Writing for Food - Writing for Fun

I once told a good friend of mine that I write to put food on the table.

That was true, but it’s not exactly the whole story.

There’s a difference between being a Freelance Writer, and being an Author. I wear both hats. Allow me to explain the functions of each one.

The Freelance Writer Hat
This is the practical baseball cap that I put on and wear when I’m writing for other people. It is the custom-tailored hat that is probably worn on a couple of edges, but it still looks okay. It serves its function.

There are deadlines, demanding clients, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) keywords and phrases, revisions, more revisions, ratings, tailor-made posts that don’t sound like anyone else, client’s clients and their sub-clients, and on and on ad nauseam. It’s the type of writing where if you don’t write, you don’t get to eat.

The Author Hat
I like this fit better, of course. This is my sexy, wide-brimmed hat that shields my eyes from the searing pain of the sun and lends an air of je ne sais quoi to my appearance. It’s the hat I wear when I write for pleasure. If it sells on the shelves, great! If it doesn’t, well, damn, but it won’t stop me from writing and enjoying myself.

There are some deadlines when working with a publisher, edits and revisions, more revisions, helping to market your work, and moving on to your next story. It’s the type of writing where you write, sometimes get paid for it, and hopefully just have a great time doing it.

Both hats are valuable, and they’ve taught me a great deal about the writing process. Not only are you creating art with words, you’re crafting them, too. You’re building a structure that will hopefully stand for a good long while. You might not build the Sphinx or The Great Wall of China, but hopefully you’ve built something that will house a few generations of readers.

I have also said that it is not necessary to have a muse in order to write. I still stand by it, that it’s 100% true if you’re dedicated to your craft. That doesn’t mean you’re not inspired or uninspired on some days, but I’ll write more about that later. I’ve been accused of having a Puritan streak for it (thanks, Frank!), but that’s not true, either. The Puritanical work ethic can play into it for some, but I prefer to think of it as a dedication to producing art. I am not a machine nor a beast of burden. I am my own muse.

I used to think that I needed a muse in order to produce a story. As such, I wound up not writing very often, just waiting for the “right idea” to come along. Then, I got into Freelance Writing to help pay my bills. There was no room for waiting with this. There were articles to write and deadlines to meet, but each article had to be original and unique, and not look like the generic crap that a bot can crank out in minutes. If you want to stand out in the world of freelance writing, you MUST produce work that has a twist to it. Infused with humor, excitement, and quality. Considering my consistent rating is five of five stars, I think I’ve got that part under control.

Doing it day in and day out gave me the idea that I could do the same thing with creative writing, if only I would sit down and write...anything. Start with a dream I had last night and see where it went. Take a character from one of my games and tailor them to become original. Use my imagination. BECOME MY OWN MUSE.

That isn’t to say there aren’t ideas, dreams, and other people who inspire me. There are plenty of people I admire and things people say that wend their way into my head and sometimes wind up in my manuscripts. But there isn’t an intangible thing out there that controls me and what I write. I draw inspiration from elsewhere, but I am the creator. If I had to depend on something or someone else, I’d never get any project finished. But I’ll write more about that next week. This week it’s all about author hats.

No matter which hat you choose, one or the other, or both, try to approach them in the same way, especially if you’re feeling uninspired, ill, or otherwise ‘just not in the mood.’ Put yourself in the mood. Think it’s impossible? I’m writing this very moment with a migraine. I created this piece and I’m pretty pleased with it. If I can do it under these circumstances, then you can, too.

Follow me on Twitter (@Spellvira) where you can read absurdities on an infrequent basis. You can also learn more and read excerpts of my work on my tumblr page.

Keeping Track of Submissions

This process has become so overcomplicated, it’s ludicrous. I mean, there are even apps out there and complicated doodads to keep track of where you’ve submitted. It’s insane.

Listen, you want to get published. Yes, of course! It’s only natural. But this should be the least stressful part of being a writer. Unfortunately, it’s often the most stressful for writers.

Whether you’re submitting to agencies or to publishers directly, you do need to keep track of your submissions. Some places don’t allow multiple submissions, and others get very snippy when you submit more than once to them. SO, you need a method that will keep it simple without tripping you up.

My method is simple, straightforward, and it might even work for other people.

I use my email folders and sub-folders to keep track of my submissions. Very easy. Easy peasy, even.

• Folder One: Query - Publishers
  Subfolder: Responses
• Folder Two: Query - Agencies
  Subfolder: Responses
• Folder Three: Publishing Agreements
  Subfolder: Responses

From there, I arrange the emails in them alphabetically. That way, I simply access the folder, and I can find to whom I’ve submitted already in just a couple of seconds.

Some people do the same, but with a spreadsheet. Now, while I love spreadsheets, to me, this seems like doubling my work. I’ve already got all the organizational tools I need in the email folders, so why take extra time getting out a spreadsheet and doing almost exactly the same thing there? For me, that’s going to take more time than I have.

Now, I’m not saying don’t use apps or spreadsheets. They may work for you. But what I am saying is, you’re a writer, not a professional submitter. Devoting too much time to this process just increases your stress and takes the focus away from your creative process. No one needs that!

Follow me on Twitter (@Spellvira) where you can read absurdities on an infrequent basis. You can also learn more and read excerpts of my work on my tumblr page.

Editing Your First Draft: A Tale of Terror

I once told you to go edit yourself after a break of about six weeks. So, let’s say those six weeks have passed, and you’re ready to start editing your manuscript.

So, there it is — 60, 70, 100, 200,000 words — all sitting there just staring at you, waiting for those first cuts or elaborations and clarifications. Where do you start?

Most read their own manuscripts through about five times, but I like to go through mine six. It’s not actually to be more thorough or a topper or anything. You’ll see why in a moment.

Step One: Read for enjoyment.

Here’s what I like to do when I start editing anything. I read it for its content. Just a read through as if I were picking up the book for enjoyment. This step is where you set aside all your judgments and just enjoy what you’ve written. Now, if you’re overly critical of yourself, you might find things during your reading that you don’t like, or catch a mistake in continuity, spelling, or grammar. If you can’t let it go, make a quick note of it and set it aside. Then, just keep reading. Read it through to the bitter end, or the happy end, or whatever ending you’ve written.

This is a healthy way to just get through and enjoy your work and what you’ve accomplished, and it will set you up to start gearing into editor’s mode in the next five steps.

Step Two: Read for supplementation.

This is where you need to add in what you forgot to in the first place. Did you describe a scene but find it lacking? Add details — sound, smell, sights — and the explanation of how characters got to be where they were wherever you feel it’s important. Yes, many people will tell you it’s not necessary to add anything to your first draft, but I’ve found that to be simply untrue. But don’t worry, you’ll cut it down later.

Step Three: Read for expurgation and condensation.

It’s later now...your third read should be finding all those ugly spots where there’s just too much exposition. If you lose between 20-25% of your manuscript, that’s fine. It’s expected. I’ve deleted entire chapters without hurting the story. Cut back on anything that’s getting preachy. You don’t want to mess too much with your story’s point.

You may also want to cut back things that got to be too much (too overtly sexual, violent, or factual). Use your best judgment. Did you really mean to have the family dog eat your antagonist’s manky bits? You might want to take it out, or not. Depends on what kind of mood your going for (and especially important in that case if you want your antagonist to have children). Of course, this will also depend on your genre. Erotica, slasher, shlock, and other genres may allow more graphic detail.

Tighten up your writing. Make your sentences pop, kill the verbosity when necessary, and get your point across.

Step Four: Read for content.

Hand-in-hand with expurgation and condensation, you need to do another read through for your content. Did one of your characters get stabbed on page 37 and is absolutely fine without reason on page 38? Did Sally J. mysteriously move from apartment #4 to #8? Oops! Now’s the time to fix it.

Make sure your timeline makes sense, and you don’t have characters meeting before they’re introduced (unless you’re going for a wibbly-wobbly timey wimey thing and totally doing that on purpose), and that your point of view isn’t bouncing around from one character to the other constantly (unless you’re going for that, but make sure it’s handled with skill to avoid confusing your readers).

Here is the ideal time to do your fact-checking. If you’re using anything in your story that is based in fact (for example, recently I needed to know some stuff about guns and helicopters), do your research. Google, watch YouTube videos, and ASK people you know to be experts. Get the information down and make sure your story makes SOME sense. No, you don’t have to be 100% accurate and can take license with certain things to fit your plot and drive it forward, but if you don’t even make the effort to be accurate, it will show, and your work will get called out for it.

Conversely, you can also write too much on the facts and lose the story — so go ahead and cut that back if you haven’t already in step three. Remember, it’s all about the story. Whether you’re character driven or plot driven, your main focus needs to be your story, not how many hours of research you’ve done or how many experts you’ve interviewed. Ultimately, it comes down to the story you’re telling.

That having been said, some people just don’t care and do it anyway — they just write whatever comes into their head, and damn the research. Unfortunately, it can ruin the fun for your audience. In this case, I would put a disclaimer in your author’s notes, preemptively asking for forgiveness. It can help massage the audience into a bit of forgiveness. However, I’m all for maintaining a balance between your facts and your fiction.

Step Five: Read for sentence structure and minutiae.

This read is where you do your real spelling and grammar check. Take out your fine-tooth comb and start scouring your pages for the correct usage of ‘too, to, and two’ and all that. Make sure that everything is consistent, too. Your dialog doesn't have to be grammatically correct at all, but it needs to be consistent. You don’t want your Harvard Professor Emeritus sounding like a rural Kansas farmer, right? The same goes for your punctuation. If you’re using the Oxford comma, make sure you’re using it consistently throughout your text.

Check to see if you’re using a single word too often, and take those out. “Quickly, Maynard went to the door and quickly opened it. The girl stood still, soaking wet in the rain. He quickly took her inside and wrapped her up in a towel.” Guess which word needs to go? (Hint: it’s NOT Maynard.)

Do a quick review to make sure you didn’t rename a town by accident, and make sure you spell your place names consistently.

Double check your sentences. Seriously. Make sure you’ve gotten rid of clunky sentences or fixed them in such a way that they’re nice and smooth. Get rid of trite crap.

You’ll also want to ensure that your paragraph transitions are slick and easy. Do this now.

Step Six: Read it to an audience.

When all of this is done, go ahead and find a victim...a willing one, please — and read your manuscript aloud. If you don’t have anyone, record it and play it back to yourself as if you were listening to an audio book. This will help you with your previous five steps. You can catch repetitive and/or awkward sentences here, and that’s a huge help for clarity.

Additionally, you’ll also be able to hear dialog better, and see if you can keep track of who’s speaking.

Finally, it’ll help your pacing, and you can go back and fix spots that drag or slow down anything that’s too rushed.

That’s it!

Congratulations, you’ve gone through your first revision. Now, it’s up to you to do further editing, or allow a second set of eyes to edit your work. This can be in the form of an editor or beta reader. It can give you a different, more detached perspective on your work that can help get your manuscript ready for publishing, and an agent or editor will appreciate it.

Okay...what are you still doing here? Get editing already!

Follow me on Twitter (@Spellvira) where you can read absurdities on an infrequent basis. You can also learn more and read excerpts of my work on my tumblr page.

Please Stop With The GOD DAMNED PANDERING!

Last week, I was unable to put up a blog post because I was unwell in the morning, and had to rest before going to see the wonderfully amazing and amazingly wonderful Eddie Izzard for his Force Majeure Tour. Without further ado, here is the post I wanted to write.

Yes, that title’s a take off on Bill Murray’s character from Scrooged, Frank Cross, when he yelled for the workers to stop with the goddamn hammering.

It’s fairly much expressive of the level of irritation I feel when certain television shows and films (that run in a series) start to pandering to audiences. Currently, it’s Hannibal (pandering to the Hanagram crowd) and Sherlock BBC (bringing back Moriarty) that have disappointed me by pandering to their fans rather than sticking to the quality material that have made them popular and beloved in the first place. Once a show begins doing that, it becomes sloppy. The writers stop feeling the magic that brought them there in the beginning. It shows. The series suffers, and the audience ultimately suffers except for the vocal handful who demanded dreck and nonsense from the writers.

This is not the same as listening to your editor. Your editor is there to help you make the best out of your work.

Of course, a big influence for television shows and films are the producers, who are the writers’ bread and butter. But that’s another post in and of itself.

So, dear fellow writer, why am I bothering with all this? Because I want to tell you to not give in to your fans if you have something in mind. If you do, your writing will suffer, and you’ll wind up with a work that leaves you utterly dissatisfied.

You are not a fan fiction writer when you’re writing an original work. You’re also not a fan fiction writer when you’re working on a reboot of an original work. There is nothing wrong with fan fic. I write it all the time. I love it. But when you write something, and you make it your own — whether it’s a reboot of a classic or an entirely original world, write it for you. Write it because you enjoy it, not because you have fans begging you to put James with Daria or so-and-so, but because you want to put James with Daria, or with Ken, or whomever you prefer. That’s just an example.

Admittedly, feedback from fans is invaluable at times. Sometimes, they have an insight into your characters that you’ve never considered. But it must be taken with a grain of salt.

It all comes down to this simple, seven-step program:

1. If you enjoy what you’re writing, write it. Others will enjoy it, too.
2. You will have detractors.
3. You will have fans who want something from you.
4. Continue to do what you want.
5. You will continue to have detractors.
6. You will continue to have fans who want something from you.
7. Continue to do what you want.

I recall an interview with someone from Warner Brothers (I saw this when I was a little girl, so I can only vaguely recall who it was) discussing a number of changes that “the people” would want them to make regarding Bugs Bunny/Merrie Melodies/Looney Tunes. His response was, essentially, that they ignored it and just kept doing what they wanted to do, and the shows/cartoons/etc. continued to be enormously popular.

Sometimes, you just have to keep doing what you think is best, producing what you want, and THAT is what will help you maintain your quality. THAT is what will keep you manufacturing your best writing.

Avoid pandering. You don’t need to turn your masterpiece work into something for others. Your contribution is what you make of it, and you don’t want your work to become weak and watered down just to please others (who will never be pleased anyway). Please your own inner reader, and the readers who can appreciate the quality of your work will, too.

If you want to keep up with my blog posts, follow me on Twitter already. I update about once a week for your reading and learning pleasure.

Write Something Worth Burning

A friend of mine once said (and he was quoting someone else, though I cannot recall the person he was quoting) that the best way to sell a book is to have it banned. While banning a book is not a marketing ploy, it is certainly an effective way to sell books. After all, once you hear a book is banned, don’t you want to run right out and read it just to see what all the fuss is about? (If you want to read some ‘banned classics,’ check out the ALA’s website.

A book worth reading is a book worth burning.

I love to go around finding lists of banned books, who wants them banned, and why...and then go out and read them or buy them. Perhaps it’s just the rebellious kid in me, but I really get a kick out of finding out what was so objectionable about the book. Plus, it gets me to think. I mean, really think, and even meta-think. “Why would they want this book banned or burned? What are they thinking?” It’s helpful to expand your mind in a variety of ways. Not only is the reader enriched by the literature itself, but also enriched by trying to think of why a book would be so volatile to some.

I see people who say, “these days, everyone has to be offended about something.” It’s true, but it is not unique to our time period. Take a long look back at history, and you’ll find plenty of people who have found offense with things. What happened? They were heard, things changed a bit, or they were ignored, and the status quo was maintained. Ho hum. Boring. Move along.

Today, all I ask of you is to be inspired. You don’t have to write something just for the sake of ‘being offensive,’ but write something that you’re passionate about. Someone will likely be offended by it, even if you didn’t intentionally infer anything at all. So, you might as well turn up the heat a bit and write about topics that interest you, topics that light you on fire and enjoy every word.

WRITE FOR YOU.

Remember, offense is taken, not given. I write horror. A lot of horror. I enjoy writing horror. One of my chapters in Silver Hollow is about a man who kills children. I bet there are people who take a whole lot of offense to that. Did I mean to be offensive? No. It’s a story, and that’s all it is. To me, it’s a truly disturbing story that was stuck in my head and I needed to write it. So, I did, and there it is. Certainly there are some people who would want to ban the story, some who will think I’m a nutjob, and some who will just read it and say, “meh, it was okay,” and still some who will read it and say, “that was XX minutes of my life wasted.” Am I responsible for their reactions? Nope. I’m responsible for me.

Now, if someone comes along and says, “your story inspired me to kill a bunch of people,” am I responsible for that?

Nope. That person just needed an excuse.

If someone comes along and says, “your story stopped me from killing a bunch of people and made me rethink my life,” am I responsible for that?

As much as I’d love to take credit for that, nope. Again, that person made a decision.

That’s not to say we don’t influence one another to think, or to act, but in my years spent studying psychology and working with patients as a supervised therapist, as well as reviewing hundreds of case studies and blah blah blah, I believe that we are ultimately responsible for the way we act and think. We just have to learn that we’re responsible for ourselves. Some people don’t know that, yet.

So, have you been shying away from that piece on abortion you’ve been wanting to write? How about that piece on going hunting? What about that work you’ve been putting off about heroin addiction?

What are you afraid of, that your book will get banned? That people will be mad at you? That someone will tell you that you suck?

Fuck ‘em. Write it anyway.

Elizabeth Bishop once wrote a poem on loss, called One Art. When I first heard that poem, I was 21 years old, and my father had just died. Oddly enough, I didn’t really think of it as a poem on death. But the last line really stuck with me for years (and still remains with me):

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

That ‘write it’ right there? WRITE IT. That’s what I tell myself when I want to shy away from a certain topic.

It might not be the disaster you think it will be. But hopefully, your writing will piss enough people off to get them talking and thinking. Write with passion. Write with intelligence. Write to have fun and maybe even make a point.

Write because you want to, not whether or not it will be offensive.

But for the fun of it, love, tell yourself you’re gonna write something worth burning.

More About Grammar

During last week's blog post about grammar, I got some great feedback on Twitter from my friend, @flickguy. It was a quote (sent in a couple of tweets to me) from a NaNoWriMo experience he'd had in 2005:

If your spelling and grammar turns readers off right from the start, your thoughts and ideas are worthless because you've failed to communicate them to anyone.

The quote was attributed to Holly Jahangiri, a professional writer and author, and she's absolutely right. Have you ever picked up a book (typically self-published) and, just a few pages in, got rid of it because the language in it wasn't reaching you? Much of the time, it isn't because the writer is using circumlocutory language, but because they never bothered to edit their prose and correct their spelling and grammar mistakes.

Now, there are some really great self-published works out there, actually. Well-written, with excellent spelling and grammar, free of egregious mistakes. I'm not knocking self-publishing. I'm knocking writers who don't get their work copy edited before publishing because they don't want to pay for it and couldn't get their work published traditionally (likely because their query letter was so filled with said egregious errors, but that's for another blog post).

Basically, what I'm saying is this:

GET YOUR WORK EDITED, ESPECIALLY IF YOU'RE NOT GREAT AT SPELLING AND GRAMMAR.

But you can save that for the editing process.

Now, last week, I also said that dialog is a different matter altogether. Because it is. Essentially, don't forget to listen to how people say the things they say. Ever read V.C. Andrews? This sort of Gothic thriller fiction was great for me, especially when I was a teenager, but one of the things I couldn't stand was her dialog. Of course, it was purposefully crafted that way, but it was so stiff...so punctilious, it would get on my nerves.

Unless you're going for that kind of prose and dialog, I would suggest you listen to the way people speak to one another, and work from there. If you have to, read it out loud and hear how it sounds. If it comes across as too stiff, change it up a bit and relax. Unless your speaker is an erudite university professor, you probably want it to come off a tad more unrefined.

Don't let your hard work get pushed to the side by bad spelling, grammar, or overconscientious dialog. Get it edited, check it yourself, and be proud of the manuscript you've built.

Does Grammar Matter?

Okay, so you're writing a novel, book, literary piece, short story, etc. Typically that means you have something to say. Maybe you're not the best speller or grammarian in the world, but you have the right to tell your stories, just like anyone else.

So is the story more important than the spelling and grammar?

Yes, and no.

When you're writing your story, you're weaving a tale that, most likely, you will want read by more than just one or two people. Yes, yes, of course you're writing your story for you, but be honest with yourself: wouldn't you also like for other people to enjoy the story as much as you have?

If so, you're going to need to get a copy edit.

You want to present a polished manuscript to your publisher. It doesn't have to be perfect (no manuscript is), but you do want it to be as good as it can get so that the publisher doesn't take one look at it and say, "this is a mess, forget it."

There is an exception when it comes to spelling and grammar, though, and that's in your dialog. When characters (and people) speak to one another, they don't always follow the rules of grammar (they split infinitives, just as I did here, and they even do more than that) and the spelling may reflect their accents. They say, "I could care less," instead of the correct "I couldn't care less," and they say, "ain't," "carryin'" and "Australopithecus afarensis."

Just wanted to see if you were still paying attention.

So, with the exception of dialog, you want your narrative to be spelled correctly and use relatively proper grammar. Don't make it a mess. Turn on that spell check, and have a couple of people go through and edit your copy once you're finished.

Remember, even editors, when they go through your manuscript and make changes, are capable of spelling and grammar errors. No one is exempt. Always check your work.

Sometimes, it's the difference between having your work read and having it trashed.