Step One: Beg, Borrow, Steal

You: “I’ve always wanted to write a book.”

Me: “And you haven’t because ….?”

If your answer to me sounds anything like I have no time or Everyone needs me or I’m so busy beheading these damn squirrels, I will put you in a headlock. BUT I’ll do it with love–probably I’ll even give you a little cheek-to-boobie time (everyone likes that)–because I feel your pain. Writing does require time, that can’t be argued. Words don’t fly directly from your third eye into the computer unless you’ve sacrificed eight drunk moose to Belphegor, demon Lord of–never mind. You didn’t hear that. That’s not my secret, Crazyass Canadian Chick process at all. Nope.

<Belphegor digs on booze & moose meat: trufax> 

Yes, writing takes time, but maybe not as much as you think. If you’ve been putting it off, thinking you shouldn’t bother because you don’t have the requisite hours and hours of uninterrupted desk time (or time to wander through a wildflower-strewn meadow, or a cobblestone street in Paris, or wherever you think “real” writers create) maybe you need to make a deal with your muse: show up for a half hour every day. That’s not ideal, granted, but it’s certainly better than mooning over your unfinished scrap of an idea and diddling your bottom lip like a ninny. Let’s be honest: no one has time. Time doesn’t appear magically. No one is going to deliver time to you in a pretty package with a big, purple bow. If they do, don’t take it, it’s a trick. You can carve out time, but it’s going to hurt a little.

Steal a bit from your regular TV-time. Beg off from one social gathering. Put your video game on pause–don’t worry, you’ll still suck when you get back to it, unless you’re me; I melt face. Enlist the help of a spouse (Hey, think you could manage to keep your son off the roof for thirty minutes or so? Kthnxawesome) or family member, then remember to thank them in the front of your book where you beg forgiveness for being an antisocial dickbin. (<–is that even a thing? Where are my pills …)  

I’m going to propose something that usually makes people slapchop me in the throat; my proposal is a dreadful, butt-puckering prospect, but I’m not saying it to hurt you. Ready? Why are you already making a fist? *glares* Set your alarm … *deftly dodges first punch* … an hour earlier … and get your hairy ass (apologies if you wax yours, how am I supposed to know unless you send me pictures? Jeez)…out of bed…and write. Okay, get the horrified shudder out of the way. Nice. Now go ahead and say it:

You: “Eeeeuuuw. I can’t! I just can’t! I. Need. My. Sleep.”

Me: “Which do you want more? Sleep? Or a finished novel?”

I cannot name one writer-type friend who gets both sleep AND writing done. Most of them have day jobs, and families, and friends, and lives. We squeeze our writing in while other people sleep. That might be why we’re prone to acting like nutbars. You can keep your sleep and sanity, and write “some other time”, whenever that might come. That’s totally your call, I can’t make it for you. I can tell you that since I started getting up at 4 A.M. every day for work, my output has skyrocketed, and not only when I’m ass-to-chair. My brain is churning by 4:05 A.M.–pre-tea, even–and I’m usually doing the ole “writing in the head” business while I cruise the empty streets (sounds like I’m up to something nefarious. Kinda wish I was.) While I’m at work, I’m brainstorming about what I’m going to write next. By the time I’m home, my muse has his hip propped on my desk and is smoking one of my Cuban cigars, demanding to know where I’ve been.

<‘member this guy? He’s a mean, mean muse. He clobbers me with stuff>

Step 2: Change Your Self-Portrait

In addition to time, I have come to understand that writing a book requires perseverence, determination, organization, and faith. That last one’s kind of a deal-breaker.

When do you start calling yourself a “writer”? Some people do it before they’ve written a word. Some people feel weird about calling themselves a writer, even after they’ve churned out tons. My mum called me a writer early. My English teacher, Mr. Schulman, called me a writer (in a “sorry to inform you, but”-style letter to my folks) when I was in high school. I think I started calling myself a writer after I had a pile of papers on my desk that, when strung together, could almost make sense as a story.

If you don’t think of yourself as a writer, and have faith that you can learn the skills needed to go forward, then you won’t give yourself permission to skip that football game or staff meeting (*cough* I never miss those accidentally on purpose to write, never)or movie night out, or family function, in order to devote a mind-melting session to your muse.  Other people won’t understand, other people won’t have faith in you, until you do. If your book is a hobby to you, people will take your lead and also see it as your hobby. If you’re serious about it, then fix the way you see yourself. You’re not someone who likes the idea of writing a book anymore … you’re WRITING a book, and therefore you are a WRITER, and when you finish it, you’ll be The Book’s AUTHOR *cue sexy music, cuz you’ve earned it*.

<If your coffee table regularly looks like this, you should go ahead and call yourself a writer. Also, you should call a good head-shrinker; sooner or later, you’re gonna need one) 

No more stalling. Time to kick your own ass, my friend. Beg, borrow, steal the time. See yourself as a writer, and your project as important.

And consider sending me that picture of your ass, so I know whether or not to keep callin’ it hairy.  

Whaaaaaaat? *cheeky grin*

(editor’s note: AJ Aalto is inspired today by a fortune cookie slip which reads “Luck is the by-product of busting your fanny”, a sentiment she whole-heartedly agrees with. She’s also not joking about wanting to see your ass. Not even kidding a little bit.) 

I have some bad news, folks: the sun is shining again.

That’s right! Hundreds of birds are making their flippity-fluttery return-to-roost commotion, complete with peeps and caws and squawks (with their full-on assault of Cute, how dare they?). Fragrant grape hyacinths are blooming en masse next to my front steps (a creeping, sentient army of evil flora; mark my words, they’re not as innocent as they look). Their scent is putting an extra zip in my step. They’re making me happy, dammit. And that’s a problem for me.

I write horror. I will admit, it’s goofy horror; it’s hardly all fear and gut-ripping. Still, in order to write my kind of shit, I have to be in touch with the dark side of my muse. And right now–because the Multiverse is conspiring to destroy me, obviously– my muse is acting like he took a handful of Valium, slipped on a pink tutu, and, in a final act of unfathomable douchiness, starting warbling old love songs that make me wanna gnaw my own brain out.

I sat down to write about zombies (this morning, it was the fast ones, not the classic slow shamblers) and between the tea (gosh, it was yummy, just the right temp, perfectly brewed) and the sunshine (wasn’t it supposed to rain? Maybe later) and my combat butler vacuuming around my feet (must admit, it’s hard to find fault with that) I was just too damned happy to write scary stuff. And the more I wanted to write, the more content I felt, and then I got mad, and the cat on my lap started purring, and I had cherry pie, dammit, cherry pie, and suddenly being happy was the worst possible thing that could ever infect my soul and I was MAD AT ALL THE THINGS!

I ask you: what kind of lip-diddling ninny gets mad about being happy? Well, me, but with good reason. I need some fear. Monsters. Thunderstorms! Darkness! Slime and sludge and grit and misery! I might–no, I almost said it, but I’m not quite there yet. You’ll know it’s bad when I turn to clowns.

So, since I am perfectly handicapped in the fear department (I don’t believe in writer’s block as you know, but I’m starting to accept that I might have “horror block”) I was going to focus my contentment to write about my cheerful attempts to collaborate with fellow writer Jason D. Ready, shown here, about to be decapitated by yours truly (note the smile on my face–see? Too happy!).

I had a whole blog in my head about the secrets to writing fiction with another author … blending styles, reworking one another’s dialogue, Outlining For Two, idea sessions, parcelling-out characters and scenes … trying not to kill each other … But then I got happy again. It’s totally the sun’s fault *cough*. Plus, I’m all schloopy-brained, because I carbo-loaded yesterday (if I say it like that, I totally sound like a long-distance runner, and not someone who hoovered three pounds of leftover cherry pie down her suckhole, amiright?). Also: I realized that, despite my legendary earlybirditude and pitbull-on-soup-bone perseverence, I know dick about writing as a gruesome-twosome, since we have only just dipped our toes into the process.

The Aalto-Ready (Ready-Aalto?) collaboration blog will come, as will an interview with my poor, hard-done-by collaborator. Sorry, dude, but I’m pretty sure all of our writing sessions are going to look just like this …

Jason: You know what really shouldn’t come next? <insert most disturbing thing ever>

Me: THAT HAS TO HAPPEN! Plus <makes idea worse>

Jason: Or this … <makes idea ten times worse>

*both dissolve into tipsy giggle fit*

Too much fun. Oh dear Crom *worried face* what if I never get the fear back? Now that’s scary ….

This morning, my friend Dax pointed out that Touched is #7 on Amazon’s horror best seller list. WOOT! “Feel pride” was not first on my To Do list today … “be an irksome twat” was. I feel so unprepared. After I regained consciousness, I couldn’t help but wonder what my main characters would say to their author about this climb.

Marnie: Apparently, people love dingbats, dick jokes and general assholery. Who knew?

Batten:  My faith in humanity just took a major ass-reaming.

Marnie: We earned a cookie, right? Huck it over thisaway.

Harry: How preposterous, my philomel. I daresay your doggerybaw is enough to drive one perfectly mad.

Chapel: Excellent work, Allison, but let’s focus on the case at hand. *taps folder* You wrote three missing people, and it’s unsolved, so when you’re ready to stop crowing and get back to work ….

Marnie: Don’t jizz a brick, dude, Al’s busy feeling rad.

Batten: You never shut up.

Wes: Don’t let the ray of sunlight and epic angel trumpeting distract you from your fucking work, eh? Jesus.

Danika: DIE, you corpse-fluffing bitch, DIEEEEEEE!

I’ve joined the big ole Amazon KDP thingy; if you’re an indie author, you know what I mean, and if you’re not, probably you don’t give a squat. For the sake of transparency, I’m going to update this blog with naked pictures of my nipples (no, I’m not). Even more horrifyingly, I’ll update the blog with my sales numbers. The free promo started late Thursday night. So far, 1120 free copies of Touched have been downloaded. I’m not sure how many of those will be read, but I’m hopeful. The free promo ends Saturday night at midnight PST, and Touched will return to it’s regular selling price on Amazon. To be continued …

(So, in the end, 1399 copies of Touched were dowloaded for free. In the ten days following, I have sold more copies on Amazon than in the entire months of February and January combined. Conclusion: success! I am quite pleased.)

Technically, I was on the best seller list before, but hovering around #326,890 doesn’t inspire much pride. Now that I’m in the Top Ten, I’d love to say it’s about to get classy up in this joint, but we all know that’s a pile of asspatties. Let’s pretend I’m pouring my muse right back into writing and working hard on Death Rejoices like a good little writerghoulie. Truth be told, I’ll probably dump half a gallon of cherry brandy in my herbal tea and play video games for the rest of the day, and blame the snow, a “headache”, or bone-tickling bliss for my lack of wordcount. Either that, or I’ll spend six hours on Cafe Press making myself a t-shirt that says “I’m #SEVEN, BITCHES!” that only I’ll understand, and then not actually order one, because I’m still a brokeass Sentence Strangler.

Hmmm. Sentence Strangler. Maybe I’ll put that on the t-shirt I have no intention of buying.

(editor’s note: Fair warning:AJ “Avalanche of Awesomesauce” Aalto is going to be (even more) impossible to live with (than she usually is) if Touched climbs the list any further.  Don’t worry, this won’t alarm the Viking Sasquatch she lives with. Nothing does. He’s clinically unsurprisable, ever since that time he caught me folding a brownie around another brownie and trying  to force my mouth around it…)

Well, it’s been a year of blogs from yours truly, and what have we covered? What haven’t we covered?

We talked about how Hemingway’s ghost is almost certainly trying to plonk me with coconuts. We talked about the “joys” of artistic temperment (also known as an eight ball of insecurity, insanity & desperation), grey hairs, forehead wrinkles–I swear, some days I look old enough to be my own mother–battling the various seasons of distraction, stalking your characters, stalking yourself and occassionally others (ie. my eye doctor), kicking evil in the gonads, and being 100% disorganized for most of the writing process.

We discussed what happens when this little kookpie goes on vacation with her Beta Reader In Chief, whether or not vibrators made by the Dyson guy would be see-through with tornado action, whether or not Megatron porking Smurfette would result in tiny blue badass mutant offspring or huge blue badass mutant offspring (this *is* where my brain goes when it relaxes, sorry).

We also investigated the harvesting of the best “brains” at the All Nude Male Revue at Peppermints in Niagara Falls (hubba hubba), and wrangled several fantastic indie authors in my “Taking It To The Grave” series of Evil Author Interviews. Major bonus: some of those authors are still speaking to me after this ordeal! Must be my perfume. It sure isn’t my personality.

We talked about me spouting random Finnish phrases (kaamea ilma! kaamea ilma!) some of which I can no longer translate, but all of which I enjoy saying because the musical/demonic-sounding language of my ancestors makes me happy, even if I still can’t roll the R’s in the middle of seuraavissa liikennevaloissa … “Seurrrrrrr” *tongue fail* “Dammit! Seuuurrrrr” *pauses to wipe spittle off monitor*. We covered that I am  a bipolar biologist, bookseller-bookworm, stalker-eavesdropper, peeper/groper,  unrepentant pervert, amateur writer and professional doofus.

What we didn’t discuss was outlining … mostly because, I don’t know how to outline, and have been putting off learning by using the handy-dandy, nifty-swifty “that’s not how I roll” excuse. In all honesty, I suspect my life would be a lot simpler if I did learn to outline, but I am a World Class Procrastinator when it comes to things that might punch my brain in the face.

<I’d be procrastinating right now, if I had the stamina.>

This year *pauses to take a bracing sip of tea* I’m going to attempt it: I’m going to teach myself how to outline. I even typed that whole sentence without fainting, although I might have thrown up a little in my mouth.

I am sorta kinda first-draft “finished” with my second novel, Death Rejoices. (<— Note how I’m laying facedown on the fence, there … the trick is, put one boob on either side for balance. ) My method for organizing my thoughts throughout my first and second novel looked like this:

I don’t think this is outlining. If it is, GREAT, I already do it, and I’m done and don’t need to learn anything else. However, I suspect I could do a lot better, because I still run into the “uh, now what?” problem; if I were fully outlined, I must assume that wouldn’t happen. Maybe this is naive. Maybe I’m overestimating the power of an outline. Maybe I’m underestimating my “Pantser” techniques–after all, I’ve been writing for twenty-five years, and I’ve managed to produce … oh, right. One finished book. *scuffs toe in blogland sand* Ok, so, yeah, I do need to rethink my process. (Now’s probably a good time to mention that I don’t get around to filling out my plot cards until I’m about 3/4 through writing the novel, after I get stuck and go, “Wonka wha– What happened? How am I in a rendering plant in Wyoming? Who’s Greg? And what the hairy fuck is werelichen? Is this a joke? Am I high?”)

But for book three (tentatively renamed Last Impressions) I’m using the Snowflake Method. If this doesn’t help, I’ll be touring around checking out other methods, and this is where you come in. I invite you to share your outlining methods with me, tips you’ve learned over the years to make organizing your thoughts easier. Do you use a chalk board? A cork board? A grease board (I want one of those, how FBI-chic would that be?), a series of notebooks, a voice recorder? Or are you like me: shoving notecards in my idea box, never to be seen again, and cramming random scraps of paper in toppling piles, and repeating important plot points over and over, like “don’t forget he lost his tongue, don’t forget he lost his tongue” …boy, I get some weird looks in the grocery store.

(editor’s note: AJ Aalto would like to show you the hysterical new size of the Tim Hortons XLRG hot beverage cups. Granted, my hands are wee, and therefore not the best scale to use, but the Moleskine notebook on the right hand side should give you a fair indication of just how much caffeine is on my desk. *twitch*)