Writing Tip #3: Never Too Early or Too Late for a Few Voices of Reason

I've been reading a lot of posts around writing forums lately about the value of receiving critique on your work from outside sources. The most common thread twining through all of them seems to be a variation on the following key points: that critique is not only a good idea but rather an essential one in the process of ensuring your work is at its best before considering it for publication, and that it's a good idea to get several opinions but also to keep in mind that opinion is subjective and to limit the corrections made to your work only to those things recommended by more than one or two of your readers.

And do I agree with all that?

Absolutely.

Further to that though, I want to address a question that I didn't notice anyone really focus on too much in their discussions: when during the writing process should a writer reasonably start seeking outside opinions on what they write and how they write it? My answer is that if you've got yourself at least somewhere around a page (give or take), then enlist test-readers to your heart's content. Or even after a paragraph, if you just don't feel like waiting that long. It's not so much a matter of how much you have - it's a matter of what you can get from running it by someone else.

Obviously, I can't speak for all (or even most) writers in this area since we've all got our preferences and our processes, but for me, for the debut novel I'm working on now I enlisted a friend as a beta reader after the first four or so pages were written. And I honestly can't say just how invaluable her critique was. 

At that point, I'd just decided on a radical personal change in my writing style - I'd struggled for years (and in vain) to emulate the authors I look up to, whose stories are often written in literary, almost poetic prose, and had finally come to the conclusion that their style just wasn't mine. Mine was more cut-and-dry conversational, with a more subtle bit of flair mixed in. With this change, and with a re-imagining of what my novel would now be portrayed as, getting my friend's honest feedback set me on the exact track I needed to solidify my personal writing voice with confidence, and charge ahead in writing it. The parts she liked and that worked as a clear narrative, I used to address the weaknesses and cliches she mentioned (which were also mentioned by the people I had read it after her). The result from that initial critique is that I'm the happiest and most confident with this project than I've been with anything I've written in my life, helping me to tailor it into something I can be proud of from the get-go.

Since then, I've had seven different people read each chapter I've written, and their advice when they have any to give hasn't ceased to be enlightening, calling on a consideration for things I may never have realized on my own. If I could give these guys salaries for this stuff, I would in a heartbeat!

Image courtesy of StuartMiles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So, today's writing tip in a nutshell... well, the above picture is pretty self-explanatory: SHARE. Whether you do it near the beginning of your work like I did, or near/at the end of it doesn't matter - what matters is that outside critique of your work can help you in ways that you can't even imagine if you haven't gotten any yet. Lending you positive affirmation in your strengths and methods for improving your weaknesses, proper critique will absolutely shape your work into the best of what you can deliver.

Have you had any experience, positive or negative, with receiving critique? What are your experiences with getting those outside opinions? Comment with your stories below!

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Novel Word-Count as of Today: 20,900

Writing Tip #2: Invoking Your Writing Mojo

What's this? Two posts within days of each other?? Craziness. I wonder what's come over me. Maybe I'm coming down with something. That's gotta be it - I'll take my temperature and go lie down somewhere after I've posted this.

Speaking of crazy actually, the other day I was chatting with one of my fellow writing nerds that I meet with once a week, and we got on the topic of one's so-called "writing process". That's right, the mysterious super-top-secret techniques that all those annoyingly productive writers seem to have figured out, while all us sad sops off to the side wonder, "Why do they have it figured out and I don't?? What am I doing wrong??"

From what I've seen, the answer to that question is this: you need to unleash your inner weirdo - in other words, the eccentric but lovable crazy person that lives in all the fine folks that have that creative edge to their brain.

This is certainly no easy task, since everyone's inner crazy person has a different way of operating. An example? Well, you know Victor Hugo, the guy that wrote Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame? He wrote naked. The man had his valet hide all his clothes until the completion of both of the aforementioned novels, so that he would have no choice but to write since he couldn't leave the house. 

A little nuts? Yep, and we can only hope he invested in curtains for all his windows, for the sake of his neighbors. But effective? Heh, I'd say so, wouldn't you?

So today's writing tip in a nutshell: you must (while allowing still for personal and public safety, of course) unleash the inner eccentric! Try stuff out, see what works for you. It could end up being any of all sorts of combinations that could do the trick. Maybe hop on a subway or a city bus and ride it around town all day while you work on your laptop/tablet thingy; maybe spend the day in the park writing in between scaring pigeons and sitting upside down on a bench. For me, I usually end up with a giant bowl-sized mug of coffee or tea and pulling an all-nighter in front of my computer in my PJs, box of pizza open on my left, research and rough notes on my right, and a 10 hour recording of a rain storm playing over Youtube. I'm still working on perfecting the weirdo in me to get annoyingly productive like the rest of 'em, of course.

As everyone says, there's a fine line between genius and insanity. Well, go skate on it a bit - creativity awaits!

Image courtesy of StuartMiles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Novel Word-Count for Today: 20,075

IT LIVES!!

Four months since my last post on here, huh?... Yikes. 

Right, so about that: I have a good reason, I swear! There are, in fact, several good reasons. And if you're here reading this, I'm going to go ahead and assume you're at least vaguely curious as to what those are. So.

Reasons!

Most of them can be summed up as the following: blah-blah-blah accelerated university course load, blah-blah-blah time consuming (though awesome) unpaid job, blah-blah-blah life being its usual (*cough*) charming self. Nothing original there, but four especially interesting months of voluntary psychosis ensued. 

But! The other (and best) reason! Writing awesomeness! Progress at last! So much solid progress that I can't seem to stop using exclamation points! This is a genuine concern!

Anyway, the progress: yesterday I surpassed my personal record of 17,300-ish words as the most I've ever written of an entirely original work of fiction (a distinction important to make, since I have in the past written a few rather lengthier pieces for fun on fanfiction.net - great place to practice technique by the way, for any that haven't given it a go). I'm now nearing 20,000 words after putting the finishing touches on chapter three of my budding (*knock on wood*) debut novel yesterday night.

Obviously, still a long way off from 

Image courtesy of Prakairoj/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

but FINALLY away from starting to, in some ways, switch out a chunk of the usual excitement for writing with something more along the lines of

Image courtesy of StuartMiles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

which is pretty frickin' lovely. Especially since my renter's insurance really doesn't cover spontaneous-human-combustion damage. I don't think...

Also, in other recent news, a book review I wrote has been published in the journal of arts and literature I work for, so eureka! Publication number two! It may just be a review, but I'll take my victories where I can get 'em :)

And now that I've resurrected this little-blog-that-could, I'll get back to more regular postings, along with including a regular ongoing word count of my YA novel endeavor - partly wanting to get publicly dorkily excited over the fact that HOLY CRAP, I ACTUALLY AM GETTING SOMEWHERE (...did I mention it's been years since I've reached the end of a chapter 3 of anything?? - sad, but true, so... WOO-HOOOOOO!), but also hopefully as an incentive to keep on keeping on with my current writing roll.

So, current word count as of this afternoon: 19,675.

Mua-ha :D

And now back to work.

First Publication is Officially Out!!...It May Be Just Under 900 Words, But That Still Counts :)

This'll just be a short little update since the title pretty much says it all... but YAY!! First publishing credit! 

In brief, it is a short non-fiction piece titled "Coward", which I initially wrote for a class assignment, then submitted to an online magazine on a whim. The name of the publication is TWJ Magazine - I don't know very much about it, other than it's based in the U.S, and they seem to focus on the reflective and the moral-based for the most part, with room for both sweet and bittersweet. My piece is more-so toward the 'bittersweet' end of things, and hopefully can hold some value in its content, despite its brevity.

At any rate, below this is the link to view it. It seems to be free to access, so any who are curious to read it, feel free to give it a once-over and drop by here with any comments. Feedback welcome!

http://twjmag.com/fiction-nonfic-poetry/coward

The A to Z Book Diary: "B" is for Bring on the Bad guys

There's nothing like a good Bad Guy to get your story on track. It's the old yin-yang principle: to have light, you need dark; they balance each other out, and act as counterpoints to drive each other's motivations and development within the story.

And from the writing perspective, let's face it... bad guys are just so much fun to dive into and bring to life. They're just so interesting. And I mean this in the least twisted way possible.

Along that train of thought, an update on the progress of my writing New Years Resolution: so far, so good! I've actually been sticking to it (wonders never cease), and have cheerfully plowed through scrawling out (yes, by hand - I'm old fashioned that way... I have an odd fondness for getting ink stains on my fingers) four pages of brainstorming where I laid out pretty well every main aspect of the plot (which is definitely going to be a trilogy), and about six pages of the story. I scrapped the beginning I'd written ages ago, and tackled it from scratch.

And... *drum roll*... it's working - I'm almost in a state of shock, after metaphorically beating my head against a wall more often than not for years. It's amazing what I'm getting done, now that I've decided to flick that annoying inner-brain "is my writing/story good enough? what if it's not??" switch firmly to the 'OFF' position. HA!

But, I digress - Bad Guys. Heh, what a good time. A real and delicious puzzle.

Writing the Good Guys is for the most part straight forward; obviously, they still have their flaws (they'd be one-dimensional cardboard cutouts without them), but largely they have some sort of recognizable moral compass that is universally accepted and makes them relate-able and the ones that people root for. But the Bad Guys... their compass is the warped antithesis of the Good Guys', and the writer (and the reader, down the line) is left with all sorts of great questions: what's "right", and what's right in this guy's head? How far would he go? Why? What wouldn't they do? Do they have a line? What happens when they cross it? Oooh, the possibilities for moral complexities and everything that goes with them are endless. I'm still in the outlining stages for my principle Evil Doer, which the main hero has yet to meet, and this guy is shaping up to be downright elemental... in some ways literally. But I won't spoil it by giving too much away :)


And all this rambling about it has my creative brain revving its engines - if I have any hope of focusing on schoolwork (exams... right... I need to study for those, don't I?... meh, debatable), I'll need to go pour out my page for the day. 

Now where's my pen...

Image courtesy of artur84/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The A to Z Book Diary: "A" is for Avast ye, Apprehensions

Ahhh. 'Tis the season for Christmas lights, hot chocolate, carols, turkey dinners... and end-of-semester hair-pulling and insomnia over pre-holiday assignments and exams -- it's a good thing I'm geared more towards looking on the bright side, otherwise being a student would absolutely ruin my holiday spirit every year, especially since the city I'm living in for university never seems to get a decent snowfall, and what little snow it does get melts within a week. Hmf.

Anyway, on that brighter side, I've dug myself out from the most recent avalanche of schoolwork and procrastination on schoolwork, and have decided most diplomatically to further procrastinate in the area of studying for my exams next week in order to start another posting thread on this little blog 'o mine: The A to Z Book Diary, which will serve as a sideline for keeping track of progress on getting my first novel written... partially for commiserating purposes if any other writers happen to stumble this way, but mostly to guilt myself into keeping consistent with working on said novel. We've all got to have our ways to actually get things done - hopefully things like this will get me from "aspiring" to "published", sometime before I hit my golden retirement years.

Heh, here's hoping.

As always, if anyone reading feels so inclined pop by in the comments and share some rants of your own - the more the merrier XD.

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So I've re-realized an old revelation that every writer-in-progress gets to time and time again: in the area of progressing on a potentially marketable work of fiction, I am my own worst enemy. Coming up with story ideas... not an issue. Ideas bubble up from all over the place (which is why very little homework gets done in advance of the night before due dates). Sticking with one idea consistently enough to make a novel out of it, on the other hand... yikes. 

I'm not sure if this is an apprehension that goes away once you've gotten those first couple of novels out there and gained some sort of readership, but no idea seems quite good enough to be "The One" - that is, the one that feels like it's got what it takes to maybe turn into that golden goose that will get you noticed as a writer, rather than shuffled off to the bargain bin after a few months of gathering dust. And I've found that the more time goes by, the worse these apprehensions get, until rather than the creative half of my brain happily feeling like this...

Image courtesy of SalvatoreVuono/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

...it ends up feeling more like this...

Image courtesy of BoazYiftach/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

In short: no good shall come of this, young grasshopper. Ouch.

But I've made my New Year's resolution early this year, and hopefully posting it here will make me keep to it. I have picked one idea for my starter-upper (one which lends itself to a potential trilogy-ish structure), and come hell or high water, I'm sticking with this one from beginning to end. Obviously wouldn't be too bright to detail the whole thing online, but in the broad sense, it's a modern fantasy-type thing, semi sci-fi-y, and falling in the Young Adult (YA) genre.

The official Resolution: this *bleeping* thing is getting written. Rants and generalized brainstorming will be posted here periodically to keep my brain from imploding in the process, and from here on in, it's going to be a page per day at minimum; screw the apprehensions - do you hear me?? I'm done with you all!! HA!!!

Anyway. To Be Continued... Stay Tuned... o_0

Writing Tip #1: Start With a Plan of ATTACK!... Then Take a Breath, Grab a Coffee, and Decide What You'll Actually Do

Do I have any technical Writing Workshop teaching credentials that make me specifically 'qualified' to dole out advice? Not so much, no. But what I do have, for whatever it's worth to the faceless blogging and blog-trolling crowd, is 15 years of trial and error in working towards writing for a living. So, for anyone who's desperate enough to pay any attention to this random internet blogger (are you really that desperate?...really?...my condolences), "Writing Tips" will be an oft-updated series of short segments of helpful little things I've learned for myself that just might do the trick for someone else as well. So, here goes - and if anyone has any luck with these, or has any of their own they'd like to share, feel free to drop in on the comment section below!

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We've all been there before, many, many times: you have that moment, that burst of pure, electrifying inspiration, and you make a lunge for your pen-and-paper/laptop/pen-and-nearest-bare-wall because you're going to map out your goals, and you'll stick to them, and you'll write and write and write, and finish that fantastic project you've been trying to finish since forever...

...then by the next afternoon - Day 2 of your Master Strategy (very emphatically capitalized), or maybe by Day 6 or 7 if you're especially determined - the unshakable faith in said Master Strategy has mysteriously dwindled and you forestall filling that poor blank page/screen/wall any further in favor of ordering a pizza and watching reruns of How I Met Your Mother in your pajamas. 

That last part may be a bit more personally specific, but the principal's basically the same: plans may work for a lot of people, but for many others, it seems making out a writing schedule or a cast-iron story outline is like making a New Years resolution to get a gym pass and use it every day or a few days out of every week - it has a tendency to get neglected before you can actually get anywhere with it.

Image courtesy of suphakit73/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So, Tip #1 In a Nutshell: don't prescribe your writing. Whatever your project, whether poetry, essay or fiction (short or long), just set aside enough time to write exactly one sentence/line of poetry every single day to start with. It doesn't matter what it is - a line of dialogue, a random tidbit about a character or back-story, or an idea for a plot twist or something that you haven't even decided where it'll fit in yet. Get that one sentence out every day at minimum (certainly more, if the inspiration strikes), and keep it all collected together. And at the end of every week or two weeks, peruse everything you've written, and put in a little time on organizing what you've got to date to see where you stand. And then keep on adding to it as you go. You'd be amazed at how quickly your thoughts and ideas stack up into a bigger picture!