Writing Essentials

Brief post, because I'm not sure about what to write today.

I'm sure many writers have their essentials, like I asked Cindy when I interviewed her. We can't always have our perfect ideal setting, but I personally have some things that just make the setting for me:

-things for Dalila - ice cubes, cookies (she knows that word now), toys, etc. It's very difficult to focus when a puppy is whining for your attention. Even better is getting her to nap by either rigorous playtime or a walk.

-music - absolutely a must-have. Major contributors to my current playlist are the World of Warcraft soundtracks, GACKT, Alessandro Safina, Tears for Fears, Shakira, the Crisis Core soundtrack, and a random assortment of single songs from all sorts of genres (really too many to list).

-iced cappuccino. Other caffine drinks will substitute.

-internet. For inspiration, research and procrastination.

-World of Warcraft access. For inspiration or de-stressing.

-a clean desk. I can't write with clutter.

So what are some of your writing essentials?

Really, I Don't

It's always the same. New agent or publisher rolls onto the scene with no reason for a writer who's serious about their career to bother with. But according to their defenders, we should.

Because he/she is a nice guy/girl.

Usually this common defense is coupled with things like 'well he/she actually takes time for their authors' or 'they give authors a more personal experience than other agencies/publishers' or something similar. And to be honest, defenders of the inexperienced, I don't care. Not that I don't care in the sense that it doesn't matter whether my agent or publisher is nice or a total jacka--, but that it's not much of a determining factor for me. It's not even in my top three. Mine are:

1.)Do they rep/publish my genre?
2.)Do they have relevant experience?
3.)Have they been making good consistant sales to commercial publishers?/Are they selling to the general public?

There's also a fourth, are there any conflict of interests, which I won't go into here. That one aside, I think that's the most important top three a writer should stick to when they're ready to shop a manuscript. In my eyes, if you can't meet ALL of those top three the consideration ends. How nice you are becomes irrelevant. This is a business, and I for one am not here to be someone's guinea pig to learn from. Qualities like niceness, how easy they are to communicate with, etc. should only come into play AFTER meeting the top three. Not before, because then you're just wasting your time. I'll never understand this defense, just like I'll never understand why people query first and ask questions after.

Research. It's your friend.

Looking for an Agent or Publisher?

Jessica Faust over at BookEnds LLC blogged today about a great way to start that hunt for a good agent or publisher. You can check it out here. Really helpful stuff. Another thing I would sugguest is to follow agents' blogs, especially ones who rep your genre. It can also help give you some insight into just what they're looking for. Happy hunting!

Info Dumps and What to Do With Them

I've always heard people talk about info dumps and how they should be avoided. That's all fine and dandy, but I've never really found a source that really illustrates what an info dump actually looks like. I'm a visual person, what can I say :) I guess it's one of those things you learn along the way. I finally discovered it after putting some of Chapter 1 of Redemption up for critique. I think the whole thing was an info dump :) It was incredibly helpful though, and it's redirected me into another way of thinking and thus writing to put the reader alongside the character. So far so good. But it got me thinking - what do you do with that info dump? And how do you avoid them in the first place?

I'm sure some people are content to just delete them. But for someone like me, I really like everything that was in that info dump. It's not all that relevant to the story itself, mostly scenery description and the like. Plus I really liked the prose. Yet for me it would be a shame to just erase it from existence. I don't know about writers in other genres, but I think we fantasy writers have a tendency to get so caught up in the worlds we create we fail to make the distinction of what's necessary and what's for us. And thus info dumps abound. So what do we do?

I'm a big advocate of finding what works for you, but I'm also a big advocate of sharing those methods in case they might help someone else. So here's my method: profile your world. Sort of like a historical book. Throw in all those details of the history, description, location and get it all out. For me it works on two levels - the profile becomes a great reference, and I don't clog up my chapters with info dumps. All the benefits, none of the burdens. I'm sure it could work for any genre, and not just fantasy. So if you're like me and are starting to notice this trend in all of your writings, that's one way to try and help you curb it. Hope it works for you, and if you have your own tips and tricks please feel free to share them :)