Amanda Hocking

I have a somewhat distinct memory from when I was about seven or eight. I’m sitting in the library at my elementary school, and there’s a TV on in front of us with an author talking about writing. I am 98% that the author talking was Gary Paulson, because I remember that we had to read Hatchet and I didn’t really care for it, but I think he had another book that I did like.

Anyway, what I remember the most is Gary Paulson talking about his writing process. He mentioned something about outlining and taking notes, to which I went, “Pfft. I’ll never outline or take notes. Those only slow me down.” He also talked about how much he originally loathed the computer, but how he’d come to love using it and it made his writing and editing so much easier, to which I went, “Pfft. I’ll never use computers. Those things are awful.”

I actually remember having a conversation with another student about how stupid computers were and how I refused to ever own one. We had Macs in the computer lab in school, and I was required to taking computer classes a couple times a week, but I hated it. With the exception of Carmen Sandiego and Number Munchers.

(Side note: I had Keyboarding from like Kindergarten until sixth grade. I hated it so much. Now I love typing, and I’m grateful for the school for forcing me to do it. Way to be on top of things Blooming Prairie Elementary School).

Back to my main story: I was basically an idiot when I was seven or eight. I was so wrong about things, and Gary Paulson was so right.

I didn’t really start outlining and taking notes until I was about nineteen or twenty. I was working on a story, and I didn’t think I could write fast enough to come up with all the ideas, so I started outlining out of necessity. It ended up being the second novel I’d ever finished. The first novel was roughly 70-80K words and took me nine months to write. The second novel, the one I outlined, was over 100K words and took me about 6 days. (I’m pretty sure that I wrote that book in some kind of manic episode, but that’s a story for another day.)

So from then on, I was hooked on outlining and taking notes. The way I outlined hasn’t changed much over time. I’ve discussed it in a previous post where I showed an example from an unfinished novel that I have no intention of finishing. (You can check that post out: here.)

The way I take notes has changed. The Watersong series is the newest series I’m working on, and the notes on it are so ridiculously intense. I have pages and pages of handwritten notes (I hand write all my notes and outlines). Then I scan them into the computer so I can’t lose them. I have physical files full of notebook pages. I had do research for the book, so I even printed off the articles I used from the internet or photocopied pages from the books, so I know exactly where I got my information so I can double check it.

And that’s made my life so much easier.

I’m working on something right now, a little fun something, and I want to go back and check notes from a previous project, but unfortunately, my notes weren’t always so great. So I’m having troubles trying to figure something out, and that’s really impeded what should be a very quick, little project.

So here’s a tip: Before you start writing a book, name everything. Every character, every city, every street. Anything you think might possibly come up. Even make up extra names on the off chance you might need a minor character somewhere in the book to say a few lines. Get their first, middle, last name, date of birth, physical appearance, fun facts, etc, and write it all down.

Because nothing sucks worse than being in the middle of groove, the words are flowing and everything’s going good, and then you have to stop and go, “Wait. What’s their name?” And then you spend the next three hours trying to pick out a name or find a name or an eye color or birth date, and then the whole mood is lost and you just give up and go upstairs to watch reruns of Chopped on the Food Network.

P. S. I’m still working on ideas from yesterday’s post. I should have a concrete idea of what I’m going to do and how you can participate by Monday next week. Thanks for all the ideas!

Holy cow, it’s only three weeks until Ascend comes out. Time flies when you’re having fun and all that. Since Ascend is the final book in the Trylle trilogy, I’m trying to think of some fun things that I can do to celebrate. I have a couple ideas, but they’re still in the idea stage.

Oh, and I have fun news for fans of the Trylle books and people excited about the new Watersong series. But I can’t tell you yet. It’s a bit too soon. But trust me when I tell you that it’s fun.

I started writing this blog like eights hours, but get distracted by life. Oh, life, how tricky you are.

Oh, hey, while I’ve got you here – what are some fun things you guys would like me to do for the promotion of Ascend?

Before you ask, here are some things I won’t (or can’t) do:

• change the ending of any book
• do a book signing in your city (At least not right now. I’m not doing any touring for this book, because I’m busy working on other books right now.)
• make the movie come out any faster (For more info on the movie, please check: here, but nothing new has happened on it)

I am considering doing a charity auction on eBay. That I would really like to do, actually. But I haven’t figured out how to set one up, what charity I would want the proceeds to go to, or what all I’d auction off. When I come up with more, I’ll let you know.

But otherwise I am open to ideas!

The first four chapters of Ascend are up: here for you check it out, if you’re interested. (Scroll down the page and click Read the Excerpt. I can’t link directly to it.)

Anyway. That’s all for now. Have a wonderful day and a pleasant tomorrow!

I didn’t really go to college. I mean, I kinda did. We have a community college in town, and the first time I went for a semester, I took like 9 or 12 credits or something, and I only went to one class or maybe I didn’t go to any of them. I don’t remember any more, but the good news is that I finally paid off my student loan for that.

The second time I went to college I was much more committed. But I was working two jobs, working around 60-70 hours a week, and I tried to take a full course load on top of that. I went to all my classes for the first two months, but by month three, I was too burnt out and only went to my English class.

And thus ended my college experience.

Well, sorta. I had a couple friends who were in college, and I used to write papers for them all the time. I don’t know why exactly. My friends aren’t idiots and could probably write great papers themselves. They didn’t pay me for them or anything either. I just liked doing the paper to see what kind of grades I could I get, I guess.

I don’t actually know what my incentive was, actually. I just know that I did them. I don’t remember all of them, but I wrote a couple choice ones for Eric. One was about censorship, and the other was about drug testing in the pharmaceutical industry. Eric got an A on both papers.

My absolutely favorite paper I’ve ever written in my entire life was for my friend Fifi. She was in some movie class. I don’t really know why or what it was about anymore, but they had to watch movies and discuss them and write papers on them.

Her assignment was to watch the movie Blade Runner, and if I recall correctly, she tried watching it but she kept falling asleep during it. To which, I freaked out on her several times, saying things like, “Blade Runner is amazing! How can you sleep through that?” Eric defended her by saying that it gave him BillyBobThorntonitis*

(*BillyBobThorntonitis is the made up name for a real condition that both Eric and I suffer from, although for Eric it’s much more severe. Basically, it’s the feeling you get when you’re watching a film, particularly an old film, that makes you feel dirty and gross and just plain icky, so you don’t want to watch it. Eric coined the term, because apparently, Billy Bob Thornton makes him feel that way, or more specifically, Slingblade made him feel that way. Had I named the condition, I would’ve called it DavidLynchitis.

As an aside, “itis” is a suffix meaning inflammation, so what Eric is actually is that he has an inflammation of the Billy Bob Thornton, which makes me picture Billy Bob with his head all red and swollen, and that makes me giggle.)

Anyway, back to the story. So Fifi can’t/won’t/doesn’t want to watch Blade Runner. I love the movie, and I’ve actually read the book that it’s based on (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, who I also love lots).

So I wrote this paper, and I titled it “More Human Than Human,” mostly because as I was writing the paper, I had that White Zombie song stuck in my head the entire time. And it was a really good paper, and it got an A.

It bums me out, because I don’t know where that paper is. Fifi probably threw it away, which makes sense, because most people don’t hang onto their schoolwork for ten years, myself included. But I really loved that paper.

Now I want to go watch Blade Runner. And Total Recall. I could probably talk Eric into watching Total Recall but not Blade Runner, for the aforementioned reasons.

Also, what are your thoughts on the upcoming remake of Total Recall starring Colin Farrell? And the Ridley Scott Alien prequel/sequel/tie-in/reboot/? Prometheus. I’m cautiously excited about both. They both made it on my Summer Movie List (which is prestigious).

And as another aside to this rambling blog that really doesn’t have much of a point whatsoever, many of books have small allusions to the works of Ridley Scott. I’m a big fan. Also, his name is Ridley, which is pretty sweet ass.

It’s supposed to storm today, which greatly excites me. I have been craving a storm for weeks. Not anything too major, because I don’t want people or property to get hurt, but I do like thunder and rain and all that.

Anyway, I got the edits back on Lullaby, the second book in the Watersong series, from editor Rose, and I’m pretty excited to dive into them. I love doing edits. I don’t know why. Maybe I’m a freak that way. Plus, I want to get started on Tidal, the third book in the series, and I didn’t want to do that until I started the edits.

It’s only a month until Ascend, the final book in the Trylle Trilogy, comes out. I’m really excited about it. So many more people have discovered the Trylle books since they’ve hit stores, and I’m really, really anxious to see what you all think about the last book.

The book blogger at Paranormal Indulgence declared Loki her Book Boyfriend for March, and wrote this great blog about him and the Trylle books. You should check it out, but be warned, there are a few spoilers from Torn if you haven’t read it yet.

Also, I re-made the soundtracks for Switched, Torn, and Ascend because I like to make soundtracks for things. I actually make the soundtracks while I’m writing, because that’s the music I listen to as I write, but then I edit them down when I put them together. My current favorite playlist is the one for Wake.

Oh, I also made this little page, because I’ve been getting a LOT of questions about the movie adaptations of the Trylle books lately.  So if you want to know what the deal with the movie is, check out the page: here. I promise to update the page if/when new information comes in

This blog isn’t very exciting. But I promise to write something more exciting tomorrow. I’m not sure what. But I assure you that tomorrow will be fun.

I used to write blogs all the time, and they used to be so much fun. I was reading through old blogs tonight, and its just weird to see the way things have changed. I don’t know why my blogs less frequent & less fun, but they definitely have.

Even in reading my newer blocs, I feel like something is missing. They’re much less random & rambling. They’re more quick to the point, and I daresay a big cagey.

I can’t complete account for the change except that I know I know I don’t like blotting as much as I used to. I feel more defensively. Every time I blog or tweet or speak, its an opportunity for people to point out my faults in someway. Its crazy how much people on the interwebs love to tell each other they’re wrong.

I digress. I just want to get back to blogging more and talking about all the irrelevant things that interest me.

So I am going to make a concerted effort to do just that. I will be blogging more and my blogs will be filled with more nonsense and fun. So cheers to that!