Tag Archives: inspiration for writers

I have found in my writing and in my life, that if I make a list, take notes, outline, plan – I will get whatever it is needs done just that much easier and quicker.

I’m talking about making a six month, one year, five year plan for your writing and for your life. They aren’t the same, although sometimes it may feel that way. As a sidebar – life is what feeds our writing, so don’t ignore it or you may find your writing drying up and getting stale from lack of fresh inspiration.

Family, friends, classes, the bowling league, hobbies, reading and the latest movie are not only food for your soul but food for your writing. Do you know how high a priority they are? Will you have that on your list in a year or five? Think about it…

My friends know my schedule is hectic, so if they want to have time with me, it has to be scheduled. I make time for my friends because they are important to me, but I also have to literally make time for them or they get lost in the craziness of my schedule. They are a high priority and on my master plan, so that is covered.

I recently had to turn down helping on an event in 2012 I really wanted to do because I didn’t have the time to commit to it. Is it now on my plan for 2013? You bet it is. I have a plan for it and other things will have to get sacrificed so I can participate, but that’s ok. I’m planning ahead so I know what’s coming up, what needs done, and when.

What about your writing? Will you have one book done a year, two a year, one epic and one novella? What’s your goal? What’s the plan to get there? How are you going to accomplish it? Do you write intently one weekend a month, a page a day, an hour a day? All this planning helps you accomplish your goals. It really does.

If you spend a little time planning ahead, you don’t have to think about it, you can just get on with what needs done. An hour of planning on Monday for the week can save you several hours wasted while you figure out what you needed to do each day.

In my writing, I’m a plotter not a pantser, but I recently tried pantsing a novel. I got a good start on it, about 30K and then I had no idea where I was going. I knew how it ended but I had no idea the route to get there. I was completely lost. Now, I’m having to map my course so I can finish my story’s journey.

I may be a little over-zealous on this planning issue, as I am the person who had a 47-page itinerary for a ten-day road trip from coast to coast, but maybe that’s just how I need to operate in order to get to my destination. Some of you may be able to jump in the car and drive with no plan, but I suspect most will fall in between the two extremes.

I’m just suggesting that you consider planning. See if it doesn’t make things run smoother. If you aren’t already a planner, try it as an experiment. Figure out the goal for the week, day by day, and follow it. Let me know if it helps.

My goals for the next year?

Writing – Do my regularly schedule blog posts on all three of my sites, write at least 4 hours a day/4 times a week with a goal of finishing two books during the year, and actively submitting.

Life – Do not take on any more commitments, schedule time at least once a month with my “best-y”, schedule my days so they are more productive, and ensure my writing time is held sacred.

Go forth and plan…Be ‘Fictorious!’

Stocking the Shelves

November 30, 2011

Jason Michelsen

Craft & Skills Jason Michelsen The Fictorians The Writing Life 4 Comments

A while back, I started the second draft of a novel I’ve been working on for some time . . . close to a year by the time I opened version 2.o in Word.

I’d made it through the beginning, trudged through the sticky middle, and was well on my way to the climax when I realized some of the characters weren’t where they were supposed to be, both geographically and emotionally.

I’d strayed from my original outline–I’m more Gardener than Architect, though I do try to outline key events in my stories–and realized some changes were in order. It wasn’t until around the 160k word mark of my first draft that I finally understood some of my characters and realized there were things I needed to change in the beginning in order to get them where they needed to be by the end.

So I started over. I got about 20k words in and was really digging the revisions. My villain was more clearly defined in a shorter amount of time. The conflicts seemed more urgent. The setting was even coming to life in ways it hadn’t until much further on in my first pass.

Then, because writers aren’t immune to outside forces, Life reared its ugly head and gave me a smack in the face, bashing my inspiration into the mud and stomping it into an unrecognizable pulp. Pulling words from my head became about as difficult as pulling an entrenched boot from quicksand.

It’s no surprise we talk so often on this blog about what keeps us writing. Sometimes, nothing seems to work. There is no magical can of Inspiration we can use to grease the creative wheels, no verbal laxative to unplug our plugged minds. If there were, I’d put it in a can and stock an entire pantry. I wouldn’t sell it, I’d want it all for myself! Well, I might sell it for an exorbitant price so I could quit my day job and write full time like when I was unemployed. Oh those were the days!

So what do you do when the words won’t come? Last time I posted, I wrote about my return to reading. Indeed, it worked in the short term, coaxing a few thousand more words of my own onto the screen when I wasn’t working or reading. But the effect didn’t last long.

So I ask again, what do we do when an unfinished project turns stale? Many authors will push on, throwing down words they know they’ll delete at a later date until the levee breaks and good words start flowing again. Unfortunately, I’m not the kind of writer that can do that. I’d rather write 50 great words than 1000 bad ones. I’m a little too much of a perfectionist for my own good at times.

The answer, at least in my case, is simple: Write something else.

I’m not giving up on the novel I’ve worked on for over a year–far from it–I’m simply taking a break to write something else. Something I can finish, because nothing is as therapeutic to an author as writing “The End”. I started working on a short story, and, lo and behold, the words began moving again. It just so happens it’s a short story I’d actually like to turn into a short, animated film . . . or perhaps an illustrated, not-quite-for-children, children’s book a la Pat Rothfuss’s The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle: The Thing Beneath the Bed.

What we write isn’t always as important as actually writing. And the more we write, the better we get. Guaranteed. So, when your darling of a story isn’t behaving like a darling, write the ugly step-child of a story instead. Get the words flowing again, and soon you’ll have your inspiration back. Do that enough times, and you’ll have a virtual shelf–or perhaps a folder on your computer hard drive–filled with ever improving stories.

It can’t be said often enough, the only way to grow as a writer is to write.

Life, Inspiration, and . . . a Red Sheep?

November 11, 2011

Jason Michelsen

Jason Michelsen Reading The Fictorians The Writing Life 3 Comments

What a week to have to write a post for this wonderful blog (authored by some of the greatest human beings I know!). Somehow, I’ve got to write a post that follows David Farland–arguably one of the most successful writers of just about anything and everything speculative fiction–a book give away, and an insightful and scary look into the functioning of the brain?

What if I just put a cool picture of a red sheep out there and call it a day? No?

To be honest, the picture has nothing at all to do with this post. I just liked it and wanted to use it in a blog post. I probably should have saved it, using it when I had an idea for a post that would actually work with a picture of a red sheep.

And if I’m honest once again, this is about the most I’ve written in the last three weeks. And in November of all months! I competed in NaNoWriMo last year and won, finishing before Thanksgiving, but this year, nothing. So, what happened? Life happened.

And just so I don’t give the wrong impression, nobody died. But neither do I want to talk about what it was here on a public blog. What it was isn’t the issue. The issue is the lack of writing. Nay, the lack of desire to write.

For three weeks, I’ve tried on occasion to sit at the computer–butt in chair, hands on keyboard and all that–but nothing has happened. It seemed there was little I could do to will the words from my brain out onto the screen. It was a little like trying to wring water from a dry sponge.

I was empty.

Being an aspiring author, the prospect that there were no more words inside was a little frightening. A literary suffocation.

It didn’t take me long, however, to realize the only way to fill something up with whatever it is it needs–words in the case of this writer’s mind–is to feed it what it needs. For over two years, I’ve been so focused on my own writing that I’ve neglected my reading. Oh, I read a book here or there, usually new releases by certain authors I simply can’t wait to read. But my pace of a book every 3-4 weeks (I’m a slow reader with a day job, what can I say?) had slowed dramatically. I’d been on the same book for over four months.

So I read.

In three weeks, I finished the last 300+ pages of the book I was stuck in, read another hefty fantasy book–The Heroes, by Joe Abercrombie–and started A Wise Man’s Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss. Yeah, I’m a little behind. My list of books that I’ve bought and need to read is over 25 books long.

Some people might gasp to know I haven’t even cracked A Dance With Dragons. I know, I’m ashamed. I deserve to be punished.

But in reading Abercrombie, Rothfuss, and the unnamed author in whose awesome book I’d been stalled for months, I remembered why I’ve wanted to be a writer since elementary school, and why I came to the conclusion that I had to write fantasy after reading Robert Jordan’s The Eye of the World for the first time.

The sheer joy of the story. The careful selection and placement of words, and the emotions they invoke. The characters who seem more like good friends than ink on paper. The anticipation of what waits on the other side of the page. These are the reasons I’ve always wanted to be a writer, all the things that made me love being a reader.

Some successful authors will tell you they don’t read in the genre they themselves write. Others will say they read a wide range of literature. Personally, I read a fairly wide range of books, though admittedly, the vast majority is speculative fiction. Namely fantasy. It’s just what I’ve always loved reading; deciding to write it hasn’t changed that fact.

So, um, yeah. Read. That’s my advice. To anyone, but especially aspiring writers. Not every reader is a writer, but every writer was a reader first.

And you have to admit, the sheep picture is sweet.

What inspires you?

October 21, 2011

KylieQ

Kylie Quillinan The Writing Life 2 Comments

Why do you keep writing, month after month? Why do you persist at honing your craft when encouragement is little or non-existent? What is your dream?

Me, I want it all. I want the New York Times bestseller (even though I know the NYT generally ignores genre writers and so doesn’t actually reflect the highest-selling books). I want to walk into a bookstore or a library and see my precious manuscript on a shelf, printed and bound and shiny. I want to be able to write full time. But more than all of that, I want to share my stories with the world.

Trying to break into the publishing world is a long slog, isn’t it? I have friends who are self-publishing. I don’t intend this post to be about the benefits or otherwise or self-publishing, so I’ll just say that it’s not for me. The publishing world is changing at a rapid pace. Some predictions are dire. E-books are apparently on the verge of taking over the world. Bookstores are closing. Some people say we will barely recognise the publishing industry in a few years. And yet still we push on.

So why do we do it to ourselves? Is it arrogance? A belief that although the world doesn’t yet recognise our genius, it will in time? Is it stubbornness? An unwillingness to let go of the dream just because it seems so far out of reach? I’ve been thinking about this over the last few months and the only answer I can come up with is from my “want” list: I want to share my stories. I don’t have a crystal ball so I don’t know whether perhaps the day might come when the dream dies and I pack away my thesaurus, dictionary, index cards and assorted coloured pens and highlighters. Perhaps that will happen but maybe – just maybe – I will persist until I actually break through.

In the meantime, I wanted to share with you two quotes I have pinned on the wall in front of my writing space. One is from Stephen King’s ON WRITING and likely most aspiring writers will recognise it:

It’s about the pumpkin.

Don’t know what it means? Get a copy of ON WRITING and read it. Seriously, if you intend to make a career out of writing, you should be familiar with this book. Buy or borrow it, read it, and take note of the story about the farmer and his pumpkins.

The second one is on a cardboard star. I have no idea where it came from. It’s about two inches big and is green and silver. It says:

Dream Big

That says it all, doesn’t it? This is what the aspiring writer does. Perhaps your dream is different to mine. Perhaps not. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that we all have the same goal: we are all dreaming big.

What do you keep in your writing space to inspire you?