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EmmaMaree.com

Scottish Writer of Fantasy & Sci-Fi

Writing

January Highlights

Photo of a January planner

January Weeks 3 and 4 were a bit of a whirlwind: travelling to London, travelling to Aberdeen, and unwinding with a new video game. Before I get to that, you might have missed my previous January posts:

Week 1, where I was super happy about roller derby (I am ALWAYS super happy about roller derby) and food (ditto).

Week 2, where I was super happy about new ice cream, video games, and spin cycling.

Good Things that Happened

  • Met up with the team in London. It was a really fantastic trip and it was so nice to see my colleagues in person, most for the first time in a year but some for the first time ever!
  • Went to Aberdeen for Dave’s birthday, had sushi, and geeked out a lot about Dungeons & Dragons and our current TV show addiction: Critical Role, a D&D campaign starring a bunch of professional voice actors.
  • We had our newbie intake day at roller derby! It went really well, the new folks are so inspiring. I picked up a bunch of new kit while in London, which won’t be delivered for a while, but I’m very excited to get it.
  • Got a haircut and perma-dyed my hair for the first time. Made a few mistakes and learned from them!
  • Kept up spinning class.
  • Started playing Persona 5, which keeps the fun gameplay of the previous games but has a pretty ‘meh’ storyline so far. Lots of gross sexist tropes, it’s been pretty disappointingly written.
  • Caught up with a ton of radioplays while travelling: the Good Omens BBC radioplay and the entirety of one of my old favourites, airline comedy show Cabin Pressure.
  • Finished season 3 of the ever-funny Brooklyn 99. Netflix has just released season 4, perfect!

I got to hang out with the family a lot, and ticked off a 2018 goal of trying a hot chocolate at Inverness’s SoCoco.

Watched Dave try out 3D printing for the first time, with super-cute results.

And our dog was adorable, of course. It’s not a new year without a new dog photo, right? Right. 

Mac the labrador, looking upset when I left for New Year’s Eve

He’s actually been lying beside me while I type this post, rubbing his face with his paws, and it’s exactly as adorable as you might imagine.

Goals for February

I didn’t get the writing momentum in January that I wanted, so my focus for Febuary is: find my flow again. Get back into a writing routine, an exercise routine, and a productivity routine.

There’s going to be a few challenges in the way: the Roller Derby World Cup starts this Thursday, and I’m visiting lovely Dundee later in the month. But I’ll get through them!

The main thing holding me back at this point is fear: my current writing project is big, and very close to my heart, so the thought of saying goodbye to it is difficult. But I’m looking forward to ploughing on and getting past The Fear.

And hey, once I’ve done my wordcount for the day, I can dive headfirst into new video games. I can’t think of any better reward than that.

Onwards, to a Fearless February!

How Reading “A Darker Shade of Magic” Helped My Writing

Spring crocus and snowdrops at the entrance to London's Hampstead Heath. Photo by Mary Carson.

This month I’ve been frantically trying to catch up with my March goal of revising the giant robots book. It ran over, but in a really exciting way — the book feels so much stronger after this revision, and I really leveled-up my abilities at crafting a plot, following an outline and incorporating beta reader comments without turning into an anxious puddle. 

It’s been a successful month in health goals too . I’m now -45lbs down (over 3 stone!), and I’m within the ‘normal’ BMI bracket. BMI is a flawed crock of shit, as most of you know, but I’m still glad to hit that goal before my biannual health review at the day job.

What’s Worked for Me

I was feeling a bit guilty in March because I devoted a lot of my time to read-alongs, which I love but which also cut heavily into my writing time. But as it turns out, the read-alongs really helped me improve!

I spent last month discussing and reading the finale of the A Darker Shade of Magic series, ‘A Conjuring of Light‘ . In particular, the awesome Muskedragons reading group was focussed on the arc of Holland: sometimes antagonist, sometimes ally, and always a fully-fleshed-out and flawed part of the world.

Holland by Victoria Ying (click to view more of her fanart)

It got my thinking about the antagonist figure of the giant robots project, and how little I really understood about his past and his goals in the world. 

Victoria Schwab, the ADSOM writer, also posted some tweets at the time which resonated very strongly with me:

(Thread link.)

So I wrote an outline of the book if my antagonist was instead the protagonist, focussed on his goals and motivations. It really changed the book for the better, helping me create a much more balanced and believable conflict.

The next challenge is showing these goals without resorting to too much dialogue-as-exposition. I’m going to need to think of some interesting ways to work it all in.

Which leaves me with a question for all your writer types: how do you flesh out your characters, and how do you give the reader a glimpse of their point of view?

 

Previously… September

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This months goals were nice and relaxed:

  • Play some video games
  • Watch some movies
  • Write some stuff

I’m really glad I kept the goals easy this month, because honestly, I needed the time off without feeling guilty about goals not met.

The blog is late today because I just celebrated my birthday! I had a swell time and I got to hand out with my very handsome other half and eat a ton of delicious food, so that was great fun. Here’s some pictures of us both being cuties:

I got myself a Fitbit for my birthday, which has been super fun, and I also got significantly sozzled in proper October fashion…

…tried out a super exciting NEW IRN BRU FLAVOUR OMG….

and spooked myself silly with The Last of Us.

 

Previously in Writing

Plenty of forward momentum, but I haven’t finished the WIP. I’ve been fighting to untangle a few plot snarls, and that work is going to continue into October. Hopefully this month I’ll reach the finish line.

It’s been a year full of challenges, but I’m not going to let it stop me!  There’s three months left in the year and I’m going to make the most of them.

Previous in Reading

My quest to get the fearsome TBR pile down to a more reasonable amount continues. Let’s see how we’re looking…

Books Added this Month:
TOTAL: 15

My Monster Boyfriend [Graphic Novel/Kickstarter Reward]
The Lie Tree [eBook]
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid [Audiobook]
Pride and Predjudice [Audiobook]
The Name of the Wind [Audiobook]
Chasing Embers [Paperback]
Lair of Dreams [Audiobook]
Dominion (The Burned Man, #2) [NetGalley]
Out on Good Behavior (Radleigh University, #3) [eBook]
The Vagrant [eBook]
Ember in the Ashes [eBook]
Geekomancy [eBook]
An Ember in the Ashes [eBook]
Crown of Midnight (A Throne of Glass, #2) [Audiobook]
Jurassic Park [Audiobook]

Books Finished & Removed:
TOTAL:  8

Ink [eBook]
Throne of Glass [Audiobook/eBook]
The Great Gatsby [Audiobook]
Wonderbook [Paperback]
My Monster Boyfriend [Graphic Novel eBook]
The Diviners [Audiobook]
False Hearts [Audiobook/Hardback]
Empire of Ivory (Temeraire, #4) [Paperback]

Not a great month for reading more than I read, but hey, at least I’m reading loads!

Next Time In Goals

  • Be kind to yourself.
  • Finish a video game
  • Read some books.
  • Write some words
  • Keep up the healthy eating and excercise

September’s chill-out went well, so for October I’m continuing to focus on self-care and gentle forward progress. No stress, just progress.

A Word of Advice

Kameron Hurley had a fantastic article this month about finding yourself as a writer: your internal ego, career path & confidence.

I’ve also really been loving Chuck Wendig’s recent posts — his brilliant Here’s How You Finish That Fucking Book has been a lifeline when I needed it most, alongside How a Writer Quiets Self-Doubt and Control What You Can Control. A less optimistic but equally important post has been Tim Waggoner’s Harsh Realities.

Reading and Recharging

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It’s the end of another month, and in April, I kept up promise last month to be brave and try new things.  This month has been quieter: a month of reading and recharging.

The end-of-month round up, ‘Previously’, is organised by Miss Cole, with lovely banner by Carrisa Taylor.

Previously in Writing

This month was CampNaNoWriMo, a writing event where you set your own goals and work with a group of your most eccentric mates to meet your goals together.

My writing goal was 20k, which has been met, and the project in focus this month is still DIVIDE. It’s been a real experience, going back to a project from 2013/2014.

if you’ve been following this blog for long, you’ll know I get worn out hard when doing rapid redrafts. Rewriting the same project multiple times in a year, or two years, is incredibly hard on me but often necessary.

Coming back to a project after two years apart from it, though? Turns out I love it. It’s so refreshing, coming back to these old friends and familiar faces and worlds with a stronger grasp of my own writing style. The change in my ability is immediately visible, and oh man, it feels so great!

Next month, the goal is to finish DIVIDE, send it out to betas, and move on to my next WIP.

Previous in Reading

So, I finally did a tally-up of my fearsome Kindle, physical, and library to-read piles. Here’s how we’re looking.

Ebook Must-Read Pile: 79 Books
Physical TBR Pile: 83 Books
Library Pile: 3 Books
Audible TBRs:  3 (United States of Japan; The Diviners by Libba Bray; Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman)
Total: 168

bookpilesgif

Jeez. That’s a heck of a lot to get through, to the point where I’m thinking up increasingly intricate rewards systems to get myself through it all. At my current rate of reading that’s maybe three years of reading, but I’m hoping to get that number down to 150 sooner rather than later, and step one is being transparent about what I’m adding and removing from the hoard.

But  I read 10 books this month, so I’m off to a solid start!

Books Added this Month:

Storm in a Teacup by Emmie Mears [eBook]
Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters (2) [eBook]
One Crow Alone [eBook]
A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge [eBook]
Story Engineering by Larry Brooks [eBook, Kindle Unlimited]
Writing 21st Century Fiction by Donald Maass [eBook, Kindle Unlimited]
Writing the Breakout Novel  by Donald Maass [eBook, Kindle Unlimited]
Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maass [eBook, Kindle Unlimited]
The Fire in Fiction by Donald Maass [eBook, Kindle Unlimited]

Books Finished & Removed:

Mr Katz is a Zombie [eBook]
Spectacles by Sue Perkins [Audiobook]
Percy Jackson and the Lightning Theif [Paperback]
Stormdancer [eBook]
Pirate Story [BETA READ]
Sleepless [eBook]
Envy of Angels [eBook]
Building an Author Platform That Can Launch Anything [eBook]
The Girl with all the Gifts [Audiobook]
Shrike: The Masked Songbird [eBook]

TBRCollage
This month’s favourites

Next Time In Goals

Goals for the final week of May, heading into June…

  • FINISH DIVIDE.
  • Make some art.
  • Continue with choir.
  • Continue with exercise.

A Word of Advice

 It’s alright to take a break to recharge. This hasn’t been a great month for me when it comes to forward momentum, but I’ve been reading like a machine, trying to get my energy back and to troubleshoot where I’m going wrong.

Spending some time to just focus on reading and studying the craft has been pretty damn wonderful.

tiredcollapse

In Like a Lion…

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March is drawing to an end, and it’s been a month of being brave and trying new things. I’m very excited to recap it all!

The end-of-month round up, ‘Previously’, is organised by Miss Cole, with lovely banner by Carrisa Taylor.

Previously in Writing

Tyler by Ghia Mercado
Tyler (from the DIVIDE project) by Ghia Mercado

I finished revision #6 of the GIANT ROBOTS project in February, took some time to relax and work on new projects. But a few things about that manuscript weren’t sitting right with me, so I picked it up again and did my quickest edit ever,  getting the book into a state I was properly happy with it. I’m not usually a fast rewriter, so I feel like I definitely leveled up my polishing skills this time around.

Since then I’ve been using my new-and-improved editing abilities, plus a lot of the lessons I’ve learned over the last few years of writing, to redraft my oldest project, DIVIDE. That’s been going really well, and I’ve been enjoying tearing it down and rebuilding it.

My monthly goal was to hit 20k words. Done and dusted!

Previously In Gaming

To celebrate the end-of-edits, I took some time to relax and play video games. Life Is Strange was a favourite — an emotional, episodic and LGBT-inclusive game about a high school student who sees best best friend get shot and time travels to save her. It plays a lot like an indie movie, with gorgeous scenery and amazing music. Highly recommended.

two girls hold hands as they walk along a railway line
Life is Strange

I also finished Murdered: Soul Suspect, a game about a murdered cop who decides to keep working as a ghost to solve the mystery surrounding his death. It was a lot of fun, but horribly glitchy, to the point where I can’t recommend it. Really disappointing because, aside from the glitches, it was a lovely game. But the gameplay was flawed and irritating throughout, and it only got worse towards the end.

There’s a lesson there, I’m sure, about how shoddy basics can bring down an otherwise amazing story.

After that I had a go of Hustle Cat, a daft, funny game about a character (you pick gender/pronouns/ethnicity) who starts working in a cat cafe where the workers are all cursed to turn into cats. It’s super cute and lots of fun. I Kickstartered this project and it was great to see such an inclusive, funny game get released and live it to my hopes.

Previously In Reading

After February’s wizard month, March has found me with my nose stuck in more beta reading, and China Mieville’s PERDIDO STREET STATION. It’s an absolutely fantastic book, with some really meaty, inspiring world-building.

I’ve also been reading THE FIRE SERMON by Francesa Haig in audiobook so I can clock in extra reading time. while tidying and cooking. It’s a very well produced audiobook, and a gripping story.

Previously In Art and Music

Another more-quiet-than-intended art month, with a lot of trying out new methods and tools. I did get to create some Celtic doggies I’ve been itching to make for a while, using the traditional Celtic style.

CelticDoberman
Celtic Doberman
CelticLurcher
Celtic Lurcher/Greyhound

I also did something that was quite a big deal for me. I went for my first ever singing lesson. This has been a dream of mine since I was very young,  but I had to push past a lot of shyness and self-doubt to finally chase it. And then I managed to get hopelessly lost in a pig farm en route, but I got there.

I was nervous, evasive, no eye contact, avoiding the song I brought. But after some encouragement, I put on “Satisfied” from Hamilton… which if you just met me isn’t something you’d expect me to sing.  AND I NAILED IT.

My teacher was very, very proud and impressed with me, and I was over the moon. I’m still riding that high weeks later!

Next Time In Goals

April, and Camp NaNoWriMo, is going to be focused on getting DIVIDE into shape. I’m well on target to getting it done within a month, and looking forward to every minute of it.

I’m also going to keep up my weekly singing lessons, create more art, and spend some time enjoying the spring sunshine.

My April goal is to hit 30,000 words.

A Word of Advice

Be brave. This has been so important to me this month. Not only did I finally go to singing lessons, but I went indoor rock-climbing, which… ow. Double ow. It was painful, but worthwhile to do something I’d never done before.

And when I saw Miss Cole on Twitter doing the #PitMad contest on Twitter, I pushed aside an initial spike of self-doubt that told me my pitch would  disappear unnoticed. I put my brave face on, and I added my story to the tide of amazing pitches from writers across the world.

Reactions were wonderful, and gave me a lot of renewed confidence and faith in my story.

So, be brave. Do the things that scare you.

I promise you, it’ll be worth it.

2016 Goals!

Women of Britain say - GO! (1915). Military recruitment poster by E. Kealey (dates unknown). 76 x 51 cm (Collection #2411, Eybl collection, Vienna). Two women and a child stand at the window and see soldiers marching as they leave to join the war. After 1915, as voluntary enlistments in the British regular army began to subside, women were expected to perform their patriotic duty and send their men to war.
Women of Britain say – GO! (1915) Military recruitment poster

It’s weird to think that we’re in a shiny new year. Two weeks into a shiny new year, actually, and I haven’t even got my goals up yet. Let’s get that sorted, then.

Goals for 2016

  • Write 180,000 words. Yeah, let’s keep this up!
  • Read 50 books. Seventy was a bit too much last year, and I want to be a lot more punctual at beta reading in 2016, which cuts heavily into my leisure reading time.
  • Finish 2 redrafts.
  • Finish 2 first drafts.
  • Always have something out on submission.
  • Be a better beta reader.
  • Focus more on my finances. I’ve already been working hard on it this January, and our budgeting is already pretty damn good, but this year I want to learn more about advanced budgeting techniques and money-saving.
  • Tidy more, tidy smarter. I improved a lot on this in 2015 but I’ve still got plenty to learn!
  • Keep up the art! (Did you see last year’s work?)
  • Try something new. I’m thinking rock climbing, podcast narration and choir singing, but we’ll see.

There we are. Nothing too fancy, this year, but it’s looking like it’ll be a fun one. I’m 24 this year, heading towards 25 in the tail end, and really looking forward to finding a place of proper financial stability, and those cheaper car insurance rates.  :)

Looking Back on 2015

One of my big 2014 takeaways was that if I spend another year focussing on edits, I would be miserable, so I resolved to focus more on first drafts in 2015.

And then I, uh, proceeded to do entirely the opposite of that and focus on edits all 2015. And it was miserable at times, difficult in a dozen ways and frustrating to the very end, but oh man…. I learned SO MUCH. It was entirely worth every moment for the end result.

I’ll have another post up soon about my achievements over the year, small wins and big successes, but for now I’m just going to look back on the goals I set.

Goals for 2015…

  • Tidy more, and tidy smarter! Yeah, I’ll call this a success. I got a ton better at keeping tidy this year, though I still have a lot of improving to do.
  • Write 150,000 words. It wasn’t as easy I thought, thanks to lots of time spent editing, but in the end I did it!
  • Finish 2 first drafts. Not this year, but in 2016 I will!
  • Get 3 novels out to betas [initial readers]. All redrafts , but they were SO different every time.
  • Get 2 novels out on submission to literary agents. I got one novel out there! I also sent out one short story.
  • Read 60 books. I actually aced this one, hitting 75+ including beta reads!
  • Continue drawing, and work on refining my style further. Not as much as I liked, but there was a definite improvement this year in my use of colour and confidence with different styles.
  • Keep up the fitness routine. “Hopefully I’ll continue with weight training, bodyweight fitness, and running…” Yeah, job done, plus I took up cycling.  This was a good year for self-improvement.
  • Play some video games. I sort of achieved this one: I finished Hatoful Boyfriend, Starfighter Eclipse, The Legend of Korra and my favourite for the year UNDERTALE. Still not as many as I wanted, though. I never got to complete Dragon Age: Origins, Never Alone, Persona 3 and many others.
  • Take the practical driving exam. I DID IT. YES. WOOHOO.
  • Cook or bake some cool new things. I tried a few new things this year, especially healthy stuff like courgette spaghetti, baked oatmeal and broccoli casserole.

All in all, a good year for achieving goals. Let’s hope 2016 is more of the same!