Sucking on vacuum; Setting the bar

I'm going to make this personal again.

My passion for writing happened blossomed pre-internet and out in the sticks. So for eight years, from middle to high school, there were only a couple of weeks of "creative writing" in my rural school.

By graphite and by dot matrix, I wrote 99% of my output in a vacuum. My family didn't know what to make of it. (My grandpa thought it was all an excuse to avoid chores.)

My senior year English teacher, Mr. Hoyt Dearmond, gave me extra credit for a Halloween story. The next day he pulled me to the side. He confessed that my werewolf story kept him up all night. I was hooked.

After many years after that I finally found a crew of on honest writers that give me good feedback. Overall, I'm for workshops.  If you do some research, you'll find that a lot of the authors you love had a support system. They either drew inspiration from each other, like Mark Twain and Charles DudleyWarner being neighbors before they collaborated on the Guilded Age to Robert E Howard and H.P. Lovecraft writing engaging letter to each other about the nature of man and civilization.

Beyond getting another set of eyes on your work, there is a feeling of validation to be had in talking to people about the craft of writing. Finding the Write Crew for you, though, is more like an episode of Community than Dead Poet’s Society.

Each member needs to get a balance of several things:

• Good news vs bad news: You need honest colleagues that can deliver you bad news about what doesn't work. Anyone who constantly tells you that your work is flawless is either lying or clueless to your story needs. Constant badgering  without some constructive feedback is no good either.
• Talking vs Writing: As friendships and respect grow. You’ll find that your discussions drag on into long phone calls. Hour long phone calls on the travails of writing in general are hours your not actually writing.

In addition to a fresh viewpoint, you'll get extra ideas and influences as people introduce you to new authors, new stories and new genres.

A lot of pros read more than just what’s in their style/genre. Right now, the Literary world is befuddled right now with the younger writers who are mixing and mashing tropes, adding character studies to zombie plagues and introspection to alternate realities.

Meanwhile, the “genre ghetto” is spinning out SciFi murder mysteries and undead nior.  And then there’s the supremely talented Dan Simmons whose breadth of work defies the market's passion pigeon holes.

These are writers that recognize that in order to grow, they need to expand beyond what originally inspired them to write in the first place.

And that’s a getting onto the front porch of where I wanted to end our short walk around the Bright Cave. 

If it’s one thing I've noticed among a lot of writers is that while they may not have ended up where they hoped to be, they “fell” to a higher place by aiming up. Or perhaps the more accurate corollary is that you get only mediocre writers unless they aspire to do more.

Sure your passion may involve a thrilling, romantic story of super spy robot P.I.s , but EVERY story is better with engaging characters who are in a conflict for stakes that matter to them and the reader.  If  you strive for those higher goals with every novel, you have better chances making a better story and winning over new readers.

And in the end, isn't that what every writer really wants?

Your writing is not a watercolor and you’re not Picasso.

So a long time ago, I was talking to a friend, a painter. We were kibitzing about the challenges of trying to make a living as “artists.” (This was before I learned that most artistic people scratching out a living are called “creatives” and are busy making commercials and ads for businesses that see them as all interchangeable.)

Then my friend had a question. “If an editor reads your stuff and they didn’t like it, would you change it?”

My answer was “Yes, I have to.” The look of shock I got, shocked me. Then her face changed into something boarding on pity.

That’s an essential difference between the visual and performing arts and writing. The arts that hit your brain straight through your senses, be it music, painting and dance, are so instinctual some times that they are almost totally subjective. Literally one man’s treasure is another’s trash.  Not everyone who   likes First Communion falls in love with Crucifixion. At  a moment, you can think a painting is masterpiece or a bunch of colors splashed on the canvas.

Writing is different beast. It has to be more collaborative with its editors and readers. You are aiming for a particular audience in mind and trying to speak in an engaging voice.  One flawed piece and people stop reading before they can experience the whole story.

At almost every agents panel,  you can hear the story where one agent sends back feedback to a new writer only to hear, “Why do all of you agents tell me the same thing? To make these changes will ruin my Vision!”  

First off, if several people that know your audience tell you something is off on your story, then odds are there’s something off.

Second,  the only vision a writer should have is “Nothing is sacred.”  A beautifully written line in the wrong spot is still inherently wrong. Despite how much of your heart and skill is in a scene. If that scene drags down the story at that point, move it. Sometimes you’ll find out that the perfect place to put it is not in that particular novel at all.

As a quick side note,  there’s no denying the frustration that one feels when your work doesn’t match up with your hopes and expectations.

Ira Glass addressed this beautifully. Do a lot work.

Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.

How to reach THE END, Part 2

Back in an earlier post, I detailed my own personal history of trying to finish a story and how many years that struggle took.

In the spirit of NaMoWriMo, the talented Charlie Jane Anders offers some insights of her own  at one of the top genre news sites, io9.com.

If you’re wondering what’s her street cred, no worries. She just picked up a Hugo Award for Six Months, Three Days. So she’s a solid journalist and great writer.

So find how Strategies to Make Sure You Actually Finish That Novel might finally get you across the finish line.

Distracti … Wait! What! Squirrels!!!

Technology. Oh, what a double edged sword you are.

One of its biggest gifts to me personally was the grammar/spell checker. It’s been a time saver for me. It helped me find my obvious mistakes faster, leaving more time for the tricky ones. I don’t have to tell anyone who can reed this blog that functionality never improved anyone’s grammar, spelling or writing discipline. Heck, I bet there are still a couple of mistakes in this paragraph alone.

The real slicer for me has been the endless distraction of the Internet. I can take a quick “break” from writing that turns into hours of surfing. More insidious, I’ll start honest-to-God research for my story, blink, and I’m playing a web browser zombie game. … where I’m the zombie.

“The hardest step is always the first,” is what skydivers say. 

First I had to admit that I had a problem at first. Like most addicts, I shifted blame to something else. Back then, I blamed work. Since I spent ninety percent of my work week on a computer every day, it must have been blocking my writing chi by the time I got home.

That never stopped me from gaming, writing long posts on forums and the like, but somehow it blocked up the “real” reason that I spent money on a computer in the first place.

I finally found a workaround. 

I wrote long hand. For a while it was fun. I would pick up a journal with a certain look and feel to get me in the mood for a story.  I still have the wonderful, rough moleskin that’s earmarked for my supernatural Western.  That was a good first step, that evolved in my learning that I could literally write anywhere if I put my passion and heart into a project. Eventually, any composition or notebook would work for me. I just need a place for the first draft to flow without red squiggly lines or a backspace key to tempt me.

The flip side to that was I had to type all this stuff into the computer. Booooooring! Sadly, though, longhand+typing was still faster than trying to type it alone. Rewriting seemed to be something that I can focus on a bit more.

But lately, I've been wanting to up my game in the speed department , so I aimed at getting me to back to writing solely from the keyboard.  

Sheer willpower didn't do the trick, unfortunately.

 I've been trying to use these “distraction free” writer programs. They fill your whole screen with your words, won’t let you shrink the window and some don’t even let you backspace. That last one is such a killer for me. 

I don’t mind have a whole handwritten page that’s crossed out like someone left it in a crib with a crayon and a baby coked out on sugar cereal. But if I have a whole worthless typed page, I've got to go find that later on a laptop with a screen that’s only going to show me a third of page at a time. (When is someone going to invent a cheap Legtop computer? Right side is preferred.)

Overall, though I have to admit, I am pleased with my first month of using the distraction free program. I squeezed out two extra pages and didn't have to commit anything to paper.

But today I discovered that I can still use ALT-TAB to shut the window.

 ... Damn. 

How do you get it done … like finished, fini, The End.

So while I cool my heels waiting to hear back from Kindle Singles, let's roll back the clock a ways to when I first started.

I got the writing bug when I was twelve. I had emptied the high school library of any book that I wanted to read. There were still plenty of spines lining the shelves, but not the stuff that dug under my skin and opened whole new worlds to me. I had to solve that issue ASAP. 

This farm boy's other hurdle was that I only got $4 a week for all the chores I did on the pig farm. Most of it was shoveling shit. So no cash, no books ... as if I had a book store to go to.

My solution – write my own stories. How hard could it be? (insert maniacal laughter here)

What nobody knew at the time was that I also had ADHD, long before it was a recognized learning disablity. My own grandfather's diagnosis for me was “lazy and featherbrained;” my teachers called me eccentric ... to my face.

Back then, I think I finished one short story and that was about it. For literally decades, I'd start a cool story concept and get stuck in the middle, lose interest and then find a bright, shiny new idea to play with. I was the writer's equivalent to a crow … or a raccoon.

Fast forward to now and I've got a folder of finished fiction projects.

Quick aside: This is a stark contrast to my old journalism /marketing career where I have reams and reams of articles, ads and press releases. … Deadlines and a paycheck every two weeks can be a wonderful motivator, I tell ya. In the old pulp days where magazines were demanding five or more stories a week, Harlan Ellison says that he thought of the first story of the week as his rent check, The next one was his meal ticket. A hell of way to keep yourself motivated.

The rest of us gotta dig deeper to get to the finish line. For me, it was a combination of things that got me to finally start putting “The End” on my fiction pieces.

My original motivation for any story was an awesome visual that I'd see in a daydream. CGI ain't got shit on my daydreams. People with extra spider limbs fighting inside five-star hotels or a cowboy walking down a muddy street with huge invisible dragon footprints surrounding him, those were my money shots.

I'd try to write to that scene, and if I had to make a convoluted plot to get there, even better. Problem was, I'd never get there.

Finally, I decided to make a commitment to finish a damn novel, no matter what. So I swore off starting off anything new. If I had to spice things up, I'd add that new shiny to my novel in progress. 

It might be a Frankenstein of a book when I was finished, but that wasn't as important as getting the damn thing done.

 I also made the plot as stupid simple as possible. An outline might have helped. (But every time I do one, I either end up with one sentence or a whole treatment.)

I plugged away at it for years. At times, it was a snail's pace. In part to having a day job, in part to writer's block. At this point, I really hadn't mastered finishing a project, but I did manage get some stick-to-it-iveness.

Then I joined a workshop and that gave me monthly deadlines. (Workshops will be another post sometime.)

For a while, I circled the same chapter for half a year as the workshop helped me fine tune it. Then the crew put their foot down, they refused to see the chapter again. Either submit the next chapter or do a different story. 

So the workshop not only gave me deadlines to shot for, it also taught me when to let something go in the short term for the sake of the whole piece. At some point, you have also do this for the whole novel. To paraphrase Leonardo da Vinci,  novels are never finished, only abandoned.

The odd thing is that there is no real difference to giving myself a deadline or deciding that I've circled the drain long enough on a chapter. But like AA, the strength of others and their expectations pushed me to get my shit together.

Sot to recap:

• Don't start anything new
• If something makes you passionate, add it to your novel
• Find a way to make deadlines motivate you.
• Stop mucking with it and move on.

Those are the things that helped put all this shit that's now on my hard drive. … At least it's not pig shit this time.

Short postscript/addendum/footnote/whatever:

Every writer is different, so their strengths and weakness all vary and vary in degrees. That means there's no magic bullet to solve your problems. If you were hoping for such a thing, you need to stop making yourself a target for wishful thinking.

This forces writing advice to be either generic in a “How to” format, or it's going to be specific to a writer.To reach a broad audience, most advice is written in the former.

IMy personal stories may not help everyone, but if it gives a leg up to at least one reader, then I'll consider it a “personal best” for me.

Well, Part 2 of the Kindle Singles project is going to have to wait.

I'm curious about the Amazon Kindle Singles project. I also decided to blog about the experience.

 I took the dive today to submit a short story of mine ... and the KS have about a 4-week turn around, so Part 2 is going to be a while.

In the meantime the Submission Guidelines, suggests sending as much material as you can for a manuscript. That confuses me. Will they look at partial projects? Do they want simultaneous submissions?

I'm sure down the line these questions will seem pretty dumb.  But, hey.

“You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. Man, when I was young I shoved my ignorance in people's faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn.” 
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Stephen King Equals Dr. Oz.

Last post, I talked about you, as a writer, facing your inner demons of self-worth. If that’s not fire pan to fire bad enough, you be getting it aplenty from the outside world too. There will be forces both social, economic and industrial that will constantly test your resolve and tempt you to quit.

  

Where to start? Let’s start with strangers and work our way in.

SK=OZ, M.D.

For writers, it’s feast or famine in so many ways. The best example is the guy who has never heard of you. His unspoken assumption is that if you aren't on the best sellers list or a cultural icon, then you've got to be a starving artists.

Admit it, you've done the same if you've met a writer, or other artist, you didn’t know.  People imagine us in either a hovel or a mansion. Never a ranch style with a two car garage.

Do me a favor  …  the next time someone gives you that look when you say you’re a writer. Ask what they do.

If they tell you they’re a doctor just look them in the eye and say, “Oh. You mean like Dr. Oz. That’s cool, but I've never heard of you.  That must mean you have a day job, right?. Say when I retire from writing, I want to be a doctor because I’m good with people.

"I’m working on a medical thriller. So by the time I’m done researching the book, I figure that I’ve got all the ground work I need to be a doctor.  That should take me a couple of years. How come you guys don’t do that way? It’d be much easier.” This works with lawyers too by substituting “Supreme Justice” and “Law” where appropriate.

If you happen to actually be confused at their blatant contempt when you deliver the lines above, then read on.

There’s Initials After Name. I Dub Thee Worthy To Mow My Literary Lawn.

This goes more into my days as an ad copy guy, but anyone with initials behind their name (Esq., CEO, VP, M.D., MBA, PhD., etc.), thinks they can write.  In the marketing world, this attitude is summed up as “I could write this ad for my firm if I wanted to, but my time is better spent elsewhere.” The same attitude my brother takes when he pays the neighborhood kids to mow his lawn.  It’s a cheap tactic to devalue your skills – and your craft – at the bargaining table.

It’s worse when you’re a fiction writer and these guys want to ask how much you make just to boost their egos.  And when you consider that they spent a third of their life and tons of student loans to get the paycheck, respect and status they earned. The idea that some shmuck with an overactive imagination and keyboard could get paid to make up outlandish tales, it’s inconceivable.

These guys do use words. They produce verbage by the truck load for contracts, peer reviews, business plans. Somehow they think this mean they can also write fiction – if they just set their mind to it.

Better yet, they don’t even have to write a novel to prove their theory. They just point to Grisham, Kafka and Crighton and BAM! Case in point without even having to hit the keyboard (betcha that the three gentlemen above would call bullshit on that. )

Considering the economy here in 2012, that’s probably how a lot of these guys ran their businesses into bankruptcy.

The worst wrinkle on that is the guy who has confused you with a marketing fellow and thinks that you two can be partners.

The Idea Guy

To sum up this is another smart fellow who has an idea. For his single idea (we call that a “concept” in writer speak).

And here’s the deal. He’s willing to share that idea with you (well, it could be something more, like asking you to write his/her memoir) for a 50/50 split. The idea, this gold nugget of the rarest imagination will tumble from his lips to your humble lap.  – if you ‘re lucky, this idea is more than single word (bioterroism!) and maybe a whole sentence (Innocent man has a twin serial killer!)

 From there, you only have to spend the next two years typing up the story, creating characters from whole cloth and wrapping a real plot around the concept.

Then this guy keeps hounding you with this great deal.  You dread the next time you meet him because he’s going to bring it up again. Sometimes he’s even joking about it, like he’s trying to be ironic about it, but you know deep down he’s hoping you’ll  bite.

David Morell (you might be familiar with the movie version of First Blood) says that he now tells people he’s a literary professor just to avoid these guys.  By the way, his On a Lifetime of Writing is required reading. Warning: The parts about Hollywood and the Publishing industry will crush you soul.

Not all idea guys have initials behind their names, though. Some of the guys making you this deal will be your neighbors.

The Local Boys In a Band

In the music industry, there’s the “Local Boys” effect.  It’s the dichotomy of having a packed the house 2,000 fans on MyFace when you do a gig on the other side of the state line, but at home nobody could care. To them, you’re the dude that played french horn in High School.

To a lot of people, you won’t ever be a writer unless you finally get that big payday. And even then, you won’t be considered made until the movie adaptation hits the big screen.

Until then, you’re just a co-worker, a weird acquaintance or family. Unless you are lucky, that means the people closest to you will be your worst enemies. Constantly hammering at you to give up your writing time to hang out or do what’s “best” for you.  

For my friend Paolo Bacigalupi, he had a supportive wife that helped him as he spent 10 years honing his craft into a multiple award winning books. I’m guessing that come time for the family reunion, there was a least one conversation that gave him some satisfaction.

And I can name at least six arrogant bastards that are going to pound on the keys like an infinite number of Shakespeareian monkeys if I ever get my own windfall .   And they are not complimenting me by any means. It would be more like a bunch of know-it-all neighbors digging in their backyard for oil after the village idiot found Texas Tea in the outhouse.

You can probably name a few like that yourself.  My suggestion? Start a list with these guys on top.  Then keep adding to this list. Add every naysayer that you can think of.  Include anyone, no matter how dear and close. Don’t hold back.

For your writing career, these are the people that going to be your Achilles Heel.

• These are the people you’ll have to say no to again and again.
• These are the people who are get jealous when you spend hours typing that “stupid” story
• They will keep telling you that it’s a waste of time because you’re getting paid every two weeks.
• And they all tell you that the did  believe in you … in the beginning

Congrats, you've jumped on the Writer's Train. Still wanna go for a ride?

Writing and the full time job ... blech.

Real life caught up with me there and I dipped into that temptation again -- to drop the blog and hunker down on just writing my fiction. At these times, I even stop looking for places to sell my story. I'm just trying to get a few words further down on the page, the writer's version of putting one foot in front of the other.

My good buddy, Chuck Wendig, put out some good advice this week.

"You read, and you read critically.
You write, and you write critically.
And you do both of these things as often as humanly possible.
Which means: daily.
DAILY.
Daily!"

That's part of a good post about writers and their feeling of self-validation ... especially if they're not published yet. This On Cultivating Instinct As An Inkslinging Penmonkey is a good pep talk. Even though I was an award-winning copywriter, I had the same issue. I'd say, "I'm an 'aspiring novelist,'" or I'd have to throw in the, "but I'm not published yet" disclaimer.  I had a friend though, who kept hammering at me to stop that. "You've had a full time job writing ads. You've won awards. You're a writer, stop it!"

Terry Goodkind, has said that when he decided to start working on his book that he'd tell people that he was a best selling writer. His wife would ask, "Why tell people that, you haven't published anything yet."

His answer? "Then why am I writing in the first place?"

Small side note, Goodkind sold his first manuscript for over $270K ... and he's dyslexic. For him, writing takes a little longer and he's more thorough in his self-edits, but his learning disability and work schedule never stopped him. Consider him the Lance Armstrong of writing.

On that note, I'm going to go for a focus for my next few posts. I've got a short story that's been through one more round of editing and then it's off to Kindle Singles. I'll take you along that journey and see how it goes.

Remember that fellow I mentioned in a previous blog, Hugh Howey, was on a New Writer's panel at WorldCon. He was singing the praises of e-publishing.

Now I can see why.

When he said that Hollywood was calling, he never mentioned Ridley Scott, nor did he mention that his sales sometimes his six figures in a month.

Go Hugh, go!

Pffft. Why blog about writing?

There's a short story sitting in another window that needs a little polish and some exposition before I try Amazon Singles. But here I am blogging.

It's a new skill that a lot of us have to master.  Most mid-range to high mid-range authors must blog to keep their hungry fans fed and engaged. So it's time for me to hop off the fence and ride this horse.

I've avoided blogging for a long time. I had stories to write, and no time to blog. And for a while, I knew writers who had stopped blogging for that reason.

For me that time is precious, I have a learning disad so I write slower than I like and I have to rewrite more often than not. Spontaneous, flawless blogging is not my forte.

I've discovered that blogging is a juggling act. You have to make it "steal" time from things other than writing, like surfing the Internet, watching TV or eating a snack in the kitchen. i.e., instead of procrastinating, I'm blogging.

So I'm taking a break from writing to do more writing. That's all good in my book.

It's all part of a regular pattern I've noticed in my life. Every year, I look back and say "Man, twelve months ago I thought I was serious about writing. What I've done since then blows that out of the water."  I've gotten better skills, more discipline or I got a better handle on the business side of the craft.

Who knows what I might master next year.

P.S. In keeping with the whole spontaneous thing, I'm not trying to rewrite these blogs much. So advance apologies for any massive typos.

Some days it's all about the luck ... or the ebook.

Ack!

So I have a unpolished trunk novel that's missing an ending and a novel that's about a third finished.

So when I see that Harper Collinshas a meager two week window for an Open Call, I feel like I got caught with my pants down.

The interesting side note is that they will take any ebooks that you wholly own the rights to. Which is one more step in that ladder that points to new authors putting their wares out on the Internet first before they even look for an agent or a publisher.

At this years awesome WorldCon, Hugh Howey (who wrote Wool) said that if hadn't been for epublsihing, the agents, publishers and Hollywood would have never come calling.

So in a past full of regrets, should have I sent my little trunk novel out in the world ages ago? I'm not sure, I'm not feeling it.

But the now's got a different vibe. I'd bet you donuts that a lot of lazy agents and publishers are seeing the Amazon as the world biggest slush pile and they're watching how we vote for best e-stories with our dollars.

Technology ... with it. without it. or in spite of it.

The process of writing is unique. For me, rewriting is a craft that requires more discipline than passion. I get a bigger charge from the creativity and creation of new characters, new worlds and new ways to emotionally connect to the reader.

That difference also means that I never have an excuse when it comes to writing my first draft. First drafts are messy affairs where needing tech is optional.

 If my laptop is down, there's my dumb smart phone*.

If my phone battery is down, there's my comp book.

If that's at home, then there's scrap paper.

So as a writer, you never have to be bored because whether you're cooking, waiting for a download, or standing in line, you have an opportunity to write. A sentence here and phrase there throughout the day adds up. And as a writer with a day job, you have to make compromises to keep your momentum -- and your morale -- going.

Your take away from this should be that nothing can stop you from writing. Not your tech, not your schedule and most of all not your attitude.

*Written with my dumb smart phone and a Nook since my laptop crashed. ... With a little formatting after the fact with my revived laptop.

The Prolog ... Proluge ... Prologue

A lot of writers will tell you that a prologue isn't the best way to start a novel. In their context, the prologue is an "extra" chapter at the start of the book. It might be directly related the hero we get to meet in Chapter One, or it might be something that establishes the stakes.

If you turn the handle back on the time machine, you'll see that same bit of real estate used to establish the story via "Once upon a Time" or the Greek Chorus.  Today, we call these two techniques infodumping or bad exposition. ... or irony.

Modern readers want a through line. They want Point A to Point B without any scenic drives or major detours. And we writers are told that every line has to carry as much weight as it can to pull the story through, expose the inner workings of the world/culture and provide symbolism. (We're also not supposed to start a sentence with a conjunction.)

It's like we're modern illusionists. We stand on the shoulders of giants, but our sophisticated audiences won't let us pull a rabbit out of a hat (or mash up our metaphors.)

Yet our readers assume our stories are written as they find them. Efficient sentences fill of motion and depth. If you nailed the story like that, why do you need a prologue?

In truth, the final draft is like a graduate marching to the stage for her diploma. She might be polished and ready for ivy school or still rough around the edges. Either way, the kid started out as a messy toddler flinging hot dogs and dropping Cheerios on the floor.

Things like theme and symbolism come several drafts later, if at all. Whole reams of world building gets parsed down to sentences slipped in here and there. And the story grew past its cut and dry ending, evolving into a different, richer climax that you never saw coming.

So what the F#%^ has that got to do with the Writer's Bright Cave?!?

Well, this blog is my own messy start at tackling the fiction business -- so as my first and only warning.

Until the ball gets really rolling, you might find this more of a prologue. This is where I set up the "where I came from" and "where I want to go." I'll also toss out my ideas of what's happening in this now crazy-time of publishing.

So please accept my invitation to join me in this trip. There will be  afew detours and maybe a "Once Upon a Time" or two, but that's part of the fun -- seeing where this all goes.

I promise to leave out the Greek Chorus, though, until I get this YouTube thing down.