Who Are You Writing For?

 

A man and a woman — he in his late 50s, she in her mid 40s — relax in a knotty pine paneled family room. Their easy chairs  — hers, an overstuffed turquoise armchair, his, a burgundy leather rocker-recliner — placed on either side of a big picture window that looks out onto a small lake, the weeping willows and sugar maple trees which line the water's edge, their branches bending in the soft summer breeze, their leaves wafting to and fro, making a gentle clapping and a whispered swish. 

The woman nurses a glass tumbler filled with Canadian Club rye and Coke and two ice cubes, as a Belvedere cigarette smolders slowly in a glass and silver ashtray stand. 

The man, with his well-shined oxblood dress brogues resting on an ottoman, rocks imperceptibly back and forth, as he puffs on a burled walnut pipe, the smoke rings lazily rising and spreading wider into the warm air. Beside him, an old 3-legged milking stool from the farm that holds a dark amber glass ashtray and a stubby amber bottle of Labatt's 50 lager, the beer just out of the fridge, frosty and cold. 

Both sit silent. Both are listening intently...to me, as I read out loud the stories from my books. They show no obvious expressions. They are watching and listening, muted, concentrating, as ghosts often are, to me, their daughter.

There isn't a minute that goes by that my late parents aren't with me as I type. Luckily, for my first three novels, my mother was still alive. My father died a long time ago, never knowing me as the writer I am today. Both are gone now, but in my mind's eye, both sit quietly across from me, breathing in every word, every sentence I create. I write for them.

I tell you this because it's important to a writer's mindset how he or she exists in the writing flow. Whoever you are writing for, whoever that person is, they ARE important to your psyche, to your overall success as a wordsmith, especially on your down days, the ones that seem to have you beat, the ones where gravity feels a 1000%, and every move you make takes a Herculean effort. It will be that person, the one you see in your mind's eye, who will be your quiet guide, who will emotionally lighten your load, and talk to you, encouraging you to fight to write another day.

Writers have a calling, and it's not an easy one. We write for the world. We are the world's liver. We filter out all the poisonous noise and create the essence of life's precious moments as we perceive them. An utterly exhausting enterprise, and one which can weigh so heavy on the heart, sapping all strength. Without your guide, the one you're writing for, story-telling could become insurmountable.

Is this your case? 

Do you have someone you're writing for? 

If you don't have a writing cheerleader on your side, maybe you should. Or maybe you already do, and you don't even realize it.

Today, I want you to sit back and think about whom you feel as that essence around you when you write. No, I'm not being all hippie-dippy here. Everyone in this world needs a guiding hand. Maybe yours is a real mentor, alive on this earth, and with us now. Maybe yours, like mine, has passed. But I bet if you think about it, you've felt someone near you when your writing flow is at its best.

Today was a tough day for me. In Calgary, a heat wave holds the city in its grasp, and it makes even thinking, much less writing, a high obstacle. But as the day's heat subsided, I felt my parents' push. 

"Come on, Barbie, get up and get at it. You have things to do." 

And, of course, I listened to them, and smiled. And this is why this article exists now, solely because of them. I might have allowed the day to beat me, but my parents came through, encouraging me to plunk fingers down on keys to create the tiny vignette above as an example just for you.

HOMEWORK: Figure out whom you're writing for. They will be your writing saviors when nothing and no one else can help.

Your First Finished Book!

 

Your First Finished Book!

Holy cow! How thrilling!

 

You finished the draft.

You've self-edited, ROLing - Reading Out Loud - at least once.

You've had the appropriate beta readers go through it, and you've made the necessary corrections.

Now, you're jonesing to have it be read by all the world!

 

WRONG!

 

Remember. It's your FIRST book, not your 7th or 20th or 200th.

It will never be the book that will display your best writing skill. 

 

Yes, it will be good, if you've done all the steps I mentioned above, but unless you've paid a professional editor to go over it before self-publishing, or your draft has been picked up by a publishing acquisition editor (both avenues will have you up to your neck in editorial rewrites, guaranteed), it most likely has developmental and/or line and/or mechanical gaffes every first book has.

 

Yes, by all means, put it out there — self-publish or promote it on a small scale — but don't go nuclear in your promotions.

 

You NEED independent reader feedback at this point to highlight those gaffes that weren't evident in your prior editorial efforts, so you have time to correct that manuscript before the world gobbles it up.

 

This is NOT a downer I'm expressing here.

It's a cautionary tale in the self-preservation of your author Image.

 

I read almost daily of new writers going on social media and shouting from that virtual mega-phone of their first book, and its instant availability to all 'n' sundry... and likewise, I quietly shiver, fairly well knowing what those first few book reviews may look like.

 

No, they won't be all bad.

But those who aren't linked to you in any way will NOT give you vacuous glowing reviews like your friends, colleagues and family might, or others who read it and never absorbed it, glossing over the gaffes.

 

Be proud of your achievement. hell, yes!

 

But don't let your excitement cloud your business sense.

 

You want your good author name to last for an eternity.

So, take it slow, and be careful with what you add to create that good name.

Your First Book - Don't Make It a Memoir...

 

New writers often think writing about some aspect of their troubled past, however veiled in a fictional story or a straight-up memoir, will be their Opus Magnum.

If this is your first book, you're wrong.

 

Writing on emotionally charged topics, personally experienced, is a double whammy of difficulty. Now, you're combining your lack of experience writing a book-length work with a troubled mind. You think your quest to reach answers for yourself and the world is through this undertaking, when all it will do is frustrate you more.

 

Result: you will find it far too difficult to face these memories to competently complete a long work, and that work will end up in the back of your drawer for years, leaving a bitter taste about writing in your mouth that may have you never write again, all because you chose to face two difficulties at once.

 

Solution: for your first book, and maybe a few more thereafter, select an objective topic, one that is not emotionally charged. Make that topic be far removed from your personal life experience, but in a genre you enjoy reading yourself. Doing this will free you from the pressure of experiencing something difficult while learning to write a book-length work. Your chances of enjoying the process and staying with the work to a competent conclusion are infinitely far greater this way.

 

And once you have one or two books completed and have become accustomed to what it takes - mechanically and artistically - then, you can tackle more difficult, personally charged issues like a memoir of a troubled past.

As a first time book writer, you simply cannot do both.

You can argue with me all you want, but this is a fact.

 

If this describes you and your partially written novel chock-a-block full of angst, put it aside, and start something new. You need to learn how to FINISH a book before tackling life's big woes. Make it easy on yourself to handle one task and then another.

 

This is the reality of writing talking to you, not the romance.

 

HOMEWORK: decide tonight if your current WIP - Work in Progress - is a veiled angst-ridden memoir. If it is, accept the reality that you're not skilled enough yet to take on that topic, and choose a lighter tale. 

 

This is you not failing. This is you succeeding. 

 

Example: does a beginner skier choose a black diamond run or the green beginner run as his first hill? You see my point here? 

 

Tonight, take a long hard look at yourself and your skill level, and make the successful choice. 

You'll thank me later.

The Story Idea Hoarder...

 

The Idea Hoarder - An Addiction to the Next New Shiny Thing...

Most of you, I imagine, have seen the TV show, Hoarders, where people collect everything and anything, and never organize or throw away any of those things, their hoard becoming an uncontrollable monster that impedes their life progress.

 

Slot in story ideas for a house hoard... are you seeing a connection here, my wittle furry writers???

 

Many wordsmiths have an addiction to the next Shiny New Idea.

Often, those writers have sky-scraper sized mounds of notebooks and half scribbled attempts on those collected ideas, but none are completely fleshed out nor finished because, yet again, another new and shiny idea presents itself. I imagine it's the equivalent of shoe or book shopping to some, and like any hoard, the pile becomes uncontrollable, and eventually paralyzing.

 

If a person comes into adulthood with this affliction, I'll be honest here… it's tough to un-ring that bell. 

 

I've tried with quite a few writers, and it becomes a hand-holding endeavor to get the writer from to A to Z on a single idea. It's not because they aren't dead smart. They are. It's a matter of having them apply two skills, muscles they don't often flex - focus and discipline.

 

Idea Hoarders are like squirrels on Speed.

I'd seriously rather herd cats.

Sorry for the reality check here...

 

And those two skills are put to the test when Idea Hoarders are left to their own devices. It's the same as letting an addicted shopper in a mall or an alcoholic in a bar, unsupervised. Idea Hoarders will find that next new shiny idea and wander away from the hard work of fleshing out the previous one.

 

It has a lot to do with the need to escape. 

 

Fun is, well, way more fun than the work needed to write an idea through to completion. That takes a semi-truck-filled load of patience and perseverance to endure the days when the words fight to hit the page, and those are aspects of the writers process never very appealing to the Idea Hoarder.

 

If you feel this maybe you, and in order to exist you need to be working on more than one project at a time, then you need to become very adept at Session Juggling. That's where you schedule writing sessions to work on each project at hand, and you do NOT stray from that schedule, and you do NOT work on more than one project in a given writing session.

 

The scheduling format can take whatever shape you want. Maybe on weeks 1 and 3 of a month, you work on Project A, and Project B is dealt with on weeks 2 and 4. Maybe within a writing week, you designate certain days to certain projects. Or maybe you add up the total amount of weekly hours devoted to writing, and you divvy them up per the many projects on hand.

 

THE KEY: NO project is abandoned. Each has its time in the writing sun, as it were. Each has its own working session(s), so it can be worked through and completed right to typing/writing, The End. It will take you longer to get there because you are working on multiples, but get there you WILL. No more idea hoarding.

 

An Idea Hoarder has to decide to recalibrate their mindset. It can't be just about hoarding ideas and not fleshing those out to a product that a reader can enjoy/seek knowledge. Ideas don't help anybody if they aren't thoroughly constructed and delivered as a completed product. Everybody can have an idea. It's what an artist DOES with that idea that counts.

 

HOMEWORK: If you think you're an Idea Hoarder, tonight, get serious with those shiny new tidbits of thought, and craft a weekly or monthly schedule where each new story has its allotted writing session.

I recommend no more than three ideas scheduled at any one time. Personally, I'm not a fan of multiple idea juggling, but with Idea Hoarders, compromise is the next best thing. Just ensure you schedule only what you can realistically and physically handle, so writer burnout doesn't take hold.

 

And just the like TV show, let's order in the dump trucks and hire the organizers to divide and conquer your schizophrenic approach to writing, and let's get a few cherished projects done... instead of them toppling over on you and burying you alive!

 

Okay, that last visual is a shiny new idea right there.

It's mine.

Don't hoard it! :-P

Fear of Being Critiqued...

 

New writers get their feelings hurt when someone reads their manuscript and points out the inherent flaws. They might not admit the hurt, but it's there...

 

It amazes me why writers should be any different from any other apprentice in any other métier.

 

If a beginner pianist gets a note wrong in the song they are playing, everybody listening — including the pianist — knows they made a mistake.

They accept the pianist needs more practice.

The pianist accepts they need more practice.

Nobody gets offended.

Nobody debates the issue.

The pianist gets more practice and someday soon they will perform the piece again without those flaws. Nobody has a meltdown about it.

 

Then WHY do beginner writers not accept this fact?

Because writing is broken down like this:

20% skill

9% imagination

1% luck

70% psychological.

 

Yes, my furry wittle writers... the greatest percentage of successful writing is to surmount the psychological.

 

It will happen, but not without extreme amounts of practice, completing many types and lengths of works on many subjects with many styles of delivery utilized, and ALL ably critiqued.

 

No, my pretties, it doesn't happen because you own a pen and some paper or a laptop, and you happen to have a thought in your head.

I'll repeat that: It doesn't happen because you own a pen and some paper or a laptop, and you happen to have a thought in your head.

 

The fear of critique disintegrates the moment you accept this fact.

You are freed from any Ego you are petting right now inside your head.

You accept you ARE an apprentice.

You accept you WILL make mistakes.

You acknowledge it's your craft that needs work, NOT your person.

 

So, what does this awareness do for you? 

You no longer feel afraid of submitting your manuscripts to others for assessment. 

 

Note: by "others" I mean learned souls when it comes to the mechanics of writing - plot/character development, style consistency, grammar/proofing.

And no, your mother doesn't count as a learned soul unless she's an English or Creative Writing university prof, and can distance herself from being your mom (likely not).

 

From this point forward, you EXPECT to get your manuscript back with as much red pen ink on it as the original black. And when you do, you LEARN from those corrections.

You don't ignore them.

You don't avoid them.

You don't gloss over them.

You own and internalize them, and take them as GIFTS, never making those same mistakes again.

 

Example in Point: I once typed the word, "shinny" instead of "shiny" in a manuscript. Word confusions like this are tricky to locate by a writer, but, of course, my beta reader easily caught it, and chuckled! And I laughed too, feeling like a 4-square idiot! Well, let me tell you, a month doesn't go by that I don't read either of those words or attempt to use those words that my past gaffe doesn't spring to mind, and I smile. And that mistake happened YEARS ago!

 

If the reader hadn't pointed that error out to me, how would I have known to be more careful in searching for similarly spelled word sets? That critique became a lifelong gift!

 

After many years of writing manuscripts with words written into the multi-millions, I no longer fear critique.

I expect it.

I welcome it.

And if someone who reads my MSs doesn't have anything critical to say, then I get suspicious, and look even harder for the gaffes I KNOW are there.

 

And as new writers, so should you!

 

Remember what I said: writing is mostly a psychological endeavor. The sooner you get over yourself and let your Ego take a flying leap, the sooner your craft will improve.

 

Reality Check: You will be correcting your works and learning this craft for the rest of your life. There are no perfect writers. Ask any master pianist.

Write For Yourself, First...

 

What If...

Instead of increasing the profit and prestige of Zuckerberg and Dorsey the moment you wake up,

You augment your own, first!

 

I'm going out on another limb here and guessing the moment you wake up, the first thing you get "done" is looking at your social media, and responding to said.

 

Yay!!!

Mark and Jack are SO proud of you!

You are giving them another billion, as they romp in the crystal clear waters off Kauai.

 

*Sigh....*

Seriously?

 

How 'bout we transform your priorities?

How 'bout we make a To-Do List that for each day 

THESE CERTAIN THINGS MUST BE DONE BEFORE I get my social media Dopamine fix.

 

Yes. I know...

Your needy approval quotient is down a quart since you've been sleeping...

So sad am I. Please hand me a tissue. Thanks.

 

Do we want to be writers?

Do we want to start, work through and finish that book???

 

There is no romantic anything in prioritizing your life.

If you want to accomplish goals before you croak, it's a Must-Do.

And what better day than today to begin!

 

For myself, I have daily To-Dos that must get done before I'm allowed my first break of the morning, before my other, larger projects can begin. They are daily writing micro To-Dos, and they all need to be done by about 11 a.m. I usually start working around 9 a.m.

Then, for a reward, a coffee break or early lunch, where I daydream out my picture window or grab some rays on my deck, readying my mind for the bigger projects of the day AND where I will respond to any necessary social media.

Then, from about 1 p.m. on until the close of my work day at around 4-5 p.m., I work on bigger projects - editing a WIP, completing a gig contract, writing on articles or on my next WIP. The project priority/deadline dictates what that line-up is each day.

 

For those of you who work outside of writing, you can swap out all that social media scrolling for completing your writing sessions. No matter what your day holds or what you do for income, there IS ALWAYS free time that can be swapped into productive time AND STILL have relaxation moments in your day. You just have to get creative. And you're a writer, right? Get creative already!

 

When I finish a To-Do, it gets crossed off the list as a visual reward, and I move onto the next. No rocket science here, peeps, just methodical plodding along through the day's duties, never using up mental energy to gripe about the list. It has to get done. I swallow that reality. I get it done. After all, I'm working for myself here, not Mark or Jack.

 

Don't throw excuses at me in the form of rotten tomatoes.

I duck every time.

And I've heard them all before, and they are all lame.

 

My day's end reward, especially during this pandemic, has been watching the news or sitting on my deck, sipping a cocktail while the dinner cooks, usually around 5 p.m. Prior to Covid-19, it may have been meeting with a friend for a drink or going swimming at my community pool.

 

My point is, you must develop a To-Do List that benefits YOU, not the zillionaires out there in Ethernet Land. Sure, social media has its place, but it won't be your buddy when you're despondent over not completing your writing dreams.

 

HOMEWORK: sit down tonight, and formulate that daily micro/bigger project list, to include breaks and reward times, like exist in any job.

 

CHOOSE to be disciplined about your future.

CHOOSE to look at writing as a serious métier, and not a hobby.

CHOOSE to live for yourself instead of waiting for Mark Z or Jack D to send you an invitation in the mail for you to permanently stay in their Hawaiian Guest House. ;-)

Social Media Writing...

 

Social Media Posting/Commenting...

Everyone does it.

 

People wanting to be writers should do it well. Do you?

~ Do you adhere to proper sentence structure, including punctuation?

~ Do you complete a thought, separate ideas into their own paragraphs?

~ Do you, even in flash snippets, create a Start, Middle and End to your post?

~ Do you endeavor to take your readers into a story bubble virtually every single time?

I'm going out on a limb here and say, nope, you don't.

 

To be a writer, you have to BE a writer.

It's not enough to start writing on your Great American Novel when the muse hits you but every other day, write like you're in 4th grade.

 

You ARE your words, if you truly want to become a wordsmith.

You ARE ON, LIVE, 24/7, as a writer, every time you post anything, anywhere, and for the rest of your life.

 

This effort is not solely for your readers, but for you, for if you do NOT practice crafting good works EVERY DAY - however micro-small or tome big, online or off - you will simply not improve enough to competently finish any work, Great American Novel or not. That is a fact.

 

Ask any aspiring pianist how much they practice the scales before they even attempt playing a piece.

 

At some point, you have to look yourself in the mirror and decide if you're in this endeavor for life or merely in love with the romantic notion of becoming a writer. Those choices are worlds apart.

 

HOMEWORK: Consider how you have posted online in the past and decide, TODAY, to up your literary game, that with every word you publish...

~ It will be your best word - mechanically, stylistically, intellectually.

~ It will strengthen your branding Image.

~ And it will be authentically you, the very best of you.

 

*Remember: A master in any métier never achieved said standing by engaging part-time.*

Decide to be a full-time apprentice. 

 

Engage your brain with every thought, every word choice, every response, so the practice you need, you will receive, and the reader will benefit from your every attempt, always.

Can't Write? Go Outside...

 

Can't write?

Close your laptop and get outside.

Do something physical.

 

Your blank mind is telling you that your imagination well is dry... from a lack of body movement, a lack of oxygen, and a lack of living life.

 

Today, hit the backyard and pull some weeds or wash your car or go for a walk. 

 

Whatever you do, wholly ingest the world around you — all your senses, take it in. You simply cannot write on life if you're not living it, and yes, even during a pandemic there are safe ways to be outside and commune with the world around you.

 

I assure you that after you start living, so will your writing breathe.

 

Remember: a grand and vivid tale can birth from the smallest, simplest of things - a spider's web, a lady bug, a leaf, the rustling in the trees. Never underestimate Mother Nature's ability to teach you a thing or two, even if you think you know a thing or two. ;-)

 

Those of you who try this today, comment below about your experience.

Emotional Writing - Which Category Are You?

 

There seems to be two types of writers...

1) ones who can experience a deeply emotional event, and can distance themselves from their emotions enough to immediately, and competently, write on that event. Often, those writers end up being reporters. I'm thinking of Hemingway in the Spanish Civil War, Farley Mowat in WWII, and Neil Sheehan in Vietnam.

2) ones whose emotions are so strong, their psyches too attached to the event that immediate and competent writing on said will be fraught with grammatical errors and poor word choices - not the writer's usual M. O. 

 

If you're in the first category, good on you!

You're probably hunkering down in some foxhole right this very minute, and with muddy fingers hacking out a genius draft with a stubby pencil and a wet and tattered notebook. You are my hero.

 

If you're in the second, welcome to my world.

 

I remember back in high school, in Grade 12, we had to take a career survey. It was some high-fangled computer algorithm gadget thingy that when you answered a bevy of questions, it would spit out on a daisy wheel printer sheet the best careers for you. Yesss, this was just shy of the Stone Age, stop snickering.

 

I remember these were my choices:

* Political Diplomat

* Nun

* Reporter

Those of you who know me personally, STOP LAUGHING!

Seriously, I hear you out there, rolling around on your carpet.

STOP IT, I say!

 

My response to said choices:

* I'm of Northern Irish descent, and if I had lived in Northern Ireland, my lifeless corpse would have decayed ages ago in some lowly ditch, as a result of my unknowingly mouthing off to a clandestine IRA member I found in a Catholic pub I purposely frequented, to purposely tear a hole in the social fabric, for shits 'n' giggles. I have friends who live near Belfast, who plead with me to this very day, to stay the heck in Canada if I treasure my life. It seems diplomatic foreplay is not my forte. ;-)

* Referencing the above, it's obvious I'm not Catholic, and my love of booze and swearing like a drunken sailor wouldn't make me many friends in the nunnery, I'm thinking.

* As much as I love fast-paced jobs and writing, the combo would probably physically kill me over time. I don't smoke or do drugs, so I guess I'd end up becoming an alcoholic from the daily pressures of grinding out good articles on harrowing events, 10 minutes before deadline.

 

My long-winded point here is if you cannot divide your mind, so quality prose can be produced on a sensitive subject, you MUST take a mental chill-pill after experiencing an emotional event, well before you begin to write. For emotional writers like myself, there is no other way.

 

Steps to Better Emotional-Induced Writing for the 2nd Category:

1) Experience the event. Take it in with all your senses. Make notes in real time. Own your emotions, as they will be the well from which you will draw to craft your future prose piece.

2) Go home, rest and heal. Take a step back, and regain your mental and physical strength. You have expended everything you had just to survive through that event. Now's the time to rest and digest.

3) Gather your notes and do further extraneous research - read, listen, and watch everything on the subject. Get more immersed, but do it from an emotionally safe distance.

4) Synthesize all your information into a completed draft. Every day, work a bit on that draft until you've edited out any lingering emotional gaffes. It takes days to re-read and assess the piece through objective eyes.

5) And when, and only when, you read a solid researched piece, which conveys your deep emotions in a cohesive, error-free way, hit Publish.

 

Yes, being in the second category is a tough row to hoe.

Rest and research and literal time and distance away from the event will be what gets your emotions working for you, not against you, in the prose.

 

Bonus to being in the Second Category:

Your measured literary response will produce a far deeper resonance with your reader than what can be written on the fly. The piece will exude a complex mastery of emotions and your embed knowledge.

Your work may never be the first public response, but it might be the last, the final word which forever lingers on the minds of readers.

 

HOMEWORK:

Today, look yourself in the mirror.

Be honest with your strengths, and especially your weaknesses.

And decide which writer category you are.

And hone the strengths inherent in that category.

 

You can't be all things to all people.

Be the best at who you are for people who love to read you for who you are.

That's where literary success lives.

Got Imagination?

 

You're lying in bed.

Dried milk mustache adorns your upper lip.

A crusty bowl of leftover cereal sits silently on your bedside table, mocking you.

 

You know you need to write. Even the cereal bowl knows that.

But you don't have a clue about what to write.

 

You promised a story to someone, somewhere, due super soon. You're sure of it. You nibble at your nails for nourishment. The cereal didn't cut it.

 

You look up.

Your ceiling is giving you no inspiration... although you do see a teeny tiny spider making web hay in the corner, near where your fern plant hangs that you never seem to water until Firemen burst through your door with a hose, as a clue.

 

You sigh... *big sigh*

You winch yourself up, look over your mattress, and see "things," fuzzy furry things peeking out from under your bed.

You realize they are dust bunnies.

With a look of disdain and disgust, you flop back down, despondent.

 

Then it hits you!

 

Samuel Spider, the warlord of Fernland, and Dirk and Dan Dust Bunnies are joining forces in a quest to find the treasure - the lost bowl of King Tut's Fruit Loops!

 

You leap out of bed, grab a leftover napkin you obviously didn't use in that cereal foray, and you madly jot down the first sentences to a trilogy that goes so viral even J. K. Rowling calls you up to meet for brunch.

 

Hey, stuff like this happens all the time!

 

Go ahead, lie there, look around you, use your imaginative brain. 

Lying in your bed, you can only go up from here!

Fear of the Blank Page...

 

Fear of the Blank Page...

Solution: Don't look at that page until you've already drafted something out in your mind.

Simple-dimple. Easy-peasy. Donesco. Duh!

 

The panster mentality will take you places you don't want to go as a writer of competent and completed works. 

 

Sure, it's exciting, thrilling, to sit down and decide to let your gray cells take you on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, but it'll be gross once you get dizzy with confusion, and you end up barfing all over your cotton candy because you didn't prepare for the ride by packing a barf bag.

 

Okay, gross and clumsy metaphor.

Hey, it's Monday. I liken Mondays to barfing...

 

Fun Fact: Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond series, used to suntan on his beach in Jamaica and mentally draft out a completed Bond book before he ever wandered up to his cabin, fixed a pitcher of martinis, and got to work typing out the tale.

 

Yes, genres like thriller/romance/mystery are plot recipe-driven, so nowhere near the complexity of, say, literary or historical works, but he was correct in completing this exercise, easy or not. 

 

**It's the only way your brain will tell your fingers what to write.** Fact.

 

What's the point of sitting down to write when you have nothing yet to write about???

 

I've not scientifically gauged this, but I think my conjuring up a story vs. actually writing out the story is about 90% to 10%. A TON of ruminating on the plot and the characters and the motivation and the obstacles takes place in my head before I ever even write out my scene cards, never mind actually pounding the keys.

 

Long works are not like flash fiction or short stories. It takes time to formulate a complete story arc.

Why would I torture myself by sitting in front of a computer before I hadn't a clue as to what's what?

 

Seriously. Get real about writing books. This is not some fairy tale romantic jaunt you're on. You don't go on a cross-country road trip never knowing where the damn gas stations are. Why attempt an 80 grand word work, having zero clue where the plot and characters will end up traveling?

 

Plan out that story. Think on each scene - its arc, and how the events and characters will interact and move that arc forward. Don't have a brain aneurysm about it, but allow your mind to flip through those scenes, so it knows where to take your fingers.

 

It's not brain surgery, but your brain must be drafted into the process; otherwise, I guess that Blank Page Fear will rear it's vacuous ugly head. And who needs that?

 

It's Monday. Get thinking. Ian is making a toast to your effort.

FOTS - Fear of Time and Space - the Writer Version

 

FOTS - Fear of Time and Space - the Writer Version...

I just invented this acronym. If you find it on Google, I'll be amazed.

 

I invented it to ask you a question:

Do you think that when you sit down to write, the world is moving on without you? That everyone on this Blue Marble is hustling, bustling, laughing, gathering gobs of fun and cool experiences while you grow moss under your butt?

 

Yes, FOTS is Literary FOMO squared, but have you considered switching your viewpoint of the known fabric of Time and Space?

 

Could it be YOU who is moving faster through the universe than everyone else? Experiencing more, feeling more, living so much more that the fabric has severed you from the rest of the world?

 

Maybe in such warped speed you feel like it's you who have come to a crawling stop when it could be everyone else not able to catch up.

 

I think that with every book written, we writers are piloting a jet-fuelled craft achieving warp speed. Maybe that's why when we focus and choose words and craft sentences we are so exhausted after the feat.

 

The next time you sit down, and you think you'll be left far behind in the human experience, think again. You and your work maybe spearheading through the never-before-seen fabric of life.

Vent that Writing Problem...

 

Find yourself in a writing trap. Have you got vent?

Although writing is a solo endeavor, for the overall quality of the work, it shouldn't always be. A writer needs the world outside in so many ways. 

 

If you find yourself up against it — plot cornered, character motivation, wordiness gone feral — grab a friend, and start talking about it. That friend doesn't need to know the ins and outs of your work. They are just a trusted sounding board who will listen objectively, often seeing the trees in the forest of panic and confusion that has the writer incapacitated. 

 

75% of the time, before the writer has even fully explained their problem, as they talk, a lightbulb will flick on, and in mid-sentence they will discover the solution all by themselves, often hugging their friend, and zooming off to write in a joyous frenzy. Did I mention we writers are narcissistic wingnuts?

 

Next time you're trapped in your words, give this tactic a try. If you jump for joy and leave me all alone at the restaurant table, I'll understand.

The 5 Minute Writing Mindset Game...

 

Photo Adelaide Club

Not writing at all? Try this exercise:

 

When it's your time to write, sit down in front of your pad of paper or keyboard, start a timer for 5 minutes, and just sit there, doing nothing. You can drink a coffee if you wish, but do nothing else.

 

Once the 5 minutes are up, get up, and go about the rest of your day.

 

Tomorrow, at the same time, do the same thing, BUT ADD ONE MORE MINUTE to those 5, and now sit there for 6 minutes.

 

Keep doing this every day you don't write, adding a minute more, until you DO write. Even just ONE WORD. That word you plunk down could simply be the word, "the."

 

Every day after that first word day, write TWO WORDS. If you don't, you must start the 5-minute wait game all over again.

 

You think this is silly? That's cool. Do it anyways. Follow me. 

 

And once you have undertaken this process, come back here to tell us your experience with it.

 

We must retrain your brain to remove all the process doubts and fears. 

To be a habitual/prolific writer does NOT happen overnight, and not without mental work.

 

Trust me. Follow me. Try it.

Writer's Block Doesn't Exist - Follow Me...

 

Have you tried everything to write and nothing has worked? 

• Seminars
• Writers groups
• How-To books
• Drooling in a fetal position under your desk
  

 Well, before you can surmount an obstacle, you need to know why it exists in the first place. 

There is no such thing as Writer's Block — if you know who you are as an artist, and what makes you tick. I'm here to show you, to you.

I've helped many others in the decade+ years I led a writers process group, so I know I can help you. Follow me.

Comment below, and tell me your stories of writer woe.

Cartoons of the Unfinished...