This week the Robots sit down with indie author A.P.Stephens to talk about his writing, his promotional efforts, and his recent Kickstarter campaign. We hope you enjoy the conversation, and come say hi if you’re at BaltiCon!

A.P. Stephens’ website

This week’s promo – The FLASH PULP Podcast

I just completed my first full-sized novel draft and now I want to help you to do the same. It took quite a bit out of me, however, so I want to make sure that you don’t suffer the pain of almost failing at it.

Some back-story: after a few years of NaNoWriMo, I took on my first out-of-season novel challenge this year and came out at the other end with over 120,000 words before typing out “The End”. This accomplishment arrived despite – or perhaps because of – a full-time job and other project work filling up every day’s schedule. How did this inexperienced author accomplish this feat in the space of less than four months?

Upon review, a few necessary conditions stuck out at me. These broke down along the lines of training, environment, preparation, and inspiration. Today’s retrospective of that productive route, though, takes us off of that beaten path.

Training Season

My experience with NaNoWriMo matters because it set the standard for my daily goals. Knocking out 2,000 words each day made the full-length novel’s daily goal of 1,000 words into a relative cake-walk. I had over-trained all of my writing muscles before the “main event”. What might have happened if I had started right away with four months of daily word-count goals? I fear that the burn-out from such a workload would have crushed me. Even with that practice, though, I only survived thanks to a few days spent off of the race track, which brings us to the point of this post.

Breaking A Sweat

Breaks make a huge difference. They might make all of the difference when paced well. Back in NaNoWriMo, I would schedule days where I contributed exactly zero to my word count. That practice slipped my mind during the full-sized novel project, somehow, when I managed to write for nearly every single one of those almost 120 days. The latter attempt at unceasing work nearly doomed the entire endeavor when it collided with other sources of exhaustion.

Breaking Down

On one already quite-busy day (at a convention) half-way through the writing run, I found that not a single finger could find itself onto the keyboard. Mild terror ran through me upon the realization, tempered only by a body and mind too exhausted to appreciate it, and my mental protests failed to stir one creative word. I felt emptied of all literary content despite all of the geekery that surrounded me on that trip. What had happened? I took a deliberate, conscious break after that.

What resulted from that break? My laptop stayed back in the hotel room and saw nothing of me for over sixteen hours. Even the strongest marathon runner can only complete a finite number of laps, after all, and I had passed my threshold. By the time I returned to that computer, I wanted to tear it open.

The words came pouring out of the keyboard. The break had freed my mind up to take in new ideas instead of synthesizing them into fiction, like lungs tired of expelling carbon dioxide and desperate to inhale fresh air. That break did the trick and put me back on track to writing most every day after that. I made a point of taking a similar but longer break after finishing the entire novel, which came with its own break-related lessons.

Breaking Up

Learning one lesson from the novel marathon, I switched my schedule up to focus on other projects. This included a dialing-down of the fiction work to just a new short story but it also excluded sancrosanct placeholders for breaks. I ended up trying to work through Saturdays (my preferred day of rest) and paid the price.

At first, working on Saturdays sounded like a great plan. How better to play catch-up on work that had external time tables, right? I felt more than ready to tackle the work, too, and gave it my best shot. Can you guess what happened next?

I skirted the precipice of burn-out. Other factors (including relationship ones) contributed, but the subjectivity of my perceived capacities re-asserted itself when I found myself with no other choice than to take another break day. After that, I re-learned and retained the lesson that I want to pass onto you below.

Breaking Even

On a recent Saturday, I felt more than ready to catch up on a lot of work. My brain insisted on typing out stories like nobody’s business. By now, though, you can guess how much I worked that day. Yes, not a bit. I enjoyed the pre-arranged company of friends and family (an essential part of The Now Habit’s unschedule), relaxed with special treats, and generally lounged about. I felt anxious all that day, having seemed to “skip out” on work, but I felt just as ready to get back to it that next day, and the day after that, and on every non-break day since. At this point, I find myself putting a cap on my daily word-count just so I can leave time for other projects.

Back in the Winner’s Circle

I hope you enjoyed this review of one of the most important elements of a sustainable, long-term writing regimen. If you practice at writing more than you think you can while taking breaks before you crash, then I believe that you, too, can write that full-length novel waiting inside of you.

If you feel ready to begin your training session, then you can participate in Camp NaNoWriMo this summer or test yourself against the original NaNoWriMo in November. Either way, you can download my NaNoWriMo Prep Worksheet in order to start the month off on the right foot. Good luck!

- Post written by James Holder

This week the Robots have a very high level conversation about their different processes for writing a story from beginning to end, from initial idea to final edit. We hope you have fun and enjoy the conversation.

Mentioned during the episode:
Pinterest
Scrivener

This week’s promo – Dyed Bright Here

This week the Robots (with new co-host Paul E Cooley) talk narrative points of view, and at the end we review David Drake’s HAMMER’S SLAMMERS and Jim Butcher’s STORM FRONT. We hope you enjoy.

This week’s promo – THE HOLLYWOOD OUTSIDER PODCAST

Our next review book is…!

This week Terry and Justin have the sad duty of saying goodbye to Eliyanna, who leaves us for the impending joy of motherhood. We hate to see her go, but we’re proud to have had her as a part of the show, and we wish her nothing but love and success.

Eliyanna’s Website
Eliyanna’s Facebook Page
Eliyanna’s Twitter

And with that we’d also like to welcome our newest regular co-host to the show, Paul Elard Cooley. Long time listeners of the show should be more than familiar with Mr. Cooley, or if you have even half an ear to the podioshere ground. We look forward to hearing Paul’s thoughts week in and week out, and know that he’ll add yet another layer to the Dead Robots’ Society nacho platter. Welcome, Paul. Let’s hope you stick around longer than the last one.

This week Terry and Eli talk about the idea of serialized stories. Getting a tale told in one large tome is fine, but there’s also a lot to be said for releasing it in smaller, steady doses. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

This week’s promo – PICKING UP THE GHOST by Tone Milazzo

This week Justin flies solo and interviews author and aspiring comic book writer Tone Milazzo. They discuss his experience writing his novel PICKING UP THE GHOST, getting it polished and published, and where he goes from here. Enjoy!

Tone’s website
ChiZine Publications

This week’s promo – Tuning In To SciFi TV podcast

And just to remind you, the ebook version of PICKING UP THE GHOST will go on sale for $2.99 starting Wednesday, April 25th, through Tuesday, May 8th. Here is a handy link to the Kindle version of the book.

This week Justin and Eli help Terry brainstorm his idea for an erotic mystery that takes place in a world populated only by women. Fair warning, this has a bit of saucy language in it from time to time. We encourage you all to send in your own ideas and comments. Enjoy!

Terry’s current background notes can be found here. Feel free to send him your thoughts at terry@lynnmixon.com.

This week’s promo – New Fiction Writers

This week Terry and Justin talk about dystopian stories. What is a dystopia, what sorts of stories can be told in that environment, and why? We hope you enjoy the conversation.

This week’s promo – THE GEARHEART, a podiobook from Alex White.

This week the Robots chat with J Daniel Sawyer about his new non-fiction book “Throwing Lead: A Writer’s Guide to Firearms (and the People Who Use Them).” This is his first reference book, Dan is brilliant, and we hope you enjoy the conversation.

J Daniel Sawyer’s website
THROWING LEAD post

This week’s promo – The Parsec Awards

Also mentioned in this week’s show was that LESBIAN COPS, the anthology Terry was part of, is a finalist for a Lambda Award. Congrats, Terry!