Go check out my interview on Smashwords to find out a little more about what I do, my favourite books and my dreams.
**Wow, it’s super hard not to feel all self-centered at the moment. *blush*
Smashwords – Interview
Category Archives: About writing
STORM authors – Charmain Lines
I asked my fellow writers a few questions so you could get to know them before STORM comes out.
First up is Charmain Lines. I’ve actually not seen her in a while because she was doing research in the UK for a book that took far more time than she had initially planned for, but she was one of the first two to sit down for the interview!
Tell me about your journey as a writer.
I write for a living – articles, newsletters, employee magazines and the occasional coffee table book for corporate clients. In 2010, I attended a workshop on dream mapping and goal setting and walked away from it with the wildly improbable goal (WIG) of living abroad, writing and researching a novel. With my mind and heart opened to the notion of fiction writing, I enrolled for an online writing course (where I met Lizette) and started writing my first novel, Unfinished Business, that I self-published in 2013.
How did you decide on the name for your story in STORM?
I’m still not 100% of my story’s title, but because it has a fairy tale quality about it “Once upon a time” seemed appropriate.
What was your favourite part of the writing process for your STORM story?
Experiencing its unfolding. I learn every day that fiction writing is an almost magical process of the story taking over when the writer gets out of the way.
What was the most difficult part of the writing process for your STORM story?
I was incredibly busy with work writing at the time I was doing my story, hence it was difficult to find the time to get my mind back into my story.
What other projects are you working on?
The first draft of my second novel is a few thousand words away from being completed and I’m busy writing a book for a community in Ireland who’ve succeeded in saving a local wetland (bog) from being destroyed. It is a fascinating story of a town standing together, even invoking EU legislation to force the Irish government to do the right thing, and now finding the best way to preserve a unique habitat.
Like Charmain on Facebook
And try out her published works on Amazon or Smashwords!
STORM Experiences – Opportunities
During my university days, I became a doer. If I wanted something done, I did it. The result was often less romantic than it had been in my head, but people looked up to me because I didn’t just wait for others to do it or for some magical fairy to make it happen without anyone putting in effort.
With my writing career it was different, though. I was convinced that I had to write a manuscript and submit it to an agent who would help me convince a publisher to put it out there. But, as the years went by, I grew despondent. I couldn’t seem to finish my manuscript. Friends and family didn’t see writing as a viable career option. And all I ever read about getting published was how writers got rejected ridiculous amounts of times.
When Linzé Brandon invited me to participate, I heard: Natalie, I want a story written by you and I want to help you make a lifelong dream come true. I couldn’t believe that it could be that easy. That I could become a doer again. That I could take the reigns like that.
And automatically, with that, I already knew that I had to put in everything to make it happen, to make it mean anything. If I simply submitted a story and waited for the book to arrive, it would have been a cheap meaningless experience. How can I expect people to take me seriously if I don’t put in every effort to make it as awesome as I can possibly manage?
When Linzé started talking about blog posts and a presence on Facebook, I felt like such a fool for never realising that I could totally do all those things. Who says I need somebody else or some company to do it for me? They’d want a whole lot of money to do that anyway.
I have very little time every day to write (babies are a full-time job, yo). Especially because I use the same time to cook food, spend time with hubby and actually relax at all. But, damnit. I want my name on a book. I want my name on the “Legends of fantasy” list. And who will put it there if I don’t make it happen?
So, there you have it. I’m a writer and I will indie publish to get my foot in the Legend Door. I’m not waiting for the world to give me what I’m owed. I’m doing this thing!
STORM Experiences – Learning
When I started out writing for STORM I was rather self assured of my writing skills. I was sure that I could write up something that would blast my fellow contributors away. It took quite a bit to bring me back down to a position of humility.
But, back to today’s story… I asked a fellow writer, Richard, to help met out with a bit of beta reading… And did he beta read. My oh my. He came back with criticism of 8 pages on a short story of just over 9000 words. I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing.
Now, usually when you get feedback on a story, you have to steel yourself. You have to take a deep breath and remind yourself that they are not criticising you, they are criticising your work. (Fat lot of calming down that does. :P)
Richard’s feedback was thorough; it was honest; heck, it was a good read…. But most importantly, it was edifying and positive. I’m not sure how he did it, but after reading his feedback, I wanted to know more. I wanted to talk to him and find out what he could teach me, what we could figure out together.
If all beta readers could help writers like Richard did, I think more people would make it through the editing/rewriting stage. I really hope that I can provide the same kind of feedback to other writers who ask me to beta read in the future.
STORM Experiences – Reality Check
So, I had a big reality check this week. I submitted a rough draft of a short story to a friend just to get some feedback before I started the big edit to get it ready for publishing…and, I must say, I did not expect what followed.
The review was honest and heartfelt…and my friend was deeply disappointed.
When I read what she had to say, it felt like she was pushing daggers through my soul and my immediate impulse was to lash back. But, I know that reviews about your own work are usually less scathing than they sound when you read them the first time. So, I sat back, played with my daughter, drank some hot chocolate…moped for two days.
None of it really helped. That is, until the moment came that I realised WHY. Why she had been so disappointed. And why it had hurt so much to read all about it. I had not told her that it was a rough draft and that I intended to refine it quite a bit more. As a matter of fact, somewhere deep inside I had already decided that anybody reading my work has no business but to adore everything that I put into words. So, it had never occurred to me that anyone could not like my rough first draft.
Yeah, I’m a bit egotistical, aren’t I? It’s sadly something that most artists suffer from to some degree. Our talent is to create and that means we lay our souls bare to the eyes of the masses. And that, in turn, means that we have to defend our tenders in some way. My way is apparently ridiculous amounts of hubris.
In the end, looking at the criticism again and reading through that first draft of the short story again, it hit me: My friend was saying things I had been thinking while I was writing. Things I had seen when I went back to look at the story. In fact, there was only one thing that I didn’t agree with in her review…and that was just because I had been unusually cryptic about something in the story. Heck, if I had read that without knowing everything going on in the background, I wouldn’t have been able to connect with the story myself.
I’m actually not sure what I learned. Maybe, it’s to be awfully specific about the stage of the writing to the reviewer. Maybe, it’s to find a balance between humility and confidence. Maybe, it should be that I really need to refine drafts a little more before I send them to friends for reviewing. Maybe, it’s that I should listen to my inner editor a little more carefully when there’s something that is bothering her. All in all, I think I’m better off because of this whole incident. In fact, I’m seeing my friend later today to discuss possible solutions. And I’m excited to see her.
See, I have potential for growth! lol *strains shoulder to pat self on back*
My experiences: Writing for STORM
Since last year October, I have been working on and off on short stories for STORM (Pretoria Writers Group’s anthology coming out in June 2014). It’s been a strange ride. When I just started out, I thought to myself: This will probably be fun. I don’t have any trouble writing flash fiction, how different can it be?
Funny thing is: A short story is not just 500 words.
As you can see from the short stories I’ve put up on this blog, I have tried my hand at stories of 250 words or shorter. Ye olde flash fiction. If you want something that actually hits harder than a kitten’s paw, you’ll have to cut out anything that isn’t absolutely essential to the story. It really breeds a certain mindset.
Short stories, on the other hand, are actually closer to 5000 to 12000 words or so. You really have to think differently to write something of that length. Unlike flash fiction, you have time to reveal a little more about your characters; you actually have time time to describe some scenery…but you still can’t just put in everything. It has to move at sufficient speed to present a whole story in roughly a tenth of a normal novel. (When I say normal…I mean normal young adult fantasy…i.e. 300 to 500 pages or more.)
To me, writing a short story feels like writing a story with only three or four chapters. As a matter of fact, that’s how I structure them in yWriter5. I create three or four chapters (usually, unimaginatively called “Beginning”, “Middle” and “End”), I make sure the initial exposition goes into the chapter 1 scenes, the story develops in chapter 2 and things wind down (or up, as is the case in Beyond) in the last chapter. (In retrospect, that’s kind of a no brainer, yes?)
But I digress. What I meant to say is: Writing short stories takes skill and developing that skill on the fly is no mean feat. I’ve burnt my fingers more than once. I’ve had more success than I expected. All in all, I’ve learned a lot and I’m grateful for it.
Come June this year, you’ll have the opportunity to see me in action. STORM is coming! And nothing will be the same again!
Control freaks and planning fantasy settings… o.O
I am currently writing a short story that will be published in an anthology later this year. It is set on the same world as my Yrthull stories, but it is in a different part of the world.
Now, you could say that this means I pretty much have free rein over all the aspects of the cultural, magical and general fantasy type planning for this story. But the control freak in me keeps saying: What if I say things work one way now and I discover later that it would make more sense or be far more epic if things worked differently?
What if I say these people have certain physical traits, but later I discover that far more diversity is required? What if I put things in the story now that will be a massive obstacle later? What if the way magic works now contradicts everything that I have to write into a different story for the plot to work out?
Well…this leads me to two paths. One, I exhaustively plan out every detail there is to it all – meaning that I probably won’t get any writing done this year, because I’ll be planning for the next five years. Two, I throw all caution to the winds and simply change whatever turns out to be a stupid decision later…attracting any pedantic stickler whose source of joy is picking on inconsistencies in stories.
See…the only reason that last part even features in my considerations is the simple fact that I have become one of those people. I don’t even like that I do it, because it has ruined a lot of stories for me that I had previously enjoyed. But, after having been surrounded by hordes of geeks that pull every book, movie and game apart, I just can’t ignore stuff like this anymore.
It’s making me itch just to think it, but I think I’ll just have to give myself permission to change things later. Here’s hoping that I attract a forgiving crowd of fans.
Going for a ride – traditional publishing
It’s been a few months since I started sending my self-help manuscript to traditional publishers and I really started letting go of any hopes and doubts related to it. Well, that’s only half true. Quite recently, I was getting myself mentally prepared to get it ready as an ebook complete with intratextual links and everything else the electronic media allow because I was really thinking: Meh, if no one wants it, I’ll just put it out there so my soul can rest.
When I originally sent out my manuscript to my two preferred traditional publishers, I was pretty much convinced that they’d either love it or hate it. So, when I got back my first rejection letter, I figured the other publishing house would be the we-want-to-publish your book house.
Now, to be fair the first rejection was very positive. Whoever handles unsolicited manuscripts let me know that they liked the idea, but they don’t have the budget to do it right now. The person even attached half a page of information on other South African publishers and how to get into contact with them and encouraged me to keep trying.
Two months later, I got my second rejection letter. Compared to the first one, it was sort of a slap in the face. They said that if they were to publish a book on the topic of pregnancy, they’d get a doctor to write it – someone with the required medical background. It was so snooty, I suddenly felt like a real writer. After all, they’d only bother to put so much emotion into a letter if they actually took it all seriously. Ha ha. 😛
Anyhow. Yesterday, I got a letter from one of the second batch of publishers I sent my manuscript to last December. They asked to see the rest of my manuscript (you only send about three chapters initially, see). Suddenly, things felt a whole lot different.
They must have liked the first three chapters enough to want to see more. But is it really enough to get excited about? Is this like those first three months of being pregnant, where you know you’re pregnant but you’re warned not to tell anybody in case you miscarry? Ack! I really want to get excited. But what if I set myself up for disappointment? Good gracious. I’m stuck in limbo.
I did it! I indie published a short story!
I realised the other day that there was really nothing stopping me from indie publishing short stories. I don’t know why I was comfortable with the idea of publishing a full-length novel, but a short story could somehow not be published the same way. No sirree!
If you’ve followed my blog long enough, you’ll have already read this one, but this is your chance to have your own copy, complete with cover art! The Mystic is now for sale, ladies and gentlemen!
Go check it out on Smashwords (or directly with the link above) and get it for free until the end of February 2014 with this coupon code: JE94M.
Watch out! A STORM is coming!
Get out your calender and mark the 30th of June. The Pretoria Writers Group is getting ready to release a two-volume anthology entitled STORM. Being the talented writer I am, I have the privilege to say that my short story, Beyond, will feature in one of the volumes!
In preparation, I have started setting up my author profile on Facebook, Smashwords, Twitter and Pinterest. Feel free to have a look. All of them are still pretty empty but, once the ball is rolling, things are going to get awesome!
Also check out my updated “Stuff to check out” section. I’ve added some information and links that you might find interesting!
Natalie Rivener 