My Thirteen Year Old Self Hates Me.

When I was younger, I wanted to know how you found and kept some Inspiration. I'd lost mine, you see--it had wandered off somewhere, perhaps to hang around with Genius and the Muse in one big non-existence club--and I needed to know how to get it back. Because by George, nothing was going to get written until that inspiration was found, fed and tucked up warm in bed once more, ready for the following hard day's inspirationalising.

If I had the power to send a single .gif image back through time, I would address the following one to myself and send it back to the exact moment that I felt the most 'uninspired'.

I'd probably hate the quote at that age. It goes against everything that my thirteen-year-old self believed about what writing, art and creativity was. Plus, what would some dude from the future know about it, anyway? All this quote does is call me an amatuer in a roundabout way, and damn it, I'm thirteen! I know every goshdarn thing in the world, and screw anyone that says I don't, they're an old idiot.

But older me is persistent and wants to try and help thirteen-year-old me. If I could stress one thing to myself at that age, it would be that all this 'inspiration' that people talk about--especially the ones who seem to have an especially good and intuitive knack for their craft--is just another bit of fiction. Given the opportunity, I would do my damndest to try and convince young me that inspiration doesn't exist. It'd go something like this.

Young Mitch: you're feeling uninspired right now. You have decided that until your ideas begin flowing quickly and easily once more, you won't sit down and attempt to write. I know why you've made this decision. After all, nearly every writer you know or look up to talks about that one idea they had that ran away with itself. It was just so good that it practically realised itself on the page. So naturally, all you need to do is wait for that stroke of inspiration to hit you, and everything will be fine.

Except that, in a month or two when it still hasn't hit, you'll start to get a bit uneasy. Maybe, you'll think, you really are just an amateur. Maybe you're not cut out for this writing lark. If you were a better writer, surely inspiration would have taken hold of you by now and forced a story out of your imagination and on to a page.

But I have good news! They were wrong. All those people talking about inspiration? They're misleading you, albeit unintentionally. There is no inspiration that lasts from first sentence to final paragraph. There's no driving force that will churn out a rollicking narrative in a few weeks, tops. There's absolutely no way to stay 'in love' with your story while you're writing it. The things you're feeling right now--frustration, boredom, distraction--they're all normal. The hallmark of a writer is not that they don't feel all those things. It's that they do feel them, and carry on anyway.

The way you feel right now is how every writer feels. How about that? You thought you were waiting for the moment inspiration turned you in to one, but it turns out that you're already more like one than you could possibly have suspected.

I'd probably still ignore myself.

But all the same, maybe it'd quicken the realisation that was delayed by years of misconceptions about what writing is. If I'd known that 'inspiration' was more often an excuse not to write than any kind of legitimate writerly thing, I might have saved myself some time.

So from now on, whenever someone asks about inspiration, I'm going to tell them the most inspiring thing I can think of. I'm going to tell them that inspiration doesn't exist, and that how they feel right now is exactly how they'll feel after they sell their hundredth novel. Things get easier, you get better, but it never happens on its own.

Let go of the idea of inspiration, and become inspired at how you never needed it in the first place.

Re-Writes of Re-Writes

This will be the fourth time I've knuckled down to re-write the first chapter of my completed MS. Actually, 'completed'--as any writer who's tried their hand at such a thing as a novel will tell you--is not the right word. There's no such thing as complete, just degrees of incomplete.

So technically, right now I'm taking it down from the third degree of incomplete to the fourth.

This is how much I found in one casual sitting that needs immediate change.

Hey there, Chapter One. Fuck you, too! :-D

Those red marks are the things that have to change before I begin re-writing in earnest. This is only the pre-re-write, and it took me three hours.

It's not unusual. I gutted it the first two times. I may yet still do it once more. There's only a few things that you can take away from an experience like this as 'positive'.

1) The first chapter is the hardest. You could write it a thousand different ways and no one of them would be perfect.
2) Each time you do this, at least one or two things that legitimately and objectively did not work for the manuscript are gone. Eliminated. Forever cast in to the abyss. You will never be tortured by their inadequacy again, ever.
3)In a way, the hard part of the MS--the creative bit, where you have to be on the ball and come up with solid ideas--is done. You've build the sword, now you just need to sharpen it. It's not all that hard if you're even a little bit serious about making your story the best that it can be.

And now, it's 12:30am. That's another inextricable part of re-writing: late nights. I better get myself to bed before my 5:30am rise for work.

Then I'll come home, and make this chapter awesome. Even more awesome than it has ever been.

How exciting.

Writing Is A Tuft Of Cotton Caught In The Breath Of The Chilly Death Throes Of Summer

A not unusually vitriolic article was published over at The Economist on the topic of NaNoWriMo. It gripes about the 'American' idea that everyone has a story that, if only they could release, would make them a household name. To me, this seems like a gross misrepresentation of what NaNoWriMo is all about, but then again what would I know? I'm just another one of those frothing amatuers.

But here's what gets my goat. Chris Baty is criticised by suggesting that novel writing involves grunt work. You get a bunch of your friends together and talk and write and don't get up until you've written a whole bunch of words. AC from London is quick to indicate that most serious authors (not him personally, by any stretch! Just dedicated authors, you must understand.) would not agree.

Most writers who are dedicated to the craft would beg to disagree. The more apt metaphor is that used by a New York columnist in the 1940s: “It’s easy: you simply sit down at the typewriter, open your veins, and bleed.”

Not to be a stick in the mud, but there are two pieces of writing insight on offer here. Chris Baty says that there's no way around sitting down and churning out the words, so you might as well do it. The Much More Credible* New York Columnist says, in so many words, 'Writing is Pain and Hyperbole'.

There is simply nothing of value in hearing someone use flowery, only loosely-based-in-reality terms to describe the art of writing. What does 'Sit at a typewriter, open your veins and bleed' mean to somebody who is trying to further their writing skills? To be blunt about it, it doesn't mean anything. It's as useless as a musician saying that all music is made of love, or a chef saying her primary ingredient is sweat. Perfectly fine as sweeping, pithy commentary on their own work. Completely useless for anyone that want to know the first thing about the craft.

Why do we insist on doing this to writing? And music, for that matter? And anything that involves a speck of creativity? What is so boring and lifeless about the wonderously complex, immersive and fulfilling task of writing a fantastic, saleable and engrossing novel that people feel the need to dress it up in mythical and nonsensical bullshit?

Writing is not blood and pain. Writing is having an idea, using your fingers to write it, modifying your idea over and over again, taking advice on how to modify that idea further, and finally letting a bunch of people read your idea. That's it. Don't talk to me about characters so perfect they write themselves. Don't talk about inspiration that came on a bolt from the blue. Don't tell me about what a conduit you are for the stroy that was already written by the shared experiences of the denizens of this curse called humanity. That doesn't mean anything. That's authors appealing to their own ego, and the ego of others foolish enough to buy in to such rubbish.

Chris Baty knows that. Anyone who's tried to write a novel with realistic expectations ought to know that, too.

As I am constantly reminded when I put these kinds of opinions out there, it's horses for courses. One person's experience is just as valid as the next. So, really, it's up to you. You can sit down with friends, bash out your words and get something done. Or you can sit down at the keyboard and try and figure out what it means to open your veins and bleed, and how that applies to whether or not you need to split this chapter in half or cut a paragraph or two of extraneous prose.

Best of luck to those who choose the second option.

Agentsearch™ Update: It's a No after all.

Well, I posted a little while ago about how my Agent Search was faring. At the time things were quite positive, but I've received the official rejection letters from the agencies in question.

Oh well. This is what all those authors are talking about when they say you need to be persistent.

Positive things to come from this:

1- It was my first ever submission to an agent ever, and it got beyond query and in to full MS review. That's got to be encouraging.
2- I can canvass more agents at once now that I'm not under review from a specific agency.
3- I get to fix a typo that was sitting RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of my intitial query for the next set of agent eyes. That's going to make me feel approximately 2000% better about the next submissions.

Rather than disappear in to a wine bottle or declare myself more of a musician than a writer anyway, I plan on combing the manuscript this week and sending out a new round of queries on Monday morning.

Crisis Generation will live.

NaNoWriMo -- Link Roundup

I've decided to keep a round up of NaNoWriMo advice on my blog, as much for myself as anyone who happens to find them. These links will be gathered from Twitter, where there is a lot of traffic on the #NaNoWriMo hashtag. If you haven't got time to read it all, come on by here! I'll collate the ones I think are most useful.

General Advice


Tips for Keeping Your Sanity During NaNoWriMo by Jodie Cleghorn  :: One of the few bloggers I've seen brave enough to mention the dreaded 'D' word: Delete. Don't be afraid to delete your words. You can still count the words toward your total, and sometimes deleting a mass of uncooperative words can lead to a deluge of more agreeable ones.


Advice for new WriMos by TallulahLucy :: There are ten awesome tips for making it through NaNoWriMo here. I am a particularly big fan of having your planning and research done and ready. It might be a bit late for that if you haven't already, but the rest of the advice here is spot on. Avoid Criticism. Seriously, 50,000 words written in a month are not meant for critical eyes.

Nano For n00bs by Simon Haynes :: Probably the best advice I've heard in terms of making sure you hit your word targets. Are you busy? Time poor? This post will show you how you can make 1,667 words a day seem like a piece of cake. Again, note the emphasis on planning. As I've said here before, it's really, really useful.


Writing Tools

Don't like using word? Don't panic. You don't have to.

Nor do you have to spend a bunch of money on programs and apps to help you write. If you are of a mind to part with your hard earned cash, there's a list of great programs that can help you churn out thousands of words on this blog post by Steven Sande.

I would recommend against it. I'm a bit old fashioned this way. To me, buying programs like these is like sitting down to the infomercials late at night and thinking the AbFlexor is going to be your ticket to instant weight loss. I don't see how, if you're struggling to get the words out in a basic writing program, you'll fare any better in, say, Scrivener. It is up to you, however, and the list posted over at that blog is comprehensive.

However, if you'd like some excellent freeware...

The aforementioned Simon Haynes has a nifty little program that you can download FOR FREE called yWriter. If you don't necessarily like writing in chronological order and have a little time to dedicate to the learning curve, this is a nifty piece of software. I personally don't use it but I am a big fan of the potential for its applications. Did I mention it's free?

If you're writing scripts, there's only one program that you should be using if you don't have a thousand dollars to spare on 'professional software'. Celtx will produce a fully formatted script for a play, movie, tv show, radio drama, you name it. I love this program. I don't write scripts often, but when I do, I use this bar nothing.

Inspiration

I think the only thing I can post for inspiration before NaNo even starts is this blog post from last year. It's on The Creative Pen, and again is a list-based post. I think the sentence that sums it up best is this one:

NaNoWriMo 2009 changed my life.

Even if it's only in a small way, it might change yours aswell.

This will be my first NaNoWriMo, but not my first book. I can't wait to see what unique challenges are in store!

I will post a link round up like this once every few days to keep pace with where NaNoWriMo is at, and what new blog posts and inspirations pieces come to the fore. Until then, go forth, writers! Pick up pen. Put on your blinkers.

We've got writing to do.

Being Gay: A Second Job

Recently, there was a fantastic twitter chat (as there is most weeks) conducted by @thegayya account about the merits of gay characters being 'in' or 'out' of the closet at the outset of a young adult novel. There were a wide variety of opinions and the chat inspired this blog post by @movingmetaphor . I recommend checking it out.

@Malindalo pointed out, too, that it was important to deal with the aftermath of coming out. To have a look at the issues that come after the big crashing wave of angst and drama that is smashing down the closet door. I agree strongly with this point, and there's a little issue that I am constantly trying to raise and work in to these conversations that I wasn't able to bring up at the time.


Being Gay Is A Lot Of Hard Work.

Or so it seems to those who are yet to come out, anyway. I vividly remember thinking about this as a teenager and perusing the various books and forums that dealt with teenage homosexuality. Coming out was hard, sure. But once you do, holy shit! There's so much to do.

For a start, you have to argue with conservatives. Like, all the time. There are rallies to attend. You've got to make signs. You have to dress in bright colours and draw attention to the cause. You've got to be across the issues that affect you and be ready to defend your very existence on a second's notice, because ignorance is everywhere and it's up to you to put it right. Because...you know. Nobody else will, right? This is how it is on the TV. You become an out gay person and, by default, you become an activist.

That idea, I have to tell you, scared me even more than the prospect of explaining to my friends why I really liked watching all those games of rugby.

I'm fairly certain this only happened in my head.

I think it's really important that this is not a message we actively try to send young people. I've seen it plenty of times--on TV especially--that the gay kid comes out and suddenly becomes the president of the safe sex club and the homophobia awareness council. The very idea that this might be a thing that people are expected to do after coming out is enough to scare some kids right to the back of the closet, where resistance is minimal.

I think the message we ought to be sending instead is that it is not their responsibility to defend their own existence. It is not a requirement, and nor is it even a reasonable expectation, that they will have to justify themselves to anyone, let alone fight for rights that ought to be theirs in the first place. Some of them may choose to do this and all power to them -- I'm counting on a lot of them to do this. It just seems to me that the superior moral lesson to bestow, especially in YA books, is that gay people need do nothing extra than a straight person.

Also, cancel Terra Nova!

So let's see those stories about characters that came out some time ago. Let them deal with the unique issues that come with things like second relationships and break ups and friendships that grow distant. But think twice before making them crusaders for equality. That's a lot of weight of expectation to put on people who are only recently out of childhood.

Being gay ought not to be a second job. It's just that part of yourself that determines who you love. Anything and everything outside of that is optional.

Let Me Tell You Why ‘Pantsing’ Is Not A Real Option

I want to say a thing here. It might sound like a harsh thing but, really, it isn’t. It’s just a bit of common sense that we all know about ourselves, but sometimes are loathed to admit. Ready? You sure? I’m just going to say it.

If you’re reading this – and I include myself in that group, for I too am reading these words as I write – you are almost certainly not a prodigiously talented writer

I mean it. The odds on are so astronomical that I can say, with the reasonable expectation that I’ll never be proven wrong, that I am 100% sure that you aren’t a better writer than Stephen King. Or Kurt Vonnegut. Or Cormack McCarthy. Or whoever else you want to nominate as your favourite textual prodigy. It’s no insult to all of us to say that we’ll never be those guys. We could sell forty novels apiece – one hundred novels apiece – and have not a one of them be considered on a level like that.  Some people come out of the womb screaming and kicking, others come out screaming and kicking ass.

Ladies and gents, we did the former.

What the hell has this got to do with Pantsing? For that matter, what the hell IS PANTSING??

Sorry. I always forget to define my terms.

That’s one of the reasons why I don’t ‘Pants’, but I digress.

When I say ‘pantsing’, I’m not talking about the act of pulling someone’s pants down. That’s a cruel and hilarious thing you do to people during an argument when you can’t think of a witty thing to say.

For the purpose of this blog I’m talking about the act of writing your manuscript without an outline to guide you. Literally, sitting down to write without a clue as to what comes next. Maybe you have a vague idea of where you want to go, but getting there? That’s an adventure, man. That’s where the creativity kicks in and the fingers do the rest. The term comes from the idiom ‘flying by the seat of your pants’. You don’t need no stinkin’ forethought to get your ideas across. They’re all up there, waiting to be put on a page, and any attempt to try and capture the gist of them in a simplified, overall way will utterly destroy those ideas.

Perhaps the best way for me to put this will be to list a couple of common phrases I’ve heard to justify and promote Pantsing:

I don’t outline because it limits my creativity. I don’t want to be locked in to one narrative strain that has to go a certain way with no room for expansion or, if the fancy takes me, an entirely different plot to the original! I’d never put so severe a handbrake on myself as an outline. That’s like saying you’re going on a holiday but staying on the train the whole time

I like to begin writing and let my characters take over. They’re kind of like real people in my head, you know, and I just give voice to them. What they do is up to them, and I can’t wait to see where they take me! Also, I’m making dinner for them later. T-bones. Hope they’re hungry

I know what I want to say already. Outlining would simply be a waste of time. I’ve got this thing planned out scene by scene in my head. What difference does it make if it’s written down? Spare me your trivialities

Did you notice how I took a kind of cynical tone with all of those examples? There’s a reason for that.

They’re all bullshit

1 – Outlining Limits My Creativity

I hear this one so, so much

Some people seem to be operating under the delusion that writing an outline is somehow different from writing literally anything else. As far as I can tell, they imagine that once they write ‘The End’ at the end of their outline, there is absolutely no opportunity to go back and alter it in any way. The document locks. Their administrator privileges are set to ‘Read Only’ forever. Any hand written versions are despatched to that facility in Indiana Jones and hidden away in a warehouse so big that it’ll never be found again

I feel orders of magnitude stupider just typing this, but that's not true at all! Your outline is as amorphos as your imagination, and just as editable as any manuscript. Why on earth does having it prevent your imagination from changing the arc of your story on the slightest of whims? If anything, it's going to be far easier to alter an outline than it is a manuscript. Outlines can be chopped, changed and edited with little to no effort and -- this is important -- without sapping your excitement for the project altogether

Momentum is a fickle thing. I understand how it happens to us changeable, whimsical artistic types. You're writing away, creative energy leaking out of you like you're Boromir drinking a glass of water, when suddenly it happens. You get a slightly differeny but way better idea than you had originally. And if this character does that...then that will explain why...and then at the end we can...Oh ho HO! This is hot stuff! So long, story! You have held me back long enough! I'm going to start again, and this time do it properly with all these super awesome ideas.

Repeat. Ad. Infinitum.

Honestly, how many stories has this person ever completed? How many threads of narrative have they ever seen through from start to finish, making adjustments and refining as they go, but finally reaching the finish line?

I have no data. But I'm going to guess 'not bloody many'.

The fact is that without that outline - that vital direction to tell you where to go next when you're in the guts of bashing out those thousands of story words - you're little more than marking time until your brain gets bored with one idea and begs you to try another. You're sabotaging yourself from word one. And once you convince yourself that the story you're writing is inferior to the one you want to write, you'll never put pen to page on that project again. And if I know anything for sure in the universe, I know this: In the middle of your next project, the exact same thing will happen

Luckily, there's a way to test whether or not your story ideas are going to be able to sustain you until the conclusion. It's kind of like writing the whole novel, but in shorthand. It's like doing in 2, 3, or 4 thousand words what you'd otherwise be doing in 80 so that if you do need to alter or change your core ideas and concepts, you haven't wasted weeks or months.

Author, meet outline. Your new best friend.

2 - Only my characters know how my story is going to end!

If a famous author comments on this thread putting me wrong, I will gladly retract this initial statement:

I have only ever heard extremely amatuerish, hobbyist writers ever say this and mean it. I can nearly guarantee that no published author genuinely believes that their characters - either in a metaphorical or physical way - have a hand in deciding the outcome of a novel.

You've heard it so often. You might have said it yourself.

'It was amazing. I sat down with these two characters in my head, and they were so real that the words just came. It's like they were writing themselves.'

Incorrect. Here's a quick insight as to how these brilliant characters appear to write themselves. I'll continue the hypothetical I just began:

'So my character, she's a pirate captain, right? And it begins when she washes up ashore on an island without her ship - it's been stolen from her. She's so quirky and headstrong, though, that she doesn't even skip a beat! She tries to steal one from the very same dock, but gets caught by the guards. Not one to let this get her down, she orchestrates her escape and breaks in to the blacksmith's store to try and break her shackles. But then, my OTHER character appears - the hot but naive blacksmith's apprentice catches her! And I totally didn't realise they would do this, but they got in to a sword fight! HOLY CRAP, right! And so my MC loses and is sent to prison. But that night, her ship shows up to attack the island...'

If you haven't caught on to the plot of Pirates of the Carribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl yet, you'll at least be able to recognise it when you read it back.

Letting your characters write themselves is simply tapping in to your subconscious and plagiarising the shit out of whatever you last read/watched/listened to. I'm serious. Do not let your characters write your story - they are dirty little thieves. They are archetypes trying to fit themselves to a narrative, and you have got literally hundreds of ready-made ones swimming around in your head. You know where you got them from? Other people. Other authors. Filmmakers. Places that are not your own imagination.

There is a school of thought that says that there is no more creativity and all stories are simply plagiarisms of other works to some degree. Maybe so, but you're not going to notice or filter that if you've convinced yourself that your characters are in charge of the plot.

You know where it's easiest to spot the parallels between your story and every other story in the world?

You guessed it. The outline.

Is there nothing these magical documents can't do?

3 - Outlining is an unnecessary step akin to double handling my words

The drawback to this line of thinking ought to be quickly obvious.

So you're writing away, putting down every scene exactly as it is framed in your head. Only all of a sudden, at chapter seven, you realise that the two plot threads you are trying to weave together are not going to intersect at the right moment. Or you realise that your character's motivations are suspect and that to fix them you're going to need to change a vital element of their backstory. Or you realise that your villain shouldn't be introduced until chapter eight and you've shoehorned him in to every other chapter since the prologue.

Suddenly, in order to correct these narrative errors, you have to change the entire manuscript. Thousands and thousands of words, each with run-on effects and cause and effect issues. The potential to overlook a single reference to the 'old story' is enormous, leaving your 'new story' with dozens of non-sensical lines that make you plead with readers, 'that wasn't meant to be there!'.

The outline is where this all gets sorted out. The outline is your ticket to the finish line. The outline is permission to write your arse off in the manuscript phase without getting stumped on where you're going or how you should be assembling your narrative.

The outline is your friend.

Pantsing. (syn) Procrastination.

Seriously.

Guys, seriously.

I know the real reason that people don't outline. It's not any of these mystical and rad-sounding reasons about limiting creativity and letting the body be a conduit for the muse. The simple fact is that people won't outline because they are lazy. They don't want to have to deal with the minutiae of how this scene is going to fit with that scene because that's hard work. It's often difficult to decide exactly how we're going to get from point A to point B.

But all you're doing is putting off the inevitable. Procrastinating. Sweeping your problems under the rug, where they will congeal and rot. Keep in mind that at some point, you ARE going to have to look under that rug. You're going to have to deal with these problems of continuity and character development.

Would it not be best to do it before you've committed thousands of words and dozens, maybe hundreds of hours to your work? Doesn't that just make more sense?

Maybe not before you start, but somewhere about page 103 when you hit the wall? That advice is going to sound like that one guy standing on the dock as the Titanic pulled away shouting 'keep an eye out for icebergs!'. People probably thought he was an idiot at the time, huh?

Trust me. I've tried to write a lot of books. I have finished writing four of them. The only way I managed it was with a rigorous, robust and well-read outline at my side every step of the way.

If you're about to do NaNoWriMo, give it a try. There are, at time of writing, seven days to get your outline together. I'm going to make the bold prediction that those who get to their 50,000 word goal are the ones who already know how they're going to get there.

In the interests of full disclosure, I 'Pantsed' this blog entry.

That's why it's so sloppy and disjointed.

And also why this concluding paragraph is so abrupt.