Everyone’s an expert
Like most people, I want to be successful at what I do and I’m always on the look out for better ways to do that (for the sake of the argument let’s just call it writing – the medium is immaterial in this conversation). So over the past week I’ve been reading a lot of blogs and books about being a successful writer, with a particular focus on blogging.
While I picked up some very useful tips – yes, yes I’ll share in another blog post – the thing that stood out the most was just how many experts I found. In particular experts who were more than willing to relieve me of some cash in order to show me how great their expertise is.
I’m sure you know the kind of thing I mean: ‘Make millions blogging TODAY’, ‘How to become a successful blogger OVERNIGHT’, ‘Break into Fiction,’ ‘How to Write Shop’
It all became a little overwhelming to be honest.
Now don’t get me wrong – I have nothing against people sharing their expertise or making money from it. In fact, I think it’s great. As long as they are in fact an expert and are not expecting to retire to Bora Bora by taking advantage of your desire to break into writing.
With that in mind, I made myself some guidelines to apply to the expert sites I visit before I sign up for, or more importantly, pay for anything on offer.
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is
The first two blogs I mentioned above – ‘Make millions blogging TODAY’, ‘How to become a successful author OVERNIGHT’ – don’t exist, but I’m sure, you’ve seen zillions of sites making those same promises. I know I have.
Most of them tell you the only thing required from you is a few bucks and they will deliver the secret to an easy, and very wealthy, writing future.
Newsflash: Writing (and blogging) is hard work and like most things in life, success is not over night. The Rowlings, the Gilberts, and the Kings, not to mention all the successful bloggers you are in awe of, put in a lot of time, energy, and effort into their work.
It might seem like they were an overnight success, but trust me, it wasn’t.
There are no shortcuts to success so don’t be taken in.
If it looks like a bunny, hops like a bunny, smells like a bunny ….chances are the thing is a bunny
In other words, if it looks like a scam, it probably is a scam. Don’t just hand your credit card details over without checking it out. You wouldn’t walk into a store, close your eyes, hand the sales girl your card and say “give me the most beautiful shoes in the shop, I don’t need to try them on, I don’t need to see them, just put ‘em in a box and charge me for ‘em” (if you would, well maybe this isn’t the blog you need to be reading…) so don’t do it when looking for advice and support for your writing either.
Equally don’t assume that because the blog owner/expert wants you to pay for their services, they are out to fleece you. The two sites mentioned above: ‘Break into Fiction,’ ‘How to Write Shop’ are genuine sites, with great services and products on offer to help you with your writing career.
Expertise or Opinion?
There is I admit a thin line between the two, but before you start typing in your credit card details, it’s a good idea to be work out whether you are getting expertise (Break Into Fiction) or opinion (this blog) and if the price tag reflects the value of what you are buying. In fact it’s probably a good idea to establish which of the two you are looking for before you start. Are you just looking to see what others think or are you searching for training? Do they have testimonials from clients supporting their claims? Are they able to show some proof of their expertise or back up their claims with solid examples?
Rules are made to be broken
Keep in mind there are very few rules set entirely in stone. The ones that are, you will probably recognise instantly(grammar, spelling, and the likes);for the others it is, in my experience, a case of using some common sense. Trust your instincts; if something doesn’t feel right, don’t do it. And just because someone else has said it’s a rule, don’t feel you can’t challenge that rule. Writing is a creative exercise so be creative with the rules as well - who knows what you might achieve.
My two cents on…..good story or good writing?
Like all writers I love to read. Like all writers I read a lot. In fact it would be fair to say I would probably get a lot more writing done if I read a lot less (and stayed away from all forms of social media but hey – a girl has to get a life where she can right?)
There has always been a lot of discussion around what makes a book/story good and whether a lot of popular fiction really deserves the attention it receives. Even the best of friends can be brought to blows over the likes of Harry Potter, Twilight, and anything published by a company specializing in Romance (complete with capital R).
I recently read an article by James Hall in which Hall talks about how he used to avoid popular fiction, deeming it not good enough to waste time on. Now, he teaches a class in why we should read popular fiction. I posted the link to my Facebook page, knowing full well it would trigger some debate (it did, though not as much as I expected) and was fascinated to see how passionate (gosh how tactful was that?) people get about the subject.
I have read several classics, that, had an unknown writer today pitched them to a critique group, let alone a publisher, would be rejected for too many adverbs, incorrect sentence construction, messing with convention in literature, defying popular or accepted theory behind a particular story line. Chances are, when they were first published, they were chastised. But somebody thought the story was worthwhile…and now with hindsight, they are applauded.
It is interesting to note that a lot of the arguments against popular fiction are also used against independent and self published fiction – and I do find that worrying.
There seems to be a trend toward deciding that just because something is not literary or is not published by a mainstream publisher, it will either be dreadful writing (otherwise a mainstream author would have published it right?) or it will be pulp nonsense.
As a reviewer and an editor, I read a lot of fiction and non fiction. Some of it is bad. Some of it is Very Bad. A lot of it, however, is good. And some of it is Extremely Good.
Popular fiction is not always good writing. Good writing is not always popular. That is a given. Some classics – and I know I am going to have a price on my head for saying this out loud – for want of a better word, suck.
Good writing does not a good story make; a good story does not good writing make. That’s a given. And you can enjoy one and not the other. Also a given. But to assume that a good story or a modern story or a best selling story – or an independently published story – is automatically badly written is an unfair judgement.
And while we are at it – if you are going to critique, judge, and/or condemn a book, please at least read it first. Don’t just assume, that because you do not like the genre or would not read it, that the author is a bad writer.
One genre that gets a really hard time of it by people who don’t even read it is romance. Yes, there are some awful romance novels out there. There are some shocking writers. But there are also a lot of brilliant books, beautifully written, by excellent writers.
There are also many, many great stories with moderate to good writing – that bring a lot of joy to a lot of people. There is nothing wrong with that.
Twilight springs to mind. Many, many, many of my writer friends loathe Twilight with a passion normally reserved for dictators and torturers. A lot of their arguments are sound – I don’t think the books are particularly well written, although I enjoyed the first one. I spent a lot of time mentally editing it, but I did like the story.
I didn’t enjoy the sequels because I didn’t feel the storytelling made up for the awful writing.
As to the sparkle of Edward and his family – it didn’t bother me in the slightest. Nor did it bother me that the vampire story line didn’t follow the traditional rules – and I’ve been reading horror since I was 12. You see, I never thought of Twilight as being a horror story or even a paranormal story. It was always, for me, a teenage love story, so I didn’t care about the rest.
Sue me. Take away my membership to the Stephen King fan club.
If writers (and song writers and painters and poets and architects and…well you get my point) always did what everybody did because that was the rule, there would be no evolution within the craft. No invention, no advance.
Many people worry that books like Twilight will lower the standards and tastes of our young people and that it’s better they read nothing than read this type of book. I disagree. I actually would prefer they read Twilight or Harry Potter or Mickey Mouse comics than not read.
I don’t care if they read on a Kindle, from a borrowed library book, or online. I care that they read. Once you have a child reading, it is up to adults to then provide the variety and the alternatives and the education so children can begin to make a critical choice. And to accept they may not ever like anything more than Mickey Mouse comics. So what?
My daughter was not interested in reading, in part because she is dyslexic, until she discovered Twilight. She was captivated by it and found that reading was worth the hassle. Reading the series improved her general reading so much, she went from being in the lower portion of the class to the upper portion. Was it the sparkly vampires? Of course not – it was the realisation not only that she could read, but it could be enjoyable. Suddenly, she liked school and reading. In fact she liked reading so much she began looking around for other books to read. Today she loves YA novels like Twilight- but she’s also tackled, among others, Jane Eyre and adored it – whereas I loathed the thing.
Would she have found Bronte of her own accord? Probably not. I made it available (and this is where I should point out, she read it on my eReader, which probably makes me a complete heathen for many)for her and encouraged her to read it. It’s up to me to give her a variety to choose from, teach her the tools to decide what is good or bad writing, and the confidence to decide what she thinks is a good or bad story.
If nobody teaches kids these, we can’t blame them if they don’t learn how to do it.
One very dear friend of mine – a talented writer – did make the following comment: ”read what you like and screw other people but don’t try to elevate poor writing because you feel guilty about reading trash.”
Now this is interesting for two reasons. Firstly because she’s right. Absolutely right. I read what I want to read and I don’t care if anyone else likes it, approves of it, or agrees with it. The second reason it interests me though is because I have never felt guilty about reading popular fiction. I loved Harry Potter for example. I didn’t find it great writing but I loved the story; I believe Rowling is a much better story teller than she is a writer (mind you what would I know – she’s the one with the millions….) and I never felt guilty about liking it. I’ve never felt guilty about loving romance. I can read King over and over and over and still love it.
I have often had to defend myself – never to Shoshana who isn’t the kind of person to judge you based on what you read, write, or judge but she raised the point so I’d like to answer it – to many people who have felt I shouldn’t read this stuff because “you shouldn’t read bad writing.”
Why not?
A friend of my mother’s love bodice rippers. They are the only kind of book she reads. And when I say bodice rippers, I do mean the variety that receives prizes for ‘purple prose’. She’s an intelligent, successful business woman and she says when she reads, she simply wants to get lost in the story and not think – and this type of book does that for her. She has tried other “better written, more acceptable genres” and gets no joy from them. Not once have I ever heard her suggest to anybody they should join her and read what she reads. Nor does she judge what others read. Yet, over and over I hear her friends tell her to ‘stop reading that rubbish’.
She never feels guilty but she does have to defend her choice.
It’s a bit like tattoos - people without tattoos are often very vocal about why one would have one, the type of person who gets them, what will happen later. People with tattoos don’t care if you have one or not.
So I’m with Shoshana on this – read what you want and never mind other people. Don’t try to defend yourself. Just say “I read it because I like it”. It’s their problem if they have a problem with what you read.
As a writer, I would love to write something that has the mass appeal of a Twilight, Hunger Games, or Harry Potter. Not because of the money (okay not only because of the money) but because I would love to think my work might bring pleasure to that many people. I would like to hope I can write well enough to be considered a good writer – but the truth is if I had to choose between being a great story teller and a good writer – I’d rather be a great story teller.
And that’s my two cents worth…..
Every now and then…
The first thing I discovered is that I’m extremely hard on myself and one of the side effects is a paralyzing self sabotage. At least I recognize it now and am doing something about it – namely writing.
Then tonight I came across a wee gem that really resonated with me; perhaps because it echos Liz Gilbert’s TED presentation. Or perhaps I
needed a reminder to not take myself so seriously….
I don’t have to be perfect,
All I have to do is show up
and
enjoy the messy, imperfect, and beautiful journey of my life.
It’s a trip more wonderful than I could have imagined.
- Kerry Washington
One day my office will who my imperfect and beautiful journey too...
Warning: information overload
Anyone who knows me, or has been reading this blog for a while, knows how much I love technology and gadgets. This love affair with technology may explain why a fiction writer specialising in romance and Young Adult works as editor of a corporate IT magazine by day, but that’s by the by.
Seriously it’s great that my iPhone can all but wash the dishes for me (the day it can do that, I may well declare undying love to the thing),I love that my electric pink Vaio has become the ultimate travelling accessory, and that I can carry 2,000 songs in my pocket and no, they are not all variations of Thunder Road. And yes, there may be some rumour to the truth that I am currently using three different e-readers (it’s in a good cause, trust me). The point is, in case you were unaware of it, I am an unashamed girl geek.
However, there are downsides to technology. Even I am prepared to admit that – so I thought I would take a look at some of them from the point of view of a writer. A woman writer…. who loves technology.
Big Data
Recently, I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to interview international BI analyst and consultant, Colin White, about, among other things, Big Data. If you’re not a techno person, Big Data refers to amounts of data (data sets) so big they are counted in petabytes (suffice to say that’s a lot) and are often overwhelming. The issue with this, Colin said, is not so much about volume as it is about our ability to cope with it and extract quality from the quantity.
When we take the idea of huge volumes of information out of the specific framework of IT and apply it to everyday living, it gets a little scarier. After all, at work we can at least send it all to the IT team and forget about it until they’ve performed some magic on it and extracted what we need.
At home, we are the IT team.
A lot of data
And the data coming at us is immense. From the moment we wake up each morning our mind and body are being bombarded with information or data. The alarm clock, the radio, the newspaper, email, text messages, the television, iPods, iPads, iPhones, RSS feeds, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Sky – the list is endless and that’s not including actual human interaction which also counts as data (and let’s not forget the cats, dogs, goldfish or pet rocks). What’s more, we’ve dealt with most of it before breakfast – or morning tea if you’re particularly sane – which, I have it on good authority, I am not.
All of this overload is overwhelmingly distracting. Speaking for myself, I can spend an entire day dealing with data of this variety and achieve absolutely …. zip. Ultimately I end up feeling anxious, tired, and a failure. The truth is, the only thing I’m failing at is assimilating the huge amounts of data slamming into me.
Proponents of Zen style minimalism are no doubt laughing hysterically about now. Heck, you don’t have to be Zen to find it hilarious. I’m sure the more disciplined, less techno-addicted among you are getting a good giggle. And yes my darling siblings, I am looking at you.
Touching all of us
Well, girls, boys and siblings (because we all know siblings are gender neutral in reality) I put it to you that this isn’t about discipline or technology and that we are all affected by it.
This is about the constant volume of information we are exposed to.
My eldest son was born in Paris in 1992 and back then it took around ten days for photos of the wee bundle of joy to get back to his grandmother and aunts and uncles in New Zealand. When that same bundle of joy got his latest tattoo (hey the bundle of joy is 20, he can do what he likes to his body), he took a photo and sent it to me by pxt. It took less than ten minutes; it probably took less than ten seconds.
My point here is that because information is so easily accessible and transmitted today, it is difficult to dodge it. When was the last time you wrote a letter or went to the library to look something up in a book? When was the last time you didn’t check your phone or your voicemail or inbox… just to make sure you hadn’t missed something important? When did you last walk the dog… without your cell phone in your pocket? When did you last go 24 hours without checking to make sure you hadn’t missed some vital piece of … information.
I know, I know – the kids need to be able to get in touch. That job might come through. The gorgeous hottie from Saturday might have found your number in her handbag. You’re preaching to the choir. I’m a writer – I thrive on information. Research, social media, blogs – gimme, gimme, gimme.
Conditioning
The thing is though, we have become conditioned to need this endless supply of information. We text, we pxt, we message, we skype, we facebook, we tweet, we pin, we link – all so we don’t miss out on the massive volumes of data floating around we need to know about.
Or do we?
Do we really need to know? And if we do need to know – do we need to know now? Some things yes. Most things, probably not. It won’t hurt us or anyone else if we don’t read, respond, or react for an hour… or six. Obviously this doesn’t apply to emergency situations – you know I am not alluding to those right? Right. Just checking.
So what’s the answer?
It’s hard to say. I’m not convinced there is a one size fits all solution. What will work for one person, may not work for someone else. Personally I don’t care if I never actually speak on a telephone again; plenty of my friends find that to be yet another indication of my questionable sanity.
I think the best thing we can do is be aware of the potential for being overwhelmed and have some loose frameworks that help us identify when it is happening and take even minor steps to try and combat the sensory overload.
Tips
1. Be disciplined – And sadly I am not referring to the fun kind. Only check your email at certain times of the day. Set up an auto reply telling people you do this and you will soon find they don’t start texting or phoning to find out why you didn’t instantly return their email. Most of them, I suspect, will be incredibly impressed with your efficiency.
2. Beware the email black hole – I know you know what I mean. You answer an email and move on to the next. By the time you have answered Email 2, a reply has come back from Email 1 – and you reply to that. As it whooshes off into cyber space, you follow a link in Email 3 that reminds you of something you needed to tell Email 2 so you send them another reply. Before you know it, it’s lunchtime and you’re only half way through your inbox.
As a writer, email black holes are the bane of my life. So I’ve come up with a nifty new strategy. I check my email on my iPhone and I file it instantly – if I don’t need to do anything with it I delete it immediately. If I need to act on it (reply, perform an action or whatever…) I drop it in the IMPORTANT folder. I leave it there until later when I deal with it from my laptop. Why deal with it later? Because I can then deal with it effectively and efficiently – if in fact it needs to be dealt with at all. Only if it’s time urgent do I deal with it from my phone. Hey, it works for me.
3. Unsubscribe, unlike, unfollow – anyone or any business that you are not actually active interested in subscribing to, liking, or following. If like me you are something of a social media junky this can be a bit scary – but in fact it’s incredibly helpful. Who cares if they tweet you unfollowed them or unliked them? You’re clearly not engaged enough for it to matter – your time is valuable, use it on relationships and information that add value to everyone, including yourself.
4. Turn off – Yes turn off. Turn off your phone, your computer, your iPod, your iPad, your television, your radio and your alarm clock. Ignore the newspaper. Go for a walk. Bake cookies. Walk the dog. Eat something yummy. Weed the garden. You can head down to the nearest ice cream parlour and eat hot fudge sundaes all day long if you want. I don’t even mind if you say the crazy writer on the Internet told you to. Just take some time out of the information stream for a while – even if it’s only an hour. Trust me, you’ll feel better. And you will find it so much easier to cope with information when you come back to it. Weird but true!
The bottom line is technology is here to stay and that’s a good thing. But yes Virginia even the most addicted among us can get through a day – okay maybe just an hour – without checking in, updating, tweeting, stumbling or linking. It can even be fun sometimes.
I think it’s called having a life…
Image: http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-14799520/stock-photo-abstract-concept-background-for-information-overload-great-as-a-background-or-a-design-element.html
It’s the same f****in’ riff
It’s 1.47am and I can’t sleep. TMoTH is away at a family wedding. The Offspring are asleep. Even the critters are asleep. Only I am still awake – and really I shouldn’t be, since I need to be up in a few hours for boxing training…..
I didn’t intend to still be awake at this time. I watched DVDs with The Offspring then came to bed thinking I would check my email and turn out the light. Then I remembered I hadn’t watched the keynote speech from SXSW . Why would I want to watch that you ask? Well, because the speaker was Bruce Springsteen.
The key note speech is amazing - it’s funny, it’s touching, it’s smart – and so much more. In it Springsteen talks about the things that influenced him, the things that made him want to do what he does. He talks about hearing The Animals and how, when he listened to them, he wanted to do what they did. He wanted to make people feel the way they were making him feel.
I sat here in bed, listening to the wind drive leaves around our front lawn, my mouth open in amazement. You see I’ve heard those words before – except usually I’m the one saying them and I’m talking about Springsteen.
When I was 12 we lived on a farm in a fairly remote area of the east coast of the north Island of New Zealand. My father had died the year before and my mother was working every hour of daylight to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table while lawyers do whatever it is lawyers do with wills and estates.
We had no television and our nearest neighbour was about two miles away. We did however have a radio and every Sunday afternoon I would sit at the table with my ear pressed to the radio listening to Casey Kasem’s Top 40.
This particular Sunday, not long before my 13th birthday, Kasem announced a new song from some guy I had never heard of. As the song began to play I remember very clearly being mesmerised and forgetting completely about my French homework.
The singer was Springsteen and the album was The River. Springsteen wasn’t big in New Zealand at the time and I was only 12 – too young to really understand the themes in his music – so it’s not surprising I didn’t really know who he was. But I loved what I was hearing and by the time Fade Away was released I did know two things: a) whoever he was, I was hooked and b)I wanted to do what he did: I wanted to write things that made people see images in their head and feel something they didn’t know they felt.
That was 33 years ago – and today I feel exactly the same way. There is a joke in my family that Springsteen is ‘the other man’ in my life and luckily for me my partner Dennis is as big a fan as I am – although he does have a rule that there are to be no pictures in the bedroom. I have no idea why….
Springsteen’s lyrics inspired me- and still inspire me – to start writing. My dream is to one day interview him – if only to get the chance to thank him for all the joy his music has brought me over the years. So it felt a little surreal to hear him say the very things I’ve been feeling all these years.
Many of Springsteen’s songs have inspired in me ideas for stories – both short and long – but I have never had the courage or the confidence to write them down. They are, afer all, his songs. His stories. I have this weird, unwritten rule that while his music and lyrics are possibly the greatest influence on my creative writing, I can not use them as a spring board for that writing. Why? Who knows?
So, when he went on to not only explain, but demonstrate, how “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” and “Badlands” were (and I quote) “the same fuckin’ riff, listen up, youngsters — this is how successful theft is accomplished.” I, unlike everyone else, did not just laugh.
I got excited.
Not that kind of excited – get your minds out of the gutters. Okay maybe a little but that’s not what we’re talking about here.
I got excited because Bruce Springsteen gave me a green light to use all these characters who have been living in my head all this time; he may not have looked up and said “hey, the loopy red head down there in New Zealand, get over it, it’s just the same fuckin’ riff, write it already” - but he may as well have.
It’s funny, his new album Wrecking Ball makes me feel that same breathless wonder I felt when I was 12 and hearing him for the first time. I sit and listen to it, sometimes (often) in tears, and I wonder “how does he DO that? I want to do that.”
My next thought is invariably “I am so grateful he does that.”
For so many years, his music has held my hand and my heart, and played the background music to my life. Like I say, since the age of 12 I’ve wanted to interview him - partly so I could say thank you for all his music has brought to me.
But maybe the way I say thank you is to use that riff…
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/music/index.ssf/2012/03/sxsw_springsteens_keynote_addr.html
The saga of the touch screen and the ferry
Or – why you should only do One.Thing.At.A.Time
DISCLAIMER: This may only be funny to the two people involved. For those of you left scratching your head and muttering “huh?” when you get to the end, I apologize.For someone who makes their living writing, sometimes I’m not very good at it all. I mean that quite literally. My handwriting is shocking, especially if I’m tired or the arthritis in my wrists is playing up. And while I am (usually) an excellent speller, I am A Very Bad Typist.
Unlike my handwriting, my typing does not vary according to my fatigue level. It is simply bad. I have in fact an extremely well developed ‘backspace’ action – to be honest it is one of the keys I can find blindfolded, in the dark without having to think….
What I should never do, however is try to type with a touchscreen or while moving or a combination thereof. Should the day ever come that I am the proud owner of a iPad, you can guarantee I will be one of the real geeks with a wireless keyboard – at the request of anybody who has to read Facebook updates, Tweets, or LinkedIn messages.
Multitasking is overrated
This was proved today when I tried to post a Facebook update, be romantic (what? it happens), and display my admiration for Springsteen – from the touchscreen of my iPhone, while waiting on a moving dock for my ferry home. As the ferry docked, thus making the dock move even more, I raced to finish my transcription of a verse from Springsteen’s Land of Hope and Dreams, get my ticket clicked and find a seat.
Seeing the problem yet?
“You must be a whizz.”
As I slid into my seat the lady across the table smiled and said “gosh you type so fast on that, you must be a real whizz.” That alone should have made me sit up and pay attention, but no I was too busy basking in the glow of her admiration. Right up until Patti sent me a message on Facebook asking if I had meant to make her laugh or did I need to install spell check.
Oh no; this couldn’t be good. I clearly had a spectacular typo in the middle of a public, romantic, Springsteen message. Did I mention public? On Facebook? I tapped on the screen – that I can do without too much disaster – and pulled up the post. And promptly dissolved into loud giggles (my ferry companions are quite used to my weird behaviour – but that’s another story).
Bug in the USA?
What should have read ‘Big wheels roll through fields where sunlight streams’ read Bug wheels through fields…BUG? Where did BUG come from? It took most of the remaining trip to navigate the delete buttons, find the lyrics on a website, copy them, paste them, and repost the status. This time it had nothing to do with the ferry and everything to do with my manic giggles.
Quit while you’re ahead
Still sniggering to myself I sent Patti a DM designed to deliberately make her smile this time. What I meant to write to my fellow Springsteen fan was “You know given some of the things I’ve been known think about where that man is concerned, it could really have been so much worse lol.” By the time I had managed that, it was time to disembark and I thought no more of it, until a chime told me Patti had replied. I clicked on my phone and before I could read her reply saw what I had actually written: “You know given some of the things I’ve been known think about where that man is concerned, it could really have been south worse lol”
Yes folks I am a professional writer and editor. Scary isn’t it?
What’s in a name?
Something tells me I’m hardly the first writer to head up a blog post with that title. But hey at least I resisted the urge to use a rose as a pic….And trust me it wasn’t easy coming up with an alternative; I nearly bowed to the cliche but I digress. Yes I know, I do that a lot.
What was I talking about? Oh yes – names. I like to think of myself as being fairly smart; my family suggests that in fact this is a delusion and that I bear more than a passing resemblance to Dory from Disney’s Finding Nemo, but what would they know? I’m not even blue and I don’t sound anything like Ellen DeGeneres. Hmm? Oh right – names.
Oh zat ees not a very common name, hein?
I’m one of those rare people who actually like their name. I don’t know whether I fell in love with France and things French because of my name or if would have happened anyway, but my slightly unusual name in all its forms has never bothered me. Although when I first moved to Paris I did assume I would for the first time ever have an ordinary, garden variety name. HA! People still commented on it everywhere I went – they simply did it French. Go figure.
A name for everything…
So when I started writing, I wasn’t especially interested in pseudonyms. My name would be just fine thank you very much. Right up until I hit a whole other bunch of names – the names of genres. Romance. Horror. Erotica. Sci-fi. Chick Lit. If you think about it each of those labels or names carries with it a resonance and image of what it represents – just the same way our own name does.
Of course what often happens is if a writer begins writing to one of those genres, they become pigeon holed to that genre. Now, there is nothing wrong with that at all. If your passion is romance or sci-fi or chick lit or whatever, then get out there and write, baby, write.
What about me?
What happens though if, like yours truly, you tend to be a little hyperactive (okay maybe a lot) and you don’t know what genre you’re passionate about because you just love words and writing? Then what?
I’ll tell you what – you end up in the middle of a metaphorical snarled fishing line of massive proportions. It is scary how many story ideas I have sitting in folders in Dropbox that have stalled because I’ve woken up one morning either dying to try a different genre or I’ve been paralysed by the fear of actually writing something good, selling it, and never being able to write in a different genre again. Yes there are massive holes in this theory – not the least being that I’m assuming I’ll write something that will be picked up and published – but fear does not care about holes in theory. Fear is just fear.
Eureka
After struggling with this for several years now, two days ago I found the solution. I realised two things in that moment – the first was that the next year is going to be incredibly busy and the second was that maybe my family is right and I’m more like Dory than I thought.
The solution is pseudonyms. You see, I’m one of those people who takes on the identity of the genre they’re writing in. If I’m writing romance, I tend to become floral and romantic. If I’m working on my post-apocalypse piece I get very Sarah Connor – ish. If I’m writing erotica – well, anyway you get the idea. All I need to do is give those identities a name.
Meet the family
So I did. Lily writes romance, Georgia writes erotica, and I write general fiction and YA. And believe it or not – though by now I’m picking you’ll believe it – I have found myself dressing to the identity. Jeans and tee for me, soft pastel, feminine flowy skirt for Lily, leather and lace for Georgia.
The kids just shrugged – they’re used to their mother being weird. The Man of The House is starting to realise there could be definite advantages to this set up. The cats are not impressed. As for me, I’m just looking at the names (and their personas) as another set of tools in my writing kit. It’s all just a case of finding the right one (tool/name) for the job.
By the way…
In case you’re wondering why I chose jellyfish….it’s because although we call them jelly fish their real name is Scyphozoa. If you’re Dory, of course it’s Squishy (I shall call you Squishy and you shall be mine). What’s more, you would be amazed at how many sites exist dedicated to jelly fish – who knew? I got the pic from a funky site called Jellyfish Facts which while cool, has a vaguely disturbing tab labelled Pet Jellyfish……
And so it begins….
So what begins, I hear you ask. Sure you did, it was in between the sip of coffee, the bite of sandwich, and the turn of the page of your book. I heard it clear as a bell.
What begins, girls and boys, is the long, hard slog that is the road to turning things around. Having banished the word but ( I can say it when I’m talking about the banishment – sheesh, you guys are a tough audience) I’ve set about trying to work out exactly how to achieve my goals.
What is the issue?
You see the goals are not the issue. The issue is the strategy for achieving them. For me there are two strategies – the strategy of The Lotus Sutra and the action strategy. The strategy of The Lotus Sutra, which we’re not going to discuss tonight but will discuss later in the week, but can be summed up as faith – although there is a bit more to it than that which is why we’ll come back to it (I’d like to be clear the order is not indicative of the importance – simply of the time I have available for blogging and faith requires a lot more than I have this evening).
Action Strategy
My action strategy is going a bit like this: get up, make tea, turn on laptop, do gongyo (that’s part of the other strategy), go to work, appreciate being at work, appreciate the people I work with, leave work, come home, make dinner, spend some time being Mama,research/ blog/write/actively promote both blogs and work, do gongyo again, go to bed. Maybe, if I’m lucky, spend some quality ‘nice’ time with the man I share my bed with. Or if I’m too late for that (he doesn’t really do late nights), read.
It works
Sound boring? You might be surprised to learn that not only is it not boring – it’s not only helping, it’s actually working. Ha! I knew that would get your attention. First of all actually making the effort to do gongyo is giving my day rhythm, routine and a strong foundation. Doing all the mama stuff, is making me feel happy because I LOVE doing stuff with my kids.
I’m actually engaged in my work. At this stage I’d like to just take a moment to say my issues with my job are less to do with the job and more to do with my frustration with life in general – and in particular with my apparent inability to advance my personal writing career. I’m not sure I can say I enjoy my job – and again this is about me, not about the job or the company – but I am engaged. And that is a very good start, because when I leave at night, I feel quite comfortable dedicating my evening writing time to my own writing.
The result of that, has been surprising. Obviously my word count is increasing (hmmm, spend more time on writing project, see output increase – I could be on to something here….). More importantly I have A Plan (complete with Pooh Bear capitals). I have a clearer – thought not quite sparkly, crystal clear – idea of my work and where I want it to go.
Counting down
All of this is a good sign since I have five weeks left of my deadline – and am beginning to feel as though I may just have found my way off the dreaded merry go round of “I would if I could bu……”
Stay tuned, folks, stay tuned.
Photo: http://www.funnyphotos.net.au/images/dangerous-mountain-trek-through-china1.jpg
Guest Blog: Sue Fitzmaurice
The fabulous Sue Fitzmaurice has dropped in to talk about … finishing a writing project. So with no further ado, take it away Sue….
Finishing a Writing Project
There are three especially difficult parts to writing anything – the start, the middle and the end.
Sorry to say.
No-one who writes for a living will tell you different, albeit that there will be different challenges in the different parts. Me, I have no problem finishing. I have a problem starting. Which of course becomes rather a challenge for the finishing…
The biggest writing project I’ve had to complete has been the publication of my first novel. You may think you have finished at a certain point, but the process goes on and on and on; by the end of which one is very lucky if one does not completely hate one’s own work. And therein lies an important key to successful completion: don’t start something unless it’s a project or topic you enjoy, or in the case of something especially large: if you’re not really and truly in love with it.
These are a number of practical things that help me to write and to complete my writing – some of these may be of assistance to you, but we must all experiment with, observe and understand our writing processes to come up with what works for each of us.
- More likely if you’re a woman and you work from home: you WILL do housework instead of writing. Fantastic. Do the housework. It’s similar to being in the shower – you do it without thinking about it, so your mind is free to wander and be creative while you’re vacuuming. And when you’re done you’ll have the proverbial tidy desk to sit down at and start writing.
- Know where you’re going with your project: if you don’t have some kind of idea of the end before you start, then you’ll have a hard time finding your way TO an end. There are different ways to draft a map before you start – one that you update and play around with as you go through. You could write your ‘table of contents’ – I always start a piece of research or report writing that way; or you could do a mind map of some kind. With a fiction piece I start with a large sheet of paper – poster size – and I draw 6 or 8 or so circles evenly across the middle of the page, into which I write the main events or turning points of the story. Leave a gap between the circles so that you can add more circles – smaller ones generally – that match up with the pieces of story you add. This is a little like doing a jigsaw – separate the edge pieces first and get them all joined together… get the idea?
- Immutable deadlines: ones that someone else has imposed and that cannot be changed – thank heavens for deadlines or many of us would never get anything done at all. This is tricky if you’re working to your own rhythm, particularly with a fiction piece; try joining or establishing a writing group, with a commitment to share something new once a fortnight or once a month. I wrote most of my first novel this way; I’m certain it would not have happened otherwise.
- Get feedback: Especially early on, and especially if this is your first work of fiction. An experienced writer will give you constructive criticism that WILL make a difference to your work. Learn from as many reliable reviewers as are available to you.
- When it comes to the actual ending: and especially if you’re stuck – do the unexpected. If the predictable happens then it’s less engaging for your reader. Of course it has to be believable to0, but that is more in the telling than in the plot. A good book leaves its reader wondering…
In the end though, you must trust your instincts:
“If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don’t listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.” – Lillian Hellman
Sue Fitzmaurice has been a business owner, business consultant and CEO, working in a range of different industries. She has degrees in philosophy, political science and business; her first novel is Angels in the Architecture. Her blog is at www.tryinggodspatience.com but you can also find her on Facebook at:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Trying-Gods-Patience/278916238806666
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Angels-in-the-Architecture/238526799541240
But, but, BUT…
The Universe loves her little jokes….
Having written a long, rather whiny, and somewhat boring blog post about the frustration of being a writer stuck in a day job I don’t especially want to be in, I, for some reason I do not understand closed the page. I did not mean to close the page. I did not intend to close the page, I simply…. well, closed the page and as my blog post disappeared into the ether all I could do was whimper “um”. I consoled myself with a cup of tea and a cookie – okay, okay three cookies – and decided this was another message from the Universe to get over myself. She’s (yes my Universe is a she - sue me) been telling me that a lot lately – along with, “if you want it badly enough, get out there and make it happen”.
Clearly, complaining was not what she had mind.
That’s all very well, but….
I’m starting to really dislike the word but – both the single ‘t’ and the double ‘t’ versions. I’m never happy with the latter (unless it’s clad in denim and belonging to a certain New Jersey rocker but I digress) and the former, I have decided while writing this, is really the biggest cop out of all time. Oh come on gang – you know you could but….you would like to but….you’d be happy but…. My current ‘but’ chorus goes something like this: I want to change my life but I’m stuck in the wrong job but I can’t change my job because I need to pay the rent but I can’t work on my freelance writing and editing and novel writing because I have to work on my job but I can’t do anything about it because…. because why exactly? No, seriously - why? Because I don’t want it badly enough? Because it’s too hard? Because I’m lazy? I got to thinking that the answer must be one of those because there simply aren’t any other possibilities.
I’ll give you three guesses what my instant reaction to that was…yeah, you got it…BUT!
So, I’m declaring a war on buts (and butts). It is herby banned – feel free to give me a swift kick in the double ‘t’ variety if you catch me responding with but.
But….oops….what are you going to do about it?
Well, first up I’m letting the Universe know that I’m available for freelance writing and editing jobs. That I’m working on my novel – yes, yes I kid you not, I’m up to 10,000 words. That I’m actively networking to move forward.
Secondly, I’m actively changing my mindset. Now I know that sounds like new age, self help speak but the truth is if you get stuck in ‘but’ and ‘can’t’ you just keep creating situations for them to occur – you actually need to change the way you think, in order to see and/or create a new reality. Rather than “this is what I want to do” , I’m saying “this is what I’m doing”. Rather than “I only spent ten minutes on my own writing”, “I got a whole ten minutes on my own writing done today – aiming for fifteen tomorrow.”
Time frames
You see I’ve given myself six weeks to finish the first draft of Six Impossible Things – and I am determined to stick to that. So by banning the B word, demonstrating my determination , and changing my mindset, six weeks from now, I hope to be reporting some very funky…outcomes.
Outcomes, mindsets, actively, demonstrating determination….all I need is a paradigm thrown in for good measure and I’ll have a bestseller on my hands…