Category Archives: The Writing Life

Time is Taken, Never Given

Motivation Nathan Barra The Writing Life 2 Comments

I work insane hours. I will often spend as many as thirty to forty hours at a time on the job. One hundred or more hour weeks are the norm, not the exception. Don’t pity me. I knew what I was getting into when I took this position. In fact when I was recruited for this opportunity, I chose it over four others for the challenge it brought me. My recruiter was honest with me, and to this day, I believe that I went into that choice with my eyes open. I knew that I was committing to a lifestyle, not just a job. Even still, my work leaves me with precious little time for my two life goals.

First, I want to be an amazing father.

Next, I want to be a professional writer.

That’s it. If all that is written on my tombstone is, “He was a damn good father and writer,” well, then it would all have been worth it.

One of the major challenges of my life is making time. I gave up on finding it years ago. I’ve come to realize, that no one will ever make me a good father, or a professional writer. If I’m going to have the time for either of those things, I need to take it. Because of that struggle, what free time I do have is precious. The greatest gift I can give my loved ones is a small piece of the time that I carved out for myself.

There are a thousand things that demand my attention. Sometimes, it is easy to let all the noise of the world overwhelm my two life goals.  My job, along with everyone else’s work, exists to further its own existence. We all come to work to make money for the company, and in turn, take some of those earnings back home with us. My job will never make me a professional writer.  That’s not what we do. Achieving that ambition will never help the company’s bottom line. Because of this, my work will never give me time to write. If I’m going to have that time, I must seize it.

No one will ever give you time. No matter how much my significant other, my friends or my family love me and want me to succeed, they will never be able to give me the time I need to write. Because they love me, they want to spend time with me. Truth is, I want to spend time with them too. But at some point, I need to write. The very best my loved ones can do is give me space. That gift is a gift of love. What I do with that space is up to me. Do I take a nap? Do I catch up on my reading or those television shows I have been neglecting? Do I stare into the depths of my navel and think about writing?

Or do I work? Do I take that gift of love, that gift of space, and use it to make something?

In the end, one piece of advice that I can pass on from my own struggles is this: seize your dreams. No one will seize them for you. Even if they were so inclined, in so doing, they would be rendered meaningless. It is in the struggle that accomplishment translates into meaning.

Only The Best – A Challenge

Craft & Skills Frank Morin Motivation 2 Comments

This month we’ve had a lot of great posts with tons of concrete advice on how to break through a wall or break out of a plateau where we might be stuck.  But what about life in general?  Do we ever feel stuck, unmotivated?

Breaking out of those ruts can be harder than overcoming writer’s block.  One of the keys is to try to identify what motivates us.  What makes us smile or laugh or cry, helps renew our enthusiasm, or drive?

Something that dives deep, strikes a chord, resonates with our deepest held beliefs.  Something that inspires hope or love.

The bestThe greatest books and movies are those that touch such a chord, that drive us to tears when they connect with our reality.  Think Rocky, Gone With The Wind, Titanic, and It’s a Wonderful Life.  Think The Help, or Pride and Prejudice.

It might be a romance, like An Affair To Remember, or it might be a heroic drama like The Dirty Dozen (I love the scene in Sleepless in Seattle where the men and women get emotional over these two different films – watch the clip here).

Whatever the story, the truth is someone put together the right sequence to touch your heart deeply.  Those kind of stories can inspire us to be better people, help us break out of an unproductive rut, or change our lives at a fundamental level.  That’s one of the reasons I love good stories so much, and why I work so hard to write them.

I want to try an experiment.  What is one movie or book that touched you in a deep, meaningful way?  It’s useless to put together a top 50 best books or best movies of all times because different stories touch different people.  It’s too subjective.  But each one of us has a personal list.

So what book or movie moved you the most?

It’s all too easy to find works that speak to me.  When I read a book or watch a movie, I deep dive.  I get sucked in completely.  For me it’s a vivid, powerful experience, and so I find myself responding emotionally all the time.  Whenever the hero faces the ultimate test and risks all to achieve their goal, I find myself choking up and responding to the stakes that they’re feeling because I feel them too.

In movies, I get sucked in almost too easy.  From Wreck-It Ralph to The Avengers to October Sky, I’m fighting tears at the end of all of them.  In books, most of my favorite authors trigger a powerful emotional response.  From Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson to Hard Magic by Larry Correia to The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.

But even so, some works stand out and make a deeper impact.  In books, both Enders Game by Orson Scott Card and The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson impacted me greatly with their fantastic twists at the ends.  But one of the stories that I found even more powerful was The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson.  Kal, one of the main characters, pushes himself to the utter brink to save others, and that heroism demands a reaction from any reader.

In movies, a couple of my all-time favorites are Star Wars and Avatar.  But I was also powerfully moved by The Shawshank Redemption and Remember the Titans.

There are many others, but that’s enough for today.  This is not an easy question, but taking the time to find an answer can give you a clue as to what motivates you, what themes or qualities you respond to.  In life, perhaps you’ve just identified qualities you want to emulate more every day.  In writing, perhaps you’ve just identified what element you need to add to our own work to make it really shine.

Please add your comments, and then share the challenge with friends on Facebook or Google+ or whatever other media you use to connect.  See if they’re willing to share an example too.

I think we’ll find some common themes, and a few surprises.

Let’s find out.

Serendipity is a Weird Mistress

Ace Jordyn Craft & Skills Editing Rewriting Self-Awareness The Writing Life The Writing Process Writing Tools No Comments

Serendipity really is a weird mistress. I mean, I’d been wondering for months what I could do to take my writing to the next level. I’ve edited an anthology, I’ve published and yet I found myself feeling absolutely stuck. A mentor was what I wanted – someone to show me how I could improve. But where are they? All the really good writers I know are writing and publishing with little time to spare. My critique groups (I love every writer in them) felt predictable. Plus, I couldn’t afford to go on an expensive training session. So where could I get the injection of awareness and learning to improve my craft?

When Serendipity cast her hand, I was elated for my help came in three ways:

Psychotherapy for writers and their characters
Maass-Writing-21st-Century-Fiction-coverBased on his latest book Writing the 21st Century Fiction: High Impact Techniques for Exceptional Storytelling, Donald Maass’s one day workshop focused on making writing deeper, more meaningful, more palpable and more energized. It was psychotherapy for the writer and story characters. Here are two examples of the exercises he had us do. If you answer them honestly, then it creates an opportunity to take your writing to the next level because the core of who you are becomes the core of your characters and that’s what readers find interesting.

Example #1 What can’t I say in my story (what is it I fear writing about)? When does my protagonist fear the very thing I’m not saying? When does my protagonist become me?

Example #2 What makes me blissfully happy? How is it different for me than for anybody else? When in my story will the protagonist experience the same bliss?

Example #3 What feeling was new to me in the last year? When in the story will my protagonist experience this same new feeling? What happens that stirs this new feeling?

An awesome revision checklist
My imagination is boundless – I have five first draft novels on my desk waiting for revision. Yet the very idea mortified me – if I’m writing at a certain level, how do I know what to look for? How do I make my story better? When I attended FictionWriterCoverWeb-190x300Nina Munteanu’s one hour presentation on revision at the When Words Collide Conference the pieces to the puzzle fell together and now revising is totally fun!

I was elated to discover that I had many of the skills and resources I needed to revise. What I lacked was structure for the task. Revising, I learned, is a ten step process. The second step, Dig Deep, is the most exciting for it gives permission to restructure and change things to make the story better. For example, I had been toying with changing the gender of a main character but was unsure. Then, Nina said it was okay. Bingo! When I did it, I discovered that I hadn’t made the original character as strong and unique as I thought – there were trite mannerisms and stereotypical reactions I had subconsciously written. Why should a female wail and a male not? Or did I want either of them wailing? Was that the reaction I wanted? Of course not! Out with the stereotypes, in with more concrete characters and writing. It’s given me a whole new perspective as I examine all my characters.

The other helpful thing about the book is that Nina has a good succinct information on things important to telling a good story such as an overview of the hero’s journey, using the metaphor, getting sensual, the Zen of passionate writing and more. Simply and succinctly written, The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now is an excellent resource which has helped me get my writing to the next level. Simply written (I don’t have the patience for long dissertations), it makes its points quickly on essential things such as the hero’s journey, using the metaphor, getting sensual, the Zen of passionate writing and more. Nina will be our guest next week, so be sure to join us then.

Learning from each other
computer 2Many writer friends, including some in my critique groups, also attended sessions, took workshops or did cool things like attend Odyssey for six weeks. Now, we have some truly interesting discussions, brainstorming sessions and meaningful critiques. I learned that the mentors I sought weren’t some magical gurus from best seller lists (although I wouldn’t turn one of those down!). They’re local writers who continue to learn and grow. Because we each pick up on different things, we can see issues in each other’s writing that the writer cannot. The importance of having a learning, supportive group becomes evident when you read a novel’s acknowledgement page. Great mid-list and best seller authors credit numerous people for everything from technical information to proof reading and editorial advice. We all need a community to help us get to the next level.

So yeah, taking my writing to the next level was as simple as 1,2,3: psychotherapy, a revision checklist, and having a community of good supportive writers who have the same aspirations. Serendipity provided me the tools I needed to grow as a writer – I  just needed to take advantage of them when they presented themselves. I’m really glad I did.

Happy writing!

 

It Doesn’t Happen in a Straight Line

Conventions Evan Braun Motivation Publishing Reading Submissions The Writing Life 3 Comments

 

Not a straight line.
Not a straight line.

Progress rarely happens in a straight line. It isn’t steady. It isn’t stable. Rather, it happens in fits and starts. When you’re trying to lose weight, you plateau for long periods of time. Sometimes it’s hard to understand why those plateaus happen; if you’re doing the same thing that helped drop you from 220 pounds to 200, shouldn’t the same strategy drop you from 200 to 180? The answer is no. And the reason? It’s complicated.

Technology works the same way. For the longest time—thousands and thousands of years—humanity’s technological level remained static. Then came the renaissance! Followed by more static. Then came the industrial revolution, and in the blink of an eye we’re planning manned missions to Mars and walking around with internet-connected sunglasses controlled by rapid eye movement. Or something. I’m really not clear on the details.

Similar arguments could be made for any kind of long-term change—civil rights, human evolution, writing careers… Wait, go back. Writing careers? Well, this one should be obvious. You start writing those first words, full of excitement and promise, and then you hit your very first murky middle. Or maybe you make it past the middle but can’t stick the landing. Maybe you finish your first book easily, and maybe your second, too. No matter how long your roll lasts, I promise you this: it won’t last forever. You will plateau. And not just once, but many times. When these come along, they can be incredibly stifling. If you give in, you may never recover. You gotta show some tenacity.

The most successful people in any field or occupation are those who get to plateaus, realize they’re on a plateau, scope out ways to move on, and then take the next step. I realize how glib that sounds, but it’s basically the truth.

Instead of talking in abstractions, let me tell you about my plateaus. I’ve faced a couple of big ones.

In 1988, I decided I wanted to be a writer, so I began to write short stories. A lot of reputable genre writers recommend starting with short stories, so I was in good company right from the start. Still, I don’t think they meant these short stories; I was five years old, and they contained by own not-quite-in-the-lines crayon illustrations. My most successful literary achievement of this period was my breakout hit, Darryl Gets His Glasses. For the record, Darryl was a giant orange dinosaur of unknown genus. This was a real tour de force; those second-grade girls were weeping in the corners when I read it aloud following afternoon recess.

But those stories only took me so far. Sure, I had my fans, but my career was beginning to stagnate. I wrote and wrote and read and read, and you know what? I noticed that the biggest names in publishing weren’t getting famous off handwritten stories in primary school notebooks. After some serious soul-searching, I decided to take a bold step into the brave new world of fan fiction.

These were heady years, when words didn’t have to be good; they just had to exist. (Which was fantastic practice, by the way.) My fan fic quickly took the form of full-length novels. I wrote a couple of them, two in two years… and then rested on my laurels. I had done it! I was a writer. Welcome to Plateau #2.

By 1995, I was certain of one thing: my books were certainly as good as their professionally published counterparts (they weren’t). This false confidence led me to take the next step: investigate how to submit my fledgling literary Picassos to the big leagues. This was a critical step in mine and any writer’s development, and from it I learned I wasn’t as good as I thought I was. Oh yes, I was slapped down good and hard. It turned out my friends and family had lied to me about my wunderkind status, those sons of bitches. It turned out there were actual skills to pick up beyond just writing down whatever came to my head in the moment. Plateau #3.

I took better English courses, I read how-to-write books, I broadened my reading selections. When high school concluded, I went for a communications degree. This made me much better and I started to convince myself again that a writing career was possible.

And yet this was the longest and most tangled plateau of all. It was almost seven years between my last high school offerings and my first serious foray back into novel-writing. I got a lot of education, sure, but that didn’t seem to be enough. Indeed, I was trying to get ahead by following the same strategies as before—and those strategies were no longer as effective as they had once been.

The way forward this time was in meeting other writers, becoming part of a community of like-minded individuals, partnering with other people who shared my goals and aspirations. I found those at conventions and seminars. People and support structures, rather than skill alone, showed me how to get to the next level. That process started in 2010 and inspired me to get back down to business. I’ve written a half-dozen novels since then.

But you can never climb for long before reaching another plateau, as I have learned. Allow me to let you in on a little secret: I’m actually on a plateau again right now. My novels have gotten better, my support structures are stronger than ever, but I’m still not raking in the big bucks. Where are the shiny contracts? Where are my stacks of hardcover new releases?

Well, I’m working on that. Stay tuned!