Why You Should Try NaNoWriMo

Another July, another NaNoWriMo.

For those new to the event, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short) is a call-to-action for authors to pen a 50,000 word novel in just 30 (or 31) days. What began as an annual November event soon morphed into a biyearly event with the version of "Camp NaNoWriMo" for the summer. Camp was so successful they broke it up into two events; one in April and the other July.

I wrote extensively about my first experience with NaNoWriMo. It was an unexpected journey that ushered me from uncertain fledgling into the realm of serious writers. I didn't know just how far I could go until I used the event to challenge my boundaries. It gave me the tools I needed to silence my goblin and helped me gain trust in my writing process.

What makes this year's Camp so exciting is the ability to set your own word count goal. Gone are my days of hanging my head in shame when I can't complete 50,000 words. I've attempted the November event three times and Camp three times previously. I only "won" the first time I tried in 2011. I've set next month's goal at 25,000 while I work on building a fantasy short story collection.  I feel confident that I can attain this while balancing my work and parenting obligations.

I hope you'll join me in July's challenge. If you're still not sure if NaNo is for you or if you think 50,000 words sounds completely insane (which it does), maybe my NaNoWriMo Survival Guide will sway you. If I can to do it, so can you!

How Sharing Stories Can Help You Connect

As an artist, I always tend to be my harshest critic, my biggest bully. No story is good enough. No turn of phrase impactful enough. No word just right. It has taken me quite a few years to feel confident enough to share work. I recently joined the fold on Wattpad--a story sharing site hosting a spectrum of tales from tween fan faction to highly renowned authors like Paulo Coelho.

Wattpad is fun. It is first and foremost a community of story lovers; readers and writers alike. You can post short or long stories, serials that you update weekly, or novel-length work. There are groups to join and loads of inspiring and fun stories to discover. You can "vote" on any work simply by clicking the star icon on the page to show you liked it. You can also comment on any section of work and converse with the authors. All in all, it is a great platform to connect with an audience.

I invite you all to join in.  Read my work. Post your own work. Or simply connect with others who love stories as much as you do. Hope to see you there!

Why You Shouldn't Fear The Process

It has been nearly a year since my last post and the completion of my novel. Through careful editing, tweaking characters, and a lot of cutting, my shitty first draft has transformed into an exciting tale with compelling characters. At least in my humble opinion.

The manuscript is now in the hands of a select few "beta-readers" who will collectively provide me with my first taste of scrutiny. As long as I've been writing, I've never been this excited about a piece of work or this confident in my creation. Will my readers' reactions meet my expectations? Or have I been so completely wrapped up in my own mind that I can't see the forest for the trees?  I will soon find out.

I thought this part of the process would be easy. The work is complete. It is out of my hands. Instead, I find myself anxious and worried which is no way to live. To combat my discomfort I've taken to channeling it into new and old projects. I currently have a slew of unfinished or unpolished stories. I am a chronic "starter." As it stands, I have three incomplete short stories, three incomplete novellas, and five incomplete novels that are part of the same series. To put it bluntly, I have plenty of ideas and very little discipline. That is all beginning to change.

Process. The writing lifestyle is all one big process. There isn't a definitive line between published and unpublished. There isn't a box I can check off that shows I've succeeded. You work, you research, you dream, you pour your heart onto the page. Yes, there are beginnings and endings, but really, it is just the ebb and flow of creativity.

The one thing I have learned through this process, as hundreds of other writers have stated before me and will long after me, is you have to write. Don't judge yourself too harshly. Choose work that you're passionate about and see it through to the end.

I'll leave you with this quote from the legendary Andy Warhol:

The End

Fifteen years after a horrifying dream left its imprint on my psyche, 9 years after I used that dream for a short story assignment in college, and 4 years after my attempts to edit that story ballooned into a novel of proportions beyond my skill set, I have completed the first draft of The Bloodsong Swords.

It is gloriously flawed and virtually unreadable. It is wrought with redundancies, with instances told rather than shown, with cliché turns of phrase, and info dumps. But within that are magical moments. Characters with yearning. Unique settings. There is a story that wants, indeed demands, to be told. 

My goal is to weed out all of the mundane and amateur and present to the world a version of this story worth telling. I feel obligated to do justice to the people and places that have lived in my unconscious mind for all these years. There is a lot of work left to do and I will admit that I am dreading the mountain of rewrites. There are points of view to eliminate, scene after scene in need of fresh envisioning, an entire restructuring.

Typing "The End" is only the beginning. I am up to the task even if I do feel like I'm in over my head. I've come to enjoy the writing process that once terrified and frustrated me. I can finally call myself a novelist. Up next: published novelist.

Trust The Process

I recently had a lovely conversation with a writing pal of mine about the genesis of stories and how they evolve over time. We agreed that most, if not all stories, begin as simply as tiny kernels of information or emotion. A snippet of a dream, a character's face, an emotional theme, a scent. I decided to look back at my original short story drafts for what has become The Bloodsong Swords. 

I wrote the original draft in my first fiction writing class back in 2005. It was the telling of a dream that I had six years earlier. This dream was so unusually vivid, emotionally intense, and completely terrifying that I remembered every detail. A few years after graduation I resolved to focus on my passion for creating fiction and dug up some old short stories that I could edit and submit. One of them was this particular original draft which I entitled "Thirst."

I began my rewrites by fleshing out the formless parts and trimming down the ones full of fluff. One passage describes people climbing out of a limousine one by one until there are almost a dozen standing around the vehicle. I only had three of these people physically defined and only a basic idea of their significance and depth. I asked myself a simple question, "who are these people?" Just like that, an entirely new world, previously unimagined, emerged and absorbed me. I suddenly had more material than necessary for a short story. I had more material than necessary for a single novel! I never intended "Thirst" to be a novel but after that day it demanded to be written. Most of the specific details that subsequently developed arrived after I'd written half of the novel during last year's National Novel Writing Month.

Here we are on the first day of November and another NaNoWriMo.  I'm still weaving through the various interconnected threads of the same story. The lesson for me is to trust in the creative process. Trust that you have the skill it takes to complete your novel. Trust that your characters know who they are and will not lead you stray. Trust that your vision will coalesce into a readable draft. It may feel awkward or strange or the quality poor but there's a lot of value in what you learn by simply doing. However, I'm also an advocate of having some sort of outline of events, a road map of sorts, however vague. For me it all works best having a balance between these two philosophies and certainly neither is right or wrong, simply different strategies to the same end. 

Why I Write

It was proposed in my writers group that we begin some fun extracurricular activities to help motivate our work. The question was asked, “Why do you write?” It took me aback momentarily.  What a silly question, I thought, but was stimulated into deep contemplation. The short answer is that I write because I must. There is an undeniable yearning inside me to tell stories and so I do. Of course, it was not quite so easy to fully embrace my calling. 

My journey to this place where I, after all of these laboring years, finally feel comfortable calling myself a writer and desiring to make money solely by creating works of fiction has been tremendously long, winding, and often confusing. Kind of like the previous sentence. 

My fondest early childhood memories include reading in bed with my mother. I lay swallowed up under the adult sized blankets with a stack of Dr. Seuss books as my mom embraced an Agatha Christie mystery. Those fond memories also include my father telling me absurdist bedtime stories where the characters were creatures that did nothing except be exceptionally silly. Better yet, late Sunday mornings when I was (finally!) allowed to wake my dad up, I would crawl into bed with him while he spun tales of animals who would never coexist on earth having an adventure. Imagine a giraffe and a penguin going to the candy store together—those were the best of times. 

I will provide some context by saying that he was and still is a blue-collar warehouse worker and my mother a housewife. I didn’t grow up in a house of artists or writers or film makers but I was reared in an environment where imagination was celebrated and encouraged. 

My language arts skills were nurtured further in public schools where I was years ahead of my peers in reading and writing. I even had the honor of reading a copy of The Tortoise and the Hare on stage at my kindergarten graduation. In third grade, I had a poem about a snowman submitted by my teacher and printed in the local newspaper (the clipping still lives between the thin plastic sheet and sticky back of a photo album in my parents’ house). In later years, we were assigned to write stories that would be shared with the younger grades. These works of fiction were even illustrated by us, laminated, and spiral bound. 

In fifth grade, I wrote about two neighboring dandelions that fall in love and in sixth grade about a skateboarding ten-year-old boy who plummets down a sewer and ends up in the land of the Leprechauns where he is charged by the Leprechaun King to find his lost daughter. (Steal these ideas if you like—Just remember they were written by a ten and eleven year old girl, you horrible person, you.)

In eighth grade I wrote an autobiography as a final project for English class. In the section where we project what our future will be like I wrote that I wanted to be an English teacher or a writer.

Then came high school. Oh that glorious period of endless mischief, reckless abandon, and insane freedoms. Those four years transformed me. By graduation I had my heart and mind set on becoming a criminal profiler just like Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs (which I read numerous times the summer between senior year of high school and freshman year of college). After one semester of criminal justice, I reckoned that lifelong exposure to death and the criminal psyche would be too damaging to my spirit and so fell back upon my original passion, stories. 

I changed my major to English and my minor to Creative Writing since it was not offered as a major.  This plan also flopped. I didn’t want to spend the bulk of my time critically analyzing old pieces of writing as English majors do. I want to spend my time writing new pieces of fiction. So, I came to the conclusion that I should quit school and rethink life. This, coincidentally, is an extremely easy decision to make at age 22.

I chose to go back to school after a year or so of working part time with no aim or goals to fuel me. I knew I needed some direction or I would be destined to slave away at retail stores for minimum wage the rest of my life. What could I do that would be an affordable education and rewarding?  I landed on interior design, which I postulated would satisfy both my left and right brains with its mix of creativity and logical order. Boy was I wrong. Studying interior design was essentially studying architecture, which for me left very little room for the kind of freewheeling open-ended creativity that I yearned. Buildings exist in the real world, after all, and have to be structurally sound. 

After a period of soul searching I quit Interior Design and moved on to art school to study what I really wanted to study: Fiction Writing. Yes, there really is a BA (or BFA if you’re so inclined) in Fiction Writing available and I have the student loan bills to prove it. The two years I spent constantly creating fiction were some of the most rewarding years of my life. I left them behind feeling impassioned toward my calling. I also left them with a desire to seek out a stable form of income for myself and so the career-building phase of my life began. 

I quit what I considered my “while-at-college-job,” moved across country for what I thought would be better work and came back to the same “while-at-college-job” within a year of receiving my BA. It was a crazy ride that pushed me farther into financial troubles but it was well worth the effort if only for the intense personal and spiritual growth I acquired while on the journey. I regret nothing.

The latest phase of my life has been my coming to grips with the fact that there is no stable form of income to be found if I’m going to do what I love. I need to create a job for myself, not work for someone else. What I intend to create is a career selling fictional tales that I have conceived and written. 

The last 18 months have been all about finding a balance between working a day job, writing a novel, and having a personal life. It is not easy. I’m still learning but getting better with every month that passes. I’m also unlearning bad habits like procrastination and being overly critical of my first drafts.  I feel more fulfilled now than I ever have. I will keep my pen on the page and my fingers on the keyboard until I look back and find a body of work of which I am proud.

“Seek and you shall find.” Never a truer statement was said. I sought out a path that never existed because I didn’t trust my instincts or my heart would lead me right. I think that is something we all have to go through, a testament to the power of personal growth. And maybe some of us don’t.  Maybe some people are born knowing who and what they are and work every moment toward those ends. It matters not what path you take get there as long as you arrive.

Why do you write?  Post answers in the comment section. I'm interested in the motivations of other writers (and people in general) and would love to hear about your journey.

6 Tools To Survive NaNoWriMo

Well, I’ve done it again. I’ve decided to drag myself through another virtual writing boot camp. I signed up for National Novel Writing Month’s summer program, Camp NaNoWriMo, which takes place in both June and August. The objective is the same as November—write 50,000 new words of fiction in only one month. 

I don’t feel anywhere near the amount of anxiety as I did in November. I survived this experience once and I know I will again. In fact, I don’t even plan to “win” this time around. My objective is using this program as a tool to complete the shitty first draft of my novel. By September 1st, I will possess a complete novel with a beginning, middle, and end that I can edit and rewrite into something publishable. I am EXCITED!

The following is a list of strategies that helped me to survive National Novel Writing Month and complete over 50,000 new words in only 30 days. Feel free to follow them or disregard them as your needs desire.  There is no one-size-fits-all plan for life or for creativity. I can only share with you the wisdom that I gained through my November experience. You’ve probably heard some of these principals before, as I used wisdom from other writers and resources to get me through it all. Also, I left out the obvious tips like turning off your phone and staying off the internet unless for research. 

NOTE: These exact principals can also be applied to writing any first draft or any other project where creating a high word count in a short period is your objective.
 

Six Simple Survival Strategies

1)   Take Notes:  Keep a small notebook with multiple writing implements or a handheld tape recorder near you at all times. You will need it to jot down or record ideas and ponderings you’ll have during the day. This is especially important to have near your bedside.  We often wake up with ideas or snippets of dreams that inform our story. These are gifts from our subconscious. Let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth by letting these epiphanies slip away unremembered. I especially like the tape recorder for this as I find myself far too groggy to use a paper and pen when I first awaken.

2)   Stay Flexibile:  Having your novel mapped out step by step, chapter by chapter, scene by scene, sounds like a thorough approach. However, you will likely find yourself forcing plot points and character development rather than events happening organically by the logic of the fictional universe you’ve created. To put it simply, have a plan, but also be open to inspiration.

3)   Ritualize Writing Time:  Just as your bed should only be used for sleep and sex, do your best to write at the same time and same place daily. This will allow your mind to relax into creative mode more easily and soften the transition from your every day life to your creative life.

4)   Avoid Over Thinking:  Be completely right (write!)-brained as you move through the creative process. Do not be analytical or critical of the work you are producing.  Do not allow censorship or judgment in your writing space. Save that mindset for the rewriting process. Go with the flow even (especially) if it feels uncomfortable.

5)   Ponder Your Story:  Were it a perfect world, we could sit in our writing space all day long and create at our leisure. In reality, we have many responsibilities. Ponder your characters and plot while you’re at your day job, cooking, cleaning house, ushering the kids around town. You’ll fuel your creative mind and keep the enthusiasm for your story on high. *Remember to keep your notebook or tape recorder from step one within reach at all times!*

6)   One Goal--Word Count:  There is only one goal for NaNoWriMo and that is to produce word count. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like what you’re doing or love it, if it sounds cliché or is vibrant and original, if its clunky or poetic, all you need to do is write, write, and write some more. I’ll say it again— do not allow judgment or censorship. Save that for the second draft.

What if I get stuck?

          It is inevitable that at some point during a month of solid writing you will get stuck.  This is where you’re on your own.  Evaluate your creative process and move forward the best you can.  Here are a few things that work for me:

1)   Ask yourself, “what happens next?”:  I learned this technique in college and it works like a charm. If you ask yourself or your characters “what happens next?” you will get an answer. It may not make a lot of sense in the moment but follow it wherever it takes you.

2)   Write with all your senses:  When you’re stuck, try to describe the scene with all of your senses. This includes not only the five physical senses, but also the nonphysical senses of emotion and intuition. It will open the story up and give it more depth.  You may stumble upon something you didn’t even know was there that might be the key to uniting the entire plot.

3)   Don’t let a good idea derail another good idea:  As I’m in the middle of the writing process, it usually happens that an epiphany or idea for my story (or in some cases an entirely different story) will suddenly pop into the forefront of my mind. I keep that handy notebook of mine right next to me so that I can record the idea for later and keep it from throwing me off the task at hand.

4)   Take a break:  Maybe you just need to get up and walk around for a second, grab a snack or drink, or even just quit for the day.

5)   Have fun:  Creating fiction is one of most rewarding and exhilarating activities that I know. I love it like I love ice cream and swimming and warm summer days and feeling my baby wriggle around in my belly. I know that if I’m stuck and it feels like work, then I should lighten up and have more fun with it.

6)  Take your characters on a road trip:  I don’t mean this literally though it may be fun to see what happens if you jam all of your characters into an RV and send them across country. What I do mean is take them out of their normal environment and put them somewhere new. This will often reveal things about them, their personality, and their relationships that you didn’t already know. You could also simply stick them in a room together and make them talk to each other. This also works quite well and is fun to do.

7)   Avoid transitions:  If your character is going from home to the library, we don’t need to see how he tied his shoes, stood at the bus stop, sat next to a smelly man on the ride over, and then walked an extra block so he could stop at the coffee shop before entering the library. Just take us there!  Leave a line of white space and pick right up at the library. If any of that transitional stuff is important (it probably isn’t) then simply work the information in while he’s at the library.

Life Goes On

You may have been wondering silently to yourself these past few months, “What has C. L. Kay been up to?” Well the short answer to this question is A LOT!

Life has a way of dictating things with it’s own logic and twists and turns. If you’re lucky, you can move fearlessly forward, swept up in its unknowable genius. You may not always end up where you thought you would but you definitely will always end up exactly where you need to be. This is the story of 2012 for me thus far.

Aside from being a few months away from a publishable draft of my book baby, The Bloodsong Swords (fingers crossed for a spring release), I’m also around five months away from bringing a flesh and blood baby into this world! Emerging into motherhood has changed just about everything from my daily routine to my frame of my mind to my thought process. Having another human being that will soon depend on me for his or her every need has underscored the necessity of finishing my book and launching my career as a fiction writer.

I’ll leave you with a wonderful quote I came across the other day that explains it all:

2012

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. I, for one, have enjoyed stepping away from my fiction for a time and spending time with friends and family that I put on the back burner while pursuing publication.

As 2011 comes to end, I cannot help but reflect on the year as a whole. A lot has happened to me both inside and out. I took the effort to make this blog a priority. I helped start a writer’s group with two amazing and talented individuals that has become a cornerstone of my writing progress. I drummed up all the moxie I had and began seriously writing my first novel. I participated in National Novel Writing Month and discovered a potential that I never knew existed inside of me. I have released that little goblin living inside my head that whispered doubts in my ear and infused me with fear of failure.

I will reap all the benefits of these actions in 2012. By mid to late summer, my first book, The Bloodsong Swords, will arrive. My fiction baby will have been birthed, reared, and grown prepared to face the world on its own two feet. I know that not everyone will like it. I just hope that more people like it than not. 

It is an exciting story full of colorful characters and places that span over 1,900 years.  There are gangsters—a lot of gangsters—vying to fulfill an ancient prophecy and they all have supernatural powers. If I had a gun to my head, I would call it science fiction, but really, it is so much more than that. It is in essence an urban science fiction historical action thriller. Obviously, genre bending is going on in all directions. 

I dedicated December to my day job. Retail work takes on a completely new level of insanity during the holidays and I have had little free time to write. January will be a very important month. I still need to finish my first draft. Then the editing and rewriting begins. I am going to make a bold statement and say that 2012 will likely be the most important and pivotal year of my life. By the time 2013 rolls in, I will have transformed from an aspiring writer to a self-published author and life will never be the same again.

I want to thank everyone who has followed my journey thus far. I wish everyone an exciting and safe New Year’s celebration. Cheers to 2012!

The Secrets of a First Time Wrimo

November was a long and bumpy road. As you probably noticed, I have been very quiet of late. My head was down and my mind fully focused on reaching my goal of 50,000 newly written words for National Novel Writing Month. I achieved my goal! The real world was dead to me. Only my imagined world was worthy of my attentions. I ended November with 50,066 words and won my very first NaNoWriMo.

I hope that nobody thinks my pretty little web badge means that this was easy for me. It was one of the most challenging things I have ever done. I wasn't sitting pretty at my desk all month, whistling a tune, and typing away while blue birds fluttered around my head and small woodland creatures applauded around my feet. It was painstaking, terrifying, and absolutely insane!

I will preface this by saying that I bent the rules and wrote a novel that I started over the summer. What can I say? I’m a rebel. I already had one complete chapter of 8,711 words. I did not apply that chapter toward my final word count. I will also say that while I had 15 of the characters already in mind, they were nothing but faces, names, and basic motivations. In some cases, they were only names.

Week One, 7,229 words:  The first week was strange. I thrust myself into unfamiliar territory. I did not write a single word on the first day. I had stage fright. I wasn’t sure what to do other than to type.  On day two, I cranked out over 4,000 words. “This is easy,” I thought. “50,000 words will be no problem at all.” How I lied! The rest of the week I putt-putted like an old jalopy. By the end of the week, I was 4,000 words below par. One unexpected side effect to plunging headfirst into a fictional reality was the dreams. Every night I dreamt such vivid and lively dreams that when I awoke, I felt as though I never slept at all.

Week Two, 7,506 words:  I spent week two staring at a brick wall. My characters would not speak to me. They would not speak to each other. My fictional world was a gray haze and my plot made no sense whatsoever. Every word I typed felt clunky and forced. I was as a child lost in a mammoth grocery store crying out for her mother. I learned that a week two slump is common among Wrimos.  This knowledge did something to boost my ego but that boost was very short lived. By the end of the week, I was 7,000 words below par.

Week Three, 6,889 words:  Week three was a famously raucous pity party with full on streamers, balloons, and pointy cardboard hats. “I’m probably not going to make 50,000 words,” I told friends, family, and coworkers. “But it’s okay,” I said with a brave face, “I have a better sense of my story and more words than I did before.” Inside me was a big ugly ball of disappointment. It stared me in the face and spat out insults. I considered cheating. If I added my previously written chapter to the word count, I would be sitting pretty. I chose not to. I couldn't bring myself to sully the process. I pressed on despite my anxiety.

Something miraculously profound happened inside me on Sunday November 20^th. The labor pains stopped and I held in my arms my screaming infant novel. He stared up at me with eyes of wonder. I looked down at him and I knew exactly who he was and what he wanted to say. I embraced him close to my chest and rejoiced. “I am a writer,” I said. It no longer felt like a partial lie. I am a writer. I vowed to reach my goal. If not for myself, then for my story and all the glorious people and places therein. By the end of the week, I was 14,000 words below par.

Week 4, 28,442 words:  I cracked my knuckles and got to work. This was it. I had nine days to scrape out as many words as my fingers could type. I literally ate and slept my novel. I shut off my phone and ignored my messages. I woke up hours before work and typed. I toted my notebook and scribbled during the bus-and-two-trains commute to work. I scribbled while scarfing down lunch.  I scribbled some more during my commute home. In the evenings, I typed up what I wrote during the day and typed some more. I typed until my eyelids weighed a ton and my mind was swimming. I allowed myself 5-6 hours a night for sleep and those hours turned out more dreamful and less sleepy.  I tossed and turned. My characters that a few weeks prior wouldn’t talk to me now talked nonstop.  “Shh, I’m trying to sleep,” I said. “But we have business to conduct,” they whined. At one point, I literally forgot how to spell “pour.”

I’m pretty sure I hallucinated that weekend. I saw things and heard things that likely were not there.  If it weren’t for my boys in the red Indian head sweaters, the Chicago Blackhawks, I would be wearing a straight jacket right now. Hockey was just about the only thing rooting me to reality (they have the third best record in the league right now. Go, Hawks, go!). On November 30^th, I still had 6,125 words to go. I made a giant pot of strong coffee and went to work. By the evening, I hit the magic number and sighed a massive sigh. I cracked open a bottle of wine, poured a glass, and validated my word count.

I am extremely proud of what I have achieved. My novel is by no means finished and by no means publishable. This shitty first draft still requires at least another 50,000 words. After that, I will begin the long journey of editing. I plan to have a version to share with the world by August 2012. Writing a novel is no longer a distant hope. I have evolved. At long last, I am living my dream!

Preparations

Its a cool and gloomy day here in Chicago. I'm off of work and attempting to self motivate. 

I've not been writing much as I've been fighting off a nasty cold virus and a mysterious painful pulled neck muscle (mysterious because it happened out of nowhere. Perhaps it's the Universe's way of telling me to slow down, relax, and stop letting things get under my skin). I have a short story in progress and the ladies of my writer's group (Moxie!) are expecting more pages of that very soon.  And of course the omnious shadow of NaNoWriMo looms over me. November 1st is only five short days away and I'll begin my crash course in speed writing.

For those of you unfamiliar, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short) is a not-for-profit endeavor by the Office of Letters and Light: "A fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing." The goal is to write 50,000 new words in just 30 days.

I don't like to fly blind. I'd rather be prepared. I research and read into almost everything I attempt. Based on my findings I've created a few simple plans of action to cross that 50,000 word finish line. It's a three prong plan, "pacing, structure, and caffeine."

The first is to stick to a strict day to day word count of 1700. That way I have a small and attainable daily goal that will keep me on pace.

The next part is to write out on index cards all of the scenes I need for the novel and arrange them in some kind of preliminary order. This way if the white page begins to threaten me, I can pick up the next scene card and continue rolling. That's what I'm putting together today. Some bones.

And lastly, I plan to stock the pantry with lots of coffee. 

Well, lots to do, lots to do!  I better get to it.

The Flip Side

I often hear unpublished writers say that they are fearful of the process or that people will not like their work. It is true that there will be people out there who won’t like what you have to offer. This is true for everything from art to politics to science. Someone will be there to voice their dislike. It’s simply human nature to be opinionated. This is what gives our world such immense diversity and color. 

Why not focus on the flip side of this?

There will always be someone who enjoys your work! It is now easier than ever to reach millions of people with minimal effort. The numbers game alone dictates that there will be people out there who will connect with your stories. Put those fears aside and deliver something. In time you will build your brand and with it your audience. 

On that note, I have a novel to finish! So I’ll leave you with this quote from Sylvia Plath: 

It’s All In The Name

The most fulfilling and rewarding part of being a fiction writer for me is when the characters I’ve birthed begin to walk on their own two feet.  Once I have them firmly realized, they always speak and operate in ways I had not previously conceived.  It’s as if they begin to breathe and act of their own volition and now guide me to where they want to go instead of me forcing them into my perceptions of how they should act.

In the birthing phase, I reflect a lot on the type of person I want the characters to be in order to have an engaging story.  This can include personality traits, physicality, quirks, psychological state, moral code, family background, education, social status and all the rest.  Though for me, the name is most important thing.  Once I have named a character, place or group, I’ve given it a specific energy.  There is much power in a name.  I like using unusual or unlikely names for characters.  Most importantly, the name must encapsulate the aura and essence of the character.

The opening paragraph of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is Humbert Humbert’s treatise on the power of the nymphet’s name.  And let’s not neglect to mention the connotations of such a name as Humbert Humbert.  Villains’ names are the most fun for me to create.  Some of the most memorable fictional names come from villains.  Lord Voldemort, Darth Vader, Professor Moriarty. 

The act of naming gives power and life to the idea of the character.  It is akin to spiritual ceremony.  Once the Rite of the Name is complete, the subjects rise into their own authority.  While the idea of the character is the body, the name becomes the breath and blood that animates it.

It’s A Slow Journey (And I Don’t Care)

It seems like an eternity since I have written for this blog. And no wonder. With one measly follower and not a lot of writing going on, what could I possibly have to say and to whom? Nevertheless, some changes have occurred. So why not throw it out there?

I recently picked out an old story from my earliest days at Columbia College with the intention of polishing it and submitting it to any publication I thought might want it. As soon as I began editing, an entire new world presented itself. Characters appeared out of the ether and situations never previously conceived flashed in my mind’s eye. “Write this down,” they begged. “Give us life.” And so it has become a mission for me to spend time with these characters, get to know them, and tell their story. Consequently, it’s a slow process but just like the Confucius quote I recently read, "it does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop."

I will not stop. I’ve spent far too much time questioning my talent and the market and the supposed impossibilities of making a good living as a fiction writer. I’ve adopted a strict I-really-don’t-care attitude and it suits me. I’ve stopped beating myself up and comparing myself to others. The blinders are on and my resolve is set soley on finishing this book. By this time next year I’ll be in the money, making a comfortable living doing what I love.

The second point I’d like to make here is that anyone out there thinking ebooks and epublishing is just a passing fad needs to wake the heck up. It is the present and the future of publishing. In fact, as you read this, the entire publishing paradigm is taking on a new shape and I refuse to be left behind. I highly suggest that anyone who is serious about writing to do your research on this. There are lots of fantastic opportunities, particularly for new authors hitting the scene. Don’t say I didn’t give you heads up.

How to Create A Productive Writing Space

Having recently moved into a new apartment, I've spent a fair amount of time creating a productive writing space. Every writer has their own process and their own quirks. Some people can only write outside their home, can only hand write with sharp number 2 pencils, or need a pot of coffee and their special blue ballpoint pen. The following is what works to get and keep me in "the zone."

The Physical Space

I like a small writing space. I want all things to be within arms reach or a swivel of my chair. Which is indeed point number one: have a COMFORTABLE CHAIR. If you're truly working, you're spending a lot of hours with butt-in-chair. You want a model that supports your posture and keeps you as comfortable as possible for the duration.

I like to keep all REFERENCE MATERIAL close by. This includes notes, reference books, and magazines--basically anything I may need to check or recheck during writing time. I have a small shelf with books on writing and references in my office as well as a crate full of back issues of The Writer and Writer's Journal. An old article can sometimes be the key to solving a current writing block.

ORGANIZATION takes top priority. I like my space to be clean and free of visual distractions. No clutter is allowed nor anything unrelated to the task at hand. CORK BOARDS AND WHITEBOARDS play a big role in my process as well. I pin up notes I've jotted on random scraps of paper, things I want to remember to include in work, thoughts and inspirations, plotting. I scribble points of interest and to do lists on white boards--in fact I'm writing from white board notes at this very moment.

The Mental Space

My mental space is just as important to me as my physical space when writing. I have a wandering mind and imagination that I need to keep in check in order to do my best work and stay on task. I do what I can to minimize DISTRACTIONS. I keep myself logged off of the Internet as much as possible--too many temptations and time wasters lay hidden there waiting to sabotage my efforts.

I set a creative MOOD by lighting incense or candles, playing whatever music moves me at the moment, and setting the lighting as bright as possible.

I surround myself with plenty of INSPIRATION. I have a framed picture from the new Battlestar Galactica series above my desk. During a roadblock I glance up at it and try to channel Ronald Moore's ability to weave a story, create high levels of suspense and mystery, and create a substantial story world. I have quotes posted around my desk as well as my mantra of "Shitty First Drafts" written in all caps sharpie! I have pictures hanging on the wall from The Matrix as a reminder to be innovative and one from Harry Potter to remind myself that all things are possible. As sappy as it sounds, these items truly do instill me with passion and faith.

The last part of taming mental space comes from PEOPLE. There are those in your life that either intentionally or unintentionally bring you down. So many, due to their own prejudices, see writing as folly. They will call you during your writing time, get angry when you decline invitations, or just plain tell you you're nuts for attempting to publish. There are also those that will be supportive, give you the space you need to succeed, and cheer you on your road to success. Make sure you know the difference and act accordingly.

I'd love to hear what requirements and rituals other writers have.  Please share in the comments section.

I Am A Writer And This Is My Beginning

First of all, I just want to say welcome to my journey. I'm not sure where I'm going but I'm going there nonetheless. And now here you are with me. Look around you. What do you see? Anything? What I see is a vast cyberworld in which I can lay the foundations of my brand and share my art with the world.

It wasn't long ago that I first ventured into the world of blogging and social media. For years I rejected the concept and denied myself of its advantages. But now I know that the benefits of exposure seriously outweigh the detriments. Just ask Paris Hilton.

After the many controversies surrounding Facebook and Twitter, and my own experimentation with them, I realize one key thing. People like personalities. They want to know things about these personalities. People want to be all up in the business of these personalities. They like to see them struggle but they also like to see them succeed.

When it comes to following a personality on Twitter or friending them on Facebook, the odds are that you already know a whole heck of a lot about them. You know what movies they've been in, what songs they wrote, what politics they practice. You want them close to you because you like them and want to keep up with them.

So, one day it dawns on me, wouldn’t it be just as or even more compelling, to follow someone up and coming? To see them rise to the occasion or possibly fall flat? And I decided that’s exactly what I would do. Just like any reality show out there, I want you to get to know me and root for me! I want you to watch me struggle, celebrate my achievements and bemoan my failures.

I also want to show the nitty gritty of what it takes to be a writer, to be one tiny fish in a glorious ocean of fish, many of which bigger and scarier or smaller and wimpier than myself. I want you to be a part of the process and I want to win you over with delightful stories of the strange and unusual--that is my specialty. Be my fan, my friend, and my follower.

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