Some advice for beginners, or those who have trouble getting a start on writing.
Writing Advice
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
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
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
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
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
Every time I write, I think, “this sucks. When the hell am I going to get better?” Over the years, that question has just gotten underlined and highlighted. I think I’ll ask it once or twice a writing session, especially more when I am revising or editing. It drives me insane. But, the thing is, writers are blind to progress. Writers, artists, and people in general improve over time. The worst part is that it’s exponential when it’s a skill. So, when a writer looks at their writing, sometimes it’s literally impossible to see the improvement that has happened over time. This happens to me all the time. The thing is, it’s because our visions tend to be very narrow. We don’t have minds that keep years in scope. We look at the now. Maybe we look a day ahead or a day behind. The rest are memories, but never […]
Blinded
Probably the best advice, and the most obvious one, that I ever received in my writing program was: “you can’t please everyone.” I got it because after workshop, I’d revise my work and attempt to make the story good for everyone. But, the more I worked it to appease one person, another one found that “fix” problematic. The idea of a universally love product is simply insane. If you really think about it, everything out there always has a naysayer. Even some of the best things on earth have hater. Like pizza. I think everyone could agree that pizza is simply the best food. There’s not competition. Yet, there’s always some jerk who hate’s life and disagrees with me. It’s the same with writing. Someone will always hate something in the work. Maybe they hate a character or a particular scene. You can’t somehow edit everything in a story to […]
Pleasing the Crowd
I think writers at one point ask, “how do you write a novel?” It’s almost as if people hoped that there was a secret. Sure, it would be awesome if say, I could travel to the future, grab the novel I wrote, and bring it back. I could then copy it and publish it (you know, ignoring the time paradox). Sadly, novels are not written overnight. I mean, I wish I could write a novel in a single day, and I know some people can write like 25k words in one go, but that’s not how it works. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can already hear someone say, “I can write it in one day!” My answer to that is either that the novel probably sucks, or that the person is lying to themselves. The only way to really finish a long project is to write a little every day. There’s […]
Being Consistent
Give up. There’s no point to your work. No one is going to read it anyway. These are all thoughts that cross my mind all the time as I write, and I know they attack everyone at one point, especially all the writers trying to make it out there. But no one should listen to them. No one should give up. It’s hard for me to admit it, but recognition, especially online nowadays, is not easy to get. People can spend a lot of time working on a project that only one person will see. And that reality sometimes gets to me. I want that recognition. I want people to read my work. I want people to comment on it. But that really isn’t what matters. What really matters is that I do it—my writing, my blog, and anything else—for me. It is my own personal recognition that should be […]