Julie Duffy's Blog, page 157

April 15, 2015

Finding Fuel And Focus – An Interview with Cecilia Clark

StADa: When did you first participate in StoryADay?

I don’t remember exactly when I joined a Story A Day but it was likely close to the start of 2014. In 2013 I had begun exploring what was available in the wide world to support and encourage my new career direction as a writer and when I gave notice at my day job in December 2013 StoryADay was one of the important tools I used to keep me focussed as I took the scary, exciting, long overdue and challenging path.


StADa:  Tell us a little about your success.

I had put aside my youthful dreams of being a published writer and paid artist when my first child came along and then life kind of got in the way and my dreams slipped way back into the dust covered depths of the internal storage of my mind.


When a life changing pivotal moment arose I finally embraced my inner creative and launched myself whole heartedly into becoming my dream.


I completed my first NaNoWriMo in November 2013, working a full time job, raising teens and participating in three other challenges as well, I managed to produce 104000 words, 36 pieces of art (SkaSaMo) and 41 picture book ideas (PiBoIsMo).


Then I joined social media groups for writing and art, paid subscriptions to organisations dedicated to supporting writers and artists and I looked for opportunities to challenge myself to write stories and then find homes for my stories.


Since my first camp Nano in April 2013 I have written and had published more than fifty pieces of fiction ranging from 500 word competition pieces and ezine contributions to 30k short stories and novellas. I have completed two novels 60k and 80k+ and begun five more novels. I have produced several hundred pieces of art and actually have a growing body of dedicated followers to my blog.


StADa:  How have you used StoryADay to help fuel your writing?

At first I was lucky if I wrote 200 words a day so I needed fuel for story ideas and some form of prod to keep me focussed. StoryADay provided me with a lot of good ideas for generating flash fiction. StoryADay has a great deal to offer in terms of prompts and advice and I found this to be terrific for churning up the creative juices, especially when I have been stuck.


StADa:  What advice do you have for someone thinking about embarking on the challenge or longing to boost their creativity?


There are so many opportunities and I have found the creative community is a generous and supportive one world wide.


Use what you find out there and make it fit in your life. Whatever time you can dedicate to your dream there is bound to be someone out there with just the right bit of advice for you at a price you can afford. There is a lot of free information- find it and share it.


Set aside fifteen minutes a day and write.


Thinking about your story counts as writing but at some point you need to transfer the words from your head to the page or you will lose them.


Keep a note book handy and jot down ideas, snippets of conversations you overhear, interesting thoughts.


Don’t give yourself a hard time if you don’t write. When you decide the time is right to write you will dedicate the time and effort to it that you give your other day job (that includes parenting). Remember that some of the best writers in the world did not start their writing careers until they had raised their kids and filled their memories with incredible experiences to draw on.


It takes a long time to become an overnight success and the money doesn’t roll in quickly but don’t give up because your story could change the world or even just one persons life so write it. Oh and writing 104000 words in a month while doing all those other things is stupid crazy and caused me to strain my eyes to the point of needing reading glasses, plus swollen ankles, a sore back and no housework done for a month.


It was worth it and I learned to be a little less obsessed and a bit more level headed. The most I have written in a month since then is 56k.


StADa:  What’s next for you?

I have been working on prioritising my online time and increasing my actual writing time. It is way too easy to spend too much time in social media groups to the detriment of the word count. I joined a class to learn how to plan my novels more efficiently. I am attending conferences this year for Romance writers, SCBWI(kids books) and finding writers festivals to attend.


After having 30 anthology pieces published I am no longer submitting to small press as most small press pay nothing and I want to be paid for my work. I intend finishing at least two novels this year.


I have had a brief break from my art due to moving house and intend making art daily once we settle in again. My goal is to have my first full length novel under contract this year.


Cecilia A. Clark is a writer and an artist. She has been a chef, disability carer, teacher, farm worker, foster parent and props master plus so much more. She has volunteered for dozens of organisations, had children, coached public speaking and lived. She is curious. Shecan be found online at her blog, Goodreads, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter.

I’m exhausted just reading all that. Good luck, Cecilia! I expect to see your novel under contract soon! – Julie



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Published on April 15, 2015 21:02

April 14, 2015

How To Justify Your Writing Time (To Friends and To Yourself)

Yesterday we talked about how to decide what you’re supposed to be writing. You can read it here, but the big lesson was: write a lot. Try new stuff. Don’t let your inner-anti-cheerleader stop you.


Well that’s all very well, but what if your life is busy? When are you supposed to find the time, not to mention the discipline, to sit down and write?


The Lie That You Can Find Time To Write


You can’t.


No one finds time to write. Or to play the guitar. Or to be a rockstar. Or to be a successful investor.


You make time.


Everyone successful, fulfilled person who ever lived, made time for the thing that was important to them.


Justifying The Time


I could give you all kinds of tips for scraping together some free time to write (delegate chores, turn off the TV, say no to invitations to go out) but that’s not the hard part.


The Hard Part


The hard part is convincing yourself that you are allowed to take the time to write.


Writing is personal. You do it alone. You don’t look like you’re working hard. You look like you’re surfing the internet or sulking in your bedroom or shirking your responsibilities.


Worse still, you might feel that way inside.


But I’m here to tell you: if you want to write, you must write.


When you’re writing, no matter how hard it is, you are more truly yourself than at any other time.


And when you finish a writing session, no matter how exhausted or wrung-out you feel, the rest of your life seems just a little bit easier. You are fulfilled. Your mind is clear. You have a sense of achievement. You are a better person when you’re writing.


And that’s the real payoff.


Not internet celebrity. Not publishing contracts. Not the legions of fans. Not the multi-millions in movie-rights sales.


The actual payoff for writing is that you are happier.


Which makes you a better person to be around.


Convince Yourself, Convince Your Crew


You have to try this for yourself to really experience it. And once you have, feel free to point it out to the people around you. If they’re smart, they’ll become accomplices in making time for you to write. If you keep at it long enough, there will come a day when you’re rampaging around the house barking at everyone and, instead of barking back, one smart housemate will say, “Hey, why don’t you go and grab a notebook. You need to be writing.”


Trust me. It happens. And if it doesn’t, perhaps you need to surround yourself with smarter, kinder people.


Resources


Here are some resources to help you convince yourself that your writing is not only important but vital to your continued existence — and some suggestions on how to overcome three common obstacles.


If you’re wondering why you can’t get anything written when you’re setting aside a whole 20 minutes every lunchtime, watch this video from John Cleese. It’s his process for being creative. There may be times when 20 minutes can be productive for you, but there are other times when you will need to listen to Mr Cleese’s advice. https://vimeo.com/89936101


If you can’t get past the suckiness of your first drafts, you need to watch this interview with Ira Glass (again). I get the impression he’s a bit bemused that this is rapidly becoming what he’s most famous for, but it’s because it is so very, very true. (Hint: You need to write a lot!) https://youtu.be/PbC4gqZGPSY


If you don’t believe me that your art is worth doing for its own sake (for your sake), then you need to watch this talk by last year’s StoryADay Guest of Honor, Neil Gaiman. Watch it now. https://youtu.be/ikAb-NYkseI


When The Pencil Meets The Paper


Of course, having bought yourself time to write, doesn’t make it go easily.


If I’ve convinced you that you need to write a lot and that you need to make time for your writing, your next question is probably going to be: but how do I turn all this time and dedication into actual stories?


Tomorrow we’ll talk about The Care and Feeding of Ideas, and how to turn those ideas into fully-fledged story drafts.


Until then: do you have a friend who’s always talking about wanting to write, but never quite getting around to it? Why not share this post with that person? Maybe, between the two of us, we can get them to where they need to be and you two can spend blissful afternoons on writing dates, instead of kvetching about how much writing you’re not doing. Share this now!



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Published on April 14, 2015 21:13

How To Decide What You Should Be Writing

This week I’m posting a series designed to help you through the emotionally-charged business of deciding whether or not to commit to writing a StoryADay in May this year.


(Actually it may not be emotionally charged for you. Maybe you already know ‘heck-yeah, I’m onboard’  or you’re sure you can’t/won’t/don’t need to take part this year. Good for you. Also, you’ll probably still enjoy the series. You just get to read it without the angst!)


We’ll be talking about:



How To Decide What To Write
How To Develop An Idea Into A Story
How To Go From Wannabe To Actually-Writing-Writer
Justifying Your Habit (To Yourself And Your “Friends”)
How The Heck Does Anyone Actually Write A StoryADay for A Month?

Then I’ll be telling you all about how you can get your virtual paws on all my writing prompts for StoryADay May before it even begins!


How To Decide What To Write

You feel, in your gut, that you should be writing. You know it’s something you want to do. But how do you know what you’re supposed to be writing?


To non-writers, that sounds like a stupid question. Have you ever tried talking to a non-writer about this?


You: “I want to write but I don’t know what to write.”


Them: “Can’t you just, like, write about a wizard or some vampires or a sex-crazed billionaire and become a best-seller and split the profits with me? Can I start planning our round the world cruise for next year?”


Or, more likely.


You: I want to write but I don’t know what to write.


Them: So stop whining and do it. ‘K?


But what should you be writing?


The problem is you could be writing about ANYTHING. And that’s paralyzing. You know you need to pick something, but what?


And The Answer Is…

I don’t know.


I don’t know you. I mean, on some level I kind of do, because you’re probably a bit like me: someone who thinks a lot, worries about other people’s feelings, and finds yourself standing in the middle of the kitchen with the phone ringing and no idea why you’re there but you know that damned phone has just interrupted the Best. Daydream. Ever. And that if you could just get some time to write it down you’d be happy and fulfilled and probably rich and famous to boot.


But on another level I really don’t know you. I don’t know what you like. I don’t know what matters to you. I don’t know what gets you so wound up you stay up all night blogging or researching or fretting about it. I don’t know what makes you laugh, or what you love to read, or what kind of writing makes you throw books across the room (then pick them up and smooth out the cover apologetically because, hey, it might be terrible, but it’s still a book, you know?)


I don’t know who your favorite writers are; what genre you couldn’t live without; what you like in a hero; what you love in a villain; whether a galloping plot or deep introspection is more important to you; whether you like a happy ending or prefer something that feels more like real life.


But oh, look. I just gave you a list of things you might use to find a way into writing your own stories.


(If you haven’t done so already, I highly recommend digging out your copy of the Creative Challenge Workbook. It walks you through a lot of this and helps you build a roadmap for the future. You can download another copy here if you need to.)


The Big Secret…That Isn’t Really A Secret

Here’s the thing. Even with all of that information you’ve just gathered about yourself, there’s no way to be sure what you should be writing until you…yup, sit down and write.


The best and only way to find your way to your best style/topic/length/tone is to try everything.


Write A Lot, Write Quickly, Finish Everything


How StoryADay Can Help

How many stories did you write last month? How many last year? What did you learn from writing them? Do you even remember? I know I don’t. (I do remember for 2013 though. 2013 was a good year. I wrote a lot in 2013 and I learned a ton!)


Trust me when I tell you: if you write and finish even 20, even 12 stories in on month you will win so much more than bragging rights. You’ll win a free pass into the Secret Society of I’ve-Discovered-What-I-Want-To-Write.


Write Quickly To Defeat Your Inner-Anti-Cheerleader

Writing quickly and writing every day over a sustained period exhausts your inner-anti-cheerleader.


Sure, on the first day, she’s all perky and energetic. She jumps up and down telling you how worthless you are and how you can’t write and you shouldn’t try.


But your anti-cheerleader thrives on attention. When you turn your back on her and start writing, she can shake her pompoms all she likes, but she can’t really do anything more than distract you and make things difficult.


The next day, she’s looking a little less fresh. Maybe her hair’s not quite as neat. Maybe her jump-kicks are a little sloppy. She’s still trying, but you turn your back on her and ignore her once again.


By the fourth day, she’s getting frantic. Frankly, she’s a mess. Her eyeliner’s smudged and her hair’s all poufy, and the only reason her pompoms are shaking at all is because of her rage that you’re ignoring her.


You’ll think you’ve defeated her, but beware: she’s going to rest up for a few days and let you think she’s gone, but really she’s just waiting for you to get tired. Somewhere in the second week of your writing surge, she’s back: revitalized and vengeful. Don’t listen to her. Keep going. This is where you pull out the big guns:


Finish Everything

There is a power in finishing stories that you need to experience for yourself. I can tell you about it but you won’t believe me until you do it.


Finishing teaches you what each story is about.


Finishing shows you that you’re not a terrible writer, no matter how desperate you felt in the muddy middle of your story.


Finishing gives you a first draft you can revise.


Finishing each story gives you a biochemical surge that triggers your brain’s reward centers and makes it more likely you’ll finish the next.


And sitting down, every day*, to start the next story is what defeats your inner-anti-cheerleader. The routine of it tells her firmly that you are going to ignore her again today. She can’t stand up against that kind of ritual snubbing.


(*’Every day’ doesn’t mean ‘every day’. But having a routine is a powerful thing. More about that later this week…)


It’s all very well for me to tell you to sit down to write every day, but what about the rest of your life? You have responsibilities, right? People who rely on you? Deadlines and obligations unrelated to your writing. How on earth are you supposed to find time to write as well?


Stay Tuned

Tomorrow we’ll talk about the big lie in that question, along with a shift in thinking that will allow you to make your writing a priority at long last.


Make sure you’re on the Advance Notice list (check the “Creativity Lab” group option to make sure you receive this series every day), or check out the blog tomorrow to find out how to justify your writing time to friends, family and yourself.


At the end of this week I’ll be telling you about how you can get your hands on a tool to help you sit down and write every day: the 2015 StoryADay Month of Writing Prompts ebook.


P.S. If you found this useful, why not forward it to a friend? You know, that friend that’s always saying they want to write, but never actually does…



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Published on April 14, 2015 10:13

March 31, 2015

SWAGr April Check In 2015

What did you write last month? What will you do next month? It’s time for the  Serious Writer’s Accountability Group!


What people are saying about StoryADayMay 2014


Leave a comment below telling us how you got on last month, and what you plan to do next month, then check back in on the first of each month, to see how everyone’s doing.


(It doesn’t have to be fiction. Feel free to use this group to push you in whatever creative direction you need.)


Don’t remember what you promised to do? Check out the comments from last month.


And don’t forget to celebrate with/encourage your fellow SWAGr-ers on their progress!


****


Examples of Goals Set By SWAGr-ers in previous months



Finish novella – Maureen
Write two short stories. – Jami
Write 10,000 (fiction) words this month. – Julie
Work on a series – Brick
Track my time and see what’s getting in the way of my writing – Alex
Research the market – Jami
Writing the synopsis for my novel – Misa
Finish one story draft each month – Carol

 So, what will you accomplish this month? Leave your comment below:


(Next check-in, 1st of the month. Tell your friends. )




Don’t forget, if you need inspiration for a story you can still get ALL THE PROMPTS from StoryADay May 2014 and support the running of the StoryADay challenge at the same time. Give a little, get a little :) Click here.



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Published on March 31, 2015 21:01

[Write On Wednesday] Insults

I read this delightful essay on the literary insults writers hurl at each other, and it inspired a writing prompt!


The Prompt

Write a letter or review full of insults


Tips

Imagine a correspondence between two writers, one whose writing you admire, one whose writing you loathe. What would your favorite writer pick up on, in the writing or reputation of the other, to criticize. What style would he/she use?
Write an insulting letter to someone who regularly annoys you or someone who picked on you at school. Banish compassion. Write it with style, wit and ruthlessness. Be clever, artistic, snide. Have (guilty) fun.
Write a rebuttal of an imagined unfavorable review of your work. Be sure to point out the critic’s shortcomings in the most colorful, inventive language you can, but challenge yourself to keep it fit for print (no profanity).
Damn someone with faint praise.
Create a rich picture in your head of each of the characters in your story (insulter and insultee). Allow their personalities to shine through you words.

Go!



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Published on March 31, 2015 21:00

March 24, 2015

[Write On Wednesday] Metaphor To Reality

Yesterday’s Reading Room story started out with magnificent metaphors and then flipped to a story about a suburban guy. It brought back the metaphor at the end.


It was an extreme example and tough to pull off (I’m still not sure it entirely worked), but today we’re going to try something similar.


The Prompt

Start a story with a vivid image and weave the metaphor throughout the story


Tips



You still have to make this story about a character. Think of something that matters to your character and create the metaphor/story imagery from that. (e.g. if your character gardens, all the metaphors could be horticultural)
You can weave the tie-in metaphors throughout the story or, like the Reading Room story, start with a vivid image and come back to it only at the end.
Try to dig deeply, and go beyond the obvious, clichéd metaphors. I worked with a reporter on a weekly newspaper who would open a file and think of all the puns and metaphors he could, on a particular topic, before he started writing an article. The top of every file he wrote was a groan-fest! Try creating your own list of imagery before you start to write, to help yourself push past the cliché.

Go!



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Published on March 24, 2015 21:00

[Reading Room] In Cretaceous Seas by Jim Shepard

This story starts off magnificently,


“Dip your foot in the water and here’s what you’re playing with: Xiphactinus, all angry underbite and knitting-needle teeth, with heads oddly humped and eyes enraged with accusation, and ribboned bodies so muscular they fracture coral heads when surging through to bust in on insufficiently alert pods of juvenile Clidastes. The Clidastes spin around to face an oncoming maw that’s in a perpetual state of homicidal resentment.”


Shepard takes us on a tour of the ‘monsters’ of the deep in the Cretaceous era and then, suddenly, the story swings into the modern day human world.


It’s disorienting and not at all what I was expecting. I was a little disappointed, to be honest. The writing in the first few paragraphs evoked a world unknown to me, with power and vivid images. It seemed to promise one thing and then veer away.


But as I read on, I was swept along on the language as we examined the life of one tortured middle-aged, suburban man. I didn’t much like him — I don’t think I was supposed to — but I did end up having some sympathy for him.


And the language…wow.


I had to go back and read the story again to figure out what the heck happened when we switched from the Cretaceous to modern suburbia, but that was OK because I wanted to.


I read the story without the introduction found online, which made it even more disorientating, but see what you think:


[]



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Published on March 24, 2015 07:00

March 17, 2015

[Write On Wednesday] Can’t And Won’t

Does a story have to have conflict? Does it have to have a beginning and a middle and an end? Perhaps not.


Lydia Davis’ story “Can’t And Won’t” is pages of complaints about life:


My sheets get all twisted in the dryer.


The carrot cake was a little stale.


When I toast the raisin bread, the raisins get very hot.


The bridge of my nose is a little dry.


I’m sleepy, but I can’t lie down.


The sound system in the examining room playing folk music.


I don’t look forward very much to that sandwich.


There is a new weatherman on the radio.


Now that the leaves are off the trees we can see the neighbors’ new deck…



There is no ‘happening’, no crisis, no rising action, but do you get a sense of character? I do.


What is a story if not a portrait of a character or characters?


The Prompt

Write A Non-Narrative Short Story That Allows The Reader To Experience Another Character’s Life


Tips

You can copy Lydia Davies’s idea and write a story of complaints. Make sure all the complaints belong to one, very specific character. (They can be like you, or unlike you. It can be a secret portrait of your annoying coworker, your ex-mother-in-law, your little brother…) [remember, this is an exercise. If you decide to publish this, you might want to credit Davis as the inspiration!]
Write a List (like they do in MacSweeneys)
The “character” doesn’t have to be one person. It could be an institution: write the Standard Operating Procedures of a big firm.
Write about a collection of objects (e.g. The Things They Carried) and allow the reader to infer what they will about the owners.
Come up with your own way of writing a non-narrative short story.

Go!



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Published on March 17, 2015 21:40

March 16, 2015

[Reading Room] The Care And Feeding of Houseplants by Art Taylor

This story won multiple awards in 2013 for Best Short Story and I can see why.


The Care And Feeding of Houseplants is crime fiction, though it’s not clear for a very long time where and when the crime is going to come in…but I didn’t care because the writing was so engaging.


As is often the case in mysteries, the passion at the heart of the story is all about infidelity. As in Thea’s First Husband the husband is complicit in his wife’s decision to stray. Unlike that story, however, this tale is visceral and full of raw imagery. Information is doled out during the story, rather in great gobs of ‘telling’.


In this story we really get inside three out of the four characters’ heads, even when not narrated from their viewpoint: the way the lover views his conquest’s “beige linen business suit…folded carefully across a chair by his bedroom window’ tells us as much about her character as about his self-congratulatory tendencies; the wife comments on her husband’s character during their courtship, saying “He’d brought her an orchid for their first date. He’d typed up tips for taking care of it”, which speaks volumes about both the husband who did these things and herself, who noticed.


I really enjoyed this story. It was more than a mystery, more than a crime: it was a story that pulled me along from the start to the deliciously dark ‘reveal’ near the end. I was, if you’ll pardon the pun, rooting for and against the characters exactly as the author intended, and I loved every minute of it.



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Published on March 16, 2015 21:36

March 11, 2015

6 Simple Steps For Jumpstarting Your Writing

 screenshot from Jodyhedlund.blogspot.com


I’ve found that the process of writing is one of the biggest keys for stirring my creativity even more. No matter what ideas I come up with before the first draft, invariably once I start writing, my ideas grow and change into something so much more than I could have planned.


via Author, Jody Hedlund: 3 Surefire Ways to Generate Book Ideas.


Nothing, in writing, is harder than getting started.


If you haven’t been writing for a while, sitting down to write is terrifying. Not in the way a midnight call from the hospital is terrifying, but terrifying all the same.



Where do I start?
What do I have to say?
How can I call myself a writer, when I never write anything?

Writing is the only way to conquer the fear of writing.


Paradoxical. Annoying. True.


So, don’t wait for inspiration. Don’t wait to be good. Just write. Write now. Pick a prompt. Promise yourself you’ll write a Drabble. Write revenge on the person who is annoying you the most today (even if it’s someone you love. You can always rip it up, delete it, make it funny, whatever you need to do).


Go on.



Pick  a topic.
Write a sentence right now.
Write another one after that.
Think about where it might go.
Keep writing, do not stop, and get to the end as quickly as possible (you can revise later).
Congratulate yourself: you’re a writer who is writing.

You can do this. Write now.



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Published on March 11, 2015 07:00