Seat of Your Pants: The restart

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m glad you stopped by. This month, as you’ll well know by now, we’re talking about writing by the seat of your pants—and how that even works, to begin with. It’s something I’m often asked, if I’m honest, probably because there are a lot of people out there who think there’s only one way to write, and that’s to outline. Well, those people are wrong, and I’m here to tell you all about the way I write—by the seat of my pants.

By now, we’ve gotten a fair way into our stories. So if you haven’t been checking into the blog as often as you should, be sure to click back and check out the rest of the series!

Today?

Seat of Your Pants: The restart

I questioned whether or not I should include this part, in the series. It was questionable, because it doesn’t always happen. Sure, it will inevitably happen to everyone who writes this way, as it will probably happen to everyone who outlines, but it doesn’t have to happen, and it definitely doesn’t happen every time.

But because it does happen, it’s something that I thought you should know about, too.

If you’re a seat of your pants writer, then I’m sure you already know: we start over. When things just aren’t going right, when the story is crumbling in all the wrong directions and nothing seems to be going the way we meant, when we lose the connection we once had with the story, when there’s just no spark in it anymore, nothing to keep us linked to it like we once were… we start over.

Sometimes we restart the same story, other times we start on something altogether new. It varies, from case to case, and changes depending on the reason why we’re restarting, but if you’re wanting to try writing by the seat of your pants, then you should know. At some point, you will have to restart a story. And it’s okay, when you do.

See, the thing that you have to understand, is that writers who write like a deer in the headlights, who write by the seat of their pants, are incredibly accustomed to what you might think of as failure. Only, we don’t think of it that way. If we had to start over, it doesn’t mean we failed. It just means we probably didn’t go about writing the story the way we were supposed to. We’ll try again, and hopefully we’ll get it right that time.

And sure, it can be frustrating at times. Sometimes we struggle with it, a lot, but it always comes down to that: the story has to be written the right way, or else it just won’t work out, and we’ll have to start over again.

Eventually, you get better at spotting the times when you’ll have to start over, from earlier on in the writing process. Trust me. You will.

[love]

{Rani Divine}

Seat of Your Pants: Just keep swimming

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by, because today… I have something important to tell you. But that’ll have to wait until the end.

For now, today, we’re ending our series on writing by the seat of your pants. All month long, we’ve been talking about what it’s like to write without an outline, and why it’s so different from writing with an outline. We’ve talked about how we start a story, how we continue and conceptualize a story, and even how we occasionally restart a story. And today, we’ll talk about the end. How to finish, you might say.

Seat of Your Pants: Just keep swimming

This, I think, is the hardest part, for people who don’t write in this method. The thing that you must remember to do, no matter what, is to keep swimming. Keep going. Keep pushing. Keep writing. And eventually you’ll reach the end of the story. I’ll admit that sometimes I even outline, when I come near to the end—but that’s not very often. More likely, I just keep writing. And that’s what you should do, too.

That’s what we all do, when we write in this method. When you write by the seat of your pants, eventually, you’ll get it right. You won’t have to restart your story. Everything will flow, just the way you want it too. And then, if you just keep going, you’ll reach the end. You’ll get to the end, and you’ll experience that rush of coming to the end of your story.

You just keep swimming. Because that’s what you have to do. Because that’s what you want to do. Because that’s what you’re called to do.

Which brings me to the important part…

There’s a change coming, for me. It’s nearly here, really. Very nearly. Because my books, all of them, are about to be pulled off the market. All of them. Every single one. The babies that I’ve worked on for the last decade, the books that I’ve cherished and loved for so long… they won’t be available again, for a long while.

RAD Writing is closing its doors.

That’s something I never thought I would say, ever. I thought I would work there for the rest of my life, that I would enjoy working with them for years upon years to come. And instead… I find myself suddenly staring at a Google search for book agents. Because as you all know, I really don’t want to self-publish again. I would much rather be traditionally published.

So that’s what I’ll be working toward. And I’ll be sure to keep you all in the loop, along the way. I promise.

I’m starting a YouTube channel, called Art of Divine, if you want to keep a better eye on what I’m doing and what’s going on. And I’m not sure what else to tell you, except that my books will be highly discounted online until RAD Writing runs out of stock, so if you’d like a copy while they’re still available, now’s the time to get them.

I am also considering printing a few copies of Cayau, personally, for my biggest fans, my friends, and my family. So if that’s something you’re interested in, then please send me a message on Facebook, and we’ll talk further. :)

I’m surprised. As surprised as you all, I’m sure.

But I’ll just keep swimming. Because I’m a seat of your pants writer, and that’s what I do.

[love]

{Rani Divine}

Seat of Your Pants: The start

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by! All month long, we’re talking about writing by the seat of your pants—primarily because I’ve been asked these questions more times than I can count, and I thought answering them in here might be the best way to go about it. This way, I can point you all back to the blog, if you have these questions in the future. ;-)

So far in our series, we’ve come up with our idea and we’ve just barely started writing, just enough that we have our concept figured out and know what our world looks like (particularly if we’re writing sci-fi, fantasy, or an otherworldly genre of that nature)—and if you’ve missed any of it, I highly recommend that you click over there and check out the prior posts!

Today? We’re really getting the ball rolling.

Seat of Your Pants: The start

Obviously, once you’ve gotten your idea, started rolling with it, and conceptualized everything, the next step is just to write. But I think this is the part that a lot of people struggle to understand, which is why I wanted to take this entire post to talk about it. If you’ve ever written, or if you took any writing courses in the past, then you’ve probably outlined. So you’re used to having a map, a direction in which to go, and you have an idea of what you’re really writing. But if you’re like me, you might have struggled with it, along the way. If you’re anything like me, then you maybe even wrote your stories, outlined them after, and pretended that wasn’t what you did.

But I think that’s beside the point.

For seat of your pants writers, really, we just start writing. We start from the spot where we think the story begins, and just go. I know a great many authors who stop writing in the middle of a scene, so they can jump right back into it when they come back—and this is an extremely useful tip, if you want to try writing like this. Whatever it takes, really, to make sure the story still goes.

Why? Because it’s easier to let your book go by the wayside, when you don’t have an outline to keep you going, and sometimes we get off track and need to make little ways to get ourselves back on it.

For me, chapter maps are a useful venture, and a great way to keep me on pace while I’m writing. It’s a little like an outline, only without really being an outline at all, and without my ever really sticking to them, in the end. Which probably sounds useless, but hey, it works for me so I’ll keep using it.

A chapter map is where I’ll sit down and “decide” how many scenes I’d like, in the chapter I’m about to write. I usually start with four, and build up or down from there. I use Scrivener, so I make a file for each one of those scenes, and I write a little blurb of what information I’d like to cover in that scene—because at this point, my head is usually farther ahead than my hands. So I’ll write down what needs to happen in this chapter, guesstimating how many words I think each scene will be (since I like my chapters to be equal in length), and then I’ll sit down to write the chapter.

But like I said, those chapter maps are really… they’re iffy, as to whether I follow them or not. Usually, the information I want to convey will be conveyed, but I don’t generally write it the way I originally thought I would.

I know, confusing, but it makes sense to me, and that’s what matters. If you hate chapter maps, don’t use them. If you hate outlines, don’t use them. But if you love both, by all means, use both! Find what works for you, and use it—just make sure you write, if you’re going to write.

[love]

{Rani Divine}