Category Archives: The Writing Life

My New Year’s Resolutions: A Sneak Peek

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Photo from Broward Palm Beach Blogs

Well, even though 2011 has been a very productive year for me, what with achieving most of the goals I set out for myself and making some important strides in my personal growth, I still strive evermore towards greater self-improvement. As such I’ve begun jotting down resolutions for the New Year. Here’s a sneak peek at what I’ll be up to in 2012.

1. Become a better friend to the semicolon. Too often I give the comma preferential treatment, like if the semicolon invites me to do something I put it off to see if the comma comes through with a better offer. See, I even did it in that last sentence.

2. Brainstorm new ideas at the Panda Express with my pants on. This also ties in with my resolution to get arrested less. (Note to self: pants around the ankles do not qualify as “on.”)

3. Procrastinate less; see also “No more hunting for old couches to burn in the middle of the street.”

4. Read more. As in, read more carefully. Do I have any idea what’s in those fried cheezy WhatzItz’s?™ I’ve been eating while at the computer? And this just in, apparently they’re made on the same equipment that extracts dirty fuel from oil sands.

5. Live more in the moment. And if polishing the last paragraph of Chapter 10 is that moment, then tending to a loved one’s gunshot wound or rescuing a cat from the oven will just have to wait.

Obviously this is just a draft list, and surely more resolutions will occur to me as I peer even deeper into the darkest recesses of my soul these final ten days of December. But now what about you? Any personal and/or professional improvement projects on the docket for 2012? What are your New Year’s resolutions?

My Ideal Reader

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Harvey Mulecue

I’ve read and listened to many author interviews over the years, and when asked, many if not most of the writers claim they don’t write with a specific audience in mind. They only create to please themselves, the idea being that if a piece elicits an emotional response from its creator it should instigate a similar reaction from a reader. A sound philosophy, I’d say, and I too write exclusively for an audience of one.  However, my ideal reader is not me.

He is 75-year-old Harvey Mulecue of Nederbush, Indiana. That’s right, every story idea, every word choice, every image, analogy, and metaphor must pass muster with a retired elevator repairman who also enjoys perusing the Reader’s Digest Large Print Smut Edition and ignoring stop signs.  If Harvey doesn’t let loose his raspy too-much-dust-in-the-elevator-shaft laugh at a section intended to be humorous, I work it over until he’s giggly as a Hoosier school girl. If while in the middle of what I’d hoped was a particularly dramatic  passage he’s suddenly interested in who’s on The View,  I revise it until he’s so riveted he doesn’t leave his chair once to yell at those kids who are always screwing around with his bird feeder.

There’s no doubt the man’s a tough critic, especially if his dermatitis is flaring up or he’s had a few mugs of the hard apple cider he brews in his basement, but by God he’s made me a better writer. I can rest assured that if he likes anything I’ve written then the general book-buying public will surely follow suit. I highly recommend to every author out there, find your own Harvey Mulecue.

Do You Write Without A Net?

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Man on Wire

There are many popular writers out there, John Irving among them, who never begin a project without knowing exactly where they’re going. I remember an interview with Irving where he said he starts a book by figuring out what its last sentence will be. There is something to be said for having a map, a guide book of sorts to keep you on track, to allow you to chart your progress.

Conversely, there are just as many well-known writers, Stephen King among them, who start with just a germ of an idea, a character or two, and then delight in discovering their story in the moment as they’re actually writing it. They feel that an outline only serves to stifle the creative process; in their view, to plot a story is to suffocate it.

Here’s where I stand on the issue: I spent many years authoring screenplays which began life as  structured, organized outlines, and so when it came to writing my first novel I was determined to work without a net. I knew only the bare essentials before plunging in: the story would involve repressed memories, and my teenage main character would somehow become his parents’ therapist.  The process was extremely liberating; in fact, maybe too liberating, in that it resulted in a huge first draft. But I don’t regret my choice and believe the story would not have as much of the energy and surprise that it does if I had plotted it out beforehand.

Things are a bit different with my new project, a YA horror novel. I’ve decided to go a bit further with plotting, to know more about the story and characters before I set off to write. I’m not sure if it’s because this is a “genre” project and I’m concerned about hitting on certain “genre” beats or expectations, but it just feels like the right move for this story. However, I haven’t completely abandoned my intrepid spirit, as my plot structure is pretty loose and I’ve purposely left open the answers to several questions that I’ll dig up when I start writing. There needs to be an element of mystery, a willingness to embrace the unexpected, or the writing will go stale. I can only write about my characters and the story for so long before I get the itch to finally bring them both to life.

So how about you? If you’re a writer reading this, where do you fall on the issue of story preparation? Outline or no outline? Net, or nothing but the unforgiving ground to catch you if you fall?

Where Do Ideas Come From?

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Photo by Ana Fuji

For me, the completion of a writing project always unleashes a mélange of emotions: euphoria, sadness, relief…and dread. Dread? Yes. Because inevitably, digging its claws into my back after “The End” is this nagging persistent question: What am I going to write next?

Okay, but what’s the big deal, I thought of one idea, certainly another is already in the making? At the very least being cooked up somewhere in the deep recesses of the mind? But what if it’s not? What if the tank’s  empty? The well’s dry? Insert next cliché here. It’s not like I can just go down to the Idea Store and pick up a few items as easily if I were shopping for my next meal. Because Idea Stores went out of business years ago, remember? Too many shoplifters.

However. Hold on. There is good news. Really? Yes. Frowns upside down, on one…two…three.

The good news is this: ideas are all around us, we just have to be open to looking for them in the most unlikely of places. For instance, the idea for this blog post was found under a dead pigeon at the bus stop on the corner of Motor Avenue and Venice Boulevard. All I had to do was brush off the maggots and—wallah! Blog post.

What was I doing poking around a dead pigeon?

Moving on. Ideas for blog posts are one thing, a relatively small thing perhaps, a few hundred words, but what about the bigger ideas, the long term projects that necessitate thousands of words? A new short story, screenplay, novel, where are those babies lurking?

Where they are not, contrary to the literature I was handed at the aforementioned bus stop, is in the mouths of actual babes. Do not go looking there; the storks that bring those little bundles of joy into the world do not speak English and are particularly vicious.

So I must intensify my search, in which I mean I must prepare for battle. The days of simply sitting down at my desk with my thinking cap on are over. It’s a thinking helmet now, along with a hazmat jumpsuit, industrial gloves, iron-toed boots and a crowbar. Occasionally a blowtorch.

And with that, I’m off. I’ve heard rumors about ideas floating around free for the taking outside the Hyperion sewage treatment plant. If I find anything I’ll let you know.

In the meantime, where do you get your ideas?

Courage To Face The Blank Page

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The Lancashire Witches - from the archives of the Project Gutenberg

As writers we know how daunting it can be to face the blank page, and sometimes we do little things to build up our courage so we can have a productive day. Some people keep inspirational quotes or motivational sayings near their writing desk. Some people read a page or two from their favorite book to pump themselves up, while others start their sessions by doing some freewriting, to warm up their writerly muscles as it were. Every writer is different.

Here are the three things I do before diving in for a day’s work:

1. I’m a morning writer, so it’s essential that I eat a good breakfast. Some people swear by their protein shakes, but I’m hooked on an eclectic little potion I buy from three homely sisters out of the Czech Republic. It’s a bit expensive, and the ingredients on their own, wing of black bat, blood of gargoyle, paw of black cat, an ogre’s boil, are disgusting, but I’m telling you after you blend them all together and pour that creamy froth down your throat you’ll wonder why it’s not available in every GNC.

It makes you feel so great afterwards, really energetic, like your soul just went up a size. Which may have something to do with the warning on the package that says someone in the world dies every time you make it, but hey, somebody’s got to suffer for your art, and why should it be you?

2. People love their yoga and their meditation, don’t they? What I do is sort of a combination of both. First, I turn off all the lights in my room and then light the candles I’ve arranged in an intricate and precise pattern on the floor, according to specifications recommended by Tobin’s Spirit Guide. I then sit on a meditation pillow and say these words in my head over and over “Ixkash, Axkash, Oxkash, Exkash.” And I keeping doing it until a different voice in my head takes over; it’s a pretty deep, ground-rattling voice, actually, and eventually it gets so loud I have to let it just speak through me. Sometimes I say zany stuff like “The gates of Hell need more children’s bones,” or “Succumb to me or my demon crows will devour your flesh.” Other times, I’ll say “Combine chapters 3 and 4 and move them to the end of part 2…now I will build an altar to sacrifice your virgins.” Oh, and the yoga part is that I’m able to spin my head 360 degrees. Yeah, I’d like to see any Bikram fanatic do that!

I find this all really gets my adrenaline going and the creative juices flowing. I have had some cloven feet issues in the past, and it does hurt to urinate for about an hour afterwards, but it’s worth it. My writing has definitely benefited.

3.  Last but not least, I listen to thirty minutes of Yanni. Whenever I tell people this it really creeps them out. I don’t get it.  There’s nothing to be afraid of.

So that’s me. How do you build up the courage to face the blank page?