Don't Inoculate Your Story

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Not all specialist know what the hell they're talking about. You’ll take this for granted up until the point you have kids, then you suddenly see through everyone’s bunk. That’s when people start telling you how to raise your child. They’ve all got different POV’s on how to do this. “Now I know that he’s small, but don’t let that fool you. They’re smart and they know how to manipulate you to get what they want.”

We got that gem when our son was about six months old. Darned manipulative little six monthers. I knew I shouldn’t have let him con me into getting him that new car seat. All that talk about, “Don’t you want me to be safe in case of a car accident?” Pfft.

You really start to catch on when you learn to see through professionals. It’s like pulling down the curtain on the wizard of Oz. I realized this the other day at my son’s one year baby well visit.

Scare Tactics

I have to admit, my wife and I had pretty much been caught up in the vaccine scare that has infected our culture as of late, so for the first year we skipped them. Now, that he’s mobile and starting to socialize, we realize that it’s probably a good idea to have at least some of the inoculations. And so, what do you do in a time of need like this, ask your doctor.

Ours is a very helpful guy despite his nearly hour wait to see him, grrrr. He’s very open to working with people no matter what they decide with regards to vaccines. After doing more research on my own I found references to a very touted book on the subject, so I asked him about it.

“I turn to the CDC and the government’s website on vaccinations for my information.”

Well, that’s not what I asked, Doc. I wanted to know if this guy was a credible source. But apparently you don’t do any reading on the subject. The debate with regards to vaccines is that the government is approving things that are dangerous or excessive, why would I take the governments word for it?

We talked about my doing a bit more research on the subject and then starting a modified immunization schedule. There was also a question about our son’s speech development and if he interacted enough. The doc sounded a little concerned, and of course I as the parent got all kinds of worried. But he assured me that “he looks healthy, we just need to watch some things.”

“Alright then, I’m going to go, I don’t like to be in the room when they give the shots, that way the kids don’t associate them with me.”

My brows furrowed. “Wait, what? What shots?”

“Don’t you have your yellow vaccine card?”

Was this guy not in the room with me for the last half an hour? “No.”

A look of slight annoyance as he was about to go get me one, then he saw his chart of scheduled vaccination shots on the wall. “Ah, here we go. It will be the 12 month shots, so . . .”

Clueless

I tuned him out, then reminded him that we weren’t getting any shots that day, I was going to research each of the shots and then we, as the parents, would decide which ones our son was going to get and that we would likely start the following week. He was fine with that, but I couldn’t believe the car salesmanship he wheeled out. The old bait and switch.

That day, I purchased the book in question, The Vaccine Book, by Robert Sears. And so far I’m very impressed with it. It’s the most unbiased info I’ve seen on the subject, simply laying out what each vaccine is, what it does, the side effects and the likelihood of having them, what harm actually catching said sickness poses, and finally it tells you the likelihood of ever catching the sickness. It basically lays out the pros and cons in as even a way as possible and says, “You are now empowered with the knowledge, you decide.” How a person in our doctor’s position could not know about this book or have an opinion on it one way or the other is beyond me.

I found this bit in the preface as most enlightening: “Doctors, myself included, learn a lot about diseases in medical school, but we learn very little about vaccines, other than the fact that the FDA and pharmaceutical companies do extensive research on vaccines to make sure they are safe and effective. We don’t review the research ourselves. We never learn what goes into making vaccines or how their safety is studied. We trust and take it for granted that the proper researchers are doing their jobs. So, when patients want a little more information about shots, all we can really say as doctors is that the diseases are bad and the shots are good. But we don’t know enough to answer all of your detailed questions about vaccines. Nor do we have the time during a regular health checkup to thoroughly discuss and debate the pros and cons of vaccines.”

Hence my doctors suggestion to just “go look at the CDC website.”

Enlightenment

The next day I took my son to Borders while his mom was getting her hair done. While there he met a 19 month old little girl, Emily, all pigtails and sass. They played and growled and grunted at each other. She stabbed her finger out at him and scolded him in baby talk when he tried to take Elmo from her. He ran around and found stuffed animals that he brought to her almost as if they were courting. What struck me about this interaction is that this little girl appeared to me to be just fine, but her speech development was on par with my son’s. So what does that make her if our doc thinks that my son is delayed?

I thought a bit more about it and realized, “You know what, that guy didn’t spend any time with my son. He didn’t watch how he interacted with people. He just came in and spouted off generalizations ” It came down to, “You should watch for this,” and “You should watch for that.” Well what the hell do I come to you for then? Here’s this specialist getting me all worried about my son’s development, something I did not question before stepping into his office, and the guy doesn’t really know anything about son.

The Moral of our Story

And that, my friends, reminded me of a critique I did recently for a friend from the message board. It was the first chapter of a novel. During the crit I couldn’t help but feel like I did not know enough about the story to weigh in on it, and I said as much. The reply I got back with regards to it was that some of the things that I took issue with were intended. I wanted an element explored more, the author wanted it forgotten about for a reason. Fair enough, it is her baby after all.

But, just like with my flesh and blood baby, our literary babies deserve more than taking the word of a specialist. While, in the end, we know what’s best for our children, we also owe it to them to inform ourselves as best we can with regards to their wellbeing. Seek answers from everywhere then weigh your choices. Not all advice is equal and not all suggestions can be trusted.

So go forth and learn. And be ready to say, “Uh, wait. What shots?” when some specialist wants you to obediently inoculate your writing.

The Last Five Minutes of Writing

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You’re writing along, the words are flowing, one eye watches for typos while the other watches the clock in your taskbar. Not much time left before you leave for that appointment. If you can just keep typing, fingers speeding along across the keyboard, you can get out the rest of your thoughts, and beat the clock. 

More often than not, this does not work. You hit save and rush off to other things promising yourself that you will get right back to your story as soon as you’re done. But then one of the kids needs help with their homework, the dog managed to escape from the yard, and the toilette clogged while you were out and overflowed turning your bathroom into an amusement park fountain filled with 2000 Flushes blue water.

Days pass, maybe even weeks, and you finally sit back down to pick up where you left off. Only one problem, you don’t remember which way you were headed when you left off. You stare at that blinking cursor and the words that come before it and wonder, “What the hell was I thinking?”

That’s exactly the predicament I found myself in recently. It’s that special case of actually having something planned out before you were cut short, not the more common case of running into a wall.

I find that the only way to get back into the story is by reading over it again, lining up all of the elements of the story so that they are fresh in my mind. It’s something that you have to be careful with because if you’re not careful you’ll start revising things. Once you start down that path you open yourself up to a whole host of concerns, completely changing the direction of the story, getting stuck in a cycle of continuous revisions that deny further progress of the storyline, running out of time to get actual writing done.

If you know ahead of time that you are going to get to sit down and write later on in the day, I suggest printing out your WIP so that you can read through it during those mundane moments on the train or while waiting for your car to be worked on (like I’m doing at this very moment, though I chose to write a post with my spare time). This maximizes our writing time so that we aren’t spending a huge chunk of it rereading when we could be writing.

It also limits the amount of revision we can do. I find it far more difficult to get caught up in serious revisions when I don’t have the magical ‘delete’ key at my disposal. And while I do have the back of the page available for more additions and rewrites, I generally tend to stick to the margins.

Another helpful tip is to take preventative measures. While we can’t be sure when life will interrupt us, or how well the writing will go, if we know that we have to stop at a certain time, take those last five to ten minutes to free-write your remaining thoughts. Don’t pay attention to spelling, grammar, punctuation, just write. Send your internal editor on his coffee break and let the thoughts flow.

S needs to get to hospital going to wrong oone. Meets strange old man tells himhe is going in the wrong direction somethinginside doesn’t agree. like B is trying to tell him something, it is drawn to J. Moment of crisis, what should S do? Follow logical directions or follow the internal calling? Moves to follow directions but the pulling inside turns him around.

That's how the last paragraph of my WIPs usually look when I come back to them later on. Just a bunch of rambling thoughts poured out of my head and onto the screen. (Note: I have no idea what that image says, I swiped it from some obscure corner of the net)

And so on. It’s an example of what I should have written last week when I had to stop working on Spark. I was sure I was going to get right back to it. But life is filled with uncertainties. Granted, it might not make complete sense, (okay, so it doesn’t really make any sense, life or my rambling) but having something to start with is much better than nothing, especially when you’re staring at a blinking cursor at the bottom of a page with the white pit of nothing hanging below it.

Monday Funny: Get fixed

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In light of animal services stopping by my house today and interrupting my breakfast to cite me for having the two pups that I've been trying to get rid of for the past five months and for the two strays that I'm taking care of (one of which is the mother of the two pups, impregnated by a stray that got into our yard, apparently animal services doesn't catch actual nuisance animals), and now making me financially responsible for the $400 plus price tag attached to getting them all fixed, vaccinated, and licensed, I thought that this little reminder about not having offspring in the first place would be best suited for the day. 

Warning: Subtitles *gasp*

Beware the Writing Prompt

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Ah, the writer’s favorite time wasting technique. The perfect way to dodge progress: writing prompts. We own books filled with them, join message boards where we chomp at the bit waiting for the next one to be posted, some of us even take the Writing Excuses guys seriously when they prompt us to “write a story in which you kill Sauron in every chapter.”

We convince ourselves that we are bettering our craft. Practice makes perfect, right? Although practice does indeed lead to something like perfection there comes a point when you have to pull off your warm-up gear and step out onto the pitch (sorry, soccer reference, for the many Americans in the group, that’s what the Brits call a soccer field).

Now, let me point out that I do indeed realize that different people write for different reasons. Some write just to be heard, others write for the joy of it, fanfic folk frequently flock to their forums (I sooooo could not miss out on that alliteration) because they want to continue journeys, whereas I, and I’m guessing most of you have this same motivation, want to see my name in print, to share my thoughts and words with as many people as possible. I want to bring about some form of change in the reader, in the world. Many of these snarky rants are directed at those who think as I do, so if that’s not you I suggest you stop reading this because I’m probably going to offend you.

Consider yourself warned.

Of course, there are different kinds of prompts. For instance, when they come from me, they are obviously of great literary value . . . . Anyone buying that? Alright, seriously, when I propose a writing prompt I am more or less offering up a different way of looking at something. I’m usually trying to understand my characters better, often in a piece that I may have stalled out on. I don’t necessarily intend for them to be done, I just want you to look at something of your own in a different way. The trouble with many writing prompts is that they have nothing to do with your current work in progress (WIP).

Let’s look at some from “A Writer’s Book of Days” by Judy Reeves. (I tend to read these in an airy voice that floats on wisps of marijuana smoke, incents and the romantic memories of flower covered hills in springtime)

• January 1: Write about Sunday afternoon.
• February 15: Write about a brief encounter.
• April 9: You’re asleep. You’re not at home.
• May 24: Write about something you see every day.

I’ll stop there. What in the world do those prompts have to do with our goal of getting published? They’re just an excuse to write. But those are just the prompts, right? The rest of the book must be filled with great information on “how” to write, riiiiight? Not so far as I can tell. The entire book seems dedicated to this fluffy bunny crap.

“What’s the big deal, David? Like you said, it’s just practice.”

No, it’s a distraction. In fact, it is an entire year of your life dedicated to distraction if you follow this book. Add it up, the time spent checking the forum or reading Judy’s musings before you start your prompt, add the writing of the prompt itself, and then, more than likely, if you submit it somewhere for others to read, you’ll go back and edit it before you post. How much of your WIP could you have finished in that time? How much could have been edited? How many markets could have been researched?

It’s an excuse to avoid your WIP. It’s “I’ll get started on my story just as soon as I finish this writing prompt.” And then the next day, it’s the same thing. We only have so much time in a day. If we spend our best hours cranking out pieces on what we did on Sunday, or how we felt when we slept someplace that wasn’t home, our real writing, that world changing stuff that we want to get done, doesn’t get done. Or worst, it’s weakened because we’ve already used so many good words on describing something we see everyday.

I mean, seriously, how many collections of writing prompts do your favorite authors put out? Have you ever heard of any of them actually using them? The Writing Excuses guys offer them every week, and they’re often nonsensical. I’d venture to guess that they don’t take them seriously because they don’t expect us to take them seriously. Real writers put out collections of short stories, not collections of “What I did on Sunday” (unless it’s a collection of Tuesdays with a guy named Morrie but of course not even that is a collection of Tuesdays).

The point here is, real writers write. If you went into work every day and told your boss that before you could actually start working you had to practice working first, he’d fire your ass. More than likely, when you got that job, you didn’t know what you were doing. Most of us go through “on the job training” because we learn best by doing. So spend your practice time actually doing as opposed to practicing it. Or as one of my professors once put it, “Those who talk about doing, often don’t. Those who do, simply do.”

Now then, your writing prompt for today is: Write a story in which a character finds the meaning of life through a series of writing prompts.  

Live Well, Die Empty

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Sometimes, even in the middle of success, we doubt. Yesterday was quite the day of accomplishment for me, and yet at the very end of it I found myself wondering as to the point of it all. 

You can see the fruits of some of my labor all around today’s post. I sat and worked with figuring out hand coding and linking and image hosting for the book review section so that I can give props where props are due. I added three links sections, one for websites, another for blogs that I frequent, and a third with links to stories written by those I know. I wrote an introduction to the blog that comes pretty close to defining what this blog is shaping up to be. I even made connections with a couple of authors via the web.

After sitting down and finishing a couple of critiques for friends, I looked at the analytics for the day and let the wave of accomplishment roll over me. The blog has been a good thing for me and everyone’s support even better.

Having “digitally” met Les Edgerton yesterday (author of “Hooked” and a hell of a nice guy*) I thought about my other favorite book on writing. I typed “Sol Stein” into Google and came across a blog post reviewing one of his books. The post was by Grumpy Old Bookman, “A blog about books and publishing, aimed at both readers and writers. Listed by the Guardian in 2005 as one of the top ten literary blogs.”

His last post was over a year and a half ago. It seems that this once top ten literary blog was no more. In his farewell post he spoke of other famous blogs from around the web that are no more, like that of Mad Max, and Miss Snark. I’ve seen all of these blogs before, listed on other bloggers’ lists of top writing and literary aids. Seems they all wore themselves out.

It got me thinking about whether or not I can keep up this blog. I have high hopes, am filled with so much that I have yet to share, and am learning more every day, but still, it takes a lot of time to pump out these posts. I guess that’s why some people hire others to do it for them.

The old doubts started to creep up. “Just stop now. Slow down. Don’t get yourself in over your head.” Those are the same doubts that have plagued much of my life up to this point. Self limiting behaviors that pull me down into the depths of mediocrity.

But then a saying sprung to mind. It’s something I adapted from that old podcast on knowledge working for creative types, (Acidental Creative). I believe the story goes that the host had the picture of a tombstone above his desk. On it was his name and the words he wanted written there when he died. I have since adapted that saying, cutting it down to the bare essentials.

“Live well, die empty.”

At first it sounds rather morbid. “Die empty?” It calls up images of a heartless old man who cares for nothing. But if you look deeper you find that the words mean something altogether different. The idea is simple. We all die. And when we die we have to give up all of that potential that was left inside of us at the time of our deaths. Just like our possessions, we can’t take it with us. It doesn’t pay forward to some heavenly account where we can wire it back down to Earth. You can’t even use it to buy yourself a really great headstone. It’s just gone.

Instead, why not take all of that energy, all of that potential, all of that creativity and imagination and squeeze out every last drop of it? Push yourself until you burn out and then ask yourself if you’ve really got nothing left. Chances are there’s still more, and if there is not, then you’ve done it. You won. You lived your life to its fullest potential. You gave it your all, and when you die people can say:

“He lived well, and died empty.”

 

Happy writing, friends. And again, thank you.

Edit: 2010/10/29 

You learn some interesting things about people when you befriend them on Facebook, things that can make a person no longer respect and admire you. I'll be reviving the blog long enough to put up a post on just why I've struck my earlier belief that Les is a nice guy (or even a decent human being for that matter), but for the time being, let's just say that I don't have room in my life for people who believe that anyone that hasn't fought in a war is a latte sipping liberal that bows down to "towel heads" and "illegals." 

Oh, and if you are a progressive, Les also doesn't think you have what it takes to become an author anyway so you might as well not go out and buy his book, you'll be wasting your time. 

Kill the Said Bookisms and Dialog Tags

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Your high school English teacher was wrong, dead wrong, when she growled, “find another word for said.” 

Your high school English teacher was wrong, dead wrong, when she pointed her finger at you, beady eyes glaring over the rims of her glasses, words barely sneaking past her pursed lips as she said, “find another word for said.”

Déjà vu? Almost. The first is an example of being lazy. The second, description. Alright, alright, so it’s not just laziness, it’s flexing your lexiconical type muscles (so what if that’s not a word) and that’s definitely a good thing. The trouble is, in fiction writing it’s a no-no.

Lazy
Now, the examples above came from the top of my head (another example of laziness I suppose) but even still I think they illustrate the first point rather nicely. Said bookisms are usually used in an attempt to let the reader do all of the work. Rather than describing the teacher, the mood in the room, her mannerisms, or her tone of voice, the author is hoping that by simply saying “growled” the reader will fill in all the gaps for him.

But look at that picture next to the examples. Are you going to try and tell me that "growled" or "angrily" is going to communicate that face? No way.

On the other hand, by avoiding the said bookism, the author is forced to describe the scene in more detail. The author has to show. And we all know that old rule, Show, Don’t Tell. Said bookisms are telling and eliminating them forces you to show.

Be Realistic
Extreme said bookisms just aren’t realistic. Growled, shrieked, hissed: try to actually do that. Try to growl words. It’s not possible. You’re growling, how could you be talking at the same time? I mean, maybe you could get out a “Grrrrrrreat!” But that’s about it. Everything else would end up coming out like some deranged Smeagle-bear creature voice.

For a list of said bookisms or dialog tags, see the previous post. And please comment with any additions to the list so that we can keep a running tab.

You Can’t See Me
One of the most important reasons for avoiding said bookisms is that ‘said’ by itself is pretty much invisible to the readers eye. Sure, there are those readers out there who allow it to bug the hell out of them, but trust me, they are in the minority. The rest of us gloss over the word ‘said,’ paying attention just long enough to note who happened to be doing the saying. And face it, we should be lingering on what was just said, not the fact that it was growled.

But There Are Just Too Many
If you run into this problem:

“I love you, John,” she said.

“No you don’t,” he said back.

“No, I do. I really, really do,” she said again.

“I heard what you said, but I don’t see it in your eyes,” he said.

Be aware that your problem is not a lack of said bookisms, it’s a lack of pacing in your dialogue. You also don’t have to use the said tags when you have a clear back and forth exchange between two characters.

White Elephants
A famous example of avoiding even the word said, appears in Ernest Hemmingway’s short story, “Hills Like White Elephants,” (read it here). No really, read it. It’s only three pages long. An excerpt follows: 

The girl looked at the bead curtain. “They’ve painted something on it,” she said. “What does it say?”

“Anis del Toro. It’s a drink.”

“Could we try it?”

The man called “Listen” through the curtain. The woman came out from the bar.

“Four reales.”

“We want two Anis del Toro.”

“With water?”

“Do you want it with water?”

“I don’t know,” the girl said. “Is it good with water?”

“It’s all right.”

“You want them with water?” asked the woman.

“Yes, with water.”

“It tastes like licorice,” the girl said and put the glass down.

“That’s the way with everything.”

“Yes,” said the girl. “Everything tastes of licorice. Especially all the things you’ve waited so long for, like absinthe.”

“Oh, cut it out.”

“You started it,” the girl said. “I was being amused. I was having a fine time.”

“Well, let’s try and have a fine time.”

“All right. I was trying. I said the mountains looked like white elephants. Wasn’t that bright?”

“That was bright.”

“I wanted to try this new drink. That’s all we do, isn’t it—look at things and try new drinks?”

“I guess so.”

The girl looked across at the hills.

“They’re lovely hills,” she said. “They don’t really look like white elephants. I just meant the coloring of their skin through the trees.”

Hemmingway does such a fine job of describing the characters through their dialogue that even noting who is speaking can be skipped over in parts. Even with the further complication of the waitress, it remains obvious who is speaking at any given moment. We can also tell that the waitress speaks another language and that Sam is playing translator during the interaction. Now that’s strong dialogue, and strong dialogue will always win out over a carefully chosen said bookism. That brings us to the most important point.

Exceptions to the Rule
Some said bookisms are quieter than others. For instance, whispering or yelling. I think that much of that has to do with the fact that these two words, and those like them, also refer to the volume of one’s voice. Said implies something spoken at a normal volume. To mix a description of a loud or quiet voice with the word said would be contradictory. Such contradictions would once again attract attention where none should be placed.

The windows shook as he said, “Go away. Just go away and leave me in peace.” Are we supposed to be imagining the character yelling or speaking quietly? Is there a gust of wind outside that shakes the windows? I don’t know, you tell me.

Other times you need that little help that a said bookism can lend. Let’s suppose that we have a stretch of dialogue where two characters speak back and forth. The dialogue may need to be tight in order to keep the pacing right; therefore, we can’t use a great deal of description to communicate anything beyond what is said in dialogue.

“I love you with all my heart,” he lied. In this set of circumstances, were we to eliminate the said bookism altogether, the reader would have been left to guess at the speaker’s intentions. But it only works because of a convergence of circumstances that cause it to be required.

Don’t Be Fooled: Adverbial Tags
Okay, so I can’t use ‘growled.’ I’ll just use, “he said angrily.”

That’s an adverbial tag, and sorry, that’s still cheating. Your dialogue and the character’s actions should be communicating that anger, not the adverb. If the anger is not communicated through these preferred avenues it’s time to go back and rewrite it so that they do.

Now, what happens when we read adverbial tags? We’re cruising along, reading the dialog, “I think you should leave,” everything is going just fine and then comes, she said angrily. My eye likely skipped ahead far enough to know that the said was coming, but not the angrily. Oh crap, I think, I was supposed to read that angrily. So I stop and reread the words because when I read them the first time I read them the way I thought they should sound. Now the great director of the story is telling me to try again. Take two.

As the reader, I’ve just hit a speed bump. Not only am I rereading things, I’m also questioning exactly how angrily sounds, so I might reread it more than once. After that, I might even question the director’s instructions.

Remember, an adverb in most cases, even when not a part of dialogue, is nothing more than a shortcut. It’s a copout for stronger writing. The emphasis should be on the verb. If that action needs to be better described, describe it, don’t try to get an adverb to do all the work for you. While that’s not always the case with adverbs, it is pretty much always the case with adverbial tags related to said. So carefully watch how you delicately place them into sentences.

But So and So Does It

If so-and-so jumped off of a cliff would you jump too? I’m sure that there are plenty of examples out there of published authors who ignore these rules. Some do it consciously. They know the rules and how to break them, and they are doing it for a reason. For instance, you’ll see said bookisms in comedic writing. If you really want what you are writing to have an immature feel, than by all means, use them.

You also see them in romance a lot. I’m not quite sure if it has to do with the reader being expected to incorporate a very active imagination and therefore not need the description, or if it’s just bad writing. There are a lot of bad writers out there that somehow got published. We’re better than that though.

Dialogue Is Paramount

The most important words on any page filled with dialogue had better be the dialogue itself; otherwise you need to ask yourself why it is even there. When you use said bookisms you are giving a single word a bullhorn and letting it yell, “look at me, look at me.” They both distract and detract from what is being said. Dialogue is so much more powerful than that.

Look at the Hemingway example again. Did you notice the point where the girl tried her drink? Did you have to be told she was trying her drink, or that the drinks were set on the table? I’ll go more into the power of dialogue in another post, but for now I just want you to keep that idea in your mind. Remember how powerful dialogue can be and you’ll be less likely to disrespect it with said bookisms.

What counts is not what is said but the effect of what is meant.  –Sol Stein, “Stein on Writing”

 

A List of Said Bookisms or Dialog Tags

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This list relates to my "Kill the Said Bookisms and Dialog Tags" post. 

I’m sure that this is not a comprehensive list, so if I missed any, please let me know and I’ll amend the post. It might be a fun exercise to write a short scene in which you are only allowed to use said bookisms. Then take that same scene and replace all of the said bookisms with said and finally go through one last time and adjust your description so that the intent that you wanted the said bookism to communicate comes through your description and dialogue instead. Having to go through the extra work of describing and rewording dialogue might help in realizing that many of the said bookisms were never necessary in the first place and that the dialogue and description are actually alright the way that they are, just like in the Hemingway example.

barked
begged
bellowed
blared
bleated
cackled
chortled
coaxed
cooed
coughed
declared
demanded
exclaimed
expounded
gasped
groaned
hacked
haggled
harped
hissed
hooted
implored
jabbered
jeered
jested
joked
moaned
panted
pleaded
pondered
posited
pronounced
protested
queried
questioned
sang
screamed
shouted
sneezed
snickered
sniffed
spat
spewed
spumed
stammered
stated
stuttered
trilled
trumpeted
uttered
wailed
whimpered
whined
whispered
worried

 

A Tip on Getting Back into Writing

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There’s something about any creative profession, especially when done from home, that let’s those around us think that they can interrupt us whenever they see fit. I’m trying to understand it better myself in hopes to figure out how to head it off at the pass. 

You’ll be in the middle of a scene, words flowing smooth like honey, a steady stream of golden excellence when all of a sudden, “Did you hear me?”

You shake your head, as though hearing things. “What?”

“I asked if you’d . . . .” And it really doesn’t matter what comes next, it can be anything. The problem is when we turn back from this conversation and look at the screen again, we find that train of thought thoroughly smashed into the side of a mountain (did I just mix metaphors?) Oh the carnage.

It’s at this point that we sigh, look at our taskbar and think, “Might as well check my email.”

Our loved ones don’t understand why we get so cranky with these distractions. They think it some flaw in our artistic nature that makes us volatile. But in all honesty, if you were to call them at work every five minutes to ask what they wanted for dinner, then to tell them about an interesting story you saw on the net about a woman who saw Jesus in a tub of Crisco, then to ask what they were doing that weekend, then to ask if they could hold the baby, then to ask if, . . . they would go nuts and start screaming their bloody heads off. “I’m at work. You can’t call me every five minutes. It’ll have to wait until I get home.”

But we aren’t at work, are we? We’re already at home. If we’re not getting paid for what we’re writing it adds another complication because no one sees potential profit as pay, they see it as a hobby, and frankly, it is. It remains a hobby until we turn it into a business. So in that respect we have to learn to shoulder some of the irritation.

No matter how you try to explain it to them, they either don’t understand, or simply forget. This is why I try to write late into the night when everyone’s asleep. Of course that draws complaints about improper sleeping patterns, but I can put up with that if it means that I can get out a complete thought without it being interrupted. Besides, I also tend to stop on my own when the baby is around. If he comes to the door and hangs out there, “Ba ba ba baaaaa!” (no, he’s not trying to say bottle, he’s breast fed) I’ll often stop what I’m doing to hold him or play with him because I know he’s not going to be doing this for long.  

One of the methods that I’ve come up with for getting back into my writing is to have several documents open at the same time. This very entry came about because of an interruption during my Fatal Flaw post. I was nearly at the end of it when my Step Mum, who was over to take the little guy for the day, came over to the office asking for me to come and give my son a kiss goodbye, then to comment on the progress on the garage again, then to comment about how nice it was outside and how I should get out and get to work, all of which occurred after her telling us about her latest attempt at matchmaking, and talking about my son’s shoes and needing me to find him another shirt despite her knowing where they were and so on and so forth, so that by the time it got to the “come give your son a kiss,” part, I was on my last nerve. When I sat down to finish the post, I had no idea what I had been talking about or where I was going with it. The entire post would have to be reread before I could continue writing.

What I did instead was open a new document and titled it “Interruptions.” As writers we often have several projects going at once. Articles for magazines, short stories, a novel or two, a blog we have to keep up with. If we keep several of those things going at the same time, when we stall out on one, we can jump to another. Once you stall out on that one, switch back to the last one and you just might find that the honey has thawed and is flowing once more.

Life it seems is a grand juggling act. The more things you’ve got in the air the more “oooo”s and “aaaaaah”s you’ll get from your spectators. And you’ll probably make more money too when it comes time to drop something into the hat.

Do you guys and gals have any special restarting habits? What do you do with interruptions? No really. I want to know. Comments in the top right corner of the post.

(Picture snagged from http://www.rubengazki.com/stage/)

Monday Funny: Thank you thank you thank you

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With this edition of the Monday Funny, I wanted to send out some thank you’s and let you guys know about a few changes. First of all, thanks to everyone for reading the blog and sharing it with your friends. It really means a lot to me. Along with my own personal triumph of going three weeks straight with a post appearing every day, I’d like to announce another little milestone, the third straight week of increased readership.

Seems that when I put forth the effort you guys and gals reward me. I’m not talking about huge leaps, maybe three or four people a week, but still, it means a lot to me. I was especially impressed with last week’s numbers because the week before had the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ trailer that brought a load of people to the blog just to see that. These folks likely were not interested in the craft of writing and just wanted to see the trailer. And that’s fine. What I didn’t expect was for the following week’s numbers to edge just above the Wonderland week, but they did, and that got me really pumped.

I’m going to be going through old posts and adjusting the tags, and coming out with clearly defined categories for the posts so that past content is easier to find. I’ll also be working on some more layout issues with the blog, putting my friends’ blogs link section back up (it got lost when I changed templates) and putting up a new section for links to stories that friends have written, so be looking for those (just so long as I can figure out the coding, keep your fingers crossed on that one).

Once again, thank you all so very much. I don’t make any kind of money from this. I’m paid solely in knowing that my words help others. So if you read anything that makes you smile, helps you, or gets you to think of something in a different way, you can say thanks by passing the word along, subscribing, and/or clicking one of those sociable buttons below each of the posts (digg, stumble, del.icio.us, and the like, seriously, do you know how long it took me to figure out how to add them to this theme? we're talking hours and hours).

Thanks again. You are awesome and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Now let’s share a laugh.

I am soooo going to catch flack for this vid, but I don't care. 

 

Your Fatal Flaw

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Another blog inspired by the Yahoo Fantasy group. One of the writers there made the point of how unhappy they’ve been with the BBC version of Robin Hood. Seems the Sheriff kills off Robin’s friends left and right while Robin, who at least tries to stop him, never makes the attempt to kill him. Worse yet, a few episodes into the series Robin Hood breaks into the Sheriff’s chambers, puts a sword to the man’s throat and tells him that if harm comes to any of Robin’s people he’ll kill the Sheriff. Apparently that sunk into neither of their heads.

Constraints of the medium have been mentioned as well as labeling this problem as a huge plot hole unfilled by the writers, but I see it as another problem, and one that relates to writing. It appears to me that the writers have a promise set up in their heads that they have not fully explained or made clear to the viewer (or in the case of our writing, the reader). That promise is that Robin cannot take another life.

There is even a point in the series when the Sheriff flat out states, “We both know you’re not the killing kind.”

The question is, why? Why can’t Robin take another life? Is it his fatal flaw? Does he have a Christian view of redemption so great that he believes that even the murderous Sheriff can come back from the depths to which he has sunk? Did Robin take a life in his past that so affected him (is that the right use of affect) that he can’t bear doing it again? Did he go all Shaolin monk on us?

The problem is not so much that the character has this problem it’s that the writers aren’t making it clear to the viewer why he has this problem. It’s something that we have to keep in mind with our own writing. Fatal flaws are great for creating tension in a story, especially when that flaw is in direct opposition to the conflict resolution.

One of two things is going to have to happen, either Robin finds a way to resolve the conflict without taking the obvious route, which is kill the Sherriff, or he comes to terms with the issue that is holding him back and he finally runs the bloke through.

It’s something that we should keep in mind when crafting our stories, that notion of the character having a hand in his own troubles. If you think about it, we do that in our own lives do we not? Sure, we might blame the whole of the outside world for where we are in life, but in the end what it comes down to is our own actions, our own fatal flaws.

I for one am terrible about taking risks and committing to things. I tend to make half hearted attempts and then blame the failed outcome on some external force. In reality I’m setting myself up for failure so that I don’t have to perform. Or maybe it’s something else. But it is definitely something that I do and I’m aware of that. This blog, in a way, is my attempt at working through those issues.

So, fatal flaws end up being important on two levels. They are important on a story level and they are important on a personal level. Understanding one lends itself to the other. So what’s your fatal flaw?

And on a side note, a little self congratulatory moment: This post marks the third week in a row where I’ve gotten a post up each day of the work week.  I thought that it was only two weeks, but upon checking into it, I’ve found that I was wrong, it’s three! Yay me!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend and that your words flow like warm honey fresh from the honey comb.