How To Take Your Book Idea Honeymoon to "The End"

 

 

 

Oh, look. The Honeymoon phase of your new shiny idea has come to an end. Your prosaic partner has shed their wuvy-duviness and morphed into an unwieldy beast. Your urge to cry “Mommy!” and run for the hills to start another New & Shiny is overwhelming.

Aw, you poor wee writer, you. Here, have a hug. Okay, empathy from me over. Get back in your writer chair. You need to learn a few hard lessons.

No romantic writer loft or silk cravat or running to your mommy will get you divorced from this story. Yes, you could abandon it. But remember back when you first thought of it. What a wondrous, never-before-thunked literary gem!

But now that you’ve seen your idea in the harsh light of day, and it is demanding too much from you, suddenly the urge to cheat on another cute idea strolling down that sun-kissed beach is so alluring. *wink, wink, nod, say no more, say no more*

I’m sensing a pattern here. You’re a New & Shiny idea philanderer! You prosaic cad!

A question. How many unfinished story ideas have been abandoned on your computer? 5, 10, 20, 20,000? I bet you bought an external hard drive to fit them all.

As noted in my book, STOP Not Writing: Nothing x Nothing = (you guessed it) Nothing.

You need an awakening, an intervention, a bloody dose of writer reality.

Lesson #1: Nothing great comes easy.

There. I’ve said it.

Lesson #2: And nothing ever turns into something until it’s finished.

Until you face these facts, you’ll have nothing to show for your desire to be a dedicated wordsmith but Terra-bytes of stream of consciousness abandoned babble simply because it became too hard and it felt like — dare I say it — work.

Yes, that four-letter word which comes with every occupation — welder, plumber, the person who scoops up trash with that fan-dangled scooper at Disneyland, your mail carrier, and Writer Wannabe You.

Lesson #3: Writing is a job like every other job.

Until you drop the notion that writing is a romantic Gone With The Wind passionate pastime, where your muse does all the work, and all you need to do is dress in a gown or tux to pick up your Pulitzer at The Plaza gala Simon & Schuster hosted for you because your navel gazing blather hit the New York Times Bestseller charts for ten weeks running, you will never get anywhere with your keyboard pounding. Seriously.

Stop daydreaming. Close your mouth. Wipe the drool from your lips. And return to Earth. You know, the place the rest of us prosaic humps eke out a living. And open up that not-so-new, not-so-shiny story idea, and let’s get to work.

Task No. 1: Make a Bloody Outline

No, dear writer, don’t have a mental hernia. I don’t mean some detailed tome nobody, but Grade 12 English teachers, wants to read. I mean crafting a simple scene-by-scene plotline — a few short sentences on a blank recipe card for each scene — so you know where the heck your story is going. So yes, you guessed it, you will avoid the hard writing angst and not cry for your mommy.

I know you. You embraced your New & Shiny story idea and took it on a whirlwind keyboard honeymoon where you and it hadn’t a care in the world nor a clue where you were going. And several gloriously hacked-out pages later, your romantic romp sputters and dies. Your muse’s gas tank bereft of even fumes.

(Uh huh, please, somebody, anybody, give me a nickel for every time this happens to a newbie wordsmith who thinks writing is “fun.” A zillionaire, me! Then I could quit this post and sunbathe on a beach where no one could find me, Mai Tai in hand, my manservant Miguel holding a pitcher of the cold ones in his right, fanning me with a palm frond with his left. I wuv Miguel. Man, I love how readers of my stuff can’t read the words I couch in brackets! Hehe…)

Oh, so you say you don’t know what happens next, so you can’t finish the outline.

Hm…

To that, I say,

Task No. 2: Step away from the keyboard and mind map what happens next.

Plots don’t just poop out the end of a dragon’s butt, you know. And no, I don’t mean every single tidbit of narration, dialogue, and action. Knowledge of the scene in general and how the next one flows from the last.

I don’t care how you complete this task. Use finger puppets or white boards or photos of dead characters tied together, plot-wise, with red string. Just figure out the darn story, will ya? Inciting incident, major obstacles and stakes, the evolution or devolution of your main players, to the climactic end and that settling/or disturbing denouement.

Writing is not rocket science, peeps.

Liken not completing this task to you venturing out into a vast forest without a freakin GPS. Do you want to return with a satisfying journey’s end, or die of hunger and thirst, lost among the trees, woodland creatures merrily munching on your carcass?

I tend to like to know where I’m going, so I return alive to pen again. But that’s me. You do you. But if you want to be like me and actually finish your book (I’m on my eighth) …

Make. A. Freaking. Outline! Arrgghh!

This teeny-weenie task enables your New & Shiny idea to remain. It will hold your hand and look lovingly into your eyes as you flip scene card by scene card ‘til there are no more scenes with which to flip.

Task No. 3: If stumped along the way, i.e. the Mushy Middle, stop typing, start thinking!

Typing a lot or typing fast, spewing out reams of useless, plot-muddying babble does not a story make. All that gets you is a semi-truck full of useless words you will have to edit out or pay some editing schmuck like me a million bucks to do for you (no wonder I pray to the god of Cocktail Hour… sigh…)

Sit back, figure out where your characters need to go, act, react next, and do not return to aforementioned keyboard until you have at least the gist of the upcoming scenes.

~~~

If you keep these lessons and tasks in mind, you’ll never see your sweetheart idea with messy hair, bad breath, and ferociously burping at the breakfast table. The Honeymoon will last ‘til “The End.”

(I swear. If this newbie writer listens to me, applies what I’ve said, pens the next Great American Novel, and ends up getting a Pulitzer and Plaza gala in their honor re: Nelle Harper Lee in 1961 for To Kill a Mockingbird, I will crash that Do, head to the lounge and get stinking drunk on their infamous martinis, like actor Philip Seymour Hoffman did in the movie Capote, jealously mumbling, “I don’t know what all the fuss is about.” Yes, I’m THAT needy. But luckily my readers can’t read my bracketed words. What a superpower!)

You Stopped Writing 'Cause It Got Too Hard - NOT an Option

 

If you’re reading my STOP Not Writing blog, 9 out of 10 of you are serious about your writing craft. For it to be a primary or secondary career, not a casual hobby you pen now and then.

So, for those 9, I present you with an awakening.

You can’t stop writing when it gets difficult. It’s when it gets difficult you MUST write.

Yep. I know that feeling…

You’ve come to the point in your manuscript where you’re stuck or you’ve run out of ideas or the character isn’t acting, saying genuine things, or you think your story sucks, etc., etc., etc.

STOP thinking on the negative, is your first task. Go make a drink, sit back, breathe, and chill. You’re getting yourself all worked up for nothing. Remember: writing is NOT a race. It is an art form which needs time and patience. The rest of the world may be going 0 to 60 is a split second. Artists must throw the middle finger up at that populist swill and take the time that is needed to craft a great work of art.

Artists do NOT march to the world’s beat, peeps. Artists CREATE the beat.

Get a backbone and remember that.

If the non-artists in your world gripe about your process, smile, nod, and walk away. They’ll have been born, live, and die, never knowing the artist’s way.

Now, START thinking on the positives. The ways in which you can get this manuscript back on the right track and your fingers pounding the keys.

Hint: When faced with a literary wall, real or imagined, return to your plotline. And yes, this applies to Pantsers, too. Every writer requires a generalized plotline to ensure they don’t write themselves into corners or dive-bomb off cliffs. You Pantser freaks, don’t lecture me about being a free spirit. You can type with abandon, but you need to know the road you’re typing on. So, if that means you’ve not created a generalized plotline, DO IT NOW. I’ll wait. I need a second coffee, anyway.

Listen, you’re already writing paralyzed, so grab some cheap recipe cards and plot out your novel. One scene per card. Obviously not writing, you have nothing better to do.

For those who were smart and created your plotline before you began, it’s time to return to it. Read over each scene card, in linear order. Re-familiarize yourself with your own tale.

No, I don’t care if you are missing scenes. All writers will have scene black holes when they start a new book. (All except for Ian Flemming with his 007 Bond books he crafted in his mind as he sunbathed on a delicious beach in Jamaica. Don’t look at me now. I’m green with feral envy). This exercise is to get your mind’s eye to envision the story line as it is now, in its entirety, so you can re-envision the story arc — the beginning, middle, end, and denouement.

If you’re stuck writing, chances are your mind’s eye has lost the vision. You need to reinstall it into your brain. Think of this as a CPU reboot or some such techno exercise I probably abhor. You need to SEE where you are and where you’re going to BE there, right?

As you read the scene cards over, I’ll bet dollars to donuts you’ll have an ah-ha! moment where the missing piece clicks into place, where you see how you veered off track. If this doesn’t occur, get a friend to read your scene cards and your draft. They’ll surely see your gaffe for you. Buy them a cocktail as thanks, those evil-eyed beta friends.

And once you see where you went off track, you can return to that page, delete the erred section(s), and type on. I’ll also bet now your fingers won’t be able to keep up with your mind’s eye, knowing what is supposed to happen next, and to whom!

So, when you fear the keyboard, when you’d rather have bamboo shoots shoved under your fingernails than write, the above is surely happening to you. Follow the steps I’ve outlined, and you’ll surely be back on your way.

If writing is your life’s métier, stopping is NOT an option. There’s always a way. It’s in the artist’s backbone — their grit, determination, and focus through the worst of times — that will, like sand working inside a seashell, create a lustrous pearl.

Life Fact: Nothing great comes easy. It never will. Accept it and write on.

Fear of Bad Reviews Stopping You From Writing?

 

Fear. The main ingredient in why writers don’t write.

As I’ve said for decades. Writing is 10% skill and 90% psychological. The skill we can master. The psychological weaknesses we face go on and on and must be accepted as the cross all artists have to bear.

The Issue: Writers don’t realize they are entertainers. Yes, even non-fiction writers are entertainers. Writers publishing their works is the same as an actor walking on stage and performing in front of a crowd of strangers who demand nothing less than a memorable experience.

Yep. No pressure at all.

But if entertainers didn’t get up on stages and try their best, and risk failing, the world would be bereft of all color and light, of culture and humanity, of emotional expression, good and bad — the essence of life itself. Trust me. If the world only had dispassionate bridge builders and not risk-taking artists, yes, we'd go places but be so unfulfilled we'd jump from those bridges to our death.

Dear Writer, Some Hard Truths (I'm not known for my bedside manner. So, suck is up, petals.)

If you’re an artist, you will regularly, endlessly create and fail, and occasionally succeed.

And if you’re an entertainer, ‘til your dying breath, you will be plagued with Stage Fright — the Fear of Failing. Yep, the almighty scourge of those who are brave enough to get up in front of the world and reflect humanity back on itself in vibrant, edgy, exhilarating ways.

So, what happens if you get up, display your wares, and people boo? Or in a writer’s world, leave horrible one-star reviews?

Oh. My. God! It’s the end of life as we writers know it. We wordsmiths extraordinaire will melt, liquefy into distilled humiliation and shame, and sploosh onto the floor of life, never to exist again.

Hm…… are you sure about that?

P.T. Barnum once said, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.” And although I detest circuses in all forms, especially those using animals, this circus master was right.

There truly is no such thing as bad publicity.

What any artist should fear is indifference. With indifference, an artist has failed to push any emotional buttons, good or bad. That, my friend, is like being dust in the wind.

Never fear failure. Embrace it. Here’s why…

Bad Reviews Dissected

A writer has to read the review, sit back, breathe, and look at its reason for being.

What kind of bad review is it?

a) Is it a hit job? A lashing out at topic or artist. Killing the messenger from envy, spite?

b) Is it a comment on the mechanics – grammar, delivery?

c) Is it a critique on the facts?

There are remedies to all three. And neither will have you melt like the Wicked Witch of the Writing West. As Celine Dion bellowed, “[Your] Heart Will Go On.”

a) Consciously or not, you’ve succeeded in pushing someone’s emotional buttons. Your work sparked something deep inside. The reader’s defense mechanism has them lashing out. Solution: Calmy read the review. Empathize. Move on. Offer NO comment. Readers are a smart lot. Give them credit to see this review for what it is. Bonus: Hit jobs of any sort can muster added interest on their own. Curiosity is a powerful thing. It can spur more word of mouth, more reads. Smile. Write on. You are an artist. You touched another human being. You did your work. Disclaimer: If you purposely attacked someone with your work, you had better have a damn good reason, legal and otherwise. Art should never be a weapon. Capice?

b) Did you do your due diligence here? Did you hire an editor if your editing skills are not up to par? Use beta readers? Self-edit, including the ROL — Read Out Loud the manuscript to catch with your other senses what your eyes will not? If not, do those things now. Correct the errors right away. Hone up on your knowledge of grammar in the areas where your weaknesses lie. And be grateful a reader was brave enough to point out your failings so you could correct. Writers aren’t perfect. But do what all good writers must. Edit your works.

c) Facts are a funny thing. You can literally know them inside and out and still write down the wrong word or date or name. I managed to do that very thing in my last book. Idiot me! Again, be grateful for this type of reviewer. If possible, email them directly and thank them for their valuable input. Tell them you will immediately correct the errors. Do NOT make excuses. It doesn’t matter how you screwed up. You did. Swallow it. Correct. Smile. Breathe. Move on. As much as a writer strives to get things perfect, in a 50-100,000-word manuscript, errors will occur. It’s the name of the game when it comes to humans and their ability to gaffe. You, me, all of us. Consider it the equivalent of a singer on stage forgetting the words to a song. It happens. Smile, self-correct, and sing on!

Free Advice: When you shop at your nearest stationery store for your favorite writer gadgets, pick up a package of thick skin and a box of sturdy backbones. Those two items may be more important than your favorite pen or sticky note.

There are two types of writers — amateurs and professionals.

Amateurs are like hobbyists. They play at the art for their own enjoyment. Errors don’t factor in. It’s more like working out on a treadmill in your mind. The exercise does something for you, whether right or wrong. Their works never see the light of day. It’s all about creation, not correction.

Professionals are a breed apart. You create works to be experienced by the world at large. And in this vein, you must work hard to offer the best performance you can. And even after you do, you expect reviews, good and bad. And know it’s through the bad reviews you will learn the most about your art. Look at bad reviews as gifts to better your work going forward. If everyone praised you all the time, your art would never improve. Ask yourself. Are you creating to pet your ego or to produce great works? All I will say to this: You will be of little value to the world if you’re striving for the former.

So, How Do I Get Over Bad Reviews?

Simple answer: you will not. In some form or fashion, they will linger in your subconscious, haunting you the same way as a police officer not catching a killer or a construction worker building a faulty building. Lucky for writers. Most of your failures will not kill.

You simply have to accept them and move on. Learn from your mistakes. The embarrassment or shame you just experienced will ensure you’ll never make that same mistake again, and that puts you one step forward to being a master wordsmith.

Your ego is what you need to corral. Being told you have erred in some way dents your ego. Nobody likes that, yet all of us who perform must expect those dents. If you could x-ray a master actor, they’d be more dents than gloss.

Self-Care essential. Take a couple days away for yourself. Get off the grid. Recline in the sun, on a chaise lounge, sipping a Mai Tai. Process the review. See its objective and subjective parts. Correct the objective. Empathize with the subjective. Once you’ve licked your emotional wound clean, get back on the keyboard horse and ride again. You might as well write now. You know you will eventually. You’re a professional artist. You can’t help being you.

Bonus: Over time, your skin thickens, your backbone strengthens. You will better accept the feedback. You will learn from your mistakes and be grateful for the learning curve. And you will go on to create better and better works of art and buy less Kleenex in bulk.

Being a great wordsmith comes with time, life experience, and emotional hurt.

Hard work is done here on earth. Perfection lives in heaven.

Writers, while you breathe on this Blue Marble, do your best work. Leave the rest in your readers’ hands. Once your work is out there, it no longer belongs to you. It belongs to the world. Remember that.

And be ever so grateful those readers chose to experience your created worlds, imperfect as they are.