So the theme for September’s posts is supposed to be about getting out of the rut, or taking it to the next level. Well, there are ruts, and there are ruts.

There are the ruts where the well has run dry, and the words are not flowing. Judith Tarr talks about those times here. As it happens, I know exactly what she is talking about. I’ve been there, recently; I’ve felt those feelings; I’ve known the grief. I was very fortunate to come out of it after a year and a half, but even now I have not finished recovery to where I used to be. I’m not going to rehash Judith’s article. She does a much better job of discussing the issue than I ever would. But I will say this: if you are in that place, or if you ever find yourself in that place, know that there have been good writers—some of them very good writers, indeed—who have been in that same place, and eventually came out of it. You’re not alone. And it can be done. But it will take time; it will take perseverance; and you may have to change some things about you, about your surroundings, or about the company you keep to come out of it. Your true friends will support you, but only you can make those choices and walk that walk.

I could stop there, and have an article worth posting, I think.

But I actually want to talk about another kind of rut in which we as writers can sometimes find ourselves.

Do you ever feel that you’re growing stale? I mean, have you ever stopped in the middle of writing a story or a novel and realized that you’re not having fun; that you’re not excited about what you’re doing; that as B. B. King would sing, “The thrill is gone, baby…”?

Sometimes when that happens, it’s the normal and almost inevitable result of working in the middle of a long project where you’ve dug yourself into the hole but you’re not entirely sure yet that it’s going to turn into a tunnel. And the only solution for that is to simply keep putting out the words until you get through the middle and can see the progress that’s been made. Perseverance, in other words. That’s actually one of the most important tools in our writer’s toolkits; the ability to keep plugging away at a project until it’s completed, no matter how long it takes.

But other times that may be the back of your mind saying, “Dude, this is a whole lot like the last story you wrote. Can’t you write something different?”

Now formulas and templates for writing fiction have been around for generations. Most popular children’s series during the early and middle 20^th Century were very rigidly formula based. And I can point you to a few series of fantasy and science fiction even within the last generation or so that have done that. And those series have their fans, who seem to like that each new story or each new novel seems to follow predictably the outline of the previous works.

But for writers, especially writers who want to grow in their craft and strive for art, I suspect that falling into the formula rut is absolutely one of the worst things we can do. It might make us money, but we won’t continue to grow or develop as writers as long as we’re in that rut.

Have I been there? Yep. Do I have some thoughts about how to get out of the rut? Yep, and here they are:

1. Make yourself use a different narrative style. If you’re consistently a third-person limited viewpoint writer, write something in first person. Or vice-versa, as the case may be. That may shake up the way you view characters and characterization.

2. Make yourself write something with a different story construction. If your previous works have all been single-thread-of-continuity stories, try writing a story with multiple story lines running in parallel. To really challenge yourself, you should make them non-interrelating until the end. Pull that one off, and you’ll feel a real sense of accomplishment. This will also widen your thinking on plotting.

3. Make yourself write something in a different genre, or at least a different sub-genre. After writing several of what amounted to comedies of manners with romantic overtones, I actually had a friend challenge me to write something different. So after thinking about it, I started writing a series of police procedural stories. Wow, did that stretch me! Although I’m a moderate fan of mysteries and procedurals, learning to write them really taught me things about characterization and plotting that I had never considered before.

4. If you’re primarily a novelist, try writing shorter works. Challenge yourself to write something good under 5000 words. When you succeed at that, challenge yourself to write something good under 2000 words. Then try under 1000 words. That’s barebones storytelling. Every single word has to be weighed in the balance as to whether it’s really necessary to tell the story. You’ll learn discipline from that one. I have exactly one 2000 word story that I think works. I have yet to manage a 1000 word story that I think is good. I keep trying.

5. And if you’re primarily a short work author, try writing a novel. You may or may not like it, but it will force you to consider plotting and world-building issues that just don’t arise in a 7000 word story or a 12,000 word novelette.

I have a novel coming out from Baen Books on October 1, entitled 1636: The Devil’s Opera. It’s a collaboration with Eric Flint. And I’m convinced that I could never have written that story without having put myself through 2, 3, and 4 above.

You want to be a better writer? Challenge yourself to move out of your comfort zone, and write things you never imagined you’d write.

Listening to the Right Voices

September 12, 2013

Colette Black

Colette Black Craft & Skills 1 Comment

As I walked in the room Brandon Sanderson said, “Have her sit by me. I’m going to help her a little bit.”

He spent approximately fifteen minutes with me, and he helped me a lot. Fourteen minutes of that was reminding me how to play Magic the Gathering and whipping me in a match. The other minute stretched me to my next writing plateau.

I knew I needed to improve my writing, but I also knew that the resources available to me weren’t going to cut it anymore. I needed something to yank me upwards or my pace would be so slow that I wouldn’t see anything published for years to come. I knew this, but I didn’t know where to turn next. I’d been listening to Writing Excuses (a podcast for writers done by Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, and Howard Taylor–Mary Robinette Kowal came later) for quite a while, so when they talked about Conduit, I decided to make the trip, stay with family nearby so I could afford it, and see what I could learn. I didn’t expect to end up in a MTG game (Magic the Gathering) with Brandon Sanderson, but when my son pointed out the sign-up to me, I blew the dust off my cards and showed up. In my efforts to observe a game between Brandon and his fans, he noticed me enough and talked with me enough to recognize my nervousness about the upcoming tournament.

So, he sat by me, coached me in what types of cards to pick and how to put my deck together. When my turn to play against him came, I worked up my courage to talk about writing.

“I’ve been listening to Writing Excuses,” I said. “And it has helped me a lot.”

As his creatures attacked mine and I tried to block, I told him a short version of the story about how I started writing. (If you haven’t read the story, you can go to my webpage, www.coletteblack.net, and visit the About Me page.)

Then I asked. “I’ve been writing for a while, I’m getting better, but I can tell I still need to improve a lot, but I don’t know what else to do. Can you give me any suggestions?”

He looked at me a moment, perhaps gauging my sincerity, and then said. “David Farland still does workshops. He’s a good writing teacher and I suggest you attend one.”

And then he killed me, or my cards I should say, and I went to the next match and got royally scobbed again. I should point out, if it hadn’t been for his help I would have never lasted three rounds in any of the matches that night. I didn’t do great, but I held my own.

I signed up for the next David Farland workshop I could fit into my schedule–the Professional Writers Workshop. I thought it would be beyond my amateur skills, but he made the class work for everyone, regardless of our skill level. And my writing ability jumped dramatically. It wasn’t only the teaching. It was also having a group of serious writers, the kind who are willing to spend money to get better, surrounding me and giving me critiques. Between David’s well-done workshop, and my fellow writers amazing skills, each time I’ve attended a workshop my writing ability has improved not by the gradual climb of Butt in Chair Fingers on Keyboard–though that is important–but by a step or two upward.

So, in my opinion, if you find yourself on a writing plateau, then find yourself a good workshop with personal instruction and serious writers who will take the time to critique 10-20 pages of your work and really give it a serious once-over. If you’re willing to learn, you’ll jump to the next level. Eventually you’ll reach a point where you might need something more, but so far, it’s worked well for me. I’ve attended three workshops so far, and if I could scrape together the money right now, I’d be attending his next one. I’ll probably try Dean Wesley Smith’s online workshop next. When will I be so good I won’t need them? Probably never. I can’t imagine ever reaching a plateau that is so high that I can’t stretch and reach another one.

I also recommend conventions, conferences, good critique groups, seminars, and books, but nothing beats the type of instruction you can get in a workshop. Butt in chair is vital, but listening to the men and women who already know what they’re doing can make the time in the chair really count.

Taking Back What Was Stolen

September 11, 2013

Quincy J. Allen

Motivation Quincy Allen The Writing Life 1 Comment

Today is an important day.

Politics and economies and foreign policies aside, September 11^th is a day to remind us of standing up after something is destroyed. It’s a day to rise above adversity, to strive to rebuild and rework and hunker down and not let others take away what lies within ourselves, no matter what.

I’m old enough now that I don’t remember how old I was in the 5^th grade. I actually had to think about it. That’s another epiphany regarding time in a growing list of them as I get gray at the temples.

I guess I was nine when I discovered a love of writing because of what it could evoke in readers. What started it all off was a story about an alien world and lava pools and molten spiders. The teacher loved it. My classmates loved it. It was the first time I ever heard someone read out loud what I had written. And in that moment a fire was kindled—a dream born.

So I kept writing—here and there—because it was a way to explore new places, even play god by creating them and setting lost souls adrift within them. But, while all this was going on, reality struck hard and took hold.

My father was born in 1929—in Brooklyn, New York. While you probably didn’t hear about the birth of my father till just now, you may have heard of something else that took place in the same city and the same year. It was called Black Tuesday, and in its wake lay the Great Depression. These were the formative years of the man who would eventually raise me. He had very specific ideas on career choices and artists and stability and retirement. Being an author wasn’t in that mix.

Like it says on the bio I have on my website, I was “…waylaid by bandits armed with the age-old adage, ‘So you wanna be a starving artist the rest of your life?’” Those words came from my father. More than once. And they killed the dream I had… or, it seems, pushed it into a deep coma. I don’t blame him for what he tried to do. There’s no doubt that my father cared deeply for all three of his children, and he did have the very best of intentions. He thought he was helping.

So, one day, after having spent seventeen years in IT and pursuing a career that wasn’t mine for reasons that belonged to someone else, I found myself staring down the barrel of a layoff. A few mornings after, I woke up wondering what the hell I was going to do with the rest of my life. I was forty-three, a bit long in the tooth to start a new career, but totally disinterested in going back to IT.

And then the writer within me, the one that had slept soundly for over two decades, woke up. You know what he told me? He said that he’d rather die a starving artist than live another day as a slave to the corporate grind. And then he became me.

Don’t get me wrong. I still have a day-job, and it’s still somewhat in IT. I write technical documents for a software company. It’s enough to pay what few bills I have while I whole-heartedly pursue the dream. And that’s the lesson here.

I’m reminded of the Will Smith movie “The Pursuit of Happyness.” If there is one quote to take away from that film, it’s when he’s talking to his son. They’re living on the street and his boy talks about becoming a superstar basketball player. Will’s first response is to shoot down the dream because it’s risky and many don’t make it, and he’s raising his son on the street. Then he stops. And ponders. And then fixes what he broke with his words by saying, “Hey. Don’t ever let somebody tell you… You can’t do something. Not even me. All right? You got a dream… You gotta protect it. People can’t do somethin’ themselves, they wanna tell you you can’t do it. If you want somethin’, go get it. Period.”

I still get teary-eyed when I think of that. I was that little boy, but I never got the fix. My own father didn’t figure it out till after I started having successes in the writing game, and that was twenty-five years later… after I did it myself.

But I’m telling you now: if you have a dream, don’t let anyone take it away from you. Ever. You may fail over and over again, but that’s what dreams are for, to give us a moon to shoot for. And if there is a better definition of what this life is about, I don’t know it.

So go get it.

When to get Stubborn . . . And when to get Smart

September 10, 2013

Frank Morin

Craft & Skills Frank Morin Superstars Writing Seminars The Writing Life Writing Tools No Comments

Just this month, NYT Bestselling Author, and well-known author mentor David Farland wrote an excellent post titled “A Question of Balance”. He opens by saying, “How do you develop as a writer? It requires a balance of study and practice.”

That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking about this month as I prepared this post, and I highly recommend you read his blog. If you’re not signed up to receive his Daily Kicks, you should consider it. His wisdom and advice is one of several factors I point to in helping me break through obstacles in my writing.

When I first started writing almost eight years ago, I took the stubborn approach that all I had to do was write, and write and write, and eventually I’d get there.

And so I tried.

Working pretty much in a vacuum of my own little world, I plowed ahead and wrote my half million throw-away words. Sure I improved many skills related to the actual craft of writing words on a page that make sense and, not knowing any better, figured I was at the top of my game.

The only problem was, no agent wanted my 300,000 word ginormous epic novel, and I couldn’t figure out why.

That was my first big obstacle, and I could not overcome it by just writing more – which I continued to do anyway. Just like David Farland said in his blog, I needed a better balance – some training to go along with the writing – to learn to work smarter instead of just harder.

That’s when I reached one of those milestone events in my writing career: I took David Farland’s Professional Writer’s Workshop. I found out about it by listening to Brandon Sanderson’s weekly podcast Writing Excuses, which I also highly recommend.

It was only with the knowledge I gained at that writing workshop that I recognized the flaws in my first book (weaknesses in the plot, waaaay too long, etc).

That’s when I faced the second challenge: What to do next?

Here, stubbornness kicked in again and provided the answer. Time to get to work. I threw away all that initial work, that entire novel, mined some pieces that were salvageable, and totally re-designed the novel from the ground up. That new novel, now titled The Sentinel’s Call, is in the hands of my agent, who will hopefully find a home for it.

In the meantime, I’ve since written 3 other novels. In each project, I’ve faced additional hurdles. Sometimes the answer was to get stubborn, plant butt in chair, and write like mad – like last November when I had to re-write 80% of my YA novel. In six weeks, I pounded out over 75,000 new words, and edited another 50,000.

Other times I had to get smarter, like when I signed up for the Superstars Writing Seminar– again, highly recommended. It’s the best place to learn the nuts and bolts of being a professional author – the business side of writing. Or, when I studied other writing books – like Story Engineering by Larry Brooks, which I found extremely helpful.

Over the past eight years, I’ve found the best way to overcome the regular obstacles we face as we strive to become professional writers is a balance of stubbornness – just sit down and write; and an ever-increasing foundation of knowledge gained by studying, attending seminars and workshops and by networking with other writers.

I just wish I’d started the focused learning aspect sooner.

Depending on what stage we are at with our projects, or where we stand in our writing career, we’ll need a different answer to break through whatever obstacle we’re facing. What is your biggest challenge right now? Do you know yet if you need more stubbornness, or more learning to overcome it?