Easy Peesy
After I self published my first novella, something that I knew that if I didn’t get it off my desk rotting I would have never continued writing; I thought to myself I have a plethora of stories to tell, many of them about my life and my experiences. Since everyone who read UNVAMPED liked it, albeit they wanted more from it than just a novella, I decided to write a short story collection called “Things I learned from Ghosts”; a true story account of my paranormal experiences. Writing about your own experience should have been so easy…
It isn’t. As I sat down and began to write one of the stories, “Miss Victoria”, I couldn’t find an angle that seemed interesting to me. If I went the route of the allure of downtown Savannah, it seemed that I would end up spending more time writing about architecture than about ghostly encounters. Decidedly, I went the route of what was happening in my life at that time, but then I discovered that to really have the reader develop an understanding of that time in my life and the people I was around would reveal things about my past that I haven’t disclosed to many people I am close with. I don’t like secrets but I also don’t like to explain myself so I decided that going that route may not be the best thing either. I am simply not brave enough to put that out there yet. Maybe after I get some successes under my belt, I might. But first I would have to sit a few people down and fess up.
After much pondering, I decided that I should turn the short story collection into a “based on true events” so that I could add that clever element of fiction to the story without giving away too much about certain realities in my life. Yet, I have been tortured about it because I dislike being deceptive with my readers. However, the stories aren’t supposed to be about me insomuch as my choices at that time but more about the ghosts that I encountered.
So I offer this advice to writers, while all writing has a piece of you in it, you don’t have to give yourself up. Writing creative non fiction is a test of how much of you can you weave into the story without getting autobiographical. As I learned, I can’t just sit down and bang out events that happened in my life with ease. Like any type of writing, it still needs to be massaged and coaxed and delivered in an interesting way. It just ain’t easy peesy quick and breezy!
Tangents
Too often the biggest obstacle to the creative mind isn’t a block or inability to manifest a new idea; in fact it is the opposite- having too many creative ideas.
Most people that are successful as writers have one thing they write about. They carve out a niche for in their particular genre and they keep regurgitating variations on that theme for many years. This is what publisher’s like. These people are easy to market and easy to gain followers or sheeple that will propel them into popularity.
But what of those of us who don’t have a niche, or that the niche is within several genres? I am best at character development. This skill fits anywhere, into any genre, and into any type of writing. I recently had a meeting with a literary agent who told me that he was less impressed with my varied and diverse body of work, and would have been more impressed if there had been just ONE idea or story that I was so passionate about that I would die if it didn’t get made. This was so unbelievably retarded to me. Banking my whole life or career on ONE idea. Really? That just seems so unfathomable to me because I keep drawing ideas out of the ether everyday. Yet, look at J.K. Rowling, Stephanie Meyer, Todd McFarlane, Clive Cussler, James Patterson, and the list goes on. It is a tried and true formula. Even my favorite author Jane Austen only wrote about social issues within tortured romances. I just can’t seem to do that. While there is an element of paranormal in most things I write, there are many others things I am working on that are nothing but a bunch of humans running around. Some things are about romance, some are about lost chances, some are about the disappointment of expectations. The reality is that all stories have the same core elements and all we as writers get to do is try to throw some clever twists on them to make them seem less typical.
However, I can understand the issue. I myself have a tendency to work on too many things at once. I suppose it’s a type of creative ADD. Having more than one project going keeps me sane, but the problem is that in the midst of one project, another idea for something else will brew. So I have that little notebook or file on the computer that all my tangents are written in, and one day I will revist them, add them to an existing plot, or file them away for when I can’t think of anything else. Though I am acutely aware that this may not happen to me for many many years.
So what is the trick to keeping these tangents at bay? To focusing on one idea at a time until it’s completion? I don’t know, I really don’t know. But someone let me know if they have a clue. For now I will just keep plugging away until I get things done. Deadlines be damned.
#2012
Impetus
Have you ever noticed that really great plot lines have to be fouled up with a romance or a murder? For instance, secrets are discovered by a lover, or a murder happens and a cop and or reporter must investigate? Why are these situations a go to impetus to begin a great story? What is it about these relationships that are needed for a story to revolve around? Love and death. The two things that we are still searching for answers to? When I start a story, it almost never begins with these two things, but then again I am into character development. I like to start a story with a great character, flesh out the quirks, personality flaws, and then move into a reason that I want to tell a story with this character. Sometimes love does come up, or a death happens, but I really try in some of my more beloved stories to move past these two things and discover other things about life that are notable. These two situations are the catalyst in so much of our lives that can a story truly be complete without them? These are what are called a slice of life moments. These are my favorite stories to write.
Does being invisible make you less of a writer?
When you are trying to ply your trade every one has an opinion. For instance, I will write anything but when I was given a job to write articles for a website that was a privatized version of ehow with really strict rules, “the facts only ma’am” type stuff. I don’t know whether it was the state of mind I was in at the time, having just become a hotel dweller because I lost my loft, or because the relationship I was end came to a brutal end and I was beside myself. However, I could never muster the willpower to do this job. So I declined it, and moved on. As I really began to push my writing into creative fiction, I noticed that what people read and what I write are vastly different in the genres that I am working in, comics and movies appeal to well, a lesser developed sense of literature because they are aided by visuals. Novels are my real passion but who has the time or finances to become a full-time novelist until you actually publish the first one? So I put myself out into the ether and decided that I would not turn down any advising, editing, or ghost writing jobs that came along to pay the bills. Some people who are trying to make it in the business of being a pro writer would cringe at being a ghost writer. While you get paid, you have no claim to the material nor do you get any credit. So is ghost writing a good way to be a writer? Well I would say that it allows you to ply your trade without being called out if it is not up to par. You could use it as time to perfect your prose and develop more style. However, it would also take up precious time that you may have to write your own stories. For me, I think it is a win win situation. I don’t think that it makes anyone less of a writer, and it can fill your coffers with much needed funds so that you can take that month off to go to the beach or mountains and write your great novel. I think that as a writer, you have to try it all, because you might be better in some areas than others. For me, I know that I do not like to write reviews. I get asked time and again for reviews and I refuse to do them anymore. Why? Here’s my philosophy: Those who can’t do, teach, those who can’t teach, criticize. The world is full of people who would love to tell their opinion about something. I myself am rife with lofty opinions. But the question is: Do I want my opinions to determine the success or failure of something? Is that what I want to define me? I say a firm and resounding, “no”! I would rather be invisible.
Musical Muse
Writers struggle on so many levels to find their groove. Our muses are either capricious or steadfast. You might have to hold onto a butterfly net or chain yourself to a desk for days with no distraction. Everyone’s process is different. For me, depending on what I am doing, I watch TV. What??!! This seems so counter intuitive to most writers. But it works for me. If I don’t have multiple distractions then I can get lost in my writing world, my imagination is like Baby Doll when she dances (SUCKER PUNCH) and will take off into some tesseract threading in and out of reality. Most of the writers I know lock themselves into some quiet room and bang away on their keyboards for hours, emerging from the writing mode like they are scared of their shadows. I know some TV writers who actually sit in an office from 9-5. I wish my muse was so tame. However the one thing that I have found that seems to work for almost all writers that I know… MUSIC.
Discussion as to what is the best music varies between writers. I find that those who write horror or action packed stories tend to listen to angry music- hard rock, rap, alternative. Those that write more epic or development driven works go for classical or film scores. Music provokes that emotional connection that you are looking for insomuch that it helps to set the tone for what you are writing. When I am writing I just listen to music period, however, I tend to like singer/songwriters more because their albums tend to ebb and flow with raw emotion, which is where I like to write from. Sometimes when I am trying to envision a particular place and time- scores and classical music help, or cultural music of that time. I find if you know your characters well, they will speak to you through the music, how they would react to it, or how it peps them up or brings them down.
However, I have heard that technical writers or business writers can find this as a distraction. So I suppose with anything it depends on the situation and the person. Sometimes I wonder though how much more work office workers would accomplish if they got to listen to a little music in their cubicles. Music is so important to all of us, it unites us and speaks for us, and as a writer, it can help me speak for my characters.
Inspiration and Research
My mom always seems amazed at the rate that I come up with great story lines. I too find that my brain always has new stories to tell and I do not have to stare off into the sky pondering when the next inspiration is going to hit me. Even my daughter has been caught off guard about my process. One day, I was sitting there watching a movie with her when I suddenly jumped up and started searching for a pen and paper and shushing her as she kept asking me “What’s wrong?” I had a line come into my head, a piece of dialogue that fit into a story. Sometimes for me it isn’t a plot line that happens. It is an image in my mind, a color full picture of a scene, and the words that the character would say in that moment. My muse feeds me puzzle pieces and then expects me to put them with the right story. The most amusing thing that happens to me is that I will be in full force writing something, and another off shoot will spawn and I must stop and write it down before I continue. But once these pieces fall into place there is more work to be done. There is the research period. For me, I always ask has this been done before, if so can I take a different perspective on it. If it hasn’t been done before, how can I make sure that it is the most original aspect of this story idea. Then I hit the books and internet researching to find more pieces of the puzzle. My biggest pet peeve is when someone bases something in reality but they don’t do the research to make is probable. Even in Sci-Fi there is some basis of reality that needs to be built upon to create the suspension of disbelief. Point in fact: Anne Rice… she took many liberties that were outside of what research would have shown. Like calling her Queen of the Damned character AKASHA (clearly a HINDU not Egyptian name) and saying the Egyptian vampire was the oldest. Clearly Hindu predates Egyptian by some 2000 or more years, and is actually one of the first religions to address a god that had a Vampiric progeny. This made the books completely un-enjoyable for me. I realize that as a writer we have artistic license, and as most of our readers are probably uneducated in most aspect of what we write, I feel as I do about Journalism, that you should build off facts unless you are setting your story in an alternate realm or complete fantasy. Even when you look up the name, the very definition of it doesn’t work. I am one of those writers who researches names as well. Like naming your child, naming a character is of great importance, and when someone cops out and names a character Dick, Jane, Jim, Jill, etc. unless it suits a normality of concept, I am disappointed from the get go.
So I suppose that my assertion is that what ever your mind can create inspiration-wise as a writer should be backed up by probable facts. It creates a larger suspension of disbelief for the reader when they have a solid relatable factoid to build upon. Do your research.
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
This quote by Thoreau is something that I feel passionate about. I walked through my life writing all the way through it thinking there was no way I was going to sit down and officially start writing seriously until I felt old enough to say that I have lived. Then someone put it to me, that at 34 I had lived so many different lives that I was insane not to write it all down. It took me a few months to ponder this to satisfaction. However, I resolved that this person’s advice was founded in truth. I was reminded last night how “old” I am in my youngness. When some of your closest friends are 10 years younger than you, out doing and talking about the same things that you used too, you feel a nostalgia about your youth. The thing that tires me the most is relating all the things that I have done in my life to people that weren’t there. I feel like I have died a thousand little deaths, that I have been reborn several times, that I have delved into lifestyles so deep in either direction that I have come back to this middle ground with a greater understanding of life.
To those that aspire to write, you must have lived, you must study how people work, what drives them and motivates them. Never ever let a character suffer development because you need to drive the plot. You need to get inside that character’s head, not treat them like a puppet. The enemies of good writing are contrived situations, and cliched dialogue, and perfectly happy endings tied up with a bow. While people do tend to speak simply in real life, the point of writing is to take a person OUT of the world they are in and transport them to a world where they can relate not because it is exactly the same thing they deal with everyday but because it is a similar situation but from a possibly more elevated or insightful perspective. Think about when you read a classic novel, you obviously don’t live in that time period, nor do they speak the same words as we do now, but the timelessness of the situation transcends this and becomes relatable in the present day. This is the gift of powerful writing. Expose your readers to a world that they are not familiar with and show them the similarities. This means you have to have stood up from your desk, walked out your front door and that you have lived, explored, and loved to give of yourself to the page.
FINDING TIME…
The most interesting thing about being a writer, is finding time to write. The main reason that a writer starves is because in order to get into the zone, and stay there, you must not to ANYTHING else. However, in today’s fast paced and obligation rich society, it is hard to find time. Especially when you are juggling multiple roles. Trying to produce your own work, trying to film and direct your own work, trying to produce another larger project, be a mom, home school the kid, and cart the kid to auditions, rehearsals, lessons, etc. AND actually find time to write… well this is a daunting task. I keep scheming some grandiose vacation where I can have someone watch the kid while I bask in the sun, typing away furiously on my computer. Something where I can avoid the daily interruptions… the dog walking, feeding the kid, taking phone calls, driving. HA! Where do people who write successfully find time? AH! I have it, they are married, or have a significant other, or well don’t take on anything other than writing. Le Sigh. Too bad I can’t just find some time.
Critique and Criticism
When one aspires to be a writer, especially one in fiction, it is hard to get an honest opinion about your work. 
Collaborations
As I stumble along in this world of professional writing, there are things that I am learning that are really beginning to define my path. I always thought that the best way to break into the formats that I wanted to write in was to collaborate with anyone who would work with me. I expected this to enhance my writing talent and expose me to different ideas. However, what I found is that what I love most about writing, is really how writing should be done. Solitary. This is not to say that I wasn’t in some way enriched by the experiences. My now patented analogy for the way a collaboration should progress is a sports metaphor of sorts.
Two people standing on a basket ball court. One dribbles the ball, then shoots the basket, the ball either makes it in the hoop or it bounces off. The other person takes the rebound and dribbles and shoots. Back and forth.
However, the collaborations that I have been engaged in previously were more like I shot the ball at the goal, they caught the ball on rebound and dribbled to the opposite goal.
The other thing is that I was working with people on their “babies”. The first and most important lesson I learned was that you don’t make the first project you do the one that you are most passionate about. Why? Because if you aren’t experienced and it is your first time, so many unexpected things can happen, that you are likely to have to sacrifice more of the integrity of the project than you would want. When working with someone on their “babies”, you run the risk of them being so married to the project in the way that they see it that there is no room for improvement or deviation.
The other issue is vision. There are so many great ideas out there. Someone comes to you with a great or workable idea and want you to work with them adding your expertise. However, when they don’t like where you take it, or their vision begins to walk a different path from what you originally decide upon, are you really collaborating or did they just really hire you to write it in correct format for them. It is easy when you are presented with opportunities that are exciting to get wrapped up wanting to work with them. Especially when you think it might be a great move for your career. You might take on more work than you can actually handle because you want to build your portfolio quickly and diversely.
Taking the time to determine whether you can really work with someone is tricky. How do you really know? You might have a great respect or relationship with that person, and a few initial conversations leave you excited and hopeful. However, not everyone plays well with others, I know I certainly don’t. But it isn’t just about working well with others, or having the same vision, it is about genuine respect and communication.
The current collaboration that I am in right now, showed me how wrong all the others that I attempted were for me. The reason- WORK ETHIC. I like to work. I like to create. I like to get excited about what I am writing. I also like to joke, debate, and assert my opinion. I like open communication and honesty. What I dislike, is when someone repeats themselves over and over, or when they forget why they hired me in the first place, which was for my writing skill. What I love about the current collaborative effort… When I get something wrong or write something bad, he is not afraid to tell me. When I knock the ball out of the park, he also is quick to tell me. Likewise, when I tell him that I don’t like this part or understand this part, it isn’t defensive. He explains, he re-explains, he helps me visualize etc. And in the end, we got something good on paper. Effortless.
It is this situation that made me realize two things, one- that I can collaborate successfully with someone, and two- that having the same compatible work ethic with someone is what ensures success. If one of you is not towing the line, even if that person is you, it is best to cut ties. No harm, no foul.`
The hardest part is letting go of a collaboration is you have already put so much work into the project and if you leave it you most likely aren’t going to get credit. But is it worth it to struggle through something that you may be fundamentally opposed to, and you have to think do you really want your name on it anyway? You can liken this situation to the girl that thinks that she has to take nude pictures in order to become an actress or model only to have them haunt her later in life. However, when you let go, you might just find that you are relieved. You aren’t going to be the right writer for every project.
One last thing, when I was in crisis about these situations, a dear friend in the business explained it to me this way… You have to make sure you know exactly what your job is… If you are a hired hand, then act like a hired hand. If you are part of a creative team, then make sure that is how you are treated. This distinction really defined this year for me. TEAM vs. HIRED HAND. COLLABORATION vs. DICTATION. Distinction for a new writer… TEAM/COLLABORATION means you are working on something that you have control over and you have an investment in. HIRED HAND/DICTATION means you better be getting paid for your time and realize that your input can be given but might not be considered.
Collaborations are like relationships, and the best ones are easy and effective.
