Six things I wish I had been told about writing before I decided to make it a career choice:
1. It's going to be the hardest thing you'll ever do. Not just because everyone out there with an ounce of creativity and the desire to change the world is out there trying to do the same thing, but because writing is a craft that takes all of your passion and all of your emotion to do.
2. It's going to be the most rewarding thing in your life. Every good writing day. Every time you finish a story. Every time you finish a novel. You'll know that you're doing something with your life that many people won't. It's worth everything I've been through to call myself a writer. A novelist.
3. You have to give up a lot of things to be a good writer. I stay at home a lot. I don't have many friends. I have goals that I need to meet, and that keeps me a little bit of a homebody. I'm okay with all of this, absolutely. I love to write, I want to go somewhere with it, and (this may come as a shock) but I'm quite a bit of an introvert anyway. The only other thing is that it doesn't really give me time for other hobbies, but I'm gaining hobbies that have to do with writing, like blogging.
4. As soon as you think you're better than someone else, you're going in the wrong direction. I think I'm a good writer. I think I'm above average. But looking down at people who aren't as talented as I am is thinking the wrong way. Instead, you have to remember everyone above you, who is better than you and who you are 'competing' against for sales. You can't just look down. That gives you a false sense of superiority. Look up, and always be working to improve your writing, especially if you think you're good at it.
5. Write for the right reasons. Write because you have a story to tell. Write because you love it. Write because you can't imagine life if you aren't doing it. We've all heard the advice, write the story you want to read. I want to expand that to, write the story that will make you better. Better as a writer. Better as a person. Write what will make you think, and make you learn. If you do that every time you sit down to write, you'll improve. Simple as that.
6. Expand. Learn how to write resumes, or grants, or how to edit. Sticking with novels and fiction is great, but if you let yourself learn a little more outside of your comfort zone, you'll be more of a resource for others who may need your talents, and you'll give yourself the opportunity to make money writing, which is what you're going for, isn't it?
I submitted a short story today. I'll keep you posted about what happens next.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Friday, June 10, 2011
How to stay focused
I have cleaned out my works in progress file. It feels pretty good. All I have in there now are novels, though, so that's the end of my easy projects for a while. I'm 13k words into two of them, but it's taken me a bit to get to that point. Novels take a long time to write.
Today I'm going to write about a point very close to my heart - staying focused, staying on task. I've been flirting with staying on track for months... no, years. I've tried many things, and some have succeeded, and some have failed. I've written an entire novel in one month, and I've been crippled by self doubt for twice that.
There are a lot of words on the internet dedicated to this topic, and it's easy to see why - there's at least one 'answer' to this problem for every single person who deals intimately with the written word. I have three - filing, scheduling, and my writing journal. I also blog and run a small online community for daily writing prompts. I'm working on getting into blogging for a larger site, to get my writing seen by a larger number of people. These are all things I do to stay on track, and also the things that I need to stay on track for. The cycle is self-perpetuating.
Because there are so many 'how tos' floating out there, I'm just going to say what works for me, personally. Maybe it'll work for you, too.
I've talked about filing lately, so I'll only give that a brief overview. As a writer, I believe that having an organized place to see all of your projects is very important. The feeling of not only finishing something, but having some place to put it, gives the emotional satisfaction that is often lacking when the work is simply finished. I don't know about you, but I sometimes get this empty feeling when I finish something. Like, 'that's it?' Having a place to put the work (and look at it often) makes me feel like I have actually accomplished something.
Scheduling is something new to me. I'm usually the kind of person who flies through life by the seat of my pants. But when I have trouble sitting down to write, a schedule keeps me to it. Just having some time when I know I'm supposed to write. I've been getting up much earlier than I usually do, when the house is asleep and quiet, making myself a cup of tea, and sitting down at my computer. I drink my tea and do my 'morning internet' (comics, email, reddit), and I've been starting to visit blogs and leave comments on them. It's past time I joined the blogosphere. Knowing that I have that time to myself and knowing that it's likely to be my only time during the day to get my stuff done really helps.
I've also mentioned my writing journal before. The one piece of advice I can possibly give to new writers is to keep a word count journal. I make notes of what I'm working on, how many words I write per day, and when I finish each piece. I have a goal of 10,000 words per week, and seeing my progress toward that goal day by day is necessary for me to keep doing what I'm doing. Meeting goals is awesome. It feels good, and I feel like it gives me some bragging rights (just to my fiancé).
Basically, my schedule exists to keep my honest. My word count is a constant and daily measure of how I'm doing, and my daily prompt is to keep me thinking. This is what works for me, right now. I'm still not where I want to be - I'm writing, but not editing, and I'm finishing pieces, but I'm not submitting. I'm not perfect. But neither is anyone else out there.
What's something you do that works to keep you writing?
Today I'm going to write about a point very close to my heart - staying focused, staying on task. I've been flirting with staying on track for months... no, years. I've tried many things, and some have succeeded, and some have failed. I've written an entire novel in one month, and I've been crippled by self doubt for twice that.
There are a lot of words on the internet dedicated to this topic, and it's easy to see why - there's at least one 'answer' to this problem for every single person who deals intimately with the written word. I have three - filing, scheduling, and my writing journal. I also blog and run a small online community for daily writing prompts. I'm working on getting into blogging for a larger site, to get my writing seen by a larger number of people. These are all things I do to stay on track, and also the things that I need to stay on track for. The cycle is self-perpetuating.
Because there are so many 'how tos' floating out there, I'm just going to say what works for me, personally. Maybe it'll work for you, too.
I've talked about filing lately, so I'll only give that a brief overview. As a writer, I believe that having an organized place to see all of your projects is very important. The feeling of not only finishing something, but having some place to put it, gives the emotional satisfaction that is often lacking when the work is simply finished. I don't know about you, but I sometimes get this empty feeling when I finish something. Like, 'that's it?' Having a place to put the work (and look at it often) makes me feel like I have actually accomplished something.
Scheduling is something new to me. I'm usually the kind of person who flies through life by the seat of my pants. But when I have trouble sitting down to write, a schedule keeps me to it. Just having some time when I know I'm supposed to write. I've been getting up much earlier than I usually do, when the house is asleep and quiet, making myself a cup of tea, and sitting down at my computer. I drink my tea and do my 'morning internet' (comics, email, reddit), and I've been starting to visit blogs and leave comments on them. It's past time I joined the blogosphere. Knowing that I have that time to myself and knowing that it's likely to be my only time during the day to get my stuff done really helps.
I've also mentioned my writing journal before. The one piece of advice I can possibly give to new writers is to keep a word count journal. I make notes of what I'm working on, how many words I write per day, and when I finish each piece. I have a goal of 10,000 words per week, and seeing my progress toward that goal day by day is necessary for me to keep doing what I'm doing. Meeting goals is awesome. It feels good, and I feel like it gives me some bragging rights (just to my fiancé).
Basically, my schedule exists to keep my honest. My word count is a constant and daily measure of how I'm doing, and my daily prompt is to keep me thinking. This is what works for me, right now. I'm still not where I want to be - I'm writing, but not editing, and I'm finishing pieces, but I'm not submitting. I'm not perfect. But neither is anyone else out there.
What's something you do that works to keep you writing?
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Prompt
From this writing prompt on Reddit.
“I'm sorry... She's gone.”
Gone? She was just... just gone? Jared's vision blurred, and he couldn't lift his hands to wipe the tears from his face. How was this possible? He was crying. Crying, crying like a child, like a bereaved woman, like... like a man who had just lost the woman he loved. Like a husband who had just lost his wife. He had broken his vows. She had broken hers. He was trying to contain himself. To sit straight, and let the sadness float around him, to be an island in a sea of grief. But there was no chance to float in this feeling. Instead, he drowned.
“But... she... we...” He didn't realize that it was he speaking until the other took his arm and held it tightly. Jared was torn between revulsion and a dangerous, dangerous attraction. It was against his faith to let someone not of the Devout touch him, and he reached up with his uninjured hand to push the other away, but when his fingers met skin he grabbed it tightly, and held on. His mind was still there. It was whirling, chaotic, but it was still there. But that didn't translate to his body, which was reacting by itself. While he processed what was happening to him his body doubled over, still holding on to the doctor like he was his only link to reality, heedless of the salty tears that were falling on the ground like watery meteorites. His brain was there. Unable to stop what his body had started, even if he wanted to.
The doctor was rubbing his back. “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.”
Sorry? He was sorry? Jared's body continued to fold in on itself, collapsing into a single point of sorrow. His wife, his Sati. Gone. Gone. Gone. His mind was a dervish, a demon, finding every single memory that had ever meant anything to him and replaying them, over and over. He was clenching and unclenching his hands, barely feeling the left when the bones ground against each other. Damn the pain. No, welcome it. It gave him something else to focus on. Something that wasn't the unclean touch of the doctor's arm around his shoulders, something that wasn't the slimy feel of his own fluids dripping off of his chin.
He loved her. He loved her, and they swore before God that they would love each other until their deaths. Why would God take her away now? Why would he kill an entire village, and leave only one man alive? Alone, he was alone. Oh, God, alone. When his parents had died, he had been alone. He had lived his life alone, and hadn't even known how empty he was until Satalia had found him, and then he wasn't alone anymore. Now the only person in the world he had any connection to was seriously injured, the only other survivor of the freak disaster that had killed everyone else. Jared didn't even know who the man was, who had lived through that night. And he didn't care. It wasn't Sati. And if it wasn't her, it didn't matter who was lying in that other bed. He would still be alone.
Writing what you need to write
I just read this article, by William Zinsser, about writing for the wrong reasons. The article talks about different people, writers, who aren't writing what they want because they're working on something that will get them more recognition, or money. All of the people he was talking about actually had something going for them, unlike me. Published works, agents, journalists, you know. People who have gotten much farther than I have, so the post was only semi-relevant. Good advice, for when I get to that point. Never give up the book you need to write for the book that makes you money, or gets you noticed. Good enough advice, from someone who's already established, and probably doesn't have the same worries as someone just breaking into the field. "Think about other financial solutions that will free you to focus on the primary task of becoming a writer," he says. I'm a full time student, I work two days a week, and I'm already depending on my fiancé to take care of us, financially, a position that neither of us are particularly happy with. So I was perfectly willing to dismiss this article.
Until I got to the last sentence. "Your most important work-in-progress is you." And that got me thinking. That changed the meaning of the article, to me. It's not about money, it's only about craft. And that strokes a chord with me.
I'm always thinking about my craft. Trying to improve myself, and my writing. I try new things, I'm taking classes, I'm putting myself out there in ways I'd never before dreamed of, and it's all at once terrifying and exhilarating. The reason I'm telling you all of this is because I'm working on the project that I need to write. I've written novels. A few of them. Two finished, one mostly finished stuck on an ancient laptop, and bits of others. Mostly fantasy, science fiction. Decent enough stories, but nothing with any real emotional connection. I didn't have to write them because they meant something to me, I had to write them because I had this great idea that I wanted to get down on paper.
This new novel I'm working on isn't like that, at all. It's vaguely genre fiction, but it could happen here, or could have happened here. Almost every bit of it is true, but the pieces of truth are put together in such a way as to make it fictional. It's about a man who loses his wife, experiences a crisis of faith, and has to learn to live without both. It's like nothing I've ever written, and it's the book I need to write, for me. It's a place to put all of the philosophies I've been working on. It's a place for me to experience real emotion while I'm writing. And most of all, it's a way for me to work through my own losses, my own loss of faith, and what that means to me. Even if it never gets published, this is a book that I need to write. It's my book. The most personal thing that I've ever written. And it's really hard.
I suppose that it's something I'm writing for the right reasons. And I agree, the most important work in progress is you.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Freelance Editing
Freelance editing is something I've considered before. I'm really pretty good at it, one of my few true strengths, which I've employed time and time again as an amateur. I enjoy it. I'm good at making stories better, at seeing things that need to be fixed. But I can only do it with writing that isn't my own.
I replied to a craigslist post today. This unknown person was looking for an editor, and after thinking on it for a few minutes, I thought, 'why can't it be me?' I'm a good editor. The more help a work needs, the better I am at working on it. So, me being me, I take my sweet time doing research, drafting the perfect email back to this person, constantly asking myself and my betrothed if this was really something I could do, if this was really something I was good at, even though I know in my heart of hearts that it is. I looked up fees, what should be charged for copy-editing and deep editing a book, and I took the average of those fees and halved them. I would not feel comfortable charging someone for anything that I was not a professional at.
I still haven't heard back, and I don't really expect to. Even halved, someone on craigslist is probably looking for someone whose fees are more along the lines of, "give me $20 and a case of beer." But that's fine. The point of this story is the last time I asked my fiancé if he thought I was in the right for asking someone for actual money to edit something of theirs. His response?
That I need to edit my own stories, before I think about editing for someone else. That the best thing I could do to pad my resume wouldn't be that I've written two novels that are currently sitting in a desk drawer, but that I've written, edited, and published two novels. He has a very good point. I can edit. I can, I can. There's a disconnect, though, between my own work and the work of others. It's so easy to see what others have done that can be fixed, and so hard to see it in my writing. I'm still working on it. Slowly, slower than I could be going (I'm a full time student! I have a job! I've run out of excuses!).
This is going to be a post for a later day, but yesterday I drove down to Tucson with my family, and there I said goodbye to my aunt. She has cancer, and the difference between how I saw her on Easter and how I saw her yesterday was striking. It was very, very hard to see her, and even harder to say goodbye, so I don't know how much I can say about it, but her life has been sad. Her life has been sad, and now her death is tragic. Not all deaths are so. Sometimes you can look back and find plenty to smile about, images that let you celebrate the life, and not mourn the death. Right now, I can't seem to find many of the former. I have resolved that my life shall not be that way. I don't want anyone to look back on my life and not think that I was happier more often than I saw sad, that I didn't accomplish the things in my life that I set out to do. I need to take a good, hard look at myself, at my life, at my craft, and at my plan, and I need to do what needs to be done. No excuses. No more procrastination. I refuse to let my death be tragic, so I need to live my life exactly how I want it to go.
I'm thinking about you, Liv. I love you.
I replied to a craigslist post today. This unknown person was looking for an editor, and after thinking on it for a few minutes, I thought, 'why can't it be me?' I'm a good editor. The more help a work needs, the better I am at working on it. So, me being me, I take my sweet time doing research, drafting the perfect email back to this person, constantly asking myself and my betrothed if this was really something I could do, if this was really something I was good at, even though I know in my heart of hearts that it is. I looked up fees, what should be charged for copy-editing and deep editing a book, and I took the average of those fees and halved them. I would not feel comfortable charging someone for anything that I was not a professional at.
I still haven't heard back, and I don't really expect to. Even halved, someone on craigslist is probably looking for someone whose fees are more along the lines of, "give me $20 and a case of beer." But that's fine. The point of this story is the last time I asked my fiancé if he thought I was in the right for asking someone for actual money to edit something of theirs. His response?
That I need to edit my own stories, before I think about editing for someone else. That the best thing I could do to pad my resume wouldn't be that I've written two novels that are currently sitting in a desk drawer, but that I've written, edited, and published two novels. He has a very good point. I can edit. I can, I can. There's a disconnect, though, between my own work and the work of others. It's so easy to see what others have done that can be fixed, and so hard to see it in my writing. I'm still working on it. Slowly, slower than I could be going (I'm a full time student! I have a job! I've run out of excuses!).
This is going to be a post for a later day, but yesterday I drove down to Tucson with my family, and there I said goodbye to my aunt. She has cancer, and the difference between how I saw her on Easter and how I saw her yesterday was striking. It was very, very hard to see her, and even harder to say goodbye, so I don't know how much I can say about it, but her life has been sad. Her life has been sad, and now her death is tragic. Not all deaths are so. Sometimes you can look back and find plenty to smile about, images that let you celebrate the life, and not mourn the death. Right now, I can't seem to find many of the former. I have resolved that my life shall not be that way. I don't want anyone to look back on my life and not think that I was happier more often than I saw sad, that I didn't accomplish the things in my life that I set out to do. I need to take a good, hard look at myself, at my life, at my craft, and at my plan, and I need to do what needs to be done. No excuses. No more procrastination. I refuse to let my death be tragic, so I need to live my life exactly how I want it to go.
I'm thinking about you, Liv. I love you.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Progress!
Hey, all.
I have great news! This post is going to be about two things - the importance of filing, and getting things done.
I just got back from an overseas trip on Monday, and it took me a couple of days to get back into the swing of things. I've been telling myself for a very long time - weeks? Months? - that I need to finish these short stories I've been working on. I've been working on one of them almost all year, and kept taking breaks, putting it off, working on other projects. Part of the problem is that I love the act of creation more than I actually like the work of sitting down and finishing something. I love writing, but I find the ideas to be the fun part. This is something that has changed since I finished my first novel, unfortunately, and is something I'm working on changing back. The other part of the problem is that I see everything as a book. I cannot stop writing a short story, because I can see it going on indefinitely, 'the end' of a short story doesn't seem like the appropriate place to end it. A recent short story came out as 10k words, and turned into the prologue of a novel about the future Chinese revolution. I am a novelist, at heart.
So I told myself, when I got back, that I was going to finish both of these short stories I've been stuck on. And I have. One each day. This may not sound like such a big deal. Understandable. I'm a writer, finishing a piece should not really be a cause for celebration. And it's not so much the finishing that's got me excited, it's the willpower that got me to finish it. It's a good sign, that I can tell myself to finish a piece, and write 2100 words to do so that day. Two finished short stories! That gives me a grand total of six in my 'Finished Stories' folder, and five of them need to be edited. But that brings me to my next point, filing.
I think having a filing system is key. My current system is one folder for each major aspect of writing: notes, novels, finished stories, and works in progress. Each is split further from there, but that's mostly my OCD at that point. I think having a filing system is key for two things - being able to find anything you're working on quickly, and being able to move things from one place to another. The feeling of accomplishment I had when I was able to move a story from 'works in progress' to 'finished stories' was an even better feeling than actually finishing the story. I know the story isn't finished, and needs to be edited, but having it in some place other than 'works in progress' makes me feel like someone. It makes me feel like a real, accomplished writer. Look at me! I can finish a story. And not only can I finish them, but I can do it whenever I want, as long as I put my mind to it.
So can you! Writer's block is the name given to your own fears and insecurities. I've been through it, too. The best way to get over writer's block is with brute force. Thanks for stopping by, see you Monday!
I have great news! This post is going to be about two things - the importance of filing, and getting things done.
I just got back from an overseas trip on Monday, and it took me a couple of days to get back into the swing of things. I've been telling myself for a very long time - weeks? Months? - that I need to finish these short stories I've been working on. I've been working on one of them almost all year, and kept taking breaks, putting it off, working on other projects. Part of the problem is that I love the act of creation more than I actually like the work of sitting down and finishing something. I love writing, but I find the ideas to be the fun part. This is something that has changed since I finished my first novel, unfortunately, and is something I'm working on changing back. The other part of the problem is that I see everything as a book. I cannot stop writing a short story, because I can see it going on indefinitely, 'the end' of a short story doesn't seem like the appropriate place to end it. A recent short story came out as 10k words, and turned into the prologue of a novel about the future Chinese revolution. I am a novelist, at heart.
So I told myself, when I got back, that I was going to finish both of these short stories I've been stuck on. And I have. One each day. This may not sound like such a big deal. Understandable. I'm a writer, finishing a piece should not really be a cause for celebration. And it's not so much the finishing that's got me excited, it's the willpower that got me to finish it. It's a good sign, that I can tell myself to finish a piece, and write 2100 words to do so that day. Two finished short stories! That gives me a grand total of six in my 'Finished Stories' folder, and five of them need to be edited. But that brings me to my next point, filing.
I think having a filing system is key. My current system is one folder for each major aspect of writing: notes, novels, finished stories, and works in progress. Each is split further from there, but that's mostly my OCD at that point. I think having a filing system is key for two things - being able to find anything you're working on quickly, and being able to move things from one place to another. The feeling of accomplishment I had when I was able to move a story from 'works in progress' to 'finished stories' was an even better feeling than actually finishing the story. I know the story isn't finished, and needs to be edited, but having it in some place other than 'works in progress' makes me feel like someone. It makes me feel like a real, accomplished writer. Look at me! I can finish a story. And not only can I finish them, but I can do it whenever I want, as long as I put my mind to it.
So can you! Writer's block is the name given to your own fears and insecurities. I've been through it, too. The best way to get over writer's block is with brute force. Thanks for stopping by, see you Monday!
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Wow, what a trip
Hey! I'm back! I've actually been back for a couple of days, but somehow I ended up getting busier than I expected yesterday and wasn't able to get back on schedule on schedule.
I did something that I was pretty proud of while on vacation. I took a journal with me, and every hour, I wrote a page. Every hour. I missed a couple, and sometimes I made those up by doing two in one hour, but for the most part, one page of journal, every hour I was awake. Some of these are actual journal entries, not very interesting, detailing what happened to be going on, where I was, personal details and the like. But sometimes, I did what I call 'written sketches'. What I was touching, smelling, tasting, seeing. I came up with some really good lines, and I was in a lot of interesting places where I was able to write almost a scene in a place I might never return to. I did journal entries in the Pantheon, the Sistine Chapel, Saint Peter's basilica, Napoleon's Tomb, the top of the Eiffel Tower, and at the top of the Notre Dame cathedral, to name just a few of the places I was able to write. I've never been interested in travel writing, which is what my step father called what I was doing. I don't know if I would call it that. I wasn't writing about travel so much as I was traveling while writing.
I filled up two whole journals in the two weeks I was gone. Some of it was good, some of it is my complaining about my mother. They can't all be winners. Today, I'm going to share an entry with you, one of the first nights we were in Rome. They're a little strange out of context.
8:34p
Piazza Navona at night is not the same piazza as it is during the day. The street performers are louder, there are fewer people, and the noises are from full restaurants and loud music rather than bustling tourists.
A man on electric guitar is playing feet away from the bench I'm sitting at, and moments ago we walked by a trio with a female vocalist playing a version of 'Eye of the Tiger' I'm sure the original band never could have conceived of.
I did something that I was pretty proud of while on vacation. I took a journal with me, and every hour, I wrote a page. Every hour. I missed a couple, and sometimes I made those up by doing two in one hour, but for the most part, one page of journal, every hour I was awake. Some of these are actual journal entries, not very interesting, detailing what happened to be going on, where I was, personal details and the like. But sometimes, I did what I call 'written sketches'. What I was touching, smelling, tasting, seeing. I came up with some really good lines, and I was in a lot of interesting places where I was able to write almost a scene in a place I might never return to. I did journal entries in the Pantheon, the Sistine Chapel, Saint Peter's basilica, Napoleon's Tomb, the top of the Eiffel Tower, and at the top of the Notre Dame cathedral, to name just a few of the places I was able to write. I've never been interested in travel writing, which is what my step father called what I was doing. I don't know if I would call it that. I wasn't writing about travel so much as I was traveling while writing.
I filled up two whole journals in the two weeks I was gone. Some of it was good, some of it is my complaining about my mother. They can't all be winners. Today, I'm going to share an entry with you, one of the first nights we were in Rome. They're a little strange out of context.
8:34p
Piazza Navona at night is not the same piazza as it is during the day. The street performers are louder, there are fewer people, and the noises are from full restaurants and loud music rather than bustling tourists.
A man on electric guitar is playing feet away from the bench I'm sitting at, and moments ago we walked by a trio with a female vocalist playing a version of 'Eye of the Tiger' I'm sure the original band never could have conceived of.
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