Category Archives: The Fictorians

Pretty much this entire year, thus far, I have been struggling with depression. I’m doing better now, but I had to shed a lot of responsibilities that I had over committed myself to in order to get there. That’s another story, and I won’t bore you with it here 🙂

But, during all this, I wasn’t writing. Wasn’t doing research, wasn’t brainstorming, wasn’t journaling, wasn’t working on my story – nada. The only writing I was actually able to make myself do was the few blog posts I had committed to doing – like this one. That’s it. This was not helping my depression either because I felt guilty I wasn’t working and I felt, acutely, the loss of my creativity.

I was talking to a friend (thank you, Wendy), who had just come out of some rough times herself and is also a writer. What she had done and suggested I do was to listen to a dark song and write a character sketch for an antagonist with no intent to necessarily use the character. Just to get dark feelings out. Any song that took me to a dark place would do. It took me a few songs and I had to get some suggestions, but I found one (Closer by Nine Inch Nails – the uncensored version – if you’re curious) that was sufficiently dark to me. So, I listened to it a few times and started writing this antagonist.

What happened half way through was that I could see all the potential for a story using this character. When I finished with him, I started sketching out the hero and heroine (I write romance – remember). Already, I was feeling better and inspired. Then I started writing some rough plot points, followed by the intro to the story.

And now, I’m writing. It worked. I hadn’t done any writing in months and through one cool exercise, I was back. It is such a relief to be feeling more like myself and being creative. So, I would suggest this exercise to anyone who needs to shake off some darkness from within.

How do you get through rough times when you’re struggling to create?

Other Venues

May 2, 2012

Dylan Blacquiere

Dylan Blacquiere Publishing 1 Comment

When I was in medical school, I had the good fortune of attending a program with a strong medical humanities focus. This is a relatively new part of the medical curriculum, one that has a strong focus on trying to understand the experiences of our patients, and our response to them through the use of artistic expression. Many used poetry, visual art, or narrative storytelling, and quite a few wrote, though very few wrote fiction, preferring creative non-fictional work. As a fiction writer, I therefore had an opportunity to stand out from the rest of the crowd – and so when the medical humanities program launched a writing contest, I was quick to jump in. I wrote two short stories for the award in two separate years, and won the prize twice, in 2005 and in 2007. Each came with a monetary prize, so I could honestly say that I followed Stephen King’s dictum that a professional writer is someone who gets paid for something they’ve written and uses the proceeds to pay the light bill. Not bad.

This led further – that year, I was approached by a friend who was developing a work with a small, local press top collect stories written by medical students. I edited one of my stories for publication and was collected in an anthology. I don’t now how many copies it has sold – probably not many – but it is something, and if all else fails, I can at least look back on that and say that my fiction has been published. I wouldn’t have had the opportunity had it not been through my line of work. I’m hoping for more successes in the future but if all else fails I will have that one.

Since then much of my attention has been captured by other types of writing – scientific, mostly, with some non-fiction on the side. I have made some attempts to submit poems and short works to medical journals that have a humanities section within them – the very definition of a niche-within-a-niche market – but I am very lucky to have those opportunities available to me, and have had some minor success with that.

And yet, I wonder if there are other opportunities for other professions out there – room for creative outlets, places to let one’s writing take hold. It may not be on the bestseller list of the Times, but it would be a way to get started and to build one’s body of work. That way, when you do send off your submission to a publisher, or when you have self-published and need to have more to point to for publicity and marketing purposes, it will be there, ready for use.

So if you’re looking for unconventional platforms for publishing, one opportunity may be the venues provided by your career. Not every line of work may have them, but some, especially the professions might. Even using them as venues for non-fiction writing may be an idea, in trade publications and the like. After all, every chance you can take to get your words read is a worthwhile one.

How To Procrastinate Successfully

April 30, 2012

KylieQ

Kylie Quillinan The Writing Life 1 Comment

It’s time to write. My laptop is already turned on so I’ll just sit myself down in front of it. I probably should tackle that big pile of laundry that needs to be folded – there’s at least a week’s worth – but no, this is my writing time. The folding can wait.

So I flip up the laptop lid and wait for it to wake up. I had better check my emails first because there might be something urgent waiting. I have three email accounts but it will only take a couple of minutes to look in on them all. Now, twenty minutes later, I’ve dealt with the most urgent emails and am pleased with my ability to just leave the rest. I’ll come back to the non-urgent ones in a day or two when I have more time. I should tackle my writing now.

Oh but before I do, I’ll check in on facebook, just to see what’s happening. After all, facebook is how I keep up with most of my writer friends, largely due to us living in different countries and time zones. And reading about what all of my writer buddies are up to is a good way to get myself into the right mindset to write. Fifteen minutes later…

Gosh, look at all the mess on my desk. I can’t work with my surroundings in such chaos so I’m going to have to deal with this right now. And besides, I’ll be so much more productive once everything is in order. There, that didn’t take long. Only fifteen minutes.

On my laptop, I’m now opening my manuscript and, oh, I just remembered, I need to research that thing I thought of yesterday. I should do that before I knuckle down to writing. Hmm, that wasn’t as quick as I expected and I got sidetracked looking at that cool new blog I found. But still, it was only an hour and I did need to do that research before I go any further with my manuscript.

Since I’m already on the internet, I should catch up on a few of the blogs I follow. They’re mostly industry-related, a mixed bag of writers, publishers, editors and agents. I need to ensure I stay informed with what’s happening in the industry. And now since I’m up-to-date on all of my professional blog reading, I should check in on those couple of dog-related blogs I follow too. I don’t like to get too behind on this sort of thing because then I take time out of my writing to get caught up. There you go, forty minutes and my blog reading is all up-to-date.

Before I shut off the internet, I had better check the Fictorians blog and make sure the posting schedule hasn’t changed. I wouldn’t want to be caught unprepared when my next blog post is due. Besides, that only took five minutes.

Yawn, it’s 9pm already and I’m too tired to start writing tonight (a night owl, I am not). I’ve been productive though and I’ve worked for the better part of three hours. But I’ve got that book I’m reading for research and I should try to read at least a chapter before I go to bed. At least I will still be working…

What excuses do you make to yourself about why you aren’t writing right now?