Originally published at How Not To Write. You can comment here or there.

For those of you following the saga of my long bout with a old story, I'm pleased to announce that I've finished said story and it's ready for a final proof.

The Six Reasons to Finish My Story really helped me get focused on pushing to the finish line and putting the tale to rest. I have no idea if it's a good story, but it's done and I'm happy.

Now, if you thought I was having a hard time of it, you should check out this post by Crawford Kilian about Getting Over Writer's Block:

Well, I've certainly written myself into some blind alleys. About 40 years ago I was on fire to write an SF novel. I bashed out about 100 pages and stopped dead. It took me almost a decade to get a grip and finish the novel, which was published in 1978.

Kilian's recommendation are fantastic. I highly recommend that folks drop by and take a look. Here are several ways I try to use writer's block to fuel my work.

How I Use Writers Block

1. I get angry.

Not finishing something is incredibly frustrating. I usually go through stages of denial, anger, acceptance, anger... Did I say anger?

Anger seems to be the one emotion that really pushes me over the edge and forces me back to the keyboard. Writing angry gets me to toss out all of the garbage between me and the story. Eventually, I run out of steam and then the story becomes quite clear. The stuff that comes out of angry writing sessions is hardly usable, but that's not the point. The point is that I get past whatever it is that is holding me back.

2. I write another story.

Technically, this is still writer's block. However, the block that occurs on story A may open up a new angle on story B. If I can't get angry about a story that's stalled, I set it aside and try to keep moving forward.

3. I open up to others.

Writer's block tends to be a lonely affair, but there is nothing wrong with asking for help. The opinions of others can be very useful in working through the block. They may not lead me in the right direction but often I get to talking about the story in an objective manner and suddenly I'm at the same place I would have gone if I'd gotten angry.

4. I write blog posts like this one.

Again, trying to get past a block is often about losing yourself in some activity or another. I've found that dropping out to write posts is helpful. At the moment, I'm not really suffering a true block on anything in particular...

[sigh] No, I'm afraid it isn't true. I'm blocked on something I really want to get back to and finish. It's a YA novel I started in 2006. I was writing this book for my son and I ended up writing myself into a bit of a corner. Rather than work through it, I set it aside and haven't gone back. Beating the crap out of myself hasn't helped much on this one and neither has working on other stories.

5. I learn to love what I write.

While forcing myself through a block often gets the work done, the best route through the block is and has always been embracing stories with my entire being. I can't be afraid of how good the story might be or how much it means to me. I have to love the story as one would love a child. And just like raising children, I have to accept that my role is getting the story to the point where it can stand on its own and I, like a proud parent, can marvel at the direction the story goes on its own.

Originally published at How Not To Write. You can comment here or there.

I've had a few people lately who have asked me why I don't use my real name on this site. I've certainly thought about it from time to time, especially as I've been blogging under an semi-anonymous identity for about eight years now (six years on another site and two years here). It isn't like it's all that hard to find, but why not just put it out there?

My name is Jamie Grove.

There. I said it.

I guess I've always had this little identity problem. I'm not alone in this. I've read about plenty of writers who have gone through the same sort of problems.

As a eulogy to my mask, here's a little story about how I came to be afraid of my own name...

I got hooked on writing because my fifth grade teacher let me skip class.

A friend of mine was working on a long story that spilled over into multiple chapters and detailed illustrations. The teacher was so excited that she let him work in the hall for an hour a day. To me, this looked like an easy way to ditch class so I started writing a story too... The same story my friend was writing, only it wasn't as good.

I remember how quiet it was in the hall...

My friend made steady progress on his book, while I started to wonder what I was doing out there. My thoughts began to wander and I found myself scribbling a few ideas of my own.

After a few weeks, my friend finished his book. The librarian bound up his book and made it available for checkout in the school library.

But when I was asked to show what I had, I turned in a pile of messy notes instead of the book. Something about seeing all those thoughts and feelings with my name on it terrified me. I froze up and could not force myself to produce the work I'd struggled to create.

This is something that's happened to me again and again, but now it's time to say good-bye to all that.

Why I Did It Today

Here are two posts that deserve some love. The authors and commenters really inspired me to toss off the mask:

How to Get More Business by Commenting on Blogs by James Chartrand

Use your name. Some people hide behind cute or witty nicknames or only use their business name to identify themselves. It’s a bad idea and detracts from your business credibility.

-- James

Feel Great Naked: Confidence Boosters for Getting Personal by Sonia Simone

It is a waste of time and energy to keep secrets about yourself. You care way more than other people care about your life and what you may or may not have done. It is best to open up, vent, move on, and advance to the next stage. Let others worry about hiding in the corner.

-- The Masked Millionaire

More About Me

You can find out about my professional life via my LinkedIn profile http://www.linkedin.com/in/jamiegrove. For a little more insight, read - You Pay for the Brain. Vanity Costs Extra.

I blog about technology and E-Commerce stuff on occasion over at Field Guide to Programmers. I post some funny and sometimes poignant hooptedoodle over at Awesome Mustache.

I used to run a site called AuthorStore.com. It was one of the first book price search engines on the web. Later it became a blog. Later still, it turned into a literary mess that I wrote in the third person. Now it is asleep.

Below is a picture of me before I got half loaded at the Irish Lion in Bloomington, IN. I highly recommend this pub.

I really have written two bad novels and lots of short stories. Those all bear my name... And yes, I do indeed have a journal crammed with 2MM words.

If you're still not sure about coming out, check out this older article by Sonia Simone, Come Out of the Closet:

No one gives a rat's ass about the huge investment of energy you spend trying to be like everyone else.

Most of us spend our time and energy carefully cultivating our masks. And those masks are almost universally a) laughably transparent, and/or b) boring.

It seems simple, and it is, but it's also hard. Being remarkable means being different. "Different" is not actually all that far from "weird."

One of the great cornerstones of marketing (note to self, must add this to the marketing tool kit for my newsletter) is differentiation. You'll also see it called the unique value proposition or unique selling proposition. You need to find out, and communicate, what makes you unlike all of your customers' other options. What makes you uniquely valuable. What makes you interesting. What makes you remarkable.

What makes you weird.

I hope this post of mine inspires other writers to come out of the world of anonymous blogging. Chuck the masks and get on with life!

Originally published at How Not To Write. You can comment here or there.

So often, the literary mind strays toward larger country, places where the voice can be heard far and wide. We dream about being bestsellers or winning prizes, but today I want you to think about what your skill can accomplish in your own neighborhood.

Now, something you should know is that I love ruins. Yeah, I'm a romantic dreamer, which is part of the reason I never finish my work.

Below is a brief piece I wrote about an abandoned early-19th century home just down the street from my house. I've known this house all my life so when I heard that it was going to be torn down it broke my heart.

I sat at my kitchen table and decided to pour all my memories about the house into something like an essay. When it was finished, I sent it off to the local newspaper and they ran it in the next week's edition.

The Old Stone House

The Richards house stands less than half a mile from my home. My children call it the Ghost House, because of a story I once heard, but most people recognize it simply as "The Old Stone House."

According to local history, Ebenezer Richards built the house in 1811. Richards, a Welsh immigrant born in 1773, handed down the house his son Hiram. Both men are buried in the little cemetery up behind the SuperAmerica. Ebenezer's daughter, Zipporah, is also buried in there. She married John McCoy, and the two built several homes before finally settling far enough away from the river so as not to be harassed by the Wyandotte tribe.

My first memory of the Richards house is from the late 1970s. At the time, there was a playground next to the house called the Tot Lot. There is a brief image of a summer sunset stretching across the Scioto River. We played until it was dark. As the shadows deepened in the window frames, I remember wondering who might have lived in that old house.

Of course, no one had lived there for a long time, and so much has changed since the first stones were laid.

At the library, I found a picture of the Scioto River as it looked in the mid-19th century. Thick trees crowded the riverbank. A plank bridge strung on heavy rope crossed the water, but the river looked as if it couldn't have been much more than waist deep at the center. The cool waters sparkling in the sun reminded me of the Big Darby Creek. I felt I could see the lush shades of green trees and the dusty brown of the road that led to Hilliard.

I try to imagine the view from the Richards back porch, but that old river is gone. Now, the waters are far deeper and wider than Richards could have imagined. The river belongs to the scullers who coast silently over the surface most of the year and the boaters who motor along in search of pleasure when it is warm. The shore and the grassy heights belong to the omnipresent geese who seem to require evermore room to graze. There is no room for the Richards house it seems.

As I understand it, the Division of Water is fixed to demolish the Richards house in the spring. Today, it's a dilapidated thing. Much neglected, graffiti sprayed over the plywood covering windows and doors. The roof on one side caved in a few winters ago.

It seems a pity to me though that this house cannot be saved, if only that some child might look up on a summer evening and wonder who might have lived there... Perhaps they might discover that the past is not so distant as the western shore.

What Happened Next

I didn't think much about it, but then a few friends of mine in town talked about the letter. I heard that other people, people I did not know, were talking about it. A little while later, a group formed to save the house and marshaled enough resources and clout to stop the demolition.

Since I drive by the house every day, I watched the workmen come and begin the repairs. They put a new roof on the house and scrubbed the stone. They erected a fence around the property to keep kids from vandalizing it. Now it stands ready to become an historical center for our little part of the river region.

I really have no idea how much help my letter was in this whole process. I certainly could have pitched in with the others in the more practical work of raising money and such, but I like to think that I helped especially when I see the sculling crews drifting by on the smooth surface of the river at dawn.

Originally published at How Not To Write. You can comment here or there.

This weekend I was out walking with my boys when a strong wind blew a stream of crabapple blossoms across our path. My four year-old laughed and tried to catch the swirling, pink petals. Then suddenly he asked, "What is this?"

I told him that the flowers came from the trees on the other side of the park, but he ignored my explanation and went on playing with the flowers as if he were dancing in an unexpected snow shower. It made me wonder just what he was really asking...

Sometimes, when I look at what I consider to be my best writing, I feel disappointed to find that there is nothing like a plot to be found between the lines. But if I pick out the works I've really hammered into shape, I see them as lifeless exercises built to meet a specification of what writing is supposed be.

They say that a writer finds their true voice only when they discover their master theme. This seems like a convenient way to summarize an artistic career from a retrospective vantage point, but perhaps it's true.

In many ways, working the master theme is like developing a series character, except the character happens to be the author. Instead of a plot, the master theme serves as the question that never quite gets answered until the final work the artist produces.

A writer works for years to discover their theme, often unconscious of the driving force behind their work. They scribble and sweat and then the light clicks on. At this point, the author might race to the finish and produce the "masterpiece" that is the capstone of the master theme. A wise author might milk the insight for a few books.

I've written across so many different subjects and in so many forms, that I think it's safe to say that I haven't got much of a clue about my master theme. Still, there is clearly something driving me forward because as frustrated as I get I always find myself back in my studio -- working.

Originally published at How Not To Write. You can comment here or there.

A flower shop occupies the first floor of this building. In turn, a cat occupies the flower shop. This feline, a sleek, black puss named Boo, is the most friendly sort of cat. You can't help but call him Boo Kitty, which seems a little feminine but he tolerates it.

Image credit: fofurasfelinas (Flickr)

Quite often, I am the first person to see Boo Kitty in the morning. He stretches and slowly makes his way over to the window, rubbing his head against the flower-filled wicker baskets in the window. I say hello to Boo Kitty. In return, he looks up at me with wild, yellow cat eyes as if I am insane, but then resigns himself to merely blinking his eyes languorously.

As I understand it, cats say hello by blinking. I've also heard this behavior described as "sending kisses." It seems rude not to return such affections and so I to blink slowly at Boo Kitty, taking care not to close my eyes completely just as he does.

This reminds me of something I heard regarding the Japanese custom of bowing: that one should not entirely break eye contact when bowing. I have no idea if this is true, but it does lead to thought about a recent observation I made at the airport.

A few weeks ago, I went to the airport to pick up an arriving family member. While waiting outside the gate area, a young woman arrived with a sign of welcome addressed to delegation from the University of Tokyo. She took up a position near the secured exit and held the sign tight against her chest.

As we waited for our respective parties, I watched the woman shift her weight from one leg to the other. Because she was quite tall I couldn't help but notice how small the poster-board looked in her hands.

When the students from Tokyo arrived, there were muddled hellos accompanied by much nodding and smiling. When the formal introductions began, the bowing progressed from round one to round two, then seemed destined for a third round. The Japanese looked uncertain and then uncomfortable. Two of the Japanese began ignoring their host entirely, looking around the atrium with a sort of distracted sense of despair.

Thinking about Boo Kitty, I wonder what he must think as I try to greet him with my feeble impressions of cat sign language. He does not appear to be uncomfortable or resent the fact that I am blinking at him.

But when should I stop blinking?

In practice, I usually stop when he turns away and begins studying the silk flowers. His detached intensity reduces me to a state of non-being. When he does this, I often tap the glass to get his attention, so that I might continue my obsessive winking despite is clear indifference.

-----

Now that I am observing this bit of prose at a distance, I see an interesting pattern evolve which is not unlike the "double-slit" experiment in quantum physics.

The double-slit works this way (at least in my feeble mind):

Begin with two sheets of metal parallel to one another and separated by a certain distance. Cut a slit in one sheet and then shine a flashlight through the slit. On the the second sheet, you will see a pattern shaped like the slit. The definition of that shape is controlled by the distance between the two sheets. If you move them further apart, the shape becomes more diffuse, closer together more distinct.

Now, add a second slit to the first sheet. When you shine the flashlight through both slits, you might assume that you will end up with two shapes on the second sheet that bear a resemblance to the first experiment. However, something else happens instead. You get a banding affect across the whole second sheet.

How does this happen?

In the case of a single slit, light flows somewhat freely from the slit to the second sheet. There is no interference save for the distance. When a second slit is added, the diffusion I mentioned earlier is complicated by two streams of light touching one another. This interference causes collisions which in turn radiate outward as a kind of lattice. When the lattice reaches a plane (i.e. the second sheet of metal), it imprints the banded effect on the two-dimensional surface.

This is really too technical though. I think that a better way to describe it is to look at the checkout lanes at the grocery store...

If you have a single checkout, customers stream out one end and generally head to the exit. If you observe the line over the course of an hour or so, you will see certain deviations. For example, some customers return their carts while others might step to the side to investigate a product that is only visible after one has completed a purchase. As a side note, the latter customer is oddly confused for it is not apparent how one actually goes about buying the thing if it is not in the established path to purchase. The vast majority though head for the door.

Now, add a second (or third checkout line) and things change. Instead of a fairly smooth path to the door, carts pile up, people get in the way of each other, and if there is more than one exit customers may change direction completely. So instead of an even distribution of people exiting, a minor chaos evolves in the tiny collisions that occur after the successful transaction.

Literature evolves in a similar fashion.

In this post, I begin with a man (me) standing outside a shop window. There is a cat inside the shop. The man, who would like to pet the cat, is prevented from doing so by the presence of the glass. Unable to interact with the animal in his preferred manner (i.e. scratch the kitty's head) he tries to establish a connection with the cat through the non-verbal cues he's learned from observing the habits of cats. The man and the cat are the first slit.

To this scene, I add a reminiscence of witnessing the Japanese greeting at the airport. As the shape of the piece evolves, these two threads produce different offshoots.

For example, the cat in the first part is black and sleek. Though it may be stereotypical to say so many Japanese students have a look that may be describes as black and sleek to western eyes. Their hair is black and their facial features are smooth. They are usually thin and dressed in black. And in fact, all of these things are true about the students I saw (though they are not universally true). To a person, they were dressed in black and though in unfamiliar surroundings they did not move like shy people do. They sort of floated through the terminal, gracefully taking in their surroundings.

What I do not tell the reader is that the woman who greeted the Japanese was decidedly unattractive. I elude to the fact that she was tall, but I do not point out that she had dull red hair. I avoid mentioning her clothes, which were far too tight and accentuated the fact that she was grossly overweight. Lastly, I have spared the reader any trace of her horrific case of adult acne.

Well, why did I do that?

And this is a good question because the first version of this work contained all of those details. You see, as I was writing the piece these two streams of imagery collided and produced a lattice of essential and non-essential information. All of it was transferred to the page, and what should have appeared as two distinct story lines became a series of bands.

My essential story is about the mistakes we make when trying to connect with others and the untouchable magic of the Other which compels us to make those mistakes even when we know that we are making them. That sentence may be a bit confusing. Let it sink in for a moment.

So, as the bands of the composition process evolved, I found myself staring at a bit of a mess. I needed to clean it up. Fortunately, writing is not like the rest of the universe. Though a pattern evolved, I can make revisions by erasing the non-essential bands. I scrubbed out the details about the woman, and those about myself. I removed the parts where I touched the glass to "pet" Boo Kitty though I kept the rapping on the glass at the end because it was similar to the woman's incessant bowing.

What if we took this approach to other things in life? What if we allowed the diffusion of so many threads to rest upon the surface of the moment and then went back and scrubbed out the non-essential. Does life become more interesting? Is Boo Kitty more interesting with the rather cruel observations about the woman, or do we fade those cruel observations into the background so that the main message is made clear by example?

I think these questions are not easy to answer, but they've done a fine job of keeping me from writing this morning.

Originally published at How Not To Write. You can comment here or there.

How can a story, or even a line of prose of any sort capture the sound of the morning wind in the city?

The traffic moving slowly, crawling through the shadows, that murmur that merges with the clouds passing above and the man putting out his garbage with the clatter-click of his beer bottles rattling against the concrete step. How does a line of prose capture that? And the smell? The chilly morning when the temperature is perhaps just at the edge, where one is unsure of whether to wear the spring jacket or the winter coat, opting (as I did) for the spring jacket and then leaving it unzipped so that the cold filters in and makes you feel alive. That smell then on the breeze, which is cool and crisp and fresh, the smell of spring before the trees have burst forth but after all traces of ice and salt have disappeared.

James Joyce wanted to include the world within his prose. Something like the above, written as a dialogue of thought using the functional mechanics of the mind, the way things actually work inside the brain. He included everything. His was an art of inclusion to the point of abstraction. Let's juxtapose this against Samuel Beckett, Joyce's protege, who went in the opposite direction, writing huge tracts about nothing at all. In fact, creating an art of nothingness, which seemed to summarize the world's state so much better than everything...

And yet, they both suffered from the same constraint, the covers of the book. The story on paper. The novel. Beckett broke free by turning to the theater. He broke through the "fourth wall" if we must assign some metaphor.

Just yesterday, I heard someone mention Godot on the radio. They were talking about the Attorney General and the release of thousands of pages of information where everyone was talking about the AG and yet nowhere did he appear. How strange that Beckett would be mentioned in this manner, and how symbolic. Thousands of pages about nothing at all and yet the sum must add up to a whole. There must be a meaning to all of that _stuff_ and in the meaning is the man, the AG. The Godot of the scandal.

I wrote this in the cafe this morning:

Nothing could please me more than the death of the novel. This isn't a vindictive statement. Not at all. The form itself does not displease me. I even derive pleasure from it when time permits.

That's rather the point though. The novel as an art form requires a commitment of time and focus. Precious commodities these days.

When do we have time to consider the novel? On an airplane? In a hotel? Certainly not in our homes and certainly not in our regular daily lives...

I am a man who appreciates leisure. I do all that I can to fill those hours with meaningful pursuits. Obviously there is an inherent paradox in this statement.

Yet, if I cannot find the time to consider the novel (or establish that block of time by force), who can?

Then again, this isn't quite pure either (but it is stuffy!). I want to end it as my primary form of literary expression. I want my writing to feel as real as that moment this morning while I was walking down the street, listening to the breeze and sensing spring in the air.

I feel alive, and alive in such a way that I cannot be concerned with whether or not my tale makes sense. It isn't supposed to make sense. It is a state of Unreason.

I've read the essays of many novelists who have decried the death of the novel, but none that have openly welcomed it as I do. I find the novel a frustrating art form to grapple with in part because my interests are too varied and changing to spend a great deal of time polishing the knob on one particular vein.

This is a rather funny way of saying that I'm too lazy to write a novel, but it's true.

I have enough energy to write thousands of words every day, but no inclination to go back and make them palatable. Besides, when I do that, when I go back and really work the words over, I end up making them so stylized and self-conscious that they mean nothing. They are pretty and forgettable. It's a big world. I'll leave that to someone else.

My wife asked me if I had some perverse need to fail, if I took comfort in the fact that I could not be a success. I scoffed, but in fact it is probably true. I like to fail. It makes me happy as strange as that sounds. And so, if I embrace my failure as a permanent situation, completely unavoidable, do I simply stop worrying about the outcome and then succeed by default? What happens then?

Well, that is a strange line of thinking and probably worth several thousand words, but today is a morning for other thoughts. There is no time to consider failure. I have time today only for love.

This morning I went out for a run. This was my first run in weeks. Over the last two years, I've gained something like 30 pounds. That's a lot, even for a man with a build like mine (broad shoulders, a little above average height). So, to say that this is my first run in weeks is inherently untrue. It is my first run in years, though I've been running off and on.

While running, I tend to talk to myself. That talking is not so different than my writing, except that (of course) none of it gets recorded unless I remember to do so when I sit down to write. That sounds like an obvious statement, but my mind works like this constantly. It is always moving, from one idea to the next, from one sense to another. It is a hive of activity and despite my best efforts I cannot change that fact.

That brings me back around to the 30 pounds. Those 30 pounds represent my effort to cage myself. For two years, I've tried to be something I'm not. It started slowly but by degrees my world turned and grew inward. My external persona became more and more focused but my soul, yes my very soul, turned inside out. I began to expand, quite literally, breaking through waist sizes at a slow and steady pace until I reached this state.

This is not the first time this has happened. I once went on like this for five years and gained 170 pounds. Another time I gained 60 pounds. Yet, each incident was marked by a sustained effort on my part to conform to an expectation. That expectation could be my own (unlikely) or it could be some weird manufactured expectation an amalgam of sensory impressions, societal assumptions, and the flash opinions of those I come in contact with. Regardless, at some juncture along the way, I find that I'm living some strange life derived from someone else. I'm living, well, I don't know who's life but it's not mine.

And then I go for a run.

That first run is so liberating and beautiful. It feels like the whole of the world is flowing into my body at once. I breathe in such a way that I taste the edge of night and birth of the sunrise. I sweat and my body feels good slipping around against itself. In short, I wake up and find myself human again. Fat, but human.

Being happy is not popular in the literary world. To feel pure joy at just being alive, well, this isn't really acceptable is it? We aren't supposed to feel happy. We're writers after all and we're supposed to be depressed and searching souls who are never quite satisfied with the way a thing looks or how it sounds. We can't be happy. No. Who wants a happy writer on their hands?

That sounds pretty crass, I know. However, I think we might agree that it is generally true if we consider the plight of a happy writer.

We, societally speaking, have a hard time generating interest for happy writers. Smiling writers on book covers only sell when they are selling genre fiction. There is nothing wrong with genre fiction. I happen to like it myself. But in literary fiction there is supposed to be a deeper meaning. After all, if we're going to wade through self-indulgent prose isn't is necessary that we feel like we've learned something of the universal, a step towards enlightenment, the great sigh of satisfaction at having consumed an acknowledged work of art and derived moment of oneness with another human being who has plumbed the depths and returned with The TruthTM.

I am, by nature a happy writer, not a neurotic writer. A neurotic writer scrubs and scrubs their prose until it shines, until there is no flaw whatsoever. I do not love my warts, spelling errors, diction, grammar, and the like drive me to distraction. But I am not obsessed by it.

Hearing that, someone would say that I am not a writer at all. Yet I am writing. That cannot be denied. If I am obsessed about anything it is spewing all of these thoughts, ideas, words, visions, stories, observations, rants and rages, odes to beauty, raw emotion, poems, quotes, and more onto the page. I like volume. I like mass. I like a thing that is big and unwieldy. Big ideas excite me. Big ideas that are messy and undefined I like even better.

The unhappy writer though is never pleased with the big idea. It has to be parsed into its constituent pieces. Trimmed and hacked into a symbolic shell of itself.

I may be drifting towards being unfair to unhappy writers. I've spent a lot of time working as an unhappy writer, and so I think I've earned my stripes there. But perhaps it is unfair. The world does love it some unhappy writers though. You've got to admit it.

When a writer is happy, we wonder exactly what it is they have to tell us. Are we supposed to be overjoyed at their happiness? I mean, why would I read a book unless I was myself unhappy to begin with? Wouldn't I want to spend time with someone as unhappy as myself? Perhaps so. It seems like it to me at least. The really happy writers are generally shunned, but perhaps that's because they write too much about sex. The unhappy writers never seem to get laid and then that's probably the plight of most people generally - not getting laid enough.

Does it make sense to summarize the entire plight of literature into the pursuit of sex?

I suppose I should end here now that I've completely exhausted the stream of thought. It is probably enough to say that I feel a period of intense and chaotic creativity coming upon me. I am going to do my best to keep it free-flowing, unchained, unpredictable, raw, but above all -- happy.

Originally published at How Not To Write. You can comment here or there.

Skrivtips is a Swedish blog about writing, and apparently (according to my translation), I'm very readable there:

Bloggen How Not To Write handlar om trots allt om att skriva och skrivprocessen. Mycket läsvärd.

All I have to say about that is, "Tack så hemskt mycket! Du måste komma tillbaka snart igen!"

Originally published at How Not To Write. You can comment here or there.

On a cold morning, it's difficult to get excited about running. The bed is warm, but the alarm goes off anyway. I might lie there for fifteen minutes trying to convince myself to just go back to sleep while simultaneously picturing all the things I ate the day before as evidence to the fact that I really do need to go.

The winter was mild, but I haven't kept up with myself. The reasons are strange, complicated, and thoroughly mixed up with one another. Perhaps it is best to leave these bitter roots beneath the soil.

[photo credit: quiplash @ Flickr]

Though I'm not feeling up to the challenge, I take The Long Run.

The long run begins at the top of the ridge, winds around to the bottom of the park, and then spirals down to the river. Here, the way turns mostly flat, and I run along the service road until I come to a dirt trail that follows the contours of the bank. An old post stands at the end of the line, a talisman drawing the runner forward. It becomes ritual to touch the post before turning back.

A thin layer of ice lays on the river. In the darkness, I hear the water groan beneath the slick surface. Besides my chuffing this is the only sound.

The dirt trail begins at a low point, susceptible to surges. Bits of garbage and driftwood spread out like echoes of the storms that tossed them onto the shore. The mess is frozen but spongy. I tramp across with an uneasy gait.

Further on, the trail rises. Gravel crunches under my feet. I notice a view once crowded by thick brush is clear. Only the saplings are left, and their silhouettes look like cracks against the backdrop of the ice.

A quarter of the way through the run, I feel like a steam engine out of its shed for the first time in years. My wheels are tight, but they are loosening. I pass below the stone shelter house where on autumn evenings you can sometimes see a fire in the hearth. It is dark.

There is a older man on the trail ahead. He's coming back from the far end. He has a dog with him. When he sees me, he calls the dog and puts a leash on it. As I get closer, he begins to jog. We exchange our good mornings and pass on. I wonder if I will see him again, or how far he is going. I don't recall seeing any cars parked along the way.

Just before the end, which is actually the middle, there is a gentle slope upwards, a dip, and then a short but sharp climb. It is at this point I always feel I catch my second wind. I have no idea if it is psychological or just a matter of getting warmed up, but I feel stronger and I make for the post and slap it hard as I turn back.

The sky is lighter. Dawn does not creep across the sky with rosy fingers. It's more like a dimmer switch raised slowly. Black becomes blue and then orange. The trees no longer look like shadows. There seems to be something left in the rest of the run that I could not see beneath the covers half an hour before.

When running north, one can't see too far ahead because the river bends just slightly. On the return, the way is clear and the water always in view. I can see the blue arches of the bridge I passed under from a good distance. I can see where the river meets the reservoir dam.

I've not run this far in a long time. My muscles and my lungs seem fit, but my knee is not. A dull throb begins at the same point where I passed the old man a few minutes before. By the time I pass the stone shelter house, the throb becomes an ache. I keep pushing. My body wants more. I keep pushing until the pain becomes intense enough to cause white specks to float in front of my eyes.

I sigh. I walk until I reach the place where the trail turns soft. The river groans beneath the ice and I feel wet from my efforts. I pass the carcass of a goose half-eaten by coyotes or raccoons or other things that scurry about in the dark.

Off and on, I try to run. It's more like a hobble but it keeps me warm. Ahead is the climb uphill, back to the ridge. I run on the balls of my feet. The angle of the road takes some of the pressure off my knee.

I'm heading east now, and surely I must look like I'm in pain. I suppose that I am, but as crest the hill the sun breaks loose on the horizon. I feel nothing but the warmth of a body in motion.

[Note: This essay is one of the "lost posts" from AuthorStore, a site I ran for 10 years. The Long Run originally appeared on 3/5/2006.]

Originally published at How Not To Write. You can comment here or there.

In 1922, Ernest Hemingway lost a suitcase filled with stories and a fragment of a WWI novel.

Well if he did, it obviously it didn't work. The incident appears in each of his posthumously published works. In other words, he spent the rest of his life lamenting the loss and writing about it incessantly.

I know exactly what this feels like... I have my own trunk-full of stories and the idea of tossing them out the window fills me with terror.

Fear of lost luggage

When Ava Gardner asked Hemingway if he ever had an analyst, he replied:

I've said before that writing is cheap therapy. I've used it as such myself. In fact, I've often thought that people who major in Psychology are just trying to figure out why they're screwed up while English majors already know why -- they just want to figure out how to tell everyone about it.

After years of journaling, I have a pretty good idea about the ways destructive patterns can ruin your creative work. For example, mixed into the 2MM words in my journal, three particular themes repeat over and over again.

Reading through old entries, it's easy to see how each obsession takes the stage. It's almost comical because the journal entries often recognize the fact that the pattern is beginning, and then I go on for days writing thousands of words to describe things I've already written about perhaps two or three dozen times.

I'm tempted to list those problems here, but then that's bound to set me off on my usual holding pattern. I have stories to write and ideas to share, and getting rid of the baggage is the whole point of this little piece.

In general, I think it is possible to pin the recurring themes in my journal to the more general idea of being afraid of abandoning the past. I've lived with these pains so long that they have formed an identity of their own. They have a mythology and a gospel. They are sacrosanct.

I know, I know. It's psychotic. So, let's figure out how to get rid of or make peace with the beast and move on.

The quick fix: get me through today

Below are three things I do to get back on track quickly. It doesn't get us to clean, but let's start by removing the urge to play the fiddle on our wrists with shiny razors.

1. Step away from the keyboard

The phrases I use in my journals are so predictable that I should write a program that shuts down the computer when I type them in.

When you find yourself falling down the rabbit hole, it might be time to simply take a break. Go outside and take a walk. Draw a picture. Fold the laundry. Do lunch with your friends. Hell, do your friends. Whatever it takes. Just get away from the work for a little while.

2. Put it in the drawer

The story isn't bothering you but you might be bothering the story. Try putting it in a drawer and write something else. Not that the something else should be your journal. Try writing some non-fiction, something structured and direct that will take your mind off of the flowing abstraction of fiction.

3. Change your music

Simple but effective. Sometimes I go from Jazz to Classical, or Classical to Funk.

Avoidance will not save you

All right. That was peppy and clever but in the end you've got to face the real troubles weighing you down. You have to tackle them head on and release yourself from the hold they have over you.

It means that you have to allow the past to fade and realize there is nothing you can do to correct what has happened. The only path forward is through the present and the choices you make today on your journey to tomorrow.

The baggage of the past is what is keeping you from writing today. Let it go and write clean.

[Ref for Hemingway stuff above: Trauma Theory and Hemingway's Lost Manuscripts by Marc Seals]

Originally published at How Not To Write. You can comment here or there.

I'm one of those writers who scribbles before going into the office each day. The sort you read about, who suddenly make it big and has this wonderful tale to tell about struggling and fighting for their art. Someday, maybe that will be me, but today I'm still the weird guy who spends too much time locked up in a room by himself.

The theory is, if I work alone long enough I'll eventually come up with a really great story. I'll let you know if and when I get there, but in the meantime, let's talk about bad stories and what we learn from writing them.

You are the one you love

One secret to uncovering a bad story is to look for yourself between the lines.

Having written some pretty dreadful stories, I can say with some confidence that the worst stories are the ones you love the most. These stories are your darlings and you will find that they are usually about you. This is why you fall in love with them after all.

How easy is it to identify with a main character when that character is you?

The problem is that no one else wants to read stories like this. No matter how interesting you think your life is at that particular moment, your innermost desires are probably something of a snoozefest to the rest of the world. To everyone else, your miraculous story will be little more than a heap of ravings.

When you are cranked up emotionally, the writing seems to come very easily. The words flow and flow without end. You don't have to be in a foul mood either. An extremely beauteous moment can inspire some really massive tracts of prose, most of which will be crap.

This isn't to say that you should strike it all. In fact, there are bound to be core ideas and even a few phrases worth keeping.

Getting the You out of the story

Editing the author out of the tale takes time.

You begin by putting the story away for a few days. Work on something else while the story rests. Whatever you do, do not send it to friends for commentary.

Once you have allowed the story to rest, begin by rereading the story as you would any other story. Don't mark up the text or begin rewriting sentences in your head. That's writing not reading. If you can't read it without revising, then the story is probably a bit too fresh in your mind. Set it aside again.

Assuming you make it through the story without the urge to grasp the pen or dash off to the keyboard, you will have your first real impression of the story. You should also have sufficient distance from the emotional wellspring in order to see the good and bad parts more clearly.

"He was sitting at the cafe..."

What you are looking for are the telltale signs of too much thinking and too little action. Characters who walk around the house at night. Scenes where characters are driving in a car. People waiting at the train station or sitting in a coffee shop.

"But that's what my story is about!"

I've said that before too. Lots of times. What I've learned is that there isn't a story in sitting in a coffee shop. Sitting in a coffee shop is sitting in a coffee shop. A story is something that happens to someone.

If your characters spend lots of time in places where nothing is happening, they are probably serving as outlets for your own emotions instead of their own desires. Strip away all of their thoughts from the story. Boil it down to the action.

Here's a method I've tried before with some success: copy all of the non-action into another file, pull out character names and such, then read it. Does it sound like a journal entry? If so, delete it. All of it.

Undoubtedly a bit of the thinking will creep back in as you work your way through the story for the fiftieth time. Don't be paranoid about it.

Too much of a good thing

When you first start writing, the process of revision seems like a painful chore. You might even shirk it in the name of artistic integrity. Eventually, you learn that art is revision, a continuous cycle of experience, impression, skill, and that magic whatever that we often call imagination.

And then, if you're like me, you get addicted to it.

I revise so much that nothing ever gets finished. But it gets worse. I revise so much that a good story turns bad. This is where I need to practice a little balance.

Above I told you to put away your emotion-fuelled story to let it cool off, here I'm going to tell you to do the opposite. You see, when you edit too much you take the life out of the story. In the heat of composition, you might order events in your story in a non-linear fashion. Then, after a load of editing, your rational mind takes over and you reorder the lot into a perfect timeline. The problem is that this perfect timeline is dead, empty of passion. The resulting story may seem technically perfect but it might as well be a research paper for all the human depth it contains.

This is just one example of what can happen when you over-edit. You can also strain your prose by layering on too much fancy hooptedoodle or weaken it by allowing yourself to be too informal. You can crush the life out of your dialogue with a single misplaced bit of action. You can ruin a good exchange with a long monologue. You can ruin a monologue by trying to turn it into exposition.

Basically, there are lots of ways to mess up during the process of revision.

I don't have a formula for you to fix these problems. It's trial and error mostly until you gain the experience to know when a piece is done, or rather good enough.

When good enough is good enough

As a new writer, you are going to be wrong about when a story is good enough to be good enough. I know that might not be what you want to hear, but really you have to trust me. What you think is good enough is probably still crap.

Not being good enough doesn't mean you have to hide yourself away for years and years until it gets to be good enough. By all means, send out the story to editors and get their reaction. Who knows? You might find out that it really is good enough. You might get lucky.

I spend a lot of time polishing. I'm not talking about grammatical errors or punctuation here. I'm talking about wordsmith stuff. I wanted to be a poet when I was a younger, so the shape of words and sentences means a lot to me, which in turn means that I'm always tinkering with things for my own pleasure.

At some point, an experienced writer recognizes that there is nothing they can do to make the story better. In fact, any more work they do is likely to weaken the story. So, even if the story isn't perfect, it's good enough and out it goes. The only real measure of good enough is acceptance for publication and the general reaction of readers. If readers enjoy it and want more, the work is definitely good enough.

The You who never was

So, as I've somewhat poorly demonstrated, you, as the author, can be in the story from an emotional standpoint. The words of the characters can be your words, their thoughts and feelings a reflection of your own. In addition, you can show up at a deeper level, turning the story into your own personal toy, a playground for your linguistic talents (or lack of thereof in my case).

Yet, this isn't the worst offense. The worst offense is when you doubt your own ability to tell a story so much that you fail to write it at all.

Self-doubt is the worst sin that a writer can commit in the name of fiction. Of course, like most of the really good sins, this is one you can't help but commit over and over again. It's the writer's nature to doubt themselves. This is what encourages you to drive forward and find out what lies behind that idea or that character.

Where are they going? What are they up to? You won't find out unless you write the story.

This is why I always take heart when reviewing the really bad writing I produce daily. Even if it is truly horrid, I know that I am at least writing something. I am creating instead of stagnating.

Originally published at How Not To Write. You can comment here or there.

In my ever-expanding quest to keep myself so busy that I can't work on my next story, I present to you the writerly musings of others from around the web this week (or so):

[P.S. Interested in getting into my feed reader? Put a comment on this post along with your URL. I'll add the lot and look for writerly goodness on your site!]

Over on Susan Henderson's LitPark, Anthony Miller went crazy and posted a massive interview with Steve Erickson.

Dustin gave HNTW a plug on The Writer's Technology Companion. I feel like I'm in some pretty illustrious company. Check it out! 22 Blogs Every Writer Should Read. Thanks, Dustin! More feeds for the mill!

Interesting list of notable books from the New York Public Library on the new Poets & Writer's site. What's interesting though is that I haven't read a single book on the list (it's all about me, right)... What have I been reading?

Need a name for a new character? John August points us toward unled, a no frills name generator that uses U.S. Census Data. Very cool and kinda scary. (p.s. John got the link from kottke)

Nalo Hopkinson gave us these words of wisdom about getting the story DOWN:

Writing words is just writing words. Once I have it written, I can ask a few patient somebodies to read it and tell me what doesn't ring true for them.

Jeff VanderMeer Matt Staggs interviews Ann VanderMeer. I am really excited about the release of STEAMPUNK! Have you checked out Weird Tales lately? Ann is the fiction editor.

For the "grammarians," we have The Blog of Unnecessary Quotation Marks. Super funny. Thanks, Irreverent Freelancer!

The Writing Journey has two three good posts on the difference between writing for the Internet and writing for print. Very active comments too:

Bridging the Great Divide Between Print and Internet Writing
Why Real Writers Don't Write on the Internet
Why the Internet is the Perfect Market for Writers

Originally published at How Not To Write. You can comment here or there.

JBStanley has a hilarious post on InkSpot about wrestling mother nature and a deadline.

Killer Woodpeckers:

A red-headed woodpecker with the charm of dear old Woody began pecking at the birch tree outside the window where my desk is located. I thought, “What a cool bird. He’s gorgeous!”

By February, I wasn’t so fond of him...

[Via: InkSpot]

Originally published at How Not To Write. You can comment here or there.

It's official. I suck. At least, that's what my fancy new Suckage Quotient appears to indicate.

The Suckage Quotient (SQ)

Because one never knows how much they suck at something I invented the Suckage Quotient (SQ). SQ is a little formula you can use to quickly determine how much you such at something.

Skill/(Desire*Desperation)

With SQ, the higher the number the less you suck at something. I know this seems backwards and it is. I suck at mathematical metaphors.

Using this formula, my Plumbing SQ is .22. I have little skill but I'm always desperate and have a very strong desire to succeed... (.2/(.95*.95))

On the other hand, most of my friends will tell you that I suck at golf. I mean really, really bad. I have no skill whatsoever. Yet, I also have no desire and I'm certainly not desperate. I actually like to ride around in the cart from hole to hole and have a nice cold one along the way. So, this gets me a Golf SQ of 10! (.1/(.2*.2))

Maybe I ought to play more golf?

Hmmm, I'll get to my Writing SQ in a second but first a little background on how this SQ thing came to be...

The SQ Backstory

Every writer eventually asks the question... "Why do I write?"

If you're like me, you ask it over and over again. Several times a day in fact. After 20 years, I've got lots of answers just none that I like...

Over at BookEnds, Jessica askied the published authors in the readership what how they kept going until they were published:

What made you stick with it or what makes you stick with? How do you know you aren’t spinning your wheels and how do you keep that faith alive?

At the time of this post, there are 65 comments on the thread. Many unpublished folks are chiming in about needing to write because that's who they are. I can understand that as I am completely obsessive about my writing in the most unhealthy manner.

You probably are too.

In the archives here, I have plenty of posts about the need to write. I'd take them down but then I'd probably just put them back up again as new posts because some writerly urge would hit me and I would find them poignant or some other fancy phrase that basically means:

"I'm clever! Really, I'm clever! Please notice me and acknowledge my cleverness even it is only by trolling through my website and leaving lots of page views in my logs!"

Are We There Yet?

And where would that put us, eh? Any closer to the goal? But then, what is the goal?

Mark Terry wants to know too. He went on a bit of a tear in the comments. Then he followed it up with a post on his own blog asking wannabe writers "What They Want" from writing.

Do you write just because you love to write? Great, then why screw around with the publishing process? Publishing is a business and there's precious little room for hobbyists out there (except in fiction, where most novelists ARE hobbyists, at least as far as the IRS is concerned). Stop trying to find an agent, stop trying to get your novel published. Save some trees and don't print the damned manuscript out, keep the story in your head and die with a smile on your face. If that's all you want, then don't try to get published. Really. I'm not kidding.

When Depressed, Resort to Cleverness

Here's what I had to say in response:

I think you hit it on the head when you said it was an illness.

Being a failed writer is the easiest thing in the world. No one cares what you do, no one has their eye on you. There's even some sicko cachet in claiming some writerness.

You get a bit of attention and an appraising eye from people you don't know. Or at least it seems that way to me.

This is exactly why I quit writing years ago, and then quit the year after that and the year after that.

Had my best "I QUIT" session last summer. Weeks and weeks of pure bliss. I started getting a full night's sleep and stopped grinding my teeth to dust. Hell, I even went on vacation with the family.

Just recently, I convinced myself that I should start writing fiction again. I started with the usual hemming a hawing and then I went into it with both hands hammering on the keyboard.

This is a little like when I convince myself that I ought to go ahead and take another stab at home repair. Plumbing is an especially dangerous mistress.

Clever. Yes, quite clever. But being witty is something of a dodge. It's so easy to mock yourself when the truth is too painful to bear. Time to get to the deed.

The Writing SQ

Now, after writing for 20 years, I'd like to think I've developed some measure of talent. If nothing else, I know where the bodies are buried. Unfortunately, I'm really quite desperate to be "a writer" and the measure of my desire is right off the charts. As a result, my Writing SQ is .51. (.5/(.99*.99))

Holy crap! Writing barely beats Plumbing? How can I fix this?

Well, desire isn't going to go away so easily. I think the best I can probably do here is to lower my desperation factor. Still, even if I lowered the desperation all the way down to .1, my Writing SQ would hit 5.

5? Are you kidding me? A freaking 5? My Writing SQ is only half that of golf, and while riding around in a cart once a year is OK I can't imagine doing it every day.

But then, maybe a 5 is good enough. Well, let's measure it against something I know I'm good at... Something like programming.

I'm not the best out there but I can sling some code. Out of 100% I'll be nice and give myself .85 for skill.

The problem with programming is that I hate computers. No, hate isn't a strong enough word but I can't think of anything at the moment because my writing skill has dropped to .3 so let's stick with hate. Hate means that my desire is way low, like .05 low.

Also, since I've got skillz, I'm not really all that desperate. I'm like a long-legged blond trying to hitch a ride outside a truck stop. I just stick out my thumb and the brakes lock-up. I'll put my desperation at .1.

If you calculate that, you end up with a Programming SQ of 170.

Guess I'd better keep the day job.

Oh, but then I don't actually program anymore. Dang.

Well, I guess it's back to writing.

Originally published at How Not To Write. You can comment here or there.

First up is Californio of DFW Writers' Workshop. Great link to a treasure trove of articles from the NY Observer on the current state of Magazines and freelance writing. Ok, there are 4 articles and I suppose we can't really call that a trove of any sort. Perhaps a treasure twiddle?

Anyway, Doree Shafrir's lead article begins with the following quote:

“There’s not one path anymore,” David Hirshey, executive editor of HarperCollins and former longtime deputy editor of Esquire magazine, said the other day. “Thirty years ago, you worked at a newspaper, you moved to a magazine, and then you wrote books or screenplays. Today you can be a blogger who writes books or you can be a stripper who wins an Academy Award for Best Screenplay.”

Them Gawker "alums" show up all over the place, no?

Some pretty funny stuff going on at Writer's Resource Center: March Writing Blog Madness. Basically, it's a throw down between writing sites. Now I have a nice cache of sites to add to my reader. Thanks, John!

I owe this one to my wife for my earlier link to 5 ways your blog is like a bra:

It takes great patience to live with a writer. It takes much more than patience to live with a writer who is trying to complete a book. It takes something superhuman to do so when there are two young children...

-- Jeff Gordinier, author of X Saves the World on The Publishing Spot (see Jason's whole series of Jeff Gordinier posts).

James at Men with Pens does Drive-By Web Consults on the side. Today he gunned down The Writing Journey. Good advice for $25, IMHO. Plus you get the plug on a great site...

A tech fellow named Hank Williams has some angry thoughts about the free model of software distribution. I think his thoughts could easily apply to writers trying to make it online.

In today’s “free” world, in most online business categories, it is inherently impossible to start a small self-sustaining business and to grow it. This is because in the digital world, advertising, the only real revenue stream, cannot support a small digital business. If businesses were based on the idea that people paid for services then small companies could succeed at a small scale and grow. But it is very hard to charge when your competition is free.

Brian Knight has a tale of hair-raising horror for the published writers in the crowd, and some tongue and cheek fun for the rest of us.

Brian's post on Storytellers Unplugged led me to his post on envy. Seems like a popular topic with authors over the last few weeks. Mark Terry's post on envy has a nice little comment thread to go with it.

My oldest boy had a slumber party on Friday night. It was a great excuse to go out for donuts on Saturday morning. I don't need an excuse of course. I love donuts. [I should add that donuts are in fact covered in chocolate frosting and filled with cream. Donuts filled with custard are an abomination, an affront to all things decent and holy.] Mike Dellosso also likes donuts but he can't eat them anymore because he was recently diagnosed with colon cancer. Instead, he's "caressing his colon with lots of fiber and veges." I'm not a christian fiction reader, but my heart goes out to a fellow donut-eater.

While I was dreaming of the donuts to come, somewhere in the world a woman named Mada was writing in bed and thinking about more serious matters.

This morning, I picked up the notebook and read what I wrote. I wrote about my fears and concerns. I’m 30 years old, married, and a mother, yet I feel like I have no direction in my life. I know some things that I would like to do with my life, but I can’t seem to find the passion so many others have found. I love to write, but do I enjoy it enough to pursue it?

This marvelous post of specfic links from Writers Group Blog got my attention. Not sure how this site got into my slush pile. Great group of writers there. Instant upgrade to the specifc folder!

Slush pile? Yeah, I got one.

If you use a feed reader, you probably have nice hierarchy of folders for your feeds. I do too. However, I also have little scripts that can strip the links out of posts I like and then go off to see if there are feeds I don't have in my list. These new feeds get dropped into the slush pile.

I was going to spin the paragraph above into a witty comment about the fate of my own stories, but that's really just too depressing. Moving on!

So, to end on a high note, TED blog has a nice post about the mystery of life revealed on a Cambridge blackboard. Seems Stephen Hawking borrowed the classroom and the answer happened to be written on the board. If you're scratching your head after reading the article, read this one.

Originally published at How Not To Write. You can comment here or there.

A very funny post and quite true. I can't really tell you why I know these things. My wife reads this blog and it could be rather troublesome.

A whopping 85% of American women are wearing the wrong bra size! How could so many women get it wrong and what does that have to do with your blog? Stay with me as I show you 5 ways that your blog is exactly like a bra.

5 Ways Your Blog is Like a Bra

How I Found This Post

On second thought, as my wife reads this blog, it might be a good idea for me to explain how I came across this post:

I'm sort of doing the Twitter thing. I blame Mark McGuinness (check out Mark's poetry). Anyway, Men with Pens saw my gravitar and tweeted it. Got a few followers including Karen Swin of Words for Hire. Followed the link on her profile over to her site and then m'eyes landed on the post in question.

Now, that I read this, I doubt I'm going to get myself out of trouble...

Originally published at How Not To Write. You can comment here or there.

View larger screenshot.

When I visited DarkCopy today, I found myself feeling nostalgic for green screens and line editors.

Of course, DarkCopy doesn't duplicate the unique experience of writing with a line editor. It's actually a pared down version of WriteRoom by Hog Bay Software.

Nearly every writing software package has a fullscreen mode these days. I use Scrivener from Literature and Latte. I also have a license for CopyWrite from Barsta Technologies. Both have excellent fullscreen modes (though I like the additional features in Scrivener such as fading the background rather than pure black).

But back in the day, you didn't have a choice. Writing fullscreen was the only option.

"Once there was an age of baud rates, and green screens were king."

In my first writing job, I answered customer service questions for an online information service. It was great practice really. We had to be clear because we were communicating technical instructions to non-technical people. We had to be concise because even back then people hated reading things on-screen.

Our system used a simple line editor connected to a VAX. If you wanted to change a line, you need to enter commands to get to the line and then you enter more commands to insert or delete text. We did not have line wrap. It's difficult for people who have never used a line editor to conceive of the kind of focus you gain from feeling the acute pain of accidentally entering the wrong command, with a single keystroke mind you, and erasing a half hour's work.

At home, I used WordPerfect for DOS, which in many ways I still consider one of the best writing programs ever. The purity of a single cursor flashing in the darkness. How that could still my heart and cause the words to flow!

[Cite: The cut-n-paste copy in my screenshot comes from Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness.]

Originally published at How Not To Write. You can comment here or there.

Well, the Clarion West hunt is over and so it's back to the grind for yours truly. I just popped open my feed reader for the first time in three weeks. And guess what? I have 10,105 unread posts! Score!

Ok, so here's what I found:

Read the rest of this entry »

Originally published at How Not To Write. You can comment here or there.

Lots of visitors this last week, so I thought I'd put up a little note of welcome!

But before I start, a quick note of thanks to Dustin Wax for including HNTW on the list of writerly sites in today's Lifehack post, The Ultimate Writing Productivity Resource. (check it out if you haven't read it - awesome stuff)

I'm a techie by trade so I'll be keeping a close eye on Dustin's new site: The Writer's Technology Companion.

The Nickel Tour - Just the Good Stuff

HNTW got it's start as a place for me to put up huge reviews of writing books I've read over the course of the last 20 years. You can find those reviews in the aptly named category of Big Huge Book Reviews. The most popular series in the book reviews has to be my 27 part review of Donald Maass' Writing the Breakout Novel.

If you're looking for Clarion West posts, you will find them all in the Writing Workshops section of the site.

I watch about 900 feeds now and posts from other places get filed under Others Not Writing

Thoughts On Writing is where I digress. I digress a lot, which is why there are so many posts there. Not sure if that qualifies as the good stuff, but there's plenty of stuff there to keep you busy.

One of the strangest posts to get traffic on this site is Cutting and Mixing: Prose-Style Wu Tang. The variety of keywords that brings people in on this one is truly amazing. Of course, I highly doubt they were actually looking for this particular content. It's an odd post.

Enjoy!

Originally published at How Not To Write. You can comment here or there.

Me!

I thought it was only fair to have a new post about not getting into Clarion West since I've been maintaining another post about folks who have...

Nicest Rejection Ever

I have no idea if this is the kind of rejection everyone gets, but I have to say that it is one of the nicest rejections I've ever received:

Thank you for applying to the Clarion West Writers Workshop for 2008.

We are sorry to let you know that you were not selected for this year's class. We had a record number of applicants, and because the workshop can hold only eighteen students we could not find room for all of the promising writers. We realize this is a disappointment, but hope you will apply to Clarion West again in the future, as your work ranked well with our readers.

We wish you the best with your writing and hope you have a productive summer.

Thank you again for your interest in Clarion West.

A big thank you to all of readers and administrators. I can't even begin to imagine what you went through this year to wade through the massive pile of applications. When Cory shows up, you might want to spank him for posting the deadline on Boing Boing.

What to do next

I'd by lying if I didn't say I was disappointed. Of course I am, as is everyone else who didn't make it. That's part of game, folks.

So, take a moment to light a candle for your glorious summer plans and then get back to your keyboard. There are more stories to write.

Oh, and you probably spent a lot of time getting your stories ready for the submission, right? Why not submit them for actual publication? After all, they're already formatted and such. Print and mail, print and mail.

That's what I did last week.

[Image credits: Kevin Perkins - Flickr]