What Keeps You From Writing?

I haven’t posted anything in a long while. Sucks, I know. I’ve been too busy. That’s an excuse, but it’s a legitimate one. But not posting here doesn’t bother me half as much as not writing.  I haven’t written any prose in almost four weeks. That’s a near record for me since I decided to start getting serious about my writing.  Sometimes I’ll go a week without writing, but then I will hammer away at it for a few days and cram thousands of words into a matter of hours.

But life has a way of getting in the way.

My son (A United States Marine) came home on leave for 3 weeks.  So he took up most of my home time…while at the VERY SAME TIME I got my new job.  I was stressed at work, being inundated with information and work (I still am, by the way. My new job is a monster task–and very stressful at the moment).

So during the day, I was at new job, learning ropes ( I am a manager, so I not only have to learn my job, but the jobs of my people, and the teams we interact with, and the politics of the office, etc.)  getting my but kicked, grinding my teeth from the usual first weeks jitters. (Although, I’ve never worked in an office where EVERYONE is so nice. It’s weird. Everyone I have talked to is nice and wonder if I am in some weird movie)

By the time I got home every day I was a nervous wreck. But when I got home, it wasn’t just kick back and relax.  My son was here and I wanted to do things with him even though I was whipped mentally from my day.  So I would try to do things with him, but as the weeks went by, I got more and more tense.  Ultimately we had a huge party for him and that unclenched me a little.

Oh, and to top it off, my old computer died. So I had nothing to write on every day.  My new computer is on order, but the place I get my computers from custom builds them, so it take about 3 weeks to get it in.  I am writing his column on my wife’s laptop, and she is wanting her machine back.

So I suck, I guess. I haven’t been writing, even though I have 1/3 of one book done, and a complete revision needed on another book.  I also need to finish the query letter i have been working on with uppington.  I have lots of stuff to do, but I haven’t had the wherewithal to actually do them. When I get tense and stressed, I can’t write. I guess I need to get over that and get back to it. You know, Just Do It.

Easier said than done.

What keeps you from your writing? Is there any one thing (or many) that keeps you from putting words on the screen? Or am I the only one?  Didn’t Nora Roberts say kick your muse to the curb, or some such? She’s hardcore. I like that.

 

I do love you

Sorry blog, for not being here lately.

I just started a new job last week and it’s been very hectic. (New job was my choice! More pay, and promotion!)  I have tons to learn and no grounds for basis on how to learn it.  My boss is actually in another city, and he’s been doing my job for months, so he is over-stretched and over-meetinged, so it’s hard for us to get time together for him to catch me up.  Which means I’m pretty much on my own learning the things as I move forward. 

I have received a lot of nice emails and calls from people, welcoming me to the team.  Everyone in my office is nice. I am the only one in my office besides another manager who is on my team, so I don’t know or work with most of the people in my office directly.  I will eventually start working with more of them later on, but as of know…it’s been quiet.

I did get a nice triple-sized cubicle, and a window seat (can’t figure out how to raise the blinds yet!) and the office is grade-A nice.

All this means is, when I get home at the end of the day (my usual “writing time” is the first hour when I get home from work)  I am nothing but a bag of worthless jelly. I can’t think, can’t do much but chill because my mind is on overdrive every day at work right now.  Literally, my brain does not slow down ONCE all day…which makes me crazy and tired.  Yeah, I hear you…just take it one step at a time. Don’t try to ingest it all at once.

Sure, those are great words of wisdom, but this is how my mind works. It is constantly spinning out, looking for something, anything to grasp as a waypoint to the next fact. It’s like I am standing in the middle of a closet of constantly moving strands of thread.  I grab one, but it doesn’t go where I think it is supposed to. I grab another one and it leads up instead of down…and then there’s the actual figuring out of which threads to grab and which ones are just noise!  Sheesh.

So it’s taken a bite out of my writing last week. I am traveling this week, so I hope I can get some done while on the road.  I’m guessing I won’t get any real work done until I get more comfortable at work.  Maybe this is a new challenge, learn how to write in a chaotic storm instead of the cool waters of calm.  We’ll see.

 

The Pain

I just realized I need to go back and change a scene on a story I had considered complete.  I have to revise the scene and then figure out how it’s going to affect the rest of the story.  The scene needs more punch and I need a huge blow up that doesn’t happen now. My protagonist takes the answers the antagonist gives him with little or no conflict or questioning the antagonist in the scene. He just accepts the answers. While this wasn’t a big deal to me at the time of writing, I want to go back in and make it an exploding scene that will drive the rest of the story home.

I guess that’s one good reason to sit on a story for a while and not just say, “It’s good enough.”  

But of course, it’s never good enough, is it?

 

You Can’t Play your Library on the Radio

I’ve been contemplating this whole “e-book” thing lately and started thinking about the future.

Let me qualify myself first, so you know where I’m coming from.

I have been in information technology professionally for almost twenty years. I have held positions from technical support (back when the U.S. had all the technical support) to IT management positions.  I keep up with modern technology not because I like to, but because I have to. It’s my job. It’s also my job to predict the future to some extent.  See, we have to look forward to see where businesses and users are moving, so we can be prepared when they make decisions.  I have to be a pretty good prognosticator about technology.  Now, all that being said, my knowledge on the publishing industry is a wee-bit less than that. Well, truthfully, my knowledge is not that great, so I am approaching this from the IT perspective more so than the publishing direction. However, I can make educated assumptions on what will happen on the publishing side, based upon the technology of the day.  Hopefully that all makes sense and when I start putting things down below, you can keep up.

So we have the Kindle.  It is the harbinger. It is the death knell for the publishing industry.  Truthfully, the Kindle is an alpha product, so it’s sort of sucky. I won’t buy one. Hell I won’t buy a beta product in the line.  See, technology sort of has a history of creating devices that do one thing, then combining them with other things, and then separating them out again. (They also have a way of sucking in the beginning, then becoming significantly better later on) So you’ll get a product that can do one thing, but then innovators start  wondering why they can’t also add “x” functionality to the product, and then you get cell-phones with cameras. Then cell-phones with internet connectivity…etc. You get the idea.  Once the next generation of e-readers come out, I will dive in. Sort of waiting for full color ones that can do more first, but I still want e-ink.  They have a new laptop that can switch between a regular screen to an e-ink screen with the flick of a button. Pretty neat stuff, but once again, I’m waiting. If you haven’t seen e-ink in person, you won’t understand until you do. It looks like a piece of paper.

I have looked ahead, and the world will have to eventually go to all ebooks.  I don’t like this, but I will accept it. I am techno-nerd, but I love the smell of a book, the feel of the pages, the weight of the thing.  But it’s an inefficient way to handle data in this day and age, and especially going forward.  Digital is where it’s at. Hey, if you own a Blu-Ray player, I hate to be the one to tell you, but Blu-Ray is a dead technology ALREADY.  Yeah. It’s merely a stopgap until all digital delivery comes. Once that’s here, there will be no reason to print DVDs or Blu-Ray discs…that’s an eventuality, of course, but it will happen.  Everything is and will continue to move toward digital delivery, which is a little scary.  What if we digitize everything and get rid of all physical copies and something wipes everything in the future? Like some massive EMP bomb.  I digress.

With everything going digital, books will too. There will be places to purchase these books, online of course. Maybe at some digital kiosks in real life, but why bother?  You’ll have a device, it’ll be connected to the ether somehow, and you’ll have a place to get your stuff. Whether or not your device is a Barnes and Noble device, Amazon.com device, or Walmart device, will determine where you get your books. Of course, there will be independent devices out there, but you’ll still need to figure out where you’re going to get your books. There will be independent online bookstores (there are already are) and if an industry standard is adopted, that will make it easier to go to different places. Of course, the firmware on most devices should be able to read multiple formats.  But then you get into the MP3, versus, AAC, versus, WMA crapola, which none of us like.  There will probably never be one de facto industry standard, but as long as there is a central one that all other devices can utilize, then we’ll be okay. (Something like MP3’s. An MP3 is not an industry standard, but it’s open and everyone supports it in their devices.) 

You’ll have your device that will probably play movies, read books, listen to music, etc (Sony PSP anyone?)…all that is only somewhat important at this point in the discussion. What is important is the difference between movies, music, video games, and books. I’m going to use the word “Publisher” below to cover a lot of ground, but when I use that term, it could also be interchanged with “Producer”.

Movies: initially shown in a theater, where people have to go to consume them.
The publisher can advertise the movie and has control of it in it’s initial phase. He has certain channels he goes through to get his movie shown in theaters. Then it’s onto DVD, where he has less control, but still some. There is a (currently) physical product here, and making  a movie is typically cost prohibitive (hiring actors, cameras, etc). Could it be done by Joe MovieMaker? Yes. Would anyone pay to see it? Prolly not.

Video Game: you have two types, those for consoles, and those for PCs, and those that are on both platforms. Once, again, you can create a game all you want, but if you don’t have a large publisher pick it up, it prolly won’t be distributed through stores where joe user can buy it off the shelf. (Will video games become digital delivery too? Probably. But making a video game takes a lot of money, skills in programming, and lots of people to code/develop/test) (of course that last statement doesn’t count for smaller games, like Xbox Live, or the MSN games, or Facebook games, etc. Those are a different market share than Gears of War, Halo, Modern Warfare, etc.) Could Joe VGMaker make a game? Maybe, probably not one that would be much better than pong, unless he had a lot of experience. Would anyone buy it? Prolly not.

Music: Music is the first thing to attempt to go truly digital. A few thoughts. Music typically takes more than one person to create, although you could be a one man band and easily create songs.  They might suck, but whatever. The difference with music is this: Even though it could be ALL digital at this time, it still has a “free” version, which is the thing in your car, the thing in your house, the thing everywhere: your radio.  (Although the days of free radio might be numbered…once again, another topic) So, why don’t we have a bunch of total crap playing on the radio? (yeah, yeah. Shut up, contrarians. Sure there is a lot of crap out there, but there’s a system in place to ensure that most of the real crap is filtered)  Well, the radio plays music that is produced by big music companies. (of course radio stations will tell you they don’t accept money to play songs, this has been proven wrong over and over again)  So you have the radio blaring out these songs that music “publishers” market and push out.  If you can get your song onto the radio, and get enough play time, you can have a smash hit on your hands. (Even if it sucks!) Could Joe Musician cut a CD? Yes. Would anyone buy it? Prolly not.

Then we come to our old favorites. Books.  Books are going digital delivery, but unlike music, there’s not someone blaring into your car everyday reading a book. Sure you can go to the library, but there’s no filter there, like there is on the radio. There’s just a bunch of books, spines out, staring at you. But once books go ALL digital…how’s a library going to work?  People are going to have to regulate the number of free copies their books have and how many times they can be “checked out” virtually.  It boggles the mind on how they would do that, and I am not going to do much speculating here on it. (Poor Half-Price Books!)

However, from here on out, I will compare books and music extensively. Since books appear to be following music with one HUGE difference.  Books don’t need publishers to publish if they are in digital only format. (Of course music doesn’t either!)

Yeah, you read that correctly: there is no need for publishers if books go all digital. Hell, there’s no need for musicians to have big music industry contracts!  They can create music, throw it up there online, and hope people buy it.  But keep reading.

 I hear you laughing, but read closely. I have more thoughts on the subject. You are probably thinking, “Well, music went all digital and they still use producers and large companies to make music.” 
I give you this: books and music are different. Music has videos, the artists are on TV shows, they are on specials, they play during the Superbowl, they have the radio to blare their music of arguable worth, etc.  Books don’t have any of that. Writers go on tour to promote their books, just like musicians do to promote their music, but writers just have to carry a bag with their books in it and a pen to sign them. Not an entire entourage of roadies, technicians, instruments, etc.  Writers will schedule time with a local bookstore to have a table where people can come get a book signed.  Musicians have to hire pyrotechnics experts and have lawyers agree to deals with national arenas.  You gettin my point?  Publishing is way more important to the music industry because musicians are expected to be overall “entertainers”. While writers are just expected to write a damn book. And even if music is ALL digital, musicians are still required to tour to make any real money.  Writers aren’t.  And if you’re going to tour, your going to need all that money from the big business producer. Writing does not require this, and this is the biggest difference. Writers don’t need anyone to create their product except themselves.

In the future, anyone will be able to “publish” any ebook they want. Hell they can today if they want.  There is no reason to have a publisher when physical books go the way of the do-do bird.  Perhaps.   I am sure there are plenty of people out there who disagree and say we will still need some sort of gatekeeper to make sure that not every thing can get through to the mainstream. There has to be some way to keep the veritable flood of ebooks from overwhelming the average consumer.  I agree. But it doesn’t have to be a publisher. You see, to “publish” music requires the purchase of some sort of musical creation device (whether it be computerized or not) and some measure of skill, some sort of studio, etc. Now, of course you could create music simply from your computer and throw it out on the internet. People do this already today, but they won’t make any money from it. Not any more than Bob Writer from putting together his latest conspiracies into a text document and then “ebook”ing it and “publishing” it up to the internet.

So what is there out there that can and will still police the books lining the virtual shelves on the internet?  Honestly, “Publishing” an ebook is quite simple. Write up a book, create some chapters, work up a cover, put it into an ebook converter program, and VOILA! you have an ebook. Once again, there is no reason to hire a publisher.

Let’s be CRYSTAL clear here, folks.  STEPHEN KING, J.K. ROWLING, STEPHANIE MEYER, JAMES PATTERSON, etc…COULD WRITE UP AN EBOOK AND PUT IT UP ON AMAZON.COM, SKIPPING THE PUBLISHER ALTOGETHER, ONLY PAYING AMAZON THEIR CUT.   These writers have established themselves. Any of them could put a book up on amazon and it would make them a fortune. Unlike traditional publishing, there is NO LIMIT to how many ebooks you can have, and there’s NO COST PROHIBITER for more and more of them.  Hell, you create ONE ebook, and it can be duplicated FOREVER.  It’s CHEAP. For our famous writers above: no more royalty checks! CHECK IT OUT! They sell a million ebooks, for 5 bucks each, give amazon.com their 35% cut so that math equals (opens calculator…bear with me) 3 million bucks. Hell you won’t need a literary agent either. I love literary agents, but I think they may be a dying breed. Why do you need an agent to publish your book?  All the amazon.com stuff is here.  Now, of course, if you’re a big name writer, you can prolly negotiate that down, but for people like you and me…well, okay. 

But then, how do you get people to actually buy your book? Why even go on tour? Why bother? Your book is digital only. There’s no reason. So once again, how do you get people to know your book is out there? Good question, not one I have a ready answer for.  However, I do foresee a day, perhaps in the next ten years or so, when some completely new person will publish a book on Amazon.com and something about that person’s book will spark a fire and everyone will want it.  And it will sell. And publishers around the world will freak.  This will happen. Mark my words.  Perhaps sooner than I think.  And when it does, it changes the entire game. It gives the power back to the writer, and takes it away from the publisher. It allows the writer to go in and edit his story on the fly. It allows the writer to fix typos on the fly. It allows the writer to see exactly how many books they are selling LIVE as it happens.  There will be no more “returns” from bookstores.  What the writers sell–they sell.

I still predict there will be publishers making ebooks, and they will be able to market their writers out there, but getting  a new, unpublished author out to the public will require them to advertise on the web, and a lot.  They’re basically going to have to create ads that look like movies, but will be about books.

That’s my prediction about ebooks. I am sure many of you disagree for a number of reasons, and I am sure I have missed many aspects of this, but that’s what the comments section is for, right? So what do you think? Have I hit the mark? Am I full of shit? (You already know the answer to that!)

My reccomendation? Get yourself known before the massive move to ebooks. Get yourself known NOW.

 

Break Your Horse’s Legs!

 

When I first got the notion of writing a real story, I thought I would sit down and just start—and I did—and it sucked.

I actually wrote my first couple of stories when I was in high school, but I don’t count those. I start counting with my epic fantasy, The Swords of Saddig. (Horrible name, I know!)  I renamed it to the Swords of Chaos later after about 50 revisions of book one and 20 of book two and 3 or so of book three.

But during these revisions, I learned a few things, and have continued to learn things as I go. We all do. Here are some things that I have figured out so far. Some of these (hell, most) will probably be pretty simplistic to most people, and some of them were quick lessons, some were harder—as in, I am still wrestling with them.

Here, in something close to the order I learned them, are my items.

Lets versus let’s

I used to write, “Lets go!”  Which really doesn’t make much sense. Lets is: John lets his butt itch when he’s sleeping—and let’s is, “Let us”  Simple. But I had no clue in the beginning.

Towards versus toward

One of my original critique partners used to hammer my ass over this one.  Thank God MS Word has a find and replace function.  You see, towards, while correct, is British English. Toward is standard American English. Flip open any novel today, and you will see TOWARD.

Break your horse’s legs

This one was from a scene where I had a horse fall through the roof of an underground house…and he broke no legs from the ten foot drop.  My crit partner read it and marked the hell out of it. What does this one mean? It means, watch your follow through. If you’ve ever bowled, you know that your follow through is a very important part of your swing.  With writing it’s even more important. You can’t have two characters slogging through a sewage tunnel and have one lift the other above his head without disgusting sewage dripping all over the dude on the bottom.

Don’t have your characters go eat dinner

This one really pissed me off in a manuscript I read.  Two lead characters finally discovered a KEY part of the story, something that leads them to the villain…and they look at each decide to GO EAT DINNER then…so they go eat dinner, meet some people one of the other guys knows, get into some long arduous discussions about life, and start flirting.  I was like, ”WTF?! GET BACK TO THE STORY!!!”  What did I learn? Don’t put in scenes for the sake of putting them in. HAVE A PURPOSE FOR EVERY SCENE and when the action starts to ramp up, don’t sidetrack the story.  When that ball starts to roll downhill to your Climactic Scene, don’t stop it from rolling, and push it to the side. Let that thing keep rolling and building up speed.

Passive voice

Yeah, we all know this one. Apparently this was one of my most serious problems when I began, and I still fight it. I go through my manuscripts and hunt for this stuff. Sure, you can have some passive voice, but it should be kept at a minimum. I’m not going to go in passive versus active verbs. There’s no need here, there are much better places to teach that. I am getting better at it though. I usually catch myself AS I am writing it and make the change.

Exposition through dialogue

This one is easy for me to do now, but I used to do it all the time.  This is basically when you tell us the story through people talking.  “This reminds me of your affair ten years ago,” Mary said. “Yes, it was a hard time for us,” John said.  “Your affair really ripped the heart out of our marriage.”  Really?   No.  People don’t talk like that and they don’t say things that both parties (and the reader) already know.

Was +ing

This one is more personal preference than a standard rule. I started finding this when I looked for passive voice in my manuscripts. For instance: John was listening to the radio as Harry was pulling out his gun.  The loss of blood was causing her to get woozy.  He was sewing her up. The farmer was running toward them.   Those types of sentences bug the crap out of me. Like I said, personal preference. I much prefer: John listened to the radio as Harry pulled out his gun. (I could put up with John was listening, but not the was pulling out the gun) The loss of blood caused her to get woozy. He sewed her up. The farmer ran toward them.  I hate that was +ing stuff. I’m sure there’s some rule somewhere about this, but I’m not really a rules dude. I’ve learned the basics, but I am far from being an expert. (Like Ms. Lamb!)

A scene is conflict

This one took me a very long time to get down, simply because I didn’t know it. (I didn’t know what I didn’t know!) If you don’t have conflict, you really don’t have a scene. Sure you need scenes that set up later scenes that may not have conflict in them, but you simply must have conflict in some fashion in every scene. It doesn’t have to be violent blood-letting, but it needs to be there. Even minor conflict is good. Bob Mayer once told me he had a scene where there was no conflict, so he added an ancillary character whose only job was to add conflict to the scene. That’s what I do now. If I can’t find conflict in a scene, I determine a way to add some. If that’s characters arguing, a waiter being a dick, whatever.  If you have a scene, and there is no conflict, add conflict, or remove the scene. Easy.

Tension in every scene

Learned this from Donald Maass.  He talks about micro-tension, which is tension in every paragraph.  You must have some measure of tension in every scene, no matter what. What is tension? Hmm….How about this for an example: in the book Lonesome Dove, Call and Gus are always at odds, but they never outright fight. They argue, and they bicker between each other adding some measure of tension. It’s not always in your face, but you feel it. Another example was There Will Be Blood. Daniel Day Lewis as Daniel Plainview added tension to every single scene in that movie. Just by being on the cusp of going ballistic every time he is on the screen. It was tension, and a lot of it.  Also, if you want to know how to do it in a novel, try reading the first Dresden Files by Jim Butcher…brilliant. He never lets up with the tension in the whole book. It’s always a page-turner.  Dean Koontz does the same thing in his book (well, a few of his books!) The Husband.  He starts off fast, and never lets his foot up off the pedal. 

Break your entire story into one sentence

This is what Bob Mayer calls your “Original Idea”. It’s the very first thought you had about this story.  I have written an entire blog piece on this so search it down. Suffice it say, if you can’t tell what your story is about in one sentence, you are prolly having problems writing the damn thing and are lost.

And that’s it. Then things I’ve learned since I started writing 9 years ago. It’s been a long process, and I still have mountains of more stuff to learn, but these are the things I can still recall “learning” from someone else and thinking about it when I read and write.  Any things you’ve learned that you still keep top-of-mind when revising or writing?  Any corrections to what I wrote above? Tell me, fools!

 

Happy New Year from me to you

Happy New Year, folks.

I look at this year, the same as I did last year, keep trying, keep striving, give more, accept what you receive, and live, live, live.

Early this year (almost last year!) I decided to push myself, hard to make inroads on my desire to get some action in the agenting arena. I went to the conferences, joined a workshop, started my networking. And I can say, without a doubt, it’s certainly helped me. I have met tons of new people on twitter, facebook, and in person. I have made new friends and read more freaking romance books than I ever have.   I’ve offered up my own skills and volunteered to be on the board of a writer’s conference, met Bob Mayer more than once, emailed Eldon Thompson a few times, and made some online friends out of some literary agents who are actually cool people.

In the upcoming year, I hope to make more new friends, actually get an agent, kick my writing into a whole new gear, and strenghten the bonds of friendship I have built up over 2009.  2010 will be a watershed year, I can just feel it.

Hope you and yours are well, and that your 2010 is the best year of your life.

 

Make Them Like You

 

“Why should I care?”

Read that statement again.

It’s a question that Donald Maass (He needs to put 2 “M”s at the front of his name..Mmaass) and now Bob Mayer are asking about your story. (Bob got it from Don) 

It all started with Maass hearing people’s story ideas, and asking the tough questions like, “Does anyone care?” “Would the reader care?” etc. 

Which begs the question: how do you make people care about your characters and your story idea?   Bob Mayer says in answer “You gotta make them care.”

Really?  Exactly how does one go about making other people care about your story/characters?

I’ve been pondering this for a while, and am having a terrible time with it.  I approach stories usually with the idea of a “Wouldn’t that be cool?” idea.  And then I start figuring out what is the wierdest character I can put into the story?  Then I go from there. So, how do I make the reader (Let’s call the reader, “you”) how do I make you care?  If I read the back of a novel and read the paragaph or two, what makes me care enough to pick the book up? Well, sure it’s a subjective thing. What I find interesting would bore the behootie out of you.  People who don’t care, shrug and walk off. There is a guy in my writer group who has people critique his work based upon his characters, not his writing. His characters are so realistic that he gets people saying, “I really don’t like your protagonist.”  I’m hopping up and down in my chair screaming in my head, “WIN, WIN, WIN!!!”  If you can have someone say they don’t like a character,

THEN.

THEY.

CARE.

I would rather someone say they hate a certain character than they have a meh feeling about that character. That’s what we strive for.

So back to the task at hand. How do you make them care?  Do you create believable characters? Flawed?  I think it all starts with the characters, because, let’s face it, every story’s been done. The only difference is your take on the story, your unique perspective. So…it’s about the characters then–how do I make people care about my characters?

I need to study.

 

Writing and updating

Quick update today.

I am working on query letter for one WIP.

About start editing another WIP

And need to finish the next WIP.

Yeah, I’m WIPPED.

But I like to keep a lot of irons in the fire.  Means I always have something going on and don’t become emotionally invested in the outcome if one of them fails. I just move on to the next.

Keep plugging.

 

Who in the hell do you think you are?

Such a total crock of shit.

Last night at my writer’s workshop where we all critique each others’  work, we had an “incident”. Now, I’m certain these incidents have happened before and they will happen again, but this one somehow stuck in my craw.

I will not name names to protect the innocent people who were involved, but if you were in our group last night, you know what happened.  

There are different kinds of people who go to workshops (no duh, right?). You have the people who go to really get their work looked at with a scrutinous eye, people who go to network, people who go to help others with their work, people who just like to hear other people read, people who need inspiration, and people who FOR THE LIFE OF ME I HAVE NO IDEA WHY THEY GO.

These people read their little 10-15 pages of work, and then sit back and listen to the critiques. Now, I firmly believe that we all at the table have a responsibility to give good, honest feedback. It’s why we are there.  I am not going to hold someone’s hand and tell him his stuff was good if it sucked sweaty balls that are stuck to the side of his leg.  I don’t have it in me.  If I can’t find some real good honest feedback to give other than, “Man that stank like cat dookie with corn in it.”  I typically don’t say anything.  Sometimes I will pipe up when there is a scene that really grabs me or really throws me into the story.  If a writer does a great job with one part, but the other part blows, I will tell them that too. Hey, it’s all MY OPINION, right? They can take it or f**king leave it. And if they don’t want to take it, why would I give a good hot crap? (man, a lot of scat in this blog…somewhere, Shawna is smiling) I don’t.  If something I said bothered you, perhaps you should look at your story or even better–at your DAMN self–to figure out why that feeling is creeping up your spine–why my words got you hot under the collar. Cause it aint my words, it’s something else.

So last night, after the crit session was over, and we were on break, the writer who had just read jumped into the middle of all of us and practically condemned us for heresy! We were trying to change his voice! HEAVEN FORFEND! And when one person manned up and asked, “Do you really think I am trying to change your voice?”  the first person just said they didn’t want to argue. (Yeah, I know I am using they instead of he or she…but fuce.) The first person then said, “I’m not trying to change your voice, I’m trying to offer feedback. You can take what I say or throw it out the window.” (All of this is not verbatim.)

Then the conversation quickly took a dive for the dirt. I extricated myself and went over to talk to some other writers about their stories. 

Now, the deal is, the person getting upset had (in this writer’s humble opinion) no right to say one f**king thing to anyone. His story needed a ton of work, and he got IMMEDIATELY defensive when we started hacking on him about it. (In a nice way! We weren’t mean or shitty to him).  This writer human is one above who I think doesn’t even need to come to a crit group. Why would he? He doesn’t want to hear what we have to say.  A friend on twitter last said something about calling a parent’s baby ugly.  I agree, that’s what it is–but THIS F**CKER CAME ON HIS OWN!  He doesn’t have to come to see us and let us critique his work. He can stay home and he can read his own shit to his damn self. (Yeah, I’m a little pissed about this)  No one forces him to come and let others critique his work.  Stupid. Look, in all seriousness, it hurts when others slam on your writing. It cuts deep, but let’s be realistic, if you want to get better, you better (ha WORD ECHO!) learn how to take the criticism.  And if it gets you pissed off, then why are you putting yourself through this? Why come to a critique group when you think everyone else has zero to offer you and none of them know what they are talking about?  Do us all a favor and skip it. By being at the group, you’re not helping yourself or us by bringing in such a shit attitude.  We are coming together to help each other and to meet other like-minded people who want to LEARN.  If you’ve already learned everything there is to know about the written word…stay away.

 

Take that!

In another week, I will be able to start revising my nanowrimo story.

I typically give it a month before I revise/edit/rewrite just to let the story simmer and forget some of what I wrote.  For me it’s easier to do it that way. If I do it too early, I skim too much because I am so familiar with it and don’t see the warts all over it.

To me this is the funnest part of writing. I do get a kick out of intial creation, but revising is something on another level. Revising is where I push things up that were buried before, push things down that are stupid, and work on my theme and character arcs.  On this story I wrote it by pansting.  I did not have a “ticking clock” so the overall stress of the story is not as strong as it can be, and I need to create a freaking prophecy for my main character too.  I don’t much care for prophecies, but I need one to make the story work.  It’ actually a decent piece.

So how do you revise? Do you take your time away from the story, or do you just dive in as soon as write, THE END?