More and more I’m allowed the benefit of corrupting the minds of creative writing students out there in the world, which is awesome for me, and probably disturbing for them.

Regardless, as I am occasionally mistaken as some kind of “person who knows things” when it comes to writing, I feel like I have a few things I’d like to say to you Young Penmonkeys out there — those of you between the ages of, mmm, say, 16-21. Not to say this won’t also apply to others who want to be professional writers when you grow up, but it is aimed specifically at that age range both in terms of what I remember being like then (ugh!) and what I see when I meet these amazing, ass-kicking creative writing students.

I’m about to be 38 next week (my mantra being a loudly hooted NOT YET 40 WOOOO) and I had my first short story published at 18, and my first taste of professional writing work at… age 21? Or something like that? So, I’ve been out there quite a while. Which means you should listen to me.

*whacks you in the head with my old man cane*

LISTEN TO MY WISDOM YOU YOUNG PUNKS

You Do Not Require That Degree

You don’t get a creative writing degree because you need it. You get it because you want it, and because you have chosen a program that holy crap does what it’s supposed to do — teach you how to write a goddamn story. But don’t go for this degree hoping it’s some kind of Magical Wonka Ticket to the Dreamy City Of Authoropolis in the clouds — in all the writing I have done over the last 18 years, over the literal millions of words I’ve written, nobody, not one motherfucker on the paying side of the fence, has asked me about my degree. They want to know: “Can you write?” And then I write. It is a pure and wonderful relationship.

I’m not saying your degree is worthless. I’m happy I have mine because I really did learn how to hone my wordsmithy as a creative writing student. And besides, these days almost no degree is a Magical Wonka Ticket. Hell, I’m pretty sure most college degrees double-up as placemats and paper towels (though not particularly absorbent, I am sad to report).

And if you’re thinking about an MFA…

If you need it, great.

Otherwise: just get out there and write, yeah? Student loan debt ain’t awesome. That money is better spent on travel, life, experiences, crates of Ramen noodles, porn, boxed wine.

You’re Not That Good

Sorry! Nope. Not that good.

This will frustrate the vibrating fuck out of you because you want so badly to be good. Anybody does when they begin an endeavor, particularly when they’re young — you pick up a guitar or sit down at a video game or Try To Do The Sex and you’re basically clumsy thumbs and inward screaming and then a lamp breaks and someone is crying. You’re looking at published work. Or the work of your peers. And you want to be instantly that awesome. It’s frustrating to be not-that-good because you feel like, this is what you want to do, and you need to justify that desire now by putting out top-shelf, high-octane writing. And you’re young, so life feels shorter than it really is. You have time. This is, as I have said many-a-time, a long con, not a short game.

Ira Glass actually said a wonderful thing about this:

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

But You’re Not Supposed To Be Good

You’re not actually meant to be good. Not being good is how you get better. Not being good means you’re in that formative, fundamental blobby parthogenesis period where The Authorial You just starts to emerge. Not being good is how we are forced to take the time to not just Get Good, but also Become Us. You’re not yet the Author That You Will Become. This is all normal. Be bold enough to suck with gleeful abandon — but also know that your critical urge to be better-faster-now is a good one. Don’t quit. Don’t rest. Force yourself to improve.

And You’re Still Probably Better Than You Sometimes Think

Let’s be honest. The Internet is mostly writers. We’re everywhere. Like roaches inside a hoarder’s house, feeding on whatever old pizza and dead chihuahuas got trapped under that collapsing stack of National Geographic magazines. We’re breeding like cats and rabbits. (“Crabbits?”)

Thing is, if you’re actually in a creative writing program, you’re probably better than a lot of the yahoos on the Intertubes who want to be writers. I’ve read some really awful things by some truly deluded people — people who do not have writing professors tell them, “This is actually very shitty. D-minus. Do better, for Chrissakes.”

So, no, you’re not that good.

But you’re probably better than you sometimes think, or fear.

And you’re almost certainly better than the delusional sub-layer of authorial treacle found on these here Internets. That’s gotta be worth something, right? Hell, most people can’t string together a cogent Facebook status update, so.

Worry Less About The Business Now

You want to ask about publishing and payment and all the perks of being a writer, I get that. And yes, every writer does get a special Members-Only jacket to begin with, and after that it’s like leveling-up your character in a roleplaying game. You can choose new Talents and Tricks. I can actually type with my tongue, for one. I also can transmogrify coffee into words!

But the publishing industry right now is like Los Angeles: it’s sitting squarely atop a giant trembling fault line, and constant earthquakes big and small continue to move the crusty mantle beneath our feet. So, by the time you’re ready to actually sell words, who knows what will happen? PERHAPS WE WILL ALL BE HUNTING EACH OTHER IN A DOOMED WASTELAND. Or maybe it’ll be limousines and eight-figure book-deals, I have no idea.

Point is, don’t sweat it. Don’t sweat genre. Don’t sweat medium. Learn as much as you can about the actual process of writing — think about narrative construction across multiple formats and aim to be well-read and well-taught across the spectrum. The industry will be what the industry will be when you get there. You’re not there. Worry about you and your work, not where you or your work will end up. Think present more than future.

This Is The Time To Write Whatever The Fuck You Want

Not thinking about markets or industry yet means: you can and should go bug-eyed apeshit cuckoo bananapants when it comes to your work. Write anything. Anything that itches so bad at your fingertips that to not write it would constitute a drug withdrawal reaction. Any genre. Any genre mix. Any medium. Any mix of media. Whatever. Fuck it. You are afforded an early chance at play-time. That’s what this stage is. It’s sand-boxes and cheap wine and you making your own toys without anybody telling you what your toys should look like.

Embrace it.

It’s Okay To Ape The Voices Of Others

You will try to sound like the authors you love. This is normal. This is okay. This is also perhaps often expressed as fan-fiction, and that is very rad. Again: this is play-time. So? Play.

Write Often And Write Enough And Your Voice Will Find You

You will chase your voice like a dog chasing a car, but you’ll never catch it. Because you were your voice all along. You were never the dog. You were always the car. You were never Jack. You were always Tyler Durden. And yes, Fight Club is just one big metaphor for becoming a writer. (Okay, maybe not.) (But maybe?) (Nah.) (Buuuut…)

You find your voice by doing. And by rewriting. You won’t want to rewrite now. You won’t want to edit. Edits feel like you’re not good, like you’re being insulted, like having to fix it means it was broken to begin with. But recognizing broken things is a value. A skill. You get as many shots at the goal as you want. Let that be freeing, not punishing.

In writing a lot and rewriting a lot, your voice will find you.

One day you’ll say: “Oh, so that’s what I sound like.”

And it’ll be amazing.

The World Will Lie To You About Being An Artist

Almost nobody in a position of Adult Responsibility thinks you should be a writer. Even your professors will probably, if pressured whilst drunk, quietly whisper: hurry, go learn accounting.

Being an artist is not a path that accords a lot of respect, which is almost ironic given how much our society is driven by art and artists — it is a monster-sized industry, and yet somehow everyone seems to think that it’s tiny and impenetrable, like an old-timey bank safe. A lot of this doubt comes from a good place. They want you to be safe and taken care of and admittedly, being an artist is a risk. Society all on its own doesn’t support artists very well (though it’s getting there, and I swear to Sweet Saint Fuck if anybody tries to take away my new guaranteed healthcare I will shiv them in the pancreas), and so people tell you not to be an artist and the cycle continues.

But creative work exists. It exists, and pays.

You have to get good doing it.

You have to learn how to make money doing it.

Art isn’t just Doing Art all the time, and this is why you should also learn other skills that your creative writing classes probably won’t teach you — from marketing to editing to business practices to how to budget and balance your bank accounts and pay your taxes. I know, ew, taxes. But this is how being an artist is done. Your parents or whoever will tell you just not to bother. I’m telling you to bother, but gather the skills needed — skills that go well-beyond writing, painting, singing, or other art-making.

(A small rant of mine is that so many creative writing programs are way over-focused on writing — particularly writing literary books rather than genre-flavored anything. Art programs in general need to teach more than just the creative stuff. Because you have to also survive at being an artist, and in that survival, practical skills are key.)

Finish Your Shit

But then it all comes back to this.

You will never be the writer you want if you cannot complete what you begin.

Ironically, some of the professors who are teaching you have not yet mastered this.

You’re young, and you will leave behind you a trail of unfinished story-corpses. That’s okay. No shame, there. But there comes a point when you have to stay on that bucking bull till it finally tires and dies in the dust. You can’t just keep not finishing things. Art must reach a conclusion. Stories have endings. You can always go back and edit — but you have nothing meaningful to edit if you don’t finish what you begin in the first damn place.

This is the hardest skill, I think, that I learned as a young writer. Just merely to finish. It’s easier not to. It’s easier to talk about writing than to do the writing. The work you never finish always exists in what appears to be a perfect, gleaming state — a young, preserved corpse on display, its James-Deanian potential perfectly captured in its youth and naivete. But fuck that jibber-jabber. Storm the beach. Suck if you must. But finish what you begin.

And then rewrite until it’s right.

CCP has abandoned the White Wolf World of Darkness MMO.

I don’t know what this means for the larger WOD brand, or what happens to the ragged tatters of the company that has been frayed and shredded over the years since the EVE Online developer bought the pen-and-paper company. I know it means layoffs, so, fuck. I also know that, at present, Onyx Path continues to roll out its gleaming obsidian walkway of horror-fantasy gaming delights, acting as the spiritual and also literal successor to the White Wolf voodoo — and according to Rich at Onyx Path, everything shall continue apace.

It’s worth taking a moment, maybe, to note that White Wolf is part of my DNA. I grew up reading D&D, but I grew up playing White Wolf games. My first Vampire: the Masquerade character was a pre-made Nosferatu named “Sewer Billy.” (I still have his character sheet around somewhere.)

I loved those games so much that I knew as I got older if I was going to continue playing them while maintaining the illusion of being an adult, I had to monetize that experience, which I did by writing for the company. I worked writing some free stuff online in coordination with sites like Ex Libris Nocturnis and Shadownessence. Then later I answered a writer’s all-call from the company and was lucky enough to get the gig; I started off writing Hunter: the Reckoning, and wrote games for them all the way through to me acting as line developer for Hunter: The Vigil and even into Geist: The Sin-Eaters. The games always amazed me and as I worked more and more with them in a freelance capacity, I got to see exactly why they amazed me — because some truly amazing people were making these goddamn games. Fellow freelancers and developers: Ken Cliffe, Justin Achilli, Ethan Skemp, Aileen Miles, Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Eddy Webb, Mur Lafferty, Will Hindmarch, Matt McFarland, Jess Hartley, Rose Bailey, Mike Lee, Patrick O’Duffy, Travis Stout, David, Filamena Young, scads more. So many of folks I count as friends even still.

I learned to write better during my time freelancing. I learned discipline with deadlines. I found out what appealed to me about games, story, character, and horror. Really fundamental stuff.

When they got bought by CCP I was hopeful, you know — more money for them, plus hey, who didn’t dream about a World of Darkness MMO? Turns out, it wasn’t to be. I don’t know why, really. From the outside, it’s easy to suggest that it was fumbled and mishandled — and, actually, even from my limited glimpses inside it looked that way, at times. But I also know that not everything works out and sometimes, shit happens, so who knows? What I know is it’s sad to see good people let go, and sad that the dream of a WOD game is now shriveled up and going dusty like a sun-cooked vampire. Eve was never a game I could really understand, but I loved how player-driven it was, and hoped to see the same here.

Alas.

Onward and upward.

What I will say is, White Wolf has left an enduring legacy behind — the last couple days I was up in Erie, at Penn State, where students read my book, Blackbirds as part of a women’s studies / female superheroes unit (whee!). And while there, I had people still want to talk to me about gaming. I had one professor show me his first edition copy of Wraith. I had one student — college-age! — want me to sign several White Wolf books for her gaming group. Exciting stuff, and makes me proud to have been a part of all that.

*pours a cup of d10s on the curb for the World of Darkness MMO and White Wolf in general*

To those gone: best of luck to you going forward.

To those who still play the games: fuck yes.

To Onyx Path: keep on kicking ass.

Presently, I’ve got a challenge running here where you come up with an opening line to a story that hasn’t yet been written. It has attracted quite a few entries so far, as you’ll note.

I do love the topic of opening lines — on one hand, they’re important in that they’re the first impression a reader gets when opening your book. On the other hand, it’s easy to make too much hay of them: an opening sentence is perhaps less important than an opening page or chapter.

Just the same, let’s assume they’re of some importance.

If you’re comfortable doing so, drop an opening line (i.e. first sentence) from a current (or already written) WIP into the comments below. Then feel free to jump in and talk about the opening lines of others. Do a little quid pro quo critiquing. Also feel free to discuss what makes a good opening line, or what some great and memorable opening lines were from books you loved.

What works? What doesn’t?

See you in the comments, word-nerds.

What?

I dunno, shut up.

So, Storium is less than a week into its Kickstarter campaign.

It was successfully funded in 24 hours.

It has already reached stretch goals.

And now I’m the next stretch goal.

What’s that mean? Well, it means that if the campaign gets to $43,000, it unlocks a campaign based on my short story, “The Auction,” found in my collection, Irregular Creatures. (Which, I’ll note shamelessly, is a mere $0.99.) The story takes place in a farm-style auction where a whole lot more than cows and tractors are on display: there you can buy haunted cars, lunatic machines, mermaids, magical victuals…

Game designer and good friend Will Hindmarch is adapting the work to Storium, and I couldn’t be more excited. Will’s a bonafide bad-ass when it comes to writing and I’m proud to have him making this a reality.

Consider bidding, wontcha?

Remember, you get beta access soon as you jump in…

Other Gravy-Soaked News Nuggets

In just a couple-few hours I leave for Erie, where I’ll head off to Penn State to visit classes and give a talk about diversity and diversification in writing and publishing. Part of the reason for this trip is that they are teaching Blackbirds there (!) as part of a women’s lit / female superheroes class. Which is like, whoa, dang. I’m pretty geeked about that.

However, my primary talk on Monday night is open to the public: details here.

Blightborn Preorder (Or, “Cornpunk, Baby”)

A poke-poke-prod reminder that the second Heartland book, Blightborn, is now up for pre-order. A mere $3.99 not only gets you the pre-order, but also gets you a Gwennie short story (“The Wind Has Teeth Tonight”) set before Under the Empyrean Sky.

The book:

Cael McAvoy is on the run. He’s heading toward the Empyrean to rescue his sister, Merelda, and to find Gwennie before she’s lost to Cael forever. With his pals, Lane and Rigo, Cael journeys across the Heartland to catch a ride into the sky. But with Boyland and others after them, Cael and his friends won’t make it through unchanged.

Gwennie’s living the life of a Lottery winner, but it’s not what she expected. Separated from her family, Gwennie makes a bold move—one that catches the attention of the Empyrean and changes the course of an Empyrean man’s life.

The crew from Boxelder aren’t the only folks willing to sacrifice everything to see the Empyrean fall. The question is: Can the others be trusted?

They’d all better hurry. Because the Empyrean has plans that could ensure that the Heartland neverfights back again.

Pre-order here!

And, if you haven’t tried the first book, it too is just $3.99 right here.

Last week’s challenge: Life Is Hell.

I love this challenge because it always generates some interesting results.

It’s easy in concept, difficult in execution:

Come up with a great opening line.

That’s it.

Take that line, and drop it into the comments below.

BUT WAIT.

As they say, THERE’S MORE.

This opening line must be one sentence long — no more than that. Anything longer and I will publicly laugh at your inability to stick to the barest-of-bones submission guidelines.

I’d suggest avoiding some very cliched openings — previous challenges have yielded three overwrought motifs in this particular challenge, those three being:

Blood.

A gun.

Someone about to die / someone already dead (future corpse / current corpse).

So, maybe avoid those things unless you really think you can nail it.

The trick to writing a great opening line is keeping it brief, and yet at the same time suggesting a great deal of potential — an opening line is equal parts promise and fish-hook stuck in the reader’s brain-meats. It should make us want to read the rest of the story. Or, even better, make us as writers want to write the rest of that story (and par usual, that will be the nature of next Friday’s challenge). Nailing the opening line is a Samurai move — it’s delivering a single sword blow to end the match.

There will be a prize.

I’ll pick three that I love. And those three will get the first as-yet-unreleased e-book copies of my newest writing book, 500 Ways To Write Harder. You’ll get the book in PDF, ePub, and Kindle formats, all DRM-free because, really, fuck DRM right in its digital sphincter.

You have one week to get your lines in the door. Due firmly by noon EST on April 18th. I will then pick winners over the next week thereafter. You are allowed one entry, no more. Additional entries disqualify you.

So.

One opening line.

Make it sharp.

Win a book.

Drop it in the comments.

Cass Weatherfield’s powers come with a deadly price.

Cass knows it was her telekinetic gift that killed a college classmate five years back, even if no one else believes her. She’s lived in hiding from her fellow shadowminds ever since, plagued by guilt and suppressing her abilities with sedatives. Until the night her past walks back into her life in the form of sexy Shane Tanner, the ex-boyfriend who trained her…and the one she left without saying goodbye.

When Shane tells her that his twin sister, Mina—Cass’s childhood friend—is missing, Cass vows to help, which means returning to New Orleans to use her dangerous skills in the search. But finding Mina only leads to darker questions. As Cass and Shane race to learn who is targeting shadowminds, they find themselves drawn to each other, body and soul. Just as their powerful intimacy reignites, events take a terrifying turn, and Cass realizes that to save the people she loves, she must embrace the powers that ruined her life.

* * *

1. You can fit a body in the back of a ’69 Camaro.

I had my doubts about this, but it turns out to be possible. It’s one of the many fascinating trivia items Google has taught me. I also know the best way to survive a gunshot wound to the chest and how long it takes to get from Biloxi to New Orleans driving ninety-five miles per hour. Writers: Mad, bad and dangerous to know.

2. I write paranormal fiction.

Technically, I discovered this while writing my previous novel, The Vampire Pseudo-Romance That Shall Not Be Published, but Twisted Miracles was the book where I owned it. I’d heard other writers say they didn’t get to pick what they wrote, but when I opened that blank Word file and started Twisted, I finally understood what they meant. When you’re writing what you’re supposed to write, you feel more like a conduit than a creator. This was the book where I finally stopped laboring to craft a Sweeping Southern Family Saga and instead let my subconscious do the walking. When a telekinetic New Orleans B&B owner showed up, instead of trying to kick him out, I was like, Cool. Can you invite some friends?

3. Paranormal fiction is awesome.

I’m glad I figured out #2, because letting my subconscious do the walking led me to some freaky and fascinating places. I was writing about all the themes and tensions that have always bothered and fascinated me—how your family shapes your destiny, the complicated culture of my home state, whether we have a responsibility to use our gifts. Only, this time there were a bunch of telekinetics and supernatural healers doing the talking, and the questions of what family is, what home is, what our gifts are—they came into much sharper relief. I was able to make those issues larger than life, so big that I could finally see them, tackle them, take them down. Start to understand them.

Writing paranormal fiction let me play in a way no other form has. I could take all the troubling intangibles that were puzzling me and give them a physical avatar in my fictional world. I made them real.

4. Not everyone agrees with #3

Paranormal fiction does some amazing things. It entertains, sure, but it can also tackle thorny problems symbolically. It’s an oblique hit, and it can be all the more brilliant for it. But not everyone agrees that paranormal fiction—or really, any genre fiction—is worth reading. Here’s a sample of replies I got when I told some of the non-writerly folks in my life what I’m writing:

“Oh, so you’re writing those books.”

“Well, but, I’m sure you write strong women, right?” (This in response to the news that Harlequin is my publisher.)

“Maybe you just need to get some practice before you write something serious.”

Sigh. What can I say? Except:

5. You can fit a body in the back of a ’02 Corolla, too.

Just kidding.

* * *

A.J. Larrieu grew up in small-town Louisiana, where she spent her summers working in her family’s bakery, exploring the swamps around her home and reading science fiction and fantasy novels under the covers. She attended Louisiana State University, where she majored in biochemistry and wrote bad poetry on the side. Despite pursuing a Ph.D. in biology, she couldn’t kick the writing habit, and she wrote her first novel in graduate school. It wasn’t very good, but she kept at it, and by the time she graduated, she had an addiction to writing sexy urban fantasy and paranormal romance. Her second novel, Twisted Miracles, was a finalist in RWA’s Golden Heart® competition in 2012. The book kicks off her dark, romantic urban fantasy series, The Shadowminds, which follows a group of humans with psychic powers through New Orleans’ supernatural underworld. A.J. is currently a working biophysicist in San Francisco, where she lives with her family and too many books.

A.J. Larrieu: Website | Twitter

Twisted Miracles: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | iBooks