Imogen Elvis: Gossiping with Dragons: guest post

Guest Post: Five Ways Editing is Like Dragon-Slaying

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Today, I am very excited to say, we have a guest poster on the blog. Heather, from the blog Sometimes I'm a Story, has kindly stopped by to talk all this editing. Heather is one of my favourite bloggers, and her blog is filled with thought provoking, entertaining posts on writing, music, books, characters, and other interesting subject. If you have a moment, please stop by her blog and say hi. And if you'd like to guest post on my blog, feel free to send me a message!

Editing. It’s not hard to imagine it as a vile, green beast towering above we writers, and honestly, we’d probably be better off sleeping late than trying to battle it. But we’re writers. Knights. Sleeping isn’t in our job description.

That being said, even if you don’t own a sword or can’t stand the thought of horses, dragon-slayers and writers have a few things in common. Think about it.

1. You’re on a Quest

The dragon is never your next door neighbor—the slaying comes after miles of uncomfortable journeying and unpleasant backtracking. Things you never even realized were problems challenge you: plot holes, underdeveloped characterization, interfering magicians.

You, however, are at an advantage: you know you’re going questing and can prepare. Buy chocolate to reward yourself, cups of tea or coffee to sustain you through three-hour editing sessions. Look for mentors who’ve slain a few dragons of their own and set goals so you don’t charge into your project blind. Yes, it will still be difficult—but if it wasn’t, would you still be able to call it a quest?

2. You Need Help

Have you ever heard of a knight who braved dragon fire alone and lived? No, there’s got to be someone else: teams of critique partners, beta readers, and perhaps a kindly monk (or someone) with an available shoulder to cry on. We wouldn’t get very far without people to break us down and build us up again.

Friends and family are often willing to support us, but out in the wild, we need each another to trade, if we can. There are a lot of sites out there dedicated to connecting writers (dunno about dragon-slayers) and plenty writing communities centralize around blogs, just like this one!

3. You Are Your Own Best Resource

It is important to have a sword when dragon-slaying, but without YOU to wield it, it’s little more than a sharp, shiny stick. Hundreds of tools are at your disposal, but unless you keep practicing, and take the initiative to use them, they’re never going to be more than good intentions.

So hone yourself into the weapon you want to be. Study up on your dragon, think of the best way to attack him, and work hard to make that attack plan possible. Unlike with a real dragon, it’s okay if you fail the first time when writing. You aren’t made of metal, and have plenty of room to grow!

4. The Dragon Wants to Live

Editing is hard, and so is killing dragons (surprise, surprise). If you don’t hone your craft or persevere through the hard parts, that dragon will remain not-dead. Likewise, if you get all the way to the dragon’s cave and you don’t have your weapon ready, then you’ll probably scream “Run away!” like King Arthur and his knights.

Dragons are invariably intelligent, and they’ll distract you at all costs. Pinterest, Facebook, video games, friends, taverns, peril—anything! Anything to keep the status quo and your blade away from its neck. It’s our job as knights and writers to overcome temptation and push on—as my dad reminds me: “It will still be there in the morning.”

5. You’ll Come Home Again

Whether it be the next draft, the next novel, or the next great project, there’s always going to be “one more dragon.” That’s the thing about quests: you end up back where you started—and the same is true here.

What can you do? Get really, really good at questing. The more you practice, the more you improve. It doesn’t get easier, but it gets more familiar, and when you know more than the dragon you’re well on your way to success!

One more thing: when you go on a quest, you change in one way or another. Every draft will teach you, and you’ll improve with every dragon you hack away. The best part? When you’re all done, you have the head of a dragon to tack on your wall—which is something to be proud of.

Go forth, dragon slayers! Your quest awaits.

Have you slain any dragons lately? What are your tips to slay tricky drafts?

Heather is first and foremost a velociraptor, but when she’s not wreaking her revenge on the world, she blogs at SometimesI’m a Story and Wandering in a Blur. She also loves to beta read, watch movies, and sleep. For excessive blog promotions and the occasional original tweet, you can find her on Twitter.

guest post

Guest Post: Five Tips For Surviving NaNoWriMo

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guest post

Guest Post: 5 Ways to See Your Novel Through

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Today's guest is young writer, Laura. In this amazing post, she talks about how to keep going with your novel, even when you're finding it difficult to sit down and write. Why not hop over to her blog after you've read this post and say hi?

1. Identify Distractions

What is keeping you from writing? Social media? Homework? Family? Watching too much TV? Maybe it’s several things, but once you identify the problem, you can make a concerted strategy to keep those things from cutting out your writing time. If it’s social media, sign out, unplug, and turn off your cell phone or wifi. For example, one of my main distractions is school, but if I would just stop being such a perfectionist things would go a lot faster. Another distraction is social media, but if I would stop looking at every single post and start ending chat conversations a bit earlier, I could free up some more time.

2. Set a Specific Time to Write.

Writing is just like every other part of your life: if you don't purposely make room for it an endless to-do list will readily fill in the space. Early in the morning or late at night are often good times, depending on your schedule. Getting up before everyone else is awake and writing for an hour or so with a fresh mind is good, but you may prefer writing at night when you have free time and all your other work is done.

If you start writing at the same time in the same place every day, it will soon become a habit. You won't have to force yourself to stop what you're doing to sit down and write, it will begin to become a natural part of your life. It's like working out or starting healthy eating...at first it's a struggle, but will eventually become a natural part of your lifestyle. Additionally, people close to you may leave you alone a bit more during your designated writing time once they get used to your habit.

3. Stay Inspired

Make a Pinterest board, Tumblr tag, or just a folder on your computer to keep all the music, quotes, and images that remind you of and inspire you about your story. Collect pictures of settings, choose a character cast, find some mood music for important scenes, and any time your imagination gets dull just go take a look at your inspiration center. After I joined Pinterest, I started needing to restrain myself from using all the great story inspiration I found for more characters and plot bunnies!

Try to remember what made you choose this story in the first place. No story idea is perfect, but there was probably SOMETHING that got you excited about it, so focus on that element! Perhaps it was a character, or a cool concept, or a movie you saw, or a line from a poem. Whatever it was, go back to that and you may get inspired all over again!

4. Outline, Outline, Outline.

This will keep you on track and help you avoid getting stuck and quitting. If I’m having an especially hard time, I sometimes find it helpful to outline not only major points of the story, but also individual scenes. I’ve even done outlines for just one page before when it was a complicated part I was struggling to get right. If you know where your story is going and have a plan of action, you won't struggle so much with writer's block. I like outlines because if I'm inspired about one part of the story at the moment, I can just write on that section knowing that it will fit in with the other parts later.

5. Let Yourself Make Mistakes

A lot of writers struggle with perfectionism, which can cause the whole process to slow down so much that they give up. But if you simply accept the fact that there will be weak parts in your first draft, you can actually FINISH it and pat yourself on the back for a job well-but-not-perfectly-done. After all, the proper way of editing is not to critique-to-death every word, but rather to get out a rough draft and then come back to your work a bit later and reevaluate and make changes--even extensive changes. I'm not saying write a mess, but simply trust yourself a bit more and realize that you can come back and touch things up and even add more scenes later.

Laura Mizvaria is a 19 year old Christian girl in her junior year of going to college online. She wrote her first book at age 12 and has explored many areas of writing ever since--from poetry to screenwriting. She has many other interests such as reading, digital art, photography, and cinematography and some of her favorite things are the great outdoors, Narnia, tea, places overflowing with books, classic movies, and Steampunk fashion. Laura runs a blog at Mizvaria.blogspot.com where she posts writing tips, inspiration, and more. You can also find her on Pinterest, deviantART, and Twitter.