Author: terribleminds (page 114 of 466)

Writing advice, as I am wont to say, is half-a-bag of nonsense. It’s a wonderful, heady, narcotic mix of survivorship bias and whisper-down-the-lane stories, a steady parade of bullshit in a long line of linked-up wagons. But it’s useful, too, especially when you can take the advice in as exactly that: advice. When you absorb it as an option, as a bit of guidance or a loosey-goosey recommendation, you bring it into you, you get to play with it, examine it, challenge it. And then you can utilize it. Or discard it. Or hide it in a drawer for a day when it makes more sense.

But some pieces of writing advice are, honestly, sacrosanct.

Rules, let’s say, more than advice.

Like, one rule is: you gotta finish your shit. You just do. No, I don’t mean that every story you begin must be a story you finish — sometimes you gotta cut bait and run, but in the overarching journey of your writing adventure, you need to finish your shit. Complete your poop. Do the thing. Because a story is a thing with a beginning, a middle, and an end. And you cannot learn how to tell a story unless you learn to tell a complete story. You cannot learn to write an ending if you never write an ending. So, you gotta CONCLUDE YOUR SHIZNIT. Okay? Okay.

Point is, some pieces of writing advice are fairly immutable.

This next piece is one of them.

That piece of advice is —

*receives Breaking News alert*

Wait, what? The FBI raided Trump’s lawyer’s office? And his house and hotel room? And what’s this about Syria? And Facebook did what now? 87 million accounts exposed? Wow. Okay. Um. Heh, hah, sorry, lemme just recompose my thoughts here —

So, like I was saying, the most important piece of advice — a fundamental truth more than just a mere recommendation — is the following:

*receives Breaking News alert*

Wait, huh? Trump did what? There’s video of him stomping on a box of baby robins? Like, the birds? No, no, of course the birds, I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t the various sidekicks of Batman. Ha ha Batman isn’t real. So, hold up, Trump paid off the videographer of this robin-stomping movie out of his campaign funds? In order to hide it or produce it or both? And whoa, hold up, Facebook sold our account information to who now? A “shady guy in an alley?” Oh. Oh, that’s probably not ideal. And whoa what the fuck, who has nukes now? The KKK. The KKK has nukes. That’s — you know, that’s honestly pretty on-brand for 2018, but I gotta focus up here, gotta get this writing advice post back on track, hold on here —

SO THE MOST IMPORTANT WRITING ADVICE YOU WILL EVER RECEIVE IS

*Breaking News alert*

The President tweeted what? Just a string of ethnic slurs, many real, some invented? Every last one of them in all caps and misspelled? Jesus. And whoa, his children are actually just RealDolls? All of them but Barron are plastic-skinned robots? That tracks, I guess. Wait, whoa, we’re at war with who now? Amazon. The company, not the geographic region? And they have nukes? They’re at war with the US government, who is being funded by Facebook, who sold all of our private information to — *reads the buried lede* — the Devil? The Actual Devil? The Devil, who claims to have a VHS tape where Donald Trump whizzes into his own mouth like a playful orangutan? Where’s Russia in all of this? Oh, Putin is the Devil. And the EPA just rescinded the law that says you can’t have asbestos in your canned vegetables and that you’re now allowed to feed toxic mining run-off to human babies — I just — okay, I can’t —

I can’t do this! How the fuck do you talk about normal shit these days? How can I give writing advice in the face of all this… *gesticulates* sorcerous fuckery? Shit, if I can barely give writing advice, how do you actually write? I mean, real-talk, how on this little blue-green marble in space do you write an actual goddamn fucking book in the middle of this weaponized, aerosolized horseshit? It’s like trying to take your SATs in a room full of bees. Writing a book these days is like navigating a washtub across a dark and stormy ocean full of eels, and also the eels are falling from the sky and also there’s a hurricane that’s shitting out tornados and the tornados are just lashing whips of scalding hot cat barf and and and —

*Breaking News*

OH JESUS GOD WHAT THE SHIT

FUCKING FUCKBALLS

AH OKAY GREAT THE SIXTH EXTINCTION IS UPON US

THE WHITE HOUSE JUST NUKED SEATTLE

AMAZON RETALIATED WITH A DRONE FLEET INHABITED BY THE FRAGMENTED MIND OF DIGITAL JEFF BEZOS

TRUMP’S FLESH SPLIT OPEN AND DISGORGED A TIDE OF UNDEAD POODLES ON THE WHITE HOUSE LAWN AND NOW THEY’RE BITING EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING, SPREADING THEIR UNDEAD POODLE PLAGUE, SOON WE WILL ALL BE FILLED UP WITH ZOMBIE POODLES, AS THE BIBLE ONCE PREDICTED

ELON MUSK IS TAKING HIS COLONY SHIP TO MARS AND IT’S LEAVING SOON AND THE TICKET COST IS THE COST OF YOUR FIRSTBORN CHILD, THAT OR A BELOVED FAMILY PET OH GOD OH GOD IT’S ABOUT TO BLAST OFF AND I’M NOT ON IT

WAIT THE EARTH IS ACTUALLY JUST AN EGG AND IT’S ABOUT TO HATCH

IT’S FULL OF MANTISES

SPACE MANTISES WHO WANT TO FIGHT THE ZOMBIE POODLES

AND WE’RE ALL JUST FODDER FOR THIS ENDLESS COSMIC WAR

EVERYTHING IS FINE

oh wait hold on

I remember now

I remember the writing advice

the one piece of immutable writing advice

is this

you gotta look away

you gotta face a healthy direction

where none of this is happening

turn off the news alerts

shut down the tweeters

delete facebook probably I dunno

you gotta carve time away from the fuckery because fuckery always exists at some level and yes right now it’s at truly epic levels but it’s always there, like air, like anxiety, and you still need to make things, you still need the silence you deserve to create things, because the world keeps on turning until it doesn’t

turn away

turn it off

practice it

be diligent about it

give yourself silence and air

steal it if you must

go make something

don’t worry about the rules

don’t worry about the shit raining down everywhere

willfully disregard the chaos for a time

the words must be writ

the art must be made

it is how we will survive

it is how we will thrive

*Breaking News alert*

fuck this foolishness

*throws phone in toilet*

*goes and makes a thing, basking in peace and purpose*

*as should you, right now*

* * *

DAMN FINE STORY: Mastering the Tools of a Powerful Narrative

What do Luke Skywalker, John McClane, and a lonely dog on Ho’okipa Beach have in common? Simply put, we care about them.

Great storytelling is making readers care about your characters, the choices they make, and what happens to them. It’s making your audience feel the tension and emotion of a situation right alongside your protagonist. And to tell a damn fine story, you need to understand why and how that caring happens.

Whether you’re writing a novel, screenplay, video game, or comic, this funny and informative guide is chock-full of examples about the art and craft of storytelling–and how to write a damn fine story of your own.

Out now!

Indiebound | Amazon | B&N

I mean, seriously, Spring, get it together. Yes, sure, you’re thinking, “But Chuck, that’s an image of some nice new growth, and a pretty pretty waterdrop,” and you’d be correct. But the only reason that droplet is so nicely formed is because only an hour before it was fucking frozen because Spring has been hanging out with Winter and learning all the wrong lessons. Now they’re dressing alike and listening to the same music and ugh.

WHATEVER, pssh.

So! What’s up?

I’ll tell you what’s up here — we had a great signing at the Doylestown Bookshop where Kevin launched Scourged and Fran Wilde and I were there as happy cheerleaders, shepherding his new book into the world. (Plus we signed some books too. And drank some whiskey? Shhh.)

Here’s how much I love you — have some photos.

That last picture, by the way, is what you see before you die.

It was a glorious event. There was booze and books and like, 150+ people, and then there were lampchop lollipops and also gin and — well, it was great, and if you weren’t there, then SHAME ON YOUR HOUSE.

So, umm, what else?

I have SECRET NEWS I can’t yet share — I’m told maybe later this month? It involves comics and other things that are awesome. I should also have a cover for WANDERERS here in the next month or two? And VULTURES, too. Otherwise, a reminder that next up I’m at Ravencon (Apr 20-22, my birthday weekend, woo), and then Phoenix Comic Fest at the end of May.

A casual reminder that you can find me on Instagram these days, too, and lately I’ve been posting photos over there FROM MY YOUTH, so if you want to see me as a beardless, cherub-cheeked life-n00b, you can go there and check it out.

That’s all, folks.

*fades to nothing, all that’s left is a robe*

*the robe blows away*

*the robe is blown into traffic where it obscures the windshield of a tractor trailer*

*36-car pileup ensues*

Here’s the challenge this week:

I want you to take the title of one of the following Stephen King books, and write a short story based on it. The trick is, your story should be entirely different — you’re divorcing the title from the novel from whence it came, and writing Your Own Damn Thing. (Bonus points if you assume an entirely different genre — not horror at all.)

Get it? Got it? Good.

Choose a title randomly (random.org) or just pick.

1. The Stand

2. Mr. Mercedes

3. Under the Dome

4. The Shining

5. The Colorado Kid

6. The Talisman

7. The Dead Zone

8. Desperation

9. Bag of Bones

10. The Dark Half

Length: ~1000 words

Due by: Friday, April 13th (oh shit!), noon EST

Write at your online space.

Give us a link below.

Go steal a title.

Last week I did a… let’s be charitable and call it “unhinged” fusillade of tweets about how you, Dear Person, should go forth and —

*clears throat*

*bangs the timpani*

*screams*

DO THE THING.

And I thought, I should really bring that over to the blog. And I should, in turn, answer some KEY CRITICAL QUESTIONS about DOING THE THING.

So, here it is, a Frequently Asked Questions about Doing The Thing. Did anyone actually ask these questions? No! Probably not! Whatever! Quiet, you!

Let us begin.

Q: When should I do the thing?

A: Now. Right now. You should do the thing now. Not tomorrow. Not ten minutes ago. Now.

Q: But I don’t have time right now.

A: Nobody has time. We do not collect time like coins or eggs. Time is water in the river, you gotta reach out and grab a cupful as it passes. Also that’s not a question.

Q: Okay, a question, then: how do I make time for the thing?

A: To once again devolve to semantics, nobody really makes time. You’re not a Time-Shitter, who just prances about, Pooping Temporal Waste everywhere. Time is not feces. It’s a precious resource. You mine it. You steal it. You carve it out of the schist and bedrock.

Q: You just said time was water, and now it’s rock?

A: I’m a writer and therefore I have poetic license. It is a real license for which I applied at a local DMP, aka, the Department of Metaphor and Poetry. The greater point, aside from my poetic deviation, is that time is a thing you must seize for yourself before you die. Because you’re going to die. I’m going to die. The entirety of the Earth is going to die.

Q: This is getting bleak.

A: That is not a question.

Q: Fine, sorry. Why is this getting so bleak?

A: It’s not meant to be bleak, it’s just meant to be a reminder that our lives are a limited resource. We each have an end, and we do not know when that end will be, and so it behooves us to Do The Thing now, not tomorrow, or next week, or next year. Because you may not get tomorrow, or next week, or next year. This may sound bleak, but with a bit of a twist on your perspective, it actually becomes quite empowering. It’s like how a TV show does better when it has a finite number of seasons — Lost versus, say, Breaking Bad. The former had to go on and on as long as ABC kept renewing it, thus forcing the show to streeeeetch its story and parcel out its actual narrative. Breaking Bad was five seasons strong, and that’s because it was able to have a start and an end and know that its narrative had limits. When we recognize that we are expecting an end, we can start to actually make decisions and take actions, which is empowering and freeing rather than floating in some kind of wishy-washy middle limbo.

Q: What is the Thing I should be Doing? Is it writing?

A: It can be. I don’t know, I’m not you. Sure, I sometimes knock you out with ether and dress like you and try to sample your life in fits and starts, but that still doesn’t make me you. Maybe your thing is to write the book, maybe it’s to make a movie, or to tell someone you love them, or to clean your desk or hide a body. I don’t know. Every day we have a whole Menu of Things we can do, and you should do at least one of them, I think, in order of some importance.

Q: Can we go back to the part where you said you ether me and dress like me in order to experience what it is to be me?

A: No, we’re moving on.

Q: Ugh, fine. What if Doing The Thing is hard?

A: Then that’s good.

Q: Why is that good?

A: Because the most difficult things are often the most important. As I’ve said before in this post about Having A Bad Writing Day, it’s supposed to be hard. The most worthwhile things are also, inconveniently, the most challenging things.

Q: What if I’m not ready to Do The Thing?

A: That’s legitimate. Maybe you’re not. I have a book to write and I’m not yet ready to Do The Thing. The last book I had kicking around my head for five years, and I wasn’t ready to write it until I was. But that also doesn’t mean I just sat on my hands and stared at the wall. I found Other Things and Fucking Did Those.

Q: Like what?

A: Well, sometimes it meant writing the book I was ready to write. It also meant devoting supplemental energy to the book in ways — Writing The Book, in my case, is not the sum total of Doing The Thing. The actual authoring of said book is just the visible peak of that iceberg, but a lot of stuff goes into the book. Thinking. Outlining. Researching. More thinking. Stroking my beard. Making hmm sounds, and ahhh and even no, that’s not right. Going to a coffee house and pretending to be an author. You know, shit like that. It’s true of all the Things you must Do that a lot goes into Doing the Thing that isn’t the culmination of the Thing. The trick is not to fall into an oubliette of excuses.

Q: What the hell is an oubliette?

A: Haven’t you ever watched Labyrinth?

Q: I did, but was held rapt by David Bowie’s magic yambag.

A: That’s fair. It was hypnotizing. I wonder if that’s where he gets his crystal balls. Anyway. To answer the question, an oubliette is a pit, a prison, a trap.

Q: What excuses are you talking about, then? 

A: This is one of those really tricky things where a person has to be fairly, authentically honest with themselves. There is a very thin line between giving yourself a undeserved pass (aka, an excuse) and recognizing when you have a real reason to not yet Do The Thing. It’s also the same kind of hazy interstitial terrain between being hard on yourself and going too easy on yourself. I can’t tell you where that line is, or how to navigate that terrain — you just have to, over time, be self-aware and actualized enough to say, “Hey, I need to practice self-care,” versus, “Wow, I’ve been spending a whole lot of time on self-care and not a lot of time on Doing The Thing.” Sometimes, self-care is Doing The Thing, and sometimes it’s just you avoiding Doing The Thing. That calculus is different for all of us.

Q: Wait, I have to learn fucking calculus?

A: Emotional calculus, yes. Not fucking calculus. Fucking calculus is about angles of entry on a fuck chair and the various calculations behind lube.

Q: This is getting weird.

A: It was weird to begin with, you just didn’t realize it. Also, not a question.

Q: What if I don’t know how to Do The Thing?

A: Then you’re in good company. Nobody really knows how to Do The Thing. We’re all just guessing with varying degrees of instinct, luck, and success. I possibly know less how to Do The Thing than when I started.

Q: Isn’t that counterintuitive? Aren’t you going backwards?

A: Nope. Knowing that I know less frees me up to try more things. Believing you know how to exactly Do The Thing puts a lot of pressure on you when actually Doing The Thing. Being free of that knowledge is liberating. It lets you experiment.

Q: Experimenting? Is this a sex thing again?

A: Not unless you want it to be, I guess.

Q: Okay. So. What if I fail to Do The Thing?

A: The only damaging and dangerous failure is quitting before you Do The Thing. Pre-rejecting yourself and prematurely quitting because you suspect you won’t do the thing well is the worst. Otherwise, failure is the greatest teacher and serves as powerful medicine. It isn’t medicine that tastes good, necessarily, but it can become an acquired taste. The other thing is setting reasonable results for yourself. Let the Thing-Doing be the result. Don’t let the reaction to the Thing-Doing be the result. You can control the former. You ain’t got shit to do with the latter. You just Do The Thing as Best As You God Dang Can.

Q: Real-talk, though, the world is very stupid right now. It’s hard to Do The Thing. How do I Do The Thing in the face of such wanton fuckery?

A: It’s an understandable problem. We are at Stupidity Level 99, and turns out, it doesn’t end at Level 99. Here’s the thing, though: Doing The Thing won’t make the world any worse. And it may actually make it a little bit better, be it for you or for an audience or for someone who needs the Thing you Just Did, whether that thing is a book or a webcomic or a declaration of love or a body you need buried. The fuckery is the fuckery. There is persistent fuckery at varying levels of intensity. But the world is still turning. You’re still you. We still need art and love, we still need to work and create and tell truths. The Thing still needs Doing.

Q: So you’re saying I should Do The Thing?

A: You should, indeed, Do The Thing. Because the Thing Needs Doing.

* * *

THE RAPTOR & THE WREN: Miriam Black, Book Five

Miriam Black, in lockstep with death, continues on her quest to control her own fate!

Having been desperate to rid herself of her psychic powers, Miriam now finds herself armed with the solution — a seemingly impossible one. But Miriam’s past is catching up to her, just as she’s trying to leave it behind. A copy-cat killer has caught the public’s attention. An old nemesis is back from the dead. And Louis, the ex she still loves, will commit an unforgivable act if she doesn’t change the future. 

Miriam knows that only a great sacrifice is enough to counter fate. Can she save Louis, stop the killer, and survive? 

Hunted and haunted, Miriam is coming to a crossroads, and nothing is going to stand in her way, not even the Trespasser.

Indiebound | Amazon | B&N

Kinda love this photo. It is very clearly a toothbrush with intense anxiety. What gives a toothbrush anxiety? It sounds like a joke, but I really don’t know. Plaque? Whatever. (FYI: “Anxiety Toothbrush” is the name of my Jaeger robot in PACIFIC RIM 3.) Point is, I like this photo, and it’s a new macro, so please enjoy it. Or don’t. You’re not my puppet.

OR ARE YOU.

Anyway.

The other day, I took this photo:

And today, I took this photo:

So obviously, spring has been radicalized by winter. Visiting weird Winter Forums and hanging out on Winterstagram. Learning its ways.

Stupid weather.

Also, this photo:

Which, obviously, is a very colorful egg from a very colorful bird.

And now it’s hatching.

OR MAYBE IT IS AN EGG THAT I DYED and uhh, dropped?

Shut up.

So! What’s going on? How’s everybody doing?

Here’s what’s new in Wendigville:

Both Atlanta Burns and its sequel, The Hunt, are on sale in e-book right now at Amazon for $0.99 — which puts the first book as the, erm, #1 seller in Amazon’s Teen & Young Adult Physical & Emotional Abuse Fiction category. Which is a thing that exists, I guess. And is a thing that roughly tells you the tenor of these books, so please: assume a trigger warning for, like, *gestures widely* all the things.

And also reminder that I’ll be joining the mighty Kevin Hearne and freshly-Hugo-nominated Fran Wilde at the Doylestown Bookshop this coming Saturday (Doylestown, PA) at 7PM. Kevin is releasing the newest — and final! — Iron Druid book, so Fran and I are happy to help him celebrate this release. Be there or be frowned upon from a great distance.

I also pitched a new book to my editor at Del Rey, and she seemed to dig it, so I’m off to the races on that one — time to start doing research and plotting a rough outline and imbibing various hallucinogenic draughts. I mean, ha ha, what.

And that’s it for me, folks.

Have an excellent week, and remember:

DO THE THING.

Two words:

“New life.”

Lot of power in those two words, and a lot of ways to interpret them.

I want you to take those two words, and use them as the basis for this week’s challenge — write a story using those two words as a springboard. Again, feel free to get creative — you don’t need to interpret these words in any one way, but however you choose, using whatever genre you like.

Length: ~1000 words

Due by: Friday, April 6th, noon EST

Post at your online space.

Link back here.

See you on the other side.