Author Archives: thewritersadvice
What if it Never Happens?????
I recently had a crisis of faith. Not in the “is there a God” way but instead in the “what if my writing isn’t good enough” way. I know…crazy…right?
Yes I have been writing most of my life. And yes, I have had thousands of articles published and even a few books. And yes, I run a wildly successful blog and I have readers all over the world. Let’s face it, you have really arrived if someone other than your mom is reading your work and, at this point, OTHER people’s moms are reading my work but still, here I sat last weekend wondering, am I good enough?
You might be asking (or screaming at the screen right now) what the hell is wrong with you Jai? How much more proof do you need? The answer is, shamefully….tons. I am not unlike thousands of other writers out there who need constant validation. There are number of reasons why we writers are so needy…
- 1. We work in an industry where, most of the time, we don’t get that pat on the back.
- 2. We do our work alone which can lead to insecurity.
- 3. We get paid crap, so when the bills come in; it’s easy to question our skills.
- 4. We live with the myth of fame. If I’m not famous, I’m not a writer. (cough, cough…BS…cough)
These are just a few reasons; trust me, the list is really long enough to create an Elvis type belt around the equator of the planet. But here is the thing (and I realized this last weekend in-between bags of over salted chips and bowls of Safeway Cherry Cheese cake ice cream…) If I am wondering if I’m good enough, maybe I have lost focus on why it is I write in the first place. (Ah Ha!)
If you consider the reasons above every one of them have nothing to do with writing and everything to do with being noticed. Pats on the back, people around all the time, more money, fame…these are all external needs…what about us as a writer at the heart of the matter? I began to write for two reasons, (1) I loved storytelling and (2) I couldn’t NOT write. Writing for me began as a need. I needed to tell the story, I needed to write, but over the years I let other people convince me that it was a “job” that had to be validated. When that happened…I stopped writing for the love of it and it became something I HAD to get done. It’s no wonder my books weren’t getting done…I had given up on the magic.
So this past weekend I dug until I found my magic again. I turned my back on the concept that writing was something I HAD to do and began doing it once again because I wanted to. I put the manuscript away that I was trying to force and began the book I knew I wanted to write this year. I may go back to that other book, but in the meantime, I am having fun again AND the writing is better.
So stop asking yourself, “what if it never happens” and start asking yourself, “am I having fun yet”. The truth is, if you are worried about it never happening, it probably won’t but if you are having fun and feeding your writer’s soul…it probably will and then the gift of success isn’t an accomplishment anymore but instead the next step in an amazing life.
© The Writer’s Advice, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.
Digital vs. Paper – Journaling Question of the Week
Maybe I am just getting old. This morning, while cleaning out my desk, I came across a journal I had begun last January. I thumbed through it, chastising my handwriting (it really does suck) and wondering how I stopped using it…and then it hit me….I got sucked into the future.
Somewhere along the way I bought an iPad and began to keep my journal in digital format. I have a file on my computer that says “Journals 2013” and I e-mail all of my journal entries to myself and stow them away in that file, backing them up on a USB drive. I can open the files and read them any time I want but you know what…..it’s just not the same. Here’s where the “old” part comes in.
I like the feel of a book in my hands. I enjoy the fact that, although it can be hard to read, my thoughts are down on paper. Sure it isn’t as secure as the digital copy but it still has a feel I miss. And while we are on the subject of “secure”, I journal so that someday my kids can go back and read about the good ol’ days; they aren’t going to do that if they don’t have the passwords to my digital journals. What if I die at dinner, choking on asparagus….how the kids get the password or even know that the digital copies exist? The answer is, they might not and that would suck. With my paper journals however, they are all kept in a steamer trunk that sits at the front of my desk, locked but accessible.
I’ve thought about this a lot this past weekend. I decided to go back to using that leather bound journal…I think it is important and then there is that whole “lost art” concept. Admittedly, after a year my hand feels kind of crampy after about 20 minutes of writing but that will work itself out in time. I think I need to use the paper journal for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that I am a “writer” and I do kind of owe it to future generations to at least leave a sample of what they looks like unhampered by technology. Besides….if the Zombie apocalypse comes, the lights are going out anyways so I’ll need that paper journal…of for nothing else so I can hit the hungry little buggers over the head with it….right?
Your mission – Share with us all which do you prefer and why?
© The Writer’s Advice, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.
Writer’s Block? Do What Any Kid Would Do – Build Something!
We could debate writer’s block all day long. Some writers will tell you it’s a living, breathing thing and others will tell you it’s a load of crap. I fall somewhere in the middle. I believe that we can all get blocked, hell I’ve been there for the past several weeks…but I also believe that staying blocked is a load of crap. So see….in the middle….
Let me explain my situation…I woke up about a month ago in massive pain. I have a disability, in that the bones in my legs are disintegrating. While that term, “disintegrating” sounds very science fiction and cool, it’s actually very painful. I tend to live with the pain because I am afraid of pain medication. (and I don’t smoke weed for personal reasons) Because I choose to live with it, some days are worse than others. I have had about a month now of worse days. When the pain comes, the writing seems to go. I don’t think it’s because of the hurt, I think it is because of the fear that tends to move into my desk chair. When the pain is this bad, my brain starts to imagine that they will never be able to fix it thus scaring the hell out of my muse and she/he runs away.
My pain is not unlike a number of other things that writers have to deal with…bills, stress, kids, spouses, crisis, not making enough money, not having enough time to write (we will talk about that one later….it’s a myth) and any or all of these things can make your muse run like hell too. So how do you keep your muse from skipping out on you when the going gets tough? The answer is simple….go write through it. (Punny huh?)
I have had to learn that when the pain is bad, I have to continue writing anyway. My muse is now learning that she (I imagine that my muse is a “she” named Maude) can’t run away because we have too much work to do. I often use the pain to write the tougher scenes in my stories, the dark ones, channeling the pain into a kind of black cloud that is useful. I have discovered that it is the only way to ensure that I am still writing. I am literally building something with the writer’s block and it ends up being some of my best writing.
So whatever your block, acknowledge it and then write through it. Use that strife to channel the really tough parts of your novel or poem or whatever…I think you will discover a place for that strife in your work and before you know it…your muse will be back to ordering you around with wild abandon…..
© The Writer’s Advice, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.
Sometimes I Feel a Little Like a Street Walker….
Okay, a prostitute…for those of you young folks out there. (“Street Walker” is a 1920’s term and I believe it sounds classier) Writing can get like that; you start out doing it because it’s fun and exciting and before you know it, you are doing it for the money. That all sounds like something we can live with until you find yourself writing purely for the money and it becomes a chore.
I don’t always feel like I’m selling myself but I do go through periods when not only do I feel that way, I know that I am actually living that way. My writing – that writing that is pure story – gets shoved aside for various articles, blogs and copy writing so that I can pay the light bill. People ask me how my writing is going during these periods and I just scowl at them and mutter “it’s fine” and slink back to my desk. I get moody and irritable…and I feel a little, well, dirty.
I recently went through a bout of prostitution writing and I have to say, the older I get, the less tolerable I find these periods. This time around I found myself out on the back deck whining to the blue cardinal that flies in once and a while, downing lemoncello shots. My spouse came home that day and got an ear full of poor pitiful me. Listening with the patience of a saint, when I finally took a breath, I was told to “suck it up”. My better half was right, I needed to suck it up…it was, after all, a part of the job.
Unless you are independently wealthy, or a successful bank robber (or D.B. Cooper), you have to work to support your writing. It would be nice if most of us could make our day to day expenses out of the verbiage we lay down every day but, truth be told, we can’t. We have to take on a client here and there in order to keep the lights on. So if you are feeling like a street walker this week, you aren’t alone, all writers go through it. Just try and remember why we do it….for the love of what we really want to do…our own stuff.
© The Writer’s Advice, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.
Make it a Challenge to Not Limit Yourself to what you Enjoy
Now many of you are looking at the headline of this column and asking…huh? Let me explain… Many of us read writers that we like. I enjoy Stephen King, Dean Koontz and Kelly Armstrong. (Yes there is a pattern there) I enjoy books on writing and philosophy. I am incredibly interested in Buddhism right now. These are all books I enjoy reading but just think of how many books I pass up just because they aren’t by these folks or about these things. Frankly, in the words of my 19 year old son, I’m screwing myself out of a really good time.
We are writers and whether we admit it or not we tend to emulate those people we read. This can be a very good thing OR it can be a very bad thing, depending on your personal tastes. I think I personally do okay but about 6 months ago I hit the proverbial writer’s block in the form of not feeling like I had much to say. I realized during the course of that period that I didn’t have anything to say because I had stopped listening.
I had literally closed my writing world off to anything except what I knew and in the process; I had become bored with what I knew. When I was younger this hadn’t been an issue because I was a newspaper reporter. When you write for the public, reporting stories every day, you are always learning something. I had stopped working outside the house to dedicate myself to my writing and along the way, I had stopped exploring.
It is easy to become complacent. It happens, often times, when you aren’t been paying attention; that’s how it got me. I suddenly found myself in a health crisis with nothing to help me through it but self-pity…I needed my writing world back….so…I took it back. I challenged myself to do two things…1. Read a new book ever month. Not just any book but one I would never have picked up otherwise. I still read the old standards but I also had to commit to something else. And 2. I had to learn something new at least once a week. This second one is driving my family crazy because I am sharing what I have learned. It’s been kind of fun finding obscure things to share. Having taken on these two challenges I have found that the writer’s block that had situated itself in my path began to crumble and I am now writing more than ever. The answer was simple, I had to find my uncomfortable place and live there part time too. The answer was the challenge.
So, I challenge you all to the same two challenges…read a new book once a month on a subject or by a writer you have never heard of before and learn something new at least once a week. I promise you, you won’t regret doing it. In fact, you may even find it fun.
© The Writer’s Advice, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.
In the Name of Tragedy Today’s Blog….Oh Give me A Break…
Let me start by saying that my heart goes out to the folks in Boston and China…last week was an obvious challenge for these people for a number of reasons. People died and that sucks…always, no matter what the reason, no matter what the country. Now, having said that, let me speak directly to some of you writers out there….you know who you are…the ones who are using these tragedies not to write…get over yourselves.
I don’t know how many blogs I came across last week that simply read stuff like, “Due to the tragedy in Boston, this column is delayed” or “In Honor of the People who Died in China, This Blog is Taking a Breather”…really? Do you really need ANY reason not to write?
Tragedy in our society is a way of life and, let’s be honest, if you really want to avoid writing you could literally find something to use every, single day. (And some writers do, hell, sometimes I do) In my opinion, and it is my opinion, a writer should be taking the alternative route and using the things that we face every day as a springboard to making some valid and important observations about our world. It has long been our lot in life to be the watchers, those who record history as opposed to those who record history as the politicians and those who need to spin it do. Today, thanks to the internet, we are more prominent than ever and more people read our words than ever before….do we really need to hide from our duties within an event that, by and large, needs to be acknowledged?
I didn’t post a column last week either but I had the flu. It had nothing to do with the events around the world and frankly, I would be ashamed to use those events as an excuse. Keep in mind, this column isn’t geared towards those writers who may have actually lost family members or friends in the Boston or China events, you guys get an obvious free pass, but if you live in Aloha, Washington (yes there is such a place) and you don’t even know anyone in those two places, yet you evoked the tragedies to skip a column…shame on you. We have a universal duty to those who aren’t communicators and as far as I am concerned, every time we use human strife as an excuse to shirk those duties, we are giving the universe the finger and you know what…that just sucks.
© The Writer’s Advice, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.
Sometimes Common Sense isn’t so Common
Writers are not supposed to be stupid people. We are usually fairly intelligent and very well read…at least that’s what we want people to believe. Oddly, although most of us are fairly intelligent and well-read we seem to tend to lack a certain common sense. I have seen writer after writer trying to make their way along the pen and paper highway who seem oblivious to what is right in front of their noses. I’m not sure why this happens…I blame it on my parents, but then again I blame everything on my parents like any good baby boomer would. (Curse you mom for…well…everything…)
I can’t really tell you the actual reason we writers tend to leave our common sense at the door but I can offer some basic tips that might just help you look a little less challenged when living the life of a writer. Feel free to add to these, although…and I have to say it…these really should be common sense.
1. Try and leave the crap in the virtual toilet – We all scream through that first draft like every word we write will be the next twitter trend. We throw everything, including the kitchen sink, into our first drafts and that’s okay, for the first draft but after that go back and cut the crap. As writer Elmore Leonard once said, “try and leave out the parts people skip”.
2. And speaking of elimination…unnecessary words…you are the weakest link…goodbye – Okay I am totally guilty of this because I also like to talk. Those of us, who are, as my grandmother used to call me, wordy, we have to be very careful not to fill up the page with words that are simply not necessary. When you read through your first draft ask yourself…was that really necessary and if the answer is no…toss it.
3. Show me the story! – (Imagine that in a really bad Tom Cruise imitation) – We are writers – yes. We write words – yes. But just because we are word mongers it doesn’t mean we aren’t also painters of the cerebral kind. The story is all about the picture that you paint in the readers mind. I know that in order for me to really enjoy a book I have to be there, in the story. Tell me the story in such a way that I can actually see it.
4. When’s it NOT the perfect time to write? Many writers will tell you that they have the “perfect” time to write. They will say that they get up early, stay up late, do it standing on their heads in the closet at exactly 3 p.m. every day…I call BS. If you are a serious writer you try and write all the time. There is no time when you shouldn’t be writing. Keep in mind that you don’t have to necessarily have to be stuck at the desk but at least in your mind your story should never be far away.
5. Don’t worry about “knowing” – Many writers will also tell you to “write what you know”, again I call BS. Sure, use what you know but also be adventurous enough to write what you don’t know too. Any good writer doesn’t try and fit what they know into their writing, it would be too limiting, write about whatever you want and if you don’t know it…research it. Write about whatever you want…
These are just a few “common sense” writing tips and many of you should already have realized them, however, sometimes in between writing and the next Twinkie, we all forget the basics. (Those damn Twinkies are so distracting…)
© The Writer’s Advice, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.
Nobody Scares Me Like I Scare Me
Fear is a staple for most writers. Because we live such a self-sustained existence we don’t get the encouragement, pats on the back or supportive talks that other people get when it comes to their careers. In my family I have no one to really talk to about what I do. Most of them don’t understand what I do and the rest of them find it really boring. So most of the time I am left to my own devices, and more often than not, my own imagination, which can be very, very bad….
I’m not talking scary, nightmare on the street over scary, or someone’s coming to get me scary…no, I’m talking about my own personal powers of self-prophesy. You see, when I write a book I go through a process that, when I think about it when I am not in it seems, well, kind of stupid, BUT in the midst of it, it is as real as my grandmother’s inability to make pancakes. (they were really bad) You know what I am talking about…you write a book, you edit that book, it’s all ready to send out into the world…but before you can hit the send button or lick that last stamp it hits you…OMG what if it sucks!?
I get the what-if-it-sucks really bad. I imagine the editor throwing the book out after reading one page. I imagine the publisher and his friends laughing at my book over drinks. I imagine getting a letter back from the intake person asking me to never write another word. I scare myself right into hesitating sending the book out. Fear grips me and I stop where I sit and ponder getting a job as a pizza delivery guy. (How hard can it be, right?) I literally talk myself out of being a writer for a short time. And you know what…I do it every time I finish a book. Over the years I have gone through the what-if-I-sucks hundreds if not thousands of times…I can be quite pathetic….
So what does one do when a case of the what-if-I-sucks hits? I have developed a bit of a routine to help me through and I thought I would share it with all of you in case it might help. You might develop a routine of your own but feel free to use mine as a guide…
- See if for what it is…fear – You have to realize that every writer gets cold feet (or in my case frozen body) and that they all get over it. It is natural to question yourself, just don’t let it paralyze you.
- Move on – You have to move on from your current project once it is done. Shoving it out into the world is the best thing for it and for you. It’s what you are supposed to do…so shove away.
- Talk yourself through it – Remember those pats on the back that you aren’t getting from others? Give those to yourself and don’t feel bad about it. As a writer you have to be your own cheering section and that’s okay.
- Develop a support crew – It took me a long time to admit that I needed other writers in my life. I wish I had done it 20 years ago; it would have helped me though a lot. With the internet handy, it is easy to develop a team to cheer you on. Find other writers and connect.
These are just a few ideas for those of you who have issues with the what-if-I-sucks….there is hope. Remember, you are not alone…all writers go through this even if they lie and say they don’t. Fear of failure is human nature but just like the guy who crawls back into the cannon at the circus, you have to crawl back in there too. It is, after all, the only way to ensure that the crowds keep coming back to read the next book, and the next, and the next….
© The Writer’s Advice, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.
The Write Time to Edit
A lot of you have been asking me lately how I feel about the editing process. I would like to say that editing is a pure joy, a semblance of bliss within the writing process…but I’d be lying.
For most writers the editing process sucks. Let’s face it, it’s not really writing…it’s editing. To some degree editing is counterintuitive for writers. (look Ma I used a big word…) We write, we aren’t geared towards editing. Editing is the slaughterhouse of manuscripts. It’s where you shoot a bolt gun into your masterpiece and then tear it down in steak-like portions. (Suddenly I am no longer hungry) BUT, editing can’t be ignored. Like the brother-in-law who calls himself a preacher after getting ordained online…you have no choice but to put up with it, no matter how ridiculous it feels.
I know that most of you have heard the advice, put your manuscript down for a bit before editing, edit it backwards, let someone else edit… And all of that might be great advice but here’s the rub…you wrote it. No matter who you are editing your work is a painful process so for that reason it is doubly important that you come up with an editing process that works for you.
Some writers hear of a process and can adopt it just fine but in my opinion I think it is easier to find your own groove and then stick with it. I edit after the story is complete. I read it through on my own and then I have a text reader read it to me in a sexy British accent. (The software program I use does that, its kinda cool) I admittedly cut the fluff but I also add to more than not during the editing process. What helps me most? Not thinking of it as “editing” but instead I am “refining” my work. You know, bringing out the coolness.
Let’s face it, if you write you have to edit; there is no way around it. In the end the editing process IS a part of the writing process – sort of like having to dry the dishes after washing them….it just has to be done or mom (or your potential publisher) will ground you. So find an editing process that works for you and run with it. I don’t care if you have to edit while hanging upside down eating spaghetti through a straw…as long as you have a process.
© The Writer’s Advice, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.
