Archive for the ‘ On Writing ’ Category
I ran across a post today on Medium by Turner Stories, which is linked to a blog, and all of it designed to create a platform.
That Medium post links to a Blog:
This is a model for what I want to do. By the end of March, this blog will be converted to the foundation of my platform.
Lots of work to do.
Success as a writer means finishing and publishing documents. Selling a few books would be nice, but marketing is another thing altogether. Now, my thoughts are turned full on to the production process. My process is slow because I have developed bad habits. It is time to examine those habits holding me back and rid myself of them.
I’ve heard this for years, acknowledged it, and ignored it. Editing the story, tinkering with the text, correcting misspelled words, cleaning up your copy, and any other Euphemism a writer cares to throw up in defense is pointless. MIND YOU: I DON”T PRACTICE WHAT I PREACH HERE.
Yesterday as part of the Writer’s Boot camp, were performed a ten minute exercise using the prompt, “At noon, the last camel died.” The point of the exercise is to get a clear idea of the narrative your want to write in the mind, and sit down for ten minutes and write. No editing. No going back. No agonizing over the perfect word.
Work with the premise that all first drafts are shit, and get the shit on the page fast as possible so you can begin the real work.
I have a habit over the years of constantly
I have caught myself doing that here in this post. I should be writing, getting the words on the page, not hitting the wrong key and backspacing to clear the word. If I just get it down, I can edit later.
ITS SO DAMN HARD!
So here I find myself working to unlearn
Changing my life begins now.
In Twilight’s Child (Rewrite) I ran into a problem/opportunity, they can be indistinguishable. I had removed an entire subplot. In brief, the Protagonist, Alec Thisbe, has a sister who was a “seventh son,” the seventh son of the seventh son down seven generations.
Yes, she is female and I have changed the rules to reflect that mortals, as opposed to the Fae, got it wrong. Every firstborn of her family line back seven generations was female, so she has the innate ability to use Fae Glamour (Magic).
I wrote her subplot because my protagonist for this first novel is a Changeling, an immortal Fae left in the crib in the place of a mortal child taken as a hostage in the Tithe to Hell.
I deleted the subplot because I had toyed with writing for a younger audience. I have changed my mind, so his older sister is in, and her dalliance with Puck is back in.
Now, I had thought I deleted those scenes, and it would have been a real pain in the tuchus to rewrite. I just pulled them out of an early copy of the novel.
Every thing I’ve written has had scenes or paragraphs deleted. I have a file where I keep those old versions. I consider it like keeping button box. Because I am old as dirt, I will explain for those who do not understand the reference in this throw away age.
My mother and grandmother kept buttons off old clothes or spares when they had to buy buttons in a box. When one of us kids would lose a button, an event so regular as to be the norm, they would have a source of buttons to make repairs.
My writer’s button box came to my rescue.
I am not a member of alliteration anonymous. Just thought I would write that.
I have discovered that the phrase, Old Habits Die Hard, is, at best, inaccurate. For some weeks, I kept my daily blog for weeks—weeks I tell you — and then ran into articles that told me I did it wrong. I’ve discovered Blogging daily had become a part of my discipline, and without it, I faltered.
I did not stop writing, but I have found it more difficult without this daily habit. Today, this afternoon actually, I chose to dump the way I am supposed to do this and move back to a daily post.
I have slammed up against one of my lousy habits with Twilight’s Child (the name may change). I now finish novels; now I need to learn to edit them. I am having trouble. Other than a few ongoing projects, I intend to bull my way through. If I can’t read through it who will, after all?
The Boot Camp goes well. Having done it before, these early phases are a bit of a chore, but it changes a bit from run to run and we will soon be over this phase.
I began a short story, A Cat by Any Other Name, and wrote 504 words. I expect it to hit 2000. Oddly, it started as a Fan Fiction for Forgotten Realms. One thing led to another. I am gong to start writing Fan Fiction and posting things on Fan Fiction sites to get people to know my name.
Writing is like an athletic sport utilizing a specific set of muscles, all of which exist inside the brain. The athletic writer, not to be confused with the athletic supporter, should never begin a haiku, a short Story, a novella, a novel, or a multi-generational epic without stretching those writing muscles.
Stretching the writing muscles is not as straightforward as using a band beneath the pad of your foot and pulling the anterior tibial, posterior tibial, and peroneal, tibial muscles in a warm-up exercise. A writer’s stretch exercises those critical portions of the brain that feed words to your fingers.
My morning, afternoon, evening or bathroom stretch (Yes, I write using my IPAD on the throne, so don’t judge,) uses the following sequence.
The Paradise Snare by A.C. Crispin
A. C. Crispins The Paradise Snare (1997) came with a high recommendation from a friend who read it as a teenager shortly after its first publication. With Disney’s acquisition of the Star Wars franchise, the new owners demoted “The Paradise Snare” from Cannon to Legend. After seeing the somewhat disappointing Solo: A Star Wars Story, I caught up on the Star Wars universe, and the book fun but something of a disappointment.
After a brief glimpse of a semi-derelict Troop Carrier, the Author stops the story to tell the reader the history of Garris Shrike. Had I picked up the book in a bookstore and read the first few pages, I would not have bought it. I persevered through what writers call a data dump. The story picks up speed, for, as with the troop carrier, “it was still capable of hyperspace travel, even though it was slow by modern standards.”
Crispin’s Hahn Solo differs from the cocky, arrogant and confident smuggler and crook. As I followed him through his first grand love affair and loss, I found the romance element unsatisfying. His work with drug smugglers and the use of religion as an addictive substance is the highlight of the book. It made a better beginning to the amoral smuggler happy to shoot first when threatened
This is not a book that will change your life. The brightest point of the novel is its entertainment value. I recommend it to readers of Star Wars Novels, everywhere.
View all my reviews
Always open with a word,
Caffeine in my coffee,
A song in my heart
But, not on my lips
Writing, not music, is my art.
Remember, first drafts are shit.
Shit is good … enough
Correct nothing!
Drafts are rough.
Never, ever look back
Until The End.
Writing is collaborative.
Every author I read
Influences my work,
A reader I need
To complete our story.
In your mind’s eye.
© Frank Darbe
02.12.2019 (all rights reserved)
My daily grind, write a thousand words in my WIP, edit chapters in a completed novel, and fix a story I wrote that I am not yet happy with.
And, I suspect, back to post daily. One more thing, I am two assignments behind in boot camp. Catch you later.
Emma T. Gitani is a writer and editor of my acquaintance. As a warrior in the eternal conflict between telling and showing, she provides professional tips for the Author-Warrior.
Remember: SHOW don’t TELL!
My publisher, Randall Andrews, and his company JaCol Publishing hold boot camps for writers. I’ve taken done this before, twice. I wrote my first novel, Shift, during a boot camp, and the wrote the bulk of my WIP Shadow Walkers in another. Having the means, and recognizing that I spend more in coffee in a month that than the cost per month of his course I chose to go through this again.
Of course, I will write the sequel to Shift (Title will be a single wort, but I haven’t a clue yet.). Apart from the novel, the boot camp puts me in contact with a group of talented writers and provides an excellent workout to remove those unsightly flabby adjectives from my prose.
This morning, Toni Crowe’s excellent ‘“When Does This Get Easy?” — The Myth Of Author Platform‘ documented the frustrations of building an Author’s Platform, provided a primer to follow her successes and left me envious as hell of her drive.
When I published Shift, I had no idea what an Author’s Platform might be. I dreamed of writing and publishing a book and waiting for the accolades to roll in. I should have realized that books, being oblong with edges did not roll all that well. I am playing catch up without a guide.
Her article comes with a series of steps that I intend to follow. I will report on those efforts as they occur.
If you ever read or enjoyed images of ships from the Golden and Silver Age of Science Fiction, you would have seen silver rockets sitting on their fins.
Elon Musk’s BFR/Starship resembles those designs, but not our of engineering nostalgia. Stainless steel is their go-to material for good reasons, as Ryan Whitwam of Extreme Tech Explains.
“SpaceX is working on the initial prototype of the Starship rocket (formerly BFR) that could eventually carry people to the moon and Mars. However, CEO Elon Musk recently announced a significant design revision that seems counterintuitive at first. Instead of aluminum and carbon fiber, the company has decided to build the Starship out of stainless steel. Now, he’s explaining why. “
“Elon Musk Explains Why the Starship Will Be Stainless Steel” By Ryan Whitwam on January 24,2019 at 8:17 am (https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/284346-elon-musk-explains-why-the-starship-will-be-stainless-steel
Went looking for writers on WordPress, the agenda being to follow them, and when it is appropriate, quote them on the site to get exposure for my website. I found “26 Best Minimalist WordPress Themes for Writers,” which indicates websites that are better for reading and easy to manage.
I suspect that I need to research writers’ websites and make mine more like theirs.
I have four complete novels, along with my writing, I am going to edit them and get them ready for Beta Readers and publishing.
Wake, and …
Suspicion creeps down my neck.
Not a thinking day. No!
A lark day.
A play day.
A crawl back in bed and mess around day.
Chores, wait till tomorrow.
Hobbies, paint yourself.
Writers deserve days off.
Right?
No stress.
No worries.
Hakuna ma watch-u-ma-call-it
And all that jazz.
So what if …
I left a character
A breath from death
No clue how to live.
An alien shadow
Outside of time
Creeping through the pores in his skin.
I stopped yesterday, not knowing how to save him.
Should I kill him?
Why not?
Abel Ruse, not real.
Not breathing, hoping,
I know what color of underwear he wears.
I know he has the hots for Gaia,
And thinks he is in love.
Not old enough to know
Love from lust?
Or is there a difference.
And he’s changing.
Oh, my!
And the change scares him
More than the knife
Literally at his throat.
How can I desert someone
Living in my head for months
When I know his hopes, dreams,
That his frozen thought
“What color of panties does Gaia wear?”
Not knowing if he will ever know.
Because real people never know
Until the knife at their throat
Cuts.
And then, nothing…