This means:

• How much money are you trying to make? 
• Is that number sustainable for you and yours to survive? 
• Can you factor in days off for vacation and sick days with that number? 
• What about a surprise pregnancy? 
• What about shopping during the holiday season? 
• And emergency expenses like a new car transmission?

The money matters. I’m passionate about this because when I started my indie author journey, nobody stressed the coin to me. And because no one stressed the importance of the coin, I lost a lot of it.

Now, I make sure I plan how to get to the bag and build a successful authorial business.

I need you to do the same. Take off your hobbyist hat. Even take off your author hat. Now put on your entrepreneurial hat. It’s time to think like an entrepreneur. It’s easier than you think to set up your next authorial calendar year for success.

To start the journey, you’ve got to plan your money.

Plan Your Money

Do you know how much money you want to earn in your business by the end of next year? I’m sure you have a lotfy idea of what number you’d hope to reach every month. Perhaps you even know what you’d like to make every week.

But what about the amount you’d be proud to bring home from your books at the end of the year after taxes?

This is important to note because your financial target will determine the activity you execute to reach your goals. 

I hope you caught that: The number you are working to earn by year’s end will determine what you do every month, week, day, and hour to hit that goal. 

It’s important for you to know where you’re headed so you can identify which paths will take you there. Once you know how to get there, you’ll then be able to see what’s the quickest way of reaching the goal.

Then you can publish with purpose.

Identify your numeric goal posts

The first step to plan your money is simple: identify your goal for the following year.

Really. Just pick a number.

Whether you want to make $100K. $250K. Or even $50K – $75K. The number is up to you. Whatever you’re comfortable making that will provide a nice cushion for you and your family, go with that.

Once you identify the number, you need to break it down. Saying you want to make $100,000 in 365 days might be terrifying. 

So work backwards:

To reach $100K in 12 months, you need to bring home $8,333.33 each month. This may still seem terrifying, yeah? No worries. Let’s break this number down.

To earn $8,333.33 every 30 days, each week your books have to earn $2,083.33. Some of you make more than this at your day job. So this doesn’t seem too much, right?

If you’re reading this and you’re still huffing and puffing—let’s break it down even more. To earn $2,083.33 every 7 days, your books need to earn $297.62 (rounding up) every single day.

This amounts to you needing to sell 12 to 13 books every single hour.

Note: This doesn’t factor in taxes, tithes, etc.

So if you sell 12 to 13 books every hour for 12 months, you’ll hit your income goal of $100,000 by the end of next year. Knowing this number will make it crystal clear on what you’re reaching for, so you can then identify how to reach it.

Identify how you’ll achieve the numeric goal posts

Knowing how you’ll reach those numeric goals is also pretty simple.

It boils down to IPAs. Income Producing Assets. As an author, you need to get clear on what your money makers are. Do you have one standalone? Two completed trilogies? 30+ books published in different series? Multiple series in multiple genres?

Sit down and identify in writing what all of your IPAs are. List out how much each costs. If you’re still writing, this is the perfect time for you to know what numeric goal you’ll be shooting for so you can determine how many books you’ll need to reach the goal.

Note: Not all IPAs have to be books. Candles, mugs, stickers, character art, pins, and all forms of book swag count as IPAs. You might have one novel, but you can package it up with a mug, candle, some art, and a journal in a box that ships for $57.00 to your readers at home and abroad. 

This is part of how you’ll achieve your income goals. Take some time to list out all the ways you can take one product (the novel) and stretch it to different income streams. Crunch numbers and make it plain what activities you need to do, and how often they need to be done, so you can hit your goals by the end of the following year.

Put a system in place to reach your numeric goals

Systems were something I stuck my nose up at until burnout knocked on my door and made a permanent home. Not only that, I lost a crap ton of money because I didn’t have solid systems in place to keep coin flowing.

Have you ever considered that each aspect of publishing requires systems? Systems aren’t only important for marketing your business to access high levels of exposure. They are also important for the writing through the publication phase.

Consider the following:

• How long does it take you to write a scene? Or 3K words?
• When are you most productive?
• What environment do you need to establish to access your writing flow?
• What tool do you use to write?
• What are you using to track your progress?

Knowing the answers to these questions is a system. How you get your work done as an author is a system. Because when it’s time to start the next book, you’ll go through this exact process all over again. 

Once you’ve finished writing a book, ask yourself these questions:

• Do you do your own developmental edits?
• Are betas involved?
• How many drafts will you do before submitting the manuscript to an editor?
• How about line editing? 
• When do you factor in time to just re-read?
• How long does this process take?

Every minute, day, week, or month different parts of the publication wheel take you to finish takes up time on the timeline of reaching your numeric goal by the year’s end.

You need a system for writing. You need a system for editing. You need a system for publishing. You need a system for marketing. You need a system for growing. You need a system for scaling.

At what point of this process can you start monetizing? What do you need to do to monetize? Are you emailing your subscribers every week? Are you texting them? Will you do reels on Instagram? Will you post creative Tik Toks? Will you go Live on Facebook? Are you going to start threads on Twitter?

What activities can you do that require the least amount of effort but produce the most amount of results? How can you write fewer books and still sell to more readers so you can reach your goal faster?

You won’t hit your goal through the sheer will of your determination and efforts. Your goals will end up submitting to the default of your systems. If you’re all over the place as an author, you can tell that monetary goal sayonara.

But if you plan your money, if you sit down and write what you’re shooting for, how to get there, and what systems to establish to get it, you’ll be tap dancing into the following year.

Make the commitment to plan your money for next year before this one ends. Planning makes you purposeful. Being purposeful makes you profitable. You can’t earn what you don’t expect. Schedule a time on your calendar with yourself, that no one can interrupt (*ahem* not your kids, not your spouse, nobody), to strategize and plan what your author career will look like in the next 365 days. 

Then, get to work.

Stephanie BwaBwa is a Christian Fantasy Novelist. She’s the creator of the universe: Elledelle – about angels in magical worlds with impressive power that mirror the human condition.

She’s the author of the YA fantasy series: The Seraphim Resistance Prequels and The Transcendents Serial, as well as the writing guide, Fantasy Fundamentals for Christian fantasy writers. You can usually catch her going for a walk through a park, or simply binging Disney+ with too many snacks. Get in contact with Stephanie directly at: stephaniebwabwa.com.

The post Plan Your Money: Setting up Your Authorial Calendar for Success appeared first on DIY MFA.

In these times, it’s become harder than ever to hit the pavement and score promotional opportunities—and an increasing amount of those opportunities seem to want to lighten your wallet.

But you can still have a great launch. Start with these four tactics to plan an online book launch.

1. Book Reviews

There are a lot of book review blogs out there. A lot. And they cover every genre and audience that exists—one of the amazing things the internet has enabled is a deep well of passionate, niche communities.

All you have to do is find them, and then ask them to consider your book. You don’t score a review with every site you query, but as long as you approach blogs that review your subgenre, follow the guidelines, and send it out in a timely fashion (2-4 months ahead of publication is a common time frame, depending on the blog), you’re bound to get some to agree.

Then, you’ve got some passionate readers with your book on their radar, and some trusted sources for quotes you can put to work in your marketing.

2. Launch Promos & Exclusives

Find a creative way to give your readers something special if they buy the book during this online book launch period. What might fans of the book enjoy?

For example, for my upcoming science fiction release, I’m creating pins that will feature a creature I made up for the novel’s world. Perhaps you could commission a map of your fantasy world, or the lead characters of your romance.

But your exclusive doesn’t have to cost money to be special. You could share exclusive cut scenes from an earlier draft of the novel, or record an interview that won’t ever run anywhere else. Give your readers a way to get something they can’t get any other way, that will give them greater insight into the novel or you as an author.

3. Digital Tour

There are countless websites out there for readers of all genres—and they all need content! For this reason, many of them are eager to host guest contributors.

You can also look at websites focused on topics related to your book’s content or themes in other ways. For example, my book’s hero has ADHD (like me), so I’ve got my eyes open for opportunities to post on sites about this learning disorder and other neurodiversity topics.

These are not only ways to get great free publicity, but also allows you to share a little about yourself and your work in a creative way. When approaching a website to pitch an article, introduce yourself, explain your goals (briefly), and make sure you suggest a few possible ideas that fit with that specific outlet’s content.

4. Live Events

You don’t have to wait for an outlet to lend you their platform. This is 2021, and you have your own! And so do your author buddies. Why not plan a few live events on Instagram, Facebook, or your social network of choice? It’s a DIY digital book tour.

Here’s how to do it: Ask a few author friends (ideally ones who write complementary stories or share a similar readership) if they’re willing to join you for a chat during your launch week. Then, work with the participating authors to identify a different topic connected to your book as a focus for each conversation. Publicize the schedule well beforehand, and then…go live!

You’ll get to benefit from exposure from your host friend’s following, and they’ll get some crossover from yours. Done right, this should be fun and good for everyone!

Launch Your Book with Flair and Fun

It’s tough times out there to launch a book—still. Even for shops and events that are running in person, there’s a lot of competition. And sure, bookshops, events, and media coverage are nice. But you’re not at the mercy of gatekeepers, and a lack of in-person opportunities doesn’t mean you can’t still have a successful launch. These tactics to help you plan an online book launch are a great way to expand your reach, connect with readers, and celebrate the great accomplishment.

What other online book launch tactics would you recommend?

Be sure to check out E.J. Wenstrom’s column on how to build engagement on your author platform!

By day, E. J. Wenstrom is a digital strategy pro with over 10 years at communications firms. By early-early morning, she’s an award-winning sci-fi and fantasy author of the Chronicles of the Third Realm War novels, starting with Mud. She believes in complicated characters, terrifying monsters, and purple hair dye.

The post Plan an Online Book Launch appeared first on DIY MFA.

I never thought of myself—and my writing—as investments until recently.

Deviating from the plan

My parents are boomers. From a young age, I knew my job was to go to college for four years, get a “real job” that came with financial security, and get married. As my love of books and the desire to write one of my own began to grow, I came to realize all the things my parents wanted for me were likely not in my future.

After leaving for college fresh out of high school, I found myself in an abusive relationship, dropped out of school, and had a mountain of credit card debt. When I finally left my abuser and returned home to live with my parents, I was twenty-two with 32 credits, no real job experience, and I was in collections.

Revisiting the plan

It was clear that if I was ever going to get my life together, I needed to embrace my parents’ plan. So, I got a part-time job at Barnes & Noble, finally got my drivers license, and enrolled in community college. Once I finished my associates degree, I transferred to state school and got my bachelor of arts degree.

I did something else, though—I buried my dreams of being a writer. My degree was in Multidisciplinary Studies (a fancy way of saying Liberal Arts), with a concentration in Technology in Society and a Writing Minor. I started working nine-to-five, I was whittling down my debt, and I was even seeing a guy.

Life seemed to be as it should—I was “on track.” But as the days passed, my “track” felt more like a loop. A predictable cycle that seemed to be endless and made me more miserable by the day.

Investing in myself

I was working in an office, and I remember my coworker coming to my cube and saying, “Ohmigod Lauren! It’s THE BEST day! There are bagels in the conference room and they got the good cream cheese!” Now, there’s nothing quite like a Long Island bagel, but I knew then and there this wasn’t the life I wanted (even though I currently work in an office that also gets excited about food). I wasn’t happy punching a clock, answering phone calls, and going through the motions of nine-to-five-dom for my parents’ sake. This wasn’t who I was.

I quit the next day and made researching, applying to, and writing my entrance sample for graduate school my full-time job. My parents thought I was crazy. When I told them I wanted to go to school for writing, they were like, “But haven’t you already gone to school?” You should have seen their faces when I explained an MFA was a terminal degree which wouldn’t offer career advancement in a conventional sense.

There were times I thought I was crazy too—after all, there seemed to be a lot of risk involved: there was a high probability I wouldn’t be accepted, there was no guarantee of publication, and I hadn’t been writing seriously for a while. Suffice to say, I was rusty. Not to mention I would be taking on more student loan debt, and I wouldn’t graduate until I was in my early 30s. But deep down, I knew this was right.

Taking the risk

Toxic positivity is real, not being realistic when it comes to big life decisions can be dangerous, and it’s not always easy to believe in yourself. But the thing is, if you invest in yourself, you will never be disappointed in the return. Am I in more debt that I’d have liked? Yes. Was I nervous it was a huge mistake? Yes. But am I living my dream and would I have done it any different? Absolutely not.

Lauren J. Sharkey is a writer, teacher, and transracial adoptee. Inconvenient Daughter is her debut novel, and loosely based on her experience as a Korean adoptee. You can follow her at ljsharks.com, and on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

The post Investments & Returns appeared first on DIY MFA.

They’re both ambitious undertakings that require consistent, focused effort over a longer period of time. They both require a special kind of dedication and optimism. And neither once comes without its setbacks. But that’s why we take on these challenges: to prove ourselves. To accomplish something. Oh, and to maybe achieve fame and fortune if we’re good.

If you want to be one of the rare few that writes a novel, you can learn a lot from the process of running a marathon to improve your writing. 

1.   It’s more of a mental challenge than you think

Obviously, writing a novel is a cerebral pursuit, much more so than running. But both activities challenge you mentally, especially if you have to find a way to keep going when all reason tells you to stop. In fact, the hardest part of running a marathon, in my experience, was convincing myself the entire time not to stop just because it was hard. 

The very same internal struggle happens for many writers. Maybe you worry that everything you write is trash. Maybe your brain tries to convince you to go do something easier. But you must develop the mental strength to overcome those self-defeating thoughts. You must get started anyway. A common piece of running advice is to just commit to ten minutes. At that point, you’re warmed up, and you’re more likely to keep going. The same holds true for writing. Even if you don’t feel like starting, just sit down to type for ten minutes. You’ll likely find your groove and move past the negative thoughts. 

2.   Planning and preparation will increase your chances of success

Just like there are pantsers who sit down and write a whole novel “by the seat of their pants,” there are also a handful of people who do a marathon with very little training. In the case of the former, many let their messy, pantsed drafts sit for years because they’re too difficult to fix. As for the latter—you can’t walk for two weeks after the race. 

Of course, there are outliers in both cases, but you’re likely to get a better outcome in writing and running if you prepare. Learning how to write a novel, coupled with researching your subject, developing your characters and world, and creating an outline will make writing your first draft a smoother process. Similarly, building up your mileage slowly, following a training plan, and learning about proper nutrition, will help you get across the finish line in better shape and with a time you can be proud of. 

3.   There are no shortcuts

A marathon is 26.2 miles—no more no less. A book is tens of thousands of words. As much as we’d like to make both easier, they are simply not. And there’s no way to shortcut the distance or the process. Preparation makes you better equipped to handle the difficulties, but if you want to achieve either goal, you’re signing up for a long process. 

However, throughout that long process, you’ll learn a lot. You’ll tweak your running form to become more efficient, or you’ll establish a writing routine that helps you get into a state of flow. You’ll try different things and determine what works and what doesn’t. You’ll get faster or you’ll dial in your writing voice. Despite the challenges and frustrations, you’ll come to appreciate going the long way. You will come out a much better writer or runner because of it. 

4.   The last stretch is the hardest part 

Once you get through the first 20 miles of a marathon, the last 6.2 feel like, well, another marathon. Even if you haven’t hit the wall, your body and mind are depleted at this point. You’re close to the end, but not close enough. This is the hardest part. The same goes for editing your novel. This is where the real work begins. There are a number of loose threads that feel like they may never come together. You’ve spent so much time with your idea that you begin to worry that it’s boring—at least you’re getting a little bored with it. And you still have to fix your character arc. This is the point where you must decide if you will continue. 

When you hit this stretch, either in running or writing, it’s time to “dig deep.” Runners often talk about “remembering your why,” the reason why you decided to run a marathon. This is equally important in novel writing. To commit to such a lofty goal, you must have a reason driving you. Do you have an important message to share with the world? Or a story that you just can’t let go? Tap into your why to keep you going. 

5.   Completing it is a rare and special accomplishment

So many people say they want to run a marathon or write a novel; so few actually achieve either. If you’ve completed a manuscript or gone the distance, you are exceptional! Even if it’s a bad experience, it’s still a cause for celebration. You’ve achieved a rare feat. 

Finishing my first marathon and my first novel made me want to cry happy, relieved, exhausted tears. At the same time, I wasn’t fully satisfied with my performance in either. 

That’s the thing: many people will be happy to cross the accomplishment off the bucket list—one and done. Then there are those of us for whom one is not enough. We finish and say, “I’m proud that I covered the miles or wrote that many pages, but I bet I can do it better. Let’s try it again.” 

I believe that’s the key to success in both marathoning and novel-writing. The insatiable desire to see how well you can do, and the determination to stick with the pursuit until you become better. Despite all the obstacles that may come up in your journey, if you master your mindset, prepare, resist shortcuts, remember your why, and you don’t settle, you can achieve your dreams. 

Heather Campbell is a book coach and editor helping writers cut through self-doubt and confusion to finally complete the novel they always dreamed of writing. When she’s not immersed in fiction, she’s running in the fresh mountain air of Colorado or snuggling with her rescue dog, Chase. Find out more at www.thewriterremedy.com and follow her on Twitter and Instagram!

The post #5onFri: Five Ways Writing a Novel Is Like Running a Marathon appeared first on DIY MFA.

Sixty-four days later, on August 2, 2020, the Crew Dragon capsule returned Behken and Hurley to Earth. They splashed down safely in the Gulf of Mexico, not far from Pensacola, Florida.

The mission, called Demo-2, certified that Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 could be used to deliver future astronauts to the ISS. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk dubbed it the dawn of a new age of space exploration.

Hurley called the journey from the shuttle program to the public-private collaboration between NASA and SpaceX an eight-year odyssey and described his feeling of accomplishment upon landing as unbelievable. It’s truly an unprecedented achievement in the midst of an unprecedented year.

How can this collaboration inspire your own creative projects? Here are a few ideas to get you started.

A Little Help

Knowing that the shuttle program was ending, NASA made a deal with Russia to launch missions from Kasakhstan using Soyuz rockets. They’ve depended exclusively on this assistance for most of the last decade despite political differences and conflicts.

Application to Your Writing

Regardless of whether your space program is planet-bound or intergalactic, there are going to be times when your astronauts will have to have to depend on friends, friendlies, frenemies, or even outright enemies for help. It’s an opportunity to create meaningful conflict in your story.

Competition Fuels Conflict

As early as the 1980s, American entrepreneur Peter Diamandis founded the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) program. In the 90s, Diamandis upped the ante by offering the X Prize for radical breakthroughs that benefit humanity. Paul Allen won the Ansari X Prize with his White Knight One, which was then licensed by Richard Branson and used as the basis for Virgin Galactic.

Today, Branson’s Virgin Galactic, Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, and Yuri Milner’s Breakthrough Starshot form the “Billionaire Space Race.” While each has specialized to a degree, they all grew out of the SEDS program and the X Prize competitions. Off-loading this next phase of innovation to private interests allowed NASA to focus on longer-term projects.

Application to Your Writing

Competition is a conflict generator. Just think of the possibilities for corporate espionage and sabotage.

It’s All about Succession Planning

It doesn’t seem to be coincidence that SEDS and X Prize extended the drive for space exploration to private investment at around the same time that the shuttle program was aging, experiencing increasing technical difficulties, and outright tragedies. I’m confident that negotiations with Russia for use of their Soyuz rockets started long before the last shuttle flew in 2011.

This is a matter of succession planning, of anticipating difficulties, transferring knowledge, and securing alternatives or backups. There were likely several other alternatives that were explored before NASA settled on Russia.

Application to Your Writing

Problems should be anticipated by your characters. Though the plan to address those problems may not be something you choose to put in your novel, you, as the author, should know what that plan is so that your characters can execute it competently, before you throw the next crisis into their paths.

Logical Next Steps

What’s next for public/private collaboration in the space program? Astronaut Christina Koch thinks it’s great and that there should be more partnership in the future. By offloading the launch of satellites, the transportation of astronauts, and even research and development to SpaceX or other private corporations, NASA is effectively freed up to use its resources to focus on the longer term goals of returning to the moon, exploring Mars, and visiting other planets and moons in our solar system.

There are mutual benefits to public/private partnerships. For example, while NASA benefits from the development of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy (formerly teased as the BFR–I’ll let you figure that one out) rocket in terms of being able to launch longer-term missions, SpaceX benefits from having NASA invest in and use their technology.

Of course, some things don’t turn out as planned. What would happen if your private tech corporation invested millions only for your public space administration to elect to use another company’s innovation?

Taking It to the Page

I’ve already mentioned a few opportunities to create interesting plot points or conflict in your space-faring tale, but you don’t have to stop there. Similar dynamics will occur even in far future settings. Extrapolate from the current into your futuristic story.

There are also issues I haven’t touched on. If you’re writing alternate history or alternate reality stories, how does your altered timeline affect the drive to explore space? Are we still stuck in an era in which women and people of colour are denied opportunities to contribute to space exploration? Is there political interference? Is your world one of mega-corporations rather than national governments? If humanity evolved differently, what impact would that have on our desire to reach the stars?

Brainstorm possibilities and you’ll probably think up even more interesting ideas. I sincerely hope that this real-world news will spark your next creative project.

Until next time, keep speculating and see where it leads you!

References

• https://www.nasa.gov/specials/dm2/
• https://www.tpr.org/post/astronauts-view-spacexnasa-partnership
• https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/Spacebound/2020/0525/SpaceX-and-NASA-unite-to-return-Americans-to-space
• https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-boeing-nasa-commercial-crew-program-launch-astronauts-2020-1

Melanie Marttila creates worlds from whole cloth. She’s a dreamsinger, an ink alchemist, and an unabashed learning mutt. Her speculative short fiction has appeared in Bastion Science Fiction Magazine, On Spec Magazine, and Sudbury Ink. She lives and writes in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, where she spends her days working as a corporate trainer. She blogs at https://www.melaniemarttila.ca and you can find her on Facebook and Twitter.

The post How the NASA-SpaceX Collaboration Can Inspire Your Writing appeared first on DIY MFA.

Personally, social distancing totally took my March book launch hostage. And though I started the year in a very comfortable position to meet my goal of eight in-person events this year, most of those have been canceled now, and the rest postponed. 

2020 is just not the year we all thought we were going to have, and it’s changed everything—including how we need to connect with readers. 

Checking in with yourself halfway through the year to see if you’re on track to reach your platforming goals is always a best practice. But this year, even more than most, all of us are probably overdue for a total reassessment. 

Ready? 

Assessing Your Goals

Dust off that planner you started in January for the life you meant to live at the start of 2020.  Take a deep breath and open it. What plans and ambitions did that sweet summer child of six months ago dream of accomplishing this year? 

It’s surreal to look back at pre-pandemic plans, but the only way you’re going to get back on track for author platforming progress this year is to revisit these goals. Ask yourself…

• What did I set out to accomplish this year? 
• What have I already accomplished?
• Have the unexpected twists of 2020 changed what’s possible for me to accomplish? 

Pivoting for Progress

Once you have revisited your original goals for the year (I didn’t even remember writing some of mine, it’s been that much of a year), and identified the ways in which they’ve been derailed, it’s time to think about how you can pivot. 

Sure, you probably won’t make it to that writing conference you were planning on, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find another way to network. How about a Twitter chat? Or perhaps you can find a Facebook group of like-minded authors to join. 

Get creative if you have to, but don’t give up! 

It’s Not Too Late for Progress in 2020

You might not be able to do everything for your author platform you hoped in exactly the way you planned this year. But readers are still out there; the publishing industry is still out there. Sure, the opportunities look way different than any of us could have predicted, but they’re still out there. 

Which means there’s still good reason for you to reset your plan and get out there, too. You can still accomplish tangible goals for your author platform this year! It’ll just take some reassessment and adaptability. 

By day, E. J. Wenstrom is a digital strategy pro with over 10 years at communications firms. By early-early morning, she’s an award-winning sci-fi and fantasy author of the Chronicles of the Third Realm War novels, starting with Mud. She believes in complicated characters, terrifying monsters, and purple hair dye.

The post Mid-Year Check: Reassessing Your 2020 Author Platform Goals appeared first on DIY MFA.

I also hope you’ve enjoyed this miniseries on the tarot for writers so far. To recap, in Part 1, I offered a brief introduction to the tarot, in Part 2, I reviewed five books on the tarot for writers, and now, in part 3, I’m going to create an outline for a fantasy story using the tarot.

A Note on Methodology

As we covered last column, there are many different ways the tarot can be used to help build or discover a story and you could probably come up with even more ideas on your own, given time, practice, and your individual writing process. To keep things simple, I’ve elected to use a Hero’s Journey spread, as this will be a mythic structure that many of you will be familiar with.

I first selected a random card for my protagonist and my antagonist from the court cards of the minor arcana after shuffling and cutting these 16 cards. Then, using these cards as my focus, I shuffled, cut, and drew 12 cards from the remaining full deck (major and minor arcana), one for each stage of the Hero’s Journey. I read each of the cards intuitively at first, and then looked up the standard meaning, to see if it would provide further insight into the stage.

If I got stuck at any point, I would have pulled what I’m going to call a “clarifying card.” The clarifying card would have been read in tandem with the card pulled for the stage, to see if the deeper reading could pull me past the road bump. As you’ll see, however, my random drawing of the cards proved to be eerily on point and no clarifying cards were needed.

Though I have a few decks—my interest in tarot predates my discovery of it as a mythic storytelling tool—I chose to use the traditional Rider-Waite-Smith. It’s the most recognizable of the tarot decks.

Protagonist

The card I pulled for my protagonist was the page of pentacles. Saara is the only daughter of a wealthy landowning family. Though it is not traditional for a young woman to inherit her family’s wealth, Saara’s parents want to keep their wealth in the family and have been educating her to take over management of their estates, including leading their militia. Though there is still pressure for Saara to marry and have children to carry on the family line, Saara does not want to marry. Saara is also bonded to the land as her grandmother was before her and has been training with her grandmother to become a fenwoman, a true lady of the land.

Antagonist

The card I pulled for my antagonist was the knight of wands. Miko is the son of a neighboring earl, an experienced warrior who has been exploring and raiding foreign lands for years. His parents have been trying to negotiate his marriage to Saara. They want Miko to take control of Saara’s family lands, a goal Miko shares.

The Ordinary World

The first card I picked, interestingly enough, was the Fool. Saara is naïve. She has no idea what life has in store for her. She believes that she can do it all, manage the family estates, lead their militia, and become fenwoman. She doesn’t know what she’ll have to sacrifice to truly serve and protect her people.

The event that disturbs Saara’s ordinary world? Miko’s family is pressing his suit and backing it with the threat of their superior military strength. If Saara’s parents don’t agree to the match, Miko might take Saara and her family’s lands by force.

The Call to Adventure

The nine of swords shows a person sitting up in bed with their hands covering their face. Nine swords hang overhead. My immediate thought: this is a nightmare. Saara’s nightmare would be to lose her autonomy, her family, and her ability to serve and protect the people who live on her family’s lands.

How does this translate into a call to adventure? Saara has to figure out a way to prevent Miko and his family from taking everything she holds dear. But how does that look? Will she have to pretend to accept Miko’s suit to buy some time while she figures out another solution? One of the provided meanings of the card is a wake-up call. Saara’s certainly getting that.

The card was also inverted, which could mean remaining calm in the face of disaster, and this would fit as well, because Saara can’t let on that this situation scares her to death.

The Refusal

The three of swords depicts a heart pierced by three swords. Saara is faced with an impossible choice. Accept Miko’s overtures and surrender everything into his control, try to fight him and probably end up losing everything, anyway (she may be naïve, but Saara’s not stupid—she knows her little militia is no match for Miko’s hardened warriors). Even if she manages to pull off a temporary deception, Saara doesn’t know how she could possibly outmaneuver Miko and his family. She runs to her grandmother.

This card was also inverted, which can mean blessings in disguise. And that leads us directly into the next stage of the Hero’s Journey.

The Mentor

The seven of pentacles shows a gardener tending a plant which bears the seven pentacles and represents a successful harvest. This card was also inverted—there are a lot of those in this reading—meaning a failed harvest.

Saara’s grandmother, Mummu Liisa, is the fenwoman of the family and lady of the land. Saara has not progressed in her training sufficiently for the skills of a fenwoman to serve her in her current dilemma. Mummu Liisa will do what she can to protect the land and its people, but she is not a shield matron and she doesn’t have the authority to intervene in political matters. She recommends Saara seek out and petition Luonnotar, the spirit of nature. This will, of course, involve a series of trials.

Crossing the Threshold

The ace of swords depicts a hand emerging from the clouds, holding a sword. A crown hovers over the tip of the blade and six motes of light or Yods—signifying the divine—surround the bottom. This card represents divine inspiration or fertile thinking. Inverted, as this card is, it can represent a broken engagement for a woman.

Saara departs to seek out Luonnotar, telling her parents and Miko’s family that she is going to ask for the spirit’s divine blessing on the union. This does not break the engagement, per se, but delays the marriage for a time.

Tests, Enemies, Allies

The Moon is a card that focuses on the power and guidance of intuition. When inverted, as it is here, it represents deception, secrets, and hidden enemies.

Saara sets off on her quest with her companion, Maija. Miko, not trusting Saara, sends his younger brothers Arvo and Juha to follow her in secret. On her search for Luonnotar, Saara will complete three tasks that will rely on her intuitive strengths as a novice fenwoman in a series of try/fail cycles.

Approach to the Inmost Cave

For the next stage of the Hero’s Journey, I drew the five of pentacles. On it, a woman in a ragged cloak leads a man with crutches past the stained-glass window of a church in the middle of a snowfall. This card denotes poverty. The inverted five of pentacles only exchanges material difficulties for relationship difficulties.

The quest has gone on longer than Saara thought and she and Maija are almost out of food and money. Saara wants to push on, counting on Luonnotar’s generosity. They only have the third task left to complete, but Maija has been injured and wants to return home. She accuses Saara of being selfish.

The Ordeal

Judgement is a card symbolizing transformation. Though the image is one depicting “judgement day” the underlying message is one of forgiveness and release. Inverted, the card speaks to stagnation and the inability to move on. In the Hero’s Journey, the ordeal is the midpoint of the novel, the mirror moment, the point at which the protagonist learns something important about themselves, and moves from reaction to action, heading toward the climax.

Saara completes the third task alone, having given Maija what little they had left and sending her home. She comes close to failing, is gravely injured, but she ultimately succeeds and meets with Luonnotar. When she asks her boon of the spirit, however, Arvo and Juha reveal themselves, her deception of their brother Miko, and they demand that Saara be punished. Luonnotar instead sets Saara one final, terrible test. If Saara succeeds, her boon will be granted. If she fails, Luonnotar will punish her, as Arvo and Juha have asked.

The Reward

The ten of cups shows a family, the parents with one arm around each other and the other raised to the sky. Two children dance nearby. Overhead the ten cups form a rainbow. The card fits this stage of the Hero’s Journey perfectly. Happiness. Peace. Contentment. It would be a reward, except the card was inverted, which in this case inverts the interpretation literally.

Saara’s reward is twofold. The first is that she’s learned, by completing the third task herself, that she is a more capable fenwoman than she thought. But now she must complete Luonnotar’s final challenge and, for all she’s learned, Saara doubts she can do it. The second reward is time. The challenge is in a distant land and Saara needs to recover from her injury.

The Road Back

A stonemason works on a cathedral on the three of pentacles card. Two clergy stand nearby, holding the blueprints. The three of pentacles denotes skill, craft, and artistry, but the inverted card means mediocrity and weakness.

It is a time of weakness for Saara as she recovers and hones her skills as a fenwoman (cue magical montage here). Arvo and Juha are again following her, but they are no longer hidden and harass her openly. Maija finds her way back to Saara. She’s sorry she left. She knows that Saara’s quest is about more than avoiding an unwanted marriage. She was just wounded and tired and hungry. The two friends reconcile as they travel to the final challenge.

Resurrection

The nine of pentacles card shows a lady hawking. The pentacles are scattered through the surrounding grape vines. This is a card meaning prosperity and success, gaining an inheritance, or comfort and pleasure. And this one wasn’t inverted!

At the final challenge—I don’t know what it is, this is just an initial outline—Saara digs deep and comes into her own power even as Mummu Liisa dies protecting their ancestral home from Miko and his warriors. Saara is now the new lady of the land. She cannot marry. Nor can she manage the family estates or lead the militia. This is Luonnotar’s boon: the clarity of purpose gained through this final challenge.

Return with the Elixir

And again, in what might be the coolest coincidence, I picked the Magician as my twelfth card. The Magician denotes power and mastery.

Saara and Maija return home to pay their respects to Mummu Liisa. Saara assumes her new role, healing the land and her people alike. Maija remains with her as Saara’s friend and handmaiden. Miko has been stripped of wealth and rank and banished for causing the death of a fenwoman. Arvo and Juha are dismayed by the change in their family’s fortunes.

It’s Your Turn

I’ll be honest. This freaked me out. I shuffled and cut and picked random cards. I didn’t turn them over until I started to write this outline. But the outline kind of wrote itself. There were a lot of inverted cards and a lot of pentacles, but that just spoke to theme—which would be another column.

This is just a basic outline and there would be more work involved in making it into the functional basis of a story (what is Saara’s wound, her want/need, what lie does she believe in the beginning and what is the truth she comes to understand by the end?). But I hope you can see the potential in the cards as a way to unlock your intuitive powers as a writer.

If you’re looking for a different way to develop an idea into an outline, try the tarot. I’d love to know if your results were as surprising as mine.

Until next time, keep speculating, and see where it leads you!

Melanie Marttila creates worlds from whole cloth. She’s a dreamsinger, an ink alchemist, and an unabashed learning mutt. Her speculative short fiction has appeared in Bastion Science Fiction Magazine, On Spec Magazine, and Sudbury Ink. She lives and writes in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, where she spends her days working as a corporate trainer. She blogs at https://www.melaniemarttila.ca and you can find her on Facebook and Twitter.

The post Mythic Storytelling: Tarot for Writers, Part 3 appeared first on DIY MFA.

Cartoonist and coach Jessica is the founder of the Creative Focus Workshop, and author of Growing Gills: How to Find Creative Focus When You’re Drowning in Your Daily Life, the graphic novel La Perdida, and two textbooks about making comics, Drawing Words & Writing Pictures and Mastering Comics.

Her book Out on the Wire is about how the best radio and podcast producers in the world use story to keep us listening. Jessica’s latest work of fiction is the Eisner-nominated Trish Trash: Rollergirl of Mars. She is chair of the illustration program at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

In this episode Jessica and I discuss:

• The inspiration behind Growing Gills
• The myth of the muse and “right brain versus left brain”
• The power of time tracking
• Dealing with external and internal nay-sayers
• The power of planning and creating your own rules

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

About Jessica Abel

Cartoonist and coach Jessica Abel is the founder of the Creative Focus Workshop, and author of Growing Gills: How to Find Creative Focus When You’re Drowning in Your Daily Life, the graphic novel La Perdida, and two textbooks about making comics, Drawing Words & Writing Pictures and Mastering Comics. Her book Out on the Wire is about how the best radio and podcast producers in the world use story to keep us listening. Jessica’s latest work of fiction is the Eisner-nominated Trish Trash: Rollergirl of Mars. She is chair of the illustration program at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Sign up for her Creative Focus Workshop, check out her website and connect with her on Twitter and Facebook. You can also download her “What’s Stopping You?” worksheet right here! 

Growing Gills

Go from overwhelmed, anxious, and stuck, to consistent, clear, and in control of your creative life.

If you feel like you’re floundering in the deep end (Not waving, drowning!), and anxiety over the complexity and enormousness of your creative projects overwhelms you, stop scrambling to fit everything in and feeling stretched thin.

Dive deep and swim

Sustain the energy you feel when thinking of how awesome your projects could be.

Value your own creative work as highly as work you do for other people.

Build a reusable structure and process that will consistently get you to the finish line.

Blast through your stuck-ness.

Focus. Finish. Move on to the next project.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 293

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio or Google Play and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 293: Find Your Creative Focus — Interview with Jessica Abel appeared first on DIY MFA.

Let’s start with the obvious: every book is different. And, also obvious: every writer is different. Slightly less obvious: the method of writing each book will be different. Most writers find a system. Sometimes, books blow up that system. At some point, the method that worked for your last book or your best friend or your favorite writer will fail you. Or you’ll discover a new method. Or you’ll realize you’ve let the character drag you kicking and screaming into a murderous subplot you did-not-see-coming! And no one but other writers understands how this can happen.

At this point, I’m often tempted to quote the Cheshire Cat: “We’re all mad here.”

It is in times like these that an outline can be useful. It’s a bridge from your inspiration to the words on the page. A reminder of where you want the story to go. A map.

But how do you go about making this map? And how could anyone possibly advise anyone else when every book is so darn different? Well, here are four methods for creating an outline; you might find one that works for you.

Outlining Method One: Acts

Do you not like being constrained by an outline? Need to let your story flow like a river, but don’t particularly want to end up drowning in some bog you did-not-see-coming? A simple broad outline might be the best way to go. It won’t get into details. You can discover all the nuances on your own. But it will help keep in mind where the character, the story and their writer are eventually planning to go.

Stories fall into three acts: the beginning (25%), the middle (50%) and the end (25%). Each one of these acts is precipitated by a major event in which the character makes a major decision. For example, take The Lion King. If you were to write a three-act outline for this movie, it would look like this:

1. Act One — Simba in the Pridelands
2. Break into Act Two — Simba denies his birthright and runs away.
3. Act Two — Simba in exile.
4. Break into Act Three — Simba decides to go home and reclaim his birthright
5. Act Three — Simba returns to the Pridelands to confront Scar

So, we have three sets of scenes, and two decisions. That’s it. The spine of a story. And if you want to discover the details, the minor characters and the setting along the way, that’s all you really need to get going.

Outlining Method Two: Time

This is an especially useful method if you have a very structural timeline, such as a school-year, a summer, or a season. If the timeline is short enough, you can even make this type of outline on an actual calendar. It’s a fun way to make your book and characters feel real!

One of the most famous examples of this type of outline comes from the ultimate school-year story: Harry Potter. Check out J.K. Rowling’s outline for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. You’ll see in the far left column that she organized her outline by months

Outlining Method 3: Character

This is a useful way to outline both broad stories with multiple viewpoints, or stories that are not plot-driven. Rather than focusing on events, focus on each character, and outline three major points:

1. How the character begins — This is similar, in substance, to an outline of the first act. An introduction to your character. Where is he at the opening of the story? What does he want? Why? And what was his past?
2. How the character changes — This is the middle of his story. Something forces him to act, and he begins to change. What skills does he learn? What lessons? What mistakes does he make? Who does he meet?
3. How the character ends — The climax. The grand finale. The character should now be able to do something he was not able to do at the beginning. What is it? And how does he show it?

I find it useful to do just a basic outline like this for every single one of my characters. Continuing our Lion King example, consider Pumbaa.  He’s the sidekick to the sidekick that only shows up halfway through the movie. But he has an arc. At the beginning, he cowtows to Timon, letting him claim his ideas for his own. Even his name, in Swahili, means “to be foolish, silly, weak-minded, careless, negligent.” And yet Pumbaa is changed and inspired by Simba and Nala. He makes the decision to leave his carefree life and follow Simba to Pride Rock, and in the end leads a charge against the Hyenas. In fact, his arc is bookended by two charges: the first, a senseless “bowling for buzzards,” the second, a purposeful attack in defense of himself and his friends. Comedic relief? Yes. But also a character in his own right. 

Making a simple, three-point outline for your main character and the supporting ones will help shape your story. It’s an exercise you can do in an afternoon that might save you heaps of time in the long-run, and your story will be richer for it.

Outlining Method Four: Combine

No one outline method will work for everyone. But, just as there are billions of stories there are . . . well, maybe not billions, but at least hundreds of ways to combine the elements of those stories into an outline that works for you. In my next and final post, I’ll talk about a few different methods of actually writing these outlines down.

Bess Cozby writes epic stories in expansive worlds from her tiny apartment in New York City. By day, she’s an Editor at Tor Books, and Web Editor for DIY MFA. Her work is represented by Brooks Sherman of the Bent Agency. Tweet her at @besscozby, contact her at bess@diymfa.com, or visit her website at www.besscozby.com.

The post Four Methods for Outlining Your Book appeared first on DIY MFA.

The Same Rules of Drafting Still Apply

What are these rules? Well, there are no rules to good writing. Not really. But writers have found a few tried and true methods that I’d like to recommend.

1. Write every day — This is not feasible for everyone, but the closer you can get to writing every day, the better. It’s always harder to come back to a project and get in the groove of writing after a long break.
2. Set a challenging, but attainable goal — This will help keep you motivated. If you set unreasonable goals, you won’t reach them and might get discouraged. If you set too easy of goals, you won’t get anything done!
3. Get a buddy — Even if it’s not another writer, just having the motivation of emailing someone to say you made your daily word count will help keep you on task.
4. Reward yourself — This is the fun part! For the bigger milestones along the way, set up a way to celebrate! Even if it’s just getting a mocha instead of a coffee, or having a movie night with your best writing friends. Writing is a solitary experience, so having some fun steps along the way can help you be more energized and motivated when you sit back down to your desk.

All these are good things to keep in mind, whether you’re writing with an outline or not. In fact, these are all tried and true methods for getting just about anything accomplished, and the same would apply to revision, querying, or any other part of the writing process. But for drafting with an outline, there are two more things to keep in mind.

Use Your Outline to Make a Plan

Wait, what? Your outline is the plan, right? Right. But it’s a plan for your story — you also need a plan for youself. This is where the goal-setting from the previous point comes into play. When you are setting your goals for your draft, use your outline to make a schedule.

But plans change, right? Yes. Of course they do. And your planned thousand word debate scene might turn into a ten thousand word debate novella. But you created this outline. You know your story better than anyone. And you are the best–and only–judge of how long each of these scenes is going to take to write. Unfortunately, you will probably often be wrong. The point here is not to make a perfect plan, but to make a plan that allows for imperfections. Just writing down what you want to accomplish and when gets you on the road to accomplishing it.

An outline is invaluable because it sets up your expectations. Many writers fail to finish books because they didn’t realize how long it was going to take them, and the task becomes daunting. Productivity experts all agree–the best way to accomplish a big task is to break it into little tasks, while keeping the big task in mind.

So, you want to write a YA fantasy novel. You’ve researched it, and you know the average length of such a novel is 60-80,000 words. Your outline is pretty extensive and awesome, so say you budget 80,000 words. At 1,000 words a day, giving yourself leeway for bad writing days, holiday, and a few unexpected stumbles along the way, you can expect to have a draft in about three months. And you can write a schedule for yourself that accommodates that. An outline isn’t going to get you there, but it’s going to help guide you along the way.

Use Your Outline to Revise Your Plan

Here’s where the magic comes in. So, you’ve written a mystery. You’ve outlined it, and you know the ending. You know the murder is in chapter one. You know the love interest will die in chapter twenty two. And you know the protagonist will find the murderer in chapter thirty. But you’re writing chapter ten, and that love interest that was just supposed to be a side character keeps coming up with these witty things you weren’t expecting. She keeps talking. She won’t stop talking. And you’re starting to think she’s cleverer than she seems. She must have some motivation for just showing up at the murder scene in a red dress, just the protagonist’s type, with a backstory so perfectly form-fitted to fall in love with him that someone must have planned it.

Oh wait. You planned it. And now you’re realizing that this is all so convenient. Too convenient. And she’s too smart. And, actually, she’s the murderer. Except that’s too obvious, too. She’s not the murderer. She’s the murderer’s sister; her brother is psychotic, but still her brother, and she’s trying to get the protagonist off his trail while also trying to prevent him from killing again.

And all the sudden your book is so much more interesting.

And your outline is shot to hell.

Never fear! Remember how I said in my first post that plotters and pantsers can get along? This is where that happens. Take a look at this outline J.K. Rowling made for The Order of the Phoenix. 

People study this thing. J.K. Rowling is not only a hilarious tweeter, she writes fabulous plots. And in this outline of Chapter 13-24 of Order of the Phoenix, she outlines the basic plot of each chapter, and what is going on in each of the subplots. If you read it carefully, you’ll notice a certain person of great importance is missing — Sirius Black, Harry’s Godfather and a central character in Order of the Phoenix. In Rowling’s original version, Mr. Weasley and not Sirius met his end in Order of the Phoenix.

She still had an outline. And my guess is, when she realized that it was Sirius that was going to die and not Mr. Weasley, she had to revise things that came before. She also had to revise the outline she’d already written. If you have an outline and a basic knowledge of story structure, you can rework what you have to accommodate the changes you are sure to encounter in the  process of writing a first draft without throwing your book completely off course.

So, take your love-interest-is-now-the-murderer’s-sister scenario. Maybe she can no longer die in chapter twenty two. This doesn’t mean you have to re-write your book from scratch. You’ve got an outline. And instead of revising the whole thing–and maybe getting bogged down–you can revise the outline. This will give you a clear plan to move forward, and a clear idea of what you’ll need to revise. An outline won’t make the act of writing any easier, but it will make the process of drafting–and reaching your goals–a lot smoother.

In my next post, I’ll go over a couple ways to make outlines. Maybe you’ll find one that works for you!

Bess Cozby writes epic stories in expansive worlds from her tiny apartment in New York City. By day, she’s an Editor at Tor Books, and Web Editor for DIY MFA. Her work is represented by Brooks Sherman of the Bent Agency. Tweet her at @besscozby, contact her at bess@diymfa.com, or visit her website at www.besscozby.com.

The post Using an Outline on the Job appeared first on DIY MFA.