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Welcome to my blog

As a writer, my first area of interest is obviously my books, but for my blog I will try to address different writing issues or provide my own tips when it comes to writing or self-publishing.

My blog also includes shout-outs to and recommendations for other blogs or websites, book reviews or recommendation, and a few posts sparked by nothing but an area of interest at the moment or occasionally a complaint or five. 

-J.R. McGinnity
P.s. This blog contains affiliate links, usually to Amazon.

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TBT--Works in Progress past and present

6/26/2014

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It's Throwback Thursday once again, as evidenced by all of the profile picture updates on Facebook, and I thought that I would do a version of TBT here on my blog by looking at my past and present works, most of which are still in, or permanently at, the WIP status.
  1. Children of the Stars- Written in middle school, it had a passable plot but was severely limited by the fact that my writing abilities were that of a middle schooler. Craft is something that is learned over time, and there is only so much "time" you can put in before the age of 12. I finished this one, although it is lost approximately four computers ago.
  2. Children of the Starts 2- This was basically the fanfic sequel of the original story, following the children of the original stories main characters. It was never finished, and had no real plot or conflict.
  3. Callum (No real title)-Written my freshman year of college, this was a big mess of awful. No real plot, with secondary characters who wanted to take over, it was basically a rip-off of the Wheel of Time series. I like to pretend that this one never happened.
  4. The Dark Time pre-The Talented- This is a conglomeration of several different works, most of which didn't get past the 5 page mark. It was a time of discovery, and eventually lead up to The Talented.
  5. The Talented-My first real finished work, this is the project that I funded with Kickstarter and will be publishing later this year. It goes off to editors in just over three weeks, and I am giving it the final once-over now. It's a thing of beauty (imo) which a solid plot, great characters, and writing skills much improved since the days of Children of the Stars.
  6. The Talented 2 (real name forthcoming)- Still solidly in the WIP category, I plan on this being another great book and following The Talented into the published market in the fall of 2015.
  7. The Bodyguard- A strange mix of finished and WIP, I am releasing this as a serialized novel with a new part going out every Monday. You can read the first two parts on my site under Book List or over on Wattpad. It has a great FMC, an intriguing plot, and goes through a careful crit process and edit before each addition is released. It was born out of the 2012 NaNoWriMo.
  8. "Kingdom of the Light"- My one and only short story. I really do like it, but it sort of confirms for me that I am not cut out for short stories. Anything more in depth than "Kingdom" would make me want to follow the characters more, which goes against the entire idea of the short story.
  9. Children of the Sky- A WIP that is an attempt at something more in the paranormal, space-alien, fantasy in the real world game. It is still highly debatable whether I will be able to make this work or if this is just a long writing exercise and diversion from all of the editing I am otherwise doing this summer.

Looking at this, I am a little impressed with myself for how much writing I have done in a relatively short time and the fact that, on reflection, I do have more variety in my stories than I feared. Looking at this, I know that Callum is a dead loss, but if I wanted to try my hand at High Fantasy I might revisit some of the elements of Children of the Stars. It would need some significant changes, but there are real problems to explore there.

At the same time, maybe it is better to enjoy my TBT but continue moving forward. After all, isn't that what the Facebook pictures symbolize?

So what are your TBT works? Anything that brings back great memories or reminds you of great ideas/characters? Anything that you wish you could erase from your writing past the way you want to erase that one horrible and embarrassing boyfriend or girlfriend?

I would love to hear more of the author's version of TBT.

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My new sci-fi love: The Lost Fleet by Jack Campbell

5/15/2014

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I posted a review relatively recently about The Wandering Engineer series by Chris Hechtl, and it was less than glowing. Now it's time for a positive review.

The Lost Fleet is also a sci-fi series, but the author of this book is Jack Campbell, and it is a book that shines. I firmly believe that indie and self-pubbed authors can produce work just as great as authors that are traditionally published, but one of the shining points (to me) about Campbell's work is that it is professionally edited and has professional cover art. His books were traditionally published, and that doubtless contributes to their presentation.

The Wandering Engineer was interesting because the main character had been in stasis for several hundred years and woke up to a world changed almost beyond recognition. The Lost Fleet (which came before Hechtl's series) also has a main character who was in a survival pod for an extended length of time (though only 100 years this time) and wakes up to find that the Alliance has changed from a century of war.

And unlike Fleet Admiral John Henry Irons in The Wandering Engineer, the internal struggles of Campbell's John Geary seem genuine and balanced by what is going on around him as well as what happened years ago.

Another thing that I love about Campbell's series is the science in this science fiction. There is a war going on, and there are space battles, but the battles are seconds of fighting interspersed with the hours that it takes to travel in space. Ships don't turn on a dime in Campbell's books, and the speed of a particular kind of space craft can't be changed through elbow grease and the well-wishes of her crew.

The Lost Fleet has all of the excitement expected of a good science fiction novel, but the attention to detail (and the lack of deus ex machina found in Hechtl's novels) make it a joy to read rather than a book that you have to work to suspend your disbelief on while turning pages.

If you like sci-fi, space battles, and main characters facing genuine and realistic internal conflicts, pick up The Lost Fleet: Dauntless and dive into this great series. 

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The importance of momentum

5/12/2014

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mo·men·tum  [moh-men-tuhm] noun
1. force or speed of movement; impetus, as 
of a physical object or course of events:

When we think of writing, we think of characters, plot, climax, and cliff-hangers. We think of world building. We think of editing and beta readers. We might even think of age group, genre, and publishing.

Momentum is a word most often used in physics.

Newton's first law of motion is that "An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force." Most people stop after the second "stays in motion" part, and for this post I am going to do the same.

An object in motion stays in motion.

It's a natural law. It's natural for something in motion to stay in motion--and since "natural" is a current buzzword, this must mean it's good!

I typically avoid all things physics. Physics has an unfortunate friendship with math, and I don't like hanging out with bad crowds. But this is one thing that I can get behind. 

Because building up momentum is a good thing.

Think back to the last time you were writing and you reached that perfect place where inspiration and creativity meet work and you can hardly get the words out fast enough. And it stays like that for a long time.

You built momentum.

It's like when you are on a run and you hit that sweet spot where it feels like you can run for hours. You're not fighting the exercise, and that helps you build momentum.

My Kickstarter campaign is now 37% funded after only a week. It has momentum.

The more you write, the more you write; the more you run, the more you run. (And apparently, the more people donate, the more other people donate.)







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Building a fantasy world

5/9/2014

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PictureOnly 25 days left on my Kickstarter project!
There are thousands of blog posts that discuss how to build a fantasy world. Some people spend months doing extensive research and planning, weeks drawing up maps, and hours upon hours writing out the history of the world.

And those are good things.

I'm not saying that every fantasy writer needs to spend as much time world building as they do story telling, but I am saying that it is essential to, at some point, put a real mind to world building--especially when it comes to the natural part of your world.

I live in Minnesota. We have deciduous trees (oaks, maples, birches) that drop their leaves in the winter, and we have a few coniferous trees like pines that stay green. It rains anytime it wants to March-October, and snows anytime it wants to September-May (and yes, I did just overlap those by several months--Minnesotans know). And if I was writing a typical fantasy novel, which are usually set in similar climates (England, the East Coast of the U.S.) I could go with this knowledge. Hot days with a chance of rain, freezing cold with a chance of snow. Heatstroke in the summer, hypothermia in the winter. Water, water, everywhere--lakes, streams, ponds, and precipitation.

I wouldn't need to do any research to build that world. I live it.

But my fantasy novel is more reminiscent of Africa than Minnesota, and that took research.

Did you know that there are two rainy seasons in the Serengeti? A short one and a long one?

I didn't.

It also doesn't rain all day there, and the Serengeti doesn't get as hot as I thought it did, even if the dry season. But that's why research is important. Watching Wild Discovery every Wednesday when growing up just didn't prepare me to create a realistic world for Adrienne and her compatriots. 

"But wait!" you say. "This is my world. It can rain if I want [it] to!"

And you're absolutely right...to a point.





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What makes a novel YA?

4/9/2014

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Lately, I've been wondering what makes a YA book YA.


I'm not sure why I've been wondering this...I avoid writing YA, and since I'm not a young adult and don't have any young adult children, the genre of the books I read doesn't really matter.


But maybe it's the fact that I'm a high school teacher, or the fact that I just like to know things, but I'm really curious...what makes a novel YA?


It's a tricky genre. One could say that it is nearly impossible to nail down. There can be YA romance, YA fantasy, YA general fiction, sci-fi, even horror (Goosebumps, anyone?), but what I want to know is where the line is actually drawn.


Or maybe just where you think the line is drawn, because I have a feeling that people will agree on this matter about as easily as they will agree on who is the best political candidate for the next election.


I've participated in discussion boards (some of which turned into virtual fights) about this very topic. Most participants seem to feel that YA is best determined by the protagonist's age. If the protagonist is 13-17 (or maybe 18), it is YA. Basically, if the protagonist is a young adult, the story is a young adult novel.


End of story.


On one hand, I get it. It makes sense. If the protagonist is a teen, it's a teen book, right?


That's what most of the people on those boards seemed to think. But then I suggested that content should play a part in that discussion, and I got a couple of lukewarm "maybes" but mostly a bunch of "absolutely nots!" and then a descent into fights about censorship and fascism (I wasn't a participant in that part of the argument, although I found it amusing, enlightening, and alarming in turns).


So for a couple dozen posts it looked like either you categorized a book as being YA by the age of the protagonist or you were a fascist trying to censor today's youth by limiting them to books with "appropriate" content.


Not the turn I had expected the conversation to take.


So I thought I would bring the conversation to a different setting--a blog. What do you think makes a novel YA? Is it the age of the protagonist, or does content play a part?


And remember, YA is not synonymous with books teens enjoy, it is a category written (or at least marketed), with the idea that teens will be the primary audience.

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Work in progress

3/24/2014

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Work in progress. WIP. If you're a writer, you know what this means. Your WIP is your new baby, that thing you think about and take care of (and yes, I just used "thing" to rename "baby"). 

In my experience, authors start calling the novel they're working on a WIP if it isn't their first novel. Do we feel less attached after the first one? Do we feel like we are making more "progress" now that we are one novel into our new calling? Or do we feel more comfortable referring to it as "a work" when we know it will not just be that one great thing we did?

Maybe it is simply that one author referred to his next as a WIP and we all jumped on the bandwagon?

But that's philosophy and psychoanalysis. What I'm more interested in here is what you do when you have two (or more) WIPs. I currently have one completed manuscript that still needs to be polished before I can share it (The Bodyguard), a rough-rough draft (I usually go through two stages of rough drafts--the one I write out by hand with an actual pen on actual paper, and then the typed up version of the first) of the sequel to The Talented that I need to finish typing up before going into the deeper content editing that will be the first real draft, and then a paranormal story idea floating around in my head that really should be captured before it floats right out.

So that is three WIPs if you categorize the idea as a WIP and a solid two if you don't, all in different stages of development.

That is a lot of work waiting to be done.

And how do I balance that? I want to finish polishing The Bodyguard so that I can share it, but I'm tired of putting that sequel off again and again. And that paranormal story is just so intriguing that I want to see if I can step outside of my normal fantasy comfort zone and write a paranormal story that happens in the real world.

So what do you do when you have multiple ideas floating around and WIPs to finish? Or are you just more focused on one story at a time and don't have this problem?
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The Hero's Journey

3/12/2014

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Ah, the Hero's Journey. Most of you have probably heard of it, especially those of you who write in the fantasy genre. The Hero's Journey (often linked to, but not exactly the same as, the Quest Motif) goes back to time forgotten, but is still used today.

Think of a book or movie that you are familiar with? Got one? Now follow this chart and see how it matches up. I'll do it with The Fellowship of the Ring (the first book in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy) because it works and many people have at least a foggy notion of what the book or movie is about.

  1. Starting at 12 o'clock on the picture, we have the hero in his natural environment. This is Frodo in The Shire.
  2. The call to action is Gandalf telling Frodo the Ring can't stay in the Shire.
  3. Frodo doesn't want to leave. (Here is a slightly sticky point--Gandalf is the mentor, but he is also the one giving Frodo the call...so it's not perfect, but what is?)
  4. Frodo crosses the threshold when he leaves the Shire (we'll stick with the movie rather than dragging Hobbiton into this).
  5. Frodo is chased by the wraiths (another sticky point--some of his allies are here by this point, and the wraiths are his enemies, so he meets them all before or at the same time as that first trial)
  6. Gets to Bree, meets another ally (Strider/Aragorn)
  7. First success would probably be making it to Rivendell
  8. By this time we are well into the "Extraordinary World," but it isn't until Frodo agrees to be the ring bearer and leave Rivendell for a fun little trip to Mordor that he really discards his old self.


The chart progresses, but I think that you get the point. Frodo is a hero, he has a call to action--something he must do and doesn't want to. He has a mentor (Gandalf), allies (the 7 companions), and enemies (wraiths, orcs, etc.). He has trials and successes, and has to eventually accept his role. 

He crosses over from the ordinary world to the extraordinary world, and his acceptance of his role in that new world is what makes him a hero.

There are hundreds of versions of this chart, each a little different from the next, but they all have the same basic steps in roughly the same order. Because it works. This is what heroes have to do. If they decided right at the beginning "I'm going to be a hero!" it would be more of a comedy (which isn't a bad thing). And if they never accept it...well, I guess I'm not sure what happens there. But the examination of antiheroes is for another day.

After examining The Fellowship, I looked at my novel The Talented in this light. Adrienne is an ordinary soldier, and she doesn't fight the call, but it is not something she would have volunteered for if her captain had not told her to go. She has no mentor after leaving the camp, which abets some of the conflicts in the story. She has an enemy (or false-allies) in the commission, and friends who support her along the way. She achieves goals, and often achieving those goals leads to the next conflict. Where, exactly, you would say she stepped into the extraordinary world and when she accepted her role are not clear cut.

It's not a perfect fit, not nearly as close a fit as LOTR, but there are shared elements.

Since The Talented is the first in a series, I could stretch the Hero's Journey out past the first book. In that case, Adrienne wouldn't really be accepting her role until the end of the first book (although the elements would still be found in the first book), and the Journey would fit much better spread out across the series. Either way, Adrienne's journey does align with the Hero's Journey.

And looking at Adrienne in this light, I wonder what areas I should shore up and what areas I should maybe drop more (should her lack of mentor be a bigger deal?). It's not necessary to closely follow this Journey, not even suggested if the story does not naturally fall across those lines, but it does provide a new way to analyze my story.



And a new way to plot the sequel.

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The problem with writing YA

3/10/2014

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The problem with writing YA is that the characters are...young.


To keep things legally and morally acceptable, the things that any teenagers set in a modern (American) society can do is limited. Plus I am a high school teacher, so I work with teenagers every day and some of the things they do, which would obviously fall within the realm of YA actions and possibilities since my students are actual young adults, are things that I wish they didn't do.


I don't want high school students having sex, or doing drugs, or making decisions that could affect the rest of their futures. And I know that even the seemingly mature teenagers have a limited understanding of the long-term consequences of their actions.


Some of that is limited maturity, some of that is due to brain development, but it's all real.


So I don't want my YA characters to be in relationships, because I don't think high school kids should be having sex; I don't want them partying, because I don't want to present underage drinking as a good idea to my target audience (because a YA novel is targeted at high school students), and I don't want violence (or at least too much violence) because of that limited understanding of long-term consequences and how actions affect the future.


So what do I have left? Family problems? Friend problems? Homework problems?


The story idea in my head would fall under the category of paranormal YA (and no, not vampires or werewolves, I'm thinking more along the lines of a demigod) and it would work really well in a high school setting because high school is not optional, therefore my demigod would have to put up with being in social situations with the same small group of people day-after-day.


But I don't want his future romantic ventures to be limited to holding hands. And I don't want the outgoing girl he is going to be interested in to invite him to the coffee shop rather than a party. And I really don't want to see him struggling with how to conceal his developing powers from his adoptive parents.


But if he isn't in high school, why does he have to see the same people every day? College is optional, and if your goal job is minimum wage unskilled labor you can go move around pretty easily if things start to go wrong in one place.


So what am I supposed to do? Let the idea wither and die? Make the situation forced so that he is locked into some sort of artificial situation where his presence is required like it would be in high school (and I don't want to turn this into a dystopian novel, so some sort of mandatory college wouldn't work for me)? Should I try to fit my non-YA desires into an acceptable YA mold?


I want to write this story, but I can't figure out how to get past all of these genre barriers. Any advice?
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    My name is J.R. McGinnity, I am a former English teacher with a passion for writing fantasy novels with strong female leads.

    My time is spent immersed in books (reading or writing), hiking when the Midwest weather allows, and watching seasons of old TV shows.

    Follow her on Twitter @JRMcGinnity

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