Tag Archives: productivity

Lou's kink-tailed cat — Lou’s kink-tailed cat

A guest post by Lou Berger.

Summer is a fantastic time, depending on your particular situation, to knock out some writing assignments. I set goals, myself, that are frequently too aggressive. “If I can write 5,000 words per day, I can have this middle grade novel knocked out in TWELVE DAYS!”

I then hop about, making fist pumps and hooting, which frequently frightens the kink-tailed cat into yawning and turning over.

Then I sit at the computer and open up my manuscript to the place I left it: the blank screen, the header, the ominous “about xxx words” at the top.

Then I check Facebook. I mean, seriously, one has to make sure nobody is in need of witty retorts before settling down to some AWESOME writing, right? I whip through the latest posts, make my snarky comments, then, with a flourish, close out the Facebook application entirely.

WTF?! That took TWO hours?!

Fine. Log out of the Internet, open up the manuscript again, stare at the xxx word count.

In a flurry of activity, I bang out the opening paragraph, putting in that necessary “hook” to grab the reader, maybe a multi-armed alien wielding a blaster in each six-fingered hand, complicated technology spilling around its green, malformed body. Strike that. Two arms (we have human readers, after all, and we can’t be TOO weird) and a six-gun in each hand, mowing down the inbred members of Black Bart’s gang. Dammit! That’s a Western!

Delete. Delete…delete.

Grr. Another wasted hour.

Hitting your goals requires focus and discipline. Try different times of the day for your writing until you strike one that fits your circadian rhythm. Some people can only write when the day’s chores are done and silence descends upon the world in the late evening darkness. Some can only write early, when everybody else is asleep, in the pre-dawn darkness, when the remnants of sleep haven’t quite left our brains and our internal editor is still slumbering, damn his scaly hide. Others need the noise and bustle of a coffee shop and the myriad of goings-on to provide a white-noise-esque background to settle down the creative parts of the writing brain.

Choose your best time and location, and make it a goal to be consistent. 100 words a day, every day, beats the guy who writes 2,000 words in one sitting once every month. Consistency is key, and giving yourself permission to write utter crap as a first draft is one of the hardest things I’ve had to learn in my long journey to becoming an author. Letting your editor mumble into your ear while you write is certain death and doom to any project you embark upon. She (he) is not cognizant of the freedom required to write down utter dreck, but wants it picture-perfect on the FIRST try!

Ain’t nobody got time fo’ that.

My goals are to write consistently this summer, to carve off reasonable chunks of word products in relaxed sittings that, hopefully, happen once or twice a day. To focus on ignoring the snarky comment quotient in my Facebook pages. And to get this damned middle-grade novel DONE, at least in first draft form, no later than 6/15. I have an editor who wants to see the whole manuscript and she’s been SO patient with me. She deserves better.

What about your goals? Write me and tell me what they are at Lou@LouJBerger.com.

Lou Berger Bio:
Lou Berger is a Denver writer who lives with three kids, three Sheltie dogs and a kink-tailed cat. He’s unsure of the cat’s motives but permits cohabitation. His blog can be found at www.LouJBerger.com.

Writing Spaces

June 10, 2014

Brandon M Lindsay

Brandon M. Lindsay The Writing Life Writing Tools No Comments

When I moved to Tokyo late last year, I expected some things in my life were going to change.

Among the more obvious changes were the fact that I would look vastly different from everyone else, sometimes enough to warrant a long, uncomfortable stare, as well as being functionally illiterate. Then of course there was the living situation, the job, the food, the language, the lack of a car, the weather, the… well, pretty much everything.

One thing I thought wouldn’t change, however, was me. Particularly, my writing habits.

Yet after I had gotten settled in to my new life, I found that it was difficult to write. Part of this could be attributed to the change in job. For the past several years, I had worked in a call center, where the word “downtime” usually meant “do whatever you want as long as you stay at your desk.” For me, that meant a lot of reading (and thus inspiration to write) and, when I discovered the power of cloud storage, writing. My new job is rather different. I’m not sitting at a desk anymore, and there is never downtime, especially not the kind that I had before. But I had worked jobs like this in the past and still found the will to write quite easily. I figured it had to be something else.

Tokyo has a reputation for being crowded and cramped, and I suppose in a lot of ways it is. The word “megacity” conjures images of fantastically high skyscrapers clustered together from horizon to horizon, a la Judge Dredd. But Tokyo is pretty normal, especially in the more suburban areas. My apartment isn’t huge by any standard, and I have to get really creative with how I use the space in my kitchen, but I’ve seen smaller apartments in Seattle. Size wasn’t really the issue, but I figured that the root of my problem lay somewhere in my living space.

My apartment came furnished, but by more or less Japanese standards. There was no bed, only a futon (one very different from those you see at Ikea, no doubt) for sleeping on the floor. And there was a couch, a TV stand, and what I thought was a coffee table, but actually turned out to be a coffee table with a heater built into the bottom. This glorious invention, called a kotatsu, keeps your legs warm throughout the winter without blowing up your electricity bill. Provided, however, you are okay with sitting on the floor.

It turns that I wasn’t. I’ve enjoyed western comforts, such as chairs and desks, for most of my life. Sitting on the floor did not feel natural to me, and took a lot of adjusting. I mean, a lot. No, really, a lot (what I’m saying is I never fully adjusted). I thought I would tough it out and learn to adapt to my situation, as one should after moving halfway around the world, but eventually I said, “To hell with this.” And bought myself a desk/chair combo.

What a difference that has made. I immediately began cranking out chapters and outlines and ideas like I was still sitting in that call center, patiently waiting for some irrational customer to complain about the bill they never paid.

You may find yourself asking, “Why didn’t you just get a desk to begin with?” First of all, taking furniture on the train always involves logistical challenges, as well as the occasional dirty look. But more importantly, I didn’t realize how much of an effect my environment would have on my writing until I actually saw the difference in output.

If you ever find yourself suffering from writer’s block and having difficulty getting in the zone, it may not be you that’s the cause. It could be your writing space. After all, your butt is only half of the butt-in-chair equation.

Join Brandon on the blog tour for his recently-released novella, Spear Mother: A Tale of the Fourth World! Spear Mother is the third release taking place in his epic fantasy world. Details of the tour can be found on his website: http://brandonmlindsay.com

Hot Fun in the Summertime

June 3, 2014

Guy Anthony De Marco

Character Guest Posts Guy Anthony De Marco 2 Comments

A guest post by Guy Anthony De Marco

As the summer approaches, there are more items and events that will be tugging on your availability. Full-time writers with several years of discipline under their belt have an easier time saying “no” to joining in on the fun when there’s a deadline looming, but what about the part-timers or those who just made the jump to full-timer?

First off, let’s have a quick discussion about writing. It’s a career or, for some, a creative outlet. In order to write about characters, one has to experience life. Locking yourself in a basement is not only bad for your health (think radon and rickets), but it may lead to a regression in your ability to write realistic characters. Plan your day so you can go out and have some fun and still have time to write your daily word count. Depriving yourself of social intercourse, fresh air, sunlight, and fun may lead to resentment towards your writing, with symptoms including writer’s block and a lack of enthusiasm for writing in general.

With that said, here’s three ways to combine writing and having fun social interactions.

1. Take your current characters with you.

No, don’t smuggle your expensive Macbook Air to the beach. Make a mental list or, if needed, take a couple of index cards with you concerning upcoming interactions between your characters. For example, you have four fighters that are going to a rough neighborhood to stay at a particular inn. How can they interact without sounding like genetic clones?

With these characters in mind, listen to the people around you on the beach. There should be plenty of conversations you can tap into, and having a bunch of people wearing as little as possible tends to lead to a lot of bravado and one-upsmanship. Listen to how they joke around, how they (hopefully) good-naturedly poke fun at each other. Listen to the words they choose, the cadence of their voices, and look at the expressions on their faces. You can get a solid idea how to make your characters sound like different people (and not just projections of you saying the same things in the same manner for all four characters.)

Once you’ve heard enough, move on to the next scene with your characters and find someone who can help expand that scene into something wonderful.

2. What’s that smell?

Hopefully, that funny smell isn’t you.

Scents are interesting things. They can trigger the strangest memories, or they can make you think of faraway places. Unfortunately, too few people use the sense of smell in their writing because they’re so dependent on visual descriptions.

For this example, let us assume you’re walking to a nice restaurant in New York City to meet a friend. There are plenty of scents surrounding you, and these smells can help your worldbuilding become “real” to your audience. Since it’s summer in Brooklyn, you may smell the boiling hot dogs and the bite of fresh sauerkraut from a cart on the corner, which makes your tummy rumble. Passing by an old Italian delicatessen can fill your nose with spicy dill pickles floating in a wooden barrel and the oily goodness of a Genoa salami getting sliced thin for the customer at the counter. Add in a bit of spicy brown mustard for a fresh pastrami sandwich being assembled by the daughter of the owner and you increase your pace because your hunger has just kicked into high gear.

Continuing on, your lungs get filled with a cool, moist smell of water evaporating off of the asphalt. The firemen have opened up one of the fire hydrants to flush out the water system, and you can hear the laughter of several dozen kids of many ethnicities, all playing together in the spray without a care in the world. Nearby, the lady who has a small fragrant rose garden next to her brownstone smiles at you, so you stop to request a rose to give to your friend. She obliges, and adds in a gardenia from the window-box by her kitchen window. Your friend will certainly appreciate the gesture. Perhaps this will be the day you confess you’ve been crazy about your friend for years.

Two scenes, two sets of smells that evoke memories and emotions in your readers.

3. Shadows and Light

This can be a fun game to play, and I do it all the time. I try to imagine what someone else sees and feels. If I’m sitting in my car at a long stoplight in Denver, I try to look around and notice what’s really going on, paying attention to the things that are normally ignored as extraneous background clutter. For example, last week I watched a couple have an argument on the sidewalk at a bus stop. I picked one of them and tried to imagine everything they saw from their perspective. I couldn’t hear their words, so I came up with a reason for the argument. Because he was carrying two bags from a local supermarket, I scripted that they ran into an old flame of hers in one of the aisles. He didn’t like how she lit up when she saw him, and he’s now feeling that he’s not good enough for her. She wasn’t saying much back to him, so I imagined her tapping her foot, holding in a lot of the anger she’s feeling about how he conducts himself around other women. Finally she blurts out the way he’s feeling is exactly how she feels when she catches him staring at a younger woman’s figure. Perhaps it’s a breakthrough for the couple, or perhaps it’s the end of the relationship, all because they decided to go to the store for some chips and salsa.

At the next light, I notice someone waiting for the signal to turn green in the opposite lane. They’re languidly sliding their gaze over everything, yet not actually seeing what they’re looking at. I imagine the elderly driver looking into my car and notice I’m watching her. It’s fun to imagine someone else peering at you, and trying to figure out how they perceive you. Perhaps she gets startled that someone is watching her, wondering if that big scary-looking man is a criminal searching for someone to rob. Or perhaps I remind her of a friend of her ex-husband, and that triggers a flood of memories and emotions.

4. It’s Your Turn

Don’t assume that because you’re not sitting in front of a keyboard that you’re not writing. The tough part of being an author involves working things out in your head. Physically poking keys with your fingers is the final process of dumping your brain-story into a medium that other folks can read and enjoy. You can do a lot of your “writing” while getting out in the world, talking to people besides yourself and the television, and avoiding rickets and writers block.

About the Author:

Guy Anthony De Marco is a speculative fiction author; a Graphic Novel Bram Stoker Award^®; winner of the HWA Silver Hammer Award; a prolific short story and flash fiction crafter; a novelist; an invisible man with superhero powers; a game writer (Sojourner Tales modules, Interface Zero 2.0 core team, D&D modules); and a coffee addict. One of these is false.

A writer since 1977, Guy is a member of the following organizations: SFWA, WWA, SFPA, IAMTW, ASCAP, RMFW, NCW, HWA. He hopes to collect the rest of the letters of the alphabet one day. Additional information can be found at Wikipedia, GuyAndTonya.com, and GuyAnthonyDeMarco.com.

Get Out of Your Comfort Zone

September 27, 2013

fictorians

Craft & Skills Guest Posts Motivation The Writing Life Writing Tools 2 Comments

A guest post by JJ Bennett.

When I was asked to talk about growing as a writer, one thing for me stood out. Every time I pushed myself, I succeeded. So, how on earth do you push yourself when you’re just starting out? Good question. Stop treating yourself like a hobbyist and treat yourself like a professional.

It’s so easy to relax in your comfortable zone as a writer. You write when you can, dabble in blogging, have that one book collecting dust on your shelf, and you call yourself a writer. I’m just as bad as the next person when it comes to procrastination. So, how do you make that jump? It’s fairly simple. Make better choices.

Sounds easy, but it’s not. Let me explain. Professionals have deadlines, meet with other professionals, and work every day in their craft. They don’t let things stand in the way with getting the job done. They work hard and fast.

Let’s get moving in the right direction then. I’d suggest following these guidelines.

1. Attend a professional writing seminar where you’re asked to produce writing.

Yep, other professionals are going to read and critique your work. Get over yourself. You’re a professional. The best way to improve your writing is to get feedback from other professionals. You’ll be surprised by your growth. While you attend, the pressure of having to write to a higher standard will help you grow as a writer. You will be amazed by the work you produce. Only by being cornered to produce, will you grow at a faster rate than otherwise.

2. Your new best friend is having a deadline.

Professional writers have deadlines. Give yourself some. I’m not talking about goals like I want to write 2500 words a day sort of goals. I’m talking hard deadlines where other people are waiting for your work. If you’re trying to finish that “first book” then pay for an editor before you finish the story. It sounds crazy but most editors (at least the good ones) are months out until they can take on a new client. Pay and get on the list. This way you are invested in the task. You’ve made a commitment to both yourself and the editor. You’re making a “blood oath” so to speak that they’ll have your manuscript in hand in “X” amount of days, weeks or months. Professionals only work under deadlines like these. Get some!

3. Make a place to write.

Not everyone has a beautiful oak carved desk with matching built-in shelves in a home office. Sure it would be nice, but most of us live in the real world. This doesn’t mean go kick your kids out of their bedroom just so you can have an office, but it does mean you need to make a space of your own. It could be a small computer desk in the corner of the front room, bedroom, or even in a closet (if you have a large walk in). Find a space that’s yours and yours only. Remember, you’re a professional. Your area is only for you. I have friends who write in trailers, rent office spaces away from home, and make a space somehow. Wherever your space is no matter how big or small, don’t let the kids do homework there. It’s YOUR SPACE! Ultimately, if something goes missing, is lost, or spilled on… it’s all on you. Taking responsibility is part of being a professional.

4. Make yourself a schedule.

Professionals have their life mapped out. They have a planner or calendar of some kind. It could be on their mobile devise, on a computer, on paper–just somehow get organized. If you have a blog, write down the days you need to post. Write down days and goals to meet your deadlines to others as well as yourself and then integrate it into your family schedule. One schedule to rule them all…

5. Live it.

This one is pretty easy to explain but the most difficult to do. You need to set your priorities.

6. Stay Educated in the Business.

Part of being a professional is staying up on trends. What are people in the field of writing talking about? You need to understand your profession and what’s working and what isn’t. If you read, research, and understand the business side of writing, it will only strengthen you and your standing in the industry.

Getting out of your comfort zone is hard. People don’t like it. It causes stress, inadequacy, and it brings your faults to the forefront. Nobody likes that. It’s hard work and it’s so much easier to coast through life at your own pace than to push yourself. Without that push however, you won’t see that growth that you’re looking for.

If you take these steps to move out of your comfort zone you’ll become a better writer, people will take you seriously, and your writing will show all your hard work and dedication you’ve put into your craft. Sure, it’s nice to sit back in your easy chair and coast through life dreaming of becoming something. But, you’ll spend all your life dreaming instead of becoming anything. It’s time to put down the footrest and get up out of your chair. Get out of that comfort zone.

Guest Writer Bio:

J.J. Bennett grew up as a Southern California native and moved to Southern Utah in 1989. She and her husband Matt, reside in St. George with their four kids. Jen is the creator/head of the “Authors’ Think Tank“. A group by writers for writers that supports both traditionally published and independent writers. She has written articles locally for “The Independent” and is currently working on her debut YA novel “The Path.” She enjoys travel, cooking, music, and has a deep desire to become a Bigfoot hunter. Find out more about her at www.jjbennett.com.