#203 My First Year As A Writer

In November of last year, I began writing full-time.  I woke up on a Monday morning, and instead of going to work, I started writing.  There is such a difference between sneaking pages in between work and family on a project over the course of years and waking up every morning with the sole purpose of publishing novels.  Following is a list of what I've learned and experienced during my first year as an Indie Writer.

• Trouble with identity.  I've struggled all year when talking with people about this adventure.  It wasn't easy for me to call myself a writer.  If you want to be a writer, you must call yourself a writer.  You must feel like a writer.  Without embracing the adventure in full, you're only holding yourself back.
• Writing everyday.  A writer must produce pages every day.  I've met several aspiring writers this year who write when they can.  I know it isn't easy to write when you have another career.  But when you devote yourself to this life, you must write every day.  Without exception.  It really helps when you develop a schedule and stick to it.  
• Finish what you start.  If you quit a day job to write, you must produce finished products.  This isn't easy, as it takes months, even years, to complete a project.  But you must have stories for people to read.  You cannot get bogged down and simply move on.  A writer must power through the difficult days.  And trust me, there will be plenty of difficult days.
• Must get physical exercise.  I work out and run.  It's good for the mind, and it helps with focus.
• Animals can be super annoying.  I cannot afford an office.  So I write at home.  I have two cats and a dog, and they do everything they can to interrupt my flow.  You must figure out how to deal with this.  I have two places in my home where I can write without my animals getting in the way.
• I've written roughly 311,000 words (not including blog posts), which translates to about 865 pages.  This equals 2 published novels and 2 novels that will be published soon.  But I've sold fewer than 200 copies.  This is not enough to sustain a living.  I have a lot of work to do to get my novels in front of readers. 
• Continue to improve your craft.  It's not enough to just write.  It is important to strive for better writing.  There are dozens of books on writing.  It's important to read these, find the ones that make sense to you as a writer, and follow the advice.  Implement what you learn and continue to get better.
• Finally, remember this is a marathon.  Don't get discouraged.  You will find little day-to-day support.  You will encounter self-doubt.  You will worry about money, and you will wonder if your writing is good enough.  Push through the doubt and keep working.  Remember to enjoy the process.  If you cannot enjoy the process, then you should consider another career.

The last year's been challenging and fun.  I've made real progress with my writing and with my life as a writer.  But I still have a long way to go.  Year one has come to an end.  Year two begins now.  As always, I will document my progress as I journey toward making a living with my writing.

#202 The Idea Factory

A friend asked me how I came up with story ideas.  What was my process?  She said, "Do you have a secret notebook somewhere full of great ideas?"  No.  I don't have a notebook.  I have a password protected word document.  And yes, it's full of dozens of future award-winning ideas!

So how do I fill that word document?  Where do my ideas come from?  As generic as it sounds, most of my ideas come from random moments in everyday life.  I'm usually minding my own business, thinking of nothing in particular, when I notice something strange and then I try to figure out the story surrounding what I just saw.  For example, the other day I saw a car stop in the middle of the intersection and a young man jumped out.  He sprinted into the middle of the intersection, waving his arms madly about so that cars wouldn't run him over.  "What the hell are you doing?" I said to myself.  Well, turns out he saw an old pair of shoes in the middle of the street and he wanted them.

I spent the rest of my morning wondering why those shoes were so important.  Were they an old gift from a past girlfriend?  Had a new girlfriend thrown them out the car window because she discovered a secret text on his phone?  Or had those shoes once belonged to Mickey Mantle?  He'd found them in his attic along with other sports paraphernalia, and those shoes were to be sold to the Baseball Hall of Fame for $25,000 so that his daughter could receive proper treatment for her asthma.

I play around with the idea in this manner for hours.  Sometimes days.  These mental exercises entertain me while I'm waiting in line at the grocery store or stuck in traffic.  Or when my brother makes me watch the latest Ironman movie.  Occasionally I'll stumble upon an idea that is truly unique and interesting.  A spark ignites.  At this point I write it into my word document so that it's waiting for me when I'm ready to transform the interesting premise into a vision.

Every writer has an idea factory.  Unfortunately, I've not spoken to anyone else about their own factory.  I would love to know how other writers do it.  The one thing I know about my own process is that it should not be forced.  If I MUST come up with an idea on a deadline, then usually it feels forced.  If I'm having fun and spouting off nonsense, I'll accidentally find something I like.  I know real life is not one big playground, and writers don't have all the time in the world.  But, for idea generation, I find that fun is more productive.  Try and have fun with this part of the process. And understand that not all ideas are meant to be explored until completion.  It's okay to scrap an idea and move on.  You never know when today's bad idea will fit in perfectly with tomorrow's good one.

#201 Dachshund Paintings

Which dachshund painting is better?  Which one is worth more?  If you liked dachshunds, how much would you pay to hang either of these in your home?

One of the biggest complaints I read concerning indie writers v traditionally published writers is the degradation of literature and the accompanying loss of culture.  People worry that if anyone can publish a book, the entire medium suffers.  I can make many parallels to other art forms.  Youtube allows anyone to post videos of any length.  Have the millions of videos uploaded to the internet affected the quality of films coming out of Hollywood or TV sitcoms airing on the major networks?  How about the thousands of bands who upload their music to bandmix or bandcamp?  Have they affected the music coming out each year?

Publishers argue that they are necessary to the industry because they weed out the books that are not fit to be published.  These would be the books that have no place in our culture and society.  They feel it is an important service that should be embraced by readers and writers alike.  Without publishers, the market would be so flooded with trashy writing, that our culture would suffer.  Readers wouldn't know how to discern good writing from the bad.  The worthy stories from the filth.

I completely disagree with this notion.  I've read several traditionally published works that were poorly written.  Likewise, I've read indie published works that were well written and worth my time as a reader.  The idea that there are people in the publishing industry with superior knowledge about culture and value of the written word is flawed.  Readers are qualified to decide what they like and what they would be willing to spend money on.  The market is strong enough and wise enough to police content without the assistance of an all-knowing gate keeper.

Does this mean that I think publishers should go away?  No.  Right now, there is room in the industry for publishers.  But I also believe there is room for the indie writer.  Art is art.  Some of it appeals to the masses.  Some of it appeals only to a small percentage of people.  Some of it doesn't appeal to anyone.  All artists struggle to find an audience.  All artists struggle to make a living.  Dismissing a viable avenue to get work out is a mistake.  Dismissing indie writers because they aren't backed by a traditional publishing house only limits the industry, and as a result, stifles creativity and culture.  If someone tells you a youtube video is worth your time, you watch it.  If someone shows you a good song recorded by a no-name band, you listen to it.  If someone reads an indie published book and tells you it's good, then read it.  

And if you like dachshund art, don't limit yourself to only artists you've heard of.  If the art works, if it looks good, if it enhances a room, then hang it up proudly no matter whose name appears on the bottom.  BTW, the second work is a dachshund painting I did myself.  And I promise, I'm no Picasso.  But my dining room looks pretty damn awesome!

 

#200 From Interesting Premise To Vision

In my last post I mention aspiring writers beginning with an interesting premise and then bogging down in the writing process, potentially due to a lack in an overall vision.  What's the difference between an interesting premise and a vision?  That's a good question.  My definitions are as follows:

Interesting Premise:  An idea.  A spark.  An example might be, "Let's write a movie about a plant that eats people.

Vision:  The idea grows and takes shape that includes developed characters, key plot points, established conflict and resolution.  A complete fire.  An example might be, "Let's write a musical that follows a lonely plant store employee who discovers a mysterious plant from outer space.  He discovers, to his horror, that the plant drinks blood.  He begins feeding it his own blood, but eventually commits murder to keep his plant alive.  As the plant grows, its need for blood increases until it grows too large for the plant store guy to control.  There will be a love story, a wicked boyfriend, the best Bill Murray cameo in history, and many catchy songs that people will love.  At the end of the movie, the plant spawns baby blood suckers and it is up to the plant store guy to destroy them all.  Or planet Earth is doomed.

So how can an aspiring writer get from an Interesting Premise to a Vision?  What are the magical steps needed to take a spark of an idea and make it flourish into a well developed fire?  Following are things that I do to help flesh out my ideas.

• Understand Your Genre
• What are the basic conventions of the genre?
• How does your story conform to the conventions?  How does it break convention?
• Does your story cross genres?
• How does your story differ from other stories in the genre?
• Understand Your Characters
• I use sticky notes and brainstorm how each character would react in mundane/unrelated situations.  Like, 
• What would she do if she showed up to work late to avoid trouble?
• What's the last thing she does before going to bed?
• Where would she eat lunch on her birthday?
• And many more...
• Think about the relationships between your characters.  Do you see similar relationships in real life?
• Print pics of your characters.  Can use advertisements or your FB friends.  Be careful using FB friends.
• Understand primary character arc- how does she grow/change?
• Understand Primary and Secondary Conflicts
• Without conflict, your readers will tire of reading.
• Think of conflict in terms of origin and resolution.
• Trace the overall vision in terms of conflict.  The story should move forward and make sense.
• Find Your Climax
• What is the story building to?  You must know this so that you know where you are leading the reader.  This will allow you to make decisions on how best to develop the story throughout.
• How will you get to the climax from the beginning?  What key elements are necessary along the way?

If you have any thoughts to add, by all means, leave them in the comments.  Any information is good when helping a writer turn an interesting premise into a fleshed out vision.

#199 Painting The Picture

This last weekend my brother drove with me to Tyler, TX to help me paint the inside of a house I lived in several years ago and now rent out.  We removed old nails, taped the base boards, cleaned the walls, and laid down paper and canvas to protect the cheap laminate that covers the bedroom floors.  Then the painting began.

This was my brother's first time to paint.  He stood at the wall with a dripping roll brush and said, "Is that good?"  I looked at the cream-colored streak of paint slashed across the wall.  I compared it to the smooth and organized strokes on my side that covered 1/4 of the wall.  I said, "We're trying to paint the whole wall evenly.  So take a look at your streak, and make it look even and clean."  He scratched his head and eyed his brush.  He rolled over the messy streak a second time and said, "How about now?  Is that good?"

My brother recently finished college and is interested in becoming a working writer.  We talk every week about our stories, and our conversations inspire many of my posts on writing.  He wants to write comic books, movies, and short stories.  This last weekend, while we drove lonely 2-lane highways through East Texas, he asked me, "What's a novella."  After hearing my basic and underwhelming definition (amounting pretty much to "it's like a novel...only shorter") he said, "I want to write one of those!"

But my brother has one problem.  He rarely finishes what he starts.  He has dozens of half-written comic books, a handful of short stories and he is working on a novella.  But none of them are finished.  None of them are ready to be released into the world.

I used to think this was a problem of persistence.  I envisioned fleeting moments of inspiration that led him to his computer for an hour or so, where he would pound out a page here or some thoughts on a new comic book there.  I thought he lacked the conviction to finish his projects because one flash of inspiration could only take him so far.

I'm not sure that's true anymore.  When he stood at the unpainted wall, he had no idea what the finished product was to look like.  He hadn't thought it through.  He was not invested.  For him, he was helping his brother paint a house.  So he put paint on the wall and asked me if it was good.  I think this is what's happening with his stories.  He wants to write them.  He doesn't mind the work.  But I don't think he has a clear idea of what he wants his finished product to look like.  Without a clear ending goal, his project bogs down and he starts something else.

I wonder how many other writers bog down.  Do they lack persistence?  Or do they lack a clear vision?  This is a good thing to think about before embarking on a large project.  An interesting premise and a bottle of wine may not be enough to carry you through to a finished product.  It's important to know what you want the wall to look like before start painting it.