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Thoughts on Writing

July 19, 2010

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I don't believe that reading books on writing are as helpful to becoming a better writer as just plain butt-in-chair writing. Writing books do have their uses, though, especially if you're investigating a particular point of technique, or if you need help in putting your finger on something that you know you're not quite doing right. Writing books may also give you the occasional "a-ha" moment when you recognize or discover the name for a technique you use (or you've seen used by other writers).

Recently I was reading "Revision," by Kit Reed, as I'm revising a novel draft and wanted some additional ideas on the subject. In her book, she discusses various styles of revision that authors use. She describes two kinds of writers--those who crank out a hasty draft that will require a thorough revision later and those writers who craft each sentence before going on to the next. In my mind, it seemed like the difference between an artist who makes a hasty sketch that will be painted over later, and a Swiss watchmaker assembling a timepiece step by step.

My "a-ha" moment came not long after, as I was working on a short story. I started at the top and began reading, adjusting a word here, a sentence there, until I got to the point where I had left off the day before. Only then did I start adding new material. That's when I realized I was one of Reed's "block construction" writers, one who fixes each sentence before going on to the next.

Knowing your writing style is a valuable piece of self-knowledge. Not only does it tell you how you go about the act of writing, it suggests ways you can improve your craft, which techniques might or might not work for you, even how fast it might take you to finish a piece you're working on. Next time you sit down to write, pay attention to how you go about your writing, and add that bit of information to your writer's toolkit.

May 22, 2010

Not long ago, I was sitting in an airport coffee shop and had some time to kill. Out of boredom I began writing all the ways I could think of to say "I bought a small, expensive cup of coffee." Within a minute or two, I had fifteen or twenty different sentences scribbled down. Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote over a hundred and fifty variations of "Your letter has delighted me very much," but my little game got me thinking about the flexibilty of the English language and the ways writers can vary their sentences.

Back home, I pulled out my copia of Erasmus' "Copia" and had a look at the methods he used to vary his sentences. It boiled down to three--vocabulary, metaphor and grammar. You could use an alternate word or you could substitute something else which evoked the meaning of the original. (ex. you could either say "cost a lot" for "expensive" or you could phrase it as "pay a king's ransom.") You could also vary the word order, which put stronger emphasis on differing words in the sentence.

Erasmus wrote in Latin, but all three of these methods are also available in English. Vocabulary can be built by reading the dictionary and by using a thesaurus. Metaphor can be improved by reading the section about metaphors in Aristotle's "Rhetoric" and by broadening your reading to give you a greater stock from which to choose. Grammar can be improved by study and above all, practice.

So if you have a few spare minutes and have nothing more pressing, consider picking a sentence and writing as many variations on it as you can think of in a set period of time. Like playing scales on a piano, it's a harmless exercise that may make your verbal fingers that much more flexible.

April 8, 2010

Writers are very interested in contracts--what rights am I giving up for how long and how much money am I getting in return? That's part of the business of writing. However, we writers often forget that a publishing contract is only one of two that are required for any story. The other (and just as important) is the contract we make with our readers.

As a writer, we agree that in exchange for their money and their time, we will give the reader a story and all that entails: characters they care about; a well-rounded setting described with enough detail that there's no confusion as to what is where (and when); a plot that leaves the reader satisfied at the end and which flows from the character's motivation and choices; prose that's as beautiful and as clean and as clear as we can make it with no needless lumps of exposition. We agree to do our best to give the reader a story that, even if they later say it wasn't quite up their alley, they read all the way to the end just to see how it turns out. And if we're really lucky, we give them something that makes them say, "Now that was a story!"

None of the above are easy things to do, but if we want to be professionals, we're honor-bound to do the best we can to fulfill our end of the contract with the reader. Succeed in that, and the other contract will take care of itself.

March 4, 2010

All writers wish they were more productive; even those who seem to be able to sit down and effortlessly punch out a few thousand words a day. With all the distractions of the modern world--e-mail, cell phones, the endless stream of media and websites--it seems ever harder to get tasks done. But at the core of every current productivity fad are two core truths, both of which are ancient. They are concentration and industry.

Scientists have shown that humans are ineffective multi-taskers. While we think we can do more than one thing at a time, the reality is that we end up doing worse at both. You're actually more efficient if you concentrate your efforts on just one thing, letting no distractions turn you from the work at hand. So when you write, write. Don't answer e-mail, or go get a cup of tea, or hop online to get a needed bit of information. Just write. Then when the task at hand is done (or you've hit your self-imposed time limit), turn your attentions--all of your attentions--to the next task at hand. You do A, then B, then C, then D. It's "serial monotasking," rather than multitasking, and the most effficient way to get things done.

The second secret of productivity is industry; that is, to always be doing something, to always be moving the ball just a yard or two down field. In the case of writers, this means multiple open projects. When you tire of working on the novel, you can turn to the non-fiction piece on medieval siege engines; when you can't write any more about trebuchets, you can turn to the sonnet you were toying with. This is the secret of men highly productive men such as Johann von Goethe, who wrote the lines "Ohne Hast, Aber ohne Rast" [without haste, but without rest]. Always have something to do.

They're not trendy and are harder to put into practice than to simply write about, but these two ancient techniques--concentration and industry--are the secret to productivity not only in writing, but in life.

Every writer faces discouragement. The rejection letter; or worse yet, the black hole of no response at all. The bad review. The story that showed so much promise when you sat down, but which shrivels in the writing and dies on the vine. The request for a rewrite that in the end, doesn't get bought.

But a writer writes. There are many reasons--love of ideas; love of playing with this incredible, flexible thing called language; the endless, misplaced hope for wealth and fame--but it ultimately boils down to the fact that a writer writes because he has to. No amount of discouragement will stop him. He'd write even if no one saw it, even if (as often happens) no one paid him for it.

That isn't to say that a writer doesn't feel the sting of every rejection. The first one hurts, as does the one hundredth, as do they all. But a writer writes. He files the rejection, sends the piece on to the next magazine on his list, and gets back to putting words on paper.

And all writers hope to do well in their field. Like everyone else, they'll gladly be famous and wealthy given the choice. But a writer writes. He'll write even if he's never published, even if he never earns a cent. That's something out of his control; but being the best writer he can be is something he can achieve, so he tends to his craft and lets the chips fall where they may.

So when you feel discouraged, lonely (and writing is a very lonely business), get yourself a cup of coffee, sit down, put your fingers on the keyboard and remember--a writer writes.

August 07, 2009

Since Renaissance times, scholars would write down selections from books they'd read, quotations, their own thoughts, questions and opinions--anything they thought worth noting--into notebooks. It's called a commonplace book. Unlike a diary, a commonplace book records, not your daily life, but your thoughts.

Creativeideas are as ephemeral as butterflies, and need to be written down right as soon as possible. As writers we're all supposed to carry a pen and paper with us at all times, but who among us hasn't run out to the store for just a second without them, had a great idea that we were sure we'd remember and even worked to fix in our minds, only to draw a complete blank when we finally get home? You can't catch butterflies without a net; nor can you catch ideas without some way of getting them down on paper.

And what's good in the short-term is also good long-term. As writers, we should have some place to put our literary scraps--disconnected character descriptions, neat scenes to write someday, a quotation we've just thought up, a bit of scenery that we thought was well-described, the outline of some short-story or essay. It helps to categorize these odds and ends, but at a minimum we should have an "ideas" file into which pages ripped out of our pocket notebook can be dropped.

Commonplace books were more than decoration, they were tools. Scholars would use them to find some polished gem of a sentence they'd written, or a classical quote to support their argument, or to see how their line of questioning differed from some other writer. In the same way, we need to go through our idea file from time to time, as the best ideas are worthless if they're never see the light of day. And too, the creative ferment in the backs of our minds sometimes takes a while to finish. A six-month-old character description lines up with a plot from two years ago and an idea from last week, and suddenly you have a short story. That won't happen unless you've put your disconnected thoughts on paper as they occurred.

So ifyou haven't started writing your ideas down, get yourself a cheap pocket notebook and a mechanical pencil to put in your purse or pocket, and a couple of file folders lableled "characters," "plots," "settings" for your writing room. You never know just where that next novel or short story might come from.

April 17, 2009

If there's one theme I seem to come back to in this blog, it's the idea that as writers we should push ourselves and our own boundaries when we write--experimenting, falling down, getting back up again and trying some more--and that in all this kid-on-a-playground behavior, we should try to improve our weaknesses as writers.

I tend to write short. In practice that means many a sub-2500-word short story and novel drafts that have always clocked in at under 70 thousand words. This bothers me to no end. I see the rich, beautiful world- and character-building of other authors and despair. In my mind, my stories forever seem to be straight-forward plots happening in white rooms to vanilla characters.

So I'm currently experimenting with both the long and short ends of the writing spectrum, in the hopes that I'll eventually come back to a happier middle. At the short end, I thought I'd take my problem and chase it until it transforms from a vice to a virtue. I've spent time lately experimenting with flash fiction, trying to cram as much description and plot and characterization as I can into a thousand-word story. My goal is exquisite, diamond-bright stories that expand, liferaft-like, in the mind of the reader. In practicing flash fiction, I've been forced to work at the most basic level--that of the sentence. When each word counts, you have to make each word count. While I don't know if I'm succeeding, I'm having a lot of fun trying.

At the long end, I'm also plugging away on a novel with no plot. Or rather, one for which I've done no plotting. It's been an interesting, if sometimes frustrating, experience. My internal editor screams that I'm wasting time with false starts, un-pruned plotlines, horses changed mid-stream. "You're going to have to cut half that crap out anyway," it says. "So why bother putting it down at all?" At the same time, I've got to admit that it's fun sometimes to just puke words onto the page and see where it goes; the authorial equivalent of the map-less Sunday afternoon drive. I can't even tell you how many chapters the book will have; it'll be finished when it's finished.

End the end, I don't know whether going to both extremes will actually be of any benefit at all. But I don't believe there's such a thing as bad writing practice, so I've got nothing to lose by trying.

February 12, 2009

First off, I apologize for not updating this page in such a long while. The move to our new house went as well as these things do, and now my wife and I are settled in. The other day I was out on the street and saw shop where a lady was selling fake handbags. It got me thinking about copying versus "reverse engineering" and ways we can use our favorite authors to improve our writing.

When we start out writing we oftentimes--consciously or unconsciously--copy our favorite authors. "I'm going to be the next John Updike," we say, and sit down to craft a book he would've been proud to write himself. Instead, we end up with pale shadows that grow even fainter by the light of day. Copies rarely equal the original, simply because a no matter how hard we wish or try, no matter how much another author's writing moves us, we can never be that person. Time spent mimicing your favorite author would be better spent developing your own style.

However, we can still use our favorite authors to help us improve as writers by looking under the hood of their stories to see how they're constructed. Before writing the first of his "Sharpe" series of novels, Bernard Cornwell tore apart several of C.S. Forrester's Hornblower books to see what made them tick. Ben Franklin deconstructed then rewrote articles from the "Spectator" to improve his own writing. Especially in the realm of plotting, "reverse engineering" a work from your favorite author is not only educational, but entertaining; and you may find yourself enjoying the story just as much for how it's put together, as for the story itself.

November 26, 2008

If I've been silent the past few months, it's because my wife got a new job and we've been packing up and moving to a new town. Having to pull up stakes and move away from my critique group, other writers, and all the conventions I used to haunt--as well as finding new customers for my non-fiction work--got me thinking about connections when it comes to writing.

Aspiring writers often think that getting published is a matter of who you know. The answer is no and yes. The mere fact of knowing an editor (if they're truly professional) won't get you published, nor does being published once put you into the "in" crowd that will always be published ever after. However, if you've been submitting to a magazine, and you meet the editor, it does help them put a face with your name. Editors are human, too, and if there have to choose between two stories, they may go with the one from the nice man who told them what he liked about some of the stories in the past couple of issues. Or perhaps they may not. Like I said, knowing the editor is no guarantee of being published.

But one thing that will definitely not get you published is to be rude to an editor. Here the golden rule definitely applies. How would you like it if someone came up to you, thrusting a book manuscript in your face and asking for an overnight critique? Or slid it under the bathroom-stall divider in the hopes that you'd pick it up? Or told you that you were an idiot for not publishing what was obviously the most original (yet obviously misunderstood) piece of cat-vampire versus dog-zombie stories ever written? Any professional editor has a brace of these you-wouldn't-believe-it-but-it's-true stories. Editors are human, after all. Make them angry or upset and an editor will definitely remember your name--and not to your benefit.

The paradox of writing is that the writing itself is a solitary endeavor, but that getting published requires dealing with other people. The one can only be mastered by locking yourself away from other people in order to practice, practice, practice; while the other requires only the common courtesies of daily life. Yet this is exactly where many writers trip themselves up. Being polite and professional when meeting an editor may not get you published, but doing the opposite will certainly keep it from happening.

July 14, 2008

At the last meeting of my critique group, the topic of metaphors came up. Personally, I like metaphors, and so spent way too long talking about them to my long-suffering companions. But it got me thinking and reading, and I thought I'd share some of what I've learned.

As writers, we shouldalready know what a metaphor is and how to create one. So thequestion then becomes, "How do you create a strong metaphor?" The best way is to appeal to the senses, as Aristotle suggests in his "Rhetoric." For example -- "He bit into the pizza. Steaming-hot lava oozed out, searing the roof of his mouth." The senses make for immediate, strong impressions, so use them whenever possible in creating a metaphor.

The hardest part of creating a good metaphor is finding a proper object to substitute for the original one. "He leapt, a falling sack of flour, onto Wiggson's back," doesn't convey the same image as well as "He leapt, a snarling tiger, onto Wiggson's back." Aristotle suggests three methods for coming up with a proper metaphor--go from genus to species, species to genus, or by using analogy.

To call a battle "a duel of swords" is to go from genus to species--you're using a subset to represent a larger whole. The opposite is to say that Cupid's arrows are "love's armaments"--species to genus. Analogies are more difficult, since you have to define the original object--what it is and what it does--before you can go seeking something to replace it. Aristotle uses the example of Dionysus' cup and Ares' shield. They are both symbols, so if you call a cup the "shield of Dionysus," you've made a metaphor by analogy.

Aristotle admits that as prose writers, we have fewer resources to fall back on compared to poets, and therefore must pay careful attention to our metaphors. I agree. Metaphors are the gunpowder of writing--dangerous and destructive if roughly handled; potent and powerful if properly directed.

June 6, 2008

Last month I mentioned that I'd been studying books on style and composition. This has led me into an interesting byway in the study of English style--the Elizabethans. Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson, Spenser, Bacon, Lyly--great men who shaped the English language ever after. I've found studying the Elizabethans not just historically interesting, but a valuable vein of ore worth mining for the improvement of my writing. Here are a few nuggets.

The Elizabethan writers were communicators, men who had something they wanted to say, whether it was a theme expressed through a play or a letter designed to persuade the Privy Council. There was very little, if any, fiction for fiction's sake. While the world of the English language has changed, understanding the overall intent of your work, be it theme or purpose, still gives power and direction to your writing. Knowing what to say helps you know how to say it.

The Elizabethans revered the Greeks and Romans, and debated which Classical writing style to imitate. Some advocated the Ciceronian style, while others wanted to copy the style of Seneca. The Cicero/Seneca split was their version of our Faulkner/Hemingway argument. Cicero's style, full of convoluted and balanced clauses, and which gave great scope to fine turns of phrase, was the favorite of men such as Lyly. Men such as Bacon favored Seneca's clean, spare prose, which relied more on exact word choices and imagry for its effect. (Personally, I prefer the Senecan/Baconian/Hemingway style of writing, which is much harder to do well than it first appears.) Today's writers--especially fiction writers--need powerful images and exact word choices no less than their Elizabethan predecessors. So work to make your style spare, your imagry rich.

Theme and imagry gave direction and power to Elizabethan writing. They can do the same for you, if you're willing to practice. Good luck and good writing.

May 6, 2008

Has it really been that long that I've neglected this page? I've been busy with other things, honest.

I had a period where my muse suddenly decided to go off on a tangent. She started throwing out poetry, and of all things, essays. Some of which will never see the light of day; some of which I had to research new markets, and will hopefully be collecting rejection slips soon. Or if I'm real lucky, get published. Essentially, my muse dragged me into a completely new sphere, one where I've had to start over from square one when it comes to customs, proceedures, and markets.

She seems to have settled down some in the past week or so, and the fiction in me is returning. Though it's certainly not bad to learn an entirely new skill. Dean Koontz said that you should be a "writer" who writes anything, rather than being pigeonholed into one genre. I agree. Even if nothing comes from writing poetry, or essays, or recipe books, you've learned something that can't help but make you a better writer.

Over the past few weeks, while the muse was busy puking up essays, I spent a lot of time reading and studying books about style and composition. If nothing else, I feel it's made my prose writing simpler. I fall into the "subject, verb, object" style more than I used to. And because of the simplicity of this sentence style, I've had to make sure that the nouns and verbs have the impact that I'm after. I find myself choosing my words more carefully, and--hopefully for the reader--to better effect.

Several times in this blog, I've encouraged you to go out stretch yourself in new writing directions, always bringing home what you learn to your preferred style of writing. I've been taking some of my own medicine lately, and though it's been frustrating at times, it's also been beneficial.

February 20, 2008

It's well-known that a writer, if he wants to be a good one, needs to read outside his genre. Not only to gather background material from history or science books, but to see how other writers construct their stories and learn techniques that we can carry back to our own writing.

As valuable as reading outside your genre is writing outside it. Just as different exercises strengthen different muscles, writing different in genres strengthens different creative and writing abilities. Poetry teaches imagery, concise writing, and exacting word choice, Essays teach plotting, logical progression, and expression of thought. Every single one of the many mansions of writing has something to teach us if we're willing to experiment.

In addition to teaching us things specific to itself, writing in another genre helps keep the generic writing muscles exercised, and gives us something else to work on when the muse has abandoned us in other projects. Pieces in other genres can also be sold for additional writing income. While it's possible to have too many irons in the fire, you really should have more than one piece working at one time if you want to be prolific.

So pick a genre you've never written in before and give it a try. Write a sonnet, or a speech, or a short mystery. Stretch yourself, learn, and enjoy.

January 8, 2008

"Some things are up to us and others are not. Up to us are opinion, impulse, desire...not up to us are...property, reputation, office..."

--Epictetus

Writers write for many reasons. Some write only for themselves, others for family or friends. A certain percentage of writers write for publication. Those that do cast their bread upon the waters in the hopes that some editor will pay to show their darlings to the entire world.

But the fact of the matter is that if you submit stories for publication, there's no guarantee it will ever see the light of day. An editor may like your piece, but she's already bought a Martian zombie story for the next issue. Or you've sent a good, well-written story, but it just doesn't catch the editor's fancy. There are a myriad of reasons why a perfectly good story can collect rejection after rejection. To be brutally honest, getting published is outside the control of a writer. The same goes for becoming a rich and famous. These are driven by the whims of fashion and fate. Nevertheless, some writers spend a lot of their energy here--in rejectomancy and attempts to button-hole agents at conventions.

As writers, what then is within our control, and what should we focus on? First and foremost, our craft. With each and every piece, we should give our best effort, stretching ourselves as writers. Like an athlete, we should push ourselves as hard as we can and then some. This is the only way to grow, and this should be our real focus. We may not be able to control whether we'll become a published writer, but we can control whether we become a better writer.

So when you catch yourself becoming worried about making a sale or if you'll become the next Issac Asimov, focus instead on the piece you're currently writing. Hone your craft, and let the rest fall as it may.

December 27, 2007

New Year's is rapidly approaching, making this a good time to think about resolutions for the coming twelve months. As writers we often say, "I'll write more this year," or "I'm going to get that novel done." And just like resolutions to exercise more or eat less, they get followed for a couple of weeks, then peter out.

So how do we make sure that we keep our writing resolutions? First, we have to set a measurable goal. "Finishing that novel" is like "loose some weight," in that it's nebulous, and there's no way to measure success. Your goal must be exact. If you need five chapters to complete the first draft of your novel, and you want each chapter to be ten pages long, then you have fifty pages to write to achieve your goal. Once you have this measurable information, all you have to do is decide when you want to be finished, and divide by the number of days until then. This gives you a daily writing goal.

Once you have your daily goal, all you have to do is make sure you write--day in and day out. This is the hardest part, to be sure. Just like exercising, there's effort and pain, and sometimes even grunting and sweating, involved. You just have to screw up your courage to the sticking point, and write. There's simply no other way to get the job done.

Procrastination is great killer of goals, and something I personally struggle with. It's easy to keep yourself busy with other writing-related things while waiting for the "right" time to write. In fact, you can do it all day. The only solution I've found that works is to say "Hoc Age" and write, whether I want to or not. You have to be a master to your muse, not its slave. You have to write when you want to. Your muse will learn to listen to your call, even if you can only write in fifteen-minute blocks during the day.

So for 2008, set yourself a measurable writing goal, then sit down and write, and keep writing, until you meet it. Best wishes for the New Year.

November 29, 2007

It's been too long since I've written anything for this daybook/blog. Life intervenes sometimes. And some of the intervention was a contract job that had me working 11-hour days at times. After the commute home, I was so physically and mentally exhausted that I didn't write a word for almost a month.

But now that I've finished, and life is returning to its previous patterns, I find myself filled up again with words. The psychologist Carl Gustav Jung wrote in that artistic creativity could be considered as an autonomous neurotic complex. Artists are compelled to create, and have no choice in the matter.

Jung described two different flavors of artistic creativity. In one, the artist identifies himself with the creative process, and the work is intentionally crafted to produce the effects that the artist intended. I think of these types of artists as "craftsmen," who give in to the urge to create as soon as they feel it, and use conscious processes to guide it. (However, Jung warns that such an artist might just be deceiving himself that he has control over his "creative complex.")

The other kind of artist Jung mentions is one who does not identify with his urge to create--it is something external to him. His art "takes him over," and possesses him. Instead of creating a work, the work creates itself through him. This kind of artist tends to work in "bursts," exhausting themselves in an all-encompassing flood of creation. This Byronic-type individual seems to be what most people think about when they think "artist."

While Jung does say that no artist is wholy one type or the other, and that the same man may produce different works in different ways, in talking to other writers at conventions, it seems to me that the full-time, professional writers tend to be the craftsman type. They're plodders who deal with their creative urge on a day-to-day basis, rather than in periodic, exhausting bursts.

Many of these same writers insist that day-to-day writing is the key to success, and that this skill can be learned. But I wonder if they are they just naturally craftsman-types, or if they have learned to better control and direct their "creative complex." I hope it's the latter.

September 24, 2007

I've been reading a lot of Aristotle lately, and it got me thinking about his "unities" and how they apply to short stories. Tradition lists three--unity of action, place, and time. That is, the story should have only one main action, and few (if any) subplots; there should be only one location where the story happens; and that it should happen within a 24-hour period.

Now Aristotle was writing about Greek plays, rather than short stories, but let's see how well the unities fit. Unity of action is a central pillar of short stories. They tend to focus on one person/being, and with a 5000-word limit, there's no room, really, for sub-plots or lots of shifts in point of view. Short stories are supposed to be about "one person, one event, and it should be the most important thing in their life."

Unity of place is a bit harder fit. A very improtant part of Sci Fi and Fantasy are the sense of wonder in experiencing new worlds. However, Aristotle was concerned with actors on a stage, rather than words on the page. Sci-fi stories especially, often move from place to place, but in keeping with the idea of unity of action, we're always "in the presence" of the main character. In the same vein, exposition/background takes the reader away from the "presence" of the main character, and too much throws the reader out of the story entirely. Use the minimum exposition/background necessary to get the story across.

Unity of time, to me, is similar to unity of action. A short story should focus on one, and only one, event. Unless it impacts the critical event in the story, there's no need to even mention something that happened prior to the opening of the story. Flashbacks also break the unity of time in a story, and it's better to avoid them if you can. Far better to scatter the same information throughout the story via dialogue or the character's internal thoughts.

A perfect example of a Sci-Fi story that follows the three unities is Tom Godwin's "The Cold Equations." The story is told within the confines of one, small spaceship; the story begins and ends within a single day; and there are only three characters--the pilot, the young girl, and the laws of Nature.

If you're interested in reading more about Aristotle's unities, you can download his Poetics here.

September 12, 2007

We all know the romantic image--the young man bent over a table in a Parisian garret, churning out pages of Olympian prose while wasting away on Abisinthe and Consumption. The image is as wrong as it's romantic. The truth is that writers should get exercise--both physical and mental--every chance they get.

Writing is a sedentary activity, and it's easy to spend hours in front of the computer, not moving more than just your fingers. The body has a profound influence on the mind, however, and if you want to be at the top of your writing game, you need to be healthy in body. You don't have to be a marathoner to write, but make sure you get regular exercise. Some writers do yoga, some jog, others play tennis. (I take long walks, and recently started Tai Chi lessons.) Do something to get your blood flowing. Another thing that might help you stay in shape is to use an exercise ball instead of a chair when you write. The ball is unstable, and works your back and abdominal muscles while you're in front of the keyboard. I haven't had a backache since I switched.

Watch your weight and what you eat, too. Especially people who are "snackers," like me. It's easy to get just "a little bite to eat" when you get stuck in the middle of a page. But while that handful of peanuts might give you a moment to think about the next scene, if you're not exercising, it adds up to extra pounds right quick. Try not to snack while writing or if you can't help it, switch to something healthier like celery or carrot sticks.

Be careful about your drinking. Writing has its wrenching, soul-baring, depressing moments, and when they come, it's tempting to turn to the bottle for comfort. Don't. Alcohol has claimed many a writer. Don't be the next. Same goes for drugs.

It's just as important to get mental exercise as it is to be physically fit. Get up from your desk now and again, and go out into the world. People watch, take in a movie, go for a glider plane ride. Fill your mind with new things and new experiences. It's all raw material for your writing. Books are another source of mental exercise. Not only should you read fiction outside your genre, but cross the fiction/non-fiction line from time to time. The purpose of non-fiction is to convey information, and so requires a precise, clear writing style. Fiction plays upon the emotions, and so requires different writing tools. Learn how "the other half" writes--the more you know about writing in general, the better your own writing will be.

Mens sana in corpore sano, "a sound mind in a sound body," is not just a motto for schoolboys, but a good one for writers too.

August 20, 2007

Part of being a writer is failing. You try to create a story that pushes the envelope of what you can do as writer, and it doesn't work. Or you send your favorite, most polished piece to a magazine that you know will beg to publish it, and instead, it gets rejected.

Having a story not work out, or getting rejected, are all part of the dues you pay to write and be a writer. We all know somebody who is going to write "someday," usually when they can "find the time." It's a very good method to avoid failure--if you don't write it, no one will ever tell you it's bad. But by the same token, if you never write it, you'll never get any better, either. With the exception of a handful of natural talents, most writers come to their skills the old fashioned way; practice. And that means falling face-first in the mud, then getting back up and trying again. And again. And again, until you get it right.

Same too, with the person who endlessly "polishes their work before it goes out." If you write, but never submit, you never have to face the envelope in the mailbox, telling you that "it's not quite for us." All rejections sting, even if you eventually get used to it, but without rejections, you never get the envelope with a contract and a check inside.

Seems to me that throwing out success in order to avoid failure is no way to become a writer. Or anything else, for that matter. So get out there, get in the mud. Fall down, fail, get back up again, all the while learning. Write a story that's ambitious; send it out to the biggest market you can think of. Maybe you will fail. Maybe you won't. But you'll never know until you try.

July 23, 2007

One of the nice parts of the writing life is that speculative fiction writers, as a group, are quite willing to give advice and opinions to less experienced writers--a tradition known as "Paying it forward."

This past weekend, I got my first chance to pay it forward, at a bookstore called the York Emporium in York, PA. I agreed to give a talk about the writing life, and so I got to lay out my emerging philosophy of success in the writing life, which can be summed up as, "Write, submit, repeat as necessary." I tried to explain how each writer has to work out their own writers path, and that there's no one-size-fits-all answer on how to write, be a writer, or how to succeed. I hope I not only gave useful advice, but inspired at least some of the people in the audience to commit to the writing life.

The high point, however, was meeting a young lady, an aspiring writer who is still in grade-school. I wish I had had her inborn drive and desire when I was her age. Already, she feels the need to write daily, and even has a few rejection letters under her belt--which she claimed were simply part of the dues of being a writer. I was floored, and as long as she keeps her passion for writing, I suspect I'll be standing in line someday, her novel in hand, hoping that she'll sign it for me. Best of luck to you in your future writing career.

June 22, 2007

My New Year's resolution for 2007 was to create at least one new, 500-word page of writing per day. Now that we're getting close to the mid-point of the year, I thought I'd look back and see how I've been doing. Since January 1, 2007, I've written over 78,600 words: half of a novel, a slew of short stories, as well as parts of a cookbook and numerous blogposts. I should have hit 83,000 words as of today; however, I think a lot of that 5000-word difference is tied up in the scattered paragraphs of stories I've revised. So all-in-all, I'm really happy with my output so far in 2007.

However, if you take the number of days so far this year (173) and multiply it by 500, you'll discover that my target should be 86,500 words. There's a reason for the difference. Like someone who speaks too fast and stumbles over their tongue, I recently discovered that I'd over-written my muse. I'd reached to the point where I was putting words on paper simply for the sake of writing 500 words, without trying for any sort of quality. The final straw was last Sunday, when I caught myself adding a new page to a pulp-style story that was already 15 pages long--and which was (and still is) without an ending. That's when I realized my muse had become exhausted. So I gave her the week off.

As much as it pained me, for seven straight days I didn't write a word. I took care of household chores, caught up on reading, got some projects done that I'd been meaning to do, but hadn't. Interestingly enough, the whole week the urge to write grew and grew. Today I sat back down, put my fingers on the keyboard--and cranked out double my resolution quota in about 45 minutes. Now I'm working on this blog post and later today, I'll get back to editing one of the stories I'd been working on earlier this month. It feels good to be writing again.

I still believe that steady, daily writing is the key to success in this field. I fully intend to "keep on keeping on" with my New Year's resolution. I've sworn not to make a habit of "muse holidays" either, as I can see where they'd become very convenient excuses for not getting anything done. Writing should be treated like a profession and worked at constantly. It's my business, after all. However, even businessmen take vacations, and I guess my muse needed some R and R. Hopefully, she's tanned, rested, and ready to go, because we've got a lot of work to do in the second half of the year.

June 05, 2007

Over the Memorial Day weekend, I went to BALTICON, the Baltimore Science Fiction convention. I've been going to cons now for around 5 years; but BALTICON was my first ever con, and I live in the area, so I always go. This year, my time there was spent in ways that were totally unlike previous years. That made me want to look back at what I did at conventions, how that's changed over the years, and what that means as a working-on-it writer.

My first-ever time at BALTICON, I attended every panel on writing--"How to get an agent," "Creating believable characters," and any panel that had a magazine editor on it (so that I could go up and say "hi" afterwards.) Looking back, I was looking for ways to improve my writing, as well as ways to politely get my name and face associated in the minds of editors. Much of my interest, and almost all the panels I attended, focused around the mechanics of writing and getting published.

As I kept writing, I got better at mechanics, and so over the next couple of years, I started spending more time at the science panels. (BALTICON is a great convention for learning about cutting-edge science, since NASA Goddard is in the area, as well as a number of big universities and government labs.) I must have felt I was beginning to get a handle on how to write, because I was looking more at ideas for stories, and neat little tidbits of information I could drop into stories.

Hopefully, the changes in what I do at conventions are indicators that I'm growing (and still growing) as a writer. Though now I'm curious. What do the full-time pro writers do at conventions? I can't wait to find out...

May 11, 2007

My recent dinner with a friend, whose writing career is well ahead of mine, coupled with a discussion of books about writing in another venue, made me think about the some of the other ways you can learn about the craft and business writing. The best way to learn, in my opinion, is experience. Nothing beats daily butt-in-chair-fingers-on-keyboard to improve your writing. And if you keep submitting, you'll soon get an education about the business end of being an author. As far as I'm concerned, those two things are the essential steps to becoming a writer--"Write, submit, repeat as necessary." Then again, I'm stubborn; too stubborn to quit trying, and hopefully, just stubborn enough to eventually succeed.

However, there are other ways to gain understanding of the craft and business of writing. One is a mentor: another writer whose career is further along than yours. Someone who is where you want to be. It can be a real help to be able to e-mail or talk to someone and ask them questions like, "How do I find an agent?" or "How do I beat writer's block?" or even "Can you give me a blurb for my novel cover?" A mentor is first of all a friend, and I leave it up to you how to make your own friends. In the absence of a friend, going to workshops and conventions and talking with other writers can also serve as a form of mentorship. If you're professional and polite when you come up and talk to them, most authors don't mind you asking them a question or two about writing (as long as it's not "Would you read my manuscript right now and tell me what you think?").

As for books about writing, I'm a bit more ambivalent. I've read maybe a dozen or so over the past five or six years. Some were outstanding, while others I couldn't even finish. The book I got the most out of, I read after I had been writing for a couple of years; and I think because of the writing experience I already had under the belt, I better understood what the author was trying to convey. The danger, I feel, is that for some people, books about writing become an excuse not to write. It's easy to lose yourself in the notion of 'This next book will explain everything, and the light bulb will go on, and then I'll be a writer.' Instead of endlessly searching for that next pearl of wisdom, you should be writing; playing with words, falling down and getting back up like a child in a sandbox. Books can show you things that will help you become a better writer. But in and of themselves, they won't make you a better writer.

So while mentors and books can certainly be helpful, don't forget that "Write, submit, repeat as necessary" is the best help of all.

April 23, 2007

Last week, I had dinner with a friend of mine, who is an author in another genre. We talked a bit about writing perseverance, both in terms of productivity, and in terms of a writing career. There's a writing truism that it takes ten years to become an overnight success. In the past year or two, my friend's career has really taken off. While I forgot to ask him exactly when he started writing for publication, from things said in passing, it seemed to be around 1997--almost exactly ten years ago. Perhaps there's some truth, after all, in the truism.

That gives me hope for my writing--that as long as I keep at it, I may actually succeed. Last year, when we had dinner, my friend mentioned that he writes several pages a day, every day--which inspired me to do the best I could to do the same. I was a very slow writer, but I committed to at least a page a day, and have been able to maintain it since the beginning of the year. I'm even finding that now I'm improving enough that I may be able to up that to two pages a day in the not-too-distant future. Perseverance has paid off in terms of productivity.

And like last year, I look to my friend for what I hope will be the future shape of my writing career if I stick to it. He started writing for publication roughly five years ahead of me. I'm hoping that by 2012-ish, if I'm lucky, I may begin to see half the success he's had.

There's two ways to look at that the fact that it's been about ten years for him, and not even that for me. I could despair and say, "Five years! No way. I've wasted enough as it is," and throw in the towel; or I could nod my head with grim determination and say, "Half-way there, and every day I'm getting a little closer." Call me an optimist (or just plain stubborn, as my wife does), but the second way of looking at the next five years appeals to me more.

Wherever you are in your writing life, keep at it until you reach where you want to be. From what I've learned and seen from my friend's career, perseverance does, in fact, pay off.

April 9, 2007

Sometimes writing is about just grinding it out. For my New Year's resolution this past January, I said I was going to write, at a minimum, one entirely new, 500-word page of fiction every day. That's not a lot, I know. Some full-time writers do two a day. Stephen King and Fredrick Pohl do four pages a day, day in day out. The idea, though, is to keep those writing muscles exercised by constant practice.

So far, I've managed to keep my resolution--Sundays, holidays, traveling, busy with other non-fiction deadlines. Tomorrow will make 100 days--fifty-thousand words. I've got just under 30,000 words of a novel, and several short stories to be edited before they go out. If I can keep this up (and I intend to), that will be 180,000 words--two novels' worth--by the end of the year.

But it hasn't just been about the quantity of words. The fact of constant repetition and practice has made the writing flow much more smoothly than before. Sure, there are days I fight the muse, and it takes me what feels like forever to get to 501 words. But more and more, I'm finding that I can sit down, begin typing, and have the page filled in under an hour. That was something that seemed impossible before. Better yet, it's forcing my internal editor to take a back-seat in order for me to get the page done, and several times, I've been surprised at how good the writing was when I read it the next day, despite the little voice in the back of my head the night before saying "just get it done, and we can go to bed."

So it seems that in my effort to try different ways of writing in order to find what works for me, I've found a gem. With the writing becoming easier, for my "mid-year's" resolution, I may increase the amount to two pages a day...