Stop the Obsession

Nanowrimo has begun.  We’re ending day two here, and I have 165 words accomplished.  Really, really bad start.  Now I’ll give myself a couple of excuses of other commitments already in place that I couldn’t, shouldn’t, or wouldn’t give up.  There was also all the fun I was having in the writing chat room when I could actually get in.  All excuses, some of them not excusable, but I’ll accept my fate on those.  After writing some of those 165 words, I discovered another flaw that’s kept me from getting any further.  My obsessing over what I already wrote.  It’s less than 200 words, and I can’t stop rereading and analyzing the words!  Gah!  No wonder I can’t move on.  I’ve forgotten some of the push on rules.  Last year, I utilized the rule not to reread during the month of November, not to correct things you know are wrong, and to just keep moving forward with speed over quality.  This is opposite of my normal writing procedure, but might be another key factor in winning that I didn’t realize until I found my old patterns creeping back up at the wrong time.  I have to relearn and reapply those important Nanowrimo rules.

Of course this is a guideline, not a rule.  A recommendation by those who have made the 50K accomplishment.  I am definitely an edit as I go along writer.  I actually feel confused at the idea of one day finishing a novel that I feel worthy of editing and trying to go back and edit it.  I feel like I don’t even understand the concept.  Pretty sure I was taught that in school.  Kinda remember the drafts, but I’ve been doing it so differently in the past countless years that it’s going to take time.  The important thing I need to keep in mind here, and maybe you too, is to forget editing at this time of Nano need.  Just keep pushing forward.  Stare at the horror later…when your stomach is off the speed train and can ride the love/hate coaster.

So first, I need to hit 50K before the end of November.  Second I need to finish a novel…beginning to end, even if it’s well beyond 50K.  Third, I have to determine if it’s worthy of editing.  Then I have to edit and/or get up the nerve to show someone.  I have novels in mind, novels that are “THEE” story, the one you are so in love with that you want everything to be perfect.  They aren’t written yet.  I still have a long way to go and a lot of love for those ideas that I don’t want to destroy them too quickly.  Let’s finish these goals first.  Last year I did 50K, but the story was far from finish, and I dropped it.  This year let’s hope I can kill two birds (or a lot of characters as we like to relate things in our world) with one stone and go 50K and beyond.  Yeesh…what a goal for someone already so far behind.

Jennifer

Oh, I seriously need a P.S. cause this is crazy.  I’m so particular with my story but an email or forum post or let’s say…blog post, get’s little to no editing treatment.  I have things really screwed up in my head.

Why NaNoWriMo matters to me.

For the past few weeks I have felt the need to justify my excitement about NaNoWriMo this year.  Part of this is due to the recruiting I have tried to do and part is because I recently thought about how different my life is this year compared to last year.  Those of you who know me will acknowledge that I can be a ball of complete eagerness pretty frequently, but in this case I have legitimate, heartfelt reasons why participating in NaNo is important to me.  So  I decided to make a list of why this November shindig matters.  And since it is my turn to blog, you get to read it.  Aren’t you lucky??

1)      The people.  Seriously, you are all amazing.  I have made some of the coolest friends ever through this whole shenanigan and cannot believe that a year ago at this time I did not know any of you at all.  It’s scary, in a way, to think that getting involved brought me such strong friendships with people I most likely would have never met.  Along with that is the community we have created- I know for a fact that those of us who were involved last year intend to draw others in this year.  Hopefully that will grow each year until we are an unstoppable Army of Awesomeness.

2)      The ability to be bad at something.  I am, admittedly, not a detail oriented person.  At.  All.  Not even a little.  Things that some people do out of habit take me a long time since I have to direct all my spastic energy towards them.  NaNo allows you to write without worrying about detail.  You have this opportunity to be creative with no limits.  This is your excuse to be whatever you can be for the sake of art and creative expression.  It’s like on “The Magic Schoolbus,” when Miss Frizzle always says “Take chances, make mistakes, get messy!”  THAT is what NaNoWriMo is about.  We have to make mistakes before we can turn them in to something really magical.

3)      The chance to do something amazing.  How many people can say they wrote a novel?  Granted you may not admit that the novel was something you flew through in a caffeine induced state after getting less than 2 hours of sleep each night, but still.  It’s bragging rights and the opportunity to accomplish something that many people say they want to do but never take a chance on.  I know that writing is not for everyone, but some people get that flicker in their eyes when you talk about finishing your first novel or starting on a new story.  Those are the people that need NaNo so they can see just how attainable this goal truly is.

4)      A way out.  Everyone needs some kind of creative release or stress relief.  Many of us choose to lose ourselves in a good book, but there is something even more awesome about getting lost in a world you are creating.  It’s an escape that involves no money, risk, or danger (though murdering your characters does tap in to those sadistic urges so you should be careful.)  NaNo brought me to a place where I was able to get out of my own way and just enjoy creating.

5) Pure Enjoyment.  Think about the last time you honestly enjoyed writing something.  Maybe it was an email to a person you could not wait to type.  Maybe you got to write a note to a friend after they did something kind for you.  Maybe it was a post-it note with "I love you" scrawled in ink that was tucked  in to your child's lunch box or husband's coat pocket.  What makes NaNo so much more enjoyable is that you not only have your own happiness in working through a project but you get to live vicariously through other people’s enjoyment.  Last year I had more fun rooting for others as they finished than I did completing my own novel.  The heart and energy that goes into this project inspires me to continue to grow.

So, what are you waiting for?  Go to nanowrimo.org and sign up.  Try it out.  Get involved.  What can you lose?  Some time, possibly a little sanity, and a few bucks between Starbucks write-ins and donations to the local region... but you will gain so much more in personal satisfaction.

-Liz

I have no idea how important this post will be later…

Let’s face it, I don’t have the worst commute in the world. Four miles across town isn’t anything to complain about. And yet, with each passing day, traffic around here seems more and more like it has been specifically choreographed to annoy me in the most precise manner possible, like a laser-guided headache narrowing in on the very behavior that drives me up the wall.

So to distract myself from being annoyed on the road, I recently found myself thinking about things that annoy me about reading books. (No, there’s no reason you should expect to understand the jump. Welcome to my brain.) I’d wager that anybody who has written a fair amount, and probably lots of people who haven’t, start picking up on certain things that authors do that, for no obvious reason, grate at them every time. I’m not talking about occasionally mixing up “its” and “it’s” or “your” and “you’re” or something. That doesn’t happen very often in published books anyway, being more of an online or magazine/newspaper problem. Grating and annoying, of course, but I’m talking more about things people do with their actual writing.

In the book I’m currently reading, the author plays the same general trick on a couple of different occasions. (I won’t name names; it’s not important, and there’s no reason to dis on what might be someone else’s favorite book.) You can generalize all of them as the “they had no idea yet but…” line.

I’m sure you’ve seen it before. Things are okay, there have been a few pages of exposition or maybe the team has just pulled off their mission and are heading out, hanging up the phone, walking out the door, or otherwise doing something perfectly normal and uneventful. And that step forward probably saved his life. Cue the explosion, gunshot, car crash, or blast of magic. (Followed, at least half the time, by the end of the chapter.)

Not a big deal, right? Actually, no, in this example it really isn’t a big deal. It may be even less of a deal when you consider this particular book is written in the first person. I’ve only done shorter bits of first-person writing, and so I don’t have enough experience to say, but it seems reasonable to think of such things as being a natural part of the narrative style.

But where it starts bugging me is when it happens over and over again. I don’t impose any hard and fast rules as to how many times any given writing trick or plot accelerator can be used, beyond which they’re all bad. Instead I have a simple “noticification threshold” which says, basically, that if I start to notice it, it’s too much. As soon as I think to myself, “oh, he/she did it again,” then that becomes one time too many. It knocks me right out of the story.

Now, for the record, I like this book. Clearly, occasional random things like this don’t permanently ruin the story for me. It’s more like a record skipping (everybody knows what that is, right?) during a good piece of music; it jars you out of the experience for a second, but then you’re back in to it again and all is well.

Maybe that means that whatever these things are (Writing tricks? Shortcuts? Normal things no one else ever notices but I do because I’m a fiendishly hyperobservant read-o-tron?) they don’t detract from a well written, enjoyable story. I can believe that. For example, compare this book series to another popular (I assume?) fantasy series from a few years back, in which the author repeatedly used the same kind of things (“She had no idea how important that would come to be later on.”) over and over and over and over again. (It seemed.) I didn’t much care for that story at all, and as it went on I groaned every time I kept seeing the same basic phrases. (“If he had only known how much he’d pay for that later, he would have never agreed.” Stuff like that. Over. And over. And over again.) In that case, it was a story I had long since stopped being crazy about in the first place, and so each and every instance of that stuck out like a sore thumb. Now it’s one of the key things I remember about those books. Not, I think, something that an author sets out to be remembered for.

My single strongest memory of another book is of its hilarious inaccuracies. In this case, the book claimed to be in the hard SF genre, which I had been trying to venture in to for the first time by choosing a few well reviewed samples of then-recent novels. Maybe most of the biotech topics it covered were portrayed accurately; I don’t have the knowledge to judge. But when the author (through one character’s dialogue) gives such laughingly wrong descriptions of how computers store numbers, well, I really can’t summon up a lot of faith in the more complicated science they discuss afterward. Again, I seriously doubt the author would enjoy knowing that I remember that particular dialogue more prominently than anything else in his story, but there it is. As before, I ended up not being a big fan of this particular book, so the faults stand out.

Does every writer do something like this? Or, perhaps more importantly, does every reader have something that bothers them? Maybe someone reading this is, at this very moment, pounding their fists against the desk because it drives them bonkers when people use a ton of parenthetical comments in they’re writing. (Just be thankful I don’t know how to put footnotes in the blog!) At least I’ve gone an entire post—so far—without using em dashes. I usually use those a lot. Oh wait, there I went and ruined it.

Did you see what else I did there? Does it bother you?

With NaNo coming up insanely soon now, I’m going to have to dust off all the writing tricks I’ve picked up over the years, because every single one of them will probably be essential if I want to reach 50,000 words on time. It’s also nearly certain that some of them are on someone else’s list of things that annoy the heck out of them when they read. We know it isn’t always a dealbreaker, though. If a story keeps you glued to it from cover to cover and you can’t wait to read it again, who cares if there are one or two spots that make you cringe when you get to them? If the story sucks, and it’s a slog just to finish it, would fixing those occasional spots have made any difference?

Maybe I’m more persnickety when I read than most people. Everybody has their quirky pet peeves, things that just drive them nuts, and they don’t have to have a reason. But if the story is good then that probably won’t matter, and that’s why I probably won’t be drastically changing my writing style any time soon. If my writing sucks, then at least it’ll suck the way I meant it to.

On the other hand, if I do catch myself writing “reaching down to pick up that penny probably saved his life” then I really should try to come up with another way of putting it.

—Jason

You want lack of focus, I'll give you lack of focus.

I honestly can't remember the last time I wrote anything recreational.  It's been months, and, frankly, I'm not sure I've done anything substantial since editing my NaNovel from last season.  I'm really in a slump.  The worst part about it is that I have plenty of ideas; it feels like I just don't remember how to start a writing project.  I feel like someone cut off my arms at my elbows or plugged my ears with wool…like a seriously necessary part of me is simply not functioning correctly.

So I've got a sort of prompt for all of us (those interested) to look into trying: Get Out.  Get out of the house, out of the office, out of the yard, whatever it is you're in right now, get out of it. 

A couple weeks ago, I was stuck in my house.  The heat was excruciating, I was helping my brother plan his wedding, and 100% of my days was spent either in my house, my car, or some store somewhere.  But then, the week after that, my family went to Colorado for a camping trip with my aunts and uncles and cousins, and we spent the week out in the cool, dry, mountain air, sleeping on mats, waking up to campfires, toasting bagels on the grill.  Throughout that week, I got about three ideas for stories and one idea for NaNoWriMo this fall, and I even started expanding on them a bit.  It was really helpful to change my routine a bit, just to clear my mind.  It gave me a chance to refocus my creative energies and actually get something on paper.

Currently, I'm in vacation-mode: it's summer break, albeit the end, and the only functioning motivational programming is my motivation to do nothing.  At every avenue I meet resistance.  Pointless resistance.  "Why don't I use this opportunity to pick up all the clothes off my floor so I can find my computer charger when I need it?" "Nah.  I'm about to press 'Next Episode' on Star Trek: Voyager and once I've done that, there's no reason for me to get up"; "Gee, I think I should brush my teeth." "No, I'd really rather just sit here in my filth, thank"; "I should feed my dog." "She ate yesterday, the greedy git."

But starting yesterday, I hoisted myself out of that mode.  I got more organized than I probably needed to, made a calendar of daily to-do lists, and started making concerted efforts to get stuff done.  Lo and behold, today, I was working with my dad on making a stand for our television, and whole paragraphs of stories just came floating into my head.

Now, none of this is in and of itself a solution to my overall focus problem.  And I still haven't written anything I'm proud of, and I still feel awkward and clumsy in my writing.  But this is the closest I've come to getting past the weird and perpetual writer's block that I've been in lately.  If you're having the same struggles as me, then I suggest you get out.  It really worked as a first step for me.

Mary

The genre of horror

Do any of us know how we came to the decision that we like one style or one genre over another?  Is there a defining point in your life that you can discuss that indicates why you became a big fan of *blank*?  Not for me.  I’m a strange horror fan.

When I grew up, I read a lot of horror.  One of the many things that make me proud to have the parents I have is the fact that my mother stated that I can learn whatever I learn, as long as it came from a book.  When I was younger, I didn’t watch horror movies.  I was strangely scared of them or not allowed to watch them in fear of what they would do to me.  To this day, I’m not much in them, at least not the typical blood and gore movies, but I read horror.  From simple scary stories I would get from the bookmobile geared towards children, to things way to adult for a preteen to be reading, I read my share of horror as a kid.  Oddly, I wasn’t affected too much.  Never woke from nightmares or had to sleep with the light on.  When I did watch horror, I wasn’t fond of it.  It just seemed like an excuse to splatter blood and show me the no longer inner workings of a body.  That wasn’t really horror to me.  The more eerie, the more mysterious does it for me.

I suppose I like the suspense, the shock, and the willies up my spine when I read horror.  The safety of the fear in my book, a place I can crawl into but quickly run back out and know I’m in no danger.  It was a delight to me, and possibly made me feel a little more grown up for reading what I shouldn’t be reading as a kid.  As an adult (or a grown up kid as I truly am), I’ve stepped away from the horror to read other genres, write other genres, but horror on paper still has a place in my heart.

As a writer, I’ve rarely tried to write horror.  Like they say about comedy, it’s hard to make someone laugh; it’s also hard to make someone scared.  We are cynical people, and when you know it’s a horror story, you are anticipating the surprise which makes it harder to enjoy the surprise.  Horror is part irony/twist and I’m a lover of irony, but nowadays you have to twist the twist because people are expecting a twist.  I intentionally made that sentence seem confusing. =)  Horror is hard to write if you’re trying to step away from just being gory and really want to shock people.  Yes, the more guts and blood, possibly the more you’ll receive shock, but will you always get fear from your reader?

I am of the opinion that horror should only be for short stories.  This might seem surprising to many people, but I think the short form helps to keep the suspense high and the nerves on end.  When you stretch it out in a novel, you either have to many lows, relaxed moments that the reader loses the anxiety or you over saturate the story with horror that they can be desensitized and no longer fear what they should fear.  This is my personal opinion, of course.  When I read horror as a child, it was short stories.  It actually took awhile for me to get into novels, and I’m still kind of partial to short stories over novels in all genres, but that’s for another post. 

Everyone knows the usual famous horror writers.  No need to mention them so I will mention some of my favorite semi-unknowns to unknowns.  Because I haven’t been reading horror lately, I’m afraid I’ll have to direct you to some podcasts authors.

If you don’t know, podcasts are simple audio programs that anyone can create.  They range from discussion groups, audio dramas, information pieces, to people just reading their stories.  The following links are to sites with horror writers that I enjoy.

Russell Burt is like the rest of us.  He has a love of writing and specifically for horror.  For a couple years he was recording and posting his short stories on his blog.  He also included his horror novel and later opened the doors to other writers to submit their stories (Yes, one of mine is on there.  He asked for it, and I was honored, and he did a fantastic job reading it.).  Sadly, he ended his blog back in 2008, but it’s still up to enjoy his past accomplishments.  His final post has comprehensive links to the different areas of his stories, novel, and listener contributions.  I miss Russell’s writing, but am glad I got to talk with him, and enjoy what he had to offer.  I think I’ll go email him a “Hey how ya doing note.”

 http://rlburt.blogspot.com/2008/01/end.html

Pseudopod is part of a large podcasting organization that brings the stories of writers to the online audio world.  There is Pseudopod for horror, Podcastle for fantasy, and Escapepod for science fiction.  Stephen Eley started the whole thing but Podcastle and Pseudopod have their own teams.  You will get a wide variety of horror stories here.  I’m afraid I’m way, way, way behind in listening.

http://pseudopod.org/

Though I’m behind in my listening, I would like to point out my favorite so far of their stories. This one just blew my mind and burned images into my head that pop up every now and again.

http://pseudopod.org/2009/02/13/pseudopod-129-bottle-babies/

Last but not least is Phil Rossi who is probably considered one of the big wigs in the podcast world of writing.  I’m behind on everything but this writer/musician has cranked out some nice horror material.  Most of his recent books are free on audio if you want to take a listen.  

http://www.thephilrossiexperience.com/philrossinet/?page_id=13

That’s all I have for now.  Nanowrimo is around the corner, and though I’m not writing horror, there should be some horrific aspects to my 2011 WIP so I will keep these writers, and my memories of horror in mind as I click away.

Jennifer

Camp Write On! and Camp Nanowrimo

Our blog has had a serious lack of focus the last month.  I forgot to give the proper reminders and blame myself as…err…I guess kind of the leader.  But it’s a new month and we’re going to start fresh.

Our usual group meeting did not take place on a Friday evening.  Instead, we had a BBQ at another member’s home and it was fabulous.  This was a family and friends event, opening the party to those close to us, including dogs.  My dogs had a great time as did my hubby.  We tend to be terrible about actual writing when we get together as a writing group.  We know that’s the point of this group, to write, but there is something that clicks and works with us and we like it!  So we do other fun stuff and make up reasons it relates to writing so we feel less guilty about having fun. Ha!

Moving on...  Nanowrimo, the thing that brought this group together, is presenting, for the first time ever, Camp Nanowrimo.  Popped up just when Write On was going to do their own writing month so we’re scrapping our own idea for the summer and working on the big company’s plan instead.  The same rules apply: 50K in 30/31 days.  You can do July or August or aggressively write in both.  We had members iffy on this camp project but already a few are up over 2K in words with one over 10K.  Where am I?  Umm…my character has a name!

What am I doing for Camp Nanowrimo?  I thought I was going to be a rebel-light.  Rebels don’t follow all the rules obviously and due short stories or continue on some project instead of starting new.  I thought that was going to be me.  I’m going to work on my fairy tales which of course is a collection of short stories, but because they are related in theme and I would like to present them as one book, it fit the rules. I have one started, and I was going to continue on in it, but decided to not break that rule either and start on a new fairy tale.  All this means I may not be a rebel after all.  I have a hard time breaking rules.  I blame my parents!

My problem with this right now is the same that I always have…my lack of focus.  Here it is the start of the third day of Camp Nanowrimo, and I wrote nothing for day one or two.  I still need to plot out the details of my current fairytale cause I work better with a good plan of action.  It’s not a good start but I’m trying not to be discouraged.  Now that I know more members of our group are doing this, I feel a little competition going ,and I have some serious catching up to do.  And with that, I shall go write!

Good luck writing this month!!!

Jennifer

Do it for the Memes.

A previous post mentioned the lack of writing motivation. I read the post and found myself nodding in agreement. The last couple months have been kind of crazy for me. Moving out of the old ass apartment and into a permanent home, our new house. My husband and I were busy for weeks with packing, painting, re-flooring, etc. I found it hard (and truthfully, agonizing) to sit down and write. I did 30k in March and after that it was like another end-of-NaNo crash. I did not really want to write.

Now that about two months have gone by I've been getting these nagging thoughts of "you really should sit down and write". "I know, I know!" I'd cry back, but then do absolutely nothing about it. Writing is hard, I'd tell myself, I just don't feel it tonight. Well, I finally started easing back into it. I started browsing the NaNo forums, this always helped me during my first NaNo. There was something about seeing other people being excited about their own plot and characters that gave me a spark. Then I searched for some writing exercises. I found a brilliant Live Journal page full of writing memes! (Which I immediately posted to the group's discussion page.) I did a meme. Then another, and another. After that I sat there smiling because I didn't feel so stupid for sitting down and doing something creative with my characters. Then, while lying in bed, my mind was going on about my story and my characters. I couldn't wait to get up and do more memes! After I finish this I plan to actually do some writing tonight. It's been far too long. And my characters are pretty pissed at me right now...

I think my biggest hurdle was that I fell back into the mindset of "your writing sucks Tabby" after taking such a long break. This was my biggest foe for years until I found NaNo back in '09. I just want to say, to those who fall into the same pit now and then, just ease back into it. You won't be excited right away, after a long absence, to start writing again. The exercises I did slowly helped to push away my inner-writing-demon. 

That's all.

Tabby

<3

Atmosphere...

Today I've been thinking about atmosphere and how that impacts the way we think, work, and create.  Where is it that you write?  Do you prefer the quaint corner of a bistro while you sip on a latte and people watch between paragraphs?  Maybe a home office with a desk and straight back chair?  Or do you write better outside, sitting on the porch, or in bed at night in a journal?  For me, it really depends.  I can curl up with my laptop for a bit but I am usually more disciplined at my desk with my focus on the work and no distractions.  If I have a paper and pen I love to go journaling outside, taking in the trees, air, and birds while I discover where my characters are headed next.  Then again there is something fun about taking my laptop to Starbucks and getting distracted by cute guys, people chatting, and the social feeling I get being away from my house.

There is something to be said for having the right atmosphere when you write.  Do you need distractions to get ideas or are you like me and the first shiny thing that comes around causes you to lose your place in your story?  This week I am working on rearranging my home office, so I've been thinking a lot about how our surroundings affect how we work.  My behemoth corner desk came with my house and while I appreciate all the nooks and crannies of its shelves I also realized it caused me to hoard random shit that I just don't need to have around.  I have a big Herman Miller desk top that goes on top of two file cabinets which I am eager to get in my office to replace the monster desk, but I wonder if it will be a positive or negative change for my writing.  Sometimes a new change is a jump start to something good happening.  Other times it causes us to fall back into bad habits.  I want to have a healthy atmosphere that encourages creativity but I also want a desk that is functional and spacious.

Along with that is the concept of surroundings.  Paintings, calendars, Dwight Schrute bobblehead, plants- what do you need nearby to keep your creativity going?  I just went into my living room and stared at my Thomas Kinkade picture, realizing that I love it because its like the chalk drawings on Mary Poppins that they jump into.  I want paintings that give me something to yearn for.  I want artwork that makes me say "I wonder what the artist was thinking when they made this."  I need quotations and pictures that inspire me and catch a place in my heart.  My writing is best when I am surrounded by those influences, so my hope is that redecorating will get me out of my slump and cause me to jump at the chance to start some personal projects.  I'd love to write some stories about things I know, analyzing situations I've been a part of and even journalling to pour out everything in my heart.

So, is there anything in your surroundings that can change to make you a more productive writer?   A talisman like more plot bunnies, a certain playlist of music, or a new painting?  Think about when you are most in the zone and figure out ways to enable yourself to get to that place more often.  You never know- just changing the orientation of your desk or getting a new plant could cause you to finish your undone novel!!

-Liz

Climb Ev'ry Mountain...?

Personally, I'm in a bit of a writing slump right now.  There's a lot going on in my life—between my transition back to the United States after four months in the UK and all of the emotions that entails, my lack of a summer job, and the impending doom of my senior year of college—and the writer in me who has always turned emotions and experiences into stories and characters has been replaced by a creature that is lucky if she's able to keep a journal.  It's like my own brain has gone into lock-down, overwhelmed by the excess creative stimuli, and is blocking out the inspiration.

Now, I've been told, and I've believed in the past that "inspiration" is helpful to writing but not necessary.  I mean, that's basically the driving force between NaNoWriMo: none of us would have gotten to the 50K mark if we had waited for inspiration to strike.

However, I've never hit a block as solid as this one.  I've had times when I was procrastinating, but once I knuckled down and started writing, things eventually came more smoothly.  I've had times when I didn't know what was going to happen next in a piece, but I would move on or start over in order to get any further.

But this is something different.  I can feel it.  I don't feel like I have anything to write.  I have a lot of things I could write, but it's almost painful to try.  The other night, I just sat down and forced myself to write a page of non-academic writing, and though I was able to do it, I'm not sure how, or whether it was worth it.  It didn't give me any more confidence, it didn't make my inner writer feel any less trapped…in fact, it made me feel like I'm doomed never to write again.

I look at my notebooks, and they actually fill me with a sort of fear.  Not just a procrastinator's dread, but a fear as if there's something bad waiting for me inside them.  I still cary them around, and periodically, I write down quotes I want to remember, ideas for characters, dialogue, settings, etc. in them, but that feels more like flexing a vestigial muscle, now.  There's no connective tissue piecing things together.  

I guess I just wanted to share that with you folks.  I wondered if any of you had ever experienced something like that, and whether you pulled out of it eventually or not.  I'm hoping that it will all pass after I've been home for a little bit, or once I start up my summer rec. reading.  But right now, it feels seriously impassible, and every word I type in fiction gives me a toothache.

Mary

Character Details

It seems like a lot of the focus lately has been on character building, which is great!  Fortunately for me but perhaps not for the blog theme, that is not something I've ever had trouble with.  Characters are by far the EASIEST part of writing for me.  Usually the characters happen and wander around for a while before they find something to do. 

            But of course there is still balance, in that there are still writing things I can't do without feeling like I'm pulling my own teeth.  Right now the things I'm getting yelled at about by my proofreaders is details in processes.  I know my characters so well by the time I get to writing them that I tend to forget that other people don't know them that well, and it's up to me to describe what they are doing.  Like, I can tell you that my main character is a chef, and tell that he's over cooking in the kitchen, but would a chef not talk about WHAT he was making?  How many experts in their field wouldn't talk about it?  But, well, I'm not a chef.  I wish, but I'm far from it.  So I try to do some research, but I don't want to put in what I feel is too much.  And that apparently falls far short of what other people expect.  Who knew.  That's what proof readers are for.

            So now I'm researching recipes for a book I 'finished' a year and a half ago.  I found one for my favorite scene, but the rest are still vague references to food and cooking process, sandwiched in between other happenings.

            And the cooking isn't the only place.  How does the process of shooting this gun actually work?   Is there anything I could add about filling out this paperwork that would help people understand better what is going on?  What do Missionaries actually do in third world countries?  I mean, on a day to day and hour to hour basis?  I know they help poor and sick people, and teach, and grow things.  But 24/7?  Surely there's DETAILS in there, that I either need to find out through research, or I need to make up from somewhere.

            Maybe part of my worry is a fear of adding in details and being caught in an error. If I'm vague, no one can say I was wrong very well.  But when you add in specifics, there's more that could go wrong.  Maybe I need to relax and not assume that every reader is going to go look these things up just to prove me wrong, or that every reader will be an expert in every field and hate me forever for getting my crème and my cream missed up in the cooking scene.   But I don't want to limit my characters to only doing things I am already an expert at.  So back to more research.  Ah well.  No day is wasted if you learn something in it. 

Melanie

Character Refresher

Had a meeting last night and it was totally a blast.  There was the usual food and chatter, but the giggles were brought on by the beginnings of a writing exercise that everyone seemed to walk away excited to elaborate on their forced creation.

What am I talking about?  This.  Are you having issues coming up with a new character?  Do you feel like your characters start merging into one?  Maybe you need to step outside of your own head for a bit and see what kind of character you can create with aspects that are forced on you.  

You've seen the character sheets, right?  Something to help shape your basic character into something more 3D by dwelling on what makes them who they are?  We had our own character sheet to fill out and it included the following catagories: Name, Sex, Hair/Eye Color, Height/Weight, Physical Distinctions, Fashion Style, Allergies, Bad Habits, Family Background, Education, Home Location, Hobbies, Pets, Talents, Strengths, Attitude, Rumors/Reputations, Fears, Secrets/Desires, Past Traumatic Events.  I wrote up a series of options for nearly every one of these categories.  Some answers were very normal, some were very weird, some were funny.  The options for each category were painstakingly cut out and put in little baggies  for all the present members to blindly choose from.  Once they filled out the categories, we read aloud our character sheets.  It was fantastic.  Everyone was crying from laughter.  

When picking the options, because they were so random, the options seemed to clash so terribly with other options and we felt there was no way we could make a character out of them, but the more you looked at your sheet and the more we discussed our characters out loud, the easier it was to come up with ways the different options could fit together to create a true character.  Granted the character might be crazy, but life is crazy and there are all kinds of people so why not go to the extremes.  It's more fun that way.  It was also interesting hearing the different directions that each person would go with their character because of their specific interests and creativity.  We are incorporating our characters with the May challenge and I feel like this will be so awesome.

Here is the character I drew from the ziplock bags....

Suzanne Tiffany Laurel is an 84 year old female with olive hair and plaid eyes.  She's only 4'3" and 195lbs.  Suzanne suffers from Phantom Limb Syndrome of her left arm which was taken from a bear she now owns as a pet.  Her bear, D, is also her home location.  She rides the back of D wherever she goes.  Suzanne only wears dresses.  She's allergic to peanuts and she loves spending time naming storms and woodworking.  She's good at the woodworking because she uses her laser eyes to cut them which is helpful since she only has one arm.  My character was raised and home schooled by frogs.  She's a magician by trade but has a reputation of being a thief.  She fears tipped salt and is fueled by blind fury.  Suzanne has a bad habit of over touching people.  She also has a desire to being the opposite sex and had a traumatic past event of sleeping bad.

As I was writing down the options I picked out, I was concerned with what the hell I was going to do with this mismatch of information, but as I read it over, read it out loud, and discussed with the other members, it seemed like a perfect combo.  I love the character who is developing in my head.  

So if you want something fresh, try something like we did.  Make a character sheet of your own or steal one online and pick some components that help develop your character.  At a time that you're not trying to make a character, come up with random options for each category.  Lots and lots of options and make some strange ones along with norm.  Make your range wide.  Don't dwell on what you would do with these options while you're creating them.  Just pick your brain, pick your friends brain, pick the internet.  On another day when the options aren't as fresh in your mind, dig into your categories, choosing randomly, blindly, from your options and create your character.  See what crazy things you get to combine and find out what wonderful characters your mind will make.

Imagination...creativity...it's such a great thing.

Jennifer

Support all around

It might be difficult, but find some support in writing.  There are readers who love to read.  Hell, us writers are readers too, but not all readers are writers.  They could absolutely adore what you write and could be great for your ego, but they don't understand the struggle of writing and building the story and making great characters and  working the flow.  It's hard.  Hell, it's hard just forcing yourself to do it.  I am proof that pushes are always in need.  Encouragement from those who know the effort it takes are fantastic.  If you're a struggling writer, find some writing friends.  Let them give you the extra motivation you need to keep going and push through the hard parts.  And when you find those friends, make sure you give that support back to them.

Jennifer

Happily Ever After

When I was little I was fascinated with fairy tales.  Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Snow White-- the stories made me dream of love and romance as well as a life where its appropriate to sing your feelings in public.  Even now, in the writing I do, I strive for happy endings and "Once upon a time" stories where its possible to have happiness through telling the truth and being a hard worker.  This is not reality, though.  In the real world people work hard and have tough times.  They strive for success and receive failure, people give all they can and get nothing.  Granted that's how life actually works, but it seems counter intuitive.  Let's be honest, here, Write On writers... do any of us enjoy writing sad chapters or devastating climaxes?  Because I do not, and have a tough time getting through those sections to get to the light at the end of the tunnel.

My biggest struggle in writing is to tell a realistic story that people can understand and embrace.  I love a good love story with its highs and lows, where the hero saves the princess after being told time and again that she is in another castle, but I need to focus on writing things that make real world sense.  Like Jo in "Little Women," I want to write what I know (or at least what I pretend to know.)  Who wants to read a story about day to day boredom or sadness?  At the same time, you can't just say "Uhh... time passed" and get on to the next plot point.  The goal is to have smooth transitions and a balanced plot that carries you from chapter to chapter, increasing the excitement and suspense.

When I was in grad school I loved writing papers and was awesome at getting a great intro to set up my outline.  I'd use quotations from Nietszche or Emerson or Einstein, gearing the reader up for what is to come.  That's my goal now as I start working more fervently on challenges and getting my own personal work done.  I want to gear myself up for the story even though it may not be a 'happily ever after' tale.  I want to create a balanced story that shows readers something realistic but idealized, something at times heartbreaking but ultimately victorious.

How do I do this?  I have absolutely no idea.  It's a struggle.  Writing is an escape for me.  When I am in a bad mood I watch "Pollyanna" to get out of the bad mood, and when I write I create happy stories which help me cope with everyday life.  If anyone has advice on how to more smoothly balance my stories with the good and evil please let me know.  Until then I will continue to write of happiness and hope that in the future I can add in some drama to increase the power of my writing.

Liz

Evolution of a Shy Writer

All praise the internet!  It really has changed our world in so many ways and not just for getting your porn fix.  We all get to be our little stars now.  The internet has given us an audience and a kind of secrecy that didn’t exist in the past.  I’m still a little freaked out that I remember life before the internet.  Seems like it’s been around forever and yet it hasn’t.  Floating thought…sorry.  Anyway, the internet brings out the bravery in many of us.

I am one such person.  I’m one of those “I’ve been writing forever” kind of people though it was focused on school projects.  I LOVED writing exercises, the ones where we had to come up with a story.  I was the kid who not only met the number of pages requirement but easily surpassed it.  I liked seeing the A+ and 98% marked in red in the corner of my pages.  You know, the pat on the back telling you that you did a good job.  I’m not sure when my interest in writing moved from school requirements to hobby, but I’ll guess it was around the time when a friend of mine and I would do…well, basically fan fiction and pass each other our notebooks to see what the other one said about our fantasy guys and our pretend lives.  I am revealing far too much about myself here.  See what the internet does to you!!  Moving on…somewhere along the line I would occasionally write something original, something creative (or I assumed creative) just to write it, but I kept it to myself.  I was so terrified of rejection and negative feedback.  Like bawling before anyone could read it kind of terrified.  Alright there weren’t tears but you get my point.  The idea of letting someone read my work that wasn’t a teacher (teachers get a pass because you expect the criticism) and watching their face melt into disgust or laughter when there wasn’t anything funny was far too unappealing to give up my goods.  Now there was a time or two when I did, always friends, always kind.  Those moments do stick with me.  Don’t remember the story, but I do remember the folder that they would write their comments on and they were all good.  Might have that treasure somewhere…

Even though it happened during school, the writing for pleasure, it still didn’t seem like it was “the thing” that I wanted to do.  To this day I still don’t dream of being a published author.  Okay, maybe I sneak that one in the fantasy reel every now and then but just for kicks.  But I have become more serious about writing.  I went like ten years without a real creative thought in my head then this magical day came.  Again I don’t remember the specifics, but a flood of ideas nearly drowned me.  They were coming like crazy.  Buried maybe, biding their time to come forth and explode in my head.  I started writing again, writing for the enjoyment, not for school assignments.  There wasn’t much granted, because I’m lazy, but they would come occasionally and the ideas were still flowing.

Now what would I do with these stories?  Well, keep them to myself of course, but one day I came across a website that interested me.  It’s called Elfwood.  What’s cool about Elfwood?  Well it’s massive and has some beautiful fantasy/scifi art, but it also has some serious crap.  The idea of Elfwood was that it was for EVERYONE.  Whether you’re a brilliant artist or can’t even manage a stick figure warrior, you were welcomed as long as you followed the rules which consisted of no more than be a fantasy/scifi piece and not too graphic.  They later added writing to the group. 

Elfwood seemed liked a good place to anonymously put my stuff out there.  There are thousands upon thousands of material out there.  How are they going to find me to abuse?  I wrote a silly story and submitted.  At Elfwood, everything is reviewed for approval by a team of volunteers.  These moderators also have the privilege of pointing out special pieces that come through so they aren’t lost in the shuffle of hundreds each week.  This was like an award called Moderator’s Choice and your piece was placed on the main page for a period of time.  Guess who got Moderator’s Choice?  Damn right!  My first submission and I got it.  You would have thought I won American Idol.  I freaked out, screaming and jumping in place.  My reaction was ridiculous but at the time it was the best thing that ever happened to me.  I put my stuff out there for the world to see and I got a great response.

Since then the internet world has been my cushioned heaven for my writing.  I don’t expect great responses all the time but overall they have been wonderful.  There were the occasional less loved comments, but usually mixed with something positive.  I’d dwell on the negative, fume for awhile, try to see what they meant if it was constructive then get over it and try to improve if I agreed.  Luckily I’ve picked the right places.  Most of the places I’ve put myself out there don’t go out of their way to be mean.  The responses I got made me more confident in putting my stuff out for everyone to see.  I’m still very sensitive to criticism, but I also crave the good responses (as we all do even if you won’t admit it to yourself) so it’s hard not to keep throwing up new stuff when I’m feeling confident about a piece.  Even if it’s so so, the internet has taught me that there are all kinds out of writers out there and there are all kinds of readers so what the hell, put it out there anyway.  You just might get the response you’re looking for.

Jennifer

Where have all the good characters gone?

Ok, confession time.  So, I am sure that anyone who has ever so much as started to write a story has come across some aspect of writing that gives him or her more trouble than the rest.  For some it’s scenery, for others it’s making all the plot points flow.  For me, it’s characters.  I have a terrible time coming up with three-dimensional characters that seem like real people and have typical reactions to the situations I throw them into.

            This, of course, is a big problem.  Many of my most favorite stories are ones that are character driven so that is the kind of story that I want to write.  The problem, therefore, is that I can’t very well write a character driven story if my characters are flat and don’t really have any drive of their own.

            This would be why, for many years, I resorted to fanfiction.  Fanfiction has the wonderful ability to give you a world and a set of already developed characters to play with.  Many people look down on the fanfiction writer, but I see it as a wonderful way to experiment with different writing forms and to learn how to develop a plot.

            The problem for me, then, was getting out of fanfiction and actually standing on my own two feet, as it were, and writing something completely my own.  I began this transition by adding some original characters into my fanfic.  But this was always a little problematic because they were still interacting with already established characters so I wasn’t learning how to make interactions from scratch.

            My first few attempts at completely original fiction that weren’t part of a creative writing class or any form of structured assignments didn’t go very well at all.  I looked at my characters and saw that they had no depth.  They were just going along with the plot that I had given them, making what appeared to be arbitrary decisions with no real reasoning behind them.

            Thus I realized I needed another tool.  I began to character map before I would start a story.  I would list out my characters and then put down certain traits that they had.  I would then go back and hypothesize what had happened in their back-story that would have contributed to those traits.  This helped a little, but it still felt contrived.

            That’s when it hit me; if I’m better at using already developed characters, then why not just keep doing that?  I began to look at the people around me, my friends and family and even passing acquaintances.  There was a whole treasure trove of characters around me to choose from to work with.  So, I needed that snarky strong willed determined character? Model her off of my best friend.  Need a flighty absentminded but good-natured character; my friend Liz is perfect for that. 

            After I got the basic concept of using those around me for inspiration, I started to experiment with mixing and matching personality traits.  Take a little bit of my father’s attitude and mix it with my grandpa’s strong devotion to family, then throw in a bit of my grandma’s self sacrificing nature and I have my main character from my last Nano novel.  And you know what, it worked!  That novel (though still unfinished) was the first one that I reached the 50K goal on. 

            So I guess what all of this is saying, if there is a part of writing that gets you down, that slows down your creative process and keeps you from reaching a goal, don’t give up.  Search for new methods to work through those blocks and you’ll find something that will eventually help you to overcome them. 

The lesson that I learned from experimenting is, if you are trying to write realizism, then don’t be afraid to pull things from your own life.  Things that you have lived and experienced cannot get any more real than that. 

Cassidy

A Tasty Steak! But Don't Forget the Potatoes.

Tonight I finished a challenge proposed by my husband. I wrote 30k by the end of the month and now I'm rewarded with dinner anywhere I want. (Anywhere in the state of Michigan!) If only all challenges were this rewarding...

Truthfully though, I'm most excited that it forced me to add another thirty thousand words to my novel (from this past NaNo) that I may not have written otherwise. I found myself falling back into NaNo mode. I thought about nothing except for my novel day and night. When I got home I worked the rest of my schedule around writing, instead of the opposite. I called out to friends for support. Even now, I feel the NaNoWriMo crash after having completed my challenge! It was thrilling though. Now I'm within two or three chapters of actually finishing the thing! 

I also realized that it forced me to push away the inner editor, the same way NaNoWriMo does. Why is it so much easier to do this in November? I don't have a "one size fits all" reason but this is what I know to be true for me. National Novel Writing Month elicits a high, a serious adrenaline rush that puts me into full-noveling mode. I'm not alone. I have my fellow Wrimos doing the same thing and pushing me along because we are all on the same adventure. When there's a cheerleader section just for me, I know I can't let them down! It makes me want to try harder. Then there's that dreaded deadline. All Wrimos fear it yet resolve to conquer it! 

"Where are you going with this MegaPaopu?" Don't worry, I'm getting to it! 

What this personal challenge has taught me is this-- Writing during NaNo is a no brainer! We push and push and type and type until our eyes and fingers bleed but we keep going to reach that 50k! After November what happens? That drive, that overwhelming adrenaline is gone and maybe forgotten. We don't need to forget about it after November is done! The writing world is scary yes, but we make it that way after November. On December 1st, it's as if we shed all of our writing armor. The courage and strive to keep writing is left behind in November. It will still be there in November, but guess what? It will ALWAYS be there no matter what. 

I love noveling and I love the person I am when I'm writing an awesome story! I don't want to lose any of that just because it's not November. I encourage everyone to have that tasty steak. Just don't forget the potatoes! What I mean is... Indulge to you heart's content during November but don't neglect the other months you can be writing too! Those other months are just as nutritious to your writing diet as that big chunk  of meat we call NANOWRIMO!

Tabby

I'm Having a Thought...

If there’s one question that seems inexorably linked to the art of writing, it’s probably this: “Where do you get your ideas?”

As with so many other questions, there isn’t one single answer, not even if you ask the same person twice. Maybe some people have an idea box that they can reach into at will and pull out fantastic, fully formed ideas. I, unfortunately, am not one of those people.

At least, not all of the time. But once in a while, if everything falls in to place just right, it’s another story entirely.

Ultimately what I’m really talking about here is inspiration, that initial spark that lights off your story. No two are alike. Whether you spend all day rubbing two sticks together to build even the smallest campfire, or strike a single match and set off a raging inferno, it all starts with that first spark, and your story is exactly the same.

One of my most wacky and funny short stories was written in about 30 minutes between classes, all in a rush, with no prior planning or preparation. I literally wrote it almost as fast as I thought it up, typing as quickly as I could so that I could get it all down before walking back out the door and probably losing the rhythm and feel of the story for good.

The sequel, on the other hand, took something like three years to write. Not because I didn’t know how I wanted it to end, because I knew exactly. I just didn’t know how to get there. It’s all well and good if you know, say, that in the end the ring will be destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom where it was forged. But if you don’t have the slightest idea how in the world to get Frodo from Bag End to Mordor in the first place, then you’re not going to make much overall progress.

So just how to you get really well inspirated* in the first place, then?

Well, everyone is different, and since I’m not you, all I can really tell you here is what works for me. Luckily, for me that’s an easy question to answer, because I have absolutely no idea how I get inspired.

But one big thing in my favor is the fact that I tend to have a very wandering mind. I don’t mean that I’m never paying attention to what I’m doing, because that’s not true at all. But somewhere in the back of my mind, even—and sometimes most importantly—when I don’t want it, there’s some nugget of awareness that’s casting randomly about from one thought to another, just looking for something to latch on to.

I suspect that it’s something that developed over quite a few years in school as a child. It was never especially straining for me to do the homework and follow along. It wasn’t until taking calculus or physics classes that things started requiring some more determined focus, and by then I’d grown quite an active and detailed imagination. Not only that, but it was quite happy running along on its own while the rest of my brain kept working.

Which is why, threeish years after I wrote The Story of Aug in one frantic break between classes, I was sitting in a meeting at work and suddenly struck by exactly the right way to tie together the sequel that I’d been poking at off and on ever since. So, on a page of graph paper in the almost unreadable scrawl of a terrible office-supply-cabinet pen (pro tip: find a pen that you like using, and then always always have one around) I scribbled down a few paragraphs that encapsulated how I would finish the story. That evening, after only a little extra pondering, The Rest of the Story of Aug was finally on paper.

So let’s say you’ve got a corner of your brain set aside for random ideas. Just how do you go about actually getting something useful out of it?

The only thing that I’ve come to learn is that trying to force something out will almost never result in anything I like. The best way to counter that, I’ve found, is deceptively simple: just don’t think about it so hard. Granted, that isn’t easy, especially when you’re actually trying to write something. But sometimes there’s just no way around it, you’ve got to step away and let things percolate. If you’re lucky, something will bubble up in a few hours or days (or years) that will get you back on track again.

How do you do that, then? Most simply, I’d say to find something that takes your mind mostly off what you want to be thinking about. Not completely, just enough that you’re not obsessing over it any more. For example, in the summer I bike every day, and the resulting 90 minutes of idle brain time has been a great way to come up with new ideas. Oftentimes I’ll get back with entire plots in my head, and spend the rest of the evening writing them down.

Or you could try music. I’ve found that the right piece of music can crank the random inspirator into overdrive. Example? In my senior year in college I had an interesting thought for a space epic type of story, and after sketching out a couple of pages I put it on the shelf for future reference. Every now and then I’d scribble a few more notes or a random idea to include, but for the most part I didn’t do much with it. A full six years later, I was listening to a recent movie’s soundtrack while driving and, during one impressive track from near the end, I stopped picturing the film in my head and instead saw the trailer for my own story. Two, almost three minutes worth of music played as images and dialogue and narration unspooled in my head, almost like I was watching it already put to screen.

After that, the entire story was right there, perhaps a little fuzzy in spots but better than any outline or storyboard I could ever come up with. Since then I’ve been fleshing out the story as a 10-part miniseries. Will it ever be filmed? Who knows. But if so, no matter what else, I know exactly how the trailer will look and sound.

But I have to be careful. Music conjurs up interesting ideas, but for me those ideas then become permanently merged to that music. I can’t listen to that particular soundtrack any more without seeing that specifc idea, and the same is true for lots of other music I like. More than anything else, that’s why I don’t listen to music while I’m writing. It’s thought provoking all right, but it’s almost too good.

So after all of that, are there any, you know, useful bits here to take away? Maybe.

The most important thing is probably to remember that there’s no one way to get ideas. You’ve read a few things that work for me, maybe they’ll give you a new thought for something to try yourself. Or, maybe you inspirate more effectively under a more structured approach, setting aside the time or doing idea-generating exercises. Regardless, if you find some combination that works, go for it. There’s no one, generic, ultimate way to get good ideas, and no single place to go to find them.

Just remember, even if it feels like you’re doing nothing but rubbing sticks together, sooner or later you do get those sparks. Even better, the more you try, the better you’ll get at it, until eventually you can find the right combination of distraction, concentration, or just plain idle thoughts that can give you that inferno of ideas you’re looking for.

Jason

(*No other word is as appropriate, so thanks to Syn for this one. Feel free to enbiggen your blog any time with words I made up.)

Rain that ever-loving stuff down on me.

It is becoming increasingly apparent to me that once someone has decided to consider themselves a writer—whether or not they're any good, whether or not they have any faith in their talent—their life as a casual observer is over.
When I was in early elementary school, I read books by the truckload.  I've never been a quick reader, but at least when I was a kid, enjoying books came easy—all a book had to do to make me happy was have characters, a plot, and a puppy on the front cover.  I don't remember most of the books I read before sixth grade, probably because they were all about the same, both in my mind, and on the page. 
But I do remember the fateful day in sixth grade, during free-reading hour, when I took my book (some nameless member of that series with the adventurous alliteration…Dolphins after Daybreak, or whatever) up to my teacher and pointed to line about halfway down the page.
"Mrs. Rydquist," I said (yeah…that was a mouthful for a kid with a lisp and remedial rubber bands in her mouth) "what does this word mean?"
She picked her glasses up off her chest where they had been resting on her considerable bosom and slid them up the bridge of her nose.  "Connectio…Oh, oh, that's just a typo, Mary.  The word is supposed to be 'connection,' but you see, they've accidentally left the 'n' off."  She smiled at me and let her glasses fall back onto their king-sized bed before going back to stapling things to the bulletin board.
In that moment, the core of my very humanity was rocked.  Books could have mistakes? 
Very soon after that, I began seeing the mistakes everywhere; it started, of course, with spelling and grammar, simple things that irked me, but didn't necessarily deter me from continuing to read the book.  But then, in the summer after seventh grade when I started writing my first book, things began to go downhill.
Once I started to get a taste of the sort of choices authors have when writing books or short stories or poems or what have you, I started noticing every choice that an author made that I didn't like.  This character should have been a boy, this bit of dialogue is about three chapters too early, this expository paragraph is totally contrived and I hate it!  I hate it all!
Alright, so "hate" is a strong word.  Nevertheless, after I became a writer, enjoying stories became a chore.  I entered in to every reading wary of the potential monsters of mediocrity that I might face there, knowing that any second, the author would make a glaring mistake that would render the story impassible to my perfectionist brain.  Gone were the days when I could sit down with a book and plow through it, not noticing the places where the story deviated from my ideals. 
Thankfully, my "ideals" are not perched so high in the clouds as to keep me from reading anything but Encyclopedias for the rest of my life.  But there have been whole series I've had to stop reading halfway through because of a crippling frustration that the author should have written some key element differently.  The Halfblood Chronicles by Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey, for one.  The Dune Saga, for another.  Books that I wanted to enjoy, stories I found fascinating, but enjoyment and fascination that was cut short…simply because I am a writer.  It's not a hat I can put on and take off on a whim.  It's something I always am, for better or worse.
The loss of my ability to casually read of book and stories (and watch movies, for that matter) was not all that my life as a writer took away from me either.  Since taking up the bardic pen, I've had to give up the peace and quiet of good old American individualism, as well.  Suddenly every person I meet is a character, every bit of odd rubbish I see on the ground has an epic behind it, and every crazy dream I have I have after eating too much pork for dinner needs to be written down before it's lost to the ages, because dammit, it was inspiring, and that shit doesn't grow on trees.
Has this ever happened to you: Your friend (probably only kind of your friend…no one really close) is going through a messy break-up, or maybe there's an illness in the family, or maybe they're looking for a new job.  You know there are questions you shouldn't ask—"Do you know how many times he's had sex with her, or is it just a ballpark estimate?" or "Will your aunt have to sell drugs to pay the medical bills?" or "Are you quitting because you're a racist and your old boss was Mexican?"—but a huge part of you is dying to ask so bad, because you're sure there's a good story there. 
Or even more awkward, something bad is happening to you—your ex boyfriend from high school tells you he still loves you, even though you're already dating someone, and you realize you have feelings for both of them, or maybe you find out your brother really was adopted, just like you'd been teasing him for twenty years—and, in order to sort out your thoughts or just because you're a venter, you write about it.  But the thing you write develops from a static memoir into exciting fiction, and you can't let go of the story, even though you know you're offending all of your friends and family by writing it.
Maybe I'm alone in this.  My [non-writer] friends have often told me that I get too involved in movies and books and in the stuff I write, that it doesn't get this messy for anyone else they know.  And the funny thing is that I really wouldn't want it any other way.  I love how much energy I can get from watching a good film, or how fired up I get after a really bad one.  I love how, when I go back and read those really long venting stories, I get excited and confused all over again, like I can relive parts of my life.  I've always thought that the times I've most felt like a writer were the times I've most felt alive.
What about you? 
When has being a writer really sucked for you? 
If you could snag the copyrights to any story—book, movie, short story, poem, etc.—what would it be, and what would you do to it? 
Do you have any journal entries that turned into stories you couldn't put down?  What are you doing with those stories now?
Have a great week!

Mary (PKsDancingGIrl) 
PKsDancingGirl

Write Stuff Down

Some people that I admire love to outline and world-build.  They'll break a novel down into component pieces, working each scene out ahead of time, building the story bit by bit until the finished work just sort of falls into their hands.

Okay, so it's probably never quite that easy.  Some methods make themselves out to be--the Snowflake Method, for one, claims you can almost write a novel by accident, just by building out from the central concept or "elevator pitch."  The concept is that you just bolt on more and more material, taking the sentence to a paragraph, the paragraph to a page, but instead of doing that in the normal linear fashion--starting at the beginning and bolting on sentences until you get to the end--you build the story out from its core.  So by the third or fourth pass through, you've essentially written a beginning, middle, and end.  From there, so they say, you just flesh it out.

And, like almost all writing advice ever spewed forth, this works for someone.  Maybe even more than one person, maybe a whole lot.

I'm just pretty sure it doesn't work for me.  Virtually none of these things do, since they require you to write down things that are within the narrative flow, things that, for me, arise organically in the writing process.  More to the point, it doesn't work since, when I write things down, I tend to forget them.

Someday, I might have to develop another writing process--and I think I might, since the way I do things right now is rather slow and dependent on letting my subconscious grind away at a problem for a while until it pops out the answer into the conscious fore.  But, that has been my process for a while now--I keep mulling over scenes and settings and characters, building plot elements over a long period of time.  The novel I'm writing now has been germinating for five years, at least, and survived two failed attempts to start it, including a stalled outlining.  And, that does make this one challenging since it's a mystery, and mysteries to some degree require rather tight plotting in order to get all the elements in from the beginning.  Extensive revisions may well by my friend on this one.

Another novel, one I wrote in 2008, got its start in scenes I thought of in 1999--and these were fantasy elements at a time when I didn't want to write fantasy, when I was neck-deep in science fiction and didn't think I'd ever tell all the stories I had to tell in that futuristic setting.  And almost all of the development of those ideas occurred in my head, only meeting paper when it came time to actually write the darn thing.  Most of the ideas I have that I write down, or try to outline, end up dying on me.  If I don't take them back into my head, they'll languish there on paper or in dusty computer files, until I happen upon them again--at which point they'll be rather surprising, vaguely familiar and, sometimes, kind of stale.

That being said, I'm also coming around to the idea that every story, every novel, may have its own unique method, that what worked for this won't work for that.  But maybe I'll explore that next time.

Dave

Vacation

           As I’m writing this, I’m only been back for a couple of days from a very short little vacation.  I purposefully did NOT take my laptop along, thinking that that would force me to get out and shoot more photos, which is my primary creative outlet.  And then they asked if I would be willing to check in my carry on to make more space, and I agreed to be nice, not thinking that this put my books in the cargo hold.  So there I was, sitting by the window looking forward to a two and a half hour flight alone with nothing to do.

            My salvation came in the form of a small notebook I had tucked into my purse to hold things like my hotel reservation and emergency phone numbers.  That combined with a pencil transformed into a wonderful diversion.

            When I set out on this trip, I was fighting anxiety.  I’d travelled alone before, but those times someone else had helped plan, was waiting for me at the other end, and/or was there to catch me if I massively screwed up.  But I was determined to do it, and I did!  With a little help from the people in my head, as usual.  This time the prime candidate for alter ego was a young lady named Amelie, who at one point in her story travels half way around the world, alone, for an uncertain new job.  So I settled into my seat, and set Amie in my head, thinking that if nothing else I could daydream and collect flying experiences for her story. 

            Instead I ended up pulling out that notebook, and Amelie wrote all the way to St. Petersberg.  She wrote about how nervous she was to be taking this trip.  She wrote about what she hoped to find when she got to her destination.  She wrote about why she was leaving home in the first place.  She wrote about bubblegum. And clouds, her seatmates, how cold the floor was. Things she saw looking out that window at a land that was new to her.

            I read over everything later, when I was safely on the ground, and was amazed.  I hadn’t even known I’d known some of those things about her!   Had I known that her sister was a worrywart, and that she always ran to her grandmother for cookies and comfort? Had I realized before then how much resentment she held towards her former employer?   Maybe I had but had never needed to express it.  Maybe I hadn’t, and it had grown right then, somewhere over Ohio.

            Is there a point to this?  I’m not sure, it was just a story I wanted to tell.  But hey, if you ever get stuck, maybe this would work for you.  Have your character write a diary entry to themselves.  Outside the story, just for fun.  You might be surprised by what they tell you.


Mel