Writing + Life

Hello my lovelies! How have you been?

I’ve been doing lots of fun stuff!

As you know, I started my author Facebook Page, which you can check out here or search for Wynelda Ann Deaver. It’s fun! But it’s also kind of weird. We are running a contest, if you Like the page, Like the contest Post, Share and leave a comment, you’ll be entered to win a $25 Gift Card (Barnes and Nobles, Amazon, Starbucks, ETC). That is being run here , but you need to like the page anyways! We’ll give away the card at 100 Likes.

Oh hey. I keep saying WE a lot up there, don’t I? Yes, they lovely and talented Leyla is helping me. In addition to having a sharp mind and being an evil thinker like I, she is also my niece. It’s so totally great being able to bounce ideas off of someone who A) knows where I’m going and B) also knows when to reel me in.

Last week, I was also introduced to Nicole Blackwell. She has a great magazine coming up, called City Express, all about highlighting the positive in the area. I’m writing a couple of essays for it, the first one is done and over there. It’s not currently for pay but it does fall into my Greater Good folder.

What’s a Greater Good Folder? It’s things that I write because I believe in the cause. Because I believe enough in the cause to donate my time and or talents. That doesn’t happen often, and believe me I’d really prefer to be paid. But I’m getting something more than just a published clip out of it too.

Broken my lovely paranormal urban fantasy that I LOVE SO MUCH got a rejection last week too. But they also gave me lots of direction on where to go, and I think my lovely writing buddy **waves at Rie** might just help me out. The story isn’t broken, hehe, just bent.

And now finally! We’re running a Facebook Launch Party for Avast, Ye Airships! I’ve never done one before, and I kind of ***ahem*** threw Rie under the bus on this one (sheesh! And she’s such a good friend! I need to be much nicer!) yet again. Of course, I am helping out! Really! I am! You can ask her! It runs on February 28th, from 7pm Eastern to 11pm! You need to drop by, it’ll be loads of fun!

So a little bit of bad, but a whole lot of good going on. Trying to keep the bright, sparkly day’s going. And be a good mom.

I’ll have more soon, my lovelies!

Guest Post: Jeffrey Cook on Building a Story

Welcome another Pirate, Mateys! I love hearing how other writers get their ideas, don’t you? You can catch him at his website, www.authorjeffreycook.com or his Facebook Page  or on twitter at @jeffreycook74.

When approaching new projects, in whatever genre, I tend to start with the characters, and then build the world around them. When writing the Dawn of Steam series, my first venture into Steampunk, I hadn’t specifically intended to write a Steampunk series. Instead, I woke up one morning from a waking dream with two of the characters almost fully fleshed out. I wrote down the ideas before I lost them, and then started to research a world where both of them would fit. 

    A few friends introduced me to the Steampunk genre. The Victorian Age wasn’t quite right for my characters, but had a lot of the right elements. I researched further back in time as my story took shape, its timeline mostly following history, but including a few points where specific events happened that allowed for an Earth that was moving towards a Steampunk reality. Because of the two characters who showed up first, the story became “Emergent Steampunk” — at least one potential story explaining where reality may have shifted to make a lot of common Steampunk tropes “true.” From that focus came the title of the overall series.

   Katherine Perkins and I followed a similar process for some short stories. When we were presented with an anthology looking for stories, looking to reach a wider Steampunk audience in general, we worked together on two characters, Luca and Emily. They fit into a more standard Victorian Steampunk reality. Most of their stories involve a real world event and occasionally real historical figures of the 1880’s and 1890’s. Our Avast submission, “Maiden Voyage,” ended up a little different for lack of real-world airships — but it’s still first and foremost about the characters and how they ended up shaped by and shaping the technology and social mores of their time.

Guest Post: Amy Braun and Juggling the Writing Life

Hello, My Lovelies! I want to introduce you to one of my fellow pirates, the lovely Amy Braun!  She’s on twitter @amybraunauthor or you can find her blog here. Avast, Ye Airships! will be out on February 26, and you can find lots more information on it here.

Thank you for having me guest post, Wynelda! You asked me to offer my thoughts about juggling writing and life, which I thankfully know how to manage.

The Internet is the best tool for writing advice. You can find tips on how to create a story, draw inspiration, technical and publishing techniques, any and everything you might need. But there’s one piece of advice that I always see, and hold higher than all the others.

Write as much as you can.

Now, I’m not married and have no children, but I do have a full time job that takes up my entire day. So with every second of spare time I have, I write. It’s become a habit, something I’ve integrated into my life so completely that not writing will actually make me uncomfortable. When I have my breaks or have run out of things to do at work, I type on my phone (not the handiest tool, but it’s less conspicuous than my laptop). It doesn’t matter if I don’t use what I end up writing. The idea is to do it. Make it part of your routine, and you’ll see that you can’t stop thinking about it. You want to complete your tasks quick and efficiently to get back to your words.

I also started setting goals for myself. My weekend falls on Mondays and Tuesdays, which I use to get massive amounts of work done. On a good day, I can edit through an entire story or write around 10,000 words.

The best advice I can give is to simply make writing part of your life. Not as a job, but as something you can use to unwind and release your creativity. I find that no matter how stressful my day is, if I start writing, I feel better. The words come out and if I get writers block, I move onto something else. I never, ever, ever stop writing. These days, it’s not so much a habit as it is an integral part of my life. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.