Alane Adams's Blog, page 6

The Writing Life: Time is Running Out

What are you waiting for? Every day you waste not writing, not pursuing your dreams, not finishing that novel or screenplay is just another day you pretended to be a writer but didn’t live as one. Writing is this ethereal pastime. We think unless we have published, or sold a book, gotten an agent, or received formal recognition, that we can’t call ourselves writers. The truth is writing is a way of life. Being a writer is a skin you were born with, like it or not. You can spend years even decades pursuing other interests and have successful careers, but being a writer means you long for, ache for, yearn for, weep for, a keyboard and a blank page. To begin a story is like beginning a new relationship. Discovering what you like about the other person, finding out tidbits, feeling chemistry, getting excited at the thought of spending time with them. Writing is like falling in drunk love and waking up wondering what was I thinking? I am terrible at this. I can’t begin to compete with other great writers. And the dream gets shelved, only to eat away, niggle at the edges of your thoughts, as you longingly hold books in your hands other authors have published and say, How did they do it? What makes them different than you? How did they get all those words onto paper bound by this beautiful cover while your story remains in a dusty drawer or in the back of your mind or buried in a computer file you only open up when no one’s watching. There is no secret to how they did it. The difference is one word. It’s not talent. If you’re born with a writer’s skin, you were given talent. It’s not craft, though craft is important. It’s not luck, but luck helps. It’s not who you know, although if your uncle is an agent, send him my blog. It’s not quality, it’s not creativity, it’s not editing, it’s not timing, it’s not any of this. So what is it? Perseverance. The writers who publish their novels are people just like you who didn’t give up. Some of them had longtime careers who finally made the switch. Some figured it out in college and never swerved. But they all faced rejection, writers block, discouragement, disgust with their words, self-loathing, an indescribable sense of failure wrapped up in joy. And the one thing they all share is perseverance. They didn’t stop writing even if they had a day job and twins under the age of five. They didn’t stop writing even though no one believed in them. They didn’t stop writing even when they received five, ten, fifteen, thirty rejections. They just kept at it. And one day, they woke up, and a book was sitting on the table next to them with their name on it. They worried, was it good enough? Had they done enough? But then they let it go and moved on to the next book they could suffer over. What’s your excuse? Too old? So what, tomorrow you’ll just be a day older and no closer. Write it anyway. Too young? So what, no one will take you serious until you take yourself serious. Too hard? Welcome to writing. No one in their right mind becomes a writer because it’s fun. It’s hard work, but when you get it right, you’ll receive the greatest satisfaction life offers the writer’s soul. Keep writing!

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The Writing Life: It’s All Been Done Before

So often when you sit in front of an agent and pitch your story, the first thing you hear is, we’ve seen that already. As if JRR Tolkien owns the term elves, Suzanne Collins owns dystopian teenagers with a bloodlust, and a magic wand can only be used by a kid with a lightning bolt on his forehead. The truth is, stories are told and retold every day. Where did Tolkien get all those great ideas? Most of his thematic design came directly from Norse mythology, interweaving concepts and ideas that were first told before the Dark Ages came to pass. So if you’re thinking about writing a book that is similar but different than some juggernaut success story out there consider this:

• What’s unique about your story? Is it really unique or just a variation of the same thing? If you’re diving into a school for magic, you want to make sure your school is spectacularly different than other schools as a comparison.

• Comparisons are familiar, so don’t be afraid of them. We know certain genres, we know what to expect and we get comfortable following authors that fit the bill. So if you’re a romance writer, a happy ending is a lot more satisfying than creating a twist that leaves your heroine heartbroken and all alone just for the shock value. Unless you are ultimately going to give the reader a payoff they are expecting, don’t leave them disappointed and irritated.

• It’s hard to predict peoples tastes and trends. What is hot today might be cold tomorrow, just as you’re diving into it. So accept that you are not psychic and write what you love. You will find a market for it if you are true to the concepts that you believe in. If you miss the boat, you will still develop as a writer. Good stories always find readers. It’s nice to ride a trend, but don’t obsess about what is popular.

• Consider who you are writing for. As much as we write for ourselves, ultimately we imagine an ideal audience that will be clutching our book in sweaty hands unable to put it down. Who are they? How old are they? What do they like about stories they read? Figure out your audience and what they get out of reading and then you’ll know what it is they’re looking for. Call it the secret sauce. Young adults love a romance which is plighted to be torn apart, sleuths love detective stories with a whodunit twist, mythology fans love to see their favorite figures from history appear in a new setting. Learn the secret ingredients that make your readers happy and no matter how often it’s been done, you’ll find an eager audience.

As always, keep writing!

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The Writing Life-Amateur Mistakes You Don’t Have To Make

There’s nothing like finishing your first novel and proudly showing it off to an agent, hoping that lightning will strike and your fabulous talent will be discovered. The problem is your fabulous manuscript is riddled with amateur mistakes that can easily be fixed, allowing the gem that you created to come through and convince agents and editors you’re the real deal.

Here are the Top Ten Amateur Mistakes Writers Make:

Overuse of I said, he said, she said. Your manuscript doesn’t need them. Cut out half of them, and then cut out another half and your manuscript will start to have lift off.
Repetitive phrases. Use a software program to check for repeated words. You will be shocked how often you repeat the same word on a page. Overuse of identical words shows a limited range of skill in detailing events in your story. There are programs that will do this for you fast and easily, so invest in one and make your manuscript start to zing!
Typos. Don’t have any. Period.
Not replacing backwards, forwards, towards, upwards, downwards, with backward, forward, toward, upward and downward.
Overusing (insert pronoun) heard, saw, felt, realized, seemed, had been. Use the word search function and count the number of times you use each of the listed words. You will be shocked at how much you overuse this method of describing your characters actions. Replace as many as you can with active descriptions. I heard a shot fired, is more exciting when it’s written as a shot zinged over my head making my ears ring. I felt a bolt of fear can be better stated as fear ripped through me like a bolt of ice.
Did I mention typos? They’re there. Find them, including bad punctuation and missing periods.
Overuse of backstory and flashbacks. Eliminate them whenever possible. Stories are best told in the present tense. Flashbacks and prologues are a bit like cheating. Find a way to weave the backstory into the present and your editors won’t get annoyed with you.
Buying into the family and friends bandwagon who claim your novel is the best they’ve ever read. They are biased, even when they say they’re not. They can’t see the forest for the dangling participles. Don’t believe a word they say. Find a good editor who doesn’t see you on Thanksgiving Day and pay for as much criticism as you can take. The only way you will grow as a writer is to hear feedback which is impartial and informed.
Wallowing in self-pity when your manuscript gets rejected. This business is very subjective. Your manuscript might be great, it might be average. Doesn’t matter. The only way anyone will ever read it is if you make it worth reading. So don’t wallow, work harder at learning the craft and develop a thick skin.
Writing the same story over and over for ten years thinking that the first book is so precious it has to sell before you ever write the second one. Don’t linger in the past. The first book might have been your best, it also might have been an exercise in Can I Do This? The answer is yes, now send it out to get edited by a professional while you write the next book. Don’t wait around hoping lightning is going to strike. It probably won’t. But if you start the next book while the first one is in the hopper getting edited, then pretty soon you’ll have two books, and when that happens, your confidence will increase and with proper feedback, your writing will begin to improve. Then you just might climb out of the amateur stage into the up and coming author stage.

Keep writing!

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The Writing Life: Why Aren’t You Writing?

So often I hear people say they would love to write if they only had time. It’s as if they imagine writing as this easy breezy life where writers sit around sipping coffee with their boatloads of free time, deliriously caught up in an imaginary world. The truth is very different. Real writers write because writing is what they do. I don’t mean for a living, I mean, it is the primary way they communicate. They journal. They have streams of ideas. They constantly scribble notes about stories they may never write. Characters populate their life. Imaginary conversations stream live in their head. Real writers write on a near daily basis because it’s an extension of their self. Words take on a life outside of the author when they are recorded. Mostly writing is hard work. Having the discipline to sit down every day and tackle a thousand words, and a thousand more, and so on, can be daunting. No wonder so many never start! It’s like trying to climb Mount Everest and you’re at the very bottom looking up. You can barely even see the peak. But the only way to get to the top it is to take the first step. Put that first word down on paper. If you find yourself using the excuse “I just don’t have time” then try busting that myth with these tips:

If you don’t know what to write about, keep a journal. Writing fiction isn’t so different than writing about your daily life. Developing a habit of recording thoughts and feelings into words will help develop your voice.
Write about people you meet. Make up stories about them. Imagine they have special powers. Imagine they have secret lives. Take what’s present in your life every day and weave your imagination around it. No one else has to read it, so you can turn off that inner critic and just have some fun.
Speaking of that inner critic, the easiest way to get past writers block is to embrace your mediocrity up front. Allow yourself to write from your gut without that constant external voice that criticizes every word. Let it be average. Let it just be a little book, nothing more. When we set ourselves up to be too big, to live up to some high standard, we let inner torment shut down the writing, so just let it be average and it will have room to breathe. You can make it great when you edit it.
Make a character notebook. When you find pictures in magazines that strike you, tear them out and put them in a notebook, write down descriptions of them, keep files on different looks and casting for your stories so you have vivid descriptions of characters when you start to write your story.
Research the genre that interests you. If you want to be a crime writer, read five books from five different best-selling authors and critique them. Write down what you liked and didn’t like about each one. How would you have done it differently? Don’t worry that you will end up sounding like them. Every author has their own unique voice that comes through once the real writing begins.
Set daily goals and stick to them. Keep a chart on the wall or in your calendar. Reward yourself in some small way, even if it’s with an emoticon. I give myself a unique smiley face every time I complete five thousand words in a novel. It seems small but it’s symbolic and I look forward to the next milestone.

So why aren’t YOU writing? Imagine one day, you wake up and find a completed novel on your hard drive. Wouldn’t that be the best feeling ever? It might be lousy in every way filled with amateurish mistakes, but it will be yours. And the next one might be the one that becomes a best-seller. But it will never get written unless you stop making excuses.

Keep writing!

 

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