Tag: life

About Writing

Writing Lessons from Bob Ross: Embrace the Process

Autumn

Sometimes I like to turn on Bob Ross to absorb how calm and mellow he is, and I find it relaxing to sit and watch him paint for a bit. Children are highly chaotic entities, so I know how to appreciate the change in pace that comes with everyone sitting together watching a show that we can all enjoy.

It occurred to me that one could also learn how to write from Bob Ross, as long as you think metaphorically.

He doesn’t simply slap down blobs of color and call it done. He blends the paint, adds shadows and highlights, and is mindful of the details. He also doesn’t overwork the paint or try to control every single aspect of the picture, instead working with the textures of the brush strokes and allowing elements to evolve naturally.

And, as everyone knows, “There are no mistakes, only happy accidents.”

A lot of writers stop at the blobs of color phase. They’ll free write whatever passes through their minds then hit ‘publish’ without any more thought about the story. These sorts of writers can produce a lot of content in a short amount of time, but it will all feel unpolished and unsatisfying. Often, when I have tried to explain how these writers have good potential but they need to dedicate more attention to reworking their story, they get upset rather than accepting the advice (even when I’m responding to their request for criticism). So, remember, blobs of color are your foundation, but they are not your finished story. The first draft should not be your last. And no, your blobs of color are not more genius than anyone else’s. They all pretty much look the same.

Others will overwork the story to death. They’ll edit out the spontaneity of adventure, and reduce their characters to props who serve rigid roles, instead of letting them shine as quirky individuals. These writers don’t let the overall picture evolve naturally, and their stories feel formulaic. While they are often well intentioned, they don’t know how to let the story flow on its own.

There are also writers who put in too much detail, and create overly-busy stories with no clear focus. They forget to leave the background in the background. They throw too much information at the reader all at one, or create more characters than there’s room for. They describe the condiments instead of the picnic.

When you are in the process of editing, take a step back and try to visualize the story as a painting. Is there enough detail without being overdone? Did you let elements evolve naturally and follow the flow? Did you flesh out the foreground and leave the background appropriately hazy? Is it something that you would hang on *your* wall? Remember, you can always fix it.

And the next time you watch Bob Ross, just imagine that he’s speaking in metaphor and soak in all of his encouragement.

About Writing

Embrace Your Creative Freedom in Fiction Writing

Autumn

I often think that the problem with contemporary fiction writing is that there are too many rules to contend with. Writing communities are stiff with them. People constantly ask for help with them and enforce them on others. Most of the time, whenever someone asks for a critique, it boils down to, “Am I following the rules properly?”

What about creative passion? Idealism? Soul expression? Where do those fit in?

Why do people ask, “Is this something that others would read?” instead of, “Is this something I care deeply about?”

When it comes to writing, the single most important thing is to have fun. Enjoy it. Randomly burst into laughter because you thought of something funny to write while waiting in line at the grocery store. Cry when your characters are sad. Ride the roller coaster of emotion that comes from being a writer, and revel in the intensity of life. It can be so blissfully wonderful.

Tell as much as you want instead of showing it. Use the word ‘said’ exclusively. Describe everything with adverbs. Neglect world building. Write only subplots. Use your favorite cliches. Include funky colloquialisms.

Just be you.

Don’t copy someone else. Don’t seek out everyone else’s approval. Don’t slavishly follow rules and formulas because someone wrote an article about it. Don’t follow bad advice from the internet.

Figure out what you like, and do it. Perfect it. Develop a strong voice and your own unique style.

I believe that there’s an empathic transfer that happens between author and reader. If you aren’t madly head over heels in love with your own story to begin with, then no one else will feel that way either. If you don’t care, then no one else will care.

And besides,

You can’t please everyone.

But you can certainly please yourself. So isn’t that where you ought to start?

(And yes, I know I’ve written a similar post before, but exposure to writing communities always puts me on this train of thought)

About Me

Mom Life

Autumn

Didn’t get enough sleep last night.

We’re still co-sleeping with the one-year-old, but she’s getting so wriggly that I’m starting to wake up in the middle of the night with her sprawled over my head. I know it’s time to move her out so I can catch up on my sanity, but that also means acknowledging that she’s not a tiny baby anymore. It’s emotional, so I haven’t brought myself to actually doing it yet.

Had an energy drink first thing in the morning. Too tired to make coffee. I know I shouldn’t make a habit out of it.

Wore all black, including an ankle-length circle skirt. Lots of eyeliner and mascara. I wondered why no one ever calls me goth.

Decided to take the kids out Halloween shopping. I call them my ducklings, because I love the way they naturally spread out when they follow me. This year we bought costumes. Normally I sew them myself, but… I’m tired.

Laughed at how much the kids loved to be scared of the decorations, and we found glow-in-the-dark spider web for the house. Two of them made up their minds quickly about what they wanted to be for Halloween. I felt a little vexed at my seven-year-old’s indecisiveness, as she switched between wanting to be a witch, a mermaid, and a unicorn. Thought about how, if I was sewing her a costume, she could be a witch-mermaid-unicorn. Felt guilty.

Walked to a nearby restaurant and shared a plate of teriyaki chicken and macaroni salad with the kids. I was amazed at how much they eat now. Seemed like it was just yesterday when I had to beg them to sit still and eat something, but today they were ravenous. Had a really pleasant time, and felt mostly awake. The children were astonishingly well-behaved and didn’t make much of a mess.

At home, I let the kids try on their new costumes and dance on the freshly painted floor. The previous owners of our house had painted the wood a hideous shade of taupe, and after a lot of deliberation and research, we decided to cover it up with enamel paint. Golden yellow. While we can walk on it, the paint still needs time to cure before we can put the furniture back, which leaves a nice big empty space for playing. The rest of the house is chaos.

Put the costumes away soon after, before they could get ripped or stained. I know my children well.

Screen time for the kids. Bathed the baby, and took care of the laundry. Apple slices and chocolate milk all around. Fatigue headache started setting in. Still not caught up on chores. Still need to go to the grocery store. Still haven’t done any “me” activities. Went for the Tylenol, but forgot to actually take it. I finally re-dressed the baby as the kids helped themselves to graham crackers. Crumbs were everywhere.

Finally took the Tylenol.

Kids get hyperactive as I lose attentiveness, and they start fighting with each other. That, in turn, makes my headache worse.

Hold out for my husband to get off work. Thank god for reinforcements.

He took the kids out to the grocery store so I could have a break. Afterwards I made a late dinner, and completely forgot to add any sort of spicing to the meat, including salt. My husband noticed, and corrected the mistake just in the nick of time. Made enchiladas.

My husband got a work-related phone call just as we sat down to eat, and I was back on my own. The kids ate everything except the tortilla, including the baby. I laughed because that’s exactly what my husband does, and they all take so much after their father. Realized I should have put in corn.

I had the kids brush their teeth and get ready for bed. Read a few pages of the Hobbit for their bedtime story. Got tongue-tied quite a lot because I was so tired. Kids didn’t seem to notice. Hugs, kisses, and I-love-yous all around. Bedtime is always the sweetest moment of the day.

Made it.

About Me

Anonymity

Autumn

I like anonymity.

At this point, I’ve received so many disparaging comments about wasting my life as a stay-at-home-mom, I don’t want people to think that there’s any hope for me.

As a woman, I don’t believe that I’m obligated to prove my value as a person through masculine evaluations of quantities and numbers. I am not defined by a paycheck. My worth is found in the joy and beauty I offer to the world, and that includes raising happy, well-adjusted children. God knows the world needs more happy, well-adjusted people in it.

So don’t chain me down with your money. *spits*

I get a perverse delight over how upset random strangers get when they learn that I don’t lift a finger to earn a dime. I love flaunting that I’m wasting my life and smratness right in their ugly little faces. Ooo! You can’t do a thing about it! Ha ha!

…

You’re all like, “What a second, don’t you self publish on Kindle?”

Yes, yes I do.

I’ve discovered that I struggle a huge amount with posting chapters weekly, even when the novel is completely finished and all I have to do is copy-n-paste. While I was contemplating what to do about this problem of mine, Kindle was the word that kept repeating over and over in my mind, so that was that.

ANYway, the problem is anonymity is that, while it protects me from people getting all pushy about monetizing and whatnot in real life, it also prevents me from doing other things. Like posting an author photo and utilizing YouTube.

I do want to find readers, and I like quirky methods.

I might shed the invisibility cloak soon. Tell my mom what I’m up to and all that.

But only because I love you and I want to find you. We’re kindred spirits, you and I.

About Me, About Writing

Finding Beauty in the Ordinary: A Writer’s Journey

Autumn

I’ve always believed that a talented enough writer could turn the topic of drying paint into a fascinating read, but there’s something that I didn’t quite realize until my late 20s:

You have to be the sort of person that sees the beauty in drying paint in the first place.

This is on the “no duh” side of epiphanies, but frankly, it’s not how I was taught to live.

I was raised on the “go to college, get married, spend the rest of your life balancing work and family” formula. Occasionally someone would advise to stop and smell the roses, but you weren’t supposed to notice the veins of color in the petals, or compose metaphors to describe the scent. You definitely weren’t supposed to study the thorns in great detail either.

Did I lose you? Do you understand?

I rebelled when I was 20. I don’t mean that I went to wild parties or did anything stupid; I’ve always been far too introverted for rambunctious crowds, and too conscientious for short-sighted acts. I went to the park late at night to play on the swing set and feel the cool summer air play through my hair. I danced in rainstorms. I fell madly in love with the simple things, like listening to crickets or watching a candle flame dance. I engaged.

And no one understood. How could they? I was surrounded by people who spent their entire lives dissociated from their experiences, and they just didn’t know what to do with me. I was labeled ‘weird’ and left at that.

Being a talented writer isn’t just knowing the mechanical skills, it’s an entire way of living. It’s being unafraid to see the world like no one else does. It’s embracing both the pleasure and the pain. When you, as a person, live a life of passion, it will automatically permeate your writing.

That’s one of the reasons why I feel so driven to write: I want to share how I experience life in a way that others will understand. I want to offer more than what can be seen on the surface.

Metaphorically speaking, I want to express the beauty I see in drying paint.

About Writing

Writing for readers

Autumn

At some point during the writing process, you have to start thinking about your readers.

I don’t mean you should sellout and introduce a teenage vampire who spends all day angsting about how much he hates himself, and all night getting spanked in the local underground BDSM scene, before being chosen to participate in a deadly game of wits and survival. Yuck. No.

When you chat with someone face-to-face, it’s considered polite to speak clearly and audibly, and to continually read the other person’s cues to make sure they aren’t growing bored by your rambling. When you’re done, you say goodbye instead of just walking away.

Writing should be approached with the same considerations. While it’s much harder to work without a present audience yawning and glancing at their cell phones, it’s good to empathize with imaginary readers and place yourself in their shoes, so to speak.

Continually ask yourself questions like:

“Is this sentence clear or do I need to reword it?”

“Is this part boring?”

“Are my transitions smooth or jarring?”

“Does this paragraph flow when I read it out loud, or is it choppy?”

“Is the end too abrupt?”

Etc, etc, etc.

Your readers are your best friends; they’re the ones who appreciate a part of you that even your parents don’t know about (at least for many of us writers, lol). Don’t take them for granted. Be a gracious host and make sure that they’re having a good time.

If you know someone you trust who fits your target audience, go ahead and use them as a beta reader. Watch them read. Pay attention to their facial expressions and body language. While they may say that something is good, a wrinkled brow and down turned mouth will tell you that there was something unsatisfying, but they might not be able to articulate it. Don’t take it personally, just think about how to make it better. I promise you that it’s a good feeling to come back with the improved version and watch someone gush over something they were previously “meh” about.

While it’s good practice to write the first draft for yourself, be in the habit of rewriting the last one for your readers. They have the power to set you down and dismiss you forever, so don’t lord your ego over them. Be nice and considerate, and show some appreciation.

About Writing

Complaining

Autumn

Why do I complain so much about contemporary literature?

Personally, I’m not likely to run into any sort of shortage of used books to read — as anyone who has been in a thrift store can attest to — so the hottest new releases don’t have any affect on me no matter how badly they are written. If I were to speak truthfully from the coldest place in my heart, I think it would be a relief if publishing houses died wholesale. Good riddance.

Contemporary literature is all about making money. Idealistically, we want to believe that ‘high quality = more profit’, but the popularity of the YouTube channel ‘5 Minute Crafts’ is undeniable proof that sentiment just isn’t true. Profit comes from tickling algorithms coupled with click-bait, and corporations have turned it into a science.

The thing is, ‘5 Minute Crafts’ and its ilk aren’t harmlessly mediocre underneath all the hype. I’ve seen videos promoting burning your hair with a candle, soaking strawberries in bleach, and other such activities that have no business in a DIY context, and should never be tried at home. Seriously, burning your hair is not a fast way to get rid of split ends, it is a stinky way to get rid of your hair. People are prophesying that these channels will one day kill YouTube.

Let’s bring the topic back to books: publishing houses, and by extension writers, are excessively geared towards money. The algorithms utilize formulaic stories that just so happen to hit all the right trending key words, and the shiny covers function as the click bait. Whether or not the story is actually well written and engaging is never the question.

You see, it doesn’t matter how much teachers extol the virtues of reading, no one is going to bother if the experience is a tedious one. Every time I hear someone say that they hate reading, I sympathize with the statement, “Most books suck.”

I say that as a writer.

The last I heard, fiction sales have been steadily dropping for some time now, and I don’t believe that the popularity of video streaming or video games has anything to do with it — movies have existed for quite some time, and the adage has always been, “the book is better” up until now. I believe that fiction is dying because no one gives a shit if the reader has an enjoyable experience or not, so long as they can collect on the royalties.

Statistically I also contribute to “the death of the novel”, because I haven’t purchased anything new in the last ten years, even though I still read books. I’m not voracious by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m usually working my way through something. I’m sure there are others who read plenty of fiction, but who also prefer used books, or websites that provide content for free. Humans have loved storytelling since the dawn of time, and that isn’t going to change.

I complain about contemporary literature because, as a writer, I often feel like I’ve dedicated my life to a field that is gaining an increasingly bad rap through blatant mismanagement. It doesn’t matter how much love and attention I put into producing quality works if people have been taught through experience to hate reading in the first place.

Since I’m not delusional enough to believe that my solitary rumblings are going to have any sort of effect on the world, I often wonder what other sort of venues are there for connecting with readers. How can I publish novels without resorting to books? How can I stand apart from contemporary literature?

Muse

Inspiration

Autumn

tumblr_ofctzh6NAp1qk1m72o1_1280

Source

 

This picture reminds me of the main characters from my current WIP, metaphorically.

About Writing

Why I don’t read contemporary books

Autumn

I’ve said repeatedly that I don’t read anything that was published this decade, because I’m a cranky bitch who hates everything about modern living … and all that. Hur hur.

I’m not doing this to be an irrational hater, but rather to analytically illustrate what I think is wrong with contemporary literature. At random, I have selected a paragraph out of a book titled, Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe, because another blogger linked to it recently (hello!), and I think it serves as a good example of why I have dismissed this decade’s literature all together.

Disclaimer: I have not read this book, cannot review the quality of the story itself, and haven’t the slightest idea of what the writing is like outside of the preview available on Amazon. I have absolutely no opinion on the book itself; my complaint is with contemporary writing practices.

From the sample:

They both turned to look out of the window of the assisted living facility in north London. Issy had installed Joe there when it became clear he was getting too absentminded to live on his own. Issy had hated moving him down south after he’d spent his life in the north, but she needed him close to visit. Joe had grumbled of course but he was going to grumble anyway, moving out of his home to anywhere that wouldn’t let him rise at 5:00 a.m. and start pounding bread dough. So he might as well be grumpy close by, where she could keep an eye on him. After all, it wasn’t as if anyone else was around to do it. And the three bakeries, with their proud, shiny brass handles and old signs proclaiming them to be “electric bakers,” were gone now; fallen prey to the supermarkets and chains that favored cheap white pulp over handcrafted but slightly more expensive loaves.

First, for some unfathomable reason, authors have all decided that they have a raging allergy to commas. Maybe they think it’s more conversational, that commas are outdated and useless, or they simply never learned how to organize a sentence during their schooling; whatever the case, reading feels more like delving into an overgrown forest where one is expected to hack their way through alone. It also makes it significantly harder to read out loud, since being expected to run on and on without any pauses in one long unbroken sentence gives a monotone effect that can be really quite hypnotic … Woah, sorry, got sucked into the wrong dimension there for a moment.

The worst, in my opinion, is something that I think of as “THE TWITTER EFFECT.” You never, ever, not in a million years, see sentences longer than 280 characters (most will stay under 140, which was Twitter’s original cut off point), even in novels. Yes, I know that Moby-Dick was ridiculous for having sentences that spanned more than one page, but that doesn’t mean the answer is to only write short, choppy, status updates in lieu of actual paragraphs. I blame social media.

The longest sentence in the quoted paragraph is 258 characters, including the improperly used semicolon. Four of them are shorter than 100 characters, which accounts for more than half of the sentences in the paragraph.

So, let’s rewrite it. After all, if I’m going to claim that I can do better, I might as well back it up!

They both turned to look out of the window of the assisted living facility in north London, where Issy had installed her grampa Joe after it had become clear that he was getting too absentminded to live on his own. Issy had hated moving him so far from his home, but she had wanted him close by for her to visit, and they had no other family members who were willing to help take care of him. Joe had grumbled, of course, but he was sure to be grouchy anywhere that wouldn’t let him rise at 5:00 a.m. to start pounding dough, so he might as well be grouchy where she could keep an eye on him. The three bakeries of his past, with their proud, shiny, brass handles, and old signs proclaiming them to be “electric bakers”, were gone now, fallen prey to the supermarkets and chains that favored cheap, white pulp over handcrafted, yet slightly more expensive, loaves.

The length is the same, but I combined the seven sentences into four to decrease the choppy effect of countless periods, and enhance the overall flow of the story itself. I used a lot more commas for clear organization, and with any luck, you should be able to read that sucker out loud without stumbling. Give it a shot, and tell me if I’m wrong.

Thusly we have learned: Use commas and think longer thoughts, ’cause I ain’t got nothin’ to read.

I need a rest after writing this post. Whew.