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Joined: 5/7/2011
Posts: 35
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When the subject of writing is brought up among friends and acquaintances, there are always a few souls who comment, "I always wanted to write a novel, but I don't have the time," or "I've started a few stories, but can't seem to find the time
to finish them." The common theme to both these dilemmas is TIME. I would love to say that writing a book is an easy process, devoid of obstacles, but that is unrealistic, and this article is designed to keep it real. By no means do I wish to deter the aspiring author from embracing the writing endeavor - on the contrary, I want to encourage you, and provide some insights into the process to
help you along the way. Quick disclaimer note: my point of view is that of a Fantasy author. Though these principles transcend genres, it would be poor form on my part to not disclose that upfront.
Earlier, I mentioned obstacles. These are real barriers that should not be taken likely. But first let me say that writing is a labor of love. I didn't put my imagination on paper because I thought it would be cool to be published. I write because I HAVE TO WRITE. True writers have that
small voice inside them - call it a muse, an epiphany, or whatever way you define inspiration. We wake up at odd hours of the night to answer our muse's call, or spontaneously begin scribbling on a napkin while having a drink at our
local pub. But even those who are overwhelmed with the desire to write, the obstacles are still present.
Obstacles: There is no
greater obstacle than time. Life can be precarious - deterring us from our passions. Lack of support can also hinder us by deflating the love
you have for whatever topic you're writing about. Lastly, there is lack of discipline. In my opinion, there is no such thing as writer's block - there
is only distraction. When combined with the former obstacles, what you may face is an unsavory environment to work your craft. My solution embodies strategies that will help you face all three of these obstacles without causing any
detrimental effect with your life or the craft of writing you have been called to...and yes, it's a calling - don't forget
that.
Solution: The first obstacle we have to overcome is time. Most of us have hectic lives and schedules. But be as that may, there are pockets of time that are overlooked that one can dedicate to writing. When starting out, think small. There are mainstream, business sycophants that instruct that you have to write "X" words per day or "X" words
per month in order to be successful. By the Old Gods or the New, don't listen to them. Writing is a habit that needs to be nurtured just like any muscle in the body. Start out by putting aside one hour during the day or night to begin writing. Don't worry about the amount of content that's completed during that hour - just develop the habit of dedicating that hour for writing. On some days
you will write more than others, and that is okay. If you placed a personal goal for quantity, please don't punish yourself if on a particular day, you don't meet that goal. Acknowledge it, and then gird your loins for battle for the following day (Sorry...had to insert my medieval fantasy reference). This is how I approached my debut novel, Shadows of Kings. I began with baby steps before smoothly walking, and then ending in a full sprint. Make this time your own. You may find it to be your "Happy Place." After all, you wanted to do this because you had the desire to write. Now you have a special time focused for
that endeavor. How you prepare that space is completely your discretion. Many like music playing in the background, others like complete silence, while some prefer ambient noise to force them to concentrate. You must experiment and
decide...but the most important lesson is to MAKE THE TIME. If this means
sacrificing one of your favorite T.V. shows, well...you will need to ask yourself, "What do I love more, watching something someone else wrote about, or creating something myself?"
Breathing life into Shadows of Kings was
more important than whatever was on HBO any given morning. And at times, I can
behave like a self-indulged Diva, so that choice was easy for me. And behold, as you commit to this process, you will discover that sacrificing one hour wasn't so bad...maybe I can set aside two hours. So with a little practice, the obstacles of lack of discipline and time can be quelled.
Now we come to lack of support. This can come in
multiple facets - those who don't support the effort you're undertaking outright and your actual content. Since this article must be limited to a certain number of words, I can only lightly touch the first aspect. If you are in an environment that does not support your endeavor to become a writer, the best answer I can give you is open communication. It's up to you to express to
those who feel you are wasting your time, that this is very important to you and will not undermine any other responsibilities you may have. Each
household and lifestyle is different, so I must leave the communication aspect in your capable hands. But I assure you...if your passion is conveyed and there is conviction with your actions, responsible people will see that you take this journey seriously. The second facet is content. What I recommend is that after completing your piece, choose a soft audience. This is someone who is very close to you and loves the genre you are writing about. It could be friend or family, but be mindful...in my experience, family members can suffer from the
Familiarity breeds contempt syndrome.
Listen to what your soft audience has to say. Their critique will tend to be softer than the usual pair of eyes. Make corrections, re-edit and then seek the warm audience. Like the soft audience, you are targeting people who enjoy the same genre, but now you are reaching out to individuals who are more estranged, but whose opinion you value. Again, be open to their critique, make changes where necessary and move on to the last group - the hard audience. In every circle of friends and acquaintances there are the opinionated people who at times really love the sound of their own voice. You need to be thick-skinned, and filter the general ranting from authentic criticisms. This group can derail many would-be authors, but be strong. Amidst the diatribe can be nuggets of gold that could take your writing to the next level.
Writing is a wonderful process. It's
an exercise that one can see growth in just a short amount of time. Be diligent and you will see the fruits of your labor...and it is a labor of love. Remember, you don't need to be published to call yourself a writer...and I will have words with anyone who says otherwise. How you are measured in the beginning will be determined by your convictions. And when beginning, don't worry about publishing contracts or agents...just write.
Oceans of
Love,
Jack
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Joined: 2/27/2011
Posts: 353
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Bumping this up!
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Joined: 4/27/2011
Posts: 608
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Just saw this, Jack. Nicely done! I appreciate the honesty, effort, and—well, to use your word—love—that you put into this posting.
Here's my confession: For years I could only write when I was in one of two bi-polar states—either (a) extreme joy/mania or (b) black despair/red-hot anger.
Now, approaching 50, I find that general exhaustion is more often the culprit that keeps me from writing. I’m afraid that I only have so much energy left over to expend on scritch-scribbling after working—and worrying—all day long at the 'ole nine-to-five. (The drama at my workplace oftentimes rises to dizzying heights of absurdity, intensity and stupidity. So—just like most people’s workplaces then, eh? Yes. Just-so. Same-same.)
Yet I try (and succeed, for the most part) in maintaining my dogged discipline of writing at night—even if all I manage to produce is a couple of paragraphs.
A friend of mine said to me the other day: “What’s the point? Isn’t it time to, uh . . . recognize . . . uh . . .”
“That I don’t have the discipline necessary to produce ‘the long form’?” I said quietly. “That no one’s buying what I’m selling? That for all practical purposes the short story market for fiction is all but dead and my work gets rejected 99.9% of the time anyway, so why continue? Shouldn’t I admit that what I’m really engaged in is that most ludicrous of amateur endeavors: the production of risible fictive scritch-scribblings in the midnight hour for questionable therapeutic/vanity purposes?”
“Well . . .”
I smiled. “It’s okay. I understand the question(s) and I’m not at all offended that you asked. Jesus and the Elder Gods, I ask myself those questions all the time! The truth is that my resistance to writing is so high that on most days I can’t overcome resistance for long. But when I do write . . . when I do manage to get a couple of not-entirely-lamentable paragraphs onto paper, I feel—”
“Triumph? Satisfaction? Exhausted? Defiant?”
“Not quite,” I said. “A bit of all four, but—no—each of those words individually and collectively do too much preening and strutting to capture a more important, subtle, prosaic truth.”
“Then what then?” Tim asked. “How would you characterize how you feel after a bit of—in your parlance—‘not entirely awful’ writing?”
“Alive,” I said. “Present and accounted for. And—”
“Yes?”
“More myself than at any other time, engaged in any other kind of activity.”
“Ah,” said Tim. “Ah.” He bethought himself many inward Tim-ish thoughts. “Well then, sure—you have to continue.”
“No choice,” I said.
“No choice,” he agreed.
A couple of seconds ticked by and I saw a sly smile form on Tim’s lips.
“What?” I said. “Out with it.”
“That explains why no one wants to buy your work, of course.”
“Of course. Duh.”
“Duh,” he echoed.
We laughed.
And then I punched him.
[Not really, folks. But it does make for a great ending line.]
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Joined: 5/10/2011
Posts: 88
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Carl: “More myself than at any other time, engaged in any other kind of activity.”
Holy crap Carl... that, right there. That is the thought I have never been able to express. Writing is what makes me, me. When I don't write for stretches of time - be it for my 9 - 5 or personal projects - when the thoughts stay in my head that's when I start feeling disassociated and less me.
(just realized that we have bold, underline and italics available now... when did this happen? How did I not realize this before. This is awesome. And I've gotten side tracked.)
Jack: " I began with baby steps before smoothly walking, and then ending in a full sprint. Make this time your own. You may find it to be your "Happy Place." "
I've noticed that when I sit down to write, time flies (and so do my fingers)... it's as if typing one word opens a flood gate and stopping the ideas from rushing onto the page (however poorly written the first time around) is impossible. Some of the best advice I've ever received about getting over the imaginary "writer's block" is to read the first sentence of an article or a book and just start writing your own thoughts based on that. I think it's called stream of consciousness prose, where you have no real point and don't know what you're writing. It's the best way I've discovered of opening the flood gates...
That being said... my biggest problem isn't time... or writer's block.. it's forcing myself to sit down and start writing. Which is odd given that, as Carl said and as I mentioned above, writing makes me, me. You'd think that I would never want to leave the world in which I am utterly and totally myself... or that I couldn't wait to get back into it.
Sometimes that is the case, but recently it hasn't been. That, my friends, is largely because I'm lazy and need to work on my self-discipline!
Question about soft, medium and hard audiences - under which would you classify Book Country?
Soft would obviously be my friends and family who love reading my work but have enough knowledge of the English language and the way a story goes to be able to tell me that a certain scene makes absolutely no sense or that I've referred to the Empire State Building as the Eiffle Tower throughout my story about New York (true story, sadly enough). Would Book Country be medium or hard?
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Joined: 11/17/2011
Posts: 1016
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I've got to read this again, more carefully.
For now, I say Bravo! And: truer words were never spoken.
"We wake up at odd hours of the night to answer our muse's call, or spontaneously begin scribbling on a napkin while having a drink at our local pub."
I drive my husband nuts insisting, in the middle of a conversation, Be right back. Got to change a word, and I run upstairs to my file on my bedside iMac.
Carl, Lisa, this is a meaty post, isn't it? I haven't gotten to your comments yet, but I will.
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Joined: 4/30/2011
Posts: 662
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Wonderful words, Jack!
I was lucky to grow up with an supportive audience, and yet one that was not afraid to critique my work. I know it is rare to find family like that, but I somehow managed to have one. My mother knew I would end up a writer before I even did.
Despite family support, this world does not support writers. It's true. Think about it. Without writers we would not have TV, film, literature, even music. Words are the basis for communication, and yet people take advantage of such a powerful medium without knowing the impact. We writers study words and how to use them effectively, but we are greeted with head-shaking for our endeavors.
Even my the professor who taught me writing discipline in college - who would agree whole heartedly with Jack - was greeted with doubt by those who taught technique over dedication. Writing is an art. Don't I need to love it first? Don't I need to love it so much that I can with stand the kidney shots of disapproval?
I have to write, and if the nay sayers don't understand, I ask them this. Why do you do what you do? Are you happy? If you aren't sure, revaluate your life, and then come talk to me.
(Sorry, I guess that turned into a bit of a rant.)
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Joined: 6/28/2011
Posts: 188
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Jack, this is one of the best things I've ever read on Book Country.
Good job!
Herb
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Joined: 3/17/2011
Posts: 88
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Hey all,
I think the "I could never find the time" line is a dodge. Not in the writer as drill sergeant sense--"YOU DON'T FIND THE TIME! IF YOU'RE A REAL WRITER YOU MAKE THE TIME, ROOKIE!"--but in the sense that it's a hell of a lot easier to say "I can't find the time" than it is to tell people "I don't have any faith in myself."
Jack's right, time is the enemy of all mortal creatures. We all suffer it's predations. But if you believe you have it in you to do a thing, you go ahead and forge onward, don't you? If you have any doubts, it's not about the time, it's about you. Time constraints aren't the deciding factor in giving up, they're the convenient pretext. 'Cause when we give up on our book, we're giving up on ourselves.
If you know you have it in you to write a book, then you are gonna be writing it. It could take ten years, but you'll be writing it. You won't be telling people at parties that you "always wanted to write a novel."
Even if you don't see a computer monitor for a week at a time (month?), you're writing the book behind your eyelids most days, right? I don't go a day (hours) without thinking about something in my book, picking at some knotty plot point or hearing a blip of new dialogue, or just kinda sailing on the images of stuff I haven't even outlined yet.
Y'know, I think it really needs to be a labor of love, but how often do we tell people how much we love our books? What it is we particularly love about our actual books?
Sure, all of us love writing, but mostly what I hear from people is white-knuckled embarrassment when it comes to a discussion of the actual document. And, y'know, in the spirit of keeping it real, that's a lot like being a parent and saying ya love sex, but the actual baby ya made, well, "it needs work."
I think we need to be real advocates of our book. Starting with the assho--ahem, I mean literary critic in our own head. I don't mean we need to indulge in mindless cheerleading, "My book is sooooooo awesome!" I mean, we need to find the excellence in our work and celebrate that. And, as craftswomen and men, build on that. When we look at our book, we should be able to say, "These sections are really brilliant for the following reasons..." and then ask ourselves, "How do I get the rest of the text up to that level?" If you can't love anything in your book, how can you expect anyone else to fall in love with it?
I hear a lot of hopelessness from writers about what's good and what's not about their books. I think that's where a lot of writers get lost in the criticism they hear. They give themselves entirely over to the last peer review they got and then go to town remaking the book in that critic's image. Or they take it to the other extreme and even when several critics have nailed the exact same flaw in the writing, the writer turns around and says, "Thanks for sharing" and goes on doing whatever they please.
An artist needs a HUGE EGO, but along with that ego we need even HUGER self-honesty. It's tough. And yeah, there are gonna be artists out there who are better than we are at everything. But, no single writer is gonna be better at everything we're trying to do with our book. And no one on the planet can tell our story better than we can.
I learned this in kung fu school. There are hundreds if not thousands of practitioners who are gonna execute a butterfly kick better than I can, no matter what I do, y'know, forever, but NO ONE can do a better kick USING MY BODY than I can.
My body is not just this annoyingly flawed tool for making butterfly kicks. It has a history. I managed, all by my lonesome much of the time, to get my body where it is. And when I take the time to get to know myself, where I've been and why, love myself enough to understand my struggles from MY point of view (it's harder than you'd think, enit?), then I appreciate everything I've accomplished, because I know what I've been up against.
It's the same with our books. When we take the time to really know our books, to really know what we're writing, we see truly how fine the book is and how hard-won every paragragh has been. We can know what's good, what's great, and what needs improvement, without letting the news demolish us.
Because the world doesn't just make it hard for us writers to be ourselves, it makes it hard for us humans to be ourselves. Remember that when we writers casually tell other writers, "Oh, I know my book is crap" we're really saying "I think I'm crap."
It's never truer than in the creation of art that love is an act of will. So, find the will and the courage to love your work and it will revolutionize your entire relationship with the process. How could it not?
-Kevin
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Joined: 4/27/2011
Posts: 608
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To everyone who posted here so far: [admiring wolf-whistle]. So glad Colleen kicked this up!
Here's hoping we get even more responses to Jack's article/discussion prompt, tangential or otherwise . . .
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I write because when I don't write, I'm miserable.
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