Tag: writing (page 3 of 33)

Stuff About Writing

October 29, 2012 / 23 Comments

What The World Thinks Of Writers, Apparently

I, on a lark, was looking for synonyms or slang terms for writer.

Above was what I found at Thesaurus.com:

That doesn’t speak well for what the world thinks of writers.

(Never mind the faintly racist implication of putting “Gypsy” there.)

It adds up, I suppose. I’ve encountered the attitude quite frequently that we’re a bunch of wifty slugabeds, high from huffing our own delusional dreams — writer as synonymous with lacking good judgment.

Interesting, if a little troubling.

And, of course, at the core of it, a nugget of truth. I’ve met many-a-writer who are basically undisciplined wannabe’s — dilettantes, as the list points out — who claim to be this thing but never really do enough to support that claim. Talk about writing in the same way one might talk about moving to the islands, or building a boat, or learning how to macrame the cat. (Is that a thing?)

They talk about it. But never seem to write.

Not much to say here except:

Hey, let’s go out and prove ’em wrong.

Fuck talking. Start writing.

October 23, 2012 / 45 Comments

Why Writers Must Beware Quackery

Long story short:

Hey! I’m back from both Storyworld and Writer’s Digest Conference West in Los Angeles and I’m refreshed and apple-cheeked and full of vim and vig… okay, no. I’m actually kinda jet-lagged and dung-brained. My sincerest wish is to go back to bed and crawl into it and not wake up for like, mmm, three days.

But, oh well. WRITER GONNA WRITE.

Anyway. These two conferences — very different animals. The first brings together people of multiple paths and persuasions (writers! techies! advertisers! filmmakers!) whereas the former brings together mostly writers, and writers on a very particular path — which is to say, the path that leads to the shining temple on the hill called “The Publishing House.”

Generally speaking, conferences can be great experiences for writers new and old. Both in terms of the community you forge, the lessons you learn, and the liquor you consume in great heaping quaffs.

Wait, did I say “liquor?” I meant… er, “wisdom.”

Still.

Still.

A writer’s conference is rarely a straight arrow toward said wisdom. It’s a maze, actually — a kinky tangle of pathways, many of which in my eyes are dead-ends. By “dead-ends,” I mean, the path stops moving forward as it get stuck on some bad information or troubling advice that makes it sound like you’ve already reached the end. There at the dead-end is a chair and a typewriter and a feeling of having made it.

Put more succinctly, these conferences always contain a measure of bullshit.

Some of this bullshit is harmless.

Some of it — to the writer willing to accept it — is actually a little bit dangerous.

Dangerous in that it will set you back rather than spring you forward. Dangerous in that it has all the air of medical quackery — untested answers that sound like truth and promise result (published book! robust boner! magic tonic!) and often require you to shell out some cash to get a taste of what sounds like the nectar of the gods but is really like, 7-Up and hull cleaner.

Five things to watch out for, then. Both at meatspace conferences and online.

Ready? Let’s rock.

Beware Answers Over Options

Here’s how this works: you, as a writer newly walking the path of penmonkey novitiate, have no idea what the fuck is going on. Right? It’s a lot to digest. Fuckbuckets of information. Data overload. So, you think, “Okay, I just need to get my bearings here. I need a map. Or even the torn corner of a map. Or at the bare minimum I need like, a compass so I know just where north points.”

Then you go to a conference like this and — hey! Look!

Other writerly humans! Pointing the way with big foam fingers!

Many of these people are helpful.

Many of them are sirens inadvertently willing to crash your seaswept dinghy into the fucking rocks.

Here’s one of the ways you can tell: they’re not there to present options.

They’re not there to present a rounded picture of the unfirm realities of publishing. They’re not willing to tell you that the whole thing is a maze: they’re willing to tell you that they have the path through it. They exist to present a single face to the entire writing-storytelling-publishing ecosystem, revealing an alarming and overly simplistic lack of diversity.

More to the point, they have The One True Way instead of saying:

Hey, Look, There Exists A Whole Lotta Ways And I’ve Done One And Others Have Tried Others And Success Is Not An Easy Equation Where A + B = Bestselling Inkslinger And I’m Sorry But It’s A Lot More Complicated Than You Hope But That’s Actually A Good Thing, Too.

Some folks will try to cover up one or many forks in the road. Or, worse, they’re focused on what happens so far down the road that you start to feel like it’s always about the singular end result rather than the diverse paths to that end. (Again, too many at these conferences want to talk about How To Get Published rather than How To Write Something Worth Publishing. It’s be like an architect learning first how to handle permits and cut ribbons before learning how to put buildings together.)

Beware Absolutes And Guarantees

DON’T EVER SELF-PUBLISH.

DON’T EVER TRADITIONALLY PUBLISH.

YOU HAVE TO HAVE AN AGENT.

AGENTS ARE EVIL.

YOU HAVE TO BLOG/TWEET/GOOGLE HANGOUT/SHILL YOUR NAKED GYRATING BODY AT THE HIGHWAY’S EDGE IF YOU’RE EVER GOING TO ACTUALLY BE A PUBLISHED WRITER AND THERE’S NO WAY TO BE A PUBLISHED WRITER UNLESS YOU BLOG/TWEET/GOOGLE HANGOUT/SHILL YOUR NAKED GYRATING BODY AT THE HIGHWAY’S EDGE.

Writing advice often comes in absolutes.

Do this. Don’t do that. This is 100% true 100% of the time.

It is, of course, a fucking sick-bag full of rank malarky.

(God, can we all just take a moment to thank VP Biden for bringing that one back? Malarky? I also want “cockamamie” to make a robust return, so let’s all collectively work on that.)

I’ve said many a time that every writer seems to dig his own way into the publishing mountain, then detonating the tunnel behind him. I’ve heard so many weird ways into the various industries the only clear revelation is that there is no clear revelation. Few absolutes (outside maybe “finish your shit, dumdum”) hold any water at all and can be disproven at a moment’s notice. This is, of course, the danger of when “writing advice” becomes “proclamations of authorial truth.”

Beware Anybody Without A Single Fucking Meaningful Credential

Writers without great success — or any success at all — are totally allowed to talk about writing. We all want to talk about it. Even those without publishing contracts have information and ideas that may be valuable.

That’s not the same thing as letting those people up on a stage to talk to you about How To [Insert Writerly Task Here]. There’s a difference between talking about writing and presenting yourself as an expert on writing, and yet somehow there exists a great many of the latter — self-proclaimed experts who want to tell you all these great industry secrets or all these tried-and-true paths and yet appear to have neither exploited those secrets nor walked any of those paths.

They are offering theoretical information gussied up to look like pragmatic practice.

They’re not doctors, yet they’re selling medicine.

Again: quackery.

You gotta treat this stuff a little bit like science: these self-proclaimed experts have to prove their mettle, first. And one aspect of this burden of proof comes in the form of, “Oh, yeah, I’m actually a writer with some success, not just another jackhole with an unfounded opinion.”

Beware Anybody With Something To Sell

Listen, I get it. We’re all shilling something. I certainly sell books-on-writing (though 90% of that information is also free here on the blog), so I’m by no means pure. But some conference speakers are very clearly agenda-based and they are pushing an agenda not because it’s good for you but, rather, good for them. It’s the same problem with fad diets and social media gurus — people promising enlightenment and success (and worst of all, get rich quick tips) largely in order to line their own pockets.

That’s not to say anybody with a writing book is bad news. I mean, I’ve read a handful of writing books that I love and to this day cradle to my bosom as I open them up just to read snippets of smart passages.

But, anybody selling anything should at least get a wary eyebrow raise. And when in combination with a lot of these other “beware, beware, beware, awooga, awooga, awooga” elements, it should paint a picture of caution, cuidado, verboten. The colors of a venomous toad, the rattle of the snake’s tail.

Beware The Quick-And-Easy Fix

I am a proponent of increasing your speed as a writer. It’s becoming one axis of survival — a swiftness of production and of the prose you produce. But a lot of the solutions often feel like quick fixes or bad spackle jobs — you get from them the informercial vibe that all you have to do is Perform This Technique And You’ll Be A Writer In No-Time! It’s less about write faster (which is an easy and fairly basic prescription) and more about get published faster (which is an impossible thing to gauge unless you’re self-publishing and therein I’d politely note that speed often exists often in antithesis to quality).

The Sum Up

I’m not saying that every speaker at writing conferences or conventions is dubious. Far from it — many are actually brimming over with really good ideas and information not from 30,000 feet but from right there in the mud and the blood of the battleground.

What I am saying is, you will also go to these things and hear a lot of bad information robed in the clothes of promises and solutions and prescriptions and you have to be prepared to go into any conference or open any blog post or book on writing advice wearing the impenetrable armor of the skeptic. Writing advice should never be about absolutes or unequivocal answers but about potential paths, about options and suggestions and actual experiences. And a lot of this falls to you, the writer.

Because you need to go in with your eyes open. And you need to go in not being so hungry for answers that you’re desperate to embrace what any homeless person tells you is truth. It’s on you to be smart, be practical, and not let the quacks get their… uhh, well, I was going to go with “teeth in you,” but ducks don’t really have teeth, so let’s just go with, “don’t let the quacks gum you to death with their pond-slick bills.”

October 16, 2012 / 73 Comments

25 Things Writers Should Know About Conferences And Conventions

Con season is almost over, so that tells me it’s a most excellent time to write a post about con season! Right? Right? Fellas? Where you goin’, fellas? WHATEVER FINE JUST LEAVE.

Anyway.

I figured that writers go to conventions and conferences year-round, so it’s a good idea to talk to you penmonkeys about what to do there, what to expect, where to find me drunk at 3AM (hint: parking garage inside a duffel bag). If you’re looking for more general “con etiquette” stuff, I might recommend this wise post by the most excellent Colleen Lindsay: Convention Etiquette For Fans, Pros, And Exhibitors.”

1. Hint: The Writers Are At The Bar

Let’s just get this one out of the way right now: if you’re wondering where the writers are, they’re at the bar. No, seriously. I’m not saying they’re there getting lit up like a Christmas tree — despite the myth, not all writers are rampant liquor pigs — but the hotel (and/or nearest) bar is a place of social aggregation for the word-herd. We’re all at the watering hole, watering our, uhh, holes.

2. Know What You Want Out Of It

Go to a conference or convention with a goal and a plan to achieve that goal. (That goal should not be: “Stowaway in Neil Gaiman’s luggage so you can return with him to his magical story-land,” or “Discover whatever tugboat George R.R. Martin is captaining and steal it for a joyride.”) Honing your craft? Discovering publishing options? Just there to geek out with your freak out? Have the end result in mind and arrange your conference (talks, panels, booth visits) accordingly.

3. Purpose #1: Go To Up Your Game

One of the “primary purposes” of a conference or convention is to hone your authorial blade. Our weapons all grow dull and rusty with over-use and sometimes you go to these things hoping to whet them against the many stones present. The goal is to get better. To learn new things. Our brains need new information, and conventions and conferences (heretofore referred to as “cons”) will give you that.

4. Purpose #2: Go To Meet People

Another primary purpose is just to meet people. Writer seems a solitary job and, of course, it is. We shimmy into our musty, fetid author pods, shut the door, then hook our skulls and fingers up to the electrodes that connect us to the Galactic Story Blob where we operate in total isolation (well, that’s how I do it, anyway, you probably have a “desk” with a “computer”). Still, writers need community. They need other writers. They need agents and editors and marketing dudes and, above all else, they need readers. So, cons are great places to meet people. It’s about forging connections both business and personal.

5. Human Meets Human, Not Writer-Bot Plugs Into Publishing Receptacle

Worth repeating: when I say “connections,” I don’t mean in a purely business sense. Trust me, your con experience is going to be at its weakest when you approach it as All Business. I’ve seen those writers and they’re always “on.” They’re also very irritating, like buzzing fluorescents with a horsefly constantly tapping against the bulb. Go to make friends. Or at least acquaintances. Hear their stories, tell a few of your own. Connect on a human level, not in a “LET US FORGE COMMERCE ARRANGEMENT” way.

6. You Should Totally Say Hello To Your Favorite Writers

I speak as a writer who is deliriously excited when a reader (or for me the rara avis, a “fan”) comes up and says hello. Not only does it stroke my constantly inflating-and-deflating ego (it’s like the lungs of a tired old horse, I swear), but it also confirms that, hey, this thing I’m doing is actually reaching people. I know some writers — er, really, “authors” — don’t want anyone to come say ‘boo’ to them, but you know what? Fuck them. That’s fine for like, the grocery store, but they’re at a con. If you’re a pro at one of these things, appreciate your readers, don’t elbow them in the neck and shove past. Readers are how we get to exist.

7. But Seriously, Don’t Be A Fuckin’ Weirdo About It

Okay, yes, go say hello to your favorite writermonkeys. But, hey, also? Don’t be a crazy-pants asshole about it. Don’t dominate their time. Don’t get pushy. Don’t be rude. Don’t be mean. Don’t cling like a dingleberry. Don’t challenge them about typos or plot points. Let them eat in peace. Let them pee in peace. Let them sleep in peace. (Everything else is probably fair game.) You want them to respect you so you have to respect them in turn. That’s the human contract. That’s how we all win the game is by being respectful to one another instead of just splashing douche into each other’s eyes again and again.

8. On The Subject Of Book Signings

Deserves special attention: some authors don’t want to sign books outside of designated signing periods, and that’s understandable. An author who will generate a line around the block doesn’t want that line generated when he’s trying to cross the lobby to get a bottle of water or when he’s outside the hotel trying to hide a couple hobo bodies. Others, however (like, erm, me), will sign books whenever you thrust them upon us. Hell, I’ll sign body parts, pets, children, other people’s books, souls. I’ll sign anything except, say, checks. Point is, know your limits, respect the authors. Double-true: don’t ask them to sign like, a suitcase full of books. Triple-true: we appreciate it when you have us sign books to someone specific rather than a generic autograph which then vaguely suggests you’re gonna turn around and sell that shit online.

9. On The Subject Of Being Creepy

Deserves extra-special attention: don’t get stalkery, don’t corner anybody of any sex, don’t inappropriately touch people, don’t get suggestive or act rapey or be in any way threatening toward others in a violent or violating manner. “But she was dressed in duct-tape bra-and-panties,” is not a good reason to get grabby. They’re not hookers. Trying to look sexy is not an invitation for you to get sexy with them anymore than me wearing a shirt with a bullseye is good enough reason to fire an arrow through my chest. Be conscious of acting creepy, scary, grabby, etc. Bonus reading: on creepy creepers who creepily creep.

10. Don’t Get Stupid Drunk

At a con, people drink. And drinking means getting a little silly. Silly is good. Silly is fine. Nobody expects you to have a couple gin-and-tonics and drive a car, operate a firearm, or negotiate peace between two warring galactic races. But don’t be a rum-sodden barf-bag, either. If you can’t feel your teeth and you puke in my lap, you’ve got a problem. You don’t want writers, agents or editors remembering you as “That dude who got blitzkrieged on Jager-bombs and took a shit on a plastic fern in the hotel lobby.”

11. You’re Not Actually The Expert

Pet peeve time! Unless you’re actually on the panel, assume you’re not the expert in the room. It is not your time to shine, you crazy diamond. Ask questions, but let other people ask questions, too. And also: don’t be “that guy” who just raises his hand and then stands up and makes a statement like everyone’s here to see you. “Well, I think the state of space opera is blibbedy-blobbedy-bloo and I disagree with…” HOLY CRAP SHUT UP. This is not an Internet forum, Selfish Guy. You don’t have to enlighten us with your “genius.”

12. Arrive Early For Things

Pet peeve again! Coming into any event late is a dick move. I’ve done it, and I regret having done it. You make noise. You distract. For some reason whenever someone comes in late they always maximize the disruption, too, like, they’re carrying a stack of rattling dinner plates and have cymbals between their thighs and then stagger in and trip over a projector cord and accidentally start an electrical fire. Eeesh. Seriously, get their early. That helps you get a seat, too, so, yay.

13. Ask The Right Questions

I talked this past week about how you should ask the questions about story before you ask the questions about publishing, and what that means in a practical sense is that you should goasking questions regarding your place in the process. That’s not to say you can’t get ahead and ask a curious question or three about advances and contracts and how to enrage a literary agent, but what I’m saying is, use the conference to help you get a handle on the next stage, not three stages down the way. One step at a time.

14. Purpose #3: Pimp Your Shiznit In Appropriate And Approved Pimp Channels

Another purpose: to sell thine wares, story-slinging troubadour. You got books or other items of cultural output you want to pimp, awesome. Go forth and do so. But a suggestion: try to stick to approved commercial channels. Don’t just like, set up a tarp in the middle of the lobby to sell your self-published bag of shi — I mean, magnum opus to passersby. Yes, we all gotta make a buck and buy dinner but as always, be respectful of others and don’t act like an only child who always gets to do what he wants, others-be-damned.

15. Nobody Wants To Hear About Your Book (Unless They Do)

At game cons, the joke is always, “Nobody wants to hear about your character.” (Seriously, we don’t.) At writing cons, the joke is, “Nobody wants to hear about your book.” (No, seriously, we don’t.) Now, I may eventually want to hear about your book but only after we’ve connected on a human level. Assume that I don’t automatically see you as just a bag of skin meant only to transport the intellectual meat that is your novel. I assume that like me you’re a person with parents and a job and favorite ice cream flavors and a penchant for deviant-but-consensual sex acts. I don’t care about your book until I care, at least a little bit, about you. If someone wants to know what you’ve written or are writing, they will ask.

16. Clean Your Body, You Musky Stank Beast

A convention (larger geek/fan contingent) tends to have this problem more than conferences (larger pro-level academic contingent), but I’ve experienced it at both: wash yourself. Uh, daily, please — hell, more than that if you have to. Cons are often warm. You’re jostling with people, running around, and you end up in close quarters (like, say, elevators). You will leak sweat. You will start to smell like a glob of Edam cheese left in a jockstrap under a heat lamp. Scrub the algae and barnacles from forth your hull, you stinky little garbage scow. Oh, and brush your teeth. The hell did you eat for lunch? Old fish and cigarettes?

17. Escape Conference Gravity

Leave the con at some point. At least once. If you’re somewhere new — small town, big city, jungle cult compound — get outside and go see something. The real world always counts more than the “artificial gravity” that is any conference or convention. Even if you go do base-level tourist shit and eat at a restaurant everyone tells you you have to eat it, it’s at least something.

18. Pros Should Act Like Pros

This list has been directed toward attendees, but here’s a message for pros: you are professional, so act professional. That doesn’t mean you need to be always in “paid author” mode, but it does mean you should maintain a standard of etiquette and, as with everyone else there, not act like a wheelbarrow full of fatty ego and emotional manure. Respect attendees. Be kind. Be nice to volunteers, too, who are — uhh, duh — volunteering their time in part for you. Be awesome even in the face of “not-awesome.”

19. Some Writers Are Paid, Many Are Not

Many of the writers speaking at cons are not paid. Some are. Most aren’t. Know that going in: they are often themselves volunteering their time. It’s not like they’re going back to the hotel room to roll around in cash.

20. Some Writers Are Also Total D-Bags, Just So You Know

It’s a shame, but sometimes that “beloved writer” of yours is a total cock-bird. We don’t get into this gig having to pass a politeness test, so some authors end up being gruff, grumpy, sour, otherwise shitty people. Sometimes it’s temporary: maybe they’re having a bad day. Sometimes it’s a permanent affliction. Let it go. You can choose to vote with your dollar, but don’t be a dickhole in return. Let the storm pass.

21. Elevator Pitches And Pitch Meetings: Meh?

Take this one with a grain of salt — or, if you prefer, an entire salt mine — but I’m not sure that pitch meetings or having your elevator pitch ready to fly is the most important thing in the world. It’s probably worked for some, but…? Eh? I’m going to go out on a limb and say, skip the pitch meetings. Instead, meet agents and editors elsewhere. And meet the authors of those agents and editors. Regarding your elevator pitch: listen, it’s a very good intellectual exercise to distill your story down into a single 10- or 15-second sentence. Again, I don’t know that it’s ever been the deal-maker, but when people ask, it’s kind of you to not bludgeon them half to death with the hammerblow of a ten-minute plot synopsis.

22. Do Not Thrust Your Manuscript Upon, Well, Anybody

I see people handing out manuscripts — like, hand-printed, hand-bound manuscripts, fraying like a mouse is using them as nesting material — all the time at conferences and conventions. Worse, they’re handing them out to people who can do nothing with them. “Here, random author, you are an author and I am an author so let us commune over my novel, THE GORGONZOLA PERPLEXITY.” Don’t do this. Not ever. Stop. Keep that manuscript in your pants. First, this is the digital age. If I want your novel, hey, look, a PDF file. Don’t try to make someone carry your printout in their luggage. Second, what do you want them to do with it? Most authors don’t want to read unsolicited material (hint hint stop emailing me this stuff) because of a hoary host of unholy reasons. You know what I’ll do if you hand me your manuscript at a conference? I’m going to roll it up and thwack you across the bridge of your nose.

23. Do Not Hand Out Ugly-Ass Amateur Hour Business Cards

Your business card sucks. Printed at home. The ink is bleeding as if you dropped it in a puddle outside. It’s got a Cheeto fingerprint on the back. It smells of — *sniff sniff* — flopsweat and wine coolers. Here’s the thing. Business cards are already a dubious value proposition for writers. Freelancers may find good use for them but “author-types,” not so much. This is, after all, the days of a thing called the Enternit, or the Wide Whirled Web or whatever, and so it’s pretty easy for people to find you online. A business card needs to be a nudge in that direction. Name; incredibly minimal note as to your role; contact information offline; contact information online (which includes how you want me to find you on social media). If that business card does not appear on par with the kind of card, say, an actual businessperson would use, just throw it away, because that’s what I’ll do. Oh, one more tip: only give out a business card if someone asks. That means they’ll use it. Otherwise, just thrusting it upon them means it’ll end up lining someone’s hamster cage.

24. You’re Probably Paying Money, So Take Advantage

Cons aren’t cheap. So milk them for all they’re worth.

25. Talking About Writing Is Not The Same As Writing

The fourth and final purpose of going to these things is to get your ass reenergized. The con should be the intellectual equivalent of jacking yourself up (up, not off, weirdo) with a Red-Bull-and-fire-ants enema. It should get you back in your chair pounding the keys and working the story like a goddamn wad of pizza dough. What that means is, go to the con and then return to use what you learned. Revitalize! Harness new information! Going to cons can, like so many things in our penmonkey lives, feel productive when really, it’s not. It’s only productive if you take the raw ore you just chipped off the psychic walls and refine that shit into precious stones and glittery gems and sweet, sweet crack-rock. Always remember that talking about writing is not the same as writing. You built the staircase. Now you best walk up it. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Want another hot tasty dose of dubious writing advice aimed at your facemeats?

500 WAYS TO TELL A BETTER STORY: $2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

500 WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER: $2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

500 MORE WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER: $2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

250 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WRITING: $0.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY: $4.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

REVENGE OF THE PENMONKEY: $2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

October 8, 2012 / 66 Comments

NaNoWriMo Cometh: A Terribleminds Primer

This past weekend, I spoke at the Crossroads Writers Conference in Macon, Georgia. I’ll presumably get to a full recap eventually (wherein I explain a weekend where I encountered people like: my first nervous fan, a former dominatrix, Delilah Dawson with her 1989 cell phone, Nathan “Baby Goose” Edmondson, Robert “Not-An-Accessory-To-Murder” Venditti, and various other awesome humans).

I also met Chris Baty, who is of course the big brain behind NaNoWriMo.

Now, I have my reservations about NaNoWriMo (which I pronounce “wree-mo,” as in, “NaNoWriMo Williams, The Adventure Begins”, even though it is, I’m told, technically “wry-mo”). I think like with all “get-thee-to-the-writery” initiatives, it’s a perfect fit for some and for others an anchor around their ankles, so you just gotta know what’s right for you and what works and not blame yourself when what’s really going on is you’re just adhering to a process that isn’t really your process.

Square peg, circle hole, and all that.

So, that being said, I also know that National Novel Writing Month gets a helluva lot of you up off your leafy, moldering bed of sadness and shame — and anything that forces you to shake off the barnacles and get your ass out to sea is good by me. (Actually, Baty had a good Grace Hopper quote comparing writers to seafaring vessels: “A ship in port is safe… but that’s not what ships are built for.”)

Anyway.

So, first up, I figure I’ll ask: who’s doing NaNoWriMo?

Have you done it before? What was your experience?

What are your hopes and reservations for doing it again?

Also — here’s a list of ten posts here at terribleminds that maybe, just maybe, will help you start to prep for the coming tide of furious frenzied cram-a-holic novel-writing come the month of November.

25 Things You Should Know About NaNoWrimo

25 Things You Should Know About Writing A Novel

25 Things To Do Before Starting Your Next Novel

25 Ways To Plot, Plan, And Prep Your Story

25 Things You Should Know About Story Structure

25 Things To Know About Writing Your First Chapter

25 Ways To Fight Your Story’s Mushy Middle

Shot Through The Heart: Your Story’s Throughline

The Inkslinger’s Invocation

And, finally:

The Secret To Writing

Now, you may also know that I have a number of writing books available.

This month and next I’ll be offering a couple specials on said books, should that tickle your most private of private parts. And of course, I hope that it does. *tickle tickle*

The two specials for the month of Rock-Out-With-Your-Cocktober-Out are:

THE NUMBERLY BUNDLE

You can buy the PDFs of:

250 Things You Should Know About Writing

500 Ways To Be A Better Writer

500 More Ways To Be A Better Writer

and 500 Ways To Tell A Better Story

For just $7.50 (normally, it’d be $10).

This only works if you buy direct, please note, by using the link below.

Or, you may instead want:

THE PENMONKEY INITIATIVE

If you procure both Confessions Of A Freelance Penmonkey and Revenge Of The Penmonkey during the month of October, I’ll send you one of my other writing books (i.e. any of the above 250 or 500 “lists of 25” books) for free. That does not require direct procurement from me. Here all you need to do is email me proof of purchase to terribleminds at gmail dot com and let me know what book you and and, boom, I’ll send you the link to download. Dig? Dug.

Thanks, all, looking forward to hearing from you crazy ink-mad story-devils.

October 3, 2012 / 79 Comments

Line Up For Your Penmonkey Self-Evaluations

PREPARE TO GET PROBED.

Ha ha ha, no, no, silly, not like that.

I mean, “Prepare to get probed rectally.”

*checks notes*

Wait, I mean, “not rectally.”

Sorry! Sorry. Always get that one wrong.

So, from time to time it’s a good idea to shove your own penmonkey dreams under the lens of the microscope, see how things are going for you. As such, it’s time for a report card if you’re willing.

The questions — and you can answer as many or as few of these as you care to — are:

How’s it going, writing-wise?

How goes progress on any current projects? Whatcha working on?

Any problems with said projects? Issues you’re having?

Anything I or the lovely community of terribleminds can help with?

(This is also a good time to ask for beta readers if you need ’em.)

Beyond individual projects, how’s the bigger picture looking?

What are your strengths as a writer and storyteller?

More importantly: what and where are your weaknesses?

So: there you go.

A few self-eval questions to get you talking.

I’ll hang up and wait for your answer.

CARRIER LOST

October 2, 2012 / 57 Comments

25 Ways To Get Your Creative Groove Back As A Writer

Sometimes, writers get out of the groove. They lose their voodoo. This isn’t just writer’s block — hell, you might even still be writing. But it feels hollow, unrewarding, like it’s not just giving back what you put in.

You need your creative mojo back.

Which means, another list of 25, comin’ right up.

(Some of these, I figure, also work toward writer’s block, if that’s a thing you believe in.)

1. Read Outside Your Comfort Zone

By “comfort zone,” I mean that room inside your head where it’s all pillows and chocolates and footy pajamas, with gamboling puppies and a vending machine that dispenses only liquor and cupcakes. On the wall of our comfort zone is a shelf of books and these are the books representative of the many categories we already prefer to digest: “I read: presidential autobiographies, graphic novels about talking animals, and the genre of ‘paranormal bromance.'” Comfort, however erm comfortable it may be, is not a great thing for creativity — so, escape this mind-realm of plush luxury and go read books you’d never ever read. Wouldn’t ever pick up a book of travel essays, or one about food culture, or a young adult novel? New books mean new input — and that means new inspiration. By the way, dibs on ‘paranormal bromance.’ HANDS OFF.

2. Re-Read A Book You Love Utterly

Fuck it. Instead of escaping your comfort zone, let’s nest deep within its pillowy folds. Grab a beloved book off your shelf and re-read it. Re-discover why a book like this made you want to be a writer in the first goddamn place. Let it fill you with its power (worst pick-up line ever) as it did many years before. Let it bring you back to center. Books you love are like a flashlight in dark times.

3. Read Something Utterly Shitty That Somehow Got Published

I read a script recently. It was a script that had been optioned (though never made), meaning, it was a script that someone out on the Leftmost Coast paid good money for. Like, probably more money than I’ve ever made in a year. Or ten years. OR MY WHOLE SAD INK-FINGERED LIFE SHUT UP. Anyway, point is: it was not very good. I mean, I won’t go so far as to call it genuinely shit-tacular, but it was… well, you know how fast food is often wildly mediocre? Yeah, that. Its mediocrity enlivened me. It told me, “I write better than this. I will write better than this.” It was a horse-kick to my motivational centers.

4. Achieve Narrative Conclusion, Gleefully Shellacking Your Brain-Pants

Take a teeny tiny project — a poem, a short story, a flash fiction challenge, a series of tales told in ten tweets, whatever — and finish it. I’m going to make up some science now, so, put on your Reality-Defying Goggles. Ready? Finishing any creative project releases a chemical in your brain called Hopamine (pronounced “hope-a-meen”), aka “Triumph Squeezin’s” or “Victory Fluid.” By stimulating the gland that releases this creative hormone, you further stimulate the rest of your brain to want to seek that feeling again and again, like a drug addict chasing a high. Meaning: the more projects you complete, the more projects you complete.

5. The “Just For You” Project

That sounds like a really weird euphemism for masturbation. “Hey, what are you gonna do now?” “Gonna go upstairs, initiate a just-for-me project.” *grabs a box of Kleenex and a soup can filled with ballistics gel* Anyway. Sometimes creative lockjaw happens when you’re too busy doing work for everybody else and you’ve saved nothing for yourself. Pick a project, small, large, whatever, that’s something you want to do. Doesn’t matter if anybody else thinks it’s a good idea. Fuck the naysayers. Completing work that’s satisfying to you will tickle your creative muscles. And hey, there’s another masturbation euphemism if you want it.

6. Write Outside Your Comfort Zone

Remember your “comfort zone?” Cuddly unicorns and that Carly Rae Jepsen poster on the wall? Let’s just set fire to the whole place. Ignore the unicorn screams. (And shit, do they ever scream.) Earlier I advocated reading outside your comfort zone, so now it’s time to write outside of it. Pick something you’d never write, and try it. Don’t worry about finishing it — this is an exercise, not a job. Write romance, or hard sci-fi, or a film script or the marketing materials for a new drug called “pink meth.” Whatever. Sometimes you have to come at creative logjam from a whole different angle to break it apart.

7. Public Lewdness, I Mean, “Public Creativity”

Put your work out there for all to see — probably online, but somewhere, somehow in the public space. Which is to say, get a blog or whatever, and start writing so that the world can see. It’s a stunt, of sorts, and normally I don’t advocate this as a way to exist normally, but here’s what this does: writers are used to performing behind the curtain. We sit in our offices, completely nude. We drink a can of Red Bull, kill a goat, powder up with some Gold Bond, then we write. Nobody’s watching. But you start writing in public, it’s the equivalent of getting on stage. People are watching what you do more closely. It feels like walking across a tightrope without a net. While high on really weird drugs. Anything to drop-kick creative ennui.

8. Stop, Collaborate And Listen

Writers are traditionally loners. Like Pee-Wee Herman, and serial killers. (Actually, would it have surprised anyone if the character of Pee-Wee turned out to be a serial killer? That talking Playhouse Chair probably eats the fucking bodies.) A writer is used to operating in a lawless, non-reactive land. Change that. Collaborate with someone. On a story, script, comic, whatever. Engage in an act of creative agitation. The give-and-take of collaboration constantly forces you to bat back new ideas and reactions — it’s not always easy, but it’s frequently productive. Even if just to retrain your brain to be all arty and stuff.

9. Gun Down Your Creative Routine In The Streets

You do things a certain way, right? Wake up. Eat a bowl of Yummy Mummy cereal. Get dressed in jammy-pants and a FUCK YOU t-shirt, then go to Starbucks with your laptop and pretend to write as you stare hatefully at all who enter. Then: lemon meringue pie, and finally, bed. Your status quo needs to change. This is emblematic of how narrative works (a story is often born from the disruption of status quo), and so it is emblematic of how the writer sometimes must work, too. Change it up. Write somewhere different. Write in a new way (on a new word processor, with pen and notebook, in your own fluids). Do something different. Shake lose the barnacles you’ve gathered while floating inert in the murky harbor of your undoing.

10. Have A New Experience

Spontaneous generation does not exist. Fruit flies are not born out of thin air, nor is our creativity. We need fuel. We need stimulus. Like Johnny-5, we need input, motherfucker. Part of what fuels our creative expression is the life we live and the experiences we have, so there comes a time when you need to have some new experiences. Moroccan food, ziplines, mountainous ascent, bar fight with strange people, sex with strange people, Mezcal bender, civet-shit coffee, BDSM, ride a deer, kick a robot, something, anything. Have new experiences. Adventures both big and tiny. It’s all paint for the palette, man.

11. Get Out Of The Goddamn House, You Mumbling Shut-In

“Locked-in syndrome” is where your body can’t move but you can see and experience everything going on around you, and metaphorically, writers are like that. We get locked in to our offices, our homes, our lives. (Don’t tell me you haven’t thought at least once about trying adult diapers. Because you are a liar-faced lie-bot from a future made of liars.) Sometimes, to build off the last entry, you just need to get out of the fucking house. Like, with some regularity. Though one supposes an entry featuring the word “diaper” should not also feature the word “regularity” in a different context, but whatever. I’m a rebel, Dottie.

12. Get Some Class, You Surly Miscreant

Wait, no, sorry, I mean, “take a class.” As in, go learn a new skill. Doesn’t have to be related to writing — in fact, better if it’s not. Learn Photoshop. Or wood-working. Or robot-taming. Imagine if you will that we are characters in a role-playing game and we have an unlockable “skill tree” where new new avenues of experience open up by completing sometimes unforeseen challenges. This is like that. You learn something new, it opens up new pathways into your creative life you did not expect.

13. Exercise Your Indolent Sloth Carcass Of A Body, You Indolent Sloth Carcass

While you’re out, maybe move your body around. Jiggle your sludgy flesh in a way that simulates “not dying from sheer torpidity.” Sometimes our mental shutdowns are related to physical concerns. Maybe you just need some fucking exercise. Walk. Run. Bike. Swim. Lift something heavier than your iPad. Fight a mountain lion. Hunt your fellow man. Whatever. Just move that ass.

14. Also: Stop Eating Like A Drunken Goat

I’ve advocated this before and I will do it again, right here, right now: stop eating assily. Not a word, “assily,” but I said it because I’m allowed to make up new words because I have my Pennsylvania Writer’s License. To repeat: sometimes mental shutdowns are related to physical concerns. And physical concerns can come from diet. Maybe you’re eating too many carbs and not burning them off (contributing to “brain fog”). Maybe you’re allergic to something and yet you still keep eating it (OH GOD I LOVE EATING DONUTS DIPPED IN CHOCOLATE MILK AND SNAKE VENOM WHY ARE MY LEGS NUMB). Change that diet.

15. Address Mental Health Concerns

To get serious for a moment, a lot of writers suffer from various mental maladies. This is entirely common and writers suffering under such afflictions are in no way alone. Problem is, it’s hard to see the forest for the trees in just such a state and it’s harder to differentiate what’s a problem with, say, a story and what’s a problem with, say, your own psychic and psychological landscape. Trying to fix creative problems when you have larger concerns is like trying to fix a plumbing problem by headbutting a toilet. It will be painful and frustrating so always address your own mental health first. This is easier said than done, but that doesn’t change the fact that it needs to happen before anything else falls in line.

16. Create Story Maps

Pick a book you love off the shelves — or, if you’ve got a wild hair (wild hare?) up your ass, grab one you hate. Whatever. Read it. But read it critically. (“Critically” does not mean, “Look for the bad stuff.” It means, read beyond entertainment. Apply critical thinking skills to your book-absorbing process. The Internet has separated us into FUCKITY-SUCKS or SHITSTORM OF AWESOME camps, and that is not critical thinking, that is base level Neanderthal tribe-making. Er, rant over.) Map the story. Outline it. Figure out what’s happening inside the tale. Track character arcs. Look at the narrative from a sky-high height. Get a measure of the mechanics. Sometimes just seeing how a story comprises all these interlocking pieces helps stimulate your own grasp of the task at hand. Also, wait, do you have a rabbit up your ass? Can we address that?

17. Bucket Of Book Titles

Go the Ray Bradbury route: just start writing out awesome-as-fuck book titles. One after the other. Ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred. This bizarre-o menu of non-existent books will almost assuredly start filling your head with stories connected to them.

18. Cavalcade Of Characters

Sometimes stories are too big. We just can’t get our minds around them and we fritz out, sparking and hissing like a broken Roomba clogged with Chinese food containers and jizz tissues. Breaking stories into pieces and playing with the pieces first has the fun of, say, playing with action figures. So: just create some characters, almost like in a roleplaying game. Don’t worry about larger stories, just start making names and some personalities to go with them. Some will stay supporting characters, others will emerge as bigger personas. And soon, stories will emerge from the pile: order out of chaos.

19. Open Defiance! The Flames Of Anarchy!

Middle finger extended — now point that gesture-of-anarchic-defiance toward All The Rules You’re Supposed To Follow. Write something that exists as a contrarian’s rebellion against What You’re Supposed To Do. Like, if you write a romance novel, there’s all these rules and tropes, right? So: break ’em all. Or, you’re not supposed to write in Second-Person-POV, or no Epistolic Novels, or, Don’t Break The Fourth Wall, or, or, or. Gather up as many rules as you care and execute them in the town square. It feels good to break the rules. “Should Not, But Fucking Did It Anyway” is a powerful creative aphrodisiac.

20. Art Harder In A Whole Other Direction

Sometimes we unlock creative potential by performing other creative tasks. Photography or music or macrame or crayon drawings or amateur porn movies or whatever it is that makes your grapefruit squirt. For me, photography kickstarts my visual and metaphorical centers, which helps my writing.

21. Write Your Life

Take time, dig deep, and write about things that actually happened to you. Trust your gut — the stories and events and characters that rise up first are the ones you should go with. This isn’t for anyone else. This is for you. This is like creative mining, just digging down into the loamy 8-bit soil of your Minecraft Mind, not sure if you’ll find iron or diamonds or empty out into a vast and unexpected cavern of possibility. Our creative lives come from somewhere, a culmination of who we are and what we love, and this is exploring the former part. This is opening up the who we are portion of the experience. Sometimes you need to tease it out. Sometimes you blow open the mountain with suicide-bomber bighorn sheep. Open the way, even if pain lurks there. Hell, especially if pain lurks there. Pain is our bread and butter.

22. Tell A Story In Images

Take images. From online. From in magazines. From advertisements. FROM INSIDE YOUR OWN DISEASED SKULL. Wherever. Cut ’em out and collect ’em and, one day, gather them up and try to use them to tell a story. String them together. Find a narrative. Finding narrative in unlike places — those unanticipated narrative connections — is a meaningful exercise in terms of getting back on the creative horse. And a “creative horse” is, of course, a pegasus.

23. Fail

Failure feels like an ending, but it’s not. I will continue to assert that fail is profound. It is both deconstructive and instructive at the same time. If you look at failure just the right way, failure is no longer a wall, but a door. Actually, hell with that metaphor: failure is a bottle rocket gooey with Icy Hot shoved deep into your no-no-hole and lit on fire with a signal flare. Failure can create in you the drive to do better, to go bigger, stronger, crazier — and the simple act of failure can realign your creative stars.

24. Quit For A Little While

Walk away from the creative life. For a week. Maybe a month. However long you need. I don’t advocate giving up easily — so, let’s just call this a vacation. We put upon ourselves undue pressure and sometimes the best way to vent that pressure is to pop the lid, let the steam out, and go do something else for a little while. The creative tapeworm will one day start coiling and roiling within, taking little nibbles here and there to let you know it’s time to get back to it.

25. Quit Moaning And Mount Up, Motherfucker

At the end of the day, here’s the best way to get your groove back, creatively speaking: work your tailbone to a rounded nub. Shovel story upon story, smash words into other words. Quit worrying, cut the bitching, and do what needs to be done. We sometimes feel like our authorial voodoo is flagging — but work begets work, and effort (even when it feels like you’re pushing a fold-out couch up a craggy mountain pass) will beget creativity. Work is in many ways like the act of planting a seed: tilling the hard earth is no easy task and the time it takes may seem like it’s wasted, thrown into an earthen hole, but one day that little motherfucker starts to sprout, and then the hard work gives way to the natural processes that are blessedly inevitable.