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We get it into our head that writing is a solitary art.When we first dreamed of being a writer, who saw themselves as sitting along in a cabin banging on a typewriter? Come on. I see you over there. Put your hand up. You know it’s true. Okay, put your hand down. If you were really advanced in your dreaming you’d have acknowledged on the edges that at some point other people come into the picture – an agent, a publisher, the reader. But that was way downstream. This whole creative gig. It could be done alone. Right?

Not.

It’s time we stopped kidding ourselves.

We lose writers – good writers – every day from the profession because they “go it alone.” While actually putting your butt in a chair and writing will almost always be a solo activity (even in a collaboration you are responsible for writing your part) the path that leads you to your keyboard and beyond is filled with other people. Spouses, significant others, and friends give us support, we may bounce ideas or our outline off them. We confer with experts to ensure our writing is accurate enough to be believable. We work with dozens of people to hone the story, the prose, the cover, the blurb, and all the lovely marketing bits. We need our readers.

But the biggest thing your writing tribe does is keep you going when you are in a low spot.

This past week I was in a low spot. ~~I’d been rejected from two anthologies.~~ Two of my stories had been rejected from different anthologies. I was sincerely happy for everyone who made it in but the rejection cut deep. Mostly though, I’ve had some stuff hanging over me for a while and it was coming to a head. I felt so alone. All my husband’s attempts to calm me put me into full-out panic attacks. (Sorry, honey.) So, I did what I’ve never done before. I asked my writing tribe, this tribe, for help. Now, I didn’t really tell them what was happening just that I was going to be facing a ton of adversity in the next 24 hours. The outpouring of support was humbling. Their words of encouragement, thoughts and prayers gave me the strength to go through that trial with grace and a sense of peace. My Tribe had my back. I wouldn’t have come through the crisis without them.

At the same time our Facebook group was discussing another writer the profession had lost because going alone had broken her spirit. She went so far as to announce the death of her pen name. She didn’t have a support group. It broke many of our hearts. It’s a huge loss.

It shouldn’t have happened.

The advice I’d give my younger writing self? Even more than “don’t listen to your high school English teacher. You absolutely can and did write the story that touched her heart.”? It’s this:

Surround yourself with like minded-people who are going through or have already gone through what you are going through.

With your Tribe you can accomplish anything you work for.

Ask for and accept help. This is not a a sign of weakness but of strength.

Know you aren’t alone.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

The Patience of Writing an Onion

August 6, 2014

Ace Jordyn

Ace Jordyn Character Craft & Skills Editing First Drafts Rewriting Self-Awareness The Writing Process 2 Comments

Writing a good onion, I mean story, takes time and I don’t just mean the time to think and type the first draft. Becoming and being a writer is an evolution, a process, and we need to be patient with ourselves as we learn the craft and apply it. But what does being patient mean and how can we apply it in a meaningful way? Here are three areas where I’ve learned to apply patience:

Creating the story
One day, I heard one writer critique a story. “Sheila is a patient writer,” he said. I was dumbfounded. What did he mean? I read Sheila’s piece and then looked more carefully at the author’s I liked. Slowly, I figure it out and my writing improved immensely.

Patience in your writing means taking your time to explain things where and when they need to be explained. For example, a story which starts with a lot of back story tells of an impatient writer. Knowing when to sprinkle in the details and saving some of them for later takes patience. It also means taking the time to explain things clearly when the opportunity presents. That can be with setting, character description, with action or dialogue. If you are clearly grounded, then the reader will be as well. Take time developing that scene. Show the situation, the feelings, and focus on the important points and explain them as clearly as needed. Don’t rush it unless there’s a good reason for doing so. If you over-write, you can edit it down later. If you are patient with characters you will make them memorable. If you are patient with your story, you will ground your readers and hold their interest.

Learning new skills
You can’t learn everything from a book, a workshop, a conference or a course. The secret, I’ve learned, is to take one thing that stuck with you and apply it to your story, scene or character. That one thing is usually an aha! moment and because of that it means you’ve become aware of something you never realized before. It’s another layer in writing the perfect onion. Apply that new understanding to your work and suddenly it’s transformed in ways you couldn’t have imagined. The truth is that how-to books are long and cumbersome and workshops are intensive because they try to cover enough points so that everyone will get something from it. So, take one thing and apply it.

Deciding which hat not to wear
The first draft can never be perfect – you’ve heard this before but what does it really mean? If you strive for a perfect first draft, your story will never be written and it’s an impossible feat. It’s impossible to wear both the creative hat and the editor’s hats. Yes, plural hat for the editors.

There are three editorial hats: conceptual where the larger elements of the story such as plot and structure are examined; line by line where every sentence and word are examined for clarity, word choice and content; and copy editing for grammar, spelling and punctuation. Then there’s the creative hat. Wearing four hats? Suddenly that sounds silly, doesn’t it?

Your first draft can be augmented by some planning (outlining) and your current writing skills. As you’ll write, you’ll learn more up skills along the way which makes new works cleaner and more cohesive. But that first draft will never be a perfect finished work. Every successful writer knows that. Don’t believe me? Check out their acknowledgements pages. First readers, proof readers, editors – they’re all thanked because they’re all there for a reason. Creativity needs its own hat to weave unexpected twists and unfetter your imagination. The weight of four hats will give you a headache and ultimately, writer’s block. So be patient. Wear your creative hat and come up with an exciting, moving story. The wear each editorial hat in turn. As you wear each one, that’s a good time to apply new skills or insights about the craft. A trick is to have cheat sheets with points or questions for each of the editors.

Patience can best be described as creating an onion rather than peeling it back. Layer upon layer must be built before the story is completed to our satisfaction. So perhaps the hat analogy doesn’t really work. The creative and editing processes are about layering the story to add density to the concept, the plot, to character, to our voice and mastery of the craft. An onion grows from a small seed and layer by layer with watering and patience, it forms a solid bulb and so too grows a story.

Wrapping Up June and Our Summer Sanity

June 30, 2014

clancy

Clancy Metzger Goals Motivation Reflection Self-Awareness The Writing Life Writing Tools No Comments

Did we make it? Did we survive the June heat and the mid-year failures or successes? I learned a lot and got reminded of more. So for me, this was a good month… on the Fictorians and in achieving my personal goals. If you missed anything, here’s a quick summary with links.

Evan discussed health and writing and finding a balance between the two which I am always in need of rem
inders about since staying healthy for me usually means trying to avoid the potato chips. Guy showed how to take our writing with us when we’re out enjoying the summer. As he said, not typing doesn’t mean you’re not working. Creativity takes a lot of thinking and observing life around us. I reminded us all that sometimes we have to say No to other things so we can achieve success in writing and in life. Being stressed out about being over-committed is no one’s friend. Nancy shared some tools for organizing our complicated and busy lives. And who can’t use better ways not to drop all those balls we’re juggling.

Sherry gave us insight into her thought process on deciding to self-publish and then how she succeeded at it. I know I’m reading her book on Silencing Your Inner Saboteur and getting a lot out of it. I loved Frank’s Go Big or Go Home post. We have to take big risks to get the big rewards. And Brandon’s discussion on how your environment can impact your productivity resonated as I have been displaced from my office for weeks during some construction work being done on my house. I liked Mary’s take on how despite having health challenges, we can be productive if we play to our strengths when we ‘re strong.

Ace gave us some ideas on ways we sabotage our goals and ways we can score with them. Quincy’s post on sacrifice and being in writing for the long haul reminded me that if we just keep at it, we can be a success. And it is a grind, but a worthy one. I found Lou’s post funny and true. Focus, discipline and being consistent are key. Colette reminded us that we can get away from the summer heat by attending a cool Con. James showed how tricky setting reasonable and attainable goals can be. Jace showed how recalibration is just needed sometimes to get going again.

My dear friend Kelli Ann gave some concrete tools for taking any derail and getting the train back on the tracks. I loved Kristin’s post on how we all fail, but that doesn’t have to define our success. Kim talks about using good planning skills and realistic expectations to keep us productive and sane. Nathan makes a great point in that what we choose to do with our time is a statement of value. As I’m heading off to a four day writing retreat, this was an affirmation of what I’m doing with my life and career. And after watching the video of Jim Carrey’s speech (all 28 minutes), feed your soul , folks! It was completely worth it. I found Tristan’s post on reassessing goals refreshing. He had a lot of goodl ideas on looking at goals that were helpful. And finally, John’s post on consistency speaks to a variety of types of consistency, all of which are important.

I hope you enjoyed the month and got as much out of it as I did.

Consistency

June 27, 2014

fictorians

Craft & Skills Goals Guest Posts Self-Awareness The Writing Life No Comments

A guest post by John D. Payne

I chose to write about consistency because it’s something that I myself need to work on. So I’m going to keep this in first person and talk about some of the ways I want to be more consistent.

1. Consistent writing
A professional writing at a decent clip produces about a thousand words in an hour. At that pace, you’ll have the first draft of a nice fat novel in one year even if you only write 15 minutes a day, as a number of successful pros have observed. That’s a lot of result for not much effort.

So, two summers ago I made a goal to write every day, even if only for a few minutes. I have months where I pretty much pull this off, and months where I’m not terribly close. But even with this spotty record, the last two years have been my best in terms of output.

Output matters. Lots of writers have been quoted as saying that the first million words anyone writes are just practice. This really is just a variant of the ten thousand hour rule, that it takes lots of time to become successful at anything.

And not only will churning out lots of stories help me develop my skills as a writer, but it will help me feel more confident and comfortable with my voice. Rather than expecting that everything I write has to be perfectly polished before I can move on, I can be a little more forgiving of myself and have fun as I go. It’s like playing with legos. I pour out a bunch of ideas, grab my favorites, and then assemble them in whatever way strikes my fancy. I’m just having a good time making a bunch of cool stuff.

I’ve tried inspiring myself to produce more in different ways. The desire to finish my first novel was a powerful motivation. Weekly submissions to my writing group make good mini-deadlines. And of course deadlines written in contracts and attached to paychecks are the best of all.

It also feels good just to keep a streak alive. That’s the secret to Tony Pisculli’s online writing tracker, The Magic Cricket. There are lots of others out there. The thing that has worked best for me so far is a calendar with stickers. It feels good to see all those gold stars.

This July, I’m going to use Camp Nanowrimo as another way to push myself to greater heights of accomplishment. Given my lack of consistency over the last few months, I fear that this will be like running a marathon without proper preparation. But even if I don’t make it to 50,000 words by the end of the month, every word I write will prepare me for what comes next. And if there’s anything I’ve learned from Dean Wesley Smith, it’s that every month is Nanowrimo if writing is your career.

2. Consistent finishing
When I was younger, I got bogged down trying to perfect and polish stories that weren’t even finished. Since then I’ve realized that finishing something is a better use of my time than trying to get the beginning of something perfect.

Everything I write is in some ways an experiment, and not all of it will be equally appealing to me, or to readers. That’s hard to accept, because of course I want everything I produce to be of the very finest quality. But as Clausewitz said, quantity has a quality all its own.

For one thing, every story I finish (and get out there where people can read it) helps me build an audience. I love both Pat Rothfuss as much as I love John Scalzi and Brandon Sanderson. But I have a lot more of John and Brandon’s work on my shelves (both digital and physical) because both of them consistently put out new books for me to buy.

In addition to daily wordcount goals, I also have goals to finish stories. At the Superstars Writing Seminar, Kevin J. Anderson (a very consistent producer) said that there’s no reason any new writer of genre fiction shouldn’t submit a new story to the Writers of the Future contest every quarter. I’m very glad to say that I’ve followed that advice, and I recommend that everyone who’s eligible do the same.

This year, I have two goals relating to finishing. I want to start and finish a new novel between this summer and next. And I want to finish a new story every month, even if it’s only flash fiction. After all, every story I finish is a story I can sell– which is good, because I also plan to continue submitting a story to a paying market every single week. I’ve done that for the last two years, and although I’ve only made one sale so far it has also taught me a ton about this business.

3. Consistent self-education
No matter how well-informed I am at this minute, no matter how perfect my business strategy is for today’s market, continuing to educate myself is just plain necessary. Of course, as with any other non-writing activity (social media, etc.), I need to always ask myself: Would I Be Better Off Writing? But without self-education, my career will not move forward.

I need to learn about every part of the industry– and the industry is constantly changing. Covers and interior design, blurbs and back cover copy, contracts, marketing, printing, etc. Fortunately, there are lots of people who are sharing their knowledge and teaching me how to do things myself: Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Joe Konrath, The Passive Voice, Hugh Howey, etc.

Even if I become the pampered darling of a big New York firm, or in some other way outsource everything but the actual writing, I need to know enough to protect myself. I hate taking my car to the shop and not knowing whether I really need to spend $700 to get that O2 sensor fixed. Educating myself means I don’t just have to hope that everyone else is being nice to me. Trust, but verify, as Reagan and Gorbachev agreed.

4. Consistent niceness

As with most any career, it’s a good idea for me to be nice. This means more than just handing my business card to big names in the industry (although I do that). First and foremost, I have an obligation to fans to be approachable and friendly. After all, it’s their good will, and of course their money, that ultimately fuels my career. And it’s important to be consistent about this, because even one bad moment might turn into a story that floats around the community for years to come.

Speaking of having a good reputation, I want to be someone that others want to work with. That means three things: doing good work, delivering on time, and not being a horrible, horrible jerk. Neil Gaiman rightly notes that you can get by on just two out of three. But if you want to maximize the chances that people will send work your way, shoot for all of the above.

So be a mensch. Mensches make the world go round, as my dissertation advisor told me many times. One way I practice meeting my professional obligations is by participating in a writing group. Every week, other people read my submissions and give me valuable feedback. The least I can do is return the favor.

There’s lots more to say, but (as usual), I’m over my word count. So I’ll just close by saying that writing this blog has helped me realize two things. First, there are lots of ways that consistency can help me as a writer. Second, I’m not bad at all of these.

So, as you’re revisiting your goals and thinking about what you’re going to do with the second half of this year, don’t be too hard on yourself. Give yourself credit for the things you’re doing well. After all, feeling good about how you’re doing makes it easier to maintain a consistent effort.

Good luck!

John D. Payne Bio:

JOHN D. PAYNE is a Houston-based writer of fantasy, science fiction, and literary fiction. His debut novel, The Crown and the Dragon is now a major motion picture.http://wordfirepress.com/authors/john-d-payne/