Jessica Ferguson

Author, Writing Coach, Speaker

Where’s The Joy … in AI?

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Here we are again, the first Wednesday of the month—a meeting of the Insecure Writers Support Group.

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds
Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.
The awesome co-hosts for the March 6 posting of the IWSG are Kristina Kelly, Miffie Seideman,Jean Davis, and Liza @ Middle Passages!

I’m going to skip right to the optional question.

Have you “played” with AI to write those nasty synopses, or do you refuse to go that route? How do you feel about AI’s impact on creative writing? 

I don’t know much about AI except what I’ve seen on the news and read from other authors. Out of curiosity I took a FREE course from Joseph Michael and found AI fascinating. But to what end? If I create a book through AI, how can I enjoy the creative process, the actual writing? Oh, I know what they’re telling us but to me the creative process is a lot more than putting plot points, descriptions, themes into a few blanks and asking AI to spit out my book.

Looking back on my writing life, here’s my reasoning:

Writing and selling and publishing was so much more fun (for me) when I had nothing but a typewriter, some white-out and a ream of paper. Every month I’d rush to the library to read the latest Writer’s Digest and The Writer. I’d immediately turn to the Market section so I could see who wanted short stories or poetry. When I created what I thought they wanted I stuck the manuscript into a brown envelope, tucked another inside (SASE) and mailed it at the post office. Then I waited, and waited and waited until finally a brown envelope addressed to me in my own handwriting came back to me. Sometimes it had an acceptance letter. Way too often it held my rejected manuscript with a “Thanks but this doesn’t work for us!”

But, Oh what fun to wait. What suspense! What anticipation! What hope!

How wonderful it was to take a 200 page manuscript to the post office and have the clerk weigh it. Off to the publisher it went. One manuscript didn’t come back to me for an entire year!

Today, we email our manuscripts and we seldom get a response unless it’s an acceptance. Nine times out of ten we never get a rejection that says “Thanks but no thanks.” We never SEE the handwriting of an editor or get a “This doesn’t work but send something else.” No notes of encouragement that we can actually read 40 or 50 years later. (I’m laughing here!)

Where’s the encouragement in no response? You’re probably wondering where I’m going with this …

We have computers now that will correct our words for us, unlike when I started writing. Often I had to retype the entire page, sometimes the entire manuscript. You know what? I didn’t mind. I loved typing. I loved writing. I had a vision, a cause, a dream, a purpose.

So if AI takes my last joy away from me … the actual plotting, planning, creating … what do I have left?

As fascinated as I was by the AI course I took, I’ll have to pass. For me, creating is fun. ALL the creating. The daydreaming, the planning, the plotting, the writing … it all gives me joy. It teaches me. It gives me purpose. And believe it or not, I always have enough hope to get me from one rejection to another.

But the promotion? Oh, now that’s a different story. AI … let’s talk!

 

How Do You Write?

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I truly envy those of you who can sit down and plot your entire book scene by scene or chapter by chapter, including each character’s GMC. I can’t. Or maybe I should say I don’t plot to that extent. I use a very vague 3-act structure. And pile lots of random notes into my iPhone.

I start thinking about the story when an idea or a character with a goal or a problem pop into my mind. I vaguely map out the little I know —and hope it’s enough to keep me excited. I’ll be able to tell soon enough … when I start writing. The actual writing is where I get to know my characters and my story. Would you call me a pantser?

I’m a fast typist. If I have a soft comfortable chair to sit in, I can write all day. I just think story and let my fingers fly. The problem, of course, is that there’s a heck of a lot of revision.

Once I wrote four novellas in the course of a few days. That was several years back and I often think about those short books, and how I might make them longer. The characters are still real to me. Their stories still excite me, but they’re so rough I’d probably be overwhelmed if I re-read them. I wonder how long revision would take. I used to love rewriting my novels. Now, not so much.

Every writer has their own writing/plotting/revision methods. Plotting is probably second nature to many of you. I’m good with beginnings and endings–meaning they come fairly easy. It’s the middle that stops me cold and hangs me up.

I’m investigating plottr. It seems like an interesting program—and very visual. I’ve never fully understood or caught on to Scrivener so maybe Plottr will work for me. There’s an interesting YouTube interview with bestselling author Deb Kastner, and she shares her plotting a romance template. There are many good instructional videos showing valuable info regarding plottr. You may have already watched them.

Have you used Plottr? What’s your experience with it? Share how you write. I’m curious and interested.

IWSG DAY: Find the Magic

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I look forward to the first Wednesday of each month because it’s IWSG day. The purpose of IWSG is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds! (And that would be ME!) IWSG was founded by Alex J. Cavanaugh and has hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of members. You can be one too. You can follow other IWSG members or meet them on twitter using the hashtag #IWSG. We also have a thriving Facebook page. Look us over. I think you’ll like us!

And speaking of offering assistance and guidance … I’d like to share a book with you that’s helping me plot a new story. This author is one of my favorites. And she was my editor for The Last Daughter.

Award winning author and editor, Alicia Dean, shares her process of creating a story, along with bonus tips in her how to book, Find The Magic – How to Plot a Story in 10 Easy Steps. Through November 15th, it’s on sale for only 99 cents.  I finished reading Find the Magic last week. What I liked best about the book was Alicia’s honest voice. She made me trust her from page one. But why wouldn’t I? I know that she knows what she’s doing when it comes to writing, editing, critiquing and plotting.

Using specific examples from one of her own novels, Without Mercy (also 99 cents), Alicia shares how to plot a book and expand your outline into a well-developed draft. There is no one, perfect way to create a story, but there will be a method, or methods that work for you.
Find the Magic might hold the answers you need.

Kindle: http://amzn.com/B00OR0IY0W
Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/find-the-magic-how-to-plot-a-story-in-10-easy-steps-alicia-dean/1120638115?ean=2940150382169

  In addition to being an author of more than twenty published works, Alicia Dean is both a freelance editor and an editor for The Wild Rose Press, under the name, Ally Robertson, in their suspense line. I highly recommend you get too know Alicia through her books, or social media.

Alicia/Ally is one of the good guys and she knows what writing, publishing and marketing is all about.

Website: http://aliciadean.com/ Blog: http://aliciadean.com/alicias-blog/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008364070487 Twitter: https://twitter.com/Alicia_Dean_ Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/aliciamdean/ Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/468339.Alicia_Dean

N is for Novel (writing, that is)

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I went to bed last night thinking that N is for Neighborhood. I visualized an entire Neighborhood of writers. Woke up thinking “there’s no way we could all live together” so I’ve changed my topic to novel–as in writing tips.

I have so many ideas floating around in my head these days, I just want to get them on paper. I thought I’d share how I go about it. Below is what I put on the first page. I want to keep these things in the forefront of my mind. I think this ABCDE info came from Anne Lamott.

ACTION:

BACKGROUND:

CONFLICT:

DEVELOPMENT:

END
Here’s my Note to Self:
I need characters that are larger than life; a heroine who can fight for herself and still be likeable. The story should be filled with emotion and the plot must be plausible with motivation and conflict.
Then I lay out the potential novel like a three-act play and I start filling in the info which makes it a lot easier than you might think. Basically, this is brainstorming with yourself.

Beginning: (I jot down notes, my hook, motivation, hero/heroine’s goal, the problem, anything to do with the opening.)

Middle: (A few notes will grow the the middle. This is the most difficult for me. I list any obstacles or complications my characters face; sometimes scenes begin to form. I jot them down even though they’re vague.)

End: (Last quarter of the book. How it ends, the black moment. Have the characters changed? How? Anything I know about how the novel ends.)

When I go to bed at night, I “play” my story in my head and watch it until I fall asleep. Usually, I have new ideas/scenes the following morning:

If there’s one thing I know about myself, it’s that I need structure and specifics to keep me on the right path. I have several completed novels that I’ve written SOTP (Seat of the Pants) and they STILL have problems. Sometimes I’ll cut and paste the publisher’s guidelines on the page to keep me on track. As I develop the story, it spills onto page two, page three and page four. I love seeing the story grow.  The other day I came across a great plotting device by author Linda Goodnight. Check it out HERE, click on For Writers then, Plotting In A Circle.

Do you have any novel plotting tips to share?

How To Write and Then Some

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Some writers outline their books using index cards or Excel; they jot notes about every scene. In other words, they’re plotting their books scene by scene. I don’t know if they do the entire book all at once or if they go as far as they can before they stop to write to the end of their list of scenes.  When they feel the need, I guess, they start with the scene by scene outline again. Seems like an incredible amount of detail work to me, but I can see where it would be effective. Basically, who, what, when, and where are addressed in each scene. Actually, this method of outlining makes writing a novel seem pretty easy, doesn’t it?

There are so many ways to plot and write a book. The fine-tuning and layering is a whole other matter. Don’t even get me started on subtexting. There are so many things we need to know and learn and do before, during and after we have a finished product.

My question is: do you think a writer can “over-educate” himself to the point any natural talent he has might be warped or distorted by all the rules/how-to/book learning? Does this question even make sense?

My answer to my question is: I suppose we should read, write, study until everything we need to know is second nature when we write.
Yes, I often talk to myself.  
What are your thoughts?