Category Archives: The Writing Life

Contested

Dylan Blacquiere The Writing Life Writing Tools 5 Comments

There comes a time, when the inspiration runs dry and nothing seems to be happening to get the words out on the page, when you realize that only a drastic measure will get things moving and keep you on the path of writing. Some people take the nuclear option and get rid of everything they’ve been writing, others shove it in a drawer for a while and move on to something else, hoping that inspiration will come back later and they’ll be able to start again with fresh eyes. I’ve found a new strategy that seems to be doing the trick; do something drastic. Like, say, write a whole novel in three days.

Not to shill for any one particular challenge, but the Three-Day Novel contest is a particularly fine example of the literary marathons that have been proliferating in the past several years. Most people are familiar with National Novel Writing Month, running since 1999 and in which participants commit to writing a novel of at least fifty-thousand words through the month of November. This contest is much less well known, but has actually been going on longer; it began in 1977 with a handful of people, and has now expanded to accept hundreds of entries a year. I did it before, two years ago; I produced a Very Literary Work that didn’t make the shortlist and in retrospect probably had very little to distinguish it from what I’m sure were a hundred other Very Literary Works, all earnestness and messages. This year, in a bit of a writing rut, I am trying again, and trying to write something truer to my voice, along my fantasy roots. We’ll see if it works. I will be holed up for the Labour Day weekend writing, and perhaps the next time I post I will have some update on how it went.

The reason I bring this up is that it seems like a perfect idea to strike a spark in the act of writing, some big ridiculous gesture that will have at its end a product that I hope will win the contest and be published. But in the end, such writing contests are about more than that. They are a way to impose a deadline , a defined end by which the act of writing has to be completed. I am the sort of person who has difficulty without a limit, as the lack of a certain amount of anxiety seems to keep me from doing what it is I set out to do. Many others will say the same, that the limit of as writing contest can be just what’s needed to kick-start a frustrating stall in the writing process.

I’d be interested to hear what others think about the use of writing contests as a way to get things moving. Is it a technique you’ve used in the past? Has it worked? In the meantime, I will post an update once the Labour Day Weekend has passed to let people know how it’s gone.

Throwing in the Towel

K.D. Alexander The Writing Life 3 Comments

is often the most difficult decision that we have to make. Sometimes things just don’t work and you need to cut your losses and move on for greener pastures. Most of my posts thus far have been relatively positive pep-talks for you and me.

Unfortunately, sometimes there’s no positives that can come from something. And it hurts, bad. Like, real bad.

Here’s my problem. For the past seven months, I have been working on a draft of a steampunk “coming of age” story. It’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever worked on. Since November, I’ve accomplished a grand total of 49,000 words. Not even enough to claim a NaNo victory.

I think writing this story is probably the hardest thing that I’ve ever had to do. Harder than boot camp, harder than moving away from everyone and everything I’ve loved for a job that was everything but what I dreamed it would be. Harder than all the pain and suffering and defeat I’ve probably ever known.

It’s not that it’s the whole “writing a story” thing, when I’ve got the write idea (pun intended) and the characters are in my head, sometimes writing them is easy as eating or drinking. It’s not the concept, because the story details that I’ve worked out are an excellent concept.

It’s a poorly executed dream. And when I realized this, I started to learn how to let go.

See, my biggest issue was letting myself get too emotionally wrapped up into the story for reasons that I won’t even go into here, because there’s not enough Kleenex and let’s face it. You’re just not that bored to read about it.

I’ve been sitting on this post for about a month now because I wasn’t really sure how it would be received. I don’t even think I knew when I started writing this what the primary problem was. And forgive my rambling, but I’ve found that when I need to vent or clear the cobwebs out, the blog is here. Mostly, it’s advice to myself and the oft chance that someone else might find some pearls of wisdom amongst the dreck and drivel that I spout routine. =)

People shouldn’t get all wrapped up in books. I mean, after all they’re nothing more than words on a page (or screen) right? But try telling that to the librarian who selflessly devotes her time to share the joys of reading with the less fortunate children who wouldn’t blink an eye at a book either way. Tell that the authors who toil endlessly over their craft and creations. Writers write because they can. Readers read because they want to.

But, there’s something strangely mystical about the “book” itself, both the act of creation and the act of reading it. For some, they’re beach reads to kill an hour while they bake in the sun. For others, they’re the lost secrets and histories of the world whose keys can only be found by endless study.

If they’re just words on the page, meaningless and out of context, then try breaking the bad news to the collectors who search the inter tubes day in and day out to collect rarities, signed copies, first editions. you name it, they want it.

Me? I grew up in a house that didn’t read. My mom was too busy trying to raise me right and my dad was too busy to make sure the bills got paid. Books were the farthest thing from my parent’s mind. So, when I was an eager child of about six or seven, Disney just so happened to have the perfect answer to a child’s wonder.  They came in chapbooks and cheap hardbacks, serialized adventures of Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Goofy…hell, even Pluto got to star in his own adventures.

Every month I would make my parents take me with them to the grocery store. I didn’t whine for the Cocoa Puffs or the Lucky Charms. No, I wanted the Disney books. My parents couldn’t understand it, but they weren’t the ones to question a chance to expand their child’s growing mind.

Yet, they still couldn’t figure it out. Why was I so obsessed with books? Along came my aunt and uncle with the answer to that question.

And therein lies the issue of my discontent. I hated this book I was writing with a passion. I was obsessed with perfection. It wasn’t a book for me, it wasn’t a book for selling. No. It was a gift. To them.

It was supposed to be a thank you for making me some crazy bookworm.

And it failed miserably. Within my quest for perfection, I lost focus and the motivation for my story. Months came and went without me making my deadlines I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. The voice didn’t work, there’s issues with the plot.

You name it, I found the excuse for it. Ashes is my most written and rewritten work. In total, I’ve charted over 100,000 words that went absolutely nowhere. Throwing outlines out halfway through, tearing up whole chapters, rewriting scenes, points of view, everything, anything I could do to keep myself from finishing.

And then I realized the problem.

The book was too perfect that it was disgustingly imperfect. I could do no right with it. I needed to quit.

I felt terrible, crushed even. It was like watching the cat eat your goldfish, your favorite balloon loosening and flying away into the sky.

I gave up.

But, in my defeat I found success. Inside that crushing dread that motivated me to tear my hair out night after night, day after day, I discovered a gem in the muck.

I quit Ashes and finished Hills, rewrote Black, and started Psychic and Night Watch. These were projects that I put away, shelved and believed to be pure crap. After my crushing defeat, I found new life in these works and have worked tirelessly to whittle away the rough bark to leave my own pretty little race car.

And then I presented the absolute rough copy of Hills to my aunt and uncle, just a small token of thanks for their tireless dedication to me.

Soon enough, my other books will be finished with my friendly neighborhood editor. They will be presented in the same fashion, complete with jacket art and interior design. It was as close to published quality as I could get with being unpublished.

And the moral of my story: Find the strength in your weakness. The skies are always most beautiful after the storm.

Don’t be afraid to throw in the towel. When something doesn’t work, don’t sit and kill yourself over trying to turn guano to gold. If it’s meant to be, then it will be.

But, while you’re killing yourself trying to make things work, just think of all the other stories you have waiting to be told.

Sometimes they don’t like to wait. =)

 

Don’t forget the Bliss

Craft & Skills Leigh Galbreath Starting a Career The Writing Life Writing as An Emotional Outlet 6 Comments

It is said that everyone has a book in them. Not only is it ingrained in the human psyche to tell stories, but also for most of us, there’s something inside that just can’t stop telling a tale. It’s a passion that keeps us coming back, day after day, to the blank page — a hunger to fill the white spaces.

And like most of people with a passion, we dream of the day when that passion pays off and we can quit our mundane lives to devote all our time and effort into a job that we truly and absolutely love. Like the high school girl who heads off to Hollywood to become the next big movie star or the college kid who quits law school to become a rockstar, we who are called to the written word dream of being the next Bestseller. The only problem is that, unlike movie and rockstars, the bestselling author rarely gets the glamour or the big paycheck that sets them up for life.

We all know this, right? Writing will not make most of us rich.

And yet, we strive and shell out hard earned cash for workshops and seminars and books on craft so that we improve and can one day write that stunning masterpiece that will put us on the map. As we become more and more devoted to that dream, we put more time and effort into learning the business, pushing ourselves out of our solitary writerly existences to learn things like web design and marketing and promotion. All in the quest for becoming a published author. To be quite honest, I don’t so much feel that the “business” side of the writing business is outside my comfort zone as much as, when I do that stuff, I feel like someone is shoving bamboo rods under my fingernails.

I really hate doing that stuff. So much so, that I avoid it as much as possible. For I’ve come to realize that if I pay too much attention to that part of things, I start to forget why I liked writing in the first place. In hearing over and over how much work is demanded to  building a name before a publishing house will touch you, or singling yourself out from the e-mob on Amazon, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with writing. It’s easy to forget the bliss.

In the end, it’s not fame and fortune that really drives us to write — that’s what record producers, TV networks, and movie studios are for. It’s not the ease of the work — writing is just plain hard most the time if you’re doing it right. It’s not the collaboration — even when working with other writers, most the time you’re still working alone.

It’s the passion. The bliss. It’s the drive that won’t let you think of doing anything else, because you just can’t kick the addiction to the written word.

So, strive, make your goals, work hard on that dream to become the next Big Thing in books. But don’t let the work make you forget why you dreamed the dream in the first place. Don’t ever forget the bliss.

‘Tis But A Scratch!

Jason Michelsen The Writing Life Writing Tools 1 Comment
Cartoon Credit: Joe Sutliff, after Monty Python and the Holy Grail

As speculative fiction writers, we often find ourselves doing a lot of research. Much of that research goes into worldbuilding, pulling from this or that culture, borrowing this or that religious ritual. Every nation in my own world has roots in more than one ancient culture from our past, just enough familiarity to give the reader a solid frame of reference. And while everyone pretty much knows where to go to do that particular kind of research, I’ve come across a couple books recently that have helped me tremendously with the authenticity of other areas of my writing.

I write Epic/Heroic Fantasy of an adult nature.  It’s violent.  It’s bloody.  People get hurt, injured, maimed, disfigured, etc. Unfortunately – or fortunately, depending on how you look at it – I don’t get to observe people who have been injured on a daily basis. Aside from TV and pictures, I’ve only seen one dead body outside of a funeral home in my entire life, but I want my books to feel real. I want the injuries that occur to feel real, the consequences to feel real.

Recently, a friend of mine gave me a copy of Body Trauma: A Writer’s Guide to Wounds and Injuries by David W. Page, M.D. While the book does spend a good amount of time dealing with injuries caused by modern weapons, much of the information can be applied to ancient warfare. The chapter on abdominal trauma alone is worth the price of the book. I mean seriously, how many people will I run through with swords in my writing career? Probably one or two. There’s a chapter dealing with injuries to just about every body part with special chapters dealing with impalement, amputation, bug bites, frostbite and much much more. It’s a must have for any writer planning on hurting one of his characters.

Another book I’ve turned to on a number of occasions is Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World by Adrienne Mayor. I originally bought it as a research book for a huge siege set piece I have planned for a future book, but I’ve used it two other times to come up with devious methods of attack. It has information on everything from ancient flamethrowers to poison gases to incendiary bombs. Nothing pleasant, but all pleasantly helpful to anyone writing violent fiction.

And on a less “violent” note, I thought I’d bring up a book that some might never think to read if they’re interested in writing speculative fiction.  Robert McKee is a name widely known in Hollywood, but maybe not so much in the SFF community. He’s a screenwriter of some renown, and his book Story is one that anyone interested in telling stories should read. While it claims to be a book on screenwriting – and was indeed the required text for one of my classes in film school – it is so much more. McKee breaks storytelling down into the most basic elements, providing examples and showing how and why some elements work and others do not. I try to read Story at least once every 2-3 years. Not only is it educational, it is inspirational.

I hope these book recommendations prove helpful to someone out there. If anyone has any other books of this nature that they use regularly, feel free to post them in the comments section. I for one am always looking to expand my research library.