Writer's Life: Planners Not Quite to Plan (Kimberly)

Hey everyone! Last year I wrote my first post on the two planners I was intending to use. This year... Let's talk about what happens when even a specialized planner doesn't quite work for your organization style.

Last year started off with grand plans to use two specialized for the working author planners to get my organized chaos approach to something a little more structured. I had the super detailed, everything under the business sun planner from Audrey Hughey and the more streamlined planner by my friend and now fellow blog contributor, Rachel Rossano. I tried to use both of them instead of my fill in a day planner only approach. I learned something very important - the everything under the sun super detailed in minute breakdowns including things I would never think about being in a planner approach in Hughey's author planner is great and efficient...IF you compartmentalize your schedules and to do lists to that extent without feeling stressed.

I also learned that I do not fit the above description. Being TOO structured in my to do lists doesn't work well for me due to both personality and the unpredictability of having a chronic illness. Chronic illnesses don't tend to respect the planner. So I wound up setting that planner aside and not getting another one for this year because it didn't gel with my process.

I did better with Rossano's streamlined planner especially since the weeks were undated so I could work around flare days without feeling like I was wasting chunks of a dated calendar (one of the other reasons dated planners don't fit well with my needs). That's a good thing to know as I move forward and work on streamlining my method for tracking my schedule and to do lists. The benefit of experimenting with planners is you find out what does and doesn't mesh with your style and personality.

So when super organized planners don't quite work as planned, that is okay. Like the variance in plotters, pantsers, and everyone in between, your planner approach doesn't have to match that of other authors. If you're like me and super planners are overwhelming or too structured for the more fluid approach you need, then I recommend getting an undated streamlined planner. Going the undated route allows you to work around non-writing days (or weeks) without feeling like you've wasted a schedule or overly pressured to do SOMETHING writing related when your day isn't allowing for writing moments. A streamlined writing planner will not have all the bells and whistles associated with the business side (like accounting or weekly reviews) but includes space for basics such as blog post scheduling and newsletter dates or swaps. It's a simplified balance between the writing and the business side of an author's schedule, which is something I personally prefer. Especially when my schedules tend to be very fluid unless I put a book up on preorder.

If your planners aren't working quite to plan, be flexible! Pivot to adjust and accommodate a more forgiving schedule. For me, that means undated planners and plenty of buffer included for scheduling deadlines. How about you?

Until next time!

Kimberly

Writer's Life: No Plot? No Pants? No Problem! (Lauricia)

 “Are you a plotter or a pantster?”

Utter this question in a group of writers and watch from a safe distance as the formerly unified whole splits into two parts like the ground on a fault line in an earthquake (and with about as much noise). Notice the shifty glances cast as writers discreetly shuffle to one side or the other of the gap now forming, ever-so-subtly aligning themselves with those who are likeminded. Look on and wonder, “What have I done?”

What you have done, my friend, is broached one of today’s literary hot topics.

While the divide is not nearly so dramatic as an earthquake, many authors are firmly established as one or the other, and knowing which side you stand on could be foundational in your career as a writer.

A plotter is someone who outlines an entire work before sitting down to actually write it. Writing this way gives authors a detailed map, allowing them to plan minute details before even writing a word.

 A pantster, on the other hand, is someone who writes without the outline, literally “flying by the seat of the pants”. Pantsters prefer this method because it allows the story to grow more organically, and allows the writer to be surprised during the writing process.

Well known plotters include Katherine Anne Porter, John Grisham, R.L. Stein, and J.K. Rowling. Nora Roberts, Margaret Atwood, Pierce Brown, and Stephen King are among the pantsters. Many authors fall into one of the two camps, and you can find a lot of resources online to help you identify which style suits you the most.

Me, however… I’m more of an excavator. As I’m playing with my initial idea, I find scenes scattered throughout the plot like bones peeking through surface dirt. I craft those scenes carefully, executing the tools to hand as precisely as an architect excavates fragile skeletal fragments from the earth. Once out in the open, I hang them on a plot diagram in rough-guestimation about where they belong. As I write, more of the current work’s structure is exposed, and a better picture of the overall whole begins to form, allowing me to plan the positioning and execution of the elements of the work accordingly.

Much like exhuming a fossilized skeleton from the ground, my method is slow, painstaking work. It requires many drafts, but what work-in-progress (WiP) doesn’t? And, oh, the surprises I find along the way!

If, like me, you find you are neither a plotter nor a pantster, never fear. Writing is subjective, even down to its very creation, and no to authors work exactly the same way. My suggest is to experiment with both plotting and pantsing, borrow what works from each method, and meld them into a combination of your own. Then, when your WiP is completely excavated and ready to be viewed by the masses, look on and wonder at the amazing thing you have done.

What about you? Do you write best as a plotter, a pantster, or an excavator? Let us know in the comments below.

Writer's Life: Creating a Multi-Series Universe (Kimberly)

Do you love it when multiple series feed into the same universe? It's one of my favorite things as a reader and also as an author. Creating a Marvel Universe level of separate stories/series that are actually connecting the big picture can be a challenge, however.

Multi-Series Universes can have a couple different forms:

(1) You have close connections where the individual series follow one main set of heroes. These tend to either follow a linear timeline or they may have the same timeline from each main character's POV. The main characters often show up as the primary sidekicks in each other's series.

(2) You have semi-close connections where the first series follows one set of characters and then the next series follows spinoff characters such as children or younger siblings and friends. These connections progress with a linear timeline and often feature true cameo appearances by at least some of the previous series' main characters.

(3) You have what I call world connections where the individual series take place in the same world but there's not necessarily a close connection between the different main characters. These tend to move around more on the timeline scale and there might be fleeting blink-and-you-miss-it cameos but nothing more solid than sharing the same world. They also often feature different areas of the world, which contributes to the greater degree of separation.

I've written two of the three universe styles: Semi-close and World connections. What I love about creating multi-series universes is I don't have to always build my world from scratch because I've already defined the majority of the rules for the world with the first series. This is a fantastic time saver IF you keep a series or, rather, a WORLD bible. World bibles are definitely a must have if you don't want to spend precious writing time rereading books or being nailed in reviews for not following your own established rules. So one of my top recommendations for building a multi-series universe is to make sure you're updating that world/universe bible too.

Sometimes it is very easy to tell when you're going to create a true universe that extends beyond one series. This is great because it allows for pre-planning how the universe works beyond the first series. I did this with my fairytale retelling series because I knew I wanted a second series for the stories of various side characters and in some cases children. Love's Enchanted Tales and its spinoff Love's Further Enchanted Tales falls firmly into the second category of semi-close connections. LFET's first book, Dragon's Fire, will feature three secondary characters from my Twelve Dancing Princesses retelling and the children of the main couple from The Storyteller's Dragon.

The universe established with my fairytales primarily consists of a linear timeline. However, it will also feature several world connection series. The first of which will be out this fall. The Unseelie of Sonera trilogy has a loose off-the-cuff connection to my first fairytale series via some references to another continent but it's primarily a world connection. I very much enjoyed the extended freedom in regards to aesthetics and culture inspirations this has provided. My fairytales are primarily medieval with a sprinkling of India and Africa while the Unseelie trilogy is set on a continent featuring far more Greek and Roman inspiration. 

Other times you might be surprised to realize your two separate series actually belong in the same universe. This usually requires some type of retconning to address any world building differences up to this point, which can be a big ordeal or resolved with a couple tweaks and some future crossovers. When I realized my two separate urban fantasy series worked best as a shared universe, I had already published several books in each series. So I had to make some retcon tweaks to the Therian Way's specific world building to allow Rogue Spotter to meld with it. Fortunately, this was an easy fix because they'd featured different sides of the country and my Therians were an established isolationist culture of shifters. Which actually worked out really well for creating some nice nuances to the world via the small differences in the two main paranormal cultures. I will publish the final Therian Way book next month and I really love how the universe has expanded since I first started. I'm also enjoying my timeline gap filling with a fun paranormal romance series featuring Fae and dragon billionaires showing the wider paranormal community's activities in the aftermath of Rogue Spotter's finale.

Creating a multi-series universe is possible for both pantsers and plotters. It can be both challenging and rewarding. As authors, we get to expand our own universes beyond what can be contained in a single series whether it's with close, semi-close, or world connections. The histories and background characters can be expanded without cluttering a single book or series, which also allows for changes in tone or POV style without being jarring. We give our readers multiple entry points into our universe timeline with the freedom to go backward or forward to enjoy more adventures. We also give them answers as to what happily ever after actually looks like for past favorite couples.

What are some of your favorite multi-series universes? Of the three types of connections, which ones do you love reading or writing the most?

Until next time,

Kimberly

 

Planning 2020 (Kimberly)

Planning 2020

Hello all! How do you plan your schedule? Is it completely detailed or perhaps you have a lot of floating/vague dates more along the lines of "maybe this quarter"? Scattered dates and checklists all over your house or at least your desk? Or one centralized master planner to rule them all?

Honesty moment, I've spent a lot of time being one of the scattered planner people and as I get further into my career, I find that doesn't really work for me. Whether traditionally published or indie, there's a lot of things beyond just hitting word counts we authors must track. There are various stages of the writing journey to reach publishing or submission deadlines, newsletters, blogs, social media, and also ads if that's part of our marketing plan. Add in your life outside of writing and things can quickly become overwhelming, chaotic, and a stressful mess of missed project dates and goals.

I've used regular date planners in the past, but they don't always click due to how much of both writing and business I need to track. So, this year I decided to try something new. I picked up The 2020 Author's Planner by Audrey Ann Hughey, an indie author who definitely understands there's more than just writing to track through the year. We're not very far into the new year, but I'm already loving this planner!

One of the two covers for the planner. Photo from Amazon.com.

The planner is aimed at consolidating the creative and business sides of being an author. What I especially love is the first page of the introduction urges you to be FLEXIBLE. Planners shouldn't be carved into stone, which can often be a downfall leading to author burnout because the author made every deadline immovable. However, planners with the cushion of flexibility can really help streamline and destress your author life whether you're a plotter or a pantser.

Some of the unique features of the Author's Planner are the sections aimed at clarifying our vision/goals for 2020 including the following: 1) agent submission and query tracking for those pursuing traditional or hybrid publishing, 2) reading list for business and pleasure, 3) income and expense tracking for each month, 4) a marketing plan ranging from publishing dates to visibility growth, and 5) a social media calendar. One of my favorite things is how each month begins with a reflection on the previous month and what did or didn't work before launching into the plan breakdown for the current month. Then the weekly calendar maintains a broad focus beyond just word count, which I love. You can make goals ranging from writing to editing to visibility, notate your writing buddy for the week, track the number of pitches you're sending out, and also address wellness goals and life priorities.

Now if this sounds a bit TOO organized and overwhelming for your needs, there are other planners that cater to author needs. One of my friends, indie author and designer Rachel Rossano, has just released her own all-in-one Writing & Marketing Planner. This is the kind of planner you grab if you want to easily track both marketing and writing without feeling bogged down by a bunch of extras. I haven't ordered this one yet. However, it's already moving to the top of my list for next year's planner picks because it's more streamlined while also organizing both the creative and business sides of the job. What I love about planners is that we can play around with them and experiment until we find one or two that's just the right fit for our lives and business styles.

Cover Photo from Lulu.com.

When I sat down at the end of the year to assess my 2020 goals, I knew better organization was going to be a major factor in my success. I've done the make your own planner and used word count oriented planners in the past, but this year I wanted something more structured that had room to coalesce my writing with the business side. Two of my priority goals are to publish a minimum of twelve books this year and to broaden my marketing focus, which would be difficult to achieve without being intentionally organized. Being scattered interferes with my focusing abilities, so I'm already benefitting from using more author oriented planners and I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of 2020 unfolds.

What about you? What planners are you using this year? What made you choose them? Any trips or tricks for planning your year? I'd love to hear about them?

Until next time!
Kimberly

Pantsing vs. Plotting: On Writing (Jill)

I've been a pantser most of my writing life. (For those of you who aren't aware of the term pantsing, it's the opposite of plotting. You write whatever you like without a guide and pray the process creates a happily-ever-after.)

I'd tried plotting in the past, and most of my stories felt flat and boring. Write down what I'm going to write? In order? Isn't that redundant? So I turned to pantsing. After creating a beginning point, a few middle points, and a fantastic end, I'd start writing. That worked fine until last year.  MY WIP (Work in Progress) was the second book in a series, and the characters were wandering all over my storyworld, taking trips I'd never signed off on, and just in general making a mess of things. When I did my revisions, I managed to regain control, but it required massive rewrites. During this time, I heard about a book by Libbie Hawker titled Take Off Your Pants: Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing.  Faster, better writing? Sign me up. It was a quick read, and I decided to give her method a try.

The outline template was fairly simple, which was encouraging (especially since other outlining books I'd read had offered a thirty-seven page outline template for my convenience). I took a day to outline my story and then began writing.  And I found myself writing faster, if not better. But the best part of this experiment was my plot outline -- I knew where I was going with my story, and I could tweak events to support it.  Plus, I could make my outline as simple or as complex as I wanted. Although I'm about a quarter done with my rough draft, the process feels better than it did with my other book.

Part of me misses the purely unstructured way of pulling ideas out of the ether and writing my characters reactions. There's a thrill to creating a story in that manner. But what I usually end up with isn't a plot that provides a supportive framework for my story arc.

I'm not going to try to convert all of you pantsers out there. But maybe a few of you have considered trying plotting, yet you're afraid it will stifle your creativity. A simple outline, like the one in this book, might be worth a try.

How about you, writers? Are you pantsers? Plotters? And why? Let us know below!

On Writing (Julie)

To outline or not to outline. That is the question. It seems that writers either hate it or love it.

You’re either a plotter or pantser. Plotters outline the whole story before writing a single word.

On the other hand, pantsers have a general idea of the story.

They know the beginning and ending, but not much in the middle, so they write by

the “seat of their pants.”

I never thought anything about outlines when I first started writing.

I was so excited to let the creative ideas flow that I didn’t want to waste writing time outlining.

When I finally finished my first draft, I came to a startling discovery.

There was still more story to tell. Which meant I had more books to write!

I’ve now decided to make it a trilogy:) But that presented a problem.

The more I wrote, the more I discovered errors. Huge errors.

Like the “whys” behind the motivation of the antagonist.

I made him the villian but didn’t have a strong motivation behind his actions that drove the plot.

Needless to say, I spent countless hours outlining and rewriting so my story

would have continuity and plausibility. The strange thing is that I actually

enjoyed it, granted I’d already written the story though.

But, I now know my story and characters more intimately

and have a solid direction for the rest of it.

I started out a pantser and ended more a plotter with some pantser tendencies.

What about you? Are you the avid plotter who never begins a story

without first plotting every scene? Or do you prefer to let creativity flow as you write?

The third option is where I belong--in both worlds.

You plot enough to get your story in the right direction but leave the

majority of your scenes to whatever comes to mind in the moment.

To help get a better understanding, here's a short list of pros and cons

to the two types of writers:

Plotter

👍Pros:

Helps avoid some writer’s block because you’ve already written the ideas for each scene.

Will save time in the long run because you won’t have to do as much rewriting.

Your story will most likely flow smoother because you’ve already worked out the kinks in the plot

during the outlining stage.

👎Cons:

Outlining can limit your creativity. Half way through,

if you are struck with an awesome new idea, you’ll have to redo your outline,

which will take time.

Pantser

👍Pros:

Freedom and flexibility to do as you wish.

Easier to change ideas as you go along.

👎Cons:

Could potentially have more writer’s block.

Finding plot holes that require fixing.

Do these ring true in your own writing, or have you experienced something different?