Category Archives: The Writing Life

I participated in a writing group where we’d take turns submitting a few chapters of our work for critique. I submitted a portion of a novel I had been working on, excited for the group to see my talent.

During the feedback session they started with the good. Most stated that they loved my dialogue and two pointed out the beautiful imagery of a particular scene. Then came the bad. I had misspelled some words, my punctuation was a mess, and I brought a number of things into the story that I didn’t use, but the worst was my misuse of point of view. In one chapter, I switched POV seven times.

My first reaction was to give up. I obviously was not the writer I thought. But as I read and reread the comments I began to comprehend and see what my friends were pointing out. As I applied their suggestions, I could see that my writing ability increased.

I have had several similar experiences over the years. As I accepted and applied the feedback I was given, my craft became stronger. I love receiving helpful feedback; it really is a gift. Winston Churchill said, “Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.”

The following is a list of thoughts in receiving and giving feedback.

In receiving feedback:

Actively solicit feedback. I have learned that everyone has an opinion. The smart ones don’t usually share that opinion unless they’re asked.

Check your ego at the door. Sometimes criticism can be tough to swallow. The worst thing I can do is to argue with feedback, especially if it is solicited. Besides looking like a dope, arguing closes the receiver’s mind but may also shut down a valuable source.

Be grateful for good feedback. Over the years of soliciting feedback, I’ve gotten the impression that many tread lightly, not wanting to hurt my feelings. As I’ve shown my gratitude, I’ve received more than criticism; I’ve been given greater feedback and encouragement.

Not all feedback is good advice. I spent some time, sharing my work on a website known as Absolute Write. They have an extensive critique section, and most of what I received there was good advice. Some however was not. I’ve learned not to take every critique as if it were coming from a qualified source. I’ll often research the source to determine the value of the feedback. If there is advice that I don’t agree with, I’ll research it or solicit other opinions. By doing this I’ve usually been able to conclude whether the advice is sound or garbage.

In giving solicited feedback:

State your qualifications. This will help the receiver know how to value your feedback.

Start with the good. I have learned just as much from the positive feedback that I have received as the negative. In my example above, I studied what it was that made my dialogue good, then worked to improve on it and incorporate those techniques in other aspects of my craft. Praise can also help settle the receiver’s insecurities and soften any criticism.

Be honest and specific. There have been times where I have softened my solicited feedback in fear of hurting another’s feelings. I’ve since realized that by doing so, I probably did more harm than good. People will respect honesty and those that are honest. Also it doesn’t help to just say something is good or bad, instead indicate why with specifics.

Offer some solutions. The group that evaluated my work pointed out the problems I had with point of view. They took the time to go over specifics with me, showing me each of the seven POV changes in the chapter and then they referred me to several sources where I could learn more about the subject.

The greatest gift that I have received as an aspiring writer is the time others have taken to help me learn how to improve my craft through good honest feedback.

The Impact of Mere Words

December 20, 2013

Gregory D. Little

Gregory D. Little Motivation The Writing Life 1 Comment

Growing up, I was never a fan of English class. It’s not as though I didn’t have some great English teachers, because I did. It was the curriculum. I can appreciate grammar for the sake of what it brings about, but I’ll never love it for its own sake. And as for the literature side of things, for every The Count of Monte Cristo (Murder! Betrayal! Intrigue!) there were three or four nightmares along the lines of The Old Curiosity Shop (Walking! Talking! Dying of natural causes!).

It’s therefore safe to say I didn’t hold out much hope for AP English in my senior year of high school. I figured it would net me some credits that would get me out of what would probably be an even worse class in college, and that would be that for my formalized English education. Earlier in the week I talked about a crisis point where I nearly gave up writing. Today, because I apparently enjoy working in reverse chronological order, I’m going to talk about how critical my AP English teacher was to my decision to become a writer. Because while I’d learned I could enjoy writing two years prior (as detailed in this old post), she was the person who convinced me I was good at it.

I’ve never been a particularly self-confident person. It’s a problem that persists to this day. In high school I was a very good student but never top in my class, and I was content to let the truly elite students grab all the embarrassing attention that came with all that confidence and all those As. But my teacher in twelfth grade ran a different kind of English class. She postponed tests on a whim. She let us play croquet outside once the AP exam was over in the spring. She would regularly trade examples of Simpsons trivia with me. She was a lot of fun, and she enjoyed her job. When a teacher cares about what she or he is doing, it’s always obvious.

Now because the senior reading curriculum was a little more flexible we were able to tackle books that had more complex themes. I found these more complex ideas interested me. Her writing assignments held my interest and weren’t just a rush to put down on paper what I thought the teacher wanted to hear as quickly as possible. I was really analyzing the stuff I read, thinking hard about how I interpreted books like Heart of Darkness and The King Must Die.

Which brings me to another thing my teacher tended to do that would prove significant. When she’d hand back essays, she would mention aloud the one or two she thought ranked among the best in the class. Just rattle off the names to give a little public praise, always a good thing. And because I’d been going to school with the same group of kids my whole life, those names were rarely surprising. Until one day, getting near the semester break. Our teacher listed off the same one or two students who, as usual, had produced sterling essays analyzing whatever book we were reading at the time. And then she said “but Greg is really turning out to be a dark horse candidate for best writer in the class.” I’d known she liked my writing from her comments on my papers all year up to that point. But I remember being startled to hear it spoken aloud and phrased in such a fashion. Not just good, but one of the best? I’ve never forgotten that comment.

I learned to like writing my sophomore year. But I started believing I could be good at it my senior year, thanks to Mrs. Whitten. And however good a writer I was then or have become now, I doubt I can ever fully convey my gratitude in mere words. So please keep in mind, whether you’re in the position to influence a young mind or not, how much of a positive impact your words of praise can have on a person. I know I count these particular words among my greatest gifts as a writer.

Solitude – A Lonely Gift

December 19, 2013

Ace Jordyn

Ace Jordyn Author's Perspective Reflection Self-Awareness The Writing Life Work-Life Balance 2 Comments

Imagine being alone in a cabin, writing without being disturbed by anyone and without a cell phone or internet. The basics are there – plumbing, electricity and a land-line phone for emergencies. The cabin is as cozy warm as the ability to remember to stoke the old wood stove. Sitting in the comfiest recliner, laptop propped on the lap, flying fingers blurt out vivid scenes. You write, you sleep, you go for the occasional walk to clear your head or to work out a problem and then you begin again. Word count rises and spirit soars.

This was the greatest gift I ever gave myself – a whole month of writing, thinking and sleeping. Beyond the accomplishment of a story told, it transformed my understanding of what I need to be a writer.

We try to balance our writing life with our everyday lives which includes work, family, friends and fun in our marvelous technological society. These things are important yet equally important is the need for time to think, create and write. So we plan and eek out snippets of writing time – an hour here, an hour there, a workshop here and a two day retreat there – and we write. Yet, as important as those snippets of time are, they are not solitude for solitude is immersion without expectation of interruption or immediate cessation.

Solitude provides the luxury to explore, think and integrate. Sometimes it isn’t the word count that’s required but the ability to think, brainstorm and plot without distraction. The balance now is that I create opportunities for solitude (even if it’s half a day) and the results of being centered, free-flowing creativity and the calm from problems solved spill into those precious snippets of writing time.

On that month-long journey of solitude, I discovered that in order to achieve solitude I must walk down the path of desperate loneliness where there are no people, no events, no media – nothing exists but me and my thoughts. Junk-noise and junk-thought withdrawal can be a painful albeit rewarding experience. Now I make a conscientious effort to shut out the junk-noise and junk-thought. Yes, people aren’t happy when I don’t respond to texts or phone calls for hours but they aren’t writing my stories and the unplanned interactions dissolve the state of mind I need to be in.

I never wrote so much so quickly and I never slept as much before! The experience made me aware how exhausting the creative process is. After writing for hours, I’d inhale some food and collapse into a stone-dead nine hour sleep and then do it all over again. So sometimes when I’m reluctant to write it’s because I know I don’t have the energy it takes to be fully engaged nor do I have the time to allow the grey cells to warm up to enough to integrate ideas before creating a coherent symphony of words. Now, I’m a little more forgiving of myself in those moments and I work hard to make sure the time and the energy I need are there.

Solitude allows the brain to become more sensitive to the emotional tenor of words, to the rhythms of not only speech but of story pacing – it’s the crescendo and denouement of action and reaction, heightened and relaxed emotion, the interaction of protagonist and antagonist, the prose of world building mingling with characters experiencing the dynamics of the world. Having an extended experience of the rhythm of words, images and scenes, and having done it long enough to integrate it, I go back into that state when I write. For me, it’s meditation through writing.

I always thought that solitude was the ideal writing state and had dreamed of being sequestered in a cabin writing forever. Not anymore. Surrounding ourselves with family and friends, experiencing life, those are the things that are fodder for our creative selves. We are creatures of the pack and loneliness in the extreme can as easily erode our ability to write as can the distractions. Balancing solitude and writing with family and friends – that’s what I need. I’ll take my month of solitude again and I’ll keep finding small blocks of it in the meantime. But, I’ll also cherish my time with family and friends for solitude works best when we have something to leave and go back to again!

Happy writing!

Writing Friends

December 18, 2013

fictorians

Guest Posts The Writing Life No Comments

A guest post by Megan Grey

Writing can be a pretty solitary pursuit. Hours spent alone in front of the computer, most of which is ideally spent actually writing rather than playing Candy Crush. Just a writer and her mental sandbox in which to create fantastic new worlds and characters. Honestly, as an introvert, the idea always appealed to me. That, and the idea of working while wearing my Super Mario pajama pants.

But as it turns out, writing a novel is a monumental (and often emotionally draining) task. Between the discouragement of facing the blank page when you feel like you have absolutely nothing to say and the agony of realizing that your story is broken and you have no idea how to fix it, there can be lots of time when a writer needs help. And who better to provide support than those who understand the emotional ups and downs themselves?

Meeting and becoming friends with fellow writers has become the greatest gift I could have asked for in my career. Whether professional authors or relative newbies like myself, my writer friends have been there for me every step of the way. They are excellent at encouraging me, at listening to me vent at a particularly difficult rejection and knowing exactly what I need to hear to dust myself off and get back to the keyboard. They help me by reading and critiquing my work, helping me turn a mediocre story into one I can be proud of. They share tips on upcoming contests or open submission windows or how to shorten that overlong query letter. My writer friends have motivated me through their own successes and trials. And trust me, having friends to hang out with at conventions is way more fun than sitting at the hotel bar alone, pretending to be having a fascinating text conversation on your phone.

Look – Frodo didn’t take the One Ring into Mordor all by himself, did he? Sure, the weight of your novel rest primarily on your shoulders, but writing friends can help ease that weight a bit. So how do you go about finding them? Here are three ways in which I’ve met most of mine:

Writing workshops/seminars/conventions – My favorite way to meet fellow writers, by far. Workshops can be fantastic ways to improve your craft and learn more about the business. And the writers that spend the time and money to come tend to be those that are dedicated to their chosen profession, which are exactly the kind of writer friends you want in your corner. My favorite of these is Superstars Writing Seminar, but many bestselling authors teach workshops, allowing you to learn the craft from one of the masters. As for conventions in the fantasy and sci-fi genre, WorldCon and World Fantasy Con are the two biggies in the industry, but smaller local conventions also provide a great way to meet your peers.
Online forums – Though conventions and writing workshops/seminars is my favorite way to meet writers, lets face it – it’s not always financially feasible to attend too many of those. And your day job may actually want you to, you know, show up on occasion. Luckily, we have the wonders of social media at our fingertips. Twitter and Facebook are two popular options, but there are lots of websites with forums dedicated to writers being able to come together and discuss the business. Contribute to the discussions in the forums (remember, though, that it’s not all about you – keep the self-promotion at a bare minimum), you’ll find that you can form some pretty great friendships with people you’ve never met in person. Two of my favorite forums to hang out in are the ones on AbsoluteWrite.com and WritersoftheFuture.com (the latter, though, is primarily for fantasy and science fiction writers. I’m sure there are great sites for writers of all genres).
Writing groups –Writing groups don’t necessarily work for every writer, but I’ve found they can be a huge help, not only for critiquing my work, but for meeting great writer friends. A little searching on the internet or checking for flyers at bookstores can often reveal that you have more writers in your local area than you might think, with groups already formed looking for new members. And don’t forget the online option. I’m currently in a fantastic writing group that meets via Skype with people from all over the country—a group I found while at a convention.

Writer friends can be a great boon, but remember that the same rule applies here as it does to any relationship. To have great writer friends, you need to be a great writer friend.

Thankfully, like writing itself, that’s something you can do while wearing Super Mario pajama pants.

Guest Writer Bio:
Megan Grey currently lives in Utah with her husband, two kids and two yappy dogs. Her story “To Be Remembered” won the Editor’s Pick Grand Prize in a fiction contest for the Animism: The God’s Lake animated TV series. Her story “Missing” will be upcoming in an issue of Fireside Magazine. She has received several honorable mentions and a semi-finalist award for short stories in the Writers of the Future Contest.