Sharpening the Myth of Recreational Work

So, this past week I had a friend call my writing "sharpening the saw". This is a reference to Stephen Covey's book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. In his book Covey says that the seventh habit of effective people is sharpen the saw, or in other words, take care of yourself. Relax, exercise, take some me time. For the record, I think that's a good idea. But it got me thinking. Is that what my writing is? Is it just an activity to do so that I can go about the rest of my life more effectively?

No.

To be fair, my friend's comment came during a conversation in which I said in essence, "If I don't write, I am not effective in other areas of my life." So it does fill the same space as sharpening the saw in at least one way.

But here's where it's different for me.

When I was in school I would sometimes procrastinate an assignment. Ok, I procrastinated most of my assignments. When I would finally finish my assignments I would get the same feeling as when I write. A sense of accomplishment. The feeling of relief that I have completed a task that I've needed to get done. I get the same sense of accomplishment after any good day's work.

Sharpening the saw is generally an activity that clears the mind. A diversion. An enjoyment. My friend's example was video games. A perfect entertainment. It helps him de-stress after work.

And his comment got me thinking about a common misconception of many artistic professions. That it's fun. Easy. A game.

I use to think the same thing. I scheduled myself with a heavy workload and then I gave myself time to write so I could wind down.

When I was studying theater it was the same thing. And it's easy to understand. When you go to watch a play, you are enjoying yourself. When you sit down to read a book, you are escaping. When you sit down and boot up a video game it's fun. It's easy to forget that your enjoyment is the end result of hundreds of hours of hard work.

On top of that, it's easy to assume that writers are taking it easy because they choose to write in their free time. Writing can be cathartic. It can be entertaining. It can be relaxing. But most of the time it's hard work. I don't choose to write in my free time because I need to blow off some steam. I choose to write in my free time because no-one is paying me to do it. I write because I have stories that come to life in my mind, begging me to be set free. I have characters and scenes that fill my thoughts whether I look for them or not. I write because when I don't write, I feel like I am betraying the one good gift I have to offer the world. I write because I have to. But I don't write to sharpen the saw.

So, if you want to be a writer, don't be surprised if no one recognizes the hard work you're doing. It's not their fault. It's a different lifestyle.

And, always remember to take time to sharpen your saw.

Formula, form, experience

In studying writing, I've often encountered an idea that stories can happen some way other than chronologically. It's silly, of course, but let's start out with some vocabulary:

Story - The events that happen
Narrative - How the events are told

I know, these are not the real definitions. In fact, story and narrative are both words used to define each other. We could probably go back and forth about the best words for the job, but I'd rather talk about a particular concept and these two words are good enough for now.

Here's the concept.

A story goes on forever. A narrative has a beginning and an end.

It's the same relationship that a line segment shares with a line. A line segment is only part of the whole line.

<---->

Why is this important? Because when people start to say that a story doesn't need to happen chronologically, that's baloney. The story moves from start to finish, and we can't stop it. If you write about someone's death and then write about their birth, they were still born first. And, here's the crucial point, as an audience we'll put the story back in it's natural order. When I watch a movie and the narrative takes me back and forth through time, my brain still takes the pieces of the narrative and puts them together chronologically. I make them into a story. It's what happens no matter how clever your writing. It's how the story happened. It's how the audience will understand it.

Now, when you understand what your audience is going to do (put the story back in order no matter what you do to mess it up), you can play around with narrative all you want. Do you have to tell the story in order? No! Tell it backwards, tell it forward, tell it inside out. Understand that your audience's brains will unravel everything you did by the time you get to the end, but then make that narrative journey exciting.

You can make your audience question the order of events. You can even help them step back and ignore the order if you want. But it's important to realize that the arc of a story happens the same way no matter what, and your audience will try to find that in your narrative. We're exposed to an idea, we struggle with the idea, and then we resolve the idea with our mental model of how the world works. That's how we interact with new information. That's how we interact with narratives.

So, just keep that in mind. No matter what, your audience is going to put the pieces of your story together in a way that makes sense. But how you present those pieces is totally up to you.

Two types of apology

I recently had a thought. In the English language we don't really have a word to differentiate "I'm sorry," and "I'm sorry."

If I do something that has an unintended consequence (i.e. an accident/unintentional transgression) I would still apologize. If I hurt your feelings by something I said, but I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, I might apologize. If I see that you're hurting and I want you not to hurt, I might say the same thing.

But if I did something wrong, on purpose, like I yelled at you for no good reason. I would also say, "I'm sorry."

Guy Winch Ph. D. wrote a book called, Emotional First Aid, in which he outlined 5 ingredients to a successful apology . I've also heard others.

Could we differentiate between, "I'm sorry" (transgressive apology) and "I'm sorry" (repentant apology)? Do we need to? Would it change anything if we did? Do other languages? What do you think?

Novel Progress Tracker: 2

Words Last Week: 897 (Total Words 9205)

As you can see, I missed by goal (6000) by more than a few words. Here's how it went.

After writing the last post, I immediately felt guilty for the time I spent not helping my family. That continued for a few hours until I was able to get myself out of my slump. I didn't write or even really think about writing any more that day.

Monday was similar. I had a rough Monday morning (insert standard Monday comment here) and, even though I enjoyed much of the rest of the day, I shared with my family that I was finding it hard to even think about writing with everything going on. One of my writing group members sent a message saying that she wouldn't be attending. She had some cool stuff going on and I was jealous. Put that on top of how I felt about my writing, and I wrote back that I probably would be dropping in and out of the group for a while as well. But I didn't send the message. I stopped, erased it, and just left the congratulatory note that I had started with.

During dinner, my oldest son lost a tooth. He had played with it earlier and had pulled it out just far enough that it hurt constantly. I asked him if he wanted us to pull it out and he said no. Eventually we convinced him and my wife pulled it. Things got better for him. I thought this was a great time for a teaching moment.

I observed in what I thought was an insightful manner, "Sometimes things in life are hard. If we push just hard enough that they hurt or become difficult, it can be easy to give up and stop. But if we keep pushing through the hard part then we usually end up better off." (I'm paraphrasing, but I use quotes anyway. We don't really have an easy subjunctive indicator.)

On Tuesday I punched myself in the face (metaphorically speaking). And realized what was going on with my writing. I'm at the hard/painful part. I'd realized it intellectually, but Tuesday my emotional side started to catch up to my intellectual side. (I usually take a while to get where I know I want to be.) One more thing helped. A member of my writing group made a comment (maybe not meaning it) about my lack of participation in the group. His comment suggested that I wasn't a hard core member, or a "real" member of the group. He didn't say it. It's more what I read into it. I wrote about three pages.

I fumed a bit, and then that emotion turned into something useful. I realized that he was right. I haven't been contributing. I haven't been writing. On Monday night I even considered dropping out. He was totally right. I'm not a hard core writer. But I will be now.

We're going to re-assess the group around the new year, and I want to be a part of it. I want to be one of the writers that says, "Here's my next novel that I'm working on." I need to up my game. I need to finish my novel. Last week you got whining. This week I whined too.

After my Wednesday night writing group meeting I began to question my story again. It's very easy to do when you have people pointing out all the problems with your writing/story. Intellectually I know that I just need to write.

Thursday began a vacation from work. I woke up early in the morning to write...and avoided writing again. I spent time with family, cleaning up the house and yard, and helped a neighbor move. I acknowledge that I am avoiding writing out of fear and laziness. I can't let that last.

Friday, same thing. I spent great time with my family and kids. I took some time looking at the computer screen. I played games, hung out with my family, and helped my brother move. All the while I kept telling myself, "I'll make time for writing later." I know I'm avoiding it.

Saturday. Mostly the same thing. In the afternoon I forced myself to sit down in front of the computer...I spent most of my time researching late medieval and early renaissance artists. I wrote two pages in my novel.

Sunday and Monday same thing. Skipped church to attended a funeral, spent time with family, played with kids. Monday night I felt bad about how little I had written. Don't want to get depressed about it. Need to find a way to let my guilt motivate me rather than just get me down. Best way I can think of, just write. We'll see how things go next week. Goal again 6,000 words.

They're Not Going To Die

So I've heard that writing a story in first person removes some of the tension of a story because as an audience, we know that the narrator doesn't die. We at least know that they live until the time that they are telling the story. I've also heard that argument for other characters than the viewpoint character. If we know they survive, then we can't be afraid for them.

The idea is this. We can't be afraid for someone that we know is safe. The stakes are not high enough. The danger isn't real. I've heard some people even go so far as to say that it destroys any possibility for tension in the story.

So, letting the audience know that someone lives through an event can weaken the tension in a story.

I hear that advice, and I've given it before. But I'd like to offer a few counter examples for consideration.

First, I have a friend. Some time after I met him I found out that he had once been stranded in a small boat on the ocean. He had gotten in the boat inside Kwajalein atoll. The ring of islands and the the landforms beneath the water kept the waters inside the atoll relatively safe. The water outside the atoll was very dangerous, and we were warned not to go out of the atoll. It was usually easy, because the islands were connected by a reef-like barrier. At low tide, you could walk between some of the islands.

But for some reason, his boat made it oceanside and he floated out to sea. He was lost.

The search and rescue operation eventually found him and he got home safely. When I heard his story, I knew he had survived. But the story was still emotionally charged for me.

Next we have stories that I've experienced over and over again. Serenety, Romeo and Juliet, Star Wars (4, 5, and 6). I already know the outcome of those stories. I already know that Romeo and Juliet die. I already know that Mal survives in Serenety. I already know that Luke defeats Darth Vader. But I still enjoy each of those stories every time I watch or read them. Why? In the case of Romeo and Juliet, I still honestly hope that they'll figure it out. Every time.

Let's be honest. There probably is some tension that I experience when I don't know if a character is going to live or die. But for me that isn't the primary draw for a story. There are plenty of bad things that can happen to a character without them dying, and in most stories we already do have a general idea of who lives and dies. In some stories it probably is better for the survival of a character to be a question. But is it always?

Is your story going to fall apart if your audience knows the ending, or will your audience enjoy reading it every single time? My personal goal is to write a story that is good enough that my audience won't care. Can I do it? Would I still try if I knew? I think so.

New kind of post-Novel Progress Tracker 1

I am working on a novel. This is probably not uncommon for a writer and aspiring author. You know what else is probably not uncommon? That sometimes writing is hard.

This is the first in a string of posts that I will be writing to journal my writing experience. My overall goal for this book (in length) is about 80,000 words. I've found that that's about the number of words it takes me to tell my stories. It feels right.

I'm using a website that I created with my brothers to track my progress toward that goal. It's called wordtrackr.com. It's in the beta stage, but it works for what I need here. Feel free to check it out if you want. There's no charge.

I'm currently at about 8,308 words. That's about 11% of my goal. My goal is about 1,200 words every workday or 6,000 words per week (That lets me make up time on the weekend if necessary). At this rate, I should be finished with the rough draft in mid-late December. That's my goal.

This week I wrote 410 words. The week before I wrote 1300. I've got a job substitute teaching at a local elementary school. I'm teaching 6th grade. It's fun, and I'm looking into getting an endorsement to teach Elementary School full time. (That means I'll be licensed to teach in my state.) What does this mean for my writing? I've been dedicating more and more time to teaching. I want to do my best at school, and since that's the job that pays money now I can justify spending two to three extra hours every day on it. I'm not making that kind of time for writing.

Also, my wife is pregnant. We chose this, but it's a hard pregnancy for her. She's not officially on "bed rest" orders from her doctor, but she has had to cut most activities out of her life (e.g. last night we walked across the street to our neighbors back yard. On the way back she was leaning on me just to make it home.) She's chosen to be a stay at home mom, so at least we're not losing income that we expected. I'm picking up responsibility for housework, yard work, shopping, cooking, and looking after the rest of our kids.

This Friday night I went on a Boy Scout campout with my oldest son. I got to see him interacting with the boys in his troop. I got to struggle to make a fire and make smores with him, hike around a campground and watch him shoot an arrow into a paper dragon, and then walk home with all our gear because my car had been towed away because I parked it overnight where I wasn't supposed to.

I have a great writing group. This wednesday I spent every hour after I got home (and after I had reviewed lesson plans, balanced my checkbook, and responded to important emails) reading and responding to their submissions.

All of these things are good. My wife is pregnant. I've got a job. I get to hang out with my kids. I have a strong writing group.

But I didn't write.

The one time I did write was when I woke up an hour early in the morning and couldn't get back to sleep. That's where I got 410 words.

When it comes to writing, I didn't have much time to feel bad about how little I do. But on Saturday when I hiked home with my son, picked up my car from the towing lot, etc. I couldn't help but feel a bit discouraged. I recently had a chance to review my current life with some valuable input from others and someone pointed out that I don't value writing. I make time for work because I see the immediate benefits. But I don't make time for writing.

Lately when I sit down with a bit of free time I don't let myself write. I feel that something will come up to steal away my time. There's always something. I hear the inner self-help junkie saying, "Make goals. Prioritize. This is all your own fault." Intellectually I can point out where I am making poor choices. But emotionally I'm struggling. I only really thought about giving up writing altogether once this week. That's progress I guess.

But I still love the story I'm writing. Sometimes I love it so much that I'm afraid I'm going to screw it up. Sitting down and actually writing this week has been hard. But when I did, I felt great. Driving in my car I thought of scenes and snippets of dialogue. It almost felt real again.

ABOUT FUTURE POSTS

Each week I will post two things:

1. My numerical progress toward that goal.
2. How the writing process went for me.

My purpose for these posts is to be completely vulnerable. I want to be open with others about my writing process so that maybe other writers can see a bit of themselves. I'm self centered enough to believe both that I'm the perfect model and everyone will do things exactly like myself, and that I'm 100% unique and no one does things like me. There's just enough of me connected to reality to understand that neither one of these is completely true.

Improvement often happens when we see and recognize our failings, then consciously address them. Unfortunately, we rarely have true insight into our own weaknesses. But we often easily see the faults in others. (A mote in your eye vs. a beam in my own if you will.) If another writer can see a bit of themselves in me, or if they can just see my writing process clearly from the outside, then perhaps they will be able to spot the failures and do better. I'm setting myself up as a learning example. Not an example of failure, because I hope to succeed. Not a perfect example, because I know I'm not. But a real example. Hopefully by analyzing my writing process, hopes, dreams, fears, and habits, someone can see a better way. Who knows? Maybe even me.

Bupkis and not

I've written about writing advice before, and it's an interesting thing. A lot of writing advice (like any advice) is bupkis. Sometimes it's even detrimental. At the same time it can be useful. Confusing? The reason is simple. Most writing advice comes from a writer's personal experience which is limited. Even the most experienced writers can only tell you what they've experienced.

But taken at it's root, most advice can be helpful.

For example, I've heard many writers say, "Your first book is always terrible. Get over it. Write the book and then move on to the next one." or "You have to write a million words before you're any good."

At the core, this is good advice. It says: "Writing is a skill that takes time to learn." and "Keep moving forward."

The truth is that your first book may be terrible in some ways, but throwing it away isn't always the answer. The trick is to keep improving your skills. You have to write a first book. Otherwise you could never write a second, third, fourth, and so on. Through writing, you will naturally improve. But even if you write a hundred books, you could still get stuck in some terrible habits and you wouldn't necessarily be a better writer.

So yes, you should keep writing. But it is possible that your first book is actually brilliant in some aspect. What you need to do is keep learning the skills of writing. One way to do that is to write more books. Another way is to do specific exercises to improve different aspects of your writing. I personally started out writing scripts which made me focus on plot and dialogue. Those are two of my strengths. Description? That's an area where I'm constantly struggling to improve.

One final key is to find someone to help you recognize A) where you need to improve, and B) what good writing is.

Having a good mentor, writing group, editor, teacher, or critic can help you recognize where your weaknesses are. Reading successful writing, essays, writing manuals, blogs, podcasts from professional authors or editors, all of these can help you learn what good writing is (Which is highly subjective in many cases and genre specific). It is essential that you find some way to evaluate your writing and create a pathway to bettering yourself.

Your first book may be amazing, but it probably needs work. It probably also needs work that you can't give it right away because you as the author probably need some work yourself. Listen to writing advice to find the best path. Try it out, and then discard the advice that doesn't work for you. Because even though writing advice can be bupkis, ignoring everything might be just as bad.

Good luck, and keep writing.

Color By Numbers

I've just been reading The Making Of A Story by Alice LaPlante. I borrowed it from excellent writer, Steven Bohls. I feel comfortable recommending this book to any aspiring writer. She's got some great things to say about writing. I don't agree with everything she says, but most of the points I disagree on are probably more about how she presents an idea than what she's actually saying. She also includes writing exercises and samples to read which illustrate the points she makes. For example, where she says narrative, I would often use the word story. It's not world shattering.

One exercise that I found very interesting is to describe yourself by statistics. For example:

1. Times I've been in serious automobile accidents - 3
2. Times I've walked away from serious automobile accidents with no injury whatsoever - 3
3. Number 1 vegetable my hair has been compared with - the carrot
4. The number of jobs I've had since receiving my bachelor's degree 5 years ago - 9
5. Number of those jobs that are related to my degree - 2
6. Number of times I've been struck by lightning - 0
7. Percent of the time that I'm grumpy with my kids - 62
8. Percent of the time that I feel bad about how grumpy I am with my kids - 80
9. Number of countries I've lived in - 3
10. Average number of times I get seriously sunburned each year - 3

As you can see, even though I'm just giving you numbers a story starts to emerge. You start to put things together. You don't know me, but you start to get a picture. And by picking out the statistics, I've guided the picture that you'll see.

So I'm going to suggest this exercise to you. Take a location, character, or relationship from one of your projects and see if you can come up with 10 statistics for them/it. Try not to be too obvious (1 nose, 2 eyes, etc.) But dig deeper and I'm sure you'll have a better understanding of the thing or person you're describing.

Plots, Naughts, and Connect the Dots

Ok, so I want to get this out of the way first. There are no naughts in this post. I just liked the rhyme.

When I had my idea for my first stage play, I started with a few points that I wanted to hit in the story. Actually, I started with a concept and built story points, conversations, scenes, and snippets of dialogue. Then, because I kept thinking up new ideas, I put those ideas in a vague chronological order.

So I had a bunch of scenes and conversations that I knew fell somewhere in the timeline. I even knew what order to put them in. I just didn't know what to do with them after that. So I started writing.

For me, this was a learning experience. Writing became a game of connect the dots. I'd write a scene from my idea sheet, and then I'd look to see which scene was next in the timeline. Then I'd just write something to fill that space if I felt like a transition was needed. Sometimes I'd just write the next point. Sometimes there was almost an entire act before I got to the next point.

That was an early form of my outlining process that still helps today. Writing as connect the dots. It helps me to think of it that way.

What are some analogies that help you in writing?

I Want To Believe

I Ching, Ifa, Geomancy, Natural Philosophy, etc. Our world is full of historical examples of people trying to make sense of it. And when we hear something that we want to believe, there's very little that can convince us that the thing is wrong. Strong believers will persist in belief even in the presence of evidence against his or her belief. (I use the word evidence loosely here because evidence is often provided by both sides and is often nothing more than a perceived fact that supports their own view.)

So I was wondering about how I could use this phenomenon in understanding and writing about people. Here are my first thoughts. I cite "magic" because I was prompted to ponder by the "magic" arts above.

A "magic", or mystical art is going to have people who make rules for it. Even absurd practices like reading tea leaves would have practitioners an proponents who feel more confident in readings that are "properly prepared". Now I don't know anything about reading tea leaves, so I'm just making up some example rules.

A tea reader could require that leaves are boiled over the flame of a balsa wood fire, or that the leaves must be boiled, chilled, and then reboiled to increase the accuracy of the reading. Or they might claim that the readings just won't work unless they use distilled water, or water that has been purified by the light of a full moon.

These requirements serve many practical purposes. First, a complicated process makes the practitioner sound like they know what they're doing(this is important whether the practice works or not). Second, more difficult processes give us something to blame if the spell works or make it difficult to duplicate (hence test). Third, we naturally try to explain why things work. We want to believe in some things even if they aren't real. As a teen, I was convinced that if we approached a certain intersection behind a truck the light would be red. But if we were not following a truck it would be green. I mentally tracked what happened each time we went to that intersection. Very often my superstition was correct. And when it wasn't, I overlooked the result or tried to explain it away.

Here's another anecdote from one of my German professors in college. He was in Germany as a religious representative and was eating dinner at the home of a local congregation member. This particular family believed that drinking water after eating fruit will kill you*. My professor didn't know about this superstition, and so when he asked for a drink of water after eating some fruit the family balked. He waved away their concerns, but they persisted. They even cited examples of distant relatives who had died to prove their point. To prove them wrong, he drank the water though they made it clear that he was doing so against their advice and they would not be held responsible for his death.

The next day my professor returned to the family home, thinking that his survival would be enough evidence to clear their muddled thinking. When they opened the door and saw him standing there, happily alive, they claimed that he was protected by God because he was a religious representative.

Now, I don't personally believe that drinking water after eating an apple will kill me. But I don't fault these people for believing something so completely ingrained. Perhaps they eventually cast off that belief, perhaps they didn't. I do believe that there are absolute truths, though I'm pretty sure that most of us only have a few glimpses or shadows of what they really are. But I don't blame people for believing the traditions of their ancestors.

What interests me here is how far spread the belief in things that we don't understand, and the effort to categorize random events is. We even find it in our modern "enlightened" world. People make a decision and then support their ideas with arguments. Sometimes we even look for research that will support our own position.

If you're creating a world, don't just think about the facts of the world. Consider how the people in your world try to understand the chaos around them. Which beliefs are real, and which beliefs are founded on a misinterpretation of tree bark? And more interestingly, where do those lines cross?

*FOOTNOTE: From all the Germans I've talked to, I don't think that this is or ever was a widespread belief. It's definitely not a common superstition today, though I wouldn't doubt that there are some people somewhere that believe it. And after eating fruit (like apples or grapes) I certainly feel a distinct difference in the way water feels in my throat, so I can believe this superstition being started or perpetuated.

On Critiquing

TLDNR WARNING: This is a longer post. Be careful.

In writing, revising, critiquing, etc. I have my own style. I know other writers who work differently, but I've run into enough circumstances that support my view that I think it might be worthwhile to share.

First, when asking for feedback it's important to know what you're asking for. Here are a few stages I've gone through:

1. "I've got this great idea!" - This is the stage that people are in who don't actually want to write a story. Sometimes when I give an unfinished story to someone I want them to finish the idea, tell me how to end. In short, I want someone else to make my idea great but I still want the credit.
2. "Just tell me it's good." - Sometimes I pass a story along and (no matter how complete it is), I just want them to tell me that it's working. I usually know there are problems, and I've got ideas on how to fix them. You might think this is a weak stage, I'm just fishing for compliments. But that's not quite what it is. I don't need someone to tell me that it's perfect and will make puppies weep in joy at the sound of it. What I want is someone to tell me, "You're not wasting your time. Keep writing." This stage can lead to problems if you don't know what you're asking for, but it's not necessarily a problem in itself. Everyone needs encouragement sometimes.
3. "I have a specific problem, and I need help finding the answer." - Sometimes I have a specific problem area with my story. I turn to someone else to help me solve the problem. Brainstorming is useful here, or just having someone to bounce the idea off of. But be careful how you approach it. If you ask someone for an answer, they'll give you the answer from what they know. If they don't know where you're headed with your story, then you might be in for a frustrating conversation.
4. "Tell me if this works." - This is a working stage for me. I want someone to read and point out big items, but I'm not done writing so I don't need fine details. This is very useful to me, so I'll expand on it below.
5. "Something doesn't work." - In this stage you know something is wrong, but you don't know what. It's useful to have someone else look at what's going on here. Just be careful how you approach it. You might not want your someone else to provide answers. You just need to know where to focus your efforts.
6. "Ignore the ------. I just want to to tell me what you think about -------." - Sometimes I need to see if a specific part of the story is working and I don't need my reader to tell me that I have typos. Feedback is always useful, but unless I give specific instructions I find that my readers usually will hone in on something that I didn't need them to fix.
7. "I need you to fix this." - You need to be careful with this stage. This isn't someone else's project, it's yours. But if you do turn to someone to play doctor with your work, be sure that it's someone you really trust.
8. "I'm ready for the full workup." - I never hit this stage until I've finished my rough draft, or even a few revisions. By this point I've done all that I can to make my story (or other writing project) the best I can.

These are only some of the stages you might go through, and you might do things differently. But the point is that readers don't know what you want back from them unless you tell them.

The next problem - You can't ask someone to read the same thing over and over again. I've heard some writers suggest that a reader is only good for one reading. So be careful of when you're bringing your readers in. I'd suggest keeping it to a minimum. Here's how it's worked for me. (I got this from Orson Scott Card's Characters and Viewpoint, and added something from Mary Robinette Kowal from Writing Excuses.)

I have one or two people reading along as I write (i.e. I give them each chapter as soon as you finish it), and I ask them just to respond as readers. Mark the manuscript when:

1. You don't understand something.
2. You had to re-read a sentence or section.
3. Something knocks you out of the story. (You're reading a long and say "I don't believe that." to yourself.)
4. Something is absolutely wonderful.

They shouldn't be telling me how to fix things, just where they had problems. Then if I need, I can ask probing questions about specific notes. This kind of response isn't natural for most people. You'll probably have to teach one person and hopefully they're willing to keep reading for you on many projects. Inexperienced readers won't mark anything, and experienced readers/writers will pick out details that you would have easily caught yourself when revising. These readers are just here to "Tell me if it works," so I can keep going. They also fill the function of "Just tell me it's good" encouragement because they're not bogging me down with too many details. I can address the major plot issues so that they don't cause me problems later, but I can also keep writing and the response doesn't interrupt my flow. And getting into a flow when writing is extremely important for me.

I call these my alpha readers.

Next I go to my beta Readers. I never move on to beta readers until I've written "The End" on a project. Here's my reason. I have a theory about creating. It goes something like this, "Nobody cares until the whole thing is done." And it was confirmed a bit in this Writing Excuses podcast.

Whenever I hand an unfinished story/project over to a reader, they immediately want to finish it. As readers (well as humans really) our brains are set up to encounter a new ideas, struggle with them, and find answers/resolution. We do it over an over every day of our lives. It's called learning. (Look at Piaget to see how it works.) Stories follow the same pattern. We are introduced to the ideas/characters (exposition), some conflict is introduced, and then it's resolved.

But when that resolution doesn't happen, our brain starts working overtime. Some writers use this effect on purpose to get their audience thinking. (Ever watched the final scene of Inception with the spinning top?) The same thing happens if you give your story to someone when it's not finished. If you ask them to help fix things, then they start fixing problems with no specific end. They have to make up an ending just to come up with a suggestion. It may not be a fully formed ending in their mind, but it's a direction that they're headed whether you wanted that or not. So when they respond to a problem area, their response may not fit with your story. This can be useful feedback in some cases, but more often I've found it frustrating because I'm trying to tell a story and all of a sudden my readers are telling me how to fix a different story. It's like someone interrupting you in the middle of a sentence and finishing the sentence for you...only they get it wrong. After they try to finish the same sentence three or four times, it's just not worth it.

Now I have writing friends (usually English majors) who ask for all this feedback at once, getting criticism for the entire book after every chapter. Steve Bohls is a great example of this type of writer, and I hope you'll be seeing a book out from him soon. But I always find myself stumbling when I hand out my work too early. Who knows, maybe that's fault that I've got to overcome as a writer. I have one reader that I trust that I use for alpha reading, and then when I'm finished I go to my English major friends.

"Nobody cares until the whole thing is done," has become something of a motto for me whenever I'm working on a creative project. It's not that they don't care that I'm working on something, or that they don't care about the idea. It's that a whole story is a single idea. Someone responding to only part of the idea, and their response to that part of the idea, is not going to be the same as their response to the whole idea.

So the bottom line is this: You should know what you're looking for in a response. Do you want someone to do your work for you? Do you want someone just to tell you that you should keep writing? Or do you want someone to give you useful feedback on how to express and refine the ideas that you've already got.

Each question is searching for a different answer. Be aware of which question you're asking.

A Foreign Coin

Economists are taught to assign value to everything. Even things that other people wouldn't generally assign a cost to. One way they do this is by using the concept of opportunity cost. For those of you that might not know, here it is in a nutshell. Opportunity cost is the value of the things you give up by making a choice. If you have one dollar to spend at the dollar menu, you can get a burger or some fries. You cannot get both. I'm going to apply this to something a bit more abstract. If you want to go out too dinner with your family and someone suggests a great Thai restaurant and someone else suggests Italian. You can't eat at both. If you eat at one you'll be full. If you compromise and only eat a bit at one restaurant then get a small plate at the other, you won't have gotten the full experience. There is always a cost.

This is how I pay to write my books. In coin of time, bills of leisure, hobbies, friendships, and freedom. Writing a book is an expensive investment, but if you are willing to pay then you might find that the return is a thousand fold in joy, satisfaction, influence, and possibly even real money.

But opportunity is a difficult coin to spend on purpose. You must always see what you want and what you cannot do because of it.

If I choose to write, I cannot successfully pursue a hobby at the same time. I cannot spend that time with my wife. I cannot strengthen my relationship with my children, friends, or siblings. Writing a book takes a lot of time. That's your time. Time that you could be doing other things. Time that you probably want to be doing other things. Time that your friends, family, or others might want you to be doing other things.

Is it worth it?

You can spend this coin on purpose. You can use your opportunities to bring you to many different goals. But if you don't make your choices on purpose, you may never get your book. Do you want a book? Do you want to be successful in your writing? The next time you have a choice of what to do with your time, consider what it's costing you. If you have good friends, then they'll understand. You've got to buy your book, and opportunity is the only coin that will buy it.

Spend your opportunities with intent.

Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing

As a student in the AFROTC I remember learning about leadership and group dynamics. Most of the lessons I learned have faded as I moved away from the military career route, but one model has stuck with me to this day. I think I still remember it because of how useful it has been in many facets of my life, and especially in writing.

First, I want to say something about intellectual models. Models help us understand something, but they aren't that thing. Models are simplified to the point that we can understand them. Simplification removes some truth. It doesn't make the model incorrect. It just means that we should understand that there is more there.

So this model is about teams and groups. It says that when a group comes together to accomplish a task, there are four main stages before they can really work together as a team.

• Forming - Forming is the group coming together. Your name has been drawn out of a hat, and now you go to meet your associates.
• Storming - After the group meets, there needs to be some sort of organization. If all members are equally ranked, then they'll naturally shuffle themselves around until a "leader" comes forward. Sometimes this is a power struggle, sometimes it's just a matter of who speaks first. Sometimes we try to skip this step and keep things calm. Having defined roles can help negate some of this struggle. But in the end it will happen, and if the team survives then it will be stronger. (With my personality type, I try to avoid this stage as much as possible even though I know the results are usually positive.) 
• Norming - This comes after the struggle. Everyone settle in to their place in the group. They may not be happy with it, but they know where they stand.
• Performing - Now the group works together and performs a job quicker and more effectively. They are a team.

You've seen this pattern before in nearly every sports movie, but it's also present in romantic comedies. In fact, if you graphed the progress linearly you might find something very similar to Freitag's pyramid. It's also how Piaget breaks down our encounter with new ideas(well, at a very basic level). Meet an idea, struggle with it, classify it, and then use it. But it's not a one time event. We are ever changing, ever meeting new ideas and people that we must struggle with.

Some of the strongest teams are formed from some of most adversarial people. Some of our best ideas are formed when our current ideas are challenged.

You can use this when creating relationships or teams. It even happens inside a single character. (Imagine a character who is lost in the forest and twists their ankle. They have to struggle until they figure out how to move forward in their new condition.) Which stage are they in when the story starts? Do they work together well throughout the whole story, or does something happen to throw off the balance so they have to storm a bit to find their norm again. Look at your own relationships or careers. Which stage are you in?

What Lack I Yet?

"What lack I yet?"

This is the question that a wealthy young man asked to Jesus of Nazareth. His question was about his own spiritual worthiness to enter the kingdom of God. He had done everything that he had learned, but just wanted to make sure. Jesus' response was pretty demanding, "Sell that thou hast, and give to the poor..."

In another religious episode, Siddhartha Gautama was a wealthy young man who was asking the question, "What lack I yet."  His answer was also to leave everything seek a life of spiritual enlightenment.

Countless other religions have motivated people to do great things, and to do some terrible things. But whatever it is they do, it's hard to argue against the idea that religion is a powerful motivator. Most people in the world owe their current social existence to religion in some form in another. In fact, the idea of a state religion was pretty common until recently. And it's not totally gone now.

Religious and moral motivations are alive and present in nearly everyone's world and they have been for all of recorded history. Just to be clear, I'm talking about religion in all forms - from devout and prescribed religious ceremonies all the way to basic beliefs about what the world is. Even atheists will often act on moral or ethical codes that they believe exist outside of themselves.

My point is that there are things that motivate people enough to change their lives, if not their world. What is it for your character? Does your character have religion? Or perhaps even a religion? What are the things that would make them change the world, or change their lives? What kind of person, god, or prophet would they be willing to follow? When they attend a funeral is it the detached funeral of modern television, or is it the spiritual experience of the Hopi who believed the death was the beginning of a journey for the souls of the departed? Is it a time of weeping, or a time of joy, or does it matter at all?

In current media, most characters are portrayed without religion. Heroes are supposed to be good moral characters, but we ignore the part of their life that helped them become good or moral. In part that may be because it's easy to become too preachy, and in part it's because personal beliefs are just that, personal. Another reason might be that people don't always talk about their religion. It's entirely possible to tell a full and engaging story about someone and never know many aspects of their life. And it's difficult to portray religion well.

But it might be worthwhile to consider your characters beliefs and backgrounds. Do they have the have the individualistic sense that comes from the classical Greek and Roman background found in many European cultures? Or do they have a stronger sense of accomplishment from the success of the whole as in some Oriental cultures. Do they look at a poor person and say, "I should give them my coat." Or do they say, "That lazy bum is getting what he deserves."

The less you plan the religion of your characters, the more their worldview will simply be a mirror of your own or the generic agnosticism of popular culture. Your characters don't have to be religious. But give it a thought once in a while. Maybe a little religion will add some spice to your stories.

Languages and Learning - A Duolingo Review

Ok, This week's post is a bit different. It's about a language learning program called Duolingo. I normally wouldn't post this except that I've had a wonderful experience using this program, and I think that it can really help you out if you're even dabbling in learning a language.

As some of you might know, my minor in undergrad was German. I was considering a license to teach it in high school, and so I studied how to teach and how to learn a language. I also taught English as a foreign language for two years, so I've got some background when I say Duolingo is worth checking out. (In the interest of full disclosure, I am not affiliated in any way with Duolingo except as a user. But I do like their program.)

Here's a few reasons why I would suggest it:

1. IT'S FREE. And I mean free. It's not free for one or two lessons, or free but. It's completely free to you as a user. There's an in app store, and when I went to check it out I thought, "Ok, this is how they make their money." But it's not. The in app store only uses in game currencies. You earn points by learning, and then you spend those points to learn more. The incentive program is exceptionally well designed from a game aspect, and from an educational viewpoint. And you don't pay anything. I might be wrong, but I've yet to encounter any thing requiring money. I'll be sure to update here if I come across something later.
2. IT'S CONVENIENT. Duolingo is a tablet/phone app, and a web page, and it takes about 10-15 minutes a day. And with language learning, 10 minutes a day is worth way more than 1 hour every six days.
3. IT HITS MULTIPLE LEARNING GOALS IN EVERY LESSON. Each lesson requires you to listen to the target language, speak the target language, read the target language, write the target language, and arrange words in the target language. There are a few pictures to help with vocabulary, and the lessons are short and well organized.
4. USEFUL PROGRESSION. The difficulty curve is just right. You'll come across words that you don't know, but Duolingo introduces those words in a way that will get them into your brain. You'll be stretched outside your current skill level enough that you're learning new things, but not so far that you can't learn. The principle applied here is i+1. I've found this is true from the early lessons on.
5. ACCURATE ASSESSMENT. I can't tell you how many language learning programs I've picked up and started at the beginning and wished for a way to jump right to the level I needed to progress in my learning. I wanted to skip ahead, but I didn't want to miss skills that I might need. The tests in other programs were alright, but the Duolingo test really honed in on the skills I needed to work on. It uses a system of questions that start out easy and then get harder until you get one wrong. Then it asks another similar question to make sure it wasn't just a fluke. Once it finds your skill level, it asks a bunch of questions that hone in on your strengths and weaknesses so it can put you in just the right spot. I felt like it really pinpointed my skill level.
6. IT'S CONNECTED. You can post your successes to Facebook or twitter so that others know what your learning if you want. Having partners is important for achieving any goal. But there's more than that. When you complete a question (on the web app, I don't know about the iPad app) there's an option to discuss a question or report a problem. Discussing a question allows you to ask why your answer was wrong, or talk about alternate translations.
7. GOALS. Duolingo has a simple optional goal setting mechanic. You choose how many minutes you want to practice each day, and it sends you a reminder. It tracks your progress, and encourages you to practice every day. It's so simple you could do it yourself, but it's in-app so you don't have to go anywhere else to plot your progress.
8. IT ENCOURAGES REVIEW. Once you pass a lesson, you move on to another. It's pretty simple. But as you keep practicing, there's a visual display showing past skills diminishing. It shows you which skills you should go back and review, and then it rewards you with points and in game currency when you do. The review doesn't happen immediately either. It happens after a few days, so that you're reinforcing your learning rather than just drilling or waiting til you forget it and need to learn it again.
9. MONETIZATION IS GENIUS. They make money by crowd sourcing translation. If you want, you can participate in translating real world documents. But here's the kicker, that's exactly the kind  of thing you want to do if you're learning a language. It's another way to help you learn, and it's optional.
10. IT'S EFFECTIVE. According to the Wikipedia(I know, wikipedia. If you want a more definite source, you look it up.) article, Duolingo commissioned an external study which "estimated that 34 hours on Duolingo may yield reading and writing ability of a first-year college semester, which takes in the order of 130+ hours." That's also better than Rosetta Stone if you were wondering. I'm not going to claim that the specifics are true, but given my own experience, I'm inclined to believe them. I've tried a number of language learning programs and apps (BUSUU, Mango, Pimsleur, Rosetta Stone, Babbel, Actilingua, etc.) and while I would happily recommend some of those, Duolingo is by far the best. (EDIT: I found the study. You can download the final report on this page.)

I could say more. I could tell you about Duolingo's data-driven methods, their crowd-sourcing method to expand the languages they offer, Duolingo's Luis von Ahn's views on massive scale online collaboration, and more.

But all that is beside the point. The point is this: if you're learning a language offered by duolingo, you should use Duolingo. If I were teaching a high school German class I would require all of my students to use Duolingo every day, and given my background that I almost was a high school German teacher, that might mean something to you.

But here's something more succinct. 

Learn language? Use Duolingo.

Light a fire

It's very possible that many people in medieval times didn't know how to start a fire. Do you? I mean without a match or lighter. Maybe you do. You've probably seen at least one person do it on TV.

But they didn't have TV. They also didn't have matches or lighters. But they did have fire.

So why would I make such an absurd statement?

Most people didn't need to start fires. Even though they used fire for many things we use modern technology for today (light, cooking, heat, etc.). Did they go without all this? No. They just didn't let their fires go out. They kept the coals burning.

In the early religion of India there was one person assigned to never let the fire go out. Other people had little containers that they used to carry embers around in when they were traveling. Fire was a big deal. Someone had to know how to light it, but most people may not have. (Check out this video for fun.)

Even if you're good at it, lighting a fire is not easy.

It's the same thing with writing.

If you stop writing for a while, it's hard to start. If you keep yourself in practice, then you've got an ember of the writing skills still kicking around in your brain. A few minutes a day is enough to keep the embers glowing.

But you don't want an ember. You want a ravenous flame that keeps those pages lit with wonder time after time. So write a bit each day. Keep your embers hot. And when you're ready, coax your little flame into something greater. Because professional writers write. They write a lot. Their writing flame catches on to all sorts of things....Come to think of it, perhaps a fire analogy wasn't the best choice when talking about books.

Ah, well. Keep up the writing. Don't let it go out. Because just like fire, it's more difficult to start all over from the beginning.

Art Again

So I attended a panel at LTUE given by professional artists. They talked a bit about their process for designing a book cover and the collaborative process. I came away with two things. First, a contract with a professional artist for a cover is very expensive and way more complicated than I initially thought. It turns out that they're artists too and they want to get paid for their work. I'd like to accommodate that.

The second thing, the interesting thing for me, was something about collaboration. One of the artists talked about how she will give a client 3 revisions and that's it unless they want to pay more money. But she doesn't go in expecting any revisions. She starts out with a bunch of thumbnail sketches and says, "Which one gives you the feeling you're looking for?" Then she takes that and sketches a larger image. She submits the larger sketch and says, "Is this right?" If not, she makes the changes and does it again. Then she draws the entire image with details and at this point is where she starts counting revisions. But she's communicated throughout the whole process, so most of the time the revisions aren't even necessary.

The point is that she knows when it's time to get feedback, and when it's time to trust in her artistic skill.

As writers we could probably take a few notes from this process. We should be open to changes on our notes or ideas. Even after our first draft we should be asking ourselves (and possibly alpha readers), does this fit my end goal? Most of us don't have anyone to collaborate with, but we do have to make the final call about our own work.

Because when it's done, our name is on the cover. We should accept feedback, but we should also be confident in our skills.

Good luck with your next project. And if you need a cover artist, make sure you're paying them for their work too.

Writing Productivity and LTUE

So, I'm presenting a paper I wrote on writing productivity and the brain. I'm sure I've talked about it all here before, but I like to hear myself type so I'll do it again.

The basic premise of my paper stems from a few comments made by this guy in this video. He makes some great points about how to get the most out of life. I speculated about how we can make room in our brain for writing processes.

I'll share the paper here, and the PowerPoint presentation here.

If you made it to the conference, then I hope you were able to take something away from the presentation. If you have more ideas about productive writing, feel free to comment below.

EDIT: At the conference I gave out a worksheet. Here's a link to that.

EDIT EDIT: Okay, so I have another presentation on formatting ebooks. It's an intro to the subject and you can find the slide presentation here.

Is e-publishing really changing the world?

As you probably have heard, there is such a thing as an e-book. The idea of the e-book is basically the idea of trade paperbacks. For years people who just wanted to read a story would buy a paperback. They weren't as sturdy as a hardbound copy, but the reader could get the same story for cheaper. But the more expensive option was still there for anyone who wanted it.

E-books just go another step toward making publishing less expensive, and delivering stories to readers in a more convenient way. Mostly it's more convenient for the publishers (in this case amazon.com, applestore, smashwords, etc.). There is no physical copy, so making the text available is way cheaper. There are no physical copies, so there are no worries about printing too many and not selling them. The publisher/author can make changes and corrections without having to run a whole new print line. There's more, I'm sure.

The reader also gets some benefits. You don't have to go to a store to get a book. You can keep an entire library on a single device (or link your devices). You can change the fonts. E-books are cheaper.

Really the last one is probably the driving force for both sides. We've still got the arguments that it's nice to read a physical copy of a book (which I agree with). I do both*. But if I want a hard copy, I can get one. It's just more expensive. I do the same thing with movies too. Some stories I want to ingest, digest, and be done. Others I fall in love with and I want to keep them. Those are the ones I want on my bookshelf. Those are the ones I will keep.

But in the end you as a writer have the same problem you did twenty or fifty years ago. When you write something you need to get someone to read it. That's why the publishing industry came about. Writers can't make a single dollar without someone buying their books. In the end it's all about marketing. We have new online tools, and new markets, but you won't make a cent unless you convince someone else to read your work. And though there are new tools, it's still a pain in the rear end. You can try to sell to a publisher, or you can publish yourself. But you need to find readers, and that takes time. Don't worry though. The good news is that it's still possible, and perhaps even more possible for writers without a big publisher.

And it all starts with writing something worth reading.

P.S. Oh, and I almost forgot. I'm doing a little experiment. I'm giving a presentation at LTUE about how to format your e-book. And a big question is where to put your book and who to format it for. So I put a short story online at Amazon with the limiting Kindle Direct Publishing, and then I put another short story on Smashwords which lets you publish anywhere else. I want to see if there is a significant difference in the number of views or purchases. I'll be posting the results in about 3 months. Not the most scientific, but it will be interesting to see what happens. Happy Writing!

*Realistically, I should admit that I listen to books on tape (or audio books online) so that makes me not a bookworm, but a...I'll let you finish that.

Writing in Layers

Painting takes time. But because of the magic of video, it doesn't have to take a lot of time anymore. Four minutes and fifty five seconds to be exact.

In the above video the artist creates a great mood piece of a forest. It's pretty simple, but you'll notice a few things. The artist starts out by painting some background colors. She shades them and blends them until the background is done. Then she paints over the top with some trees. Great. Ok. The trees look nice. But she's not done. She adds more. And each thing she adds covers up something else. It takes away (just a bit) our ability to see the previous layer, but by covering up the early layers she adds to the picture and lets us see her entire vision.

Do you like it? Doesn't matter. I do, but that doesn't matter either.

Here's what does matter. The layers.

When you write through your story the first time you've got a LOT to think about. Sometimes it might be useful to think of your work in layers - adding new elements with each pass. Here's how it has worked for me before:

Many times when I get ideas for a book or scene, I really only get a piece of an idea. I see a character doing something interesting, I think of a great line (or a few lines), maybe a dramatic moment stands out. Sometimes that's all I have. So as I think about the scene I try to fill in the blanks. (David Farland compares it to putting together a puzzle.) Often I'll write an entire scene with only dialogue. To a reader it won't feel complete, but I've managed to frame the whole scene just by writing what my characters say. And I did it all while the iron was hot.

But of course, it's not finished. I go back over the scene adding descriptions, actions, what each character thnks, etc. Then I read through it again making another pass at emotions, or sensory details.  The end product is not what I started with. If you read through the initial pass, you may have expected something completely different (just like the painting). But the end product is what really matters to your reader. They'll love to hear about how you got there, but only if they like where you got. So don't be afraid to take it in steps. And in the end you may come up with something that is much more than anyone expected in the beginning.

Bored

I had a friend tell me recently something to this effect.

When I get bored of writing a story I just stop writing. I figure that if I'm bored writing it, then my readers are going to be bored reading it.

I admit, there's some truth to this statement, and I'm sure that the way he meant it was true, but I'd like to compare it to something I learned in acting. When a play is emotionally moving, it's not because the actor is feeling sad, or angry, or happy, or brave. It's because the audience members feel that way. An actor could feel like they are just going through the motions, they could have a stomach ache, and if the audience felt the right emotions then the actor's performance would be a success. I can't tell you how many times I've told someone that their performance was very moving and they'd respond with, "Really? I felt like it was really weak this time."

It is a somewhat disturbing truth that an actor learns certain skills that allows them to portray emotions and invoke certain responses. A talented actor can literally control your emotions (much more so when you've placed yourself as a willing audience*). And very often the actor relies on those skills rather than actually feeling an emotion. This is especially true in stage plays where an actor might be asked to perform a death scene hundreds if not thousands of times. It doesn't matter one iota what the actor is feeling when they perform. It matters what you feel as an audience member.

The same is true in writing. You will often feel excited about your work, especially at the beginning. There's a reason it's called the honeymoon phase. But there will also be times when you are anything but excited about what you're writing. It's when you're not excited that you'll begin to rely on the skills that you are developing as a writer. You'll push through until the next moment when you are excited. There are some tricks to get excited (I'll put that it another post), but sometimes you just aren't. Sometimes you just don't feel like writing, but the only way an audience will know that is if you stop. They'll know because the story isn't finished. Here's a quoty way to say it, I'll even put it in italics: If you don't feel like writing, write until you do.

You could test this. As an experiment, write consistently, every day for a month, no matter how you feel. Then at the end of the month read over what you wrote and see if you can tell your mood from the writing. I bet you'll be surprised with the results. You might even find that you produce better work when you're not excited about writing.

(NOTE: It is entirely possible that you are bored of the story and that is a sign that the story itself is boring. Keep it in mind as a possibility, but it's just as likely, if not more, that you just need to push through. Developing the skill to understand why you're feeling hesitant about writing is a post for another day.)

(*NOTE AGAIN: As a writer you will also develop this creepy ability to manipulate other people's emotions. Novelist Mary Robinette Kowal, on the Writing Excuses podcast, has even called it mind control from a distance. Be careful with this power, it is super cool.)

The Value of Finishing Something

A while back I had the opportunity to speak with James Christensen, the artist. He had taught art classes at the college level (I believe at BYU) and he mentioned something that I've found useful.

James Christensen liked to teach with water colors, and he found that water color painting was one of the best ways for his students to improve. Now I've seen some great watercolor paintings, but generally I don't think of watercolor as the ultimate artistic tool. It's what you give kids to paint with because it will wash out and it's not too expensive.

But his reasoning was insightful. Why is watercolor so great? Well one reason is that you can't fix watercolor (Bear in mind that I'm talking about actual paint, not digital). Once you draw a line and it dries, there's really no going back. When you're making a watercolor painting you are forced to keep going or start over. One corner of one painting would turn out well, maybe another corner in another one. Each painting would help hone their skills in one area or another. James then said that he would tell his students something like this, 

You've got to make a million pieces of trash before you make your first masterpiece.

There's a similar saying among writers.

You've got to write a million words before you're ready to be published.

This is why I find this anecdote useful as a writer. I have a friend who has some aspirations to write. I personally believe that he has great talent. But he told me recently that he'll often write something in a short snippet of time and then when he comes back to it he just rewrites it. This is not uncommon.

My suggestion for any writer who wants to really get better is to just write. Write something, and don't go back to fix it until you've finished the entire project. Don't let yourself. Imagine that you just put those words down in watercolor and you can't go back to fix them. 

I can imagine many arguments against this exercise, but here's what you gain:

1. You get the experience of writing through the entire shape of a story.
2. You're practicing writing.
3. You know what it takes to push through the difficult parts of writing.

There is great value in learning how to revise, but a perfect first paragraph is not as useful as a mediocre full story. Patton said it this way, "A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week." The point is that if you're always planning and tweaking your idea, you'll never be doing - never actually get something finished. You'll be stuck with a really good first paragraph, but then you won't know how to write the rest. Experience completing a thing makes you a veteran. You may have things to learn, but at least you know that you can see it through.

So go finish something. Write a complete story (short or long). Write a dozen. You'll get better with each one. And then one day you'll look back at one of your pieces and you'll realize that it's actually worth revising.

"The Next Generation of [Writers] Will Fail In Public"

This post is a response to this video.

The video in question is about film makers (that's why the blog title has the brackets), but I think it may have some crossover value for writers.

The main point I want to bring up is the idea of failing in public. The speaker in the video (Elle Schneider I believe) makes the point that the film industry has been run on the "wunderkind" idea. The publishing world has been run in a similar manner. Here's what I mean.

Imagine you are a publisher. You want to sell books. Maybe you love them, maybe this is just a business. In the first case you want people to buy books to share in what you love and in the second case you want other people to buy the books because of the money (but let's be honest, you want the money in both cases). So ask yourself this question Mr. or Ms. publisher: What kind of books are you going to spend thousands of dollars to print? The answer is of course "good" books. Books that you like or think other people will buy. (You won't always make the best choices, but you'll do your best.)

Out of necessity and out of business practice, you have become the gatekeeper. People who want a book come to you because they're pretty sure you'll give them something polished and worth reading.

With e-publishing and youtube it's easy to put your stuff up for everyone to see. The cost is so low that it's almost laughable (or cryable if you wasted your life savings trying to publish a book 10 years ago).

So many new writers will write and share their early works. Years ago no one would ever have seen the early works because the writer would have been rejected a few dozen times before anything even had a chance of seeing the light of day.

Of course even if you do put your stuff out there as a new writer now, chances are that it will still not be seen by many. There's just too much out there. But like youtube films and indie games, writers will have a chance to put there stuff out there and get feedback from the public earlier. This will end some careers and bolster others. Ultimately, the end result will be similar. Successful writers will keep writing until they have built an audience.

But hopefully the myth of the wunderkind will pass away and writers will see that the real way to succeed is to keep writing. Failing is part of the process, and success comes to those who are diligent.