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