A New Year

Generally I'm not a fan of January resolutions. Everyone has something to say about the new year and usually it comes after overindulging ourselves in ways we don't any other time of the year. This year I do have a goal but it comes with some practice behind it, so I'm optimistic.

My goal is to write more often. It's a vague goal, I know, but those are easier to accomplish. During my Christmas vacation from work I took a couple of nights to try and write. It wasn't as easy as some of you may think. I can't always concentrate well at home, especially when all the kids are home. Even if I ensconce myself in the library and keep quiet, there are distractions and interruptions.

Even though there were some distractions I did manage some good writing time. This has given me hope that I can learn to write more at home. Not only will writing at home give me more time for my ideas, by sitting down in more frequent spurts, improve the overall story.

Time will tell but I appreciate the support of my family when they try and talk to me and don't get an answer quite as quickly as usual. It's a new year and maybe this year I finally have a real, achievable resolution. Oh, and I'd like to lose a few more pounds. And have world peace.

Quote For Today

"It is better to write a bad first draft than to write no first draft at all." --Will Shetterly

Don't stress too much if you aren't writing the perfect story, or if editing isn't going great. Just remember that you're doing something and that's better than doing nothing. Keep your chin up!

The last impression

Hook the reader early and often. I've noticed that writers and editors teach the importance of the early hook. In my writing group we've discussed how important that hook is, considering books that have no hook and evolve slowly. Indeed, editors who have spoken to our group insist that it is crucial to grab a reader's attention quickly.

In the main story I'm writing at the moment I came to the end of a scene and suddenly found that I couldn't end it. The intensity I try to build fizzles and the running scene lurches to an ugly end. With all the emphasis on setting up the scene my brain has tried to end it with the same energy and failed. Read it here.

This is only one example. Other times I've been writing and found the same problem: I'm on a roll, feeling the words come out just right, and then writing a lame sentence that leaves the whole feeling injured. Currently, what I do is edit it a few times to rescue it. If that fails then I leave it and come back later, but some things get so stuck in my head that I can't seem to think of anything else. Does anyone have any different ideas? What do you do when a word, phrase or sentence is out of sync with the rest of the scene?

Minimal Writing

I haven't tried this writing technique but, even if taken as a jest, I admit it sounds intriguing.  Soon maybe I will post the result.  Happy Halloween, everyone!

"I asked Ring Lardner (a blacklisted U.S. journalist and author) the other day how he writes his short stories, and he said he wrote a few widely separated words or phrases on a piece of paper and then went back and filled in the spaces."  --Harold Ross (1892-1951), founding editor of The New Yorker. 

Writing Every Day

Since starting to write last January, this has been my biggest challenge. There are so many reasons not to write in a day, excuses leap to the tip of my tongue. Some days it's to spend time with the family, or because I had yard work, or felt too tired. Maybe the house was too noisy, or I had to take a phone call. Perhaps I blamed it on the easy target, the so-called "writer's block."

Such excuses and their endless siblings may have validity but the block honest habits from forming. There may be a day when writing won't or shouldn't happen at all, or must be cut short. As a new writer I feel that such excuses crop up all too frequently. Yet Stephen King wrote that fantasy writers should aim for 1,000 words a day, six days a week. So, I have to start making a habit from writing and I'm looking for the best way to do it. One tip I picked up was to end each writing session in the middle of the action, making sure no following session starts with a blank mind. Another idea is to figure out which part of the day (you need to do some experimenting here) your mind works best in and set aside some time then to write. Also, having a notebook (paper or electronic) handy for ideas will help when you sit down to write at length. A journal can even create the impetus to write each day, and lengthier projects can go from there.

My idea so far is keeping up a regular blog (I have two). I haven't written each day but I'm getting better. What ideas does anyone else have to help them write regularly?

Quote For Today

“Words—so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.”

—Nathaniel Hawthorne

Remember this, whether you're feeling the full-throttle of your craft or doing molasses-slow editing, how powerful you can all be!

Pratchett: Wonderfully Absurd

Recently I've been reading some of the Discworld books, by Terry Pratchett, with my family. The series in question starts with Wee Free Men and follows the adventures of Tiffany, a 9 year girl who may or may not be a witch. What I've found in Pratchett is a writer with a strong sense of the absurd. There is a similarity between his writing style and that of Douglas Adams. Humor that surprises laces nearly every page of the novel, stitched into the fabric of the story seamlessly.

Humor aside, the heroine is brave, resourceful and nearly fearless. There are plenty of fantasy creatures in a setting that is comfortable in its unfamiliarity.  I admire his ability to tell a story that is enjoyable and deeper than it first appears, with a great sense of humor amid the seriousness. I would love to be able to tell a story as simply and enjoyably.

Building a story

Several time since I started writing again I have found myself stumped in the middle of a seemingly great idea.Rather than eagerly typing away I would be tensely poised over the keyboard, motionless. The vigor of the story was lost, it's life drained away. Some times I have forced myself to keep going and other times the story has been left alone. Cut off, the file dwindles its way down my list of recently updated files.

This has been a challenge for me to overcome, or even to figure out what was happening. In some cases the fault was with the story but I realized just the other day that a major problem was in the characters themselves. I was so caught in the story and anxious to give release to the creative pressure, I had not fleshed out in my head who the story was about in enough detail to fuel the writing.

Once upon a time I never started a new story until after sitting down with a friend to hash out characters. We uncovered through our conversations some of their background, strengths and weaknesses, and motives. In doing so we also laid out general lines where the story would go. Even the breadth of geography for the start of the story would be uncovered. Which isn't to say that nothing ever changed after that first meeting or two (or three), but a beginning was formed.

And so, I am beginning a new story, one with characters and depth I've already fleshed out. They are shadows, and they will change in the telling. But I hope this is a breakthrough for me.

What do you you need to get started with a story? How do you get ready? Any thoughts out there?

Words Are Sacred

One of my favorite quotes, courtesy of a journalist acquaintance, just happens to be about writing. Tom Stoppard, a British playwright, said, "Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little." Regardless of what we write or how often, there is no telling what the impact of our words will be on another human being. Earlier this evening my wife pulled out a single sentence from an eleven page story and told me it was a great sentence. The words meant something to her.

And so, with the right words in the right order you just may nudge the world today. Entering this weekend, I leave you to that quote and your own thoughts.

Repackaging A Story

Recently I took another spin at editing a short story from a couple of years ago.  Actually, the story is one that a friend and I developed over quite some time.  The story inspired an ink drawing by my friend and the short story is an attempt to give some background on the drawing; in other words, this short story is based on a drawing and is actually part of a much larger story.  It's repackaging a long story into a short one, and it wasn't easy.

The challenge was to give enough detail to engage the reader in both the words and the ink.  There must be enough detail to make sense but not so much as to give things away.  At the same time, some things will not make as much sense without knowing the larger parts of the history behind the character.

The character, a priest-turned-sell-sword, is named Kalkin after a character in the great book, Lord Of Light, by Roger Zelazny.  The drawing is one of my favorite in part because of the background it represents; however, it stands on its own.  A framed copy hangs in my house.  I've included a small version of the original drawing and a link to the story, which begins,

"At the edge of the valley the Dark God emerged.  Pools like black ink welled up from the stony ground of the foothills and began to run together and merge.  A thunder of wings carried a fearful flock of screaming birds away from the growing obsidian stain.  The trees where they had roosted began to wither, smoke oozing from beneath their gnarled bark.  Drawing himself upward the Dark God rose from the pitch and stood upon the blighted spot.  Everything around Him held its breath; even the wind was stilled.  He bent his mind across the valley, seeking a soul.

A multitude of auras brushed by the feathery edges of his unimaginable mind until one reacted against him.  A single aura blazed up as it was touched, as if a blue curtain of fire was drawn to avoid his will.  As, in fact, it had been.  The Dark God's touch withdrew.  Malice boiled from the Being, spilling from into the lowlands and across the plain and seeping into every other living being, but one.  Every soul recoiled from the iron tang of their own mortality--the fear of death and the chill of its hopeless approach.  The bitter knife only failed to penetrate one soul.  The god could taste its essence like a bold liquor, and his mind was bent on savoring that one man's eternal dying."

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