There will be no post today because I'm heading to Grass Valley, CA for a long weekend with a fabulous group of women. We've been enjoying these springtime retreats for well over 20 years now, and we're still going strong.
Our original common bond was the fact that all of our kids attended the same elementary school. Since then, we've shared our kid's growing pains and evolution into adulthood; the loss of parents and loved ones; the joys as our kids added marriages and grandchildren to our families; and most importantly, a unique friendship that has deepened significantly as years have passed.
So we'll cozy in with our sleeping bags, family stories, and mountains of outstanding food. We'll escape the real world for a couple of days, and return more relaxed and enlightened than before, because we took the time for each other.
I'll return with a new post next Friday. Have a great weekend.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Monday, March 26, 2012
Loving the Revision Process
I must confess! During the dozens (maybe hundreds) of rewrites and revisions I performed on R.J.'s Story, I felt a sense of ruthless pleasure in dissecting the sentences and paragraphs, cutting this word, moving that phrase, in order to improve the overall manuscript. Once I saw how freely my consultants and editors hacked away at my work, I realized I could be equally hard on myself when reviewing my manuscript, because, in the end, the nitpicking would only take the story to a better place.
I cozied into writing Innocents, Book 2 of the Tales from Vowella series, knowing it was a major exercise in revision. It seemed like a lifetime had passed since I had written the original tales that were to be included in the book. I had created the concepts and tales during the first year of my massive project, when I was not only clueless about the world of writing, but also about the unexpected journey I would end up traveling.
I reviewed the first tale, Spaghetti Night, as well as its glaring red marks, which had been patiently hibernating since my first story consultation. I still liked the story. I understood the reasons for the red marks. And I envisioned what I needed to do in order to pick up crucial carryover elements from R.J.'s Story and move forward with the overall Heaven's Wait story. I decided it was better to rewrite Spaghetti Night on fresh pages, rather than to revise the existing file. I knew the sentences would flow from my head quite differently than they had at the beginning of my journey. And I knew I would be more inspired to embellish the story with fresh ideas if I didn't try to squeeze them into existing text.
When the first draft of Spaghetti Night was finished, I couldn't wait to go back and rip it apart. How many errors could I find? What could I do to clarify a particular situation? How many times could I reread the story and still find details that needed fixing?
It all sounds a little ruthless, but I feel such satisfaction when I see a piece of work evolve with each revision. Is that how editors feel when they work on clients' manuscripts?
The question is . . . am I protecting my creativity during the revision process? Am I allowing the ideas to freely flow from my head before I self-impose the criticism? I hope so! I try to control my urges to revise until I've gotten to the end of a tale (chapter.) But then, let me at those words! I can't wait to make the story better.
I cozied into writing Innocents, Book 2 of the Tales from Vowella series, knowing it was a major exercise in revision. It seemed like a lifetime had passed since I had written the original tales that were to be included in the book. I had created the concepts and tales during the first year of my massive project, when I was not only clueless about the world of writing, but also about the unexpected journey I would end up traveling.
I reviewed the first tale, Spaghetti Night, as well as its glaring red marks, which had been patiently hibernating since my first story consultation. I still liked the story. I understood the reasons for the red marks. And I envisioned what I needed to do in order to pick up crucial carryover elements from R.J.'s Story and move forward with the overall Heaven's Wait story. I decided it was better to rewrite Spaghetti Night on fresh pages, rather than to revise the existing file. I knew the sentences would flow from my head quite differently than they had at the beginning of my journey. And I knew I would be more inspired to embellish the story with fresh ideas if I didn't try to squeeze them into existing text.
When the first draft of Spaghetti Night was finished, I couldn't wait to go back and rip it apart. How many errors could I find? What could I do to clarify a particular situation? How many times could I reread the story and still find details that needed fixing?
It all sounds a little ruthless, but I feel such satisfaction when I see a piece of work evolve with each revision. Is that how editors feel when they work on clients' manuscripts?
The question is . . . am I protecting my creativity during the revision process? Am I allowing the ideas to freely flow from my head before I self-impose the criticism? I hope so! I try to control my urges to revise until I've gotten to the end of a tale (chapter.) But then, let me at those words! I can't wait to make the story better.
Friday, March 23, 2012
New Ideas, New Mappings for Tales From Vowella
Digging into the manuscript that had been hibernating on my bookcase for several years was not as easy as I thought it would be, but it was still fun. When I had expanded R.J.'s Story from a preface to a full-length novel, I had created sets of circumstances that needed to be carried forward to the stories that would follow. I was glad I had developed my storyboard for R.J.'s Story, because it gave me easy access to those circumstances. I was able to remind myself of every scene of every chapter, which was so valuable as I started to move forward with the stories.
Also, when I looked through the list of "tales" that was included in the remaining 900+ page manuscript, I realized that the original plan to turn the manuscript into a trilogy had to be revised. I already knew that the last tale deserved to be a book of its own, and the collection of tales that stood between R.J.'s Story and the last tale was still too massive to succeed as one book. I needed to find a way to divide the tales and create two books that would work their way toward the last tale, Book 4 (which was to be the last Tale from Vowella, but not the last book in the series).
I listed all of the tales on a new spreadsheet as an overview of the task at hand. Though most of the initial tales involved story lines concerning the individual clans, the list was sprinkled with tales that involved more clan interaction. So I cut and pasted those tales toward the second half of the list. I wanted the stories to progress from simple character and clan situations to more complex community situations. I shuffled and reshuffled until I was temporarily pleased with the flow. I knew there would likely be more cutting and pasting as the story lines progressed. I then drew the line that designated the end of Book 2 and the beginning of Book 3. I decided that Book 2 should be called Innocents, and Book 3 should become Glimmers.
I was now able to make new storyboards for Innocents and Glimmers. I dropped the story (chapter) titles in a row across the top of each page, and listed the original scenes in columns beneath each title. By plotting out all of the components of each story within each book, I allowed myself the opportunity to see how I had previously woven the overall story. I realized that though the structure was already there for me, I had the freedom to do whatever I pleased with it, as long as, in the end, I was happy with the overall series.
The last thing I plotted out at the bottom of each storyboard was a section that listed the characters and the parts they played in the tales. Each tale was a separate story that was part of the larger series theme. But the tales as a whole were also vehicles through which each character revealed his unique story, so I needed to map out some initial thoughts about how each character's story progressed in the overall piece of work.
With new strategy in hand, I sat down and cozied into a new adventure with my Tales from Vowella.
Also, when I looked through the list of "tales" that was included in the remaining 900+ page manuscript, I realized that the original plan to turn the manuscript into a trilogy had to be revised. I already knew that the last tale deserved to be a book of its own, and the collection of tales that stood between R.J.'s Story and the last tale was still too massive to succeed as one book. I needed to find a way to divide the tales and create two books that would work their way toward the last tale, Book 4 (which was to be the last Tale from Vowella, but not the last book in the series).
I listed all of the tales on a new spreadsheet as an overview of the task at hand. Though most of the initial tales involved story lines concerning the individual clans, the list was sprinkled with tales that involved more clan interaction. So I cut and pasted those tales toward the second half of the list. I wanted the stories to progress from simple character and clan situations to more complex community situations. I shuffled and reshuffled until I was temporarily pleased with the flow. I knew there would likely be more cutting and pasting as the story lines progressed. I then drew the line that designated the end of Book 2 and the beginning of Book 3. I decided that Book 2 should be called Innocents, and Book 3 should become Glimmers.
I was now able to make new storyboards for Innocents and Glimmers. I dropped the story (chapter) titles in a row across the top of each page, and listed the original scenes in columns beneath each title. By plotting out all of the components of each story within each book, I allowed myself the opportunity to see how I had previously woven the overall story. I realized that though the structure was already there for me, I had the freedom to do whatever I pleased with it, as long as, in the end, I was happy with the overall series.
The last thing I plotted out at the bottom of each storyboard was a section that listed the characters and the parts they played in the tales. Each tale was a separate story that was part of the larger series theme. But the tales as a whole were also vehicles through which each character revealed his unique story, so I needed to map out some initial thoughts about how each character's story progressed in the overall piece of work.
With new strategy in hand, I sat down and cozied into a new adventure with my Tales from Vowella.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Back Home to the Tales from Vowella
I was so excited I could hardly stand it. After years of writing, rewriting, side trips to unexpected places, and necessary bends in the road, I was actually ready to pull down my original manuscript about Heaven's Wait and its oddball residents, the Vowellans, from its dusty perch on top of my office bookcase. As I grabbed the bulky stack of papers, the brittle rubber band that had kept it intact disintegrated in my hands. The swirling dust that marked the manuscript's long stay on the case filled my head and made me cough. The gray-tinged sheet of red paper that topped the pile made me smile, because I knew that beneath its protective watch, my core characters were itching to remind me of their tales of life in present-day Heaven's Wait.
How had I let so many years slip by without visiting them once in a while? What had I been thinking? I hadn't been thinking . . . well, yes I had, but not about them. I had been inventing their ancestors, their history, and their back-story with R.J. I had been working toward this point in time, when the greater collection of Tales from Vowella could be rewritten in a more meaningful way, and now I was here.
I flipped through the many tales from which the manuscript was comprised, pausing now and then as my favorite characters called to me from their scenes. They were as I had left them: endearing, peculiar, and littered with gobs of red marks from my original story consultation so many years before. The stories were aching to be edited, improved upon, and offered to the world, just as R.J.'s Story had been.
I was about to delve into a whole new chapter of my unexpected journey, and I looked forward to reuniting with my characters and telling the many stories that were waiting to emerge from the land of Heaven's Wait that continues to live inside my head.
How had I let so many years slip by without visiting them once in a while? What had I been thinking? I hadn't been thinking . . . well, yes I had, but not about them. I had been inventing their ancestors, their history, and their back-story with R.J. I had been working toward this point in time, when the greater collection of Tales from Vowella could be rewritten in a more meaningful way, and now I was here.
I flipped through the many tales from which the manuscript was comprised, pausing now and then as my favorite characters called to me from their scenes. They were as I had left them: endearing, peculiar, and littered with gobs of red marks from my original story consultation so many years before. The stories were aching to be edited, improved upon, and offered to the world, just as R.J.'s Story had been.
I was about to delve into a whole new chapter of my unexpected journey, and I looked forward to reuniting with my characters and telling the many stories that were waiting to emerge from the land of Heaven's Wait that continues to live inside my head.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Monitoring the Marketing
My Heaven's Wait project was finally out the door. The website was up. I was posting Unexpected Journey blog articles twice a week. I was updating my personal, Heaven's Wait, and R.J.'s Story Facebook pages. I was tweeting on my personal and Heaven's Wait pages. I was occasionally posting updates on LinkedIn. I was checking in on my Smashwords page to see if there was activity. And I was sending emails to those who had subscribed to HW news alerts.
The process was quite time consuming. I had been told that all of the above were necessary steps in order to promote my work, but I had no idea how much the marketing tentacles would eat away at my day. Each stop required some thought and note-taking. I needed to develop a way to track the articles and messages I was writing on the various networks and establish a rhythm for myself.
Back to my Microsoft suite! I constructed an Excel spreadsheet to record the marketing activity. For each day I was active online, I entered a row on the spreadsheet that described my activity and checked off the social networks that were notified of the activity. I included on the sheet some notes regarding the flow of the networking. For example, if I posted a notice on my Heaven's Wait Facebook page, it automatically posted on Heaven's Wait's Twitter page as well. But the same notice did not flow from the HW Facebook page to my personal Facebook page unless I hit the "share" button on the HW page. For sanity's sake, I needed to see on a chart which consistent steps to take each day. Otherwise, I would spend needless time rethinking the process. The spreadsheet became a great tool, as well as an expanding history of my activity.
Thank goodness I know how to use such programs. I can't imagine how I would keep track of it all otherwise. Now, I can go about my marketing chores in a more relaxed manner, having done most of the thinking the first time around.
The process was quite time consuming. I had been told that all of the above were necessary steps in order to promote my work, but I had no idea how much the marketing tentacles would eat away at my day. Each stop required some thought and note-taking. I needed to develop a way to track the articles and messages I was writing on the various networks and establish a rhythm for myself.
Back to my Microsoft suite! I constructed an Excel spreadsheet to record the marketing activity. For each day I was active online, I entered a row on the spreadsheet that described my activity and checked off the social networks that were notified of the activity. I included on the sheet some notes regarding the flow of the networking. For example, if I posted a notice on my Heaven's Wait Facebook page, it automatically posted on Heaven's Wait's Twitter page as well. But the same notice did not flow from the HW Facebook page to my personal Facebook page unless I hit the "share" button on the HW page. For sanity's sake, I needed to see on a chart which consistent steps to take each day. Otherwise, I would spend needless time rethinking the process. The spreadsheet became a great tool, as well as an expanding history of my activity.
Thank goodness I know how to use such programs. I can't imagine how I would keep track of it all otherwise. Now, I can go about my marketing chores in a more relaxed manner, having done most of the thinking the first time around.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Heaven's Wait Launch Day
The time had come to launch Heaven's Wait. R.J.'s Story was ready to upload. The Drippils component was ready to go. HW pages for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Smashwords were live. My blog was already up and running. A mailing list and an introductory letter to family, friends, and acquaintances were sitting in wait. The Heaven's Wait website was live in cyberspace, though online sales would be on hold until bureaucratic processes were completed. And links to all of the components were listed at every stop, including my personal website.
I uploaded R.J.'s Story to Smashwords. The site had projected a wait period of 4-7 days for the eBook to go through Smashwords' conversion and approval processes. That was fine with me. I had a few days to tweak my launch plan. Then everything would be ready to go when I got word that the book had been published on the Smashwords site.
Well . . . within ten minutes, R.J.'s Story was approved and loaded onto the Smashwords website. There was my book, with its cover image and descriptions, listed on their front page. Holy cow, now what? I hadn't expected that to happen. I had been so meticulous in following their Style Guide when preparing the manuscript that it had zoomed right through their "meatgrinder", as they call it.
I called my family so they could see R.J.'s Story while it still appeared on the front page. I knew that as new books were published, it would fall off the page. Son Mark wisely advised me to take a screen shot of the page, so I could keep it in my archives.
It was time to get to work. I emailed my introductory letter as a one-time invitation to family and friends to visit all of my links concerning Heaven's Wait. If the recipients were not interested in my project, I wouldn't bother them again with follow-up emails. I posted notices on the social networking sites, and directed visitors to sign-up forms if they were interested in being notified of HW activity in the future.
Now it was up to me to monitor and feed all of the tentacles. But it was also time for me to move on to new adventures within the realm of Heaven's Wait.
I uploaded R.J.'s Story to Smashwords. The site had projected a wait period of 4-7 days for the eBook to go through Smashwords' conversion and approval processes. That was fine with me. I had a few days to tweak my launch plan. Then everything would be ready to go when I got word that the book had been published on the Smashwords site.
Well . . . within ten minutes, R.J.'s Story was approved and loaded onto the Smashwords website. There was my book, with its cover image and descriptions, listed on their front page. Holy cow, now what? I hadn't expected that to happen. I had been so meticulous in following their Style Guide when preparing the manuscript that it had zoomed right through their "meatgrinder", as they call it.
I called my family so they could see R.J.'s Story while it still appeared on the front page. I knew that as new books were published, it would fall off the page. Son Mark wisely advised me to take a screen shot of the page, so I could keep it in my archives.
It was time to get to work. I emailed my introductory letter as a one-time invitation to family and friends to visit all of my links concerning Heaven's Wait. If the recipients were not interested in my project, I wouldn't bother them again with follow-up emails. I posted notices on the social networking sites, and directed visitors to sign-up forms if they were interested in being notified of HW activity in the future.
Now it was up to me to monitor and feed all of the tentacles. But it was also time for me to move on to new adventures within the realm of Heaven's Wait.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Homemade Animations
One of the most fun yet most tedious tasks I encountered along my journey was that of creating the Flash animation that serves as the introduction to Heaven's Wait's website. My vision was to give visitors an overall preview of the various elements I planned to incorporate into the site as time progressed, accompanied by Heaven's Wait's theme song. When I developed my original ideas for the project, I never imagined that I would happen upon an adventure in this field.
I was stepping far outside of my comfort zone with this project, but at the same time, I was ready to learn what the Flash program was all about. Since I was once again heading into unknown territory, I had to plow through beginners' tutorials just to get myself off the ground. Perhaps I'm a little too persistent. Otherwise, why would I keep subjecting myself to new setbacks? I guess I'm a person who is constantly intrigued by new processes and the details that make them work. As R.J. says somewhere in the series, "If you just take the time to learn how to break tasks down into manageable segments, you can learn how to do almost anything." I believe that is a solid truth. I have learned innumerable things by following that philosophy.
The animation I created was not complicated by any means. It was dotted with simple illustrations and text that faded in and out, arranged in groups to display the various sections of the website. I was pleased with the way the sections eventually blended with the music, leaving a rainbow cloud to rise as the music ended. If you've read R.J.'s Story, you know the significance of the rainbow cloud.
Once I was finished with the animation, I worked on other small "movies", including the Drippils Theme Song on the Drippils Home Page. I felt that these extra elements would make a visitor's tour through the website more enjoyable. I'm still sitting on some animations that don't yet work quite right.
Then . . . Apple decided to abandon its plan to support Flash for mobile applications. What does that mean? If you have an iPhone, iPad, or other device that utilizes Apple's technology, you won't see the Flash elements on Heaven's Wait's website.* So . . . somewhere down the line, you will most likely find me delving into alternative ways to make the site alive with music, animation and more.
Check out HW's Flash Introduction by following this link: http://www.heavenswait.com/
*HW's Flash Introduction is visible on a standard Mac computer or laptop.
Monday, March 5, 2012
It's Read an E-Book Week on Smashwords!
Dear Friends,
If you have yet to delve into the Smashwords world of independently published eBooks, now is your opportunity to take advantage of a wonderful promotion at Smashwords.com. This week, March 4-10, 2012, thousands of writers are offering their eBooks at discounted prices in support of Read an E-Book Week. You can find books of varying genres and lengths discounted from 25 - 100%.
I have found some wonderful reads since I discovered Smashwords. It is well worth your while to take a peek at its vast offerings. You may browse the eBooks that are participating in the promotion by going to:
I am participating in this promotion with a new updated version of R.J.'s Story - Heaven's Wait! Tales from Vowella, Book 1. I have made a few format changes, and I've added an appendix that diagrams the family structures of Heaven's Wait's peculiar clans, the Vowellans.
Find it at: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/104130
R.J.'s Story will be available this week for a 50% off price of $1.50. In order to take advantage of the discount, you must enter the code REW50 at checkout.
Above all, I hope you'll browse the Smashwords website and that you'll discover a whole new world of books by writers who have opted to share their creative works with the world via the indy route.
Happy Reading,
Barbara
Friday, March 2, 2012
Snag in Reader Interest
I thought R.J.'s Story was ready to upload to Smashwords. I had added illustrations to each chapter heading. I had added hyperlinks to connect the chapters to the table of contents. As I had learned new writing tips and tricks, I had revised the manuscript time and again. I had edited it to death. I had sent it to a copy editor for fine-tuning. I didn't know what more I could do to enhance the story.
I realized that Linda, my copy editor, was the only person who had read the story in a long time. My son Mark, who had been deeply involved in the editing process at one time, hadn't even seen the manuscript since it had undergone major overhauls. A couple of teenagers had read early drafts. A few of my "boomer" friends had done the same. I decided it might be useful to test the story on some people who were farther removed from my project and my family history.
I sent the manuscript to some friends of our sons. They were in their twenties/thirties and willing testers. When a few months passed without response, I asked them to return the manuscript. As I had discovered previously, people had busy schedules, and it was easy to put the manuscript aside in favor of more pressing issues. I no longer wanted to bother them with the testing process.
The friends returned the manuscript as asked, but not before one of them took the time to read the story. He passed along notes that gave me some new things to tweak. He said that it took him a while to get engaged in the story, but once he did, he needed to find out how it ended. The other friend, on the other hand, had picked up the manuscript several times, but simply couldn't get engaged in the story. She was a person who liked books that grabbed her in the first few pages.
The responses taught me two things. First of all, I needed to reexamine the beginning of the story and make it more engaging right from the start. Since the copy editor had written to me early on in her editing process to say she was already hooked on the story, I hadn't considered that there was an issue in that regard. I reworked the first couple of chapters in hopes of solving the problem and sent those pages back to the copy editor for a final run.
The second thing I learned was that my story was never going to satisfy all readers. Since R.J.'s Story was a fantasy tale of a light-hearted, inspirational nature, it was probably not going to appeal to readers who loved dark fantasy, vampires and lots of blood. Nor was it likely to attract history, non-fiction, or heavy crime readers. And I think we've all put aside books, even highly acclaimed ones, that, for some reason, didn't inspire us to keep reading or resonate with who we are. As I said previously, I am happy to leave the story to playful spirits of any age who will love R.J. and the quirky folks of Heaven's Wait.
I've heard many times throughout my journey that at some point, a writer has to let the story go, push it out the door, and move on. It was time to move on.
Looking for R.J's Story-Heaven's Wait! Tales from Vowella, Book 1? Here are some places you can find it in eBook format:
Smashwords.com: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/104130 * If you're a Kindle user, download the .mobi version of the story. If you read on your computer, download the .PDF version. If you use another eReader device, download the Epub version.
Apple's iPad or iPhone iBook: Buy in the iBookstore in iTunes or in the iBook apps for iPad or iPhone
Barnes & Noble Nook eBook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/barbara-mclaughlin?keyword=barbara+mclaughlin&store=book
Sony Reader Ebook: http://ebookstore.sony.com/search?keyword=Barbara+McLaughlin
Kobo eReader Ebook: http://www.kobobooks.com/search/search.html?q=Barbara+McLaughlin
Diesel Ebooks for a variety eReaders: http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/item/SW00000104130/McLaughlin-Barbara-R.J.-s-Story-Heaven-s-Wait-Tales-from-Vowella-Series-Book-1/1.html
If you browse the home pages of the above sites, search for "Barbara McLaughlin".
*Special Note: Smashwords is having a special promotion next week on its eBooks. I will participate in this promotion and offer R.J.'s Story at a 50% discount during that time. I'll have more details for you on Monday.
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