Tag Archives: Writing Process

Resolving to be Resolute

29 Monday Jan 2018

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It’s that time of year again. The beginning!

I’m sure there have been many a resolution made. About your writing. About your health. About your personal life.

I’m going to be honest with you: I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions. I believe that if people want to change they will, they don’t need to wait for a new year to begin. You can make yourself new anytime you want by committing to change. Studies agree with me. Several have been done, and something like 85% of New Year’s resolutions are forgotten/abandoned by mid-February, if not sooner.

So, if you’ve made resolutions about your writing, I’m sorry. Some of you are probably already struggling to keep up with the changes to routine/style/genre. It can be rough. It will continue to be rough. And I’m sorry for that. Seriously.

I’ve been in the same boat. When I graduated college (the first time), I said I was a writer. I’d taken classes. I’d gotten a degree. I had the verbiage: I am a writer. I also had bills: I had to eat; I had to have a place to live; I needed a job to get money to pay for that, and I needed a car to get to the job, and car insurance on top of that.

Life getting in the way of life.

I wrote when I could, but most days I was tired, or happy to have some time to myself. Writing became a footnote in my life.

Then, I met my wife—she wasn’t my wife at the time, we were just dating. I told her I was a writer, that it was my passion, and showed her some of my work. She liked it, thought it was good. I was happy to share my work. But…

Life got in the way of life, and, to be honest, I was out of the habit of writing so there was more than a little slacking off.

Decisions were made, and something miraculous and horrifying happened. My wife (still a girlfriend) and I moved in together. Every day when she got home she’d ask me what I’d done, expecting to hear about my writing. But…Life and slacking.

After a couple months she did something that I sorely needed. She yelled at me. She asked me why I wasn’t writing. She accused me of not being a writer, and said if I wanted to be a writer then I needed to FUCKING write.

I was hurt at first. Having her yell at me from, what I felt was, out of the blue was a tad scary. What hurt the most, and was eye opening, was that she was right.

Writers write, and if I wanted to be a writer then I needed to write. It was a dose of tough love, but I needed it.

So, with that in mind…

All you aspiring writers out there! FUCKING WRITE!

I want you to write. I love hearing stories, and I want to hear yours. If no one else does, at the very least I do.

I’ve said this before (and I’ll probably say it again), only you can tell your story the way you can tell it. So, tell it! If you want to write, you have to write. No one else is going to do it for you. And why would you want someone else to write your story?

This has been your dose of tough love.

Until next time: Be yourself, be well. Write yourself, write well

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So Little to do and so Much Time to do it in…Wait…Reverse That

12 Monday Sep 2016

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Alright, so we live in a golden age. We have access to media that makes sure we are never bored. We have movies, television (more television than anyone is watching), video games, we have movies about video games, we have “let’s plays” where we can watch people play video games (a guilty pleasure of mine), we have computers and phones where can watch T.V., play video games, or watch video of people playing video games, we have social media, reality television, podcasts…

…

…

…wipes drool from face…

Okay, where was I? Yeah, so we’ve got a lot, A LOT, of things to keep us occupied. Lots of things to get our attention, distract us. Lots of things to be a fan of, to enjoy and love. At times I think we have too many things to find, and fall in love with, and share with our friends so they can love it too, and then we can love it together.

Here’s what I’m trying to get at, don’t let all the things overwhelm you.

A couple years ago, I was watching a show—I forget what it was now—and I just stopped in the middle of the episode, and never went back to it. In fact, I completely stopped watching several shows that I’d been obsessed with at the time.

Why would I do that, you may be asking yourself.

Well, for one, it was just too much. I was keeping track of…let’s call it…an embarrassing amount of shows. My brain felt heavy keeping all the storylines and characters straight. The second reason was it was keeping me from writing.

There’s only so much time in the day, in a week, in a month. What with kids, jobs, and sustaining human contact, and then loving things like shows, and games, and podcasts, everything eats away at that time. So if you want to write, you’re going to have to draw lines, cut out the things that you absolutely can do without. Some people might decide it’s the kids and human contact that have to go, but I’m talking about the shows and games.

Does that mean you’re going to miss some things?

Yeah, probably.

If it’s any consolation, you’re creating something for people to discover and love. And isn’t that a nice thought?

Until next time: Be yourself, be well. Writer yourself, write well.

Taking that Burger with a Side of Characterization

29 Monday Aug 2016

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Hey, all! Today I want to talk to you about characterization. For those of us who need a quick reminder/definition: Characterization is how and what we learn about someone in a story that makes them feel/seem like a real person; details about a character in your story.

Everybody got it?

Need an example?

How do we know the main character’s best friend is in love with them? Because they run out of a date to help the main character, and other “above and beyond” type of things that a friend wouldn’t normally do.

A big part of characterization, I believe (but I’m sure most others would agree with me-if I could ask them-which I can’t-so we’ll just assume), is (and here’s the phrase you’re probably tired of hearing) showing not telling. Quick reminder: the “show don’t tell” advice is straight forward, show the readers something in the story don’t tell the readers about something that we didn’t see.
For instance, if you end a chapter/scene with the main character going off to break into the bio-tech lab, don’t start the next chapter/scene after the break in and tell us it went well, show us the break in.

The same thing goes for characters in your story. Don’t have a character tell us another character is a jerk, show us that character is a jerk by their actions and interactions with the other characters. And here’s the thing, if you are having a character tell us another character is a jerk, then it says more about the character telling us about the other character than it does about the character they’re telling us about.

Sometimes coming up with what your character is like is tough (you can’t characterize your character to yourself). You just can’t figure out how your character would react in a scene. In these cases it can be a good thing to take them out of the story for moment and think about them doing something completely mundane. In this example let’s say their eating lunch. What do they eat for lunch? Are they are a fast food type of person? If they are, are they not concerned with their weight/health? Or are they a salad type of person? What kind of salad? Do they go out to a restaurant to eat lunch or have it delivered to where they work? Do they like to eat with people, or do they eat alone in their car to have a few minutes to wallow?

As you can see, when it comes to characterization lunch can be so much more than just something that happens. Lunch can be another way to show us what your character is like.

I hope this helps.

Until next time: Be yourself, be well. Write yourself, write well.

The Ergonomics of Failure

08 Thursday Oct 2015

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We’re back again for another installment.

Last time I mentioned failure. So I wanted to talk a little more about that. Because, you know, I don’t think life is depressing enough.

Anyway. I specifically say: “Stopping writing makes you a failure.” While at the time I was being inspirational this time I wanted to talk practically about that statement. I’ve asked several authors what is meant by the term, failed novel. All of them said that a failed novel is basically a novel that you stop working on.

I want to be clear on this. A novel isn’t a failure because it’s been rejected x number of times, or xx number of times, or xxx number of times, or xxxx number of times. It’s not a failure because it’s never published. It’s not a failure because numerous, very loud people don’t like it. It’s not a failure because, while people like it, the public misses the underlying point that you were going for in the story.

The only thing that makes a novel failed is you giving up on it.

Now I’m not talking about: I’ve been working on this novel for months/years. I’ve written it, re-written it, and re-re-written. I’m at the point that, I as the author cannot do anything more with it; I’m going to need a third party to come in and take a look at it before I can do anything else with it. So you stop actively working on it so you can focus on other things, like another novel, or eating, or your relationship (I swear I had a girlfriend/boyfriend/fiancé around here somewhere).

What I’m talking about when I say a novel is failed is: I got fifty pages in about a couple years ago and then I just haven’t had the time to pick it back up. Or, I tried writing a novel, but it just wasn’t for me. Or, I wrote a whole novel, but no one seemed to like it so, but I’m not going to change anything because they don’t get it; I’ll just focus on my porn addiction for a while.

Basically any time you just stop working on a novel, and just never go back to pick it up. The above reasons are pretty negative, but a failed novel might be a good thing too. Just let me explain. If you spend time writing you should, eventually, get a feel for your writing process, your style, and stories in general. You could have a great idea for a novel, get fifty pages in, and you realize that it’s just not working. Whatever the reason may be: the subject might not translate well, you might be having trouble organizing your thoughts, you might not be feeling the story right then. In that case you abandon the project in favor for a project that comes more easily. Or you might decide that your brilliant idea for a novel actually works better as a short story.

As a writer it is important that you’re able to identify poor writing, especially if it’s yours. Just because you have a failed novel doesn’t mean you are a failure. Apparently, John Green in the wake of The Fault in Our Stars, has started and abandoned four or five novels.

(If you don’t know who John Green is; he’s awesome. If you haven’t read The Fault in Our Stars; you should.)

The point I’m going for is this: Just because you have a failed novel doesn’t mean you are a failure. As the old saying goes: We learn more from our failures then our successes. And again: the only thing that makes you a failure is if you stop writing. So don’t let that one failed novel/story define the rest of your story, learn from it and move on.

Until next time: be yourself, be well; write yourself, write well.