Hugh Howey talks process

From Hugh Howey, bestselling author of Wool (the science fiction series you haven't heard of yet but will):

Reading is the best lesson on writing. It’s like listening to music over and over again until you learn how a good song is supposed to sound. I think I “write by reading” the way some people can “play by ear.” When I’m writing a rough draft, I can tell that my words suck. It’s painfully obvious. When I go back to revise, I take those sucky words and I keep rearranging them until they stop sucking. Eventually, the words flow and convey meaning in a manner that I’m tolerant of. With the next pass, more of these spots are sanded down until they don’t trip me up. Enough passes like this, and my stories start to read about as decently as anyone else’s. I just stick with it until I don’t hate it. I bang on the keys until a tune pops out.

Read the rest here!

In addition to rich, I'd also be okay with "comfortable"

From sci-fi author (and professional good guy) John Scalzi, a different perspective on the financial considerations of being a writer:

Every once in a while someone in the comments here says, usually as an aside to something else, that no one becomes a writer to get rich. So as a point of clarification, and to give everyone else who is slightly exasperated by this sort of comment something to point at:

Hey, I became a writer to get rich. I’ve always been in the writing business not just to write, and not just to make money, but also to make a lot of money — basically, to get rich at it. Why? Because speaking from experience, being poor sucks, and in the world we live in, things are a whole lot easier if you have a lot of money. The thing I do best in the world in a professional sense is writing, so if I were to become rich, getting rich through writing seemed like the most likely way for me to do it.

[...]

As a final thought on the point, one of the reasons that “no one writes to get rich” and “no one writes to make money” bug the crap out of me is that this is the sort of thinking, intentional or otherwise, that gives bad people cover to screw writers with regard to money, and gives uncertain writers a reason to shrug off being screwed. If you as a writer buy into the idea you can’t/won’t make money and that you can’t/won’t get rich, then you are more than halfway to ensuring that you won’t, in fact, make money (much less get rich).

Read the rest here!

And happy Friday!

Are writers just a bunch of whiners?

From Esquire, a different perspective on the current state of publishing:

Writers have always been whiners. For nearly a hundred years, since at least the time of F. Scott Fitzgerald, the death of the novel has been presaged. And now, egged on by BuzzFeed and video games and just general hypercaffeinated, e-mail-all-the-time ADHD, the book is apparently, finally, about to die. At least we'll have good stuff to read while we wait. This fall alone, the number of big books published by major writers is astounding: Michael Chabon, Zadie Smith, Junot Díaz, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, and about a half dozen others. Not that the list has stopped anyone from complaining. Literary circles have been so full of pity for so long that they can't accept the optimistic truth: We're living in a golden age for writers and writing.

Read the rest here!

Another Week Eight update!

Just a quick post to let you know that I'm still plugging away at the shapeless, ever-growing mass of words that is Week Eight's challenge. 

Because things have been hectic for me (two jobs, domestic responsibilities, social commitments, holidays, birthdays, Dragon Age: Origins...), I've had to find a more flexible way to write in the few spare moments I have. So when I'm home, I'll type up what I've written longhand and then try to write past that. When I'm away from home, however, I'll try to write at least two sentences from where I remember leaving off.

This wasn't a deliberate stroke of genius so much as simply what happened one day, but the end result was that, over the course of a week, I ended up accidentally rewriting the latest passage of the story. Later, when I discovered my mistake, I was actually able to combine bits and pieces of both into a paragraph that was stronger than either previous version. Voltron-style. I had been stuck on that paragraph, and somehow this process allowed me to find an intuitive way past it.

So anyway, it's coming along, and as a reprieve from longer works (and even longer waits between works), I think for Week Nine I'm going to try a microfiction week wherein I burn through one prompt a day, Monday–Friday. This will be a good excuse to build some momentum back up, and also to get some of the truly stupid prompts I've been avoiding out of the way. 

How's it going for you?

Week Eight progress: So it turns out that I'm crazy

Writing is hard.

I have been plugging away at, as promised, a short tale involving a major character from a fantasy series I may or may not ever write. Trying to find both character and world when you haven't decided much about either has proven to be... well... a challenge. Here, for example, is the first paragrah of the rough draft:

When she was much younger — a child of four or five — Kyra had been, actually, a princess. Not the princess, of course: that was [Name] of [Name], the only daughter of [Name], who had been king over [Name] most of his long life. His passing took Kyra and her family out of the line of succession. Used to be they received an allowance from the crown each year (“a stipend,” her mother called it… it was an allowance, Kyra knew now; just enough coin to keep them and several other small houses just like theirs from raising a small army and pressing their rights), but that all ended with King [Name]. Because of the [Treaty of Something] drawn during the [Times of Somesuch], a rival family was able to assert their claim to the throne and, in so doing, force Kyra’s parents to learn a trade and spend the rest of their noble lives working for their stipends. 

Likewise, I find myself having to ponder currency, how townsfolk aquire their water, whether or not there is a town guard and why, etc. etc. And then I have to stop myself from stopping, and just throw in a placeholder for the sake of not losing momentum. But the story is at a place now where all these decisions I have delayed will actually inform what the protagonist can do, and I've felt overwhelmed and stuck. 

So a few nights ago I decided that I hated the story, hated the world, hated having to write in a setting I don't know yet. The next morning I talked with my girlfriend about making it more modern — transposing everything into our world or something very similar to it. This seemed appealing. Then, in the shower, I resolved to just finish the tale I'm writing right now, post it to this blog, and move on to shorter things until I'm actually ready to attempt a larger work. Maybe just focus on writing plays since that seems to come easier for me?

And then, during my lunch break, I re-read everything I've written in my story to date and kind of... liked it...? And I figured out what happens next — a quick way to keep the story moving and avoid getting stuck in procedural.

And now, after having read one-half of the first draft, littered as it is with placeholders and weird dead ends, I'm thinking that I need to stop thinking so much, that what I'm writing — though the words are not coming easily — is actually going somewhere and I should just surrender myself to that. 

So that's what I'm at. And because I don't want to limit your first impression of this story to "[Name] of [Name], the only daughter of [Name], who had been king over [Name]," here is the following paragraph:

Her mother took it hardest, and never ceased instructing Kyra in courtly manner, even years after her first blood, though of course there was no point anymore to heraldry, to curtseys, to being coy and demure. They were commoners now — even before they were “deposed” (again, her mother’s words), their claim was not the strongest. Kyra never was going to sit on that throne; now it was just official. Her father took soon thereafter to the bottle with great enthusiasm, squandering whatever royal savings they had on wine and wenches. Gambling, too. One night he must have taken his chances on a game he couldn’t afford, because the next morning Kyra and her mother found him at the door, cold, his throat sawed open.

Consider yourself teased.

"Being busy is good for your writing."

Words of writerly wisdom from Chris Baty—cofounder of NaNoWriMo—from his book No Plot? No Problem!, which I am currently reading in lieu of, y'know, actually writing:

You've probably heard the old adage that if you want to get something done, you should ask a busy person to do it. I've discovered that is acutely true when it comes to novel writing.

[...]

For me the moral of the story is this: A rough draft is best written in the steam-cooker of an already busy life. If you have a million things to do, adding item number 1,000,001 is not such a big deal. When, on the other hand, you have nothing to do, getting out of bed and washing yourself before 2:00 P.M. feels like too much work to even contemplate.

As Isaac Newton observed, objects in motion tend to stay in motion. When writing your first draft, being busy is key. It may feel frustrating at first, but having daily writing periods curtailed by chores, family, and other distractions actually helps you get the thing done. This is partly because the hectic pace forces you to type with a fleet-fingered desperation. But it's mostly because noveling in the midst of a chaotic life makes "book time" a treat rather than an obligation. It's a small psychological shift, but it makes all the difference in the world.

True story.

Boston Theater Marathon

Every year, the Boston Playwrights' Theatre puts on the Boston Theater Marathon—50 ten-minute plays staged all in one day.

And every year, I have had exactly one short play to submit. I wrote it in my senior year at Emerson, and have submitted and resubmitted (with minor cosmetic edits) that sucker several times over the past <shudder> decade, each time getting the nice rejection and sometimes even a handwritten note.

This is just a quick post to say that, this year, I will be submitting two new plays—slightly revised versions of Weeks One and Seven's completed challenges. Though it's seemed, at times, that I'm not living up to the challenge I've set for myself here on this blog, the ultimate goal was to get me writing again, and that it has done. So thank you for reading and commenting, and fingers crossed that one of these guys will get staged next May!

[And by the way, if any of you New England–area playwrights have anything to submit to the BTM, the deadline is this Thursday, November 15th.]

Maybe you don't have to write every day...?

Courtesy of Nathan Bransford:

One of the most common writing myths out there is the idea that you have to write every single day in order to be a writer.

[...]

I worry that this myth intimidates people who would otherwise excel at writing from pursuing their writing dreams. Every single day is a major, major commitment, and not everyone could or even should do it. Sometimes your brain needs a break to unlock a problem or maybe you just have a different rhythm.

Read the rest here!

I still have not found my "rhythm." I know that I feel pretty good when I've written at least a little each day, but it's also true that when I break my streak it's much more difficult to build back up to one. Is this because I do need the consistency of having written every day, or because I'm finally just burnt out from firing on all cylinders for weeks on end?

How about you? Have you found a rhythm that works for you, or, like me, is it a lot of starting and stopping?

Writing advice from... a lot of people

From BuzzFeed, pithy writing advice from 30 wildly successful authors: check it out!

My personal favorites are 28 and 29:

"Cut out all those exclamation marks. An exclamation mark is like laughting at your own joke." —F. Scott Fitzgerald

"Laugh at your own jokes." —Neil Gaiman

Happy Friday, and thanks to Myssi for the link!

Writing advice from David Rakhoff

Speaking of rough drafts...

Recently deceased This American Life contributor David Rakoff on the dubious joys of the first draft:

Writing—I can really only speak to writing here—always, always only starts out as shit: an infant of monstrous aspect; bawling, ugly, terrible, and it stays terrible for a long, long time (sometimes forever). Unlike cooking, for example, where largely edible, if raw, ingredients are assembled, cut, heated, and otherwise manipulated into something both digestible and palatable, writing is closer to having to reverse-engineer a meal out of rotten food.

(From his latest book Half Empty, which I have just requested from the library.)