Tag Archives: Writing

Everyday living for most people can be compared all-too-easily to what drought means for farmers, what the dry seasons meant to American Indians. It’s a barren time full of silence and waiting and subtle, fatalistic dread that nothing is going to happen, that life will wither and perhaps even die. And it’s that need for green, for life and living, which brings comfort and joy and the heights of emotional salvation when the rains finally come. One could make the argument that we read drama and fantasy and horror because we have an inherent, hard-wired need for emotional input—a need for rain.

That’s a writer’s job, at least some of the time. We must don the doe’s skull and bright feathers. We must clothe ourselves in tanned hides and wrap bone rattles about our wrists and ankles. We must dance, sprouting clouds of dust as we stomp our feet and we sweat upon the hard-baked clay of everyday life.

It’s our job.

One of the hardest things writers have to live with is the uncertainty that their dancing has brought rain, sprinkled or poured a little bit of life into a reader’s existence. The truth is that most writers, especially at the beginning of their careers, never find out if their dancing has borne precipitation. There is this gulf—a fundamental disconnect—between writer and reader, one that leaves writers with cracked lips and dusty throats.

I recently had two experiences—more milestones in my career—which gave me tangible evidence that my own dancing was not in vain. Last fall I submitted a short story called Family Heirloom to the magazine Steampunk Trials. It’s a steampunk take on the Underground Railroad where a white widow and a freed slave build an Underwater Railroad in Missouri.

Included in the acceptance email was a very simple accolade, and one I’ll never forget. The story had brought tears the editor to eyes. When I wrote that story, it was with the absolute intention of touching, playing upon the heartstrings of the reader. I intended to bring forth the emotions of suffering and sacrifice, highlight the resolve of an individual to carry on and enrich the lives of the next generation in spite of tragedy.

Because of that first editor’s response, I chose Family Heirloom as the lead in a short story collection of mine that came out this summer. It’s not a best-seller in no small part because it contains cross-genre short stories, which is really a double-whammy against people even looking at it, let alone buying it. And yet, in spite of its uphill battle to gain recognition, I recently received another bit of rain. One of the reviewers up on Amazon said the same thing as the editor: that the story had brought tears to his or her eyes, and that other stories in that volume also had profound emotional effects. A reader took the time to let me—and the world—know that there was rain to be found between those pages.

For a writer, there’s nothing better than that.

So, to all the writers who read this, I can say but one thing: keep dancing. And to every reader, for all the rain you have been given by authors, give them some back. Give them the rain they need in the form of emails and reviews and word-of-mouth praise for the rain that has sustained you.

Drought is a fact of life, but we all possess the means by which we can bring rain to those who need it.

Forming the Fictorians

July 2, 2014

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When I went to the first Superstars Writing Seminar in Pasadena back in March of 2010, I thought I was going to get some sound business advice from successful writers – and I did. In spades. I had many expectations which were all exceeded by lengths of football fields. I also thought I’d meet people and make some nice acquaintances – wrong. So very wrong. I made friends. Lifelong friends and writing peers and a writing family we now call The Fictorians.

I remember clearly one night in Pasadena, we were walking back to the hotel after a night of food and beer at a local pub. I was talking with Kevin J. Anderson and I was saying that the group of him, Rebecca Moesta, Dave Farland/Wolverton, Brandon Sanderson and Eric Flint reminded me of the Oxford group that met regularly to talk writing which included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. I asked how a group like that formed because it seemed to enhance everyone’s writing and careers.

Kevin said, “Look around.”

I did and what I saw were all the people who I’d been hanging with at every break and meal. The ones who’d gravitated together and felt a connection. I saw people I liked, respected and thought had awesome ideas they were working on in their writing. I saw people like me. People who wanted to be writers, took their writing seriously and were taking steps to succeed in this cool and difficult profession.

When I looked back at him, he said (and I paraphrase), “You’re doing it. Right now. With these people. This is how groups like that are formed.”

We left that seminar, with emails in hand and a goal to stay connected. We live all over the world. We write in different genres. Some of us have met in person again in Las Vegas for one of ours to renew her vows to her lovely husband. We’ve seen each other at other Superstar Seminars since the first one. We have conference calls and stay connected via email and social media. We have areas of expertise that the others can tap into with a simple request. We’re friends and peers.

I have one other writing group that I feel this way about, and I value those friends as well.

So, when someone asks me what is a moment that makes me love being a writer, I think of my friends and fellow writers. The people who support me and keep me motivated. Who inspire me. Who share a dream with me. These are people who keep me going when times are hard.

Because I’m a romance writer, I use the ‘L’ word a lot and I’m going to use it now. These are people I love for all they give me and pull out of me and share with me.

It’s four years later, and Kevin was right. We’ve become one of those groups. We’ve been through bumps and growing pains. People leave the core but remain on the peripheral, some return, some never left, but we’re still together, doing what we love and supporting each other. We are the Fictorians. And I think we’re Fictorious!

Wrapping Up June and Our Summer Sanity

June 30, 2014

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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.

The Tricky Art of Goal Setting

June 18, 2014

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A guest post by James Wharton.

2148. That’s the number of words I wrote yesterday. If I can do that every day for a week—let’s see, that’s 15,036 words. If I do that four weeks in a row, that’s 60,144 words, almost enough for a novel. So there you have it, a short course in how to set goals.

The catch is I neglected to tell you I only wrote 300 words the day before. And the day before that, I produced only 100 or so words. So what is the total word count for the last three days? 2548. That equates to 849 words per day. That’s still a lot, or is it? How many words should I write every day? And, oh by the way, how many will I write today since I have what I refer to as a “work hangover,” a yucky, listless, energy-devoid state from working too hard the previous day. Of course, I must write this article as I committed to a deadline, but usually, one of those “days after” means I will get little to nothing written that day. You see the problem. In four days, I will have written at a rate of 637 words per day. Is that enough?

So what should I have done? How many words should I write a day? How many days a week should I write? How many books per year should I produce? Welcome to the tricky world of goal setting. It is world many of us inhabit. We must complete X-number of tasks by a certain time, get so many sales each month, drive so many miles per day and so on. For most of our lives, we are in some sort of goal-based environment.

Several years ago I participated in NaNoWriMo, the quest to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. I did it. I learned that I could indeed write that many words, but also learned that is not the way I want to write. Yes, it was grueling but fun, and I felt good about hitting the 50,000 word goal, but not so proud of what I produced. I spent the next eight months completely re-writing it. Out of that exercise came The Destiny Project, the novel that is my best-seller.

Depending on who you listen to, it seems that the general consensus is that 1500 words a day is a respectable amount. Of course that comes with a ton of provisos. Stephen King may write 15,000 words a day or more for all I know. John Banville, one of my favorite authors, says he writes 1500 words per day on his Benjamin Black series, however, not nearly as many on his regular novels. If you’ve ever read a Banville novel, you know better than to sit down and get comfortable without a dictionary at your side. His regular novels are truly works of art and I can’t imagine Banville crafting such a book without many hours laboring over the dictionary and thesaurus. I have no idea how many words per day he grinds out on one those masterpieces, but I can’t imagine it is more than a few hundred.

Stephen King seems to have the ability to write spontaneously without the need for a lot of re-writes, but in view of his mammoth size books, I can’t believe he works anywhere near as hard as I must to produce half or probably even less the number of words he does. And there’s another proviso to the 1500 word per day goal. 1500 words is a gross amount. It’s what you put down before you revise, rewrite, delete paragraphs or pages, etc. etc. Personally, I do a lot of rewrites and revisions. Every time I re-read my draft, I find things I need to change or could have written better. Although my publisher did edit my two published books, I don’t use an editor on my self-published books because of the prohibitive cost. But let me tell you, editing your own work is difficult if not impossible.

The point is, after the revising, rewriting and editing is completed, your net words per day will drop dramatically, perhaps to only a few hundred.

Another proviso is the amount of uninterrupted private time you devote to writing. Writing is a time-intensive, energy demanding, solitary activity. Do you have a space where you write? Do you have a regular time when you write? I am fortunate to have a studio where I can cut off the world and its noises and other interruptions. Whatever you may have available, make it as “private” as possible and write at a regular time on writing days. Interruptions dramatically impact your productivity.

Another proviso is how far along you are in the writing experience. That also impacts your productivity. Your ability and speed will differ substantially if you’ve written fifty thousand words, two hundred and fifty thousand words, or a million words.

When I write a novel, I set my goal at 1500 words per day and 5 days per week. Obviously, from my opening paragraph, I don’t necessarily achieve that goal every day or week. But I consider it a good day if I produce 1500 words that, while still needing revision and editing, are probably solid enough to work as part of the book. That doesn’t mean they absolutely will. I’ve cut complete sections (1500 or more words) many times. It’s not right until it’s right, and you can only hope the reader will feel that way too.

The bottom line is that writing is a creative process and setting an absolute word per day goal, (the best measure of productivity) is probably impossible. That is why goal setting with writing is an art, not a science. So here is what I suggest:

Have a specific place to write-one that is quiet and where you won’t be interrupted for a reasonable span of time. And turn off the cell phone.
Set a daily word per day goal that is reasonable (achievable) for you. Decide how many days a week can you will work? Five days a week may or may not be realistic, but that is the number I use. That goal should be a comfortable number dependent on how well and how fast you write and what you feel works for you. This is a gross number as you will need to revise, rewrite and do a final edit later. The important point is to be faithful to your words per day and work days per week goals. If you don’t reach the words per day goal today, don’t try to do more tomorrow to catch up with your overall five day goal.
Set a time for completion of your overall project. I find that my novels generally take a year to write (Approximately 75,000-85,000 words.) Obviously I don’t achieve a gross word per day goal of 1500 words per day. Life has its interruptions. I began writing The Destiny Project II early last year when my mother became seriously ill. I spent a lot of time visiting her out of state and her illness was so disruptive I couldn’t go on with writing that particular book. (I am again working on it.) However, I began writing another book to fill my idle hours. Out of that came Delirium, my newest novel.

Life and disruptions happen, but always stay focused on achieving your daily and weekly writing goals. Execution is the most important part of goal setting—SO DO IT!!

The main thing about writing is to have as much fun as you can and work at a pace that is comfortable and pleasant. Set your word per day and days per week goals and then a completion date for your project. Above all, adhere to a regular schedule and then judge your performance. How many words did I write this week? My goal was 1,000 words per day at five days per week. Did I write 5,000 gross words this week? Did I write 20,000 gross words this month?

After several months working your established schedule, you will have structure and discipline and be able to predict when your project will be complete–assuming no outside interference.

James Wharton’s Bio:
James Wharton is a full time writer with two published and eight self-published books. His most recent novel, Delirium, was published in February and his coming novel, The Destiny Project II, is due out in the Fall of 2014.

Web site: jameswharton.net

Email: jameswharton1@aol.com