I make things up and write them down. I hope one day someone will read them and believe me, and then print out a copy for someone else to read. Until then, would you believe me if I told you
“Your job is to fill the boxes.” This is what I recommend in Steal Like An Artist::
“Here’s how it works. He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. “After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain.” “Don’t break the chain,” he said again for emphasis.”(via luclatulippe)
It’s happening again. When I read tips on writing, editing, or ways to get published, my eyelids unsheath a frosty lens over my eyes. Out of order. Gone fishin’. Closed until further notice. I end up scanning for something new, but not really caring.
It’s okay though. It means there is only the writing. One can only ingest so much knowledge before he needs to put it to practice for true long-term learning.
theraptorwalk replied to your quote: I threw out so many drafts of my first book. One…
I love the quotes you post, they’re incredibly intriguing.
Thanks, man. I find direct quotes more illuminating, motivational, and intriguing as you say than straight-out prescriptions. One pulls, the other pushes.
Janice Hardy discusses the magic number 3 in writing (three ways to use a rule of threes in your story).
1. To build tension or foreshadow (That the first time someone sees something they merely see it. The second time they notice it, because it stands out now. The third time, they’re looking for it because you’ve established a pattern.)
2. To make readers remember (This is a good way to keep the stakes, goals, and motivations in your reader’s mind.)
3. To surprise (This is the way many jokes work: they set up a pattern, then throw something unexpected in for the third item and shock us.)
Follow the link for details…
Whether or not you believe writer’s block is real, a figment, an excuse, a symptom or a problem to be solved, Fiction Editor Beth Hill gives us some helpful ideas to break through the event. Some of my favorites:
Backtrack to the point where the story worked and either just start rewriting or analyze what went wrong. Follow the method that works for you. Get back on track.
Determine if you’re facing writer’s block, a wall that separates you from the next step in your story, or if you’re suffering from I-just-don’t-wanna-write-itis.
Walk away. Refuse to think about the story for a day or two.
Write out your last complete scene or chapter longhand.
Abandon the manuscript. Sometimes the story just isn’t there. Know the difference between writer’s block and bad story.
Bombard your senses—walk through a noisy mall, go to a perfume store, wander a fabric store and touch every bolt of fabric.
Go to a park or playground. Ride the swings, hang from the monkey bars, start a game of pickup ball.
Make a cake. From scratch.
Shannon Whitney Messenger gives us a few tips from writing conferences she’s attended recently. Here are a couple that caught me:
From an editor: Remember that characters don’t speak to reveal. They speak to conceal. Real people rarely say exactly what they’re thinking. Characters shouldn’t either.
From an editor: Editors will put every single element of your world to the test. Try to do the same thing. Poke it for holes. Question everything. Don’t ever take anything for granted, thinking people won’t notice. Push yourself to fix any problem, even small, subtle ones.
Nice long read. Toni McGee Causey presented this as a two-day workshop. Here she adds a screenwriter’s-eye-viewpoint and examples to get an understanding of the differences in POV.
“5. He wasn’t afraid of the process. He knew that a book or short story had its own timetable, and he didn’t try to force it. If a project needed weeks, months or years in the editing and rewriting phase, that’s what he gave it. Despite the same anxiety for publication that all writers share, he still gave his books the time they needed to develop.”
This is a spooky read.
“Normally most writers don’t say, ‘I’m going into a mild hypnotic trance.’ Typically they don’t know how they do it,” Bell said. “Most people, when they have a good experience writing, they’re well placed in that state, which is also sometimes called a ‘flow state.’ If you don’t have trouble, you don’t have to think about it. But if for some reason you can’t get into that state, then you start to have writer’s block.”
He goes on to give writers suggestions. Take a break and head over.
Literary agent Kristin Nelson conducted her “Agent Reads The Slush Pile” workshop at the Missouri Writers Guild Conference in St. Louis this past weekend. In it, she asked a writer to read aloud the first two pages of his manuscript intended for submission to a literary agent. If the first two pages were good, the writer read through. If she found an issue, where she would stop reading if in her own office, she said, “Stop,” and then explained why.
Kristin stated that 99.9% of what she sees in the workshop is not ready for an agent to read and this weekend only one submission made it past the first page. The majority of the others were stopped by the second paragraph.
The top ten problems:
1. Telling instead of showing.
2. Including unnecessary back story.
3. Loose sentence structure that could easily be tightened
4. The use of passive sentence construction.
5. Awkward introduction of character appearance.
6. Awkward descriptions/overly flowery language to depict.
7. Starting the story in the wrong place.
8. Not quite nailing voice in the opening.
9. Dialog that didn’t quite work as hard as it should.
10. A lack of scene tension even if the opening was suppose to be dramatic.
(Source: pubrants.blogspot.com)
Chuck Wendig vs coffee in the morning?
I choose Chuck. A taste of his post:
There comes a point during the writing of a novel when, in the thick of it, some 30 or 40,000 words deep, you look down and wonder, how did you get naked, exactly? Where are your clothes? Why are you covered in grass-stains, your flesh marked by thorn-scratches? Why in your hair do you smell boar’s blood and the mating fluids of forest nymphs? Time is lost in clips and stretches. You feel disconnected from your body. You see a fly on the window batting its wings and you’re like, “I could eat you. I could sustain myself forever on you. Or I could shrink myself teeny-tiny-itty-bitty and ride you into battle against my foes.
The title says it all. Be sure to click through because it’s worth the read. The examples illuminate.
Hide yo kids. Hide yo wives.
To quote a friend:
“Yeap, there is a reason why golf and baseball only require one ball.”
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Oliver works it on Tumblr, Beckett theme by Jonathan Beckett
