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Personal rants and other things

We are about five days from November 1st (Yeah, I know I’m not constant on the way that I count days. Bite me) and I’m still plotting for the novel (curse you, aqua notes). So, I wanted to do a little self-promotion (because I’m both lazy, and a genius) by reusing some old posts and bringing up the topic of…organization. Yup, that old thing. So, a while back I wrote two guides for scrivener, and talked about how amazing that thing is when writing novels. I know that some people just hate the thing because it’s so damned complicated to use at times, but that’s why I wrote the guides. It really is a powerful tool…(scrivener people, send me money for the free marketing, please). Free advertisements aside, that software really helped me at thinking about organization and structure a little differently. I used to have outlines before, but they […]

T-Minus 5 – Still Plotting for NaNoWriMo

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During a class, a professor asked us, “what is creativity?” and “how do you harness it?” To give a little background on that, it was a class about teaching creative writing, so the topic was on how to get writing students actually writing. See, a lot of people tend to hit walls, often calling the experience “writer’s block.” Well, that’s not exactly what writer’s block is, but the issue still stands as a problem that writers often face. Before moving on, let me clarify writer’s block. It’s not the inability to come up with a story or unable to start writing. Instead, writer’s block is usually hit at a point of extreme fatigue. I’m sure most writers have been there. I’ve been there. It can be after a long day of mental-taxing work. You return home, eager to hit that wordcount, but nothing comes out. Essentially, you’re tired. Another way […]

on Dreams

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I’m not sure if the “Aqua Notes” were a blessing or a curse for me. It’s almost like they’re an open door to the horrible thoughts I get in the shower. For example, in today’s shower, I completely removed the war from my NaNoWriMo novel, the one I’m going to start writing in about four days. For those who don’t know, these “Aqua Notes” are special water resistant pages bound as a notepad with suction cups to put on your shower’s wall. Yes, if you’re into writing—or just have plain weird ideas in the shower like me—this sounds like an amazing invention. Don’t get me wrong. It is an awesome invention. It just that I don’t think I can handle the responsibility of owning them. I guess I’m complaining because changing this war thing will completely change the past timeline. That means that my outline for the past timeline will […]

Aqua Notes

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Okay, so. Originally, I meant the Not Writing Advice as a section of my blog to compare different clashing writing advice, but it slowly evolved into a slightly rant-like idea in my head. Now, I keep thinking about this as a “the crap that comes along writing that writers never talk about.” And I mean it. There’s just so much that writers never talk about. For example, no one ever brings up just how difficult it is to find a writing group in person. Yes, I know you can go online and find all sorts of communities. I’ve met a lot of people through NaNoWriMo, and even met some important people in my life through other writing online communities. But, I want to clarify. I’m talking about groups of people in person, the types of groups you go to and meet with the people. Something like a workshop in a […]

NWA – Groups

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See the clock? That’s 10 minutes to midnight on my count. NaNoWriMo is coming… The first NaNoWriMo I ever participated in was way back in 2011; And since then, it has become a huge ritual every year. I put a lot of time and effort into it, the whole event being a huge push in my own work. If it weren’t for NaNoWriMo over the years, I wouldn’t have written as much as I have today. Heck, many of my projects wouldn’t even exist. That’s why I highlight it so much, and it’s also why my blog will take a shift to the “NaNoWriMo” type blogs throughout the next month. That’s why I want to sort of introduce what I’ll be working on throughout this coming month. I plan to finish one of my old projects, “The Black Symphony,” a supernatural / cosmic horror / fantasy fusion about a curse […]

NaNoWriMo Shenanigans

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I’ve already written about this topic in passing before. I mentioned how word count is a terrible way to measure someone’s aptitude in writing. I think I might have even alluded to this same concept again when I mentioned novels are not written overnight. But it’s extremely important to highlight this idea. Or, maybe, just maybe, it’s all because this is an issue that I’ve struggled with myself for a long time. When I set out to write my thesis for my writing program, I thought I would create something intellectual, the type of thing scholars teach for years. But then, I ended up writing an action science fiction thriller about a guy who loses his online identity. There is a major car chase in the first act, and there’s some gun fights in the second half. It’s more akin a summer blockbuster than English canon material. And, that depressed […]

You are a Real Writer

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I’ve mentioned a name of one of my projects, Jack Meredith, multiple times before, and I always talk about how it had a drastic change. Ask me about it, and I could talk about multiple iterations, all extremely different than the next. But, the actual important part of that story isn’t that it changed a lot. It’s why. See, when I went into my writing program, I had this idea. I wanted to become the absolute best writer I could be. I wanted to write things that were smart and people thought were smart. I wanted to write literary science fiction (and for those who don’t know the jargon, that pretty much means I wanted my books taught in school because I was just that pretentious). So, I focused on the purpose of the book. I focused on writing this book with that idea over just writing the story. In […]

Purpose

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When I came up with the “not writing advice” series, I had one idea in mind for it. I want to talk about the things no one really tells you about writing. And, this is probably one of the biggest things no one ever brings up. No one talks about it. Some don’t even acknowledge it. Writing isolates you. It doesn’t sound that bad until you start to consider relationships. And, I don’t mean just romantic ones. Yes, those probably take the biggest hits, but all relationships take a hit. Friends, family, and acquaintances, writing compromises all of these relationships because it forces the person into a relationship with the page. It’s as if all writers had a jealous and clingy lover that snared them into a small room with them all the time. This reaps all of the writer’s free time and can push people away. Ultimately, this can […]

Not Writing Advice: Isolation

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Some time ago, I posted on the idea that “someone would always dislike your writing.” And although that is pretty true considering how varied the world is, the reverse is also true. Someone out there will find your writing interesting, so there’s no reason to give up if there isn’t an audience yet. Though not universal, writing is a collection of shared experiences. Maybe you’re writing about an alien who is unlike the other aliens, so they’re cast aside. Someone will connect to that, maybe even identify. See, that’s the thing about stories that are told from the heart. They tend to be real in one way or another. So, maybe the story will not be the next American novel, but it will help someone. Maybe it teaches people that they’re not alone. That’s the real point to writing. So as long as the story is honest and sincere from […]

Audience

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Some of the people I know hate to go to the theater with me because, in their words, “you don’t like anything.” I find the claim ridiculous. I mean, I love a lot of movies…right? I guess my issue is that I don’t hold my punches back. I loved the new Star Wars movie. Sure, but I had a lot of issues with some of the characters and some of the plot. I won’t go into that film’s issues, but I do this for a lot of movies, whether I like them or not. And it’s all because, and I really do believe this, writers are horrible as critics. They just know way too much about storytelling for their own sake. One way that I’ve always seen this as bad, especially if you’re sharing your work with a fellow writer, is that writers tend to over-analyze. Within writing, there’s just […]

Critical

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