Author Archives: Evan Braun

“Sorry I’m late, everyone. I had a really late night yesterday. I’ve had houseguests and then I had to drive them to the airport really late and didn’t get to bed until well past midnight. Then my alarm didn’t go off. I had it set to p.m. instead of a.m. Oh, and the traffic was just unbearable. From the moment I hit the turnpike, it was bumper to bumper. I had a minor fender bender just down the street; you can hardly see the damage, fortunately, but I had to stop for a few minutes and get the other driver’s insurance information. Did I mention I was starving by this point? I decided to stop for breakfast. The service was so slow; can you believe the waitress expected a tip for that? Anyway, when I got here, I couldn’t find a parking spot, for the life of me. So sorry, everyone, so sorry, but here I am.”

Does anyone else hate dealing with people like that? I’m not just talking about late people, though there are plenty of those. I mean people who don’t deliver on their promises, who say they’re going to do one thing but then do another… and then make excuses for it. Those people really get under my skin.

But I have a confession to make. I am one of those people. Let’s admit it. It’s just so much easier sometimes to make excuses than to pull up our sleeves and get the job done. This is an especially tricky lesson to learn if you happen to be self-employed, with no boss looking over your shoulder to make sure you finish what you’re supposed to. Self-employed people have to find their own motivation, which is usually a combination of money and passion for what they do.

Which finally, after a long prelude, takes me to the whole point of this little post. Writers are essentially self-employed people, with no one keeping an eye on us to make sure we’re keeping our fingers on the keyboard. Yes, we have support groups, and we’ve written a lot about that over the last few weeks, but the responsibility of getting words down on the page ultimately falls on only one person: you. And unlike self-employed types, as writers we can’t find our motivation in the eventual money we’re going to make, because the financial reward for our efforts is usually both small and too far into the future to realistically plan for. No, our motivation must come from passion.

Passion must trump excuses. Most importantly-hey, didn’t I promise to get to my point soon?-passion must trump writer’s block. Because writer’s block isn’t a real thing. Writers are the only people I know who use inactivity as a crutch in quite this way. I waited tables for many, many years… and I hated it with a bright, nuclear-like passion. But I showed up on time and worked every day until my shift was over.

So why is it that I don’t show up on time and work until my shift is over at the job that I actually claim to love more than anything else in the world? Now, that’s a puzzle. The answer is simple: because I don’t want to. Oh, I can invoke writer’s block, but that’s not very honest of me. Sure, I don’t quite know what’s going to happen next in my story. I don’t know how my main character is going to react to the latest world-shaking plot twist. Perhaps I’ve come to the end of my outline. Perhaps I’ve just discovered a perplexing plot hole and haven’t worked out how to fill it in without lampshading the problem…

Well, I could take two approaches. I could knuckle down and write anyway, even though it’s almost certainly going to be crap only to be expunged later. Or I could take a much-needed break, get some fresh air, grab some dinner, go for a walk, hit the gym, have a short nap, do some yardwork… see what I did there? I made a bad thing look like a good thing, and that’s what writer’s block is all about. By saying we suffer from writer’s block, we manage to make ourselves sound professional whilst really just being lazy and unproductive.

We really should cut that out, right?

The Year-Round Professional

November 1, 2012

Evan Braun

Evan Braun 4 Comments

As I set out to write this post, I have been awake for about thirty-six hours straight. The reason? I’m in Toronto, enjoying the first day of World Fantasy Convention, where hundreds of other writers like me, each at various stages in their careers, have converged along with some of the very brightest luminaries in genre fiction. Why do they come together? Because success attracts success. Events like WFC allow writers the opportunity to rub elbows with people whose careers are worth emulating. The old saying is true: If you want to be a success, hang around with other successful people; their success might rub off on you.

This seems a fitting note on which to begin our blog’s November coverage of one of the most prevalent writing institutions of the past ten years: National Novel Writing Month, usually shortened to NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo gives us the opportunity to emulate some of the best habits of successful authors all over the world. For this one month, we reprioritize our lives to extreme degrees, all in the name of meeting a daunting (but achievable) challenge-to write a novel in a month.

As I said, this is a daunting challenge, and yet writers of all ages, of all genres, and of all nationalities manage it every year. They do it through discipline, focus, and sheer determination. Over the course of the coming days and weeks, the Fictorians are going to serve up a regular dose of content designed to encourage you and keep your productive during the darkest days of November. The success stories and productivity tips we’ve accumulated may be just what the doctor ordered at this unusually active time in so many writers’ lives.

Aye, and there’s the rub. The determination we demonstrate during the month of November should be parlayed into December, January, and the long months beyond. Why is it that we make such stunning resolutions in November, but give in to our slovenly, procrastinatory impulses the rest of the year? I believe every writer should take on the NaNoWriMo challenge at least once, if for no other reason than to get a foretaste of what being a professional, deadline-oriented author is really all about. This year, let’s take a cue from the pros and emulate their zeal all year long. Let’s learn to be prolific.

The writing that results from NaNoWriMo isn’t always perfect, but it’s highly rewarding because it allows you the opportunity to demonstrate what you’re really capable of. When I last took on the challenge, I produced the second half of the manuscript which later became my first published novel.

By emulating success, we actually make ourselves successful. At some point, you’ll realize that you’re not just copying the pros; you’re becoming one of them.

The Fictorian Era: In Community

October 24, 2012

Evan Braun

I wrote for years, but I never felt like a writer until I started reaching out to other writers and forming friendships with them. Not that you can’t be a writer all by yourself. I’m sure it’s possible, and that such writers exist, but they must be a rare breed.

I’ve written on the subject of community before, as have other bloggers here at the Fictorian Era, but I’ve been giving a lot of thought recently to this foundational concept. It truly is foundational, because I am nowhere without the support, encouragement, and accountability of the people around me.

Perhaps the matter of community speaks to me because my tendency is so strongly toward isolation. I’m not wildly social. I’m usually quite content to spend an evening in, with a good book and roaring fireplace for company. Hell, I don’t need the fireplace, but it sure helps when you live in the cold, dark reaches of the Canadian prairie. So when it comes to finding meaning all on my own… well, I’m practically an expert.

Two and a half years ago, I attended a conference for writers and found myself surrounded by friends with similar ambitions, dreams, and talents. I wouldn’t be writing this blog, or even my current work in progress, if it wasn’t for this feisty band of fellow travellers. Attending that conference required me to take a huge step outside my comfort zone, and most of the steps I’ve taken since have expanded that invisible bubble of succour and security even further. Expansion is constantly on the horizon, because I’m no longer standing still in my writing career; the figurative car I’m driving is a bit of a fixer-up, and the mileage varies (a lot), but the engine runs.

Here at the Fictorian Era, we are a community, and we’re growing all the time. Most of us started unpublished, though this has begun to change. Some of us have found publishers. Others have self-published. All of us are active in our careers, navigating the uncertain waters of the business, and using each other to make tough decisions, keep ourselves accountable, draw inspiration, and build experience. It’s been a gathering place, and it’s kept me on track more times than I can count.

Over the next few months, this blog is going to move forward with more vigor and determination than ever before. We’re pulling together to bring the best, most relevant content on the internet for writers, by writers, and in the process focusing that content more sharply on the topics that matter most to people like us-the craft of writing, the discipline of writing, and the business of writing. We’re combining a myriad of different perspectives and experiences, from the unpublished aspiring novelist to the New York Times bestseller.

If you’re a writer like us, a Fictorian at heart, at any level of skill or accomplishment, we invite you to gather here. Perhaps your writerly engine needs a bit of servicing, a bit of automotive TLC to get roadworthy again. Well, join us. This blog is for you.

The Value of Mentorship

September 12, 2012

Evan Braun

Evan Braun Publishing The Writing Life 1 Comment

As a writer, it has always been a struggle to get readers. I suspect this as close to a universal experience among writers as exists. My early novels went largely unread, but I harvested as much encouragement as I could from the crop of readers available-parents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles. That feedback kept me going.

It’s somewhat ingrained in us to value the opinions of those closest to us, which is exactly as it should be. But if we’re on a professional trajectory, a point must eventually come when parents, brothers and sisters, and aunts and uncles can no longer advise us in the way we need. In short, we grow up.

The longer I write and the better I get, the easier it is to find readers. Slogging through one of my books is no longer quite the imposition it used to be back when I was writing grade-school Star Trek tin-in fiction. My approach to plot and characterization has grown more sophisticated, and as a result my mother’s opinion has become steadily less critical to my process.

Let me take a rabbit trail for a moment. Until the last few decades or so, in western society, a person developed into a professional in their chosen vocation through mentorship and apprenticeship. It seems to me that we are so independently-minded today that we’ve progressively moved away from that. Which is a shame, because it’s critically important to take advice and guidance from those who have already accomplished that which we are trying to do. It doesn’t make much sense to glean career advice as a writer from a doctor or mechanic. While I’m sure there will always be some professional carryover, it’s apples and oranges.

The American dream-or at least as I understand it, as an acknowledged Canadian-is for every individual to become a self-made man (or woman). The emphasis being on the word self. But wouldn’t it be much better to have a mentor? Wouldn’t it to be much better to have some help along the way from someone who has already walked this difficult and barely navigable path? Wouldn’t it be better to follow in someone else’s footsteps?

As a writer, I value the opinions of my peers. But I value the opinion of my betters all the more. So if you’re trying to make it as a published author, you would be well-advised to hang out with published authors. Over the last few years, I’ve come across a lot of successful authors who are more than willing to pay it forward by lending a helping hand to those who are a few steps behind them on the publishing track.

Take advantage of such opportunities when they present themselves. And when they aren’t just falling into your lap, seek them out.