Julie Duffy's Blog, page 84

[Write On Wednesday] The Not-Writing Prompt

Sometimes ‘writing’ doesn’t meant putting words on the page. Today’s prompt is designed to help you get comfortable with this reality of life as a writer.

(For more on this idea, read “Does Thinking Count As Writing?“)

The Prompt

Pick and implement a ‘tiny win’ for today, that doesn’t involve writing new words.

Tips

It’s very important to feel the reality that not everything in a writer’s life is about adding words.

These suggestions are designed to help you carve our time not just for writing, but for ‘writing’ (all the other stuff that goes with it).

Choose from one thing from this list (or make up something similar) and carve out 15-20 minutes to focus on it. Turn off all your notifications and just allow yourself to focus.

Then report back, to let us know what you did, and to celebrate!

Find a tiny notebook in your stash (you know you have a notebook stash!) and commit to carrying it with you every day for a week, so you can capture ideas. Start by writing down something you can see, hear, taste, touch and smell right where you are, right now.Read a story by someone else and write down everything you love and hate about it.Go for a walk or get some other kind of exercise that gets your blood pumping. Bonus points for getting out of your usual space. (Your brain is connected to the rest of your body. Take care of them!)Write a review of a book you loved and always meant to get around to reviewing. Bonus points: write a letter to the author, if they’re still with us (you can send it to the publisher listed in their books). Connecting to the rest of the writing world builds your commitment to your craft, and reminds you that authors are just people. Hey, you’re a person! Maybe you DO have a right to write, too!Ask another writer how they’re doing. This can be someone who seems to be doing “so much better” than you. (Connect on Twitter or some other social media site.) Trust me they’ll appreciate it. And again, building your connections with the greater writing world will help you feel more committed, and stop you from slinking off and saying “I could never be a real writer so I might as well not try”. Of course you can be a writer. And having connections with people in the writing world helps remind you of that.Revise a short story or scene that you’ve previously written. Focus on crafting one sentence you really love, somewhere in that piece.Rework a story or scene to cut it down by 10% of its word count. Be ruthless (work on a copy if you have to!). What does that do for the story and your prose?Set a timer and spend 20 minutes (no more! It’s a rabbit hole!) researching publications you might want to send stories to.Doodle or illustrate a story you previously write. You might draw a portrait of a main character, sketch the house they live in, or splash colors on the page to represent their personality.Make a Pinterest board of interesting characters and places you can use in stories (thanks to MoniqueAC for this suggestion!). Again, set a timer, because this is meant to be a tiny win, not a new lifetime project!Go on–or book–what Julia Cameron calls an Artist’s Date. What inspires you? For me it’s often music. For you, it might be art. Can you book an outing now, to an art museum, a live music concert, a play? Can you put a time on your calendar to walk in your favorite park, or call your funniest friend?

What other tiny wins can you think of? What did you try and how did it go? Leave a comment and share your ideas!

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SWAGr for December 2019

Post your goals for this month and let us know how you got on with last month’s goals.

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.)

Did you live up to your commitment from last month? 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!

Download your SWAGr Tracking Sheet now, to keep track of your commitments this month

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Examples of Goals Set By SWAGr-ers in previous months

Write a story a day in May – everyone!Revise at least 10 short stories – IraideWrite two short stories. – JamiAttend one writers’ conference – JulieWrite fable for WordFactory competition – SonyaRe-read the backstory pieces I wrote in May and see if I can use them within my novel – MoniqueResearch the market – JamiFocus on my serial – Maureen

 So, what will you accomplish this month? Leave your comment below (use the drop-down option to subscribe to the comments and receive lovely, encouraging notifications from fellow StADa SWAGr-ers!)

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

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Voice Assistants with Raphael Schaad

Today I talk with Raphael Schaad about audio and voice assistants and all the opportunities (and pitfalls) for authors. 

Raphael Schaad

Raphael, who works with innovative entrepreneurs who are interested in tapping the power of voice-interaction, talks with me about how writers can take advantage of these powerful new technologies.

Would you be interested in a walk-through of this technology? Email me at podcast@storyaday.org

LINKS:  What writers stand to lose because their book titles aren’t searchable on voice assistants: https://stada.me/va

Leave a comment and tell us if you’d be interested in hearing more about this topic: https://storyaday.org/146

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[Write On Wednesday] A New Angle

In this month of stealing worlds, characters and ideas (from yourself and others), this prompt encourages you to take another look, from a new angle.

The Prompt

Tell a story in someone else’s universe, from the perspective of a secondary, overlooked, or unnamed character

Tips







Think about a grand, sweeping story you love (written by someone else). Think about all the characters who inhabit that world but who never get to take center-stage in the story. Tell a piece of their story.There’s a great episode of Babylon 5, written from the perspective of the janitors. The main characters still walk through the scenes, but everything is told from the perspective of the unnoticed maintenance workers. You could try something like that.Think about who inhabits the worlds you love. Who makes it possible for them to run smoothly. Who maintains the trash compactors? Who makes the elaborate gowns? Who services the race cars? What would a pivotal moment in their day look and feel like?You could write this as a flash fiction piece, like Steve Almond’s Stop .You could write a longer short story, something that threatens to become a whole novel.Try to write something you can complete in 24 hours so that you get the thrill of finishing a story!

Writing the stories of the forgotten characters will help you when it’s your turn to world-build for your story (whether you’re writing realistic contemporary fiction or epic fantasy, there is always some element of building the fictional world for your reader).

If you share you story somewhere (and here’s why you might not want to) post a link here so we can come and read it.

Leave a comment to let us know what you wrote about today, and how it went!

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Episode 145 – Ending Strong

It can be hard to write endings (So many logistics! So tired from writing the whole story!), but the ending is the thing that sends your reader off into the world feeling good about your story…or deflated because you let them down.

In this week’s episode I talk about the importance of endings, and a powerful way for you to think about them so you can delight your reader.

Also:  I talk about StoryADay’s writing prompts for November and my impressions of the 2019 edition of the Best American Short Stories anthology, edited by Anthony Doerr.

LINKS: 

https://storyaday.org

Mirror Mirror Writing Prompt

Penny For The Guy Writing Prompt

A writing prompts about openings & endings

The StoryADay Reading Room series

Browse the archive of 590+ writing prompts

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[Write on Wednesday] Mirror Mirror

This month’s theme for prompts at StoryADay is: playing in other people’s sandbox, or in other words: writing fiction based in somebody else’s universe.

The Prompt

Take a universe you love and write story where the values are reversed: the good guys are bad and the bad guys are evil

Tips







You could change the whole value system of the world, so your characters don’t really change, but people’s reactions to them do.You might want to take a well-known story and mix things up the way Gregory Maguire did with The Wizard of Oz in his book Wicked (just don’t try to write the whole novel. Remember: a short story pivots around a single moment. Pick a scene and write the mirror image of that.Think about what changes: the language characters use, the imagery they chose, the reactions of the people around them, perhaps even the colors and textures in your story. If the original story was dark and brooding, perhaps yours is all primary colors and rainbows!You could rewrite a fairytale or a folk tale where the villain in the original is now sympathetic, and the hero is kind of a jerk. What changes?Remember that you probably don’t want to publish these stories for money if you want to steer clear of Intellectual Property lawyers and Marvel’s well-funded copyright office.

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Mastering The Middle – Episode 144

Last week in the podcast, I shared five tips for a successful NaNoWriMo. Lots of people have told me it helped get them through the first week so: yay!

In this week’s episode I talk about the difficulties of reaching the middle of creativity challenge at the exact same moment you reach the midpoint of the novel.

(Short story writers, stay with me because a lot of what I’m going to talk about applies to you too!)

You are not imagining things: this is hard. The middle of a novel is the notoriously hard, and the middle of the challenge is hard for different reasons.

The Midpoint of the Challenge

The midpoint of the challenge is tough because you’re tired. The novelty has worn off. You’ve started to question why are you ever decided to put in all this work. And you may feel that your story isn’t worth the effort.

Allow me to help.

Close your eyes. Picture how you felt when you first thought about jumping into this challenge. Really do it. Chances are, you were thinking about the person you would be at the end of the challenge, manuscript in hand, celebrating your win. Take a few moments now to imagine yourself in that place again.

Do it in the present tense. (“I am finished! I can’t believe I did that!”)

I know you can do this because you spend all day picturing things that aren’t real and making them real for readers!

Right or simply imagine what’s happening as you cross the 50,000 word or 31 story finish line. Use all your senses. Keep doing this until you are vibrating. Keep imagining until you can barely stay in your chair.

It’s so easy to lose sight of our WHY in the middle of the WHAT. Get in touch with your WHY. Get emotional about your WHY. Don’t let anything keep you from the goal you set yourself.

But What If My Story’s No Good?

I know this will not come as news to you but I want you to really listen this time: professional writers do not write perfect first draft.

They really don’t. They write drafts that are meandering, boring in places, the repeat themselves, they skipped important details, they are bad.

But they keep going because they have to get to the end of the story and deliver it to the editor because they signed a contract saying they would. So they write the first draft and then they fix it.

These kinds of challenges are built to replicate that, to allow you to practice for the day when you have an editor who is asking for your third or fourth book. You will be able to press on to the end–through the muddy middle–because you have done it before. You won’t know exactly how to write this book, but you will know that you can finish.

It would actually be any easier if and when you have a contract. Don’t miss this chance to practice in private!

Why Story Middles Suck

Writing the middle of the story is hard.

(I’m full of good news today!)

They are hard because

In the beginning everything is possibility, now you have to start making decisionsYou have to start making decisions when you are already tired and feeling insecureYou have to close off possibilities for your characters and, depending on your personality type, that might not feel like fun. So try to think of it as narrowing down the options, pushing your characters through a final until they are on the single path available to them to the end. As you minimize the choices they can make, your life will get easier.You may not be clear on your characters inner journey and so your plot feels like it is floundering. Plot grows out of character needs. Dust off your copy of Lisa crowns story genius, and figure out what your characters childhood damage is.



Making It Suck Less

Here are some strategies to get you through the next week and the middle of your novel.

Use James Scott Bell’s Mirror Moment as the midpoint of you story. At the midpoint of your story something vital changes. Until this point your character has been trying to solve their problems– and failing.
At the midpoint there may be a literal moment where your character looks in the mirror or sees herself reflected in a shop window. They ask “what have I become?”
or perhaps they see themselves reflected in the villain: they could easily become that person if hey take one more step on down this path. Something has to change!
Rate this scene today. Give your character a chance to reflect on what they need to do to fix all the problems you have thrown at them. Then in the next two weeks Use those insights to shape the decisions your character makes as they drive towards the climax.Figure out your character’s childhood trauma using this proposal about Developmental trauma disorder, or these resources on adverse childhood events: the quiz, the consequences. Why is your character acting the way they are? What needs to be healed? How does that shape the action in your plot?To create a more rounded character, we must create characters who react in a consistent way. Some of the most cutting edge research being done on this topic is in the idea of Primal World Beliefs.
The basic idea: our beliefs about the place we are in affect our actions and reactions. If you believe the world is safe, enticing and alive, your response to any situation will be different to that of someone who holds the opposing beliefs. These beliefs can be broadly categorized. Some outlooks are more predictive of behavior than others.
It’s fascinating stuff and I hope to talk more about this in future, but you can get started reading about it here.



Exercises



Visualize yourself at the end of the challenge, a winner. How do you feel?Write your character’s mirror moment today.

Enjoyed this article and podcast? Please rate and/review the podcast to help spread the word. While you’re there, why not subscribe, and have new episodes delivered to your smartphone automagically?

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[Write On Wednesday] Penny for the Guy?

This month’s theme at StoryADay is the idea of alternative stories: writing new stories in other people’s universes. This can mean fan fiction or it can mean taking folk tales, history, or myth and writing in that. Perhaps you and a writing buddy swap universes for a day and you write about their characters for a change.

Stay tuned each Wednesday this month for more ways to play in other people’s sandboxes.

The Prompt

Yesterday, people in the UK celebrated Guy Fawkes’ Day, a family friendly festival celebrating the gruesome end of a would-be revolutionary. Write a story inspired by that of Guy Fawkes

Tips







In case you don’t know the story, in 1605 religious turmoil roiled Great Britain. The royal house had spent the past 50 years swinging from Catholic to Protestant to Catholic and back to Protestant, with executions and terror following every shift. The young king of Scotland, James (who had been taken from his Catholic mother, Mary Queen of Scots as a boy and raised as a protestant heir by his cousin Elizabeth I of England) had just ascended the English throne. Fawkes and his Catholic allies plotted to end his rule by blowing up Westminster  with James inside. Fawkes stockpiled gunpowder under the palace and…got caught and was executed.Now, every year on Nov 5, Brits have huge bonfires and burn an effigy (known as ‘the guy’) and have a huge fireworks party. Its a lot of fun and best not to think too hard about the holiday’s origin (especially if you’re Catholic or a fan of non-repressive, non-murderous governments!)You could tell a historical fiction story about Guy and his fellow plotters. But that’s not the only way to take his story and use it for yourself.You could update the idea of someone plotting against a government.You could make it more generally about someone plotting any kind of revenge against anyone (their boss, a nasty teacher, their neigbour) and getting caught.You could take the story and set it in a futuristic of fantasy world, or on a different planet (wherever there are people there are politics!)You could write the story of subsidiary characters in this plot. Are the plotters married? What are their spouses doing on the day they get caught?You could give your fictional world an even like The Gunpowder Plot and leap 500 years forward in history and set your story on the night of the commemoration. (It doesn’t have to be fireworks and bonfires. How would your fictional society commemorate the events?) For example, when I was growing up there was a tradition of making a ‘guy’ (like a scarecrow from old clothes and crumpled up newspaper) and putting him in a garden barrow, rolling him around the streets and asking people to donate ‘a penny for the guy’ to reward your efforts (or possibly fund the fireworks? Never been sure…). It was an exciting, fun time for the kids, but kind of gruesome and  a bit problematic when you think about it! (as an example for the Americans in the audience, imaging kids doing that today with effigies of Robert E. Lee…..see?) Your story could be simply the story of the tradition or a reflection on how little we think about the origins of some our actions. Go as shallow or as deep as you like.

If you share you story somewhere (and here’s why you might not want to) post a link here so we can come and read it.

Leave a comment to let us know what you wrote about today, and how it went!

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[Reading Room] The Third Tower by Deborah Eisenberg

This story was featured in The Best American Short Stories 2019 , edited by Anthony Doerr

The Opening

Therese

Julia found it in a pile of old stuff. She didn’t want it so she said she would give it to Therese.

I love this as an example of starting in medias res. We dont know what it is of who they are, but THEY do.

In medias res means in the middle of things but it doesn’t necessarily mean a car chase or a fight. In the middle of a conversation where the participants know their world better than we do, counts too.

And the author doesnt make us wait too long. In the next sentence we learn what ‘it’ is.

What was she supposed to do with that? These said—a beaten up old book with nothing in it but blank paper.

We still dont know much about the world, but the next line gives us a clue.

Well, you like to do handwriting, Julia said.

Between the foreignness of handwriting and the lack of conventional punctuation, I’m  already getting the sense that this is not our world or at least our time.

I’ve been plunged into this world, however, and I’m intrigued.

The Plot Thickens

The next section of the story begins with a new subheading. I love this kind of thing. It’s an indication that the author is taking the short story form seriously: it can do things other types of writing can’t, and ‘making the reader work for the meaning’ is one of those things.

(It would drive you crazy to have to work this hard for 400 pages of a novel, but I’m willing to play along for 15 pages!)

We learn a little more about Therese’s world, but never in a way where it feels like the author is stopping to spoon-feed the reader. Only things that makes sense in Therese’s thoughts, appear on the page. 

Even, as it turns out, things that don’t make sense in Therese’s thoughts…which turns out to be a major point of the story.

It soon becomes clear that Therese is not normal because she is…imaginative.

This is clearly not our world, but it’s close enough to be a little terrifying.

The End

The story never really explains what the titular ‘third tower’ is (or why it’s the third), or what exactly happens to Therese in the end….but I was OK with that.

This a story were not much actually happens (a girl goes to the city for medical treatment) and in which lots of questions are raised (are those really fireworks she’s hearing in the night, or is this a society at war? It certainly seems repressive enough). 

And yet I was swept along on emotion. I wanted certain things for the protagonist. I wanted certain things NOT to happen. I got upset when I thought bad things were happening, and happy when I realised there was hope. 

Writer’s Notes

I kind of loved this story, even though I can see how some people might find it frustrating and wish for a novel explaining the whole world. But then again, as you know, I love short stories precisely because they are able to set off little ‘what if-‘ bombs in my brain.

I don’t know that I’d have the patience to read a whole story about this world—the author would have to have a really compelling plot line. This is more like a thought experiment: What if it was bad to have an imagination? What if a world like this evolved in our near future? 

Sometimes it’s (more than) OK to write a story that is little more than an invitation to a thought experiment. Of course, to do it well you must, as Deborah Eisenberg does, give the reader a character they can care about, specific details of the world, and enough intriguing hooks and answers to keep them satisfied.

But you don’t have to answer every question or supply a detailed, photo-realistic painting of the world. Embrace your inner Impressionist! Daub colors on the canvas and allow the reader to step back and fill in the gaps.

Discussion

Can you think of some other ways to start a story in medias res?

Do you always wish the author had written a novel, when you’re left with questions at the end, or are you happy to say ‘yup, that was a short story’ and let it go?

Let’s discuss:

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5 Tips for A Successful NaNoWriMo

It is November and you know what that means? The whole writing world has been taken over by NaNoWriMo. 

As someone who has been participating in and leading creative challenges for over a decade, I have some tips to help you make the most of this month of extreme creativity.

Listen to the full podcast on the subject, here.

1. Find a crew to support you

If you’re part of the StoryADay Superstars, you already know how powerful it is to write with and stay accountable to other people.

If you’ve only ever treated writing as an individual sport, this is the perfect month to find a writing or a group of buddies online to keep you accountable. This works best with people you have a real connection to, so try to buddy up with people you know in real life or have met in some deeper way online.

 I also recommend getting out of your house and finding spaces where people are writing in public together. It’s ridiculously effective at helping you focus.

2. Take a day off…or don’t

There are two schools of thought on this and it will depend largely on your personality which one is the most effective for you.

For some people taking a break during an extreme month of creativity signals failure. If you feel like you absolutely have to write every day, do so. Perhaps allow yourself to miss your word count goal on some of those days, so that you can check off the box that you wrote, but you’re not torturing yourself.

If, on the other hand, you’re like me, you need to days off. It’s OK just try not to take more than two consecutive days off. That way leads to madness and two, more importantly, losing the thread of creativity in your story. It’s harder to come back from two consecutive days off than a single day here and there. The simple psychic weight of having to make up for two days worth of word count is much heavier, plus you really do stop living in your story world when you take more than a day off at a time.

But it can be important to rest and recharge so make your decision based on what works for you.

3. Have a plan for reaching the end of the story

Yes I know Lionel talks about 50,000 words as the goal, but it is incredibly powerful to reach the end of the month and also reach the end of the story.

You don’t have to be a natural plotter to be able to do this.

I highly recommend taking a look at the book Save The Cat Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody, to help you figure out what each week of the writing a novel should look like. Save the cat breaks the story into four handy pieces.

Use it to try to help you reach the first turning point by the end of the first week, the midpoint by the end of the second week, the climax somewhere between weeks three and four, and the resolution in the last few days.

The beautiful thing about this understanding of story structure is that you don’t have to actually know what happens before you start writing, but you do know what the story needs to be doing at every point.

I find it much more encouraging to come out of November with a completed story, than with every section of the book fully-fleshed out; every scene that will be necessary in the finished piece, written. In fact, getting to the end allows me to more fully understand what scenes are really necessary at the start of the book and in the middle.

Do consider thinking about story structure and trying to get to the end of the story by the end of the month.

4. Get ready to delegate

When things go bad in life, when we’re facing a bad crisis, we find ways to limit her obligations. I would make a strong case that we should try to do the same when we are facing a “crisis” (that is, a short term extreme change in circumstances) that is good, too.

If this seems selfish, remember that you put aside other things for your paid job. You put aside other things when a friend needs your help. And most importantly remember that when you are writing, you are a better person. If you make time for writing, everyone in your life will benefit.

And if they have to help you with the housework for a month to get that benefit, I think that’s a fair trade. Start to believe this. Start to ask for help. Start to live the life you were meant to live.

5. Take care of your meat sack

Our brains are part of our bodies. Really and honestly take care of yourself. Eat whole foods. Get outside. Get some daylight. Take walks. Download a meditation app. Make a food plan. Drink water. Learn to love vegetables. Sleep as much as you can.

It may feel like you don’t have time because you’re busy, but taking time for self-care will increase your productivity.

If you don’t believe me, read The Nature Fix by Florence Williams, Bright Line Eating by Susan Pierce Thompson, and Healthy As F*ck by Oonagh Duncan.

Your brain can’t do its job if you are starving it of nutrients and sleep.

Oh, and if you need to learn to cat nap, check out this power nap meditation from Andrew Johnson.

You deserve this. You are a waiter. Your friends and family will benefit from this team that you are taking to pursue your dream. I’m looking forward to seeing your novel.

Keep writing.

What do you do to take care of yourself during a time of stress 9good or bad0. Share in the comments!

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