Justin Call's Blog: Stormcaller, page 2

Seven Things I Say About Writing

About a year ago when I was still living in Idaho, the Pocatello Writer’s Group invited me to share some insights about writing. I talked about my opinion of the much-beloved and much-maligned Hero’s Journey and shared other worthy methods for plotting a novel. I also shared some notes I had compiled after one member of the group asked for people’s advice on writing, which is where this list came from.

I’d been percolating on many of these nuggets of wisdom for years, and I’d shared them with people when appropriate, but never in a consolidated form. Sharing with the writer’s group gave me an opportunity to compile all of my observations into one succinct, single page of advice. You may feel not all (or any) of this applies to you or your writing process – and that’s fine. In fact, Rules 2 and 3 say more or less this exact thing: there’s no magic solution for being a successful writer, so just do what works best for you.

Take me, for example. I love to outline because it helps me see all the potential plot points I could incorporate into my novel. It also helps me estimate how long a chapter or scene sequence is likely to be (which is important since I often over-plan and write long scenes). So it’s a double-edged sword. I outline because it helps me ease into the drafting process (and helps give me a road map for my books), but it’s also easy to over-plan or use outlining as a procrastination tool when I’m really supposed to be writing the first draft of my next book (the one I’ve already outlined three or four times).

In fact, that’s the reason that Rule #1 is to just write crap and edit it afterwards. It’s not because I dislike plotting or disagree with it as a writing tool (far from it). My reason for making that Rule #1 is because I’ve seen how often aspiring writers can paralyse themselves with the fear of writing something bad. I’m prone to this myself (hence my need for outlining), and that’s okay. A healthy amount of fear will keep you from being content with the crap you produce.

But it doesn’t need to remain crap. Do your outline if you need to (I sure do), but at some point you need to set it aside and turn your beautiful outline into an ugly prose monster. That’s OKAY. It’s part of the process. And I need to remind myself of that just as often as I remind other aspiring authors (more often, probably).

Rule #1: The first draft of anything is bad, so just vomit it out.

Embrace the typos, the corniness, the disconnected thoughts, the lack of imagery. Write crap. You’re smart enough to make it more subtle, more believable, and more awesome later. So worry about that later. If you’re a planner, you should be done planning at this stage (give your architect the day off). If you’re a pantser, you’ll bring your architect in along with your editor . . . at the end of the drafting process. Either way, give your editor and your architect the day off. Don’t edit, polish, revise, criticize, outline, plot, or plan – just write.

Rule #2: There is no magic solution.

There is no device or app that will write your book for you. There is no distraction-free writing tool that will make you focus. No magic drug, pill or energy drink. Worst of all (and perhaps most of all), no one will believe in you more than you believe in yourself. So don’t wait for someone else to validate you. Don’t wait for it to get easier (it won’t). For me, writing often feels like squeezing blood from a stone. But I believe in myself and I know what I am doing, so I just keep squeezing till my hands are bloody. There is no other way to get it done. Pro tip: cutting down on social media consumption helps a lot because it’s usually just a way to procrastinate when you should actually be writing.

Rule #3: Do you.

Everyone works differently, so educate yourself and find what works well for you . . . then do it. Stop chasing ideal scenarios and get the writing done. If you need to write at night when people are sleeping, do it. If you need to write on the bus on your phone on the way to work, do it (anecdote: I wrote 60% of the first draft of my first fantasy novel on an iPhone while riding the bus to and from work each day). If you need to write when your kids are sleeping/eating, do it. If you are a plotter, plot. If you are a pantser, then fly by the seat of those pants. If you’re not sure what your method is, feel free to explore and listen to what works for other people. Test their advice out. Take notes. See what inspires you and results in good writing (but don’t get superstitious about rituals or specifics). Just find a way to get the work done. However you manage that best is what works for you, so do you. Likewise, people are VERY different, so it goes without saying that what works for some people won’t work for you (this goes for finding time to write, writing well, finding an agent, getting published, and pretty much anything else you do in your life). See Rule #2 above and remember that, while there is no magic solution, there is still a way (or multiple ways) for you to achieve your goals. Find that way. Don’t give up. Find it and do it.

Rule #4: Set goals and write them down.

If you don’t have goals or deadlines, you aren’t accountable to anyone. Make yourself accountable, share your goals/deadlines if it helps, and hold yourself to them. If you can’t do that, then you will never know whether you are achieving your goals. For me, word count goals are immensely helpful when I am drafting. When I am revising, it helps to have a date set for finishing my revisions.

Rule #5: Patience and persistence will trump talent.

If you’re not talented, you can use your patience and persistence to educate yourself and become a better writer. You’ll need to be realistic about your strengths and weaknesses, and you’ll need to learn to recognize when you are being given good/bad advice (see Rule #3 above), but if you’re not persistent, you won’t overcome your writer’s block (see Rules #1 and #2), you won’t grow as a writer, and you will give up before you write anything worth reading.

Rule #6: Do it right and don’t settle for less.

If you are unhappy with something, fix it (see Rule #5). Just don’t let it stop you from writing (see Rule #1). Also, success is relative (see Rule #3), so decide what you want – what makes YOU happy – and achieve that goal. For example, if you’re trying to be published by a major publisher, then do it. Don’t settle for anything less; find out how others did it, then see what works for you (see Rule #3 again). This may mean you will need to educate yourself (in fact, this is almost a certainty), so be persistent and get it done (remember, there are no short-cuts). Alternatively, if you are just writing for yourself or your family – that’s great! No shame in that (as long as you admit that is what you really want). It’s inspiring to meet someone that has a clear vision of their goals, no matter how big or small they are. You want to self-publish yourself? That’s great, too! Do you and don’t apologize for it. But don’t do it half-assed or half-way. Educate yourself and do it right (don’t settle for less, don’t take shortcuts; know your goals and get them done).

Rule #7: Writing isn’t easy – it’s hard. Good writing is even
harder.

Maybe you only write when the muse strikes you. You go on writing binges and it’s fantastic stuff, but when the muse is gone, you can’t get a single sentence on the page. Well, put on your big boy pants (or big girl panties) and do the hard work. That’s what makes you a writer. If the impulse to binge write comes, you should still embrace it and take advantage of it, but in my experience, if you wait for those moments to come, they don’t come often enough. Frankly, I think they are more often a product of your brain looking for something fun to do when it should be doing something else; as soon as “writing my novel” becomes the thing you are *supposed* to be doing, you look for something else to do (google “procrastination” and “instant gratification monkey” and you’ll see what I’m talking about). If you really want to milk those binge impulses, you could always look for other things to do to distract you (and then persuade yourself to write when you should really be doing those other things)…but my guess is you’ll end up doing neither of the things you planned to do and will instead do something mindless, unproductive, or unfulfilling (because that is how the gratification monkey works). The best solution is to simply teach yourself to write (even when it is hard, and you hate it, and you only write a few hundred words a day, or five words a day). Eventually the words add up and you have a book to revise. Then you revise it and you have a book to sell. Persistence pays off. For myself, I accept that I have weaknesses, but I don’t let them become part of my script. Yes, sometimes I convince myself that I will feel better getting on social media before writing, or I will feel better researching this one non-essential thing before I start writing, but it’s never true. I always regret the time I could have spent getting more writing done, and you’ll only gain confidence in yourself once you teach yourself to overcome those impulses and simply do the thing you’re *supposed* to be doing. Confidence is huge. Become confident in your ability to write every day, and you *will* write every day. If you don’t have that confidence yet, believe that you can get it and keep working toward it. That, or give up and stop torturing yourself with something you don’t really want to do (or don’t have the discipline to do). You’re the only one who can decide if that last part applies to you.

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Q&A from GoodReads

I recently got an author’s page on Goodreads (hooray for having a soon-to-be-published book!) and they asked me a series of questions as a primer for people getting to know me and my writing. For a first blog post, I figured this would be an excellent way to introduce myself to future readers and fans. So excellent, in fact, that I’ll be doing additional blog posts in the near-future that correspond with other interviews and AMAs (ask-me-anything) that have been planned for closer to the launch of my book, Master of Sorrows.

Speaking of which . . . if you haven’t preordered your copy of my debut fantasy novel, you should really get on that. I’ll even help you out by posting a link right here: http://bit.ly/MasterOfSorrows. This will link you to the UK edition of my book, which comes out February 21, 2019. You can have the hardback or paperback shipped anywhere in the world, or you can download the ebook. There will also be an audiobook available if you’re into that (I know I am), though it’s not available for preorder as of December 21, 2018. The narrator for the audiobook is Peter Kenny, though, and he’s fantastic (he’s the narrator for Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher series, as well as many of Iain (M.) Banks’s novels. So go check it out!

What are you currently working on?

Master of the Forge: Book 2 of The Silent Gods.

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

The inspiration for The Silent Gods arose from a single question: “What if you were destined to be a villain?” This led to a series of other questions, all of which excited me, and I knew I had a keen idea for a fantasy series. I especially liked the concept of writing a coming-of-age story from the villain’s perspective, of seeing the character grow from a naive adolescent and then evolve into a full-blown baddie.

But to do that story justice, I also needed to acknowledge that real people rarely see themselves as villains. Real people believe they are the heroes of their own stories, regardless of whether the rest of us would agree with them.

Rephrasing that first question then: “What happens when a protagonist is given two conflicting moral narratives?” Further, “Does he embrace one and reject the other?” Probably. In fact, I’d say it’s inevitable. The twist, though, comes when the protagonist discovers he once served the opposing narrative and he is now on the opposite side of that narrative. In such a story, the hero would probably develop empathy toward his previous incarnation . . . but would that change his heroic path?

Answering that question is the inspiration for my novel. My goal then is to write a coming-of-age story that follows the tropes of the epic fantasy genre but to also subvert those tropes by presenting a protagonist who could be either a hero or a villain. I’ll let my readers decide which one the protagonist actually is . . . though I’ve got my own opinion.

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Wow, there’s a lot of advice I could give, and a lot more that I probably shouldn’t. Suffice it to say that everyone has their own way of doing things. As long as you feel excited about what you are writing, you’re not doing it wrong. 

Beyond that, there are seven common things I say to new writers (or to myself when I need a reminder):
#1: The first draft of anything is bad, so just vomit it out.
#2: There is no magic solution to writing. You just do it.
#3: Do you. 
#4: Set goals and write them down.
#5: Patience and persistence will trump talent.
#6: Do it right and don’t settle for less.
#7: Writing isn’t easy – it’s hard. Good writing is even harder.

Now that may seem opaque, so if you want a more detailed explanation about what the heck I’m talking about, check out my blog post “7 Things I Say About Writing” at https://justintcall.com/blog.

How do you deal with writer’s block?

There are many kinds of writer’s block, and I’m susceptible to most of them. One that I am particularly immune to, though, is the kind when you’re can’t come up with what to write next.

My most common problem is that I come up with too many potential solutions for what comes next, and the need to choose between only one of those solutions can be paralyzing. With time, I usually sort through it all and figure out what is best or most needed . . . but sometimes I have to follow that plot thread for a long while before I know for certain that it’s viable. Even then, I prefer to follow the other plot threads, too, just to be certain I’m taking the best path. I try to get most of that out of the way during my plotting/outlining phase, though.

So I prevent half my writer’s block by outlining extensively and well ahead of my drafting phase. The other half of my writer’s block comes from a lack of motivation to write that day, either because I’m distracted by some other task that “absolutely requires my attention” or because I don’t feel excited by a particular scene I am about to draft (which is usually a sign that my outline for the scene needs more work). All of these things can lead to intense procrastination, though, so I’ve got five bullet-proof ways to get writing:

If I am outlining and working through a story problem:
(1) Take a shower.
(2) Take a long drive.
(3) Exercise on a treadmill or an elliptical.

The monotony of my body having to do the same repetitive thing usually frees my mind to work out those knots more easily than sitting at my computer and staring at a blinking cursor.

If I’m supposed to be drafting and I don’t feel excited about the scene I’m about to write then I’ll:
(4) Listen to an episode of the Writing Excuses podcast.
(5) Play around with my outline in Scrivener (which is what I use for outlining and drafting).

How do you get inspired to write?

I’ve answered this in the question about writer’s block, but I’ll repeat it here. For writing inspiration, I will often:
(1) Take a shower.
(2) Take a long drive.
(3) Exercise.
(4) Listen to the Writing Excuses podcast.
(5) Move around and/or expand on elements of my outline in the Scrivener App, which I have on my laptop, tablet, and smartphone.

Other things that inspire me to write:
– Reading the books of other great authors.
– Reading books about creative writing.
– Learning about world myths and folklore.
– Studying storytelling and the hero’s journey.

What’s the best thing about being a writer?

The best thing about being a writer is having created something out of pure imagination, sweat, and solace . . . and then having other people tell you they loved it. Nothing is more satisfying, fulfilling, or inspirational.

Of course, if you aren’t published yet, that can be one of the hardest things about being a writer, particularly if your writing isn’t good enough to merit praise or isn’t ready for public criticism. You still get the satisfaction of creating something wholly unique and your own, but it can be lonely and ungratifying on some days.

Runner up answers:
– Getting paid to do something you love (in this case, to write).
– Not having someone else micro-manage how you do your job.

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