are brilliant, but that habit made the dialogue difficult to follow in some places.

I don’t write at the level of Robert Jordan’s or Diana Wynne Jones’s prose and storytelling, so I try to focus on one storyline per scene and not head hop.

Now we come to a commonly asked question: Should I use numbers or give each chapter a name?

There is no rule—only authorial preference.

What is your gut feeling about how you want to construct this book or series? If good titles pop up in your mind for each chapter, by all means, go for it. Otherwise, numbered chapters are perfectly fine and don’t throw the reader out of the book.

Whether you choose numbered or titled chapter headings, be consistent and stay with that choice for the entire book.

To sum things up:

  • Limit point of view characters to one per scene.
  • Each chapter should detail related scenes and events rather than a jumble of unrelated happenings.
  • In regard to chapter length, you, as the author, must decide what the right word count is.
  • End your chapters at a logical place, but doend each chapter with a hook that begs the reader to continue on to the next chapter.

One final thing – Some literary contests and publications have a “novella,” a “novelette,” and a “short story” category. The length for these categories is based on word count.

WilliamBlakeImaginationLIRF05072022Short stories run up to 7,000 words, with under 4,000 being the most commonly requested length. 7,500–17,500 is the expected length for novelettes, and between 17,500 and 40,000 words are the standard length for novellas.

Short stories are constructed like novels but with one difference. If you are writing a short story, dividing it into chapters isn’t an option, but you may feel that a hard break is required at the end of a scene. In that case, editors with open calls for short stories will often ask that you insert an asterisk or hashtag to indicate a hard scene break.

Longer novelettes might have chapters. Novellas will probably be broken into chapters. The piece’s length determines whether or not hard chapter breaks are useful.

We each have an idea of how we want our finished work to look. We know what works for us as readers. Go with your gut, and chances are you will do fine.

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March 27, 2023 · 6:00 am

Information, Pacing, and the Function of the Transition Scene #amwriting

The transition scene is the hardest part of a story for me to figure out when writing the first draft. I get stuck, trying to decide what information needs to come out and what should be held back. I forget that the first draft is only the foundation.

transitionsIn my work, the first draft is really more of an expanded outline, a series of scenes that have characters doing things. But those scenes need to be connected so each flows naturally into the next without jarring the reader out of the narrative.

My first draft manuscript is finished in the regard that it has a beginning, middle, and ending. But it’s only a skeleton, a pile of bones I’ve unearthed, waiting for the anthropologist’s forensic reconstruction. It still needs muscles and heart and flesh.

In a story, muscle is applied to the bones in the form of the transition scene. Transition scenes propel the weight of the narrative, pushing things forward. Action, transition, action, transition—this is called pacing.

Pacing of a story is created by the rise and fall of action. We have our characters do a little something, then they show something, then they tell us something, and it begins again.

I picked up my kit and looked around. No wife to kiss goodbye, no real home to leave behind, nothing of value to pack. Only the need to bid Aeoven and my failures goodbye. The quiet snick of the door closing behind me sounded like deliverance.

The character in the above transition scene completes an action in one scene and moves on to the next event. It reveals his mood and some of his history in 46 words and propels him into the next scene.

He does something: I picked up my kit and looked around.

His emotional state is shown through his thoughts: No wife to kiss goodbye, no real home to leave behind, nothing of value to pack. Only the need to bid Aeoven and my failures goodbye.

The scene is concluded with one last thought and an action that pushes him to the next event: The quiet snick of the door closing behind me sounded like deliverance. The door has closed, there is no going back, and he is now in the next action sequence. We find out who and what is waiting for him on the other side of that door.

pacing memeWe are always told, “Don’t waste words on empty scenes.” I find this part of the revision process the most difficult. Frankly, I have a million words at my disposal, and wasting them is my best skill.

Most fiction has one thing in common regardless of genre and tropes: characters we can empathize with are thrown into chaos-with-a-plot.

To make an enjoyable story out chaos, we must have an underlying foundation of order in the layout of the narrative. This is pacing, and it’s subliminal. But without it, the book is either flat and boring or too chaotic and confusing.

Pacing looks like this:

  • Processing the action.
  • Action again.
  • Processing/regrouping.

Our scenes have an arc, one that is as defined as the overarching arc of the story. A transition scene reveals something new and pushes the characters toward something unknown and unavoidable. It pushes us forward and lays the groundwork for what comes next.

what_transition_scenes_can_show_LIRF023252023If you ask a reader what makes a memorable story, they will tell you that the emotions it evoked are why they loved that novel. They were allowed to process the events, given a moment of rest and reflection between the action. Our characters can take a moment to think, but while doing so, they must be transitioning to the next scene.

The narrative is driven by the characters who have information that must come out. This information must only be given at a certain point in the storyline, and only to those who must have that knowledge in order to accomplish their goal.

These information scenes are transitions and are vital to the reader’s understanding of why these events occur. They show us what must be done to resolve the final problem. The fact that some characters must work with limited information creates roadblocks and raises tension in the reader.

The transition is also where you ratchet up the emotional tension. As I showed in the example above, introspection offers an opportunity for clues about the characters to emerge. It opens a window for the reader to see who they are and how they react. It illuminates their fears and strengths. It makes them seem real and self-aware.

Characters’ thoughts must illuminate their motives at a particular moment in time and explore information not previously discussed. Keep the moments of mind wandering brief. Go easy if you use italics to set your thoughts off. A wall of italics is hard to read, so don’t have your characters “think” too much if you use them.

Internal monologues should humanize our characters and show them as clueless about their flaws and strengths. It should even show they are ignorant of their deepest fears and don’t know how to achieve their goals.

With that said, we must avoid “head-hopping.” The best way to avoid confusion is to give a new chapter to each point-of-view character. (Head-hopping occurs when an author describes the thoughts of two point-of-view characters within a single scene.)

strange thoughtsVisual Cues: In my own work, when I come across the word “smile” or other words conveying a facial expression or character’s mood, it sometimes requires a complete re-visualization of the scene. I’m forced to look for a different way to express my intention, which is a necessary but frustrating aspect of the craft.

Fade-to-black is a time-honored way of moving from one event to the next. However, I don’t like using fade-to-black scene breaks as transitions within a chapter. Why not just start a new chapter once the scene has faded to black?

One of my favorite authors sometimes has chapters of only five or six hundred words, keeping each character thread separate and flowing well. A hard scene break with a new chapter is my preferred way to end a nice, satisfying fade-to-black.

Chapter breaks are transitions. I have found that as I write, chapter breaks fall naturally at certain places.

Writing isn’t the simplest occupation I could have chosen. I struggle, trying to make each scene as emotionally powerful as possible without going overboard. In my case, walking the line between monotonous and melodramatic is a balancing act.

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