Michael Potts's Blog: Bits and Pieces: Book Reviews and Articles on Writing, Horror Fiction, and Some Philosophy - Posts Tagged "writing"

How would a person feel if she revealed her most secret self, her strangest quirks, in print for all to see? Some writers will not go there, fearing that someone will see their most secret self through the fiction. I have personally found that to be the case--the first novel nearly everyone writes is the one I wrote--the semi-autobiographical coming of age novel using a first person point of view. That is difficult to successfully pull off, and I was aware of that while writing. I have a "quirk" that is part of my ordinarily secret self, and I allowed the main character, Jeffrey Conley, to reveal that quirk in both my novels (End of Summer and Unpardonable Sin).

Since a psychologist has diagnosed me with Asperger's Syndrome, it is not surprising that I have obsessive interests. One of those interests is the human (biological) heart. Someone might yawn and ask, "Is that all? That doesn't make your character stand out." So I "took the plunge" and revealed that Jeffrey is sexually aroused by the sound of a woman's heartbeat. Including my quirk as part of Jeffrey makes an unusual character and one I could develop in unique ways. In my second novel, I make greater use of Jeffrey's heartbeat interest as well as adding more fictional elements, and Jeffrey comes to life more as a character independent, though closely related, to me. Jeffrey's fetish/fascination with the heart grows and colors his other actions, especially his reactions to women--and their reaction to him when he reveals his quirk. There is no judgement, just an imaginative showing of how Jeffrey's life might be in the particular world created for him in my imagination.

Authors should not be afraid to reveal their secret side through a character. That will both add depth and edginess to the character as well as give the author a grounding in the one who knows the character's quirk firsthand--the author himself.

With fewer Americans reading and more people writing books than ever before, especially with self-publishing being free, it is difficult to make one's book stand out. Although I try to write as well as possible, some online readers seem to enjoy bad writing, especially if so-called "fan-fiction" is factored in. The best advice I have read is that after a writer publicizes his work to the best of his ability, he should write another book. The more books an author writes, the greater the chance is that someone will be interested in one of his works. The reader may be so intrigued that he becomes interested in other books by the same author. Thus I plan to write more books and hope that some readers take notice. The joy is in the writing--most writers "have to write." If the writer is true to himself instead of someone seeking only profit, he will write a better book and have the self-satisfaction of accomplishing something rewarding. Sales are more like icing on the cake.

There is a cliche that academic writing has to be boring. While literary essays may be beautifully written, an article in a peer-reviewed academic journal or an academic monograph has to read like wood. This is not the case, although some academics write in a way that makes the cliche seem accurate.

I have always tried to write clearly in my academic articles--I am not a fan of the school of thought that says, "The more obscure, the better." While academic writing involves a different skill set than creative writing, I have found that having skills in both forms of writing helps me in whatever genre I write.

Academic writing involves precision, especially in my field, philosophy, which demands careful reasoning and attention to evidence. Good philosophy involves good facts, and a failure of accuracy can be fatal to a philosophical work. Creative writing skills help me to communicate difficult philosophical issues in a concrete, rather than an abstract, way. Attention to detail that focuses on the concrete items in the world, and that focuses on the everyday experience and struggles of students can help communicate difficult concepts. I could not have written my latest book, *Aerobics for the Mind: Practical Exercises in Philosophy that Anybody Can Do*, without creative writing skills to bring philosophy down to earth. I wanted to make philosophy come alive to the reader, as Shelby Foote made the War between the States come alive in his narrative history of the war.

My advice to academics who also engage in creative writing is to think of the relationship between the two forms of writing as symbiotic. Hopefully, academics who write novels, poetry, and literary essays can improve their skills in all areas of writing by recognizing and using that fact to their advantage.

How can someone who travels often due to a job or some other good reason find time to write? There are times in which I do a great deal of travel, and in months with two conferences, that can take eight days out of the month. Some people travel more often than that. How can a frequent traveler find more writing time?

If you fly, the situation is easier than when you are driving a vehicle. On long flights, if you own a laptop, you can work on it during the time (most of the flight) when laptop use is permitted. If you are not in first class or business class, this may be uncomfortable, and if you are not good at tuning out distractions, it may be difficult. If you do not own or do not like to use a laptop on a plane, write on a legal pad. Poems, story sketches, the beginnings of stories, an initial outline for a book or a screenplay--these can all be written down on a legal pad. You can return to your work later if you have a break in your hotel room. I am most effective at writing poetry on the run, and unless I am writing a long poem, I can usually have first drafts of several poems completed by the end of the trip.

If you are a passenger in a vehicle, the medium you use to write depends on the available vehicle space. In some vehicles you may be able to work on a laptop; in others, a legal pad is best. If you are in a cab for a long ride and can stand the multiple fast turns, you can write there. If you get car sick and you have a tolerant driver, you can bring a digital voice recorder or tape recorder and record your ideas in a voice medium. If you are the driver and can safely pull over when that idea that seems brilliant pops into your mind, do it. I have a DVR in my car, and have spoken poems or story ideas--or even academic paper ideas--into the DVR during traffic jams in which the traffic is at a complete stop (especially when the police have blocked traffic due to an accident). Pay sufficient attention to the road, though, to know when traffic starts again. Someone behind you will be sure to let you know if you failt to move, but a careless driver could run into the rear of your vehicle. I find that glancing at scenery, especially in rural areas, stimulates ideas. If you are working on a longer work, follow the habit of stopping a sentence in the middle so you can re-read and begin again where you left off. There used to be scenic train rides for writers who wanted to allow the view outside to inspire their writing. Breaks on a cruise ship can also be used for writing--plus the sights you see can inspire ideas for stories and poems.

Any writer can adjust to the circumstances of travel--it takes discipline, but so does writing in a quiet room on a retreat. Good writing can be accomplished despite a busy schedule of travel.

One stereotype about writers that, unfortunately, has some truth to it is that many writers abuse alcohol. O Henry, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, Dylan Thomas, Truman Capote, Jack Kerouac, and many others had such struggles. Among horror writers, Stephen King struggled with alcohol and drugs, and has successfully overcome his addiction. Edgar Allen Poe had a drinking problem as did Shirley Jackson. Even writers who do not have problems with drinking too much often drink an alcoholic beverage as they write. Why is this the case? Is there a link between creativity and alcohol abuse?

To be fair, some writers with clinical depression may have drunk too much to avoid the pain. Others may have suffered pain from injuries and drunk to dull the physical pain. However, I do think there is a link between drinking alcoholic beverages and writing.

What people who do not write fail to understand is that writing is a gut-wrenching, emotional experience. In writing, the author bares him or herself, psychologically stripping away barriers that are normally kept closed. I remember my own experience writing my novels--it was similar to a fugue state in which the emotions and scenes were flowing too fast to write down, and in which my body was so tense it felt as if it were on a caffeine IV. My heart pounded, my body trembled--taking a walk every hour helped with the physical stress, but the mental stress only increased. I drank a little wine or Tennessee whisky, allowing a glass to last over several hours. It slowed my mind enough to write what was inside it, but not so much that it interfered with thinking. Yet even then there were times I would have two drinks in two hourse because it was the only thing that would calm me down. It was easier writing my second novel, and I was moderate the entire time, but the gut-wrenching baring of my soul was still present. Writing is a great catharsis and can function like therapy, and I enjoyed the process of writing, but my body and emotions were taut--it is difficult to desribe the experience. Now that I cannot drink any alcohol for medical reasons, I still write, but listen to music or relaxation CDs to help.

Other writers are not so moderate--perhaps they had negative experiences in their lives that writing brought back into their consciousness. Perhaps their bodies reacted more strongly to the emotion of writing than did mine. Perhaps they had a genetic propensity to alcoholism. Some writers could only write when drunk. How can writers deal with the baring of the soul that takes place in writing?

My suggestion would be to drink moderately if you drink--if there is any hint of lack of control, leave the room and take a walk. If you are still tempted, you do not need to drink--you are depending on it, and when that happens, alcohol will become your master and you will be its slave. For those who do not drink, listen to calming music or relaxation tracks--there is plenty of such on YouTube if you have Internet access where you are writing. If there is no Internet access, bring a personal CD player and headphones along with whatever music you enjoy. For writing, I prefer either Gregorian chant or one of the works of Arvo Part--slow, meditative, calming.

Exercise is a must--take walks, at least, and if you are a jogger, go for a run. Anything healthy way to relieve stress is good. For those tempted to drink too much, rememember that dead people cannot write anything. It is not worth losing your life to solve the emotional wrenching process of writing via too much alcohol or other drugs.

I use the term "writing storm" to refer to a burst of material for a novel or other fictional work that overwhelms the mind. It is difficult to type fast enough to get the material down.

Writers have different styles. Some write a certain number of pages every day--Stephen King is one example. Other writers work very slowly and may take years to finish a novel. Then there are writers like me who work in bursts of energy, writing a first draft of a novel in less than two weeks. I wrote 90+ percent of my first novel in ten days. I wrote about 80+ percent of my second novel in five days. Now these were first drafts; the first novel required many, many edits--if you count minor tweaks, the number of drafts was in the 30s. My second novel required surprisingly few drafts given the speed of writing the first draft. Some writers may ask, "Can I work that way, too?"

The answer depends on your personality, how much you can deal emotionally with writing a great deal every day, and, most importantly, the amount of preparation you do before you began writing the novel proper. I wrote most of a novel in five days because I had previously outlined each chapter on index cards--one index card per chapter. I had prepared data sheets on each character. Since I was using the same general fictional world in my second novel as I did in the first, that saved me a great deal of time. When I was writing, I was caught up in that "divine madness" in which the words have to come out to relieve the tension in my mind and body. Exercise helped make those emotions manageable so that I could continue to write instead of continually pacing around the room.

If you have a similar personality, my suggestion is do a great deal of preparatory work on your plot, characters, and setting before you write your first draft. If you do this well, characters will seem to act on their own, and the plot development may diverge from your original plan--but that is okay. Adjust accordingly, deleting chapters that are unnecessary and adding those that are needed given the changes you (or your character) has made. You must find a quite place where you are alone to write. As I have noted before in this blog, put the novel away for a while, then edit, edit, and edit until you have a work ready to show the world.

Most people do not write out of the blue, even in a "writing storm." Even if the author does not use written notes, some ideas have been percolating in the author's head for a long time. No novel is created ex nihilo, "from nothing;" unlike God, authors have to work with pre-existing material. With proper sorting out of that material a person with the temperament for fast writing can finish an entire first draft of a short novel (around 60,000-80,000 words) in a week. I find such an experience exihilarating, and should you choose to go this route, I hope your experience is also enjoyable.

Have you been busy at your job or driving and had what you thought was a great idea for a story? Suppose you get lucky and stop what you're doing (and stop your car at a safe place if you're driving), and you're able to write down your idea. Or perhaps you are at a writing conference that inspires you, and you leave, excited about developing the writing ideas you gleaned. You get home, put the ideas aside, and life intrudes. You forget about the ideas, misplace your notepad, or worse, lose what you've written down. All those great ideas--wasted.

I have had that experience many times. It is rare that I have totally lost ideas--usually I find a notepad months later. Resentment at having to be so busy at other things and anger at myself for not following up on an idea soon after developing it invade my thoughts--but such negativity does no good. Further reflection reveals that some of the ideas were not as brilliant as I thought at the time I wrote them down. Sometimes a few lines of poetry are good, and I am able to take off from what I'd written and write a complete first draft of a poem. Story ideas are more difficult--I find if I don't write the story immediately when I have the idea, it is difficult to return to it, at least with a short story. Ideas for novels are easier for me to follow up. Could I, or other writers, deal with busy lives in a way that allows them to develop their ideas into literature.

I first suggest that if you have an idea for a poem, make sure you complete a first draft of a poem that same day. You should at least add a plot outline and notes to your story ideas so that when you return to them, you will be able to continue where you left off. Have a file or some other place you can easily find where you place your writing ideas. Look through them from time to time, eliminating those that are duds and working on an idea you find promising. If I followed my own advice, I would complete many more writing projects. From now on I will try to follow my advice. This advice may help you, but all writers are different. Adjust any advice to your personality, work habits, and style. As long as you are producing quality work, you are doing something right. May all your good writing ideas come to fruition.

The main character in both my novels, Jeffrey Conley, is based to some extent on me and my own experiences as someone with High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (HFASD)--what used to be called "Asperger's Syndrome." It is clear, especially in the horror novel, that this is a fictionalized view of Jeffrey, but even when Jeffrey experiences the extraordinary, he experiences it from the standpoint of a child with HFASD. Thus, he has obsessive interests (in the physical heart and with death and the afterlife), is socially awkward, does not fit in well with "normal" people, has above-average intelligence, finds it difficult to understand other people's feelings, and lives inside his head. As a writer, the most difficult thing to communicate to people without ASD is that persons really exist who are like Jeffrey in their behavior and emotional makeup. Sometimes I get comments from people saying, "I found Jeffrey unrealistic--people just don't act that way." They respond in that manner even though I make it clear in the frame story surrounding the main plot that Jeffrey has HFASD, and I show how he does through the story. To say that this is frustrating puts it mildly. Of course every writer puts part of the self into writing, and I put my own quirks and ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving into Jeffrey. Even when Jeffrey does some bad things that I never did in my own life, he does these in a way that fits his HFASD, especially his naivete concerning other people and his inability to read people well.

A book I would recommend to writers and to anyone interested in ASD is Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. The main character in Haddon's novel has more severe ASD than I, but his character rings true to life, and any person on the autism spectrum will see part of him or herself in that character. The purpose of my own work is to tell a good story--in End of Summer, a good Southern fiction coming-of-age story, and in Unpardonable Sin, a scary horror story. Even though my purpose in writing is not to give a lesson on ASD, I hope that readers will learn something in the novels about how it is to grow up as a child with HSASD.

A few days ago I listened to a book on CD, a thriller by a major author in the field, who shall remain unnamed. It was the most poorly written book I have heard and/or read. The plot trudged along slowly, even though the book was short. There was little imagery and the book was chock full of stereotypical adjectives and adverbs. The dialogue tags, especially the adverbial dialogue tags, drove me nuts. Since listening to bad writing is a good way to know what to avoid in one's own writing, I listened until the book (mercifully) ended. Yet the book was a bestseller.

Of course one could mention FIFTY SHADES OF GRAY and anything written by Dan Brown. It is possible to break the "rules of writing" and have a good book; THE LORD OF THE RINGS is an example. However, when authors clearly do not know how to write, get published by a major publisher, and sell millions of copies, this sends a negative message about American education and culture.

In the nineteenth century, thousands of people lined up by the docks in New York City to purchase and read the latest book by Charles Dickens. In the twentieth century, some of Ernest Hemingway's books were bestsellers. But that was the past; in the twenty-first century good literary fiction is rarely read except by writers. Now and then a well-written bestseller appears, but that is rare, and much of what sells is awful.

Years of "dumbing down" the educational system of the United States have taken their toll on literacy. In addition, students are taught to avoid all hierarchies--thus some of them deny that any work of literature is better than another literary work. Even if a student accepts a hierarchy of literary value, the student's reading skills are so poor that he or she is incapable of making an intelligent judgement about the quality of writing in a book. Political correctness and an unhealthy focus on race, class, and gender to the exclusion of other factors of a literary work have led to a superficial, politicized understanding of literature.

The main problem remains poor reading skills--the majority of young people read books at their level of understanding and are unwilling to read more challenging works. When I browse the ratings of Indie books on Amazon and read the samples from those that sell well, often I find multiple grammar errors, stilted dialogue, and unbearably bad prose.

Sometimes poor writing is literate but of poor literary quality--Dan Brown's books, for instance--but people buy them for their story. That is something authors should keep in mind--that a catchy story can cover a multitude of sins--but having a catchy story and avoiding the sins is better.

There remains a good number of intelligent and well-read people out there, including young people--especially on sites such as Goodreads. They keep standards alive in literature by reading quality literary and quality genre fiction. They gain the unique insight into human nature that can only be gained via a good story. I applaud these people and hope that my own writing can speak to them. If anyone tries to better him or herself by reading more challenging material, I encourage that person to read the classic works of literature. Struggle with the text--and I guarantee that you will not only learn how to read (and write!) better, but you will learn something you did not know before.

Every author has to publicize his or her book. Even the major publishers are spending less on publicity and require authors to help with marketing. Those published via small presses have more responsibility for marketing, and Indies most of all. The issue is how to balance the time spent marketing with writing time. I have found that marketing takes far more time than I first realized. Getting an online presence, keeping one's website updated, posting to groups and blogs, and posting to Facebook pages as well as setting up book signings can drain precious writing time. It is essential, however, even if there are few sales. If your books thus far have sold poorly but your next book sells well, that success can slide over to your other works, and the work that you did earlier in marketing them will pay off. People wanting to discover more about your work will easily be able to do so.

Yet you cannot spend all your time on publicity. You can fall into a trap like a gambler--"this strategy didn't work, so now I have to find another and I can't write until I do so." Your number one priority as a writer should be writing. I am reminding myself of that as much as I am reminding my readers. Lives are busy enough, so finding a balance between the various aspects of "authoring" is a must. Perhaps set aside a half hour a day to work on marketing, and then use the rest of your available time for writing.

For someone with Asperger's Syndrome like me, an overemphasis on marketing is parallel to the immense amount of time I spend on what interests me at the time. Now it's not only marketing my books, but research on my family tree. Someone with Asperger's must often use the strength of the will to start writing--I know I do. Once the person with Asperger's gets into the flow of writing, than writing becomes the "special interest," and the person will write a great deal quickly. I wrote the first draft of my first novel in ten days and the first draft my second novel in eight days. During that writing time I did not care about any other interest but writing. Other people may find other ways to motivate them to write. Do whatever works for you, but for goodness sakes, do what a writer does--write!