Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

planning

What Makes Ten Weeks Feel Like Just Enough?

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I have a plan and ten weeks stretching out before me waiting to be filled.

It’s a simple plan.

  • Revise some books.
  • Approve a final edit (or two)
  • Write another Solstice Dragon World novel.
  • Work with my cover artist for the new fantasy series in the works
  • Update a few files
  • Paperback the Standing Stone series (at least two of them. The rest I’ll shoehorn in as the year progresses.)
  • Hardback the Solstice Dragon World novels
  • Sail a lake or two
  • Ride the tandem bike a few hundred miles
  • Beta read (provide feedback) a novel for a fellow writer
  • Write three blog posts
  • Write three newsletters (which you can join by clicking the Sign Up! tab at the top)

Today was Day One. This is how I did.

  1. Two thousands words written on the final chapter of The Wielder’s Grimoire, book 5 of Standing Stone.
  2. Six chapters revised.
  3. This is post number one. I’ll give myself half a credit at this point.
  4. I did exercise, just not on the tandem bicycle or the sailboat (treadmill today)
  5. Finalized the paperback version of The Sharded Boy (won’t publish it until I have The Shifter Shard ready to go as well)

Not bad for Day One.

Tomorrow will be more productive.

  • Another two thousands words (or more. I won’t argue against more.)
  • Two more chapters revised
  • Probably another treadmill day or yoga. I’ll know when I wake up which is the best option. Probably treadmill as it tends to warm me up for writing
  • Complete the preparations on The Dragon Question‘s file for hardback version.
  • Start the prep on the hardcover image
  • Start the June newsletter

I know this is not the most exciting post I’ve made, but I’m in the mood for organizing. It’s sort of like the nesting activities of a pregnant women close to term. I need to get things situated, their order of importance figured out and anything that only takes a day or two out of the way to make room for the big stuff on the horizon.

Ironically, I don’t write from an outline. My books tend to flow like a river from the headwaters on a mountain. Words trickle in and gather into sentence rivulets. The rivulets join and make a stream. More streams rush on and form a narrow river that then cuts high banks to its final destination. Novel.

Busy in 2020 by an order of 4 maybe 5

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I thought an update was do. I’ve been writing, editing, redrafting, planning and preparing paperbacks.

This won’t be a long post, more of a list of what is in the works.

  • The fourth book in the Solstice Dragon World, To Harbor a Dragon, is now up as a pre-order set to upload at the end of April. A paperback version will follow shortly after the eBook goes live.
  • The third book in the Solstice Dragon World, Dira’s Dragon, is in the works to be available in paperback, tentative deadline is set for mid-March.
  • My new series Kavin Cut Chronicles is moving along nicely. Covers are in the works next week with Ryn Katryn Digital Art. (Loraine has done all my covers. I love her work!) I expect the first to publish about May with the pre-order coming out in March.
  • The two Kavin Cut Chronicles that will complete the trilogy should be out before summer ends and in eBook and paperback.
  • A fifth book for the Standing Stone series will be hitting the drafting board sometime in August, I expect, and will be out before the end of the year.
  • The Standing Stone series should be out in paperback by summer 2020.
  • If all goes according to plan, this will be the year I publish four perhaps even five books in twelve months, a new record: One Solstice Dragon World, three Kavin Cut Chronicles and one Standing Stone. All will be in paperback shortly after the eBook publication.

So that is the plan, subject to change, of course. The fifth Standing Stone is the one that has the greatest wiggle room. It may have to wait until January 2021 for publication, though the pre-order will definitely go up between October and December 2020.

This year is off to a wonderful start. I hope yours is as well. May you find plenty of lovely books to read, lots of adventure in your world and contentment where it counts the most.

My plans for 2021 are very fluid, so if you have a particular series you wish me to focus on next year, post it in the comments. My fans definitely have pull with me.

5 Important ingredients to a writer’s office

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I’ve had my new office for about a month and a half. But my point about writers and offices doesn’t start there.

My first office was a folding table about 2 1/2 ft. by 18 in., an old TV stand with a shelf and my daughter’s dingy purple desk chair.

I would move the assemblage to the front of my living room near the window in spring and summer and to the back of the living room a few feet from the gas stove in fall and winter.

It had two positive qualities: portability and the shelf in the TV stand. I used this arrangement for four years along with a lengthy extension cord. I did not complain.

In August, we visited a consignment furniture store.

We’ve bought our china cabinet, two bedside tables and a dining room table at this store in the past. Walking through the shop is one of our favorite monthly activities.

I was walking one way, my husband the other when I heard him call my name. He waved me over.

Along one display wall stood a set of wall cabinets, solid wood, cherry finish, near new condition: five bottoms with doors and drawers, two uppers with shelves, one each with cubbies (aka wine bottle slots); let’s call them cubbies.

“This would make a great office for you.”

I’d given the pieces only a vague glance. Now I looked closer. He gave me my space, backing up and leaving me to my imagination.

It took me about two minutes to realize I was not leaving the store without them.

Then behind me, my name was whispered, a sense of urgency in the quiet word.

I turned. Instant, total, “I must have this!” sprang into my mind. If I had to choose — this piece was it.

Mounted on the wall across from those amazing cabinets was a miracle.

I had been telling my husband how much I wished I had a white board or a magnetic board or even a pin board to plan my novels on.

Eight feet of combined planning board spread open before me. On the inside of the doors, right and left, were fabric covered pin boards. Dead center: a magnetic white board. Above, a pull down screen. Below a tray for markers, eraser, pens and pins.

I wasn’t leaving without it. I would sacrifice the cabinets to have this somewhere in the house. I didn’t care where. There’s a huge blank wall in our downstairs bathroom.

Time to look at prices. All pieces were on their last week of sale — lowest price each was going to go.

It took two trips, but we got all ten pieces home.

My new office in the living room has three walls. One has six cabinets, three uppers, three lowers. The second wall has three lowers and the planning miracle. Third wall has three boxed kitchen floor-to-ceiling cabinets to give me privacy (temporary). My desk is a 4×2 folding table and is backed by a bookshelf facing the other way.


So what are the five essential ingredients to a writer’s office after 1 1/2 months:

  1. a flat surface sufficient to hold one laptop computer, an upright organizer, bottle of water, notepad, ipad and a cup with pens and other oddments. 
  2. the back side of a bookcase for sticky note to-do-list
  3. a planning board (with multiple planning modes)
  4. cubbies
  5. a writer

Please note: there was no mention of portability or a shelf.

Extras:  supplies for said planner board, books and various electronics neatly organized in drawers, cabinets and shelves.

My final advice. Find yourself a consignment shop. There is bound to be some fool willing to sell a miracle planning board.

#amwriting
#amplanning
#amcontent

Retirement: it will happen to you ready or not

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Ready for retirement?

I’d like to talk about retirement. I’d like to retire too, but since that’s not coming anytime soon (unless my books start really rolling off the digital shelves–feel welcome to participate in precipitating my early retirement), I’ll just talk about it.

First, you must consider as early as possible that you will retire one day and that you want a place to live, a partner to share it with, good health and money coming in. 
My mother was recently placed in elder care, and she had little liquid funds and only a house with investment value. We are scrambling to support her care. She is in excellent health though deteriorating mentally. But living with funds available is the issue. 
Second how can you prepare for retirement?  Investments are good. (Can’t help you with choices on that.) We have employee retirement that we are vested in, and a supplemental retirement plan we send to monthly. We purchased land at a nice but not popular lake, and we started building a house on it last summer. We are doing everything except pouring the concrete for the foundation, but we did handle troweling the concrete into place and smoothing it, relatively anyway. 
We just about have the house at the dry-in stage: windows in, roof on, last of the siding going up as I type. Time frame for completion?  Was two years, but my husband recently, nonchalantly, stated a day ago that five years wasn’t an unreasonable likelihood. 
Point here. Be ready to face the obvious thing you forgot to note. In our case, that was our daughter’s college tuition. It impacted our savings potential significantly. Both our retirement-related loans (land, building) are on less than ten year runs. Still, we do have that house we are currently living in that has value we can make use of for tying loose monetary ends later. 
How far away is our retirement? Ten years. So we’ll make our deadline fine. But we wouldn’t have if we hadn’t started early. 
As for the other requirements? I’ve been married nearly 35 years and my fellow continues to be good company. Health for both of us is good, and we make the effort to maintain it. Continued employment appears strong as well. 
I feel better now that we’ve had this chat. How are you pre-managing your retirement? Are you planning ahead or buying lottery tickets? Do you have a will or are you indestructible? Smoke and eat fast food or are you taking your vitamins, prescriptions, exercising regularly and vigorously and seeing you doctor once a year?
Retirement, it’s getting here whether you are watching for it or not. I’ll take tremendous sales figures on my books any day, but in the mean time, I’m going to do a few supporting actions for a modest retirement just in case the New York Times list does not come knocking. 

Creativity: Multitasking the process

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Multitask the process of writing

Let’s face it, if you are working at a job that you enjoy and that also pays the bills and writing for publication in your free time, than multitasking is probably a necessary evil. I don’t advocate the idea of using up every moment for productive result at all times: cleaning house, writing, food preparation, outdoor maintenance, etc., leaving yourself without a moment to sit and relax, read a book, talk silly with someone, enjoy the view, and so on. But if you are in the same situation I and many other writers are, you are squeezing time out of anything not related to work and family.

You are multitasking for your craft during the precious moments you have garnered.

I have my own approach to this process.  When the opportunity to write is present, I do the following:

  • When I am writing a first draft, I focus all my creative energies on that work. For the most part, I won’t turn to any other writing until the draft is done.
  • If I am in redraft, everything changes.  (And you are going to see the paradox of this in relation to the first point.) That’s when I move about from work to work.
    • I redraft two ways: clarifying what is already written and adding scenes that expand and develop.
    • I plan out my next novel first with Freemind, brainstorming simple hints and ideas I have about plot and character. 
    • Next I break down each scene and enter them into yWriter for later development.
    • I edit the current work that I am preparing for publication.
    • If I have sent out a draft to my beta readers, than I jump into writing my next novel, but…
    • If at any time an idea or needed expansion scene comes to mind for the work that is out for feedback, I’ll drop what I am doing and return to that work.
    • I work on cover art, blurbs, make changes to social media backgrounds to reflect new or upcoming publications, and generally organize files.
    • I back up in two other drives (flash and external drives) everything I have going on.
    • If I am beta reading or editing for a writer friend, then I will give over a couple of weeks to that as they arrive.

 What does this look like in real time?  Let me show what last year looked like.

Real time (wish it had time travel button)
  1.  The book I was anticipating publishing had the working title Time 3. It was already drafted to the point that I needed my beta reader to look at it. She had sent me her newest work for beta read and I had just finished with that.  So I sent mine off to her in October.  (My year always starts in September, teacher and all that.)
  2. I then turned to the work that I had in first draft, Time 4, and began refining and adding scenes.  My beta reader anticipated getting her response back by November, but I had told her to take her time fitting it in to her drafting schedule and did not expect it back before December.
  3. Every now and then a flash of concern over a scene would come to mind for Time 3, and I would open it up, make some additions and then return to 4.
  4. December was just around the corner and my beta reader was expecting to get it to me by then. I asked her to delay as things were moving so well on Time 4 that I did not want the tug to redraft (damn near wrenching grasp) that would occur when her comments came back. So she held off sending while I wrote madly on Time 4. 
  5. January, I gave her the go ahead.  
  6. Worked with my beta buddy and husband to come up with a strong title for Time 3. (I now have titles for books I haven’t even thought of!)
  7. My mind was beginning to wander onto Time 5, already mapped in Freemind. I started making scene notes in yWriter.
  8. Time 4 was reaching a state of full draft and then I realized where I was ending it was not really the end. Back into mapping, and scene notes to plan out the new ending: Characters! Sometimes they yell, “Hey, we’re not done. What about….”  Mine were screaming and waving, and generally making irresistible sense.
  9. March, put Time 3 through another redraft per beta reader inspiration.
  10. April, working on the house and in strode contemporary novel idea.  Amazing what can come to you when you’re digging foundation holes for concrete.  Stopped work on Time 3 & 4 to begin mapping, character design and scene planning.
  11. Returned to Time 4.
  12. Still April, sent Time 3 off to a second beta reader.
  13. Returned to Time 4 to develop new ending.
  14. May, received Time 3’s new feedback.  And made adjustments to clear up issues.
  15. July put Time 3 through numerous edits: line, content, reverse, search and replace, formatting.
  16. Revised two book covers and updated various necessary sites. Designed cover art for Time 3 and Time 4. Prepared the blurb.
  17. Last day of July published Next Time We Meet (Time 3) on Smashwords and Amazon.
  18. In July, I received a novel to beta read.  I got to it in August. I took a couple weeks to read and draft comments on my friend’s book.
  19. August, returned to work on Time 4.
  20. Designed cover art for omnibus three book box set for all books currently published for the Students of Jump series (In Times Passed, No-time like the Present, Next Time We Meet.)
  21. Returned to preparing for the new school year.  I haven’t added to any of my ongoing projects since August 11.  Time 4 still has a patchwork ending.  My contemporary fiction idea is barely planned out, and Time 5 is looking a bit bleary eyed.
  22. So in the little bits of time that I have available, I am tweeting, reading, visiting Goodreads and Google+, and blogging.
  23. And since December 2013, my hubby, daughter and I have been building a house.  Roof is going on this month.
  24. But I managed to read three of the Divergent books, two YA books my daughter wanted me to read, all four of Jodi Taylor’s St. Mary’s books.  Another novel by Taylor.   Connie Willis’s Passage, and three other time travel books, both Patterson’s Heinlein biographies, and King’s On Writing.  So I do relax now and then (hmm, or do research depending on how you look at it). And I tweeted, blogged, found pics for Pinterest, commented….

And how do you run your never-take-a-moment-to-sit-down-and-do-nothing writing?

#writing
#creativity
#multitasking

Learning from the masters series: Jasper Fforde & world building

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Always looking at a master’s work before tackling your own world building is a good way to not just see the process in action but immerse yourself in it, so when you dive into your own work, the spell has been cast, a sense of the cape of good building has been settled like a lawn about your shoulders.  The magic seeps in and passes out through your fingertips.  Well, maybe not, but paying attention to when it is done well, can teach you how to do it right.

Jasper Fforde builds worlds with aplomb, as though the place and characters were just out there, and he was writing it out as it lay before him, mesmerizing, real.  The first book of Fforde’s that I read was The Eyre Affair.  I had just reread Jane Eyre, so I had a fine time revisiting the characters through this new lens.  The setting was a familiar place, and the premise was comfortable to swallow.

I followed the Thursday Next series through to the end and went in search of his next work.  I settled on Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron.  This new world was thoroughly out there, fully realized, different from any real or created world of my experience.  Fforde integrated everything: politics, social interaction, the scope of visual intake, family structure, love, oddnesss within the very strangeness of the world itself which was more than weird enough, might I say “quirky?”  Look at this excerpt.

   “You!” I cried.  For standing on the doorstep was the quirky rude girl who had threatened to break my jaw back in Vermillion.  I felt a curious mix of elation and trepidation, which came out as looking startled.  And so was she.  A second’s worth of doubt crossed her face, then she relaxed and stared at me impassively.
   “You’ve met?” came a stern voice. Standing behind her was a woman who I assumed must be Sally Gamboge, the Yellow prefect.  She, like Bunty McMustard at the station, was covered from head to foot in a well-tailored bright synthetic-yellow skirt and jacket.  She even had yellow earrings, headband and watch strap.  The color was so bright, in fact, that my cortex cross-fired, and her clothes became less of a fierce shade and more the sickly-sweet smell of bananas. But it wasn’t actually a smell; it was only the sense of one.
  “Yes,” I said without thinking.  “She threatened to break my jaw!”
   It was a very serious accusation, and I regretted saying it almost immediately.  Russets don’t usually snitch.
   “Where was this?” the woman asked.
   “Vermillion,” I replied in a quiet voice.”
   “Jane?” said Gamboge sternly. “Is this true?”
   “No, ma’am,” she replied in an even tone, quite unlike the threatening one I had heard that morning.    “I’ve never even see this young man before–or been to Vermillion.”

Everything is suffused with color references, literally soaked (hmmm, unexpected pun; take it as intended.  Fforde would appreciate it).  I love that Russet’s cortex cross-fired, resulting in the unpleasant smell of overripe bananas.  This world of chromatic status and underground color-exposure sneaking renegades rides a tight pencil line.

I cannot imagine the degree of planning and research that went into its creation, but I can appreciate it.  The plot, characterization,  names, development of relationships, economics, politics, medicine, education system, and so forth, all drove the conflict in a slow buildup that felt by page 105 a normal flow of the world this novel developed from.  It was that country next door; you know, that one with odd ideas, but they manage to run the nation that way.  Totally believable, quirky and real.

So how did he do it.  I am sure he has some system of development.  Surely, this did not just fly from the fingertips day after day without the groundwork being laid months in advance.  Time.  He must have used lots of time and thought on this work.  Surely, much was supported by the inspired moment of writing, but planning and development had to come first.

  • Who has power and how does it relate to color recognition?
  • The list of names for people, places, occupations, conditions, social status, common phrasing must have been a tremendous effort to create.  The fashion industry, yearly function of having to come up with unique names for the new year’s favorite colors, has to be envious or else rubbing their hands with relish since they now had a text that would be their quintessential resource for decades to come.
  • What is the ultimate degree of a color and what the minimum before stopping at grey?
  • The punishment for not following the rules, or breaking tradition or going against social expectation.
  • What are the dangers to stepping past your designated chromatic level?
  • What type of person would attempt to break the rules?
  • How would the hero cope with the conflict against such imbedded protocol? 
  • What would be the benefit of breaking from the rules of society, the legal system, occupation, family position and structure?
  • How does love fit into this? Does it not have a place at all or is it warped?
  • What is the underlying logic of the descent of chromatic recognition?  Did it have a beginning or is it a steady state now reaching an end to the balance due to some new evolution?

The list of questions goes on and on.   But to build a world so different from the one we live in so much must be thought through and committed to paper before the story can begin to tell itself.  I read with pleasure, but a part of me spent a lot of time just being awed by Fforde’s creation.

What author’s world has held you captive, impressed and blown over?  What important questions must she or he had to have asked before the story could gain traction?  What was the underlying difference it fed from?