The Worst Kind of Struggle

Okay, I admit the title is a lie, well not a lie... more of an exaggeration.  So many more things worse than this could under the title of the worst kind of struggle.


What is my supposed worst kind of struggle?  It's a lot like a writer's block, but not quite the same.  It's writer's resistance.  I've actually made it to the end of this novel, or should I say I've written to the end section.  Now that I'm staring down the finish line, what do I do?  I stare at the screen for a bit and then turn on the television, or pick up a book, or clean the house... the list goes on from there and gets more and more pitiful.


I'm fighting writing the end of this novel.  It's not like I don't know what happens.  It's not like I don't like the ending I'm heading toward.  So why am I fighting this?  I do know a few possible reasons.


I don't want to say goodbye to characters is a top contender.  But, if I'm honest, I've been thinking quite a bit about my next project.  So how much can I be worried I'll miss them?


There's also the ever popular fear of failure/success.  If I... oops... when I finish this novel, I'll be looking at revising and then the dreaded publishing specter.  I think I kinda like this one.  It has a loaded, psychology punch to it.  What if I actually succeed and get this book out?  What if I don't?  What if I do and I can't write another?  All kinds of good stuff in this one.


The one I dislike the most, that's come to mind in just the last few minutes, is that deep down I'm not really a writer.  The supporting evidence not being the 386 pages I've put down so far.  But a real, quality, scary and panicky kind of thought, none the less.


I've been told all writer's go through times of self-doubt.  I don't know if that's exactly true, but it's certainly believable.  I've questioned my skills and talents in other areas before.  It's probably something we all go through.


So what do I do?  Power through?   Head down and nose to the grindstone? ... and stare at a blankish screen where the end of my novel ought to be.  Honestly, I'm not sure.


Maybe I need to refill my creative cup.  Maybe it's a discipline issue.  (I could definitely buy into a discipline issue...)  Maybe analyzing it will just give me more to distract myself (hmm... that seems likely).


Somewhere inside there used to be a desire to tell this story.  The desire was so great, that I couldn't help but write.  There were days I could barely manage to get through my day job, I was so ready to write.


I can only hope that I can find that again.  And soon.  This story deserves its ending.

Random Thoughts From A Tired Mind

I've been having trouble sleeping lately.  Some of the time, it's genuinely me.  Either I can't relax or I can't stop thinking about something that happened during the day.  (I love to kick myself for things I said.  Anybody with me on that?)  And then some of time, it's truly not my fault.

The weather woke me up two nights ago about an hour and a half after I went to bed.  When rain and thunder wake me, I have to check out the weather radar to see how severe the storm really is.  I find it hard to go back to sleep worrying that a real weather event is on it's way (read: tornado).

So I checked my favorite website for weather, weather.com, and as expected, it wasn't anything serious, just ridiculously heavy rain and lightning.  I'd have hoped that I would be able to get back to sleep after that, but the rain was really that loud, it sounded like hail.

After that and a few other nights of inadequate sleep, I find myself asking a lot of weird questions.

Why, if it's supposed to be high efficiency, doesn't my washing machine allow me to use the same water I used to soak my clothes in bleach, to then wash them by just adding detergent and starting a wash cycle, instead of forcing me to drain the basin and start from scratch?

How can there be such a thing as color-safe bleach?  Bleach takes the color out of things...

Why do clocks run to the right (clock-wise), instead of the left (counter clock-wise)?  And why do I even care if most of the clocks in my life are digital anyway?

When did I become so old that I don't see a single movie trailer that appeals to me?  No plot is even hinted at in these things, they're either just a series of jokes or explosions, maybe both.  Seriously?  What about that is supposed to make me want to see this movie?

Does anyone else find the remakes of old movies, or the reboots of old series, as irritating as I do?  (I'm guessing at least some of time it's yes, since they don't always do very well.)  New movies in a series are at least different, if not terrific.  (I'm crossing my fingers for the new Star Wars movie.)

Why are violets blue?  Shouldn't they be... oh, I don't know... violet?  On a related note, not all roses are red...  although that's just an observation.

Who decided on red, yellow, and green for traffic lights?  (I'm sure there is a real answer to this question.)   There are people with red/green color blindness...

Anyone out there have a good suggestion on how silence the mind and get some sleep?  I could use it.

How do I think this "stuff" up? - Part 3

This is part three of a series attempting to answer the question: Where do your ideas come from?

This blog post may be a bit abstract.  I'm hoping to share how I create characters for a story.  As shown in post 2, character creation is really the final planning step for me.  By this time, I already have a general plot line and an idea about the setting.  I've even loosely defined the background of some of the characters so that they belong in that plot line and in that setting.

Now is the time to flesh out those characters.  Here it becomes a little difficult to talk about process.  In some cases, I've started with names based on what I think the character maybe like.  For example, if I have a character that I anticipate we'll be happy most of the time, I might choose a name like Joy.  By the end of the writing process, and may decide to change that name, but for the time being it's an excellent place holder.

Or, I may start with a physical description.  For example, height, hair color, eye color, and clothing choices.  I am attempting to actually visualize this character.  I don't picture people I know or celebrities.  These characters really are characters in and of themselves.

I find the background of my characters makes the most difference in who they are.  How they relate to their family, their education, and other life experiences determine what they think and what they do; just like "real" people, so I also flesh that out.

How do I flesh out the backgrounds for my characters?  One technique is much like an interview process for a magazine article or newspaper.  I have conversations in my head with my character.  Sometimes, I imagine two of the characters talking to each other, not necessarily in line with the story, and see what they say to each other.  Another fun way to get to know a character is to envision two other characters talking about them.  While there is only surface information, I can get a feel for how they deal with others, whether or not they're patient, kind, prompt, fair, and so on.  How deep into their backgrounds I go, depends on how well I feel I've started to get to know the characters.

When the characters begin to come to life, I can start to envision them in the setting and in the plot and allow them to interact in scenes that would fit in with the story.  This is all in my head, without writing a word on paper.  I allow the characters to interact in ways they may never interact in the story, as well, in order to get to know them better.

At this point, real plotline development will begin.  In fact, I don't really have a choice.  I will start to see and hear the characters interacting with each other in scenes that demand to go into the first draft.  So my character development and my more detailed plot development begin to go hand in hand.  As I work out which individual scenes must go into the first draft in order to take my reader from beginning to conclusion, the individual characters will shape how that will be done.

Although, at times I have attempted to develop an absolute outline of the plot, thus far I have failed to complete a draft of the story that has followed a rigid guide.  The characters will from time to time do what they wish because of who they are, and I had no choice but to follow along, hoping that I will be able to bring them back on track for the ending I intend.

I know this may be a little hard to understand.  I see my characters in my head much like you would see on TV screen or in the movies.  I can't always tell them what to say like a script writer, though.  It can be a big shock when a character suddenly reveals something about themselves that I didn't know.  Then I have to decide whether to let them be themselves or to cut the dialog and attempt to rein them in.  So far, I've found that characters will not cooperate if I try to rein them in.  They may be part of my imagination, but in my imagination they are real, and I can't control them anymore than I can control other people around me.

In order to allow my characters to breathe on the page, I have to allow them the freedom and space to live in my own mind.  So I allow them to be true to themselves as best I can, even when it means a detour in the plot, or perhaps an entirely different ending.  Thankfully, I haven't ever lost an ending to a character surprise, but I'm accepting of the fact that one day I might not have a happy ending because the characters won't allow it, or vice-versa.

If you have thoughts on this subject or questions you'd like to ask, please add a comment and I'll address it.

Thank you for reading this series of posts.

How do I think this "stuff" up? - Part 2

This is part two of a series attempting to answer the question: Where do your ideas come from?

In this entry I'd like to address the shaping of a story.  When I speak about shaping, I'm not talking about plot elements, I'm referring to the move from a cloudy haze (or perhaps a complete blank) into a solid, though probably simple, idea.

I begin nearly all of my stories with a search for a plot.  (I say nearly because I have started with a character before and worked to fit the story to him, but that isn't my usual process.)  When the plot is crafted it will contain at least two elements, the main character(s) and the conflict.  In many cases, I'll also have a setting.

For my current project, I started with the question, "What would I most like to read right now?"  The answer, at that time, was "A workplace romance."

A brief point: Yes, the beginning of my writing process is about reading and my own opinion.  Although I desperately want everyone to read and enjoy what I write, the person I most want to please is myself.  I'm not interested in "catering" to an audience.  If everyone else hates it, I can still say that one person loved it.  For me, the most important thing is to be able say that I'm proud of my writing.

I liked the idea.  A workplace romance offers all manner of choices for conflict, as sexual harassment, equality issues, and even the rumor mill make a real life workplace romance very challenging.  The possibilities for conflict were wide open!

Having settled quickly on a general concept, it was time to get specific by answering more questions:

1. What does the company do?
2. What size is it?  (small business/large corporation/etc)
3. What is the work environment like?

The more of these questions and others like them that I could answer, the easier it was to begin shaping characters.

1. Who would work here?
2. Which department is the setting?
3. What kind of background (education/experience) would the employees have?

As you can see, I actually developed the setting first, and then began imagining the people that would fit in this setting.

The main characters and the conflict between them is the next step.  Because this story is a romance, I didn't feel I had much to decide.  I like romances that are told from the third person focusing on the two people who are involved in the romance.  If I wanted to write a love triangle, I might have a third.  In my case, I didn't want to inject another person into the mix in that manner, so I was able to settle on two.

Continuing to stay very general, I thought about what jobs my two main characters would have at the company I'd already created.  Because I'd decided on a software company, I chose to give both my characters programming backgrounds who had moved into management.  Why?  Because it easily established a natural conflict, they would both be competing for a promotion.  This seemed a perfect conflict for a workplace romance because there is not only the competition between the characters and therefore an obstacle for them to overcome to become a couple, but also the question of staying together when one receives the promotion.

At this point, I had a pretty rough story idea.  Two competing managers in a software company finding love against the odds.

As I actually began to develop my characters, I created more intricate backgrounds and some inner conflict as well.  I'll address this in part 3 of this series.

If you have questions or thoughts to share about this post, please leave a comment.

How do I think this "stuff" up? - Part 1

I expect every author gets asked one question more than any other: Where do your ideas come from?

I wanted to post about the creative process for that very reason, everyone wants to know about it.  The problem is, naturally, that to encapsulate the entire process into a single blog post seems an impossible task.  But since I never shirk from the impossible, I'm going to change the rules and make it happen.  As the title of this post implies, this won't be a single blog post, but a short series of posts, in which I attempt to explain my creative process.

Today's post is not so much about the overall process, as it is about a very important piece of the process that occurs over and over while shaping a character, a plot, a setting... any part of the story.  It's a technique and the rules around it's application come straight out the business world: Brainstorming

Yes, storytellers were probably using this method to craft their fireside entertainment since the beginning of spoken language, many millennia before it found its way to a conference room, but that's where many of us have heard this term.  The lucky ones were taught to use it in school.

What do I mean by brainstorming?  It means simply letting ideas flow without judgment.  Notice the words without judgment.  If after every idea popped into my head, the next thought was that's stupid, I'd never get anywhere.  Are some ideas stupid... well, sort of.  Maybe stupid isn't the right word.  Let's say that not all ideas are usable.  That's more like it.  But might the next idea that was actually a twist off of the original idea be usable?  The only way to know, is to let it flow!

Example: When I was crafting a particular character for the book I'm currently writing, I already knew a lot about him but not all of it made sense at the beginning.  I already knew that he'd left home for school and then stayed away to work and that it was, at least in part, to get away from his family.  But I didn't know why.  I also knew that he didn't own a car; he used public transportation.  Nothing wrong with any of it, but why?

Then, I had this unexplained idea about him in my head, he talks to trees.  Stupid idea, right?  Well, let's see.  As I thought about it, I realized that he doesn't talk to them all the time while walking down the street with people around, and he certainly isn't expecting an answer.  He just likes to get some of his stress out by talking to the trees in his backyard.

After I heard the monologue in my head, this guy to his tree, he suddenly started to round out a little and gain some depth.  His family background started to take shape.  The family is in the lumber business and that explains why he left home to work, he doesn't agree with what they do for a living.  He's an environmentalist, although that's not his profession.  Now I know why he doesn't own a car!  If I had shut down this idea of talking to trees, I don't know that he'd ever have made any sense.  I might have even scrapped him and tried to start over.

That one idea, unusable at the beginning, became a definition for this character and his past.  (I promise he doesn't spend the entire book talking to trees in his backyard.)

All because I didn't say no to the idea immediately.

If you're a writer and having problems with any pieces of your story, I can't recommend brainstorming enough.  Do it by yourself... on paper... into a recording device... with a trusted friend (who will play by the no judgment rule)... in a group... on a walk... listening to music... in silence...

So, where do I start my brainstorming?  I'll write about that in part 2.  

For now, give yourself the gift of judgment free brainstorming and tell me how it's working for you.

It's been a long day...

I have, well, the word addiction isn't appropriate.  Nor is obsession  So let's call it a fascination,  I have a fascination with musical movies, song and dance musicals.  Like Singin' In The Rain and Oklahoma and Silk Stockings and so on and on and on.

I love them so much that I'd be hard pressed to pick a favorite.  In fact, I probably couldn't make a list of favorites that spoke about my taste, because it would just be too long to analyze.  But certain moments from musicals spring to my mind all the time, and for those, I can compile a list that's short enough to have some symbolic meaning.

For example, I just adore the song It's Been A Long Day from How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying.  Although the main idea of the song is two people hemming and hawing about whether or not to go out on a date, the line that's repeated over and over by the characters to cover up the awkwardness is "Well, it's been a long day.  Well, it's been a long, been a long, been a long day."  I'm not Ally McBeal.  I don't have a cast of characters appearing around me to sing all the time.  But I do have a bit of a soundtrack in my head and that chorus comes up all the time.  And boy, has it been a long day...

Today's post started to be another about not making much progress.  I could blame it on the full-time job and a number of other things that pop up in life from time to time, but as I look at what I'm doing, it occurs to me that I've been passively avoiding querying by writing on my new project.  I'm probably far from objective, but I do think the book I'm working on now is coming together better than the one that is currently complete.  (This may be a faulty impression taken from the rejections, but then, it might not be...)  So, I'm going to take a step back from worrying about querying and any guilt associated with not doing it.  Instead, I'm accepting that what I want to do is finish this second book, where I so much more of my hope and pleasure currently lies.

The new plan is to finish the first draft of current book by the end of July.  I'll then be able to step back from it and focus all my efforts on queries.  Depending on the results from the queries, I may find myself re-writing the first book.  If that's the case, then I'll do it actively, rather than passively avoid it.  And then, perhaps in September, I'll revisit this second book and begin editing.

Whatever happens, at least I can say I wrote a book, published or not.  I may yet have a second.  And They Can't Take That Away From Me...

Slipped the Hook

My bite didn't pan out.  I still take it as the good sign that I was able to sell the idea enough for someone to express some interest.  I was also lucky to have received some feedback.  I guess it's back to the queries.

Wish me luck.