The school year was always the beginning of my year when I was in school, but as a writing parent I realize it is even more important to have everything in order and ready to go for the start of the school year.

My eldest daughter started kindergarten this year. Just to get her signed up, we had doctor’s appointments, paperwork to organize, an ice-cream social to meet the teacher, and the excitement of arriving on the first day and getting to know all her new friends. I’ve had to learn how to wake up earlier, adhere to stricter deadlines of when to get her to school and pick her up, and get used to a house that is one half quieter. All the while, my writing deadlines haven’t diminished!

Even writers who don’t have little ones in the house can benefit from starting their new year in September. The holiday season is fast approaching, and it’s best to have an established writing plan now before it begins. Here are a few tips I’ve picked up over the past month to help writers with the back-to-school blues.

School Is In Session!

1. Get organized! Now is the time to make sure all your paperwork is in order. Evaluate your writing schedule, and see if it is still working effectively for you. Update your submissions and queries lists, and if you have a manuscript ready to be sent out, just hit send! Clean out your computer and filing cabinets, and backup your electronic files – or schedule them to be backed up on a regular basis. Take inventory of your supplies, and order more if you’re running low on paper, ink, or postage.
2. Schedule a checkup. Writers don’t have the luxury of sick days, so make sure that you’ve had all your necessary doctor and dentist visits within the past year. Go ahead and schedule your next one too, so you won’t be tempted to put it off. Also schedule an hour or so where you can give your writer-life a checkup too. Have you met the goals you set for yourself last year? Or are you still wandering aimlessly without goals? Now is the time to evaluate your progress and pinpoint where you are heading.
3. Make time to socialize. Writing does not happen in a vacuum, or within the confines of your comfy office chair. Online writing pals are a great resource, for laughs about the writing life and leads to new outlets for your stories. Find real life friends who help you give your mind a break and inspire your writing to fraternize with too.
4. Evaluate your own education. One of the joys of being a writer is that you don’t need an Ivy League education to succeed, just a pencil and paper. However, you may need to take a quick online course to brush up on the finer points of style, or purchase an e-book on the writing life. It is never too late to further your education, whether it is through a brick and mortar university or by watching writing videos. Decide what level you’d like your writing to be at, and plan accordingly.
5. Embrace the unexpected. Life’s curve balls are part of the plot twists and conflicts that enhance the quality of your fiction writing. When you have to navigate new experiences, do your best, learn from them, and then review them to see what might make a good plot point for your next story.

What is your back to school ritual? Do you consider it a new start to the year, or do you wait for New Year’s Day?

Photo Credit: woodleywonderworks

Well, we had a fantastic response to the second half of our Hook, Line, and Sinker contest this month. There were 25 total votes and of our three entries our winner was a clear favorite. I think many of us were drawn to the drama and intrigue in that very first sentence. What do you think hooked you?

Our lucky winner is:

I’m going to kill him. Caleb found comfort in that thought. And he meant it this time. It would be quick and clean, and he could leave the body in a ditch where they were widening the highway… (read more)

Congratulations L. L. McKinney!

Fantastic hook! I’ll be in touch to get your postal details so that Les and I can get your books to you as quickly as possible.

Thank you to our other entrants, Susan Swan and Robin Joy Wirth and another huge big thank you to Les Edgerton for the added support and donation of Finding Your Voice. I know you’ll love Les’ blog, “Les Edgerton On Writing”, so check it out today!

We’ll have another new contest in September and you can tell me what you’d like to see given away or what kind of contests you’d be interested in. Leave a comment below to congratulate our winners, thank Les and our entrants, and let me know what you’d like to see at The Craft of Writing Fiction in the coming months.

My muse is a closet chameleon. She shifts and changes color at whim to suit the inspirational environment she brings in any moment. Like an actress or model who changes wardrobe every time she steps out on the stage my muse loves to embrace dramatic inspiration with her dress sense.

Today she’s wearing a taffeta summer dress of light coral and corn. Vibrant colors that often make me want to get out and enjoy life. There is a chill in this Australian winter morning but I see the cerulean sky and bright, early morning shades of daffodil, sunshine outside my window. I want to be out there, playing. I wore pink today too. A shade of orchid rather than coral but it suits the cheery mood of my muse. It’s a nod to her effervescent enthusiasm. When she wears pink I think of painting and ice sculpting. I think of synchronized swimming and dance. Dramatic, full-body expressions of creativity rather than the physical stillness facing the page.

When I’m focused and resolute in my work she shifts into ocean waves of blue, a mixture of blue colors that flow and swell. The ultramarine glisten with iridescence cornflower. There is never a single blue but every shade of blue from cyan to midnight. A kaleidoscope of turquoise and sapphire. Holograms of denim and periwinkle that never appear the same way once your lose sight of the first glimpse.

When my muse wears blue she draws me to the page. Blue communicates. It is open and giving. Calm blue waters darken in the depth of emotional intensity. Bright blue skies transcend us, lifting us into the heavens where blue darkens again into the inky black beyond.

I surround myself with the color blue when I want to write. Blue, and purple. Purple is for reaching into the imagination and spirituality. It is flights of fantasy. It is the open communication of blue mixed with the vibrant passion and fire of red and orange. Sometimes when I’m writing fiction my muse wears an indigo gown made of velvet. But when I’m working on my current novel she wears a medieval gown in scarlet, and black, with cords of gold.

When I knew I’d be trying to choose one single color for August’s Blog Chain at Absolute Write I knew I’d have trouble. So many colors speak to me creatively and like my muse, the connection to color changes from moment to moment with my emotions and with the specific project I’m working on. So, I thought I’d ask others what color they associate with their writing.

Like me, Kari Wolfe feels her writing through “all different colors”. She said, “Currently, I write with multicolored gel-ink pens. Each paragraph is a different color…”

Laura Campbell said, “Purple as I mainly write about fantasy and purple is the magic colour!” and Cari Lynn Vaughn also thinks purple represents her writing, “The Purple Rose is a symbol for perseverance and transcendence.”

Lorraine Powell‘s chick-lit is pink. While Susan McCabe‘s pink is for, “calmness and serenity.”

Misti Bailey Sandefur writes in yellow. She said, “I like to write stories that will inspire my readers and warm their souls, and to me, yellow is a happy color.” Another reader, Cheryl Grey, describes her writing as, “Emerald green” because “it’s one of the most peaceful parts of my life.” While Evea Morrow has connects her writing to “blue- because most horror movies are shot with a blue filter” and Anthony Jennings to black who’s “stories have dark endings or plots.”

The range of colors we each gravitate to is broad and I found reading the other entries in the blog chain just as fascinating as the comments from The Craft of Writing Fiction readers. Check out these other entries and leave a comment below or write a blog post of your own describing the color of your creativity. “If you had to pick one color for any aspect of your writing, which one would it be and why?”

• Aheïla: AW August Coloring Blog Chain
• Ralph_Pines: Blue – The Color Of My Imagination
• AuburnAssassin: What Color Is My Writing
• semmie: AW’s Colorful Blog Chain
• Anarchicq: Absolute Write Blog Chain – One Colour
• CScottMorris: August Blog Chain
• PASeasholtz: August 2010 AW Blog Chain
• LadyMage: Pick a color – any color!
• orion_mk3: Purple Nights In The Furniture City
• DavidZahir: August Blog Chain Color
• aimeelaine: Blog Chain : What color is my writing (AW)
• FreshHell: AW Blog Chain August
• sbclark: August AW Blog Chain
• Bettedra: The Color Of Inspiration
• Guardian: August Coloring Blog Chain
• M.R.J. Le Blanc: August Blog Chain: Color Of Writing

Photo Credit: 阿乃
Photo Credit: Red Velvet Fairy Medieval Renaissance Theme Wedding Gown with Cape and Jewelry on Etsy

It is 3:57 in the morning. Do you know where your characters are? If you are like most writers, you know exactly where they are because they refuse to let you get a proper nights sleep, or bath, or read, or time alone to enjoy the minutiae of life.

Once you have given life to someone, sometimes they do not shut up. I find this to be true of children, and characters. I rarely get to spend my hour commute listening to the radio, or relaxing with the windows rolled down and my mind on mute. As soon as the fiction characters in my latest story realize I’m alone the chatter starts.

The first time this happened to me, I was sure I was schizophrenic. When I stopped at each red light while driving, I tried to jot down an idea but, by then the characters had told their friends that I was free, and I forgot what I was noting in the first place.

Forget taking a bath. I used to think the kids, and the dog were most deft at keeping me from taking a bath alone. No, it is the antagonist calling to say he is ready to kill my main character, and by the way, …I need to shave my legs.

Sleeping can be like running a relay race. When I sleep someone shouts something into my psyche, and I have to jump up to write. My best stuff comes at 3:00 A M decidedly, because like an infant, that is when my fiction characters are awake. After I have pecked the brainstorm into my computer, I head back to bed. Usually, I can fall back asleep. At least until, the protagonist finds out what his adversary said about him.

When I first started writing, it drove me mad to share my brain with all the people who were crashing my psychological party. Now, when I’m done with a story, and things get quiet, I have let down.

I sit in the tub and wait for someone to say something. Then I lay in bed, and listen to the quiet wishing my fiction characters would “throw me a bone.” When I’m feeling overwhelmed by the amount of jabber going on in my brain, and I want to throw up the NO VACANCY sign, I remember how lonely I am without them.

I just flipped my sign over, reads Vacancy – welcome all night owls. I’ll probably catch you all at about 2:30…in the morning.

Do your fiction characters keep you awake at night? When was the last time you were able to have a relaxing bath or drive from one side of town to the other without their company? How do you deal with the lack of mental vacancies?

Photo Credit: Nathan Barry
Photo Credit: DG Jones

In our daily lives, we have to make room for the minutiae of life. We eat, drink, take showers, and run errands. Our lives would fall apart without taking care of the basic necessities of living.

Our characters don’t often have the luxury of taking care of life’s minutiae when they are busy pursuing their goals. In the television series “24″, the hero Jack Bower must save the day, without taking any time for himself. He sets aside his personal needs when he pursues the enemy and protects the President. He doesn’t even have time to sleep!

Your characters may be in the middle of a similarly high-paced action story, or they may have a little more leeway. It is up to you to decide how much realism needs to be incorporated into your novel. Too much, and your readers could become bored. Too little, and your characters appear superhuman, unaffected by the basic requirements of living a healthy life.

Adding More Details to Your Story

When your writing is flowing freely, it is too easy to forget that your characters need a break. They may jump from one scene to another, overcoming foes and discovering new obstacles at every turn. While this makes for an exciting story, your characters can’t go on forever without some down time.

Sleep is one of the most important things that characters seem to forget to do. Allow them to set up camp for the night, or they may collapse from exhaustion in the middle of an important scene. Chapter breaks are great places to let your characters sleep on the past events, and prepare them to face a new day in pursuit of their goals.

Eating and drinking are also necessary if you want your characters to keep forging ahead. They may only have time to grab an apple and a swig of water, but that small detail will remind readers that your characters are realistic and susceptible to human concerns. Larger meals can be included to provide a respite from a speedy plot line, and to give your characters time to ruminate over their game plan.

Removing Minutiae From Your Story

Your story can become bogged down by too much detail. If every chapter ends with your heroine curling up in her cozy bed, her plight can sound trivial and mundane. Readers like stories that provide an escape from their everyday lives. Too many mundane activities can add up to a boring story.

If your characters have to get from point A to point B, they can do so either very quickly or very slowly in terms of your story. Noting that they arrived at their destination after three days of uneventful travel is perfectly fine. You don’t have to show every stop, every meal, and every conversation that doesn’t add to your story. Only include minutiae if it enhances your characterization or your plot line. When in doubt, throw it out.

It is very easy to add a mundane scene, just to act as filler while you’re thinking of what happens next in the story. If you need to keep the writing flowing, go ahead and write that scene at a roadside diner. It may provide important details to lead your characters in the right direction. If it doesn’t, you can always remove it later, and your story will keep up the pace.

Do you tend to write lean stories, without many human details? Or do you enjoy writing long descriptive passages about every meal? How do you strike a balance of real world concerns and exciting plot points?

Photo Credit: 07-07-08 © manley099

We’ve had some wonderful entries in our Hook, Line and Sinker contest but now it’s time to let YOU choose which of our entries takes home their own copy of Hooked and Finding Your Voice. A HUGE big thank you to Les Edgerton for generously supporting The Craft of Writing Fiction. Check out his blog!

Now it’s time to decide which of our great entries has the most compelling hook and that’s where you can help. We’re running a poll until 8am EST August 31, 2010 where you can choose which of our entries is your favorite hook. Drum up votes for your favorites by inviting your friends to choose their favorite too. Don’t forget to click “like” on The Craft of Writing Fiction’s Facebook Fan page because next month we’ll be giving away something special just for our Facebook Fans.

Are you looking forward to future competitions? After you’ve voted stop back here to let me know not only that you’ve voted but also what you’d love to win and how you’d like to enter future contests.

The value of support, and a sounding board, during the writing process can be immeasurable.  While there are writers who keep their work locked in a vault of secrecy until the first (sometimes second and third) draft is finished, I am not one of them. I have never been able to complete a chapter without support, feedback, constructive criticism, and encouragement from advance readers.

Call it artistic insecurity, or call it vanity, but I get a little boost when I hear, “Wow that rocked!”. The enthusiasm of advance readers can be just the kick in the rear you need to keep going. I often (no less than three times a day) and like many other writers think, “Why am I writing this?  Have I completely lost my mind?” The backing and encouragement of a trusted friend reminds my of my motives for writing. I write to be read.

Sharing what you write when you are at the top of your game can come in handy when your self esteem takes a dive, too. Your advance readers can reignite your enthusiasm and excitement. When you face that nasty bout of writer’s block they’re there to push you to keep writing. When the work knocks you on your rear they’re there to pull you to your feet and dust you off.

My favorite thing about the champions of my writing is their never tiring of willingness to brainstorm with me. They don’t mind reading the same paragraph twelve times. Sometimes it’s just a thought or word they share that spurs my imagination. A five minute conversation can turn into three thousand words and a captivating new plot twist.

A true advocate will also spread the word when your work is done. He’ll back it as if it were their own.  Friends will feel a sense of shared ownership and pride in the finished product and be eager to help you market the work.

Without the supporters who spend countless hours reading, critiquing, and loving my work, I’m not sure I could have finished my first novel, let alone plunged into the ones that followed.

What are some of the other ways you stay inspired? Who do you trust with your work before it’s finished? What do your advance readers do for you?

If you haven’t shared your work yet, I highly recommend it, and I guarantee a smile.

It’s time to give away something awesome again! This month I’m finally letting go of the extra copy of Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers At Page One And Never Lets Them Go by Les Edgerton. I first read and loved Les Edgerton’s book, Hooked, on the 16th of September 2007. I can tell you exactly because the next day I wrote a glowing review which you can read here. When I attended the Reader’s Digest Writer’s Conference in Los Angeles in 2008 I couldn’t resist purchasing a second copy intending to give it away to a lucky reader. Mine is a beloved copy with the spine cracked and pages scoured over but his sister is still pristine and really deserves a home of her own where she can feel the same love from another eager writer.

When I knew what I was going to let one of you win a copy this month I wondered what kind of competition to create to get you involved and interacting with each other. The Craft of Writing Fiction is a community of writers and we need events that promote that community feel. After thinking long and hard I was inspired! What better way to get writers involved if they want to win than to ask them to write something?

Of course, with so many talented writers I’d be hard pressed to choose who will win from among the stories you might send me so we’ll do this in two parts. This week, write a story, poem, or article with a compelling “Hook” and next week we’ll run a poll where you can each vote for the “hook” you think should win. And you can invite your friends and family to vote for you. And tell your neighbor to vote. And if your dog or kids have a Facebook account they can vote too!

So, lets define a few rules:

The Prize:

One compelling writer will win a paperback copy of Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers At Page One And Never Lets Them Go by Les Edgerton valued at $14.99 USD

This just in! Les offered to add an autographed copy of “Finding Your Voice: How to Put Personality in Your Writing” to the prize pool so our winning writer will win TWO fantastic books.

To Enter:

• Write a story, poem, or article with a compelling “Hook”.
• Word Count: 250 to 800 words.
• Share on your own blog: And link back to the competition.
  If you don’t have a blog you can share directly in the comments below.
  The link to this page is: http://www.craftingfiction.com/?p=4779
• Entries accepted from August 16 until 8am EST August 23, 2010

Choosing A Winner:

• Become a fan of our Facebook Fan Page by clicking “like” on the page here.
• Vote for the story, poem, or article you feel has the most interesting/compelling “Hook”.
• Invite others to vote for their favorite “Hook”. (They need to be fans too because only fans can vote.)
• Votes accepted from August 24 until 8am EST August 31, 2010

It’s time to get writing!

Brainstorm a few ideas and get the words done on the page. Then hone that opening until it’s a captivating hook that will snag readers attention and keep them riveted to your writing. Don’t forget to link to or share your story, poem, or article in the comments below.

Photo Credit: 03-09-10 © sellingpix
Book Cover: Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers At Page One And Never Lets Them Go by Les Edgerton