Introduction to Ideas
“Well, the first thing you should have is an idea and then… Well, first you need something to write with. They… they know that. Well, obviously you need a writing instrument and you need an idea. I’m just not sure which should come first.
- Dr. Temperance Brennan, character from the TV series, Bones, on what advice she has for budding authors.
The idea is the single most important aspect about writing a story. After all, without an idea, you’re stuck with typing random words or scribbling gibberish on a piece of paper. But for some new writers, the initial idea never gets beyond a spark. A variety of forces keep that spark from spreading into a raging fire of a novel (or script, or novella, or whatever medium the authors choose to write in), and that smoldering pile of embers lingers in the back of the mind forever.
There are as many ideas on how to write as there are authors. Everyone has a different method of writing, a different path to success. Every writer has their own challenges and inspirations. Don’t get stuck taking one author’s road, because it may not work for you. That’s not to say you shouldn’t listen to the experts, because you should. Read every book on writing and publishing that you can get your hands on. Find blogs, read articles. Take their advice and use what fits you. Most importantly, find people who are in your situation – new writers who have not seen the other side of the publishing spectrum. They have useful insights that won’t be given by published authors, who sometimes advise on what to do, but not how to accomplish what they talk about.
So where does one begin? There’s the idea, and something to write with, so what’s next? That is simple.
Write it down.
Forget grammar, punctuation, spelling and syntax. Take a piece of paper and pen and write down your idea. Do it now.
You’re done with the simple part. Now that your idea is out of your head, you can work on building and expanding it into the great novel, novella, script, short story that you are aiming for. Push aside procrastination, ignore distraction, and persevere through any challenges life throws at you. Find the combination of forces that will stoke your flames rather than stifling them and just keep writing. You’ll get there.
Wednesday: Short story challenge progress
Friday: Links of the week
Monday: Finding your Ideas
Small Challenges
So, it’s been a long time since I posted here, and it’s not from lack of material. I have had topics planned for months, but I have to admit that there really hasn’t been the strong motivation to compose and post a blog entry. Some of it is that good old insecurity (“Um, who cares what I have to say?”), some is distraction (“Oooh, I wonder if DateWrecks has a new post tonight?”), some is writing, though not the productive kind (collaborative writing with my two writing partners) and the rest is sheer exhaustion from working all day.
Tonight, though, I have something to say, and maybe this will start getting me motivated to post the topics previously alluded to. I’d like to start writing blog posts aimed at new writers like myself, who have not had any experience in the later stages of writing and publishing. Whatever I learn, I will share.
Anyway, what sparked this post is a challenge that someone in my NaNoWriMo group sent out. It consists of writing ten short stories in ten weeks. I am definitely up for the challenge, and I’m particularly intrigued by the third rule:
1) write ten short stories (first drafts) in ten weeks
This means you can write more than one a week or less than one a week.
But the short stories have to be greater than 4k words long.
2) must re-write all the short stories at least once before nanowrimo
3) must submit all the short stories to at least one publisher (not
necessarily the same publisher) by year end; ideally, this is a
publisher that pays at least 6 cents a word or more
Oi. The publisher part is intimidating, but what the heck? It’s a learning experience that I haven’t had the pleasure of going through, yet. So, off I go, to write my ten stories. Believe me when I say that there are way more than ten ideas banging around my cranium.
Now, I do have some personal challenges, as well. These I pretty much just came up with as I was writing this post.
1) Update this blog at least once a week with something useful for the beginning writer. Partly to help myself solidify my own steps towards publication, partly to help others who are on the same path. I’ve found that while those who have been in the trenches have a lot of worthwhile information and advice, the advice given tends to be rather broad in scope. There’s a lot of “This is what you do,” and not enough of “This is how to get it done.” A small distinction on the surface, but it makes a huge difference to those of us who have never been there. More on this later.
2) Write at least one non-fiction article. My brother said I should, and he’s pretty smart (and he reads this blog). There are opportunities there that I could take advantage of, and there are a lot of topics to write about. I just need to pick one.
3) Progress reports. Now, I realize there aren’t many people out there who really care about the progress reports of an unpublished writer, but I also realize I have a few friends who really like to know where I’m at in my writing. Those are the people (*cough*Kathy*) who send me little notes wondering how I’m doing, and that is encouraging. I like having fans.
So, there are my 4 challenges. I begin tomorrow, and only because it’s closing in on midnight and I have to sleep, unfortunately. I swear it’s not a procrastination attempt…
Why yes, I am alive.
I know, it’s been 7 months since I last posted in this blog, and I really have little excuse except for one. Getting home so late, after working a grueling day, with what I do being mentally draining, I don’t have any energy left to write coherently. Besides, I don’t really have anything interesting to say, unless my readers want to hear the dull details of life in a print shop.
That, however, is changing, come Monday. New job, different hours, more time and energy to think. And, of course, there’s only 30 days left until NaNoWriMo, which usually inspires angsty, stressed-out writing from me around the second week. Hopefully, I will have more inspiring posts until then.
At least for this NaNo challenge, I have a story idea that seems to be a little more energetic than in past years. My first October pre-writing exercise resulted in an aha! moment for a plot. It’s a bit different than what I’m used to, in that it’s a fantasy setting, but there are enough paranormal events that it makes the horror side of my soul giggle in maniacal glee. So, we’ll see what happens.
If you’re ready to stick with me, thanks. I hope to not disappoint.
Insecurity
I suffer from it. All aspects of my life suffer from it, but since this is a writing blog, I’ll explain how it pertains to my writing.
Every time I send out something I’ve written for another person (or persons) to read, I immediately want to take it back. Is it good enough? Is it written well enough for the reader to understand it? How can I make it better? Is it memorable?
Of course, the questions give way to statements… This is not my best work. They’re just saying it’s good to make me feel better, but it sucks. My descriptions are generic and uninspired. Cliché. Boring. My characters don’t talk to my readers. The plot is stupid. This sucks. I suck. I hate this story.
And so on.
Over time, this has led to me being unable to edit my work into anything resembling publishable form. I’ve written outlines to several dozen novels. My computer is full of half-finished drafts. I have a complete first draft to a novel that I absolutely detest- even though I loved it at the time and so did my beta reader.
Ok, I know I’m not a bad writer. I’ve seen bad writing. I’ve seen bad writing that’s been published. What I worry about is that I’m just too average of a writer to get anywhere with it. There are so many authors out there that I worry that if I don’t create something that’s NEW and FRESH and ORIGINAL that my manuscript will end up in every slush pile in America, and my hard work will never be seen.
I’ve toyed around with the thought of self-publishing; still, there’s no guarantee my work will sell. Or, I can just forget the whole publishing aspect of it and keep my words to myself. Lots of options there, but it still doesn’t alleviate my insecurity about my writing.
The best solution for this, I’ve decided, is to join a writers group. I did find one and went on Wednesday, and so far I feel rather comfortable with this group. I didn’t get a chance to share anything I’ve written, mostly because I wasn’t able to print out my story before showing up, but from the feedback everyone was giving, I am looking forward to when I can get my own. I did post a story on the group site and while I have only gotten one response, it was good feedback that I will use to rewrite. This is a new group, so time will tell if it will be beneficial to me in the long run. I hope so. I liked the people that were there, and I’m looking forward to the next meeting.
Now, I shall go edit something. I have a lot to do this year and sitting around watching youtube videos isn’t going to get me anywhere, as entertaining as it is. hehe
Easy Street, Arizona
I do a lot at my job, which is in some ways a blessing. At least I get the occasional chuckle out of what I see, even when I’m being yelled at for something beyond my control.
Part of what I do involves the preparation of mailing lists. We’d had a large mailing for the AZ DOT last month, so my task yesterday was to remove several hundred addresses that had been returned by the post office and tagged as vacant. Now, normally, I don’t read the lists, but because I had to locate each address in the list, I had no other option. Even so, I wasn’t paying much attention to the street names… at least until one particular street name caught my eye.
East Sittin Pretty Path.
Of course, I had to show everyone in the shop and when I was done, I went back to my task. And found more. Ones that were equally bizarre and some that were just downright stupid.
It made me wonder just what these people were thinking. Did these community planners sit around a table, pulling random names out of a hat when it came time to name the streets? Apparently so. Just take a look at some of the gems they came up with for this community…
Some were pretty standard, scenery-inspired names: Summit View Drive, Pinnacle Pass Loop, Sable Way, Sunrise Vista, Sunset Court, Granite Peaks, Summit View, Autumn Sage Street, Pleasant View Drive, Overlook Drive, Plateau Ridge Road (isn’t that a contridiction?).
There were those named after animals, too: Sleepy Owl Way, Coyote Springs Road, Ringtail Drive, Lost Horse Circle, Wildcat Way, Impala Drive, Gazelle Road (last I checked, impalas and gazelles weren’t in Arizona).
Spanish words (surprisingly not as many here as in California): Saluda Avenue, Siesta Sunset Lane, Tierra Buena Lane, Gato de Luna (hahaha Moon Cat?), Mesteno Road (which, by the way, remains untranslated).
Then there are the hokey desert/western theme streets that are probably in every city and town in the Southwest: Painted Wagon Path, Dusty Trail Way, Gentle Winds Road, Prickly Pear Path, Brilliant Sky Way, Bramble Berry Lane, Big Star Trail, Trigger Road, Palomino Lane, Circle Wagons Way, Buckshot Road, Goldmine Way, etc, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
Last, of course, are the ones that made me snort, and not in a ha-ha-funny sort of way. These are what make me wonder about the people who name our streets…
From the plain dumb- Short Walk Way, Paradise Found Trail, Pretty Penny Path, Trottin Down Road, Esteem Way (did they run out of words?)
To just outright stupid: Easy Street, Far Away Place, Dawn to Milky Way, Out of the Way Place, Winners Circle, Penny Lane, Memory Lane.
Really? Seriously, developers? Far Away Place? Memory Lane? Really? Come on… really?
If I put any of those street names in a novel, an agent would chortle and demand I change them to real street names. Of course, I could just send them a map of Prescott Valley and let them see for themselves that someone really does live on Easy Street, Arizona.
I wasn’t going to do Twitter. Just like Facebook and Myspace (and WordPress and Blogspot…) and all those other social networking sites, I just wasn’t interested. I have a hard enough time visiting a site every day, much less writing to it. See, I do write every day. I’ve written some form of fiction nearly every single day for the past three years. It’s just what I do now, and I enjoy it. But writing personal stuff is just a lot harder, because I don’t think I’m at all interesting.
So, despite my misgivings, I joined Twitter and started following a few friends and an author or two (Hi J.A. Konrath! I stalk you at Twitter too!), not really expecting much but a link back from said friends.
This morning, I was informed that an author… a published author… an author I’ve read, even… has started following my Twitter. I hadn’t linked to her, nor did I seek her out. I almost fell off the chair. Why? What did I do that made her eyes turn in my direction?
I don’t know. I still don’t. But it really encouraged me to keep going, I’ll tell you that. So, after I did my little fan-girl *squee* and text messaged Deb, I Twittered a little and wrote this blog.
And now I’m over it.
(But not really. *squee!*)
http://twitter.com/stucuxi
Story of the day
As I was bombarding my coworkers with dumb jokes today, I remembered this little story I’d written a couple of years ago. It’s written from a joke, so you may have heard it before.
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dngf3z7_8cnn8dbgv
I have a blog?
I always forget about this blog. Partly because I know no one reads it, but mostly because I get so caught up in other things that I push it aside.
Thankfully, the “other things” are various writing projects. I do have way too many going at once, but I can’t stop. There are just too many ideas that I think of all at once and I have to get them down on paper before another one hits. I really wish I was more organized… or I had more hours in the day to write. And far less distractions.
Sleep is a blessed event
You’d think that after spending the last month fighting for every little scrap of sleep so that my conscious mind can come up with wicked plot twists and the words that will shock the world, I would revel in the fact I can get all the sleep I need. Yet, here I am, at almost 1am, writing furiously in collaboration with another, in order to bring an evil, wicked event to fruition before our readers awake. They are going to kill us for what we’re writing.
Anyway, I digress. Sleep. I should be doing that.
Behind
I’m officially behind on my word count.
Tonight was a dreadful night to try to write. So so tired, plus all the distractions (self-imposed and otherwise) of non-stop phone calls and friend chatting, brings me to a day and a half behind.
I really need sleep, though, since I’m having to go to the polls before work. If I wait until after, I won’t make it. But maybe if I get enough sleep, I’ll be awake enough to get into a nice writing groove tomorrow night.
Good night, all.
Word count: 2852 (goal: 5001)
