Writing Stuff

It's the first Wednesday of the month, which means it's the posting day for the Insecure Writer's Support Group. Click the link to learn more and sign up!

Something I tend to be insecure about is my identity as a writer. A lot of writers stick to one genre, others can write pretty much anything. I feel like I'm somewhere in between. I have written different genres, but it seems like I stick to the same one for years at a time and then move on to something else. If someone asked me what I write, I wouldn't really know what to say.

I have, however, always liked my Twitter bio (which I've never changed): "I write stuff. There's an imaginary teenage boy in my brain who helps me. Otherwise, I'm pretty normal." Short, sweet, and to the point. Well, it's Twitter, so it has to be short. But sometimes I read it and feel like a complete fraud. There's the "I'm pretty normal" part, which is a stretch, but we won't get into that. And I think I hear someone saying "who the f*** are you calling imaginary???" to which I would say, "BE QUIET YOUR POST IS NEXT WEEK."

But really it's the "I write stuff" part. How true is that? Am I actually writing stuff? Well, yes and no. I haven't written a poem in probably three years. I haven't really worked on my novel (except for a few tidbits here and there) for one year. All I ever really write are blog posts. So can I still call myself a writer? Well, I still want to write, and I still get ideas, so the passion is somewhere in there even if it's so far buried I don't know where to find it.

On the other hand, it's pretty vague, which works for me. Not "I'm an aspiring novelist and poet." Not "I'm working on my WIP and hope to be published soon." Just, "I write stuff." It's entirely true. Sometimes it's just a blog post or a tweet or an email. Sometimes it's a random line of dialogue from Book 3. Sometimes it's an editing note for Book 1. It's not always a lot, but it's usually something.

So maybe I can't say a lot about being a writer. But I can say that I write stuff.

Out of Coffee, Out of Ideas

Our supply of K-cups is getting dangerously low and since it's the dreaded "every bill is due" week, I have zero money to spare. Yeah, I have a credit card, but I'd like to stop using it for a while until I can pay a good chunk of the balance off. So there's a good chance I will actually run out of coffee within the next few days.

Sometimes you run out of things. Toothpaste, cat food, time, money, patience. You probably run out of at least one thing every day. What I always seem to be running out of is ideas. Novel ideas, poem ideas, blog post ideas. That happens just about every single time I have to write a blog post. I have no clue. I can only write about the fact that I'm not writing so many times without annoying people or repeating myself. I've even talked about running out of ideas before, and here I am again. But what do you write about when there's nothing to write about?

The first thing I figured I had to do was to go a little easier on myself. If I don't feel like blogging three times a week, no one is going to care. It's ok to take off a Friday now and then. Not every blog post has to be this great revelation or writing tip that's going to make a huge impact on everyone, either. It's ok to ramble, too. You can tell people about your vacation or your pets or just anything that's going on in your life.

I actually started to have a good idea today, but I figured it would be better suited for Wednesday's IWSG post, so I'm saving it. I like to hoard my good ideas for the right days. Like if I actually do happen to come up with a great writing tip post idea, that's a good post for a Monday. Something silly or more personal may be better for a Friday. There's a lot of timing and planning involved, even if it's on a day by day basis.

But more often than not, I'm coming up with my post ideas the day I'm supposed to post them. It's hard to keep up. This happens with a lot of things, actually. I'm usually too busy doing one thing to even think about another. So maybe I run out of time more often than I run out of ideas. Or I just don't have the time to come up with ideas. Who knows?

I guess I'll just tackle one goal at a time, one day at a time. And enjoy the coffee while I have it.

Cutting and Consolidating

A lot of the editing process involves figuring out what parts of your story are actually necessary. When you're writing the first draft, it's great to just let the ideas flow and not hold yourself back from getting them out. Once you're at the editing stage, however, that's when you really need to start analyzing the story and realizing which parts need to go. This could be as small as cutting individual words or as big as whole scenes and chapters.

Every cut won't seem obvious right away. The line by line edits may be easier to deal with first. You'll know if a particular word or phrase feels awkward or just doesn't work. You may need to rewrite a sentence, or you may realize you don't need that sentence at all. Figuring out the best way to get the story across without using a lot of unnecessary or unfitting words will help to polish the overall story and make it better.

Cutting scenes and chapters won't be as easy. You may spend a lot of time trying to rewrite a scene that isn't working to finally realize you don't actually need it. The scene doesn't even need to be bad for it to be cut sometimes, either. You may have written a great scene, but as you develop your story more and more, you may realize it just doesn't fit anymore. Deciding to cut a large chunk of story can be an emotional process. You may try to rationalize keeping it, but if it isn't going to work, eventually you'll come to realize it.

Of course, cutting isn't always the only answer. Maybe you have a scene that has some necessary moments or information, but the important parts aren't quite long enough to pull off a whole scene. You may be able to move whatever information is necessary to a different scene or chapter. If you're trying to fill in a whole scene or chapter and most of it is unnecessary, it will probably slow down the story or even make it seem boring. You always want something important to be happening in order to keep the reader interested.

The realization to cut a whole chapter actually took me by surprise. Now that I'm working on the third draft of my novel, I've come to realize that my sixth chapter actually isn't necessary and slows the story down. There is definitely some important information in there, but I know I can move it to the previous chapter and still have everything go smoothly. So making this cut will help speed things up within the story, as well as getting rid of a lot of unnecessary words. Now that I know I have to squeeze in the important stuff into a shorter scene, rather than an entire chapter, I'll really have to think about what words are necessary to get the point across.

Have you ever cut a whole chapter? Or consolidated two parts into one? 

I Can't Write Anymore

Sometimes I think that to myself. Ok, all the time. I can't write anymore. It's not that I don't want to--I really, really do. It's that I can't. I can't come up with ideas. I can't put words onto the page. Can't can't can't. 

Ok, if I really dissect that, I'll find it isn't true at all. I still come up with ideas. 90% of them may involve the same characters, but they are new ideas, at least. I've come up with a bunch of ideas for editing my book. I still somehow manage to write a blog post three times a week (mostly), although that can often be a struggle. I even wrote three paragraphs on Friday night. They were from a scene in Book 3 and I may not even use them, but at least it's something. 

But there's still that mental block that tells me I can't do it anymore. I remember in high school sitting at my desk with a notebook using every second of down time to get words onto the page. Why is that so hard now? I used to write poetry all the time, but I haven't in years. The ideas just don't come to me anymore. 

I know I have several different reasons for not being able to write. I know what they are, but I still can't bring myself to just push through them and do it. Maybe the answer is to just stop giving a crap about what other people think, or how horrible the words come out. I can always rewrite. And I can certainly just write something for me. Just keep working on it until I like it and then maybe try to send it out into the world and see if someone else does. 

As I'm writing this, I'm realizing that maybe that is my big hangup. I never write for me anymore. I try way too hard to get things perfect. I want the words to already be perfect in my mind before I even try to write them, so most of the time I just end up staring at the blank screen. I think I just need to not give a crap anymore. Write what I want and then see how it goes.

Excuses, Excuses

So I didn't write a blog post on Wednesday, or even look at a single post from anyone else. And I didn't feel bad about it one little bit. On Tuesday I woke up with a sore throat that was turning into a full blown cold by the next day. I mean, who gets sick in August?? Me, apparently. So I just didn't feel like blogging. It happens from time to time.

It's a hard thing to keep up with, especially when I try to blog three times a week. It's hard to come up with ideas sometimes, so when you pile on not feeling well onto the mental block, you just don't even feel like turning on your computer. But it's ok, right? People take week or even month long blog breaks and nobody really cares. I just always feel like I should tell people when I'm not blogging, but I've already written so many "I don't feel like blogging" posts that another one just seems silly.

But getting sick has really thrown me off with everything. I tried restarting my diet on Monday but now that's out the window. Mostly because my cold has limited me to four food groups: oatmeal, scrambled eggs, Powerade, and coffee Coolatas. I just want to lay in bed and watch TV and not do anything else--like say, exercising.

This has gotten me thinking about excuses. We make them all of the time. We put things off. It usually takes me awhile to make the bed every day just because I don't want to disturb my cat. There are a million things I seem to be putting off at any given time--going to the doctor or dentist, getting my hair cut, *cough cough* finishing the third draft of my novel *cough.* I can't even begin to tell you all of the excuses I've had for putting off my diet or not going to the gym.

I've got a million excuses for not writing, all of them piled on top of each other. I think it really boils down to just not feeling like it. Of course, that feeling is caused by a million other excuses. So at what point do I stop making excuses and just start writing already? I don't know! I feel like I always have all the answers, but actually working through things and getting something done is easier said than done. But maybe if I stopped making excuses, it will be a little bit easier. Who knows?

What do you make excuses for? Writing????

You Can't Please Everyone

One of the things you have to keep in mind not only with writing, but with any kind of entertainment, is that there is no possible way to please everyone. Every person can't possibly like everything--every book, song, movie, TV show, and so on. We all have different opinions. Everyone has a favorite color or a favorite food, right? You may not be able to understand how someone could love something that you hate (like how I will never understand why some people like Fifty Shades of Grey...), or vice versa. The bottom line is that while there will usually be an audience for everything, that audience isn't made up of everyone.

Say you went to a movie with your friend and you loved it, but she hated it. You both saw the same movie, right? But the way it impacted each of you was completely different. Or if you go to a comedy show, and everyone in the room laughs at a particular joke except for you. Does that mean the joke isn't funny? Well, that depends on how you look at it. To you, it isn't, but to several other people, it is. It's not something that can be clearly defined.

We always say that people are entitled to their opinions. Everyone has specific things that they like. You may like a certain genre of books or movies, and that's what you stick to. Or you may like a little bit of everything. What we like can be something broad like genre, or it can be on a smaller scale, like a particular writing style or point of view.

I think the thing that stings with getting a bad review is that you wish this person never read your piece in the first place. We always wish that our books would only find that target audience, but it doesn't always happen. Ideally, you would want every person who reads your work to love it, but even if they like your genre or other aspects that make up your book, sometimes it still just doesn't work out. It doesn't mean that your book is bad--it just wasn't right for that person.

I don't think I would look at bad reviews if/when I got them. For one, I just know I don't have the thick skin for it. But also, there really isn't a point. You can't exactly change a book once it's published just to please more people. You wrote what you wrote. Hopefully your book will find those people who will enjoy it.

How do you feel about reviews? Do you read the bad ones?

When to Reveal Character Traits

If you want your characters to feel like real people, then they should have different traits to make them seem realistic. What sort of traits you give each character will depend on the story you're writing and the characters themselves. What exactly is important for the reader to know about this character? It could have to do with physical appearance, hobbies, beliefs, or pretty much anything you could think of being important to convey a character's personality. But when exactly should you let the reader know about these traits?

The answer won't always seem obvious. It can depend on when or if a certain trait is important within the story. If you want your readers to know what your characters look like, it's probably a good idea to convey that as early as possible. Of course, you don't really have to convey this information at all if you don't want to, but if you wait until halfway through a novel to show what your characters look like, it may seem strange. It's probably best to get it out early or not at all.

It's important not to force these sort of traits on the reader all at once. It should just come up naturally within the story. You wouldn't want to dump every single detail about your character like the reader was looking at their dating profile: "he was tall with brown hair, brown eyes, liked going for walks and listening to music and..." Sounds silly, right? Whatever trait you're revealing should feel natural within the scene itself, but it should also be important to the story. If you mention a character's hobby and it never comes up again, maybe you didn't need to mention it at all. If it's something that they do several times during the story, then it's something your reader needs to know.

What I'm actually struggling with right now is revealing my narrator's sexuality. It is definitely relevant to the story by the end of chapter one, but it's not something that's actually discussed between the characters for several chapters. So he has to tell the reader that he's gay before he tells anyone in the story. I originally had it come up in the first scene (in the giant info dump I talked about in Monday's post) but I realized there was already a lot going on in that scene and his sexuality really wasn't important to know at that point. So I'm planning on moving it to the second scene. I think I have it figured out but I won't know for sure until I actually write it (like most of the editing I still haven't done...)

While there are plenty of character traits that your readers will need to know, figuring out where to reveal them can be tricky. You'll need to decide what is actually important and how early on in the story it should be revealed, but also making sure these facts aren't just dumped on the reader out of nowhere.

How do you reveal character traits? Which traits do you think are most important (or least important)?