Posts Tagged ‘writing advice’
I’m on day four of Book in a Week, and my brain feels like it’s been put through a juicer. But it isn’t the writing that’s taking its toll, it’s the other stuff.
The stuff I keep telling myself I shouldn’t be doing.
Like editing.
Or avoiding.
Or fixing.
Or scrapping.
Book in a Week is all about dumping. You start typing and you DO. NOT. STOP. And at the end of the week, BOOM! A book!
(OK, so maybe it’s a little more complex than that. But you get the idea.)
In order to make my word goal (which I only managed to do on Monday so far), I’ve had to let go of a lot of stuff: timesuckers, like playing games online or watching TV reruns; friends I talk to on the phone every day; food that can’t be microwaved; books I want to read; even the cats are feeling the pinch, since they’re used to the Human Belly-Rubbing Machine being on call 24/7.
And on top of all that ‘real’ stuff, I had to get rid of some of the ‘fake’ stuff, too.
Like fear.
And insecurity.
And frustration.
And self-pity.
It wasn’t easy, but it had to be done, because after the norepinephrine wears off, you really only have enough energy left to focus on one or the other: writing or making excuses why you can’t write.
It’s your choice to make. Which would you rather be known for?
When it comes to writing, there’s one rule I try very hard not to break, and that’s the rule about the ice weasels.
What is an ice weasel, you ask? Here, I’ll tell you.
Or better yet, I’ll let Meg Cabot tell you:
“…when you ‘have the weasels’ or are ‘weaseling,’ it means you’re worrying about things like ‘Why Did I Say That Bad Word In Front of My Grandma at Brunch Last Week?’ or ‘Should I Have Held Onto the Film Rights to That Book?’”
You know how sometimes you only think about certain things because you’re trying so hard to NOT think about them? Those are ice weasels.
And they totally suck.
Which is why every time I send something out for submission, I make sure I don’t read it again until I’ve heard back, that way I’m not weaseling for however long it takes for whoever-it-is to get back to me.
Instead, I move on to something new. Something weasel-free. Something I can send out on submission and then forget about. Otherwise, I would be so worried about potentially looking stupid that I would never write more than 3 pages of anything ever again.
(Those of you who never get past page 3 because by that point you think you look stupid know I’m telling the truth.)
It’s a rule that’s served me well for many years. Until last week, when I broke it.
And now I’m weaseling like you would not believe.
Fortunately, ice weasels will usually go away if you give them something else to gnaw at.
For example, whenever I cringe at the scene where Frank uses his cell phone as a flashlight (which is admittedly lame, even though I do it a lot), all I have to do is remind myself that just because I think it’s stupid doesn’t mean everyone else will. And besides, it’s not as stupid as when I wrote the book about the girl werewolf who did not like to get wet:
“I do not mean to be ungreatful but fear I must go before the rain falls,” Mayrnagh said as she looked grimly toward the mouth of the wide open cave.
“Yes child, if you must.” said Wolfguard understandingly in his nature. “For I know you do not like to get wet.”
In my defense, I was thirteen years old when I wrote that. Unlike when I wrote this gem, after having read Ben Bova’s MARS:
Do not fear me, for I am from the planet MALIFON…
Do I even need to complete that sentence? I DID NOT THINK SO.
Here’s another doozie:
Doug was sitting at his desk, drinking expensive whiskey out of a glass made of elaborate crystal. It had come in a set of four, along with a longneck decanter and a complimentary bottle of Crown Royal. He was halfway through the bottle when Rupert knocked on his office door.
“Go away,” Doug slurred, his motor functions slowed by his recent intake of high quality alcohol.
“It’s me man,” Rupert said. “Don’t make me break the door down or I will.”
All of a sudden, using a cell phone as a flashlight doesn’t look so stupid anymore. At least, not compared to all of the OTHER stupid things I’ve written.
Because the thing is, if you embarrass yourself enough, eventually you won’t be embarrassed anymore. I learned that the hard way, when I was sixteen and lost my shirt in front of a gymnasium full of people.
And that’s a story you will NOT get to hear.
My office is a wreck and I realize now I’ve bitten off more than I can chew with this effing drywall, so … while I get back to it, here’s a re-post of something I wrote years ago:
Jinky’s Tips on Writing Well (or at least on writing better-ish)
Recently, I’ve been having a lot of conversations with people who want advice on writing. This amazes me, because though I do write for a living, I’m hardly qualified to give advice on the matter. I’m a high school drop out from Tennessee, for Pete’s sake. The last English teacher I had believed in the Rule of Wagon: If you can’t pronounce a word, replace it with “wagon” and move on. Why? Because nine times out of ten, he didn’t know what the word meant, either.
So instead of posting a bunch of nonsense about the “right” way to write–since there is no such thing–I’m going to post a bunch of nonsense on how I do it, and leave everyone else to work out their own kinks. Here goes:
Write what you want, and cut it in half. A book (or an article, or an essay) should tell a story in as few words as possible. Sarah’s hair might be the color of sunset on a fresh autumn day, but who cares? She’s blonde. Move on.
Get in there! Sometimes detachment is a good thing. But unless you’re trying to convey it to the reader, it’s pointless. You are the judge, jury, and executioner. If you say something happened, by God, it happened. So don’t leave it up to debate.
GOOD EXAMPLE: The man stepped out of the car.
BAD EXAMPLE: Sarah saw the man step out of the car.
Your protagonist should always be smack-dab in the middle of the conflict, whether she realizes it or not. She should never appear to be watching from the sidelines unless there’s a damn good reason for it.
(And FYI, there’s never a damn good reason for it.)
Know your characters. Know who they are, what they look like, and where they come from. Know their quirks, annoyances, and turn-ons. Know the kind of milk they buy, their favorite flavor of ice cream, and whether or not they’re allergic to bees. Chances are none of that stuff will ever come up. But in case it does, you won’t spend half a day debating over whether or not Sarah can eat clams without her tongue swelling up.
Plot a course. Your story should be a sight-seeing adventure. Know your destination, and take your time in getting there. Make some stops along the way. Throw in subplots, speed bumps, and oodles of conflict. Keep notes, timelines, and post a storyboard above your monitor. Write an outline. It’s pretty hard to get writer’s block when you’re following your own Idiot’s Guide.
Fuck formatting. It’s the computer age. No one gives a shit if you write in 12 pt. Times New Roman, double-spaced, with a one-inch margin on all sides. Seriously. If writing in a purple Comic Sans font gets your groove on, then by all means, have at it. No one will ever know.
(Edited to clarify: the above applies to writing and editing, NOT for submitting.)
Remember the rules. Know the basics. Questions end with question marks. Capitalize the first letter of a sentence. If a paragraph takes up four pages, it’s too friggin’ long.
Break the rules. Be creative with dialect, sentence structure, and punctuation. Find your style, and stick with it. Don’t worry about what your English teacher from ten years ago told you about how many sentences a paragraph should contain. Trust your inner editor and go with the flow.
Make it snappy. I’m not going to wait around some ninety-whatever pages for something to happen. You’ve got two pages. That’s it. Introduce me to the main character, show me a little conflict, and give me some dialogue. Otherwise, you’re going right back on the shelf, and my money’s going elsewhere. So get to the point, and do it quickly.
All first drafts are shit. Don’t toil over a word or a sentence or a paragraph. Write it all down, and edit it later. And then when you’re done, edit it again.
Lie, and lie well. It’s not enough to tell a good story. You have to tell a good story, and make people believe it. The page is your best friend, your therapist, your life coach, and your priest. Tell it things you would never tell anyone else. The secret to a well-spun fabrication is to make it eighty percent truth.
Read what you write. Read what you don’t. Read everything. Reading and writing go hand in hand. If you’re a writer and you’re not reading, you don’t have what you need to do your job. Simple as that.
Write what you read. Don’t cater to a certain genre (like Chick Lit or Mystery) because it’s selling well, or because you want to be the next [insert favorite author's name here]. Chances are, it’s not going to happen. Which brings me to . . .
Don’t compare yourself to others. Not your friends, your family, your arch-nemesis from high school, and definitely (this is very important) not other writers. Find whatever it is that works for you and embrace it, polish it, make it your thing.
Don’t underestimate your readers. We’re smarter than you. If you know a word, probably we do, too. And if we don’t, we can look it up. We readers don’t need much hand-holding. Give us the structure and we’ll fill in the rest.
And with all that said, don’t feel compelled to agree with every little thing a writer says about writing, especially this writer. What’s good for the goose isn’t necessarily good for the gander, and to be quite honest, half the time I think we’re all full of shit, anyway.
