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There seems to be light in all futures…

I believe all writers are filled with doubts; from am I really good for this? will I ever publish something? will people like what I wrote? should I insist on this path? Do I have what it takes to be a good writer? etc. I think almost all writers have gone through this stage at some point in their lifes, even the accomplished ones, if not, then I’d love to know of a writer who never doubted about his/her skills, and how did he/she manage to keep confidence at all times…

However, there seems to be light in all futures. I believe that light is for the ones who never surrender and work hard to achieve their dreams. More than a year ago, I started working on this lifetime goal of being a writer. I’m still working on the editing on my first novel; but last week, I felt the impulse to put it aside for some days and let myself get involve with another project, a short story. I got this idea of a shocking ending for a story, but haven’t thought of a plot or characters yet. I was eager to see how much I had improved in my writing skills. I wanted to see if my first draft of anything else would be much better than the first draft of my novel; if I had improved in creating a plot and characters, in describing the settings, if I finally understood showing vs. telling, if the dialogue would come easier now after the experience of my first novel. So I sat and wrote an almost 3300 words short story.

Image source: shantellemaryh.blogspot.com

I dug into the Goodreads beta reading groups to see if somebody wanted to give me feedback. In the end, three people revised my story and I got really good, amazing, unbelievable feedback! It felt so good. Never ever, did I expect to receive such good feedback on my writing. I finished editing it this morning and used NaturalReader (a software that I really recommend for having your writing read to you by the computer) and I was surprised. My writing had improved a lot and the pacing and everything else was quite decent.

Image source: writingnorthidahow.blospot.com

I learned that writing is about practice and hard work. But also, I understood, that any goal in life is achievable; that it is only about perseverance and faith. I had reached a point in my novel, where I seriously doubted my writing skills. But now, I feel more empowered and more encouraged to continue writing.

And you, have you ever been in a situation where you’d almost given up but found encouragement when you less expected?

June 3, 2015
Receiving feedback from your manuscript is not terrifying is confusing!
You would think that receiving feedback from your manuscript can be scary, discouraging, etc. But I’ve concluded that in my case, it was only confusing.

How do you filter the good advice from the bad one?

From the four people I asked to read my manuscript, I got feedback from two. We´ll call them reviewer A and B.

First of all, let me thank A and B for all their time and patience (in case they read this post). But their points of view were so different in some aspects, that it only got me confused. Now, reviewer A and B have experience writing, critiquing and even publishing.

Image source: www.celullartelephones.net

The following are only some of the many aspects they pointed out. They only agreed on the first one, but I happen to disagree with them in that one 🙂

Background

Too much background at the beginning of a story is not good. People will get bored, you need to go to the point, and start telling your story, etc. Have you heard this advice? I swear I’ve seen this advice on all books, writing manuals, guides, tutorials, webinars, I laid my hands on.

Reviewer A would like to have more background from my main character at the beginning. Reviewer B agrees that it’s not a bad idea at all. But what about the advice I heard on other sources? I believe I’ve given my MC the main and necessary background, I don’t believe he needs more, but now I’m confused. What’s your take on this?

Adverbs

I’ve been trying to omit them as much as possible. It´s not natural for me, I guess I´m used to them when speaking. They seem to flow in my writing very easily (ha! two adverbs there, one after each other, that wouldn’t happen in my manuscript, not ever.)

But then I got very different stands on this:
- Reviewer A said I should try to get rid of all adverbs (I must admit I left maybe around 20 adverbs in my whole manuscript. We´re talking about 20 words in 85000, is not bad, right? I felt those left were the ones that needed to exist or else the sentences would sound awkward.)
- Reviewer B suggested some changes in sentences, most of his suggestions included newly introduced adverbs. I commented this situation to reviewer B. He said he didn’t see any point in getting rid of them.
Use of was/were or any expression of the verb “To be”

OK, I also got this one from writing texts, books, guides, blogs, etc. Avoid using the “be” verb, it only stops the narration, it slows it down, it makes it look lazy, etc. So I tried to use it as few as possible. It’s difficult, and I must admit my manuscript still has lots of them. But now, I’m confused on what to do with them, because I got this feedback:
- Reviewer A emphasized to reduce the number of those sentences even more.
- Reviewer B said “It’s not necessary. It doesn’t make sense.”
My main confusion

I want my writing to be the best as possible. The first advice you get if you want to be published is “master your craft.” (that means your writing.)

Of course, I would love to be published someday, traditionally or self-publish, any of those. Now, I´ve been picking many best sellers, flipping through their pages, and most of them are riddled with adverbs, “to be” forms, etc. So how important is to get rid of them?

Reviewer A said the story had potential and reviewer B found many plot holes. Do you think this should give me a hint that they’re very different readers/writers?

Image source www.ibgale.net

My Conclusion

I’m going to review my manuscript one more time, one more round. I know I can do it better. I know there are some parts of the plot that need to be improved. I know that characters could be better developed. I know that punctuation needs to be perfected. I know that I can still reformulate some sentences to avoid adverbs and the “to be” forms. But I don´t want to overwrite the whole thing.

I have a queue of at least two dozen story ideas that I can´t wait to start writing about. Yesterday, I actually started writing a short story. I felt relieved to create other characters, other situations, and get away from my manuscript story for a while. I’ve invested many months in my current manuscript and I feel I need to move on to writing other stories. I’m willing to accept that if this one doesn’t get published, maybe the next one will be. Perhaps in the future, I will take my manuscript from a hidden box and review it again. Maybe I’ll make it better, with an improved perspective. (Of course, the manuscript won´t be in a box, since it only exists as digital, so it’ll probably be a hidden computer folder, but some writers like to believe that our manuscripts are physical tangible objects, bear with me in this one 😉

Do you ever get this feeling? Tired of a particular story or characters and that you’d rather start writing another story?

How do you relate to these editing aspects? What would be the best advice you can give me? I’m really looking forward to hear from you.

Image source www.ibgale.net
May 22, 2015
Mad Max: Fury Road = Badass movie

Well, I must be totally honest and admit that I really don´t remember much about the other Mad Max movies, the ones with Mel Gibson. I have a recollection of watching them when I was a kid, I remember Mel Gibson being in it, lots of cars running everywhere, particularly strange people, and sand, but that´s it. However, when I saw the trailer of this new remake, I was “Oh men I really have to see this one.”

Image source: http://www.madmaxmovie.com/

Living in a city where there are not many options for movies and movie theaters in general, there was only one other big movie (release) going around, the last installment of the Avengers. I was not very drawn into the latter, for some reason, the idea that Hulk, Thor, Iron Man and Captain American co-exist at the same time, puts me off. It´s like having Spiderman fighting next to Frodo, they just don´t fit together, well at least that´s my take on it. I love big action packed movies, but I have to admit that sometimes too much constant action, like fighting or shooting for several minutes, gets me bored, and in a feeling of needing something else. Mad Max redeemed the entire action genre; it was full action from the beginning till the end, but created in such a manner that I never got bored, not even for a single second. I´m not sure if it was drown into the anarchy of this surreal post-apocalyptic world, the contrast between beauty and the blatant repulsiveness of some characters, or watching Charlize Theron play the amputated heroin with grease on her face, but the total impact of the movie was mind-blowing. Each detail and scene were just so freaking bizarre and disturbing that it only made the movie even more interesting.

Images source: http://www.madmaxmovie.com/

Now Tom Hardy (who´s totally hot, I know I know… but I couldn’t help mentioning it) plays the main character: Max; (more…)

May 19, 2015
Beta Readers and the nerves of getting people to read your manuscript…

Well, currently I have 4 people reading my manuscript. Two of them are very good friends, one is my potential editor (we haven´t agreed on that yet), and another is an official Swap Beta Reader Partner (I don´t know if there is a term for that, just correct me if there is a better way say it.)

My SBRP (Swap Beta Reader Partner) was actually fun to find. I dig up into the Beta Readers Group from Goodreads and I found some people asking for beta readers. Of course, I knew that the best way to find a Beta Reader was by offering to read first for somebody else, so that maybe later, I could seek for the same favour in return. I was struggling to find an interesting manuscript blurb that I would love to read, one that would take me away from the books I´m reading now (Yes, I haven´t learned my lesson, I´m still reading several books at once, you can check out my previous post, to know what I mean). Anyway, a story blurb called my attention, it was a memoir manuscript. Memoirs are usually not my first pick when I go to bookstores, unless it comes from somebody famous (no celebrity type, but other interesting people). I must admit that I actually enjoyed all the memoirs I´ve ever read, so I thought it would be a good option to beta read for this author. I was thrilled to find out that she was willing to swap manuscripts, even better! that way I had somebody else guaranteed to read my manuscript in return.

I´m thrilled about my SBRP. I´ve already started reading her manuscript, and although we set a time frame of 10 days, I´m about to reach half of her manuscript in less than 2 days. It´s really good and I´m looking forward to see it published. And this leaves me in an insecure state, I can´t stop worrying about my manuscript. I mean, I know it´s my first novel ever and that I still have a long path until I learn how to do it properly, but still I can´t avoid thinking: “OMG, what happens if she is hating my manuscript or she´s getting so bored that she can´t see a way to finish it?” I know, insecurities on first time writers are normal. I know many of us fear sharing our work. But I guess, I just have to deal with it and take the feedback as best as I can.

I don´t fear too much the feedback from my friends (that´s why it´s necessary to get other beta readers besides your friends), because even though I asked them to be as honest as possible, I know they will try to do it in a way that doesn’t disencourage me.

How about you? For the people who write out there, did you face those fears when you had beta readers reading your work? I would love to hear your experience with beta readers.

May 13, 2015
Editing/Revision is done! I’m back and have learned very good lessons!

Well, it´s been more than a couple of weeks since I haven´t written a post, and I was really looking forward to do it. Do you remember I was stuck trying to finish the editing of my book? Well, these weeks have been plain hard work, not much sleep, zero weekends, zero days off, until yesterday I finished the editing/revision process.

I left many other activities (like writing on this blog) pending until I could totally finish with the editing.
So now the book is with my beta readers, and I´m going to take the opportunity to get up to speed with the blog and many other activities I left behind – social ones specially and house chores! I don´t have an excuse for them anymore 🙁
I´ve learned many wonderful lessons in this process of writing my first novel that I would like to share it with you:
1. It´s not easy at all! But possible, and that should be enough encouragement
2. The only way to improve your writing is by writing.

3. I was born to be planner in writing. I got so confused with my plot that when I started my revisions I only found inconsistencies and parts of the plot that I absolutely forgot or left hanging lose. I think that for the next time, I´d rather plan the plot beforehand.
4. Characters must live in your head, and thus you must really make an effort to make them believable. For my next time I intend to plan them ahead (for others it may work to let them flourish while writing but not for me) Believe me I tried to be the spontaneous writer, but I´ve realized I belong to the ones who plan.

I´m excited for all these lessons and I can´t wait to start my next project. I have the feeling that next time it will be easier. And during all these months (9 months) I´ve managed to keep a little notebook with dozens of ideas for new novels, so it seems I´ll be quite busy for a time.
I don´t know if this book I´ve finished, which until now, remains with the name of “They´re watching us” will ever be published. But even if it never gets published, I think the most important reward here is the learning process and the confidence I acquired is priceless, and I´m feel really happy and optimistic about that.

I´ll try to keep you with updates of this book and what happens to it (if anybody wants to join my beta readers, let me know)

In the meanwhile, I´m so happy to be back!

May 11, 2015
Writing fan fiction? cheer up!

I have a feeling that fan fiction writing will never be taken seriously. I have a confession to make, I used to write fan fiction some time ago. And even though, I’m not looking forward to pursue that path (that doesn’t mean that I won’t do it again), I will always be very fond of it.

How did I start writing fan fiction?

I’m a big nerd (proud to admit it 🙂 ) and the type of geek girl who is always into movies and series fandom. So many years ago, I discovered the world of fan fiction; where fans could read stories of their favorite movie/TV characters in other environments, situations, episode endings, etc. In few words, what fans didn’t get to see on the screen, or what they thought could had happened, was written into many types of fan fiction stories; some of them really imaginative, twisted, and of course with all types of adult censorships.

Image source: ladygeekgirl.wordpress.com

So when I discovered this world, I got into it very deeply. I would first read dozens of them per day everywhere all the time. I got obsessed with it. But there were few stories that I actually liked. It was as if I was looking for the right story; the one that explained how exactly I thought TV character X did Y in episode Z. Rarely seldom, I found satisfying stories. Let’s accept it, every mind is different. Some fans were too much into certain aspects that I didn’t consider important, and others were just, let’s just say weird…

So how did I got into writing them? Well, since I couldn’t find the stories that actually gave me a feeling of “closure”, (more…)

April 13, 2015
11 Hilarious jokes for this April Fool’s day… according to me

This is a fun post, no analyzing the depths of my soul, my writing struggles, or doing thorough reviews of movies and books (actually my reviews are far away from that …)

So April’s fool day is not known in my country, but since we’re all now “globally connected”, we can’t avoid getting exposed to it.

I loved these ones for this year:

This one is from Tesco. Wouldn’t it be cool not only to reach the top shelves by jumping but also to navigate the supermarket with long strides? Of course, I can imagine when the place gets crowded, you could risk of bumping into another with a “little bit” of impulse/force.

A smart knife? We may laugh now but who knows! maybe the knife could tell us the amount of pressure to cut something, or the number of times we need to finish cutting an onion. Maybe the knife could alert us when we’re cutting those tomato squares wrong, or when we’re grabbing the handle wrong … I can start imagining a sort of app with the gravatar of your choice that tells you: You missed that! That chunk is too big! 😀

Ever been to the London Eye? Well, it’s absolutely amazing! but it takes aprox. 40 minutes to take the whole ride around. It’s not boring … but I wouldn’t do it twice. Wouldn’t it be better to have a zero gravity feature inside each capsule? I think it’s time to update these capsules! Only one tip, as girls we’ll have to be careful not to wear dresses or skirts on our visits… unless you don’t mind flashing underwear 😀

This one if from Virgin Trains. Now, I seldom use trains, but I know many places where people use them everyday to commute. On long journeys, it’s nice to delve into a book, but sometimes, the time spent there could be more useful… remember how we always seem to find the “no time” excuse for not going to the gym? Well, how about a gym on wheels while we commute back home? (It could be on the way to work, but showers would need to be a must inside the train) It’s actually a cool idea.

I don’t know how useful is this one from Domino’s pizza. But hell, doesn’t it look awesome? I could definitely see myself ordering pizza just to have one of this cool robots delivering pizza to my place. They kind of look like Eva on a bike from the Wall-E movie right?

This one is where you say: “Oh come on! you’ve got to be kidding!” yep, I would never see myself liking or using this. Unfortunately, our technology frenzy times are so crazy, that I can see some people actually thinking about developing this reversed toilet… Just one tip, never use the camera with this, come on, is disgusting!

Actually, I see this one being developed in the future. Many people out there are obsessed with tanning (not me) and I know these spray showers exist everywhere (even the girls who go to these beauty pageants use it! grr…) But no matter how against I’m into this, I can see some shower appliances with an extra feature for adding the tanning spray and I definitely see people buying it.

Lol! I would buy this one for all my friends who are on diet! just to see their faces (the evil inside me 😀 ) what I really like is the message attached to it “Because it’s not always what’s on the inside that counts”, yep but the interior of my Toblerone is sacred! 😀

Of course, this one is stupid, but it’s just so ironic! In our empty-brained digital social media era, I just can’t avoid feeling that this could actually happen sometime in the future (less the Holiday win, if that ever happened, I would just give up on Humanity) Just an irony of what’s happening in our daily lives as we see ourselves influenced and almost totally controlled by the power of social media.

Now, don’t laugh! Some people actually love the smell of their favorite smoking hamburger and wouldn’t mind using this perfume … (Not me I swear!)

Now, this one if my favorite! This one is from shoe store Miz Mooz (if the store wasn’t that know before, now it’s got it’s fifteen minutes of fame) It’s just so damn hilarious, and stupid, and funny. It’s a satire of how ridiculous we look when we take selfies (Yes, I’m not into selfies…)

Which one do you like the best? which one was the worst? Did you get a hold of another one that was also hilarious?

April 1, 2015
Energy level while editing your work
Editing can exhaust you. I’m still on the editing stage of my writing and I found it hard, really hard.

I find myself wishing I could only write, write, and write as many stories as possible… and have somebody else do all the editing stuff. Of course, this poor being, the “editing person” wouldn’t understand a sh**t of my writing since my first drafts tend to be terrible.

Editing is taking all my energies. Why? (Please consider this is my first time editing my work, so maybe next time the process will change a lot, a.k.a. I intend to write much better first drafts) So why do I struggle so much with it? These are the main focus points of my editing:
- In my editing, I delve into characters as much as possible
- I try to make pacing well…. The right pacing
In delving into my characters…

As Stephen King says, we should write with the door closed and edit with the door opened. Well, since I wrote with the door closed, I managed to convince myself to edit with the door opened. This situation has taken me to uncomfortable situations described below.

I find myself doing these weird actions:

ACTION speaking the dialogs out loud to spot my tone voice, the accuracy of words (meaning if they really sound as “dialog” and not as boring description), and the feeling of each phrase in general.

RESPONSE Some scared people circulating in my house watching me speak in a foreign language while whining, screaming, shouting (or doing whatever my character is doing)

ACTION trying to feel inside my character, be my character, step into his shoes, mind, whatever there is to step into.

RESPONSE Again some disturbed people in my house watching me making faces to a mirror as I try to look sad, happy, etc.

But besides the fact that people in my house are already looking for a psychiatric institution for me, what is the problem with delving into characters?

I get exhausted. After only a couple of pages, sometimes only one or two… I feel all my energy lost, making it very difficult to make progress in my writing. (I have set up a goal of at least 10 pages per day)

And what about the right pacing?

This point has got me erasing tons of paragraphs, adding tons of new ones, and probably erasing them the next day again. I feel I still need to find a “technique” in this.

In some paragraphs, action scenes and characters would move too fast without giving too much thought to feelings, etc., for example, “the man grabbed the knife, stabbed three times and run….”

But in other scenes, I will find myself describing every lash of anger, every tensed muscle of a character’s body.

The result, a weird pacing….

I’m trying to find a balance here. I found that it actually depends on my mood… and how long I’ve been editing that day. In other words, I start with energy at its peak, writing strong character-driven scenes, and after an hour or so, I just want to narrate the scenes as fast as possible.

So, the idea of this post is to get as much feedback as possible. Many of you have already been through this or at least have more experience than me.

What do you do to Not get exhausted so fast when you’re feeling too much inside a character’s head?

How do you deal with pacing? Is it common to start with full energy and then just get bored? Would you recommend me to shorten the amount of pages I had set up as a goal for editing per day?
March 31, 2015
The X Files is coming back!

The X Files is coming back! Yeah you heard it, it’s not April fool day (I double checked that) but it’s just one of those news you expect to live in your fan/geek hopes. I mean, I was a teenager when the show was on and it was a cult series, the sort that had people going nuts everywhere. I think it was one of the first TV shows that had a cult following on internet. I was so nerd about it that I’m already starting to reload all my geek/nerd genes to start freaking out again!

I think every XPhile out there (the name of the fans) must be celebrating right now, not only because we’ll have more of Mulder of Scully but also because we’ve always wondered: what if they decided to come back and do the show again?

When the X Files second movie came in 2008 (I want to believe), there was a mix of feelings, many were excited about seeing their favorite TV show ever, but many others were not totally convinced with the movie storyline. Let’s face it; it was not that good, not even for me. But we deeply craved for more of the X Files. Many out there were keen to say, this does not work as movie, but the TV series will always work better. Well, now you’ve got your wish come true.

And, although this blog may not be for those who are hardcore fans of the X Files, I wanted to take the opportunity to invite you to a new blog dedicated to the TV series: The X Files 2015 where we’ll start reviewing the episodes in much anticipation for the coming new episodes (which will be next season, according to FOX: http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2015/03/24/x-files-officially-returning-to-fox-in-summer-2015/ ) and if you’re not a fan of The X Files but you know who might be, please share the blog 🙂 Thanks!

March 24, 2015
How to overcome the idea that the movie is not what the book was!

So I have guilty pleasures, and some are related to a couple of YA books out there. You see I’m a slow reader, but with the Divergent series, I broke my reading time records (like just a couple of days for each one). I’m not going to talk about if the book is good, if the writing is good, etc. Nope, this post is not about that. It’s just how much readers get their hopes in when they have a visual representation, a movie, of their favorite stories.

Why do we care?

Because when we read a story, we imagine the characters, the settings, and the whole story in our heads. So when we hear that a movie will be “based” on it, we get excited hoping to find that everything we pictured in our heads as we read the book will be consciously represented on the screen.

Why is not always like that?

Because we can’t fit all the details in less than 2 hours. And because, movies are different from books. Most movies are there for entertaining purposes or for stimulating our visual senses. We can’t get ten pages of character’s emotional inner struggle in a movie. If you take movies like me, that they exist for entertainment purposes and not for lulling you into sleep, then you get this point.

Should we demand movie producers respect the book storyline?

No, it’s only “based on”. Film studios have no obligation to remain loyal to the author’s story. And they have their own scriptwriters who know what works best in a movie and what doesn’t.

And what about Insurgent? (the second installment of the Divergent series, in case you’re not familiar with it)

It’s a freaking good movie. If you didn’t read the book, the better for you; you’ll be able to assess the movie entirely from its entertaining potential. If you read it, stop comparing it to the book. The book was a story written by Veronica Roth, and it ends up there, in the papers of the book and if the picture you made up in your mind. The movie is another thing.

Was I aware of this perspective when I went to see the movie?

Of course not! I was the person who in Divergent nagged my companion all the time telling her: “in the book it was not like that… in the book…. ” Oh, poor her….

In the second one, I had the same inner struggle, but this time I kept it to myself, or my friend would have killed me. But this time when the movie ended, and I forced myself to forget the book, I found out that the movie was actually very well developed and very well told. Very entertaining. I even found myself wishing some scenes would have been added to the book (don’t tell Veronica Roth 🙂 )

It’s one thing to love books and to love the stories and wish we could see the exact visual representations on the big screen, but let’s face it, it’s not going to happen. The magic of books will always remain on their pages and the skills we use to dive into the story. The power we have to imagine those words. That’s the beauty of books. We don’t need to have forced flat representations on screen. Movies are a different type of art, a visual art. Let’s stop trying to match them and keep the books and their wonderful stories to us.

And you, do you ever find yourself wishing the movie was exactly the same as the book? Do you easily get disappointed when you find that it’s not what you imagined from the book? Other movies/books that you can think of where you found this difference or rather a quite accurate resemblance between the two?

March 23, 2015