I'll Just Leave This Here

11 Types of Bad Writing Advice

Believe me, I've heard all of these and continue to hear them to this day. Pick up any self help writing book and you'll see nothing but around two hundred pages of this crap. Just a quick reminder:

There are no laws to writing.

Just because Bill H. Authorguy (sue me for the corny joke later) has written seven hundred bestselling books doesn't mean that you'll only be a successful writer if you mimic him.

Writing is fun. Some people love to make it look like it's brain surgery, because they don't feel important enough if they're doing something they enjoy. Work should be hard. Tough. Grr. Manly. That's a load of bull, however, and you'll never finish a manuscript if you feel like working on it is some form of punishment. While they are challenges, they are worthwhile challenges that you should enjoy undertaking.

If Mr. ITeachWriting hates romance novels, he'll shoot down anything of that nature that you show him. It doesn't mean it's bad, he just hasn't learned to be unbiased.

You're supposed to explore, have fun, and learn things about yourself.

Making a mistake or trying something that doesn't work is not an indication of whether or not you'll make it as a writer. This has happened to everyone, even the person writing that hoity-toity self help book, and it is part of the process. I usually have at least three different versions of a scene floating around before I find one that works when I try it out.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, some people just should not give advice. Most of these people are writers. Not all writers, of course, but the more pompous types. You'll know them when you see them.

Last but not least, remember that we writers are sometimes the most stubborn people you'll ever encounter. Many seasoned professionals make it painfully obvious that they believe their own way of going about their story to be the only way of going about ANY story. I've tried all of the advice I've ever been given, and can honestly say that no one thing worked perfectly for me. You basically have to take little bits and pieces of what works until you shape your own unique process. It's like a fingerprint, and not the same for everyone by any means. Try something that just doesn't feel right, and you'll end up with a story as awkward as that analogy.


I think I'll also leave this here, seeing as most of the people looking at my blog have author blogs, themselves. I found it beyond useful. I posted it on Twitter earlier, along with the realization that most of the people coming to my blog from a search engine are looking for Pinkie Pie. Sometimes Google Analytics will surprise you. 

Shoutout to Allen Ginsburg

Image via WikipediaJoseph Roux once said that, "Poetry is truth in its Sunday clothes."

Allen Ginsburg showed us all that poetry is sometimes better when it strips down naked and says, "Hey! This ain't pretty, but it's how it is."

And you know what? Sometimes a thing is beautiful in its own way just for being what it is. 

Even Steve Buscemi, as much as I hate to say it.

My favorite Ginsburg poems:

Wild Orphan

A Supermarket in California

Song

An Eastern Ballad

Refrain

4 Annoying Things About Urban Fantasy

I have come to the realization that I cannot stand urban fantasy. I know, I know...it's quite possibly one of the most beloved genres in all of bookdome. I'm not saying that I've closed off my mind to it, either. Everyone knows that all it takes to completely redeem a genre is one really amazing book. There are just a few little things about urban fantasy that have really been jumping on top of my nerves and doing a nice little two step lately, and over time they've manifested themselves into a nice little article-worthy list.

1. It's a genre that continually tries to be cool to the extent that it just isn't.  Vampires are cool without dressing up as a circa 1970s Henry Winkler, and for some reason I just can't entertain the idea of them regularly attending nightclubs and behaving like a fourteen year old girl. 
2. It's almost always coupled with some sort of paranormal romance which is almost always based on nothing but sex because everyone knows that's all love is anymore. Sure, Guy #1 is seriously in love with you and would do anything for  you, but he's like, a human! And like, Guy #2 is half dragon and wants to eat your face for breakfast! How can you compete with that, Guy #1? How?!?
3. Everyone who isn't magical has to have a skull that's three inches thick. There's a dragon perched on top of the Empire State Building and I'm supposed to believe that nobody sees? This is the one thing that makes urban fantasy so hard to write--the fact that the writer has to make a believable excuse for the magical elements in the story and the fact that no one seems to notice that they're there. Most writers nowadays don't even seem to be making the attempt.  
4. All of the books are basically the same but with different characters.  In other words, urban fantasy has been way overdone. Nearly ever book that comes out nowadays is either it or just plain nonfiction. After being written so often, it's not hard to believe that elements of different stories criss-cross. Originality is getting harder and harder to find these days. 

Image via WikipediaChances are that if you're alive, you've heard of the Amazon Kindle (or some other sort of e-reader). What you may not have heard, however, is the changes that many believe it is causing in the ways people read, write, and publish their books.

Okay, let's get real here. You've probably heard. But what does it mean for you as a writer? What about you as a reader?

It's hard to tell at this point, but I think the results will be quite favorable to writers. As a writer you are presented with a wonderful opportunity to get your book out there without going through a publisher. It's a great way to get some valuable experience on what people actually like to read without sinking too much money into self publishing in print, which can quite literally cost you an arm and a leg. Well, if that's the type of currency they take, that is. In that case, I would probably become suspicious.

Not to mention all of the trees you save. And if you decide not to do the indie thing anymore in the future, it might help quite a bit if an editor knows you as, "that chick or dude who wrote that book that was in the top ten on Amazon Kindle for a year straight" instead of just a no-name right off the streets.

Not to mention, of course, well...this. I can only imagine the toes I'm going to step on by linking that one.

KDP (that's Kindle Direct Publishing, not Kurdistan Democratic Party) isn't just a boon for writers, however. Can you imagine a world with no book trailers hyping up terrible books to the point where you actually find yourself buying them when you know they're going to be terrible? How about world in which a book gains merit by impressing its readers alone and is hailed as a classic, while less well written and executed novels sink to the bottom of the barrel where they belong? Ladies and gentlemen, such is the world I've seen come into existence while browsing book reviews at the Kindle Store. Well, not always of course...there are those authors who ask their friends to leave incredibly favorable reviews of their products. In fact, you'll more than likely notice that all of the reviews for books that have just been added are usually five stars. The one star reviews don't start coming in until later when, obviously, other people have started buying and reading the book.

Then again, I have also seen people give low ratings to a book just because it "contained swear words", so I'm not saying that this is wonderful for writers and readers just yet. I'm just saying that, at the moment, it seems like it will have a pretty positive outcome.

I wrote this thing in a room full of screaming, cackling, tongue clicking people. I'm one of those people who requires absolute silence to write anything worth reading, so I apoligize if this post isn't...well, if it isn't worth reading.

Gah. This is one of the reasons why writing a novel takes me so long. Has anyone ever had absolute quite in their homes when they weren't home alone (which I never am anymore -.-).

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Hindrance, Thy Name is Procrastination.

Image by Nemo's great uncle via FlickrWhat should I be doing?

Working on the long, hyper detailed version of my outline.

What am I actually doing?

Typing a blog post, eating fried rice, and mindlessly browsing the Kindle Store. Am I proud of myself? No, but I'm definitely not ashamed, even though I should be.

Yep. Should be.

I want to read Lolita, but I'm afraid it will be one of those classic books that turns out to be amazing and incredibly boring at the same time. That was how the 1962 film struck me, anyway: I just couldn't stop watching because I was so interested, but I'll be skinned and left out in the sun to dry if it didn't drag on forever! I know that you can't judge a book by it's movie, so I think I might just give it a shot.

I downloaded a sample on my Kindle to see how I liked it. I was immediately stricken with the desire to both slap Humbert Humbert in the face and crane my neck and stare at him as if he were the eighth wonder of the world. I've been told that this feeling will persist for most of the novel.

 This is very different from how the movie made me feel about him...mostly, I would assume, because they changed quite a bit about Lolita to redeem the tale a bit.

It's almost like looking at a train wreck. You just can't stop, and a tiny, sordid part of you actually wants to see more.

To POV or not to POV?

Today I have a question. That's right, a question. No rambling about nothing important at all, not even a little bit. Just a simple question.

Which point of view is your favorite? Is it first? Third person limited? What about omniscient? It may even be second, rare as it is these days. Does it change from one to the other when you're writing instead of reading?

When it comes to reading I usually like what best fits the story, but am definitley limited to third person in writing. It's just so hard to make good prose when you're limited to your narrator. I envy those of you who are gifted in that area, I really do. First person may be a lot harder to pull off, but it really does look fun.

I would also like to note that the single most viewed post on this entire blog is the one that mentions My Little Pony. Truly, it is capable of mind control. I hope I didn't scar those of you who were unfamiliar with the story by linking Cupcakes a while back, and just want to warn everypony one more time that you should be very, very afraid of Pinkie Pie.

Excerpt the Second

Image via WikipediaI'm fairly certain that I've at least got an actual scene from my novel going on here. The goal was to focus on character motivation...I was going to write about how Muriel wants to be a daredevil and find adventure but can't have it because she's stuck in the city. You can all see just how well that went. I gave the nutjob just what she wanted...or, well, what she thinks she wants for now.
 Somehow I never end up developing the parts of my characters that I sat down to develop.

I do believe I have a new development for my Muriel, however: She's crazy as a loon.

(Psst...I hope there aren't as many typing and spelling mistakes in this excerpt as there were in the first!)



------

The snow was falling in sheets. As she leaned out the window, feeling the tiny, icy pinpricks land on her skin, Muriel tried to make out the building across the alleyway beneath her bedroom. It was all in vain; there was simply too much snow.

She leaned back into the room and shut the window. Chilled water dripped down her face as the flakes that had lighted on her head began to melt in the warmed air. Snow, and lots of it. Just what she had been hoping and praying for. December and January had almost passed completely without so much as a flake.

Behind her the television was chattering away, and she crossed the room to her dresser so that she could turn it off. The entire house was finally asleep. Now it could be quiet.

While she was still at the front of her room she flipped off the light switch, leaving the room in complete darkness, and felt her way to her bed. Muriel didn't want the slightest bit of glare on the window. She was hoping that the man would come and stand on the sidewalk that night like he had every night for the past two weeks, the one that she could see if she looked as far to the left as she could while staring out at the city beyond. Of course, the snow that night would make it harder to see him, but Muriel had the feeling she would. It was almost as if the world around him wanted him to be seen.

The snow was so thick that night, however, that she couldn't even see the fire escape directly outside. There was only a thick, animated whiteness, squirming and moving as if it were alive as each snowflake rocketed toward the ground. Muriel tried to zero in on a single flake and follow its journey to the ground, but it had left her field of vision before she could really even focus on it at all.

All seemed still in the frozen world outside save those madly swirling snowflakes.

Muriel snapped awake before she had even realized that she had fallen asleep. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she was covered in cold sweat. Something had frightened her, of that she was convinced. But what?

She rested her forehead on the glass. A chill shook her as the heat of her body met the frigid windowpane. How long had she been asleep? It couldn't have been very long, for the snow had not slowed one bit...unless it was going to snow buckets all night.

That was when Muriel saw it. Or him, rather.

He was in the alleyway this time. Not very far into it, as he still would have been quite visible from the street were the weather not so bad. He was only a relatively small black form, shaped very much like a man and nearly invisible behind the wall of falling snow. But it was him, there was no question.

Muriel slid her window open and climbed out onto the fire escape wearing nothing but her pink flannel nightgown.

The cold snow quickly penetrated her slippers, but she didn't care. Holding onto the rail to keep her balance, Muriel climbed down the metal stairs, taking note of how many level areas she came to. There were three floors between her bedroom and the alley below. Before long she came to the ladder and nearly slid down it rather than climbed.

Her foot finally struck pavement when she realized that what she was doing was absolutely insane. She was a thirteen year old Jewish girl standing in the middle of a snow filled alleyway in Brooklyn at who knew what hour of the night to meet some stranger that she had seen from her window. It was completely mad.

Mad and wonderful.

Muriel grinned and set off in the direction of the anthropomorphic black figure.

The closer she got, the more of him she could see. It was as if they two of them were concealed in a bubble; the blizzard was raging all around it but not inside of it. It could have simply been that she was so focused on him that the snow didn't matter anymore, but Muriel always liked to imagine that something simply wonderful was happening, even when nothing out of the ordinary was going on at all.

When she was only a few feet away from him he turned, and she saw that he was wearing a bowler hat pulled down over his face that was as black as the suit he wore. It looked as if not a single snowflake had landed on either one. They were still both just as black as black could be.

He reached out his hand, palm up, and beckoned to her.

Behind her was her apartment, and inside were her mother and father. Muriel loved them more than anything else in the world and couldn't stand the thought of leaving them alone. She also knew that it was incredibly wrong to go with a stranger, because when one did such a thing one had no idea where one would end up.

And that was what had her pinned. She didn't know why, but Muriel knew that this individual wasn't your garden variety stranger. He had somewhere that he would like to take her, and if she didn't go with him, she would never find out where that place was.

Crazy, irrational, and sometimes unbelievable Muriel took his hand and followed after him when she felt him pulling on her. He threw the jacket of his suit over her shoulders and led her on toward where she knew the street was, but where she saw nothing but that moving whiteness.

Before long the white was still and hazy, and she realized that there was no more snowfall. There was only seemingly endless white fog, and various details and outlines coming gradually into focus.

Though she was dazed and dizzy, Muriel actually managed a laugh. She had come into the alleyway just to talk to this gentleman, and so far she hadn't said a single word. 

Is the future now? God, I hope not.

Image by Witer via FlickrI finally began Fahrenheit 451 the other day. I'm only on part 2 right now, but I can already tell that everyone who told me that the book was a must-read was completely right.

They were also right about how, though the story is set in a dystopian future, it reflects our own society today so much that it's almost frightening. I can say that it's much more frightening than not because I'm certain it reflects our society more now than it did when it was first written in the 1950s.




Books are illegal, television shows and games have been dumbed down to the point that they're nothing but series of bright colors, sports are all anyone cares about because they don't require much philosophy, and all of the liberal arts schools are closed because people stopped going to them. All of the jobs involve technical and computer skills, and sitting around on the porch talking is seen as useless and dangerous because, golly gee, if people start thinking then they just might get ideas! Different ideas! Then there will be war over those ideas, and it won't even be the "fun kind" of war.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm scared that this is where we're going to end up fairly soon, especially since I spent eight hours in a lecture hall the day before listening to a lady tell me that it didn't matter whether or not you were doing what you loved if there wasn't a job market for it. You know what? I don't care if I'm going to be poor because being a writer isn't corporate enough for the future. I'll open up a can of beans and eat it like it's a turkey dinner because I'll be doing what I love.

And besides, people with no house don't have to pay the bills. So nyah.

In short, read this book and let it scare you. You'll thank yourself for picking it up, and don't ever let someone tell you that you shouldn't follow your dreams just because they're becoming obsolete. Don't let the man keep you down, and don't get stuck in the three piece cage if you want to work with whales and wear a scuba suit.

Three guesses as to what this post is going to be about.

ThImage by brody4 via FlickrI'm sincerely sorry that I can't shut up about this novel. It's just really coming together, and quite frankly, I'm overjoyed. Nothing has ever come together like this for me. Usually it starts as an idea and stays as an idea because I'm more than afraid to plan it out and actually DO it. Fear of screwing up? Oh yes. I should think so.

This time, however, I told myself that such a thing simply would not fly. I buckled down and actually started outlining the thing, and didn't make myself too scared to plan out the story from start all the way to finish.

The only problem is that now I'm terrified of actually writing it.

On a related matter, I decided to bump the age of my main character from fourteen down to thirteen. While she's supposed to seem young and naive for her age, I was writing my scenes and realized that she just might be a bit too young and naive to be fourteen.

Is she too immature to be thirteen?

Incredibly. But not so much that it makes it look like I such at characterization. I've just got to say that I'm glad I made the change before I actually started on the manuscript. Does anyone out there know how annoying it is to go back and change things about a character (such as name or age) and then go change all of the references made TO that thing you changed? And all of the plot points it influenced?

Ugh. That's another reason to make sure you've got it straight before you start writing. Believe me, the more sure you are about exactly what is going to happen and when, the easier the actual writing will be.

Oh joy! It's a PLOT!

Image by mshea via FlickrI've never been more excited in my entire life. I just sat down and, after finishing up the last of my character development, typed out the entire plot synopsis to my novel. AHHHH!

This has never happened before. Normally I start a novel with nothing but ideas and then leave it alone. If you think of the plot of a novel as getting from point A to point Z, my problem has definitely always been that I have points A, Z, G, O, M, Q, W, P, and R, but none of the others.

In other words, I only have a few disjointed, disconnected scenes of the novel and not the whole shebang. Well, I'm happy to say that the whole shebang is definitely mine in the case of this one. I've got all of the stops along the way planned out. Now all I have to do is outline the thing and then write it! EEEE!

I know it may seem like I'm overreacting, but this truly is a wonderful moment for me. It means I just might make it in this crazy business, after all. My problem before definitely was planning. Looking back at the way I had been writing before, it's no wonder I never got anywhere. I'm so glad I actually decided to pretty much develop the whole darn thing beforehand or I might have never gotten past my slump.

I have made this one rule for myself: The novel is everything. Even if it's five in the afternoon on a Saturday and you've been invited to go to a free pie party, you don't. You write. Because if you don't, that novel will never get finished. Never.

I begin this story in the same way I've began many others...

...with a vague and possibly flawed introduction in the form of a flashback attempting to draw the reader into the rest of the story. I've been told that the main reason I can't finish projects is my habit of writing my first draft as if it were the final when I should simply just be writing. I've been trying harder to take that advice and just "write". The following introduction to my newest project (which, God willing, I will finish) is the result.

I'm not happy with it, but then again I'm not happy with anything I do. To be honest, I'm far too frightened of what might happen if I were to allow myself to be satisfied.

-----

The cave walls, bathed in an orange glow from the fire, were crumbling all around her. The entire world wanted to crush Muriel under its weight and trap her flattened body underground where no one would ever find it.

If, of course, anyone would even look. Muriel wasn’t the fastest thinker you’d ever come across, but she had been given due time to figure out that this sort of thing had happened before. 

In front of her lay the dank opening to the rest of the catacombs. If she took one more step into that darkness that was so thick it looked like she could choke on it, she may never find her way back again. Worse yet, she would more likely than not be trapped inside when the whole damn thing collapsed. 

But if she didn’t? Well, then she would never know.

Biting her lip and shaking with both fear and anticipation, Muriel listened to the sounds of her footfalls as she took a first, second, and then a third step into the rocky aperture. Once she had passed the stone gateway, the shaking earth became silent as quickly as if switched off by the press of a button.

----

Now, if only I could begin from the actual beginning and work up to that particular point in the plot.

Of course, it could really put a damper on things if I decide to take the above mentioned scene out of the story...you wouldn't believe how many times that has happened. Seeing as it's the most climactic point in the plot, however, I don't believe I will. 

On a related note, am I the only person who has changed a character's name and been forced to go back through the entire manuscript and make the appropriate adjustments? 

The first time that happened to me was definitely the last. Now I try as hard as I can to make sure I've got the name set in stone before I begin writing. I decided to change a character's name from "Mark" to "Lucas", and since I was already at least ten chapters in, I simply used "find and replace".

What I ended up with was chapter after chapter of people making "reLucass" instead of remarks and "Lucasing" things onto pieces of paper.

It pays to be a programmer.

Unfortunately, I am not one. That's why I've had to go through a cornucopia of blogging services in order to find one that didn't make me want to rip my hair out for one reason or the other.

I want to try to update this thing bi-weekly. I want every post to be nice, long, and meaningful, which makes it hard to get a post out every day. I suppose I'll be sticking some random snippets of stories I've been working on along with the occasional poem. I warn you, though, that my poetry is completely awful. You  may just lose your soul from reading it. I'm not even kidding. I feel that my prose is at least a little better, if not a lot better.

I went to Blogger because I've had a life-long love affair with Google.

If you think that's a metaphor, well then you just don't know how creepy I can be.