Tag: RWNZ

Productivity and Balance: Conference notes
This is my write-up of the notes I took during a session on Productivity & Balance given by Nalini Singh at the Romance Writers of New Zealand 2021 conference in Wellington. As such, her actual words have been paraphrased and filtered through the chaos labyrinth of my own brain, so you should attribute all the useful bits to Nalini and any bits that don’t make sense to me.

Far from all the Nalini Singh books I own.

I’ve been a fan of Nalini’s work ever since I picked up Angel’s Blood back when I was at uni in 2009, and every time I meet her, I try and utterly fail not to crazily fangirl at her. (She, however, is always kind and professional.)

The overall thrust of Nalini’s talk was that you can’t be creative if you’re burned out, and that you need to build a work schedule that is sustainable over the long term. These were her tips, although she added the caveat that she is not the productivity police.

I found this such an inspiring session, although also somewhat daunting thinking about the long term in so serious a fashion. There’s an imposter in my brain that whispers “who are you to think you deserve to take this seriously?”. Shush, imposter. Shush.

Time Management

You need to build a schedule that doesn’t exhaust you. You can’t keep up a relentless punishing schedule in the long term. It’s easy to build a ‘fantasy schedule’ that maximises productivity on paper but that will never work in reality, because there’s no room in it for anything unexpected or for all the non-writing tasks that surround writing, especially if you’re indie.

Instead of a fantasy schedule, build in buffer time for unexpected things to happen. If nothing unexpected comes up, you’ll be ahead of schedule, but if your mum rings or the dog is sick or you need to spend two hours talking to Amazon customer service because your book page has mysteriously disappeared, you’ll already have the buffer in your schedule to cope with it.

Write down your schedule for the day before you start but adjust it as you go on your writing days according to what comes up i.e. keep track of what you did, even if it’s not writing related. Then even if you were only able to write for 15 minutes, you’ll still be able to see it as an achievement within that day’s context.

Don’t schedule every day / writing day you have (e.g. if you can only write on Mondays, don’t schedule writing every Monday between now and deadline). Build in unscheduled buffer days. Nalini doesn’t write on weekends.

Set a knock-off time (especially applies if you write full-time). This creates ‘time scarcity’ for your brain and helps you to be motivated on getting things done. Otherwise it’s tempting to stretch tasks out to fill all the time there is.

Set yourself up to start more easily tomorrow before you finish for the day e.g. leave a chapter slightly undone or leave yourself a note of what you were planning to do next. Put this ‘setting up for tomorrow’ time in your schedule for the end of the day!

Relax consciously. Choose to watch TV or garden or chat on the internet; don’t default to e.g. scrolling through FB without making an active choice about how you are going to spend your leisure time.

Focus

Writing cues can help switch your brain into ‘writing mode’ e.g. a certain playlist you listen to when you start your writing session. Nalini uses a selection of rain sounds. I’ve also used this before and can recommend ‘rainy day cafe’ sounds and gaming music.

Quality rather than quantity time. You can write a whole book in short bursts if that’s the only time you have and you focus. Each time you interrupt your brain it derails your focus for a much longer period of time than just the 30 seconds it took to check Twitter.

Smartphones and social media are designed to be addictive and will give you squirrel brain.

Batch email and social media – set aside a block of time(s) throughout your working day. Don’t check them consistently throughout the day.

Create new norms and set boundaries – people don’t need to expect an immediate response. You can train them to understand your schedule e.g. not checking emails on weekends.

Turn off notifications.

Does the WiFi need to be on constantly? Maybe you could turn it off for 45 minutes while you do a writing session! (oh, it sounds so simple, but so hard!!!)

Goals

Set goals that are realistic and can be achieved through your own efforts. That way you get the satisfaction of achieving them, which is an emotional boost that gives you the motivation to aim for bigger goals. E.g. “I am going to apply for a Bookbub every month this year” (achievable) vs “I am going to get two Bookbubs this year” (not within your power to control)

It is OK to take the longer road!

Someone else’s speed has nothing to do with you.

Multiple projects

Nalini likes to do two different projects at a time: a main project and secondary project. The main project gets the bulk of the writing time, but being able to switch between two different things at a time helps her stay motivated and interested. Nalini recommends a secondary project that is either:
- A completely different type of project
- At a completely different stage in the process than the main project
Her advice is to not commit publicly to the secondary project or put it in your release schedule – this should be your stress-free exploratory time without pressure. No one’s going to be mad when you tell people hooray there’s a surprise unexpected book! Nalini reckons it’s especially helpful if your main project is very written to market.

Delegate

You’re trying to run a one-person small publishing company. The work involved in this gets bigger the bigger you get. If you can delegate, delegate; only you can do the writing!

Read

You became a writer because you love reading. Make space for it.

Look after your body

You can only work from a laptop on the couch for so long before it catches up with you.

I’m expanding out from Nalini’s session to include the tips from multiple people here. The whole panel of guests were asked how they looked after their wrists, and they all gave really intense, thoughtful answers, which goes to show this is a topic of great interest to writers! Things that they found helpful:
- Dictation
- Mechanical keyboard
- Gaming chair
- Standing desk
- Compression gloves
- Software that blanks their screen for e.g. 3 minutes every 1 hour and locks them out so they have no choice but to swear at it and then go stretch
- Yoga
- Scheduling excercise into the middle of the writing day
August 9, 2021
Two events and an award

Whew, what a whirlwind of a weekend!

The short version: Two events, a drink that was ON FIRE, and a trophy!

The long version:

This weekend was the annual Romance Writers of New Zealand conference for 2021. This was my second RWNZ conference (I wrote about my first time here), and because of our closed borders, was a little smaller than usual and featured solely local talent rather than the usual line up of international guests. Turns out NZ’s local talent is pretty fabulous though, because it was a fantastic weekend.

In their infinite scheduling wisdom, the national science fiction and fantasy organisation announced very recently that they had decided to schedule their awards on the exact same night as the romance writers. Thus, I was faced with something of a dilemma. I would have liked to attend the RWNZ dinner and celebrate the winners there, but as I was a finalist for the national speculative fiction awards (the Sir Julius Vogel Awards), I decided I should probably go to that one.

I remember being in the crowd at my first-ever SJV ceremony, years before I had admitted to myself I wanted to be a writer. I thought that the pointy SJV trophies were one of the coolest trophy designs I’d seen, but I didn’t even daydream about winning one. After all, to do that would mean having a book published, and I wasn’t a writer.

The world turned.

I kept writing whilst not being a writer (I am sometimes not very bright). I moved nearly 20,000 km away from home. I wrote a book, a practice novel I never intended to let see the light of day. I called it The Lord of Stariel. I admitted to myself I might quite like writing.

I came home. I started publishing books.

Last year was the first time I made the finalist list for the awards, and the flock of pointy trophies sitting up by the podium took on a whole new meaning.

Awards don’t matter, really, you tell yourself. And they don’t; they’re not what keeps you typing when every word feels like a battle. They aren’t a measure of any objective Truth or Worth; every award has its own biases in who gets one and who doesn’t. You have not failed by not winning one. Making the finalist list is an achievement in itself. Plus, after the awards ceremony you get to drink and chat with cool people, which is fun regardless of the outcome.

I told myself the same things this year (and they are true things, I want to emphasise). But, oh, winning does feel good too!

This is a long-winded way of announcing that I won the Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best New Talent this year! I can’t remember what I said when I went up to receive it – it’s all a joyful blur – though friends assure me it was totally coherent and professional. I do remember the last line, though, which was me giddily bursting out with: “Yay, a pointy trophy!” as the presenter handed it to me.

Totally professional.

Here is the celebratory drink that I had afterwards, at a nearby pirate-themed bar. The bartender set my drink on fire (deliberately)!

My celebratory drink!

This was my last year of eligibility for this award, and coming so close on the heels of releasing my series finale was a special moment. Congratulations to all the finalists – there was some amazing talent represented on the lists – and to the winners on the night. Thank you so much to everyone who supported me on this journey.

(Yay, pointy trophy!)

August 9, 2021
One year of self-publishing: Highlights

It feels longer than a year.

Self-publishing effectively involves starting your own small business – on top of the actual writing and, in many people’s cases, including my own – on top of the full-time day job and general detritus of life administration.

Piecing together stolen moments – from lunch hours and evenings and weekends, while waiting at bus stops and seated on planes – does strange things to one’s sense of time.

But it has only been a year since I published The Lord of Stariel. Wow.

The happenings of a year are too much to fit in one blog post, so here is a random sampling of eight highlights (in no particular order).

#1 Seriously awesome covers

I could not be happier with the covers for my books, made by Jenny Zemanek at Seedlings Design Studio. Here are the three so far revealed (you’ll have to wait for Book 4’s cover, but it is every bit as pretty).

So pretty!

#2 Book Launch Party

I launched The Lord of Stariel in my living room last November because I wanted it to be as non-stressful and fun as possible. I made cake; my sister decorated it. I wore a T-shirt with my book cover on. I stacked a pile of books nonchalantly in the corner and signed them upon request.

Book cake!

I highly recommend this approach to book launches and am in fact planning the exact same sort of event for the launch of Book 3 (I didn’t have an official party for Book 2 because it released so soon after Book 1).

#3 Hard copies on my shelf

I think every author imagines the moment when they will hold a physical copy of their finished book in their hands. When my box of advanced copies arrived (for the book launch!), I let out a noise audible only to bats.

#4 Publishing Book 2

Writing and publishing one book could be written off as a fluke; publishing my second book The Prince of Secrets made my dreams of a writing career feel less like a dream and more like something I could build, one brick (book) at a time.

#5 Books in libraries!

Because I am self-published, I wasn’t sure whether my books would make it into libraries. But they have! Mostly to NZ libraries, but also to some in the US! I even found one on the shelf in the temporary Wellington central library (temporary due to the closure of the main library because of earthquake risk).

(Do feel free to request your library get a copy of The Lord of Stariel or The Prince of Secrets…)

#6 Meeting other local writers

Who knew there were so many fantasy writers in Wellington!

A big shout out to Melanie Harding-Shaw, who has this year been determinedly reaching out and organising Wellington speculative fiction writers into regular meet-ups, a process that bears no small resemblance to herding cats.

Earlier this year I also attended the Romance Writers of New Zealand conference in Christchurch (and wrote about it here), which exceeded expectations in terms of both fun and learning. I have yet to make it along to a Wellington chapter meeting due to scheduling conflicts, but they keep inviting me, so I hope to make it along to one in 2020!

#7 SPFBO5 (Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off 5)

This is a competition orchestrated by author Mark Lawrence. It involves 10 book bloggers working their way through 300 self-published fantasy titles to choose the winner.

The competition is still underway, and The Lord of Stariel remains in the running as of this blog post, having been picked as a semi-finalist by the blog it was assigned to. I’m thrilled about that, but that’s not actually the highlight I’m celebrating here. No, what I want to celebrate is that I fronted up to the start line and entered my book into the competition at all!

I am my own worst enemy, and tend to not even enter things because I’ve already decided I’m unworthy. You can’t fail if you don’t sign up, right? This year I’ve been making a concerted effort to stop thinking like that, and to start thinking more like, well, this:

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts”—Winston Churchill

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.”—JK Rowling

“The master has failed more times than the beginner has ever tried.”—Stephen McCranie

“Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.” —C. S. Lewis

I like inspirational quotes, but they can also make it sound like a very glib process, when the reality of putting myself forward and risking failure has been extremely difficult—but also rewarding, I think. The more you shove at the edges of your comfort zone, the bigger it gets.

(As well as being a small milestone in my ongoing journey of Trying To Hide Myself Under Rocks Less, being part of SPFBO has also turned out to be quite fun. There’s a feeling of community to it and heaps of good indie fantasy books to be found by browsing the list of SPFBO books. I shall have to do another post on ones I’ve read and enjoyed so far!)

#8 Readers

Last November, the only way I could make myself press that big ‘publish’ button was to pretend that no one would actually read my book.

This, delightfully, has turned out to be not true. The first time a reader got in touch to say how much they liked my book, I had to take several hours to compose myself sufficiently to be able to respond with some degree of professionalism rather than a string of incoherent exclamation marks.

So thank you, readers, for buying my book, for leaving reviews, for sending me emails, for making and liking posts, and for tweeting tweets. You have been the most wonderful part of this indie publishing gig.

November 1, 2019
Writing hooky beginnings: workshop notes
How do you hook a reader at the start of a book?

Slow beginnings are something I feel I’m a bit prone to if I’m not careful (true story: The Lord of Stariel first draft originally had a whole ‘nother chapter before Chapter 1 that got cut during rewrites), so I was particularly interested in Sophie Jordan’s workshop on beginnings at the recent RWNZ conference I attended.

(For the more general conference experience write-up, see previous blog post)

Sophie Jordan writes romance, but the concepts she talked about are applicable across all fiction genres.

The takeaway is that the three key components of a great opening are:
1. Character
2. Conflict
3. Voice
Ideally, you establish all three as soon as possible, in the first few lines if you can, but within the first few pages at a stretch.

(Obviously, a hooky beginning can’t make a book good in and of itself; that’s what the rest of the novel is for!)

Sophie gave lots of examples of great hooky openings (and I’ve added some from books I love into the mix), all of which you also now get to enjoy as I ruminate my way through the mechanics of why they’re hooky. (Note that I haven’t read all of the books associated with these lines, but they are definitely all hooky!).

Character

A character-driven opening should lead us to ask an interesting question, make us feel for the character, and set up something about their everyday life.

Character-driven opening examples

Scarlet O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.

—Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell

I think the question here is: Who are the Tarleton twins and why is the apparently not-beautiful Scarlet charming them? (I have actually only seen the movie version of this, and my memory is pretty foggy, so this is a genuine question). Also, you have to feel for a heroine described as “not beautiful”. Pretty sure there’s a law.

Charlotte was one week short of seventeen when her life changed, falling into two halves like a shiny child’s ball: before and after.

—Potent Pleasures, Eloisa James

What changed your life, Charlotte? I must know!!!

I haven’t touched another person in three years.

—The Girl in 6e, Alessandra Torre

I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS!!!! Do you mean literally? Are you in some kind of terrible solitary confinement? Can I help you escape somehow?

Conflict

2/3 of the above examples also double as conflict-driven openings. The conflict component of a beginning instills foreboding, curiosity, or emotion, and hints at what the book’s larger conflict might be about.

Conflict-driven opening examples

“I’ll consider your debt paid in full if you get my wife with child.”

—Waking up with the Duke, Lorraine Heath

WHAAAAAAAT??? Who is he making this offer to? Why is he making this offer? Has his wife consented to this!!?? HOW IS THIS POSSIBLY GOING TO WORK OUT????

The day of the royal massacre started out like any other.

—Kill the Queen, Jennifer Estep

Well that’s incredibly ominous!

I’m pretty much fucked.

That’s my considered opinion.

Fucked.

Six days into what should be the greatest two months of my life, and it’s turned into a nightmare.

—The Martian, Andy Weir

This opening is also big on establishing character, but the main driving question is: What, exactly, has turned into a nightmare?

Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley.

—Uprooted, Naomi Novik

This is from one of my favourite books, and it pulls me in every time! It evokes strong curiosity (who is this dragon, one immediately asks, and why is he taking girls?) There’s also something old-fashionedly fairytale-like even in just the first line, which very much captures the tone of the book.

Which brings us to…

Voice

This is the elusive spark of what-makes-one-author’s-style-distinct-from-every-other-author. It’s the adjective X in the sentence “Oh, this is such X writing”, where X might be clean / beautiful / funny / self-aware / intense etc.

Voice-driven opening examples

All of the above examples have strong voice, but here are even more:

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

—Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

This opening has such a distinctive voice that we’ve been quoting it for over 200 years!

Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree.

—Hogfather, Terry Pratchett

Ah, Terry Pratchett, my favourite fantasy author. Your dry, satirical voice is sorely missed.

Mr and Mrs Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.

—Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling

I remember reading this line for the first time at the age of eleven and being simply unable to stop. I find this opening particularly interesting because Harry, our protagonist, is largely absent from the opening paragraphs, but the author’s voice is so engaging that it doesn’t matter. And the conflict of the book is hinted at in this very first line i.e. something very not normal is about to arrive on the Dursleys’ doorstep…

As part of the workshop, Sophie also got us to brainstorm openings based on various scenarios. I’m a slow thinker, so I haven’t yet managed to come up with any zingers like the ones above, but it’s filled me with determination to keep trying!
September 12, 2019
Hanging with other writers: the RWNZ 2019 Conference

Fantasy is my first and truest love, but romance is a close second (a shocker, I know, if you’ve read my books 😉). So it was with great excitement that I headed off to Christchurch last weekend for my first-ever Romance Writers of New Zealand (RWNZ) conference.

Hagley Park, Christchurch

Years ago, when I was a university student, I spent a lot of time in Christchurch Airport, waiting for connecting flights as part of my journey home. I’m not sure this really counts as having visited the city. I can’t say I’ve now remedied this, since I spent last weekend largely within the four walls of the conference hotel.

However, I can say that the few bits of Christchurch I did see were both lovely and curiously English in aesthetic (and, coming from hilly Wellington, disconcertingly flat). The hotel abutted the large and picturesque Hagley Park, where the first signs of spring were juuust beginning, cherry blossoms and daffodils and a hint of warmth.

“The trees are coming into leaf. Like something almost being said—Philip Larkin

(I thought of this quote a lot during spring when I was overseas in Oxford, and Hagley Park had that same quality to it).

On Friday morning, I turned up to the registration desk and received my name badge and conference pack. A heart sticker adorned my badge, marking me as a first-time attendee.

The name badges were an absolute godsend. Some people say they remember faces but not names; I frequently remember neither. If only name badges were fashionable in more situations!

I was quite nervous that first morning, as the only person I knew wasn’t turning up until the Saturday. However, my nerves were completely unwarranted; everyone was extremely friendly (thanks to the aforementioned heart-sticker), and luckily we all had one ginormous thing in common that made it easy to start conversations!

“So, what do you write?” was the #1 conversation opener, for the very first time in my life.

I refined my answer to this over time and eventually settled on: “Think fantasy Downton Abbey.”

(I feel I must make an admission here; I’ve never actually watched Downton Abbey, but it’s a comparison that multiple reviewers have used and it’s a more comprehensible shorthand than “Er…secondary world early twentieth centuryish inspired fantasy-of-manners with fae and romance?”. Hopefully, when I do get around to watching it, I won’t discover that I’ve been merrily giving everyone an entirely false idea of what to expect!)

Onto the workshops!

There aren’t a lot of local professional development opportunities for genre writers in New Zealand. I’d heard through the grapevine that RWNZ conferences offer fantastic craft workshops that would be of benefit to any writer, not only those writing pure romance.

Well, I’m here to tell you that the grapevine was absolutely right.

My uncharacteristically organised note-taking.

Over the three days, I made fifty pages of notes. FIFTY. Beginnings, tension, characterisation through narration, and conflict were just some of the topics covered. I think I’ll write up a few of the sessions that particularly resonated with me in separate blog posts, but needless to say that by the end of the weekend, my brain was stuffed full of information and ideas.

Let no one tell you that writing romance is easy. These guys take their craft seriously. The whole conference was infused with a determination to learn, share ideas, and ultimately bring readers joy. But more than that, everyone there practically glowed with the love of writing. The enthusiasm was infectious and left me buzzing with renewed motivation to finish my work in progress.

Plus, as it turns out, romance authors and editors have great senses of humour.

One group’s ‘guesses’ at missing titles

If every duke featured in a regency romance actually existed, they’d outnumber the sheep in New Zealand*” —May Chen, Avon editor.

*Current NZ sheep numbers = 27.3 million, which by my calculation means every New Zealander gets ~5.6 dukes of their very own!

Definitely planning to attend next year.

August 29, 2019