Tag Archives: writing

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Suffering for the Art

Today gives a bit more meaning to the words because there I was, heading down the stairs and doing my usual multitasking thing, getting my new iphone set up so I could work on The Not-So-Super Superhero.

Before any comments about texting while walking, I was really only holding onto the phone when my slipper went loose, I slid down a few stairs, and I hurt a few things.

I noticed I pulled a muscle in my arm trying to stop the fall, probably a part of what made me skin my arm, but that reminded me of my old familiar pain.

Carpal tunnel.

Yes, I have carpel tunnel syndrome, in both hands. It is more pronounced in my right hand, my dominate one, and it is partially inherited–my mother has it as well–but also it’s because of repetitive motion, of writing. Typing.

There are days when I have pushed myself so much with the writing or the typing that I can’t hardly feel my hand anymore.

It doesn’t stop me from writing. Not because I’m a masochist, but I love writing. As much as I used to need to get to the next section of a book I was reading, since I started writing, I need to get to the next part. I love spending time with the characters, almost like being with a friend or watching a really good movie.

A little bit of pain is worth it to spend the time I can doing what I love and enjoying the stories and worlds that I help create. The characters choose their path, they lead the story where it’s going to go, so they have half the credit, at least.

My arm hurts even now, but it is time to go back to the world beyond the garden shed, and I’m looking forward to that.

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The Necessity of Computers

A writer’s most important tool is the computer.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. You don’t have to have a computer to write. You can picture scenes in your mind, perfecting the dialogue and the characters’ movements. You can use any phone that has note taking capabilities to make notes. You can record scenes like you’re dictating to yourself. You can also use the old tried and true method of a pen or pencil and paper. You don’t even need large sheets of paper or notebooks. A few small scraps, and you can still continue your writing no matter where you are.

For a long time, I didn’t have a computer, and certainly not one of my own. Did that mean I wasn’t writing?

Absolutely not. I’ve got stacks of notebooks, folders, and loose sheets of paper that show just how much I was writing when I didn’t have a computer. I have shelves full of these stacks. Drawers of them.

So why is the computer so important?

Because it allows the stories to be shared.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. People can, assuming they can get past my unique handwriting, read the stuff I write by hand. They just have to be here, in person, to do so.

So the paper part limits things considerably, especially when the bulk of people who give me comments on my stories are not here in person. They’re across the country or across the world. Without a convenient way to type them up and share them, it’s harder to make progress.

Transferring the handwritten notes to typed documents is not something I’ve been all that good at in the past, as the years worth of untyped stories would attest.

It used to be that I was extremely against the idea of typing. I did not write anything on the computer. I didn’t like the way things looked on a computer screen. It didn’t seem the same, not like “writing” when it wasn’t done by hand. In fact, I used to say that it was only “writing” if I did it by hand. If I was on the computer, that was “typing.”

I must, I think, credit my change in attitude to the years I spent writing fanfiction. Say what you will about it, the experience I gained there helped me in a lot of ways (giving me a place to share my stories and receive criticism, that sort of thing) but also in the fact that I actually had to overcome my stubbornness when it came to typing.

Now, typing is the same as writing, and the computer is essential. It is as much of a necessity as coffee.

Naturally, this makes my laptop’s recent issues with “oh, look, I have a loose connection so I shall pretend to die” very distressing. I’d say I have fallen behind schedule, particularly with the editing, as the computer becomes inaccessible for days at a time. I still write, but it’s not as easy to do when borrowing a computer. Then I get mine working again, and it suddenly quits again. This has been rather a technological nightmare, and the ups and downs of it are extremely stressful. Picture me, ready to curl up in a ball and cry because my computer will not turn on.

It was only because I’d been in the middle of a scene. I swear.

It is working now, by the way. We shall see how long this lasts.

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What to Do When the Ideas Won’t Stop Coming

So, I already have four stories on my plate at the moment. I’ve got The Monster in My Garden Shed, The Not-So-Super Superhero, the second in the Nickel and Dime series–this needs a name, but I’ll figure that out later, it’s one of those books–and another one.

Why then, with all of these stories going, do I have to have a bunch more ideas come to me? I’ve already got more than I can work on at the moment, and I’ve got notebooks and folders and files full of things I’ve started and not completed. One of them I picked up late last night and read over, realizing that, aside from the one part of it, there is absolutely no reason why it shouldn’t be done. I’ve got the beginning written and typed, most of the middle is handwritten or in notes, and the tail end is written as well. This thing should be done. No excuses, really.

So now I find myself wanting to do that.

I also want to start a brand new one that has a very fascinating (to me, at least) concept. Involves aliens and memories and was probably partially inspired by stuff from The Monster in My Garden Shed. This idea is dying to be written.

I don’t have time to do all of these things, though. I barely have enough time to write on the three major pieces, so I need to clear my plate a little before adding in something new.

I sometimes allow for rotation when I have a new story, but as I’m already in a rotation with stories, I can’t add a new one until one of the others completes. The Monster in My Garden Shed doesn’t want to cooperate with me on that, since it keeps adding in something I have to deal with before the end of it can come, and it’s still not clear what that end is. The Not-So-Super Superhero is in its second act, where Clayton is trying to make use of his power and make a life for himself instead of fighting it, and now he’ll have to fight against other people instead. That may mean it’s closer to a conclusion, but I’m not actually sure how long it will take to resolve all of that, either. The second Nickel and Dime is coming along, but it’s not ready to conclude yet. The other story is done, but can I really add another one in already? I don’t get to the ones that I’ve got enough as it is.

And what of the one that should be complete and isn’t?

And all the ones that I should type?

Well, I have some options. I write the idea down, and I might come back to it later. I might give it a scene or two, thinking I’ll get back to it in a while. This usually doesn’t work. If I don’t “run” with the story when it’s fresh, it doesn’t usually happen. Any Other Reality is an exception to this. It was put off for months, not started, and written in less than a month. Still, it’s an exception, not a rule.

The other option, and I do this with stories I know I don’t want to put down on paper, is to picture it in my head over and over until it’s done. I can “watch” the movie of the story and I’ve seen it. If I’ve gotten it to its conclusion, there are very few stories that I’m willing to write after that point. I’ve seen all the interesting parts. It’s done.

This new idea is not one to give to a mind movie, though, so it just might have to find a way to be a part of the rotation.

Not enough time, and always too many stories. That’s the nature of a writer, though, right?

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No, App, You Are Not Allowed to Call Yourself Productive

Because if I wanted to go back in and re-space every single stupid letter in a document, I would not have attempted to use you in the first place.

You see, I had mobile word on my phone for a while, and then I was given the opportunity to get a used iphone. It was a great deal.

Except… The writing apps are really, really starting to piss me off.

Yesterday, Evernote lost what I’d been working on, and so I was a little miffed. I decided, in the end, that the thing was crap and didn’t attempt to recreate it, so I more or less forgave Evernote.

I say more or less because I’m still ticked at Evernote’s inability to process spaces. I did a search to see if I could turn off the wrapping thing because I’m not liking this whole my note is one big crappy mess without a space even though I know I used the space bar several times thing. Then it puts in these gray blocks and makes me fix every single space in it when I go to put it in my file. This wouldn’t be so bad, you know, if I wasn’t already OCD enough to need to fix all the stupid quotation marks so that they looked the same, with the curves instead of the straight up and down ones.

So, Evernote was already frustrating me a bit with the spacing issue, but then again today, it lost my changes. More than once. Now, I was told that it saved like crazy, but I’m not seeing it. I’m seeing that when I push save, I don’t get a save. I go to another app on the phone, and I lose what I just did, even thought I know I hit save. More than once.

Frustrated, I downloaded an alternate to this, one that I thought would be better because it was going to upload straight to google docs. I thought that I’d found something that would skip this annoying step.

I was wrong. Very, very wrong.

Not only did it not save part of what I was working on, just like Evernote, but this new one has a spacing issue of its own. It put in a space between every single letter in the document. At least with the other one, it was just the spaces between the words that I had to fix, but this one? Every freaking word.

I’m not pleased. I’m going to delete that app, and I guess I’m back to Evernote, but if I can’t resolve the formatting issue, the iphone might be a lost cause. I need a phone I can type on when I’m not at my computer, and if it can’t do that, then forget it. I have too much to write to waste time fixing these format issues.

Granted, the word mobile wasn’t perfect. It had the quotation issues, and yes, I still hate Word with a passion, but there has got to be a better solution than this.

Hell, I’d be better off sending myself emails! Maybe that’s what I’ll do instead.

I’ve got half-finished scenes for three stories that I won’t have time to fix before I sleep. Awesome.

On the other hand, I can play Plants vs. Zombies and actually see my email on the iphone.

*sigh*

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When an Outlet Isn’t Enough

I write for a number of reasons. I write because I love it. I write because the ideas never stop coming. I write because the characters need their stories told. I also write to escape. I write to process my world. I write as an outlet.

Today, though, was almost a day off from writing all together.

Had a bit of a wake up call happen last night–nothing bad, but it could have been a lot worse, and it made me think and made me take a look at a few things. It also left me feeling rather guilty because while nothing bad did happen, it could have, and it would have been my fault.

When I got home, I was wound up and usually I unwind by writing before bed. I didn’t. Couldn’t.

The underlying issues I was avoiding couldn’t be ignored for fic. They spilled out onto the fic, giving it a bad light. I was convinced that I’d lost touch with all my current stories: The Monster in My Garden Shed, The Not-So-Super Superhero, The Memory Collector, and the sequel to Nickel and Dime. I didn’t know where to take the first two, I thought I’d screwed up the third, and the fourth was going over the same thing over and over again with Effie and Garan’s current problems.

I couldn’t even bring myself to type on my older projects  because all my writing seemed… bad. Not worth fixing or working on bad.

This is the state I get in where I know things are really bad. If I can’t write, then I’m in a place that worries me.

I told myself it was just the day. I’d take today off from writing and things would look better in the morning. Morning came, and I was not over it. I still thought they were all horribly flawed and not worth fixing, even if I knew where to go with them.

Distracting myself with the games on my phone wasn’t working, though they are very addicting little apps. Talking it out was somewhat helpful, though since it had to be done by chat, it caused some confusion and frustration, too.

It was getting later and later, and it looked like there would be no writing done today at all. I did some minor edits to the second Nickel and Dime–which, by the way, continues to vex me with its refusal to get named–and I had a strange idea for how to go on with it, so I opened up the file and started working on it.

Of course, that was about when it became time to get dinner and go out for the evening, so the scene wasn’t done when I left. Out and about, I used the phone to start today’s Not-So-Super post.

Writing today was more of a battle than an outlet, but I do think that I am better for it, not just in the sense of settling some of my issues in real life but also for taking that look at the stories and acknowledging what might need to change and figuring out where to take them and knowing that they are still worth it, even if they need a bit of work.

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Writer or Author?

I finally decided that I had to actually subscribe, because this is good stuff and I’m getting to it late. Not that it’s out of date, but I could have been thinking about this six days ago, and it might have helped me when I was dealing with the “all my writing is crap” phase the other day.

What am I talking about? This article from Dean Wesley Smith: Writer vs. Author.

I like Dean’s stuff. He gets me thinking. The bold text is from his article, it’s not mine. I’m just reacting here to it, thinking it all out on “paper,” as it were.

Anyway, I have to wonder if there’s a bit of a gray area here.  I’m not sure.

I’ve always considered myself a writer. Yes, when I was younger, in my early days, I used to say, “I’ll be a published author.”

However, that phrase never sat well with me, and while I can’t pin down the specifics of when I stopped using it, I’ve been calling myself a writer for a long time now. I don’t say I’m an author, not even with Just a Whim out there in circulation. I am a writer.

Then I read the article and went–am I really an writer? Or am I an author? Or what?

 

A Writer is a person who writes.

An Author is a person who has written.


By those definitions, then, I’m both. On the surface, at least. I have written. I have published. I am still writing, though. Currently up on my computer and being flipped between as I process my thoughts (remember, I am the crazy multitasker) is a story file, the second novel in a series, and I haven’t published the first one.

 

A Writer is always focused on the story they are writing at the moment, always focused on the story coming next to write. A Writer is always focused on the future.


I have four stories at the moment, so I can’t say that I’m on one in particular, but when I’m rotating between them (as I do in my mad multitasking way), I am focused on the one I’m working on at the time. I don’t know about the future, though. I know the ideas don’t stop coming, so I’m always complaining that I don’t have time for them and when will I get that time?

 

An Author is always focused on what they have written.

An Author is always focused into the past.


Well, here’s the thing: since I published Just a Whim, I haven’t opened it since. I love it, but I don’t even want to look at it. Have I thought about it in other senses? Of course. Is it selling? Is anyone interested in it? Should I tell someone else about it? Was it worth publishing in the first place? (The answer to that last one was, of course, yes.) I do reread my old stuff periodically, but I don’t think I’m focused on the past.

I know–no gray area yet. I’m getting there.

 

A Writer is a person who writes the next story.

An Author is a person who spends their time promoting their last story.


I have been, or thought I was, doing both. The blog, the website, the facebook, that’s all part of promoting the last book. It’s not just about the last book. Oh, no. In fact, I’ve talked very little about Just a Whim since I started doing this blogging thing. Just a Whim was published in October. I started blogging in November. I fixed the website in November. Since then, though, I’ve finished four novels, started The Not-So-Super Superhero daily blog story, and it is one of four that I’m working on right now.

So I am doing both. I gave more people copies of Just a Whim and one of them more of the new ones to read over. And that file is still open. I’ve already added words to it while I thought about this post.

Promotion is what I continue to argue over, too.

 

Writers tend to believe that their own writing is the best promotion.


I would so much rather let my books do the talking. I want the next book to promote Just a Whim. I want those pieces back so I can finish the next one and get it up there and let that do the talking, not me. I’ve got them in edits and cover art is coming a long for most of them, but the one thing I know I can’t do is edit on my own. I’ll miss something. I’m too close to the story. So I can edit, but mostly, I push that off to other people and work on the next one, fixing according to their comments when I get them, but my focus is the next one.


A Writer gets feedback from the simple act of writing and finishing stories.

An Author must get feedback from external sources such as reviews, sales, promotions, editors, workshops, and so on.


I love writing. I’m always writing.  I get a thrill–but also a depression from finishing stories. I know the characters’ story is done, and I’m going to miss them. So that part is sad. On the other hand, I finished, and that is a major yay and victory dance moment. (Don’t even ask–I’m not sharing the victory dance.)

On the other hand, though, stories are meant to be shared. I wrote what I wrote for me and the characters, but it’s not quite… finished until it’s shared, until someone else loves it, too. That is why I email sections of my stories to someone as soon as I finish them, why I put it on the ereader and shove it at my mother and command her to read it, why I’ve got it posted in some places where people can read it, why I’ll email it to anyone willing to read it. I need to share.

When no one comments or barely acknowledges it, it is discouraging. I wrote a wonderful story I wanted to share, and no one is buying it or telling me they like it or even reading it as far as I can tell. Sometimes sales or reviews are the only way you know it’s being read, and you get a little desperate looking for that acknowledgement and you start wondering… Was it really that bad? Was I wrong to write it?

It’s not wrong to write it, even if I’m the only one that will appreciate it. I love it. I worked hard on it. No one else has to love it, and realistically, they’ll never feel the same way as I do about the story. That’s just life.

So then if you consider this part here:

 

All Writers need to do is write the next story and when it’s done, get it to readers and continue on writing the next story and the next and the next.

And that’s the point I am trying to get to. Each person must decide why they write.

Is it to be published and get acclaim? Then you are more than likely an Author.

If you write because you love to tell stories, love the fear and the joy and the excitement of entertaining yourself while telling stories, then you are more than likely a Writer.


I’m a writer. I’m a writer… but with a little dash of an author thrown in there. I think that sums me up well, or at least as well as anything can.

 

Edit: I’m told that I missed the point of the article, though. As long as I keep writing, I’m still a writer. Sounds so simple put like that, doesn’t it? 😛

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Not a Journalist

At times in my life, I have given consideration to putting my love of writing to work as a journalist.

In fact, one of the first things I ever did as a writer that wasn’t for school was mock up a fake newsletter on the computers in my elementary school’s old IBM lab.

That was fun, at the time, but then people thought it was real, and reality isn’t something I like dealing with all that much. I’m not found of nonfiction. I like stories, not articles.

Not that long ago, I did give journalism another try. I was able to get a position with a locally oriented online news site, got hired to write about video games.

I thought it was right up my alley.

The thing is, though, I was not current on most video games. I also have a distinct preference for role-playing games, not so much the platform or first/third person shooters that are far more popular. Add in being broke at the time and unable to afford new games, there wasn’t a lot for me to write about. I just didn’t have access.

Oh, and it was locally focused. So not only did I need to report on a game, I needed to make it connect to my region.

That was kind of… difficult.

I also had issues with their site, couldn’t take pictures of my games easily on my Xbox 360 because I didn’t have a modded one, and I had issues with converting the videos I made from my computer games to upload them. I never got any notification for comments on my articles or anything like that, and their interface made connecting the articles frustrating and near impossible.

Strangely enough, I still get emails like they expect me to post articles, even though I haven’t been on there in over a year. I don’t understand that, and I admit, when Star Wars the Old Republic came out, I was tempted to write an article.

Of course, at the time, I was also working on two novels and posting a bit of The Not-So-Super Superhero every day. Fiction writing is my writing of choice, and that is never going to change.

I do blog these days, making me a sort of journalist, but at heart, I’m a novel writer, and I always will be.

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Addictions

Yes, I am an addict.

I have two main addictions.

No, three.

Writing, coffee, and the internet.

I think I’m equally addicted to them all. I don’t do well when I don’t write, I can’t function without coffee, and I get stressed without internet.

Like today. I couldn’t focus to write because I didn’t have my internet access. I had coffee, but it wasn’t enough.

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Perhaps Art Will Inspire Fic…

I am not an artist.

I acknowledge that.

Still, I have this piece here that I did a quick computer colorization of, and so… let us play us a game?

It could be fun. Tell me what this picture makes you think of. (If the colors interfere, I can put the black and white version up, too.)

Anything you think of, feel free to tell me. If you have… say, a story idea… Maybe you can inspire fic.

If you do inspire fic, then you could possibly get…

  1. a dedication
  2. a free copy of the story as an ebook in the format you choose
  3. a free copy of the print version

And, of course, everyone will see the story. Forgot to mention that.

Picture:

Feel free to critique the drawing as well. I am not an artist, after all.