Visual Storyboarding: Accountability

So - I am woefully behind on my last installment of the Visual Storyboarding series. I'll spare you the excuses, or if you want to know precisely why I haven't done more than flash fiction here in a good while, you can visit my Beauty of Painful Grit post.

Recently, I've tried to practice what I've been preaching to all of you since my blog first started in late September 2011. After months of lecturing on how to write, what to do, and not do, I've made it a priority to put my money where my mouth is. I've been writing - serious rewrites on Castle 8, and expanding my suddenly-hello-here-I-am-you-ought-to-write-me manuscript idea for Welsan.

But it's easy to get discouraged when you're writing bits and pieces every day, and your characters argue with you, or simply won't cooperate. So I figured out a way to help me overcome the doubt that so often bogs us down.

This is what I would rather be doing all day.

I have so many jobs, and so many demands on my time, that making time to write is difficult. Of course, we could all say that - life in the 21st century is an ongoing cautionary lesson on the cannibalistic principle of busy-ness. Our lives eat us alive, and with it most (if not all) of our creative energy. That's the very real threat, at any rate.

My writing funk came from knowing that I was doing a lot of writing - A LOT of writing - and yet very little of it was showing up in my manuscript. It was a horrible feeling to think that I was writing my fingers off and had "nothing" to show for it.

I was also discouraged because, a couple years ago, I and a few writing friends made it our mantra to write a minimum of 500 words a day. The ugly truth finally hit home: 500/day just wasn't a feasible goal for me. It felt more like a hollow ritual that somehow had me by the neck.

So one day in mid-May I stopped, and took inventory of my writing life.

I thought about how much blogging I do. That I had been trying to get back into more flash fiction. That I was spending a chunk of time each month beta-reading for friends who are on the same road to publication that I am.

It wasn't that I hadn't invested in my love, I realized. I had lost track of how I invested in that love.

My accountability calendar. This is now as routine for me as brushing my teeth.

Pictured above is my personal solution to that quandry - and, as you might expect, it's a very visual way to keep track. But I am a very visual person, so this is what works for me.

If you study the above photograph, you will detect several patterns to how I "keep track":

     * I always note the starting word count, and ending word count on my manuscript each day.

     * I then figure the difference and note the total word count in the box at the top of the day.

     * Negative word counts are considered progress 

     * Other things noted as writing progress:

          - flash fiction opportunities (Menage Monday, Five Sentence Fiction, Write4Ten)

          - posting said flash fiction on my blog, or other blog posting activity

          - beta-reading for someone else

          - those evenings spent doing significant networking on Twitter

Keeping track of my writing in this fashion didn't make a lot of sense for the first few weeks, but now that I've been at it a couple months I'm detecting distinct patterns. I've learned that:

     * Up to three non-writing days in a week is fairly average for me. 

     * I tend to write more toward the end of the week.

     * Getting anything written on Monday is nothing short of miraculous most weeks.

     * When I make time to read, I am more likely to make time to write

In recent weeks I've seen several bloggers sound off on the "Don't count your words - make your words count" saying, and similar axioms. I must say I am inclined to agree. I also think the age-old advice to "write every day, regardless" is also worth its weight in gold.

Obviously writing isn't going to happen EVERY day - see my calendar as proof of this - but if the habit of writing every day is there, and the accountability to boot - then the dream moves forward.

Not by leaps and bounds, perhaps, but forward movement is all any writer ultimately needs.

How do you make your words count? How do you hold yourself accountable for your dream?

Let me know in the comments!

And as always - thanks for reading!!

If you missed the earlier Visual Storyboarding episodes, you can follow these links to catch up:

     PART ONE: Storyboarding vs Mere Plotting

     PART TWO: Building on Your Hook

     PART THREE: Chasing Down the Details

PART FOUR: Jellybean, Licorice, Vonnegut, Line

Flight of Blue ~ Interview!

Welcome to a very big day in the life of one of my writer friends. Today, Anna Howard releases her debut novel, Flight of Blue to the reading public. A YA book about magic, friendship, and what it means to do what is right over what is easy - Flight of Blue tackles hard issues in a fairy-tale-with-a-twist approach.

Haven't heard of Flight of Blue? Here is a snippet to whet your appetite:

A cursed traffic light. A rip in the fabric of the world. A possum sorcerer injured on a quest for revenge.

Kai and Ellie embark on a journey to return the sorcerer to his home. Entangled in events that could destroy the world, Kai must choose whether to accept the role he was born to play, but isn’t sure he wants.

Writing a novel is always an intense act of love - and very hard work. So of course I wanted to know more about how Anna got to this point. Lucky for me, she was willing to sit down for an interview and give me the inside scoop on how her dream became a reality.

* * * * *

Hello, Anna! Thank you for taking time to answer my questions. First and foremost, how did you get the idea for Flight of Blue?

After nearly being t-boned in an intersection when someone ran the new traffic light by my house, I was driving home with adrenaline pumping in my veins and saw a possum lying by the side of the road. I stopped to see if I could help, and the possum told me a story about a sorcerer and the curse on the light. That's my story and I'm sticking to it ;-)

One of the more powerful sorcerers in the books is a talking Opossum. It's such a great twist to the story, but I do have to ask: Why Opossums? What made you pick that creature and not racoons or foxes or something more "traditionally" fairy tale-ish?

Well, Angela, that's a good question. I'm glad you enjoyed the twist, but I have to confess, I didn't plan it. Possums are unfortunately the most common victims of careless driving in the semi-rural area of Tennessee where I live. So my sorcerer was always an opossum. Once I met Reginald and then met his folk, I realized what a fun group they were and how much material they gave me to work with. Plus, Reginald's fun to tease. I call him a rodent and Kai calls him Reggie, and I'm not sure which of us is higher on his black list, but he's so cute when he gets all bristly. I suppose it could get us cursed or something, but Reginald's sort of sworn off cursing things in revenge after the fiasco with the traffic light. At least, I sure hope he has...

I know from my own writing experience that certain aspects of novel-writing are more difficult than others-sometimes it's an unsavory character who is hard to write, sometimes its a specific scene. What was the biggest challenge about writing Flight of Blue?

I'd say the biggest challenge was actually Sebastian. But of, course, it wasn't his fault. It was just difficult to remember to record his reactions to events since he wasn't taking part in the conversations. I finally figured out I'd been neglecting him when he kept up a constant stream of head bumps and wiggles, drawing more and more attention to himself until I had appropriately recorded all of his contributions to the events.

While Flight of Blue has a happy ending, it does end with a few unanswered questions, and hints of events to come. What can we expect for our heroes in the next book?

After discovering where his parents are, Kai will embark on quest with his friends to free them. The Realm of Darkness is even more intent on taking control of the Middle Realm, now that they've realized the Keeper walks the Realms once more. Kai will have to battle enemies on all sides with the help of his friends from Flight of Blue and some new ones along the way as he strives to retain control of his own mind and solve a puzzle that will give him a powerful means of rescuing his parents while discovering more about the mysterious prophecy of the Lucinarium.

When can readers expect the second episode in the Keeper of the Keys Chronicles?

The release date is still to-be-determined, but definitely by Summer 2013, and hopefully a bit sooner if my team and I can swing it. The sequel is called the Guardians, and folks who are interested can like my Facebook page and/or sign up for my mailing list to get updates as planning progress. I can say that I'm about halfway through the first draft, so it is definitely underway!

Links:

Facebook:

http://facebook.com/aehowardwrites

Mailing list:

http://eepurl.com/kj4dj

Thanks, Anna, for a great interview!

Curious? You can check out Flight of Blue using the links provided above, 

or check it out on Goodreads!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Storyboarding vs Mere Plotting

With JuNoWriMo almost upon us, I have tweeted more and more lately about the “storyboarding” stage of my writing process. Several people have asked me what I mean by that, and still others have asked for a closer look at how I go about the prewriting process entirely.

Most writers refer to this as simply “plotting” – but I confess, it’s a word that rarely enters my writing vocabulary.

In the world of Angela, prewriting means storyboarding.

What is storyboarding?

A nice dictionary definition of storyboarding is simply this: “A panel or series of panels of rough sketches outlining the scene sequence and major changes of action or plot in a production to be shot on film or video.”

In other words, it is a term generally applied to the film industry. Generally, it’s a visual pictorial outline that looks something like this >>> See johnstanicek.com for excellent storyboard examples. <<<

This sort of “plotting” is essential to those in film, since so many details hinge on the presentation of the visual aspects, and not dialogue only.

The Megatokyo Connection

I first ran across the term storyboarding several years ago, when I discovered the mother of all quality, convoluted, complex webcomics known as Megatokyo. The mastermind behind the comic, Fred Gallagher, was still putting out Largo & Piro goodness in his original gag-a-day comic strip format then. But not long after I joined this deliriously inverted world of geeks, mystery, social awkwardness, gaming, and the undead - Fred did something VERY interesting: he decided to morph the comic strip from a daily yucks-and-giggles routine to an overarching story with multiple characters, intricately interwoven plotlines, and ongoing themes that actually went beyond humor and meant something.

In short, he wanted to move out of sitcom territory and tell a substantive story.

As he went through the transformation, Fred documented his efforts in his blog posts, which always show up at the bottom of the page after the comic. This is where I first heard him rant about storyboarding, and how much time was consumed in plotting things out correctly.

Then he started posting snippets of his storyboards. He still does this sometimes, by posting “in progress” comics when the finished result is taking a while to really polish off.

Once I saw what he meant by “storyboarding”, my whole vision of what it meant to put a story together changed. Drastically.

Why storyboard a novel?

The idea of “storyboarding” changed my view at a bedrock level, and on a point so simple as to be considered obvious: Stories need to be visual.

That’s almost a “duh” kind of statement, isn’t it? After all, we live in a visually charged society. If it’s not the internet or television or movies, it’s coming over our iPhones and iPads, Kindles and Nooks, not to mention the old standbys – billboards and posters and magazine covers in the grocery store check-out lines. We are bombarded by visual stimuli constantly. Yet we still need the reminder – or at least I do – that today’s audiences are so visually conditioned that any would-be-author who ignores this reality of the modern audience does so at his own peril.

Again – a “duh” moment, right?

But here’s where the lightbulb went on for me: If I am going to write for such a visually charged audience, then I need to write visually – even before I put words to paper.

Please do not misunderstand me.

Storyboarding a novel does NOT mean:

·      Drawing tons of sketches beforehand (though some authors – including J K Rowling, are known to do this. But it’s not for everyone.)

·      Belaboring my writing with loads of long, heavy description. (This is generally considered monumentally BAD writing.)

But my audience is visual. VERY visual.

So how do I do this?

My personal answer is what I would like to take you through for the next few weeks. I’m not saying that I have all the answers – only that I’ve found what works for me; and I have helped enough writers along the way that it seems to help other people as well – not everyone, perhaps, but many. And it’s adaptable; so if you’re NOT an artist, then you can tweak the process in a way that fits you.

Over the month of June I will break down the steps of how to storyboard a novel the “Angela Goff way”, and let you be the judge of which part of these sub-components works for you.

Generally speaking, the trajectory of this series will cover: context, hooks, idea gathering, timelines, maps and sketches, and then of course how to merge all of that into a full storyboard.

I hope this little foray into my brain will help some of you, or at least encourage you in knowing that you’re already doing some of these things that will save your novel from the slush pile.

Follow me on Twitter (@Angela_Goff) or subscribe to email notifications for this blog to catch the next installment, hopefully coming your way by the end of the week.

Questions? Comments? Does any of this sound helpful?

Let me know in the comments!

Editing, Lunacy, and the Baby Walrus

If you've known me for any reasonable amount of time, you know I'm a weensy bit crazy. (Or, if you're one of my students, then I'm certifiably insane with an extended day pass. Take your pick.) But sometimes with my creative projects I get an idea so crazy I just can't rest till I try it out. Sometimes the ideas flop.

This past weekend, however, was (I hope) one of the exceptions.

My Insane Idea: I created a 240,100 word monster.

OK. So I didn't write a book in one weekend, let alone a tome the size of a baby walrus. But I did something almost as crazy: I took two overlapping manuscripts which dealt with the same overarching story and merged them into one massive manuscript. 

This would be migraine-inducing to consider at the best of times, but is complicated by the fact that I haven't done a cold read, let alone any sort of edit, on EITHER manuscript in sixteen months. That amounts to a lot of editing.

Let me repeat that: A LOT of editing. Serious #stabbylove editing of the highest order.

My brains after a full Saturday of editing.

(Actually, this is a curried coconut trail mix thingy I made tonight. 

But I'm pretty sure my brain looks like this after editing, all the same.)

The Result:  During the month of April, I plan to pare down the 240K walrus into one, nicely watertight, 80,000 word novel. All my crazy sprawling ideas for these characters, plots and themes need to be shaved, pinched, winnowed, threshed, and otherwise boiled down to one solid book with a coherent beginning, middle and end. With maybe a plot twist (or two or ten) in the between chapters.

"Good luck!" I hear you say. Yes, I hear the sarcasm. Loud and clear.

But you know what? I think I can make this work. Here's my...

Plan of Attack*: 

     1. April starts now. Yes, I know it's still March. Doesn't matter. If I put this off till April 1st, I'll drag my feet even more. I would like to see this thing published before I'm eighty, after all. Won't happen if I continue to procrastinate. So for me, April has 38 days this year (I started editing last Saturday). 

     2. Editing happens every day. Notice I said editing, not writing - though I know I will need to rewrite several scenes, even whole chapters. The opening chapter, I know, needs to be entirely scrapped. Already I am deleting entire sections, while moving other sections around, in small chunks and large. The only way my poor ADHD brain can keep track of all this elaborate "shell game" is to work on it every day.

     3. Tell on myself. Hence this blog post. If I don't tell people about this stupendously idiotic idea of mine, then it will never happen. Heck, it will never even be half-attempted. Because at rock bottom we're all whiners when the going gets tough, right? So don't let me whine. I expect comments, emails and tweets heckling me toward April 38th, 2012. Yep.

     4. View editing as a reward, not a chore. One of the reasons I'm so distractible, and can be such a whiner when it comes to writing, is that I have three jobs whose variables and schedules change constantly. It suits my ADHD just fine, but it means that it's easy for me to drop things, especially when work obligations get really tough, as they always do this time of year. 

     When that happens, I'll reward myself with a 30 minute spurt of editing after I've reached some milestone with the work obligations. That way necessary things get done, and so does the editing. I might even manage to get more done of both than I originally anticipated.

This is how I beta-read other people's work.

I owe my own manuscript the same courtesy.

 So there you have it. I've put my nutzo writing ambition out there for all to see, and I'm asking you to hold me accountable. Any encouragement is always appreciated, though I should point out that heckling is often more effective when time constraints are an issue. 

Either way - what do you think? Any other crazies out there who have tried this before? Especially under a self-imposed deadline? Or should I have my day pass revoked?

Oh look - a donkey with a mustache!

Wait...that belongs with a different post altogether...

* Not quite a 22 Things list, a'la Write Me Happy, but it's a start. Ain'tcha proud of me? (You know, I really should join that challenge as well...)

Agent Tweets #8: 2-in-12,000 Shot

Editing is the bane and the blessing of a writer's existence - a bane because it is so frustrating and time-consuming; a blessing because if managed properly, it puts a writer's work out front as the shining gem of storytelling that it is.

More importantly, editing is the key to getting noticed.

If I repeated every tweet I've seen on this topic, this blog would be about nothing BUT editing. Even so - there were six recent tweets about editing that really stood out (Ha! I'm an agent for agent tweets...there's some irony in that...).

TWEET #1:  

I get 800-1000 submissions a month and maybe take on a couple new authors/yr 

Eye-Opener: I'd lie if I said my eyes didn't widen just a wee bit when I read this one. The 800-1000 submissions per month I totally understand; but out of a potential 12,000 submissions per year - only two are taken on?

Yoiks. This means if I want to stand out, I need to make sure my manuscript is in the best possible condition before sending it in.

TWEETS #2 and #3:

Finish your ms and edit and polish it before querying. 

You can't expect an agent to help you finish writing it 

Sloppy, typo-ridden final manuscripts just reek of unprofessional entitlement to me. 

Your editor is not your MAID 

Hard But True: Both of these tweets back each other up with the same reality: you can't expect an agent to be so wowed by your story that they'll overlook typos or loose writing, and just "let the editors fix that later." As we discussed earlier in our Agent Tweets series: the query letter - and then the manuscript - is more or less part of a job interview. Editing is the way you dress it up right for the interview.


Yes, yes, I hear you wail. I hear this all the time!!! But how much editing is enough? There is such a thing as spinning your wheels for too long.


I completely agree. Sometimes you need to know when to stop tampering and just send it on.


So how DO we know when enough editing is enough? Here are a couple agent responses:

TWEETS #4 and #5:

You shld finish the ms, edit it, polish it, get some1 else to read it, re-edit, sit on it a wk, re-read it & THEN query

One of the best and most underused tools for polishing your query is TIME. Let it sit for a week. Then review & revise

Time is Your Friend:  Though the second tweet specifies "query" and not "manuscript," the principle is the same for both tweets ~ to really get a polished manuscript, you need time - not just to work on it, but to walk away from it for a while. Get some emotional distance from it. Then go back and edit. This is what is generally called a "cold read" and it is hugely valuable to writers, enabling them to become more objective about their own work.


Notice that both tweets hint that editing your manuscript comes in repetitive stages:

Write - Edit - Polish - BetaReader - Wait - Edit - Polish - BetaReader - Wait - Edit...

Most published authors that I read and admire generally advise going through these "layers" a minimum of three times before sending out that first query letter. Remember: agents want the manuscript finished and at its glossy best when you query, so that when they make that full request there are minimal hitches in the proceedings.


Okay.....so how horrific are these editing stages we're talking about?

TWEET #6:

Sometimes #editing has to be drastic, entire scenes and sections lopped off. What's left will be stronger for it./ Every #word on the page must have reason to exist; it should add to the story or your piece./If you, yourself, feel a loss over a word or line cut from your story or piece, then it needed cutting. 

Bruised Egos:  None of us like to be told that some interlude of which we are very proud isn't worthy of the whole story. But therein lies some advice that is also some of the oldest, and difficult to accept, which the above tweet touches on neatly: If you or I are deeply attached to any character or scene, or prosy description, because we feel we "did so well" at that point --- chances are it shouldn't be there, because we're just showing off.

Bottom Line: "Editing" is not merely a matter of correcting grammatical and typographical issues. It involves removing those bits that burden the tale unnecessarily, and hold back your manuscript from being its best - from being a two-in-twelve-thousand chance of catching an agent's eye, and finding your way to the publisher's desk.

Creative Pacing

A new month, a new blog design - and a new update schedule. Welcome to the new AL.

When I started my blog waaaaaaaaaaay back in September, I decided that I would not marry myself to one specific updating schedule, though the "shiny" of a new endeavor naturally meant that I was posting a lot. As in, every day.

I wasn't worried about the frequency at the time. New things always have their lustre that must wear off before you step back and readjust. Knowing that this blog would be a learning process, and an ongoing "writer's resume" (of sorts), I decided to keep up the 5-6 posts per week routine until I felt that both the topics and the pacing had worn thin, and I needed to scale back.

The big surprise: It took me five months to get to that point.

But that threshold - or perhaps I should say crossroads - has at last come. Personal craziness aside (the Goff Clan has been racking up frequent flier miles at the doctor's offices and hospitals lately), I've come to a point where the daily writing energy that I've funneled into blogging needs channeling to other projects, not the least of which is the now nearly-completed trilogy that I hope to query beginning in late May or early June.

The Upshot: I am going to hold true to my original vision of what I set out to do, by:

(a) Going to a Tuesday/Thursday update schedule (weekend silly posts and Six Sunday Sentence excerpts will continue as usual) 

(b) Hold myself accountable to the original discipline which started this adventure in the first place. (Especially item #3 in that link)

This new schedule will allow me to do three things:

1.  Focus on the writing that is at the heart of why I do what I do. 

2. Give updates of higher quality to my blog followers (including the popular Agent Tweets series) 

3. Stay sane.

OK ---- so maybe that third item is a bit of a stretch. But here's hoping. :-)

I also intend to continue with Lillie McFerrin's weekly Five Sentence Fiction challenge (really excited about this week's prompt, by the way - go check it out!). So expect the odd random flash fic to appear here from time to time.

So with all that being said...next Agent Tweets coming to you next Tuesday! With a little weekend silliness along the way.

Keep Reading --- Keep Writing --- Keep On Creating!

Let me know what you think in the comment section!

http://anonymouslegacy.blogspot.com/2011/09/new-endeavors.html

Brutal Compliments

This past week I was paid a very high compliment by a fellow writer. She offered to do a "cold read" of the opening five pages of my current manuscript. I let her.

The compliment? She went through those five pages with a scalpel.

By the end, my five pages bore the scars of a literary knife-fight. There was hardly a line in those 1400 words that didn't have some kind of deletion, highlight or other detritus of relentless trimming.

And to tell the truth - her handling of my manuscript made my day.

Her knife-fight with my opening pages was itself a high compliment. She cared enough to not only read what I had to share, but the gumption to show me what stood in my way of getting published.

We all know what it is to be criticized. It's that awkward moment at work or the family get-together, when someone pulls you aside and says: "You might not want to hear this, but do you realize...?" Then they tell you something about yourself (or spouse/child/final project) that you really don't want to hear.

But consider: What doesn't kill us really does make us stronger. In that sense, for writers to take constructive criticism on their work-in-progress is tantamount to taking literary vitamins. It strengthens your bones. Clarifies your skin. Flushes out impurities. Bolsters your immune system. If you're a serious writer, you want this - even if it hurts. More often than not, criticism does hurt. But as the poster suggests - if you avoid criticism entirely, then why should anyone note what you're saying or doing? Are you doing anything of note, if you cannot endure criticism?

My friend's critique was a litmus test for me. Though it was initially a shock to see "my darling" all marked up, it was not a crippling event. The exercise showed me several things, all of which were encouraging in their own way.

     * It showed me criticism is temporary. After a momentary "Oh!" and the eyes-round-with-shock moment, I found myself rolling up my sleeves and readying for the next round of work. I quickly went from the oh-my-what?? moment to the "I can do this" moment; and once I crossed that line the discomfort was behind me.

     * It showed me issues I would never have seen myself. I knew I had a problem with passive voice, and had even cleaned up those five pages tremendously, with that error in mind. But my friend, who has a much more grammar-ish mind than I do, saw other incidents of passive voice (and run-on sentences, and other embarassing faux pas) that I had entirely missed.

     * It showed me how a reader coming "cold turkey" to my book would respond to the introduction of my world. Once I narrowed my attention on her individual comments, I realized I had not done a thorough job of establishing my world from the outset. She showed me how a new reader would interpret the opening scene, and in so doing showed that the opening five pages still needs a LOT of work.

     * It proved my tale was battle-worthy. In spite of all the slicing and dicing, my opening premise seems to have weathered the storm quite nicely. This was the most encouraging thing for me: the realization that I likely have the right beginning point, even if I did word it rather shabbily.

Brutal compliments are part of the Writing Life. Sometimes the compliment is in the actual words; sometimes in how your tale holds up to the beatings it receives. Sometimes the compliment is knowing someone cares enough to tell you when you're capable of more.

We are all capable of more. The question is whether we will endure the criticism needed to get there.

What about you? What are your critique experiences?

Names We Give Ourselves

Last night an editor on my Twitter feed put up the following status: "#Writers --you're either a writer, or you aren't. 'Aspiring' doesn't cut it; that word is a turnoff. #justwrite."


That line struck an instant chord with me: What do I call myself? The names we give things are always important; and the names we give ourselves even more so. If this particular tweet to is to believed (and it should be, as it's coming from an editor), then adopting the label aspiring writer actually hurts our professional image more than it helps.


So why do we do it? For a rather basic reason, actually. If you're like me, the seemingly logical reasoning  runs through our heads more or less along these lines:


There's the inevitable question. How do I answer?
- Do I call myself an author? 
Well, I'm not published yet. 
- Do I call myself a hobbyist? 
Don't be silly. This is far more important than a mere hobby. 
- Do I call myself a writer? 
Isn't that the same thing as an author? So - no, because I'm not published yet. 
- Do I call myself an aspiring writer? 
Yes - that must be it. A not-yet-published writer working to make it official.
"I'm an aspiring writer, working on..."


That is more or less my own thought process, at least. Tacking the word "aspiring" to the label somehow seems more humble and truthful, since calling yourself simply a writer inevitably stirs up the question: "Where can I find your book(s)? I'd like to check them out." 

So how do we correct whatever damage (albeit unintentional) we've done to our professional name? The steps are very simple, though sometimes they require a good deal of "un-learning" on our part.


Call yourself a writer. Period. Nothing else. Either you're serious about attaining the Writer's Life or not. If you are, then name yourself accordingly. You're not a published author yet? Okay. You can live with that. It's temporary, after all. Just don't do yourself a disservice by calling yourself by a title that means, at an inferred, subliminal level: "fake writer".


Call your work a manuscript, not a "story." This is a serious pet peeve with me. I am constantly exhorting my students and fellow writers to call their work for what it is - a manuscript. Calling it "my story" or "my idea" or "my little project" does the same damage to people's perception of your writing credibility as does mislabeling yourself entirely. 


Make it habit, not hobby. With the mindset of calling yourself a Real Writer with a Real Manuscript, comes the Real Work. Don't just dabble at your manuscript - work on it. Real Work. Every single day. This is such basic writing advice it almost seems a moot point; and yet it is the one thing of which we must be reminded over and over. Why? Because jealously guarding that writing time every day is HARD. But a die-hard habit is the only way to override this weakness.


Have a ready answer. So what do you say when someone asks to see your work? Especially when you're not published? Direct them to your blog or website, for starters. Or have a ready writing sample available "upon request" - a short story, or a first chapter that you don't mind handing off for curious eyes to peruse. If they're serious about wanting to read your work - they'll accept the offer. If they read your work and want to see more, they'll tell you. Perhaps you'll find a good Beta Reader along the way. You never know.

In short: Don't minimize yourself or your dream. It's your manuscript. Your habit. Your inner world. You are that world's creator. Its author. You are the writer. No other name will do.

What do you think? Are you faced with a similar "naming problem" as regards your work?

How do you handle those labels and expectations?

Pulse Check

As a teacher, I constantly give pulse checks to my students. In my classroom, a "pulse check" is a start-up activity or pop quiz, in which I ask broad questions that let me know where the students are - how they are progressing with projects, what they are reading (or not reading), what has overwhelmed them, what has surprised them, and what they think adds or detracts from the class.

I do these every other week or so; and over the course of the semester these pulse checks tell me something  that the individual papers cannot. Collectively, they show me how far my students have come: in their thinking, their writing, what they find important or unimportant. One pulse check tells me details of the moment they're in; an accumulation of pulse checks shows me their trajectory.

Last Saturday night I got a pulse check of my own, and when I least expected it. I was printing out my NaNoWriMo script when I found I was in need of some divider tabs. I fished around in a desk drawer and found them, buried underneath an avalanche of construction paper. When I pulled them out, however, I discovered the tabs were already labelled with old story titles. Story titles, moreover, for book ideas I had not thought of since college. Book ideas that, at the time, I thought would launch my writing career.

Need I say it? The titles were horrible. Every one of them.

Don't think so? Then let me tell on myself for a moment. Here is the full list of what my College Self considered "promising material" for future publication:

Haley's Comet
Yearleaping
Devil at Death's Ridge
The Unpredictability Factor
The Pirate Conspiracy
Summer of the Vikings
Flight of the Predestine
Raising Cain in East Wigging

The worst part of discovering these labels was knowing that, once upon a time, I had a working rough draft for every one of these underwhelmingly banal ideas. Every. Single. One.

Now, if you're not laughing at me, you might be tilting your head to one side and thinking "Well, that one doesn't sound so bad; I'm pretty sure I've heard of that title elsewhere - or something similar to it..."

Which is one of the reasons I find all of these titles so cringe-worthy: first, because they are all so neutral and generic sounding; and secondly because I remember the general concept behind each book, and they were all monumentally bad. Even if the titles themselves were all right (only the East Wigging title still makes me smile a little bit), the stories would not have lived up to any marketing hype. Not even close.

I looked at the divider tabs, and thought about the ideas they represented. Then I glanced back at my NaNoWriMo manuscript, for which I needed the divider tabs in the first place. I hardly knew whether to laugh or blush. In the end, I was encouraged, not the least because the reminder showed me a couple things about myself:

* I'm glad I wasn't published while I thought I was great. Obviously I was infected with some serious "delusions of adequacy" at the time I wrote those labels. I thought then that I had grand, new, cutting-edge tales to tell. Ideas that no one had ever considered. I, with all my inherent creativity, would write those books and wow the world. My Present Self looks back at that season of life and says an earnest thank-you prayer that the Almighty prevented me from taking any of those manuscripts through to the end. I shudder to think of the consequences, had I tried to seriously submit any of those earlier ideas.

* I'm glad I lived a little before I truly knuckled down with my writing. Since making those dividers, I've traveled to five continents, been a sign language interpreter, and learned how to cook hard-core vegetarian and vegan food. I've played flag football in the woods at night (and got a killer bout of poison ivy as a result). I've had an herb garden, been mistaken for Sigourney Weaver, and helped take apart (and reassemble!) a Chevrolet motor. I've been cussed out over the phone by an irrational customer. I've skied in the Andes and hiked in the Alps, been camping in a snowstorm, and read copious amounts of Viking sagas. I had a pickle-canning fiasco that ended in stitches and a tetanus shot. I've played poker for Skittles and won.

Such experiences gave me a wider view on the world than ever before; and when the time was right, those experiences didn't just trickle into my writing - they leapt and flew and wrangled and erupted onto the page. Marvelous eruptions, in ways my Present Self still can't fully understand or explain.

But I have a hunch my Future Self knows very well how it will end. And when that Future Self sees what sort of literary litter I am leaving behind now, she will take another pulse check, blush a little, and say "My, how far I have come...."