Writing Resolutions for 2013

Jordan Dane
@JordanDane

It’s that time of year when everyone is suddenly losing interest in their New Year’s Resolutions and having that slice of pie. Take this time to steal yourself for the year ahead. Writing is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s supposed to be fun and something we do for our souls and for self-expression. Writing is also the one thing we can control. So let’s talk about a solid set of resolutions for your writing and launch 2013 in style.
 
My FIVE Writer’s Resolutions for 2013:
 
1.) Carve out writing time and stick to it. Set attainable goals and make them part of your day. It’s easy to let life get in the way. And certainly if you have a sick child or pressures at work, it’s easy to forget about the passion you feel for the one thing you do for yourself.
 
2.) Set daily word count goals & track it. I keep mine on a spreadsheet for each book, so I can evaluate my progress and stay focused on my project. Even if you can only do 500 words a day, make it happen. Motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar, said he wrote his non-fiction book doing it a page a day. He set a fire under me when I heard that.
 
3.) Cut out online social media until you get your daily word quota in. Being on facebook and twitter and Pinterest might seem like promotion and business, but it’s not the core of your business if you’re a writer. Writing is the one thing you have to do.
 
4.) Don’t beat yourself up if you miss a daily word count. Make it up the next day. Experiencing life and being with the people you love should be a priority too. Don’t take on too much and make writing an unhealthy obsession. It should be fun.
 
5.) Stay positive. When you find negative words coming out of your mouth, or in your own head, stop it. We get enough abuse from others.
 
What about you? Did you make any resolutions that you’d care to share?

Hooptedoodle

I have friends who take the whole New Year resolution, fresh page thing seriously. They view the new year as the first fresh page of a new narrative. I like this notion, but I have to confess, I rarely follow through. This year, feeling inspired because someone actually asked me about my writing goals, I decided to put some thought into the question.

When I think about goals for this year I divide my writing goals into two kinds…writing and publishing. No matter what happens with publication, I want to become a better writer. So, I set specific writing goals for myself that come from critique group comments, reviews and reading books I love. For example, I want to get better at writing action scenes. They’re hard for me. I realize that in a movie, a fast paced action scene is often where I tune out. That tells me something. I need to pay attention to writers who do them well. No matter how much I long to get back to character and atmosphere, things I love to read and write, I need to linger in the action. So, I’m spending time with Elmore Leonard and read his 10 Rules of Writing.

That’s where I met the word hooptedoodle. Leonard got the word from Steinbeck who says Hooptedoodle should not get “mixed up with the story.” What is hooptedoodle, you ask? Steinbeck says, “Spin up some pretty words maybe or sing a little song with language.” Anything fancy that takes the reader away from the dialog and action of the story. And I realize I’m a sucker for good hooptedoodle, but maybe there’s a time and place for it.

Publishing goals are different. I see them as much more sequential than writing goals. We’ll each have our own list depending on where we are on the journey. I like to think of them as the next step. What is the next thing I should do to move my career forward? Maybe it is to research agents or to get a chapter to my critique group. Mine for this year are to finish edits on my two contracted novels, Beyond the Door and Time Out of Time and make them the best books possible. This isn’t always easy because the book that compels me is always the one I’m writing now.  I’m currently near the end of a futuristic SciFi noir set in Seattle with the working title of Andrew and Emmaline.  I need to go back through the action scenes with a critical eye for hooptedoodle. No commenting on the weather, no matter how interesting the sky looks, during  a mob scene.

Here’s a  goal for all of us to consider. What’s one thing I can do to encourage another writer and help move her towards her goals? Happy New Writing year!

The Sincerest Form of Flattery

Okay, first up, before I forget: did everyone have a nice holiday?  See all the relatives?  Get rested up to start another year (which, for some of us, seems to be an artificial distinction because the day after is/was the same as the day before)?

Good.  Now, roll up those sleeves and let's talk turkey.

I'm unsure how this came to my attention, although I believe it was Twitter, but this past week, a friend--my publisher, in fact--posted the cover of an upcoming YA.  NBD, so far; people are throwing up covers for new releases all the time.

Except . . . the reason this particular book snagged my friend's attention wasn't for the content but the look.

Freaky, right?  And notice who's putting the book out there: Amazon Children's Publishing.  Which means that whoever designed the cover for the book had a lot of covers to look to and choose from for inspiration.

If you think this made more than a few fans unhappy or weirded out or mystified . . . you'd be right.  Some wondered what I could actually do about this--the quick and dirty answer is a whole lot of nothing because there's nothing to be done--and that made me feel good, to tell you the truth.  It's not often that fans get irate on your behalf.  

Yet if you think this is some kind of violation of cover copyright . . . you'd be wrong.  Because we all know copyright law as it pertains to using images, correct?  If you need a quick refresher, try this article and this one.  Right off the bat, I can tell you that this is not a violation of copyright in the slightest.  Granted, I don't own the copyright for my book covers; my publisher does (or the artist hired by my publisher).  If this constituted a copyright violation, then so would every book cover featuring, say, a silhouetted figure running across a landscape (I'll bet I saw two or three YAs with that cover last year) or a shot of a forest or a cityscape or girl/guy in profile . . . You get my drift.

If the cover on the left does anything at all--under copyright law, that is--then it comes closest to paying "homage" (and I use that loosely), and then just barely.  Really, all that's been "copied" is the positioning of the title.  Is it close enough to provoke a second glance?  Sure.  Is it a violation of copyright?  No.

But here's an intriguing question--to me, at least: what, exactly, is the cover on the left supposed to convey?  We judge books by their covers all the time.  In an earlier post, I talked about the reason the ASHES series changed; even though I adored the original hardcover, the book itself didn't pop off the shelf.  It tended to get lost.  So the cover had to change because the whole point of the cover is to induce you to pick up the book and start paging through.

To my eyes, the new ASHES look--and more specifically, SHADOWS--evokes menace and ambiguity.  You're supposed to wonder: who's running, and from what?  Who are those people in the background?  Are they even people?  Are they something else?  Shadows, at night and in the woods, are slate and purple and silver and blue, and of course, the thematic motif of smoke references the post-apocalyptic.  It's a lovely cover, and suggests precisely what you might find inside.

SKETCHY's cover is . . . well . . . interesting.  What does sketchy mean, anyway?  Here's what Wiktionary has to say about the word as it pertains to a person:

1. (slang, of a person) Suspected of taking part in illicit or dishonorable dealings.

   Because he is so sketchy, I always think that he is up to something.

2. (slang, of a person) Disturbing or unnerving, often in such a way that others may suspect them of intending physical or sexual harm or harassment.

   Jack is so sketchy, I think he's stalking me.

With that in mind, let's look at the cover again.  There's a girl there, right?  Lying on what looks like a bed?  Covered with a sheet (so you know she's probably naked)?  Only the image is partially obscured by the title itself; you really have to work to see this girl--which is precisely what I think this cover wants you to do.  It wants you to want to see her and, by extension, figure her out.  All that plays into the slightly dangerous, slightly come-hither, slightly illicit and sketchy story this cover promises.

So does the cover do its job?  Yes, it does.  If--and this is a big if--the person responsible for the cover took SHADOWS as a jumping-off point, then he or she might have wanted to capture some of that cover's disturbing and unnerving  elements.  In that way, SHADOWS served to inspire.  Of all the cover designs out there, that graphic artist chose SHADOWS to get his/her point across.  In the end, what I take away from this is the truth of that old saw: imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  I don't think there's any way that anyone will get the two books confused.


Besides . . . we all know which book came first. 

V-Tour for INDIGO AWAKENING Jan 4-Jan 18

The fabulous people at KismetBT – Danny & Heather – are hosting my Harlequin Teen virtual tour for book #1 in the Hunted series – Indigo Awakening (now available). Each stop will have giveaways plus a great gift pack from Harlequin Teen as a grand prize.
 
There will be character interviews & movie cast images, a feature on psychic powers, photos of the real settings used to inspire scenes, and a peek into the dark sinister world of the Believers.
 
For the deets, check out this LINK.