Writer’s Block Is a Crock
I’m just going to be blunt and say that “writer’s block” is a god-damned made-up phenomenon. If you can’t write, it’s because you either don’t want to or don’t know what to write, which then means that your imagination is not stimulating you into the proper state of word-pooping frenzy. Giving it a name seems to give people the freedom to use it as an excuse, as if they had contracted some kind of paralyzing, fatal, and highly communicable disease. Now that I’ve cleared that up, I’m going to talk about something that’s not really writer’s block at all.
Okay, I’m not actually going to talk about it so much as show you what happens for me. You see, I actually do write when I’m stuck, but the results usually look something like this:
Look at all them boxes I checked! YEAH! Rub that in the faces of your non-writing novel-writing friends! That is pure productivity, boiled down to a super productive extract and bottled to be sold by witch doctors who will accept payment only by years of your life or by exchanging a somewhat pleasant death for an especially awful one, likely involving being fed on by an animal that terrifies you. Suck on that!
Writing Your Own Hate Mail
Last month, I finished reading the sequel to a book I'd been looking forward to for a couple years. I wanted to see what other people thought of it when I finished it because I was having trouble putting words to my own opinion. Yeah, and I'm supposed to be a writer. Go, Me! This is the review I read that made me nearly wet myself from laughing and also really got me thinking.
I realized that I don't ever want to read a review like that about my own work. As funny as it is, it's not flattering to the writer because the reviewer is really tearing apart things that were frighteningly obvious. The writer failed on several parts, and he made readers angry enough that they spent God knows how much time telling the world why and how he disappointed them.
Weeks later, I finally thought of a way this could be useful before you have something out in the world, naked and exposed. So I wrote my own hate mail. I was formulaic about it. I wrote how pissed I was that the writer (that's me) failed with character X and character Y. I pointed out how he did a miserable job executing each storyline and how his subplots were meaningless distractions from the main plot that I already didn't give half a damn about. I told him how I wanted to love certain parts of the story, but his incompetency prevented me from doing so because of example A and example B.
It felt so good. Being angry at myself was such a relief. This is the outlet I needed. I knew where the story was falling apart, but it seemed like such a daunting task to fix those broken pieces that I've felt powerless the past couple weeks. I needed to get out my own aggression before I could proceed.
Once you have a finished piece, or at least a piece that has a complete part, try and write two hate mail letters. You'll be writing as an intelligent reader who knows how to take apart a story. You're not allowed to write, "this book sux as bad as twilight, man, i just thought it was lame and had emo shit on every page and i felt like i couldn't go on and it was making me all emo reading it and why were there no frackin' unicorns?!" Okay, fine. Write that once if if makes you feel better or at least makes you laugh so you can be in a good objective mood. Then, you're going to write either two letters, or one letter in two parts, depending on how many angry voices you have in your head:
Letter/Part I: "This writer failed me because I don't give a rat's ass wart about the characters." This awesome headline is followed up with why the reader is angry at you for writing unbelievable characters, characters for whom we have no sympathy, flat, cardboard characters, and any other example of how you disappointed the reader with your story's cast. Be honest. I know you're actually in love with your main character, and if he/she were real, you'd have 47 children together and cleverly name them with the same first letter, but take a step back and see how the idyllic love of your sad existence really came across in the story, as well as all of the supporting cast. No Oscars are being given out here--you're flinging mud with rocks hidden inside.
Letter/Part II: "This book sucks festered monkey armpits because all fourteen story lines don't go ANYWHERE!" Here, you're going to very brutally go through the plot(s) and hammer at the main weak points. You're going to say where you have no idea where the writer was going, you'll berate the cretin for writing unnecessary scenes that make you think of clever new forms of suicide, you'll say what you wish happened instead of what actually did transpire in your steaming pile of words, and express your utter disappointment in how the one or two good parts of the story couldn't save the whole piece because of a quick list of examples on shoddy execution.
Do this. You can even print them and stare at the hate you created. Maybe it'll just make you angrier at yourself, but for me, it let me finally get the emotion out so I could get to the important work of debugging my mess.
Quick Writing Tips for Newbies
This isn't very useful for anyone participating in NaNoWriMo, as they'll be writing full stories, but if you're just now starting to write creatively or if you're rusty and trying to get back in the habit, here is some advice I recently passed along to a couple friends.
The hardest part about writing is that you get really rusty if it's not habit. So once you start, don't let yourself stop!
It'll be like pulling teeth at first, but it's important to just write anything that comes to your head. You can throw it out or clean it up later--it's not sacred! So if you just think of one thing and go with the first way of describing it that comes to mind, you might be surprised what you end up with. Nothing comes out polished the first try, so you have to turn the inner editor off when you're just getting ideas flowing.
I'm working almost entirely on fiction now, but these ideas should apply to other genres. Every day, you could try to challenge yourself to describe an idea, a product, a project, or a concept. What are the mechanics of it? How does it make you/others feel? What need does it fulfill? How does this better the position/situation of the user and the producer?
I think it's useful to think of writing in layers. For example, when I write a new scene in my story, I get all the action that happens out first just so I have a rough sketch of what's going on. Then I add in spoken dialogue, inner dialogue, and setting. I'm almost never able to get that all out at once, so that's why I just capture the skeleton of it first and fill the rest in later. When I had to write about poems or fiction in my literature classes, I would look at the piece from a physical perspective first. How is it structured? What style of writing/word choice is used? Then I would look at what it actually meant, whether line-by-line or overall. Finally I might expound on its themes or compare it to something else. Again, I was using layers to both learn about it and describe it myself. Never be afraid to just outline rough notes first, then add detail later. Beautiful sentences usually pop up in later drafts, so be ready to see a lot of crap on a page at first.
So basically I'm telling you to be both free-thinking and methodical. Break down what you're going to write about into the biggest potential subject matters/aspects first, then let your mind wander as you describe each.
The last really useful piece of advice I have is to read, and to read a lot. Read what you want to write. Read something once, then go back and look at how it was put together. You'll start to recognize patterns and devices used and you'll develop your own opinion of how well the writer conveyed their message. Often if I'm stuck trying to write something, I'll read something else that's completely unrelated which allows my imagination to run free, and the idea to continue my own work will conjure itself. I'm an anal-retentive Capricorn, so I have a reading list, which has books/material that is in any genre I'm working on, books in different genres to stretch my creativity, and a healthy amount of crap literature that I would never admit to reading, but it makes me happy.
If you want some prompts to get ideas, here are a couple sources:
http://www.writersdigest.com/prompts
http://www.squidoo.com/dailyjournalwritingprompts
The Write Technology
People are going nuts during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Millions of pages of horse shit are being produced, and from the steaming ashes of that mess, a work or two of incredible brilliance just might materialize. One of the problems people are encountering with the rubbish produced from NaNoWriMo is that it’s a jumbled mess. I think there are very few people who actually sit and write a book from beginning to end, going from page to page in exactly the order in which the finished piece will be. This chart I just made up represents the number of people who actually do this:
As you can see, next to no one writes like that, so why are you opening a document and typing, hitting return a bunch of times when you change scenes? That’s effing stupid, and you need to stop.
There is a lot to be said about distraction-free writing. If you have trouble staying focused, you should explore some distraction-free writing software where all you can do is enter text, and you can’t see your taskbar to notice that 598 people you don’t really know have commented on your Facebook pictures of your cat's hairball collection. Lifehacker did an awesome job polling its readers to find the five best distraction-free writing programs, so I’m not going to even bother compiling them here. Just check out their post. Alternatively, you can just write on paper, or in an Alpha Smart so you can’t play Solitaire or get distracted by your tasteful torrent collection.
Once you’ve got some spectacularly terrible word vomit that you want to save for whatever reason, don’t just put it in a document and think you’ll know what filename “ChapterXX” means later on. What will save your unorganized writing brain is a hierarchy. You might not ever outline before you start writing, but once you have that junk out in plain sight, you can sort it and have it make sense visually.
Here is some of the best software I’ve found to help you organize your writing. There are about three shit tons of programs out there aimed at writing. I’ve thrown out all the trashware that tries to actually help you write a novel by asking you questions and forcing you to run through mazes to somehow arrive at story. Writing can’t be forced, so stay away from anything that promises to help you do so, especially if they want money for it.
These are not exhaustive reviews. I just want to let you know what’s out there, and I figure when you see what’s available, you’ll recognize which is the best solution for you.
OneNote
Windows Only | Microsoft (Bundled with Office, Stand-alone is $70, web version is FREE)
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote/
OneNote is an electronic notebook. You have files called (surprise) notebooks. Notebooks have tabs called sections on the top and pages on the right side. If you don’t see the genius in this already, you’re crazy. Just look at this:
You only have to open OneNote. All your chapters, notes, outlines, and anything else is all there. No clicking around opening other files—it’s all in one program in one window. You can click anywhere on the page and start typing. You can sync it with Office’s online portal and access it anywhere, or use Dropbox to sync it across multiple computers. It’s painfully simple to use. I have a notebook for a series of books, a section for each book, and a page for each chapter. You could do book-chapter-scene if that makes more sense for you.
PROS
- Most intuitive hierarchy software out there. If you can understand a tabbed notebook, you know how to use this already.
- Adding new chapters, scenes, outlines, mind maps, notes, whatever is easier in OneNote than any other software. I don’t know why it requires more steps or is slightly complicated in other programs.
- You can just send notes to Word and it’s all formatted and ready to go.
CONS
- Combining pages is a pain.
- You have to install an add-on for word count. This is such a necessary feature for writers that it should be built-in. Find it here.
**There is a similar program available for free (Windows and Mac) called Evernote. I’m not the biggest fan of it, but if you’re in love with the notebook idea, it’s another option.
Liquid Story Binder
Windows Only | Black Obelisk Software | $45 (they often sell it half off though)
http://www.blackobelisksoftware.com/
Liquid Story Binder is software for writers specifically. It has crazy options for organizing your data. I can give you a screenshot here, but check out their site for more possibilities.
I’ve actually been using LSB for a year now. I’ve realized in that time that it probably has too many options for me. I use only a fraction of its features, but I do love the ones I use. No other program lets you customize as much. There is a very steep learning curve. Read the tutorials and click through the example book included in the program, and it will start to make sense. I am often tempted by other programs, but LSB has everything I need under one roof: files organized in a hierarchy, full-screen typing mode, word count with total project target, timeline, and easy export features whether by single chapter or the entire project.
PROS
- Built-in distraction-free writing by using full-screen mode.
- Word count with history logging is amazing for NaNoWriMo. The project goals are also really good for helping you track progress on word count.
- The “Build Manuscript” feature is a fast way to get one file with all of your chapters.
- Word repetition tool comes in handy. So does the timeline tool!
CONS
- I use the Listing tool as a “table of contents.” Often when I add a new chapter, it disappears the next time I open LSB and I have to add that chapter to the Listing. It never disappears again, but I’ve forgotten about small chapters I wrote until I see them in the File Listing tool (confusing—this is different from a Listing).
- Huge learning curve, but once you get it, it’s effing incredible.
Scrivener
Windows-Mac | Literature & Latte | $45 (PC version is in free public beta mode. Final version to be released early 2011)
Mac: http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php
PC: http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivenerforwindows/
People rave about this program like it’s Photoshop for writing. I don’t quite understand the hysteria over the “corkboard view,” but we all get off on something quirky, and it is a great tool.
Scrivener offers many of the same features as Liquid Story Binder in a somewhat cleaner, more linear fashion. The tree view to the left is intuitive, and you can figure out the basics of the program just by clicking around. It’s best to read the included tutorial to gain a full understanding of Scrivener’s features, however (tutorial pictured above). It is nice that the program is finally cross-platform, as it was only available for Mac for the longest time (and it’s not cool that OneNote and Liquid Story Binder are PC-only).
I just started playing with Scrivener since they got the PC version, so I can’t give a lot of feedback, but I can tell right away it’s good enough to make it in my list here.
PROS
- Easy interface with a surprising amount of features available. Has a somewhat notebook feel which makes it appealing like OneNote.
- The celebrated corkboard view is an efficient way to sort scenes or chapters, for you freaks that write out of order and don’t know how anything fits in your story.
CONS
- No timeline feature, though I suppose you could make one as a table…
- The right navigation window can’t be hidden, so if you don’t use those features, you’re stuck in that three-pane mode.
- Limited customization, so if you don’t like the way something looks/behaves, you’re stuck with it.
yWriter
Windows-Linux | Spacejock Software | FREE
http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter5.html
It’s sad there aren’t many good free options out there. yWriter isn’t on my list just as a free alternative—it’s legitimately good software and competes with the paid big boys above.
While it might not appear as simple as Scrivener, I found yWriter to be easiest to learn after OneNote. You create a project, then chapters, then scenes. I’m a one-scene-per-chapter kind of guy, but this still works for me. yWriter has project word count targets, import/export functionality, and a full-screen editing mode. You have the option of adding lots of notes to scenes such as characters, locations, and items used. There’s some neat reporting built in to see how often those characters, locations and items are used and when.
PROS
- Lots of basic features in an easy-to-use format. No real learning curve like with Liquid Story Binder and Scrivener.
- Word count and other reporting is very handy.
- It’s flipping free! Amazing for what you get!
CONS
- Not the prettiest interface, but it’s still very organized.
- No timeline feature.
CONCLUSION
Here’s a quick ranking of each of the featured programs:
| Ease of Use | Features | |
| 1 | OneNote | Liquid Story Binder |
| 2 | yWriter | Scrivener |
| 3 | Scrivener | yWriter |
| 4 | Liquid Story Binder | OneNote |
Note how each column is the reverse of the other. Let that simmer on your brain a bit.
Your own writing style will determine what is best for you. In fact, what works best for you might simply be a blank text file. No software will help you write, but there are some great ways to help you organize the mess that leaks from your brain.
If you don’t like any of the above, feel free to do more research on other programs. I’ll even point you to some more options:
Windows
Mac OS X
Getting Past Tweeny Angst
I am a twelve year-old girl. I had thought I had reached an enlightened stage in the craft of writing when I truly felt I was falling in love with my characters. I believed that was the secret to me understanding them and making them shine on a page. In reality, I was that love sick tween that writes a crush’s name on her book covers and draws little hearts around it, drifting to sleep each night fantasizing what our lives would be like together. Who the hell knows what my characters were actually doing while I was too busy making out with my imagination. Every nut who thinks they can write loves their characters, and they wear that affection on their sleeve like an obnoxious purity-pledging fanatic. It’s not hard—you just come up with people who have traits and stories you like and it’ll happen, adolescent bliss all over again.
I had brought this chapter to writing group I was excited about because it’s where one character starts to see another in a better light, and their friendship becomes what it needs to be to carry the story. Hearing it read aloud was like having a burn book with nothing but embarrassing stories about me read over the P.A. system at school (yes, you must suffer my teenage references this entire post). I hated it because I realized it was me talking, not either of the characters.
Sitting down to re-hash it, I knew I had to let the characters fall in love with each other…and completely ignore me! It’s brilliant, and the chapter came out exactly as it should have, but it is not fun writing that way. It’s like when someone you like falls for someone else, and you have to endure their cutesy public displays of sucks-to-be-jealous-and-you all day because you don’t want to look like a bad friend. Internally, you’re rolling your eyes at everything your should-be-lover’s newest flame gushes, and you just wanna scream at them for not seeing that person the way you do—you know, the right way that only you can see. Ugh. And you have to prevent any of your own angst from seeping in or it’ll turn into another God-awful vampire series! The horror!
The more I learn about writing, the more I realize that it isn’t really about the writer at all. In fact, it’s best when there is no evidence of the writer in the story. You have to create the story’s world and completely exit after. No leaving little plaques declaring how awesome you are for coming up with such neat ideas. How thankless!
On Death and Dying
I may get eaten by a rabid Tyrannosaurus Rex tonight. My fear of getting clipped by a biker while walking across an overpass and getting knocked into I-5 traffic may come true. Any number of wretched things may happen to me at any given moment in this imagined “timeline” of my life. We all like to pretend that we’ll die peacefully in our beds, holding the hand of the love of our life as we slip off to Bliss, but really, zombies may be just a few blocks away with a big appetite.
Tonight in my writing group, one of our members shared a piece she had written for a women’s conference about how her cancer survival story changed the way she looked at life. It was beautiful, and I gave her a big hug when she finished reading it. I don’t have any right to tell her story or use her words to convey my point, but it certainly got my gears going (at some point, this has to do with writing, I swear).
My grandpa died when I was about seven, and I remember a long period where I would lie in bed and think about what death was, when it would come, and what it would be like if you knew when it was coming. Cancer stories fascinated me. Terminal diseases turned people that fought them into heroes. It was probably in some sappy Lifetime movie, but I remember hearing these brave souls called angels, because they show us how we should be living, and I always thought that profoundly beautiful. Every time I would hear one of these stories, I would remind myself that I needed to make every day important, that I heard it for a reason.
Tonight, I was reminded that I need to make sure I enjoy life since I don’t know how much of it I have left, but I also realized that I need to make sure my characters enjoy their lives too. First of all, I need to finish writing their tales so that they can be passed on for others to enjoy. I also need to ensure that these characters meet what those who have a life-threatening illness often encounter: reconciliation. Now in real life, a quick car accident can prevent someone from having the chance to reflect on life and discover its meaning before it ends, and their death doesn’t necessarily follow a story arc like in a novel. I’m not allowed to have a character get killed by a tornado unless tornadoes were part of my story. A character can’t be on an epic quest and drown in a puddle because their armor was too heavy (points to whoever comments on who this happened to in history). In story, death has to have meaning. The dying character or those around him/her have to reconcile that character’s significance to my story or else the reader will hurl it out the window and go watch Misery for revenge ideas on me.
When I’m writing characters, I have to pretend as if their days were numbered, especially if they are actually going to die in the story. Whether or not the character knows it, I have to give each day, each event meaning. The reader will recognize the thought I give to these details to help them appreciate having known the character. I have to play God, giving someone one more day, over and over again, until I’ve finally conveyed my theme or message. Whether or not the character dies in the story, the reader needs to recognize the beauty in what happened, whether it be tragic, humorous, or happily-ever-after.
Ugh, I just re-read what I’ve written above and it’s so jumbled. You must all think I’m terrible and fear the day I slap a copy of something I’ve written and beg you to read it. Whatever, this isn’t story, so it doesn’t count! I will say this to finish up: in my current piece, the great epic that is Caerdegon (working hard to make it great!), you will see every major character die. EVERY SINGLE ONE. No mystery about what happened to them or open endings that could possibly turn it into an awful series of a thousand books. I promise. They’ll all live their lives to the end, and I’ll try my damndest to make sure each one has meaning.
I better not have dreams about dinosaurs tonight.
Amazon Kindle 3 Review
Yes, I’ve been sucked into the e-reader craze and bought the latest Kindle from Amazon. I can now read Twilight without carrying those really big books around (must be filled with really big words)! I can even read books on my feet, which has long been a dream!
What do I think of the device so far? Here are my quick thoughts:
PHYSICAL FEATURES
This thing is so stinking cute and little! Everyone seems to be surprised by its small form. They must be expecting iPad-like dimensions, but what book comes that big? The screen is 6 inches, which is the same size as the previous model, but the rest of the device is thinner and smaller. Here it is on top of a steno pad and in my hand so you can see:
It’s remarkably light, and it really is true when they say it has the same weight as a paperback book. Once you sit down with it for a few minutes and actually start reading (after you’ve clicked around to your heart’s desire), you learn to hold it comfortably. It has a sort of rubberized back, so it doesn’t feel like it’ll slip out of your hands. The buttons on each side make it easy to switch “pages,” and the action becomes natural after a while.
The keyboard has sturdy buttons that remind me of my last cell phone which had a slide-out keypad. Why does it even have a keyboard? So you can browse for books on the Kindle store or add notes and highlights to texts (these are saved and transfer across any devices you have running the Kindle app—neat)!
READING EXPERIENCE
Reading on the Kindle is drastically different from reading on anything else—even on devices that can run the Kindle app. I tested reading on that app on my Android smartphone and on my laptop. Since Apple bragged about the new iPhone’s screen so much, I even compared the same text on the Kindle to my roomie’s iPhone 4 and the contrast was much better on Amazon’s gadget. This is because you’re not staring at a screen, but static text. Without getting too technical, a normal screen is constantly refreshing an image, but at a rate that the human eye can’t detect. Over time, however, this can cause eye strain. I sit at a computer all day and this doesn’t bother me, but when I actually tried reading text without interruption for about an hour (which is normal for me when pleasure reading), I could feel the strain. Not so with the Kindle! Its screen is actually off while you read. It only turns on when you advance the page. The screen will flash black (less than a second), and that updates the text for the next page. Yes, it’s annoying if you sit there and press the button over and over, but you barely notice it when you’re reading like normal. I do wonder what speed readers think of this though…
Images show up in beautiful greyscale:
One feature that I’ve grown to love is the text view options. You can change the font quite a bit so that it’s easier for you to read, and the Kindle will realign everything all nice. I found that it was easier to read with greater line-spacing than I would normally find in a book (they gotta save on paper, so they squish it all together) and a font size slightly larger than most print books (make big words look even bigger)! I then switched to some poetry and found it handy to change those settings so a line in a poem was actually one line, but for people with vision problems, they would probably love being able to increase the font size so they can read it—great for everyone!
I got really excited when I used the keypad cursor thing (square-ish button on the lower right of the device) to select a word. I love T.S. Eliot because the man is crazy brilliant, and his genius loved words….words I don’t know. Normally, I understand an unknown word out of context and just move on. Going to the computer to look it up or flip through a dictionary ruins the reading experience. Kindle has two full dictionaries built in: The New Oxford American Dictionary and the Oxford Dictionary of English. When you move the cursor to a word, the definition appears on the top or bottom of the screen. You can then continue on your merry way, or you can click the return button and go to the full dictionary to get expanded definitions, usage examples, and everything else you’d find in a dictionary. When you feel like you know that strange word inside and out, just click the Back button and you go right back to where you were reading. So cool!
BUILDING AN E-LIBRARY
All good things aside, this thing is a money pit. You will spend a lot of dough on books once you get this! You never walk into a bookstore and come out with twenty books because that would be absurdly difficult to carry. You can easily buy this many e-books and not notice until you see a bank statement filled with AMAZON.COM charges. Yes, there are lots of free books, and I love classics, which is what most of them are, so I take advantage of this. If you like modern stuff like bestsellers, you will need to increase your book budget! Yes, Amazon has crazy good prices on e-books and sometimes it’s cheaper than their brand new paper cousins, but you can’t beat the price of a used or library copy.
SHOULD YOU GET ONE?
OMG! Yes! We can sit and e-read together! E-books are the wave of the future. I will always have and love paper books, but their days are numbered. I love having an insane amount of books in my bag and not even noticing the weight difference. The nice thing about it coming from a big company like Amazon is that they will likely be around for a while, and even if the device for some reason goes away, they still sell books and will probably do everything they can to make sure you still have your library.
Do yourself a favor and just get the Wi-Fi-only device. I bought the Wi-Fi + 3G version and it’s kind of silly. You will never find yourself in such a position that you absolutely have to have a new book at that very instant. You get free Wi-Fi at any Starbucks, so you could walk by one or pull into their parking lot, download a book real quick, and leave without even buying coffee (I do not endorse this pirating of Wi-Fi—just throwing the idea out there, so stay away, lawyers)!
Contrary to popular belief, the Kindle is not a cell phone, nor can you read one whilst sleeping, so don’t be disappointed.
Comment with questions if you have any!
Growing Up With a Hero
People often ask where I came up with my ideas. For most of the random writing I do, I have no good answer--it just sort of pops into my head and I run with it. But for The One Story, the one I've been working on forever, it's different.
Caerdegon sprung from my childhood mind that was rarely attached to reality. I would make up adventures in my head, but whether it be a knight fighting evil wizards (never dragons, because they're actually good), or a space warrior freeing the universe of all sorts of bad, I always had the same hero. He was my personal champion, and he's grown up with me. Even now as an adult, I admit that sometimes when I’m having a rough day, or if I’m just a little bored with my life, I’ll daydream that I walk around a corner and see Kyn Lanric there, and I never think of anything good to say to him, so I just repeat the moment I first see him over and over in my head until I realize that I’m twenty-something and that I’ve been walking around with a dopey smile for God knows how long. I guess there’s a part of me that wants to pretend he’s real because it made me so happy when I was little(er).
I got to an age and stage of creativity where I realized that Kyn needed his own place in the world. It wasn't fair to keep him in my head all the time--the rest of the planet needs him! I needed him as a kid, but now we’re both grown-ups and I have a job and he’s homeless. I feel like I owe it to him to figure out where he came from and how he can get back. The problem with having so much history with a character is I have this heavy burden to tell his story right or he might hate me, but there’s also fear that once it’s told, he’ll be gone from my head forever.
When I finally forced myself to get to business and finish a rough draft, I discovered that what was really spectacular about my hero was that he didn’t care that he was one at all. His story became greater than him, and the themes behind it stole the spotlight, even though Kyn was center stage. Was he mad? Had I cheated him after all he had done for me? No, and that’s what’s so great about him! The whole reason for his being was to help me see beyond the hero, and I don’t think the two of us have ever been happier now that we know this.
So basically, I’ve just admitted that my whole story is about my imaginary friend that I’ve never been able to abandon. Maybe story is where imaginary friends go when kids leave them behind, and the good ones were the most loved. Oh, noooo. Go back and read that last sentence. No, not “Oh, nooo,” but the one before that. Yeah, that’s terrible! Did you vomit? Ugh, I’m so sorry. I did too, actually, and it’s a filthy mess—all over the keyboard and everything.
New Title!
The last time I came to post on here, I saw my old title, "From the Frantic Hand of D.S. Colburn," and just about puked on the keyboard. Some of the worst stuff I've read has come from me, I swear! "Worlds Between Words" is still plenty pseudo-emo but without the ego trip of having my own name in it.
Anyway, comment if you hate it too. I'm open for change!
Oh, and get really excited because I'm posting my review of the new Kindle this weekend! It's going to be half comedy, so be sure to check it out even if you have no interest in the toy!
Douching for Writers
First of all, I am immensely proud of myself for managing to keep up my early morning regimen. Getting up at this hour is not nearly as hard as I thought it would be, much like root canal wasn’t quite as unpleasant as I thought it would be.
Yes, this is about douching. You knew it was only a matter of time before that came up! I thought I had already discovered while doing my rough, rough, rough draft that a lot of writing is just getting the crap out on paper and dealing with the mess later. This first revision has quite a few giant, gaping holes that beg to be shat in. As an example, I had to write a piece of backstory to reveal some key facts and transition story lines smoothly. I have no ability to be brief when it comes to history, however, so my “quick summary” of a past event turned into twenty pages. I knew if I attempted to bring any of it to my writing group that I would be drawn and quartered, so I set to trimming it down. I got it to four pages, and they were actually pretty good.
It doesn’t matter how much practice I get at spinning story—I will always have mostly crap and a little bit of good in the midst of it. As another, less filthy analogy, it’s sort of like having several puzzles mixed up in your head, and you have to throw it all on the table and find just the pieces that matter for your story.
It’s a messy process, but worth it for the end result!
***Completely unrelated side note: I watched Misery again last night. Dear God, don’t let me have fans like that! I’d rather have no fans than a crazed Kathy Bates (love her)! I wonder if when Stephen King was hit by a van, he worried that his own nightmare was about to become reality. Thoughts?!
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