Working on getting the courage to write

[syberlion]

Didn't know this place existed - Guess Skinner was right about finding things around DU. Hope this works. That's all I have to write for now, at least it is a start.

Thank you.

[orleans]

1. i'm posting here because i want them to keep this group

good luck with the writing
(maybe wish me the same?)

[icymist]

2. I'm working out a paragraph a day

from the 50,000 plus text I wrote at the last NaNoWrMo. Mine is an urban fanasty novel.

[Ozymanithrax]

3. I've sold six short stories, and writen two unpublished novels...

I am finsihing my third novel. I am considering editing my first two novels and using e-publishing.

I don't think of writing as needing courage quite as much as it needs discipline. It is hard to set down at the keyboard and set your own goals.

The best way is to start small, write a short story, and write it all the way through.

Good luck wih the writing. For me, it is a mind saver.

[Chan790]

10. How do you find the discipline?

I find it easy to sit down every day to write for a few hours...for about two weeks, then life intervenes or I don't feel well or I just don't feel like writing and the whole thing falls back to zero-equilibrium until some new idea catches my fancy and inflames my writing-drive again.

I've got to have 500 started ideas at this point that die after 10-30 pages. I know I have talent but I think I lack the drive to actually do this.

[beyurslf]

11. I am right there with you. Life just starts to happen

and all of a sudden, I have written a word in over a month.

[Fearless]

15. The same thing happens to me ALL the time...

I have five or six novels in the works at varying degrees of completeness... No kidding though. They're not even close to related either. Several different genres.

Several things I do to get to work:

Set a time each day, every other day, or maybe on the weekend where you will sit down and write for an hour. Nothing but write. If you get nothing on paper, oh well, you still have to sit there. And don't stare at the clock as you are writing. Once you start, don't stop until you've finished for the day or that hour has passed. Either way.

Personally, I need to do it in the morning before anything else, I'll even get up early sometimes! I used to wait until late at night when the day was done, but by then I was more interested in wandering the web than doing any serious writing.

I was/sometimes am a serial facebook checker / DU wanderer. I unplug the internet now in the house before starting to write. It helps a lot. There's surprisingly little on my computer to distract me, so I work longer and get distracted less.

Hope it helps some.

[JDPriestly]

4. I've done a lot of writing -- but for money and to please employers.

Now I want to write for myself.

It's quite a switch.

It's easy to summon up discipline when you get paid to do it. Much harder when the paycheck is uncertain and maybe not at all realistic.

[babydollhead]

5. writing happens while you are writing.

Just write.

[SlimJimmy]

9. That's it in a nutshell. Just write as the thoughts come to you, then edit later.

[onlyadream]

6. I've written a few books

And writing definitely takes courage since you're putting yourself out there. It isn't easy. A great thing to do is to join a writers group (most public libraries have them, or you can find groups on line). They'll read your work an offer their expertise. I've learned so much form the group I go to.

[sybylla]

7. Writing groups don't always work.

Not that they can't. It just takes a lot of effort to find a good one (by that I mean one that works for you.)

I joined several before I found one that worked for me. Part of the problem is finding one where the readers are good at giving feedback either for your genre or no matter the genre.

The first one I joined was full of 70-somethings writing their memoirs, which was fine but did not work with my fiction writing. Their heads were in an entirely different place than I needed them to be. Which was fine for them, so I moved on.

The second was populated by people just poking around on the keyboard for fun. They weren't serious about writing. It was a hobby, not a job for them. That's okay, too. But that meant when it came time to share critiques, they just couldn't be bothered to put much effort into it, if they even found the time at all to read what you'd written.

And then there are the writing groups that have a bad personality mix or are dominated by the biggest personality in the room and everything that's said or done is only said or done through the eyes of that dominant person.

All of these disappointing writing group experiences are hard on beginning writers who are just looking for support and solid criticism which will help them become better writers.

I finally put together a great writers group just through local connections I already had. After my early experiences, I feel very lucky. They've been an immense help to me these last 7 years.

Not trying to rain on the writing group parade, just want to keep expectations real.

[onlyadream]

8. I got lucky

My group is very small and gave me what I needed. I do worry that we've become such good friends that they could be holding back on their real critiques tho.
In the end, I can hear their voices in my ear when I write saying, "Show me!", or "You used that word already, choose another!".
I would like to find an online group who could really tear my stuff to shreds.

[HopeHoops]

12. PM me. I'm a real bastard of a critic.

I edit my wife's work all the time for grammar and "wordiness". One of the best pieces of advice I've ever seen is "edit by reduction". If you're using six words where two will do, go with the two. Phrases like, "needless to say" are needless, as implied by the phrase itself.

If I have time and the subject is in my area of interest, I'll probably agree to review/edit it. I'm not into romance novels, but nearly everything else is okay.

[Remember Me]

13. For a very, very long time

I didn't do the writing I wanted to do because I was reluctant (aka: afraid) to have my name in print. I FINALLY got over it enough to proceed, only because I eventually HAD to do something that required my name be out there and so I did, and lived through it.

Now, having gone through all that, I discovered an amazing truth: I got older anyway. Each day I wasn't doing what I wanted to be doing, I got older anyway.

Nothing stood still and waited for me while I got my act together. It was all getting ready to pass me by if I couldn't wake up and get in the flow of the stream of my life myself.

Truth #2: It wasn't as bad as I'd feared (tip: it never is), so whatever you're afraid of, remember this: The FEAR of the fear is worse than the fear itself. The fear of the fear is what is keeping you immobilized.

Throw the fear aside, and face it fully, boldly and confidently just as a matter of principle. DO IT NOW. And then you can be pursuing your dream each day while you also age.

[McCamy Taylor]

14. The best way to improve your writing is to write.

I wrote thousands of pages of fiction over the course of about ten years before I finally settled upon a style that allows me to write what I want to write.

Also, reread what you have written. Give it a few days, and then go back. If something seems awkward upon rereading, edit it. People today are so lucky to have word processors. Typewriters and Liquid Paper really slow you down.

In addition to writing, I edit fiction at a sci-fi -zine. Here are the problems I see most often with the fiction of folks who have just started writing.

1. Word repetition. If you repeat a word on a page it gets an emphasis in the mind of the reader that it may not deserve. The thesaurus is your friend. Do not write

"Raymond stopped beside the car. He opened the car door and settled himself into the driver's seat. Cautiously, he eased the car down the driveway. Seeing the road clear, he accelerated, and his car took off with a roar of the engine and loudly squealing tires."

That is too many "car"s----unless the hero of this epic is the "car" and you want to make sure the reader knows it.

2. Narrative style that keeps changing for no particular reason. Pick a narrative voice---such as first person present tense or third person past tense---that will allow you to tell the story you want to tell. There is rarely a good reason to change tense---say from past to present---in the same paragraph, unless you are trying to create an atmosphere of heightened awareness (danger) or mental instability. Yes, when we talk we switch from past to present and back again frequently. So, is your narrative voice supposed to be that of one of the characters speaking dirctly to the reader in a casual style? If not, change paragraphs when you chance tense.

3. Dialogue problems. Your characters "talk" to you in your head, but they will "talk" to the reader through their eyes. Make sure that when characters "speak" their words look natural on the page. If you use too much odd punctuation and word mispellings to create the sense that a character is speaking a quaint dialect, your reader will decide that he or she is speaking an unintelligible dialect and stop reading. A few "gonnas" go a long way on the written page. Do not have a character who is ten years old suddenly start sounding like a college professor, even if there is a tricky bit of exposition that you want to get out of the way so you can return to the action.

4. Tell not show. I think by now everyone knows that the proper way to write is "Show, not tell." Especially when writing fiction, you want to suspend disbelief. The best way to do that is to carefully nudge your reader down a specific path, showing them this (shocking) image first and then letting them experience this (fearful) emotion next---just like your character.

5. Fear of short, choppy sentences. Yes, in school they taught us to write complex sentences, using lots of "ands" and "however" and "therefores." This type of writing is the enemy of "show not tell." If your character is in peril, he is not thinking cause and effect. He is thinking "What's that? Damn, scared me to death! Thought my heart would leap out of my chest. Better make sure no zombies are around. I'll just peek around the corner---Sweet Jesus! What the hell is that?"

6. Tell your reader why they should love your hero. Won't work. Readers love a character in direction proportion to how much that character loves someone or something else. And you have to "show not tell" that character in love through his or her actions. Prove that your hero is worthy of being called a hero.

7. Screenplay/graphic fiction in the form of fiction writing. For example, if your were writing a screenplay, having a kick ass martial artists priest would be a winner. Every time the guy wearing the white clerical collar raised his leg for a roundhouse kick, the audience would get that little thrill that comes from witnessing something shocking. On the other hand, if you write about a priest "He delivered a roundhouse kick" your reader will not bat an eyelash. You have to be sure to include lots of references to his priesthood. Yes, I know in your mind's eyes the guy with the black robes and white collar looks mega-cool when he is demolishing the bad guy. Now, get to work on your reader's mind's eye.

8. Let the reader infer the description. Your reader is not a mind reader. He or she will not know that the sunset is a crimson disaster spilling over the ruins of the blackened smoldering city unless you tell him it is.

9. Violate all the rules. Yes, you can violate all the rules if you are writing experimental/arty/surrealistic fiction. Just make sure that you can write as well as William Burroughs if you want to get recognized for doing it. Robert Heinlein wrote that there are only three stories---the Man Who Learned Better (corresponds to the human emotion of grief) The Brave Little Tailor (emotion of anger/violence/adrenalin) and Boy Meets Girl (aka love). I will wait for a moment while you try to think of some famous, much loved story that does not have one, two or three of these elements in it. Take your time. Yes, that's right. Comedy does not tell these stories. Comedy turns these stories on their heads. But they are still the same three stories. If your story does not seem quite right ask yourself "Which of Heinlein's stories am I telling?" If the answer is "None of them. My hero hates everyone. He always fails. And he does not give a shit when things go bad" you had better be writing satire or something akin to the French Cinema of alienation, because your reader is going to have a hard time getting engaged.

10. Write about what you are told to write about not what you want to write about. If you are bored silly by the story you are telling, it will show. Pick a topic that really excites you. Chances are, the story will come from the heart. And you will learn something about yourself in the process.

11. Always follow the rules. There is only one rule in fiction. If it works, then it is appropriate.

[no_hypocrisy]

16. This is what I do.

I have a bound book, not very big, not very small, with blank pages. I pick it up and write 2 sentences or two pages or more, depending on my passion at the moment. Could be an observation, recording what happened, a strong opinion. Then I put it down again. I have a date to memorialize when I wrote it. I've been doing this for 38+ years with about 10 books.

And if you want to utilize what you've journaled, you just take what you need from all those entries. Change the names, choose a new setting if you like.