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Pop Your Bubble!
October 20, 2016
The best way you can learn to write is by writing.
It doesn’t matter how much theory you gorge on, until you execute, until you learn how to articulate your imagination, structure your story, and develop your writing processes, you will never learn to write. It’s in the writing that you work out how you do things, find your voice, and grow as a writer.
But there is a danger in existing and trying to evolve singularly in a bubble. You could write book after book after book. But how will you know what you’re doing well and what you’re not doing well? You could be writing reams of exposition. How’re you going to know? You might think it’s working for you, and just continue to do it, not realising what you’re doing is to your detriment.
This is where it’s important that you do get challenged.
It might just come in submitting. Lots of places use form rejections – usually, they do so not because they want to be cold and impersonal, but because it’s just too time-prohibitive to write a personal response to everybody submitting. However, some journals still offer feedback, as do competitions. Look for those who do (especially if you’re paying money to enter a competition).
Workshops are another great place to be challenged. Here, you can learn about components of writing that you can take away and apply to your own work. You might learn about active versus passive sentences, go away, and in reviewing your own work, find that you write too passively. This is something you might never have encountered if you stayed inside your bubble.
Along the route of workshops, courses are another avenue you might take. Some might not want to commit to some long period of schooling, but there’s always short courses. Find something that appeals to you either personally, or to what you’re writing. There’s lots of great stuff out there.
Find people you trust to share your writing with, people who are going to give you constructive criticism (which usually rules out family). You could join or start a workshopping group, or just find specific people you trust. With the advent of email and the assistance of Track Changes, it’s so easy to do things electronically nowadays.
Pop your bubble!
You need to write. You need to have something down on the page to work with so you can find what your strengths and weaknesses are – where you’re doing okay, and where you can improve. You’ll never know any of this until you do write, because your writing is going to behave as your frame of reference. Writing is always the key. But, at some point, you will need some sort of exposure to learn new things you can apply, or to examine where you need to improve. Just remember something paramount as far as the latter goes: be open.
Don’t ever think that your writing is infallible. Don’t ever believe that you’ve always got it right, and everybody else has got it wrong. One common denominator amongst the better writers is that they’re all open to being challenged, because they recognise that’s how they’re going to get better, and that’s how they’re going to improve whatever they’re working on.
The moment you close yourself off, you’ll stay where you’ve always been.
In a bubble.
The Measure of Success
October 13, 2016
What is the measure of success as a writer? If I could grant you success, what would your definition be?
Everybody measures success differently, but here are some possible definitions:
- to have a bestseller: we’d all love that, wouldn’t we? To have our book appear on – for example – the New York Times bestseller list.
- to become rich: this is a definition of success in any vocation – to be able to buy whatever you want, whenever you want. As a writer – an industry where the bulk of people don’t live off their writing – how much more validation for your success could you have?
- to win an award: it could be the Miles Franklin or the Man Booker, or even the Nobel Prize. How’s that for recognition? How’s that for success?
- fame: you’re all people talk about when it comes to storytelling, and you’re recognised in the streets.
- adaptation: your books are adapted for film or television.
When you consider how many published authors there are, how many of them manage to get to any of these heights? A fraction? Less? The figure’s even tinier when you think about just how many writers there are, period. Another concern here is if you do reach any of these pinnacles, where do you go? And how do you deal with the pressure of now having to maintain (or surpass) that standard? These are just asides, but they’re important asides because they demonstrate that there is a price to pay for this level of success, however alluring this success might seem.
Some might be more modest with their aspirations:
- to live off your writing: you might be happy living a quiet, unassuming life, and just want time to be able to write.
- having a career in writing and writing-related industries: not only do you write and publish, but work in the publishing industry, perhaps as an editor or teacher.
- being able to publish regularly: regardless what you do to pay the bills, you churn the books out, and even develop a following.
And, honestly, this is the life of most published authors. There’s nothing glamorous about it, but it can still seem unreachable when you’ve published, but your book’s not selling; or when you’re out there, submitting, and dealing with rejections.
Some might just be more hopeful:
- to be published.
That would be nice, wouldn’t it?
This is by no means a definitive list, but it does cover a spectrum of possibilities – all of them material.
Your goals might (seemingly) be more philanthropic:
- to touch a reader: plenty of stories are moving experiences for the reader, the story remaining with the reader, long, long after the reader has put the story down.
- to educate: your field might be nonfiction, and you might want readers to know about something historical, a specialist topic, or just give the reader some self-help tips about leading a better life.
There’s still an element of ego in these possibilities if the author’s intent is to be known for any of these achievements, rather than seeing these achievements exist for the sake of the achievement itself. That’s an important distinction, and it’s worth being brutally honest with yourself to see where you stand because something all these gains share is they all have a qualitative measure – you can measure how many books you’ve sold, how much money you’ve made, how many other people you’ve beaten for an award, how well you’re recognised, how many people you’ve reached, and on that list goes.
Ultimately, that begs the question of how much is enough? Even if your aspirations are modest, how modest are they? The freedom to write is a luxury. Even if your life is hectic – work, partner, kids, household, responsibilities, etc. – and all you can manage is fifteen minutes of writing-time three or four times a week, it’s still a luxury, however hard-won or well-deserved that luxury might be.
And that’s the genuine measure of success – the freedom to write, and to pursue and accomplish your goal, rather than any reward earned from it.
Are YOU a Writer?
October 6, 2016
Are you a writer?
Do you feel instinctively that you’re a writer, that you want to write and share stories with a greater audience? That storytelling is intrinsically a part of who you are? That you can’t live without writing? That – whilst you might have another vocation (to pay the bills) – writing is your true calling?
Do you constantly think about the stories you want to write – when you’re at work, when you’re doing stuff around the house, when you’re parenting, when you’re drifting off to sleep? Do the ideas shoot around in your head, exploding like fireworks, demanding your attention?
Do you attend literary functions, like book launches or readings, to soak up the ambience, enjoy the event, and later chat with like-minded people? Perhaps you talk about writing, talk about processes, talk about plans? Or it could be that you’re encouraged to be with people of your ilk and find it stimulating?
Do you immerse yourself in as much knowledge about the craft of writing as possible? Perhaps you read books or blogs about writing? Or maybe you like Facebook pages about writing, and delight in their memes offering titbits of writing wisdom. You might even share the memes, hoping others will also learn from them? Do you make friends with other writers, wanting to build your social writing network?
Do you do any or all of these things?
Well, if you do, there’s something you should know: none of these make you a writer.
Sure, they’re nice and can help you developmentally, but they’re all peripheral to the life of being a writer.
You see, being a writer requires one thing that hasn’t been mentioned.
Writing.
And if you’re not doing this, then you’re not a writer.
Now this isn’t aimed at writers who have a library of writing behind them, and might be taking a break between projects. These writers know what writing’s about. Once they have their next idea, you can count on them to work it out, sit down, and write it. They’ve learned the secret of writing is the act of writing itself, that completing anything – a book, a story, a poem, an article, a screenplay – will only ever be accomplished when they write it, however long it takes, however arduous the process, however many other distractions they have in their lives.
Unfortunately, too many ‘writers’ revel in the peripherals, as if that affords them stature. They talk about the things they plan to write, but either never actually write them (citing they’re not quite ready, or they’ve had another, better idea, or that circumstances are getting in the way), or flit between projects, until they have a ton of openings, and nothing completed. They are a writer exclusively through the act of declaring themselves a writer.
Which are you?
If you’re going to be a writer, write.
The Length of Things
September 29, 2016
One of the greatest freedoms we have as writers is determining the length of our article/story/book/novel.
Screenwriting has constraints. Generally, it’s accepted that one page will equal one minute of screen time. This might vary at times (a page might be less or more) but generally evens out. Years ago, it was accepted that your average feature screenplay would be about 120 pages – about two hours. Now, it’s been trimmed down to 100 pages. An episodic drama might be about 45–60 pages (45–60 minutes) and broken into four or five acts. A sitcom might be about 25 pages, have a teaser (the bit they play before the opening credits), three acts, and then the tag (the bit at the end the credits is played over).
Outside of the general three-act structure, prose isn’t necessarily so regimented. Your short story might be 500 words, it might be 5,000 words. Your memoir or self-help book might be 15,000 words, or might be 100,000 words. Your novel could be 30,000 words or could be 130,000 words. Unless you’re writing to a specific market (e.g. a competition, journal, or publisher) which stipulates the word limit, you seemingly have no constraints.
In fact, many may consider it exhilarating to have no constraints. A novel could entertain a litany of characters, span generations, and follow numerous subplots. That memoir could incorporate your life from day one to your ninetieth year. That self-help book could employ every example from your own life experience that you think valid to get your message across. Often, there’s no challenge to finish within a set limit, so why should we? Why not write a sprawling epic? Or a fat, cushy short story? Or an exhaustive self-help book?
Certainly, you could. Any form of writing should be exactly as long as it needs to be – no more, no less. But – outside of getting your first draft down on the page – that’s not an invitation to write forever. And, when it comes time to submit or publish, length is definitely something you need to start considering.
Let’s say you’ve written a romance novel and it’s 250,000 words long. How many romance novels of that size exist on the market? Probably not many. Readers are programmed to an expectation they want met when they pick up a book, and giving them something 3–4 times the length of your average romance novel is probably just going to overwhelm them, if not discourage them. You might argue this is the sort of length you like reading. Great. But that isn’t the standard. It’d be the equivalent of an eight-hour movie.
I’m also a big believer that every revision of your writing should get shorter, yet more packed. Waffling is common in early drafts, e.g. describing a sunrise over a farmstead might take two hundred words in an early draft, but be diluted – and yet done far more emphatically – to half that in revision. That plot point might take a page in an early draft, yet be concentrated to a paragraph in rewriting. Also, repetition is common. When you’re in Chapter 15, you might not remember that you’ve mentioned such and such already in Chapter 3.
Pacing is something else that’s important. Chapter 4 might rollick along, while Chapter 8 might bog down into languorous details that, whilst gorgeous, are unnecessary. Are those details needed? This is important to consider: if you can cut something, and it hasn’t hurt whatever you’re writing – as in the reader won’t even realise something’s missing – then it doesn’t belong there, regardless how much you love it or are proud of it.
Just because you have this boundless playground doesn’t mean you should be boundless yourself. Don’t ever believe that you’re so brilliant that your story will wow readers, hook them, and keep them engaged, regardless – regardless of length, regardless of repetition, regardless of any convention you might care to flout. This is an attitude a lot of inexperienced writers enjoy. That’s not to say you can’t break convention and be successful, but your choices need to be justified.
Be honest with yourself and your work. Examine what other people who are succeeding in your chosen market – whether it’s short story writing, prose, poetry, self-help, business, etc. – are doing. If they’re succeeding, it’s with good reason.
Whilst writing affords you tremendous liberties, they are not liberties you should abuse – particularly out of ego.
Stretch
September 22, 2016
If you’re a writer, you’re just about guaranteed one thing in this life.
Can you guess what it is?
Publication? Fame? Riches? To be read? To share stories with the world? To get glowing review after glowing review? To win awards? To have movie adaptations? To be revered? To become a seminal figure in your chosen genre? To become immortalised?
Any or all of those things would be nice, but they’re not guaranteed – far from it. So no to all of those things.
What you are just about guaranteed is that you, in all likelihood, will have a terrible posture, and back and/or neck problems.
This is an unfortunate result of sitting hunched at a computer or over a journal. When you’re young, you just don’t care, because you’re so flexible and resilient. You could sit slumped the whole day and not even feel a crick when you get up. What you don’t realise is that, often, neck and back issues don’t necessarily have to be the result of a single incident (e.g. an accident), but can occur from a lifetime’s accumulation of bad posture. Then, one morning, you wake up with tightness or pain – the body’s proclamation that it can no longer cope. As you get older, you try to manage your way through issues, but are still prone towards unconsciously slumping.
So what can you do?
There’s obvious solutions, like managing your space, ensuring that you have a good chair, that your computer isn’t too high or low, and that you sit straight. Take breaks every forty-five minutes – get up, stretch, walk around. Force yourself away from the computer, especially when you’re tired and/or frustrated – mental states that can tense you up, and exacerbate any issues you might be experiencing. Often, you don’t even consciously realise this is going on.
Away from the computer, exercise is beneficial – a regular half-hour walk can do wonders for you physically and mentally. It helps loosen muscles, gets you out into the world, and gives you the time and space to mentally unwind. If you’re stuck in your writing or unsure where to take the narrative, a walk is just about guaranteed to help you find your way. It’s usually when you’re least thinking about your writing that solutions present themselves.
Then, there are more specific forms of exercise, like yoga. Yoga is the perfect blend of gentle stretching and meditative breathing that benefits both the body and the mind. It’s also a brilliant way of uncoiling those muscles that have grown tight and resistant and a means to finding an inner peacefulness.
Busybird Publishing will be running Yoga for Writers, beginning Thursday, 13th October, from 8.00–9.15pm. Facilitated by author Suzanne Male, Suzanne is a qualified iFlow Yoga teacher, knows all about the issues of posture and muscle tightness that come from writing, and has tailored a Yoga program specifically for writers. You can book in for eight sessions at $120, or pay casually at $18.00 per session. Check out our Eventbrite page here.